JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y35qz73n8o#comments
“UK to finish with coal power after 142 years”
A typical BBC story – tells almost half the story.
The comments section has been prolific – well over 2000 comments, not a few from folk who – incomprehensibly, if one ignores the brainwashing of the last 30 years or so – think this is good – for ‘An island of Coal, Surrounded by Fish’ as one [Labour?] Pollie put is seventy or eighty years ago.
Some comments have a more realistic view – the UK is now at the mercy of those – like France – who can choose to supply us with power. Historically, relying on France has a somewhat mixed record, of course.
Some of the commenters seem very sensible – that this is a big mistake – it won’t take much to cause blackout, nuclear should have been pushed, Miliband should be sacked, etc. etc.
I haven’t read, even skimmed, even 20% of the comment – so they may be some gems there.
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I listened to the 09:00 news on BBC Radio 4 and the irony made me laugh out loud. First item was closing the last coal fired power station. The second item was changing the Port Talbot steel works to ‘clean’ energy with the loss of 2000 jobs (and a 500 million bung from us taxpayers). The third item was UK growth was only 0.5% in the quarter.
So get rid of coal, which leads to 2000 job losses and a 500 million on-cost, followed by ‘growth only 0.5%’, possibly caused by humungous energy costs , who could have foreseen that?
If only the BBC could join the dots.
570
“The second item was changing the Port Talbot steel works to ‘clean’ energy with the loss of 2000 jobs (and a 500 million bung from us taxpayers).”
I know you weren’t really laughing of course, but I have to stop myself using that phrase to describe modern politics because we’re way past the point when any of it could be called ‘funny’, even ironically. These decisions are going to cause massive hardship in the not-so-distant future, when pollies bad policies become OUR problem. Even if those responsible were prosecuted and jailed (which of course they won’t) it will be cold comfort watching them convicted while poverty reigns all around us.
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The steel formerly produced at Port Talbot is now to be made in India at a brand new COAL BURNING factory.
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Nuclear is being pushed in the UK as it should be here in Australia,
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I strongly disagree that the nuclear rort should be introduced in Australia while we have hundreds of years of known coal reserves.
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I am so old …
That I remember when a 2013 audience of Q&A cheered the death of Margret Thatcher for crushing the UK’s Mine Workers Union strike from way back in 1984-85.
Fast forward (just 11 years) and these Mine Workers literally have no jobs…
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But how many people realise that was ground zero for the environmental movement?
/anyone?
100
Good riddance. There are far more efficient and less polluting ways to generate electricity.
095
What did you have in mind, Simon?
360
What mind?
All that’s happening with Simon is that he is demonstrating that modern humans can be easily moulded according to the designs of the UNIPCCCS, the WEF and WHO.
It’s 2024 and the serfs must bow to their Controllers.
Merry Christmas.
400
Wow !… that 60+ red thumb score must be close to a record ?
Well done Simon, ..maybe you can learn something from that ?
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The most efficient and cheapest electricity is produced by coal.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
601
Tell Tanya Plebersuck, the Feral Guv’ment Minister that. She thinks it is. In fact to say so is Miss Information which should be censored and prosecuted.
80
Yes and wind and solar are not it.
250
At over twice the cost compared to nuclear, coal and gas over their long lifetimes, inefficient unreliable solar and wind are definitely NOT able to provide the 99.998% network reliability that we have come to expect from our grid systems. Also, since there is no other currently-suitable backup storage, the cost of using short-lifetime batteries would mean that each Australian household would have to contribute over $130,000 every 10-15 years, a clearly impossible task.
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It appears the Chinese don’t agree.
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Nor do the Indians.
160
Well, Simon,
Are you going to answer Pete C?
C’mon maaaaate, rack your brain..
People are waiting.
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But not holding our breath.
20
That’s one of the best jokes I’ve heard this year Simon.
I’m still laughing😜
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What about producing steel?
30
How will the clowns run their massive data centres.
240
The data centres will I’m sure get their power somehow. Humans might not.
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PACE hearing on Julian Assange’s detention and conviction and their chilling effects on human rights
Live in 15 hours
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq85IZMeigc
https://pace.coe.int/en/news/9600/julian-assange-to-attend-a-pace-hearing-in-strasbourg-on-his-detention-and-conviction-and-their-chilling-effect-on-human-rights?__cf_chl_tk=4D5Iwjg5Na2pAC7gSs9xXA8AJ.fQ54G4334yhbQQqG0-1727709586-0.0.1.1-6057
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https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1838609231681065144
PRESS RELEASE:
Julian Assange to Address Council of Europe Following Confirmation of his Status as a Political Prisoner
On October 1, Julian Assange will arrive in Strasbourg to give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) which is scheduled to meet from 8.30am to 10am at the Palace of Europe.
This comes following the release of the PACE inquiry report into the Assange case, authored by Rapporteur Thórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir. The report focuses on the implications of his detention and its broader effects on human rights, in particular freedom of journalism. The report confirms that Assange qualifies as a political prisoner and calls on the UK conduct an independent review into whether he was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.
Sunna Ævarsdóttir serves as the General Rapporteur for Political Prisoners and is the Chair of the Sub-Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights within PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee. She emphasises how Assange’s case is a high profile example of transnational repression. The report discusses how governments employ both legal and extralegal measures to suppress dissent across borders, which poses significant threats to press freedom and human rights.
Julian Assange is still in recovery following his release from prison in June 2024. He is attending this session in person due to the exceptional nature of the invitation and to embrace the support received from PACE and its delegates over the past years. PACE has a mandate to safeguard human rights and has repeatedly called for Julian Assange’s release when he was in prison.
He will give testimony before the committee, which will also hear the findings that his imprisonment was politically motivated.
The hearing marks Assange’s first official testimony on his case since before his imprisonment in 2019. His appearance before Europe’s foremost human rights and treaty-setting body emphasises the broader implications of his case.
https://pace.coe.int/en/news/9578/committee-expresses-deep-concern-at-harsh-treatment-of-julian-assange-warns-of-its-chilling-effect-for-the-press
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Although the Julian Assange case appears to map along freedom of speech lines, which tallies with the case against the proposed Misinformation Bill in Australia, I don’t agree with what Julian Assange did. The world is far from perfect, and governments do have information for which secrecy is a legitimate national requirement. Even in peacetime countries have enemies, and the western democracies have some particularly nasty active enemies. Release of covert government information of particular value to the enemies of democracy is not in the public’s interest. By not discriminating between public interest and government intelligence, and particularly by not recognising the value of some of the information to enemies of democracy, Julian Assange did his country and their allies a serious disservice.
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It is a false allegation…
Assange did exactly what the publisher of the New York Times did except he published documents that were not top secret.
In 2013, the Obama DOJ concluded that it could not prosecute Assange in connection with the publication of those documents because there was no way to distinguish what WikiLeaks did from what the New York Times, The Guardian, and numerous media outlets around the world routinely do: namely, work with sources to publish classified documents.
The Obama DOJ tried for years to find evidence to justify a claim that Assange did more than act as a journalist — that he, for instance, illegally worked with Manning to steal the documents — but found nothing to justify that accusation
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I didn’t claim that any specific person was harmed. Mine was a quite different argument.
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“governments do have information for which secrecy is a legitimate national requirement.”
I have yet to find any! Govt secrecy is because they wish to do things to harm others or enrich themselves, and I haven’t found anything to dissuade me. We would have a lot fewer enemies if our Govts had no secrets, and a far more just society.
After all, we pay for their service, we should have access to all their actions. A strong citizenship is the only defence against enemies anywhere, secrecy by those who lord over us destroys that.
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It sounds so highbrow-intellectual to suggest that our governments have no need for any secrets, and that everything should be made public, and society would be better off.
But it’s incredibly naive. Western governments and their various defence organisations have many, many reasons to retain secret and confidential information.
Imagine, for example, if it were public information that Israel had installed detonating devices in Hezbollah pagers? How would that exercise have worked out? So you think that should not have been secret?
And what about China? Are they going to make all their military and CCP information public knowledge?
And I thought that level of naivete was just the dominion of leftists…
Whatever you might think of Assange, he was not a journalist. He was a simple fool who played with fire, not realising that it was hot.
