JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
The dissembling US state of CA has a strange thing called a ‘jungle primary’ (curiously apropos) for governor which is resulting in two Republicans in top contention.
Also resulting in panic for the Democratic Party and faint hope for the beleaguered citizens.
Unfortunately for Rep. Eric Swalwell of Trump impeachment infamy, he was the leading Dem contender and considered to have a poor chance for victory by party insiders.
Not to mention being too white and too binary.
And viola, sexual misconduct allegations suddenly surface and he is forced out from the public service he had performed so well (sarc).
My point … have you ever beheld a more passive aggressive bunch of folk in your life?
Joe Biden was great until he was not.
All smiles and praise until you become a liability and the protected secrets they all knew about are deployed against you.
My impression is that if Trump and MAGA don’t like you, you’ll know it.
Usually by the hysterically funny meme mockery.
360
The Dems are all about the Party. The Party above all. Brand Loyalty is enforced. Everybody is expendable if it is for the good of the party. I used to think their agenda continuity was the reason. They have been a closet socialist party since Wilson, but even the usual talking points of socialism such as class warfare can be ejected if it gets in the way of power and control. And money. DOGE and USAID revelations exposed that the Democrat Party is big into distrubuting other people’s money among themselves.
360
All about the Party?
How about:
“Everything within the Party, Nothing outside the Party, Nothing against the Party.”
Benito Mussolini.
200
In my childhood, every classroom was decorated with a wall-size banner
КПСС – УМ, ЧЕСТЬ И СОВЕСТЬ НАШЕЙ ЭПОХИ !
Which meant :
CPSU is brain, honour and conscience of our epoch.
110
Vladimir,
that is so cool ….. not the statement, but the learning outcome I got out of it.
Here’s the page I came to when I cut and pasted your ‘statement’ into a search engine.
It shows up exactly as I would find in an ordinary search I might do here, with the AI overview at the top, with the link to the Wikipedia page etc.
That first link is to the Wikipedia page, and as soon as you arrive, the translate menu box automatically appears, so that link is just to the generic CPSU page.
So I just scrolled down a little, past the images of the, umm, ‘other’ Vladimir, and the People Also Ask heading to the first link, which looked vaguely similar to your statement, the Викисловарь heading (Wiktionary) and there it was. So, at that page hit the Translate button before taking the link, and it shows up in English, the same as the Wiktionary page does here in Australia.
What it showed me is that (and here, I might presume it’s the same inside Russia) it is basically the same as what we have access to here in Australia.
So, thanks for showing me something new.
Tony.
PostScript – My son put me onto a Series first made 13 years back in 2013, a series which ran for six Seasons of 13 Episodes a Season, and that Series was called ‘The Americans’, ostensibly about Russian deep cover sleeper agents posing as normal families in the U.S. At first I thought it might be highly unlikely, but it did get some wonderful reviews, so I suppose it might have been somewhat ‘accurate’. Either way, it’s actually turning out to be excellent viewing. It’s available on most Platforms, but being now older, it’s pay per view on those platforms, but I’m watching it on Disney, where it’s still (somewhat) free to air. Incidentally, I’ve found it (as pay per view) on four Australian platforms, ABC, SBS Nine and Seven streaming services. Here is the Wikipedia link to that TV Series. It has since become one of the greatest TV series of all time. (and here, don’t think ….. ‘impressive’, it’s inside the top ten, as all those series are listed alphabetically) I’ve just started on Series Three now, so still a way to go.
140
hey Tony, my daughter and I watched this show recently. it first appeared on channel 10 a long time ago. I recall watching the first episode and but never got around to watching it fully until it turned up on Disney. watched it all over a few months and really enjoyed it it. great story telling. the web does say its based around a real family.
10
Snap, Bruce, shoulda scanned down.
10
Interesting that they ousted one D and one R at the same time.
Almost like a trade.
I see nothing.
Even if I did see something, I have no idea what.
120
Many are called , but few are chosen.
10
To modify a statement made by that great democrat, Mussolini, “Everything within the DemonRat Party, nothing outside the DemonRat Party, nothing against the DemonRat Party”.
A true party of the (selected) people.
30
Funny memes — replace Xs with https
XXXXX://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/category/the-week-in-pictures
80
Here is Rita Panahi of Sky News Australia, which is Australia’s only conservative-oriented TV station and news/commentary coverage, with her latest edition of “Lefties Losing It”.
Apparently this show is very popular in the United States judging from the comments on various editions.
https://youtu.be/dXRpmAjKfsQ
280
“Rita Panahi is an Australian journalist, columnist, and broadcaster born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on March 3, 1976, to Iranian parents. She spent her early childhood in Iran during the 1979 revolution before her family fled the regime and immigrated to Australia as refugees in 1984.” Uniquely qualified to comment.
380
Indeed.
She gets very angry with all those Leftists who support the Iranian regime and rightly so. (Red-Green Alliance but the Green doesn’t refer to the Gaia worshippers in this instance.)
240
This is Ritah on the burqa incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PzPFgwGzzg
Pauline Hansen has a well honed BS detector and has been willing to call out BS. Look at how far ahead One Nation has been on the Voice.
220
Sky News Australia is using its support for POTUS Trump to grow its US (maybe global) audience.
Some of its programming now is almost entirely on the USA. It has some good US guests as well.
They have grown the subscriber base and video viewers quite rapidly over the last year or so.
The “Power Hour” is one going after the US audience riding Trump’s popularity and TDS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L52y0TmC1Lw
Watch till 10:32 and you will see a scripted advertisement on US health insurance.
One million views could be worth maybe USD5,000 in addition to probably a lot more for the scripted ad.
