There is no river here nor are there water lilies, so I can’t “tirra lirra” as Sir Lancelot sang.

But I can describe the enormous church that is Santiago. Like the lovely and recently desecrated (again) Santa Sophia, it crouches on its mound above the old town. It is huge, Romanesque and completely delightful. Unlike the ancient sister on the Bosphorus, this one is a typical Latin cross. The great censer was not in operation, thankfully. The Beloved’s asthma would be triggered instantly.

Down into the crypt, then up again into the arms of the apostle. From the Christian’s point of view, the next time I’ll be this close to the old saint is side by side in the heavenly choir. Lots of pilgrims from all over the world and we caught up with them and listened to their stories.

After the spiritual, the inner regions needed sustenance. An enormous seafood platter, crab, scallops (naturally), clams, mussels, prawns, langoustines and other good things are now on the inside, along with some excellent Tempranillo wine.

So far you can’t get a dud meal in Spain.

Starting the week on a :jolly” note that has been circulating for a while:

“THE NUMBERED MEN”
 
“One day while I was driving down the highway in the sun
I sat behind a milk truck just returning from his run.
His sign said “Licensed Vendor” and it made me feel secure
That only numbered milkmen could come knocking on my door.
*********
Then I saw a licensed builder with his number on the door
And a plumber with a permit which was issued by the law.
Then a hawker and publican each with his licence plate
And a licensed money lender with his number on the gate.
*********
I pulled into a café, which was licensed to sell beer
And struck up conversation with a licensed auctioneer.
He’d just been selling forfeit goods to pay the fines imposed
On a maverick hardware dealer whose late trading he’d exposed.
*********
A warm glow spread inside me as I drank a licensed beer
And I pictured the inspectors who called in every year
To check upon the numbered men and safeguard fools like me
Who’d waste their money buying things from men who paid no fee.
*********
I thought of all the union men whose cards protect their job
And dairy men whose quota scheme defends them from the mob.
The teachers who are registered, the chemists with their guilds
And lawyers with their closed cartel which keeps their coffers filled.
*********
As I sat among the numbered men it suddenly occurred
That I was just a cleanskin in a tamed and numbered herd.
Somehow I’d missed the muster when the planner combed the land
And now I was a maverick, a man without a brand.
*********
The numbered men live sheltered lives, their keeper is the State,
Their job depends less on their skills than on their licence plate.
Their future is determined and their charges are prescribed,
And the standards of their conduct are in rules and acts described.
*********
But thank the Lord for mavericks, who don’t fit in the mould,
They help distract the licence-men from getting far too bold.
Without the help of mavericks, the planners would persist
Till we all need applications for a licence to exist.”

Via Jo Nova:
Matthew Lynn, The Telegraph
The fear must now be that the electric car carnage has only just begun – with Net Zero turning into a sledgehammer for the deindustrialisation of the West, and China the only clear winner.

Thanks BB, if Bolt never says another word he has justified his existence in the media. A pity his on tv persona, which I find down right unwatchable, doesn’t match his writing ability. Australia is run by Mutleys. Pity there’s not a Revolution on the horizon.

Paul Simon has a song (not new) called The Afterlife about going to heaven . In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe evoked a droll comment from one of the adventurers.
“Is this the afterlife? Looks more like an apres vie.”

… and now I’m awake, for how long is ‘our’ ABC going to continue its attempt to socially reconstruct Australian society by forcing aboriginal interpretations of the names of our major cities? For God’s sake, you can’t even find the bloody places on a standard NRMA road map!

the pontiff contended that far from being a problem, human beings are the solution to the world’s difficulties.

He’s a joke, now. So embarrassing.

“A better policy would have been to adjust the income tax regime to encourage working families to have more children and allow mothers to stay at home to care for them if they wished.”

It has been mooted from time to time for decades.
It’s called “income splitting”. But it’s not available to families where one is the breadwinner and the other stays at home to give the best care for kids. That would be the mother.
Women have been sold a crock ever since the bad old days of the 1970s, when we “mere males” were demonised day in day out as “male chauvinist pigs” and women who stayed at home were told they were tied to the sink by their apron strings and were of less value to society and to their own self respect for doing so.

ASIC engaging in a lovers’ tiff with their beloved woke ANZ over mere money laundering.

What will happen. Probably nothing. ASIC always lose prosecutions against establishment corporates.

If proven, innocent shareholders funds will be transferred to Govt by way of a corporate fine.

Individual criminals and deliquent board members will not be troubled.

Duty of care in war.
While attempting to declutter, I’ve stumbled upon the following in Commando, the official newsletter of the Commando Association of Victoria* Vol. 11, No. 79, Sept. 2011.

The author is a Tim McCormack, then Professor of Law at Melbourne Uni. First published in The Age, 25 May, 2011).

The chief judge advocate’s decision to dismiss the charges in last week’s pre-trial hearing restores the orthodoxy.

Negligence has never been an acceptable fault element for the perpetration of a war crime. At the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for example, the minimum requirements are intention or recklessness.

…

But our military prosecutor claimed that these two soldiers owed a duty of care to the civilians in the compound in Afghanistan [my bolding]. Despite the fact that the ADF contingent was subjected to sustained bursts from an AK-47 within the compound, the prosecutor insisted that the two ADF members demonstrably breached the alleged duty of care.

The chief judge advocate thought otherwise. In a meticulously reasoned decision, Westwood found that Australian law does not impose an enforceable duty of care on ADF members in the context of combat operations.

