JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Trump will take a wrecking ball to the climate cabal and he won’t stop until there is nothing left but dust and rubble.
Besides finding another Phantom Menace to try and shake us down with, what else will the greens do?
404
The leftists motto: In defeat malice.
322
Isn’t it interesting that all these worldwide protests against President Trump and his supposed “misogyny, bigotry and hatred”, are exactly what these protesters are displaying? Misandry towards men, bigotry towards men, hatred towards men, because they see President Trump simply as a reflection of all men that voted for him.
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The protests all seem to be orchestrated. Someone is paying for a few thousand in each location. Enough for a few thousand to look like many more if the camera angle is right.
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Of course they are orchestrated. The “few thousand”, only needs to be a “few hundred” paid professionals, because the “thousands” will just join in to be part of history, and perhaps get on camera, especially if the media have been properly briefed.
As for who the someone might be, consider the question, “Who were the people bankrolling Hillary, in her attempt at the Whitehouse?”
Who ever they were, they will want to keep the protests rolling for as long as possible. The strategy is to eat into the time allotted in the news schedule for political items, and therefore reduces the impact of what Trump is doing and saying.
283
Relentless negativity – as practised in Australia when PM Abbott was in office.
322
All that “negativity” really helps (Tried and proven guaranteed recipe)distract people while everything becomes privatised and then the privatised asset becomes part of a bank balance sheet because nearly 100% of all corporations are currently in huge debt to creditors.
This includes oil corporations who most are conditioned to think only work for themselves, and not at all for the creditors of oil….
16
Yep – AGW/CCC might wane when the spigot is turned off, but this particular “business model” could go on indefinitely. I presume there is someone to replace Soros if he croaks or picks up one too many warrants. We now have an alleged Australian branch of 350.org threatening further disruption for Adani.
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What really amazed me was that Hillary Clinton has actually ‘tweeted’ her support for these feminist marches. So much for ‘when they go low, we go high’.
90
The Left’s creed has always been: ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
110
And not just ‘The Left’, alas.
20
This below is the modus operandi of the radical far leftists and a blueprint on what they had intended to do to try and shut down Trump’s inauguration plus create as much chaos and anti Trump sentiment across America’s major population centers as possible.
It is quite likely also to be an outline of the methods of the Australian hard left’s operating procedures when they try to disrupt some conservative and publicly organised activity.
The real question here is the source of the radical left’s funding.
And that source of funding is also the Achilles Heel of the rabid radical left if and eventually when the various legal authorities go after the hard left radicals as governments eventually will be forced to do so by public opinion.
Cut off the radical left’s funding by gaoling their funders and stopping any government handouts [ the dole ? ] to the non working organisers of the radical left and their movement would lose all of its momentum.
As governments will probably eventually do as terrorism attacks from whatever source become more prevalent and damaging to the national confidence and governments are forced to be seen to be very serious indeed in going after the perpetrators of any serious disruptions to the public’s ability to enjoy their freedoms and personal pursuits without always fearing a terrorism attack or a major personally damaging attack of whatever type and to whatever effect.
Quoted from a Breitbart article;
Undercover Audio Reveals Protesters’ Plans to Shut Down Trump’s Inaugural Parade
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It’s seems well known that one person stands above all else when it comes to funding just about every Leftist group around the world, but it may be inappropriate to name him on this forum. However, he looks a lot like Davros (the Dalek creator) from Dr Who.
71
These global marches must be the most pointless and ridiculous protests ever organised. They might as well march to demand that humans stop controlling the weather and climate with CO2.
Oh, hang on…
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Lets also accept that these people went out of their way to be there and wail. Not like it was a surprise that Trump was going to be president, yet they go there to protest it. Fake rage along side a lookatme-lookatme attitude for the television networks to lap up.
They make fools of themselves by doing exactly what they complain about others doing. And they wonder why everybody mocks them. LOL.
130
The Red Thumbelinas need to take off their rose tinted glasses and see who is actually killing, raping and demeaning women, gays, bacon lovers et al.
You should emigrate to one of those hallowed places and bask in the love that embraces everyone.
80
The generation of endless issues….
Getting people to talk and argue about the weather was a stroke of utter genius. Humans all love to talk about the weather beyond anything else in many cases and the genius discovery of getting people to talk about the weather really helps while the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind takes place.
How???
As long as people are arguing about the Kardashians and trump/weather and so on, the transfer of wealth via the discovery and acceptance of printed fiat out of thin air will continue unabated until the very bones of life itself are bleached white by the money printing ruling elite.
Money printed out of thin air can fund anything, including wind turbines to harness the flatulence of cows.
50
They are already fighting back. I have never seen so many efforts going on to destroy one single president. But Trump is a survivor type who plays to win. But I wish he would keep his mouth shut more and just keep working on his agenda. He’s still shooting first and asking questions later — not good.
I would not be surprised if he doesn’t end up spending more of his time fighting the goons being unleashed against him than doing his job as president.
00
A Public Servant was restless and bored in his office in Adelaide. It was overcast and drizzling with rain for the fourth day in a row, so neither the wind turbines nor solar panels were working and there had already been one, fairly short, blackout that morning. He couldn’t go around the corner for his morning soy milk macchiato because the local newspaper had on the front page an article about the average wage for a Federal public servant being nearly twice that of the average wage in the private sector. It also highlighted the discrepancy in the respective superannuation and their tax treatment. He didn’t want to face the questions and comments.
He had nothing to do so he started looking in the cupboards. In one he found an oriental looking lamp, and thought this should fetch a few dollars on e-bay. He started polishing it when there was a flash of light, he blinked and when he opened his eyes there was a genii standing there. The genii bowed and said “Oh Master, you have released me and I grant you three wishes.”
“Anything I want? said the public servant. “Anything except upsetting a foreign country, breaking the foreign exchange laws or that contravenes Section 18C” replied the genii. The public servant looked out the window at the gloom and said “ I want to be in a luxury penthouse overlooking sunny Sydney Harbour”.
“Your first wish is granted” said the genii and there was a flash of light. The public servant blinked and when he opened his eyes he was in this huge room with a 4 metre high glass wall with a view of most of Sydney Harbour, except on the RHS where there was a terrace with a sparkling swimming pool. This gave the public servant an idea and when the genii prompted him for his second wish he asked for some suitable girls around the pool.
“Your second wish is granted” said the genii and there was a flash of light. The public servant blinked and when he opened his eyes he blinked several times for there were 5 gorgeous girls in brief bikinis by the pool waving to him. When he had recovered he said “I will spend the rest of my life here”. “Oh no Master” said the genii “you can’t stay here, you didn’t ask to own the penthouse, just to be here”.
The public servant thought hard about his last wish; obviously he would need a lot of money, apart from buying the penthouse some of the girls looked like they would be quite expensive. How? There was no lottery big enough he could win, Income Tax would take too much, so would Capital Gains tax, and as for superannuation the government would steal from that also. Suddenly he decided what to say to the genii, “I want you to bear in mind my current position, at this present time, and I want to continue like that without ever having to work again”.
“Your third wish is granted” said the genii and he disappeared in a flash of light. The public servant blinked and when he opened his eyes he was back in his old office.
There are several morals to be drawn.
Firstly the public servant was underworked and overpaid but still wasn’t satisfied.
Secondly he thought that wishing would bring endless amounts of money.
Thirdly he thought that any problem could be solved by magic.
Fourthly, he failed to think carefully about what his aims were.
And lastly, these are the sort of people planning our future electricity system.
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I thought our electricity system was being planned by rogue capitalists who are in bed with stupid socialists.
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Definition of socialism
1
: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3
: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
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You have not included the new and improved role of banks with the ability to print endless money/debt. This has never before happened in any political/economic history.
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Graeme,
A great start to Sunday, nominally a day of rest.
Took me back to those childhood days when all of my trials, troubles and disappointments in life were way off in the future.
The rorting of the public purse by government in creating a huge cohort of “employees” suitably content and looked after that will vote “correctly” is dividing the community.
I rarely watch their ABC or SBS but did see part of their reporting on the news channel.
It had been pre recorded and the same few minutes of incoherent footage was introduced over and over during the one hour scanned.
There is now even an SBS channel labelled Viceland.
Our tax dollars well spent.
KK
101
The reason I like Donald trump , is because in my opinion he is not an ideologist , he is apolitical , he is neither a conservative or a democrat , its as if he agrees with me that the left blame everything on the right ,as if they are all fascist and the right blame everything on the left for being Marxist , with out understanding that there is a bird that controls both the wings , and whilst both wings are arguing against each other the bird that controls both the wings is crapping all over you
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Trump’s Inauguration Address Was Like No Other.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/16148.cfm
H/t Gail Combs @ the chiefio.
