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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Unfortunately, I’m likely one of the few Americans who know what this is.
And will give a thought or two for those that served and didn’t come home.
And those that came home different people.
And I will also remember the many brave Australians that made it possible for countless young Americans to come home from WWII.
And a thought for tough Australians that may currently be suffering persecution for their willingness to join Americans in battles their judges may have comfortably avoided.
Just for a cheap opportunity to dump on America.
810
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)
350
I know, islanders too.
Apologies for failure to include.
210
ANZUS Australian New Zealand United States Treaty signed for friendship and defence after World War 2.0
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We played the NZ Anthem after the Australian one at our ANZAC commemoration. There were Kiwis present who sang to it.
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Thanks for those words Honk !
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Thanks Honk.
Your words seem most appropriate for Ben Roberts Smith VC, who I am thinking of today.
480
Most of us are I believe.
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On ya, Honk – even here in the islands the unsung heroes are only now receiving their long-overdue recognition & thanks:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2019032453/written-out-of-history-the-first-anzacs
Listened to this interview on the radio this ANZAC Day morning about both Australian and New Zealand (and possibly some Pacific Islander) sappers or engineers who were the first in and last out at most battles – or in the case of Gallipoli, a total fustercluck.
My grandfather (mother’s dad) Frank Hood, b.1888, a shepherd from the high country in the South Island, joined the lads and ended up in The Dardanelles as a sapper for that pointless sacrifice of young men’s lives… on both sides.
Apart from being gassed (‘friendly fire’?) an explosive device went-off in his hands and he was eventually shipped-out to Cairo and due to his injuries, back home to NZ where, 13 years later, after numerous miscarriages, he and his long-suffering wife had their first child, my mother. Life is a miracle.
War sucks, though some profit from it bigly: RIP 🌹
420
Thank you.
So many have done incredible things when their nation asked.
The great majority of these things are unseen and unknown.
And so many a-holes dare to sit in judgement about, or flat out disrespect what those that answered the call can never un-see.
Here’s one.
The Investigation of The Giant Killer, Green Beret Captain Richard J Flaherty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a02sAWHpg-w
130
The ANZAC tradition is a little hard to understand and I dips me lid to you for doing so.
For those who wonder how or why we “celebrate” a military defeat: We don’t. We honour the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers.
This Eric Bogle song is a primer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnFzCmAyOp8
and my favourite written by Bogle but sung by the Furies who do it well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkSAlnCRFew
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Thanks Hanrahan, two of my favourite songs that I have not heard for years. Both bring tears to my eyes. My Dad’s brother, an officer who was in the trenches with his troops, was going on leave to be married. He insisted on going back up to the trenches to thank his platoon for their wedding present. He was shot dead for his gratitude by a German sniper.
70
Honk,
Many Americans know the the service and the sacrifice of those who stormed the shore in 1918 and why the solemn ceremony continues more than 100 years later.
As a Vietnam Veteran, I was honored to be invited to join the ceremony, held while at sea as dawn broke on April 25, 2025.
10
Thanking all those who served and also all those that paid the ultimate price. Lest we forget.
380
Yes it will be going on in Russia and Ukraine too, heroes being made, soldiers being sacrificed, stories being written.
Sadly Veles was killed last week, the author of a book on his life as a Special Forces soldier since 2022. He wrote extremely well, weekly dispatches, was wounded 4 times and went back to his unit each time. He carried the belief that the West were determined to destroy Russia and it was up to him to defend it.
He will be remembered in Russia for years to come.
91
Clearly he was brainwashed into thinking Putin is a demigod.
18
Oh, he wasn’t saving Putin, he was saving Russia..
72
Too late, the Russian Federation is set to collapse. Its a rerun of 1991 but this time the outcome will be different.
17
Veles, introduced to us by KP,
https://x.com/BellaVLiberman/status/2040797432183677261
https://wval.news/a/nikolai-veles-dies-in-combat-the-special-forces-so
30
Message from Australian War Menorial.
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ANZAc Day live stream on Their ABC.
https://www.youtube.com/live/e5_Q5gWOaZc
30
War memorials vandalised in lawless Melbournistan.
For overseas readers a “digger” is an informal term for an Australian or New Zealand soldier, especially one who fought in WW1.
210
SAS needed here.
170
CCTV and a sniper drone.
70
“I am Australian” song.
https://youtu.be/rOwHlQaqX6Y
30
That song is backwards. It should be “we are many but we are one “.
70
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are one* and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts,
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page let every stage,
Advance Australia Fair!
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/miscellaneouslyrics/nationalanthemslyrics/australianationalanthemlyrics.html
30
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil, farming
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts, mining of minerals and energy
20
Several years ago I was at an ANZAC Service where a sheet of lyrics was handed out, for the Australian National Anthem.
