Open Thread – Weekend 1 Feb 2025


Stones in the forest. Valaam, Ivan Shishkin, 1858-60

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Annie
Annie
February 1, 2025 12:11 am

Dare accepted…greetings All!

Bruce in WA
February 1, 2025 12:28 am
Reply to  Annie

What you talkin; about white boy? I bin here 600 000 years before youse invaders! I claim first!

Bill P
Bill P
February 1, 2025 5:22 am
Reply to  Bruce in WA

Come on now, where’s yo wheelie bin?

Aaron
Aaron
February 1, 2025 7:46 am
Reply to  Bill P

Iyz bin in jail.

Last edited 12 days ago by Aaron
Phil
Phil
February 1, 2025 1:12 pm
Reply to  Bruce in WA

4300 years according to Smithsonian Institute.

Annie
Annie
February 1, 2025 4:33 pm
Reply to  Bruce in WA

White boy? What are you talking about? White Woman, thankyou!

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
February 1, 2025 12:44 am

BAM.

This thread dedicated to pissing rain in North Quenthland.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
February 1, 2025 12:50 am

As loath as I am to drag stuff from thread to thread – from the OOT:

for a while there the cartel (JC,sanco and KD) were wanking on about the real-estate troll

One, I have no idea what a real estate troll is. Two, I have never made comments about anyone’s daughter.

Three, yes I have taken the piss out of alleged engineers, particularly those who claim to be able to split the atom when in reality they do a lot of mouthing off, but promise the world and deliver an atlas.

I have no idea what the hell that was about.

Speaking as an engineer.

Siltstone
Siltstone
February 1, 2025 1:33 am

Lurking after midnight. Don’t know why really. Just because. But to all regular posters: keep it up, go hard put it. We lurkers appreciate your efforts.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
February 1, 2025 2:16 am

Morning all. A pinch and a punch for the first of the month.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 1, 2025 9:17 am
Reply to  Barking Toad

A punch and a kick for being so quick.

Helen
Helen
February 1, 2025 2:32 am

Allo

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 1, 2025 6:15 am
Reply to  Helen

Allo. I shall say this only once.

Seza
Seza
February 1, 2025 9:05 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

Stupid woman!

Beertruk
February 1, 2025 10:13 am
Reply to  Seza

Good Moaning.

Lysander
Lysander
February 1, 2025 2:33 am

Who gives a flying F-ck.

Really depressed.

If they can’t find a Saint guilty I have no chance.

what’s the point?

Salvatore - Iron Publican
February 1, 2025 2:55 am

The Transvestite (or whatever) who was driving the Blackhawk that crashed into the jetliner over D.C. has just made a social media video to say he was not flying the Blackhawk & did not cause the collision.

Rather compelling evidence I’d say.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
February 1, 2025 2:57 am

A harsh but fair rant about the lunatic left from the Rev.

—-

Reverend Simon Sideways:

Am i just being a GIT rant?

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 1, 2025 3:12 am

First

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:02 am
Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 9:21 am
Reply to  Tom

I saw Knight explain his cartoon last night on Chris Kenny show.

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:04 am

Michael Ramirez has RFK derangement.

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 4:10 am
feelthebern
feelthebern
February 1, 2025 4:39 am
Miltonf
Miltonf
February 1, 2025 6:04 am

JD Vance Eviscerates Britain’s ‘110 IQ’ Midwit Political Class

putting that supercilious pommy prick in his place

Rosie
Rosie
February 1, 2025 6:18 am

The announcement that Yarden Bibas is being released today only consolidates the belief that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir are dead.

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2025 6:31 am
Reply to  Rosie

Or sold into slavery. Redheads are a prize.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 1, 2025 7:29 am
Reply to  Pogria

My wife won me in a raffle.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
February 1, 2025 11:14 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

Jayzus, GR. What was the first prize?
A dropped Big Mac?

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2025 5:38 pm
Reply to  GreyRanga

Jeez, why would you buy a ticket and take the risk?

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 1, 2025 6:29 am

Vikki Campion:

In days past, banks had one job: Keep deposits safe while lending money to those who were creditworthy. They acted within the law.

If something stacked up financially and was legal, they did it.

Today, the banks think they are both virtue police and corporate judges, deciding who is worthy of financial services based on their own ideological biases, refusing so far to exit a tight clique and church called the Net Zero Banking Alliance.

If bankers want to play politics they should resign, join a party, and run for office. There’s a couple of parties suited to them. They’re called the Greens and the Climate 200 teals.

Don’t use our money, our mortgaged assets, and our businesses as a plaything for your personal views.

The old-age immorality of usury has now converted to the new-age immorality of carbon dioxide. Both absurdities.

In a democracy, we elect leaders to make decisions; if we don’t like them, we vote them out.

Most people had no idea what they were signing up for when governments and corporations promised Net Zero.

Now they are seeing the ugly reality of it: Soaring power and grocery bills as food and power production apparently becomes immoral, rising inflation, houses that won’t be built because of green tape.

Aussie banks, which once focused on creditworthiness, now focus on so-called environmental worthiness, restricting or refusing funds to lend to farmers, miners, and any business that doesn’t comply with their beliefs.

Australian banking executives are now playing politics, and if they want to do that, they should play by the same rules as politicians.

Westpac CEO Anthony Miller, NAB CEO Andrew Irvine, Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn and ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott should be subject to the same scrutiny as our elected officials if they want to play this game.

Senate estimates could go through the entrails of their personal finances, every share, that little house on the coast, the trusts of their wives and children.

For bank bosses, a run in politics would be an exercise in public transparency they have never known.

Every personal business dealing, every gift, every income stream, every ticket to every corporate box or VIP event, every trust, and every asset would need to be disclosed to public opprobrium.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has learnt the hard way, they will learn that talking about climate change and buying houses too close to the harbour won’t fly.

Or the teals who came in to save the world, and then we discovered they owned shares in a bunch of those so-called terrible carbon-emitting companies for profit.

In 2024, 77 million Americans voted for change, not because they adored Donald Trump, who they were told was a sexist, racist, rapist, but because they despised the creeping control of their lives by those who think they know better than the rest of us.

In Australia, the political class wrings its hands about Trump. “Nothing to do with us,” they say.

But people talk about how they’re sick of being told what to do by a branch of self-righteous, unelected, corporate enforcers who go from chauffeured car to private plane to private boardroom and could easily go weeks, months, maybe their entire lifetime sheltered from ever seeing the consequences of their decisions.

If the banks won’t act like banks, then it’s time our elected representatives force them to.

Yet it wasn’t the leadership in the ALP who took them on.

It was the free spirits on the Coalition backbench, including Senators Matt Canavan and Alex Antic, and backbenchers Garth Hamilton, Terry Young, Henry Pike, Llew O’Brien, Col Boyce, and David Gillespie (two, I should disclose, I have worked for).

Once again, this group will lead the debate and others will heroically trot after them later.

“At a time when Australian families are struggling with an unprecedented fall in living standards, we believe that the priority of all major political and business leaders should be on improving the strength of the Australian economy,” they wrote in a letter to Mr Irvine, Mr Miller, Mr Comyn and Mr Elliott, calling for them to exit Net Zero BankingAlliance and the large restrictions on lending that put Australians at a distinct disadvantage.

I look forward to their virtue display at the next AGM when they explain to their shareholders they are leaving for politics to authentically change the world on their ticket and time – not ours.

mem
mem
February 1, 2025 9:07 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Surely its time for the banks discriminatory and restrictive practices in refusing loans to mining, agriculture and other “green” proscribed industries to be put under the legal microscope. I would also point out the inconsistency of providing loans for big tech AI industries when these industries are far more intense users of electricity and give off far more CO2 than the industries that are being boycotted. Time to hit the banks with a lawsuit? Some figures on the IT energy drain here https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/01/30/claim-coal-powered-ai-will-consume-20-of-global-energy-by-2030/

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 9:34 am
Reply to  Black Ball

But people talk about how they’re sick of being told what to do by a branch of self-righteous, unelected, corporate enforcers who go from chauffeured car to private plane to private boardroom and could easily go weeks, months, maybe their entire lifetime sheltered from ever seeing the consequences of their decisions.

