Monday Open Thread

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108 comments to Monday Open Thread

  • #
    MichaelinBrisbane

    All spic and span here and back to normal. About to settle to “holiday reading”.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I have started re-reading John Carswell The South Sea Bubble, which I do roughly every year. It was the first serious study of that event in 1720 (Published 1960. revised 1990’s and possibly re-issued and in Paperback since).

      Basically it is about a group of financial types who set out to make fortunes with a scheme supposedly of benefit to the UK. Willing politicians, either bribed or gullible, went along with the scam as did most of the public. There was a boom in the shares, helped by loose financing, followed by a crash and enquiry with a lot of coverups. What makes this different was that most of the guilty were punished (The Chancellor of the Exchequer was imprisoned in the Tower and many of the guilty lost money (as did the general public).

      There are obvious parallels with the current day and the State debt resulting wasn’t paid off until 2010. There is also quite a bit on the Mississippi bubble in France which was more outrageous with massive money printing and an even bigger disaster, followed by more State control and favouritism to the Aristocracy.
      If you can get hold of a copy then I recommend it as showing how entrenched certain practices started.

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    In the Christmas Eve thread there was a link to a thread to a tweet by

    @SierraSmith84

    Twitter now says this ac no longer exists. Two questions:

    Was Sierra controversial?

    Is the new and approved™ twitter still cancelling people?

    50

    • #
      John Connor II

      Account deleted. No explanation.
      Fortunately, as I usually do, I did save the video, just in case. 😁

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      • #
        John Connor II

        I ran some more advanced analytics which suggest she likely closed the account herself, which was only opened recently.
        Novelty wore off quickly…

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Well, the xmas bbq was nice. Cooked to perfection.
    Garlic butter crumbed chicken kiev, chilli beef sausages, Rosemary & mint lamb patties, free range eggs, onion, with xmas pud, hazelnut sauce, brandy cream and fresh raspberries, washed down by an excellent Tassie Joseph Chromy sparkling cuvee.
    Back to boring food I guess.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Monday entertainment

    https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rn442o6hzl1tw1yvr_720.mp4

    #1 – liquid nitrogen?

    50

  • #
    John Connor II

    Google Execs Declare “Code Red” Over Revolutionary New Chat Bot

    Three weeks ago and experimental chat bot called ChatGPT was unleashed on the world. When asked questions, it gives relevant, specific, simple answers – rather than spitting back a list of internet links. It can also generate ideas on its own – including business plans, Christmas gift suggestions, vacation ideas, and advice on how to tune neural network models using python scripts.

    Although ChatGPT still has plenty of room for improvement, its release led Google’s management to declare a “code red.” For Google, this was akin to pulling the fire alarm. Some fear the company may be approaching a moment that the biggest Silicon Valley outfits dread — the arrival of an enormous technological change that could upend the business.

    For more than 20 years, the Google search engine has served as the world’s primary gateway to the internet. But with a new kind of chat bot technology poised to reinvent or even replace traditional search engines, Google could face the first serious threat to its main search business. One Google executive described the efforts as make or break for Google’s future. -NYT

    https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/google-execs-declare-code-red-over-revolutionary-new-chat-bot

    Has the time come for Google to go quietly into the night?

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Goolag already uses AI but Goolag is a fundamentally evil corporation that distorts search results to suit its totalitarian Leftist agenda for the benefit of the Elites and promotes frauds such as the fraud of anthropogenic global warming and frauds associated with the deadly mismanagement of covid.

      Goolag is like Skynet from the terminator.

      ChatGPT has been designed to be open and honest and beneficial to mankind, unlike Goolag. However, it is concerning that Microsoft is now an investor in the company.

      It is a product of the parent company OpenAI. According to Wikipedia:

      OpenAI is an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company conducts research in the field of AI with the stated goal of promoting and developing friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity as a whole. The organization was founded in San Francisco in late 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others, who collectively pledged US$1 billion. Musk resigned from the board in February 2018 but remained a donor. In 2019, OpenAI LP received a US$1 billion investment from Microsoft. OpenAI is headquartered at the Pioneer Building in Mission District, San Francisco.

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    • #

      Unleashed on the World? Well it missed me as I was reading a book.

      30

  • #
    John Connor II

    Elon Musk Admits ‘Every Conspiracy Theory About Twitter Turned Out To Be True’

    Twitter CEO Elon Musk has admitted that “to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory about Twitter turned out to be true” and often “more true than people thought.”

