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Sunday

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68 comments to Sunday

  • #
    David Maddison

    How good is it for the DEI movement that the world’s first trillionaire is an African-American?

    Although I guess that with Robert Mugabe’s superb economic management of Zimbabwe, back in the day, there must have been a few trillionaires there given the largest banknote was $100 trillion. At least Mr Musk is a US dollar trillionaire.

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    • #
      Steve

      Thankfully, Elon is a fully assimilated American and doesn’t consider himself a hyphenated American. He certainly found more opportunity here than he would have in South Africa, and fits in better here than he did in Canada.

      As far as him being a trillionaire, I’m less impressed with that than I am with the 4,400 people at SpaceX who became millionaires at the same time (out of a company of 10,000). Including quite a few low-wage blue collar types who maxed out their ESOP contributions over the past 15 years and dumped all their bonuses into stock rather than taking cash payouts. Now SpaceX has cafeteria workers and janitors and welders with 7-figure net worths. That’s a great story that the press has little interest in because it violates their ‘trillionaires are evil’ narrative.

      I’d also add that Elon’s trillion further illustrates the lunacy of a wealth tax. Almost all of his wealth is on paper. It fluctuates WILDLY from day to day, week to week, and month to month. During the DOGE madness when progressives were burning down Tesla dealerships, Tesla lost nearly half of it’s paper value. Tesla stock has always moved that way, up 75% one day then down 50% the next. Over the long haul, that 25% gain is pretty sweet, but it’s not for the faint of heart and depending when the tax man decides to calculate your ‘wealth’ it could be devastating. If SpaceX moves the same way, Musk could be a ‘mere’ half-trillionaire by the end of next week before rebounding six months from now to be a trillion-and-a-half-naire. If they were to tax him at a peak in his net worth rather than a valley, he might have to liquidate a large chunk of his holdings to pay his taxes, which would result in a market run on the stock and hurt everyone who holds it.

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      • #
        KP

        “If they were to tax him at a peak in his net worth rather than a valley, he might have to liquidate a large chunk of his holdings to pay his taxes, which would result in a market run on the stock and hurt everyone who holds it.”

        He might have reached the level where if your mortgage is big enough its the bank manager who lies awake at night worrying, not you. The IRS would be fairly careful in what they pushed, as not only does he have a high public profile, he can take his toys to another sandpit and that would really hurt the Govt.

        I figure they’re best to leave him with as much money as possible and see where he goes, he will drag America up with him.

        00

        • #
          Steve

          He might have reached the level where if your mortgage is big enough its the bank manager who lies awake at night worrying, not you

          I would like to believe that, but government bureaucrats operate under different rules than bank managers. Bank managers get fired if they lose a whale account. Bureaucrats aren’t held accountable for losing a whale taxpayer. They aren’t accountable for anything.

          After all, just look at what happened with Musk in California. They did their best to chase him out of the state for decades, and eventually succeeded, taking his monstrous tax base with him. Not just his own personal taxes, but those of all the employees he took with him and of all the employees he would have hired in future endeavors. Those 4400 newly minted SpaceX millionaires won’t be paying a penny of California income tax, or sales taxes, or gas taxes … but they might have if California politicians had worked with him rather than demonizing him.

          If California bureaucrats were dumb enough to chase him away, then I see no reason to believe Washington DC bureaucrats wouldn’t do the same.

          00

  • #
    James Murphy

    On the 10th and 11th of June, there was a Science Misinformation Symposium held in Sydney.
    While I cannot fairly comment on the content, as I don’t know what was said, the programme presenters do not look like they hold a very diverse range of perspectives.
    https://smc.org.au/sms-program

    The who’s-who of the Australian Science Media Centre doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence either. I guess it’s possible there are some reasonable people there…?
    https://www.smc.org.au/about-us

    Sure, there is a lot of junk “science” around, but it does seem to me that very often, the loudest voices advocating for “trust” in this arena are not really on the side of the scientific method.

    Don’t worry though, if you disagree with me, you can donate to the “Friends of Evidence” group, because nothing says honesty in STEM like a not-for-profit money magnet that has to spell this out:
    “…A new, non-partisan initiative that brings together individuals and organisations committed to supporting the visibility, credibility and reach of trustworthy science…”

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    • #
      David Maddison

      As more and more people wake up to the junk anti-science of the Left, more and more of the Left are pushing for laws against questioning (i.e. in favour of censoring) the Official Narrative on anthropogenic global warming etc…

      Some Leftist on ABC Radio (Australia) was discussing their concerns about supposed misinformation (i.e. truth, questioning the Official Narrative) the other day.

