Open Thread – Mon 13 May 2024


The Lady of Shalott, John Atkinson Grimshaw, 1878

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DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
May 14, 2024 5:56 am

Interestingly at a time when smoking has never had lower uptake. Certainly in Australia.
The cost of a packet brings on various ailments on those beyond reform, though.

I’m a confirmed cigar smoker, I’m smoking at the moment. And I suffer from none of the fashionable ailments mentioned. Maybe smoking cigars is healthy. Certainly vegan!

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
May 14, 2024 6:29 am

Another SIEV.

I don’t know whether it is me but does it seem these stories are being buried down the news page now?

Unlike 10 years ago.

Cassie of Sydney
May 14, 2024 7:17 am

The way the world is going, it looks like they will try memory hole the holocaust too.

Already happening. Forget about Holocaust deniers, we now have Holocaust ignoramuses.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
May 14, 2024 7:37 am

does it seem these stories are being buried down the news page now?

None of them have drowned yet.

lotocoti
lotocoti
May 14, 2024 8:03 am

the Palestinians we see there … they are an exemplar of steadfastness..

So steadfast they did a runner to the other side of the world.

johanna
johanna
May 14, 2024 8:06 am

Re bogus cinnamon (FTB at 5.24 am):

True – the stuff at the supermarket described as ‘cinnamon’ is a pale shadow of the real thing when it comes to flavour and intensity.
I use imported cinnamon from Holland (Kaneel made by Albert Heijn) and it is vastly superior and much more concentrated. I estimate that you only need about a fifth as much to get a comparable amount of flavour, and much better flavour at that.

bons
bons
May 14, 2024 8:12 am

I saw something yesterday that hasn’t happened here for a few years.

A pair of letterboxes laid out their dog mats in the forecourt of the surf club and proceeded to do the Allah bobble. The forecourt is always packed with people carrying boards and boats from the club and using the showers.

Penny’s finest are obviously feeling victorious.

This occurred regularly a couple of years ago when four would turn up. They gave up when it became obvious that they were not going to provoke a reaction. The Club soon fitted more cameras.

Obviously they were doing the bidding of some unseen muzzy thug.

It is interesting that these people would target our little town. They are not locals. The only muzzies here run the worlds best Malay restaurant and spend more time in the bar than on their knees.

A little scary though.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
May 14, 2024 8:21 am

Easily fixed by a little gas-fired barbecue and a lot of pork products.

Cassie of Sydney
May 14, 2024 8:34 am

Mr Mashni said that “settler colonists” such as Israel and “the system here” bomb land.

“Indigenous people don’t do that,” he said.

“Israel and Australia share two things in common, aside from being a sh*thole, racist, settler colony, that’s the number one thing, they also have the highest incidence of skin cancer.

“Their skin is designed for Northern Europe, where there is not much sun so you need to be white so you get extra vitamin D.

“But our skin is designed for this land, it’s designed for the Middle East. Not to say Judaism isn’t connected to the land.”

I’ll just preface this by saying that the above screed is racist to its core. Mashni is an insidious, sinister, lying, racist thug. He also has a long and unsavoury past, which includes a police record.

Note Mashni’s caveat, ‘Not to say Judaism isn’t connected to the land.”, Mashni is being deliberately sly here, he’s saying that whilst Judaism might be connected to the land, the Jewish people are not, and he’s implying, very clearly, that Jews of Ashkenazi (European) descent are not Semites but are descendants of Turkish Khazars, a theory long debunked but a favourite theory of rabid Jew haters. Of course, he deliberately avoids talking about Mizrachi Jews from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq and so on. All expelled after 1948, now that was a real ‘Nakba’.

On a more serious issue, this lying creep was given an audience by Senator Pong and the leftist media fawn over this racist creep. Yet they have the audacity to criticise us on the right. I am tired of the hypocrisy.

Oh and is Mashni implying that it is only ‘skin colour’ that proves your indigenousness? As an aside, my father and brother are very dark, almost as dark as Mashni. Oh and if ‘skin colour’ determines your indigenousness, where does that leave the likes of Michael Mansell, Marcus Stewart and other indigenous men and women who have whiter skin than I do?

By the way, the prophet of Islam was noted for his white skin.

lotocoti
lotocoti
May 14, 2024 8:42 am

A gem from the China Film Administration,
where too much is not enough.
Action-wise, it’s so bonkers it makes
Saving Private Ryan look like a Nora Ephron film.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
May 14, 2024 8:52 am

The GayBC/Australian Bolshevik Collective calls in the Marxist pervert thought police:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/catholic-archbishop-julian-porteous-letter-to-parents-criticised/103838640

Correction: it is a central part of the Marxist pervert thought police.

johanna
johanna
May 14, 2024 8:55 am

TheirABC – predictable as ever.

The Catholic Archbishop of Hobart issued a letter about the attacks on traditional theology by the usual suspects. They quoted a few lines, and then launched into lengthy expressions of outrage from – the usual suspects.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/catholic-archbishop-julian-porteous-letter-to-parents-criticised/103838640

What is infuriating is that Porteous said, quite reasonably, that if parents disagreed with the Church’s teachings, they should enrol their children in schools more aligned to their beliefs. This set the would-be dictators into a frenzied rage. No, the Church should bend to their beliefs, otherwise it’s hatey-hatey.

As has been mentioned many times before, Muslim schools are strangely free from criticism for their much more rigid and punitive beliefs.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 8:55 am

Cometh the raw prawns.

Climate Destroying Shrimp (13 May)

“Shrimp’s Carbon Footprint Is 10 Times Greater Than Beef’s”

Bill Gates funds cow vaccine to reduce livestock ‘farts’ full of methane emissions to stop ‘climate change’ (12 May)

ArkeaBio, a Boston developer of a vaccine to reduce livestock methane emissions, raised a $26.5 million in venture capital funding led by an investment fund founded by Bill Gates.

Pass me another prawn cocktail please.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 8:56 am

Bruce Lehrmann trial: Inquiry head Walter Sofronoff KC to face ACT Integrity Commission

Daily Mail

Chris
Chris
May 14, 2024 9:03 am

the Palestinians we see there … they are an exemplar of steadfastness..

So steadfast they did a runner to the other side of the world.

I say that the Palestinians in Australia did the best possible thing they could for their children; they got them out of that snake pit.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
May 14, 2024 9:04 am

Bons get yourself a black dog and visit the surf club at the appropriate time.

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 9:22 am

The GayBC/Australian Bolshevik Collective calls in the Marxist pervert thought police

“Where the Catholic system education system receives government funding, then I’m very concerned that we have government funding going to a school or to a system which condones this kind of breach of anti-discrimination laws.”

Remember when the alphabet people just wanted tolerance?

cohenite
May 14, 2024 9:23 am

Mr Mashni said that “settler colonists” such as Israel and “the system here” bomb land.

Mashni is an arsehole but look at the dickheads around him:

People – Australia Palestine Advocacy Network – APAN

Makka
Makka
May 14, 2024 9:26 am

I say that the Palestinians in Australia did the best possible thing they could for their children; they got them out of that snake pit.

With the added bonus of spreading their sick cult into a Christian society. If you want to look at a malevolent colonization, Islam has been doing it for around 1500 years.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
May 14, 2024 9:34 am

Well done the Archbishop in TAS. Looking forward to ABC articles about Islamic leaders views on similar subjects.

cohenite
May 14, 2024 9:47 am

Islam now Albo’s highest priority – Politics, Policy, Political Views (politicom.com.au)

Here’s the reason:

https://www.muslimvotesmatter.com.au/

This is a site run by muslims; they say:

“The Muslim community is the largest, and among the fastest growing, minority groups in Australia.
Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet underutilised, asset we have.
Muslim Votes Matter unlocks this highly influential tool which requires significant organisation, forward planning, and community mobilisation.
There are over 20 seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote. ”

ALL OF THOSE SEATS ARE ALP SEATS; except one held by Adam Bandt.

ALL OF THEM.

The alp is selling out Australia for political gain. As the muslim population grows social mayhem results. This is happening in every Western nation which has a muslim population; look at Sweden and France etc. This was all predicted by Dr Peter Hammond many years ago:

https://www.godreports.com/2015/09/how-islam-takes-over-countries/

I repeat: by importing muslims the alp is destroying this nation for short term political gain.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
May 14, 2024 9:49 am

Calli mentioned earlier ‘Tirra Lilra by the River’, which is also the title of
a fine old Australian novel in the tradition of a woman’s search for identity, drawing its title from that piece of cultural literacy, ‘The Lady of Shallot’, Tennyson’s lovely poem which Calli also quoted in homage to the redolent header pic on this thread.

Some modern commentary says the poem can be used to depict ‘gender relations’ of past time when women were cloistered – and that may be true – but it depicts these relations more essentially – as the attraction of a woman to a man, for it is Lancelot’s manly presence that brings down the curse of death, a fate which befalls all those enchanted. This is a culturally deep tale from the cosmology of the ancient religion of river sprites, visitations of these to human births, and the resultant pleaded for and saved life became mythically lived only under a curse regarding its fulfilment in sexual love. The tension in these tales is always between the human and the divine. Tennyson’s poem shows this intense attraction of a human woman-sprite cursed, sick of living only in mirrored shadows of life, to a man’s ‘being’ so cleverly culturally and romantically evoked by these few stanzas of the longer tale.

The atavistic magic of banishment to an ‘otherworld’ found deep within pools, or within rivers, the mystery of the reflection of a human face, later to be a shining glass mirror, is strong here. Mirrors and combs for hair (another magical thing) were often found in heathen graves.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
‘Tirra lirra,’ by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me!’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.

lotocoti
lotocoti
May 14, 2024 9:51 am

I say that the Palestinians in Australia did the best possible thing they could for their children…

Perhaps.
But those who could and did leave left the future
of any Pali state in the hands of those who spawned
the PLO and hamarse.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 10:09 am

Fun day at the pool.

Children evacuated from burning Sydney pool (Tele, paywalled)

Hundreds of children at a swimming carnival at Sydney Olympic Park have been evacuated due to fire reportedly caused by solar panels.

Slightly ironic that the fire guys couldn’t just shove a hose in the swimming pool for water to put the fire out. Pouring water with lots of lovely electrolytes onto an electrical fire probably isn’t a wise choice.

