JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
I don’t pretend to understand the OZ constitution but on the surface it sounds sensible to change terms to four years. Three is very short
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12927627/Peter-FitzSimons-backs-major-constitutional-change.html
424
I am against anything that Peter FitzSimons supports. His wife is a cheap tabloid journalist.
Why give the bastards more time in office when you can throw them out sooner?
591
By that criteria is a 2 year term better than a 3 year term?
It takes time for an administration to settle in and start to implement policies people have voted for. Four or five years seems to be a more appropriate period.
228
Look at what O’Biden has brought to America in his term. Surely one year of that would have been too much.
493
Except that sometimes they implement policies, that if known, and the consequences of them, they would not have been elected. The Albanese Government told us pre-election that they had a plan, nothing about the voice, IR changes, anything to ameliorate Interest rates. Reckon the first 18 months of Albo has been too much.
500
“Reckon the first 18 months of Albo has been too much.”
Compared with the 36 months of Morrison it is nowhere near enough. Is surreptitiously implementing the policy of claiming 5 ministries for the PM a plan voters would have rejected? We’ll never know.
226
That was just in case any ministers got independent and started derailing any legacy Malcolm gravy trains. Sacking a minister can be dictatorial fiat, finding a suitable toadie in an uncertain factional future may be difficult.
61
If I was redesigning the system I would: 1) elect half of the houses every 2 years, 2) reduce the size of the senate right down.
210
Sounds ok to me. Certainly worthy of consideration.
I think I would also prefer first past the post voting.
That would at least give the minor candidates a chance.
1112
By definition, a minor candidate gets a minority of first preference votes and since that is the only preference recorded in FPTP the 2nd place can never win.
With Preferential Voting, where there are multiple minor candidates, one of them can win on 2nd preferences if a majority of people agree on that candidate being the best compromise – just what I’d want in a democratic election (for a democratic republic or a democracy).
So the opposite of what you say is true.
Additionally, it may simply be the reality that no candidate has a clear majority, meaning a majority of voters did not want the highest scoring candidate, so you should use an election system which deals with that mix of preferences sensibly.
Have a read of https://electionbuddy.com/blog/2022/03/04/single-transferable-vote-advantages/
The reform that makes the most difference (and it is required by STV) is for voters to express their preferences (vote) for *individual* representatives, not for parties. This is how we already vote for the Senate.
The party system is main obstacle IMHO. MPs should vote on bills based on their stated priorities at the election, not forced to vote along some party line.
At the same time, parties have advantages for campaign funding and putting out a coherent message that has already been argued in private.
Ultimately if you cannot convince a majority of people to vote #1 for your preferred change, you lose and don’t get the change. No amount of tweaking the election system can change that. Only long term persistence at education and persuasion of people you meet can eventually get you what you want. No surprise that there’s no quick and easy central fix to that problem.
131
3) remove compulsory voting, 4) allow voters to say no fall through on preferences – ie establish a floor where the votes disappear rather than fall through.
21
Any increase in the parliamentary term of office MUST also allow the electorate the “Right of Recall”!!!!!!
300
“Any increase in the parliamentary term of office MUST also allow the electorate the “Right of Recall”!!!!!!”
And exactly how would this “Right of Recall” be implemented? By a vote?
41
The same way that it is already in force in many overseas systems.Defined number of “calls” from voters in that electorate causes an immediate presentation to a tribunal to justify the contention , or, in the event of a larger defined number of “calls” an immediate re-election is initiated! YES from a vote of the electors of that electorate. This is how Arnie got the job in California.
60
Labo(u)r’s primary vote was barely 32%. In less than two years they’ve wreaked havoc.
280
After three years, you get a fair idea if they are going to cut it or not, if so, they get 6 years, don’t change it.
60
They have been a bit rough on you with 17 reds Tony. I had hoped my countrymen would be more polite.
I’m happy with three, two would be like the US where you seem to be always a new administration, lame duck or electioneering.
But it isn’t in the constitution* so any change as you suggest could be changed back later. ANYTHING is better than the US system where nothing can change a 4 year President except a bullet. I fear for Tump where the bullet may be employed preemptively.
* AFAIK. Queensland changed to 4 year terms with simple legislative change. It is popular with leftists, maybe because they lie.
