Tuesday Open Thread

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194 comments to Tuesday Open Thread

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      OldOzzie

      The Australian. Magnificent. – Economics not so Albanese

      https://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/.a/6a0177444b0c2e970d0282e14ef645200b-pi

      From the Comments

      – AND HE STUDIED ECONOMICS AT USYD!!!
      Obv he is as dumb as a bag of rocks

      – And its not even tongue in cheek!!!
      WTH is that tongue doing?
      Very lizard like IMO
      Lickspittle AnAl

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      OldOzzie

      It won’t be easy under Albanese

      Liberal Party
      @LiberalAus

      Don’t risk our economy with Labor.

      Liberal Party
      @LiberalAus

      Why can’t Anthony Albanese answer simple questions about the economy?
      📺 Source: 9News

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        Dennis

        A talkback caller on local radio referred to Anthony Stumbleasy.

        Albo claims to have made mistakes, that’s not accurate, he didn’t know the answers.

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      OldOzzie

      Albanese’s ‘insecure’ work scare just doesn’t add up

      By playing along with the ACTU’s misleading ‘insecure’ work scare, Anthony Albanese has created a genuine policy difference with the Coalition.

      The Australian Financial Review has exposed the first big policy lie of the 2022 federal election campaign.

      In the lead-up to the election, Anthony Albanese has repeatedly echoed the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ campaign against “insecure” work by claiming an increasingly casualised workforce has festered under nine years of Coalition rule. Yet the image conjured up of an uncontrolled expansion of workers toiling on some modern day “hungry mile” at the whim of capricious bosses is not matched by the facts.

      As economics editor John Kehoe reports today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics time series that has tracked working arrangements since 1988 shows that the share of workers in casual employment has remained flat or declined slightly over the past 20 years at about one-quarter of the workforce. The ABS defines a casual worker as someone without access to paid holiday or sick leave who typically receives an additional hourly payment or leave loading as compensation.

      Astonishingly, Mr Albanese yesterday was unable to correctly nominate Australia’s 4 per cent jobless rate, close to the lowest in 50 years, or the Reserve Bank of Australia’s record low 0.1 per cent cash rate. It’s a disturbing indicator of political priorities when the alternative prime minister – who has never held an economic management portfolio during his quarter of a century in parliament – is not across the basic details of the economy that is supposed to finance Labor’s big spending promises.

      With Mr Albanese showing he has no head for figures, the numbers prove that the “insecure” work scare campaign simply doesn’t add up. The ABS data reveals a casualisation rate of 22.8 per cent in February this year, 1.3 per cent lower than before the pandemic, and 4.8 per cent lower than the peak rate of 27.6 per cent in 2003. The big jump in casualisation from 19 per cent of the workforce in 1988 to 26 per cent in 1996 occurred under the Hawke-Keating Labor governments.

      No ‘reserve army of unemployed’

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        yarpos

        He may well not have a head for figures, but he has to be across the numbers at a talking point level at least. Bit of an own goal this early.

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      Ted1

      Shaddup! Leave him there. If they changed to Tanya Plibersek before the end of next week she’d win.

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    OldOzzie

    Put your coffee down before Clicking on link

    Climate Crusader Lizzo Poses While Boarding (Another) Private Jet

    Definitely not part of the starving future generation

    Last year, Lizzo performed at Global Citizen Live, a music event with a goal to rise awareness on climate change, among other issues.

    Global Citizen urges countries to reduce their national emissions, and calls on developed nations to spend $100 billion annually on environmental issues in developing countries, according to its website.

    In 2019, the pop star posted to her Instagram account an image of a climate change-related protest, which included a sign that read, “I just took a DNA test turns out I’m 100% freaking terrified for our future,” along with the hashtag, “Climate Strike.”

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      MP

      Now where did I put that harpoon?

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      Forrest Gardener

      Yuck.

      And therein lies the ambiguity in the green thumb/red thumb system. Do I green thumb to say thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of the hippopotamus like creature, or red thumb it to show my disapproval of the hypocrisy of the hippopotamus like creature.

      There are times when only words will do, and words are slippery suckers too.

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        Mark Allinson

        ” … the hippopotamus like creature …”

        I believe the correct term is “Ghettopotamus”.

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      Sambar

      Thanks for the heads up about the coffee O.O.. Right below the first pic was an advert for “The ManShake”, I certainly did

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      David Maddison

      Isn’t Lizzo an icon of not only the “private jet flying climate activist” scene but also the “body positivity” movement whereby morbid obesity is seen as something to be “celebrated”, not a medical problem?

      Think of how many extra kgs of CO2 the jet would have produced to fly her extra weight around. And think of all the CO2 generated in agricultural production just to feed her.

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        OldOzzie

        The Elite Think Climate Action is More Important than Your Ability to Pay Your Bills

        You couldn’t ask for a better visual representation of what is wrong with our “let them eat cake” elites than the graph above.

        Australia is facing a federal election on May 21st. The main contenders are deep green high tax Labor, and the incumbent, slightly less deep green high tax Coalition. Labor are currently in the lead.

        None of the economists who contributed to this remarkable downgrade of the concerns of ordinary people have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or whether they will make this week’s rent payment.

        The only thing which might shake them out of their complacency is the one thing none of them voted for, a substantial tax cut – a threat to their government underwritten personal financial security.

        But with both major Aussie parties committed to blindly throwing money at universities, and both major parties committed to maintaining a large, wasteful state which pours vast sums of our money into useless white elephants like the Snowy 2 pumped hydro project, the income of Australia’s academic elites is secure for now, regardless of how much ordinary people suffer in the coming energy price driven downturn.

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        b.nice

        “CO2 generated in agricultural production just to feed her.”

        A purely MacDonalds diet !

        Not possible to get that shape, as a vegan, is it ?

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        KP

        Yes, but she gets extra points for tying so much carbon up in fat. In fact she is concentrating the carbon sequestered in plants by changing carbohydrate to lipid. Imagine what happens in a crematorium, worse than drag racing a couple of V8s…

        Anyway, if she has 12million followers I can see why Davos reckon there are too many of the wrong sort of people alive…

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        Ronin

        I wonder how many times they had to move her to get the weight and balance right.

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      Annie

      Oh yuk…I wish I hadn’t clicked that…appalling sight…ugh!

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      Strop

      To the OP and the commenters who followed in the #2 series. I get the criticism over climate hypocrisy but the comments about her appearance aren’t particularly relevant aren’t reflecting well on the commenters.

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        Annie

        No apologies from me; it’s a horrible sight.

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        David Maddison

        Strop, she is a member of the “body positivity” movement that promotes morbid obesity. That’s just like promoting other unhealthy habits like smoking or illicit drug use. And her morbid obesity is 100% self-induced, it is physically impossible to become that obese without constantly eating more than your body consumes. She sets a bad example to her millions of starry-eyed, highly-suggestible followers, many of whom will suffer harmful medical conditions as a result of following her bad example. She deserves no sympathy for her purposeful bodily self-abuse and celebration thereof.

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          Strop

          I think it’s quite reasonable to warn of the health issues associated with excessive weight and diets that create excessive weight.
          Perhaps it would be good if that and the climate hypocrisy was the focus of any commentary rather than the appearance of the person whose views the commenters oppose.

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            MP

            Your kidding, she obviously cares little about her appearance, she is wearing a gstring. She puts herself in the public eye, including the kids, she puts herself up as an influencer an example for the youth. If your happy with your grand kids being educated by trash, because That is what is on display, Trash.
            There is no example there to be had, she is the hypocrisy.

            Sorry to hurt your feelings, not.

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              Strop

              My grandkids won’t be educated by trash. If you allow celebrities to educate your kids / grandkids then you’re failing. The primary role model is the adult in the home.

              As for her caring little about her appearance. I don’t know how you can say that given the effort she puts into her appearance in fashion and make-up etc. Maybe it’s a case of she cares little about your tastes and opinion.

              My feelings are not hurt. I don’t know you well enough or respect your opinion enough for you to hurt me with anything you say. Nothing about her appearance resembles me or reflects my tastes. So nothing you say about her appearance could hurt my feelings.

              I just think it’s unnecessary to criticise someone’s appearance. It doesnt add anything to the facts of the topic and it’s simply mean spirited.

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                Kalm Keith

                Strop, sadly there are some situations that we must comment on.

                Unfortunately the lady demonstrates what happens when you are given misleading guidance by society and follow it. She has been led up the garden path.

                By criticising her current “state” we are warning others, perhaps even your grandchildren, that what she has done to herself is not sensible in so many ways.

                While driving yesterday I listened to my ABCCCC and it had an item about the increase in the number of amputations in recent years. Seventy percent of these were acknowledged to have been associated with Diabetes Type 2.
                Being a government station no mention was made of the fact that this disease was caused by “overeating”, because, well you know, people have freedom of choice.

                The modern disease of gluttony didn’t exist seventy years ago because people all worked and couldn’t afford to damage their bodies.

                No mention was made by our ABCCCC that overeating was the cause of the explosion in amputations; that might be PC but it’s not ethical.

                The human suffering from amputations is huge but all the ABCCCC did was ask for more funding to help support amputees in their misery, which could have been avoided with proper health advice and leadership.

                KK

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                Strop

                Yes KK, there are reasons to warn people of health issues which I said above #2.6.2.1
                I agree she’s inconsistent with her climate preaching and personal actions, and she’s exposing herself to extra health complications.

                The criticism of her in the comments was typically not based on sensible health warnings for others. It was basically just mean spirited playing the man and not the ball. Actually David was referring to the health aspect.

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                Robert Swan

                Strop,
                I think you’re arguing the right thing but on the wrong basis. These reactions are exactly what she wants. It’s just a form of visual trolling and the reactions are a form of feeding the troll.

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                MP

                I nearly choked when I read your warped view, that display takes absolutely no effort, none. That’s the image she has chosen to display to her followers.

                Have another look that takes some effort, the only effort she is putting in is going up the stairs and squeezing through the doors.
                She puts herself in the public eye for praise, than ridicule is also OK.

                Stick your “woke” views. This is what the kids are subject to for wokeism.

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                Strop

                MP. I’m talking about basic manners. Manners are not woke.

