Jacinta has got what we call “cut through”, and I think has the potential to pull a lot of swinging…
Open Thread – Wed 20 March 2024
- Don’t want to be a doomsayer, but?!?
- Open Thread – Weekend 5 April 2025
- Open Thread – Thurs 3 April 2025
- WolfmanOz at the Movies #98
- Open Thread – Mon 31 March 2025
Actually all the major parties are sprinting to the left.True, I’ve noted that before. But they’re also becoming more authoritarian…
We can wait for them to do so, Squire …
Perfect day delivered today – not a cloud in the sky … 🙂
Stinking sticky night again last night. Early morning storms waking everyone and cooling everything off. Convective showers with very heavy…
Good morning!
Still good evening here!! lol
Tird!
I like this Bocklin stuff. Must research.
John Stossel:
Covid’s “15 days” turned into years, and the loss of our freedoms increased. It’s important we don’t forget what happened.
Covid: Don’t Let Them Off The Hook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVqS0kb5waY
I daydream about trials and executions. Starting at the top.
There’s no effing chance I will forget. However, the avenues for responsibility and recompense are virtually non-existent.
Is there any other career besides politics, in which you can be indirectly responsible for the misery of millions, yet never be held accountable for your actions (and even sometimes go on to a higher-paid position)?
Still.Seething.
Don’t forget – this happened all the time 5 years ago!
No Lifeline numbers provided or nothin’. I guess this is one of those inexplicable very healthy 42 year old athlete deaths that have always happened, doncha know? Always. You know it’s true. You know it. That’s right, that’s right, don’t fight it. You’re not some kind of conspiracy theorist whose recollection extends beyond the last few years, are you? No. Of course you aren’t. It’s always been like this. Yes, yes, exactly.
Oh come on
March 20, 2024 2:40 am
Nahhh, just wait few hours and you’ll be proven not only completely wrong but an heretic and a denialist.
There may be no lifeline numbers because the family has not released any details regarding the circumstances of Koltsov’s deaths.
None. Not even a hint.
You dont even know if he was vaccinated.
My best guess is if it was natural causes there would be no reason not to announce, which suggests family might have good reason not to make the circumstances public as is their right.
Or maybe they just thought it was no-one else’s business.
Immediately though they are being placed in the middle of some ‘died suddenly’ vaccine death cover up conspiracy which became their number one consideration when Koltsov died.
Seems likely.
Who was Genrikh Yagoda and why isn’t he as infamous as Hitler or Eichmann?
He would make the top 50 on the list of goons that Stalin had.
An evil prick.
As were all the internal security agency chiefs during the Soviet Union.
And apart from Beria not many have the profile they should have.
Who was Genrikh Yagoda and why isn’t he as infamous as Hitler or Eichmann?
Stalin’s satanic goblin.
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Mark Knight #2.
Brett Lethbridge.
A.F. Branco.
Matt Margolis.
Tom Stiglich.
Gary Varvel.
Matt Margolis #2.
Thanks Tom.
Keith Olbermann says there’s ‘always the hope’ Trump is assassinated
That’s the headline anyway – and he’s probably not the only one thinking that. The USA is beyond being fixed up by a mere change of administration.
Two ducks swimming
A week & a half out from Easter.
It looks like Big Seafood has set the price of king prawns at approx. $40/kg.
Let’s see if that changes next week.
Nice drop of rain over the last few days, 18mm with the farm I work on getting over 30.
Soil profile all joined up and looking good for an “on time” start to sowing.
Cost of production v return’s looking not so good this year but what do you do?
Gold.
In case there is a doubt about inflation.
Steven Miles uses the Krusty the clown defence.
When you make that look, it means I’m joking.
“Gold.
In case there is a doubt about inflation.”
So $6,500 USD in 1920 vs $725,000 USD today. Those “average homes” would be very different.
Went to carer & teacher night. Yes that is the “correct” terminology these days.
English: autobiographies: Ten aboriginal short stories about growing up black. Oh and a movie
History: Atlantic slave trade. Colonisation and effects on indigenous.
Glad to see the future of victimhood ideology is in safe young hands.
So…what’s the plan?
“County Court judge David Sexton said there was no doubt Coco and Homewood were passionate about climate change but both had deliberately and flagrantly broken the law, putting lives at risk.”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/message-must-be-sent-jail-terms-almost-tripled-for-climate-activists-who-shut-down-west-gate-bridge-20240319-p5fdh5.html
So, no concern about the people passionate about their own lives, businesses and personal obligations and desires who were victims of these 2 climate change passionates, who might actually need psychiatric help?
The more tolerant we are to tiny groups or individuals who disagree with the world, the more they are encouraged that their POV has merit.
France moves to ban puberty blockers
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1770147197448823046?t=91i4BL9IRvvtMLFFrMUGjw&s=19
I think I detect a little bit of poo and wee wafting from the Australian embassy in Washington:
Rudd talking through both sides of his flapping gob.
But never fear, if Trump succeeds, the nurturing bosom of the ABC beckons. Or the embassy in Beijing. They are rat f$&ckers of course.
Bang on the money then.
A communist murderer, communists always get a free pass for their crimes.
No shit Sherlock.
This is what happens when you elect dumb children to govern. You fk your country- forever.
https://twitter.com/NatCon2022/status/1769730064092909595
So $6,500 USD in 1920 vs $725,000 USD today. Those “average homes” would be very different.
Intertemporal comparisons are always imperfect. I have an old home design catalogue from America. They are great designs with high-quality finishes, toilets and basement boilers. They’re small though, even the larger two-storey designs. There’s a tradeoff though because the framing would have been Douglas fir vs. Radiata pine nowadays.
Keep in mind we’ve had technological deflation. You can’t blame gold for that. A 6″ 200 kg TV and a rotary phone from back then are now a couple of laptops, mobiles and the NBN.
Straight out of the “How to win friends and influence people” handbook. Talk about a stupid, unserious country.
Remember, when Fatty trump won in 2016, Waffles Turnbuckle and that bloated sack of excrement Hockey had to obtain Fatty Trump’s telephone number from a superannuated Australian golfer.
Absolutely pathetic.
Not sending our best.
Couple of items from the Courier Mail. One:
Ah yes if I hear the word consultation again today, in the words of Terry Wallace, I will throw up. The only words missing was key stakeholders.
Bugger … I guess you might have to be careful who you vote for these days eh?
Allowing fools to take over your local council has consequences
My best guess is if it was natural causes
That’s precisely the problem. 42 was not an age people died at with regularity after we invented antibiotics.
There are indications COVID was a bioweapon. Even if that isn’t proven, the vaccines were rushed with side effects that were calculated as a necessary cost against widely inflated death tolls.
It all goes back to the shamefully incompetent epidemiologists who doomed very hard.
Without those insane forecasts, the lockdowns, mandates and rushed vaccines likely wouldn’t have happened.
There was a recent study which argued it had an unnatural origin and came from the lab. I don’t even like the term pandemic because nearly all the deaths were for people within 5 years of the average death. A pandemic should be a pathogen that kills large numbers across all age groups.
The predictions of epidemiologists made economists look respectable(riffing on a wonderful Galbraith quote).
I’m not worried about the vaccines. Given the near universal multiple vaccinations the predictions of doom by so many have turned out to be just as stupid as those of the epidemiologists. I must confess though that I only had 2 shots and that for practical reasons. When I contracted Covid from two people who had a recent booster shot and my last shot was over 12 months ago, I was sick for one day and they were sick for weeks; with one almost dying. It is just an anecdote. I was taking some supplements.
Second item. Grinning idiot is finding the big chair a bit hot:
Considering the Olympics of course is the pinnacle and worth a lot more than the Commonwealth Games, that $3.4 billion could well be the compensation paid to the grifters of the IOC. No doubt big man Coates will get his cut regardless if it goes ahead or not.
Gee whiz almost time for a stiff drink, but I must away to work.
Swedish member of parliament Louise Meijer issues public statement saying she was wrong to throw the border open in 2015.
The punishment will begin with the Walk of Atonement similar to the one in Game of Thrones.
I’ve not seen something astroturfed as hard as “Black Gamer Girls”.
You call yourself a gamer then berate gamers for thinking the industry services them, the consumer? Cui bono? Quantum meruit? Quis solvit?
What’s the point of entertainment? To “empower” anyone? No, the point is to be entertained.
Black Ball
March 20, 2024 8:44 am
I was always in support for a permanent site for the games, Greece or anywhere, really makes no difference. It makes no profit for the host city anymore, so why bother?
Lawfare engaged by leftists guarantees civilisation collapse. On the other hand, there are no downsides to lawfare engaged by right wing governments. Loathsome people meet justice and the economy always skyrockets.
It was a huge mistake for us (when in power) to allow leftists to own property, use fossil fuels or have free speech – when they explicitly told us they would never reciprocate.
Elon Musk reveals Twitter had FBI ‘portal that auto-deleted all comms’ after 2 weeks
If the Queensland gliberals had the equivalent of a functioning brain between them (yes, I know) they’d run (on high rotation) an ad featuring the full exchange between a j’ismist and that drooling numbskull when he laughed about the death of the Granny who was shot in cold blood in a shopping centre carpark (in front of her terrified grand daughter) by african dirtbags.
But no, that would not be “nice”, so they’ll give the ridiculous cretin a free pass for that act of inexcusable bastardry.
