JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
An on-line UK petition to call a General Election is heading for a million signatures in record time,
http://Www.petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
Could this happen in Australia?
360
The UK govt has only been in power since July 2024. This must be the most dramatic fall from grace ever. Mainly supported by younger people who don’t remember the last labour govt who lost power in 2010.
The labour landslide in July was helped by the appalling ineptitude of the previous Tory govt who swung increasingly left over the last 14 years. Normally first past the post works quite well but this time round only 33% of those who voted opted for labour, who attracted only 20% of the vote from the available electorate.
So no chance whatsoever of Labour being turfed out and I suspect any debate prompted by the petition will be scheduled for last thing friday when MP’s would have already left to go to their constituency.
360
Before The UK can function properly, the indigenous Celtic peoples much change their thinking and behavior.
https://freespeechunion.org/welsh-government-vows-to-change-beliefs-and-behaviour-of-the-white-majority/
I trust you are doing your part in this noble effort tonyb.
(I apologize for using the word ‘noble’ as it is a vestige of the indigenous culture and non-equitable social structure of the European colonialist patriarchy, which of course can’t be indigenous from anywhere anyway, due to being colonizers of the indigenous.)
151
I also apologize for being immoderate and non-indigenous, since at least about 1750, when my ancestors were chased to a colony.
170
“Normally first past the post works quite well ”
Nope- The die-hards make up nearly all the voters so power depends on a small percentage of swinging votes. It always seems to lead to a two-party system who cosy up together until they are indistinguishable. The two parties always stand united, shoulder to shoulder as enemies when a third party emerges.
Is the move Left from the Welfare State breeding more Labor voters and the hard-working couples of the middle class not having children? Is it just a characteristic of the sheeple? Govt propaganda? Why don’t we have a world-wide move towards self-responsibility, minimal Govt and much more freedom?
160
No.
This is what happens when you don’t have compulsory voting.
Our founding fathers had the benefit of seeing the errors that Honk’s founding fathers made.
As result they developed the best system yet devised. Which still fails to please everybody.
40
Overall I think they did a good job, but still reckon the system could be improved by making it optional preferential in the reps.
Cheers
Dave B
40
In the UK system does the petition have any real outcomes ? or does it just let people vent
90
If it gets a certain number of signatures, IIRC, it can be considered for a ‘debate’ [on Party lines …].
That may be 100,000.
If it gets a certain larger number of signatures, perhaps 500,000 IIRC, it WILL be considered for a ‘debate’ [on Party lines …].
So.
Real outcomes?
Nah.
If it changed anything – it’d be banned. Obviously!
Auto
190
It’s now over 1,644,000 and still rising rapidly. I wonder how high it can get.
150
How many bots can sign?
22
About 15 million – joe Biden
30
There’s no ‘www’ in the url, it is https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
30
Over 1,820,000 now.
10
1,896,698 right now.
00
Aye, spread the word: https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=700143 Maybe as I thought after that election result, we’ll have the motions of another Election by Christmas after all. L@@K out folks we’re ALMOST at the 2 MILLION MARK by Breakfast time UK.
80
From an Aus perspective. The Prime Minister can ask the Governor General to dissolve parliament. Would the PM do that based on a petition that is likely calling for the removal of the government? No. It would be suicide for that PM’s government.
The Governor General can dissolve parliament. Would the GG do that based on a petition? Probably not. Particularly not if Government was actually functioning. As opposed to just not performing how the petitioners would like. The GG might be more inclined to act if the government was not functioning in that very few bills could get through both houses. But that might cause the GG to act without a petition.
There’s no obligation on Parliament to action a petition.
(Caution. The above opinion is based on having a Degree in Australian Politics and The Constitution from a Weeties packet)
.
Apparently there has been a couple of sizeable petitions previously. In 2000 there were nearly 800k signatures on a petition about taxation and beer prices. In 2014 there were 1.2m signatures on a petition for funding for community pharmacies.
70
Today, as many times before I listened to Question Time in Aus Parliament and I expected usual bitchiness and self-aggrandisement but not the direct lies in front of the whole world. Well, they did lie.
This childish game and “adults” who play it can only cause revulsion and nothing else. The process serves a single purpose – to get elected, nothing to do with governing of our society and economy. And nothing can be done to change them, including the Speaker, otherwise it would already happen generations ago.
Yet maybe some minor savings can be achieved if only the non-government members be allowed to ask the question of Government.
There are plenty of other opportunities and places for party of Govenment to say what they want.
61
Correct. A petition is nothing. There is nothing in a petition that gives it meaning as all the signatories could be Tory voters (and for an online petition not even English or human).
Imagine if the parliament gets dissolved based on this and the Tories win the election. The obvious thing is for another petition to be started which will get millions of Labour voters signing.
41
Of course a lot of the people who have signed the petition are “not even English.” I am Welsh and I hope many other Welsh people, and Scots and Northern Irish, sign it too in addition to English people.
60
A donkey vote perhaps
00
Well UK Labour won seats but many voters failed to vote so Labour won a majority of a minority.
90
Now 2,014,836 signatures and still going up at over 1,000 per minute.
00
If it is simply less than the total number of persons who didn’t vote Labour in the recent election, I am not sure I see the validity of the Petition? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/results
00
Votes have consequences.
Who’d a-thought?
Auto
00
Discussion with a tech guy – suggests PKI/encryption has ALWAYS had a back door, mathematical proof around prime numbers came out just at start of COVID fraud: https://rumble.com/v5rvqmt-peter-duke-who-rules-the-world-and-the-secret-meaning-behind-doge.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp Interesting to think about implications… Hit pieces always suggest an angle they don’t like. But who knows, really?