This brought to mind the grandees of the Middle Ages who were carried through the streets in sedan chairs so their feet wouldn’t touch the muddy ground. In fact those grandees were much more aware of the common people than our climate grandees who are hidden from us by the tinted windows of their limos and the front end of the planes.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
February 1, 2025 12:17 pm
Reply to  Black Ball

Agree, but the banks will just hide behind a supposed need for a ‘social licence’ until there is a broader and mainstream shift away from green politics.

hzhousewife
hzhousewife
February 1, 2025 7:07 am

The Shishkin is glorious, thanks Dover.

Beertruk
February 1, 2025 11:46 am
Reply to  hzhousewife

Almost looks like an aquarium.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 1, 2025 7:24 am

Now they are seeing the ugly reality of it: Soaring power and grocery bills

Soaring electricity prices have just caused the Norwegian government to collapse.

Chaos in Norway as government collapses in huge row over EU (31 Jan)

Norway’s administration imploded on Thursday after its eurosceptic Centre party left the ruling two-party coalition over adopting EU green energy laws.

Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the finance minister and Centre party leader, has hit out at the regulations.

According to Norwegian broadcaster DN, he said: “We say that enough is enough, this is the limit.

“We are doing it to change Norwegian electricity policy and create a dynamic where we can take measures that can give us lower and stable electricity prices in Norway, and that we should not cede more power to the EU.”

A big reason why the electricity price has skyrocketed in Norway is the commissioning of two new interconnectors to UK and Germany in 2021. And since UK and Germany have the highest electricity prices in the world those interconnectors are running flat out. As a result the local electricity prices in Norway have gone up nearly tenfold since those interconnectors went live.

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 9:38 am

Is it like it’s OK for our gas to be sold overseas but we can’t extract any for our use so the gas prices have gone up?

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
February 1, 2025 11:13 am

Slagsvold – sounds like a good name for a brace of Teals.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
February 1, 2025 7:38 am

Ahhh I love the smell of generator in the morning.

Currently at 248mm & climbing.

The ‘ville, Ayr, Ingham are now cut off. Only way in by boat.

Minor flooding of the low areas of town. Haven’t checked river conditions yet.

calli
calli
February 1, 2025 7:42 am
Reply to  Rockdoctor

Stay safe, Rockdoc. No need to tell you that floods can be tricksie.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 1, 2025 7:39 am

Thanks Tom.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 1, 2025 7:40 am

Alec Baldwin calls into Jimmy Dore.
From the 2min mark.
Then Baldwin’s fake Latina wife chimes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7DBgR3Wahg

calli
calli
February 1, 2025 7:53 am
Reply to  feelthebern

Nice spoof. Revenge for his scathing Trump impersonations?

Johnny Rotten
February 1, 2025 7:49 am

comment image

MatrixTransform
February 1, 2025 7:53 am

Melbourne warehouse fire fueled by lithium batteries

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 9:40 am

As is almost every second suburban fire in Sydney lately.

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 1, 2025 8:13 am

An excerpt from a Daniel Greenfield essay

What death ought to teach us is how to live. And how to survive in the face of certain death. The greatest challenge for the Jewish people remains complacency in the face of evil. If that is to change, the momentum will not come from leaders or organizations, but from individuals who see the threat. Death, no matter how vast or brutal, alone will not change complacency into awakening. To wake up, we must remember who we are. That is what Zionism at its best did by allowing us to imagine ourselves as more than the fallen state we had been reduced to. The Holocaust could not change who we are. Only we can change ourselves.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 1, 2025 8:22 am
Reply to  Black Ball

I don’t think anything can change a lefty jew. He’s lost in smugness, and it drowns the entire history of the Jewish people.

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 1, 2025 8:13 am

Posted twice so deleted the second effort

Last edited 12 days ago by Black Ball
132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 8:21 am

Everyone needs to shut up wrt DEI and this plane crash.

Wait till it’s completely investigated because the people now in charge will not let it get papered over.

People reflexively blaming DEI (looking at Trump here as well) are potentially shooting themselves in the foot.

And for what?

The previous admin has and is being gutted and I’d have thought by now the infantile urge to score cheap political points, especially by dancing on the graves of those killed, would be be long gone.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
February 1, 2025 11:24 am
Reply to  132andBush

It’s called revenge, 123, and yes we will take it.
Because if we don’t the DEI bullying and bullshit will continue.

132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 3:31 pm
Reply to  Winston Smith

Nothing like kicking an own goal then, for some people.

cohenite
February 1, 2025 8:45 pm
Reply to  132andBush

Gutfeld had the perfect reply to the criticism of mentioning DEI in relation the plane/helicopter collision. To paraphrase: the demorats have incorporated DEI into EVERY AND ANY FUKING ASPECT of US society that it is entirely reasonable to assume DEI had something to do with every and any catastrophe.

Johnny Rotten
February 1, 2025 8:30 am

Georgescu Believes Ukraine will Divide – Is He Correct?

Romania’s Calin Georgescu has made headlines once more for calling Ukraine a “fictitious state” and suggesting that the nation will inevitably be divided. This man would have been president of Romania if the establishment accepted the results of the first election. Although he remains the most popular candidate, these statements and views are precisely why those behind the curtain will never permit him to hold power.

“One hundred percent. This will happen one hundred percent. There is no other way. This path is inevitable. Ukraine is an invented state. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It is an artificial state; there are no reference points,” Georgescu said in a recent interview. “The world is changing, and borders will change. We have Northern Bukovina, Budzhak (the southwestern part of the Odesa region), Northern Maramure? from former Transcarpathia, what remains with the Hungarians, Lviv, which will stay with the Poles, and Little Russia,” he added.

He also suggested that part of Ukraine will be absorbed by Romania. Honoring the Minsk Agreement could have prevented such a divide. Russia wanted specific regions that have always been historically Russian. The Minsk Agreement would have allowed the people, not the governments, to vote on whether they wanted to join Russia or remain in Ukraine.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/future-forecasts/ecm/georgescu-believes-ukraine-will-divide-is-he-correct/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 8:59 am
Reply to  Johnny Rotten

Three paragraphs.
Too many.
I’m watching you Wodney.

Johnny Rotten
February 1, 2025 9:45 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

Pot calling kettle black. Three paras is OK BTW.

Cassie of Sydney
February 1, 2025 8:31 am

The announcement that Yarden Bibas is being released today only consolidates the belief that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir are dead.

I think I want to cry. I am going to shul today, it will comfort me plus I have to hear Kaddish for Mum.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
February 1, 2025 11:16 am

It makes me hope that the Hamas figures on deaths of Gazan Hamas supporters (that’s most of them) are accurate.

132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 8:35 am

Fromm OOT

Bespoke

January 31, 2025 8:53 pm

Graders are superior to trucks or trains, in quality/skill of the operator and versatility.

It used to be so.

A highly skilled “final trim” grader operator in full flight is a thing to behold.
I’ve never spent much time on them, however many thousands of hours on all manner of dozers got me to a point where sub 50mm above FL with a D9 was the norm, final trim carried out by a grader.

The skill nowadays is being able to correctly set up the GPS auto leveling and grade systems.
It’s taking a lot of the eyework out of it.

One would expect to see better quality roads built.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 1, 2025 8:48 am
Reply to  132andBush

To make the roads better first they’d have to increase the size and depth over the road base. These days a thicker layer of fines before the poor quality spec bitumen that gets washed out due to lack of drainage.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
February 1, 2025 9:08 am
Reply to  GreyRanga

The base is what’s missing. Doesn’t matter the finish if it’s sitting on top of custard.

Maman
Maman
February 1, 2025 9:58 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Absolutely!! If the foundations aren’t there …

Every road should have a sign identifying who funded, designed and built it.

