In fine form: THE MOCKER Chris Bowen’s renewables revolution is a big swing and myth Buying Christmas presents is something…
Open Thread – Thurs 5 Dec 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 5 Dec 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 2 Dec 2024
- Put coal in the Coalition energy policy
- Anglicanism blighted, Screwtape delighted
- Open Thread – Weekend 30 Nov 2024
Yes, Roger. The sister at the Conventist hospital where my sister-in-law passed told us that she could still hear us…
Long life, Cassie
Hey! I resemble that!
Michael Romanov was coerced into accepting the throne whilst hiding in the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. In July 1918, whilst imprisoned in the Ipatiev House…
Morning all!
A Kindergarden in China. https://rumble.com/v5vmthq-a-kindergarten-school-in-asia..html
Flying back to Darwin for five days, and watched Midas Man on the plane – new film about Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles.
Worth watching.
Well, I’m Richard
Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
Mark Knight #2.
Peter Broelman.
Brett Lethbridge.
Patrick Blower.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Lisa Benson.
Ben Garrison.
It’s been a while since this song has tickled the cochlear.
It just popped into my head. These things happen with the brain. Ping!
There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) (Remastered)
Bloomin heck! Andre has been cranking out some beauties for years. I think my favourite has been pulled from the Tube. Will look tomorrow.
ELECTION MELTDOWNS GO METAL
Chris Uhlmann in the Daily Telegraph, following on from his Sky News Doco:
Energy illiterate politicians have built a green power disaster;
Leading journalist Chris Uhlmann explains how our political leaders are delivering a breathtakingly expensive and unreliable energy grid that will make Australia poorer and weaker.
I’m fond of saying we are governed by idiots and ideologues. There should be more journalists saying what Chris is saying. The idiot pollies only get away with it through the complicity of their media mates.
One of the best things you are likely to read today. Via The Daily Mail
Dan Andrews’ life in Melbourne turns into a nightmare as he is hit with fresh ban
Apropos our discussion about the state of the economy in the previous thread.
‘Sad economy without hope’: Deepest hit to living standards on record
It’s amazing how journalists emerge from years of not finding much wrong with the awful Obama and then the Biden/Harris years to suddenly engage in paroxysm of hate for Trump’s appointees. Try Sam Clench’s latest, which heads today’s News lineup.
I watched this Piers Morgan episode the other day where he and a guest (John Morgan, Dem mega-donor) agreed furiously that they both would do anything for their children, as Biden has. Up to and including “probably not” turning your child in if you knew they had committed a murder (13:30 mark)!
Call me old fashioned but any child of mine who I knew had/was committing a serious crime would be facing the full force of the law.
Not to do so would be further failing said child.
Very easy to see the different morals some people have in this clip, notably from a Dem donor.
BTW, the Biden pardon is not a pardon, it’s an admission.
Frogs Boiled!
French Government Falls.
The rightward march of European politics will continue. Left media will be in tears, always finding that only the right can be “extreme”. I won’t bother to listen to the latest BBC Hard Talk since it’s utterly predictable that it will try to savage “extreme” AfD person.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M-cXXtt81Zc&pp=ygUMcGllcnMgbW9yZ2Fu
Link re above comment.
Vive la France!
France politics LIVE: Barnier’s government collapses after vote of no confidence defeat (4 Dec)
Given how Barnier, who is Micron’s guy, stiffed the MPs by ramming his budget through via an undemocratic wheeze, I can’t see another government surviving a confidence vote.
Mossel Bay
Mossel Bay is the first port of call after joining our cruise following three days of recuperation (for me) in a flash Capetown hotel. We’ve headed around the Cape now and are travelling up the African east coast bound for the Arabian Sea and Dubai in three weeks time and did Mossel Bay yesterday. The origins of this town date to the explorations of the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. It is one of South Africa’s oldest settlement sites, in the Garden Route of the Western Cape Province, set in a pretty blue bay. The earliest human people here may have actually evolved in situ, rivalling Olduvai, for a million years of hominid settlement has occurred due to the coastal bounty. A tourist feature is the Post Office Tree site, where sailors heading for the spice Indies would put letters into an old boot under the tree, letters which returning ships would pick up to take back to Europe from this furthest reach of Western civilization. It still feels like that, a small out-of-its time coastal town, where we take an hour-long bus ride to visit a private game park. We traverse some verdant countryside with dairy herds of Guernsey cows and I say to Hairy that this is rich peasant land now going slightly wild. Deliberately so, I suspect, as with climate craziness in Australia, which is rampant here too.