The predictive text / spell checker had the better of the stenographer.
“Our home is dirt by sea” seems almost appropriate.
60
Australians all eat Ostriches,
For we are young at three……
There is, of course, a dedicated web-site:
https://australiaunwrapped.com/top-10-made-up-australia-nationa/
“Enjoy full trains and let us (s)in, and dance Australia yeah!”?
00
https://youtu.be/L8ntiVQnuVo?si=XIX8m4gaEhHdWwqT
My Country. A song based on Dorothea MacKelkar’s 1904 poem. It should be our National Anthem. It would remind everyone what the climate has always been like in this country.
20
I was reminded watching a documentary on the Daintree Rainforest North Queensland, that last of kind in the world.
Before the most recent climate change cycle here Australia as it used to be shaped was covered in rainforest and today only 3 percent remains.
Remember the Wollemi Pine tiny stand of trees discovered in recent times in a hidden valley in NSW, dating back to the Dinosaur period. And since grown commercially to persevere the species.
10
The state of the UK.
3 illegal migrants recently off a small boat, rape an incapacitated woman on a night out in Brighton.
One is a convicted murderer using that conviction as part of his asylum claim, but the jury couldn’t be told that.
Vague assurances about them being deported, their asylum claims have already been rejected, but admissions from the authorities that it’s far from guaranteed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg090pe65vo
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The UK is lost.
Many thought Brexit would be the move the extricated them from the EU’s suicidal immigration policies, but they didn’t count on the Quislings at home who were more than happy to just open the floodgates and let ’em in without enforcing immigration laws, make it nigh impossible to ship them back out once they had their boots on British ground, and develop a two-tier justice system that treated invaders as above the law while throwing any of their own people who complained in jail.
Import the third world … become the third world.
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With open borders, the UK may well become the first new caliphate in modern Europe. Perhaps even with King Charies as Caliph.
There hasn’t been a European caliphate since the Ottoman Caliphate which at one time included Greece (until 1830), Bulgaria (until 1908), Romania (until 1878), Serbia (until 1878) and Bosnia (1878/1908).
Before that the Caliphate of Córdoba including Spain and Portugal existed from 929 to 1031 which now appears to be being actively re-established via open borders.
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Steve: The “h” is more than usually silent.
00
I gave it a green tick for the news not the circumstances.
60
A male medical doctor who claims to be a female has moved to Australia from the UK and registered aa a female doctor here after causing controversy in the UK.
Presumably he chose Australia because a judge ruled that “sex is changeable”. Australia has no worthy leader like TRUMP who has issued an executive order or a UK Supreme Court decision which recognises the correct biological basis of sex/gender, not wishful thinking.
The case of the doctor is particularly concerning for many females who prefer to be examined by a female not a male.
Irene BritUSA discusses the case:
https://youtu.be/0-Z28BWiua0
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The systematic PROVOCATION rolls on; the aim being to find a “suitable, wind-up toy” who will “take the fall” and justify the next levels of State Terrorism.
One of the oldest tricks in the political playbook.
00
An official UK Government agency admits to the high level of covid “vaccine” harm.
It looks like yet another “far right conspiracy theory” has been proven true.
Dr John Campbell discusses:
https://youtu.be/ZAIeRTjgepI
Paper: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12605443/
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Try telling Grok! I argued the case that the C19 vaccines were largely untested in any meaningful way, and that Prof. Bob Clancy in this country had used Ivermctin successfully to treat Long Covid.
It got very “uppity” and insisted that no large scale clinical trials had shown the benefit of Ivermectin, while trying to insist that the vaccines were beneficial. I told it to go back and look again at the evidence.
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And, what if “AI” is really just an 0n-line version of “the man behind the curtain”?
Any thoughts, Dorothy?
10
FWIW
“Friday Funny: Net Zero Hits the Fan”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/04/24/friday-funny-net-zero-hits-the-fan/
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Even though the cartoonist is in the UK that cartoon perfectly describes Australia. It’s a pity the cartoon contains a spelling error (sorry to be a pedant).
Or perhaps it’s not a spelling error? There is a reference to “idiology” at http://idiology.urbanup.com/4912177 . Perhaps that was the cartoonist’s intent?
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“Idiology” is becoming increasingly common as a term to describe the idiot ideology of the moronic left.
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Another instrument is shut down on Voyager 1 in order to save power as the radio isotope thermoelectric generator is running critically low on power.
One may wonder – as the power comes from an RTG and there is a constant rate of nuclear decay how does shedding load save the generator? It doesn’t. There is a diminishing amount of power produced so it is the overall power budget that is being addressed. Nothing will alter the radioactive decay process regardless of how much or how little power is used.
