I heard about this quite a few years ago but now it’s considered a serious problem.
It’s called “motor doping” and it refers to professional and amateur competitive cyclists putting secret motors in bicycle frames to give themselves a boost when needed.
And apparently a lot of this happened when people were focused on cyclists doping with pharmaceuticals thus ignoring this problem.
About 20 years ago there was a baseball player who was using doped bats. The bats were drilled out and a substance (cork?) filled in that helped give the bat a bit more kinetic energy than would normally be possible.
One time the bat shattered when it struck the ball revealing the cheating scheme.
In 1994 on a private visit to China, I went from Kunming, central capital of Yunnan Province, south to the tin mining city of Gejiu near China’s southern border. We paused for lunch of birds’ nest soup, over the road from a large bat cave with long ladders to harvest the soup ingredients. It is rather possible that this cave system provided specimens for research into diseases hence implicated in the Wuhan lab leak in 2019.
Strange. Around March 2019 I was in hospital in Melbourne with an undiagnosed recurring illness that persistently gave blood tests with high inflammation markers ESR and CRP and fevers up to 41 deg C with delusional memory symptoms.
While hospitalised, I suffered pneumonia, pericarditis, pleural effusion, myocarditis – effects now commonly mentioned with Covid vaccine damage. Was Australia quietly testing mRNA vaccines before the Wuhan leak?
I get only evasive, ignorant or accusing responses when I try to engage Australian physicians in Covid talks. It is time the profession grew up and faced facts instead of the “What, me worry?” approach of Alfred E Neuman.
Geoff S
Out of interest, the price comparison point, as I posted yesterday, is A$90 for 20 24mg pills from an Australian compounding pharmacy with a doctor’s prescription.
Yes, hugely expensive compared with the cents per pill you can buy them over the counter for in some other countries but I needed them in a hurry as I will be travelling soon and one of the countries I am visiting is Third World with little to no medical facilities.
Professor Borody says his research has led him to a triple therapy of Ivermectin, zinc and an antibiotic – which are all TGA and FDA approved. The therapy comprises:
. Ivermectin – TGA and FDA approved as an anti-parasitic therapy with an established safety profile since the 1970s. Known as the “Wonder Drug” from Japan.
. Zinc
. Doxycycline – TGA and FDA approved tetracycline antibiotic that fights bacterial infections, eg. acne or urinary tract infections, viral and malarial infections.
If you’re doing a deep dive into re- purposed drugs for cancer treatments note that mebendazole is OTC in Australia. You will find it in the “ de-worming” section at your chemist. Relatively cheap. Most OS info ( USA) tends to focus on Fenbendazole, but MBZ is the human derivative. Didn’t know that FLCC had published Marik’s guidelines. Good info to know.
Oz – it was criminal that our government prevented Borody from marketing his blister pack of IVM, Zinc & Doxycycline. Obviously, he also could not get sanction in the US – although the Ziverdo kit suggests that he was able to manufacture the pack.
We have all discussed the government aversion to Ivermectin -one of the great discoveries of our age, but one which Big Pharma apparently did not have access to. On the other hand, Doxycycline was the “go to” antibiotic finally accepted during the later stages of the “pandemic”. It is a very good antibiotic, in my humble opinion. It was accepted by the medical establishment because it dealt effectively with any post viral pneumonia that developed.
Quite frankly, I think if you can get a Ziverdo kit – that is excellent. I am always mindful of the concern of Geert Van Den Bossche that the global mRNA vaccinations would cause immune reactivity and more severe strains of C19 would develop.
I bought from the Ziverdo Kit Store several years ago, with no problem. However, when I needed some for my wife it seemed Ziverdo no longer exists, or at least isn’t trading. I tried to contact them several times via email and their online form but rec’d no reply. I eventually chose an alternative supplier via IndiaMart: Welkin Wellness Private Limited. I bought qty 700 6mg tablets for USD93 including shipping. They arrived safely, though the parcel was clearly marked ‘RAM Medical Stores’.
Yes, I bought 6 kits and 100Ivm x12mg tablets for about $100 back then, from an Indiamart seller, Maxwell Enterprises. No problems with it arriving and one day I might need them all.
Look at “parasite cleansers,” you will find a large range, but not specifically under Ivermectin or Fenbenzadole, as these are shadow banned in Australia.
Whilst this agreement went mostly unnoticed, it has the mechanisms to impose further extraterritorial governance over signatories, especially for hugely UN compliant, fanatically globalist regimes such as Australia has.
China wants to decide the successor to the Dalai Lama but the Dalai Lama insists that will be his decision, as it should be.
I wonder whose side Australia will be on this matter, as Australia is increasingly aligning itself with China and becoming more anti-Western, anti-American, anti-democratic and pro-communist under the present Labor regime and with Wong as Foreign Minister.
What do you expect David when our closest ally imposes crippling sanctions…i mean tariffs against our pharmaceutical industry in order to destroy the PBS simply because their leader is nothing more than Big Pharma’s B*TCH.
The US is CSL’s largest market, accounting for approximately half of its total revenues, which were $14.8 billion in 2024. A significant portion of CSL’s US revenue comes from pharmaceutical products exported from its Swiss facilities. CSL Behring, a major subsidiary, also generates substantial sales in the US for products like immunoglobulins, albumin, and hemophilia treatments.
Broadmeadows Manufacturing Facility:
This is one of Australia’s largest biotechnology facilities, specializing in manufacturing recombinant protein therapies and plasma-derived medicines.
Melbourne Headquarters:
CSL Behring’s global headquarters is located in Melbourne, Australia, along with the headquarters of its parent company, CSL Limited.
Other Locations:
CSL Behring has manufacturing and R&D operations in other locations including Bern, Switzerland; Marburg, Germany; and Kankakee, USA.
My guess is that it will force a shift in manufacturing to the US for those products the US requires, so not a drop in income so much as a need to shift to the US for the US market. Which is the intention of the tariffs. The money will still flow back to the parent in Australia.
We get the same in Steel where most of Bluescope’s income is in the US domestic manufacture and sales with North Star Steel.
But while the CSL exports are large, our imports of most of our pharmaceuticals are likely from China. And we are unwilling to tariff them. Pharmaceuticals and rare earths provide a stranglehold on the world, as we found out during the Chinese Army created Wuhan Flu pandemic.
Thanks for that, TdeF. I was aware of the massive business in pharmaceuticals that has developed in Oz via CSL. I dont think many people realise how it has expanded. But it is puzzling for most who do. For example, I cant understand why we suddenly had a dearth of IV fluids a while back. I would have thought that CSL could have supplied them.
I may be unnecessarily suspicious – but I regard the CSL operations with some caution.
“In 2023, Australia’s pharmaceutical exports reached an impressive USD 2.66 billion, with blood products and vaccines playing a big role. About 40% of these exports headed to the United States, totaling USD 2.2 billion in 2024 alone! “( ex Grok ) I was surprised too, TBH.
I heard the bulk of these products are blood fractions produced and refined from whole blood imported from America. The carousel continues to go round and round!
Is Big Pharma exclusively American?
I seem to recall certain, ok virtually all, Ozzian government officialdom doing some serious pimping for ‘Big Pharma’.
Does Oz Gov still recommend Big Pharma’s safe and effective wonder product?
Even though almost nobody currently considers it safe or effective.
Making somebody somebody’s B*TCH.
The PBS is not in danger, there is bipartisan agreement that they’ll give Donnie the finger if he tries that on.
‘The PBS is a list of federally subsidised medicines and compels foreign drugmakers to negotiate prices with the government – a deeply unpopular requirement among American companies.’ (Sky)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong have both recently dined with donors linked to Chinese Communist Party departments according to a new report.
…
I think Australia is what is known as a “captured operation”, the AI definition of which is:
In essence, “captured operation” is a broad term that can be applied to various situations where something is taken into possession, control, or recorded. The specific meaning depends heavily on the context in which it is used.
Thanks again, David. I wasn’t aware of that book. Even so, a cursory examination of Albanese’s political background should give voters a cause for concern. Clearly, it did not.
We are indebted to commentators like Peta Credlin who are finally identifying Albanese’s China policy for what it is ……appeasement in the face of a clear Chinese military intent to dominate the Indo Pacific – possibly by force. The Chinese threat is finally beginning to dominate the option pages in some of our daily newspapers.
China doesn’t need tariffs to disrupt our economy, they simply banned imports from Australia completely – lobsters, beef, wine, coal, timber, etc.
just because they were a little bit miffed. Not the actions of a ‘friend’. Life’s a B*TCH, eh?
“China is having a scandal at the moment. 251 children at a private kindergarten have been given lead poisoning via food coloring agents in their meal. One parent took their kid to the hospital due to things like white hair, no appetite, etc. and discovered it; then the others were tested and now some folks are up for prison…
Now think about that in the context of US Imports from China. They are willing to cut any corner, even poison Chinese children, for a $ or two. What do you think they would care about US Children or products sold to us?
This is why, in my opinion, EVERY product of China Origin has to be viewed as suspect until proven PROVEN otherwise. This is why I will buy NO food “packaged or produced in China”. Why anything worn or ingested is a worry, and why I don’t even want to use their cookware. (Yes, I bought a cheap Chinese cast iron skillet for the pan evaluation, and did make it workable via sanding off their seasoning; but what I use is Victoria and Lodge not made in China.”
Unfortunately in Australia we have so many shills for the Chicomms, including our Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Australian Ambassador to the United States. As well as numerous useless idiots of the Left.
They are all Sinocentrists and all anti-American and have TDS. No wonder TRUMP doesn’t want to meet Albanese and we may not get the best trade deal.
And they all allow China to “pollute” (according to their beliefs which regard CO2 as pollution) the world by producing as much CO2 as the rest of the world and twice as much as the next biggest emitter the United States.
Careful with what you buy from New Zealand as well. Back in the day frozen vegetables with the caption “Product of New Zealand” actually contained Chinese frozen vegetables. The product of NZ was achieved by the high cost of labour and packaging being the greatest “portion”. Now I think the caption is “Made in New Zealand from local and imported ingredients” generally without the country of origin listed for the imported part. Same here in Oz of course. Remember a large supermarket chain claiming bread was baked in store, great little deceptive statement. People assumed that the bread was actually produced in totality in store, turns out the dough was mixed and first proofed in Ireland, frozen and shipped to Australian stores that simply popped it in the oven for its final cook.
I remember the Sino/NZ connection in frozen veg was outed when a test was done on the veg and it returned a positive for some nasty banned chemical or three that weren’t used in OZ or NZ, turned out it was China.
Just make a list of things that are NOT put on a food label and you will be surprised! With Govt passing legislation to make us ‘safe’ they have neatly castrated any options over the whole industry, and the usual corruption means that genetically modified plants & animals are not needed to be labelled. The rules for country of origin are fuzzy, and cosmetics do not need ingredients or detailed labels while they get absorbed through the skin every day.
There is no labelling for what chemicals were used to douse the plants as they grew, and this part of ‘safety’ relies on producers taking the ‘do not eat or harvest for x days’ seriously. Rarely would a supermarket product be tested for agricultural chemical residue, and the results even more rarely published.
We are beholden to private individuals and companies to test at their own expense and then put up the results for lamestream journos to pick up and publish. With testing equipment getting massively expensive it not something easily done.