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 10:21 am

Mr Mashni said that “settler colonists” such as Israel and “the system here” bomb land.

Mashni is a migrant settler & a property developer.

I hope he’s “paying the rent.”

Last edited 6 months ago by Roger
Black Ball
Black Ball
May 14, 2024 10:37 am

Put a few in the clink whilst you’re at it. Hun:

Deakin University has ordered the immediate dismantling of the controversial pro-Palestinian encampment on its Burwood campus – the first uni to take this step.

A letter written to a leading organiser on Monday night issued the ultimatum which requires the student to “attend to the immediate dismantling and removal of the current encampment at Morgan’s Walk”.

Students have already signalled they won’t go quietly, publicising a Rally to Defend the Deakin Encampment at 6.30pm on Wednesday.

The letter says the university gave permission for the camp to be set up until last Friday and the expectation was that it would conclude at this time.

“The University takes its obligations in relation to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of staff, students and visitors to the campus very seriously,” the letter states.

“This is compromised by the continued presence of the encampment.”

The university notes the closure of Morgan’s Walk due to the “unacceptable” behaviour of protesters was a key issue.

“It is intended that normal operations resume and that we ask you to confirm your intention to dismantle the encampment.”

The uni says it is committed to freedom of protest and speech, but that this “does not extend to the establishment of unauthorised camps which post hygiene and safety risks and restrict access, availability and use of Deakin premises”.

It comes as classes were disrupted at the university this week, with lecturers allowing encampment protesters to address students.

Footage shot at Deakin on Monday morning shows a young woman from the pro-Palestinian encampment stand at the front of the room and addressing students.

“Right now our university is helping to develop weapons that go to Israel. Those weapons are part of carrying out the genocide that has been taking right now in Gaza. We are protesting for our university to cut all ties to manufacturers. We don’t think our university should have any ties to any companies that make bombs,” she said.

She then invited students to visit the camp and to meet a former Israel Defence Forces soldier at 1pm.

And on Monday night, more than a hundred pro-Palestine protesters gathered on Monash University’s College Lawn to protest against a Jewish event commemorating Israeli victims of terror.

The protesters, wearing keffiyehs and high-vis vests, called on supporters to “disrupt” the university’s Yom HaZikaron event, which honours those killed in terrorist attacks, including fallen soldiers.

That last part is beyond the pale of any sane person. Pissing on the memory of those who have fallen to barbarians.
I wonder how many actual students are in this encampment. Get the fire hose out.

johanna
johanna
May 14, 2024 10:39 am

“The Muslim community is the largest, and among the fastest growing, minority groups in Australia.
Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet underutilised, asset we have.
Muslim Votes Matter unlocks this highly influential tool which requires significant organisation, forward planning, and community mobilisation.
There are over 20 seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote. ”

They may be over-egging the pudding here. Hindus and Sikhs are numerous as well, although I haven’t been able to find figures specific to electorates. And, they loathe Muslims for very good reasons.

This public crowing might not be such a good idea. For one thing, it reveals Labor politicians for what they are – dedicated to power at all costs.

It also makes them look like puppets. Muppets, in fact.

We still have a chance to avoid the fate of the UK and some European countries. Let’s hope we make it.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 10:39 am

Nice one WSJ

The George Costanza Presidency

   

In a classic “Seinfeld” episode, George Costanza bemoans that every decision he’s made has been wrong. His life, as a result, has turned out the opposite of what he intended.

cohenite
May 14, 2024 10:51 am

I don’t know why but of all the terrible things happening lately this one sticks.

North Lakes woman Emma Lovell was killed when a teenager, then 17, stabbed her in the chest after entering her home in the early hours of December 26, 2022.

Supreme Court Justice Tom Sullivan on Monday sentenced the teen, now 19 years old, to 14 years jail after finding the offence was “particularly heinous” in the circumstances. In sentencing him to 14 years, Justice Sullivan said 503 days the teen spent in pre-sentence custody was declared as time served. So with time already served, the teenager will be eligible for release after serving more than nine years – or 70 per cent of the sentence – behind bars. Prosecutors have pushed for a life sentence for the teenager, asking Justice Sullivan during a sentencing hearing on May 3 to find the offence “particularly heinous”. Crown prosecutor David Nardone argued the teenager’s “high culpability” during the crime was because he went armed with a knife to the Lovell home
.
The court was told after the fatal blow, Mr Lovell was also stabbed in the back, then forced to the ground and kicked in the face.

Justice Sullivan said the teenager when arrested lied that he had slept from 9pm that night, and told police: “My auntie lives in Zillmere. You go ring her, I’ve got a f**king alibi from 9’oclock to now”.
While detained outside the residence, the teen was seen laughing.

Justice Sullivan said the teenager was prepared to, and did, use a knife at the time he attempted to flee from the Lovell’s during the confrontation.

?“You could have, but did not, discard the knife before the fatal blow was dealt,” he said.

“You were prepared to use violence … the kicking of Mr Lovell’s head was gratuitous violence.

The court was told the teenager attributed his offending to the days-long drug binge he had been on before the offending.

Justice Sullivan said the teenager had also been given multiple court-imposed probation orders for other offences. The child had a lengthy criminal history prior to the murder, including 16 break-and-enters where two of the homes were occupied. Yet he was not in jail.

During a sentencing hearing on May 3, the court was told the teenager was just four months shy of turning 18 when he fatally stabbed Ms Lovell.

We live in the best country where there are individual freedoms/rights. But what is destroying this country is the alp/greens removal of individual responsibility. The 2 Rs go together: rights and responsibility. But the left has removed responsibility and replaced it with excuses like racism, colonialism, sexism etc. Result: breakdown in law and order and no respect for our country and its traditions.
This monster hid behind drug use and his upbringing. He should have got life and been named.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 11:17 am

The Left may not like Elon’s Twitter but he has quite a bit of impact in the real world.

GameStop Stock Surges Nearly 70% After “Roaring Kitty” Returns to X (14 May)

GameStop surged to nearly 70 percent after Roaring Kitty, the online streamer who drove the GameStop short squeeze in January 2021, made his first social media post in three years on Monday. … GameStop traded up as much as $36.70, or 110 percent, on Monday morning. … The post, which amassed 73,000 likes and 14 million views in 15 hours, was a simple cartoon of a man adjusting himself in his chair to become more alert with what appears to be a video game controller in his hands. On his profile, he has pinned a four-minute video explaining the GameStop short squeeze from 2020. He continued to post memes throughout Monday morning.

Yep a single X commenter made a company’s stock rise 110% just by posting one tweet. Heh, try ignoring the platform lefties, when it has that much market power.

shatterzzz
May 14, 2024 11:23 am

“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this,” he added. “We are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government and it’s something that we make no bones about – this is completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour.”
 
No probs with the Hamas/Gazan Oct 7 massacre but “unacceptable behaviour ” when your Israeli ..
 
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/total-outrage-white-house-condemns-israeli-settlers-attack-on-gaza-aid-trucks/ar-BB1mkt9P?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=490ad9d6bddf4ddaa4fe1896d4f80677&ei=53

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 11:30 am

Julie Inman Grant gets a one finger salute:

Gab Stands Firm Against Australia’s Censorship Demands (13 May)

After a recent censorship effort by German authorities, yet another government has demanded that free speech platform and Big Tech alternative Gab censor content that the government disapproves of. And once again, the platform is refusing to comply.

This time, the demand concerns the removal of content about one of the recent Sydney stabbings – and is part of Australia’s wider censorship drive targeting multiple social sites. And, it comes coupled with a threat of a huge fine. …

All this, the Gab CEO believes, means that the video is both newsworthy and in the public interest. As such, he qualified the removal notice and the threat of a fine equivalent to some half a million US dollars, “a clear violation of our users’ freedom of speech,” that he said his platform would not commit.

Well done that man. Mzzz Inman Goebbels has no jurisdiction over you, she can piss up a wall.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 11:36 am
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 11:42 am

exclusive

State Labor MPs push ‘alternative proteins’ – tofu, bugs & algae – to replace meat days before live sheep ban
Josh ZimmermanThe West Australian
Tue, 14 May 2024 6:44AM

Comments

Five WA Labor MPs recommended the Government provide more support for “alternative proteins” — such as tofu, insects and algae — just two days before it was confirmed live sheep exports would be banned from 2028.
The “discussion paper” was tabled to Parliament on the same day State Treasurer Rita Saffioti handed down her first Budget last week.
It was researched and authored by the Education and Health standing committee, which is chaired by Gosnells MP Chris Tallentire alongside Maylands MP Lisa Baker, Hillarys MP Caitlin Collins, Dawesville MP Lisa Munday and Pilbara MP Kevin Michel.
The report notes Australians eat twice the recommended amount of red meat — putting them at heightened risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease — and that livestock production “takes a toll on the environment” through the use large amounts of land and water, as well as “contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions”

Arky
May 14, 2024 11:45 am

Two smart ladies.
Daniela Camborne and Pippa Malmgren on China and Russia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65vWFBhZcYI

Oh come on
Oh come on
May 14, 2024 11:56 am

Some ABC article

Meanjin/Brisbane-based parenting and positive psychology expert Justin Coulson says “ultimately, the social media genie is out of the bottle, and we’re not getting the three wishes we hoped for”.

No comment about the comment. Where is Meanjin? Is it a city in China? Did a quick search…it’s an Indigenous name for the land some of Brisbane is situated on. Wtf? So we are going there, are we? We’re going to be renaming our major cities with some Aboriginal name that was probably made up by some Aboriginal Inc committee with an extremely generous expenses budget a couple of minutes ago? Within 5 years you’ll mention Brisbane and some arsehole will make a point of expressly correcting you or doing it in a slightly (but not much) more subtle way, ie. responding with ‘oh yes I was in MEANJIN last year’ and say ‘Meanjin’ another 15 times in the next few sentences.

Well, I am going to do what I currently do when people pull that shit after I say ‘Bombay’, which they correct to ‘Mumbai’* – I’ll say ‘Bombay’ another 15 times in the next few sentences.

Incidentally, this is coming for every Australian city. The cat is out of the bag. The regional Aboriginal Incs across the country will think the Meanjin gambit is a great idea and get together to come up with alternative names to be used for each city, and the ABC types will clamour to use them profusely in order to show their virtue and allyship.

