Open Thread – Thurs 9 Jan 2025


The Three Holy Kings, Piotr Stachiewicz, early 20thC

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Barking Toad
Barking Toad
January 9, 2025 12:24 am

Wow! First.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
January 9, 2025 12:39 am

Tell you what Dover, you’re mining a fantastic vein of evocative art these days.

Helen
Helen
January 9, 2025 1:40 am

three’s a crowd?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
January 9, 2025 2:58 am

We three kings of Orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter,
Blowing his hooter,
Following yonder star.

Beertruk
January 9, 2025 5:40 am
Reply to  DrBeauGan

To paraphrase the great entrepreneur, Arthur Daley from Minder,
“Droll Doc…very droll…” 🙂

Last edited 1 month ago by Beertruk
GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 9, 2025 6:42 am
Reply to  DrBeauGan

I’m getting old DrBG, I used to know the other verses as done by the late, great John Clark. I can’t remember any more.

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
January 9, 2025 11:22 am
Reply to  DrBeauGan

actually the finsh of that piece is supposed to be:
“…One on a scooter
Blowing his hooter,
Smoking a big cigar.”

I thought you would know that as a cigar fancier.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
January 9, 2025 11:30 am
Reply to  Peter Greagg

You’re right. Shameful that I forgot.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 3:50 am

India on the Move: Delhi

India is on the move, and so are we, tearing through it at a great rate of knots. Hairy, talking from a fifty-year perspective with his first trip the 1975 hippie trail and his most recent the 90’s and to 2000 in Delhi IT conferences and high-tech Bangalore, identifies the changes as more middle class people, no visible starvation (a great change compared to 1975), many more motor-powered vehicles, mostly western dress (sometimes with identifying headgear) and everyone, absolutely everyone, on smartphones. I’ve never been before except calling in by sea as a child on the way to England in 1952 to what was still Bombay and recalling terrible scenes of poverty. There is still a noticeable homeless population, but the abject hunger and rags is mostly gone from view in this great city. Nourishment is obviously much better for all now. I am sure from this that I now would find the Sri Lanka that I lived in for a year in 1973 with my first baby under the dead hand of a ruinous socialism would be full of similar changes.

We are on a ‘Gold Luxury’ tour, and today saw us Raj Ghat memorial to Gandhi, the day after he was shot by a Brahmin Hindu nationalist. A grand pyre cremated him here and his remains were floated in the nearby tributary of the Ganges. It is now a place of National pilgrimage and very large, well set out, and beautifully kept with many flowerbeds surrounding it. We then moved on driving around the huge Islamic Red Fort, developed by Akbar late 1500’s and finished by Shah Jahan in in the 1600’s.  Our tour took us to the Jama, a massive sandstone and marble Mosque, where ladies were forced to wear a figure-hiding garment which, as I am short, tripped me up on steps if I wasn’t careful. Women in our group of ten did a laughing couture display for a group photograph.   No need to cover one’s hair though. Customs re this differ, but here, don’t dare show you have a waist – no need, as many of us didn’t and mine, which had returned when I started this trip, is now less boastworthy on three full meals a day.

Next was a real treat, if you like that sort of thing. A bicycle-rickshaw ride through Old Delhi’s narrow passageways full of shops and people, which was a bit of old India. In one narrow twisting laneway lasting for about half a kilometre and only 2 or 3 metres wide (depending what was parked or being loaded) our rider weaved (only term for it) in and out and around stuff lying everywhere on broken and uneven surfaces, dodging oncoming motor bikes and scooters (or being overtaken by them) and avoiding people crossing and re-crossing and gathering together everywhere. Keep your elbows inside, he indicated to us as the start, and this was why. We’d placed our lives in his riding skill and knowledge of how to progress in this melee.  Like the constant traffic in the actual streets, it works as Hairy was once told it does – like us when traversing a room full of people. We don’t actually bump into people but the near-misses are legion.  Same in this laneway.  These little step-in hole-in-the-wall shops seemed like fairylands, full of glitter far more blingish than even London’s Burlington Arcade, for wedding dresses and sparkling confections of great magnificence and styles were twinkling away from interiors everywhere, inbetween loads of spices and pulses in hundredweight bags being spun on the heads of skinny workers as they shifted them between storage and shops, paddling through puddles of ancient muck and mud.
 
After that a visit to a World Heritage Site, the Kutuv Mina, which was the world’s largest stone minaret dating back to the first Muslim settlement around 1100. This was less a settlement by the sword than a Sufi-led gentler Islam that attracted the lower castes as a means of escape from Hindu domination. The sword of course was also a mighty persuader. In constructing the groundwork for this early and truly impressive minaret, added to in height by later Moghul rulers, early Islamic settlers used ancient Hindu stone columns to build a greater, bigger Mosque, knocking the faces and features off anything that was an ‘icon’ and hence haram. Islam developed at a time when the Christian church had already suffered a deal of anguish over the use of painted figures and icons, and Mo seems to have taken that to heart in his new religion. The influence of Roman building techniques in later work increasing the height of the great minaret to become the largest stone tower ever built (over 70 ft) was clearly influenced by Roman techniques, probably inherited from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.  Acres of truly amazing heritage are found here.

Lunch intervened. And tired but weary by then, we did as good sheeple do and girded loins for the final visit, to the Golden Sikh Temple, where the rules here dictated that everyone, no gender exceptions, had to bind a purchased cheap orange scarf over their head and remove shoes and socks (only shoes in the earlier mosque) and paddle through water to enter the Golden Temple while Sikhs prayed all over the place in it as well as before a Great Book. Sikh men wear their long hair turbaned up and grow long beards. This is a religion teaching a commonality of humanity, which they practice by feeding the poor of any religion in very large numbers. We walked by a hall full of poor people eating a simple provided meal and walked through the kitchens where food was made in great vats by volunteers, often middle-class women, not always Sikhs themselves. Made me feel much better about pushing off the children who were begging earlier. Destitution was not the entire story, and the Sikhs are doing commendable work.

I’m sitting now in a very luxurious suite in a very luxurious palace hotel. Glamour bathroom. Everything is impressive and intending to impress; no understate elegance here. Gold leaf and marble on the furniture everywhere and in the public rooms some very grand floral arrangements and bronzes augmenting the height of the voids that produce the palatial aspect. And guess what? It is very cold here. Nine degrees overnight and fourteen at breakfast, not rising to 22 till afternoon. I’m bringing out the warmer clothes from the bottom of the suitcase and allowing my summer dresses and tops to get crushed; I doubt if I’ll need them.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 4:07 am

Lunch was in a part of Delhi built and frequented by the British Raj, with arched walkways rather reminiscent of the design of Canberra’s Civic, a common design for civic buildings back in the day, inflection Greek and Roman colonades. The restaurant was famous, called The Kwality, and sub-headed The Polo Restaurant, it was full of pictures of show horses and photographs of the British at play. Two polo poles were crossed above the table where we sat. The food was some of the best Indian I’d ever had, so worth waiting for and undoing another notch in the belt.

Our companions are in the majority Australians, with four Americans.
It is all very convivial, but the single woman from Texas was so glad to find us, Trump supporters, which the other Americans were not.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 5:20 am

Lizzie, your posts read like you are having a “Girls Own Adventure”.
Great.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 9, 2025 7:36 am

Good description Lizzie – very like ours in New Delhi.

I do hear the south of India is well worth a visit – I know a southerner who was very disparaging about the northern Indian people, who, he said: “throw their rubbish on the ground.”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 5:30 pm
Reply to  Top Ender

Yep. Plenty of rubbish still thrown away evergwhere. We crossed that tributary of the Ganges where Gandhi’s ashes were strewn and it was awful, stagnant and with slimey rubbish strewn banks. Then we passed by the works for a brand new whiz-bang latest in airports using German designs and technology. A land of contrasts, in transition to a future world power. One bullion people, ardent independent shopkeepers all wanting an entrepreneurial future for their kids. Though too manypubkic servants – the Brutish disease, but perhaps a small price to pay for democracy and the rule of law.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 5:32 pm

Billion not bullion.

I am writing this on the bus taking the highway through agricultural lands on the way from Dekhi to Agra.

Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 4:05 am
DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
January 9, 2025 4:13 am

Thanks Tom.

KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 4:33 am

A lovely couple in Britain the old.
Late fifties the caption says.

The-car-is-late-40s-but-the-clothing-is-without-doubt-late-50s
KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 4:39 am

Pity our traveling forumites are not interested in these antiquities, I loved to hear some first hand observations.
I am not likely to see it myself.
I disagree with the statement that humans were just starting to scratch the surface of civilization, humans were around a lot longer than we know or realise.
Happy to be proven wrong.
——————–
Get ready to be blown away by the Dolmen de Soto in Trigueros, Huelva, Spain, a megalithic marvel that’s been captivating attention since its discovery in 1922.

This isn’t just any old pile of rocks; we’re talking about a monumental structure hailing from between 3000-2500 BC, birthed in an era where humans were just starting to scratch the surface of civilization.

It’s shrouded by a massive 60m earth mound and cloaked in a formidable 65m stone circle, standing as a testament to the ingenuity of our ancestors.

Step inside, and you’ll find a stunning 21m corridor leading to a chamber made from colossal slabs of granite and other stones that scream of mystery. What ancient secrets, rituals, and untold stories lie hidden within these walls?

Screenshot-2025-01-08-231421
Top Ender
Top Ender
January 9, 2025 7:38 am
Reply to  KevinM

Interesting – had not heard of it before. Will put on our list for when next in Spain.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 5:35 pm
Reply to  KevinM

Who is not interested? I love these old pics and shots of magnificent sites. Keep them coming.

KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 4:41 am

Musk speaks.

472599207_985870766908491_1767165554719171775_n
KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 4:43 am

SA history.
———————-
William Creek: A Tiny Gem in South Australia
William Creek, the smallest town in South Australia with fewer than 20 residents, is located within Anna Creek Station, the world’s largest working cattle property.

Spanning 24,000 square kilometres, Anna Creek Station is nearly half the size of Tasmania and supports thousands of cattle on its arid but nutrient-rich land.

Despite its size, William Creek offers essential services like a historic hotel that provides accommodation, meals, and a social hub, as well as a small general store for basic supplies.

