Lithuania, 1955
There are almost no brave people left in academia, or sport, or the land of celebrity. When one of their own faces the axe for some random transgression of an invisible rule book on political niceties, their colleagues abandon them.
In academia, they’re supposed to be the intellectual cream of the crop –the individual giants who fought their way to the top. But it’s like we’ve selected for wary herding people instead. And perhaps that’s the point. When universities were turned into schools and businesses, and quirky philanthropist funding became predictable Big-Government largess, the mavericks and rebels didn’t fit and one by one were expelled, sacked — or just pushed sideways til they fell out. What’s left in the wasteland of academia, apparently, are the mid-wit networking climbers. The middling Ordinaires rose into positions above their due and became afraid of losing the sweeter deal than they deserved. If they were the top dogs in their field, and if that mattered, they could speak their mind, get sacked, and still be offered a new position at a competing institution. But second rung players don’t have that option. They won’t put their head above the parapet and say up is not down, and 3 is not 2.
Clearly universities don’t want to employ giants. They can’t control them.
And so the mid-wits feed the crocodile:
The Fears of the Elite
By Mark Bauerlein, American Greatness
Here is a story by Heather Mac Donald of a renowned teacher at the Manhattan School of Music accused of racism and homophobia.
This teacher, years ago, worked on something that an anonymous accuser suddenly declared was demeaning to Asians. The teacher’s years of service and excellent record counted for nothing. A petition was gathered among students, who were possibly also too afraid to look like closet racists by not signing it. Why would students show the integrity and bravery their teachers lacked? And thus a mob was born. The terms “homophobia” and “body shaming” was added somewhere along the line. There was no investigation in any meaningful manner. She was cancelled.
Mac Donald puts it this way: “Vaughn’s colleagues, cowering from the mob, let her twist in the wind. Almost none came to her defense.” … None of her active colleagues in 2020 protested, and the administration didn’t bother to investigate the charges.
How is it that the faculty said nothing and that administrators acted so precipitously to satisfy the angry kids?
It’s not just academics, it’s sports leaders and CEO’s who rush to appease too:
[It’s the].. college president who rushes to apologize for imaginary crimes, the CEOs who pour money into the coffers of Black Lives Matter leaders who despise the very system that the business heads otherwise uphold, the famous actor who turns his own (putatively) insensitive remark into a public drama of penitence . . . fear has turned them into timorous tacticians. Where is the confidence that naturally follows from accomplishment?
They’re nervous, very nervous—and they’re willing to violate the norms of their own workplaces and fields and personal ethics when the pressure comes, or at least to retire in fear as others commit those violations. One wonders if there is something about the ladder of achievement in 21st century America that robs individuals of integrity the higher they go.
“…like a form of cultural suicide has taken hold”
A society whose leaders are so easily cowed is heading toward a dark fate. To watch our prestigious academic chiefs bow down to a pack of irate 20-year-olds is to feel the American spirit drain away. To observe an eminence in the world of sports lose all his mojo and beg forgiveness for a lapse most of us chalk up to the ordinary sins of ordinary people is to suspect that an ethos of cultural suicide has taken hold.
The highly credentialed members of our society boast of their worldliness and tolerance and enlightenment, but there is now more freedom of speech and diversity of thought in an automotive repair shop than there is in the faculty lounge. Never has there been more insecurity among the smart set, never more caution in the boardroom.
Merit used to bring rewards:
Achievement hasn’t made them more comfortable, and it hasn’t brought them more freedom.
They know they’re weak, and that’s hard for a superior person to accept. Despising Donald Trump and his fans made them feel better. Trump is out, but they still have January 6, and people who resist the vaccine, and who push the audits…
We can all see where this is headed but it ain’t over yet.
Politically correct shackles are just words, so they can be defeated by words.
Support those on the front line of the cultural war, the politicians who take the hard road, the journalists who do a good job. The Peter Ridds of the world. Even a friendly message helps. Just say thanks. Share the messages you like, and the jokes. Spread the word. Subscribe, follow and link to the leaders you admire.
Thanks from me to those who take the time to name and shame the biased journalists and silent academics. If those cultural cowards fear student-mobs, they will fear organized grown-ups even more. Group-thinkers, after all, need to think they are on the same side as The Group. Never underestimate how much it will get to them if they find out thousands of polite steadfast adults disagree.
And every waking minute, mock political correctness in all its forms and never apologize for the great nations that we inherited, that defeated slavery, and gave women and men freedom and peace like no other civilization on Earth.
It’s a culture war, so fight with cultural tools. There is a reason the politerati warriors hate national flags. Use them.
This is what students were protesting against ion 1960 in San Diego
An anti-Communist Rally in 1960
* * *
Your support keeps me writing, and the content free to everyone. Every contribution, big or small, helps.
With no ads, no sponsors and no boss, I am free to say things others can’t.
We are starting to resist.
Tell them to get lost instead of kowtowing.
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Is it too late?
https://t.me/mrn_death/8323
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It is too late. Look at USA going down the toilet. They can have 6 Donald Trumps & that country will never recover. It’s too far gone & it’s all come about because of weak leadership, kowtowing to UN & the secret agreements driving the west into One World Government mode.
Look at what’s happening in the UK. A supposedly conservative Boris Johnson pushing Green policies??? Look at Australia with Morrison pushing the destruction of our power generation & building more & more windmills & solar.
We’re in big trouble folks. Time for revolution!!
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A very pertinent wake up call!
They’ve taken us.
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It gets worse KK. Look at this short video. It’s been planned for years.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/081/761/629/original/01f9f04c91c73992.mp4
h/t Bn on ysb
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Graham, it was Al Gore’s persuasion of Clive Palmer that built those “windmills and solar” by “protecting” the Renewable Energy Target in the senate.
By thwarting the Abbott government’s landslide mandate Al Gore proved himself the most effective Australian politician of the decade. Without being an Australian citizen and without holding a single seat in our parliament, but with the Palmer United Party as proxies.
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Hi Ted. WE are governed by fools who are advised by idiots. The premiers and Morrison are out of ideas. Well they only had one idea and it did not work. Time for new leadership.
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On the 13th August the USA Dept. of Homeland Security announced. If you question Govt about COVID response and any differing views you will be considered a Domestic Violent Extremist .
In other words more than half the country can now be defined as dissidents and domestic terrorists within their own homeland. We know that +/- 60 6th Jan election protesters have been locked up without bail awaiting trial some time in the indefinite future as an example of what happens to protesting conservatives.
This is now the official position of Biden’s USA Government to all its citizens.
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Well Administrator Bidet appears to have basically threatened some americans with nukes and F15s…….so……
https://defconnews.com/2021/06/24/biden-threatens-to-nuke-gun-owners/
Jo…. lots of stats for Iceland here
https://www.covid.is/data
Spoilers…..averages out that 2/3 of cases were vaccinated…..
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That’s spooky.
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You should see countries like Israel ramping up into what appears to be a vaccine-provided resurgence – clear 3rd wave under way….
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
20
Vote with your $ where possible and if opportunities arise, ask for an explanation of exactly how pronouncing that white, heterosexual males are toxic sits within the setting of defeating judgements based on race, gender and sexuality.
HEALTH WARNING – Don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer.
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Have been thinking who the anti-discrimination laws can be used.
A “female?” doesn’t have to prove they are female, just identify as one.
An “aboriginal” doesn’t have to prove they are, just say they are one.
How is medical status any different ?
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first line “how”, not “who”.. …
30
I worked in Aboriginal Affairs for nearly two decades … a person had to satisfy three conditions: (1) they had to be of the Aboriginal race, (2) they had to identify as Aboriginal, and (3) they had to be accepted by the community as Aboriginal.
How else are you going to do it? There’s no blood test for these things.
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As i said.. they have to “identify” as being Aboriginal.
Thanks for the confirmation.
1/128, 1/256…. ?
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Correct.
Bruce Pascoe anyone?
No aboriginal community/tribe accepts him.
Yet he is lauded by the media.
It seems that snake oil salesmen are flourishing.
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It was 1 of the 3, not all 3.
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#1 would be easily shown by a DNA test. #2= a simple matter of fraud vs non-fraud 9see recent Bruce Pascoe show0 and #3 Which community? The other fake aborigines, or the full-bloods who regard the fake aborigines as, well….fakes?
#1 is directly at odds with your “no blood test’ claim. are you OK?
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If you are less than 50% indigenous, you are something else, therefore not aboriginal.
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“#1 would be easily shown by a DNA test”
Just like “gender” can. Rare cases where it is totally unambiguous. Make or Female.
People need to stop “pretending”
00
Pretty sure #1 has been dropped.
30
Some “Aboriginals” are whiter than I am. It is a scam to collect benefits and part of the victim mentality that is prevalent. The kids do not go to school and then are told they are unemployable not because they cannot read and write but because they are “aboriginal”. The BS continues and is emphasised by those who wish to create division.
31
meet Vincent Tan and his Unisyn Voting Systems of California https://balance10.blogspot.com/2021/08/meet-vincent-tan-and-his-unisyn-voting.html
20
Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray are two commentators who are not prepared to accept the bullying of the woke mob.
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Throw in Chris Kenny, Peta Credlin, Rohan Dean, Rita Panahi and Mark Latham for good measure.
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Controlled opposition – utterly useless.
50
Alan Jones
Adam Creighton
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Adam Creighton lost me with his TDS or anti-Trump hyperbole.
11
@GD:
Must have missed that one.
00
Graham Lloyd in “The Australian”.
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A weeks penance from UTUBA has nobbled them – you can see it – even Outsiders and Alan Jones no longer remind their watchers that anti-virals like vitamin D3 exist. The only thing left is humor – if you access FOX videos Gutfield is a cutting breath of fresh air. I hope the vaccinated enjoy their mRNA spike proteins provided free of charge by our leaders.
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Also toss in Victor Davis Hanson.
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Is it Jordan Peterson or Douglas Murray, or both, that someone doesn’t like?
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OT Jo, but what do you make of this?
Do we have to stop calling languages French, German, Russian etc?
Is there something odd about academics, Australian or otherwise?
http://Www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9893157/Academic-pushes-English-subject-renamed-schools-Language-Arts.html
30
Stephen
Can I endorse the works of Douglas Murray?
He is an excellent writer and not afraid to call out the lunatic woke. “The strange death of Europe” was a masterpiece. His next book “the madness of crowds’ is a more difficult read but essentially pin points the fact that not content with having won the battle on say ‘gays, they then vastly over reach which has led us to the notion that people can self identify whatever sex they want to be.
I may disagree with jo over covid and lockdowns but she provides a very useful forum . Time to buy her some chocolate I think.
540
The great and the good are nowhere near as great and as good as they believe. They were shocked to the core by the vote for Brexit and fought back hard believing they knew better.
They were shocked even further when Boris got such a large majority at our last general election. They need to be constantly reminded that they do not own us but instead need to do what the majority tell them, even if they disagree.
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Yes, that Brexit vote was a wonderful start in turning things around but the border breeches show that there’s still a lot to be fixed.
[SNIP OT]
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[SNIP. Correct but in reply to snipped off topic. – Jo]
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[SNIP. Off topic. Not useful. -J]
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[Snip. Correct but it’s all off topic – jo]
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I thought that the Queen was a little older than that………….lol
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Boris needs to be careful that he doesn’t alienate his erstwhile and new ‘red wall’ supporters.
He seems to have taken a lurch to the left/green side and is proposing policies that are not popular among many people who feel powerless to get their point of view over to their MPs, especially as there seems to be no difference between the policies of the main three parties.
How much of this is a result of keeping his nose clean in the run-up to COP26 I don’t know, but there is a lot of speculation that there is a degree of influence close to home.
We will see, interesting times, but I find a bit of reassurance in that many people I speak to have a sensible attitude to and knowledge of the issues.
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“Boris needs to be careful that he doesn’t alienate his erstwhile and new ‘red wall’ supporters.”
Boris won’t alienate his “red wall” supporters by moving to the left but he may alienate his erstwhile “blue wall conservative” supporters if he moves too far as is presaged by the Lib-Dem win in Chesham and Amersham a Tory seat since 1974.
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You forgot Patersham and Walshingham, why do you not consider them as relevant; are they too working class for you?
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Patersham and Walshingham? I think you might mean Petersham and Walsingham which, as far as I can determine, are not parliamentary seats in the UK.
By-elections in the UK since the 2019 election are Batley and Spen. Chesham and Amersham. Airdrie and Shotts. Hartlepool
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/by-elections/by-elections-2019/
I “forgot” Patersham and Walshingham not because they are” too working class” but because they don’t exist and there has been no by-election other than those I list above since Boris Johnson was elected in 2019
010
Who is this Boris Johnson?
Was he bye-elected?
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Jeez KK what the hell are you on today? I mentioned Johnson to give a time frame to the by-elections.
I Note you fail to remark on why I didn’t mention Patersham and Walshingham
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Boris – such a great Russian name.
20
Tony I think the shine has come off Boris big time. He has the numbers of course, but what does he really stand for I wonder?
He seems to be totally clueless on so called CAGW and seems to have a very shallow grasp of the scientific method.
But then again so do most so called leaders of most countries around the world. Time he stopped listening to his Princess and read more data/evidence from sites like the GWPF, or Jo Nova or WUWT etc.
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I don’t think he realised that a large reason for people wanting to leave Europe was to escape its economy-destroying climate alarmism.
202
Rejection of the relentless cultural suicide and foreign
“immigration”invasion was a huge factor too.160
Rejection of the relentless cultural suicide and foreign
“immigration”invasion was a huge factor too.20
Look at how profoundly corrupt the milieu is, Cameron up to his gills in the recent Greensill scamming for instance, and ask who do these people represent if not solely moneyed interests? Certainly not the electors.
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It seems to me that his “green” activist wife is leading Boris by his gonads 🙁
30
time to stop listening to his underinformed but more desirable undergraduate princess,.
10
Thanks Jo for being here.
Thanks Jo for putting all that together and saying it.
Strike back, retake our society; it’s very apparent that it will not be fixed without dealing with the right issues.
We live in a top down society and the top is rotted and dysfunctional, uncaring and dismissive of the former rules and structures that once bound us together for the betterment of all.
When an Australian prime minister is able to load our university management with imported derelicts to oversee the destruction of our once great universities; when he can buy useless submarines; when he can build another Snowy Dam slap in the face; and when he can send seven and a half tonnes of gold to the Great Big Barrier Reef Foundation; all of that without question or criticism, let alone legal action; Then, isn’t that telling us, shouting at us, mocking us and spitting on us?
Yes, MalEx444 has shown that our political structure is rotten, our legal system is unreliable and no action is now too large and insulting to deserve punishment.
Anything goes.
Sadly our political edifice must be pulled down and all those subversives in Public Service in state, federal and local government must be removed quickly.
We must cease any involvement with the United Bloody Nations, WEF and WHO.
Viewed from afar we can see the rot in Europe, U.S. and Britain and it truly is a tragedy based on Evil.
In Australia we have little time left but when “They” command the Law, the Police and the Army we have a big task in front of us.
Remember Watt Tyler for truly, that’s where we are.
It’s 2021 and we live in great danger and society collapsing around us and they, like the OBama’s are laughing at us.
540
They’re trying to force government jobs and workers to mandatory vaccinations in Canada now.
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I read that Canada plans to call a snap election for Sept. 20
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/canada-pm-trudeau-is-planning-to-call-snap-election-for-sept-20.html
If so, its outcome could be interesting.
170
I read that Donald Trump will return as President on August 13 2021. But as that was from articles quoting claims by QAnon, Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell, I don’t put much reliance on their accuracy. However it is still August 13 in America so perhaps my comment will be proven premature
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“Prema_ “?
More likely “Imma_”
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Why “immature”?
Don’t shoot the messenger KK. I didn’t claim Trump would be returning as President on August 13 just commenting on those that did. Direct your barbs to the authors.
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An off-topic jibe is pretty immature.
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How dare you insinuate that.
I have never, ever, owned a Barbie doll.
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They always say that.
30
Ian probably still has his. !
42
Hanrahan you write “An off-topic jibe is pretty immature.”
Well so is KK as you can see from his” Barbie doll” comment so it’s best to operate at his level. And “off topic”? I was initially responding to RicDre @#5.1.1 who wrote “I read that Canada plans to call a snap election for Sept. 20”
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“I was initially responding to RicDre….”
And completely changed the topic…
Is that what you are trying to draw attention to ?
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All “mail-in” voting, of course. 😉
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The process is ‘Evolutionary’ not ‘Revolutionary’.
The evolution is simple, I will use the community care system as an example.
Begins with a need or a worthy cause:
This has happened to nearly all our Institutions and the Universities as mentioned. Universities once populated by people more interested in their subjects and the spread of this knowledge than career and fortune. Those from the left identified by the leather patch on the sleeve and the faded Volvo Sedan. Those from a more conservative faculty by the shorts, long socks and the Anglia.
My solution, do not financially patronize those organization who appear to have failed in their primary cause. Talk to your neighbours, friends, attend you local school’s Parents & Citizens, Political Party meetings, Hall Committees,etc. You never know it may be fun to be involved in your community once the cockroaches are exposed to the light and leave. They will leave when you remove the honorariums and the funding that attracts them. Know them when they appear, the desire to be financially compensated for community work is the most obvious indicator that the cause will become secondary to the organization.
Yes, it is hard work and requires sacrifice, the alternative of a remote totalitarian controlling what is best for your community will by history see you instead spending your day applying and queuing and hoping because you will become the needy.
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Roadie,
Perceptive analysis.
My parents were keen on lawn bowls in their late 70s. Then, the elected club officials became little hitlers. Mum and Dad raised some money and built a new club house and lawns. Installed themselves as life president and vp. Problem solved:
These days I tear out hair in frustration at the meek too scared to act. Saw the other day a plan for an ambitious new project shelved when several onlookers said it would fail to get regulatory blessing. In the good old days, we just did things and dared the bureaucrats to oppose. We got a lot done, but as early as the 1980s I saw the expression “Paralysis by analysis.•
What has happened to this once vibrant nation Australia? Geoff S
50
Litigation!
The gates are opened by the Nanny State to allow the ‘worriers’ in. A total focus on compliance rather than the ‘Cause’.
00
“Paralysis by analysis” – love it. I believe Thomas Edison once said he never asked experts for their opinions on his ideas, because they would only come up with a multitude of reasons why it wouldn’t work.
20
Broadie – thanks. I just copied and saved that quote about how institutes evolve from humble but good beginnings, into vast lumbering administrations. I work at just such a place. Our admin section is now so large that it is almost entirely consumed with administering itself.
