Thursday Open Thread

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317 comments to Thursday Open Thread

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      yarpos

      Solar customers in general seem blissfully unaware of the maintenance risks and replacement costs inherent in their systems. I guess after decades of taking electricity for granted its to be expected. Like most thinking around “RE” they think there is a free lunch.

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        Earl

        At the risk of falling fowl of Murphy’s Law our free lunch continues to feed us well – lol. Was an early uptake of the solar offer so cost us just on $1000 over and above the solar subsidy/credit we got for putting it in. Initially we were getting $400-600 back for 3 quarters and paying maybe $80-$100 during the winter quarter. As more houses in the street have put solar in we have taken about a 10-15% hit courtesy of the cloud effect. Seems when clouds that have covered the sun causing the generation to dip move off and all the houses shoot back up to full sun generation the feed can’t handle all the sudden extra and some is lost. That coupled with more rain/storm activity and the electricity company tinkering with their feed in rebate level we are now down to $200-300 per quarter and the winter quarter is around $200-250. Like everything the earlier you get in on something the more potential for a decent return.

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          Another Solar story…
          I inherited a 2.5 kw solar system on a property purchaced…so no direct cost to me !
          The system was installed in 2011 by reputable suppliers.
          Initially i was disapointed that be best output seen was 7.5 KWh in mid summer , full sunshine day..but that was soon forgotten when the system failed completely ( “isolation error “).
          Inspection by solar installers resulted in comments like ..”lucky it lasted this long” ,..to ..”we may be able to fix it, no certainty.. but it will cost at least $1k to try”…
          ..and even..” the best solution is to remove it all and replace with a new system !” ( $8-10k)
          However , even the final full replacement was tempered by the advice that tree shading would still reduce the potential output…..so a few $kkk additional would be required to remove those trees that had grown since the original install !
          Even though we are on a large property, realisticly tree shading will always be an issue as some of the problem trees are on council land, not mine.
          I have resolved to living with a faulty system that operates providing i reset the fault as necessary !

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    OldOzzie

    March 16, 2022
    What if the COVID-19 vaccines are not really vaccines?

    Evidence has come to light strongly indicating that the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are not really “vaccines” in the medical and legal sense of the word, but rather “experimental gene therapies.” If proven true, the significance and legal ramifications of this allegation are profound.

    This article summarizes a presentation by Dr. David Martin, a national intelligence analyst and founder of IQ100 Index, a developer of linguistic genomics, and molecular biologist Dr. Judy Mikovits.

    In the presentation, Dr. Martin states, “You cannot have a vaccine that doesn’t claim to result in either immunity or blocking transmission.” He goes on to say, “By their own patents and reference material, neither Pfizer nor Moderna claims this. Rather, they only classify their products as ‘gene therapy.'”

    Dr. Martin states the Moderna and Pfizer products “do not prevent you from getting the COVID-19 infection, nor do they prevent its spread. They are really experimental gene therapies — unlike real vaccines, which use an antigen of the disease you’re trying to prevent, the Moderna and Pfizer injections contain synthetic RNA fragments encapsulated in a nanolipid carrier compound, the sole purpose of which is to lessen clinical symptoms associated with the S-1 spike protein, not the actual virus.”

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      Wet Mountains

      …”gene therapy.” What an interesting concept. Therapy for what? Treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder: Exactly what disorder do they intend to relieve or heal… the human disorder perhaps?

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      Ross

      When articles were written about the mRNA technology years ago they used the term ” gene therapy”- and they developers of those products were actually proud of it. Now, if you use the term “gene therapy” in association with the mRNA COVID vaccines you get censored. Plus, I can remember when Moderna did their initial “sell” to attract further investors. They claimed they could make a vaccine with micro injectors that looked like a band aid. So, you didn’t need some tech to actually jab you. You could just administer yourself by applying the “band aid” type product to the appropriate area and leave it for a period of time. In addition they could also employ markers in the vaccine product so that it could be easily ID’d if you had been vaccinated. If you suggested that these days someone would accuse you of wearing a tinfoil hat.

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      As of 01 March 2022, Australia had recorded 5212 Covid-19 deaths and 786 deaths from the jab. Strangely, correlation between the daily rates of both variables gives a negative value. When there are few Covid-19 deaths there is a relatively large number of jab deaths and vice versa, as can be clearly seen on a plot of each.
      I suggest that the medical profession cannot identify the cause of death correctly because both stem from the spike protein either inserted by the virus in a nose or throat or from spike proteins being generated in a vaxed person as a result of being jabbed by a medical professional ?

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          Will Gray

          Our TGA DAEN database has 6% with underlying health issues of those who passed away within 72 hours post covid19 injections.
          All deaths were reported,outcome of covid19 injections, by a MD.

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            and the total is 11

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              TedM

              That’s the claim.

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              As at 03 March 2022, the TGA vaccine site;
              https://apps.tga.gov.au/Prod/daen/daen-report.aspx
              shows 784 deaths from the jab compared to 60 deaths from all 76 other vaccines over the 50+ years of recording. That is criminality on the part of our Federal and State governments who have mandated or coerced most of the population into being jabbed.
              Why hasn’t the jab been banned? They could have told the public to boost their immune system by taking vitamin D with zinc and magnesium supplement plus vitamin C. If unwell they could have recommended a now proven cure in Ivermectin. But no, the lethal injections continue.
              Are they aiming at achieving the ambition of the World Economic Forum of a reduction in the world population from more that 7 billion to their ideal of 1 billion? Added to that, the other WEF ambition of changing the human DNA, now in progress due to the jab with completely unknown consequences.
              It took 5 years for the Thalidomide disaster to be resolved and we are only 1 year into this experimental mRNA gene therapy. Are we going to let this continue?
              Who are the members/graduates of the WEF in our community? I am aware of four in our Federal Parliament.

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              Wet Mountains

              GA, just curious, What therapy do your genes require?

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                Will

                The ability to discern stats based upon political bull effluent as opposed to those based upon honesty and reality. Unfortunately, far too many of those involved in the false stats have far too much to lose by being honest and we will never see them. “Cause of death” is a function of the honesty and integrity of the person filling in the death certificate and if you ever think that there is no pressure to make it “politically acceptable” it is because you have never had to fill one in under pressure. example… a 78 yo male with controlled hypertension, minor heart failure and asthma, suddenly dies after a
                “vaccine” jab. No autopsy as he obviously died from one of the above…take your pick.

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                I wash them in cold water

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          Yes Gee Aye and the Australian Immunisation web site at https://ausvaxsafety.org.au/safety-data/covid-19-vaccines
          fails to mention any deaths whatsoever and provides the bland statement “These symptoms are known to occur after vaccination. They are generally mild and short-lived.”. Presumably this has pacified all of the medical profession who rely on the site to give them the current information on vaccines.
          Worse still is the recently published, but not mentioned, finding that the Moderna jab contains a cancer causing gene, perhaps the reason for those in remission getting a recurrence of their ailment after receiving the jab.

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          Glenn

          The Covid Medical Network estimates over 2000 have died as a result of being injected. They have written to the Government, ATAGI and the TGA requesting answers. A stony silence so far.

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        Leo G

        As of 01 March 2022, Australia had recorded … 786 deaths from the jab.

        Confirmation from a database search (summary only)

        Database of Adverse Event Notifications – medicines
        Vaccines

        4 medicines selected between 01/01/2019 – 03/03/2022.

        Selected medicines
        Trade name Active ingredients
        COMIRNATY COVID-19 vaccine tozinameran
        COVID-19 Vaccine (TNS) COVID-19 Vaccine (Type not specified)
        COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S (Viral vector)
        Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine Elasomeran (mRNA

        Search results
        The results are shown in two tabs.
        Number of reports (cases): 114079
        Number of cases with a single suspected medicine: 111986
        Number of cases where death was a reported outcome: 786

        The DAEN – medicines contains information from reports of adverse events that the TGA has received in relation to medicines including vaccines used in Australia.

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      Rod W

      Legal action has commenced in the US to formally put on the record that the mRNA vaccines are biological weapons.

      Sound far fetched?

      Here’s the legal rationale:
      https://twitter.com/LakovosJustice/status/1502814888003055621?cxt=HHwWisC5qbWLidspAAAA

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    Ian1946

    The CDC and FDA knew in January 2001 that the vaccines were not safe yet they said and did nothing Steve Kirsch has found the evidence in the VEARS database. I can only assume that the TGA also had access to this data but did nothing.

    https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-cdc-knew-in-january-2021-that/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1OTI2NjM3NCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTA0NjY1OTgsIl8iOiIwWDdFdCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NzQ2OTM1OSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ3NDcyOTU5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNTQ4MzU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.C7TXJnjmPBS3_us-lthQRKo-yznRcgyPpnvu7tV_EGw&s=r

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    OldOzzie

    Biden Makes Bizarre Comment About ‘Naked’ Blackmail That Has Everyone Talking

    But Joe Biden had another priority on Wednesday, and it just makes you wonder what the heck is going on in his mind with things like this. Biden said he’d established a “new civil rights cause of action.”

    “I bet everybody knows somebody…that in an intimate relationship, what happened was the guy takes a revealing picture of his naked friend, or whatever, in a compromising position and then…blackmails…,” Biden declared.

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      OldOzzie

      Natural immunity data shows vaccinations for the general public against covid-19 is no longer necessary

      Health researcher John Campbell is pleading with the CDC to pay attention to it’s own data from California and New York. Campbell is urging governments around the world (Hello Canada) to change their approach in the battle against Covid. Data pouring in from around Europe and North America show vaccine immunity is wearing off while natural immunity is holding strong.

      Will government’s pay attention? Some are starting to. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lifted covid restrictions in England. Will federal governments in Canada and US follow suit? They’d be hard pressed not to if they paid attention to the latest information as shared here by John Campbell.

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        Joao Martins

        Vaccination (even with true vaccines) NEVER was necessary against COVID-19.

        Early treatmnt WAS necessary, but every effort in that direction was torpedoed.

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      OldOzzie

      Covid Isn’t Over Until Every Official Who Abused It Is Held Accountable For The Destruction They Caused

      The authors of the lockdown debacle must be prevented from pulling this stunt again and made to answer for the destruction they have caused.

      When Russia invaded Ukraine two weeks ago, some were quick to quip that Vladimir Putin had single-handedly killed Covid. As the story goes, worldwide collapse of public support for Covid restrictions, abysmal approval ratings for the Biden administration, and internal Democratic party polling warning of a political bloodbath in November necessitated a shift in the news cycle away from the pandemic.(The Shift Change) In characteristic lockstep, jurisdictions around the world began hastily walking back their mandates because, you know, science.

      There Must Be a Reckoning

      It was never the prerogative of politicians, health agencies, and international organizations to snatch our rights away. Enormous suffering has been inflicted as a result, and the working and middle classes throughout the world are shouldering the burden of this outrage.

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        OldOzzie

        China’s failing zero-COVID strategy risks collapsing the world economy

        Over the weekend they were confronted with a fresh concern as Chinese authorities started locking down multiple cities including Shanghai and Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. Shenzhen is a manufacturing and technology hub that is often described as China’s Silicon Valley. Apple supplier Foxconn and dozens of other factories have been forced to close down.

        Chinese media is reporting that the surge in cases appears to have been triggered by people having travelled from Hong Kong, which is currently suffering the world’s worst spike in COVID deaths. An astonishing one in every 20 COVID cases there is resulting in the patient’s death, according to analysis by the Financial Times’s John Burn-Murdoch.

        It seems that having unleashed this virus on the world, China’s dogged and increasingly doomed zero-COVID policy will ensure the damage wrought by the pandemic could drag on for months to come.

        In an eerie echo of the early days of the pandemic, supply bottlenecks are already beginning to emerge with the number of container ships waiting off some of China’s biggest ports almost doubling compared to February, according to Bloomberg data. And that’s all before factoring in the possibility of sanctions being imposed on China if Beijing were to respond to Moscow’s requests for financial and military aid.

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    OldOzzie

    Reports: 7.3 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Japan, Millions Without Power

    A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan at 2:36 p.m. UTC (10:36 a.m. EST) Wednesday, leaving over two million residences in and around Tokyo without electricity, according to reports.

    The earthquake struck 60 kilometers, or some 37 miles, below sea level in the Pacific Ocean near the Fukushima prefecture on Japan’s east coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency reports. A tsunami advisory has been issued for the country’s Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures for wave surges of up to three feet.

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    OldOzzie

    Green hydrogen investments ‘will take time’, says CEFC boss

    Clean Energy Finance Corporation chief executive Ian Learmonth said he was confident the scale of investment in green hydrogen to displace fossil fuels will succeed in helping Australia achieve net zero emissions by 2050, but he conceded it “will take time to become cost competitive”.

    While green hydrogen has been hailed by many, including Fortescue founder and billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, as the best way to move to a low-emissions economy, others worry it may fall short of the hype.

    Mr Learmonth – who is at the helm of the federal government’s $10 billion “green bank” which was created in 2012 – admitted there was a lot of investment riding on the success of the green hydrogen revolution to replace fossil fuels, but he was confident it would deliver.

    “Hydrogen is very exciting, but it will take a while before it’s cost competitive with gas,” Mr Learmonth said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.

    “There is so much capital interested and so many countries interested globally to drive the green hydrogen market.”

    The CEFC – which focused in its early years on wind and solar projects but has moved onto newer technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage and waste recycling – has already invested $300 million in hydrogen projects.

