Thursday Open Thread

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194 comments to Thursday Open Thread

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    Following hard on the heels of Perth I hear that Melbourne has clamped down but details are sketchy as to how severe it is or how many are infected and how long the new restrictions will last

    Any on the spot news ?

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      OldOzzie

      Lead-up tournaments at Melbourne Park for Australian Open cancelled after COVID-19 scare

      The lead-up tournaments at Melbourne Park for the Australian Open have been postponed as up to 600 players, officials and support staff are told to get tested and self-isolate after a worker at a hotel tested positive for coronavirus.

      The new measures affect those who quarantined at the Grand Hyatt and who are considered casual contacts of the security officer. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announced last night the guard had tested positive, possibly for the UK strain, five days after guarding the tennis entourage.

      Today’s warm-up matches for the Australian Open in Melbourne have been cancelled as the
      Read Next

      more than 600 players and tennis support staff isolate until they have returned a negative COVID-19 test.

      and

      The Victorian government has imposed new statewide coronavirus restrictions after a hotel worker was infected. More Victorian venues have been added as sites possibly exposed to the virus. Researchers from Oxford University say the AstraZeneca vaccine could have a substantial effect on curbing virus transmission after one dose

      Vic restrictions return after hotel worker infected

      The Victorian government has imposed new statewide coronavirus restrictions after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive, but rejected the hardline approach adopted in Western Australia where two million Perth residents were locked down over a single case.

      Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced late on Wednesday night that restrictions on gatherings would be tightened to 15, masks would be compulsory indoors again and planned increases to how many employees returned to workplaces would be delayed.

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      • #
        OldOzzie

        Thousands may need to isolate: Andrews

        Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says potentially thousands of people will have to isolate after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive for the coronavirus.

        Mr Andrews said the number of exposure sites had grown to 14, with 19 out of 20 close contacts contacted by the Department of Health.

        “We will find that 20th person throughout the day,” he said.

        The Victorian Premier said two close contacts of the 26-year-old Noble Park man had tested negative and remained in isolation.

        He said the “three rings” of close contacts meant “potentially thousands” of people could be asked to isolate over the one case.

        COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said the health department had identified around 600 close contacts of the man had been asked to isolate, including his fellow hotel quarantine workers.

        Mr Andrews said it was unknown how the man contracted the virus, saying a review of CCTV footage showed the man had been a model employee.

        “There’s nothing obvious here,” he said.

        Mr Andrews said the possibility the virus could spread via airborne transmission could not be ruled out.

        Victorian deputy Chief Health Officer Allan Cheng said there had been six positive cases at the hotel where the man worked as resident support officer.

        “It’s not rocket science he caught it at the hotel,” he said.

        Professor Cheng said the man presented for testing after developing symptoms.

        Mr Andrews was unapologetic about lengthy queues at testing sites, saying he did not want people “stampeding” hubs.

        “There will be delays and there can be no other way,” he told reporters.

        The state recorded two positive cases in hotel quarantine as well as the Noble park man.

        Mr Weimar said about four or five additional testing sites would be established, including at Monash, brighton and in Melbourne’s CBD.

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        • #
          Graham Richards

          Power is addictive & Dan can’t handle the withdrawal symptoms. Gotta, just gotta have another fix.
          Shut the international border to all except returning Aussies. When will will these tosses learn??

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          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            Power is addictive & Dan can’t handle the withdrawal symptoms. Gotta, just gotta have another fix.

            Looks like someone is projecting their own proclivities onto others. Having worked for pollies they do not seek public relations disasters like this.

            I also think it has been a very poor decision to run the Australian Open this year, however in a context of almost zero cases for some months, Daniel Andrews would have been under great pressure both economically and from the tennis world.

            Given the HUGE real cost of lockdowns, about nine months ago they should have spent the $20 million and funded a purpose-built quarantine facility – say on the coast between Melbourne and Geelong. A whole string of individual cabins (like from a caravan park), with individual water supply, aircon, and dining.

            Big city hotels are hopelessly inadequate for the task.

            And we do not know yet whether the case is caused by a more virulent variant – so speculation on that front is premature.

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            John R Smith

            Hey, Trump is outta work.
            Oz can probably get him down there, and then you can kick him out.
            When his plane lifts from the tarmac, your pandemic will curiously and mysteriously began to subside.
            It’s Science.
            We believe in Science here in my US state, so the Orange Death has been vanquished.
            You’re welcome.
            Glad to help.

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            • #
              Tilba Tilba

              Hey, Trump is outta work. Oz can probably get him down there, and then you can kick him out.

              Our golf clubs are pretty exclusive … Orange Man might have trouble getting a game 🙂

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        • #

          One worker posted covid positive at the Grand Hyett *Quarantine* Centre. Oo-ooh, super-calla-fragil-istic, say, is it The Plague?

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      • #
        Harves

        This new variant is so super mega hyper contagious that despite days in public and 100+ close contacts the cases in WA and Qld have collectively managed to pass this on to one other person – a partner of an infected individual.

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        • #
          yarpos

          mmmmm hence the need to clamp down in Mildura when someone gets sick in Melbourne

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          Destroyer D69

          How long before it mutates into a strain that can pass through walls??????? The holy grail of lockdown justifications…….

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      OldOzzie

      Keep Calm & Panic

      That’s what the mug says, right?

      Daniel Andrews announces snap coronavirus restrictions after hotel worker tests positive.

      This is one case; there’s no need for people to panic.”

      – The Victorian Premier tonight reintroduced mandatory masks, reduced the number of people ‘allowed’ in homes and cancelled an increase in the number ‘allowed’ in offices

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      • #
        OldOzzie

        From the Comments

        Imagine voluntarily moving to that state, yet some do!

        Leunig gets it

        https://www.leunig.com.au/images/recent-cartoons/psychoanalyst-F.jpg

        When a lefty premier has lost Leunig …

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        And this for a virus with a 99.9% survival rate for everyone under 65?

        It appears to be more about conditioning the sheeple to live under tyranny…..

        Even of people get hit with a “vacc ine” , it wont chnage anything. Even under Sleepy Joe, they still mandate masks for people post vaccine, so why bother? And will lots of old folks start keeling over within 2 weeks of getting the mRNA jab, like they have overseas? Stay away from it if you can.

        Question – have the latest infection results been published? How do we know they arent just are 100% made up?

        We also never got to see autopsy results of the “victims” of COV19 in Victoriastan.

        Will Glorious Leader push for electronic voting next?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The more lies governments, public servants and political movements tell, the more additional lies they have to tell to keep the original lies believable.

    Hence the Leftist war against free speech, especially notable in the United States now, where, even though free speech is constitutionally protected, the Left are trying to restrict it. This includes the extensive use of their partnership with the Socialist Billionaires of Social(ist) Media.

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      OldOzzie

      2020 Presidential Election Lawsuits — the Facts

      The election fraud drum needs to be banged until every American is aware of the MASSIVE election fraud during the 2020 elections. The implications are profound for future elections, and indeed, for every future action by federal and state governments, for if elections can be stolen with impunity, then we are no longer living in a constitutional Republic subject to the will of the people. Rather, we are living in a government-corporate oligarchy, as aptly described in a wonderful commentary by Angelo Codevilla. And the only way to resurrect our Republic is to slay the election fraud dragon!

      Toward that end, public consciousness about election fraud must be raised. I took a shot at laying it all out in this Redstate article that included links to dozens of sources documenting the fraud. A key contributor to that article was Mensa physicist John Droz, Jr., who led a team that conducted statistical analysis of ballots in several key swing states in order to determine where anomalies existed that warranted further detailed forensic analysis of ballots cast and counted. He has subsequently written his own summary about the legacy media’s disregard for – and mischaracterization of – election lawsuits. His commentary provides the remainder of focus for this article. Here is what he had to say; please help spread the word:

      It’s beyond exasperating to keep hearing the cacophony of chicanery about the 2020 Presidential election-related lawsuits.

      The Left’s message to the public is that there were no consequential 2020 Presidential election malfeasance, irregularities or illegalities — supposedly because the courts objectively and thoroughly investigated those claims, and ruled them to be unfounded.

      Neither element of that assertion is even remotely true.

      To counter the later part of that false narrative, a team of independent volunteer (unpaid) scientists and engineers recently put together a List of Lawsuits involving the 2020 Presidential election. In it we identified the issues at stake, how each case was treated by the courts, what evidence was objectively analyzed, who won and lost, etc.

      We tried to walk a narrow line of not only having a comprehensive list, but also information easy enough for the public to understand. (For example, since none of us are attorneys, we consciously tried to avoid unnecessary legal jargon.)

      To further assist in the understanding of this important list, we simplified 20+ pages of filings and decisions on each case into a one or two sentence summary. (If we didn’t do justice to any of these, please let me know and I’ll issue an update.)

      Another idea we implemented was to color-code the decisions — to make it easy for the reader to segregate the various outcomes.

      Lastly, we passed this list by over a dozen lawyers involved with election-related lawsuits. The typical response we received was “Excellent!”.

      So what are the takeaways?

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      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        The Left’s message to the public is that there were no consequential 2020 Presidential election malfeasance, irregularities or illegalities — supposedly because the courts objectively and thoroughly investigated those claims, and ruled them to be unfounded.

        It’s not just “the Left” – quite a lot of Republicans at both the state and federal level have – publicly stated that there was no election fraud.

        And while it might be hard for some to accept, nocourt or state official has ruled in any way whatsoever that the certified results from the 50 states (including a majority of Republican states) are invalid and must be nullified or overturned.

        I may be old-fashioned, but it seems to me this is a genuine and non-trivial impediment – even if it is inconvenient – to the claims that the election was rigged or fraudulent. It’s hard to avoid a conclusion about someone being a sore loser.

