Tuesday Open Thread

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229 comments to Tuesday Open Thread

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    OldOzzie

    ‘7300 in-care teens abused’ in one year in Victoria

    More than 7000 vulnerable teenagers in state-run residential care suffered serious physical and s@xual abuse in just one year, a disclosure that will plunge Victoria’s child protection service deeper into crisis.

    Victoria’s Commission for Children and Young Persons has revealed that despite teenagers being placed in residential care for their own safety, they can often be subjected to violence and more than 7300 incidents were reported in 2019-20.

    Eighteen children in residential care died that year while there were more than 2000 cases where teens ran away from residential units, according to the commission’s annual report.

    “Incidents in residential care accounted for approximately three-quarters of the year’s total … incidents, even though this group of children make up approximately 5 per cent of the out-of-home-care population,” the report states.

    The violence and social problems sweeping through the residential care units, now managed by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, further highlights the crisis engulfing child protection in Victoria.

    The Weekend Australian reported that 65 children and teenagers known to child protection services died in 2019-20, and highlighted the case of Baby M, who was left with his drug-using grandfather and died at just 15 months old, despite being the subject of five investigations.

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    • #
      R.B.

      Eighteen children in residential care died that year

      which is more than the number of indigenous Australians in custody that year(which has been less than non-indigenous per number incarcerated for the past decade .Indigenous deaths in
      custody: 25 years since
      the Royal Commission
      into Aboriginal Deaths
      in Custody)

      Which one makes the news? (And I think that the high rate of incarceration is a big issue for all Australians)

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        How does a child die in care?

        It blows my mind.

        It’s a symptom of how as a society we need a big commonsense and morals enema to wake people up as to how we discard our vulnerable populations. Look at the aged care mess as well.

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        • #
          R.B.

          Aged care is not a mess. Most people get looked after well. If there was no political reason to highlight the problems, the problems that do exist wouldn’t be in the news.

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          • #

            Are you saying that all those people who raised these issues and then submitted evidence to the royal commission were doing so for political reasons. Seems a bit far fetched.

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              I agree with you Leaf.

              I think based on my own personal experiences and those I know, Aged Care is a mess.

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              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                I think based on my own personal experiences and those I know, Aged Care is a mess.

                Like so many things under capitalism, this sector went to putty. When will the ideologues learn that for-profit companies can’t be allowed to run an essential social service? Nor should utilities be privatised … the people are being gouged.

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          • #
            Chris

            My now deceased Mother -in- law had to pay extra each week to get a bit of salad
            ( tomato, lettuce and cucumber ) and complained bitterly about the lack of protein in the residents’ diet. Totally locked indoors during the Covid lock downs as there was no going out in the garden for these seniors. This was a home with an “excellent” reputation.

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          • #
            robert rosicka

            RB you have no idea what goes on in aged care that’s obvious when even Gee Aye is calling you out , try roast fish complete with spuds and gravy or maybe green scrambled eggs is your thing .
            As for care it’s non existent most poor souls in a nursing home are a product first and foremost and until people realise this things will never change .
            Snap inspections are arranged weeks in advance so how bad does a place have to be to be closed down ?
            Residents in pain residents being abused is more than a daily occourance it’s the norm , public is usually better than private but when each resident becomes a product care goes out the window and meals and care become an after thought sent to the lowest bidder under a highly secretive model known mainly to the CEO’s of the private farms.
            If your young or about to sell up the olds and chuck them in this system you wouldn’t give a rats but for those poor elderly screaming in their beds for help it’s not so much an out of sight out of mind thing .

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          • #
            R.B.

            My own experiences are of people being very happy going into a home. It’s a small sample but it can’t happen if a mess.

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      • #
        yarpos

        “And I think that the high rate of incarceration is a big issue for all Australians”

        cant get wound up about that one, its a big issue for those who keep doing things that get them incarcerated.

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        • #
          R.B.

          They’re usually drunk or on drugs. I’m not saying leave them on the streets but deal with the real problems – without throwing money at it.

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        • #
          Chris

          Jacinta Price has cried from the rooftops, ‘70% of indigenous incarceration rates is for domestic violence and child abuse’. I find women who support wife beaters and child abusers very disturbing.

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      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        cannot be serious!

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        • #
          R.B.

          do you have something to say
          Assuming that you are a silly lefty, the stats show that indigenous Australians are less likely to die in custody. There is a problem with them being more likely to be in custody.

          Suicide deaths are much more common in prisons than outside but has dropped from half to a quarter of deaths because of better supervision, which means more likely to get quick medical attention than outside. Deaths from suicide and late medical attention will not be completely avoided, but not because it’s genocide.

          Same with children but it should be a higher priority to reduce deaths, especially suicide. The problem is nobody has found a way to blame old white men so not newsworthy.

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    • #
      tonyb

      I think you have just put into context something I read in the UK papers this morning As a Victoria School assumes you are guilty until proven innocent regarding se*ual matters

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9416195/Student-lash-Brauer-College-assembly-boys-apologise-female-peers.html

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Thank you for highlighting this.

      “more than 7300 incidents were reported in 2019-20.”

      Violence and s@xual abuse.

      So we have politicians, bureaucrats and the media obsessed with The Pandemic and bypassing other more devastating catastrophes that plague societies.

      Those figures may not refer to deaths, but for most in that group, the future will probably be a living help.

      Society should do better in preventing such human damage, but where it does occur provide better support. Just think.

      So far, in the last year, the total number of CV19 deaths in Australia is listed as 909 with about 150 active cases that are causing distress to those affected.

      To express my own opinion on this, I don’t think that anything outside of closing national borders temporarily had made much difference to the progress of CV19 throughout Australia; but certainly politicians have looked decisive. Wow.

      Indeed the state with the heaviest “measures” seems to have come off the worst. Victoria has over 800 covid deaths despite the crushing lockdowns.

      It seems that politicians have used CV19 as a means of avoiding working on solutions to the real problems facing us.

      From all reports, drug, alcohol and various forms of social disintegration remain untouched by “government” in the indigenous communities.

      Little better in the rest of the community.

      It seems passing strange that all governments have focused on perhaps the least threatening issue and ignored the other stuff.
      How many Australians have died from road accidents, suicide or drug taking, as just a few areas of concern?

      More importantly, how many suicides will occur as a result of lockdowns causing business collapse, family isolation with members trapped overseas or interstate?

      How many will die because routine surgery was cancelled to make way for CV19 “patients” as in the New York model.

      We have had a year of rather dubious action by government that I believe will cost us dearly in the final analysis.

      KK

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    Oxford University wants to cancel musical notation

    One of the things about living in a totalitarian society is that, once something has been identified as problematic, everyone ends up competing to attack in the most aggressive way. Fail to do so, and you may find yourself being the next person identified as problematic. Perhaps that explains why the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, is contemplating ending sheet music because it’s part of white supremacy.

    Second, I think the Oxford music teachers know this is bunkum. They’re raising it only because they feel that, unless they chime in on the Black Lives Matter issue and show themselves to be on board with it, they will be the next target. Under the tyranny that is BLM, if you’re not with them, you’re against them, and if you’re against them, you will be destroyed in the next purge (and there’s always a next purge).

    As I watch the endless waves of BLM stupidity in corporations and academic institutions in the English-speaking world, I’m reminded of nothing so much as the mourners at Kim Jong-il’s funeral. They knew that the secret police were watching and that anyone showing insufficient grief was at risk of being carted off to a concentration camp. That’s why you see videos such as the one below showing thousands of people engaged in hysterical weeping. Yes, they were told that their communist godhead had died, but what you’re seeing in these videos isn’t grief, it’s fear:

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    China generated over half world’s coal-fired power in 2020: study

    SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China generated 53% of the world’s total coal-fired power in 2020, nine percentage points more that five years earlier, despite climate pledges and the building of hundreds of renewable energy plants, a global data study showed on Monday.

    Although China added a record 71.7 gigawatts (GW) of wind power and 48.2 GW of solar last year, it was the only G20 nation to see a significant jump in coal-fired generation, said Ember, the London-based energy and climate research group.

    China’s coal-fired generation rose by 1.7% or 77 terawatt-hours, enough to bring its share of global coal power to 53%, up from 44% in 2015, the report showed.

    China has promised to reduce its dependence on coal and bring emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gas to a peak before 2030 and become “carbon neutral” by 2060.

    China has been unable to find enough clean energy to meet rapid increases in demand, with renewables meeting only half of China’s power consumption growth last year.

    New coal-fired power installations reached 38.4 GW in 2020, more than three times the amount built by the rest of the world, according to a February research report.