    Mr Learmonth denied investment in green hydrogen was a gamble, compared to CEFC’s early investments in wind and solar which were established technologies.

    “There are certainly a lot of parallels [between solar/wind and hydrogen investments] such as government funding and support, capital like ours, at the front end of this market and really big licks of it to allow green hydrogen to become cost competitive,” he said.

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      RickWill

      but he conceded it “will take time to become cost competitive”.

      I have high confidence it will take time and 10 to the power of a big number in investment funds to prove that green hydrogen is not a viable energy option.

      The idea of building a processing plant to run on excess intermittent energy is doomed to fail. If green hydrogen is the lowest cost way to store intermittent energy, then the production plant will use most of its production to keep the plant running when the intermittent power is available.

      It is one thing to make a plant that can produce hydrogen but it is quite another beast to produce a plant able to run on intermittent energy and have positive energy output.

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        Lance

        H2 is a net energy sink.
        The energy required to create, store, transport, and use, H2, requires 65% to 100% more energy than the H2 contains.

        “Time has come to shift the attention of energy strategy planning , research and
        development from a “Hydrogen Economy” to a “Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon
        Economy”

        https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf

        The only practical use of electrolysis made H2, is synthetic hydrocarbons or Ammonia. H2 is a waste of time, energy, resources and risk.

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          another ian

          As Willis E put it a while back – “the problem with hydrogen is that it is pre-burnt. You can’t just open up a hydrogen mine”

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        Bruce

        a close eye on the “spillage”!!

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        b.nice

        ” run on excess intermittent energy is doomed to fail”

        If these plants are grid connected, they will mostly be using coal fired electricity.

        Great for the coal powered stations. 🙂

        Also “excess intermittent energy” does not exist in Australia, and almost certainly never will.

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          b.nice
          March 18, 2022 at 5:57 am ·

          If these plants are grid connected, they will mostly be using coal fired electricity.

          The main ones currently proposed are in the NT and northern WA…
          ….neither of which are connected to the East coast grid.

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            b.nice

            “neither of which are connected to the East coast grid”

            So they will be highly intermittent.. . just what electrical gears needs 😉

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              The proposals include. Huge capacity battery storage to buffer supply to the process equipment.
              …..but these are impossibly huge fantasy proposals..
              EG. ..10GW of solar ,..+ 45 GWh of batterys !

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      OldOzzie

      Democrats Don’t Want You To Know How Much Fossil Fuel It Takes To Power Electric Cars

      Instead of investing in American energy, Democrats are actively suppressing the American energy industry and then telling Americans to spend their savings on overpriced electric cars to solve their problems. But the left isn’t being honest about the environmental and financial costs of those trendy electric vehicles.

      Last Thursday, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky took to Twitter to remind Americans that these cars are not as environmentally friendly as Democrats insist they are.

      To advance their climate agenda and deflect backlash about rising gas prices, Democrats are telling Americans that driving electric cars is for the greater good of the environment, fully knowing the charging stations for these cars are not fossil fuel free.

      In reality, one of Tesla’s Supercharger stations was reported to get 13 percent of their energy from natural gas and 27 percent from coal. Power plants burn coal to generate electricity to power electric cars and emit a higher fossil fuel footprint than the left would care to admit.

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      OldOzzie

      NSW invests $125 million in farming to grow greenhouse cuts

      NSW farmers will be helped to tap the growing market for carbon credits through a $125 million state government investment to boost the agriculture sector.

      The government is opening a new program to invest in wide-scale emissions reduction in agriculture, which could potentially mean targeted revegetation of grazing country on a landscape scale, or seaweed feed across the dairy industry to reduce the methane from burping cows.

      NSW is also opening up its vast primary industry databases on soil, vegetation and land management so farmers and private buyers of carbon credits can use them as a baseline to verify the emissions reduction projects and invest with confidence.

      Treasurer Matt Kean said primary producers and land managers, which generate about 14 per cent of total emissions, will play an important role in NSW achieving its goal of reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050.

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        Hanrahan

        Feeding cows seaweed would have the added benefit of adding iodine to milk. See a recent John Campbell vid where he discusses iodine with an expert.

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      When are we going to see, hear the next massive explosion from leaking hydrogen post Hindenberg ?

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        Bruce

        The “Hindenburg” was a special case.

        Unless there is a critical “fuel / air” mix, the stuff just burns; albeit rapidly. One of the less-publicized characteristics of hydrogen combustion is that it is colourless and odourless. This makes hydrogen fires extremely dangerous

        The visible smoke and flames from the “Hindenburg” were fro the combustion of the huge outer skin, the rubberized silk bags that held the hydrogen and the considerable quantity of remaining fuel for the multiple propulsion engines.

        As for Hydrogen-powered engines: a conventional ICE runs like a pig on Hydrogen, if it runs at all because the flame front velocity AND pressure are very sub-par.. Might work better in a suitably sealed gas-turbine, but that will get hammered by the usual suspects because of the exhaust noise and heat..

        NEVER lose sight of the incontrovertible fact hat the Eco-loons have a LONG list of “solutions” they MUST employ, to solve any and all unrelated “problems”.

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          MP

          One of the less-publicized characteristics of hydrogen combustion is that it is colourless and odourless.

          So is LNG, they add stuff.

          Hydrogen can be physically stored as either a gas or a liquid. Storage as a gas typically requires high-pressure tanks (5000–10,000 psi tank pressure). Storage of hydrogen as a liquid requires cryogenic temperatures because the boiling point of hydrogen at one atmosphere pressure is -252.8°C.

          10,000 psi, https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/physical-hydrogen-storage should be as safe as houses.

          https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-basics-0

          A volume of around 11 m3 (which is the volume of the trunk of a large utility or commercial vehicle) is needed to store just 1 kg of hydrogen, which is the quantity needed to drive 100 km. For this reason, its density must be increased using one of the following techniques:

          https://www.utwente.nl/en/tnw/ems/research/ats/chmt/m13-hendrie-derking-cryoworld-chmt-2019.pdf

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          As for Hydrogen-powered engines: a conventional ICE runs like a pig on Hydrogen, if it runs at all because the flame front velocity AND pressure are very sub-par.. Might work better in a suitably sealed gas-turbine…………

          Hydrogen flame front velocity is TOO FAST for conventional ice designs…
          Radical redesign of mechanical timing etc is needed to prevent detonation etc.
          Some diesel engines have been converted (JCB) but there are many issues including reduced power.
          Gas turbines do not like hydrogen either (FF velocity again) but most big turbine manufacturers are working to solve the problems. Currently only approx 5% hydrogen in the fuel mix can be tolerated.

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    David Maddison

    People on the rational side of life, most of us here, should be careful when talking about ultra supercritical coal plant.

    They are more fuel efficient and thus have the economic benefit of using less coal meaning lower running costs.

    An incidental effect of using less fuel is lower CO2 production.

    But why emphasise the lower CO2 production? Of what relevance is it?

    It just serves to encourage the false belief that CO2 is bad.

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      Graeme#4

      Cost studies have shown that SMR nuclear is fractionally cheaper than USC coal, and CCGT gas is up there with USC coal, provided cheap (fracked?) gas can be used. The key advantages of all these energy sources are their high CFs and long plant lifetimes. Plus the fact that they be located either on existing plant sites or close to main population sources, meaning less long transmission lines. I believe that we need to focus on all three energy sources, and continue to point out that renewables, even without firming/backup cost twice as much over their short lifetimes.
      Some actual cost calculations of the actual costs of renewables and their required backups may help.
      But let’s not try to make separate cases for these three good energy sources.

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        Hanrahan

        Just a few clicks from me there are three OC gas turbines with over 400 MW capacity, just beside a busy highway. My guess is that the vast majority driving past would not know they are there.

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          David Maddison

          There is also the Laverton North Power Station in Vicdanistan. Capacity is 320MW of two open cycle gas turbines and few would notice that either.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverton_North_Power_Station?wprov=sfla1

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            Sambar

            But I did notice the shadow minister for climate change in Victoria visited the Eildon hydro electric power station last week. Her comments were inadvertantly damning of current policy and naive in the extreme.
            Her visit coincided with the daily start up of the turbines at 3.00pm and she was IMPRESSED that hydro was employed to take over from solar inputs just as evening peak demand ramped up, this followed by the comment that she then enquired why the water released couldn’t be pumped back into the main reservoir to be used again, however the AGL team advised that the Eildon system “wasn’t suitable”. The absolute lack of understanding of very basic physics leaves me wondering.
            This of course is what the alternative government has to offer. Talk about the blind leading the certifiably insane.

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              David Maddison

              The installed capacity of Lake Eildon hydroelectric power station is a mere 4.5MW, about the same as a large windmill (nameplate).

              For the Shadow Minister to be excited about this shows just how frighteningly clueless she is.

              That, and even more staggering cluelessness proposing perpetual motion.

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                Sambar

                This is the incumbent that asked me to donate to her re election campaign.
                For what its worth I haven’t wasted my money on white elephants, lemons or dead horses to flog for quite a few years now. Failed political parties are also included.

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          Graeme#4

          I’m not sure where the majority of small gas peaking plants are located throughout Perth. My guess is along the main north-gas pipeline that cuts right through Perth, heading south to industries. As you say, I believe they are quite small installations in the suburbs.

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            yarpos

            You not need many if your grid is properly configured for gas in the first place and less screwed over by “renewables”

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        b.nice

        IMO, its about getting the most electricity out of the coal that you can, within financial constraints.

        CO2 doesn’t come into it… but minimisation of other actual real pollutants is also a good thing.

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    Robert Swan

    Someone here (forget who, sorry) linked to Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s article on the clamping down on British doctors’ social media activities. Great article.

    In comments at that article was this link to an Ontario family court ruling in a case where the father wanted the children vaccinated and the mother didn’t. Long read, but I found it worthwhile. Here are two highlights:

    I have not been able to find any indication — in the father’s evidence or in the body of COVID vaccine case law — that allegedly debunked theories have ever been properly considered or tested. In any court. Anywhere.

    The father has attempted to dismiss the mother as some sort of crazy anti-vaxxer. Nothing could be further from the truth. The mother’s materials and submissions actually addressed the important and complex issues in more detail and with more comprehension than conveyed by the father. She has made it very clear that she has not completely rejected COVID vaccinations for L.E.G. and M.D.G.. She is simply concerned that in her view there is overwhelming evidence of unresolved safety concerns with respect to the current vaccines being administered. She has come to the conclusion that at this time the risks associated with the vaccines outweigh the benefits.

    One last snippet, that, like the above, has parallels in the climate debate:

    The professional materials filed by the mother were actually more informative and more thought-provoking than the somewhat repetitive and narrow government materials filed by the father.

    Good to see something sensible from Canada.

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      TdeF

      Very silly. I saw both and an indecisive cat paused, utterly confused. Probably depressed but could be just pessimistic, optimistically.

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      Annie

      First impression was that it was walking on the level, on some sort of track. Second impression was up. Hmmm!

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      Sambar

      Damn, I looked at the steps and the way they were constructed. Each step has a “lip” that protrudes out by a centimetre or so the cat is clearly coming down.
      Is there a category that means that I looked at it like a chippy. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, just do the steps meet code?

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        OldGreyGuy

        That is exactly what I saw. The stairs have a lip and I immediately thought I was looking up at a cat walking down stairs.

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          TdeF

          The paw of the cat indicates climbing. Up and raised to get grip on the next step, toes down. Head position too. But the surface of the staircase and shadows look wrong unless there are treads on the step edges which pass for a lip. So there is a position called realistic or practical or analytic or objective between the emotional states of pessimism and optimism. Especially if it’s not your cat and you wonder what it’s doing on the staircase.

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            KP

            I’m with TdeF, our 4 cats look like that walking up stairs, they have a very different body language walking down.

            The stairs look like they come downwards, but seeing a cat is never wrong, the person who built the stairs screwed them up.

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        Strop

        The category you might be looking for is Realist.
        It could also be Pedant. 😉

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        b.nice

        I looked for further evidence.

        The sides of the step show the structure of the walls holding the steps.

        There is no doubt the cat is going down the step.

        Its not psycho-ology, its basic structural observation.

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    Graeme#4

    Would really appreciate a discussion on how much renewables would be required, along with their backup storage, would be required to replace the entire National Grid energy. Think the calculations should also be shown to promote a healthy debate and a fundamental understanding that folks could take onboard the many claims that renewables are cheaper.

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      another ian

      Bumped

      “No Amount Of Incremental Wind And Solar Power Can Ever Provide Energy Independence”

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/16/no-amount-of-incremental-wind-and-solar-power-can-ever-provide-energy-independence/

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        Graeme#4

        Ok, but it’s the figures and calculations that I’m seeking, not just warm fuzzy statements.
        My guess is that this process or something similar would be required to estimate the requirements:
        1. Establish the percentage of wind to solar renewables in the area of the National Grid.
        2. Pick an amount, say 10 GW, then divide into solar and wind from (1) above.
        3. Establish backup storage required for each energy type.
        4. Increase solar and wind energy outputs for both the original amounts determined in (2), by an amount sufficient to maintain the daily requirements for (2) and keep the storage levels up for all possibilities. May require a few iterations.
        5. Take the total amount from(4) and increase to 25 GW daily.
        6. Reassess storage amounts for the renewable amounts required in (5).