30
Multiples of prime numbers presented as circles instead of tables is intriguing cryptography
20
https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1860461767303868476?t=e7-p30s6_YO74oaSV7vxwQ&s=19
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/must-read-general-michael-flynn-discusses-current-threat/
180
It will be interesting to see how Trump does. I got the impression that last time round he wasn’t aware of the true size of the swamp and only paddled around at the edge of it and didn’t do much draining.
This time round he must be much more aware of the size and depth of the swamp and the individuals and organisations inhabiting it.
503
The Left will never accept the verdict. Never.
200
That’s a given. What matters is whether they are allowed an option. Trump’s chosen few must bring down the wrath of hell on them. A big ask but Gorka and Bannon are up to it.
112
You forgot a financial crash. Bring on a depression, Trump gets the blame, becomes a pariah, country in turmoil, install emergency government, rich get to buy up at cents in the dollar, what’s not to like?
60
Yes, that seems the most likely strategy … we are due for a crash since there has been a major bond yield inversion and it is now unwinding back to a normalized yield curve … a well known danger signal.
I think that in broad terms Trump’s path of increasing tariffs and decreasing other tax might work for the USA … but there’s no way to implement change without triggering disruption. With the economy in a very fragile state, and with the BS media running interference and utterly lying about the current conditions … you just know that around February everything that was reported as good will suddenly get reported as a disaster.
40
China has entered a depression, a large steelworks just went bankrupt, the cities are being emptied as workers and students return to their villages.
It will get progressively worse and I expect Donald to hold off on tariffs until the dust settles. Russia is also in a perilous economic situation, hyperinflation is just around the corner.
Trump will take advantage of the disarray by doing nothing and watch the dictatorships crumble.
21
Another crisis Who knew?
World Toilet Day is celebrated annually on November 19. This international observance day was first celebrated in 2001 by the World Toilet Organization and was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2013. Its purpose is to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis
130
What a load of cr#p.
250
A good start to fixing the world sanitation crisis would be flushing about 75% of the current crop of politicians.
200
It’s usually papered over.
160
I am particularly conscious of toilet issues, being in Nepal at the moment.
In fact installation of appropriate toilets is the single most important thing that can be done to improve public health in Third World countries, apart from taking them off “renewables” like wood or dung for cooking.
A book was written about the topic of human waste disposal. Rose George The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
(Posted from Chalangpati, Nepal, 28.10003°N, 85.37089°E, Elevation 3579m)
30
Penguinite,
WTO….what else shares this acronym ? Global sanitation crisis ? Just throw it at the fan .
10
The push is to have the remaining 500 million people (estimate) to stop shitting outdoors and instead in pit latrine. Thing is, many of these are extremely remote communities. If faced with a filthy pit latrine or an expanse of woods, where would you go?
20
What a difference a day makes.
UK posted 19C, a new record for this late in the year. It was widely 17/18C in the SE, only one Scottish summit lingered around freezing point (because of all the melting snow!).
52
Wake up, Australia! Our good luck is running out! ‘Unlucky country’ warning from our business leaders. Labor may have ditched the idea of silencing the internet but the concept lives on. Beware the march of the Marxists. After voting them in such a short time ago UK residents are now running a petition to “Loose Labour”. We’ll have our chance early
Other correspondents names and email addresses are pre populating my reply box is anyone else noticing that?
130
The ABC is trembling with excitement as this election will be the first apparently where baby boomers will become a voting minority. Karvalas has an item beating up the gender divide and saying how campaigns will be more focussed on socials rather than free to air and traditional media, you know, where all those crusty old boomers are rusted on.
100
FWIW
What a difference an Oreshnik makes!
“So instead of 100 missiles to take out a big US Air base, use 4 or 5 of the Hazel…”
Starts at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2024/11/18/biden-authorizes-ukrainian-use-of-us-long-range-missiles-a-move-that-is-a-go-for-w-w-iii/#comment-174020
https://youtu.be/iL7Hb0fcpbU
20
FWIW – another source
“Erik Prince on Sunday Morning Futures: The US has “No Means” to Shoot Down Russia’s Mach 9 Hypersonic Ballistic Missiles that Were Just Fired on Ukraine (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/erik-prince-sunday-morning-futures-us-has-no/
40
Thing is, none of this is news.
The whole reason that both sides signed up to the Intermediate-Range Missile Treaty was that they both knew these devices are a disaster waiting to happen. There’s never been a way to actually intercept such missiles, and the warning you get is very limited … so the only rational strategy is to put all your efforts into retaliation.
Obviously … that’s the road to mutual destruction and quite possibly that might even be a totally accidental destruction when the counter strike is always on a hair trigger. A noisy blip on the radar might be the death of millions.
Hence the treaty … which made perfect sense at the time. But now that’s gone and we are back to the same problem as before.
At least there’s a bright side to it … maybe they will hit New Zealand instead?!? I dunno, anything is worth a try.
20
Something to think about as you annoy Putin and sign deals to go to war to protect Moldova or the tiny Baltic States-
“The ENTIRE UK Amy is about 5% to 7% of the extant Russian Army.”
All my life the propaganda has said the Americans were the greatest, with the most modern, the most powerful military with the newest, best weapons that the Russians and the Chinese copied… Maybe it was just propaganda and the Yanks copied the best inventions from the Communists! Lets see how long it takes them to get a working equivalent of the Hazel missile.
111
And retiring 500 million quids worth of gear that they can’t afford too!