    Following the bizarre statement released by the FBI, calling the Twitter Files reporting “misinformation” spread by “conspiracy theorists” with the “sole purpose of discrediting the agency,” Taibbi posted a new tranche of internal Twitter files revealing even more widespread government involvement in censorship than previously known — adding, “Why stop with one [agency]?”

    It’s not just so-called conspiracy theories about Twitter and social media that have turned out to be true. In the last few years the narrative pushed by the global elite has collapsed and “conspiracy theorists” have been proven right about a long list of topics.

    https://twitter.com/GretchenOO8/status/1606852465751629825

    I guess we’ll need more “conspiracy theories” as the old ones have all come true. 😎

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Joe Rogan’s Podcast Shows Horrifying Slave Conditions Used To Mine Materials Needed For Electric Cars

    Podcast giant Joe Rogan used his show this week to shine a light on some of the horrifying slave conditions that are used to mine the raw materials used to make electric car batteries and batteries for other devices like cell phones and laptops.

    Rogan brought on activist Siddharth Kara to talk about what happens at these mines in Africa, specifically in the Congo.

    “Throughout the whole history of slavery, I mean, going back centuries, never, never in human history, has there been more suffering that generated more profit, and was linked to the lives of more people around the world, ever, ever in history than what’s happening in the Congo right now,” Kara said. “And the reason I say that is this: the cobalt that’s being mined in the Congo is in every single lithium ion rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today, every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and crucially, every electric vehicle.”

    Kara noted that mining conditions in the country are so bad that people are forced at gunpoint to dig for these materials by hand.
    http://www.womensystems.com/2022/12/joe-rogans-podcast-shows-horrifying.html

    Saving the planet, by slavery.
    Or is that “slaving the planet” (c) JC2, 2022 😎

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    • #
      Dennis

      In the newspaper today thousands of dollars discount-rebate on EVs from government using all taxation revenue sources to subsidise wealthy people who can afford to buy or lease EV that most Australians cannot afford even if EV were as practical and convenient as internal combustion. engine vehicles.

      Meanwhile the public debt position continues to increase together with interest payment budget liability also of course taxpayer funded.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        Total Australian Government debt, fed, state, local, is $1.633 trillion or for those who prefer scientific notation $1.633 x 10^12.

        Over $60,000 for every man, woman and child.

        And few people, including the pretend conservative Liberal Party care.

        The money is being spent without restrictions of any kind.

        https://australiandebtclock.com.au/

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          I’m fiscally conservative and have always worried about such things but I’m beginning to wonder why.

          Who owns that paper?

          It can’t be other sovereign entities, all major nations are in debt, so China cannot claim their pound of flesh from us.

          If it is the Rothschilds et al can they foreclose? Without an army I doubt it.

          00

  • #
    David Maddison

    Excellent video of the Megavalanche mountain bike race in the French Alps.

    https://youtu.be/5vxIvPBKJp8

    For more info. about the race see:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megavalanche?wprov=sfla1

    20

  • #
    David Maddison

    Three years ago I did the following exercise.

    I added up the total capacity of coal power plants in Australia as listed in Wikipedia = 24,767MW for 20 plants so average size per plant of 1,238MW.

    There are also 94 visually and audio polluting wind subsidy farms of total nameplate capacity of 5,679MW (representing 2,506 stinking windmills). Now, since the capacity factor is only 30-35%, this means the true total windmill output is just 1,703-1,988MW or a mere 18MW to 21MW per subsidy farm.

    Another way to look at it is the total true capacity of all Australian wind subsidy farms is only 37% to 60% bigger than just ONE proper power station.

    It hardly seems worth destroying our economy for, does it?

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    • #
      Dennis

      Or destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, public forests and even territorial waters for unreliable, intermittent installations, plus back up equipment and transmission lines to main grid, and a second main grid for so called renewables.

      However, according to the latest opinion poll the Labor Federal Government is well liked and supported.

      It will be interesting to observe the electorate mood when the inevitable truth, inconvenient truth, is revealed.

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      • #

        Exactly. There is a brick wall and the people are hurtling towards it. Should be very interesting to see what happens when the people meet reality…………………..

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  • #
    David Maddison

    If the Vicdanistan Dictator makes it to 3000 days in power (which will happen on February 20), he gets a taxpayer-funded bronze statue of himself*.

    I wonder if, like Caligula, he will deify himself?

    *Not a joke, see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11432311/Dan-Andrews-immortalised-statue-serves-3-000-days-Victorian-Premier.html

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      David M:
      Perhaps make his horse a senior member of the Government?
      On second thoughts his ass is already exerting power.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    There have been claims that US Congressthing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has net assets of US$29 million, up from being a penniless bar tender just a few years ago before becoming a politician.

