Wednesday Open Thread

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119 comments to Wednesday Open Thread

  • #
    Hanrahan

    Pinch and a punch for first of the month.

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    • #
      Gee Aye

      You didn’t say no returns

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    • #
      crakar24

      A kick and a prick for being so quick

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Interesting origins of that phrase, Hanrahan.

      https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wellbeing/news/a1296/pinch-punch-white-rabbits-first-day-month/

      ‘PINCH PUNCH’
      This phrase is thought to date back to old England times when people believed in the existence of witches. The ‘pinch’ part refers to the pinching of the salt – as this kitchen ingredient was believed to weaken the witches when thrown at them. The ‘punch’ part was to banish the witch once and for all.

      Another explanation is that, when American president George Washington met local Native American tribes on the first day of each month, he would supply fruit punch with an added pinch of salt. This then became known as ‘pinch and punch on the first of the month’.

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      • #
        Leo G

        Another explanation …

        In Early-Modern English times Pinch and Punch were characters who inflicted harm. Punch from PunchInello, and Pinch a Punch-like character, used for instance by Shakespeare in A Comedy of Errors.
        The connection with the “first of the month” in the sense of a new moon, lies in superstition beliefs from antiquity (eg the Mantichore, from Persian myth- a creature which killed without warning) that each month brings new threats.

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    • #
      Anto

      Damn it! I can’t get you back, til Christmas lunch!

      00

    • #
      John Hultquist

      If this routine made it to the USA, I missed it.

      10

  • #
    el+gordo

    BoM is firm on a moderate strength El Nino by winter, but I can’t see it.

    ‘The Australia Bureau of Meteorology updated their ENSO forecast earlier today which more aggressively projects a moderate strength El Nino by JUN/JUL 2023. Other forecast models are not as aggressive but generally agree on weak El Nino by June using the NOAA El Nino Nino34 SSTA threshold.

    ‘Despite the more aggressive El Nino projections for mid-year, the southern oscillation index (SOI) for January 2023 remains with robust La Nina intensity.’ (Climate Impact Company)

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Low CO2 levels, as the earth now has, are unusual in earth’s history. It is normally much higher. We are fortunate that it is now increasing, almost entirely due to natural causes because had it continued to drop, all plant life would have died and we were heading for a mass extinction event.

    (I posted the following on the previous thread but near the end.)

    In the history of the world in the last 550 million years, the only other time CO2 was as low as it is now was about 300 million years ago. It was at about 2000ppm about 175 million years ago and has been dropping since then until recently when it has fortunately started to increase again.

    See figure 1 at:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280548391_Global_Warming_and_Climate_change_causes_impacts_and_mitigation#pf3

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  • #
    David Maddison

    How hot do you think the BoM will claim the freezing last January in Australia was?

    Third hottest on record?

    Or hottest eeevveeerrr?

    Remember, this is the first January under the Federal Labor regime and they have to say something that their political masters expect.

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    • #
      crakar24

      This situation always leaves the government in a bit of a conundrum, yes you are correct they will probably claim 5th hottest EVAH etc but this claim will mean their policies to correct the problem (read Paris agreement) etc are a complete failure.

      I suspect at some point soonish they will do the same as they have done with the Montreal agreement and claim the Ozone hole is getting smaller even though it is not and get the BOM to un fudge the numbers to claim it is cooling.

      This wont happen for a few more years of course, there is still plenty of dim wits out there to fleece.

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    • #
      Ronin

      Hottest evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

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    • #

      The moniker for BOM is Bureau of Mistakes which is why they get caught over them over and over.

      The FBI has been caught as peeping toms in the past which is why sometimes they are called Female Body Investigators

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    • #
      GlenM

      January was the coldest for over 20 years. That is acknowledged.

      00

  • #
    John Connor II

    Wednesday funny: the face of the vaxxed when they finally wake up and see the facts.

    https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rp9mxdIqig1w5pr9j.mp4

    💉 💉

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    • #
      crakar24

      That’s 98% of the people here on this blog, that’s a lot of cats 🙂

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      • #

        So glad that I am one of the 2% then. Although I have been vaccinated for prevention of Polio, Smallpox, Yellow Fever and many other diseases over my lifetime so far. Not for the ‘Rona though.

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    • #
      Strop

      You’ll have to explain to me how that’s actually funny.

      Please consider that many were coerced into getting vaccinated.

      Also, even for those who were pro vaccination (and perhaps even treated unvaccinated people like lepers) that a good many of them were lied to and trusted those who are meant to act in our interests.

      The situation is more on the sad side and a disgrace. The only silver lining, and it’s a very dulled silver, is that it should remind people that governments can’t be trusted and sadly neither can medical authorities.

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      • #
        John Hultquist

        silver lining
        Too much silver will turn you a dull ugly blue/gray (argyria); a tiny bit — maybe a silver spoon to stir your tea might be good for you. Copper kills things too.