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        • #
          Eng_Ian

          Graeme,
          The calculation process is NOT difficult, if you accept a few quick guesses. For example, you can state that the duration that wind will NOT be available, (say below 5% generation capacity), is 5 days. You can do similar for solar, say only available at 4 hours per day. In reality, a precise answer would require you to open up a lot of weather reports.

          The elephant in the room revolves around how much over generational capacity will be installed and WHERE, not to mention simple ratios, like wind to solar magnitudes. Who knows what the future will hold. BUT, you will need to install MORE capacity than the demand. Since wind is on average 30% of nameplate, let’s say that the wind capacity installed is 3 x the average demand. For solar,let’s say that it is 4 x the average demand. Of course, this will leave a lot of spare capacity on the good days for charging batteries. Any excess will NOT be required and will hence NOT be paid for. (Just like fossil fuel now, if the wind is available, the FFngenerators are throttled back or switched off).

          So now the other tricky part, how long is the wind not going to blow? How long is it going to be cloudy? There are LOTS of data collection points scattered all over the country measuring both the value and frequency for these events. And of course, windless days in Vic may not align with windless days in Qld. And no one knows where all this new generation is going to go.

          So a quick and crude look at the answer to your question. If you have a AVERAGE demand of 1MW, (scale this up as required to the NEM demand). Let’s say that the distribution of windmills provides a worst case of 10% generation for a duration of 5 days AND this could happen in winter with the southern states in fog, resulting in no more that 4 hours of 100% solar per day.

          Your demand for the 5 days is 120MWHrs, simply being 5 x 24 x 1, (days x hours/day x demand).

          Your generation, (assuming the over capacity installation and intermittent factors as noted above), are: Wind = 5 x 24 x 3 x 10% = 36 MWHr, solar = 5 x 4 x 4 = 80MWHr

          A shortfall of 4MWHrs, (ON AVERAGE). In reality, overnight, you would need to cover the lack of energy before those 4 hours of sun came into play.

          So your battery, assuming you can use 80% of it would require a storage of 5MWHrs, (minimum but more likely 10+MWHrs).

          That sounds lovely doesn’t it. Not too big a battery, etc.

          Now the crunch. On a sunny day, you don’t need any windmills at all during the day. So the windmills owners don’t get paid. Or on an average windy day you don’t need to pay the solar farms, maybe for weeks at a time.

          It quickly becomes obvious that there is TOO much generation installed to pay everyone, unless the bills go up say 4x. Less generation requires more batteries, which are very expensive.

          In short, a renewable world will require the purchase of generational capacity in the order of 7 times the demand value plus at least 2 days of storage to cover for overnight demand as noted.

          A good Monte Carlo analysis playing with all the variables is going to take weeks to run and would really cause a lot of heartache and pain for those who think this will be cheap or possible.

          I’m betting that no country will be able to afford the true cost of a renewable system, not if they still want reliable power anyway.

          Sorry for the long text. My bad.

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          • #
            b.nice

            Very well explained. Thanks 🙂

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            Eng_Ian

            And don’t forget, this is for an AVERAGE demand, since the peak to trough is quite large, around double, you would need to cover for that too. Ironically, the less generation and more storage solution would cover for that better than just throwing more storage at the problem.

            But again, who pays?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    It’s not only clueless politicians that Australians need to be concerned about. It’s the clueless public serpents that tell them what to think.

    100

    • #
      OldOzzie

      Sydney’s flagship harbour metro rail line billions over budget

      The cost of building the NSW government’s signature metro rail line under Sydney Harbour and the central city has blown out by at least $2.2 billion following the renegotiation of contracts with large construction companies.

      Amid a surge in building costs, tender documents reveal the government has agreed to increases to scores of contracts for the City and Southwest rail line, including those for new stations at North Sydney, Martin Place and Waterloo.

      Senior government sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, now expect the total cost of the rail line to pass $17 billion

      and

      Cost blowouts to force government to make hard decisions on mega projects

      With the cost of the City and Southwest line and other mega transport projects surging, the government will soon be forced to make some hard decisions. Firstly, it will have to level with the public about the true cost of these projects. Secondly, it will have to consider delaying construction of some or, at worst, canning the least viable.

      The multibillion-dollar Northern Beaches Link road project is regularly cited as the most likely to be delayed or canned, while the need to open an $11 billion metro rail line to the new airport at Badgerys Creek in western Sydney the day that the first passengers begin walking off planes in 2026 is highly questionable. Last year, the country’s peak independent adviser on infrastructure savaged the justification for the airport rail line, calculating that the cost outweighed its benefits by $1.8 billion.

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    OldOzzie

    Bureau of Meteorology says La Nina weakening has ‘stalled’

    The La Nina climate driver, that has delivered Australia’s deadly floods, should right now be on the way out. But new data has revealed it has no plan to retreat any time soon.

    During La Nina years, the climate driver typically forms in late spring or early summer and subsides during autumn.

    However, the current La Nina seems unwilling to do the decent thing and move on.

    In a climate update released this week the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said the while the current La Nina would eventually weaken and dissipate, it’s “retreat had stalled”.

    “The 2021–22 La Niña event continues but is past its peak,” the Bureau stated.

    “However, trade winds remain stronger than average in the western Pacific, which has delayed further weakening of the La Niña over the past fortnight.

    “Persistently strong trade winds over the past fortnight have driven a cooling to La Niña levels of the central tropical Pacific,” said the BOM.

    “This has also cooled water beneath the surface, pausing the warming trend seen during January and February.

    “Warming below the surface of the Pacific Ocean typically foreshadows a breakdown in La Niña, and usually occurs in the southern hemisphere autumn.”

    La Nina’s stubbornness doesn’t just mean the moisture it brings could linger for longer. It could also mean the effects of another climate driver will be exacerbated.

    The Madden-Julien Oscillation (MJO) is strengthening over the Indian Ocean and heading into waters north of Australia.

    The MJO is a continuously circulating pulse of wind and cloud that moves through tropical areas of the globe. With the wet season in full swing and La Nina continuing, the MJO can add even more rain into the mix – particularly for northern Australia.

    “Most climate models suggest the MJO is likely to move to Australia’s north, in the coming week,” said the BOM.

    “The risk of tropical cyclone development is also expected to be elevated across parts of northern Australia and the tropical south Indian Ocean in the coming fortnight.”

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    • #
      TdeF

      Billions spent on Computer Climate models and no one can predict La Nina, the biggest single influence on world climates when you consider the Pacific covers half the planet?

      It boggles that anyone self appointed Climate Scientist considers they have a functional Climate model when it is subject to the vagaries of something vastly bigger, something they do not understand and cannot predict and cannot model?

      As all the world’s water comes from the oceans, all the world’s rain, ice and snow, all the world’s storms why don’t they model the oceans not the thin air above? And what is a storm or weather without water?

      And if you cannot model them, then model the oscillations and predict the weather from them. This actually fits the data perfectly as shown by Professor Weiss (look at 12:17) now seven years ago. Man’s influence on CO2 let alone CO2 on the weather is zero. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for man driven CO2 levels or CO2 driven weather. And every scientist knows it.

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      • #
        b.nice

        “There is absolutely no scientific evidence for man driven CO2 levels or CO2 driven weather”

        but.. but… IPCC !!! 😉

        30

    • #
      Graeme#4

      I believe that BOM uses a different prediction technique to the Japan Met dept. The BOM has constantly predicted an El Niño every year – they managed to finally get it right recently.
      Why they would be saying that the La Niña would weaken when the very large pool of cool water in the Pacific shows no sign is dissipating is beyond me.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        They constantly predict a bumper crop of cyclones too.

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        • #
          Ross

          Sometimes they even say the forthcoming Summer will be hot and the following Winter might be cold. But, only 50% certainty. Where would we be without them?

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    • #
      el+gordo

      What they are not saying (their models aren’t too flash) is that we are about to experience a rare weather phenomenon …. three consecutive La Nina.

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    • #
      el+gordo

      Theoretically, three consecutive La Nina should take temps below the line, then straddle it for five years.

      https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2022_v6.jpg

      My bet with Mr Fitzroy is looking good.

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    • #

      Yes its sad that our BOM now seems to have concluded that La Nina’s are now the drivers of our planet’s climate.

      Just when I thought our BOM has reached the absolute bottom of the credibility barrel.

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    • #
      KP

      Anyone else reading of the smaller sunspots in cycle 25 that mean the sun is cooling. Another observation that suggests a minimum.

      Some paper I must find again said astronomers studying similar suns to ours found they were showing the same phase. Maybe its a part of the life cycle of a G-type star.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        ‘Actual sunspot counts have now exceeded predictions for 15 straight months. The monthly value at the end of December 2021 was more than twice the forecast, and the highest in more than 5 years.’ (Spaceweather)

        00

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  • #
    David Maddison

    COPIED FROM ELSEWHERE (A little dated since it talks about Killary for US President.)

    Alexander Downer gave $25 million of Australian taxpayer money to the Clinton Foundation to “fight AIDS/HIV in Asia.”

    Where did the money go❓

    ‘The Australian taxpayer shovelled at least $88 M into the Clinton Foundation and associated entities from 2006 to 2014, reaching a peak of $10.3 M in 2012-13, Gillard’s last year in office.

    On the Clinton Foundation website, AusAID and the Commonwealth of Australia score separate entries in the $10 M plus donors..

    In 2009-10 Kevin Rudd handed over another $10 M to the foundation for climate research, part of $300 M he squandered on a Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

    Gillard also donated $300 M of our money to the Clinton-affiliated Global Partnership for Education.

    She became chairman in 2014 and has been ­actively promoting Clinton as president ever since

    The Abbott government topped up their coffers with another $140M in 2014, bringing total Aus donations to $460 Million

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    OldOzzie

    Washington Is Ramping Up Its Campaign To Draw NATO Into War With Russia

    The provision of such heavy weaponry to Ukraine, whether by the United States or our NATO allies, would represent an unprecedented level of direct military support for Ukraine that would undoubtedly — and rightly — be interpreted by Moscow as a sharp escalation by the West.

    Top Republican lawmakers, though, are undeterred by such concerns. The letter, signed by GOP Sens. James Inhofe, Marco Rubio, James Risch, and Reps. Mike Rogers, Michael Turner, and Michael McCaul, also calls for an array of other weapons to be sent immediately to Ukraine, including more Javelin antitank and Stinger antiaircraft missiles, which the United States has been providing to Ukraine in large quantities, as well as myriad small arms, ammunition, and other supplies.

    It’s not enough, as these GOP lawmakers are doing, to wave away the risks that such policies carry. Moscow clearly views this war as existential, and it will not simply allow NATO to funnel increasingly more powerful weapons into Ukraine. As I argued last week, this isn’t Afghanistan or Syria. Controlling Ukraine is central to Moscow’s conception of its national security, and it won’t simply walk away from this war without widening it first.

    Instead, they will insist, with the force of what they believe is moral authority, that we keep plunging down a slippery slope that eventually leads to war between NATO and Russia — and that we do so without even acknowledging what we’re doing.

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    • #
      Leo G

      The provision of such heavy weaponry to Ukraine … would undoubtedly and rightly — be interpreted by Moscow as a sharp escalation by the West.

      We should acknowledge that it would also undoubtedly be inadequate to match the present sharp escalation of the conflict by Russia.
      But even more we should consider the geopolitical issue which places controlling Ukraine in centre place of its national security interest- an issue the corporatists controlling the Biden Administration well know:-

      If Beijing chose to take Siberia by force, the only way Moscow could stop it would be by using nuclear weapons.

      What does Siberia have to do with Ukraine?
      China was forced into the 1960 Convention of Peking after its humiliation in the Opium Wars and just before it lost possibly a third of its population through a series of rebellions and famine.
      China was very weak and Russia was strong and growing.
      The situation is now reversed- Russia is weak and faces limits to its growth. China is strong and appears to be growing stronger.
      Moreover, Siberia provides China much of its raw materials, especially oil oil and gas, and China’s factories in Siberia produce goods for China as though the region were already part of its economy.
      The Biden Administration appears to be in the thrall of corporatists who view the best geopolitical outcome as one most aligned with China’s interest.
      I don’t believe that a weakened Russia can hold on to Siberia, nor that China’s acquisition of the vast territory would be in the interests of most of the world’s peoples.

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  • #
    another ian

    “The Ukraine war: lies, falsehoods and propaganda are the order of the day”

    https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-ukraine-war-lies-falsehoods-and.html

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  • #
    el+gordo

    La Nina strengthens and we get the MJO back in perfect sync, the wet will continue.

    https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/mjo-imminent-for-australian-region/536656

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    • #
      Graeme#4

      And the continued hot weather in Perth drags on and on… Looking more and more like that nasty year in the mid-1970s, when the hot spell lasted into May. Glad I’m escaping to Tassie for some cooler weather.

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      • #
        • #
          Graeme#4

          It’s impossible to compare current Perth temps to earlier records because the Perth measurement site has been moved twice, each time to a warmer location. Yet the BOM and local TV stations still come up with absurdities such as “hottest since 50 years”, or something equally stupid. The original measurement site up on Mt Eliza was so cool that in TV’s early days, two temps were quoted nightly for Perth in summer: the official much cooler temp, and the “actual” Perth temp, taken from a fairly accurate thermometer located in a central CBD jeweller’s shop.

          60

        • #
          b.nice

          “But… cooling!”

          Yes, it is. !

