Wednesday Open Thread

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126 comments to Wednesday Open Thread

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    John Connor II

    How Tonga caused the unprecedented Australian floods

    https://youtu.be/EZtRKbTdQVw

    One for the weather/climate experts to analyse.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Australian Cyber Security Centre warns of increased attacks on critical infrastructure networks

    The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSE) has warned of increased cyber attacks at “phenomenal rates” on critical infrastructure networks, which could potentially put access to essential services at risk.

    In its annual cyber threat report, the centre voiced its concerns over the ‘knock-on effects’ that a sustained disruption of critical infrastructure might have on the economy and welfare of the people.

    Critical infrastructure encompasses the physical facilities, communication networks and information and operational technologies that provide essential services.

    In FY22 alone, 95 incidents were reported, which is 8% of all cyber incidents the ACSC has responded to that have affected critical infrastructure.

    The ACSC urges organisations to report all cyber security incidents, regardless of whether or not their organisation is subject to mandatory reporting under the SoCI Act.

    https://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/997475/australian-cyber-security-centre-warns-of-increased-attacks-on-critical-infrastructure-networks-997475.html

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    • #
      John Connor II

      A Global Digital ID Can Surely Protect Us From Cyberattacks, Right?

      Moves to Speed Up State-Backed Digital ID Rollout
      Cyber hacking of this sort is nothing new. In the last few years, medical information has become the leading target for attacks, no doubt due to the increased weight that governments and businesses are attaching to public health.

      There are genuine concerns that hacking incidents, such as what happened to Medibank and telecommunications giant Optus, are going to be used by governments as an excuse to race through global Digital Identity policies.

      Domestically, Australia’s version is called the “Trusted Digital Identity Bill” which encourages the mass collation and sharing of data—combining, for the first time, social, health, banking, business, and telecommunications data under one government roof.

      Evidence that this is occurring continues to mount, first after the Optus attack (still under criminal investigation with the Australian Federal Police and America’s FBI) with the Australian Financial Review writing “Optus fiasco must kickstart the federal Digital ID scheme” which puts the responsibility on the government to create a unified digital profile for all Australians.

      If it were to go ahead, the next time the government is hacked, thieves won’t only walk away with names and addresses, they’ll have an entire human profile and security pass.

      Would a Digital ID solve the hacking problem for businesses?

      That is also unlikely, given that businesses will almost certainly need to continue storing localised data in their systems to operate. Even sending out payment bills requires the retention of names, addresses, and phone numbers.

      One of the only things protecting the government from similarly severe cyber hacks is its archaic, disassociated, and anonymised data which is so old and clunky that hackers often walk away with meaningless dust rather than data.

      A brand new, easy-to-read, collated digital gold mine in the Digital ID program would change that. It’s a whistle to every hacker in the world.

      https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-global-digital-id-can-surely-protect-us-from-cyberattacks-right_4851388.html

      Pushing everyone into this WEF digital ID wouldn’t have stopped these hacks and there is no rational argument to push for an ID system based on these hacks. In fact the exact opposite.
      It’s predictable lame political rhetoric that the sheeple won’t think too hard about, as usual.

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      • #
        Geoff Sherrington

        JCII,
        My mind has been running lateral thinking hypotheses again, so diss this if is b/s.
        First, your scenario of a global digital i.d. is likely being pushed right now by any number of busybodies. Second, as a private sort of family, we hate such concepts. Is there a solution to pull the rug out by letting all of this sought, prized personal data go public anyhow? Why are we all so worried about keeping it private? We readily disclose medical details to medicos left and right, most of us have pretty ordinary, boring bank accounts so who cares if we have 1 million $$ in the bank or half a million? We let bankers clerks know our balances, we pass it on to real estate agents, to used car dealers if we need a loan – and so on. Is there really any type of information about self that would cause harm if made public en masse with the other 25 million Aussies? Sure would remove some incentive for Ransomwa

        re crooks.
        Does this view have any legs, or is it really too horrible to contemplate? Geoff S

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        • #
          RickWill

          The biggest risk is for someone to steal your identity and rack up huge debts for you to have to repay. Or even commit a serious crime in your name.

          I have a friend who represented Australia at the 2000 Olympics and prior to that he had no reservations about having considerable amount of personal detail on the web as part of the commitment to the Australia team.

          Well some pleasant sole became him for the sake of borrowing over $100,000. He was a well funded athlete who had been granted funds to develop technology for his sport ahead of the Sydney Olympics – he was world champion in 1999. The pleasant sole who stole his identity had no difficulty borrowing the money based on the credit checks.

          My friend spent years fighting the banks to right that wrong. He is now very sensitive about what information he places in the public domain.