    China also approved 46.1 GW of new coal-fired projects last year, more than the previous three years combined, with new projects still getting the go-ahead until late in the year, environment group Greenpeace said on Monday.

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    • #

      There’s something really strange I have found when it comes to electrical power generation.

      Those green followers and leftist sympathisers who believe hand on heart what their left politicians and left journalists tell them, well, they would rather believe them than actual data which disproves nearly everything they are told by the people they get that information from.

      It applies when I show Australian data, and it also applies when I show the U.S. data. (from that monumentally vast government site the EIA)

      And the same also applies with China, sometimes especially from China.

      It’s a relatively easy thing to say that China is getting out of coal fired power, and China has more renewable power (even on a percentage basis to the overall) than anywhere else, because hey, no one is ever going to go and look to find out, because surely China wouldn’t show that ‘stuff’ anyway. I mean China would say those things wouldn’t they, telling the leftist journalists ….. ‘exactly’ what they want to hear. And hey, you know that China will never show that they are in fact not doing what they tell those people.

      The opposite is actually the case in fact. China actually have their own humungous database detailing all their electrical power information, and it details almost the opposite of what non Chinese journalists and politicians outside of China are all braying out so loudly, giving all the details of what China is doing, how much power they have from every source, and all of that information is accessible to anyone, and even written in English, so, in fact, specifically AIMED at the West.

      As soon as I even mention these facts, supported by that actual data, it’s a case of nyah nyah nyah, look the other way.

      The data does not make $h1t up.

      Tony.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Says No To Vaccine Passports: “It’s Completely Unacceptable that Government or Private Industry Would Impose Vaccine Requirement Simply to Participate in Normal Society”

    Once again Florida Governor Ron DeSantis outlines his specific direction with the COVID vaccine program. As DeSantis noted in his media statements today “we want to provide it for all, but mandate it for none.” Explaining the Florida legislative intent on further COVID laws the Florida governor went on to say the vaccine passport issue “has huge privacy implications”, and he does not support any mandated vaccine passport that would impede on the liberty and freedom of Florida residents.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Biden Administration Developing “Vaccine Passport” To Allow Travel and Entry to Businesses That Will Require COVID Vaccination

      We all knew this was coming,…. it is only a natural outcome on the continuum of ideological control. CTH warned since last summer of the ramifications if a leftist group used COVID-19 to expand federal power over peoples lives and livelihoods. The day after his inauguration JoeBama’s team unleashed a series of TEN EXECUTIVE ORDERS fully weaponizing the opportunity.

      Today the Washington Post is reporting about the Biden administration working with private corporations to create a universal “vaccine passport” to restrict the movement of non-vaccinated Americans.

      If you follow the natural progression of the effort, there will come a time when employers will be forced by federal regulation to require vaccination for all their workers.

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      • #
        Kevin kilty

        Give enough leeway for the autocrats in society, we will soon have to apply to the CDC for permission to go on a hike. Americans are losing civil liberties at an alarming rate, but no alarms are sounding.

        Fauci was whining yesterday, I think, that children should not play outside with other children unmasked and unvaccinated. Like everything that deeply flawed man says there is no rational argument for any of this.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Does anyone believe anything Fooci says?

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        • #
          OldOzzie

          KK,

          Cancer Ward yesterday afternoon, no masks on patients or nurses – then train to Wynyard – probbaly 15% people with masks – Penfolds Dinner canapes, then 4 course meal with associated wines Rockpool Level Eleven – 100 people? – no masks.

          Came out at 2245, queue of young people down to the Burns Philp Building in 11 Bridge St Sydney up aroung the corner to the Establishment Night Club in George Street Sydney – Night Club lively – then Wynyard B1 Bus to Spit Junction (every 10 mins) no masks on full bus at 2300.

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      • #
        Len

        To have those Executive Orders ready to go on Joe’s first day, they would have commenced drafting them at the DOJ even before the 3rd November 2020 Election. Bag Pipes Bill would have been in on it.

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    • #
      Klem

      This is the future of the vaccine passport unless we stand up for ourselves.

      https://news.yahoo.com/steve-hilton-blasts-orwellian-push-031856834.html

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    Bidenomics Is the 21st-Century Road to Serfdom

    Joe Biden’s economic policies will see the stock market decline sharply in six months, unemployment rise, and will do little besides growing the administrative state.

    Biden’s economic plan will prove disastrous for both the United States and the world economy. Bidenomics will not “build back better” as the slogan says but will have deleterious effects on nearly everyone—unless you happen to live and work inside the Washington, D.C. beltway.

    Biden, himself in the midst of a five-decade career in the federal government, has a net worth of over $10 million and owns two multimillion-dollar properties. Not bad for a lowly middle-class civil servant from Delaware who started with nothing. Who says government doesn’t pay, if you know how to tweak the system by getting huge speaker fees and kickbacks? Biden has sucked on the teat of the state his whole life—it is all he knows.

    You may recall the “two cows” political satire that grew up after World War II. It goes like this:

    Under Communism, you have two cows. The government takes them both and then gives you some milk.
    Under fascism, you have two cows. The government takes them both and then sells you some milk.
    Under capitalism, you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
    Under Bidenism, you have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

    America has never been a socialist country. The people, culture, and pioneer spirit just never allowed it. Yes, some groups wanted slightly more government intervention in the economy or a slightly larger welfare system but until Bidenism, the view held that capitalism was, as the saying goes, as American as apple pie.

    No longer.

    Under Biden’s woke economic plan, written by none other than the always wrong Paul Krugman, there are just four basic rules. These are not figments of my imagination or construction, either—he delivered them verbatim in the New York Times.

    Rule 1: Don’t doubt the power of government to help.
    Rule 2: Don’t obsess about debt.
    Rule 3: Don’t worry about inflation.
    Rule 4: Don’t count on Republicans to help govern.

    As F. A. Hayek observed in The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 as a response to Communism and fascism, socialism is an allure to a society based on equality.

    Hayek’s conclusion: “By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way, a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”

    Welcome to Bidenomics.

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Biden’s economic plan will prove disastrous for both the United States and the world economy. Bidenomics will not “build back better” as the slogan says but will have deleterious effects on nearly everyone—unless you happen to live and work inside the Washington, D.C. beltway.

      Is there any evidence for this? It sounds like partisan whining. Trump and “Moscow” Mitch did nothing for working Americans in four years, other than try to gouge them on healthcare, social security, work security, and much else.

      Biden has already rolled out the Stimulus Package, has placed high priority on the Vaccine Rollout, and is working on the Infrastructure Bill. Not bad in ten weeks.

      And it is always so predictable – and hilarious – when Republicans are in power they spend like drunken sailors, and give massive tax cuts to their masters, but as soon as the Democrats achieve power they suddenly find their fiscal responsibility gene, and carry on like pork chops about deficits. LOL indeed!

      I’m not a Biden fan, and the Democrats are a very odd social democratic party. It’s a tragedy that Americans don’t have the chance to vote for a genuine progressive, pro-worker party.

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      • #

        “Moscow Mitch” belongs to China. https://joannenova.com.au/2021/01/mitch-mcconnells-rich-connection-with-china/

        Mitch McConnell is the powerbroker of the US Senate, but he’s also a guy whose in-laws own a major shipping company that buys container ships from a Chinese Government company. The in-laws make money from carrying goods back and forward in deals with Chinese State Owned companies.

        McConnell’s wife is a Chinese-American and also happens to be The Transportation Secretary of the US Government (!). Since Elaine Chao took up that job four years ago, her fathers company has expanded rapidly and has added 40 percent more ships. Her father, James Chao, is a shipping magnate that gave his daughter and her husband McConnell a gift of at least $5 million in 2008. That’s the conservative estimate — it might have been worth as much as $25 million dollars. (Nice in-laws if you can get them.) The largess was legally disclosed. The net worth of the political couple went from $3m in 2004 to something between $9 and $36m by 2018.

        The Chinese Ship building company is called CSSC Holdings. McConnell’s wife’s family is so close to it that both her father and her sister sit on the Board of the financial arm of this Chinese company they buy boats from. It’s odd, stacked on weird, wrapped up in long explanations. CSSC is not just a boat building company, it’s the Chinese government’s military contractor. Indeed, the letters CSSC stand for the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Get it?

        \

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Biden, himself in the midst of a five-decade career in the federal government, has a net worth of over $10 million and owns two multimillion-dollar properties. Not bad for a lowly middle-class civil servant from Delaware who started with nothing.