Hell, no. I will never say these names except when I’m taking the piss out of them.

I wonder – is this where we, the Australian people, draw the line? We didn’t with Ayers Rock, but virtually no one lives there and has any meaningful history with the place. Okay, Uluru, whatever. But I think it could well be different if the names of the places we were born in, lived in, raised families etc are on the chopping block.

*which they invariably pronounce incorrectly – I’ve been to India, been to Bombay, watched Indian TV…’Mumbai’ rhymes with ‘Bombay’. They just switch the ‘B’ for an ‘M’. Unlike other Indian cities which the British renamed and reverted back to their original names after the they buggered off, Bombay was founded and named by the Brits. So ‘Mumbai’ is just a Hindi version of ‘Bombay’ that sounds virtually the same when spoken.

Last edited 6 months ago by Oh come on
Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
May 14, 2024 11:57 am

Beautiful crisp morning in Armidale: clear blue sky enlivened by chemtrails and evidences of HAARP weather manipulation – some clearly visible radiation beams apparently chasing aircraft flying north.

I’d bet this doesn’t get a mention in the media.

bons
bons
May 14, 2024 12:08 pm

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/21/germany-so-much-for-the-grown-up-country/&ved=2ahUKEwjxrc_8hYyGAxXqyDgGHZzuCzcQFnoECBoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2d0PezJSWWU12FMN2stMvd

A brilliant expose by Fraser Myers on how the risks of political consensus (uniparty) and one fascist demagogue (Merkel) destroyed Germany.

The parallels with SFL behaviour are terrifying.

Oh come on
Oh come on
May 14, 2024 12:10 pm

Beautiful crisp morning in Armidale

oh yes the weather in Wakkarhmada is glorious, isn’t it? Quintessential Wakkarhmada weather for this time of year. I love living in Wakkarhmada. Don’t you love living in Wakkarhmada? Wakkarhmada for me!

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 12:23 pm

State Labor MPs push ‘alternative proteins’ – tofu, bugs & algae – to replace meat days before live sheep ban

Can’t manage hospitals, schools or crime.

Want to tell us what to eat.

Take a hike.

Lysander
Lysander
May 14, 2024 12:38 pm

YOU VILL EAT ZE BUGS!!!

AND YOU VILL BE HEPPY!

(I honestly can’t believe this is happening in my own State… how does GGF’d sound?)

Cassie of Sydney
May 14, 2024 12:43 pm

State Labor MPs push ‘alternative proteins’ – tofu, bugs & algae – to replace meat days before live sheep ban

Firstly, these ‘state Labor MPs’ can go jump.

Secondly, I will not be eating bugs and algae.

Finally, I don’t mind a bit of tofu…occasionally, Japanese style.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
May 14, 2024 12:44 pm

State Labor MPs push ‘alternative proteins’ – tofu, bugs & algae – to replace meat days before live sheep ban

Can’t manage hospitals, schools or crime.

Want to tell us what to eat.

Don’t be a Debbie downer.

Under Labor, Australia has the opportunity to be a global bugs and algae superpower. Live exports to the Middle East without the drama.

Add it to the list.

Kneel
Kneel
May 14, 2024 1:02 pm

State Labor MPs push ‘alternative proteins’ – tofu, bugs & algae – to replace meat days before live sheep ban”

That’s SO yesterday!
The big thing now is lab grown meat – cultured animal cells.
The US allows it, some parts of Europe are banning it.
If you wanted to, you could eat this and it wouldn’t be “cruel” to animals, so would it be fine for vegetarians and/or vegans?

Diogenes
Diogenes
May 14, 2024 1:12 pm

Under Labor, Australia has the opportunity to be a global bugs and algae superpower. 

Given the solar & wind factory precedent we could clear the Great Barrier Reef to grow the algae 😉 :-O

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 1:15 pm

Under Labor, Australia has the opportunity to be a global bugs and algae superpower. Live exports to the Middle East without the drama.

Small problem.

Bugs are Haram.

[Small problem…get it?]

😀

Last edited 6 months ago by Roger
Boambee John
Boambee John
May 14, 2024 1:20 pm

On the subject of Mooslimes claiming that they, in effect, control 30HoR seats, that is unlikely to go down well in many nearby seats currently held by the Liars.

Our aside the Hindu and Sikh voters, plenty of “normies” are less than impressed with that style of triumphalism and the arrogance it demonstrates. The Liars might later come to regret tying their future to an arrogant ethnic and religious minority.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 1:23 pm

Whistleblower jailed for almost six years after leaking files to the ABC over alleged Afghanistan war crimes

  • David McBride, 60, jailed for almost six years over leaked documents
  • Judge accused former military lawyer’s actions as a ‘breach of trust’

Daily Mail.

Diogenes
Diogenes
May 14, 2024 1:24 pm

Meanjin/Brisbane-based parenting and positive psychology expert Justin Coulson says

Wow he lives on Garden Point – I am super impressed. AIUI that is the entire area covered by the name Meanjin.

Alamak!
Alamak!
May 14, 2024 1:27 pm

On the subject of Mooslimes claiming that they, in effect, control 30HoR seats, that is unlikely to go down well in many nearby seats currently held by the Liars.

First Rule of democratic lower house fight club is you do not talk about the democratic lower house fight club.

Repeat First Rule until its understood by Labor. And then have the Wong chap explain it to Albo.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 1:27 pm

David McBride sentenced to five years, eight months jail for leaking classified military documents
By ben packham

  • Foreign Affairs and Defence Correspondent
  • 12:48PM May 14, 2024

Former army legal officer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months jail, with a non-parole period of 27 months, for stealing classified Defence secrets and sharing them with journalists.
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop found McBride had committed a “gross breach of trust” and had shown “no contrition for his offending”.
McBride’s supporters cried “shame on you” as Justice Massop delivered the sentence, which his legal team vowed to appeal.
Justice Mossop said McBride was “not such a bad lawyer” that he could have genuinely believed he was not committing a crime.
“He hoped that his conduct would ultimately be somehow vindicated. That is very different from an honest belief no offence was occurring,” he said.
The principle of “general deterrence” was key in formulating the penalty, Justice Mossop said, noting “self-confident people with strong opinions” needed to be deterred from making unlawful disclosures.
Ahead of the sentence, McBride declared he had “never been so proud to be an Australian”.
“I may have broken the law, but I did not break my oath to the people of Australia, and the soldiers who keep us safe,” he said as he entered the court.
McBride – who serviced two tours in Afghanistan – leaked the classified documents to the ABC, which used them to produce its 2017 Afghan Files reports alleging a cover-up of war crimes by Australian soldiers.

The judge said McBride’s conduct had caused significant harm to the commonwealth by releasing Defence secrets, including its rules of engagement in Afghanistan.
He said Australia’s foreign partners had to be informed of the leak, which may have “reduced their willingness to share information with Australia”.
Justice Mossop said the release of the information risked informing Australia’s adversaries on the ADF’s use of force and its limitations, offering them a “technical advantage”.
The former army major pleaded guilty in November to three charges of stealing and unlawfully sharing secret information, after Justice Mossop struck out his planned defence that he was doing his duty as an army officer.
The court heard McBride believed the ADF was undertaking “illegal” and “overzealous” murder investigations into serving soldiers who had killed captured Afghans while defending themselves.
He believed such investigations were of a “political nature”, and made a complaint to the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force. But the IGADF found McBride’s complaint could not be substantiated.
The court heard McBride stole 235 Defence documents from his workplace, 207 of were marked “secret”, storing them in plastic tubs in his Canberra house.
On one occasion in 2016, when he was moving house, the documents remained in the tubs in the lounge room during a real estate inspection.
“Unsurprisingly, this did not comply with the Commonwealth government’s policy and storage of information bearing protective marking secret,” Justice Mossop said.
He said “secret” and “top secret” security classifications were designed to protect material that, should it be released, “could be expected to cause serious damage” to the national interest or loss of life.
The court heard McBride leaked secret documents to three journalists including the ABC’s Dan Oakes.
The journalist told a “totally different story to the one I was pushing”, said McBride, who was furious at the suggestion that Australia’s special forces “kill people unnecessarily”.
Justice Mossop said he accepted McBride was of good character but said he had become “obsessed with the correctness of his own feelings” to the point that he was unable to comprehend when his views may have been incorrect.
He found his conduct was honourable only to the extent that it was not motivated by financial gain or to assist to Australia’s adversaries.
The Human Rights Law Centre said the sentence represented a “dark day for democracy”.
“The imprisonment of a whistleblower will have a grave chilling effect on potential truth-tellers,” the centre’s Kieran Pender said.
“Our democracy suffers when people can’t speak up about potential wrongdoing. There is no public interest in prosecuting whistleblowers.”

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 1:28 pm

The Liars might later come to regret tying their future to an arrogant ethnic and religious minority.

As I’ve suggested.

Also, if you look at the recent UK local elections, the big story was the defection of a significant portion of Labour’s traditional Muslim vote to the radical left – Islamo-Greens, Independents and Galloway’s mob. The lesson being that once you start indulging this voter bloc, their demands become more extreme and when you can’t meet them, they defect.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
May 14, 2024 1:41 pm

Meanjin/Brisbane-based parenting and positive psychology expert Justin Coulson says

Wow he lives on Garden Point – I am super impressed. AIUI that is the entire area covered by the name Meanjin.

What/where is this “Meanjin” of which they speak?
Those who’ve booked a flight from Perth to Brisbane, may find they’re instead boarding a flight to Turrbal.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
May 14, 2024 1:41 pm

Small problem.

Bugs are Haram.

[Small problem…get it?]

OK, OK, details.
Algae, then.

Look, this is broad brush thinking here, adding $329 billion to GDP plus 232,900 well-paying jobs.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
May 14, 2024 1:44 pm

David McBride sentenced to five years, eight months jail 

To serve two years, three months.

Boambee John
Boambee John
May 14, 2024 1:50 pm

The court heard McBride leaked secret documents to three journalists including the ABC’s Dan Oakes.
The journalist told a “totally different story to the one I was pushing”, said McBride, who was furious at the suggestion that Australia’s special forces “kill people unnecessarily”.

The section in bold explains why the ACT Supreme Court threw him in jail.

