Weekend Unthreaded

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304 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #
    the adorable Gee Ayeeee

    Finally, real football is back

    67

    • #
      el gordo

      Rugby or aerial ping pong?

      30

      • #
        yarpos

        I think he means the one that draws 60-80,000 to home an away games and doesnt have a chip on its shoulder

        102

        • #
          the adorable Gee Ayeeee

          you got it yarp

          51

        • #
          Hanrahan

          It’s that sort of mass hysteria that gets labor governments elected. There is no reason to be proud of it.

          41

        • #
          Another Ian

          Perfectly balanced then? A chip on each shoulder.

          50

        • #
          Kevin Lohse

          Is that the Oz version of Gaelic football where the Irish regularly trash the best Australia has to offer?

          40

          • #
            jack

            OK Kev I’ll bite.
            *Disclaimer* Warning: tongue in cheek content ahead.
            If you are from another country and I start WW3, It’s not my fault.
            *end Disclaimer*
            Don’t tell anyone this.
            There is an Australian conspiracy to let other countries bet us at sport.
            Sort of like the big brother letting his little brother bowl him out in back yard cricket.
            We are quite benevolent that way.
            Anyway playing Australian football with a round ball
            is like trying to play tennis with golf clubs.
            *Tongue in cheek warning off.*

            80

          • #
            yarpos

            no your thinking of the intermediate game with the round ball to suit the Irish. This one is the one the Irish come out to play so they can earn some decent money,

            40

      • #
        jack

        el gordo
        You can call fritz names, but
        when you do it to the AFL,
        you’ve crossed the line.
        :
        Note to self, remove el gordo from Xmas card list.

        61

      • #
        Robber

        How can rugby be called football – how many players get to kick the ball?
        Reminds me of British Bulldog.

        10

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Desktop?

      26

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Fitz t’adore.

      41

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      I don’t know for sure whether you guys make me glad or sorry that I’m not a football fan. I did enjoy the friendly competition though.

      It is friendly, isn’t it? 😉

      60

    • #
      GD

      I live in Geelong and I don’t follow the Cats, or any of the other teams. It’s amazing I haven’t been deported from Victoria for my blasphemy.

      I also live within a stone’s throw of Kardinia Stadium (or whatever it’s called this week). It’s wonderful to hear the roars from the crowd. Even more wonderful is to see the crowds walk back to town either jubilant or downcast.

      I guess I just don’t get it.

      70

      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Yes that is utterly amazing GD !

        I’m surprised that you have not sought asylim elsewhere !

        00

    • #
      Travis T. Jones

      AFL, where you get a point for missing the goal.

      41

  • #
    Slithers

    Hoist by own hand.
    Over 40 years ago I visited the UK weather Bureau in Reading, to try recover a crashed data-base segment. I am a computer whiz.
    The chief Forecaster explained to me why it was so important to recover data from 1920-1929.
    ‘Weather Forecasting is sort of statistics, we do a run every day just after 12:00 and have the result before the five o’clock news.
    We have as the main input what the weather is exactly doing today. Temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, cloudy or sunny, rain in last 24 hrs. We then run todays data against our 100 year data base. Every time we get a match or partial match we assign a score for that date, the better the match the better the score. When the scan is complete we look at the best scores weather data for the next 3 days. Print it out. Smooth the data, cannot say it’s going to be 72.5 degrees tomorrow, ha ha. And we have our forecast.
    But what if we don’t have any really good high scores, well then, we select the closest date using week or even month and use that day’s weather, three days in advance, print the data and use bigger error bars when we forecast what the weather will be like for the next three days.
    When we cannot find any close sores for day/week/month, then we consult the seaweed, ha ha! “

    I sort of knew where this was leading…

    “The reason we need that ten years of data recovered is we have just had a bad sequence of poor score days and we sort of got our forecasts badly off. We have reason to suspect that this current spell of weather closely matches what happened in the summer of 1925. But that data is right in the middle of the lost data so our statistical match program is giving us bad matches! We have had to consult the seaweed far to often this summer! Please recover that data!”

    I recovered the data and the forecasts got better.

    ‘Ok Interesting,’ I hear you say, but where is the relevance to today’s BOM forecasting…. Well!

    Old Data and lots of it give better chances of getting the forecast right.

    Acorn1 data and the historical data is now going to give either false good match scores, or more ‘go consult the seaweed scores’.

    Move to Acorn 2 data and the old records become less and less accurate ways of finding a match.
    Add in the deliberate exclusion of pre-1910 data. The temperature conversion fudge when the data became centigrade base rather than Fahrenheit (31F=-1C; 32F = 0C; 33F=0C) and the low score, consult the seaweed days increase and make the forecast rather unreliable.
    Question for BOM, Could you revert to good old fashioned data or has it all gone up in smoke (CO2 smoke of course)!?

    342

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      you do understand the difference between the Acorn Dataset which is used for climate research, and the ACCESS model and dataset which is used for forecasting?

      320

      • #
        yarpos

        Desktop?

        60

      • #
        Peter C

        you do understand the difference between the Acorn Dataset which is used for climate research, and the ACCESS model and dataset which is used for forecasting?

        Err No.

        Can you explain the difference?

        71

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Yes I can, but you should do that yourself, I’m not your teacher

          220

          • #
            Peter C

            you do understand the difference between the Acorn Dataset which is used for climate research, and the ACCESS model and dataset which is used for forecasting?
            Err No.
            Can you explain the difference?

            Yes I can, but you should do that yourself, I’m not your teacher

            I suppose that means; No I can’t!

            132

          • #
            Slithers

            Dear Peter, see my post above which explains exactly what a ‘DATASET’ is!

            31

            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              No, it is poor virtue signalling on an outdated model with no real relevance to anything in use today.

              210

              • #
                AndyG55

                If there is anyone who know about “virtue signalling” is the far left .

                … oh that would be YOU, pfutz.

                Except your’s lacks any virtue.

                00

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          And there’s Peter Fitzroy for you. In all his pretentious and pompous glory.

          Nevertheless, he does make one good point:

          I’m not your teacher

          You’re nobody’s teacher, Fitz. Nobody’s.

          You are a closed-minded propagandist of the green-left variety, who makes no contribution to much at all. Unfortunately.

          Would you like a citation with that?

          122

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            I’ll make an exception for you. Climate uses a different dataset because it is comparing large scale averages, and is not time sensitive. and therefore suppresses local variability. Weather, uses a cell based dataset primarily to faithfully account for local variability, including time sensitivity. Is that clear. Of course you could do the work yourself, but no all you have is cheap shots, in what is a pathetic attempt to cover your ignorance.

            415

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Nothing about my shots are cheap, Fitz.

              As you see, I hit the mark.

              You responded, but with minimal material and no citation.

              And there I was thinking that climate was “time sensitive’. Like in 30 year periods.

              But you and your propagandist comrades don’t accept time it would seem or else you’d know that CO2 has been higher in the past when temperatures were lower.

              Now, tell us how man-made CO2 is the primary driver of global warming will you.

              133

            • #
              Peter C

              Climate uses a different dataset because it is comparing large scale averages, and is not time sensitive. and therefore suppresses local variability. Weather, uses a cell based dataset primarily to faithfully account for local variability, including time sensitivity. Is that clear.

              No, Not very clear!

              I see the point that large scale averages, suppress local variability. But what does that do for climate or climate prediction? How is it not time sensitive?

              What actually is the difference between the ACORN sites and the Weather sites?

              72

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                This denial is tedious.
                http://www.bom.gov.au/catalogue/data-feeds.shtml
                http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/#tabs=Data-and-networks

                I’ve told you twice, but you continue not to understand.

                It is obvious that you and that not very Sceptical Sam have absolutely no understanding of the current weather models.

                Grow up and use the internet to educate yourselves.

                38

              • #
                AndyG55

                Its been explains to you ad nauseum, pfutz

                Not even you are THAT THICK !!

                Grow up and get a basic education, which you seem to have missed in junior high years. Start with year 7 maths. !!!

                Your own links show that ACORN is a subSET of the main database.

                “The locations are chosen to maximise the length of record and network coverage across the country.”

                Where did they “CHOOSE” this data from, little pfutz !!

                12

            • #
              AndyG55

              ” Climate uses a different dataset because it is comparing large scale averages,”

              WRONG AGAIN, puddle-pfutz…

              ACORN uses fabricated and maladjusted “climate” data for propaganda purposes.

              ACCESS needs to at least TRY to get forecasts correct.

              You really don’t have the vaguest clue, do you, little worm. !!

              104

            • #
              AndyG55

              Just more of your UNSUPPORTED mindless blather pyddle-pfutz. !!

              74

            • #
              AndyG55

              Since you obviously DON’T KNOW.

              STOP PRETENDING to yourself that you do !!

              54

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Cat got your tongue, Fitz?

              53

            • #
              Slithers

              Dear Peter, you are so so wrong again. There is ONE database of weather history. There are computer programs that extract ‘Datasets’ from that Database!
              Acorn1 and now Acorn2 are computer programs that collect and store weather data and store it in the Weather Database.
              Now this is the third time I have explained, can you at least read the posts and try understand plain English!

              102

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            He’s obvious never even been a student.

            Olexx

            52

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              🙂

              I’ve studied idiocy most of my life.

              The conclusion I’ve drawn is that per head of population idiocy is skewed to the green-left.

              112

        • #
          Another Ian

          Is that the one they bought from British Met that was such a success with predicting “barbecue summers”?

          51

      • #
        Slithers

        Dear Peter,
        Do you understand the term ‘Dataset’?
        FYI a dataset is a set of data items extracted from a larger database!
        Do you think BOM has TWO sets of database that are DIFFERENT, i.e. contains different data?
        The extraction criteria used to extract those Datasets are different as are the uses to which the datasets are put to after extraction are also different.
        The climate dataset and the weather forecasting datasets are derived from ONE database!
        Acorn 1 and now Acorn 2 have changed the historical data in that database, THEREFORE the datasets that are used by Climate pseudo-Scientists and the ‘sort’ of Weather forcasters are extracts from the new and ‘much improved’ Database of Weather History!

        132

      • #
        Slithers

        Acorn is a computerized system for collecting data from weather stations. It updates the weather data often 4 times a day. The Database that it updates is SINGULAR.
        There are many datasets that get extracted from that Database!
        The reasons for this extraction are probably to simple for you to grasp but are as follows. The Weather Database is HUGE stretching all the way back to 1910 (It used to go further) for several hundred weather stations (used to be more)! I will assume you know what a gigabyte of data is, can you get your head around lots of petabytes of data? The forecasters do not have the computer power or cash to process that entire database EVERY time they want to make a prediction for tomorrows weather, they therefore use a Dataset! To predict Autumnal weather, Summer weather is less relevant than autumnal weather from previous Autumns. March weather is more relevant than Decembers, (Just in case you did not understand Autumnal)

        50

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Read the links, the ACORN system has its own database
          “ACORN-SAT focuses on records of daily maximum and minimum surface air temperatures. The homogenised temperature database comprises 112 locations that maximise both length of record and network coverage across the continent”. (my bold)
          This is completely different to the weather data which is explained here
          http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/stations/about-weather-station-data.shtml
          and here
          http://www.bom.gov.au/nwp/doc/access/NWPData.shtml

          They do share weather stations, but that is all.

          04

          • #
            AndyG55

            “They do share weather stations, but that is all.”

            Yes, ACORN is subset of the main database.

            It extracts its data FROM the main database.

            Thanks for the confirmation, little mathematical inebriate.

            ACORN then adjust the data to a dataSET suitable for propaganda purposes.

            12

            • #
              Slithers

              So elegantly stated AndyG55.

              10

            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              Then it must be a speterate database

              11

              • #
                AndyG55

                WRONG AGAIN,

                ACORN is an extract , a subset of the main database.

                You can see you are a LOSER of yet another argument little-pfutz.

                Have the guts to admit it.

                10

            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              Then it must be a speterate database since I’ve shown links to say so, and you have, as usual, offered nothing.

              02

              • #
                AndyG55

                WRONG AGAIN

                Your links say that ACORN is derived from SELECTED STATIONS of the main database.

                It is therefore a subset of the main database. Part of it

                I know you have extreme difficulties grasping basic concepts, but do at least TRY for once in your feeble existence.

                11

          • #
            Slithers

            Dear Peter, Just where do you think the Acorn daily data ends up? Why it’s in what is loosely called a Distributed Database. I was a computer Whiz when one of the first of such systems were created way back in 1971, It was called Central File Handler. I was the ONLY logician problem solver employed to find out why it was not working properly at sites all over the world. Every problem was found to be in the USER’s code and not with the system.
            There is ONE weather database, well two if you count the Russian one which has NOT been adjusted!

            10

  • #
    jack

    Post Modernism,
    the prevailing ideology of our institutions of knowledge.
    Hence influential on our society.
    :
    Lets look at their Epistemology (the source and validity of knowledge).
    Throwing Reason out as an antiquated method of thinking,
    they advocate the supremacy of subjectivity.
    Any persons thought, feeling, opinions, view, are a valid source of knowledge.
    :
    “What” you say, “any idea what so ever?”
    “Ah”, they say, “only if they aline with our values”, which happen to be neo-Marxist.
    Well as a fairly smart fellow once said,

    Reject Reason and any atrocity is justifiable

    .

    100

  • #
    Hanrahan

    Why wouldn’t the libs get back in NSW? the state is in excellent financial shape compared with Qld, for example.

    Do the locals think that they will careen down the destructive path to unreliables or will common sense temper their enthusiasm?

    100

    • #
      toorightmate

      I’m glad all over for Gladys.
      She managed it without quotas and Emily’s list – BECAUSE she is good.
      The good people don’t need quotas and/or Emily’s list.

      101

    • #
      el gordo

      Gladys has felt the angst of the bush people.

      ‘Newly re-elected NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is confident she will govern in her own right, assuring bush voters she has heard their ‘cry for help’. Oz

      80

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        I’ve just come back home to Perth from a bit of a drive. (16,700 kms)

        Western NSW is in a terrible position. All the rivers on the road between Lighting Ridge and Broken Hill are dry. The Namoi, the Barwon and even the Darling at Wilcannia is nothing but a string of putrefying green algae.

        The road was a slaughter-house for wildlife. Massive ‘Roo kills. Bodies every 5 metres in some spots. I counted over 100 freshies around 5 metres apart in one stretch – not counting the old carcasses.

