|
|
Saturday Open Thread
9.9 out of 10 based on 13 ratings
|
JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
|
Given:
1/ The level of worldwide debt
2/ The spiralling power prices combined with the coming widespread outages across the western world
3/ The determination of all western governments to destroy not only small business but all primary industries
4/ The unfettered growth of the public service everywhere, with an explosion of “bullshit jobs”
Can any economists out there explain how we may not be headed for the mother of all recessions?
260
I think economic collapse is inevitable with governments spending without limit and more net wealth consumers than net wealth producers.
Peter Van Onselen stated in The Australian 7 May 2016:
“How is it fair that half of all workers pay no net income tax?”
Maurice Newman in The Australian on 29 April 2016 also stated:
“According to Australian National University researcher Ben Phillips, only 43 % of the adult population excluding public sector workers are net taxpayers, meaning more than 50 % of voters rely fully on political patronage for their income.”
Also, look at the Australian Debt Clock and weep, especially the figure for total government debt, (federal, state and local) as it spins around in near real time.
https://australiandebtclock.com.au/
Australians are generally now selfish and clueless and addicted to “free stuff” at the expense of their fellow taxpayer.
190
Part of the problem is the enormous – and growing – public service. While they appear to pay income tax, they’re just handing back money they got from the government in the first place, so in a sense it doesn’t count.
If these public service employees are included in the income tax receipts then the real number of workers ADDING to the government’s coffers is even lower.
100
Sorry, have now engaged cognitive function and realised that public sector employees aren’t included.
50
How is it fair that public service employees pay no real taxes?
Paid from private sector tax revenue by government and some returned as taxes but not new tax revenue.
80
I think we’re headed for the Mother of All Resets.
Something more akin to a First Coming.
“3/ The determination of all western governments to destroy not only small business but all primary industries”
Certainly did that to moi.*
Like farming in the Netherlands? (Which is supposed be underwater by now.)
Great Leap Forward Redux?
Our has the Dark One launched His/Her/They’s rebellion?
*I just this week interacted with a small subsistence business person like myself. I was struck by the fact that he was weirdly dysfunctional, Lost. Shell shocked. It was like running into another refugee on the road to Damascus. I’m sure there’s lots of Dutch farmers staring sleeplessly at the ceiling thinking … WTF?
I know I am.
100
When I moved to France, I was surprised to learn that French farmers and rural youths were, and are committing suicide at an alarming rate. Until then, in my ignorance, I thought this may have been an Australian phenomenon, but sadly, it is not.
90
Incredibly sad and totally unnecessary for people like yourself to be put in these positions.
10
Among all the gloom and doom, it is nice to have something good to think about.
The March Equinox will be Monday, March 20, 2023 at 21:24 UTC.
For me it will be 2:24 pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Time). This is the time of year when the vertical ray of the Sun (subsolar point) is most rapidly sweeping northward and transferring energy into near surface water of the Great Pacific Ocean. This is the source of El Niño warming and some believe there will be an episode in 2023.
Today (Friday here) was very nice and migratory birds are heading North. Near me, a Sandhill Crane Festival will be held on March 24-26, 2023.
https://www.othellosandhillcranefestival.org/the-festival
Cliff Mass has a post on radar “returns” of the birds as they go north.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/03/massive-migration-occurring-aloft-and.html
110
So that’ll be 32:24 here, 8:24 Tuesday.
Then starts the countdown to Easter, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox.
We don’t have those mass migrations of birds here. I once read that Bass and Flinders reported during their pioneering circumnavigation of Australia in a rowboat a column of birds as thick as they could fly which took all day to pass.
I once stopped counting at 30,000 a lot of flying foxes we call them, fruit bats, over about an hour late one afternoon. I didn’t see the leaders and they were still coming in lesser numbers when I stopped counting. That was probably a daily event. On their way to devastate somebody’s orchard.
20
They settle in the trees of the Wingham Brush but not as many as there once was. During 2019 dry a lot perished. Before that they would set off in the gloom of dusk in 5 separate columns as each went to it’s preferred delicatessen. The place stunk and the weight of resting bats would cause large branches to collapse.
10
Renewable Fail: Britain to Now Class Nuclear Power as “Sustainable Energy”
Essay by Eric Worrall
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/16/renewable-fail-uk-to-now-class-nuclear-power-as-sustainable-energy/
91
Bet the Australian media already have a large broom ready to sweep this article under the green Climate Change carpet!
Can’t let the public see this & more importantly don’t let our energy minister see lt!
90
A Rolls Royce led Consortium is already on the case with Small Modular Reactors.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/
90
Well it may be a VERY specialized case….
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/03/17/2143239/uk-backs-rolls-royce-project-to-build-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon
Can we hope for some unintended serendipity?