The game reserve is a genuine wildlife sanctuary covering many miles where native animals are able to roam free and live without being fed; some lions, but no cheetah or leopard, keep the population levels of impala, wildebeest and the many other cognate ungulant species under control, though I suspect they also have to cull. The park also shelters zebra, giraffe, hippo, huge buffalo, and elephant, all of which we saw in their natural habitat, including a cute week-old zebra colt and an hours-old wildebeest calf. Those calves can walk within half an hour of birth and now that one is fully capable of keeping up with the herd, though they keep him in the middle, says our guide, whom we were fortunate enough to have to ourselves.
I was late out of the toilet at the main reception area and restaurant and the nine-seater tiered land rover vehicle was full, so a sudden decision was made to take out another one for just me and Hairy, with a more senior Africaan’s guide – a young white bloke in his thirties yanked in at the last minute. Good to get his comprehensible English and none of the invented information favoured by local guides. The pride of the reserve is a number of rhino, protected from poachers. During our two and a half hour drive over bumpy terrain tracks we were very privileged to view rhino very close up – especially a magnificent territorial male, with two horns, the main one over three feet long. There was also a mother and calf rhino. Surgically removing their horns to protect them from poachers is cruel, says our guide, because rhino use their horns in daily living and territorial display.
This man turned out to be a treasure, very knowledgeable about animals and habitat. We noted some gum trees and Hairy said get rid of them before they take over. Our man agreed, saying they were slowly removing them, as they leached the watercourses. They also had a problem with introduced Australian black wattle which bled tannin into the streams. He was especially interesting as he told us about how elephants grieve and mourn their dead, returning to the site of a matriarch’s death with regularity to console each other.
As it was just us two, the guide was very willing to talk about the reserve and its place in South Africa, where tourism is the dominant export industry and a major source of local employment. We employ over 250 people here, he says, far more than we need, but governments compel us to be less profitable to keep employment up. Hairy’s face at this news is a picture of disapproval. Unemployment in the socialist paradise of South Africa is now running at 52% and underemployment is also rampant. Shanty towns litter all of the roadsides in towns and cities where large acreages of shanties also exist. Our talk turns to electricity, for the reserve runs off solar panels and night-time diesel generators. Don’t get me started, says our man, for we export our good coal to Mozambique but we aren’t allowed to use it for ourselves. Sounds familiar, we say to him, telling him of our similar situation in Australia.
I get bold. Actually, we are very strong supporters of President Trump and hope that things soon will start to change re the global warming scams, I say. We don’t see much science behind it all, I add. Yes, says our guide, we are all hoping for a change in this nonsense now. I am a Trump supporter myself, he adds, a committed environmentalist but sick of the way South Africa has been captured to such sectional interests and the corruption that this has entailed.
MPs really hate it when prezzes try to bypass them.
South Korean President Faces Impeachment After Martial Law Debacle (4 Dec)
His own guys voted to overturn the martial law declaration. That does not bode well for the impeachment vote, which is due tomorrow or Saturday.
@WallStreetMav
Choose your fighter carefully.
@cb_doge
BREAKING: Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter was initially considered overpriced by critics, but it now appears to be a steal.
The American uniparty. Watch them block Hegseth.
@TPostMillennial
Senate confirms promotion for general who oversaw Afghanistan pull out after previous delay
Good
@IanJaeger29
@_johnnymaga
BREAKING: Trump announces that Monica Crowley will serve as Ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State, and Chief of Protocol of the United States.
@catturd2
They didn’t do it to me – because I refused to participate in their madness.
Without a doubt. And luckily, Hegseth seems to have a strong backbone.