I actually advise friends never to donate any money to us! Funding for much needed lab equipment is rejected while many tens of thousands are spent on glossy brochures boasting of our great work.
20
KK, my biggest fear is that despite the current price of iron ore, should China call for a tabling of our accounts we might be found insolvent.
Or at least severely embarrassed.
30
Has anybody else noticed how OUR Grubbnmnts
are dividing OUR Nation, OUR communities, and,
worst of all, OUR families.
All in the name of this “plandemic”?
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The panicdemic and it’s aftermath will be 10 times worse than the actual pandemic itself
All foreseeable
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Every thing they have done to date in response to this disease has advanced and is advancing the Marxist cause. To destroy capitalism and abolish private management of industry.
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Another shot in the right’s instance that they should be the gatekeepers of what is allowed to be said.
Idea’s should live or die on their own, without having to be sanctioned by conservative ideologues
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I cant’t speak to Australia, but here in the USA its the left, not the right that think “they should be the gatekeepers of what is allowed to be said” (see, Democrats, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia etc.)
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@RicDre:
You wrote:
Exactly the same here in Australia. Same almost everywhere I think.
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I see the elite left is fleeing off-shore as guns are purchased by the million in red and blue states. Bullets are getting hard to find. The trouble with wall to wall lefties is that they make [Snip]AD and they cant hide behind the other side as QE induced inflation hits. Will be interesting if the California recall is spiked by the vote machines….Wonder if they will risk it?
30
Hilarious, circumlocuitous, even introspective mirror gazing.
Thanks for that very personal comment.
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Every social gatekeeper and major censor of basically everything .. is a leftist !
But you know that, and are just making petty, ignorant comments as a way to seek attention.
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“Idea’s should live or die on their own”
Your ideas are uniformly stillborn !
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“Your ideas are uniformly stillborn !”
Well that’s more than can be said for your ideas which have not reached even the first stage of gestation.
And as for “petty ignorant comments” that, coming from you, is the epitome of hypocrisy.
BTW referring to one of your previous comments Meek not Meak is the correct spelling
719
Let me take a peak at that.
Yes, that was clearly meant to be “gesticulation”.
Articulation is when you voice some idea.
Reticulation of runoff into dams. That word is now out of use because, well, dams are banned.
80
Clearly as you don’t have a PhD in biology you are not aware of the relationship between “gestation” and “still born”.
29
Keep going, this is hilliaryous.
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Someone’s gunna have to give Ian a bigger shovel 😉
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Still uniformly unborn.
42
Poor little Ian, tries to copy and fails utterly and completely!
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Best he can manage to find is a minor typo.
Very sad.
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Another who is not aware of the relationship between gestation and still born.
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Intelligent… like a rock, aren’t you Ian. 🙂
One day you’ll get it up.
43
For your information gestation is the period between conception and birth which is why I said your ideas had not reached the stage of gestation or in other words, they had not been conceived. Surely someone with degrees in maths, science and physics and a PhD in Civil Engineering would know how to spell and would know the relationship between gestation and birth But apparently not. Your degrees seem to have fallen on stony ground. Best go back to the ditch-digging and white line painting as these are clearly your forte
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You have really made a complete and utter clown of yourself on this one, haven’t you Ian.
Promoting my comment to the wazoo ! 🙂
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Mr T.
I learned what gestation meant in primary school.
Now they have to wait for a post grad course to find out.
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Poor Ian, not only was my joke so good and appropriate, that the little man decided to try and run with it…
.. thus allowing my idea to blossom. 🙂
Proving the worth of my comment.
Surely someone who pretends to have done some biology, would know something.. about something.
Yet fails at every attempt, only able to comment on a minor typo.
You really should stop trying to appear intelligent, Ian.. its not working for you.
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“Surely someone who pretends to have done some biology, would know something.. about something.”
I think you will find that your comment is defamatory.
Defamation can be defined as a false statement about a person to their discredit. You are stating that I pretend to have done some biology. That statement is false and is to my discredit. I can prove irrefutably that that statement is false. I have done “some biology” and have the documentation to prove it, namely the certificate awarding my PhD issued by the University of Western Australia.
The legal action has three elements for the complainant to prove: publication, identification, and defamatory meaning. Significantly, the falseness of the published material is presumed.
As is apparent all three elements are met in your comment.It has been published. It identifies me. It is defamatory.
I await your apology .
Jo I apologise for this but clarence.t has gone too far. He is calling me a liar. A defamatory statement which I I can prove is patently false.
I trust this comment will not be deleted. It is only fair to say I have made a pdf of his comment showing it was on view from 2.06 pm for around 5 hours
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Yawn !!
73
This from someone who said I should go back to painting line.
Hilarious. !
73
The big dfiffernece is that I didn’t say you pretended to have done something. You did and I think you will find that publicly calling someone a liar is definitely defamatory if it isn’t true
214
Do you need a bigger shovel for that hole ?
102
Far-left victim status rings loudly. !
102
No not far left clarence.t just someone objecting to being falsely accused of lying.
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Since it has upset you so much, I apologise your saying you were “pretending”
You shouldn’t be such a sensitive little leftist.
……
“and would know the relationship between gestation and birth But apparently not”
And where did you “invent” that from….. just making up lies ?
Please apologise for that lie.
Oh, and it seems you can’t even use punctuation correctly.
Pl
82
“Since it has upset you so much, I apologise your saying you were “pretending”
But I didn’t say I was pretending it was you that categorically said that and that is defamation.
And I have nothing for which to apologise for writing “and would know the relationship between gestation and birth But apparently not” as I qualified my statement by using the adverb “apparently” so learly it is not a lie. I doubt you will grasp the subtle differences but in any event thanks for the apology. I’m quite prepared to let the matter drop..
210
“Since it has upset you so much, I apologise your saying you were “pretending”
But I didn’t say I was pretending it was you that said I was that and that is defamation.
Thanks for Ithe apology. I’m quite prepared to let the matter drop..
28
just a typo
““Since it has upset you so much, I apologise for saying you were “pretending””
42
Your words were
“Another who is not aware of the relationship between gestation and still born.”
You fabricated a lie, from zero evidence.
Expecting an apology.
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“Since it has upset you so much, I apologise for saying you were “pretending”
It just “seems” that way.
32
“I’m quite prepared to let the matter drop..”
Plop!
20
You said “Another who is not aware of the relationship between gestation and still born.”
That is taught is junior high biology..
So it seems you lied, in an attempt to discredit.
62
Absolute rubbish and you know it. Unlike you, I did not accuse you of pretending anything. I was stating you did not know the difference between conception and gestation. Maybe you did learn it in junior high school maybe you didn’t. All I know is as there is no evidence in your follow up comments that showed you do understand the difference
211
dig, dig…
“All I know is as there is no evidence in your follow up comments that showed you do understand the difference”
You said I was not aware of the difference.
So you just made your comment on zero evidence… OK. !
Glad we straightened that out.
82
“I was stating you did not know the difference between conception and gestation.”
So you just made up a counter-factual comment.. A Lie.
82
Clarence, I am upset that Ian is upset about something he appears to have misunderstood in your post – #PerturbedByProxy
10
Keeping his response in mind for later. A big button, just waiting to be pushed.
https://media.tenor.com/images/66059ec9f73e792a4e3e22e0e7d105f3/tenor.png
11
Ian said,
“ Another who is not aware of the relationship between gestation and still born.”
Perhaps he meant, “ Another, who is not aware of the relationship between gestation and still born.”
However, sans the comma, it refers not to Clarence, but to Dr Suess creatures from Who-vile. Perhaps he meant Cindy-loo-who.
10
I try to stay away from interacting with trolls, but defamation is all about a reduction in reputation.
You enjoy a strongly negative reputation. Try identifying somebody who things less of you because of what has been said here.
Hint: you defame yourself with everything you write.
60
‘ … gatekeepers of what is allowed to be said.’
The right is at a disadvantage, Aunty leans to the left and a majority get their news from this ‘trusted’ source. The organisation must return to neutral pretty quickly or be eradicated by global cooling.
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“The right is at a disadvantage …”
We have a similar problem here in the USA but it includes more networks (PBS/NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN & MSNBC)
240
Aunty “Leans left”?
Could not get more lovey-cack-handed if they tried … and they do.
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Yes the ideas of democracy, republics and free speech came came from conservative and (gasp!) Christian values so practicing it retains it.
The idea of shutting down free speech by enforcing ‘values’ through a PC ‘woke’ idealism originates in the works of Marx.
Its like comparing a philosophical debate to a witch trial, you even use the words “what is allowed to be said” without a thought to the reason behind it, such is the primal power of group think.
The very fact you can make that comment freely, uncensored, without consequences here on a blog that abides by the values you scoff at proves the I am correct, but I think that these words are wasted on people that are too afraid to speak their true thoughts and question their morality regarding others when its safer to follow the herd.
There has been an amazing amount of factual and insightful information presented here over the years that is testament to Jo and the many commenters, they have openly debated at length with others that had an actual idea of what they were talking about, the contrarians that use contradiction, slurs or party lines as arguments are only good to educate others on their many flaws.
Your words will live or die on their own merits, without having to be sanctioned by conservative ideologues.
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Yonniestone said:
I think you will find those pre-date the Christian religion by two to three thousand years. They are more the ancient hebrew traditions and philosophies which were inherited by and part of the culture of those who came to absorb Christianity. “Canaanite values” may be more accurate.
42
You get to write comments here, that are blatant lies. How many times have you been caught out?
News, supposedly right wing, censor comments that are not politically correct unless written as if written by an uneducated red-neck (which I occasionally resorted to deliberately doing to at least bring something to people’s attention). So a leftwing journalist gets to verbal someone who died (using as evidence that he was anti vaxer who died from Covid his complaints that two of his friends died from it even though fully vaccinated), while my comment to it got rejected. A comment where I pointed out how Biden, Harris and other Democrats were given air time to express opinions that nobody should get vaccinated if it came out before the Presidential elections. Just so much more ridiculously tin-foil-hattish than what gets people banned from FB, Twitter or Youtube.
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PF, you should look for a chamber that echoes your sentiments as nobody here seems to care for them one iota!
81
I enjoy his company for jousting.
54
My bad, and apologies- shut was the word
Please delete
00
Roadie,
Perceptive analysis.
My parents were keen on lawn bowls in their late 70s. Then, the elected club officials became little hitlers. Mum and Dad raised some money and built a new club house and lawns. Installed themselves as life president and vp. Problem solved:
These days I tear out hair in frustration at the meek too scared to act. Saw the other day a plan for an ambitious new project shelved when several onlookers said it would fail to get regulatory blessing. In the good old days, we just did things and dared the bureaucrats to oppose. We got a lot done, but as early as the 1980s I saw the expression “Paralysis by analysis.•
What has happened to this once vibrant nation Australia? Geoff S
10
You mean that the right wants the right to free speech and you don’t PF.
30
PF.
If I invest time effort and money and find a new uranium mine, it it rather ordinary and expected that I can be a spokesman about it. When I do speak, it is not to establish any right to speak or to express political leanings or principles.
Overwhelmingly, it has been free enterprise people from the right who have mad most material progress to society, so of course you can hear them often.
So what? Are you feeling belittled and unheard and unappreciated because you have never done anything much to advance societal wellbeing and so do not have anything of consequence to talk about?
You get to be heard more when you earn that right by your actions. Geoff S
40
The Children have to play from time to time Geoff.
00
Quite a bizzare post when left wing censorship is rampant across the world and displayed daily by technology platforms and the MSM. I guess until the last conservative voice is snuffed out you may be happy, but really I doubt that you are ever happy. Joylessness and lack of humour seem to be an enduring trait of the left.
21
Rand Paul is correct: It is time to stop listening and start resisting
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/rand-paul-is-right-its-time-to-stop-listening-and-start-resisting
>> In only six months we have gone from “Trump is a Nazi” to “show us your papers.”
500
Thanks, Jo, what a fantastic Saturday morning column! Yes, indeed the sheeple are beginning to realise that their future is bleak under the lizard-like so-called leadership currently abroad! “can you hear the people sing? singing the song of angry men”.
300
Wankademics is a term I’ve used at times.
230
Sounds accurate.
140
From the Urban Dictionary,
Wankademic.
A name used to identify a member of the academic community whose sole existence is driven not by enlightening humanity, but instead by making themselves look better through the crafting of convenient theories and nice-sounding models. In other words, academic masturbation.
220
I see you’re using the Concise edition, the Unabridged version is more descriptive and accurate:
120
Sky’s moderator let this one through in a recent post of mine (critique of the ABC).
:self-flagellation
[ˈˌself ˌflajəˈlāSHən, ˈˌsel(f)ˌflajəˈlāSHən]
NOUN
the action of flogging oneself, especially as a form of religious discipline.
excessive criticism of oneself.
“stirring accounts of our heroic history have given way to an era of self-flagellation”
30
Add to the list the UN that takes advice from Greta whatshername.
230
Seems to fit here (IMO)
Chiefio
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2021/08/11/w-o-o-d-11-august-2021/#comment-148885
80
Thank you Jo.
I don’t often add my voice to this blog, but I read it every day.
You are a voice of sanity in a world gone mad.
Please don’t stop. Chocolate incoming.
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Thank you Colin, and thanks to all the kind comments and for those who can help cover the costs.
41
One of the worst consequences of this leftist takeover of higher academia is the slow loss of robust and apolitical data, which hitherto underpinned much of our decision-making. This affects the really serious matters, such as government policy, but also public discourse, where debate requires reference to credible sources of ‘truth’.
It is becoming almost impossible to determine where the truth lies in any matter, especially in fields that you have no deep knowledge of and so must refer to ‘experts’ for your information. Whether it’s Covid, climate change, domestic violence, equality or economics, just getting hold of reliable and trustworthy data to support your position is very challenging these days, if that is, you are arguing from a conservative viewpoint.
We are reliant on the universities and government-funded research organisations for the data and facts required, particularly if, as I prefer, decisions are to be based on actual evidence. But that public discourse I mention is important too, because it shapes public opinion, which then determines who gets to run the country and/or make the rules.
Increasingly, I find myself debating people on the other end of the political spectrum who can call on any number of ‘credible sources’ to back them up, whereas I struggle to find any at all. I am therefore forced more and more into reliance on sources that don’t have ‘mainstream support’ and thus are usually dismissed because they were not published in any ‘reputable’ journal or consulted by our decision-makers.
Reliable data are like grease in the machine of society and, if the grease dries up, the friction starts.
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Steve the litmus test is this: They call you crazy when they fail to manipulate you.
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IIRC, dissidents in the old USSR were declared crazy because they didn’t agree with the workers’ paradise, so were sectioned and bundled off to a mental institution.
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cross posted at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/1342/terror-stalking-weak-western-elites
70
Thank you Jo for your hard work and research over the years.
Others like Andrew Bolt have been warning us for decades about the L W elite’s takeover of the institutions like Unis, the ABC, some Churches, Businesses etc.
Of course the left have now installed the new monster MSMs of the internet like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc and can censor anyone or any group as they please.
And even the US President can be banned if he doesn’t sing the proper tune according to these trendy, powerful L W billionaires. Unbelievable but true.
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Unfortunately the PC ‘woke agenda’ is infiltrating Sky News through some of the once champions of free speech, I think no matter how popular or correct you are you can be “gotten to” by powerful people determined to see this agenda through to the end.
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Interestingly I had a conversation with someone about the viral firestorm unfolding in certain countries with 50%+ vaccination rates.
Dont underestimate how powerful a one on one conversation is with people you trust.
But by not speaking up, youre letting the Elite abuse you….or your loved ones.
110
That’s true, but it is very difficult to talk to the people you love who have absorbed the propaganda and think you are completely crazy.
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Agreed.
Have you noticed how now its all about vaccines too?
No HCQ,
No ivermectin…
IMHO the whole lockdown thing is so blatantly a massive abusive psychological operation against the population.
It appears to be purely to create a state of panic to switch logic off so emotion rules…..
On the news one family ( allegedly covd positive ) was forcibly evicted from thier home into hotel quarantine under suspicion ( only ).
Thats Gestapo stuff.
Camps are next….
40
Its a matter of having *backbone*.
Its like pointing out that it appears the covid vaccinated in places that have a highly vaccinated population are now the main reservoirs and spreaders of the disease.
Reckon the MSM will cover that? Nope…doesnt fit the stupid cowardly narrative of the Elite …
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The narrative only works if the majority believe it, think of how many family, friends or colleagues not only believe the lies but openly condemn you for not, this agenda will turn a group into a mob very quickly.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
― Charles MacKay, ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’
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Backbone is good, but we must act in such a way that nobody gets the chance to break it.
It’s a very dangerous, lawless world at the moment and, for sure, we must eventually act but importantly strike after careful deliberation and planning; the enemy has to come down with the first strike.
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In that Case we’re doomed.
I’d prefer to give them the death of a thousand cuts.
Destroy them slowly. Let them drown in their own stupidity. Encourage them to buy electric vehicles, batteries for their PVs, eat ants, ride their pushbikes etc.
Protect your own and yourself.
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The problem with this is that they will take us down with them by mandating that THEIR choice is the ONLY choice.
So it will be EVs, PV with batteries, eating ants and pushbikes for you, me and everyone else, too.
30
“Its like pointing out that it appears the covid vaccinated in places that have a highly vaccinated population are now the main reservoirs and spreaders of the disease.”
Correct Steve, the first three variants emerged in the countries where the vaccines were first trialed.
31
But the Delta variant did come from India where hardly anyone was vaccinated.
Bad things may yet unfold from the leaky vaccines, but I don’t think we can put the current known variants in that box. Spanish flu got nastier in the second year.
12
https://c19early.com/ This may throw some light on treatments. Note that australia is the only one of the 57 countries noted that have NOT approved ANY alternative treatments.
21
Apparently there were thousands involved in the vaccine trials in India before December when Delta appeared. 1600 in the AZ alone.
https://theprint.in/health/oxford-vaccine-trials-running-smoothly-in-india-no-adverse-side-effects-so-far/514576/
11
Note that curcumin rates well in those trials. It is an excellent supplement that everyone should consider, even in normal times.
21
Yes, while not likely it is certainly possible that Delta was a vaccine induced variant.
Also I have yet to see a breakdown of the earliest known Delta case. It could have even been brought to India.
00
pray tell. How does a vaccine induce a variant?
00
By a process like a sieve, providing selective free passage, or hindrance, or a complete halt to viruses according to their respective breed.
00
…..and then they came for me, but there was no one left to speak for me.”
101
Just had to listen to Greta Killeen rant as if an expert, who is nothing but a Big Brother host and writer/producer of works that don’t sell, got to demand that Scott Morrison as leader of the country take over lockdowns instead of brush it off on to the states.