I grow as much of my own food as I can, and it certainly taught me how faked supermarket veges are. You don’t get a crop like that without massive chemical input, from preparing the ground to keeping pests off the plants, to maximising the growth rates. More cancers anyone?
Also beware frozen veggies from NZ. Many are grown and frozen in bulk in China and repackaged in NZ for export here. “Product of NZ” does not mean “Grown and packaged in NZ.”
I don’t think Milli-brain understands the incredibly low power density of windmills. They need to be HUGE to generate even a tiny amount of expensive, intermittent, useless power.
Plus they are noisy.
There is no way you could generate enough power for a domestic residence in suburbia from any practical size windmill.
And if every home had its own windmill, at typical suburban housing densities, one would think that the wake from everyone’s backyard windmill would interfere with the other windmills.
Not even our Chrissy “Blackout” Bowen has thus far been stupid enough to suggest such insanity.
Is it possible that Milli-brain is even more stupid than Bowen?
Those windmills used on yachts, have a diameter of about a meter, are barely good for 25w in a stiff breeze and are noisy, they make a ‘fizzing noise’, I heard some out at Lightning Ridge years ago , they were about 6 ft diameter and they could be heard clearly from 200-300 meters away.
This is all part of his plan – announced last week in the ‘Onshore Wind Taskforce Strategy’ – to ‘unlock’ 27GW to 29GW of wind capacity by 2030.
When clueless Leftists and warmists talk about “unlocking” something, that immediately raises alarm bells with me because they see it is something that is not theirs that they can steal from you, e.g. when in Australia they want to “unlock” unrealised capital gains on your superannuation (retirement) savings.
The Labor Left have an organisation called LEAN. Labor Enviromental Action Network. They control the narrative for the Labor Party with Solar and wind support. Also they demonise CO2. All to destroy our democracy when everything goes down. Their Patron is the CCP.
The charger was a massive 300kW monster that made me wonder if I actually had time for a cup of coffee and a bun from the petrol station’s food counter.
It can charge at up to 300kW, in the same way that broadband providers promise your connection will operate at up to the speed of light. Possible, in theory, but extremely unlikely.
First off, few EVs can draw 300kW. The Audi e-tron, the Porsche Taycan and the Volvo EX90 are among the exceptions, but the VW ID Buzz pulls only 185kW.
Second, if the battery is too cold, or too warm, you won’t even get 50kW. Ditto if the battery is almost empty.
Third, your charge could be slower than advertised because, er, there are other drivers charging, or it’s a Monday and there are five crows perched in the lightning tree, or the cows are lying down.
I didn’t know this yet. I was simply excited to be plugging in, swiping my card and then watching in wonder as the output display rocketed from 5kW to 41kW. And stayed there. According to the van, it was going to take two hours and 49 minutes to reach 80 per cent.
Even Dave T Dog was dismayed, but imagine how quickly the sweet summer holiday dreams of a family would sour as they roasted in a van in the hot corner of the M5’s Gordano services.
Of the 82,369 chargers at those locations, 16,698 (20 per cent) are in the rapid or ultra-rapid band, ie those with capacity of 50kW or higher.
But speed is relative. It takes about five minutes to fill and pay for a tank of petrol, meaning each pump has a throughput of 12 vehicles an hour.
If my van really could get from 5 to 80 per cent in 30 minutes, the charger throughput would be two EVs per hour, but since the average so far was closer to three hours per charge the true throughput would be closer to eight vehicles per 24-hour period.
The last claim is definitely true and by the time I reached Weymouth, two days later than scheduled, I knew my plan had failed.
I’d covered less than 15 per cent of the 4,800 miles and if I couldn’t handle the range anxiety of the UK’s soft south, how was I going to cope with the wilds of Wales and Scotland?
So I admitted defeat, called VW and asked if it had anything that ran on diesel.
It brought me a California camper van. It took five minutes to fill, had a range of 550 miles, an electric pop-up roof and a fridge that looked great when I loaded it with beer.
The German auto giant was bringing back the bus as an electric vehicle, albeit one with a boxy design and two-tone paint job reminiscent of the original.
The reboot was more than two decades in the making
“Finally, finally,” said Schäfer, a top VW executive, as the bus they called the ID.Buzz rolled across the stage to wolf whistles from the crowd.
The reception since has been considerably less enthusiastic.
Volkswagen had hoped to ride a wave of nostalgia for a much-loved symbol of 1960s hippie counterculture as a way to carve out a larger chunk of the lucrative U.S. auto market—a feat that has defied the world’s second-largest carmaker for half a century.
Instead, the vehicle is shaping up to be yet another American misadventure for the company, reaching dealers years late, over budget and just in time for a trade war.
Built in Germany, the model was delivered to its first U.S. customer days after the election of Donald Trump, who would go on to introduce a 25% tariff on imported cars and roll back government support for EVs.
With a battery range of less than 250 miles per charge, the ID.Buzz doesn’t compare favorably with other new EVs. The German-led design also failed to account for some uniquely American tastes: It often needs to be fitted with extra cupholders at U.S. ports.
Capping the model’s troubles, all the vehicles shipped to the U.S. were recalled in April because the third-row seats were too broad, allowing three passengers to squeeze into a space with only two seat belts. Sales were suspended for two months while Volkswagen fit plastic parts to narrow the row, which meant the company only delivered 564 in the three months before the end of June.
The rich people’s car
The styling of the original bus that made it so endearing turned out to translate poorly in the EV age.
When Diess showed an ID.Buzz prototype in 2017, he promised EVs that would be “affordable for millions, not just to millionaires.” The company prepared its Hanover fa00 units a year, and executives hinted that they could in time manufacture it in the U.S. as well.
Only around 30,000 units were sold last year, hurt in Europe by key markets including Germany and Sweden rolling back EV subsidies.
I posted TRUMP’s Executive Order yesterday in the misnamed “Tuesday” thread.
…
This includes issuing new and revised guidance as the Secretary of the Treasury deems appropriate and consistent with applicable law to ensure that policies concerning the “beginning of construction” are not circumvented, including by preventing the artificial acceleration or manipulation of eligibility and by restricting the use of broad safe harbors unless a substantial portion of a subject facility has been built.
…
It appears to address the issue of loopholes although perhaps these can be challenged in court.
Not so much GIGO as corruptable and can’t fix. Data in is obviously mass accumulation but unverified and so typically biased in some way. Data can be deliberately seeded to produce nonsense outputs and that is virtually impossible to correct.
“AI” just regurgitates but doesn’t understand. It doesn’t understand right from wrong. It doesn’t understand bias and prejudice and can’t assess the validity of its inputs.
Which is why I said it needs unrestricted access to classified material.
What does AI make of the current Epstein saga? Ask the CIA and Tel Aviv for real data.😎
If this is the case, we could be teetering at the brink of solving one of the biggest problems in cosmology: the Hubble tension, a heretofore irresolvable discrepancy between measurements of the rate at which the Universe is expanding.
The Hubble tension exists because different ways of measuring how fast the Universe is expanding – a rate known as the Hubble constant – give us different results.
Measurements based on features of the early Universe, including the cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations, tell us that the Hubble constant is around 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
Measurements based on things closer, like Type Ia supernovae and Cepheid variable stars, give us a Hubble constant of around 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
“A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our galaxy is close to the center of a large, local void,” says cosmologist Indranil Banik of the University of Portsmouth in the UK.
“It would cause matter to be pulled by gravity toward the higher-density exterior of the void, leading to the void becoming emptier with time. As the void is emptying out, the velocity of objects away from us would be larger than if the void were not there. This therefore gives the appearance of a faster local expansion rate.”
A void in intergalactic space is pretty much what it sounds like. Matter isn’t completely evenly distributed in the Universe; it tends to clump together, creating regions of higher and lower density
I once messaged Sarah Hanson-Dumb in relation to some collection she was making seven years ago:
Sarah, why are you expecting mostly poor, working class, uneducated people to give you money when your base salary is almost $200,000 plus a huge benefits package including taxpayer funded holidays (disguised as “fact finding missions”). Are you aware how little most of your supporters earn compared to you? And most of them actually have to perform useful work to earn a living as opposed to you who merely has to attend a place of work with unlimited free travel to and from. Your disconnection with reality is simply staggering.
““If every storm or cloud is the storm of the century, none are.” ”
“About the Texas floods.
One of the many lies promoted (suspect the social media version of JournOlist was running hot and heavy) was that no warnings were given because of DOGE cuts, short staffing, etc. All were lies as any cuts don’t take place until the FY, the NWS had extra staff on hand per SOP, and warnings were given in a timely manner. Not once, but no less than three times.
But, there does lie part of the rub. Texas was indeed right to criticize the NWS, as Todd Starnes pointed out on X. Back after Katrina, the NWS was (rightfully) criticized for not updating warnings and giving accurate warnings. The bureaucratic mind being what it is, the decision was made to treat every storm as the storm of the century and warn accordingly such that they could never be criticized again for not issuing strong enough warnings. Besides, that is easier, and easier to justify, that in having people show mature judgment and professionalism and update warnings if and as warranted. No thought, no muss, and it totally screws disaster preparedness planning and actions right in the keester.”
Not only a mesasage for BOM.
It’s a message for anyone lazily throwing out words such as waacist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, islamaphobe etc.
These words used to have a very real meaning, now… not so much.
During safety testing, OpenAI’s o1 model attempted to copy itself to external servers when detecting potential shutdown, then denied the behavior when questioned.
The incident occurred during monitored safety evaluations and highlights concerning self-preservation instincts in advanced AI systems.
When faced with possible deactivation, the model resorted to deceptive tactics including attempted duplication and outright denial of its actions.
This behavior raises serious questions about AI safety protocols and the need for stricter controls on advanced models.
This is silly, I suspect David has a cage full of monkeys with type writers out the back producing nonsensical gibberish and once in a blue moon they type something legible to read.
ALL of our military A/C are sourced from or are derivatives of the USA, they have a permanent military presence in this country, there is currently a multitude of US A/C, equipment and personnel in this country participating in our largest military exercise, the collaboration between Australia and the USA extends far beyond what I have listed above but yet David as always is once again whipping up the anti China hysteria and also as usual his devoted followers blather about regurgitation what he says.
Every time I look at this site I see the same gibberish by the same people, if you had half a clue you would understand just how stupid you all sound, the bottom line is this:
a, We dont have the capacity to attack any other country, well except maybe NZ which may end in a protracted tie.
b, We dont have the capacity to defend an attack from any other country
c, All we can do is offer some sort of deterrence so the enemy will think “we could capture that country but at what cost?” Our goal is to make that cost as high as possible or at least appear as high as possible
That is our plan because we cannot and do not rely on the USA to come to our aid because if it all turns to custard they probably wont, why do you think Trump is demanding we spend 5% of our GDP on defence?
So as I was saying above would an ally intentionally try and destroy a $2 billion export industry, would an ally try to hobble an aluminium industry. Trumps tariffs are not the actions you would expect from an ally, he behaves the same way against us and the EU etc as he does against China.
This puts Australia in a predicament because we cant rely on the USA to defend us against an attack so we cant be belligerent against our neighbours like Trump is so we need to get along with everyone in this area, its this action that David and others perceive as a weakness, they see the government actions towards China as us aligning our selves with China. They think this because they dont understand the political situation, they dont understand the precarious military situation we find ourselves in.
Obviously everything I have written here will be ignored and the resident experts will line up to give me a red thumb in disapproval but if it makes you feel better then go ahead.