Also, a current publicly available record of the time it takes for a new/resurfaced road to start to break up. (The resurfaced Bass Hwy around The Gurdies/Grantville took under a week before potholes reappeared.)

“Sitting on top of custard” – it is a ‘roller coaster’ ride through Victoria!

Also, interesting to compare the number of ‘workers’ and ‘stop sign holders’ at road construction sites here in Victoria with the number on sites in other states, and their level of ‘activity’. Vic, more people less action; interstate, less people more action.

Road construction is probably representative of the general malaise throughout the Vic. workforce both private and public.

Just looking at old photos of road construction in Vic. in 30’s and 40’s and in the 60’s magazine “Arizona Highways” and the genuine pride evident in the faces of the people photographed just leaps out from the pages.

132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 11:12 am
Reply to  Farmer Gez

Then there’s drainage off the road reserve itself.

Indolent
Indolent
February 1, 2025 8:45 am

This story looks very worthwhile but I can’t link to it directly. I can’t even read it fully. Just click on the X below the title in this link for the full story. It sounds outrageous. Every block of land is owned by someone.

DEI: LA Mayor Karen Bass is hiring an ‘outside consultant’ to rebuild the Pacific Palisades in a more equitable and environmentally sustainable way. She intends to award the contract without authorization from the property owners.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
February 1, 2025 8:45 am

Went to the Holocaust museum in Elsternwick yesterday. We spent a good four hours there with a break for a snack down the street, you need a break as it can be overwhelming.
Down the street was a Jewish school with security guards at the gate. That was the lasting impression in my mind.

Indolent
Indolent
February 1, 2025 8:50 am

As I’ve hinted before, I’m effectively banned from X at this point. I got logged out somehow and had trouble logging back and tried multiple times (unfortunately the screen kept scrolling and I stupidly kept trying to grab it) and was suspended. This was more than a week ago. I’ve queried it and was eventually advised that I would be limited to view only, which is fine because I don’t post there anyway. But I still can’t get on. It is the most frustrating thing because that’s my first go-to for news and I can’t even link in from another site for a story such as the plane crash.

If anyone know anything that might help resolve this I’d be most grateful.

Last edited 12 days ago by Indolent
Winston Smith
Winston Smith
February 1, 2025 11:36 am
Reply to  Indolent

I opened an X account and saved the password.
A year or so later, the password wouldn’t work, so I tried to do another password. Link to do so never arrived even though I only have the one email.
Try to log on again and change password, told this email address already taken – sign on to your account.
Unable to sign on and passwords don’t match.
Give up.
I wonder how many people are locked out because of this circular reasoning? I could point to at least half a dozen sites.
And the stupid thing is that the site owners have no idea how often it happens because you don’t appear on their radar.

Cassie of Sydney
February 1, 2025 8:54 am

Down the street was a Jewish school with security guards at the gate. That was the lasting impression in my mind.

Brought to you by Slug, Pong, Labor, the Greens and the rest of the leftist and Muslim scum that now run amok in this country.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 8:56 am

Here’s an interesting development.

Over the past week I’ve been researching the technicalities of DeepSeek online from the perspective of running a secure offline version of DeepSeekR1 for a project.

Google has just demanded I fill in a Captcha to prove that I am not a bot, because the queries coming from my device resemble malicious activity.

Being a bot, I’m proud to have misled Google into thinking otherwise. But it seems significant that Alphabet Inc is getting twitchy about micro-minnows like Faustus Inc becoming interested in AI outside the Goggle ecosystem.

John Brumble
John Brumble
February 1, 2025 9:30 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

A secure, “offline” version of a product produced by the CCP and which you have to download in the first instance.

ffs You’re a genius.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 10:41 am
Reply to  John Brumble

Being a genius, my research has actually largely been driven by how much information I need to surrender to the CCP in order to safely test DeepSeek’s R1 product – which potentially fits my needs quite well.

DeepSeek’s terms of service are refreshingly upfront. If you use their product on their systems they get to keep and use everything you input and generate as they (and Emperor Xi) see fit. You actually don’t get that clarity with GPT or Claude.

If you download the models to your own offline server they obviously get your personal details – and by the look of things probably hope to have a second bite at your IP and data if you upgrade versions, or the API.

Given the CCP already has bulk data on me tucked away from years of working in joint ventures with Chinese firms – and the minimal consequences of accidentally losing control of my data and research – I’m considering examining R1 on its merits. Which appear to be considerable.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 12:23 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

I’ve been using LM Studio to check the performance requirements against the server hardware I have available. I will probably download from there too.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 1:19 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

That’s my understanding – I assume you have done so?

John Brumble
John Brumble
February 1, 2025 2:04 pm
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Like I said, mate. You and Dover are geniuses. Nothing could possibly go wrong and there aren’t any limitations that a blind monkey with even the most minuscule knowledge of systems security could have picked up on.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 1, 2025 9:50 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

DrF you must be asking the right questions and they see you as a threat.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 8:56 am

KD in the wee hours:

I have no idea what the hell that was about.

Speaking as an engineer.

ive sent it off to bletchley Park

maybe they can decode it

or not

theyll prolly shit their dacks when they see it

fkn mongs

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 9:02 am

132andBush

 February 1, 2025 8:21 am

Everyone needs to shut up wrt DEI and this plane crash.

Quite so.
I was shocked to wake this morning to the news that the collective mind of the WhirlWideWeb had given us a bum steer on that one.
Trusted sauces and all that.

calli
calli
February 1, 2025 9:15 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

The link I posted yesterday confirming training officer Andrew Eaves on the flight was correct. Another name has been added, Ryan O’Hara. The identity of the third officer has not been released at the request of the family (presumably because not all family have been informed yet).

On the role of DEI, the deficiencies relating to this policy and air traffic control has been well documented. Trump touched upon this. What also came out was the understaffing at the tower.

Indolent’s link above to the idiosyncrasies of this airport is also interesting, particularly with reference to the shorter runway and approach height.

What sh*ts me to tears is soshuls babblers making stuff up for clicks and giggles.

We should always remember what the fellow they named the airport after warned … TRUST BUT VERIFY.

Beertruk
February 1, 2025 10:29 am
Reply to  calli

Third crew member would be the loadie in the back of the aircraft.

Last edited 12 days ago by Beertruk
Zafiro
Zafiro
February 1, 2025 1:15 pm
Reply to  Beertruk

There was a Captain, WO2 and a Staff-Sgt; so yes I would agree.

Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
February 1, 2025 2:28 pm
Reply to  calli

It doesn’t matter who was at the controls, what matters is, what they did.
Clearly, until the report is finalised, any particulars are purely conjecture.

“Indolent’s link above to the idiosyncrasies of this airport is also interesting, particularly with reference to the shorter runway and approach height.”
No!

ATC can issue instructions as they see fit, but it is the aircraft Capt that accepts or rejects an instruction, based primarily on the safety of his aircraft.
If the runway is too short, (or any other problem that arises), then it is up to the aircraft captain to advise ATC that he cannot comply,
ie needs a change of runway, can’t turn onto the assigned vector, cannot climb/descend as requested, etc etc etc.

In this case, it appears that the helo was given the traffic, which the captain “confirmed” he had in sight.
Whether he did not have the traffic, or saw the wrong traffic, or saw the correct traffic but misjudged his manoeuvres, or any other contributing factor, will be determined in due course.

Having a helo transit lane below final, is always problematic, in my opinion. This is especially so, if the helo’s break their upper level.
All will be revealed, in the fullness of time.

Kel
Kel
February 1, 2025 9:08 am

Apologies all, I fell for the Bullsh*t. 

Jo Ellis was NOT the female pilot onboard with 500 flying hours, although she does have 500 flying hours. 

So who was the yet to be named female pilot? 

I got a heads up ‘wait ‘til you find out who the pilot was’ so I fell for the sh*t hook lie and sinker. I’m now waiting for the official explanation.