I thought that such ignorance was to be banned from the media, but nobody corrected her. It not just academia that has been completely hijacked by people who will do anything to not have to do real work.
160
Due to time off I happened across Ross Garnaut talking on a local radio station, his public talk was cancelled cause covid of course so he go to vent his seriously flawed green ideology on the local listeners, I’ll bet my life the majority that heard him thought he was clever and had great ideas for the future, problem is they don’t realize his utopian future doesn’t include them.
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Yet the ABC and the left forget!
Ross Garnaut is the TOP the list in deep sea Mine Tailings Dumping”
He called it SUSTAINABLE
But now demonises CO2
One of Australia’s biggest HYPOCRITES!
91
In Mark Dice’s latest video he predicted where all this is going.
“Mark Dice Predicts the Future”
https://youtu.be/0xCnwSced44
Frightening.
(Apologies for the YouTube link, I couldn’t find it on a free speech platform, please post a link if you do so.)
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‘A new flag for the new world order’.
Funny, thought the UN flag (a planet locked behind prison bars) was just such a flag: the all-seeing eye of the Panopticon.
81
Mark Dice spreads false rumour.
111
How so?
52
el gordo alleged
Ok, so his humour is too much for you?
I enjoy his send ups — they’re quite funny
and I like his Arrest Dr Fauci shirt.
I might get a couple of his I love Global Warming bumper Stickers.
Just as it’s getting cold. (The second one is for Jacinders.)
10
A couple of months ago, Judith Curry, herself a victim of academic railroading, posted this article by Patrick Michaels:
https://judithcurry.com/2021/06/09/death-spiral-of-american-academia/
The title says it all.
140
Like donkeys for carrots we stride,
As our masters on our backs ride,
And if we resist,
They will not desist,
From using the stick if we tried.
220
Ever seen an equine “double barrel” kick something?
Twice the power of a mike tyson punch….
41
Struth of Convoy of No Confidence has put up a thread at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/1343/tactics-fight-back-thread
40
Or: You can vote your way into communism but you have to shoot your way out.
140
Jo, You have finally stirred me from my torpor into writing after years of reading your outstanding contributions. With the demise of Catallaxy we are starved of sensible and balanced blogs and I always look to see if you have added something new. There is a fairly new entry from Jennifer Marohasy re BOM fiddling the books (again). She is a voice that fits your description of one who speaks up without fear. jennifermarohasy.com/jenns-blog/
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Thanks! I’ll check out Jens… She is a soldier too.
151
Jen MAROHASY Latest post.
41
Jennifer says at: https://jennifermarohasy.com/2021/08/fussing-over-one-degree-of-simulation/
Para 15.
“In my correspondence with the Bureau about these adjustments it was explained that irrigation is not natural and therefore there is a need to correct the record through remodelling of the series from these irrigation areas until they show warming consistent with theory.”
So they remodel the cooling upwards, because it’s “not natural”.
Do they remodel the Urban Heat Island Effect downwards, because it’s “not natural”?
What’s the difference (other than the “theory”)?
162
do we not acknowledge its fledgling successor http://catallaxy-files.com/ ? (note the hyphen)
00
There are still many brave souls that will speak out against group think madness as they swore an oath to do so, this is Dr. Dan Stock an Immunology Medical Physician addressing a state board of health giving outstanding factual advice on dealing with covid-19 in the community,
https://twitter.com/SebGorka/status/1424603849952829442?s=20
For those that doubt the political mainstream narrative here is reassurance in your skepticism of that narrative, brave man.
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This guy is a clueless clown. No trained physician talks in absolutes like this clown. I know how physicians are trained to think and none ever think in absolute terms like this dingbat. They look for evidence and weigh it. This guy is talking though his – place where sun doesn’t shine. He is as bad as the CO2 causes climate change believers – evidence free zone.
If you expect surgical masks to be 100% effective – you are WRONG. The evidence proves this.
If you expect vaccines to be 100% effective – you are WRONG. The evidence proves this.
What is required is the combination of controls to reduce the infection rate below 1. Sydney is currently running around 1.3. If they get the rate down to 0.9, then exponential decay will eliminate roaming spreaders inside 30 days. Night curfews and masks indoors and outdoors gets the infection rate down to 0.8.
NSW has followed the dumb path with ever more severe controls that Victoria played with in 2020 – never enough to get the infection rate under 1.
A key benefit of the vaccine is that something less than lockdowns can be tolerated and the infection rate is still below 1. That does not mean everyone get out and party – the vaccines are not that good. Vaccines also increase the chance of surviving the infection by a factor of 7.
816
RickWill – you sure you watched the correct video? Maybe you should look again.
131
Yes – the simple fact that he talks about the relative size of a virus and the the openness of masks demonstrates his lack of knowledge. The main benefit of surgical masks is for the purpose they were designed – to prevent the expulsion of nasal and oral fluids from a surgeon into an open would. With Covid it expulsion into the air and onto surfaces rather than open wounds.
https://ahs.sgtuniversity.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/9X3A7894-1024×683.jpg
Sydney currently has an infection rate of 1.3. At that rate, cases will rise exponentially. The infection rate does not need to drop to zero to achieve exponential decay. Masks and curfew got the infection rate in Victoria in 2020 to 0.8. Anything less than 1 causes exponential decay; done 5 times in Victoria already.
The fact that he treated 15 people and they recovered is meaningless. If they were badly affected, they would have presented to emergency wards. He only treated mild cases. There have been 14k deaths in Indiana. At least 10% of the 6.7M population has had Covid. Dan must have a very small practice if he only treated 15 people.
Also Daniel Stock is not listed on any expert witness register as far as I can determine. No one is going to bet their freedom and livelihood on an unknown expert witness in a case against the CDC and big pharma.
613
Dr Dan Stock is partly right and partly wrong. Rick is correct that he oversimplifies.
Masks also have an electrostatic effect. They block small particles and larger droplets and have a reduced effectiveness at 0.3 microns. (Reduced effectiveness still means “some effectiveness”.) It depends on the mask, and the fitting, and the handling, removal of the mask, the air flow in the room, the temperature and humidity.
See this paper on msks, especially Fig 9.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452199X20301481
In medicine nearly every situation has 20 relevant variables.
Same on vaccines. There is a whole spectrum of effects, effectivness, and indeed different spectrums on success at preventing infection, symptoms, severity, death and different spectrums of results depending on the age, sex, health etc of vaccinees and for every single different vaccine, even different brands. Anyone with a binary 1,0 answer obviously hasn’t done wide reading — the only time it might apply is if they put a lot of qualifiers (to describe a very specific situation, age, sex, day of treatment, time since vaccination etc etc etc etc etc x 10.).
Rick is correct that 15 subjects is worth very little (almost zero).
Stock is right that there are options for ivermectin Zn and D, but there is much better evidence than what he claimed.
There are “experts” and then there are experts. The Dr Stock kind = 1000s in the US, most of whom would say different things, not that that proves anything, except that argument from authority is a dead end.
Stock should be lauded for bravery, though it would be better if he spoke more carefully and accurately. As an expert witness, Rick is correct, he would be torn to shreds by an expert in the rung above him.
54
After watching half of it there seemed to be nothing that I would challenge in what he said.
By contrast, the bleeting of Australia’s poliMeds about the need to restrict new cases seems to run counter to my general understanding of what’s happening.
They are also pushing “vaxxination” to an extraordinary extent.
173
Rick complains about absolutes, while making nothing but absolute insults and assertions of his own. Ask Israel about survival increasing by a factor of 7. Simply not true.
10
Rick I back your right to analyze science or data 100%, but to call a physician who is an actual expert in immunology a clown for scientifically explaining what is occurring with masks, vaccines, covid-19 etc in layman terms is pure ignorance on your part.
If I was to make a choice of who to listen to regarding decisions that effect my health it won’t be the person that is fixated on a few failed quarantine methods and consider experimental medicine as better the devil you know fix.
161
Self-proclaimed expert. He is setting himself up as THE AUTHORITY. Same way Michael Mann does on all things climate. My son is a physician so I know how physicians are trained – his only certainty is: no one knows for certain. Dan the man Stock is no more than a GP in Australian parlance.
I will let his single publication speak for his knowledge on infection control:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938497004587
His offer to act as an expert witness is hollow. No one facing criminal negligence charges would engage this clown as an “expert”. He would be torn to shreds. Could you image the questioning –
Can you please tell the court your background in infection control
“Er – I treated 15 people with Covid and they all survived”.
Please go on –
“I co-authored a paper on rat hypertension”
What has that got to do with infection control –
“Um er um!”
As far as I can ascertain he does not appear on any expert witness list. Very brave soul to call him as an expert witness unless they wanted him to be ridiculed.
414
Sorry I can’t see his name on that one, but what does that prove? maybe he’s been busier treating actual patients instead of indulging in medical writing, good for your son I’m sure he’s a good person but how would you like an unqualified opinion calling him a clown because they read a lot of stuff?
If your son wanted to treat my covid-19 with proven antivirals (HQC,Ivermectin) then great a critical thinker but if he wanted to treat it by applying leeches to my skin then I’d call him a clown to his face.
Nice creative writing on the trial though except he wouldn’t answer like that (WATCH THE VIDEO) and would be part of a large number of expert testimonies.
140
Wrong link in previous post. This is the paper Stock co-authored:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8891744/
My son would not prescribe drugs off-label without sound evidence regarding its eficacy for the particular ailment and getting other opinions. If you are in hospital, you are going to be in bad shape. His hospital group developed treatment protocols they followed that were commonly applied internationally. There was no slipshod experimenting – it is not what health professions are inclined to practice. I know for sure that HCQ was not included as there was no sound evidence that it was benefial once someone was in hospital.
I am uncertain of the position in Victoria but have seen the Queensland dispensing regulation for HCQ and no GP in Queensland could prescribe HCQ – essentially only a specialist in the hospital system like a physician.
I do not know what the situation is with Ivermectin in Australia. It is not something my son was prescribing. During the peak in Melbourne he was trying to get those suspected of Covid, but without Covid, out of the Covid wards to free beds and recommended patients for ICU. He was not involved in ICU during the Melbourne outbreak. All of his frail, seriously infected people were essentially in palliative care. He had to decide if they were up to the rigours of invasive treatments. About 50% of those going into ICU came out alive.
One thing he did for his own well-being was to take Vitamin D. It has well-recognised broad health benefits and he little opportunity to spend outdoors.
By the time you reach an emergency ward with Covid you are not going to be caring about much other than your next breath.
Something that everyone should consider is an enduring power of attorney for health matters. I have assigned that to my middle son; the physician. My youngest son has enduring power of attorney on financial matters. Neither of them would keep me alive longer than they considered productive.
310
“..prescribe drugs off-label without sound evidence ..”
This point was demolished in
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/07/tuesday-open-thread-66/#comment-2447692
81
n
No it wasn’t – it is nowhere near the point I made. You have no idea the requirements any hospital group or professional medical colleges place on their physicians prescribing off-label.
The link you provided is just a rubbish rant about governments; not a single bit of evidence on what a physician is obliged to do.
Read this and you will start to have a clue:
https://www.ranzcp.org/files/resources/college_statements/practice_guidelines/ppg-4-off-label-prescribing-in-psychiatry.aspx
28
Why not ask your son to confirm that it is actively discouraged, if not prohibited, and then ask him if he has done ANY research into it’s use overseas, beyond just looking at the WHO and national guidelines. I’m betting he is just behaving in the normal, highly conservative manner (which is optimized to remove any chance for malpractice suits)
90
Generally I listen to what you have to say on a variety of issues, and agree with it, but you aren’t on any expert list that I know of. I judge expertise by what a person has to say, and less so on credentials. Any “expert list” will be used to discredit/cancel anyone not on the unofficial “groupthink” list. I have also found that “expert lists” in academia are largely built on self-nomination.
I have found in my lifetime of consulting, and managing industrial projects, and even in academia, that quite a few people you would think are untutored fools, and would never make any official expert list, also happened to have valuable experience, and had observed many things they couldn’t articulate in an expert sort of way. Yet what they did tell me held important clues to solving problems. Many times people expressed surprise in my figuring out the source of a vexing problem, and asked how I figured it out; I tell them I listened to the guy operating the process.
Official experts should be viewed in this manner — nullius in verba.
160
I never made any claim about my expertise.
I made a very clear point that Stock’s offer to act as an expert witness is hollow. Anyone taking him up on that offer and expose the clown to a legal professional would be as big a fool.
And as a mattrer of interest, I was once asked to be an expert witness in one of the areas of my expertise. The plaintiff and his adviser, who knew me, travelled from USA to Australia to discuss the issue with me – they had sent large amounts of data for me to analyse before departing so I could prepare for the meeting. About an hour into the technical details, they both realised they did not have a case. And I am not on a expert register but those who do it well are.
58
I agree with you that vaccines and NPIs are not be 100% effective, but those who hold magical beliefs insist otherwise. As I mentioned elsewhere, our medical people have a great deal of intellectual difficulty with ambiguity, and are addicted to giving absolutely (in their minds) certain advice. Masks are a difficult issue. I think they should never be made mandatory — first because their evidence of efficacy (even in RCTs) is weak, but also because they have a bad influence on the caveman assessment of risk, plus the dried materials on the surface of the mask can be remobilized and are now a smaller size distribution. This is among the reasons that even N95 masks need to be replaced often.
At a reproduction rate of 0.9 an epidemic will decline exponentially, but will also take a lot longer than 30 days to eliminate the risk of a resurgence. In fact, the decline will be so flat at R=0.9 that the ordinary noise of sampling might make the decline impossible to detect even if it is persistent. I have modeled all sorts of scenarios and looked at data for the past 18 months in an effort to find efficay of various strategies, and it cannot be done with what we have as observational evidence. The epidemic has now grown exponentially, then declined more or less on its own, a thousand times in various locales.
70
The Delta strain has a shorter incubation period than the alpha strain – about 4 days. 30 days is 7 infection cycles – 450/d cases becomes 215/d in a month with infection rate of 0.9; people see the light at the end of the tunnel very clearly by that stage. That is far more encouraging than 2823/day after another month at 1.3 with literally no end in sight and confronting a health disaster.
Sydney has had its whack-a-mole LGA strategy going for about 8 weeks now and infection rate running at 1.3. It is clear that they are not following the health advice; they will not let Chant speak. Gladys needs to get some tough love. The Sydney situation demonstrates they have the same problems as Melbourne when it comes to the ill-informed.
And like I have stated before, Victoria got the infection rate down to 0.8 last year once curfews were introduced.
28
The Melbourne outbreak last year was with the less infectious original variant. Similar measures will not produce similar results with the Delta variant so your projection is meaningless
61
The principles are the same — Victoria enforced the rules. NSW apparently hasn’t with predictable results. The Delta variant either needs tougher restrictions or longer restrictions to bring the R0 below 1. To save business, lives and sanity seems to me that tougher shorter restrictions that succeed are better is so many ways. The sooner the virus is 0 the sooner everyone gets out and kids go to school, people shop, eat at resturants. And if there were signs the virus was decreasing surely it would help motivate everyone to work together. How demoralizing for the poor sods in badly-managed NSW to feel like things are slowly getting worse and there is no end in sight.
If I were a Big Pharma rep and I wanted to sell more vaccines I could not do better than Gladys incompetence. Pfizer thanks her…
73
NSW do not have night curfew YET. But they do have a powerful new bit of kit in the armoury – Vaccines. Probably more effective than curfew.
Now you are a maths denier. Any infection rate less than 1 WILL result in exponential decay. That is simple maths that my 4yo grandson comprehends.
28
It’s obvious that I was stating that the meaningless part was due to your assertion that the R0 could be easily brought below 1 and sustained. You are engaging in gaslighting.
The vaccines are leaky and fade. The R0 MAY be temporarily brought below 1 with a draconian lockdown as per Melbourne’s last winter but that is NOT sustainable as businesses will die under those conditions. Sydneysiders are finding the existing restrictions too onerous to obey as it is.
50
the delta strain is not the one to worry about. what is it up to now? I dont know, it seems that we need 90% vaccination (not our government figures) for some sort of herd immunity and this will just not happen. the cases that are of interest are Israel, continuing on their rise with vaccinated people becoming less than useful. this vaccine, that is not a vaccine, will continue to put evolutionary pressure on this virus and delta will not be the last successful strain.
this virus is spread so easily because there are so many asymptomatic people, and this vaccine is creating a whole lot more of them in an artificial way, eventually the virus will mutate as it runs out of people to infect and that mutation will most likely make the vaccine useless, and on the flu shot merry-go-round we go, where it stops, nobody knows. this little game was fine with the flu shot because the flu was not as dangerous (or wasnt before), but with covid-19 it is like playing with fire.
you can say that we will be able to keep any one of these new strains out, but we are talking about people here, not cattle.
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Forget herd immunity until there are sterilizing vaccines.
All we are talking about is “managing” the hospital loads. The unvacced will still suffer and die, and the virus will spread, but at least we might be able to get them an ICU bed, which improves their odds of survival.
70% vaxed is not remotely enough to manage the hospital load.
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well, the majority of cases in hospital in Israel are vaccinated. maybe there is a higher survival rate for the moment, but this will change. sure you can say that it is a higher rate a of hospitalisation for unvaccinated, but this misses the point that all it does is extend the time before the real problems arise because vaccines will be the cause of new strains.
at the moment pfizer v delta is down to what 30% effective by the numbers coming out of Israel and that makes this drug a super spreader for delta. sure it might be effective against the original strain, but that means its purpose as a vaccine needed to have the majority of the population of the world vaccinated at the same time or it just becomes an agent for mutations. it is not fit for purpose and is in fact a negative in the fight against delta if you look at the longer term.
natural immunity is as close as it gets to being sterile due to the fact that our antibodies are for that specific strain and will protect us. if you had delta, then you are far more protected and will not shed, but if you had the original and caught delta, it is still possible to shed. give everyone an antibody generator for the original will no doubt protect that person from delta a bit due to them being so similar(what is happening in israel), but it will also mean more shedding. what a nightmare, forcing this delta to spread.
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There has to be a lot of noise about those cheap therapeutics and demand acceptable reasons for why they are so disparaged. Other nations seem to swear by them and display success in their use, providing their figures are accurate. Debate on this matter is as prohibited as is debate on the science of AGW. It is a silencing of legitimate debate, by our Federal government, in what was once a leading democracy. Our governments now silence people instead of explaining anything.
