Well done Duk. Hard, dangerous work. Volunteering for this seems to be diminishing, with many brigades now operated by +…
Open Thread – Christmas Day 2024
- Open Thread – Christmas Day 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 23 Dec 2024
- No, it is not all of the above, stupid!
- Open Thread – Weekend 21 Dec 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 19 Dec 2024
Duk, you are a brave, good and honourable Man. Thank you for your service. Also, truly grateful you and your…
Gez’s analogy is sound. Let’s say I am a hobby farmer in the example he puts forward. I don’t make…
The WHO boss is a prick. Israel would have done the world a favour if the bombs had gone off…
Hopefully a final update from the Grampians. Yesterdays conditions for firefighting were horrendous, with the strongest winds I have ever…
Bill Gates is doing actual harm to the whole cause of vaccination. He is now so despised and distrusted that people are not even vaccinating their children against childhood illnesses with well-tested and established vaccines. For the sake of medicine and worldwide health he should be told to shut up.
https://jihadwatch.org/2024/12/australian-news-presenter-fired-for-her-pro-israel-views
Klnstas thinks its a T20
Yesterday’s baked ham tastes better today. Too moist yesterday.
Oh my lord.
Young Konstas is ramping the best bowler on the planet for sixes, and that’s when he’s not charging down the pitch at him – first session, Boxing Day Test with a new rock.
Evidently his game plan is to be more aggressive than the bloke he replaced (McSweeney). The kid’s 19 and fearless.
Not convinced the plan will work over time, but right this minute it’s going gangbusters.
Zulu, got a link?
Cant find it even with the search function of the submission library.
Nations are culturally appropriated horses&^%. This treaty BS will end up being a lawyer picnic and full of charlatans with fractional aboriginality squabbling over the mess it makes.
I’ve seen it before with native title, no-one was interested in Carmichael before Adani developed it, in fact I never saw an aboriginal out there even with the stockman. Now there a permanent camp with some grifter from Brisbane with very little if any connection to the area that the cops despite the trespass & WH&S violations will do nothing about.
Treaty, this is the future. The money won’t be enough to go around and there will be bracket creep.
I too am watching the Grikkit while I cook for the ravenous hordes who descend tomorrow.
Good stuff! The fearlessness of youth.
Now the Indian pacemen are chirping Konstas, who responds by charging Siraj and flaying him through gully for four.
The kids is really, really getting under the call centre takers’ collective skin.
Excellent viewing.
Aaand he just put Bumrah over his head for six.
0/60. Only the second time in the last 16 Australian innings they’ve got to 50 without losing a pole.
The kid’s on 43, and on fire.
Pogs, I just read about your chooks and other birdies. So sad. The buggers kill for fun, not food.
Have you thought about installing an “floppy top” fence rather than baiting? I believe they are excellent for feral cats and foxes as they just can’t get enough purchase when they reach the top. Just a matter of an extension without a tension wire along the top.
No need to tell you to dig the bottom down another 300mm because tunnelling.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/21/world-news/israels-war-with-hamas-has-led-to-amazing-medical-innovation/
Some very good news from Israel for our soldiers.
I don’t get cooked ham.
You can’t improve on perfection.
Just eat it cold.
50 from 52 balls, on debut. Then follows up with a flat boundary over midwicket.
It’s not a flat deck either.
Very, very good indeed.
Love or dislike Erin Molan, she is certainly a chip off her old dad.
Going to Israel to very publicly meet with the leaders was exactly what Jim would have done.
If she causes even a twitch of disquiet on the part of the Jew hating pig she can have my vote.
A*rsehole Kohli. Suspend the grub.
Good fun!
The Indians grow up with constant push & shove, young Konstas would make good time in Delhi traffic.
Konstas gone for 60, having shaken up the call takers tremendously.
Job done, son.
Konstas in attitude reminds me of Steve Waugh a bit.
My take on the cricket reflects on the illiteracy of one of the channel 7 squawkers. Recently, we had, on the last ball of an over, “good to see they’re turning over the strike”. Just now “Labuschagne’s into double figures, at least he’s made 11″.
For Kamala quality nonsense, a message said (close to) ‘Over lunch we talk about the positive legacy Shane Warne has had on this Test”.
Well, I suppose it’s a product of a dumbed down educational experience.
Beautiful day on the harbour for the race start.
Dad never missed a year to watch it, he loved the yachts.
So clever.
https://gettr.com/post/p3f9xxt428a
Pope Frank driven from the temple. Brilliant.
https://gettr.com/post/p3fb74re51b
Watching Ford vs Ferrari.
Looks like a car film for stupid people.
So far:
Introduces Carrol Shelby by having various characters say “Shelby” “Carol Shelby” for no real reason. That’s some authentic dialogue right there. I mean last time I saw some friends they just randomly said my name before making the point they wanted, and the last time I went to the doctor he prefaced his comments on my health by just randomly saying my full name. Great writing there.
Then Shelby is pulling away in a vintage Porsche in what looks like the late 1950s early 1960s, and right there up in the shot is what looks suspiciously like an after market, ugly black leather steering wheel.
Then there is one of the stupidest attempts at what I think is a cockney accent from Christian Bale.
Next Henry Ford III apparently shuts down the assembly line at one of his plants by hitting the sort of bright red cut out Stop button that didn’t come about until the mid 1980s, and the viewer is supposed to think ol Henry Ford III could possibly make himself heard in a factory that covers nearly four square kilometres. Utter rubbish.
Ten minutes into this shit show so far.