The incident referred to above took place in Oruzgan Province on the 12th of February, 2009. One adult and five children were killed when a grenade was launched into a room from where small arms fire had emanated, threatening the Australians outside.

This also begs the question re Israel & h@m@s: Legally, which combatant has the duty of care regarding civilians? If Israel has a legal as well as moral duty of care for the civilians in Gaza, did h@m@s not have a similar duty of care towards Israeli civilians on the 7th of October, 2023, which they grievously breached?

* Lest a provocateur seek attention, I have never served, nor have I ever claimed to. My interest comes from a military history perspective, and the fact that one of my ancestors was a WWII independent company/cav cdo man.

As requested:
?1689214244
Dear Robert, 
In Canberra tomorrow, I’m going to talk at Family First’s ACT gathering about Sophie Scholl.
In 1942 at the tender age of 22 she went to the guillotine with her brother Hans for her role in distributing anti-Nazi flyers at university.
If we had good leaders in Australia, the anti-Jewish protestors occupying our university quadrangles would be told to do some reading about the Scholl’s White Rose Society and the true nature of evil.
?1715309974
“Finally someone has to make start,” Sophie said before she was executed.
“We only said and wrote what many people think. They just don’t dare to express it.”
While not quite facing the horrors of Nazism, we nonetheless face a renewed totalitarian impulse from our elites which makes Sophie’s words resonate today.
Whether it’s the uncontested demonisation of Israel or the trashing of the family, faith, marriage, life and freedom values you and I hold dear, Australian politics lacks leadership to push back and speak up.
Someone has to make a start.
That’s why Family First is on a war footing as volunteer teams prepare for October elections in Queensland, the ACT and federally.
A Federal election could be as early as August or as late as May.
Your candidates on ballot papers can be beacons of hope, amid the dearth of moral leadership.
Victorian lead Senate candidate Bernie Finn is already campaigning hard – click here to see his schedule of public meetings.
And Family First’s Federal Executive this week asked me to lead the Senate ticket in New South Wales. Announcements for Senate candidates in other states will follow.
To succeed in getting elected to the Senate, Bernie and I need lower house candidates to run with us to lift the Senate vote.
While we welcome people with time to campaign, even a minimal effort on your part is incredibly helpful. Simply getting Family First on ballot papers is key.
Getting elected will be hard, but we must make a start. Waiting for someone else to step up is not an option.
If you’d like more information about standing as a candidate, please contact the following volunteers:

• Queensland state election: Alex Todd [email protected]
• ACT election: Ray Hentzschel [email protected]
• Federal Victorian Lower House: Jane Foreman [email protected]
• Federal NSW Lower House: Rosanne Masters [email protected]

 
Supporting Israel
Family First stands firmly on the side of Israel in its war with the evil Hamas terrorist organisation.
I encourage all Victorian supporters and members to join with Jane and Bernie in showing solidarity with our Jewish community by attending the Never Again is Now rally on May 19.
This week on ADH TV, I conducted an extended interview with Dr David Adler of the Australian Jewish Association. He dispels myths about civilian causalities and other Hamas propaganda that has been bought by our government and media.

This is for commenters who have travelled a lot in Muslim countries. Does this sort of thing happen there?

I’ve worked in plenty and yes they do. I’ve seen the rijal ( blokes) plonk their mats everywhere from car parks, sides of the road, shopping malls, market places and on aircraft. 3 o’clock is the big one, they will block roads if there is enough of them. Otherwise they prefer to be seen at the mosque. The guys I saw were probably Ahmadiyya. They are the heroes at present as one was killed in Westfield. The sects like to show off in a safe country.

Well, here we are.
Under the O’biden Regime, Iran has now (probably) developed a nuclear warhead. We watched, and talked, and watched and talked some more, then gave Iran Billions of dollars to ‘not’ develop the bomb, then watched and investigated and talked some more.
Watch the Western Quislings suck up to Iran in the hopes of not being the first to have the nuclear egg laid on their porch.
And when it does (probably) get laid on Tel Aviv, either by aircraft, rocket, or donkey cart, the Mullahs will tell the Quislings that they have two more emplaced in London and Washington.
Israel will be thrown under the bus, but she’ll enjoy a little revenge first.
The issue is that this was preventable.

My sister sister got an early Mothers day present from son in US – a bobblehead Trumperine.

China seems to be settling into an indefinite period of deflation.

theyll do what all good communists and MMTers do, try and print their way out of it

Sinecures for connected mediocrities.

Earlier, from a tropical ulcer-infected retired nurse::

The only way to deal with this is to reoccupy the public spaces – violently if need be.

Me:

Obviously, retired residents of small Quenthland towns will be leading the way here.

The retort:

Fairly standard reply from the peanut gallery.

So what’s your excuse for doing Jack Shit? And don’t avoid the question – what have you done apart from sneering at everyone else who offers a suggestion?

Thanks, Faulty.

This concept, it hardly needs to be said, has been rightly pilloried for quite some time.

If one is to advocate for violently overthrowing governments/kicking out Muslims from praying in public/storming the nearest Chemtrail Inc office and burning it to the ground, one should at least be in a position to actually lead the charge, rather than yelling about it from the couch.

You are, in fact, the peanut gallery you complain about.

If you are not prepared to do that, then gobbing off about it (Rise Up! Stand, Fight and if necessary Fall!) will inevitably generate further justified ridicule.

And in answer to your question – I will do something about Muslims praying in public as soon as you do. And it wasn’t a ‘suggestion’ you made, it was a statement.

Of course, if some of those people end up in hospital and desperately ill, I will be right behind you as you sneak into their rooms and pull the plug on the BingBong machine.