One can’t help get the feeling our citizens are accepting, without question, too much dictating to by our governments. ‘Dictatorship’ as a form of personal power, is the lifeblood of politicians that overtly seek ‘Power’! This could go on for years, especially if the ‘vaccines’ frequently lose potency to repeating new strains. How do people live and economies still run when lockdowns are the only way to control viral problems? The question of therapeutics must be brought into the public domain and reasons for blocking them exposed. It is as important to give the statistical proof they don’t work, as it is to show they do work. This is the same argument the government fell back against on the climate, where it simply declared ‘the science is in’ and destroys our economy and standard of living using that bogus non argument. The opposing parties are indistinguishable on this level.
81
Makes me think the people who should be prized are those who have had covid and recovered, so they have natural antibodies and likely not re-infected.
The vaccinated appear to just be virus-in-a-can….
But….vaccination is about compliance, not immunity. The vaccine is rubbish, always has been…
61
Wow, Jo. You are going with the WHO narrative and ignoring natural acquired immunity from recovery. This is truly depressing that you have succumbed
61
Analitik, to obtain that naturally acquired immunity means that a larger number of the non-vaccinated will die than the vaccinated.
You are aware of that presumably? And, you don’t have a problem with the death of those poor souls?
13
Why do you think large numbers of deaths are inevitable, Sam. India and other nations have learnt how to TREAT CoViD patients and also PREVENT serious infection with ivermectin plus other supporting drugs and supplements.
Plus the spread of COVID-19 in India has been found to be far broader than suggested by PCR testing. Two thirds of the population were found to have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus showing the vast majority had been infected and recovered without knowing they had ever caught it.
91
You mean like this:
https://cgdev.org/publication/three-new-estimates-indias-all-cause-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic
Or this:
https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AP21115597268784.jpg?fit=1170%2C751
11
Look at the curve peak and fall off in relation to when ivermectin began to be distributed. We don’t have to have overcrowded hospitals leading to deaths due to inadequate resources.
Plus think about the mystery community cases that keep occurring – there must be a source for these to occur and yet there are not loads of them indicating people are getting infected and recovering without knowing it.
Serology tests indicate two thirds of Indians have had CoViD which is far,far higher than that indicated by testing , let alone from hospitalisations and deaths. If they were to perform them here, it would not surprise me if exposure in Melbourne and Sydney approached 20%
51
Analitik says:
I would if you’d link to the data which shows how Ivermectin has rolled out right across India. Until that roll-out happens, large numbers of deaths are inevitable and the unvaccinated will have a significantly higher mortality rate than the vaccinated.
01
In this video the NSW Health Minister loses his temper for six minutes in front of Parliamentary Committee in a clear display of lack of competence and intelligence.
It is also a further demonstration that Australia is under dictatorship as the Minister thinks it’s beneath him to have to answer questions.
https://youtu.be/SlZgvY-zHIc
Also see:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/no-minister-the-government-does-not-get-to-avoid-lockdown-scrutiny-20210810-p58hkb.html
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The minister was proven to be a dill last year with the departure of passengers from an infected cruise ship. His dimwittedness is clear in the video but not in full context. This one gives a bit more detail on his belligerence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-oDmFKDyxU
An arrogant tosser but he is not alone in that group.
The overtalking makes it quite clear that Chant is on a short leash.
Not sure of the workplace regulations in NSW but Dan and ministers in Victoria could be facing criminal charges over the failure of hotel quarantine. There is current Worksafe investigation into the hotel quarantine failure in Victoria.
111
For those old enough to remember, this is all eerily reminiscent of the Red Guards and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
150
10/10 based on 75 responses … oh dear … consensus.
53
Best not to linger on this thread.
01
Yonniestone.
August 14, 2021 at 8:03 am · Reply
Yes the ideas of democracy, republics and free speech came came from conservative and (gasp!) Christian values so practicing it retains it.
Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. – Plato
“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” – Plato
If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.
Plato
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
― Plato, The Republic
n politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
― Plato
I never knew he was Christian, I had always supposed because he was a Greek living BC he was polytheistic
avant garde Plato!
40
I’m quite familiar with the writings of Plato regarding democracy, the Christian aspect was meant for a few centuries later, I did actually consider pointing out the political differences between the ancient and modern worlds but I thought no one could be that stupid……….. but there you go.
84
this cancel culture had it’s major outings 20th C with Adolf, Joe and Mao
Adolf was the first kid on the block and cancel culture was about managing people who didn’t accept the group think – no job, then no food or house then no life
It is in a word fascism – or communism : same same
I saw someone the other day psot (re the ‘its not communism’ and ‘actual communism has never been tried’ as intellectually dishonest defences – say
‘but real Nazism has never been tried’ … oh yes it has
and it’s back
131
Agreed, and like the first time around no one believed it was happening.
100
Last November the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (LNP-Cook) gave a ‘UK Policy Exchange Virtual Address.’
As out of place as it sounds in a virtual setting, the virtual audience was treated to a traditional owners’ acknowledgement, followed by thanks to any members from the Australian Defence Force who might have been watching.
Morrison commended Boris Johnson on his “global ambitions for Britain” which include economic development and newly opened post-Brexit trade avenues. The P.M talked up his connections with his British counterpart and made special note of Australia’s longstanding relationship with the United Kingdom.
Among the list of acknowledgements and praise, Morrison also mentioned values both he, and Johnson share.
Paradoxically placing “Liberal-Conservative traditions’ alongside restrictive policies that conform to Australia’s ‘emissions reductions’ and the ‘global climate change agenda.”
After citing the Treaty of Westphalia, and Hugo Grotius’ prison work ‘The Rights of War and Peace,’ Morrison, in quarantine after a state visit to Japan, inadvertently compared quarantine with imprisonment.
The P.M. stating, “Grotius wrote most of the book while imprisoned in the Loevestein Castle… Given that I join you today from quarantine isolation… I hope my own isolation will be nearly as productive.”
From there Scott Morrison gave a defence of nation-states, as “building blocks of an international order’; a ‘community of nations built around a common understanding of international law.”
That “nation-states mattered [at the time of the Westphalia Treaty] and they matter now.”
The ‘key point’ being that “the collective efforts of like-minded nation-states can make a difference.”
This ‘society of sovereign states’ hold international institutions accountable; “especially true for liberal democratic states, where no authority can ever rise higher than the people who elect their own governments.”
The Prime Minister moved to applaud the soft-capitalist policies of China’s ruling Communist Party. Stating that “no country has pulled more people out of poverty than China. And [that] Australia is pleased to have played our role in the economic emancipation of millions of Chinese through the development of the Chinese economy.”
Extending an undeserved, but gracious olive branch to the CCP, Morrison declared:
“Australia desires an open, transparent and mutually beneficial relationship with China as our largest trading partner, where there are strong people-to-people ties, complementary economies and a shared interest, especially in regional development and wellbeing, particularly in the emerging economies of Southeast Asia.
“Equally, we are absolutely committed to our enduring alliance with the United States, anchored in our shared worldview, liberal democratic values and market-based economic model.”
Qualifying the above olive branch with a subtle rebuttal of the CCP’s year-long one-sided, punitive trade-war with Australia, Morrison pointed to Australia’s national interest, saying, Australia will not be pushed by polarisation into making a choice between two powers, who seem to forget that Australia is a sovereign state in its own right – “at all times, we must be true to our values and the protection of our own sovereignty.”
Closing with a rejection of those using COVID-19 as a trojan horse to impose ‘The Great Reset’ (as proposed by the WEC, and promoted by Time Magazine among others) Morrison stated that “the pandemic recession [wasn’t] the product of the failure of world capitalism or liberal, free market-based values.”
He denied the need for a “reset” of values, or a “reset” of the economic agenda among like-minded liberal democracies, concluding that:
“…it is actually these values that have provided the platform for the greatest period of peace and prosperity the world has ever known, and has underpinned the very global institutions that has helped sustain it.”
Get past the “safe space” buzzwords, like emissions reductions, climate change, inclusion, empowerment, and the use of terms like extremism, terrorism ‘in all its forms’ without qualification, the speech is impressive.
Noticeable for its defence of Australia’s sovereignty, multi-ethnic nationalism, economy and social values built on classical liberalism.
Notable for its gracious, but firm rejection of the Chinese Communist Party’s manipulative political manoeuvring.
Noteworthy for its (carefully worded) rejection of global communism, otherwise known as ‘The Great Reset
111
Prime Minister Morrison was not a marketing executive as claimed ….
“He attended Sydney Boys High School before going on to complete a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) honours degree in applied economic geography at the University of New South Wales. He contemplated studying theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, but he instead chose to enter the workforce after completing his undergraduate education, in part due to the disapproval of his father.
Early career
After graduating from university, Morrison worked as national policy and research manager for the Property Council of Australia from 1989 to 1995. He then moved into tourism, serving as deputy chief executive of the Australian Tourism Task Force and then general manager of the Tourism Council of Australia; the latter was managed by Bruce Baird, whom he would eventually succeed in federal parliament.
In 1998, Morrison moved to New Zealand to become director of the newly created Office of Tourism and Sport. He formed a close relationship with New Zealand’s tourism minister, Murray McCully, and was involved with the creation of the long-running “100% Pure New Zealand” campaign. He left this position in 2000, a year before the contract schedule.
Morrison returned to Australia in 2000, to become state director of the Liberal Party of Australia (New South Wales Division). He oversaw the party’s campaigns in the 2001 federal election and in the 2003 New South Wales state election.”
73
He then moved into tourism, serving as deputy chief executive of the Australian Tourism Task Force and then general manager of the Tourism Council of Australia
In 1998, Morrison moved to New Zealand to become director of the newly created Office of Tourism and Sport. He formed a close relationship with New Zealand’s tourism minister, Murray McCully, and was involved with the creation of the long-running “100% Pure New Zealand” campaign.
They certainly sound and feel like marketing executive roles.
13
so property, tourism and tourism/sport…..but not in marketing
10
In fairness, Jo, some of us mavericks just walked out and went elsewhere. Though I’ve only met two others who walked out of lifetime tenure, and I admit it took me over a decade to realise I’d done the right thing…. (says the quondam Acting Head/Course Co-ordinator, Department of Natural Resources, Roseworthy CAE of long long ago)
70
Tim, a good and fair point. I alluded to that with “pushed sideways”. By making life unappealing to the point of intolerable, good people will find richer ground.
That exodus — I fear — has been gradual over the last 30 years and virtually undocumented.
What we need now is to remake society to find a place and a way to fund those who are “too good” for university. Too smart, too honest, too disobedient, too interested in searching for truth rather than convenient answers.
Where do they belong? At the moment those researchers can work from home, put up a blog site, and get funds from donors. Is that the best we can do?
Universities that are businesses and schools are not primarily research centres, they appear to be just “Extended High Schools”.
100
In 15 minutes the whole of New South Wales goes into lockdown for one week.
This is going to create lot of pain for the people of our state.
110
We know it all too well KK. It’s just crazy, especially if it turns out that the ‘vaccines’ actually encouraged the variants.
201
Yes, crackers.
Meanwhile, Canberra is doing its bit by locking down four student accommodation high rises for the duration.
I really don’t understand how that’s a healthier option than allowing the occupants outside in the fresh air.
171
it isn’t a safer option. Here in the UK the mantra changed overnight from stay indoors to stay outside but no one questioned the govt as to how one day it was safer to be in but the next safer to be out.
20
Absurd.
02
Keith….lockdowns create pain and compliance.
By way of example, so it please the Court:
….Australians didnt want to go to Iraq.
Bali goes bang.
Australians mysteriously approve going into Iraq.
Same old same old.
Pain and shock creates compliance and obedience.
Now many Australians are signing up to take the globalist device…..funny that..
60
Welcome to the party, pal! (from a Victorian who wishes he had a H&K MP5)
30
well if you werent on a list before , that ought to do it.
40
of course if one feels the need to be armed then there are legitimate paths to take
10
You’re not a Bruce Willis fan, I’m guessing
10
Well, that’s 10 days done, another 5 or so to go.
10
There’s and old saying ‘Good decisions come from experience – experience comes from bad decisions’
Unfortunately that applies to society as a whole.
Frustrating for those with the afore mentioned ‘experience’
But that’s the way it is.
100
Three years after I left school I went to Uni in 1992 and ran into PhD students pretty quickly. I was doing a Bachelor of Natural Resources and these students would often be tutors for some paid work. I noticed how Mid-wit many of them were, or seemed at least as I could tell.
Maybe it started then when more wishy washy degrees became a thing. But then again, botany is a core science and I know a guy who just proudly got his doctorate, naming some new sub species of eucalypt some where in the process. Woopty-do. He’s a total mid-wit too.
Even the professionals then, I recall a well acclaimed zoology prof who was researching how many times some Robin flapped its wings while doing some task. The seeming uselessness of much of this work always made me laugh.
172
A bit like a PhD in phone sanitizing, a thesis done on the amount of contact need to sanitize a phone depending on the race, gender and oppression of the sanitizer and the severity of climate change due to climate inaction by right wing governments paid off by big oil.
Its tough work but someone needs to do it.
111
You need to watch those flapping Robins, Philip. Especially if they’re in Central Park.
It’s a short wing-span between Central Park and those flapping butterflies in South America, you know.
Are you sure that your professor wasn’t related to Edward Lorenz, the mathematician and meteorologist from MIT? Family history can be pure chaos. As can be Meteorology.
00
We might expect a half decent Prime Minister (or a half decent Leader of the Opposition) to be heading up the push-back that sensible people are craving.
Neither Morrison or Albanese up up to this vital job.
120
Or…?
10
Vaccine efficacy in Israel (very high vax rate, cases climbing rapidly..)
…. and Palestine (very low vax rate ..very few cases.)
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/vaccine-efficacy-in-israel/
141
So what is going on ?
GeoffW
60
Who knows ! Certainly its being well hidden. !
91
Someone Will pop-up and explain it, I’m sure
31
OK, here’s a straight out guess based on no data. I bet Israel is testing a lot more people than palestine, and disease and death in the latter is unrecorded. High vaxing nations are also usually high testing nations.
And then there is human psychology — and when the virus runs wild people are more likely to get the vax, even though it is essentially not useful for weeks and weeks. (Though that may not be happening in Israel as it did the heavy vac run from Jan – April, but it is happening in NSW and VIc.)
32
Could well be the explanation… lack of testing and death data.
Who knows. !
21
Also – the other critical factor is what percentage of the Israeli cases lead to hospitalisations and deaths. If the vaccines are very effective in reducing severity, then many health officials might accept that.
And the population of Israel is twice that of Palestine.
03
Then explain India where there is minimal testing, low vaccination and yet cases and deaths from COVID-19 have collapsed and serology tests show over 66% of people have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-govt-survey-shows-two-thirds-have-coronavirus-antibodies-2021-07-20/
50
Jo, that does not explain the complete failure in Israel of the vaccine. ( and other areas) That just affirms they likely track it better and track more cases. 95 percent of hospitalized vaccinated shows extreme vaccine failure.
The point about natural immunity in India is very correct. Extremely dense population with hundreds often sharing one restroom. Very little social distance practice. So not surprising that a very high percentage show natural immunity.
Also one can debate mask effectiveness, but that is purely academic, as the reality on the ground is that mask practice is horrible, cheep barely useful fabrics, often dirty, then moist, and potentially increasing ones own viral load when wearing and symptomless, and generally unhealthy.
Also it is not logical to me when some claim that better isolation of the small percentage of the population is to difficult, when it would prevent a clear majority of deaths. It makes no sense to say that is to hard, and then lock down a nation because of one positive. Systemic lockdowns are very hard.
Not sure how it will turn out for Australia. If they keep the cases to a minimum and finally use the effective antivirals, it may be great. I don’t think vaccines will work, for many reasons. We shall see.
10
Israel is now having a “third shot campaign”.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-approves-booster-for-people-as-young-as-50-676625
Health officials are predicting that the number of patients hospitalized with the virus will double every 10 days, hitting as many as 4,800 – 2,400 serious – patients by September 10. The highest number of serious patients until now was around 1,200 – a number Israel hit in January 2020.
There were 5,868 people diagnosed with coronavirus on Friday, the Health Ministry reported Saturday night. The number of serious cases stood at 494. Some 4.93% of the people screened had a positive result.
From studies we conducted, we saw that the chances of those who were vaccinated in January being infected with coronavirus are twice as high as those who were vaccinated in April.
Sounds like a raging success, plus all the restrictions still in place.
20
A lovely articulate and angry piece Jo. Thank you.
Pointy
140
I fully agree Pointy.
50
Unfortunately the West is driven by elitism and political correctness.
Just look at the ABC, BBC, and NBN to name a just few media outlets.
GeoffW
71
Elites always know better than the people. They are a modern nobility.
81
Back up in comment number #25 Yonnie set off a long thread based on the testimony of a physician, Dan Stock, to a school board in Indiana I think. I have given testimony under those circumstances too, and what one is allowed is three-minutes or perhaps five. You have to speak quickly and very pointedly to have any hope of conveying important points. You have to be careful not to mis-speak, because it is a setting where your opponents are there only to discredit you — truth has nothing to do with this game. In contrast to some people calling him a clown, I thought he made some salient points.
For example, we cannot vanquish COVID-XX because it likely has found an animal reservoir. This is true of flu and colds and other endemic diseases. These will pop up as epidemic from time to time for a variety. In the long run we will have to learn to live with COVID-19 and its variants. Keep in mind that flu vaccines are in some seasons 80% ineffective.
The medical community is full of expertise that is not expertise. Some people in my family have been greatly influenced by the expertise of medical technicians that they know. For a time I taught both physics and statistics, at the “conceptual” level, to medical technicians in a variety of programs, and I would never, never take their advice except in the narrow field of technology in which they had been trained and earned a certificate.
Masks of the variety that most people don have no effectiveness against virions or the smaller aerosols they ride in. Measurements have shown that cloth masks, until they reach 12-16 plies, are 95% penetrated by aerosols, medical disposable masks are up to 44% penetrated, and the standard for N95 masks is only that they attenuate 95% of particles in the 0.3 to 0.5 micrometer size range. They have a bad influence on the self-calculation of risks, and they can, through evaporation on their surface aid in increasing the number of smaller aerosols. They are poorly worn. All these factors may explain why mask mandates appear to preceed local epidemics. I have done my darn’dest to find observational evidence that mask mandates work, but I can’t. There are too many confounding factors, including differences from one person to another, and the data itself is a mess. Even RCTs don’t find anything but weak evidence even for N95 masks.
I wrote recently to our school board regarding all sorts of school mandates that make no sense and are counterproductive. I must have sounded a lot like Dan Stock to some people here–Sniffed at due to my non-expert status. But the only way to break through groupthink is to allow non-experts to make a cogent argument using their own research of the scientific/industrial literature, and add some common sense. Our school board has decided in favor of voluntary strategies for the time being.