                If you have children and don’t want them to emulate her then you can explain to them why you think it’s not good to bare your butt in public and why it’s not good to carry excess weight. Mean spirited comments on a forum don’t really benefit anyone. Play the ball.

                I would bet she puts a good amount of thought into her fashion choices. The fact that you don’t like them doesn’t mean she’s out of bed and out the door in 3 mins just pulling on the nearest thing she left on the floor the night before.

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                MP

                Ridicule is a powerful weapon as Albo is finding out.
                You wokey dokey folky now call it bullying, which in itself is ridiculing the bully.
                “out of bed and out the door in 3 mins just pulling on the nearest thing she left on the floor the night before.” Pretty sure that would be vomit, does not wear well the second time around.
                A good amount of thought, look again.

                She is the ball!

                The fact you like them and defend them……..

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                Kalm Keith

                Strop, in a functioning society she would be prevented from appearing in public, parading like that.

                The fact that modern “society” no longer has any standards causes many of us great discomfort and this leads to the comments you object to.

                Her behaviour is objectionable and the criticism is about her and the society that ignores her and her flauntiness.

                A society without standards is not a society.

                KK

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                b.nice

                “I’m talking about basic manners”

                And that disgusting, elephantine creature, has none!.

                It also has absolutely zero self-respect !

                Cover up FFS, no-one wants to see that.. ever. !

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                b.nice

                “I would bet she puts a good amount of thought into her fashion choices”

                Which make the whole appearance even more disgusting… deliberately appearing like that in public.

                Traumatise teenage boys forever. !

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                Strop

                MP, I’m not defending her. I’m just saying the criticism of her was simply mean spirited, not constructive, and irrelevant.

                I said to you above, she doesn’t represent anything about me or my tastes. Burt I don’t see it as necessary to take pot shots at her appearance.

                Don’t put me in the wokey crowd just because I suggest the discussion could leave out the spite.
                Nothing wrong with a reasonable discussion about the perceived or known problems associated with some of her choices.

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                Strop

                KK, if her behavior is objectionable then that’s a reasonable discussion to have. But that wasn’t the nature or intent of several comments.

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                Strop

                b.nice

                “I’m talking about basic manners”

                And that disgusting, elephantine creature, has none!.

                Her having different manners is no excuse for others to abandon theirs.

                Try to b.nice.

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                Strop

                I think you’re arguing the right thing but on the wrong basis. These reactions are exactly what she wants. It’s just a form of visual trolling and the reactions are a form of feeding the troll.

                Yes Robert. She might well be doing it to provoke reactions and she might enjoy both positive and negative reactions. For some people there’s no such thing as bad publicity unless it’s no publicity. I just don’t think that justifies the mean spirited reactions on this forum.

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                b.nice

                Wow, strop’s PC-ness hits an all time high !

                I say it as I see it.. and you can’t “un-see” that repugnance. !

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          Kalm Keith

          Just a small insight into the sort of trauma that resulted from her lifestyle.

          “There are more than 4,400 amputations every year in Australia as a result of diabetes. Annually, more than 1700 people with diabetes die as a direct result of foot ulcers and lower limb wounds”.

          Diabetes is a disease of affluenza and the government doesn’t care because there’s no needle for it.

          Let them eat cake, and suffer.

          KK

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        Forrest Gardener

        No Strop. She trades on her appearance. In doing so she invites the reactions she receives. And her appearance is revolting.

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      Ronin

      How do they let bushpigs like that on a plane, who would want to sit where that great butt has been parked.

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        b.nice

        Special wide seats? I guess they would have on a private jet. !

        Commercial “people’s class”… nope !

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      Dave

      What about her METHANE emissions?
      Maybe we could capture them!

      And if she gets a job on a farm, then they could become fertilizer independent!

      [Caught in the spam filter. Sorry! – Jo]

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      Dave

      Think about the methane emissions?
      Maybe they could be captured?

      Good feertilizer source if she worked on an a farm

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      Chris

      Well that was a shock! I needed my safe space after that.

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    OldOzzie

    Interesting alternate view

    The results of American aggression that are positive for Russia

    Especially for thinking people – regular readers of this channel – I will briefly outline the reasons for the monstrous war that unfolded before our eyes in Ukraine. There is nothing worse than a war between social groups of the same people. In this case, ours, the Russian people, which for centuries was formed on the territory of present-day Ukraine, which at one time, at the initiative of Lenin, included Malorossiya, Novorossiya and Carpatho-Russia .

    I grew up in Zaporozhye, near which heavy fighting is now taking place in order to destroy the Ukrainian Nazis, who never existed in my small Motherland. I studied at a Ukrainian school and I know Ukrainian literature and language well, which from a scientific point of view is a dialect of Russian. I did not notice anything Russophobic in Ukrainian culture. In the 17 years of my life in Zaporozhye, I have never met a single Banderist. It was considered an offensive word and for its use in someone’s address one could get it in the face. In a nightmare, it could not be dreamed that we would live to see the current state of fierce fighting between the armed forces of Russia and Ukraine.

    Our President has said many times that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation. From the point of view of historical, linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic, genetic science, this is a proven fact. It was artificially divided after the collapse of the USSR. Within three decades after this, according to our President, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, pathological processes developed in the public consciousness of the Russian people of Ukraine, which led them to a serious, deadly disease – Russophobia. How could this happen?

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    OldOzzie

    Interesting alternate view

    The results of American aggression that are positive for Russia

    Especially for thinking people – regular readers of this channel – I will briefly outline the reasons for the monstrous war that unfolded before our eyes in Ukraine. There is nothing worse than a war between social groups of the same people. In this case, ours, the Russian people, which for centuries was formed on the territory of present-day Ukraine, which at one time, at the initiative of Lenin, included Malorossiya, Novorossiya and Carpatho-Russia .

    I grew up in Zaporozhye, near which heavy fighting is now taking place in order to destroy the Ukrainian N@zis, who never existed in my small Motherland. I studied at a Ukrainian school and I know Ukrainian literature and language well, which from a scientific point of view is a dialect of Russian. I did not notice anything Russophobic in Ukrainian culture. In the 17 years of my life in Zaporozhye, I have never met a single Banderist. It was considered an offensive word and for its use in someone’s address one could get it in the face. In a nightmare, it could not be dreamed that we would live to see the current state of fierce fighting between the armed forces of Russia and Ukraine.

    Our President has said many times that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation. From the point of view of historical, linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic, genetic science, this is a proven fact. It was artificially divided after the collapse of the USSR. Within three decades after this, according to our President, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, pathological processes developed in the public consciousness of the Russian people of Ukraine, which led them to a serious, deadly disease – Russophobia. How could this happen?

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      OldOzzie

      The End of Ideology

      The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a world with fewer illusions.

      Though sketchier in its details and antagonistic in its political orientation, in its broad form, the Green New Deal wasn’t all that different from the Market Fundamentalist dogma it sought to replace. It too, was a fairy tale of the End of History, when humanity would achieve its final liberation. The inherent contradictions of Capitalism would be resolved, peacefully, into some form of Democratic Socialism. We would eliminate poverty. We would achieve global peace. And we would bring our consumption into balance with nature. And like Neoliberalism, it, too, required nothing short of a wholesale transformation of the way our economies and governments are structured and the ways we live our daily lives. Under the Neoliberal order, the International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Programs shredded social safety nets, minted billionaires while throwing millions of people out of work, put unprecedented limits on state sovereignty, and disrupted traditional cultural norms in countries all over the world. The Green New Deal would have required different, but no less radical upheavals. Both were projects, essentially, of elite-driven, utopian top-down revolution.

      The Neoliberals were wrong: the interdependence of the nations of the world does not bring world peace. It brings exposure to cascading risk on a worldwide scale. We live in a physical world, which is divided by terrestrial, political, cultural and linguistic boundaries. We are not one people, we are many, and our interests are arrayed against one another. That’s not what I want it to be, it’s just what it is. Pretending it’s otherwise has not brought us peace; it’s brought us only catastrophic war. The age of ideology is over, and good riddance. We should stop pursuing these illusions and do the hard and complicated work of struggling to peacefully co-exist in a world with conflicting interests and no simple, romantic solutions. World history does not point us inevitably toward some common telos of human salvation. The best we can do is muddle through it.

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      OldOzzie

      Russian Crimes, Even If Real, Don’t Justify Another Children’s Crusade

      Oh, but this war won’t be like those, our masters tell us. And we believe them?

      I’ve expressed skepticism about MSM reports of Russian war crimes. Not because I put anything past Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Chechnya. But because I equally put nothing past The Secret Committee Formerly Known as Joe Biden.

      I put nothing past the globalist micromanagers who didn’t skip a beat between locking Germans and Australians in their homes via COVID panic, and proclaiming a jihad for “freedom” now in Ukraine.

      Or the utterly cynical strategists at the Brookings Institution and other think tanks underwritten by military contractors, who call for a bloody “quagmire” in Ukraine as a strategy. Indeed, the New York Times has admitted that such a quagmire (not peace) is the Biden Administration’s objective in Ukraine. Here’s General Mark Milley admitting that such a nightmare for Ukrainians is America’s current plan.

      Biden and Putin: Birds of a Feather

      They are all equally liars, with zero respect for human life. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Biden’s partial birth abortions and Putin’s attacks on civilians. Both men are criminals. At least Putin’s not killing Americans, at the moment.

      The Western warmongers want a quagmire in Ukraine that wrecks the country and kills hundreds of thousands, if that’s the price of bringing down Vladimir Putin. And we’re supposed to help enforce that price on Ukraine’s people.

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        Forrest Gardener

        One unanswered question is why “the secret committee formerly known as Joe Biden” are so keen to bring down Vladimir Putin.

        In fact I’ll go back one step and ask whether the secret committee really are keen to bring down Putin.

        US forces have done so much evil in the world that I wonder if they even have a coherent plan. The really remarkable thing about the Trump presidency is that so many bad guys have stepped out of the shadows.

        Maybe it will all end well for those who aren’t killed or displaced. I’m just glad I lived in happier times.