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Thanks beth…
“But Trump’s speech was different from any previous inaugural address. He spoke directly to his political base. He did not try to pull the country together in some kind of vague, pie-in-the-sky, common-ground political rhetoric. He threw down the gauntlet from the very beginning. Standing in front of the Capitol building, surrounded by former Presidents and politicians, he said that everything they had done in the past has been a way to extract power from the American people and to feather their own nests. This, of course, is exactly what they have done. Nobody had ever said this before in an inaugural address.”
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More behind the scenes manipulation…
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-mar
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Link failed. Try again.
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
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The Mpemba effect
Despite sounding like the most egregious contradiction in physics, hot water appears to freeze faster than cold water under certain circumstances.
Now physicists are pointing to strange properties of hydrogen bonds as the solution to one of the oldest mysteries in physics – but others are claiming the so-called Mpemba effect doesn’t even exist at all.
For a bit of background into the Mpemba effect, this phenomenon has been confounding physicists since Aristotle first noticed it more than 2,000 years ago.
After similar accounts from the likes of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, the possibility of hot water freezing faster than cold water finally gained widespread acceptance in the 1960s, thanks to a Tanzanian schoolboy who noticed the effect when making ice cream.
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-centuries-old-claim-that-hot-water-freezes-faster-than-cold-just-got-even-weirder
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An extremely rare article of interest on The Conversation was this, about the unusual properties of water.
https://theconversation.com/the-universes-most-miraculous-molecule-48075
Imagine, if water behaved like other molecules and didn’t become less dense as its temperature drops towards freezing point, ice would sink to the bottom of liquid water.
60
Indeed water is a strange substance, gas, vapor, liquid, or solid.
http://ergodic.ugr.es/termo/lecciones/water1.html
20
Hello Mark,
I tried to replicate the Mpemba effect.
Didn’t show the result claimed.
Will try again with different containers.
KK
20
Just how smart is an octopus?
Don’t read this, though, if you want to continue eating calamari with an untroubled conscience, for living cephalopods are smart, beautiful and possessed with extraordinary personalities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/just-how-smart-is-an-octopus/2017/01/06/a2f1ed22-acd0-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.4b385db93ad7
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You probably wont want to watch this then…
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I think I’d prefer to use a good strong knife for the job!
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I have been known to degut and prepare quite large squid in the past. I was foolish enough once to offer to deal with any squid caught by one of our sons and he caught a massive one off the jetty one night…enough for the whole family’s supper. I didn’t think it likely to happen again. He caught an even larger one the next day. Had to steel self again; luckily I enjoy eating it enough to do it but had only ever dealt with tiddlers previously!
We ate the most wonderful baby squid in a favourite restaurant on the beach in Cyprus last year; tiny and tender…delicious!
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YES but , you miss my point , this is a sceptical blog , how can you use scepticism as a tool of logical critical thinking against climate science , without applying the same standards to your own political or religious ideology
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One must be vigilant in being sceptical of ones scepticism?
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I am not sure if I am indecisive, or not?
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Of course you are indecisive,perhaps!
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I like mine in a salt & pepper batter and deep fried.
40
Short story;
A couple of years ago my blood sugar levels which had been quite stable for many years past, suddenly began to rise quite quickly.
My Doc gave me a bloody good rap over the knuckles and promised me I would have diabetes in the not very distant future if my blood sugar levels continued to increase at the rate they had been doing over the last few months.
Much contemplation followed on why those blood sugar levels had begun to increase and were doing it so rapidly.
Ahha! Maybe!
I had purchased one of those small deep fryers a few months previously and was now eating quite a lot of that very tasty deep fried tucker.
The deep fryer was put into the back of the kitchen cupboard to eliminate any temptation and within a few weeks my blood sugar levels stabilised and then began to come down and eventually got back close to where it had been for all those years past.
And at the back of of our kitchen cupboard is where you will today find a small but quite good used deep fryer if you want one.
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try https://im42na.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/britains-central-bank-at-center-of-tax-havens/
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Record electricity demands in QLD a few days ago, despite the wondrous new solar power, smart consumers and super efficient air-con. Reserve capacities are getting low, the NEM is not far off the point where it cannot lose any more firm capacity, and is certainly at the point where nobody will dare build any more.
Greenies think that more solar and wind will ride to the rescue, but it ain’t so, they can only contribute a certain amount of “firm” capacity, adding any more has very little effect on residual peak demands on conventional sources, which will occur at dusk on calm days.
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2017/01/queensland-demand-today-exceeds-the-previous-all-time-record/
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But this is what governments and power companies want.
Green initiatives aren’t about raising third world living standards, its about lowering first world standards.
Providing less power, rolling blackouts, but charging more. Within a few years it will be accepted as the norm.
Its a fantastic business model!
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http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
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I mean, look at the constant blackouts in Adelaide. Its just how it is now.
QLD and Vic will soon follow suit.
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Yes.
Road-tested and works just fine.
Perhaps previously commented, but just a few years ago, I had thought such a situation absolutely impossible, where the general population just accepts the loss of reliable, affordable 24/7 power. I was so very, very wrong.
Watching the deliberate reversal of the Rennaisance is objectively interesting, amazing even, but inexplicable to rational thought. It’s just how it is.
80
Ah, South Australia
– home of the world’s most unstable power grid
– home of the failed South Road overpass
– home of the world’s most expensive hospital
– home of Australian’s submarine engineers and constructors
– home of Wetherill, Wong, Hanson-Young
South Australia is a proving ground for testing that “things could not possibly get worse”. And it succeeds in regularly making them worse.
They sure have lot to be proud of.
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And at present to home of electoral boundaries that heavily protect Labor, and to show their anxiety about any change they are taking the Electoral Commission to court to contest the recent proposed boundary changes that could result in a change of government at long last.
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Easily solved, construct an interconnector to New South Wales, like South Australia has to Victoria and is lobbying to have another into New South Wales.
Confusing isn’t it.
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Trump is now where he should be: as real leader of the free world!
And the Marxist Conglomerates are going feral. Too bad. Go the Donald !!!
No more El Presidente O’Bummer. He should have been given an impeachment as a going away present.
It will be interesting to see now what a competent businessman as US president can accomplish.
I would be expecting a lot.
‘losing’, and ‘failure’, are not part of the Donald’s character.
He will make America a better place.
He will make the world a better place!
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If Obummers brains were dynamite,he couldn’t blow his nose.
21
The leftists prefer the world to be a bitter place
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*chuckle*
Waiting for the revolution to begin is very exhausting work and the bourgeoisie appear to be winning.
China and Russia have already surrendered to capitalism and Trump wants to bury the cold war, so its smooth sailing from here. Marx would not be happy and the pseudo Marxists will soon be out of work.
60
They will be plotting soon enough.
Now, it just so happens, that I have a very discrete attic that I am willing to rent …
50
Technical Advisory Forum- BOM
A technical Advisory Forum was established in 2015 to review the ACORN-SAT temperature data set and the homogenization of the data from which the Bureau assesses the apparent global warming and makes their hottest ever pronouncements.
https://www.environment.gov.au/minister/baldwin/2015/pubs/technical-advisory-forum-tor.pdf
The TAF was widely held on the blog to be an orchestrated whitewash by the Bureau and another attempt to snow the skeptics.
Having been reminded recently aboiut the TAF by some one on the blog I wrote an email one of the members (Professor Pattie Solomon) asking a few question:
As a result I received a response from the Chair of the Forum, Professor Ron Sandland;
My questions were not answered directly but I take it that the answers were:
Yes,
Yes,
Yes and
Yes.
71
I am still quite skeptical about the value of the Forum in terms of improving the scientific integrity of the Bureau temperature homogenisation process, particlularly as the Forum was advised by the usual suspects at the Bureau including Dr David Jones, who wrote this infamous email;
Climategate Emails:
Dr David Jones (Australian Bureau of Meteorology) to Dr Phil Jones (Climate Research Unit , University of East Anglia).
date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007
Thanks Phil for the input and paper. I will get back to you with comments next week.
Fortunately in Australia our sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent. It is also
easier for us in that we have a policy of providing any complainer with every single
station observation when they question our data (this usually snows them)…
There is increasing evidence that the data homogenisation process used by the Bureau produces warming of itself.
If anyone can help here I might write back to Professor Sandland with a more specific question about that.
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I like it.
30
Most sceptics look at just one station and complain about what is done to it. You really can’t complain unless you’ve looked at neighboring stations and spotted an inconsistency between them and the modified station.