191
Once you bring particle size of fractions of a micron into the discussion with masks and their effectiveness against Covid; you are talking rubbish. By far the major benefit is controlling expulsion of fluids from an infected person. Surgical masks are primarily for the protection of the patient by infection from the surgical team.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32512240/
The reason masks get mandated has consistently been recognition of roaming spreaders – the genie is already out. Every time Victoria has cleared roaming spreaders, the requirement for masks has been eased. Victoria was only requiring masks on public transport for the first 6 months of 2021.
This is the IHME projection for Covid deaths in Australia:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/australia?view=cumulative-deaths&tab=trend
The are not projecting that masks stop infection. It makes a slight difference in the infection rate. But that small change reduces the death toll by 25%. When combined with other effective controls it can get the infection rate under 1 – and that is the critical number – under 1.
You have not tried very hard. The IHME data is based on observational evidence over a very wide range of communities. You are starting from a pre-conception based on particulate size. They do not do much for the wearer unless the wearer is Covid infected because they then reduce their potential to infect others. They prevent the wearer from expelling large loads of fluids. You know if a mask wearer is pulling their mask down to cough, sneeze, wipe their nose, spit, etc they should be literally avoided like the plague.
58
Too bad fluids are not the primary mechanism of injection for COVID-19. It has been demonstrated through the hotel quarantine infections that the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads via aerosol particles which ARE far smaller than the pore size of masks.
The only benefit of masking where the infected are not coughing and sneezing is that the virons are dispersed rather than directed. This means that when talking face to face over a short period, the person being infected will likely receive a lower dose of virons making it easier for their immune system to fight off the infection.
61
infection, not injection
10
This is only one of the factors increasing the value of masks in reducing infection rate.
For your further eduction, I will provide the definition of a fluid:
I was replying to someone who suggested they had taught physics – I felt the word fluid would have the precise meaning intended. A regard gas molecules as quite small particles. I also recognise that a surgical mask is not going to protect me in a chlorine cloud and I did not make any claim to that effect.
16
I am siding with Rick on the potential benefit of mask wearing, at least in public indoor spaces.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/jam.2007.0610
That is much larger than the size of virus particles. Even better the liquid droplets will likely be absorbed onto the fibres of a paper surgical mask, which is the only type I wear. and the virus will likely stick there, giving at least partial protection (reducing the viral load of exposure). Then the immune defences at least have the chance to knock out the virus early, assisted by ant therapy that I will institute at the first suggestion of infection.
A mild case of Covid would have the added advantage of natural immunity which is likely superior to the vaccine immunity.
61
I think as kids we were allowed to get a mild case of chicken pox, complete with pocked skin.
Thinking back, there must haven’t been hundreds of thousands of “cases”, but weirdly, no lockdown.
Did people have better grip on reality is those days?
61
Keith, masks probably don’t work as well against Delta, but they still would reduce infection to some degree. Is it worth it? Depends on whether you want to lockdown longer or shorter…
Chicken pox is a totally different disease. Lockdown is not determined by cases but by Ro, hospitalization, severity, morbidity, mortality, and by the level of natural protection in the population to the virus. With a new virus where most of hte population has little protection the potential for mass morbidity is much higher.
Humans have evolved with Chickenpox (VZV) forever:
When anatomically modern humans first crossed over the Red Sea 60,000 years ago, VZV was carried along in their dorsal root ganglia.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228116115_Pangaea_and_the_Out-of-Africa_Model_of_Varicella-Zoster_Virus_Evolution_and_Phylogeography
34
Jo, you seem convinced that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is uniquely infectious over the wider population yet lethal. If it was that bad, it would have burnt out before leaving Wuhan.
Yes it’s novel since it’s origin is artificial but India and other countries have shown how to deal with it. The battle is to use the medications that those countries found to be effective rather than engage in futile lockdowns in the attempt to contain infections.
Quarantine the vulnerable, not the wider population.
81
Peter, you assume almost all infection comes from people coughing and sneezing. Everything indicates this is not the case else asymptomatic transmission wouldn’t be a worry.
For aerosol transmission, the masks do nothing except disperse direct plumes from people exhaling and speaking. This may reduce the viral load when a person is facing you but that’s the only benefit
61
Kevin correctly stated that aerosol particles were the primary means by which the virons spread and that these are FAR smaller than the size of the pores in even a n95 mask let alone the surgical out cloth type that the vast majority of people wear (& often incorrectly as well).
YOU then introduced fluids by stating that the masks stop these. But the fluids that the masks will stop are actual droplet fluids, not fluid flow else you wouldn’t be able to breathe at all through the mask. Ask your doctor son.
Stop muddling the discussion.
81
Sorry, this was meant as a reply to RickWill’s irrelevant response to my comment about masks being useless for aerosol transmission.
30
Rick, how do you wipe your nose or spit without pulling your mask down?
Or was your point that coughy, sneezy people should be avoided?
30
The longest time I am required to wear a mask is around 30 minutes. I do not find it challenging to refrain from clearing nasal passages or throat in that time. I treat release of body fluids, apart from normal breathing, as a private matter; done well away from others, most commonly in my own shower, toilet or wide open spaces in the bush or on the water.
But spare a thought for my son when he was working the Covid wards. He was doing the best part of a 14 hour shift in full PPE. He knew that there would be lots of time wasted getting out of gear and back into new gear so he simply avoided the issue. Changing out of PPE also has risks. This situation is not all that uncommon for health professionals but he is a bit more pragmatic than most – a bit like the surgeon in this story
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/08/how-do-surgeons-work-for-26-hours-straight.html
If you have ever done endurance racing you learn that you can balance intake and outtake to avoid rest breaks. Not particularly healthy but it is what people can do.
And certainly I would not go anywhere near a coughy, sneezy person – I literally avoid them like the plague – for all I know they could be harbouring the Chinese bioweapon. I strongly encouraged my wife to have a Covid test to verify her symptoms were hay fever and not something else. But I avoided her like the plague until she verified a negative test – I took her word for it.
15
If your sick, stay home. It’s that simple.
80
So simple.
But one of the emerging issues with the vaccine is that a larger proportion of people carrying Covid can be asymptomatic but still contagious.
The best way is to get it out of the community then keep it out.
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Mask may reduce about 1 percent. However they may increase your own viral exposure. Very few, IMV, les then one percent use quality masks correctly.
10
You are talking rubbish, my friend. No where I have been during any of this pandemic are there people sneezing, coughing, wiping their noses in public. Does. Not. Happen. I have firm evidence that a large fraction of our cases (and I live in a place that for a time last last fall was a hot zone according to the CDC) are simply false positives — no symptoms, no infectivity, no supporting evidence of illness.
Australia has such a low incidence that I cannot believe any of the circumstances you list of masks being effective occur anywhere.
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If one limo driver in Sydney was wearing a respirator mask and goggles, there would have been no cases in NSW, VIC, QLD, WA SA and Tas related to that infection chain in the last two months. No lockdowns related to that chain (which is most of the lockdowns since July 1), and avoided thousands of cases.
There have been a couple of other leaks through quarantine that may have caused lockdowns Eg QLD. But most events in Australia could have been prevented.
If the whole of NSW wore masks indoors and reduced the spread from Ro 1.3 to Ro 1.1 that would still make a big difference and make getting the Ro below 1 much easier with more compliance to other measures.
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Maybe Limo drivers for airport pick-up should always have there own sealed compartment with separate air supply.
Not hard to do!
Maybe taxis as well?
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Yeah, retrofit airtight vehicle compartments will be the next growth industry! I’m sure it will be eligible for government subsidies.
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Not hard to do you think? I’d call it non trivial is its done properly not just Bubba with some perspex and foam filler and potentially across a range of vehicles.
00
clarence.t was being sarcastic – I’d put good money on it.
20
😉
11
Sure, Jo. Less authorize space suits to also prevent any chance of (the non-existent) fomite transfer infections.
Totally practical.
Autarky is the only solution by your measures
61
A baseless claim without supporting evidence.
Watch this video – watch what happens at 3:50 in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzUwEYX5gaE
This was one of the telltales that my son quickly learnt when he was interviewing arrivals into the Covid ward. If they needed to pull the mask down to breathe freely they usually had Covid.
His first experience with a Covid infected person was very concerning for him because the woman pulled her mask down as he was interviewing and she coughed while he was checking her vitals. He was very concerned that he would be infected but fortunately the crappy PPE they used in the early stages was good enough because he avoided it. Many health professionals were no so lucky. His first Covid case was the most concerning for him because the woman contracted the virus in a small hospital after admission with a heart issue. She was transferred to his hospital because they had set up a dedicated Covid ward. She recovered from the heart problem but died of Covid 10 days later. She ended up in ICU and out of his care but he followed the outcome.
So if someone has trouble with a mask they are likely already suffering breathing difficulties. A good reason to stay well clear of anyone not wearing a mask covering nose and mouth where they are mandated.
Similar experience to me and proves my point that masks discourage these disease spreading activities in the public arena. One positive from Covid.
My sister told me a story about a person yelling “Covid” when someone coughed in a supermarket. Most of the people just left the shop, leaving their shopping behind – arguably irrational but why take the risk. Coughing, sneezing, spitting etc are no longer considered good form in a public space. Masks are helping with that education; definitely not a bad thing.
38
Your story about your son’s experience merely shows that the public knowledge of symptoms for CoViD is poor and the masks are a diagnostic aid. This information should be provided so people can use the masks as a self-check.
It doesn’t show that the masks have any direct benefit.
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“In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive. Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.”
https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence
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Kevin,
In reply to: “setting where your opponents are there only to discredit you — truth has nothing to do with this game.” What ‘game’ are we playing? We need to change the game. We need to defend our countries.
Good comment. Logical and balanced. The issue you are discussing (How effective are masks to stop the spread of covid) is straight forward. No name calling or need to name call. Twenty years ago…. Issues where discussed and resolved using logic, reason, and creative thought. What has changed? Why? Now the news media and the universities are controlled with a purpose, to hide the lies and to issue more lies, like the instant fake science paper about covid origins. The CCP/Left’s objective is to stop solutions/logic/reason/people working together. And to hide the CCP’s attack on our countries.
The Red Terror is evil, anti civilization, anti problem solving. Anti people.
The left has been taken over and have been given agendas, that will not work. Green scams and critical race theory were designed to destroy our countries not solve problems. Open US southern border is not helping South America or the US solve problems. Legal effective immigration is the immigration of families, not a rush of single, uneducated, men and unaccompanied minors at the border.
The left has encourage angry and hateful protests/riots/blog posts. The left is pushing tribalism, weaponized the past which cannot be changed. This is not an accident. the left is financed by big corporations which are controlled by the CCP.
We are war and the other side is issuing propaganda to start fights in our countries and to hide the fact that they are taking over industries. The covid release was not an accident. The fake ‘sciency’ story/cover-up of covid origin was not an accident. Covid has multiple novel features which have never been seen before in nature and covid is as contagious as small pox. Covid has designed (not at the Wuhan lab) and then was purposely released from the Wuhan lab to provide a cover story for the release.
The Red Terror is anti logic and reason. Just like the CCP ‘cultural’ revolution. Spend infinite money on green stuff that does not work. The objective is stop the non CCP countries from solving problems and to get our countries to spend ourselves to death.
“The Red Terror stalking the weak Western Elites”
Collapse of the fake consensus on Covid-19 origins
https://judithcurry.com/2021/05/23/collapse-of-the-fake-consensus-on-covid-19-origins/
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You were doing so well, and then you start name calling, starting in the third paragraph.
419
What a pointless post from PF..
Absolutely empty of any counter to the facts.
“The Red Terror is evil, anti civilization, anti problem solving. Anti people. “
Third paragraph .. Facts.. you really can’t handle them, can you PF.
141
Peter, saying “ The Red Terror is evil, anti civilization, anti problem solving. Anti people.”
is simply an historical perspective of what statist have wrought.
00
An excellent outline.
30
Just passing through for a few seconds. Will be back fully I think later this week depending on my circumstances.
Speaking of “red terror” I thought this picture encapsulates one of the people who is driving it:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSjdOlFBRvx/
91
Some one tell ScoMo and his fellow doomsday travellers it works …
Bikers at Sturgis Rally put up “Happy Birthday Obama” so COVID can’t spread
https://babylonbee.com/news/people-hang-happy-birthday-obama-banners-over-front-door-to-ward-off-covid
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Chuckle 🙂
71
I fly American Revolutionary War flags, such as the Betsy Ross Flag. The reason I fly flags from the American Revolution is because the agenda of the left and their allies is a counter revolution to the founding of the United States of America, and counter to the framers of the US Constitution. The standard US ensign flies over an illegitimate government at the moment as well, so an alternative is appropriate.
In the cultural war, I quit the NBA years ago, but boycotting baseball and beloved Yankees is a real sacrifice. It’s something that must done, nonetheless. Ordering a Pepsi instead of a Coke is no big deal. I’m doing what I can to not let them reset back to the 2015 death spiral we were in under Obama, but almost seems futile.
Wow! it’s surreal how far the country has gone to Hell in the last 7 months.
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US Dave, I’m observing from afar and have only had passing interest in US politics until Trump nominated. He won me over.
“
Powermoney corrupts and absolutepowermoney corrupts absolutely”. Today’s nouveau rich have unimaginable wealth and they are so corrupt they are evil. Begs the question: Did thepowermoney corrupt them or were they always psychopaths? I think the latter.The “robber barons” were greedy individuals but apart from a few who embraced nazism they were American patriots who recognised the point of diminishing returns in wealth creation and became philanthropists. I have never thought well of these people before but compared with today’s elite they shape up pretty well.
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Oops! Forgot . 🙂
US Dave, I’m observing from afar and have only had passing interest in US politics until Trump nominated. He won me over.
“Power money corrupts and absolute power money corrupts absolutely”. Today’s nouveau rich have unimaginable wealth and they are so corrupt they are evil. Begs the question: Did the power money corrupt them or were they always psychopaths? I think the latter.
The “robber barons” were greedy individuals but apart from a few who embraced n@zism they were American patriots who recognised the point of diminishing returns in wealth creation and became philanthropists. I have never thought well of these people before but compared with today’s elite they shape up pretty well.
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100%
60
The limo driver WAS wearing a mask … which were already mandatory for such drivers at the time and the police investigated him and could not find anything he had done that he had done wrong.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/06/rejected-and-betrayed-australians-stranded-in-india-speak-of-heartbreak
Remember how a great cloud of “human rights” articles came out as soon as ScoMo tried to block Indians coming to Australia right in the middle of their Delta variant wave? Right after that pressure campaign suddenly Delta was here in Australia… bit of a coincidence.
60
Dave, as a matter of interest is there anybody who claims that the USA is approaching utopia?
Surely some legislator or bureaucrat expresses the view that things are getting better because of the actions they are taking.
Or do the new powers that be claim that they have to destroy the USA in order to save it?
Or something?
100
That’s a good question and I’m not sure I know the answer. Are they actually seeking a utopia or are they just drunk with power? It’s a battle between forced compliance to the left’s agenda and the ability to dissent. The left, the elites, and the swamp rat republicans, in America truly despise the Deplorables and see the end of defeating the Deplorables as justified by any means.
110
The Field of Dreams game against the White Sox was corny and fun – but I wish the result had gone the other way. Great game though.
23
I think it’s the opposite of this. The ravages of Capitalism have torn the US asunder … the take-over of the country by powerful corporations (and the politicians they bribe) over the past century or more has been the death-knell for the “pursuit of happiness” by the vast working class and middle class.
It was Capitalism that embraced globalism – and sent millions of jobs overseas. Drive through New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, and many other states … look at all those hollowed-out cities and towns mired in poverty, violence, and decay.
Lefties didn’t cause this – the pursuit of profit over country did. But please fly whatever flag(s) you think are appropriate.
26
I don’t buy any of that class warfare clap trap which has its roots in Marxism. Capitalism combined with the blessing of hydrocarbon fuels has lifted more people out of poverty than anything. All we must do is examine the state of affairs in Cuba to those in Florida. Or Free Asia to Socialist Asia. Or compare the party elites with the rural peasants in Communist China.
The American system, which Wokism is a counter revolution to, is largely based on private property rights and mostly free markets. Free market capitalism works when there is unfettered competition in the market places. History proves this. Nothing has built more wealth for more people. Abundance blesses the whole society. It’s when government steps in with onerous regulations and tries to pick winners and losers is when the system breaks down. Zaibatsu will try to limit or eliminate competition through the cooperation of government. That is a corruption of the system. Labor unions essentially limit competition in the labor markets which ultimately means there will be many workers on the outside looking in.
20
On another chat site someone claimed that Australia has a higher % below the poverty line than China, and quoted figures.
One problem: In China the poverty line is defined as < $2/day, in Aus it is < half the average wage. Why are there so many China apologists here? Is it that there are hundreds of Chinese here with Aussie nics spreading disinformation?
20
One aspect of the Red Terror might be the ultra liberal University types who influence so many with nonsense. This clip is 10 yrs old, but it does get the point across.
Liberal Universities Explained
http://www.battlefield315.com/2011/03/liberal-universities-explained.html
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What we see today are the effects of the new cultural woke-Marxist movement taking hold. This is a very sophisticated movement that seizes on the opportunism of today’s issues and rolls them into its strategic path, to replace western democracy with a global Marxist government. Our universities were an easy target, partly because they rely on other people’s money, but also because they were already taken over by the Marxist supporters from within. A flood of Chinese money and influence in the past two decades was the catalyst that sped up the process.
It’s probably fair to state that many people who support the new Marxist movement may not even be aware of that support. For example, climate change, gender and race issues which are front and centre of MSM news each day are all part of the Marxist plan and have been hijacked by the movement to further it’s own agenda. A key identifier of their agenda items is that none of them have a stated end-point goal. The BLM movement and their push for equity is a good example of such an agenda item. They teach that white skinned people are bad, being born racist and privileged and that dark skinned people are oppressed and they demand reparations for the events in the historical past. But what exactly do they want ?. Will the protests only stop when every last white person is dead or when all of their assets are confiscated and given to non-white people ?. The de-fund the police movement is similar. Apparently we need to remove the police and replace them with something else, but they can’t tell us what is the ‘something else’. Climate change is no different. Regardless of how many concessions are made or how much we spend trying to reduce emissions it’s never enough and the protesters always claim we are still doing nothing. We now hear that we need to move to net-zero, but what exactly does their world of net zero look like ?.