Whistleblowers are protected only if their information suits the ever so precious narrative. Their ABC twisted the story to do just that.

shatterzzz
May 14, 2024 1:58 pm

Sad to hear ..! some disgusting “fan” berating that loveable Soufs personality, Latrine, with the sort of “blek” taunts that Sam Kerr excels at &, of course, in keeping with “proud” 251 tradition the offender is being soundly “boo-ed” whilst “Sam” is applauded cos her ‘victim was “plod” .. it’s not who you “blek” but the ethnicity you “blek” …..
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/wighton-calls-racism-alleged-mitchell-024037382.html

Vicki
Vicki
May 14, 2024 1:59 pm

The court heard McBride believed the ADF was undertaking “illegal” and “overzealous” murder investigations into serving soldiers who had killed captured Afghans while defending themselves.
He believed such investigations were of a “political nature”, and made a complaint to the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force. But the IGADF found McBride’s complaint could not be substantiated.
The court heard McBride stole 235 Defence documents from his workplace, 207 of were marked “secret”, storing them in plastic tubs in his Canberra house.

So, McBride leaked documents that supported the “misdemeanours”? That is, argued that they were not, in fact, misdemeanours? A confusing report.

Vicki
Vicki
May 14, 2024 2:04 pm

I suspect McBride is a martyr to a good cause viz the destruction of our enemies. However, the IDF hierarchy doesn’t see it that way.

I understand that the IDF are having a hard time recruiting.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 2:07 pm

22m ago

Wilkie blasts Labor for ‘punishing’ whistleblowerStaff writers

Independent MP and staunch David McBride supporter Andrew Wilkie has criticised Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for not exercising his powers to keep Mr McBride out of jail while accusing the government of not practising what they preach.
Mr Wilkie alleged that the decision of the Labor government to not intervene was to dissuade further whistleblowers in the future.
“I tell you why the government behaved this way,” he said. “Because governments, be they LNP or Labor, hate whistleblowers. They hate people speaking up. They hate people shining a light on official misconduct.
“They consistently want to punish the whistleblower, and they consistently want to send a message to would-be whistleblowers to not cause problems for governments. That’s how I explain it today.”
Former army legal officer McBride, 60, was today sentenced to five years and eight months jail, with a non-parole period of 27 months, for stealing classified Defence secrets and sharing them with journalists.
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop found McBride had committed a “gross breach of trust” and had shown “no contrition for his offending”.
Mr Wilkie later said governments have said in the past that “whistleblowers have there place in a democracy, and they should have some protection..
“But frankly that looks more and more like lip service when this government has no interest in proving the protections in the Corporations Act, and has shown little interest in proving the protections in the Public Disclosure Act,” Mr Wilkie said.
“Instead the Attorney-General chose not to intervene. We’ve got to understand here that the Attorney-General has the legal power to intervene in a case like this. He has a responsibility to intervene in a case like this,” he said.
“The federal Attorney-General chose not to and the result being that we had this astonishing turn of events today, where not only was the first Australian to front a court for war crimes a whistleblower, but he is also the first person to go to jail for war crimes as a whistleblower.
“This is a shameful day for the Australian government. I wish Mr McBride strength as he goes through his prison sentence and I criticise the court in no way. The court merely applied the law.”
– Jordan

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
May 14, 2024 2:21 pm

McBride and two other military lawyers have been pushing for years for an investigation into senior command accountability for any war crimes in Afghanistan.
If you accept the Brereton investigation findings as Chief of Defence does then how come such war crimes were being committed over several years but no senior officer was aware and took any action.
One aspect you will never see mentioned in the newspaper articles or Brereton investigation is what aerial surveillance saw in real time and recorded. In one major outdoor “incident” involving BRS there was a RAAF drone and Orion aircraft (13 crew) overhead. Simply not possible they did not see what happened. However if they did then goes right to the top in terms of accountability.
If interested I recommend the Twitter account of ex military lawyer Major Stuart McCarthy (go back to September just after BRS defamation case ended). I have heard McCarthy say the investigating journalists were told by Defence “Corporal not Generals”.

Brislurker
Brislurker
May 14, 2024 2:31 pm

Labor getting desperate in Qld. Placing blame on Federal govt. Myles and Treasurer Dick are demanding that Albanese govt. cut immigration as Qld cannot cope with the population growth. Ignore the fact that Myles took over the town planning for the Redlands because he had a intense dislike for former mayor. He pushed more housing and smaller blocks despite the council being update for the demand that the govt. mandated. No increase in infrastracture spending of any kind. Needless to day major problems in that one area and all caused by Labor, in particular Myles.

Zatara
Zatara
May 14, 2024 2:33 pm

U.N. Cuts Gaza Death Toll Figures by Half, Confirming Hamas Is Lying About Casualties

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs drastically reduced its child fatality figures, dropping them to 7,796 on May 8 from 14,500 just the day before. It also revised the figures for the number of women killed, lowering them from 9,500 to 4,959.

Anyone else shocked? No?

Zatara
Zatara
May 14, 2024 2:38 pm

The journalist told a “totally different story to the one I was pushing”, said McBride, who was furious at the suggestion that Australia’s special forces “kill people unnecessarily”.

Just spitballing here you understand… but maybe that’s why the authorities were sitting on the information you leaked, because it could be twisted by people with agendas?

Baba
Baba
May 14, 2024 3:00 pm

The Free Beacon report is a misrepresentation. Disappointing I know.

U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said the ministry’s figures – cited regularly by the U.N. its reporting on the seven-month-long conflict – now reflected a breakdown of the 24,686 deaths of “people who have been fully identified.”

“There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those – which of those are children, which of those are women – that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete,”

Zatara
Zatara
May 14, 2024 3:08 pm

“There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those – which of those are children, which of those are women

Now tell us about this marvelous facility where the 10,000 plus bodies are being stored, and why they can’t tell the difference between a child sized corpse and that of an adult.

Not to mention getting around the Muslim laws regarding rapid burial.

Dunny Brush
Dunny Brush
May 14, 2024 3:13 pm

McBride gets binned and the hack got an Order of Australia. The system works!

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 3:14 pm

McBride ruling : Leaks like this may stop allies sharing intelligence.

Like the US withholding intelligence from Israel?

McBride was done over, with the help of the ABC, because he said the it wasn’t the guys on the ground fault, but the shiny bums and the rules of engagement they put in place.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 3:15 pm

Zat

JD Vance is the number two pick in the betting after Scott. He’d make a great VP and eventually Prez. Very bright dude.

https://electionbettingodds.com/RepublicanVicePresident_2024.html

I think Trump could do better than the fave, Scott.

cohenite
May 14, 2024 3:23 pm

Incredible numbers, particular Nevada.

They are incredible because they show that a large minority of the population still prefers the senile pervert. Whether this is due to the stupidity of people or the impact of the msm or both, I don’t know.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 3:37 pm

It’s both, Cronkite. We see it here too, with the rusted-on.

There are still a bunch of shy voters unwilling to divulge and perhaps even tell pollsters they are voting for the child molester. And remember, Republicans are being hunted, so the shy Trump voter figure could be between 5% and 10%. Be conservative and add 5% to his lead.
He could actually take New York. Even California will see a narrowing. The con artist governor can’t explain $20 billion expenditure, and most likely the money was stolen.
 

Last edited 6 months ago by JC
Kneel
Kneel
May 14, 2024 3:40 pm

“I think Trump could do better than the fave, Scott.”

VP is presumably, but not certainly, the successor – DJT only has one more term, don’t forget.Other posts are also, err, interesting.

What about AG? Kash Patel please! He’s seen all the Nunes stuff and was a prosecutor in the DoJ, so he knows where the skeletons are.

Sec State? Ramaswamy – so he can “learn the ropes” of how the deep state works, make some contacts etc etc. With that info/training, he’d make a great Prez.

Baba
Baba
May 14, 2024 3:41 pm

Now tell us about this marvelous facility where the 10,000 plus bodies are being stored, 

They are buried. Did you miss the IDF digging up graves at Al Shifa hospital looking for dead hostages? If they found any we would know by now.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
May 14, 2024 3:41 pm

JD Vance is the number two pick in the betting after Scott. He’d make a great VP and eventually Prez. Very bright dude.
Ramaswamy is the best, most incisive commentator in the race.

Zippster
Zippster
May 14, 2024 3:41 pm

Budget 2024: Labor to Invest $288 Million into Rolling out the National Digital IDThe digital ID system will make cybersecurity ’simpler, safer, and more secure,’ says Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 3:44 pm

I’ve read a couple of articles on the left side saying that if Dementia can’t pull up in the polls and therefore even the cheating won’t get him over the line, the Demons should install Crooked Hilary into the slot at the convention.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 3:46 pm

Nigel Farage

No More Lockdowns

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 3:48 pm

Bungonia Bee

May 14, 2024 3:41 pm

JD Vance is the number two pick in the betting after Scott. He’d make a great VP and eventually Prez. Very bright dude.

Ramaswamy is the best, most incisive commentator in the race.

It would be a hard pick between the two, at least as presidential candidates.But for VP, I believe Vance has an inspiring CV while Vivek would be needed in a very important executive role like Homeland. If anyone can fix the border once and for all, it would be him.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 3:48 pm

A few things Baris has been saying over the last week or so.
1) RFK jr is no longer taking votes from Trump in key regions (WI, MI, MN). Remember the national polls for RFK jr don’t matter, it’s all about which states he’s dragging votes off Trump.
2) In some regions the black vote for Trump is up to 25%.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 3:51 pm

Kneel

May 14, 2024 3:40 pm

“I think Trump could do better than the fave, Scott.”

VP is presumably, but not certainly, the successor – DJT only has one more term, don’t forget.Other posts are also, err, interesting.

Keel, Trumpster is ~78. I think this time around, he needs someone that people would perceive as easily slotting into the big chair if the dude goes to heaven.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 3:55 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7GAg8sWDpI

Why Middle Eastern Countries won’t accept Palestinian refugees.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 4:07 pm

RFK reminds me a lot of the stupid son in the series, Succession, who wanted to be president.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 4:10 pm

To be clear, addicts can do many things and function very well in positions with a lot responsibility.
You just don’t want them at the top of a decision making tree with real power.
The Oval Office being one of them.