I understand that One Nation will push for a subscription model for their ABC. Imagine their ABC having to work to make a living.
290
A lot of US folks have been watching Sky Australia for years because they find they can get a more accurate and wider coverage of what is happening in the US from it than they can from any US outlet.
10
An early morning “thought”, paraphrased:
“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. While those who do know history are doomed to stand helplessly while those around him repeat it”.
270
The same reasoning can be applied to “shock and awe” tactics. Does it really work?
00
Not always, sometimes the shock is on the other foot
00
‘ … doomed to repeat it …’
To test the hypothesis we would need to see examples of historical moments when a leader with a rational mind moves away from war towards peace and prosperity.
Paraphrasing Einstein, ignorance and arrogance is a nasty mix. Autocrats living in an intellectual bubble are vulnerable.
Putin’s romantic view of history has cost a million Russian lives, very wasteful in a time of demographic decline.
13
I am an experienced bushwalker (hiker) and camper and have just spent a few days in remote areas of Australia’s alpine high country beyond cell phone coverage range.
Being in the wilderness makes one appreciate the necessity of on-demand energy as well as oil-derived products for both camping at basecamp, and on the trail.
For example, the necessity to keep warm and cook food requires portable gas cylinders. Getting there requires an off-road vehicle, diesel in my case, with 160 litres (42.3 US gallons) of fuel on-board. Just about every product in use, synthetic clothing, equipment, tents, sleeping bags etc. is somehow derived from or connected to oil.
These are all aspects of human existence and survival that the anti-energy lobby, sitting sipping their decaf soy lattes in inner city cafes have no concept of.
I remember back in the day, they used to teach kids in school about all the wonderful products derived from oil. Now they just teach kids that oil is bad.
500
To be fair, oil and oil-based products aren’t a necessity when camping, but they do make it one heck of a lot easier and greatly minimize the time spent on the boring work of making camp/meals which allows you to maximize your time enjoying nature. You can ride a horse into the hills instead of taking a car, but then you have to care for the horse. You can make a wood fire for heat/cooking, but then you have to gather and chop wood. You can build a lean-to shelter (or an igloo in the snow), but a tent is WAY less time consuming.
Basically, fossil fuels and plastics allow you to substitute their energy for human energy/work. Which frees up time for you to do things other than the menial labor necessary to survive. Which is basically the same role they play in everyday life as well.
291
In my evil moments I image the hospital emergency room and intensive care units fully decked out with bamboo catheters and the like, awaiting the arrival of the organic fuel deniers after their e-bile accidents.
140
Remember the glass bottles for drips and red rubber saline drip tubes.
30
Except the State Government of Victoria forbids collecting sticks or chopping wood.
110
I am in Victoria and I use a chainsaw so no chopping involved. But only in the designated areas during the permitted times.
80
In the Kosciuszko National Park camp-fires are only permitted in designated camping areas and official fire pits. I might add that the official government-designed fire pits are of extremely poor and ineffective design, incapable of radiating heat due to their high side walls and requiring an enormous amount of wood to do their other job of heating a hotplate built in to the structure. Obviously they were designed by someone who has never camped before.
On your other point Steve, the only way you could not use oil-based products would be to go back to 1800’s or early 1900’s style outdoor gear. Finding that or anything at all not made with or using oil would be an extreme challenge.
170
I still have some canvas/wool/silk camping gear that I got from an Army surplus store back in the 1980s. Not sure if there much WWII surplus still around these days, but back then it was still pretty common. That said, the modern plastic gear holds heat a lot better, is waterproof, takes up less space, and weighs significantly less in your pack … which is why the WWII-era gear is gathering dust on a shelf.
70
Army surplus was great in the 70’s – especially the 303’s we used for despatching feral pigs. What a country we had.
120
However bushfires are not, example Snowy Mountains high country VIC and no more cattle grazing resulting in the previously burnt as cattle families left following Aboriginal tradition that created those grasslands that new settlers adopted now being taken over by blackberry and other weeds and fuel for wildfires, as compared to cooler bushfires that were more easily dealt with
70
Repeating, hoping for more signers:
“Sign the Wyoming wind-wall petition”
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2026/04/13/signthe-wyoming-wind-wall-petition/
I view this petition as fitting with our efforts to make wind power a big election issue. By a unique coincidence Wyoming gets a new Governor, Senator, sole House Member and Secretary of State in the November elections. Pro-wind forces must be defeated.
The signing form includes country so I hope some Aussies sign it. Tell Wyoming wind the Eyes of Oz are upon you. Other countries too of course.
The petition –> https://www.change.org/p/one-corridor-no-full-review-wyoming-deserves-better
101
Ok, signed.
I hope it gets noticed.
30
Many thanks!
30
On the aforementioned trip I saw two signs, attached to the one pole.
#1 sign
Kosciuszko National Park
No filming of staff
No photos of staff
Photography or video recording of National Parks and Wildlife Service staff or contractors in the Kosciuszko National Park is prohibited Placement of cameras and video equipment prohibited Failure to comply is an offence
PENALTIES APPLY
#2 sign
Due to increased feral animal control, higher than usual numbers of carcasses may be present.
Carcasses do not pose a health and safety risk if left undisturbed.
Carcasses do not pose a risk to the environment.
For further information see Park Alerts on
NSW National Parks website
http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/alerts
COMMENT
I think the signs relate to two things.