    Since socialist media “fact checkers” (sic) are going to great lengths to say that isn’t true, and since the “fact checkers” frequently lie or distort the truth, I wonder what the real truth is?

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    • #
      Dennis

      My guess is that she is being groomed for greatness and including donations for wealth creation and living a suitable impressive lifestyle to impress US voters with.

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    • #
      John Connor II

      The same applies for most US lollies. Go in poor, come out rich, yet they want to audit Trump’s tax returns, but never their own.
      It’s not the swamp you need to drain but the piggy trough.

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  • #
    Sambar

    Monday 26th of December, virtually a third of the way through summer and the temp has hit 37c . All weather reports are claiming a mini heat wave. Lots of advice about what to do in high temperatures. Cool change forecast for Thursday. We have had NO SUMMER to date here in North Central Victoria. So now a “heat wave” is three days of spot on average December temperature. I need to check on my elderly neighbours, oh wait, they are all younger than me. I need to drink water, hell even my dog is smart enough to know that, I need to seek shade and not exercise. Once again I have figured out that the bloody dog just knows this without government advice. I might try and get him a job as a public servant, he seems to have all the answers!

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    • #
      red edwards

      He’ll fail the IQ test – too smart. . .

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      • #
        John Connor II

        He’ll fail the IQ test – too smart. . .

        What does the average politician get on an IQ test?

        Drool.🤣

        100

        • #
          robert rosicka

          I agree John but they seem to be smart enough to get away with anything at all by blaming others , while there is no skill involved in doing that you have to admit they are smart enough to know they will get away wit it .

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          • #
            John Connor II

            We should be the ones knowing everything about the government, not the other way around.
            We are private citizens, they are public servants.
            We pay them in the form of insanely high taxes, yet they treat us like potential criminals who need to be monitored 24/7.
            Why accept that?

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    • #
      Dennis

      Surely by now after years of evening television news broadcasting hottest day/week/month/year and other scare stories including so many climate emergencies Australians would now remain indoors once the outside temperature reaches 25 degC.

      sarc.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Your comment reminded me of a January in the 1970s driving in a V8 petrol engine International truck with a bin on the tray to collect wheat seed for planting, the engine protruded into the passenger cabin with a thin steel covering, and the cabin was not air conditioned.

      The driving back to the farm temperature on a sunny hazy no breezes day was well over 40 degC when we stopped at a tiny town pub and gulped down lemonade with ice and a slice of lemon to cool down momentarily.

      During the early 2000s I drove in my 4WD after Christmas from Gippsland Victoria to Ballarat and next day to Adelaide, after a couple of days to Broken Hill and every day well over 40 degC and overnight still hot.

      Welcome to Australia.

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    • #
      another ian

      Seems BOM is having a high temperature alert (multiple warnings) of a heatwave in Tas – where the temperature was 26 degrees yesterday

      50

    • #
      another ian

      Have you signed your dog up as a member of The Union of Concerned Scientists like Anthony Watts did?

      50

  • #
    John Connor II

    Sweden’s New Pediatric Treatment Guidelines Ditch ‘Gender-Affirming’ Medication For Psychotherapy

    Sweden published new treatment guidelines that abandon the model of care that “affirms” a child’s chosen transgender identity with medication.

    The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) published new treatment guidelines for youth with gender dysphoria last week that explicitly instruct medical providers that psychosocial support should be the first line of treatment. The updated guidelines follow a 2021 policy change that jettisoned the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoric youth, outside of a clinical research setting.

    “Psychosocial support that helps the young person live with the body’s pubertal development without medication needs to be the first option when choosing care measures,” the guidelines read, according to the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine.

    The NBHW “deems that the risks of puberty suppressing treatment with GnRH-analogues and gender-affirming hormonal treatment currently outweigh the possible benefits, and that the treatments should be offered only in exceptional cases.”

    Sweden seemed to dismiss the West’s preference for “gender identity” ideology, a set of beliefs that are not recognized by science, for gender dysphoria, a well-documented psychiatric condition.

    “The NBHW still considers that gender dysphoria rather than gender identity should determine access to care and treatment,” the report said.

    http://www.madnesshub.com/2022/12/swedens-new-pediatric-treatment.html

    Common sense, sanity and reality are making a comeback! 😁

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    • #
      Dennis

      I sincerely hope so.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Excellent news.