Sky did a rerun of Rowan Dean’s special on Barry Humphries. As I noticed about every retrospective they don’t dare talk about union rep Lance Boyle, whose monologue included saying that sometimes on a job they can have a bit of trouble with aboriginals declaring the jobsite to be sacred.
“A few crates of tinnies usually fixes that up” said Lance.
12 minutes in.
Two more scenes with Shelby that start with someone saying “Shelby”
Maybe the writers just liked writing “Shelby”. Like a magic incantation.
It was filmed in Georgia rather than Michigan. That was a bad start.
Looks like Konstas nailed his colours to the mast with “I’ll be back” aplomb.
Miltonf
December 26, 2024 1:22 pm
I thought it was fillemed in Technicolour.
Have been listening to James Lindsay lectures on Communism ( just finished episode 1) her famous “unburdened by what has been” “word salad” is actually a once sentence summary of a very turgid 3 paragraph statement by Karl Marx, who absolutely could not resist using a paragraph when a word would do.
19 minutes in.
Two more random “Carol Shelby’s” from characters who are talking directly to the man.
Car race, the English driver mechanic guy grows his ring and open ended spanner through his own windscreen.
In all my years I have never seen a mechanic or engineer ever throw any of his tools. Ever. Those are your tools of the trade.
The race. Shelby is watching the English dude/ mechanic / driver vie for first place, from the grandstand area around two corners and about a mile off, he is able to follow the action so well that he is able to mutter precisely when he should make his move “Not yet, not yet”, as if he were following the action on a TV screen. Whereas any time I have gone to a car or motorbike race the experience is one of watching the things fly past your vicinity with a roar and a blur. Which is why people position themselves next to a corner. You don’t see the race happening two corners away, let alone follow the individual action of one car. Stupid.
Panavision
I’m challenging you’: Brad Battin’s Boxing Day phone call to John PesuttoDamon Johnston
2 hours ago.
Updated 2 hours ago
139 Comments
Brad Battin has told John Pesutto he will challenge him for the leadership at Friday’s high-stakes meeting of Victorian Liberal MPs.
In a major development on Boxing Day, The Australian has confirmed Mr Battin telephoned the embattled opposition leader on Thursday morning to personally inform him he would be challenging for the top job.
The shadow police minister is the favourite to replace Mr Pesutto with supporters estimating he had 16 votes locked in.
The Liberal Party room could have as many as 31 members voting tomorrow if two absent MPs are allowed to vote remotely and ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming is readmitted into the fold ahead of the spill.
“Brad has the numbers and will be challenging for the leadership, and he’s telephoned John this morning to tell him this,” a senior Liberal MP told The Australian.
Mr Battin’s camp is now confident it no longer needs the support of Liberal MPs grouped around shadow finance minister Jess Wilson and former Aussie tennis ace Sam Groth is expected to be the frontrunner to take over the deputy leadership.
The Boxing Day development came after The Australian reported Mr Pesutto was not expected to order a leadership spill in Friday’s meeting, in a strategy that challenges the conservative forces to blast the Victorian Liberal leader out.
Friday’s meeting is expected to vote in favour of welcoming Mrs Deeming back into the fold, but before that vote, there will be a show down over Mr Pesutto’s plans to allow two MPs away on holiday to vote remotely.
Mr Battin’s camp are opposed to this.
No one smoking in this movie.
In the 1960s.
30 minutes in.
Can’t hear what anyone is saying.
They are either mumbling or speaking Italian.
Anyway, I found Ferrari vs Ford reasonably watchable. One of the better movies compared to so much of the rubbish around.
It was interesting seeing how Henry Ford II and Iacocca were portrayed.
Stuff Essendon – Michael Smith News
There are no words …
I’m cutting this shit away.
Time of death: 47 minutes.
If they aren’t telling the audience that this is Carol Shelby for the 50th time, they’re having one of the characters mumble rambling stupid exposition.
Modern writers: show, don’t tell. Show.
Election-Eve Coverup: Biden & the Art of Concealing Evidence
And leftists accuse Trump of being Xi’s man.
Note Hunter’s presence too.
Ford vs Ferrari, final thoughts:
An interesting bit of history that deserved better writing, and better casting so that the actors didn’t have to mumble their lines to obscure the fact that they were wrestling with the accents.
Also a sanitised version of the sixties.
I guess people like it because it is largely devoid of the nagging insane identity politics of recent Hollywood offerings, fair enough, but not enough to balance out the script, acting and lack of authenticity for me.
Ugh.
Daughter wants to watch the rest of the movie.
Fine.
I’m going out.
Guess who is Noa Tishby’s Hanukkah pal.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/451290368026217
There seems to be a special amount of goodwill this Christmas. No one fighting over scarce parking spaces at the beach this morning in Sydney. In fact, a young man covered in tats offered advice and help to an elderly friend parked next to us who was discussing his car’s heating problem with my husband. He got in friend’s car and showed him how to use the car’s diagnostics. He didn’t know that my husband had diagnosed the problem for friend – but that didn’t matter, as his genuine assistance was really nice.
Christmas Day in our area was unusually quiet. Fewer Xmas lights, and just fewer people in the streets, although traffic was chaotic. Was everyone just leaving town?
When is ice cream not ice cream?
When it is StreetsBlue Ribbon classic vanilla
Deliciously creamy vanilla
Nowhere on the labelling does it mention ice cream
But there is vegetable oil,emulsifier,stabilisers,flavours,colours,guar gum,Tara gum,locust beam gum
Apparently it is designed not to melt.
But what is it ?
When it comes to Koli’s penalty, extra needs be added for his insipid shoulder charge. Rather, he might have picked the spot (x) on Konatas’ shoulder most liable to damage; lowered his shoulder and twisted it a split second before intended contact; and then driven it hard into the spot marked X. MCG fans expect nothing less.