Firstly, they don’t want people filming contractors destroying the wilderness in relation to installing HV transmission lines for Snowy Hydro 2. This is called thr “Snowy 2.0 Transmission Connection Project” https://www.lumea.com.au/projects/snowy-20-transmission-connection-project/
Secondly, they don’t want people filming the killing via shooting from helicopters of government contractors slaughtering the beautiful wild horses. Admittedly they are not native animals but they have been there since the 1800’s and are effectively a new breed as they have adapted, evolved and thrived in the harsh environment. It might be OK to control their numbers but not bring them to extinction as is the current plan. Plus they are part of Australian culture, “Man from Snow River” and all that. Come to think of it, they are trying to extinct Australian culture as well, just like the horses.
411
A decade ago archeologists found the skeltons of horses in North America. Wiped out by settlers like our unique and prolific giant marupials by early aborigines. Defenceless and delicious. There are still horse butcher shops in France and Italy.
So it must have been a shock to the Incas/Aztecs when they saw the conquistidors riding horses. So that’s what you do with them! Oops!
Taming of horses is a very recent event, only 4200 years ago on the great Steppe around Kazakstan. First the Scythians and then mongols relationship with their horses was near symbiotic, enabling the rapid Mongol conquest of much of the known world.
Its amazing how nasty self identifying Greens become when horses somehow threaten their favorite frogs in the high country. Or when they see horse races or dog races as enslavement and abuse, not symbiosis and coexistence. So they are happy to see horses shot in their thousands from helicopters just to stop evolving ecosystems. It seems that whatever they see must be preserved but natural coal, gas or oil are evil. And environmental poisons like solar panels are acceptable or simply not their problem and major environmental exceptions are made to accomodate their extreme Green religion. Modern Green is ignorant self indulgence, fantasy science and ecology, not real concern for living things and a clean world.
260
Green the colour in nature, chlorophyll the chemical which harnesses thee power of the sun and from which all life comes is a long chain hyrdocarbon. So everything which ever lived, made entirely from CO2, burns.
160
Teal is green too
40
Horses evolved in North America and migrated to Eurasia over the Bering Land Bridge but thousands of years after extinction, likely due to humans but we’re not allowed to say that, they were reintroduced by the Spanish in the 1500’s.
80
Multiple ice ages. Multiple land bridges. Migrations in both directions especially for fast grass eating quadrupeds. Until the invention of agriculture after the last ice age, carnivore humans followed the herds. It forced the development of distance weapons. The boomerang must be the silliest of them.
61
Which boomerang?
The one most people think off, the returning one, was developed by one tribe and used specifically for hunting water birds.
A great many of the other boomerangs are things you don’t want to get hit by. They can cave your skull in, break your neck, or break your legs, just like they do on kangaroos and the like.
10
A long and sad read on the history of Australian march and withdrawal from self sufficiency on oil independence: https://substack.com/home/post/p-194021851
90
It’s been reported that the arrest of Australian war hero, Ben Roberts-Smith in Sydney for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan was a deliberate act to ensure he would get a biased jury with a high chance of people from a demographic sympathetic to terrorism (the people he was tasked by Government to kill), rather than from conservative Western Australia, his home state, or Queensland, his most recent home. He had previously offered himself to be arrested for these false claims against him, but the Government specifically waited until he went to Sydney and made sure Channel 9 News was there to film it.
https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/ben-roberts-smith-arrested-in-sydney-to-influence-jury-selection-sas-veterans-stunning-claim-c-22134012
https://x.com/i/status/2042814750053273939
320
A lawyer talks about the staged arrest of Ben Roberts Smith. He notes that such staged arrests would be illegal in the United States but are not illegal in Australia.
https://youtu.be/KUDtCgSBivY
150
At minimum, I hope the judge insists that the jurors speak enough English to understand the proceedings. Bowen doesn’t think this important!
180
Talking about the language – should not his case be tried in Canberra?
40
They’re ‘illegal’ in the United States, but that doesn’t stop them from happening. Every time someone from Trumpworld got arrested during the Biden presidency, the press was tipped off to film them being frogmarched out of their home in their pajamas at four in the morning.
https://media3.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2019_04/2729876/190125-stone-arrest-cnn-ew-226p_6147cf5225bdc84ab2831e7b4f69e23c.nbcnews-fp-1200-630.jpg
Prior to the Trump era, it was unheard of for any political figure to have their front door smashed in and a SWAT team rush into their home to slap the cuffs on them in the middle of the night. The normal procedure pre-2016 was to have the justice department attorneys talk to the politician’s attorneys and arrange a time for them to surrender themselves to law enforcement. But in the ‘anything goes’ environment of ‘the resistance’, those norms were abandoned to embarrass and spread fear among MAGA leadership. And Trump being Trump, he’s in no mood to restore those norms now that he is in power.
200
David Maddison,
Might be. Another theory that was put to me at the weekend is that it’s just a budget justification exercise for the Office of the Special Investigator. If you Google around about it you’ll find: (1) It was set up in 2021 (2) It has about 120 staffers (3) This year’s funding is $57 million (4) In all those years they have made no convictions, no prosecutions, and one arrest. Ben Roberts-Smith VC makes it two. This doubles the “return” on the Australian taxpayer investment (~$300 million so far) in this worthy organisation.
Yes Minister was hilarious on telly, not so funny in real life.
240
It we think back to the Vietnam War period and the left (Labor Greens Communist parties) street protests and treating returning Vietnam Vets like criminals by harassing them it gives perspective to their thinking today
60
It took a long time:
The Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) and other Australian Vietnam veterans received their official “Welcome Home” parade on 3 October 1987 in Sydney.
While individual units, including RAR battalions, received smaller welcome parades upon their specific return to Australia between 1966 and 1972, many veterans felt these did not provide the full national recognition they deserved. The 1987 Sydney parade was a landmark event where approximately 25,000 veterans marched through the city, organized by the Australian Vietnam Veterans Association. This event is widely regarded as the definitive “welcome home” for the Vietnam veteran community, occurring 15 years after the final contingent of troops had returned home.