The BoM seem very weak on validation of their adjustments, its not difficult to plot all the data in a region and do visual checks for consistency, but for that you will need at least a spreadsheet, and ideally a programming environment such as R (free). 12-month moving averages of monthly data are probably the best thing to plot, moving by 1 month at each step.
31
Mikky,
Your comment goes to the justification of homogenisation per se.
Why should station data be homogenised? If there is global warming, surely it should be apparent in the data from at least most of the stations if not from every station.
30
Yeah similar to the response I received when I questioned what BOM did in Yarrawonga, and again when I found that BOM were homogenising flood level data .
It seems they have a standard response for every enquiry .
51
Donald Trump famously tweeted
Whilst this is false policy implications are correct – rescind all attempts to control CO2 emissions.
The reasons are multiple and include.
1. Developing countries are largely exempt under the Rio Declaration 1992 from obligations to constrain their CO2 emissions. From 1990 to 2012 collectively their emissions growth was greater than global emissions growth and they now account for two-thirds of global emissions. These developing countries also have 84% of the global population.
2. As emissions will still be growing in non-policy countries for decades, cuts in developed countries will not stop global emissions from increasing.
3. The most efficient policy is a carbon tax. But it can only make significant emissions cuts by high and escalating level of tax. Regulations or promotion of renewables are both less efficient and more costly.
4. If some countries pursue climate mitigation, then they will put themselves at a comparative disadvantage compared to the non-policy countries.
I go into fuller detail in my post
Trump is wrong on China Global Warming Hoax but right on the policy consequences
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This proves what a gentleman Trump is, he requested a standing ovation for the Clintons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4140810/Hillary-Clinton-white-pantsuit-Trump-inauguration.html
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Yes, but ….
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2017/01/bill-clinton-sprung-bad-by-hillary-perving-on-ivanka-trump.html
41
And ….
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2017/01/when-too-many-times-is-not-enough.html
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And trying to have the last words ….
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/01/21/14/22/trump-protesters-deafening-cry-on-inauguration-day
30
Hello unthreaded, this is a great read. I’ve admired Putin and how he has made Russia great again. He clearly loves his country, and works for it. So…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-23/putin-slams-us-democratic-party-shameless-losers-says-russia-alone-believed-trumps-v
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Having lived in Russia for 2 years I respectfully suggest it’s time to take off the rose-coloured glasses re Putin.
On the level of corruption alone, which is endemic throughout Russia, Putin is a master.
How else can a PM or President on a salary equivalent to US$ 150k per year end up being a multi-Billionaire?
The population of Russia is about 145 Million:
The Oligarchs (those in control) are obscenely rich – they number <500,000.
The Middle Class – mostly beholding to the group above or controlling smaller entities/activities – number about 20 Million. (15 Million Russians live in Moscow & St Petersburg).
The rest of people in Russia – about 125 Million – are living at or below the poverty line.
The average net worth of a person in Russia is about US$850 compared to India US$1200.
51
You describe every country in the world that I know of. And I don’t doubt that it’s all true. All I’m saying, is Putin is more intelligent than every other politician and dictator in the world. He clearly sees the difference between Clinton and Trump.
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Andrew are you saying Russian democracy is a sham?
20
Every democracy is a sham.
It is in fact a slavery system, where you pretend to have some freedoms.
20
How about a benevolent dictatorship?
10
Do you think that when Trump dumps solar, wind etc., that it’s inevitable that the rest of the Civilised world will follow?
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One would hope so. It would defy logic to continue down the renewable path. But then again…we live in the era of peak stupid on many fronts.
70
Removing all subsidies and directing the money to important nation building projects should have universal appeal.
50
Cancel subsidies is the way to proceed, and then observe management trying to explain to the shareholders why there are no longer any profits.
50
We could do with half a dozen new coal fired power stations.
80
As it is now a “Weekend Unthreaded” here on Jo’s blog, I’m going to go way off stream from Trump and all the world’s political troubles and ask a question of all the Entomologists, Biologists, Anthropologists, Zoologists and other assorted insect experts either self described or actually credentialed.
So after that build up, a question that has intrigued me for about 60 of of my 78 years.
And the question is a light weight question but never the less a highly intriguing one on how the insect world around us that is so important to this world’s lifeform’s existence as we know it, actually works.
Any rural and country people here and their city cousins who regularly go bush will know full well that Australia wide and ubiquitous and thoroughly pesty and thoroughly obnoxious species Musca Vetustissama, the Australian Bush Fly.
When one walks outside on a day when those bloody thoroughly pesty Bush Flies are highly active [ which raises another fly question! Why are they so active on some days and not on other days? ] one collects a good following of flies within a couple of minutes of being outside.
Now in theory there should not be any limits on the numbers of Bush Fly followers one will collect so long as you are outside and in good Bush Fly territory to the point where after an hour or so you would be quite literally buried under a mass of Bush Flies ].
However it doesn’t happen that way.
On a specific day you will collect a certain but indeterminate number of flies wherever you might be outside and regardless of where you are or how far you might be walking or driving or riding , a number which varies considerably each day for reasons unknown to myself and I suspect to everybody else as well, of Bush Flies that hang around in your very close proximity.
BUT you can spend all day outside such as out in a field and having collected your day’s quota of Bush Flies in the first five minutes, you will have around that apparently limited by some fly mechanism, number of flies closely following and annoying the hell out of you for the rest of the day.
In theory you should be literally buried under masses of flies after a couple of hours as the Flies in theory, continue to flock in to your attractive, to a Fly at least, widespread compendium of body odours.
[ a blowfly can pick up a human body odour at over a couple of kilometres down wind. ]
I have spent an hour or two waiting out under a grain bin in the paddock whilst harvesting was under way, killing my quota of flies that were collectively a bit slow off the mark for the day.
So after nailing nearly all of them in a twenty minute period, I stopped the fly kill and waited to see what would happen.
Within a another twenty minutes I was back up to around the original Fly allocation per person for that day and thats where the fly numbers stopped increasing and remained at for the rest of the day.
So the question ;
What is the mechanism that limits the number of Bush Flies around a person at any given time?
And how does that mechanism work to limit the number of Bush Flies one collects in those first few minutes to about the maximum numbers of Flies one will collect at any one time for the rest of that particular day ?
70
Rom , there is a place called bush bay near Carnarvan in WA where there is no such quota , and a place called Burkes beach near Yarrawonga that no quota is respected either .
At the latter I have a photo somewhere of the hood lining of my car almost completely covered in the pesky little critters .
Certainly a philosophical question for pondering .
30
Unthreaded, so on the issue of the Melbourne murder-by-car atrocity:
“How did a man, a violent drug addict, already out on bail for a violent crime, identified that very day as the perpetrator of two more violent crimes, plus stealing a car, plus a kidnapping a woman, plus with a stated intent, known to the police, of proceeding to the CBD with the intent of killing people, shadowed by a police helicopter, nonetheless make it out of a roadblock which had him immobile, blocked and surrounded by armed police officers, to proceed unencumbered for two hours, into the CBD, to taunt 20 armed police officers for several minutes, before carrying out his threat to “mow down people”.” (from Catallaxy, by MV)
This is not a terrorist act from the viewpoint of a cold-blooded plan to cause maximum mayhem for maximum publicity. The ice-addled thug who carried out all of that recently “converted” to Isl@m (according to his FaceBook rants) because in his increasing psychosis it offered him a seeming justification. He is simply a psychotic, drug-addicted thug, claiming Isl@mic notoriety.
But armed police had him blockaded in on the Bolte Bridge, nowhere to go, with him suspected of several violent crimes (including stabbing his brother while on bail for an earlier alleged violent crime) and his girlfriend escaped from his stolen car advising the blockading police that he intended to drive the car deliberately along a crowded footpath in the CBD.
And the police let him. The Martin Place cafe atrocity was merely a trainer for this. Political Correctness is now allowing babies in prams to be murdered.
This comment is likely to be censored (moderated ?) so I have kept a copy.
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The New South Wales Government changed bail conditions not long after the Lindt Cafe massacre took place, the perpetrator was out on bail.
60
Any massacre of innocent people is terrible regardless of mental illness or not and I feel very sorry for the victims, their families and friends. But I cannot see a solution for combating random acts of crime other than have legal process that requires people to be held on remand in prisons when they have been identified and are charged for criminal activity.
With the growing illegal drugs problem and issues I fear there will be a lot more trouble in future. For example Ice users who lose their mind and are most often surprised when told about bad things they have done while under the influence. A UK based Drug enforcement Agency officer told me during the mid 1990s that the battle against criminal drug organisations worldwide was losing ground as law enforcement agencies struggle to discover and deal with shipments from syndicates with, he said, budgets equivalent to small nations.