        The land has been destocked except for breeders. The B-Doubles are running flat out to bring up hay from South Australia (goodness only knows at what cost) to keep the breeders alive until the drought lifts. I’ve seen it very bad in the 1960s in the same area, but this is worse.

        Gladys will need to move faster than a speeding bullet. Because that’s all the farmers and pastoralists have got left.

        Oh, and BTW, somehow or other the goats still seem to be surviving, if not thriving.

        120

    • #
      yarpos

      Watching NSw election night (up here visiting grand kids) and amazed at the smarmy nsw treasurer, dissappointed at the country voters because they had been spending more in the country. Typical bean counter mentality. Nothing about how it was spent, who it was spent with, whether the recipients of the services wanted them or if he had ever sought feedback. Nope $s were spent, votes should have been forthcoming. The masses needed educating. Tosser.

      20

  • #
    Dave

    file:///C:/Users/David/Documents/Climate_change_action_plan_policy_paper.pdf

    10

    • #
      Dave

      Sorry

      Big Fingers here the proper link

      Seems like the ALP policy for their 50% RET?
      But it seems 50% renewables will supply electricity
      45% reduction in vehicle emissions
      And an ETS or CO2 tax on all emissions within manufacturing and industry.
      Plus
      Plus
      Plus
      Unbelievable targets have been set!

      120

  • #

    Word had it that there would be some splendid Aurora Australis this weekend but with the cloud cover last night no seeum here.
    Apparently the sun suffered a coronary mass ejaculation that would be sure to turn the lights on.

    61

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Well an ejaculation of that size would certainly be coronary inducing……and lights out very fast indeed.

      91

  • #
    jack

    Just for fun
    A friend at school, with Greek parents of classical interests, had the name Euripides.
    Having lost contact with Euripides, many years later I took a pair of pants to be repaired by a tailor.
    On entering the shop with my pants in hand, I was sure the person behind the counter was Euripides.
    :
    “Euripides!”, I exclaimed.
    :
    “No” he replied, “You rip a dem, I fix a dem”.
    🙂

    190

  • #
  • #
    pat

    riduclous headline on ABC’s “Just In” page:

    Toddler experiences first big wet as tropical low heads for NT outback

    changed to:

    24 Mar: ABC: Northern Territory’s Barkly region prepares for tropical low from Cyclone Trevor
    By Katrina Beavan and Emily Smith
    Rekiara had hardly seen a drop of rain in her young life before today.
    The one-year-old lives near the small outback community of Tennant Creek, which has only seen 3.2 millimetres of rain in the past three months.

    But since 4:00am it has received steady showers, with local resident Mike Nash finding 17mm in his rain gauge when he checked this morning.
    In the next 24 hours the town is set to receive between 40 and 70 mm, as the tropical low born from Tropical Cyclone Trevor moves across the region…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-24/tennant-creek-toddler-rain-tropical-low-cyclone-trevor/10934410

    60

    • #
      toorightmate

      and in the mean time, The Sydney Morning Hamis is hyperventilating about Mark Latham being a NSW upper house member.
      AND THAT’S NOT ALL – they are saying that Gladys played a dirty campaign.
      Fancy Green and ALP supporters talking about dirty campaigns?
      AND THAT’S NOT ALL – Mueller’s report is a gigantic kick in the backside for the USA left wing media.
      And Jacinda just keeps on milking the cow. No mention of the 120 Christians killed by [snip] in Northern Nigeria.
      In summary – not a good week for the far left.

      150

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Or for Christians, it would seem.

        50

        • #
          beowulf

          Nor for free speech in this country when we must resort [SNIP! Not your blog! Yes repeal 18C. In the meantime please stop trying to defeat moderation rules.] ED

          12

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            Sceptical Sam
            Your comment is awaiting moderation.
            March 25, 2019 at 11:08 am · Reply

            [ In moderation where it will stay. Yes repeal 18C. In the meantime if you keep trying to defeat moderation rules you will likely be permanently banned.] ED

            11

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            [Now you know. Happy?] AZ

            Yep.

            Thanks, AZ. I didn’t believe him.

            I do now.

            But isn’t it crazy that a pejorative term is able to be used instead. Where’s the logic in that?

            10

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Oops. No.

              I see that the pejorative has now been deleted as well.

              Good-O. Logic rules. OK.

              10

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Lived in Tennant Creek and Warrego for A year and a half it rained about twice but next to nothing in total .
      I was told that’s the way it is , you either get blinding rain and flooding or basically zip .
      Last visit there was water everywhere and everything was as green as , I didn’t recognise it from that barren and parched desert .
      So yes it’s possible for a one year old to have never seen the rain it’s such a ridiculous CAGW inspired story and shows just how stupid and lefty the ABC are .

      130

      • #
        toorightmate

        There are also 8 day old children in Brisbane who have never seen rain.

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      • #
        Ian Hill

        I don’t remember anything from the first three years of my life so can’t say whether or not I saw rain during that time!

        60

        • #
          John F. Hultquist

          What’s rain?
          It snowed when I was 3. Mother suggested we kids go out and play in it. She bundled us up and threw us out an open window into a big white drift. Just before we froze, she came out and threw us back in. Dad unbundled us, and mom gave us some warm white milk.
          I’ve hated milk ever since.

          80

          • #
            theRealUniverse

            ‘I’ve hated milk ever since.’ Thats a shame, I was brought up drinking it straight from the cows via vat, REAL full cream, not like the watered down possum pisss that they pass as full cream at the supermarket. Jersey milk is best.!

            00

        • #
          Serp

          I’ve a sister of such prodigious memory I snipe by saying that she remembers being born.

          10

  • #
    Graeme#4

    Has Snowy Hydro 2.0 ever said where they plan to obtain their water from? Surely it can’t be Lake Eucumbene, because AFAIK there isn’t much water there to even support the existing Snowy scheme.

    110

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      It’s a Magic Pudding Graeme#4. A fantasy.

      They believe in Bunyip Bluegum and his friend Bill Barnacle, but not so much his other friend, Sam Sawnoff.

      50

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Thanks Sam. It’s just that I was discussing this with a friend on the weekend and I believe that 2.0 hasn’t been fully explained yet.

        50

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          No. It hasn’t.

          And, I doubt you’ll be seeing any explanation in the near future. Certainly not one that deals with the risks to the arbitrage operation into the future.

          50

    • #
      yarpos

      So you can never consider a Hydro scheme because the mass of water doesnt exist at the start.

      00

  • #
    pat

    just read this:

    23 Mar: UniversityWorldNews: Scientists unite to back strikes for climate change
    by Michael Gardner
    Academics in Germany, Switzerland and Austria have joined forces in support of the ‘Fridays for Future’ school strikes addressing climate change…

    A joint petition written by ‘Scientists for Future’ and signed by more than 23,000 academics in the three German-speaking countries calls for immediate steps to be taken to tackle climate change and emphasises that the school protests initiated by Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg are fully justified.
    The petition stresses that a range of social and technological innovations already exist that “can maintain quality of life and improve human well-being without destroying our natural resources”.

    Scientists4Future was initiated by Gregor Hagedorn, coordinator for national and international research infrastructures at the Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science in Berlin.
    The scientists criticise the failure of Germany, Switzerland and Austria to achieve the necessary scale and speed in the restructuring of the energy, food, agriculture, resource and mobility sectors…
    https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190321152316347

    then noticed WUWT has it with google translation:

    23 Mar: WUWT: German Climate Scientists Voice Support for Students Skipping School
    Eric Worrall
    The following is the letter from the Scientists 4 future website (translated by Google Translate):…
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/23/german-climate-scientists-voice-support-for-students-skipping-school/

    30

    • #
      pat

      plenty of names in the first link I posted, but one was noticeably absent – someone I just knew would be involved. and no surprise, he even handed over the statement!

      TWEET: Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam:
      Over 25,000 scientists from Austria, Germany and Switzerland have now signed a statement supporting #FridaysForFuture!! @BrigitteKnopf and myself present it here @F4F_Potsdam in Potsdam on Friday. Full statement here: https://www.scientists4future.org/
      PIC RAHMSTORF/KNOPF AT CHILDREN’S STRIKE
      18 Mar 2019
      https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1107664236824707080

      TWEET: Stefam Rahmstorf:
      Ein Radio-Interview zu #ScientistsForFuture – Wissenschaftler stellen sich hinter die Schüler, die für Klimaschutz demonstrieren
      PODCAST IN GERMAN
      16 Mar 2019
      https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1106878739491766277

      link in one of the replies to the first tweet for the following:

      15 Mar: CBC: With or without icebreaker, Qajaq can’t get through, says coast guard
      ‘We’re battling ice conditions that we haven’t seen in 30 years,’ says Minister Steve Crocker
      With files from Labrador Morning
      The new ferry in the Strait of Belle Isle doesn’t have the same horsepower as the old Apollo, so even with an ice breaker, it’s risky to travel in this year’s ice conditions, says the Canadian Coast Guard.
      But the province says this year’s severe ice conditions are unprecedented, and even an icebreaker got stuck in the thick ice…

      But even with an ice breaker, it’s no guarantee the Qajaq will sail, says Brad Durnford, who is with the coast guard.
      “The ice conditions are just too severe for this ferry to run. It’s a new ferry, it has less power than the Apollo, so we’re very cautious, everyone’s being very cautious, as they should be,” Durnford said.
      “Don’t want to get that ferry out there and then get stuck for days with people on board, because that’s a potential that could happen in this situation.”…

      The worst ice conditions in 30 years
      Durnford and the government do agree on one thing — that the ice this year is incredibly thick.
      Conditions are “the worst they have been in 30 years,” says the statement from the transportation department.
      Durnford acknowledges the ice breakers themselves are having a hard time.
      “The ice in the strait, as we’ve all seen this year, is quite severe. We’re seeing conditions that we haven’t seen in a number of years,” Durnford told CBC’s Labrador Morning…
      “We’re all at the mercy of Mother Nature, and we feel for the people who are stranded there.”

      FROM COMMENTS:
      Harold Asnis: The Arctic ice volume chart is going back in time and should soon break new records. We are back into 70’s cold and won’t come out of it for 20 years. They should make provisions for a minor ice age.
      https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/qajaq-icebreaker-1.5056140

      70

      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        Good news Pat, It does rather look as though Ice Breakers are becoming a thing of the future !!
        GeoffW

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      robert rosicka

      23,000 trough feeders not academics .

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      yarpos

      Fridays again? Funny how these “causes” also seem to cause long weekends

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      theRealUniverse

      ‘Scientists unite to back strikes for climate change..’ = suckers for more big GOV gravy trains who 1. either are ignorant, 2. are keeping their mouths shut or get the boooot.

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    Ted O'Brien.

    When the Snowy scheme was designed and built, water was reserved for environmental purposes.

    After the Snowy scheme became operational, “Green” activists demanded and got a lot more water for “The environment”. This water was not applied in an efficient manner. Better management can find a lot more water already there.

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      Bill in Oz

      This is not true.

      When the Snowy scheme was started, all agreed that 15% of flow would still go South to Bass Strait in Victoria.

      But when the scheme was operational just 1% went South to Bass Strait

      That lead to a very strong campaign in East Gippsland that the 15% be restored. And an independent mp for East Gippsland was elected.in 1999. He supported an ALP state government in need of his vote in parliament.
      And Snowy Hydro agreed to letting 15% go South after 40 years of effectively zip !

      Most of the Snowy catchment below Jindabyne Dam is wild mountain country. So it made a big difference in tourism in that part of the world. And at the bottom water for irrigation on the Orbost/Marlo river flats was more secure.

      That’s a win/win !

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    pat

    23 Mar: SMH: Heavyweights now speaking with one voice on climate change risks
    By Sam Hurley
    Climate change is reshaping Australia’s economy and financial system, and its consequences will be devastating without urgent action. If that message had not hit home, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s intervention last week made it clear…

    APRA’s Geoff Summerhayes has also warned that policy delay or inaction, rather than minimising risks for businesses and the economy, could simply make these risks “greater and more abrupt.”
    These are not partisan points…

    ***Global finance is being reshaped by new standards, regulations, financial products and markets to support a zero-carbon transition. Australia needs to access these markets – for goods, for services and for capital – to power its economy. But it will get harder to do so on favourable terms unless we lift our game, and our ambitions, on climate and sustainability…

    It is time the government itself engaged seriously in the sustainable finance agenda, too, rather than sitting on the sidelines.

    (writer) Sam Hurley is Policy Director at the Centre for Policy Development, which hosted last week’s speech by Dr Guy Debelle and earlier statements by ASIC and APRA.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/heavyweights-now-speaking-with-one-voice-on-climate-change-risks-20190322-p516hz.html

    24 Mar: EurasiaReview: Climate Change Activist Admits: Being Green ‘Requires The End Of Capitalism’ – OpEd
    by *Ryan McMaken, MISES INSTITUTE
    Well, at least they’re now being honest about it. A headline this week in The Guardian reads: “Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?”…

    Declaring War on Rising Standards of Living
    The effects of these climate-control schemes would come down hardest on people in the poorer parts of the world. Energy consumption is high in the rich world, but the demand for growing access to electricity, personal transportation, and heating-and-cooling technologies are highest in the developing world…

    First-World Chauvinism
    This is why statistician Hans Rosling saw a fundamental conflict between well-meaning first-world activists and ordinary people in the developing world.
    When speaking to environmentally-conscious audiences, Rosling noted many in the audience insisted that “No, everybody in the world cannot have cars and washing machines.” For these activists, the imperative of lowering energy usage simply demands it.
    But, pointing to a photo of a low-income women slaving over a wash basin, Rosling asks: “How can we tell this woman that she isn’t going to have a washing machine?”
    It’s a good question, and it’s also a reminder that much of the talk over carbon taxes and climate regulations smack of first-world chauvinism…READ ALL
    http://www.eurasiareview.com/24032019-climate-change-activist-admits-being-green-requires-the-end-of-capitalism-oped/

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    el gordo

    Professor Peter Ridd will have his case heard in the Federal Court in a couple of days.

    https://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/03/two-truths-at-the-heart-of-peter-ridds-sacking/

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      robert rosicka

      The way judges are these days will it be a fair hearing ?

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        Peter C

        Robert,

        The bias of the judge might be an issue.

        However it is more than likely that the Judge and the lawyers will attempt to confine the case to issues of Dr Ridd’s employment contract.

        Dr Ridd’s team would like to open the issue to academic freedom and even better some sort of examination of scientific integrity and the behaviour of university employed scientists. That is what caused him to speak out of turn in the first place. They may get some of that introduced into the evidence, if clever enough.

