JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
Greta Thunberg branches out after getting arrested twice in London she now displays placard supporting Hamas.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12653419/greta-thunberg-fury-pro-palestine-post-israel-hamas-terrorism-climate-change.html
70
The trouble with Greta Thunberg:
https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/22/what-did-comedian-lee-hurst-say-about-greta-thunberg-in-vile-tweet-14283191/
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/katherine-ryan-greta-thunberg-rosie-jones-joke-last-leg-complaints-a9291521.html
31
And Christians are supposed to be too sensitive!
30
This declaration is another indicator of why she was being called “Pol Tot” in her younger days
Scratch an eco-loon; find the inner psychopath.
170
Michael Smith sums it up –
“She’s a wind up toy for sick people.”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/10/greta-has-found-a-new-fashionable-cause.html
81
I’ll bet that she(?)NEVER goes to Gaza,same as her(?)3 other friends.Anyone who stands up for what Hamas and the so called palestinians(there is NO SUCH THING)have done should be condemned and all driven into the sea.Give us a few years and we will suffer the same fate.Our politicians were told by ASIO to NEVER allow these Morons into our country because they would NEVER assimilate.
152
Too late now.
11
Some veterans in England were monitoring the Hotels etc where the so called refugees are being house. The information coming back was that there were cardboard boxes being delivered with UN stamped on the sides. It appears that the Marxist UN is behind all the movements of the invaders. Morrison and Albo are going along to get along with the migration. They probably have to go along or else
50
The stuffed octopus might help with her autism but it obviously does not help with her stupidity.
80
Middle class people can be strange.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12653811/palestine-supporters-tear-posters-missing-israeli-children-hamas-terrorists-kidnapped.html
Why would women and liberals want to stand together with 3 of the most vicious terror organisations ever created? Hamas, Isis and Hezbolah and support Iran who have killed numerous women over the last year who refused to wear the hijab. Their new friends are everything the liberals claim not to be; anti semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist and I shouldn’t think they have ever heard of net zero.
190
Yeah, they’ve heard of Net Zero all right – the number of Jews they intend to see alive when they are finished.
80
Numerous photos showing the aftermath of the fire at Luton airport
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12653297/luton-car-park-airport-shocking-images-devastation-fire.html
Some 1500 cars will likely be written off and the car park demolished. Its very difficult to believe that a diesel car could possibly have caused devastation on this scale. The fire chief in the hours following the fire said it was believed to be a diesel car that caused the initial fire but it then leapfrogged amongst the many EV’s in the building. The Range Rover that cased the fire may have been a hybrid with a lithium battery, but presumably there must have been Ev;s either side of it for the fire to take hold in such a fashion in a modern 3 year old building.
160
Wow. Cars, the structure, and thousands of items therein — all gone. Cleaning up the physical mess will be short and easy compared with the insurance claims and replacement of all that went up in smoke and CO2.
I think we can expect legal proceedings to continue for the rest of the decade.
150
The insurers will be looking to reduce their exposure so will be taking a very keen interest in what caused the fire and what made it so destructive. If they pin it on EV batteries expect higher premiums and demands to park them away from other vehicles. Maybe they might be banned from car parks. How sad that would be. EV owners may have to have exclusion zones around their potential IEDs.
100
The final irony! Tesla survivor.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/10/20/12/76796341-12653297-image-a-25_1697800145419.jpg
11
I’m betting that it’s caused by an EV.Diesels don’t burn anywhere near that intensity.Diesels don’t self immolate, EV’s DO.
60
.. OK, how much are you willing to stake on that ?
25
Why was the Range Rover’s smoke grey/white initially and on the LHS near the passenger’s seat (where the battery is in an ev)? Besides which, why now, what has changed in the past few years to cause devastation on this scale? I’m prepared to take any bets on the answer to that. Because it’s a certainty.
50
!’m also curious as to exactly how the fire spread. And just how many EVs were parked and how closely?