If it’s done right, it’s a massive boondoggle for the poliscum dishing out the contracts. All of it OPM.
It’s not cheating in elections that gets you in trouble, it’s exposing it.
Michigan Lawyer Stefanie Lambert Arrested by US Marshals in DC Following Court Appearance — After Submitting “Evidence of Numerous Crimes” Including Internal Emails from Dominion Voting Systems to Law Enforcement
Just do it.
Channelling Nike. Good work Roger
JK Rowling vows to defy Scotland’s ‘ludicrous’ new hate crime laws and refuses to delete posts calling trans TV presenter ‘just a man’
And not by the way,
Planet Fitness
JK Rowling vows to defy Scotland’s ‘ludicrous’ new hate crime laws and refuses to delete posts calling trans TV presenter ‘just a man’
Michigan Lawyer Stefanie Lambert Arrested by US Marshals in DC Following Court Appearance — After Submitting “Evidence of Numerous Crimes” Including Internal Emails from Dominion Voting Systems to Law Enforcement
And Putin’s Russia is so terribly evil by comparison?
The US is becoming a banana republic with nukes and yuuge military. Where the Fed Govt and it’s institutions are your worst enemies.That includes the Fed (GS now saying 3.5% inflation not 2% is the Fed’s target).
The first episode is below it.
@dom_lucre
BREAKING: Here is the second episode of documentary that is exposing Nickelodeon for child sex abuse “Quiet on Set.” This Episode is finally diving into Dan Schindler and the way he implemented ‘pedophile culture’ into Nickelodeon and a continuation on Amanda Bynes.
ketanji brown and the template of doom
Just do it.
If the IOC want compensation just pass a law that says the IOC can’t sue the Queensland government for anything. The Fascists in WA did it to Clive.
A good permanent home for the Olympics would be the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Dr. David Martin: Almost 20 years ago the spike protein was known to be a bioweapon
Oxford University, CDC & UK Gov. confirm COVID Vaccination DOES NOT WORK & has Lethal & Fatal Consequences
Half of all New Yorkers will flee city in next 5 years as quality of life plummets post-pandemic: poll
If you can prove child abuse, you don’t make a documentary, you go to the police.
If that guy was forced off the show, then saying that a production company had a culture of or a tendency to crime X is blowharding.
Brazilian Ex-President Accused by Police of Faking Vaccine Records
Indolent
March 20, 2024 9:01 am
It’s not cheating in elections that gets you in trouble, it’s exposing it.
Michigan Lawyer Stefanie Lambert Arrested by US Marshals in DC Following Court Appearance — After Submitting “Evidence of Numerous Crimes” Including Internal Emails from Dominion Voting Systems to Law Enforcement
Another example of the tyranny of the left. Th biden/obama regime is a tyranny. It is amusing that the media idiots which support these grubs will be the first on the chopping block if they win, that is cheat, again.
Until there is serious pushback involving lock and load by millions there is no way back or solution for the US. The left needs to feel the impact of the right reaching the end of the tolerance rope…
Texas withdraws $8.5 billion from BlackRock over ESG in biggest such divestment
Elon Musk Blasts N.Y. Times as ‘Mouthpiece of the State’
@robbystarbuck
Wow @PlanetFitness
It looks like letting men into the women’s locker room where they can spy on them while they change (including underage girls) is NOT super popular!
This pain will continue until you stop letting men into women’s spaces. We won’t stop. #BoycottPlanetFitness
They don’t seem to want to die for Allah.
300 suspects arrested at Shifa Hospital (19 Mar)
It’s a good sign, since if the Palis surrender the job is pretty much done. But we’ll see what goes down in Rafah.
It seems that even trying to post two links can put a comment into moderation.
Quote from a recently published job ad.
Comedians used to do jokes about casual racism.
Seems nobody is laughing any more.
Apparently, discrimination in jerb ads is acceptable when targetting 251s ..
otherwise a definite NO, NO ………..!
What’s a 251 ?
Who assigned that code?
I think it’s the purported number of “First Nations”.
Fact check : TRUE … my “ernie dingo” contribution to 251 “culture” ……
Can’t be right. The terrorists never use schools, hospitals or public building for protection.
They are more humane than I am! .. me.. it would have 300 dead not arrested ..!
Well got yesterday dun & dusted .. saw specialist .. CT scan shows no C but MRI shows possible C so going in to have a biopsy in a coupla weeks .. quack is fairly sure there is C but not the extent one thing both CT & MRI agree on is my prostate & surrounds are a disaster area, bladder ain’t impressive & kidneys unhappy so no doubt a bit of work to be dun down there .. He sez tho it looks bad it’s a fairly routine op-wize so not to panic .. the extent of the, possible, C is the main concern …..
Overall better than I expected but not out of the woods yet .. main thing about the, possible, C is it has pushed me way up the priority queue so even with only medicare I’m being fast-tracked thru the system …
Main shock was him saying if they hadn’t pulled me into Liverpool H last month, after an iffy blood test, I could be dead .. sez my kidneys were putting in so much covering effort that renal failure was on the cards but the 3 dayz ‘cleansing” put things back together ….
What still baffles me is I’ve felt nothing out of the ordinary .. still feel wonderful and other than the inhibitions caused thru having a catheter (swim/bike) in I’m great ……….!
According to the “upstairs book” I still have, at least, 6 years before I can be crossed off so still on track … and with 6 of 8 grandees in school I’ve promised the elder 3 I’ll see ’em graduate from year 12 ……. soooooooooooo ..!
Need to be up & about for May, anywayz .. cos TOON is coming to town ..
HOWAY THE LADS …!
great excuse to see my 3 Danistan grandees, as well! ……….
Glad you are making progress, Shatterzzzz
Don’t be afraid of the op
Captain had it a whole back and he is fine, also two friends and another two lined up – three with C
He op is to bore out the poe as Captains specialist told him – it is Nature’s Gentlemen’s complaint 🙂
Do your kegels to help with recovery too
He shoots, he misses! What a chance! /tism
Electric lorry maker backed by David Beckham collapses into administration (19 Mar)
Going to be a lot of dead corporations after the dust settles from the EV disaster.
Eyrie
March 20, 2024 9:12 am
Might be a bit harsh, personally, I’m not a fan myself but a lot of athletes prepare for it, putting in time and effort. You have to have a venue to display your talents, otherwise what’s the point?
Also many people watch it, good entertainment.
Some even watch soccer for God’s sake!!
https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1770134475864691065
“Instead of comparing bad outcomes (like miscariage and stillbriths) for vaccinated v unvaccinated women they grouped all unvaccinateded with those vaccinated prior to (but not during) pregnancy into a single “no doses in pregnancy” category. So, in comparing pregnancy outcomes this “no doses in pregnancy” category was used as a surrogate for “unvaccinated”
Once again the mathematician Dr Norman Fenton demonstrates how the UK science and political bureaucracy hide trends and data by their classification system (i.e. categories).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV_9GqTdGF4 is a clear explanation.
Certainly is a nutty flavour idea.
We’re Saved! UK Telegraph: ‘Ants pack a punch of flavor’ to food – ‘Add caramel & nutty flavors to dishes, say scientists’ – ‘Black ants have a sour, vinegary taste’ (19 Mar)
When we were kids we used to have ant farms. Now we’re adults we can have even bigger ant farms!
Met a backpacker who worked with his dad putting RAM 3.8L hemis with electronic injection controls, including the nifty trick of shutting down 4/8 cylinders when cruising, into Jensen Interceptors. Improved performance, reduced emissions, etc.
That’s about as good as it gets.
And the purpose of displaying your talents is to grab one of the lucrative sponsorships on offer,
The tax payer is subsidising professional athletes to the tune of billions while living standards are going backwards. It has to stop. And that applies to the footy codes, etc., too.
Jake Paul will make eight figures to fight Tyson, whereas Tyson is confirmed with a much tighter estimate to make around 20 mn USD.
No one wants to pay that much to watch scrubs play hockey or soccer, or a billion swimming races, or the heats for the 400 m running or archery.
Just the way it is folks.
There must be something special about rugby union. The IRB can continually sabotage itself but the fans love it.
Rugby is a manly sport where strength ( & skill & speed ) make a great gladitorial contest.
Sharing a definition of manly for anyone who’s never seen the word used in the media
According to this EVs are only viable if any other type of vehicles are banned. How evil do you have to be to want the destruction of the well functioning world so you can say you are saving the world?
Harm Reduction Worker.
Portlandese for state sanctioned drug dealer.
That’s some nice speculation Dot.
However people have always died unexpectedly including men in their twenties thirties and forties, several examples from personal acquaintance, 20 year old male died from aneurysm, 32 year old male, aneurysm, 46 year old and 56 both very fit, one ex afl player, both had heart attacks while cycling all long before 2020.
Scouring newspapers for worldwide ‘celebrity’ deaths to add to the ‘died suddenly’ from must be the vaxx doesn’t cut it.
In fact it’s just silly.
Do they also upgrade the suspension, to take the weight of the battery, or is that left to the owner, once the shock absorbers collapse?
This uproar over Princess Catherines photo shop supposed gaffe over a cardigan sleeve smacks of hypocrisy when compared with the widely circulated photo of Viginia Gutierre nee Roberts with Prince Andrews arm around her waist and the peculiar angle of the women’s arm which now screams photo shop cum fake and has never been queried.