@GuntherEagleman
If they achieve in taking Hegseth out, they will move on to Tulsi, RFK Jr., and Kash.
Either we stop them now or they won’t quit.
Standing by Pete Hegseth will show these deep state fcks that we will do everything in our power to make sure Trump’s nominations succeed.
A Supreme Court judge!
@greg_price11
Ketanji Brown Jackson just compared bans on sex changes for kids to bans on interracial marriage.
Trump certainly seemed to get it right this time.
@PeteHegseth
@HOGGMAN_Memes
Bongino telling it like it is about Pete Hegseth.
Constitutional monarchy not looking so bad at the moment.
@EricLDaugh
Pence the snake.
@BehizyTweets
Last night my synagogue went into lockdown because leftist and Muslim Nazi scum decided to protest outside it, directly in front of the synagogue as a matter of fact. Yes, you read that right. NSWaffen Police permitted Nazi scum to protest outside a synagogue. Only a few months ago this same historic synagogue was vandalised by leftist and Nazi scum during one of their weekly NSWaffen Police sanctioned Sunday Jew hating festivals. One must ask the question, would the NSWaffen Police have allowed a similar protest outside a mosque? Don’t be silly, Cassie. I happen to know people who were inside the synagogue last night as the Nazis stood outside screaming their Jew hatred, all the while the NSWaffen Police did what they excel at, they stood by and did nothing, shades of October 9 2023.
I think it is high time the Jewish community took matters into their own hands. There are no words in the English language to describe my visceral loathing and disdain for the NSWaffen Police. But we shouldn’t be surprised, given what ensued in Caulfield last Monday and what happened in Woollahra just two weeks ago, it’s now open season on Jews.
I haven’t been here lately as I haven’t had the strength to post anything. My beautiful mother passed away on Sunday morning 24 November 2024 after going into palliative care only two and a half days earlier. She was in a Jewish care facility where the palliative care was absolutely beautiful and magnificent. She knew she was dying, she had told me she was dying. On the Friday night 22 November I slept next to Mum’s bed, by then she was already in a deep deep sleep. I hope she heard my words of love. I am devastated, I can’t stop crying, I am heartbroken, there’s a huge hole in my heart. I go to bed clutching her nightgown that only a few days before she had given me to take home to wash. I hold onto it, I can smell her, I can feel her.
One thing I’m happy about is that Mum was here to see Trump reelected. Just a week before the election she had told me she thought Trump would win, I was more sceptical. But Mum, as with everything, was right!
They say grief is the price we pay for love.
Mum was a very forthright and opinionated woman, traits she passed on to her daughters. She could not bear or tolerate wimpiness in people. But Mum also loved to laugh, and she was always the life of a party! People, particularly men, both straight and gay, adored her. My only hope is that my wells of tears one day become pools of laughter. Mum would insist on that.
French government toppled in historic no-confidence vote
Trump used ‘forceful hand’ to oust DEA pick after hearing ‘concerns’ about his arrest of pastor
WE’VE BEEN LIED TO… Deep State EXPOSED | Cummings Reveals Who’s REALLY in Control of the UK!
@DanielAlmanPGH
Soviet Art Exercise bites the dust, because other people’s money.
Excellent. I hate the imposition of ugly corporate art on the natural landscape.
They simply kept counting until they won.
BREAKING: Democrat Adam Grey Defeats GOP Incumbent John Duarte ONE MONTH After Election in California’s District 13 by 187 Votes
EXCLUSIVE Disturbing surveillance video shows moment UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot outside hotel
DOGE: Feds Waste Billions on Illegals, Race Studies
The Russian Economy at a Turning Point – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
Interest rates at 21%.
An admission that they’re criminals?
@EricLDaugh
Macron about to find out what happens when you fudge the “popular” part of popularly elected President.
Am I missing something here – WTF is a “preemptive pardon”?
Needless to say, any such fictional concepts should be summarily ignored by the incoming Fatty Trump administration.
