JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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I think Australia’s dumbed-down masses should be given exactly what they voted for.
Shut down the coal, gas and diesel power plants immediately as per the plans of those “genius” power systems “engineers” Albo and Blackout Bowen.
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What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.
William Shakespeare
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Agreed, but that quote is not from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to which it is usually misattributed but a paraphrase of King Lear.
But from Julius Caesar we do have:
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Good work. Lear was positively sane compared to our leaders.
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When they rewrite the Shakespeare classics you may find it in that version. Although the words/terms will be changed to ensure that they don’t cause offense to any minority group nor religion, especially those with reading difficulties. Maybe just re-release as a movie or two.
I’m thinking the plays will get a lot shorter. In the future, keeping an earlier version in your home library could soon become an offence with real jail time.
How long before that comes into play? Remember when the human rights woman said that discussions around the dinner table could be an issue, (or words to that effect).
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I remember that. I thought someone in Australia said that, maybe the e Safety Kommisar but can find no reference.
It was however said in Scotland.
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It’s no different to the UK and most of Europe. Spain for example. You cannot expect ignorant self serving politicians to lead. They are too surprised to have the job. A single blackout is an electoral disaster. As for running the business which is Australia, they do not have a clue. Neither side does.
But the success of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and friends is spectacular. There is nothing like someone who does not need or even want the job or the luxury retirement. Like Winston Churchill. But these are very rare people. And J.D. Vance and Nigel Farage and Vivek Ramaswamy stand out as high performers with a mission to fix what is broken. And that’s a lot.
Possibly the biggest problem is with the enclaves of privileged public servants in Washington, Canberra, Whitehall who write endless laws that politicians do not understand and slowly bring power and money to themselves. The endless punitive carbon laws are generally not understood even by those who pass them into power. Or the aboriginal laws. It’s all virtue signalling.
What Australia needs is the dismantling of all such laws and departments. I note that the most damaging of them, the original Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act of 2001 did not even use the words carbon or tax once. But it has ripped a hundred billion dollars from the pockets of ordinary Australians to pay for windmills and solar panels owned by others who profit from the unwitting gift. That was the start of public service activism, wrecking the joint. The 35% Safeguard Mechanism milking of carbon dioxide into Green gift certificates is just outrageous theft.
But I doubt Albanese or Bowen have any idea what they are doing. They cannot believe their luck.
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Back in the eighties, there was a saying in Victoria that 3 electricity blackouts in a term meant electoral defeat at the next election. This was a period fraught with many strikes in persuit of shorter working hours, especially in NSW.
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By the late Nineties, the “wisdom” was:
Q. How do you get into small business in Victoria?
A. Start with a big business.
But now, we witness the strange alliance of the corporate statists with the bolshvists.
“Poor fellow, my country” indeed.
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” There is nothing like someone who does not need or even want the job or the luxury retirement. ”
Yes, good to see you agree democracy is a terrible form of Govt. Politicians shouldn’t exist, and our Govt should be picked like a jury.
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Shut down the coal, gas and diesel power plants immediately as per the plans of those “genius” power systems “engineers” Albo and Blackout Bowen.
The Australian Editorial – Power failure proves again that all roads lead to gas
Like a blast from the past, the last-minute intrusion by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres into Australia’s domestic affairs was a reminder that old habits die hard.
Spouting the usual nonsense, without any evidence, that Cyclone Alfred, which struck Brisbane in March, was connected to climate change, Ms Figueres was tone-deaf to the more recent developments that matter. The danger in Ms Figueres’s intervention is the succour it gives to those still seeking to sabotage our industrial capacity and standard of living.
This week’s electricity system failure in Spain and other parts of Europe proves the point.
Comments by Alcoa, which owns the Portland aluminium smelter, Victoria’s biggest electricity user, bring the message home. In regard to the Spanish blackout, Alcoa said if power authorities could not quickly understand what had happened and the solution, the company would have to reconsider its operations there.
On Thursday in 2024 AEMO had to intervene in the market 1800 times to direct gas, hydro and coal-fired generators to synchronise to the grid to provide critical system stability.
This is up from six manual interventions to maintain a secure grid in 2016 and 321 interventions in 2020. These interventions are the only way AEMO’s control room operators can manage periods when large volumes of unused power are flowing into the main grid from rooftop solar systems and other inverter-based resources. As coal-fired plants retire, AEMO says 22 large synchronous machines will be needed to keep the grid stable and secure. Even still, Mr Westerman says, “flexible gas-powered generation will remain the ultimate backstop in a high-renewable power system”. And for gas to play its “critical role” as a backstop for reliability, there must also be enough gas in our domestic networks to meet demand.