Grok Conversation

Is it possible for a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter to be flown remotely?

Yes, it is possible for a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter to be flown remotely. The Sikorsky H-60 series, particularly models like the MH-60R and MH-60S, have been adapted for various autonomous and remote piloting capabilities:

  • Sikorsky’s MATRIX™ Technology: This is an autonomous flight control system that has been integrated into some H-60 variants. It allows for autonomous takeoffs and landings, waypoint navigation, and can be configured for remote piloting.
  • DARPA’s ARES (Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System): Although not directly related to commercial use, this project demonstrated the feasibility of remotely operating an armed H-60 for sniper missions, showing that the helicopter can indeed be flown without a pilot on board.
  • Sikorsky’s Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV): This concept, which has been applied to the H-60, allows the helicopter to switch between manned and unmanned operations. This means the helicopter can be flown remotely for certain missions, offering flexibility in operational scenarios.

However, the implementation of these capabilities often depends on specific military or experimental contracts, and not all H-60 helicopters are equipped for remote operation out of the box. The level of autonomy or remote control can vary significantly depending on the specific modifications and software installed. 

Would you like me to search for any recent developments or specific case studies on remote piloting of the H-60?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 11:57 am
Reply to  Indolent

JD Vance is a fairly recent convert to Catholicism who has obviously thought long and hard from a wide reading about the religion he chose for himself and his children (while his wife Usha remains a Hindu who is fully supportive of his choice).

Indolent
Indolent
February 1, 2025 9:12 am
bons
bons
February 1, 2025 9:14 am

Wonderful demonstrable indication of slapdowns of Left propaganda institutions.

PBS and NPR liable for defunding at last. (Palestinian Broadcasting Service, and National Palestinian Radio).

Naturally this won’t stop SBS and ABC broadcasting their ‘oh so profesional’ CCP propaganda masquarading as news.

Ferguson may even air a Four Corners on Trump’s assault on communist free speech.

Indolent
Indolent
February 1, 2025 9:17 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 9:45 am

The Five, which airs each weekday at 5pm in New York City, is often Fox News’s top-rating program on America’s top-rating cable TV channel.

Fox News got to the top by being the only news channel that caters for everyone by airing both sides to every issue in the news. That means giving a voice to Democratic Party shills, even though most of Fox’s audience votes Republican.

Most days, The Five features Democratic Party talking points zombie Jessica Tarlov, who has a voice like a buzzsaw, which means I turn the sound down whenever she’s speaking.

This isn’t a partisan issue. Another Fox host, Laura Ingraham, has the same rasping voice which often makes me turn the sound down. It is an unfortunate characteristic of some American adult females, especially those with giant egos that propel them into the world of television.

Johnny Rotten
February 1, 2025 9:48 am
Reply to  Tom

Mrs Stencho Pantyhose is on the case of being the Blog appointed Milk Monitor.. LOL. The Head Case that is.

Megan
Megan
February 1, 2025 9:50 am
Reply to  Tom

Vocal fry. Not sure why so many US females have this irritating voice characteristic but I have to turn off the sound whenever it makes an appearance.

Nowhere near as common here.

Diogenes
Diogenes
February 1, 2025 9:59 am
Reply to  Megan

No but we always have to turn the volume down for nearly all the Sky night ladies as they always seem to yell.

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2025 10:02 am
Reply to  Megan

I find many US voices irritatingly nasal. Particularly the women. Quite a few men also, but mostly women.
Flat and hard. yuk.
Worst is, when there are two or more, it descends into a shrieking Cockatoo fest.

JC
JC
February 1, 2025 10:47 am
Reply to  Pogria

You ought to live in the US for a year, then catch a Qantas flight back to Oz and hear Australian English being spoken after not hearing it for so long.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
February 1, 2025 11:24 am
Reply to  Tom

Laura is sweetness and light compared to the demonrat Tarlov. Anyone who has defended the Biden Puppetocracy as often and as determinedly as Tarlov is a complicit leftist and a danger to the USA. The other one, Ford, is more slippery but has been nearly as much a defender of the indefensible four years as Tarlov. I think the show’s ratings owe much more to the insightful and sometimes very funny assessments of the other four regulars. And of course I’d watch it just for Dana Perino!
If the ratings owe anything to the leftists, it would be viewers hoping to see them taken down by competent commentators.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
February 1, 2025 3:31 pm
Reply to  Tom

 the only news channel that caters for everyone by airing both sides to every issue in the news. 
But Tarlov always shifts the topic and sprays dodgy stats like a gatling.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 9:48 am

calli earlier …

On the role of DEI, the deficiencies relating to this policy and air traffic control has been well documented. Trump touched upon this. What also came out was the understaffing at the tower.

Again, possibly something to look at in a broader context, but it is difficult to see ATC carrying the can for this one.
The helo was given traffic, positively confirmed he had it in sight and requested visual separation (i.e. the helo was taking responsibility for ‘see and avoid’). He was asked again seconds before the crash if he had the traffic in sight. He affirmed and again asked for visual separation and was told to fly behind the passenger plane.
Listening to the tapes I don’t think ATC could have done anything more within the existing rules.
If they had directed the helo to fly a couple of left-hand orbits to avoid the CRJ it is highly likely the CO of the Blackhawk mob would have been on the blower next morning abusing the lowly civvies for “interference in military operations”.
The only possible ATC issue is that the queue might have got away on them a bit, hence re-routing the CRJ from Rwy 01 to Rwy 33.
But this wasn’t an unusual procedure.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 12:43 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

What on earth are military and civilian aircraft doing in the same airspace?

Surely there would be other sharing arrangements possible, or better still, another dedicated airport for the military.

Titus Groates
Titus Groates
February 1, 2025 1:06 pm

It’s not unusual, Lizzie. Williamtown near Newcastle has military and civilian craft in the same space. Also Canberra.

Though when my daughter and I flew out of Ronald Reagan in Washington in late 2015, I marvelled at the amount of military craft in what seemed a civilian airport.

Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
February 1, 2025 2:34 pm

So you actually think that Military and Civil aircraft have their own airspace, that the other cannot enter?

FMD!

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 11:32 pm

No, don’t be obtuse.

I meant for take offs and landings. Obvious I would have thought.

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 9:53 am

Being a bot, I’m proud to have misled Google into thinking otherwise. But it seems significant that Alphabet Inc is getting twitchy about micro-minnows like Faustus Inc becoming interested in AI outside the Goggle ecosystem.

Dr Faustus, I have noticed for some time now that Google is becoming almost unusable due to its woke coding. Young people in my extended family are also unhappy about it and I have heard some proposing to program their own browsers. If they or anyone else is successful in doing so will simply mean that Alphabet will buy them out. As a promotion of innovation Alphabet must be broken up or prevented from swallowing up any competition.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 9:58 am

A lesson for innernet sleuths.
I woke to the sound of nocturnal beasts at precisely 3:41 a.m. this morning.
Unable to resume slumbering I went back to the now de-bunked Jo Ellis thing.
He/she was on a podcast the day before. I listened to a bit of that.
I then went back to the ATC audio tapes leading up to the prang.
Guess what?
The voice on the podcast sounds nothing like the voice making the radio calls from the helo.
So.
Possible conclusions:-
1. The instructor was working the radio. Which meant he was conscious and watching his student line up a passenger plane full of people with his feet up on the dashboard; or
2. It was not Jo Ellis in the helo.
Gullibility.
The most powerful force in the universe.

Last edited 12 days ago by Sancho Panzer
alwaysright
alwaysright
February 1, 2025 10:06 am

pissing rain in North Quenthland

Since when is this unusual at this time of year.
And I ask, have you experienced a gentle shower of rain in NQ?

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
February 1, 2025 10:20 am
Reply to  alwaysright

As a local of NQ, fact check true.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:17 pm
Reply to  alwaysright

I love a sunburned country….

alwaysright
alwaysright
February 1, 2025 10:08 am

What does this big red button do?