41
Thanks. I said I didn’t pretend to understand your constitution and the comments seem to reflect on a particular hatred for certain politicians. Three years seems a very short time to implement policies that got the govt into power in the first place but its your country and you should do what you feel works best
20
Right on.
The focus of his many books is on the sacrifice of those who defended Australia.
He makes money by using their memory.
80
Fixed terms, especially of 4 years or more, should never happen without a clear mechanism for recall/citizens’ initiated ditching/early election to oust a crap government.
Governments are increasingly imposing laws, regulations and imposts on the country, economy and society that are clearly damaging, yet we have no means of stopping them. The recent referendum defeat should have meant that there was no move towards any “treaties” or other arrangements between state governments and indigenous bodies – yet all states are ploughing ahead with the wretched things.
When it becomes clear that government (and especially bureaucracies that do the real formulation of policies and legislation) no longer respect or obey the real needs and will of the citizens of the country, there must be a means for the citizens to impose their will on the government and bureaucracies.
No doubt fixed terms are helpful to good governments, but we do not have any good governments in this country any more, including at local government level.
370
This is a letter I had published in the Herald Sun 25th July, 2017. (Melbournistan, Australia)
561
Biggest mistake EVA!
2 year terms.
No more then 2 consecutive terms.
Politicians compensated not remunerated.
Magistrates appointed from Justice of Peace or Clerks of Court.
There fixed!!!
We must remember, representing your community is not a career, it is a civic duty.
Politicians do very little actual work and some of the latest crop are lucky to be able to breath without instruction.
The Fitzsimmons want the 4 year terms as this is the step to tyranny by a Fascist Elite. Big business will sit comfortably with big government while they conspire together to protect the incompetency of their preselected puppets.
All the steps being taken in the last 30 to 40 years are a well rehearsed and well trod path back to tyranny.
380
And include the provisions of “Right of Recall”
140
I would say a better method is stick with 3 year terms but spread out the electorates through all the 3 years.
Thus, every six months, both the government and opposition need to put at least some fraction of their seats at risk (maybe 20% minimum) with no individual seat being allowed to go more than 3 years.
The advantage is that all the election machinery gets continuously used, but only at a smaller scale than a full general election. It also automatically handles deaths, resignations, etc because those seats get into the regular six month cycle.
It also makes it easier for early removal of a government just hanging in by one seat, since those are usually the worst.
260
That proposal has a lot of attraction. But , there is probably some legal reason why all seats need to be decided at the one time. ( in a full election) One major advantage of a continuous election system would be the avoidance of that final year hiatus where the campaign for election starts up. Great idea Tel.
130
If that is actually an immovable barrier then our elections already don’t really make a difference.
i.e. Don’t treat existing prohibitions as final if it’s just a matter of voting to change that law in order to get a better election system. IIRC the relevant language is “Parliaments cannot bind future parliaments”.
10
I love the election machinery when it as it should be, a local returning officer delivering the scrutineered results of the polling station. Any electronic voting should be discouraged and the vote should be on one day so the local school can make money out of the sausage sizzle.
20
An oldie but goodie that sums up the 3/4/5 year election debate.
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason,”
330
3 == out if the government is bad, == 6 if it is good.
4 == another year of disaster.
The sooner the wokie fed lab gov is out the better.
😎️
230
Most governments achieve two or three terms … unless they are unusually hopeless.
Thus, really we have either six or nine years in office, with a few pit stops on the way.
In the rare cases that we do have a one term government, better they be kicked out ASAP. Therefore I don’t see any point changing the system … what real problem are we trying to solve? Looks like change for the sake of tinkering around.
120
To get the fourth year they just need to be re-elected.
190
Do not forget that Australia had a Head of State who stayed in the job for 70 Years!!!
Australia will soon have its own Queen! But she will be the Queen of Denmark.
An her “accidental” meeting at the Slip Inn in Sydney with Prince Frederik during the 2000 Olymics is a lie – she was invited to an arranged meeting of Royals from Europe
51
An her “accidental” meeting at the Slip Inn in Sydney with Prince Frederik during the 2000 Olymics is a lie – she was invited to an arranged meeting of Royals from Europe.
Sounds more like it.