JC
JC
May 14, 2024 4:11 pm

I don’t think he would take it, but never say never. There was talk of Jamie Dimon as Treasury Secretary under Trump. I don’t think it would work though.

Lysander
Lysander
May 14, 2024 4:11 pm

I do like Vikranthaswannies but he’s still too green and shoots from the hip without thinking. He’ll have a go at POTUS another day…

I mean, this does go to show how smart and quick DJT is that he shoots from the hip always, and he’s always pretty spot on.

Scott is ok I guess… a bit dry but VPOTUS isn’t that high a profile gig and he’s certainly better than the Karmaliar.

Maybe Vance is the way to go… we’ll see soon enough…

John Brumble
John Brumble
May 14, 2024 4:12 pm

Did McBride -always- say he did it to exonerate troops?

Zatara
Zatara
May 14, 2024 4:13 pm

Even California will see a narrowing. The con artist governor can’t explain $20 billion expenditure, and most likely the money was stolen.

The fact that news of a secret new petrol tax just leaked out in CA isn’t doing the Dems much good either there either.

A longstanding emissions reduction program may lead to a 50-cent increase in gasoline prices within two years in California, according to a little-known state air quality regulator report.

In September, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s primary environmental regulator, reported gas prices will rise next year by about 50 cents a gallon and every year thereafter to aid in clean air efforts. The price increase does not include the existing gas tax in the state.

The report foresees gasoline price increases due to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard reforms that were created in 2007, likely rising by 47 cents next year and 52 cents by 2026. Diesel prices could climb by 59 cents this year and 66 cents in two years. Long-term projections suggest gasoline could surge by $1.15 and diesel by $1.50 per gallon from 2031 to 2046, with jet fuel increasing by $1.21.

The air board staff later called the gas price hike projections “incomplete” in a December report, focusing instead on the cost savings to drivers as more people transition to EVs.

$.50 per gallon increase in state petrol tax in 2025, followed by another in 2026. Yeah, that’s a winner.

cohenite
May 14, 2024 4:24 pm

Brendon O’Neil compares that insufferable little bitch greta with Eden Golan, the Israeli-Russian 20-year-old who sang for Israel in the Eurovision finals in Malmo.

Queen Greta has exposed the truth about the green movement (telegraph.co.uk)

cohenite
May 14, 2024 4:26 pm
JC
JC
May 14, 2024 4:28 pm

You know, Trump is capable of assembling a fantastic administration. It could knock the ball right out the park.

The energy issue would essentially be resolved, and it would be fascinating to see the enormous possibilities created by productivity gains resulting from robotics and AI. China will be completely rooted if robotics and artificial intelligence get significant traction, as there will be no need to outsource most manufacturing. It would return home.

We saw gains of enormous magnitude in the 90s when the internet was being set up. In certain quarters, we were witnessing non-inflationary growth rates of 5% plus. Only developing nations that are headed in the right direction exhibit these growth rates. It could potentially be an incredible time save for potential negatives like Taiwan etc.

In terms of turning things back and righting the ship, several people have suggested that it’s impossible because Trump is one man. Obviously, it’s true that he is one man, but it’s also missing the fact that this one man would be hiring others, and they would be hiring more like-minded people. It’s not really one person.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 4:31 pm

Attached is the best take on McBride.
Not the most complete, but the best.

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

Yes, it is friendlyjordies.
And it’s a case of forget the messenger, remember the message.
Which is exactly what a lot of former DNC donors are now publicly saying in relation to Trump.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 4:34 pm

Cohenite, they made a movie about your cute owls.
It’s in the Foxtel movie store at the moment.
“Love Lies Bleeding”.
It’s got that Kristen Stewart bird in it.
Can you post a review, Wolfman style once you watch it?

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 4:36 pm

Speaking of Kristen Stewart, she’s in a movie called Underwater.
One of the scariest movies I’ve seen in years.
Will give you nightmares.

rosie
rosie
May 14, 2024 5:04 pm

It’s funny as letterboxes don’t even seem to attend evening prayers at mosques but feel the need to pray in public places.

cohenite
May 14, 2024 5:05 pm

feelthebern
 May 14, 2024 4:34 pm

Cohenite, they made a movie about your cute owls.
It’s in the Foxtel movie store at the moment.
“Love Lies Bleeding”.

Forget that lesso crap. Here’s a real cute owl

cute-owl-breasts
Top Ender
Top Ender
May 14, 2024 5:07 pm

Cohenite, re: Queen Greta has exposed the truth about the green movement

Any chance you can post the full article?

cohenite
May 14, 2024 5:13 pm

Queen Greta has exposed the truth about the green movement
Any chance you can post the full article?

So, Greta Thunberg has a new cause. She’s found a new crusade to throw her weight behind. Forget saving the planet – now she wants to save Palestine.

Yes, the pint-sized prophetess of doom has swapped raging against industrialism for raging against Israel. Mother Nature will just have to wait – her erstwhile valiant defender is busy fixing the Middle East now.

Yesterday, Greta was snapped at the protest in Malmo, Sweden against Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest.

She looked the part. She had a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders and a smug look on her face: the two must-haves of every puffed-up bourgeois activist who gets off on fuming against Israel.

The keffiyeh really has become the uniform of the self-righteous. Go into a hip coffee shop or overpriced Soho burger joint and I guarantee you’ll see a Gen Z’er decked out in the Palestinian scarf.

Whatever happened to the sin of “cultural appropriation”? Not long ago, the right-on raged against white dudes who wear their hair in dreadlocks and white women who don kominos. “Stop stealing other people’s culture!”, they’d yell. Yet now they themselves spend their days in Arab attire.

That image of Greta in Malmo, looking very satisfied with herself, summed up the role the keffiyeh plays in the life of the 21st-century activist. Keffiyeh-wearing is less about drawing attention to the plight of the Palestinians than drawing attention to you. Look at me in my Arab garb, aren’t I good and hyper socially aware – that’s the needy cry of these hipster appropriators.

Yet beneath their radical chic, darker sentiments lurk. Their boilerplate hatred for Israel can have horrible consequences. So while young Greta was signalling her virtue on the streets of Malmo, another young woman was holed up in her hotel room for fear of mob assault.

It was Eden Golan, the Israeli-Russian 20-year-old who sang for Israel in the Eurovision finals in Malmo.

Golan’s inclusion in Eurovision sickened the anti-Israel protesters. Israel, they said, must be given the boot over its “genocide in Gaza” – their juvenile and historically illiterate term for Israel’s war against Hamas.

A mob even swarmed around the hotel Ms Golan was staying in. She received death threats. Things were so bad that she was warned not to leave her room. She was given a 24-hour security detail.

Is this really “progressive activism”? It looks more like bullying to me. The bullying of a young woman by a baying mob of Israel-bashers.

How galling that Greta should have been in the thick of such a regressive protest. This is someone who has spoken out about her own experiences of bullying. Who has said that women in the public eye get too much flak.
Yet now she preens at a protest that has had the consequence, intentional or otherwise, of filling a young woman with such dread that she has essentially become a prisoner in her own hotel.

We might call this woke privilege. Because Greta subscribes to chattering-class correct-think on every issue – climate change, transgenderism, Israel – she is granted the freedom to go about her business as she sees fit.

Ms Golan, on the other hand, is denied such basic liberty. Her national heritage, her devotion to her homeland, marks her out as morally suspect. And thus she must hide. “Shame!”, protesters shouted, as if she were a modern-day witch deserving of a dunking.

It is tempting to see Greta’s conversion from the climate-change cult to the anti-Israel religion as just bandwagon-jumping.

Perhaps her saviour complex, her burning sense of virtue, just needs a new outlet. So, like others of her generation, she ditches climate and trans and all the rest and moves on to “Palestine solidarity”. That’s the issue on which you can really make moral waves these days.

But I think there’s something else going on, too. The truth is that climate activism and anti-Israel agitation are very comfy bedfellows. There are even some creepy commonalities between green agitation and Israel’s greatest ideological foe: radical Islam.

Both, at root, represent a disgust with modernity. Both the privileged Western weepers over industrial society and the Islamist haters of Israel share an aversion to the modern world, to progress, to Enlightenment itself.
  
Hence we can even have a situation where Muslim activists who yell “Allahu Akbar” can be elected as councillors for the Green Party.

The upper-middle class recycling obsessive in Hampstead might seem a million miles from the bearded radical who publicly sings the praises of Allah – but they share an instinctive revulsion for capitalist society. One sees it as a crime against Mother Nature, the other as an affront to Muhammad.

To both sides, Israel is the pinnacle of the modernity they hate. A young, confident, entrepreneurial nation that rendered the desert a land of plenty? Boo. Hiss. Cast its people from our social circles.
 
So it makes sense that Greta has temporarily ditched Gaia for Gaza. For this crisis, too, furnishes her with an opportunity to advertise her pious rejection of the modern world. 

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
May 14, 2024 5:30 pm

The Doom Pixie reduced to Xenophon lite stunts. Sad.

More of a doom goblin, I’d have said.

wivenhoe
wivenhoe
May 14, 2024 5:37 pm

So it makes sense that Greta has temporarily ditched Gaia for Gaza. 

Sounds as though she is searching for that elusive “G” spot.

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 5:55 pm

M[i]les and Treasurer Dick are demanding that Albanese govt. cut immigration as Qld cannot cope with the population growth.

Racist xenophobes.

H B Bear
H B Bear
May 14, 2024 6:00 pm

On Budget night it is easy to become despondent. It is important at these times to take a minute to laugh in the face of all that ails you. In that spirit, take a moment to revisit what now seems a golden age, the 2012-13 Budget speech.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i8hZ0wxSUV0

Diogenes
Diogenes
May 14, 2024 6:00 pm

What/where is this “Meanjin” of which they speak?

Those who’ve booked a flight from Perth to Brisbane, may find they’re instead boarding a flight to Turrbal.

The airport is in the bit of Brisbane called Turrbal by whichever local mob settled that area.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
May 14, 2024 6:04 pm

JC
 May 14, 2024 4:07 pm

RFK reminds me a lot of the stupid son in the series, Succession, who wanted to be president.

Bwah ha ha ha.
They are neck and neck in the fruitloop stakes.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
May 14, 2024 6:08 pm

Piss off you silly bitch.