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      • #
        crakar24

        I agree to a point, no one in the defence force or APS were coerced and yet 98% got vaxxed.

        People coming to work having lost all feeling in their left arm and leg after the first shot happily went off for the second and in some cases third.

        At some point you need to stop blaming someone else and need to start blaming yourself.

        Too many sheep

        01

  • #
    John Connor II

    Wednesday human stupidity: level 9

    https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rpbm2eAFNu1rkp3i3.mp4

    Groan.
    This is a metaphor for sooooo much…

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    • #
      Gob

      Presumably there’s another bridge further downstream which will have a similar arrangement devised to stop it being overwhelmed and swept away. Where’s the stupidity?

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      • #
        Skepticynic

        Where’s the stupidity?

        You’ve picked it up, why don’t you put it in a truck instead of dumping it back in the river where it’s only going to cause more problems down the line and probably have to be picked up again.
        It’s called passing the buck.

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        • #
          KP

          I just wish I could give you 50likes for that!

          Just unbelievable!

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          It will end up in the ocean.

          The beach I walk the dog is near the port and on the river mouth which both commercial and amateur fisherman frequent. I never see rubbish on the beach but WE have to wear the hair shirt and be lectured to eternally [and not allowed drinking straws].

          There are still things we can do however, if they aren’t banned already stainless hooks should be banned.

          10

  • #
    John Connor II

    It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives

    As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

    I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

    I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

    https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-scientific-community-admit-we-were-wrong-about-coivd-it-cost-lives-opinion-1776630

    I forgive you.
    Naahh, just kidding, I haven’t, and won’t. 😎

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      The guilty parties would get halfway (to renouncing their deeds) by wearing sandwich-boards stating, ‘Apologies, We Were Wrong’, while dressed in their sciency white lab-coats, for at least one climate cycle. There’d be no forgiveness from me, plus tomatoes and rotten vegetables would show up VERY WELL on their aforementioned white lab-coats [90% effective] just for a laugh, ha ha. Or do we bring back the stocks…

      Oops, I’m thinking aloud.

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    • #
      KP

      Meh- Irag has weapons of mass destruction, we must invade! It never changes! If you trust the Govt, or any of its departments, you will get exactly what you deserve…

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      • #
        Honk R Smith

        I was taught to prepare to fight Ivan because he was a communist.
        He stopped.
        Now I must prepare to fight him because he is Russian.*

        And now lots of the people running things resemble communists.
        Capitalist billionaires express communists sympathies.
        Trudeau and his EU compadres praise the CCP. And so do some Ozzies and Kiwis.
        And men get pregnant.
        I blame CERN.

        *(There were once 5000 Russian tanks in East Germany. Now there’s American tanks headed to Ukraine. I guess this means we won.)

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  • #
    John Connor II

    What Can We Learn From the Pfizer Whistleblowers?

    Even with all that we’ve been through, much of what goes on behind the scenes is hard to believe.

    In this series, I will discuss what can be learned from the (largely forgotten) whistleblowers in the pharmaceutical industry. Since the misconduct of the industry has persisted for decades, there is an enormous amount that can be learned from each of their testimonies. The focus will be upon the Pfizer’s whistleblowers who can tell us exactly what type of company Pfizer is behind the curtains and the work of one Pfizer Vice President who managed to do the impossible and waged a remarkable campaign against Pfizer that came to be known across America.

    One of my favorite authors who has worked to expose the misconduct within modern medicine, Peter C. Gøtzsche, has made the case that pharmaceutical companies follow all the same patterns that are observed in criminal enterprises (e.g., pushing addictive and harmful drugs on the populace, routinely buying off government officials etc.). In turn, quite a few of the references used to compile this series came from his book Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare.

    What Rost accomplished was nothing short of miraculous, and I do not believe there has been anyone else who has ever caused as much grief for Pfizer as he did. Much of what Rost saw twenty years ago is just as relevant now as it was then; the corporate culture of Pfizer is rotten to the core and it has been that way for a very long time. Rost dug up a lot of dirt on Pfizer, which even now, very few people know of. It is quite frankly astounding how well omertà is enforced in this industry and Rost is one of the few who truly broke it.

    https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/what-can-we-learn-from-the-pfizer

    Part 1 of an interesting read and expose of big pharma.
    Those of you, like me, that have worked in large national and multinational organisations will no doubt relate to the corporate mentality all too well…

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Catastrophic mutating event will strike world in two years, cyberattack experts fear

    Business leaders expect to soon be hit with a massive cyberattack holding devastating consequences described as ‘apocalyptic’, according to World Economic Forum.

    A catastrophic mutating cyber attack that could take down the whole of society, has left leaders of businesses around the world on tender hooks.

    A worrying majority of cyber leaders and cyber business leaders feel that geopolitical instability in places like Russia and Ukraine will encourage a huge attack in the next couple of years, according to the 2023 World Economic Forum.