      The Left are terrified of losing control of the Official Narrative. Censorship is the only weapon they have left which is why leftists always support censorship.

      Make no mistake.

      Censorship laws of scientific or other opinions not in accordance with the Official Narrative is definitely on the Agenda.

      Australia is already off to a (not so) great start with banning of access to under 16’s of social media, people in their formative years, who are not allowed to have social media accounts and therefore are not exposed to alternative opinions outside what their communist “teachers” indoctrinate them into at “school”. The Official Narrative is the only one they can now easily access.

      Also, political conservatives are regularly banned from coming to Australia on speaking tours.

      The Australian Senate also had an inquiry into “misinformation” and “disinformation”.

      Thankfully, I don’t think its recommendations were formally adopted. Although they’ll probably creep in anyway.

      ABC News article:

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-29/senate-report-misinformation-climate-change-recommendations/106497978
      How can Australia tackle the scourge of online bots and trolls, and orchestrated disinformation campaigns, that are trying to prevent action on climate change and keep our economy reliant on fossil fuels? (My emphasis.)

      The Senate’s select committee on information integrity on climate change and energy released its final report last week.

      It sounded an alarm about the health of Australia’s digital town square and the erosion of trust in society, and said we have to clean up our online debates.

      “A robust information ecosystem is critical to the health of Australia’s democracy and to its ability to meet the challenges arising from climate change — including the need to transition to renewable energy sources,” the report argued.

      “However, the committee heard that the integrity of Australia’s information ecosystem is threatened by a proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, which is polarising public discourse and eroding trust in science and knowledge institutions.

      Official Report: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Information_Integrity_on_Climate_Change_and_Energy/ClimateIntegrity/Report

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      • #
        wal1957

        They want us to believe only what they believe.
        No thanks.
        Some of those idiots believe that a man can get pregnant!
        And they’re saying we should trust the science? Make sense of that if you can.

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      • #
        Forrest Gardener

        How can Australia tackle the scourge of online bots and trolls, and orchestrated disinformation campaigns …

        Oh, that’s too easy. For a start shut down the ABC. Second test every “scientist” and academic on the public payroll for knowledge, understanding and application of the scientific method. Third use the emerging “AI” to review all publicly funded publications and statements for misinformation and disinformation, and automatically name and shame those responsible.

        The authors of the senate select committee and the public serpents who wrote their report will do for starters.

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    • #
      KP

      Yes, with people like this in a prominent position-

      “Dr Alan Finkel AC founded biotech company Axon Instruments and edtech company Stile Education… co-founded Cosmos Magazine and has written two books, Getting to Zero, and Powering Up.”

      I wasn’t surprised to hear silence from Sydney and not screaming raging arguments between scientists on opposite sides of the global warming argument. I figure everyone there was on the same page and no-one was going to question CO2’s role in the narrative.

      70

  • #
    David Maddison

    My current computer printer is a Brother MFC-J4540DW.

    It has the longest lasting cartridges of any printer I have ever owned and its operation is trouble-free.

    So…I recommended my friend buy one, only to discover it’s been discontinued, as all good things tend to be.

    The replacement product had been engineered with half the cartridge life.

    However, she managed to find old stock of the discontinued model online and wasn’t forced to buy its replacement.

    Incidentally, I generally never do firmware updates of printers because they are often designed to stop you using non-OEM cartridges.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      I do very little printing, and the vast majority doesn’t need colour, so I bought a cheap laser printer. I’ve had it for many years, and am still on the original toner. Much better (for my purposes anyway) than the inkjets I had before.

      I think I suffer from PTSD with inkjets anyway – one of my previous roles involved ensuring that paper logs (with curves in colour) were continuous (i.e. running 24/7). It ran ok sometimes, but invariably, just as you fixed one colour, another would stop.
      Maintaining that thing in a dusty, low humidity environment was enough to make Sisyphus weep.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        I assume you are referring to continuous paper feeds on continuous strip chart recorders from back in the day.

        One of the most famous discoveries from continuous feed chart recorders that comes to mind is the 1967 discovery by astrophysicist Jocelyn Burnell of pulsars. Each day she had to examine 30 metres of paper looking for interesting data.

