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Sunday Open Thread
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9.1 out of 10 based on 9 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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G’day All.
I’ve just been reading an article about log burners in the UK Telegraph. It seems they are now selling like hot cakes and there is a shortage in availability of them. Lots of interesting (and boring) comments on it.
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But will the Church of Climate Change Hoax conduct bio mass to celebrate?
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LOL!
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And just where do they think they will get the logs for the log-burners from ?
Denude the English landscape !? (like wind turbines do)
Import pellets from some third world country at great expense ? (such as the USA)
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Annie
They have been selling like hot cakes for 10 years or more. The Govt tries to ban them but I suppose that causes people to want them even more. Quite where the seasoned wood will come from is another question
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When we lived back in England for a few years we bought and had installed a small multi-fuel stove. It was a Villager, in which we burnt wood for a while. Eventually we used Welsh anthracite, which gave out far better heat.
We chose a flat top version of the stove, so that it could be used to cook on in an emergency. This was never required in those years up to 2013.
We have a woodstove here. We cook on it whenever it is lit. It gives us plentiful hot water and can heat up to 5 radiators. Three of those are always on while the stove is going, one is used occasionally and the other, virtually never.
I would never willingly live permanently in a house with only one form of energy for cooking, heating, etc.
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There are always plenty of bits of tree breaking off or falling over here, including a huge chunk of weakened wattle overnight! I’m glad it didn’t fall while I was mowing around it two days ago! More wood for the stove, but it is all a lot of time and effort to cut it up and stack it to finish seasoning, where it’s not already totally dead and can be put in the immediate use stack.
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Annie
Fortunately, our cooker has an electric oven and gas rings which work even if the electric is out. I also bought a solar generator which will power the microwave for around 80 minutes, enough for quite a few meals.
In addition, I bought a mobile gas heater that uses calor gas type metal bottles. These weren’t easy to find. Whilst there is a deposit on the bottles you don’t get that back when you have finished with the bottle permanently but can swap it for another full one of the equivalent size -after paying for the gas of course. The end result apparently is that people throw the bottles away if they don’t need more gas, thereby causing a shortage.
I would like a wood burner but it’s not practical in our house. I hope you don’t try to burn eucalyptus on your stove, it is lethal stuff
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What is the comment about burning eucalyptus about? just wondering, as I never heard a concern before re gum tree firewood.
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Yep, I go through 4 tons of the stuff every winter.
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All the wood we burn here in SW WA is Eucalyptus species. No problem at all.
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I cut it myself. I have about a three year supply.
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I forage. When I hear a tree coming down in the neighbourhood I offer to “remove” the wood free of charge.
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Tony, I burn eucalypt forever, and have done so for over 30 years and safely.
In recent times I have been burning Ironbark (which is a eucalypt) though it is expensive at $450 per tonne.
But I believe it is the best firewood in the world. It has a seasoned density of greater than one, and it will outburn any other wood in the world. I wood not be without it !
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Love Ironbark but you need to be happy to store it 5 years before burning and spend a bit more on chains when cutting. Where I am its mostly Scibbly, Angophora (River Red Gum), Blackbutt and Blue Gum. There is still some Ironbark around but the competitions pretty strong in collecting it.
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I’m mystified about your comment re. eucalyptus. One of the best around here is River Red Gum.
TedM: we have Red Ironbark, one of which had to come down. It was great stuff for burning, except that it smells horrible if a bit of smoke escapes while restoking!
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That last bit was a reply to Geoffrey Williams, not TedM…sorry.
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Annie, the Ironbark I have comes from Queensland aged 15 years min the supplier claims. It does have a brown/reddish colour . .
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That’s fine Annie. We burn preferably jarrah, but also Karridale, a bit of marriage, WA Blackbutt (Euc patens),stringybark, Yate and wandoo. All Eucalypts.
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Did you get some predictive text ‘correction’ TedM? I assumed you meant marri rather than marriage?!
Our red ironbark is a brown/reddish colour GW.
We did have something very stringy; was that Candlebark?
We give the wood two summers’ seasoning unless it is fine kindling or ‘cooking’ wood. Some of it was rendered very light weight by insect or fungal attack.
We also have some English Oak; great stuff.
