Open Thread – Weekend 28 Sept 2024


Lunar night on Capri, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1841

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Cassie of Sydney
September 28, 2024 8:11 pm

Hassan Nasrallah dead.

I have only one word……amen.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 28, 2024 8:19 pm

I have six.

448945349_875544907943184_7380099825542492763_n-1726365657.6462
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 8:50 pm

I have two words

“Good Riddance.”

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 8:12 pm

Dr. John Campbell about a new film of that name.

First Do No Pharm

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 7:15 am
Reply to  Indolent

The Nomentklatura live in Great Britain. And you expected anything else from your ‘leaders’? While they ruin the entire nation, allow 3rd world rapists, criminals, and bludgers to overrun and replace the British people, they loot the last dregs from you.

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 12:31 pm
Reply to  Indolent

Not news. Hunter S. Thompson long ago wrote: I realized no-one is steering the ship.

Gabor
Gabor
September 28, 2024 8:29 pm

Roger
September 28, 2024 2:35 pm

And yet, they’re called “private” rather than “subsidised” schools. That’s the most bizarre aspect of all.

Bizarre?

It’s the antonym of public.

His railing against the term ‘private’ is Quixotic.
All education is subsidised no matter where it’s carried out.

Best solution offered so far is a voucher system for each student to spend it in any way approved, even pay the parent for home schooling.

I suppose his beef is that there is a competition to the state system and as a confirmed socialist/communist he can’t have that.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 8:32 pm

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/09/well-done-israel.html

Seems there are a few vacant positions on the Hezbollocks chain of command. Well done, the Israelis.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 28, 2024 8:42 pm

That was a sh*t walk. A dog got run over. The owner was distraught. The bloke in the car was a mess. I was a mess. The howling of that dog is ringing in my ears.

Muddy
Muddy
September 28, 2024 8:58 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

Oh boy. That’s one thing I haven’t yet experienced – and hope not to. Distressing.

A former work colleague with whom I still keep in contact witnessed her young 18 month old puppy die from undiagnosed tetanus. It was a few months ago now, but she’s still distraught.

I’d value a dog more than some humans.

Last edited 4 months ago by Muddy
Helen
Helen
September 29, 2024 2:56 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

Oh Steve, that is when you need a pistol.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 28, 2024 8:46 pm
Top Ender
Top Ender
September 28, 2024 8:59 pm

Our wombat friend photographed near our place tonight. Very happy to have humans watching him dig for 10 minutes.

Screenshot-2024-09-28-at-20.54.59
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 8:59 pm

Reading Al Murray’s monumental work on the crucial day of the battle for Arnhem “Arnhem: Black Tuesday.”

Murray’s father had served as a parachute engineer in the Territorial Army, of the mid 1950’s – some of his officers had been at Arnhem, and one of his N.C.O’s had fought at the bridge itself.

“So, we went to see “A Bridge Too Far.” ‘Wrong tanks, actor’s haircuts, rotten saluting, the mischaracterization of people he knew and events he had heard about, first hand.” But I was bitten by the Battle’s bug.

Good reading – highly recommended!

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 28, 2024 9:02 pm

NumbNuts obviously didn’t pay much attention during his time in boarding school. If he had he would have become aware of a group called the Great Public Schools.

IIRC, they played competitive Rugby Union against each other, among other things.

His research skills don’t seem to be well developed. It’s even in Wikipedia.

Last edited 4 months ago by Boambee John
Gabor
Gabor
September 28, 2024 9:12 pm

Reading M Steyn is depressing sometimes.
The difference between the US justice system and the erstwhile USSR system is merely cosmetic.

In a way the soviets were more open what they were on about, they declared the victim an enemy of the state and the trial was simply a confirmation of same.

How anyone can praise and celebrate the US as a whole including its justice system is beyond my comprehension. Those good people of the land have no say in how the place is run, they might think so but they don’t.

Quote from Mark

“You prove your innocence, but at the end you’re a charred, smoking lump, and so is your career and so is your savings account.” @MarkSteynOnline describes the great costs of “winning” in a court where the process is the punishment.”

And of course the small picture – Steyn’s own ongoing travails:

“.@MarkSteynOnline I didn’t think it would take four months to litigate a four-paragraph blog post. My case is now in its thirteenth year! “We are currently on our fifth trial judge-“

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 9:16 pm

How anyone can praise and celebrate the US as a whole including its justice system is beyond my comprehension. Those good people of the land have no say in how the place is run, they might think so but they don’t.

And the British system is as bad, or worse!

Philby
Philby
September 29, 2024 7:56 pm
Reply to  Indolent

And the Australian system

Pogria
Pogria
September 28, 2024 9:16 pm

In celebration.

comment image

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 9:22 pm
Reply to  Pogria

“Let me know how you get on, with 72 virgins, in Paradise?”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 9:43 pm

“What part of “NEVER AGAIN” do you have difficulty in comprehending?”

calli
calli
September 28, 2024 9:24 pm
Reply to  Pogria

They booby trapped the flat screen? Cunning buggers.

Pogria
Pogria
September 28, 2024 9:27 pm
Reply to  calli

Cunning stunts. 😀

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 28, 2024 9:37 pm
Black Ball
Black Ball
September 28, 2024 9:51 pm

Good Lord. I have just seen the big boys of Penrith Panthers in the middle of the ground., gasp, pray!
Cannot be allowed to happen.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 28, 2024 9:54 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNM6IuA87eM

The original Fleetwood Mac – “Go Your Own Way.”

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 28, 2024 9:59 pm

They kicked it out of the park.

Stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhWrggrJ20I

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 28, 2024 10:01 pm

Having been incommunicado for the past two days, I’m now catching up on what Minister Wong actually said at the UN General Assembly* (as opposed to what had been reported).

Unsurprisingly, apart from briefly (and with no supporting rationale of how anything might work) recommending that Israel promptly surrenders to the Iranian agenda and hopes for the best, it is an extensive and wide-ranging display of 360° twaddle and motherhoodery.

Aside from a plea for big people to stick to the rules for the benefit of little people, it’s a FIGJAM message to the world, covering off on Team Albanese’s golden triumphs in saving the climate, bringing development to the Pacific, developing a novel national energy system, and learning from our First Nations ancient knowledge of science and technology.

Oh, and a quick bollocking about the lack of female representation at the UN.
Apparently:

Gender equality is a primary predictor of peace, even more so than a state’s wealth or political system.

It would perhaps be an earnest and slightly embarrassing Year 12 debating society performance – but is profoundly cringe-making in the context of the UN General Assembly.

A string of Senate Dorothy Dixers that will be instantly forgotten around the world.

Not serious.

* Worth a quick, but disturbing read.

MatrixTransform
September 28, 2024 10:35 pm
Reply to  Dr Faustus

the debate topic: Why platitudes make good policy

mUnty, Numbnutz and the Wong chap for the affirmative

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 5:11 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

That will teach you.

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:05 pm
John H.
John H.
September 28, 2024 11:05 pm

This has to be bollocks.

‘Must be done’: Russia’s wild sex rule as birthrate plummets | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Russia’s parliament is considering legislation to outlaw “a conscious refusal to have children”.

The State Duma lower house bill proposes fines of 400,000 roubles ($A6300) for anyone engaging in “child-free propaganda”, rising to $A12,500 if the person discussing the concept is an official or $A78,000 for a company.

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:06 pm
Last edited 4 months ago by Indolent
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 7:46 am
Reply to  Indolent

This is woke insanity on stilts.

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:10 pm

The Shadow of the Shadow
“As shocking as it may sound, the institution of the State itself is the real enemy. It’s time to carefully analyze your relation to it.” — Doug Casey

Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:12 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:19 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:27 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 28, 2024 11:31 pm
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 2:28 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 3:00 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 3:19 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 3:46 am
Tom
Tom
September 29, 2024 4:00 am
Little Gidding
Little Gidding
September 29, 2024 10:49 am
Reply to  Tom

Thanks Tom. Achmed when the balls fell was the winner for me.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 1:22 pm
Reply to  Tom

Always good on a Sunday morning, thanks Tom.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:09 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:27 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:44 am

A big smile on my face.

Pet Shop Boys - Always on my mind (Official Video) [4k Upgrade]
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:48 am
KevinM
KevinM
September 29, 2024 4:51 am

I like this one, witty and true.

gen
Bourne1879
Bourne1879
September 29, 2024 4:57 am

Daily Mail UK has article about Boris Johnson upcoming book.
He believed virus from the lab and at one point contemplated raiding a Dutch warehouse to get vaccines that were being held by EU.

Crossie
Crossie
September 29, 2024 7:54 am
Reply to  Bourne1879

Is it meant to be satire?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:58 am
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 5:06 am
KevinM
KevinM
September 29, 2024 5:27 am

Electric tractor?
Wonder why it never caught on.

electric
KevinM
KevinM
September 29, 2024 5:30 am

Keep this in mind, may save your life.
I just keep away from places with wild animals, coward as I am.

459957290_122230019762000641_7661601052216674279_n
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 5:49 am

Another song from the skating RINK in Carnarvon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZt7J0iaUD0

Dunny Brush
Dunny Brush
September 29, 2024 5:54 am

Age headline describes Hezbollah’s now dead leader as “messianic”. If I had a subscription I’d cancel it. FMD.

Aaron
Aaron
September 29, 2024 6:16 am
Reply to  Dunny Brush

He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty dead boy.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 8:51 am
Reply to  Dunny Brush

Do you have a link to the statement please Dunny Brush?
If true and in context, it would mark the depths of moral oblivion that our media has become.

Foxbody
Foxbody
September 29, 2024 10:43 am
Reply to  Winston Smith

Don’t jump to conclusions, Gentlemen.
One more day to wait – then if a huge chunk of concrete in the crater is found to have moved aside and the leader reappears, The Age will be vindicated.
Otherwise, not so much.

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 6:24 am

“The military targeted a mid-level senior Hezbollah official in the area, Army Radio reported.
The IDF eliminated senior Hezbollah intelligence array terrorist Hassan Khalil Yassin in an additional precision strike in the Dahieh district in Beirut on Saturday, the military reported”
https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-822231

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 29, 2024 6:39 am

I don’t know what I will put on the next census as my occupation.
But I have drawn a line through “Austere Religious Scholar”.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 29, 2024 9:08 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

I just put ‘Gentleman’

johanna
johanna
September 29, 2024 6:48 am

Some discussion about the wisdom of automatically ‘mainstreaming’ all kids with disabilities in schools.

Bad idea, driven by ideology, not reality and practicality.

But, they never stop.

TheirABC is running a sob story about PWDs being exploited because they don’t get paid at least the minimum wage:

“While it would be great if [we] were earning super profits and able to reinvest those into the business in the form of wages, we don’t make a profit … and we are determined that no one will lose their jobs,” he said.
“We have existing contracts with other organisations that have been quoted based on wages as they are … they haven’t signed up for [higher prices].”

‘It makes me feel important’Not everyone working in segregated settings is unhappy, however.
Many people have worked for decades at an ADE where the connections and familiarity of going to the same place to do the same tasks has been helpful.
Mr Stokes now has a leadership role at his ADE and gets a kick out of knowing his workmates look up to him.
“It makes me feel important … [coming to work] gives me something to do every day,” he said.
https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/ea8400fe3c1a313b2da45f170c1e0c11?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=2307&cropW=3461&xPos=27&yPos=0&width=862&height=575
Terry Symonds says some of his employees aren’t interested in working elsewhere. (ABC News: Loretta Florance)
Mr Symonds said he welcomed the royal commission’s “ambitious” recommendations for change but ADEs couldn’t be shut down overnight.
“Some of [our workers] don’t want to work anywhere else,” he said.
“For some of them, these are safe places and … open employment might not be safe because they might be exposed to discrimination.”

Look, I get that these outfits need to be carefully monitored to make sure that they are not ripping people off. But, having some personal experience, they serve many other purposes.

They provide a routine, social interaction and productive activity.

The workers earn money that they own.

They temporarily allow the families of the workers a time where they know that their family member is safe, so that they can do other things.

As for raising it to the minimum wage: see Aboriginal stockmen in the NT.

Why do leftists refuse to learn lessons from history?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 7:28 am
Reply to  johanna

Johanna we all know why leftists refuse to learn. They live in a world where their tiny brains can only cope with simple illusions of adequacy where they’re the centre of attention and don’t actually have to do anything meaningful.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 7:33 am
Reply to  johanna

Because they are stupid and arrogant.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 9:01 am
Reply to  johanna

Because they are unpleasant to them and hurt their feelings.
Leftists want to live in a world they can define themselves in and make others conform to.
And history – being an emotional construct they invent and interpret for themselves – starts when they are born. It is a subjective reality, not an objective one.
It is a profoundly childlike existence they are incapable of growing out of.

Long Time Lurker
Long Time Lurker
September 29, 2024 3:01 pm
Reply to  johanna

If they could unionise them they wouldn’t give a rats

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 29, 2024 6:48 am

Israelis aren’t going to die wondering. Straight from the Viv Richards circa mid 1980s playbook.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 29, 2024 6:49 am

Cassie of Sydney
 September 28, 2024 8:11 pm

Hassan Nasrallah dead.

I have only one word……amen.

But ten will replace him.
I figured it out.
If the “replacement with ten” factor is repeated and we knock off each new batch every week, by Christmas we will have eliminated 100 billion of them.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 29, 2024 6:53 am

H B Bear
 September 29, 2024 6:48 am

Israelis aren’t going to die wondering. Straight from the Viv Richards circa mid 1980s playbook.

Hassan Nasrallah was a Pakistani leg-spinner?

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 6:59 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

Is it too soon to shout “Howzat!” ?

No. I think not.

132andBush
132andBush
September 29, 2024 6:58 am

Why do leftists refuse to learn lessons from history?

Something about it not being done properly before and if we do it now, our way, it’ll work for sure.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 7:55 am
Reply to  132andBush

They are stupid and arrogant.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 7:05 am

Hadbollocks appear to have a leadership deficit.

With all applications sent to Teheran via carrier pigeon, selection of replacements may take some time.

Israel has proved that the UN just doesn’t matter. Civilised countries can look after themselves without the permission of the First Ave nanny.

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 7:08 am

Bad idea, driven by ideology, not reality and practicality.

But, they never stop.

I think you’ve said it best.

shatterzzz
September 29, 2024 7:15 am

Seeing TOON had the early kick-off (9.30pm) last night I kept myself up and watched.
?End result was a draw (1-1) and, probably, the best reflection of the play. Toon dominate d the 1st half yet Manchester City scored and took a 1-0 lead into half-time.
?2nd half a bit more even tho MC the more aggressive. TOON penalty (deserved) evened up the score & that’s how it remained .. Very watchable game so worth the late night ..
?Have to admit I don’t see much of Man City but reading the sports pages extolling their “invincibility” & class either TOON played well above themselves or that “wonder” team tag of MC was missing this time around ……
?Earlier watched Penrith demolish the Sharks and on that display will have to go with Storm winning the GF ,, Penrith attack consisted of one up hits for, maybe, 70% of their
?plays and tho their defence was good so much one up attack is not gonna auger well against Storm, they’ll need to do a lot more ball spreading to topple the Storm defence ..

?And on the very bright side .. I had 3multi bets still alive by the end of the TOON game all relying on my home town team, GATESHEAD winning .. Which they duly did 3-1 and added $127 to this OAP’s pocket ……
A good, good night .. LOL!

lotocoti
lotocoti
September 29, 2024 7:19 am

Nice.
Hopefully it was the Lebanese government grabbing the opportunity to FU the mullahs, not Israeli radio games.

AnotherRanga
AnotherRanga
September 29, 2024 7:22 am

Snoopy for the win this week.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 7:36 am

Indolent

 September 28, 2024 11:05 pm

Electric car demand slumps to four-year low

If Aliens landed tomorrow and sold us a battery system that gave us the energy density of a tank of hydrocarbins, at the same cost, and with even less danger than one, I’d still have the diesel version.
Why?
Because to take my fuel reserves, the government would have to send around a couple of large chappies and a truck to haul the loot away.
With electric it’s a matter of flicking a switch, and passing legislation deeming our electricity to be a National Emergency Reserve to make up for their utter incompetence in managing the power network.
“…and ‘poof!’ it’s gone.”

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 29, 2024 9:10 am
Reply to  Winston Smith

Correct, you will have noted that Tesla have stated that all their cars will have ‘bi-directional’ charging by 2025…. ie charge-uncharge…. the govt can empty the battery at will, only in emergencies of course!