Townsville, home of Lavarack Barracks, did not turn it’s back:
The last official unit welcome home parade was held in December 1971 in Townsville, where thousands of residents gave the returning soldiers a “rousing heroes’ welcome.”
40
Did you see the photograph published at Micheal Smith News of Vietnam protestor Julia Gillard among the crowd with red shoes and red beret?
10
There is a reason she died her hair red.
10
A former AFP Detective Superintendent interviewed on Credlin Sky said recently that in his opinion there are grounds for Ben to lodge a complaint for breach of regulations by AFP, he reinforced that with a comment that he remains a supporter of the AFP but suspects the matter and handling was taken out of their hands.
30
FWIW
Some “strait developments”
” Now consider this remarkable admission, words I’d bet you never expected to see printed in the New York Times:”
“Trump was right! I screenshot that to my desktop. I might even get it framed.
The Times then quoted an ‘energy expert,’ Clayton Seigle, who opined: “Iran will come under pressure if it’s not able to export its oil.” In other words— the blockade might work. And it could hamstring Iran for years. “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” Mr. Seigle noted. Another expert on Iran, Miad Maleki, was quoted saying, “I can’t think of a better option to increase pressure on the Iranian regime.”
I had to triple-check what newspaper I was reading.”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/consequential-tuesday-april-14-2026?
And
“So far as I can tell, though dozens of platforms rushed to report the existence of the original post, only CNBC ran a story about him taking it down and explaining it, headlined, “Trump deletes Truth Social image depicting him as Jesus: ‘It was me as a doctor.’”
140
Here is a great article on the Iran situation as viewed by the Arab world (rather than through the western media lens or the MAGA lens). It basically boils things down to the Arab world doesn’t particularly like Israel, but it absolutely HATES the Iranian regime. They are more than willing to endure a little short-term pain if it means being rid of the Iranian regime.
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/the-war-the-arab-world-is-watching?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
130
One of the reasons the Saudis didn’t want the Iranian proxy Houthis in control of Yemen was that it would have given Iran the ability to shut both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea at the same time.
The Saudis were doing quite a good job of crushing the Houthis and cutting their supply lines from Iran when the UN and the West’s leftard media cooked up the idea of a fake famine, and brought all sorts of diplomatic and public opinion pressure on the Saudis made them call a halt to their operations.
As a result, we got the recent situation down their.
The fake famine line was then trotted out in regards to Gaza after the Israelis went in to crush Hamas, and is being ramped up in regards to the Israeli operations against Hezbollah right now.
51
The bad cat also has an article up on the Iran situation, and the most interesting part IMO is his comparison of how the press covers this war in 2026 (and the Israel Gaza war for the lat couple of years) and how it covered the Iraq war a quarter-century ago.
Back then, the press was rightfully skeptical of the ridiculous proclamations being made by Baghdad Bob / Comical Ali for the Hussein regime. But today, they take every statement by the Iranian regime (and Hamas) as the gospel truth. They are either incapable of telling the difference between obvious state propaganda or they are intentionally lying in order to protect ‘the narrative’.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-iranian-inkblot-part-2
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/comical-ali-baghdad-bob
170
I could be persuaded that Trump is the favoured son. God caused him to turn his head at the instant his would-be assassin pulled the trigger. Jesus was not so lucky in avoiding a premature death.
Trump’s major peace deal with carbon already ensures he will be recorded as the greatest leader in history. Eliminating oil funded terrorists could well be his second greatest result.
POTUS Trump certainly has more followers than Jesus. He also has much greater reach in the modern world of instant communication globally.
211
‘Jesus was not so lucky in avoiding a premature death.’
Life on earth is precarious, his death would have gone unnoticed in the annals of history if not for the Resurrection. It was unique and essentially created a religion.
64
He also has a flair for sales and marketing and how to get attention, based often on a wicked sense of humour and a touch of sarcasm
40
I certainly reckon that the Orange Man would agree with you Rick – especially since he seems to regard the dodging of the bullet as Divine Intervention.
30
RickWill: There are Christians in almost every country in the world. Trump is not very popular outside the United States. Even among people with right wing views in Britain and the EU who previously admired Trump there is contempt for the way he threatens and insults other countries (it would not be so bad if he just insulted the leaders of those countries). He has threatened to take over Canada and Greenland and more recently threatened to take over control of Canadian air space. The comparisons, made in recent years by many Americans, of Trump and Hitler are obviously ridiculous but there are similarities now in their attitude to the territory of other countries.
11
Trump is not very popular in the European diaspora. He’s plenty popular in much of the global south. And Trump prefers it that way. The European diaspora ruled the 17th-20th centuries, but in the 21st century they have stagnant economies, no military power, few natural resources, little manufacturing capacity, and dwindling cultural power. The 21st century is going to belong to the high population developing economies of Asia-Pacific and the states who control/exploit global energy reserves.
Western Europe has turned into a bunch of bureaucrats and service workers who don’t make anything and can’t exert hard power. By the end of this century, they will be nothing more than tourist economies for travelers who want to check out old castles and cathedrals.
10
Some oil tankers seem to be moving again through the Strait of Hormuz.
No reports of Iran attacking US navy ships.
A case for cautious optimism?
140
The Australian reports that 20 ships have passed through safely.
100
An old Silk Road saying – the dogs bark but the caravans move on
70
Scott Ritter describes what happened with the destroyer, and its aftermath in this 33 minute clip.
