Open Thread – Weekend 21 Sept 2024


Picnic Under The Trees, Julius LeBlanc Stewart, 1895

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Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 6:41 pm

Flying Renewable Death news (the Hun):

Victorian farmers are being told to wear hard hats on their properties as shards of sharp plastic fly off brand new wind turbines.

Of course they are.

Locals in Victoria’s rural west have reported finding pieces of wind turbines, including serrated trailing edges, in the vicinity of the $3 billion green-energy project.

Owners of the federal and state government-backed Golden Plains Wind Farm — 65km northwest of Geelong — contacted neighbouring landowners earlier this month to warn them about “blade serration detachment” following wild winds.

And:

Western Victoria Liberal MP Bev McArthur, who raised the issue in parliament last week, said her constituents were finding pieces as far as 750 metres from the turbines.

“One of my constituents, Russell Coad, found these serrated trailing edges 750 metres from the turbine on his farm, and other pieces fell within metres of the Barunah CFA fire shed,” she said.

“The extreme weather event which caused this problem for the turbines was — you have guessed it — wind.”

Surely not. Wind turbines damaged by wind?

Our betters wouldn’t have – you know – lied, would they?

Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 6:45 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 6:47 pm
132andBush
132andBush
September 21, 2024 6:48 pm

The critique of Churchill might attract more credulity if it was backed up with some primary source facts instead of fever dreams.

JC
JC
September 21, 2024 6:55 pm

Ellie

September 21, 2024 6:45 pm

Reply to  Steve trickler

Yeah. I am very thin skinned. First to admit it.

Okay try this. Was there a common trait that you saw in murderers during your time?

Ellie
Ellie
September 21, 2024 6:57 pm

Had a fall two weeks ago trying to navigate my way to bed after a bottle of wine.

Hit my head on my bedside table. I lay there and couldn’t get up. Called 000. I am on blood thinners.

My father died two weeks ago. Not sure how to process any of this.

Sorry, Dover. Going off line.

JC
JC
September 21, 2024 7:04 pm

Ellie

September 21, 2024 6:48 pm

Reply to  Steve trickler

No, not really. It’s one-sided. Numbers and Monty can’t post without being piled on. The echo is … ouch

I can’t say much about Numbersnuts because, honestly, I’ve never bothered reading anything he writes. He’s excruciatingly boring and I don’t believe that’s changed. Fatboy, though, likes to troll. It’s like he wakes up in the morning thinking, “How can I get a reaction today?” But hey, credit where it’s due—he’s doing us a service. Instead of us having to wade through the latest left-wing nonsense, he does the dirty work, then brings it right to us so we can have a little fun tearing it apart.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 7:06 pm

Was there a common trait that you saw in murderers

The common trait in murderers is that they are shit people. Sometimes they kill other shit people, sometimes they kill people that are not shit people.

When they are pinched and binned, they are removed from their natural habitat. By the time professional handpatters get to them years later, they are so well versed in the ‘oh I’m rehabilitated’ and ‘it was all someone else’s fault’ lines that said handpatters are blinded to their inherent shitness, and they persuade themselves that their ineffectual, State-paid-for mewlings are actually effective.

The reality is that the handpatters are actually attracted to murderers’ ‘dangerous, bad boy’ personas. This is why chicks working in corrections can’t seem to stop themselves throwing handjobs at crooks who should never see the light of day again.

Roger
Roger
September 21, 2024 7:13 pm

Victorian farmers are being told to wear hard hats on their properties as shards of sharp plastic fly off brand new wind turbines.

Hard hats, eh?

And what if one of these shards landed in your chest, or cuts an artery on a limb?

They can’t possibly rule such an event out, but I suppose because it’s “green” technology it gets a free pass in our otherwise workplace health and safety obsessed culture.

Just wear a hard hat. Yeah, right.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
JC
JC
September 21, 2024 7:15 pm

I want to approach this with the utmost care. On the old blog.,you used to share that you had experienced difficult and painful events in our early life, and at times it seemed to deeply affect you emotionally. Given the personal impact this must have had on you, I was wondering how you managed to stay emotionally detached when working on cases related to this area of criminal behavior. I ask only out of curiosity about how such experiences shape one’s ability to navigate similar situations professionally. I also ask because I’m somewhat sceptical anyone could not let these experiences color their view.

JC
JC
September 21, 2024 7:28 pm

Yep, I’m asking you.

Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 7:29 pm

@robinmonotti

THERE IS NO MAN MADE CLIMATE CRISIS AND THIS IS THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

“The timeline, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth’s past temperatures ever produced, the authors say.”

The timeline shows we are at a historically cold low, no wonder then that there may be warming, and that therefore if the planet heated up considerably before homo sapiens even existed, it is not likely at all that the reason for any warming is really man.

Pogria
Pogria
September 21, 2024 7:29 pm

A young man with Cerebral Palsy, has always wanted to ride in a Super Car.
His dream came true. Watch the “good man”, who made his dream possible.

https://x.com/OntWtf/status/1837240693892210855?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1837240693892210855%7Ctwgr%5Ec9ef67591088997637895c922fc01cf80801fe88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F

Pogria
Pogria
September 21, 2024 7:41 pm
Roger
Roger
September 21, 2024 7:50 pm

Retired border chief ordered to not report border crossers with ties to terrorism

‘We have no idea who and what entered our country’

‘Retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said he was instructed by the Biden administration to not publicize arrests of illegal border crossers identified as “Significant Interest Aliens” with ties to terrorism.

Heitke testified before a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday about how Biden-Harris “open border policies have undermined our safety and security.”

“We had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens … with significant ties to terrorism,” illegally entering in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector, he said.

Prior to the Biden-Harris administration, the sector averaged 10 to 15 SIAs per year. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” he said.’

The Centre Square

I wonder if border security was on the agenda of Albanese’s 90 minute meeting with Biden today?

Pogria
Pogria
September 21, 2024 7:55 pm

I wonder if border security was on the agenda of Albanese’s 90 minute meeting with Biden today?”

The two of them would have been having a nap.

Rabz
September 21, 2024 7:58 pm

Kitties gorn!

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 8:11 pm

Kitties gorn!

Yep.

The Dangerfields, aka Geelong, have rightly been consigned to the stinking bin of also-rans for the season. I hear hair product sales are tanking already.

The GF will now be scratched over by the Sydney Mancravers and the Brisvegas Lions.

Sigh.

Rabz
September 21, 2024 8:28 pm

That would be the Sydney Türkiyes, thanks very much.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 21, 2024 8:32 pm

Kitties gorn!

I do this.

Squeeze – Cool For Cats (1979)

Rabz
September 21, 2024 8:39 pm

Advance‘s political campaign for the next feral election – putting the greenfilth and their vile toxic idiocy and hypocrisy under the microscope:

the greenfilth have explicit policies to make your life harder.

To make your life more expensive.

To make your family less safe.

That’s the truth.

And it’s time Ozzies knew it.

It’s time for the TRUTH about this toxic political party to be exposed.

Indeedy.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 21, 2024 8:45 pm

Knuckle Dragger
 September 21, 2024 8:11 pm

Kitties gorn!

Yep.

The Dangerfields, aka Geelong, have rightly been consigned to the stinking bin of also-rans for the season. I hear hair product sales are tanking already.

Somewhere tonight, a grown man is making his way home in a full cat outfit with tear-streaked cat face-paint running down his whiskery cheeks.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 21, 2024 8:48 pm

frigging ridiculous trying to find a reply to a question asked earlier on.
This format is shit, Dover.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 21, 2024 8:48 pm

The Meanjin Lions have won some sort of sporting competition and now face the Gadigal Swans.

The only upside I can see is that this will enrage the Naarm sodomites.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 21, 2024 8:48 pm

Sorry, Dover. Going off line.

OK.
Bye bye for now.

Ellie
Ellie
September 21, 2024 9:03 pm

Now it is the sancho – knuckle dragger intelligence

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 21, 2024 9:04 pm

I’m reading Thomas Fleming’s book “The New Dealer’s War.” Interesting reading, to say the least!

Johnjjj
Johnjjj
September 21, 2024 9:05 pm

How do you identify a Jihadi? He’s using pen and paper.