“UK to scrap warships, military helicopters and fleet of drones to save money despite threats abroad”
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-to-scrap-warships-military-helicopters-and-fleet-of-drones-to-save-money-despite-threats-abroad-13257285
100
I think the Russian armed forces have achieved operational effectiveness and experience. The US have overwhelming naval and air superiority and have a great ability to project it. I think most sane people would wish for a resolution rather than an escalation and possible open slather. The US faces its eternal foreign wars dilemma that is: how do we get out of this and save face? The usual apologists in the Murdoch press and elsewhere who cheer on US adventurism at every turn – who are in thrall to the neo Conservatives should have a good look at themselves.
62
‘ … how do we get out of this and save face?’
Donald will tell Vlad we’ll pull out of NATO and stop all support for Ukraine, but in return Putin has to give back all stolen territory, including Crimea.
13
GlenM
The US does not have overwhelming naval and air superiority . Carriers will go in the first minutes of a global conflict as they are big easy to hit targets with hypersonic missiles which cannot be stopped . Stealth aircraft aren’t as stealthy as you have been told and require massive maintenance . If nuclear war breaks out nobody wins and nearly everybody will die and the survivors will wish they had . The last war the US won was WW2 . Trump is a negotiator and will need all his skills to produce a win/win outcome .
20
Russia does not have the ability to project military power over long distances … other than missiles to smash stuff.
Their land based army is only effective within arms reach of the Russian borders. Unfortunately for Ukraine, they are within such reach … and NATO should have been well aware of that.
However, Russia does have strong air defence and it has technology that it is passing on to Iran, North Korea, etc to strengthen their position. The Iranians in turn send their missiles to Yemen and to Hezbollah. The Russians were not even shy about spelling it out for the slow of study … “You want to use proxies against us? We will use our proxies.”
It’s an ugly situation … most people don’t realize quite how ugly.
40
Are you serious? Have you never heard of MIRVs?
The first true MIRV design was the Minuteman III, first successfully tested in 1968 and introduced into actual use in 1970.[5][6][7]
30
It’s not the MIRV that’s important, it’s the hypersonic.
They US has nothing to intercept something going at Mach 11.
20
What you mean is that you are not aware of whether the US has anything that can intercept something going at Mach 11. You’ve no data. No information. No basis for drawing such a conclusion.
Why would they tell you? Or anybody else for that matter?
50
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/northrop-selected-to-develop-anti-hypersonic-glide-phase-interceptor/
In development which means not currently fully usable…
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2024-05-16/hypersonic-missiles-interceptor-japan-13873138.html
Mach 10 means around 3km/sec so glide path interception is all the west has at this time and that’s still flaky.
30
Reagan had a “star wars” program. This is what I saw starting before that.
Severe oppression ruled in the USSR. Think of the people shot trying to escape the Berlin wall.
Human nature dictates that first hand information takes precedence over second hand information.
The repression that we saw in the USSR depended for its existence on first hand memory of how bad things were before the revolution.
Once the Old Guard had died or faded from influence that memory would become second hand, leaving the memory of how bad things were after the revolution to dominate thinking. Sanity should get an opportunity to look in. I always hoped for and expected this.
I saw Reagan’s Star Wars as beneficial sabre rattling. Not because he was sharpening his sword, but because it highlighted the futility of war mongering.
However war mongering is what they were doing. So did they make any new discoveries that we haven’t been told about yet which could be applied to reducing the incidence of major wars?
10
The US is developing the THAAD -ER and has the Aegis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense
All scram jet missiles have to slow down to find the target so there is a sliver of vulnerability to scram jet or laser defence.
Just as in WWII the best defence was to destroy the V2 rockets before they were fired.
The Ukraine is developing a missile with a 1000 km range.
Recently they fired 6 shorter range missiles at a Russian air base and one got through.
Don’t write them off.
10
I. agree.
A laser travels at Mach 1,000,000 or around 100,000 times the speed of Oreshnik rockets.
A lot of development has gone into laser weapons but there is not much information on the detail. Projects seem to come and go quietly. Could mean they failed or could mean they were very successful
Would we know if USA had say 1MW lasers that have automatic target locking?
30
Not real useful if they launch on a rainy day.
00
“Would we know if USA had say 1MW lasers that have automatic target locking?”
Applying the same logic – or the Russians or Chinese?
00
I don’t think they have YET but they have nuclear powered ships that they could be fitted on.
Rail guns also use massive energy and the Yanks know a lot about them.
US carriers are twice the DWT of WWII battleships which, with one notable exception, took an awful lot of ordinance to sink.
00
All ballistic missiles are hypersonic on reentry, as was the V2, or at least Mach 3 or 4.
If Russia had a vengeance weapon why haven’t they won the war?
10
And an inability to test launch in 2024
Bit like how moon landing capability just evaporated
Hopefully a golden eta can re emerge
00
Building stuff is not like riding a bike. The US has already forgotten how they built the F22.
00
Taking this one more step: Do we still have the knowledge base to build and run coal fired electricity? I was one small part of the matrix but I retired years ago and most of the gingerbeers were older than I.
10
FWIW – more covid saga
“Bombshell Fauci Documentary Nails The Whole COVID Charade”
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/Thank_You_Dr_Fauci_The_Movie_0.jpg?itok=MNZNUJ7k
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/hey-elon-hey-rand-mega-censored-fauci-documentary-nails-whole-charade
90
Thanks to Dr Pielke and Willis Eschenbach we now know that net zero is just more BS and fra-d and will cost Aussies trillions $ and the world economy hundreds of trillions of $ for SFA change by 2050 or 2100.
But even John Kerry told us in 2015 that all of the OECD countries would waste all these trillions of $ for ZIP.
Kerry is a great friend of the Gore loony, so I’m sure he’d also agree with his message.