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        • #
          Serp

          Daniel Webster back from the tomb is it? You write with his silver tongue.

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          • #
            el gordo

            I support Tilba because of his rational mind.

            In a world full of fake news its quite clear the Republicans lost the election because they weren’t popular.

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      • #
        David Wojick

        Fascinating analysis! Trump has won the majority of cases that have actually been heard and decided, with more to go.

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Hence the Leftist war against free speech, especially notable in the United States now, where, even though free speech is constitutionally protected, the Left are trying to restrict it. This includes the extensive use of their partnership with the Socialist Billionaires of Social(ist) Media.

      Can you provide an example of where “leftists” in the US have contravened the free-speech protections of the 1st Amendment?

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      • #
        williamx

        In reply Tilba, Your favorite research tool, Wikip. states this.

        “Liberalism in the United States is a political and moral philosophy based on what liberals consider the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to due process and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism.”

        Those are noble ideals that I agree with.

        Except the Liberal elites don’t practice what they preach.

        To answer your question.

        Parlor, Trump, New York Post, etc etc all censored.

        Imho, liberalism in its original form has been hijacked by the elites and replaced by totalitarianism.
        The lemmings cannot see it. They follow blindly without questioning.

        Not too many happy days for you Tilba, if the elites you defend, eventually turn on you as well.

        Btw when I see a red tick… I am happy to see that the socialist members on this blog have given me the thumbs up.

        Stay well my friend.

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          Tilba Tilba

          To answer your question.

          Parlor, Trump, New York Post, etc etc all censored.

          I’m not arguing that some media weren’t strongly anti-Trump (nowhere near as much as was pro-Trump | pro-Republican, but perhaps that’s a debate for another day).

          However whatever the moderation | editorial policies of any media might be, it has nothing to do with “protected speech” under the 1st Amendment. That was my point – and I think it’s important to stay pretty accurate about such things.

          The 1st Amendment only relates to government control over speech – not private sector entities.

          BTW I don’t call it “censorship” – very pro-Trump outlets like Fox, Newsmax, Rush Limbaugh, and so on also have their own moderation and editorial style – they are very selective about what they publish too.

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        • #
          Tilba Tilba

          Imho, liberalism in its original form has been hijacked by the elites and replaced by totalitarianism. The lemmings cannot see it. They follow blindly without questioning.

          I agree pretty much, and said so yesterday. See my post yesterday about the failure of liberalism (#14 in the Wokeyleaks thread).

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    • #
      dinn, rob

      Brazil 54/873= 6.2% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil
      ……………………………….
      Turkey 8/79= 10.1% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/turkey
      ……………………………………………
      Indonesia 12/163= 7.4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/indonesia
      …………………………………………
      Germany 12.6/226= 5.6% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany
      ……………………………………………………..
      Canada 3.5/44.7= 7.8% increase/day ave. last 3 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada
      ………………………………………………………………
      USA 118/9664= 1.2% increase/day ave. last 3 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us
      ……………………………………………………………….….
      India 13/152= 8.6% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india
      ………………………………………………………..
      Russia 17/453= 3.8% increase/day ave. last 2 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia
      ………………………………………………
      South Africa 3.3/90.7= 3.6% increase/day ave. last 3 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa
      ……………………………………………………………………………..
      Italy 13/421.7= 3.1% https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy
      …………………………………………………………………………
      China reported 30 new cases; Spain ~ 30,000 in one day
      ………………………………………………………………….
      2-4-21 mathematician Solomon says PA election results very impossible to happen w/o algorithm employed to rig. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/mathematician-edward-solomon-determined-2020-election-results-precinct-level-impossible-cannot-occur-naturally/

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  • #
    Chad

    Site went offline ?
    Late wednesday night/ early thursday .. this site became “unavailable” with one of those useless Stock messages suggesting issues with the server.
    Panic now averted, but for a moment i had my concerns !
    Routine maintenance, or server issues ??

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  • #
    el gordo

    Tokyo temperature for January shows a downward trend, its a regional cooling signal.

    https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Tokyo-Jan-21.png

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  • #
    RicDre

    The New Pause lengthens from 5 years 4 months to 5 years 6 months

    If there’s one thing that upsets true-believers in the cult of Thermageddon, it’s a Pause in global warming. The first Pause lasted 224 months. Now another one appears to have got its boots on, and it has lengthened by 2 months since I first reported it last month.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/03/the-new-pause-lengthens-from-5-years-4-months-to-5-years-6-months/

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      OldOzzie

      Pressure is on as developed world champions net zero

      Alan Moran

      Energy and greenhouse gas emissions are once again central to political turmoil in Australia.

      The opposition has moved Mark Butler, its most active promoter of the “green revolution”, from climate change and energy policy control but offered no indication that its policy will change. Indeed, Butler’s replacement, Chris Bowen, has warned jobs will be decimated if the nation does not move away from carbon-intensive industries.

      In expressing faith in renewable energy, such views portray a remarkable incuriosity about why all the world’s rapidly growing economies, including China, India and Vietnam, are using coal, not wind, as the backbone of their energy supplies.

      For the ALP, policy has to walk a tightrope. On the one hand, its country and outer-suburban seats are vulnerable to a leakage of support from mining and private sector workers; on the other, it is exposed to Green seizures of inner-city seats heavily populated by public servants and those favouring alternative lifestyles.

      The Coalition’s dries’ spokesmen, notably Craig Kelly and Matt Canavan, see renewables policy as undermining the comparative advantage Australia has in cheap coal-based energy and wish to see a reversal of the policies that have disadvantaged this, Australia’s most reliable electricity source. Many mainstream Liberals, while wary of the parlous economics involved in the increased reliance on renewables, have some sympathy with climate alarmism, place a high priority on avoiding international recriminations from supporting coal, and are mindful of activists’ hostility and investor reticence.

      As a hard-headed business­man from outside the bubble, Donald Trump arrived on the political scene with none of the baggage collected by those who had spent their lives running for office.

      He had not been required to listen and pay obeisance to scientific soothsayers projecting endless low-cost supplies of wind and solar energy, supplies that if they did not already outperform fossil fuels certainly would within a few years. Nor was he hostage to extravagant claims about novel systems of transforming energy, such as hydrogen.

      What he did see was the US steadily losing relative wealth, a process that was accelerated during the Obama presidency when regulatory measures against fossil fuel development and usage were intensified, and heightened support was given to intrinsically high-cost and low-reliability wind and solar.

      Australia has wasted far more per capita than any other country in funding the replacement of coal with renewables. The tax equivalent, at $7bn a year, far exceeds the Gillard carbon tax. Even so, internal and external voices are pressuring for more to be done and proclaiming the nation to be a climate recalcitrant.

      Scott Morrison says that if we get technological breakthroughs to produce hydrogen at $2 a kilogram we can get net-zero emissions. That would be a stretch — an impossible one with hydrogen from wind/solar; and even from gas, hydrogen at that cost would be three times the US gas price.

      In any event, the world changed with Joe Biden’s inauguration. Australia’s ongoing struggle to avoid a populist but ruinous energy policy based on subsidies to renewables and delus­ions of technology breakthroughs has become significantly more challenging.

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        OldOzzie

        The false promises of green-tech energy

        Jennie George

        In the lead-up to the next federal election, voters will weigh up the competing policies for moving to carbon neutrality. The how and when will be critical.

        Spinning that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action will no longer cut the mustard. Neither will promoting figures without assumptions, costings or specific jobs data.

        The 100,000 “carbon workers” in Australia in coalmining, gas and oil extraction, fossil fuel generation and integrated steelmaking (from ore to product) deserve better. The impacts are felt by them, their families, the people employed indirectly and often whole regional economies underpinned by these industries.

        Take BlueScope Steel operations at Port Kembla, south of Sydney, an area I represented in parliament from 2001 to 2010. If BlueScope is to survive as an essential industry it is going to require greater government support. In recent times it has been burdened with minimal concessions as a trade-exposed industry, it had to shut down one of its blast furn­aces, it had to shed staff to survive, it competed with dumped cheap steel and it was not even used in the building of the new grandstand in Wollongong.

        It is a pity advocates of such technologies don’t tell the community the whole truth: that there are no proven and commercially viable technologies to replace coal/coke in the blast furnace steelmaking process at BlueScope in the Illawarra. Is it a just transition to see integrated steelmaking lost to the nation? Try convincing the thousands of workers and their families that this is the price they will have to pay.

        Likewise, NSW’s Hunter region provides thousands of jobs in mining and coal-fired power generation. It will be particularly susceptible to proposed moves to carbon neutrality.

        Renewables are not commercially viable, nor can they guarantee the required reliability for the smelter’s continued operation. The largest South Australian battery today would power that smelter for less than 15 minutes.

        Labor’s talk of a jobs and emissions compact and the government’s technology roadmap will be critical to the community’s evaluation of future plans.

        False technology solutions are as inexcusable as the rhetoric of a “just transition”, without the real economic costs and employment impacts of moving to carbon neutrality.

        Jennie George was president of the ACTU from 1996 to 2000 and Labor MP for Throsby from 2001 to 2010.

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        • #
          Lance

          Green Impossibilities

          https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/

          (note: avg construction time for a nuclear power plant is 7.5 yrs, so that makes 1/day kind of unrealistic)

          (solar grid scale is 3-5 yrs permitting and 1 yr construction)Solar Farm, 250 MW, 6 yr schedule

          https://www.seia.org/research-resources/development-timeline-utility-scale-solar-power-plant

          Construction time: 6 mos – 1 yr typical.