And I guess it wouldn’t take much persuasion to convince a spokesperson to describe an MHEV as “diesel powered” when its battery powered distance capability is so small.
Cheers
Dave B
30
Try pouring 50 litres of burning diesel or petrol from a melting fuel tank onto a packed carpark floor, ..then repeat that 1500 times.!
Do you think that might just do it ?
02
And yes, the irony..
The only firm evidence of an EV being in that car park……
…..is one that did not burst into flames !
24
Your various logical tricks/nuances fly in the face of overwhelming proof that Lithium batteries are highly dangerous. what is the game here? To see who can be the smartest in the room when it comes to didactic gymnastics?
80
I know lithium batteries are a fire hazard….infact if you read my previous posts i have argued that the often quoted US insurance statistics on the low rate of EV fires are wrong andthey are much more of a risk than petrol ot diesel cars.
. But in the case of the Luton fire, i am simply being realistic, reading the reports, and not leap to speculative conclusions.
My own belief is that 1500 vehicles, with possibly 30-60 liters of petrol /diesel in each one, means ther could be between 40-80 TONS of flamible liquids burning in that car park ( together with much more flamable tyres, plastics, etc). which would all add up to one hell of a ferocious fire…….even if there were no EVs within a mile !
21
Fairy nuff. But is it not also fair to suggest what happened at Luton is – that word again – unprecedented for a modern carpark? But yes, you are right to imply in this instance, at this time, it is “jumping to conclusions” to try to say without contradiction that this is an ev matter. Circumstantial evidence is still there though.
30
No, not unprecidented.
Others have refered to the 2017 fire in a Liverpool multistory, which was very similar with 1200 cars and a partially collapsed structure resulting.
Very few EVs around then, and i believe a Land Rover was implicated in that also.
00
Looks like the construction method was steel skeleton supporting suspended concrete decks. The steel would be rapidly deformed by intense heat, leading to eventual collapse. Many multi storey carparks in Oz are supported by concrete columns.
60
I must have heard 1,000 times that burning jet fuel would not be hot enough to bring down the WTC.
01
not true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzF1KySHmUA
00
I don’t know the answer but its probably not coming from a guy that:
– labels other argument moronic and dumb
– doesnt differentiate between a building fire and a forge
– turns off comments
10
It’s a big web. One opinion isn’t consensus, one consensus isn’t undeniable truth.
20
Did the fire chief actually say ….. “it then leapfrogged anoungst the many EVs in the building…”
……or is that your own comment .?
03
He used the word leapfrogged or one very similar. I used his exact phrase when I posted here on this topic when the fire first happened.
20
How about this …
…and then he later confirmed it was a Diesel car, not a Hybrid, MHEV,PHEV, ot full EV.
00
Considerable finger pointing at Land Rover down the bottom of the article.
20
Aloha! EVs are much heavier and burn hotter and longer. Maybe there needs to be new EV parking structures built that can handle the added weight of EVs as well as more reinforcing of bridges and roads. Then charge EV owners an added 1000% more to register their EVs annually.
The Maui fire was intense because of the various EV and lithium battery accelerants. Lahaina is a tourist town and it was sprinkled with tourist EV rentals for cars scooters and BIRDs. While the fire was not started by a lithium battery it was started and spread by power lines needed to charge lithium batteries and all things electric. If governments want 100% electric then no grids in the USA can handle the added power requirements without being upgraded to a smart grid with superconductors. The cost is north of $2tril not including rural areas with cities of less than 1mil population.
I predict the rising debts of governments will kill off “green”. Already the US Treasury is reporting $437bil less revenues due to bidenomics for FY2023 and a drop in spending of $135bil to cover the added interest cost to service the US Debt at over $33tril. When it comes to paying social security and medicare or building more EV charge stations guess which one wins? All things EV will drop 50% once US government subsidies and tax incentives are gone. Right now every time I see a Tesla I think “green welfare” as they don’t pay taxes and get freebies.