Rabz
September 21, 2024 9:05 pm

It truly is incredible that there are imbeciles existing on this planet who think that Fatty Trump and the Pute are besties and that “wussians” of various indeterminate identities helped the Orange Man (bad) win the election in 2016.

Collectivist crackpot: “Fatty Trump fraudulently beat shrillary in 2016 due to wussian interference”
Normal person: “and geriatric joe won eleventy gazillion votes in 2020 entirely legitimately campaigning in his basement while gifted with advanced dementia”

The cackling kamel will stagger over the line in November, Cats, unfortunately there is no way to prevent it.

Last edited 12 days ago by Rabz
Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 9:08 pm

The Furniture Shop is missing one of its mascots.

Rabz
September 21, 2024 9:15 pm

Whack a moll!

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
September 21, 2024 9:19 pm

One of the most interesting guys on the internet is cyber expert Mike Benz. Just listened to him being interviewed by former SEAL Shawn Ryan.
If you are interested in big picture stuff they cover :
The disinformation censorship industry and why they need to control Musk / X.
What has been happening in Brazil in relation to US supporting Lula. Plus X and Starlink in Brazil and China involvement in Brazil.
Talks about Atlantic Council which has 7 former CIA heads on its board and is funded by 11 US agencies.
A lot about Hunter Biden / CIA / Burisma / Ukraine / Gas and why Ukraine so important to US policy.

132andBush
132andBush
September 21, 2024 9:24 pm

Victorian farmers are being told to wear hard hats on their properties as shards of sharp plastic fly off brand new wind turbines.

Where once one could wear an Akubra, made from a genuine renewable resource, one now has to wear a hat made from the products of evil fossils.

To protect oneself against products made from evil fossils.

To save the planet.

And Trump is Hitler.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 21, 2024 9:28 pm

Knuckle Dragger
 September 21, 2024 9:08 pm

The Furniture Shop is missing one of its mascots.

You don’t speak for me!

Or do you?

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 9:30 pm

You don’t speak for me!

Or do you?

Check your email.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 21, 2024 9:36 pm

Aaaaaahahahahaaaa.

Ellie
Ellie
September 21, 2024 9:40 pm

And this is where it was born. Knuck feck and Leigh Lowe. Triggered

Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 9:45 pm

Wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

Trump Assassins: Off-the-Books Assets?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 21, 2024 10:01 pm

Knuckle Dragger
 September 21, 2024 9:30 pm

You don’t speak for me!

Or do you?

Check your email.

Bwah ha ha ha.
Good times.
Went off like a Lebanese pager.

Rosie
Rosie
September 21, 2024 10:08 pm

Driving west to east in Melbourne this afternoon there was an electronic sign recruiting women to be part of the first all female built tunnel.
Nuts.
https://x.com/ACCIONA_EN/status/1833331057032368326?t=d7aIBWn535yox9TeykxHZw&s=19

Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 10:30 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2024 10:34 pm
Ellie
Ellie
September 21, 2024 10:59 pm

Scratch the bullies. Why are they silent.

Titus Groates
Titus Groates
September 21, 2024 11:26 pm

Who is this Leigh Lowe?

Salvatore - Iron Publican
September 21, 2024 11:26 pm

Rosie  September 21, 2024 2:37 pm

“There are any number of one-teacher schools in remote and rural Queensland”

Crap analogy.

Remote primary schools are there to service productive farming communities.

Spot on. The parents at those remote & rural schools;
a) make sure their kids attend.
b) make sure their kids learn. [very different to point (a)]
b) turn up to working bees, or even when there’s not a working bee.
c) raise a helluva lot of money, some raise enough to pay for running the school [yes, this includes salary for the teacher & every other cost]
d) put in no end of their own time & a considerable amount of effort, to ensure the school operates.
e) make the school the hub of their community & the hub of social life.

In every way, they’re the opposite of the other remote schools.

Nothing is holding back the parents at the other remote schools, the ones not in productive farming communities.
except the parents themselves. They clearly have no culture of ‘having a go’ & no overriding urge to ensure their kids have every opportunity.

It’s Remarkable
It’s Remarkable
September 22, 2024 12:15 am

Silly me thought a realtively innoccuous comment at the Paywallian might get though…..
There was an article by Chris Kenny abou how awful people were to disparage those unhappy about Welcome To Country and such like. My comment was:

As I understand it the Welcome to Country was invented by Ernie Dingo and Richard Whalley in the 1970’s to assist with a ceremony for some foreign dignitary.
Then the smoking ceremony: also invented, there seems to be no record of this being a legitimate activity by aboriginal people. Mind you they did generate plenty of smoke with the burning of the bush that was practiced to flush out some food.

Ditto the ‘dot paintings’. No paintings anything like dot paintings found among the rock art and cave ‘paintings’ of aboriginal people.
All are fabrications and totally made up.
When you have to lie and make things up about your past, then either you did not have one worth much or are embarrassed about it.
Without honesty there is not much.

John
John
September 22, 2024 2:36 am

Does anybody know who The Currency Lad is? His blog has abruptly stopped.

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2024 4:00 am
KevinM
KevinM
September 22, 2024 5:16 am

Well deserved honor.

Martha Raye was a comic actress and singer who entertained U.S. troops in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. She was the only woman buried in Fort Bragg’s Special Forces cemetery, where she received full military honors in 1994.

green
KevinM
KevinM
September 22, 2024 5:33 am

I would’ve started from a more modest height first, just in case.

Screenshot-2024-06-04-014757
KevinM
KevinM
September 22, 2024 5:47 am

On your bike!

——————

In the world of human-powered feats, speed is often the ultimate benchmark. And in 1962, an astonishing gear ratio and physical endurance pushed the limits of what seemed possible. A single-speed road bike reached an incredible 127 mph, which is an almost unimaginable accomplishment for any cyclist.

This daring feat required both extraordinary engineering and superhuman endurance.

The most curious aspect of this achievement, beyond the sheer speed, is the setup of the bike. Not only was the bike a single-speed—a type of bicycle typically used for much slower, controlled rides—but the front fork was also turned backward.
This might seem counterintuitive, as a backward fork would normally result in unstable handling. However, there may have been aerodynamic or mechanical reasons behind this unusual modification, possibly to shift the rider’s weight in a way that would reduce drag or improve stability at such high speeds.

The feat becomes even more mind-blowing when we compare it to other land speed records of its time. Just over 50 years earlier, in 1906, a steam-powered vehicle broke the land speed record. Steam technology, though seemingly antiquated by today’s standards, was at one time the pinnacle of innovation.

In fact, that 1906 record, set by Fred Marriott in the *Stanley Rocket* at 127.66 mph, stood for several years and demonstrated that steam engines had tremendous potential for speed.
In 1909, however, the record was broken again, this time by a Mercedes with an internal combustion engine, marking the dawn of a new era in speed and mechanical performance.

The Mercedes record was lower than the 1906 steam-powered speed, but the internal combustion engine would soon dominate automotive engineering.

These land speed records, whether powered by steam, combustion engines, or sheer human force, tell a story of mankind’s relentless pursuit of speed and innovation. The 1962 bike achievement, with its backward fork and single gear, represents a triumph of both mechanical ingenuity and human endurance.

bike
Bourne1879
Bourne1879
September 22, 2024 6:52 am

Below from article up at Daily Telegraph.

Two years after its launch, online radio platform TNT News has been wound up due to a lack of funding.

The Gold Coast-based conservative news platform, which purported to “separate fact from fiction, truth from propaganda” and committed way too much uncensored and ­unchecked airtime to conspiracy theorists espousing their views on anything from “government ­tyranny” to “Covid malfeasance”, closed its operations yesterday after its financial backers withdrew.

The platform had, in recent years, given sanctuary to some of the industry’s more polarising voices, among whom, notably, was serial sex pest Chris Smith, longtime understudy to 2GB’s breakfast king Alan Jones”.

I listened to a few shows early on in 2022. They did provide an outlet for Covid commentary that was not allowed in mainstream media. It was a interesting organisation as it operated 24 hours and had hosts from Australia, UK and USA. One was Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit. One Nation Senator Roberts was frequently on it.