00
The UK National Government has a 5 year term and even the NSW State Guv’ment here has a 4 year term. The US President has a 4 year term as well. A 4 year term should be the minimum IMHO.
114
Just because other places do it?
10
My under standing, is the US has half term elections to put the brakes on someone like Obama or Bush when they begin to rule by decree.
The old method is creating a problem for which the solution is more power to the perpetrator. ‘We the People’ can generally recognize the steps to totalitarianism, only this time it was difficult to print the pamphlets when the printing press could no longer be hidden in a hay cart. The distribution system, the internet is so beautifully controlled.
20
We’ve all voted all our lives and look where we are now.
The political faction system is obsolete, corrupt and broken. “No child shall live in poverty” – still waiting…
It’s only human evolution that will change anything, and as we’re having gender surgery and identifying as Llamas, things won’t be changing for centuries at a minimum.
Maybe the looming real AI will fix it all.
Maybe an mRNA vaxx to artificially advance human traits via our DNA? 😉
It’s interesting what DNA represents from a computing perspective. 😎
70
The referendum would probably look like this-
“Do you support a four-year term for for Parliament and an adoption of the Voice”
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Why bother?
20
Depends on weather you are suffering the incompetence of modern politics or not.
11
Which, in turn, depends upon whether your wether can weather the weather.
50
You woulb be no different to most Australians Tony. Knowing about it , let alone understanding it, is not really a thing for the bulk of Australians.
30
This is starting to feel worryingly familiar
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12929711/Spanish-holiday-region-reintroduces-Covid-mask-rules-seeing-surge-cases.html
Flu virtually disappeared and covid took its place, killing similar numbers of people and in the same sort of categories. Lets hope the world doesn’t go mad again.
The amount of mask wearing here in the UK, in our area is very low. I haven’t seen anyone in a mask for 4 or 5 days and then it is just the odd person here and there
220
Tony you’re right: “it is just the odd person” !
Do masks work ? Absolutely not.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-covid-part-10-did-masks-and-social-distancing-work/
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I looked at the article to which you refer but on reading this “The Covid-19 virus is many times smaller than the gaps in the mesh of the most expensive and tightly woven face masks, let alone the cheap ones.” read no further.
Like many viruses, Covid viruses travel through the atmosphere via aerosols from speaking, breathing, sneezing,coughing or laughing. These aerosols are larger than the pore sizes of masks and inhibit the spread of viruses via exhalation and the ingestion of viruses via inhalation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/
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Masks would not score 10 out of 10.
But if they just caught 90% of the spittle that flies when people are talking that would warrant their use.
Most masks would do that.
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Or you could just shutup.
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Actually no, they don’t. Especially when your average covid-1984 sufferer starts to cough, it would spread infectious droplets at high speed.
30
SARS-CoV virions are themselves aerosols, and their transmission from a host into the air is overwhelmingly as individual virions in the size range 60 to 130 nanometre.
N95 mask material is specified to prevent transmission of 95% of particles no smaller than 300 nanometre.
71
Very odd.
10
I am a life long vegetaraian but if you want to eat meat that is fine, in the expectation that those that can afford it eat meat that is raised and slaughtered humanely
However I take a dim view of many vegans who seem to believe they are on a mission to save the planet and can be quite aggressive with anyone not agreeing with their views
Oat milk has become popular over here and is very heavily promoted. Like many vegan products it is not very healthy
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wellness-us/article-12930323/experts-warn-against-oat-milk-oil-sugar.html
Almond milk has caused severe drought in parts of California, many vegan foods are highly processed and use ingredients coming from all over the world.
A wander round the Vegan selection of your local supermarket will demonstrate the Ultra processed nature of many of them and the huge amounts of sugar inserted into some of them to improve taste.
Vegans can eat what they want but shouldn’t lecture the rest of us, nor believe their choice is saving the planet and helping to prevent Global boiling.
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A steak cooked medium-rare is one of life’s great pleasures. A steak is plant-based with the cow acting as a middleman.!
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tony, who told you that? Almond milk has caused severe drought in parts of California. Good grief!
The almonds didn’t cause the drought. The drought attracted the almonds.
Many food crops experience parasitic pathogens which mostly reduce the quality of the produce. Some also reduce the yield. Those pathogens mostly thrive with humidity. So the ideal climatic conditions for growing those crops are a desert atmosphere and closely controlled application of water from irrigation.