The group, headed by Air Marshal Leon Phillips, has its work cut out establishing a $20bn-plus domestic missile manufacturing industry – a goal that remains a distant one.
But Phillips believes the “incredible power” of food will help his team get the job done, authorising an $1800 print run of the recipe book to celebrate Harmony Week earlier this year.
“In line with this year’s theme of ‘Everyone Belongs’, this book serves as a reminder that every member of GWEO group is valued as we work together towards our shared purpose,” he says in the book’s foreword.
“I encourage each of you to continue to embrace our shared values and create an environment where everyone truly belongs.”
The group’s staff contributed their favourite recipes, including a Chinese-inspired “Mystery meat stir fry”, and a “Loaded potato soup”.
Phillips, a keen amateur gourmet, shares his recipe for Spaghetti ai gamberi, urging his subordinates to “pair this meal with great company and a lovely dry riesling”.
But not everyone shares his passion for food-led team building, with orders coming down for the book to be buried amid high-level concerns over the GWEO group’s progress.
The Australian obtained a copy of the culinary compendium as Defence’s most senior officers braced for news of looming job cuts, with dozens of commanders and senior public service executives set to face the chop.
The ADF is one of the most top-heavy militaries in the world, with one study revealing Australian star-ranked officers are responsible for 11 times fewer personnel than their US counterparts.
there is currently a multitude of US A/C, equipment and personnel in this country participating in our largest military exercise,
One of those execises was on 2 days ago Tuesday, a joint US Special Forces & Australian Special Forces using a Manly Ferry in the Middle of the Sydney Heads – 2 Chinooks, BlackHawk Helicopters, Zodiac Assault Boats etc simulating a Terrorist Attack
I assume no seawothy Australian Naval Vessels capable of crossing the Heads in Sydney Harbour were avaiable?
“I encourage each of you to continue to embrace our shared values and create an environment where everyone truly belongs.”
The rest of your comment in 15.1 is nothing more than a straw man.
Secondly, i am not aware of the goals of that exercise but if as you say they were simulating a terrorist attack then the terrorists would take command of a ferry and not a naval ship, in addition you would not use a naval ship any bigger than a zodiac to try and wrestle back control of the ferry so i fail to see your point and your assumptions are grossly erroneous.
bluntly I was being cynical – Australia could not deploy a Limp Wet Lettuce Leaf to defend itself, and as one who won the first ballot for Vietnam, I despair at state of Australia’s Current Defence Forces
Yes we need the US, but the Circumnavigaton of Australia by our current Landlords China, to check we were behaving ourselves, was a picture of the Future for Australia
Ok sorry i misunderstood your comment i take what i said back.
Even when the Chinese did sail around Australia the government lied to you all, remember the BS that was said about the Virgin airlines pilot reporting the Chinese launched a missile (test firing) and if it wasnt for this brave pilot no one would have known and therefore it was a dangerous and reckless act? All lies.
So our Government does spin BS to admonish China, this does not align with many comments here claiming we are friends with China does it.
“our Government does spin BS to admonish China”
Not sure I understand. Albo does spin BS, but which one are you referring to?
Am not aware of any “admonition” of China, was their ambassador called in? A phone call? Something?
Do you think that the Virgin pilot story is the BS or is it the other way round (i.e. was Albo pre-warned so there was no problem, except the airspace was not closed…).
Anyone with a radio fitted with a guard receiver or a radio tuned to 121.5 or 243.0 MHz would have been aware of the Chinese test firing, Albanese would have been aware of it through means other than from the Virgin pilot.
I don’t follow Crackar. Why would the government lie and pretend we are guarded by Virgin pilots unless they want to send a message to the world that the ADF are underfunded, unprepared, and pretty incompetent?
Or maybe the ALP are just working tools of China and the real audience is for the Chinese domestic one? Albanese seems to be Xi’s best friend. Is he earning points helping chinese war-hawks look successful in China?
PS: As for the US not being our ally regarding trade, are we being an ally of the US expecting their men to die in wars defending us while free-riding on their defence spending?
“PS: As for the US not being our ally regarding trade, are we being an ally of the US expecting their men to die in wars defending us while free-riding on their defence spending?”
tricky…
How many times has Australia declared war on someone and then the Yanks sent troops to help?
How many times has America declared war on someone and Aussie sends troops to help?
Lets admit it, we have never gone to war by ourselves, although the Japanese nearly invaded us. America is always at war somewhere in the world and we trot out our toy soldiers to help nearly every time.
We are a vassal state, doing as we are told, like most of the West.
“All we can do is offer some sort of deterrence so the enemy will think “we could capture that country but at what cost?””
Lol! The Army won’t be that! We should have every Australian trained to shoot at high school, learn how to be part of a militia, and have an assault rifle behind every front door. THAT is a deterrent.
Read the above story, poor old patrick destroyed the narrative albows was carefully crafting.The Chinese were transmitting their intentions on the international emergency channels so everyone with an Air Ground Air radio would itknew what they were doing. In answer to your first question who knows maybe labor are more incompetent than we thought it was or it was an attempted election stunt similar to Tampa?
To your last statement, I could not agree more however, defence pacts are far more complex than simply money and soldiers. Our stable Western style government provides the US a strategic advantage in a particular geopolitical location. There are several US bases in this country that form an integral part of the US defence network. It is the US interest to maintain (help defend) this country. Not only that if the US get into a hot war with China we would suddenly become the worldd largest aircraft carrier.
The point I was making was we have an alliance with the US and the dsr states that will increase hence AUKUS and therefore they are an ally, yes? So if they are an ally then why is trump looking at ending aukus why talk about 200% traiffs and tariffs on other exports? This is not the actions of an ally, How could anyone trust trump when he makes statements like this?
Perhaps Albows thinking here is regardless of what military alliances we have we still need to trade with countries in our region, we all need to play nice, it’s ok to be close friends with the US but keep your distance from trump because who knows what will come out of his mouth next. If he gobs off and annoys china we are the ones left having to deal with the fallout, who knows what is going on in labor foreign policy land
@KP, #15.2.1.1.2: >We should have every Australian trained to shoot at high school, learn how to be part of a militia, and have an assault rifle behind every front door.
RAN Frigates and Destroyers were available when the warships from China sailed around Australia detected by Pine Gap joint base, Jindalee over the horizon RAAF radar network and other surveillance systems.
What were not available were the two RAN refuelling tanker ships, the Chinese had one of their refuelling ships with them.
Hmm. I think you will find that the long-range radar systems have a defined operating quadrant, and that surely wouldn’t include south of Australia, nor even SW or SE. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I would hope Australian Defence Forces rather than baking cakes, are monitoring Pro Russian & Pro Ukrainan Sites during the Russia/Ukraine War, to gain an understanding of how Warfare is changing under Drones & Glide Bombs etc
Watch some of the Videos on these 2 sites re Drones in Action
I barely have time to read the head lines here let alone respond to inane comments.
Alenia C-27J Spartan – Is used by both US and AU military
Dassault Falcon – You got the name wrong as expected (its all in google) and we are the only ones using this at the present time
Augusta Westland AW 139 – Not sure this qualifies but sure you can include it
Daimond DA40NG – Really? you are getting desperate with this one LOL
Eurocopter Tiger – Nope not anymore
NH Industries NH 90 – Got the name wrong again and nope not anymore
Black Hornet Nano – Now you are just taking the P*$$
My turn
Black Hawk
JSF
P8 Poseidon
C17
Sea Hawk
C130
Do you notice how most of our frontline A/C are the same as the USA? The AEWACS and KC-30 are similar but can co-operate with the US versions, I accept your insipid response is my fault because I need to spoon feed people like you all the way to the end otherwise you spend hours picking holes in what was written and parsing words in an effort to respond in some pedantic way to appear knowledgeable and important.
US, UK, Australian and other allied nation forces military assets are capable of operating with one another and that is the strength of combined forces.
The ADF cannot defend Australia without allies supporting and therefore must be equipped and trained to the highest standard possible with our population and other resources – and do what President Trump is doing, lift restrictions and dig dig dig, drill drill drill and tax what are at present unrealised wealth natural assets.
By Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
The trademark style of the current US president, Donald Trump, is verbal spectacle. His statements – brash, contradictory, sometimes theatrical – should be monitored, but not overestimated. They are not inherently favorable or hostile to Russia.
In that light, it’s time to assess the interim results of our ‘special diplomatic operation’. There have now been six presidential phone calls, several rounds of talks between foreign ministers and national security aides, and sustained contact at other levels.
The most obvious positive outcome is the restoration of dialogue between Russia and the United States – a process that had been severed under the Biden administration.
Crucially, this revived dialogue extends beyond UkIt was never realistic to expect Trump to offer Russia a deal on Ukraine that met our security requirements. Nor for that matter would Russia accept one that compromised its long-term security interests. Likewise, any notion that Trump would ‘deliver’ Ukraine to the Kremlin, join Moscow in undermining the EU, or push for a new Yalta agreement with Russia and China was always fantasy.
So the page has turned. What comes next?
Trump will almost certainly sign the new US sanctions bill into law – but he’ll try to preserve discretion in how those measures are applied. The sanctions will add friction to global trade, but they will not derail Russian policy.
On the military front, Trump will deliver the remaining aid packages approved under Biden, and perhaps supplement them with modest contributions of his own. But going forward, it will be Western Europe – especially Germany – that supplies Ukraine, often by buying US-made systems and re-exporting them.
More than a generation ago reasonable engineers accepted that while a good plant necessitates overall integrated control, for the best (safest, most efficient, etc,..) results it is better to allow local control over critical processes.
Distributed Intelligence is the name of that simple but very successful idea.
Somehow global and national AGW leaders totally reject such thought.
From that I conclude they do not care about good plant, nor about best results.
Hey Vlad,
I don’t think AGW ever had anything to do with climate.
Just as Pandemic had little to do with ‘Public Health’.
The political engineering has been dead on for best results for purpose.
>…would an ally intentionally try and destroy a $2 billion export industry, would an ally try to hobble an aluminium industry. Trumps tariffs are not the actions you would expect from an ally, he behaves the same way against us and the EU etc as he does against China.
I agree with a lot of what you write but there’s also quite a lot which spoils it.
Stick to your area of expertise.
Our aluminium industry is hobbled by our expensive energy which is not caused by tariffs but by our stupid wasteful adoption of imported Chinese unreliable intermittent feeble generating contraptions.
That’s why our aluminium industry can no longer survive without heavy subsidies.
The fact that it’s heavily subsidized is a major reason why the tariffs are imposed.
To level up the playing field.
If we still had cheap electricity and had never had so-called “renewables”, we would not need to subsidize aluminium production, it would be a competitive industry again, and there’d be no tariff.
You want us to treat China the same as the US but you’re complaining that the US is treating us the same as China.
And right now two aluminium smelters have advised that closure of business activities is not far away because operating costs cannot be absorbed and return on shareholders funds achieved from after tax profit.
So Albanese Labor is planning to pay subsidies to keep the jobs of employees at unprofitable factories.
“So Albanese Labor is planning to pay subsidies to keep the jobs of employees at unprofitable factories.”
As per Ford and Holden of course, usual method of Aussie Govts… Generally its far cheaper to pay the redundant workers the dole, but that doesn’t garner any bribes for politicians.