—–

Danger Dane Reviews:

Albo would love to ban this video. Anthony Albanese Elon Musk Julie Inman Grant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSV28Aqla5M

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 6:08 pm

The Doom Pixie reduced to Xenophon lite stunts. Sad.

Remarkable likeness!

comment image

Salvatore - Iron Publican
May 14, 2024 6:10 pm

The airport is in the bit of Brisbane called Turrbal by whichever local mob settled that area.

By this yardstick, flights to Narrm, Eora, & other such places are about to become a whole lot more confusing.

Can’t wait for the day someone ends up in Adelaide when they thought they were flying from Cairns to Rockhampton, or something.

Cassie of Sydney
May 14, 2024 6:14 pm

Early this morning I rang my mother to check on her. She remains in hospital. She was incoherent and rambling about how she hadn’t slept all night and how she’d had had the most terrible headache throughout the night. I could tell she’d been given drugs to help her headache. I couldn’t make any sense out of her so, being concerned, I decided to take the day off. I spoke to my sister and she said she would leave her work early and come to the hospital. My sister and I wanted to speak to the doctor.

Mum’s fall two weeks ago had torn flesh off her arm and leg. It was a very severe fall. Because of its seriousness of the damage to her leg and arm, it is taking a long time to heal, probably normal for a woman in her eighties. Anyway, I arrived at the hospital, her eyes lit up seeing me, however I noticed she was ‘odd’. The nurses are truly marvellous, and patient. The doctor came and he examined her. He asked her about her headache, he’d seen her about 8.30 last night and he said to her that she was fine when he was there. She said…”oh yes, the headache started when I saw that ghastly Meghan on television”. The nurse, the doctor and I all said…”who?”, to which my mother babbled “that ghastly Meghan Markle’, she’s just dreadful”. I looked at the doctor and nurse who were both trying not to laugh. and then I started laughing out loud.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
May 14, 2024 6:16 pm

Remarkable likeness!

At least the Nazi chick is pretty.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 6:23 pm
Crossie
Crossie
May 14, 2024 6:27 pm

Jackie Lambie has become a caricature of a politician. She is now insisting, in her usual manner, on free sports coverage for everyone. Since when is watching sport a human right?

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
May 14, 2024 6:32 pm

Earlier:

Former army legal officer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months jail, with a non-parole period of 27 months, for stealing classified Defence secrets and sharing them with journalists

That’s not whistleblowing, that’s just theft.

If you compound that idiocy with a) giving those secrets to journalists, and b) believing they will use them honourably, then you are clearly the sort of person who goes to the shops wearing a onesie.

With a backpack. With a strap over each shoulder.

I believe the term ‘army legal officer’ goes a long way to explaining this.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 6:33 pm

Inman Grant gets taken to the woodshed by Federal beak…

Federal court eviscerates eSafety Commissioner’s takedown order against X, claiming it would interfere with ‘comity of nations’ (Sky News, 14 May)

X Corp had complied with the order by geo-blocking posts containing the footage, but the eSafety Commissioner claimed this was insufficient because Australians could still access the content if they were using a VPN. …

Federal Court Judge Geoffrey Kennett denied the eSafety Commissioner’s request for an injunction on Monday, with the full ruling being released on Tuesday morning.

Judge Kennett ruled that the Safety Commissioner’s demand went beyond what was “reasonable” because it would amount to Australian law being applied worldwide, when the jurisdiction “properly belongs to some other sovereign or state”.

“If given the reach contended for by the Commissioner, the removal notice would govern (and subject to punitive consequences under Australian law) the activities of a foreign corporation in the United States (where X Corp’s corporate decision-making occurs) and every country where its servers are located,” Judge Kennett wrote.

“It would likewise govern the relationships between that corporation and its users everywhere in the world.”

You may have an ego the size of a planet, but you don’t rule this planet. Go back to your WEF doghouse lady and lick your well deserved wounds. And leave us in peace.

KevinM
KevinM
May 14, 2024 6:33 pm

On a different note, I was talking to a friend in the US who works in the timber industry and I asked him about the mysterious notion of sustainability.

Him,
Sustainable harvesting programs started in the 1950s, increasing tree growth ever since.

The US is greening up, more forest now than at the time of the first pilgrims.

Question is, we take all the progressive crap and every fad from the
US, why not this?

Alamak!
Alamak!
May 14, 2024 6:35 pm

Spending $288M to securely bolt the MyGov/ATO stable door after 500M++ has already bolted.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-26/ato-reveals-cost-of-mygov-tax-identity-crime-fraud/102632572

Might not have happened if the refunds were collected in cash with passport or similar ID checks required …

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 6:41 pm

The US is greening up, more forest now than at the time of the first pilgrims.

I’d wager there are more trees in eastern Australia now than when the First Fleet arrived, outer suburban fringe clearing (which is a problem for fauna) notwithstanding.

Explorers and early settlers described (and occasionally painted) a park like landscape rather than virgin forest, which we now know was the result of indigenous burning practices.

KevinM
KevinM
May 14, 2024 6:42 pm

Former army legal officer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months jail, with a non-parole period of 27 months, for stealing classified Defence secrets and sharing them with journalists

That’s not whistleblowing, that’s just theft.

If you compound that idiocy with a) giving those secrets to journalists, and b) believing they will use them honourably, then you are clearly the sort of person who goes to the shops wearing a onesie.

That was my first thought, how naive, to be charitable, do you have to be to believe that journos won’t pursue their own agenda and use your info to accommodate same?

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 6:43 pm

Farage Launches Campaign Against Pandemic Treaty and to ‘Take Back Control’ From the World Health Organization

You keep posting this, Indolent, but the Tories have already said they won’t sign the treaty as is as it impinges on UK sovereignty.

Roger
Roger
May 14, 2024 6:47 pm

Jackie Lambie has become a caricature of a politician.

Is that even possible these days?

Since when is watching sport a human right?

Panem et circenses!

Last edited 6 months ago by Roger
cohenite
May 14, 2024 6:49 pm

It’s been a while but here’s The Punisher doing the laundry. He needs to do another load at the Whitehouse:

THE PUNISHER: DIRTY LAUNDRY [BOOTLEG UNIVERSE] (youtube.com)

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 14, 2024 6:49 pm

Vandals attack colonial statue of former Tasmanian premier William Crowther on eve of court ruling
By matthew denholm

  • Tasmania Correspondent
  • 5:38PM May 14, 2024
  • 30 Comments

A controversial statue of a colonial-era premier has been significantly damaged on the eve of a court ruling about whether it should be removed.
The large statue of Tasmania’s William Crowther, in Hobart’s Franklin Square, has been vandalised, with its legs cut through at least halfway, apparently by grinding equipment.
A planning tribunal is expected on Wednesday to rule whether or not the statue can be removed, after a Hobart City Council decision to topple it was appealed by Crowther defenders.
It appeared someone could not await the outcome, with the statue’s legs cut so far through the council is understood to be concerned it may be unstable.
Hobart councillors are understood to have been advised of “significant damage” to the statue, and that an investigation is underway involving Tasmania Police.
Last year, the council’s planning committee voted to approve the council’s own application to remove the statue, over concerns about Crowther’s alleged role in mutilating an Aboriginal corpse.

Crowther, a surgeon noted for his work for the poor but also as a bone hunter, was in 1869 accused of removing and stealing the skull from the corpse of Aboriginal man William Lanne – a claim he denied.
Removal of the statue would be the first toppling of a monument to an Australian premier, amid the global push to remove symbols of colonialism.
The legal challenge before the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal argued the removal decision was based on incomplete and false heritage information.
One of the councillors opposed to the statue’s removal, Louise Elliot, on Tuesday condemned the attack.
“The statue was paid for by the people of Hobart in 1880s and the people of Hobart have again be fighting to save it,“ Ms Elliot said.
“I have no doubt that the pathetic hypocrites behind this vandalism believe themselves to be kind and tolerant, when it’s clear they’re blinded by their moral righteousness.
“The arrogance to think that you can destroy public property for your own narrow minded activism is astounding. It’s terrible to know that the council I’m a part of has fuelled this division.”
Former alderman Jeff Briscoe, who took the appeal with others, including a Crowther descendant, blamed a “misleading campaign” for “directly” provoking the vandalism.
“It is very sad news for the heritage of Hobart and the future of heritage sculptures throughout Australia,” Mr Briscoe said.
“It is especially upsetting to the community as it occurred on the eve of the decision from our appeal … the activists should be rightly condemned.”
Opponents of the statue’s removal argue Crowther was never proved to be involved in the Lanne mutilation, while others were implicated, and that rather than remove the statue interpretative material should be added.
However supporters of the statue’s downfall, including the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, argue there is little doubt Crowther was involved in the mutilation and his statue is a constant, painful reminder of the abuses suffered by Indigenous people.
The TAC was on Tuesday contacted for comment.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 6:57 pm

Jackie Lambie has become a caricature of a politician.

Is that even possible?

Oi, she’s an expert at economics, computer software and psychology!

‘Mind your pennies’: Jacqui Lambie issues warning ahead of federal budget (Sky News, 13 May)

Senator compares social media addiction to drug use in emotional plea (Sky News,13 May)

Jacqui Lambie throws support behind banning social media for young children amid concerns for kids’ mental health (Sky News, 13 May)

Ok, yes, it was Sunday and Sky News needs filler for their political shows. Who better than the Mouth from the South?

(On the other hand I pretty much agree with her, so there’s that. 😀 )

Last edited 6 months ago by Bruce of Newcastle
Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
May 14, 2024 7:07 pm

The Hun:

Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn admits to hiding and burning the bodies of high school sweethearts Russell Hill and Carol Clay but says their deaths were a “tragic accident” during separate struggles over a gun and a knife.

Fair enough. Happens all the time.

Ceres
Ceres
May 14, 2024 7:17 pm

Budget night and I want to see what Shorten is doing to rein in the Rolls Royce NDIS. For 2 years he’s been blah blah ing about the rorting with cruises, pet grooming, ipads, etc.
Meanwhile people dealing with everyday pain can’t get the once off surgery they desperately need.
When shopping, most days it’s not hard to pick an NDIS carer in the supermarket one on one aiding a recipient. Country cannot afford it

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
May 14, 2024 7:21 pm

This is rapidly becoming the Celebrity Defence (the Tele):

NRL personality Paul Kent will seek to have allegations he was involved in a street brawl dismissed due to mental health, a court has been told.