Koli need not have feared a meaningful.penalty; anything like that would have caused the Indians to go home.
Heading to Victoria for a couple of weeks by road, lots of yummy Christmas leftovers in the esky. Lets see how much worse the Gregory Developmental rd is south of Belyando Crossing this year and the Carnavon Developmental rd at Rolleston before you hit the Carnavon Ranges.
Quick perusal of the traffic website tells me speed limit at Rolleston is down to 60km/h, so basically worse. NSW doesn’t look too bad apart from round Moree, which they were working on 12 months ago.
Spent a few very nice hours having lunch with friends. They had the cricket on. It was most enjoyable watching Labushagne receive a ball to the box.
Replays provided even more raucous outcries.
Nothing against Labushagne, it’s just funny watching bollock bombs.
Labushagne was hit a couple more times. We were all wondering if the Curry Bros had only recently watched “Bodyline”, seeing as they were so late to the technique. 😀
Pissweak Channel 7. None of them willing to call 2/222.
Pogs, floppy top fencing is what they use on wildlife exclosures, ie keeping predators out. Google will give you some excellent diagrams.
The beauty of them is you don’t need extra equipment, like electric leads. The wire acts as a physical barrier because the predator’s weight just can’t be held long enough to shimmy over.
My inclination would be to have two perimeters (like in the Great Escape) with a No Fox Land in the middle. A fully enclosed coop (including mesh roof because predatory birds) and then the floppy top exclosure. If one of the mongrels happens to manage one fence, it will panic once it’s caught in the middle. Then it’s .22 time. Like you, I have zero mercy for foxes. I’ve witnessed their “work”.
Headless body in topless MCG.
Bowled for 0 shouldering arms.
Ouch! Well bowled Mr Bumrah.
Sweet ball from Bumrah takes out Head. Very deceptive, making Head misjudge the absent swing/seam.
I don’t think Bumrah is a chucker under the current rules (though omg that’s a low bar to clear).
But it seems he might think he does.
In Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, his early balls raced through with a different trajectory… and he was a far more dangerous bowler. Once he got tired, those deliveries left his range and he wasn’t so much of a problem.
This game, he started with the less penetrating deliveries.
Still a dangerous bowler, but there’s a level he’s not reaching this game. Maybe he’s just more tired.
Sadly, the lower portion of the development road is still like driving over sand dunes. A bloody disgrase given the mass of road trains that use it constantly. It is dangerous by day and absolutely unsafe at night with the added sttraction of roos and stray cattle.
Bons, your comment reminded me of our drive from Cooktown to Hope Vale and Elim Beach. Not just stray cattle but brumbies which would suddenly just come out of the bush and onto the road.
Bumrah gets Marsh.
That’s more like it.
Straya have now lost 3/9 in the last six overs.
3 quick wickets, just when it was looking good.
The Bureau of Mythology racks up another failed mission to convince Victorians/Australians there is something wrong with the weather.
Like the lone hot day last week, the Boxing Day forecast of 39C for Melbourne – revised down from 41C a few days ago — came up 10% short at 36C.
The error is always in the same direction: BoM never underestimates its forecast temperatures; they’re always exaggerated – I suspect because BoM knows it can rely on the news media to maximise public hysteria and lack of accountability for BoM’s inaccuracy.
Meanwhile, BoM’s daily rainfall forecasts are now calibrated in meaningless ranges like 1-25mm, which are useless for end users like farmers.
While BoM is a hotbed of climate ideology, the bottom line is that it is just not competent at the job we spend nearly half a billion dollars a year trusting it to be good at.
I just saw on YouTube that Starmer has ‘issued a warning to Donald Trump’. As if Trump would be worried by that despicable, effete, soft handed pommy lawyer.
If there’s one type I loathe and despise, it’s haughty, condescending poms.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bLYw93Z_1WA
Carey for 31. We just got 300.
While fully embracing the “save da planet” CO2 lunacy and roundly abusing anyone who doesn’t follow in lockstep, the younger generation appear not to worry too much about rubbish dropping from their lifeless fingers.
Possibly because nothing much is happening in their lifeless heads.
It’s always someone else’s job.
Albanese Government spends $174 million in taxpayers money on advertising to tell voters about its policiesKatina CurtisThe West Australian
Thu, 26 December 2024 2:49PM
Comments
Almost $174 million of taxpayer money was spent on ad campaigns last financial year — among the highest figures in two decades — with the Albanese Government being accused of “shameless self-promotion”.
Almost a quarter of that money was spent advertising key cost-of-living measures Labor is now using to convince voters it should get a second term.
The advertising push appears to have only increased since July with millions more contracted to raise awareness of Medicare urgent care clinics, cheaper medicines and fee-free TAFE — key cost-of-living measures in the Government’s plans, all of which were also promoted in the previous financial year.
Liberal frontbencher James Stevens, the Opposition’s watchdog on government waste, accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of wasting money on trying “to look like a good government, rather than actually being one”.
“It is outrageous that the Prime Minister thinks he can spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on shameless self-promotion,” Mr Stevens said.
“Anthony Albanese must explain how such an exorbitant advertising expense can possibly be considered ‘unavoidable spending’.”
Lol! Steven Chavura on Sky describes the Libs as “the lepers with the most fingers”!
Well said!
Sadly, the lower portion of the development road is still like driving over sand dunes. A bloody disgrase given the mass of road trains that use it constantly. It is dangerous by day and absolutely unsafe at night with the added sttraction of roos and stray cattle.