          Permitting/legal: 3-5 yrs.

          https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-solar-farm-do-i-need-one

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        • #
          Lance

          Further on:

          The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking

          https://www.peabodyenergy.com/Peabody/media/MediaLibrary/Case%20for%20Coal/Magical-Thinking-Mills-%28March-2019%29.pdf

          (he got the cost wrong for battery storage. It isn’t $200/ boe, it is $340,000 / boe at $200/kWh storage, now down to USD 140 – 170 / kWh )

          (one bbl of oil is 1.7 MWh equivalent)

          Fallacies of a Hydrogen Economy

          https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/energyresources/article-standard/126/4/249/461266/Fallacies-of-a-Hydrogen-Economy-A-Critical

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            Chad

            (he got the cost wrong for battery storage. It isn’t $200/ boe, it is $340,000 / boe at $200/kWh storage, now down to USD 140 – 170 / kWh )

            Lance, i suspect yourr $140/kWh is the figure tossed around for bare cell production cost.
            If you check actual costs for installed utility scale batteries, it is much closer to $1000 /kWh
            ( SAs recent 64 MWh upgrade tto the Big Battery, cost $91 million !)

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            • #
              Chad

              And just to add…
              One massive advantage o coal over any other energy source..that is never mentioned,…is that you can transport it it in your pocket, carrier bag, a bucket, truck or oper rail waggon…..
              ..throw it in a heap on the ground ..without even a cover from the weather..
              ..then go back a year or a day later, pick it up and burn it to release the energy..
              No other fuel can be transported or stored so easily.
              (Even the biomass woodchips have to be carefully transported and stored in dry conditions )

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                Tilba Tilba

                One massive advantage o coal over any other energy source … that is never mentioned,…is that you can transport it it in your pocket, carrier bag, a bucket, truck or open rail waggon …

                The disadvantages however are (a) burning it is very polluting, (b) mining it is energy intensive, (c) it’s very heavy per unit of energy, and (d) you can really only use it to boil water to make steam … it’s not useful for planes, cars, machinery, or heating.

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              • #
                Chad

                TT.
                A) ..pollution being a result which is undesireable for various reasons)…all sources of energy result in some form of pollution ( even Solar, Hydro, etc ). ..most emissions from coal combustion can be contained if required.
                ..But i suspect you are refering to CO2, which any educated person would not consider pollution anyway !
                B) All energy sources require an “energy investment” to make them useful.
                Coal has proven to give a very high return on that investment
                ..much more than many RE sources.
                C). .?? So ?.. see (b)
                D)..boiling water is quite useful for many uses.
                Coal can and has been used for lighting,(coal gas) and transport..not ideal, but has been done successfully for many years. Aircraft are a tricky one that very few energy sources can support.
                But 80%+ of the worlds industry, and basic heating (and cooling !) is supported by energy derived from COAL.
                Parts of the current civilised world , would be practically uninhabitable without the energy from coal

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                Tilba Tilba

                But i suspect you are refering to CO2, which any educated person would not consider pollution anyway !

                I grew up in Sydney in the 1960s … a lot of houses used coal, coke, or briquettes for (very inefficient) home heating – and it’s a stretch to even call it that. By 6:00 pm on a calm winter’s evening, the whole suburb stunk very badly, and the layer of grubby smoke was very visible.

                I think any move away from coal where alternatives are available is a very good thing. The fact that it remains common is not really the point – McDonald’s are the most common restaurants in the world, but no intelligent person would call their products “good food”.

                CO2 is a greenhouse gas and coal contributes greatly to AGW … I don’t have a problem with that statement of fact.

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          Sceptical Sam

          Well said Jennie George.

          We need to hear more from her on this topic.

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          OldOzzie

          China Built Three Times as Much Coal Power in 2020 as the Rest of the World Combined

          A joint report released Wednesday by the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found China built over three times as much coal-fired electrical power capacity in 2020 as the rest of the world combined.

          As Voice of America News (VOA) delicately observed, this tremendous surge of coal-burning power plants, which are ostensibly one of the worst sources of global warming emissions, would seem to “undermine” China’s loudly declared “short-term climate goals” and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s promises to make his country “carbon-neutral” by 2060.

          The GEM/CREA report found China’s coal power capacity grew by a net 28.8 gigawatts. China built coal plants at such a frantic pace, to provide cheap power for its swelling industrial capacity, that some of its coal plants might never repay their construction and maintenance costs:

          China approved the construction of a further 36.9 GW of coal-fired capacity last year, three times more than a year earlier, bringing the total under construction to 88.1 GW. It now has 247 GW of coal power under development, enough to supply the whole of Germany.

          A team of central government environmental inspectors delivered a scathing assessment of China’s energy regulator last Friday, accusing officials of planning failures and focusing too much on guaranteeing energy supply.

          The NEA had allowed plants to be built in already polluted regions, while projects in less sensitive “coal-power bases” had not gone ahead, they said.

          China has been criticized for pursuing an energy-intensive post-COVID recovery based on heavy industry and construction, and experts say new coal plants could end up becoming heavily-indebted “stranded assets.”

          “The runaway expansion of coal-fired power is driven by electricity companies’ and local governments’ interest in maximizing investment spending, more than a real need for new capacity,” CREA lead analyst Lauri Myllyvirta judged.

          China is now well into the second “five-year plan” during which it indisputably knew it had to begin dramatically scaling coal power back to meet its nominal climate goals, but it tripled power plant construction instead. The response from the international climate change community has been little more than a few furrowed brows and awkward mutters about how those carbon-neutral promises from Beijing are beginning to look a tad improbable. The alternative explanation is that Beijing knows exactly what it is doing, and it has industrial ambitions for the future that will require all of the cheap and dirty power capacity it seems determined to build.

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        PeterS

        If they are so adamant that reducing emissions to zero is super critical to the survival of the planet then the only viable solution is nuclear. Given it’s not even seriously considered by either major party then it proves it’s all a hoax.

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          el gordo

          We have discussed this before, Labor won’t touch nuclear because of cultural aversion and the government says its too expensive and has a long time frame from conception to operation.

          What has been generally agreed, as an interim measure, renewables will be backed by coal and gas. Over the next few years it will become apparent that CO2 isn’t a temperature control knob, then they will build more Hele coal fired power stations.

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            Chad

            Labor won’t touch nuclear because of cultural aversion and the government says its too expensive and has a long time frame from conception to operation.

            “Cultural Aversion” ..?
            What has Nuclear got to do with “Culture”
            All any ploitical party cares about is votes. .so we just have to educate the electorate ass to the realism of using Nuclear.
            And if ScoMo thinks Nukes are expensive , he doesnt understand how freekin expensive Solar, Wind, and Gas ,..are going to be !

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            • #
              el gordo

              Its the culture of the ALP to reject nuclear power and now being tied to the Greens it reinforces the idea. Renewable subsidies have come to an end, so as in the case of the Renewable Zones in NSW its all free enterprise monies.

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          • #
            PeterS

            Nuclear too expensive? Perhaps so what? Have you even bothered to read my post or you just saw the word “nuclear” and suddenly went skitso? I was demonstrating the fact the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions is in fact a hoax. In any case if it was a level playing field and nuclear was also subsidised you point about being more expensive becomes moot. In fact it’s very likely it would end being cheaper than renewables for each unit of power actually delivered. However, that’s not my point as I already stated.

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            • #
              el gordo

              We know CO2 is a hoax, but in the meantime its a waiting game, coal fired power stations are the future. Renewables will eventually be dismantled and not replaced simply because they are inefficient.

              51

              • #
                PeterS

                You must be living in a different universe. Coal is on the way out thanks to the Great Reset. By the time they realise the mistake it will be too late and the West will be well on its way to crash and burn status.

                40

              • #
                el gordo

                Don’t be daft, the climate is changing and all we have to do is wait. The new temperature pause should falsify AGW and there won’t be a crash and burn under Morrison, he is going to be around for a long time.

                11

              • #
                Chad

                EG,
                If the climate does begin to cool, the Green Alarmists will claim it is due to their actions and the introduction of RE…..and use that to push for even more action against civilisation !
                And..if it doesnt begin to cool,..they will push for more action anyway !

                30

              • #
                el gordo

                We need to be more positive about outcomes, the pause will continue for at least five more years, which will falsify the hypothesis that CO2 causes global warming.

                All this renewable nonsense began with the AR5, which avoided mentioning the ocean oscillations.

                Then we get a BoM Audit and Royal Commission to forensically examine this madness.

                40

            • #
              rowingboat

              Chad, we need to be less defeatist and more ridiculing of Green Alarmists. It’s a slow grind but I believe we’re winning the psychological war; e.g. K.Rudd purchasing his oceanfront property on the Sunshine Coast last year. Actions speak louder than words.

              Atmospheric CO2 levels lag warming and cooling. So when it is apparent to everyone that Earth has entered its next cooling phase, CO2 levels will still be rising, further mocking the alarmists. I agree with ‘el gordo’, we should be more positive about outcomes.

              I laugh off the hysteria at every opportunity I get and have been doing so for 15 years. Anecdotally, friends and acquaintances I meet agree far more with my views than they used to.

              40

    • #
    • #

      Ric Dre
      That article at WUWT cherry picks a very short period that is clearly not linear, and inserts a linear trend trend.

      It is also biased Because the period starts with the largest El Nino heat release since 1998 (late 2015/2016).

      It is obvious the starting point selection was biased to reach a preferred conclusion, so the article was substandard for WUWT, which I read every day.

      The intermittent warming since the 1600s is still in progress, until we stop hearing “warmest year on record” for quite a few years.

      That would be a signal that global warming, which has been very pleasant for the past 45 years, has ended. And a global cooling trend has started.

      Then people can start predicting a coming global cooling crisis … which can only be prevented by a more powerful government, more government spending, and politicians telling everyone what to do.

      52

      • #
        Roger Knights

        “That article at WUWT cherry picks a very short period that is clearly not linear, and inserts a linear trend trend. It is also biased Because the period starts with the largest El Nino heat release since 1998 (late 2015/2016).”

