Gotta say, I like the cut of Justice Croucher’s jib. I like how he didn’t put up with the prosecution’s shenanigans. I prefer a judge who will err on the side of the accused when it comes to what evidence the prosecution is allowed to adduce or present. This befits the fact that the accused is presumed innocent and should be treated as such. I liked the instructions to the jury – ‘there are many paths to acquittal but only one narrow path to conviction’ or whatever he said. That’s a good encapsulation of the standard required to convict.

It was an interesting case. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t expect the accused to give witness testimony, but given he was the only witness to two deaths in extremely unusual circumstances (if his version of events was accepted), perhaps that version had to be heard from him.

Or perhaps he’s a dark triad type whose narcissism meant he believed he would be so compelling on the stand that the jury would not be able to resist falling for his story, and he insisted on testifying.

In all honesty, this is one of those cases where even if he didn’t commit murder per se, I’m still not unhappy that he’s going to be in a cell for the next 20+ years. Someone who was willing to do what he did to the bodies of those two people shouldn’t be roaming the streets.

Washing clothes in a machine shortens their life, and (apart from knickers) the notion that anything worn once needs to be washed has no basis except for a cultural one.

It’s a bit like the famous ‘rinse and repeat’ admonition on shampoo bottles, which was probably the most brilliant marketing ploy of the C20th.

People here are down on Assange?

I can’t see how you could live through the Trump Presidency and not realise that the people Assange exposed desperately needed – and continue to need – an extended spell of sunlight. No one has directed more sunlight on these people than Assange.

Don’t particularly like Assange but he did cause considerable embarrassment to the lesbian bitch in 2016 iirc.

Apparently according to AEMO, this 35.7GW of demand is going to be supplied by:

• 86GW of distributed solar; plus

• 127GW of grid scale wind and solar

• 15GW of gas turbines

All backed up by 49GW of storage (not immediately clear what this means in terms of GW hours).

And 10,000km of new grid infrastructure.

So, to deliver some 36GW of capacity, we will need 15GW of reliable gas, 213 GW of intermittent ruinables and 49GW of “storage”.

Take off the 15GW of reliable gas, and the build will be 213GW of ruinables (replaced every 20 or so years) and 49GW of storage (which will also need regular replacement) to provide 31GW of actual capacity, or almost a seven times overbuild of ruinables, plus a lot of storage and 10,000 Kms of transmission lines.

And they claim that nuclear is too expensive!

Ted Cruz on a Senate Judicial Nomination goes nuts on the Communist representative and catches her out on multiple lies she’s told.
She’s a Democrat nominee for a Judges position. The Radicals have taken over the US Government.

Postcard from Tunisia Part 2
 
Some of the Tunisia houses and hotels are built “inside-out” – the exterior is a two or three storey wall all around, and once inside there is a central atrium with a courtyard in the middle. A good way of achieving peace. Usually, the roof is utilized for clothes drying and outside recreation space. 
 
Sousse had its ancient walls from more than 1000 years ago, but in one place a big gap had been smashed by WWII bombing raids, so it was left that way. There was much fighting between the Allies and the Axis around the whole area.  We stayed in a very pleasant place with an interior courtyard, as many houses and hotels have, with the rooms up winding stone staircases.

Went on a walk around the local souk and came across a pro-Palestinian demonstration going on. About 400 people and lots of chanting. 
 
From Mrs TE now:
 
Went to their local beach – very busy with thousands at play. Only a few burka neck to ankle swimmers.  Most women wore a scarf or hijab, but I was surprised to see “local” girls throughout Tunisia in shorts, off the shoulder tops, and some bellies bared.  Noted a few women bike and car drivers.  Men rule at the coffee shops – not a woman to be seen.  There are “sports bars” – men only smoking cigarettes/hookah, drinking coffee, chatting inside aircon.  Cigarettes are drug of choice and cheap – there are overwhelming male numbers (not women). Call to prayer happens five times a day – and night. TE was woken a few times at 3am.
 