But of course this is all a distraction and very deliberate, as every Marxist cause supports the same agenda, which is to create disunity and unrest within society, because only a society that is out of control can have its system overthrown. The reason this takeover is taking decades is because western society was very, very stable. The Marxist plan seems to focus on 5 areas.
1) Destroy Nationalism – to create a classed society of privilege based on racial identity – attack the flag, anthem, history, white people, military, BLM, etc
2) Break up the family unit – redefine marriage, attack christian / religious values, create gender identity crisis in children, promote gender politics
3) Destroy the economy – push CC policies, excess welfare spending to create dependency and runaway debt, GND, money printing, open borders
4) Break down the pillars of Law and Order and the constitution – de-fund police, encourage civil disobedience and riots, redefine free speech, redefine laws such presumption of innocence, encourage mob rule, push for non-elected leaders such as indigenous bodies.
5) Destroy western education systems – demote academic focus, replace the Maths, English & science corriculum with ideological teachings, attack the old teachings as being racist, such as Maths and Shakespeare, etc
I could go on with the list, but most of us on this blog get the point. In terms of understanding the urgency of the situation, we need to look at where we sit on the Marxist progression indicator. My guess is that we are at about 6-7 out of 10, where 10 means we have fallen. Back in 2000 we were only 2-3 out of 10, so things have moved fast in the past 2 decades. We are certainly in the last 10 years of western democracy and quite possibly the last 3-5. To stop this slide will require considerable human resolve
111
A nice analysis but I think it suffers from underpants gnome planning. Stage 1 destroy everything. Stage 3 perpetual rule by some elite group.
Death, destruction and authoritarian rule offer very little to the great unwashed. As they used to say in the soviet union, they pretend to pay us so we pretend to work.
People go mad in droves and regain their senses one by one. My best guess is that order will spontaneously appear out of chaos.
20
“underpants gnome planning” not a phrase I have heard before, but I am sorta liking it.
10
It’s from the South Park cartoon series. Stage 1 is collect underpants. Stage 3 is profit. But the underpants gnomes never planned a stage 2.
10
As you alluded to the supporting structure is in place( media, education etc) and will be hard to break. It looks to me as though events will play out as intended by the Left. The only breaker is a world war or a Nat cataclysm. Maybe a second coming.
81
And the “breakers” seem a long time coming when you look at the insult and tensions that have been dumped on people in the EEU and Britain.
Brits, after working their guts out post WW2, are being told to pay up for freeloaders to “emigrate” from La France and feed, clothe and educate them as they commute from the four star rented holiday hotels. What a life.
The message is clear; you are trash that the elites can dump on. Why would anyone go to work and strive when all your efforts are diverted to others of doubtful intent.
That these insults haven’t provoked armed revolt against the “leaders” responsible is too scary to think about.
70
That’s how Capitalism works – the movement of labour, materials, and investment to the places of lowest cost and highest return. National borders and international agreements are no barriers – they are shaped to accommodate the voracious appetites of corporations.
06
When I get some spare cash I try to use it to make more. What do you do?
20
Emigration of freeloaders is purely for left-wing political purposes.
That is why Biden, Pelosi et all are all for it. !
51
Why would anyone go to work and strive?
That in the end was what brought down the soviet union. They pretended to pay so workers pretended to work.
Exactly what will bring down the new chinese empire remains to be seen.
50
If history is a guide they will shoot themselves in the foot again.
Wolf warrior diplomacy, destroying your own environment and cuddling up to the Taliban arent a bad start. Who knows what will spin out?
60
I actually think it’s the reverse of this. We in the West are in a very difficult position I agree, but there is nothing “woke” or “Marxist” about the causes, or the outcomes.
Capitalism (possibly Late Capitalism) is coming up against a lot of serious structural problems, including huge unsustainable / unpayable debt, financial rackets on a very large scale, extreme concentration of wealth, the end of cheap available energy, the destruction of well-paid working-class and middle-class jobs, infrastructure decay … and of course the challenges of climate change, the transition to renewables, and then the pandemic.
There is nothing deliberate or planned about this – and the expensively suited hubris from the WEF/Davos crowd is laughable – and not to be feared. There is nothing “Marxist” about them either.
I think the outcome of “Late Capitalism” will not be “Marxism” in any form, and certainly not any form of global government. If anything it will be reverse of that, with a retreat to greater regional and national units – possibly including a break-up of the EU, and maybe even the US into more manageable size.
I think issues of race, equity, income distribution, quality education, and quality healthcare – all are hugely important. But they are as a result of the really big problems – not the causes. Trump was not the cause of “American Fascism” – he was a result of it … a turning away from Democracy by a white cohort that perceive to be losing control and position.
211
May I complement you on your writing skills; it’s almost as if you had studied word salad at a School for Modern Journalism.
It’s so good, the way you carefully state a truthism before the payoff lie, that some uneducated ones might be sucked in and believe it.
Modern life sure has a lot of twists and turns.
31
“studied word salad”
Its called “lugubrious tripe”
or “adulterated nonsense”.
41
And no, Trump was democratically elected.. Biden, almost certainly not.
Facism is a left-wing attribute that Biden, Pelios et al, and their AntiFa, BLM etc thugs are working hard to install.
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imo, it’s not over by a long shot.
The hatred against Trump by the press and the Democrat machine wasn’t and isn’t a matter about Trump the man. The last election was supposed to be the election of Hilary and she was to finish off the job the left had been working so hard on for 40years. They had control of just about everything matters – Governorships, primary, secondary and tertiary education systems, the Courts, the media of all types, they were hand in glove with the owners of the electronic media and they had the religions on their side; all the top etchelons of, that is. They had their frontline educationally short cut, long propagandised ex students flooding into and ranting in the community.They controlled the lot. Trump spoiled the party, reversed and got rid of the broadcast ideology that fed the Democrat line as ‘the truth’. He spoke to the people outside those controlling the system and the Democrats began losing control of their taken-for-granted coloured voters and hispanics. Trump’s vote would have won any prior election in a landslide.
The Democrats are now working overtime to regain absolute control. But they will kill themselves by their actions on the southern border, especially with distibuting COVID-19 rich illegals into Republican States as a means of bolstering their vote. Harris is a disaster. Biden now has huge problems with his huge COL increases in all areas plus the Afghanistan withdrawal; it has taken just days for the Taliban to take over much of the country and commit mass slaughter of those that assisted the US forces in any way. That will be a huge demeaning of the USA, and outrage to most citizens and former soldiers.
The Cubans will hate the idea of seeing the Democrats bring communist socialism to the USA, and probably many US citizens that voted for the DEMs will soon be wondering what they did to destroy their own country. Out of fear, the Democrats are acting swiftly to change the nature of the USA; they only have another 12 months to do so, and my bet is by that time, particularly with the rush and cost of change, the US citizens will be in such a state that they will hope never to see another Democrat in their lives.
Then there is China, and Hunter, and Harris and the governors of NYC, Chicago and LA etc. Cuomo has only gone because he was killing the Democrat label. As time goes on he will be accompanied by many more head lops for the same reason. The Democrats are already in fear that another Trump presidency will happen, or another Trump-like figure will take over the Presidency at the next election (they are already trying to hit the Florida governor).
By another year of Democrat governance I think the USA will have had enough of the current attempts to ‘communise’ it. I doubt even those illegals massing over the boarder are not going to be dumb enough to vote for a group that promises to restore on them the governance they have just fled from.
There’s a long way to go yet before the next election is a run home for the Democrats, whose main hope would be the Romneys,McConnels and the ~20 of the Republican Party that, like our coalition ‘wets’, have their parties mixed up.
131
This is utter nonsense.
Have a good look – there are far more Republican-controlled states than there are Democrat ones, including all the swing states that voted Biden in 2020 … there was absolutely no election steal.
Most media are VERY conservative – Sinclair, Fox, AM Radio, and all the rest. CNN is centrist (anti-Trump), while MSNBC is more lefty (and anti-Trump) – but that’s about it. The NYT and WaPo are really conservative too (even if anti-Trump).
By far there is a majority of Republican-appointed state and federal judges right throughout the whole system. And nearly all the Trump Big Lie cases were thrown out by Conservative Republican judges – what does this tell us? (Hint: there was no fraud).
Almost all religions are virulently to the Right and are Trumpies … hardly any are not.
Even the Big Tech social media are very conservative – remember the only thing – the only thing – they care about, is making a buck.
Your claims of Lefty dominance are ludicrous.
120
And yet university staff are not allowed to say “All lives matter” without losing their jobs.
181
Yeah well – I haven’t worked in a university for37 years, but even back then, political correctness was a pretty strong component of life. It’s not that new.
I’ve never worked in an American college, but had a few colleagues who were “refugees” from the US system – they came to Australia because they were liberal (lefties) and wanted to escape the right-wing Reagan era.
“Black Lives Matter” has been distorted (deliberately, in my view) – it really means “black lives matter too – as much as white lives” … it certainly does not mean that only black lives matter, or that black lives matter more than other lives.
It’s a statement from a position of weakness, not strength.
So “All Lives Matter” is a pretty nasty thing to say in response to “Black Lives Matter” – in no sense is it a positive thing to say – and any academic should be really acutely aware of that.
People who say “All lives Matter” are denigrating BLM – either as a slogan or a political movement. I’m not saying they should necessarily lose their jobs over it – but the reality is that “free speech” can have such consequences.
19
Ah and the Tilba telepathic motivation detector puts whatever slur or insult he wants into a sentence.
When I say “All Lives Matter” I mean All Lives Matter. I don’t care what color anyone’s skin is. These are simple English words.
When people say “Black Lives Matter” they usually mean Whites are the cause. Do you? “Black Lives Matter” is a political movement. You admit that yourself, it’s about political power — “It’s a statement from a position of weakness, not strength.”
You believe black is a position of weakness, even though I hear a President of the USA was black. How weak was he? Have you pondered how racist it is to describe all blacks as being in a “weak position”.? The soft racism of low expectations dooms so many to seek to be the perpetual victim rather than looking for their strength and pride and taking responsibility for their own path. How cruel? But it serves some whites who seek to use blacks for their own status-seeking ladder-climbing ambition.
So does a homeless old white guy who never oppressed a black man deserve to be judged by the color of his skin? Does he deserve less help than a homeless black man? OR should we help all homeless people, regardless of their skin color?
So no, I’m not buying the cheap verbal trickery to let BLM fans wiggle out of their racist comments. The greatest racists are those that seek to divide a nation by something as trivial as the color of someones skin.
And since BLM is a political movement, once upon a time in the United States of America people used to be allowed to disagree with any political party.
181
“When I say “All Lives Matter” I mean All Lives Matter.
I don’t care what color anyone’s skin is.”
Totally agree.
I have many friends of all difference races and origins
All of their lives matter.
31
Tilba doesn’t think “All Lives Matter”.
That is sick, depraved and anti-human thought.
Who is he/she to think he/she can choose who matters and who doesn’t.
All lives DO Matter… whether you like it or not !
82
I’m not completely convinced it’s worth my time trying to explain this to [snip], but I’ll give it a go.
“Black Lives Matter” is a political slogan from one of the most oppressed and systematically discriminated against minorities in American history, and it’s been going on for 400 years.
And as a political slogan it has resonance for a wide range of people. What it means is “Black Lives Matter Too” – it is a call to black and white alike to understand and recognise that black lives are precious and worthy – just as much as white lives.
This is completely and utterly obvious and self-evident. So anyone who mouths “All Lives Matter” is attempting to denigrate and dismiss the “Black Lives Matter” slogan, spirit, and political movement.
You might not agree – but anyone who says “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter” is being profoundly racist and discriminatory. True fact.
Let me know by return mail [snip] if there are any parts of this you do not understand.
——————————————————-
[Tilba, if you are using petty names for other commenters, and we won’t publish replies that do this. “Clarry”? Or are you trying to reduce the threads to kindergarten bickering? – Jo]
01
Anyone saying “All Lives Matter” is saying the bleeding obvious. Healthy civilizations don’t divide up their citizens according to the color of their skin. They treat people according to their needs, they judge them according to their deeds. They have one law for all. If someone needs a home, or medical care, we ask how they and we can improve their situation, we don’t ask, “are you black or white”.
The Black Lives Matter political movement denigrates itself. It uses black people to score political points and seeks not to improve their lives but to use cheap hollow slogans to foment hate and tap into jealousy and greed. Because it is based on lies-by-omission and base instincts BLM has to silence dissent. Egalitarian, caring movements seek a healthy conversation. Cancel culture bullies seek to serve themselves.
I speak in the spirit of Martin Luther King. Those that wish to judge people by their melanin levels or what their ancestors did are the greatest racists on Earth.
30
“People who say “All lives Matter” are denigrating BLM”
Utter and complete rubbish.
Like basically everything else you type.
BLM denigrate themselves, by their very actions.
131
Let alone a politician – Pauline Hanson was ostracized for trying to bring a motion on this.
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“Black lives matter” is a slogan. It means that black lives matter too. If you counter that with “all lives matter” you are simply being racist.
“All lives matter too”, makes no sense, and the racists with privilege and power know this, and those promoting it are morally corrupt a holes hiding being the veneer of the definition of politically correct that they defined for themselves.
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“If you counter that with “all lives matter” you are simply being racist.”
Utter BS as usual. A far-left stance. unattached to reality.
Seems GA hates non-black people, thinks they don’t matter.. That s just sick !
51
Those promoting that “Black Lives Matter” more than others, they are the morally bankrupt and deeply racist ones.
Loathsome people like Gee Aye, who want to force their ideology onto others.
Sorry, little hater.. but All lives do matter. !
51
If they mean Black Lives Matter too, why don’t they say it, instead of using a “slogan”, as you call it, that inflames the passions of those who hold the view that All Lives Matter?
51
Gee Aye ignores the double standard applied to Pauline Hanson and others who have tried to expand the slogan for all people. It has been plainly stated that it is only permissible to state that lives matter for those who are black.
This racism through exclusion.is fully sanctioned by the left.
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“CNN is centrist”
Now that is just hilarious
Obviously written by someone of the ultra-far left to whom even Karl Marx would be considered right-wing.
Poor Tilda, you look only out of the left corner of your left eye.. ultimate far-left tunnel vision.
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“This is utter nonsense.”
That was the heading for the rest of your post, apparently.
What followed.. was utter nonsense.
A total detachment from any sort of reality.
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There are many US TV networks on Foxtel News channels. I suggest you look at a few of them and see the error of your statement.
I have a relation living in Minnesota and friends in Nebraska and Florida. They are all leftist and rabidly anti Trump to the point of avoiding any station that doesn’t hold their views. They accept no other views and demean anyone else that disagrees with them. They are all well educated.
Most US press is leftist, and if you say the most influential of all on the younger brigade, the electronic media aren’t left and pro Democrat with all their censorships, then you are a hopeless cause. The great charade played out by the Democrats, in their media for the full term of the Trump years, all about Russian collusion and attacks on the Trump family, was a good demonstration of leftist media extremism; disagree, then you are a lost cause. Since the election the same leftist media ignores the real Russian collusion story involving Hunter Biden and allegedly the family. Trump was excoriated as though he drove COVID-19 into the USA when the reverse was true. The media refused to applaud his efforts about getting ventilators, PPS and armed forces providing extra beds to pull Cuomo out of the ditch. The media ignored his myriad of economic successes and would only report his international demands on the allies to pay their way as negatives; disagree, then you are a lost cause. When the vaccines are reported in the media as a Biden success instead of acclaiming the true source of their quick development, Trump, then you are a lost cause. When you see acclaimed the shutting down of the gas line from Canada into the USA, or the shutting down of fracking as a Biden success, all the while ignoring the Russian pipeline to supply Germany and the Germans, and EU can’t wait to join up while they destroy Australia’s economy as best they can, the hypocrisy, then you are a lost cause. When the media reports the total disaster of Afghanistan as being any of Trumps fault, along with the human disaster that is coming, when it was Biden who pulled the plug as he went off on holiday to Camp David, won’t be back for a few days as it unfolds, and you say the media is an even playing field, you jest. Trump moving out of Afghanistan came with punishing caveats on the Mujahaddin, and he showed in Iraq what he said he did. The few troops he had left in that country had few problems from the enemy. Look at the results of Biden’s precipitate move and how little the US media attack him. When the southern border is wide open with the Biden Presidency distributing COVID-19 positive cases throughout the Republican States, and doesn’t get flogged for it by the media, and you tell me the media isn’t leftist and Pro-democrat, then you are a lost cause. When the governors of NYC, LA, Chicago, Minneapolis,Portland and SFC are supported by the media by non reporting of the violent riots and property destruction , killings and defund the police movements and you tell me the press isn’t leftist, then you are a lost cause. When the US media push wokism, have a Supreme Court that refuses to hear election fraud complaints on the grounds they might incite violence – and forget the point of view of the law, the media pushes it as just the republicans being poor losers, and you say the media is balanced, you are a lost cause. The same with the huge Hunter Biden story that also alleges involvement of the Biden family, surely potentially the story of the century for US politics, but the media ignores it, then you are a lost cause.
How much more does one have to go – and there are plenty more issues – to refute your position? Just about all that has happened and is about to happen under the Biden-Democrat regime was all well known to be on the plate to those that followed the bit of centre right US media ie Fox. The expected outcomes of proposed policies, and especially the eventual outcomes for the USA when the implemention is complete, were not debated in the bulk of the US Press. The US citizens are already seeing 5+% inflation rate, they are seeing the effect of ‘defund the police’ policies, the effect of the extreme green policies, and they will soon see the results of those open borders – a deliberate and public plan to entrench the Democrats in government forever (it will fail due to the places these people are escaping from) – they are seeing the loss of freedoms with wokism and the attacks on their children by CRT, and the attempted destruction of the great accomplishments from the USA history and the magnificence of its founding fathers. All this was expected from the known policies of the Democrats but down-played by that media you say is rightist and especially by the electronic media. Poverty is coming in large measure to middle America, and it was all foreseeable. The future problems for the USA all come from having a completely one-sided media and its absolute refusal to debate anything that would harm the cause of that side.
It’s not all due to media but a lot of it comes from citizens ignoring the election policies of political parties and being implacably supportive of one side. The attacks of the left on the institutions have been evident for decades, but in the USA as in Australia, nobody cared.
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There’s hope; thanks, a great outline.
The big issue will be tallying the vote and the voting machines.
50
This amazing article by Billionaire Hungarian George Soros, himself active promoter of so many anti Trump and anti Democratic groups world wide.
“Now private and state-owned companies are being run not only by their management but also a party representative who ranks higher than the company president. This creates a perverse incentive not to innovate but to await instructions from higher authorities.”