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        Serp

        No fear, his case is not being heard in the NSW Land and Environment court.

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    el gordo

    ‘NSW Labor leader Michael Daley will face a leadership challenge after a bruising state election result in which the party’s primary vote went backwards — with at least one confirmed candidate.’

    ABC

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      PeterS

      Oh that’s a shame. He promised to make sure the NSW government will deliver on all their promises and hold them to account. That means his party would have to pass everything the Libs will put through parliament, including any proposal to open up new coal mines and build new coal fired power stations. /sarc

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    robert rosicka

    Amazing the first objects the yanks put into space were not rockets but fired from a massive gun called “Harp” , this gun still holds the world record of altitude achieved from firing from the earth .
    If what I heard was true a massive 178 kilometres straight up .

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      Graeme No.3

      RR:
      There is still a lot of ‘harping’ about the Climate STILL going on.

      Obviously this was years ago; these days the average voter hopes that it is current (backbone of wet noodle type) politicians that get sent into space.

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      Sceptical Sam

      That then must account for the lack of the Hot Spot?

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      John F. Hultquist

      HARP involved Canada, USA, and Barbados.
      http://astronautix.com/a/abriefhistoheharpproject.html

      The Yuma Gun’s sole claim to fame was that on November 18, 1966 it lofted a Martlet 2 vehicle to a world record altitude of 180 km, which still stands today.

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    el gordo

    ‘Coal-fired power plants operated by State-owned power provider Synergy are running at as little as one-third of their capacity amid the onslaught of renewable energy flooding WA’s main electricity grid.

    ‘In a sign of the financial pain being inflicted on its traditional thermal generation business, Synergy said the 340MW Collie power station ran at just 34 per cent of its capacity in January.

    ‘Figures show none of the utility’s three coal-fired generators of Collie, Muja C and Muja D ran anywhere near its capacity in the three months to February 28, despite demand for power typically peaking in summer.’

    The West Oz

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      toorightmate

      WA must be the land of the midnight sun???

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      Peter C

      That would be average across the month.

      If what we think about wind and solar is correct the coal stations must be taking all the load part of the time.

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      yarpos

      Not running at capacity is a good thing, thats what we have had in vic over summer and it nothing to aspire to. Really going into Autumn nothing much should be at capacity, it shouls be looking like a maintenance window.

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      Graeme#4

      And the WA govt have decided to not fund any more upgrades, so these coal stations, currently supplying 40% of the SW energy, will gradually deteriote, allow more renewables, currently only 11%, to take over. This must ruin WA’s good power reliability and low power costs.

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    Hanrahan

    Townsville is far from being over the flood.

    Seven weeks later our local woolies reopened y’day, but most of the shopping centre is still closed. I fear some small traders will never reopen and it will be a number of months before all the wet homes are reoccupied.

    The way woollies and bunnings rebuilt is enlightening. Both totally gutted their stores back to bare walls, EVERYTHING was dumped whether water affected or not, including all fixtures and refrigeration. Trucks dumping said stuff were constantly logged so that there was no time to stop and unload some goodies. When dumped everything was immediately compacted. I know management has perfectly logical justification for this but I am left with the idea that the main justification is: “‘Tis OK, the punters will pay for it”.

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      Sceptical Sam

      “‘Tis OK, the punters will pay for it”.

      Or the insurers.

      All the best Hanrahan. I hope things return to normal asap for you and those affected.

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        Hanrahan

        Woollies would carry their own insurance. They would have a hollow log into which every store pays a premium and like the ledger entry “provision for bad debts” is a tax delayed asset.

        I’d assume there is a large sum in this account so the cost of this extreme reaction will not effect the annual bottom line one iota. But the punters pay this premium.

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        Hanrahan

        Thanks for the good wishes SS, but 40 days and 40 nights would not flood me. Like you, I am an observer.

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    robert rosicka

    Won’t be too many Green voting NSW coppers but might be a few criminals though , the greens want officers to be unarmed of both pistols and tasers.

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    A message for the children who go on strike for ‘climate action’.

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    Always enjoy reading TdeF posts and his recent historical analysis was almost no different. I do understand that most of you come from the British background and admiration of Churchill is almost universal.
    Having said let me tell you how Churchill is perceived in the east. He is on par with Chamberlain or even worse. He continued to betray Eastern Europe during the war forcing the free Polish government in exile to keep their month shut about the Soviet Katyn massacre uncovered by Nazis in 1943. This was followed by Yalta conference that divided Europe into various spheres of influence with Poland being given to the soviets. Despite the Poles fighting in Norway in 1940, accounting for about 20% of all German losses in the Battle of Britain, fighting in Tobruk, then Italy (liberating Monte Casino), France in the Fallase pocket, saving the remains of the 1 airborne British paratroop division in Arnhem, despite dying by thousands they were denied the military parade at the end of war in London for fear of offending Stalin. This was Churchill doing. He quickly demobilised polish forces for fear that they would go through Europe to fight against the soviets. In fact the II Polish Corpus was the best military unit in the British army. They fought for Britain and died knowing full well that Poland was already surrendered to the soviets. He betrayed half of Europe, not just Poland and oversaw the Goebells,s prediction of the iron curtain.
    You guys think that he was a hero. For me he just survived the war, oversaw the fall of the British empire and economic misery of Britain after the war.
    Chamberlain never wanted to honour his commitments playing for time to make Britain somewhat ready by 1940. In fact, the Brits never won the war, they just survived it, and not because of Churchill, but because of Hilter,s mistakes, Americans and the finally the Soviets. Your VE was just a hollow victory. Now u are faced with the menace of multiculturalism and dissolution of this great country into oblivion. Churchill the great patriot would be weeping now seeing the appeasement everywhere.
    One last point, I support Brexit, but also rejoice that British tax payers put billions of pounds into the post-communist reconstruction of my country. After the years of betrayal it was time to pay and pay they still do.

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      Dave in the States

      As an American I must admit that Churchill didn’t get much support from FDR for checking Stalin. FDR refused to see Stalin as he was. Stalin played FDR like a fiddle. We can thank FDR for the UN too.

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      PeterW

      I suggest that you try reading something other than Churchill-hating views of the events involved. Actually reading his own accounts – in doing so, accepting the basic principle of justice that a man should be permitted to speak in his own defence – might reveal that the man had reasons for everything he did. We might not agree with them and we might not like the consequences, but he did have reasons.

      Feeling sorry for the Poles is not sufficient reason to vilify a man who could do nothing effective to help them at the time. The Axis was the preeminent threat and there was a very real belief that – given unrestricted access to the resources of the whole of Europe, they intended to create a superpower capable of dominating all others. It was not considered possible to prevent this without the Soviet alliance.

      You cite Yalta without considering that Churchill had little power to alter the outcome given that FDR (blindly, as hindsight shows) accepted Salin’s territorial claims. It is fundamentally unjust to blame a man for outcomes that he had not th power to influence.

      Churchill had many faults, but his virtue is that his steadfastness and leadership played a major part in keeping Britain in the war when there was no light at the end of the tunnel. By the nd of the war in Europe, support for yet another campaign against a recent and very powerful ally, was effectively zero.

      How many millions more fatalities were you expecting Britain, America and the Commonwealth to accept in order to free Poland from the Red Army.?

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      PeterW

      It is also fundamentally incorrect to claim that Churchill denied Poles the right to march in the Victory parade in 1946. He wasn even Prime Minister at the time after losing the 1945 general election. The support for continuing the war – or starting another, depending on how you frame it – was effectively zero.

      Polish pilots were invited to march with the RAF.
      The provisional government of Poland refused an invitation to attend, and free Polish forces refused to either march as a national group behind representatives of that government , or – following belated invitations to do so – separately , as a protest against the Labor government’s recognition of the Soviet-backed puppet government of Poland.

      Anyone trying to blame Churchill for this in the light of his vocal public protests against increasing totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, has obviously not bothered to study he times with any degree of impartiality.

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        Sceptical Sam

        Thanks, PeterW.

        That was a very gentle, appropriate and accurate correction. And it reflects my understanding of the situation at the time.

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        Thanks for telling me that I don,t know the history and about stupid Poles charging the tanks on their horses (the other guy said that) . At least the last one is not true.

        I did not hear anything from soothing words Churchill when I lived behind the iron curtain. So his words meant and mean nothing to me. Don,t blame his own inaction on the FDR only. In the end he said that he never liked the Poles and he was always bullying the head of the polish government in exile in his drunken and depressed stupor. I would not be surprised if he had something to with the death Sikorski in Gibraltar.
        The Polish military that was already dissolved and did not go because the British government already recognised the communist government in Poland. So imagine why you would march for the treasonous government that just betrayed you. Suggest to be less emotional and read more too. Your response is typically English and arrogant.

        You should be happy that Poland did not join the Nazi side because there wouldn,t be any Britain. 3 more million military age people would join 3 million Germans at Barbarossa and the Soviet Russia would be gone in 3 months. Then it would be your turn, and not even the English Channel that saved your skin so many times in the past would not help.
        Anyway the appeasement is well alive in Britain now with M… Projected to be the majority around 2050. You just won against Hilter, but your bulldog PM would be weeping when they hang royal family and you if you still alive and live in there.

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          Aaplogies for typos as I wrote this quickly

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          PeterW

          And the contradictions just keep coming. We should be “thankful” that the Poles did not join the Germans, yet the explicit aim of the German campaign was to

          The object of the war is … physically to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared, for the moment only in the East, my ‘Death’s Head’ formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need. [37]

          Exactly how were the Poles supposed to have joined in their own genocide ……. mass suicide?

          Dazza here talks about not hearing anything from Churchill from behind the Iron Curtain. Who, exactly, does he think made the phrase “Iron Curtain”, so popularly understood? That’s right, Winston… Spencer… Churchill…….
          ……. and Churchill did so several months before the VE parade in London , the invitation of the Provisional Polish Government to which, Dazza makes such a song and dance.

          Maybe I missed something.
          Maybe Dazza did mention the Soviets….. who entered into a secret pact with Germany to divide Poland at the very time that they were pretending to negotiate with Britain and France, a treaty for the defence of Poland.
          Did I?

          One thing about Churchill is clear to anyone who reads history with a critical eye. He recognised the threat posed by the Axis, and he wanted to defeat it.

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            In brackets, same deal

            And the contradictions just keep coming. We should be “thankful” that the Poles did not join the Germans, yet the explicit aim of the German campaign was to
The object of the war is … physically to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared, for the moment only in the East, my ‘Death’s Head’ formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need. [37]
            {Reading too much Wikipedia. Nazis offered military alliance in 1934 but the Poles rejected that hoping to be friends with Britain and France. Under the SS there were more Slavic people than Germans. So what you quote is what happened during the war not well before. And don,t give me mein Kampf crap as Adolf bent his ideology all the time}.

            Exactly how were the Poles supposed to have joined in their own genocide ……. mass suicide? {repeat from above, answer above}.
            Dazza {don,t call me that, it smacks of arrogance, focus on the issue}
            here talks about not hearing anything from Churchill from behind the Iron Curtain. Who, exactly, does he think made the phrase “Iron Curtain”, so popularly understood? That’s right, Winston… Spencer… Churchill…….
……. and Churchill did so several months before the VE parade in London , the invitation of the Provisional Polish Government to which, Dazza makes such a song and dance. {explained that in previous notes, don,t get emotional}
            Maybe I missed something.{read what I said again}.
Maybe Dazza did mention the Soviets….. who entered into a secret pact with Germany to divide Poland at the very time that they were pretending to negotiate with Britain and France, a treaty for the defence of Poland. {incoherent, don,t understand}
Did I?
            One thing about Churchill is clear to anyone who reads history with a critical eye. He recognised the threat posed by the Axis, and he wanted to defeat it.{never questioned that. Once again I don,t hate the guy I point to Britain betrayal after free Poles were fighting and died for Britain}

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      Bill in Oz

      Of course in 1939, the Polish government really ‘helped’ by having an army without tanks and an airforce that was insignificant.

      Ummm ?

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        Dave in the States

        The Poles in 1939 did make a significant contribution to ultimately winning the war. It was the Poles who had made headway toward cracking Enigma. Without the Pole’s work on Enigma and then giving it to the British, it is unlikely that Enigma, especially the Naval Enigmas, would have been broken in time.

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          Bill in Oz

          Yes Dave, that is true.
          But Poland’s history is one of being invaded and carved up by it’s neighbours to the West ( Germany ) the East ( Russia ) and the South ( Austrians )
          So when Poland became independent in 1918-9 any government should have seen the need for large modern armed forces – especially in it’s army & airforce. That meant tanks, fighter planes and bomber aircraft. After all that is what it’s immediate neighbours ( Germany & Russia ) were doing.

          Instead in September 1939 the Polish tried to fight Nazi Germany with cavalry & were wiped out. Like the charge at Balaklava, glorious but stupid !

          Something that has always puzzled me is why Chamberlin signed an alliance with Poland in June 1939 just a few months before the Germans ( and Russians ) invaded and carved up of Poland – for the third time if memory serves me well.

          I wonder sometimes if it would have been wiser not to have signed that alliance which lead to the start of WW2 in September 1939 when Britain was not yet ready.. Yes Britain was rearming after the disarmament stupidities of the 1920-30’s. But it was not ready to fight a war against Germany. It needed more time.

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            Britain needed more time, that is why Britain sacrificed Poland so the Brits could just survive. Britain went to war after Austria, Czechoslovakia,s, Memel, Poland, then Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia betrayal. So don,t be surprised that Eastern Europe has an aversion to Churchill.

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              PeterW

              Dariusz.

              There is a thing known here (which is NOT Britain) as “Poor Bugger Me syndrome”.

              It enables the possessor to blame everybody else for their situation, thereby avoiding all responsibility..

              It is dishonest to claim that Britain “sacrificed” a nation that was not Britain’s to give away. Poland was it’s own nation, responsible for its own defence. It is unfair to blame Britain for not defending Poland when Britain had no capacity to do so. It is also deeply unfair to blame those who saw an entanglement of treaties drag them into the hell of WW1, from being reluctant to see the same thing happen again.

              Your insistence on vilifying Churchill is even more unreasonable g8ven that he was (a) a fervent advocate of Britain arming in order to PREVENT another war, or keep it as short as possible if it must come, and (b) equally convinced that Britain should bea reliable friend and ally.