Although you have adopted an extreme position, crakar, much of what you say is true. Yes – the US continues to have a significant presence in our waters – and some other allies also. The ability of a non tested nation like China in wartime conditions may also give us some comfort.
Even so – the military build up of China in the last decade is phenomenal. It is naive in the extreme to believe that the CPC does not intend to use this armada to establish control of the Indo Pacific. We can only conjecture how successful they will be. BTW the very fact that China relies so much on mining and agricultural products of this country makes our security even more tenuous.
Personally, for what it is worth, I dont believe that China would invade Oz. But, hell, they dont need to. All the have to do, barring US and allied intervention, is blockade our supplies from OS – especially petrol and diesel.
The urgency of this choice was made clear by a meeting last week between China’s foreign policy chief, Wang Yi, and his EU counterpart, Kaja Kallas.
Yi told Kallas that China “did not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it feared the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing.”
Wang is also said to have given Kallas “several ‘history lessons and lectures.’” Their meeting precedes a summit with the EU in China later this month.
China seeks victory for the aggressor in the bloodiest, most destabilizing war on the European continent since World War II.
This conclusion is made only more clear by recent revelations that China has become a major supplier of weapons for Russia’s war against Ukraine. That the Chinese Communist Party takes this position provides an understanding of its absurd claim that it wants “win-win cooperation” with the world.
It does not, and it is also arrogant about what it is truly striking, which is domination achieved by whatever evil and diplomatic duplicity is required.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson had the temerity on Monday to lecture the EU that “it is also important to properly handle disagreements and differences by respecting each other and treating the issues constructively.”
China supports the mayhem that Russia has wrought on Europe not because it has an interest in Russia’s imperial ambitions per se, but because the mayhem serves China’s narrow interest in buying space and time to dominate the Pacific.
Space and time also to seize Taiwan and dislodge the U.S. as the world’s leading power.
Its misinformation, the new brooms in Beijing are trying to save face, that is why they will shortly do an about face and support Ukraine against Russia.
Taiwan is off the agenda at the moment as they are more focussed on the collapse of the CCP.
‘China supports the mayhem that Russia has wrought on Europe …’
That is incorrect, Xi tried to discourage Putin, but the dictator had imperial ambitions and couldn’t be dissuaded.
What you say is rational and correct, particularly now that regime change is taking place in Beijing. We don’t need nuclear submarines to protect the quarry, drone warfare is the future.
Beijing is returning to collective leadership, a lot more democratic than authoritarian rule. They’ll have to work fast, every economic stimulus trigger has failed to stop the slide into a great depression.
So things are looking good for Albo, he might even talk to them about the benefits of the Westminster system.
Anyone found any? Just look at the moaning about the Govt, no matter what side it is, and how rich politicians become over the top of their salaries. Examine the collapse of the middle class while they pay for the rich and simultaneously support the growing number of beneficiaries leading to endless debt via Govt borrowing.
Anyone have anything good to say about lawyer and the justice system? The one where you get ‘law’ not ‘justice’.. The Karens who over-whelm common sense and leave us floundering in a collapsing electricity market? The politicians who rape us to pay for their global warming scam??
I’m looking hard, but don’t see any advantage in the Westminster system over a dictatorship! Its China that has grown under Communism, us, we’re going backwards!
Your assertion that most of our aircraft are of USA origin, why is this a problem, also why wouldn’t we use similar equipment to our major ally, especially if it works and is reliable, the RAAF still has a foul taste left in their mouth from our last attempt at using European equipment, does Dassault Mirage ring any bells.
What we should be doing here is establishing our own rocket manufacturing, even if it’s only to launch satellites.
Amazon Prime day 1 sales down over 40%.
Bezos selling off $660M in stocks.
Facebook major decline in popularity, predicted to drop over 40% in the next few years.
People dumping Chatbots.
Maybe people are tapped out, are seeing through all the shallowness and tired of it all.
2026 – the big slide down.
“Will effect” … so it’s another prediction then? Hard to flag it for checking because they don’t put any specific timeframe on it, so something might happen sooner of later … yeah whatever.
But then they claim this:
Weather records since the 1960s show northern Australia getting steadily wetter, and less rain in Australia’s southeast and southwest.
Well that’s interesting, cos when there were floods in the Southeast in 2021, 2022 and 2023 they told me, “Ahh ha! Now do you believe in climate change?” and strangely they changed this to telling me it’s getting dry and apparently those floods never happened?!? You do the math.
Regarding trade and import duties/tariffs research country by country and discover that most have import restrictions on at least some products.
Trump Second Term is following up on Term One based on rebuilding the US economy manufacturing that has declined since the UN Lima Declaration was signed in 1975, for Australia by Whitlam Labor Government. And related international trade rules and regulations favouring developing nations over developed nations.
Too often business closures and job losses in the US and Australia, and other developed countries, are the result of manufacturing transferred to a developing country where operating costs are lower and in addition, often, the government subsidises businesses to ensure they can export successfully creating economic prosperity in the developing economy.
US and Australia have added many red and green tape regulations and compliance costs, also black tape and environmental handbrakes – renewables environmental protection not enforced. And these can be traced back to UN treaties and agreements.
During the 1980s and Hawke Labor Government terms I was involved in the discussions organised by the government with private sector businesses about the UN plan for removal of all import duties, trade barriers. Very clearly the objectives included helping developing countries to grow economies and not so clearly stated at the expense of developed countries including Australia.
Of course the sales pitch on the political side was all about level playing fields and helping the poorer people to achieve a better lifestyle but next was climate change and Kyoto Conference 1997 emissions reduction and 2000s Labor transition away from coal and gas generators.
Like removing the foundation stumps from under a house one by one and eventually we all know how that ends.
“Dr. McCullough on a Recent Revealing Study: Spike Protein Lingers — And Grows”
“In a stunning political and medical upheaval, 12 U.S. states have ignited a firestorm by pushing legislation to ban COVID-19 vaccines — declaring them unsafe, ineffective, and a symbol of misplaced trust. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently triggered a major policy shift by removing the vaccines from CDC recommendations for children and pregnant women, citing new findings.
For years, critical questions have been silenced. The promise that COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective” is now being called into serious doubt — and the consequences may be far worse than anyone imagined.”
“GOOD. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES: These States Now Allow OTC Ivermectin, and More May Follow — Four have passed new laws, and at least nine have legislation in the works.”
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I heard about this quite a few years ago but now it’s considered a serious problem.
It’s called “motor doping” and it refers to professional and amateur competitive cyclists putting secret motors in bicycle frames to give themselves a boost when needed.
And apparently a lot of this happened when people were focused on cyclists doping with pharmaceuticals thus ignoring this problem.
Video: https://youtu.be/7s-oGZAl0qE
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_doping?wprov=sfla1
https://road.cc/content/tech-news/177246-mechanical-doping-all-you-need-know-about-concealed-motors
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Too bad one didn’t catch fire.
About 20 years ago there was a baseball player who was using doped bats. The bats were drilled out and a substance (cork?) filled in that helped give the bat a bit more kinetic energy than would normally be possible.
One time the bat shattered when it struck the ball revealing the cheating scheme.
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Doped bats were a serious problem in Wuhan too.
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In 1994 on a private visit to China, I went from Kunming, central capital of Yunnan Province, south to the tin mining city of Gejiu near China’s southern border. We paused for lunch of birds’ nest soup, over the road from a large bat cave with long ladders to harvest the soup ingredients. It is rather possible that this cave system provided specimens for research into diseases hence implicated in the Wuhan lab leak in 2019.
Strange. Around March 2019 I was in hospital in Melbourne with an undiagnosed recurring illness that persistently gave blood tests with high inflammation markers ESR and CRP and fevers up to 41 deg C with delusional memory symptoms.
While hospitalised, I suffered pneumonia, pericarditis, pleural effusion, myocarditis – effects now commonly mentioned with Covid vaccine damage. Was Australia quietly testing mRNA vaccines before the Wuhan leak?
I get only evasive, ignorant or accusing responses when I try to engage Australian physicians in Covid talks. It is time the profession grew up and faced facts instead of the “What, me worry?” approach of Alfred E Neuman.
Geoff S
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This time of year I avoid channels broadcasting recycling
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Not new story, but the BBC has done another updated article on the mess extracting so called rare earths makes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-66cdf862-5e96-4e6e-90b8-a407b597c8d9
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2000 tonnes of toxic materials produced for every tonne of rare earths mined. That’s pretty nasty.
30
COVID Pandemic Interventions, Not the Virus, Drove Spikes in Excess Mortality
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-pandemic-interventions-not-virus-drove-spikes-excess-mortality/
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Interesting read Rob.
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Has anyone purchased Ivermectin through the Ziverdo kit?
I has an email re this but AVG said Malware on the link so I blocked and did search on Ziverdo kit
came up with a number of sites
https://www.genericmedsaustralia.com/product/ziverdo-kit-australia/
https://directmedsaustralia.com/product/ziverdo-kit/
the one that I was interested in was the Ivermectin 24 Mg
https://www.genericmedsaustralia.com/product/covilife-24-mg-australia/
Anyone purchased through this site?
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Out of interest, the price comparison point, as I posted yesterday, is A$90 for 20 24mg pills from an Australian compounding pharmacy with a doctor’s prescription.
Yes, hugely expensive compared with the cents per pill you can buy them over the counter for in some other countries but I needed them in a hurry as I will be travelling soon and one of the countries I am visiting is Third World with little to no medical facilities.
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David,
I was think of getting the ziverdo kits as a future backup as well as the 24 Mg Ivermectin using
https://www.onedaymd.com/2021/04/ivermectin-flccc-protocol-for-covid-19.html
as guide to dosage
Triple therapy of Ivermectin, zinc and an antibiotic
Professor Borody says his research has led him to a triple therapy of Ivermectin, zinc and an antibiotic – which are all TGA and FDA approved. The therapy comprises:
. Ivermectin – TGA and FDA approved as an anti-parasitic therapy with an established safety profile since the 1970s. Known as the “Wonder Drug” from Japan.
. Zinc
. Doxycycline – TGA and FDA approved tetracycline antibiotic that fights bacterial infections, eg. acne or urinary tract infections, viral and malarial infections.
I am intending to ask my Heamatologist re CLL to do a trial of me on Ivermectin re https://imahealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Cancer-Care-FLCCC-Dr-Paul-Marik-v2.pdf
and discussing with her, some of the approaches laid out in the PDF
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If you’re doing a deep dive into re- purposed drugs for cancer treatments note that mebendazole is OTC in Australia. You will find it in the “ de-worming” section at your chemist. Relatively cheap. Most OS info ( USA) tends to focus on Fenbendazole, but MBZ is the human derivative. Didn’t know that FLCC had published Marik’s guidelines. Good info to know.
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Oz – it was criminal that our government prevented Borody from marketing his blister pack of IVM, Zinc & Doxycycline. Obviously, he also could not get sanction in the US – although the Ziverdo kit suggests that he was able to manufacture the pack.
We have all discussed the government aversion to Ivermectin -one of the great discoveries of our age, but one which Big Pharma apparently did not have access to. On the other hand, Doxycycline was the “go to” antibiotic finally accepted during the later stages of the “pandemic”. It is a very good antibiotic, in my humble opinion. It was accepted by the medical establishment because it dealt effectively with any post viral pneumonia that developed.