One of the highlights has been that we have stayed in some stunning hotels and airbnb’s.  The tiles, colour, furnishings, carpet, paintings, marble, antiques and distinctive architecture has been a delight. Some very tiny doorways – watch your head!  The courtyards and rooftops with potted plants have been wonderful to relax in. Our breakfasts have been local food, plentiful and varied.  Unique boutique accommodation costing about $200 Australian at most expensive.
 
Went further south to Mahdia, another seaside place. The transport to get there was by “louage” – a system of vans and drivers. Buy your ticket (a bun fight), get in and it goes when all seats taken – very cheap.   We arrived alive! The city was worth seeing for its 12C fort and the surrounding cemetery dating back hundreds of years – all facing Mecca – as well as the beaches. 
 
An oddity on leaving. It’s illegal to take dinars – the currency – out of the country so what to do? Obviously buy up what you need, but there’s always something left. Two of us gave the airport cleaners what we had left, and there were others doing that too. Very strange “closed currency” concept.

TE’s conclusion: not sure about Tunisia. Much to dislike, but still a lot worth seeing. 

I think John Anderson said this morning that a number of institutions preferred to report what the government wanted them to, which is another way of saying they’ve been “marched through”.
AEMO, BoM, CSIRO and most of the media come to mind.

Alleged suicide.

And I agree about the improbability of a successful appeal. Very hard to appeal a properly instructed jury verdict. Given most appear to consider the judge was favourable to Lynn, there probably isn’t going to be much for him to hang his hat on in the jury instructions. Prosecutorial or police misconduct…well, that’s very much Hail Mary territory. Unless something new arises, all of the issues in this regard have been ventilated.

I don’t reckon he’ll beat the conviction.

A neighbour and a house-guest also both witnessed abject and depraved animal cruelty.

If animal cruelty isn’t part of the factual matrix of the crime, it’s not relevant and shouldn’t be included. If it were included, he’d have grounds for appeal and would probably be successful.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 26, 2024 11:50 am
Reply to Bill From The Bush

Hairy chose radiation with seeds – called Brachytherapy.

If your cancer and pelvic structure is suitable for it, it gives excellent results.

All oncology treatments are becoming increasingly personalised, including prostate ca, so generalised advice is almost uniformly wrong. Variables to consider include the presence of metastases, tumour extending beyond the prostatic capsule, (multi)focality of the tumour/s within the capsule, histologic differentiation and the presence/absence of specific genetic signals beyond the usual PSA. Some of these (macro and micro-histology) are summarised in the Gleason score, which is inversely related to survival and is the single most important prognostic signal. Wikipedia has a good summary of all this.
Personal preference has a significant impact on post-treatment quality-of-life, so avoiding surgery when otherwise “indicated” isn’t necessarily a death sentence, but avoiding surgery will always prevent post-surgical complications. These can sometimes be worse than untreated disease.

The most important fact: 45-50% of post-mortems in men revealed incidental findings of prostate cancer ie. usually asymptomatic at the time of death ie. it is a prevalent, overwhelmingly low-morbidity disease. This was common knowledge in the 1950s and 60s, the results can therefore be trusted.
Everyone deciding on any invasive treatment should take this into account.

With regard to anti-hormonal, targeted or radiotherapies.. much higher benefit/risk ratios. That’s where I would be informing myself and asking most of the questions..

Okay Rosie, so it’s either a suicide or accidental death.

I was reminded this morning of the pernicious nature of OZ irrational anti nukism and its unquestioning acceptance by almost everyone.

Close friends came to visit us in France. One of their requests was that we book them into a chateau on the Loire for a few days. We did so although I had never seen the place.

It turned out that the pIace was in relatively close proximinity to nuke.

They refused to stay there, which left me utterly breathless.

What, the Wagyl still can’t be reached for comment?Methinks the lack of flood/drought/dissapeared children indicates things are a-OK in the Dreamtime realm. Case dismissed. The lawyers acting for the Wagyl, or the trustees for Wagyl Inc Pty Ltd, can pay damages, too.