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          OldOzzie

          Watch Joe Biden Brag About Bribing Ukraine To Fire The Prosecutor Investigating His Son’s Company

          In this speech, Biden boasts about the fact that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loans to Ukraine if they did not fire the prosecutor who was investigating his son.

          The media has had a field day over new hearsay accusations that President Trump was wrong to ask Ukranian leaders to investigate political corruption related to Joe Biden. Predictably, several House Democrats have used this news cycle to again demand Trump’s impeachment.

          While the whistleblower complaint is based on hearsay, we do know that Joe Biden, while serving as vice president, pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor who was investigating his son’s company. Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian national gas company Burisma in 2014 while his father was managing the United States’ Ukraine policy and despite zero personal experience in the field. At the time Hunter Biden joined its board, Burisma was embroiled in allegations of corruption, allegations serious enough that Ukraine’s prosecutor general launched an investigation into the company.

          Joe Biden was so proud of his role in the prosecutor’s removal from investigating the company paying his son $50,000 per month merely to serve on its board that he actually bragged about it in a 2018 speech at an event for the publication Foreign Affairs.

          In this speech, Biden boasts his threat to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loans from Ukraine if they did not agree to fire the prosecutor who happened to be investigating the company giving his son a cushy sinecure.

          The prosecutor was fired, and the investigation was dropped six months later. While the investigation was just reopened last year, it has been a slow-moving process that has turned up little. At the time Biden pushed for the firing of Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor general, Shokin had plans to question Hunter Biden.

          Watch Biden brag about his role in having the prosecutor fired below:

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          John Connor II

          Unanswered??
          The neocons,as they’re called, in the USA HATE Russia (not just Putin). They hate because it is the core of their psychological makeup and not because Russia has actually done something to warrant such hate.
          There is no rationale or reason which is why you can’t find any!
          Democrats or republicans – it makes no difference.
          Pure irrational mindless hate of anything and anyone they don’t like, it ‘s as simple as that.

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            Forrest Gardener

            JCII, what you describe is a serious weakness because haters can be manipulated by their hate. And it is a dangerous weakness because setbacks are likely to trigger serious derangement and increasingly flawed judgment. There is quite a bit of such derangement and flawed judgment.

            Perhaps the haters have set into motion things they do not understand.

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              Honk R Smith

              Yoda, I mean … FG, so true.
              You are obviously Jedi.
              Not meaning to joke, reminds me of my father, a WWII combat guy, seem to recall him saying almost the same thing , just not as eloquently.
              And long before I was able to understand it.
              Wisdom is wasted on the old.

              (Planning to steal this statement and claim it as my own, one of the reasons I read Jonova.)

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          another ian

          I’m now reading P.J. O’Rourke’s “Parliament of Whores”.

          He wasn’t impressed with the foreign policy achievements up to 1990 – and other things

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      Forrest Gardener

      An interesting alternative view indeed. It is of course pro-Russian propaganda. Like all propaganda is gradually reveals itself as the article continues.

      Like all propaganda it contains grains of truth including the growth of the government supported forces inside Ukraine which managed to create a sort of civil war. And the mess created by evil US exploitation of opportunities in the Ukraine.

      As for the predictions, it seems that almost all of the powers that be around the world are seeking a new world order created in their own images.

      Of all the governments it is the US government which puzzles me. What do they hope to achieve by systematically destroying everything they touch? Surely there is something more at stake than covering up previous crimes and creation of a 1000 year reich.

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        Forrest Gardener

        Damn. I’ve kicked the tripwire again. It would be nice to be pre-warned before hitting the submit button.

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        John Connor II

        Of all the governments it is the US government which puzzles me. What do they hope to achieve by systematically destroying everything they touch?

        Asked and answered.😄

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        Mark Allinson

        To understand what is happening in America research the word “Communism”, which as Marx said starts with “the destruction of all existing social conditions.”

        In short, it is nothing less than the archetype of Satanic life-hatred.

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      Grogery

      This article from the same website is also very interesting OO.

      Written by a retired Swiss Military-Intelligence Officer.

      https://www.sott.net/article/466340-Is-it-possible-to-actually-know-what-has-been-and-is-going-on-in-Ukraine

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        OldOzzie

        So, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias. In 2020, they constituted about 40 percent of the Ukrainian forces and numbered about 102,000 men, according to Reuters. They were armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There were more than 19 nationalities.

        These militias had been operating in the Donbass since 2014, with Western support. Even if one can argue about the term “N@zi,” the fact remains that these militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently anti-S@mitic…[and] are composed of fanatical and brutal individuals. The best known of these is the Az@v Regiment, whose emblem is reminiscent of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division, which is revered in the Ukraine for liberating Kharkov from the Soviets in 1943, before carrying out the 1944 Oradour-sur-Glane m@ssacre in France.

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    Lance

    FYI and discussion:

    “Flavio A. Cadegiani has been the leading voice in favor of using androgen blockers against COVID. A randomized controlled trial published by Cadegiani in 2021 demonstrated an 86% reduction in hospitalization. Another trial published later in the year showed a 78% reduction in mortality even among late-stage patients. This was all for the Gamma variant, which was regarded as the most fatal and pathogenic of all the strains of this virus.”

    “proxalutamide is available in Brazil for just $11 for a full course of treatment.”

    ” Whether it’s hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, nitazoxanide, metformin, aviptadil, budesonide, fluvoxamine, fenofibrate, famotidine, cyproheptadine, methylprednisolone, and dozens of other vitamins and supplements, the medical industry has shunned all research on cheap treatments. Instead, we have made its drugs the standard of care,”

    https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-another-suppressed-covid-treatment-you-havent-heard-of#toggle-gdpr

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    OldOzzie

    Tech troubles fuel Mercedes-Benz sales model dispute

    Troubles are mounting for the Australian operations of Mercedes-Benz as failing invoicing software has left its disgruntled dealers struggling to accept payment for new cars, as its shift to a Tesla-style, online-selling model looks set to come under Senate investigation.

    On Monday the Senate Education and Employment References Committee sent a letter to Mercedes-Benz demanding a response to claims made by Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill in a speech given under parliamentary privilege last month, that it misled an inquiry into whether its new sales model would leave Australian franchisees $650 million out of pocket.

    Senator O’Neill alleges Mercedes-Benz made seven misleading claims to the committee, including that dealers were happy with the changes to the sales model and that their profits would not be affected because of new technologies and systems brought in.

    Dealers have since launched a $650 million legal action against the German company.

    “This is an extremely unfair situation where Australian franchise businesses have no decent protections from multinational corporations looking to squeeze them out of the value chain,” Senator O’Neill told The Australian Financial Review.

    “The dealers have said they unanimously voted against a change in model which would devastate their profits, but that is not what the Senate committee heard from Mercedes-Benz last year.”

    70

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    OldOzzie

    Abolish the FBI or Face an American Putin

    Since J. Edgar Hoover founded it, the FBI has never really been a law enforcement agency. It’s a clearing house for kompromot and intimidation.

    Following the death of Stalin, the Soviet secret police pivoted from heavy-handed mass arrests to a subtler, but still sinister, system of mass spying and accumulation of “kompromot,” or compromising material, on its citizens. The Soviets maintained control by prioritizing spying on religious figures, political activists, journalists, and public officials. We’re now finding out that the FBI in America has a similar program of mass surveillance of similar targets. And, as with the Soviets, much of the spying has nothing to do with investigating crime.

    According to a Justice Department internal audit report, the FBI maintained an active caseload of 24,584 cases during the 18 months between January 2018 and June of 2019. A grossly disproportionate share of those cases involved surveillance of influential Americans such as candidates for office, public officials, journalists, religious leaders, and political activists. When the FBI targets an individual wielding high social influence, it categorizes the case as “sensitive.”

    The FBI has proven over and over again to be totally immune to reform. It consistently fails to punish employees for violating the rules, so changing those rules has no effect.

    The existence of the FBI has had no effect on the crime wave plaguing America. Contrary to the many dramatized depictions of the FBI, the Bureau solves an insignificant minority of crimes in America.

    1. The FBI interferes with elections and undermines elected officials.
    2. The FBI gathers dirt on powerful people—but not for prosecution.
    3. Rules governing FBI conduct are meaningless because they go unenforced.
    4. The politicization of the FBI blinds it to real crime.
    5. The FBI stages crimes to entrap halfwits into committing crimes.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Questions Loom After Verdicts in Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Trial

      What did top government officials know and when did they know it?

      It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the verdicts handed down last week for four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 and use a “weapon of mass destruction” in the process.

      Despite sworn testimony from several FBI experts and agents—including the primary FBI informant, Dan Chappel, who was compensated at least $60,000 by the bureau for his involvement—endless federal resources, and favorable rulings by the judge to withhold evidence and testimony, a jury of 12 Americans rejected the government’s case in cold fashion on Friday in a Grand Rapids courtroom. The Justice Department did not win a single conviction; two men walked free after 18 months in prison and two men remain behind bars as prosecutors prepare to re-try them after a hung jury could not agree on their guilt.

      What the jury did agree on, however, is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged in entrapment. Defense attorneys, with the consent of Chief District Court Judge Robert Jonker, argued that the FBI attempted to induce their clients into committing the alleged kidnapping crime.

      “When I look at what happened in this case, I am ashamed of the behavior of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States,” Joshua Blanchard, the lawyer representing Barry Croft Jr., who was not acquitted last week, told jurors in his closing statement.

      Another defense attorney, Christopher Gibbons, said it was “unacceptable” that the federal government framed the men under the guise of thwarting a domestic terror attack. “They don’t make terrorists so we can arrest them,” Gibbons said.

      That is, of course, precisely what the Justice Department and FBI did—and it was not just about a few rogue agents.

      100

  • #
    OldOzzie

    Hillary vs. Trump Redux?

    2024 could be a bizarre replay of America’s most unique presidential election in modern history?

    Harris’ abysmal ratings and poor showing as a leader over the last two years suggest that whatever the party grandees may want, Harris is not up to the task. Therefore, much like Joe Biden currently, if Harris were to replace Biden in the middle of his term, she could also serve as a placeholder for someone else preparing to supersede her.

    Could it be someone whose cackle is even more legendary than that of Harris?