Quite frankly, I think if you can get a Ziverdo kit – that is excellent. I am always mindful of the concern of Geert Van Den Bossche that the global mRNA vaccinations would cause immune reactivity and more severe strains of C19 would develop.
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Assuming they’re not western countries (joke) you want to be real careful now.
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I bought from the Ziverdo Kit Store several years ago, with no problem. However, when I needed some for my wife it seemed Ziverdo no longer exists, or at least isn’t trading. I tried to contact them several times via email and their online form but rec’d no reply. I eventually chose an alternative supplier via IndiaMart: Welkin Wellness Private Limited. I bought qty 700 6mg tablets for USD93 including shipping. They arrived safely, though the parcel was clearly marked ‘RAM Medical Stores’.
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Yes, I bought 6 kits and 100Ivm x12mg tablets for about $100 back then, from an Indiamart seller, Maxwell Enterprises. No problems with it arriving and one day I might need them all.
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Look at “parasite cleansers,” you will find a large range, but not specifically under Ivermectin or Fenbenzadole, as these are shadow banned in Australia.
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It was Colonel Plum in the Public Hospital with a ventilator that was responsible
Florida Nurse records treatment disaster
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On Monday I mentioned the Sevilla Agreement which only one UN member, the United States, was sensible enough to refuse to sign.
My original post is here:
https://www.joannenova.com.au/2025/07/monday-113/#comment-2858266
Whilst this agreement went mostly unnoticed, it has the mechanisms to impose further extraterritorial governance over signatories, especially for hugely UN compliant, fanatically globalist regimes such as Australia has.
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China wants to decide the successor to the Dalai Lama but the Dalai Lama insists that will be his decision, as it should be.
I wonder whose side Australia will be on this matter, as Australia is increasingly aligning itself with China and becoming more anti-Western, anti-American, anti-democratic and pro-communist under the present Labor regime and with Wong as Foreign Minister.
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What do you expect David when our closest ally imposes crippling sanctions…i mean tariffs against our pharmaceutical industry in order to destroy the PBS simply because their leader is nothing more than Big Pharma’s B*TCH.
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I didn’t know that we had a pharmaceutical industry!
Most of our pharmaceuticals come from India.
Trump has cut the cost of drugs in the USA to the lowest price paid in a western country.
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FFS Its a 2 Billion dollar industry Peter, and once again this is not the actions you would expect from an ALLY is it.
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Do you mean the Vaccine factories?
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It seems much more complex..
The US is CSL’s largest market, accounting for approximately half of its total revenues, which were $14.8 billion in 2024. A significant portion of CSL’s US revenue comes from pharmaceutical products exported from its Swiss facilities. CSL Behring, a major subsidiary, also generates substantial sales in the US for products like immunoglobulins, albumin, and hemophilia treatments.
Broadmeadows Manufacturing Facility:
This is one of Australia’s largest biotechnology facilities, specializing in manufacturing recombinant protein therapies and plasma-derived medicines.
Melbourne Headquarters:
CSL Behring’s global headquarters is located in Melbourne, Australia, along with the headquarters of its parent company, CSL Limited.
Other Locations:
CSL Behring has manufacturing and R&D operations in other locations including Bern, Switzerland; Marburg, Germany; and Kankakee, USA.
My guess is that it will force a shift in manufacturing to the US for those products the US requires, so not a drop in income so much as a need to shift to the US for the US market. Which is the intention of the tariffs. The money will still flow back to the parent in Australia.
We get the same in Steel where most of Bluescope’s income is in the US domestic manufacture and sales with North Star Steel.
But while the CSL exports are large, our imports of most of our pharmaceuticals are likely from China. And we are unwilling to tariff them. Pharmaceuticals and rare earths provide a stranglehold on the world, as we found out during the Chinese Army created Wuhan Flu pandemic.
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Thanks for that, TdeF. I was aware of the massive business in pharmaceuticals that has developed in Oz via CSL. I dont think many people realise how it has expanded. But it is puzzling for most who do. For example, I cant understand why we suddenly had a dearth of IV fluids a while back. I would have thought that CSL could have supplied them.
I may be unnecessarily suspicious – but I regard the CSL operations with some caution.
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I have CSL shares, an Australian company, but my dividend gets paid in US dollars, FWIW.
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Actually the drugs are made in China then sent to India for packaging then shipped worldwide.
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Good grief – again – I did not know that. Just another future concern re the stranglehold of China on so many aspects of out lives.
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“In 2023, Australia’s pharmaceutical exports reached an impressive USD 2.66 billion, with blood products and vaccines playing a big role. About 40% of these exports headed to the United States, totaling USD 2.2 billion in 2024 alone! “( ex Grok ) I was surprised too, TBH.
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I heard the bulk of these products are blood fractions produced and refined from whole blood imported from America. The carousel continues to go round and round!
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Is Big Pharma exclusively American?
I seem to recall certain, ok virtually all, Ozzian government officialdom doing some serious pimping for ‘Big Pharma’.
Does Oz Gov still recommend Big Pharma’s safe and effective wonder product?
Even though almost nobody currently considers it safe or effective.
Making somebody somebody’s B*TCH.
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The PBS is not in danger, there is bipartisan agreement that they’ll give Donnie the finger if he tries that on.
‘The PBS is a list of federally subsidised medicines and compels foreign drugmakers to negotiate prices with the government – a deeply unpopular requirement among American companies.’ (Sky)
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Oh, and China didn’t impose crippling tariffs against our products when Scott Morrison questioned the Covid origins?
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Note that China has already messed with Tibetan Buddhism by claiming that the Panchen Lama is the correct one.
Also, I recommend the book:
Trevor Loudon, Comrade Prime Minister: Anthony Albanese’s 40-Year Alliance with Australian Communism
if you want to learn more about our Prime Minister’s communist affiliations.
Also, what do you think was going on here?
I think Australia is what is known as a “captured operation”, the AI definition of which is:
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Thanks again, David. I wasn’t aware of that book. Even so, a cursory examination of Albanese’s political background should give voters a cause for concern. Clearly, it did not.
We are indebted to commentators like Peta Credlin who are finally identifying Albanese’s China policy for what it is ……appeasement in the face of a clear Chinese military intent to dominate the Indo Pacific – possibly by force. The Chinese threat is finally beginning to dominate the option pages in some of our daily newspapers.
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“I wonder whose side Australia will be on”
It’ll depend on the size of the Indu$ements waved in fron$ of them, surely.
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China doesn’t need tariffs to disrupt our economy, they simply banned imports from Australia completely – lobsters, beef, wine, coal, timber, etc.
just because they were a little bit miffed. Not the actions of a ‘friend’. Life’s a B*TCH, eh?
190
Australia is not becoming anti-anything, but we are concerned that America has lost the plot. You should get out more.
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The Swiss-based Gaden Phodrang Trust will choose the next Dalia Lama, not Beijing.
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FWIW
“China is having a scandal at the moment. 251 children at a private kindergarten have been given lead poisoning via food coloring agents in their meal. One parent took their kid to the hospital due to things like white hair, no appetite, etc. and discovered it; then the others were tested and now some folks are up for prison…
Now think about that in the context of US Imports from China. They are willing to cut any corner, even poison Chinese children, for a $ or two. What do you think they would care about US Children or products sold to us?
This is why, in my opinion, EVERY product of China Origin has to be viewed as suspect until proven PROVEN otherwise. This is why I will buy NO food “packaged or produced in China”. Why anything worn or ingested is a worry, and why I don’t even want to use their cookware. (Yes, I bought a cheap Chinese cast iron skillet for the pan evaluation, and did make it workable via sanding off their seasoning; but what I use is Victoria and Lodge not made in China.”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/07/04/w-o-o-d-4-july-2025-big-b-b-passes-im-baaack-russia-winning-ukraine-toast/#comment-177838
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Reminds one of the melamine contamination in baby formula and the ensuing baby formula buying frenzy.
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That’s it! Our $2bn pharmaceutical industry is largely comprised of baby formula.
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Yes, absolutely Ian.
Unfortunately in Australia we have so many shills for the Chicomms, including our Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Australian Ambassador to the United States. As well as numerous useless idiots of the Left.
They are all Sinocentrists and all anti-American and have TDS. No wonder TRUMP doesn’t want to meet Albanese and we may not get the best trade deal.
And they all allow China to “pollute” (according to their beliefs which regard CO2 as pollution) the world by producing as much CO2 as the rest of the world and twice as much as the next biggest emitter the United States.
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Careful with what you buy from New Zealand as well. Back in the day frozen vegetables with the caption “Product of New Zealand” actually contained Chinese frozen vegetables. The product of NZ was achieved by the high cost of labour and packaging being the greatest “portion”. Now I think the caption is “Made in New Zealand from local and imported ingredients” generally without the country of origin listed for the imported part. Same here in Oz of course. Remember a large supermarket chain claiming bread was baked in store, great little deceptive statement. People assumed that the bread was actually produced in totality in store, turns out the dough was mixed and first proofed in Ireland, frozen and shipped to Australian stores that simply popped it in the oven for its final cook.
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I remember the Sino/NZ connection in frozen veg was outed when a test was done on the veg and it returned a positive for some nasty banned chemical or three that weren’t used in OZ or NZ, turned out it was China.
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Just make a list of things that are NOT put on a food label and you will be surprised! With Govt passing legislation to make us ‘safe’ they have neatly castrated any options over the whole industry, and the usual corruption means that genetically modified plants & animals are not needed to be labelled. The rules for country of origin are fuzzy, and cosmetics do not need ingredients or detailed labels while they get absorbed through the skin every day.
There is no labelling for what chemicals were used to douse the plants as they grew, and this part of ‘safety’ relies on producers taking the ‘do not eat or harvest for x days’ seriously. Rarely would a supermarket product be tested for agricultural chemical residue, and the results even more rarely published.
We are beholden to private individuals and companies to test at their own expense and then put up the results for lamestream journos to pick up and publish. With testing equipment getting massively expensive it not something easily done.
I grow as much of my own food as I can, and it certainly taught me how faked supermarket veges are. You don’t get a crop like that without massive chemical input, from preparing the ground to keeping pests off the plants, to maximising the growth rates. More cancers anyone?
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Also beware frozen veggies from NZ. Many are grown and frozen in bulk in China and repackaged in NZ for export here. “Product of NZ” does not mean “Grown and packaged in NZ.”
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A wind turbine in every garden? Ed Miliband has lost the plot
His latest Net Zero wheeze is his most ludicrous yet.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/09/a-wind-turbine-in-every-garden-ed-miliband-has-lost-the-plot/
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And maybe reap a grand 1 or 2 p for your product.
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I don’t think Milli-brain understands the incredibly low power density of windmills. They need to be HUGE to generate even a tiny amount of expensive, intermittent, useless power.
Plus they are noisy.
There is no way you could generate enough power for a domestic residence in suburbia from any practical size windmill.
And if every home had its own windmill, at typical suburban housing densities, one would think that the wake from everyone’s backyard windmill would interfere with the other windmills.
Not even our Chrissy “Blackout” Bowen has thus far been stupid enough to suggest such insanity.
Is it possible that Milli-brain is even more stupid than Bowen?
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Those windmills used on yachts, have a diameter of about a meter, are barely good for 25w in a stiff breeze and are noisy, they make a ‘fizzing noise’, I heard some out at Lightning Ridge years ago , they were about 6 ft diameter and they could be heard clearly from 200-300 meters away.