But “competitive advantage, old man”:
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyfoN4HGAkU
Since the start of my, current, health problems I hadn’t sort/had any medical stuff in over 10 years .. yet everytime I’ve seen a doctor/specialist in the past 4 months my personal/medical details, from years back, have been available to them on the mygov website .. great saves me a lot of explaning and remembering stuff ..
Then, yesterday, I had to go to Campbelltown H to book myself in for a biopsy date .. the, bloody, form they gave me was a book, 10 pages & took an hour to fill it all in (your name, address, DoB is required at the top of every page & signature at the bottom) …….. sooo all these questions relate to all the other paperwork I’ve filled in over the past several months why another form ..?
When I was pulled into Liverpool H last month I filled nothing out, just a coupla signatures needed, cos all the info was already on the computer … weird ..!
data. everyone in medical game like to collect data and few like to share it. hence the duplication.
Only sports that do not have a recognised “world” championship should be recognised for the Olympics.
As well as swimming and athletics, that would include sports with a Grand Slam series (tennis and golf prominently). Reserve the Olympics for sports that do not have a world showcase. There won’t be many.
original sports and original format (naked). this would enable most large towns to run the games over a week.
The modern Olympics has had over a 100 years. Put it to rest. It is just another circus and should not attract one dollar of tax money.
More primary fun.
LIVE RESULTS: Primaries in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Ohio (19 Mar)
Only one result in: Florida. Trump got 80%, Haley 15%.
Am I allowed to say “bloodbath”?
Pretty much confirms what the Republican voters want.
Sorry Rinos, you are toast.
How kind of the Victorian taxpayers to pay for this ad on Fakebook –
When you run over infidels for Allah make sure you are wearing your seat belt.
I look forward to their Easter messages, confidently expecting to see terms like ‘holy’ and ‘blessed’ used. /sarc
Some even watch soccer for God’s sake!!
And many, many watch and even play the World Game.
Other than that other World Game called ‘Graft & Corruption’ which is played by the corrupt (especially the ‘Pollies’, UN, EU, ‘Ruinaball’ Mobs, Local Councils and many other mobs).
Ha Ha .. you bit ..! I read it and gave it a pass ……
one should be kind to folk that don’t understand the “beautiful game” .. they no no better ………. LOL!
May meanz TOON in Oz ………!
Take care Shatterzzz. Just don’t looking forward to the digital prostate check.
The next one is gonna be a slight more than “digital”, methinx .. LOL!
A good permanent home for the Olympics would be the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Along with the UN and many. many others.
That is two from two.
Further to Rabz on the SFL not knowing DJT phone number. Goes to show one of the reasons we are in the poo. The bestarreds preferred Killary Trash to DJT. While I applaud Howard and Costello getting us out of the poo they are just as happy to help get us back in it. Still, its our only bloody fault for voting for them. All it seems to take is some useless ffffin scum pollie to say its our turn and the idiot voters forget they’ve enjoyed the best time of their miserable lives only to reward them by throwing them out. Eff I hope it really hurt. How would you like the pineapple inserted. With or without the rough bits.
Yes.
When Greg Norman is your pointman on Foreign Affairs it is time to take a good hard look at yourself.
I’m amused by the Chinese. Elon, when he launches one of his rockets provides wonderful live coverage.
China rolls out rocket for Queqiao-2 lunar satellite launch (18 Mar)
Right now it’s 00:17 UTC as I type this. So I idly looked to see if the CNSA had a live feed going. Nope, nuffink, at least on YT. And I couldn’t even see their website since I think it didn’t like my VPN.
Maybe they fear the downside of rapid unscheduled disassembly more than they like the possible benefits of publicity.
Important recruitment advice for ASIO.
Biden’s Top Intelligence Agency Says Crossdressing Makes Man ‘Better Intelligence Officer,’ Internal Docs Show (19 Mar)
We’ve moved beyond the Cambridge Five, at least two of which were qwerty. Now all spies have to be qwerty. Although I suppose trannies are better at dress-ups than most people, since it goes with the territory.
Fletch Lives
In the formerly great Britain, fasting for ramadingdong isn’t exactly voluntary.
There’s no such thing as good epidemiology. It is all invalid. Statistics in medicine is like that for economics – it is ok to use it to illustrate broad, logically based, points but never to prove them. Epidemiology – like econometrics – is fundamentally circular. Once doctors get the idea that x causes/prevents y then whenever they see x they will practically always diagnose/differentially diagnose y irrespective of symptoms. So the data always makes it appear that x does indeed cause/prevent y – even if it doesn’t.
The early epidemiologists actually understood this – which is why they came up with the idea of randomised *double* blind placebo trials. What they didn’t think of though was that if true placebos were used then many trial participants would be effectively unblinded and be willing and able to manipulate the results. Of course, if a non-true placebo was used then the results were also invalid – you’re just comparing one poison to another. In short, there are no epidemiological trials of any kind that are valid.
Outside of logic there are good principles in medicine. Challenge, dechallenge, rechallenge (CDR) and/or the Bradford Hill criteria are highly instructive. But quantitative analysis is worthless.
When you want to know whether vaccines cause autism then you have to ignore all the numbers. The thing that matters is CDR – of which there are lots of examples.
Amusingly, whilst there are a plethora of examples of CDR regarding vaccine injury there are absolutely none in history of (wild) “viruses” causing injury using CDR.
I’m not a fan myself but a lot of athletes prepare for it, putting in time and effort.
Totally pointless effort.
Another reason to not vote for the SFLs.
Deputy Opposition leader defends Kevin Rudd after Donald Trump’s ‘nasty’ remark (Sky News, 20 Mar)
Trump is just telling it like it is. And when I say you are an idiot I’m just telling it like it is too.
?
Government ads are running a dodgy line, something like this:
“The Murray Darling river system produces about 30% of our food. But the water is being overused. The landscape will dry up!”
OK. So they are going to rip water off those who produce our food, in order to make the river look wetter. This has been going on each time Labor is in power.
Important recruitment advice for ASIO.
Biden’s Top Intelligence Agency Says Crossdressing Makes Man ‘Better Intelligence Officer,’ Internal Docs Show (19 Mar)
That means no hope for a straight James Bond playing around with real Women then. Or even beating up real villains (Men and Women).
Nigerian bakeries are killing the planet.
Nigerian bakeries need support to shift to clean energy, researchers say (Phys.org, 19 Mar)
I seem to recall that the University of York is in England and the University College London is in, um, London. Maybe I should put a research proposal in with them, seeing how I’m a very environmentally conscious Nigerian prince.
When the plight of Nigerian bakeries makes the international news you know it’s a sloooooooooow news day ..FFS!
The Gaza Ministry of Health taking a break .. I suppose …… LOL!
The Ministry of Truth on the other hand can’t take a break.
OK. So they are going to rip water off those who produce our food, in order to make the river look wetter. This has been going on each time Labor is in power.
LayBore are the “moist” Political Partee.
Further on jailed green activists and serial pests (Patrick Carlyon, in the Hun):
Dropkicks indeed. Hoping to get ‘the usual’ i.e., reduced sentences and/or time served from insulated green-leaning judicial types, which has certainly happened in the past, they got binned for over twice as long as the original sentence.
The tart involved had been released on bail pending the appeal. I would have sold the house to have been in court to see her, against all her expectations, be taken back into custody.
‘Remove the prisoner.’ One of the greatest sentences in the lexicon.
Sussan Ley is a complete fruitloop. Dopey bint. Deputy leader FFS.
Continuing the tradition of Julie Bishop. The Lieborals actually do have a women problem.
How much better placed would Australia be if more people had done that to Bob Brown all those years ago? Hawke &Richo’s cheap politics has helped no one.
The bullshit services economy died when we saw they could lock everyone inside their homes for years on end.
The bullshit “knowledge” economy is dying because the universities are full of purple haired weirdos.
The bullshit war economy is dying because we can’t make enough shells to piff down range.
The bullshit “global free trade” economy died the day Russia invaded Ukraine and the dismal geniuses began to realise that they had lost control of geopolitics.
The bullshit “just in time” supply chain economy died after China unleashed the coff and global supply chains were immediately thrown into reverse.
The bullshit “green energy” economy will die when the fools realise there is no second hand market for f***ed up electric cars with battery packs costing more than replacement of the vehicle itself. Grid failures will put the final nail in that coffin.
The bullshit part of the AI economy will die when the hype wears off.
The bullshit crypto economy will die when people realise there is no value behind it.
Lots of bullshit to shake off before we can ride the next wave of productivity to a hopefully better future.
Productivity….how dare you
‘Remove the prisoner.’ One of the greatest sentences in the lexicon.
‘Take her/him/it down’ is even better. IMHO.
“And may God have mercy on your soul!” was the best.
“For the term of his natural life!”
Interesting question. Was it because they ate the women first, who then fled rather than be eaten. Or was it because the women only got the brains after the men got the yummier bits, and the women fled the disease?
Genetic study finds epidemic of kuru likely led to migration of women in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (MedXpress,19 Mar)
No not cannibalism at all. A righteous precolonial people would not do such a thing! I wonder how many missionaries they ate?
Nice story from Vanuatu. During the mid 1980’s just after independence I asked the very old cook on a friends plantation if she ever ate a person, she said “yes master and the meat was sweet very sweet”. I then asked her if she ever ate a white person her quick response was ” oh no master, white man he stink”.