Watch Kerry tell the truth in just 45 seconds at the link and the non OECD couldn’t care less.
https://junkscience.com/2020/11/john-kerry-admits-us-and-other-industrial-nation-emissions-cuts-are-pointless/
100
It ain’t science – it’s religion!
0.17% of 3% of 0.043% is… sweet fanny adams, yet that is NZ’s (almost 6 million) population’s alleged output of a minor trace gas within the latitudes of the incessantly howling Roaring Forties…
Swedish-born, American-speaking, NZ-spokesdoomer for Groanp!ss (Greenpeace) claimed “New Zealand’s backsliding” in its efforts to stop sea levels rising or whales stranding or warlords fighting in South Sudan or the price of tea in Ch!na fluctuating.
Backsliding? O yea saith Isaiah and Jeremiah! Harken unto my voice, saith the Psalms and Proverbs! Hosea and Revelation also doth warn sinners of the fate of ‘backsliding’ – burning in eternal flames of Baku! And yes, the woman called Amanda flew from NZ to Azerbaijan and back for the sake of the children’s children, or was it the whales? Total hyper-bowl!
170
And Australia is 1.3% of 3% of 0.04% which comes to .0000156% or as a fraction it’s 1/6410256. So obviously it’s essential that we cut emissions. If Bowen can see that, why can’t the rest of us? ToM
70
Tides, I dont think Australia is even 1.3% any more. It’s probably more like 1% or less. I reckon it’s less, but the government doesn’t want to disclose it because being less than “1%” makes it sound even smaller.
40
Neville
Exactly what “carbon pollution” is Kerry talking about? He knows damn well he is taking the mickey out of the uneducated masses by inferring it’s all to do with carbon as an aerosol. The debate has been about CO2. Has he ever drawn this distinction?
110
“Peter Dutton will use a private Coalition meeting to calm MPs fearful that Labor’s teen social media ban is a Trojan Horse for government control of the internet, ahead of a sitting week in which the major parties plan to ram the legislation through parliament…. The Coalition leadership remains confident of overwhelming support for the bill inside the party, …Dutton plans to hear out his concerned colleagues but ultimately expects the party to back the bill, allowing it to pass parliament this week.”
Anyone still trying to find a difference between Labor and the Coalition? Don’t waste your time, Australia is ruled by one party.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/some-coalition-mps-have-cold-feet-on-the-social-media-ban-dutton-will-stare-them-down-20241124-p5kt2y.html
“Let’s create legislation to give weak parents an excuse for not taking responsibility for their children.”
“The governments gets revenue from gambling so it’s not implementing any changes to address the gambling addiction. Yet because it gets very little revenue from social media it’s all hairy chested about banning young children. “
240
For decades I used to hold my nose and vote for the Liberal party AKA “the lesser of 2 evils”.
I remember being labelled a “delcon” by Miranda Devine when I deserted the so-called “conservative” Liberal party.
It’s a label I gladly wear.
I was right, and am still right. She was wrong.
The uniparty lable is correct.
The Liberal party is on the wrong side of history again.
230
So do you think 13 year olds should be permitted to drive cars on public highways? To carry weapons (rifles and handguns)? To vote? To smoke dope? To sell dope? To engage in prostitution? To pimp?
Why not?
17
What a stupid comment.
Pop a few more pills, the ones you’re on aren’t working.
32
Answer the question. The Ad hominem reflects on you.
Make your case.
Or have you no answer?
12
I don’t know if you’ve met many 13 year olds lately – I haven’t met too many that want to do these things. A few are itching to start driving, but seem aware they need to learn.
20
Well I have. My lovely grand-children are of that approximate age. And, they don’t need ID to get access to the very worst of the rubbish that’s on social media.
And don’t say that’s the parents’ job. Parents are under all sorts of pressure these days given the appalling drop in standards of living courtesy of the incompetent socialist labor government, and the need for both parents to work to keep ends together.
Young people need ID to buy smokes. To buy alcohol. They need ID to enter adult bars. They need ID to get a driver’s licence. They need to show ID to buy porno material from porn shops.
These are all controls put in place to protect young developing minds. Access to the appalling material on social media is no different.
But these people who worry about constraint of access to social media, think it’s quiet OK that young developing minds should be able to access the very worst of the material that’s available through social media.
Sickos.
01
And don’t say that’s the parents’ job.
It’s a parents job.
00
The answer to your original question is no.
I thought it was obvious as would 99.9% of the population.
That is why I called your post a stupid comment.
Get a grip.
11
Get a grip?
Seriously.
Was that a pun?
Your Labor incompetents have demonstrated yet again they have no idea.
Sickos:
https://x.com/i/status/1860866345354846384
00
My solution for gambling addiction – complete deregulation. No government inspectors to ensure games of chance are ‘fair’ – it is between you and the house. You know the odds are already in the house’s favour – what if the house doesn’t even have to play fair? And you have no recourse if they don’t play fair? You still going to gamble? And end ‘National Lottery’ – the charities have adequate funding sources these days, we don’t need government promoted gambling.
10
…and Twiggy Forrest is looking for a new money-making scam-
“a groundbreaking treaty to end the incessant production of virgin plastic and curb the devastating impact that plastic chemicals are having on human health. It is now a scientific fact that plastic chemicals are making us fatter, sicker and less fertile…. The solution is a Global Plastics Treaty that imposes a small price per tonne of plastic on producers of its building blocks. It’s a small cost to these multinational chemical companies which can then be used to build waste management systems, assist waste workers to transition to new jobs, clean up past pollution and fund critical human health research to build understanding of the harm from plastic chemicals.”
Sure modern chemicals are killing us and making us sick, but more recycling won’t help that! Will Mr Forrest be pushing for banning plastics and cutting down more trees for paper packaging? Where has he got his money invested, obviously not in oil, and which lobbyists does he pay?