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Australians should be proud. They have now voted for Net Zero IQ politicians.
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H. L. Mencken:
‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.’
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Is there another type?
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I don’t know anyone that voted for Greens, Labor or Teals (or worse) but I make a conscious choice not to associate with Leftists.
However, if I ever do meet someone who is suffering due to the Net Zero IQ politicians they voted for, I will have zero sympathy for them.
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2 out of 3 people did not vote for Albanese and friends. In principle we have a least worst government.
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” I make a conscious choice not to associate with Leftists.”
For a long time they have all avoided knowing me!
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Perhaps time to resurrect the bumper sticker “I didn’t vote for them”.
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I think the next task for productive, thinking Australians is work out how to survive the next years and possibly even a decade or more of Labor rule.
It’s not obvious to me how personal hard-earned and saved for wealth and assets can be preserved, apart from physical gold which is not safe or practical to keep. Or leave the country (in which case they’ll tax you when you leave).
Certainly, death taxes and assets taxes are on the way, starting with taxes on unrealised capital gains on superannuation (retirement) funds. Oh, they renamed death duties by the woke name of “inheritance tax”.
And of course there’ll be more lifestyle taxes such as on energy and “luxuries” for the objective of lowering the standard of living of non-Elites.
All the products of your hard work and savings are up for a grab by the socialist Government (except those of the Elites).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14676567/Anthony-Albanese-super-capital-gains-tax.html
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Labor’s gift of OPM for household batteries will help reduce the cost of living for many home owners.
Reducing household energy cost to the electricity connection fee is now an economic option for many households. Victoria has also subsidised removal of gas.
So the pragmatic approach to protect wealth is to reduce cost of living. For homeowners, that is the cost of food and energy. For food, shop at ALDI first – it is consistently lower price and better value than the other two. “Fresh” produce from the big two requires a new definition for “fresh”. Our local Sunday market has competitive prices to supermarkets but the food is fresh in the common meaning of the word and lasts weeks rather than days.
The general view is that all currencies with lose value against the USD under Trump but speculating on foreign currency can be a big loser. Term deposit rates are still attractive and are keeping pace with real inflation. China needs foreign income so Chinese made stuff is now coming into Australia at cost price. That is deflationary for manufactured goods. The Trump tariffs and energy policies are also lowering fuel prices around the world -deflationary – unleaded near me today 165.9/litre, diesel 173.9/litre.
So protecting wealth, as always, is taking the pragmatic path under the cards dealt. Some people actually move to another country to lower cost of living and live well but at lower cost.
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Only one in 40 home solar owners have added a battery, and judging from the comments in The Australian on this subject, the thinking remainder are not planning to do so, having quickly realised that they wouldn’t recover the capital outlay during the battery’s short life.
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OPM?
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Other People’s Money I presume
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George Christensen analysis (extract from Nation First email).
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Constantly bombarded with Labor ads but can’t recall seeing more than a few Liberal ones.
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It looks like the Greens “dear leader” Bandt has lost his seat of Melbournistan.
His replacement will however be only a slightly less bad Labor member.
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-31496-228.htm
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One tiny piece of good news.
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Has Blackout Bowen lost?
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No.
They love him.
They should be rewarded by being the first to go on 100% “renewables” with no coal, gas or diesel backups.
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-31496-315.htm
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Fantastic. No one deserves to lose more. Maybe the Greens can get back to being green, not communists?
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The Media over here are saying that the OZ opposition ran a very poor campaign and started making mistakes when they were leading back in February, whilst that of the governing party ran a pretty good-if uninspiring- one.
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Correct.
A child age 6 years could have run a better Campaign.
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Tonyb, read David Maddison at No. 5 above and you’ll see why. It is inconceivable that even politicians can be so stupid and mind-numbingly foolish, it’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater and shooting yourself in the foot and stabbing yourself in the back and making an own goal all at the same time. Duh duh and duh. ToM
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A bit harsh on the Libs – they were overtaken by the tariffquake whose epicentre was at the White House.
It was a 9 on the wrecker scale and the tsunami that followed selectively wiped out conservatives on both sides of the Pacific.