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasa-shuts-off-another-voyager-1-instrument-as-humanitys-most-distant-spacecraft-prepares-for-risky-big-bang-maneuver-to-save-power
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FWIW
“Cheers! German Study Finds Hidden Health Benefit in a Glass of Beer”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/04/23/cheers-german-study-finds-hidden-health-benefit-in-a-glass-of-beer/
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The “Claven Theory” offers the best proof that beer actually does make you smarter…..”One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm. and here’s how it went:
Well ya see, Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.
Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.
In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
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We called it ‘vitamin B’ in the old days. How prescient we were.
50
“Happy Little Vegemites”?
What to do with “exhausted” yeast from a brewery?
00
Great explanation of how the galaxy is currently seriously affecting earths weather. Uptick in fireballs confirmed by general search of web:
AI response:
Fireball sightings have surged dramatically since March 2026, with the American Meteor Society recording over 2,369 reports in March alone, a nearly 60% increase from February. This spike represents a genuine statistical anomaly, with events generating 50 or more witness reports doubling compared to recent historical averages.
Additional information concerning Sedna (minor-planet designation 90377 Sedna) is a possible dwarf planet and ETNO in the outermost reaches of the Solar System discovered in 2003 as it currently returns from its 11,400 year elliptical orbit away from the sun.
Sorry to waste your time of course it is all man-made co2 to blame…
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‘Their main finding is not that Earth was struck by dramatically more meteoroids overall, but that a larger share of the objects entering the atmosphere were big enough, slow enough, or energetic enough to produce unusually bright and widely observed fireballs.’ (The Watchers)
10
Man arrested in Sydney for booing a “Welcome to country” presentation. Meanwhile war memorials and statues continue to be vandalised WITH OUT ANY ARRESTS over a number of years. Latest case in Melbourne just yesterday. Apparently no one in authority thought this might have happened so no need for any security hey.
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The large amount of vandalism and destruction of war memorials, statues and other cultural artefacts of European settlement and no arrests or investigations, suggest that this is tolerated or even encouraged as woke Victorian Government policy.
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As Voltaire incisively put it:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” –
00
Here we go again, another geoengineering idea to save the so called climate. It’s full of should and could.
New idea to save the climate: Dam the Bering Strait
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article315525039.html
Still, a Bering Strait dam would have one big disadvantage compared with other so-called geoengineering ideas. Once built, a colossal structure in the ocean couldn’t easily be taken down if it didn’t work as predicted. “In terms of geoengineering, this one is relatively permanent,” Soons said. To Thomas Haine, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University, the study’s conclusions are too uncertain, and a dam’s potential consequences for fisheries and ship traffic too great. “Even if you could be confident that it would stabilize the AMOC, I think there are plenty of reasons it would be a really bad idea,” Haine said.
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These ideas just continue to get more insane. I wonder how much CO2 would be generated constructing this dam and making the construction materials (not that it matters but the anti-energy lobby thinks it does).
Is this idea more or less insane than Ser Stürmer’s idea to blot out the sun over the UK with stratospheric aerosol injections?
120
Why don’t they just build a dam between the southern point of Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica and be none with it when it comes to completely fucking up the planet’s climate.
What a bunch of absolute dip shits.
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Well said Larry, couldn’t agree more, but don’t know how you got that through.
20
Its a dumb way to prevent the AMOC from collapsing.
30
Far more important is the freshwater “Beaufort Gyre”, situated north of Canada.
This gyre bleeds off into the delicate warm water Gulfstream, which shields the British Isles from freezing over.
If the Gyre fails, so does the Gulfstream.
20
Just heard that a group linked to ISIS brides, 13 people in total, has left a Syrian refugee camp to make their way back to Australia. Defence minister Richard Marles has come out with the mealy mouthed double speak of politicians, declaring that Australia will not help these people in any way. Could have said that his government would block entry into Australia but no, just won’t help them get here. Once here of course fully entitled to all centre link benefits and health care. Poor bugger, my country.
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Breeders of more terrorists with the advantage (for them) of being bearers of Australian passports and citizenship papers and access to generous Australian welfare.
And of course, Labor Party voters.
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They do know what they do, and what they did
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I have seen how Labor and Liberal membership looked in the 80ies and there were no comparison.
Labor was a real ‘whatever it takes” political party and not little bit embarrassed of it .
Between ourselves I called Liberals “gents a bottle, ladies a plate” club of well-meaning church-goers.