That pair of evil slags fauci and schiff need to be hounded into prison – although I’d advocate the death penalty for the former, given his monstrous, inexcusable (and undoubted) crimes.
Do not ever do a celebrity spot with Brett Lee.
Even if he’s retired.
Fox Cricket host hospitalised after being ‘impaled’ in accident with Brett Lee (5 Dec)
Someone should ask Piers Morgan what he thinks about this incident…
Good that Howard and Trumbull can’t be expecting any invitations to the white house after the disgusting things they said. We now know the real John Howard thanks to DJT.
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/12/leak-is-brilliant-again.html
Hypothetical Question time.
Dan of the Dead knocks on your door. He is on fire and asks for some liquid to put out the fire.
What do you do?
Cassie, it’s good to see you back and commenting.
My condolences to you and your family on your loss. The hole doesn’t fill, the empty chair remains, you close your eyes and think you hear a voice or a tune, or some other little reminder of the one who is gone.
You have been in my thoughts in this season of sorrow. Remember all the good times, let the tears flow, and don’t be surprised if you remember something funny that she said or did and laugh out loud at the memory. They are the very best ones, so hold them dear.
We know that hearing is the last sense to go when someone is dying slowly. I hope that’s some consolation.
My condolences, Cassie.
Sincere condolences Cassie. Losing a parent is traumatic. Parents have always been there for you and then they’re not. I still dream about mine.
Early morning coffee, and reading Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book “Romanovs.”
In 1547, One Ivan – who went on to be known as “Ivan the Terrible” became the first grand prince to be crowned Tsar. He had already launched his ritual search for a wife. Five hundred virgins – the daughters of the middle gentry – were summoned from throughput his realm for this Renaissance beauty contest, which was won by a girl named Anastasia Romanovna Zakrharina – Yurieva. She went on to bear him six children. (Page 15.)
Better days…not if we get a Labor-Green government.
From the OOT:
Islamist is akin to Christianist, a completely nonsense term. If this wasn’t the case, Iran and Syria wouldn’t be allied.
Another major failure in the so-called renewable rollout. But this ABC article fails to nail the underlying reasons. A product that was promoted enthusiastically by Government as a “solution” that was never ready for market. An opportunity for grift for the start-up. There will be some that lined their pockets along the way and will never be held accountable. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-12-05/redflow-australian-battery-manufacturer-collapse-defects/104650074
This and the Telegraph article in the OOT “diversity-friendly jihadists” are indicative of the extent to which the intelligence services engage directly or indirectly in psyops on their native populations.
Russians seem to be really leaning in now in Syria. Good, they have a lot at stake here. I hope these strikes also hit the HTS’s Turkish advisors.
Condolences, Cassie. RIP to your mother.
In Pants on Fire news:
Following Hunter Biden pardon, prosecutors push back against criticism of charges
A beak agrees:
Judge in Hunter Biden’s tax case blasts Joe Biden for ‘rewriting history’ with son’s pardon
In many ways it is meet and right and proper that the disgusting old scrote goes into the history books in a blaze of ignominy – his personal corruption writ large and open.
Russian names…but they look like Chechens.
Looks like the battles around Hama have been some of the most intense since 2012. Turks and HTS are putting in a great effort to take Hama. Every morning since the weekend I check the feeds and it always involves HTS advances followed by SAA holding and then regaining some ground. Hearing a lot of talk of UKR involvement on the HTS side in training them tactically in the use of drones.
The girls in the unaltered video? You better get to SpecSavers.
Still, isn’t the real story here a newspaper altering images so that it appears to confirm a Regime talking point? Getting caught, not apologizing, then playing dumb?
Convicted wife killer Chris Dawson has launched an appeal to overturn a conviction over the unlawful carnal knowledge of a then-schoolgirl.
Dawson, who is serving 24 years for the murder of his first wife, Lyn, appeared via his solicitor in the Court of Criminal Appeal on Thursday after he was was sentenced last year to a further three years in prison for grooming and engaging in unlawful sexual acts with the 16 year-old student at a Sydney high school in 1980.
The lawyer representing Dawson, Stephen Eccleshall, confirmed the appeal related to the conviction, not the sentence.