          I have had phone call just today advising me that my Visa card OR Mastercard has a $500 purchase on it and if I did not authorise it then I need to produce banking details to recover it. What gets me is that people actually fall for this.

          Last night the Melbourne news reported a couple who had lost $60,000 from their small business account because the details were on the Optus data base that was hacked.

          I reckon I get at least three email scams a day. There are some really clever ones that appear to be from reputable agents like Australia post but when look at the actually address it will have some small variation from the correct agent address.

          Three years ago my Ausnet meter data was no updating. I contacted Ausnet to advise the fault in their system and they asked for a whole lot of personal detail to verify I was the account holder. I told the clown that it was their system and I was reporting a fault. They had my meter number so that was all they needed. This went on for a while and I decided that my privacy was more important than the meter data. I waited till this year and problem still there – no data for over two years, and this time there was no personal details required.

          If anyone rings my wife on her mobile and she does not know them she asks how they got her number. If there is no reasonable reply then she hangs up.

          So there are good reasons to hold personal details as close as you can.

          When I frequently travelled in Asia I used a credit card that had a $10,000 limit. Most booking were done through the company and prepaid so the card was mostly for personal expenses and was in my name. There were a few times when the card was used fraudulently but I had no problem with the bank carrying the loss.

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        • #
          John Connor II

          The main problem is one of identity theft.
          Over a decade ago here in Oz, car dealers were being broken into and filing cabinets stolen. They contained test drive paperwork, purchase agreements etc.
          ie name, address, dob, phone and email, copy of driv lic. etc.
          Prime id theft info.
          We all “trust” large organisations with our private data but as has been shown, that trust was misplaced due to their complacency on security.
          Mass data like Medibank sells dirt cheap on the underverse. Up here, a quality fake id setup can sell for $20k and that faker can make your life a misery. Fortunately, most organisations are more understanding of id theft than they were 10 years ago and the recent spate will improve that even more.
          Organisations must encrypt their data.
          It’s just due to sheer apathy that they haven’t so far.

          The global id is being pushed solely to track every transaction by every person everywhere so your caring government can get every cent they think they’re entitled to, to try and offset their massive debts that they’ve created.

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          • #
            John Connor II

            40% of traffic to ecommerce sites comes from bots raising cyber security threat level

            While consumers may be looking to scam retailers as the cost of living crisis deepens, cyber criminals are also on the rampage through the sector, with a range of automated threats – from account takeover, credit card fraud, web scraping, API abuses, Grinch bots and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks – all becoming a persistent challenge for the eCommerce industry, threatening online sales and customer satisfaction.

            In the past 12 months, nearly 40% of traffic on retailers’ websites didn’t come from a human. Instead, it came from a bot, software applications controlled by operators that run automated tasks, often with malicious intent.
            [snip]
            Of all the traffic on retailers’ websites, nearly one-quarter (23.7%) was attributed specifically to bad bots,…
            [snip]

            https://internetretailing.net/technology/40-of-traffic-to-ecommerce-sites-comes-from-bots-raising-cyber-security-threat-level/

            1. Use strong passwords – upper & lower case letters, numbers AND symbols.
            2. Don’t re-use the password.
            Different account=different password.
            3. Keep an eye on your bank account balances.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            It’s the usual glovalist tactics

            Create a Crisis, .then …

            Provide a ( slavery ) “solution”

            Hack a few businesses, then demand everyone line up for a new ” secure” system that allows the govt to [snip …] and stay there forever….

            Don’t fall for it….

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      • #
        DLK

        Moves to Speed Up State-Backed Digital ID Rollout

        hm, how to protect from cyber attacks.

        put all your information in one digital location.

        because the government can never be hacked.

        oh, wait.

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      • #
        jelly34

        Ha,ha.You would have to be a real”Maroon”to do that,John.And the next step would be a tattoo on your for-arm?

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    • #
      Ronin

      China showing its displeasure.

      10

    • #
      DLK

      OMG, cyber attacks.

      you need a universal digital id to keep you safe.

      problem-reaction-solution

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  • #
    Gee Aye

    In a few hours we’ll know if it is one house or both. At the moment the call is 46-46 for the senate.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    A veteran medical examiner who reviewed 4000 Covid deaths explains how many were REALLY from Covid (and how many were of healthy people)


    After 11,500 autopsies over four decades, Dr. Brian L. Peterson was used to high-profile forensic work – including the 2004 California murder trial of Scott Peterson (no relation).

    But he never expected the blowback he’d face for telling families their loved ones had not died of Covid.

    Until September, Brian Peterson served as chief medical examiner for Milwaukee County. With about 1 million people, the county has roughly 10,000 deaths a year, and its pathologists conduct about 1,500 autopsies annually.