      I think family wealth of “only” $10 million is pretty modest – he has earned a pretty high salary for a very long time … in fact I’m a little surprised it’s that modest. Isn’t that the American Dream – start with no special privileges, and to make it with brains, talent, hard work, and a little luck?

      I don’t know how much baggage Biden has (I suspect no-one does), but if all the accusations of skulduggery were even a tiny bit true, then he’d have a bit more than $10 mill. His son Hunter seems a very ordinary piece of work, but the spoilt children of the rich so often are … just look at the Former Guy.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    China Grabbing Whitsun Reef: ‘Sudetenland’ in Slow Motion

    . The failure of the Obama administration to defend the Philippines in early 2012, in a confrontation similar to today’s, emboldened China’s regime to adopt an even more aggressive posture in its peripheral waters.

    . China claims all the waters inside the dashes are sovereign as well, terming them “blue national soil.” There is no legal basis for an assertion of sovereignty of this sort.

    . Whitsun, which Manila calls Julian Felipe Reef, is 175 nautical miles from Palawan, an island of the Philippines. The feature is within the Philippine “exclusive economic zone”….

    . Since December, large Chinese trawlers have lashed themselves together and parked in formations near Whitsun. Vessels come and go, but the numbers have gone up over time. They have not been engaged in fishing.

    Whitsun is where the United States and the region should confront an increasingly expansionist China. The failure of the Obama administration to defend the Philippines in early 2012, in a confrontation similar to today’s, emboldened China’s regime to adopt an even more aggressive posture in its peripheral waters.

    Whitsun Reef is inside China’s infamous nine-dash line. The line on official maps defines an area informally known as the “cow’s tongue,” which includes about 85 percent of the South China Sea. Beijing maintains it has sovereignty over every feature there, including Whitsun, which Beijing has named Niue Jiao.

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    • #
      NuThink

      In similar fashion. Hitler even remarked that hard either the UK or France objected he would have withdrawn.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland

      Events leading to World War II The remilitarization of the Rhineland (German: Rheinlandbesetzung) began on 7 March 1936, when German military forces entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a military response, so they did not act.

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  • #
    Ronin

    Front line health workers in QLD not vaccinated, probably because the govt and QLD Health know the vax is useless so don’t bother.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The current clutch of “vaccines” possibly reduce symptoms, but they appear have no discernable benefit in actually controlling the disease spread nor making people immune.

      As such, someone’s vaccination status appears to be a deliberate red herring by the media and a pump and dump exercise to vaccinate people – for no medical benefit.

      Although if as has been reported elsewhere, it may lower the population…now where did we see what appears to be link to eugenics movement again?

      It is what it is….

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      • #
        MP

        In Sweden, 50 nurses whom had both shots, tested positive to lots of something made from something.
        Blame the Nurse, blame the people, its all our fault, its always our fault.

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        • #
          Klem

          Exactly right, MP.

          When will the public wake up to the fact that covid-19 was nothing more than a seasonal flu, and that masks and social distancing don’t work?

          When?

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      • #
        Tel

        The official position is that effect of vaccine on transmission is unknown and untested.

        If you think about it, doing a scientific test to check the end-to-end transmission of a virus is somewhat tricky to do. One would reasonably presume that fewer symptoms means less transmission but that’s not backed by any empirical proof.

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  • #
    David Wojick

    In case you missed it. My latest research:
    https://www.cfact.org/2021/03/27/economically-destructive-cap-and-trade-for-hfcs-is-here/

    Has Oz implemented the Kigali Amendment phasing out HFCs?

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    • #
      Len

      I have heard it mentioned but did not know what it was. Looks like some lefty wives are leading their supposed conservative husbands into the hoax

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  • #
    David Wojick

    Biden is calling a “climate summit” of selected nations on April 22, which is Lenin’s birthday. It is virtual, just like the climate scare.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/29/biden-raising-expectations-announces-a-two-day-virtual-global-climate-conference/

    We can all watch! I doubt there will be anything but canned speeches, so nothing to see. Still, a few minutes might be fun.

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    • #

      Hey that is 2 days after April 20 when he is being booted out of the WH. Again.

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        MP

        I have not heard this one, but it follows the “next month” its coming trend.

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        • #

          it is always on its way. Just be patient. And the date is quite apt too.

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          R.B.

          MP hasn’t heard this one, like myself, because its not trending among conservatives.

          You seem to be reading what you think are rightwing equivalents to your own talking-points by bulletin for the day.

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          • #

            goodness. Were all those other ones that didn’t happen once trending in your sphere?

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            MP

            How do you know what I am reading. I don’t do wings, as to me they are the same bird. Most of my news I get from this site through links by readers, so I am guessing my views are the same as others here.
            I have not bought a news paper for 20 years, I only watch the local news (so I can listen to lying Livio with tonight’s climate terror story)
            I believe you must of heard of it to come to that conclusion, drop a link.

            How many times are you going to climb the mountain so the aliens can take you too a better world.

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            • #

              I assumed all you 2 letter people knew each other.

              I also think RB meant to reply to me rather than you though I’m not sure.

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                MP

                Welcome to the club GA.

                He replied to my comment, though I did wonder, the MP threw me.

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                R.B.

                Sorry. Meant to reply to GA. I think that these lefties have much more knowledge of what is trending among conservatives than conservatives do and doesn’t find it even a little strange.

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              • #

                MP and RB… I am with MP on shunning the left right thing that comes into every discussion about everything. You’ll struggle to find anything I’ve written that uses those labels. I see it as an indicator of shallowness of thought every time someone categorises an opposing viewpoint as left/socialist/conspiracy/sheeple etc.

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      • #
        Gary Simpson

        Is Joe in the White House?

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        GlenM

        April 20 Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

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      RicDre

      “Biden is calling a “climate summit” of selected nations on April 22, which is Lenin’s birthday”

      My favorite comment to this article is by Michael in Dublin @ March 29, 2021 10:20 am

      A virtual conference led by a virtual president offering the world virtual(ly) nothing.

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      David Wojick

      I just checked and ScoMo is on the inviteds list.

      Biden is expected to announce our (laughable) Paris emissions target for 2030, plus maybe a $3 trillion green infrastructure spending proposal, also probably laughable except pork gets votes in any Congress.

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      RicDre

      “Biden is calling a “climate summit” of selected nations on April 22, which is Lenin’s birthday”

      This will be a great step forward if it sets the precedent that all future Climate Conferences are handled by Video Conference.

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      • #
        MP

        “This will be a great step forward if it sets the precedent that all future Climate Conferences are handled by Video Conference.”

        This will be a great Leap forward if it sets the precedent that all future Climate Conferences are handled by Video Conference.

        Fixed it for ya

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  • #
    RicDre

    The wonderful world of Elon Musk owned componies (part 1):

    Tesla double-charged some customers for new cars, leaving them desperate for refund details

    On March 24, the Slatterys were excited after a text from Tesla said the car they had ordered in January could be delivered to their home in one to three days via the company’s “contactless” delivery service.

    Tesla would drop off the car at their residence and Slattery could use the Tesla app as a digital key to get into it for the first time. …
    If customers are paying up-front and online, Tesla now accepts Bitcoin or ACH direct debit payments. For expediency, and without other options, Slattery added his bank account and routing numbers and authorized the transfer of funds.

    When he checked his account the next morning, on March 25, Tom Slattery, woke up to find his bank account depleted by nearly $53,000 more than he expected — the sum he agreed to pay for a long-range, all-wheel-drive, 2021 Tesla Model Y. It would be a second Tesla for his family.

    Slattery says he immediately spotted the duplicate and jumped to call and text Tesla. He spent the day getting stonewalled, people either did not pick up the phone or did not have definitive answers about a refund.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/tesla-double-charged-some-customers-for-new-cars.html

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    RicDre

    The wonderful world of Elon Musk owned companies (part 2):

    SpaceX must comply with Justice Department subpoena in probe of company’s hiring practices, judge recommends

    -SpaceX should be forced to comply with a subpoena from the Department of Justice as part of its probe into whether Elon Musk’s company illegally discriminated against foreign applicants, a judge recommended.

    -The judge’s report described “several” federal investigations into the aerospace giant’s hiring practices.

