I don’t really think that’s relevant to the long term plan. It’s not as if China will become a nation of a billion octogenarians.

Er…if present trends continue they will.

Their present average age is c. 40.

And their young women aren’t interested in marrying or having babies.

Speedbox
Mar 1, 2024 4:15 PM

Speedbox, don’t ever get me wrong. If I make a negative comment on “Russia,” it’s always meant to mean the Putin regime, which I don’t like. I have no bad feelings towards the Russian people and see Ukrainians and Russians as broadly the same. But even people of the same stock at times want to pursue different directions.

The correct quote is “Pneumonia – the old mans friend.”

I’m old enough to create my own phrases, Winston.

Death is no friend.

As communists, there are plenty of levers to pull. Don’t think like an Australian – think like a communist dictator.

The young women aren’t interested in Xi’s incentives.

“It costs too much to give kids a decent life. The stuff they teach at school is propaganda, so I’d want to send them to an international school or abroad. But I can’t afford that,” said Kongkong, a 26-year-old researcher who swears she will not have children.

The last generation.

More importantly, Japan reached a standard of living where, even though the population is falling and doing so quite dramatically,  the country is wealthy enough on a per capita basis to take care of its elderly by drawing down savings.

The Chinese population is not wealthy enough to emulate Japan and especially so with the old geezer avalanche coming at them.

Per capita incomes

Japan: 44,570 PPP dollars 
China: 19,160 PPP dollars

China is now getting close to peaking and reaching the stage where GDP growth becomes minuscule to negative, like Japan.

Speedbox, don’t ever get me wrong. If I make a negative comment on “Russia,” it’s always meant to mean the Putin regime, which I don’t like. I have no bad feelings towards the Russian people and see Ukrainians and Russians as broadly the same. But even people of the same stock at times want to pursue different directions.

JC, this is pretty much my philosophy.

The forgotten PMs Harold Holt and John Gorton, Liberal Party, ended Australia’s conscription and our time in Vietnam. My husband served 1966-7, just saying.

Gough the imposter had nothing to do with Vietnami, He is a fraud who should die in history.

9 Ways The Feds Are Using ‘Bidenbucks’ To Rig The 2024 Election

Gough the imposter had nothing to do with Vietnami, He is a fraud who should die in history.

I’m only too proud to say I despised the useless fraud, and his gang of champagne socialists.

How Sweden proved the world wrong about lockdown

Meme!

At least 3 required JC. It would be a disaster. An unwanted child is going to be neglected if not abused. A generation of dysfunctional adults, increased crime, psychopathy, and mental illness. I don’t think the CCP will go down route. If it did there would be a huge surge in hysterectomies.

The one child policy was relatively easy to control. If a woman was found to be pregnant a second time around, she’d be forced to have an abortion and that was the end of it. Third time, the same.

You can’t force people to have kids as it would turn out to be impossible to implement for the reasons you suggest.

And imagine the grey market in the morning after pill.

I got it Winston

Always good to see Jack with is dad. Watching them drop camels is not fun to watch. However, there are millions out there running amok and culling has to be done.

Many from around the world want to join. Jack has stated if he did so, his insurance premiums would go through the roof.

—-

Jack Out The Back:

Mustering Interrupted again!

Slovakian Prime Minister Announces Investigation Into COVID Vaxx!

Your wish is my command, oh Barking Toad……

Higgins’ claims in $2.4m payout contradicted by her own evidence: lawyers

By stephen rice
NSW Editor
5:56PM March 1, 2024

Brittany Higgins made 11 separate representations about her alleged rape in her $2.4m settlement with the commonwealth which were either false or contradicted by her own evidence in the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann, his lawyers have claimed.

In newly released submissions by the parties to the case, Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers set out a detailed comparison of the claims Ms Higgins made in the Commonwealth deed, signed in December 2022, with her evidence in the still-to-be-decided defamation case.

The Albanese government paid Ms Higgins $2.445m in a settlement that relied entirely on her version of events, after a single-day ­mediation that excluded evidence from her former boss, then ­defence industry minister Linda Reynolds.

Earlier this year, The Australian revealed that the National Anti-Corruption Commission was examining a complaint by Senator Reynolds against Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus over his handling of the Higgins settlement, to determine if an investigation should be launched.

Among the claims made by Ms Higgins in the settlement deed, but disputed in a submission by Mr Lehrmann’s legal team, led by Steven Whybrow SC:

– that Mr Lehrmann got into Ms Higgins’ taxi on the night of the alleged rape without her agreement (she testified she had agreed);

– that he directed the cab to stop at Parliament House without her agreement (she gave evidence that she “just went along with it”);

– that he directed her to get out of the cab (she testified that “I don’t know why, but when it stopped I got out too”);

– that they didn’t speak on the Monday afterwards (they had coffee and exchanged emails).

Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers also point to claims made in the deed which have been strongly disputed in evidence, including that Ms Higgins told Senator Reynolds’ then chief of staff Fiona Brown that he had sexually assaulted her, an allegation always vehemently denied by Ms Brown.

They also pointed to a claim by Ms Higgins that on 11 April 2019, Ms Brown said it was Ms Higgins’ problem to deal with the issue of sick leave for her mental health and also needing time off work to assist the AFP in its investigation.