No idea who was behind it but must have been some big money. They did not get much advertising money and perhaps this fits in with something Mike Benz was discussing with Shawn Ryan. He was talking about an organisation called Newsguard which rated different media outlets but also sought to deprive them of advertising funding. I would however say TNT radio did cover out there type issues and would be hard for an advertiser to be associated with them.

Mike Smith has now gone to ADH TV which is where Alan Jones was until health issues.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
September 22, 2024 7:00 am

Top story at Daily Mail Australia at time of writing concerns Ingi Doyle.
“I was a super-fit mum-of-two who ran triathlons – until I got the second Covid vaccine. I mourn my old self every day”.

She was one of the first vaccine injuries stories I heard about. Naturally it was not from mainstream media because to mention her case might cause vaccine “hesitancy”.

1735099
1735099
September 22, 2024 7:02 am

Apart from Covid-19, there is another virus circulating at the moment.

It is just as dangerous as the Covid Pandemic, but it originated in the USA, not China. It has seeped across the Pacific like leaking fluids from an overstocked fridge, carried on the bonkers blogs and nutjob social media accounts of some in the land of the shooting spree. Recent events close to home at Wieambilla provide an instructive example. The consequences are real, as can be observed by the chaotic state of US politics.

I’m referring, of course, to the epidemic of distrust of institutions and government across the Pacific since the Tea Party movement emerged towards the first ten years of the new millennium. That movement grew out of a sense of grievance and entitlement precipitated by globalism, automation, and the GFC.

Political movements generated by national grievance rarely end well. Examples include Brexit, which is wreaking havoc on daily life in the UK right now, and the Tea Party itself, which has changed some Republicans from a credible conservative movement to a baying mob, despite the fact that it largely disappeared from the scene in its original form. National grievance was one of the major factors driving the rise of the NAZI movement in Germany in the thirties, and remains a large component of Chinese nationalism, used extremely effectively by the CCP under Xi Jinping.

Another component assisting the rise of grievance politics is the role of US corporate media, exemplified by Fox news, and these days, Newsmax. Gone are the days when the corporate media reported the public mood. These days they make a profit by exploiting that mood, monetising it, and then selling it back to the consumers of that same media. 

These same consumers are always prepared to pay for what they want to hear. They become opinion junkies, and this phenomenon leeches into social media. Recently, social media platforms have belatedly started to arrest the tide of misinformation and disinformation that feeds this sense of grievance. Facebook and Twitter (now X) have begun to do this, although with reluctance, as it messes with their business model. It took an insurrection for Twitter to give Trump the shove. And the twit from South Africa reinstated him.

None of this would bother me very much, except that it is beginning to have an effect locally. One example of this is the imported outrage from the US about vaccine mandates and lockdowns. Despite the fact that the Australian death rate from the virus per head of population is about 1/25 of what is it across the Pacific (67 per million here vs 2297 per million in the US) there are Australian nitwits jumping on the culture wars bandwagon, and bleating, post-event about mandates and restrictions.

 The most recent example of this trans Pacific virus is the push for legislation designed to require voters to present ID at the ballot box. It is designed to solve a problem which does not exist in this country, and has already been resolved in Queensland, where people on the electoral roll are posted an ID card to their address, to present when they vote. I’m accumulating a collection.

A far greater problem than electoral fraud in this country is the rate of participation in state and federal elections – (91.9% at the last federal election). Despite the Electoral Commission seeing this as an achievement, we’d be doing better as a democracy if everybody got to vote. Full participation is essential to democracy. How about the legislature take measures to ensure this disenfranchised 8.1% of the Australian electorate votes, rather than chasing the less than the 0.001% of the electorate who allegedly voted more than once at the last federal poll?

I won’t hold my breath for an answer.

shatterzzz
September 22, 2024 7:03 am
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 7:07 am

Apart from Covid-19, there is another virus circulating at the moment.

Marxism. It’s endemic.

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 7:22 am

Numbers, when you wake up you will realise that governments are merely criminal organisations that have seized control of a country and maintain it by threats of or actual violence.
After all, a government seized you and threw you in to the Army, a form of slavery.
Yet lefties like you want more government.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 22, 2024 7:25 am

A virus of experience Numbers.
Mistrust of government and their institutions is well placed and only becomes more apparent when dealing with them directly.
A good comment came from a mate who’s dealing with the renewable roll out with government mandated bodies and private companies trying to access his land for their purposes, he said “I used to trust people working for the government and think that in the end their trying to do what’s best for us, I don’t any more.”

MatrixTransform
September 22, 2024 7:43 am

his augments are not rational or logical

numbers will now continue fill the pages here with more even gibberish

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 22, 2024 7:43 am

John
 September 22, 2024 2:36 am

Does anybody know who The Currency Lad is? His blog has abruptly stopped.

The chances of him buying a cheap Lebanese pager are low.
But not zero.

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 7:47 am

CL is receiving a foot massage.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
September 22, 2024 7:48 am

Totally agree with this.
“I used to trust people working for the government and think that in the end their trying to do what’s best for us, I don’t any more.

Governments employee numbers are rapidly expanding in Australia and as more Government jobs are created they have to justify themselves by creating more rules and regulations for this rest of us.

As more jobs are created the managers have more subordinates and their posts have to be upgraded to reflect their bigger responsibilities. It is called “empire building”.

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 7:48 am

Someone snuck in and drank my Chardonnay while I was asleep

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 7:49 am

CL is having a WEB.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 7:51 am
Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 8:00 am

War pagers are legitimate targets.

ABC news featuring Australian “Lebanese community” members claiming Israel is “targeting civilians.”

Angry at Albanese government for not criticising Israel more strongly.

No mention of Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket & missile attacks.

I think we’re only days away from calls for “tourist visas” for Lebanese with Australian family connections.

I’m sick of the lies.

shatterzzz
September 22, 2024 8:01 am

Thanx TOM ..
Week-in-pictures has outdun itself today .. an excellent selection ..
Week In Pictures.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 8:02 am

Good Morning Rosie, reading your interesting travelogue about Ireland gave me the impression you wouldn’t be going back. You don’t recommend visiting it anymore? I’ve been reading about Nth Ireland- looks very beautiful and it’s got me interested.

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 8:03 am

Building off the grid. Away from the MSM. Start storing supplies. Tunnels. Get ahead before it happens. One Nation.

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 8:06 am

Following the Trump campaign. Do you play golf, sancho?

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 8:06 am

 “tourist visas” = backdoor PR. Public admin in Australia= malicious incompetence. The canbra way.

Last edited 11 days ago by Miltonf
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 8:08 am

I think we’re only days away from calls for “tourist visas” for Lebanese with Australian family connections.

Aaannd here we go…

Number of asylum seekers in Australia reaches six-year high (Sky News, 22 Sep)

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
September 22, 2024 8:16 am

Oooh hurrah Newcastle gets its first… (checks notes) …man with silicone t*ts in council.
Because visibility. Or something.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 8:18 am

Better when Newcastle was famous for steel.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2024 8:20 am

Piers Akerman sinking the boots in. Deservedly so:

Anthony Albanese’s legacy is simple – beyond a scintilla of a doubt he has foisted the worst government on Australia in living memory.

Forget “Silly” Billy McMahon or discredited Gough Whitlam, both of whom deserve all the contempt of those who knew them and experienced their trashing of the country.

But their egotistical antics pale to dim shades of grey, almost off-white, compared with the catastrophic failures of the incumbent.

The most recent polls reflect the loss of confidence in this leftist government as do the constant comparisons with the last real Labor leaders, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (before he started sliding into irrelevance).

Though his first term isn’t due to end for 12 months, it would seem that Albanese is a one-trick pony and he has failed to bring that trick off.

His stunt, the core of his triumphal election night address, was his promise to deliver the Voice to parliament with all its principal clauses intact.

He placed all his political capital on this – and we know how it went 11 months ago.

His inability to read the room and his innate vanity blinded him to the flawed campaign he thought would be the crowning legacy of his first term in office

Now it is looking increasingly as if the public will say No to the man who not only pledged to bring home Yes but who then had the hide to deny any involvement at all in the disastrously divisive campaign.

Mad, bad and dangerous doesn’t do justice to this farce of an administration.

The Indigenous portfolio has been so wretchedly mismanaged that the number of Aboriginal children in care has reached record numbers.

Domestic violence is at hellish levels, far worse than it has been since pre-settlement times.