        Monckton’s article did not cherry-pluck a starting point. It started at the end point and worked backward to discover how far back it had to go to until the average temperature was cooler.

        20

  • #
    RicDre

    COVID-19 lockdowns temporarily raised global temperatures

    The lockdowns and reduced societal activity related to the COVID-19 pandemic affected emissions of pollutants in ways that slightly warmed the planet for several months last year, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/03/covid-19-lockdowns-temporarily-raised-global-temperatures/

    30

  • #
    RicDre

    UAH Global Temperature Update for January 2021: +0.12 deg. C (new base period)

    The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for January, 2021 was +0.12 deg. C, down a little from the December, 2020 value of +0.15 deg. C. NOTE: We have changed the 30-year averaging period from which we compute anomalies to 1991-2020, from the old period 1981-2010. This change does not affect the temperature trends.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-january-2021-0-12-deg-c-new-base-period/

    20

  • #
    RicDre

    The Shocking Climate Graph @climateofgavin Doesn’t Want You To See

    Anthony Watts: … in a response to a Tweet I made today, panning the Biden appointment of NASA GISS Dr. Gavin Schmidt to a senior advisor on climate to the White House, atmospheric scientist Dr. Wei Zhang had this to say, and included a graph of his analysis I had not seen before:

    We know with Gavin in charge , the temperature will go up… No matter what the thermometers say. I’m still waiting for a plausible explanation of why temperature adjustments are almost perfectly correlated with carbon dioxide. Would expect correlation to be near zero.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/03/the-shocking-climate-graph-climateofgavin-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

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    • #
      Chad

      RIck,
      Am i reading something wrong here ?
      The graph in the link is headed ….” GISS temp adjustments 1999 – 2017 “
      But according to the graph legend it does not cover that period at all ..1880 – 1995 ?
      What am i missing ?

      10

      • #
        RicDre

        “Chad: Am i reading something wrong here?”

        A good question. I read it as saying that from 1999 to 2017 GISS made various adjustments to temperatures in the entire range from 1880 to 1995 with the result that the adjustments to the temperatures correlate almost perfectly with CO2 in the atmosphere. As Anthony Watts explains:

        What Wei Zhang has illustrated is almost a perfect correlation between adjustments to the surface temperature record made by NASA GISS (and Gavin Schmidt) and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. They’ve artificially cooled the past prior to 1960 (about the time Mauna Loa CO2 measurements started) and artificially warmed 1960 to the present.

        20

        • #
          Chad

          OK Ric, i guess the title misslead me !..
          FYI there was a similar scatter graph posted a few years back..;;
          ..”Ushcn final minus raw t max vs co2”
          Possibly on Watts site..(.i have a copy but no link !)
          It shows a direct correlation between the “temp adjustment”, and the CO2 increase.
          Hard to explain without suspecting a deliberate manipulation of data. !

          31

    • #
      Pauly

      Nothing really new here, except for the source.

      Tony Heller has been showing the remarkable correlation between NOAA adjustments and CO2 concentration for years:
      https://realclimatescience.com/corruption-of-the-us-temperature-record/

      Interestingly, this also highlights the flaw in adjustments discussed on Roy Spencer’s recent post on Urban Heat Island adjustments. If these were being done with any scientific basis, the most recent adjustments should be cooling temperatures, not the most historical.

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    • #

      Ric Dre
      The NASA-GISS “adjustments” chart is a great chart, but the title is deceptive.

      The chart shows how much “global warming” NASA created with “adjustments” to their own historical temperature data, that THEY used to present to the public.

      The chart shows net (total) NASA “adjustments”, made during the 18 years from 1999 to 2017 — probably a little at a time.

      The NASA “adjustments” have a positive slope — increasing over time — the “adjustments” increase the rate of global warming previously reported by NASA.

      CO2 levels also have a positive slope. but may not have guided the “adjustments”.

      The years covered are 1880 to about 2000 (it’s not obvious where the data end on the chart).

      Temperature numbers before 1900, however, are nearly worthless, because there were too few measurements of our planet’s surface.

      Most measurements pre-1900 were in the US, Europe, Australia, the east coast of China, and shipping channels in the Northern Hemisphere, with buckets and thermometers — not accurate sea surface measurements, and not sufficient global coverage — so the pre-1900 numbers are wild guesses.

      22

      • #
        Chad

        Richard,
        Look at the chart in Pauly post above …(.half way down the page linked.)
        Adjustments vs Atmospheric CO2.
        There is no time reference just CO2 ppm vs temp adjustment.
        A much clearer and revealing presentation format. !

        00

  • #
    RicDre

    Anti-Brexit Labour Plans Patriotic Rebrand to Win Back Working Class Voters: Report

    Labour is reportedly desperate to shake off its image as a party of the Europhile liberal metropolitan elite, considering instead embracing patriotism to win back the large swathes of working-class voters who flocked to the Brexit-backing Conservative Party.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/03/anti-brexit-labour-plans-patriotic-rebrand-to-win-back-working-class-voters-report/

    30

  • #
    RicDre

    A New Millennial Global Surface Temperature Reconstruction

    By Andy May

    Nicola Scafetta has written a new paper (Scafetta, 2021) in Atmosphere on a new millennial surface temperature reconstruction. This is his latest “what if the models are accurate?” analysis. Scafetta’s idea is, let’s assume a model is correct, what are the implications?

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/03/a-new-millennial-global-surface-temperature-reconstruction/

    40

    • #
      el gordo

      Andy and Nick have a good argument in comments.

      Scafetta leaves out solar forcing to see what would happen, because the sun is fairly constant and has little earthly impact over decadal time scales.

      32

  • #
    Lance

    Links to “all things HCQ, Ivermectin, Covid,” all in one place

    https://c19study.com/

    Note: Quercetin is >= 75% of HCQ effectiveness in zinc transport.

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  • #
    Lance

    Interesting paper on storage of H2 as a Mg based paste.
    Stable. 10 x energy density of Li-Ion batteries.

    https://newatlas.com/energy/powerpaste-hydrogen-fuel-paste/

    I wonder what the overall energy cycle is. Mg is derived from seawater by electrolysis. very energy intensive. And the paste process is also very energy intensive.

    And, if thieves will steal lead-acid batteries and automobile catalytic converters, what does one think the overnight life expectancy is of a USD 30,000 fuel cell? Oh well. It is interesting.

    Still and all, safer than an 800 Bar H2 storage tank.

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    • #
      RicDre

      The article ends with a lot of good questions about its suitability as an energy source including the first one that occurred to me: Since water is required to release the hydrogen from the paste, how much water does it use for a given amount of energy, and how much water do you need to add when you fill up, given that fuel cells produce water as a by-product?

      20

      • #
        Lance

        And, water goes solid at 0C. That leads to other issues at 15 km altitude and various times of the year and latitude on earth. Just saying.

        20

    • #
      RicDre

      Another interesting thing is that unlike burning fossil fuels, you will still have to carry the dead weight of the spent Magnesium paste (minus the hydrogen) around with you. They say “Part of the paste’s impressive energy density comes from the fact that half of the hydrogen released comes from the water it reacts with.” They don’t say what happens to the oxygen in the water after the hydrogen is released from it, but if it bonds with the magnesium in the paste then that is more dead weight you will have carry around with you.

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    Richard Jenkins

    Solar cycles within, from the core to the surface seem to influence flares and sunspots. Earth is going to cool. The cooling will be credited to Biden.
    I predict that before 2050 mankind will be wishing that adding some CO2 could warm the planet.

    A bit like CFC, an inert gas that sinks because it is heavier than air and cannot react with Ozone, being banned solved the non existent Ozone hole problem.
    History shows the southern hemispere ozone layer density varies annually. Read the Hole in the Ozone Hole.
    I think the density variation (there was never a hole) has more to do with the Pacific Ocean. Dupont certainly did well from the CFC scam!

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    OldOzzie

    Illusion of control prompts a mission to public disaster

    Judith Sloan

    Last week economics editor Adam Creighton used “the illus­ion of control”, a term associated with psychologist Ellen Langer, to explain the efforts of governments to manage COVID-19.

    The willingness of governments to claim success when infection and death rates head in favourable directions but to steer clear of taking responsibility if things go south is bound up in the pretence that governments can precisely control the outcome of this disease.

    The fact there may be large dollops of luck determining outcomes is a point rarely conceded.

    Creighton’s discussion illustrates a broader point about the increasing tendency of governments to think they can determine all sorts of outcomes, including economic and social ones (even weather events), if only the correct set of policies are put in place. Friedrich von Hayek had another term for the same phenomenon: the fatal conceit, which he used to critique the errors of socialism.

    Several problems arise from this misplaced sense of omnipotence on the part of governments. The reality is that some (most?) economic and social outcomes simply cannot be altered substantively by government actions; those changes that do occur are seldom achieved in a cost-effective way; and there are almost always unintended consequences associated with interventions.

    If this all sounds a tad dry, it’s worth illustrating the points by reference to some examples, including the distortions being imposed on public sector processes that have led to close to disastrous outcomes.

    Taking up a fad dreamt up in New Zealand, the Victorian government increasingly has organised its public sector activity around accomplishing missions. None of that boring specification of the roles of particular departments and accountability to the relevant minister. It’s now about outlining missions, lashing together public servants from different departments and getting on with it. In theory, these proactive teams are accountable to the Premier, but in practice they are not accountable to anyone.

    Early last year, Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles — he resigned in the wake of the state’s hotel quarantine fiasco — announced “the significant reorientation of the public service”. Eight core missions were nominated. There is even a missions co-ordination committee as well as a mission co-ordination unit.

    If this is doing your head in, you are not alone. Where the Department of Health, for instance, had several clear roles, including in relation to public health, it is now caught up in fulfilling missions. Is it any wonder that the Victorian government’s response to COVID-19 has been so poor, to the point of it being unable even to establish who was responsible for some fateful decisions?