The town’s unique location and heritage attract visitors interested in scenic flights over Lake Eyre, tours of Anna Creek Station, and exploring the Old Ghan Railway ruins.
Images: William Creek Hotel Australian Traveller, Anna Creek Station

Screenshot-2025-01-08-081402
KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 4:45 am

More Woodstock, and yes I missed it all.
Any and all recollections from personal experiences welcome.

Woodstock-1969
Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
January 9, 2025 8:40 am
Reply to  KevinM

If you watch the performance by Jimi Hendrix, (Star spangled banner etc), almost everyone had left.
What a waste of a performance for a great musician.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 10:15 am
Reply to  KevinM

I don’t think any of these are from Woodstock.

KevinM
KevinM
January 9, 2025 7:19 pm
Reply to  Roger

As I said, never been near Woodstock, wouldn’t know. My feed stated it was, I am in no position to argue. Maybe fact checking is in order?

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 9, 2025 5:01 am

Andrew Bolt:

This federal election looks like becoming the day Australians finally make Labor pay for lying for nearly two decades about the cost of its global warming fantasies.

Labor’s lies go back way beyond Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s dishonest press conference on Tuesday, or his broken promise last election that his green schemes would cut your electricity bills by $275.

Back in 2007, Kevin Rudd, then Labor’s leader, started the rot by promising Labor’s global warming plans would cost “something like $1 per person per year”.

A dollar a year! Yes, Rudd really did claim in 2007 that Labor’s “renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020” would “between now and about 2045” have “a total impact on the economy of somewhere between $600m and $800m … or something like $1 per person per year”.

How badly Australians have been fooled. How angry many are now to pay the price, and not just in high power bills.

Professor Paul Simshauser, CEO of the Queensland government’s Powerlink transmission business, is the latest to expose the con.

Forget a dollar a year. Simshauser’s new study warns that just building the extra solar, wind, batteries, hydro and gas assets we’ll need to get close to Labor’s latest target of net zero emissions will cost about $300bn – or $11,000 per person in total.

That’s not all. Not included are the costs of the countless other schemes to cut emissions.

Just this month, the Albanese government’s new emissions standards kicked in, hiking the price of petrol-driven cars.

Also not included is the cost of the blackouts Simshauser predicts as Labor kills off our remaining coal-fired generators, or the jobs we’re already losing to countries with cheaper and more reliable electricity.

Even so, Simshauser’s figures seem light on. A study by Net Zero Australia two years ago said we’d need to spend up to $1.5 trillion by 2030 to reach Labor’s target, and $9 trillion by 2060 – or $333,000 for every Australian man, woman and child.

Does that make sense to you – $330,000 from every person in your family to get green electricity? Has Australia gone insane?

How you’ve been hoaxed! Like I said, Labor has raised its target to net zero by 2050 since Rudd’s airy talk of just “$1 per person per year”, but that was always its predictable end game – and never has Labor come clean on the final cost.

In fact, it’s refused to tell you either the cost or the benefit – what good its schemes would actually do. It’s like selling us a car without telling us the price or even if it works.

No Labor leader has said how much their plans would actually lower the temperature.

None would say how many fewer fires, flood and cyclones we’d get, or even if there’d be any change at all.

None has considered whether the small warming we’ve seen is actually good for us. After all, we’ve had more rain, bigger crops and fewer cyclones in the past few decades.

I suspect Albanese understands none of this, and, worse, doesn’t care to. This is religion, to him. It’s tribal. It’s politics.

What it’s not to Albanese is science and economics. How else to explain his press conference on Tuesday, as he kickstarts his election campaign?

Talk about deluded. Or deceitful.

He told us there was “a transformation to net zero that is happening globally”. False: despite spending nearly $3 trillion a year on this “transition”, the world is using more coal and gas than ever.

He warned that “climate change” had to be fought to save the many jobs which “which rely upon the Great Barrier Reef”. In fact, most of the reef has lately had the most coral cover ever recorded.

Albanese also babbled about “moving towards green hydrogen in the future” so that “aluminium refineries can continue to operate”.

Green hydrogen? Another fantasy. Woodside, Origin and even hydrogen spruiker Andrew Forrest all dropped planned investments last year, admitting it just costs too much.

Albanese also dismissed the Opposition’s plan for nuclear power as a “fantasy”, even though nuclear supplies 10 per cent of the world’s electricity because, unlike green hydrogen, it’s a proven technology.

But here’s Albanese still like some carnival huckster, selling us snake oil for his fake scare, hoping voters forget Labor’s long history of dud global warming promises.

My tip? Polls suggest they haven’t – and Labor will pay. It must.

Eye watering figures that effectively take Australia back to colonisation. For absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
January 9, 2025 8:37 am
Reply to  Black Ball

The problem is, that the LNP are all in for this garbage as well.
It would be a simple matter to end this climate farce.

Simply ask Bowen, in Parliament, what “scientific”* studies he is using as a basis for pissing hundreds of billions of our tax payer dollars against a wall.

There are NO scientific studies anywhere, that conclude mankind is affecting the climate. None, zilch, zero, nought, nicheva!
The only interpretations that conclude this, are models, which are as malleable as brie on a hot day. Garbage in – Dogma out.
“Even the rain that falls will not be enough to fill the dams”
Australian of the year 2007 – Prof Tim Flannery
How is that wearing?

Maldives flooded?
Children will not know snow?

  • Science is:
  1. You put forward a theory, eg man is ruining climate on earth.
  2. You test this against the observable data.
  3. You publish your results, hopefully supporting your theory.
  4. You then pass all of your data and assumptions to an independent team who replicate your experiment and hopefully, agree with your result.

That is science. Anything else maybe “sy-yunns” or belief or whatever, but it is not Science.

As the great physicist Richard Feynman said:
“No matter how beautiful your theory, or how smart you think you are, if your theory is not supported by the observable data, ……., you are WRONG!”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 9, 2025 5:42 pm

And any data they present is highly suspect. Lying for the cause.

Miltonf
Miltonf
January 9, 2025 9:25 am
Reply to  Black Ball

I hate them with a passion

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 7:24 am
Reply to  feelthebern

Husic a moron?

Tell us something we don’t know.

And he is a shining intellect when compared to AnAl.

Another billion down the gurgler

Last edited 1 month ago by Boambee John.
Beertruk
January 9, 2025 5:58 am

Continuing on from BB’s Bolta post from/in today’s Tele:

TRUMP’S FREE SPEECH WAVE CRASHING DOWN ON CENSORS

Andrew Bolt
9 Jan 2024

What a difference Donald Trump is making already to our free speech.

And what a problem for the Albanese government.

Trump’s election as US president has forced Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg to declare an end to political censorship on his social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.

He’s now admitting what Meta long denied – that Facebook was censoring conservatives and the Right, sometimes under pressure from the Biden administration.

Now that Trump’s elected, Zuckerberg has just announced he’s firing the nearly 100 organisations he’d contracted to “fact-check” posts, admitting they “have just been too politically biased” and there’s been “too much censorship”.

They will be replaced by readers contributing to “community notes” on controversial posts, much like Elon Musk has ordered at X, formerly Twitter.

Zuckerberg says he’s also removing restrictions in Meta’s filters used to “shut out people with different ideas” on gender and immigration, and get more in “touch with mainstream discourse”.

This already spells trouble for Labor. Meta’s fact-checkers were of the Left, like Melbourne’s RMIT Fact Lab, so biased that in one seven-week period in 2023 it targeted 17 opinions against Labor’s racist Voice, but didn’t check one fake claim of the Yes side.

It even persuaded Facebook to flag as “incorrect” posts correctly noting the Uluru Statement was 26 pages long, not the one page the Prime Minister claimed.

In the US, censorship was even worse. Facebook restricted people sharing a report exposing the damning emails of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. It banned Trump for two years.

It banned an ad for saying transgender women had natural advantages over women as athletes.

It banned posts claiming the Covid virus was man-made in China.

But Labor’s problem with Zuckerberg following Musk in allowing more free speech goes deeper.

Zuckerberg says he’ll also “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”.

Those governments include – shamefully – our Albanese government. It’s demanded social media platforms ban footage of a Muslim youth allegedly stabbing a Sydney bishop. It’s pushed for new laws to ban what government-appointed bureaucrats decide is dangerous “misinformation”.

Try that stuff again and this government won’t just have Musk attacking them, but now Zuckerberg as well – with Trump as backup.

Zuckerberg says Trump’s win felt like “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising speech”. Australia will now get that point, too.

I still wouldn’t trust Zuckerberg as far as I could dropkick him.
He had the chance to say ‘NO!’ to the censorshit crap right at the start.

Last edited 1 month ago by Beertruk
will
will
January 9, 2025 8:09 am
Reply to  Beertruk

“He had the chance to say ‘NO!’ to the censors right at the start.”

And get on the wrong side of the deep state? He had a business to run, don’t want no trouble.

Imagine if the Republicans did not engage 200,000 lawyers to ensure a fairish election in 2024, and the Democrats got back in. What do you imagine would be Musk’s future?

Lee
Lee
January 9, 2025 12:18 pm
Reply to  Beertruk

Albosleazy (like Starmer) is going against the world tide on this, as on everything else.

Hopefully he’ll be consigned to the rubbish bin of world history very soon.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 9, 2025 6:12 am

Misinformation purveyor ProPublica puts out a note on the evil Boring Company and their misdeeds in Vegas.

After reading it, I want the Boring company to come to Sydney & do their thing here.

https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-oversight

I suppose rationality is in the eye of the beholder.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 9, 2025 6:16 am

First two paragraphs from Taibbi’s sub stack this morning.

Mark Zuckerberg released a video yesterday, promising less censorship and more free speech. Let’s posit that it was insincere, that he doesn’t actually care about the First Amendment, is in it for the money, hopes to kiss Donald Trump’s ring, and plans on turning Facebook into a boobs-and-cagefighting Broscape of the type many perceive Twitter/X to have become under Elon Musk’s leadership.

These would all be potentially valid complaints, should any turn out to be true. However, Zuckerberg today said just two things of substance, insofar as Meta/Facebook users are concerned. One, he would “get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes.” Two, he promised to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.” That’s really it. Visible Community Notes instead of invisible checking regimes, and less censorship, in particular government censorship.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
January 9, 2025 6:28 am

Maybe, just maybe the entire world is waking up — it’s like Donald Trump has given the kiss of life to dying Hope in the West, a hope that was fast fading in the powerless people of western countries. 