Some states have set up Truth and Justice commissions to criticise Western culture and the European occupation. But if there was any truth to be aired, we would be hearing about the brutish existence of pre-settlement Aboriginals.

But it’s not just at home that this government has served its citizens so appallingly.

Its performance away has earned Australia the contempt of its oldest and greatest allies, those who came to our rescue in our hour of need, as well as those who have helped us thwart terrorist attacks here recently.

The Albanese government couldn’t help our allies when the Houthis blocked shipping in the Red Sea.

It has cowed before implicit Chinese threats to our ships and aircraft in international waters and air space.

It has reduced support to Israel, though that nation supplied our intelligence service with critical information.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has stated she wished Australia could have done more to assist the UN with a resolution that threatened Israel’s existence and rewarded the barbaric terrorist activities of Hamas and its Gazan supporters almost 12 months ago.

By trying to isolate Israel, we are losing access to the technologies which enabled the recent targeted strikes against terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.

Rather than putting national security foremost, the Albanese government rushed visas to people from Gaza so they could enter Australia without security checks.

Now the government is running a scandalous baseless fear campaign against nuclear energy.

Under Labor, defence force morale has reached rock bottom.

Bill Shorten may have jumped ship too soon. Australia is rapidly becoming a failed nation under the Albanese government.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 8:22 am

The shooter was there 20 odd hours in advance. It couldn’t be clearer that he was told.

@wendyp4545

Breaking News: Secret Service was aware that Trump would be playing Golf on that Course at least 24 hours in advance.

Earlier reports led the public to believe that his Golf game was a last minute decision and it wasn’t.

We were purposely misled.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2024 8:23 am

From ther Hun.
Clementine Ford threatened with legal action by Kingston Council candidate Jane Agirtan over social media spatA social media spat that kicked off over a designer handbag could end up costing Clementine Ford more than $150,000, after an aspiring councillor claimed she’d been defamed.

132andBush
132andBush
September 22, 2024 8:28 am

Totally agree with this.

“I used to trust people working for the government and think that in the end their trying to do what’s best for us, I don’t any more.

The member of the Senate who told me (re AGW) “It’s bullsht and everyone knows it, it’s just a giant wealth redistribution scheme”, had nothing more in their sights than the obscene remuneration and fat super package available upon obtaining office.
?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 8:33 am

Just in case you don’t detest the UN enough yet.

UNRWA demands immunity for employees implicated in October 7th massacre (22 Sep)

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 8:38 am

Number of asylum seekers in Australia reaches six-year high 

I note the Gazans here on “tourist visas” are now demanding work and study rights and Medicare cards.

I think they intend to settle down.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 8:41 am
Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 8:42 am
calli
calli
September 22, 2024 8:43 am

The Beloved’s birthday today. Busy child wrangling – the little ones thought there would be a party and were up at sparrow’s.

Himself ran away from the mayhem to wash the car! Amazing how urgent such things become, even on your birthday.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 8:47 am

This is where she really outperforms.
The art of vacuity

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 8:49 am

Sucked in greenies!

Running an electric car is twice as expensive as a petrol one (21 Sep)

Electric cars are up to twice as expensive as petrol or diesel vehicles to run, new figures have suggested.

Running an electric vehicle (EV) can cost more than 24p per mile, while a diesel vehicle is 12.5p.

It costs as much as 80p per kilowatt hour to charge an EV using a rapid or ultra-rapid device on the roadside, according to data from the app ZapMap.

It’ll be even worse here, once chargers start upping their c/kWh rates. The price of petrol and diesel is much higher in the UK.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 8:51 am

This is interesting because the rush to net zero will kill AI just the same as everything else. Perhaps when the lights go out such nuclear reactors can be repurposed for more immediate needs.
Microsoft inks deal to restart Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to fuel its voracious AI ambitions

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 8:52 am

Stockpile weapons, canned food. We need to go underground. If Trump doesn’t get up we are ruined. Complain on a blog for attention. Look at me – I write words, but don’t live up to the words. I travel and write travelogues. I am a Jew who writes on a blog about my time on a bus in the city. But do I do anything, but indulge the sensors. My grandmother’s nightmares have revisited me since October 7. No young leftist knows my pain. Frank Foley was our Schindler. Never would I imagine this. EVER in my lifetime.

calli
calli
September 22, 2024 8:53 am

From Indolent’s link:

Now we’re learning more details of the attacks, and they’re as impressive as they are diabolical. 

Wrong word. The Oct 7 massacre and abductions were diabolical. Endless rocket fire into civilian areas and the displacement of 60,000 civilians is diabolical. The murder of 12 children on a soccer field is diabolical.

The electronic pocket Kabooming of terrorists is justice.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 22, 2024 8:53 am

… and no one ever named a band The Albaneses.

Last edited 11 days ago by Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Makka
Makka
September 22, 2024 9:00 am

The electronic pocket Kabooming of terrorists is justice.

Poetic, is what it is. Brilliant, elegant also comes to mind.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 9:02 am

Electric cars are up to twice as expensive as petrol or diesel vehicles to run, new figures have suggested.

Looks like they didn’t factor in insurance and depreciation.

Or average repair costs over a vehicle’s lifetime.

Which would make the EV figures much, much worse.

And governments are just biding their time until they can make those chargers a revenue source.

I foresee a day not far hence when EV owners will cry for subsidies.

Last edited 11 days ago by Roger
Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 9:05 am

… and no one ever named a band The Albaneses.

Nothing illustrates the intellectual and moral dead end that is Australian prog-leftism like the fetishisation of Whitlam.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2024 9:14 am

Death toll from Israeli strike on Hezbollah military leaders risesStephen Kalin
11 hours ago

Dow Jones
154 comments

Israel’s airstrike on a building in southern Beirut didn’t just kill a top Hezbollah commander – it took out an entire class of senior leaders of the militant group’s most elite fighting force, as the two foes lurch closer to all-out war.
Hezbollah on Saturday raised the death toll among its fighters from Friday’s airstrike to 16, including top military commander Ibrahim Aqil and many of the senior commanders of the elite Radwan force. The strike on top leadership followed a pair of broad attacks on the group’s rank and file, when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies that had been rigged with explosives blew up roughly simultaneously across the country.
According to the group’s own death announcements, the week’s attacks accounted for about 10% of the 500 Hezbollah fighters to have been killed since the group started firing rockets across the border shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.

PeterM
PeterM
September 22, 2024 9:29 am

I thought Oprah’s body language showed embarrassment as Kamala avoided answering questions

cohenite
September 22, 2024 9:33 am

I won’t hold my breath for an answer.

Please do you rancid POS.

Still, well done. That lengthy post reeked of elitism and the sole conspiracy that infects leftoids like yourself. Which is, any threat to the leftoid control of the narrative/institutions is a manifestation of hillbilly extreme rightwingers. The irony is it is not the patronising lies which leftoids embellish their narrative/institutions which is the zeitgeist but their control and power of the narrative/institutions. Being in power is the only quality leftoids have: all the descriptions of the right wingers are merely a rephrasing of that being in power and their suppression of any threat to that power.

Given that, you are merely a useful idiot, like all leftoid minions.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 22, 2024 9:48 am

Start storing supplies. Tunnels. Get ahead before it happens

Here we go.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 9:52 am
Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 22, 2024 9:52 am

Start storing supplies. Tunnels. Get ahead before it happens

Here we go.

Would I be right in thinking the original author of the supplies and tunnels thing was a missionary from the Furniture Store here on a Temporary Activity visa?

Last edited 11 days ago by Mother Lode
Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 9:57 am

“the impression you wouldn’t be going back”
Not during their school holidays for sure.
I’m not in a hurry, only because there are several, many, other places I would like to visit however if a family member wants me to return in the near future I will. So I might go back in late 2025. I might even catch the ferry to Bilbao.
There was lots to like, especially in the wild west, and the people are nice.
I’m pondering a short visit to Japan in November, then, as there is a happy event expected in February I’ll be home in the new year.

m0nty
m0nty
September 22, 2024 9:57 am

I see Kellie-Jay Keen copped another bowl of tomato soup to the face in Sheffield, this time by a bespectacled ranga beardo who works at the university as a diversity officer. The gentleman was arrested and charged with assault.