          40

  • #
    David Maddison

    Is TikTok a Chinese psychological weapon to promote Western degeneracy?

    Much of the content is obscene, degenerate, lacks any redeeming purpose and goes against Judeo-Christian morality.

    I don’t watch it but became aware of its content due to critical reviews of various TikTok videos on YouTube channel “Odins Men”, https://youtube.com/c/OdinsMen .

    As with “green energy” the Chicomms profit from a weak and degenerate West while greatly contributing to our self-destruction.

    60

    • #
      Len

      In China, their government makes Tik Tok produce moral posts. They are not allowed to produce the rubbish and degenerate content they do in the West

      20

  • #

    “Mega” Solar/ hydrogen plants in the NT and WA..
    On Tuesdays thread there was some discussion over the proposed 10GW “Sun Cable, ASEAN Power Link” solar plant near Berkley in NT intending to supply Singapore with electricity via an undersea cable.
    There was some discussion as to the viability, capacity, and losses of that proposal
    The current reality is it is a proposal for 10 GW (nameplate) of solar panels, to provide a 3GW output into Darwin…..of which it is planned to offshore 2.2 GW to Singapore via HVDC cable.
    The storage for that proposal is currently to use Battery banks.
    Further proposals are in process for 2 other Solar and Wind farms in WA (Karatha), ..one for 50GW and the other for 26 GW of nameplate power .
    “Known as the Western Green Energy Hub”
    https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2021/07/13/historic-50-gw-renewable-hydrogen-hub-proposed-for-wa-by-consortium-behind-recently-rejected-project/
    These are both for power and primarily Green Hydrogen production with some power possibly exported to Indonesia.
    Neither of these have been approved and the 26 GW plan has recently been denied planning approval.

    50

    • #
      Graeme#4

      Real clever idea to locate these expensive renewable projects right in the middle of an area that has abundant cheap gas piped all over the place.

      60

    • #
      Graeme#4

      Michael Darby wrote an article for WUWT in 2020 that analysed this project:
      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/02/flogging-unreliable-energy-by-extension-cord-to-singapore-looks-like-an-outrageous-fraud/
      However, I believe that Michael made the same error as I did in assuming that the 10 GW was supposed to all be sent to Singapore.
      However, IainC, commenting in The Australian yesterday, pointed out that only 3 GW was to go to Singapore/Darwin, with the rest of the 10 GW going to keep the batteries charged. (I note that you say only 2.2 GW is to go to Singapore.)
      IainC appears to agree that a 45 GWh battery (20x larger) is OK to support 2.2/3 GW. However, Michael Darby believes that a backup battery needs to be at least 60x larger. So who is right? I’ve seen another estimate that storage should be 200x larger.
      It should also be noted that the original Singapore energy purchaser has pulled out of the deal (The Weekend Australian, 15 October 2021.)

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      • #

        The numbers dont add up anyway..
        A 10 GW solar farm even with a CF of 0.25 can only produce 60 kWh per day total .(100% sunshine)
        3 GW to Darwin for 24 hours would require 72GWh
        No matter how big the battery, it is no use if they cannot generate the energy to fulfil the demand.

        30

        • #
          Graeme#4

          Interesting. Thanks for the comment Chad. It seems that no matter which way this project is looked at, it’s a massive dud.

          10

    • #
      yarpos

      Large solar and wind at Karratha? it must have been a long time since the last cyclone, its left the corporate memory.

      40

  • #
    David Maddison

    I posted this comment late on the previous thread:

    Maybe one reason the Russians invaded Ukraine is, like the Chinese they realise the world is cooling and agricultural production will be affected.

    Russia will have warmer weather in Ukraine for farming, the Chinese will farm in Africa, which they are in the process of colonising, and any neighbouring countries they invade.

    60

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    OldOzzie

    More than 330,000 over-60s yet to have booster as virus cases tipped to rise

    More than 330,000 people aged over 60 in NSW are yet to receive a coronavirus vaccine booster jab, as officials stress the urgency of getting the shot before winter with cases expected to double in weeks.

    Health Minister Brad Hazzard told the Herald that despite an expected spike in Omicron BA.2 infections he did not support a return to pandemic restrictions, but would concentrate on driving booster uptake and looking at “every possible method of reaching out” to those not triple-dosed.

    20

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    Strop

    Editorial from Science.org

    Earning the public’s trust

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo6347

    “Trust science” has become a mantra in recent years—not just from politicians but also from major segments of the scientific community. The phrase misses the point: By and large, people trust science, but many don’t trust scientists. And it is hard to blame them.

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    • #
      Honk R Smith

      From the article, “For decades we were told ‘science’ had proven that dietary cholesterol was a major contributor to heart disease. Yet that work has now been almost completely discredited.”

      Presuming this is a accurate summation of current ‘science’ on cholesterol, it would seem ‘science’ never says “I’m sorry”.
      Billions have been made on this faux ‘science’ alone.
      How many billions are still taking their statins?
      How about the TGA? https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-12-01/australias-most-commonly-prescribed-medicines-statins/12936626
      How many still think eating a T-bone steak is more dangerous than landing with the Marines on Guadalcanal?
      My wife unit still examines my own plate and exclaims “high cholesterol”.
      Add ‘Pandemic’ neurosis on top.
      ‘Trust science’ is a term uttered only by liars and those unable to recognize lies.

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      • #
        Honk R Smith

        I can’t keep up … it’s more likely trillions of $ made on the dietary cholesterol narrative.

        20

        • #
          KP

          Yep! What about the stomach ulcers? Big Pharma had a great time selling snake oil to cover symptoms but never cure the problem, until Prof Borody came along. They fought against his ideas tooth and nail too.

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    • #
      Leo G

      “Trust science” has become a mantra in recent years …

      Trust to Big Pharma is in the commerce sense, where corporatists have monopolistic or semimonopolistic control.

      00

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    OldOzzie

    The AFR View

    Judicial frolics only make energy transition harder

    Climate lawfare that increases the legal, regulatory and investment risks of mine projects will make it more difficult for Australia to emerge as a global supplier of critical energy transition minerals.

    The unanimous Federal Court ruling overturning what The Australian Financial Review’s legal editor Michael Pelly called a “judicial frolic” should not be a victory just for the rule of law over so-called lawfare action that brought its teenage climate change activists to tears.

    It also needs to bring wider legal and regulatory certainty to Australia’s mining-led energy transition, which will require more extraction of the precious metals and rare earths from the earth’s crust needed to replace fossil fuels with lower-emissions electricity. Australia’s competitive advantage in exploiting the opportunity of this transition is threatened by our unnecessarily costly regulatory processes.

    In a world-first decision last May applauded by climate activists, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found that the federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley had a special duty of care to protect children from climate change harm when approving new mining projects.

    The case was brought on behalf of a group of teenagers against Whitehaven Coal’s Vickery mine expansion in NSW. All three justices of the Federal Court’s full bench, using different legal rationales, on Tuesday quashed Justice Bromberg’s political adventurism.

    For starters, there was no actual causal tort, given the lack of connection between one small coal mine extension and actual personal harm from global warming. And the trial judge had invented a novel ministerial duty that massively overreached his remit into the High Court’s territory.

    Don’t tie up the legal system

    The teenage climate activists who brought the case are perfectly entitled to politically agitate against fossil fuel development. However, they and others should not be entitled to tie up the scarce resources of the legal system in considering questions that should be democratically decided.

    Amid a global energy crisis and strong demand for coal and gas, lengthy and costly mine approval and appeals processes under existing state and federal environmental laws threaten to concentrate the supply of fossil fuels in unsavoury regimes such as in the Middle East and Russia.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Last weekend I walked at Wilsons Promontory in Vicdanistan. There is the Wilsons Promotory Lightstation which you can stay at but you have to walk 19.2km to get there by the shortest path. There is no other way for walkers to get there.

    It has luxury accommodation although you have to carry in all your own food and carry out all rubbish. You do save having to carry a tent, sleeping bag, mattress and cooking equipment, however if you stay there as compared to camping.

    The lightstation, apparently they are not called light houses anymore, is autonomous and is run by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

    The accommodation part is in the old light house keeper’s cottage and other cottages and is run by Parks Victoria.

    Now, Parks Victoria being a “green” organisation, you’d think the place would run on wind and solar panels.

    In such a remote location you’d think it would be a legitimate example where solar and/or wind was justified.

    However, in the museum there was a comment about how they had tried wind turbines but the blades kept on getting shredded by the high winds.

    There was a small solar installation I could see, I estimate about 500W, maybe this was to run the lightstation strobe. There may have been roof top solar I couldn’t see.

    What struck me first as I ascended the hill to the complex was three diesel generators running. I asked about these and was told they run on most days when the solar batteries go flat….

    I asked how they got the diesel fuel in for the generators and gas cylinders for hot water and cooking and they said it was bought in by helicopter, obviously at great expense.

    So there you have it, even in a remote location where wind or solar might be justified, it doesn’t have what it takes.

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    OldOzzie

    The Sydney councils most likely to refuse your renovation plans

    Data from the NSW Planning Department suggests renovators and builders face an unpredictable lottery when it comes to DA approvals across local government areas.

    Data for 2021 shows one in five, or 20 per cent, of DAs submitted to Hunters Hill Council were refused last year, followed by Strathfield where 16 per cent were knocked back and then Mosman (13 per cent).

    In comparison, Blacktown, Willoughby and Wollondilly councils each refused just 1 per cent of DAs in 2021, while Blue Mountains, Camden, City of Sydney, Hornsby and The Hills Shire knocked back 2 per cent of DAs.

    20

  • #
    David Maddison

    I think the decline of the West is inevitable. There is no worthy leader anywhere in the Western World. Donald Trump was such a suitable leader who could have saved the United States and the West in general but look what they did to him.

    151

    • #
      Lance

      Perhaps the Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, might be someone to consider if Trump is not available or is otherwise engaged for the 2024 US Elections.

      My current fantasy is that Ron DeSantis will become the US President, and a majority Republican House of representatives will appoint Trump as the Speaker of the House. That would cause radical leftists to burst into flames or convulse in apoplexy. 🙂 Que Sera, Sera.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        Lance, a majority MAGA house could appoint Trump speaker next Jan. I believe Trump is aware of this proposal and has not dismissed it out of hand.

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        • #
          David Maddison

          Then the MAGA House could impeach Biden and/or Harris and if they left office Trump would become President or Vice President as the Speaker of the House is third in line for president.

          40

  • #
    another ian

    But, having experienced the “new normal alternative”, do you think that – – –

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Thought for the day:

    Sports can be categorised as either fighting, fleeing or flouncing. (Red Symons)

    20

  • #
    John Connor II

    American Military Expert Explains the So-Called Slow Russian Advance in Ukraine

    Propaganda in the West has created false expectations of Ukrainian success, retired US officer says

    Russia has largely achieved its objective of neutralizing the Ukrainian military, but Western governments mistakenly believe the deliberate progress designed to avoid civilian casualties reflects weakness and are funneling weapons to prolong the fighting, a former top Pentagon adviser has said.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has given strict orders from the outset to avoid civilian casualties and extensive property damage, retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor told the Grayzone in an extensive interview on Tuesday.

    This has slowed the Russians’ advance “to the point where it has given false hope both to the Ukrainians … but seized on by people in the West, to try and convince the world that a defeat is in progress, when in fact the opposite is the case,” Macgregor said.

    https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2022/03/16/american-military-expert-explains-the-so-called-slow-russian-advance-in-ukraine

    With propaganda on both sides being the norm, one needs to be very careful in assessing what’s real but from what I see, I’d say MacGregor’s appraisal is spot on.

    The USA is a war machine looking into the abyss of social/economic/political collapse. War is all they have left.

    First quarter of 2023 for Australia is when things go crazy according to Martin A.
    Sounds about right.

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      Russian President Vladimir Putin has given strict orders from the outset to avoid civilian casualties and extensive property damage, retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor told the Grayzone in an extensive interview on Tuesday.

      Either ..
      1)..this Macgregor guy is bullshitting..
      2).. the command never made it down to the battlefield
      3)… the Russians have very strange and defective tactics of avoiding civilian casualties !

      42

      • #
        Hanrahan

        I think minimising damage and casualties WAS the plan, but it always is. Things don’t go to plan, never do.

        30

      • #
        John Connor II

        Actually, from what I’ve seen and from real people on the ground, Russia is intent on minimising civilian casualties while exposing USA activities and political scum like Zelensky.

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        • #

          John, like Putin, you appear to have a strange definition of “minimising”
          How does carpet bombing and shelling obvious residential buildings and even bomb shelters, fit with that view ?

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          • #
            KP

            They haven’t done any carpet bombing, that is the usual American tactic, and the civilian casualties are remarkably low.

            Did you know the Ukrainians set up a website to get mothers of young Donbass men killed in action to assemble in the town to hear news about their sons, then shelled them as they assembled?

            Funny that didn’t make any Western news, yet its on video on Eastern Euro websites.

            Putin could have just flattened the cities in Ukraine and combed through the wreckage shooting the survivors, but he said at the outset he wants to disarm the military and not kill civilians. I see websites that list casualties and ground captured against time and compare it to WW2, and he has captured more land with lower casualties in a faster time.

            He is up against an enemy that doesn’t hesitate to put firing positions beside schools or in residential building, an army that uses the people it is meant to be defending to hide behind. That’s before he has to fight through the fortifications that were built in WW2 and just added to time and again.