    -The report rejected SpaceX’s argument that the subpoena constituted “government overreach.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/elon-musk-spacex-should-comply-with-doj-subpoena-in-hiring-probe-judge-says.html

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    el gordo

    There are rumours circulating that we can expect back to back La Nina.

    https://weather.gc.ca/data/saisons/images/2021032900_054_G6_global_I_SEASON_tm@lg@sd_000.png

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    Furiously curious

    I made a reply at the end of the uni meme about the Sydney Powell case, having seen somewhere her saying, the quotes of what her defense is saying, are BS. Difficult to find anything, but there is a obscure site on you tube. We await developments. Smelling a bit like the quotes from Trump’s Georgia phone call? I haven’t read the 54 pages of submission, but this guy claims he did.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X04NXtbr84

    31

  • #
    OldOzzie

    Vice President Kamala Harris tries to make a point about affordable child care but then cracks herself up

    Is the word “cackle” misogynist? You don’t hear about men cackling, but the nation dodged four years of cackling when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election. Unfortunately, we now have Vice President Kamala Harris making up for it, laughing at really inappropriate times, like when she was asked by the press if she was going to visit the border to assess the crisis there.

    Here’s video of Harris advocating for some sort of government-subsidized child care. She gets to the point where she says we all learned how valuable educators are when they stopped going to the classroom and parents didn’t have their free babysitters and then cracks herself up.

    Kamala Harris laughs hysterically when discussing struggling parents who aren’t able to send their kids to school.

    From the Comments

    – Four more years of hearing that laugh is going to send me to an early grave.
    – What’s she on?
    – God she is psychotic

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    RicDre

    President Biden, Boris Johnson Push Green Alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road

    The Biden administration has announced plans to borrow billions of dollars, presumably from China, to finance a green rival to the Chinese Belt and Road initiative, to counter China’s global debt trap diplomacy.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/28/president-biden-boris-johnson-push-green-alternative-to-the-chinese-belt-and-road/

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  • #
    Furiously curious

    The Hill site. The opening and closing statements in the George Floyd trial

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bba1PpaSZUM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJgGlt6AZbk

    10

  • #
    Furiously curious

    Oopps, the opening prosecution and defense statements!

    20

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Parents and male students were left ‘mortified’ after their school forced them to stand in assembly and apologise to their female classmates for sexual assaults committed by males.

    ‘Brauer College in the south-western Victorian town of Warrnambool held an assembly on Wednesday where boys were told to stand up in a symbolic gesture of apology to girls and women.

    ‘The move has since sparked outrage among parents of the school who say their children were made to feel ashamed about something they had no control over and didn’t understand.’ (Daily Mail)

    161

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Anyone who doesn’t see this as a bridge too far is terminally sick. These were early teens and while, like all boys, they would be curious most would be v1rg1n and innocent. Not exactly the Streisand Effect but certainly waking sleeping dogs and dangerous.

      191

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Suing the school for attempted brainwashing and mental injury & trauma, anyone?

      50

  • #
    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      I note that no smarty pants has yet posted anything that refutes your analysis Zoe.

      I suspect they know they can’t.

      40

      • #
        John R Smith

        For progressives, math has the same effect as flashing a crucifix in the face of vampires.

        20

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        🙂
        Happy to know that you understood it.
        Zoe has an undoubted skill in computer programming but I have some doubts about the two energy balances used.

        This isn’t a reflection on her work but the Trenberthian style primitive “balances” may not be all that correct.

        One problematic factor in thermodynamics is the so called greenhouse energy that is returned to the surface.

        Doing an energy balance on the Earth is a bit more difficult than Mr Trenberth imagines.

        KK

        30

        • #
          John R Smith

          Can’t say I understand it.
          Reformed liberal.
          I can look without it burning my eyes.
          And ponder without too much pain.

          10

        • #
          John R Smith

          KK, question.
          Energy Balance is one those issues I have not looked at much.
          My impression was that it was one of those fuzzy science climatology things.
          I mean, atmospheric balance has been balancing 13 or 14 billionish years. No?
          Otherwise, there would no life forms to conceive and cipher such things.
          But now I have good excuse to look into it.
          Someone named Trenberth has to be smart.

          10

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            Hi John,

            The two visual depictions of the “Earth’s thermodynamic balance” are attractive coloured works of art that may have only one use; to serve as a preliminary discussion point.

            To imagine that they are in any way “quantitatively accurate” to the point that they can identify individual components by subtraction, is fanciful.

            The large “returning” energy component attributed to so called Greenhouse gases is a thermodynamic nonsense.

            Thankfully, the Earth is a net holder of our daily energy supply received from the Sun with a small, very small amount coming up to the surface from Earth’s core.

            Any mishap like a large volcanic eruption or meteor impact which throws vast quantities of fine junk into the atmosphere, can literally turn the Sun off very quickly.

            It’s a big system, and I don’t think that Trenberth has a clue.

            KK

            20

    • #
      Tel

      Interesting result.

      I realized some time ago that there’s no reason why the units “Watts per square meter” would ever tally up within a spherical geometry. Let’s consider the “evapotranspiration” flow which in normal language presumably means evaporation plus transpiration … at surface level you have 86.4 Watts per square meter but as that warm, moist air rises the number of Watts necessarily remains the same, getting spread over more square meters (higher altitude implies larger radius on the spherical shell). Thus, the Watts per square meter will be reduced by the time it hits the clouds.

      In other words, not only is their entire budget a crock but the whole system is always self regulating since there is no upper ceiling on how high that warm, moist air can rise other than whatever height the troposphere needs to be in order to offload the heat.

      The area of the radiator is adjustable, depending on the power that needs to be radiated. This of course should surprise no one at all.

      Did I just call climate scientists a bunch of Flat Earthers? Perhaps I did but I would like to apologize in advance to the Flat Earth Society … just in case I offended anyone. Have to be careful these days.

      If you prefer real numbers, I can do the calculation in meters with a ballpark radius of the Earth of 6371000m and altitude of clouds around 6000m to give a little less than 2 parts in a thousand factor of error which that “budget” needs to be adjusted for.

      (6371000 + 6000)^2 / (6371000 ^2)
      1.00188442169271711469

      Now, not every cloud is the same altitude obviously, and the Earth is not a perfect sphere either. It does at least give you something to think about … might not account for all of the difference.

      30

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        🙂 🙂

        00

      • #

        Valid point.

        The radiation budget has a 4 W/m^2 error margin, so I doubt they take slight radial differences seriously.

        20

        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Hi Zoe, just a bit of a comparison on energy.

          Many years ago it was stated that the human body, at rest, gave off about 25 Watts. This could go up to say 75 Watts during exertion.

          Just checking now, the online quotes are around 100 Watts per person at rest. Either the new figures are more accurate or my memory is not so good or people are now much bigger.

          Assuming very roughly that the human body has a surface area of about one square metre the human energy loss is somewhat around 25 to 110 Watts per square metre.

          My point is that we can examine human function quite easily but still not be sure.

          By comparison the whole Earth is a hugely inaccessible complex interactive thermodynamic system.

          Sure we can see the overall effect, but quantifying small components isn’t that easy.

          The CAGW concept devised by people like Mr Trenberth is really just a bit too dodgy to take seriously.

          The 4 Watts per square metre figure may be based on very uncertain ground work.

          10

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      R.B.

      That is the extra energy being absorbed by having 400 ppm instead of 300 ppm CO2. The idea being that the Earth warms up until it is 0 W/m2. It was calculated to be between 0.6 and 0.9

      There was the point I tried to make on claims that the recent floods were greater because of climate change, that its simple physics. But its not. If it was 7% more rain across the board, its 7 % more clolud cover and 7% more loss of energy from evaporation. That is,roughly, .07 x 160 W/m2 or 11W/m2. Slightly less than my previous back of envelope but an order of magnitude more than the net. And 7% more rain means about 1-2% higher flood levels.

      Another important thing is that 240 W/m2 into space from the atmosphere. Just warming the upper troposphere slightly should negate the need for the whole globe to warm. Rough back of envelope using 240 K for the upper troposphere temp

      240.24^4÷240^4 x 240 W/m2 = 241 W/m2. Just a quarter of degree warmer troposphere and you get the outgoing to equal the theoretical net. It’s that flimsy.

      10

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    el gordo

    After the great climate shift of 1976 Greenland felt the impact and then at the turn of the century it began to cool.

    https://notrickszone.com/2021/03/29/its-official-greenland-has-not-warmed-since-2001-the-recent-sharp-warming-lasted-from-1981-2000/

    CO2 is not responsible for this variability.

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    el gordo

    CO2 has no control over Antarctic sea ice.

    ‘Though Antarctic sea ice fell to a “record minimum” in 2017 – after having reached a “record high” in 2015 – the latest data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show sea ice at the South Pole has bounced back robustly since, surging some 500,000 sq km above the mean.’ (WUWT)

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      You really should check the source el gordo

      “Sea ice extent has trended below average again after several months in mid- to late 2020 above the 1981 to 2010 average. However, the 2021 minimum extent is twelfth lowest in the satellite record and far from the record low extent, which occurred in 2017. Below-average extents were present in the northern Weddell and eastern Ross Seas, while the Bellingshausen Sea and the Wilkes Land Coast were near average (Figure 4).”
      particularly https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index

      38

      • #
        el gordo

        I’m more interested in the variability of Antarctic sea ice, we know CO2 cannot be a factor so it might be linked to ENSO or possibly SAM.

