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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Statistics
The Babylon Bee reports that boatloads of political refugees fleeing oppressive tyranny in the UK have been arriving in North Korea.
If the Albo/Bowen clown-dictatorship regime stays in power here much longer, they’ll eventually out-Starmer Starmer, and then I’ll be seriously considering taking to the boats myself and fleeing to a less oppressive, less despotic nightmare-socialist totalitarian police-state where police seem more sensible and life seems less regulated than the UK model we’re fast approaching.
651
Forgot the link, and for some reason the site rarely if ever remembers to display the edit function these days.
https://babylonbee.com/news/british-refugees-travel-to-north-korea-in-search-of-freedom
.
[Sometimes the edit function is delayed. If it doesn’t appear as an option upon submitting the comment, wait a minute or two without refreshing the page and it may then appear. Don’t know why. – Raquel]
150
I think the problem is that because this site appears to be under continual attack by dark forces who wish to silence the truth, it takes a long time for the Web code for the page to load. I can see on the browser on my Android phone a line across the top which indicates the proportion of the page that has loaded. It often takes 2 to 2.5 minutes for the page to load. When that’s done the Edit function will appear. If it takes longer than 5 mins the Edit function won’t appear.
170
That’s dial-up speed..
Sure you don’t mean “seconds”?
Mind you, all your traffic is being routed to the FBI, CIA, NSA, e-wally Kommisar etc, like a lot of us.
40
The page appears to load fully instantly in terms of all the visible text but there is still invisible code related to things like the Edit function and likes/dislikes that takes time. It is apparent if your browser indicates how much of the page has loaded, otherwise you probably won’t notice.
20
It often takes 2 to 2.5 minutes for the page to load.
6-7 km from the regional tower… Load speeds are “somewhat variable”. Very acceptable at 1 am. Not so much at 4pm when the after school crowd descends…
And I suspect when the adults in the area decide to collectively stream the movie of their choice.
But speed has improved in the last 18years that the antenna has been on the roof.
PS: it took about 20 seconds to finish the download from the amazon adsystem on this post. 🙁
10
Very quick on Starlink. None of the troubles you have referred to above. There are parts of Australia still in the 1800s.
20
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M2HoPkm1ouQ
Tax man crying, Rayner smiling
60
1097 illegals crossed in 17 dingies on Saturday, Mahmood’s first full day as Home Secretary. The total has passed 30,000 at the earliest point in the year since the problem began. Smash those gangs!
320
When we had our boat people problem in the late naughties, early teens in Australia we heard a lot about the push/pull factors. There was a “pull” which was the attractiveness of the country with good social welfare and medical facilities etc. Then there was the push factor, which were the “gangs” or cartels or organisations taking money from the refugees, putting them on boats and sending them off. Until you stop both, you haven’t got a hope of solving the problem. Then you need some adverse publicity as well. Online videos, photos of upturned boats and reports of drownings. But before all that you need a resilient government willing to admit a problem and be prepared to do something about it, Luckily, Australia voted in Tony Abbott and we got Operation Sovereign Borders. For the UK, at the moment, no hope.
240
Government of Indonesia, the country people smugglers used to fly in their clients to then board a vessel to reach Australia, advised the Australian Federal Government to “take the sugar off the table”, meaning remove what attracts illegal immigrants to seek asylum in Australia who were mostly economic refugees.
Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims and entry for foreigners who are Muslims is rubber stamped.
70
QLD, the NT or WA sound like good places for this Sin City resident to escape to.
110
I wouldn’t discount regional NSW either JR
It’s a different life even 100-200klm away from the ants nest
40
I agree. My oversight.
00
4 am, in Victoria the blood moon is still visible. My phone pic is a bit grainy though.
50
4:30am NZ-time (2am yours?) La Bella Luna was the warm colour of claret, or was it burgundy or maroon 🍷 Cosmic syzygy nonetheless.
Perth, for the 2nd day in a row, is the coldest capital city (both min & max), one more and it will officially be a 3-day coldwave according to the Makeitupaswego Met Service – though I can see the coming headline: Hottest Spring For Aus Ever!
140
Coral Climate Absurdity: Spending Millions Breeding Heat Tolerance Which Already Exists in Nature
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-06/palau-corals-selective-breeding-climate-change-reefs/105728666
Via:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/07/coral-climate-absurdity-spending-millions-breeding-heat-tolerance-which-already-exists-in-nature/
Oh no, not again!
This was already proposed ten years ago.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hot-water-corals-in-the-persian-gulf-could-help-save-the-world-s-reefs/
230
Apologies if this point was covered already and I missed it.
In the avalanche of concern about GBR health there seem to be one parameter which should be a clear and measurable indication of ocean warming affect on coral polyps. They are immovable animals so the dead ones stay where they were born but the mass of newly born ones tend to appear in more suitable environment.
It should be clearly seen where Reef was at the beginning of Industrial Revolution and where it is today so its movement South per year can be calculated which should correspond to that darned “temperature anomaly”.
That is, if the Great Barrier Reef does move South.
201
More on that
“Coral Climate Absurdity: Spending Millions Breeding Heat Tolerance Which Already Exists in Nature”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/07/coral-climate-absurdity-spending-millions-breeding-heat-tolerance-which-already-exists-in-nature/
40
Bleaching is, as we know, a natural and frequent occurrence. Due to the sheer size of the GBR, it’s pretty much a sure thing that at any one time, somewhere along the reef, there will be localised bleaching. Go back to that spot some time later and the coral will have recovered.
So for researchers gorging on climate change funding, they can find some bleaching whenever they want and, when they hear about a bleaching event, they have the time and the funds to go get ‘samples’ and photos for more armageddon stories.
What they’re less interested in is revisiting that location when the coral cover has regrown, nor are they in the least excited about the huge areas of healthy reef.
There’s no money in that, you see.
60
Recently I posted Dr John Campbell’s latest video discussing the Italian paper about increased cancer rates of victims of covid mRNA “vaccines”.
Here is another video, complimentary in nature, by Dr Philip McMillan which further discusses that paper and focusing on possible mechanisms for the increased rates such as interferon suppression.
He had in fact predicted these increased cancer rates two years ago but the video was censored.
He predicts far more mRNA cancer cases in future due to the mRNA covid substances.
240
but the video was censored.
And there is the problem. The video didn’t sensor itself. Someone did it. If only we could find out who ordered it? Maybe even which government department they worked for….
Wouldn’t it be nice it we had the right to not only speak freely, (gone), but also the right to hear.
230
And under Australia’s Liberal-appointed Safety Kommisar, whose censorship powers are increasing all the time, censorship in Australia is becoming far worse.
It’s not only censorship itself that’s a problem. Under a censorious regime such as Australia’s, people are afraid to speak out in the first place, even prior to censorship.
220
Sunday Talks – RFK Jr. Outlines How Demetre Daskalakis, Former Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Intentionally Hid COVID-19 Vaccination Data
60
Just to remind who this person was – Images
10
Yuk.
30
Click on the link at your own peril!
10
FWIW
“Burning Hybrid Toyota RAV4 Wrecks a Sydney House”
“Wake up call for anyone who thought Hybrids are safer than EVs?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/06/burning-hybrid-toyota-rav4-wrecks-a-sydney-house/
190
2 weeks ago I enquired about buying a RAV4 at the local Toyota dealer and was told there was an 8 month delivery time.
Perhaps I should go back this week and ask again, or possibly not.
100
It seems that Toyota are recalling 1.5 million RAV4 (models 2013 to 2018) about a fire risk from their batteries (YouTube)
100
I was actually considering a hybrid for my next car.