“This is an appeal but the sentence itself is following on from the existing lengthy sentence,” Registrar George Galanis said.
“This is a conviction appeal but the sentence is really no issue,” Mr Eccleshall replied.
Sydney barrister Stephen Odgers SC is briefed in the matter, and a two-hour hearing was set for March 31, 2025.
As a result of the conviction, the former teacher and professional footballer with the Newtown Jets rugby league team, aged 75, also had one year added onto his earliest possible release date of August 2041.
Oz
Presumably he will hold on to the “I wuz framed” narrative because that gets him notoriety – and some respect from fellow crims – in prison.
Bradley Murdoch in the NT is the same – has never said what he did with Peter Falconio’s body.
Anyone see Angus Aitken, a stockbroker rip Blowen a new arsehole on Sharri Markson last night. He didn’t miss. Why the SFL’S haven’t outed Blowen every day as the stupidist person in Ausfailure I do not know.
I wonder what that United HealthCare CEO hit in NYC was all about?
A mystery – explained only by the fact that the Coalition energy policy is itself a compost heap.
“Ivan the Terrible”
Ivan became ‘the terrible‘ after Anastasia Romanov died. Ivan and Anastasia’s marriage had been a love match, she was able to counter and temper his erratic personality. He completely lost his mind after she fell ill and died, probably by poison.
The Romanovs were originally minor boyars from Kostroma, a town north of Moscow. They were not Rurikid princes. In 1613, during the Time of Troubles, the Russian throne was offered to the 16 year old Mikhail Romanov, the grand-nephew of Anastasia. Michael Romanov was coerced into accepting the throne whilst hiding in the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. In July 1918, whilst imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, the Romanov dynasty ended in a bloodbath.
News from the nest. A bigger picture to showcase the tree that some here liked so much. The babies are a mound of fluff and pin feathers and can barely fit. There are three of them. The nest is just above the branch union.
Yes…the bloke definitely; seems to be speaking Russian with an accent.
And the girls don’t have Slavic features.
Be that as it may, women shouldn’t be fighting, whoever they are.
Now this is a snake whose head I would NOT remove if it were in my yard. 😀
https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1864445131824194000
This is a snake whose head I WOULD remove. If I had a massive Kato or equivalent.
https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1864401245835813146
Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and condolences. They mean a lot to me.
No surprises there, whichever side is in view: the first casualty of war…
Watch out for dugites.
Third dog killed by dugites in Perth’s South (5 Dec)
OK not you Pogria since you aren’t a WA Cat. But it shows how deadly they are that two dogs mangled a baby dugite and died.
Cassie, condolences.
St Hypatius was a supporter of St Athanasius in his dispute with the Arians (ancient Unitarians) which was the subject of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea in 325AD.
In fine form:
THE MOCKER
Chris Bowen’s renewables revolution is a big swing and myth
Buying Christmas presents is something I do not enjoy. I detest crowded shopping centres, am useless at selecting gifts and always leave it until the last moment to shop. But thanks to Energy Minister Chris Bowen, I have already finalised my list of purchases.
We had not even made it into summer last week when the Australian Energy Market Operator warned we had insufficient reserves of energy to meet demand. NSW residents narrowly avoided mass blackouts by heeding the pleas of Premier Chris Minns not to use dishwashers, washing machines, and airconditioners between 3pm to 8pm. But when asked about this in parliament, Bowen claimed it was “not an unusual circumstance”.
In a way he is correct. For example, is not unusual for power outages to happen in Liberia, Haiti, or South Sudan. It is not unusual for this to happen when political and environmental ideologues embark on a renewables binge while shunning reliable means of generating electricity. And it not unusual for this to happen in a country that has a bumbling fabulist as its energy minister.
So what has this to do with my Christmas list? Such is my confidence in Bowen I intend buying candles, generators, portable gas cookers, and torches in the way of gifts. As for Bowen and the public utility, all I can say is he would make an ideal bauble for the giant Christmas tree in Martin Place. Let’s be honest, its electric lights are an indulgence we can no longer permit.