I just finished a road trip from Houston TX to Las Vegas and was on various interstates and even smaller state and farm roads. I hung out at Jeff Bezos 175k acre ranch where he launches rockets called Blue Origin outside Van Horn TX. What I saw was one Tesla out on the perimeters outside major cities. I also saw biden EV charge station outside Albuquerque with nine chargers and only one being used. I never saw any more being used and I passed many EV chargers at hotels and gas stations.
For the record it took six days driving to Vegas and five days driving back. I started off in Texas where gasoline was $3.04 a gallon and as I went West the price went up to $5.44 in Vegas and when I got back to Texas the price was $2.82 a gallon after WTI Crude was over $90. I can only say if someone in the USA is paying more than $4 a gallon then look to politician carbon taxes and their enviro group regs to explain the huge price inflation. There is no reason people in California need to be paying $7 a gallon other than they voted for it.
20
Civil servants to get well deserved paid leave if they suffer trauma from the referendum result
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12649475/The-Voice-days-work-referendum-result.html
90
These public serpents have suffered a lot in recent years.
– Having to watch their favourite cafe go out of business during Covid.
– Having to watch the health system that they are responsible for crumble – while they are on their RDOs
– Helplessly watching all those victims of crime on telly while they’re trying to take a mental health day because a coworker used the wrong pronoun
And now, having to face up to the fact that the majority of Queenslanders have a different opinion to them.
Yep, you’ve got to admire their resilience in such circumstances.
261
And to think that many if not most non-front line public serpents do make work sort of jobs. I was at the RTA yesterday and watched the staff at full capacity. Of the seven I could see only two were serving customers while the others talked or consulted screens. One very white male staff member wore his dot painted shirt so we would know he was aboriginal otherwise we could be forgiven for thinking he was just another Australian.
82
Lawrie:
He is signalling that he is from the BarmyDotty tribe.
10
I wonder how many Queensland public servants are eligible for this largesse? What is their combined incomes? Will they be provided with free QANTAS flights to the resort of their choice? And will we notice any change in services during their absence?
81
Another bloody “Show Holiday” on full pay!
80
I’m noticing lots of anthropogenic forcing lately.
Resulting in intensification of feedback loops.
80
Isn’t that what the hippies called ‘karma’? Or is it now ‘Carmageddon’?
60
Christians should use the term the Principle of Sowing and Reaping.
It goes that sowing gives the return of 60, 80 or 100 times.
10
At the moment the NH seems to be experiencing positive feedback due to AGW, but I think its negative feedback caused by Hunga Tonga.
50
More “negative feedback” incoming?
“Alleged “companies” are starting to fail that really are nothing more than cash furnaces existing on the back of “free” money poured in through various “venture” and “investment” funds — all with a singular focus: I gotta make something somewhere, and if I can’t come up with a clean way to sell a product or service I’ll try to flip the table over and monopolize by grabbing a book of business and arbitrage it.”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=249925
40
Matt Ridley explains the true cost of the NET ZERO BS and FRAUD.
I’m sure we could all think of better more beneficial ways to spend TRILLIONS of $ and NOT WRECK our environment both onshore and offshore as a bonus.
But spending or WASTING 1 Pound a second for the next 31,000 years seems to suit our left wing loonies’ delusional agenda and fantasies.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/10/20/matt-ridley-the-official-true-cost-of-net-zero-is-the-same-as-spending-1-a-second-for-the-next-31000-years/
100
“Australian classrooms are more disorderly than ever – prompting an intensifying debate about how to control bad behaviour…..The reasons are myriad. Complications of technology, such as social media fights and bullying spilling over into school; the lingering effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on social development; scant resources to deal with skyrocketing diagnoses of autism, anxiety and ADHD; a “crisis of adult authority”, as one expert described it; and a more diverse social landscape than ever before, in which children bring wildly differing family norms to the classroom.