The reverse hockey stick on the linked graphs below says it all…
https://www.pollbludger.net/fed2025/bludgertrack/
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George Christiansen may be right about this. He blames “faceless men” in the NSW branch of the Liberal party but does not name any names.
The Liberal party and hence the country is in big trouble.
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He refers to the so-called “moderates” and Photios faction. The “moderates”, despite the name, are the far Left of the party, essentially Labor infiltrators.
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Sounds like Malcolm Turnbull was active. Will he now be trying to get the Lib leadership again?
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There is some evidence that the long sought after Planet 9 has been found.
Obviously, further evidence and confirmation is required.
https://youtu.be/SLi4KuE9IAE
And another question, when it swoops closer to the sun, does it have any influence on climate such as Ice Ages? It’s orbital period will be thousands or tens of thousands of years.
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House of commons bans most charging of EV’s. Perhaps that will be extended to other closed parking areas…..and tunnels…..and bridges……and ferries?..and apartment blocks…
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/05/03/parliament-ev-chargers-to-be-removed-for-safety-reasons/#comments
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They are probably terrified of an event reminiscent of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
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That plot, (by some Guy), was focused on just the parliament.
Nett zero is much wider reaching. I’d compare the two, Guy’s fireworks to the Tsar Bomba.
Some people wouldn’t care less about the earlier attempted effort but most would raise alarm about the latter. Strange the people didn’t get to vote on this.
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The Politics of EVs Have Changed
Thirty-five Democrats joined the GOP to repeal California’s EV mandate.
By The WSJ Editorial Board May 4, 2025
The times they are a changin’, especially on progressive climate dogma.
On Thursday the House voted in strong bipartisan fashion to overturn the EV mandate the Biden Administration let California impose on the rest of America.
The vote was 246-164 for a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to repeal the waiver that the Environmental Protection Agency granted California for its EV mandate. The waiver provision was written to let California address smog. But Sacramento Democrats lobbied the Biden EPA to let it apply to carbon emissions.
The mandate is ludicrously impossible to meet. It says zero-emissions vehicles would have to account for 43% of an auto maker’s sales by 2027 in California and the dozen other states that have signed up for its rules. It rises to 68% by 2030.
Major car makers other than Tesla are nowhere near those sales targets. It also amounts to another case of California’s regulatory imperialism on the rest of the U.S. since car makers would have to adjust their assembly lines to meet the Golden State’s standards.
The House vote is especially striking because of the 35 Democratic ayes. That included three of six Democrats from Michigan, three of five from Ohio, four of 12 from Texas, and even two from the High Climate Church of California (Luis Correa and George Whitesides). Let’s hope they’re not excommunicated by Pope Gavin (Newsom) I.
The vote underscores that one salutary effect of the 2024 election is the introduction of at least some economic realism into the climate policy debate.
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Australia is still behind the point on the curve that Britain has reached. Britain is in a state of collapse thanks to the (Extreme) Left (Labour) and Fake-Right (Tories).. Everything has gone bust. The Labour party lied to the people to steal their vote, now the people have realised that they’ve been had. The by-elections of three days ago have given Farage a massive vote of confidence taking a massive vote away from both parties. If an election had to be held today Farage would become the prime minister of Britain. Let Australia’s Labour run its course and commit suicide like the US Democrats are doing with 27% approval rating.
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“Everything has gone bust. The Labour party lied to the people to steal their vote.”. Gosh that sounds familiar. Lies like “I didn’t fall off the stage that you all just saw on the news” and the biggun last election “$275 reduction in power bills” that have risen upwards of $1000 in the meantime. There have been endless lies for his entire Prime Ministership. If he were Pinocchio his nose would stretch from Sydney to Perth. And they voted again for another 3 years of this madness. What does it take for people to WAKE UP? ToM
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The international (fake news) media has banned news about Farage’s massive victory. I’m expecting a police ‘investigation’ on him, ending up like Marie le Pen, in prison. They tried it on an Italian minister for impeding the landing of illegal migrants. We have Gulags now in Europe. Christians have been imprisoned, critics of Hamas supporters accused of hate speech, etc etc etc. Down the cliff, we go.
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Which demographic voted for Labor?
Was it a preponderance of the young, stupid and indoctrinated freshly out of the communist indoctrination centres once known as “schools” and “universities”?
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Did see somewhere that this was the first election where the Boomers were not the biggest demographic.
We were not the greatest generation, that was our parents, but we continued their work. Our children were too coddled and “given” too much without effort, they are what I call the entitled generation, nor sure if they are the XY or Z generation.
