As a country, this is how you fight back.

https://x.com/OntWtf/status/1801706247995179268?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1801706247995179268%7Ctwgr%5Edb22083f5fe3c71af2eb5e53315e6b07af3f3069%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F

They are going to regret their rejection of that offer. It is going to leave the bitterest after-taste.

Maybe. Maybe not.

World leaders meet in Switzerland to discuss a Ukraine peace roadmap. Russia is notably absent (AP, 16 Jun, via Lucianne)

OBBÜRGEN, Switzerland (AP) — Dozens of world leaders converged on a Swiss resort Saturday to discuss how to bring peace to war-ravaged Ukraine, though any hopes of a real breakthrough were muted by the absence of Russia. … About half of the roughly 100 delegations were led by heads of state and government. Analysts said turnout would be a key indicator about how much pull Ukraine and its staunch Western backers have with the broader international community.

I have no idea what this gaggle of geese will come up with, but if they tell Russia to return to the 1991 border that would be very interesting. I think it is possible. The problem for Russia in such a circumstance is that quantity has its own quality and having 100 countries say something like that would be quite hard to defy.

It is possible they will call on Ukraine to make a peace based on current front line. But the vibes from Russia and China don’t seem to support that outcome – Putin and Xi have been very active in trying to discredit and denature the Swiss confab, which suggests they have gotten some early vibes from it.

It will be intriguing to see how the circle is squared, or etc.

Can we have a Canberra Pig Book please?

Congressional ‘pig book’ released and look whose noses are in the trough (14 Jun)

Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonprofit, has published its annual “Congressional Pig Book,” and it’s a doozy. Published annually since 1991, the “Congressional Big Book” contains a compilation of all the wasteful “pork-barrel” projects in the federal budget pursued by both Democrats and Republicans. Covering last year’s budget, this year’s book reportedly contains 8,222 earmarks costing a whopping $22.7 billion. Of the legislators who pursued earmarks, Rep. Susan Collins, a Republican, pursued the most. 

Oink, oink! I suspect Labor would be quite porcine in a local edition of this august tome.

He’s getting there, baby steps.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton accuses government of ‘wrecking the economy’ with its ‘renewables-only’ energy policy (Sky News, 16 Jun)

The Opposition leader has sensationally accused the government of “wrecking” the economy by pursuing what he describes as a “renewables-only” energy policy.

“Sensationally” seems to mean “accurately” these days. It’s quite true of course. The most interesting thing is he seems to have enough sway in the Turnbull/Kean-dominated soft-left Liberal Party to say this.

Not getting my vote until he ditches net zero entirely though.

Why are so many information sources using computer generated voices and video? It smacks of propaganda – video of perfectly coiffed and made up racially/sexually/culturally balanced people doing stuff that – later when you think about it – have all the consistency of Fairy Floss.
I’m referring to Indolents message about the IMF at June 16, 2024 12:04 am

Europe Swings Right while Britain Turns to Labour + Are the Tories Deliberately Trying to Lose?

The Torie Party is in the throes of disappearing up it’s proverbial. Good riddance for all it’s done over the last 2 decades.

Toon.

Located at the Port Augusta Green Energy Hub in South Australia, SM1 will produce 7,500 tonnes of green methanol annually.

Green methanol, a versatile hydrogen derivative, offers a pathway to decarbonise challenging industries such as shipping and aviation, Vast said in a media release.”

Green methanol requires hydrogen produced from renewable electricity plus CO2 removed from the atmosphere – otherwise it is a net contributor of horrible carbins jazzed up as renewable.

It’s not clear from the puff piece how Vast or Mabanaft are going to achieve this at Port Augusta.

To paraphrase Nazi poet laureate Hanns Johst: When I hear of Green Energy Hubs, I reach for my Browning…

Rabz
June 16, 2024 5:34 pm
   Pell was asked about his financial state years of trials, appeals, imprisonment and the HC and (I’m paraphrasing), he said how it was parlous

err, as this esteemed blogue’s most (allegedly) militant atheist – are not men of the cloth invariably impecunious?

To turn the saying around, man does not live by prayer alone.
Why not reward the cloth for their work?

And I am an other agnostic trying to make sense and meaning of it all.

Meanwhile in Hobart:

Hobart City Council has apologised to a transgender rights critic, conceding it discriminated against her by blocking her from booking a venue, and it is understood will pay her compensation.

Louise Elliot, a councillor and critic of transgender activism, in September 2023 tried unsuccessfully to book the Town Hall ballroom for a “women’s rights and free speech” forum featuring Moira Deeming and Katherine Deves.