What is happening in Diminished Britain (it’s no longer Great) is simply appalling – what an utter utter disgraceful betrayal by every institution in the formerly Great Britain, from the Prime Minister to the lowest constable who closed their eyes to the plight of vulnerable little British white working-class girls who were subjected to the most depraved, unspeakable violations of their bodies, souls and minds at the hands of gangs of immigrant men

These little girls were betrayed utterly by the powerful and sacrificed on the altar of ‘multiculturalism’ all to support a vile ideology promoted by and adhered to by politicians, academics, lawyers, policemen and child protection service officers NONE of whom has suffered any consequences whatsoever, the consequences have all been borne by little British white girls. Where is the King? I know he is supposed to be politically neutral but he’s ignorantly held forth on many political issues but has the cat got his tongue on this one?

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
January 9, 2025 6:30 am

Nice painting Dover, I’m sure Gaspar, Balthasar and Melchior would approve.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 9, 2025 6:31 am

What is happening in Diminished Britain (it’s no longer Great)

They actually have become Little Britain.

132andBush
132andBush
January 9, 2025 6:56 am

Mark Zuckerberg released a video yesterday, promising less censorship and more free speech.

I’d be more inclined to believe this bloke has had a genuine epiphany rather than than just being a toadying suckhole if he released all communications between FB and the Democrat machine from around 2015 onward.

He should still be considered a snake in the grass no matter what he does.

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 7:19 am
Reply to  132andBush

I have noticed his new hairstyle, very boyish. Is he trying to give an impression of naivety, suggesting he was taken advantage of by those awful politicians?

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 9, 2025 8:05 am
Reply to  Crossie

He works out over two hours every day.
Does BJJ six days a week as part of that.
He’s jacked.

Diogenes
Diogenes
January 9, 2025 8:08 am
Reply to  Crossie

Coldfusion TVs take on his rebrand
https://youtu.be/n8JQBxPO9Ts?feature=shared

Last edited 1 month ago by Diogenes
Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 12:25 pm
Reply to  Diogenes

But is he still President Xi’s number one fan?

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 7:21 am
Reply to  Kel

Every single Labour politician is rotten to the core and they don’t care who knows it. They have the numbers and everyone else can go jump.

This includes those Labour members who voted for a new inquiry knowing full well that their other comrades will vote it down. If these Labour politicians were sincere they would resign from parliament or their party, staying there makes them all the same.

Last edited 1 month ago by Crossie
will
will
January 9, 2025 7:25 am
Reply to  Crossie

Wretchard T. Cat posted:In Starmer’s defense, these mass rapes occurred for years under both Labour and the Conservatives. Nobody wanted to rock the boat. Nobody wanted to make waves. Elon came along and the problem was how to make it go away. Starmer’s thinking “you SOBs: I won’t take the fall.”

What puzzled me from the start was the paltriness of the demand: “we want an independent inquiry into 250,000 rapes”. A what? Then it occurred to me that maybe, just perhaps, nobody really wanted anything to happen. Just a big hoo-ha then back to business as usual.
That doesn’t mean of course that everyone is insincere. Many doubtless are totally committed to destroying this evil. But there’s probably a massive amount of inertia in the system: corrupt police, welfare bureaucracies, featherbedded councils and the class system.

There’s a lot of money riding on just letting the syndicates continue and a lot of grief and jail time in turning over the carpet. Think of it as time honored tradition, but not in a good way.
From a certain POV, it’s all Elon’s fault. He’s got half a trill, the big brain, the power. He can afford to be outraged. But me, I go to work in a bus and live in a grimy northern town that I’ll die in. All I’ve got is a pension that I’ll probably lose. Thanks for nothing Elon.
?
That’s tough but the grift can’t go on forever. The jig is up and the time-honored tradition of bureaucratic subsistence like the professions of cobbling and cordwaining have reached the end of the road. Things must change and the sooner the better.

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 7:25 am
Reply to  Kel

What a dirty, grubby little place England has become.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 10:29 am
Reply to  Kel

Starmer has dug Labours political grave.

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 7:38 am

On Kevin M’s Woodstock photo…

No one looks happy. Possibly because after torrential rain the place turned into a quagmire and there was zero sanitation and little food.

The Flower Children left behind tonnes of rubbish and ruined fields. And other…ahem…evidence of their presence.

Nothing changes.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 9, 2025 7:42 am

BBC was active on three fronts last night.

  1. Portraying Trump as chaotic “just like last time” with his statements on Greenland, Panama, and Canada.
  2. Saying that we all risk bowel cancer by drinking alcoholic wine, and eating red meats including ham and bacon. Where were they when we were forced to take dodgy vaccines?
  3. The California fires linked to climate change.
Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 9:35 am
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

The California fires linked to climate change.

Since you can’t stop climate change why not try to mitigate its effects? That seems to be Bjorn Lomborg’s approach yet the people responsible for it do nothing. If I didn’t know better I would assume that these people enjoy those kinds of disasters and wouldn’t dream of stopping them.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 9:40 am
Reply to  Crossie

You don’t know better. They just lurrrve being the centre of attention.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 10:00 am
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

Where were they when we were forced to take dodgy vaccines?

Urging you on via their celebrity epidemiologists.

Lee
Lee
January 9, 2025 12:21 pm
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

The BBC is even worse than the ABC.

It is that bad.

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 7:43 am

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire is definitely an instruction manual for all empires.

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 7:44 am

Had they voted for an enquiry, Labour could have been seen to be “doing something”, while quietly doing nothing (see Brexit as an example). They would have control over terms of reference and time to massage away some of the more unfortunate facts surrounding the institutional response, including Starmer’s own part in it.

By full-throatedly boo-hissing lifting the lid on the affair, they have given their enemies endless ammunition. If the Tories won’t use it, there are plenty of others who will.

Dumb as.

Last edited 1 month ago by calli
Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 8:44 am
Reply to  calli

I don’t think Labour could manage an inquiry into the biggest scandal in living memory to their benefit.

This is dynamite that would blow the progressive establishment to kingdom come.

That’s why they’re so afraid of it.

Last edited 1 month ago by Roger
Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
January 9, 2025 9:10 am
Reply to  calli

Agree – it makes them all individually and the institution itself seem complicit in the cover-up. Which they are, of course, it’s just now we all can see.

Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 11:23 am
Reply to  calli

NOT “DUMB”!

ARROGANT as Hell!!

The words of Oliver Cromwell spring to mind:

  ” Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
 
   Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
 
   Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
 
   I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
 
   Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
 
   In the name of God, go!”

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 8:19 am

On reflection, our federal government got there first. By limiting the terms of reference on institutional child abuse to non-state entities only.

And we still haven’t had an enquiry into state abuse, and probably never will. It’s the way of carefully orchestrated moral panic. Achieve your limited goal (get Pell) and move on.

Tinta’s observation of a world “waking up” had me thinking…perhaps the zeitgeist is different this time, and British Labour is in more trouble than they realise.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 8:34 am
Reply to  calli

We can only hope. Also, that Elon won’t stop pushing.

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 9:43 am
Reply to  calli

UK establishment is now in a perfect storm, all their problems have materialised at the same time. Not only is there the horror of rape gangs, now they also have uncontrolled immigration while the economy is heading downhill due to their idiotic climate change policies topped off with censorship and criminalisation of public opinion about forced societal changes.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
January 9, 2025 9:12 pm
Reply to  calli

It was more subtle than that Gillard and Roxon did not officially limit the terms of reference to non-state institutions. But the gaggle of Socialist Left lickspittles, hacks, whores and tools they appointed treated the TORs that way. All very wink-wink-nudge-nudge, of course, and nothing in writing.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 8:38 am

@JohnLeFevre

This story is all too familiar:

Adam Carolla applied to be an LA firefighter, and was told he had to wait 7 years because he wasn’t black, hispanic, or female.

DEI kills.

@catturd2

LA is burning down so of course Biden sends $500,000,000 more to Ukraine today.

And, of course, they’re bashing Trump for criticising their lack of preparedness. There is literally no water in the hydrants.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 8:39 am

The progressives’ contempt for the white working class

Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, The Conservative Woman, 8th January, 2025

THERE is a time to be angry. There is a time when it is a sin not to be angry. This is such a time.

I have served in the armed forces. I have been a prison chaplain. I have been a minister in one of the roughest parts of Glasgow. I am not naive. Yet I was unable to finish reading the details of the atrocities committed by a mainly Pakistani Muslim rape gang on white girls. some of them pre-teen. These vile acts were committed prior to 2013 yet have came to light last week. Why were they hidden? I think we know the answer.

The great Dutch theologian, church leader and prime minister Abraham Kuyper never lost sight of the kleine mensen, the little people. He knew that the supposedly insignificant working-class people were ignored by the main parties and needed protecting. Our secular progressive elites have no interest in or concern for the ordinary working-class people of Britain. When a nation abandons the Bible, the most vulnerable pay the heaviest price.

These were not grooming gangs: dogs are groomed. These were paedophile rape and torture gangs. Neither was this confined to Rochdale; paedophile rape gangs have been operating in towns and cities throughout the UKPoor white girls from broken homes were viewed as legitimate targets for rape and exploitation by men from a faith known for its disdain of women.

This happened with the complicity of those charged with protecting children. In a case from Bradford a 15-year-old girl was placed as a foster child in the family of her rapist and made to marry her abuser in an Islamic ceremony with her social worker present. During this period she was forced to convert to Islam and treated as a domestic slave.

Mainly Pakistani Muslims preyed upon poor, vulnerable white girls. They were pimped out to others across Britain. Police and social services were so scared of being called racist or Islamophobic they did nothing to protect the girls or arrest the perpetrators. Sometimes they were ordered to do nothingOne girl claims to have been raped by 150 men; this began when she was 13. Some girls were murdered.

The depth of the contempt the white progressive managerial class has for the white working class is all too evident; their oikophobia is rampant. The primary responsibility for these horrific acts belongs to the mostly Pakistani Muslim perpetrators. Yet it was the weakness and systemic failures of those with responsibility for protecting their own girls which should make us angriest. For them progressive ideology, especially immigration and multiculturalism, was so important that it was worthwhile sacrificing tens of thousands of working-class white girls.