” Iran Gave USA 30 Min To FLEE Or DIE — They RAN! ft. Scott Ritter ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etbaNMAz-9g
I think, but cannot prove, that this is the real person, and his experience justifies his analysis. At least interesting.
Cheers,
Dave B
13
What exactly IS his experience? Is he allowed into the States? What are his sources, RT and Al Jazeera?
10
At this stage I’m taking what he says about that within the link at face value, as I try to understand what’s happening over there.
00
I drove past the entrance of Tumut 2 underground hydroelectric power station on the above-mentioned trip. Back in the day, you could do tours of this and other power stations in the scheme but it’s no longer allowed. Back then Snowy Hydro 1 was a proud Australian nation-building achievement, but I guess “authorities” have nothing to be proud of anymore, except wind and solar subsidy farms.
There was a sign prohibiting electric vehicles entering the power station tunnel…
Some information about tours including the defunct Tumut 2 one are here, plus pictures:
https://wongm.com/2016/03/tours-of-the-snowy-mountains-scheme/
60
Incidentally, its obvious to anyone who has driven around the Snowy Mountains or is familiar with the scheme that the geology of the area is comprised of highly fractured rocks. This is obvious from road cuttings and the engineers of the original scheme of course knew about it.
It is simply incomprehensible that one of the excuses for the cost blow-out of Snowy Hydro 2 from $2 billion to $12 billion and more likely $20 billion and possibly $40 billion is due to the fractured, faulted rocks making tunnelling difficult and expensive.
How could they not have known this when:
1) It is obvious to an untrained observer from road cuttings.
2) The original Snowy Hydro engineers knew about it in the 1940’s and 1950’s
3) They should have done adequate geotechnical surveys, common back in the day and for the original scheme.
250
They should stop it now, before any more money is wasted!
160
The “sunk cost fallacy” describes the mess.
130
When the Thredbo Village disaster took place and a lodge slid downhill from water building up behind a retaining wall and below a floating concrete slab foundation one former Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme engineer now Polish Australian commented that when the original village was built they used pole foundations because moving ground to create a level area for a concrete foundation slab was dangerous, the main road above had slipped a few times and drainage was needed to stabilise the road.
He also commented that since Parks & Wildlife have taken over the now National Park they removed the many weeping willow trees planted around Thredo Village because they have extensive root systems that seek out groundwater systems.
20
You are partly right, Dennis. The landslide was actually a failure of the road above the village. This occurred because a water pipeline had been installed on the downhill side of the road into FILL. As many of this site will be aware, “soil creep” occurs in topography such as in the Snowy Mountains. It is a constant and was known by many engineers in the area and involved in the creation of the village. Further, the pipeline took a right angle turn down the slope above the ski lodges that were demolished in the slide. So, when the soil creep received a sufficient amount of movement at the right angle joint, the pipeline burst.
30
BTW, that pipeline was a recent installation in the village and not part of the original pipeline infrastructure. It was installed because (new) regulations required fire hydrants to be installed above the village. And no building – whether built on a slab or on piers – could have withstood the volume of soil and mountainside that slid down the site on that night.
40
If you can get hold of it, have a read of the Brad Collis book SNOWY: The Making of Modern Australia. It’s an amazing book, and an incredible insight into this wonderful engineering scheme. (Booktopia still have copies in stock)
Tony.
80
When now Opposition Leader Angus Taylor commented that he has renewables in his blood the left thought they had a gotcha moment, what he was referring to was;
Sir William Hudson was the grandfather of Angus Taylor, who served as the Commissioner and Chief Engineer of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, significantly impacting Australia’s infrastructure and engineering history. Hudson’s legacy continues to influence Taylor’s political career and values.
40
Thank you, Dennis. I was not aware of that.
30
Peta Credlin talks to farmers in Farrer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxcecoNnU0
Green tape is strangling Australian agriculture. And cost of energy is wiping it out.
260
It’s almost like the govt hates farmers and wants them to disappear.
130
Then there will be huge screams about “no food in the supermarkets.”
And none of them will be smart to connect the Liars/Slime war against diesel and farmers with that inevitable outcome.
90
It’s
almostlike the govt hatesfarmersanyone in business and wants them to disappear.60
Recently discussed at Sky was the recently signed Trade Agreement with the EU Government, some 8 years in negotiation but Coalition refused various terms and conditions that the EU wanted to impose, clearly doing the work of UNIPCC.
Albanese Labor signed, two of those conditions being;
* EU Government have a say in the use of land in Australia, particularly agricultural.
* Net Zero, that the Australian Government agree to follow that UNIPCC agenda in return for the trade relationship with EU member countries.
My question: If Morrison had “signed up to” net zero at Glasgow COP September 2021 why would the EU condition of trade be necessary, or for UNIPCC?
60
And Cairns News (12 April ) has an article – Albo’s EU trade deal set up as back door to enforce compliance with UN climate targets.
30
Not just energy costs, but the whole concept of keeping Lake Alexandrina fresh instead of letting it revert to its natural saline state.
10
Most people have zero idea of how much global temperature has supposedly increased since 1880.
The way this has been misrepresented by the stretched vertical rise on graphs is very misleading and the other graph shows the same temperature increase and the so called recent temperature increase is hardly noticeable.
So why do you think they use the extreme vertical stretching of the graph?
And why should we waste trillions of $ on this BS until 2100, while other more intelligent countries become more prosperous and continue to build up their national security?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/global-surface-temperature-comparison/
140
What happens if the unthinkable happens and Labor wins Australia’s next federal election?
70
Nothing good.