“Global Plastics Treaty” So they want the whole world to pay up-
“a small price per tonne” They always start off ‘small’..
“small cost to these multinational chemical companies” ..which will be passed onto the consumer by these wicked multinational corporations..
..and it will all have the same effect as banning free supermarket bags! A cost to the people and no effect on what it was aimed at while making some smart sharks very rich!
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/we-have-a-once-in-a-generation-chance-to-halt-the-march-of-plastic-20241121-p5kso6.html
160
With TRUMP soon to be leading with reason and common sense, the anthropogenic global warming scam is almost over and the Left and their subsidy-harvesting parasites are looking for new scams.
90
Rather than looking for new scams they’re desperately looking for the “bigger fool” to sell their soon to be stranded wind and solar assets to.
30
Information on Dnipro in the UKR –
“Sources from Ukraine confirm that Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk), Ukraine, was a major facility for manufacturing missiles from Western components and relabeling them “made in Ukraine” to shelter the Western suppliers in the NATO war against Russia. The Russian ICBM attack utterly destroyed the Yuzhmash manufacturing, which was an industrial giant even during the USSR. It made rockets during the former USSR and intercontinental missiles for the USSR. According to sources, the Yuzhmash plant no longer exists.
Most of the facility was underground. Ukraine was manufacturing drones and rocket engines, and this was where they assembled their weapons. There were three floors underground, each 10 feet (6 meters) high. Zelensky never thought Russia could possibly destroy this operation, but it has.
While this was just a conventional weapon, the impact was so powerful that buildings several kilometers from the plant shook and suffered damage. Because this facility was underground, all the pipes for the water supply in the city have been destroyed. Messages have gotten out, and the residents commented that it felt like an earthquake. Keep in mind this was devastating, yet it was still just conventional. They could also deploy six nuclear warheads. Those hiding in bunkers are no longer safe during nuclear war. Perhaps the Neocons are trying to dig a deeper rabbit hole now.
Despite the Western Press still preaching the Neocon propaganda, emergency meetings reflect that this is a very serious development for warfare. Putin could have easily taken out Europe and American nuclear capability if he really wanted to conquer Europe, but he has been against turning this into World War III. The hardline Russian Neocons behind him also would love to wipe out their counterparts in America.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/info-on-dnipro/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
135
First I’ve heard of this. I call BS.
38
You are casting doubt on a highly reputable journal.
42
Me too.
Russian propaganda, most likely.
22
Yes it is a strange thing.
Surely the Western MSM would have told us if there was a word of truth in this story?
20
It fits what we know of the facts. Zelensky said publicly that Russia had launched an ICBM. Then it was denied and retracted. Then an emergency meeting with NATO. Clearly Russia launched something significant, fast, big and very unconventional. All we know is what it isn’t.
50
FWIW
H
You didn’t read Chiefio at #7 or you would have by now.
Alex M in
“Oreshnik Transforms War, Zelensky Demands More Useless Air Defence, UK MoD Seethes, Russia Advances”
https://rumble.com/v5spkdt-oreshnik-transforms-war-zelensky-demands-more-useless-air-defence-uk-mod-se.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
mentions that they seem to be using a new form of explosives that is also structural
00
On solid ground to critique this –
“There were three floors underground, each 10 feet (6 meters) high. “
10
It is surprising that not more people have noticed the obvious mistake.
00
If all was well it would be very easy for Mr Z propaganda machine to take the world on a tour of the still functional facilities. It is on their ground after all.
00
KP in Comment 7.2 mentions the tiny Baltic States, and there’s something there worth mentioning.
Bear with me, as I need to ‘paint’ the introductory picture.
When I was posted back to Wagga Wagga with the RAAF to teach the electrical trade to new trainees, I wondered how I was going to turn from a tradesman to a teacher without any training, effectively just dumped into the deep end.
So the RAAF had what they called their IT course, and in those days (1986) IT had a completely different meaning, as in this case it meant ….. Instructional Techniques. It was your typical full and complete course in how to be a teacher, umm, all 12 weeks of it, and then you got sent back to your Trade Section to do it in front of eager faced trainees, trying to bluff them into thinking you knew what you were trying to teach them.
As part of that IT course, in the first week, (and there were 15 of us on the Course I was on) we were asked to give a one hour talk on something we knew absolutely nothing about, the idea being we had to research it, take notes, form some sort of lesson plan, use the white board, and actually ‘speak’ in front of people.
So, out of left field, I decided to do my ‘talk’ on, of all things, the 15 ‘States’ (Countries or Republics) of the (what is now the former) USSR, (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) which was still in place back then in 1986.
There was no Internet back then, so I had to spend three (after working hours) nights in the Base Library actually researching that subject, and the RAAF always had the most recent (and huge in those days) copy of the Britannica.
I might think that perhaps 99.9% of the public knew nothing about that, and even that there were in fact 15 separate Countries, which I memorised in order of population, as, giving that talk, it looked better if you could just name them, rather than reading them from your lesson plan notes, also somewhat ‘impressive’, the ‘rattling off’ of Countries with probably names a little difficult to pronounce.
What actually astounded me at that time was that five of those Countries had tiny populations. You think of Countries as, well ….. ‘large’, so one of the surprising ‘firsts’ (something new) that I was, umm, teaching was that no one knew just how small some of these Countries actually were, so as I wrote those populations on the white board for those Countries, there were questions, one of them from the Education Officer who was in charge of ‘teaching’ us how to be teachers, as even she was unaware just how small these Countries were, so she asked me if it was in fact true, as she was skeptical, and I even got an apology the next day when she checked for herself.
