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Saturday

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70 comments to Saturday

  • #
    Tonyb

    “It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” Harvard Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen.

    Are we witnessing a Climate scam? No, more like politics, group think and eco fanatics driving “The Extraordinary Popular delusions and the Madness of Crowds” as observed by Charles Mackay in 1841;
    ”Every age has its peculiar folly—some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation.”

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    • #
      RickWill

      When the dissenters are ostracised, it is a scam. It might start out as group think and madness of crowds but the stuff that has gone on in the universities and government agencies can best be described as a scam:
      a dishonest plan for making money or getting an advantage, especially one that involves tricking people:

      Think of Peter Ridd’s plight. Think of temperature “homogenisation. These are from the scam artists play book.

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    • #
      another ian

      FWIW

      “The Culture War on Climate Is Over—And the Left Lost It the Day They Started Lying About Everything”

      “That narrative structure—the breathless projection of catastrophe, the rigid insistence on compliance, the moral castigation of skeptics—is precisely what Americans no longer believe. Because they’ve seen the machinery behind it. And they’re not going back.”

      More at

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/12/the-culture-war-on-climate-is-over-and-the-left-lost-it-the-day-they-started-lying-about-everything/

      Another “level of pizzedoffenness” showing?

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      I have been watching these stories for over a year now. The latest rumour is that Xi has already been unofficially deposed and that the CCP is about to create a whole new seven member Politburo, with three more moderate leaders running the show – Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua and Zhang Youkia.

      Prominent figures have, for the first time, criticised Xi’s leadership and called for a return to the ‘opening up’ policy that Xi more or less reversed. They have also expressed no interest in attacking Taiwan and want an end to the ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy.

      It might be that Trump’s tariffs were Xi’s undoing. The Chinese economy has been weak/contracting for some time. The banking sector survives on a knife edge, the big property developers (e.g. Evergrande) are in trouble, people are making large withdrawals out of fear of a banking collapse, unemployment is rising and there are small outbreaks of civil unrest. All that was BEFORE Trump hit them with tariffs …

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      • #
        el+gordo

        This quiet coup has been coming for a couple of years gradually eliminating Xi loyalists in the military, presumably for corruption.

        The factions called a truce to stop the blood letting and asked Wang Yang to come out of the retirement to save the country, They agreed to end factional fighting and give him a free hand until democratic elections can be called.

        Wang Yang is from poor working class background, not a ‘princeling’, and he has the people’s interest at heart.

        China is sinking into economic depression, so only competent people will surround Wang Yang as he cleans up the mess and throws the CCP out the window.

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        • #
          RickWill

          You have been forecasting this change for some time. And it is now widely reported.

          I do not think China is dire straits from an economic perspective. They are aging fast and that brings a high propensity to save. They do have severe demographic issues that could probably be helped by immigration. But right now the wealthier people are looking elsewhere.

          China’s emergence has been extraordinary. It has built an incredibly powerful economy. It is indeed interesting times.

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          • #
            el+gordo

            The new politburo has to focus on the prosperity of the people, this is how they’ll pull out of recession. Millions of workers haven’t been paid for months, they need to be reimbursed and all the while developing an economy where local consumption is paramount.

            Reinvigoration the property market is tricky, but there are always individuals who can see that the time to invest is when the market reaches bottom. This is the way it has always been with capitalism, boom and bust, so Beijing should be on top of this.

            What interests the China watchers is what form of democracy will they adopt. Not US or Taiwanese, they appear unstable, but Vietnam and Singaporean democracies are looking good.

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    • #
      Peter C

      European countries rearming.
      It is reminiscent of the periods leading up to the First and Second World Wars.
      Is it all about Ukraine!

      At the same time Israel has declared war on Iran with a preemptive strike.

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      • #
        Skepticynic

        >Is it all about Ukraine

        Or is it all about the ongoing destruction of The West?

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      • #
        Rowjay

        European countries rearming.