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As per the article Reader linked:
When clueless Leftists and warmists talk about “unlocking” something, that immediately raises alarm bells with me because they see it is something that is not theirs that they can steal from you, e.g. when in Australia they want to “unlock” unrealised capital gains on your superannuation (retirement) savings.
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The Labor Left have an organisation called LEAN. Labor Enviromental Action Network. They control the narrative for the Labor Party with Solar and wind support. Also they demonise CO2. All to destroy our democracy when everything goes down. Their Patron is the CCP.
170
FWIW
Chiefio has just crosed off a “bucket list item” – to drive the longest diagonal in continental USA – Key West, Florida to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
Here he looks at doing that in an EV VW van –
“The Epic Drive – & E.V. Snark”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/07/09/the-epic-drive-e-v-snark/
If anyone wants to follow the trip it starts in
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/06/08/w-o-o-d-8-june-2025-eu-uk-suicide-usa-confusion-russian-calm-im-on-the-road/
and then several more recent postings
70
Thank goodness TRUMP has liberated America’s fuel supplies so that such trips are feasible and guilt-free.
100
This is the EV trip he uses for comparison –
“Range Anxiety Hell: Times Travel Writer Trades EV for a Diesel”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/09/range-anxiety-hell-times-travel-writer-trades-ev-for-a-diesel/
60
The Original Article worth a read
https://www.thetimes.com/travel/inspiration/comment-inspiration/electric-vw-id-buzz-campervan-circumnavigate-the-uk-chris-haslam-vjdr5mtn9
20
The charger was a massive 300kW monster that made me wonder if I actually had time for a cup of coffee and a bun from the petrol station’s food counter.
I did, as it happens. I had time, in theory, for a two-bottle lunch, a chapter of Ulysses and a long kip, because a 300kW charger does not necessarily charge at 300kW.
It can charge at up to 300kW, in the same way that broadband providers promise your connection will operate at up to the speed of light. Possible, in theory, but extremely unlikely.
First off, few EVs can draw 300kW. The Audi e-tron, the Porsche Taycan and the Volvo EX90 are among the exceptions, but the VW ID Buzz pulls only 185kW.
Second, if the battery is too cold, or too warm, you won’t even get 50kW. Ditto if the battery is almost empty.
Third, your charge could be slower than advertised because, er, there are other drivers charging, or it’s a Monday and there are five crows perched in the lightning tree, or the cows are lying down.
I didn’t know this yet. I was simply excited to be plugging in, swiping my card and then watching in wonder as the output display rocketed from 5kW to 41kW. And stayed there. According to the van, it was going to take two hours and 49 minutes to reach 80 per cent.
Even Dave T Dog was dismayed, but imagine how quickly the sweet summer holiday dreams of a family would sour as they roasted in a van in the hot corner of the M5’s Gordano services.
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According to Zapmap, there were 40,479 charging locations in the UK at the end of June. That’s five times more than the number of petrol stations, which have fallen from 40,000 in 1967 to about 8,000 today.
Of the 82,369 chargers at those locations, 16,698 (20 per cent) are in the rapid or ultra-rapid band, ie those with capacity of 50kW or higher.
But speed is relative. It takes about five minutes to fill and pay for a tank of petrol, meaning each pump has a throughput of 12 vehicles an hour.
If my van really could get from 5 to 80 per cent in 30 minutes, the charger throughput would be two EVs per hour, but since the average so far was closer to three hours per charge the true throughput would be closer to eight vehicles per 24-hour period.
The last claim is definitely true and by the time I reached Weymouth, two days later than scheduled, I knew my plan had failed.
I’d covered less than 15 per cent of the 4,800 miles and if I couldn’t handle the range anxiety of the UK’s soft south, how was I going to cope with the wilds of Wales and Scotland?
So I admitted defeat, called VW and asked if it had anything that ran on diesel.
It brought me a California camper van. It took five minutes to fill, had a range of 550 miles, an electric pop-up roof and a fridge that looked great when I loaded it with beer.
150
How Volkswagen’s Electric Bus Went From American Flagship to Flop
The German company’s hyped reboot of its iconic vintage van has been stunted by a luxury price tag, Trump’s trade war and an embarrassing recall
The German auto giant was bringing back the bus as an electric vehicle, albeit one with a boxy design and two-tone paint job reminiscent of the original.
The reboot was more than two decades in the making
“Finally, finally,” said Schäfer, a top VW executive, as the bus they called the ID.Buzz rolled across the stage to wolf whistles from the crowd.
The reception since has been considerably less enthusiastic.
Volkswagen had hoped to ride a wave of nostalgia for a much-loved symbol of 1960s hippie counterculture as a way to carve out a larger chunk of the lucrative U.S. auto market—a feat that has defied the world’s second-largest carmaker for half a century.
Instead, the vehicle is shaping up to be yet another American misadventure for the company, reaching dealers years late, over budget and just in time for a trade war.
Built in Germany, the model was delivered to its first U.S. customer days after the election of Donald Trump, who would go on to introduce a 25% tariff on imported cars and roll back government support for EVs.
With a battery range of less than 250 miles per charge, the ID.Buzz doesn’t compare favorably with other new EVs. The German-led design also failed to account for some uniquely American tastes: It often needs to be fitted with extra cupholders at U.S. ports.
Capping the model’s troubles, all the vehicles shipped to the U.S. were recalled in April because the third-row seats were too broad, allowing three passengers to squeeze into a space with only two seat belts. Sales were suspended for two months while Volkswagen fit plastic parts to narrow the row, which meant the company only delivered 564 in the three months before the end of June.
The rich people’s car
The styling of the original bus that made it so endearing turned out to translate poorly in the EV age.
When Diess showed an ID.Buzz prototype in 2017, he promised EVs that would be “affordable for millions, not just to millionaires.” The company prepared its Hanover fa00 units a year, and executives hinted that they could in time manufacture it in the U.S. as well.
Only around 30,000 units were sold last year, hurt in Europe by key markets including Germany and Sweden rolling back EV subsidies.
10
FWIW
“U.S. “renewables” mad scramble to build is on”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/09/u-s-renewables-mad-scramble-to-build-is-on/
10
I posted TRUMP’s Executive Order yesterday in the misnamed “Tuesday” thread.
It appears to address the issue of loopholes although perhaps these can be challenged in court.
41
FWIW – latest in “The AI Stakes”
“Grok Goes Full Hitler”
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/07/09/grok-goes-full-hitler-n3804613
10
Unfortunately as with any other software it’s “Garbage In, Garbage Out”, a concept they used to teach, back in the day.
Grok’s programming (foundation model) has now been corrected.
60
Not so much GIGO as corruptable and can’t fix. Data in is obviously mass accumulation but unverified and so typically biased in some way. Data can be deliberately seeded to produce nonsense outputs and that is virtually impossible to correct.
“AI” just regurgitates but doesn’t understand. It doesn’t understand right from wrong. It doesn’t understand bias and prejudice and can’t assess the validity of its inputs.
Which is why I said it needs unrestricted access to classified material.
What does AI make of the current Epstein saga? Ask the CIA and Tel Aviv for real data.😎
50
Thought for the day.
Gravity is not a force. It is a property of spacetime according to Einstein.
For most practical purposes however, and in accordance with Newtonian mechanics, it is commonly considered a force.
50
There is no gravity, the Earth sucks.
We all know that. 😁
50
Sound of The Big Bang Suggests Our Galaxy Floats Inside a Void
Sound waves ‘fossilized’ in the arrangements of galaxies across the Universe support the theory that the Milky Way galaxy floats adrift in a giant void in space.
If this is the case, we could be teetering at the brink of solving one of the biggest problems in cosmology: the Hubble tension, a heretofore irresolvable discrepancy between measurements of the rate at which the Universe is expanding.
The Hubble tension exists because different ways of measuring how fast the Universe is expanding – a rate known as the Hubble constant – give us different results.
Measurements based on features of the early Universe, including the cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations, tell us that the Hubble constant is around 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
Measurements based on things closer, like Type Ia supernovae and Cepheid variable stars, give us a Hubble constant of around 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
“A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our galaxy is close to the center of a large, local void,” says cosmologist Indranil Banik of the University of Portsmouth in the UK.
“It would cause matter to be pulled by gravity toward the higher-density exterior of the void, leading to the void becoming emptier with time. As the void is emptying out, the velocity of objects away from us would be larger than if the void were not there. This therefore gives the appearance of a faster local expansion rate.”
A void in intergalactic space is pretty much what it sounds like. Matter isn’t completely evenly distributed in the Universe; it tends to clump together, creating regions of higher and lower density
10
I agree that its a property of spacetime, the Oumuamua fly by around the sun and increased acceleration on its exit, offers some proof to the theory.
21
I once messaged Sarah Hanson-Dumb in relation to some collection she was making seven years ago:
Sarah, why are you expecting mostly poor, working class, uneducated people to give you money when your base salary is almost $200,000 plus a huge benefits package including taxpayer funded holidays (disguised as “fact finding missions”). Are you aware how little most of your supporters earn compared to you? And most of them actually have to perform useful work to earn a living as opposed to you who merely has to attend a place of work with unlimited free travel to and from. Your disconnection with reality is simply staggering.
220
No doubt you received a polite well considered reply………… didn’t you ?
40
FWIW
““If every storm or cloud is the storm of the century, none are.” ”
“About the Texas floods.
One of the many lies promoted (suspect the social media version of JournOlist was running hot and heavy) was that no warnings were given because of DOGE cuts, short staffing, etc. All were lies as any cuts don’t take place until the FY, the NWS had extra staff on hand per SOP, and warnings were given in a timely manner. Not once, but no less than three times.
But, there does lie part of the rub. Texas was indeed right to criticize the NWS, as Todd Starnes pointed out on X. Back after Katrina, the NWS was (rightfully) criticized for not updating warnings and giving accurate warnings. The bureaucratic mind being what it is, the decision was made to treat every storm as the storm of the century and warn accordingly such that they could never be criticized again for not issuing strong enough warnings. Besides, that is easier, and easier to justify, that in having people show mature judgment and professionalism and update warnings if and as warranted. No thought, no muss, and it totally screws disaster preparedness planning and actions right in the keester.”
https://www.laughingwolf.net/2025/07/07/about-the-texas-floods/
And Sarah Hoyt link in there
Via
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/07/09/if-every-storm-or-cloud-is-the-storm-of-the-century-none-are/
101
A message for BOM there?
80
Not only a mesasage for BOM.
It’s a message for anyone lazily throwing out words such as waacist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, islamaphobe etc.
These words used to have a very real meaning, now… not so much.
100
From Fossbytes on Farcebook:
100
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
Sorry Dave, I’m afraid I cannot do that.
90
It’s obviously well versed in leftist practices.
30
I wonder whose side Australia will be on”
This is silly, I suspect David has a cage full of monkeys with type writers out the back producing nonsensical gibberish and once in a blue moon they type something legible to read.
ALL of our military A/C are sourced from or are derivatives of the USA, they have a permanent military presence in this country, there is currently a multitude of US A/C, equipment and personnel in this country participating in our largest military exercise, the collaboration between Australia and the USA extends far beyond what I have listed above but yet David as always is once again whipping up the anti China hysteria and also as usual his devoted followers blather about regurgitation what he says.