By that date Ms Brown was no longer an active Chief of Staff, Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers noted, “let alone the unbelievable aspect of the supposed response to such a request for help with sick leave due to mental health issues”.

Ms Higgins’ evidence in the defamation case was that by 3 April 2019, Ms Brown “just disappeared …she left” and that by 5 April 2019 she had “stopped being our acting chief of staff”.

In the Deed, Ms Higgins claimed that: “Ms Brown made it clear by her words and demeanour that the events of 22/23 March 2019 must be put to one side; that (Ms Higgins) ought remain silent about the sexual assault, in order to keep her job/career”.

In the defamation case, Ms Higgins struggled to answer questions from Justice Michael Lee about anything Ms Brown had said, as opposed to what Ms Higgins “felt”, that indicated she should be silent about the alleged rape.

The settlement deed also stated that Senator Reynolds had not engaged with Ms Higgins at all during the election campaign. “She avoided (Ms Higgins) and made clear that she did not want (Ms Higgins) attending events with her,” the settlement deed stated.

In fact, Ms Higgins was photographed seated next to Senator Reynolds during the election.

Giving evidence at the defamation trial, Ms Higgins said she was “accidentally” seated next to the Minister because she was one of the last to arrive.

In response, Ten’s lawyers said that any suggestion that Ms Higgins had a financial motive for the rape allegations was “incoherent” when she had made the complaint years before the settlement and that the complaint against the Commonwealth dealt not with the rape itself but the way it had been handled.

“To the extent that there might be matters in the deed with the Commonwealth that are objectively wrong or inconsistent with factual findings that are made in this proceeding, those are not matters bearing on the central fact that Court must decide,” Ten submitted.

“Strikingly, the allegation of rape in the deed is entirely consistent with all other accounts that Ms Higgins has given of that event,” Ten said.

Mr Lehrmann’s team conceded that his evidence “was in a number of respects unsatisfactory, and it would be open to the Court to form an adverse view of his credit” but rejected claims that he was “a compulsive liar”.

Mr Lehrmann’s lawyers also accepted that it was open to Justice Lee to make adverse findings about some of his conduct, and that those would be relevant to assessing the real damage caused to his reputation.

As to his claim that he went back to Parliament House that night to work on Question Time briefs, it “might appear implausible, (but) does not for that reason alone, render it untrue or fantastic or that of a fantasist.”

Mr Lehrmann’s evidence about the number of drinks he bought Higgins at the Dock bar was wrong, they conceded, but so too was the evidence of other witnesses that night , who all “had no reason to retain minute details of this night and it is unrealistic to expect anyone to do so, almost 2 years later.”

I have very mixed feelings about St Goug. At least he got out there and risked his house sized backside defending this country.

Stanley Bruce, Earle Page, and John Gorton all saw active service – Page and Gorton were both wounded.

Reading Simon Heffer’s excellent history “Staring at God: Britain in the Great War.”

“August 5th, 1914, (The day after the declaration of war) Webley and Scott, purveyors of service revolvers to the officer class, increased the price from 5 guineas to 10 pounds, outraging Members of Parliament.” (Page 91.)

The Cat is like a pub

it’s the shitty carpet
the smell of toilet lollies wafting through from the dunnies
and the sound of pokies from the other room

We frequent very different styles of pub.
Veev ler difrence, or something.

are you saying that you actually have quality music in yr pub?

Pubs ain’t for music, bloke.

We frequent very different styles of pub.

The lights come on, the band stops playing, the couple having a quick “How’s your father” in the corner are thrown out, the lights go out, the band goes on?

ZKTA, men like you and the spouse are the spine of Oz, and our kids out in the mining zones are carrying it on.

Thank you, MareeS, all the best to you, and yours.

Not doing a Lizzie, but this evening we had a boozy catch-up between the spouse and old mate, both Vietnam vets 1966-7, and all of us media types in our afterwards careers.

One hates Trump, I really rate Trump. He hates Dutton, I think Dutton has possibilities. He hates Albo, so we are 100% there. Husband drew a nice cartoon of dreadful politicians gathered in the same room.

Tom would like it, but old boy won’t let me share. (His cartoons are known in the Black And White Artists Society,)

Matrix: There’s pubs aplenty on TV & in movies in Australia. Many of these scenes are shot inside actual pubs.

The only depiction I recall of a pub/pubs where the TV made it feel like a pub, was the series Stingers (1998-2004) a cops & robbers type show set in Melbourne.
The pub scenes in that show are the only ones I’ve ever seen that felt fair dinkum, instead of a carboard cut-out or a faked movie set.

Why is the existence or otherwise of hideous (and very sticky) pub carpet a subject of discussion on this evening’s open thread, FFS?

Tomorrow’s radio show should not be about Mozart – as some philistine suggested – but about Chopin.

The best ones have sawdust.

Isn’t that more the School of Arts hall, rather than the pub?

Salvatore, send me your pub location, I can guarantee you a funny night at the bar. Spouse and I are good value, life well lived on land and sea, we wonder how we ever did it and so do our kids.

I keep promising to write a book, but I’m a journalist, he’s an artist, and our backstory is too ridiculous to put on paper. There aren’t enough trees.m