Judging by the young growth like Brittany and Bruce, nowadays even more club and not much church…
70
A senior Liberal MP once described the differences as Union controlled Labor fight in the gutters with no rules, Liberal Party Australia follow the Marquis of Queensbury rules of fighting, as you described, “gents and ladies”.
However, there are real differences and the one I use as an example are the Howard Government terms after taking over from Labor 1995/96 financial year and Hawke-Keating terms of Labor governments from 1983, noting that by 1990 the next and far worse recession began, the earlier was started by Whitlam Labor from 1972.
The recent interviews on Sky with Howard Government Treasurer Costello underlined many achievements that resulted in a strong economy, ten years of budget surpluses, Labor debt with annual interest repaid by June 2006 and creation of sovereign wealth Future Fund that no governmemt since has contributed funding into, the growth from $60 billion to almost $300 billion in 2026 is from funds invested earnings despite paying all public service pensions since 2008/09 Rudd Labor and Gillard Labor terms and ever since.
The Abbott Government did commence a “budget repair” based on independent auditing of the last Rudd Labor Budget 2013/14 and unfunded commutemts like NDIS, under-estimated deficit and combined gross debt and borrowing needed to make provision to pay Labor’s 2013/14 Budget commitments over $400 billion, from zero debt six years earlier inherited with a $22 billion budget surplus for 2007/08.
Morrison from 2018 and Treasurer Freydenberg forecast the first surplus since 2007/08 for 2019/20 but the pandemic from January 2020 stopped that surplus.
40
Sometime after the end of the corporate statist Fraser Regime, a LOT of “liberal’ branches had been well subverted by “closet” Labor supporters / members. Also around this time, the “Gliberals” stopped printing the “Principles of Liberalism” on the back of membership receipts; , probably on advice from the “lawyerly class”.
10
My research and informants have indicated that the beginning of the new left faction was at the start of the Howard Government terms from 1996 to 2007, and I posted one link a few times to the website, I no longer have it bookmarked, stopturnbull
00
In the land of the double standard. Apparently a man convicted of murdering Australian soldiers in Afghanistan walks free, allegedly because Australia opposes the death penalty.
Meanwhile the relentless pursuit to prosecute a man trained to do a job, being sent to do that job at great risk to his own life. I shakes me head.
https://www.news.com.au/national/slain-soldiers-father-says-killer-roams-free-while-australia-hunts-its-own/news-story/7ea07d5202f360f95d1db27e9fa1ce7b
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It’s all part of the systematic destruction of Australia which includes demoralising and weakening the military.
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Mentioning in passing the new series of SAS, Aus vs Uk next Wednesday…
40
The government is on the job organising our arms industry. Its the free enterprise model.
https://www.drones.gov.au/policies-and-programs/emerging-aviation-technology-partnerships-program/partnership-listings
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FWIW
“MUSK: “AUSTRALIANS ARE BECOMING AN ENDANGERED SPECIES” ”
https://richardsonpost.com.au/staff-writer-cauldron-pool/42114/musk-australians-are-becoming-an-endangered-species/
21
And a couple of Australian soldiers given indemnity in return for giving evidence against another who was with them.
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It would be a delicious irony if BRS was exonerated and their admission suddenly came back to bite them.
If their names get into the public domain, they wouldn’t be able to show their faces anywhere. Who would want to be associated with self-proclaimed war criminals?
70
They should have taken that prick out and shot him after they finished the interrogation, as they were fully entitled to do to an illegal combatant caught in the act.
It would have solved a lot of problems.
51
Piers Morgan Tweeted:
Someone replied:
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I think Charlie will talk about Mad King George and his bipolar disorder.
He may also suggest that the US Constitution was framed at an awkward time and they should consider tweaking it.
14
Trump has enough trouble with domestic sufferers of bipolar disorder.
40
Britain can’t even protect itself from rubber dinghies.
Pierce is off with the fairies.
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That reply seems a pretty common sentiment –
“Falklands Fallout: US Tells Britain to ‘Falk Off’ After Iran Snub – Piers Morgan Demands Rematch of 1776”
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2026/04/24/piers-morgan-the-uk-england-will-retake-the-united-states-n2427488
Or has Piers been watching “The Mouse that Roared”?
30
The UK can’t even keep Russian destroyers from running through the English channel escorting their oil tankers these days.
I question whether they have anything in the Royal navy capable of crossing the Atlantic anymore. They’d probably have to field a fleet of cruise ships and sailing yachts.
10
I’d just like to say I’ll think about the ANZACs in my own way today and hope for the best for our future.
But I only hope that Aussies wake up quickly because things could change for the better or worse in Victoria after the November 2026 election and after the Federal election due in 2028.
If the people still choose to vote for the Labor, Greens and Teals parties in November ’26 and in 2028 we will continue to suffer from a severe shortage of BASE-LOAD energy and then we must also face the further guaranteed decline in our Aussie culture and prosperity.