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    • #
      DOC

      #14 No wonder ‘The science is in’ is such a defended promotion of governments. Their ‘omnipotence’ depends on it. Accept any debate on the matter and that ‘omnipotence’ is gone! Then questions re the costs of their actions and manipulations of the societies they lead become their damnation. One thing people hate is being made to look like easily led simpletons!

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    Serp

    Readying ourselves for another petulant lockdown here in Victoria and extension of emergency powers to December.

    Worst case there’ll be nearly two years of it until the election in which Labor will win all seats and permanently dissolve the legislature and invite the chinese consulate to run the state thereafter.

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    • #
      Dennis

      The Great Reset, build back better with the new green deal.

      All good.

      sarc

      100

      • #
        RicDre

        The thing that bothers me the most about the “Green New Deal” is that the original “New Deal” on which it is patterned was a failure:

        Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury from 1934-1945. In the following important quote, he admits that the big New Deal stimulus spending programs had failed.

        We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just none interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job, I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . And an enormous debt to boot!

        Why repeat something you know was a failure the first time?

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        • #
          Klem

          Because they know it will fail. Reduced prosperity is the hallmark of the Left, it’s their goal.

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        • #
          Serp

          Yes, but the myth lives paving the road to Schwab’s Great Reset.

          If you find it hard to credit what’s happening today wait until you see tomorrow’s mess sometime over the coming months.

          120

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          But heres the thing…socialmist has never apparently ever been “done right”.

          The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

          Ergo, socialists may be….

          100

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Weeks of hand wringing and more propaganda……must be another covid lock down….

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  • #
    Lance

    On the subject of net zero by 2050.

    If it is chosen to go with nuclear, then a limiting factor is the availability of the PWR ring forgings. About 1 forging per month.

    https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx

    If it is chosen to go with wind, then the time to build out such things is:

    Wind farm: 10 MW 2 months. 50 MW, 6 months, avg is 5 MW/mo or 2 MW/wk. or 10 yrs/GW

    https://globalwindday.org/ufaqs/long-take-build-wind-farm/

    So, do the maths. It ain’t going to happen. Just a lot of political BS.

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    • #
      Dennis

      So is the reason for subsidising them, to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions.

      30

      • #
        Lance

        No. The reason to subsidize them is to steal from the poor to further enrich the rich.

        120

      • #
        Nadia bin Du Natan

        Dennis you know that the elite don’t care about carbon dioxide. They care about keeping the economic rent on their investments high. Sometimes their investments are just loans conjured from thin air, but they still need their creditors to have guaranteed economic rent to keep their conjured loans valid.

        But it always helps to come in on a paradoxical angle. They may appear to be against hydrocarbons but by exercising a degree of control they can bring economic rent to their existing hydrocarbon properties/hydro-carbon owning debtors. If they weren’t paradoxical about it their shenanigans would be too obvious. But notice that the whole faux-problem of CO2 release could be easily mitigated simply by pumping up royalties on coal locally. But since this would REDUCE the economic rent available for the parasites to leach away, that alternative will be resisted to the death. Go on a leftist site and put that idea about and see how long you will last before the moderation guillotine comes down on your neck.

        10

    • #
      sophocles

      The first link appears to be about all the requirements of the old-fashioned 1950s-1960s High Pressure design reactors.

      Modern LFTRs don’t need that expensive stuff.

      00

  • #
    RicDre

    China is doing their bit to fight Climate Change™ (/sarc):

    China Built Three Times as Much Coal Power in 2020 as the Rest of the World Combined

    As Voice of America News (VOA) delicately observed, this tremendous surge of coal-burning power plants, which are ostensibly one of the worst sources of global warming emissions, would seem to “undermine” China’s loudly declared “short-term climate goals” and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s promises to make his country “carbon-neutral” by 2060.

    https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/02/03/china-built-three-times-as-much-coal-power-in-2020-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/

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    • #
      Dennis

      Add to the China mainland coal fired power station construction programme their “belt & road” diplomacy and building coal fired power stations for developing poor nations.

      100

  • #
    David Maddison

    Four black Americans, who are all hated by the Left because the racist Leftists don’t regard it as acceptable to be black and conservative, talk about being black conservatives.

    CAROL SWAIN
    “I became a tenured, award-winning professor of political science at an Ivy League university…How did I do it? I worked hard. Not crazy, 24/7 hard. Just hard. I made good decisions. Not brilliant, three-dimensional chess decisions. Just good ones…But mostly, I think I was blessed in one crucial way. I was born in America, a true land of opportunity for anyone of any color or background. In this country, where you start your life does not determine where you end up.”

    LARRY ELDER
    “America traditionally represents the greatest possibility of someone’s going from nothing to something. Why? In theory, if not practice, the government stays out of the way and lets individuals take risks and reap rewards or accept the consequences of failure. We call this capitalism — or, at least, we used to.”

    CANDACE OWENS
    “I learned conservatism through my grandfather; I didn’t know that was the name. I didn’t know these were conservative principles. Starting his life on a sharecropping farm. Working tremendously hard. Five years old, picking cotton and laying tobacco out to dry on a farm, and today he now owns that farm.”

    BURGESS OWENS
    “No, my friends, there is no systemic racism in America. Just systemic marxist elitism — an EVIL that uses, abuses and discards anyone for POWER.”

    390

    • #
      RicDre

      4 excellent quotes. I particularly like Burgess Owens’ quote as it get right to the heart of the troubles America is currently facing.

      180

    • #

      I would add economist Thomas Sowell, although he is quite old, and just retired from writing, so he is now out of the public eye.

      It is NOT correct when Burgess Owens states there is no systemic racism in America.

      There is systemic racism, mandated by laws, in America.

      A black American can get into a top college with significantly lower grades than an Asian American, or a white American.

      That is legal (systemic) racism.

      Companies will sometimes recruit people based on their skin color (and/or sex) to meet diversity goals, which could result in hiring less than the best prospects for the job.

      Whether you agree with these laws and regulations, or not, they are legal racism — it is dishonest to pretend they don’t exist.

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    David Maddison

    Yesterday I visited one of Australia’s most high technology companies for a VIP tour. They have a research base here but their manufacturing operations and computer programming operations are in Eastern Europe. It was explained to me that in Australia it is almost impossible to find computer programmers who have relevant (or any) engineering knowledge. Most programmers know programming for business applications only. It’s partly due to our dumbed down universities not turning out genuine scholars with deep knowledge but just geared to producing graduates with “Mickey Mouse” commodity degrees. Even so, people I know who do work in the computer industry tell me the quality of today’s computer science graduates is appalling.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Yes, and try and find a trades qualified person as building and construction demand absorbs the workforce limited since state governments closed TAFE courses 1990s.

      200

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        TAFE was, at that time, arguably the most useful and effective systems in Australia and most probably a world leader at doing what it did so well.

        It’s downgrading to a token presence has been a national tragedy, an insult to those who wanted and needed the skills available and a thing of shame to attach to the politicians involved.

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  • #
    RossP

    The Indian Government are onto it. Good on them.

    https://gab.com/Ozzie_Belfast/posts/105669338751098544

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Interstingly, it seems the western world is targetted for population reduction by the satanic globalists, given the massive hype around what appears to be the mRNA DNA damaging vaccines.

      In the media in India , you have to actually hunt hard to find COV19 stories, whereas in Australia its wall to wall….

      Different agenda perhaps.

      110

      • #

        you truly have no idea. I hope you don’t have any influence on anyone.

        23

        • #
          el gordo

          He gets lots of ticks because he says stuff like ‘satanic globalists’.

          21

        • #
          Nadia bin Du Natan

          No you have no idea Gee Aye. The Indian government have it right. Although they should include the megadose D3 and HCQ as well. You can mix up HCQ with Ivermectin. No problem there.

          10

          • #
            Tel

            Eating D3 has limited absorption in the gut, eating twice as much does not improve things.

            Eating a little bit every day and doing a short time in the sun every day is the way to go … maintain a decent level all the time, regardless of what happens to be going around this week.

            You can get higher levels by using a direct injection but that’s higher cost and higher risk (any injection is potentially a risk of going wrong). Still much cheaper than the options Western governments are using.

            Locking people in their houses and chasing them away from beaches and parks was the stupidest idea in the world … and that generally is why when you look at Western governments’ response to COVID it seem so very bad it’s hard to believe they weren’t trying to do the worst thing.

            00

            • #
              Hanrahan

              It takes about 7 days for oral D3 to be metabolised to calcitriol the active form. That is too long if you are showing ‘rona symptoms so insist that your MD inject calcitriol for immediate effect. FDA approved 1mg, intravenous.

              10

  • #
    David Maddison

    https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2021/02/03/chuck-schumer-combating-climate-change-will-be-a-whole-of-senate-approach/

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to make combatting climate change a “whole of Senate approach” for however long Democrats retain the majority.

    Schumer, who leads a chamber split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, announced on Tuesday that he had instructed his party’s committee chairs to make the issue a top priority. The majority leader, in particular, argued that by mobilizing every “relevant” committee to tackle climate change, the Senate would take “a leading role in combatting the existential threat of our time.”

    “Senate Democrats are not going to waste any time taking on the biggest challenges facing our country and our planet,” Schumer said from the floor of the Senate.

    “I’ve already instructed the incoming Democratic chairs of all relevant committees to begin holding hearings on the climate crisis in preparation for enacting President [Joe] Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which includes major climate legislation,” the senate leader added.

    During his remarks, Schumer suggested that under his leadership Senate Democrats would undertake ambitious and sweeping actions to protect the environment.

    See link for rest.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      See my reply #25 which was a reply to you but came out at the wrong place.