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“And what about China? Are they going to make all their military and CCP information public knowledge?”
So we sink to their level to compete with them?? That sounds like ‘Never argue with a stupid person because they will drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience’.
What you are suggesting is that there will never be an open society and humanity will always be at war, all because a handful of people are addicted to power and money. A dismal view of the world, leading to the censorship we are now going under, and this report-
“The Australian political-media class have been in an uproar ever since footage surfaced of people waving Hezbollah flags at a protest in Melbourne over the weekend and displaying pictures of the group’s deceased leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel in a massive airstrike on Friday. Victoria police are now saying they have identified six potentially criminal incidents related to the demonstration. These incidents reportedly involve “prohibited symbols” in violation of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment which was enacted last year. ”
And Half-Penny gets it all Wong saying her democratic countrymen must not give ‘any indication of support’ so please self-correct your wrong-think and support the OTHER terrorists that your Govt will force you to.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/10/01/australian-officials-push-authoritarian-crackdown-on-pro-hezbollah-speech/
I can imagine a lot more about peace and self-responsibility, generally not naive and definitely not involving Govts. You now have a future under the Govt you want, I hope you enjoy suffering under it.
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Secrets which are withheld from it’s citizen are in MOST cases NOT really to protect US,but to protect THEM(the politicians and public serpents)from US.
20
Torturing prisoners is ok then.
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GlenM,
That’s a very puerile point — kind of stock-in-trade for internet arguments.
WikiLeaks supposedly leaked 10 million documents. To make your point properly, you need to show that every one of them served the public good by being published.
Assange was in too much of a hurry to publish. That’s kind of stock-in-trade for the internet too.
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@Robert Swan:
>Assange was in too much of a hurry to publish
I fail to see how that can be characterised as being “in too much of a hurry to publish”.
31
I didn’t really have an opinion either way on Assange. However, I found this quote he forwarded at a court hearing in his early twenties. It’s quite prescient really in terms of how so many people recently have chosen to “slavishly follow the state”.
From Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle: “To feel that home is the camaraderie of persecuted, and in fact, prosecuted, polymaths in a Stalinist slave labour camp! How close the parallels to my own adventures! … Such prosecution in youth is a defining peak experience. To know the state for what it really is! To see through that veneer the educated swear to disbelieve in but still slavishly follow with their hearts! … Your belief in the mendacity of the state … begins only with a jackboot at the door. True belief forms when led into the dock and referred to in the third person. True belief is when a distant voice booms ‘the prisoner shall now rise’ and no one else in the room stands.”
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Reminds me of early on in COVID someone said ‘what are people going to do when they find out this is all a fraud?’ – A. probably the same thing they did when they found out that the security services are involved in human trafficking and the drug trade – shrug, and go ‘oh well’. And here we are….
60
Documents may remain classified for excessively long periods as is illustrated by the fact that the UK still keeps secret the identity of “Jack-the-Ripper”. http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/133038
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And the USA STILL hasn’t published ALL the documents about JFK’s murder.WHY NOT?
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A very long 3 hr 16 min documentary about Neanderthals. Best to watch it in portions or if you can’t sleep.
Everything you need to know about this species or probably subspecies, not wanting to be speciest. Non-African humans did breed with them, after all.
https://youtu.be/NNVA6tl4Im4
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Sounds right up my street. Is it factual, i.e. uncontaminated by progressive thinking?
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DM gets a red thumb for a film about Neanderthals?
No, it’s not a doco about lefties or liberals. 😆
/redthumb looms…
/yum yum, red thumb
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Heh heh, some of your red thumb critics may not be able to fully stand upright. But in time, they’ll get there
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Not out of Africa?
‘Evidence indicates that Neanderthal and Denisovan traits emerge in Eurasia, while Homo sapiens traits emerge in Africa.’ (Australian Museum)
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Apart from the current legislation before parliament in Australia, the e Safety Kommissar already has extensive censorship powers and has been vigorously censoring, a role she enthusiastically spoke to the WEF about, see her videos on YouTube.
Anyway, the following article is from May and the Elon Musk case. It was about a “take down” order she issued against X and Elon Musk who thankfully fought it. It showed a terrorist attack against a priest who himself wanted the footage posted.
Is shows the e Safety Kommissar’s desire for global censorship, the dream of the Left.
A rare case of a wise decision in an Australian court.
SEE LINK FOR REST
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the Australian government has no jurisdiction outside of Australia.
if she wants to file such frivolous cases she should be paying the costs personally.
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Since X Corp does business in Australia, they can be fined under Australian law. They might refuse to pay … and then they would no longer be able to do business in Australia. Maybe this wouldn’t matter.
Rumble decided is was not worth doing business in France, so they geo-blocked the country entirely and stopped accepting and French members, or French advertising.
50
Australian laws don’t apply to people living in jurisdictions outside of Australia.
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” and has been vigorously censoring,”
How do we know.. The Govt apparently censors a large number of websites but doesn’t publish a list, so you never know what’s censored unless you are looking for a specific address. They could censor thousands and we couldn’t tell, or maybe they just had ‘The Media Launch’, set up the Dept of Parasites doing absolutely nothing all day and don’t actually censor anything at all unless some MP moans about it.
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A vision of the disaster which awaits Australia.
“Britain’s final coal-fired power station and its penultimate steel plant shut their doors today, a consequence of the government’s hard push for decarbonisation, even at the cost of affordable energy or an indigenous steel making capacity, crucial for the defence industry.”
“They’re hundreds of miles away from each other but two of the final bastions of the British industrial revolution shut forever today, their respective demises very linked through the slow-burning but very much ongoing British electricity price crisis. Ratcliffe on Soar, once the cutting-edge in coal-fired steam turbine electricity production and the blast furnace at Port Talbot both close on Monday, coincidentally just days after fresh figures show Britain has the most expensive electricity prices in the world by a considerable margin.”
Idiocy is not peculiar to Australia. It starts in the UK.
520
And as in Australia “The power station is now to be pulled down and the land redeveloped, removing any chance of reactivating the plant should a sudden change in the global energy picture again impact supply.”
There’s no going back. The communists have decided. While China is opening a coal fired power station every week, we will be refusing to use the filthy stuff. To save the planet. For whom?
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TdeF, #5.1, Oct 1, 👍🏻
_____I’m still sore at how the Pt Augusta facility, just up the road, was so hurriedly dismembered.
_____It was supposed to step over to gas when the last of the coal had been scraped out.
200
Likewise, I feel angry each time we drive past the site of Hazelwood. It is just a large, horrible, scraped clear, bare earth monstrosity…very environmental I’m sure…
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Is it any wonder China has a HUGE smile on its face?They must be laughing their heads off at the rest of us.
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What’s that haunting, eerie sound I hear carried on the wind – could it be a lone bugler playing ‘The Last Post’…
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Consider too, that these “green” steel plants need much higher grade ore, so at least in South Australia, the iron ore mines in the Middleback Ranges that kept nearby Whyalla smelting, will close, while new mines targeting magnetite are being looked at, but are not in operation yet. they’re also a long way from, well, anywhere, really, no doubt driving up transport costs considerably.
How long before all these increased costs will be used as an excuse to shutter the whole plant, with Sanjeev Gupta walking away with billions from taxpayers…?
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James
“they’re also a long way from, well, anywhere, really, no doubt driving up transport costs considerably.”
But won’t electric railways deliver for – well, we’re told – almost nothing, nine times cheaper then old-fashioned stuff?
[Channelling my inner Miliband there, I fear]
There may be a little matter of building the railway lines from there to – presumably – a port, so all the good ore can be exported to a friendly nation [provided we NEVER question the origins of any snuffles that might – completely erroneously, of course – be said to emanate from the friendly nation’s bioweapons facilities].
But things like building railways – or pylons – are for the little people to manage.
The elites know what’s best – and have decided, with nary the ability to spell ‘science’ …
They have degrees in Politics – not stuff that’s mucky or practical.
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The railway will be made of recycled paper and cardboard – much cheaper than steel.
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My diary has 1 October marked as
International Day Of Older Persons
as well as
World Vegetarian Day.