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 7:41 am

Just heard on the opinion, aka news, a reminder from some health chief that we should get vaccinated against monkeypox. I think my method of not allowing gaybois near me will work better. Do these people ever listen to themselves.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 9:05 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

Perhaps those with such proclivities could ty applying toothpaste to their rectum and have the Colgate ‘ring of confidence’.

Gabor
Gabor
September 29, 2024 7:44 am

shatterzzz
September 29, 2024 7:15 am

Seeing TOON had the early kick-off (9.30pm) last night I kept myself up and watched.

I’m not interested in soccer as you can tell from my question, but you keep mentioning ‘TOON’.

Which team is it and why is it important?

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 7:47 am

Israel has proved that the UN just doesn’t matter. Civilised countries can look after themselves without the permission of the First Ave nanny.

I think there’s another message in this sublime elimination of Nasrallah. Israel has known for decades that the UN doesn’t matter, that it has long been a venally corrupt organisation captured by the Jew hating left and Islamists. The rot started in the 1960s and it’s continued unabated to the point where the UN has no place in civilised discourse. It cannot be taken seriously and in a half decent world nobody would take it seriously but sadly we no longer live in a half decent world. We have countries such as the one we live that pays homage to the UN and worse, sends lots of our hard earned dosh to it’s affiliates, affiliates such as the venal Jew hating UN organisation called UNRWA, an organisation that not only helped plan the butchery of October 7, many UNRWA workers participated in the savagery, the butchery, the rapes and the hostage taking.

And remember, there’s been a UN ‘peacekeeping’ force on the ground in southern Lebanon for decades, a force that is supposedly meant to monitor and curb Hezbollah’s activities. Yet under their watch Hezbollah has built up an army and perhaps hundreds of thousands of ammunition.

From the Oz….

In his first public remarks since the strikes on the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, the Prime Minister said Israel had “settled the score” with a “mass murderer” responsible for the killings of countless Israelis.
Hezbollah’s central headquarters in southern Beirut have been hit by huge Israeli airstrikes.

Shortly after arriving home after giving an address to the UN, Mr Netanyahu said Nasrallah and his fighters were “the architects of the plan to destroy Israel.

“He wasn’t another terrorist; he was the terrorist, the central engine of Iran’s axis of evil,” he said in a video statement.

Mr Netanyahu said that he had realised early last week that despite the bombardment of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and the deaths and injuries caused by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, only Nasrallah’s death would allow Israel’s northern residents to return home.

“Eliminating Nasrallah was an essential condition for achieving the aims that we have set out — returning the residents of the north safely to their homes and changing the balance of power in the region for years,” he said, adding that as long as Nasrallah remained alive, “he would have quickly rehabilitated Hezbollah’s capabilities.

“So I gave the order and Nasrallah is no longer with us.”

In a direct warning to Iran, he said: “Those who strike at us, we will strike at them. There is nowhere in Iran or the Middle East beyond the reach of the long arm of Israel, and today you know how true that is.”

So what is the other message by Israel? I think it is also a big middle finger, a big F*CK YOU to countries that should know better, to countries that should be standing with Israel but instead prefer to cower and quiver quisling like in the face of barbarism and Islamism, those countries being the UK, the US, Canada and Australia, countries who, rather than speak truth instead prefer to dump blame and opprobrium on the one Jewish nation on the planet, a country that it simply trying to exist in a very unpleasant neighbourhood.

The next time Putrid Pong puts on her strap on and struts around the world stage like the hideous Jew hating totalitarian dyke she is, I want Israel to tell her to F*CK OFF.

The gloves are off. There will NOT BE another October 7.

Titus Groates
Titus Groates
September 29, 2024 7:59 am

Well said.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 9:02 am

We can’t be rid of our sickening government soon enough.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 9:31 am

Cassie, history teaches us that tragically, there will be.
The Islamic threat will not go away until they learn the ultimate lesson – that they are not the inheritors of the Earth, just another mob of psychopathic Genghis Khan impersonators.
Israel will be forced to use its weapons of war – all of them – and stand up to the rest of the world after the next effort to destroy them.
There is just no other way out of its dilemma.

Last edited 4 months ago by Winston Smith
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:48 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

I think you are wrong, Winston. Islam can be suppressed until it fails by its own irrelevance to people who want more from life than the death it offers. But to achieve this outcome, the West must quash the UN as any sort of sanctioning body and act as coalitions of Western nations.

Pogria
Pogria
September 29, 2024 7:53 am

Brigitte Bardot in the news as she is turning 90. God bless you, you beautiful woman.
The media is spinning that she has gone to the “Dark side”, because for decades she has loved and saved animals, but the worst sin, she hates Mussies and is against the Mussification of France. She is not afraid to speak out. Many ridiculous fines later, she is still a woman to be reckoned with.

Happy Birthday Brigitte.

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 7:59 am

I don’t think many in the Sunni world are mourning Nasrallah’s demise.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 8:34 am

My take Cassie having been to the region, they will maybe make superficial noise for domestic consumption and move on.

Inshallah.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 8:50 am

Our political “leaders” and MSM (BIRM) seem incapable of understanding the depth and virulence of the Sunni/Sh’ia rift. Thus, they pander to a generalised “Islam”, without any understanding of the implications of their actions.

Gabor
Gabor
September 29, 2024 8:00 am

Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 7:36 am

I’d still have the diesel version.

Why?

Because to take my fuel reserves, the government would have to send around a couple of large chappies and a truck to haul the loot away.

In rare circumstances electric would work where you have a running water source to generate it, of course you’d only could go half the distance of your range at best as no recharging at the other end.

Gasoline engine would be better as you could use gas generated by wood combustion like they used to do in wartime Britain.

Unless you have access to vegetable oil and such?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 8:08 am
Reply to  Gabor

You can’t refine vege oil fine enough for modern diesel engines. The injectors clog up.

Gabor
Gabor
September 29, 2024 8:28 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

Keep an older model would be my answer, as it also refers to wood-gas.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 9:54 am
Reply to  Gabor

Diesel stores for longer with additives. Petrol goes off after a year, I understand.
Vegetable oil is too valuable as food – even if it has been used to cook stuff in – in a scenario where the government is stealing supplies to run the Parliamentary beer fridge. 🙂
Gasifiers were used throughout Europe during the last war, especially in trucks carrying supplies for the armed forces. An expedient last ditch way of moving goods.

shatterzzz
September 29, 2024 8:00 am

I’m not interested in soccer as you can tell from my question, but you keep mentioning ‘TOON’.
Which team is it and why is it important?

Speechless, just speechless .. wanders off, shaking head .. LOL!

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 8:01 am

 Indolent
 September 28, 2024 11:10 pm
The Shadow of the Shadow – Post last night:

One night in July 1794, as the Jacobin boss, Robespierre, took to the rostrum in the Convention for the umpteenth time to denounce his enemies and announce new death sentences, members in the chamber commenced throwing food at him. That was the turning point, and it turned so hard and fast that France was amazed. Within forty-eight hours, Robespierre and many of his cohorts got beheaded under the “national razor,” and that was the end of Jacobinism and all its insane measures to wreck what was left of society after five years of revolution.

The question remains – “Who will be the one to throw the first Cheese and Vegemite Sanga?”

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 8:12 am
Reply to  Winston Smith

Very, very good, Winston.

Sweet memories of Gingerella. Never imagined it was the nondescript Wong, waiting in the wings, who would plunge this country into even greater shame.

Her frightful Wiki picture looks like it’s AI generated. What descriptors went in to create it is anyone’s guess.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 9:57 am
Reply to  Indolent

The very same fashion advisors that dress her are the ones giving her the world strategic advice.
And it shows.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:42 pm
Reply to  Indolent

It is a very nice necklace though.

Keep it for best, Kamala.

Some of those you’ve let through the border would saw your head off to steal it.

I was advised in South America and in southern US to keep my hands with my rings on well inside the vehicle or I could find myself minus a finger, or even a hand.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 8:10 am
Reply to  Indolent

Lucky to be a thousand, more like five hundred.

Last edited 4 months ago by GreyRanga
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:04 am
Reply to  Indolent

This gives The Biden/Harris Administration yet another chance to look feeble in the eyes of the world. It will encourage the Islamic world to create chaos in the Middle East.
This plays into the Democrats desire for a State of Emergency in the elections they will lose without it. And yes, I realise the US hasn’t cancelled elections even when fighting a world war.
Different wars, and radically different leaders pulling the strings.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:04 am
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:16 am
Reply to  Indolent

She could learn to cook. Just a thought.
It reminds me of the story of the US Army doctor posted to Sydney during the Second World War who called home to his parents and complained “They don’t sell food in supermarkets here, just ingredients!”
Convenience foods take up a substantial portion of the modern diet, and that ‘convenience’ costs grocery money.
But then I have the time and inclination to actually prepare and cook my own food. I wonder – when the cook is also a breadwinner – how the sums work out?
Surely babysitting, childminding, convenience food, cleaning ladies, etc etc, must obliterate the household budget?
And just as surely, split incomes would go a very long way to solving the problem?

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 8:54 am
Reply to  Indolent

Leftards are such shallow, petty, people.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:22 am
Reply to  Indolent

Democrats – no incivility is too uncivil for them.
Vance paid and left a tip. Piss weak.
Political decisions have financial consequences.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYmChIyXMAAjxQk?format=jpg&name=small

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 8:07 am

A very good collection of thought provoking links last night Indolent – far better than multiple videos of big dogs and wailing singers.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:10 am
Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 29, 2024 8:10 am

From the biggest intelligence failure in their history, Israel has crafted a brutally precise elimination of the enemy leadership and corrupted their command and control system with electronic skullduggery that you only find in a Bond movie.
Defence planners around the world will be pouring over Israel’s response to the Oct 7 attacks to understand the multi layered planning and operational capacity that has produced such stunning results.
Iran has been left more isolated than ever in the region. There is not a hint of surrounding Muslim countries wanting to assist, except for the Houthi’s, who should have been served up a US carrier group belting if only there was someone mentally functional in the White House.

Eyrie
Eyrie
September 29, 2024 8:34 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Or even poring over it.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 8:46 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Pawing over it works too.

I love woids.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:23 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Winston the Pedant:

Defence planners around the world will be pouring poring over Israel’s response to the Oct 7 attacks…

🙂

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 8:57 am
Reply to  Indolent

Good to see Juanita Broaddrick still haunting the DemonRats. “Me too” was no help to her against Slick Willy.

Ceres
Ceres
September 29, 2024 10:50 am
Reply to  Indolent

Maher is apparently voting for Harris. Has a severe case of TDS.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 8:15 am

Piers Akerman:

Last year’s referendum on a Voice to Parliament cost taxpayers a minimum $450m, probably closer to half a billion, and there was a clear result.

The Australian people rejected the full proposition overwhelmingly.

However, the Albanese government which proposed it has blindly failed to accept the reality that 60.06 per cent of the population voted No.

This mulish obstinacy dishonours both Yes and No voters and undermines the democratic process. Not only has the Albanese government abused the trust of the people in ignoring the express will of the majority, it has subsequently made a series of appointments which show an enormous disrespect for all Australians.

The most significant was the appointment of Sam Mostyn, a long-time left-wing Labor staffer, to the $709,000-a-year position of governor-general.

Mostyn’s salary is $214,000 more than her predecessor’s, justified by the fact that she wasn’t in the military or judiciary (as previous G-Gs have been) and didn’t qualify for a government pension.

That overlooks two things, the first being that the honour and the pre-existing salary level should have been sufficient enticement.

The second is that Mostyn was a wealthy businesswoman in her own right, a member of a number of boards, including the deluded and politicised Climate Council and Reconciliation Australia.

Five years on the public teat was not going to send her bankrupt.

Her utterances since taking office read like rejected scripts written for NZ’s former and unlamented disaster of a prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, all full of love, hope and charity but singularly lacking in practicality.

The Albanese government has also been using your money to pay $326,000 annually to Justin Mohamed, the nation’s inaugural ambassador for First Nations people.

Mohamed turned in a travel bill of $145,000 last financial year after visiting Honolulu for the Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, San Francisco for APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, and Geneva for United Nations meetings, among other overseas trips. On these junkets he has talked about nothing that couldn’t have been discussed by a bureaucrat from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mohamed is the head of the Office for First Nations International Engagement, which has a budget of $13.6m over four years.

On Friday, we learnt of yet another appointment, Latrobe University professor Clare Wright, who has been appointed chair of the National Museum of Australia’s council.

Wright, who is not Indigenous, says she was “adopted” into the Yolngu in northeast Arnhem Land in 2010.

“I took an active role in a political campaign (the Voice referendum) that was important to me. I thought constantly during that campaign of what it would mean to my yapa (sister) and the children and grandchildren of the Yolngu people to have a voice to parliament,” she told The Australian newspaper.

This appears to be a blatant politicisation of a role which should be free of politics, but everything is political to the Albanese government, even when that political position has been rejected by the people.

In fact, despite Australians kicking the Voice proposal into touch, the federal and state governments are doing all they can to put into place the demands that were defeated.

Such outrageous contempt for the will of the people is rare in democracies.

It is to be hoped the Albanese government’s disdain will be rewarded with a thumping rejection when it has to answer to the public.

Start by scrapping Welcome to Country. Made up tosh that is.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 8:44 am
Reply to  Black Ball

What a grotesque, evil gaggle of pubic serpents and dons. Are there any good dons?

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 9:03 am
Reply to  Black Ball

This appears to be a blatant politicisation of a role which should be free of politics, but everything is political to the Albanese government,

When lefturds abolished “That’s personal, not political”, and replaced it with “The personal is political”, freedom of thought was replaced by an attempt to impose uniformity of thought.

Leftards are too stupid and arrogant to understand the losses they ensure from restricting options to only their brain farts.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 29, 2024 9:43 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Hard to disagree with any of the above.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:31 am
Reply to  Black Ball

“Welcome To Country” is demolishing itself in a more genuine fashion that any effort to scrap it. Leave it alone.
The Left have no answer to ridicule and humour.
Make up a list of “Ballistic Cheese and Vegemite Sandwich Recipients”.
Let them discuss the positive and negative aspects of arresting someone who chucks a succulent sanga at them.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:15 am
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:31 pm
Reply to  Indolent

Good to see that impeachment can be a two-way sword. If she wins I hope she is properly impeached.

Gabor
Gabor
September 29, 2024 8:16 am

shatterzzz

September 29, 2024 8:00 am

OK then, shake your head and keep it a bloody secret.
Jesus Christ.

One more to scroll.
Can’t answer a civil question.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 8:41 am
Reply to  Gabor

Newcastle United

Gabor
Gabor
September 29, 2024 8:58 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Thank you BB, that’s all I asked for.

Not all of us are either interested or up with the slang, but since he kept mentioning it by the nick, I asked.

After his reply I refused on principle to find out for myself.

Though, can’t see where the ‘TOON’ comes from? NVM. Thanks again.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 9:28 am
Reply to  Gabor

Something to do with ‘town’ being pronounced as ‘toon’ in Geordie parlance, happy to be corrected. Toon Army are the Newcastle United supporters.

Beertruk
September 29, 2024 8:19 am

Tim Blair dropkicks the Wong Chap dropkick

The Sunday Tele:

WONG’S WAR ON SENSE

TIM – BLAIR
29 Sep 2024

There are some who believe throwing soup at Van Gogh paintings will somehow save the planet from climate change. Until now, those people represented the absolute apex in arrogant, self-deceiving and privileged protesting.

And then along came Penny Wong with her speech to the UN General Assembly in New York. Our foreign minister came across as more detached from reality than even the most temperatureobsessed soup chucker. Besides delivering another load of her standard anti-Israel hectoring, Wong broadly attempted to rewrite basic concepts as they relate to our shared physical universe.

It was quite the performance.

“The world cannot wait,” Wong announced, before calling on the poisonous UN to establish “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood”.

“The world cannot keep hoping the parties will do this themselves. We cannot allow any party to obstruct the prospect of peace.”

Tell that to Hamas, Ms Wong. Tell that to the October 7 butchers whose wilful and obscene atrocities should forever deny Hamas and their followers any role in peace talks.

Wong told the UN that a two-state solution was “the opposite of what Hamas wants”. It is of more than passing interest that our foreign minister apparently possesses Hamas mind-reading powers, but she does have a point. Hamas, as everything said and done by this murderous band of 7th century throwbacks makes absolutely clear, wants a one-state solution. Themselves and no Israel.

