Open Thread – Weekend 17 Aug 2024


The North-West Passage, John Everett Millais, 1874

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johanna
johanna
August 18, 2024 7:17 pm

The other day I had lunch with a friend at a local pub, and since she is an enthusiastic gambler, afterwards she took me in to the pokie room. I’ve been to the pub before, but didn’t even know it existed. Entry is through what looks like a wall at the end of a short corridor, by pressing a discreet button.

Gambling Cats and Kittehs may not be surprised by what I saw, but I was.

The room is dimly lit, very warm and slightly humid thanks to a fake lily/lotus water feature that runs along one wall (no actual plants, just plastic ones). While the main pub plays rock or pop over the sound system, this room has that tinky-tink Chinese music at very low volume, which you only hear if the machines are not singing their own electronic lullabies.

Not only can you smoke in there, an ashtray beside every machine, there is a cigarette machine which dispenses popular brands at 25% over the usual retail price.

The machines are almost all based on Chinese themes – lots of dragons and Mongolian warriors and so on, and all made by our very own dinky di Aristocrat P/L. They are obviously aimed at Chinese gamblers, but the locals seem to like them as well.

It is almost hypnotic, another world, no windows or clocks, of course. Punters don’t actually put cash into the machines, they buy electronic credits in advance.

While I am no wowser about gambling, I must admit that it is now easier for me to understand how some people get hooked and ruin their lives.

Fortunately for my bank balance, gambling has never appealed to me. But it’s not a virtue, because I’m not tempted. It’s not so easy for those who are.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 7:23 pm

Steggles actually has a law degree if I’m not mistaken- shows you don’t have to be very bright to get one.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
August 18, 2024 7:31 pm

Joe Hildebrand on the Sunday Showdown thinks any post-assassination investigation is just “conspiracy theory” rubbish. It has taken decades for the truth about JFK to come out, and this latest attempted kill job deserves to be investigated thoroughly.
So why has the body of Crooks been stashed away? Which side of his head did the “counter-sniper” bullet impact?

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 7:42 pm

Why should anyone give a rat’s arse what mediocrities like Hilderband think?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 18, 2024 7:44 pm

While I am no wowser about gambling, I must admit that it is now easier for me to understand how some people get hooked and ruin their lives.

Hence guys like this guy.

Billionaire Ed Craven’s online casino sidesteps Aussie ban (Tele, paywalled)

Melbourne-based Ed Craven is not even 30-years-old and is already a billionaire. But the mogul’s online casino is shrouded in controversy.

Pretty amazing that we have a younger-than-thirty billionaire who has made his money by fleecing gullible gamblers. I too never caught the bug thankfully, it all went on paying off mortgages and what not.

Gabor
Gabor
August 18, 2024 7:46 pm

Eyrie
August 18, 2024 7:21 pm

Reply to  johanna

Never appealed to me at all since I did an advanced maths probability and statistics course at age 15.

If you rely on statistics alone it’s a no brainer, the takeout by the casinos or the TAB makes sure that is a gamble you cannot win in the long run.

Don’t know about the pokies, can’t imagine how sane humans would tolerate it let alone enter willingly.

But as a keen racing punter I can tell you that by careful selection you can actually win and win bigly.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 18, 2024 7:49 pm

Dutton reportedly seeks legal advice after Steggall’s ‘racist’ dig over Gaza visasJoseph Olbrycht-PalmerNewsWire
Sun, 18 August 2024 7:56AM

Peter Dutton is seeking legal advice after being called “racist” during a heated House debate on visas for Palestinians fleeing Gaza, Sky News has reported.
The opposition leader earlier this week moved a motion to suspend standing orders and debate Gaza visas, giving him the floor to accuse the government of dropping the ball on national security and make the case for a blanket ban on people fleeing the war-torn Palestinian territory.
But things boiled over when independent MP Zali Steggall told the House about a Palestinian refugee in her electorate who came “to Australia under a visa approved by the Morrison government under the same systems.”
Mr Dutton interjected several times, prompting Ms Steggall to snap.
“We heard you in silence,” she told the Liberal leader, after multiple interjections from Mr Dutton.
“You can hear me in silence. Stop being racist!”
Ms Steggall withdrew her comment, which was protected under parliamentary privilege, but repeated the claim several times outside the House.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 7:50 pm

Seriously though we don’t need Australian meja fukwits explaining US news to us anymore- we can go straight to the source.