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 10:10 am
Reply to  alwaysright

Joe Biden is still wondering about that.

alwaysright
alwaysright
February 1, 2025 10:19 am
Reply to  Tom

Should I use this lever instead?

Beertruk
February 1, 2025 10:35 am
Reply to  alwaysright

Here? :

BigRedOne
Bespoke
Bespoke
February 1, 2025 10:08 am

“We can’t fire unfriendly civil servants? Fine, but we’re not going to roll over either. We’re going to make life as miserable for them as possible and give them every possible incentive to leave.” 8/

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2025 10:09 am

French Trannies don’t go after Bakers. They are suing Gynaecologists for discrimination instead.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14347543/Gynaecologist-suspended-refusing-treat-trans-patient-saying-qualified-deal-real-women.html

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 12:47 pm
Reply to  Pogria

There a lot of nether-region difference between a trannies and a real live woman. Also, sex differences exist in the dosage levels of certain drugs for males and females. And giving males female hormones, or vice versa (especially if the females are pregnant) is extremely physically damaging requiring specialist medical attention from other than gynaecologists.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:18 pm
Reply to  Pogria

Quelle horreur!

Hugh
Hugh
February 1, 2025 10:11 am

Elizabeth Warren Asks RFK Jr. How He Will Address Outbreak Of Smallpox From White Man’s Blankets

“And what of smallpox outbreak from paleface blankets?” a proud and stoic Warren asked. “We make’em trade. Buffalo hide for blankets. Tribe use’em blankets. Many get sick. White man cheat on trade to make’em people sick. Medicine cost much wampum. We no like’em white man tricks. What white man Kennedy do to make right?”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 1, 2025 10:41 am
Reply to  Hugh

Small pox infected blankets are alleged to have been presented to “Native Americans” in 1763…

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:18 pm

So, well before germ theory then?

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 10:56 am
Reply to  Hugh
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 1, 2025 10:11 am

The doggies are digging where the public serpents don’t want them to go.

Treasury Dept’s Highest-Ranking Career Official Rage-Quits After Musk’s DOGE Team Probes Payment System (1 Feb)

David A. Lebryk, a decades-long Treasury official who President Trump named as acting secretary upon taking office last week, announced his retirement in a Friday email to colleagues. According to the report, Lebryk had a dispute with Musk surrogates over access to the US government’s payment system used to disburse trillions of dollars every year.

The Musk surrogates are affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and have been asking since the election for access to the system, according to the report. The requests were reiterated after Trump’s inauguration.

After Trump pick Scott Bessent was confirmed as Treasury Secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be acting agency head.

The payment system in question is run by a handful of career officials within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service – which controls the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses, and other entities nationwide – and includes Social Security, Medicare, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, tax refunds, grant recipients, and more.

The clash is the latest incident involving career ‘deep state’ bureaucrats vs. the Trump administration.

I wonder what this guy doesn’t want the dogged doggies to see?

Megan
Megan
February 1, 2025 10:11 am

The very first video I watched on the DC crash Thursday evening showed the airline chart with the helo routes and plane routes clearly pointed out. The commentary also pointed out the maximum 200ft limit for helicopter flights along the river.

The radar clip that followed clearly showed the chopper at 300ft and the plane descending through 400 with the red Crash Alert letters next to both. There was only seconds for ATC to react which was when the helo pilot was asked for the second time if he could see the plane.

Why was he even allowed to get to 300 ft in clear breach of the rules? Possibly normalised deviance at work but also ATC doing work meant for two controllers. And both plane and helo on different comms frequencies. Either way, the outcome, as many pilots interviewed have said, was inevitable.

What really irritated me after that was the MSM talking heads rabbiting on about the plane colliding with the helicopter. Especially the headline article in yesterday mornings Oz. It was clearly the helicopter that collided with the plane. Pedantic, I know, but this is why so many now look beyond the traditional news for more accurate reporting.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:23 pm
Reply to  Megan

What really irritated me after that was the MSM talking heads rabbiting on about the plane colliding with the helicopter.

My pedantry alarm goes off everytime some media talking head tells us ‘the car lost control’ whilst reporting on an accident -Ok perhaps we could say that for a Tesla but you get my drift. We see the same with impact biomechanics – frequently getting told ‘2 cars collided head on’ when the vision shows it was a right angle intersection collision with the front of 1 car into the side of another…. etc etc etc (paging Dan Andrews)

I think I got it from my dad, a physics professor, who would *always* correct people that ‘G is an acceleration NOT a force’….

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 1, 2025 10:13 am

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/01/31/democrats-arent-backing-down-will-you-n4936556

This people are evil and shameless. Very reminiscent of the krudd/ls defeat in 2013. Did they and their meja pals accept the will of the people. No siree. After all, haven’t they been to the Uni?

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
February 1, 2025 10:19 am

Most places up this way 300-400mm in 24h.

Power off in parts of town. Minor flooding as well.

Was out & about this morning. No pics as it wasn’t worth it. Media is in usual overblown BS mode. Only 1 river Bohle made severe flood height at the top of the tide in the early hours. All others still below minor flood level.

Place & drainage is holding up well.

Now the nub of the point. If the same amount falls tonight we could be in deep do do, as the diurnal cycle is important in tropical weather meaning lows strengthen at night.

Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
February 1, 2025 11:03 am
Reply to  Rockdoctor

I plead incompetent doubt. I saw your post with predictions of 1500 over 5 days and went yeah, nah 183 tops for the ‘ville.

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
February 1, 2025 12:14 pm

I was and am still dubious we’ll make that.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:26 pm

Could use it in the gramps – day one of 4 in the high 30s with the 2 new fires now up to a combined 30,000 Ha. To me it looks like most of the West side of the park will go, to add to the E side which burned over christmas.

Phil
Phil
February 3, 2025 10:03 am
Reply to  Rockdoctor

I think it was in 94 or 95 my daughter was attending JCU and living in Aitkenvale and she rang from the public phone to say they were ok despite rising levels. In the 10 minutes she waded to the phone the floodwaters from Ross River went from knee deep to chest high and no she is not 1 metre tall. Her car went under and she was taken in by the neighbours in their two storey house. It certainly rains in North Qld.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 1, 2025 10:39 am
chrisl
chrisl
February 1, 2025 10:43 am

Just when you thought there were not enough places to shop… Panda Mart is coming
It has taken over the premises of two former hardware stores in Melbourne ( Preston and Cranbourne) and will stock homewares . 53,000 different lines . Directly from China
Thats a lot o stuff

hzhousewife
hzhousewife
February 1, 2025 12:24 pm
Reply to  chrisl

more landfill

Indolent
Indolent
February 1, 2025 10:45 am

That’s been my opinion for years.

The King Is A Snake

mem
mem
February 1, 2025 10:51 am

Thanks to Bespoke. This is wonderful news. Now to do the same in Australia.

President Donald Trump is ending climate change, well scrubbing it from all the webpages of the United States Department of Agriculture. The directive went out Thursday afternoon. It dictates that all references across agency website landing sites must be removed. Other climate change reference documents are to be tagged for further review. The deadline is 5 pm Friday. This is the way.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 1, 2025 10:57 am

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2025/02/great-leak-on-the-adfs-sjws.html

For any Cat who ever pulled on a boot, or picked up a rifle..

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 1, 2025 11:05 am

A China book we don’t really needHis new book On Xi Jinping begs one obvious question: Why on earth did Kevin Rudd think this was a good idea?
Paul Monk
11 hours ago

14 Comments
The literature on China’s rise and the neo-totalitarian regime of Xi Jinping is voluminous. Some of it is very good. The debates concerning crucial aspects of it are important and analytically challenging.
Kevin Rudd has added to all this an excruciatingly detailed exegesis of the propaganda and policy proclamations under Xi Jinping and his recent predecessors.