Further, Wong declared, any future Palestinian state “must not be in a position to threaten Israel’s security”.

Sounds like she’s calling for Hamas and their homies to get out of Gaza. If so, it’s the best idea she’s ever had.

“There can be no role for terrorists,” Wong said. But slow down there, champ. If it weren’t for October 7’s vicious terrorism, would Wong and other pro-Palestinian activists have subsequently amplified their demands for Palestinian statehood?

Elsewhere in this nonsensical speech, Wong declaimed on the nature of regulation in wartime: “War has rules. Every country in this room must abide by them. Even when confronting terrorists. Even when defending borders.”

The circular logic exhibited here is breathtaking. Hamas obviously didn’t abide by any rules when its gangs of murdering rapists swarmed a music festival, torturing and killing hundreds of innocents and kidnapping others.

Ah, but Israel’s foes may point out: Hamas represents no specific country. And, as Wong said, only countries must follow the rules of war.

“These rules always matter – never more so than in times of conflict – when they help guide us out of darkness, back toward light,” this absurd individual said, subjecting sweet logic to further mistreatment.

Of course any rules of law are important in times of conflict. There’s otherwise no need for them. As Wong could have said, road rules always matter – never more so than in times of driving.

The UN has for years provided financial and ethical cover for every demented leftist cause you could imagine, so Wong naturally adores it.

“The world’s peoples are counting on all of us here,” she said.

Let’s cut that number back a little. Instead of fussing about the “world’s peoples”, perhaps the UN and its Wong-like minions could do something, or anything, to rescue those desperate survivors held hostage by Hamas for nearly a year.

“We convene this week,” Wong summarised, “with so much of the human family enshrouded in darkness.

None more so than those held at gunpoint in the caves and tunnels under Gaza. Speak strongly and primarily of their plight, Ms Foreign Minister. Speak of their freedom. Speak of their justice.

Too many good points to highlight.

Last edited 4 months ago by Beertruk
Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:24 am

This is unbelievable. Why go to the trouble of holding an election if the result is capable of total manipulation?

@MarkDavisGOP

PAY ATTENTION!

Hearing On Dominion Encryption Keys!!!

I have just learned Judge Scott McAfee will hold a hearing in Fulton County, Georgia on Monday in the case of Dekalb County Republican Party v. Raffensperger, which will be televised, and it blows my mind so few people are even talking about this case!

Let me give you a small preview of what to expect from an article I wrote that hasn’t come out yet!

“Kurt Olsen, one of the attorneys in the Dekalb County action, told me he first raised the encryption key issue in connection with the March 2024 petition for writ of certiorari filed in the Supreme Court in a case entitled “Kari Lake and Mark Finchem v. Adrian Fontes, Arizona Secretary of State”, et al.

He also said:

“Since at least 2019, Dominion Voting Systems has placed the master cryptographic keys, used to encrypt/decrypt system passwords and election data, unprotected and in plain text on an election database table within Dominion’s voting systems in every system our experts inspected from six states.

Thus, it appears these keys may be stored this way on all Dominion systems. If so, in any jurisdiction using Dominion’s systems, Dominion – or any actor who knows where to look – can gain total unauthorized access and control over election systems and election data which can then be altered, fabricated, and transmitted. Key logging features recording system activity can be manipulated to render any penetration of the system nearly undetectable.”

In a declaration included in the suit, cyber-security expert Benjamin Cotton said, “Simply put, this is like a bank having the most secure vault in the world, touting how secure it is to the public and then taping the combination in large font type on the wall next to the vault door.”

Folks – there are people, including me, who have discovered or have been told the global password, and some are even talking about printing it on T shirts to emphasize the severe lack of basic security protocols!

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 10:51 am
Reply to  Indolent

Indolent, this goes back to my contention that the 2024 US elections will be similar to the bank robbery where the vaults are on the basement floor, and the cameras are being monitored in the Security Centre on the 10th floor.
The robbers are replaying yesterdays video record while the vaults are being torn open and the sleepy security officer is drinking coffee and scoffing donuts.
What you are seeing is not what is happening.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 8:27 am

Haha the Wong Chap thinking she’s the most smartest person in the room, much like all of Labor:

A push by Foreign Minister Penny Wong for a timeline imposing the declaration of a Palestinian state as a path toward a two-state solution has been lashed by Australian Jewish and Palestinian groups, as well as defence experts.

The Senator’s speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York, in which she said the two-state solution was the only way “of breaking the endless cycle of violence” in the region, was slammed locally by both sides of the conflict.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge added it was hard to see the speech as anything but a play for votes in Australia.

“I don’t see how it works – there are two different populations involved, a statement out of the UN saying there’ll be ‘two states by X date’ has no operative effect on those populations – and can’t bind two terrorists organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah, even if the state of Israel agrees,” he said.

“The UN just saying something can’t make it happen, and I think Penny Wong knows that. It’s hard to see it as anything as more performative politics, for domestic purposes.”

He said the move on the world stage was “an empty gesture”.

“People that don’t live there, trying to impose an answer from UN headquarters, is obviously ludicrous,” he said.

The speech from Senator Wong also drew criticism locally from groups representing both Palestinian and Jewish sides of the conflict.

Palestine Action Group Sydney spokesman Josh Lees said rather than calls for a two-state solution, Australia should instead cut any military ties with Israel.

“I think it’s farcical – every political current in Israel is opposed to a two state solution – and what they’re unleashing now is a one-year long genocide in Gaza, and now they’re starting one in Lebanon,” he said.

“What Australia and the US needs to do is immediately cut military ties, stop arming the state of Israel, which is hellbent on unleashing more and more carnage in the region.

“Until they do that, anything they say is empty words.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, meanwhile, responded by questioning “what exactly does the government intend to recognise as a sovereign and independent state?”.

“A terror enclave atop a labyrinth of tunnels where over a hundred Israelis are held hostage? Or the West Bank, which has no democratic institutions and where the inept and corrupt Palestinian Authority only holds off Hamas and other terror factions because of Israeli counter-terrorism operations?” he said, adding recognition would “embolden rogue actors and terror groups around the world”.

In her speech, Senator Wong said Australia had already “sanctioned Israeli extremist settlers”, while adding “there can be no role for terrorists” in a Palestinian state.

In a sign of frustration over a lack of progress in peace talks, she said a timeline for a recognition of a Palestinian state could progress the search for a peaceful solution, saying “Australia wants to engage on new ways to build momentum”.

I could be wrong kind reader, but do we not have a 2 state setup now? Where Gaza is the territory parliamentary ruled by Hamas? Who continue to work towards the destruction of Israel?
And this Josh Lees bloke. Terrorist enabler.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 8:37 am
Reply to  Black Ball

There’s been a Palestinian State since 1947 – it’s called “Jordan.”

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 8:53 am

And even their own state doesn’t want them.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 9:40 am

Trying to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy wasn’t the smartest move the Pali’s ever made. The Jordanian Army retaliated by shelling the refugee camps, with Willie Peter..

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 9:03 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Lebanon is a state and Syria is a state, yet that has not stopped endless warfare with Israel.

Maybe there’s something else which is causing it? Starting with the letter “i”.

dopey
dopey
September 29, 2024 10:15 am

And don’t forget South Australia, represented by Penny Wong.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:28 am

Rita is being picked up on the U.S.

@its_The_Dr

Harris / Walz Campaign BUSTED for using 2 paid actors to pretend they were former Pennsylvania Farmers & Trump Voters who switched to Kamala.

Turns out the 2 were not only actors but democrat donors for years.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:26 pm
Reply to  Indolent

Rita is getting good international exposure and is doing a great job.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 8:52 am
Reply to  Indolent

I prefer the term: Austere Religious Scholar / Educator or A.R.S.E for short.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:32 am
Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:33 am

I could hazard a guess, hazard being the operative word.
Why are homeowners losing coverage after installing solar panels?

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 8:36 am
Eyrie
Eyrie
September 29, 2024 8:38 am

Start by scrapping Welcome to Country. Made up tosh that is.

Can be done by the people. Just takes a brave soul to stand up and yell “Bullshit, this is my country: then get the rest to join in, “C’mon, Bullshit, this is my country”.
Won’t last 2 days after that.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 8:49 am
Reply to  Eyrie

I get confused. There are all these “Welcome to County’s”, yet, every January 26th, I’m told I’m an invader, with no right to be here.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 9:13 am
Reply to  Eyrie

And the first thousand who do it will be gaoled.
Like is currently happening in the UK.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 9:54 am
Reply to  Eyrie

“Pulling the legs” of gullible whitefella’s is considered fine sport by the Indigenous,and that’s all “welcome to country” is. “If whitefella is stupid enough to believe that, he’ll believe anything!”

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 3:56 pm

It’s beyond the phase of ‘leg pulling’. This is graft, corruption and bullying of people who want to get on with their lives and kick the bludgers out of power.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 8:38 am

Deary me, Farmer Gez, have at it. Our betters in action:

The Allan government is facing calls for an urgent audit of Victoria’s 2500 wind turbines amid fears they lack critical fire safety equipment.

Ahead of the upcoming bushfire season, concerns are mounting over the safety measures in place to protect both regional communities and key infrastructure from potential fire hazards.

As the government rolls out another 900 turbines over the next decade and faces an ongoing fight over constructing powerlines through western Victoria to connect turbines to the Melbourne grid, the Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the state’s energy safety regulator, Energy Safe Victoria, has no records of whether or not wind turbines are fitted with critical internal fire suppression systems.

The gap in oversight has sparked alarm about the effectiveness of current regulations and the preparedness of the energy sector in addressing the risks associated with the government’s push toward renewable energy.

CFA guidelines recommend fire suppression systems are installed on all wind turbines, as well as automatic shutdown capabilities to enable turbines to be completely disconnected from the power supply in the event of fire.

Fire hazards at wind energy facilities can include electrical hazards, chemical hazards, and potential fire spread because of air flow impact or falling debris from fire-impacted turbines.

In June Energy Safety Victoria launched an investigation after a wind turbine burst into flames in Portland.

Firefighters were forced to let the blaze burn out after futile attempts to control the fire.

Irrewarra CFA captain, John Martin, said wind turbines posed significant dangers for both aerial and ground firefighting operations.

Mr Martin said it was almost always impossible for crews to get close to wind turbines, meaning bushfires could quickly spread from the turbine before facing any resistance.

“If you give a fire like that in that particular landscape a head start, the front’s going to get bigger and bigger and before you know it you’ve got a pretty serious, fast-running grass fire,” he said.

“It makes us feel pretty helpless. Anything within the tower, we can’t touch, we’ve just got to leave it.

“But it is the grass fires that really concern us as to how we can actually manage to eventually get on top of those.”

Mr Martin said there should be laws requiring fire suppression systems to be installed in every single wind turbine.

“It’s a no-brainer, it doesn’t matter the cost,” he said.

“Whichever way you look at it, these things do present problems for us in the CFA.”

Shadow Emergency Services Minister Richard Riordan called for an immediate audit of the state’s turbines.

“Fire suppression technology exists but is an optional extra for wind companies who this year received a massive cut to their fire service levy charges thanks to the Allan government,” he said.

“Protection of our rural communities from out of control wind turbine fires should not be an optional extra.

“A wind turbine fire cannot be fought from the ground, and it cannot be beaten from the air, only internal fire suppression equipment such as CO2 gas can be used to put these fires out effectively.

“A hot February day and a wind turbine spraying molten fibreglass, hot oils and other debris across many square kilometres of accessible grass lands is a disaster waiting to happen.”

A Victorian government spokesman said owners and operators of wind farms must comply with strict energy safety laws and regulation.

“Wind turbine fires are rare,” she said.

“CFA volunteers have experience and procedures already in place to safely fight fires around this infrastructure.

“Last year we strengthened Energy Safe Victoria’s powers to ensure operators of wind farms comply with strict energy safety laws and regulations – this includes submitting detailed safety management plans to the regulator for approval.”

Or maybe just get rid of them Mr Riordan and keep coal fired power going.

mem
mem
September 29, 2024 8:55 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Do you have a link or source for this article? It would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 29, 2024 9:30 am
Reply to  mem

From the Herald Sun website mem. Most likely be in the printed newspaper

MatrixTransform
September 29, 2024 9:55 am
Reply to  Black Ball

remembering a conversation only a week ago.

I think Farmer Gez may have a crystal ball

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 8:47 am

Palestine Action Group Sydney spokesman Josh Lees 

Hmm…a native of Ramallah or Jenin or Hebron? I’m not aware of any West Bank clan called “Lees’.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 29, 2024 9:51 am

A leftard political agitator, more likely.

Probably funded directly or indirectly by the taxpayer

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 29, 2024 9:05 am

Black Ball
 September 29, 2024 8:38 am

Deary me, Farmer Gez, have at it. Our betters in action:

We’ve got twenty brigades who have written to CFA command refusing to attend fires at renewable facilities.
Absolute BS around training and adequate safeguards from the Vic Gov, no such work had been done. A battery approved near bushland in just eight weeks is proof of the lie. I asked our regional commander if they had any input into the fire risks posed by this project, a big fat NO.
Dangerous and desperately stupid people are in charge of Victoria. We have warned them and put it in writing. Any deaths resulting from this reckless attitude to fire risk will find the coroner asking the government why the warnings of experienced local firefighters were ignored.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 11:06 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Farmer Gez.

Any deaths resulting from this reckless attitude to fire risk will find the coroner asking the government why the warnings of experienced local firefighters were ignored.

You’re wrong FG.
The Coroner will know better than to ask awkward questions like that.
Because ‘Victoria’.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 9:08 am

Yep maliciously incompetent- just look at the mediocrity of a premier

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 9:08 am
Eyrie
Eyrie
September 29, 2024 9:08 am

Dangerous and desperately stupid people are in charge of Victoria

Actually, most of the World with a few exceptions.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 9:15 am
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 11:35 am
Reply to  Rockdoctor

Or you could do what the Left do to you – harass them and their customers, and tell them they’re not welcome.
Demand they support your agenda like they do about BLM.

Crossie
Crossie
September 29, 2024 9:21 am

Fluffy Annelise was just on Andrew Clennell on Sky to breathlessly report that North Carolina looks promising for a Kamala win due to some Republican state official and a candidate who seems to have been naughty on porn sites. Yet the only person she could find to talk to her said things were much better economy wise four years ago and therefore she will be voting for Trump.

It is becoming more and more clear that politics in the west is polarising according to class and wealth. The rich and managerial classes are not doing without anything so they are not feeling the pinch they created.

Being isolated and insulated from those who live pay to pay and are sinking under the supposedly non-existent inflation the well-off cannot even sympathise and even demonise those who refuse to follow their lead in voting intentions.

The Just Stop Oil and Free Palestine protests and intimidations by the children of the rich and powerful are perfect illustrations of the political and philosophical divides between the classes. Their insistence on getting their way no matter what anybody else thinks is the height of arrogance.

Looking back on the 60s protests, they were also indulged in predominantly by the children of the rich and comfortable while children of commoners were too busy getting jobs and trying to get ahead.

I just hope that in reaction to the current situation we don’t go down the path of the French Revolution but the 1991 reformation in the Soviet bloc where the powerful were swept aside in favour of the oppressed multitudes.

Last edited 4 months ago by Crossie
Louis Litt
Louis Litt
September 29, 2024 10:18 pm
Reply to  Crossie

Brilliant – bang on – unskilled and thinking they are smarter than everyoneelse

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 9:29 am

After the discussion last night on the ABC asserting alleged Lebanese with “Australian passports of convenience” whining they can’t get out of Lebanon. Despite Beirut’s Rafic Hariri still being operational. Well just found this on Blazing catfur, Castro’s son has beaten sleazy and has jumped at evac flights with troops as well:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10779454/canada-commercially-assisted-flights-lebanon/

Just checked FR24, some 71 flights scheduled today. There will be some cancellations but Israelis seem to be leaving the airport alone.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 9:31 am

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/28/led-by-pygmies/

More examples of the rubbish that is the political class.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 9:33 am

Listening to 2SM talkback (yeah I know!) and Brent Boltitude explained the difference between misinformation and disinformation by reference to KD and Trump and the haitians eating the cats controversy: JD was disinformation because he deliberately lied about it but Trump was misinformation because he was too dumb to know it was a lie! And boltitude is one of the better ones!