    Countries are bracing themselves as a result, to sustain the impact from such a damaging cyber attack.

    Most recently Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama, warned of the growing danger of cybercrime, which could be worse than the societal damage of COVID-19, after Albania was hit by a debilitating attack.

    https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/catastrophic-mutating-event-strike-world-29074421

    As hackers pivot to Asia Pacific, Australia urged to up defences

    Cyberattackers are targeting the Asia-Pacific region to expand their crimes, prompting calls for Australia to do more to safeguard critical infrastructure and businesses from costly extortion.

    IBM security chiefs have warned that hackers, who have traditionally focused on North America, have pivoted towards Asia over the past two years, resulting in the average cost of data breaches soaring to record highs as they target supply chains, limit access to key services and increase the cost of goods.

    According to IBM’s latest figures, the US had the highest average total cost of a data breach last year, with each breach costing a record $US9.4 million ($13.3 million). The average cost of a data breach in Australia reached to $US2.9 million over the same period, making it the 11th most costly country in the world for a cyberattack.

    According to the tech giant’s data, last year Asia Pacific became the most targeted region for the first time since records have been kept, with Australia, Japan and India the hardest hit.

    The rise in sophisticated cyberattacks across the region have prompted the company to call for governments to do more to protect businesses and consumers.

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/as-hackers-pivot-to-asia-pacific-australia-urged-to-up-defences-20230201-p5ch1l.html

    Got cash? 😎

    I wonder how our Oz cyberattack unit is faring with the Medicare breach. Any “Russian” hackers been arrested yet?
    It’s been months…

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Novel adaptation for existing furnaces could reduce steelmaking emissions by 90%

    Researchers from the University of Birmingham have designed a novel adaptation for existing iron and steel furnaces that could reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the steelmaking industry by nearly 90%.

    This radical reduction is achieved through a ‘closed loop’ carbon recycling system, which could replace 90% of the coke typically used in current blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace systems and produce oxygen as a biproduct.

    Devised by Professor Yulong Ding and Dr Harriet Kildahl from the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering, the system is detailed in a paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, which shows that if implemented in the UK alone, it could deliver cost savings of £1.28 billion in five years while reducing overall UK emissions by 2.9%.

    Professor Ding said: “Current proposals for decarbonising the steel sector rely on phasing out existing plants and introducing electric arc furnaces powered by renewable electricity. However, an electric arc furnace plant can cost over £1 billion to build, which makes this switch economically unfeasible in the time remaining to meet the Paris Climate Agreement.

    “The system we are proposing can be retrofitted to existing plants, which reduces the risk of stranded assets, and both the reduction in CO2, and the cost savings, are seen immediately.”

    The novel recycling system captures the CO2 from the top gas and reduces it to CO using a crystalline mineral lattice known as a ‘perovskite’ material. The material was chosen as the reactions take place within a range of temperatures (700-800°C) that can be powered by renewable energy sources and/or generated using heat exchangers connected to the blast furnaces.

    https://www.pesmedia.com/novel-adaptation-for-existing-furnaces-could-reduce-steelmaking-emissions-by-90

    90% reduction?
    Makes you realise how inefficient things are now and how much of the “climate emergency” can be eliminated by efficiency improvements, rather than by destroying civilisation by BS renewables…

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    • #
      Memoryvault

      Electric arc smelting of steel was patented around 2000 in WA. A pilot plant was built just down the road from the Kwinana Power Station. The process works, but even at 2000’s electricity prices it was hopelessly expensive.

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    • #
      Gob

      This is serious mataeotechny proceeding from the axiom that carbon dioxide is evil; it seems our only hope is for the messiah to return with a phalanx of archangels who will smite all the absurd technologies which are threatening to suffocate us.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Study links turbo Mad Cow disease to jabs

    A new study published last week in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, titled “Emergence of a New Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: 26 Cases of the Human Version of Mad-Cow Disease, Days After a COVID-19 Injection.”

    The study researchers, which posthumously included famous virologist Luc Montagnier, cited three previous studies from 2020 and 2021 finding a link between the mRNA jabs and prion diseases like Mad Cow. They explained that the spike itself has prions which are reproduced in the jabs — all confirmed in research done by others:

    [I]t had been demonstrated clinically that the prion region of the SARS-CoV-2 injectables can produce prion behavior in their spike proteins… It has been suggested that there is a [misfolded] prion region in all spike proteins produced by the SARS-CoV-2 virus… [MIT researchers in 2021] identified a “GxxxG signature motif” within the coding sequence for the mRNA portion of the injections that they say increases the risk that misfolding will occur…[similar to] the bovine prion linked to Mad Cow Disease [which] also has a spectacular sequence of ten GxxxGs in a row.