    Enter Hillary

    The Trump Factor

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Trump as Speaker of the House?

      A determined speaker of the House theoretically could do much more to weaken the permanent bureaucracy.

      100

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Speculation is always fun, but my guess is that Hillary would want to be appointed President rather than wait another two years and then be exposed to the uncertainties of an election. After all she has already lost one unloseable election.

      Perhaps things will become clearer at the end of this year.

      80

      • #
        Hanrahan

        I’m a Trumpster but I doubt he would run against a strong candidate* either. Neither would want to be a two time loser.

        *I doubt the dems could possibly find a strong candidate. It’s not in their DNA DNC.

        30

        • #
          Forrest Gardener

          Well there is a path for Trump to be appointed as president. Become speaker of the house, impeach both Biden and Harris and hey presto there you have it.

          20

    • #
      Chris

      Tucker Carlson explained what the democrats may do:
      1. Pension off Kamala Harris
      2 Put Barak Obama into the VP position.
      3. Remove Biden – not fit for the job.
      4. Install Obama as president.
      Obama can be returned to the presidency, he does not need to be voted in because these are “troublesome” times as was the case with Roosevelt .

      I don’t think we appreciated how easy this could be, and I’m sure this has been the plan all along.

      20

  • #
    OldOzzie

    US tells non-essential government workers to leave Shanghai due to Covid-19

    WASHINGTON/SHANGHAI (AFP, BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) – The US State Department ordered the departure “of non-emergency US government employees and all family members” from Shanghai due to a surge in Covid-19 cases and the impact of restrictions related to China’s response, according to a post on its website.

    On Saturday, the United States had warned of “arbitrary” Covid-19 measures in China and said it would let some staff leave its Shanghai consulate amid a surge of infections in the locked-down megacity.

    60

    • #
      OldOzzie

      Tucker Carlson Recaps the Ongoing Horrors in Shanghai, China

      April 11, 2022|- Sundance

      During his opening segment tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson gave a summary explanation of the horrors in Shanghai, China. The city of 25 million residents has been locked down by the Chinese Communist Party as an outcome of their zero COVID policy. {Direct Rumble Link}

      Desperate people are running out of food and have been locked in their homes from the outside by regional authorities. The pets, including cats and dogs of residents who tested positive to the COVID-19 virus, have been confiscated and killed by the government. The scenes and sounds from the area are very troubling as thousands of people scream into the night begging for help and mercy. WATCH:

      80

  • #
    Dennis

    The Climate200, GetUp activist organisation and a number of wealthy individuals focused on crony capitalism based on climate hoax so called renewable energy businesses, electric vehicles, carbo credit trading and other wealth creation activities are backing candidates masquerading as Independent yet they are all together and supported as a minor party effectively.

    And all women from privileged backgrounds, they remind me of the Eastern Suburbs Sydney tennis group asked about voting intentions who mostly picked the Greens and claimed to be environmentalists and very short on Greens background knowledge, the media referred to them as “doctor’s wives”.

    Astute political observers including in the media are commenting on the lack of transparency, why? And the obvious attempt to increase climate friendly claiming to be Independent if elected MPs to Federal Parliament adding to the one so far from 2019 who votes consistently with Labor and Greens.

    Albo has already flagged Labor’s intention if they form government for Australia to host the UN IPCC COP27 Conference, and has rubbished PM Morrison for not cooperating at COP26 Glasgow by closing down coal mines, agreeing to increase the Paris Agreement emissions reduction target and signing an agreement for net zero emissions by 2050. So bear this in mind and consider to consequences resulting in economic vandalism, cancellation of the remaining 3 gas fired generators proposed by the Federal Government with only 1 approved by NSW State so far while VIC and QLD remain silent about planning approval. And 1 coal fired power station proposed for NTHQLD with Federal Government underwriting the finance still not approved by the QLD Labor Government, and much more, coal mining banned for example.

    It is a democratic right to stand for election to a parliament as a candidate, and to form minor parties, but when not transparent about backers and supporters, GetUp involvement and other deceptively background information it should make voters wary.

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    • #
      MP

      Who’s job is it to uphold our constitution Dennis?

      21

      • #
        Hanrahan

        What was there in Dennis’ post that involved the Constitution?

        Being a fake independent is not unconstitutional.

        20

        • #
          b.nice

          “Being a fake independent is not unconstitutional.”

          But it does speak strongly about the highly questionable morality of these fakers. !

          30

        • #
          MP

          Its a question I have asked Dennis many times and as yet unanswered, it has everything to do with my vote.

          and has rubbished PM Morrison for not cooperating at COP26 Glasgow by closing down coal mines, agreeing to increase the Paris Agreement emissions reduction target and signing an agreement for net zero emissions by 2050

          Smirko Morrison, has openly stated he will follow 2030 goals, he did a presser the other day waving the net zero manual to the camera, will follow 2050 goals, how has he disagreed with COP 26 when he has stated he is following the rules without signing anyway?
          Dennis is a Liberal shill, as you have turned into, a belief that if you don’t vote Liberal your voting labor, if you don’t vote liberal or labor your voting labor.
          Those gas fired power stations are mainly NSW, a liberal state.

          Our constitution is there to protect the people from tyrannical government, libs have done this to us and it was Howard who started to remove manufacturing, Labor had a short stint at infighting, its been liberal before and since.
          My vote will go to a party or person who claims they will reinstate constitution law.

          I don’t like Palmer, but he will be above the Lib, Nat, Lab, Greens collation and their one policy of destruction.

          First election I have to start at the bottom of the ballot and go from worst to least worst.
          The Liberal candidate for my area at the last state election gave preferences to labor in a failed attempt to oust the sitting independent, which forced Lib voters to vote for the independent to avoid labor. Great plan, the independent romped home.

          20

      • #
        Bozotheclown

        MP asks:

        Who’s job is it to uphold our constitution Dennis?

        Where I come from, it is first, those sworn to uphold it. Second, by those that retain their Second Amendment RIGHTS. (Not privileges, not licensed, not permitted, not bequeathed, not “under law”.) Natural Self Evident” RIGHTS!

        1. If they have been taken away, well, get them back.
        2. If they want to take them away, Well, you know who they are and they are the enemy. Remove them.

        If they waffle on the subject, see number two.
        If you need an example of why start with Ukraine but then easily go all through history.

        The Natural Born Right to protect oneself is the ultimate human right.

        20

  • #
    GreatAuntJanet

    I wonder how readers of ABC news who believe everything they are told by that outlet, feel when they read about the collapse of the Sri Lankan economy being down to going organic and banning fertilizer? Does anyone think they will make the necessary connections?
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-12/inside-sri-lankas-worst-economic-crisis-in-history/100975192

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      ABC continues its slide as listeners desert Szeps in latest radio ratings

      ABC Sydney has posted rating dips across every session in the second radio survey of the year.

      In the all-important breakfast slot, James Valentine saw his Sydney audience share drop from 11.6 per cent last survey to 10.7 per cent this survey, according to new data from measurement provider GfK.

      This dip was part of a city-wide downward trend for the national broadcaster which saw Mornings with Cassie McCullagh drop 2.1 percentage points to a 7 per cent audience share, while Afternoons took a 2.5 percentage point dip, for an audience share of 5.4 per cent

      The significant drop in afternoons means that timeslot is now ABC Sydney’s weakest performing show for this ratings period. The program is hosted by Josh Szeps, who replaced Valentine in October last year.

      70

      • #
        James Murphy

        Josh, son of Henry Szeps.
        Yeah, sure, he was plucked from obscurity based on talent and skill, no public service family advantages or nepotism here…

        50

        • #

          Whatever their history, …i find Valentine and Szeps the best hosts (only hosts) worth listening to on ABC.
          A subtle mix of humour and chat. With very little of the ABC politics.

          00

    • #
      MP

      Sri Lankan fuel crisis, only God can save us now.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhaUcx3NWt0

      30

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      At a guess GAJ, the reaction would be similar to receiving news about the pain and suffering caused by socialism. That is they will have to try extra hard next time because done properly their ideology is the path to nirvana.

      50

    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘Does anyone think they will make the necessary connections?’

      It will probably go over their heads, nevertheless the story was fair and correct.

      Australia has an opportunity to invest in this island, until they get back on their feet, otherwise Beijing will take advantage.

      20

    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘Sri Lanka’s top diplomat in Beijing said he’s very confident that China will come through on $2.5 billion in financial support as the island nation’s inflation-driven crisis becomes more dire.’ (Aljazeera)

      00

    • #
      Mark Allinson

      Green policies having their intended effect – killing off the people to “save the planet.”

      10

  • #
    OldOzzie

    PwC discloses staff, partner pay ranges to help recruit, retain talent

    PwC Australia has disclosed its pay ranges for staff for the 2023 financial year, with directors able to earn up to $362,000, and revealed that partners have targeted income of between $340,000 and $3.7 million this year.

    The firm’s leaders disclosed the pay bands to staff at a firm-wide meeting held at midday on Tuesday, as part of a broad-ranging plan to ensure PwC is best positioned to hire and retain staff in the current competitive job market.

    The pay bands, which include superannuation, for associate range from $55,600 through to $120,000, while the pay for directors ranges from $164,300 through to $362,000.

    50

    • #
      yarpos

      The big biccies will be in their Incentive Compensation / Bonuses. This plus share options can be multiples of nominal salaries at senior levels.

      20

  • #
    John Connor II

    The big one is coming’: tech giant’s stark Russia warning

    The chief technology officer of $US50 billion ($67 billion) cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has warned that Russia is still likely to launch large-scale cyberattacks against the West in response to sanctions and accusations of war crimes.

    https://www.afr.com/technology/the-big-one-is-coming-tech-giant-s-stark-warning-about-russia-20220408-p5ac0h

    Yup. Or the west will do a false-flag and blame Russia or China.
    The clock’s ticking.
    Got food and cash? 😉

    90

    • #
      RickWill

      Got food and cash?

      I believe a gun trumps both of those!

      32

      • #
        John Connor II

        This is Australia and guns are bad.😉

        61

        • #
          yarpos

          Bad but here anyway

          30

        • #
          Honk R Smith

          I was told by a friend that Australians can own guns, but they must be kept at the firing range.
          Is this true?