        50

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          In a complex web of interdependent variables, you claim the C02 has no role. It is an interesting model, but I fear that its simplicity might be its undoing

          39

          • #
            el gordo

            Are you aware that global warming cannot melt Antarctica?

            40

          • #
            R.B.

            In a complex web of interdependent variables, you claim the C02 has no role.

            And you find it logical to, in a complex web of interdependent variables, to claim the C02 is the reason for the melting?

            The satellite record is longer than claimed. It shows arctic ice at its maximum in the late 70s, from 1972 to 1990, and a million square kilometers less than than the average of this in 1974. This changed once “The data are a blend of updated…” similarly, the Antarctic “blend” showed that it dropped almost 3 million km2 from 1972 to 1980 before rising slowly to 2000.

            These are not straight forward calculations. Choices made by the scientists change the results dramatically, and still m ore consistent with changing ocean currents 5han global warming.

            20

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      • #
        Richard Owen No.3

        The twelfth lowest? Aagh – we will all drown etc. just like the eleven times it was worse.

        20

      • #
        MrGrimNasty

        Peter, you really should check that at least something Gordo said was wrong before being critical. Below average does not mean abnormal – when is a data point not above/below average! And always check your source gives the latest most complete picture. In fact ice growth was so rapid this year I thought it was a sensor/data error at first.

        https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_iqr_timeseries.png

        It’s interesting that photographic reconstruction from the very early Nimbus satellite missions prior to the satellite data proper, showed unknown and never repeated ice features and extent max/mins – like an enormous winter polynya in the Weddell sea.

        Clearly CO2 has nothing to do with it. Strange that alarmists always ignore Antactic sea ice extent, EXCEPT when they suddenly remembered it in 2017.

        40

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    el gordo

    Beijing demands Canberra sex scandals probe.

    ‘China’s hypocritical “wolf warrior” diplomats demand a probe into Australia’s sex scandals in retaliation for our COVID origins push.’ (Tele)

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    el gordo

    Here is a chance to vote with your feet.

    ‘AGL’s move to create two separate companies – one with carbon and one without – is a pragmatic response to investor demands for an increased focus on environment, social and governance.

    ‘Splitting AGL Energy into a thermal coal generation business and a separate zero carbon energy retailer makes eminent sense. It is good for shareholders, who will be able to make their own choices about their carbon exposure, and it is good for the growth prospects of both the carbon and non-carbon businesses.’ (AFR)

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    • #
      RexAlan

      Sounds good the Green groups are not too happy apparently.

      “Green groups slam AGL plans

      The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, an investor advisory firm, criticized the restructure plans

      Its director of climate and environment Dan Gocher accused AGL of walking away from responsibility for the shutdown of its ageing coal-fired power stations by spinning them off into PrimeCo”.

      Maybe Liddell can be saved from shut down for awhile longer.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-30/share-market-wall-st-dow-jones-asx-aud-wrap/13281310

      50

      • #
        Richard Owen No.3

        Thank you. I am stuck with some AGL shares which I was going to dump at a loss**. Now I will see if I can switch them into PrimeCo.

        **Bad news Trolls, only a small number hence a small loss. That’s why I didn’t rush to dump them when the AGL Board decided they would migrate to Laputa.

        50

      • #
        Yarpos

        Another example of how the Green Bolb cannot be appeased, so dont bother.

        20

  • #
    hypersonic

    I need to come up with an excuse as to why i dont want the vaccine all i gt so far for the AZ vaccine is on religious grounds:

    Recombinant, replication-deficient chimpanzee
    adenovirus vector encoding the SARS-CoV-2 Spike
    glycoprotein. The vaccine is manufactured using material
    originally sourced from a human embryo (Human Embryo
    Kidney cells: HEK293).

    Any good excuses for not taking a drug that hijacks my RNA?

    Any feed back welcome

    Regards

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    • #
      Chris

      Very impressive Zoe, Interesting to see that not only is terrestrial plant life increasing with a bit extra CO2 but also marine vegetation also.

      50

  • #
    Dennis

    “Each Way Albo” and his colleagues are pushing for rebuilding of manufacturing industry in Australia.

    Remind them that with no Union Movement opposition Whitlam Labor agreed with the United Nations to get rid of manufacturing industry, most of it, handed over to “developing nations”, such as China;

    https://www.australianconservativecoalition.com/the-lima-declaration

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  • #
    Kevin kilty

    There is some commentary from M. Armstrong on a U.S. site that Australia may implement a 6% annual wealth tax on any Australian with wealth greater than $1 billion (AUS i presume) no matter where residing and on wealth foreigners residing in Australia. Any clarification?

    50

    • #

      Not heard of it but what would that raise that makes it worthwhile?

      100 billionaires with an average 3 billion each (guess based on 10 of them having more than 10 billion and the fact that many have only recently got to a billion.) equals 900 billion dollars at 6% is $54 billion. Maybe put a confidence around that of $30-100 billion in tax.

      03

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Maybe put a confidence around that of $30-100 billion in tax.

        Whacko!

        That’ll build a few extra Froggy subs. Diesel of course. Gotta keep those Chinese totalitarians at bay. Eh?

        I suspect the silver-tails will quickly torpedo that little idea. Unless it’s a green/left Labor Party proposal. Then they’ll be falling over themselves to agree with it to show how virtuous they all are.

        Albanese’s Communist China-loving Labor Party is currently having its annual love-in. No doubt that’s where the cutting edge “soak-the-rich” piece of policy is coming from.

        20

    • #
      Richard Owen No.3

      Highly unlikely.
      Ignore Gee Aye’s arithmetic; 100 by 3 doesn’t add up to 900 billion, so the possible gain would be less, but bitterly resisted. Can you imagine Turnbull bringing his loot back from the Cayman Islands so he can pay more tax?

      On the other hand a death duties type tax on American billionaires, such as Bill Gates, Bloomberg etc. would raise more.

      30

      • #

        yeah true thanks… cut my estimates by 2/3. I can’t explain that error but I own it.

        00

        • #
          Richard Owen No.3

          Don’t be upset, your arithmetic is much better than the average Green. They think 2+2 might be 5.3, 17.7 or 43 depending on which gives them the scariest claim.
          I’ve seen 14 presented as 25, 43 even 75.

          00

  • #
    hypersonic

    3 russian subs surface in the Arctic

    Russia completes testing of its hypersonic missile system capable of travelling at 9,800 KPH

    Distance between the artic and say New York……..about 30 minutes

    31

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Thanks for the heads-up.
      We live in interesting times.

      In 2019, Putin had said the Zircon would be capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

      The missile flies with an advanced fuel that the Russians say gives it a range of up to 1,000 kilometers. And it’s so fast that the air pressure in front of the weapon forms a plasma cloud as it moves, absorbing radio waves and making it practically invisible to active radar systems.

      U.S. Aegis missile interceptor systems require 8-10 seconds of reaction time to intercept incoming attacks. In those 8-10 seconds, the Russian Zircon missiles will already have traveled 20 kilometers, and the interceptor missiles do not fly fast enough to catch up.

      20

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      Hanrahan

      If Russian technology is so good and American so bad why do Chicoms bother stealing American technology?

      21

      • #
        hypersonic

        Its not a matter of USA tech being bad its just no one has been able to come up with an effective counter measure yet, BTW the USA and others have hypersonic technology this is the reason why O’Bama wanted a moratorium on hypersonics

        00

        • #
          el gordo

          What do you make of UFO?

          00

          • #
            Dennis

            Field propulsion technology, NASA.

            11

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘In December 2020, President Trump signed a coronavirus relief bill that included an interesting stipulation – the bill set into motion an 180-day time frame in which US intelligence agencies must tell Congress everything they know about UFO sightings, via an unclassified report.

              ‘Remarkably, in what sounds like the opening crawl of an unimaginative sci-fi film, the report must also include an analysis as to whether or not UFOs pose a threat to national security … ‘ (Forbes)

              20

              • #
                Yarpos

                Funny how they like to bundle things up, make them more complex and difficult to understand (and easier to hide stuff in)

                I used to work for a US multi national and they loved nothing better than delaying many useful and easy projects so they could be “rolled up” into a grander program that awards could be presented for.