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        • #
          James Murphy

          Yes, continuous paper rolls, 1 for colour lines charts, and 1 dot-matrix for other text and numeric data.
          They were off the shelf large format inkjets, and normal fan-fold dot-matrix printers, not dedicated chart recorders.
          Thankfully these systems were on the way out in the early 2000s, it was a great day when we moved to win2k based systems with the digital data stored properly.

          50

    • #
      Dr Faustus

      Sick of replacing $40 cartridges (or not having a replacement Cyan at 7:30pm Sunday with a Monday morning deadline), I took a risk and bought an HP Smart Tank 7300. Unlike the Inkjet variants, where the printer is basically given away free to hook you into the cartridge ecosystem, you pay $500 for a machine that sips bulk ink that costs $50 for a set that lasts thousands of pages. Cheaper to run than my Brother B&W laser.

      Quality is fine, provided you aren’t trying to print photos. Cheaper to run than my el cheapo Brother B&W laser – which now sits forlornly flashing a green ‘I’m Free’ come on.

      I never thought I would ever find myself recommending an HP product.

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      • #
        John Connor II

        I never thought I would ever find myself recommending an HP product.

        There speaks a man who’s never owned an HP calculator, with their 4-level RPN stack.

        I owned the original HP-35 basic scientific one!
        Until recently I had the HP-35s.

        00

        • #
          Dr Faustus

          Not so. Like all old timers, most of my early engineering was done on HP programable calculators, up until Lotus 123 (and after).

          I still have a HP41c that has survived 40 years of attempted rationalisation – “Why on Earth are you still keeping that thing…”.

          I couldn’t afford a HP35, so my first portable scientific calculator was a Sinclair solder-it-yourself kit.

          00

    • #
      Peter C

      Brother printer looks good.
      I have tried Ink tank printers a few times. These were modified from standard printers using after market print heads connected to ink tanks next to the printers.

      The problem i had both times was that after a while the printing would stop. I did not understand why and no amount of deep cleaning, soaking the print heads etc would fix it.

      6 or 7 years ago I bought a Canon G4500 printer with built in print heads. Once again, before the ink tanks emptied the printing stopped, one colour at a time and finally the black.
      I realised that the bubble jet print heads have a limited life. When you buy new cartridges they come with a new print head each time and that is where a lot of the cost is.
      I have been able to buy new print heads for the Canon G4500 but they cost about $100 a set. I am on my 4th set now, which sadly reduces the cost advantage of the cheaper ink.

      20

  • #
    Steve

    The Karmelo Anthony Problem

    On April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony went to Memorial High School looking for a fight. Though he was participating in a track meet, he felt the need to bring a knife in his backpack. Once at the school, he sat in the tent of the opposing team. When confronted by Austin Metcalf, who told him to leave, Anthony reached into his backpack and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf then grabbed Anthony in an attempt to forcibly move him out of the tent. Anthony then used his knife to stab Metcalf in the heart, killing him almost instantly.

    Touch me and see what happens. Anthony didn’t develop this ethos on his own. There is a sickness in black subculture in contemporary America, and the sickness is this: Too many young black males are immersed in a socio-racial ideology that glorifies violence, preaches that only the meanest dog on the block wins, and dictates that any perceived threat from anyone who “steps up to me” must be countered with a wildly disproportionate, overwhelming response.

    ——————-

    Whatever may be the incidental motivations for these crimes, underlying them is the darker, subconscious message. Don’t come near me. I’m not rational, and you can’t talk me down. I’m a rabid pit bull, and the more you anger me, the harder I’ll stomp you. I don’t follow rules, and you’d be wise to just stay out of my way.

    The problem with this messaging, aimed primarily if not exclusively toward the “white” dominant culture, is that the message is received exactly as intended.

    And so, because of the Karmelo Anthonys and Treyvon Martins and Michael Browns, all black men are implicated. That’s obscenely unfair to innocent black men, but it’s also an unavoidable reaction of human beings.

    ——————-

    Touch me and see what happens. What happens is that the entire black community suffers, because of your need to act out your sophomoric “thug life” fantasy. What happens is that innocent people, both white and black, are murdered because they “disrespected” you.

    Only black America, and black America alone, can eradicate this sickness. No government program or study group or reparation payment will fix this. This sickness has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with slavery, or Jim Crow, or any racial grievance, real or invented. This sickness is purely organic.

    https://pjmedia.com/aj-christopher/2026/06/13/the-karmelo-anthony-problem-n4953923

    A whole lot of truth in there.