      30

    • #
      • #
        Lucky

        I am quite skeptical about the ‘africacheck’ site, it pushes so-called- mainstream responsible respectable official opinion and health experts. The technique is to select a few way-out propositions, explain their falsity, then imply that all the alternatives do not work. It is very pro vaccine. It is clearly well funded seeing the number of staff and range of topics covered so almost certainly government, mega-billionaire, or big pharma money.

        On that particular test kit they link the availability of it in one Indian state to (poor) stats that show no clear outcome, but there is no reference to the direct limited studies on Ivermectin that show (prove) how very effective it is.

        20

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    Dennis

    Is there any point in voting for a major party candidate, even the minority of them who realise that globalism is impacting adversely on the nation’s future in so many ways?

    The rule appears to be to toe the line and show solidarity regardless.

    More than ever voters need to select non-government and non-opposition candidates, but be careful because activist groups like GetUp are ready to fool unsuspecting voters with left leaning candidates masquerading as conservative centre-right. “The sensible right” was a GetUp sales pitch at the last Federal election for their candidates who presented as Independent.

    What is the point?

    Hopefully a hung parliament requiring alliances to form a government, example 2010 Federal Election.

    70

  • #
    David Maddison

    Australian Governments and their Big Pharma supporting Useful Idiots of the Left have to keep telling bigger and bigger lies that HCQ and Ivermectin are ineffective when used appropriately (according to the Zelenko protocol for HCQ) because otherwise people might get very upset that 800 people died, mostly unnecessarily, in Victoriastan alone as compared to following the Zelenko protocol.

    But it was more important to mock and prove Orange Man Bad rather than to save lives. If only President Trump had used reverse psychology and said NOT to use HCQ Leftists would have supported it.

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  • #
    graham dunton

    Jo,
    In light of the Australian covid fiasco and the WA premiers recent dictate, it is time to inform the Australian pubic of the Bunnies they have been taken for.

    Link Via John Cullen
    Busted:CDC inflated COVID numbers, accused of Violating Federal law
    https://nationalfile.com/busted-cdc-inflated-covid-numbers-accused-of-violating-federal-law/

    161

    • #

      what fiasco? The hundreds of deaths that could have been prevented with better lock-downs?

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        Nadia bin Du Natan

        Why go for a lockdown when you can just treat the problem? We’ve known how to treat Corona viruses at least since as far back as 2005. Take Trump for example. Goes into hospital in very bad shape. Gets proper treatment and comes dancing out of there in just a few days. Where does lockdown fit into that scenario? What is important is to have your treatment already in your fridge before the virus arrives in your country.

        You are just not that bright Gee Aye.

        10

  • #
    Kevin a

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5F5adcrRno&t=81s
    NYT Article Says DONT Give Elderly Vaccine, They Are White And Should Die To Level The Playing Field

    60

  • #
    greggg

    MSM had a big cry about Craig Kelly having a chat with Pete Evans about treating covid with Ivermectin and HCQ. Similar to what he’s been saying on Sky. The possibility of a mandatory covid vaccine is mentioned near the end of the podcast. Kelly is pro choice.

    https://play.acast.com/s/pete-evans/mpcraigkelly-entireepisode-

    https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mp-craig-kelly-entire-episode/id1306697084

    Nothing was said that anyone with a brain in their head would object to, and yet media and pollies react in such an insane manner.

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      Nadia bin Du Natan

      I’m not pro-choice. I think that these vaccines ought not be allowed in the country and that everyone should have HCQ, Ivermectin, zinc and high-dose vitamin D3 in their fridge. I don’t think we should allow the media to sucker people into taking horrific pseudo-vaccines and allow the deep state to deprive everyone of sane treatment.

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    Furiously curious

    Just yesterday I watched Craig Kelly get excreted on from a great height, and today I’m only half way through the thread, and have come across 2 links that confirm his points 1000%. It’s a strange world. ‘May the farce be with you.’

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/
    https://c19ivermectin.com/

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      OldOzzie

      WELL, FOR ONE THING I’M TOLD THAT IVERMECTIN AND HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE ARE AVAILABLE OVER THE COUNTER THERE:

      The Mystery Of India’s Plummeting COVID-19 Cases. “I mean, hospital ICU utilization has gone down. Every indicator says the numbers are down.”

      No mention of those drugs in this NPR story, though.

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        William Astley

        Ivermectin and the other covid cures are tactical weapons. We cannot win a political fight. The Democrats/China/Fake media/Other Special Interest groups have control of our system/government.

        If we lose, it will be a crime to question/show facts/show videos/talk about…. any of the official hot button ‘facts’ CAGW, Election results, Medical Statements, and so on. The internet will be 100% controlled.

        The Democrat US election fixing issues has become toxic and dangerous in the US. It does not have any power.

        When Trump was in the WH the fake puppet media could hide what they were up to. Why did and why is the media still censoring covid cures?

        Youtube removes Doctor’s interview with the US senate discussing hard evidence of cheap covid cure existing medicine.…. Who is youtube protecting? What is youtube up to?

        https://www.foxnews.com/politics/youtube-remove-doctor-senate-testimony-coronavirus-ron-johnson-big-tech

        Democrats are in the office.

        Time to hit again and again with the cheap cures for covid…. Are being hide fact. Why?

        Some of the vaccines are going to have side effects. Covid is not going away. The people are sick and tired of hearing about climate emergencies.

        All out.

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      Serp

      It beggars belief that in the huge pool of our parliamentarians, federal and state, there are not scores of people just like Craig Kelly; where’s all that diversity when you go looking for some…?

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    OldOzzie

    Biden’s Empty Environmentalism

    Shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline shows the new president’s preference for symbolism over substance on environmental policy.

    For at least the past two decades, the American environmentalist movement has been split into two camps. On one side, less conspicuous, are the conservationists—dedicated to working with public and private actors to keep our air and water clean, preserve America’s natural beauty, and advance common-sense solutions to pressing issues like climate change. On the louder and more flamboyant side are the progressive activists, who prioritize heated rhetoric, symbolic measures, and political purity tests over practical solutions.

    President Joe Biden’s recent slew of executive orders place him firmly on the activist side. The president’s day-one cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline is a textbook example of performative—and counterproductive—climate policy.

    The crusade against Keystone XL is a testament to the profound unseriousness of the environmentalist Left. The symbolic victory of the pipeline’s cancellation will not have any measurable effect on the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. Keystone’s untimely demise will not change the rate of our national consumption of fossil fuels; instead, American consumers will simply be forced to buy more oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela. More of our gas will be imported by plane or ship rather than from a net-zero emission pipeline—and we’ll pay more for it at the pump, too.

    Biden’s Keystone XL move, and his early actions on the environment more broadly, reflect the changing composition of the Democratic coalition, which is driven increasingly by the politics of its upwardly mobile, college-educated base, and less and less by the competing interests of its traditional working-class constituencies. The tensions between blue-collar Democrats and their wealthy progressive counterparts are particularly visible in environmental disputes.

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      RossP

      closing the Keystone pipeline has nothing to do with the environment. Warren Buffet owns the major rail company on the West Coast. Carrying oil south to the refineries is worth 2 billion to his company per year. He is bid Dem Party donor. So stop the pipeline which reduce the oil company costs by one third.
      Of course the emissions from the trains would also, so nothing to do with the environment.

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    liberator

    Where are all the cries in the MSM about the Perth fires and hows it’s because of climate change and it’s Sco Moes fault because he’s just not doing enough about carbin…?

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    OldOzzie

    WITH ZERO MORAL AUTHORITY LEFT, THE GLOBALIST AMERICAN EMPIRE IS DOOMED TO FAIL AT HOME AND ABROAD

    The de-platforming of President of the United States from its digital communications infrastructure marked a dark inflection point in our nation’s history.

    Indeed, the rulers of the corrupt Globalist American Empire (GAE) have consolidated power to such a degree that they have little need left for even the pretense that the United States is a free country. That America’s corrupt ruling class are not even bothering to pretend like America is a free society anymore not only has dramatic consequences domestically, it has equally important implications globally. Accordingly, foreign governments have taken notice of the American ruling class’ dramatic arrogation of power in the wake of the events of January 6th.

    – The Polish prime minister came out with a forceful condemnation of the American censorship regime, coupled with support of a law that would make it illegal for social media companies to censor unlawful speech:

    – The President of Mexico issued a similarly strong statement condemning the American censorship regime:

    – Even leaders who sparred with Trump have had a frigid reaction to the Big Tech-led purge of Donald Trump from American public life. Germany chancellor Angela Merkel’s difficulties with Trump created at least one viral photo, and her country is hardly a beacon of free speech compared to how America was just a few short years ago. But Merkel can clearly see the authoritarian blueprint that is being rolled out in the United States, and how quickly it can be taken worldwide. So when the news broke of Trump’s Twitter ban, Merkel loudly objected.

    The de-platforming of the President of the United States doesn’t so much mark the triumph of private corporate power over state power, as it does a triumph of the America’s globalist ruling class over its subjects. Similarly, from an international point of view, foreign governments are less concerned with the formality that the American ruling class happens to outsource its censorship to the private sector, than they are with the overall arrogation of power by the American regime and what that might portend for their own sovereignty.

    Indeed, sovereignty is the key here to understanding the international response to America’s now overt censorship regime. Germany and other foreign nations could not care less about a principled protection of free speech. What they do care about, however, is the American state, acting through their Silicon Valley proxies, having the ability to de-platform foreign leaders to advance its own power and geopolitical objectives.

    While Germany and most of Continental Europe has functioned more or less as a vassal state under the thumb of American influence, Germany in particular has started squirming, as it were, indicating its intention to carve out more genuine sovereignty for itself in the 21st Century. One concrete flashpoint for this development is the controversy over the Nordstream 2 energy pipeline. Germany and Russia are working on a pipeline that, if completed, would reduce the leverage of the United States to dictate its terms to Europe.