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Imagine the bleating if Labor introduces an inheritance tax just as they line up for theirs.
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If Australia ever gets another conservative government they must defund Their ABC.
It no longer serves any useful purpose but just provides one sided Far Left political propaganda.
It’s does not represent the views of all taxpayers who fund it.
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The problem with reigning in their ABC is that the response will be that any cut in funding to their ABC will result in the immediate demise of peppa pig or the bananas in pyjamas. And the ability to hide behind that spin gives so much political cover that attempts at reform are stymied.
A public policy worthy of advocacy is efficient government. Not necessarily starting with their ABC but systematically eliminate the deliberate waste of taxes and borrowings which is the life blood of advocacy groups and associated hangers on. Find some low hanging fruit first. And really go to town highlighting that waste.
It is a message which is self-spinning in favour of reason. It has the added benefit of driving the bad guys nuts trying to unspin the spin.
That is potentially the greatest lesson from Trump’s first 100 days in the US.
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Does Peppa Pig do the morning news bulletin or the evening news?
I think I know where they put the bananas.
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And the SBS. Who needs multicultural media in the internet age?
And the CSIRO. Who do what exactly?
And the BOM. It’s all computerized. And they refuse to digitize the inherited records prior to 1909, possibly the best in the world.
and the endless climate departments. Politicians controlling and taxing the weather. It’s a dream.
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With the mandate given to the socialists, they will no doubt open up the floodgates to violent, uneducated, misogynistic, anti-Western Third World immigrants, all future Labor voters, all to be placed in critical Labor electorates. All to ensure Labor is in power forever.
This is what the Democrats tried to do in America but they had TRUMP to stop them.
We have nobody.
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“all future Labor voters,”
..until they start their own parties!
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Cometh the hour cometh the man.
Perhaps this was not yet the time.
And as Midnight Oil once sang I hope you are not beaten yet. Not yet!
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What is the “logic” of someone who votes for Labor?
Is it all the “free stuff”, the destruction of Western society and its values, or what is their motivation?
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As I once thought of my children’s choice in partners, there is no accounting for taste.
Gosh I’m full of it this morning.
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Free stuff is compelling. It is the way a democracy can be separated from free market. It becomes less messy and more easily managed.
Australia is able to ride its mineral wealth feeding Chinese manufacturing. A strong China, Korea and Japan guarantees Australia’s income.
Australia is likely the only country that can get close to NetZero if you do not count the carbon used to produce its imports. Australia is back to running current account deficits, which eventually catches up like it has in the UK. But Australia’s position is now better than the UK. UK has run out of castles and department stores to sell to Arabs. Australia still has mountains of iron ore, rich bauxite deposits and the best met coal in the world along with a most of natural gas.
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How close is Australia to a Spanish-style grid failure?
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May depend on which grid you are connected to. WA doesn’t have very much large-scale solar, relying instead on home solar during the day, supported by plenty of cheap gas. The state Labor govt may destroy this delicate balance by closing WA’s coal power stations, but so far they remain open and doing a great job. As to your “National” grid, who knows what will happen, but blackouts surely must start once a few coal power stations are closed.
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Have a look at your midday electrical supply. Household supply is going to be the undoing in WA. At least a large single supplier could be told to turn off or reduce output. Not possible for the roof tops.
WA may be the first guinea pig over the line and into a black start. There ain’t no extension lead from France to help there.
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TWEET from Rand Paul.
Time for justice.
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TRUMP to build new ball room at White House and he’s paying for it out of his own pocket.
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What a breath of fresh air that man is in the political world.
The first person, in my lifetime, in political life that has not tried/worked to enrich him/herself in the job.
The same could be said for Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, both very successful in the private sector, now donating their time and effort to MAGA.
Salute those men! And they think Australia is the “lucky” country. Well we just ran out of luck!
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Only Trump and Melania would want a ballroom. Grand homes always had a ballroom. And European women love to dance. But only Trump would need the ballroom.
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The seat of Goldstein in Victoriastan is extremely close (95 votes difference at this moment).
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-31496-214.htm
Zoe Daniel (Teal Party, fake independent) vs Tim Wilson (Liberal).
It’s likely however that postal votes will favour Tim Wilson.
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On a personal level my mother lived in Goldstein.