              An example of the latter is his determination to support Greece, an action that many of my fellow-Australians criticise as a waste of Australian lives. Leaving aside the fact that it diverted resources away from Barbarossa at a point where they were critically needed, Churchill argued that it was critical that all potential allies would understand that the Allies would do what they could.

              Yes, yes, we already dealt with the Victory Parade issue, not that you seem to have the good grace to acknowledge either that, or that it was nothing to do with the man that you are looking for excuses to hate.

              Churchill WAS a difficult man to deal with. You only have to read the accounts of the BRITISH commanders who served under him to recognise that. It does NOT justify fictionalising his involvement, or denying his very obvious merits.

              The irony of someone knowing what it was like to live behind the iron curtain, accepting uncritically the Politically Correct propaganda against a western leader is obvious.

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                my answer in brackets.

                There is a thing known here (which is NOT Britain) as “Poor Bugger Me syndrome”. (Not true. Don,t get personal.)
                It enables the possessor to blame everybody else for their situation, thereby avoiding all responsibility. (not true, don,t get personal.)

                It is dishonest to claim that Britain “sacrificed” a nation that was not Britain’s to give away. Poland was it’s own nation, responsible for its own defence. It is unfair to blame Britain for not defending Poland when Britain had no capacity to do so. (Excuse. Poor me Britain bugged me syndrome. They were obligated by signed agreement on 31 of March 1939. Britain pledged this.)
                It is also deeply unfair to blame those who saw an entanglement of treaties drag them into the hell of WW1, from being reluctant to see the same thing happen again. (Poor me Britain etc. I Never mentioned that and Poland suffered more, but u don,t know that).
                Your insistence on vilifying Churchill is even more unreasonable g8ven that he was (a) a fervent advocate of Britain arming in order to PREVENT another war, or keep it as short as possible if it must come, and (b) equally convinced that Britain should bea reliable friend and ally. (Vaguely understand? I don,t vilify him just tell you how he is perceived in the east, this is not just my opinion. Both countries have strong democratic traditions (Poland,s democratic constitution of the 1791). The fact that I criticise him does not mean that I don,t want to be friends with Britain. Again emotional argument little to with logic.)

                An example of the latter is his determination to support Greece, an action that many of my fellow-Australians criticise as a waste of Australian lives. Leaving aside the fact that it diverted resources away from Barbarossa at a point where they were critically needed, Churchill argued that it was critical that all potential allies would understand that the Allies would do what they could. (Judgement in highlight. He did defend Greece but a for completely different reasons and u know that.)

                Yes, yes, we already dealt with the Victory Parade issue, not that you seem to have the good grace to acknowledge either that, or that it was nothing to do with the man that you are looking for excuses to hate. (Emotional and Repeat of hate, explained that above.)

                Yes, yes, we already dealt with the Victory Parade issue, not that you seem to have the good grace to acknowledge either that, or that it was nothing to do with the man that you are looking for excuses to hate. (Emotional and not valid argument. I don,t hate him and certainly not looking for excuses. Polish government in exile was not recognised by France on 29 June 1945. This was followed by Britain on 5th of July 1945. No apologies . In fact, the timing is perfidious to save Churchill skin when he lost the election on the same day.)

                Churchill WAS a difficult man to deal with. You only have to read the accounts of the BRITISH commanders who served under him to recognise that. It does NOT justify fictionalising his involvement, or denying his very obvious merits. (Assumption and not true).

                The irony of someone knowing what it was like to live behind the iron curtain, accepting uncritically the Politically Correct propaganda against a western leader is obvious. (Incorrect assumption illustrating a complete lack of understanding where I came from, incoherent argument.)

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              PeterW

              Further to that lie claiming “betrayal”….

              Britain and France (and Australia) declared war on a Germany two days after the invasion of Poland. Don’t kid yourself that it is possible to embark a major expeditionary force – let alone an army group capable of effectively countering the Wehrmacht as it invaded Poland, let alone both Germany AND the Red Army. – at a moment’s notice. That shows complete ignorance of the requirements of military logistics.

              By early October, Germany was offering peace to France and Britain, If they accepted the German occupation of Western Poland. They refused – so much for “betrayal”.

              As a consequence, Hitler ordered naval operations against British shipping, a naval buildup to threaten Britain’s maritime supply routes, and the Wehrmacht to prepare for the invasion of France.

              It is blindingly obvious to anyone with a grain of strategic understanding that Britain’s entire focus had to be placed on dealing with those threats – threats existing As a consequence of NOT accepting the German occupation of Poland.

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                Answers again in brackets
                Further to that lie claiming “betrayal”…. [emotional, see note above and here, betrayal stands].
                Britain and France (and Australia) declared war on a Germany two days after the invasion of Poland. Don’t kid yourself that it is possible to embark a major expeditionary force – let alone an army group capable of effectively countering the Wehrmacht as it invaded Poland, let alone both Germany AND the Red Army. – at a moment’s notice. [At the time of attack France had enough troops with Britain coming later to attack Germany from the west. They did not do that. France betrayal and your later.]
                That shows complete ignorance of the requirements of military logistics. [explained this in the previous note, Britain pledged and did not deliver, betrayal stands. See also just above].

                By early October, Germany was offering peace to France and Britain, If they accepted the German occupation of Western Poland. They refused – so much for “betrayal”. [this is correct and that decision was positive to Poland, otherwise u would not have the conversation with me now, haha].

                As a consequence, Hitler ordered naval operations against British shipping, a naval buildup to threaten Britain’s maritime supply routes, and the Wehrmacht to prepare for the invasion of France.
                It is blindingly obvious to anyone with a grain of strategic understanding that Britain’s entire focus had to be placed on dealing with those threats – threats existing As a consequence of NOT accepting the German occupation of Poland. [poor me Britain argument, should not have signed the treaty then, betrayal stands].

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    Richard Ilfeld

    Boeing and climate change:

    The angst over Boeing is settling down. From an air safety perspective, it appears that the company has a handle on
    improvements that should be made to the aircraft series. They will do this. The authorities will “insist”, but reality
    allow this to be done expeditiously & without fanfare. There is a simple reason for this. We all get on airplanes and fly places,
    and do so with a degree of confidence is successful outcomes like many much more routine things in life…we expect an airliner trip
    to be completed with the routine nature of plugging in a lamp and turning on a light.

    The investigations must complete, however. One can only wish we gave the process of “climate change” the attention we give to an airline crash site, where enormous resources are expended to reconstruct and understand fully. It may be worthwhile to consider why this is true.

    The training regimes seem at be at issue. The Lion Air right seat pilot apparently had only 200 flight hours of ab initio training to sit as copilot in a commercial jet. This seems utterly bizarre to an elderly US pilot who was required to have 200 flight hours to begin instrument training. Yes, modern airliners are very much exercises in systems management but it’s not a video game, and, in extremis, one still has to fly the airplane. One can feel for the deceased, and worry about the political grandstanding as Boeing is a target of opportunity for politicians and lawyers who claim that they are the ones “to protect the public”, and still understand that our knowledge of and capabilities in aviation have been wrested from the laws of physics and the foibles of invention a great human cost over these many years.

    But go to watch at any major jetport, and marvel at what man has achieved.

    They read any screed flogging “climate change”, and observe steps being taken with negative consequences, and marvel at our collective stupidity. an airliner goes down, we figure out why and take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

    Energy prices go up and the reliability of the system goes down, and we completely ignore the testimony of any one who knows anything in favor of politicians. Where is the exhaustive reconstruction and dissection that leads to both technical and human understanding, insofar as is possible, of the cause of a crash.

    150 people dying in an airliner is a calamity internationally. 150, or 1500, or 15000 poor suffering winter energy poverty due to political misadventure is ignored. A 200 hour pilot where the norm is in the thousands is a cause for great scrutiny concern. Energy policy set by one who never took a science course is typical.

    I shudder to think of what man-made calamity in the energy arena might befall us to elevate the public consciousness and demand for believable answers that is evidenced following an airliner crash.

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      • #
        Richard Ilfeld

        Boeing has accepted that improvements are required and they are being made. The FAA has not accepted responsibility it probably has, and any or may not improve it’s procedures. Considering how the training and deployment of controllers has deteriorated and become more poltically correct (my opinion, not fact) if the same erosion has occurred in flight standard division Boeing is the more capable of the two. But the black and white of charges of “failure’ do not bespeak a judgement that was actually made. In both the simulator and the field (and in fact at Lion Air) the trim runaway procedure specified solved the issue and allowed safe flight completion. There is no doubt that dual AOA instruments are needed, and a discrepancy indicator if they disagree. Boeing offered this as an option but in retrospect should not have left the decision to the carrier bean-counters. This fix will be standard in the future, and the company ill probably face some liability for making it an option.

        The point is that the process…well understood…is getting the airplanes fixed. An equally well understood and reliable scientific process is absent in the field of climate change and the corporations that produce (and understand) our energy are not recognized as Boeing is.

        The pole who gleefully vote for 50% renewables in twenty years, with power to enforce same, are not the folks I want designing my cockpit. The congressional hearings re Boeing will be for posturing and public flogging only; the actual re-engineering will probably be in place before they occur.

        30

  • #
    tom0mason

    I note that Kenneth Richard’s post over at http://notrickszone.com/2019/03/22/busted-hockey-sticks-35-non-global-warming-papers-have-been-published-in-2019/ shows us ‘Busted Hockey Sticks: 35 Non-Global Warming Papers Have Been Published In 2019’

    Some consensus, eh?

    60

  • #
    Slithers

    Topic: UNDERSTANDING
    Statement: I am a Logician.
    Expanded Statement: A highly trained and very successful Logician with 61, yes Sixty-one years experience.
    More Expanded Statement: Notice that there is NO discipline or special sphere of experience quoted!
    Question: Does everyone understand what a Logician does for a living?
    All replies will be acknowledged and/or responded to, even yours Peter Fitzroy.

    62

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Slithers he doesn’t even know how much he pays for electricity.

      50

    • #
      David Wojick

      I am a logician. What I mostly do for a living is analyze arguments, especially the climate change debate. I also add new arguments when I see an opening. Climate scientists study climate while I study their reasoning.

      90

      • #
        Slithers

        Thank You David,
        I have been a ‘Problem Solver’, for 61 years; please note Peter Fitz I make no claim about being a ‘Problem Fixer’. In 99% of the problems I have been asked to investigate the cause has been that the size of the box they thought the problem was in had been miss-scaled. The box was larger than they thought, therefore they had not been looking in the right places.
        The term, ‘Thinking outside the box’ is so misleading when you don’t know the size of the box!

        70

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          At the top of this thread you say “I am a computer whiz.”
          Now you say “I am a Logician”
          You do not use your real name.

          What would you conclude?

          07

          • #
            AndyG55

            “What would you conclude?”

            That pfutz is very low in comprehension skills.

            31

          • #
            Slithers

            Gee Whiz Peter, It is patently obvious that your brain cannot remember any thing you read yesterday!
            In my post about my experience at the UK Weather bureau it stated How many years ago!?!
            In This post I state I am a logician with 61 years experience!
            Doh! I was a Trained, fully paid up logician before I became a computer Whiz.
            Although I did place my hands on a computer for the first time on the 6th June 1958.
            And Yes I traveled the world identifying and even fixing computer problems. First trip to Australia January 1981 Dalgety had a Central File Handler problem.
            I am 81 years old so do not want my real name known here, but it’s not that hard to find as I publish quite often in Computer Journals using my name, not Slithers.

            40

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Why should I care. If this is an appeal to authority, then it is a poor one.

      07

      • #
        AndyG55

        Poor puddle-pfutz, you only have appeals to ignorance and idiocy.

        You lack any sort of scientific or mathematical logical nous.

        You “believe” AGW junk that is scientifically unsupportable.

        You have a mental problem, that probably cannot be fixed.

        62

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Fitz,

        I keep appealing to your “authority” to tell us how man-made CO2 is the predominant driver of global temperature increase.

        Until you answer it you will continue to be considered as some sort of a green/left propagandist tool.

        And, BTW, it’s OK to be wrong Fitz. It just takes a bit of courage and humility.

        If you you now recognize that you are wrong, or if you’re no longer sure that your belief is true, (ie., you’re now somewhat sceptical of your original position) admit it. The world will then take on a resplendence that you had never considered possible.

        50

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Do you agree that historically, naturally occuring C02 is one of the greenhouse gases?
          Do you agree that man made C02 is the same atomic composition as the naturally occuring kind?

          25

          • #
            robert rosicka

            Percentage of natural CO2 in the atmosphere compared to the percentage of man made CO2 is what Fitz ? Five fifths of fugall.

            51

            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              We are talking about a driver of the global temperature increase. ATM all I’m trying to do is establish what common ground Sceptical Sam and myself might have. You might want to shut up and learn something

              25

              • #
                AndyG55

                “We are talking about a driver of the global temperature increase.”

                RUBBISH !!!!!

                There is absolutely ZERO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that increased atmospheric CO2 has any affect on the climate WHAT SO EVER

                STOP your anti-science yabbering, POC. !!

                52

              • #
                AndyG55

                “You might want to shut up and learn something”

                ROFLMAO… hilarious.

                From you, ignorant pfutz, that is total IRONING !!!

                Never seen someone so ignorantly arrogant..

                or is it arrogantly ignorant.. as you are, little puddle.

                42

              • #
                robert rosicka

                What on earth am I going to learn from you putz ? That CO2 is the control knob for temperature on this planet ? Maybe that increased CO2 causes earthquakes?.
                One thing I’ll never learn from you is science but you could give me a few pointers into how to back stab your mates and get them fired .

                41

              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                We are talking about a driver of the global temperature increase.

                We have no common ground Fitz.

                Just tell us how man-made CO2 is the predominant driver of global temperature increase.

                If you are as certain of your position as you claim, that should not require an understanding of what “common ground” you and I might have.

                30

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Then I can not tell you anything, can I?
                I’m not going to waste my time, go argue with the IPCC instead

                25

              • #
              • #
                AndyG55

                You have NO EVIDENCE

                the IPCC has NO EVIDENCE

                it is a scientific LIE that you have swallowed hook LIE ans SUCKER. !!

                The IPCC is NOT a scientific body, they area POLITICAL body.

                The don’t “DO” science. !!

                41

              • #
                AndyG55

                “Then I can not tell you anything, can I?”

                Its all just MEANINGLESS YAPPING from a child-troll. !!

                41

              • #
                AndyG55

                “I’m not going to waste my time”

                Whatever your purpose here, it has one big waste of everyone’s time.