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Annie
To clarify. Eucalyptus Gunii is very popular over here in the UK as an ornamental tree . It quickly grows to 40 or 50 feet tall. If it catches fire it blazes furiously like a Pine tree. Obviously the native species over there don’t have the same characteristics
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I planted some of those while we were living in Gloucestershire, but they were very ordinary.
There was one planted next to a house in Reading. This did grow very large and was a big nuisance as far as I could see. The ones we planted were well away from the house. No fire risk as we were surrounded by fields.
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Are there any reports on the Freedom rallies yesterday, particiculary the one in Forrest Place?
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I have a report that Brisbane was a small turnout and not inspiring
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I attended the Adelaide rally. Over 300 people there which was good considering the weather was supposed to be the same as the storms of the previous Saturday. However the forecast this time was a fizzer and the conditions were ideal. There were eight speakers and afterwards a march through Rundle Mall which I didn’t join.
Overall I’d consider the rally a success.
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Here is a link.
https://rumble.com/v1vjo3c-live-stream-world-wide-freedom-rally-perth-wa-19th-nov-202.html
Its not easy to see how many were there.
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My daughter works across from Sydney town Hall. She said nothing happened.
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While reading about the latest ‘the end is nigh’ hysteria (what’s the current one again?) I was reminded of the following passage (emphasis added) from Charles Mackay’s Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds:
It also reminded me of the passage in Douglas Adams’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe in which he tells of the origins of humanity. Earth’s inhabitants, you see, are all descended from aliens who were banished from their home planet, because … well … because they were useless, being telephone sanitisers, management consultants and holders of an assortment of other non-jobs.
When they established themselves on Earth, they decided they needed a currency and they chose leaves to be that currency. It wasn’t too long before someone realised that the great abundance of leaves would lead to inflation, so they burnt down all the forests.
Does this all have a familiar ring to it?
You can download a copy of Charles Mackay’s book here:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
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PS forgot to acknowledge the source for the Douglas Adams material. Here it is:
https://lithub.com/the-study-of-economics-could-learn-a-lot-from-science-fiction/#:~:text=When%20the%20exiles%20landed%20on%20Earth%2C%20they%20decided,were%20forced%20to%20%E2%80%9Cburn%20down%20all%20the%20forests.%E2%80%9D
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Great quote and boy does it resonate today as we descend into a deliberate induced social breakdown and embracement of witchcraft. We’ve had Plague Mark I and we have Gaia and Her passionate hatred of SUV’s. Prety soon thunderstorms shall cause panic.
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And apologies to telephone sanitisers and management consultants. It’s meant as humour and does not apply to actual persons.
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This was the B Ark from Golgafrincham. In a typical Douglas Adams twist, he reports that after the departure of the B Ark, the entire remaining population subsequently died from a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
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Yet more “Renewables” becoming “Disposables”…. Where are the protestors?
A capitalist corporation – Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, USA performed the successful explosives felling of almost 100, Mitsubishi 1000A Wind Turbines in the southwestern United States.
I just wonder why a protestor hadn’t glued themselves to a turbine mast so as to save their green monument from destruction.
If you like watching explosions then you will enjoy the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkQ0B1AuQpU
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also reported on 11 Jun 2021
Ninety 1 MegaW units done in a manner permitting the Wind Farm Owner to complete salvage of blades and drive-train elements from some of the wind turbines to provide replacement parts for similar Units they operate at other wind farm locations.
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All kinds of reasons to pull down windmills
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2022/10/27/wind-farm-getting-razed-for-expansion-of-coal-mine-n2615092
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If a wind turbine falls in a desert and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound.
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We all know how the buffalo were almost hunted to extinction in the U.S. Something similar almost happened to Texas Longhorn cattle as well.
The cattle the Longhorns developed from were brought to the U.S. from Spain around the time of Columbus, A herd was moved North from Mexico around 1700 into what is now Texas. The Mexicans were killed off by the Indians, and the herd scattered. Over the next hundred and more years, they became hardy, having to live off the land, and subsist, and became wild cattle, and proliferated out of sight in fact.
At the end of The Civil War, with Texas now a basket case, some returning soldiers saw a way to make money by rounding up these ‘free’ cattle and droving them North to the new rail heads, and selling them for a tidy profit. That’s where the term ‘cowboy’ originated from.