            More than anything, it is showing how false the Western narratives are, how the Western Govts cannot be trusted, and how we need a multipolar world rather than America beating up anyone who disagrees with them. Who would keep 300 billion dollars in reserves in the USA now?

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              Lucky

              Yes, the Ukraine militias’ training is the same as Hamas.
              -Firing from schools with children inside
              -A rag doll featured as a dead child
              Complete one-sided support and agreement from mainstream press.

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              RobB

              Yes, my thoughts are similar. If the Ukrainian army are such a bunch of heroes, why are they hiding in cities making civilian casualties inevitable? Why dont they fight the Russians in the open field? If they cant win that fight they should surrender, rather than hide behind women and children.

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      TdeF

      Good summary of the reality. It all fits as any military strategist would expect and anyone familiar with the battles in the same cities from 1940 to 1944. Putin has only one objective, regime change. And Biden and Kamala want real war. In Germany she threatened Russia with NATO, a statement which was immediately contradicted by the White House. Even Zelensky has declared that is unacceptable.

      Despite the press, the Russians are not carpet bombing, demolishing cities, cutting off the power or water or a thousand things they could do. 2.5 Million Ukranians have left because they could.

      And the Russian death rate is ten times higher because they are not fighting back with anything like the same ferocity or their really heavy weapons. These cities were Russian cities, Odessa, Sebastopol, built by Russians in the 1790s under Catherine the Great and the expulsion of the Cossack Hetmanate. And Kiev was the founding city of the Kiev Rus before Novgorod. No one on the Russian side wants them damaged. Everyone wants this to end, not get worse!

      But the regime in Kiev is fighting for its life regardless of cost in people on both sides. Are the people fighting for their country or for the regime? What was the point of the US Civil war? It was not about slavery.

      Worse, the American hawks and Democrats want it to explode, as in Korea, Vietnam, Syria, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Cuba. Getting involved in a civil war is always a very bad idea if you are trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys. US trained Ho Chi Minh and Osama Bin Laden proved that. And if it’s not Russia on the other side, it’s China.

      The serious expectation is that the Russians will slowly consolidate their control over the cities and then it becomes a stalemate with only one conclusion. At which point the sensible move is to declare open cities and talk. How many times have the CIA been involved in forcing regime change? Not least in Kiev. Remember the assassination of Victor Allende in Chile?

      America did not tolerate missiles in Cuba and only last year ordered Russian bombers out of Venezuela. It will not tolerate Russian weapons on its Southern border. Russia at least deserves the same right to safety from first strike. And Biden has very provocatively called Putin a war criminal. Is he really trying to destroy the place? Who is running the White House?

      So Biden and friends want to send in very heavy weapons and watch the remote disaster at no cost to themselves, Ukraine vs Russia. On television. And the Democrats have become war mongers to distract from the rolling disaster at home and rescue the mid term elections. Biden is already blaming Russia for the gas prices! It’s another American proxy war and political distraction. And the US open provocation is beyond sense and a nuclear missile war is beyond imagining.

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        RobB

        And even the Russian missiles in Cuba were a response to US missiles in Turkey

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          You cannot compare the international tensions of the ‘60s ..Cold War, etc, ..to todays political environment. Everybodys finger was hovering over the red buttons.
          So now you are all making out Russia is being hard done by ?
          Strange view of an obvious agression by a megalomanic !

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            el+gordo

            Indeed, a dictator on steroids is not a pretty sight and I’m surprised by some of the comments. The good news, everyone got out of the theatre alive because they were in the basement.

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    another ian

    “Energy Secretary Admits White House Using Ukraine Crisis as “Urgent Moment” to Transition US to Clean Energy
    March 16, 2022 | Sundance | 2 Comments
    Following the familiar pattern of never letting a crisis go to waste, the Biden administration has now admitted their intent with the opportunity Ukraine represents is to fundamentally change the U.S. energy program to Green New Deal objectives.”

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/03/16/energy-secretary-admits-white-house-using-ukraine-crisis-as-urgent-moment-to-transition-us-to-clean-energy/

    And

    “Gas prices may shut down much of our transport system”

    https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/03/gas-prices-may-shut-down-much-of-our.html

    A nicely timed lead-up to November?

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Millions of People “Fully Vaccinated” for Covid Are Now Suffering From Excruciating Illnesses

    Potentially millions of “fully vaccinated” people are now suffering with a range of jab-induced illnesses that may or may not be curable. And the unfortunate reality for them is that they will probably never find the answers or solutions they need.

    https://uncanceled.news/millions-of-people-fully-vaccinated-for-covid-are-now-suffering-from-excruciating-illnesses/

    The “pandemic of the vaccinated” begins.
    Let all the prison inmates go. We’ll need the space for politicians, health experts and fake celebrities.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      These longer term effects were predicted by various scientists and medical doctors.

      Many were silenced or sacked/fired.

      Others were told they were “tin foil hat conspiracy theorists”.

      Public serpents, politicians, the media, the Left, the medical profession, Big Pharma and others responsible for these injuries and deaths must be held to account.

      No one can say they weren’t told. And “just following orders” is not an excuse either.

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    John Connor II

    World court orders Russia to pull troops out of Ukraine

    The United Nations’ top court for disputes between states ordered Russia on Wednesday to immediately halt its military operations in Ukraine, saying it was “profoundly concerned” by Moscow’s use of force.

    Although the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are binding, it has no direct means of enforcing them, and in rare cases in the past countries have ignored them.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/8687095/world-court-russia-ukraine-war-ruling/

    Putin will not back down. He can’t.
    If he knows he’s going to lose then it’s time to push the button and goodbye northern hemisphere.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Biden’s puppeteers made Biden’s mouth move and tell Putin in advance that NATO would not deploy troops. Putin has nothing much to lose.

      Russia and China will be the new power block and the West will be submissive to them.

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      • #

        David Maddison
        March 17, 2022 at 11:47 am · .

        Russia and China will be the new power block and the West will be submissive to them.

        It is never that clear cut. !

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        Hanrahan

        There is a massive silver lining to this cloud. Russia is being humiliated, exposing to the world their soft underbelly. Another week of this attrition and they will be out of smart weapons and will have to resort to WWII carpet bombing and long range shelling. Putin cannot shrug off the world’s opprobrium if he resorts to such barbarism.

        AND China’s military would be even more hopeless and they will recognise this, they aren’t fools.

        If anyone really thinks China can forcibly take Taiwan watch the start of June 6, 1944 – The Light of Dawn. Remember, by D Day the Yanks, in particular, were hardened and experienced in amphibious landings. By comparison China has no hardened forces.

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        • #
          farmerbraun

          “Russia is being humiliated, exposing to the world their soft underbelly. Another week of this attrition and they will be out of smart weapons . . .”

          What are you talking about ?

          “the world’s opprobrium ”
          Seriously?

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          • #
            Hanrahan

            Please explain where I am wrong, don’t just rubbish.

            Do you believe Russia is proving itself to be a world power in conventional warfare? Going to war is expensive and selling a few tankers of oil doesn’t pay the bills. When this is over they will have to decommission a lot of warheads to save on upkeep and to sell the diluted U.

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              KP

              Lets just wait and see about that…

              I hope you’re reading both sides of the propaganda.

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            • #
              farmerbraun

              “Although Ukrainian forces putting up a good fight casualty rates are 6 Ukrainians for every 1 Russian, the Ukrainina shave lost all command structure above divisional level and the coherent units still in field are not being resupplied, running out of ammo, fuel and replacement parts. The bulk of Ukraine’s front line elite troops, some 60,000 men have been encircled into two groups, “cauldrons”, in the Donbass.”

              “don’t just rubbish.”

              I’d be more than happy to , if you would just put up some evidence.
              The “world’s opprobrium ” is laughably weak when you consider the brainwashed state of the facebook and twitterati who are heaping the “opprobrium” .
              Similarly with the “humiliation” – it’s the Ukro nazis who have been humiliated and annihilated. And it’s not over.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Interesting story about Thomas Fuller, an African slave in Virginia known for his outstanding calculation abilities.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fuller_%28mental_calculator%29?wprov=sfla1

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    David Maddison

    COPIED FROM ELSEWHERE

    This morning Rita Panahi said: ‘Not hearing much from those who complain loudest about the treatment of women. Just like they’ve said nothing about Kaushaylia Vaghela’s mistreatment. Where are the ‘sisterhood’? Where are the ABC activist journos, Grace Tame, Lisa Wilkinson, Julia Banks et al…your silence is deafening.’ Panhai was referring to the treatment of Kimberley Kitching by Wong, Keneally and Gallagher. The ABC and Nine newspapers and activist groups have the view that only conservatives can treat women badly.

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    • #
      Sambar

      And Albanese’s response to the question of was there a “mean girls” club was to completely obfuscate, declare how he didn’t;t think such terms as “mean girls” would still be used today and all the associated fluff. Carefully avoided acknowledging that women of the left could be as vindictive and bullying as anyone else. Bullying of women is something that only right leaning people do.

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    another ian

    “Ancient Ice Reveals Scores of Gigantic Volcanic Eruptions”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/16/ancient-ice-reveals-scores-of-gigantic-volcanic-eruptions/

    Might go with those volcanic dust questions from a previous thread

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    I’m cautious but I don’t see how there can’t be a dem wipeout come November.
    Reasons for optimism:

    Hundreds of thousands have responded to Bannon’s appeal to get poll-watchers in the polling places.
    Judicial Watch has had some success in getting state rolls cleaned up.
    Republicans generally have been awoken from their slumber and now know elections can be stolen.
    There is no democrat policy that has over 50% support, that I know of.

    From todays Breitbart:

    …Poll: Americans Ditching Masks…
    POLL: 71% OF AMERICANS FAVOR BIDEN RESTARTING KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
    POLL: MAJORITY SUPPORT FLORIDA DON’T-GROOM-KIDS BILL
    POLL: JUST 1 IN 3 APPROVE OF 50,000-PLUS UKRAINIAN REFUGEES

    They are just today’s headlines. You know many other unpopular issues. How can you win if EVERY policy is unpopular?

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Much of the election fraud seems to have come from the voting machines.

      I am not sure how effective poll watchers will be in observing that aspect of the fraud unless the machines are capable of being properly audited.

      Does anyone know if the machines can be audited in real time or soon after the election?

      Poll watchers will be good for looking out for those 3am ballot dumps, however.

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      PeterS

      If the Democrats still win the mid term elections then I somehow doubt people will be silent this time around. I suspect though the attempts by the Democrats will fail. However, there is one fly in the ointment. The elections could be put on hold by the Democrats once they suspect they will lose big time, and do so indefinitely using some excuse. No prize as to what that could be. However, under the US Constitution even if the general election was put on hold, a POTUS still has to be elected, either by Congress or similar. That most likely means Biden will still remain. The DemocRATS will try and find a way to throw a spanner into the works; that we can be sure.

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    OldOzzie

    Tucker Carlson: Defending The U.S. From Unwise Decisions Is Treason?

    Well, recently we learned the answer because we watched it. Masks were a training exercise. Mandatory masking was a shock collar designed to teach Americans unquestioning obedience and, of course, it worked because shock collars do work. In a single day last month we watched, for example, our entire professional class dutifully changed their Twitter avatars from mask up to the now mandatory Ukrainian flag.

    There was no debate about doing this, no reflection. There was not even a real conversation. They just did it. Millions of people simply assumed reflexively a partisan position in a highly complicated foreign crisis, the next crisis, and as they did it, they moved in perfect lockstep. They were guided by their masters of the social media companies who were themselves taking direction from the White House.

    The whole thing was like watching synchronized swimming in Pyongyang. It was an amazing performance. Most amazing of all was seeing Republican leaders join the herd after two years of COVID training, they couldn’t help themselves. The result was the largest political flash mob in American history—Republicans, Democrats, business titans and the media all on one side.

    So, of course, dissent of any kind was banned instantly and if you persist in asking questions about all of this found themselves censored and those who persisted in asking questions because they were lucky enough to have a rare, protected platform, found themselves threatened with something worse—maybe indictment, maybe arrest. Here’s former Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, threatening this show just last night.

    CLAIRE MCCASKILL: Tucker Carlson and others are really, really close to treason in terms of what they are saying and parroting what is… Putin’s dream.

    Oh, so defending our country from your recklessness and unwise decision-making is treason? Declare your loyalty to Ukraine or you’ve committed a crime, right? Claire McCaskill, whatever you think of her, was not talking like that two years ago. No one in public was talking that way two years ago, before COVID. In a free country, you’re allowed to say what you think is true. You can defend your country if you want, even if politicians disagree with you. That was the whole point of living in the United States, but not anymore.

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      PeterS

      That’s the plan. The agenda is to make anyone who criticises our governments an act of treason, just as is the case already in China and to a certain extent Russia. We are almost there. Wake up Australia.

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      Sambar

      “our entire professional class dutifully changed their Twitter avatars from mask up to the now mandatory Ukrainian flag.

      There was no debate about doing this, no reflection.”