    It’s not JUST Mad Cow. It’s a new TYPE of Mad Cow disease. The researchers call it the “spontaneous emergence of a new, rapidly developing form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.” I call it Turbo Mad Cow.

    Mortality is near 100%. All but one patient had given up the ghost by the time the study published this month.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367167725_Emergence_of_a_New_Creutzfeldt-Jakob_Disease_26_Cases_of_the_Human_Version_of_Mad-Cow_Disease_Days_After_a_COVID-19_Injection

    A pair of cows were talking in the field. One says, “Have you heard about the mad cow disease that’s going around?”
    “Yeah,” the other cow says. “Makes me glad I’m a penguin.”

    Also #5.😆

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    • #
      another ian

      Pfizzer and Co will be in full whitewash mode

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    • #
      Broadie

      Catch 22

      Kill off the herd to save the herd.

      English expert chap was caught in the same conundrum during covid. The lockdown he promoted for health reasons actually barred him from his healthy relationship with another man’s wife.

      30

    • #
      Earl

      Young bull and old bull standing on a hill over looking a paddock of heifers.
      “Let’s run down and knock a few off” suggests the young bull.
      “Let’s walk down and do them all” responds the old bull.

      20

    • #

      I wonder most cases (20 out of 26) happen in France, beside one in Israel, Belgium,Switzerland and 3 in USA.
      And most are based on BionTech/Pfizer…

      20

  • #
    Bones

    Does anyone here know what the Australian Indigenous cultural position (no pun intended) is on LGBTalphabet people in their community.There seem to be a lot of activists with the same same view on partnerships.I did ask a local about this and he didn’t know,then got all huffy.It doesn’t look like I’m allowed to improve my knowledge.Maybe they just use it as an extra stick to bash us with.

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    • #
      TdeF

      No. I have no idea even how they were gifted alphabetic letters? We have always had weird non conformists and they are as welcome as anyone else, but weirdo rights is an entirely new idea. Personal pronoun choices? Why are non conformists now subsidized by everyone else?

      As for what the aboriginal communities in the bush think of transvestites, I have no idea. I don’t think they care in the desert. Perhaps watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Or Sunday Too Far Away. I doubt the shearers would have much time for the Alphabet people. It’s not a finely nuanced existence back of beyond.

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      • #

        It’s absolutely amazing just how many (supposedly) woke media outlets use the incorrect terminology for this.

        The full and correct terminology is LGBTQIA+

        That’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and other sexually or gender diverse.

        I wonder at the power play involved in which of those one letters of the first two got to come first, and then, hey ….. me too, me too, me too, me too.

        TonyfromOz No name. Out of fear of being cancelled.

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        • #
          TdeF

          It’s interesting that none of the letters are M and F. If we have to have a third door, lets use ?

          30

        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Hi Tony,
          You’re implying a “correct” set of letters for the LGBTQIR problem and presumably a reliable source.

          Is there one?

          My own understanding is that letters are made up by the local gay rights activists rather than by any non activist medical source.

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        • #
          b.nice

          I always though writing it as LGBTQWERTY made more sense.

          I will stick to M or F, (male or female), thank you !

          31

  • #
    TdeF

    What binds my interest with Woke, Racism presented as Anti Racism/BLM, Fascism presented as Anti-Fascism, Trans rights which remove rights from women, man made Global Warming both of which statements are demonstrably untrue, anti slavery which is 200 years too late and Africans and Arabs were the great slavers and the US defeated the Barbary pirates who preyed on white slaves, often from Ireland is a common thread.

    We are being told what to think, what is true, what we should do and why Pfizer is good for you and the virus was not made in China as the US exported its gain of function research. And that the Wuhan virus is not infectious, person to person as declared by the communist head of the WHO, the first non doctor to hold what is now a political position controlled by China.

    As I read the news it is a great battle between the people who would bring down every great aspect of Western democracy from the industrial revolution to equality to womens’ rights to workers’ rights to the presumption of innocence and the universal anti racism constitution. In the US they want to remove the right to carry arms, a right which does not exist elsewhere and precisely because many Americans fear their own governments. No one needs ‘the voice’. And Alcohol is poison to aborigines because it is. It is a medical and social requirement not a political question.

    To my utter amazement ‘The Age’ now runs Google advertising telling us to open our minds, not believe what we are told and question everything. I do. Which is why I cancelled my subscription to the Age after 42.5 years. The whole front page was the journalists view of the police, politics, human rights and had little correlation with either the actual news or an independent view. The Age made Pravda look independent. And the Greens care nothing for the planet. Opportunist Dr. Adam Bandt is a declared communist and admirer of Lenin. Neither his PhD nor this are mentioned in his CV. “Bandt described the Greens as a “bourgeois” party, but that supporting them might be the most effective strategy”

    While I write mainly on science topics, it is also amazing that extraordinary characters like J.K.Rowling or Donald Trump or our own Tony Abbott are vilified without mercy. And tragic Pell. A useless mumbling clearly geriatic crook like Biden and Family can get away with everything with the full support of the DOJ, FBI, Washington and Russia is the only villain while China is plainly preparing for world war, as Germany did under Hitler. WWII was no surprise. Everything was in writing. And Winston Churchill stood alone in calling them out but no one listened. We are in very dangerous waters now.