Last edited 3 months ago by Miltonf
Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 7:52 pm

Speaks volumes of about the denizens of Mosman that they would elect such a PoS.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
August 18, 2024 7:56 pm

If there is to be zero feed-in tariff for household solar power (or worse, charging us to feed in) it’s time that the solar panel systems were disconnected from the grid.
Then at least we could have some power when the inevitable “Bowen” blackouts start – you know, when there’s insufficient baseload because coal has been “cancelled” without adequate replacement.
At the moment our solar is switched off as soon as there’s a blackout, for safety reasons. That cannot be justified any more. We must have solar whenever the knobbled grid fails.

Last edited 3 months ago by Bungonia Bee
Cassie of Sydney
August 18, 2024 7:58 pm

Peter Dutton is seeking legal advice after being called “racist” during a heated House debate on visas for Palestinians fleeing Gaza, Sky News has reported.

Oh yes, I have just three words to describe this…..

sweet, sweet, sweet

I ‘ve said this many times and I’ll say it again, leftist scum love to throw the swill and vomit, and what we have to do in return is to mop up the swill and vomit and throw it back at the leftist scum, twice as hard.

Steggall is such a profoundly stupid bint, she repeated the ‘racist’ claim outside the House. She deserves everything thrown back at her.

Last edited 3 months ago by Cassie of Sydney
Rabz
August 18, 2024 8:06 pm

Joe Hildebeast is such an irredeemable imbecile he was screeching on Sky recently (Shazza’s show one weeknight if I remember correctly) that all Albansleazey and Dim Chambers had to do was wait for an interest rate cut “next year”, before calling a snap election, which they would surely then win.

Sky was then immediately switched off as I proceeded to fume about how such f*ckwits were ever given a braindead lamestream meeja megaphone in the first place.

Thanks goodness I don’t leave bricks or sledgehammers lying around in the lounge room.

cohenite
August 18, 2024 8:09 pm

This week in culture:

THIS WEEK IN CULTURE 199 (rumble.com)

I managed to get up to the Philly queer bird watchers.

cohenite
August 18, 2024 8:17 pm
Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 8:24 pm

I just don’t get pay TV and I haven’t got it since it started in the 90s (remember those newspaper pages newcorps wanted you to stick on your window I WANT MY FOXTEL). Just fuk off- why would you start paying for something you use to get free?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 18, 2024 8:28 pm

‘My brother saved my life’: 104-year-old Warsaw Ghetto survivor remembers his heroBy Carolyn WebbAugust 18, 2024 — 7.07pm

Listen to this article
3 min
When you turn 104, it makes sense to have a big birthday party.
Berysz Aurbach, of Caulfield, had a suitably large black forest cake with “Happy 104th Birthday” inscribed on it in Hebrew.
Family and friends visited all day on Sunday. There were enough sponge cakes, biscuits and pastries to shock a cardiologist.
Guests toasted Aurbach, whose actual birthday was Saturday, with whisky and said “l’chaim” (to life). There was much to be thankful for: Aurbach has three children, four grandchildren and a lovely home.
More than 80 years ago, he survived the Warsaw Ghetto, in Nazi-occupied Poland. Some 90,000 Jews in the ghetto died of starvation and disease. More than 300,000 were shot or killed in extermination camps.