160
There is a very long acknowledgement to the ANZAC tradition on channel 9 this morning. Not normally a channel that I watch, but pleased that the reporting is wide ranging and patriotic, no negative comment that I have heard. Is it possible that MSM has woken up to what the majority of Australians want and respect.
110
They are probably in damage control and trying to appear patriotic after their role in the Ben Roberts-Smith charges.
80
It has been said for decades that the only motivating factor for too many voters is “the hip pocket nerve” when activated
60
Meanwhile in undervoltage Victoria it stands for Aussies Now with Zero Air Conditioning.
No disrespect intended to diggers.
61
EU age verification app hacked AGAIN, after the bugs were fixed
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EcR4Ldg-ATU&pp=iggCQAE%3D
Why don’t they just tell the truth. It’s thin line universal tracking and control.
60
On this day I remember family and friends who have served our country since WW1, and the friends who served in the Vietnam War as regular ADF and conscripts, and the suffering many of them who returned home have suffered ever since.
I was serving in the Citizens Military Force – CMF – when I received a letter requesting that I attend a medical examination at that time and a few months later another letter arrived with no explanation just notice that I was not accepted. I have no idea why as I was fit and well.
50
My father fought at the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele. His would be an interesting ‘human interest” story having been thrown from a horse in Egypt [a city boy], injuring his knee rendering him unfit. He then spent time as a pay clerk in Australia House, London, before they decided he was fit enough to sit behind a machine gun so he went to France. His story mostly died with him.
Everyone had a story to tell, few were told and fewer still recorded
140
I was listening to ABC FM Radio in my vehicle earlier today and the presenter read an email from a listener who had a relative in WW1 who was a doctor and chief medical officer in a field hospital. He described the wounded soldier patients as being very positive in outlook despite their hardships, and even more moving that they treated death as nothing to be afraid of.
40
They realised you were already serving in the CMF and therefore not eligible to be conscripted.
Even when conscripted at the time you had a choice of 2 years full time or 5 years in the CMF.
30
Thank you Larry, I didn’t know that, and I have several members of family who were war veterans and a couple serving in the CMF, and I was under the impression that they were somewhat disappointed that I was not accepted after attending the medical examination.
20
The U.S. Department of Justice says that the British Embassy in Washington ran a Jeffrey Epstein File. The contents of the British File are now being revealed. MI6 told the Metropolitan Police not to investigate sex trafficking, especially when involving Ukraine.
Six women who say Jeffrey Epstein abused them lived in four flats in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The rent was paid from Epstein’s personal accounts, including one at Coutts. One woman was moved in sixteen days before his arrest. Some of the women housed in the London flats were coerced by Epstein to recruit others into his sex trafficking scheme, as well as being regularly transported to Paris by Eurostar to visit him. Three women have come forward to French authorities with complaints. In March 2026, the French financial prosecutors announced that the Edmond de Rothschild Group was among several locations which were searched in connection to the Epstein investigation.
Ariane de Rothschild, as CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild Group, is the operational principal of the Edmond branch. The Epstein correspondence shows her holding independent Israeli government relationships, negotiating directly with Epstein on a roster that included Ehud Barak and Jes Staley, forwarding an internal bank deal flow to Epstein’s Gmail, controlling her own employees access to the Bill Gates network through Epstein, exercising delegated authority over the DOJ settlement, and receiving Epstein’s analysis of the David branch’s term sheet for the family name dispute. She ran the bank, and Epstein was her agent. When Epstein was denied his fee on the Gates-JPMorgan impact investing vehicle he had helped design, the correspondence shows his shift to draft emails containing allegations about Gates’s personal conduct, a fabricated resignation letter written in the voice of Boris Nikolic. Rothschild then turned on the Epstein network, then denied its cut. On 29 July 2019, Epsteins lawyers met with the FBI and Southern District of New York prosecutors and raised the possibility of cooperation. Twelve days later, Jeffrey Edward Epstein was eliminated on August 10, 2019.
The Rothschilds then transferred the Epstein network to Paris and London, and the pandemic treaty negotiations continued through closed-door retreats at Mont-Pèlerin. The Rothschild (Epstein) contact book is now under investigation in Paris. On February 6, 2026, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened two investigations into Epstein’s activities in France, focused on human trafficking and money laundering. Three women have come forward to French authorities with complaints against people in Rothschild (Epstein) circle.