As UN inventions/conventions, do they know something we don’t: as in old folk won’t be able to afford healthy life-giving meat anymore?
Calendar Climate Crisis kicked-in for us last weekend – takes me a week or so to adjust to the new Daylight Saving regime – while Australia’s clocks will lose an hour next weekend (except QLD & WA?). Mmm, can almost smell that sweet aroma of sizzling steaks & snags & chops on the grill…
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“sizzling steaks & snags & chops on the grill”
International Day Of Older Persons as well as World Vegetarian Day
You have to combine these into dentists party time as world populations age dramatically.
By my estimate 2/3 of the world’s population would not have been alive today with the medical system of 1900. And with the dental system, not enjoying it.
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Hmm, the medical system…
Sixty-seven years ago today, 1 Oct 1957, West Germany released a ‘wonder drug’ tested only on rodents, to relieve pregnant women of morning sickness. Safe and effective, hailed the chemical company which conjured the concoction. Within four years Europe had banned it.
There but for the grace of my mum go I, as she decided to ‘put up’ with the pangs of pregnancy (her 4th) and eat as healthily as she could from the backyard garden (we all grew up on juiced veges and, eventually, meat).
Today, a variation of thalidomide is used for leprosy and HIV: uh-oh, surely not the next safe and effective wonder drug for monkey-pox?
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Greg,
Thanks for the reminder.
History may not repeat – but it can rhyme!
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FWIW –
Explaining problems with federal government response to US hurricane?
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1840637517172768777
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Summary of the misinformation and disinformation bill in less than 10 words:
“The government will decide if your speech is reasonable”
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It has already decided what you can say and what you cannot. And what you have said in the past is actionable.
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I would like to see the Feral Guv’ment stop me from expressing my opinion(s) as part of my right to Free Speech. And very happy to go to prison if need be. A roof over my head and 3 meals a day. Nice. No rent to pay for a while either.
Imagine if everyone rebelled under these new Laws (if ever enacted), the Prison system would collapse within weeks with the jailing of all those rebels (Freedom Fighters). The Courts would be clogged up as well.
Go ahead Albo and see how Social cohesion really works.
180
Maybe you’ll share a cell with a Dylan Mulvaney type…
40
The government takes submissions seriously.
‘The Department has received approximately 20,000 comments. A sample is provided that is representative of the feedback on several key themes including freedom of expression, censorship, definitions, content exclusions and penalties.’ (Infrastructure.gov)
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Nice one Gordo. And you tell your jokes with such a straight face.
60
Dry wit.
50
It would be easier and more comfortable to simply vote for a party that believed in free speech and get the law changed.
Problem is, most Australian don’t seem to care and certainly won’t want to go to jail on principles.
I guess things aren’t bad enough yet.
70
This reminds me of the 9 worst words you can hear someone speak.
” I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
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During Covid, people were happy for the Government to decide what was ‘essential’.
60
During Covid, some people were happy for the Government to decide what was ‘essential’.
Only 4 extra letters …
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More on Kamala Harris from Breitbart. She has absolutely no idea how laws are made and by whom, despite being a Senator and now Vice President of the United States.
And it struck me, that all of her explanations are the same. The tone, the attempt to sound profound, the hand gestures, the silly simplifications as if talking to a child. Kamala has no idea how anything works. And you slowly turn off mentally, assuming she is just not good at explaining things. Without realising that she can’t.
Which reminded me of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in the comedy classic, Dirty Uncle Bertie, where Dad is explaining the facts of life and it slowly dawns on you that the Father has no idea. Kamala is identical. She has spent her life faking it. And she has a team of people trying to make sure she says nothing, a skill she has mastered.
400
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/un-just-adopted-pact-future-which-lays-foundation-new-global-order
While we were kept distracted by a Trump 2.0 election The UN surreptitiously adopted the framework for a WEF/NWO “Family”. We must assume Albo & Co agrees with it although he hasn’t yet commented on it!
240
The human idiocracy singularity – the fusion of multiple society destroying events coalescing on the horizon.
Unreliable power, food, diseases from engineered viruses and vaxxes, totalitarianism, innovation dark ages, communism, wars, mass unemployment…
100
JC –
“Unreliable power, food, diseases from engineered viruses and vaxxes, totalitarianism, innovation dark ages, communism, wars, mass unemployment…”
And with all that, most likely, a reduction in carbon.
As someone says – ‘the carbon they want to reduce is YOU’: no power, no food, and – if they’ve done their job well – no hope: mass deaths.
Let’s hope that they are thoroughly incompetent.
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The other day I heard Plibersuk use the phrase “carbon dioxide pollution”. Why, it’s basically an admission that they’re flat out lying. Media questioning it? Zero. She’ll be saying 0.04% next.
330
Time to take Tanya to Court for promoting Miss Information. Science should easily win that one.
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JR,
Especially if she says it OUTSIDE parliament.
110
“carbon dioxide pollution”
Must be an election coming up, in reality the Minister’s actions speak louder than words.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/sep/24/tanya-plibersek-approves-three-coal-mine-expansions-in-move-criticised-as-the-opposite-of-climate-action
61
Mis/Dis information! Jail her!
80
FWIW – from Nuclear for Australia
“This US Department of Energy report has debunked Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese’s anti-nuclear claims.
Analysis from the US shows that electricity costs are ~30% cheaper with nuclear and renewables in the energy mix!”
https://www.nuclearforaustralia.com/usreport?utm_campaign=us_doe_report_on_nuclear&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nfa
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I surprisingly attended a gathering last evening, on a recommendation of an acquaintance of the ex.
We weren’t sure if it would be woke or woo woo, as both are very prevalent in this area. It turned out to be somewhat enlightening, and started with getting submissions into the misinfo debacle. The main speaker was an academic type who managed to get us very lost in the trees of genetically engineered food, agriculture, vats of food goo, genetic forests; an hour plus, of initiative after program after study, that is about to engulf us. Lots of trees, no forest.
There was a break, before she launched into what is coming for us through the education systems. Basically bureaucrats muscling in on the family, by collecting data, data, data, on every aspect of everybody, so they can save money in the long term, by correcting faulty humans – correct the physical and mental, before they become costly, or criminal. They are just doing it to save us money. How philanthropic. We are talking children doing daily surveys on their life and mental state, complete medical histories, family histories, friendship circles, work histories, daily data of every one, all gathered into one file. ‘Wellness’ is the operative word. Possibly the reason for the drive for data centres? Education is going to focus on social consciousness; children taught to save the planet, individual responsibility to be subservient to the collective. All stuff we know from the Marxist manifesto, but it has filtered down from UNESCO, and is now being actioned by the education systems. Two schools in Victoria are doing daily surveys. At the moment parents can opt out.
I’m seeing this looming tsunami. The ‘ground’ has been prepared (the previously fertile sea bed has been exposed – the individual and small business’ have been largely wiped out, in preparation for the massively funded big government, big business, and big money tsunami to sweep in!)
A lot of it is in the name of saving us from criminal elements. Perhaps someone could do a cost benefit analysis, comparing the costs to humanity, of criminality, or control freaks?
180
I don’t see how the ‘Education system’ is preparing anyone to handle all this data. People are not being prepared to work things out for themselves, and to make individual decisions. I’m pretty sure pharma will do rather well out of it, and computers will just spit out the required dosage.
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Aldous Huxley wrote all about it last century in a little novel by the name of Brave New World.
“It’s time for your daily soma, Mr Curious.”
100
I was just browsing used cars at a Skoda main dealer and clicked on an electric one out of curiousity. Before all the details I got this disclaimer.
“Lithium-ion batteries, of the type used in most electric vehicles (including Skoda electric vehicles) have a restricted lifespan. Battery capacity will reduce over time, with use and charging. Reduction in battery capacity will affect the performance of the vehicle, including the range achievable, and may impact resale value. New car performance figures (including battery capacity and range) may be provided for the purposes of comparison between vehicles. You should not rely on new car performance figures (including battery capacity and range), in relation to used vehicles with older batteries, as they will not reflect used vehicle performance in the real world. For further information on battery degradation/preservation and the Skoda 8 year/100,000 mile battery warranty.”
No wonder the second hand EV market is tanking. It’s like the dealer doesn’t actually want to sell any. Who would part with £40k after reading that!