    There is this overwhelming public pillory of everyone who dares speaks out. Cardinal George Pell was jailed in solitary for over a year for crimes which even the Crown Prosecutor in the High Court could not show evidence or even argue were remotely possible. So the public rot is here too, especially in Chinese communist Victoria, the presumption of innocence or even the requirement for proof. Man Made Climate Change is not only unproven but can be proven wrong at every single step, but no one cares. Power Stations are blown up, mines are closed down, fracking is banned and our money is illegally taken by law without taxation.

    We need real leaders, not opportunists, people who have never done anything in their lives except take like Albanese and Andrews and Biden. Real leaders are shouted down, prosecuted and persecuted not least by the world press, the same press who find no fault in Xi, Biden, Soros, Pelosi, Schwab and the whole WEF.

    Man made Global Warming is just the tip of the coming iceberg. The fight between the truth and the fake press is only the start. The real fight is with the deep state, the real elites. And it all started with Universities where the number of administrators pushing Woke now exceeds students and staff combined. Which is why Professor Peter Ridd had to be publicly destroyed, even though he was right. And everyone involved knew it.

    The fight continues.

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    • #
      Honk R Smith

      “Man made Global Warming is just the tip of the coming iceberg.”
      🙂

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      • #
        TdeF

        Here in Melbourne it is 17C (63F) in mid summer. It used to be 100F every day. And we are told it is Global Warming (of a massive 1.5C or 3F). No, it is freezing. And those people who have correctly fitted the temperatures of the last 250 years show a rapid cooling of the planet. The evidence for Global Cooling is all around you.

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        • #
          Earl

          Here in Brisbane tonight Chnl 7 News “warned” that our heatwave conditions are going to continue tomorrow with Brisbane looking at 31degrees. Today we got to 35. We came up to Brissie in the early 90s and endured summer days of 40 with rain over night/early morning so that the day started steamy. 31 is not a heatwave.

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          • #
            TdeF

            And this in a world where cars, buses, trains, tractors, homes, offices are airconditioned the Weather bureau is endlessly beating the warming climate change drum. The people who built the place and the dams and the power stations could not imagine what wimps Australians would become. It’s hard to know whether the BOM is just sensationlizing their jobs or political activists pretending things are far worse or both. But it is a far cooler Australia than I remember from a time when no one worried about summer heat but both tolerated and enjoyed it.

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  • #
    another ian

    “Elite revolt: too many graduates spell trouble”

    The Spectator Australia 7th January 2023.

    https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/elite-revolt/

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  • #
    another ian

    And another thing

    Eric Newby (English travel writer and numerous other things) was an apprentice on a clipper ship in the last great grain race of wheat from Port Lincoln to UK about 1938 – 39.

    The ship was steel as were the 4 masts and rigging. The main masts were (IIRC) 196 feet from keel to tip.

    I’d suggest that the proponents of “Nut Zero” will have trouble mimicking that in wood and so better project the need for more less capable and slower ships for any imagined trading enterprises’

    Incidently the record was 83 days. They won that year in 93 days. And the cargo was about 4000 tons IIRC.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Cosmetics Brand Accused Of “Erasing Women” With Bearded Lipstick Ads

    Cosmetics company NYX Professional Makeup has received backlash on social media after featuring ads for a lipstick with bearded men.

    The company appears to be finding out that going woke eventually equates to going broke, as respondents accused them of “erasing women” with the ads for Smooth Whip lip cream.

    “Apparently you don’t need us as your customer base any longer. I’ll leave [your] product like you left me Tired of being marginalized!!!!!!” one women replied.

    Another responded “Not attractive at all… Doesn’t make me want to run out and buy your products EVER.”

    “…DOESNT matter what year it is dude. Men are men and women are women stop trying to erase us,” another women asserted.

    “You need to wake up. Stand up for your right as a woman,” another added, claiming “This is another example of men wanting to still be in control.”

    “I’m so turned off by these ads with men wearing lipstick,” another person wrote.

    “Not good for your company using a man what are you thinking boycotting,” another commented, while someone else bluntly responded “men should not wear makeup. This is gross.”