    Perhaps one of the most interesting challenges facing the American regime is how it can slow its geopolitical decline and maintain a viable form of patriotism, even as it transitions from a persuasion model of control that relies on at least a lip-service pretext to being a free-society to a coercion model that relies on pure force and intimidation, rather than the pretty lies that used to serve as at least public justifications for regime institutions and their behavior.

    It is far from clear that the American regime can complete this transition without dire consequences with respect to its standing globally, and to its own citizens right here at home. Patriots of all stripes should not view this as a consolation prize, but as a great opportunity.

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      Hanrahan

      The problem with the US is not censorship, it’s corruption. Censorship is merely a tool of the corrupt.

      It is widely known that Justice Roberts hates Trump’s guts and will rule accordingly. What hope is there when virtually every other man in black from sea to shining sea passes judgement according to his/her/preferred pronoun’s profit or politics? The law, as written is a now joke.

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      PeterS

      A break-up of the Union is the only peaceful option. The only other option is too horrible to contemplate, and unnecessary as too much blood would be spilt. It’s now impossible for the US to remain “united”. Of course, it’s still possible at the next election that Trump might run his own party and he might win hands down as both Democrats and Republican supporters give up in disgust. That’s assuming the elections are not rigged too much, but if they are it would be too obvious and I can’t see how millions of Americans would stand for it next time around.

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    Nadia bin Du Natan

    Up until the American 2020 election steal, I never appreciated the good judgement of our Australian “founding fathers.” I found the authorities harassing me to vote and bugging me to keep current with my voter registration a kind of moral offence. Boy did I have it wrong. Its always a mistake to imagine our ancestors were stupid. They really had it going on here. The bad guys are going to find it so much harder to rig our election than the American one. Which turned out to be very easy to steal, since unlike in many other countries, the media had already been captured in the US.

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    Salty Seadog

    Apparently the FBI agent killed during a recent Florida raid was the tech wizard involved in the Hunter Biden laptop investigation.

    Here’s an interesting blog from someone who has views on that (warning do not read if you are easily offended by language)

    https://bigcountryexpatoriginal.blogspot.com/2021/02/things-that-make-you-go-hmmn.html

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    OldOzzie

    China dangles $39bn carrot to build city on our doorstep

    Ben Packham
    Foreign Affairs and Defence Correspondent

    A Chinese company says it wants to build a new $39bn city with a major seaport, industrial area and free-trade zone on Papua New Guinea’s south coast, just kilometres from Australian territory.

    The “New Daru City” proposal will escalate concerns within Australian security agencies over China’s interest in PNG’s impoverished Western Province, where another Chinese company plans to build a $200m fisheries industrial park.

    Hong Kong-registered WYW Holding, a developer of Myanmar’s New Yangon City, has asked PNG Prime Minister James Marape to approve the development under a “Build Operate Transfer” arrangement, where PNG would receive the assets after an unspecified period of Chinese ownership and management.

    Mr Mo said the proposed city would span 100sq km and include fisheries and agricultural processing facilities, and ­provision for “intensive manufacturing”.

    In a separate letter, the chairman of WYW Holding, Calvin Ng, told Mr Marape that PNG could “advance significantly through ­appropriate infrastructure development, modern communications, efficient transport systems and natural resource exploitation”.

    Daru, which has a population of just 20,000 people and is the centre of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis epidemic, is about 200km from the Australian mainland but within kilometres of Australian ­islands in the Torres Strait.

    The proposed value of the ­development would exceed PNG’s annual GDP by about $US5bn.

    He said China, as it did in Australia with its Belt and Road Initiative agreement with Victoria, often sought to do deals with sub-national governments, because national administrations were more cautious.

    “In PNG there is a need to deliver wealth and opportunity locally, and that drives a lot of the provincial politicians and governments. So a split between Post Moresby and a province is quite likely.’’ Mr Shoebridge said.

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      el gordo

      This is a Clayton’s Belt and Road where Beijing only has to suggest something like this and Australia will also offer to throw bags of money in that direction.

      Its all too little too late and I don’t believe we can stop this juggernaut to uplift the impoverished people of the world. To survive capitalism needs to find new markets and this is the way forward.

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    DonA

    Some one should confront Tanya plibersek with this please. https://podcasts.apple.com/…/mornings-with…/id1231321581

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    Roger Knights

    If it turns out that ivermectin is as effective as its proponents claim, then it could be correctly inferred that its early employment in the U.S. would have prevented, say, half the deaths from Covid-19.

    That will be bad optics for those bigshots who demonized and forbade it, and for all the commenters who applauded their dismissal.

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      Lucky

      Yes it is as effective as generally claimed. Note the claims began around March 2020 and good test results date from a few months after that.
      As I read it, unlike HCQ which has been demonized, the proponents ridiculed (re Pres Trump, Dr Simone Gold fired from hospital job and arrested), the effectiveness of Ivermectin has been ignored/suppressed.

      Jo Nova gave us the reason – too cheap!

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      GD

      If it turns out that ivermectin is as effective as its proponents claim, then it could be correctly inferred that its early employment in the U.S. would have prevented, say, half the deaths from Covid-19.

      Similarly, Hydroxychloroquine.

      The world leaders who contracted Covid all beat it with a cocktail of drugs, not a vaccine. Brazil’s President Bolsonaro, President Trump, President Macron, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

      Why wasn’t the general public availed of these treatments?

      Instead in Australia, we have our prime minister banning the use of previously over-the-counter proven drugs that could have saved hundreds of lives and saved millions of dollars in the doubtful search and procurement of a vaccine that doesn’t block the virus, that doesn’t block the vaccinated from infecting other people, and therefore doesn’t stop the viral spead.

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        Len

        Victoria’s CHO, Brett Sutton is the brother of Trevor Sutton, who is the husband of Jane Halton, who represented Australia at EVENT 201 on the 18th October 2019 in New York City, which held a panemic simulation exercise. She is the chair of the board at the W.H.O. and works for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is Australia’s Covid-19 Coordinator and she is the person that both our Federal and State Government answer to.
        You would have noticed Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly when he said that Hydroxichloroquine doesn’t work his voice change when he told this lie.

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          Annie

          We remember that ludicrous statement by Paul Kelly a few months ago. He said ‘The jury’s out, it (HCQ) doesn’t work’! If the jury was still out, how did he know?!

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        Nadia bin Du Natan

        “Why wasn’t the general public availed of these treatments?”

        Because it was a terrorist attack. And we should have known that right from the start, there being no evidence for the other two proposals. In a terrorist biowarfare attack the terrorists must have a designated antidote. That should be obvious. Thats why the virus was so lame. If they had done gain-of-function procedures on rabies then they could have depopulated the entire globe in one hit. But where is their designated antidote in that situation? They would end up killing themselves.

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    William Astley

    This is interesting.

    China Built Three Times as Much Coal Power in 2020 as the Rest of the World Combined

    https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/02/03/china-built-three-times-as-much-coal-power-in-2020-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/

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    OldOzzie

    From Catallaxy Files the link to the piece is a PDF of Alan’s The Australian Article

    In the Australian Commentary Section today, I form part of a unity ticket with ex ACTU chieftain and ALP MP Jennie George!

    I have a piece that

    . seeks to explain why most of gthe ALP and the Liberal wets, fronted by Dave Sharma, Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmerman, sing the praises of renewable energy that is not and can never be competitive with coal gas or nuclear.

    . Notes that when Trump arrived the US was steadily losing relative wealth, a process that was accelerated during the Obama presidency when regulatory measures against fossil fuel development and usage were intensified, and heightened support was given to intrinsically high-cost and low-reliability wind and solar. The Trump presidency rolled back many of these distortions.

    . The Biden administration has reverse the Trump policies. It has rejoined the Paris Agreement, set new goals for carbon emissions, banned gas and oil exploration on federal land, and rescinded the permit for a controversial north-south pipeline. The administration also is talking along similar lines as the EU about imposing trade restraints on imports from countries deemed to be insufficiently proactive in reducing their internal emissions./

    . Australia has wasted far more per capita than any other country in funding the replacement of coal with renewables. The tax equivalent, at $7bn a year, far exceeds the Gillard carbon tax. Even so, internal and external voices are pressuring for more to be done and proclaiming the nation to be a climate recalcitrant. Scott Morrison says that if we get technological breakthroughs to produce hydrogen at $2 a kilogram we can get net-zero emissions. That would be a stretch — an impossible one with hydrogen from wind/solar; and even from gas, hydrogen at that cost would be three times the US gas price.
    the new global coalition against coal will make it even more difficult for Australia to avoid ruinous policies that most of the political elites favour; we are unlikely to get the sort of free pass that other countries will get by simply sayiong they will decarbonise 30 or so years hence.

    . The sally into this debate by Jennie George pours cold water on the fashionable notions of green steel and aluminium (while also seeking government support for these industries). She conludes “Labor’s talk of a jobs and emissions compact and the government’s technology roadmap will be critical to the community’s evaluation of future plans. False technology solutions are as inexcusable as the rhetoric of a “just transition”, without the real economic costs and employment impacts of moving to carbon neutrality.”

    Apparently the “Otis Group” of concerned ALP MPs met this week and is growing numerically.

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    OldOzzie

    The Physics of Machine-Gun Fire

    Memories of getting marksman award on firing range for M60 Machine Gun during Army Training – Standing, Hip, Prone positions

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    • #
      Hatrack

      My enduring memory of the rifle range during National Service training was the new glasses the Army shouted me immediately after.

      Apparently the target was unharmed and I ended up in Catering Corp, where I served my country without distinction.

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      Hanrahan

      My Dad manned a Vickers machine gun during the third battle of Ypres. He had two markers to traverse between and they fired so long the water boiled away. He claims they peed in the barrel but there is no one to confirm nor deny. One thing we learnt in scouts was not to pee on the camp fire.