Ultimate responsibility lies with our politicians. These politicians are keen on punishing hate crimes. If there was ever a hate crime it was when groups of mainly Pakistani Muslims targeted vulnerable white girls on racial and religious grounds for industrial-scale rape and torture. These hate crimes were ignored.

These horrific crimes would not have been allowed to continue unabated if our politicians had not prioritised multiculturalism and vote gathering, a combination of progressive ideology and moral corruption. The white girls were simply the wrong victims, their suffering got in the way of the progressive narrative. If it had been Asian girls the story might have been different.

This scandal touched the whole of Britain, yet the current Labour government refuses to hold a national inquiry, as Laura Perrins wrote in TCW yesterday. It is to be left to local authorities with limited resources to investigate these crimes. One doesn’t need to be cynical to ask who is being protected and which voting bloc appeased.

It does the Conservative Party little good to try to assume the high moral ground and call for a national inquiry. They have just emerged from 14 years in power when they did nothing. The police would not have ignored these crimes without strong political backing and instruction.

A law enforcement officer came to the conclusion that a 12-year-old who told police she had sex with five adults had done so in a ‘100 per cent consensual [way] in every incident’. Thankfully, he was overruled.

There was the time when a 13-year-old was found half-naked and drunk in a house with a group of seven adult Pakistani men. It was the girl who was arrested, charged and eventually convicted of being drunk and disorderly. The men were not even questioned, never mind arrested. By way of contrast, fathers who attempted to rescue their underage daughters from the houses in which they were being held and raped were arrested.

From the copper on the beat to the highest-ranking officer, not one police officer has been disciplined or lost their job and pension. The same police who turned a blind eye to these crimes are still policing us.

There has been a mass dereliction of duty amongst the media who pride themselves on ‘speaking truth to power’. With a few brave exceptions, such as Andrew Norfolk of the Times and Charlie Peters of GB News, they have chosen to ignore the elephant in the room.

Our progressive elite are so out of touch with the people of Britain they can only see through woke spectacles. Dr Ella Cockbain of University College London wrote in 2013 that she was concerned that the existence of child abusing networks run by South Asian men was ‘fuelling racist rhetoric’. She was so blind to reality that she opined: ‘It can seem that the greatest effrontery about grooming is not the abuse of children but the interracial sex itself.’

The progressives simply cannot grasp how deeply they hold their fellow countrymen and women in contempt. They cannot possibly admit that they look down on the white working class. After all, being liberal-progressives they are the good guys. They are the enlightened. They are the moral arbiters. They are the ones who understand the whole picture. There is a certain parable about specks of sawdust and planks of wood which springs to mind (Matthew 7:3-5).

Professor Alexis Jay, who conducted an inquiry into the mass rapes in Rochdale, wrote: ‘The authorities involved have a great deal to answer for.’ To date no police officer has been disciplined, no social work director sacked, no politician held to account. While unwilling to protect the most vulnerable in society, the progressive managerial class are more than willing to protect their own.

This societal calamity was papered over. That is no longer the case. The mass rape of white British girls is the most egregious example of the high-handed disdain the progressive powers that be have for the indigenous working class.

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 9:53 am
Reply to  Roger

The police would not have ignored these crimes without strong political backing and instruction.

The same thing is happening in NSW and Victoria with respect to the anti-Semitic crimes. Only one person has been arrested and reprimanded and that is the one from Sydney’s north shore which suggests he is not a Muslim.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 11:34 am
Reply to  Crossie

There was that tradie who was prosecuted for making a death threat to Jewish boys on the north shore.

But yes, Labor is compromised by its reliance on the votes of Muslims. For that support they now risk the votes of Hindus and Sikhs, not to mention ethnic Christians.

I don’t like this sectarianism but it has become a fact of life in our two largest cities.

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
January 9, 2025 12:51 pm
Reply to  Roger

Ironic that just yesterday we here were reflecting on the courage of the “Zulu” fighters, and today we see not just the depravity of Pakistani Muslims but also the utter cowardice of police, social workers, and politicians in the UK.

I’m wonder if Kipling’s “The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon” will eventuate?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 9, 2025 8:44 am

Lee mentioned this on the OOT at 9:27 last night:-
(From Fox News)

The husband of “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin has been accused of insurance fraud in a sweeping federal lawsuit filed last month. 

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Emmanuel “Manny” Hostin and his practice, Hostin Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, were named among more than 180 defendants in a major RICO case filed in New York on Dec. 17.

According to The Daily Mail, Hostin and the other defendants were allegedly receiving “kickbacks” for performing surgeries and fraudulently billing the insurance company that provides for Uber, Lyft and other taxi companies. 

It has become fashionable to call for the assassination of those in the health care system who enrich themselves and drive up healthcare costs.
Presumably Dr Hostin has now moved to the top of the hit list?

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 9:07 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

It’s different when they do it.

Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
January 9, 2025 8:47 am

In world events news, that for some reason no one is interested in covering, Indonesia, (our second nearest neighbour and significant trading partner), yesterday became a “fully fledged” member of BRICS.

About 50% of the world’s population is now a member of this trading bloc.
Interestingly, BRICS members hold upwards of 70% of the world’s oil and gas reserves.

Nothing of interest there obviously, she’ll be right mate!
Australia will no doubt, continue to tie itself to the sinking ship that is the USA, while our neighbour will surge ahead economically.

What was that phrase Keating used to describe our future, ……..?

As if it needed pointing out to any sentient being, we are governed by idiots.

Long Time Lurker
Long Time Lurker
January 9, 2025 9:55 am

50% of population, what percentage of the worlds GDP? Under Trump’s Drill Bay Drill, combined with a Pollivere run Canada the future of North America looks bright. We are indeed run by mental midgets in Australia, currently. Dutton is not perfect but he will be far and away better for Australia and as long as he can continue to belt the wets out of positions of authority in a new Coalition Government, we are looking at least 12 years of sensible if not brilliant policy.

Australia, specifically QLD need a Gas reservation policy and the federal government needs to tax international corporations on turnover not profit. Off shoring of their funds is theft, if I need to pay all of my company tax so should they. Turning a bit bolshy in my old age.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 8:49 am
Cassie of Sydney
January 9, 2025 8:50 am

Tintarella di Luna
January 9, 2025 6:28 am

A superb comment, Tinta.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 8:54 am
Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 8:56 am

@GBNEWS

‘I was put in a police car and taken away.’

The father of a Rotherham grooming gang victim tells GB News how he was arrested twice when trying to rescue his daughter from an abuse den.

Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 11:33 am
Reply to  Indolent

The concept of “criminal complicity” seems to have been selectively kicked under the legalists carpet, a LOT, lately

lotocoti
lotocoti
January 9, 2025 8:56 am

In the formerly united Kingdom, Independent Public Inquiries are only held for matters that really matter.
Five years and apparently 20 million quid later, the Labour Party (Scotchlandian branch) still haven’t got the George Floyd they’ve been looking for.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 8:58 am

@alx

FLASHBACK: Four Years Ago, Today: Tucker Carlson reads a statement from Donald Trump’s official POTUS account after his personal one was permanently suspended and watched Twitter 1.0 remove the post in real time.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:00 am

I can’t say I’m much of a basketball fan, but this is pretty amazing.

@HumansNoContext

This kid had to make 4 shots in 25 seconds to win $10k

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:02 am
DavidH
DavidH
January 9, 2025 9:05 am

Bad phrasing in a BBC News article about the UK cold snap …

Isolated yellow snow and ice warnings spanning Wednesday and Thursday are in place across the UK …

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 9:05 am

From Roger’s linked article…

It does the Conservative Party little good to try to assume the high moral ground and call for a national inquiry. They have just emerged from 14 years in power when they did nothing. The police would not have ignored these crimes without strong political backing and instruction.

Quite so.

Perhaps a few “oiks” with tool engravers can pop the name of every member of Parliament who voted against the bill on lampposts around Westminster.

After the massive amount of “progressive” vandalism done to the city, it will be a small thing by comparison.

But an excellent reminder of what might happen if you ignore and abuse the suffering masses for too long. And maybe a certain name on one outside an old Whitehall building … a gentle nudge to someone at the very top of the governing tree as to who consents to them being there.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 10:50 am
Reply to  calli

It’s been a very long time since the Peel Principles were taught at the Police Academy’s.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:06 am
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 10:54 am
Reply to  Indolent

And yet they still think CO2 is a problem.
Whilst we have people in charge who are trapped in this paradigm, we cannot advance.

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:08 am
Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:14 am

@_johnnymaga

Just 4 months ago in LA County, Trump spoke about the need for California to send more water downstate:

“You have so much water…you could revert water up into the Hills, where you have all the dead forests…the land would be damp—and you’d stop many of these horrible fires.”

Indolent
Indolent
January 9, 2025 9:15 am
Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 9:19 am

A couple of comments have been posted regarding Sunny Hostin’s Doctor husband being investigated for RICO violations.
The hilarious thing about this is, the moron Hostin, was implicit in her husband’s downfall. Unbelievably STOOPID!

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/01/07/sunny-hostin-accidently-exposed-her-husbands-alleged-insurance-scam-now-hes-a-defendent-in-a-rico-case-n2184072

Cassie of Sydney
January 9, 2025 9:21 am

I suspect the next move by Fuhrer Sturmer will be to block X. It will be interesting to see what happens then.

Peter Hitchens, who’s usually right about most things, was correct when he said that Fuhrer Sturmer is way more dangerous than the bumbling Jew hater from Islington, Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking of Jew haters, where’s our very own Nazi? I miss him though I’m sure he’s lurking here. It’s odd though that he hasn’t popped his head above the parapet to opine on the UK rape gang scandal, you know that little story about how over 250,000 white working class young girls have been groomed, raped and trafficked by Muslim Pakistani males, whilst the UK Plod, the UK MSM and the UK Labour party all looked the other way. Geez, that’s what I call weird, unable to opine a word of condemnation on the mass rape of little girls. Or perhaps he thinks, like Fuhrer Sturmer, that being outraged about this is just a far-right conspiracy? But you know what, I reckon if the ideological tables were reversed, if the victims were 250,000 Muslim girls groomed, raped and trafficked by Jewish, Hindu or Christians males, our Nazi would have a lot to say. And remember, who can forget his furious outrage over the years on Pell, the Catholic Church, Matt Gaetz, any Liberal/Coalition/right of centre politician or commentator caught in any serious sexual allegations. But don’t worry folks, our Nazi’s silence confirms everything we’ve ever thought about him.

