Lovely painting.

Shame it isn’t still in Seville. Reflecting today that no one beat the French for looting and destruction. They had a go at the Alhambra also, wrecking the water channel that delivered water to the gardens. Because reasons.

The week-long Corpus Christi celebration here in Andalusia continues apace – there was a big procession here in Granada today ending at the cathedral.

Visited Ferdinand and Isabella yesterday. Simple coffins under the ornate sepulchre. Impressive on all fronts.

On the Alhambra and Generalife – they’re a must-see for any garden lover.

I have been guilty of pinching design ideas…but so have many others. The pomegranate trees are just coming into bloom, and there was a definite absence of tourists. Apparently they all “did” the gardens yesterday! I did the tourist thing and came away with a golden pomegranate vase (irresistible) and an equally irresistible marquetry plaque.

There was a cat fishing for goldfish in one of the reflection pools. And a green striped frog in the lily pond, waiting patiently for insects. The roses nodded, the cypress stood to attention and the poppies blazed, all under the ferocious Spanish sun.

Resilience in the Face of Terror

The play, the latest from Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, brings the stories of victims and survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks to life.

Quote from the play;
“Zaki saw over a thousand of his countrymen slaughtered for being Jewish and was witnessing the global rise of antisemitism and a growing discontent with Israel. He has every reason in the world to be bitter and vengeful, and yet, he just longs to be accepted.”

Seeing your enemy making the desert bloom, creating a thriving industrial society, where you, for 2000 years only managed to eke out a meager living, will do that.

They hate you for being successful, being prosperous, the opportunity is, was and will be there for all, you only have to get off your backside and grab it.

By the way, not all Jews are geniuses or business magnates, just enough to make it happen.

Forgot to add – women beautifully dressed in suits and…mantillas. The ones held up with those tall combs. They were clearly city office holders.

Knuckle Dragger
 June 2, 2024 7:09 pm

The stunning and brave statement by WA’s answer to Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins

My best mate’s dad had a brain tumour when we were in our teens. He went from a top bloke to an angry mad man within months. His wife and my mum were great friends and nursed together, they concluded before the diagnosis that it was a brain issue because the personality change was so abrupt.
My mate isn’t around as he died way too early in a car accident as an unfortunate passenger. He was like his dad, the best of men.

Shots fired!
https://davidvstewart.substack.com/p/a-generation-of-sociopaths-review?utm_medium=email&utm_content=post

Bruce Cannon Gibney takes a different approach with his book, A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. His book is all about the macro, backed up by data. The verdict? The Baby Boomers have collectively (or as the emergent behavior of the collective) acted like sociopaths and engaged in what amounts to inter-generational war. They inherited wealth of many sorts, including decades of economic, intellectual, and social investment, and squandered them, breaking all social mores and plundering their birthright while making none of the investments that would have allowed their children to experience the same prosperity and freedom.

I see Rupert got married again at the age of 93, wearing black sneakers

Makes a change from the red leather shoes made from enslaved tunnel children’s skin, right mUnter?

Rouven L., a 29-year-old German police officer, died from multiple stab wounds to the head and neck after intervening in an attack by Sulaiman A., a 25-year-old Afghan refugee, during an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim. The incident occurred as Sulaiman targeted Michael Stürzenberger, a critic of Islam. Rouven was attempting to protect others when he was attacked. The event has sparked a debate on social media about immigration policies and the handling of extremist threats in Germany.

islam is a death cult and needs to be dramatically reformed

Hairy said he’d heard ‘rumbles’ on Fox News – is there any hope of the Republicans putting their Presidential Convention Confirmation date any earlier, to foul Bragg’s timing of Trump’s ‘sentencing’ as prior to this Convention?

Bragg would then be faced with trying to jail a confirmed presidential candidate, which the Supreme Court might start to see as election interference (though they have been vewy quiet so far on a State prosecutor dealing with a Federal matter outside the range of State jurisdiction, so no promises).