          10

          • #
            yarpos

            No, thats complete BS.

            Its usually from people in the US who are rabid pro gunners that embellish reality to a ridiculous extent to dramatise their argument like “they took all the guns away ”

            Why would you leave guns, ammo or money at a shooting range that may be unsupervised a lot of the time? It fails a common sense test.

            The main restriction here is that you cant have semi auto longarms unless you have a demonstrated need eg. Feral animal culler. This means things like an AR15, SKS, AK47 etc are off the menu for the common man.

            50

            • #
              Hanrahan

              You must apply, with valid reason and a gun safe, even to own an air rifle. If you live in the burbs the only valid reason is that you are a member of a gun club. Self defence is definitely not a valid reason.

              It’s only rabid anti gun types who deny that “they took all 99% of the guns away”.

              00

      • #
        Ronin

        A Smith and Wesson trumps four aces.

        30

    • #
      paul courtney

      Mr. Connor: I don’t know if you’re in U.S., but do not trust Crowdstrike. They are part of Clinton, Inc. They were instrumental in the DNC email hack (as in, they left the system open so they could watch the hack happen). Steve McIntyre covered this nicely, to show that Crowdstrike attributed two different hacks (dnc email; Podesta email) to the same group of russians, very unlikely. Crowdstrike is a Hillary Clinton hammer, and everything looks like a russian nail to them.

      00

  • #
    John Connor II

    On the subject of food, I watched this video last night and it’so good I had to share it.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=JrytUqXE9Ns

    This guy grew over 100kgs of decent potatoes in pots without watering them.
    The technique is very good and very productive. I’ve seen other people on other channels use the same approach with the same great results. A must see if you love spuds and/or want to grow your own food. Guess what I’ll be doing shortly.

    Also watch his vids on storing spuds.
    He sure knows his stuff.

    90

  • #
    OldOzzie

    I was born a biological male human

    meanwhile

    Trans First Grade Teacher Claims Doctors ‘Guess’ a Baby’s Gender When They Are Born

    A first-grade teacher at Brooke Charter Schools in Massachusetts alleged in a zoom call with students in kindergarten through second grade that a doctor may “guess” whether a newborn baby is a boy or a girl and that the doctor made the correct assumption if the baby turns out to be cisgender.

    70

    • #
      another ian

      Never heard of the “spouts and turned in edges test”?

      50

    • #
      yarpos

      I had a guess when mine arrived. So far 100%. I am legend.

      80

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Sadly there are babies born with indeterminate sex, doctors sometimes really do need to make guesses based on genitals which are neither one thing nor the other, and make decisions about what might be in the child’s interests. That is even harder in cases with chromosomal abnormalities.

      Then along comes a pervert like this who wants to pretend everybody is born with indeterminate sex and push their twisted ideology onto children not even close to ready to understand genetic realities.

      And the worst part is that those who genuinely suffer from genital or chromosomal abnormalities do not get the medical attention or support they deserve.

      160

    • #
      yarpos

      Saw a headline just know that The Project think that transgender rights are becoming a “focal point” for the election. How disconnected can they be from the real concerns of the average punter?

      40

    • #
      NuThink

      My English teacher in 1958 used to relate many stories to us. She made English very interesting.

      One story was that a certain doctor, when called out to a pregnant woman would for example tell her that the child will be a boy, but write in his diary that he thought it was going to be a girl.

      So sometime later when the child was born and it was a boy the family would say how good the doctor was at prediction, but if the child was a girl they would tell the doctor that he was wrong.

      Oh No he would say, and take out his diary and show them that he had predicted a girl.

      20

  • #
    John Connor II

    Zookeepers Work to Combat Teen Gorilla’s Phone Addiction

    Zookeepers at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago say that a teenage male gorilla named Amare is spending so much time looking at visitors’ phones that it’s distracting him from important real-life interactions with his peers.

    “We are growing increasingly concerned that too much of his time is taken looking through people’s photos,” the zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes director Stephen Ross told Newsweek. “We really prefer that he spend much more time with his troop mates learning to be a gorilla.”

    https://www.ecowatch.com/gorillas-phone-addiction.html

    What can I say…😈

    70

  • #
    RickWill

    With regard my previous question about this web application for freshwater fluxes:
    https://shiny.bafg.de/fwf/

    I got a prompt reply from GRDC that their server for the application is down and will not be up and running till end of April. I can wait till then.

    31

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    Three long sciency posts but still no clarification of what it’s about.

    There’s a suggestion, perhaps, that some mysterious energy drives the rocket?

    Not even a correction to my comment about reducing fuel load with time.

    20

    • #
    • #
      Simon Derricutt

      KK – I did answer you, and they weren’t short replies. Yep, this is a way to produce energy from nothing. It uses Newton’s equations of motion, and a single frame of reference, and the principle is maybe hard to see at first, but obvious once you’ve seen it.

      This isn’t an investment scam, just physics. I’m not connected or invested in the company I linked to, though I have a contact via Linked In so I can talk to them. Try http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/2021/02/horizon-engineers.html for the initial experiments, but get a pot of coffee on first, especially if you dive into the theory. Measurements show that the thrust is there, and a full test in space is planned this year. This is not the only way of producing thrust without reaction-mass, and I know of 3 other methods.

      For a rocket, yep the fuel-load (thus mass accelerated) reduces with time. However, the work done in our frame (and thus the kinetic energy accumulated) doesn’t depend on the mass. Work is defined as force times distance in the direction of that force, so the rate of work done in our frame only depends on the thrust times the velocity.

      With an electric thruster, though, the mass does not reduce with time. This makes it easy to design and build a machine that generates energy. The design is pretty obvious.

      00

  • #
    John Connor II

    The Irish understand NATO well

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1512805114611908611

    Spot on!

    70

  • #

    Ukraine, “what is really happening”
    Zuby podcast for those interested
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFhkJZ3Dyb4

    40

  • #
    el+gordo

    Three consecutive La Nina still in the mix.

    ‘The Nino34 SSTA, a measurement of the oceanic component of ENSO phase is likely slow to fade to neutral as indicated by most models while MEI is locked-in a La Nina regime through the middle third of 2022. In late 2022 ENSO phase is very questionable. However, development of El Nino is unlikely while return of La Nina for late this year has a slightly higher risk.’ (Climate Impact Company)

    10

    • #
      farmerbraun

      At least consistent with the notions of a multi-decadal Pacific oscillation, and a pre-ponderance of la Nina during the current phase, expected to last to somewhere either side of 2030.
      And flatline , or falling, temperatures are the expectation until the next phase when more el Nino will be the feature.
      The previous phase , say early 1970s to late 1990s, saw this farm in drought most Autumns, and frequently in Summer, sometimes beginning November and lasting until the arrival of frosts on brown grass. [ yeah I know . . “you call that a drought?” 🙂 ]
      The last 20 years here have been verdant.

      20

      • #
        el+gordo

        There were three consecutive La Nina in the 1970s and late 1990s, so its not unprecedented. Predicting the next El Nino is tricky, well beyond the capability of sophisticated models. but late 2020s is a reasonable bet.

        10

        • #
          farmerbraun

          “so its not unprecedented. ”
          Neither is it unexpected ; it never goes all one way for long. Those la Ninas that you mention were much dryer than recent ones , sometimes on both the West coast and the East coast. If no ex-tropical cyclones turned up , it didn’t rain much.

          00

  • #
    Ronin

    If labor get in, Kenneally will be the minister for boat people, I can hear them warming up the boat engines right now.

    120

    • #
      Hanrahan

      I was paying attention 15 years ago and using our patrol boats as escorts for illegals really made me see red. I still remember memes of our patrol boats done up as yellow cabs.

      When Tony made the election promise to STOP the boats I winced. I didn’t think he could do it. But our best PM in recent history delivered. The “faithful” failed him then as they are doing to our PM today.

      Remember the boats!

      120

      • #
        b.nice

        The “faithful” failed him then as they are doing to our PM today.

        No. today’s PM is failing the faithful !

        00

  • #
  • #
    Catherine

    elections in France:

    “The lesson you can learn in the first round of the French presidential election is that the extremes are running high. The extreme left and the extreme right together make up 58.58% of the French political spectrum.
    The Greens have failed to pass the 5% mark.

    With 1.77%, the Socialist Party’s candidate, Anne Hidalgo, bites the dust. And with her 4.79%, Valérie Pécresse is plummeting the classical right.

    Many voters are impressed by Le Pen’s intention to restrict access to social services for non-French people and the plan to remove all legal barriers that now prevent criminal or terrorist foreigners from being deported.

    As far as Le Pen is concerned, only those who have worked for five years are eligible for things such as social housing, housing benefit, family reunification or benefits. That way, those who cannot support themselves will not come to France, she argues.”

    (Social benefits can’t be sustained in France(The Netherlands, Belgium…) the way it is going now…that’s impossible)

    Le Pen has called for tax cuts on energy, increases to people’s pensions, and maintaining the current retirement age of 62 (that’s a bad idea) in contrast to Macron’s proposal to raise it to 65.(that makes more sense)”

    Macron is a very smooth talker, a ‘chameleon’.
    He seeks the vote from ‘green people’ with the right talk and than would go happily hunting with other potentional voters.

    90

  • #
    OldOzzie

    Schadenfreudelicious! Swanky Soirée Turns Swamp Superspreader

    The elites of journalism and politics — 630 of them! — gathered just over a week ago for the 137th annual Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner. The New York Times describes the fête as “an annual white-tie roast between journalists and presidential administrations.” The dinner was held at the Renaissance Washington Hotel.

    But all was not champagne and caviar — as of this writing, 73 of the glitterati who attended the bash have tested positive for the dread disease, COVID-19.

    It’s not like the beautiful people were being careless. Fearful of catching the ‘rona, they canceled the dinner altogether for the past two years. And though they courageously held the event this year, “All guests at the Gridiron Club dinner were required to show proof of vaccination,” avers Gridiron President Tom DeFrank.

    But in spite of everyone’s innoculation state of grace, the newest variant in town — BA.2 — crashed the party. The New York Post reports that “At least three cabinet secretaries, several members of Congress, multiple White House officials and a large number of journalists are among the dozens to test positive.”