I am sure Cats will react to this news with suitably moderate thoughts.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 10:07 am

Waiting FAA bureaucrat peoples, waiting…

SpaceX@SpaceX · 2h

Starship stacked for Flight 5 and ready for launch, pending regulatory approval

Light this candle!

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 10:21 am

Smashing the Western Illusion of Democracy

Finn Andreen, Mises Wire, 13 September 2024

In these politically turbulent times, the “illusion of democracy is fading worldwide” as one pundit wrote recently. There is a growing sense in the West that “democracy” is not working well, but there is not yet a full and clear recognition of that fact. Michel Maffesoli, honorary professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, has been saying already for several years, that “the end of the democratic ideal is manifesting itself.” Signs of this can be seen in the problematic elections that have taken place in his native France and other Western countries. 

The “ideal” or “illusion” of democracy comes from widespread misconceptions about this political system, despite clear misgivings from the most illustrious political thinkers of the past. The most important misconceptions about democracy are that elected representatives are generally loyal and disinterested, and that the electorate is generally informed and rational with regard to politics.

David Hume wrote in his famous Essays (1777) that democracy cannot be “representative” because all societies are “governed by the few.” Sociologist Robert Michels then defined, in his ground-breaking work on political parties (1911), what he called the “iron law of oligarchy,” methodically showing that all mature organizations, without exception, become oligarchic (i.e., ruled by minorities). 

For the early democratic movements of the 19th century, representative democracy was generally not perceived as truly democratic; the Athenian model was the ideal. As Robert Michels noted, it was only when the practical impossibilities of direct democracy on a large scale became evident, that the concept of political representation gained legitimacy. Over time, this concept became synonymous with “democracy.”

Montesquieu considered in The Spirit of the Laws (1739) that the main justification for the representative system is not only that the average person does not have the time or the interest to engage in political life, but that he is incompetent to do so. Tocqueville warned in Democracy in America (1835) that one of the potential threats to democracy is that people can become so absorbed by the pursuit of economic opportunities that they lose interest in politics. 

Indeed, the majority has neither the interest nor the motivation to get deeply involved in politics. Voters implicitly understand that their vote is just a small drop in an ocean of ballots and will, by itself, make no difference in the election outcome. It has also been argued by some that not only do voters lack the interest and motivation, they also lack the time and the capability of thinking rationally about politics, as political theorist James Burnham summarized in his essential work, The Machiavellians (1943):

“The inability of the masses to function scientifically in politics rests primarily on the following factors: the huge size of the mass group, which makes it too unwieldy for the use of scientific techniques; the ignorance, on the part of the masses, of the methods of administration and rule; the necessity, for the masses, of spending most of their energies on the bare making of a living, which leaves little energy or time for gaining more knowledge about politics or carrying out practical political tasks; the lack, in most people, of a sufficient degree of those psychological qualities—ambition, ruthlessness, and so on—that are prerequisites for active political life.”

Though these insights about political representation have long been known, they have been suppressed in order to maintain the illusion of majority rule. “Democracy” has such a positive connotation in the Western value system that it is understandably difficult for most people to accept that they do not “rule” in any meaningful sense. This reality is all the more difficult to grasp since some policies from the ruling minority do, and even must, consider majority public opinion to some extent. If pressed, most people would nevertheless admit that though they have elected “representatives,” they actually have no real say over several areas (e.g., foreign, monetary, and trade policy), even though these areas impact their lives greatly. 

The Inherent Instability of All Political Systems

Though the illusion of democracy is slowly fading in the West, it is not so much because of a realization of the truths presented above. Rather, it is because representative democracy, like all political systems, is inherently unstable. It has long been known that conditions constantly change, to paraphrase Heraclitus, but it is not widely understood that political systems are ill-suited for this basic reality. Though democracy might sometimes seem to work well, the never-ending economic, social, demographic, and technical changes to society make such impressions short-lived. 

Regardless of the political system, the power balance at any given time between state and society, and between the ruling minority and the ruled majority, is constantly disrupted by such changing conditions. The seemingly inexorable increase in state interventionism has a negative impact on wealth-creation and private property, forcing socialization, and leading to a rise in political tensions. When the state becomes more bureaucratic, it fails to keep up with a changing society, and thereby destabilizes the power balance. Further, political tensions also arise if the ruling minority pushes a political agenda that disregards or even antagonizes the majority. 

Democracy, in particular, is subject to constant swings of political tensions due to its inherent lack of fairness: the losing side of an election (more than half in plurality systems) is not represented. As Gustave de Molinari wrote, democracy “insist[s] that the decisions of the majority must become law, and that the minority is obliged to submit to it, even if it is contrary to its most deeply rooted convictions and injures its most precious interests.” Voting phenomena like Duverger’s Law and Arrow’s paradox tend to soften Molinari’s stark description but, by distorting election results, they hardly make them more representative or more fair.

When the state’s size and power is limited (i.e., statist interventionism in society is weak), the state’s record as defender of property rights would naturally be considered more important than whether or not the majority is democratically represented. Conversely, when the state’s power is extensive (i.e., the state is strongly interventionist), whether at a national or supranational level, the majority surely has high expectations from democracy since the direction of society hangs, grotesquely, on the decisions of its executive and legislative branches. 

A Necessary Reduction of State Power

It is possible then to conclude that a limitation of state power is necessary in order to reduce political tensions in society and to introduce much-needed stability, regardless of whether or not the political system is considered “democratic.” This requires a decentralization of decision-making and a reduction of the role of the state, by strengthening the free market and individual rights. The result would be a freer society, able to adapt more naturally and harmoniously to the changing conditions. Thus, what is needed is “more freedom” rather than “more democracy.”

Unfortunately, the illusion of democracy has led the majorities in the West to conflate democracy with freedom. This is a significant mistake because democracy is no guarantee for freedom, even if majority rule were possible. On the contrary, when concessions to the majority have been made, such as welfare spending through fiscal redistribution, these have had deleterious effects on society and reduced economic freedom. As Tocqueville said, “I dearly love liberty and respect for rights, but not democracy.”

Considering the misconceptions about political representation that have been presented here, it is high time to fully smash the illusion of democracy in the West and substitute freedom for democracy as the highest political goal to attain and to protect.

Finn Andreen is a Swedish libertarian living in France.

cohenite
September 22, 2024 10:25 am

I didn’t get past the first cartoon in WIP before I was laughing:

Hezbollah-blowing-up-cartoon
Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 22, 2024 10:48 am

Jimmy Dore is unimpressed with the Israeli pager/walkie-talkie attacks ion Hezbollah.

He doesn’t seem to like Israel at all. I suppose he must occasionally burnish those progressive bona fides.

Frank
Frank
September 22, 2024 10:59 am

Quite the screed from numbers this morning. It will be fun when he realises that teachers work for the government. Self awareness to follow in short order.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
September 22, 2024 11:07 am

Roger, that Mises Wire guest paste is a great read, thanks heaps

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2024 11:07 am

Asylum claims at six-year high as record numbers await decisionBy Natassia ChrysanthosSeptember 22, 2024 — 3.00am

Listen to this article
7 min
The number of people seeking asylum in Australia has hit a six-year high and a record 117,500 people are on shore awaiting a decision or deportation as huge backlogs and five-year wait times expose the country’s immigration system to exploitation.
The list of people in limbo is growing by about 1000 a month, creating a backdoor for people on temporary visas who run out of options, including students, to keep working in Australia by applying for asylum and entering the drawn-out appeal process.
It means those found to be genuine refugees are also forced to wait years for security.

The Labor government has spent $275 million to step up resourcing and accelerate processes after a review found delays were “motivating bad actors to take advantage by lodging increasing numbers of non-genuine applications for protection”.
But it faces a tough task in wresting control of the system as latest Home Affairs data reveals 25,210 people applied for protection visas in the 2023-24 financial year, the highest number of applicants since 27,931 people in 2017-18. More than four in five asylum claims were rejected, with applicants from Vietnam lodging the highest portion, followed by those from China and India.
Helen Duncan, chief executive of the Migration Institute of Australia, said it was “without doubt” that people who probably did not have legitimate claims were using protection visas to extend their stays in Australia.
“It’s not a situation we like to see because it means genuine refugees have their cases delayed because of huge backlogs and cases that have no merit,” she said. “If the processing was quicker, people wouldn’t be using it to delay their stay in Australia. But it’s there, so people use it in the wrong way.”