I think I’ll stick to 100% hydrocarbon fuels.
160
Of course but regenerative braking is not silly.
Our Honda hybrids have been excellent for economy. I imagine in the city they would be even better.
They are decades old now and reliable.
50
Regenerative braking wouldn’t help me much.
I live in rural Oz, the car goes about 40km to town and then 40km home, just to do the groceries. Since most of that drive is on roads where the brake pedal isn’t used, I’d calculate my savings from regenerative braking at extremely close/next to zero.
No wonder they aren’t selling well outside of the city/latte strips. The local Mazda dealer actually told us to pick another model, anything but hybrid.
160
Hybrids have electric aircon, electric power braking, electric power steering thus low maintenance and no belts. The hybrid motor gives six cyl power to a four. Because the 12V battery doesn’t start the ICE it lasts “for ever”, mine lasted 13 yrs. Logically [I have no experience of this] your HV battery could lose half it’s useful capacity and you would not notice any loss of range. As long as it has enough to start the hybrid motor which starts the ICE you are good to go.
Oh! My Toyota has a timing chain so no mandated belt change.
50
Hybrids make proven simple systems complex , the braking system is the classic example. Complex systems are fine until they arent, then they are expensive to fix. Its great you are going well, but that is just one anectdote.
Probably all a bit academic really as the market is mainstreaming hybrids. If warranties keep extending it will probably be the secondary buyers who will be affected.
30
Best you talk to some owners. I doubt you have any actual experience.
My HV battery is still good but if it were to fail I would replace it, not scrap the car. Would cost two timing belt replacements, maybe.
10
Prius Owner Loyalty
Purchase Intentions
More than 38% of Toyota Prius owners choose to buy another Prius when replacing their vehicle.
This loyalty is the highest among all models at CarMax, surpassing previous leaders like the Chevrolet Corvette.
00
Thats the whole point H, one persons experience doesnt mean much. But you are so far down the well you think a 62% would not buy again rating is a good thing. As I said , its great Your experience is going well, and I hope it continues so.
10
And yours is just another single opinion.
Had you read both sentences you would see it is the highest of ANY car.
00
The conventional 12v battery in my 2021 Toyota RAV4 lasted 4 years.
00
4 years is about par for most 12 v lead acid car batteries these days !
00
Don’t dismiss hybrids so lightly, there is a lot to like about them. Mine is the best car I’ve ever owned by a country mile.
20
Meh , its in Sydney’s Southwest, its probably the victim of a driveby shooting.
170
Today’s on-line Courier Mail headline – behind “The Murdoch Wall” to me
“Explosive factor behind shock doubling in battery-fuelled Qld house fires
Queensland firefighters have issued an urgent warning, as lithium battery fires have more-than doubled in three years, with one family losing everything to a charging vacuum.”
So not just cars
100
I was informed that Toyota hybrids have been using nickel metal hydride batteries – has there been a change to conflagration causing lithium ion??
30
My 2010 model has NiMH batteries.
00
Toyota RAV4 hybrid batteries come in two flavours. Before buying my 2021 RAV4 hybrid I checked that it had a Ni hydride battery. I did not want the Li-ion type.
90
Good thinking 99.
10
Toyota “conventional “ hybrids (Prius, Camry, Corola, etc) have NiMH battery packs.
Their “ Plug In” hybrid versions use Lithium ion batteries (not LFP though )
00
You are being a little disingenuous here Ian, that was a plug in hybrid that caught fire not an “old fashioned” hybrid. It would have been on charge at the time, I suspect.
As above I think hybrids are great, wouldn’t own a plug in one though.
* Edit function works perfectly.
30
Hanrahan,
That’s a pretty strong word:
disingenuous adj. having secret motives; dishonest, insincere. (Concise Oxford)
By the look of it, the only thing in another ian’s comment that he actually typed was “FWIW”; everything else is marked as a quote or a link. In what way was *he* dishonest?
If you’d clicked on the link maybe you’d have aimed your “disingenuous” at Eric Worrall, or maybe at Toyota (since they have the temerity to call the RAV4 a hybrid — as if they’d know).
00
The Look Up function says “not candid or insincere”. With the adjective “little” added it is hardly abusive, maybe if you have a thin skin but maybe I’m being harsh again.
I have developed the habit of checking such things knowing there are pedants here.
Have I missed anyone?
20
MORNING GRIDWATCH MONDAY 8 SEPT
AT 7 AM AUSTRALIAN EASTERN TIME THE WIND WAS CONTRIBUTING 40% OF DEMAND IN THE EAST CAPACITY FACTOR 47%
AND 9% IN THE WEST
BEWARE If you think we are doing well when you see big numbers for the penetration of wind into the grid, you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Look at the weakest link in the chain, the lowest point of the fence, dam and flood levee.
Wind and sun will not carry the grid through windless nights because we have effectively next to no grid-scale storage. Don’t be impressed by the number of batteries being installed, do the arithmetic find out the cost to get through 16 hours with minimal wind and solar generation.
https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
TEXAS
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot
3.40 PM WIND 6% SOLAR 26% HOT DINNER THIS EVENING?
BRITAIN
https://grid.iamkate.com/
10 PM WIND 46% SOLAR 0%
130
All “renwables” are variable all the way down to zero.
The question is what do you do then?
We do not have an practical, affordable and widely deployable storage solution. So what we do at the moment is mostly engage in wishful thinking, until smacked in the mouth by reality. Then we madly back pedal and extend the life of coal and gas plants beyond the next electoral cycle.
170
Exact.
120
Even if we did have the storage we don’t have the generation to charge it.
It has been a windy week, true, but you can’t rely on that.
50
It has been said that wind and solar installations need power station controllable generators back up, but power stations do not need wind and solar.
50
How is this for an agenda . . . . ? :-
” starter sextet of game-changers:
1.The ridiculous definition of who owns personal or business bank deposits requires complete and immediate abolition. That’s to say, bank customers are not ‘unsecured lenders to’ unaccountable banker Goforits. Money deposited in banks belongs to the depositors. Let’s bury this brazen transubstantiation theory in a leadlined coffin and dump it in the nearest active volcano at the earliest opportunity.
2.It is not the job of the financial-cum-commodity bourses of the World to directionalise individual stock, precious metal and crop future prices purely to make money, take profit and then dump the rookie investor in a cess-pit just before the close of trading. Concerted price manipulation based on false or zero data is not difficult to observe, track and fine: even the most braindead AI program could do it. The job of bourses is to provide investment capital for genuinely creative capitalist concerns: it is not to create investment house corrupters of all media information and/or fund ill-considered, greed-fuelled mergers and takeovers that result in command monopoly fascists where once there was cultural mutuality. M&A activity should all be referred to regulatory enquiry.
3.We must tackle the growing (and intentional) NWO practice of exporting extremist fanatics upon nation States with the aim of making those countries ungovernable, multicultural basket cases….and thus, ripe for quasi-colonial takeover. Only by making the Rule of Law constitutionally sacrosanct can this vital recovery of tribal identity and business honesty be restored as the antidote to gigantic, distant World Government based on monopoly command pricing and senior corporacrat mandarins ignoring the Law.
4.Equally, if redress to Law in order to control the Deity-complex dingbats is unaffordable for most citizens, nothing will change for the better. It is the duty of those elected to serve the citizenry to ensure that legal aid is restored to support everyone defending liberty on behalf of the rest of us.
5.The digitalisation of cash is already being put into the hands of smartphone service suppliers and electronic network providers across the globe. It is of vital importance to all levels of society not to acquiesce in the creation of an unregulated institutional/ISP Silicon Valley monopoly of money supply. We need an internationally agreed law to make cash payment acceptable in perpetuity. Anything less would mean the end of all Civil Rights in relation to control of one’s own monetary budgeting.