80
Tyranny.
https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/zoran-rakovic-the-tyrant-without-a-face
20
I will admit that the One Nation result in SA was a pleasant surprise. I did not expect the polling to materialise in seats.
Farrer will be another test of how fast reality is shaping opinions. Sleezy is avoiding the embarassment by not having a candidate.
And then a better indication by the Victorian election. With Ministers getting out now, they are showing the signs of a failed government. There are two growth industries in Victoria – crime and corruption. Both have been incentivised by Labor.
So far the destruction of Australia’s economy has been relatively well masked. China’s emergence has insulated many Australians from the rapid decline taking place.
If One Nation does not win Federal government then the decline will intensify and farmerbraun may have the correct term.
There will be a massive effort to convince Australian voters that Trump’s war is the basis of all their ills. Labor had Australia on the right track until that awful Trump wrecked the world economy. They will never admit they failed to heed his dire warning on the UN Climate Change™ hoax.
180
ON is highly unlikely to win gov. so swallow your pride, use the pref system and vote ON/Lib one and two. Choose the order yourself. I would bet on another labor term.
I will vote for the Nat sitting member.
53
I will vote for an Independent sitting member.
The election is still too far off to call, but if Hastie replaces Taylor then a Coalition victory is a certainty.
05
The coalition is a certainty, but you won’t vote for them. You hate the Libs soo much you would prefer labor.
20
Andrew Gee is our sitting member, once a Nat but had a falling out over the No vote.
The locals have faith in him and I suspect he will return to the Nats before the next election.
00
So lets see, I vote first preference for ON. And then second preference for Greens because I know they are keen to build a new coal fired power station!!!
Or maybe second preference for Labor because they are for the unions and coal fired power stations.
20
I am very worried that Albanese Labor will be returned to government in 2028, they have a massive majority of seats, albeit many marginal, and they gained the seats and government with under 35% of Primary Votes, first preference, first choice of voters.
They are supported by the Greens and Teals with Greens now holding 10 Senate seats and 1 House of Representatives. As compared to One Nation supposed to be on the same side as the Coalition Liberal National/LNP with 4 Senate seats from 2025 election and 1 House of Representatives from a National MP who changed sides after the 2025 election, so in total 5 One Nation seats and their one and only House of Representatives MP intends to stand for a Senate seat in 2028 which is the often admitted focus of One Nation, but without House of Representatives MPs how could they form a government, in fact do they really have that objective other than to give the impression to attract votes?
In SA One Nation preferences were scattered, Liberal candidates did not benefit, but Labor was returned to government.
30
In one way that is encouraging because it means that ON voters come from a diverse range of politics, not just disaffected former Liberal voters.
40
A 10-minute video of Larry Elder of Salem News talking about Trump’s extraordinary generosity and compassion. You’re unlikely to hear about any of this in certain other media:
https://salemnewschannel.com/watch/the-truth-about-trump-69dd753a5eaba40d71e00df5?utm_campaign_content=363629&lctg=664664683
70
Larry Elder is great.
Aa far as the Left are concerned he has committed the unforgivable crime of being a black conservative. The Left hate him.
The Los Angeles Times even called him “the Black face of white supremacy”.
The Left are insane. And racist.
130
DM
IIRC the LA Times has a ling list of “Things called” and one of similar length of “things that didn’t happen”
20
It’s the same as the leftards here who refer to Jacinta Price as a “coconut”.
10
Ww should respect the culture of new Labor voters who come to Australia whose tradition is to defecate in public. (SARC)
Such practices are now common in Europe and parts of the United States.
130
Defecate in public?
I’m happy for that to be a reason for deportation back to their country of origin.
I am sick of the way that behaviours of those who are part of “diversity is our greatest strength” continue to be tolerated.
Finally, I am intolerant of those calling for tolerance. Enough!
230
2 tankers full of fuel just turned around because the storage depot tanks were full , this is the second time I’ve heard this now and from an employee but different major fuel companies.
This begs a question about how much the increase in fuel prices is the increase in price per barrel of crude and how much is from the desire to boost profits !
This was Victoria .
110
How can managers so badly mismanage that ships are ordered to come here but not realising there is no storage available for them to unload?
So where does the cargo go next, China?
100
Yes David it makes you wonder where it goes because if there’s oversupply god forbid they have to reduce fuel prices to return to normal stock levels .
80
And it better not be coming from Iran –
In here
“Hormuz Blockade: Europe Mobilizing Against the U.S., Not the Iran Regime”
“European ships cannot legally buy Iranian crude under EU law. The freedom of navigation Europe is mobilizing to defend therefore applies not to European purchasers but to third-party nations, primarily Asian buyers, transiting the strait without U.S. interdiction.
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand maintain similar frameworks, each prohibiting their citizens and entities from purchasing Iranian oil, with New Zealand adding a compulsory business registration scheme for any dealings with Iran in February 2026.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/hormuz-blockade-europe-mobilizing-against-u-s-not/
20
As a footnote the price of diesel at an independent fuel importer servicing the far northwest of Western Australia, Diesel is $2.29 a litre at Kununurra and fuel in nearby Wyndham was $2.59 .
00
In South Africa there are calls for genocide of the minority population, as is standard and practiced in just about all of Africa.
This is why this minority is being protected by TRUMP and he allows them to go to the United States where they arrive holding US flags and willing and ready to work hard for their new country.
https://x.com/i/status/2044104395659587621
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/watch-white-afrikaners-from-south-africa-arrive-at-dulles-airport-to-seek-u-s-resettlement
You may recall that the Australian Government banned these same people from coming here as refugees.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/14/peter-duttons-department-blocked-white-south-african-farmers-asylum-bid
Hopefully TRUMP will also consider taking in Australians as refugees as things continue to deteriorate here.