    When the coronavirus epidemic began in 2020, Peterson decided to review every Covid-related death in the county – to see for himself who was dying and how. Over the next two-and-a-half years, he made brief reviews of medical records for about 4,000 people that physicians had said died of Covid.

    always very unhealthy, he said.

    “Even those folks had comorbidities that were substantial.”

    I asked him directly: of the 4,000 Covid deaths, how many people would he classify as healthy before they contracted Sars-Cov-2?

    Fewer than 100, he said.

    Could he be more specific?

    “Dozens.”

    In other words, fewer than 1 percent of all the Covid deaths Peterson reviewed had occurred in people who were not already very unwell.

    https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/a-veteran-medical-examiner-who-reviewed

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    • #
      John Connor II

      Another Top Cardiologist Blows Whistle: Covid Shots Behind ‘Sudden Deaths’ Spike

      Another renowned cardiologist has sacrificed his career to come forward and blow the whistle about the global spike in “sudden and unexpected” deaths and heart attacks in healthy people.

      Dr. Peter McCullough has spoken out to warn the public that vaccines are damaging the hearts of young people, including athletes, causing them to suffer cardiac arrests, and in some cases, die prematurely.

      In an explosive video interview with WND, McCullough points out that rare cases of sudden death were handled differently in the past.

      Long before Covid emerged, athletes who died suddenly were typically diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an abnormal thickening of the heart, or premature heart blockage.

      However, athletes are now thoroughly screened to rule out those conditions.

      McCullough points out that peer-reviewed literature has identified vaccines as a cause of myocarditis.

      He noted a U.K. study that found about 100 fatal cases of myocarditis linked to the shots.

      And he cited a case report published in August in the journal Archives of Pathology that found a connection between a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and myocarditis in two adolescents.

      https://slaynews.com/news/cardiologist-blows-whistle-covid-shots-sudden-deaths-spike/

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Unvaccinated adults after Covid infection showed that “Covid infection was NOT associated with either myocarditis or pericarditis.”

    In the current large population study of subjects, who were NOT vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, we observed NO INCREASE in the incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis from day 10 after positive SARS-CoV-2.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9025013/

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Flemish Government Preparing To Cancel World Economic Forum Membership: “We Are a Sovereign Nation”

    The Flemish government is considering proposals to cancel its membership of the World Economic Forum due to the globalist organization’s anti-democratic views.

    The Flemish conservative party, Vlaams Belang, is pressuring the government to cancel its World Economic Forum (WEF) membership. This year, the Flemish government will pay a whopping EUR 200,000 in membership fees to the WEF and approximately EUR 27,000 as a participation fee in their annual meeting in Davos.

    https://rairfoundation.com/dutch-conservative-party-demands-the-flemish-government-cancel-its-world-economic-forum-membership/

    Holland eh…

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    • #
      Adellad

      landers is the productive (ie: not French) part of Belgium. Vlaams Belang (once Vlaams Bloc) has argued for a free Flanders for decades and is always referred to as “Far Right” meaning it’s fairly normal. Nothing they want ever happens.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Unhinged Crackpot Shuts Down Major Highway In UK – Demands Immediate End Of Fossil Fuels And Claims She Is The Victim

    Another young woman with mental illness shut down a major highway in the UK on Monday over global warming.

    “Louise” filmed her protest and cried for the camera about oil and gas.

    24-year-old Louise: “I’m here, I’m here because I don’t have a future. And you might hate me for doing this and you’re entitled to hate me. But I wish you would direct all that anger and hatred at our government. They are betraying young people like me… I’m part of the coalition demanding an end to all new oil and gas licenses in the UK. What we’re asking for is what all the scientists are arguing for, what the United Nations are asking for, the international energy(?), the IPCC. How many more people have to say, “We don’t have a livable future if you continue to license oil and gas,” for you to listen? Why does it take people like me…. a f*cking country… before I’m 25, for you to listen?”

    http://www.womensystems.com/2022/11/unhinged-crackpot-shuts-down-major.html

    Cry me a river then ride your unpainted wooden pushbike with bamboo tyres (totally oil free) home to mummy’s basement.

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    • #
      b.nice

      And if they do ever get rid of coal, and other fossil fuels…

      they will have totally destroyed any future they might have had. !

      They want their own lives to be based around erratic, insufficient energy supplies, no transport for food , etc etc..

      They want to destroy everything that makes their current lives livable. !!

      Sorry, little child… but…

      <strong) WITHOUT fossil fuels you don't have much of a future at all, certainly not a livable one.!

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    • #
      yarpos

      I read a short piece today about how groups like extinction rebellion are preying on and weaponizing the mentally ill. When you look at the nut baggery ging on its seems plausible.