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2024 11:08 am

Excellent day yesterday. Had lunch with the great Bushie, Farmer Gez, Matrix, John and Mater. Along with wives of Mater and Matrix.
Fantastic to just sit and listen to these people and their experiences.

JC
JC
September 22, 2024 11:11 am
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 11:24 am

Global warming is coming for our toilets.

Many people in the Pacific lack access to adequate toilets—and climate change makes things worse (Phys.org, 21 Sep)

Here’s who they are:

Benny Zuse Rousso

Research Fellow, International Water Centre, Griffith University

Regina Souter

Associate Professor & Director, International WaterCentre, Griffith University

Sigh. Maybe that august educational centre should go back to being the Mount Gravatt Teacher’s College.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 11:41 am

Thanks for the post Roger- got me thinking about the last 10 years. It’s almost as if the internet has allowed scrutiny of the elites to a degree never previously possible. Furthermore, it’s allowed genuinely populist candidates to talk directly to voters. This has caused the elites (the political-meja class) to reveal their true selves and their willingness to use Stalinist tactics to stifle dissent.

will
will
September 22, 2024 11:41 am

BMW driver at centre of Daylesford crash that killed five people walked free from court.

The diabetic driver charged after two children and three adults were killed in a horror beer garden crash has had his case thrown out of court after a magistrate ruled the evidence was ‘so weak’.

William Herbert Swale, 66, had all charges dismissed this week after his lawyers successfully argued his actions were not voluntary because he was in a state of severe hypoglycemia.

The tragedy unfolded at 6.07pm on November 5 last year, when Mr Swale’s car careened down a hill and through an outdoor dining area outside The Royal Daylesford Hotel.

The lives of two families, visiting the country town in Victoria’s spa country, were forever altered as five people were killed and six others injured on the Melbourne Cup long weekend.

Initially rushed to hospital after the crash, Mr Swale was charged with 14 offences following a month-long police investigation.

Prosecutors had alleged the type-1 diabetic, diagnosed three decades ago, knew or ought to have known the risks of getting behind the wheel with low blood sugar.

They accepted he was in a state of severe hypoglycemia at the time of the fatal crash, but pointed to him getting behind the wheel 40 minutes earlier, alleging gross negligence.

so not murder as no intent, but it surely is manslaughter and dangerous driving, or does everyone get away with that, not only senior labour figures?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 11:43 am

The Starliner debacle claims a scalp…

The head of Boeing’s defense and space business is out as company tries to fix troubled contracts (21 Sep)

The company said Theodore “Ted” Colbert III was removed immediately as president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security and replaced temporarily by the division’s chief operating officer, Steve Parker. A search is underway for a permanent replacement.

Colbert spent 15 years at Boeing, serving as chief information officer and leading its global-services business before running the defense unit.

So I did as you do and looked him up. Yep, my woke bingo card got another box ticked.

MatrixTransform
September 22, 2024 11:46 am

will P Diddy survive the weekend?

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 12:00 pm

Just received a message telling me to behave.

As you were.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 22, 2024 12:00 pm

Not a bad feed either BB.
Keep that wing out of trouble.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 22, 2024 12:09 pm

Maybe that august educational centre should go back to being the Mount Gravatt Teacher’s College.

If only Dawkins had become a winemaker…

Wiki: “He is the son of Muriel (née Lee Steere) and Alec Letts Dawkins. His father, originally from Adelaide, was an orthopaedic surgeon and military physician during World War II with the rank of brigadier.[3] His maternal grandfather Sir Ernest Augustus Lee Steere was a prominent pastoralist and businessman in Western Australia, while his uncle Sir Ernest Henry Lee-Steere served as Lord Mayor of Perth in the 1970s.[4]… Dawkins attended primary school in Cottesloe and went on to attend Scotch College, Perth. After leaving school he moved to South Australia to attend Roseworthy Agricultural College, graduating with a diploma in agriculture in 1968” 

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 12:12 pm

Numbers, the right/left thing politically is very simple. The Left wants more government – rules, regulations, hoops to jump through etc. The Right wants fewer of these.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 12:12 pm

I think Griffith is a Menzies uni like Macquarie, LaTrobe, Flinders. Never much chop I suspect and none of them are much good now anyway.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2024 12:14 pm

Hezbies are getting curry.

Israel Unleashes Hell On South Lebanon With Giant Mystery Bomb As War Escalates (22 Sep)

Massive escalation along the southern Lebanese border is very clear at this point, as Israeli jets have pounded Hezbollah positions through much of Saturday. 

Al Jazeera correspondents have confirmed that “Israel’s military launched 400 attacks on Lebanon on Saturday and Hezbollah fired rockets at the Ramat David base near the city of Haifa, in their largest exchange of fire since the war on Gaza began.”

Another indicator of the escalation is that Israel is apparently beginning use much bigger bombs compared to much of the past nearly year of internecine fighting. The below widely circulating footage shows a large flash and skyscraper-size fireball, resulting in some viewers speculating it was likely a heavy bunker-buster bomb

I wonder if they found Nasrallah’s underground bunker? That would be worth a MOAB.

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 12:17 pm

so not murder as no intent, but it surely is manslaughter and dangerous driving

If he’d been impaired due alcohol he’d be in jail. Diabetics surely have a duty of care to be fit to drive as do we all, all the time.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 12:19 pm

“The ability to supply the device to Hezbollah was helped by the fact that the terror group cannot make purchases on the open market, because of suppliers’ fears of US sanctions, and therefore must routinely work with intermediary suppliers”
Makes sense.

https://x.com/OliaOnX/status/1837651935001706822?t=lA5kb1c8UoXcaYA_focCNg&s=19

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 12:21 pm

I suspect the Dawkins reforms were cribbed from the Poms where all the Polytechnics suddenly became unis eg Uni of Westminster.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 12:21 pm

“I’m not sure people grasp how brave the women at these events are. They know that trans activists are violent scum, but they come anyway.”
https://x.com/Glinner/status/1837495112827387924?t=XV_BnKliuCM9SP-p6grZnA&s=19

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 12:21 pm

I’m really not looking forward NOT to the soon to be implemented extra security measures as a result of the Pager bombs. Start with airlines and go from there. I’m sure we’ll kill people as a result. Hundreds have already died after we locked the cockpit doors after 9/11
A can of worms has been opened.

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 12:25 pm

Regarding Starship Flight 5 and the FAA:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/spacex-and-elon-musk-blast-the-faas-red-tape-again/

RTWT. The FAA are a pack of utter bastards who must be taking lessons from CASA which is yet another criminal organisation.
I’m told by a former insider that the only two things discussed at lunch at CASA are “how’s my super going” and ” Who in the industry I managed to screw over this morning”.

mem
mem
September 22, 2024 12:27 pm

The real climate deniers are those that refuse to acknowledge that the climate changed before we started burning fossil fuels.

?A great Message to quote back at the climate fanatics.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/09/20/the-real-climate-change-deniers-are-those-who-deny-the-climate-changed-before-we-started-burning-fossil-fuels-says-geologist/

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 22, 2024 12:27 pm

Do these blokes get paid to go to work every day???

Secret Service admits its ‘failure’ during Donald Trump assassination attempt, reveals different radio frequency meant Secret Service unaware of shooter on roof
Sky

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 12:28 pm

ASD
“They exhibit an intense and focused preoccupation with limited interests that are often unusual or abnormal in their intensity.”
Greta has switched from climate to jihad, it’s as though the climate is longer the pressing issue it was just a couple of years ago.
Weird.

Arky
September 22, 2024 12:34 pm

Celebrity rapper turns out to be accused of pimping, and drug dealing.
I mean, who would expect that?
All that music with such positive, Christian messages!
I think I’m losing faith in humanity.
Sigh.
If you can’t trust the gangster rappers, who can you trust?