Documents later revealed Ms Elliot was intentionally “blocked” from making the booking, and that emails exposing this were withheld from a Right to Information request.

The existence of Ms Elliot’s booking request, made as a private citizen, was leaked by lord mayor Anna Reynolds to a pro-trans activist, who approached the council to express concern.

Ms Elliot lodged a complaint with the state Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, alleging discrimination the basis of political belief or association.

The Australian can now reveal conciliation has resulted in HCC providing significant admissions, apologies and, it is understood, compensation to Ms Elliot.

HCC chief executive Michael Stretton refused to release a copy of the apology and admissions.

Not denying significant compensation would be provided to Ms Elliot, he declined to provide details.

“The matter has been resolved through a conciliation process and the City of Hobart is currently working through these matters,” he said.

“The matter will be publicly communicated in the open section of the July HCC meeting.”

Ms Reynolds declined to comment. Ms Elliot said she was unable to comment on the detail of the settlement of her complaint, but welcomed its resolution.

“I’m pleased that the extent of the discrimination has finally been admitted and owned by the council,” Ms Elliot told The Australian. “I’m optimistic that there will be change; there has to be.

“You can have all the diversity plans, flags and photo opportunities you like, but they’re worthless showboating if words and action don’t align. What happened to me proves that the HCC’s talk of being inclusive and welcoming is selective.

“I tried to book a public venue and I should have been able to hold my event. It was shameful for the council to censor political beliefs, especially when these beliefs are held by millions of Australians. It’s wrong and anti-democratic.”

As revealed previously by The Australian, several senior staff left the HCC in the wake of the scandal, and investigations, including by the state Ombudsman, are ongoing.

The HCC has refused to release an independent report into the behaviour of council staff but The Australian understands the next council meeting will note a report to be provided by Mr Stretton and outline a letter to Ms Elliot. It is understood the letter will apologise and admit that the HCC, in blocking Ms Elliot’s ballroom booking on the basis of political belief or association, discriminated against her in a breach of state law.

As well, it is understood the HCC will concede Ms Elliot was lied to by council staff about the availability of the ballroom and in a subsequent attempt to cover up.

The letter is expected to concede council staff failed to comply with the Right to Information Act by withholding documents about the incident sought by Ms Elliot.

It will concede Ms Elliot’s personal information was shared with others in breach of the state Personal Information Protection Act.

Ms Elliot said she hoped the outcome was a “big step forward” for the HCC but that other formal processes alleging breaches of privacy and RTI laws would continue.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t just straight-up, blatant discrimin­ation,” Ms Elliot said.

“The depth of the lying, scheming, gaslighting, privacy breaches, and frustration of legal processes has been astounding.”

One would hope it’s the lord mayor who pays the compo, but I bet it’s not going to be….

Oz with comments open

Miss Maggie Dodgers

Nice! The single reminded me of another, eventually I tracked it down:

Coldplay – Speed Of Sound (2005)

Different key, but the structure of the two tracks are similar. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I like both!

Last week I received an email from One Nation inquiring if I would like to stand for election. I would not have thought that they would be that desperate!

Certainly a change in MO by James Ashby. You don’t come across as a florid nutter, undischarged from bankruptcy, with a questionable police record.

Spent most of today with 14 other people. Most seen and liked the Pauline cartoon.

One lady is a long time teacher. Union member and the sort who a few years ago would vote Labor no matter what. Loved the Pauline cartoon and now says done with state and Federal Labor. Says Albanese too far left. Particularly has problems with Education Qld as she teaches special needs kids. The school where she works is removing the surrounding fence which was designed to ensure some of the special needs kids don’t leave the school grounds. They have also been told to pretty much accept scratching as part of the job and not to do anything about it. Not only will she not vote Labor she is now a Pauline fan to the extent of buying her ON gin/rum and going to vote ON.

Seems Pauline and Ashby will be inviting Irwin to dinner and are planning to send him some ON booze. Not likely he would accept.

Has turned into a massive media win for ON and Irwin on the losing side PR wise.

From The Spectator – singlies be afraid….