As a life long liberal voter I could never understand her disdain for Tim Wilson. That was until we moved into the area to look after her in the last few years of her life and I met Tim Wilson at the polling booth on election day. His mother was with him spruiking for votes.
At the same time there was a quiet suffocating self censorship among voters waiting to do their civic duty. In a nutshell the teals were just so nice. They were very well organized with an all elderly female team who were arranged in concentric circles around the polling booth. None of them sought your vote. They just smiled and said hello like your grandmother would.
In my mind I imagined I had stumbled upon a geriatric version of the Hitler Youth. And at the same time there was an intangible something I found repulsive about Tim Wilson.
The atmosphere in Fisher is completely different. And I live in a small town which inexplicably to me was one of the few booths which voted majority Labor.
And now I’ll just join Rip Van Winkle and wait for my opportunity to do something which will make a difference. If that ever happens.
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There is a genuine dislike for Tim Wilson in the area. They are not homophobic. They just don’t like him.
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How do The Teals get away with claiming to be independents when they are clearly an organisation with the same branding plus they have the same far Left ideology and vote with Greens nearly all the time.
By claiming to be independent they are exempt from the disclosure and other rules governing political parties.
Who funds them anyway? They are presumably funded by a billionaire Elite subsidy harvester.
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There are some very astute people out there. The teals appear to have been very well advised.
And I don’t mean that as any sort of praise. The teals and their advisers deserve damnation.
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Yesterday I went to the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally. Whether by accident or design, the whole site is surrounded by windmills. The windmills are horrible and have destroyed a tranquil rural landscape.
You can see the permanent Steam Rally site here. This picture might predate the windmills.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/bPvwTQDRHFo3SAu79
The surrounding wind farm is owned by the Chicomms and one of Australia’s largest wind subsidy-harvesting operations with 149 windmills and claimed nameplate of 521MW, a meaningless number, obviously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockyard_Hill_Wind_Farm?wprov=sfla1
Rally website:
https://www.lakegoldsmithsteamrally.org.au/
I was also told that when they installed the subsidy harvesting devices, they altered drainage and made the site more prone to flooding. But an “engineer” signed off on the new drainage arrangements and the Rally organisers can’t afford to litigate.
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I don’t know if anyone done this, but I would like to congratulate Spain on achieving net zero. It might have only been for a few hours but they did it. Obviously it has taken fanatical determination to beat other countries to run on mostly “renewable” power. Even though the power company gave notice that Spain would go net zero, the people were still court by surprise. Which country will be next?
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Actually they achieved absolute zero. There would have been many quiet, even totally silent celebrations.
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FWIW
“The Indoor Plumbing Test
what can AI enable you to do that you couldn’t already do by other means?”
The most important invention – the I-phone or plumbing?
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-shitting-in-the-yard-test
Via https://instapundit.com/718019/#disqus_thread
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With 3 in the Family with multi country Husband & Wife, I remembered Lew Kuan Yew’s thoughts on this problem, as reading many comments in The Australian on the Election, that were saying “We need to learn Mandarin”.
Lee Kuan Yew on Mandarin Learning
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, often discussed the challenges of learning Mandarin Chinese compared to English. He highlighted the complexity of the Chinese writing system, which consists of over 8,000 characters, in contrast to the simplicity of the English alphabet, which has only 26 letters.
Lee emphasized that the primary difficulty in learning Mandarin is not the language itself, especially for speakers of other Sinitic languages, but rather the Chinese characters as its near-exclusive script. He believed that the complexity of the characters posed a significant barrier to learning and retention, making it more challenging for students to master the language compared to English, which has a simpler and more straightforward writing system.
Even Mao Zedong, the leader of the People’s Republic of China, recognized the challenges posed by the Chinese character set. Mao considered the possibility of reforming the writing system, potentially adopting a phonetic script to make it easier to learn and use. This reflects a broader recognition of the practical difficulties associated with the traditional Chinese writing system.
Lee Kuan Yew’s insights into the challenges of learning Mandarin highlight the importance of early exposure and consistent practice in mastering the language. He advocated for methods such as writing and delivering speeches, listening to Mandarin recordings, and using technological tools to aid in learning. These strategies can help overcome the inherent complexities of the Chinese language and make it more accessible to learners.
This in turn led me to his SPEECH BY MINISTER MENTOR LEE KUAN YEW AT THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON THE REPORT OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY REVIEW COMMITTEE ON THURSDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2004 which I have sent to all my Family
Incredible Man, able to cover many languages including Latin
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