200
Agreed. But it is useful to consider that combustion cars have the same degradation. The power drops quite substantially over the years. And there are a lot of reasons. And the newer cars get better performance and higher mileage as well. And more gadgets and creature comforts. Plus all the electronic tracking. I had an Alfa 159 Q4. It ran as an APP on Window 7. When they updated the software, they connected the car to Turin, Italy and downloaded the latest software. So they share a lot of the problems these days.
40
I don’t believe that for a moment.
My first hatchback (purchased second hand) … with a carburettor … got 7L per 100k and that was with a few traffic lights (mostly highway driving) and a modern non-hybrid petrol midsize hatchback gets about the same now.
The performance was very consistent over the lifespan of the car, but it did need a tuneup every so often. Modern cars don’t even need tuning so for people who refuse to do maintenance maybe that might explain the difference.
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I think that what you had is by any standards a minimalist car. A four wheeled bicycle with an engine. And a good choice. I doubt you had a need for a dynamometer.
30
Legislation Handbook says:
“Information contained in the explanatory memorandum must be accurate and not misleading”
if anyone has noted any apparent inaccuracies in the explanatory memorandum to the misinformation and disinformation Bill,
please post them here.
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Thousands of Australians were mislead into believing that our government was interested in public consultation.
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Darwin feels the heat and they desperately want to say its the hottest evah.
‘Darwin’s old Post Office weather station, which recorded temperature from 1882 to 1942, contained two Septembers that were warmer than 2024 based in maximum temperature. These were 35.0°C 1882 and 34.4°C in 1889. However, these observations are dubious.
‘Temperatures recorded in the late-1800s are less reliable than those observed with modern equipment and instrument standards. For example, 7 of 12 monthly maximum temperature records in Darwin were set between 1882 and 1892, in the first 11 years of the city’s 143-year period of records.
‘There is a good chance that this month was Darwin’s hottest September on record.’ (Weatherzone)
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If they ‘homogenise’ the records, appropriately, the bureaucrats will get a bonus – bet you!
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30
They didn’t have airconditioners or ‘suburban heat island’ effects back then either.
130
Hi …
I thought I would practice being an Australian Misinformation Outlaw (living on the the lam in the US).
CAGW is a fraud concocted by the UN for social control and to undermine nation state sovereignty.
CO2 could double its’ current level and the climate would be fine. (‘Cause I recall that I learnt from a class at NCSU in the early 70’s.)
It came from a lab.
Masks and social distancing don’t really work.
It is not safe or effective.
Hydroxychloroquine works.
Ivermectin is not just for horses and also works.
Long COVID is as long as my arm.
Anthony Fauci doesn’t represent Science. Neither does Dan Andrews.
Dan Andrews actually represents something else related to horses … as does Czar John Kerry.
The oceans are not boiling.
Seaside real estate prices continue to rise because the sea levels aren’t.
Donald Trump is the greatest POTUS in generations.
Kamala Harris is there only because she is a woman ‘of color’.
(She’s gotten as many primary votes as me.)
The GBR is fine.
Jan6 was not an Insurrection against a government that was founded by Insurrectionists.
(It was intended to defend the 1776 Insurrection.)
The Russian Collusion impeachment was a lie.
The 2020 US POTUS election was stolen.
Is Misinformation just Malinformation that refutes Disinformation?
Asking for a friend.
380
Immoderate?
I identify as moderate.
My pronouns are mod/er/ate.
120
Well written, Sir Moderate!
What’s the transitive pronoun of Sir, is it Siren? Don’t they lure unwary sailors to an early grave? Hmm, maybe I’ll stick with Honk.
I’m sure a representative from your Friendly Authoritarian Govt (GAF back-to-front) will be knocking on your door shortly… have an ice day!
40
More like an insurrection by a government against itself.
60
Hillary Clinton: “Something Will Happen In October” To “Distort And Pervert” Kamala Harris
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of an October surprise that will “distort and pervert” Vice President Kamala Harris. In an interview with ‘Firing Line’ host Margaret Hoover, Clinton complained that the media does not have a “consistent narrative about the danger that Trump poses.”
“There will be concerted efforts to distort and pervert Kamala Harris, who she is, what she stands for, what she’s done,” Clinton said. “I mean, look, I mean, the crazy story about me running a child trafficking operation out of a basement of a pizzeria.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/28/hillary_clinton_something_will_happen_in_october_to_distort_and_pervert_kamala_harris.html
What she stands for and has done?
Still waiting for real answers there.
Time to dump Kumallah like they did with Biden?
An obvious corrupt incompetent ignorant clown that embarrasses herself every time she speaks?
Can’t wait to see what’ll happen.
110
“There will be concerted efforts to distort and pervert Donald Trump, who he is, what he stands for, what he’s done,” Clinton said. “I mean, look, I mean, the crazy Russian dossier about him hiring prostitutes to urinate on each other in a Moscow hotel.”
90
Starting in October, all shops in Norway will be legally required to accept cash payments up to 20,000 kroner.
Norway is set to enforce a sweeping cash acceptance law starting in October 2024, requiring shops to accept cash payments for transactions up to 20,000 kroner (around $1,875). But here’s the warning—while businesses have until January 2025 before fines kick in, those who ignore this law could face substantial penalties. This rule excludes online-only shops and allows temporary exemptions for technical or security concerns, but physical businesses must prepare now.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/starting-in-october-all-shops-in-norway-will-be-legally-required-to-accept-cash-payments-up-to-20000-kroner/
190
It shows the influence of the gangs. The Young-Guns no doubt complained that their take from robberies was down. They need retail stores to hold more cash so each robbery is more productive.
40
And how can they spend their heroin cash on designer watches if the retailer won’t take cash?
Mind 20,000 kroner doesn’t buy a really big fancy sparkly watch these days.
Or even a full set of tyres for a pimp-mobile.
Auto
20
All major U.S. cell carriers experience widespread outages, impacting millions of customers nationwide.
It appears that all major cell carriers in the U.S., including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, have been experiencing service issues recently. Reports indicate that these outages have been affecting users across various regions, particularly on the East Coast.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/all-major-u-s-cell-carriers-experience-widespread-outages-impacting-millions-of-customers-nationwide/
More software updates gone wrong?
Shutdown everything but the Soros news network…
80
Maybe Elon making his case for Starlink.
40
A Reminder of What Nuclear War Would Mean – How Many U.S./European Leaders Know? (video)
30
Could fix Global warming™ but not Climate Change™. Then who would there be left ti care.
The simpler solution is to just defund the UN and let nations get back to working together or not without meddling trivialities.
None of this involves China. If it pans out as shown, China will only need to work out how to survive the fallout. The Southern Hemisphere appears the logical place to go.
Japan has realised that Putin can engage Europe and the USA leaving China to engage Japan. No wonder Japan has ramped up its defence budget.
70
There won’t be a nuclear exchange or a nuclear winter.
Putin only has to detonate that ship off the English coast to get a similar blast without nuclear fallout.
Ukraine is going to win this war without using the allies missiles, they have produced a domestic version which travels further. They used one of these drone missiles on that ammunition dump. Pot calls kettle black.
‘Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated his reason for deploying the army into Ukraine as protecting Russian speakers from a “neo-Nazi dictatorship”, as his forces launched drone and missile attacks in various parts of the neighbouring country.’ (Aljazeera)
11
Windows 11 KB5043145 update causes reboot loops, blue screens
Microsoft warns that some Windows 11 systems enter reboot loops or might freeze with blue screens after installing the September 2024 KB5043145 preview update.
This month’s KB5043145 optional update was released on Thursday with fixes for multiple issues, including Edge and task manager freezes.
One day after this cumulative update rolled out, Redmond added a new known issue to the KB5043145 support document on Friday, confirming that Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2 users might see their computers enter restart loops and, in some cases, become unresponsive.
“After installing this update, some customers have reported that their device restarts multiple times or becomes unresponsive with blue or green screens,” Microsoft said.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-11-kb5043145-update-causes-reboot-loops-blue-screens/
Now that I’m setting up my new Win 11 Pro laptop, I have to say Windows 7 is soooooo much better !
Honestly, W11 sucks in comparison.