Thousands more died in the ghetto uprising of April 1943, in which Nazis burnt and blew up buildings.
Now, as always, Aurbach thinks of his late brother, Mordechai, who he says saved his life, many times.
Their father, oldest brother Leibl, a sister-in-law and her two children died during the uprising. Aurbach, Mordechai and Mordechai’s girlfriend watched the fires from an apartment outside the ghetto.

“You must understand, I felt terrible,” he said. “I still see the fire, in my eyes.”
Shortly before the ghetto uprising, Mordechai, part of the anti-Nazi underground resistance movement, gave Aurbach a fake ID and organised a Polish police uniform, which Aurbach wore to slip out of the ghetto, unnoticed.
Aurbach spent the rest of the war in safe houses run by the underground.
But Mordechai and his girlfriend, who had been posing as gentiles, were dobbed in to the Gestapo. Mordechai was shot dead and his girlfriend was shot in the leg and later died.

“Mordechai saved my life. Of course, he is my hero,” Aurbach says.
If not for Mordechai, “either one or the other, I would have burned in the [ghetto] fire or burned in the ovens [in concentration camps].
“Of course, I often think of him now. For much of my life, I thought of him, wherever I was.”
In the ghetto, Aurbach, whose mother had died of illness when he was a baby, survived round-ups of Jews, in which Nazis chose those to be deported to camps and those allowed to stay.
If someone strayed out of formation or the guards didn’t like their face, or for fun, they would “shoot a few people”. While hiding in Warsaw and elsewhere after the ghetto, Aurbach was in constant fear.
“If the Germans had found me, they would have shot me on the spot. Like my brother.”

Just one sibling, Esther, out of the five he grew up with in Biala Podlaska, eastern Poland, survived the Holocaust.
Aurbach migrated to Melbourne in 1947 and ran a successful knitting business. In 1955, he met his wife, Tova, in Israel. Tova died of cancer 12 years ago.
Relatives say Aurbach is resilient and loves life. He goes to synagogue, reads books and goes shopping.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
August 18, 2024 8:33 pm

Steggall is such a profoundly stupid bint, she repeated the ‘racist’ claim outside the House. She deserves everything thrown back at her.

Reminds me of another ‘genius of the NSW parliament a former treasurer who stood on the steps outside parliament house and defamed someone — he thought that because he had been elected to parliament i.e that he was in parliament that he could defame anyone anywhere — that was a $100,000 mistake on his part.

But to give her her due, Stegall is a lawyer, as is “I’m a lawyer’ former ALP front bencherTeri Butler who had to settle a defamation claim with Calum Thwaites — love to see smugettes and their smart-arsery get their due.

Last edited 3 months ago by Tintarella di Luna
Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 8:40 pm

Ah right Calum Thwaites the QUT guy- so Bulter was part of that pile on. Just despicable.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 18, 2024 8:40 pm

RNC Chair Michael Whatley announces the recruitment of over 157,000 election integrity volunteers and stresses the importance of cleaning up voter rolls. …

We are getting them registered and training, and we are going to have them in a position where we can deploy them as poll workers and poll observers on election day and throughout the election period.”

Yes but will it be enough for Stop The Steal II ?
Howabout the mail-in ballots that are sent to dead people, filled out by who knows who, and arrive at the polling center ready to be separated from their signatures and added unaccountably to the pile. Checking signatures is possibly the only place where more observers could stop the steal.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 8:44 pm

Butler lost her seat but…

In August 2024, Butler was appointed by the Albanese government as a deputy president of the Fair Work Commission.

These dirty stinks just don’t go away- obviously nomenklatura.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 8:51 pm

Reminds me of another ‘genius of the NSW parliament a former treasurer 

who was that Tinta?

Anders
Anders
August 18, 2024 9:00 pm

#DuttonIsARacist now trending on Twitter – I hope there is some fightback against this bullshit.