6.Government agencies and service providers online should be banned from the use of ‘NoReply’ in their email, text and other electronic communications with customers. It is an affront to our Civil Rights and every principle of responsive service in the first place. It is also (along with AIBot ‘chats’) a blindingly obvious attempt to fob off citizens with third-rate after-sales care. No service supplier in future should feel able to hide from those whose money keeps them in business. From here on, accountability must apply to everyone without exception.”
250
Link to the discussion :-
https://therealslog.ghost.io/reviving-justice-without-killing-liberty/
50
“The job of bourses is to provide investment capital for genuinely creative capitalist concerns: it is not to” … allow participants to create for themselves, via short selling, a vested interest in the failure of listed companies.
80
Supermarket duopolies may also be deserving of some more curbs. The game is rigged against the suppliers; always has been.
110
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority, a type of banking ombudsman, is marking time for many months now about such matters as:
. Who owns my money, the bank or me.
. Is the agreement between depositor an bank, typically around 100 pages of fine print, an enforceable legal document because it is seldom read and so it is not entered into with informed consent.
. Is that agreement enforceable when it contains clauses that are not possible to monitor or to achieve. Example, “You must not disclose your security code to any person.”
. Are amendments to the agreement valid when made without prior discussion and agreement, then advised by non-individual, sweeping methods like newspaper advertisements.
. Can a bank refuse to obey an instruction from the depositor to cease payments of a recurring nature started online with the number details of a credit or debit card.
There is more.
I suspect that the average bank client would be horrified at what has been enabled by such agreements, whose EULA is known from past surveys to be seldom read at all, let alone in detail, before the button is hit to signal “I agree”.
You will be surprised to hear how unfriendly your bank might become if you challenge the ways that they enforce the fine print. Look out for accounts to be blocked.
Major reform is needed. The increased use of computerised notices is demonstrating poor programming, lacking real world inputs from sectors like marketing, commerce, economics and law.
Read your agreement in detail!!!!
Geoff S
190
Can a bank refuse to obey an instruction from the depositor to cease payments of a recurring nature started online with the number details of a credit or debit card.
Seems that “paypal” can actually terminate the recurring payment authorization with somewhat minor inconveniences (on the part of the account holder). Why can’t a bank / financial institution do it?
60
Not sure about that, the moment you accept interest on a deposit you have given the bank authority to lend to a third party. How else can they pay interest? If you don’t want third party risk you buy a safe and keep cash at home.
21
FWIW – the new measure of “success” –
“Science by the Pound”
“Science, at least in theory, is supposed to be about clarity and testable claims. But in the climate bureaucracy, truth is measured by weight. Zeke Hausfather, ever the loyal spokesman for consensus, actually bragged that their rebuttal to the DOE’s Climate Working Group report runs 459 pages—as if the more paper you churn out, the more correct you become. By that standard, the IRS tax code must be the pinnacle of scientific achievement.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/05/science-by-the-pound/
120
The reason is Brandolini’s law:
More at https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/trumps-department-of-energy-gets-scienced and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/09/climate-scientists-response-to-doe-report/
14
If only man-made climate change was actually a big deal, you could use evidence instead of bravado, bluster, and junk psychology. “Brandolini”
If only NASA, NOAA, and the CDC weren’t captured by the Blob/corporations, Trump wouldn’t need to clean them out.
160
Trump’s Attack on Science Is an Attack on the Public.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-science-epa-pollution-climate
09
So what would you call a deliberate choice to deprive people of cheap reliable abundant energy, destroy the wealth and quality of life enhancing economy, close industry and reduce jobs wholesale, make food and living costs multiple times more expensive, and make us reliable on our most dangerous enemy regimes for everything we would need to fight a war? I’d call it a treasonous betrayal.
60
Rubbish comment. Trump is not attacking Science but you and the UN are.
Empirical evidence rules OK.
40
‘ … the administration has scrubbed government websites providing information on climate …’
Because its disinformation. CO2 does not cause global warming.
21
Svante Arrhenius: On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground
Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276.
https://www.rsc.org/images/arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
12
In a real world environment.
https://notrickszone.com/2025/09/05/new-study-co2-does-not-precede-temperature-nor-does-it-control-temperature/
11
Proven wrong long ago by Angstrom, as I’m sure you already knew.
But I’m sure you also know that Brandolini guy was wrong … because it’s not difficult to disprove a theory … it’s really difficult to stop extremely stubborn people from just endlessly repeating what’s already been totally disproven.
H2O has a far greater effect than CO2 in terms of radiation, but more importantly, H2O also has a powerful self regulation effect … convection is the main heat transfer mechanism at the Earth’s surface and both the Argo ocean temperature measurement and the satellite measurement show that a tight nonlinearity exists causing an empirical maximum ocean surface temperature of around 30°C. Nothing to do with radiation and controlled by the evaporation of water molecules.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/12/argo-and-the-ocean-temperature-maximum/
This has been rediscovered a few times over … it’s in Ed Krug’s book “Environment Betrayed” and he cites even older references.
40
Copied from X.
261
Yes, but even the ‘Communist’ Soviet Union had Nuclear Power Plants for Electricity generation. China and North Korea do so now.
Not so the Communists/Marxists of Australia.
220
“One party country. Communist.”
Actually, I see nothing Communist about the Labor Party at all! Where is the ‘common’ or ‘community’??
The classic definition is having The People, via The State, own the means of production. So the Govt owns all land and businesses, which I don’t see in Aussie.
What the govt IS taking over is the control of everything else in your life. They already control all the land, even if we ‘own’ it, and the control all the businesses, even we ‘own’ them, and that was the classic definition of a Fascist country.
No, the Left is taking control of how you think, what you can say and who you can say it too, all the ‘human interaction’ parts of your life, not the physical aspects they already control. That’s just Govt versus the People, not any particular form of Govt, they all do it or would love to!
Democracy, the great failed experiment!
100
Anarchism, going from nowhere to oblivion.
The Westminster system has served us well, better not replace it. The commonality of the electorate is clear to see, they desire freedom plus law and order.
83
I think the point that many miss is that the plan is not for a one party country. The plan is for a one party world. They are Globalists as well as Communists.
That’s why they want mass migration and open borders.
If migration is high enough, it causes harm. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
In order to make Communism look good, they first need to destroy the existing system.
120
They want to wipe a terrible LNP out at the next election.
In WA the division appears to be urban / rural.
Any “fix” will require an acceptance of an urban “road to Damascus” political experience.
20
Andrew Hastie holds Canning comfortably, I see him as our next PM.
12
He will need a lot of help in the other electoral districts
10
FWIW – get ready to “scrutenise the YSM headlines with very intense scrut” –
“RED ALERT – FLOOD THE ZONE: SUPPORT RFK, Jr As DC Elites, the Fake News, Radical Democrats, Big Pharma and Dirty RINOS Pile on HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. Before His Autism Report Is Released This Month – The Report Will Change Everything!”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/red-alert-flood-zone-support-rfk-jr-as/
130
Goes with that
“Why Washington’s Panic Over Kennedy Tells Us He’s Close To The Truth”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services, is facing such intense anti-aircraft flak that he could walk from New York City to Washington, D.C. without his feet touching the ground. Regardless of the party, senators from both parties shredded him; the media turned his strained voice into a punchline, and worst of all for anybody, his own family publicly demanded he resign, immediately, all in unison.”
“Whenever we see such coordinated verbal assaults, we know Kennedy is circling something explosive, something Washington elites are desperate to keep buried.”