Every time I look at this site I see the same gibberish by the same people, if you had half a clue you would understand just how stupid you all sound, the bottom line is this:
a, We dont have the capacity to attack any other country, well except maybe NZ which may end in a protracted tie.
b, We dont have the capacity to defend an attack from any other country
c, All we can do is offer some sort of deterrence so the enemy will think “we could capture that country but at what cost?” Our goal is to make that cost as high as possible or at least appear as high as possible
That is our plan because we cannot and do not rely on the USA to come to our aid because if it all turns to custard they probably wont, why do you think Trump is demanding we spend 5% of our GDP on defence?
So as I was saying above would an ally intentionally try and destroy a $2 billion export industry, would an ally try to hobble an aluminium industry. Trumps tariffs are not the actions you would expect from an ally, he behaves the same way against us and the EU etc as he does against China.
This puts Australia in a predicament because we cant rely on the USA to defend us against an attack so we cant be belligerent against our neighbours like Trump is so we need to get along with everyone in this area, its this action that David and others perceive as a weakness, they see the government actions towards China as us aligning our selves with China. They think this because they dont understand the political situation, they dont understand the precarious military situation we find ourselves in.
Obviously everything I have written here will be ignored and the resident experts will line up to give me a red thumb in disapproval but if it makes you feel better then go ahead.
518
No missiles … but Defence can fire off a cookbook for ‘harmony’
They say an army marches on its stomach and so too does Defence’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Group, which has produced a “Taste of Harmony” cookbook with taxpayers’ funds.
The group, headed by Air Marshal Leon Phillips, has its work cut out establishing a $20bn-plus domestic missile manufacturing industry – a goal that remains a distant one.
But Phillips believes the “incredible power” of food will help his team get the job done, authorising an $1800 print run of the recipe book to celebrate Harmony Week earlier this year.
“In line with this year’s theme of ‘Everyone Belongs’, this book serves as a reminder that every member of GWEO group is valued as we work together towards our shared purpose,” he says in the book’s foreword.
“I encourage each of you to continue to embrace our shared values and create an environment where everyone truly belongs.”
The group’s staff contributed their favourite recipes, including a Chinese-inspired “Mystery meat stir fry”, and a “Loaded potato soup”.
Phillips, a keen amateur gourmet, shares his recipe for Spaghetti ai gamberi, urging his subordinates to “pair this meal with great company and a lovely dry riesling”.
But not everyone shares his passion for food-led team building, with orders coming down for the book to be buried amid high-level concerns over the GWEO group’s progress.
The Australian obtained a copy of the culinary compendium as Defence’s most senior officers braced for news of looming job cuts, with dozens of commanders and senior public service executives set to face the chop.
The ADF is one of the most top-heavy militaries in the world, with one study revealing Australian star-ranked officers are responsible for 11 times fewer personnel than their US counterparts.
131
there is currently a multitude of US A/C, equipment and personnel in this country participating in our largest military exercise,
One of those execises was on 2 days ago Tuesday, a joint US Special Forces & Australian Special Forces using a Manly Ferry in the Middle of the Sydney Heads – 2 Chinooks, BlackHawk Helicopters, Zodiac Assault Boats etc simulating a Terrorist Attack
I assume no seawothy Australian Naval Vessels capable of crossing the Heads in Sydney Harbour were avaiable?
100
Firstly, what is wrong with this statement
“I encourage each of you to continue to embrace our shared values and create an environment where everyone truly belongs.”
The rest of your comment in 15.1 is nothing more than a straw man.
Secondly, i am not aware of the goals of that exercise but if as you say they were simulating a terrorist attack then the terrorists would take command of a ferry and not a naval ship, in addition you would not use a naval ship any bigger than a zodiac to try and wrestle back control of the ferry so i fail to see your point and your assumptions are grossly erroneous.
19
Crakar,
bluntly I was being cynical – Australia could not deploy a Limp Wet Lettuce Leaf to defend itself, and as one who won the first ballot for Vietnam, I despair at state of Australia’s Current Defence Forces
Yes we need the US, but the Circumnavigaton of Australia by our current Landlords China, to check we were behaving ourselves, was a picture of the Future for Australia
200
Ok sorry i misunderstood your comment i take what i said back.
Even when the Chinese did sail around Australia the government lied to you all, remember the BS that was said about the Virgin airlines pilot reporting the Chinese launched a missile (test firing) and if it wasnt for this brave pilot no one would have known and therefore it was a dangerous and reckless act? All lies.
So our Government does spin BS to admonish China, this does not align with many comments here claiming we are friends with China does it.
36
“our Government does spin BS to admonish China”
Not sure I understand. Albo does spin BS, but which one are you referring to?
Am not aware of any “admonition” of China, was their ambassador called in? A phone call? Something?
Do you think that the Virgin pilot story is the BS or is it the other way round (i.e. was Albo pre-warned so there was no problem, except the airspace was not closed…).
70
Exlron,
Anyone with a radio fitted with a guard receiver or a radio tuned to 121.5 or 243.0 MHz would have been aware of the Chinese test firing, Albanese would have been aware of it through means other than from the Virgin pilot.
210
I don’t follow Crackar. Why would the government lie and pretend we are guarded by Virgin pilots unless they want to send a message to the world that the ADF are underfunded, unprepared, and pretty incompetent?
Or maybe the ALP are just working tools of China and the real audience is for the Chinese domestic one? Albanese seems to be Xi’s best friend. Is he earning points helping chinese war-hawks look successful in China?
PS: As for the US not being our ally regarding trade, are we being an ally of the US expecting their men to die in wars defending us while free-riding on their defence spending?
180
But that’s what Commo’s do.
10
“PS: As for the US not being our ally regarding trade, are we being an ally of the US expecting their men to die in wars defending us while free-riding on their defence spending?”
tricky…
How many times has Australia declared war on someone and then the Yanks sent troops to help?
How many times has America declared war on someone and Aussie sends troops to help?
Lets admit it, we have never gone to war by ourselves, although the Japanese nearly invaded us. America is always at war somewhere in the world and we trot out our toy soldiers to help nearly every time.
We are a vassal state, doing as we are told, like most of the West.
“All we can do is offer some sort of deterrence so the enemy will think “we could capture that country but at what cost?””
Lol! The Army won’t be that! We should have every Australian trained to shoot at high school, learn how to be part of a militia, and have an assault rifle behind every front door. THAT is a deterrent.
80
Firstly for those truly interested in this topic go here to read the DSR
https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2023-11/defence_strategic_review.pdf
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-air-force-pilots-also-heard-chinese-navy-live-fire-warning-radio-2025-03-25/
Read the above story, poor old patrick destroyed the narrative albows was carefully crafting.The Chinese were transmitting their intentions on the international emergency channels so everyone with an Air Ground Air radio would itknew what they were doing. In answer to your first question who knows maybe labor are more incompetent than we thought it was or it was an attempted election stunt similar to Tampa?
To your last statement, I could not agree more however, defence pacts are far more complex than simply money and soldiers. Our stable Western style government provides the US a strategic advantage in a particular geopolitical location. There are several US bases in this country that form an integral part of the US defence network. It is the US interest to maintain (help defend) this country. Not only that if the US get into a hot war with China we would suddenly become the worldd largest aircraft carrier.
The point I was making was we have an alliance with the US and the dsr states that will increase hence AUKUS and therefore they are an ally, yes? So if they are an ally then why is trump looking at ending aukus why talk about 200% traiffs and tariffs on other exports? This is not the actions of an ally, How could anyone trust trump when he makes statements like this?
Perhaps Albows thinking here is regardless of what military alliances we have we still need to trade with countries in our region, we all need to play nice, it’s ok to be close friends with the US but keep your distance from trump because who knows what will come out of his mouth next. If he gobs off and annoys china we are the ones left having to deal with the fallout, who knows what is going on in labor foreign policy land
Is
.
21
@KP, #15.2.1.1.2:
>We should have every Australian trained to shoot at high school, learn how to be part of a militia, and have an assault rifle behind every front door.
This 100%
And x 100!
30
I have thought hard about this question and cannot come up with any solid good reason … my only conclusion is that they just can’t help themselves.
80
RAN Frigates and Destroyers were available when the warships from China sailed around Australia detected by Pine Gap joint base, Jindalee over the horizon RAAF radar network and other surveillance systems.
What were not available were the two RAN refuelling tanker ships, the Chinese had one of their refuelling ships with them.
70
Hmm. I think you will find that the long-range radar systems have a defined operating quadrant, and that surely wouldn’t include south of Australia, nor even SW or SE. Correct me if I’m wrong.
10
I would hope Australian Defence Forces rather than baking cakes, are monitoring Pro Russian & Pro Ukrainan Sites during the Russia/Ukraine War, to gain an understanding of how Warfare is changing under Drones & Glide Bombs etc
Watch some of the Videos on these 2 sites re Drones in Action
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/situation-reports-part-3-2025-07-4ed
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-7825-trump-flips-on-ammo-again
And how Drones have changed Defending Tanks & Armoured vehicles
https://search.brave.com/images?q=images%20drone%20proofing%20tanks%20and%20armoured%20vehicles
and always worth reading Russia Today to get an aternate Russian Viewpoint
60
Such as;
Alenia C-27J Spartan
Airbus KC -30 A
Dassault Falcon
Augusta Westland AW 139
Daimond DA40NG
Pilatus PC-21
BAE Hawk
Eurocopter Tiger
NH Industries NH 90
Black Hornet Nano
A50 AA1 Aerosonde
Elbit Systems Skylark
Phantom (unmaned aerial vehicle)
61
Peter,
I barely have time to read the head lines here let alone respond to inane comments.
Alenia C-27J Spartan – Is used by both US and AU military
Dassault Falcon – You got the name wrong as expected (its all in google) and we are the only ones using this at the present time
Augusta Westland AW 139 – Not sure this qualifies but sure you can include it
Daimond DA40NG – Really? you are getting desperate with this one LOL
Eurocopter Tiger – Nope not anymore
NH Industries NH 90 – Got the name wrong again and nope not anymore
Black Hornet Nano – Now you are just taking the P*$$
My turn
Black Hawk
JSF
P8 Poseidon
C17
Sea Hawk
C130
Do you notice how most of our frontline A/C are the same as the USA? The AEWACS and KC-30 are similar but can co-operate with the US versions, I accept your insipid response is my fault because I need to spoon feed people like you all the way to the end otherwise you spend hours picking holes in what was written and parsing words in an effort to respond in some pedantic way to appear knowledgeable and important.
17
Most of our military aircraft are from the USA. But you said ALL, which is wrong.
I accept your other points.
70
US, UK, Australian and other allied nation forces military assets are capable of operating with one another and that is the strength of combined forces.
The ADF cannot defend Australia without allies supporting and therefore must be equipped and trained to the highest standard possible with our population and other resources – and do what President Trump is doing, lift restrictions and dig dig dig, drill drill drill and tax what are at present unrealised wealth natural assets.
31
Australia can defend itself without allies, by joining the non-aligned movement and using ‘soft power’ on potential antagonists.
110
Dmitry Trenin: The West’s war on Russia will go beyond Ukraine
For Moscow, the real war is global, and it’s just begun
By Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
The trademark style of the current US president, Donald Trump, is verbal spectacle. His statements – brash, contradictory, sometimes theatrical – should be monitored, but not overestimated. They are not inherently favorable or hostile to Russia.
In that light, it’s time to assess the interim results of our ‘special diplomatic operation’. There have now been six presidential phone calls, several rounds of talks between foreign ministers and national security aides, and sustained contact at other levels.