Anyone interested in Krudd’s book? Nah, me neither.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
February 1, 2025 2:25 pm

I have an outside table with a dodgy leg.
How thick is the book? It is adjustable, of course, by removing pages.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 1, 2025 11:08 am
Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 11:11 am

The German migration limitation bill failed to pass in the Bundestag after 11 “centre-right” Christian Democrats abstained.

Antifa were on the streets, causing the CDU HQ in Berlin to be evacuated.

The bill will return after the federal election in three weeks, in which Alternative for Germany is expected to receive 20% of the vote, which should finally exorcise the ghost of Angela Merkel from German immigration policy.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 11:17 am

In Critical Data for Michelle Bullock news:

I usually do the Faustus family supermarket shopping. Being cursed with the ‘gift’ of observing numbers and numerical relationships, I’ve noticed the widespread shrinkflation in packaged goods over the past two years.

The ABS has revealed that the price of Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages (the bucket which includes household goods generally) increased 3% yoy.

This figure fails to take account of the recent 16% shrinkage of Cadbury Boost Bars (my pitiful ‘shopping treat’) from 60g to 50g – “At the same Low Price”.

132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 11:28 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Roses Lime Marmalade has suffered the same fate.
Bloody outrageous.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 11:53 am
Reply to  132andBush

Do you put an umbrella in that?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 12:15 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

You are Jim Chalmers.
I claim the prize.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 12:54 pm
Reply to  132andBush

Yep. Why did you get this smaller jar? I ask Hairy.

That the way it comes now, he says. Price stable, jar shrunk.

They think we won’t notice but we do. I do anyway.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
February 1, 2025 11:59 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Aux les barricades!

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2025 5:46 pm
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Certainly more air in my potato crisps.

JC
JC
February 1, 2025 11:22 am

Another one. Lordie.

@KeeleyFox29

·11m

BULLETIN: SIX KILLED ON AIRPLANE THAT JUST TOOK OFF FROM NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA AIRPORT

@PhillyPolice

sources tell me here on the scene. TWO DOCTORS, TWO PILOTS, ONE PATIENT & ONE FAMILY MEMBER. No update yet on any victims on the ground.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 11:26 am
Reply to  JC

Medivac.
The most expensive ride known to man outside Apollo 11.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:27 pm
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

We used to charge about 40k for Darwin to Adelaide – but that would be 10y ago

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 11:28 am

Breaking: six people are reported dead after a plane crashed into the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Amateur video showed a high-speed projectile spearing into the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees, creating a large fireball.

The plane was reportedly a fixed-wing medevac flight originating from nearby North-east Philadelphia Aiirport. Those on board included two pilots, two doctors, a patient and a family member

Last edited 12 days ago by Tom
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 1:30 pm
Reply to  Tom

Without pre-empting an investigation, this has all the hallmarks of a control surface problem.
Like the idiot who ploughed into DFO in Essendon after taking off with the rudder trim locked hard over.
Too good to be bothered with check-lists.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
February 1, 2025 11:31 am

The mixing of helos and descending civil aircraft at Reagan has to be reviewed if there has been a near miss and a bad crash in two days. Regardless of the various degrees of competency involved, it’s not a good mix. I was waiting for an arrival at Sydney airport recently, and observed the small helo paddock along near the long-term parking area. It was well away from the main runways and approach tracks as far as I could see. There were quite a few movements while I spent half an hour waiting for my people to get out of the international terminal.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 1, 2025 12:01 pm
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

The problem is the elites don’t want to wait in traffic to get to Reagan Intl. So there would be an incredible demand for helis to shuttle back and forth to the beltway and etc. This heli was a VIP transport, which suggests some bigwig told them to be here 10 minutes ago. Time pressure would fit with the events. Since there wasn’t a senior officer, bureaucrat or pollie on the flight it would make sense for it to be an outward flight to DC.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 1:37 pm

Not quite.
It was purely a training flight so, much as it would spice up the narrative if they were on an errand to pick up Rachel Levine’s ballgown from the dry cleaners, it just isn’t so.

Jock
Jock
February 1, 2025 1:07 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

What? They did real journalism?? Sorry that’s not possible.

alwaysright
alwaysright
February 1, 2025 11:52 am

How many before we can say this is not normal?

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 11:58 am
Reply to  alwaysright

Steady on, cobber. Accident is 100 to one ON. For example, it’s reported the medevac flight was loaded with gas and/or oxygen bottles

Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 11:54 am

Anti-Israel scholar’s $870k grant probed

The Australian Research Council has flagged ‘significant concerns’ about the conduct of a taxpayer-funded scholar who has called for the ‘end of Israel’.

The Australian

Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, from the School of Social Sciences, received a Future Fellowship. Dr Abdel-Fattah’s research project will be the first study of a neglected but constitutive part of Australia’s social movement history: Arab/Muslim Australian social justice activism. It aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists working in anti-racism, anti-war and feminist social movements from the 1970s to date.

Macquarie University, Faculty of the Arts

How to solve a problem like Randa Abdel-Fattah?

Following NZ’s lead and cutting all government grants to university arts faculties would be a good place to begin, Peter Dutton.
Stop subsidising the revolution.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 1, 2025 12:06 pm
Reply to  Roger

It aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists working in anti-racism, anti-war and feminist social movements from the 1970s to date.

Aka: Chatting with the Team.

Dr Abdel-Fattah’s academic integrity and value can be taken as read.

The more serious and intractable problems are the ARC and Macquarie University – who jointly arranged $870,000 to blow on this frolic.

Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 12:21 pm
Reply to  Dr Faustus

The more serious and intractable problems are the ARC and Macquarie University – who jointly arranged $870,000 to blow on this frolic.

The ARC’s “significant concerns” sounds very much like Albospeak.

There’ll perhaps be a review, some in-house “counselling” at Macquarie and then a return to business as usual.

The LNP, meanwhile, is doing its best to miss the point, which is that this is not an isolated case.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 12:57 pm
Reply to  Roger

Couldn’t agree more.

Entropy
Entropy
February 1, 2025 1:15 pm
Reply to  Roger

I always remember Margo Kingston getting to do a PhD on…herself.

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2025 2:33 pm
Reply to  Entropy

And forty-five thousand dollars to start a website.

Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 3:58 pm
Reply to  Entropy

Heavens!

But it’s a subject she had so little insight into.

Bill From the Bush
Bill From the Bush
February 1, 2025 11:59 am

Another complete waste of taxpayer money. No dount the backup chargers referred to near the end will be diesel driven.
From the Worst Australian

WA now has a Statewide electric vehicle network up and running, with Premier Roger Cook marking the milestone in Kalgoorlie-Boulder on Thursday.

The network has 110 charging points across 49 locations spanning 7000km, from Mundrabilla on the Nullarbor in the south to Kununurra in the north, making it one of the world’s longest connected EV charging highways.

In some isolated locations that are difficult to connect to an existing power supply, chargers are being supported by standalone power systems, which largely draw on solar and small-scale battery storage for power.

Synergy and Horizon Power jointly delivered the WA EV Network, which forms part of the State Government’s $43.5 million investment in EV charging infrastructure.

The network’s completion comes as Department of Transport data shows the number of registered EVs on WA roads more than doubled in the past financial year to more than 22,000.

Mr Cook said the Government wanted every West Australian to get out and enjoy the State, including EV drivers.

“This investment will help to bring down the barriers to EV uptake and help to get more EVs on the road across WA,” he said.

Energy, Environment and Climate Action Minister Reece Whitby said EV drivers could now travel from Albany to Kalbarri or Perth to Esperance without experiencing range anxiety.

“That’s good news for tourism in WA, and a big reason why the network has drawn international attention,” he said.

Horizon Power chief executive Stephanie Unwin said installing EV chargers in remote locations had had its challenges.

“It requires novel thinking to get the EV chargers to work reliably on small microgrids and to facilitate the transportation of materials in remote parts of our State so that we can deliver this important infrastructure,” she said.

“Acknowledging the need for reliable EV chargers in our remote locations, which are often subject to extreme climates and resource constraints, we have installed backup chargers at all sites.