FFS just reminded by the other half about the extra day spent in Roma after blowing a diff seal because of that road in January. After getting past the worst of it I pulled over and had a look underneath just after the Mazeppa State Forest near Clermont, where it was just a tiny drip. We nursed it from Clermont to Roma where the drip became a small flow that I had to top up twice and I just decided to get it fixed. Mechanic in the family informed me of worst case scenario that weren’t pretty when the next town could be 150km & no mobile service.
One wonders how much frickin damage our roads cause our car fleets! Then I look at cost per litre of fuel and want to figuratively speaking hoist MP’s/bureaucrats on to lampposts!
Hang on. What happened?
(Just back in from painting a mudguard).
It’d be a worry of their policies were any good.
Meanwhile, Elbow seems to have entered a polling death spiral on a par with ScoMo in his final months.
11 Reasons why the “EV Transition” will NEVER happen | MGUY Australia
‘The Spell Was Shattered—And Here’s What The Spell Was’: Tucker Carlson Reacts To 2024 GOP Victory
I’m running for leader: Jess Wilson to take on Brad Battin for Victorian Liberal leadershipDamon Johnston
8 hours ago.
Updated 2 minutes ago
512 Comments
Liberal MP Jess Wilson has launched a dramatic Boxing Day bid to challenge Brad Battin to replace embattled opposition leader John Pesutto.
In a statement released shortly before 7pm, the shadow finance minister revealed she would throw her hat into the ring despite party room numbers trending towards Mr Battin.
Ms Wilson, 34, was only elected to parliament two years in the seat of Kew, said she was best placed determined to hold the Allan Government to account.
“If a spill motion is successful tomorrow, I will be a candidate for Leader of the State
Parliamentary Liberal Party,” she said.
“I’m a proud Melburnian. I’m a proud Victorian. But it breaks my heart to see our city and our state struggling under the weight of an incompetent Labor Government that has trashed our economy and made it harder for families to get ahead.
“Holding Labor accountable for their economic vandalism, and its consequences, and
presenting a positive agenda to provide Victorians with a real choice at the next election is what is driving me to stand for the leadership.”
Ms Wilson’s dramatic last-ditch intervention sets the scene for an explosive meeting of Liberal MPs at 10am Friday at Parliament House.
I guess I must be old, my parents left the shire when I was four and they bought a place in Bronte. Bronte Beach was our local beach, it’s a place I treasure. We would spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day on Bronte Beach, where the only attraction at the time was a fish and chip shop and milk bar, there were no cafes, nothing, it wasn’t ‘trendy’. The park was always filled with families, mainly Greeks and Italians, it’s now filled with Muslims.
I still recall the huge waves that hit Sydney and swallowed up Bronte Beach, back in 1970 or 1971, perhaps someone would remind me of yh year. I remember my father taking us down to have a look and I recall seeing the beach swallowed up by waves, the water splashing into the park and the little train that used to run (I think it still runs).
It was a simpler Australia, I reckon a better Australia. I know, I know, I’m prone to indulging in Proustian nostalgia but I do look back and yearn for that vanished Australia.
I’d rather have an ex cop than another effing lawyer from a political dynasty.
Bronte is Greek for thunder. The waves crashing on the beach sounded like thunder?
Wrong apparently
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, Duke of Bronté.
“It was a simpler Australia, I reckon a better Australia. I know, I know, I’m prone to indulging in Proustian nostalgia but I do look back and yearn for that vanished Australia.”
Here in Adelaide you could even take a tram to Paradise! 😉
But seriously, the Australia of the past seems sadly to be gone forever. Deliberately destroyed, by mean spirited and vicious people.
Caasie
The walk from Bondi to Bronte beach is wonderful. We try to do it every time we came up to Sydney and it never gets boring. The landscape reminds me just a little of the Sorrento and Portsea back beach… the waves swallowing up the rock ledges…
The challenge for the Victorian Liberal leadership will be a three-cornered contest after former John Pesutto ally Jess Wilson threw her hat in the ring at the eleventh hour.
Shadow police minister Brad Battin called the current opposition leader on Thursday morning to confirm he would challenge the Liberal leader at a party room meeting on Friday. Wilson, a first-term and well-respected MP, said she would run against Battin because a unity deal to secure her as deputy leader had been struck off the table.
From “The Age.”
Why are they always ‘well respected’?
The walk from Bondi to Bronte beach is wonderful.
It’s a gorgeous walk.
Joe Hildebrand yet again spouting off about something that doesn’t make sense. He has just declared himself half Catholic Irish on Sky’s Late Debate.
He can be half Irish but not half Catholic, he is either Catholic or not as it is a choice not a matter of genes.
Just sounds like another Jane Hume type.
As opposed to “controversial” (e.g. Fatty Trump, Moira Deeming) or “embattled” (e.g. Giuseppe Prosciutto).
In other words, Milt, it’s the braindead lamestream meeja, doing what it does so spectacularly badly – trying to accurately report on, well, anything.
Even now, when the fallout is coming thick and fast about everyone in the media and in politics and in staff positions denying that Joe was not the full two bob, we still have almost the same situation regarding the other huge issue that the world faces.
The denial that the climate scam is a scam, denial that wind and solar can’t deliver, denial that we should go on using coal. Denial that nuclear is a live option. All of it has been perpetrated by the left/green politicians and knuckled under by the rest. It has been hugely supported by the complicit media and by assorted airhead celebs. It has become an article of faith in the religion that has largely replaced Christianity.
Rabz it’s the tired old cliches – they give me the pip which is another reasonwhy I don’t buy newspapers and I wouldn’t even pick up the Aged.