And recently I heard that the suppliers of illegal drugs are now creating variations that are even more damaging to users.
In my opinion our law enforcement agencies are doing an excellent job uncovering terrorism plots here and with informants from within the communities the radical ratbags live with. No doubt they are also dealing with the drug dealers too but the illegal drug problem is far worse than the potential for acts of terrorism in Australia.
40
One of our greatest problems I understand are the Mr.Bigs who open doors in high places for the drug trade. It must be extremely frustrating for our hard working police officers and customs.
30
Sorry Dennis, but all of your “squeegeeing” above simply avoids the entire point of my comment – that is, armed police had the suspected offender *blockaded* on the bridge, with him suspected of alleged multiple violent offences, driving a car known to be stolen and a witness (girlfriend) ponting out his stated intention. Yet still the entire atrocity unravels to an utterly horrifying conclusion, while the police watch from a helicopter.
There’s also a UTube video posted up by a woman in a car outside Flinders’ St station taken while the offender was circling the road intersection in the stolen vehicle shouting at the assembled onlookers – who included armed police, watching him as they knew who he was.
What exactly were the instructions given to the police on the street, in the bridge blockade ? As in the aftermath of the Cronulla disturbance, that section of the police recordings will likely be found to be inexplicably missing.
70
“Any massacre of innocent people is terrible regardless of mental illness or not and I feel very sorry for the victims, their families and friends. But I cannot see a solution for combating random acts of crime other than have legal process that requires people to be held on remand in prisons when they have been identified and are charged for criminal activity.”
20
… when they have been identified …
He’d been identified – on the bridge, blockaded in by armed police, driving a car known to be stolen, with his girlfriend as witness. And a known suspect in several violent crimes.
Not enough for you, eh ? Ho hum. Squeegee …
40
Ian I recommend that you read my post again.
“They” is not he, my comment was generalising, I thought that would be clear to readers.
50
After all squeegeeing is a method of clearing the view, isn’t it.
40
Maybe we should ask”Dodgy Dan the CFMEU man?”
11
The horrible act was disturbing enough but the reflection on events leading to it is equally bad, after all the chances our legal system, law enforcement, had to properly restrain him and protect the public from such a dangerous individual it was two men of Maori descent that were the only ones to actively have a go at stopping him while armed police with vehicles looked on.
Oh and not forgetting social media/internet once again providing all information on the story while the MSM stenographers gave the Yarragrad narrative…..again.
61
No doubt under instructions from their commander.
But I cannot from my armchair understand why.
30
Here is a better coverage of the event and background
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4139828/The-online-rants-Melbourne-CBD-car-attacker.html
30
From my personal experience attending patriot rally’s in Victoria the police have been infiltrated by leftist dogma coming mostly through their union which is naturally aligned with union/labor state politics, the imposition of PC policy in Vicpol has left a lot of police acting as glorified political social workers while the real police on the beat try their best to serve the public with the hindering of an unlawful social justice culture that has no place in legislated law.
We have been shoved around, pepper sprayed and illegally detained in a public place for the crime of assembling under our national flag while opposing protesters are given free reign to carry weapons, make threats to kill, throw projectiles and burn flags, this is entirely funded through organisations using public money approved by state government.
I witnessed the antifa (anti-fascist) protesters getting off the train at Coburg station Sydney rd wearing masks and carrying lengths of wood with nails sticking out before the stand off with the UPF in Bell st Coburg 27 May 2016, anyone who thinks your own cannot be turned against you better think again.
92
This video from Stefan Molyneux on the latest anti-Trump riots pretty much sums up the reactionist mentality infesting democracies.
70
Evidence Ian, that he was blocked on the Westgate Bridge?
31
From what I have read it was chaos, no mention of blocking the car though …
“Chief Commissioner Craig Ashton also said the man accused of the rampage through Bourke Street had a history of family violence.
‘He has come to our attention on many occasions in the past. We have mental health and drug-related issues in the background of this particular person,’ he said.
Later that morning he led police on a wild car chase through Melbourne with a female hostage in the passenger seat, who police said was ‘not connected’ to him.
The woman escaped or was let out of the car on the Bolte Bridge near Docklands just west of the Melbourne CBD.
Police gave up their pursuit soon after as the car was moving erratically and it was feared bystanders could be injured.
Helicopters kept track of his movements as officers hoped to find another opportunity to stop him, but instead watched in horror as he drove into the city.
Injured people treated at Bourke Street mall after pedestrians hit
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4139828/The-online-rants-Melbourne-CBD-car-attacker.html#ixzz4WSA5RsaS
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
30
There is still more to be uncovered – perhaps by journos if they do their job. Reports indicate that the offender was released on bail a week ago by a bail justice against police advice. But apparently bail justices are unpaid volunteers. I heard one former policeman who then became a volunteer bail justice speaking on 3AW this morning stating that the rules generally favour the granting of bail with no money required.
The police have wide powers in relation to the granting of bail. In most cases, police will agree to grant bail at the police station. It is usually the case that bail is granted without any need for a surety (eg money), only an undertaking (ie a promise to appear). Very few bail matters end up going before the courts. This usually happens when the police do not agree to grant bail.
If the bail hearing does go to court, bail may be refused if the court or a bail justice is satisfied that there is an unacceptable risk that you will:
Fail to appear at the court hearing (eg. you have failed to appear at court on a previous occasion)
Commit an offence whilst on bail (eg. if you have been charged whilst already on bail)
Endanger the safety or welfare of members of the public; and/or
Interfere with witnesses.
30
+ many
The Herald Sun reported on this pretty much immediately (Fairfax took a day longer)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/police-pursuit-through-melbourne-cbd/news-story/e365f902f9a433956125d84dfb43ac59
Also, the bail processes are to be reviewed with the opposition wanting “The presumption of bail should be removed for Victorians who are alleged to have committed violent offences”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/fatal-cbd-horror-leads-to-bail-law-review/news-story/0cc1e7d8c5b66f25a81f48076f88a992
Coincidentally, last week, I signed a petition, by my local federal member, to the state government on toughening up action on violent crime. I’m not a huge fan of many of her positions (due largely to her following the Turnbull “consensus”) but this was (tragically) timely.
http://www.kellyodwyer.com.au/petition-police-resources-tackle-violent-crime/
10
Somewhere earlier today I read an article which had a photo of the the sky writing plane’s work above the Sydney ( I think) marchers which simply had TRUMP in the sky. But now I cannot remember or find where I saw it –if anyone else has seen it and can put up the link , it would be appreciated.
60
http://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/trump-has-appeared-in-skywriting-over-sydney-and-the-city-is-baffled/news-story/4a7af11354e189e98a4b03bbc3cbed4a
70
Thank you Dennis.
70
A court will rule if wind-turbines cause stress,
Enough for worried folks to change address.
With Trump, the warmists too must give account,
Of every massive spend or small amount.
The warming Dr. Evans calculated,
Show the models to be two thirds overrated.
The models may predict more rain and drought,
Which cyclically we know does come about.
Those counting China’s turbines wonder why,
They blot the landscape, then stand idly by.
90
As Obama and Clinton fade away it is amazing that George Bush was pilloried by the left for being a warmonger, chasing his weapons of mass destruction, namely 2,000 tons of Sarin gas. These were eventually found in Syria as known all along and it was the Russians who acted to stop these falling into the hands of ISIS/ISIL. 30x more poisonous than cyanide, hopefully it was all destroyed in factory ships last year at high temperatures. Hardly mentioned, but Bush as right, as was Putin.
So for eight years Obama has fomenting war across the middle East with drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and more and sponsored revolution in most Arab countries and the rise of the Brotherhood even in Egypt. His ‘Arab Spring’. On his last three day in office he authorised mass killings with drone missiles and B2 strikes in Syria and Libya, wiping out hundreds each time and nothing is said but seemingly it was Bush who was the warmonger and Putin.
Whatever Obama and Clinton’s agenda was, it did not include peace in the Middle East and sowed the seeds for a Caliphate based ultimately in Saudi at Mecca rather than Istanbul. Why? Why did the left of politics and all the media turn a blind eye? Why did Hilary Clinton lie about the public murder of the US ambassador which she claimed was a spontaneous reaction to a video?