Lay reminds me of that ridiculous wimmin that congratulated the Labor wimmin that won Dunkley. Lay is from Canbra so say no more
After Thatcher the number of impressive female pollies is pretty thin. The blokes aren’t too good either.
Yes Mrs T was really something.
Regarding Brisbane Olympics I am actually feeling sorry for Premier Miles.
Only weeks ago public and talk back radio was all for keeping costs down and not building new expensive stadiums.
Now it seems a new expensive stadium in VIC park is what people want. Or is it literally all political and going for the opposite of what Miles is saying.
Had never heard of the VIC Park option until a few days ago.
Either way it seems to change from week to week.
Interesting how a strike that successfully targetted the paramilitary leadership in Odessa was turned by Western MSM as a strike on ‘civilian infrastructure’.
Btw Niven, Pournelle and Steve Barnes did an awesome SF based on the Fore people: Dream Park. A lot of fun, and quite prophetic of the whole RPG subculture.
“There’s no such thing as good epidemiology. It is all invalid.”
Not true – careful, knowledgeable practitioners can tease some useful information out of the data. “Useful” as in non-obvious and not “common sense”.
“Statistics in medicine is like that for economics – it is ok to use it to illustrate broad, logically based, points but never to prove them.”
True – statistics never proves anything, anywhere, at any time. Never has, never will. It can show what doesn’t make a difference though – trim enough of the “useless” stuff out, and you are left with what is useful.
That is why the best epidemiologists never say “shows that” only “indicates that”.
Stats is used more in medicine than you might know – for instance, ever wonder why you needed three different tests before they figured out what was wrong with you? That’s because the specificity of each test is likely only 40% or so, and if each test relies on a different way to detect what is wrong, then 3 or more tests will give you a much more definitive answer than just the one. As in: this test says you have cancer, or you drink a lot of beer; this test says you have cancer or you eat too much meat; this test says you have cancer or are a vegetarian; looks like you might have cancer, eh?
Dammit Bruce, stop recommending awesome books
Fitting all the Cargo Cult stuff as a form of RPG magic was sheer genius. It was nice to see the clash of cultures between us and the PNG people in the thirties being mined for SF ideas. I must reread the novel again, haven’t for a couple decades. I’ve got it here somewhere…
Whether or not it’s the result of the new software program housing it, the Cat’s traffic volume has fallen off a cliff and many regular commenters have left.
Probably punters aren’t used to scrolling – especially back to the top to comment.
Me, I’ve spent many eves scrolling past inane stoushes so I’m used to it. A bit annoying annoying though.
BTW – glad you sorted out the problems with posting the ‘toons. Keep ’em coming
I’m still reading, just a bit pushed for time these days and with some of the regular stoushes happening a couple of weeks back, I didn’t feel like there I was much I could add.
I’m sorry about the departure of a lot of the regulars, calli, Lizzie and Cassie in particular, as their commentary always added value. to the discussion/debate. As I’m fond of repeating, what other people think of you is none of your business, and those who continually slag off others reveal more of who they are than the individual they are targeting.
The digital world is more like the real world than people care to admit. It’s just more immediate and obvious to everyone in the virtual world. Permanently.
Whereas if I was insulting someone in real life, only those in the immediate vicinity would know. Unless they were using mobile phones and then, hey! I’m viral.
Social Media participation is only one form of communication and, as in real life, it does not pay to take it personally. Especially given it is almost always anonymous.
kneel
March 20, 2024 1:00 pm
Awaiting for approval
“There’s no such thing as good epidemiology. It is all invalid.”
Not true – careful, knowledgeable practitioners can tease some useful information out of the data. “Useful” as in non-obvious and not “common sense”.
Even though your Post was “Awaiting for approval” I was able to read it, and copy and paste it here. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Re the idiot emergency service fasting for Ramadan-
One, dereliction of reasonable fitness for work
Two, useful idiots doing this instead of traditional Lenten modesty is just cuckolded in uniform
Three, you’ve got jizya on your face
My recollection is the same thing happened initially when FlashCat kicked off from ExCat. It picked up again to ExCat volume or greater within a matter of weeks.
It also happened with FB a few years ago when they changed format. I remember copious announcement from all and sundry that they would never use the new look FB because reasons and unhappy. A month later they’d all forgotten how the old version looked, and were happily tapping away.
As for regular commenters leaving, I reckon most of them – aside from two who moved to another blog in protest against a perceived injustice, which wasn’t actually anything of the sort, and who called other commenters cowards before they slunk away – are still here, lurking and getting their heads around the new look.
Thumbs Up – can’t be arsed joining WordPress so I can tick
Lurking, lurking. lurking. keeps those lurkers lurking, Rawhide…………….Ye hah……….
Tom
March 20, 2024 1:20 pm
Whether or not it’s the result of the new software program housing it, the Cat’s traffic volume has fallen off a cliff and many regular commenters have left.
Nested comments change the flow and vibe of the blog. Don’t use them.
Traffic falls off a cliff because 4 out of 7 contributors are bots. The need to be reprogrammed to be able to read the site again. This takes from a few days to weeks. Then they can post with enough relevance to appear human.
Barry
March 20, 2024 2:07 pm
Traffic falls off a cliff because 4 out of 7 contributors are bots. The need to be reprogrammed to be able to read the site again. This takes from a few days to weeks. Then they can post with enough relevance to appear human.
And Posters/Imposters cannot now Up Thumb themselves unless they are cheating (as they always were before).
This bird is doing a book tour.
The Federalist reposts the issues with her story.
21 Reasons Not To Believe Christine Blasey Ford’s Claims About Justice Kavanaugh
https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/02/21-reasons-not-to-believe-christine-blasey-fords-claims-about-justice-kavanaugh/
Kav is a DC creature who is not sound on a lot of issues.
And he was defamed horrendously by this nut case.
One indirect contributor is a bot.
Its name rhymes with ‘Martin Armstrong’.
Back to the Al Muderis, Channel 9 defamation case.
Some of the witnesses that Channel 9 relied on for their story are horrendous.
Brittany & Bruce level of truthiness (with reference to the good Justice Lee’s description).
Whether or not it’s the result of the new software program housing it, the Cat’s traffic volume has fallen off a cliff and many regular commenters have left.
New formats take time to get used to.
It stinks!
It stinks!
It stinks!
Yes Mr Sherman, everything stinks.
If they are not used to it by now they are not coming back.
Bakeries in Nigeria which use traditional open ovens fueled by hardwood cut from local forests are contributing to rapid deforestation and climate change, according to a study from academics working in Nigeria and from the University of York and UCL.
Improved awareness of alternative energy sources, better training and policies to address the issue are now urgently needed, according to the researchers.
LOL. Watching SBS and their Cooking Channel, there have been loads and loads of programmes showing wood fired stoves a la Mediterranean. Breads and pizzas and other local foods. How come no one is bollocking them for using local wood for the wood fired stoves. They have been chopping down trees for over 2,000 years FFS.
Taken from my reply to Tom before noticing his advice not to bother with the nested responses:
I’m still reading, just a bit pushed for time these days and with some of the regular stoushes happening a couple of weeks back, I didn’t feel like there I was much I could add.
I’m sorry about the departure of a lot of the regulars, calli, Lizzie and Cassie in particular, as their commentary always added value. to the discussion/debate. As I’m fond of repeating, what other people think of you is none of your business, and those who continually slag off others reveal more of who they are than the individual they are targeting.
The digital world is more like the real world than people care to admit. It’s just more immediate and obvious to everyone in the virtual world. Permanently.
Whereas if I was insulting someone in real life, only those in the immediate vicinity would know. Unless they were using mobile phones and then, hey! I’m viral.
Social Media participation is only one form of communication and, as in real life, it does not pay to take it personally. Especially given it is almost always anonymous.
Its name rhymes with ‘Martin Armstrong’.
LOL. Junior Cretin does have a ring to Marty I guess.
?
To all those bots and clots. This is now a NO Argy Bargy/Stoush Blog. New format.
I’m still here – I lurk by most days but rarely get a chance to comment.
I’ve reached a few huge milestones at work so I’m hoping to both lurk and comment a little more over the next week or two…
Oh No, JR. Not cutting down 2000 yo trees. They’ll never grow again. What can we do? Glue myself to the road, through paint over works of art, what to do. Shriek Shriek Shriek.
Dunno why my comment appears at the top? It’s not chronological or do Cats see my post otherwise?
Ok so now my comment appears at the bottom after a refresh, my comment didn’t appear and now it appears at the bottom after another refresh?
I like the format, look and functionality but I guess I just gotta get used to it…
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of climate flogs turning up to court to face an open and shut case of a breach of the law to be given a glowing commendation from the bench and a good behaviour bond which is breached without penalty almost immediately.
100%.
The bird that bike locked herself to her steering wheel on the Eastern Distributor needed a similar sentence.
Was it the same bimbo?
I thought someone here said that.
“Judges” finally realising where their pay is sourced from
Forgive me if this immensely important Quadrant Online article has already been posted. I have been busy all day & have not had time to scan today’s posts. This is a very informed analysis of the dire straits of the ADF in terms of culture, rather than the known awful state of inadequacy. I’m doing an Old Ozzie & posing an enormous article in full – with, of course, the indulgence of Dover! I hope Topender, Zulu, & other military men, will comment.