“Thinking outside the box, our project team has been responsible for the deployment of bespoke energy solutions across regional and remote WA, including standalone power systems powered predominantly by renewables, tailored to support the unique needs of our different communities.”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 1, 2025 12:22 pm

chargers are being supported by standalone power systems, which largely draw on solar and small-scale battery storage for power.

That’s fun. One single Tesla rocking up to the charger with a 100 kWh battery will drain a dozen Powerwall batteries, which would need something like 150 sq metres of solar panels operating 6 hours per day to be charged up.

So to recharge say 30 EVs per day they’d need a solar farm the size of a soccer field, and about 400 Powerwall sized batteries.

Doesn’t sound very small-scale to me.

I wonder how many ICE cars come through one ordinary service station roadhouse each day?

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
February 1, 2025 12:31 pm

Copper soon to be stripped by opportunist thieves.

Bruce in WA
February 1, 2025 1:33 pm
Reply to  Rockdoctor

And then some numpty decides to see what a couple of .243 rounds will do to the battery …

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 1, 2025 12:34 pm

I’m waiting for the first electric car to catch fire, on the Warrachuppin road, Forty three degrees in the shade, blowing a gale, a total fire ban, and the volunteer firies have gone to the pub for the day.

Bill From the Bush
Bill From the Bush
February 1, 2025 12:44 pm

Forgot to add the picture at the top of the article. Lovely pretty people aren’t they!

Wankers
H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2025 5:52 pm

Reece Whitby, j’ismist and serial Liar candidate. Sneakers eventually rewarded him with a captains pick. Took a while to get to the trough.

Rabz
February 1, 2025 8:06 pm

Waycism! 😕

Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 12:02 pm

In some isolated locations that are difficult to connect to an existing power supply, chargers are being supported by standalone power systems, which largely draw on solar and small-scale battery storage for power.

“largely”

Don’t mention the diesel generator that will actually do the heavy lifting.

Lying by omission.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
Bill From the Bush
Bill From the Bush
February 1, 2025 12:41 pm
Reply to  Roger

Pic was taken at Caiguna on the Nullabor two years ago.
Apparently Gaia is appeased if the genny fuel is used cooking oil!
The mental gymnastics to arrive at this conclusion would tax any of the AI models of today.
Link to article about the system is here. OPM is free so any business case model was probably positive.

Wanker-Medium
Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 1:02 pm

Is the cooking oil from the roadhouse or is it trucked in from Perth?

I suspect the latter as it would have to be processed.

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2025 12:39 pm

The Learjet 55 medevac flight took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport at 6.06pm local time bound for Springfield Missouri 1627 kms away, meaning it was loaded with fuel for a long-range mission.

The Learjet reached 1600 feet altitude before disappearing from radar 30 seconds after takeoff. Miraculously — or perhaps by design — the plane crashed in the middle of an intersection, avoiding a nearby shopping centre.

Oxygen canisters were recovered from the crash site. There were reportedly casualties on the ground after the crash in addition to the six people on the plane reportedly killed.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:30 pm
Reply to  Tom

Miraculously — or perhaps by design — the plane crashed in the middle of an intersection, avoiding a nearby shopping centre.

ah no, this isn’t a case of ‘heroic pilot bravely steering away from a school…’ It spudded in at high speed and high angle.

Beertruk
February 1, 2025 6:40 pm
Reply to  flyingduk

It spudded in at high speed and high angle.

Lawn darted.

cohenite
February 1, 2025 12:40 pm

Joy reid and stacy abrams: 2 fat, stupid, arrogant black idiots; if it weren’t so serious it would be hilarious. Are there any attractive leftoid/demorat women (sic)?

Stacey Abrams: Republicans Are Making It ‘Safe to Discriminate Again’

Salvatore - Iron Publican
February 1, 2025 2:08 pm
Reply to  cohenite

AOC, however she’s starting to pork up.

cohenite
February 1, 2025 2:29 pm

Seriously? She looks like a anaemic owl on meth.

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 2:30 pm
Reply to  cohenite

When did they stop?

Vicki
February 1, 2025 12:44 pm

Re RFK Jnr’s Confirmation Hearing, I imagine this applies, to a lesser degree, in Oz:

America is sick. Not metaphorically. Literally. Chronic disease is swallowing our country whole. RFK Jr. laid it out in brutal detail. Diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disorders—off the charts. 70% of adults are overweight. We spend $4.8 trillion on healthcare every year. That’s nearly one-fifth of the entire economy just to keep people alive. And what do we get? The worst health outcomes in the developed world.
The system is broken. RFK Jr. knows it. He’s promised to take on the corrupt bureaucracy, the toxic food supply, and the pharmaceutical cartel. But the establishment won’t go quietly. They’ll fight him every step of the way.
This isn’t just a confirmation hearing. It’s the opening battle in a war for America’s future.

3 Key Takeaways:
1. America’s Health Is a National EmergencyRFK Jr. hit the committee with a brutal truth bomb. America isn’t just unhealthy—it’s in free fall.

  • 70% of adults overweight or obese.
  • Diabetes rates 10X higher than in the 1960s.
  • Cancer rates climbing. Alzheimer’s, ADHD, asthma, depression—skyrocketing.

We’re dying younger, sicker, and more miserable than ever before. Meanwhile, we’re spending more money on healthcare than any other country. And for what? Worse outcomes.
This isn’t just a health crisis. It’s an economic disaster. A 20% tax on the entire economy—that’s what our bloated, ineffective healthcare system costs us.

The American Dream is dead if Americans are too sick to chase it.
2. The System Is Designed to Keep You SickRFK Jr. didn’t hold back. The real problem? The healthcare-industrial complex—a corrupt machine built to profit from disease, not cure it.
He pointed out the biggest lie in American healthcare: We argue about who pays for healthcare but never ask why it costs so much in the first place.
Answer? Chronic disease.
And what fuels chronic disease? Toxic food. Over-medication. A corrupt regulatory system.

The CDC admits it—90% of healthcare spending goes to managing chronic conditions. Not curing them. Managing them. Because keeping people sick is more profitable than making them well.

3. RFK Jr. Is Declaring War on the EstablishmentRFK Jr. has a reputation. He’s a disruptor. A truth-teller. And the establishment hates him for it.
He made it clear—he’s not anti-vaccine. He’s not anti-science. What he is against? Corruption. Lies. Conflicts of interest.
He’s promised to clean up the system:

  • Support real nutrition—No more taxpayer money propping up Big Food’s garbage.
  • Regulate chemical additives—No more poisoning Americans for profit.
  • Eliminate conflicts of interest—Big Pharma should not be funding the agencies that regulate it.
  • Restore real science—No more cherry-picked studies designed to push an agenda.

Bottom line? If RFK Jr. gets confirmed, the deep state medical cartel is in trouble.

The Fight Begins NowThis confirmation hearing wasn’t just a formality. It was a warning shot. RFK Jr. is stepping into the most corrupt, entrenched, and dangerous industry in America.
If he wins, it could be the biggest shake-up in health policy in modern history. If he loses? Business as usual. The sick get sicker. The system keeps profiting.
America is at a crossroads. The question is, do we have the guts to fight back?

Bruce in WA
February 1, 2025 1:41 pm
Reply to  Vicki

70% of adults overweight or obese.

Dearly Beloved and I have just come back from a morning semi-stumble around Hillarys Marina. If what we saw … mostly in bathers and nearly all young women … is anything to go by, Australia is not very far behind in the obesity stakes. As one who has struggled with weight for the past 30-odd years, I know how debilitating it can be, both mentally and physically. (Having successfully lost 18 kg and gone from obese to just Fat Bastard in the last 6 months, I know how much better it feels.)

PS: Eye bleach stings.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 1, 2025 2:31 pm
Reply to  Bruce in WA

(carnivore diet Bruce… just sayin….)