Not a single press cricitism of perhaps the most war mongering President in modern times, someone who did not react to war as in Kuwait but created the conditions and funded the uprisings and the rise of the Brotherhood. He bombed a dozen countries. How much a role did Hilary’s friend Huma who grew up in Saudi and whose parents ran the Brotherhood play in all this? Virtually nothing is said except lectures on Climate Change and the Great Barrier Reef, as Bjelke Petersen said, feeding the chooks.
***
40
beththeserf posted this above, but am posting again to ensure people go to the correct url & want to clarify that this was not in the NYT print edition.
instead, judging by the fact there are only 3 comments when I post this, it is in one of NYT’s little-read, atomised sections, “Idenity Politics”, sub-group “Women in The World”
20 Jan: NYT Live: Identity Politics: Women in The World: Billionaire George Soros has ties to more than 50 ‘partners’ of the Women’s March on Washington
What is the link between one of Hillary Clinton’s largest donors and the Women’s March? Turns out, it’s quite significant
By Asra Q. Nomani
The Guardian has touted the “Women’s March on Washington” as a “spontaneous” action for women’s rights. Another liberal media outlet, Vox, talks about the “huge, spontaneous groundswell” behind the march. On its website, organizers of the march are promoting their work as “a grassroots effort” with “independent” organizers. Even my local yoga studio, Beloved Yoga, is renting a bus and offering seats for $35. The march’s manifesto says magnificently, “The Rise of the Woman = The Rise of the Nation.”
It’s an idea that I, a liberal feminist, would embrace…
But I know — and most of America knows — that the organizers of the march haven’t put into their manifesto: the march really isn’t a “women’s march.” It’s a march for women who are anti-Trump.
As someone who voted for Trump, I don’t feel welcome, nor do many other women who reject the liberal identity-politics that is the core underpinnings of the march…
To understand the march better, I stayed up through the nights this week, studying the funding, politics and talking points of the some 403 groups that are “partners” of the march. Is this a non-partisan “Women’s March”?…
Following the money, I poured through documents of billionaire George Soros and his Open Society philanthropy, because I wondered: What is the link between one of Hillary Clinton’s largest donors and the “Women’s March”?
I found out: plenty.
By my draft research, which I’m opening up for crowd-sourcing on GoogleDocs, Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s “partners…
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
similarly, this is not in the NYT print edition:
19 Jan: NYT Live: Women in The World: Agenda for Women’s March has been hijacked by organizers bent on highlighting women’s differences
by Andrew Tavani
I live in Washington and plan to attend the protest because Donald Trump’s presidency, and what it portends for America and the democratic world, demands such action…
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/19/agenda-for-womens-march-on-washington-has-been-hijacked-by-organizers-bent-on-highlighting-womens-differences/amp/
40
one-time liberal Horowitz:
20 Jan: FrontPage: The Progressive Movement
An excerpt from David Horowitz’s new book, “Big Agenda.”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265525/progressive-movement-david-horowitz
20 Jan: Newsmax: ‘Big Agenda’ Author David Horowitz: Trump Speech a ‘Tremendous Slap in the Face to Democrats’
Horowitz, who is also publisher of Frontpage Mag, is unconcerned about Trump’s continuous use of Twitter.
“It’s his aggressiveness that’s important. He’s a fighter and that is transforming the Republican Party. He is the guy [who said] we’re not going to take it anymore,” Horowitz said.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/david-horowitz-big-agenda-donald-trump-inauguration/2017/01/20/id/769677/
60
Wow. NASA just said this on Facebook and YouTube: “Earth is a complex system that we do not fully understand.” .. Whatever happened to ‘the science is settled’?
https://www.facebook.com/NASA
https://youtu.be/f9F7yDjSdNA
110
They must have hired deniers.
80
If confronted, they will deny it.
60
The Trump Effect in action, everyone is scrambling to remain relevant and save their jobs.
90
Today’s “their ABC” headline grabber , Trump aides request baker make same cake for Trumps inauguration as Obummer’s inauguration cake .
I’m glad they never mis the big ones !
70
The Australian federal and VIC state governments are paying $230 million over 4 years to “save” 700 direct jobs at the Portland aluminium smelter. That is a cost of over $82,000 per job per year. The reason this smelter is in trouble in the first place is it was damaged when the power failed first time and then the government chose to triple the coal tax and also shut down the Hazelwood Power Station. Aluminium smelters rely on cheap night time power from fossil power stations and the power stations rely on customers like aluminium smelters to sell their surplus power to. The taxpayer would not be suffering any additional burden if it were not for the systematic destruction of cheap and reliable power production in favour of the unreliables. The whole exercise is insane.
131
The supreme leader of Victoriastan knows nothing of how to run a government let alone a business , spend like a drunken sailor and when you run the state into the ground tax the crap out of whatever you can .
When the opposition wins power blame them for the ensuing mess .
South Australia has become dumbfukistan and our supreme leader is doing his best to take that title .
91
His comments on the multiple deaths, no doubt echoing the responses he had seen other politicians give in the European massacres, was trite and sickening.
You call that a leader?
That is running Victoria.
Good luck.
KK
51
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/21/trump-returns-churchill-bust-to-oval-office.html
31
‘The Chinese could use their considerable influence worldwide to wage a new Cold War. Starting with North Korea — China provides up to 90 per cent of North Korea’s trade and has considerable power over the rouge state. It has been cooperating to some extent with tougher UN sanctions …’
Matthew Carney / ABC
—————-
30
Taiwan is concerned that Trump is going to use them as a bargaining chip, like the One China policy remains intact if Beijing brings about a regime change in North Korea. How hard could it be?
In addition, Donald might turn his back on the South China Sea.
30
there’s been much speculation about the whereabouts of Eric Braverman, when he stopped tweeting in Oct, after ***”one of the documents stolen from the Democratic Party showed some Clinton staffers believed he had leaked information about the foundation’s finances”:
18 Jan: Bizjournals: Cromwell Shubarth: EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Clinton Foundation CEO to head Eric Schmidt’s philanthropies
Eric Braverman, the former CEO of the Clinton Foundation, has been hired to oversee the non-investment side of the family office of Alphabet Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy…
Braverman ran the non-profit foundation of former President Bill Clinton and unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton between 2013 and 2015. It’s a job he reportedly got on the recommendation of their daughter, Chelsea, who he became friends with when they both worked at McKinsey & Co.
His $395,000-plus job at the New York City-based $2 billion Clinton Foundation was reportedly to bring McKinsey & Co. management rigor to the foundation.
***Braverman’s name surfaced in the fall when one of the documents stolen from the Democratic Party showed some Clinton staffers believed he had leaked information about the foundation’s finances…
Their philanthropies include The Schmidt Family Foundation that has given away more than $450 million to promote renewable energy and wise use of natural resources; the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which has spent more than $100 million on oceanic research and causes; the 11th Hour Project, which supports more than 150 non-profit organizations; and the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation, which supports organizations addressing global issues in science and technology, education and the environment.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/01/18/ex-clinton-foundation-ceo-to-head-eric-schmidt.html
Braverman begins tweeting again:
Twitter: 18 Jan: Eric Braverman re-tweeted: New record set in 2016 for Earth’s global average surface temperatures – warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880: LINK
17hrs ago: Eric Braverman re-tweeted: Science Mag: UCI researchers map oceanic troughs below ice sheets in West Antarctica…
https://twitter.com/eric_braverman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
30
Is Nibiru real?
50
Pseudoscience.
40
Are the Bosnian pyramids real?
https://jonettecrowley.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/bosnia-11.jpeg
40
scaper @ # 29
Nope! The hypothesised existence of Niburu has been eliminated through sky surveys.
Plus some orbital modelling of objects whose orbits would be modified by the gravitational field of the hypothesised Niburu.
BUT!
New Oort cloud discovery renews talk of Planet X [ March 2014 ]
[ More ]
There is one hell of a lot of stuff, some of it bigger than Pluto in size, well outside of Pluto’s orbit that comprises the OORT Cloud which consists of an inner OORT Cloud and an outer OORT Cloud whose inner boundaries are around 1500 AU’s
[ AU = One “Astronomical Unit” = roughly the distance from the Earth to the Sun ]
20
for sheer arrogance, u can’t beat this:
17 Jan: Columbia Journalism Review: Kyle Pope: An open letter to Trump from the US press corps
It will come as no surprise to you that we see the relationship as strained. Reports over the last few days that your press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House are the latest in a pattern of behavior that has persisted throughout the campaign: You’ve banned news organizations from covering you. You’ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same…You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability…(NO HE DIDN’T)…
But while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too. It is, after all, our airtime and column inches that you are seeking to influence. We, not you, decide how best to serve our readers, listeners, and viewers. So think of what follows as a backgrounder on what to expect from us over the next four years…
Off the record and other ground rules are ours—not yours—to set. We may agree to speak to some of your officials off the record, or we may not. We may attend background briefings or off-the-record social events, or we may skip them. That’s our choice…
We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates…
We believe there is an objective truth, and we will hold you to that. When you or your surrogates say or tweet something that is demonstrably wrong, we will say so, repeatedly. Facts are what we do, and we have no obligation to repeat false assertions…
We will set higher standards for ourselves than ever before. We credit you with highlighting serious and widespread distrust in the media across the political spectrum. Your campaign tapped into that, and it was a bracing wake-up call for us. We have to regain that trust. And we’ll do it through accurate, fearless reporting, by acknowledging our errors and abiding by the most stringent ethical standards we set for ourselves…
We’ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. You have forced us to rethink the most fundamental questions about who we are and what we are here for. For that we are most grateful.