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  • #
    another ian

    “Go Woke Go Broke”

    “Saputo – which makes the cheese formerly known as Coon – will will close one of its Australian factories and curtail operations at two others”

    https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/11/go-woke-go-broke.html

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    • #
      b.nice

      “Cheer” cheese sounds like a Chinese made brand to be sold through Aldi !

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      • #
        yarpos

        You appear to have Aldi Derangement Syndrome. Aldi actually sell a very nice Australian cheddar cheese called Westacre, among many other Australian and Euro cheeses.

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        • #
          Annie

          I’m currently having a late lunch snack including Red Leicester and English Cheddar, both from Aldi. Their imported and local cheeses are very good.

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    We are all aware of the cost and inconvenience of transmission lines to connect diversified generation to the grid.

    Another problem of diversification has just hit me: The workforce is diversified as well.

    Where they put a power station on a coal mine a thriving centre springs up with amenities and housing so people can live where they work. But a wind or solar installation is not self sustaining in the same way. They all need engineers and electricians but these must commute from a town nearby, and workers don’t want to move to a hamlet and then move again after a few years. My son commutes an hour + each way so demanded, and got, mining pay for the long day.

    No real big deal, but a problem none the less.

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  • #
    el+gordo

    Climate reparation, Eric Worrall is not a big fan.

    ‘In my opinion only the US Midterm elections stands in the way of the USA joining this insane Western cash giveaway. Australia is backing the climate reparation push, and Britain has promised bigger climate payouts. In my opinion Canada and New Zealand will likely fall in line. Only the USA can pull the plug on this dash to give all our money away.’ (wuwt)

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    • #
      Graham Richards

      At this stage I’m really concerned that the USA electorate have signed the suicide note they’ll soon regret!

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      • #
        another ian

        Remember most of them are supposed to be too illiterate to manage voting ID

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        • #
          Greg in NZ

          NZ’s *Climate Change* Minister, Green ex-banker James Shaw (he who lives with his two mothers) just pledged 20 million NZ pesos for ‘reparations’ prior to flying to Sham e Shake (with 14 buddies along for the ride). Crocodile tears: that NZ$20m was ALREADY set aside a while back – they really believe we have no memories at all.

          In other Carbon Hypocrisy News (CH4), Stabcinda and a host of grifters are flying off to Vietnam and other tropical paradises before flying on to APEC (Aging Politicians Expecting Cocktails) to – what else – save the planet™. King Klaus will be happy with his femme fatale, comrade disciple.

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  • #
    • #
      Adellad

      Fantastic, GBN is so bloody good. What disgusting lies we have been (and still are being) told. Have the Elite always treated the unwashed this way? For the first time in my reasonably long life, I am beginning to think “yes.”

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      • #
        Memoryvault

        Have the Elite always treated the unwashed this way?

        Yes. And the politicians, the media and the bureaucrats have always been their lapdogs.
        All that’s changed recently is that they are more brazen about it.

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    • #
      another ian

      Hmmmmm!

      There seems to be a pandemic of those!

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    • #
      jelly34

      Amen Memoryvault.

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  • #
    David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

    I think this might be a first. A mistake? Or a sign of change?

    The ABC has discovered the word “photosynthesis” !! Not clear that they understand it…

    ” Plus even relatively low increases in carbon dioxide can nudge pollen production up too.
    Plants use carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis to make sugar, which they can use as energy.
    “In some ways, we’re fertilising plants by putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, so many plants are responding to those changes in the environment around them and producing more pollen,” Dr Beggs says. ”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2022-11-09/hey-fever-allergy-pollen-asthma-sneezing-climate-change/101599410

    Cheers
    Dave B

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    • #
      Memoryvault

      I think this might be a first. A mistake?

      Not a mistake. Deliberate misinformation.
      In daylight plants use photosynthesis (photo = light, synthesis = make) to release carbon from CO2 for cell building growth. At night (no light) plants use oxygen and stored carbon to make sugars.

      In summary, CO2 plus sunlight makes plants grow bigger and better. Increased flowering and subsequent pollen are simply natural consequences of that more productive growth.

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    • #
      Environment Sceptic

      No, not exactly…’Photosynthesis’ is all done with Photoshop. Good grief!!

      Without photosynthesis using photoshop, life would have no meaning or even ‘information’.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    The Australian Government is doing it’s best to keep the masses in a perpetual state of panic with the latest release of covid, omicron XBB.

    https://www.health.gov.au/news/new-covid-19-variant-leads-to-increase-in-cases

    Note to all Leftists. Go and get some more “vaccine” injected into yourselves. Preferably two or three doses, maybe more.

    For everyone else, demand from your “representatives” the unbanning of the safe antivirals like IVM and HCQ.