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 22, 2024 12:35 pm

We know Van Fatham is on drugs.
But this unhinged screed is 2 pencils up the nose wibble wibble fingerpainting with poo all over the place.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/22/yes-more-australians-should-have-access-to-ivf-but-talk-of-a-fertility-problem-has-the-the-scent-of-old-patriarchy

The review recommends establishing uniform national fertility law, guaranteeing equal rights for same-sex and single-by-choice birthing parents and ditching the ridiculous must-be-unpregnantly-banged-for-a-year current definition of “infertility” (yes, true). It also proposes an expansion of reproductive health services and removing economic barriers to accessing reproductive care.

Awesome, lets subsidise the group with the worst outcomes for kids … single mums.

PeterM
PeterM
September 22, 2024 12:49 pm

Does Israel turning its attention to the north indicate that it considers the situation in the south to be coming under control?

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 22, 2024 12:57 pm

Take 2. Stinking buggy website, sorry DB need to vent.

As a lowly geo I jagged an invite to the 2 RAR INTERFET reunion recovery at the See View Hotel thru s mate.

Could be a long long long arvo…

33deg here beautiful spring day.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 12:59 pm

The more I read the offerings of of mtf trans on the internet the more obvious it becomes that most of them are porn addicted autogynephils.

“Autogynephilia is defined as a male’s propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female” 
Why are you always carrying water for them Monty?

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 1:30 pm

I think Griffith is a Menzies uni like Macquarie, LaTrobe, Flinders.

Griffith was mooted by the QLD government as an extension of UQ for boomer kids right on the cusp of the cultural revolution of the late ’60s.

By the time it was opened it was ’75 and the long march was underway.

A mate did an Arts degree there in the late ’70s. I remember him showing me the texts – full on counter-cultural crap. Despite this miseducation he went on to build a successful business as a media entrepreneur.

Last edited 11 days ago by Roger
Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 1:36 pm

“Trans Activists Set Off Explosion in Attempt to Sabotage Conference Critical of Gender Ideology”
Hahaha its just another tin of Heinz

https://reduxx.info/france-trans-activists-set-fire-to-venue-in-attempt-to-sabotage-conference-critical-of-gender-ideology/

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 22, 2024 1:40 pm

so not murder as no intent, but it surely is manslaughter and dangerous driving

If he’d been impaired due alcohol he’d be in jail. Diabetics surely have a duty of care to be fit to drive as do we all, all the time.

As does anyone with a medical condition which is likely to impair driving.
The mantra for diabetics is “over five before you drive”.
That is, blood glucose should be above 5.0 mmol/L before you drive.
But it is not required by law.
Below 4.0 is considered hypoglycaemic territory, but 5.0 gives a bit of a margin.
No excuse with the BGM technology available today (which this guy had, but chose to ignore).
There is something very suss about this case.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2024 1:45 pm

Sure is. Connections perhaps.

Jock
Jock
September 22, 2024 1:48 pm

The pager attack in Hezbuttallah, reminded me that we are open to obvious threats . Jamesw Patterson has been banging on abnout security cameras from china, and for that matter, solar panels, EVs, Phones, etc etc. We are more wide open than hookers at a WEF Davos convention.

if the israelis did indeed put a fix on the pagers and other infrastructure of hezbolaknuts, then we would be far easier to fool, given we are so utterly open and trusting.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 22, 2024 1:51 pm

Rosie
 September 22, 2024 12:59 pm

The more I read the offerings of of mtf trans on the internet the more obvious it becomes that most of them are porn addicted autogynephils.

Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen m0nster for a couple of days.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 22, 2024 1:53 pm

Don’t know if anyone else has seen this but…

Mission: Incompetent

Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 2:01 pm

My father died recently.

The best memory was deep sea fishing. We went off the coast of the Bay of Plenty in Tauranga, New Zealand.

I asked to jump off the boat. My father allowed me to. We were way off the coast. He said he would put the shark detector on. I swam. It was exhilarating.

On the way back the motor died. Dad put me on a crate to see over the top of the steering wheel

He said, see that light on the horizon … focus on that. Don’t take your focus off it. I steered the boat, focusing on the point he told me to.

I cried. I was 12. I made him proud. To cut a long story short, I made my dad happy.

RIP

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 2:02 pm
1735099
1735099
September 22, 2024 2:05 pm

Gareth Evans in the Oz – 17 September 2024

Paul Keating, Bob Carr and I seem to have jangled a few security establishment nerves with our critique of the AUKUS submarine deal as having profound negative implications for Australia’s security and sovereignty.

Our former colleagues and advisers Kim Beazley, Paul Dibb, Mike Pezzullo, and the US Study Centre’s Peter Dean, were in full war-cry mode in The Weekend Australian. And they have now been joined by ANU’s John Blaxland, currently seconded to the Australian Embassy in Washington.
Our critique, much of which has either been misrepresented or ignored in these responses, has five basic elements.

One, there is zero certainty of the timely delivery of the eight AUKUS boats. Both the US and UK have explicit opt-out rights. Even in the wholly unlikely event that everything falls smoothly into place, we will be waiting 40 years for the last boat to arrive, posing real capability gap issues.

Two, even acknowledging the superior capability of nuclear-propelled submarines, making large assumptions about their continued detectability advantages, and accepting for the sake of argument the utility of “deterrence at a distance”, how useful will this eight-boat fleet actually be for Australia’s defence? When, given usual operating constraints, only two of them will be deployable across our vast maritime environment at any one time.

Third, even assuming the eye-watering cost of these boats is fiscally manageable, it will make much harder the acquisition of other capabilities — in particular, state-of-the-art missiles, aircraft and drones — arguably even more important than submarines for any kind of self-reliant capacity in meeting an invasion threat, were one ever to arise.

Four, the price now being demanded by the US for giving us access to its nuclear propulsion technology — achieving what is now described as fleet “interchangeability”, not just “interoperability” — has become indefensibly high.
The conversion of Stirling into a major base for a US Indian Ocean fleet will mean Perth now joining Pine Gap and the North West Cape, and probably the B-52 base at Tindal, as a potential nuclear target. It is hard to conceive of Australia ever being a target of any kind of Chinese military attack short of our being sucked into fighting alongside the US in a war not of our making, and manifestly not in our national interest. But that prospect is now very real. given the abdication of Australian sovereign agency inherent in the AUKUS decision as it has evolved.

Five, the purchase price we are now paying, for all its exorbitance, will never be enough to guarantee the absolute protective insurance that supporters of AUKUS think they are buying.

ANZUS, it cannot be said too often, does not bind the US to defend Australia, even in the event of existential attack. We can rely on military support if the US sees it in its own national interest to offer it, but not otherwise.

The issue that most troubles me, Keating and Carr in all of this — and which most seems to enrage AUKUS defenders — is what we see as the loss of Australian sovereign independence that’s necessarily involved. Those who deny that this is even an issue like Dean, or ignore it entirely like Blaxland, are simply defying reality.

And those who accept the reality of our loss of sovereign agency, but actually applaud it as a price worth paying for our protection — such as Beazley, Dibb and Pezzullo — seem to have lost not only any sense of national pride, but of Australia’s national interest.

Dean makes the risible claim that I and my colleagues are “claiming an elaborate conspiracy theory” in “asking people to ignore the statements of their own government about us having control of these (submarine) capabilities”.

Of course, our government will insist that it retains control as to how these assets are used, as will always be the case on paper. But the reality, should serious tensions erupt, will be very different.

It defies credibility to think that Washington will ever go ahead with its sale of Virginias to us in the absence of an understanding that they will join the US in any fight in which it chooses to engage anywhere in our region, particularly over Taiwan. Are we all just meant to ignore Kurt Campbell’s indiscreet observation at the time of the AUKUS announcement that “we have them locked in now for the next 40 years”? I have had personal ministerial experience of being a junior allied partner of the US in a hot conflict situation — the first Gulf War in 1991 — and my recollections are not pretty.

Even more troubling is the uncritical acceptance by Beazley, Dibb and Pezzullo of the loss of sovereign agency which they acknowledge, with varying degrees of frankness, is necessarily involved in our embrace of the AUKUS submarine project. Pezzullo goes so far as to cheer what he describes as a “‘pooling of sovereignty’ in the face of a belligerent China”.
All this is not just depressing, but sickening, for all those Australians who have long nurtured the belief that we are a fiercely independent nation, ever more conscious of the need to engage constructively, creatively and sensitively with our own Indo-Pacific neighbourhood. And a country which had put behind us the “fear of abandonment” which had been so central to our defence and diplomacy for so much of the last century: recognising, as Paul Keating continues to put it so articulately, that we need to find our security in Asia, not from Asia.