One ‘entrepreneur’ was Nelson Story, who ….. just kept going, and took his herd of 1000 (some say more) all the way almost to the Canadian border, and set them down in what is now Montana, and sold them for around $20 a head to the gold miners, more than 20 times what he paid them. This is an unbelievable story really, as all the way was through Indian Territory, before that, umm, problem was (sort of) solved.
All up, more than (wait for this) ….. a million of these Longhorns were rounded up, and moved North, and by 1920. there were probably only a few hundred head left. The U.S. Government stepped in and moved a small herd into Oklahoma and the recovery started, and a small number of families in Texas also worked at bringing the breed back.
Now, not endangered in the U.S. every State in Australia has registered herds of them as well, and one of them is in Queensland, and that prompted me to write a Post about it.
When you see this family, it gives you heart that the future looks good in some way.
You see them (Longhorns) in the old cowboy movies and never realise that they almost went the way of the buffalo.
Capricornia – Beef Central In Australia (Part Two)
Tony.
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So they were originally Spanish fighting bulls. Fits my thoughts on them as commercial beef. How many cowboys died on those horns?
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As we learn there has been a last minute deal for reparations for climate change we can perhaps suggest that many of the countries affected are authors of their own misfortune due to startling increases in population living in unsuitable places and using vast resources which affect the amount of water available
I am sure that developing countries will be glad to get rid of all the accumulated benefits of the industrial revolution which has provided the majority of the world with its best ever standard of living, its best health and its greatest life expectation . Of course the choice is theirs as to whether they want to throw all this away, but personally I think they ought to be paying us for the many benefits that we kick started.
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Our elites are extremely stupid people. Did anyone catch the hour long rant from the head of the IFA regarding Qata?
It is difficult to think of a more stupid place to hold this tournament. The bosses seem unaware that it is blazing hot and that all the trappings of a world cup including socialising and drinking can’t take place.
How did we manage to get so many idiots into positions of power in so many walks of life?
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The first word which comes to mind is “money.”
The second is “bribery.”
Which reminds me of the Texas power grid. It is illogical to have so many wind turbines in a state with so much natural gas and coal, with the politicians all right-of-center, without thinking of those two words.
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SCANDAL: Fake “Sack Dan Andrews Party” set up to steal preferences
The biggest scandal to hit the Daniel Andrews government so far has just gone nuclear.
So-called “preferences whisperer” Glenn Druery has been exposed in a video boasting that he set up the “Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews Party” as a front group with which to funnel votes away from One Nation, the United Australia Party and the Freedom Party:
Mr Druery explains in one video that he charged $55,000 to minor parties for optimising their preferences in order to win seats in Victoria’s upper house.
He said he helped set up the Sack Dan Andrews party to draw preference votes away from other parties.
“I could have called it the Pro Jet Trails Party, I could have called it the Port Arthur Conspiracy, I could have called it the Whacko Crazy Lunatics Party but I didn’t,” he said.
“If that gets a decent draw it’s going to completely usurp Clive [Palmer’s United Australia Party], One Nation and poor little Aidan [McLindon’s Freedom Party].”
In a fuller video he boasts how he runs his business to practically ensure that the minor parties elected are ‘his guys’, so the Labor Party can deal more easily with the upper house to push its agenda through.
https://xyz.net.au/2022/11/scandal-fake-sack-dan-andrews-party-set-up-to-steal-preferences/
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Druery has set up several political party names to exploit preference voting, for a fee paid by his clients.
Apparently other States have changed the rules to prohibit this still legal in Victoria scam.
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Mass Exodus Of Doctors And Nurses May Lead To Total Collapse Of The U.S. Medical System
“I’m a practicing ER nurse of 25 years. The amount of blood clots, strokes, cardiac events like myocarditis/pericarditis, Bell’s Palsy, shingles, etc. that I’ve seen since the vaccine rollout is more than I’ve ever seen in the previous 23.5 years combined.
I don’t know how anyone can’t be frightened by what we are seeing. When I try to discuss this with my coworkers, they turn their heads and look downcast, but will rarely speak.
I think it’s because like me, they feel betrayed for following the narrative, but unlike me they won’t open their eyes and speak out (they’re afraid for their careers and also are scared to death that their bodies are ticking time bombs). It’s easier to ignore than to acknowledge.”
Earlier this month (November 2022) a group of medical organizations that include the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association warned President Biden that hospital emergency departments were reaching a “breaking point” as they deal with influxes of patients seeking beds that are not available.