One thing is for sure, Sturmer’s creepy and very sinister involvement in the Southport cover up, in the Muslim Paki rape gangs cover up, and in the Saville affair cover up makes Blob Johnson’s little parties during Covid pale in comparison, in fact I reckon Blob’s misdemeanours are trivial.

Oh and who could forget our Nazi’s furious exhortations about he wants to ‘punch a Nazi‘, well apparently our Nazi’s comrades on the Islamist left in Melbourne are selling t-shirts that say…..

‘bash a Zionist’

That means ‘bashing me’, coz I am a proud Jew and a proud Zionist. Ya see, and it is something I’ve long known about our Nazi, which is that over the years his pious and sanctimonious calls to ‘punch a Nazi’ are just calls to punch/bash people whose opinions he doesn’t like or approve of, and those people, folks, are you, me and others here.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 10:17 am

The Gimp will have to bash me also. I am not a Jew, but I am a Zionist.
The retard would most likely use a feather, it would be all he could lift. A chicken feather would be appropriate. Although, my remaining chook would give a good account of herself against the Gimp.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 9, 2025 10:57 am
Reply to  Pogria

The Gimp would have to bash me, also. Like you, I’m not a Jew, but I support their cause. It’s been a good forty years since I was last in a decent brawl, but I reckon I can still look after myself.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 11:31 am

Zulu,
as crippled as I am, I am quite chuffed that I took out a junkie that attacked me just over a year ago.
Junkies are surprisingly strong.

I grew up with sisters and went to a state school, brawling was a way of life. 😀

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 12:41 pm

Certainly against mUntard.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
January 9, 2025 9:22 am

Following on from Lizzie and Kevin… prepare to be underwhelmed!
ABC elevates small circle of dirt to Gizan Pyramid levels of engineering and mystique.
Seriously… where’s the oral history knowledge from the Oldest Continuous Culture Evah gone, all of a sudden?

Seza
Seza
January 9, 2025 2:31 pm
Reply to  Wally Dalí

Seriously – you are dissing the signs of the five rings from the earliest known Olympics 65,000 years ago!

Long Time Lurker
Long Time Lurker
January 9, 2025 9:27 am

On The LA Fires. I have been watching the news services, playing a rousing game of spot the eucalypt. Lucky it’s not a drinking game or i would be ratted. The mental midgets around the world who planted Gum trees are on par with the twits who introduced Cane Toads to QLD. Leftist ideas of nature and conservation are producing the same catastrophic results the world over.

When I was in Cape Town last Christmas visiting the Wife’s family they had a massive fire that spanned the entirety of southern parts of the Peninsular. (The local thought was it was the local Muzzies starting them all. A mostly integrated Muslim population, Hundreds of years old has becoming more radicalized in recent decades.) We were staying in a little village called Scarborough that is surrounded by National Park. The entirety of the surrounds was burnt out but nothing in the town was damaged. The locals had constructed a huge firebreak all the way around and were maintaining it themselves. They have a large number of Eucalypt planted there, they call them aliens, and the local firefighting method is to let the native plants burn and protect the stands of Gums. I have no idea why they just don’t bulldoze the bastards and be done with it.

The idea is that if the fire gets into the aliens, it will cause a wildfire that will be uncontrollable. The local stuff is a low growing gorse or heath and doesn’t present much of an issue when burning. They do use ground-based fire appliances for local control and protection of buildings but as its mostly mountain most of the firefighting is done by helicopter water bombers. They fill the buckets from the ocean and get straight to the fire.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 9, 2025 9:39 am

Visiting the Transvaal, we were told “Oh, Australians hey? We have two things to thank you for – “Breaker” Morant and eucalyptus trees.”

Cassie of Sydney
January 9, 2025 9:33 am

You know, isn’t it amazing, how only four years ago Donald Trump was persona non grata after January 6, his Twitter account suspended, his Facebook account blocked, and other mainstream social media outlets getting ready to purge him. Donald Trump was both cancelled and silenced in real time. He was sentenced to a gulag.

And now Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated as POTUS for a second time, Musk owns X and Facebook are dispensing with ‘fact checkers’ almost all of whom were leftist and far-leftist shills.

It’s divine. Back in July 2024, watching the assassination attempt on Trump live with my late mother, as the footage came through showing that bullet narrowly miss Donald Trump, Mum rightly said there were angels on the podium that day protecting Trump.

If atheists want or need proof of God, it happened in July 2024 on that green Pennsylvania field.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 10, 2025 4:07 am

Beautifully put, Cassie.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 9:44 am

It does the Conservative Party little good to try to assume the high moral ground and call for a national inquiry. They have just emerged from 14 years in power when they did nothing.

That being said, Badenoch is a relative newbie to Westminster.

She needs to lift her game tactically, but she has done the right thing.

Rosie
Rosie
January 9, 2025 9:45 am

These were discovered in 2018.
I was in Huelva in February 2023 and can assure you they are not open to the public.
As for cat travellers not visiting other megalithic sites, can’t speak for anyone else, but I visited 2 in Malta, as well as the museum that housed many pieces removed from them, in February 2024 and mentioned them, no doubt at length here.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/18/megalithic-complex-standing-stones-discovered-spain

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 10:09 am
Reply to  Rosie

It’s one of my “must do’s” on vacation. Visited sites in France, Spain, Wales and Scotland. Also Iceland. Wherever I can find them.

Ancient rings, forts, tombs, alignments. Not everything is Stonehenge sized!

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 10, 2025 4:16 am
Reply to  Rosie

We’ve made special efforts to visit many of these sites in Europe, Scandinavia, Ireland, Malta and the Med, including Spain and France.
At the very beginning of the neolithic, in Mesopotamia, anthropomorphic stone pillars have been found that seem religious in nature and which served a hunter-gatherer-horticulture/herding type of system. Early days, but stone was still king, as it had been from the time of the trading across Europe of Langdale adzes, valued for their provenance of coming from British Lakeland’s highest and most inaccessible peaks. Close to the gods of those days.

Stone. There was no shortage of stone in most places. It was hard and useful and worth consecrating, especially as archaeologist Pearson suggests re Stonehenge, to mark the transition from wood (living, impermanent) to stone (dying, dead forever).

lotocoti
lotocoti
January 9, 2025 9:57 am

Perfect.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 9:58 am

https://open.substack.com/pub/jameshowardkunstler/p/january-2025-eyesore?r=1easrn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
From Clusterfick Nation –

Could this possibly be real? It was on a Trulia real estate site in a New England town not to be named. I cannot be more specific, to avoid legal hassles. It’s 10,000 square feet on 6 acres, 9 BRs, 9 baths. Priced at $3,670,600. (What could that final $600 possibly signify?) Some builder gave steroids, Mescaline, and ketamine to the notion of a neo-Georgian house, and this is what you get in that state of “dissociative anesthesia.” 

lotocoti
lotocoti
January 9, 2025 10:01 am
calli
calli
January 9, 2025 10:12 am
Reply to  lotocoti

He must have got wind of my lamppost engraving plan!

Barry
Barry
January 9, 2025 11:00 am
Reply to  lotocoti

Avoiding voting against an inquiry that would find he acted improperly. Admitting guilt, albeit by omission.

Cassie of Sydney
January 9, 2025 10:05 am

Take two.

From Churchill, a man who fought fascists, to the fascist Fuhrer Sturmer.

Britain has not just fallen, it’s collapsed.

Last edited 1 month ago by Cassie of Sydney
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 9, 2025 10:15 am

Cassie of Sydney
 January 9, 2025 9:21 am

I suspect the next move by Fuhrer Sturmer will be to block X. 

How?
Apart from stopping people and searching their phones for X.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 11:32 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

The free speech cat is now well and truly out of the bag.

And it’s a Bengal tiger.

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 1:19 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

they would just prevent the carriers from accepting X traffic.

of course, everyone will just set up a VPN which will give the impression they live in Botswana and the like to get around that.

in Australia after the kiddie proof of age social media legislation I expect a VPN will part of the coming of age process for all 12YOs as soon as they get their own phone

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 10:20 am

Some wag opined that it was 1776 all over again.

The Poms can’t tax X into submission. They can only punish their own who use it. Now that will be interesting to watch.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 9, 2025 10:21 am

I got to thinking about the end-game with Trump talking about Greenland.
I think this is part of a ploy to wedge the EU.
I heard one of the usual suspects this morning on radio referring to it as “an EU territory”.
Err, no it isn’t.
The EU owns nothing.
It is Danish territory.
I reckon Trump will offer Denmark yuuuge incentives to let the US in.
The EU will oppose it, and Denmark will then face a dilemma.
Buckle under to the EU, or take the cash.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 11:13 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

The Danish leadership are Leftists.
They’ll buckle like a favourite old belt.

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 1:21 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

If the 50 odd thousand Greenlanders say they wanted to become a territory of the USA, what could the Danes do about it?

Go Viking? Do they even have a navy ship bigger than a fishing boat?

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
January 9, 2025 6:09 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

Will ultimately turn on what the locals want – right of self determination and all that.

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 10:26 am

I’m having a lot of fun quenching the Fan Club’s early morning tumescence. Many…many reflexive downdroops.

It will soon be so useless it will go gangrenous and require amputation.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 11:35 am
Reply to  calli

I’ll lend it my long handled lopper. No way I would get too close. Happy to lop it though. 😀

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 9, 2025 10:30 am

Joondalup council vote in favour of 30-day advertising over renaming of Blackboy Park in MullalooErick LopezPerthNow – Joondalup
Thu, 9 January 2025 2:00AM

The City of Joondalup has approved a motion to bring the renaming of Blackboy Park in Mullaloo a step closer.
Joondalup councillors voted 11-1 at its December meeting in favour of the name change to Koorlangka Park, which will now be advertised to the public for 30 days for feedback.
The move comes after five years of proposals, first put by Cr Russ Fishwick in 2019, that deemed the term blackboy no longer appropriate.
The city engaged Aboriginal consultancy Nyungar Birdiya in early 2024 to provide a recommendation for the renaming.
Koorlangka Kallip, loosely meaning ‘children’s park’ in Noongar, was the original name proposed by the group but city officers instead recommended keeping the term ‘Park’ to avoid community confusion after feedback by Landgate.
“I am now pleased, over five-and-a-half years (later), we are now proposing to go out to the public advising of the name Koorlangka Park for 30 days and I’m just happy that the wheels are about to stop grinding and we may have a change of name from Blackboy Park to something else,” Cr Fishwick said.
Cr Lewis Hutton said he supported the name change in this instance but warned against too many name changes in future.