Now, while at the start, it was perhaps a subject that could have morphed into something huge and rambling, that population aspect was the ‘end point’ of my one hour talk, as that was basically the punch line, if it could be called that.
So then, the USSR folded in 1991, and now we do have the Internet, so when KP mentioned it above, I went and looked, and now that descending order of population of those 15 Countries has indeed changed somewhat dramatically in fact. Back in 1986, there were five Countries with populations less than 5 Million. (and that was my reference point back in 1986, as I wanted to say that we had three of those Countries with populations lower than Sydney or Melbourne)
So then, look at this now, and as I said populations have changed dramatically as people may gravitate to a Country that they more readily identify with.
Georgia – 3.7 Million
Armenia – 2.9 Million
Lithuania – 2.8 Million
Moldova – 2.5 Million
Latvia – 1.8 Million
Estonia – 1.3 Million
So here we have six whole Countries with populations lower than Sydney or Melbourne, and some even lower than Brisbane even.
Those two at the bottom of that list have not changed much since 1986, but some others show large swings, and these were Britannica total from 1986.
Russia has increased by almost 12 million. Uzbekistan increased by 19 million, more than doubling in fact. Ukraine was the second most populous of those 15 ‘States’ back in 1986, and since then the population has decreased by 18 million, to be now only the third highest by population, now lower than Uzbekistan. Overall, the total population of those 15 Countries has increased from 273 million to 296 Million, so you can see most of that population change is movement between those Countries.
It was interesting at the time, and still is, that here you have what was a ….. UNION of Countries, and some of them were indeed (as KP mentioned above) so tiny, and still are.
Tony.
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From Matt Canavan of Nation First –
“Australia signed up to net zero emissions in late 2021.
We have been on a downward spiral ever since.
We need to scrap net zero and focus on the living standards of Australians.”
Have a look at this Chart –
https://x.com/mattjcan/status/1860156162173469105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1860156162173469105%7Ctwgr%5Ea4e08789041d77f3c35157b108a80bcb47083f7c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelsmithnews.com%2F2024%2F11%2Fwhat-youre-feeling-is-real.html
This Feral Guv’ment needs to be booted out in 2025.
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2021, so Lib/Nats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Canavan
Canavan grew up in Slacks Creek in the City of Logan.[7] He attended Chisholm Catholic College, where he was active in Edmund Rice Camps.[8] While at University, Canavan identified as a communist until a political disagreement with volunteers for the International Socialist Organisation.
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From an interview Canavan did with the AFR 26/5/2017
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Yep, all good info, got anymore dirt?
This kind of goes with that.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/howards-bali-stance-racist-nz-greens-20071010-13ix.html
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Good stuff JR and the Outsiders had that living standards graph up yesterday and much hostility from Rowan and crew against Albo and Labor etc.
I only hope Matt Canavan can persuade the Coalition to bury the net Zero BS and fra-d before the next election.
I’m only an uneducated layman, but I’d base the 2025 election on that graph and belt Labor, Greens, Teals for the entire election campaign.
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Here is a letter to your Senators in case you missed the single day submission in relation to the Age id Bill enquiry in the Senate. Most of the text comes from Martin North at Walk the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi0HWtNAlXg
———————————————————-
Dear [State] Senators,
On 21 November 2024, the Senate referred the provisions of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for report by 26 November 2024. The closing date for submissions was 22 November 2024.
I was unaware of the call for submissions and the deadline, but send this to you as my representative in the Senate.
I request that you oppose the Bill for the following reasons:
1) Children have free speech rights. The UN Charter underscores children have free speech rights which must be preserved and it seems their inalienable rights are being reduced by this bill
2) Age verification is not fit for purpose. The method used for age verification must be fit for purpose and not create unintended consequences. In the case of the current proposal where selected social media platforms will be required to verify the age of accounts so as to block those below 16 years the unintended consequences are potentially rife. If all social media account users have to provide proof of age so platforms can weed out those below 16 years it means that data from all users will be required. This is a high price to pay. The alternative path where AI is used to vet accounts is unlikely to be accurate. Recent International experience has shown that people, especially younger people, have an amazing facility to circumvent such controls thanks to proxies and virtual private networks. Thus it is likely the approach will fail.
3) The Bill is vague. There are no details within the Bill about the method of implementing age verification. Rather, the method is left to the social media platforms to devise an appropriate execution path within the given time frames. It is quite possible we’ll end up with a proliferation of methods across platforms which will be both confusing and expensive.
4) The Bill can be seen as part of a broader agenda in relation to building out a dangerous digital control system. This bill should not be seen in isolation from the already-legislated digital ID, the flawed Misinformation and Disinformation Bill (currently defunct), and other digital infrastructure such as digital payments and Central Bank digital currency. A coordinated roll out has a high risk of imposing on Australian significant digital controls and yet there is no discussion about an overall digital architecture or a digital Bill of Rights. As a result incremental bills are likely to erode civil liberties and risk building out a digital control system over time. Each element needs to be understood within this wider agenda. Instead, we should push towards legislation which outlaws such an agenda
5) Children can be protected in other ways. A wider focus on appropriate education within schools of the risks and benefits of social media and appropriate protocols in terms of use of those platforms, together with a robust focus on how to deal with potential abuse would be a better path. Approaches exist to help parents deal with their children’s online exposure. For example apps exist today which can empower parents to filter and control the contents on kids phones. This can be coupled with a greater focus on real world experience and education for kids, especially in the arena of sports and outdoor activity.
6) Consultation period too short. The current timetable appears to have been politically motivated. The rush consideration of the Bill means it is likely to be of poor quality given the importance of the issues contained in the legislation. A more detailed and longer path is required to ensure the best approach possible is developed over time.