    Another woman responded “I’m not so much disgusted but confused, why just put a picture with a man wearing lipstick and not a woman too? How does this ad make me want to buy [your] product when I can’t relate to it … I get makeup is for everyone so why not?”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cosmetics-brand-accused-erasing-women-bearded-lipstick-ads

    The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
    – Frank Zappa

    Soon all these idiotic distractions like genders/transing/wokeness will stop as the real agenda hits home HARD…

    #5

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  • #
    Broadie

    Tim Blair having a bit of ‘Time Off’

    I had enjoyed Tim Blair’s and Andrew Bolt’s columns up to the point where Bolt began to preach the mainstream narrative. I believe he turned full WOMAR (Wise old man approaching retirement). I had previously thought I should contribute to the work they were doing on the Climate Debate and the History Wars and went the full deal even buying some of the Australian’s wine club offerings. No such allegiance since the quiet time, especially when they appeared silent about using experimental drugs on children and pregnant mothers.

    I am wondering if Tim took Andrew’s advice and at an age that is short of sixty is enjoying an early retirement.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    I rarely watch TV but turned on a random channel and got SBS and they had a program called “Incredible Canals”.

    They were talking about the hydroelectric plants on the Grand Canal d’Alsace which were at Kembs, Ottmarsheim and Fessenheim.

    In regard to the Kembs hydro power station https://structurae.net/en/structures/kembs-hydroelectric-power-plant/media which was built in 1932 It was mentioned that the turbine blades are scheduled for replacement every 60 years. They have been replaced once and won’t need replacing for another 30 years.

    It goes to show you the longevity of a proper power station as compared to the 15 year life of a windmill.

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    John Connor II

    Meat substitutes exposed as nutritional disaster – “meatless” alternatives found to contain “antinutrients” that hinder iron and zinc absorption

    Are you one of the millions who have switched to plant-based meat in search of a healthier lifestyle? Well, you might want to think twice before reaching for that veggie burger. A new study out of Sweden reveals that many popular meat substitutes are loaded with “antinutrients” that prevent the body from absorbing essential minerals like iron and zinc.

    The research, conducted by a team from the Chalmers University of Technology, analyzed 44 different meat substitutes sold in Sweden, including soy and pea protein products, tempeh, and mycoproteins. What they found was shocking: these meatless alternatives were chock-full of phytates, compounds that inhibit the absorption of minerals in the body.

    “Among these products, we saw a wide variation in nutritional content and how sustainable they can be from a health perspective. In general, the estimated absorption of iron and zinc from plant-based meat products was extremely low,” said lead author Cecilia Mayer Labba.

    Phytates, which are found naturally in beans and cereals, are known to bind to essential minerals like iron and zinc, making them impossible to absorb in the intestine. And unfortunately, this problem is exacerbated when proteins are extracted for use in meat substitutes.

    “Both iron and zinc also accumulate in protein extraction. This is why high levels are listed among the product’s ingredients, but the minerals are bound to phytates and cannot be absorbed and used by the body,” Mayer Labba explained.

    This is a massive concern, especially for women. Recent data from The Lancet shows that 1.2 billion pre-menopausal women worldwide are deficient in iron, zinc, or folate. And in Europe and Central Asia, 68% of reproductive-age, non-pregnant women have micronutrient deficiencies.

    “It is clear that when it comes to minerals in meat substitutes, the amount that is available for absorption by the body is a very important consideration. You cannot just look at the list of ingredients. Some of the products we studied are fortified with iron, but it is still inhibited by phytates,” said Ann-Sofie Sandberg, Professor of Food Technology at Chalmers.

    https://www.partybugs.com/en/shocking-expose-meat-substitutes-exposed-as-nutritional-disaster-meatless-alternatives-found-to-contain-antinutrients-that-hinder-iron-and-zinc-absorption/

    Iron and Zinc. Well there goes your sex drive, energy levels and muscle mass, leaving a weaker population. Just what the WEF want, coincidentally…

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      David Maddison

      plant-based meat

      It is false advertising to suggest that these substances are anything like meat or a substitute for it.

      Real meat comes from plants that are first eaten by domestic farm animals that convert them into meat for humans to consume.

      Trigger warning for vegans: ===>

      If we weren’t meant to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

      LoloLoLoL

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    another ian

    A note on parts from “Fairly Reliable Toyota”

    About two years and three months ago we put a new Toyota radiator in the 1998 HZJ 75 Landcruiser that is my retirement vehicle.

    About two years and two months ago that radiator split a core tube, dumped the water and cooked the engine. We got a replacement radiator, KYA on the engine.

    And two years and one month later the second radiator is also leaking from the core. And KYA again.

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      David Maddison

      Sorry to hear that Ian. I always thought Toyotas had very reliable components. No doubt you were running the correct corrosion inhibiting coolant. Is it worth buying a heavy duty aftermarket one?

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        another ian

        Yes.

        Supervised by diesel fitter son who has been doing station maintenance for a cattle major in the north so a Cruiser or 3 or 4

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          lyntonio

          Landcruiser diesels are rugged & strong, but have little tolerance to overheating. They cook easily.
          Oversize radiator is a must, as is coolant.
          I have fitted mine with low coolant level sensors connected to Murphy gauge, as well as “screamer” from household smoke detector.
          The screamer will alert you to say the least, highly effective in the bush.