    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

    — H. L. Mencken, In Defense of Women

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    • #
      Memoryvault

      “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

      And to misquote Santayana –

      Those refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and those who do learn from history are doomed to watch helplessly while everybody else repeats it.

      Welcome to the ranks of the helpless.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

    H. L. Mencken

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The expression “throwing the dead horse overboard” comes from the days of sail when sailors were becalmed in the doldrums +/-5 degrees from the equator or, alternatively, the “horse lattitudes” +/-30 degrees about the equator, and killed and threw overboard any horses they had, to save drinking water.

    Hence also the name “horse lattitudes”.

    Nowadays, it’s we, the people, who are metaphorically killed and thrown overboard.

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    • #
      MrGrimNasty

      What a waste of good food.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      I have often referred to the Roaring Forties and how they put a floor under SA and Vic wind generation, it is never disastrous for long. On another chat site where I can post screen shots I show them from windy.com where the rest of the country is calm.

      I have tried to explain that “Pacific” is a derivative of “peaceful” and that the prevailing wind in Qld is a sou easter which blows parallel to the coast and that the wind zealots can’t go offshore because the GBRMP bans virtually everything, including limited fishing.

      I had never heard of “horse latitudes”. It encapsulates what point I was trying to make. Thank you.

      If SA, a deindustrialised, mendicant state can occasionally meet half its demand, it means nothing. They must tell us how they intend, not only to meet demand, but to have excess power to pump water uphill.

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    David Maddison

    Have any other Vicdanistanis noticed that as the Vicdanistan election looms, there appear to be fewer mobile speed camera vehicles to collect revenue from motorists for speeding as little as 2kph over the limit?

    No doubt they will return with a vengeance after Dictator Dan wins the election. And if they can’t raise enough revenue from those, they’ll invent new offences, preferably (from their point of view) ones that are amenable to automated detection.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Do we have an opposition David ?

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      • #
        David Maddison

        Nope.

        We have some pretend Liberals who believe in nothing and fight for nothing.

        Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. (Misattributed to Alexander Hamilton)

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          Says a pretend conservative.

          If you abandon the right you are complicit in the rise of the left.

          But I’ve told you that before. Stop pretending to have principles.

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          • #
            b.nice

            There is no “right” or “conservative” party in Victoristan.

            There is Liberal party “weak mushy left” and Dan’s totalitarian “far left”

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          • #
            yarpos

            mmmmm….yep, having “principles” means a simplistic lock on right or left.

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      Memoryvault

      What I don’t understand about Vicdanistan is why anybody actually lives there.

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      • #
        Annie

        I’m too old and tired to move yet again. When we moved back to Australia the LTPD wasn’t the premier. We rebuilt our place and planned to stay put at last. We have had numerous moves in the past; quite a few international ones, several of which were consecutive. It is an exhausting business, not to mention expensive too.

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      • #

        “why anybody actually lives there”

        Family obligations!

        looking after those who cannot!

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      • #
        yarpos

        Perfectly pleasant place , despite current political leadership. They come and go.

        Its silly to think that people jump States when the political wind changes, but I guess it play to the parochial BS people trot out without thinking. Its like the mindset that say “well they voted for it” as if it was was magically a 100% vote and all the electorate agreed.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Voting for a “freedom party” will fix it!

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Just seen this article about a $50 million dollar solar farm on the Gold Coast built on a flood plain what could possibly go wrong .

    https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2022/03/10/sunshine-coast-solar-farm-flooding/

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    David Maddison

    I think if any new covid “vaccines” are released public health officials and politicians need to be confirmed to have them first. If they are not going to test them on animals, test them on those people. In fact it would avoid pain, suffering and death of the animals so that would be better.

    I am concerned that the low incidence of covid vaccine injury and death among politicians and health officials implies that they may have taken saline instead for the first round.

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    Rafe+Champion

    Hot off the digital press, a piece on the neglect of wind droughts that permitted intermittent providers to connect to the grid with potentially disastrous results.

    https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/11/the-voice-of-energy-realism/

    Apologies to Anton Lang, I sent two drafts of the paper by accident (my mistake) and the one that was published did not have this paragraph. I won’t try to explain how that happened:)

    Anton Lang, blogging as Tony from Oz, has the longest series of wind-watching records, starting around 2008. Since then he has posted thousands of reports on power generation in SE Australia from all sources, with emphasis on the wind and why it won’t work to keep the lights on.
    https://papundits.wordpress.com/2022/09/26/australian-weekly-wind-power-generation-data-introduction-and-permanent-link-to-all-data-posts/

    This invaluable contribution has achieved next to no recognition beyond Jo Nova’s blog and the Energy Realists of Australia.