                It is the way

                20

              • #
                el gordo

                Its the culture, but of course the real story cannot disappear, are we alone?

                10

              • #
                Richard Owen No.3

                Now we are.
                They are on their way home to report “No sign of intelligent life”, after they heard some ABC News broadcasts .

                10

    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Distance between the artic and say New York……..about 30 minutes

      So what? If the Russian nutters so much as drop a fire-cracker in New York City, the US will turn all of Moscow into a carpark – Putin knows that. So does Beijing, so does that fat muppet in North Korea.

      Australia has a slightly less threatening but equally effective defence strategy. Bombers can take off from Tyndall AFB in Katherine, blow up every palace between Jakarta and Hanoi, and get home by breakfast. All those countries know that too – especially Indonesia.

      Also – if the Chinese ever tried a sea-land invasion, they would lose that as well. Australia is a hard country to invade, for a lot of reasons.

      23

      • #
        Yarpos

        1. Hope we can rely on other peoples long range bombers

        2. You really dont need to invade Australia, just two cities and the place would fold. One is already well in the CCP fold.

        50

        • #
          Tilba Tilba

          1. Hope we can rely on other peoples long range bombers

          We have some decent firepower in the Top End.

          11

        • #
          Tilba Tilba

          2. You really dont need to invade Australia, just two cities and the place would fold. One is already well in the CCP fold

          .

          How would they do it? If they came by air we have 8-10 hours notice and can do very serious damage. If they came by sea we would have weeks of advance notice, and damage could be inflicted. If they landed anywhere on the north coast the crocs would eat most, and the Aboriginal People would get the rest (as per WWII).

          01

      • #
        el gordo

        Realistically, no hot warm because of mutually assured deterrent.

        10

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  • #
    RickWill

    When you get cloudburst over a tropical warm pool that has overshot the regulating temperature of 30C to reach 31C, and after the ran has fallen, there will be up to 13.1mm of precipitable water above the level of free convection and 10.5m of that above the icing level. So as OLR is released to space above the icing level, ice crystals deposit to form reflective cloud. It will take about 30 hours to deposit all the water vapour above the icing level and just 8 hours to condense the water between the icing level and the LFC before the atmosphere catapults a new load of water vapour above the icing level.

    Always an abundance of convective potential over the tropical oceans:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/29/2200Z/wind/surface/currents/overlay=cape/orthographic=-249.07,-16.75,376/loc=84.451,-2.462
    And always lots of moisture in the cirrus cloud zone above 500hPa and 250hPa:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/24/2200Z/wind/surface/currents/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=-264.22,-8.45,376/loc=121.664,2.975
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/29/2200Z/wind/surface/currents/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=-249.07,-16.75,376/loc=84.451,-2.462

    That is why the tropical oceans regulate temperature to 30C in the warm pools:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/24/2200Z/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-258.80,-22.81,376/loc=92.020,2.173
    About a dozen 30C warm pools widely dispersed across the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. Atlantic not quite making the 30C today; just 29.7C off the coast of Africa.

    Easy for anyone to find the sea surface temperature across the globe on any day of the year and observe warm pools regulating to 30C and sea ice interface at -2C:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/24/2200Z/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-57.52,-86.12,376/loc=-140.018,-70.907

    Should we look for some goofy, delicate “greenhouse effect” to achieve an average surface temperature is 14C or 57F 0 287K. Or is it simply a matter of doing some arithmetic:
    Tav = {30 +(-2)}/2 = 14C
    given that there is sea ice surrounding both poles and numerous tropical warm pools regulating at 30C across the tropical oceans covering most of the Equator!

    I expect I will not be around to see the “greenhouse effect” silently pass into history but I can see my grandchildren giggling about the current generations obsession with the “greenhouse effect” like I have a chuckle about ships falling off the end of the Earth.

    I am amazed at the lack of curiosity and unwillingness to make simple observations across the broad population who have been so gullible to believe the “greenhouse effect” fairy tale. You have to be gullible enough to believe that cloud cover is fixed and unresponsive to surface temperatureto such that the albedo is a constant or even negatively correlated with surface temperature. How gullible are people?

    CSIRO are predicting the Nino34 region will reach 314K by 2200. That would push the current maximum precipitable water content from around 65mm:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/24/2200Z/wind/surface/currents/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-244.92,-8.61,376/loc=131.143,2.452
    up to

    200mm!!!!

    Too silly for words.

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    tonyb

    From Politico regarding Macrons activities aimed at reducing ‘climate change’.

    “We were expecting a grand bill, a landmark piece of legislation, and it falls very short of our expectations,” said De Temmerman. “On transport, we’re only banning flights that are shorter than two-and-a-half hours, that’s almost nothing. And on advertising, we’re encouraging greenwashing by allowing fossil fuel companies to promote their green products.”

    Often there ae no direct rail routes or the road system is inadequate and flying is going to be the quickest cheapest and most practical method of travel from point A to point B.

    Whilst this would not affect ourselves in the UK, as an example When we go to Austria it is roughly a 90 minute flight. To get there by car takes 2 nights away each way or to take a train is certainly an overnight journey at roughly 30 times the cost of flying.

    Translate that to a French origin example and once the gilet jaunes get wind of this expect more rioting on French streets

    20

  • #
    David Maddison

    What is wrong with these people? Turnbull is toxic to most thinking Australians including Liberals but he is loved by Greens and Labor.

    NSW government to appoint Malcolm Turnbull to new climate board

    MARCH 29, 2021 8:01PM

    Malcolm Turnbull will take up his first political role since quitting parliament, after the former prime minister was picked to be the chair of a new NSW government climate board.

    NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean will appoint Mr Turnbull chair of the NSW Net-Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board.

    See link for rest.

    https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/nsw-government-to-appoint-malcolm-turnbull-to-new-climate-board/news-story/3f901d3eb3c832119fcc3f7b22022413

    41

    • #
      Ronin

      Matt Keane and Melvin Trumble, what a pair of leftards.

      30

    • #
      Sirob

      The political chameleon, Matt Keane has obviously made a deal. Is he only ambitious or is he also compromised in some way that leads him to such decisions.

      30

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        A Green Kean giving the top job in a Green organisation to a Green ex-Prime Minister.
        Subversion is my word.

        30

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Why do (Aust) liberal politicians think they can pick up votes from the left by being a shade of greenish pink? The left know it’s BS and the right is disgusted.

      Only the ABC could call Turnbull a conservative.

      30

  • #

    Aunty Pravda’s rolling news feed of unacceptable articles for the 30th Mar – https://thepointman.wordpress.com/rolling-headlines/ 

    30

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    Tilba Tilba

    Whilst this would not affect ourselves in the UK, as an example When we go to Austria it is roughly a 90 minute flight. To get there by car takes 2 nights away each way or to take a train is certainly an overnight journey at roughly 30 times the cost of flying.

    I think there are some pretty fundamental issues to discuss here. Firstly I reiterate my position that global warming is occurring, and human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are a very big part of that. I’m very doubtful that it’s going to be catastrophic – certainly not any time soon.

    What I am deeply deeply sceptical about are the sort of solutions that are being discussed and proposed. And I would like people to think differently.

    Re the block-quote above … I want to ask – why are you going to Austria for any reason? (Going on holiday once every few year is the only valid reason it seems to me). I believe that 99.9% of “work” or “business” flights are completely surplus to requirements, with today’s easy video technology.

    There are dozens and dozens of flights between every European city every day – there are about 36 flights between Madrid and Barcelona every day … they are two cities in the same country, and again 99% of that traffic could be eliminated – with great savings. North America is even worse.

    Then there is the elimination of a huge number of pointless car trips every day, all round the planet. The “solution” is not just to try and “swap” from fossil fuels to something else (hypothetical EV, for instance), the solution is to totally rethink why all these trips are being taken.

    People outside Bangkok spend three hours commuting each way in polluted, congested traffic, and I’m sure it’s one of hundreds of places in the developing world where this happens. Is this progress? No – it’s totally nuts!

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    • #
      RickWill

      human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are a very big part of that

      You should be more discerning. It is a fairy tale. It is fundamentally ridiculous to postulate a theory on climate where clouds are unresponsive to surface temperature.

      Not only are clouds highly responsive to the surface temperature but, indeed, regulate the maximum sea surface temperature to within 0.5C of 30C. It is happening every day in numerous tropical warm pools across the globe:
      https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/03/29/2200Z/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-271.59,-19.24,516/loc=144.815,-0.837

      With a peak of 30C and a minimum of -2C, water well spread across the globe it is not hard to calculate that the average surface temperature is going to be 14C, 57F or 287K without the silly nonsense of “greenhouse effect”. The radiating temperature of 255K is simply the result of the amount of cloud needed to regulate sunlight to achieve the controlled maximum temperature of 30C.