The start menu and new layouts are awful, but fixable with the Startallback tweak tool.
Microsoft 365 trial is a pest with its nag screens even though I uninstalled it and bought the full Office Pro Plus suite (for $40!) and installed that. I’ll fix it, just you see.
The C: drive was encrypted by default, which I decrypted and disabled Bitlocker
Disabled Recall.
Disabled all the M$ “experience” fluff.
Disabled all unwanted app notifications.
Uninstalled McAfee and installed Kaspersky.
Loads more tweaking and configuration to make W11 functional.
M$ REALLY wants you to use an M$ account rather than a local one, which I bypassed during setup, but all their apps have reminders.
At least Pro has the Group Policy Editor. Yay!
Yep, the older systems were way better.
93
My brother gave up on Windows 11 and installed Linux.
I’m still on windows 10 and as my PC doesn’t meet the minimum specs for windows 11 it will become a throwaway item. Millions of users are probably going to basically throw away their perfectly usable PCs or donate to some charities who will certainly find uses for them.
Microsoft have really peeved off a large proportion of windows users.
80
Maybe you should have followed your brother??????I’m using Fedora 40 and I can’t fault it.
10
I just don’t get how people immediately associate a hurricane (Hurricane Helene), with climate change when they post crap like this?
https://www.plus613.net/image/82147.
The post was from a Brandon Friedman, if its the same Brandon Friedman, then he is an American writer, entrepreneur and former Obama administration official. He served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, and co-founded Rakkasan Tea Company, a social enterprise that sells teas from post-conflict areas. (Wiki)
I think he’s definitely an expert in climate change, just as much as I am I guess.
It’s a hurricane, it can track inland for quite some distance and I’m quite sure in the past hurricanes have tracked this far inland and probably even further before the advent of man made climate change. A quick web search (https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/science/explainers/hurricanes-dont-stop-at-the-coast-these-mountain-towns-know-how-damaging-flooding-can-be-and-are-watching-helene) certainly shows that this is not a one off!
According to the post hurricanes/tropical depressions never tracked this far inland before we started burning fossil fuels?
So if it floods at Ularu because of a WA cyclone, that’s because of climate change?
70
Hurricane Helene’s destruction in western North Carolina, particularly in the Asheville area, was unprecedented in recent history.
However, the region has experienced devastating flood events in the past. Here are a few notable examples:
1940: The Great Flood of the Appalachian Region: A Category 2 hurricane brought 20 inches of rain to the Blue Ridge Mountains, triggering over 2,000 landslides and widespread flooding. The event was particularly destructive in western North Carolina, with the French Broad River overflowing its banks and inundating Asheville.
1977: Tropical Storm Eloise: This storm dropped heavy rainfall on western North Carolina, causing significant flooding and landslides. The Nantahala River crested at 34 feet, exceeding its previous record by 10 feet. The flooding damaged homes, businesses, and infrastructure, displacing hundreds of people.
1995: Hurricane Opal: Although Opal made landfall in Florida, its remnants brought heavy rainfall to western North Carolina, causing flash flooding and landslides. The French Broad River again overflowed its banks, and the town of Marshall was particularly hard hit.
50
The Big Flood of 1896 –
someone mentioned it yesterday (?)
2 different hurricanes converged over them thar Smokey/Blue Mountains – or is evidence from the 1800s now ‘unreliable’ as per BoM’s excuse.
100
Florida’s worst recorded hurricane was the “Labor Day” hurricane in 1935. It was way stronger than Helene (wind speed 185mph vs 140mph) and more intense (min pressure 892mbar vs 938mbar). Helene only rates 9 or 10 in recorded Florida history on those scales. Helene would have been an awful experience, but people in the past had it even worse and we should by now have learned that hurricanes happen quite frequently in Florida. NB. It’s why the Hurricane Alley is called “the Hurricane Alley”.
30
The Spectator World
Charles Lipson
Israel’s campaign to kill Nasrallah, Hezbollah and Hamas
What comes next in the Middle East
The killing of Hassan Nazrallah is the latest — and most impressive — stage in Israel’s campaign to wipe out Iran’s terrorist proxies on its doorstep.
From the Egyptian border to Beirut, the campaign is the most dazzling demonstration of real-time intelligence, high technology and precise military action in the modern era.
It will be recounted on screen and studied by military experts for decades to come.
James Bond’s gadgets had nothing on the booby-trapped pagers.
As the meme put it, “From the liver to the knee.”
3018
The left handed are better off then – just the waist to the knee…
/redthumb incoming! 😆
1819
Todays The Australian Spooner Cartoon sums it up nicely – https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary-
516
Display of terror support demands a strong response
The Australian EDITORIAL
Israel’s successful strike that killed terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah finally has pulled back the curtain on the support that exists for Hezbollah and Iran’s other malevolent anti-S@mitic proxies in Australia.
Following the repulsive celebrations at the Sydney Opera House by Hamas sympathisers in the wake of the October 7 terrorist raid in Israel last year, protests on Sunday in Australia’s two biggest cities were further confirmation of the anti-S@mitic cancer that has been allowed to flourish beneath the surface in our tolerant multicultural society.
The Albanese government has been too slow to call it out and, by doing so, has risked unleashing a monster.
Having seen the crowds waving Hezbollah flags and carrying framed pictures of Nasrallah through the city streets, the federal government cannot afford to miss another opportunity to act.
It must clamp down hard.
There was an outpouring of demands for action on Monday from the federal opposition and some teal independents who hold seats with large J@wish populations.
But Anthony Albanese’s initial response was unconvincing and police unfortunately showed themselves to be too willing to hide behind the same prevarications that allowed the Sydney Opera House demonstrators to get away scot-free.
There is video evidence of more than a dozen masked and unmasked men walking together through Melbourne CBD streets on Sunday chanting “labayka ya Nasrallah”, which translates from Arabic as “at your service, Nasrallah” or “here I am, Nasrallah”.
Many protesters were wearing Hezbollah emblems while waving the terror group’s flag, which features text that translates as “Hezbollah will be victorious”.
1718
Peter Dutton left stunned by ABC reporter’s question during press conference
Peter Dutton was left stunned by an ABC reporter question asking why Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist organisation.
The Opposition leader has called for snap arrests of protesters who wave Hezbollah flags or parade photos of the terrorist group’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, as happened at pro-Palestine rallies in Sydney and Melbourne over the weekend.
He has even demanded parliament be recalled to urgently pass legislation that would ban shows of support for terrorist organisations if current laws did not allow for arrests.
Speaking to the media in Sydney on Tuesday, Mr Dutton was asked by an ABC reporter why Hezbollah flags should be banned if Israel flags were not.
‘Israel is a democracy,’ he replied.
‘It’s not run by a terrorist organisation. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation.
‘They’re a listed terrorist organisation, and if people are in favour of a terrorist organisation, they should declare it and authorities should deal with it.’
The reporter then questioned why the Australian government lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.
Taken aback, Mr Dutton highlighted that question was ‘from the ABC, just to be very clear’.
After a brief back-and-forth, the reporter asked: ‘If you could just explain what determines something as a terrorist organisation.’
Dutton fired back, accusing the ABC of being ‘in greater trouble than he imagined’.
‘I had presumed up until this point, at least, that the ABC supported the government’s laws,’ he explained.
‘The government has passed laws, supported on a bipartisan basis, but not by the ABC it seems, in relation to the proscribing or the listing of a terrorist organisation.
‘Hezbollah, under Australian law, is a listed terrorist organisation.
‘Now, if the ABC doesn’t support that, they should be very clear about it because I think that’s quite a departure.
‘But you asked me why our country has listed Hezbollah.
‘They’re a terrorist organisation, they organise terrorist attacks, and if that’s not clear to the ABC, then I think the ABC is in greater trouble than I first imagined.’
112
Hezbollah Reaches Out To U.S. For Advice On How To Govern With A Dead Leader
BERUIT — Following the death of their leader Hassan Nasrallah, members of the militant group Hezbollah asked the U.S. for advice on how to govern with a dead leader.
“Following the demise of our great ruler Nasrallah at the hands of those Israeli pigs, we here at Hezbollah need to know how to run our organization with a dead leader,” Omar Ibadi told the press.