    Chortling with mirth at the spectacle of the most pious COVIDidians inadvertently passing around the latest infection, I checked various news sources to find out who, exactly, had been stricken.

    Here are the names I was able to tease out of the reportage:

    70

  • #
    David Maddison

    The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be held in regional areas of Vicdanistan.

    Dictator Andrews describes him spending an undisclosed vast amount of taxpayer funds as an “investment” so you can be assured it will be yet another economic disaster for Victoria and Australia.

    120

    • #
      Annie

      Why is huge expenditure of OPM on circuses and suchlike always described by Labour (Labor) as ‘investment’?

      50

      • #
        David Maddison

        Because it’s an “investment” in votes for Labor. “Free stuff” for Labor voters paid for out of higher taxes on all of us plus massive borrowings.

        40

  • #
    MP

    There’s an APP for that. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-22/covid-19-cough-screening-smartphone-app-trial/100797900

    Covid Karen’s now have a new tool in their handbag.

    Thought the PCR was bad, couldn’t give a RAT’s, cough into this.

    40

  • #
  • #
    Ronin

    Albo quoting Taylor Swift, shake it off, bwhahahahahaha.
    The only new jobs Albo will create will be for lawyers squabbling over all the illegal immigrants.

    100

  • #
    hillbilly33

    IMHO a ‘must watch’ for any and all freedom-loving citizens, especially those currently under threat in many countries, including most Western democracies. It’s unlikely you’ll see it on any MSM platforms but I hope after viewing, those who have done so will spread it far and wide!

    https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/congratulations-topher-field-battleground-melbourne-winner-best-documentary-berlin-film-festival.html

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    Fuel Filter

    Long one here but it’s worth five to seven minutes of your time. Excellent essay and well worth every word. I wish I’d remembered the days of the open thread so this could get posted earlier. Oh well…

    Writing from the U.K. A few excerpts:

    *****
    “For two years I’ve been warning you that we’re in a war against our own governments. Forget what’s been happening in Ukraine – that’s been deliberately orchestrated to speed us into the global recession which is the next step in the plan – the really important war is the war being fought against us by governments around the world. I reckon we’ve got at most eight months left before the war is lost.”

    “First, the covid jab. The UK Government now, at last, openly admits that the symptoms of covid – the re-branded flu – are the same as the flu or a common cold. But the threat of compulsory vaccination hasn’t gone away. And yet the UK Government released a report showing that the fully jabbed account for 92% of all covid 19 deaths. The number of deaths among the jabbed is rising – but falling among the un-jabbed. The triple jabbed are the people most likely to die. They seem to be acquiring induced Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. As predicted a year or more ago, the jabs are now shown to be adversely affecting immune systems – making the jabbed more vulnerable to infection and cancer. I was scorned and attacked for warning about that. Figures in Canada show that the triple jabbed are five times as likely to die of covid as are the un-jabbed. In the US, figures from the CDC reveal that the jabs have killed 61,000 people aged 25 to 44. That’s 3,000 more than the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War and more than ten times as many as have died in Ukraine. Insurance industry experts expect 84% excess deaths among millennials. A German insurance database of 11 million people shows a huge increase in illness as a result of the jabs. American figures show that covid jabs have increased miscarriages by 1,517 % if given during pregnancy. The figures are all online but don’t expect to see them on the BBC site which has about as much connection with reality as a Dr Who plot.”

    “Second, consider the global warming hoax. The only thing warm about this nonsense is the hot air produced by pseudo-scientists, crooked politicians and bent journalists. Like covid, global warming is based on yet more fake science – which politicians and journalists won’t debate in public. Those pushing the hoax know they have no science to support their absurd claims – global warming is leading us to the absurdity of net zero and to billions of deaths. And, by the way, the recycling scam was never anything more than an exercise in forced compliance. I’ve always refused to play the recycling game – just as I don’t pay the BBC licence fee.”

    [SNIP. We can’t take too much. – Jo]
    *****

    And a whole lot more. Above, below, and in between the paragraphs, above.

    @ https://vernoncoleman.org/videos/we-have-eight-months

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      farmerbraun

      Eureka!
      I got it !!

      LONG COVID = UBI.

      Job’s done.

      ” . . . . there is ‘long covid’. It’s one of the major reasons nothing gets done any more.
      A month or two ago there were over one million people off work in the UK with long covid – two thirds of them off work for more than a year.
      Now the number is rapidly approaching two million.
      But the evidence shows that long covid is a psychological disease not a physical problem.
      It is a combination of hypochondria and malingering but it is being heavily promoted by governments because it’s an excellent way to destroy economies around the world.

      Oddly, long covid seems rare among the self-employed but common among state employees and council staff.”

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        farmerbraun

        Anyone else notice that the latest from the IPCC is downplaying agricultural emissions , (because other than banning all fossil oil -derived chemicals , there is no way to do that without crashing food production), and suggesting that we focus solely (for the present) on CO2.

        Looking at you China 🙂

        “China has closed down just about everything in the absurd belief they can permanently eradicate the rebranded flu. No one could be stupid enough to believe that. It’s all part of the destruction that will enable them to complete the Great Reset. China is a vital part of the global supply chain. Goodbye to that.”

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      MP

      He wants people to spread the message, if that is what you meant Jo?

      “Spread the message. Share this video which has taken all my energy to write and record. Share it until it wears out. Visit my websites every day and share material. Everything is free to download and share. There is new stuff on there every weekday.”

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    David Maddison

    Here is an (incomplete) list of graduates of Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.

    Prominent Australians programmed by Herr Schwab include:

    Greg Hunt
    Joe Hockey
    Jeremy Howard
    Yalda Hakim
    Clare O’Neil
    Andrew Bragg

    Jeremy Howard is a double masking advocate.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/double-masking-is-our-secret-weapon-against-delta-20210830-p58nbu.html

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      OldOzzie

      What Is The “Great Reset” And What Do The Globalists Actually Want?

      I first heard the phrase “Great Reset” way back in 2014. Christine Lagarde, who was head of the IMF at the time, was suddenly becoming very vocal about global centralization. It was an agenda that was generally only whispered about in the dark corners of institutional white papers and the secretive meetings of banking elites, but now these people were becoming rather loud about it.

      Lagarde’s discussion at the WEF was also held around the time that Klaus Schwab was introducing his 4th Industrial Revolution concept, which is a little more forward with what the globalists really want. He talks excitedly of a true “global society” and a world in which people turn to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a better means of governance. He even suggests that laws would eventually be dictated by AI and that courts would be run by robots.

      Of course, he admits that this cannot happen without a period of economic deconstruction in which people and governments will have to choose between sacrifice for the sake of stability or continued pain in the name of holding on to the “old ways.” Look at it this way: The Great Reset is the action or the chaos, and the 4th Industrial Revolution is the intended result or planned “order.” That is to say, it’s a new order created out of engineered chaos.

      What do the globalists REALLY WANT? Here are the details, so far as I can prove or support with evidence, of what the “Great Reset” actually is and what programs they hope to enforce:

      – Total Global Economic Centralization
      – A One World Digital Currency System
      – A Global Social Credit System
      – You Will Own Nothing And Be Happy By 2030
      – Total Information Control

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    David Maddison

    Trudeau in Canada wants to license journalism.

    Ezra Levant from Rebel News Canada explains:

    https://youtu.be/H7EH5ooBXgA

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    another ian

    “Left are now ‘taking over how we communicate’ ”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK3sWCFSSDU

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      OldOzzie

      Something’s Rotten In The State Of Shanghai’s Latest Lockdowns

      Make no doubt about it, there’s something seriously disturbing about the state of the recent Covid lockdowns taking place in Shanghai. Even for China.

      Here is what the outbreak looks like, if we are to believe the numbers coming out of China. You’ll have to excuse me for being frank, but I simply don’t believe them. China has lied about nearly everything since the beginning of the pandemic, and they certainly don’t have the rest of the world’s best interest in mind now that they are allying with Russia economically.

      Rather, I believe the numbers are likely being exaggerated one way or the other (just as I believe China does with their macroeconomic data), in order to meet the needs of whatever agenda the CCP is trying to push.

      Here we are, two years into Covid, with ample time behind us to have studied the virus, developed vaccines, boosters and therapeutics and allowed for natural immunity to spread – and China is locking down the city of 26.3 million people at the first sign of a couple cases of Covid.

      The actions China has taken to implement this round of lockdowns have been dystopian and Orwellian, to say the least.

      For example, according to the NY Times:

      . all international flights to and from Shanghai have been halted

      . many roads to the city’s two airports have also been closed

      . the government performed P.C.R. tests on 25.67 million people

      . the government has not allowed residents to go to grocery stores

      . the government has put together tens of thousands of cots in two convention centers as quarantine centers – but they don’t have showering facilities

      There are a innumerable disturbing things about the dystopian way this alleged outbreak is being handled, but none more pressing is the question of why it is being handled the way it is.

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        Mark Allinson

        In my view, the situation in Shanghai is being used to foment panic in the US before the midterm elections – Covid is too risky to allow people to mill around polling booths – must have a mail-in ballot election.

        It is fear propaganda, just like the fake face-planting Chinese Covid victims and the open trench graves terrified the West into accepting lockdowns.

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    OldOzzie

    So much for being informed by the Free Press in America

    Update on Brooklyn Attack, Though Some Media Outlets Omit Key Detail Regarding Shooter

    Police were looking for a U-haul with Arizona plates that they believe might be connected to the suspect and they found it in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

    The police did a presser where they described the suspect as a black male, 5’5″ heavy build, green construction vest, gray sweatshirt. But then the presser went from a description of the facts to Gov. Kathy Hochul making a political statement against shootings.

    The area in Brooklyn is an area where a lot of Asian people live and according to the pictures, some of the victims are Asian, although not all of them. But the police are saying they don’t see any reason yet to suspect that ethnicity entered into it, according to Fox.

    While early reports identified the shooter as a black male, some of the media reports seemed to leave out that information, which would make it hard to identify the man if you came across him.

    Meanwhile, some in the media on the left seemed upset that the race of the shooter had been announced at all.