The Fox Sports presenter and columnist appeared before Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday for a bail review as he faces a single count of affray.

For a start, I’m not confident that given enough overt premeditation, anyone should be able to resort to this stupid legislation as any sort of shield.

However, in the (very) rare cases where this could conceivably apply, TV dickheads like Andrew O’Keeffe, Michael Slater and now Kent are wiping this defence out.

The footage of Kent trying to take on some other dude out the front of a pub – presumably strengthened by the knowledge he’s regularly on the telly aside rugby league players – and ending upside down at the base of a tree is the only comfort I can take from this.

Last edited 6 months ago by Knuckle Dragger
feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 7:34 pm

and ending upside down at the base of a tree is the only comfort I can take from this.

Some funny farker interviewed the tree for his TikTok channel.
This is what the internet is meant for.

Muddy
Muddy
May 14, 2024 7:40 pm

Random facts (apologies if already posted):

Between October 7 [2023] and May 12, Israel facilitated transportation of 27,775 trucks carrying 531,160 tons of humanitarian aid to Gazans, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies.
[Source: FDD].

Salvatore - Iron Publican
May 14, 2024 7:41 pm

I believe the term ‘army legal officer’ goes a long way to explaining this.

“Sandhurst graduate” can serve only to compound the error.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 7:55 pm

Russell Broadbent on the Bureau of Statistics fiddling with excess deaths figures.

Australians can handle the truth

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 8:22 pm

Budget night and I want to see what Shorten is doing to rein in the Rolls Royce NDIS.

Has the NDIS Lounge in Lakemba made it onto social media yet?
Currently doing the WhatsApp group rounds.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 14, 2024 8:24 pm

Budgets should be reported pre & post Future Fund.
When all the pots are added up (it’s not just the Future Fund these days) it’s up near 300bill.
Depending on what forecasts & accounting trickery you use, it’s a 20bill plus non-cash swing factor.
I will wait for someone else to read the budget docs to see what the positive impact the Future Fund has on the budget bottom line.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 8:33 pm

Dr. John Campbell

Vaccine injury update

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 14, 2024 8:44 pm

Budgets are like herpes. You get infected whether you like it or not. There’s no cure. You have to live with them. And you hate the person who gave it to you. Looking at you Jim.

billie
billie
May 14, 2024 9:15 pm

NDIS .. I bumped into a Financial Planner a few days ago, who told me there is good money to be made in buying off-the-plan properties and offering the completed product to NDIS for accomodation.

Reckons people are being pushed out of various institutions and NDIS is paying up to $90,000 per person to have them accomodated in residential housing/apartment/town houses.

Has anyone else heard this, is it possibly true?

What on earth are we paying for and how can we possibly afford this level of generousity?

Crossie
Crossie
May 14, 2024 9:35 pm

What is this thing with the Treasurer bringing his family to his budget presentation? When did that start and why?

The family can certainly sit in the gallery but why must they be shown trudging through the corridors of the Parliament House with him?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
May 14, 2024 9:49 pm

On Sagrada Familia

It’s huge and hideous. Inside and out. I am reasonably objective about this. I’ve seen plenty of cathedrals but never anything as ugly as this one.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
May 14, 2024 9:52 pm

Labor are full of shite – treasurer Gomer Pile says that mums can stay longer with her new born rd the super gaurantee on govt paid maternity leave.
so why ship off children today care when mums are doing useless tasks such as making a sandwich.
child care workers are extremely skilled as they are looking after future generations and deserve further pay rises.

duncanm
duncanm
May 14, 2024 10:24 pm

Something slipped in the budget not many noticed.

Compulsory Student Union membership is back.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 10:25 pm
caveman
caveman
May 14, 2024 10:30 pm

Jim Chalmers,Paul Murray, Joe Hilderbrand, should t be allowed to talk about budgets. Albo might be ousted before end of year.

Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 10:43 pm
Indolent
Indolent
May 14, 2024 10:44 pm
KevinM
KevinM
May 14, 2024 10:48 pm

DrBeauGan
May 14, 2024 9:49 pm

On Sagrada Familia

It’s huge and hideous. Inside and out. I am reasonably objective about this. I’ve seen plenty of cathedrals but never anything as ugly as this one.

Never seen it in the flesh so to speak, but I have my doubts about a religion that needs an elaborate, fancy, ostentation building to worship its God.

As I search for the 42 I’m more inclined to the simple protestant version, still not convinced BTW.

Alamak!
Alamak!
May 14, 2024 10:53 pm

Jim Chalmers,Paul Murray, Joe Hilderbrand, should t be allowed to talk about budgets. Albo might be ousted before end of year.

Feels like the process is under way.

Wallet Wizards handout budget is his downpayment for a run at the top job. Not sure what reason is needed to formally dump albo but one will be found … or we can leave him in the job and just ignore him like Major Major in Catch 22.

KevinM
KevinM
May 14, 2024 10:58 pm

Crossie
May 14, 2024 9:35 pm

What is this thing with the Treasurer bringing his family to his budget presentation? When did that start and why?

Same as sporting heroes, celebrities. Share the limelight, the only one they may ever get.

I bet they save all the photos too for the family album.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
May 15, 2024 12:16 am

Convention used to be that a politician only wheeled out the wife and kids if they’d been cautioned for biffo with a constituent, or caught shagging the secretary.
And how can you credibly invoke the alchoholic and/or closet homosexual plea that you want to “spend more time with the family” if they’re always haunting you, clip-clopping around the halls of parliament in brand spanking Osh Kosh and Colette Dinnigan gear?

calli
calli
May 15, 2024 1:44 am

On Gaudi’s masterpiece, love it or hate it, you have to marvel at the elliptical engineering that allows the incredible, soaring height without any buttressing.

All the columns lean into each other, shifting the downward force in a curve around the column rather than horizontally. It really is amazing. The columns are faced with granite, and the four central “evangelist” columns with porphyry.

The glass is simple and bright, befitting the modern Spain. It the morning there is a forest or ocean-like luminescence on the columns, in the afternoon the setting sun roars through the warm toned glass like a fire.

As for beautiful places of worship, the same religion that gives us Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s also gives us the beehive monk’s cell and remote monastery. The austere cassock and the ornamented stole.

calli
calli
May 15, 2024 1:46 am

In other travellers tales…driving in Portugal.

Toll roads are electronic. Trying to pay after the fact is a nightmare.

Apparently it’s a major issue with tourism here. It seems to me an excellent vehicle (pardon the pun) for government extortion.

calli
calli
May 15, 2024 2:28 am

I have just spent two hours on the phone trying to pay a road toll. I have only one day in Portugal.

No one seems to want my money. At least until the fine appears. Apparently it is a major problem here for tourists.

Governments. There is nothing, nothing at all that they can’t mess up.

Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
May 15, 2024 4:08 am
KevinM
KevinM
May 15, 2024 4:48 am

As for beautiful places of worship, the same religion that gives us Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s also gives us the beehive monk’s cell and remote monastery. The austere cassock and the ornamented stole.

God is omnipresent, as he/she must be, so you can pray anywhere you like as the muslims are showing by spreading their praying mat 5 times a day at any convenient place..

I fully understand that worshipers need an all weather place to congregate, I also admit that it might as well be a nice one.

But for whose benefit?
Does God demand it or is it human pride and desire to show the world how rich and powerful you are?

Which is supposed to be a sin BTW, well sort of, not quite up to date on the list of sins yet.

Hugh
Hugh
May 15, 2024 5:01 am

Pride is generally considered to be the blackest of sins.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
May 15, 2024 5:05 am

Pride is generally considered to be the blackest of sins.

Hubristic pride along with malicious envy — two of the deadliest sins and Malcolm Turnbull is a great practitioner of both.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
May 15, 2024 5:36 am

Right there, Tinta. Grew up with it, manifested itself in a narcissistic mother. Centre of the universe till the day she died.

calli
calli
May 15, 2024 5:56 am

BoN is usually first out of the blocks with this stuff…but I’m currently watching the dills from CNN and we now have a new climate horror. Zombie fires!

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/14/homepage/video/zombie-wildfires-canada-digvid

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
May 15, 2024 6:26 am

Morn all.

Guess I’ll read about wallet wizard’s budget today more. I didn’t bother as I really couldn’t care less at the fluff but I’ll take a stab at what it probably delivered or not.

A Claytons surplus, more debt but dressed up off the books or not onto them till well into the next term.

Rewards for maaates e.g. unions, professional women (Cleaners & part timer lower working women will get F all) and lefty interest groups.

More taxes.

More growth in government.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
May 15, 2024 6:27 am

Janet Albrechtsen gives is good ‘n’ hard:

Forget the legal advice, what about some moral courage
The Gaza solidarity encampments at Australian universities reveal two things that may have slipped many people’s attention. First, free speech laws in this country are a bugger’s muddle. Second, too many vice-chancellors, paid more than $1m to lead our most esteemed universities, behave like low-level bureaucrats.

While some university chancellors, led by Jennifer Westacott, are honourably calling out anti-Semitism, vice-chancellors are frequently a far cry from the calibre that taxpayers and students deserve.
Once we understand the institutional failures in our legal system and our universities, it’s important to get the response right. We are in this mess because vice-chancellors, along with many others, have forgotten the important distinction between law and morality in a free and civilised society.
Vice-chancellors are meant to be well-educated folk. Universities are funded by taxpayers to be bastions of intellectual thought. This should mean university leaders, above others, are well-equipped and well-placed to explain the difference between law and morality.

Not everything that is illegal is immoral – a parking fine, for example. And, in a liberal democracy, not everything morally wrong should be prohibited by law. Much of what is called hate speech is a prime example.
University leaders should know better than most that the law – the most blunt of objects – is not always the right enforcer. Courts can credibly enforce only clear unambiguous laws. The problem with many laws on hate speech is they are subjective, unclear and essentially seek to enforce feelings, not facts. So it should come as no surprise that they are widely regarded as a dangerous joke dependent in large part on the whim of the presiding judge.

That said, university leaders should realise that limits on free speech are not solely, or even primarily, legal but moral.

Whether or not it is legal to call for “intifada” – a phrase that unequivocally threatens Jews – is not the point. It is immoral and it should therefore be condemned in the strongest terms.