Results are in: don’t date Woke
Nick Hossack

It was an odd choice of venue, but I accepted it, perhaps the invitation was meant ironically, a joke, something to spice up an evening, although she would have had no idea about my politics at that point.
I’ve been single now for quite a while and women are so bold and empowered these days, sometimes I get asked out on dates. Women now seem far less shy than I am; this invitation came while standing in a coffee queue.
I was invited to an event at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. I’ve never attended any of these festivals before, as Gerard Henderson’s columns have over the years convinced me that they are get togethers of the self-declared morally pure, left-wing, homogenous, and conservative free zones.
Yet, here it was, an email ticket to attend a discussion of her new book, I Don’t by author Clementine Ford – her case against marriage. The talk was held at a place called the Carriageworks in Eveleigh, the closest rail station is Redfern.
Throughout Ford’s presentation, which was in the form of responses to a moderator’s questions, I took notes on my phone. I didn’t know if I could get a transcript afterwards and suspected her comments would be good material for a Flat White article at some point.
The following night at the same venue, ABC political correspondent Laura Tingle called Australians ‘racist’ which became a bit of an issue for the board of the taxpayer-funded ABC.
It turned out my inclination was good, Ford’s comments were memorable.
To my recollection, she seemed to be arguing this interesting idea that a society’s children should be reared in all-female communities, where the women would support each other and dispense with men. I don’t recall her explaining the mechanics of how it was the women got pregnant; I guess she envisions an industrial scale sperm harvesting and IVF infrastructure. At least that was my interpretation of her talk, but I’ve not read her book where it is probably set out in detail.
To give you some sense of the audience’s, the main crowd excitement arose whenever Ford’s disparagement of men broke from vague civility into straight out profanity.
After the talk finished, a coterie of women rushed and surrounded Ford near the stage; they were like members of the Collingwood women’s AFL team, huddled and scrapping after the centre bounce, all kitted out in black and white, except the pattern wasn’t vertical stripes, rather, the jersey pattern was that of radical chic Palestinian keffiyeh.
My date and I then got pizza nearby; the restaurant didn’t have any standard beers like Peroni or VB, and I was forced to drink a bottle that had a picture of Bob Hawke’s head on the label. When I went to pay the bill, the waitress seemed baffled and uncertain on how to accept my offer of a tip. She called over the chef to work out how a 15 per cent tip could be configured on the EFTPOS terminal.
Then I remembered I was in Surry Hills, where the profound sensitivity to injustice and the sheer goodness of its locals doesn’t it seem extend to something as crass as giving a waitress a tip.
It was during the pizza meal that red flags started going up. There was an Aboriginal dot painting on the back wall, and my date commented on how stunning it was.
I told her that canvas dot paintings emerged in the 1970s in an art class held by a whitefella, well after Captain Cook had arrived. And that the original and authentic Aboriginal drawings were mostly done in sand and dirt, so they’ve not survived rain and wind.
Some, thankfully, were etched into rock, such as that which can be seen at Berry Island Reserve near Wollstonecraft.
She took up my reference to Captain Cook and launched into him. She described him as a ‘horrible’ man and that all Australian land was First Nation’s land. She’d voted ‘No’ in the referendum, because Albo’s proposal hadn’t gone far enough.
She had crossed a line with me, yet that old male weakness kicked in. I told myself that opposites attract, and that girlfriends in full agreement on everything are boring.
There was also this country song I remembered, written by singer Sunny Sweeny, about two politically opposite neighbours who befriended through a love of country music. This is one of the verses, usually sung in duet:

“I’ll ignore all your hippie bumper stickers
And that Ronald Reagan poster on your wall
It’s true that we’ve got nothing in common
But a love of country music conquers all.”

Of course, these rationalisations were not the workings of a truth-seeking clinical mind, but something a lot baser.
She was at least a decade younger than me and at least two rungs higher on the physical appeal ladder. I overlooked her Captain Cook comment for the same reason men for centuries have defied their better judgement and destroyed their lives.
Even so, the evening was increasing strained. Her parents had migrated to Australia from Chile and she and her parents hated Margaret Thatcher for keeping ‘evil’ Pinochet in power who, she said, had Chilean communists thrown into the ocean out of military helicopters. She said Western governments had a lot to answer for, although I noted she stopped short of invoking intergenerational trauma.
Rather nastily, I asked her why her family moved to a Western country if its values were so appalling and had they ever considered moving back to Chile. Her response was infantile, she said she wanted to destroy the West from the inside.
At that, I asked her to stop the car, and got out. It is of course embarrassing for me to admit I had something of a teenage hissy fit. But there you have it.
When we spoke some days later, she conceded being ‘shitty’ and apologised for deliberately baiting me.
Incredibly she even attributed it to ‘that time of the month’. She then asked me to apologise for storming out of the car which I refused to do; obstinance is a cherished right of my white male privilege.
I should have taken Henderson’s perennial advice, and just not gone to the Sydney Writer’s Festival. And, by the way, that’s also the end of Woke women for me. The results are in.
________________________________________
Nick Hossack is a public policy consultant. He is former policy director at the Australian Bankers’ Association and former adviser to Prime Minister John Howard.