180
Hopefully we can reclaim our country before it gets to that stage.
50
South African farmers would have been welcome here, I believe, by the farming community. They could bring excellent techniques for dealing with a similar climate and conditions.
60
FWIW
Re “This is why this minority is being protected by TRUMP ”
The best explanation of the situation in South Africa elaborated on its racial and tribal connections. And, that from Somalia to the Cape of Good Hope about 500 years of European interference hasn’t changed who hates whose guts – though it has interfered with which tribes now have power.
In South Africa the largest tribe was Zulu, the second largest was white. And that smaller tribes trusted the whites more than other native tribes
10
Last night just happened to watch The Interpreter first time and could not believe they were brave enough to show it in Australia.
00
Green anti-development actions have cost Australians a lot of new income and have reduced our standards of living.
Some person with more skills than mine should produce a one page sheet of the worst Green acts and an estimate of their costs to our society.
Whenever Greens propose new damage, people can pull out the clue sheet and publicise it under a heading like “Vote Green? You will pay for it”.
We cannot ignore the costs of demonised oil, gas, coal and nuclear. We cannot ignore the costs of political sweetheart deals with Greens. We cannot ignore the loss of proper land care from vast area locked up for “preservation” that are centres for bushfires and pests out of control. And so on.
The lost money has to be taken back from these anti-everything Greens. Geoff S
200
All of the genuine environmentalists (Bob Brown et al) are long gone, and have been replaced by watermelons, green on the outside, but red on the inside. Check how many of the current Slime have open communist backgrounds.
120
That’s why Patrick Moore resigned in 1986 and Paul Gilding was sacked/fired in 1994, from Greenpeace.
110
Don’t forget Dr Bob Brown was struck off the medical register in Tasmania on sanity, or rather lack thereof, grounds.
20
“Green anti-development”
This is necessary for The Great Levelling.
Those who are less equal will be required to share their portions equally amongst themselves, but will own nothing.
20
Video.
Sky News Australia interviews former PM Tony Abbott in their Power Hour series.
He is a rare case of a conservative Liberal Party politician so the Party set out to destroy him and replaced him with Labor Party aspirant embedded in the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull.
https://youtu.be/Xi4Vd89wRIA
130
Years ago I posted here a website link, I no longer have it and suspect it has been removed, the title was Stop Turnbull. It was a Timeline of History from high school to the Abbott terms in office ended late 2015 when PM Turnbull replaced him with a very narrow margin of Liberal MP votes. At the press conference later that day Abbott made a very telling comment, he told journalists not to accept anonymous leaks, unless the informant was willing to be named do not publish please. The fact is, according to records, the leaking was relentless and negative beginning when Dr Brendan Nelson became Opposition Leader Liberal National Coalition after the 2007 election, he was replaced by Turnbull in 2008. And in 2009 Abbott became Opposition Leader and led the Coalition to effectively for all intents and purposes defeated Gillard Labor forcing them into alliances to form a minority Labor Government 2010. In 2013 the Abbott led Opposition Coalition defeated PM Rudd back again Labor in a landslide defeat.
I have also shown by link here recently the late 2018 to 2022 Morrison Government attempts to proceed in a new direction away from wind solar and transition away from fossil fuels attached to that Renewable Energy Target legislation of Labor after 2007.
Turnbull LINO left have been the disruptive influence that pulled to the left and created the impression that the Coalition had changed completely, but that was not accurate.
20
Indian sweatshop workers wear cameras on their heads to train AI/robots to do their jobs and eventually replace them…
https://youtu.be/tNuTjlT67gY
50
Meanwhile at Amazon, worker dies and other staff told to just move around him.
https://youtu.be/YuJ24X_4Zuk?si=HOkCunT7omqV_sQw
20
Our US gubmint is rather prolifically but as yet unofficially telling us flying saucers are real.
So it is true or it is not.
Which is most disconcerting?
They’re here*, or the gubmint is lying to manipulate us … for some curious reason?
Recent experience argues the latter.
As does most of my life experience as an American.
*From what we’re hearing it appears there’s a lot of them in every kind of ‘vehicle’.
Discs, orbs, cigars, tic tacs, organic thingys, triangles, boomerangs, egg shapes?
Even heard one former fighter pilot describe one as a 50 foot flying picture frame.
🙂
60
It’s just a rebranding of the 1970’s UFO hysteria which are now called UAPs rather than UFOs.
It’s probably being surreptitiously promoted by Democrats and other communists for which the only solution to the “UAP problem” is more, bigger and more totalitarian Government.
Unfortunately some MAGA Republicans appear to be falling for it.
40
https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/
😎
00
Honk, the problem is how did they get here? We know that they don’t come from our solar system and that leaves Alpha Centauri star(s) and the planets that are there.
They could be robots or AI controlled UAPs, but the journey would take tens of thousands of years unless we believe in time warps etc. That’s 4 light years away.
Note that NASA still intends to send astronauts to visit Mars, but how would they survive the 7 to 9 months to get there and all would be cripples and wouldn’t be able to carry out any useful work at all.
And Mars has an average temp of minus -60 c and an atmosphere of 95% co2. How would they breathe and who would want to sign up for this perilous journey?
You would need an IQ well below 100 to want to sign up for this silly nonsense.
40
The spaceship design you’ve never heard of, we could have gone to the moon with but didn’t.
https://youtu.be/DYwTOItIA_I?si=XdskYqPqfNefPXZB
A great channel to bookmark btw.
Then factor in a VERY interesting discovery a few weeks back I deliberately didn’t post, and nor did anyone else…
Watching THAT very very carefully.😎
01
‘ … how did they get here?’