A report from commercial intelligence company Definitive Healthcare earlier this month stated that 334,000 physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other clinicians left the workforce in 2021.
Physicians experienced the largest loss, with 117,000 professionals leaving the workforce in 2021, followed by nurse practitioners, with 53,295 departures, and physician assistants, with 22,704 departures. About 22,000 physical therapists also left the healthcare workforce and 15,500 licensed clinical social workers, according to a report from commercial intelligence company Definitive Healthcare.
Among physician specialties, the biggest declines were seen within internal medicine, family practice and emergency medicine fields. “Like clinicians and registered nurses, providers in these three specialties frequently worked on the frontlines during the pandemic, risking exposure and facing many of the same pressures and stressors as described earlier,” the report authors wrote.
In 2021, 15,000 internal medicine doctors left the workforce, followed by 13,015 providers who left family practice and 10,874 who left clinical psychology.
https://www.technocracy.news/mass-exodus-of-doctors-and-nurses-may-lead-to-collapse-of-u-s-medical-system/
Who’ll be left to treat the sick and dying vaxxed?
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Sounds alarming. I wonder how many leave in a normal year?
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Exactly. Those numbers are meaningless without context.
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Beyond Censorship: Destroying Dissenters Through Cyberwarfare
Estimates suggest China has stolen between $200 billion and $600 billion in trade secrets and intellectual property every year for the last two decades. The end game of all this cyber espionage is to rule the world
The globalist cabal that seeks to “reset” the world intends to replicate the Chinese surveillance and control system worldwide, but whether they’ll actually allow the Chinese to rule their New World Order is up for debate
Cyberattacks and hacking have become a primary business, but cyberwarfare is also being used on the national level to destroy dissenters of the NWO. Right now, they’re primarily censoring inconvenient truths about all things relating to COVID, but in the future, they will silence discussion on any topic that threatens undemocratic rule by globalists.
Cyberwar is currently taking place on several levels. On the international level, China and Russia in particular have become known for their hacking skills. As reported by “Full Measure,” corporate cybercrime around the world is now costing $940 billion each year, and that cost is only going up.
However, in the end, lies cannot stand up to the truth, which is precisely why deep state organizations such as the International Grand Committee on Disinformation13 (IGCD) and the Centers for Countering Digital Hate14 (CCDH) are working overtime to harmonize laws across the democratic world to censor and eliminate all counternarratives — and to employ more aggressive warfare tactics when that doesn’t work.
Currently, it’s primarily about silencing questions and inconvenient truths about all things relating to COVID, but in the future, such laws will allow them to silence discussion on any topic that threatens undemocratic rule by globalists.
https://www.technocracy.news/beyond-censorship-destroying-dissenters-through-cyberwarfare/
Video on the issue:
https://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/cyber-wars
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Really warm oceans off Australia !!
Oh No !! This is a climate emergency !!
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Oh wait there… this us not now… this is ages ago, well before we were driving V8 Holdens and Fords. !
https://notrickszone.com/2022/11/17/new-study-finds-australian-sea-temperatures-multiple-degrees-warmer-than-today-during-the-last-glacial/
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SST reached 5 to 7°C from 60,000 to 30,000 BP.
That is interesting, if not CO2 then what caused this anomaly?
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El Gordo, pay no attention to that bright object in the sky
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Solar Forcing seems to be the main driver.
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Looking at the original paper (to see the charts) there is a sharp drop in SST at 42,000 BP and also the LGM is clearly shown.
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Does this sound familiar?
“I have my shoulder to the wheel,
my nose to the grindstone,
I’ve put my best foot forward,
I’ve put my back into it,
I’m gritting my teeth,
Now I find I can’t do any work in this position!”
From https://www.hcvc.com.au/forum/OldTruck/18066-commer-knocker-truck
And check the advice on “collectables” a few posts down!
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President Macron yesterday at the APEC summit: ‘We need a single global order’.
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He got it!
“I bet @EmmanuelMacron now regrets to have picked a fight with @GiorgiaMeloni”
.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EvaVlaar/status/1593915088942923777?cxt=HHwWgoCg6YLV3J4sAAAA
Via SDA
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And he is suppossed to be one of gaurdians of democracy…..