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  • #
    jim2

    Sydney: Hackers on Wednesday began leaking sensitive medical records stolen from a major Australian health insurer that had earlier refused to pay the group’s ransom demand.

    Medibank told investors and customers that a “sample” of data from some 9.7 million clients had been posted on a “dark web forum”.

    Names, birth dates, addresses, passport numbers and information on medical claims were among the sensitive personal data posted anonymously early Wednesday.

    Medibank said more leaks were likely.

    “The files appear to be a sample of the data that we earlier determined was accessed by the criminal,” the company said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

    https://gulfnews.com/world/oceania/hackers-leak-australian-health-records-on-dark-web-1.1667955966546

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    My personal take on the US midterms.
    Just a regular sod, even though I did work in the DC political industry 30 years ago.
    I should have known the casino always wins.
    I voted for the last time.
    I live in a solid Blue state so the dice are loaded.
    The ballot was ridiculous.
    For about half the races there were only Democrat candidates.
    The initiative vote questions were un-understandable.
    One was changing the name of some obscure board of judges … yeah right, I have no idea what it is really about.
    Sitting Democrats ran ads saying they never said that they wanted to ‘Defund the Police’.
    I have to renew my Drivers License today, which I’ve had for 30 years, and I must show up without about 5 forms of ID, Birth Cert and Passport.
    I spent about 300$ making sure I have the necessary papers.
    Were I here illegally I could get a DL without any ID.
    My city is beginning a program to pay young thugs BUI if the don’t commit crimes.
    My local grocery chain is outrageously expensive and they actually ask you when checking out if you would like to donate to the State Food Bank.
    Kari Lake was the big new future threat and viola, we see what’s happening there.
    My mistake is momentary naivete that the status quo is not permanent.
    The confusion was caused by the players changing costume.
    The McCarthyites of my youth are now the ones in the outfits with a big D on their chest.
    It’s now the Schifftiites.
    And you’re out of sync if you’re not a Comm … and there are MAGA infiltrators everywhere.
    Might be good to learn more about cold weather survival and insect recipes.

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    Saighdear

    SMART meters? who in their right mind would have one?
    Despite all the talk against them, there are still enough folk falling for the scam – call it an electricity shortfall vaccine. Now it appears from news reports that many thousands of folk are being cut off remotely without permission and put onto a Pay-as-you-Go system. Now, I believe that generally PAYG Meters have been pay in advance moneymakers for the power companies. Don’t tell me that all those PAYG meters cost more than the standard meters ( over their lifetime and as part of Infrastructure ), yet the poor or financially challenged whilst paying in advance, should be getting a DISCOUNT for prepayment. Doesn’t the real business world operate like that – Pay now, deliver later for extra discount ?
    So those smart folk: are they paying MORE for electricity in advance than those on credit terms ? Look Out and be aware.

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    Website Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63554879

    Energy firms remotely swap homes to prepay meters

    It’s from the BBC, in the UK, so it must be true.
    “A rising number of households are having their energy smart meters remotely switched to prepayment meters, the energy regulator has said. Energy firms can use the technology to swap customers who are in debt to the more costly plan without permission.”
    Can’t afford the current rates?
    We’ll swap you to more expensive ones!
    Another feature of the ‘smart’ meters that not many people knew about, I bet.
    I certainly didn’t.

    Auto

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    John Hultquist

    I’ve written a couple of comments since this time last year about Covid issues with regard to the mis-adventures of medical types, media, and amateurs.
    There is concept called the base rate fallacy that has been linked to some of the odd outcomes being reported. My limited exposure to statistics does not help me evaluate much of this. However, I understand enough that I have the impression that much of what is being reported has issues related to this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

    I await a definitive study.

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      Gee Aye

      What specific aspect are you referring to? Some studies could be trivially easy. For example covid testing by PCR or RAT.

      For PCR, hundreds of thousands of tests were performed across jurisdictions where covid was not prevalent, many tests were done on people without symptoms, and no positives were found. Public health people know about this fallacy so when incidence rate is known to be low, extra checks are done on unexpected positive results such as retesting and in house technical evaluations. Thus false positives can be discounted with this knowledge (in effect they are not false since the testing is part of the methodology to determine a positive).

      RATs were different. RATs have a high false positive and negative rate but tests are not meant to be done on people without symptoms and are only done in populations with a high prevalence of the disease. This means that the pool being tested has a high base rate of real positives so that the residual false positives are very low – becoming lower since some re-test using PCR.

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        Leo G

        Public health people know about this fallacy so when incidence rate is known to be low, extra checks are done on unexpected positive results

        Indeed. At one stage during the pandemic Australian PCR tests samples were split and tested separately to further improve the reliability of those tests, and to verify expected false positive and false negative rates.