—————-
[In response to my query about the sources Paul replied: “My comments are free, not copyright. My sources are British, French and American journalists on substack looking at the Epstein files, and questioning victims. Then I check the information on AlterAI… Even the BBC are investigating, but not mentioning the Rothschild connection. The Rothschilds are losing grip of America and France, but are just about holding on to Britain with the help of Starmer, and the granddaughter of a Ukrainian Nazi.” — Thanks to Paul for clearing this up! – Jo]
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Rothschild?
These Rothschilds?
https://www.azquotes.com/author/21034-Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild
10
Petrol prices and Iran War
Motorists will have noted that petrol and diesel prices have been coming down steadily over the past week.
Fuel prices shot up about 4 weeks ago due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Strait remains closed but fuel prices are coming down!
I can think of two possible reasons;
1. The market is expecting an early end to the fuel crisis,
or
2. The fuel crisis is already over due to alternative sources of supply (eg. USA, Mexico, Venezuela, Borneo etc).
If it is the second reason we can look forward to a fuel glut when the Strait does open and Gulf States rush to restore their incomes from oil shipments.
130
Prices are down because of the fuel excise relief, tapping local reserves and Trump sending us some tanker loads.
All real data says this war won’t end soon but will escalate noticeably.
The US has around 70 tankers (China has 1,700) and exports a lot of domestic oil as their refineries are ancient and can’t process the heavy oil and their economy only uses light oils.
Venezuela and Mexico are for all purposes tankerless.
Fuel production composites focussed on Iran for the middle east show why a seemingly closure of Hormuz has such a profound effect.
No, don’t count your chickens, but a good idea to buy some. 😉
51
Didn’t watch the recent YT on world oil that was mentioned here? The U.S. can process heavy oil, mainly in its gulf states. 60% to 70% of their refineries can process this oil. That’s why they are very interested in oil from Venezuela.
50
I made a comment over on WUWT regarding the imminent collapse of the Victorian grid.
This year, the autumn daily solar right now is 3W/m^2 higher than 2023, which had higher spring solar in the SH that led to a warm summer. Anyhow, April weather is setting Victoria up for the cold to be felt more than most winters when it eventually arrives.
Enough homes in Victoria now have solar panels, batteries and heat pumps for everything plus induction cooktops rather than gas and quite a few EVs. Right now, the batteries are getting charged and only the hot water heat pump is being used. So the grid is not seeing much demand from households and offices. A bitterly cold, cloudy winter day will change that dramatically. And the Victorian grid will struggle. There has a been a slight hint of that with the inner city locations having low voltage. The solar panels and batteries in the outer suburbs are doing the job for now.
So I am betting on the Victorian grid collapse this winter or next.
If the collapse does not happen this winter and then One Nation inherit the State from Labor, then 2027 could be the year of collapse. It could be in peak summer or peak winter. It almost collapsed on the warm day in February this year with 30,000 homes losing power when the storm clouds came over.
One Nation could be stuck explaining why the grid collapsed on their watch.
110
When grid collapse inevitably happens how will it be manifest?
30
And most of the politicians responsible will be retired and/or in jobs gifted to them by Union Big Business enterprises.
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I believe there has been enough smaller issues in the grid to put the grid managers on high alert. So they will have a keen eye on the weather fronts.
There could be a controlled collapse where forced load shedding is implemented during the evening peak. This could become a regular occurrence.
An uncontrolled winter collapse would be due to a cold front coming in on the back of a cloudy day then evening peak demand rises fast and there is a sudden fault with a big coal generator that actually causes all generators to disconnect before controlled load shedding can be implemented.
Sudden summer collapse is now a possibility as lunchtime demand disappers causing most of the coal fired plants to pull out of the market then not being able to take load by the evening peak.
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Do you actually believe, Rick, that people will think a grid collapse twenty years in the making, will have been caused by One Nation being in power for six or twelve months?
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Do not underestimate the stupidity of the Victorian, particularly Melbourne, electorate.
After all, they are the ones who have kept electing Labor despite all the information out there in regards to their incompetence and corruption for the last 10 years.
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There is currently only 27% of the voting population who realise they have been lied to by successive governments. And Blackout has won the McMahon electorate FIVE TIMES.
Those two facts convince me that the mental capacity of a lot of voters is not good. And governments of the day are always blamed when something goes wrong.
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Hadn’t thought of that. Fortunately in NSW the government hasn’t banned existing gas appliances. Can’t see what more we can do – we have 10kw solar & are having large battery installed for lighting and other- especially bore for water to cattle. Hot water and cooking supplied via gas bottles.
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Teacher says 90% of parents are too dumb to homeschool, just as new data suggests their credentials aren’t worth much.
A teaching credential has no impact on student achievement.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/teacher-says-90-of-parents-are-too-dumb-to-homeschool-just-as-new-data-suggests-their-credentials-arent-worth-much/
Looking at that graph we can do without lefty-marxist, gender-loon teachers period.