More at
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-washingtons-panic-over-kennedy-tells-us-hes-close-truth
220
And
“Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors”
“Peter Menzies- Betrayal of newsroom fundamentals is creating a free flow of misinformation
https://petermenzies.substack.com/p/failure-to-follow-newsroom-fundamentals
“After 44 years with City News, Dornfeld has boiled down his advice on journalism to a single sentence:
“Chum, if your mother says she loves you, check on it.” ”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/09/07/your-moral-and-intellectual-superiors-550/
60
Just a thought . Who writes these contracts?
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/catastrophebond.asp
00
Old Bomber Command saying—“The louder the flak,the closer you are to the target” !
70
Serve him right for farting around teasing the release of the report instead of saying nothing until it flooded the media overnight.
I have no time for that sort of political crap.
01
Well you miss an excellent avenue for trolling then!
00
FWIW – a thing the YSM haven’t told you yet –
“RFK didn’t link Tylenol with autism.
The dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health did.”
https://x.com/markeatsmeat/status/1964366062121603162
50
FWIW
“The Sound Of Silenced Science”
“ADHD – the Truth Goes Down the Memory Hole
This is in my view one of the great scandals of our age. We have turned away in horror from the chastisement of naughty children, to such an extent that in some European countries it is a crime to smack a child. Yet we drug children, often at very young ages and in increasing numbers, with amphetamines whose use is in general sternly banned by law. If smacking a defenceless child is wrong, then surely drugging a defenceless child is just as wrong. And yet conventional wisdom, which decides these things, regards the smack as an outrage, and the drug as normal and right. It is in these anomalies that we find out what is really wrong with our world.”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/09/07/the-sound-of-silenced-science/
190
I hope extraterrestrials don’t land in Australia and say “take me to your leader”.
How embarrassing would that be?
260
DM,
No problem.
Say to the extraterrestrials “We would like to, but we have no leader.”. Geoff S
210
We apparently have a leader but we thought he was an alien
30
I think I’d say-
“You’re talking to him”
50
Not knowing how to direct them to the WEF…
40
I hope extraterrestrials don’t land in Australia and say “take me to your leader”.
We’d have to send them to Beijing, surely?
40
If they were hungry, they might say – ‘Take me to your larder’…………
10
When Buck Rogers landed on the planet of 20ft tall women he said, “Take me to your ladder, I’ll see your leader later”.
30
When Buck Rogers landed on the planet of 20ft tall women he said, “Take me to your ladder, I’ll see your leader later”.
10
I hope extraterrestrials don’t land in Australia and say “take me to your leader”.
How embarrassing would that be?
Didn’t that happen in 1788?
20
FWIW
“The Left’s Outrage Machine Is Falling Apart”
“Say what you will about Trump’s recent “takeover” of DC when it comes to law enforcement: Even the Mayor is admitting it worked.
Violent crime rates are down by half and carjackings have basically disappeared (down something like 89%.) The hollering about “Fascist!” has given way to….. no more sounds of gunshots penetrating your evening, and you can walk outside in said evening without the fear of a gang-banger shooting you by accident.
Meanwhile in FL and TN the State troopers have shown up doing some targeted (by area) enforcement and yes, they’ve arrested and transported a bunch of illegal aliens. Here’s the thing: Their “hit rate”, that is, the percentage of stops that has in fact led to an arrest, and the percentage of those arrests that had a criminal charge associated with them, not a mere civil offense such as an overstay, has been very high. If you had cops anywhere in the United States stopping people for traffic violations on “concentrate here” basis and came up with half of the stops leading to a criminal arrest — not a civil matter, but a criminal arrest — you’d think the people would cheer your efficiency with their taxpayer dollars that are funding said department.
Well, some are cheering it.
Others are still screaming.”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=253953
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The ABC’s radio interview on this subject hinted strongly that the DC mayor was simply being “politically pragmatic”. At least that was my reading of the commentary.
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FWIW
“And Then They Came For The Ships – China / IMO Global Carbon Tax”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/09/07/and-then-they-came-for-the-ships-china-imo-global-carbon-tax/
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” Natural Gas tankage and processing, ammonia manufacture and shipping / storage; along with fueling infrastructure ”
“In the last three months 13 ships have vanished at sea. The Govt is investigating..”
It will be like the good ol’ days of the 1700s and 1800s, you never knew if that ship that left harbour would ever return.
Not to mention the chance of blowing a harbour up and setting fire to it.. Ammonia and gas are both unbelievably more dangerous than bunker oil. So, we can expect the EV fire problems to expand and deaths amongst engine room crews to be more common.
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In the last three months 13 ships have vanished at sea. The Govt is investigating..
In the current world, with global tracking, how is this possible?
Or does shipping ignore the reports from the aviation industry?
40
The jackboots of the Traffic Tax Collection Agency are grinding down harder. Vic has speed cameras on trailers being trialled-
“The trailer-based cameras will not replace the current vehicle-based speed camera systems in Victoria, but instead be a system that “complements” them, according to Sensys Gatso Australia.”
So they will be increasing the number of cameras they use, until they flood the roads with them.
Speed cameras tell you a lot about Govts and their psychological makeup, they could have solved the “problem” world-wide by mandating the maximum speed a car can go according to the speed limit. The technology is in every car this century, it would end all speeding fines and get rid of thousands of parasite’s jobs (haha! Yeah riiight!) and prove just how dangerous speeding is.
So, what is the reason they don’t want to do it? Would it show speeding is not dangerous? Would it take visible humiliation away if we are not stopped regularly by the tax-collectors? Would it cripple a fine revenue stream that every Govt now depends on?
https://www.drive.com.au/news/mysterious-speed-camera-trial-details-quietly-released/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_1&utm_medium=partner
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Fining people heavily for minor transgressions which are highly amenable to automated detection like vehicular speeding is highly attractive to corrupt, bankrupt, incompetent governments like Victoria’s and all Australian Governments more generally.
And if too many people comply with speed limits they will simply lower speed limits to inappropriately low levels or reduce tolerances as they have already done or are doing, e.g. the 30km/h limit in certain areas. Failing that they will invent other new offences which are amenable to automated detection.
Physically restricting cars to certain speeds as you suggest is mor a good idea either. The driver must have control over their vehicle for a variety of reasons.
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Covered the speed issue and flaws a week or 2 ago…
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Welcome to A!!@h’s bright future – or not:
https://www.snow-forecast.com/whiteroom/saudi-arabia-may-delay-hosting-asian-winter-games/
Trojena, the $quillion-dollar 7,000ft-high luxury ski resort (based on desalinated water pumped 200km from the Red Sea, uphill, to produce artificial snow on the volcanic slopes) is in standby mode for hosting 2029’s Winter Games.
As it won’t be ‘union’ holdups nor lack of petro-pesos, it must be that go-to excuse for anything & everything: a climate has changed! Not sure which one as there are so many. South Korea and/or CCCh!na may, or may not [this is $C!£NC€ after all] pick up the shake – or should that be slack (?).
Hold The Line … before it melts as if a mirage ✨
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Here is the press release from the South Australian Prenier as they try to secure COP 31 for 2026.
Just imagine, 65,000+ professional blood suckling parasites in attendance.
And the big question is, where are they going to find that many luxury 5 star+++ hotel suites and hundreds of private jet parking spaces for them all?
https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/media-releases/news-archive/budget-prepares-for-adelaide-to-host-major-cop31-event
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They didn’t see it coming, idgits.