BobtheBoozer
BobtheBoozer
August 18, 2024 9:05 pm

I just ate a packet of Tim Tams.
And I feel sick.
Might just have a little lie down. And a coffee.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 18, 2024 9:07 pm

This mob got hidden camera interviews with one of the policy architects of Project 2025.
https://x.com/ClimateReport_/status/1824068389796475049

  • He reckons Trump’s public disavowals of Project 2025 should not be believed, i.e. DT is on board with them.
  • He’s trying to prevent the transition plan of 2025 from being discoverable through FOIA.

Seems suss.

JC
JC
August 18, 2024 9:08 pm

Want to see a great example of price gouging? Here it is:

Australians slugged with world’s second most expensive passport

Our passport may be powerful but application fees jumped in July and hundreds of thousands of people each year get slugged extra charges.

But what about cost? Thanks to a 15 per cent increase in July, Australian travel documents are now the second most expensive in the world after Liechtenstein, the little country sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, where citizens splurge about $450.

We pay $398 for a 10-year passport, and that figure will rise with inflation in January. Need to renew quickly? You’re up for an extra $100 for a five-day turnaround.

If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t check the expiry until the week before departure, beware. In 2022-23 more than 400,000 people paid to have their application fast-tracked with two-day processing (currently a $290 proposition, on top of the usual fee).

And if you make a habit of losing important belongings, there’s more punishment in store. People who lose their passport twice in five years will be issued with only a five-year document but still have to pay for 10. Lose it three times in the same period and your pricey passport will last only two years.

In the May federal budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said passport fees would raise $349m in revenue over three years but assured taxpayers the 15 per cent increase was a one-off. So if you want to avoid another impost, take care of that little blue book.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
August 18, 2024 9:22 pm

I see that the Teals (who of course insist are not a party) have signed a joint letter opposing the government’s plan to tax unrealised capital gains. Hands off Svengali Simon’s inherited billions! It’s only the bogan redneck plebs who have to make sacrifices.

On this issue, they are right – the broken clock – but for the wrong reason.

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 9:23 pm

“So why has the body of Crooks been stashed away? Which side of his head did the “counter-sniper” bullet impact?”
You obviously missed the head shot of Crooks being circulated on social media in the hours days after the assassination attempt.
I’m sure it’s around somewhere still.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 18, 2024 9:24 pm

So much of this lefty environmental shite is class warfare. Even more so in the yookay.

JC
JC
August 18, 2024 9:36 pm

Ackman is correct. The dumb, economic illiterate bint could end up destroying the US economy.

The @KamalaHarris economic plan is to increase demand with subsidies and to reduce supply with price controls, and to do so in the first 100 days of her administration. Who is her economic adviser? Will he or she at least explain how this is supposed to work?

How could they think of something so stupid that it defies hundreds of years of economic thought.

Last edited 3 months ago by JC
GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 18, 2024 9:40 pm

I’ve had an interesting day. The new part of Canberra Hospital opened yesterday, I could have made the opening but grandsons were over. Made it today instead ,currently in Cardiac on heart failure medication. See what happens tomorrow if they’re going to through me out or do something. BP 210 this morning. It must have been bad enough coz I let my wife drive me, and apart from accelerating instead of braking we made here in one piece, that may have accounted for the high BP.

m0nty
m0nty
August 18, 2024 9:40 pm

Women standing up for the right to private female spaces where men with penises are not welcome are NOT nazis nor aligned with such

Yes, Lizzie, they are. The group calling themselves Women Will Speak are aligned with several known neo-Nazis, so much so that they borrow their audio equipment for rallies. Losers like Thomas Sewell are then given the mic to spew their hate alongside the TERF haters. These are incontrovertible facts.

Nazis and TERFs belong together as allies. Or perhaps, more accurately, an axis.

Frank
Frank
August 18, 2024 9:44 pm

So why has the body of Crooks been stashed away?

Already cremated I believe, with unseemly haste.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 18, 2024 9:48 pm

FBI fires back at claims it released Crooks’ body for cremation days after Trump assassination attempt

Cassie of Sydney
August 18, 2024 9:49 pm

I see the resident Nazi and pervert apologist is back. Just to remind everyone here, this pervert apologist, this Jew hater, this Nazi, approves of and condones violence against people whose opinions he does not like.