Local Government, tackling the vital issues…

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 9, 2025 11:01 am

Renaming it Dirk Hartog Park would be just fine.

Rossini
Rossini
January 9, 2025 11:44 am

I hope they still collect the garbage!

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 12:43 pm
Reply to  Rossini

The what?

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 10:39 am

Some wag opined that it was 1776 all over again.

The Poms can’t tax X into submission. 

The British parliament raised taxes on the north American colonies principally to pay for the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which was ignited at the battle of Jumonville Glen by none other than George Washington.

Last edited 1 month ago by Roger
cohenite
January 9, 2025 10:48 am

Good toons especially Branco showing the old pervert giving the medal of freedom to Satan. Speaking of which the disgusting pervert is considering pre-emptive pardons:

Joe Biden considers shielding Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci and other Trump foes with preemptive pardons – Washington Times

Another potential assassination threat:

Machete-wielding man arrested at Capitol ahead of Trump visit

And finally that pig, starmer prevents an enquiry into his failure to prosecute the muzzie goat rooters rape gangs; look at the muzzies; what an adornment they are to pommie society (coming here now);

British Lawmakers Reject Proposal for Muslim Rape Gangs Inquiry.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 11:36 am
Reply to  cohenite

Is a pre-emptive pardon even legal? Would the Supreme Court uphold one?

And wouldn’t accepting one be an admission of guilt?

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 11:40 am
Reply to  cohenite

Notice that Starmer abstained after tell everyone else to vote against it?

Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 9:12 pm
Reply to  cohenite

Very likely because they know the livestock and underage girl fanciers have a good grasp of the interesting proclivities of UK pubic serpents,, pollie-muppets and the judiciary. Like: “I’ll see your underage rape video and raise you one o group bestiality and Satanic capering””. That sort of thing.

BTW, Oz is rumoured to be NOT immune to similar groups having similar “proclivities”:

cohenite
January 9, 2025 10:49 am

Good toons especially Branco showing the old pervert giving the medal of freedom to Satan. Speaking of which the disgusting pervert is considering pre-emptive pardons:

Joe Biden considers shielding Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci and other Trump foes with preemptive pardons – Washington Times

Another potential assassination threat:

Machete-wielding man arrested at Capitol ahead of Trump visit

And finally that pig, starmer prevents an enquiry into his failure to prosecute the muzzie goat rooters rape gangs; look at the muzzies; what an adornment they are to pommie society (coming here now);

British Lawmakers Reject Proposal for Muslim Rape Gangs Inquiry.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 9, 2025 10:50 am

Musk is yesterday’s anti-Christ.
Today’s devil incarnate is … Mark Suckerberg.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 9, 2025 10:57 am

I heard you the first time Cohenite.

cohenite
January 9, 2025 3:26 pm
Reply to  alwaysright

Yeah, I was so excited I posted twice. It’s like I became young again.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 10:57 am

Today’s devil incarnate is … Mark Suckerberg.

Interestingly, the ABC (of all people) featured an interview with a former colleague of Zuckerberg yesterday who said that Zuckerberg favours free speech/community notes and only acceded to the fact checkers because of the political environment under Biden.

Make of it what you will.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 9, 2025 11:40 am
Reply to  Roger

The old corpse will carry the can for all manner of ills.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 11:57 am
Reply to  H B Bear

And rightly so.

Frank
Frank
January 9, 2025 12:00 pm
Reply to  Roger

That doesn’t explain why he was censoring the laptop story for the 2020 election, Biden was not in power then.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 12:07 pm
Reply to  Frank

Prevailed upon to do so.

“Nice business you got here. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it when Joe becomes POTUS. Be a good fellow…”

Last edited 1 month ago by Roger
Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 1:24 pm
Reply to  Roger

Original iteration of Facebook was a nerd’s college girl rating system wasn’t it?

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 11:39 am
Reply to  Bruce

Slashed the Fire Department?

Los Angeles has been a hotspot for fires for decades. Is that well named Karen completely stupid?

Dunny Brush
Dunny Brush
January 9, 2025 11:10 am

Well that didn’t last long: Brad Battin already giving interviews to the age promising not to be a conservative.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 11:40 am
Reply to  Dunny Brush

Captured…caged…neutered!

Last edited 1 month ago by Roger
Rossini
Rossini
January 9, 2025 11:41 am
Reply to  Dunny Brush

What to expect from the SFL!

mem
mem
January 9, 2025 1:01 pm
Reply to  Dunny Brush

Battin yesterday on radio news homed in on Labor’s disastrous energy polices saying that wind and solar could never cut the chase. That Victoria needed baseload etc. It seems to me he is off to a good start.

hzhousewife
hzhousewife
January 9, 2025 11:17 am

James Wood (actor) is being interviewed by Laura Ingraham – he is scathing about LA management. I don’t think he knows if his house exists any more yet.

Anders
Anders
January 9, 2025 11:44 am
Reply to  hzhousewife

He tweeted all the smoke detectors started sending alarms to his iphone, at that point he thought it was gone.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 9, 2025 3:02 pm
Reply to  hzhousewife

Truly a Road to Damascus moment for luvvies.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 11:39 am

James Wood (actor) is being interviewed by Laura Ingraham – he is scathing about LA management. 

Another dimension to this….there is already speculation that the Palisades fire began in a homeless encampment, which is reportedly a regular occurrence.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 9, 2025 11:42 am

giving interviews to the age

The numbers work in his favour. By my count only 15 people read the age.

Bill From the Bush
Bill From the Bush
January 9, 2025 11:47 am

From todays Oz.
Sadly this creature probably believes what he sprayed out.
Check the picture from the article at the end. The kid at lower right understands the importance of it all. Poor bugger will cop it at his 21st.

Anthony Albanese says he is better placed than Peter Dutton to forge a productive relationship with Donald Trump, arguing his close ties with Indo-Paci?c leaders would be valuable to the US president-elect in an era of competition between major powers.
The Prime Minister signalled he would not change his approach with China if Mr Trump launched a trade war, lauding the reopening of trade with Beijing as an economic win for Australia.
“We are a sovereign nation and we will act in terms of our economic interest,” Mr Albanese told The Australian. “We believe in free trade, not protectionism.”
Mr Albanese on Wednesday visited a massive cattle station in the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, boasting that his government’s success in lifting beef restrictions would lead to exports to China surpassing $2bn this year, higher than when restrictions were implemented in 2020.
They (beef exports to China) have not only hit back, they have hit back stronger with the lifting,” he said.
The 1.2 million hectare Lake Nash cattle station, owned by prominent graziers Peter and Jane Hughes, is home to up to 60,000 cattle and China is a key market for the beef produced there.
Mr Albanese said the restart of the lobster trade had been “incredible”, with more than 500,000kg of the shell?sh being exported to China since Christmas Day
The Coalition has argued that there is a risk to the US relationship if it is left to the Albanese government to deal with Mr Trump, as Mr Albanese and several cabinet ministers have previously voiced strong criticisms of the president-elect.
Mr Albanese said it was he who was better placed to forge close ties with the incoming administration, arguing the relationships he had forged with regional leaders would carry weight with Mr Trump.
Despite Mr Trump vowing to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord and accelerate fossil-fuel development, Mr Albanese said Mr Dutton’s lack of ambition on climate change would diminish Australia’s standing in the region and reduce Canberra’s geostrategic relevance. He said Paci?c leaders had not forgotten Mr Dutton’s joke in 2015 – caught on a boom mic – making light of rising sea levels in the region.
“We have improved our relationship with the Paci?c,” the Prime Minister said. “It has been repaired. It was in disarray when we came into of?ce.
“A precondition of credibility is action on climate change and Peter Dutton’s position on the Paci?c and climate change is one where they all remember him joking about the impact of climate change on their countries.”
One of the things that puts Australia at good stead with our allies is the role that we play in our region.
I have an excellent relationship with Japan and India, as well as the United States.
The relationship that we have built with Indonesia, we have seen the products of our diplomacy and the work we have put in place.”
Mr Albanese said his positive ?rst phone call with Mr Trump had left him optimistic on the relationship and the future of the AUKUS security pact.

The Prime Minister will attempt to replicate the actions of the former Coalition government during the ?rst Trump administration and win carve outs from tariffs for Australian products exported to the US.
In the wake of comments by Mr Trump pushing for Greenland and Canada to become provinces of the US, Mr Albanese said he would not respond to comments from the incoming leader unless they impacted Australia.
When asked if Mr Trump’s comments showed he had ambitions to expand US territory, Mr Albanese said: “I will leave that to commentators about what the – incoming president has to say”.
With Mr Trump likely to unwind US support for low-emissions technologies and withdraw from the Paris agreement, Mr Albanese said he did not think this would lead to a slowing of momentum on global climate change action. Mr Albanese said strong action on climate change would continue to be the overwhelming policy of nations in APEC and the G20.
Countries aren’t about to change whether they believe climate change action is necessary,” the Prime Minister said. “They will do that because the science, overwhelmingly, is agreed and they will respond accordingly. But secondly as well, the economic opportunity that is there from acting on climate change and the shift to net zero is evident to all as well.”
The interview with The Australian came as Mr Albanese this week hit the ground campaigning for the ?rst time in 2025, pledging infrastructure and housing – announcements in Queensland and Western Australia.
On Thursday, Mr Albanese will unveil a $200m housing and infrastructure package for WA and allow international shipping to enter three more ports in the state’s north.First-point-of-entry status will be given to the northern facilities of Wyndham, Ashburton and Dampier, with Mr Albanese to spruik the announcement in the town of Kununurra before campaigning in Perth later in the day. He will be joined by West Australian Premier Roger Cook, who is facing an election in March.