    Police say the suspect is a male Black.” Damn. Damn. Damn.

    Pro-tip for leftists? It’s the shooting you should be upset about not the race of the shooter. But it’s rather important to know that if you’re going to find him.

    Meanwhile you can go to the Daily Mail US and get every detail you need

    BREAKING NEWS: NYPD releases image of person of interest in Brooklyn subway shooting: Gunman’s Philly-rented U-Haul is found abandoned on Brooklyn highway five miles from where he shot ten straphangers

    – Frank James has been named by NYPD as a person of interest in the Brooklyn subway shooting
    – James has not been arrested and police on Tuesday evening appealed for the public’s help in tracking him down
    – It is unclear if James was behind the shooting on Tuesday morning, that saw 10 people shot and a further six hospitalized with smoke inhalation and shock

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      OldOzzie

      Donald Trump Jr.
      @DonaldJTrumpJr

      Even the birds know. Apparently a bird just sh@t on Biden in Iowa. That bird speaks for anyone who’s filled their tank or gone shopping in the last 18 months.

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      OldOzzie

      Saudi television viciously mocks Biden

      The whole world knows that Joe Biden is a husk of a man, mentally and physically not up to the job. On top of the danger that his sheer incompetence poses for Americans comes the risk that enemies and less friendly countries (and even allies) will be tempted to defy or take advantage of the vanished leadership at the top of the federal government.

      One country that has moved away from the status of ally thanks to the Biden administration’s insane backing of Iran through giveaway “negotiations” over restoring the JCPOA nuclear deal is Saudi Arabia. Media there are careful not to offend the government, so the following broad satire of an utterly decrepit Biden no doubt reflects government attitudes toward the man occupying the post that used to be called “leader of the free world.”

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      OldOzzie

      Joe Biden is The Doomsday Scenario We Were Warned About

      I have a new name for the current occupant of the White House: Doomsday Joe. We have heard “Creepy Joe,” “Ol’ Joe,” “Sleepy Joe,” and “Stumblin’ Joe,” but now let’s add “Doomsday Joe,” because he, the Democrat Party, and the puppet masters behind the scenes are producing the script and pulling the strings are a cluster munition weapon of mass destruction that is wreaking havoc across America. Who can objectively assert that anything they are doing is good for America or for our allies in the free countries of the world (assuming any remain post-COVID)?

      Using the following template, I believe this review can be instructive as to how we conservatives, and our fellow Americans, decide to vote: 1) the Constitution, 2) national security, and 3) the economy.

      Let’s examine a few examples, for which there will be minimal commentary so as comprehensive a list as possible is provided in the space allowed. After all, isn’t the “long train of abuses and usurpations” obvious?

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      b.nice

      Pity it wasn’t an eagle, or even better.. a flying elephant. !

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    OldOzzie

    Was the Infiltration of the Secret Service Part of an Iranian Plot to Kill John Bolton?

    Iran’s attempts to avenge the killing of Qassem Soleimani are another inconvenient truth for the Biden administration’s nuclear negotiators

    Recently released court filings and press reports suggest that the two men apprehended for impersonating federal agents last week in Washington, D.C., might have been part of an Iranian assassination team whose mission was to kill former high-ranking U.S. officials. Yet even as the Biden administration became aware of a possible Iranian plot to kill Americans on American soil—an act of war—White House aides continued to negotiate the restoration of the Iran nuclear deal while seeking to accommodate the clerical regime’s thirst for revenge against former Trump administration officials: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook, and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

    they worked out of a building in the southeast quadrant of Washington, D.C., in the fashionable Navy Yard district that is home to federal agents, congressional aides, and other government employees. Falsely representing themselves as agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the two men provided Secret Service agents—including agents connected to President Joe Biden’s security detail—as well as a DHS employee with rent-free apartments each worth more than $40,000 per year.

    It seems odd that these actions barely raised the suspicions of the numerous federal agents living in the building. Taherzadeh told one DHS employee in the building that he had a list of all of the federal agents in the apartment complex, along with codes to the elevators that gave him access to every floor, and surveillance footage from around the building. After the DHS employee tried to verify that the two men worked for the agency by searching internal DHS databases, Taherzadeh said that his name was redacted due to his undercover status. But as the DHS employee might have known, had Taherzadeh really been working undercover, it’s unlikely he would’ve identified himself as an undercover agent—or shown building residents his tactical gear, surveillance equipment, and a high-powered telescope, as well as a handgun he claimed had been issued by a U.S. agency. He also told neighbors he and Ali could access data from the cell phones of everyone who lived in the building.

    Taherzadeh and Ali’s stunning imposture was finally revealed by a U.S. Postal Service inspector who was investigating an attack on a postal carrier in the Navy Yard building and was told by residents that the two men might have witnessed the assault. The inspector interviewed Taherzadeh and Ali, who identified themselves as federal agents who had been deputized by the city government of Washington, D.C., as “special police.” The inspector also learned that the two men had given gifts to Secret Service agents. He then passed the information on to the FBI, which arrested the two men.

    How is it possible that in a building full of federal law enforcement agents, it took a postal service inspector to uncover the two men?

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    el+gordo

    Osaka Gas has joined the green hydrogen consortium in the NT. This is unstoppable, they have the technology and due diligence, its a winner.

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      Graeme#4

      A winner? With a 300 MW (MWh?) battery that’s supposed to power 750,000 homes when the 122 wind turbines stop? Tell me how that’s going to work?

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    OldOzzie

    The US needs to stay out of wars except for those that benefit America

    War is one of the most consequential actions our government can take. The question is whether, looking back at America’s conflicts in the past hundred-plus years, we can discern lessons that should guide us going forward. David T. Pyne, a former U.S. Army combat arms and HQ staff officer with an M.A. in national security, has used his Substack account to write a concise essay analyzing which wars America should have avoided entirely and which were justified wars, whether conducted wisely or not. Trump understood much of this intuitively; Biden does not.

    The post, entitled “How Modern Wars Have Harmed U.S. National Security,” begins with “Wars the U.S. Should Never Have Fought.”

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    OldOzzie

    Joe’s toast, but he’ll skate on the Hunter scandal

    The handwriting is on the wall: Joe Biden has outlived his usefulness to the people who foisted him upon us and who pull his strings. He is on his way out.

    And although some envision him stepping down or being removed from office and being succeeded by either Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi, his regime, which many have already likened to the third term of Barack Obama, will morph into the actual third term of Barack Obama.

    Don’t be led astray by popular misunderstandings of the provisions of the 22nd Amendment. That amendment (which came about in reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt having been elected to a third and even fourth term) bars Obama (or anyone who has served as president) from being elected to a third term. But, in an American Thinker post published on April 6, Andrea Widburg lays out the process by which Obama could step back into the Oval Office without being elected and without violating the 22nd Amendment.

    But we shouldn’t expect any negative fallout for “the big guy.” Although his political future may be no better than that of shark chum, I predict that Joe Biden won’t be savaged the way actual shark chum would be. Rather, despite having now been deemed expendable, Ol’ Joe will be permitted to save face. While his son is being fitted for an orange jumpsuit, the elder Biden will be gently shuffled offstage. And the leftist agenda of the “fundamental transformation” of the U.S. will steam right along.

    I predict that the stories and talking points are right now being written about how Joe Biden has been “the real victim” here, a tragic figure who knew nothing of Hunter’s bad behavior. All his alleged failings will be laid at the feet of his preoccupation with the travails of his beloved, albeit wayward, son.

    It won’t surprise me one little bit if Joe Biden, even as he’s led off into the sunset, is feted to a ceremony in which he receives the “Father of the Year” or “Excellence in Parenting” award.

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      OldOzzie

      Thin-skinned Biden is the most dangerous man in the world

      President takes aim at Rupert Murdoch and conservative media

      According to a new book by New York Times political journalists Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, Mr. Biden has told insiders he regards someone else entirely as the “most dangerous man in the world.” And it’s not his predecessor, President Donald Trump, whom Mr. Biden calls a “threat to democracy.” It’s Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch has no nuclear weapons, missiles, nor a volunteer army of deplorables ready to applaud his every utterance, but his ownership of Fox News, “one of the most destructive forces in the United States” makes him, according to Mr. Biden, the “most dangerous man in the world.”

      Of course, Mr. Murdoch also owns the New York Post and is no doubt therefore responsible for heaping abuse on the president’s son. Most of the legacy media along with his Silicon Valley supporters went to bat for Mr. Biden during the 2020 campaign because they all saw him as the best way to rid the nation of Mr. Trump. They excused or ignored his losing battle with the English language and covered for him when he took positions that might cost him votes. A Las Vegas newspaper edited his attacks on the Second Amendment out of an exclusive interview because the editors were afraid that if the public knew what he said they might be more reluctant to vote for him.

      Mr. Murdoch’s reporters saw their role differently. They kept reporting facts rather than serving as a laudatory chorus constantly praising candidate Biden and thus had to be silenced. The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was dismissed and ignored before the election and is only getting traction now as the mainline media is finally admitting that Mr. Murdoch’s people were onto something after all.

      Perhaps when the president referred to Mr. Murdoch as the most dangerous man in the world it was because he realized far earlier than anyone else that the facts being unearthed by his reporters posed an existential threat not to the world, but to him. To a man with a guilty conscience, which would make him the most dangerous man in the world.

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      OldOzzie

      Southern border crisis is an impeachable offense

      McCarthy needs to stand firm on the issue

      By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Tuesday, April 12, 2022

      By the end of President Biden’s first term in office, 20% of America’s population will be here illegally, having crossed through an open southern border, according to a startling new estimate.

      “In Joe Biden’s first term, we will have more people come into America illegally than we have in the entire state of Texas,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on “Fox & Friends” Sunday, outlining the devastating effects of Mr. Biden’s open border policies. “There are 29 million people in Texas. Joe Biden is going to let in about 30 million people in his first term — based on who we apprehend — one out of three.”

      You add that 30 million to the estimated 30 million illegal migrants already in the country, and that’s 60 million illegal immigrants — 20% of America’s population. What comes next? With Democrats in charge, it will be green cards so they can work here with a social security number, then citizenship, then the right to vote.