But some people, particularly politicians, have no concept of honesty. “The least reliable part of our energy grid at the moment is coal-fired power,” Bowen told Sky News host Laura Jayes last week. This was news to many scientists, especially former Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation CEO Dr Adi Paterson.
“Coal has not been unreliable for 150 years,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Why would coal suddenly become unreliable now?”
Contrary to Bowen’s claim, coal-fired power stations are not the “biggest threat to reliability in our energy system”. The biggest threat to reliability in our energy system is Chris Bowen.
Three years ago Bowen, then in opposition, declared a Labor government would reduce the average annual household energy bill by $275 by 2025 (and $378 by 2030), based on 2021 prices. And he was contemptuous of the Coalition for questioning his predictions.
“These guys are liars, and they will continue to lie,” he said.
But it is less than a month until 2025, and annual electricity prices, far from falling, are horrendously high. On average, they have risen $609 above what Bowen promised Labor would deliver. In Queensland, that figure is $1000 higher than his pledge.
As this masthead reported this week, the Australian Energy Regulator has noted a record number of Australian households – more than 130,000 – are on hardship payment plans. Unsurprisingly, Bowen has absolved himself of responsibility.
“The former Coalition government’s decade of denial and delay left Australia exposed to a global fossil fuel crisis,” he insisted.
The Morrison government’s record in this field was mixed, but it is Bowen who has given us a fuel (and fool) crisis. Interviewed a month before the election of 2022 by then Nine News political editor Chris Uhlmann, he ardently maintained that the rollout of renewables meant a drop in power bills.
“The more renewable energy we can get into the system, the cheaper it is for everyone,” he breezily pronounced.
Let’s evaluate that claim. In 2021, when Bowen launched Labor’s energy policies, renewables generated 32.5 per cent of Australia’s electricity. That figure has since risen to 39.4 per cent, yet electricity prices have skyrocketed. The more renewables in the system, the cheaper it is for everyone, right Minister?
According to this babbling spiv, Labor’s predictions for lower power bills were based on “the most comprehensive economic modelling that any opposition has ever released about any policy ever in Australia’s history”.
Just days ago he was asked repeatedly by Jayes to detail when bills would come down. He would only say Labor would not “walk away from the policies that that modelling was based on”.
What other wondrous forecasts can we base on the Bowen modelling?
Well to begin with, the modelling shows that Bowen will secure the number one spot of the Reader’s Digest Australia Trusted People survey in 2025. The modelling also shows his performance as Energy Minister is so brilliant it will secure Labor a net gain of 26 seats at the next election. And the modelling specifies that upon his retirement from politics, Bowen’s next role will be heading up Mensa International.
The modelling also forecasts I will take a hat-trick in the first over of the Boxing Day Test. When it is my turn to wield the willow, I will hit six consecutive sixes in a single over. It also specifies that if it is overcast on the day, we can power up all of the Melbourne Cricket Ground’s light towers for a total of $1.25 per hour. Is this modelling great or what?
But for some unknown reason, Bowen’s modelling is not doing the trick. I cannot imagine why not, for he is doing all the right things to bring down prices. For example, he dons the hard-hat, the high-vis vest, and the tradie work gear for the publicity shots. If there is one thing that this and his leering grin conveys, it is sincerity.
He is fond of glib phrases. “The sun doesn’t send a bill,” he says. “The wind doesn’t send a bill.” Renewables are incredibly cheap, according to him. They are so cheap that Labor is raiding our $230bn Future Fund and massively expanding the Capacity Investment Scheme to subsidise them. And did I mention Bowen’s Future Made in Australia plan for renewables, a grandiose and bloated scheme otherwise known as picking winners? The sun doesn’t send you a bill, but you can be sure Bowen will.
In closing, let me quote an excerpt from the book ‘On Charlatans’, by one Chris Bowen. “Politics around the world is being turned on its head and the fakes, the fraudsters and the snake-oil merchants are winning,” he writes. “Why?”
The answer is obvious, Chris Bowen. They are winning because they have perfected the art of projection.
Oz