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    Saighdear

    from Germanski TV this now:
    1 WindNills & Birdies: Germany needs x3 more Herons to stand around to meet their obligations. Hardly one wee birdie was killed at one or t’other windpark but the owner has developed a device to see any birds coming close by. OK so far. But GUESS what happens next: the Windmill is slowed down to a stop. As Tony from Oz tells us about Energy generation and Momentum in the system, too many Mills getting braked like this, would, I imagine, cause havoc in the System. Maybe it’s a good job that these Mills are not in an existing Migration route. But then due to climate change, no doubt the birds will be changing their route. …
    2.Zelenski gets acting award ! ? really. …

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    David Maddison

    This news is from a couple of weeks ago.

    The world’s dirtiest man passed away.

    He hadn’t bathed for 50 years but he was finally persuaded to bath after which he died a short time later.

    He always thought bathing would kill him.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/25/worlds-dirtiest-man-dies-in-iran-at-94-a-few-months-after-first-wash

    World’s dirtiest man’ dies in Iran at 94 a few months after first wash

    ‘Amou Haji’, who did not bathe for half a century, reportedly ate roadkill and smoked pipe filled with animal excrement

    Oliver Holmes

    Tue 25 Oct 2022

    An Iranian hermit nicknamed the “world’s dirtiest man” for not taking a shower for more than half a century has died at the healthy old age of 94, state media has reported.

    Irna news agency reported that “Amou Haji”, an endearing nickname for an elderly person, died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars.

    Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years. Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash.

    SEE LINK FOR REST

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      Saighdear

      Yes I saw that then, and was really annoyed that the UK TV news-show ppl thought it was just such a larff. Poor man, to think that he became famous but that people then laughed at him. Maybe he should have been admired for his steadfast resolution NOT to “wash”. and as for the roadkill …. well, why waste it if its fresh enough. ( not quite my thing – Pulped flesh & Bones mixed – as in pheasants and rabbits ). But scientifically , he probably developed a Skin Flora & fauna of beneficial microbes to protect him. and nobody told us WHY he washed ….. just saying. may he RIP. Let all those Gang Green Blob commit themselves to wha tthey preach and not use oil-based glues and Dyes and Oil-derived metal rings n studs, etc. not even cosidering the oil to provide and deliver their food of whatever typed it id.
      Hullz Ballz! we see those underground / wallside vegetable ( but they don’t call them vegetables) farms, growing on soil-less media with artificial light & Heat. What now when energy is to be expensive or scarce ?

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      another ian

      A local character from times past, when offered some soap –

      “No soap! Never use soap. Bad for the “heyes” “

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    David Maddison

    It is hypothesised that the first radio signal transmitted at a high enough frequency to leave the ionosphere (and not be reflected back) and at a high enough power, and thus have the potential (perhaps) of being seen by other alien intelligent civilisations, may be the leader of the National Socialists speaking on TV from the 1936 Olympics.

    Carl Sagan mentioned the idea in his novel “Contact”.

    What will the aliens think!

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    David Maddison

    It’s tragic the US seems incapable of designing an election system that is free from fraud.

    In contrast, Australia’s electoral system is quite good (although by no means perfect, as the Labor Party says to their members, vote early and vote often).

    It is also extraordinary that various state legislatures in the US have passed laws allowing improperly identified or unqualified people to vote. Such laws are a blatant attack on the United States – and it is always the DemocRATs passing these laws.

    It is the racist DemocRATs, the party that supported slavery, that passed those laws because they think minorities are too stupid to properly identify themselves, write a repeatable signature or properly enrol to vote, etc..

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      John Connor II

      There is one and a clever one at that.

      The best form of government I have ever seen was that of Genoa where the Doge (president) rotated annually amount the wealthy families. This was before Marxism. There was no social warfare. They ran Genoa more like a company competing against Venice and Florence. Because the Doge rotated, nobody would pass a law that was draconian since they would have to live under that law the following years and it would be more than a decade before the wheel would return to their family.

      via Martin Armstrong

      That is precisely what is needed, so who’s up to form the new Genoa-Oz party?

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    David Maddison

    Anyone who thinks solar panels and electric cars are so wonderful, you might want to go through the exercise of calculating how many domestic rooftop solar panels and associated batteries are required to charge your EV in any reasonable amount of time. The same applies to solar panels and batteries located at central locations, or indeed windmills.

    I know an extremely rich and quite famous individual and he has attempted to install enough domestic solar panels to charge his EV, and it is even impractical for him, unless he wants to install his own solar farm with many hundreds of panels.

    We continue to need coal, gas, or in mature countries (not Australia), nuclear power to charge electric cars.