Just catching up on Sky and heard Danby say that the Teals whores are entrenched. I disagree, I think some are but I reckon at least half will be gone. Here are my Teal whore predictions……
NSW
The whore of Wentworth will hold the seat, largely due an electoral redistribution. She’s lost the Jewish vote, that’s gone but she’ll hold on…..just.
The whore of Warringah will hold on, she’ll be there in Warringah until she retires in 2055.
The whore of Mackellar is goneski. She’ll lose to James Brown (once married to Turdbull’s daughter, Daisy, but don’t hold that against him, he’s a good candidate).
The whore of North Sydney is already goneski, her electorate now carved up, some of it swallowed up by the electorate of Bradfield and some swallowed up by the electorate of Bennelong. The Liberals will hold Bradfield and will win back Bennelong at the next election.
Victoria
The whore of Goldstein will be gone, Tim Wilson will win the electorate back.
I don’t know about the fatso whore of Kooyong, I would like to think that she’ll lose. Perhaps some Victorians here can enlighten me.
WA
The whore of Curtin will lose. The Liberals will win back Curtin.
Do I think Svengali’s Simon’s other whores will win in seats he plans to target. No, I don’t think he’ll win anymore seats
Now I’ll caveat the above by saying I could be wrong.
‘Former ally’. Which means she’s stuck the knife in once already…
And has already stuck the knife into Battin as well because as she couldn’t be Number Two (as opposed to Number 22 which is where she is now), she wants to be Number One.
Amazing. The Vic Labor people must be pissing themselves laughing.
Wow get a load of this Bio and as I said apart from gifted positions (Prolly because of being a Young Lib) what appears token private sector experience. This could be the new Vic Opposition leader and a first term sitting member, probably the most inexperienced bio I’ve ever seen:
Jess Wilson was elected the Member for Kew at the November 2022 Victorian State Election.
Jess is the Shadow Minister for Early Childhood and Education, Shadow Minister for Finance, and Shadow Minister for Economic Reform and Regulation.
She has spent all of her life in Melbourne’s inner east, growing up with her parents Ron and Jo and younger sister Sarah in Mont Albert.
Jess attended Mont Albert Primary School and Strathcona Girls Grammar, followed by Monash University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (politics and history) and a Bachelor of Laws from Monash University, and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the Australian National University. Jess is admitted as an Australian Lawyer in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
Jess has been a member and premiership player with Kew Box Hill Hockey Club for over 20 years and married her husband Aaron at St Dominic’s Church, Camberwell.
In 2012, Jess was selected as a Hansard Scholar, a program run by a leading think tank in the United Kingdom. This provided her with the opportunity to study and complete a dissertation at the London School of Economics and intern with a member of the House of Commons, working at the Palace of Westminster.
In 2017, Jess was awarded the Dame Elizabeth Couchman Scholarship which provided an opportunity to travel to the United States to write a research report on encouraging more women to enter politics.
Jess is an experienced public policy professional, having advised Australia’s largest employers and worked at the highest levels of government. She started her professional career at global professional services firm KPMG, focussing on regulatory policy and excise tax advice for clients in Australia, the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions. She then served as a Ministerial Adviser to a Federal Cabinet Minister.
Jess has spent most of her professional career in the private sector, most recently at the Business Council of Australia as the Executive Director of Policy and Company Secretary. In addition to leading policy development in the energy and climate change space, she led a team of policy experts across tax, regulatory reform, infrastructure, skills and education, digital and cyber security. Jess played a pivotal role in the Business Council’s initiatives including BizRebuild (a charitable trust formed to assist bushfire recovery efforts, chaired by a former Australian Governor-General), Strong Australia (a network to connect small and big business in regional Australia) and the business community’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Locally, Jess’ priorities include:
ensuring small businesses can thriveimproving our healthcare and emergency services systemproviding urgent mental health supportraising learning standards and improving facilities in our schoolstackling rising bills and keeping our essential services strongprotecting our local heritage and environment including taking strong action on climate change, andimproving public transport links.Jess loves taking her Cairn Terrier, Audrey, for walks across the many beautiful parks in the Kew Electorate and catching the latest releases with Aaron at Palace Cinemas in Balwyn.
BoM long ago replaced those old-fashioned thermometers that were consulted periodically during the day. They got new-fangled ones that registered the temperature every fraction of a second (or at least fairly continuously). This means that a very quick and fleeting blip upwards can become the maximum for the day.
This may be part of the “trend” upwards. That and “homogenisation”, an Orwellian bit of language.
A week ago, Boxing Day was forecast at 44 C. Much hysteria ensued, until the estimated max was revised down to the high, then low 30s.
Today we enjoyed 22 C from 10:00 am on, a far cry from the fearful 44’s. Yet BoM can tell us what the scalding temp will be by the end of the century.
Laughable!
Omnia mutantur…
Ovid.
Adjusting to this oft unpleasant reality is one of the challenges of growing old.
From Jihad watch:
“Those who fired Erin Molan were alarmed by the complaints they received about her from the pro-Hamas segment of her audience.”
?If Sky has a pro-Hamas segment of its audience they would only be there to get upset and take notes, not to learn.
Looked up “Teals” on Wikipedia where the page is titled “Teal independents.”
Unlike John Pesutto and his staffers, I don’t regard Wikipedia as a reliable source for any serious facts.
Indolent
December 26, 2024 7:15 pm
I don’t know about that.
Maybe not in Australia but in other places it goes full steam ahead.
Norway has more EVs than ICE cars already, and if I read it right, new car registrations from the 1st of Jan 2025 will be restricted to EV.
Despite electricity prices rising due mainly of exporting it to other EU countries.
It’s a good drive.