In fact complaints were made by Springfield residents about haitians stealing pets. Haiti is a voodoo based failed state. Voodoo involves the ritual sacrifice of animals.

Venezuela is another failed state and the locals there are eating zoo animals to avoid starving. There are no zoos in haiti so I guess the voodooers didn’t kill any zoo animals but I’m with JD on them killing and at least sacrificing pussies in Springfield.

The biggest eaters of dogs and cats in the world are the chunks and 16 other nations eat them so no big deal. The big deal was bringing 20000 haitians into a town of 50000. That’s the real scandal.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:07 pm
Reply to  cohenite

We passed by a few cute ‘dog and cat’ signs outside buildings on a road tur through Vietnam.

Turns out they were for restaurants serving these meats.

A dog ran in front of our vehicle. He’ll be next on the barbeque, commented our tour driver. I thought he was joking, but turns out he wasn’t.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:09 pm
Reply to  cohenite

For Quadrant subscribers, Roger Franklin (areff) has a discursive on-the-spot report from Springfield, Ohio, where his mobile Quadrant office is currently parked. As well-written and as informative as usual.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
September 29, 2024 10:26 pm
Reply to  cohenite

It’s the oldest stunt to keep a group of people under threat from the military power. Import a sizeable population in to a country and over time the disagreements and tensions rise to war.
I have concluded in my retarted lump that the labor govt around the word do this but are too dumb To realise what the outcome will be.
they do hate Anglo Saxon middle class – that includes the euro migrants.

Beertruk
September 29, 2024 9:37 am

Sunday Tele:

ALBO’S APPOINTMENTS AN ABUSE OF OUR TRUST

PIERS – AKERMAN
29 Sep 2024

Last year’s referendum on a Voice to Parliament cost taxpayers a minimum $450m, probably closer to half a billion, and there was a clear result.

The Australian people rejected the full proposition overwhelmingly.

However, the Albanese government which proposed it has blindly failed to accept the reality that 60.06 per cent of the population voted No.

This mulish obstinacy dishonours both Yes and No voters and undermines the democratic process. Not only has the Albanese government abused the trust of the people in ignoring the express will of the majority, it has subsequently made a series of appointments which show an enormous disrespect for all Australians.

The most significant was the appointment of Sam Mostyn, a long-time left-wing Labor staffer, to the $709,000-a-year position of governor-general.

Mostyn’s salary is $214,000 more than her predecessor’s, justified by the fact that she wasn’t in the military or judiciary (as previous G-Gs have been) and didn’t qualify for a government pension.

That overlooks two things, the first being that the honour and the pre-existing salary level should have been sufficient enticement.

The second is that Mostyn was a wealthy businesswoman in her own right, a member of a number of boards, including the deluded and politicised Climate Council and Reconciliation Australia.

Five years on the public teat was not going to send her bankrupt.

Her utterances since taking office read like rejected scripts written for NZ’s former and unlamented disaster of a prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, all full of love, hope and charity but singularly lacking in practicality.

The Albanese government has also been using your money to pay $326,000 annually to Justin Mohamed, the nation’s inaugural ambassador for First Nations people.

Mohamed turned in a travel bill of $145,000 last financial year after visiting Honolulu for the Festival of Pacific Art and Culture, San Francisco for APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, Dubai for the COP28 climate conference and Geneva for United Nations meetings, among other overseas trips. On these junkets he has talked about nothing that couldn’t have been discussed by a bureaucrat from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mohamed is the head of the Office for First Nations International Engagement, which has a budget of $13.6m over four years.

On Friday, we learnt of yet another appointment, Latrobe University professor Clare Wright, who has been appointed chair of the National Museum of Australia’s council.

Wright, who is not Indigenous, says she was “adopted” into the Yolngu in northeast Arnhem Land in 2010.

“I took an active role in a political campaign (the Voice referendum) that was important to me. I thought constantly during that campaign of what it would mean to my yapa (sister) and the children and grandchildren of the Yolngu people to have a voice to parliament,” she told The Australian newspaper.

This appears to be a blatant politicisation of a role which should be free of politics, but everything is political to the Albanese government, even when that political position has been rejected by the people.

In fact, despite Australians kicking the Voice proposal into touch, the federal and state governments are doing all they can to put into place the demands that were defeated.

Such outrageous contempt for the will of the people is rare in democracies.

It is to be hoped the Albanese government’s disdain will be rewarded with a thumping rejection when it has to answer to the public.

KevinM
KevinM
September 29, 2024 9:38 am

Pogria
September 29, 2024 7:53 am

Brigitte Bardot in the news as she is turning 90. God bless you, you beautiful woman.

The media is spinning that she has gone to the “Dark side”, because for decades she has loved and saved animals, but the worst sin, she hates Mussies and is against the Mussification of France.

Some of you who paid even a fleeting attention to my musings in the recent past may remember my searching for an answer in various religions.

Didn’t find it but that is not my point.

What I’m interested in this time is;

What is it in Islam that is so compelling and attractive to a vast number of people and new converts as well, that a religion like it not only survived many centuries but it’s on the cusp of conquering the world anew?

Think about it, it’s not for lack of ‘inventing’ new religions, yet none of them have the success Islam had.

We my find it abhorring and inhuman, whatever description you can find, but there is an appeal for it, specially for our young.

Why is it so?

Makka
Makka
September 29, 2024 10:10 am
Reply to  KevinM

It’s not a religion. It’s a cult.

The “young” are obsessed with the concepts of fairness and equality. They see moslems as downtrodden. They also see a cult that does not have a “church” between them and God. Young females embracing Islam are just silly, like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. They become chattels and breeding cattle.

And it’s a fad among the humanities dummies. Clueless but belonging to a cause, demonstrating against the man. Giving them meaning and odd fulfillment. And news headlines. Airheads basically.

Finally but importantly, wokeism elevates this barbarous cult to the top of the victimhood pole because Crusades and the exploitation of poor downtrodden Arabs by the nasty white man western powers over time.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 11:44 am
Reply to  Makka

Makka, they also – in the case of young men – have the added attraction of male superiority. He may be the 70 year old proud owner and herder of 7 goats but when he gets up in the morning, he knows full well that he is superior to his 20 year old Nobel Prize for Mathematics winning 3rd wife he bought for two goats 10 years ago.
Why?
Because he has a dick, that’s why.
And it’s the reason Dickless Monty is so full of self confidence that he is always right – because there’s a book somewhere that says so.

Last edited 4 months ago by Winston Smith
damon
damon
September 29, 2024 1:40 pm
Reply to  KevinM

Power. You have to do what they say because “GOD”.

Crossie
Crossie
September 29, 2024 4:00 pm
Reply to  KevinM

The attraction is quite simple to explain, no moral guardrails, you are allowed to lie and cheat as long as you are part of the group.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
September 29, 2024 10:28 pm
Reply to  KevinM

Agreed with posts below – it’s not Islam that the problem – it’s Marxism, communism etc – they are using Islam as a destructive tool.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 9:39 am

Who the buggery is Brent Boltiude?

cohenite
September 29, 2024 9:51 am
Reply to  Miltonf

One of the more reasonable media presenters at 2SM; he still has a severe dose of TDS

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 9:58 am
Reply to  cohenite

ok- don’t know how you can stand listening to them but each to his own.

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 9:50 am
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 12:04 pm
Reply to  Rosie

What on earth did Tucker think he was doing giving this fool airtime?

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 9:54 am

“The Iranian response to the elimination of arch-terrorist Hezbollah will come. The type and scope of their response will be shaped by the stance the US will take. Very important hours now as the East Coast comes online.”
https://x.com/jconricus/status/1839988351862034494?t=x6pLodK2C2jnn4ci1ggHGg&s=19

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 9:56 am

A Sunday morning…

  1. Israel is removing some filth from the planet
  2. Fitzroy bashed South Melbourne
  3. And the sun’s out

Life’s good.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 9:58 am

What is it in Islam that is so compelling and attractive to a vast number of people and new converts as well, that a religion like it not only survived many centuries but it’s on the cusp of conquering the world anew?

Islam has been designated a victim by the leftoids running the West. That means they are immune to criticism because like blacks, trannies, lesbians and the climate they are a victim of Western hegemony, colonialism and getting rooted up the clacker. Therefore every thing islam does is a legitimate response to being oppressed. The prime example is what is happening to Israel as the proxy for the West: the terrorism directed against it by the muzzie scum is justified but any response by the Israelis is morally wrong.

The upshot is that islam has free rein in the West.

It’s the leftoids who are the problem because muzzies are hopeless shits and a concerted effort by a non leftoid West would have them back rooting goats in no time.

Last edited 4 months ago by cohenite
H B Bear
H B Bear
September 29, 2024 10:07 am
Reply to  cohenite

The Gays for [insert Muslim sh1thole] is particularly hard to fathom.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 11:50 am
Reply to  cohenite

Cohenite, I have to admit your Theory of Muzzie Exceptionalism has – shall we say – a certain amount of validity.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
September 29, 2024 10:32 pm
Reply to  cohenite

Sheert Cohenite , I wish I had your silver tounge , smoother than a $20/ hooker.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 10:06 am

Wow, Elon puts in a safety system and makes it fun. You could sell tickets to use it!

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1840061440386052269

Barry
Barry
September 29, 2024 10:06 am

Christianity is by far the most “successful” religion insofar as its numerical superiority of adherents enjoying civilisation and prosperity far beyond all others.

But for every yin there must be a yang, and Islam is it.

Diametrically opposed to Christianity in many areas, key being individual liberty, Islam rejoices in oppression, hostility and hierarchy.

Both Jews and Mohammedans greet each other with “Peace!”, but only one means it.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
September 29, 2024 10:34 pm
Reply to  Barry

Hey Baz – the yang is communism – it’s all of those concepts you mentioned about Islam.

caveman
caveman
September 29, 2024 10:09 am

“Fitzroy bashed South Melbourne”

Yeah about that, I’m sick of getting speedballed by the Swans. I’ll be supporting my second favourite side next year, Carlton. At least I can handle being disappointed in perpetuity.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 29, 2024 10:31 am
Reply to  caveman

Finals football is another game.

local oaf
September 29, 2024 10:10 am

“What is it in Islam that is so compelling and attractive to a vast number of people and new converts as well, that a religion like it not only survived many centuries but it’s on the cusp of conquering the world anew?”

It’s a bit like communism, it specifies exactly who is behind all the evils of the world.
Believers are told that “All we have to do is eliminate the following people and we can all live in Paradise.”

Capitalists/Jews – what the difference if you’re angry and bitter and looking for a fight. Commies & Muslims, a marriage made in hell.

JC
JC
September 29, 2024 10:14 am

Good catch

Twitter comment

Did Netanyahu just pull off The Godfather baptism scene eliminating Hezbollah while addressing the UN?

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 10:56 am
Reply to  JC

Yep

KevinM
KevinM
September 29, 2024 10:18 am

cohenite
September 29, 2024 9:58 am

Thanks cohenite.
That is a political answer to the current situation and is correct.

My question was more along the line of a philosophical.
Why are the adherents of Islam so protective of their religion that they are ready to sacrifice themselves and why is Islam in these days of diminishing religious belief in most religion still attracting new converts when Christianity is losing members?

There simply must be something there I don’t see.
What is it?

Morsie
Morsie
September 29, 2024 10:32 am
Reply to  KevinM

It’s a 24 7 religion.No thinking required.

Makka
Makka
September 29, 2024 10:18 am

KevinM,

On Islam;

It’s not a religion. It’s a cult.

The “young” are obsessed with the concepts of fairness and equality. They see moslems as downtrodden. They also see a cult that does not have a “church” between them and God. Young females embracing Islam are just silly, like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. They become chattels and breeding cattle.

And it’s a fad among the humanities dummies. Clueless but belonging to a cause, demonstrating against the man. Giving them meaning and odd fulfillment. And news headlines. Airheads basically.

Finally but importantly, wokeism elevates this barbarous cult to the top of the victimhood pole because Crusades and the exploitation of poor downtrodden Arabs by the nasty white man western powers over time.

Stupidity and ignorance got us here. The vile left has succeeded in disappearing studies of the History that can teach and inform us and supplanted it with woke versions meant to poison young western minds against their God given endowment.

Last edited 4 months ago by Makka
cohenite
September 29, 2024 10:24 am

This is funny (from WIP):

stray-cats-springfield-ohio
Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 10:30 am

Hayek on the Welfare State

David Gordon, Mises Institute, 24 September 2024

September 2024 marks the eightieth anniversary of the publication of the British edition of Friedrich Hayek’s great book The Road to Serfdom. In the book, Hayek makes a powerful argument in defense of the rule of law, the principle that the same legal rules must be applied to everyone who is in a given situation and that the application of the rules must not be subject to governmental discretion. Unfortunately, he also argues that several parts of the welfare state can be made compatible with this requirement.

Hayek provides and eloquent and succinct characterization of the rule of law in this passage:

“Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principle known as the Rule of Law. Stripped of all technicalities, this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and expressed beforehand—rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive power in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of that knowledge.”

In brief, Hayek argues that if the state follows a fixed rule, you can plan what you want to do without fear that state officials will arbitrarily interfere with you. In this connection, he remarks that almost any rule is better than none. (Is this true? If the Nazi government enacts a rule that all Jews will be sent to concentration camps, is this better than a situation in which Jews are sent to concentration camps arbitrarily? Somehow, “At least the Jews will be able to know that they shouldn’t make long term plans that depend on their being free” seems an inadequate response.)

Unfortunately, Hayek thinks that several welfare state measures are compatible with the rule of law, as long as the government follows fixed rules. He says:

“That hodgepodge of ill-considered and often inconsistent ideals which under the name of the Welfare State has largely replaced socialism as the goal of the reformers needs very careful sorting out in its results are not to be similar to those of full-fledged socialism. This is not to say that some of its aims are not both practicable and laudable. . .The increasing tendency to rely on administrative coercion where a modification of the general rules of law might, perhaps more slowly, achieve the same object…is still a powerful legacy of the socialist period…”

How far is Hayek prepared to accept welfare state measures that rely on the fixed implementation of bureaucratic rules? Quite far, it transpires:

“There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained [i.e., England in 1944], the first kind of security [i.e., limited, not absolute] should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom…there can be no doubt that some bare minimum of shelter and clothing can be assured to everybody… The case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong…there is no incompatibility between the state’s providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom.”

Suppose, for example, that the government wants to give money to the poor. Then, in his view, a law that declared everyone who earned below a specified amount is entitled to aid is better than one that leaves it to government bureaucrats to determine whether an applicant for the money is genuinely needy. People could not complain that they were being taxed according to the whims of government bureaucrats. They would be able to know the rule in advance and plan their spending with this in mind.

Hayek is well-aware that welfare state measures are dangerous; they could lead to a completely planned economy by a slippery slope. But he did not think his own proposals were liable to have this effect. Ludwig von Mises disagreed with him. Mises’s review of The Constitution of Liberty, in which Hayek elaborated on his welfare state ideas, was generally laudatory, but his comments on those ideas were decidedly otherwise:

“In fact, the Welfare State is merely a method for transforming the market economy step by step into socialism. The original plan of socialist action, as developed by Karl Marx in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, aimed at a gradual realization of socialism by a series of governmental measures. The ten most powerful of such measures were enumerated in the Manifesto. They are well known to everybody because they are the very measures that form the essence of the activities of the Welfare State, of Bismarck’s and the Kaiser Wilheim’s German Sozialpolitik as well as of the American New Deal and British Fabian Socialism. The Communist Manifesto calls the measures it suggests “economically insufficient and untenable,” but it stresses the fact that “in the course of the movement” they outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely “revolutionizing the mode of production.”

Later, Marx adopted a different method for the policies of his party. He abandoned the tactics of a gradual approach to the total state of socialism and advocated instead a violent revolutionary overthrow of the “bourgeois” system that at one stroke should “liquidate” the “exploiters” and establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” This is what Lenin did in 1917 in Russia and this is what the Communist International plans to achieve everywhere.

What separates the Communists from the advocates of the Welfare State is not the ultimate goal of their endeavors, but the methods by means of which they want to attain a goal that is common to both of them. The difference of opinions that divides them is the same as that which distinguished the Marx of 1848 from the Marx of 1867, the year of the first publication of the first volume of Das Kapital.”

Last edited 4 months ago by Roger
Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 29, 2024 10:35 am

Castro’s son has beaten sleazy and has jumped at evac flights with troops as well:

“Damn!” says Albo.