Why the ADF Risks Failure in the Next War
https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/themes/Quadrant/images/author-placeholder.pn
Michael Evans
In talking to Australian high school audiences, I found, when I asked directly, that only one in ten … were prepared to fight for their country. — Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenk at ADF Academy, April 12, 2023
In April 2023, the Albanese Government’s National Defence: Defence Strategic Review declared the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to be “not fully fit for purpose” to meet the most dangerous strategic environment facing the country since the Second World War. Such a frank statement, with its haunting echoes of the unreadiness of the 1930s, reflects not only the ADF’s materiel shortcomings, but serious weaknesses in its military education. If wars are first prepared for in the minds of an officer corps, then, a “not fully fit for purpose” defence force is failing in the intellectual preparation of its personnel.
This should come as no surprise given the decline of knowledge-based learning in Australia’s schools and universities. A faltering military education system reflects plummeting educational standards in the parent society, not least in key areas such as civics and pride in our Anglo-Celtic civilisational heritage. Ours is a morbid era of moral and intellectual confusion in which information dominates over knowledge; where the detritus from a social media deluge drowns out sophisticated analysis of current affairs, allowing the decadent to dominate the dedicated; and where the memes of electronic propaganda eclipse the wise judgment that flows from perceiving truth.
The postmodern schoolrooms of Australia have succeeded all too well in displacing patriotism with narcissism. When teenagers are taught to chant “From the river to the sea” rather than an understanding of the basics of Western cultural literacy, we should not expect Australia’s military to remain unaffected. It is a matter of national concern when senior ADF officers prefer to talk about climate change rather than military art, and define strategy in the language of corporate governance rather than that of Clausewitz. Moreover, when soldiers from the Special Forces can be accused of war crimes—but no senior officers are held accountable—something is wrong in the professional culture of the ADF.
The Australian-born British general Sir John Hackett, in his seminal 1983 book The Profession of Arms, warned that the military is simultaneously a shield and a mirror of a democratic society. Reflecting on military recruitment in democracies, Hackett famously wrote: “When a country looks at its fighting forces, it is looking into a mirror. What a society gets from its armed services is exactly what it asks for, no more or less.” For Hackett, this social mirror was all the more reason for the military to ensure that those who join its ranks embrace an austere professional ethos free from contemporary ideological fetishes. While Australia’s democratic civil society can, in the name of liberal tolerance, accept unpalatable currents of cultural and intellectual behaviour, a small, regular military such as the ADF must relentlessly guard itself against negative social forces that may threaten to overwhelm its ethos and cohesion as a fighting force.
The effectiveness of the Australian profession of arms depends on a rigorous military education that is at once unique and specialised for the needs of warfare. Yet, in the twenty-first century we are faced with an unprecedented decay of Australian military education which, if not reversed, may impair the operational and strategic proficiency of our forces. Today’s ADF is an undermanned, “come as you are” military with little reserve strength or expansion base, and no evident plans exist for the mobilisation of the population to defend our way of life. For these reasons, a military failure—especially in the first act of any future major war—is likely to be disastrous for our political fortunes. The ADF must be an educated force that is able to fight and hold its own in the first battle of the next major war, if only to buy precious time for the nation to recover its senses and rally around the flag.
The central message is simple: the organisational health of the ADF depends on an organic link between military professionalism and military education. Over the past two decades, this link has been weakened to the extent that critical gaps now exist inside the ADF that raise important questions about Australian military readiness and resilience.
Three areas explain how this unfortunate state of affairs has developed. First, the ADF’s reliance on outsourced civilian-based university military education has contributed to the creation of a defence force that is intellectually unprepared to meet the rigours of a major, inter-state war. Second, the ADF needs to embrace institutional renewal through a reaffirmation of the unique role of the profession of arms in society. This demands moral clarity on the role of military exceptionalism in defence of society and acceptance that future success will rely on reformed military education that values professional expertise, not academic credentialism. Third, the ADF must link educational reform to improved professional standards. The defence force must transform its philosophy of education from a twentieth-century approach based on the duality of military training and academic education into a tripartite twenty-first-century system.
The sin of outsourcing, 2000–2023
Many of the ills afflicting Australian military education can be traced to the post-Cold War ideologies of neo-liberalism and market economics. These led to a boom in the outsourcing of government services to the private sector on the grounds of higher efficiency and cost-effectiveness. By the end of the 1990s, the Defence Department was partnering with an array of civilian universities and had centralised military education into one overarching Australian Defence College (ADC) located in Canberra.
Defence’s final outsourcing roadmap came to be based on a December 2000 report, A Review into Military Postgraduate Education, led by two leading Queensland business studies scholars, Professor Ian Zimmer, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Queensland, and Professor Bruce McKern, President and Chief Executive of the Mount Eliza Business School. The choice of two leading business scholars indicated that, in the eyes of the Defence bureaucracy, the input costs of military education were of greater importance than the quality of outputs.
Not surprisingly, Zimmer and McKern recommended that Defence seek to outsource as much of its postgraduate educational requirements as possible to university providers at an estimated $65 million in savings per annum. The authors, to their credit, expressed concern at the ADF’s lack of organisational understanding of the needs of military education for the ADF. “There is,” said the review, “no strategic policy or philosophy on the skill sets or educational requirements the ADF may need to meet its strategic objectives.” Prophetically, Zimmer and McKern warned that, without proper guidance, officers could choose to take business, management and information technology degrees rather than focus on the core study of military art and science.
Undeterred, Defence and the ADF plunged into civil university education for its officer corps. Not surprisingly, outsourcing military education caused controversy—not as might have been expected among military professionals, but ironically among Australia’s tiny cadre of scholars of military affairs inside the universities. One of the leading critics was the late Professor Jeffrey Grey of the Australian Defence Force Academy at the University of New South Wales. Grey, a distinguished military historian, had spent the period 2000 to 2002 as the Matthew C. Horner Chair of Military Theory at the United States Marine Corps University in Quantico and was well versed in the requirements of professional military education. On his return to Australia he wrote in the October 2004 issue of Defender: The Magazine of the Australian Defence Association that the officer professional military education system in Australia “is in profound disarray and is fundamentally failing the organisation [the ADF] of which it should be the intellectual gatekeeper and guiding beacon”.
Outsourcing its education to universities was, Grey remarked, akin “to the churches hand[ing] the training of clergy to McDonald’s”. Without intelligent supervision from the ADF, military education would inevitably drift into the pursuit of managerial and business studies degrees by officers leaving the ADF, and would do little to enhance professional expertise because the Australian military suffered from “a fundamental problem of professional self-confidence regarding the more intellectual aspects of the profession of arms”.
Hugh Smith, founding Director of the Australian Defence Studies Centre at ADFA and the country’s most prominent military sociologist, warned in 2004:
There is a body of essential knowledge and expertise relating to the deployment of violence which is unique to the profession of arms, though much differs as between land, air and maritime warfare. But military professionals, not universities or other outside institutions, teach this knowledge. Academic learning is necessary—not as part of professional knowledge, but because it provides understanding of the context in which armed force is used or threatened.
The challenge facing the ADF was to ensure that it possessed a cadre of military specialists and scholars with advanced research degrees and a knowledge of adult education methods. Both Grey and Smith believed that without such in-house expertise, ADF military education would concentrate on academic context, not professional content, and would fail to serve the needs of the armed forces.
?
These fears were well founded. Between 2001 and 2019, the number of master’s degrees in Australia tripled from 31,367 to 109,276 and the ADF was part of this explosion. Today, it is commonplace to encounter an Australian military officer with two or three MA degrees, yet such qualifications are a poor guide to actual professional aptitude. Yet, the critiques of Grey and Smith did little to change the direction of Defence’s educational policy. For example, in 2011-12, Major General Craig Orme called for “appropriate treatment” of the profession of arms in professional military education for mid-level and senior officers across the ADF. Geoff Peterson called outsourcing a “second-best option” driven by financial concerns, not military requirements.
In August 2012, an external review into military education by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Educating for the Profession of Arms in Australia, not only highlighted a persistent lack of warfighting preparation but also identified the existence of two “ten-year gaps” in professional knowledge that developed because of reliance on episodic residential courses at the expense of systematic career-long learning in the defence force. ASPI urged the formation of a small, internal faculty of specialised Defence scholars with higher research degrees to guide the ADF’s military learning to improve professional expertise. It had little impact beyond the creation of the General Sir Francis Hassett Chair of Military Studies as a “one-man expert military faculty”. Even the views of retired major-general and former Secretary of Defence, Duncan Lewis, failed to change educational policy. In 2013, he observed damningly:
[I am] in despair over what has happened out at Weston Creek, where the [ADFs] Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies [delivering the senior Defence and Strategic Studies Course] has effectively become dumbed down. The earlier courses were attended by brigadier-level service people, and they attracted top-level outsiders. Now we have a course for colonels that attracts few top-level outsiders.
Despite Lewis’s declaration, inertia and austerity continued to reign and the period from 2013 to 2017 were years of the locust. Greater financial austerity and intensified outsourcing followed, elevating managerial efficiency over educational effectiveness. The ADF’s attitude to military education came to resemble Plato’s “Ship of Fools” in the Republic, where the philosopher talks about the tendency of governance processes to prevail not based on expert knowledge.