10
I’m all for nuclear power but this just lets the Left get away with the lie that CO2 is a problem and they will still seek to ban fossil fuels such as liquid fuels for transportation or gas for heating or even your barbeque.
110
This is much more significant than it seems. Britain copied the very successful robbery law from Australia, where fake certificates force you to pay twice for dirty energy with the extra money going to windmills for nothing. This doubled prices and ensured non ‘approved’ baseload energy sources were punished and driven out of business. That way the swamp in Canberra could pass a law against carbon without mentioning carbon. They just made a list of ‘non approved’ energy sources. There was no ‘carbon tax’ law as ‘carbon’ was not mentioned in the act and the money did not go to the government as a tax must. This remains government enforced robbery. And the swamp in Whitehall copied it.
What it means though is that nuclear electricity is now considered ‘Green’ because it’s not on the list. And that changes the game completely. No one can accuse nuclear of being terrible pollution like CO2. The nuclear lobby insists that radioactive power generation has ‘zero emissions’. Ha. Ha. The Greens are cooked by their own device as the only emission they care about is deadly CO2.
110
Oxfam’s ‘Inclusivity’ Guide Tells Staff Not To Use ‘Offensive’ Words Like ‘Mother’
Oxfam has issued staff with a “bizarre” new “inclusive” language guide that warns against using a whole slew of normal words like “headquarters,” “local,” “people,” and “mother”.
The global poverty and hunger charity has been slammed for caving to absurd levels of political correctness.
The word “headquarters” is criticized because it “implies a colonial power dynamic,” while “field trip” is also frowned upon because it can “reinforce colonial attitudes.”
https://summit.news/2023/03/17/oxfam-inclusivity-guide-tells-staff-to-avoid-using-offensive-words-like-mother-people-and-headquarters/
Go woke = no donations or support!
Banning “mother” creates a quandary for my favourite cojoined words. Maybe use Biden instead.🤣
130
I have developed the attitude that one should give to local groups rather than the large agencies. For example, investigate your local search & rescue groups. Some are volunteers that coordinate with police and/or medical agencies. As an example, I gave to a group that has search dogs after talking with the leader about the needs they have. Local school groups may need some help. There are many such, and small amounts can make a big difference to them. (Jo falls into this category.)
Most people cannot give enough to make a blip in the budget of OxFam or WWF, and too much money is spent asking for more.
150
I’m sure it’s not just me, but it grates to see those endless ads on tv from you-know-who groups asking for money to fix the “climate crisis”.
Pawn Stars meme: “Best I can do is a wake-up email pointing out the error of your beliefs”
I will donate to help Jo fix those broken tag buttons though. It’s getting annoying.😉
50
I read somewhere (haven’t checked veracity) that the document in question also bags the UK in some way for it’s colonising activities hundreds of years ago. If that is indeed the case, Oxfam should lose its charitable status in the UK. There has to be consequences for attacking the very country in which you operate.
30
Is ‘Oxfam’ itself acceptable? The most common meaning of Ox is a castrated bull. That’s not inclusive, surely. Although I suspect that if these politically correct people could castrate everyone else they would, without so much as a second thought.
30
Oxfam is on my list of dirty charities along with WWF and World Vision.
I will never donate to them.
Sea Shepherd was added to the list when DR Bob Brown got involved.
10
On world temperature, I noted a report from Lake Tahoe.
“In March, the birds usually begin appearing in Emerald Bay, Calif., as the days get longer and the temperature creeps up, melting the snow that feeds the creeks — the first tantalizing signs of spring. But this month, the bay, on the western shores of Lake Tahoe, has instead been frigid, stark and silent.
In fact, it froze over.”
It may be the first time in three decades that the bay has frozen to this extent, according to California State Parks. The last time appears to have been in the early 1990s”
And that rang a bell. Prof Carl Otto Weiss (2:17) who so perfectly fitted the last 250 years of European temperature had a final peak around 2005. And 2023 should roughly equal 1990.
It fits perfectly. A frozen lake is a far better indicator of long term low temperatures than any mathematically processing of temperatures.
I wonder how long it will take for the IPCC to admit Prof Weiss’ graph is precision prediction as well as perfect modelling of the past. Without CO2 at all. And average temperatures will have dropped 1C. The 1990s warming has all vanished.
That’s all folks!
100
Ah but remember, ALL weather events are now irrefutable evidence of AGW – hot, cold, windy, calm, wet, dry, whatever.
It seems that, before the petrol engine was invented, Earth had no weather.