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      el gordo

      ‘ … global warming is occurring, and human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are a very big part of that.’

      Clearly you are out of your depth, global cooling has begun and CO2 has nothing to do with it.

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      tonyb

      Tilba Tilba

      Assuming you are Australian, you are living in a carbon society far greater than mine. Apart from the coal issue, you are bringing in food from far flung corners, make very few things yourselves so again have to bring it in and have extensive irrigation. Your distances are so great that I assume you practice what you preach and never visit other parts of the country?

      London to Salzburg is 640 miles; Perth to Brisbane is 2200 miles and Adelaide to Darwin 1600 miles.

      So do you don your Puritan clothes (no cotton I hope) do not use aircon or heating, have no car and basically just hang around your home city, hopefully ignoring the coffee shops which cause great damage, nor eating imported food?

      Good luck to Australians who want to do all these things in a sensible fashion, but pot calling the kettle black comes to mind with your comment. I enjoy living at the peak of human civilisation and look forward to the rest of the world hauling themselves out of misery, poverty and poor health and climbing to the same peak

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        el gordo

        I’m with Tilba on this, international tourism should be curtailed by making it too expensive for the ordinary working classes.

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        el gordo

        All travel must be severely curtailed and western civilisation may become more like Medieval villages.

        ‘Two-thirds of disease experts believe coronavirus variants will render vaccines ineffective within one year, a new survey finds.

        ‘Conducted by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, about 66 percent of epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists say they think that within 12 months, the virus will mutate to such a degree that first-generation vaccines will be useless at preventing infection.’ (Daily Mail)

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        Tilba Tilba

        So do you don your Puritan clothes (no cotton I hope) do not use aircon or heating, have no car and basically just hang around your home city, hopefully ignoring the coffee shops which cause great damage, nor eating imported food?

        Typical response – why am I not surprised one little bit? Very common ad hom attack, completely fact-free, and without knowing the slightest thing about me or my lifestyle.

        But mostly, avoiding the debating points that I raised. I appreciate that AGW-deniers are macho types and want to keep roaring around in their V8s and flying everywhere, but still, you could at least address some of the issues raised, rather than attacking the trivial.

        And I still believe that a huge percentage of flying and car travel could be eliminated without the slightest reduction in the quality of existence – other than for a lot of businessmen who get their rocks of in overseas ports on the company dollar.

        I’m fully aware (or at least more aware than 95% of the punters) that Australia’s carbon footprint – both in absolute terms and per capita – is really high. It is what it is. But the same people who point this out are also the SAME ones who sneer and mock every emission-reduction measure, from taxation to turbines.

        Those of us who are genuine about reducing the AGW reality can just keep doing what we think we should. I wonder if you use public transport, your feet, and a tiny four-cylinder sedan as much as I do?

        I enjoy living at the peak of human civilisation – what? – I thought you lived in the UK!

        and look forward to the rest of the world hauling themselves out of misery, poverty and poor health and climbing to the same peak – this is NOT going to happen digger – whatever happens on the Global Warming front by 2050, peak oil, peak water, and peak just-about-everything are going to stop it.

        Have you ever heard of limits to growth?

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      Yarpos

      Yes ! Obviously, its much more practical to change human behaviour in every culture around the world. Why wasnt this thought of before?

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    Steephof

    Am I missing something here?

    WHO released a doc in 2019 re. pandemic influenza (attached below). Page 15 ad 16 strictly recommend that contact tracing and quarantining of non-sick individuals is not advised. For example, “Home quarantine of exposed individuals to reduce transmission is not recommended because there is no obvious rationale for this measure, and there would be considerable difficulties in implementing it.”
    I understand Covid is different form the flu in its transmissibility etc. however it has a relatively equal mortality rate relative to ebola for example

    My understanding is that lockdowns have never been recommended in the history of WHO (Please fact check me if I’m wrong)

    So I’d like to know when the WHO went from not recommending contact tracing/lockdowns to recommending ongoing lockdowns/restriction of travel? Is there a specific doc they released? I can’t seem to find it

    I know WHO made a statement in October advocating against lockdowns as a sole source of prevention for covid however, it seems many countries are still utilising lockdowns even though their hospital capacity is not overwhelmed. Is there any research advocating to relax covid lockdown measures in relation to hospital capacity?

    Thanks

    WHO doc. https://www.who.int/influenza/publications/public_health_measures/publication/en/

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    David Wojick

    BBC says wildfires in Scotland have increased 30% in the last ten years due to climate change! Surely not.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-56500739

    “But our survey suggests most people are unaware of the changes that are coming.
    Only 16% expected more wildfires, despite Scotland already seeing a dramatic rise in these.
    Even fewer, just 13%, thought increasing droughts would be a problem, despite more than 100,000 private water supplies being at risk.
    The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service says it has seen a 30% rise in wildfires since 2010 and believes a similar rise is likely in the next decade.”

    No explanation as to how climate change caused this increase. Wildfires are the new polar bears.

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      David Wojick

      The good news is that the survey says few believe the scares.

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      Kevin kilty

      You have touched upon an interesting topic here. I am retired from an academic engineering position. We usually think of engineers as being pretty steely eyed, but they can engage in silly beliefs if they don’t do any research for themselves. One of my colleagues was convinced that forest fires in central Europe were being exacerbated by climate change. I decided to research the topic.

      Austrian researchers found the problem there is like it is elsewhere. Once forests began to be seen as an economic asset (1850s) fires were routinely suppressed leading to growing fuel loads and enhanced water deficits from too many trees. The entire phenom explained as an economic response without any discernable effect from climate change.

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      • #
        David Wojick

        Yes this is certainly a factor worldwide. But a 30% increase in ten years must have a different cause. I suspect a simple increase in central reporting. Or has Scotland had an incredible drought that we have not heard about? Or a growing club of arsonists? It is a very strange number.

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          tonyb

          David

          In the link you provided you will see a picture of the ‘flow Country’ in Scotland where a great deal of the wildfires have occurred. For thousands of years it was a boggy wilderness and never burned.

          Then some 30 years or more ago tax breaks were made to enable forests-often pine- to be planted.

          This entailed drainage ditches to be dug and the pine readily burns as does the brash and this in turn sets the peat alight as it no longer contains water as it was drained and the trees have also sucked it up. This link fully explains it

          https://www.theflowcountry.org.uk/flow-facts/flow-fact-4/

          Peatlands are now much better managed but it will take years to return to their original bogginess.

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            David Wojick

            Interesting. I know that peat fires are almost impossible to fully put out, so they can both reappear and travel underground, to appear somewhere nearby.

            But it may also be that since wildfires became a hot button (sorry, could not stop myself) the word came down from on high to report as many as possible, perhaps even that one’s budget might be affected. I have seen organization reports swell when word goes out the brass wants them to. So maybe little fires that were not previously reported now are.

            I wonder what the combined average stats look like.

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            • #
              tonyb

              David

              I think there is a related problem in as much people are more mobile, less involved with the countryside and therefore treat it as a place for entertainment, plus the politics involved, whereby Govt demands greater access to the countryside in return for grants, although Scotland has always had more access than England.

              The nub of the resultant problems can be seen here, which I suspect can be replicated in many Western countries

              — —–
              Mark Thomson, Tillyrie, Milnathort, Kinross

              With a core path running through the farm steading, and a past member of the local access forum, Mark Thomson knows what is in the Scottish Countryside Access Code and thinks it is time for review.

              “When passing through the farms, most local access takers continue to stick to the core path and shown respect and care anytime we are working with cattle or sheep. During lockdown, we have had reports locally of some walkers refusing to put dogs on leads when walking through fields of livestock and some wild camping with barbeques when wildfire risk was extreme.”

              “Speaking from experience, I think there is a need for the access code to be updated. It needs to be better balanced in terms of the needs of those taking access and those who live and work in the country, particularly those who keep livestock.”

              Sandy Henderson, Boat Farm, Kintore
              Lockdown for Sandy Henderson has seen him endure arson, vandalism and flytipping and receive insufficient support from Police Scotland and his local authority.

              “I’ve seen vandalism, people having parties, barbeques and bonfires and gates being thrown open, damaging a vehicle. I have had cyclists in the middle of my barley crops and some people just wandering wherever they want.

              “I have printed, laminated and put up posters only to have them ripped up hours later.”