‘They’re calling it the ‘worst example of bad policy in the world’. A deadly tax stalemate has sparked a health and crime crisis, featuring cheap cigarettes, violent turf wars, firebombings and a burgeoning black market.’ (Oz)
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Of course. Cigarettes need to be legal or illegal. They are so heavily taxed here in the Stupid Country, Australia, people are being driven to poverty to afford them.
It’s no wonder organised crime moved in to undercut Government pricing.
No one says smoking is a good thing but the heavy taxes are ridiculous.
Also, a much safer alternative to smoking, vaping, was banned, simply because the low cost of that nicotine delivery system was affecting Government smoking revenues.
The two nicotine drug pushers, vapers and cigarette suppliers (backed by Government who harvest the tax tribute) were competing but the Government being the strongest and potentially more violent drug pusher banned it’s competition.
Now there’s another nicotine drug pusher, organised crime, and Government is at war against that competing pusher as well.
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Kiewa Valley Tobacco History
Tobacco farming began in the Kiewa Valley around 1960 and quickly became one of its major industries, primarily driven by Italian migrant families who brought expertise and established the agricultural practice in the region.
The industry was supported by the establishment of a Tobacco Research Station in Myrtleford, which served as the geographical center for the North Eastern tobacco-growing area in Victoria.
Many of the early farmers were sponsored to learn techniques from established growers in Myrtleford before applying their knowledge to farms in the Kiewa Valley, such as those at Mongans Bridge and Glenns Creek, where home-made tools like sand sieves, tying horses, and benzol pouring cans were used to manage the crop.
The valley’s rich soils, initially transformed by logging, dairy, and beef cattle properties, proved ideal for tobacco cultivation, which thrived until the industry declined in later decades.
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It’s no wonder organised crime moved in to undercut Government disorganised crime.
There, fixed it! LOL..
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The Australian Today
How sky-high tobacco tax sparked a $5bn black market inferno
They’re calling it the ‘worst example of bad policy in the world’. A deadly tax stalemate has sparked a health and crime crisis, featuring cheap cigarettes, violent turf wars, firebombings and a burgeoning black market.
Australia is trapped in a catastrophic public policy stalemate over a $5bn-a-year tobacco black market and underworld war, spawned by years of steep cigarette tax increases that gifted “the most rolled-gold opportunity” for organised crime in the nation’s history.
Despite high-level warnings that the country is on the brink of being unable to extinguish the crisis – which has led to at least 150 firebombings in the past two years, at least two deaths and the decimation of the tax take on legal cigarettes – Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declared “we are not going to let organised crime dictate our health policy”.
The escalating crisis has seen Treasury downgrade expectations for the tobacco tax take by nearly $7bn, despite the excise having increased to about $28 per packet – a 75 per cent rise since 2019. That tax represents more than half of the cost of an average 20 pack of cigarettes, which is selling at between $35 and $50, compared to $13 to $18 on black market.
“Every scrap of evidence from around the world is, the longer a black market is in place, the harder it is to stop it. We have offered the most rolled gold opportunity for organised crime that I can think of in Australian history. It’s a failure on health, it’s a failure on tax collections, it’s a failure on the fight against organised crime. And we know this, the numbers are screaming exactly this at us.”
This would be the only tax in the world where it’s doubled, but the rate of revenue collection has halved over the same period of time.
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Inside the pipeline of dirty tobacco cash leaving Australia
Behind the lucrative dirty tobacco trade is a sophisticated laundering system. Puffed-up gangsters exploit banks and payment systems to launder millions and bankroll crime empires.
Clean on paper, dirty in reality: Inside Australia’s cigarette cash pipeline
Cash from illegal cigarette sales in a suburban strip mall can be in the hands of an offshore crime boss within 24 hours.
A card payment made in Melbourne in the morning can be part of a bulk transfer to Dubai, Hong Kong or another overseas location by nightfall.
That’s the reality facing the financial crime watchdog, which warns that organised syndicates behind the booming illicit tobacco trade are using legitimate payment systems to launder millions in criminal profits – and send them beyond the reach of police almost as quickly as they’re made.
Criminal kingpins are exploiting the banking system, payment terminals and international wire transfers to move illicit cash offshore under the guise of ordinary business activity.
“Their illegal activities cost the Australian economy up to $68.7bn annually.
How illicit tobacco cash leaves Australia
1. Street sale
2. POS processing
3. Banking the takings
4. Aggregation
5. The international jump
6. Offshore control
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JUDITH SLOAN
How an excise on tobacco proved a plus for criminal gangs
I’m not sure why economists think they have exclusive ownership of the law of unintended consequences.
It’s basically common sense to realise the quest to achieve an objective can lead to unfortunate outcomes that don’t serve the primary purpose.
But most economists regard themselves as experts when it comes to pointing to the perverse consequences that can occur when well-intentioned policy is badly designed.
Take the decision made years ago to significantly increase the rate of excise on tobacco products – by 500 per cent across a decade. To deter smoking as well as provide additional revenue, the policy looked like a no-brainer. Legally obtained cigarettes in Australia are now the most expensive in the world.
There was always a degree of contradiction in the policy. To maximise revenue, it’s best the demand for cigarettes is inelastic – relatively unresponsive to the price of a pack. Only if smokers keep consuming (legal) cigarettes would the rising flow of revenue be substantial.
Even so, the policy’s effectiveness was always subject to one major qualification.
It would work only if there were adequate compliance measures to ensure only tobacco products subject to excise were available for sale.
Illegal products, often referred to as chop-chop, thus would be harder to obtain. In practice, it has worked out extremely badly. The illegal outlets have flourished and organised crime gangs have done very well.
Government policy has inadvertently created a highly profitable business opportunity for organised crime. Instead of the revenue for tobacco excise continuing to rise as Treasury expected, there has been a marked decline since the beginning of this decade. Compared with previous estimates of likely revenue by 2025 of around $14bn a year, the estimate is now half this figure. Further falls in revenue are expected for the rest of the decade.
It might seem obvious enough – that without powerful compliance measures in place the high official excise rate policy would generate very strong incentives for suppliers to avoid the tax – but the Treasury naively assumed it would be OK on the day.
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“The unintended consequences of tobacco excise have been a disaster.”
They can’t say they didn’t know what would happen-
Ban alcohol and look at the mess of prohibition in the USA.
Ban drugs and just look at 100years of criminals making Govts look stupid.
Ban firearms and the criminals have a great time too.
You’d think they would learn sometime, but no…
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EDITORIAL
Black market smokes must be tackled at every level
The unintended consequences of tobacco excise have been a disaster.
However well-intentioned, to discourage smoking, save lives and deter youngsters from taking up the habit, years of steep increases in cigarette taxes have had deadly, unintended consequences.
The policy, poorly implemented, has fostered a $5bn-a-year black market and lethal underworld war.
An estimated 40 per cent of cigarette sales are made through the black market as opposed to mainstream supermarkets and shops, where popular brands cost from $35 to $50 for a packet of 20, while smokers are paying a third or less through black market outlets.
After a 75 per cent rise since 2019 under the Coalition, the excise on an average packet of 20 cigarettes accounts for about half the regular price – about $28 a packet.
In that crime-ridden world, the crisis has triggered violent turf wars between racketeers, which have led to at least 150 firebombings in two years, several deaths and the loss of billions of dollars in taxes on legal cigarettes
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, the senior minister with responsibility for borders, insists “we are not going to let organised crime dictate our health policy”.
If he wants to beat the problem, however, an organised, co-ordinated approach between federal and state authorities, law enforcement agencies and health officials is needed to break the cycle, as millions of addicted smokers are drawn towards the illegal, cheaper products.
On Sunday, NSW Premier Chris Minns called for a freeze on tobacco excise as part of a “commonsense discussion”.