But if he wants to top Turdeau in the compassion stakes he can send across more planes so that all these ‘Aussies’ can get first class (for the men) and business class (for women and children) seats.

Ha! That will show him.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
September 29, 2024 11:23 am
Reply to  Mother Lode

don’t forget the mileage points, there’ll be hell to pay if they can’t get the points and status credits they’re entitled to from the evac flights…

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 29, 2024 10:41 am

I find it pleasantly amusing that at the exact same time Mr Wong was mewling thusly:

The world cannot keep hoping the parties will do this themselves. We cannot allow any party to obstruct the prospect of peace

One of the said parties was doing just that – kinetically separating Mr Nasrallah’s meat, fat and bone over a considerable area while also managing to air-fry it at the same time.

Roofie Firefly will be spewing.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 10:44 am

My question was more along the line of a philosophical.

Why are the adherents of Islam so protective of their religion that they are ready to sacrifice themselves and why is Islam in these days of diminishing religious belief in most religion still attracting new converts when Christianity is losing members?

Globally, Christianity is not in decline but is expected to continue to grow in numbers of adherents and maintain its status as the world’s largest religion* throughout the 21st century.

Islam in the West is growing through migration and procreation, not conversion.

Something to ponder:

If present religious and demographic trends continue, it’s quite possible that secularism, which tends to be regarded by those who’ve grown up under it as the normal state of human affairs, will be dead and buried by the end of the century.

*Note ‘religion’ these days is a sociological rather than a theological term. Can all religions really be of the same genus when their doctrines contradict each other? Something else to ponder!

Last edited 4 months ago by Roger
Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 11:02 am
Reply to  Roger

…secularism, which tends to be regarded by those who’ve grown up under it as the normal state of human affairs

Should have added:

Historically, it isn’t – it’s the exception rather than the rule.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 29, 2024 10:47 am

he (Hayek) remarks that almost any rule is better than none. (Is this true? If the Nazi government enacts a rule that all Jews will be sent to concentration camps, is this better than a situation in which Jews are sent to concentration camps arbitrarily?

This passage brought to mind the argument used by Gillard justifying the CO2 tax – businesses wanted ‘certainty’, she told us.

Foxbody
Foxbody
September 29, 2024 5:50 pm
Reply to  Mother Lode

No she didn’t – the need was for something called “ sirdundee”.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 29, 2024 10:49 am

A very good collection of thought provoking links last night Indolent – far better than multiple videos of… wailing singers.

Politics never sleeps

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 10:55 am

“What is it in Islam that is so compelling and attractive to a vast number of people”
It was spread by the sword and the penalty for leaving is death.
In other words, it’s compelled not compelling.
Women are confined to the house as breeders and dogsbodies, that’s how they increase numbers in the west now, thanks to the welfare state.

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 10:58 am

Why are the adherents of Islam so protective of their religion that they are ready to sacrifice themselves and why is Islam in these days of diminishing religious belief in most religion still attracting new converts when Christianity is losing members?

I think that Makka is right, but there is more to it.

Islam has a very long tradition in regions that have not progressed economically, but more importantly have not derived their political system from concepts of individual rights. Autocracy is entrenched in both their religion and in their politics. Human rights, women’s rights et al are not endemic in their thinking. They look to their mullahs and to Islam to elevate them to what they see as their true position in the world.

And why does Christianity seem to be losing believers? Well, the West has become flabby and spoiled & less likely to reflect on our place in the Universe. Fortunately, I think that will change as we grapple with rapid technological change and understand the fragility of our prosperity.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 11:01 am

Haha nice one Knuckle….

 kinetically separating Mr Nasrallah’s meat, fat and bone over a considerable area while also managing to air-fry it at the same time.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 11:57 am
Reply to  Barking Toad

Yeah, but it took 2.5 tons of HE to do it. Perhaps one single bullet would be more economical.
But probably not if we were to count the full casualty rate.
OK.
As you were.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
September 29, 2024 11:02 am

If you believe Brisbane Lions is Footscray and Sydney is South Melbourne…
…then you probably kneel for the Welcome to Countrieses
…and sit down to piss

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:12 pm
Reply to  Wally Dali

An unpopular but correct take.

AnotherRanga
AnotherRanga
September 29, 2024 12:49 pm
Reply to  Wally Dali

I think you’re getting confused between Footscray and Fitzroy.

Megan
Megan
September 29, 2024 3:11 pm
Reply to  Wally Dali

Brisbane Lions is not, and never has been, Footiscray.

JC
JC
September 29, 2024 11:02 am

Chris Rufo on X

It’s interesting to watch leaders of small countries accomplish what, in the United States, we are told is impossible: Bukele dismantling organized crime; Orban stopping illegal migrants at the border; Milei slashing the bureaucratic state; Netanyahu destroying his enemies

Rufo is a good follow .

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 11:17 am
Reply to  JC

The United States should devolve many of its federal powers and agencies to state level.

It’s easier to address these problems at a smaller scale without incompetent and corrupt federal organisations getting in the way.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 11:07 am

My question was more along the line of a philosophical.

There is nothing philosophical about islam: it’s all psychological and political.

Cutting to the chase is this question: does islam attract people who are already nuts; or does it make people nuts. The second option is much worse of course.

Islam thrives where there is a captive audience, so to speak, and inculcates from birth. Where there is not a captive audience as in the West islam is the easiest ideology to join and the hardest to leave: apostasy is punishable by death.

One of the other hard things about islam is that it does not have a central core such as the Christian pope. So despite the Israeli tactic of cutting, or blowing off heads, islam is literally a hydra.

Islam also has a good way of motivating young men, who are the best suckers/soldiers: it promises lots of rooting after death and controls rooting during life.

Finally islam is a complete ideology: it does not comprehend a separation of church and state as Christianity does (thank henry V111 and his sex drive) so any opposition is immediately classified as blasphemy.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 11:07 am

And why does Christianity seem to be losing believers? 

A new religion, which seems especially to appeal to women: green-progressivism. It’s just as nasty as Islam, but while Islam appeals especially to men, this one seduces women.

(I’ve just put on my asbestos undies in readiness for flaming. 😀 )

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 11:48 am

No need, Bruce. I think many women on the Cat side of politics would agree with you. The appeal of the Greens is to the wishful or magical thinking to which women are prone, as romantics (these days) and as emotional child-bearers and policers of their families’ welfare and security. The Greens are the true promoters of this fairies at the bottom of the garden belief system: wish it to be so and it will be so etc.. Vote to be nice, to be kind and environmentally caring and against war. I believe Advance Australia is planning to disabuse silly ‘aspirational’ women of this view of the Greens, and all power to them for that.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 11:12 am

The US has pledged to defend non-nuclear states like Australia and Japan under its “nuclear umbrella”.

University of Sydney international relations professor Justin Hastings said that explains why most signatories of the new prohibition treaty were “non-aligned states” — in other words, countries that are neither allied with Western powers or their strategic rivals like China and Russia.

“Australia and many other countries want to have their cake and eat it too,” he said.

There is no cake. We like to pretend there is, safe in our presumption that nuclear weapons won’t be used in any event. However, if they are, say, used to strike the submarine base at Garden Island near Perth, there is zero chance that the US will retaliate on our behalf if they think not doing so will spare their soil.

It may be a somewhat unusual scenario in which an adversary strikes us and not the US, but it isn’t out of the question. So what is the value in being under the American nuclear umbrella? If the US strikes or retaliates on our behalf, it will only happen if they have been hit themselves or they believe they will be. In that case, how have they actually done anything on our behalf? They would be doing something they would have done anyway.

It is only when you consider a situation in which we are hit but the US is not that the absurdity of another country’s promise to treat our territory as their own in such circumstances fully comes to light.

I’m not saying we should develop our own nuclear deterrent. Maybe we should. However, we aren’t even grappling with this decision at all on the entirely false belief that it means a pinch of shit to be under the US nuclear umbrella.

Arky
September 29, 2024 11:35 am
Reply to  Oh come on

So what is the value in being under the American nuclear umbrella?

It stops the situation where China says to Australia: “We want such and such, and you better give it up” and the usual suspects within Australia go “Well you can’t say no to China, they have a huge land mass, many resources and they are nuclear armed”.
As stated about Russia on the latest thread.
And the thing we might be asked give up? Could be territory. Could be support for a regional neighbour, could be a weapons system we want to have for defence of Australian territory. Could be an issue of principle. Could be a market.
The point is, the nuclear deterrent works, if it works at all, in peacetime most of all. Not once the missiles start flying.
If we aren’t under the US umbrella, then we need our own, or we need to give up the idea that we are anything other than subject to others interests, be they territorial, be they economic, be they ideological.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 12:00 pm
Reply to  Arky

No, it doesn’t. A country that might make such demands of us is perfectly capable of drawing the same conclusions I have, and calibrating its demands accordingly.

A nuclear deterrent works for those who possess it. Those who don’t are bystanders, regardless of the promises made to them. It is precisely what makes a nuclear strike capability such a potent deterrent that makes a promise to exercise this capability on behalf of another state so laughably hollow.

You have presented three strategic postures regarding nukes when there are in fact only two – we either have a nuclear deterrent, or we don’t. Being ‘under the US nuclear umbrella’ is not materially different from the latter, and no potential adversary of ours would think otherwise.

Last edited 4 months ago by Oh come on
Arky
September 29, 2024 12:07 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

Being ‘under the US nuclear umbrella’ is not materially different from the latter, and no potential adversary of ours would think otherwise.

And yet our enemies continue to wage war on us just short of the threshold that might invoke a military response.
Why is that?
Is it their natural goodness and sense of right and wrong which deters them?

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 12:29 pm
Reply to  Arky

I don’t accept your premise. Where is your evidence that our potential adversaries haven’t attacked us out of concern for us being under the US nuclear umbrella rather than the difficulties that taking such action would entail due to our geography, our conventional capabilities, the fact that the US will likely back us via conventional means and/or because going to war is inherently risky?

There is also an obvious distinction between a scenario in which some kind of military response is warranted, and one in which we would be looking to the US to use its nuclear strike capability on our behalf.

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:37 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

Where is your evidence that our potential adversaries haven’t attacked us out of concern for us being under the US nuclear umbrella

That’s easy.
New Zealand is nuclear free and subject to exactly the same demographic, information, ideological and economic warfare we are enduring.
In fact, in many cases it is worse there.
They are little more than a vassal of China at this point.

Last edited 4 months ago by Arky
Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 12:45 pm
Reply to  Arky

That isn’t evidence that it is us being under the US’s nuclear umbrella that is preventing what you claim would otherwise happen if we weren’t.

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:54 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

And then it stopped being a genuine exchange of ideas and one party just wanted to win an argument at all costs.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 1:00 pm
Reply to  Arky

Perhaps you could explain how it is, then.

Arky
September 29, 2024 2:15 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

You could be correct.
After all, Port of Darwin is leased 99 years to China.
But my thoughts are, NZ is much further down the drain vis a vis China than Oz.
I think NZ will be gone first.
Could be wrong.
What part does the nuclear component play in that?
It means that the US marines can practice landing at Shoal water Bay but not at Tekapo or Papakura.
It means that US ships don’t visit NZ.
It also means that NZ citizens don’t really look to the US alliance the same as Australians do. Add to that the economic and demographic pressures…
Some Australians are at the US alliance questioning stage that occurred in NZ while I still lived there in the 80s, noticeably among women and academic, intellectual (Marxist) types. NZ is way past that stage now, and the Chinese influence is notably higher, in my experience, and the attitude different.
We will see. Much of the middle suburbs in Australian cities are Chinese dominated, I.e the places where the managerial, professional classes live in the cities, some of the academic oriented schools have up to 80, 90% mandarin speakers.
We will see which falls first, soon I think.

Last edited 4 months ago by Arky
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 12:02 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

OCO:

I’m not saying we should develop our own nuclear deterrent. Maybe we should. 

We should. A target is a target, and the US will not exchange Bumfuk, Ohio for Sydney.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 12:40 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

I agree in principle but I’m not sure we have the capacity to develop a truly independent nuclear deterrent. It would require an enormous national effort that I doubt the population would be willing to undertake.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 12:24 pm
Reply to  Oh come on

All out nuc exchange in NH IMO we would be on our own and probably have 250mil Indo’s doing and taking what they want along our north coast. Our puny Navy wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I still think very unlikely we would be directly in the line of fire as our armed forces are miniscule and well apart from NZ we are a long long long way from anyone. Easier to just choke off or sea lanes which they have set conditions for anyway peacefully.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 12:58 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

and probably have 250mil Indo’s doing and taking what they want along our north coast

Heh not sure about that. Getting ashore is one thing. Maintaining a logistical chain that would allow them to survive for any length of time is a very different thing altogether.

The crocs would certainly be well-fed if they tried, though.

And there is always the perennial question of why they would bother. What would they stand to gain? The Javanese empire has more than enough on its plate holding itself together. Why would it want a bunch of territory it would have little use for in northern Oz?

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:59 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

Take the case of NZ.
Over 5% of the population, possibly more are mandarin speaking mainland Chinese.
This information might not seem important in itself.
However, the trend is that portion is increasing.
But more to the point is who those mandarin speakers are.
They are the managerial class. 50% of them are.
Which means that in some point in the not too distant future, the people who run NZ will be largely mainland Chinese mandarin speakers,
Without a shot being fired.

Last edited 4 months ago by Arky
Arky
September 29, 2024 1:38 pm
Reply to  Arky

‘An increasingly powerful China is using all its instruments of national power in ways that can pose challenges to existing international rules and norms’* It also foreshadows And the NZSIS report depicts China as a disruptive element within New Zealand society: ‘Most notable is the continued targeting of New Zealand’s diverse ethnic Chinese communities. We see these activities carried out by groups and individuals linked to the intelligence arm of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’ (p. 27).

*New Zealand Defence Policy Statement, 2023.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 11:20 am

Mass shootings leave 17 dead in South Africa: policeStaff WritersAP
Sun, 29 September 2024 3:19AM

Seventeen people, including 15 women, have been killed in two mass shootings that took place at two homes on the same street in a rural town in South Africa, police say.
A search was underway for the suspects, police spokeswoman Brigadir Athlenda Mathe said in a statement.
The victims were 15 women and two men, she said.
One other person was in critical condition in hospital.
That person was among four women, a man and a two-month-old baby who survived one of the shootings.
Authorities did not immediately give any details on the age or gender of the person in critical condition or the medical conditions of the other survivors.
The shootings took place on Friday night in the town of Lusikisiki in Eastern Cape province in southeastern South Africa.
Three women and a man were killed in the first shootings at a home, where there were no survivors, police said.
Twelve women and a man were killed at a separate home a short time later.
The survivors were present at those second shootings.
The shootings occurred late on Friday night or in the early hours of Saturday, police said.
Video released by police from the scene showed a collection of rural homesteads along a dirt road on the outskirts of the town.
Residents sat on the edge of the road as police and forensic investigators blocked off areas with yellow and black crime scene tape and began their investigations.
National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola said he had ordered a specialist team of detectives be deployed from the administrative capital Pretoria to help with the investigation.
“A manhunt has been launched to apprehend those behind these heinous killings,” police spokeswoman Mathe said.
Local media reported that the people were attending a family gathering at the time of the shooting but police gave no indication of any possible motive, nor how many shooters there were and what type of guns were used.
Police were treating the shootings as connected, however.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said at a press conference that it was an “intolerably huge number” of people killed and those responsible “can’t escape justice”.
“We have full faith and confidence in the team that has been deployed to crack this case and find these criminals. Either they hand themselves over or we will fetch them ourselves,” Mchunu said.
South Africa, a country of 62 million, has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
It recorded 12,734 homicides in the first six months of this year, according to official crime statistics from the police – an average of more than 70 a day.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 11:28 am

It doesn’t say whether the victims were black or white.

Oh come on
Oh come on
September 29, 2024 11:32 am

There has been a lot of talk in certain quarters recently about how Israeli intelligence is overrated. And how Hezbollah is as tight as a drum – impenetrable.

Well. Such talk isn’t looking so sharp now, is it?

There was also a lot of whining about the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, how this was a war crime, innocents would have been hurt or killed etc etc. Um yes I suppose but it was still pretty bloody targeted, was it not? I mean, were there really loads of Lebanese civilians regularly using these pagers, let alone pagers in general? Doubt it. I haven’t seen an operating pager in decades. Cannot see why it’d be much different for the average Lebanese civilian.