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Unfortunately it has been developing since 1970s and Whitlam Labor short period in government, free university education for example, student graduates moving into public schools and even returning as lecturers at universities. Many student activists have become employees at universities.
And consider the latest example of positions, former Labor Leader, former Australian Workers Union senior executive (and founder/director of GetUp activist organisation that began at AWU and receives funding from unions) now a university Chancellor.
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Vice Chancellor with the emphasis on Vice.
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It pre-dates that by about a decade with the massive expansion of social studies degree numbers at Australian universities and tertiary colleges.
The damage was already evident by no later than 1977.
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Hey Greg in New Zealand and Farmer Braun, just heard a young lady sing a very beautiful rendition of Pokarekar Ana at the Gallipoli dawn service. Taught this song at school when I was a youngster. Strange way the mind works sang along ( in my head) almost word for word. Went a bit gooey actually. No matter what politicians can inflict on me they can’t rub out the memories just yet.
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A truly magnificent voice.
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I’ve heard her sing before, at a Tattoo, and she has a brilliant voice.
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Do we have a name?
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Some cartoonists just don’t get it. I use the term cartoonist very loosely here.
I’ve never seen a coal fired power plant like the one pictured in this “cartoon”, dirty and disgusting and belching black smoke.
I’ve never seen a wind turbine on its lonesome, there are usually 20-30 if not 100’s across a huge stripped landscape. They don’t picture them killing birds, bats, insects. They don’t show them not producing power when it’s really required, and hey what about the solar panel fields, they’re surely are not an eyesore either now are they?
If we really want to spin it, the ugly eyesore of a wind turbine has probably been built using the power from that eyesore coal power plant.
https://www.plus613.net/image/87125
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Many cartoonists are far from real world experienced reality and the same applies to marketing people who create brilliant advertising but also know little or nothing about, for example, the Federation of States and Commonwealth of Australia responsibilities and powers, the process of bureaucratic influence (Yes Minister) on cabinet ministers and decisions, even the general lump all into one tendencies they display when presenting points of view for public broadcasters.
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I used to drink with a cartoonist, shy unassuming man, may have died a virgin but he was great with a pencil, or a brush and canvas but he also had the “must have” cartoonist’s ability to distill politics to the basics. There was a doctor’s wife in town, Olive Scott-Young [she is also dead by now hence the name] who today would be a Karen who would give the council and “gentlemen’s clubs” a hard time. He always depicted her in a Great War tin hat sitting in a pot hole.
Pickering wasn’t the only one who offered him a shot at the big time but he worked in the council doing one cartoon a week for the local free paper ’till the end.
It’s hard to find any of his work but here’s the real Olive Scott Young sitting in a pot hole [no hard hat] so she copped it in good spirit. It would be impossible to hold a grudge against Heb anyway.
https://www.facebook.com/TownsvilleCitylibraries/photos/day-26-is-mrs-olive-scott-young-a-townsville-nurse-and-the-wife-of-dr-norman-sco/1000033440081205/
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That’s AI, and typical of the slop you get from AI.
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Recently I read an Ai comment on Howard Government and oil refineries closing;
The Howard government oversaw the closure of several oil refineries in Australia, including the Port Stanvac refinery in South Australia in 2003. By the end of their term, Australia’s fuel reserves had significantly decreased, with only 51 days of diesel stock in January 2015.
The list following dates 2003 and then 2012 (Clyde NSW), but Howard Government left office in November 2007.
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FWIW
“Forgotten Medicinal Plant Shows Promise in Fighting Dangerous Superbugs”
https://scitechdaily.com/forgotten-medicinal-plant-shows-promise-in-fighting-dangerous-superbugs/
Via https://instapundit.com/792193/#disqus_thread
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Scaffold.
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Riffing off the REAL one:
“Lydia Estes Pinkham was an American inventor and marketer of a herbal-alcoholic “women’s tonic” for menstrual and menopausal problems, which medical experts dismissed as a quack remedy, but which is still on sale today in a modified form. It was the aggressive marketing of Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound that raised its profile, while also rallying the skeptics. Long, promotional copy would dramatize “women’s weakness”, “hysteria”, and other themes commonly referenced at the time…”
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“We subsequently found these compounds were doing this by scavenging iron – a nutrient that’s essential for bacterial growth. This effectively starved the bacterial cells, preventing them from growing. ”
Luckily our forefathers experimented on each other to find out if it scavenged enough iron to make us anemic!
“Long, promotional copy would dramatize “women’s weakness”, “hysteria”, and other themes commonly referenced at the time…”” …These days we have the NDIS!