The most obvious positive outcome is the restoration of dialogue between Russia and the United States – a process that had been severed under the Biden administration.
Crucially, this revived dialogue extends beyond UkIt was never realistic to expect Trump to offer Russia a deal on Ukraine that met our security requirements. Nor for that matter would Russia accept one that compromised its long-term security interests. Likewise, any notion that Trump would ‘deliver’ Ukraine to the Kremlin, join Moscow in undermining the EU, or push for a new Yalta agreement with Russia and China was always fantasy.
So the page has turned. What comes next?
Trump will almost certainly sign the new US sanctions bill into law – but he’ll try to preserve discretion in how those measures are applied. The sanctions will add friction to global trade, but they will not derail Russian policy.
On the military front, Trump will deliver the remaining aid packages approved under Biden, and perhaps supplement them with modest contributions of his own. But going forward, it will be Western Europe – especially Germany – that supplies Ukraine, often by buying US-made systems and re-exporting them.
20
I was kinda sorta wanting Trump to stop coming to everybody’s aid.
You got your own continent, damn near your own hemisphere.
Seems like a very defensible position to me.
Perhaps a redirection towards self defense as opposed to stopping Climate Change would be good for the Australian soul.
190
More than a generation ago reasonable engineers accepted that while a good plant necessitates overall integrated control, for the best (safest, most efficient, etc,..) results it is better to allow local control over critical processes.
Distributed Intelligence is the name of that simple but very successful idea.
Somehow global and national AGW leaders totally reject such thought.
From that I conclude they do not care about good plant, nor about best results.
70
Hey Vlad,
I don’t think AGW ever had anything to do with climate.
Just as Pandemic had little to do with ‘Public Health’.
The political engineering has been dead on for best results for purpose.
50
>…would an ally intentionally try and destroy a $2 billion export industry, would an ally try to hobble an aluminium industry. Trumps tariffs are not the actions you would expect from an ally, he behaves the same way against us and the EU etc as he does against China.
I agree with a lot of what you write but there’s also quite a lot which spoils it.
Stick to your area of expertise.
Our aluminium industry is hobbled by our expensive energy which is not caused by tariffs but by our stupid wasteful adoption of imported Chinese unreliable intermittent feeble generating contraptions.
That’s why our aluminium industry can no longer survive without heavy subsidies.
The fact that it’s heavily subsidized is a major reason why the tariffs are imposed.
To level up the playing field.
If we still had cheap electricity and had never had so-called “renewables”, we would not need to subsidize aluminium production, it would be a competitive industry again, and there’d be no tariff.
You want us to treat China the same as the US but you’re complaining that the US is treating us the same as China.
150
And right now two aluminium smelters have advised that closure of business activities is not far away because operating costs cannot be absorbed and return on shareholders funds achieved from after tax profit.
So Albanese Labor is planning to pay subsidies to keep the jobs of employees at unprofitable factories.
80
“So Albanese Labor is planning to pay subsidies to keep the jobs of employees at unprofitable factories.”
As per Ford and Holden of course, usual method of Aussie Govts… Generally its far cheaper to pay the redundant workers the dole, but that doesn’t garner any bribes for politicians.
41
Although you have adopted an extreme position, crakar, much of what you say is true. Yes – the US continues to have a significant presence in our waters – and some other allies also. The ability of a non tested nation like China in wartime conditions may also give us some comfort.
Even so – the military build up of China in the last decade is phenomenal. It is naive in the extreme to believe that the CPC does not intend to use this armada to establish control of the Indo Pacific. We can only conjecture how successful they will be. BTW the very fact that China relies so much on mining and agricultural products of this country makes our security even more tenuous.
Personally, for what it is worth, I dont believe that China would invade Oz. But, hell, they dont need to. All the have to do, barring US and allied intervention, is blockade our supplies from OS – especially petrol and diesel.
150
China’s cynicism on Ukraine exposed
The European Union has a choice to make: It can either continue to be China’s de facto ally or show genuine strategic autonomy by confronting President Xi Jinping’s cynical exploitation.
The urgency of this choice was made clear by a meeting last week between China’s foreign policy chief, Wang Yi, and his EU counterpart, Kaja Kallas.
Yi told Kallas that China “did not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it feared the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing.”
Wang is also said to have given Kallas “several ‘history lessons and lectures.’” Their meeting precedes a summit with the EU in China later this month.
China seeks victory for the aggressor in the bloodiest, most destabilizing war on the European continent since World War II.
This conclusion is made only more clear by recent revelations that China has become a major supplier of weapons for Russia’s war against Ukraine. That the Chinese Communist Party takes this position provides an understanding of its absurd claim that it wants “win-win cooperation” with the world.
It does not, and it is also arrogant about what it is truly striking, which is domination achieved by whatever evil and diplomatic duplicity is required.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson had the temerity on Monday to lecture the EU that “it is also important to properly handle disagreements and differences by respecting each other and treating the issues constructively.”
China supports the mayhem that Russia has wrought on Europe not because it has an interest in Russia’s imperial ambitions per se, but because the mayhem serves China’s narrow interest in buying space and time to dominate the Pacific.
Space and time also to seize Taiwan and dislodge the U.S. as the world’s leading power.
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Its misinformation, the new brooms in Beijing are trying to save face, that is why they will shortly do an about face and support Ukraine against Russia.
Taiwan is off the agenda at the moment as they are more focussed on the collapse of the CCP.
‘China supports the mayhem that Russia has wrought on Europe …’
That is incorrect, Xi tried to discourage Putin, but the dictator had imperial ambitions and couldn’t be dissuaded.
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Were do you think my extreme but true position comes from Vicki …………..google? LOL
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Crakar24
What you say is rational and correct, particularly now that regime change is taking place in Beijing. We don’t need nuclear submarines to protect the quarry, drone warfare is the future.
Beijing is returning to collective leadership, a lot more democratic than authoritarian rule. They’ll have to work fast, every economic stimulus trigger has failed to stop the slide into a great depression.
So things are looking good for Albo, he might even talk to them about the benefits of the Westminster system.
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“..the benefits of the Westminster system.”
Anyone found any? Just look at the moaning about the Govt, no matter what side it is, and how rich politicians become over the top of their salaries. Examine the collapse of the middle class while they pay for the rich and simultaneously support the growing number of beneficiaries leading to endless debt via Govt borrowing.
Anyone have anything good to say about lawyer and the justice system? The one where you get ‘law’ not ‘justice’.. The Karens who over-whelm common sense and leave us floundering in a collapsing electricity market? The politicians who rape us to pay for their global warming scam??
I’m looking hard, but don’t see any advantage in the Westminster system over a dictatorship! Its China that has grown under Communism, us, we’re going backwards!
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‘Westminster system over a dictatorship!’
To absorb the political shock they may choose the Singaporean model, its a hybrid of the Westminster System, but is still a one party state.
02
“ALL of our military A/C are sourced from or are derivatives of the USA,”
No, the replacements for the Caribou are Spanish.
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Your assertion that most of our aircraft are of USA origin, why is this a problem, also why wouldn’t we use similar equipment to our major ally, especially if it works and is reliable, the RAAF still has a foul taste left in their mouth from our last attempt at using European equipment, does Dassault Mirage ring any bells.
What we should be doing here is establishing our own rocket manufacturing, even if it’s only to launch satellites.
21
Some here might appreciate this …
“We The Normal”: The Real Reason Why Trump Keeps Winning, According to Mark Halperin’s Friend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5lVCOTyyOE
6:54
Mark Halperin is one of the few MSM journos not debilitated by TDS.
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Amazon Prime day 1 sales down over 40%.
Bezos selling off $660M in stocks.
Facebook major decline in popularity, predicted to drop over 40% in the next few years.
People dumping Chatbots.
Maybe people are tapped out, are seeing through all the shallowness and tired of it all.
2026 – the big slide down.
140
Yet another paper showing how ice melt will affect Australia’s climate:
https://theconversation.com/melting-ice-will-strengthen-the-monsoon-in-northern-australia-but-cause-drier-conditions-north-of-the-equator-259992
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During the Holocene Climate Optimum there were shifts in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which probably made monsoons more robust.
Teleconnection to Heinrich Events is novel.
11
“Will effect” … so it’s another prediction then? Hard to flag it for checking because they don’t put any specific timeframe on it, so something might happen sooner of later … yeah whatever.
But then they claim this:
Well that’s interesting, cos when there were floods in the Southeast in 2021, 2022 and 2023 they told me, “Ahh ha! Now do you believe in climate change?” and strangely they changed this to telling me it’s getting dry and apparently those floods never happened?!? You do the math.
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Higher rainfall intensity is not necessarily inconsistent with less cumulative rainfall. Look at the data.
13
Regarding trade and import duties/tariffs research country by country and discover that most have import restrictions on at least some products.
Trump Second Term is following up on Term One based on rebuilding the US economy manufacturing that has declined since the UN Lima Declaration was signed in 1975, for Australia by Whitlam Labor Government. And related international trade rules and regulations favouring developing nations over developed nations.
Too often business closures and job losses in the US and Australia, and other developed countries, are the result of manufacturing transferred to a developing country where operating costs are lower and in addition, often, the government subsidises businesses to ensure they can export successfully creating economic prosperity in the developing economy.
US and Australia have added many red and green tape regulations and compliance costs, also black tape and environmental handbrakes – renewables environmental protection not enforced. And these can be traced back to UN treaties and agreements.
100
During the 1980s and Hawke Labor Government terms I was involved in the discussions organised by the government with private sector businesses about the UN plan for removal of all import duties, trade barriers. Very clearly the objectives included helping developing countries to grow economies and not so clearly stated at the expense of developed countries including Australia.
Of course the sales pitch on the political side was all about level playing fields and helping the poorer people to achieve a better lifestyle but next was climate change and Kyoto Conference 1997 emissions reduction and 2000s Labor transition away from coal and gas generators.
Like removing the foundation stumps from under a house one by one and eventually we all know how that ends.
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Dennis, I clearly remember the ‘level playing field’ statements, all BS of course.
30
FWIW – for the covid records
Another day, another covid
“Dr. McCullough on a Recent Revealing Study: Spike Protein Lingers — And Grows”
“In a stunning political and medical upheaval, 12 U.S. states have ignited a firestorm by pushing legislation to ban COVID-19 vaccines — declaring them unsafe, ineffective, and a symbol of misplaced trust. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently triggered a major policy shift by removing the vaccines from CDC recommendations for children and pregnant women, citing new findings.
For years, critical questions have been silenced. The promise that COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective” is now being called into serious doubt — and the consequences may be far worse than anyone imagined.”
More at
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/07/dr-mccullough-revealing-study-spike-protein-lingers-grows/
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And
“GOOD. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES: These States Now Allow OTC Ivermectin, and More May Follow — Four have passed new laws, and at least nine have legislation in the works.”
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/ivermectin-has-become-an-otc-drug?r=1jzuql&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Via https://instapundit.com/731170/#disqus_thread
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FWIW
“Better Than MilSpec”
https://www.laughingwolf.net/2025/07/08/better-than-milspec/
Via https://instapundit.com/731161/#disqus_thread
30
FWIW – another one
“Net Zero to Cost Taxpayers £800 Billion, Warns OBR”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/09/net-zero-to-cost-taxpayers-800-billion-warns-obr/
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