        The world is rearming in accordance with President Trumps wishes.
        The USA gatekeeper appears to have decided to pull up stumps and go home, leaving the rest of the world to sort themselves out.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        ‘Is it all about Ukraine!’

        Yep, punching above its weight and achieving astounding success, with help from other kids in the playground. Sometimes you have to let them fight it out.

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      • #
        John Connor II

        Is it all about Ukraine!

        It was NEVER about Ukraine, as everyone should know by now.
        All eyes on Iran with their next salvo to be 2,000 missiles.

        00

    • #
      KP

      “Danish women to face conscription from 2026”

      Great! Kill the breeders… After all, if you kill most the men those left can still keep the population going, but killing the mothers wipes the population out. Of course all those Danes will be replaced by immigrants who are definitely not Danes anyway, I didn’t see any reference to compulsory military service for any immigrant before they are allowed to live there.

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      • #
        John Connor II

        KP clearly doesn’t know that men can have babies.
        I wonder if gimmigrant men can too?
        Haven’t seen any so far.

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  • #
    Peter C

    I note that the Statistics button on the right hand side bar is still not working. I suppose that means that the DDOS attacks are continuing.

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  • #
    Peter C

    The Air India crash now seems to be the result of a simultaneous loss of power from both engines. How did that happen?
    I remember reading in an old book about aviation that the engines are independent of each other. The only connection between them is the overall fuel supply (but separate fuel tanks, pumps etc) and the pilots mind.
    These days onboard computer systems substitute for the pilots mind in many systems. I expect that will be the cause when the report is released.

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    • #
      Tonyb

      A terrible tragedy. There seems to be talk of the angle of the flaps being wrong and bird strikes, but having found the black box no doubt we will hear what happened in due course.

      Having driven several brand new hire cars over the last year or two they also seem to have highly complicated computer systems that make driver skill less than it should be. They are an automatic nanny.

      I hope that pilots are well enough trained to know when they need to make decisions rather than rely on a computer.

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      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        There is footage of the crash with no sign of bird strikes, as far as I can tell. My own suspicion is a serious electrical/software malfunction. The Dreamliner was the subject of a Boeing whistleblower’s claim of shoddy quality control.

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    • #
      Glenn

      I seriously doubt engine failure. In one amateur video, with audio, as the aircraft passes near overhead, you can hear the engines. Having the gear extended at that height and time is most unusual, and it appears from what I can see in the video, the flaps are not extended. The 787 will sound a config warning if takeoff is attempted with the flaps up…so my educated guess is that the flaps were retracted instead of the gear by the pilot not flying ( probably the FO on this first sector ). That would cause the result we have all seen…heavy max loaded aircraft, gear down drag, and huge loss of lift on a hot day takeoff. In the seconds that the aircraft was airborne, the eventual realisation that the gear was still extended and airspeed and lift were decaying so close to the ground left no time to correct the error. However, all will be revealed as both data and audio recorders will be reasonably easy to recover from the still intact tail section where they are located. My guess…pilot error sadly.

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      • #
        KP

        ” lift were decaying so close to the ground left no time to correct the error.”

        Pushing the nose down would have helped, its better to fly level at 200ft for a minute while you sort your head out than crash in 10seconds while trying to pull up. The video shows the typical nose-up attitude of a plane trying to climb and losing lift.

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        • #
          yarpos

          at low speed you wont fly level, you will trade altitude for speed. Once you are deep in that sort of corner its just a matter of when you crash. The answer will come out on due course but it looks like the classic multiple factors lining up with high temp/density altitude, heavy config and not using available runway (all facts at this stage) and then one or more all the conjecture items of aircraft maint issues, misconfiguration or misoperation of the aircraft, fuel , birds etc

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    • #
      Dave in the States

      After seeing comments by pilots who fly this jet, the fact that there were multi “misconfigurations” all at the same time may indicate a computers problem. Like all things, computers are relied upon heavily on modern jets. The take off configuration is a result of inputing data into a computer and the computer indicates how to set the flaps, the throttles, when to retract the gear, and so forth. How the systems are working is all monitored. There can’t be something like forgeting to turn on a fuel pump relay, or grabbing the wrong lever, or pushing the wrong button, or something like that. If there’s a misfiguration then the computer should indicate this.