                And most certainly of yours.

                You have learnt absolutely NOTHING, because your manically held AGW brain-washing will not allow you to.

                Nor have you persuaded anyone of any of your mindless anti-science AGW propaganda nonsense.

                41

              • #
                Slithers

                Dear Peter, Year 12 students know the difference between a DATASET and a DATABASE!

                40

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Listen Slithers, I am quoting the BOM website, you are not. Either put up the proof, or admit that you are just another deluded blowhard, like AndyG55

                04

              • #
                el gordo

                What we know for sure is that CO2 hasn’t been this high for yonks.

                Its also possible to see that CO2 has no impact on temperatures, nor did it increase during the Roman Warm Period or Medieval Warm Period.

                https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghgs-lawdome-2000yr-CO2-asof2010.svg

                Did the sinks work overtime to soak it up? Did the warming ocean liberate the gas from the depths?

                50

              • #
                AndyG55

                “Either put up the proof”

                ROFLMAO.. really puddle-pfutz.. you moronic, self-gratifying dolt.

                We have been asking you for ages for empirical proof of warming by atmospheric CO2 and you have constantly drawn a COMPLETE ZERO !

                You are nothing but a brain-washed, ignorant little anti-science troll. !

                You have NOTHING to back up anything you say.

                Your very own citations have shown that ACORN is a SUBSET of the main weather database.

                Why are you SO DUMB that you can’t even understand your own links !!!

                31

              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                Fitz says:

                I’m not going to waste my time, go argue with the IPCC instead

                I have Fitz. I have.

                And it keeps on changing its position as it finds out that what it assured national governments was the case, turns out not to be.

                Instead of looking at its fundamental error, the IPCC doubles down on stupidity. And, people like you and your IPCC apologist comrades go along with it as its obsequious Posse Comitatus.

                It’s pretty simple. You hold, the IPCC holds, that man-made CO2 is the prime driver of of global temperature increase. However, there are thousands of reputable scientific papers that cast significant doubt on that hypothesis. There is a substantial body of empirical evidence that casts doubt on that hypothesis. And, the very models that are designed around that hypothesis, demonstrate an inability to accurately project future conditions. That makes the Null hypothesis look very dominant to me.

                However, you have the temerity to come here with your climate change catechism tucked under your arm like some risen Jim Jones, preach it, yet refuse to answer the basic question: tell us how man-made CO2 is the predominant driver of global temperature increase.

                30

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                See el gordo’s link

                03

              • #
                el gordo

                The driver of atmospheric temperatures is to be found in the SST, notice the step change after El Nino.

                https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/figure-1-3.png

                20

              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                See el gordo’s link

                I did.

                It demonstrates my point.

                Man-made CO2 is not the prime driver of the global temperature increase.

                10

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    I had been reliably informed that the science on plate tectonics was settled …

    Scientists make ‘impossible’ discovery off coast of Africa

    “This is what nature presents, sometimes,” Class added in her interview with Live Science.

    “It’s something we consider impossible, but then we find it and once we find it, we have to explain it.”

    https://nypost.com/2019/03/18/scientists-make-impossible-discovery-off-coast-of-africa/

    h/t instapundit

    51

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Military Photo: Dragon Lady Ready for Takeoff

    Mar. 15, 2019.: Commonly referred to as the most difficult aircraft to fly in the world, the U-2 Dragon Lady has been host to less than fifteen-hundred pilots since the first flight in 1955.

    https://strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_2019032011286.aspx

    30

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      The great embarrassment for the USAF was that an English Electric lightning PASSED it! (1960s) Not sure of the Mach number when it did it!

      20

  • #
    David Wojick

    My latest: Feds push climate alarmism to our children
    https://www.cfact.org/2019/03/22/feds-push-climate-alarmism-to-our-children/

    My fundraiser to offset his federal propaganda machine:
    https://www.gofundme.com/climate-change-debate-education

    Excerpts from the article: As our children skip school to chant climate alarmist slogans, you may wonder “Where do they get this stuff?” Of course they get some of it from their teachers, but these teachers get a lot of it via the U.S. Federal Government. The sad fact is that a number of federal agencies either maintain or fund websites that specifically exist to push alarmist teaching materials. In many cases these alarmist materials are also federally funded. The Trump Administration has done very little to stem this flow of propaganda to our children.

    Here is a partial list of Federal or federally funded websites pushing alarmist educational materials for kids:

    1. Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN).
    http://cleanet.org/
    Bills itself as “A collection of 700+ free, ready-to-use resources rigorously reviewed by educators and scientists. Suitable for secondary through higher education classrooms.” CLEAN is funded by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

    2. US Global Change Research Program “Resources for Educators.”
    http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/educators
    The USGCRP is funded by 13 federal agencies. It also produces the hyper-alarmist National Climate Assessments.

    3. NOAA’s “Teaching Climate.” (A massive website)
    https://www.climate.gov/teaching
    NOAA’s Climate.gov website is completely alarmist. In fact they define alarmism as so-called “Climate literacy.”

    More websites are listed

    In contrast to these federal propaganda sites, there is at this time no website that focuses on teaching children about skepticism and the real scientific debate over climate change. It is no wonder that they believe false alarmism.

    The lack of a skeptical education website supports the illusion of alarmist consensus.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      David:

      Seems like a good chance for some reductions in government spending.

      50

      • #
        David Wojick

        Trump has tried to cut alarmist spending but Congress ignored his requests. Now that the House is Democrat there is zero chance of cuts.

        30

      • #
        David Wojick

        Trump has tried to cut alarmist spending but Congress ignored his requests. Now that the House is Democrat there is zero chance of cuts.

        50

  • #
    Peter C

    I am going out today to door knock for the Australian Conservatives and our Victorian Candidate, Kevin Bailey AM.

    140

  • #
    James Murphy

    Who’d have thought that the Democrats and most media outlets are getting themselves hot under the collar…? It seems like they want to shoot the messenger and subpoena Mueller now.

    I think the next few weeks are going to be…interesting…

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    • #
      PeterS

      They will get hotter under the collar not just because they are getting more angry but because the spotlight is now turning on them. The question then is what will be their reaction? Will it be like that of a wounded ferocious animal or will they behave like cockroaches and scurry away back into their dark holes where they belong? Probably a combination depending on who we are talking about.

      60

  • #
    robert rosicka

    The ABC is so full of hatred for Donald Trump they refuse to believe that there was nothing in the Mueller report .
    I’ve just heard claims Trump was a Russian operative and could not have won without the Russians.
    The left are relentless in their pursuit to destroy anyone who challenges their socialist ideology.

    120

    • #
      James Murphy

      It must be hard to see 2 years of relentless harassment and story-telling get more-or-less wiped out overnight.

      110

    • #
      PeterS

      The tables are turning. There is now focus building up on those who pushed the false claims against Trump in the first place. Let the real games begin.

      100

    • #
      James Murphy

      The (American) wife of one of my colleagues had to take a few days off work when Trump was elected because it was so distressing. No doubt she will need another couple of days off now.

      Gender aside, it’s a bit worrying to know that this is the mindset of a person on a ‘fast track’ to being a Vice President of a multi-billion dollar international company.

      80

    • #
      yarpos

      Just another outcome the looney left cant accept

      40

  • #
    robert rosicka

    ” STOP PRESS”

    Study finds closing Hazelwood has jacked up prices , no surely not .

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-25/energy-companies-gouge-customers-hazelwood-electricity-bill/10910948

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Not a word about the closure of the Port Augusta brown coal generation plant in SA in 2015 ?

      Now that caused us grief here in SA with high power prices.

      40

  • #
    pat

    police took more than an hour to get to the location, and no-one was arrested:

    VIDEO: 7mins: 24 Mar: Qld Country Life: Police called after 100 activists ‘invade’ Millmerran feedlot
    by Penelope Arthur
    The Federal Agriculture Minister and local member David Littleproud has slammed the protesters as having “no moral compass”.
    He confirmed the feedlot is listed on the Aussie Farms map and has called on all state governments to increase trespass laws and penalties
    “States must create a serious penalty for trespassing on family farms.
    “For police from surrounding towns to be called to protect farming families is a waste of resources, a broader public safety issue and an absolute disgrace.
    “Animal Welfare groups have lost their social licence. They have no moral compass when they are prepared to intimidate innocent Australians and their actions taints their own cause.”…
    The campaign is calling on the government to revoke the charity status of Aussie Farms, strengthen farmers’ privacy protections and increase penalties for trespass…
    Yesterday, Mr Littleproud said Aussie Farms could no longer argue its map was anything but an attack map for activists.
    “This is the second invasion onto a property listed on their map in recent months,” he said.
    “The slaps on the wrist being handed out to animal activists invading family farms is encouraging them to escalate their efforts. A real deterrent is needed before someone gets seriously hurt or killed. There are children living on these family farms”…
    “Vegans eat plenty of farm produce and I respect their right to be vegan…

    “We’ve seen utterly ridiculous penalties handed out to trespassing and thieving animal activists in the past few months.
    The incident follows also the $1 fine issued over the Gippy Goats invasion in Victoria, and a $200 fine to a Sunshine Coast offender who trespassed at a piggery – she received less for the third offence than she did for the second.
    https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/5970613/100-activists-invade-southern-queensland-feedlot-video/?cs=4785

    AUDIO: 40min19sec: 26 Feb: ABC Perth Focus: How social media has changed the activist landscape and what it means for WA’s agriculture sector.
    On Focus with Jessica Strutt
    Protests have historically achieved good outcomes.
    Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March was the beginning of the end of British rule in India. Protest was also essential in gaining women the right to vote and civil rights in America. The very fact that the work day is eight hours long was hard won with protest and activism.

    In recent months there’s been a new activism emerge in WA, direct action by vegan activists against farmers and it’s inspired strong feelings on both sides.
    ***Tensions first flared with the publication of a map that included the private details of hundreds of WA farmers, in a move that signalled an intent to act on that information.
    https://www.abc.net.au/radio/perth/programs/focus/vegan/10854144

    “a lot of us” says ABC’s Mackenzie:

    AUDIO: 14min38sec: 22 Mar: ABC Life Matters: Could the perfect burger be meat free?
    Presenter: Michael Mackenzie
    A lot of us are trying to cut down our meat consumption because of the health or the environmental benefits…
    Banana blossom, jackfruit, fungi, yellow pea protein, and even insects have all been used to create what is, essentially, fake meat.
    Life Matters talks to Thomas King, a former Young Australian of the Year and CEO of Food Frontier, an independent think-tank for plant-based meat alternatives and cell based meats.
    Food Frontier have recently released their latest report “Meat Re-imagined.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/meat/10925120

    ABC concern for the “activists”:

    9 Mar: ABC: Vegan group claims it was kicked out of Adelaide Fringe for ‘silent vigil’ in defence of animals
    But event organisers have disputed the claims, saying only three people were asked to stop filming at the garden and nobody had been barred from the site…

    50

    • #
      pat

      meant to say the opening lines of ABC Perth’s animal activists’ program are so loaded in favour of the activists.

      Facebook: Qld Country Life – 23h ago
      Another family farm was ‘invaded’ by up to 100 animal rights activists at Millmerran yesterday
      PIC a few of the protesters, one with sign showing quote from Martin Luther King
      852 comments (a few defending the “activists”
      https://www.facebook.com/queenslandcountrylife/posts/10161781633180604

      behind paywall – why isn’t stuff like this being reported by ABC, where it could be accessed by everyone:

      MP Keith Pitt says youth anxious over climate change warnings
      Courier Mail – 22 Mar 2019
      STUDENTS are being given anxiety because of irresponsible doomsday-type warnings about climate change, a Queensland Federal MP has warned, while calling on schools to ensure they have qualified and responsible science teachers. Hinkler MP Keith Pitt has told Australian students …

      50

      • #
        pat

        Australian Farmers campaign: It’s time to strengthen trespass laws
        Activist trespassers are making a joke of our legal system – carrying out brazen invasions of private farms and walking away with a slap on the wrist, only to reoffend. It’s time for governments to act.
        SIGN THE PETITION
        These soft penalties send the wrong message to the radical and well-resourced activist organisations which are coordinating these intrusions…
        Add your name to the petition to send a message that you want our political leaders to protect farming families.
        https://farmers.org.au/campaign/protectourfarms/

        50

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Will be worth a dollar fine with no conviction recorded if what happened in Victoriastan is anything to go by .

      30

    • #
      yarpos

      Does this mean Reality Activists can now invade and occupy wind “farms” without consequence????

      50

  • #
    pat

    a must listen:

    AUDIO: 7min39sec: 25 Mar: 2GB Alan Jones show: ‘It’s happening everywhere’: China buying Australian flying schools
    Virgin Australia is currently in talks with a Chinese conglomerate to open a flight school in Tamworth for both Chinese and Australian pilots.
    Businessman and aviation expert, Dick Smith tells Alan Jones he’s seeing continued Chinese ownership across the entire Australian aviation industry.
    Mr Smith claims “it’s happening everywhere” with a Bankstown flying school the latest to be snapped up by a Chinese company.

    The entrepreneur says there is already a shortage of airline pilots across Australia because “our training industry is nearly completely destroyed” and fears Australian pilots will be shut out of foreign-owned flight schools.
    Mr Smith says many of these Chinese owned flying schools are failing to train Australian pilots, claiming “they’ll say an Australian pilot can comply but if you look it’s just about all Chinese pilots.”
    https://www.2gb.com/its-happening-everywhere-china-buying-australian-flying-schools/

    50

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: Fox News: Trump team turns tables after Mueller report, calls for investigation into probe’s origin
    By Andrew O’Reilly; The Associated Press contributed to this report
    President Trump and his legal team declared total victory Sunday following the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s key findings — including no evidence of collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign — but sought to turn the tables by renewing calls to investigate the investigators.

    Trump himself slammed the probe as an “illegal takedown,” as he called Mueller’s report a “complete exoneration” and said it was a “shame” his presidency had to deal with the investigation for two years.
    “Hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side,” Trump said. “This was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side.”

    In case it wasn’t clear what he meant, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News an investigation should be launched into how the investigation began.
    “He was being investigated for a crime that never happened,” Giuliani said. “There was never any collusion.”
    Giuliani added: “There has to be a full and complete investigation, with at least as much enthusiasm as this one, to figure out where did this charge emanate, who started it, who paid for it.”…
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-team-turns-tables-after-mueller-report-calls-for-investigation-into-probe

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  • #
    crakar24

    A C-17 needed to do a 180 degree turn with engines at full power, the jet wash knocked over a fence, the fence is right next to the EDN weather station. Obviously the BOM have processes in place to filter out such anomolous high temps…….surely???