Sceptics dismiss the behaviour crisis as a moral panic fuelled by reactionaries worried that a spared rod has left children spoilt. ”
Who wudda thought! Take away discipline and you get undisciplined classrooms. Seems society as a whole doesn’t have enough work to do & just sits around complaining and getting bored!
https://www.smh.com.au/national/anxiety-adhd-snowplough-parents-behind-our-worsening-school-discipline-crisis-20230918-p5e5oa.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
110
Again Matt Ridley explains their CHEAP WIND BS and FRAUD and I only wish I had his skills and brains.
Here ‘s how he finishes his recent article. And his article has many links to check out.
“The man and woman in the street understand this intuitively. Politicians not at all. Here is a simple analogy to help them. Electricity, like coffee, is only any good if you can buy it when you feel like it. If I set up a chain of coffee shops and sell coffee no better than Costa’s, but I make hundreds of excess cups one morning and none at all the next, from a facility that towers hundreds of feet into the sky, ruins views, slaughters birdlife and requires government subsidies, I suspect the customer would prefer Costa. But in our benighted electricity market, you are forced to buy my coffee except on the days when I produce none, when you are allowed to go to Costa – which has put its prices up to compensate for my existence”.
“So, no, wind power is not cheap or secure. Nor is it clean. The mining of minerals and pouring of concrete that is required for a wind farm have a huge pollution impact and a massive carbon footprint. Voters know wind farms are a futile gesture and they will now punish the Tories accordingly”.
https://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/electricity-from-wind-isnt-cheap-and-it-never-will-be/
140
Matt Ridley also tells us how the public are being misled and fed more BS and FRAUD.
https://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/the-public-isnt-being-told-the-full-truth-about-the-climate-threat/
60
Electric Slowdown: Tesla, GM, Ford Hit the Brakes on EV Production
90
Also on that page.. Seems a tent city in the cheap end of town still doesn’t make the locals love you. The previous surge of immigrants don’t want the new lot beside them.
““Diverse Chicago Suburbanites Block Migrant Tent City, Mob Alderwoman-
The protesters, mostly Latino and Asian, had been holding signs in English and in their native languages with messages for the mayor and Ramirez, demanding that the construction in the area cease immediately,” the paper reported….Many also remarked that they were tired of seeing migrant shelters springing up in black, Asian, and Hispanic communities but not in the more upscale areas of the North Side.”
You have to balance-
“And a poll taken the next week found that most Chicagoans want to put an end to the “sanctuary city” policies in the wake of the flood of illegals entering the city.”
against-
“City Hall reported that GardaWorld and its subsidiary Aegis Defense Services has been handed a fat $29.4 million contract to run the tent city camp.”
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2023/10/20/revolt-diverse-chicago-suburbanites-block-migrant-tent-city-mob-alderwoman-police-spirit-her-away/
50
The cost of inputs is going up exponentially as demand for all the high value mined goodies in EVs tighten.
A good number of EV owners are finding them hard to live with. Initial cost is up to twice equivalent ICE or hybrid and annual costs rising strongly as they get more expensive to insure and service. The second hand market for EVs is not strong so that adds to ownership cost.
Buyers remorse is a common malady of EV owners:
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/buyers-remorse-why-20-percent-early-ev-adopters-now-defecting-internal-combustion/
40
only 20% leaving the fold seems pretty good to me. Early days yet I guess.
30
Are Australian women really THAT fugly?
Maxim magazine named a biological male and former Australian rules football player, Danielle Laidley, to its “Hottest 100 Women” list in Australia for 2023, with the trans-identifying man landing in the number 92 spot.
Laidley, who played and coached in the Australian Football League (AFL), joins actress Margot Robbie on the “Hot List,” who was named the hottest woman for the fourth time.
The magazine released the list on Wednesday and is being blasted not only for honoring a biological male in a list of hot women, but also because three years ago Laidley, who formerly went by the first name of Dean, was arrested for stalking, The Age noted.
http://www.womensystems.com/2023/10/maxim-names-biological-male-to-hottest.html
Sheesh…
I would (absolutely not 😆) have pictures on my phone of REAL women infinitely hotter than he/she/whatever is.