The amount of km’s this guy racks up each year is cazy. Back and forth, back and forth across Australia.
He loves it.
—–
Road Train Adventures:
In this episode I pick up Michael from ?@DownieLive? and we see this journey across Australia through his eyes. Come with us as we explore the towns and cities we drive through and have a few laughs along the way.
I picked up this load from Melbourne and taking it all the way to a mine near Leinster, Western Australia.
Road Train Across Australia – Part 1 – Delivery to the Mines
Rocdoc,
when you drive to Vicco, if you go via the Hume, let us know and, if you are so inclined, we can grab a coffee at Goulburn or Collector. Whichever suits. I wouldn’t want to tempt you with the perils of Canbra!
Bungonia Bee may also be down that way. We can have a collective of Cats!
For a short while. 😀
I’ll bring the sardines and cream!
Safe drinking water in Indigenous communities a responsibility of the government landlords, court rulesPaige Taylor
6 minutes ago
4 Comments
The Albanese government has been found ultimately responsible for keeping drinking water safe in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, in the latest legal decision that winds back the commonwealth’s long retreat from remote settlements and townships across Australia.
The landmark court ruling found the chief executive of NT Housing is liable for unsafe uranium levels in the water at Laramba, a community of 300 people on a commonwealth lease about 200km west of Alice Springs.
The Northern Territory’s Court of Appeal decision reverses an earlier finding that exonerated the federal government.
The commonwealth is the ultimate landlord of central Australian communities including Laramba, and it funds the NT government to build and maintain public housing in those communities.
Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights estimates 250,000 Indigenous people are currently unable to reliably access safe and healthy water.
Dan Kelly, who represented Laramba tenants in the water case, said the decision on Tuesday had implications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.
“We know many communities are denied the most basic of human rights, which is access to clean and safe drinking water. The court’s decision makes clear that if government does not take action, they can be held to account,” Mr Kelly said.
“In more than 500 remote Indigenous communities across Australia drinking water isn’t routinely tested and often it isn’t safe to drink. The court’s decision has confirmed that Indigenous peoples have as much right as any other Australian to safe drinking water.”
In the past 13 months, government landlords have lost two significant court cases about their responsibilities to tenants in remote Aboriginal communities.
The first, also in the NT, was a High Court ruling in November 2023 that tenants of substandard public housing in the remote community of Santa Teresa were entitled to compensation. Like Laramba, the Santa Teresa community is also on a lease held by the commonwealth’s executive director of town leasing, and its houses are paid for with federal funds.
The case was brought by a woman in the community, 85km southeast of Alice Springs, who had no back door for five years.
The Santa Teresa decision prompted class action specialists Slater + Gordon to launch a massive civil case over dilapidated housing in Western Australia’s remote Aboriginal communities.
Under the action, which was filed in the Federal Court in August, the WA government is being sued for housing that was a commonwealth responsibility until 2018. That is when the commonwealth stopped paying for houses in remote Aboriginal communities in WA, Queensland and South Australia and handed over responsibility to the states.
By then the commonwealth had already ceased providing municipal and essential services to remote communities in WA.
In 2015, a debate over the commonwealth’s exit from remote communities led then prime minister Tony Abbott to call remote living a lifestyle choice.
Mr Abbott said at the time: “What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have.”
He made the remarks after then WA Liberal premier Colin Barnett contemplated the monumental cost of taking over housing in remote communities and instead flagged his intention to close up to 150 of the settlements. Mr Barnett proposed concentrating his government’s spending and resources in a small number of large communities with links to the mainstream economy. This policy was broadly adopted by the subsequent Labor McGowan government, which was elected in 2017, but progress has been slow.
When Covid-19 cases climbed in WA in mid-2020, the state’s smallest and most remote communities were inundated with Aboriginal people with familial connections. Many remain there.
Indigenous leaders have blamed a lack of investment in remote communities for the drift of Indigenous people into towns such as Alice Springs, where displaced adults and youths have contributed to alarming increases in crime.
Now, why would someone in an outback community have no back door?
So we’ll know tomorrow if this mediocrity will be the new Vicco ‘opposition’ leader. Sounds a nasty piece of work too.
A ‘you go girrrl’
How cool would it be to head up an international rescue organisation like Thunderbirds?
Why isn’t that a thing yet in 2024?
I always liked Thunderbird 2.
Is Wilson the Kennett-Kroger anointed one I wonder?
It shouldn’t be shocking because it’s pretty much par for the course, but I’m still a bit gob smacked when I see the absolute uselessness and lack of real world experience of the political class. I wonder what she means by ‘strong action on climate change’.
The only thing shocking about this is that it’s been denied for so long.
Science Shock: CO2 is Good for the Planet, Peer-Reviewed Studies Suggest
Here’s a small snapshot of Oz when we were still free, cool and accepting.
I miss the eighties.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/au/article-14180343/tony-fox-cricket-catch.html
Forever a classic.
I haven’t seen this visual version.
Billy Joel – Piano Man (Original Video)
All the old school has footage run out. I love watching again though.
All we get today is sh*t from Tik Tok. D*ckheads on the streets.
It takes so much time to sync this all up.
David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”: A Mashup of Classic Movie Dance Scenes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of1HV4b0ccg
David Bowie and Tina Turner…”Tonight.”
Better late than never.
Christmas Eve/Sarajevo (Timeless Version) … Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Just a hunch because US yields are backing up. I reckon the Chinese are selling the US bond market to offer Trump a new year Xmas present.