“China’s largest, highly leveraged real-estate company, Evergrande, has recently run into difficulties servicing its debt. The real-estate market, which has been a driver of the economic recovery, is in disarray. The authorities have always been flexible enough to deal with any crisis, but they are losing their flexibility. To illustrate, a state-owned company produced a Covid-19 vaccine, Sinopharm, which has been widely exported all over the world, but its performance is inferior to all other widely marketed vaccines. Sinopharm won’t win any friends for China.”
“To prevail in 2022, Mr Xi has turned himself into a dictator. Instead of allowing the party to tell him what policies to adopt, he dictates the policies he wants it to follow. State media is now broadcasting a stunning scene in which Mr Xi leads the Standing Committee of the Politburo in slavishly repeating after him an oath of loyalty to the party and to him personally.”
George Soros is founder of the Open Society Foundations.
The Wall Street Journal
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“Xi Jinping grew up in the countryside in very difficult circumstances. He didn’t receive a proper education, never went abroad, and never learned a foreign language.”
“That process has been unfolding in the past year and reached a crescendo in recent weeks. It started with the sudden cancellation of a new issue by Alibaba’s Ant Group in November 2020 and the temporary disappearance of its former executive chairman, Jack Ma. Then came the disciplinary measures taken against Didi Chuxing after it floated an issue in New York in June 2021. ” (Didi Chuxing is the China clone of UBER)
“Mr Xi is engaged in a systematic campaign to remove or neutralise people who have amassed a fortune. His latest victim is Sun Dawu, a billionaire pig farmer. Mr Sun has been sentenced to 18 years in prison and persuaded to “donate” the bulk of his wealth to charity.”
And George Soros is a communist who has been actively engaged in China for 40 years. This is amazing. He is scared for the planet.
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New stuff and interesting.
60
Xi’s past is not quite the way it sounds above. I knew his father was one of Mao’s lieutenants, so I checked.
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/xi-jinping
Xi was born June 15, 1953, the son of a well-placed Chinese Communist Party leader, Xi Zhongxun, a former comrade of Communist China’s founder Mao Tse-tung. Considered a “princeling” — someone destined to rise within the government due to family connections — Xi’s destiny was altered when his father was purged from power in 1962.
In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. All formal education was halted, and Xi, at that time in high school, was sent down to work in a remote farming village for seven years, doing manual chores and subsisting on rice gruel.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts, in 1974 Xi was accepted into the Communist Party. The following year he began to study chemical engineering at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, earning a degree in 1979. From that point forward, he steadily rose through the ranks of the Communist Party. etc
Now it’s him doing the purging. He learnt that lesson well.
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Soros is scared for himself – in Xi, he has found someone even more controlling, ruthless and domineering than himself and beyond his control.
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Elites?
With all the fuss about ABC ‘reporter’ Louise Milligan and her incessant attacks on male Liberal party Politicians Attorney General Christian Porter and now MP Andrew Laming which has cost the ABC and their victims hundreds of thousands of dollars, what about an apology and compensation from the ABC, the Victorian Police, Courts and Premier for the unjust incarceration of Cardinal George Pell?
What about the millions spent in Pell’s defence, uselessly as the ABC were able to persecute the man in between trials, even publish a book on his guilt during his trial and gloat over his jailing. Milligan even received a Golden Quill prize for her great work in jailing an innocent man. So they totally approve.
Christian Porter fought back and won. Laming fought back and won. But Cardinal Pell even had the Victorian Police offering cash prizes for accusations, not evidence, leading to his conviction. And his second trial was a kangaroo court where his accuser did not even bother to turn up, so they replayed video. Outrageous and unprecedented in a trial where a jury has to judge the accused in the dock against edited video recordings. Pell was sent to jail for six years and that was not nearly enough for some.
Now we all know what it is like to be locked up, let alone in solitary, for Victorians now seven months of it, spare a thought for a man who spent 13 months in jail, mostly in solitary confinement and disgrace without any evidence at all. Why?
If the International Elites are a problem, the Communist run state of Victoria, their judges and the so called reporters of the ABC at the very least need to apologise and sack people. But don’t hold your breath. They are accountable to no one.
Today Terry McCrann in the Australian asks why the ABC has not fired anyone (Milligan) for the huge costs of blatantly false accusations for Porter and Laming, who both won their defamation cases. And their costs were covered, if not their public humiliation and Porter’s loss of his job. Why didn’t McCrann mention Pell?
But the Elites of ABC do not have to answer to anyone. It’s their ABC/SBS and they will spend their $30Million a week of our money any way they like. Who are we to question them? And politicians do not dare. In these days where 1 out of ten people is out of work, their CEO last month openly lied about hiring another 200 people and their budget has never been cut.
The Elites are closer to home than anyone realises. In the ABC we pay for fair, unbiased news. What a joke! Break up and sell the ABC. They are massively illegal under Australian media laws anyway, laws which apply to the hated Murdoch Press and everyone else. And we Australians can buy our news from people whom we judge tell the truth, not throw shoes at an Australian Prime Minister. Hilarious.
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Is her award going to stand “Milligan is an investigative journalist for ABC TV’s 7.30 and Four Corners programs and an author. She was awarded the Melbourne Press Club’s Gold Quill Award this year, the highest prize in Victorian journalism, for her work on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse and Cardinal George Pell. Her best-selling book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, was published in May.
Really, as Cardinal Pell has been found completely innocent in a total miscarriage of justice condemned by the High Court of Australia , is this award going to stand?
Is putting Australia’s most senior Catholic in jail such a glowing achievement of ‘investigative journalism’ plus the profits from a best selling work of fiction?
And there was no reprimand for this transmission “The destruction of St James Church in Brighton would be a relief to many former parishioners because of its history of sexual abuse, actress and former parishioner Rachel Griffiths has told 774 ABC Melbourne.”
The extreme anti Catholicism of the ABC should be have been on trial, not George Pell. Some are former Catholics who never stop attacking the faith of others. Like Former Catholic priest Paul Bongiorno and ABC commentator who actually lived with paedophile Risdale but insisted Pell should have known when Bongoirno said he had no idea himself. Typical hypocrisy on the public purse.
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Be careful what you wish for. One of the things I am truly grateful for as an Australian (and there are hundreds of things) is the enduring presence and quality of ABC and SBS. In many other nations either there is no publicly owned broadcaster, or they are dire, or just a mouthpiece of government.
I can barely imagine how awful the media landscape would be without ABC and SBS – I won’t consume a single thing owned by Murdoch, and so much of the rest is commercial drivel for people who have to wear bibs.
And our libel laws are draconian – and a complete choke on free speech. They are there to protect the powerful and the guilty.
BTW I’m not that certain George Pell’s “innocence” passes the pub test … from my experience.
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“and quality of ABC”
Now that is just hilarious. !!
Enduring low quality, that must be what you mean.
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Read what I write – don’t try and tell me what I “mean” – you are invariably wrong.
Murdoch is very rightwing and peddles populist jingoism and brainless ant-government horseradish – and has for decades – along with the semi-naked women on page three. CNN is very centrist – being anti-Trump doesn’t make anyone a lefty.
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No, Murdoch is “balanced”
Not something you would have even the slightest notion of.
CNN is far-left on basically every social point of view, just not as far -left as you would apparently want them to be.
And no, ABC does not have enduring quality or balance, not for a long, long time. !
Otherwise more people would watch it.
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I don’t often respond to you Andy but this is a classic.
26
Andy ?? Who’s that ? your ex-boyfriend?
Do you charge him rent for the vacant occupancy of your mind ?
Having a mix of conservative and leftist views, is a balance.
As opposed to the 100% leftism of most of the rest of the MSM, especially the ABC
Your problem is you view everything from a far-loonie left perspective.
You haven’t a clue what a “balanced” viewpoint is.
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I think Andy, you have no clue what a word surrounded by inverted commas is.
01
You have a severe mental scar!
And no, you are clueless about balance, leaning so far to the left your ear scrapes the ground.
10
“from my experience”.
That’s interesting, perhaps you could expand on that.
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So you believe Cardinal George Pell is guilty, even if there is no evidence. One of the things I value is the requirement of proof. And the libel laws do not protect the powerful and the guilty, including your ABC.
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I have not expressed that view – you’re just trying to verbal someone you might disagree with. I don’t know whether he’s guilty or not – only he and his accusers know the truth. I do know that he had high-powered lawyers and a lot of resources behind him.
It would be interesting to see whether those who demand evidence that satisfies a court wrt to George Pell, also believe the US election was “stolen” – without any evidence that has even remotely satisfied a court, despite 60+ goes at it.
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Pell’s guilt next passed the “pub” test.
It was all a far-left beat-up by the ABC and other far-left organisations.
Courts have not look at the US election, so your comment is empty, trite and meaningless, as usual.
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“I have not expressed that view”. You certainly have!
“BTW I’m not that certain George Pell’s “innocence” passes the pub test … from my experience.”
So what did you mean? And what do you know that no one else knows? And what is your experience? Why didn’t you testify? Or do you actually know nothing at all? But believe the ABC would not lie to you. Or are you happy that Pell went to jail without any evidence because that is absolutely certain? The alleged crimes were established as utterly impossible as even the Crown prosecutor admitted.
Why is innocence in quotation marks? And what is your experience of criminal justice? Or what other experience do you mean. Or is it all just meaningless heartless garbage.
Putting someone in jail, in solitary , convicted of very serious crimes with no evidence is not something which you should decide with your ‘pub test’. You could always quote the ABC/Milligan’s book on his guilt. It’s a best seller.
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Tilba “believes” many thing for which he/she is totally incapable of producing any actual evidence.
A fantasy life, bereft of rational thought or reality.
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The ABC would cease to exist without government funding.
It produces very little of actual worth to society.
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Tiba – perhaps you should check who owns “vice” which is most of the programs on SBS ? A quick search shows a large portion of MSM ownership (Disney/A&E). By the way – innocent until proven guilty is still the legal standard which was in this case was upsurped by “Trial by Media”.
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‘Their’ ABC particularly annoy me when they treat calls for accountability with bemused contempt. They have become spoiled brats and I hate to say it, but even coalition Ministers for Communications have proved no more interested in reining them in than their Labor counterparts. It mystifies me as to why the ABC is allowed to use their resources to run campaigns against individuals such as the examples you gave.
The position of Minister for Communications could just as effectively be done by a dog.
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We have laws restricting the reach of any media organization, specifically because parliament fears the power of any organization which controls the news and becomes a vehicle for propaganda. Such an organization controls politicians. So why is the ABC exempt and dominates everything but print media in Australia? Even the internet.
The solution is easy. Apply the law to the ABC.
The dominance of print media is long over. If the Government wants to rein in the power of Google, Facebook and the internet media giants who steal content, where are the restrictions on the huge ABC who dominate the media outside newspapers? Or are they already too powerful and totally unaccountable. Why does utterly unaccountable government media even exist, fully funded by taxpayers and controlled by extremists? Their profitable socialism and groupthink is a total embarrassment in a democracy. Everyone could have free Foxtel for less.
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The media concentration laws in Australia have always been a toothless tiger – a joke. Even when I was a media student in the 1970s, they were much criticised.
Murdoch’s rightwing News Corp owns a huge slice of print media in Australia – and a fair bit of electronic stuff too. Thank goodness we have the ABC-SBS bulwark against the man.
But I hope you’re right – and as the dominant role of the print media fades and fades, then Murdoch’s dominance of politics (and politicians) might fade too.
(As you might discern, Rupert Murdoch is my least favourite person of all time – he basically wrecked the world in my view).
And anyway I’m not that certain of the dominance of ABC-SBS across the spectrum. I think the prosperous and educated, and those over say 60, are more devoted ABC types, but there is a lot of competition among younger and less well-off cohorts.
It’s not run by “extremists” – that’s ridiculous. It’s run by conservative suits who pace the corridors. The Chair of the ABC is Ita Buttrose – hardly a bastion of radicalism LOL.
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“have always been a toothless tiger – a joke”
yep, they should be applied to the ABC as well as commercial stations.
81
Murdoch is only dominant because caters for and attracts more audience.
That is because he is centrist, rather than far left like much of the other MSM and ABC
81
That’s a bit like saying McDonald’s are the best restaurants because they sell more food than anyone else.
Anyway it’s the concentration of so much power in one owner that is the concern – quite rightly.
111
There is NOT a concentration of “so much power”
Any influence Murdoch has, is because he has earned it because he caters to a much larger, broader, audience than the far-left ABC.
The Murdoch papers are able to present a balanced view, rather than a view held by the ABC’s 80% Greens voters.
Sorry if you don’t like them being able to do that, and think he should be like the ABC and only cater to your sicko-phantic ideologies.
51
Poor Tilba, he/she knows that the ABC caters only for the far left, limiting its audience to a bunch on mindless psychophants like him/herself.
80% of presenters are Greens voters.
Murdoch has a much wider audience because it caters for a broad spectrum of audience, one that is based on rational though rather than far-left ideology.
Something he/she will never comprehend.
81
ABC would not exist without massive public funding. !
122
Well … a huge slice of the things we use and need and enjoy as a society are fully or partially funded by taxation … doesn’t make them less good or less valid.
In fact it’s often the reverse – things that are funded as a social good, with the cost spread very evenly – often function far better than corporations doing it for profit. I don’t believe the privatisation of utilities such as water and power have led to a better service or better prices for consumers.
If the ABC were really privatised, then I expect the quality of the service would plummet, and a lot of regional services would disappear (which is precisely what the Right wants). If the ABC were required to carry advertising then it becomes captured by advertisers and dollars.
Fortunately, a lot of conservative politicians – not just inner-city lefties – want the ABC to exist to provide essential and independent regional services that would be unlikely to be commercially viable if in private hands.
Plus the ABC is a huge training ground – a large number of journalists, anchors, and producers right through commercial media got their training and first experience via the ABC or SBS. Commercial media gets all that skill at no cost.
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“then I expect the quality of the service would plummet”
So it would sink even further into the bottomless abyss of nothingness.
Yes we do realise that.
41
“Plus the ABC is a huge training ground”
For marxist and socialist non-thinkers, brain-washed in deep ugly leftism
Yes.. we knew that
61
“Commercial media gets all that skill at no cost.”
No, the taxpayer has to pay for it.. at exorbitant rates.
Paying to produce propaganda muppets.
41
The ABC should not be publicly funded. And it has a far greater reach than any organization including Murdoch. If it is so treasured, its fans can pay for their content on a subscription model, but they are happy for everyone else to pay. That’s not democracy, it’s theft.
You have a choice not to pay for Murdoch. No one can refuse to pay for the ABC. Least of all the politicians.
The ABC is in the extortionate position, not Murdoch. And they are accountable to no one, despite their charter of zero bias. Your ABC makes the BBC in the UK look conservative. Anti Israel, anti Catholic, anti British, anti Conservative and now very much anti men. Who needs evidence to libel people if they are male conservatives? The rule of law does not apply when the public always pays your legal bills, whether they like it or not.
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And Climate Change comrades, as long as they keep their overpaid jobs and houses on the Harbour.
Who can forget their Science Editor and Tom Jones stand in and Global Warming pusher, Robyn Williams who told us the Sydney Harbour bridge should be under water by now.
Sell off the ABC/SBS. And if it is worth nothing, that’s what it is worth. We can rent Peppa Pig and the BBC shows ourselves. Why should the ABC use our money to outbid the commercial channels? Australian content is non existent, if you leave out the bash the conservative government shows.
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Fortunately, it seems a majority of Australians disagree with you, and like the fact that Australia supports a publicly funded broadcaster of the quality of ABC-SBS – it can hold its own easily against the BBC and the best European models.
For millions of people in Australia, if they want to read a metropolitan daily, it is a Murdoch paper – he has an effective monopoly in all capital cities except Sydney and Melbourne, where he has more than half the market in each.
I agree that not all Australians “consume” the ABC, but it’s hardly the point. I don’t attend the Australian Opera or Australian Ballet, but I support the arts being funded – it allows me to go to wonderful art galleries (for example) at little or no cost.
There are thousands of things that I do not use (or especially benefit from) – but I accept that my taxes help to pay for them. It’s true for everyone. And in fact I think the ABC-SBS are popular enough, regional enough, and of such a high standard, that more Australians probably consume them than just about anything else that is taxpayer funded.
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ABC would not exist if it was defunded and had to attract an audience with it far-left propaganda pap and poor quality shows.
There major problem would be that they cater to such a small fraction of inner-city latte-set virtue-seeking leftists of society that advertisers wouldn’t even bother with them.
They would become even more irrelevant than they are now.
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Please don’t leave out SBS – that channel is at least as bad in promoting CAGW, socialism, gender identity issues, the myth of Australian systemic racism, etc
131
Another obsolete massive impost on the Australian taxpayer. The whole of Grassby’s 1980 premise of multi cultural television in the internet satellite age is just absurd. Another $6Million a week of taxpayer’s money. For what? Why? And the people in the pubs would like their money back.
111
Do you ever watch it? Apart from its international soccer coverage, it has a huge list of great docos, news, science, and drama … high-quality television that you simply won’t see on commercial channels; it’s excellent.
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I watch their news. They keep advertising how “SBS is just the facts, not opinions” while they editorially censor all sensible conservative views and any data that disagrees with their own personal political narrow goals.
How often do they mention that the largest cause of black homicide is due to black violence? Do they care about black victims? Only when they are killed by whites — because that supports the political aims of SBS. It does not deserve a cent of Australian taxpayer money. It deceives taxpayers and hurts people of color. It is a political campaigning activist organisation that betrays Australian taxpayers.
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I burst out laughing when I first saw that “just the facts, not opinions” ad. It was shortly followed by a stream of invectives.
140
BLM is very much about the causes of violence upon blacks no matter what the cause. How does SBS news affect the BLM movement in the US or Australia for that matter I wonder?
16
Would it help your wonderment if I told you it affects the BLM movement in the USA by reflecting the rabid left-wing views propagated by the left-wing USA news media? And, hence validating those perverse views in the echo-chambered minds of its (generally) left-wing Australian viewers?
The left is very connected, Gee Aye; from the Fabian Societies throughout the world to the Socialist International and on to the national and international environmental green groups that proliferate faster than a Chinese virus.
You know all this of course, but like all lefties, you have to pretend that there are things that you don’t know. Otherwise you (and the rest of them) would have to face up to the psychological trauma of the cognitive dissonance created by admitting you know.
31
Tilba Tilba:
I agree that SBS is better than the ABC, but doesn’t that mean having to attract viewers (and advertisers willing to spend money) could improve the programs? I would note that the sort of programs I view are not mainstream and that quite often they turn out to be available elsewhere.