Beyond our comprehension, but I suspect Quantum physics is involved.
01
Neville,
Congresslady Luna of FLA, is chair of the Congressional committee that has held public hearings featuring alleged gubmint whistleblowers.
She told Joe Rogan she has seen classified evidence of “inter-dimensional” beings.
So one question is where is ‘here’. 🙂
I’m with you on the Mars thing,
With David on the other.
I guess my main interest is organic hysteria vs. manufactured hysteria.
And that Pandemic confirmed that the most educated in our society are the most susceptible to both.
I also think Pandemic marked the end of supposed ‘scientific enlightenment/machine/space age’.
Ai seems possibly to mark the beginning some odd new re-birth of myth based culture as it may facilitating folk to find and manufacture evidence for anything they imagine.
20
You could tell if the saucers were British. They would have matching tea cups.
20
They’re upside down as the crew cabin?
00
Australian saucers. Down under.
10
Flying Sorcerers is a humorous 1971 science fiction novel by American writers David Gerrold and Larry Niven. It was originally serialized in 1970 as The Misspelled Magishun in If magazine. The book is about the efforts of a stranded astronaut to escape from a primitive world, showing how sufficiently advanced technology could be perceived as magic by its natives
10
A majority of Americans believe its true.
‘ … 44 percent of Americans believe that the government is concealing UFO information, while 28 percent disagree and another 28 percent are unsure.’ (The Hill)
01
Why do advanced civilisations fly 27 bazillion light years to, inter alia, pose for fuzzy photographs in an age of megapixel mobile phones, anally probe Californians and buzz a school at Moorabbin?
Spotting a UFO/saucer would have livened up 15,000 hours of long-haul flying but unfortunately it didn’t happen.
70
FWIW – might be useful to some
“@Ossqss & @anyone with network issues:
FWIW, I have a small linux / unix script called “pingout” that just does a series of “pings” and gives a first level idea of what kind of network problem might be going on.
It starts with a ping by IP number (IPv4) of my boundary router, then proceeds to a known responder (apple.com) via IP number, then via a DNS lookup. That, already, gives you an answer to “inside my network” (like a cable slipped out), or does basic routing work (via IP#) and Does DNS lookup via default ISP DNS sever work?”
More at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2026/03/08/w-o-o-d-8-march-2026-global-shit-show-in-ot/#respond
beng135 in comments says it works in Windows as a .bat file
10
Non-fiction book based on Sumerian, Babylonian and Christian Bible titled Genesis Revisited;
“Genesis Revisited” is a significant work by Zecharia Sitchin that delves into the connections between ancient texts and modern scientific discoveries. Sitchin argues that ancient knowledge, particularly regarding human origins and the cosmos, aligns with contemporary scientific findings.
The Nephilim and the Anunnaki
Sitchin posits that the Nephilim, referenced in the Bible, are actually linked to the Anunnaki, a race of extraterrestrial beings from the planet Nibiru. He claims that these beings played a crucial role in the development of human civilization. Here are some key points regarding their relationship:
10
Many years ago I was at a social gathering and the conversation turned to various items extraterrestrial, an in vitro fertilisation specialist doctor commented about Sitchin and Genesis revisited, and the description given of creation and development of modern humans, and said the procedure described was accurate but primitive when compared to what is done now.
Another discovery I made was research by Cambridge University EK and a US university (I forget which one) that studied placenta from many different races of people around the world and that there was an “Eve” or the mother of all modern women. And that the “Adam” who passed the Y-Chromosome lived, from memory, 75,000 years after the Eve.
10
Found a link
https://scienceofbiogenetics.com/articles/genetic-eve-and-adam-unearthing-the-ancestral-origins-of-humanity
20
FWIW
“The Goodes Double Standard: When “Aggressive Personas” Are OK”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Vl8oOXo8M
10
FWIW
“Mike Lee Takes On ‘Valley Of Death’ Plaguing Nuclear Energy Developers”
“Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee is introducing legislation seeking to remove regulations plaguing nuclear energy developers and help the U.S. compete with adversaries in harnessing the power source.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/04/14/mike-lee-takes-on-valley-of-death-plaguing-nuclear-energy-developers/
10
FWIW
A description that could be adapted
“‘He Was a Fattish Man With the Paralyzing Stupidity of a Potato'”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/04/14/he-was-a-fattish-man-with-the-paralyzing-stupidity-of-a-potato-n3813892
10
Are Harry and Meghan trawling for visas?
10
Australia has gone from zero debt in 2007 to one Trillion $$$ in 20 years, bravo, what an achievement and what have we got to show for it.
60
It is far worse than that.
Taking into account state and local government debt as well as federal it is now $2.26 trillion without any sign whatsoever of slowing down.
http://australiandebtclock.com.au/
30
FWIW
“Another Red State, Fully Californicated”
“”20 years ago Colorado was a Red state and thriving,” the State Leadership Initiative posted late last week. “10 years ago liberals were writing pieces about how Colorado was the next Silicon Valley.”
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/04/13/the-californication-of-colorado-is-complete-n4951741
In the early 1970s a common number plate surround slogan was
“Don’t Californicate Colorado””
Obviously a stronger antidote was needed.
40
The lithium storage/recycling facility in a Perth suburb, burnt down three days ago, has again sprung into life with a new fire. Am now wondering when the facility will finally be safe.
40
FWIW
“Rolls-Royce 470-Megawatt Nuclear Reactors To Power 3 Million UK Homes For 60 Years”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/rolls-royce-470-megawatt-nuclear-reactors-power-3-million-uk-homes-60-years
20