And yes, if you use exploding pagers to take out targets that intermingle with civilians, some civilians are going to get hurt or killed. That is the problem with terrorists living side-by-side with civilians. With that said, I saw some of the footage of those pagers when they exploded and it looked to me that you would have needed to be very close to the person carrying the pager to be harmed.

And yes, maybe you had some small children who said Daddy here’s your pager, it’s beeping *kaboom*. Of course that is awful. No child deserves to be harmed or killed in such a way. But such eventualities come with the territory of being a member of Hezbollah, don’t they? If these people had regular jobs, they probably wouldn’t need to worry about their family members being harmed by exploding pagers.

shatterzzz
September 29, 2024 11:34 am

Questions we neve rsee in the media ..! Given israel/Mossad, generally, know where their enemy leadership is and then bide their time before saying “Hello” what does the CIA with its bottomless budget achieve in the Mid-East ..?
Americans, mainly military tho, occasionally, civilian get killed, wounded, kidnapped and US property destroyed/captured, regularly, yet very rarely does the US via the CIA do anything about any of it ..
What has the US dun, covertly or military, in the mid-east since the “Don” offed Suleimani ..?

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 12:14 pm
Reply to  shatterzzz

“Sod all” is the correct answer, Shatterzzz.
“World Peace” and “Civilian Harmony” are wrong.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 3:30 pm
Reply to  shatterzzz

I think the Yanks tend to over complicate things when they do anything. Operation Eagleclaw was a cluster that resulted in smouldering piles of helicopter remains in Iran.

Operation Thunderbolt: Israel flies to Uganda and rescues hostages.

I also think the Yanks often start with altruistic motives and then stuff it when the money makers get involved.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 29, 2024 11:37 am

Finally islam is a complete ideology: it does not comprehend a separation of church and state as Christianity does 

A 19th C Islamic firebrand,* baffled by the dominance of the West once asked: How come Christian technology is so advanced when ours is the superior religion?

*Name escapes me. Came across him reading up on Islam after 9/11.

Makka
Makka
September 29, 2024 11:40 am

what does the CIA with its bottomless budget achieve in the Mid-East ..?

Endless conflicts involving vast amounts of OPM transfers.The generation of a very large pool of black money transactions that is dispersed among corruptocrats and CIA retirement funds as “dividends”.

mem
mem
September 29, 2024 11:43 am
It’s a bit like communism, it specifies exactly who is behind all the evils of the world.

Agree, but would add, identifying with an authoritarian or fascist movement or religion gives the weak and disaffected person the structure and courage to blame others for what is wrong in the world and in their own lives. Add to this a need to be popular and be seen to be part of a group to demonstrate one’s “modern” credentials, and you have the makings of the mob.

Makka
Makka
September 29, 2024 11:48 am

How come Christian technology is so advanced when ours is the superior religion?

14 centuries of marrying your cousin may have something to do with it.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 3:25 pm
Reply to  Makka

You’re lucky I wasn’t drinking tea when I read your comment. Or my monitor was lucky!

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 11:56 am
calli
calli
September 29, 2024 1:18 pm
Reply to  Rosie

Paging Syed…

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:01 pm

It seems to me that there is a decades long push to make everyone unhappy with the natural state of their endocrine system.
Does it occur to anyone else that the common strand in a bunch of social disorders is those who manufacture fake hormones?
Young ladies are convinced to have meaningless sex and take fake hormones to prevent conception.
Old blokes are convinced their ailments are due to a natural decline in testosterone, and to take TRT in order to prolong the sort of stupidity and trouble that particular hormone produces. While their bodies are telling them “time to deploy wisdom and intelligence old boy”, their doctors are telling them “go for it”!
Those girls frightened by adolescent changes to their bodies are told they might be men. Take hormones for the rest of your life.
Males are told they might actually be females and to do likewise.
Once women hit the menopause and become even more annoying, but without the beauty of youth that makes them partly bearable for short spells, yep, you guessed it: hormone replacement.
Youths who want to encase themselves in a muscle shield: hormones. Gym rats, athletes and just anyone unhappy with their appearance. Hormones. Every year there is a large crop of these hormonal “influencers” who drop dead in their late 30s and early 40s.
Who is making this shit, and why are people so stupid that at every time of life there are great masses of them who think that hacking their body’s natural and healthy system of regulation is a good idea?

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 12:11 pm
Reply to  Arky

There is a simple and possibly wrong explanation for this mad rush to pill pop a way to a better life: vanity.

Megan
Megan
September 29, 2024 3:20 pm
Reply to  John H.

Also denial of reality.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 12:16 pm
Reply to  Arky

That is a damn fine question Arky.
Can I call a friend?

Barry
Barry
September 29, 2024 1:22 pm
Reply to  Arky

Ozempic (semaglutide) mimics the hormone GLP-1 that is released in the gastrointestinal tract in response to eating.

More hormone hacking.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 12:02 pm

Bozo Johnson having second thoughts about lockdowns:

It was only later that I started to look at the curves of the pandemic around the world – the double hump that seemed to rise and fall irrespective of the approaches taken by governments. There were always two waves, whether you were in China, where lockdowns were ruthlessly enforced, or in Sweden, where they took a more voluntary approach.

Looking back, I wonder if King Cnut was right all along when he stationed his throne on the shore of the Thames and asked his courtiers to watch as he vainly ordered the tide to withdraw. Maybe there are limits to human agency; maybe it isn’t possible for government action to repel the waves of a highly contagious disease, any more than it is possible to repel the tide of the Thames.

I am not saying that lockdowns achieved nothing; I am sure they had some effect. But were they decisive in beating back the ­disease, turning that wave down? All I can say is that I am no longer sure.

The Daily Mail

I was going to aver that he doesn’t seem to be very bright, but then he’s no doubt soft-pedalling this revelation to protect his reputation.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 29, 2024 3:23 pm
Reply to  Roger

Fair trials and executions of the pollies from the covid era might give the current and future lot second thoughts about any future overreactions.

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 12:06 pm

Parents still get judged for ‘medicating children’ despite awareness about mental health growing – ABC News

Apart from the broader question regarding whether the drugs and psychotherapy confer any significant benefits(for mild to moderate at least 2 recent meta-analyses argue exercise is better), not one mention in the article about why a huge increase in anxiety and depression in teens is happening. Stop scaring the children at school with so many doomsday stories and telling them they are bad because of what happened long before they were born.

Nor is there any mention that antidepressants can cause significant weight gain, emotional numbing, which a friend told me teenagers in particular don’t like, and withdrawal can be very difficult. They call it “serotonin discontinuation syndrome”, a euphemism for overcoming addiction.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 12:14 pm
Reply to  John H.

I’d add that the poor kids are also being indoctrinated that they are invaders and genocidists, just by existing. Despite being born into the land they live in. It erodes the soul.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 12:07 pm

Birdie in space.

‘Aurora’ the baby falcon plush toy takes flight again as SpaceX Crew-9 zero-g indicator (29 Sep)

“I’ve got a little Falcon here,” said NASA astronaut and Crew-9 commander Nick Hague, as he revealed the small plush baby falcon in the crew cabin of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Freedom.”

Hague and mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos had just entered orbit after a nine-minute ride atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 two-stage rocket, as was evident by the toy falcon floating on the end of its tether, hence it being a “zero-g indicator.”

“I love the fact that a Falcon 9 [launched] Crew-9 and we’ve got a falcon on board with us,” said Hague. “This one is a multi-flyer, though. It was on my first flight with Aleksey [Ovchinin] and I, and with Aleksey, I and Christina [Koch]. So say hello to ‘Aurora.’”

Nick Hague is pretty amazing. He survived a failed Soyuz launch (which exploded) and is now back on the horse. The two astronauts are due to arrive at the space station in half a day or so.

I’ve just been watching the coverage of the launch last night. NASA and SpaceX were doing pissing matches all throughout the coverage, which was fun. SpaceX won.

Last edited 4 months ago by Bruce of Newcastle
Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 12:07 pm

Get off the meth Wally

If you believe Brisbane Lions is Footscray and Sydney is South Melbourne…
…then you probably kneel for the Welcome to Countrieses
…and sit down to piss

Fitzroy sonny, not Footscray

Arky
September 29, 2024 12:27 pm
Reply to  Barking Toad

Their supporters have long ago moved out past the mosque filled outer ring to places like Cranbourne, or to coastal retirement towns.
I guess there could be a few of them Brisbane too.
The actual suburb of Fitzroy is just a dormitory for Melbourne university to house it’s overseas students.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 12:07 pm
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 12:11 pm

The A$ is currently at 0.69c US.
Any particular reason for the strengthening over the US$ over the last 6 months?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 12:53 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

Fed is cutting.
Because election.
We aren’t.

mareeS
mareeS
September 29, 2024 7:09 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

Interest rates.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 12:52 pm
Reply to  cohenite

They repeated twice that a spacecraft had gone to edge of the Solar System.
Is that true? Any further detail? Was the craft Airfix size, where are the photos?
And ZPE. The dream of electrical alchemists for decades.
Interesting times – VERY interesting times, in the Chinese curse sense.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 12:23 pm

Sky News host Rowan Dean has slammed Foreign Minister Penny Wong for making a “complete fool of herself” at the United Nations.

Mr Wong has given a speech at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York where she called for a ceasefire in the Middle East.

Some times grey haired blokes should just fkcu off.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 12:26 pm

British PM “Free Gear” Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have slumped further after last week’s Labour Party conference in Liverpool, falling to 24% with 50% disapproving of his performance in the job.

Worse for Labour, 58% thought the government was not restoring faith in politics and serving the people, as Labour pledged to do during the election campaign.

A prominent backbencher, the member for Canterbury, Rosie Duffield, has also just resigned from the Labour Party in protest at the gifts scandal and will sit as an independent. She appears to have taken Starmer at his word when he stated that “the Labour party is either a moral project or it is nothing.”

Last edited 4 months ago by Roger
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 12:44 pm
Reply to  Roger

His nickname is getting longer.

Free Gear Two Tier Jews Not Here Keir.

Bit of a mouthful.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
September 29, 2024 12:28 pm

Fitzscray, Footsroy… same difference

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 12:38 pm

This one’s for nautical cats – “The Battle of Tsushima”, by Phil Carradice, is very well worth reading. Tsushima is almost forgotten today – in 1905, with Russia and Japan at war, the Japanese wiped the floor with the Russian Far East Fleet. Czar Nicholas the Second sent his Baltic Fleet halfway around the world to take revenge. It was an outstanding feat of seamanship, but the Ivans were clobbered by the Japanese at Tsushima. The battle was the start of the slippery slope that ended in a smoke filled cellar, in the Urals, with the deaths of the Czar and his family. Good reading.

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 12:41 pm

 Nicholas the Second sent his Baltic Fleet halfway around the world to take revenge. It was an outstanding feat of seamanship,

Drachinifel begs to differ …

(4) The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron – Voyage of the Damned – YouTube

Instructive and funny.

The battle in detail.

Battle of Tsushima – When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn’t get any worse… (youtube.com)

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 1:24 pm
Reply to  John H.

Thanks, I’m bookmarking those to watch later.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 12:49 pm

Tsushima is almost forgotten today

The crew of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov I suspect haven’t forgotten. They’ve just been sent to Ukraine to fight as infantry.

Admiral Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier Crew Being Sent to Fight in Ukraine (24 Sep)

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 29, 2024 12:58 pm

It was stupid of Israel to take out Nasrallah.

A thousand will rise to take his place. The Jews must concede, or feel the wrath of the United Nations.

/duhhhhhhhhhh

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 1:08 pm

The IDF certainly has multiplied Nasrallah.
They’ll need a rather large bucket to collect all his bits.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 1:23 pm

Why does the phrase “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” spring to mind?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 1:05 pm

Wong thought.

‘We have to find a way out’: Penny Wong doubles down on two state solution and urges Australians to leave Lebanon (Sky News, 29 Sep)

‘We all would hope for peace’: Foreign Minister speaks out on Ukraine-Russia war (Sky News, 29 Sep)

Saving the world! She doesn’t seem to be in Kiev, Moscow, Gaza, Beirut or Jerusalem doing diplomacy though. It’s a mystery.

Last edited 4 months ago by Bruce of Newcastle
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 1:19 pm
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 1:40 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

Bought that LP, although it was the only one of her’s I have.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 2:13 pm

A truely sad song.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 1:21 pm

@bennyjohnson

INCREDIBLE

Crowd absolutely loses it when they spot President Trump at the Georgia vs. Alabama game

Gen Z is voting for Trump.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 7:46 pm
Reply to  Indolent

Young men predominate – guys, talk to your girlfriends and your sisters and mum about NOT giving Kamala a go just because she’s a woman. She’s a fraud and even worse, totally brainless. Probably a drunk too.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 1:22 pm
Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 1:23 pm

It was spread by the sword and the penalty for leaving is death.
In other words, it’s compelled not compelling.

Correct. Islam, after it invades countries and consolidates power, uses a combination of forced conversions and/or the imposition of the dhimmi status and the jizya tax as very effective cudgels to use against those who try to desperately cling to Christianity and Judaism (the only two religions ‘tolerated’ by Islam). Further to non-Muslim communities being ‘suffocated’ by Islam, over the centuries, depending on the whims of the Muslim rulers, the always mandatory jizya tax could either be fairly lax or it could be draconian, and when it was draconian it led many Jews and Christians to convert to Islam rather than having to pay the tax. Those Jewish and Christian communities who managed to cling to their faith were deemed dhimmis and lived in great penury and constant danger. Rape jihad against Christian and Jewish women was (and remains) a huge problem for non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim majority lands and nations. Christian and Jewish communities that managed to survive intact were often geographically isolated, that isolation helping to protect them. The reason why the Maronites survived and prospered in Lebanon was due to the fact that they lived in the isolated mountain regions north and east of Beirut, the mountains were a buffer.

One of the biggest lies propagated over the last few decades is that Muslim ruled Spain was some kind of kumbaya paradise where Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived together in equality, peace and tolerance. It is bullshit. The so called golden age only lasted about two decades under a benign Muslim ruler. But Christians and Jews were still second class citizens even under that ‘benign’ ruler, and when that Muslim ruler died, the normal harassment, rape and persecution of Christians and Jews became the norm again.

If you want an insight into how life is for non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries, look at how Pakistan and Bangladesh treat their Sikh, Christian and Hindu minorities, look at how Iran treats its tiny timid Jewish and Christian communities, who all live in mouse like fear, even Turkey, where Christians are attacked and churches are bombed.

I am dumbfounded that the West has opened its doors to open slather Muslim immigration. This is already destabilising the West, and my prediction? It will be disastrous.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 1:25 pm

I think that Vance did a good job of trolling them, too. They had nothing left to say.
After Staging Event for Kamala Harris, Primanti Brothers a PA Based Restuarant Chain, Blocks JD Vance from Entering

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 1:26 pm

Bozo Johnson having second thoughts about lockdowns:

Yeah, like Dom Parrothead having second thoughts about vaccine mandates.

They can all EFF off.

cohenite
September 29, 2024 1:35 pm

Just on 2SM praising Trump; the guy on is a typical media hack who hates Trump because dogs and cats and Jan 6 blah, blah. Get on there if you have time and praise Trump!

Ring 131269. John Certori

Salvatore - Iron Publican
September 29, 2024 1:41 pm

Unless I’ve misread the news, Israel has express-delivered to Allah the first of the “Ten more will rise in his place”.

This would mean Hezbollah has had Three leaders within 24 hrs. (.. stand by, this score may rise)

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 1:47 pm

Saw a bit of that but didn’t comment as I don’t think the guy who rose to the occasion (lets say), was official. He is dead though.

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 1:45 pm

Once women hit the menopause and become even more annoying, but without the beauty of youth that makes them partly bearable for short spells, yep, you guessed it: hormone replacement.

Wow! that was a bold claim Arky! As someone who declined hormone replacement (wisely in view of the cancer consequences) I have no regrets. A happy soul tends to show on your face and affect your disposition.

My annoying tendency towards critical thinking seems to annoy women, more than men.

Arky
September 29, 2024 2:23 pm
Reply to  Vicki

Just embrace becoming fat and less badgered by males.
It’s natural, the missus is about to go the same way, and I will still love the old trout, as long as she leaves me to my own devices at least once a week on what we here call “Dad’s day” when I am free from female nattering and pestering to potter and doodle in the natural, isolated bear like state that any proper man requires on a regular basis.