Tomorrow’s leadership spill in the Victorian SFL’s – but only if leader John Pesutto decides to allow a spill. (chortle)
Brad Battin: Grey hairs, former police officer, former small business operator (specifically, a bakery)
Jess Wilson: 34yo, Greenhorn rookie in parliament, been in Two years. Her wikipedia page (obviously heavily curated by Ms. Wilson herself) says she is;
1/. the only Victorian SFL to publicly support the voice,
her work history is
2/. an advisor to Josh Recessionberg
3/. a former Director of the Business Council of Australia. (no mention of what qualified her for that role, never mind how she managed to swing the directorship)
4/. nothing else.
Tough choice. (chortle)
Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
Brett Lethbridge.
Christian Adams.
A.F. Branco.
Tom Stiglich.
Steve Kelley.
Pope Francis Warns of ‘Devastating Effects of Climate Change’
the nasty old turd is a sick joke
Just out of idol curiosity, was Wilson for or against Moira Deeming?
Thanks Tom.
Today’s Tele:
Tim Blair: Bronte Beach clean-up a small price to pay to see fun return to Sydney
?Scenes of garbage left on beaches by Christmas Day revellers have spawned outrage, but Tim Blair reckons Sydneysiders could learn a thing or two from the partying backpackers.
Yes, it would be nice if Bronte Beach backpackers all cleaned up after themselves.
Yes, it would be nice if the beachfront remained as pristine following a Christmas Day of backpacker partying as it was beforehand.
But let’s not throw out the babies with the beachwater here.
If local authorities clamp down too hard on the annual Bronte Beach backpacker bash, they risk crushing a fun new tradition before it’s even had a chance to take hold.
The fun is important, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
But first consider the huge revenue generated by backpackers in Sydney every summer, and the revenue generated specifically within the Bronte area on December 25.
Decorative antler sales alone would probably match Victoria’s entire yearly GDP. Local vendors of Christmas-themed bikinis are now on to their second Bentleys.
And if any enterprising Bronte kids are scuttling around today among the garbage, their can-return cash may cover a few terms of private school fees.
The expense to Bronte council of paying for beach rangers, lifesavers, security teams and the like would easily be covered many times over by short-term backpacker investments.
One must feel for nearby residents, of course. They shouldn’t expect their surroundings to become a full-on party zone.
Except that they do live on a Sydney beach. And it is summer. Plus there are holidays.
So anyone in and around Bronte Beach really should expect the good times to break out when the sun is up and the sand beckons.
And that is the whole point. Sydney has become a scolding and joyless city in recent times.
It is significant that the initial response to our Bronte party people was to decry their littering rather than rejoice in their exuberance.
Keep in mind, too, that those backpackers were joined by many young locals. Brits and Euros are teaching us how to have fun on our own turf.
Tim Blair
Journalist
Today, Boxing Day, in the brisk cold and because it is close by, we all went for a walk in Windsor Great Park before lunch, joining the throngs of Britishers of all nationalities from the look of it who were also out with their families in a pre-prandial excursion. Have to do something with these little children, you could hear them saying, for the little ones, all togged up in their warmest were rivalling the many dogs for the straining on the leash, darting everywhere and often too close to bogs and ponds. Some of the dogs had amusing little jackets on, and one actually had on four small plastic booties.
We came back for more of Hairy’s brother’s huge poached whole salmon, left over from Christmas Eve, and polished it off with small potatoes and salad. We shall destroy the rest of the Christmas turkey tonight. Yesterday it was served with great style, supremely carved by Hairy’s nephew, surrounded as tradition dictates by tiny pork sausages and some roasted stuffing balls, roast parsnip and potatoes, and ‘bread sauce’, a British invention par excellence. Plus gravy, ‘highly flavoured’ as the polite joke is always made, alluding to the Christmas carol of ‘highly favoured Lady’ and its schoolboy words.
We’ve just had arvo tea of home-made Christmas cake with marzipan and white snow icing, with little Christmas figurines on top. This whole street has hung silver balls from their small bushes and lit up their tress, and wisteria over the doorways has been threaded with tiny lights. Large and real Christmas trees are flashing gently in front paned bay windows. So pretty, in the darkening gloam of the afternoon. A Robin appears in the rear garden, flitting with other tiny birds in and out of the bird feeders that the bigger birds cannot reach. Scrabble is being played at the kitchen table and music comes from somewhere nearby.
Sad news – two sailors have died on the way to Hobart in separate incidents, said to be the result of being hit by the boom in wild weather.
Reports vary, but up to 11 boats have already retired.
It must have been a hell of a night after the storm front hit them.
We caught a touch of it a few hours ago here with a substantial thunderstorm. What it would have been like in the more intense weather out at sea is difficult to imagine.
Yachties are crazy brave, IMHO.
Let me say now that I am very glad I found and packed my snowboots, which are waterproof and snug and good for Britain at this time of the year. I am sure they will also get good use in Scotland, which we will head towards on the day after tomorrow, taking two days to reach Fort William and then on to Inverlochy Castle for Hogmany festivities, once Hairy has been fitted out in Fort William for his hired kilt and sporran and jacket and other formal stuff,
I am being called downstairs now for a pre-dinner glass of Rose in the main sitting room, where we have been regularly gathering for familial chats. It is still littered with some of the presents from yesterday afternoon’s present exchange.
Hairy gave me some Versace Reve de Myrrh, which was very Christmas appropriate, in a substantial ‘Prestige’ swish black bottle with a gold top embossed with the Versace Medusa Head. No Three Kingss’ trifecta though: we missed out on buying Frankincense in Fujairah, where it was once a major export. Didn’t think I could easily get it back in Australia.
johanna
December 27, 2024 6:30 am
Sad news – two sailors have died on the way to Hobart in separate incidents, said to be the result of being hit by the boom in wild weather.