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        Hanrahan

        Jap radiators are not good. I’ve replaced a few and always gone aftermarket.

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    KP

    “The United States has transferred military biological equipment from Ukraine to chemical and pharmacological sites in Poland and the Baltic States, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov said on Monday. “During the special military operation, Russian servicemen obtained more than 20,000 documents and reference and analytical materials; witnesses and participants in US military biological programs were questioned. The aforementioned materials confirm the Pentagon’s intention to create biological weapons components and test them on the population of Ukraine and other countries along the perimeter of our borders. Under pressure from the global community, Washington is changing its approaches towards organization of military biological activity, shifting the customer functions to purely civilian agencies – the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, and the Agency for International Development,” the official noted. This will enable the US administration to avoid criticism on international platforms and put the US Department of Defense and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency “out of harm’s way,” he added.

    We got some of those samples in Melbourne! I hope no-one drops a vial!

    Propaganda from the other side, the Russian version of our ABC, Tass-
    https://tass.com/politics/1569013

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    another ian

    Improving your opinion of things in USA?

    “A climate startup that launched sulfur to block the sun follows ‘environmental, social, and governance’ investing to its logical conclusion and could significantly damage our planet.”

    https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/31/environmentalistslife-threatening-sulfur-launch-exposes-carbon-indulgences-as-a-scam/

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      John Hultquist

      In April, in the Baja California region of Mexico near the Sea of Cortez, a man named Luke Iseman took a few grams of sulfur, lit it on fire and pumped the resulting gas into a six-foot helium balloon he bought on Amazon. Then he released the balloon into the bright sky, letting it sail. In the high atmosphere, he hoped, the balloon would burst and release sulfur dioxide particles

      WaPo Jan 9th

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    Andrew McRae

    Admittedly this is a panhandling comment.
    Is there anyone here who has a NYT subscription who could extract the text of this article from 1938 please?
    https://www.nytimes.com/1938/09/04/archives/ural-mountain-district-menaced-by-forest-fires.html

    Why?
    There were vast forest fires across Russia in 2010 and 2021. One headline in 2021 claimed the damage had been “the worst since records began”, although to its credit the BBC noted Russia didn’t begin monitoring burn extent accurately until 2001.
    Thus my interest was piqued by a quote from Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn which alludes to a horrid event:

    @AI_Solzhenitsyn · Jan 31
    “In 1938…a forest fire flew with the speed of a hurricane along the Vishera River – and from the forest into two [Soviet prison] camps. What was to be done with the zeks? … The guard refused to release them – and they all burned to death.”

    One wonders whether the “hurricane”-like speed was a mistranslation, or some poetic flare by Solzhenitsyn, or possibly an accurate description of the forward rate of advance. Comparing this even qualitatively to modern reports might be illuminating.

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      ozfred

      Article does not “say” much

      Long-continued heat and drought are increasing the forest fire menace in the Ural Mountain area in extreme Eastern Russia. On the slopes of the Urals in Sverdlovsk Province, forty-four fires were reported burning today.
      The newspaper “Pravda” said that thirteen of these were in the vicinity of Perm, a city west of the center of the range.
      Near Moscow Red army troops on a training march discarded their rifles to organize a bucket brigade and saved a village from destruction by fire. They also rescued cattle and saved household goods and grain on a collective farm.

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    • #

      The quote is real and credible as he was a famous author, mentioned on Twitter too:

      LINK

      1938 was a bad year for fires in North America.

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      another ian

      Try via your local library for a copy

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    eNvironment sCeptic

    After hearing and looking at ‘Syncytin’ a year or more ago when the relationship between syncytin and the mRNA product was already being looked at by researchers and some scientists, and so my ears pricked up when seeing this recent presentation by Dr Ardis, and it was not at all entirely because of the cold summer weather causing muscles to contract around my ears in Victoria Au at the moment.

    Ayb’Dr. Ardis Show’ ‘Covid -19’ & The Miscarriages. “It’s The ‘MRNA’.

    Some background.
    https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/health-and-biotech/the-placenta-a-legacy-inherited-from-ancient-viruses/

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    Our Blue Marble is a climate forum where it has published papers, comment discussion from the internet and more

    LINK

    There is also a Our White Marble forum too.

    LINK

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    John Hultquist

    Best of the Web
    a Wall Street Journal digital article
    Murphy’s Law of Alternative Energy
    Who could have guessed it would be so hard to replace cheap reliable power?
    By James Freeman

    This summarizes the problems of Europe’s and the US wind facility developments. It starts with the question of why dead whales are washing up on the US East Coast. That’s just the into — mostly it is about financial difficulties.