For the reasons outlined above the Bill should not be passed into law.
Regards,
[Best to include your address so the Senators know they represent you.]
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The History of Real Disposable Income in Australia –
https://x.com/LiberalAus/status/1860116312154079392
This Feral Guv’ment needs to be booted out in 2025
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Of course, what he’s doing is no accident. It’s quite deliberate, just like what Obama-Biden did to America.
120
Now, now, it was all in effort to create wealth equity.
Bring up the disadvantaged by eliminating the middle.
Create a Billionaire, soon to be Trillionaire, enlightened elite that can lead us to Utopia.
I myself, was barely hanging on to the middle with my developing arthritic fingers, when enlightened Pandemic Public Health policy broke my tenuous grip, allowing me the opportunity to help correct historical social injustice.
If Bill Gates, BlackRock, and Pharma, and all the other deserving sophisticates, walk away with historically unprecedented fortunes, who are we to complain?
We can only end injustice if we maintain a strong Harvard/Yale Overlord class, creating new acolytes for the Administrative State, able to ascertain and codify injustice, with sufficient political power to force us to correct it.
10
Here I am at Gosaikunda, Nepal, 28.08382°N, 85.40990°E, elevation 4380m (14370ft). It’s freezing up here…
I am enjoying the Net Zero lifestyle of no heating. It’s 555am local time and my thermometer reads a balmy 1.1C (34F) in my room at the guest house.
This is the Net Zero lifestyle the Left/Elites want for all of us. Unfortunately most people in the West are compliant because they have no clue what a life without accessible energy is like.
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Sounds like an ideal location for a future COP conference on climate change. It would do all the politicians, civil servants, royalty, academics and assorted hangers on a power of good if they had to trek for several days to reach Gosaikunda.
20
Dear David, hope you survive the night.
10
Sounds like the unreliables are living up to the name we’ve given them. But coal gets the blame.
Blackout risk: State on alert due hot weather, coal outages ::: paywalled
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/blackout-risk-state-on-alert-due-hot-weather-coal-outages-20241125-p5kt9l.html
” Warnings have been issued for an elevated risk of blackouts on the electricity grid in NSW from Tuesday, as a week of hot weather approaches. ”
And:
” AEMO is taking action to reduce electricity demand, like asking large energy users such as smelters or processing plants to switch off, to reduce the risk of blackouts. If these companies do not voluntary offer assistance, AEMO may be forced to intervene in the market and force companies to switch off. ”
And:
” She said that on the day of her testimony, 26 per cent of the eastern seaboard’s coal fleet was offline, with about half down for planned maintenance and half due to failures. ”
Just 26% off line, yet they advocate going 100%, not only off line but blown up!
Clever.
Keep cool,
Dave B
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SO Australia already has Third World style load shedding, we just call it “voluntary switch off OR ELSE”.
110
Here’s the Outsiders team talking about the Aussie’s WORST decline in living standards since the 1950s or over the last 70 years.
I still say that graph would win the Coalition the next Federal election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUo6fpSbbVs
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Yes and see my two Posts at No. 15 and No. 17.
Shocking stuff and all done in just under 3 years by the Marxist Feral Guv’ment of Australia.
Begone with you.
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Only if the coalition has some sort of plan that isn’t more of the same but by a different name.
30
A lively blog, pointing out how we in Aus, have once again been screwed out of any gas royalties, in exchange for a politician getting a job with a company, who didn’t have to get the rights through tender! “Here you go, it’s free, and we’ll clean up after you.” ‘The Crazy Country!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE5p8BK5HdU
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Andrew Bolt tries to explain that we now have an anti-science govt of luddites who want us to believe that the sun and the wind don’t send us an invoice.
These infantile loonies couldn’t care less about destroying thousands of klms of our environments and wasting trillions of $ that are flushed straight down the toilet until 2050 or 2100 and zero change to temp or climate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWptEHFuiuw
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A slightly older video, running through a list of polis, who on resigning, have immediately taken up jobs with big mining corporations. It’s a substantial list of sub stancial people. What does ‘stancial’ mean? And why is it always ‘sub’ – less than?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af42UxNlRQc
21
Are you aware that the Gillard Greens alliance minority Labor Government after 2010 created Carbon Tax 10% added to electricity bills and Renewable Energy Surcharge 10%, plus the usual on top of retail price 10% GST? The Abbott Coalition Government after 2014 abolished Carbon Tax but today the green levy remains but not listed on electricity bills.
30
So Abbott just moved it, hid it?
Abbott also gave us the RET.
If this hidden carbon tax exists, the libs would just remove it when they got into power, but they didn’t!
02
They allowed Abbot to get rid of the Carbon Tax but his problem was that they had already cpmpensated pensioners etc for higher electricity etc prices.
11
NEW study finds testicular cancer rate 26.5x higher in males undergoing “gender-affirming” orchiectomies.
https://x.com/statsforgender/status/1860483707754414198
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39522551/
Enjoy your transition…
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Dont see the need to wish troubled people ill will.
00
Hungry?
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_sngbo1vtZr1z23obp.mp4
I am now!
20
Matt Canavan celebrating end of the MAD bill.
https://nitter.poast.org/mattjcan/status/1860887882619375617#m
(Includes video)
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Just imagine if the typical Aussie politician could be bothered to read or was capable of understanding most of the comments here. (There are about one handful of notable exceptions.)
10
If there is only a handful of exceptions then the posters here must suffer group-think.
10
I meant only a handful of exceptions of politicians who would bother to read or was capable of understanding what was written here.
10
A little optimism on Snowy 2. Florence has now done 1600m or 10% of the required tunnel in 5 years. So 50 years to get all 17000m But a second machine is on the drawing board to double the rate and halve the time. So down to 25 years from bow. Looking good for 2050 start up – whoopee.