      Was the system hacked?

      Is this the first AI caused disaster?

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        I usually have an opinion, often wrong as I was with the Jeju Air, but there are too many vagaries with little clear evidence here for me this time.

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        • #
          Tonyb

          Could the crash have been caused by simple human error rather than a complex malfunction?

          “He said: ‘Here’s what I think happened, again folks this is just my opinion. I think the pilot flying said to the co-pilot said ‘gear up’ at the appropriate time.

          ‘I think the co-pilot grabbed the flap handle and raised the flaps, instead of the gear. If that happened, this explains a lot of why this airplane stopped flying.’

          Steve said that the flaps being raised would cause the flight to lose airspeed and altitude quickly, something he thinks the pilot would have struggled to control.”

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Aussie politicians think they’re doing such a great job they just voted themselves yet another pay rise, and senior public serpents also get it.

    See video: https://youtu.be/F8Gvvu-AqFw

    This is what happens in One Party States with no effective opposition.

    Shame, shame, shame on the politicians and the people who voted for Green, Labor and Teals.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    A pilot gives his theory on the Indian aircraft crash.

    https://x.com/LangmanVince/status/1933474901870203339

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    • #
      another ian

      FWIW

      “US to Move Away From ‘Parasites’ on the Grid”

      “Lobbyists’ worst nightmare: 4 minutes of Energy Secretary Chris Wright telling Congress why solar and wind subsidies must be terminated ASAP.”

      https://x.com/AlexEpstein/status/1932868745531437270

      “…During the last four years, we’ve spent tens of billions of dollars to do two things. To subsidise the installation of intermittent sources. Um, peak demand…where we are right now, Inauguration Night at 4 am, wind was 2 percent of electricity, solar was zero. Together between the two of them, two percent at peak demand. That’s when it mattered. If you’re not there at peak demand, you’re just a parasite on the grid, because you make the other sources turn up and down as you come and go…”

      https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/06/13/us-to-move-away-from-parasites-on-the-grid-n3803773

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      • #
        RickWill

        That is a succinct description of intermittent power generation. It is the reason fools cannot grasp.

        All grids need a standard requirement – dispatchable generation. If it is not available when required at least 95% of the time then it loses its connection.

        The 5 minute pricing and scheduling interval in the NEM is horse manure. Scheduling should be based on long run marginal cost. If you cannot guaranteed long run supply then you should not be permitted in the market.

        Last night, Victorian prices hit $500/MWh. Today, when the sun is shining, the price is MINUS $8/MWh. This is crazy business.

        I am betting that Yallourn will not close in 2028. Victoria should be in talks with Energy Australia to modernise the operation rather than blowing it up.

        It would be interesting to see Blackout in a debate with Chris Wright on the future of power grids.

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    • #
      another ian

      I guess this isn’t going to help Boeing and its share price?

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  • #
    another ian

    FWIW – latest Kunstler

    “Game On
    “Leftism is the tyranny of structurlessness. Lawlessness. The abhorrence of order. That is why Leftist individuals are characterized by emotional dysregulation. . . . ” JT Haltigan”

    https://www.kunstler.com/p/game-on

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    • #
      MeAgain

      When you follow both ‘sides’ around to their extremes, you find it is a loop and you come back in on yourself.

      The (small ‘l’) liberals (no government) of the Conservatives are after the same system as the Anarchists (no government) of the left, just come at it from different angles.