      No one has any idea who is actually entering our country or from which country they are fleeing, exposing a grave national security threat. Terrorists, drug traffickers, and gang members are all welcome into America.

      Mr. Biden is allowing our country to be invaded because he clearly believes it will advance his and the Democrat Party’s political ends. Cater to the illegal migrants by giving them free health care, transportation and education for their children, and they will forever vote with the Democratic Party.

      Is it not a “high crime and misdemeanor” for the president of the United States to refuse to uphold federal border laws for purely political reasons?

      We believe Mr. Biden’s open-border policy is an impeachable offense and should be considered by Republicans when they win the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.

      That’s why it was so disheartening to hear House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy warn against impeaching Mr. Biden for “political purposes” this weekend on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked if he would pursue impeachment based on Mr. Biden’s Afghanistan failure or the open border crisis.

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    MP

    Watched the Chase yesterday arvo, Question, what British infrastructure is being converted to Defibrillator hubs. Answer Phone boxes.
    Melbourne, Defib hubs to be installed every 400 meters.

    Nope nothing going on.

    H/T Ollie Wines.

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    OldOzzie

    What the Left Has Done to Women

    As I have documented on a number of occasions, the Left ruins everything it touches. There is no exception. From universities to high schools and now including even elementary schools, to late-night TV, to sports, to the arts and, increasingly, science, the Left is a destruction machine.

    And nowhere is this damage more evident or tragic than with regard to women.

    In fact, nothing demonstrates the power of left-wing ideology as much as what this ideology has done to women. So powerful is leftist ideology, it is more powerful than women’s nature.

    Here are five examples:

    No. 1: The Desire to Bond with a Man
    No. 2: The Desire to Marry

    While single women don’t commit nearly as much violent crime as single men do (though they may be starting to catch up), single women are increasingly a societal problem. The most obvious problem is that women who have children without ever marrying their children’s father — or another man — produce a highly disproportionate percentage of social misfits. But many women who never give birth nor marry also constitute a societal problem. They are more likely to be angry and to express that anger in support of radical causes that undermine society. As Barron’s reported, while overall a mere 14.2% of the population contributed to “racial justice causes” such as Black Lives Matter in 2020, “nearly half of single women in the U.S. — a larger percentage than single men or married couples — supported or were actively involved in racial justice protests.”

    No. 3: The Desire to Have Children
    No. 4: The Desire to Have S@x with Commitment
    No. 5: The Desire to Protect Children’s Innocence

    Perhaps the most amazing thing progressive ideology has done to women is to subvert the innate female desire to protect children, specifically children’s s@xual innocence. The movement to teach very young children about s@x, about “gender fluidity,” expose them to “Drag Queen Story Hours,” etc., is overwhelmingly led by and composed of women.

    Leftism would appear to demonstrate that ideology can trump human nature. Such is the power of social indoctrination. One inevitable result is a generation of more depressed young women and more regretful middle-aged women than ever before in American history.

    The Left ruins everything it touches. You can add women to the list.

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    OldOzzie

    Why elections are won and lost on the economy

    Anthony Albanese’s campaign clanger this week only underscores that voters expect their prime ministers and treasurers to understand macroeconomics.

    It’s the economy, stupid. The famous political catchcry coined by former US president Bill Clinton’s adviser, James Carville, has almost always been true of elections in Australia.

    But bewilderingly, an unprepared Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, failed this cardinal political rule on the first full day of the federal election campaign. Wrongly guessing the unemployment rate by a wide margin and unable to state the Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate, Albanese exposed his ostensible lack of knowledge and interest in basic economics.

    The Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy visiting fellow and former Treasury economist, Steven Hamilton, says the problem with Albanese’s mistake wasn’t his memory about economic statistics.

    “Rather, he never cared to know them in the first place,” Hamilton says. “Not to know these numbers indicates a surprising disinterest in basic economic affairs.”

    – Credibility challenge

    It was a gift to Morrison. The prime minister, a former treasurer and social services minister, has repeatedly made the case that Albanese has never held a key economic portfolio, such as Treasury or Finance, and can’t be trusted to manage the $2 trillion economy. Albanese has countered that he’s been infrastructure minister in the Rudd-Gillard governments and had to know the cost of big projects. But in reality, the jobs are like chalk and cheese.

    – Advantage slipping
    – Policies matter more
    – Traditional focus

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      OldOzzie

      While Everyone Else Is Kicking Themselves For Voting For Biden, College-Educated Women Are Doubling Down

      Why are lots of men willing to admit that they were wrong in 2020, while college-educated women are doubling down?

      NBC News recently compared several polls to find huge shifts from Democrats to Republicans in 2022 midterm voter preferences. The big exception to these shifts across many demographics was college-educated women, who in NBC’s aggregation showed even stronger support for Democrats now than ahead of the last midterm election.

      Here’s the key graphic, which zoomed around social media Sunday, and below that the NBC segment.

      Margot Cleveland
      @ProfMJCleveland

      Wow! College makes women stupider.

      Tom Elliott
      @tomselliott
      Democrats, the party of woke white girls

      That’s because, historically, married women tend to vote Republican. Single women tend to vote Democrat, in proportions that appear to be sharply increasing. Strikingly, “Among unmarried voters, women were more supportive of Democratic candidates in 2018 than they had been of Hillary Clinton in 2016,” Pew reported.

      “[T]he gender gap between Democrats and Republicans is actually a marriage gap,” noted columnist Mona Charen in 2014, another midterm year. “Single women vote disproportionately for Democrats and married women vote by a comfortable margin for Republicans. The decline of marriage inclines more women to vote Democrat.”

      So singlehood, a general predictor among women of increased vote share for Democrats, is rising, a trend that is likely to increase. Although we don’t have the underlying NBC polling numbers to confirm this, it seems likely this is a large explanatory factor for the college-educated women increasing support for Democrats.

      Beyond the obvious fact that big government functions for some single women as a husband substitute, at least financially, it’s also true that women respond more strongly than men to emotional arguments of harm and victimhood of the kind that the Democrat Party of today specializes in. Women are also on the forefront of making the leftist kind of emotional “grievance politics” arguments in both academia and the public square, as Richard Hanania and others have noted.

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        OldOzzie

        I Hated Dresses As A Girl. Thank God My Parents Didn’t Deform And St@rilize Me For It

        Unfortunately, plenty of juveniles out there were not afforded the grace and time to outgrow the same questioning process I went through.

        Growing up, I was a tomboy through and through.

        I loved sports, hung out with dudes, and refused to wear dresses, bows, or the color pink. By middle school, I was more concerned with being one of the bros and begging my parents to let me play tackle football than painting my nails, fixing my hair (hello awkward side ponytail phase), or crying over crushes.

        The mere thought that I would one day become a m@nstruating woman filled me with dread. I thought that going through female p@berty would change me for the worse, so I sobbed any time my mom brought it up.

        By the time I turned 18, my perspective changed. I wasn’t always happy with my body or my looks, but I knew who I was and how I was created.

        – Questioning S@x Is Normal. Pumping Chemicals Into Kids Is Not.
        – No Child Is Safe

        I’m a young woman who still enjoys playing sports and other “boyish” activities, as I did as a child. The difference between me and a little girl growing up in 2022 is that my parents, coaches, and doctors never forced radical gender ideology or experimentation on me because my interests differed from other girls. I was never pressured into drastically altering my body to appease fleeting fears about p@berty, and for that, I am grateful.

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    OldOzzie

    Judge Declines Jail for Two Men Who Impersonated DC Federal Agents

    April 13, 2022 – Sundance

    U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey (Obama appointee in 2015) declined to hold the two men in jail who are accused of impersonating federal agents in Washington DC. “There’s been no showing that national security information has been compromised,” Harvey said in his decision.

    If the DOJ does not appeal the decision, both men, Arian Taherzadeh, (40) and Haider Ali (35), who are also in the United States with expired visas, will be allowed bond.

    (Reuters) – […] Harvey ordered both men to remain in home confinement, subject to GPS monitoring, with their parents and that they surrender their passports and stay away from airports and embassies.

    […] The judge said prosecutors did not prove the defendants tried to infiltrate the Secret Service with nefarious purposes, and noted they were so “spectacularly outed” that there is no risk anymore that they can continue to pose as agents.

    It was also recently revealed the Secret Service tipped-off the two imposters right before they were about to get arrested.

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    OldOzzie

    Certainly beats Australian Politicians

    Hawaii Democrat hasn’t been to DC in months, still working as airline pilot

    Kai Kahele has rarely shown up for work in Washington, D.C., this year

    A congressman who ran on a promise of giving constituents full-time representation has been absent from the Capitol for most of this year, according to a new report.

    Rep. Kai Kahele, D-Hawaii, has rarely shown up for work in Washington, D.C., this year, only casting five votes in person over the course of three days in January, according to an analysis from the Honolulu Civil Beat.

    The rest of his 120 votes were cast by proxy, which means a colleague voted on his behalf while he stayed back in Hawaii.

    Kahele, a combat veteran, apparently never gave up his job as a Hawaiian Airlines pilot where, according to the Civil Beat, he earned $120,000 in 2020, the year he was elected to Congress. His salary as a member of congress is $174,000.

    His failure to show up for work in Congress has coincided with Kahele reportedly mulling a run for governor in 2022, though he has not made any formal announcement.

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    William Astley

    China (and their billionaire minions and their controlled companies) are spreading ideological hate and anger. The US entertainment industry is collapsing in real time. Hate, violence, and racism is not in the entertainment’s industry or in the Democratic party of America’s best interest. Why push it?

    Movies use to be hopeful and helpful. Movies use to celebrate ordinary people who become a hero, helping their country or community.

    Before the take over, evil movie characters would have regrets and were shown as people rather than evil robots. Evil characters often were given a chance to redeem their ‘soul’ before their death or imprisonment.

    It was rare for a hero to die. Children were always protected. Every movie has filled with good people who helped the hero and protected children. Movies use to celebrate ordinary good people who did the right thing. Ordinary people solved problems, learned about transgender people, handicapped, and different people. Most characters were not racist or they overcame their prejudices, to become not racist.

    What is a woman?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_JXZuXxc3M

    What is a man?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_HL0wiK4Zc

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