Last edited 4 months ago by Arky
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 1:46 pm

Fentiman flails in WaterfordShannon Fentiman, the woman most likely to be Labor Opposition leader if Steven Miles is trounced on October 26, is in trouble in her own safe Labor seat.
ALP insiders say the Health Minister is facing a monster two-party preferred swing of 13 per cent in her outer Brisbane electorate of Waterford, which she holds on a Covid-boosted margin of 16.02 per cent.
There’s confusion about who commissioned the dire phone poll by Labor’s preferred pollsters Talbot Mills (business partners with banned lobbyists Evan Moorhead and Fentiman’s ex-husband David Nelson), but the smart money is on the MP’s own union, the AMWU. The union did not respond to Chooks query about whether it commissioned the poll.
The fact there’s even polling in such a safe seat reveals the ALP’s tremors entering the campaign, which officially kicks off with Miles’s visit to Governor Jeannette Young on Tuesday.
A young local councillor, Jacob Heremaia, is the LNP’s Waterford candidate.
And the result of the expensive interviewer-led phone poll doesn’t help: a dramatic erosion in the 2PP vote versus the LNP, from 66 per cent in 2020 to just 53 per cent now.
On those numbers Fentiman will hold Waterford – which Labor has lost for just one term since 1992, by the aforementioned Moorhead – but it’ll become ultra-marginal.
And it bodes terribly for the outer-suburban battleground where the election will be fought and likely lost.
Fentiman had been out for the past several weekends doorknocking, Bunnings barbecuing, and selfie-ing with voters; will it be enough?
The three-term MP, who was elected when Palaszczuk became premier in 2015 and elevated straight into cabinet, says: “It’s a privilege to be the member for Waterford and I’ve never taken the support of my community for granted”.
“I’m confident they’ve seen my achievements as their local MP including the largest ever expansion to Logan Hospital, more police and housing, more bus routes and 50c fares on public transport,” Fentiman says.
Her main rival for the Opposition leadership is Right faction caucus leader, Deputy Premier and Treasurer Cameron Dick, sitting happily in the state’s safest seat, Woodridge, on a 26.3 per cent margin.
Will the pair of lawyers-turned-politicians be fighting over the spoils of defeat after October 26?
Let the games begin.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 2:59 pm

There’s confusion about who commissioned the dire phone poll by Labor’s preferred pollsters Talbot Mills (business partners with banned lobbyists Evan Moorhead and Fentiman’s ex-husband David Nelson)

The ruling caste, Queensland version.

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 1:50 pm

The rise of small, fighter-like drones in US Air Force thinking | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)

Together with the development of air-to-air missiles less than half the size of the latest AMRAAMs and like or superior performance(cuda, peregrine), this development represents a qualitative leap in air power that puts the USA a generation ahead of the world.

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 1:50 pm

This is the speech RFK Jnr has made in support of Donald Trump:

comment image

Summary of speech:
“I spent a significant amount of money to get on the ballot in every state across the country. We gathered a million signatures from Americans for our petitions and built a network in every state. Throughout this process, polling consistently showed that 57 to 60% of people who supported me would vote for Donald Trump if I dropped out of the race. I was impacting Donald Trump and the Republican Party, yet they did nothing to prevent me from getting on any ballot. Donald Trump was critical of me but in a respectful and congenial manner.

In contrast, the Democratic Party spent tens of millions to defame me, spread false information, and marginalise me, trying to prevent me from appearing on state ballots. Despite these efforts, we succeeded in getting on the ballots. The Democratic Party even sued to keep me off the ballot in Michigan, but now my name will appear there. However, I urge you not to vote for me but for Donald J. Trump.

I have been a lifelong Democrat and initially believed negative portrayals of MAGA during the 2016 election. However, when Hillary Clinton criticised Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian plant despite her military service, I began to question these narratives. When President Trump was elected with 80 million votes, I realised we couldn’t dismiss so many Americans as deplorables.

I approached President Trump offering my help because I wanted to support efforts to end chronic disease and other issues affecting our nation. Many Democrats view MAGA as a return to the 1950s, labeling it racist or isolationist. However, after speaking with Donald Trump, he clarified that his vision was akin to the era of John F. Kennedy when America was at its peak economically and globally respected.

During that time, America had a thriving middle class and robust union movement ensuring dignity for workers. Today’s generation does not believe in that American dream due to economic challenges. A recent poll showed only 17% of young Americans are proud of their country, highlighting a disconnection from national pride.

My uncle John F. Kennedy believed the primary job of a U.S. president was to keep the country out of war and promote peace globally. His legacy includes numerous monuments worldwide due to his peaceful foreign policy approach.

Donald Trump’s vision aligns with these principles—he aims for America to be admired globally through diplomacy and economic strength rather than military might. He wants peace and prosperity for all nations through fair trade deals.

The Democratic Party I grew up with valued constitutional rights and freedom of speech as fundamental democratic principles. Today’s party seems more aligned with corporate interests and censorship under the guise of combating misinformation.

During Trump’s administration, economic indicators excelled compared to current conditions under Biden-Harris, which have seen inflation rise significantly alongside increased living costs while wages stagnate.
The Democratic Party has shifted from its roots supporting working-class Americans to aligning with big corporations like Big Pharma and Big Tech. Meanwhile, Trump has distanced billionaires from the Republican Party.
I believe we need a president who will prioritise American jobs and manufacturing rather than outsourcing them abroad. We also need leadership that will secure our borders effectively.

In conclusion, I urge you all to vote for Donald J. Trump this November because he represents the best chance for restoring America’s health and prosperity while maintaining peace both domestically and internationally. Thank you very much, and God bless you all!”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 7:40 pm
Reply to  Vicki

Excellent. An honest man. He could do a lot to improve America’s food and nutrition, especially for children. This is not nanny stuff, this is ensuring that poisons are not put into food and that a range of food choices is available.

Indolent
Indolent
September 29, 2024 1:59 pm
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 2:20 pm

Vicki
September 29, 2024 1:45 pm

Once women hit the menopause and become even more annoying, but without the beauty of youth that makes them partly bearable for short spells, yep, you guessed it: hormone replacement.
Wow! that was a bold claim Arky! As someone who declined hormone replacement.

Wise move.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 7:35 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

I’m happily 82 and have been on Oestrogen replacement since I was in my late fifties. Moved from tablets to transdermal mode, but same stuff, and won’t give it away now. No arthritis, no joint pains, muscle strength good, bones top notch, memory fine, and enjoying life in all of its aspects. Hair and skin – well, ask people who know me. Not at all bad for my age.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 2:28 pm

If my hormones start playing up, at least they’re mine and not some concoction brewed in a lab.

I’m sure there are cases where treatment might be required, particularly physiological conditions where a woman has no prospect of generation.

So much of this is fear of ageing. One can always age disgracefully, which is much more fun. Let the laughter lines run free.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
September 29, 2024 2:36 pm

Some discussion about the wisdom of automatically ‘mainstreaming’ all kids with disabilities in schools.

Bad idea, driven by ideology, not reality and practicality.

But, they never stop.

TheirABC is running a sob story about PWDs being exploited because they don’t get paid at least the minimum wage:

Spot on Johanna – the ABFNC has been give credence to the ideologues at every turn and it never stops — this with the place of employment has been in the Federal court for over 12 years and the exploitation of people with disabilities has been all on the part of the activist/advocates who DO NOT listen to the people who work in specialised places of employment because so many ARE INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED and can’t speak up for themselves so of course THEY DON’T COUNT —

These activist/advocates could not give a tinker’s cuss on whether the people with disabilities have a place to work as long as they can pat themselves of the back, nominate themselves for Human Rights Awards — this is how it goes:

A/As to PWDs:Gee, we got you the same wage as everyone else, Oh? you say all the places of employments have closed down and you don’t have a job and you don’t see your friends that you worked with any more, and you can’t go out with them after work? oh what a shame but remember if you did have a place to work you’d be getting the same wage as people without disability.

And the activist/advocates do it all on the taxpayer funding. — I will say no more at the moment – except thank God the ABFNC has such a small reach.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 29, 2024 2:41 pm

Farmer Gez
 September 29, 2024 8:10 am

From the biggest intelligence failure in their history, Israel has crafted a brutally precise elimination of the enemy leadership and corrupted their command and control system with electronic skullduggery that you only find in a Bond movie.

Quite so.
Whilst it didn’t inflict debilitating physical casualties which would, of themselves, cripple Hez-ball-less, it is a devastating blow on so many fronts.
The process of destabilising confidence in the mobile phone system (no doubt via carefully leaked intel) forcing them to conclude that pagers were the answer was brilliant enough.
Kaboom!
But then anticipating the next step to walkie-talkies was an absolute master-stroke.
That would have helped the kill stage of the operation because the Hez-ball-less would have done two things.
Firstly, met in person to share plans and, secondly, reverted to mobile phones with crude coding which would have been easily hacked.
I know Dover dismisses the psy-ops aspect of this, but that is yuuuge.
The remaining Hez-ball-less now don’t trust each other, their comms systems or the previous “safe spaces”.
Praise be to Allah, they don’t even trust their toasters and microwaves. Talk about living in their heads rent free.

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 3:26 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

Priceless, Sancho! Well said.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 2:41 pm

On the appeal of Islam. It’s seductive for those who love power and want to exercise it behind a cloak of religiosity. Even if it’s just domestically.

It will never appeal to those with a genuine servant mentality, despite the fig leaf of service/reward for doing deeds even if they are evil. The men strut, they subdue, they harangue. Women, if they are allowed outside the house, are branded as property by clothing and a host of other restrictions. If they achieve any sort of influence, particularly in the West, they become clones of the men.

The fatalistic aspect, combined with the need to subdue others, is a toxic mix. The result is societal decay and dependence on other, more robust economies. Which are envied and ripe for conquest.

vr
vr
September 29, 2024 2:54 pm
Reply to  calli

So, what’s the attraction for western women?

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 3:49 pm
Reply to  vr

Submission. Virtue through victimhood. Strong male leadership.

Take your pick.

vr
vr
September 29, 2024 4:04 pm
Reply to  calli

Why not pick Catholicism if “virtue through victimhood” is what one was after.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 4:34 pm
Reply to  vr

I’ve been picked on because I’m a Christian. Never considered myself a victim over it. The sheep are expected to follow the Shepherd, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Of course, I might be picked on because I’m an annoying git, which is a different thing altogether.

calli
calli
September 29, 2024 2:43 pm

Awwwww. I’ve triggered a hormonal downticker.

Thought I might.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 29, 2024 2:55 pm
Reply to  calli

I always balance the fucker with a thumbs up

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 2:45 pm

Mr. Inbetween is one of the best crime dramas. Made in Aus.

Why you never mess with Ray [ Mr Inbetween ] (youtube.com)

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 5:23 pm
Reply to  John H.

That was the bloke I was trying to remember the other day. It’s in the trailer at 00.47 ” It’s because you let them get away with it”

cohenite
September 29, 2024 3:13 pm

Depressing article by Alan Moran:

West and East divide along the economic green line (substack.com)

In reality, the two contrasting economic management models are that of the Euro-US world and that of the Eurasian counties, principally China, India, Russia, and some countries adjacent to them.

The focus in the Western economies is on plans that seek to transform their economies by an approach that marries prospective new technologies with a restoration of the pre-industrial natural environment.

The policy approaches have their separate names like Build Back Better (US), Industrial Strategy (UK), Energiewende (Germany), and our own Future Made in Australia. At the heart of these measures designed to transform economies is the replacement of commercial carbon (and nuclear) based energy by wind and solar together with fanciful measures designed to migrate supply to the mirage of green hydrogen. The plans also involve a goal of reducing the impact on the environment from dams, agriculture, mining, and industrial developments – albeit, where there is conflict between land-extensive activities like wind and solar, regulatory arrangements are in place to ensure the latter will prevail.

Vast sums are to be spent on transforming energy. Agora Energiewende, Europe’s go-to establishment green think tank, estimates that 462 billion euros a year is needed to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by 2040. That is about 20 per cent of non-dwelling investment to be spent on destroying rather than augmenting income, which the think tank argues would help grow the EU economy by around two per cent. Similar sums are envisaged for the Future Made in Australia and other Western nations’ signatory approaches.

The difference could not be starker with the non-Western Eurasian bloc of countries. With them, the pace of development is underpinned by using the proven energy sources: coal, gas, and nuclear and using natural resources to further advance living standards – policies that have paid rich dividends in bringing higher levels of growth.

Thus, since 2020 China and India have added 1,588 GW of coal capacity compared to only 63 GW in the rest of the world (with only Poland building significant new supply in the EU-UK-US and Australasia Western nations).
With nuclear, China, Russia, and India have 36 new plants underway. The rest of the world has 23 with only 4 in the UK-EU-US. Although the US ostensibly has a bipartisan policy to reduce the onerous regulations that have priced nuclear out of contention, this will require a considerable turnaround as successive administrations since Carter in the late 1970s have turned their backs on nuclear.

Not coincidentally, as well as leading the world on a downward wealth trajectory, Australian policy has been among the most aggressive in dismantling reliable power, subsidising the industries that government regards as ‘winners’ and impeding the search for and utilisation of mineral and agricultural wealth. Characteristic of policies forcing land out of productive investment, is Rio being incentivised to buy 3,000 hectares of prime land to convert it from cattle raising to producing bio-oil, a product that is worthless in the absence of subsidies. Even more significant is the return of waters being used for agriculture to their natural state, particularly in the Murray-Darling, Australia’s only major irrigation province. A similar policy is followed in California. By contrast, China has a $64 billion water diversion development called the Move South Water North Project. This is to shift water from the underpopulated areas oversupplied with water to more heavily populated areas.

For those of us convinced of the merits of democracy the foregoing contrasting patterns of income growth offer little solace. Of the key Eurasian bloc countries, only India is democratic, while the Western world’s mostly failing economies are all democracies. Moreover, most Latin American voters (Argentina excepted) have – more or less democratically – elected left-wing governments in recent years, with predictable effects on their living standards.

While the Albanese government has proved so socialist and incompetent that it will not win the next election, unless a Trump government is elected in the US, any future Australian government is likely to feel obliged keep in harness with the Euro-US policies. And, whatever the outcome of the US election, even a Trump victory would not be an endorsement of electors in a democracy rejecting poor policy approaches since Vice President Harris is certain to win the popular vote.

Judging by growing impediments to free speech being enacted all over the world, democracy is not performing well as a guarantor of liberty. As Matt Canavan says, he would have been prosecuted for misinformation if the Australian government’s proposed laws had been in place in 2021 for saying, ‘We should pause the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine because almost every European country now has concerns over its safety. There is no imminent threat of coronavirus here so why would we blindly rush on when others are concerned?’

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 3:23 pm
Reply to  cohenite

Moran’s assessment is understandably morose. However, little buds are forming on withered trees. It is not only Argentina and Greece and the Netherlands – but now even in the bastions of Leftist fanaticism, there is resistance growing.

Javier Milei is the clearest voice in international leadership, other than the embattled Israelis.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 29, 2024 3:34 pm

Islam is a near perfected surveillance society dressed up as a religion.
With social and in many cases legal as well as informal punishments for back sliders.
Hotel Calif- ornia

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
September 29, 2024 5:13 pm

And it puts women in the stocks with their rear ends bared.

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 3:34 pm

Islam is on the rise in Western Europe because of many factors….

Immigration
High birth rates among Muslim families
Marriage to Muslim women (Muslim women are forbidden to marry outside the faith whereas Muslim men can)
and
Conversions.

Yes, conversions are on the rise. Why? Well, because men and women, particularly men, are looking for certainty and Islam provides that certainty. Unlike Judaism and Hinduism, Islam makes it easy to convert, very easy.

The churches are collapsing as I write, the CoE is a joke, too interested in wokery and guff such as slavery reparations, white guilty, climate change and LGBTQITP+ crapola.

It’s a tragedy.

vr
vr
September 29, 2024 4:01 pm

There was an article on this in Tablet magazine recently

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 4:39 pm

This is true Cassie- I was baptised and confirmed into the CofE (as we’re not supposed to call it anymore) but when you get trendy-PC-woke rubbish rammed down your throat you just feel like walking out or you just stop going.

alwaysright
alwaysright
September 29, 2024 3:34 pm

…  it is a devastating blow on so many fronts.