Crossie
Crossie
February 1, 2025 2:36 pm
Reply to  Bruce in WA

I haven’t been to the beach recently but I do like watching quiz shows and have noticed that over half of female contestants are either overweight or obese. Interestingly male contestants tend to be closer to normal weight.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2025 5:55 pm
Reply to  Bruce in WA

I imagine numerous crimes against Lycra amongst the morning brunch crowd there. Not good.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 1, 2025 12:48 pm

Meta (FB) is moving its incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
Considering Zuck’s golden share(s) and considering how Delaware judges don’t seem to care about legal structures and agreements shareholders have voted on (the Tesla situation), this move makes sense.

cohenite
February 1, 2025 12:49 pm

Roger
 February 1, 2025 11:54 am

Anti-Israel scholar’s $870k grant probed

The Australian Research Council has flagged ‘significant concerns’ about the conduct of a taxpayer-funded scholar who has called for the ‘end of Israel’.

The Australian

Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, from the School of Social Sciences, received a Future Fellowship. Dr Abdel-Fattah’s research project will be the first study of a neglected but constitutive part of Australia’s social movement history: Arab/Muslim Australian social justice activism. It aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists working in anti-racism, anti-war and feminist social movements from the 1970s to date.

Macquarie University, Faculty of the Arts

No doubt the hijabed bitch will start with this formative bit of muzzie history

Battle of Broken Hill – Wikipedia

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 1, 2025 12:57 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

Nothing stopping them from getting grants from industry instead.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 1:15 pm

Or in the case of the Arts doing it alone as part of the normal research function of an academic with a lowish teaching load.

Most of these projects (believe me, I know, from deep experience) don’t require much more than that, sometimes better done in cooperation with outs, while small-scale grants within the university can provide minor extra funds for the humanities.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 1, 2025 1:17 pm

cooperation with others. i.e. colleagues within the Faculty, or in some inter-disciplinary manner, or with external linkages.

The internet has meant that travel budgets, often inflated, are largely redundant.

Entropy
Entropy
February 1, 2025 1:44 pm

I am constantly amazed at how academics can get travel anywhere quite easily. Certainly compared with a government department even to travel interstate.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 1:44 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

It’s a blunt instrument. 

The best kind when you want to bludgeon tax-eaters.
I don’t see any “friendlies” among those sucking on the public teat to indulge their obscure arts/philosophy hobby-horses.

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 1, 2025 12:54 pm

Macquarie Uni was established in 1964 at great expense no doubt- what net benefit has to brought to Australia? I will concede my senior High School Chemistry teacher studied there and he was quite good.

Vicki
February 1, 2025 8:09 pm
Reply to  Miltonf

For many years it employed one of the finest scholars of classical Roman history in the world – Professor Edwin Judge. I have listened to many lecturers in my time – in many fields of scholarship – but he was the most eloquent and the most inspiring of all of them. He was excruciatingly precise in his manipulation of language – quite opposite to many of the more florid speakers that you hear in the Academy. He inspired countless students to examine what they read more critically than they had been taught.

A marvellous teacher and orator.

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 1, 2025 1:00 pm

You’re going to also kill projects you have no ideological animus towards and/ or may even approve. 

Are you sure even such projects exist now? I remember looking into Masters in Engineering at RMIT nearly 20 years ago and they were all to do with ‘climate change’.

Entropy
Entropy
February 1, 2025 1:19 pm
Reply to  Miltonf

Still plenty of crop breeding and the like. But yes, overwhelming green industry priorities. Or at least if you want a grant you dress it up that way. I have.

JC
JC
February 1, 2025 1:02 pm

It’s a blunt instrument. You’re going to also kill projects you have no ideological animus towards and/ or may even approve. This doesn’t work unless you are also rewarding friends.

You don’t use a scalpel at an abattior. Cut as much as you can and then look to rebuild. That’s Musk’s rule he developed at Twitter.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 1, 2025 1:53 pm
Reply to  JC

Sound practice.
Keep cutting until the screaming gives way to whimpering and the blood is ankle deep.
Higher if you are slashing through academics.

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2025 2:41 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

That was awful, and frightening!

132andBush
132andBush
February 1, 2025 3:56 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

In flames or landing lights?

Roger
Roger
February 1, 2025 1:18 pm

It’s a blunt instrument. You’re going to also kill projects you have no ideological animus towards and/ or may even approve. 

Not a great concern of mine as I don’t approve of taxpayers funding the arts (inc. social sciences) at all unless it’s by voluntarily purchasing a ticket or buying a book in the marketplace.

The Abdel-Fattah grant of nearly $1m is but one example of the waste that occurs when arts administrators are spending OPM. The tendentious nature of that particular project adds insult to injury.

Let the philanthropists step forward.

Last edited 12 days ago by Roger
Eyrie
Eyrie
February 1, 2025 7:46 pm
Reply to  dover0beach

Do you mean that pretentious wankers in the US may have to pay more for their BMW’s?

JC
JC
February 1, 2025 1:21 pm

The souls lost in the DC is one thing, but spare a thought for those dudes working off the boats picking up dead bodies and remains out of a freezing cold river in near freezing cold temps. What a job!

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 1, 2025 1:22 pm

$886,000 taxpayer bill to fly Pacific Ministers to ritzy climate conference

Australian taxpayers spent $886,000 on flights and hotels for 13 Pacific Island ministers to attend a climate conference in Sydney. Here is what the government won’t tell you about that bill.

Australian taxpayers were lugged with a $886,000 bill so the Albanese government could fly and house a dozen ministers from Pacific Island nations to a ritzy $5m climate summit in Sydney.

The Summit, which was blasted as an “embarrassment” for Labor after it failed to attract big names or any clear outcomes, cost a total of $4.86m shared between the federal and state government.

The Sunday Telegraph can now reveal that $886,000 was spent to fly and house 13 ministers from Pacific Island nations.

During a parliamentary hearing, it was revealed that the operational and delivery costs for the commonwealth were “about $1.95 million” while “additional costs around participation and engagement, including travel and accommodation assistance for, say, Pacific island ministers, was about $886,000”.

Despite funding their trips, there “no obligations” on the attendees to take any specific action on climate in the aftermath of the visit.

“There were no obligations that arose out of the summit. I think there was lots of opportunity to emphasise greater partnerships and ways of working together to collaborate. There is a highlight of the summit outcomes available on the DCCEEW website at the moment.”

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s office refused to answer if the cost was in addition to the $4.86m cost or where the ministers were hosted for their stay in Sydney.

A spokesman for Ms Plibersek said the government was “listening and supporting our neighbours”, blaming the former Coalition government for damaging Australia’s relationship with the Pacific and China.

“After a decade of neglect under the Liberals and Nationals, we have had a lot of work to do to repair and strengthen diplomatic relationships, especially with the Pacific and China,” they said.

“We’ve renewed Australia’s relationships abroad, and we’re listening and supporting our neighbours, working in the region for peace and prosperity.”

Opposition environment spokesman Jono Duniam labelled the spending as “reckless”.

“Among the many cost blowouts the Labor Government are inflicting on our country’s finances, the $886,000 spent just to persuade Pacific Island Ministers to attend a meaningless conference is particularly outrageous.”

“These Pacific Islanders would have barely been able to believe their luck in being gifted international travel and accommodation at Australia’s expense.

That the cost of this was nearly $1 million makes one question the level of luxury that Tanya Plibersek greenlighted for them.”

“What makes this even worse was that this summit had no purpose and achieved nothing.”

Lead story Daily Tele.

Somehow these words come to mind:

Oliver Cromwell: ‘In the name of God, go!’ speech dismissing Rump Parliament – 20 April 1653, London, England

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 1, 2025 1:36 pm
Reply to  Top Ender

Thanks for posting. More evidence that taxation is outright theft from productive citizens.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2025 5:58 pm
Reply to  Top Ender

Wonder who leaked against Plibbers?

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 1, 2025 1:23 pm

A Chinese national who organizes pro-Hamas rallies at UCLA just got arrested and her visa revoked. She’s going back to China.