      Don’t worry O.O. it is apparently working every where for every social justice issue you could imagine.
      Recently recieved a letter from a semi govn dept. signed by someone with what was (formerly) a very obviously feminine name, however, just to make sure I was under no illusions after the signature in brackets were the pronouns ( she/her ). To this day, and I’m bearing down on 80 years old, I have NEVER had an issue with peoples sexuality,
      gender or other general quirks, provided they treat me and mine with exactly the same respect that they demand for themselves. Don’t care what people do in their personal lives provided it is within the law. Stop cramming these changes down my throat, I will assess every individual on how they interact with me, not on what some social justice warrior demands

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      KP

      Haha! The Arabs are worried about terrorists… Where do they think the thousands of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons are going to end up as America flood Ukraine with them?? Even if Russia went home tomorrow the corrupt Ukies would sell them on the black market!

      Those weapons will appear all over the world in the future.

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    another ian

    Willis E looks askance at CMIP6 modelling

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/16/climate-models-dont/

    50

  • #
    David Maddison

    I’ll grant that ScoMo (present Australian PM) is slightly less dangerous than the alternative, Anthony Alba-sleazy but he is by no means good.

    ScoMo is spineless, utterly lacking in leadership qualities and the ultimately fence-sitter.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      ScoMo is spineless, utterly lacking in leadership qualities and the ultimately fence-sitter.

      Puts him ahead of most other criminal world leaders. He isn’t DOING many bad things.

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      • #
        Grogery

        He isn’t DOING many bad things

        Failure of a (so-called conservative) PM

        He isn’t DOING many bad things because he isn’t DOING anything important at all (and hasn’t for a long time).

        He had an obligation as PM to use section 51 of the constitution to pull the crazy state premiers into line – but no, he decided to collaborate with them instead – not to mention most of these imbecile state premiers are scomo’s opposition.

        I knew when Abbott got the knife in his back we were in trouble and I was correct. The last conservative PM before the coming NWO was knived by a fake conservative who has not failed to disappoint.

        They are all corrupt to the core. Vote accordingly, they need a message.

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      PeterS

      Yes he is somewhat less dangerous but the end results will be the same and might take longer to achieve. A bazooka is slightly less dangerous than a tank too. Not sure that natters though. We are dead either way. I’m hoping enough people wake up by the time we have the next election so that neither major party holds the balance of power. They certainly don’t deserve it and anyone who says they do must be living under a rock or agrees with their polices and agendas. It might not help a lot but at last we can have a crack at halting their self-destructive policies. We will never know unless we try.

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    John Connor II

    Arctic Ice Melting At A ‘Frightening Rate’ As Greenhouse Gases Continue To Threaten Earth

    Due to the excess heat created by human greenhouse gas emissions, new satellite data has shown the Arctic is melting at a “frightening rate.”

    We can only stop this by reducing our fossil fuel emissions, and we can all play a bigger part than we probably know. Even our own opinions might have an impact.

    https://www.btimesonline.com/articles/154171/20220316/arctic-ice-melting-frightening-rate-greenhouse-gases-continue-threaten-earth.htm

    Sick ’em Jo 😆

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    John Connor II

    I’ve dumped Google-lite aka Duckduckgo and switched to Yandex on all devices and platforms.

    DDG was good until they went woke.

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    John Connor II

    The curtain close on Covid theater

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=iulvEmAmtcQ

    Get it before it goes…

    00

  • #
    el+gordo

    ‘Regions lag on infrastructure as populations boom.

    ‘We are experiencing the largest internal migration on record. It’s time to bring the regions up to speed.’ (Oz)

    00

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    David Maddison

    You can be asked if you’ve been vaccinated for covid to buy a coffee but how dare anyone ask if someone who unexpectedly dropped dead had recently been vaccinated.

    140

  • #
    PeterS

    I do sometimes wonder about the finer details of The Scheme behind the Great Reset but it’s pretty obvious now that in the big picture sense there are a number of people who for whatever reason for a long time wanted to start a war between the US and Russia. Now they have their chance and it’s worrying.

    30

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    PeterS

    Saying the world has gone mad just doesn’t cut it any more. It’s gone suicidal.
    NATO Calls up Hundreds of Thousands of Troops Ready to Begin WWIII

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    another ian

    FWIW

    “The Pentagon is to deploy over two thousand troops to Australia by September to join an established rotational force of 200 in anticipation of a conflict with China, according to reports.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/wwiii-biden-sending-thousands-of-marines-to-australia-in-anticipation-of-conflict-with-china/

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    • #
      another ian

      And links to Col. Macgregor on Putin’s goals

      20

    • #
      PeterS

      The truth of the matter is if the Russians, Chinese, Australians, Americans, etc. all participated in a referendum that asked the question whether to go to war or not, I bet the resounding result would be a big fat no. Political leaders are such warmongers.

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      KP

      ““The Pentagon is to deploy over two thousand troops to Australia by September to join ..”

      ..just to make sure we kneel down and suck America’s d**k. They may say they are allies, but they put troops in most countries just to make sure you stay one.

      Vote for any Australian politician who speaks out against America, they will be the only free person standing there.

      20

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    another ian

    “Call me radicalised, given that I mistrust government, science and media. Which brings me to one of my biggest recent mistrusts of government, science and media, COVID. With Japanese encephalitis the virus du jour, will Ivermectin be released from purgatory: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22535622/?”

    Via https://newcatallaxy.blog/2022/03/17/meme-of-the-day-26/#comment-178991

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    MP

    They have a vaccine for that, it may be a real one this time. It can’t be passed around so its not an infectious disease.

    https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/factsheets/Pages/japanese_encephalitis.aspx

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  • #
    another ian

    “Now that Joe Biden’s president, The Times admits: Hunter’s laptop is real”

    https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-times-finally-admits-hunter-bidens-laptop-is-real/

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  • #
    another ian

    Oops – link is

    https://youtu.be/DKBM-7QLu90

    Via SDA

    20

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  • #
    PeterS

    It’s what I suspected for a long time…

    Wall Street analyst: COVID vaccines ‘greatest fraud in history’

    In a video interview Wednesday with WND, a former Wall Street executive whose analysis of CDC data shows an alarming rise in deaths among Millennials over the past year amid the COVID vaccine rollout said he’s hoping to start a national conversation that will penetrate an establishment media “blackout” by emboldening people across government and private industry to speak out.

    Dowd also has examined the Pfizer clinical trial data provided by whistleblower Brook Jackson, concluding it, and the fact that Pfizer tried to hide it for 75 years, point to “clinical fraud.”

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    PeterS

    Energy Secretary Admits White House Using Ukraine Crisis as “Urgent Moment” To Transition US to Clean Energy
    There you have it, the real reason for the West pushing for a war with Russia is to get us off fossil fuels. Not a smart move in anyone’s language, war or no war. I always wondered why the West didn’t go to war with China a long time ago to stop them building hundreds of coal fired power stations. Now we know. They are doing it by proxy, first via Russia and then China. Sounds idiotic but that’s how they are playing it to fulfil their “dream” of a net zero emissions world. The trouble of course is Russia and China have no intention of letting the West dictate to them what to do. As far as they are concerned they see the West self-destructing in a number of ways and they are patient enough to sit back and wait for it to happen. If only Westerners were awake to all that and told their government in no uncertain terms; STOP THE ROT!

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    PeterS

    With Republican representatives like Maria Salazar, even Trump would have an impossible task trying to save America.
    Tucker Carlson clashes with Rep. Salazar over Russia-Ukraine war and borders

    20

  • #
    PeterS

    New World Order ‘liberalism’ vs. John Locke’s ‘liberalism’

    It gives a good outline of how the meaning of liberalism has changed, with links to many other interesting articles. The following questions are presented.

    So, do we stand or do we fall after the classical Western values upon which this civilization was built are removed? What happens when differences of opinion is no longer accepted? When private property rights are no longer upheld? When Western institutions are no longer respected and justice for the widow and fatherless is no more? Will we survive the New World Order’s anti-liberal values, and who will then defend the powerless?

    The answers are fairly obvious and not good.

    10

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    Dave in the States

    China had plans to invade Taiwan autumn 2022:

    https://www.newsweek.com/china-planned-taiwan-invasion-fall-alleged-russian-intel-leak-claims-1688449

    Be aware that the report is based on letters from a whistle blower in Russian Military Intel. claimed received by a Russian dissident living in exile in France. So there’s no way to verify it. It could be based on US Intel speculation published a week ago:

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/11/how-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-shaping-chinas-plans-taiwan.html

    In the modern world of fake news and homogenized/manipulated data who knows what to believe? Especially with all sides of Ukraine mess ramping up their own misinformation campaigns.

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      Ronin

      I wonder if the Chicomms still think it’s a great idea to invade Taiwan after how things are going for Putin.

      30

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    Honk R Smith

    Free speech under attack a Yale law school.
    School, or education, would not be appropriate terms for what takes place there these days.

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

    20

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    PeterS

    The MSM and others have escalated to the next level and are calling for people like Tucker Carlson to be investigated for treason speaking out the truth about the existence of dozens of US funded bilabials in Ukraine. How about people like Fauci be investigated for treason first about the lies he propagated about the Wuhan lab.

    “The View” Calls For ARREST Of Tulsi & Tucker Carlson Over Ukraine

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    PeterS

    Tucker: Things are changing very fast

    So fast that more and more people are calling for the US to support Ukraine shooting down Russian planes. I suppose such people who are itching for a war with Russia think Russia is like Syria or Iraq and won’t take much effort to bring down Russia. Two obvious problems with that insane thinking. One, China will side completely with Russia so that means we will also have to declare war with China. Two, Russia has thousand of nukes and is willing to use all of them as a last resort. The insane talk being thrashed about all over the MSM must be causing major headaches for Biden. It’s scary to think he could “push the button” because he might think it would be more prudent to shoot first and ask questions later. What was it that people used to say that Trump was trigger happy? Biden is clearly far worse and more dangerous as the MSM are just echoing what Western governments are thinking.

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    William Astley

    The Dems have been hiding the fact that China is using their state funds and Chinese agents to attack US citizens, on US soil. The US government did nothing to protect US citizens or to warn the US people, except to try to hide the attack from the public.

    Comment:
    Chinese agents have for the last decade, been tracking down Chinese citizens who have taken asylum in the US. The Chinese agents use threat of force on relatives in China to force the persons to return to China or to take a suicide pill. China has no limits on force or the rights of people. What is next? Biological attacks that target individuals?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/60773595

    “Unsealed files have revealed a plot by five people working on behalf of Chinese secret police to stalk and harass a US military veteran running for Congress, and to spy on an artist. … to undermine the US congressional candidacy of a military veteran who was once a leader of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing.

    It is the first time, they say, a federal election campaign …. (William: This is an act of war and the fact that it was hidden and no action was taken, is treason.)

    The perpetrators went to “outrageous and dangerous” lengths to do so, the Department of Justice said…

    …… of “transnational repression schemes” to target American residents whose political views and actions were “disfavoured by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government”.

    “The co-conspirators allegedly tried to “interfere with federal elections” by orchestrating a campaign”

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    another ian

    “New York Times Admits Hunter Biden Laptop Evidence Was Accurate, The Intelligence Community Was Lying

    March 17, 2022 | Sundance | 125 Comments”

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/03/17/new-york-times-admits-hunter-biden-laptop-evidence-was-accurate-the-intelligence-community-was-lying/

    “To the extent that any institutional credibility remained, all of that is now gone – as the house of cards collapses.  However, there is a more consequential aspect that needs to be emphasized.  When you accept that our government, all intelligence agencies and officials, and all of the collaboration with media and big tech was built on a foundation of manipulative lying, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE CURRENT NARRATIVE AROUND UKRAINE?”

    And more.

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    another ian

    “When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/03/17/when-the-fbi-does-it-that-means-that-its-not-illegal-228/

    Read the link and marvel!

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      PeterS

      Also, when the MSM or a politicians says something, it’s very likely a lie. How odd we live in such an up-side-down world yet most people don’t give a damn. Makes one very sick society. It’s already feeling like we are living in a prison state yet we can see it’s going to get much worse.

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        yes. MSM lies but your sources are impeccable… according to someone who told you they are.

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        el+gordo

        ‘ … yet we can see it’s going to get much worse.’

        Not on my watch. Admittedly the MSM doesn’t always put stuff in that should be said, but technically that is a sin omission and not a lie.

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    Hanrahan

    Biden Insults Irish on St. Patrick’s Day

    ‘I May Be Irish, But I’m not Stupid’

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    John Connor II

    Putin’s speech to the west

    https://twitter.com/realDaveReilly/status/1504345369651531780

    Totally nailed it 😈

    Wakey wakey from CNN lies…

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    John Connor II

    Breaking:

    Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. He will allow foreign and Ukrainian cryptocurrencies exchanges to operate legally, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

    How much do you trust anything from the mouths of Ukrainian politicians now? 😈😉

    The only carpet bombing going on is in the form of CNN fake news spread far and wide in the minds of those who don’t dig deep enough.

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      Reports indicate. That’s it for your fantasy.

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        el+gordo

        Its essentially a war chest.

        ‘This is why the Ukrainian government has developed an official cryptocurrency contribution website in order to gather donations for the Ukrainian military forces and humanitarian relief programs fighting Russia.

        ‘Numerous news reports said the fundraising platform is a partnership between the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, cryptocurrency company Everstake and crypto exchange FTX.’ (Bitcoinist)

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      Hanrahan

      You are correct, there is no carpet bombing, that involves having aircraft over the target and the Russians are reluctant to go in harm’s way. They definitely don’t have air superiority.

      Instead they stay in Russian airspace using stand-off weapons. Are these more accurate that a dumb bomb? I don’t know, but some must be accurate, a city with six hospitals has had five bombed. Pretty good shooting I’d say.