110
Well will Tucker get nailed for this?
https://youtu.be/-Hw3yf1O9Zk
50
All amazingly quoted statements of imminent doom from another Ice Age, to drowning the planet, Chicken Little predictions from Leonard Nimoy to Joe Biden and John Kerry. Almost none scientists. All proven wrong. He has actually said nothing. Except at the end “It’s not about controlling the weather. It’s about controlling us”. He’s right.
De Grasse Tyson though was a puzzle. An astrophysicist he was alarmist but only said what is true. If the polar caps melted, the water would be most of the way up the Statues of Liberty.
Except that he should know that if the North Pole ice cap melted, there would be no change at all. That’s floating ice.
Sure if Antarctia melted, yes, but it’s a 3.5km thick ice block the size of North America, -25C in summer and -50C in winter. That’s not going anywhere soon with 1.5C air warming somewhere else. So why did he say it?
130
So why did he say it?
He probably had a research grant pending.
71
All those old sailors wrecked at sea must have been hopeless sailors. Fancy wrecking your boat in perfect weather.
71
I wish the average Australian understood that the more “free stuff” you get, the more taxes you pay and/or the more massive the government (I.e. tax payer) debt becomes.
80
Debt isn’t an issue at all anymore. The USA just raised the so-called debt ceiling without any hesitation. The west is drunk on its spoils and has a gold coloured credit card.
60
though I do notice increasing taxes seems to be coming back into vogue as they look at the debt figures so they don’t completely ignore it.
30
James Turk says the US$ will collapse this year.
https://kingworldnews.com/james-turk-3-18-2023/
That OK, but what will it “collapse” against? Certainly not the €, J¥, C¥ or ₽. I’m a gold bug but even I don’t believe gold will sky rocket. The Arab oil states may do well but that hardly matters, in the end they will be price takers when the rest of us can no longer pay “whatever it takes”.
30
My favorite quote from Margaret Thatcher.
Now the government has to tax us more to pay for the money they have spent.
81
I just realized …
after a youth of Walter Cronkite, and countless hours of NPR (which now makes me ill if I am accidently exposed to a single minute) …
my most trusted news source is an Australian lady.
I also realized that my disgust with NPR and the rest of MSM is coincidental with that GEC thingy.
Or maybe not.
80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSsfZhXYpfI
00
the most interesting part of the commentary (at least in my biased opinion) was
Solar panels are made in China using electric power costing US$0.04/kWh. Under ideal conditions in the West Australian desert those same panels produce power at a price equivalent to power produced from diesel generators at $0.21/kWh.
If you use electricity during the daylight hours and own the property, perhaps it would be a good idea to put some on the roof while they are “cheap”.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/07/submission-to-the-senate-inquiry-into-australias-transition-to-a-green-energy-superpower/
20
Experts Tell Congress ‘Green’ Wind Turbines in Atlantic May Impair Ship Radar, Threatening National Security
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2023/03/17/experts-tell-congress-green-wind-turbines-in-atlantic-may-impair-ship-radar-threatening-national-security/
50
Article on Europe’s Remix News website:
Is Warsaw about to ration travel, meat, and dairy?
An excerpt:
The researchers propose a limit of 16 kilograms of meat per annum for every person. An average Pole currently consumes 70 kilograms of meat per annum.
The report also recommends a big reduction in the consumption of dairy products. While an average Pole currently consumes 200 kilograms of dairy products every year, the new limit would be 90 kilograms.
The proposed reductions also cover air flights. It is recommended that one person should take a return flight just once every two years, but mobility is to be reduced within cities too. It is recommended that the number of cars should fall to 190 for every 1,000 inhabitants. In Poland, the level currently is 600 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants. It is also recommended that cars should last at least 20 years.
60
“It is also recommended that cars should last at least 20 years.”
So they are sticking with ICE vehicles… probably the one sensible thing in the hole lot of far-left nonsense.
The people will soon be revolting!
40
My 32 year old ute is jealous….
It wants that back 12 years of retirement
20
I posted this on
“The Galician genocide: How Russian identity was wiped out in what is now Western Ukraine” ” as Friday Open #15.
FWIW there is a wider look at “The history of the destruction of the Russian Galicia” on veteranstoday . com –
Seems to draw the moderation crabs if posted conventionally
20
Powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake strikes Ecuador. – USGS
The USGS issued an Orange alert for shaking-related fatalities. Significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread. Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response.
918 000 people are estimated to have very strong shaking, 5 307 000 strong, and 2 252 000 moderate.
https://twitter.com/UpwardNewsHQ/status/1637142207713951744
Who’d have forseen that! 😁
20
https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/ecuador-earthquake-kills-at-least-12-people-causes-widespread-damage-20230319-p5ctb8.html
Reports 14 dead (may rise).
Earthquake reported centred about 50 miles off-shore from Guayaquil (second biggest city).
10