      But in Australia huge numbers of children are still being hormonally and surgically mutilated to “cure” their “gender dysphoria”.

      Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for a girl to like climbing trees and doing other high-risk stereotypical male behaviours. She might be considered a “tomboy” but would typically grow out of it to be a happy, healthy adult woman and wife and mother. Similarly, a boy might engage in some stereotypical female behaviours and might either grow up to be a normal heterosexual male or possibly homosexual.

      At no point was it ever consider that such children should be hormally mutilated, sterilised and surgically mutilated. They were allowed to grow up and develop and become happy, healthy adults.

      Now, a typically woke Leftist parent or teacher sees non-stereotypical behaviour and the child is immediately declared to be “trans” and started on puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries.

      Socialist media censorship covers up the huge number of stories of transgender regret.

      When you think about it, it’s the the Left who are mostly behind this nonsense who are the ones that hold extreme stereotypical views of gender. They are the ones behind saying girls can’t climb trees and boys can’t play with dolls because that makes them “trans”. A typical conservative will just let the child grow put of such a phase

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      • #
        John Connor II

        Having seen the very graphic uncensored photos of reassignment surgery and the realities afterwards (which I deliberately have NOT posted here, and would probably be modded anyway), one can only hope “sanity will be restored as soon as possible”, but the global agenda of destroying “normality” and relationships is the BIG problem, but that is just one part of the real agenda.
        An entire generation embracing this trans fad is being sentenced to a living nightmare which will begin once they wake up to the reality of their choices.

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        • #
          David Maddison

          What is particularly horrible is seeing Leftoid parents who decide one or more of their children are “trans” and then start “transitioning” them and treat them and display them as a status symbol like some sort of exotic pet.

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  • #
    Leo G

    Best wish from the Sydney Morning Herald today (parroting AP):

    Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world? …

    Experts say there’s no inherent biological reason the virus has to become milder over time.
    “Much of the mildness we’ve experienced over the past six to 12 months in many parts of the world has been due to accumulated immunity either through vaccination or infection, not because the virus has changed” in severity
    In China, most people have never been exposed to the coronavirus. China’s vaccines rely on an older technology producing fewer antibodies than messenger RNA vaccines.

    However, recent scientific papers seem to contradict that view.

    Previous variants of SARS-CoV-2 infection affected predominantly the lower respiratory tract, but the Omicron variant affects predominantly the upper airways.

    Clearly, this suggests that the recent milder symptoms are largely due to changes in the virus.

    Let’s hope the new year heralds a more effective treatment for media fearmongering.

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Happy Boxing Day! Against all odds (climate science is VERY odd) another beautiful calm, sunny, pleasantly warm (25 C) day by the beach. Families & children having fun in the surf, bbq aromas wafting, laughter, the rumble of thunder inland, gentle breeze, pohutukawa trees 🌺

    The sea level hasn’t changed in 61 years… it’s been hotter, and it’s been colder… sometimes we’d get ex-cyclones passing by… this year we’ve got a big happy high going nowhere… brother & sister (both now mid-north coast NSW) say it’s cool & wet, aww… another thing climate science got wrong ❌

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    • #
      Dennis

      Not where I live, Boxing Day here is a perfect bright cloudless sunny day and according to my 4WD temperature gauge 27 degC, but also our natural air conditioning sea breeze is blowing gently.

      But it does make a pleasant change to warmth and discarding the track suit top.

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    • #
      el+gordo

      Jennifer Marohasy has something to say on disagreeable behaviour during the Festive Season, also the GBR is fully recovered.

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/25/being-disagreeable-at-christmas/

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        Long live ‘disagreeable behaviour’, in a sceptically tactful way, of course. Thankfully all my rellies live across the ditch now – a free [radical] agent at last, no more Catastrophic Christmas Calamities – phew! Peace at last.

        Did Charlie make a charlie of himself on his first Christmas message as King Charlie?

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        • #
          PeterPetrum

          No, he did not. I thought he would be a disaster but I have to admit that, so far, he has been the very model of a modern British Monarch. His speech was measured, respectful and heartfelt. Well done.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Died Suddenly: Beloved Baby Chimp Kucheza Found Dead In Mother’s Arms Five Weeks After Video Reunion With Mother Went Viral

    The “Covid” Vaccine Administered At Sedgwick County Zoo Is Called “Zoetis;” Was It The Cause?

    I was on the phone with Mark Crispin Miller when the shattering news came through, that the five week old baby chimp Kucheza was found dead in his grieving mother’s arms at a Kansas Zoo.

    Is There A Pattern Of Zoo Animals Dying Suddenly Recently?