    97% of black men and just normal law-abiding blokes who just want to take care of their families, but that other 3% are hyper-violent repeat offenders who buy into the ‘touch me and see what happens‘ ethos and are incompatible with a high-trust society. And when you let that 3% run buck wild without locking them up, their actions make it appear that a whole lot more black men are violent lawless thugs. In reality three-time losers, a vanishingly small percent of the total population, commit nearly HALF of the crimes. These are the people who mid-1990s style crime reformers referred to as ‘super predators’ and created three-strikes laws and broken windows policing to get off the streets. And it worked.

    Did the 1990s go too far with it’s policing and incarceration policies? Perhaps. But the 2020s have clearly swung too far in the opposite direction, and the results have been catastrophic for the black community. For as tragic as the Austin Metcalf murder is, it’s not usually suburban white kids who pay the price for the ‘touch me and see what happens‘ ethos and lack of impulse control among a small subset of young black men. It’s other black people who pay the price, since almost all crime (regardless of race) is intra-racial rather than inter-racial.

    Lax law enforcement policies have deadly results for the innocents within black community. But the affluent white progressives who push those policies don’t care because the results of those policies never impact their upscale neighborhoods. They are more concerned with being ‘white saviors’ for the relatively small criminal element in the black community than protecting the overwhelming majority of innocent black folks.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Lack of law enforcement and lack of consequences for wrong doing is no doubt a major contributing factor.

      Unfortunately also, a lack of impulse control and propensity to violence is often associated with lower IQ.

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000728?via%3Dihub

      Highlights

      • Violent individuals present lower IQ than controls.

      • Marked differences in violent individuals with mental disorders.

      • Low IQ entailed high risk for being involved in reactive violence.

      Jordan Peterson said, and US military statistics show, that people with IQs below 83 are unemployable and generally can’t be trained to do any useful task. People with IQ’s below 83 constitute 13%-15% of the population and are presumably also associated with much of the violence.

      There seems also to be a suggestion of a genetic determinism and thus demographic association with IQ but that is absolutely not allowed to be discussed. At great cost to the authors, this was previously discussed in:

      The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, 1994.

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      • #
        John Connor II

        people with IQs below 83 are unemployable and generally can’t be trained to do any useful task.

        They can try government, ABC, BOM, NDIS etc
        /sarc

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    • #
      Steve

      Meanwhile, here is a story that is getting no traction whatsoever from the national press.

      https://abc7ny.com/post/bronx-mta-bus-shooting-man-fatally-shot-telling-gunman-stop-yelling-phone-nypd-says/19263208/

      BRONX (WABC) — A 41-year-old man was shot and killed on an MTA bus in the Bronx on Monday after an argument, police say.

      The shooting happened on a BX36 bus on White Plains Road and East Tremont Avenue just before 3 p.m.

      It appears the victim, Jonathan Pettigrew, told the gunman to stop yelling on his cellphone.

      An argument ensued and the suspect, described as a young man in his teens, shot Pettigrew in the abdomen.

      Pettigrew was taken to Jacobi Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

      Can you guess why this story receives next to no national coverage, while the Anthony story is dominating the national press? It’s because the black kid turned murderer in this instance killed someone with the same melanin level. Jonathan Pettigrew’s murder gets buried by the press by he was a black man who was murdered by a younger black man who felt Pettigrew ‘disrespected’ him by telling him to pipe down. Pettigrew failed to identify the vibes the young man was giving off, and paid for it with his life

      Don’t come near me. I’m not rational, and you can’t talk me down. I’m a rabid pit bull, and the more you anger me, the harder I’ll stomp you. I don’t follow rules, and you’d be wise to just stay out of my way.

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    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Two things…

      First the “irrational and aggressively proud of it” is well publicized and in plague proportions except that most are not that articulate. To me it is one of those things which grows in cycles like one of those never ending rinse and repeat circular flow charts. There simply isn’t a single point in the life cycle where it can be fixed.

      Second the statistic of “97% of black men and just normal law-abiding blokes who just want to take care of their families” doesn’t seem to fit well with the proportion of absent fathers.

      60

  • #
    David Maddison

    My local council in Naarmistan is fully woke and charges very high rates (taxes), most of which is wasted on various useless pet projects of the local wokesters.

    My most recent discovery was that there is a local public toilet block which was recently shut down for a month while they renovated it.