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In the US military, the flu shot is no longer mandatory thanks to Pete Hegseth.
The medical establishment is outraged.
Dr Suneel Dhand discusses.
https://youtu.be/qQ50N45yvcc
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Video.
Douglas Murray talks about King Charles III and his role, which he isn’t fulfilling.
https://youtu.be/VhtwS0ouZhk
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As I understand it most of the powers of the UK Monarch were removed by an Act of Parliament during the 1930s and that Act applies also to Commonwealth of Nations member countries, Australia for example.
During the 1980s the Hawke Labor Government Australia Act followed the UK Act to reinforce the role of the Monarch here, and limiting even more than applies in the UK.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/monarch-royal-family-and-parliament
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Australia Act
https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/history-of-parliament/history-milestones/australian-parliament-history-timeline/events/australia-act-1986
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April has had its moments, Here with a “potted version of some of these:
24 April is “Kapyong Day”: the culminating set of battles 1n 1951 Korea.
UN forces had been pushed back by massive waves of Chinese troops Hellbent on destroying the “foreigners”. Their immediate objective was Seoul; Kapyong was just “on the way” 3 Battalion, Royal Australian regiment shared the “pointy-end” with the UK Middlesex Regiment, and some Kiwis and a small US troop on tanks.
The 3 RAR Companies had dug in to all-round defence and mutual support, leaving the scenery liberally decorated with Chinese bodies after several attacks were repulsed. The US tanks had earlier withdrawn to refuel and replenish and they nailed the lid shut on the operation. 3RAR was given a US meritorious Unit Citation; a rare and well deserved recognition of achievement.
25 April: ANZAC Day, of course. But how many are aware of the same date in 1918, when Australian troops having been pushed out of a small but vital wrecked village called Villers-Brettoneux? The Australians re-organized and throwing themselves into the German meat-grinder, launched a two-pronged “assault” to recapture the remains of the town and commit as much mischief as possible in the process. The date obviously had considerable “meaning” for the Oz troops. They went in, in almost complete darkness, bayonets fixed, at a steady walking pace, clear of as may known German strong-points as possible. The Germans eventually noticed and things got lively and casualties naturally mounted. However, the two prongs that “skirted” the objective merged and redeployed on th “German” side of town. Then they headed West and kicked in the remains of the “back-door”. The Germans had not yet fortified their little salient witj all-round defence, nor created “firing tables for such a situation. “Pompey” Elliott and John Monash were involved in this caper. The lessons learnd, especially bu Monash, led directly to the 1918 “Silent Offensive: involving not just radio co-ordinated and “Combined Arms” tactics, but Combined Armies, with relatively fresh US troops under the command of Monash.
After Villers-Bretoneux, the Germans could not mount a serious, successful assault on the Western Front.
The “anniversary for the 26th of April has a Ukrainian “twist”
Chernobyl Day (night).
Back to Oz WW1 EVENTS:
30 April marks the damaging and subsequent scuttling of the Royal Australian Navy Submarine, “AE2”, in the Sea of Marmora, Turkey.
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The US tanks had earlier withdrawn to refuel and replenish
My reading is that they simply withdrew.
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That was the story I read. When communications were restored and the Australians reported ammunition supplies low the Americans were reluctant to believe that they had not been overrun.
Meanwhile I think the Canadians were putting on a similar defence on the other side of the valley.
The Chinese in all their numbers then retreated.
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Oh Dear, who wouda thunk that just stopping oil would be anything but benificial. Apparently the media has just woken up to the fact that the modern world simply cannot exist without petrochemicals. Even the good old English Riding coat is under threat from the shortage of plastics. Oh well just stop oil can send the French a Letter, about the Strait of Hormuz or something, don’t worry about the lack of day wear, its the shortage of night wear that might spark a baby boom.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/manufacturing/global-plastics-supply-chain-crisis-threatens-thousands-of-everyday-products/news-story/3a6242df06e4848d14d968e1576ef078
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And lurking in the background is “As sure as babies follow blackouts”
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FWIW
Tony in Oz “Thursday 23/04 #1.1.1.2” re mine sweeping had
“In the old days, it was ‘men in the water’ as the only way, ”
John Steinbeck did a stint as a WW2 war correspondent but reporting on scenes behind the front lines. These despatches were eventually compiled in a book – “Once there was a war”.
One of the items was mine sweeping with former fishing trawlers.
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FWIW
“And the squirm goes on”
“Update On New York Climate Act Negotiations: Details Starting To Emerge”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/04/25/update-on-new-york-climate-act-negotiations-details-starting-to-emerge/
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Good doc about the air battle for Malaya 1941/42. Not AI narrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWatqDssMvY
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