For all practical purposes, our AUKUS commitment may well now be irreversible. But so too is likely to be the judgment that this will prove one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions Australia has ever made.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 2:11 pm

This, from the Lotus Eaters, is essential viewing.

The Headless Tyrant

Last edited 11 days ago by Indolent
Arky
September 22, 2024 2:21 pm

Trying to do a deep dive on the Diddy allegations, but I can’t understand a word they’re saying.
Does anyone here speak jive?

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 2:21 pm

Much as I detest Evans et. al. they have a point about sovereignty.

As for Perth becoming a nuclear target…meh.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 2:22 pm

Just kidding, Perthians.

😀

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2024 2:23 pm

Bizarre and repulsive behaviour from a defence lawyer in the Pélicot case.
https://x.com/helenstaniland/status/1837599224466211185?t=CcOlfkmdA0DLUvH3TBTZYw&s=19

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 2:24 pm
Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 22, 2024 2:28 pm

As a lowly geo I jagged an invite to the 2 RAR INTERFET reunion recovery at the See View Hotel

Oh my lordy.

The Seaview Hotel is (or was) unrivalled – absolutely unrivalled – as a Sunday session venue.

Godspeed, RD.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 22, 2024 2:37 pm

80’s joke: Why does Gareth Evans always book 2 seats on a plane?

One for himself and one for his ego.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
September 22, 2024 2:42 pm

Paul Keating, Bob Carr and I [Gareth Evans] seem to have jangled a few security establishment nerves with our critique of the AUKUS submarine deal as having profound negative implications for Australia’s security and sovereignty.

Gareth Evans at last leaves a positive mark on international affairs, as thanks to his refined involvement, this sounds as polished & urbane as it would have on the original directive written in Mandarin.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 22, 2024 2:56 pm

So whats the odds on one 9or more) of the 3 mentioned in numberwangs article being the Chinese agent of influence ASIO decided we didnt need the name of?

Arky
September 22, 2024 3:29 pm

Given that the Ukraine war is being fought on both sides with obsolete equipment that would otherwise have cost a fortune to dispose of safely, I’m highly suspicious of the entire enterprise at this point.
That men are being blown apart in vehicles decades older than they are, by munitions past expiration, over land that doesn’t seem worth a shit…

Last edited 11 days ago by Arky
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2024 3:32 pm

You can tell Prenti Downs Station ( look it up on Google Earth ) has had some good rain this year. Lots of green to be seen. I’d love to spend a couple of months up there. People from around the globe have said the same.

Kudod to the blokes going up there to harvest the flesh*

*Don’t watch this clip if you are squeamish. Camels are a pest that need to be controlled.

——-

Jack Out The Back:

Last Camels in the Chiller

Salvatore - Iron Publican
September 22, 2024 3:35 pm

That men are being blown apart in vehicles decades older than they are, by munitions past expiration, over land that doesn’t seem worth a shit

Arky, I know what you mean & totally agree, while acknowledging that’s actually some of the (if not the) best soil on this planet.

calli
calli
September 22, 2024 3:44 pm

Just discovered you can’t completely delete a comment.

Screenshot-2024-09-22-at-3.00.32?PM
Last edited 11 days ago by calli
calli
calli
September 22, 2024 3:47 pm

Had an excellent meme too. Never mind.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 22, 2024 4:30 pm

The Daily Mail reports that CNN continues its attacks on Kamala Harris after her live-streamed interview with Oprah Winfrey. The interview, meant to raise campaign funds, drew criticism from CNN commentators. They questioned whether Harris’s approach could cost her the election.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/kamala-harris-faces-fierce-criticism-cnn-could-this/
Easing her out so the Hildebeast can move in?

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 22, 2024 4:33 pm

Saw a map the other day of the mineral resources in Ukraine. Huge in the east and south, significant elsewhere and great agricultural land.

Arky
September 22, 2024 4:54 pm

Eastern Ukraine is worthless.
Bunch of peasant huts and Soviet era brutalist concrete flats full of toothless old women.
You could buy the entire joint for what slipped down between the cushions of Trump’s limo.
No, this game is about something else. Or somethings else.

Last edited 11 days ago by Arky
johanna
johanna
September 22, 2024 4:57 pm

Oh, dear.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-22/marxist-politician-leads-sri-lanka-s-presidential-vote/104381728

No doubt, promises of free stuff and prosperity for all characterised the campaign.

Looks like Sri Lankans are about to get it, good and hard.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2024 5:01 pm

Agenda Free TV:

Israel Hezbollah Fighting – LIVE Updates & Breaking News Coverage (Fears of War in Lebanon)

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2024 5:02 pm

Oops.

Link here.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 22, 2024 5:07 pm

I bought VPN this morning – Proton – 7day free trial.
This afternoon, got an email that my trial period was over, and the funds were being deducted from my bank account.
I’m sick of these people who give you a free period and then are uncontactable to cancel.
Looks like a drive into Longreach tomorrow and have a rant at the girls at The Commonwealth bank.

calli
calli
September 22, 2024 5:10 pm

Speaking of Israel and the garbage protesting and threatening Jews here…a question from my granddaughter…

Why do we have men with guns at school?

This is where our country is right now, you bwave servants of terror.

Arky
September 22, 2024 5:15 pm

Allow me to upset a few regular posters.
Wheat?
Pffft.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 22, 2024 5:16 pm

With reference to Gareth Gareth Evans pontificating on AUKUS, to the extent that he made any useful contribution, his “positive” mark was the “Responsibility to Protect” theory or doctrine that probably encouraged western intervention in some shitholes, leading to much death and destruction, but not much positive.
If that “Doctrine” is not by now thoroughly discredited, it should be.

Arky
September 22, 2024 5:16 pm

…waits…

Last edited 11 days ago by Arky
Roger
Roger
September 22, 2024 5:23 pm

No doubt, promises of free stuff and prosperity for all characterised the campaign. Looks like Sri Lankans are about to get it, good and hard.

That’s been happening for quite a while.

It’s officially been the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka since 1972 and socialism is enshrined in the constitution.

They’re stuck in the post-colonial Marxist mire.

Seeing the writing on the wall, anyone with any get up and go got up and left, starting with the burghers in the ’70s, quite a few of whom came to Australia.

Last edited 11 days ago by Roger
calli
calli
September 22, 2024 5:31 pm

Death gluten?

cohenite
September 22, 2024 5:41 pm

Viva Frei looks at a video of demorat jamie raskin outlining what the demorats are going to do after Trump wins in November. Viva points out the irony of the demorats accusing Trump of being a threat to democracy (9 mins):

(981) PLEASE SHARE! Jamie Raskin is the TRUE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! Disqualify Trump? Viva Frei Vlawg – YouTube

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2024 5:46 pm
Ellie
Ellie
September 22, 2024 6:18 pm
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2024 6:20 pm

Spent part of today on a stall at the local picnic races, and I am pleased to announce the return of the micro mini skirt, worn by some seriously shapely young ladies, indeed…

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2024 6:29 pm

Like the rest of the trash who run this country, I expect this incompetent clown is immune to pressure (Paywallian):

A group of about 60 current and former University of Sydney academics and staff say there’s “too much mistrust and too much damage” for vice-chancellor Mark Scott to mend the relationship with Jewish staff and students, and he must resign.

We’ll see.

?

Bear Necessities
Bear Necessities
September 22, 2024 6:32 pm

My biggest issue with AUKUS is that it is a vehicle for Grift across the government, corporates and unions for multiple generations. I will be very surprised if any subs are delivered before 2040. Imagine the cost blow outs as well.

Muddy
Muddy
September 22, 2024 6:44 pm

Random fact.
Twenty (20) boxes of ‘Cocaine for external application’ were damaged by water and written off by the Japanese 67th L of C Hospital at Giruwa, Papua, in September, 1942.

[ATIS Enemy Publication No. 24, via the U.S. National Archives].

  1. I think the punters are stirring, getting ansty. Normally letting politics of either persuasion slide by as we just get…

  2. Great stuff from the past. Visuals and audio are great. —— F r. David – Words Don’t Come Easy

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