Square jaws and facial hair don’t cut it.
He/she/it reminds me of Danny La Rue. 😁
60
Hang on… she’s a female & got arrested for stalking females?? Surely she’s not interested enough in other females to hunt them like that? ..and with all those hot-blooded AFL men to pick from? Oh wait…
70
Dean was a very good back man. he started playing for West Perth (The Garlic Munchers) in WA. He went to the West Coast Eagles and later to North Melbourne. His nick name was the Junk Yard Dog. This is an Amercanism refering to the dogs that are used in wreckers yard to keep intruders out.
His would be a good case study to read.
30
He was amazingly tough despite his relatively small frame – arguably one of the very last men I’d have imagined would take the leap into “transition.” Re his looks now, he might just scrape in as Number 92 best-looking junkyard dog.
50
There used to be a verse about a woman in a bar who turned out to be a man in the Tom Paxton “Pretty Little Number” song. It seems to have been edited out on all the versions of lyrics I can find and only ONE version on Youtube that omits that verse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJkIwQ7_qU
10
There used to be a verse about a woman who turned out to be a man in the Tom Paxton “Pretty Little Number” song. It has been edited out in all versions of the lyrics I can find. In Youtube there is only one version and that also omits that verse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJkIwQ7_qU
00
I recently made the strangest discovery about of all things ….. Country Music.
I came to an appreciation of music in the 60s, the Golden Age I suppose, and, well, it was not really trendy to say (umm, out loud anyway) that you liked Country Music, perhaps maybe hillbilly music, and you get locked into that thinking.
I have three music streaming services now, and they take the edge off the silence here at home, umm, now that I’m on my own, after my wonderful wife passed back in April.
So, on those music streaming services, I assiduously listened to all the popular music available, and there’s just so much of it. But, oddly, that ingrained thinking, even though I thought I liked all the genres of music, I didn’t click onto anything Country Music.
Anyway, I watched another of those brilliant Ken Burns Documentary Series, and this one was Country Music, across eight episodes and 17 hours, the history not really of just Country Music, but American Music in general, and the research was so in depth. I just had no idea at all.
So, after watching this fascinating Series, I opened up those Country Music tabs on my streaming services to play in the background in the other room while I sit here, and I have a 1950s one playing now on Amazon Music, and the other two are Apple Music and Spotify, and It will take me weeks to get through them all arranged by the Decades on all three of them, and I’ve already been listening for more than a week already.
Anyway, as it played ….. hey wait a minute I know that, and that one, and so on and on, so many songs, and it was just amazing (as I learned during the Doco) what songs actually were originally Country.
As I heard these Country songs I realised something. The U.S. has so many different music charts for so many of the different genres of music. (and this link is just for the Billboard Charts alone) In the U.S. they could do this because they had the population, and the spread, and the market for those genres of music.
However, here in Australia, and here, I’m going back to the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the dawn of (recent) popular music, we had a small population, and an even smaller music Market.
As I mentioned, hey I know that song, and so on, well here in Oz, we only had that one market, (a tiny market by comparison) so ALL of the music came in for the one market, and if it was good, then it made it to the charts here in Oz. And so much of that early Oz charting music WAS Country Music, or music categorised as ….. Country.
So, unwittingly, we here in Oz in those formative days were already accustomed to Country Music in all its forms, because so much of it was Country music. The early days of Rock and Roll were categorised as Country Rockabilly.
I wrote a Post about it at my home site, so, if you wish, you can read that Post, as long as it is on this.
It was the strangest thing really, and if you can find that Documentary, (Country Music by Ken Burns, the Directors Cut is the longer version with all the extra footage) find the time to watch it. You don’t need to be a Country fan, just a fan of the history of Music. It’s (the Doco) is on Amazon as well.
Link to my Post – Huh! Just What Is It With Country Music?
Tony.