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/news/snowy-2-0-tunnel-progress-and-construction-update/
But I am not as optimistic as this project report:
I believe that is in the realm of fantasy.
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Whatever happened to Malcolm Turnbull’s $2 Billion Forecast and a completion date forecast of yesterday some time? Malcolm, where are you? Come on down and speak up.
50
I also want to know what happened to the $444 million of our hard-earned taxes he gave to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Forensically audited accounts please!
(Posted from Chalangpati, Nepal, 28.10003°N, 85.37089°E, Elevation 3579m)
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By the time it’s finished, people will have forgotten why it was built in the first place…
30
With Australian superannuation funds (retirement funds) so heavily invested in wind and solar scams (on government advice, it’s “the future”, they said), it appears that the scam has a life of its own. It seems that there is no viable exit strategy without causing enormous economic damage to these funds.
How can Australia get out of this? The money “invested” is huge.
If we stay in the scam, the economic damage to the country is huge.
If we leave the scam, the damage to retirees is huge.
(Posted from Laurebina Pass, Nepal. 28.09185°N, 85.38151°E Elevation 3900m. )
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Superannuation Fund Trustees need to be very careful as they have a Fiduciary Duty in Trust Law to make investment decisions and choices that are in the best interests of the Fund beneficiaries – the Superannuation Fund Members.
And NOT the Government or the Unions…………………….
20
Just stop. Eat the losses. Reduce the cost of electricity, buried in all the story at every level and some bad investments will crash, the sooner the better and others will boom with reduced electricity costs. Stop the flight of all manufacturing. And farming. And mining. These are our true economy.
‘Renewables’ are a joke and paying for them is killing us economically. At the end of which we will have thousands of useless, rusting, unreliable Chinese windmills and crappy solar panels with very limited life. The first solar farms are in total decay. The windmills will have the lifespan of a gnat compared to old power stations. Frack, frack, frack and drill, baby, drill. It’s what COP29 is all about, not saving the planet.
After 36 years of RAPID man made Global Warming, when will someone call time on this Chicken Little scare? Or redefine RAPID.
According to the Cambridge dictionary RAPID = fast or sudden. 36 years is not fast or sudden. Even if it were true, the glaciers move faster.
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They can blame it on Trump if they need to save face: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-12/risk-to-australia-s-superannuation-system/104589106
20
Well, the lefties always find somebody to blame for their own incompetence.
Given that the super funds are fundamentally run by the unions, you can bet they already have their patsies and scapegoats lined up.
00
What happened to the one billion dollars of our taxes the government gave away for solar panel manufacturing in Australia?
https://arena.gov.au/news/1-billion-boost-for-australian-solar-pv-manufacturing/
(Posted from Chalangpati, Nepal, 28.10003°N, 85.37089°E, Elevation 3579m)
30
It was supposed to be loans … wasn’t it?!?
30
Either way, it’s gone up in smoke.
More Marxist incompetence.
When will the left ever learn that command economies always under-perform.
The market rules. The market provides price signals that bureaucrats don’t/can’t understand.
00
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pedestrian-crossing-destroyed-eighth-time-194317872.html – “[sic] Yo KCC this is the last of the button. This cost yo big time. Yo [k]now what you did in 2012.” We’ve tried to work out the motivation… It’s like a ransom note.
“We removed the sound from the crossing because we thought it might be triggering someone.
“We put CCTV on the crossing and worked with the police – but they still decided to attack it.
“The person has obviously got a grudge against the council, but none of us know what it’s about.”
Well, that is a ruddy great mystery
00
Well the petition is now over 2 million.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
I do think this info is relevant though.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/how-do-online-petitions-work-4880850
Even though the government may ignore it I still feel there are a lot of pissed of people in the UK.
And I don’t blame them, I would be too.
00
“The Australian social media limits for under-16s”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moiV8aDWC_o
– Constitutional Clarion
Points out (amongst other things) that:
* a school blog would need to seek an exemption, as would other small scale activities.
* it’s unclear what qualifies as an “account” on some systems. (note such as here on JoNova where you can just use your email address without registering an account).
* The bill doesn’t define what the platforms have to do despite large fines being involved e.g. $9M.
* Likely no policing of the ID information destruction clause.
* Likely infringes the constitutional implied right of U16s to freedom of political expression.
* Unclear how the bill connects to preventing a real harm.
11
Senator Malcolm Roberts wrote:
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Andrew,
All of what you list are correct, as I understand it. And, can be fixed by good legislation if we had a competent government which knew what it was doing. Unfortunately, the Labor Marxists don’t know what they’re doing. They’re incompetent. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that they can’t produce a well thought out piece of legislation.
Young, developing minds need to be protected from the appalling material that pervades social media – just as society protects them from many other social ills (drugs, under-age sex, pornography, tobacco and so on).
Get the legislation right and the world of the young will be a much better place. Age restrictions are essential for the mental health of the future generation. That doesn’t mean they can’t use social media. On the contrary they need to be able to use it – but in a controlled way.
01
Nothing is truly free in life. Sooner or later Australians will be called to pay for all the “free stuff” they demand.
00
We should not expect from them deep understanding of how we got here, still less any meaningful programme capable of getting beyond populist posturing. Their worldview remains deeply entrenched, particularly in the institutions tasked with doing society’s thinking. Nonetheless, if their panic attacks will no longer suck up all the political oxygen, it may at least create a little more breathing space for others to do the hard work of democratic renewal. https://thenorthernstar.online/2024/11/18/is-trump-2-the-end-of-neoliberal-order-breakdown-syndrome/
00