    100

  • #
    Choroin

    I wonder where Palmer United Party is getting all the funds to advertise at prime time and all over the internet for 9 months prior to the federal election?

    Mr Palmer, who is a member of the Club of Madrid, has a website which is totally useless if anyone wants to know what policy positions any of his members are pledging to support.

    When searching for his policy on an Emissions Trading scheme, it is conspicuously absent, albeit some rhetoric regarding energy prices from October last year, which is framed in a very curious manner.

    https://www.unitedaustraliaparty.org.au/the-great-power-price-rip-off-youre-paying-for/

    According to Mr Palmer:

    Tony Abbott fooled the nation when he told us the carbon tax was responsible for electricity price rises and abolishing it would see costs tumble. They didn’t of course because carbon tax only accounted for 9% of your bill. The con was set in stone.

    So here’s his reasoning for what caused the absurd price rises:

    Now, about 50% of your electricity bill is attributed to ‘network charges’. Basically, you’re paying back a $45 billion loan for electricity infrastructure you didn’t ask for and didn’t need. Estimates say around $20 billion would have been more than adequate to upgrade and future-proof our electricity infrastructure.

    This media release wraps renewables in cotton wool as if they are affordable, then attempts to lay all the blame for the increased prices on over investment in unnecessary network infrastructure.

    At no point does Palmer mention that a great deal of this increased network infrastructure was necessary to link up inefficient wind farms and PV solar plants at their remote, decentralized locations, or that these connections have to be built to carry the PEAK power capacity of said renewable plants, including a threshold for future expansion.

    These connectors are seldom used to capacity because renewable sources supply inconsistent power generation. Add to this the fact that DC-to-AC inversion equipment and cycle synchronizations of such renewable loads with the AC grid require untold amounts of highly expensive technological wizardry, and Palmer’s media release reads like a textbook BLAME THE VICTIM screed.

    At no point does he mention how exactly the power grids can be holistically fixed – like removing the Frankenstein regulations necessary to make these renewable sources seem viable on a spreadsheet.

    Obviously Palmer is in bed with the likes of Al Gore (whom he stood next to a few years ago while throwing burning tar all over Tony Abbott’s plans to “axe the [carbon] tax”) and Al’s crony elite vampires sucking the life out of the first world nations from offshore tax havens while they lecture us all about the original sin of having been born.

    I’m sick of this charlatan and everything he stands for though his lip-service about Chinese foreign direct investment will woo a lot of voters who aren’t aware of his true intentions – to once again hold a balance of power in the House and/or Senate where he can obstruct any movement to bring back sanity to Australia’s energy future, whilst claiming he’s doing the opposite.

    Anyone who thinks the money for Palmer’s prolonged election campaign – unprecedented in Australian political history – is coming solely out of his own pocket, is living in a very small dark box indeed. This campaign is part of a larger globalist plan to subvert western nations, and it is never going to give up all the while the average voter is in a slumber.

    /rant off

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    • #
      yarpos

      Have you ever tried to get anything meaningful out of a Labor or Liberal website more than a month out from an election? They are all pretty useless and platitude ridden.

      Re Palmers funding, cant say i care really but i have no axe to grind

      30

  • #
    pat

    23 Mar: NY Post: Michael Goodwin: How to end our national nightmare — probe Hillary Clinton again
    We are not close to the end. Not by a long shot…
    Meanwhile, Trump’s vindication is a devastating rebuke to Democrats and their media handmaidens, all of whom insisted his guilt was guaranteed. Their legacy is that they ruined their own credibility, and their continuing efforts to destroy him by innuendo and investigation can only add to their disgrace.
    For them, too, Friday night was like a repeat of Trump’s election victory.
    Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Hillary Clinton’s house…

    But even as we learn the details of what Mueller found, there remains a giant black hole about the very origins of the FBI investigation that led to his appointment in the first place.
    It is astonishing, for example, that at this late date, we still do not know what evidence the disgraced James Comey and his FBI had to open the original probe in the summer of 2016, and whether there was anything other than the fatally tainted Russian dossier.
    Nor do we know of any compelling reason why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein later decided a special counsel was necessary to get to the bottom of the swirling accusations of collusion that started during the campaign and mushroomed after Trump’s upset victory.

    Recall that Rosenstein effectively urged Comey be fired in May of 2017, then eight days later mysteriously decided the action warranted an investigation from outside the Justice Department.
    Rosenstein’s conflicts of interest are appalling and the Mueller appointment cast a cloud over the presidency and fueled conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of Trump’s election. The true impact is incalculable, but we know those claims led to the resistance movement and that Mueller was used by some Dems to justify boycotting the State of the Union speech and refusing to support any of Trump’s appointments or legislation.

    Now, with Mueller finished, it is time to give equal attention to the other side of the story, of how we got here. The questions can be boiled down to two.
    Was the initial decision to investigate Trump’s campaign an honest mistake by the Obama administration? Or was it an attempt to rig the election in favor of Clinton, and when that failed, overthrow a duly elected president?
    Those outstanding issues are as worthy of complete answers as those that Mueller investigated. In addition to knowing whether there was an improper relationship between a candidate and a foreign power, Americans also deserve to know what was going on inside their own government and whether it was simply incompetent or thoroughly corrupt, or some combination of the two.
    Put another way, what did President Obama and his administration do, and why did they do it?…

    I don’t underestimate the importance of the issue, but Barr must not be consumed by it. Indeed, he needs to deliver on another promise he made during his Senate confirmation hearings, where he said he was alarmed by the demonstrated bias against Trump by top FBI agents such as Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and suggested he was not satisfied the FBI and the Justice Department had been fully held accountable…

    Getting to the bottom of it would mean a criminal probe of Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, along with others in the leadership ranks of the FBI. Did they, as it appears, fail to disclose to the court that Clinton’s team commissioned and paid for the Russian dossier and that its allegations were unverified when they sought approval to spy on the Trump campaign?
    If the answers are yes, they may have committed felonies, as did those who authorized any misleading court applications, including Rosenstein.
    A criminal probe would also mean uncovering any role played by the reprehensible John Brennan, then head of the CIA, James Clapper, head of national intelligence, and Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, in creating the FBI probe and leaking classified information…

    Among the questions they need to be asked under oath is, did you have any role in spreading the Clinton-funded dossier to the media? Did you leak the names of Trump associates picked up on wiretaps?
    In addition, of course, there are also fundamental doubts about the integrity of the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified e-mails. The doubts include what role, if any, Loretta Lynch, then the attorney general, and others in the Obama administration played in the suspect exoneration of Clinton.
    Because there are so many questions about the Clinton case and the origins of the Trump probe, the best and only fair solution is for Barr to appoint a new special counsel…

    Unlike the Mueller probe, which ranged too far and took too long, this investigation should be focused on credible allegations against Clinton and top officials of the Obama administration. And it must be completed before the 2020 election so voters can know the whole story of what happened in 2016 and the early days of the Trump presidency before they vote again.
    Then, and only then, can we say that our long national nightmare is over.
    https://nypost.com/2019/03/23/how-to-end-our-national-nightmare-probe-hillary-clinton-again/

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Trump is running out of time. Now that Mueller has filed his report he can’t allow any grass to grow beneath his feet. He must unseal the indictments, start military tribunals and start filling Gitmo. NOTE: I know I have made assumptions here this may all be conspiracy theories. If they are, I’m not sure how Trump survives this death by 1,000 cuts. Only once in prison will the dems lay off.

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      • #
        PeterS

        Not that simple I’m afraid. He also has many enemies in his own party. The knives are coming from all sides. There are many special interest groups of all sorts wanting to go back to what it was like before Trump came onto the scene, and some will do whatever it takes to do it.

        30

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: Judicial Watch: Judicial Watch Statement on Mueller Report
    Tom Fitton: The long, national nightmare is over and President Trump has been vindicated. The corruptly-created and constitutionally abusive Mueller investigation failed to find any evidence…
    [snip]

    The targeting of President Trump served to protect Hillary Clinton and her enablers/co-conspirators in Obama administration from prosecution. Attorney General Barr can begin restoring the credibility of the Justice Department by finally initiating a thorough investigation of the Clinton emails and related pay-to-play scandals and the abuses behind the targeting of President Trump.

    Judicial Watch has long called for the shutdown of the Mueller special counsel operation and has pursued dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits into the illicit targeting and other abuses of President Trump. Judicial Watch FOIA litigation exposed, for example:
    •The dossier-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications targeting President Trump
    •FBI payments to Christopher Steele
    •FBI firing of Steele
    •Extensive DOJ (Ohr) collusion w/Steele, Simpson, Fusion GPS
    •No court hearings by defrauded FISA courts before warrants were issued
    •Anti-Trump bias by Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann
    https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-statement-on-mueller-report/

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      The Dumbocrats now want Mueller investigated, they had better be careful their unfounded hatred might just come back to bite them at the ballot box .

      30

  • #
    Hanrahan

    Are boys no longer being named William and called Bill? I was just talking to a lady on the phone who didn’t get it: “Is your name William or Bill?” I don’t think she understood when I explained that Bill is merely the shortened form.

    30

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Thanks Will .

      40

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      A significant issue in recent yaers because of the need for formal ID more often.

      And lots of folks with a migrant background do not indeed ‘get’ how someone with the formal birth name of William prefers Bill.. As I do !

      40

      • #
        Hanrahan

        I bet your mother only called you Willian when you were in the deep do do.

        I was the third boy and [before ultrasound] Mum just said, “If it’s another boy its Bill”.

        10

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          No Hanrahan.

          She used to say ‘you little bastard’ just before paddling my bum 10-12 times.

          Maybe she knew what she was saying. Maybe not !

          🙂

          10

    • #
      yarpos

      Yes basically, people ae naming kids directly with short form names. Quite a valid question from the lady

      30

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is currently neutral. The Bureau’s ENSO Outlook has moved to El Niño ALERT.

    ‘This means the chance of El Niño developing in 2019 has increased to approximately 70%, around triple the normal likelihood.’ BoM

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘An India Meteorological Department bulletin, released earlier this month, also says a weak El Nino has set in. But IMD’s models show El Nino could dissipate by June-July.

      “As per the current outlook, we expect El Nino to last till June and neutral conditions to set in thereafter. However, the picture will get clearer in the next couple of months when model accuracy increases,” said D Sivananda Pai, head of IMD’s long range forecasting section.’

      The Times of India

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  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: USA Today: Op-ed: Mueller report: Collusion by the news media, not Donald Trump, but don’t expect apologies
    by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
    (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of “The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself,” is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors)

    We may someday need a press we can trust. But I hope not, because we certainly don’t have one. The drummed up narrative of collusion has now imploded…
    Actually, it was always a crock, dreamed up immediately after Hillary Clinton’s election-night defeat by her staff to explain away failure. As reported in the campaign book “Shattered,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Clinton refused to take responsibility for her defeat, and the day after her concession, top officials gathered “to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up.… Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”
    Though this was a matter of record — the book was hardly obscure — the news media chose to run with the Russia story, which quickly morphed from “hacking” to the more nebulous “collusion,” quite credulously. They did so because they wanted it to be true, because they hoped it would hurt Trump, whom the press almost universally despises, and because it was good for ratings and clicks.

    Press credibility has taken a hit
    The irony, of course, is that while purporting to worry about Russian interference in American politics, by advancing this story the press was actually doing the work of President Vladimir Putin, sowing division and confusion through the American polity.
    As former Clinton pollster Mark Penn tweeted, we wasted two years, at least $30 million and a lot of institutional credibility at the FBI and Department of Justice over “a false story of Russia collusion based on oppo research that was always unsubstantiated and preposterous.”
    Liberal journalist Matt Taibbi was even harsher, calling the Russia-collusion story WMD times a million. Taibbi noted that the news media’s credibility is a major victim…

    Leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald administered a Twitter beat-down to some of his colleagues in the news media, saying: “If you constantly went on TV or wrote things to mislead millions into believing Mueller was coming to arrest Trump, Jr., Jared and a whole slew of others for conspiring with the Russians, just admit it. Save yourselves the embarrassment of all this whitewashing & pretending.”
    Don’t expect any such apologies.

    Collusion between the media and the FBI…
    So what’s next? Well, there may not have been Russian collusion, but there certainly was collusion between FBI agents and journalists, with agents leaking information and journalists paying them off with “tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events,” according to the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice.
    And the connections between the Justice Department and the political opposition-research firm Fusion GPS (where the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr was paid to dig up dirt on Trump) were particularly egregious.

    Roger Simon of of PJ Media writes that there is a lot of corruption yet to be investigated and prosecuted, on the part of Trump’s accusers: “It was a conspiracy and, worse yet, a conspiracy ignited and carried out from within the FBI and the Department of Justice. Nothing could be more dangerous to a democratic society than that. How high this conspiracy went is still somewhat unclear. I say ‘somewhat’ because the likelihood of it having reached into the White House of the previous administration is great. It’s hard to imagine how it could have happened otherwise.”

    Will we see any accountability for the many ethical — and probably legal — breaches involving Trump’s bureaucratic opposition? Stay tuned. But the “Russian collusion” narrative has now imploded
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/03/24/mueller-report-findings-collusion-news-media-donald-trump-column/3263167002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

    TWEET: Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept:
    MSNBC hosts should collectively go on the air, bow their heads in shame, and apologize to the public for what they’ve done. Outlets should fire the ex-CIA, NSA and Pentagon officials who used their disinformation training to help these “news agencies” mislead everyone:
    24 Mar 2019
    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1109921063289450497

    24 Mar: TWEET: Glenn Greenwald: Rachel Maddow makes $10 million a year and is treated like a major celebrity on NBC prime-time shows. @KyleKulinski started his own YouTube channel and depends on donations from viewers. Who got the biggest story of the Trump presidency 100% right & who fed 2 years worth of lies?
    LINK
    Kyle Kulinski: Hello @CNN & @MSNBC, if you’d like to know how a leftist commentator got RussiaGate right and you didn’t, more than happy to tell you on air (1 of 2)
    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1109968118019956736

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Anyone know who the lawyers are who are Peter Ridds legal team?