Picky-little-fella
Louis Litt
Louis Litt
January 10, 2025 1:12 pm

And I will play centre for Collingwood and its because of me we will win all eh games and I will be the greatest Fig Jam at Collingwood but AFL History

local oaf
January 9, 2025 11:56 am

Caveat emptor

472792625_10161139782308041_3587057561192201592_n
Arky
January 9, 2025 12:05 pm

The biggest scams in history:
One. War. Specifically the idea of war as a great adventure that will make a man of you.

Two. Climate change. Mankind has little or no influence over climate, and the systems that govern weather are impossibly complex and chaotic. Any idiot can get them to model anything they want over longer time periods.

Three: Electric cars. We gave up on these stupid things 120 years ago for good reasons. They only exist now because of government interference in markets. I should not have to tell you what happens to those participating in a market with heavy government interference. When it unwinds the losses will be horrendous.

Four. Redistribution of wealth through social programs. See above comment on what happens in markets when government interference inevitably unwinds.

Five. Self driving cars. No car guy wants to be driven. Even less by some disembodied force. And for car users who do want to be driven, such a thing already exists, it’s called the bus.

Six. Universities. Throughout history the idea of the guild returns time after time, and with it the concept of the indispensable expert without whom chaos would ensue as all sorts of unqualified persons would start flying planes and doing brain surgery. From the ancient druids to the modern DEI HR professional, 90% of credentialism proves itself to be the product of a self serving clique of arseholes. Qualifications are what you are given in a system that has ossified past the stages of discovery and exploration and entered a time when it’s value is routinely looted.

Seven. Career politicians. Societies contain a large variety of interests. Think of those interests as vectors. Some vectors nearly overlap, some are in entirely opposite directions. Some dangle at random angles. The average size and direction of every vector added together will be the direction and speed at which a society moves. The politicians are at best a medium for communicating those vectors, or mostly… extraneous. At worst they feed parasitically upon an arbitrage between various interests.

Last edited 1 month ago by dover0beach
hzhousewife
hzhousewife
January 9, 2025 12:25 pm
Reply to  Arky

Gee Arky, you keep your finger on the button for just a tad too long !

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
January 9, 2025 1:08 pm
Reply to  Arky

When Arky begins his campaign for Benign Dictator of Australia with these 7 pillars as his platform, we can say we read it here first.
I’ll be voting for him.

Figures
Figures
January 9, 2025 2:30 pm
Reply to  Arky
  1. Socialism
  2. Germ theory
  3. Feminism
Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 9:30 pm
Reply to  Arky

Vectors have magnitude and direction..

Scalar “quantities” only have ONE of these essential attributes.

The world is awash with grossly overpaid scalar quantities.Just for giggles, “vectors” is a medical / veterinary term.

As in: “The principal VECTORS of the currently fashionable Bubonic Plague, , are fleas and black rats”.

A Vet mate of mine briefly had a cat that he named “Vector”. It demised after starting to bring home native lizards; freshly dead ones. Never had a cat on his property since. His Rottweiler pup saw to that.

Your mileage may very.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 9, 2025 12:14 pm

Just had a look at Google Earth.
Why would Pacific Palisades have a fire problem?
/sarc off.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 9, 2025 3:04 pm
Reply to  Eyrie

Ditto the Dandenongs. Wouldn’t live there if you paid me.

Tom
Tom
January 9, 2025 12:15 pm

I reckon Trump will offer Denmark yuuuge incentives to let the US in [to Greenland]. The EU will oppose it, and Denmark will then face a dilemma. Buckle under to the EU, or take the cash.

Let’s cut to the chase: the legacy news media is utterly useless as a source of information about stuff important to the public – like China’s interest in taking over Greenland because of its geostrategic importance.

The last time the BBC took an interest was seven years ago — How Greenland could become China’s Arctic base.

You’d think the media would be consumed with the subject now that  the incoming US president has expressed an interest in Greenland, but when it comes to Trump, the media asks only one question: how can we stop him?

When it behaves like a political party trying to destroy its ideological enemies, it is no longer any type of news media. Ninety per cent of the US, UK and Australian news media are useless.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 12:46 pm
Reply to  Tom

Only ninety percent?

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 9, 2025 9:06 pm
Reply to  Tom

Worse than useless.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 12:17 pm

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/01/the-horror-at-kibbutz-beeri-stay-on-the-line-and-hear-them-die

The Israel government has released a recording made by the Shin Bet of a telephone call it conducted with Israelis being held by Hamas captors at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023. The Shin Bet operative also talks to one of the Hamas men, a certain “Hasan.” Among Hasan’s chilling remarks there was this: “Stay on the line and hear them die.” The recording captures the confusion, chaos, and sheer horror of that day, when a Hamas man casually murders several children, and other Israelis are forced to stand outside one of the buildings where, their Hamas captors know, they will be mistakenly killed by the IDF.

And people are either naive enough, or stupid enough to think we can negotiate with Islam?

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 12:44 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

Just Hamburg/Tokyo the place as a reminder that we have limits to our patience, or continue to wail about why we are losing this existential battle.
And the prisoners Israel has taken, and the proven rapists – why are they still alive? Rape in wartime is a capital crime. Or is Israel waiting for the next batch of hostages to be taken so the Hamas prisoners can be given back?
Because at the moment, Israel is losing this fight.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 9, 2025 12:55 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

Numbers used to negotiate with muzzies. .223, 5.56, 7.62, .50. Anything they don’t understand.

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 12:28 pm

Arky, did you have to say it five times? It was pretty darn good once. 😛

vr
vr
January 9, 2025 12:33 pm

I was on a flight the other day. The flight attendant didn’t do the land acknowledgement when we landed.

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 1:00 pm
Reply to  vr

Lucky you. Did you buy a lottery ticket? 😀

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 9, 2025 3:11 pm
Reply to  vr

Which airline?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 9, 2025 12:39 pm

Roger

 January 9, 2025 10:57 am

Today’s devil incarnate is … Mark Suckerberg.

Interestingly, the ABC (of all people) featured an interview with a former colleague of Zuckerberg yesterday who said that Zuckerberg favours free speech/community notes and only acceded to the fact checkers because of the political environment under Biden.

Make of it what you will.

Things what make you go “Hmmmm.”
Facebook introduced “fact-checking” in December 2016, just before Orange Hitler the First ascended to the throne.
So it is hard to lay that one at Biden’s feet.
Sure, it may have increased and become more emboldened under Biden, but it is hard to accept that this wasn’t Suckerberg’s natural leaning.
The most invidious aspect of “fact checking” was that old standby, “there is no credible source for this claim”. Once you exclude the Mudrock press, climate sceptics and anyone labelled Far Right on Wikipedia from the Credible Sources Club, it all becomes very easy.
It would be interesting to do a little retrospective on some of the culling done by “fact checkers”:-
“Floyd George had enough Fentanyl in him to kill a circus donkey”; [Bzzzt]
“Kung Flu escaped from a Chinese lab”; [X]
“Joe Biden has a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock”; [Top of his game].

Last edited 1 month ago by Sancho Panzer
132andBush
132andBush
January 9, 2025 12:42 pm

Interestingly, the ABC (of all people) featured an interview with a former colleague of Zuckerberg yesterday who said that Zuckerberg favours free speech/community notes and only acceded to the fact checkers because of the political environment under Biden.

Sure. I remain unconvinced.

I cite the actions of
Chris Pavlovski, Rumble CEO.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
January 9, 2025 12:43 pm

From Winston Smith @ 12:17pm……

And people are either naive enough, or stupid enough to think we can negotiate with Islam?

To negotiate with Islam means capitulate.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 12:53 pm
Reply to  Barking Toad

Why Is “Or There Will be All Hell to Pay” Not the Entire Negotiation?https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21296/trump-hostages-hell-to-pay

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is already in Doha, Qatar, negotiating. Not very astonishingly, the negotiations keep breaking down….

The question arises: why is Witkoff in Qatar negotiating? Negotiating for what? How many dead hostages for how many live Palestinian terrorists now in Israeli prisons?

Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 9:37 pm
Reply to  Barking Toad

Negotiate?

There is always the “Fifth Element” negotiation style:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyxxLHfBwE

Kneel
Kneel
January 9, 2025 12:48 pm

“The most invidious aspect of “fact checking” was that old standby, “there is no credible source for this claim”.”

Shirley not. Shirley it is “without evidence”.
They conflate “evidence” and “proof”.
“No proof” is often times true.
“No evidence” is an out and out lie most times.

Kel
Kel
January 9, 2025 12:49 pm

**Shocking Revelation: DHS Fails to Protect Vulnerable Children from Trafficking**

In a chilling admission, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared that addressing the trafficking of alien children falls “outside the responsibility” of his department.

This statement comes amid troubling evidence indicating that more than half a million illegal immigrant children have entered the United States in recent years, with reports suggesting that a staggering number of them—about 120,000 annually—are unaccounted for.

According to a recent investigation published by The New York Times, a significant portion of these children—approximately one-third—vanish within thirty days of their arrival, raising serious concerns about their safety and well-being.

While Secretary Mayorkas acknowledged awareness of these reports, he downplayed the implications, suggesting that many missing children simply refuse to comply with the conditions of their release.

In reality, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inability to account for these vulnerable children is both alarming and unacceptable. Internal audits have revealed that DHS has failed to monitor the whereabouts of around 300,000 children, leaving them at risk of exploitation or worse.

Critics argue that this negligence effectively incentivizes family separations, as children embark on perilous journeys to the border, often in the hands of coyotes. The loophole allowing for “unaccompanied alien children” to be treated with leniency remains a cornerstone of the current administration’s immigration policy—a platform that Democrats are committed to preserving

Elon – why not draw attention to the home turf? Wouldn’t hurt you or President Trump.

Lee
Lee
January 9, 2025 12:51 pm

It just occurred to me the “progressive” left’s contrasting reactions to the completely made up scandal in Kamloops, Canada compared with the very real (and ongoing) Muesli rape scandal in the UK.

In the Kamloops case leftists worked themselves up into frothing self-righteous outrage and even burned down or destroyed many churches, despite a complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing.