Enjoy your inauguration.
—The Press Corps
http://www.cjr.org/covering_trump/trump_white_house_press_corps.php
Trump wants independent media & bloggers represented in the WH Press Corps, which means either a bigger room, or rotating more reporters than usual to give others a chance:
18 Jan: The Hill: Trump: I won’t move press briefing room
By Rebecca Savransky
“The press went crazy, so I said, ‘Let’s not move it.’ But some people in the press will not be able to get in,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends” in an interview that aired Wednesday.
“We have so many people that want to go in, so we’ll have to just have to pick the people to go into the room. I’m sure other people will be thrilled about that,” he said.
Trump said his administration offered a larger room for the press, but “they went crazy.”
And they’ll be begging for a much larger room very soon,” he said. “You watch.”…
Incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus said in an interview over the weekend that talk about barring the press from the White House was “getting way out of whack.”
He said the discussions had centered on moving the “initial press conferences” to the Executive Office Building.
“So no one is moving out of the White House,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “That is the White House, where you can fit four times the amount of people in the press conference, allowing more press, more coverage from all over the country to have those press conferences. That’s what we’re talking about.”
Priebus added on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the discussions are focused on “press briefings” as opposed to removing reporters from the White House.
“This is about quadrupling the amount of reporters who can cover our press conference,” Priebus said…
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/314756-trump-i-wont-move-press-briefing-room
60
funny this:
18 Oct: Columbia Journalism Review: Greg Mitchell: Before Nixon: When JFK tapped the phone of a New York Times reporter
Nearly every president, and most serious candidates for that position, exhibit a love/hate relationship with the press. In the popular mind, John F. Kennedy expressed mainly the “love” part, partly due to his witty manner at frequent White House press conferences. Actually, while displaying affection for a number of reporters, JFK was extremely critical of the media. In the second half of 1962 alone he tried to kill two NBC and CBS news specials. He even approved the wiretapping of a leading reporter for The New York Times (and a secretary in the newspaper’s D.C. bureau)—and then set in motion illegal CIA domestic surveillance embraced years later by Richard Nixon.
President Kennedy’s order to the CIA to begin collecting intelligence on American reporters—shattering its own charter—was formalized as Project Mockingbird. In the spring of 1963, this resulted in the wiretapping of two columnists, Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott, after they allegedly revealed classified secrets. Other reporters were also monitored in this program until its end in 1965…
When declassified documents revealed Mockingbird’s existence in 2007, New York Times reporter Tim Weiner observed, “So now the record is clear: Long before President Nixon created his ‘plumbers’ unit of CIA veterans to stop news leaks, President Kennedy tried to use the agency for the same goal.” The Times separately noted: “By ordering the director of central intelligence to conduct a program of domestic surveillance, Kennedy set a precedent that Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and George W. Bush would follow.”
http://www.cjr.org/the_feature/jfk_new_york_times_surveillance.php
17 Jan: NPR: ***Michael Oreskes: We Cannot Tolerate Legal and Personal Attacks on Journalists For Doing Their Jobs
The message below was sent by NPR’s Senior Vice President of News and Editorial Director Michael Oreskes to the NPR News staff on Jan. 17.
The right of working journalists to do their jobs should not be up for debate when a new administration takes office (or at any other time). But it disturbingly seems to be…
Ostracizing a journalist at a news conference isn’t attractive…
We at NPR have strong points of view when it comes to freedom of the press and we will make those views transparent to you in pieces such as this. We also see it as our responsibility as the public’s media to provide a platform for discussion of these issues and the airing of differing views. There are valid discussions to have. That is the kind of debate the framers envisioned…
Take one example: the accrediting of journalists to cover the White House can’t be at the whim of an administration, any administration. A federal court in Washington established the principle “that the interest of a bona fide Washington correspondent in obtaining a White House press pass is protected by the First Amendment,” and may not be denied without due process of law…
***Michael Oreskes?
9 Oct 2015: NPR Ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen: Ethics: Friday Follow-up: Parsing Potential Conflicts Of Interest
I’m still catching up on issues that were raised by listeners in recent weeks while I was traveling. Here’s one: a question of whether NPR needs to put a disclosure on each and every story about climate change.
After my recent columns looking at NPR’s environmental coverage, I heard from Andrew Kerber, of Kansas City, Mo., who wrote that he “was surprised to see a reference to a familiar name,” that of Michael Oreskes, senior vice president of news and editorial director at NPR. Kerber went on to point out that Oreskes’ sister, ***Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, is well known in the world of climate science.
(As The New York Times described her in a June profile with the headline “Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate,” “Dr. Oreskes is fast becoming one of the biggest names in climate science — not as a climatologist, but as a defender who uses the tools of historical scholarship to counter what she sees as ideologically motivated attacks on the field.”)…
Kerber wrote:
“The fact that this clear conflict of interest has never been mentioned in a single NPR story on climate change brings NPR’s journalistic integrity into question. Michael Oreskes is clearly in a position to set editorial policy for NPR, and any basic standard of conduct would require the disclosure his relationship to Naomi Oreskes in all stories and articles on climate change.”
I asked Oreskes to respond. He said he had recused himself from any coverage involving his sister the day he arrived at NPR, in late April. As to NPR’s broader coverage of climate change, he said, “Her views don’t have any bearing on decisions I make about coverage of these issues.” But he added that he would defer to Mark Memmott, NPR’s supervising senior editor for standards and practices, for a ruling on whether every NPR report on climate change should note the family relationship.
Memmott told me by email, “We do not believe it’s necessary to say with each report we do about climate change that Mike’s sister is Naomi Oreskes.” He wrote:
“Her place in the debate and her brother’s role at NPR, frankly, have zero influence on our reporting about climate change.”…
http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2015/10/09/447210085/friday-follow-up-parsing-potential-conflicts-of-interest
60
Tweet: James O’Keefe Project Veritas: Excited to announce for the first time in @Project_Veritas history, our expose showing conspiracy to commit terrorism have lead to ARRESTS.
reply: And the MSM didn’t even cover this story. Lives in danger and MSM looks the other way…pathetic media.
it’s only one arrest…so far…and only a ***”misdemeanour” charge!
20 Jan: WashingtonTimes: Andrea Noble: Police: Arrested activist featured in Project Veritas inauguration video
The 34-year-old man arrested Thursday night for conspiracy to commit assault at the event (DeploraBall, National Press Club) was among the activists featured in the undercover video released this week, according to court documents made public on Friday…
Scott Ryan Charney was one of the three men caught on camera discussing plans to set off fire alarms and spray Butyric acid — an ingredient commonly used in stink bombs — at the National Press Club, where the party for Donald Trump supporters was held Thursday night. In the Project Veritas video, Mr. Charney is identified as Scott Green, the documents state…
Court documents state that police relied on the video turned over to investigators on Tuesday by the unidentified witness as well as emails sent between protest organizers when they filed the criminal charge against Mr. Charney. The court documents do not indicate how the emails were obtained, but state that Mr. Charney wrote to several individuals that he had conducted reconnaissance at the National Press Club, and believed the the group “would be able to accomplish their objective ‘with no negative consequences for our side, nor any collateral damage.’”…
Mr. Charney “went on to further discuss that more people would be needed inside the building to carry out their plans,” according to the court documents. The email message states that the group would further discuss the plans in person.
Police were looking for the two other men, identified as Luke Kuhn and Colin Dunn in the video, but officials said they have not been taken into custody.
Mr. Charney was arraigned on the charges in D.C. Superior Court Friday, as President Trump was being sworn into office.