    21

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: GatewayPundit: NUNES: House Intel Will Make Criminal Referrals to AG Barr on FBI, DOJ Officials Who “Perpetrated This Hoax”
    by Jim Hoft
    VINDICATION!
    President Trump: It began illegally. And hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully somebody’s going to be looking at the other side…

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    BREAKING: President Trump calls for an investigation of the investigators, asserting “This was an illegal takedown that failed.”

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    President Trump called the investigation of him and his advisers “illegal.” That is not hyperbole. What the Obama FBI and DOJ pulled was worse than Watergate. AG Barr must now hold the dirty agents to account by impaneling a grand jury investigation of the investigators. #Spygate

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    BREAKING:Rep. Devin Nunes says House Intel has evidence Clinton operatives & hi-level FBI & DOJ officials started Trump-Russia investigation in “late 2015/early 2016” &that House GOP will be making criminal referrals to AG Barr for officials who “perpetuated this hoax” for 3+ yrs

    GRAPHIC:
    These officials used government agencies in a plot to overthrow a President – there’s a word for that – COUP.
    There’s a place for them – JAIL.
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/nunes-house-intel-will-make-criminal-referrals-to-ag-barr-on-fbi-doj-officials-who-perpetrated-this-hoax/

    latest Sperry tweets:

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    BREAKING: Attorneys for Bruce and Nellie Ohr invoked the marital-communications privilege during both their House testimonies to avoid answering questions about what they knew about the other’s involvement in the anti-Trump dossier

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    DID THE TRUMP-RUSSIA ‘COLLUSION’ HOAX IMPROPERLY INFLUENCE THE 2018 CONGRESSIONAL MIDTERM ELECTIONS?
    Exit polls show that 49% of voters –nearly 1 in 2–believed Trump campaign coordinated with Russian gov’t during 2016 election
    DOES THIS DELEGITIMIZE DEMOCRATIC HOUSE MAJORITY?

    TWEET: Paul Sperry:
    BREAKING: A Pulitzer-winning reporter is preparing to write a major journalism review examining how the mainstream media elite got the Russia “collusion” story so wrong
    from replies:

    They didn’t get it wrong. They flat out LIED!!!!!!!!!! And set the traps…

    They got nothing wrong. They were in on it from the very beginning…
    https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1110001928245698561

    24 Mar: Daily Caller: Flashback: WaPo, NYT Awarded Pulitzer Prizes For Trump-Russia Collusion Reports
    by Virginia Kruta
    Less than one year ago, the Washington Post and the New York Times won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of something that, according to Mueller’s report, did not exist.
    In April 2018, both newspapers were awarded Pulitzers for their coverage of possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia
    Politico reported at the time:…ETC

    Upon being reminded of those Pulitzers — and the reason they were awarded — Donald Trump Jr. argued that they ought to be replaced with “fake news awards.” He tweeted, “There should be a recall.”…
    https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/24/flashback-wapo-nyt-pulitzer-prize-trump-russia/

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  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: DC Whispers: POTUS Trump Now Turns To D.C. Swamp And Says, “MY TURN.”
    Lots of whispers circulating in and around Washington D.C. regarding a Trump White House that is set to unleash an investigative push back against all those false accusors that have been peddling the dangerous and divisive Trump-Russia hoax for the last two years.

    Word is members of both the Clinton and Obama gang are bracing for impact.
    DEVELOPING…
    http://dcwhispers.com/potus-trump-now-turns-to-d-c-swamp-and-says-my-turn/#EzqEJB132VspfE07.97

    30

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: US24News: After James Comey Posts Bizarre, Post-Mueller Photo, Lindsay Graham OWNS Him on Twitter
    by Jenn Carter
    Comey posted a photo of himself in the deep woods. “So many questions,” he captioned it…

    So many questions?
    It was Comey who set this whole fake Russia ball in motion after he was fired as FBI Director on May 9th 2017. Comey gave portions of his Trump memos to a friend to leak to the New York Times to prompt a special counsel investigation into President Trump.
    Comey also conspired with disgraced former intelligence chief James Clapper to push the Russian Dossier hoax, lied to Congress, leaked classified materials, signed off on a FISA warrant (and thus lied to a Federal court) based on what he knew to be unverified DNC opposition research , and on and on…

    Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) clapped right back against Comey’s “so many questions” with a brutal threat of a tweet:

    TWEET: Lindsey Graham:
    Could not agree more.
    See you soon.
    http://us24news.com/after-james-comey-posts-bizarre-post-mueller-photo-lindsay-graham-owns-him-on-twitter/

    40

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: RedState: The REAL Collusion, Part 2: What Is the Connection Between James Clapper, Victor Pinchuk, and CTO of Only Company To Work on Hacked DNC Server?
    by Elizabeth Vaughn
    Separately, Ukrainian billionaire and longtime contributor to the Clinton Foundation Victor Pinchuk, was doing his best to promote a Clinton victory. Pinchuk serves on the International Advisory Board of a Washington-based think tank called the Atlantic Council. This group is “connected to Ukrainian interests through its “Ukraine in Europe Initiative,” which is designed to galvanize international support for an independent Ukraine within secure borders whose people will determine their own future.”

    Also serving on the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council is James Clapper, who served as Obama’s Director of National Intelligence.

    Funnily enough, (Dan) Bongino discovered that the Chief Technology Officer of “the only company that investigated the hacking of the DNC’s servers and quickly determined it was the Russians, is a nonresident senior fellow in cybersecurity” at the Atlantic Council. His name is Dmitri Alperovitch.
    **Parts 3 and 4 will discuss the activities of Victor Pinchuk and the Atlantic Council in 2016.
    https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/03/24/real-collusion-part-2-common-denominator-james-clapper-victor-pinchuk-cto-company-work-hacked-dnc-server/

    IG Horowitz speaking at The Atlantic Council!

    21 Mar: Washington Examiner: DOJ inspector general confirms yearlong investigation into FISA abuse is still active
    by Jerry Dunleavy
    Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign.

    The revelation came during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., when Horowitz was asked to divulge his biggest projects.
    “We have a FISA-related review that people might have heard about that the deputy attorney general asked us to take a look at. But I’m not going to dwell on that,” he said at the event alongside three other inspectors general hosted by the ***Atlantic Council.

    Horowitz did not comment further. The moderator, Sarah Lynch of ***Reuters, made it clear that the watchdog’s FISA abuse probe was off-limits for further questions. “I was also asked to just tell everybody — please don’t ask about an ongoing investigation. Don’t ask Michael [Horowitz] about the FISA-Carter Page investigation. He can’t talk about it. As much as we all want to know what the finding will be,” she said…

    The last high-profile IG investigation by Horowitz was his probe of the Justice Department’s and FBI’s handling of “Midyear Exam,” the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. That 568-page document released in June 2018 was critical of many steps taken by leaders in the DOJ and FBI, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, all of whom were key players in the Trump-Russia investigation as well.
    It is not known when the much-anticipated FISA abuse report from Horowitz will be completed and released.
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-confirms-year-long-investigation-into-fisa-abuse-is-still-active

    20

  • #
    Robber

    A big day for wind in the AEMO grid, delivering a fairly consistent 3.7 GW (capacity factor 65% of nameplate). In SA, wind is delivering 1.2 GW vs demand of 1-1.4 GW. But gas of 0.3 GW has been required to maintain grid stability, with surplus being sent to Vic. So Vic has a surplus with its own wind at 1.4 GW, coal delivering a constant 4 GW, with 1 GW sent to NSW and 0.4 GW to Tas.

    20

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Yes that those toxic electons have to be shared around or the system will collapse !

      What’s worse if that we all have to pay for these toxic electrons !

      Bugger !

      What a bloody dopey state of affairs our pollies have created !

      30

    • #
      Chad

      Well, SA wind has had its 24hrs of fame, and is now back down to earth with a slump back to “situation normal” at < 100MW output !

      10

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘The echo-chamber illusion that dead fish, solar subsidies and a good heart on the environment are election winners has been exposed.’

    Lloyd / Oz

    30

  • #
    Slithers

    Topic. Who are the worlds best Logicians?
    Statement: There are several Billion of them alive right now!
    Expanded Statement: They can multi-task as well.
    Comments anyone?

    10

  • #
    Slithers

    Topic: What does it take for Understanding to transition into Knowledge?
    Statement: I know!
    Expanded Statement: Attention Peter Fitz!!!!!
    Question: Do You?

    10

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      I do too

      00

      • #
        AndyG55

        “I do too”

        No-one has ever seen you show even the slightest bit of rational thought or understanding, pfutz.

        You have zero-evidence to back up your claim.

        You are DELUDING yourself. !!

        00

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: Newsbusters: Radical Matt Taibbi on Russiagate: ‘Death Blow for the Reputation of the American News Media’
    By Tim Graham
    Leftist author and former Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi is well known for roasting right-wingers with overwrought personal attacks. But he’s drawing notice — even from Brian Stelter today on Reliable Sources — for roasting the media under this headline (LINK):

    It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD.
    The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it.

    Taibbi began with a dramatic announcement:
    “Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.”

    That can be argued both ways — their reputation has been tainted for a long time, and yet, they are the “establishment media” right now. Taibbi mocked the Mueller worship in the media and entertainment elites:

    The Special Prosecutor literally became a religious figure during the last few years, with votive candles sold in his image and Saturday Night Live cast members singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” to him featuring the rhymey line: “Mueller please come through, because the only option is a coup.”

    Taibbi referred to a New York Times news report by Peter Baker acknowledging there could be a “reckoning” for the news media, as well as everyone else…
    Taibbi concluded: “Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump. Why bother having a press corps at all if you’re going to go that route?” As if Taibbi has never “been on a team”? Did he look at all the covers of Rolling Stone during his tenure?
    https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2019/03/24/radical-matt-taibbi-russiagate-death-blow-medias-reputation

    10

  • #
    pat

    24 Mar: Breitbart: Lynne Patton to Russia Hoaxers: ‘You Tried to Rob Us of Our Rightful Victory’
    by Kristina Wong
    Patton, an official at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), slammed those who pushed the narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election…READ ON
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/24/lynne-patton-russia-special-counsel-no-collusion/

    20

  • #
    Another Ian

    Re the search for a better battery

    “It is a fact that the German War Department has advertised (10th April 1940) for an ersatz electrical accumulator, to be constructed almost entirely from materials found within the Reich. A prize of RM 10,000 is offered and the competition closes on 1st January 1941”.

    R.V. Jones “Most Secret War”

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  • #
    el gordo

    ‘AGL’s ‘huge’ use of market clout costs consumers $3b a year.

    ‘The energy giant used its power in the electricity market to lift its own wholesale profit 60 per cent, a report argues.’ SMH

    40

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      This can not be true. After all it is ‘known’ that it is the teeny tiny renewables share which is so expensive. Ask anyone else on this blog, but not me, I think we are being played for suckers.

      14

      • #
        Robber

        Renewables have increased investment in the sector, and reduced utilisation of reliable generators, thereby requiring higher prices to give a return on the increased investment. And then add the ability of big players to bid high when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow = increased prices, higher profits, slugged consumers.

        30

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          But they are only a teeny tiny part of the market, at most 7%. Seriously this is the tail wagging the dog. The regulator, which when you look at its board, is completely captured by the market, and we suffer for it.

          12

          • #
            AndyG55

            Yep, remove the RET and any uneven ground, and watch wind and solar collapse in a heap. No mandated use, no cross subsidies, not pricing of carbon dioxide output that is beneficial to all life on Earth.

            Yep, we are all suffering from the AGW agenda.

            Time to put an end to it, wouldn’t you agree, pfutz. !!

            41

      • #
        AndyG55

        “I think we are being played for suckers.”

        Well you certainly are.. sucked in well and truly by the AGW scam.

        AGL is just playing the idiotic rules re green energy for all it can get away with.

        31

    • #

      I was sort of waiting for the usual suspect to come in here and comment on how those ‘feelthy derdy’ coal fired operators are gaming the system.

      I mean, it makes a much better headline about COAL gaming the system, than a headline like wind and solar plants gaming the system, eh.

      This is what happens when you let journalists loose on something they know nothing about. They interview someone, nod in all the right places, and then, with no understanding at all, write their headline piece.

      I don’t know how many times I have to explain this.

      Look at the generic graph at this image, and this shows the wholesale cost structure for ALL power generation in the AEMO.

      Now, while this just shows the typical half hour period for costing calculations, what you need to do is to stretch it out across a longer time period, the horizontal axis showing time.

      The EXISTING base, that bottom brown colour can be anything as high as 20000MW PLUS. That is every single plant on line and delivering power. The bulk of it is already coal fired power. It also includes wind power and solar power as first in and all in no matter what they are already delivering. Coal fired power making up the bulk of this total can, as I have often said, ramp up and down across the day, and that extra they deliver is ALWAYS in that bottom dark brown colour. As (if it ever happens) wind and solar rise on occasion as wind picks up, or it’s around Midday, then their power is (first selected remember) also ALWAYS in that bottom colour, existing power.

      As more power is needed, then it goes up that colour scale you see there, and the costs of running those plants is way more than the existing ones, already on line and delivering their power.

      However the extra power is NEEDED, so they have to use it. What that does is add that new plants, or plants to that costing structure, as you can plainly see from the generic graph there, keeping in mind that some plants are horrendously expensive,

      BUI BUT BUT, they NEED the power, or there are blackouts, so they have to come on line.

      Now comes the kicker.

      At the end of the half hour (indicated on this generic graph) the costs are totalled, and then averaged across that half hour.

      And then, ….. wait for it ….. EVERY single power plant on line during that half hour gets that same average price for ALL the power they deliver during that half hour.

      Did you get that. EVERY power plant. Not just the coal fired plants, but all the wind plants all the solar plants all the hydro plants all the natural gas fired plants, all those smaller Other sources. the LOT of them, all get the same.

      SO, stay with me now, if you are coal fired power delivering 70% and more of all the power, then it’s painfully obvious that you will get more.

      However, the biggest part of all this is that the power is actually NEEDED for consumption. They just have to have that power in place.

      Now, the closure of Hazelwood has a direct bearing on this.

      All of Hazelwwod’s power was always in that bottom dark brown colour.

      Take that away, and keep in mind that the power is always NEEDED, then now it has to come from vastly more expensive plants, and then the cost for wholesale electricity goes, you guessed it ….. UP.

      So, no, the system is not being gamed, and if it is, then wind and solar are also part of that gaming as well, but, hey, that headline won’t wash now, will it.

      Journalists know journalism, not the intricacies of power generation.