The Nazi is a disgrace. The Nazi should PISS OFF.

Cassie of Sydney
August 18, 2024 9:52 pm

Just to recap what Rosie wrote earlier, which perfectly sums up the Nazi….

Monty condones assault, as long as the right people are the victims.

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 9:54 pm

Sligo postcard.
Yesterday’s cultural homework concluded with a visit to the former model school now the art gallery which featured a fair bit of Jack Yeats, sketches, little watercolours, early paintings and some of his impressionist stuff, which is quite distinctive, he was very generous with his paint.
Also went to the Sligo museum in the old Presbyterian manse, a classic folk museum which included an ancient slab of ‘bog butter’.

After mass this morning,(I was right about the Domenicans, church, dedicated in 1972, to replace a mid 19th century neo gothic that burnt down, only the western? end of that still stands.)
I then jumped on the 981 bus to the Carrowmore megalithic cemetery, you only see the above ground bits of these passage tombs but it’s fascinating all the same, with bonus great views of Knocknarea and the Ox mountains.

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 9:59 pm

It’s only undue haste if you are pursuing a conspiracy theory.
Why didn’t Higgins ask to see the body earlier?
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-fires-back-claims-released-crooks-body-cremation-days-after-trump-assassination-attempt

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 10:01 pm

Monty beside himself because apparently some women borrowed audio equipment from people he doesn’t like.
Nothing to say about the endless demos by from the river to the sea nazis.

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 10:03 pm

Ranga you are particularly in the wars, I hope you and Mr Shatterzzz get well soon.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 18, 2024 10:21 pm

Realistically there’s not a lot wrong, not like the bloke in the same room who’s been in hospital for two weeks and they still don’t know what’s wrong and is probably going to be given painkillers and sent home to die. I hope I can be as nonchalant as he is when my time comes.

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 10:30 pm

6y

Rosie
Rosie
August 18, 2024 10:31 pm

“mUnturd babbles on about “water balloons” while denying that nice lefturd activists would ever put something other than water in them.”
What does it matter what was in them?
It’s still men throwing things at women because they want to put them in their place.
And common assault.

cohenite
August 18, 2024 10:44 pm

The group calling themselves Women Will Speak are aligned with several known neo-Nazis

Please elaborate dickless, sparing no detail of the no doubt copious evidence you have dutifully compiled to substantiate this slimy slur.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
August 18, 2024 11:11 pm

If you rely on statistics alone it’s a no brainer, the takeout by the casinos or the TAB makes sure that is a gamble you cannot win in the long run.

Don’t know about the pokies, can’t imagine how sane humans would tolerate it let alone enter willingly.

But as a keen racing punter I can tell you that by careful selection you can actually win and win bigly.

(Simplistic explanation, for blog brevity & clarity of overview):
Rule #1 of gambling: The House always wins. Poker Machines aren’t even a game of skill, or chance (for the player that is.)
Apart from pressing “play” there is no input whatsoever from the player.

Playing them cannot be rigged, gamed, or manipulated.

They’re computer chips, programmed to, over a cycle of 5 million ‘spins’, return circa 92% of the amount “bet” to the player.

The only way to win, is play once and have the good luck to win more than you played.

Most players are buying entertainment, with the added adrenaline rush that they may luck a good win, or even a jackpot. (& thus fool themselves that they’re “winning”)

They’re for playing, not punting. It is understandable that a punter (i.e. form guide follower who bets on the outcome of horse races) would not understand or want to play them.

Likewise for many other personality types: Readers, conversationalists, thinkers, hobbyists & people who like to use their hands. None of these enjoy poker machines.

A short term rush aside, it takes a special type of personality to play consistently. Contrary to propaganda from haters, most who play enjoy doing it & play within their means.

Last edited 3 months ago by Salvatore – Iron Publican
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