Lizzie, recent de-industrialisation of the West was a neoliberal project driven by the right (including the ALP Right) on behalf of their billionaire donors. Privatisation and outsourcing delivered terrible outcomes for Western countries, shuttering entire manufacturing sectors and leaving us defenceless against powerful state investment in green tech by the controlled economy of China. Rich owners of multinational conglomerates made off with humongous economic rent, largely tax-free, further assisted by the right dismantling antitrust regulation after the 1990s.

Biden has turned the industrial tide in the US through the IRA, bringing new government investment in green tech to try to close the gap in the battle against China, and to a lesser extent India. Trump would reverse that, of course, because he wants to build Trump Tower Beijing and his family has extensive business ties in China.

Albo is trying to copy Biden’s tactics in Australia, and it remains to be seen whether that is possible given our higher cost bases. At least he is trying something, unlike Potato Head with his radioactive fantasies.

What any thinking person knew anyway – OBumma pulling OBiden’s strings.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/radical-barack-obama-comes-shadows-announces-joe-bidens/

This system of top of page commenting does my head in.

I’ve just written a little essay in response to M0nty’s attempt at reasonableness. Buried in the reply function, of course.

He really does get my dander up. So much fake belief in his plaints, to say nothing of the way in which his ‘side’ tends towards the Nazi. Not nice.

If Toyota’s claim of a solid state battery with a 1000k range and a 10 min charge time pans out(we’ll know within 18-24 months), every EV sold today is obsolete.

Roger @ 9:53 am

I thought Mr. Toyoda was rather cool on EV prospects?

Originally I thought exactly that.

It is now starting to look like Toyota has been playing a smart, long game. The limitations of Li-Ion batteries in EV’s have always been apparent. It seems Toyota has adopted them to an absolute minimum (but nonetheless effectively) in its limited hybrid range, while developing a more automotive-applicable alternative battery technology.

Toyota, with the backing of Japan Inc, is now tipping big billions into solid lithium battery technology – or, perhaps far more importantly, the manufacturing technology for cost-effective mass production of this generation of EV batteries.

Strategically, this puts the Toyota brand ahead of the other EV OEM’s (who are also following up on fast-charge, higher power-density, longer-lived batteries). It also avoids the brand legacy issue of leaving behind piles of BetaMax Li-Ion vehicles and distressed owners.

Fiendishly clever, these Orientals.

Interesting article on the subject here (although one that falls into the ‘mineral resource vs reserves trap’).

A split seems more likely than a merger at this point. Or a slow draining of Liberal wets away to the Teals, which would eventually give the same outcome.

I doubt that it’s only the Liberals facing a split. Looking the Australian political landscape with a nearly uniform level of disdain for all practitioners, I’m seeing national politics move away from the regulation Two Party model.

Purely on ‘policy’ preferences we’re pretty much there now: a Hard Left (Greens and 35% of Labor), a Soggy Left Centre (Labor Centre Right, Teals for the time being, and Liberal Wets), a Soft Right Centre (traditional Roots and Boots Labor, Dry Liberals and some Nats) and a Right (at present, mainly a motley of disorganised individuals).

This has yet to catch up in terms of formal organisation – and perhaps that’s a way off. But what will become an urgent need to address the looming economic and social quagmire is going to produce some interesting non-traditional alliances.

Paging a Mr Monty. Come and explain this for us.

Donald Trump campaign has raised over $200 MILLION in just THREE days since guilty felony verdict (2 Jun)

Vickie and Lizzie,
Moderna building MNRA production facility in Melbourne with 100m jabs per year capability. Bill Gates, Moderna boss and many others have been talking about jabs being made for viruses within 100 days but with no human testing.
My concern is not for myself but grandkids as the medical establishment is very keen to keep adding more and more jabs to the kids schedule. RSV jab is one they are pushing now.

Monty hitting the glass BBQ early this morning?

Trumpian
paradigm
nativist
incel-coded

Meth, its not just for dinner now!