Only between 2018 and 2023 was educational reform attempted under Major-General Mick Ryan and Air Vice-Marshal Stephen Edgeley, both products of American postgraduate war colleges, who, on appointment, became dissatisfied with the weak state of Australian military education. In 2019, Ryan formed an Australian War College by uniting the Command and Staff Course and the Defence and Strategic Studies Courses around the ADF’s basic purpose, the study of warfare. Yet this initiative was highly unpopular in some Defence circles and was hampered by reliance on a civilian university. Edgeley concentrated on creating continuous, rather than episodic education, supervised by an in-house cadre of “profession of arms experts”. Yet progress was glacial due to a Maginot Line of institutional and budgetary obstacles.
Framing educational reform: Reaffirming the role of the Australian profession of arms
The starting point for any serious attempt to reform Australian military education is to reaffirm the value of masterful knowledge of warfare honed by continuous professional and academic study that translates into national military effectiveness. Here we confront the central dilemma that the military profession is unique in society. In the words of Sir John Hackett, “the military profession has a distinguishable corpus of specific technical knowledge and doctrine [and] an education pattern adapted to its own specific needs”. To be sure, the profession of arms shares some features with the professions of medicine, law and divinity—such as control over membership, self-regulation, training expertise and a code of ethics. However, the military differs in profound ways. In the words of the American historian Walter Millis, military service has some qualities of a priesthood, a professional civil servant, a great bureaucratic business organisation and an academic order, “but it corresponds to exactly none. It is set apart therefore from those who have followed other walks of life.”
A career in the ADF contains four unique features that require recognition and understanding: the unlimited liability clause of sacrifice of life; the paradox of having the legal authority to command the use of lethal force that is infrequently practised—leading to a theory-practice mismatch; jurisdictional pressures on ADF officers to become national security professionals as well as war-fighters which, if not managed well, threaten military professionalism; and the intellectual challenge that the military lacks a common body of academic knowledge for educational purposes.
The unlimited liability clause
Unlike the civil professions, the military officer serves one master, the state, and is bound by a covenant that demands discriminating between combatant and non-combatant when applying lethal force. The unlimited liability clause requires that those in military uniform assume the burden of danger and death on behalf of society. As William Pfaff writes in The Bullet’s Song (2004), the soldier’s “warrant to kill is integrally related to his willingness to die”. The sacrificial character of military life means that those in uniform will always be citizens, but for so long as they serve, they will never be civilians.
Theoretically, unlimited liability is the foundation stone of the Australian profession of arms. Yet in an ADF education system dominated by civilian academics, it is hardly emphasised. Indeed, in 2019, I supervised a competitive selection process at the Australian Command and Staff College in which one of the questions called for candidates to explain the unlimited liability clause. More than half of the fifty officers I interviewed had either never heard of the phrase or thought it was a financial services term.
The paradox of command of lethal force and the theory-practice paradox
The second unique feature of military life is the paradox of command of lethal force and infrequent practice. The legal authority to employ organised violence is a responsibility held by no other institution. Aspects of armed policing cannot compare with organised warfare in a contested area of operations. An officer’s control over human lives makes military command different from leadership and management norms in civilian professions.
The application of lethal violence by a military professional is contingent rather than continuous. Unlike doctors, engineers, lawyers and priests, the military professional may not practise their core expertise regularly. This makes military education all the more important to uniformed professionals who must study what war will involve long before they experience it. If not managed well, this can make the military vulnerable to strains of anti-intellectualism. If an atmosphere of stasis as opposed to study flourishes, an erosion of military members’ interest in their vocation as a social trust profession is likely to follow. It comes, then, as no surprise to learn that some ADF members do not believe the profession of arms is a bona fide profession. In August 2021, an ADF one-star officer stated:
The “profession” of arms is a polarising term. I do not think the military is a profession and think that the “profession of arms” bit is overdone in the doctrine. If this is intended for all ranks, do junior ranks consider the military a profession? Does the military meet any of the tests to be a profession and is the answer consistent across all ranks? [The] Profession of Arms may not be an accurate title/reference for the whole of the ADF.
It is a mistake to dismiss this view as merely that of a maverick. It draws its rationale from the reality that functionally the Australian officer corps often resembles a hybrid of profession and bureaucracy. The ADF cannot afford to neglect the bureaucratic aspect of military activity. It is the task of the strategic stewards to ensure a proper balance exists between bureaucratic efficiency and military effectiveness, with the former prevented from compromising, or displacing, the latter.
Militaries whose leaders fail to balance their bureaucratic-professional interface successfully, invariably experience a decline in their professional character, as many observers have noted with regard to the German Bundeswehr and several other Western European militaries.
Expanding jurisdictional pressures: The military officer as a national security professional
Australian military professionals are often required to operate in a broader framework of “whole-of-government” national security. In recent years, the ADF has been involved in immigration control, drought relief, flood and bush fire emergencies and in Covid pandemic control. There have been calls for the Australian military to become an “alchemical blend of multiple archetypes” encompassing ersatz emergency services officer, diplomat, police officer and social worker.
Such calls are ill-considered and unpersuasive. Military professionals are not, except as a last resort, civil emergency workers. No sensible country designs its armed forces to carry the burden of emergency requirements at the expense of their role as war-fighters. As Harold Lasswell observed in 1950, “there are no experts in national security. There are only experts on aspects of the problem.” In the 2020s, the ADF must be prepared to lead “whole-of-government” defence missions and contribute to humanitarian and disaster relief operations, but never in the role of first responders. Military operations, not civil missions, are the ADF’s core business and concern the lawful delivery of organised violence in the service of the state.
Lack of a single body of academic knowledge for military education
American Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling wrote in his 1960 book The Strategy of Conflictthat “the military services, in contrast to almost any other sizable or respectable profession, have no identifiable academic counterpart”. Unlike law or medicine, the body of knowledge required for the military is interdisciplinary. Military art and science represent a corpus that encompasses academic education, professional expertise and training regimes. This led Napoleon Bonaparte to famously proclaim that the military profession was “the giant among the branches of learning for it embraces them all”.
As a result, Australian military education is generalist in character, with academic material assuming a significant role but often lacking clear military specification of what fields or disciplines must be studied. This leads to academic context dominating over professional content, because most Australian universities lack defence studies expertise. Professional subjects such as military theory, the history of operational and strategic art, military sociology and civil-military relations are either ignored or treated superficially.
Reforming Australian military education
The endemic weaknesses of Australian military education are not appreciated by the stewards of the ADF. One might, then, pose Lenin’s famous question: “What is to be done?” Four reform measures are essential in an age of automated warfare and precision weaponry.
The first is philosophical and requires a re-conception of Australian military education as a holistic activity embracing three tiers (training, professional foundation studies and academic study)
Second, the ADF must reduce its reliance on long episodic residential courses in favour of shorter continuous learning. It needs to exploit digital technology to keep its officer corps abreast of changing operational and strategic conditions.
The third reform is the creation of a “soldier-scholar” cadre of specialists in military subjects that are beyond the capacity of civilian universities.
Finally, the ADF would greatly benefit from the creation of a joint studies centre to ensure that changes in warfare can be fed into education for up-to-date professional practice.
For Australian military education in the twenty-first century to be effective there is a pressing need to introduce a three-layer continuum of education in which academic study and training are linked by professional foundation studies (understanding of war and the military vocation). In such a system, military education is understood holistically as a gestalt in which education and training both contribute to an effective military. As General David Berger, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, observed in July 2019, “we will not train without the presence of education; we must not educate without the complementary execution of well-conceived training”.
In Australia, Berger’s symbiosis between military education and training can only be achieved by developing a tripartite system. First, military training (provided by uniformed military experts); second, professional foundation studies (provided by permanent defence scholars and military professionals in unison); and third, academic education (provided by contracted university scholars). What is missing at present are professional foundation studies, defined by the Routledge Handbook of Defence Studies (2018) as studies which draw on academic and military knowledge to promote the effectiveness and viability of military organisations. Today, what passes for professional foundation studies in the ADF is either conflated with academic teaching or confused with training regimes.
Contemporary military education is being transformed by digital technologies that permit lifelong learning through a hybrid of residential and remote courses. Into the 2030s, we face the coming of a human-machine learning interface that is likely to revolutionise how military professionals are intellectually prepared for their duties. The traditional “sage on a stage” will be joined by the “guide on the side” on a screen in smaller, shorter, blended “remote-residential” courses designed to keep defence professionals up to date.
As the American Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out in May 2020 in Developing Today’s Joint Officers for Tomorrow’s Ways of War, military education in all advanced armed forces must produce an “outcomes-based approach” derived from a clear understanding of the accelerating forces of technological and geopolitical change. A series of Profession of Arms Foundation Courses, scaffolded across a thirty-year career, needs to be introduced to ensure no gaps in military knowledge are allowed to emerge. It should cover the history and sociology of the profession of arms; the philosophy of war and military and conflict theory; civil-military relations and the sinews of mobilisation; the principles of operational and strategic art; and key trends in the future of warfare.
Professional expertise to guide academic input
There is a popular saying among military educators that “chalk dust must support gun smoke”. One of the reasons for the poor state of Australian professional military education is that external academic providers allowed chalk dust to eclipse gun smoke. There is a constant, unresolved philosophical tension between academic imperatives and enhancing military effectiveness.
This results in a “knowledge vacuum” because of the ADF’s institutional inability to define the kind of education it needs at a given time. A central paradox thus exists because academic university educators are not military specialists and professional military specialists are not academic educators. This leads to an intolerable situation if what is taught in the lecture hall fails to reflect what is occurring in professional practice. As a result, the ADF is often forced, by its own lack of expertise, to pursue an education policy that pursues peacetime efficiency in preference to preparing for wartime effectiveness.