Johanna, just read this in the Paywallion:
Two sailors dead as tragedy strikes Sydney to Hobart race
Amanda Lulham
4 minutes ago
Two sailors have died in seperate incidents on a torrid first night of the Sydney to Hobart on the boats Flying Fish Arctos (NSW) and Bowline (SA).
The Race Committee were advised both crew members were hit by the boom late last night as the fleet sailed down the NSW coast.
These are the first deaths in the Sydney Hobart since six men lost their lives at sea in the stormy 1998 race.
Flying Fish Arctos was sailing approximately 30 nautical miles east/south-east of Ulladulla when the incident occurred. Fellow crew members performed CPR but were unable not revive their fellow crew.
Bowline was approximately 30nm east/north-east of Batemans Bay and crew members administered CPR. A short time later officers from the Marine Area Command were informed that CPR had been unsuccessful.
A fleet of 104 yachts started the Sydney to Hobart under blue skies at 1 pm on Boxing Day.
By late afternoon they were romping down the NSW coast at high-speed with the front runners well in front of record pace.
Then, in one of the most destructive – and expensive – nights in Sydney to Hobart history, wild winds and torrid conditions ripped the famous race apart, causing widespread damage and ending the race hopes of numerous favourites.
A number of yachts were dismasted and the race leader and line honours favourite Master Lock Comanche was forced to retire when her giant mainsail ripped.
In 1998 a Bass Strait bomb in the form of a deep depression over the racetrack.
Treacherous conditions sparked mass search and rescue missions, numerous yachts sank and multiple crews were rescued.
Six tragically lost their lives in one of Australia’s worst sporting disasters
Amanda Lulham
Sports Writer
Today in Sydney: hot, cloudy, everyone at home, not much solar going into the system but plenty of demand for air con.
Stand by for blackouts when you can’t even run a fan.
Thanks dickheads. Your climate scam isn’t about saving the planet, it is about hobbling the west.
Explain to me how the owners of a yacht get virtually no repercussions from a death yet business owners are the number one target for prosecution?
I’ll put it this way.
If I had a worker to voluntarily went out to move stock to higher ground with a huge storm imminent and the worker was killed by the storm, I’d be fined and/or imprisoned.
Sport will be treated differently to paid employment. Each yacht will be covered by its own insurance, as well as the race as a whole. In addition, crew members will have indemnified the owner from any claim and participated at their own risk.
I’ll be Captain Obvious and say it’s a dangerous sport. The sea has a million ways to kill you and will try most of them at some time. One of my lasting memories as a little girl was Dad telling me, “never turn your back on the sea…it will sweep you away if you don’t watch out”.
From the Best Pie list.
Best Vegetarian / Vegan Pie
Forster Bakehouse (Forster, NSW) – Cauliflower Cashew Mornay Pie
Best Transgender Pie more like it.
Except Calli that many professional sports claim to be a workplace now. Amateurs just have bad luck but professionals attract liability.
Gez – I think you’ll find that professional sportspeople are hired as contractors, not employees. This greatly (but not totally) limits the liability of the club or whoever runs the sport.
Any sport involving waterways and the sea is dangerous. Every year we get numerous drownings, people swept off rocks, brained by surfboards, bitten by sharks etc etc.
As for yachting, it just highlights how even more crazy brave those explorers who sailed vast distances into the unknown in tiny wooden boats were. They make the current crop, with their high tech boats and communications and navigation aids, look like cream puffs!
It’s worth repeating. Excerpt from the full show.
Elon Musk Stuns Joe Rogan
I’ll take your word for it.
Mr Tedious has a close shave.
Yemen on fire after massive Israeli air raid on capital and ports sparks raging infernos (26 Dec)
Well the Houthis are finding out that Israel is not going to pussy foot around like the Americans have been. I don’t know what the WHO boss was doing in Yemen but he’s a lucky man.
Yes.
The all-conquering Hootie-Tooties were only all-conquering because Biden decreed it be so.
Watch this space.
Hopefully a final update from the Grampians. Yesterdays conditions for firefighting were horrendous, with the strongest winds I have ever experienced on the back of a truck. The change is however now through and things have quietened down and the fires have stopped running (notwithstanding all the MSM *still* salivating telling us about all the ‘too late to leave now’ declarations even in towns many km away). There will be days to weeks of breakouts now, but the worst should be over.
Can I re-iterate, after yesterday, just how dangerous it is to be on the roads in heavy smoke during a fire. We had numerous fallen trees to dodge and one came down within a metre of our truck whilst we were cutting up another which blocked our path. We also got cornered into a ‘must go forward, cant go back’ position as the fire crossed the road around us and had to operate the crew protection sprays as we drove through it.
Gez’s analogy is sound.
Let’s say I am a hobby farmer in the example he puts forward. I don’t make a living out of it, but parts of the enterprise are conducted on a commercial basis – I sell produce, I employ labour etc. I engage a contractor to help move cattle in a storm he rolls the ATV or a tree branch falls on him and kills him.
Worksafe will be all over me like a cheap suit.
The yachties similarly operate on a semi-commercial basis. They don’t expect to make money, but they employ contractors, they accept sponsorships etc.
And being struck by a boom is an entirely predictable hazard and should be mitigated.
Imagine this conversation:-
Worksafe : “Why isn’t the boom set at 2.2 metres above deck level?”
Cap’n Pugwash : “Well, the boat wouldn’t go as fast if we did that.”
Worksafe : “Safety shouldn’t be compromised for speed and efficiency. You’re done mate.”
The farmer who says he left off a PTO guard or a roll-bar because it interfered with efficient operations is going to wear it if something goes wrong.