              Whilst this refers to lockdown the comments can be applied generally, many more people using the countryside as an extension to their gardens and not being careful enough with barbecues. Portable BBQ’s are an increasing nuisance as they are so portable.

              I can not see that Scotland is getting less rain but there have been big drainage schemes and lots of tree planting with all that entails in removing soil moisture

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      • #

        David

        I think this Scottish business is similar to the Australian wildfire situation. Lazy reporting, failure to investigate properly and a desire that the situation is due to climate change because it chimes with the reporters belief.

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    Just saw something new: An army chopper flying with lights at the tips of its rotors. WTF!!!

    How or why would they run electrics along the rotors? Think about it. To me it is both difficult and pointless.

    It’s odd, you see these things and then question if you were dreamin’. I remember driving a road virtually on centre-line of the local RAAF base when a B52 did a touch and go over me in a strong cross wind. The weirdest thing looking up and seeing the undercarriage bogies in line with the runway, not the aircraft centreline.

    Another day, in the same area I saw a helicopter do a full loop. They don’t do that at displays but the Europeans were here trying to sell us a copter. Not sure but I think we bought that dog of an aeroplane. Later the same day it had a heavy landing: Apparently there was no clear “My plane” and neither pilot was in command at the time.

    Another thing I have never seen at an air display was an F4 Phantom “out of control”. “Me and me mates” were walking from the mess at RAAF Base Amberley when this F4 came straight for us at low level, nose down, nose up, banking left, banking right. We thought we were dead. He did a second “dirty” pass, retracted the hook and gear, went vertical and punched a hole in the clouds. His third pass was misjudged, after he passed us he hit Mach 1 shattering glass in the servo near the gate. I loved the F4 ver since.

    It is only recently [45 years later] I discover this is a dutch roll, a dreaded manoeuvre in swept wing aircraft. In the ’50s a brand new B 707 had three engines torn off during an acceptance flight with Boeing and Branniff flight crew when the [I think] Boeing pilot got carried away demonstrating recovery from a dutch roll, exceeded limits and killed those in the cockpit. Those told to go to the rear and brace survived.

    The manoeuvre can be seen @ 5:30 in this clip.

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      Hanrahan

      I forgot the link, but that’s OK my post is “awaiting moderation”.

      Goto 5:30 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBVQzzeGKNg

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      Hanrahan

      Today was the 100th anniversary of the formation of the RAAF. It seems it was celebrated by a flyover of the War Memorial.

      We were not always so dismissive of our services. 50 years ago the RAAF had a touring, public air show of all major bases. It was impressive, at least I thought so. Townsville was the finale and I remember having a dress circle seat laying on the wing of a Neptune.

      That night in the Airmans’ beery a ranking officer, part of the organising command, came in happy as a dog with two tails. It seems they had “budgeted” the loss of an aircraft but it never happened.

      I can’t fly a kite but hell, I appreciate those who put themselves in harm’s way flying jets to the limit. That’s called training.

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    CHRIS

    I recently viewed an ABC (???) interview on its breakfast show, concerning the recent NSW floods. Naturally, the ABC presenter mentioned climate change as being a major factor in these floods, and raved on about “extreme events”. The recent floods were definitely not an extreme event. As for other extreme events, such as tropical cyclones, the data shows that there have been less TCs over the past 20 years than the long-term average. I’ll scream the next time I hear ” extreme events” and “unprecedented”.

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      Tilba Tilba

      I’m a mainstream AGW type – but I also find the too-often raising of “global warming” as a factor in these major events gives me the heebie-jeebies … the reporters or the people they interview simply do not have the “right” to invoke climate change as a cause, without providing some data. It’s like the narrative demands it.

      Use of terms like “extreme” and “unprecedented” can also make me prone to throwing soft furnishings at the screen. I had family that went through the Maitland Floods of the 1950s – they were pretty big.

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        el gordo

        The 1950’s floods were big and I think its a cyclic phenomenon. There was paleo flood around 1750 which they reckon was as wide as the Danube, where the Murray meets the Darling.

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    Kevin kilty

    I get American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) bulletins from time to time, and the one showing up this morning announced the Twitter censorship of the Epidemiologist Martin Kuldorff (no ordinary epidemiologist either if his name is not familiar to you).

    Big Tech resembles more each day the Medieval church. Jack even dresses like Frere Jacque.

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  • #

    Dozens in Central Florida contract COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated
    https://twitter.com/factrealist2/status/1376900981422764034

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    William Astley

    The risk of getting blood clots, after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine has increased from 1 in million to 1 in 100,000 for those who are younger than 55 years old.

    It makes you think. Which explains why Germany is no longer giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to people younger than 60 years old.

    https://apnews.com/article/germany-cities-suspend-astrazeneca-vaccine-under-60-c6da4f4ed846ebebbe24505bfbf9bfce

    On Monday, Canada suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people under 55, citing new concerning data from Europe.
    “There is substantial uncertainty about the benefit of providing AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to adults under 55 given the potential risks,” said Dr. Shelley Deeks, vice chair of Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization.

    Deeks said the updated recommendations come amid new data from Europe that suggests the risk of blood clots is now potentially as high as one in 100,000, much higher than the one-in-a-million risk believed before.

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      RossP

      Don’t worry William the marketing guys have it all in hand —to get rid of the bad news they change the product name along with packaging etc. They really do think we are idiots.

      https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/03/30/astrazeneca-vaccine-changes-its-name-vaxzevria/

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        Tilba Tilba

        Don’t worry William the marketing guys have it all in hand —to get rid of the bad news they change the product name along with packaging etc. They really do think we are idiots.

        I read elsewhere that Astra/Zeneca applied for and obtained the new trading name back in early December, and that is standard operating procedure. But my goodness, “Vaxzevria” is just ridiculous – sounds like a beach resort in Albania. Needed something a bit zippier – like “Covaglow”!

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    Slithers

    It is a bit of a worry that a Nurse who received the vaccine 14 days ago now tests positive!
    How effective is this vaccine?
    Or is this a case of a false positive?

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    Two-thirds of global disease experts believe coronavirus variants will make vaccines ineffective within ONE YEAR

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9419815/Two-thirds-experts-believe-coronavirus-variants-make-vaccines-ineffective-ONE-YEAR.html

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  • #
    Richard Owen No.3

    It looks like the Rodents are getting nervous. From today’s (31/3) The Australian

    More major asset sales appear to be on the agenda in the renewable energy space, with both Elliott Management Corporation and Denham Capital running beauty parades to find an adviser to sell down their portfolios,
    Elliott’s sale of its renewable energy assets was flagged by DataRoom in December, Elliott owns Elliott Green Power Australia, with solar energy assets that generate more than 300 megawatts.
    Its projects include the Susan River Solar Farm in Queensland that delivers 180,000MWh of electricity each year, along with the Childers Solar Farm and Nevertire Solar farms in NSW that deliver 144,000MWh and 265,000MWh respectively.

    Denham Capital’s Nexif Energy portfolio is expected to have an equity value of more than $500m. It includes renewable energy assets in Vietnam, Thailand, The Philippines and Australia.

    Energy bankers are busy right now, with Macquarie Capital and Goldman Sachs working on the demerger of AGL Energy’s retail business, called New AGL,
    while the sales process continues for New Energy Solar through the Royal Bank of Canada, with its 110MW Beryl plan and 55MW Manildra facilities in NSW on offer.

    Others for sale include BlackRock’s two solar farms in Queensland, known as The Gretel Solar Portfolio, which are on offer through Azure Capital and could be worth $300m.
    A 49 per cent stake in an Australian portfolio owned by Fotowatio Renewable Ventures that could be worth about $500m is also for sale.

    Advisory firm Lazard was selling a 54 per cent stake in the $450m Ararat Wind Farm in Victoria, which is owned by Partners Group, but that has been withdrawn from the market.
    In the past year, Tilt Renewables has sold to a consortium including Queensland Investment Corporation, AGL Energy, Mercury Energy and The Future Fund for $NZ2.96bn.

    First Sentier acquired John Laing’s Australian wind farms for $285m before disposal costs and Infrastructure Capital Group bought Engie’s Willogoleche Wind Farm in South Australia and secured other development opportunities from Engie for $400m.
    Analysts believe that sellers may be eager to offload solar energy assets.

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      Tilba Tilba

      Are any of these a firesale, or is it just the vulture capitalists profit-taking? Anyway – others must be buying them, so they believe they represent value.

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    WXcycles

    Read this it will blow your mind.

    China’s Threat to Free Speech in Europe
    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17219/china-free-speech-europe

    If there was ever any doubt that Xi Jinping sees himself as a global super tyrant this clarifies all.

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