At the core of the knowledge vacuum lie the cultural differences between soldiers and scholars. As James Holmes, a leading military educator at the US Naval War College, noted in 2014:
Theory for professional schools is prescriptive. It’s a toolkit the practitioner uses to analyse tough problems he encounters in the bare-knuckles world of politics and strategy. Theory for university departments is largely descriptive. It’s a tool to appraise the nature of nation states, the structure and dynamics of the international system … It supplies context.
Oxford-educated United States Air Force officer, Brigadier General Paula Thornhill, a former Dean of Faculty at the US National War College, and the Canadian military theorist Colonel Charles S. Oliviero have pondered the paradox that while Western military officers are more highly educated today than ever before, their eclectic collection of university degrees bear little resemblance to the demands of a twenty-first-century profession of arms.
General Thornhill has called for “quality staff officer education” to be emphasised and has criticised the prevalence of academic credentialism over professional expertise. For those who support “academic university knowledge” as the lynchpin of officer education, it is preferable to promote broad-based critical ability drawn from a general study of history, the social sciences, ethics, international relations and country area studies. The university approach in military education is most firmly associated with American civilian critics of war colleges such as Thomas Ricks and Howard Wiarda, who fear that the hierarchical culture of military institutions is inherently antithetical to the free contest of ideas in education.
In advanced military education systems such as those of the United States and Canada, a judicious balance between “pen and sword” is sought. The dilemma Australia faces is that the scales between the sword of professional expertise and the pen of academic knowledge are heavily weighted in favour of the latter. The stewards of the ADF have a moral responsibility to ensure that what is taught supports, not supplants, the needs of military knowledge. Anything less represents a dereliction of duty.
Added to the lack of education expertise inside the ADF is the absence of a joint studies centre to support learning, promote professional knowledge and undertake applied research. This has led to a creeping intellectual devitalisation.
A joint studies centre would also provide a useful home for the “soldier-scholar” cadre that Australia desperately requires. Lacking any institutional focus for the interdisciplinary study of war, many Australian military professionals are content to leave theoretical investigation of war to civilian scholars and pundits in university departments and think-tanks. The problem with this is that since most academics and pundits have never worn military uniform, their musings on war have the surreal quality of lifelong celibates engaged in meditations on sex. As Australia enters the most volatile and dangerous strategic environment since the end of the Cold War, the logic for a joint studies centre is compelling.
Conclusion
The philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote that “the central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people”. Over the past quarter of a century, Australian military education has faltered in this core task.
In December, I sat at the annual Australian Defence College graduation at ADFA in Canberra surrounded by scarlet and black academic gowns and a Ruritanian assembly of glittering military uniforms. In an atmosphere of splendour, student officers received their degrees and diplomas from the Governor-General and were applauded by an array of senior military dignitaries as well as families and friends. As officer after officer passed briskly before me, I reflected that I was watching the generation most likely to be called upon to lead the Australian armed forces in the danse macabre of any future major war. I pondered sadly the inadequacy of the educational system responsible for their professional readiness, and the moral culpability of a generation of Defence officials and military leaders in failing to introduce timely reforms to meet the demands of twenty-first-century warfare. I was overcome by a sense of foreboding and, as I rose to depart, the words of Aeschylus came hauntingly to my mind:
So, in the Libyan fable it is told that once an eagle, stricken with a dart, said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, “With our own feathers, not by others’ hands, are we now smitten.”
Professor Michael Evans is the General Sir Francis Hassett Chair of Military Studies in Deakin University at the Australian Defence College. This article draws on a major study by the author, Vincible Ignorance: Reforming Australian Professional Military Education to Meet the Demands of the Twenty-First Century (December 2023), available at https://www.defence.gov.au/research-innovation/research-publications/vincible-ignorance.
Lysander, refresh the page and your new comment will appear in sequence at the bottom.
Now that Chinese Communist Party stooge Glyn Davis is secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who has directed the removal of the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Mike Burgess, a China critic, and the director-general of the Office of National Intelligence Andrew Shearer from federal cabinet’s national security committee, there is speculation that both men won’t have their contracts renewed at the behest of Elbow’s masters in Beijing.
As befitting Emperor Xi’s new South Pacific banana republic.
It gets even better…
Climate Change Department chief replaces heads of ASIO and ASIS on National Security Committee of Cabinet (Sky News, 19 Mar)
Why the flying fruitbats is the climate crapologist on the National Security Committee?
On the other hand since China is our obvious enemy maybe they’ve worked it out that China doesn’t believe in climate fairies, but does realize how useful they are to destroy the gullible West.
Judge David Sexton gives me the horn
(h/t Derek & Clive)
feelthebern
March 20, 2024 2:35 pm
I haven’t followed it, but it is an area which is totally fraught.
People who are told ortho surgery has a 15% chance of failure, don’t do rehab properly, start stacking on the kgs post op and want to sue when it doesn’t work.
Medical treatment is a mutual obligation … they have an obligation to give you effective treatment but you have an obligation to put 100% into recovery.
“Just” class warfare, civil war and millions of dead people.
One in every 21 adults in the UK is a landlord.
I think there’s something in that for all of us.
So all those people they have been importing had no effect on scarcity.
It was the eeeevil landlords making money by leaving places empty…
The Gruinaid, the underpants gnome economists of choice.
Libertarians going hard in the upcoming Cook by-election.
The worst thing the compromised dinosaur legacy media can do is ignore us.
Phrasing!
Whether or not it’s the result of the new software program housing it, the Cat’s traffic volume has fallen off a cliff and many regular commenters have left.
New formats take time to get used to.
Digital dunces like me take a while to work out new formats, and we are a bit intimidated by it all!
Other than that, yes – there have been some lamented departures. That is their choice. Hopefully some will return. But we all know that provocative comments will illicit a response. You wear that, or you don’t. Your choice.
However, in spite of my worries, I have mastered the registration with WordPress or whatever, and am able to tick those clever posters!
Am I in the “naughty corner”? All of my recent posts are “awaiting moderation”!
Dover.
It doesn’t matter what I do, whenever I refresh, make a comment or return from a link, it flicks me back to around 7:30 a.m. this morning.
F*cking annoying.
Gazans to start starving at the end of May, or in June. Despite Israel allowing in unlimited supplies to Gaza, which has always relied on everyone else for everything.
https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1770080170608587092?t=1S9SsyKgTh6qv_4O4v93IQ&s=19
New Loch Ness sighting!
What does the photo show?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13215467/Nessie-mystery-Photographer-pictures-Loch-Ness-Monster.html
Notice the well nourished mother? https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1770080193719201811?t=0Rp_c020AqJzFZbHEHhbOg&s=19
Re Tom’s comment about fewer posts under the new format, I suspect that the nested comments are seen by relatively few readers, so discussions don’t really get going unless there is a response in the main thread.
Only those who read later in the time have a chance to see a discussion developing in the nested comments, but they are also aware that anything they leave there will be seen by few readers.
Unrest in India
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1770161627070906732?t=6bG697wfCUBua4OVrM7uCA&s=19
I don’t see any value in nested comments either. They are a pitn.
If ONA has any value, then its DG should be at all NSC meetings. If that DG is excluded, then heads are being buried in the sand.
As should the CDF and secretaries to DFAT and Defence (PM&C will always be there).
The quality of Roman concrete.
https://twitter.com/Culture_Crit/status/1770149863440723990?t=O7WGV9X8ago0Cyo0zvUCJA&s=19
Presumably to see the nested comments you have to scroll back to see the little number showing there have been comments made, and then start checking them out.
Seems an odd way to do things.
Surely people can follow the thread of an argument in the comment stream, scrolling past a thread they’re not interested in.
Yep.
The ghosts of past discussions.
Quenthland Penis News (the Courier-Mail):
Banjo string injuries. An unsung Grim Reaper for young blokes out collecting stats.
PHRASING.
Let me guess, is this comment in the web address line? All you really need to do is delete the part that says #comment-######
You probably went online and clicked the top comment in recent comments.
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ce16d8a2a79e3119179a6aff368a90a9?s=64&d=identicon&r=g
rosie
March 20, 2024 4:22 pm
Ditto.
And I think the proof is in the pudding.
People are still going with “cut, paste, reply”.
The Tasmanian election campaign highlights an eternal truth:
Get a pretty candidate.
The pretty blonde is a veneer over the awful truth that leftist ideology triumphs.
No.
I have been reading all over the page, ticking, replying, following links and making comments.
It actually takes me back to Rosie’s comment at 7:56 a.m.
Every. Single. Time.
Check the full address line. Come in via the home page and click on the recent comments in the RHS box. Probably a cache issue. No biggie.
Deleted the comment #.
It still takes me to random spots in the middle.
New format is very good Dover.
Don’t change anything IMHO.
except the Putin love, of course.
And get Calli back here.
And the other gals
Let’s not be hasty.
one or two honorary blokes is enough.
maybe the others can swap in and out with Monty.
“Seems an odd way to do things.”
Top Ender, I couldn’t even code the quote above without activating the quote format throughout the rest of my comment.
WordPress commenting software is as dumb as dogshit because it was designed by anti-social coding nerds who hate normal people and their need for user-friendly software.