You would find that Almonds are not the only crop that is produced with premium quality in those parts of California. It’s just that Almonds give a particular reward for attaining that premium quality.
The nicest almonds that ever I tasted came fresh from the Californian desert. Mmmmmmmmm!
30
Ted
Its generally accepted that almonds use up a LOT of water and contributes to California’s increasing desertification
https://www.mashed.com/225543/the-real-reason-almonds-are-destroying-california/#:~:text=Because%20almond%20farming%20doesn%27t%20allow%20for%20crop%20rotation%2C,is%20dependent%20on%20agriculture%20%28via%20NatureHub%20and%20KCET%29.
It takes 3.2 gallons to produce one almond (apparently) By the time its shipped overseas to the store that is using up an awful lot of resources and its difficult to believe that is worse than local cows grazing on grassland, producing milk.
I seem to remember there were similar problems with cotton growing and this caused problems in Australia amongst other places. From memory it takes 20000 litres of water to create one Kilo of cotton so its not very user friendly.
10
I am yet to discover where the nipples are on oats, almonds and other assorted fake ‘milks’ sources. Another case of abuse of language, like solar and wind ‘farms’, to deceive the gullible and support the narrative.
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If I remwmber correctly, there was a court case many years ago in which the dairy industry tried to prevent the sunscreen industry from using the words milk and cream, They lost – the judge said that horse had already bolted.
40
“the judge said that horse had already bolted.”
Eeew, given what we are talking about.
20
The oats and Almonds, you need to spend more time on foreplay.
30
Wind farm, renamed as a generator on a stick.
20
I saw an older couple with masks while in a grocery store. If they feel safer, who am I to tell them their masks are mostly useless.
This report is a bit technical and explains in detail why it is so difficult to do good studies on the issue of masks.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
Most folks will be better served with simple “better health” procedures. These have been repeatedly discussed on this site since, I think, March or April of 2020.
180
When comparing virus size to even N95 mask filter size, the equivalence of firing a ball bearing at a scaffold comes to mind.
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I liken masks to the equivalent of a garden hose turned on a flyscreen, and expecting the glass to stay dry.
121
Accidental red while scrolling.
41
We also dont know what else they are dealing with. The masks may have nothing to do with Covid hysteria.
00
2019 was not that long ago, never saw them before that except on the odd Asian person.
Something must have happened since?
10
Depends on your experience I guess. We have a friend undergoing luekemia treatment , he has been recommended to wear a mask in crowded settings. Nothing Covid specific.
Dont know what the significance of 2019 is.
00
I shoulded worded it better. Prior to 2020, I cannot recall seeing a mask, except on the odd Asian and that was rare. Went to town yesterday and saw two, this is a town of 1000.
20
Meanwhile in Australia
The two firms behind a major offshore wind project decided to cancel a contract to supply power from the development on Wednesday, dealing a major blow to President Joe Biden’s massive green energy agenda.
Equinor and British Petroleum (BP), the firms working in a joint venture to construct the enormous Empire Wind 2 offshore wind farm, canceled a contract with New York state to sell power generated by the project, citing inflationary pressures, high interest rates and supply chain problems, Equinor announced. The cancellation stands as the latest sign of trouble for the offshore wind industry, which the Biden administration is counting on to produce enough energy to power 10 million American homes for one year by 2030.
Meanwhile in Australia Labor is pushing ahead with offshore wind projects.
Giant wind turbines, each 300 metres high (as tall as the Eiffel Tower) will be planted in the seabed off Victoria, if a $9 billion plan to help turn Gippsland into a “global offshore wind energy hub!” goes ahead.
Time for Victorians to save the whales again as Fossil Fuels saved the whales when kerosene replaced whale oil for lighting.
340
“Time for Victorians to save the whales again as Fossil Fuels saved the whales “
The whales are doomed CO2. Apparently seismic blasting in the Otway Basin, if allowed to go ahead, will be “louder” than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and as a result all the whales will be deafened and will subsquently die.
Not quite sure how protesters determined this “noise value” but it does add another incomprehensible comparison unit of measure to the lexicon of other incomprehensible measures.