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“An Utterly-Ridiculous Level Of Scam”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247454
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“Guest Post: Speedbox – Postcard from Kislovodsk Redux #2”
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2022/11/21/guest-post-speedbox-postcard-from-kislovodsk-redux-2/#more-6314
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Thanks for that Ian. I enjoy those articles about Kislovodsk by Speedbox.
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Outrageous! FDA Backtracks During Trial and Now Claims ‘Not Taking Ivermectin for COVID-19’ was Merely a Recommendation
In December 2021, the FDA warned Americans not to use Ivermectin that “is intended for animals” to treat or prevent COVID-19.
This was a very controversial statement at the time since the FDA pushed the drug on African migrants back in 2015 and the drug was praised in several scientific journals.
There have been over 93 scientific studies on Ivermectin that showed significant benefits in treating COVID-19 in its early stages. The science is undeniable.
Despite this the US government condemned its use for COVID-19.
Fast forward to today…
During a recent hearing, government lawyers argued that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was only giving advice and it was not mandatory when it told people to “stop” taking Ivermectin for COVID-19.
The Nov. 1 hearing in federal court in Texas was for a complaint made by three doctors who claim the FDA’s statements on ivermectin, an anti-parasitic that has shown positive benefits in some trials against COVID-19, violated their constitutional right to practice medicine, Epoch Times reported.
“The cited statements were not directives,” said Isaac Belfer, one of the lawyers. “They were not mandatory. They were recommendations.
They said what parties should do. They said, for example, why you should not take ivermectin to treat COVID-19. They did not say you may not do it, you must not do it. They did not say it’s prohibited or it’s unlawful. They also did not say that doctors may not prescribe ivermectin.”
“They use informal language, that is true… It’s conversational but not mandatory,” he continued.
The FDA has approved Ivermectin for use in other vector-borne diseases, but not for COVID-19.
The Food and Drug Administration warned the public via its Twitter account that Ivermectin is only safe for use in horses but not for human intake against Covid-19.
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” the caption reads.
A second post stated: “Hold your horses, y’all. Ivermectin may be trending, but it still isn’t authorized or approved to treat COVID-19.”
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Musical tribute to your (I believe) Great Ocean Road by Japanese guitarist Rie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4fOyKGz3pQ
But will ordinary people be able to enjoy driving the car of their choice on it in the decades to come?
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They are purposefully dragging the chain on Nord Stream.
‘Investigators have found traces of explosives at the site of the damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines, confirming sabotage had taken place, a Swedish prosecutor said on Friday.’ (Reuters)
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They already know who did it but are refusing to say
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The US is implicated?
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My wife just received a MyGov letter titled “welcome to robo debt 2.0″….well not quite but another useless government department reaffirming exactly how useless they are, apparently not happy with the 5K I gave them under Robo debt V1 under V2 they claim I owe another 4.5K. Its total crap of course but its been two hours on the phone so far with 1hr 50 mins of that on hold.
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Project Veritas also back on Twitter!
Via SDA
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Love is Love – and may be universal (even dispite re lig ious thinking) however the same cant be said of sports administration thinking.
Remember back a few months when Manly administration dictated the playing strip of a game to include acknowledgement of the rainbow tribe? Some seven players said sorry not for us and got kicked into out of bounds. Well the universe has now provided the mirror (coincidentally) sporting image of this in Qatar.
Seems certain England players want to wear a rainbow armband but the event administration are not supporting it and these players may also find themselves kicked out of bounds. Curious and curiouser.
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It appears to be confirmed that virtue signalling has a life expectancy of around 24 hours when it is exposed to really really big money. All those England players who wanted to wear their choice of armband have taken the field….. sans the armband.
About the only positive out of all this is that Dan Wootton, a proud g ay man, has written a very good article.
Oh well on to the next love/equality/equity/fairness/extinction/CO2 cause.
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A Russian perspective on Ukraine/Russia, thanks to Speedbox and doverObeach
Guest Post: Speedbox – Postcard from Kislovodsk Redux #2
Mrs Speedbox has returned from Russia after a near five week visit with friends and family in Kislovodsk and nearby Pyatigorsk. Both are small cities (pop 140-150,000) in southern Russia only a short (1-1.5 hour) drive from Georgia.
The following may be of interest to Cats.
