Trouble a the mill, Herald Sun:

A planned review by former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has been canned after it was revealed delays in the review process meant he would not be able to take part.

In a statement on Friday the MSO also announced that chairman David Li and three fellow directors would be stepping down as part of “an orderly process of board renewal”.

It was also revealed that the MSO had reached a settlement with sacked managing director Sophie Galaise on Friday who had lodged a Fair Work complaint.

It is believed the complexities surrounding the claim with Ms Galaise had led to the reviews delay, which has now, in turn, led to Garrett stepping down from his role.

“The MSO intended that musician and former Federal Arts Minister the Hon Peter Garrett AM would lead the review,” the company statement read.

“Unfortunately, due to the delays in progressing the review arising from legal action commenced against the MSO, Mr Garrett is no longer available to lead the review because of pre-existing commitments.

“The MSO is deeply appreciative of Mr Garrett’s willingness to support this process.?

The review was ordered by the MSO board after they fired Ms Galaise following a chaotic reaction to onstage remarks by pianist Jayson Gillham.

Gillham accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian journalists which led to the MSO cancelling his remaining performances.

“Over the last 10 months, Israel has killed more than one hundred Palestinian journalists,” Gillham claims to have said.

“A number of these have been targeted assassinations of prominent journalists as they were travelling in marked press vehicles or wearing their press jackets.”

Gillham has since launched legal action against the Orchestra to defend artists rights to perform “without fear of censorship” and that the MSO had discriminated against his political views.

The dispute has now been resolved.

If ever Mr Gillham played again, I guess we can go to his performances and, ‘without fear of censorship’, give him a critique of his views?

@Geiger_Capital

Holy. Shit.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer just admitted that Western leaders have been running an “open borders experiment”…

“This happened by design, not accident. Immigration policies were reformed deliberately. It has been a failure. They pretended it wasn’t happening.”

Just Britain? Hardly.

Here’s one miltonf. They want to intrude on every aspect of life. Get a load of this from the Daily Telegraph:

Booze bureaucrats want to police the flavour of premixed alcohol and ban drinks they deem “undesirable” – including anything too sweet, too fruity, or too tasty.

Flavoured vodka, alcoholic ginger beer, and bourbon mixed with cola are some of the products that could be in the sights of Liquor and Gaming NSW (L&GNSW) under extraordinary draft guidelines circulated to the industry.

The Saturday Telegraph can reveal that bureaucrats want to regulate the “taste profile” of mixed drinks on sale at the local bottle shop.

The industry has been warned that premixed drinks could be banned as “undesirable” if they taste too fun, particularly featuring “confectionary or dessert-based” flavours.

While the draft guidelines are intended to police drinks that might be attractive to kids, they could end up banning products that are popular among legal drinkers.

Alcoholic drinks that combine booze with prominent soft-drink brands are a specific target, “particularly if the taste of alcohol is masked, and the flavour of the non-alcohol branded product is prominent”.

The draft guidelines have sent shockwaves through the industry.

“This decision empowers unelected bureaucrats to become pseudo ‘taste police’ cruising the aisles of the local bottle-o and banning drinks they decide are too fun,” one industry source said.

The source said that there would be nothing stopping the regulator from appointing a quasi “assistant commissioner for taste” to “decide what’s in and what’s out”.

The wording of the draft regulations puts a whole range of drinks in the firing line.

They include Billson’s premixed vodka range, which offers flavours such as “Musk,” “Cake,” “Tangle,” “Twister,” and “Sunset Fizz”.

Baileys flavours like salted caramel, red velvet cupcake, or tiramisu could also fall foul of the regulator which believes “dessert-based” tastes are a high risk of appealing to children.

According to the guidelines, drinks that are too affordable could also be banned as appealing to minors.

The guidelines are the latest way the government intends to tackle an emerging market of premixed drinks, after Hard Solo was forced to rebrand as “Hard Rated”.

The regulations mean that while overseas drinkers can enjoy premixed Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola or an Absolut and Sprite collaboration, Australian drinkers could miss out.

Retail Drinks Australia CEO Michael Waters said the idea of policing “taste profile” was an area of “concern” for the industry.

“How a beverage ‘tastes’ is personal and subjective, making it difficult to establish any objective standards,” he said.

Asked for his reaction to the draft guidelines, Libertarian MP John Ruddick said they were the “absolute definition of the nanny state gone mad”.

“Regulating alcohol content is one thing, but these guidelines effectively prohibit properly labelled alcoholic drinks merely because they taste sweet,” he said.

The guidelines would directly impact the drinks popular with 22 year olds Grace O’Keeffe and Miranda Thomas.

“As someone who doesn’t often drink alcohol, having drinks that mask the flavour of alcohol is more enjoyable for me,” Ms O’Keeffe said.

Ms Thomas said everyone has different taste preferences.

“Unfortunately, people are going to drink regardless, and restricting their choice of drink based on “sweetness” is an odd thing to base a policy on,” she said.