    First, I asked Mark if he thought I should report on this, and he said “yes.”

    I was thinking it was simply too traumatic, and it’s Christmas tomorrow.

    Mark pointed out this is a war-front, and one that he and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had worked on. “Bobby really wanted to include the animals’ stories in the died suddenly project,” Mark said.

    We began to talk about “vaccines” and zoo animals, and it turned out Mark had documented the many, many deaths of post-Covid vaccinated Zoo animals as well as race horses.

    https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/died-suddenly-beloved-baby-chimp

    Well now… if we start focussing on the vaxxed zoo animals we can eliminate the lame excuses applied to humans, like alcohol, smoking, obesity, lockdowns, delayed medical treatments, referees whistles etc as zoo animals are very tightly controlled.
    I wonder if the vets are baffled too. 😎

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Dr.Sucharit Bhakdi: Why ALL mRNA ‘Vaccines’ Will Cause Harm

    Dr. Michael Yeadon: This is a really serious immunology lesson from Sucharit Bhakdi, explaining why all mRNA injections will unavoidably be toxic.

    Forget the word “vaccine”. Whatever you call it, causing the body to express NON-SELF PROTEINS will automatically cause autoimmune attack on your own tissues.
    Why? Because your immune system is trained from before birth to recognise as foreign anything that is NOT self.

    You actually do make T-cells directed against everything, including self, but in a crucial development step, those self-recognising T-cells are turned off, leaving those able to recognise anything else as foreign and to kill it.

    That’s in brief how you keep you safe from foreign threats. Those threats arise from two basic routes:

    1. Infection.
    2. Malfunction such as leads to cancer.
    3. Some injurious situations like cigarette smoking can give rise to chemically-permanent alterations in long-lived structural proteins.

    If you’re subject to an injection with messenger RNA (mRNA) coding for something that’s foreign, your cells which take it up & express that foreign protein will trigger a vigorous attack upon the cells and tissues doing the expressing.
    Doesn’t need to be inherently toxic, such as spike protein, though it’ll be even worse if so.

    https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/drsucharit-bhakdi-why-all-mrna-vaccines

    Direct video link:
    https://sp.rmbl.ws/s8/2/c/J/t/y/cJtyh.gaa.mp4

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  • #
    John Connor II

    A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate

    Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.

    A startup claims it has launched weather balloons that may have released reflective sulfur particles in the stratosphere, potentially crossing a controversial barrier in the field of solar geoengineering.

    Geoengineering refers to deliberate efforts to manipulate the climate by reflecting more sunlight back into space, mimicking a natural process that occurs in the aftermath of large volcanic eruptions. In theory, spraying sulfur and similar particles in sufficient quantities could potentially ease global warming.

    It’s not technically difficult to release such compounds into the stratosphere. But scientists have mostly (though not entirely) refrained from carrying out even small-scale outdoor experiments. And it’s not clear that any have yet injected materials into that specific layer of the atmosphere in the context of geoengineering-related research.

    That’s in part because it’s highly controversial. Little is known about the real-world effect of such deliberate interventions at large scales, but they could have dangerous side effects. The impacts could also be worse in some regions than others, which could provoke geopolitical conflicts.

    Some researchers who have long studied the technology are deeply troubled that the company, Make Sunsets, appears to have moved forward with launches from a site in Mexico without any public engagement or scientific scrutiny. It’s already attempting to sell “cooling credits” for future balloon flights that could carry larger payloads.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startup-says-its-begun-releasing-particles-into-the-atmosphere-in-an-effort-to-tweak-the-climate/

    The ramifications of such mindless climate alarmist driven idiocy could be profound.
    A very very bad idea.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    New Study Reveals That Caffeine Can Significantly Improve Your Athletic Performance

    New research supports the use of caffeine as a performance-enhancing aid by demonstrating that caffeine supplementation can reduce sprint time in the 100-meter dash.

    In the high-stakes world of international sports, even the slightest advantage can make all the difference in an athlete’s performance. As a result, athletes often turn to training methods and performance-enhancing aids to give them a competitive edge.

    Caffeine, a stimulant that affects the nervous system, is a popular choice among athletes as a performance-enhancing aid. In fact, World Athletics (formerly known as the International Association of Athletics Federations) has recognized caffeine as an ergogenic aid in a consensus statement on nutritional strategy for athletics.

    However, owing to the absence of research on caffeine’s effects on sprint performance, the recommendation is reflective of evidence from other anaerobic sports rather than sprint running in athletics, like the 100-m sprint event.