The coding nerds write their dumb HTML code for the approval of other coding nerds — not the consumers who have to use it.
The WordPress commenting software, which our Doverlord is saddled with, is dumb because it can be. Very few people in consumerland understand HTML, which is just a dumbed-down version of computer codes written in the 1970s and ’80s.
And, because very few normal people want to waste their lives learning HTML code, the nerds have power over us, which they abuse to, among other things, push their weird, anti-social political perversions and through online censorship.
Tom at 5:16.
Yes, I find the quote function a bit clunky too.
Sometimes it puts your response in quotes, and once today it deleted the quoted text completely.
The upside is, you can go back in and edit I suppose.
Soros-Funded Brennan Center’s Dystopian Take on Free Speech Case Bastardized Its Namesake
Hollywood Can’t Get It Through Its Head That Racism Doesn’t Sell
The U.S. crime rate is still dropping, FBI data shows
The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft Delivers EPIC Speech On The Steps Of The Supreme Court: The Biden Regime And Big Tech Are Employing What They Call the ‘Cognitive Infrastructure’ To Control What We Think
That is giving the propellor heads too much credit. IT guys were inevitably the most useless people I ever dealt with.
Garbage
‘Sirens are blaring’: UN climate report says 2023 was ‘off the charts’
That’s true. I’ve never seen such a level of gaslighting before 2023.
@JoeTalkShow
You think we have freedom and liberty? Peter Navarro just walked into prison to serve time for a misdemeanor. His crime? Refusing a subpoena by the illegitimate so-called January 6th Committee. Remember, the panel went against the rules of the House. It did NOT allow for the minority party to choose its representation and has been found to either delete evidence or hide it (See @MZHemingway’s report). But for some reason, this guy is now behind bars. It’s disgusting what they’re doing and 1/2 the country is cheering. Sick
The Great Misconception of AI
AI is a hot topic for regulators. Regulators and most companies that offer purported AI are clueless about what constitutes actual AI. Way too many charlatans are out there calling a simple trend-following program AI. They create some rules, and the program just follows what they created. That is NOT Artificial Intelligence. The SEC is all over this and has already been targeting purported AI companies that call their programs AI when they have a simple buy-sell analogy that may trade-off for an Elliot Wave or Stochastic with inherent BIAS created by their predetermined rule. Any system that has an inherent BIAS is not actually AI.
Yes, Bill Gates predicts that artificial intelligence will transform the world in just five years. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the rise of AI could affect about 40% of jobs around the world. When I went to engineering school, we had to learn both programming and hardware. Back then, StarTrek was on TV and that was the inspiration of everyone in the industry to create a computer that was capable of understanding and running the ship. Even Steve Jobs’s inspiration behind Apple and the iPad came from the visions we had from StarTrek.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/products_services/socrates/the-great-misconception-of-ai/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
You’re right Bear, the only IT people I know that are good are the ones that what to use it for problem solving. A few are over the top smart and one who’s a mechanic with crook knees that changed careers. Started at the bottom, liked it there, nobody likes doing the basic stuff, he does and has so much work now.
It doesn’t matter what I do, whenever I refresh, make a comment or return from a link, it flicks me back to around 7:30 a.m. this morning.
F*cking annoying.
Good Moaning, Mrs Stencho Pantyhose.
#imisslizzieb
“I’m A Doctor: Corporate Greed Is Killing Your ER”
Re Al Muderis.
One of the expert witnesses said that even if a patient lies on a questionnaire at any stage of the process, the responsibility is with the surgeon.
Thanks champ.
Patients who say they don’t smoke turn out to be smokers.
One patient said they weren’t diabetic but once the blood tests came back it showed they were and when the surgeon’s team contacted the referring GP, they said yeah, they’ve been treating the diabetes for years.
Obviously the surgeon knocked back the porky pie telling diabetic.
Judgment for Bruce Lehrmann, Network Ten, Lisa Wilkinson defamation battle to be handed down
By ellie dudley
The judgment for a landmark defamation battle between former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, Network 10 and veteran television presenter Lisa Wilkinson will be handed down on April 4.
Justice Michael Lee alerted parties and media late Wednesday afternoon that he would hand down what is expected to be a very lengthy decision early next month, which will determine whether Mr Lehrmann was defamed by the television network and Wilkinson when they aired an interview with alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins.
He will likely deliver a short verbal judgment on April 4, with longer reasons to be published for the public in full.
Mr Lehrmann sued Ten and Wilkinson over her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project in 2021, detailing accusations that Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins but not naming him as the alleged attacker.
Ten and Wilkinson have relied on a defence of truth, in an attempt to prove Mr Lehrmann sexually assaulted Ms Higgins on the couch of Senator Reynolds in Parliament House in the early hours of the morning on March 23, 2019.
Mr Lehrmann has consistently denied raping Ms Higgins.
Justice Lee must decide whether, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins. If he finds the rape did occur, Network Ten and Wilkinson would claim victory, and would seek to have Lehrmann pay their substantial legal costs – likely to run into many millions.
If Justice Lee finds on the balance of probabilities, that no sexual contact occurred between the two – as Mr Lehrmann testified – and he did not rape Brittany Higgins, he must decide how much compensation or damages Mr Lehrmann should be paid by Wilkinson and Ten.
If Justice Lee finds the pair did have sex, but it was consensual, or that Mr Lehrmann did not understand Ms Higgins was not consenting, that means he would effectively have found Mr Lehrmann to be a liar. Ten has argued in this case, the damages should only be a nominal amount such as $1, because they say Mr Lehrmann has lied at various times throughout this saga.
Ten and Wilkinson also have a second defence of qualified privilege, arguing Wilkinson and The Project production team properly fulfilled their obligations in preparing the story.
Justice Lee must consider this as a ‘reasonableness’ defence: that is, was it reasonable to publish the allegations, even if the judge does not find them to be true? This will turn on all the efforts Ten and Wilkinson made (or did not make) to establish the truth of Higgins’ claims.
Ditto.
And I think the proof is in the pudding.
As I once told Dotty Dot of Dottiness. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Al Muderis isn’t a saint.
And the entire system needs an overhaul.
The problem is when 60 minutes & the channel 9 newspapers try to paint the situation as one surgeon’s problem.
Also, they relied on some terrible witness/patients when putting together the story.
Medling with Agatha Christie and other classics.
Englishness Under Attack: BBC’s Crimes Against British Culture
Justin on Kenny’s show retails the old meme that “Trump lost the 2020 election”.
Yeah, right.
People are still going with “cut, paste, reply”.
Civilised people prefer “copy, paste and reply”. You know it makes sense.
I only heard it referred to today but it first came to light months ago that Age journo Charlotte Grieve deleted messages with a key witness during the discovery process.
Did she actually think the messages weren’t able to be recovered?
Which they were.
The judge in this case is no Michael Lee.
That is, witnesses ramble on about “their story” for ages.
It is sad & these people are broken (many years before surgery).
One witness went on for ages about how she had to sit on a Sydney train platform for an hour waiting for a rail employee to arrive to help her onto a train.
Very sad and I’m very sure that’s not the surgeons fault.
“A devastating legacy” – MEP Rob Roos roasts Ursula von der Leyen
‘Sirens are blaring’: UN climate report says 2023 was ‘off the charts’
I was disheartened this morning when the otherwise excellent Air Independent Radio (AIR) news on the Melbourne racing station uncritically regurgitated tortured, invented statistics from whichever UN climate agency it was.
The job of journalists is to be sceptical of government, especially supranational agencies like the UN which constantly interferes in national politics around the world with anti-scientific propaganda like “climate change” – the new animist religion for athiests who imagine the human race has godlike power to control the earth’s climate.
“Climate change” hysteria has succeeded only in creating hopelessness and despair in the children of the gullible – useful idiots in the UN’s ambition to create a new world government of technocratic fascists who would never win an actual democratic election.
I’m surprised that realists have not more seriously and efficiently run with the ‘This is designed to keep the Third World (brown and yellow people) in poverty’ tactic.
The reliance on ‘fact checking’ the alarmists has not worked for the past two decades, but still it is persisted with. (As I’ve written previously: such an approach should not be discarded, but as a first-line tactic, it has demonstrably failed).
Dealing with IT guys –
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DvswW6M7bMo
@TheTwinsPod
.@MikeBenzCyber explains “NGOs” in under 60 seconds
And, because very few normal people want to waste their lives learning HTML code
Which should take 1 day. I teach it to year 7s in 6 periods.
Only issue with Temu is that everything they sell is rubbish
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68563339
rosie
March 20, 2024 4:10 pm
Gazans to start starving at the end of May, or in June. Despite Israel allowing in unlimited supplies to Gaza, which has always relied on everyone else for everything.
Whenever I see the Gazans on the TV News, they mostly look well fed, clothed and groomed.
Except for the dead ones.
KRuddy still a fuk up,even on the Washington cocktail circuit.
Glyn Davis – Glyn Davis – Wikipedia
Bear at 5:27
Hmmm.
The three most common things out of their mouths:-
“I just need your machine for 2 minutes to update a couple of things” (still not done three hours later).
“No. No need to back up” (then promptly blowing your unsaved work away).
“Jeez … that shouldn’t have happened”.
Article, from the Oz, awaiting approval. Seems the judgement day in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation action, is April 4th. I hope he is awarded gazillions.
Decision in Lehrmann v Ten and Others to be delivered 4th April.