      There will always be people who just want to believe what the journalists have written here.

      Generate the most electricity, the vast 70% of all of it, and you benefit as a side product of EVERY power operator benefitting.

      That’s why those last in operators, the top of the colour bar have to charge so much, because they only get the AVERAGE, so they have to bid high so that average is enough to cover their costs.

      Keep in mind also, that AGL also own a lot of renewable plants as well, so they win all round eh, but coal fired ‘gamers’ make for the bigger headline eh, and their blind faith followers will always prefer to hear of anti coal the most.

      Tony.

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    pat

    25 Mar: Townhall: Kurt Schlichter: Trump Russia Collusion Treason Was All Just Another Elite Lie
    This sham investigation was not anything like the administration of justice. It was part of, as people say but we’ve stopped being shocked when we hear it, a soft coup. It was a deliberate attempt by the powerful to use the levers of government to eliminate a threat to the ruling class’s hold on political power by manufacturing a false narrative with the active assistance of those in government and media whose whole job is to prevent these sorts of fascist shenanigans.

    The damage to our country is hard to calculate right now…

    Let’s briefly touch on all the lives ruined on the way to this flaccid finale, especially the people swopped up in the search for a crime, any crime, in the neighborhood of the Bad Orange Man…
    https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/03/25/trump-russia-collusion-treason-was-all-just-another-elite-lie-n2543599

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    pat

    24 Mar: RedState: Alan Dershowitz: In Light of the Mueller Report, Media ‘Should be Hanging Their Head in Shame’
    by Alex Parker
    Meanwhile, Carl Bernstein is praising a stellar job by the national media, who’ve done the polar opposite of a stellar job (here, if you can stand it).
    But Alan Dershowitz, for one, is calling it rightly.
    “I have to tell you, they should be hanging their head in shame when you think about how many people went out on a limb and predicted there would be indictments for obstruction, there would be indictments for collusion, there would be indictments for this and for that. They made it seem like it was an open and shut case, and they misinformed the American public, and they have to have some public accountability when you say things that turn out not to be true.”

    Following a four-page Mueller Report assessment sent to Congress by Attorney General Bill Barr, Alan — who voted for Hillary — waxed on the prospect of further indictments:
    “[I]t’s important that we did learn there are no sealed indictments. There’s no recommendation in the report for any further indictments…”

    Dershowitz also said he himself — a target of the Left on occasion over Trump defense and Mueller predictions — was cleared by the report:
    “Look — I’ve been vindicated. I’ve been saying this from day one and been criticized and condemned for simply doing a legal analysis that I think any reasonable, objective, nonpartisan lawyer would have done, would have come to the same conclusion I came to and, essentially, the conclusion that was come to today by the attorney general.”…
    https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2019/03/24/alan-dershowitz-fox-news-mueller-report-media-should-be-hanging-their-head-shame/

    VIDEO: 6min18sec: 24 Mar: TheRightScoop: WATCH: Mark Levin RESPONDS to the Mueller report, explains why Mueller a coward…
    Levin tore into Mueller for this wasting America’s time with his investigation, saying Mueller should have come to the mic a long time ago and told us there was no collusion. But instead he continued to let this investigation drag on while Democrats and the media continued to besmirch Trump’s name.

    With regard to obstruction of justice, Levin went further than Dershowitz and said Mueller was a coward for not stating emphatically that there was no obstruction. He said Mueller didn’t pursue it because he didn’t have probable cause.
    And there’s much, much more.

    Levin also posted a couple of things on Facebook today. You can read them below…READ ON
    https://therightscoop.com/watch-mark-levin-responds-to-the-mueller-report-explains-why-mueller-a-coward/

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    pat

    24 Mar: Breitbart: Rudy Giuliani Calls for ‘Full and Complete Investigation’ into Originators of Collusion Claims
    by Michelle Moons
    “I say this is complete and absolute victory,” Giuliani told Fox News Sunday afternoon, calling the victory “way beyond anybody could have expected a year ago with all this crazy fake news that’s going on.”…
    “Absolutely no collusion by anyone in the Trump campaign so you have to wonder why did this investigation start in the first place and why did we waste $40 billion,” he questioned. “Second, no obstruction.”…

    “President is absolutely correct to be very, very upset,” Giuliani said after the president’s statement to reporters. “It is absolutely definitive that he was being investigated for a crime that never happened. There was never any collusion. I can tell you that because I was on that campaign.”
    “One of the reasons I’ve been so passionate is I know there was no collusion. I’ve known this was a phony charge from the very beginning,” he asserted. “And we put the United States through this?” he pressed calling out Democrats for making “exaggerated statements” claiming they had evidence that the president colluded.

    “I think there has to be a full and complete investigation with at least as much enthusiasm as this one to figure out where did this charge emanate, who started it, who paid for it,” Giuliani proposed. He suggested the Justice Department could run that investigation and saw no reason to drag the country through another special counsel investigation.
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/24/rudy-giuliani-calls-full-complete-investigation-originators-collusion-claims/

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    Slithers

    Topic: Security Alert.
    Statement: Peter Fitzroy is actively requesting the actual names of the Weather Database!

    Question: Can anyone guess what would happen to the person who as much as gave a clue to the real named parts of the Distributed Weather Database?

    Answer Treason!!!!! Jail time!!!!
    PS Peter the very first line of the Acorn link you posted says ‘SOME’ of the data!

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      Peter Fitzroy

      So you don’t know, do you. ADAM

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        robert rosicka

        Putz don’t you have some mates you want to get sacked somewhere ? I’ve heard you’ve done it before .

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          PeterFitzroy

          Are you going to continue this threat? Come on big boy, actions are needed now. Or are you just another pathetic blowhard, which infest this site

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            AndyG55

            “pathetic blowhard, which infest this site”

            Yes you are INFECTING this site puddle-pfutz.

            Like a foul stench in your every post.

            Now, Do you have ANY empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes warming or affects the climate in any way whatsoever.

            YOU are the BLOW-HARD, little trollette.

            But you can’t even blow up a wet paper bag.

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              Peter Fitzroy

              And you Blowhard, what have you got?

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                AndyG55

                Do you have ANY empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes warming or affects the climate in any way whatsoever.

                Come on, little EMPTY sack of ****

                I have SOLID proof that you CANNOT produce any empirical evidence.

                You keep providing that proof.

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                Peter Fitzroy

                so nothing then, blowhard like slithers and all the rest, you resort to name calling to hide your ignorance.

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                AndyG55

                Empty !! ZERO-EVIDENCE .. what a waste of a space you really are.

                Do you have ANY empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes warming or affects the climate in any way whatsoever.?

                NOPE, you DO NOT.

                Just more EMPTY bluster.

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      PeterFitzroy

      ADAM is the name of the BoM database

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        PeterFitzroy

        So,again you show the paucity of you position

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        AndyG55

        And ACORN is drawn FROM that database as a subset

        Basic set theory seems to be beyond your ability, little pfutz.

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          Peter Fitzroy

          yes, it is a subset, just like the tide data, wind etc etc. It is then homogenised, and is therefore a different animal than its parent. It loses the status of subset at that point

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            AndyG55

            Poor pfutz, cannot see that you have just countered your whole story

            ACORN is PART of the main database

            End of story.

            End of little child fitz. !!

            Yes it has been massively corrupted from the ORIGINAL DATA.

            Faceplant Fitz , lands again ! 🙂

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    24 Mar: UK Telegraph: Greenpeace unmasked in bid to switch off ageing power plants
    by Jillian Ambrose
    PIC: Chimneys, “smoke”
    The environmental campaign group Greenpeace can be revealed as one of the financial backers in an escalating legal row in which EU judges have pulled the plug on more than £1bn in power plant subsidies.
    Greenpeace confirmed that it is now funding further legal action in the English courts that aims to force the Government to comply with the decision by the European Court of Justice.

    The subsidy scheme, which is designed to secure electricity supplies until renewable sources can produce more power, faces a threat from minnow Tempus Energy.
    Greenpeace is the only donor to publicly throw its weight behind Tempus’s campaign, which has been labelled “a real and present danger” to supplies next winter…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/03/24/greenpeace-unmasked-bid-switch-ageing-power-plants/

    24 Mar: UK Telegraph: Inside the £1bn battle against Britain’s power plants
    PIC: Chimneys, “smoke”
    by Jillian Ambrose
    ‘To be honest, nobody thought they would win,” says one industry source. “Actually, I don’t think even they thought they would pull this off.”
    The energy industry transition has long served as a battlefield between power and money. But in a multi-billion-pound coup, one energy start-up has emerged as David in the fight against the industry’s incumbent power-generating Goliaths.

    The triumph of Tempus Energy, a 10-strong technology upstart, in a European Court battle against power plant subsidies has rocked the industry to its core. A shock court ruling in November has forced the scheme, which aims to stem the closure of power plants by awarding supply contracts worth £1bn a year, into a legal battle…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/03/24/inside-1bn-battle-against-britains-power-plants/

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    pat

    22 Mar: Reuters: EU leaders call for end to ‘naivety’ in relations with China
    by Philip Blenkinsop, Robin Emmott
    European Union leaders called for an end to naivety on Friday in relations with Beijing and said China was a competitor whose markets were not sufficiently open, although they did not spell out specifically what they planned to do…
    But it has become increasingly frustrated by subsidies and state involvement in the Chinese economy, and what it sees as a slow pace of opening up. It plans to raise these issues at an EU-China summit on April 9 after years of granting China almost unfettered access to EU markets…

    French President Emmanuel Macron, among the most vocal EU critics of Beijing, said that he recognized there was a divergence of views in the bloc but that letting Chinese companies buy up EU infrastructure such as ports had been a “strategic error”.
    “The period of European naivety is over,” Macron told a news conference…
    German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe should consider China as much a competitor as a partner, a view echoed by her Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker…

    Brussels, like Washington, is questioning why China is regarded under World Trade Organization rules as a developing country given special treatment, while being on course to become the largest economy in the world…
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-china-idUSKCN1R31H3

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    Another Ian

    “Claim: Humans are “Rabbits in the Headlights” of the Unfolding Climate Catastrophe”

    “City greens learning “sixth mass extinction” survival skills. I’m not sure whether to laugh or worry. ”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/24/claim-humans-are-rabbits-in-the-headlights-of-the-unfolding-climate-catastrophe/

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      Hanrahan

      The FIRST thing they should do is to have on hand a few weeks’ spending in low denomination precious metal coins. But that takes a little delayed spending – bet that doesn’t go down well.

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    Hanrahan

    Co2phobia costs us in many ways, ways we forget ’til we meet them.

    I have a split system aircon in which the main board has failed and unavailable, OK it’s nearly 20 years old so I’ll replace it.

    “Not so easy” says the fridgie “you will need to replace the piping because of the higher pressures used with the new refrigerants”. The compressor is at ground level at the back of the house, the evaporator on the upper level at the front of a big house. A lot of gyprock walls and ceilings would need to be ripped to do this. Why do they do this to us?

    Funny thing is that this is the guest room that I normally use and never use the aircon, it is airy and the ceiling fan is good enough for me even in summer.

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    Hanrahan

    Why does the US fear Russia?

    Obviously the main reason is their nuclear deterrent, that is a given. What else?

    Their navy is not only hampered by not having warm water ports, it has a major problem with pure and simple incompetence. Their ONLY carrier [doesn’t have catapults so can’t launch fully fuelled and armed aircraft] has been sunk while in a floating dock. This is not unique, many of their ships suffer serious damage while under maintenance.

    Their Air Force can launch a few excellent planes flown by even less good/crazy pilots, but numerically they would be overwhelmed by the allies.

    Missiles? They claim superiority but I am sceptical. Israel manages hostile actions in neighbouring countries defended by Russian missiles without loss of aircraft.

    Russia has lost the economic war, their GDP is less than that of Italy’s.

    While I accept Putin is a bustard I don’t think he is crazy like some of his predecessors. I think Trump is right opening a dialogue with him, keeping the military hawks outside the room.

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    el gordo

    ‘The Australian Government is providing $8 million to fund a business case for faster rail between Sydney and Parkes via Lithgow, Bathurst and Orange.

    ‘This initiative is all about easing congestion in the big cities while at the same time encouraging growth in regional Australia.

    ‘If we want to keep encouraging decentralisation and reducing the tyranny of distance between the city and the bush, fast rail is a great way to do it.’

    Andrew Gee MP

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      AndyG55

      What did I say the other day.

      Once at Parkes, branch south through Wagga-wagga to Shepperton then Melbourne

      Branch north through Dubbo, Armidale, Tamworth to Brisbane.

      This could bring expansion to the whole western slopes, so long as sufficient water could be found.

      A possible water solution would be damming the northern NSW rivers, and diverting through to the Gwyder, Namoi, MacIntyre Rivers.

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    Scientist

    This ( https://youtu.be/bT1iFhGKOI8 ) is THE video that FINALIZES the debate about whether or not carbon dioxide warms us. It is spoken by a scientist with over 50 years’ experience studying and helping students to UNDERSTAND physics: a scientist who has made a world-first discovery of a heat transfer process that occurs in all planetary systems and which is the ACTUAL process that keeps us from freezing to death. This is solid FACT entirely in keeping with all established laws of physics and supported by OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE on Earth and throughout the Solar System. Climate change and natural cycles are also explained based on 21st century science and discoveries about processes in the atmosphere unknown by climatologists back in the 1980’s. Their general lack of training in the Physics Departments of recognized universities has led to errors having profound consequences costing hundreds of billions of dollars – money that could have saved many lives in developing countries and even our own. PLEASE spend 15 minutes of your life watching and LEARNING what you do NOT yet know from this video: https://youtu.be/bT1iFhGKOI8. Tell others about it too!

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    tom0mason

    The elites of Europe not being satisfied with the defeat on the first vote resubmitted Article 13, Internet Restrictions and Copyright law back to a successful vote. EU Parliament voted for dreaded Article 13 copyright directive by 348 to 274 votes.

    This may mean site such as yours, Joanne, will not be allowed for general viewers in Europe.

    The new online rules are controversial as it will make online platforms legally responsible for all of the copyright content they host. It will be a complete nightmare for the likes of YouTube and others.

    This could result in online platforms using upload filters to ensure nothing that is copyrighted is allowed to be uploaded full stop. It will stifle creativity and could change the internet as we know it.
    It apparently could mean that ALL content has to be filtered coming in and going out of the EU area!

    Today the proposal went through by 348 to 274 votes in the European Parliament.

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