    The researchers also found that the mean sprint velocity for the 0–10 m and 10–20 m splits was significantly higher in the athletes who received caffeine. Moreover, no significant difference was seen in the sprint time for the last 40 meters of the sprint, despite the shortening of the sprint time in the first 60 meters. Together, these observations suggest that the caffeine supplementation provided more explosive acceleration to the sprinters in the early stage of the race.

    https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/9900/Acute_Effect_of_Caffeine_Supplementation_on_100_m.136.aspx

    Wow! Who’d have thought caffeine could do that! Amazing! /sarc
    “Explosive acceleration” – know it well, very very well. The amount of gym equipment I broke…🤣
    If ya ain’t twitchin’, it ain’t gym time was my motto back in the day. 😉
    Now, for some unexplained reason, caffeine has little effect on me and it’s not due to frequent consumption downregulation.

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Hey?!
    A boomerish friend, experienced accountant, recently took a corporate job.
    In her evaluation she had the highest case clearance rate …
    but was knocked for over aggressive communication due to using initial CAPS AND punctuation?!

    And using you instead of u can be construed as intimidation.
    As does complete accurate spelling generally.

    has any 1 herd of this
    if u have herd about this
    do u have furthr info

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      James Murphy

      People who use “u”, “thks”, “pls”, etc, in emails that are supposed to be somewhat official, bug me a bit.
      Back when predictive text was not around, these abbreviations were ok for sending an sms, but now, I see no reason except laziness and perhaps a lack of understanding of the English language. Yes, English evolves, and that’s normal, but really, this isn’t evolved English, it’s devolved.

      There was a fake story about the usual suspects being offended by the use of the “thumbs up” emoji. Like a lot of parody news these days, it is uncomfortably believable.

      There’s also the use of very simplified language, like “heat dome, “bomb cyclone”, “long gun”, “polar vortex”, as well as the trend of online articles published by the likes of the ABC with titles ending in “here’s what we know”. To me this indicates how stupid the populace has become, or, perhaps more accurately, evidence that many organisations think the populace is very dumb.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        Capitalisation just needs a jab of the left pinkie. Why do people on forums espousing their firmly held beliefs which, one assumes, are trying to win over others [why else do you post?] deliberately show themselves as illiterate?

        They aren’t, but why the persona? I’m a tradesman, not an English major, but try my best not to belittle myself.

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        • #
          James Murphy

          I don’t understand this response… perhaps because I am illiterate…?
          I never claimed to be an expert at written English, I just expressed frustration at what I see as laziness with a dash of English-as-a-second-language (because in my line of work, those that use such abbreviations mentioned in the original post are not native English speakers)
          Does it keep me up at night? No.
          Do I make mistakes? Yes.

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      • #
        Mike Jonas

        Anyone using “Thks” or “Thx” instead of “tq” should be sacked immediately. What a terrible crime to waste a letter or – shock horror – two.

        Actually, language is an evolving beast. U, thx and pls are just some of the latest additions to anon, app, blog, cf, diss, email, etc, goodbye or bye, laser, lb, ok, oz, phone, pin, radar, rd, scuba, sim, sonar, taser, vlog, vs, Xmas – etc etc. etc. Some stick, some don’t.

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        • #
          TdeF

          All because men are not taught to type. When the typewriter was rare and expensive, men were private secretaries and only men typed. It was all deemed far too complex and mechanical for women who studied cooking and home duties.

          Then when women learned, men vanished as private secretaries and typists. That persists. It is really odd to see grown men out picking out letters with one finger on each hand. For decades. Just a few hours of practice and this would not be necessary but they will spend a lifetime incompetent as typists, because they are men and typing is still women’s work. I can think of no other explanation.

          The most annoying laziness though is the use of abbreviations combined with upper and lower case. And you would not want to be so ignorant as to mix up your lol with LOL. We have been reinventing ancient Egyptian

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      KP

      She shouldn’t work there anyway, those sorts of people should be avoided. Its part of the falling standards in society generally, like asking for your name over the phone in a business call then using your christian name.

      That never makes a corporation seem any more friendly, its as fake as a politician’s smile. They get confused when I just give them a surname, or say to call me ‘Sir’.

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      Graeme#4

      When employed as a tech doc writer, always had arguments with others about the use of initial caps in headings, other than the first initial cap. When writing contracts, defined words and terms should I believe always use initial caps.

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    Richard

    A paper published in the National Library of Medicine shows that the Eye of Horus is remarkably similar to the area surrounding the pineal gland.