      But at a personal level, have found the small l liberals calmer people to be around and listen to…

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        Decades ago I worked out that left/right is not drawn on a flat surface but on a cylinder.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Saturday sarc: the most environmentalist woman in the world

    https://youtu.be/oFhCnJOnlLI?si=WXAjo619yAKS91n5

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    • #
      Vladimir

      Which brings me to a very deep question: what is stronger – love or hate ?
      Today, 14/06/25, it is not much a question, do not you think?

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      • #
        John Connor II

        Love, because it can result in hate or overcome it, but hate can never lead to love.

        “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends with them?”

        Too easy.

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        • #
          MeAgain

          Ssh – keep it quiet. If they find out love is more powerful, they will bring out a Love Crimes bill next, to protect us from all the Love

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      • #
        Honk R Smith

        “… a very deep question: what is stronger – love or hate?”

        Isn’t this one of the central issues the ‘Open Society’ philosophers focused on post WWII?
        Love of national identity had led to two world wars.
        The belief in ‘truth’ led to love and hate.
        So the concept of truth had to be undermined, in order to create peace.
        Hence … gender, patriotism, the pursuit of material progress, are ‘social constructs’, and therefore untrue.
        Except of course the one great truth, race.
        Forget your nation, your family, your values … the entirety of identity is race.
        And of these there are only two.
        One without color, and the rest with.
        We must left with something to ‘love’ in order to be unified in the war on truth, which is the underlying cause of war.
        Makes sense to me.

        10

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    And now for some good news:

    The southern hemisphere ‘climate’ is right on schedule with June’s cold & snowy wintry weather allowing ski areas to open en masse this weekend:

    https://www.snow.nz/area/nz/canterbury/mt-hutt/

    With over 1 metre (4ft) of snow on the summit and -6 this morning, Mt Hutt staff cranked up the chairlifts under calm blue skies, along with areas further south: The Remarkables, Cardrona and Coronet Peak, aided by man-made snow to make it not only safe but enjoyable until the really BIG dumps arrive in July & August.

    Australian areas opened a few days ago, with bluebird skies and on piste runs groomed for the masses flocking to the mountains this weekend:

    https://www.mountainwatch.com/australia/perisher/snow-cams

    Question: Who are the real ‘climate den!ers’?

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  • #
    John Connor II

    How many optometrists does it take to change a light bulb?
    1 or 2?
    1…or 2?

    Don’t ya hate that.

    30

  • #
    ozfred

    Website performance issues – another perspective
    Earlier in the week I mentioned that the “Aviation Herald” website was so slow that it was essentially unusable.
    The owner has since posted what appears to have happened and what the team has done to mitigate the problem. Quote:
    AVH laying bare a performance problem with the server. The rush is still ongoing, currently still up to 200 requests per second (!), about 17 million requests per day, and the server still operates at its limits (and beyond).

    Further research showed, that OpenSSL 3.x has a serious and significant performance problem due to a new architecture, which can’t be overcome.

    Once again my plea: please do not press refresh before the browser tells you that the connection has failed.

    https://avherald.com/h?article=528fe6df&opt=0

    The comments (as usual well written) have further insights.

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    • #
      MeAgain

      A little contrition would be nice – it’s not really enough to ‘abandon net zero’ – we deserve an explanation as to how they how they abandoned Australia when they adopted the net zero target…

      But, it’s politics – never say sorry I guess.

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    Next Sat is our winter solstice but it isn’t “the depth of winter”, just the start. Why? is there a latency in the system?

    Winter: Begins on Saturday, June 21 and ends on Tuesday, September 23.

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  • #
    MeAgain

    Is there anything going on with the sea life at Exmouth? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-14/exmouth-locals-unconcerned-irukandji-shark-crocodile-sightings/105417144

    I dunno, has anything been happening in the ocean nearby….

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/30052025-the-msc-elsa-3-disaster-off-keralas-maritime-coast-causes-and-consequences-analysis/
    and
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/fire-on-cargo-ship-sparks-fears-of-ecological-disaster/ar-AA1GzVD5

    not seeing a lot of attention in the media about all this drama on the high seas just nearby. But I don’t take much media these days.