    Now I’ve discovered that they have decided to demolish it, having just renovated it. And they plan to rebuild it.

    I can only conclude that they have too much money (our taxes) and have to do more useless projects to get rid of it. (And they are getting close to the end of the Australian financial year so have to “use it or lose it”.)

    Probably also, given the wokeness of the council, I an guessing the new toilet block will cater for more than the traditional two genders, since the Left believe in 87 supposed genders or whatever they are up to now.

    It’s amazing that our taxes continue to be thrown away like this despite the fact that Australia is in economic crisis and the standard of living is rapidly falling.

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  • #
    James Murphy

    I stumbled upon an interesting paper “Temperature-dependent feedbacks drive the pattern of Antarctic temperature change” published in PNAS.
    https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2513383123

    “…Changes in Earth’s climate are caused by changes in incoming and outgoing energy. However, understanding the patterns of temperature response that result from changes in energy balance is not straightforward. Here we investigate the patterns of temperature change within Antarctica. We find a persistent and fundamental pattern of Antarctic temperature change, in which warmer places warm and cool more than colder places. This pattern, caused by a nonlinearity in the greenhouse effect, is observed in essentially all large-scale changes in Antarctic temperature for the last several thousand centuries….”

    Admittedly, a lot of it is at level that deserves far more attention that I can spare, but the discussion of non-linearity refers to behaviour when the air temperature is less than -20degC.and water vapour concentration decreases. i.e. the colder it gets, the more the region acts like a black-body.

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    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Quote: This pattern, caused by a nonlinearity in the greenhouse effect, is observed in essentially all large-scale changes in Antarctic temperature for the last several thousand centuries….

      Oh I’d like to see the seance behind that. More unscientific assertions than you can poke a stick at.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Yesterday, Amundsen-Scott Base at Antarctica’s southern pole recorded -66degC, today it’s -65degC and the ‘ice fog’ has cleared… for the time being.

      Greenland’s icy summit recorded -12C yesterday and -7C today: no cause for alarm, it is summer after all, though some academic incompetent may try to pin this 5 degree warming on ‘you-know-what’.

      https://ocean.dmi.dk//arctic/meant80n.uk.php

      The Arctic’s northern pole is still recording -4C after a brief spike a few days back where it looked like it might reach the doomsday scenario of zero degrees / freezing (0C) yet a ‘tipping point’ occurred and it fell back down to almost FIVE BELOW. Note temps are still well-below ‘average’ for this time of year [maximum sunlight hours] even the recent, brief, warm spike didn’t break any records… silence.

      Announcement: Penguins In Peril, Send Donations To

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      • #
        wal1957

        Note temps are still well-below ‘average’ for this time of year

        EEEEK!
        Global Freezing is nigh! /s

        10

      • #
        el+gordo

        Its always cold up country, but down on the coast its positively balmy.

        ‘One expert said the loss of ice in the Bellingshausen Sea was “depressing” and the failure of ice to form could have intensified a heatwave over the continent’s peninsula last week that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4C which is more than 20C above average.’ (Guardian)

        00

  • #
    David Maddison

    Canada is much like Australia. Gad Saad wrote on X:

    https://x.com/GadSaad/status/2065654510492508668

    There you go. The United States is built on a limitless ethos of entrepreneurship, innovation, and excellence. Canada is built on feminized and “empathetic” parasitic taxation fuelled by envy and resentment toward those who produce.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    I’m sure she’ll be a credible advocate.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/brittany-higgins-steps-back-into-political-arena-to-fight-misogyny-and-far-right/news-story/98d112c4efe4b3e54a20c5931cce6aae

    Brittany Higgins has returned to the political arena to fight the rise of misogyny and far-right movements in Australia.

    Vida Fund announced Ms Higgins as its new executive director to develop a new gender equality strategy.

    The advocacy organisation supports independent female candidates who stand up for gender equality reform.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Elon Musk Tweeted a comment about Apple Intelligence AI.

    https://x.com/i/status/1800266437677768765

    Don’t want it.

    Either stop this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Sadly Apple is going the way of MS.

      I am locked out of a new iMac. There is nothing on it I want to keep yet. Is it practical for a non-geek to simply install Linux over it?