    The Eye of Horus is a symbol dating back to ancient Egypt and is associated with healing and protection. There are various interpretations about what it represents. In his documentary ‘Remembering the End of the World’, David Talbott associates the eye with a celestial alignment that occurred thousands of years ago, while others associate the eye with representing the waxing and waning phases of the Moon. However, one interpretation that caught my imagination is that the Eye could represent human anatomy. An intriguing paper titled ‘The Eye of Horus: The Connection Between Art, Medicine, and Mythology in Ancient Egypt’ published in the National Library of Medicine associates the eye with the anatomy of the human brain. The brain region surrounding the pineal gland shows a remarkable similarity to the Eye of Horus. Some have suggested that by creating the Eye of Horus based on the part of the brain that includes the pineal gland, the ancient Egyptians may have been communicating that in the pineal gland is hidden a mental or spiritual power. Adherents of theosophist Helena Blavatsky have suggested that the Third Eye is in fact the partially dormant pineal gland. The Third Eye is a spiritual concept associated with enlightenment and direct communication with a higher plane of existence. All this taps into what mystics refer to as “opening your Third Eye” which in turn gives you a powerful sense of understanding and awareness.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6649877/

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    Hanrahan

    Bloody Boxing Day leftovers. Had to have roast meat and BBQ sauce and ham and pineapple pizzas tonight.

    Bummer.

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    William Astley

    This is interesting. There is now overwhelming peer reviewed evidence/studies which support the assertion that Ivermectin is a highly effective and safe method to treat and prevent covid. Why did the FDA and the WH work to stop the use of Ivermectin?

    “The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) … (filed a motion, December 22, 2022, in) …. the federal district court …..against the FDA for its misleading statements against ivermectin.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/now/fda-misled-public-ivermectin-accountable-144900899.html?guccounter=1

    “… the FDA published multiple statements and sent letters to influential organizations to falsely disparage ivermectin, implying that it was not approved for treating Covid-19. Many, including courts and state medical boards, were misled by the FDA into thinking that its lack of approval for this treatment meant that ivermectin should not be used to treat Covid-19…

    ….The FDA “insisted and continues to insist on interfering with the prescription of this safe medication by physicians in treating Covid-19,” AAPS added.”

    “(the APPS) ….is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943. Its motto is omnia pro aegroto (everything for the patient).”

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    Much anger here in America due to widespread Christmas Eve and Day warnings and blackouts. Here is a good example:
    http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2022/12/unfortunate-vindication.html
    A good blog, just discovered.

    I just submitted an article to CFACT on this timely fiasco. Will post when it appears.

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      David Maddison

      I thought America’s power grid was in slightly better shape than Australia’s but apparently not.

      On the other hand, because of a milder climate we don’t have the huge winter heating loads you do but I guess we could have high summer cooling loads. However, the climate is cooling so not so much.

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    David Maddison

    How the “renewable” energy scam works. Copied from “robber” elsewhere, I didn’t write this, I’m Not sure who did, and it’s from a few years ago.

    The Wacky Wreckonomics of Windmills.

    Just imagine investing $450 million to build 75 towers near Ararat in Victoria with huge blades and 3.2 MW turbines on top with a total nameplate capacity of 240 MW. You are then allowed to connect these generators into the Australian electricity grid. Your contract with AEMO allows you to provide anywhere between zero and 240 MW into the grid with an average generation of 72 MW (a 30% capacity factor). You have no obligation to supply, so backup is someone else’s responsibility (and cost). And when you oversupply, someone else must forego income.

    You will be paid the average Victorian wholesale price that for 2017/18 has averaged $90/Mwhr, giving you an annual gross income of $57 million. Assume that the towers will be scrap after 20 years so you must write down your investment by $22.5 million each year. In addition let’s assume that operating costs – labour, repairs etc cost 3% of capital pa, or $13.5 million. So the annual net income is 57-22.5-13.5 = $21 million, for a 4.7% return on capital.

    Note that back in the “good old days” of 2015/16 when the Vic wholesale price was just $46/MWhr (comparable with wholesale electricity prices around the world) your annual net income would have been a loss of $6.9 million per year.

    But here’s where your wacky wreck the economy but “save the planet” governments step in. In addition to getting the market price, under the “renewable energy target” you get issued with certificates that retailers are obliged to buy, for a price that has averaged $80/MWhr, paid for by electricity consumers – a boost to your annual income by $50 million – what a generous government. That gives you annual net income of $71 million for an annual return on investment of 15.7%. Smart (foreign) investors, dumb governments.