“We have reached out to leaders in the United States to ask how they can govern their own people with a dead president still in office.”
U.S. officials say Ibadi has been sending texts to high-ranking members of President Biden’s cabinet for guidance on how to run a large organization of people and govern many different groups even while the leader is deceased.
“It’s a unique problem,” Senior Whitehouse staffer George Corinado commented. “We’ve been managing for almost four years now but it does come with some specific problems. These guys are resourceful though, they’ll figure it out.”
As of publishing time, Hezbollah announced they would be asking the U.S. to send over Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to replace Nasrallah due to her extensive experience running Hezbollah in America.
2217
If a terrorist had his fruit basket blown off, what use are all those virgins in paradise?
1816
The 72 virgins in paradise is a neo-con myth. Good to know that the same tricks that got us into Iraq are still working in 2024.
93
I’d heard that it was a 72 year old virgin. ToM
180
So Wikipedia is now a source of “Neocon” misinformation?
“In Islam, a houri (/ˈhʊərri/ or /ˈhaʊəri/;[1] Arabic: حُـورِيَّـة ,حُورِيّ, romanized: ḥūriyy, ḥūrīya)[Note 1] is a maiden woman with beautiful eyes who is described as a reward for the faithful Muslim men in paradise.[3]”
70
“So Wikipedia is now a source of “Neocon” misinformation?”
Wikipedia can be a source of misinformation?
Certainly on things related to natural climate change [which ended, suddenly, in 1950, didn’t it?]?
Trust – but verify.
[Nobody else is using that slogan now!]
Auto
40
Before New Zealand’s covid vaccine rollout, 2,000 people attended A&E for chest pains in a year – now it is more than 30,000
A response to a freedom of information request, which in New Zealand is called an Official Information Act (“OIA”) request, showing chest pain and cardiac incidences in younger people has brought mixed responses from New Zealanders, most displaying an underlying sense of incredulity.
“Making sense of the scale of the disaster is hard,” Dr. Guy Hatchard says. But “the OIA data for chest pain and cardiac events is not an isolated statistic.”
A follow-up survey of New Zealanders who had been diagnosed with mRNA vaccine-induced myopericarditis was conducted by Health New Zealand and, after delaying publishing the survey results for two years, the results were published this month.
The lack of information has had the effect of myopericarditis being greatly underdiagnosed or a diagnosis and clinical response delayed, even in some cases for years. Yet, this information deficit continues to this day.
“Well over 30,000 people [ ] will report to Accident and Emergency with chest pains this year, compared to just 2,000 pre-pandemic,” Dr. Hatchard says.
https://expose-news.com/2024/09/30/new-zealand-more-than-30000-chest-pains/
Climate change strikes again!
Moar taxes and renewables farms!
190
A past-girlfriend of mine who, despite warnings, bowed to authority and took 2 doses of the ‘therapy’. No more! she now swears, after 3 years of constant ‘sniffles’ she never suffered from prior, as well as being diagnosed with ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’ (!) after a number of severe chest-pain attacks, thankfully not fatal.
But what do I know… I’m simply an amateur reader of Jo’s lifegiving blog.
230
BOWEN IN FANTASYLAND ON NUCLEAR ENERGY
By Cliff Reece
Our Minister for High Energy Prices, Chris ‘Blackouts’ Bowen’s latest prediction is that Peter Dutton’s sensible and affordable nuclear energy plan will not only be hugely expensive but ‘could’ lead to a precise 49% shortfall in electricity supply by 2035.
The word ‘could’, of course, means it might or might not, so he’s obviously being a smartarse again in his use of words. And he clearly thinks we’re all fools not to notice!
His latest forecast is based on the same infamous modelling that predicted our household electricity bills would be “reduced by $275”.
We all remember that solemn promise repeated so many times by Albanese, Bowen, Chalmers and other Labor ministers in Canberra.
Instead, household electricity bills have soared in price and will continue to do so as a result of the Albanese government’s climate crusade and renewables obsession.
Opposition LNP Leader Peter Dutton’s plan includes building seven nuclear plants on the sites of existing coal plants, including two small modular reactors and five traditional large-scale plants, with the first to be operational by 2037.
Dutton said: “No other country in the world can keep the lights on 24/7 with the renewables-only policy. We need to ensure hospitals can stay on 24/7, we need to ensure that cold rooms can stay on 24/7, we need to make sure that our economy could function 24/7 – and we can only do that with a strong baseload power.”
Meanwhile, more than a dozen of the largest banks in the world are pledging their support to nuclear power, supporting the goal of the COP28 summit to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.
The comeback of nuclear energy is expected to drive “a record-high electricity generation from nuclear in 2025,” according to the International Energy Agency.
Australia will be the only major country that won’t be generating nuclear energy in 2025 – all thanks to Albanese, Bowen, Plibersek and other luddites who undoubtedly have their ‘Ban the Bomb’ placards ready for their next march against progress.
170
Idiot Noah Builds An Ark When He Could Have Just Paid More Taxes To Stop Climate Change
MESOPOTAMIA — Onlookers erupted in shouts of ridicule for a prominent local man, as apparent idiot Noah decided to build an ark when he could have just paid more taxes to stop climate change.
Despite his fellow villagers suggesting he simply pay his “fair share” in taxes to avert a potential upcoming climate catastrophe, the patriarch chose instead to invest heavily in construction materials he would use to build a gigantic boat.
“What a moron,” one witness said. “Look, we’ve all heard the rumors that something really bad is bound to happen with our climate, but we’ve all agreed that the best solution is to just pay more taxes and make climate change disappear. Instead of going along with that plan, ol’ nincompoop Noah here would rather build an ark.”
When asked for comment, Noah explained his seemingly shortsighted actions. “Yeah, call me crazy, but I don’t think paying more taxes will do anything,” he said as he and his sons continued construction on the enormous ship.
“Everyone thinks giving more and more money to the government will solve everything, but I have some inside info that nothing will stop what’s coming. I’m just gonna build my ark.”
170
U.S. applies sanctions in the West Bank | France24
“Extremist settler violence in the West Bank … undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region” [said U.S. State Department, in August].
“It is critical that the government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the West Bank”.
Volunteers from [a group facing sanctions] earlier this year fenced off a village whose 250 Palestinian residents had all been forced to leave.
( If they’re like the British sanctions, some bank accounts were frozen…. But does that actually change any behaviour? )
“The State Department also imposed sanctions against [a named individual], who was accused of leading armed settlers in setting up roadblocks and patrols with a goal of attacking Palestinians.
Phew! Some strong language there from the State Dept. . . . Someone will take action, surely?
“Israel views with utmost severity the imposition of sanctions on citizens of Israel. The issue is in a pointed discussion with the US,” Netanyahu’s office said.
. . . Oh, I guess not.
80
The Road to Brazil
Rebecca Weisser Sep 30 2024
Censorship has reared its ugly head again.
Last month the Albanese government dragged out its legislation supposedly intended to combat the horrors of misinformation and disinformation. Government is demonstrably the greatest source of both, but as in the previous iteration of this bill government lies are exempted.
The bill empowers the 500 faceless bureaucrats at the government-funded Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to “regulate” digital platforms using the threat of fining them into bankruptcy to coerce them into censoring anyone who doesn’t toe the government line.
We’ve seen this film before. Any criticism of the government’s Voice to Parliament was deemed “misinformation” and censored by Facebook without any help from this legislation.
Why? Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (owner of Facebook) gave us a clue when he admitted that moderators at Facebook and Instagram were put under enormous pressure from US government bureaucrats to censor their users, not just on Covid but on matters that directly benefited the Democrats, such as refusing to publish the bombshell revelations of longtime Quadrant friend Miranda Devine which appeared in the New York Post four years ago this month on the eve of the 2020 election. The cost of that censorship is incalculable but as American venture capitalist Eric Weinstein tweeted in the wake of the admission, “Mark Zuckerberg owes a lot of people a lot of money in damages. Lost lives. Lost elections. Losses in reputation …”
Intrepid journalists like Matt Taibbi and public figures like Michael Shellenberger have exposed, with the co-operation of X owner Elon Musk, the global reach of the whole sordid Censorship Industrial Complex in their must-read Twitter Files which showed that Britain played a pivotal part and Australia joined in as Little Sir Echo.