Contrast that with the left’s almost complete indifference to widespread rape, torture, and even murder of young girls in Britain.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 2:43 pm
Reply to  Lee

Indeed. Oddly, the leftards show neither enthusiasm for bringing the culprits to justice, nor for burning down a few mosques.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
January 9, 2025 9:27 pm
Reply to  Lee

Same with our sham royal commission, of course.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
January 9, 2025 12:57 pm

The genius of Labor policy.
Another WA abattoir closes. Minerva Foods closed its doors yesterday citing a lack of sheep as WA farmers get out of sheep because of low price backed off of the live sheep ban.
Albo promised a bright future and cash for “transition” away from the live trade but it seems market realities once again expose the lie.
The swing can be seen in the fact that WA produced 3 million more tonne of grain than forecast. That’s basically sheep country put to crop.
Labor’s industry kill rate puts any abattoir in the shade.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 1:01 pm

Things what make you go “Hmmmm.”

I’m still trying to work out why the ABC ran the interview.

It hardly fits their censorship agenda.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 9, 2025 1:07 pm
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 9, 2025 1:22 pm
Reply to  Eyrie

Biden just emptied Gitmo.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have.
Great place to put lefties in.

Bruce
Bruce
January 9, 2025 9:44 pm
Reply to  Eyrie

There used to be / maybe still is an openly “gay” US shooting association called “The Pink Pistols”; oddly enough, very pro 2A.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
January 9, 2025 1:10 pm

Is Newsom to Blame for California’s Wildfires? | Power Line
Short answer- yes, plus the long-active anti-human environmental industry.
Eucalyptus pyrocumulus spp. not mentioned…

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 1:11 pm

Labor’s industry kill rate puts any abattoir in the shade.

Reports in the business press that Minerva is considering pulling out of Australia completely.

That’s the second facility they’ve closed in as many years.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
January 9, 2025 1:19 pm

Effing brilliant.
Meanwhile I’m begging to give away my last 2000 lambs which were bang in the middle of the grid, week before christmas.
BTW, not at all whelmed by The Lamb Ad 2025. Showcased the cleverness of the writers, absolutely failed to showcase the qualities of the product.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 9, 2025 3:12 pm
Reply to  Wally Dali

Used to be very funny. Now woke pretending not to be woke!

Foxbody
Foxbody
January 9, 2025 5:34 pm
Reply to  Top Ender

All the references/in jokes will be enjoyed by the people who will never eat lamb.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
January 9, 2025 1:22 pm

FFS need new windscreen. Fricken goat track of the Hume Fwy Wallan onramp to Beveridge. Road surface debris from truck and we were a fair way back.

Rang round in Melbourne hoping to get it done while here. Nope, nowhere today anywhere. About to nurse it back up GV hoping we don’t get pulled over as it is in a rubbish spot drivers side and try Shepparton early next week.

Obviously windsceens don’t get done in the same day anymore…

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 1:55 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

No O’Brien’s anymore?

bons
bons
January 9, 2025 1:58 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

It says something about Victoria that you did not lose a windscreen on the bush roads that you habitually drive, but, on a Victorian freeway!

Bill P
Bill P
January 9, 2025 3:02 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

Just give Dan Andrews a call.
He’ll give you the drill for driving with a broken windscreen.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 9, 2025 1:27 pm

Obviously windscreens don’t get done in the same day anymore…

Not only that but modern cars have cameras etc attached and may need calibration after replacement. Not a simple job anymore.
Hint for Mazda owners – make sure your insurance covers genuine part replacement for the windscreen as the Pilkington ones are crap. Your HUD will be out of focus and your wipers not work properly.

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 2:23 pm
Reply to  Eyrie

Yes the windscreen insurance extra definitely worth it, even for city people.
$2k for a Santa Fe windscreen.

Last edited 1 month ago by Entropy
Kel
Kel
January 9, 2025 1:33 pm

From the it’s not suss at all dept

In a move justified by the company as a strategy to avoid “financial failure,” State Farm canceled over 72,000 homeowners’ policies statewide, with Pacific Palisades—a now-charred affluent neighborhood—bearing a significant brunt.
James Woods, a renowned actor and Pacific Palisades resident, summed up the community’s frustration on social media.

“Actually, one of the major insurance companies canceled all the policies in our neighborhood about four months ago,” he wrote.

State Farm Canceled Hundreds of Pacific Palisades Homeowners’ Policies Before Devastating Wildfire Strikes | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim H?ft

Anders
Anders
January 9, 2025 1:46 pm
Reply to  Kel

They probably just looked at the area on Google Maps and went hell no. Massive fire waiting to happen.

Foxbody
Foxbody
January 9, 2025 5:45 pm
Reply to  Anders

Insurance companies assess and price risk – it is the core of their business.
I suspect their assessment of Southern California turned up the things now reaching the media – no brush control/backburning, many, many eucalypts, compromised water supply, ineffective Fire Dept. management, ineffective local government, State government opposed to fire management initiatives, plus many high value properties at risk.
The risk matrix would require huge premiums – and as the State Government will not allow this, the only responsible decision for an insurer is to leave the market.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 9, 2025 2:05 pm
Reply to  Kel

California regulates insurance premium rises because marxism. So insurance companies have bugged out.

California’s insurance crisis resulting in canceled policies, increased rates. Here’s what to know (16 Mar)

California regulates insurance companies and their rate increases, so a number of insurance companies have simply pulled out of the state.

It’s one reason it’s getting harder to find a policy. Allstate stopped issuing homeowners insurance policies to new customers in California in 2022, and stopped directly selling new auto insurance policies in the state.

Ditto house insurance. That’s the same old socialism problem: if you fix the price of bread you rapidly reach the situation where there’s no bread in the shops.

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 3:40 pm
Reply to  Kel

The people who had their policies cancelled then have a right to sue the state government for not taking proper measures to prevent the fires. A class action even.

Roger
Roger
January 9, 2025 1:33 pm

You’d think the media would be consumed with the subject now that the incoming US president has expressed an interest in Greenland, but when it comes to Trump, the media asks only one question: how can we stop him?

The msm stop Trump?

They might as well tell a lion not to roar.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
January 9, 2025 1:34 pm

Wally Dalí
January 9, 2025 1:10 pm

Is Newsom to Blame for California’s Wildfires? | Power Line
Short answer- yes, plus the long-active anti-human environmental industry.
Eucalyptus pyrocumulus spp. not mentioned…

——

Spot on.

Check this out.

Raw footage and no narration ( middle finger to on site legacy media reporters … I don’t need to hear from your dribbling bums telling me what i can see for myself. ) from OnsceneTV.

The opening of the clip you will see fireman having to fill buckets, water bags etc from the fire appliances to help douse fires.

Effin ridiculous.

22:22

Structures Burn as Palisades Fire Explodes to 1,200+ Acres

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 2:25 pm
Reply to  Steve trickler

1,200 acres? What a piddling show.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 1:38 pm

This statement comes amid troubling evidence indicating that more than half a million illegal immigrant children have entered the United States in recent years, with reports suggesting that a staggering number of them—about 120,000 annually—are unaccounted for.

With the UK Parliament declining to investigate their “rape gangs”, are Trump and Musk setting the scene for a US investigation that will set a precedent?

calli
calli
January 9, 2025 1:53 pm
Reply to  Boambee John.

I mentioned the closer to home implications a couple of days ago. The pumps are getting primed.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
January 9, 2025 2:22 pm
Reply to  Boambee John.

Until you’ve been a ten year old with ‘carers’ who didn’t give a damn, and you’ve been handed over to two paedophiles for the school holidays, you have little idea of what the term ‘helpless’ means.
I certainly hope Trump and Musk ARE setting that scene.

Boambee John.
Boambee John.
January 9, 2025 3:37 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

And the DemonRats will be even more terrified than Der Sturmer and company just what might be uncovered.

There might be a lot of leftard jail cell “suicides” ahead.

Kneel
Kneel
January 9, 2025 1:46 pm

“Things what make you go “Hmmmm.””

See also: “Things you see when you don’t have a gun”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 9, 2025 1:54 pm

Labor’s industry kill rate puts any abattoir in the shade.

Doing my bit for the industry. Lady koel brought her boyfriend to the Cafe a couple months ago. Today managed to hand feed him mince twice within a minute. He’s hooked. The way to a man, or male birdie, is through his stomach. Now, with fine nosh and a beautiful lady koel, he’s stopped singing at 3am, so that’s a fringe benefit.

And the currawongs are starting to come back. Three pairs this morning, after months of no currawongs. Even though I went to the shops earlier today I think I’ll have to go again on Saturday.

Have been evicting the cockies though: they’ve been behaving badly (by attacking other birdies, especially the kookas). So they got hosed this morning. Much consternation! How can you do this terrible thing to us!

Pogria
Pogria
January 9, 2025 1:59 pm

Kill all Cockies.
Totally useless, evil birds.

Entropy
Entropy
January 9, 2025 2:26 pm

Cockies I can live with. Koels? bastard of a bird.

JC
JC
January 9, 2025 2:02 pm

These LA fires are an absolute disaster. People without insurance were unable to obtain coverage because insurance firms haven’t been offering policies in LA or have been charging exorbitant prices. This also means these lost homes are mortgage-free, as mortgage companies won’t lend without an insurance policy attached. In other words, the loss of homes will be personal and non-recoverable—a dreadful situation.

Newsom is getting the blame, and rightly so. The DEI fire chief and the LA mayor (also DEI), along with Newsom, are totally incompetent. If anything could shake Californians into voting GOP in the next round, this should be it.

vr
vr
January 9, 2025 2:14 pm
Reply to  JC

I agree with all you say here, but don’t think it will change voting habits. This will be a distant memory in two years time.

JC
JC
January 9, 2025 2:20 pm
Reply to  vr

vr, obviously it’s just speculation, but I can’t for the life of me believe this level of incompetence will not cause an attitude change. I also think the Trump win has basically begun to change the country at the margin. They Demon fence sitters may not be as spooked any longer. We’ll see.

Fire hydrants ran dry! The governor, the mayor and the fire chief should be on death row by now. This level of incompetence is now criminal,

I read the dropped funding to the fire department this year. I wonder if was channeled toward the illegals?

vr
vr
January 9, 2025 2:32 pm
Reply to  JC

This is the same thing we see in leftist strongholds — recall Victoria. I do not understand their thought process. It seems that any course of action that helps their people (i.e. locals) must not be pursued.

I remember Trump ranting about them not managing fuel loads properly sometime in 2016-2020.

cohenite
January 9, 2025 3:36 pm
Reply to  JC

Leftoids can’t change their minds because they don’t have minds to change.

Crossie
Crossie
January 9, 2025 3:49 pm