    Meanwhile AEMO must cope with an increasingly unpredictable, unreliable, over capitalised electricity grid that results in amongst the highest electricity prices in the world.

    What a wacky world as we enter 2019 with resolutions from governments to give us an even more unreliable, uneconomic “utopia”.

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      David Maddison

      Actually, it was from “robber” who posts here as per my first sentence.

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      Graeme#4

      Great analysis David. I believe that if wind and solar had to compete fairly in an open market against coal and gas, they would rapidly go broke.

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    David Maddison

    “According to clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet, the type of totalitarianism that insists we only speak of catastrophe … arises from a collective psychosis when members of a community share an underlying anxiety and lack a common purpose. It is a form of group hypnosis that destroys an individuals’ ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically”.

    https://jennifermarohasy.com/2022/12/being-disagreeable-at-christmas/

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    David Maddison

    The media no longer want to program the news.

    They want to program YOU.

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    David Maddison

    Biden Maladministration celebrity transgender Rachel Levine speaks out about “climate change”.

    https://youtu.be/1uynSYZIc5Q 1.5mins

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    another ian

    Some VERY interesting reading in this morning’s “Covid and Coffee Newsletter”

    Beyond my pay grade (forwarded to Jo) but the introduction –

    “What if the clinical trials measured the wrong antibody? And what if the jabs are changing people’s immune response to produce the wrong antibodies? Then what? New studies.”

    “A new mystery is again baffling the experts, the same now-confounded experts who were 100% sure they knew how to get out of the pandemic. To set the holiday table, consider this random selection of very recent headlines, while keeping in mind that we’re two years into the miraculous-vaccine regime, and are now on the seventh booster shot.

    You’ll also note that all these stories appeared in local media, and not corporate media.”

    Just what we wanted to hear (/s)

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    another ian

    For your morning marvel

    “Claim: Aussie Renewables Could Have Prevented Higher Bills and Blackouts”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/26/claim-more-renewables-could-have-prevented-higher-bills-and-blackouts/

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    I came across a you tube channel yesterday- “Back to the science” by Dr Susan Oliver. And she is very good. At debunking every anti vax theory. She goes after them all:- myocarditis, IVM, sudden death, excess deaths, organisational capture, pfizer vaccine safety, John Campbell; and she is very good at it. She has the info at her fingertips to leave a lot of smoking ruins. The Smiling Assassin has a new face.
    She comes across as ‘just little me, and my little doggie’, but she has churned out 70 very targeted videos in the last year. When someone asked her on twitter if she was anything to do with Bill Gates funded UNSW, she said no, I have nothing to do with Sydney university, which if you know Sydney, is not an answer.
    She did a video on Big Pharma and regulatory bodies, using the argument that those bodies are just like the RTA, which can still fail you, even though you are paying them to get a driver’s licence. It’s not a great analogy – what happens if Bill Gates turns up to take the test? Or if it was really a meaningful analogy, the RTA would have to only test people from 20 companies, companies that could offer jobs, if someone wanted a change.
    There is a bit of sophistication about this. She claims poor little me, while accessing a lot of specifically detailed info. She’s listed as in UNSW’s ‘Centre for advanced macromolecular design’, and has a number of papers to her name, but none for 3 years.
    She’s good. There is a lot of solid information there, but I’m going with a smiling front.

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      another ian

      She’ll still have to explain

      “Well, here’s the medical facts that entirely explain why people with more shots get more covid.”

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    el+gordo

    The weather gods have been misbehaving, but they expect things to heat up in the years ahead.

    ‘While the persistence of a cooling La Niña event, now in its third year, means that 2022 will not be the warmest year on record, its cooling impact will be short-lived and not reverse the long-term warming trend caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.’ (WMO)

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      Harves

      Strange how their climate models can predict the temperature in 100 years time but can’t predict when and how many La Niña events will occur in the next 12 months. Apparently cooling is caused these La Niña events but they’ve never heard of El Niño.

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    el+gordo

    Scientists believe the cold air outbreak in North American may have been exacerbated by global warming.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-27/us-winter-storm-death-toll-rises-as-rescue-efforts-underway/101809882

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      KP

      “Some died while shovelling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time to medical crises.”

      The first myocarditis winter..

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    Graeme#4

    In a recent article in The Australian on the increased costs of charging EVs in Europe, the December domestic energy cost for Germany was A$0.68/kWh, compared to France (A$0.33) and Denmark (A$0.73). Germany’s domestic energy cost is expected to rise to more than A$0.80 in January.

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