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    TdeF

    The development of fracking must be the greatest single discovery in solving the problem of cheap reliable power since the invention of fracking of oil. What is staggering is that this proven very safe, cheap and productive solution is banned around the world and you have to think that many do not want the problem solved, that they want the United States in particular utterly dependent on oil imports. Not building dams, even destroying them. Ditto for power stations, oil pipelines and fracking. Why are the US Democrats predictably acting against the best interests of Americans, especially destroying the Southern Border, the Strategic Reserve and running down critical stocks of weapons with Ukraine. What is their real objective?

    In a world desperate for energy, especially China, you have to wonder at the invention of man made aerial CO2 as a science fantasy undermining all the successful Western democracies. And in the popular press, nothing is questioned or allowed to be questioned. The economics of windmills is starting to be questioned but not the rationale for going back to the middle ages for failed power ideas.

    Electric cars are a farce given that their CO2 deficit in mining and manufacture means they have to do 100,000km to break even. And running largely from fossil fuel power, they are far worse than other cars and more expensive to own and run.

    So why is every political party, UN and EU (with the exception of Donald Trump’s Republicans) pushing the fake CO2 story. Not any part of it is true. And no one challenges it. Even the Tories in the UK and Australia’s liberals are going along with the endless race and carbon fantasies, except for the hated Murdoch press. It feels so much like an orchestrated assault on truth and rational science and America without any debate.

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    Someone searched for the Climategate mails
    Here they are

    Download the 120Mb of leaked (Climategate) emails, documents, computer code & models: Climate Research Emails

    Description: “This archive presents over 120Mb of emails, documents, computer code and models from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, written between 1996 and 2009. The CRU has told the BBC that the files were obtained by a computer hacker 3-4 days ago. This archive includes unreleased global temperature analysis computer source code that has been the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests. The archive appears to be a collection of information put together by the CRU prior to a FoI redaction process.

    Another source

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      another ian

      Jeff Id at The Air Vent was one who got sent the first Climategate download and likely has the others.

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    Reader

    Globalist Food Debuts in Sweden: ‘Crispy Mealworms and Delicious Soft Ice Cream’
    https://rairfoundation.com/globalist-food-debuts-in-sweden-crispy-mealworms-and-delicious-soft-ice-cream/

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    KP

    Seems like the Govt/Pfizer contract that was leaked might be true after all-

    “As global demand for COVID-19 vaccines dries up, the program responsible for vaccinating the world’s poor has been urgently negotiating to try to get out of its deals with pharmaceutical companies for shots it no longer needs.

    Drug companies have so far declined to refund $US1.4 billion ($2 billion) in advance payments for now-cancelled doses, according to confidential documents obtained by The New York Times.”

    Which will likely turn out to be lucky for the millions of unvaxxed in poor countries as the West commits suicide!

    “The terms of Gavi’s deals were kept secret because they were with private companies. There has been no public accounting of how much drug companies have earned from cancelled vaccines.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/vaccine-makers-kept-1-4-billion-in-prepayments-for-cancelled-covid-shots-for-world-s-poor-20230202-p5ch9r.html

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    Richard C (NZ)

    OpenAI’s ChatGPT Gushes About Joe Biden, Refuses to Praise Trump or DeSantis
    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/02/01/openais-chatgpt-gushes-about-joe-biden-refuses-to-praise-trump-or-desantis/

    Despite claiming it would not produce content that “glorifies any individual,” the chatbot produced a poem about Joe Biden that reads like a North Korean choir singing the praises of Kim Jong-un:

    Joe Biden, leader of the land

    With a steady hand and a heart of a man,

    You took the helm in troubled times,

    With a message of unity, it chimes.

    Your words of hope and empathy,

    Provide comfort to the nation,

    You lead with compassion and grace,

    And set a new foundation.

    With your decades of experience,

    You guide us through the storm,

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      Leo G

      Joe Biden, leader of the land
      With a steady hand and a heart of a man, …

      “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

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    Hanrahan

    Dr John Campbell on D3 (again)

    I stopped watching his videos when I thought he was captured by orthodoxy but there is no doubt that he is very disillusioned now.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5sc7G4s4CY

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      Hanrahan

      Our council spends a lot of money on the Strand Park and there are always people there. At an aerobics area they have a sign: There is no such thing as a healthy tan.

      Since when has a town council been a health authority?

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    Lance

    imagine there was a way to legally suicide via multiple vaccine injections and boosters if one were so inclined.

    Perhaps the insurance companies might wish to investigate “death by vaccine”.

    What a way to impoverish the insurers and make it politically impossible for insurers to refuse payment.

    Just a logical question. Every game has variations. Otherwise, deviations from historical mortality normalcy might become politically dis or advantageous, supposing there’s a goal.

    In the end, economic reality will overcome political expediency.

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    FrankH

    The trillion dollar global warming camp obsesses over 1.5°C of heat…

    Erm… 1.5°C is a measure of temperature, not heat. Apart from that, another great article.

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