      00

  • #
    Custer Van Cleef

    Robert Fisk’s monumental book was published in 2005,

    “The Great War for Civilisation” (The Conquest of the Middle East)

    And when he died in 2020, I thought that was it from him. But in 2024 a posthumous book appeared,

    “Night of Power” (The Betrayal of the Middle East)

    His earlier book includes his reporting on the ground from the Iraq-Iran War (I didn’t know the Germans supplied chemicals to Saddam for his poison gas weapons)

    The latter book carries on from the first.
    Good background for the events happening today.

    31

  • #
    another ian

    FWIW

    Worth considering

    “TAQIYYA: Trump Says Iranians Aren’t Dealing ‘in Good Faith,’ Even After He Left Out Our Ally Israel.

    More and more, I’m convinced Trump has turned the Mullahs’ rug-merchant negotiating ploy against them.”

    https://instapundit.com/803261/#disqus_thread

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    • #
      Dr Faustus

      Good faith?
      After a salutary bombing?
      When the result of acting in good faith is likely to collapse the regime?

      Like everyone else I’ve no idea what’s going on. But it’s pretty clear that the IRGC Regime is never going to give up its path to a nuclear weapon.

      Keeping the appearance of negotiations going for another couple of months, until the Trump Administration runs firmly into the mid-terms and the tide of US politics demands his ritual humiliation and a ‘win’ for Iran, must seem like a hot take for Team Mullah.

      00

  • #
    Steve

    This is the state of the American media in 2026.

    Aaron Rupar has been employed by multiple left-leaning news outlets over the last decade. Not sure who he is with now, but he is best known for posting misleading video clips of conservatives. Here is his latest masterpiece of Pete Hegseth working out with the troops (something he regularly does).

    https://x.com/atrupar/status/2065477276179857430

    chat is it healthy when it looks like you’re having a grand mal while “exercising”?

    which is a slight improvement over his original caption

    It looks like he is having a seizure while struggling to bench one plate

    Nevermind that Rupar himself looks like 200 pounds of chewed bubblegum and has probably never bench pressed more than the bar. But here is the full video that shows what he left out.

    https://x.com/PubServantClown/status/2065482301866233909

    Yes, that ugly rep in Rupar’s post was Hegseth’s FORTY-FIFTH rep and 135 pounds.

    How can anyone consider that guy a serious journalist? Yet because he holds (or once held) a press pass at a major corporate outlet, that is exactly how the corporate press views him. Meanwhile, a guy like Nick Shirley, who has broken multiple major fraud stories with nothing more than his phone and an X account, is treated as a fraud by the mainstream press.

    And they wonder why no one trusts them anymore.

    Meanwhile, the pile-on against Rupar for that post reached new levels of hilarity with these two posts.

    https://x.com/GrageDustin/status/2065774578366910826

    The funniest part is that Aaron Rupar went to the same high school as Pete Hegseth.

    Rupar has probably never attempted a failing set in his life, while Hegseth was an All-State basketball player who set multiple school three-point records and graduated as valedictorian.

    https://x.com/BrianBrenberg/status/2065800982756204946

    This stuff cracks me up. Pete and I were high school teammates in basketball and football. He was an outstanding athlete. Still is. Apparently we went to school with the other guy. Never heard of him.

    Those last two sentences are going to leave a mark.

    Went to high school with him … never heard of him.

    Rupar is probably going to shovel a half-gallon of Rocky Road down his gullet after reading that.

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  • #
    el+gordo

    The war in Ukraine has gone on longer than WW1 and is finally reaching its end.

    History shows that cutting off logistics to the front line will quickly bring about a collapse. For the military buffs, the loitering Hornet drone is degrading truck transport in areas that were previously thought safe.

    I fully expect Putin to fall on his sword before winter.

    04

    • #
      another ian

      Re “I fully expect Putin to fall on his sword before winter.”

      That is a bit “Nostradamus-ish”

      Which one?

      20

      • #
        el+gordo

        Tactically and strategically there is nothing in the way of a stunning victory.

        02

      • #
        Hanrahan

        “I fully expect Putin to fall on his sword before winter.”

        That is a bit “Nostradamus-ish”

        Not really. He likely has two traditions he can follow: Fall on his sword, Japanese style (figuratively speaking) or the Roman tradition “et tu Brute?” possibly literally.

        00

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Any news on this week’s upcoming lottery numbers?

      My confident prediction is that the people running the lottery have a much better chance of winning than I do. The basis for my belief is that I don’t buy tickets.

      60

      • #
        el+gordo

        This has nothing to do with wishful thinking, Crimea is being cut off from the mainland and petrol is running out. Its a disaster for the tourist industry..