He pled not guilty to the ***misdemeanor charge and was released from custody on the condition he stay away from the inauguration zone throughout the rest of the weekend…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/20/police-arrested-activist-scott-ryan-charney-featur/
obviousy the above mob are not as well-connected as Creamer:
11 Jan: Breitbart: VIDEO: Disgrace Democrat operative Robert Creamer in front row for Obama Farewell Speech
Disgraced Demcorat operative Robert Creamer was seated at the front of the audience at President Barack Obama’s farewell speech in Chicago on Tuesday evening, despite his leading role in an effort to incite violence at Republican political events…
Although Creamer’s firm, Democracy Partners, apparently contracted directly with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, the “bird-dogging” operations were reportedly set up so as to allow “plausible deniability.”…
After his exposure by Project Veritas, Creamer resigned “from his responsibilities working with the [Clinton] campaign.”
Creamer is a convicted felon who went to federal prison in connection with a check-kiting scandal. He is married to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), an early Obama supporter…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/11/video-disgraced-democrat-operative-robert-creamer-front-row-obama-farewell-speech/
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was just told FakeNewsMSM is still going on about Trump Inauguration crowd not being as large as Obama 2009…as if it matters.
I’ve already posted that DC is overwhelmingly Democratic, so I don’t dispute Obama’s was probably a bigger crowd, but I do know FakeNewsMSM was called out many times during the ceremony for showing early morning pics of the Trump crowd, with loads of empty areas, and claiming they were “live” pics. I gather Fox News has called out CNN for doing this today.
anyway, best to post the following as, amazingly, CNN itself has this proof of the massive crowd for Trump, during his speech:
CNN: Trump Inauguration Gigapixel
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/
from comments at Reddit:
Gigapixel “shoots their narrative of low numbers in the foot”…
Gigapixel supports “reports we have gotten about people stuck outside because of delays. You can see some of that when zooming in”
PIC: crowd still at one of 3 gates during the ceremony.
https://imgur.com/a/99fLz
also read a comment from someone at one of the gates that the crowd that didn’t get thru was at least five blocks long.
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PLEASE. if anyone knows how to save the CNN Gigapixel, please do so and put a link in the comments, so I can save it, just in case CNN deletes it.
many thanx.
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pat I found this link works http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/ or maybe not?, sorry.
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Trump’s press secretary just gave the media a blast!
About time too. Australian ABC just don’t get it.
They are so one-eyed in all their reports; they still refuse to accept the reality of Brexit and Trumpit!!
Yours truly pissed off GeoffW
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21 Jan: Townhall: Matt Vespa: Scoop: Washington Free Beacon Obtains Copy Of Memo From Clinton Ally Plotting Trump’s Impeachment
Joe Schoffstall and Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon have obtained a confidential memo (LINK) from longtime Clinton ally David Brock that alleges he will use his PAC, American Bridge, to set the wheels in motion. This will be a multi-year project, with Brock hoping that articles of impeachment against Trump will come out of their work. He also hopes to build a network of donors that rivals the right-leaning Koch Brothers:
“Brock is currently at the Turnberry Isle Resort in Aventura, Fla. for a weekend conference with more than 100 major liberal donors. Attendees are mapping out a course to combat the newly sworn-in president.
According to the private and confidential memo, Brock plans to defeat Trump “through impeachment,” using American Bridge, his liberal super PAC, as the main vehicle to do so.
“No other progressive organization has the resources and assets that American Bridge has amassed over the past several election cycles to hold Trump, his administration, and the politicians accountable,” the 44-page confidential memo states.
Brock’s group claims to have more than 20,000 hours of video, 289 candidate research books, and the largest available archive of Trump research in the Democratic Party. Within weeks of the election, Bridge launched a “Trump War Room,” which has already scrutinized Trump’s transition team and will continue to watch the personnel, policies, and practices of the administration…READ ON
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/01/21/scoop-washington-free-beacon-obtains-copy-of-memo-from-clinton-ally-plotting-trumps-impeachment-n2274973
ConservativeTreehouse has the CNN Gigapixel. btw NYT is also accused of showing early pic of Trump crowd before it built up:
21 Jan: Conservative Treehouse: sundance: Definitive CNN Gigapixel Image of Crowd During Trump Inauguration Speech Confirms Sean Spicer Correct…
CNN GIGAPIXEL
Despite the shenanigans Sean Spicer was correct. The crowd grew significantly just as the event began. Yes, this was mostly due to the crowd being intentionally delayed from attending. Yes, tens of thousands of people could not get through the screenings. Yes, the federal workers and DC Park and Security leadership made attendance more difficult than any previous inauguration…
FROM COMMENTS:
SNL showing the same early pic of the inauguration…
…also CNN should be removed from airports by TSA or FAA as a known security risk. (CNN HAS DEAL WHICH MEANS THEY ARE SHOWN IN ALL AIRPORTS IN US – DON’T KNOW ABOUT ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD)…
Why doesn’t someone tell the NY Slimes (TIMES) to publish the exact times of day that both the 2009 & 2017 photos were taken, and how many people were waiting to get into both the 2009 & 2017 events at the exact time the photos were taken? If the exact times the pics were taken is different then tell them they have to produce pics taken at the exact same times of the day, along with the exact number of people waiting to get in to both events at that exact time. Problem solved. Next problem!…
There was only ONE ENTRANCE TO THE MALL FOR NON-TICKETED SPECTATORS, who were the most numerous — we stood in line, which went on for miles!!!! — for TWO HOURS, shuffling along at a snail’s pace, before we finally got in there.
That photo only shows the people who managed to get IN!!!! Judas H. Priest. It doesn’t show you the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of us who were kept out of the mall ON PURPOSE; Spicer, I think, said that the fences all around the mall were “unprecedented” as well…we had to walk for TWENTY MINUTES to find the end of the line!!!!…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/01/21/definitive-cnn-gigapixel-image-of-crowd-during-trump-inauguration-speech-confirms-sean-spicer-correct/
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There has been snow in Norther Africa and the Arab deserts again and in Serbia icebreakers are being used to clear the Danube.
http://www.reuters.com/article/europe-weather-serbia-idUSL5N1F761X
Ho-hum, just more weather…
See evidence of more warming planet news HERE
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I’m beginning to think the warming is all from the overheated brains of the warmists. They have been at it nonstop fast and furiously for too long without a break and now their radiators are boiling over.
Memo to warmists: The thermometer belongs outside in a well shaded place or appropriately shielded enclosure, not up your ears.
No sarcasm was created either explicitly or implied, nor was any harm done to any thermometer in the manufacture and distribution of this message. What you see is what you get.
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I was just telling a mate my prediction for US “climate scientists” a few hours ago:
Trump will send his people in to get rid of the data fudging and the fudgers will call him the fudger.
And then I found this.
They want to “protect” their fudged data.
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Bizarre!
Unless they actually want to protect the fudged data from discovery by the skeptical trump term.
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no wonder people are angry at the FakeNewsMSM if this is the PIC they are using!
22 Jan: FreeRepublic: The inaugural PIC the left media is running with vs reality
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3516087/posts
21 Jan: Breitbart: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Blasts Media’s ‘Deliberately False Reporting’
by Adele Nazarian
“Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting,” Spicer said. He explained that one reporter “falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed form the Oval Office… This was just plain wrong.”
The false report, which Spicer described as “irresponsible and reckless,” came from TIME magazine pool reporter Zeke Miller…
TWEET: Zeke Miller: Tweeting again: wh aide confirms the MLK bust is still there. I looked for it in the oval 2x & didn’t see it. My apologies to my colleagues…
Spicer further noted that the media had attempted to paint Trump’s inauguration as appearing much smaller than President Barack Obama’s.
“Photographs of the Inauguration proceeding were intentionally framed in a way to minimize the enormous support it had gathered on the National Mall,” Spicer said. He added, it was the first time in the nation’s history that white floor coverings had been used to protect the grass and that they amplified empty spaces, whereas the grass had minimized the appearance of spaces in the past…
“Inaccurate numbers regarding crowd size were also tweeted,” Spicer said. “No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall does not put any out.” He said this also applies to any attempts to count the numbers of protesters during the “Women’s March” on Saturday. …
Spicer’s criticism of the media’s fake news reporting resulted in a media meltdown on social media.
MSNBC correspondent Joy-Ann Reid called Spicer “the new Baghdad Bob.”…
Left-wing Think Progress’s Judd Legum suggested Spicer had “torched his credibility” for confronting the media’s misreporting with the truth…
Naturally, other media figures from the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Salon also complained…
(24,362 COMMENTS AT TIME OF POSTING)
http://www.breitbart.com/live/womens-march-washington-live-updates/wh-press-secretary-sean-spicer-blasts-medias-deliberately-false-reporting/
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CO2 does not cause global warming.
http://s8.postimg.org/5oikhqhad/New_Neem_Temps_vs_NGRIP_Antarctica.png
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http://www.independentsentinel.com/soros-behind-56-groups-running-womens-march/
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By now there has been at least 12 hours of almost constant rain where I live. I think I’m justified in proclaiming the california drought to be over. And it’s all been light enough that there’s little flooding or trouble while still hard enough to deliver a lot of water and the snow we depend so much on for our water supply.