That move would be counter-intuitive. But as Mr Minns argued, logically, the federal excise “would be the only tax in the world where it’s doubled, but the rate of revenue collection has halved over the same period of time”.
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Brain dead ‘Pollies’.
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This would be the only tax in the world where it’s doubled, but the rate of revenue collection has halved over the same period of time.
I thought that the pollies had economic advisors. Obviously someone has not heard of the Laffer curve.
Zero tax rate = no government revenue
100%+ tax rate = no government revenue since no one buys the product
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Add Payroll Tax to that.
If you want to restrict Employment, then have a Payroll Tax on Employers. LOL.
Brain dead ‘Pollies’.
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I never know if I’m using the word ‘irony’ correctly.
So the great moralistic Karen’s of gubmint ban cigs and booze.
Then mandate injections of dozens of for profit chemical concoctions for infants.
And here we are facing an iatrogenic reduction in life expectancy.
(Which I guess government and their armies of media and university sycophants will cover up for the next 30 years.)
What did it take, 2oo, 300 years for government to ruin science?
If only government had gotten bigger faster, we could be working our way out by now.
I guess it’s just me, ‘science’ has become a word that invokes suspicion as much as illumination.
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The Image That Killed The Democrats In 2026 And Beyond
And just like that, it’s over for the Dems in the 2026 midterms. Maybe even the 2028 general election. Maybe this is even the final nail in their creaky, splintering, mentally ill, Marxist coffin.
Right now, they’re trying to ignore it, the way they tried to pretend Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t exist back in 2020. They were successful enough that time to push their vote machine over the finish line in Biden/Harris’s favor, but that won’t happen this time. This story, this image, is already out there.
Still, they’re trying to ignore it, hoping it goes away:
A violent lunatic with fourteen previous arrests under his belt but who still freely roamed the streets randomly and viciously stabbed a young woman on the train, killing her. The murder occurred over two weeks ago, and they had every reason to believe the “local crime story” was as dead as the beautiful young victim.
But then, the video emerged. It’s chilling and terrifying, the horror that every urban female (and plenty of males) fears. The still image of the moment the madman’s knife begins its descent is the most damning optic I’ve seen in years, and it will now become the face of the modern Democrat party.
It gets worse for Democrats: The victim was not only young, female, and stunning, but she was a refugee from Ukraine — one of their fetish victims.
Even as Democrats surge in the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting the president’s crackdown on crime, this chilling video and this electrifying still image have hit the internet.
The left could not be caught further out on the wrong side of the issue. They are exposed as the heinous morons they are.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/sep/7/young-ukrainian-refugee-iryna-zarutskas-subway-stabbing-death-fuels/
https://nypost.com/2025/09/07/us-news/horror-video-of-ukrainian-refugee-iryna-zarutskas-slaughter-on-charlotte-train-is-met-with-deafening-silence/
But in the wake of the monstrous killing, which took place on Aug. 22, mainstream outlets and politicians have largely stayed silent.
Charlotte’s Dem mayor even thanked publications that chose to keep the video from the public.
“The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family,” wrote Mayor Vi Lyles in a post on X on Saturday.
But her statement drew outrage from many, including Republican Congressmen in the Tarheel State.
“The Mayor’s refusal to condemn senseless, horrific, and preventable violence is as telling as it is despicable. Violent criminals, regardless of who they are or what they look like, need to be in jail,” wrote Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC) in response to Lyles’ post.
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Sorry, but here I go again …
Had the victim been a young black female and her violent murderer a white male, the Democrats and their pals in the media would have instantaneously labeled it a racist attack.
To be honest, I think it WAS a racist attack, because there were others in that carriage long before the poor young white girl got aboard, so why did he ‘randomly’ choose her?
Still, at least her being white and her killer black means we don’t have to watch cars burning and shops being looted for the next couple of nights.
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Reported in the Herald Sun and the Australian, the absurd government funded war on Australians over tobacco, fuelling a massive criminal and violent enterprise. Many tobacco shops in Melbourne have been firebombed and ramraided.
The fact is that almost uniquely in the world, doubling the punitive tax on tobacco to 50% has dramatically halved tax revenue. From $16.3 billion to $7.4 billion which means legal consumption has dropped x4.
This means either 3/4 of smokers have stopped smoking or most switched to gang supplied cigarettes. And perhaps $50Billion a year goes to serious criminal organizations overseas.
Of course there is enormous greed involved. Not just by the criminals. And an incredible example of how taxation is not based on logic. And it is killing Australians.
We have the same parallel in the endless hidden carbon taxes. Even the UN has jumped into this world wide game.
Consider the new $42Billion bunker oil ‘tax’ demanded by the UN, an organization which has no legal right to tax anyeone. There is no alternative to bunker oil, so it is a tax on all international trade pushing up the price of all goods while the UN and IMF bemoan Trump’s fair tariffs. Utter hyprocrisy and greed. Like the whole Carbon Tax regime as all Australia’s major exports now produce CO2. Gas, iron ore and food. Make believe CO2 driven Climate Change is the greatest gift in history to irrational taxation and government overspending, with no one actually caring about the effect on CO2.
And Snowy II has passed $20Billion rapidly. Which is comparable to the cost of the Chunnel and much more than the Panama canal. No one bothers to justify government spending anymore. It’s all just tax and spend, without even going near parliament. And Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull pretend the $444million they took never happened while we are still paying interest on the money.
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Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man’s stewardship of the environment. But we know that’s not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
The only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. The evidence is prima facie: From a feudal order that lasted a thousand years, produced zero growth and kept workdays long and lifespans short, the countries that have embraced free-market capitalism have enjoyed a system in which output has increased 70-fold, work days have been halved and lifespans doubled.
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Christina, an anthropologist, is a member of the former ruling family of Costa Rica. Her father was inaugural President. He brother as well. I think the brother also works for the socialist United Nations. A luxury retirement for world socialists and carbon pushers, like Helen Clarke. Julia Gillard applied for Helen’s job, but failed. Socialism is all about other people’s money and how to get it without working. Hilter and Mussolini were socialists. Communism happens when everyone is broke, so the government just grabs all the businesses as well and everyone is equally destitute, except the people who now control all the money.
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What a lesson that “The Laffer Curve” is real!
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This woman is 84
https://imgbox.com/ZflsENrI
Amazing what surgery and paint can do.
Internal organs all look like that 2 month old lettuce at the back of the fridge though.
Link coming if you can’t guess who it is.
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Also if there was video you would see creases and inelastic skin. That picture is VERY carefully posed and lit.
10
I’ve got the irrits again.
I read somewhere today that our state governments (all or some?) are soon to introduce some sort of curfew prohibiting citizens over 60 from driving between 10pm and 5am, or similar. Needless to say, this is about “road safety’. Apparently, old people are more likely to have accidents when it’s dark.
So, because I am a fervent believer in evidence-driven legislation, I would like to know:
1) Are those over 60 the only age group to have more accidents at night? Data please.
2) Just how many accidents of this type are happening and how serious are they? Data please.
3) Why the cutoff at 60? Is that when the accident rate surges? Data please.
4) What proportion of serious accidents on the road are caused by those over 60? Data please.
5) Given that many of the ‘oldies’ I know, particularly those over 70, will not drive at night, how can it be that this is a real problem requiring new laws?
6) Are the majority of serious road accidents caused by over 60s? If not, why make this a priority?
Once again, I feel this is an agenda-driven policy and, yet again, it seems to be part of a worldwide push to get oldies off the road, into tiny houses, out of sight and minus their life’s savings. In the UK, one of my wife’s relatives (71yo) just had his driver’s license cancelled because an eye test said he didn’t meet some standard or other. When he checked, they hadn’t followed their own process so he had another eye test, which he passed, and appealed.