One of those fronts is the Y-Fronts!

alwaysright
alwaysright
September 29, 2024 3:43 pm
Reply to  alwaysright

Opening up a new front in the war on terror. [cough]

[now I will go and hide]

Vicki
Vicki
September 29, 2024 3:36 pm

Just embrace becoming fat and less badgered by males.

Are you kidding, Arky, I am a farmer and daily work (&walk) off the kilos. That, and a revised diet after Covid, ensure that I weigh very little more than when I was married a very long time ago.

Don’t think I was ever “badgered by males”.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 3:44 pm
Reply to  Vicki

You should try being badgered Vicki, you might enjoy it.

Pogria
Pogria
September 30, 2024 12:02 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

I thought the term was “rogered”. 😀

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 3:36 pm

I still can not believe they even attempted this. 11000 horsepower. Kenny Bernstein back in the 80’s put a nitro engine on the dyno. 8000 horesepower at the time. The roof of the work shop was blown off!

Cops, fire brigade and ambos were called.

They didn’t do that again.

——

Clay and Cleetus and crew.

We Tried To Dyno a TOP FUEL Dragster In Our Shop!!! (It Was LOUD)

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 3:49 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

I recall back in 80’s Graeme Cowan was stretching main and head bolts when he went over there with the sticky tracks. Think that was with the Donovan 417 engine. Broke some records I think.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 4:04 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

My first experience with top fuel was as a 19yo going along to Willowbank to watch them and all sorts of other cars on a Saturday night.

Awesome how they trick those engines up, then the sound as they launch into their run.

billie
billie
September 29, 2024 3:38 pm

Why are middle eastern invaders of Europe so angry and hateful?

Why are the Voice mob here so angry and can’t accept defeat?

Perhaps it’s because they are constantly told, like so many groups, that they are superior and yet when confronted by the truth, that the West is not a disaster as their own original places of living are, e.g. Pakistan, Syria, outback Australia, they become unbelievably envious.

Observe the attitudes of young middle eastern men in Europe (because that’s who came to Europe) they all expected what?

That the Westerners would all be in awe of them?

That their supposedly superior religious culture was actually inferior and they had nothing to offer, that no one really wanted them and they only survive because a Christian based society is generous to them.

Man, that must burn ..

It burns the Voice mob here too, that after all their efforts, they still got rejected, that we don’t want their version of racism.

To Londoners having to tolerate religious take over of their streets to pray, I feel the same way about having to tolerate the Welcome to Country rubbish.

Being angry at a superior culture, is not going to solve the problems of your own culture’s poor and ongoing decisions.

Envy is poison isn’t it?

(Rhetorical question, one that requires no answer)

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 4:58 pm
Reply to  billie

Suggested reading:

Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond
The WEIRDEST People in the World, Joseph Heinrich
A Troublesome Inheritanace. Nicholas Wade

We are lucky to be able to access the ideas so many brilliant minds.

The first highlights how Europe was blessed with some good fortune that allowed various developments.
The second is about psycho-cultural changes that allowed European cultures to take full advantage of that good fortune.
The third has been viciously attacked because it argues that contrary to the view we are all genetically identical there were significant shifts in the genome that bootstrapped the above two.

I’d go further back than all 3 and argue the Anatolian and Yamnaya migrations into Europe allowed a population expansion with a favourable genetic admixture, with a dash of the now extinct hunter gatherers and Neandertal genes. Europeans are a mongrel breed. A rare case of hybrid vigour? That is one example of why I think Wade’s argument deserves more attention and less ridicule.

Undoubtedly there is much more that I don’t know about but those 3 texts are a very good starting point.

The sad truth is that those envious sods have been taught if not for the West their culture would have risen to glorious heights and developed the same wonderful technologies and lifestyles available to us. They believe that because they have no idea of how cultures evolve.

There is no point proclaiming our cultural superiority. That just feeds into their brainwashing. It might be better to tell them that the West got lucky and will gladly share that good luck with anyone who wants to participate in Western society.

I’ll stop here because as many here know there is a huge amount to unpack and I’m bingeing on a TV series at present.

billie
billie
September 29, 2024 5:03 pm
Reply to  John H.

I am guessing you assume I have not read those?

We interpret things in different ways.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
September 29, 2024 6:04 pm
Reply to  billie

billie:

That the Westerners would all be in awe of them?

You are entirely correct, billie.
There was a short monologue doing the rounds about ten years ago to do with Muslim Exceptionalism – It went along the lines of:

“Men will seek your council,

Women will seek your company,

Businesses will offer you high paying and responsible jobs.

You will get luxury accommodation and get given luxury cars.

You will dine in the finest restaurants, with Dhimmi servants.”

This is what they were promised when they went to the decadent West. And they genuinely believed it. So they were not impressed when the jobs and women didn’t eventuate, despite the promises of the people who took their money and sent them across.
Someone who believed that would have to have a sub 80 IQ.

And the reason this largess and respect would fall into their laps? Why would you dine on the Jams Of Paradise?
It was because “You are a Muslim Man.”
Nothing else – it just depended on your religion.

I wish I’d kept a copy, because it was a gold nugget in a field of crap. Wouldn’t you be embarrassed and hostile when you’d been taken for such a mug?

Last edited 4 months ago by Winston Smith
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 3:42 pm

For the record. Nitromethane tastes good … it does.

John H.
John H.
September 29, 2024 3:46 pm

calli

 September 29, 2024 2:28 pm

Let the laughter lines run free.

 … the wrinkles that fanned out from his eyes were like the remnants of a 1,000 good natured smiles.

Hamsun, The Wanderer.

There is a trade off with HRT and TRT. Place your bets. Brains like estrogen. Men whose TRT falls too low will also have an E deficit. There is some interesting evolutionary biology behind this that goes all the way back to Williams(1957).

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
September 29, 2024 3:50 pm

For the record. Nitromethane tastes good … it does.

Thibenzole isn’t bad either according to my uncle – who was a bit of a softy and wouldn’t deworm his dogs with sheep drench without tasting it first.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 7:24 pm

Living as a hermit in his later years, my dad used to use his tea mug for measuring out dioxin on his agisted farm. He’d then swill it through with tank water and use the mug for his tea. He died of emphysema, due to his 40 a day cigarette habit, aged 84.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 3:55 pm

Reading the account of the Russian Baltic Fleet, on their way East, in Phil Carradice’s book “The battle of Tsushima.”

Russian gunnery was so bad that, in one exercise, the target was missed by every ship in the fleet, in another exercise, the only hit scored was by one of the Russian battleships – on the bridge of the cruiser actually towing the target…

Salvatore - Iron Publican
September 29, 2024 4:05 pm

Not exactly Royal Navy gunnery expertise level then.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 3:55 pm

Conversions.

Conversions are of little consequence to the growth of Islam in Western Europe compared to immigration and procreation.

More people in W. Europe leave Islam – about 30 000 p.a. according to a Pew Research study c. 2017 – than convert.

A significant number of those who leave become Christian. Those are stories the msm doesn’t report but the Christian alternative media does.

Last edited 4 months ago by Roger
JC
JC
September 29, 2024 3:56 pm

I’m ignoring it because it has no bearing on the question of whether or not the US supported jihadis in Afghanistan.

Oh, come on, you’re being willfully evasive. Ignoring the Soviet screw-up in Afghanistan and pretending the chaos starts with the U.S. is like chopping off half the story because it doesn’t fit your continuous anti-American narrative. In any event, you can ignore whatever you want while I am at liberty to include it. Others can make judge for themselves.
The reality is pretty simple: the Soviet led communist coup and the subsequent Soviet invasion turned the whole place upside down.
But I’m guessing you’d rather skip over that part because it messes with your “blame America first” agenda.
Like I said in that other thread, if you’re hunting for who destabilized the world post-WW2, you wanna start HERE. The place is arsehole central.

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 4:07 pm

“Why not pick Catholicism if “virtue through victimhood” is what one was after.”
Que?

vr
vr
September 29, 2024 4:28 pm
Reply to  Rosie

the social justice movement which leans/borrows (not sure if this is the right terminology) on/from Catholic teachings that elevates victims. My question was why not choose a faith that actually cares about them.

Rosie
Rosie
September 29, 2024 6:49 pm
Reply to  vr

I’m still lost. A faith that cares about them?
Who is them?
And what is this thing called ‘care’?

Catholics more or less invented hospitals, and run more aged care facilities, hospitals, hospices, schools, orphanages, etc around the world than you could shake a stick at.
I couldn’t imagine anyone more caring than this marvellous pp
https://x.com/fr_petros?t=LY9Dzgm9kTI81Vrlwj6DLQ&s=09

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 4:15 pm

Protesters in Melbourne wave Hezbollah flagsJoanna Panagopoulos
1 hours ago.
Updated 2 minutes ago

0 comments
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/33a6e47e07ad06ae1f51725f97826db5
Protesters in Melbourne on Sunday waved Hezbollah flags and carried framed pictures of assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Pictures from the large protests for Gaza and Lebanon show dozens of masked and unmasked men walking through the Melbourne CBD seemingly commemorating Nasrallah.
Overnight, the Israeli Defence Forces and the Iran-backed militant group confirmed the death of Nasrallah in a massive air strike on Beirut, with what is believed to be 5000-pound bunker-busting bombs.
In a statement, the IDF said Nasrallah, who has led the Iran backed group for 32 years, “would no longer be able to terrorise the world.”
Hezbollah also confirmed his death, posting a picture of their leader on Telegram with the words “Sayyed Nasrallah Martyred.”
One man at the Melbourne rally wore an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps T-shirt and waved a yellow and green Hezbollah flag as he stared into the camera.
Another man wearing a hooded sweatshirt held up a framed picture of Nasrallah with what appeared to be Hezbollah flags behind him.

Melbourne Islamic community leaders said these men were a tiny minority.
“They are definitely a minority. An absolute, tiny minority. For my own experience, my knowledge of the community, there is no support of Hezbollah, no love of Hezbollah, right now, this is all about support for the Lebanese people,” Islamic Council of Victoria’s president, Adel Salman, said.
“The community is concerned about the escalating violence, but our concern primarily is about what’s happening in Palestine, in Gaza, that’s still the main focus in the community. But clearly the escalation in violence between Israel and Lebanon, that’s causing a lot of concern. And we have to be careful we don’t reduce the battle to one between Hezbollah and Israel, effectively this is an attack on Lebanon that is a sovereign country … and people are outraged,” he said.
“It’s not about supporting Hezbollah in any way, shape or form, this is about supporting the Lebanese people, this is about concern for the deaths of Lebanese civilians and the destruction of Lebanon.”

Watch the Melbourne Islamic community leaders distancing themselves…

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:19 pm

Rockdoctor
September 29, 2024 4:04 pm

Reply to  Steve trickler
My first experience with top fuel was as a 19yo going along to Willowbank to watch them and all sorts of other cars on a Saturday night.
Awesome how they trick those engines up, then the sound as they launch into their run.

—–

G’day bloke. Check this rebuild out.

One cylinder produces more power than a F1 engine.

Teardown at #USNats with the Dodge / Mopar Team

JC
JC
September 29, 2024 4:20 pm

And while we’re at it, let’s talk about your selective outrage. You seem to pick and choose which Islamist groups you hate and which ones you’re weirdly okay with. How come you’re not foaming at the mouth about Iran and their lovely mullahs, but you’re so quick to trash the Afghan jihadis in the 80s who were fighting communism? I mean, it wasn’t like they were all religious zealots- see Massoud. But Iran? Those pigs get a pass? And how about your soft spot for the Tootsies? Honestly, it’d be fascinating to hear why you’re so hostile to some, while okay with others?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 29, 2024 4:28 pm

West and East divide along the economic green line

Both sides of the line are faceplanting, but in different ways. The West is crashing because of green ideology. China is crashing because of red ideology.

Chinese Financial Executives Resign In Droves Amid Heightened Scrutiny (29 Sep)

Rats are fleeing the ship.

Cassie of Sydney
September 29, 2024 4:29 pm

Conversions are of little consequence to the growth of Islam in Western Europe compared to immigration and procreation.

All of which I addressed in my comment and whilst conversions are still small, they’re are growing, particularly among those who are religiously inclined and who are searching and seeking spiritual comfort only to be dismayed by the mainstream western churches and their dalliances with and outright adoption of putrid progressive talking points. Islam doesn’t do this. I can see why there is an attraction to Islam I don’t like it but I understand why some people are drawn to it. A vacuum has been created and it will be filled.

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
September 29, 2024 4:39 pm

Perhaps converts to Islam are simply trying to align with the strong horse.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 29, 2024 7:20 pm

The islamists are also doing well with conversions in the prison system.

Roger
Roger
September 29, 2024 4:40 pm

…searching and seeking spiritual comfort only to be dismayed by the mainstream western churches and their dalliances with and outright adoption of putrid progressive talking points.

Interestingly, it is not the mainstream churches in western Europe that are reaping a harvest of Muslim converts.

Last edited 4 months ago by Roger
Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:45 pm

Fabulous footage.

—–

B2B Castaways – Strick and Fran.

Day 7 Camping On the Ocean (GIANT MUDCRAB Catch & Cook)

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 29, 2024 5:06 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

Fanbloodytastic. Seeing the Humpback whale being so interested in them was amazing.

JC
JC
September 29, 2024 4:47 pm

I’m becoming less bearish on China since the start of last week. The CCP has rolled out several significant measures in two separate phases. While I still don’t think these steps are entirely sufficient, they are certainly moving in the right direction. If this continues, we could start seeing notable improvements in the economy by 2025. Additionally, I expect the CCP to continue in easing monetary policy to support their economic goals.

Principally, China’s economy is in deflationary doldrums because of tight monetary policy. Of course, there are other problems but this is the biggest concern.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 5:01 pm
Reply to  Tom

Melbourne Islamic community leaders said these men were a tiny minority.
“They are definitely a minority. An absolute, tiny minority. For my own experience, my knowledge of the community, there is no support of Hezbollah, no love of Hezbollah, right now, this is all about support for the Lebanese people,” Islamic Council of Victoria’s president, Adel Salman, said.
“The community is concerned about the escalating violence, but our concern primarily is about what’s happening in Palestine, in Gaza, that’s still the main focus in the community. But clearly the escalation in violence between Israel and Lebanon, that’s causing a lot of concern. And we have to be careful we don’t reduce the battle to one between Hezbollah and Israel, effectively this is an attack on Lebanon that is a sovereign country … and people are outraged,” he said.

“It’s not about supporting Hezbollah in any way, shape or form, this is about supporting the Lebanese people, this is about concern for the deaths of Lebanese civilians and the destruction of Lebanon.”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 29, 2024 5:04 pm
Reply to  Tom

From the Oz. Tried to post the whole article – gone into moderation.

Crossie
Crossie
September 29, 2024 6:13 pm
Reply to  Tom

This used to be unacceptable in Australia.

It is due to a critical mass being achieved in Labor electorates. The only way this becomes unacceptable once again is if the Coalition wins the next election and outlaws it.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 29, 2024 4:56 pm

That whale interaction was bonkers.

Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 4:57 pm

I can see why there is an attraction to Islam I don’t like it but I understand why some people are drawn to it. A vacuum has been created and it will be filled.

This is true- I’ve thought about it. Also was interested in Mormonism but it seems that some of the vilest US pollimuppetts like Harry Reid, Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake are Mormons and it put me right off it.

Last edited 4 months ago by Miltonf
Miltonf
Miltonf
September 29, 2024 5:00 pm

This used to be unacceptable in Australia. Why are they here?

Ask the pubes in canbra. No penalty for the malicious incompetence of canbra pubic parasites.

bons
bons
September 29, 2024 5:04 pm

A couple of years ago a pal and I went to the drags in Brisbane.

Exploring the five star pits we laughed at seeing a small woman literally swinging off the extension shaft of a huge socket attached to the supercharger pully.

She laughed as well. My journo mate convinced her to join us for a lousy pie and worse coffee. She told us that she was a chalkie who became involved in dragster maintenance through a now discarded boyfriend. After time as a roustabout the team trained her in external systems and now she is the manager and engineering authority for blowers and pumps etc. And loves it.

They have a few tradies, but prefer to train people to very high standards on specific parts of the system, leaving the tradies to focus on overall system performance.

Fascinating, a copy of US miIitary maintenance philosophy.

But, I could do without spending my life in earmuffs and having my body vibrating to disintegration every time an engine is let loose.

She now apparently has a byline in various vroom vroom publications.

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