      My first experience was with the 303 as a cadet. I was too skinny to throw a shadow. That was an experience. Many years later I did OK with the SLR, it didn’t kick like a mule.

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        KevJ

        I apologise for the late reply. I have been trying to catch up..
        But your comments re the 303 and cadets made me chuckle in remembering my cadet days. At my school we had a shed of rifles and only about 10 of them would actually shoot straight. Being a strapping young lad at the time I was given a Bren gun to lug around.. plus we had a bloody mortar of all things.. (deactivated), just for training purposes. Once a week during lunchtime, we had to get our rifles and clean them them thoroughly, using pull-throughs, oil all the metal bits, (keep the oil off the woodwork) and present them for inspection.
        Talk about those days now and everyone’s head would explode..
        Thank you for the memory.. 🙂

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        OldOzzie

        I had a .303-25 for Roo Shooting – kicked like a mule – have not shown my Grandkids photos of me with dead roos and rifle, let alone skinned roo skin stretched out on ant-hill to clean, before taking home for tanning – they would faint.

        That was the joy of the Bren and M60 – just a slight tug away from the shoulder and yes the SLR was a joy to fire compared to .303

        Similarly liked the Owen Gun with slight pull up to the right – but the F1 SubMachine Gun was much more balanced

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          OldOzzie

          7 year old grandson came into front room and pointed nerf gun at TV and pulled trigger, saying it’s not loaded.

          Told him never ever point a gun at anyone/anything and pull the trigger – will have to get you to read and watch Smiley gets a Gun”“The Gun is always loaded and a Horse always Kicks” (or was that Mule?)

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  • #

    I wonder if Smartmatic has read this?

    https://joannenova.com.au/2020/11/smartmatic-the-venezuelan-software-that-rigs-elections-in-up-to-28-usa-states/

    everything in there has been shown to be false and now the company, which has lost a lot of contracts, is coming to get themselves some money.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/02/04/voting-company-smartmatic-sues-fox-news-giuliani-sidney-powell-for-defamation/?sh=34f563e4779b

    “With this action, Smartmatic says: Enough. Facts matter. Truth matters,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants engaged in a conspiracy to spread disinformation about Smartmatic. They lied. And they did so knowingly and intentionally. Smartmatic seeks to hold them accountable for those lies and for the damage that their lies have caused.”

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      robert rosicka

      Not like you to make a mountain out of a molehill Gee Aye !

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      • #

        There were a lot of earnest and outraged comments about this molehill, yourself not included.

        As word spreads about the travesty that is the US electoral system, the airwaves are filling up with fog. The aim here is to distract people with trivia that can be corrected so that the Biden fans can use the words “debunked” in the same sentence as “Dominion” and “Smartmatic”.

        Since you offered. “Debunked”.

        Powell confirms CIA office in Frankfurt raided and severs confiscated, SW to rig election .
        now obtained

        Imagine in years to come being able to tell your grand children you witnessed the great reset….this one not the other one….you know what I mean

        hilarious.

        Jo Nova
        November 20, 2020 at 5:01 pm

        Hmm. Smartmatic is built on lies and cheating but we should trust them?

        The software is designed to make undetectable changes. It’s designed to change votes after the voter has left the scene. How can that be detected without a full and complete audit of votes (and possibly not even then if the Dominion machines can print ballots that are different to the choices voters made?).

        How could Rep observers see the machine code at work in those machines — and also with binoculars from 60 feet away through sheets of cardboard?

        Are Rep observers psychic, and do you have any evidence of that?

        oops

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          Leaf none of those are my words ? And yes questions have been asked but so far none answered and most likely will never be answered unless “because” is an answer .

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      Hanrahan

      “Discovery” will be interesting.

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      • #

        No it wont.

        What will be interesting is how do the defendants justify their actions when they knew they were peddling false information. Jo has an excuse – she just parroted what she was told and wasn’t sceptical- and she doesn’t claim to be a news site.

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          You say Parroted I say allowing those who read this site to make their own mind up given the MSM blackout and selective reporting for much of it , in order to decide for myself I like to see both sides of the story .
          Much the same as CAGW .

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      Nadia bin Du Natan

      “everything in there has been shown to be false and now the company..”

      No you are a liar. Prove it. Do it now.

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      Nadia bin Du Natan

      You’ve got nothing Gee Aye. You are just a liar. Thats the Alpha and Omega of your latest outburst.

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    OldOzzie

    Feral cats are killing three billion native animals each year

    GRAHAM LLOYD
    ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

    A “Project Noah” network of fenced areas to protect native animals and a night-time curfew for domestic pets has been recommended by federal parliamentary inquiry into the environmental impact of feral cats.

    Feral cats kill an estimated three billion native animals each year, the same number as the worst estimate of the 2020 bushfires, but efforts to eradicate them are failing.

    The House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy has made a series of unanimous recommendations but says there is no magic bullet.

    Inquiry chair, Ted O’Brien, LNP member of Fairfax on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, said cats have decimated populations of Australian wildlife, killing billions of animals each year.

    “One of the great tragedies of last year’s Black Summer Bushfires was the loss of wildlife, with between one and three billion animals perishing. To think that feral cats kill more wildlife on an annual basis really put this problem in perspective.

    “Feral cuts still need to be culled, but it’s going to take time before we have the technology to rid these lethal carnivores from our natural environment at scale”, Mr O’Brien said.

    Under the Australian Government’s Threat Abatement Plan, feral cats are recognised as a potential threat to 74 mammal species and subspecies as well as 40 birds, 21 reptiles and four amphibians. According to estimates, predation by cats is responsible for the loss of 1.6 billion native animals every year.

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      Chad

      BUT, but, but…???
      Country areas are currently suffering a major plague of MICE..!
      WE need MORE cats. !!..or more car wranglers.. !
      (Sarc ! )

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    Hanrahan

    Greta T is facing criminal charges in India for foreign interference in their affairs.

    I don’t have a better source than David Icke who I don’t follow and Dr Steve Turley who I am increasingly treating as “amusement only”.

    But here’s Icke’s headline:

    Cult-puppet Greta Thunberg shares ‘India protest toolkit,’ gets accused of ‘rent-a-cause activism’ & aiding ‘international conspiracy’

    The toolkit BTW was authored in Canada. Why are they involved in India? And Modi insists Twitter block accounts critical of his government. Originally they complied but then reversed that action. Twitter has found religion and insists they are a free speech platform but twitter employees are being threatened with jail time.

    That’s a few countries insisting Silicone Valley is not the arbiter of free speech in their countries.

    OldOzzie has better sources than I, maybe he can fill out the details.

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    Nadia bin Du Natan

    I remember being a bit puzzled in “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” when Ayn Rand singled out anti-trust as the beginning of the end. I ended up going along with this, such is the power of ideology. But surely we can now see how that form of big business capitalism is untenable. Because we have been shown how these bigshots have become one ugly network and have started debasing the rest of us. Going so far as to bring the Chinese communists in as junior partners and steal the election. So we need to send that Randian thinking to the fires. However the logic is still there. And hard libertarianism should still apply to the sole trader and the middling business run like a sole trader. The rest of them are a bunch of clowns when they get to big for their britches.

    The good news is that the anti-trust laws are still on the books in the United States. So that if they ever get their democracy back they can quickly bring these lunatics to heel again.

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    robert rosicka

    Anyone else just watch “Bernardi” on fox network? Apparently the reason we celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January has little to do with Cook or the first fleet or first settlement .
    26th of January was supposedly when we gained our Aussie identity with the introduction of the Australian passport , if this is true it’s amazing .

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    el gordo

    Regional Cooling Signal

    ‘If you think this summer has been cooler than usual in Melbourne, you’re not imagining it. The city is having its coolest summer in 19 years based on daytime temperatures.

    ‘The city’s average maximum temperature during the first two months of summer were both about one degree below the long term-average.’ (Weatherzone)

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    Nadia bin Du Natan

    If anyone shows up in town with a plan to have computers for the election, the idea is to cane him and put him in the stocks. Because he already has a plan for voter fraud in his heart. Paper is the appropriate technology here. If we didn’t have paper we would have to invent it. And paper is FAST. Usually we get same night election results. Fantastically fast when compared to computers since by comparison, we still don’t know the real results of the 2005 American Presidential Election. The bad guys don’t only conduct voter fraud for the Democrats. Usually they concentrate on funding and media in the primaries to end up with the candidate they want to win, and another candidate who has been chosen in order to lose. Supposing you spent 15 million dollars to find out who really won the 2005 American election? Would anyone believe you? So paper is fast and computers are deathly slow.

    Someone pointed out that paper is slow because it can take more than three weeks to get the Senate results in. In context three weeks is lightning fast. We suspect that Bernie Sanders was gypped in the last two primaries, but we still don’t have the results in because people cannot be bothered with the question. We have the forensic results more or less for the Trump landslide. Peter Navarro and others have put that together. But we don’t have the historical timeline for the manipulation of the primaries.

    The ability of big media and their wider network of troglodytes to rig primaries is denying the Americans and the rest of us a better class of candidate. Both on the left and the right. I’ve seen these guys undermine good candidates in every primary on both sides going at least as far back as Pat Buchanan. For the Americans to have good candidates they need to have a more competitive media model as well as massive scrutiny in primaries. Plus you cannot put up with all these billionaires any more. They go feral on us when their money makes money while they sleep.

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    CHRIS

    The Anti-Trust laws in the USA are somewhat ancient (remember the Oil and Auto monopolies in the early 20th Century?), and do not completely cover the current situation. Remember when Microsoft was threatened to be broken up? Never happened. In today’s MSM world, Facebook and Google should be the targets of these laws…but are they? If these entities are not controlled, then 1984 will occur with a vengeance.

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