And regardless of the regrets of Mr Zuckerberg, globally co-ordinated censorship continues.
Only last month in Brazil, G20 Ministers announced that “For the first time in the G20’s history, the agenda of tackling disinformation and promoting information integrity will be part of the forum’s ministers’ declaration.”
Oh the irony of using a meeting in Brazil to trumpet plans to turn G20 countries into the dystopian surveillance state portrayed in Terry Gilliam’s cult film Brazil.
Which is pretty much what the Brazilian government is doing.
100
Leviathan’s New Censors
John O’Sullivan Sep 30 2024
Look around the world at the moment and you will find that the most successful political movement across all continents is the growing threat to free speech from censorship by governments of all stripes, sometimes assisted by private sector companies and NGOs.
These attempts to censor free speech, or even to suppress it completely, vary greatly.
Some are vast multi-governmental, public-and-private, agreements to co-operate on suppressing information that undermines and conflicts with narratives such as the Covid lockdown arguments; others are local and small-scale—such as the Birmingham (UK) municipal prosecution of a pro-life woman for the crime of praying silently a little distance from an abortion facility—that reflect sweeping changes in social morality (at least from the perspective of town hall officials).
Size does not, of course, define importance. The extension of censorship to one’s private thoughts—which the authorities must guess in order to prosecute them—is an immense expansion of government power. “They can’t censor our memories,” says a repentant Soviet apparatchik in Ninotchka.
Well, now they can.
90
” and Australia joined in as Little Sir Echo.”
as it always does… I’ve never seen one independent thought come out of Canberra, and absolutely nothing controversial with the USA, just a dog on a lead!
10
There was a brief mention a few days ago about the unscientific use of “nitrogen suffocation ” in the US where capital punishment is ordered by the courts.
My issue with the use of nitrogen was that it creates pain and suffering that could be avoided. Available science indicates that removal of CO2 from the bloodstream would be much more civil.
An earlier discussion,
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/07/tuesday-open-thread-66/#comment-2447703
As with CO2 induced Global Warming the truth is out there but is carefully suppressed.
If we want to talk dangerous gases the we are looking at Oxygen.
70
The Ambassador’s Worldwide Walkabout
This week it emerged that amongst the first things done by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on coming into office was creating a position of Australia’s Ambassador for First Nations people.
We also learnt that Justin Moh@mmed, a Gooreng Gooreng man from Bundaberg in Queensland, who was appointed to the role has been busy travelling the world on our behalf, and on our dime, since March 2023 in this role.
In case you are wondering, yes, it is a world-first role.
His work is supported by a newly created Office for First Nations International Engagement.
The role and the office were created in anticipation of the Voice to Parliament passing the referendum (remember those days!) to further the “development and implementation of a First Nations foreign policy”, with specific instruction to conduct “international First Nations dialogues on voice, treaty and truth with like-minded countries.”
Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
In any case, Voice or no Voice, Mr Moh@mmed has been putting his $326,000-a-year role and his travel budget of $358,000 (as a state MP I can claim a maximum of $10,000 per year) to use by visiting New York, Hawaii, San Francisco, Geneva, Dubai, Paris, Kansas City, Washington DC and Pacific islands .
That’s him below, breaking bread with a variety of Fijian indigenes.
150
Meanwhile In Queensland
The growth of Queensland’s public sector under Labor must be reversed
The Australian EDITORIAL
Queensland’s October 26 election bears some resemblances to that of 2015.
True to the maxim that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them, the gormless Steven Miles’s regime is on track to lose after a single term, as the abrasive but effective LNP former premier Campbell Newman did in 2015.
At that election the little-known Annastacia Palaszczuk, who began her term as opposition leader with a caucus of seven, became premier, leading a government in which many ministers had no political experience even as MPs. She won because she wasn’t Mr Newman, because voters rejected his policy of asset leases to reduce debt and public service cuts.
In office, Labor struggled to formulate a plan, ordering a new review or inquiry every three business days for 2½ years – 213 reviews by August 2017. In Ms Palaszczuk’s first two terms, Queenslanders warmed to her homely, approachable style. But it speaks volumes about Labor’s lack of a substantial legacy that Mr Miles is not running on his party’s record. Its record of service delivery has been ordinary. In nine years, Labor has achieved little.
LNP leader David Crisafulli and some of his colleagues were ministers in the Newman government. They have more experience than the first Palaszczuk team and are slightly better known. Their strong suit, which has lifted their profile, is their commitment to tackling the state’s youth crime crisis with tougher, more effective penalties for offenders. But many of their other important policies remain a mystery.
Chief among these is debt reduction, the elephant in the room for both major parties.
In his budget in June, Cameron Dick abandoned plans to pay off the state’s mounting debt, preferring to increase borrowings to fund billions of dollars in cost-of-living relief measures such as $1000 energy rebates and 50c public transport fares. “The focus of what we have to do is to support Queenslanders in a time of need,” the state Treasurer said.
In Mr Dick’s haste to spend, the government opted to borrow, increasing the general government sector net debt to $27.4bn in 2024-25, rising to $59.8bn in 2027-28.
In one vital area the major parties need to be on a unity ticket.
Preferential voting is compulsory and the LNP has said it has no intention of preferencing the economy-wrecking Greens. For the sake of Queenslanders, Labor should do the same.
50
JUDITH SLOAN
Negative gearing? We are working on the wrong side of the decimal point
Here we go again: changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount are being floated even though Anthony Albanese rejects any proposals to do so.
Mind you, the Prime Minister had ruled out any changes to the stage three tax cuts, declaring that his word was his bond.
Does it make any sense even to be talking about negative gearing and capital gains tax at this point? Is it a case of working on the wrong side of the decimal point? Are there much bigger issues affecting the way the economy is operating and the impact on the public?
On the latest figures, there were about 1.1 million negatively geared property investors claiming a total of $7.89bn in deductions, yielding a tax benefit for them of $2.7bn. (There are about the same number of positively geared investors.)
In the context of the federal budget (total receipts now close to $700bn), we are talking small beer.
Moreover, any change to the rules would almost inevitably involve grandfathering of existing investors, so any gain in revenue would be insignificant, at least for several years.
What, then, are the big issues that this government should be addressing? There are two and they are related. The first is the woeful performance of productivity and the second is the rapid burgeoning in the size of the public sector.
Taking the first: according to the recent national accounts, productivity is now where it was in 2016. Labour productivity fell by 0.8 per cent in the June quarter alone. Even the downward revisions that the Treasury made in relation to productivity growth – in the Intergenerational Report, for instance – now look wildly optimistic.
Just in case you think all advanced economies are being hit with productivity slumps, take the case of the US. Between 2014 and now, labour productivity in the US has increased by close to 15 per cent. Here, the growth has been 1.5 per cent.
Public sector demand essentially has exploded since Covid. From a figure of 22.5 per cent of GDP before the pandemic, public sector demand will reach 27.3 per cent this year because of actions of the federal and state governments.
This reallocation of resources within such a short period is essentially unprecedented, although it does mimic the temporary mining boom that occurred in the middle of the first decade of this century. At least with that boom the results were more production and more privately funded infrastructure.
In today’s case, the ramp-up in public spending is replete with higher recurrent payments and higher public sector wages. In political terms, this sort of spending is difficult to reverse. It is directing resources into low-productivity activities – the Treasurer likes to call it the care economy – and crowding out private sector initiatives that otherwise might be implemented.
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“his travel budget of $358,000 (as a state MP I can claim a maximum of $10,000 per year) to use by visiting New York, Hawaii, San Francisco, Geneva, Dubai, Paris, Kansas City, Washington DC and Pacific islands .”
Not Sudan, Kabul, the poorer parts of Lucknow, or Uyghur country in China.
Interesting choices – on other people’s money.
And aren’t state MPs supposed to travel mostly within their state [Australia, I know, has BIG states]?
Auto
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Kangaroo words
A word that contains a synonym inside it is called a “kangaroo word.” For example, MAscuLinE, BLOssOM, cHickEN, and hoNOuraBLE.