A L & GNSW spokesman said that new guidelines are being developed to “ensure liquor products are being designed, packaged and promoted in compliance with NSW legislation and community expectations”.

“L & GNSW will consider feedback from consultation before finalising the guidelines.”

I believe that Billsons is no longer in operation.
But that doesn’t exclude the fact that this is a dingleberry that will do next to nothing except raise the ire of old mate who sees his Woodstock go begging.
I mean a taste commissar? To see what can be given the Khyber Pass? FMD

Law used as a cudgel to silence repugnant speech

Angela Shanahan, The Australian, 29th November, 2024

The recent ruling against Pauline Hanson by the Federal Court for an impulsive tweet deemed unlawful because it was insulting “at least in part because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the relevant person or group of people” and was not exempt as fair political comment has outraged many right-wing commentators by what they see as an assault on freedom of speech. Or at least it was a trivial matter blown up into a Federal Court case. But was it right?

And a more pertinent question is whether the “prohibition of certain types of speech in 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to offend, insult or humiliate certain people” is necessary and correct or a useless and even insidious attempt to legislate moral behaviour.

First, was the ruling right? In terms of the law, of course the tweet was sent because of the ethnic origins of Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi. You don’t demand publicly in a tweet, “why don’t you pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan” without making insulting reference to that person’s ethnicity…

Well, actually…

“Pakistan” is not an ethnicity, it’s a nation state, with over a dozen major ethnicities making up its population, not all of whom get along with each other. The word itself was derived from the first letters of the three multi-ethnic geographical regions that were to constitute the new nation – Punjab, Afghania & Kashmir.

Telling someone to go back to their nation state of origin, Pakistan in this instance, is not necessarily an insulting reference to that person’s ethnicity, as it wasn’t when Hanson told another parliamentarian to “go back to New Zealand.”

This is not “splitting hairs”, it could be consequential in Hanson’s appeal, upon which more than this case alone turns.

Zelensky hints he could agree a ceasefire deal to END war with Russia – even if Putin doesn’t return land that is currently under occupation
This might have something to do with it.

‘Absolutely gutted’: Cases dropped against soldiers over notorious war crimes allegationsBy Nick McKenzieNovember 30, 2024 — 2.00am

The ex-soldier suspected of committing one of the most notorious alleged war crimes involving Australian special forces in Afghanistan will never face justice after an elite investigative agency concluded its case was too weak to put before a jury.
The Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) has told witnesses it will not charge the former Special Air Service Regiment sergeant suspected of brutally murdering an injured and unarmed Afghan farmer.

It is a decision that has shattered the Australian army medic who exposed the alleged crime and agreed to testify against the accused man.
It also highlights the failure of the OSI to achieve results almost four years after it was created by the Morrison government to investigate the Brereton inquiry’s findings that at least 39 Afghans may have been executed by about two dozen special forces soldiers.
Since its formation in early 2021, the OSI has charged only one ex-SAS soldier.
In November, the OSI advised witnesses assisting it in two separate major war crimes investigations that neither would proceed to prosecution based on internal legal advice. Witnesses had agreed to participate in the process often at great personal and professional cost.

The ex-soldier suspected of committing one of the most notorious alleged war crimes involving Australian special forces in Afghanistan will never face justice after an elite investigative agency concluded its case was too weak to put before a jury.

Repeat many times over ….”its case was too weak to put before a jury”.

For agricultural Cats – after a rotten growing season, West Australian wheat growers are headed for the third largest harvest on record.

Wonderful.

Oz is, after all, fundamentally dependant on agriculture and mining in today’s world. The only things left that we produce in any meaningful amount. Otherwise, we are a service economy – dutiful servants (and consumers) of the rest of the world and what it produces.

Yet, in an epic example of self destruction, our eco-fanatics are even trying to destroy what is left that we produce.

Scene from the excellent new Taylor Sheridan series, Landman, starring Billy Bob Thornton, where Billy Bob rips the bejesus out of renewables talking to a woke skank:

(15) Texas Alliance on X: “From an educational standpoint, f you watch just one scene from the new series Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton, this should be it. Spread it far and wide. @landmanpplus #oil #Texas #Permian #Midland #taylorsheridan #oilindustry #energy #txenergy #petroleum #oilandgas https://t.co/F2jG0PRIpu” / X

Talking about buildings— I went to lunch at a building owned by one of the largest tech companies in the U.S. They moved in about a year ago, and all I can say is… OMG, just amazing. It’s in an area of the west side of Manhattan called Hudson Yards. The walk from one end of the building to the other was enough to count as a daily stroll. 🙂
Inside, they have three “restaurants,” offering Asian, European/American, and, of course, vegan options—all free. Oh, and they also do dinner, which employees can take home. The fit out must’ve been a couple of bill. The employees looked so young.

Apropos nothing in particular…

I’ve seen a few recent photos of Keir Starmer wearing a black North Face jacket.