110
Archive.Org has the Ken Burns videos you reference, some half of the complete set. They might be viewed here:
https://archive.org/details/ken-burns-country-music-5-6
and here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzkQfVIJun2I1nBMl6PTyv4vH-3NfoN0n
The music list is available on a track-by track basis, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Country_Music:_A_Smithsonian_Collection
40
Thanks Lance,
Many many years ago, and by outright fluke I stumbled across one of his earlier docos. I had already seen the wonderful Civil War Series.
This one I stumbled across was part way through part one of a six part series tiled The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, made in 2009. It was during an ad break for the cricket, a longer one after the fall of a wicket, so I let my fingers do the walking during that ad break, and there it was on SBS, and I really have no idea how I stumbled across ….. SBS, as I never watched it at all, anything. This was just after Midday on a Sunday, no less, when no one’s watching TV, let alone SBS, unless it was the test cricket.
They must have had an agreement or something and then to comply, they hid it away at Midday on Sunday.
I knew it was a Ken Burns doco straight away, (the narrator, Peter Coyote) and it was, yet again, amazing in the depth of research. So, each Sunday I tuned in to SBS and watched it.
Now, all these years later, it’s one of the few Burns Docos that are NOT available on any streaming services, and I’d like to watch it again.
I’ve seen seven of his many docos now, and while I don’t agree with his politics, (rabid Democrat) his docos are always worthy of viewing.
Tony.
30
Music is a funny thing, while the the youth of the day listen to what they are told is “popular” there is little public reflection on passed musical trends.
When the grand daughters come to visit they are subject to all sorts of historical stuff that they simply didn’t know existed, but, and there is always a but, when they are exposed to grand pa’s play lists they quite like a very wide range of stuff from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s. You actually know they appreciate what I listen to when they run their own playlists and lo and behold artists from the golden age just “pop up”
60
Tony, in the Army and probably the Airforce we used to refer to Country Music as Queensland Opera
60
And for all you Army guys ….. The big hand is on …..
Tony.
60
I like both kinds of music; country AND western
30
“country AND western”
Notice the Regional designations.
All parts of the US that are NOT the Yankee Northeast.
I’m a bit sensitive on this subject, being Southern, (i.e. ‘redneck, likely MAGA) … and a recovering musician.
‘Country’ is a more polite marketing term.
My parents called it “string band music”.
I was blown away when my father told me that he never heard of Benny Goodman until in went in the Army in 1940, and then told me that Bill and Charlie Monroe played his high school prom.
Ken Burns, and the NE intellectuals that populate the NYT, New Yorker magazine, love to write stories about the quant and interesting hill people …
AND then demand we all be arrested for being MAGA … or patriots.
Jeb and Granny are so cute.
My people build $h!te and occupy the tip of the spear in war, play the cr@p oyut of banjos, fiddle and guitars, and sit and watch types like Ken Burns wax romantically poetic about us … on PBS, just after the NewsHour goes on about how appalling we are.
Yankees toured the South, as if a foreign country, recording our music, and claiming it for America … like this …
most think Aaron Copland created this, hers’s the original …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeQucos9-M
BTW, I can play this note for note on my fiddle.
I can also shoot straight, and fight like a ninja … even at 68 I am still hard to kill.
Just like my Daddy before me.
There’s a ‘Country’ song in there somewhere.
.
50
‘BTW, I can play this note for note on my fiddle.’
For the interested, you have to tune the fiddle to Low D-D-A-D and not 440 of course.
20
I’m for rock AND roll. Day one was on a cadet camp and I heard Elvis doing Heartbreak Hotel. I must have been 15.
I loved it and when I came home and told Mum how good it was she was most upset but my teenage years were spent rockin’. Met Mrs H at a dance, possibly The Shack but we a casual group and there was no Day 1 in our romance.
Once I joined the adult world music has become little more than something to listen to in the car on the community radio staffed by old pharts like me.
OK Just to prove I like something less than 50 yrs old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3-pfGBLh0Y
20
Country music is about “stories”, generally. Well the Songs are. The instrumentals are all about showmanship and “chops”.