This is the best rainy day I can remember. And it doesn’t look much like stopping just yet. 🙂
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This little saying never stops being apt:
“At the end of every drought there is a good rain”.
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And unfortunately, with the southern half of the state being semi or fully arid depending on where you are — essentially a desert — and population still increasing in the big cities like Los Angeles even with many people leaving, the demand for water is increasing and the supply, like it or not, is finite and near the end of its ability to keep up without every winter being like this one. And every winter will not be like this one. We import water from as far away as the Colorado River and the Feather River dam at Oroville north of Sacramento already and there’s nothing more of significance we can tap into.
In my opinion California has failed to adequately prepare for events like this past drought and has not managed its water wisely at all. Politicians always get in the way of wise planning. 🙁
So the cycle will keep on going as it always does and California will finally get desperate enough to pay attention. And with reservoirs as low as they were when the rain finally came back I think we came pretty close to that desperation point. Next summer without the present rain would have been a big problem — another feather that can’t be put in Sacramento’s hat.
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for the record:
this is definitive collection of links re crowd size, includes CNN Gigapixel, exposes PBS timelapse fakery, more links in comments, LANGUAGE WARNING.:
21 Jan: Reddit_the_Donald: PROOF – real inauguration crowd size vs FAKE NEWS & footage of blocked security checkpoints
FROM COMMENTS:
I’ve been saying this since Friday evening. I was in the National Mall area, got in about 5-10 minutes before 12 PM. The place was a mad house, and was so much more full than the Fake News photos show it to be. Not to mention the maybe 100K people who were still waiting on the streets to get into the National Mall area…
It just so happens that PBS have comments disabled on that time lapse video as well.
Oh how convenient!…
European MSM is also using the fake comparison…here’s an example from Germany (Die Welt):
The headline:
“The bitter emptiness at Trump’s inauguration”: (LINK)…
We were there. Was stuck in a security line for hours and missed the inauguration…
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5ph3aj/proof_real_inauguration_crowd_size_vs_fake_news/
most at Reddit_the_Donald do not dispute Obama 2009 had a larger crowd. however:
the number for 2009 Obama Inauguration was originally estimated at “over 1 million” (a million is basically what fits into the space). then it got presstimated at 1.5m and, later still, 1.8m
Obama 2009: The Associated Press estimated Tuesday’s assembled masses at “more than 1 million”.
Obama 2009: FactCheck.org: CNN estimates that 1.5 million attended the 2009 version, and other estimates range from over 1 million to 1.8 million…
not even CNN is showing the Gigapixel! shame on FakeNewsMSM.
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today’s FakeNewsMSM:
NOTE: keep in mind ex-CIA Director John Brennan SAID NOTHING AT ALL. not a single word.
now check the headlines:
Brennan: Trump ‘should be ashamed of himself’
Politico – 20 hours ago
Former CIA Director John Brennan Says ‘Trump Should Be Ashamed Of Himself’
Huffington Post – 18 hours ago
Ex-CIA Boss Brennan, Others Rip Trump Speech in Front of Memorial
NBCNews.com – 19 hours ago
oh…***Nick Shapiro said!
21 Jan: CNN: Ryan Browne: Ex-CIA chief Brennan bashes Trump over speech during CIA visit
(CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Kevin Liptak contributed to this story)
Washington (CNN) — Former CIA Director John Brennan is “deeply saddened and angered” at President Donald Trump after the commander in chief addressed CIA employees at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on Saturday, Brennan’s former deputy chief of staff says…
“Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes,” ***Nick Shapiro said in a statement. “Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”…
***The CIA audience was separated into two sections: a main area of all agency staff and a separate section directly in front of the stage that consisted of senior agency leadership, including agents. During Trump’s address, the senior leadership stood the entire time. When Trump began drifting into political topics, ***the main crowd broke into cheers and applause at points. ***The senior leadership remained stoic, and did not applaud the political lines…
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/trump-to-cia-i-am-so-behind-you/
the politically-appointed senior leadership will soon be gone, as CNN knows.
note applause throughout, overflow CIA crowd mentioned, and sustained cheers & applause when Trump calls media dishonest in the latter part of his speech:
21 Jan: Youtube: 23mins21secs: President Donald Trump Delivers Remarks at CIA Headquarters (1/21/2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xagAlOXT9Wk
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John Brennan was appointed to his position one month after declaring he had converted to Islam. Now isn’t that a strange coincidence? The White House staff was predominantly Muslim, but the press does not report that.
It was also fairly obvious that Brennan’s fellow Muslim (Obama) did not like what Trump had to say in his inauguration speech.
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21 Jan: UK Express: Oli Smith: Viewers SAVAGE BBC Newsnight for Obama BIAS as Donald Trump described as ‘JOKE’
IRATE BBC viewers took to social media in droves last night to hit out at BBC’s Newsnight for appearing to portray Mr Trump’s presidency as “apocalyptic”.
Viewers were shocked by the contrasting tones taken in discussing Donald Trump and Barack Obama during last night’s BBC programme.
The audience for Friday evening’s Newsnight were shocked as the the political news team put together a sentimental and warm tribute to Mr Obama.
In a closing montage, presenters played out the Democrat President, underlined by a heartbreaking Adele soundtrack…
In contrast to “mourning” former President Obama’s departure, viewers criticised the BBC for highlighting personalities who castigated Mr Trump as “a joke”…
People also took to social media to label Newsnight “a farce”…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/757073/BBC-newsnight-left-wing-bias-Barack-Obama-Donald-Trump-president
2 videos, great fun:
22 Jan: AmericanMirror: VIDEOS: Passengers cheer as woman berating Trump supporter is thrown off airplane.
The woman then began to berate the Trump supporter.
“You pretend you have the moral high ground but you put that man’s finger on the nuclear button. That man ***doesn’t believe in climate change,” she said, using air quotes for dramatic effect…
Another video, taken from across the aisle, showed the woman sneering at the Trump supporter, then at passengers behind her before police ordered her off the plane.
Passengers cheered as she carried her belongings and exited the aircraft.
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-passengers-cheer-woman-berating-trump-supporter-kicked-off-plane/
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another excerpt from the CJR letter to Trump – link at comment #31:
17 Jan: ColumbiaJournalismReview: Kyle Pope: An open letter to Trump from the US press corps
We’re going to work together. You have tried to divide us and use reporters’ deep competitive streaks to cause family fights. Those days are ending. We now recognize that the challenge of covering you requires that we cooperate and help one another whenever possible…
BLEAK was the FakeNewsMSM meme for what many heard as an incredibly optimistic speech!
Trump’s inaugural address was demonstrably BLEAK
Washington Post-20 Jan. 2017
Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech, Annotated
New York Times – Jan 20, 2017
This echoes his convention speech, and it paints a BLEAK picture of America’s streets
Trump inauguration: President vows to end ‘American carnage’
BBC News – Jan 20, 2017
President Donald Trump has painted a BLEAK picture
For Donald Trump, Call for Unity Starts With BLEAK Message
ABC News – Jan 20, 2017
Donald Trump’s America: The President’s BLEAK inaugural address
New York Daily News-20 Jan. 2017
Donald Trump inauguration speech dark, dangerous and dystopian
The Age-20 Jan. 2017
President Donald Trump uses his inaugural address as the 45th President … as all the light on a BLEAK day..
what a joke.
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Hatcher at the Age is sucking up to Beijing (Communism with a human face) and Andrew Bolt is livid, here is the story by the pseudo Marxist.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/donald-trump-turns-his-back-on-the-world-20170123-gtx1v1.html?deviceType=text
Fairfax want to sell off their Rural division this year to an American consortium which does makeovers, repackage or scrap, and I’m wondering about the fate of the Canberra Times, a highly influential rag.
Beijing is already a big advertiser in the Fairfax group and I’m sure they would pay a handsome price for that jewel and all the other small town newspapers, if Turnbull had no objection.
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Climate Chang Poetry!!! Ye gods, it does exist, and it is too horrible to contemplate. For all you masochists out there, here’s the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2015/nov/20/our-melting-shifting-liquid-world-celebrities-read-poems-on-climate-change
It’s almost as bad as their science…
Cheers,
Speedy
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