So far, he’s had no luck whatsoever. He has engaged a solicitor but even he says the gov’t department in question wants oldies off the road and, to that end, has done a multi-million pound deal with a chain of opticians to which ALL over 65s must go for their eye test, even if the nearest branch is an hour away. The solicitor said that another client fighting the same sort of case, while sitting in the opticians, overheard the optometrist hand over his paperwork to a colleague and say, “That’s another one off the road.”
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“That’s another one off the road.”
That’s when I by a motorbike…
Aussie is similar, we have a captive audience being whipped into the doctor’s surgery for a nice guaranteed income every year. A full chemical-medical check via blood tests, then physical tests, and one lady I know was bound up with wires then sent home to see if she snored or not. Of course they will keep testing until they find SOMETHING to give you drugs for!
They will use any pretext to strip us of our savings!
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In New South Wales Australia people 75 years old and over must have a yearly doctor’s examination and form for renewal of driving licence completed for traffic authorities, and from 85 years.
I have eye implants because I had early stage cataracts several years ago and while they did not require immediate attention I decided to have eye surgery and since my eye tests and sight have changed very little.
However, a few months ago I was stopped for a police roadside breath analysis random stop check point and as I don’t drink alcohol I was zero, the police constable instead of asking me to count with the test unit held close asked my to state my full name and address, and date of birth. It was obvious that he was testing my memory which did annoy me.
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And from 85 years a driving test with approved assessor every year.
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Dennis
In my experience it is safer to have an optometrist complete the vision section than trust some medico’s “test”.
And, if you are completing a crossword while you wait for an appointment, you are ahead in the cognitive stakes
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Went to the doctor the other day and the receptionist asked for my date of birth and address, but I failed to remember my home number. Then the doctor had a go at me, asking questions to test my state of mind. It feels like they have been given a government directive.
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Apparently, this is fake news. It’s getting harder each day to navigate the interweb.
20
“Journalists” are generally left wing liars and propagandists and they are responsible for a lot of our problems. I think the rot set in in Australia in 1972 with Australia’s first Cultural Marxist Fabian Socialist regime under Gough Whitlam. They changed the nature of the journalism profession from one that was learned as an apprenticeship “on the job” to a subject that was taught by Marxists in universities. I suspect that similar things happened in other countries at around the same time. These “journalists” need to be held to account for their contribution to the destruction of Western Civilisation. No excuses accepted, ignorance is never an excuse, just as “I was only following orders” isn’t.
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100 years ago, ‘ghost ship’ sails baffled Einstein—now they’re making a comeback
Could a high school math teacher’s 1920s invention make shipping greener?
In the rough and icy waters of the North Sea in 1925, an unusual vessel plowed its way from Danzig, Poland, to Leith, Scotland, marking a first in maritime history. This maiden voyage was historic not for its distance but for the vessel’s ingenuity: Its simple design even impressed Albert Einstein, who later wrote an essay dedicated to its significance.
“Denuded of all sails, masts, and riggings,” wrote G. B. Seybold, reporting for Popular Science, the 177-foot-long steel schooner was propelled by nothing more than “two strange cylinders, resembling giant smoke-stacks. But no smoke was pouring from them and no engine noise was heard. Like a ghost ship, it moved mysteriously through the water with no apparent means of propulsion.”
Several months later, on Boston’s Charles River, two U.S. naval officers, studying at MIT, launched their own modified version of the same strange vessel. “This American boat,” wrote Popular Science in September 1925, “was the first actual demonstration in this country of how a revolving metal tower can replace canvas sails.”
By the late 1920s, orders for the strange new “rotor ships” began to surge. These hybrid vessels—combining oil- or coal-fired engines with tall rotating cylinders—promised to cut fuel consumption in half. Such savings were not just theoretical. In 1926, the first rotor ship, the Buckau, which had made the North Sea trek, was rebuilt as a hybrid and renamed the Baden Baden. It sailed from Germany to New York via South America, a 6,200 nautical-mile voyage that used only 12 tons of oil compared to the 45 tons it would have required without rotors. A new, more efficient shipping age seemed imminent.
But just as momentum gathered for the novel wind-ship technology, the stock market crashed. The Great Depression followed. Fuel prices plunged. The economic advantages of rotor sails vanished almost overnight, and with it the promising technology.
The math teacher who invented a new kind of ship sail
The idea for rotor sails belonged to Anton Flettner, a mathematics teacher and self-taught engineer, who patented his novel invention in 1922. His design relied on a well-known aerodynamics principle, first described in the 19th century by German physicist Gustav Magnus.
Baseball fans know the Magnus effect well: It explains how a curveball bends. When a spinning object moves through air, or any fluid, its rotation alters air pressure—air moving with the spin flows faster, and air moving against the spin flows slower. The result creates a force that pushes the object sideways. It’s how Coco Gauff hits a shot with topspin or Tarik Skubal throws a curveball. Airplane wings also get lift from the same principle.
Flettner figured out that if he could keep a vertical cylinder spinning on the deck of a ship, it would harness the Magnus effect, catching the wind and pushing the ship forward or backward, depending upon the direction of rotation. Unlike conventional sails, which heel away from the wind, making them susceptible to capsizing, the Magnus effect pushes rotor sails in the opposite direction, which forces them to lean into the wind, making them surprisingly stable in stormy weather. But unlike conventional sails, which require no power other than the wind, rotor sails require something to keep them spinning.
A century later, however, as the shipping industry confronts volatile fuel costs and climate change, rotor sails are making a comeback.
Finland-based Norsepower, founded in 2012, has equipped 22 ships with rotor sails as of June 2025 with 17 more under contract.
While that’s a tiny fraction of the more than 100,000 cargo ships plying Earth’s oceans, the economics—up to 25 percent or more savings in fuel and GHG emissions—are compelling.
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Flettner was a bit more than a high school maths teacher:
The world’s first production helicopter:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SmCCq6btdMQ
The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird) was a single-seat intermeshing rotor helicopter, or synchropter, produced by Anton Flettner of Germany. The Flettner Fl 282 was the world’s first series production helicopter.
It followed the development of the experimental Flettner Fl 265 in 1938 with the support of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine, which made it possible, for the first time, to transition from powered rotary-wing flight to autorotation and back again, making it the safest helicopter of its time.
30
40
Does anyone know what has happened to michaelsmithnews blog?
I keep getting “Error Blog Not Found”
I think he has a twitter account but I don’t have access to twitter to see whether he has posted anything about it.
50
Same result for me
40
According to https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/michaelsmithnews.com.html it’s down and has been for more than a week.
Bad news.
It might have received a “take down order” from the e Safety Kommissar. Always a possibility in today’s censorious Australia.
Who knows?
20
Thank God, not the e-Karen (yet)!
Typepad hosting are down and MPS (Michael Smith) is trying to get on another hosting platform.
Multiple conservative blogs have this info, apparently through his buddy Jason Morrison, another great journalist.
Long live michaelsmithnews.com on any platform!!
50
He still appears to be active on X.
https://x.com/mpsmithnews
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That link takes me to a 2024 entry??
00
I think you have to be logged in to see more. I can see he has shared something 19 hours ago.
20
Thanks.
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I asked Grok. Grok said:
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I was on there the night it went down.
Got the message (Cloudflare IIRC) that the problem was at his site. It was still down the next morning and I posted that on Jo’s “day thread”
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Thanks everybody.
So he hasn’t posted anything on twitter that would explain why his blog is down?