As for the ABC you forget that it is not supposed to appeal only to the inner-city dwellers. I see that whenever their funding is threatened they claim that Peppa Pig is in danger. I don’t watch it, and never have, but I understand that its appeal is to juvenile minds. With numerous channels I suggest that the single involuntary subscription is out dated, and should be replaced by multiple ones (as they have available) like children’s, rural, news and emergency info, and whatever. They could have a channel for gender fluid people (although I expect that will soon split), even channels with non-stop Climate disasters and another for Green politics. The general public should be given a choice on which channel they want for a small sum, I would suggest 8¢ a day or around $30 a year. There would be nothing to stop them getting all of them, provided they paid.
21
“There would be nothing to stop them getting all of them, provided they paid.”
I would save $30 a year from not having to pay for the ABC. !
Sounds good to me.
11
In that case, the BLM messaging should be targeted towards black communities. The problems largely stem from poor upbringing that is systemic in black communities and families with violence being commonplace, leading to low self esteem and no sense of personal responsibility. In the USA, the vast majority of assaults and murders of black people are by other black people. In our remote indigenous communities, who knows?
Giving money and special privileges to these minorities without any ownership of the base issues and plans for dealing with them merely feeds the problem.
20
Analitik, it is targeted upon the social and institutional structures that have put black people at a disadvantage. That doesn’t mean they should just target the effects.
01
Now GA says black people are disadvantaged.
How much more racist are you prepared to be, GA ?
00
Talking about the Red Terror:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/olympics/china-declares-olympic-win-after-altering-medal-count/ar-AANknhz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
Chinese state media has declared the country the winners of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after embellishing their medal count to claim more golds than Team USA, according to pictures posted online.
The official International Olympic Committee medal count named the United States in first place and China in second place overall.
The US took home 39 gold medals, 41 silver medals, and 33 bronze for a total of 113 medals.
China earned 38 gold medals, 32 silver medals, and 18 bronze medals for a total of 88 medals.
But a week after the end of the Olympics, images posted on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, and China Central Television have circulated which show an altered medal count – with China also claiming medals won by Hong Kong and Taiwan.
By adding Hong Kong and Taiwan’s medals, China’s self-claimed medal count jumped to 41 gold, 37 silver, and 27 bronze for an accumulative 106 medals.
And although that still puts them second in terms of total medals overall, the “winner” of the Olympics is typically ranked as the country that wins the most golds.
Some modified images even show China claiming medals from Macau giving them 42 gold medals, according to Taiwan News.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region (SAR) of China officially known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
It governs itself under the ‘one country, two systems’ philosophy.
Taiwan is officially known as the Republic of China and claims independence from the People’s Republic of China (PRC)- the borders that are commonly referred to as mainland China.
Macau is another autonomous SAR on the south coast of China. Like Hong Kong, it also governs under the ‘one country, two systems’ principal.
The International Olympic Committee recognizes Hong Kong and Taiwan – referred to as Chinese Taipei by the IOC – as competing independently from China as National Olympic Committees (NOC).
While it normally competes separately from the PRC during international competitions, the IOC does not recognize Macau as a National Olympic Committee.
Taiwan took 34th place in the Olympics with 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 6 bronze medals for a total of 12.
Hong Kong placed 49th in the Olympics with 1 gold medal, 2 silver medals, and 3 bronze medals for another total of 12 medals.
Out of the 11,656 athletes that competed in Tokyo last month, the PRC sent 431 athletes to compete in the games while the US sent 634 athletes.
The PCR has finished in the top three spots in the overall medal tally in every summer Olympics since the 2000 games in Sydney.
This year the PRC came close to topping the medal table, as they began the last day of competitions leading the gold medal count with 38 compared to Team USA’s 36.
But on the final day, Team USA women’s volleyball and women’s basketballs won their games to bring in the final gold medals that topped off the count and solidified the win for the United States.
‘We are thrilled by the performance of Team USA at the Tokyo Games – and couldn’t be more proud of the way they carried themselves,’ said Susanne Lyons, chair of the USOPC.
‘These Games are one for the history books.’
SEE LINK FOR REST
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As one of the two giant countries of the world, it is a very poor result. Australia which is 1/56th of the size won 17 gold, so we won by an incredible margin of 20:1. And some little countries did far better. Jamiaca with 4 gold and only 3 million population, so the equivalent of nearly 2000 gold. Even Switzerland with 3 gold and 8 million had the rate of 1400 gold medals.
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It’s both good fun and very hard to be an Australian Olympic supporter.
While it’s gratifying that we are pretty good in a huge swath of sports (outside the ones involving combat, weapons, and gym mats) – and we should be because we have a diverse population, great weather, and excellent sports training, sports medicine, and sports science – in so many sports we make the quarter final, semi-final, or maybe a final … but don’t wind up on the podium that often.
Swimming is the exception, and has been for a long time. One nice thing about swimming is that when you have a star swimmer they are usually up for 4-5 medals – unlike almost all other sports.
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And China produces more than half the world’s Carbon dioxide (not that I see that as a problem) but when everyone else is cutting back, they are exempt as a ‘developing country’
Now how can a ‘developing country’ which has 20% of the world’s population produce more than 50% of the world’s CO2? But who dares disagree? And how much is Australia being punished for asking for an investigation into the origin of a virus which has already killed 4 million people? And why?
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Not much-
https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/current-account
Global “ambition” to eliminate CO2 has created the greatest economic boom in Australia’s history. Australians should be encouraging other developed countries to pursue this fantasy. China needs Australian resources to keep supplying their climate monuments to the rest of the world.
Australia is the only developed country that can realistically run on Random Energy; most sun-drenched continent on the planet and mainland, at least, never too cold to actually need heaters or too warn to need coolers.
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“Not much-”
Weren’t there farmers who had to plough in some crops because; —
But the national economy is O.K. and what’s a couple of farmers count in the world of politics.
Smoothe as.
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The only reason we are not suffering greatly, at least the people who are not wine makers, lobster fishermen, grain farmers is that the country lives on our two biggest exports, iron ore and coal. And iron ore exports to China have boomed and coal has found other markets. So China is actively looking to develop iron ore reserves in Africa so they can stop that too and punish us more.
Yes, the National Economy is surviving, thanks entirely to Iron ore. Nothing else. But many have no idea. They live on the taxes of people who export. Outside coal, unemployment is our biggest growth industry, all due to China. We are on a knife’s edge.
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Off the top of my head China imposed high tariffs on our wine [30%?] until the FTA was signed 6 years ago, but it was to be a phased reduction over [maybe] 5 years. So our vintners have not had time to get fat and lazy on the Chinese market.
Their product was of a quality and price that it could compete on world markets and will be able to do so again. Grape gluts are nothing new and not caused by China.
I don’t know the answer to this but does any wine exporting country have preferential access to China? If not there will still be a [reduced] market.
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It seems Chile also has an FTA.
Bilateral free trade agreements are paying dividends
Australia and Chile continued to take advantage of lower import tariffs on their wines.
Imports of Australian bottled wines increased by 33.3% in volume and 25.8% increase in value compared to 2016.
Import tariffs on Australian wines entering China fell from 14% to 2.8% on 1 January 2018. The tariff is set to be reduced to zero in 2019, under the terms of a bilateral trade deal signed in 2015.
China also has a free trade deal with Chile, and the latter saw wine shipments to China rise by 25% last year, according to Chinese customs data.
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200% tariffs.
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Thank you so much for your information.
I am sharing your articles with others so as people can see other points of view other than the main stream media.
The only way we will all get through this period in time is to help each other.
You are enlightening.
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Excellent Jo, brilliant synopsis and a ‘call to arms’ the silent majority needs. Calling out the craven in business and sport administration is the first step back, as they are merely virtue signalling for a profit point and will bend back when they’re called out. Ridiculing the periphery of cancel culture is the other front. Making them aware they are marked for exclusion when there’s no opponent left will make them question their resolve, just ad it has in every revolution in history.
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Our local Red Terror, Dan Andrews, has clamped down further on Victorians in the increasingly futile attempt to bring community infection rates down to zero. Work permits, playground lockouts and a curfew are all back and the prospect of release this Thursday looks remote.
You got your wish, Rick Will & Jo.
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And as an aside, a study shows that IQ for young kids growing up in lockdown is lower than in the past
This study was undertaken on Rhode Island which rates up in the well to do regions of the United States. Imagine the effects in our poorer suburbs and regions
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/children-born-during-pandemic-have-lower-iqs-us-study-finds
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Again, my 4yo grandson could see the immediate flaw in the linked study:
Do the matchs – pandemic lockdown commenced in March 2020. That report was published in August 2021. How could a valid comparison be made between populations up to 3 year old post Covid compared with 3yo pre Covid – just do the maths. No wonder the paper is not peer reviewed – hopefully the author is hard pressed to find peers that are as maths challenged.
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You are a piece of work.
The mean IQ was based on kids aged between three months and three years. That doesn’t mean that they assessed kids of that same age born during the “pandemic”. Only a 4 year old would draw that conclusion.
It’s obvious that they assessed kids born since the lockdowns and used the previous test results for the comparative scoring.
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Clearly you have not read the report – it it a statistical beat up – it is worse than climate science. The data is presented in a way that it is impossible to see the actual scores – all twisted statistics. It does not provide a basis for a valid comparison with preceding years. In fact how could any such study be conducted without biases during a pandemic from pre-pandemic.
It is crap dressed up in statistics.
This from the report:
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Time to re-introduce Svant Aahenius’s method of electric shocks for school children? Mind you, I am surprised by his acceptance as a Climate Guru despite his political convictions – racial purity, nordic race superiority, against immigrants,especially those with ‘tanned skin’ etc.
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🙂 🙂
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A three year old American child today has spent half its life under lockdown. The study Analitik quoted claims it is the lockdown, not the date of birth, harming the children. So your grandson would have jumped to the wrong conclusion, as you did.
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Before you prove yourself more maths challenged than my 4yo grandson, read the study. It compares scores of pre Covid groups of 3 month to 3yo with post covid group of 3 month to 3yo. How can a valid comparison be made when the two groups cannot possibly represent the same age distribution?
The report was published 18 months after the first lockdowns. The oldest any post-Covid child could be is 18 months.
The intersection of the populations is minuscule. It is a statistical beat-up. Why else would they jump the gun when the population is usually take from 3 month to 3 year old.
This is worse than climate science – looking for a problem where there is none.
Childcare was not even a thing when I was growing up.
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I have no interest in the study, my interest is the logic.
IF, as claimed, isolation inhibited development then poor development would show in today’s 3 and 4 yr olds, something at which you scoff. This is consistent with the converse: Social interaction helps development, an argument used to gain government funding for kindy and preschools.
Either both are true or neither are.
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Any parent who relies solely on pre-school child care for their child’s development deserves the outcome they get.
Leaving schools to educate your kids guarantees they will exhibit a combination of the psychoses of all their teachers without an understanding of reality.
Covid has got parents involved in their kid’s education like it used to be.
The study did make the point that infants with well-educated mothers did better. Some infants had improved post-Covid trajectories.
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Wow. So CoViD is now a force for increased family involvement.
The issue is the lack of social interaction and narrowed experiences. The Rhode Island demographic is very well to do so very well resourced and residents have a short average commute. The average parents there would not be leaving their kids in daycare centers for the sort of times that you would expect in larger metropolitan areas.
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/providence-ri/
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I made the comment below.
It is great to see Brett Sutton take ownership of curfews. They greatly improve the ability of police to limit movement. It effectively eliminates illegal activities because policing becomes so much easier.
Work permits also back in. All good to see.
Far better to get infection rate under 1 when there are 5 unlinked cases than 500.
The $350,000 engagement party will result in thousands of primary contacts as it has become a super spreader event.
Much better to get control with distancing and have light at the end of a short tunnel rather than relying on vaccinations as the silver bullet.
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Your optimism is becoming tiresome RickWill; let’s see what you think after another year of this regimen.
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Not for me. Why would any Australian be pessimistic? And why would optimism make anyone else tiresome?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
It would not surprise me if a woman living in Afghanistan find life pessimistic but optimism and pessimism are a state of mind so some may well be optimistic.
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I disagree – RickWill’s analysis is sensible, and an optimistic position is not a bad thing. None of us in Melbourne like the rolling lockdowns (and as a retiree I don’t even get financially affected, but I have neighbours who do), but the public health logic behind the “regimen” is very sound.
None of us want to be writing about this in twelve months time, but that will require some pretty tough decisions – especially with the Delta Variant … and who knows what else in the future.
One only has to look at the NSW experience – a half-baked lockdown is no lockdown at all, and the number of cases there are not where Melbourne wants to be. I appreciate that Sydney is by far the main international gateway into the country, but still, there have been some pretty appalling breaches of travel security, and poor reaction when they occur.
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‘I disagree – RickWill’s analysis is sensible, and an optimistic position is not a bad thing.’
I second the motion.
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Gives them more time to fine those on Bondi Beach.
It was cringeworthy watching the NSW Police Chief in high dudgeon abusing people so reckless that they went to the beach where the sea breeze is sterile and the sun good for mind and body.
Thinking about this I looked up whether a properly chlorinated pool is sterile and some genius admitted it was, provided you maintained distancing and good hand hygiene. Does that mean you have to get out of the pool and sanitise your hands every few minutes?
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Brett Sutton provides advice to Dan and Gladys keeps Dan well away from Bondi Beach. I doubt Dan would want to go anywhere near Bondi Beach right now.
Kerry provides advice to Gladys, which she chooses to disregard. More specifically, Gladys advises Kerry what advice she can actually give.
It was very clear in Victoria last year that curfews were highly effective. I am certain it has been on Kerry’s list but Gladys has already told her curfews are off the table.
If people are required to be home, shops are shut and work permits are issued for essential work, the only people out after 9pm are going to hospital or conducting illegal activities. Curfews have no impact on law-abiding people.
The Victorian curfew gives me great optimism because I can do the maths – under 1 is all that matters. Once the number of roaming spreaders drops, the light at the end of the tunnel shines much brighter. Seen the light getting brighter 5 times.
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Are all these people personal friends of yours?
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No – but they follow JoNova and look for good ideas. I am glad that Brett finally took ownership of curfew. He was not willing to own it last year despite the clear evidence on its effectiveness.
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Brett has a brother called Trevor. Trevor is married to Jane Halton. Jane represented Australia at Event 201 held on the 18th October in New York City. It was a pandemic simultation exercise. Footage shows Jane had a fair amount of verbal imput. Jane works for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Jane is Australia’s Covid Coordinator and she is the person that both our Federal and State governments answer to. The fear porn on the main stream media comes from them. Cases which could well be the ordinary flu are carpet bombed continuosly throughout the day.
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Brett Sutton is in Melbourne … Bondi Beach is in Sydney. We are in fact a federation of colonies.
16
Curfew times around the world
Kabul 11pm to 4am Reason: catch infidels
Pyongyang 12am to 5am Reason: catch dissidents
Vicdanistan 9pm to 5am Reason: no one is listening to Dan
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It seems that some people are simply not taking the infectiousness of the Delta Variant at all seriously.
[ Snip – LVA]
00
Brett Sutton has taken ownership of curfews in Victoria and has ordered it again from midnight Monday. That follows unlinked Covid sources hitting 5.
An engagement party held last week will be expensive – $350,000 in fines issued to the 69 attendees. Presumably this entitled mob will not be too worried about the fines. But they have found the wrath of the community and now feel victimised – entitled a-hs.
NT has gone into 3 day shutdown as one source resulted in 4 cases so far.
ACT also on the brink with daily cases now in double digits.
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Rick. It is a pain I have not felt since June last year. So far the ACT has not suffered at the hands of idiots – our lockdown is just about containing an outbreak rather than a rule break.
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apologies “triangle brackets strong” self inserted. The first word was Rick
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thanks I mean
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What is this hubris? Every lockdown is the same … only the minor details are different.
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Perhaps, but rule breaks inject an element to contact tracing that goes beyond an outbreak with people sticking to rules.
01
rubbish. !
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17 cases in the ACT yesterday, up from 0.
https://covidlive.com.au/
Maybe not going as well as hoped.
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No. I think the success of this will be revealed in 3 days.
Up from 0? Was higher than that. I think you are reading the flight column.
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you can follow the action here
https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/
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Fair enough GI – I see what you mean on second reading. And contact-tracing does require the punters to be truthful, and not tell fibs.
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“So far the ACT has not suffered at the hands of idiots”
Its a permanent feature in the ACT…. You live there, for instance.
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An outstanding video which explains a lot about what’s happening to the world today.
MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL
https://youtu.be/09maaUaRT4M
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David M,
that’s a terrific visual presentation of behavioural conditioning leading to menticide in the terror struck plebs you seek to control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M&ab_channel=AfterSkool
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Among the discussion of masks at various points above, I think no mention was made regarding the effective limit of twenty minutes (see here and here, for example). Does it matter? Or not, as the case may be?
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clarence.t
August 14, 2021 at 7:35 pm
Since it has upset you so much, I apologise your saying you were “pretending”
You shouldn’t be such a sensitive little leftist.
……
“and would know the relationship between gestation and birth But apparently not”
And where did you “invent” that from….. just making up lies ?
Please apologise for that lie.
Oh, and it seems you can’t even use punctuation correctly.
Pl
Mr T, you whimp.
It is pixels on a screen, states its name is Ian, states its a biologist all un verified and unsubstantiated. Hear say literally.
My parents did not name me MP and I am an Astronaut.
Defamation, his lawyer would laugh him out of his office.
Lost my respect and yeah all those reds are from me.
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I just didn’t want the poor clueless clot to have heart-attack or another tantrum, that’s all.
Was laughing my butt off. ! 😉
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ps.. his reaction is marked…. for future reference. 😉
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Never give in to these types, self declared intellectuals.
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But watching it sook was great.
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I watched SBS News tonight (1830 AEST) – it was outstanding on the Afghan situation with coverage from so many angles and so many sources … there is no other news service in Australia that would come even close.
It’s your taxes at work … and doing a really good job.
[SNIP gratuitious random insult]
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Biden’s America is an ‘incompetently run dystopia’ – Dr Dom Green of The Spectator US
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‘RESIGN in DISGRACE’! Biden HUMILIATED by the TALIBAN!!!
Anyone who has worked in the bowels of a corporation understands exactly what has happened.
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Well well well…so Tilba is a supporter of the ABC and SBS…whoever knew? I know one thing…if I had my choice, I would not give 10 cents of my hard-earned wealth to either of these Socialist/Greenist waste of spaces. The ABC (at least) must be broken up, or privatised…and GOOD RIDDANCE!!
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