And the genre has some great song titles:
“How Can I miss you if you won’t go away”
Thank God and Greyhound, you’re gone”
The recently-passed Jimmy Buffett had gems like:
“My head hurts, my feet stink and I don’t love Jesus”
Kinky Friedman, “The Texas Jew-boy” is somewhat famous for his classic; “They ain’t making Jews like Jesus anymore”.
There seems to be a fair bit of self-deprecation in the genre.
I am a bit of a latecomer to “country”; probably from drifting into “Western Swing” as an extension of Jazz / “big Band”z.
I will give anything a go, at least once.
Toby Keith racked up quite a series of “story” songs (“ballads” in the old terminology).
Then, there is Emmylou Harris; fabulous voice, fine guitar playing, great songs and the odd, quirky album title, like; “Quarter Moon in a Ten-cent Town”. Her duet album with Mark Knopfler is a gem.
40
You mention “western swing”. There was “rock swing” too, Bill haley and the Comets.
While I loved dancing I never had a steady partner to become good at it but Haleys swing was easy to dance to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nykq2126HDw
20
The modern mutation of swing crosses computer playback , swing and the heavy bass of rock music.
It’s called electroswing.
Some examples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco4z98nIQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5AOg8rTGHU (full live show)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGSJ3sbivI
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=when+i+get+low+i+get+high
10
I just read another great piece by Peter Hitchens, in which he and his brother, both young boys, try to get their mother to quit smoking. One device they employed was to make fake ciggies out of burnt garden weeds, hoping Mum would light one up and be immediately revolted – and cured. They failed.
Which took me back to a similar age, when I tried to likewise stop my parents from smoking by devious means. My version of the ruse involved poking exploding ‘joke’ ordnance into Dad’s fags. You could buy these things from the joke shop back in those extraordinarily-liberal days. They were tiny twists of tin foil, with gunpowder inside. What could possibly go wrong?
However …
The TV went on the blink and Dad fancied himself as an all-round super repairman, so off the back of the TV went. Dad earnestly studied the TV’s insides, wherein lurked some seriously dangerous voltages. Yes, he left it plugged in, all the better to see where the electricity was going. It was going to be a long job, so he sparked-up a cigarette to help him think. Needless to say, he chose the one I booby-trapped.
He had his head inside the TV box when it went off. Looking back, it WAS funny. I never saw him move so quickly, or turn so white. He flew backwards into the corner of the room while the screwdriver he was intemperately prodding the TV with must have contacted one of those high voltage bits, causing a secondary explosion. He didn’t (quite) have a heart attack, but it was a near thing.
He didn’t see the funny side, carried on smoking and I couldn’t sit down for a week. On the bright side, the dead TV was replaced with a bigger one, which was nice.
170
We had a cat once. As a kitten it got in the habit of wrestling with the power cord on the TV, biting it and giving it the rear feet kick of death. All fun and games when a kitten but eventually the day came when it had gotten bigger and the bite eventually got close enough to the conductors to get zapped. It was quite a spectacle bouncing of the walls and the bottom of the TV in the corner it sat in. Survived, but never went back for more.
40
I was working in a high powered HF ratio transmitter hall in a previous life [I was still single :)].
These were powerful with four transmitter valves with finned anodes and a [maybe] 1 hp blower keeping the anodes cool. If the air stopped the solder attaching the fins would melt and the valves would fall into the cabinet. The safety circuit was a flap under air pressure, closing a switch which allowed the transmitter to power up. A mate [let’s call him Bongo because that was his nic] was trying to power up this transmitter so put his finger through a hole in the air box to operate the switch to test it. Unbeknownst to him a big three phase circuit breaker had welded closed so there was still high voltage on the anodes [there is a technical reason why they weren’t drawing current and melting]. As Murphy would say he touched the anode with his finger, The shock blew him across the transmitter hall where he hit those and slid to the floor, a deep charred track along his finger. I have never seen anything like it since.