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      Ronin

      “I know an extremely rich and quite famous individual and he has attempted to install enough domestic solar panels to charge his EV, and it is even impractical for him, unless he wants to install his own solar farm with many hundreds of panels.”

      Wouldn’t be Dick Smith would it.

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      Robber

      If you have a large EV with a 90 kWh battery, your standard home power point can deliver 240 volts and 10 amps, so 2.4 kW per hour, or at 20 amps, 4.8 kW per hour will still take over 18 hours for a full charge. A fast charger with 400 volts and 40 amps will still take 5 hours.

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    David Maddison

    No surprise here.

    Get woke, go broke.

    The waste should be burned to generate power in low pollution incinerators as is done in proper countries. (Carbon dioxide emissions irrelevant and not pollution.)

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/coles-woolworths-recycling-scheme-collapses-after-secret-stockpiles-revealed-20221107-p5bw9q.html

    Coles, Woolworths recycling scheme collapses after secret stockpiles revealed

    By Chris Vedelago and James Dowling
    November 8, 2022 —

    Australia’s largest plastic bag recycling program has collapsed amid revelations hundreds of millions of bags and other soft plastic items dropped off by customers at Coles and Woolworths are being secretly stockpiled in warehouses and not recycled.

    Instead of being taken to companies that use the plastic to make other items, REDcycle has been transporting the plastic to warehouses for long-term storage in what some experts consider a potential environmental and fire safety risk.

    SEE LINK FOR REST

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      Earl

      I worked for a subset of one of these eco-warrior groups.The date for the phase out of the free plastic shopping bags was fast approaching and for some inexplicable and counter intuitive reason someone at head office had brainwaved the idea of a weekend of free give away for all purchases over $20…. The free give away was one of those (flimsy and cheap) plastic drink bottles. Never did see the logic in that one.

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      Chad

      Instead of being taken to companies that use the plastic to make other items, REDcycle has been transporting the plastic to warehouses for long-term storage…….

      REDcycle are the collection operator.
      My understanding from rreports is that in order to keep the scheme running, REDcycle had no option but to store the material as the processers who were using the recycled plastic to make new materials, ( timber substutes, furniture, road surface, etc,..) , have dramatically cut back or completely stopped production due to lack of demand ?
      They could not continue storage indefinitely, so have halted the scheme.
      Odd really,.. there must be enough potholes in the roads to swallow every piece of plastic in storage..and more !

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      Ronin

      Just another tryhard brain fart that didn’t work.

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    Geoffrey Williams

    ‘Nett zero emissions’ . . So what does this mean ?
    I have been trying to get my mind around this idea for a few days now.
    It came up last night at a meeting I was attending. The local mayor of our area was asked about e-cars and of course nett zero emissions. He replied and of course expressed his support for the idea and explained that at the council they were busy installing new power points for e-cars. All the people attending, young and old, were mad for e-cars a nett zero emissions. So, I wasn’t going to get into the debate, but this morning I just looked up the meaning of nett zero.
    Most sites try to simplify the matter by talking about a bath of water whereby the the inflow of water is adjusted to equal the outflow and so the level in the bathtub is stabalised and all is well. Clearly a gross simplification for the simple minded.
    Any thoughts out there on this silly reasoning and what could I have said at this meeting to convince a bunch of green zealots of their foolish beliefs . .

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      Graeme No.3

      Maybe point out that the Council shouldn’t be financing those rich enough to afford EV’s, so how much were they going to charge?
      It’s a waste of time trying to convince green zealots; they just want other people’s money.

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    another ian

    “As Wednesday Dawns….”

    “It is done.

    Now we find out whether politics is indeed the peaceful version of physical war or that barrier is, at least in the United States, gone.”

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247384

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      another ian

      Way back in BC I found a reference that implied that the US had contributed to our electoral system – which was a hell of a suprise!

      So I went and found the reference and found it was the other way – way back when the US had borrowed from ours. IIRC it was in the 1920’s and what it was would be IIRC. I don’t have that reference either.

      By that item above might be time they had another serious look.

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    another ian

    Less than happiness in cryptoworld?

    “WTFTX?”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/11/09/wtftx/

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    KP

    ” Journalism professionals generally consider Musk’s concept of elevating “citizen journalists” dangerous because it ignores the need for standards, including fact-checking, that responsible news organisations enforce.”

    Lol!! These are the reprehensible ratbags who do nothing but copy & paste Govt propaganda and go out of their way to lie on their “fact-checking” columns.

    Trust in mainstream journalists must be close to the medical professionals, the politicians and the used car salesmen, but they are too egotistical to see it!

    https://www.smh.com.au/technology/twitter-will-do-lots-of-dumb-things-musk-warns-after-latest-erratic-move-20221110-p5bx2x.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true

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