Also:
LIbEral
poliTICian
misINFORMation
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As somone who has a CellAED®, the world’s first handheld, smart, personal defibrillator.
Position of Defibrillator Pads Makes a Huge Difference to Restarting Hearts
Health – 29 September 2024
It’s no exaggeration to say that knowing how to use a defibrillator properly can save someone’s life.
A new study suggests one specific approach to pad placement is significantly more effective when it comes to getting the heart beating again.
According to a team of researchers led by the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), putting one pad on the chest and one on the back of the person who has suffered a cardiac arrest makes return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) 2.64 times more likely than if the pads were placed on the front and side.
That’s based on an analysis of 255 incidents attended by the Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue team in Portland, between July 2019 and June 2023. The chest and back position (anterior-posterior or AP) was used with 158 people, and the chest and side position (anterior-lateral or AL) was used on the other 97 occasions.
“I didn’t expect to see such a big difference,” says Joshua Lupton, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at OHSU. “The fact that we did may light a fire in the medical community to fund some additional research to learn more.”
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I guess it is basic sense to place the pads on opposing sides. Those of us who interpret ECG recordings understand that the voltages represent vectors of net electrical activity over time!
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2024 Election Encapsulated in a Tweet
September 30, 2024 – Sundance
The same could be said about EV charging stations.
I digress….
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A tiny town just got slammed by Helene. It could massively disrupt the tech industry
A tiny town in North Carolina that’s just been devastated by hurricane Helene could end up severely disrupting the global supply chain for microchips and solar panels.
Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, the community of Spruce Pine, population 2,194, is known for its hiking, local artists and as America’s sole source of high-purity quartz. Helene dumped more than 2 feet of rain on the town, destroying roads, shops and cutting power and water.
But its reach will likely be felt far beyond the small community.
Semiconductors are the brains of every computer-chip-enabled device, and solar panels are a key part of the global push to combat climate change. To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that both can withstand extraordinarily high heat and be kept absolutely clean. One material fits the bill: quartz. Pure quartz.
Quartz that comes, overwhelmingly, from Spruce Pine.
“As far as we know, there’s only a few places in the world that have ultra-high-quality quartz,” according to Ed Conway, author of Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization. Russia and Brazil also supply high-quality quartz, he says, but “Spruce Pine has far and away the [largest amount] and highest quality.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine
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Covid Inquiry – The forgotten human toll of locking up the state
Policymakers overlooked social cohesion and mental health factors when pushing through health orders, according to a panel of experts.
By Michael Koziol and Alexandra Smith October 1, 2024
Virus transmission alone should not dictate public health orders in a future pandemic, and border closures must be informed by a nationally agreed framework, experts reviewing the state’s COVID-19 response have urged.
The panel, convened by the Herald to examine how COVID lockdowns were designed and enforced, chiefly in NSW, broadly agreed policymakers overlooked social cohesion and mental health factors when they made public health orders or closed borders to contain the spread of the virus.
They also argued governments should not regard the health and economic outcomes as separate; they were intrinsically linked, and the economic damage from shutdowns and stay-at-home orders would inevitably affect people’s health.
Professor Patrick McGorry, a psychiatrist who specialises in youth mental health and was the 2010 Australian of the Year, said state chief health officers who came from a public health background were too often fixated on virus spread to the neglect of other health indicators.
“We had chief health officers who were actually chief COVID officers,” he said. “They didn’t seem to be able to think about other health consequences and mental health was absolutely the top one they should have been thinking about a bit more.”
“We’re social animals,” McGorry said. “It’s not just the lockdowns, it was the social distancing that really had a nasty effect. That’s where there was, to some extent, a lack of perspective, particularly after vaccines were available
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They never overlooked anything … lots of warnings were coming from all over the place.
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/qa-economist-gigi-foster-advocates-swedish-model-for-australian-lockdown/news-story/53de1ed88f3e5e427b8a11c7e7c8d9e2
That was mid 2020 and a public request to see some kind of cost/benefit analysis.
Nothing was overlooked … a deliberate choice was made to abandon common sense and throw away the entire concept of cost/benefit. They knew exactly what they were doing … they simply steamrolled over any objection.
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>They never overlooked anything…
Nothing was overlooked … a deliberate choice was made to abandon common sense… They knew exactly what they were doing … they simply steamrolled over any objection.
Justice must be seen to be done.
If no-one is punished, if there are zero logical consequences, it will happen again… only worse.
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Where was Pat McGorry at the time? You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to know everything they did was bad for every aspect of health.
Pat has received millions over the years to develop services for the mental health of younger people, but with little benefit. And when everything bad was implemented he was missing in action. Probably get a promotion.
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self-replicating RNA vaccines, Dr. Robert Malone (partial transcript of speech):
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Japanese doctors oppose new coronavirus vaccine: ‘Replicon vaccine’
“This replicon vaccine uses a self-replicating function called replicase to replicate the mRNA in the body, but without the function of a brake, the recipient may continue to produce large amounts of spike protein. It has also been pointed out that the vaccine components may be transmitted from the recipient to other people or animals; therefore, Dr. Murakami has called for the vaccine to be unlaunched until its safety has been confirmed.”
at link
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Aldus Huxley’s (Brave New World) bro, was the first leader of UNESCO.
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Ok, it’s now official , climate alarmists have now gone full Luddite. Some climate researchers at Cambridge Uni are now insisting that the aviation industry design planes that fly 15% slower. These researchers ( laughingly called “ experts”) are recommending slower planes by 2030 otherwise Net Zero ambitions from aviation won’t be met. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/researchers-say-longer-flight-times-would-be-better-for-the-planet/BQRMEAQK2FBCZO52MSMULYVJPY/
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I believe that they already have slowed down to conserve fuel. In the 1990s, the run from Perth to Singapore used to take less than five hours – it’s now around 5 hours, 15-20 mins.
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Just completed a science survey put out by the CSIRO. And they didn’t ask one single question about themselves!
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Doug Emhoff: Supporting women, one nanny at a time
America’s first second gentleman
By Charles Hurt – The Washington Times – Monday, September 30, 2024
Someone on the internet posted a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris canoodling and cackling in a joyful embrace with her husband, Doug Emhoff. Next to that picture, they posted a picture of former President Donald Trump seated beside his wife, Melania — both looking serious and stoic — at some formal public event.
Asked this internet Democrat: “What do Kamala and Doug have that Melania and Donald never will?”
Put aside for a moment the sad and broken people on the internet who fantasize about the inner workings of marriages between two people they do not know. It is hard to figure out which is worse: hoping that misery reigns between Donald and Melania Trump or fantasizing about the personal aspects of Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff’s marriage.
Ewww. Like I said, sad people are trapped in meaningless lives.
The internet being the internet, however, there is always a glimmer of genius, no matter how dark the depravity.
“What do Kamala and Doug have that Melania and Donald never will?” the Harris supporter asked.
“A pregnant nanny?” the Trump supporter responded.
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Albo clipped and titled to “disinform”: https://old.bitchute.com/video/JCsJhrGJdeRV/ – I think he might be making a target of himself out there with all this ruckus.
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FWIW
Russell Broadbent
“Unprecedented and unacceptable – speak up now!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQThY6LAZMw
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https://brownstone.org/articles/the-carbon-alarmists-are-silent-about-this/ “If carbon dioxide production by evil humans is the culprit, we should be hearing about new data showing 1) reduced CO2 during lockdown and 2) a flattening or direction change of “climate change” temperature curves. Given proper attention to time lags, we should be hearing “See, I told you so,” should we not? Instead, on this narrow subject, it seems to be radio silence. ….. Should we not be hearing about a natural verification of the climate change belief system? If not, why not?”
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The people who came up with the Covid restrictions – same kinda people: https://uk.yahoo.com/news/parents-anger-over-dangerous-colourful-135603546.html
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FWIW
“‘Absolutely useless’: Geologist slams government’s renewable energy project”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dVIncKu1Mk
That report mentioned in #12 above points out that nukes are paid for in about 30 years and then go on producing electricity for about another 50 years.
Puts “Elbow” in a back behind yesterday’s position there
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And IIRC “Elbow’s” CSIRO cost estimates don’t mention that extra 50-ish years of production
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