        12

    • #
      KP

      ..make sure you come back before winter and tell us how your prediction went.. I’ll stand it if you’re right.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        Presumably you think the Kremlin fascists will eventually win this war of attrition, but the soviet style meat grinder hasn’t worked and the summer offensive is a disaster.

        The forecast is a rational outcome of the war and it would be best for everyone if the Russian Federation sues for peace.

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        • #
          KP

          Well, I hope you can see the parallels-

          “Presumably you think the Yankee fascists will eventually win this war of attrition, but the ‘high-tech, rule the air’ style meat grinder hasn’t worked and the summer offensive is a disaster. The forecast is a rational outcome of the war and it would be best for everyone if the American Empire sues for peace with Iran.”

          America is waiting for Iran to run out of money and capitulate, Iran is waiting for the Yanks to go broke as the oil dollar breaks, Russia is waiting for Europe to go broke and Ukraine collapse, and NATO is waiting for Russia to go broke from the sanctions. The only guaranteed thing in all this is that if the American Empire takes a dislike to you, they will steal any funds you have stored with them and try to sanction your trade. Otherwise, no-one is winning anything.

          Apparently, both America and Russia are fighting for their very survival, according to them. Russia thinks NATO cannot be allowed nuclear missiles on their border, and America thinks Iran cannot be allowed nuclear missiles at all. Funny how the most powerful countries are the most anxious…

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          Forrest Gardener

          Great word “fascist”.

          It’s a bit onomatopoeic like sizzle. Most of the “ist” words are like that. And the “fasc” gives it that extra zing. It’s not only got ist at the end but fasc at the start too.

          In fact you could combine two fascs and an ist and come up with fascifascistic.

          Now that’s got lots of sizzle and more than a touch of tongue twister.

          Or just say double plus bad. Have fun!

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        Hanrahan

        “The war will be over before Christmas” is hopium, wars don’t follow the calendar.

        Could you tell us how Russia can recover from the death spiral they are clearly in?

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  • #
    another ian

    FWIW – in the shadows of history

    “Why Guadalcanal Was WWII’s Turning Point in the Pacific”

    https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/06/13/why-guadalcanal-was-wwiis-turning-point-in-the-pacific-n3815862

    But in the shadows

    “DDG Search Assist

    The Battle of Milne Bay, fought from August 25 to September 7, 1942, was a significant World War II conflict in the Pacific Theater. It marked the first major Allied victory over Japanese land forces, boosting morale and demonstrating the limits of Japan’s expansionist capabilities.
    Wikipedia”

    More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Milne_Bay

    There were some 6th Division troops there so they added to having all ready been in at the first stopping of a German blitzkrieg attack at Tobruk

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    • #
      Graeme4

      While 6th division troops captured Tobruk from the Italians, they were relieved by 9th division troops. It was 9th division troops that successfully defended Tobruk against the Germans.

      10

  • #
    Jon Rattin

    It seems some viruses are more newsworthy than others. Last month I had the impression that the hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship MV Hondius was receiving a lot more media attention than Ebola outbreak in Africa.

    I went to The Age website and used the search option. I typed “hantavirus” and applied the “Latest” filter, which puts articles and videos in chronological order. Most of the articles are listed under the topic of “Illness”. I ignored 9 News video bulletins and articles about the repatriation and quarantine of Australian passages on the cruise ship.

    From May 4th to May 13th there were 13 articles on hantavirus. There are 3 confirmed deaths from the cruise ship outbreak.

    I then did a search on Ebola applying the same filter. As of the 19th of May, The Age had published 3 articles, despite the outbreak in Uganda and DRC beginning a few weeks prior. At that point in time 131 people had died from that Ebola outbreak.

    Ebola was first identified in 1976. After tallying the deaths attributed to the virus since that year (Wikipedia Ebola deaths table), they have been approximately 15,702 deaths. Over 11,000 died between 2014-2016.

    By contrast, hantavirus was first isolated around 1976-78. Since the first known major outbreak in 1993, there have been approximately 356 deaths. It is thought that direct exposure to an infected rodent’s urine or faeces is the main reason a human contracts hantavirus. The low amount of deaths indicates that the numbers for human to human infection has been reasonably low.

    Despite the low lethality and transmissiblity, new kid on the block Moderna had been working on a hantavirus vaccine for a couple of years.