The next, and separate, question is what consequences should flow from such behaviour. Universities frequently attach consequences to conduct that is legal but undesirable. Look at their fervour when policing what they deem disrespectful language. Mankind has been banned, to say nothing of pronoun crimes and misdemeanours. In other words, universities often sanction speech even when it’s not unlawful.
If universities find themselves between a rock and a hard place, it’s their own doing.
For many years their intellectual appetite has not stretched beyond low-hanging fruit. They have erected a superstructure dedicated to eliminating microaggressions in pursuit of what they dub their “equity, diversity and inclusion” project. Their websites are full of every conceivable, and inconceivable, codes of conduct governing behaviour on campus.

There are policies about gendered language, offering tips for students and staff to ensure they do not offend others by using the wrong pronouns. There are policies about “culturally inclusive calendars” too. And so on and so on and so on.
Monash University’s website boasts that its “Equity, Diversity and Anti-discrimination Policy suite strengthens the University’s commitment to providing an equitable and inclusive environment for students and staff.” Tell that to Jewish students on the receiving end of anti-Semitic bile at Monash last week.

The failure to act against anti-Semitism reveals that the EDI project is a crock.

A leader who understands the role of morality in a civilised society would understand that if you run a university, consequences should attach to anti-Semitism irrespective of its legality because it is immoral and because it threatens the safety of students and the proper, peaceful functioning of the university.

If university VCs keep mimicking low-level bureaucrats, hiding behind laws rather than showing moral leadership, their pay should reflect that. Last week, in a public show of cowardice, VCs from the nation’s grand old universities asked federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for legal advice. They wanted to know whether protesters chanting “intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” breach our anti-discrimination laws.
The letter written by University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott and University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Hoj on behalf of the Group of 8 universities says: “In possession of authoritative, definitive and enforceable advice, our universities would act immediately to prevent the use of these phrases on campus.”

Quite rightly, Dreyfus told them to get their own legal advice.
Before they shell out for that, VCs could exercise some inner moral judgment, gratis.

It pains me that universities where I studied – Adelaide and Sydney – where we have so many family ties, are now run by VCs who have made this about law when it is about moral fibre.
Students have been suspended in the past for far less than anti-Semitism.

For example, Hoj was VC at University of Queensland when anti-communist activist Drew Pavlou was suspended for two years for breaching the university’s student integrity and misconduct policy. Pavlou had made public criticisms of UQ’s ties to Beijing.

The moral lapse by university leaders right now is even harder to bear given the legal mess. At one end of the spectrum, laws that attach legal conseq­uences to hurt feelings have produced nothing good for the country. The application and shadow effect of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has turbocharged identity politics, victimhood and cancel culture. Witness the current litigation between Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi and One Nation senator Pauline Hanson.
At the other end of the legal spectrum are laws that prohibit incitement to violence. Incitement to violence is objective, identifiable and well understood. Such laws are necessary for public safety. Appropriately they are criminal in nature and attract severe penalties.
However, the current laws are woefully weak and subject to a “good faith” defence. This is madness. How can one ever incite violence “in good faith”?

Confusion about our laws does not get the vice-chancellors off the moral hook.

On the contrary, when laws are confusing, all the more reason for university leaders to use the power and force of moral condemnation to stop hate speech and anti-Semitism on their campuses.

The problem with VCs predates these student encampments. Once university leaders allowed academics to spout anti-Semitism in the lecture room, it would inevitably spread on to campus lawns. These same university leaders now stand before us helpless, hapless and pathetic.

At La Trobe University, provost Robert Pike told staff via an email last Wednesday that if protesters entered lecture rooms, “allow them to share the information they wish to”.
Pike said staff might wish to cancel the class and reschedule.
We should never forget that at a meeting of the nation’s university chancellors on May 2, this group of highly educated university leaders who routinely brag about their equity and inclusion policies couldn’t collectively agree to condemn anti-Semitic protests and further commit to suspending students for that misconduct.

Last weekend Westacott spoke out, followed by University of Western Australia chancellor Robert French and UQ chancellor Peter Varghese. But most chancellors – and vice-chancellors – remain hidden behind laws, muttering unconvincingly about free speech and uttering weasel words that all forms of racism are nasty. You don’t say.

Right now, the issue is anti-Semitism. Is that so hard to say that with meaning – and consequences? Some of these jokers don’t deserve top billing at a comedy club, let alone at a university.

feelthebern
feelthebern
May 15, 2024 6:31 am

Ep 494 – RFK (feat. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NqrWr3XhII

This just dropped.
Posting before watching.
This will not be safe for work.

I expect clips of this to be across social media over the next 24 hours putting more nails in the RFK Jr coffin.

Cassie of Sydney
May 15, 2024 7:00 am

One of my favourite Israeli youtubers is ‘Oren aka travelingIsraeli’.

Oren has just posted this wonderful Israeli song which encapsulates the essence of Israel and the Jewish people and why Israel will survive and the Jewish people, despite the Jew haters across the world, including scum like our very own PM and his sidekick Pong, will survive too…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkdf35GDzI

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
May 15, 2024 7:31 am

I just can’t get my head around how pathetic people can be to blames Jews for their own failures. Nothing has changed. This is one and only one of many reasons that Israel and Jews will survive. They’ve had thousands of years of practice. The more I hear of your Mother, Cassie, the more I like her. I’m beginning to think my MiL is Jewish. They are very similar in outlook. A similar age, my MiL is starting to make jokes about dying. Along the lines of not having to worry about writing checks. Still sends the grandchildren checks for their birthdays. Although her father died relatively young, her aunts and uncles all lived well over 100. Give my best to your mum.

Pogria
Pogria
May 15, 2024 7:38 am

This Lady truly deserves the handle “Tough Muvva”.

https://twitter.com/TaraBull808/status/1789755628031811595

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
May 15, 2024 7:44 am

Labor
Subsidising multi-nationals to build useless renewables and then using taxes to subsidise consumers to cope with the “cheapest” electricity.
The electrical energy sector is now officially nationalised as is the old Labor way. The LNP sat back and watched.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 15, 2024 7:49 am

Haha, a new portrait of King Charles is out – it looks like he’s been standing beside Michael Caine and Stanley Baker at the last defense of the mealy bags.

New King Charles portrait decoded by art expert who reveals hidden meanings (14 May)

comment image

lotocoti
lotocoti
May 15, 2024 8:04 am

Saliva Ukrazi!
Somebody’s off their hormones.

shatterzzz
May 15, 2024 8:11 am

Sad budget, Jim, threw us some of our own money back on electricity but forgot this ……..

Trolley
Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
May 15, 2024 8:23 am

That reminds me, the Archibald Prize happens sometime soon…

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
May 15, 2024 8:33 am

France in shock after brazen ambushers kill two police and free murderous crime boss The Fly
By jacquelin magnay

  • Europe Correspondent
  • Updated 7:19AM May 15, 2024, First published at 5:11AM May 15, 2024
  • 9 Comments

An extraordinarily brazen attack on a prison van, leaving two police dead and others wounded and freeing French crime boss Mohamed Amra, known as La Mouche (“The Fly”), has shocked France, with just 72 days to the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony
President Emmanuel Macron was horrified at the attack saying it “comes to a shock to us all”.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has instituted widespread powers to stop and search in a bid to find the killers, saying the “French Republic has come under attack”.
Several hundred police officers and gendarmes have been ordered into the manhunt.

‘They will pay’ – French PM after prison van attackAt least two French prison guards were shot dead and three others seriously injured on Tuesday (May 14) after…
Two police officers were killed in cold blood and another three injured, with two fighting for their lives in a critical condition, when six heavily armed men with machine guns surrounded the prison van and accompanying police vehicle near the Incarville toll both on the A145 motorway near Rouen in northern France.
Security footage reveals the astonishing daylight operation where a black car was driving the wrong way, swerving traffic, and then rammed the van as it went through the toll booth. The armed black-hooded assailants appeared from behind a large yellow truck.

After killing the police in the van and firing at the police car behind, disabling the officers, the gang then freed the crime boss, who was serving a life sentence, shepherding him into another vehicle.
Eyewitnesses Yvon and Jerome Barbier said the death toll could have been much higher because bullets were flying. They mistakenly believed it was the police shooting at drug traffickers as they drove past.
Incredibly during the entire two-minute operation, vehicles continued to move through the toll booths. Footage taken from inside a moving bus shows two hooded men with machine guns moving around the van.

Does the French legal system still provide for use of the guillotine?

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
May 15, 2024 8:34 am

Thanks once again Tom.

Last edited 6 months ago by Johnny Rotten
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
May 15, 2024 8:36 am

All that yummy copper just sitting there…

Copper Scrappers Target Tesla Superchargers As Metal Prices Soar (15 May)

Thieves are targeting electric vehicle charging stations because the charging cords at each stall contain a ‘gold mine’ of copper that can easily be scrapped. 

Targeting EV charging stations is nothing new (read here). Still, thieves are noticing copper prices moving higher, mainly due to strained mining supplies and robust demand for powering up America in the digital age. And this trend might spark concern with Elon Musk, as his Tesla Superchargers are being targeted in imploding California. 

One Bay Area Supercharger Station had all charging cords severed. This is terrible news for EV drivers rolling up with low battery. 

The decentralization of the charging network makes it worse. It’s harder to steal petrol since it is in a bunker below ground, and a guy with a phone is watching you from the sales counter.

And since copper is needed in large quantities for the new Planet-saving electrification-of-everything the price is going to go up and up. Which will make it even yummier to steal. Catch 22 and all that.

Eyrie
Eyrie
May 15, 2024 8:41 am

 LNP should go one further when they win the election and formally buy all the power companies back, it will at least keep control within Australia.

Fine, but you need to ban unions and/or declare them an essential industry and ban any form of industrial (in) action. After all the workers are employed by a benevolent government which surely wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.

duncanm
duncanm
May 15, 2024 8:49 am
  1. Yes, yes he was… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/online-courses-to-keep-you-busy-during-coronavirus-isolation/12144718 The flog was a Turdbull backer to the very end too.

  2. In the early stages of the war, an intelligence unit made a terrific stuff up of German intentions. Stalin had…

  3. Kelvin , stick to posting female arse-cheeks and sucking up to authority. Anything more complicated and you’re lost.

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