(a) There are two distinct schools of thought amongst Russians regarding the recent withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson. The first is that the withdrawal was a national embarrassment for the Russian Army and that Russian forces should push forward and capture most/all of Ukraine.
The alternate view is that land east of the Dneiper River is adequate and in any event, Ukraine forces would blow the Nova Kakhovka dam flooding Kherson city and much of the region. With the 35,000 Russian troops evacuated, those troops can now be utilised to defend the area east, or elsewhere, as required. With the recent mobilisation of a further 315,000 troops, the Russians see their hold on eastern Ukraine as consolidating.
Mrs Speedbox made the point that Russians love the game of chess – and whilst the withdrawal from Kherson was at face value disappointing, it should be viewed as just another move in something much larger.
(b) Russians are convinced that Zelensky is becoming ‘unhinged’ (or more unhinged) and his assertions that Russia is facing imminent defeat are without foundation. Russian television shows extensive war footage each day with some segments preceded by a claim from Zelensky which is followed by video footage that directly refutes that claim.
The recent issue of a missile landing in Poland and Zelensky’s declaration that it was fired from Russia caused scornful laughter. The average Russian knew that was absurd.
(c) Russians are baffled that anybody would place credence in western media assertions that Russia may use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Again, the average Russian knows that is absurd.
(d) During the period Mrs Speedbox was in Russia, there was no change in the ready availability of fresh produce, meat or other foodstuffs. Most other goods, including imported, remain available although some items are in short(ish) supply.
With regard to some western branded products, the explanation appears to be that many of those items are manufactured in China on behalf of western businesses and some of those goods are unofficially diverted to Russia despite the sanctions. Whilst Mrs Speedbox did note an increase in Chinese branded goods, Russian factories have cranked up to full production and new manufacturers have opened, some of which are producing outright copies of western brand goods.
Alternatively, wealthy (or entrepreneurial) Russians continue to travel abroad to Dubai, Istanbul, Vienna and elsewhere to buy products for personal use or re-sale. A close friend of Mrs Speedbox recently departed for Turkey carrying over $US40,000 to buy assorted products (much of which is pre-sold to local Russians). The friend is just one person in a widespread practice and this is not her first trip. Wholesalers or retailers in those countries must be rejoicing at the additional sales.
(e) The nearby town of Mineralnye Vody hosts the airport that services much of the region and that airport also accepts some international flights from Turkey, UAE and a handful of other countries. Inbound international passengers are often headed for the health resorts of Kislovodsk and the Russian government are building a new motorway from Mineralnye Vody to Kislovodsk.
Eagle eyed locals have noticed that the new motorway has included provision for automatic speed cameras. Shock!! This will decimate the time-honoured tradition of bribing the constabulary whenever you are detected speeding. I dare say the police are also less than impressed at the pending cut-off of their income stream. The motorway is not due for completion for several months but on completion, it is only a matter of time before the speed detection cameras are incapacitated and the status quo is restored. (My guess is the local coppers will be utterly bewildered at who may be responsible for the vandalism and will ‘step up’ to catch speeding motorists once again.)
(f) Electricity and gas are available without restriction or outage. The typical electricity cost for the average apartment is approximately $10-15 per month (yes, per month) and gas is a bit cheaper per month. Those are the unsubsidised amounts – pensioners receive a concession. Local government rates on a 3 bedroom apartment are about $150 per annum.
The biggest energy cost is winter central heating which is supplied via gas heated water from the various stations in the region. The cost is approximately $35 per month in mid-winter. All up, in the deep of the coldest/darkest winter, cumulative energy and heating costs are around $55-60 per month.
Unleaded petrol is about $1.00 per litre.
(g) News of a 19-year-old transexual named Brían Nguyen being crowned ‘Miss Greater Derry’ at a Miss America beauty pageant event made it all the way to Kislovodsk where it caused gales of laughter.
These outcomes serve to reinforce the perception that the west, led by the USA, are in terminal moral decline which, in turn, leads Russians to ask the obvious question: “why would we want to be like you?”.
In short, life for the residents in this southern region of Russia is unchanged. The stores are open and well stocked, energy remains cheap and plentiful, tourists continue to visit in large numbers and new retail businesses and manufacturing works are opening. Whilst military personnel losses are acknowledged and mourned, the cause is justified to eliminate open Ukrainian hostility towards Russians in the Donbas and establish a bulkhead against the broader NATO threat.
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