    After looking at the MSM emphasising hantavirus and underreporting Ebola, l noticed a story filed by Rebel News. Interestingly (in the video) Dr Tedros laments the withdrawal of US funding for the WHO, stating “the best immunity is solidarity”. Part of his reasoning is this recent viral threat could affect Americans.

    https://www.rebelnews.com/hantavirus_outbreak_and_moderna_s_crystal_ball_vaccine

    After newspapers such as The Age have spent a lot of time emphasising the supposed dangers of hantavirus, Moderna’s stock price has remarkably improved. It had dropped by 80% at one point last year. This recent sequence of events has been a welcome shot in the arm for a pharma company that hadn’t been thriving since the last pandemic.

    https://www.tipranks.com/news/moderna-mrna-stock-surges-14-on-hantavirus-vaccine-heres-what-investors-should-know

    I’m not offering up a conspiracy theory- just pointing out a coincidence, thought it is relevant after Jo’s thread on US bio labs yesterday.

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  • #
    RickWill

    ONP FIRE THE LIAR donations are now past $3.7M with target upped to $3.9M.
    https://donate.onenation.org.au/fire-the-liar?amount=29
    The rate of climb appears past its peak. The money will no doubt help spread the message that the UN-party has been lying to voters for decades.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Great news, but unfortunately whatever funding conservatives can raise it is nothing like what the Labor commies can raise as the political arm of the union movement. E.g. if even a small amount of the $15 billion alleged to have been taken from the Victorian taxpayer by the CFMEU goes into Labor coffers, imagine what that could do.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/victoria-opposition-cfmeu-royal-commission/106346448

      Also, in Victoriastan, Labor has just passed laws preventing large donations to political parties, except from unions where no limits apply.

      https://ipa.org.au/latest-news/new-laws-enshrine-labor-bias

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    • #
      RickWill

      By noon Sunday, the target increased to $4M as the tally passed $3.8M.

      I was chatting with a middle aged man last night who had been watching the FIRE THE LIAR tally. He has installed solar panels and batteries so he does not see the high cost of electricity but he did appreciate that base load power was now much more expensive and could see it driving de-industrialisation.

      He also pointed out that he had listened to the dire Climate Change warnings over the past 20 years or so and observed none of them has materialised in actual events. He has never voted One Nation but thinks that is about to change for him.

      00

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    John Connor II

    DEI Sunday

    According to a lawsuit filed in Oregon by the parents of a 13-year-old girl, an Indian doctor at Oregon Health & Science University allegedly implanted her heart valve upside down. Of course, her heart wouldn’t work. This poor child spent 18 days hooked up to machines while doctors discussed end-of-life care and even organ donation.

    https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2026/06/ohsu-told-13-year-olds-parents-she-was-dying-before-seattle-doctors-discovered-massive-mistake-17m-suit-says.html

    Meanwhile in Brazil, a woman dies in bungee diving accident when the crew forgot to attach the bungee cord…

    00

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    el+gordo

    Thank the gods for Pauline resurrecting the climate wars.

    ‘One Nation’s surge in the polls suggests, for now at least, it is vying to be the most popular political party in the country. It does not accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and that extreme weather is getting worse. Instead, it argues the climate change department should be abolished because – in the strawiest of strawman arguments – it hasn’t changed the climate.’ (Guardian)

    00

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      Not sure I’d place any weight at all on something from the Grauniad.

      But as you said above in a different context … Tactically and strategically there is nothing in the way of a stunning victory.

      10

    • #
      RickWill

      Thank the gods for Pauline resurrecting the climate wars.

      Malcolm Roberts has never stopped condemning the UN Climate Change™ hoax. He has been at it for over a decade. He is finally getting the support he deserves. He has been relentless pursuing and identifying the waste that the UN agenda has inflicted on Australia’s prosperity.

      10

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    RickWill

    Here is the new Australian ambassador to the USA:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q115UrPqgBA

    It is disgusting that there are three flags set up for this interview. Who is driving this divisive garbage. He is Australia’s ambassador. It shows how stuffed this country has become when we cannot even decide on a flag. Australians gave a resounding NO to the “VOICE” and yet we have the Labor Government still pushing it.

    00

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    el+gordo

    The models are having a debate.

    ‘In summary, El Nino has developed. Oceanic El Nino is forecast at possible record strength later this year. However, atmospheric El Nino may be considerably less intense. ENSO phase is forecast to shift back to La Nina in 2027.’ (Climate Impact Company)

    Less intense may mean Modoki, requires further research.

    00

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