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  • #
    another ian

    FWIW

    “The Smile on the Face of the Tiger”

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/74343.html

    And

    “Unfinished Business”

    https://wlehman.substack.com/p/unfinished-business?r=kihcf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

    As examples that “the level of pizzedoffeness” might be rising?

    30

  • #
    MeAgain

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-14/avian-influenza-outbreak-eradicated/105416926

    Phew, lucky they got that one.

    But it would probably be safer if we go back to keeping all of the chickens indoors now.
    https://thebulletin.net.au/news/business-reports/12700-what-s-causing-australia-s-egg-shortage-a-shift-to-free-range-and-short-winter-days

    (The answer is really easy – get rid of all these free range regulations – if people want free range, it was always available – the regulation is just so they can market the ‘feel good’ at the Coles and Woolies ‘feeding stations’)

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  • #
    John Connor II

    An event more important than WW3?
    Now I wonder what that is.
    Guess we’ll find out real soon…

    00

    • #
      Hanrahan

      No war today could be waged over multiple continents and oceans as we tend to think of a “world war”. No effective weapon can be made quickly and cheaply enough to maintain the widespread, prolonged carnage we witnessed in WWII. The victor in another multi participant war will be whoever has the best gear with the best operators and intelligence at the outbreak.

      OK I know about drones which CAN be manufactured in bulk but the cheap ones are strictly limited. Taiwan would be nuts not to be developing the best, but it China attacks it is a single theatre war as in Ukraine, not a “world war”.

      I’m not going down the rabbit hole of nuclear. All bets are off.

      00

  • #
    another ian

    FWIW

    Moving right along – must be more important than cyclone warnings as no Murdoch wall

    “Australia’s first green hydrogen refuelling station opens in Geelong”

    https://www.couriermail.com.au/motoring/on-the-road/australias-first-green-hydrogen-refuelling-station-opens-in-geelong/news-story/10626eb2e386a97189c8b075d354ea47

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  • #
    MeAgain

    Just in time for the Olympics – Prostitution is deregulated with a nice capital injection for the existing brothels to expand their business:

    https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/ckan-publications-attachments-prod/resources/3a7c0fc3-5cb0-4d8a-8665-6d21b3d6ff13/prostitution-licensing-authority-final-report.pdf?ETag=9acf715362c6537c0c6cbdaf13ca2a3b

    To support the transition from the licensing system to laws of general application, the Queensland Government determined to refund fees paid by brothel licensees and approved managers prescribed in Schedule 2 (Fees) of the Prostitution Regulation 2014 on a pro-rata basis calculated
    from 9 May 2024 (the date Criminal Code (Decriminalising Sex Work) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 received assent), with fees paid after that date refunded in full. In accordance with this determination, $525,296.97 was allocated from the PLA Fund for the refund of fees to
    licensees and approved managers.

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  • #
    MeAgain

    This is how the new order maintains itself: Resistance isn’t just illegal—it’s immoral. Compliance doesn’t just avoid penalty — it feels righteous. Every policy shift becomes ‘progress’. And critique is impossible, because morality itself has been absorbed into the machine.

    https://escapekey.substack.com/p/the-great-inversion

    It began with law: some governments and institutions introduced sweeping mandates requiring vaccination to access workplaces, schools, travel, public venues—even basic healthcare. These were justified on procedural grounds: public health, emergency powers, the need to ‘flatten the curve’. At this stage, morality was not yet the driving force—it was legality in action.

    But almost immediately, the legal requirement generated a moral frame. Vaccination became not just a regulation, but a virtue. Refusal wasn’t merely noncompliance—it was selfishness, recklessness, even evil. The vaccinated were valorised as compassionate citizens doing their part. The unvaccinated were cast as threats to society. Complex questions—about bodily autonomy, risk assessment, long-term effects, or scientific uncertainty—were collapsed into a single moral binary. You were either on the side of science and solidarity, or you weren’t. Trust science, and all.

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