His time must have been up because not too long after he was taken by a shark.
40
Playing off of Tony’s missive:
If you like classical guitar, Ana Vidovic is excellent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot6wjLttg-A
As well, Marc Antoine. Music set to video: Unity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-ER6CPz_2A
Latin Quarter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD2rLlRyv7o
40
and in Australia, historically John Williams and more recently the Grigoryan Brothers
10
I just happened to be cruising uselesstube this rainy weekend (rain is currently 5% of BOM prediction…) and watched a video posted yesterday on a computer tech channel I’m not a regular of but well aware of.
It seems there’s a global cybersecurity issue affecting all platforms, Windoze/Android/Mac/Linux, in a realm I was aware of way out in left field but it didn’t seem critical at the time.
The reality now is quite different.
It’s a bit technical and I’ll be doing more research into mitigation measures, but everyone should ensure their internet security software has all features enabled and up to date, and to be ESPECIALLY careful with banking or confidential info transmission.
More soon.
I also just listed a few things on Gumtree, and had phishing attacks within 10 minutes, from users pretending to be Gumtree admins, after info they would have if they were employees.
Better luck next time, suckers! 😆
20
Scammers are quite tiresome these days and i worry about when I’m older, and less ‘sharp’. It’s easy to see how oldies fall for these tricks, some of which are very believable and may seem legit.
I am diligent in the use of Microsoft’s reporting tools in Hotmail and always report those masquerading as real businesses, however poorly, as ‘phishing’ scams. Whether MS takes any action though, I do not know.
Gumtree can indeed by a dodgy experience but Facebook Marketplace is worse now. It’s got so bad i don’t bother trying to sell anything on there, the scammers being so relentless.
60
When my mum died, she had 82 charities taking regular deductions from her account – $10 here, $20 there.
20
The pile of horseshit is getting bigger –
https://twitter.com/i/status/1715465410856841628
30
Yes but this is not new. The medical reports and opinions, and the autopsy were out to the public soon after. All ignored, The restraining technique used by the police was standard procedure.
40
FWIW
“Step It Up and Go”
https://kunstler.com/clusterf*-nation/step-it-up-and-go/
Add to #16
20
“Mischief is important” **
Via Instapundit
“WORKS FOR ME: Ruy Teixeira: Time to Throw the Intersectional Left Under the Bus! “Similarly a recent Public Agenda Hidden Common Ground survey found 91 percent agreement with the statement: ‘All people deserve an equal opportunity to succeed, no matter their race or ethnicity.’ This is what people deeply believe in: equal opportunity not, unlike the intersectional left, equal outcomes.”
It’s pretty much always a mistake to listen to the “academics and activists.” At best they’re mostly idiots, at worst — and far too frequently — they’re basically monsters.
UPDATE: You know, following the drama at Harvard it seems like it would be a good time for some prankster to plaster the campus with those ISLAM IS RIGHT ABOUT WOMEN and ISLAM IS RIGHT ABOUT GAYS posters, and let the intersectional fun begin!
** borrowed from SDA, bold is my emphasis
80
Mate was telling me how his brother had his motorbike stolen in Maitland, up in the Hunter Valley.. A couple of days later he was driving near his house & saw it being ridden down the street. He ph’d the cops & followed it.
Cops turned up in the procession, the kid on it threw his helmet away and as he turned into his driveway he just dropped the bike and ran inside. If the rider doesn’t have a helmet on, the cops can’t ‘chase’ him..
The parents came out and seemed very well-versed in handling the Police, who eventually arrested mate’s brother and charged him with harassment/stalking someone because he had followed the bike. 5years jail originally, but then they dropped it a level and now its only worth three years jail. I will await the offer of a plea deal..
The 15-yr-old who stole it?? Nothing… of course!
40
Exhibit A
https://youtu.be/lEr9cPpuAx8
Exhibit B see 1:09:30
https://youtu.be/LkMVt1JL450
10