Technical issues, cyber attacks, blog closed, E Kommissar doing her evil best?
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Well I’ve just signed up to twitter.
Apparently Michael Smith is having tech issues with Typepad.
I’m glad that it wasn’t cyber attacks similar to what Jo has been suffering from lately.
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He’s had those before
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As I celebrated Father’s Day in Sunny, Private Front Terrace in front of house, below Pool & Spa with lawn & brick wall to street giving privacy – yesterday with my Wife. plus Live-in Youngest Daughter, Son-in-law and Grandkids/Boys 7/8/9 – 8/11/13 Years plus Eldest No 1 Grandson – 21 year old, plus Neurotic Female Beagle, & 2 BlueTongues around Spa sunning themsleves, with Water Dragon on Pool Paving nearby
Sitting with my SIL as he BBQ’d 42-day Dry Aged Bistecca Steak, plus different variety fabulous thick sausages from Millin’s Free Range Butcher Balgowlah Heights, whilst sipping/savouring Glass of Penfolds 2000 Bin 407 Caberbet Sauvignon (smooth as), I was contemplating life and the joys of 57 Years Marriage, 3 Kids & 9 Grandkids, and how great life had been with that Companionship.
42-day Dry Aged Bistecca – A thick cut of T-Bone usually shared between 2-3 people. This steak is the best of both worlds, sirloin on one side and fillet on the other. Sourced from the Hunter Valley, we are ageing it for 6 weeks.
Then I read today in Sydney Moaning Herald –
Bad Romance: Women are becoming more like men, but men are not becoming more like women
Maureen Dowd New York Times columnist – Who wrote Are Men Necessary? two decades ago
Social media and media are bristling with women – and sometimes men – expressing resentment, irritation, frustration and exhaustion about the opposite sex.
Rachel Drucker wrote in a Modern Love piece for The New York Times, many younger men have been rewired to prefer “frictionless” stimulation. The more time they spend online, she contended, the more men drift away from intimacy and vulnerability toward indifference.
“They weren’t sitting across from someone on a Saturday night, trying to connect,” Drucker wrote. “They were scrolling. Dabbling. Disappearing behind firewalls, filters and curated personas.”
At a vegan restaurant in downtown Manhattan, she and her girlfriends wondered: “Where were the men who could handle hard stuff? Like leaving the house for sex?”
As I now contemplate another Bistecca T Bone Steak for next Weekend (if they have any left), who/what men do the Women expect to find in a Vegan Restaurant?
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“At a vegan restaurant in downtown Manhattan, she and her girlfriends wondered: “Where were the men who could handle hard stuff? Like leaving the house for sex?””
Lol!! She sounds like exactly the sort of woman no man would want…
“Women are becoming more like men,”
Can’t they see that is the problem?? We don’t want another man in our life, we want a real woman!!
“but men are not becoming more like women” There’ll be some skinny whiny weird guy with a man-bun and pimple who can fill that space, he’ll vote Labor or Democrat all the time.
For the rest of us, I’m starting to see why homosexuality has become more acceptable amongst men, maybe every great civilisation that crashed into debauchery and fire had whining women becoming more like men!
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WHO asks Taliban to lift female aid worker restrictions following earthquakes
WHO urged the Taliban to lift restrictions on Afghan women aid workers after a deadly quake, warning the shortage of female staff is leaving women without vital medical and mental health care.
Taliban left Afghan women ‘to die under rubble’ following huge earthquakes as strict religious code meant men couldn’t touch them
Its administration in 2022 ordered Afghan female NGO staff to stop working outside the home. Humanitarian officials say there have been exemptions, particularly in the health and education sectors, but many said these were patchwork and not sufficient to allow a surge of female staff, particularly in an emergency situation that required travel.
That meant aid organizations and female staff faced uncertainty, Sharma said, and in some cases were not able to take the risk.
‘Huge restrictions’
“The restrictions are huge, the mahram (male guardian requirements) issue continues, and no formal exemption has been provided by the de facto authorities,” she said, adding her team had raised the issue with authorities last week.
“That’s why we felt we had to advocate with (authorities) to say, this is the time you really need to have more female health workers present, let us bring them in, and let us search from other places where they’re available.”
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FWIW – re NZ “First Nations”
Via Chiefio
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/09/06/w-o-o-d-5-september-2025-into-africa-theory-messinian-europe-losing-to-brics/#comment-178776
“@ Keith: “That reminds me of the New Zealand Maori stories of them hunting the natives that were there before them. Sometimes described by them as pale skinned and fair haired.” ”
“Redheads Part 1 of Skeletons in the Cupboard series”
https://youtu.be/rf_inGOubEg
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“Just remember that countries cannot be said to be free if they have foreign military bases on their territory.’
Something to be remembered…
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Some nice writing in there-
“Another security assurance should be clarity on when and under what terms Ukraine might join the European Union. President Putin has said he does not oppose this.
The real challenge, I suspect, is that several European nations are far from enthusiastic about Ukrainian membership. There are several reasons, including the vast cost, the impact this will have on the subsidies that existing members receive, the need for massive structural and legal change to the budgetary settlement of the EU which may encourage some members – notably France – to look for the exit, and the massive domestic political upheaval to mainstream elites.”
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..and another obvious point, this one about missile flight time to Moscow versus reaction time, the reason NATO will never be allowed in Ukraine-
“As The West keeps DEMANDING that as soon as a cease fire or halt of hostilities is called, they will RUSH IN TROOPS and “secure Ukraine” (for The West): This guarantees that there is no way Russia will have a cease fire or halt hostilities prior to having enough “buffer” so the missile flight time is long enough.
At present, that’s about the Dnieper River, but I suspect it will soon be the Polish Border.”
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FWIW – “More The Science is Settled”!
“Oh noes! Desert soils emit greenhouse gases in minutes!”
SDE BOKER, Israel, September 3, 2025 — A groundbreaking study from researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev reveals that desert soils can emit powerful greenhouse gases within minutes of being wetted—even in the absence of microbial life.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/07/oh-noes-desert-soils-emit-greenhouse-gases-in-minutes/
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FWIW
Tony from Oz wearing another hat
“Beef Cattle And Beef As Food”
https://papundits.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/beef-cattle-and-beef-as-food/
(Via Rafe)
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” Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s yearslong mandate to focus on the threat from China.
A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.”
So…. break the world into three warring factions, seems Orwell shifted back in time to warn us of what was to come!
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-defense-strategy-china-homeland-western-hemisphere-00546310
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..a.nd while we complain about our dreaded enemy Russia, we are no copying their weapons!
“The Australians have completed their cheap RAZER kit for turning a 155-mm shell into a gliding aerial bomb. ”
https://t-me.translate.goog/s/milinfolive?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
A bolt-on wing and guidance kit to turn ‘dumb’ bombs into smart bombs. The Yanks have made special smart bombs for years and the Russians saw the effectiveness of a cheap precision strike a few years back, so they are using their giant stockpile of artillery shells and aviation bombs by dropping them from aircraft well behind the front lines.
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FWIW
“Earth.org: Climate Treaties Fail Because Greens Didn’t Give you Clear Enough Instructions”
“If the instructions were clearer and more detailed, the peasants would have complied.
Lessons for COP30: 3 Reasons Why Environmental Treaties Consistently Fail”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/09/08/earth-org-climate-treaties-fail-because-greens-didnt-give-you-clear-enough-instructions/
Re the messaging –
“1. Lack of Clarity”
“2. Inappropriate Treaty Breadth”
“3. Insufficient Treaty Depth”
Seems that the peasant’s “GF” message fits all three without comprehension by the likes of earth.org et al?
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