      And artillery is being used widely, it is as indiscriminate as bombing.

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        Replace “carpet bombing” ,..with “cluster weapons”…
        IE.. artilliary shells, mass rocket launchers, etc. all random target devices.
        You dont believe Russian helecopter gunships, etc are in play ?

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          Hanrahan

          Helicopters are even more vulnerable than bombers. Helicopter gunships are strictly tactical, close support for troops.

          I can’t see how this invasion could be a bigger debacle than it is. Russia is losing hardware that will take many years and trillions to replace. Their stocks of precision arms must have virtually run out by now.

          Win, lose or draw Russia will soon be bankrupt, so bankrupt that they could not possibly deliver enough oil and gas to pay their debts. Just thinking! Russia has far more warheads than America and they cost money to maintain. Will they be forced to decommission missiles to sell the uranium into the coming nuclear generation boom? Would we then have a less bombastic Russia?

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            Hanrahan
            March 18, 2022 at 3:24 pm · Reply
            Helicopters are even more vulnerable than bombers. Helicopter gunships are strictly tactical, close support for troops

            That did not answer the question …”are they being used” ?
            And any weapon is “Tactical”….it just depends what tactics they are used for .
            And heavy Helicopter gunships are not only for troop support,..ask any air command strategist. They run their own target specific missions way behind enemy front lines

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    another ian

    To help make your day –

    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/ukraine-adopts-wef-proposals/

    “Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. He will allow foreign and Ukrainian cryptocurrencies exchanges to operate legally, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.”

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    • #

      That’d be due to cooling

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        el+gordo

        The data is very brief, not much to go on.

        ‘This week’s injection of warm air saw Australia’s Casey Research Station register a maximum temperature of 5.6ºC on Wednesday, March 16. This is the station’s highest March temperature on record, with data available back to 1989.’

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    https://www.bitchute.com/video/2oe1AHoS16Vx/
    DR TOM COWAN EXPOSES MASSIVELY LACKING EVIDENCE SHOWING VIRUSES ACTUALLY EXIST & CAUSE DISEASE

    A Must Watch Video!

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      Kevin, a few badly done studies and a German court ruling don’t prove anything.

      The existence of viruses is known, proven and cross-checked about 20 ways by thousands of independent labs that assess from multiple independent angles. They do plaque assays, genetic sequencing, electron micrographs, and followup through to symptomatic effects with repeated obs from doctors, pathologists, and tracked with contact tracers.

      Look up Plaque assays — when solutions containing viruses are diluted down until only one or two tiny circles of cells dies so we can calculate exactly how many deadly particles are in a sample. Its very hard to fake a dilution sequence on multiple plates, especially when the the sample can be tested by sequencing, and photographed, and on multiple continents. The same sample has been sequenced in full to show all 29.000 nucleotides in an exact sequence are present. Those long chains of code may vary by a few changes which are trackable and traceable so we know who they caught the virus from. The same sample can be photographed to show the existence of a particular shape molecule.

      All over the world people with the near identical 29,000 code sequence have a set of symptoms that are the same, they infect their families and friends and they get a pattern of illness that matches.

      Somehow Tom Cowan has found 1% of studies to show what he was looking for while ignoring 100 million bits of information that show the opposite.

      The conspiracy it would take to fake the existence of viruses is so huge and perfect and have to involve hundreds of thousands of people over the course of a century that it defies any kind of explanation. Every doctor, pathologist, many patients, vets, farmers, agricultural scientists, contact tracers, laboratory workers, hospital staff would all have to be in on it and 100% lying about everything they did in a completely coordinated way. It’s just not possible.
      *+*

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        Its very hard to fake a dilution sequence on multiple plates

        what is more is that these types of test are done millions of times without the data being released outside of their own institution/lab. Effectively the scientists are faking them for their own amusement.

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        “The conspiracy it would take to fake the existence of viruses is so huge and perfect and have to involve hundreds of thousands of people” A bit like altering weather station data around the world? As you know the world has been cooling for 8,000 years.
        Thanks for the reply I have watched this video 4 times know.
        1# No virus has been made into a pure concentrate like we do with bacteria.
        2# People getting sick at a “Fish” market does not prove a virus. Contaminated fish from chemicals can look like the Flu.
        3# Dr Tom Cowan goes through the process of proving a “Sample” has a virus and the process is just junk science.
        4# The sample has so many contaminants how can a virus be isolated?
        5# “The same sample has been sequenced in full to show all 29.000 nucleotides” Yes but the sample has the exact same “contaminants” as per the same procedure to isolate the virus. Like yeast and bovine solution.
        6# Same Cake mixture all over the world will get the same results with out adding any sample virus.
        Thanks for your time and I really enjoyed the Dr Tom Cowan video, Looks like a hoax the science of virology.

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          Please forgive my bluntness. I’ve had this debate 100 times. I know how it goes.

          #0. No equivalence. A different topic in science doesn’t prove a conspiracy somewhere else. Besides its totally different. I’ve shown how the raw BOM data differed from the altered data, and doesn’t match other instrument data. There are 100 radioactive signs the BOM data is fudged and it doesn’t match with the cross checks from other techniques and labs. We’ve got whistleblowers from the BOM. We’ve got proxy data that doesn’t match the measured data. And there are a TINY miniscule number of climate scientists involved. It’s so easy for them to cheat, and make predictions 100 years that never get tested. Be wary, smart people who’ve never worked in health make the mistake of thinking “health is like climate science” — the corruption is there for sure, but it’s a whole different level. There are 10000 times as many workers and staff in HealthCare, and a million times the money. People care about the results in a way that people never care about 100 year old thermometer data, where its easy to cheat. Don’t keep watching Tom’s video, you’ll just cement junk in your head. Instead, learn medical science and study microbiology and you will see why Tom is barking up a tree-to-nowhere. My question, which you didn’t answer, is to imagine how such a network of data involving millions of people could even be faked when every bit of data is crosschecked independently in different labs/hospitals/doctors/patients/research/xrays/plaque assays/rna sequencing/PCR tests/symptom charts/contact tracing etc etc etc etc etc and for 80 years. Until you understand the tests we are talking about you can’t even begin to imagine the detailed coordinated conspiracy it would take where at least 1 billion people on Earth would have to be robots under the command of one central FAKE HQ issuing orders in real time 24/7 to keep from giving away the “secret”. There IS major corruption in medicine, which I’m reporting on. Tom Cowan is digging down a rabbit hole that steps right out of science and is a waste of time. His hypothesis is unfalisifiable (since it’s already been proven wrong 1 million times and he won’t accept any result anywhere that shows that).
          #1. If so, so what? Just one virus has been sequenced 5 million times in a one way extensive branching pattern that is extremely hard to reproduce even if we imagine 100% of the doctors and medical scientists in the world are cheating and are under one secret central command with 24 hours radio coded messages to tell them all exactly what to say when so the cheat is NEVER exposed. Those sequences have been shown to make people sick in vivo, to spread, in vivo, to kill cells in vitro, to be photographed with electronmicrographs, tested for biochemical interaction with antibodies, metabolites, radioactive markers, etc etc x 100,000.
          #2. So what? When did I say “fish market”? None neccessary.
          #3. Tom may have proven one test in one lab was junk. 1 million tests to go then…
          #4. You still haven’t answered the real point see #1. Even if a virus can’t be “isolated” according to some specialist archaic semantic theory from 1850 there is no other hypothesis that explains the real world of sick people, contact tracing, pathology tests, dna records, mutation, drugs interactions, 1000s of published papers etc.
          #5. NO. Just No. Only someone who had no idea and no interest in how these tests are run could even think that was proof. Read the papers. They use controls, and THEY Dont find the 29,000 bases in nearly every cell on Earth, only in cells of people with certain symptoms plus their asymptomatic family and friends or contacts we trace. One bad test doesnt disprove a billion good ones.
          #6 I gave up on the video within a few minutes after realizing how illogical and weak it was. No idea what the cake test is, but I’m sure it’s just another “single test” done badly, or ineptly contaminated which doesn’t disprove the networked, independently cross checked pattern of a billion observations that suggest otherwise.

          Look, sorry, I don’t mean to rude, but skeptics have such a big battle to stop the massive fraud in suppression of cheap medicines we really can’t afford to get distracted with junk. If I wanted to cripple the opposition I would make videos like Cowans to fool them into fighting pointless battles.

          The hypothesis that viruses exist is the best one so far to explain 80 years of billions of observations by hundreds of thousands of people.

          *+*

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    OldOzzie

    Looming food shortages is the next ‘slow-moving disaster’ to hit world

    By Glenn H. Reynolds

    Russia is also a major manufacturer of fertilizer; in fact, it is the world’s largest. Second on the list is . . . China, a nation aligned with Russia and notably unfriendly to the United States and the West. (Canada is a distant third.) That has people worried.

    Some people want to put more land under cultivation. Scottish farmers and planners have asked the government to allow farmland programmed for “rewilding” to be put back into production in response to anticipated food shortages. But that’s too sensible for our green elites. Scotland’s Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity Lorna Slater — yes, that’s her full title — has flatly refused. According to Slater, “We are still in a nature emergency that hasn’t gone away . . . so it’s a no.”

    The island nation of Sri Lanka offers a stark warning. A green experiment in abandoning artificial fertilizer there — encouraged by the Rockefeller Foundation — was a “brutal and swift” economic and humanitarian disaster, Foreign Policy reports.

    “Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.”

    Sri Lanka’s policy, which FP describes as a “farrago of magical thinking, technocratic hubris, ideological delusion, self-dealing and sheer shortsightedness,” imposed enormous human damage on the nation. But don’t worry — the government and NGO officials behind it won’t miss any meals. Consequences are for the little people.

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      Dave in the States

      A large farm tractor consumes ~100 gallons of diesel per hour when pulling a plow. Food prices are going to sky rocket and many farmers won’t plant or harvest as much, so reduced supply to boot. That’s just in America and Canada. Ukraine is a major producer in Europe and that’s out too.

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      Dave in the States

      I read recently that a significant portion of the world fertilizer supply comes from Russia.

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    OldOzzie

    The Press Has Lied To Drag The United States Into War Before. Don’t Think They Won’t Again

    When you see corporate outlets rushing us into war in Europe with sensational stories and flat-out dishonest polling, think twice.

    The explosion, which killed more than 250 men on board, was quickly memorialized with cries of “Remember the Maine!” Without directly accusing Spain, which controlled Cuba at the time, a U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry decided a month later that the explosion was from a mine. (A U.S. Navy investigation decades later found it was likely an accidental coal bunker fire.)

    Shortly afterward, the United States declared war on Spain, starting the Spanish-American War. One of the biggest warmongering forces in America, capitalizing on the Maine‘s explosion, was the press — a position American media pundits continue to hold as they work overtime to drag Americans into a war with Russia over Ukraine.

    When you see talking heads uncritically parroting propagandist stories about Ukraine that turn out to be false, from the “Ghost of Kyiv” to that Snake Island story to old photos taken years ago, you should be asking why the corporate media is so willing to spread such fake news (while it censors conservatives for factual critiques of disproven Covid narratives, no less). It wouldn’t be the first time the press lied to pull Americans into war.

    – How Newspapermen Helped Start a War in Cuba
    – A Century of Dishonesty

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    Destroyer D69

    This just posted on Michael Smith site ,, A perfect assessment of what Australia has become..

    Jojo said..
    MY! HOW THIS ONCE MIGHTY 100% SELF SUFFICIENT NATION HAS FALLEN…

    Take back Australia….

    About 45 short years ago everyone had Jobs everywhere, in fact Mums use to stay home and families all lived happily just on Dads wages.
    We had Iron Ore and great steel industries, we had shipbuilding, Car manufacturing, Holden, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford, even Lightburn made a Zeta.
    We built TV’s, radio’s, washing machines, Victa lawnmowers, hills hoists & fine furniture manufacturing.
    We built Car parts and we even made our own tyres at Bridgestone!
    We had fishing ports all over Australia from Port Lincoln to Brunswick Heads.
    We made our own cheap Petrol that was refined at Stanvac Oil refinery in SA, Bulimba Refinery in Brisbane, Mortlake Sydney Refinery’s from oil brought in from the Bass Strait, North West Shelf and the Timor Sea.
    We built Aircraft, Boats, Submarines and battlecruisers, Ships, warships. Buses. Locomotives, Diesel-electric trains, as well as the tracks, and you can add hundreds more to that list.
    And everything was “PROUDLY MADE IN AUSTRALIA”
    We had Corner stores and Milk Bars and Deli’s, and Hardware shops all over the city and country. Our Rural towns were a hive of activity as they were very strong Communities and were linked by a vast rail network that now lies dormant forever all across the country.

    Flea Markes everywhere on the weekends. All our food was fresh and local.

    Our Milk and bread were delivered every morning fresh to our doorstep in recyclable glass bottles.

    We paid our rates to the local council to maintain our streets and remove our rubbish, and we used to dump our extra rubbish free at the local tips.

    [SNIP – We can’t take too much for copyright reasons without permission and it’s best if comments are 200-400 words. Thanks. – Jo]

    Written by
    Gary J Matthews.

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    Rupert Ashford

    Interesting read I picked up on LinkedIn – a lot of this has been discussed ad infinitum here, but this is the first time I see numbers. It was copied from somebody in North America with units converted to SI for us non-US folks:

    Batteries do not make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants or diesel-fueled generators.