Black Ball
June 3, 2024 2:47 pm

Andrew Giles is rather daft.

You are way too kind.

Phrases like ‘grossly incompetent, chronic liar and time-serving factional tax-hooverer’ spring readily to mind.

Leak’s cartoon this morning (thanks, Tom) is one of his funniest and best:

https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/dabdad34bd021d0a643c92b82b9a7103?width=1024

Those enduring the frozen communist wasteland of the South will no doubt be overjoyed to learn that the water temperature here remains at 22 degree and the sets are smooth and holding up in the absence of any wind.

I would like to shout also that we will soon also be ridding ourselves of our corrupt union fascist Goverment, however I don’t believe that that will actually happen.

Politics in QLD is based upon habit and the five o’clock news which is of course Government bough and paid for. Govt advetising comprehensively exceeds commercial advertising. It is obvious that every Dept has been told to produce ads, no matter how irrelevant they are. It is continuous.

It is certainly witin recent memory that Government advertising resulted in a significant backlash from taxpayers. That no longer happens.

Now we are told not to bully, bash, drink, rape, drive, talk to women without prior written approval (well, almost), smoke (but drugs are OK), be nasty to blackfellas and muzzies, get upset about windmills destroying the environment (the Big Build FFS) and my current favourite – prepare for cyclones – in winter.

It would be less of a burden for the taxpayer if the Govt just bought the bloody networks. Not even public servants could make them any worse.

On the subject of Menzies’ forgotten people, I am old enough to remember actually agreeing with you lot that the right had a point about the left, specifically the leftist solution for technologically displaced workers who were told to learn how to code. So much so that I got an OP saying so published on the old Cat.

However, it has become clear over time that the right doesn’t have a solution for those people either. That was made bleeding obvious when the Libs waved sayonara to the auto industry.

The new Dutton pitch to these people seems to be blaming all of their problems on foreigners. That may work for crusty boomer retirees, but not as much for working-age millennials who grew up in a diverse, pluralist society, and can see through the nativist nonsense.

Albo actually has a real solution: rebuilding our manufacturing base with what we label in Australia as “industry policy”. This phrase is most often employed in our right-wing media as a pejorative, with elite pundits dating from the Cretaceous Period chuntering that it never works.

Except… China is currently using it to kick our arses. If we don’t reinvest in industrial capacity to secure a piece of new green tech sectors, we concede our future. Dutton is playing the wrong game, with rules set for him by donors who are on the other side.

FOX interview TRUMP June 2, 2024

Re TheirABC’s relentless undermining of the civilisation which enables its existence, did anyone notice that they have been running a series called ‘Stuff the British Stole’?

Not ‘stuff the Turks stole’ during the Ottoman Empire, or ‘stuff the Aztecs stole’ or ‘stuff the Romans stole’, to mention a few examples.

Apparently, throughout all of history, it is the British who were the worst, most destructive and morally repugnant conquerers.

The title alone is like a headline in a student newspaper.

Given their ever diminishing audience, the Coalition should not be afraid of getting in their collective face, not only in Estimates, but in Question Time and at every other opportunity.

The ‘Australia is racist’ thing was a cheap shot – here today, gone tomorrow. Culture wars are not won by one off embarrassments.

While thousands of Australians are homeless, and tens of thousands are on the brink, these wankers are receiving fat salaries and actively opposing the values of those who fund them – e.g. Da Voice.

The Coalition should announce that they are going to divert half of TheirABC’s budget – $550m or so – to putting roofs over the heads of Australians.

While they are at it, they need to get a team of top lawyers to rewrite the legislation. The typically gormless Coalition didn’t relaise that the legislation ensures that only the Collective controls TheirABC. Not the Minister, not the Board, and thanks to left wing stacking, management merely facilitate.

Like so many lazy and conflict-averse ‘conservatives’, they believed what they were told and voted for a structure which is Escheresque.

Just like their ‘complaints’ setup.