    So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.

    Also, since 75% of the electricity generated in Australia is from coal-fired plants, it follows that three quarters of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?”

    But that is not half of it. For those excited about electric cars and a sustainability revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries, windmills and solar panels.

    A typical EV battery weighs 450kgs. It contains 11.3 kgs of lithium, 27 kgs of nickel, 20 kgs of manganese, 13.6 kgs of cobalt, 90 kgs of copper, and 180 kgs of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.

    To manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 11.3 tonnes of brine for the lithium, 13.6 tonnes of ore for the cobalt, 2.27 tonnes of ore for the nickel, and 11.3 tonnes of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 226.8 tonnes of the earth’s crust for each battery!

    The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels can’t be recycled.

    Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction.

    Each windmill weighs 1530 tonnes (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1180 tonnes of concrete, 267 tonnes of steel, 43.5 tonnes of iron, 21.7 tonnes of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium.

    Each blade weighs 36.75 tonnes and will last between 15 and 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades at this point in time and many are ready for landfill within the coming decade.

    There may be a place for these technologies but we must look beyond zero emissions to the impact on planet earth.

    Going for net zero sounds ideal but when you look at the hidden and embedded costs realistically, with an open mind, you can see that it is anything but sustainable and more destructive to the Earth’s natural environment than meets the eye.

    I’m not opposed to mining, electric vehicles, wind or solar and I love the circular economy. But it’s good to have an informed view.

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      Rupert Ashford

      @Jo, not sure if I’m infringing on copy right restrictions by sharing this so feel free to remove if necessary – no hard feelings.

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    another ian

    Tony Heller

    “My Gift To Climate Alarmists

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8455KEDitpU

    Via SDA

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    OldOzzie

    Intelligence: Commercial Satellite Photos In The News

    March 17, 2022:

    Ukraine is, more than Google Earth in 2005, demonstrating the usefulness of commercial satellite photos. Google Earth was made possible by a U.S. government decision to rely more on commercial communications satellites because it was too expensive to put up enough government satellites to deal with the demand during conflicts, especially once UAVs like Predator entered service using high-resolution digital cameras that streamed their video back to the U.S. and later to local American military users. Commercial communications satellites led the military in terms of technology because they served so many commercial users. That led to allowing commercial photo satellites and sharing some of the older government tech and giving a lot of business to one of the first commercial satellite firms, DigitalGlobe in the late 1990s. In 2005 Google used DigitalGlobe services to run Google Earth. Other American and European firms followed and in 2017 DigitalGlobe merged with SSL to create Maxar; the largest and best equipped commercial satellite photo provider in the world. Maxar is profitable with sales of nearly two billion dollars a year from clients like Google, news organizations and governments needing a steady and reliable supply of satellite photos covering customer specified areas.

    Commercial photo satellite firms continue to have an impact on government users. In 2021 the U.S. NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), which supervises the design, construction and operation of photo and other satellite imagery space satellites needed by the U.S., decided to embrace their commercial competitors. NRO wants to take advantage of the growing competition and technical advances in the commercial imagery satellite industry. This became particularly important since 2017, when the NRO took over from the NGA (National Geospatial Intelligence Agency) the job of finding and purchasing commercial satellite imagery that the NRO satellites were unable to obtain because of a shortage of satellites or because some commercial satellites were able to obtain forms of imagery that NRO satellites were not yet capable of. This new commercial satellite imagery procurement program is open to all major operators of commercial satellites who want to supply the Department of Defense with their products on a timely basis.

    Soon after 2005 the troops were beating NGA over the head with Google Earth and Congress took notice. However, NGA bureaucrats were close at hand and the angry troops are far away. Progress was still slow. But at least the troops had Google Earth. Unfortunately, so did the enemy. Nevertheless, over the next decade the army was able to go directly to commercial satellite photo providers who, every year, were putting up more capable photo satellites. Many of the photos from these new satellites were higher resolution and not available on Google Earth. But the army could afford to buy them, as could other commercial customers and give the troops instant access because all these commercial satellite photos were unclassified.

    After a while the NGA stopped pouting and got on board with the use of lots of unclassified satellite photos. This also spurred the NGA to make the high quality (high resolution and with other enhancements) spy satellite photos more easily available to the troops, or at least the army intel and planning specialists who worked out the details of how battles would be fought. This led to other intel agencies making their data (especially from electronic data collection satellites) available quickly, often in real time, to the troops who needed it.

    The troops and military planners continue to be enthusiastic users of Google Earth, which annoys the people running the military satellite program. But for many military satellite needs, Google Earth does the job. The two military, commercial grade, photo satellites eliminated the potential for information leaks (about what the military is buying images of) and provide much more capacity to do low resolution jobs. Another bonus of Google Earth was the appearance of crowd-sourcing. This is what happens when a large number of people scrutinize open-source satellite photos and find useful military information before the professionals do.

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    OldOzzie

    Nigeria: Reasonable, Responsible, Rapacious or Radical

    More Nigerians are realizing that they have to decide what is the most effective way forward for themselves and Nigeria. Some approaches are more popular or more successful than others. Since independence in the 1960s created the most populous and potentially the most prosperous nation in Africa, Nigerians have not been able to agree on which approach is both very effective as well as achievable. Being responsible and responsible are popular, but usually only as it applies to family or tribe, not all of Nigeria or Nigerians. Easier to adopt was the criminal rapacious or radical approach. It is now generally agreed that the rapacious or radical approach has been the main reason why a trillion dollars in oil revenue since the 1960s and made a few percent of Nigerians very wealthy while making life harder for most Nigerians, especially compared to average living standards in the 1960s. Attitudes are changing faster than effective efforts to make the needed changes.

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    OldOzzie

    NYT – Hunter Biden Paid Tax Bill, but Broad Federal Investigation Continues

    The Justice Department inquiry into the business dealings of the president’s son has remained active, with a grand jury seeking information about payments from around the world.

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      OldOzzie

      Investigative Issues: Now That the NYT Has Granted Legitimacy to Hunter’s Laptop, Will It Stop Being a Biden Lapdog?

      By J. Peder Zane, RealClearInvestigations
      March 17, 2022

      Talk about burying the lead. In the 24th paragraph of an article detailing the Department of Justice’s ongoing probe into Hunter Biden’s finances, the New York Times finally acknowledges the authenticity of material on the infamous laptop the president’s son abandoned in a Delaware repair shop. The key passage reads:

      Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.

      This, of course, is the same laptop – filled with explosive allegations of sketchy deals with foreign government and suggestions of payoffs to Joe Biden – that the Times and other mainstream outlets ignored or dismissed as “Russian disinformation” after the New York Post first reported on it in October 2020. Twitter and Facebook banned the Post from sharing its reporting.

      As the Post reported today:

      Now that the Times has deigned to confer legitimacy on the laptop, the big question is whether it will pursue its leads.

      The place to start would be the 2017 email regarding a deal with Chinese energy executives that states, “10 held by H for the big guy?” We know H is Hunter and Bobulinksi has said that Joe was commonly referred to as the “big guy.”

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        another ian

        And as pointed out by Sundance at CTH, why bother believing anything that the NYT (and the others in that effort) are saying right now about Ukraine?

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    OldOzzie

    How Wokeism Could Become a Requirement to Be a Doctor

    Exclusive: Association of American Medical Colleges to Propose DEI Curriculum Standards

    In October 2021, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Medical Association jointly released its 54-page Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narratives and Concepts, which received widespread criticism for its ideologically-charged language and recommendations. The guide suggested physicians update their language using “equity-focused alternatives,” trading terms such as “vulnerable” for “oppressed” and “disadvantaged” for “historically and intentionally excluded.”

    The AAMC now plans to release “diversity, equity, and inclusion competencies.” The National Association of Scholars has acquired the pre-publication version of these competencies (see below). Drawing from Advancing Health Equity, these competencies encode the watchwords of identity politics as official standards, for both students and medical professors. If medical schools adopt these competencies, they will establish social justice activism, along with a controversial set of political beliefs, as de facto professional requirements for students and faculty.

    Under development for more than a year, the competencies take the form of educational standards, different skill benchmarks for distinct stages of a physician’s education, designed to facilitate “curricular and professional development” and “formative performance assessment.” They come at an opportune moment, as medical schools around the country have promised extensive training and curricula in diversity, equity, inclusion, and “anti-racism.”

    Here is a selection of the competencies, which I have organized into categories.

    – Diversity and Intersectionality
    – Oppression and Disruption
    – Activism and Institutional Change

    While they might satisfy accreditors, these competencies will deal a blow to medical education. They will force students and physicians to embrace social justice activism, prompt schools to evaluate students and faculty based on their adherence to a controversial set of beliefs, and ensure the violation of academic freedom.

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      OldOzzie

      Investigative Issues: Feds Funded Pro-Vaccine Media Blitz Left Undisclosed by Outlets

      By Chris Pandolfo, TheBlaze

      In response to a FOIA request filed by TheBlaze, HHS revealed that it purchased advertising from major news networks including ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as cable TV news stations Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, legacy media publications including the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, digital media companies like BuzzFeed News and Newsmax, and hundreds of local newspapers and TV stations. These outlets were collectively responsible for publishing countless articles and video segments regarding the vaccine that were nearly uniformly positive about the vaccine in terms of both its efficacy and safety.

      Hundreds of news organizations were paid by the federal government to advertise for the vaccines as part of a “comprehensive media campaign,” according to documents TheBlaze obtained from the Department of Health and Human Services. The Biden administration purchased ads on TV, radio, in print, and on social media to build vaccine confidence, timing this effort with the increasing availability of the vaccines. The government also relied on earned media featuring “influencers” from “communities hit hard by COVID-19” and “experts” like White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and other academics to be interviewed and promote vaccination in the news.

      Though virtually all of these newsrooms produced stories covering the COVID-19 vaccines, the taxpayer dollars flowing to their companies were not disclosed to audiences in news reports, since common practice dictates that editorial teams operate independently of media advertising departments and news teams felt no need to make the disclosure, as some publications reached for comment explained.

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    OldOzzie

    U.S. Cities’ Surge in Shootings Rattles Once-Safe Seattle

    Downtown hospital sees stream of young gunshot victims, some for a second time, as suburbs also grapple with violence

    20

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    OldOzzie

    RealClearInvestigations’ Picks of the Week March 6 to March 12, 2022

    Featured Investigation: Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump in 2016 to Stop Putin.
    The Bet Backfired Badly.

    Working with both the Obama-Biden administration and the Hillary Clinton campaign, Ukrainian officials intervened in the 2016 race to smear Donald Trump as a Russian stooge in a failed bet that a Democratic administration would provide better protection from Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

    Drawing on a trove of previously unreported material, Paul Sperry in RealClearInvestigations unpacks that sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation – an episode now freighted with irony as the Russians lay bloody siege to Kiev.

    40

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    OldOzzie

    NRMA – Electric vehicles: Top 6 reasons to buy an EV

    1. Lower running costs
    2. Help meet Australia’s emissions target
    3. Increased fuel security and infrastructure stability
    4. More economic opportunities
    5. Driving experience
    6. A healthier community

    So… should I buy an EV?

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      OldOzzie

      NRMA – What are hydrogen cars and how do they work?

      What is a hydrogen car?

      How does a hydrogen car work?

      There are five main components that make a hydrogen car/FCEV work:

      1. Hydrogen storage
      The hydrogen storage system is the fuel tank of a hydrogen car. Made of composite materials like fiberglass, carbon fibre and aluminium, it is far stronger than LPG tanks or conventional petrol tanks, and can safely store hydrogen at 700 bar (10,000psi).

      2. Battery
      A high-voltage lithium-ion battery, like what is found in a conventional EV, can store electricity generated from the fuel cell stack and be used to give the vehicle an extra boost under acceleration.

      3. Fuel cell
      The fuel cell stack is where the magic happens. Hydrogen stored in the vehicle’s tank enters the fuel cell stack with oxygen from the atmosphere and is broken down to protons and electrons.

      The flow of electrons created in the fuel cell provides electricity, and the protons, electrons, and oxygen combine to produce water molecules.

      4. Inverter
      The inverter converts high-voltage direct current from the cell into alternating current, which is used to operate the electric motor.

      5. Electric motor(s)
      The electric motor(s) and reducer are the powertrain that connects to the wheels and converts electrical energy into mechanical torque.

      When the vehicle slows, the motor also converts mechanical torque into electricity stored in the battery. The reducer plays the role of a gearbox, amplifying torque by adjusting rotational speed of the motor.

      So are hydrogen cars considered electric vehicles?

      – What are the pros and cons of hydrogen cars?
      – Are hydrogen cars safe?

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        PeterS

        Also, worrying about what type of car to buy will soon become an irrelevant issue. The illusion that the US dollar is a safe haven is rapidly coming to a close, all thanks to Biden’s policies with the full support of all other Western leaders. While they are still suffering from Trump hate syndrome, with the MSM acting as their echo chamber followed by many people, the real culprits are still blind to the fire starting to burn down the West. We are in for a very rough time.

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      PeterS

      With all things equal, such as being able to fully charge an EV in about the same time as filling a tank, at the same number of locations and the batteries to last the life of the car under normal circumstances, then maybe. Otherwise, no way! We are not there and might never will be given the state of the world. Only the super rich will be able to afford any car let alone an EV.

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