Volumes measured in Olympic swimming pools
Hight. measured in Eiffel towers
Depth measured in Deeper than Grand Canyons
and now noise measured in louder than atomic bombs
180
What, no bubble walls?
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/01/building-offshore-wind-farms-can-permanently-deafen-porpoises-but-its-ok-now-with-bubble-walls/
80
When did it become “seismic blasting?” That method was discontinued in the 1960s.
10
Also Vattenfall has reached an agreement to offload the UK Norfolk offshore wind zone, comprising three projects, to RWE for an enterprise value of £963m ($1.2bn).
This will allow the continued development of its three wind farms – Norfolk Vanguard West, Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Boreas – each with a planned power-generating capacity of 1.4GW. The Norfolk Zone is situated 50–80km offshore the east of England. With a combined capacity of 4.2GW, it is one of the largest offshore wind development sites in the world. The first 2 are in development – hence the payment which recovers money for Vattenfall – Norfolk Boreas has been halted.
80
“each with a planned power-generating capacity of 1.4GW. ”
How do you ‘plan’ the generating capacity of a windmill, isn’t that decided by the wind strength.
80
All contracts for weather dependent energy (wind and solar) should be based on despatchable power produced – forcing the inclusion of back-up power in the development for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
Given that it would cost around A$ 10 Trillion to provide back-up power for a wind and solar only grid in Australia – this would put an end to environment destroying wind and solar projects.
320
I just read just a laughable “German fact check”:
Never ever coming in a traffic jam, the batteries are full, usually, you have several kilometes/miles driven under cold weather conditions not beeing favorable for batteries as we all know.
The factcheck is only fooling people.
German source
240
Just reflected about, bad weather with snow or icy rain with resulting stop and go traffic is much worse, as you have to drive too, even if only some meters or a bit more every 5 – 10 minutes. The “factcheck” test conditions are not realistic at all.
160
Christmas night thunderstorm left much of the Gold Coast hinterland with no power no internet & no phones. My local convenience store has a back up generator, but most people had no cash, & cards did not work.
Even when some of the net came back up 3 days later, many cards did not work. People were desperately trying to borrow some “real cash” money to buy fuel for their generators. It took over 5 days to get power back, & another day for my card to work. Fortunately we keep a reserve around here.
It was a perfect introduction to the rolling blackout chaos we can expect as our idiot Bowen gets net zero running.
230
Its good to have the ability to siphon fuel from your vehicles for generators. A lot of people have two cars , half empty thats 60 to 80 litres of available fuel on top of whatever you store otherwise. More if you fill up before “events”
Not a complete answer but just another part of a wider plan.
20
“In a twelve-hour traffic jam, which is an extremely rare scenario,”
Yet it is these extremely rare scenarios that occur with startling regularity in one form or another, that bring things undone. In my district a rare weather event caused wide spread blackouts lasting over 24 hours in some areas. Chugged into my local town, 30 k’s away from home, to get a few supplies, well what chaos. Middle of holiday season with many thousands of visitors to the district and suddenly nothing available. Only a few business’s open, supermarket has a back up generator, internet was down, all of the people that pay electronically couldn’t. Petrol stations closed and the young lady who worked in the rural supplies shop had driven to work with her fuel indicator light on hopping to fuel up to get home 40 K’s away. Purchased what was needed, paid with cash, retreated to hermit heaven and locked the gate.
190
Most things that kill you unexpectedly are rare scanarios.
I spent a small window of my life documenting infrequent scenarios that killed people. Unless addressed they of course just sit out there waiting…
40
Swedish snow chaos leaves 1,000 vehicles trapped on main Euro route as temperatures fall as low as -43°C
People who got trapped in 1,000 vehicles in heavy snow for more than 24 hours have been evacuated, Swedish authorities say.
Rescuers worked through the night to free people stuck on the main E22 road in the Skane area of southern Sweden,
The travel chaos occurred amid plummeting winter temperatures across the Nordic countries. Extreme cold weather has hit parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway, and snow storms in Denmark have left drivers trapped on a motorway near Aarhus since Wednesday. (This possibly from 24 hours later).
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Another bright idea on paper.
https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiTmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnlhaG9vLmNvbS90ZWNoL3NjaWVudGlzdHMtdW52ZWlsLWdlbml1cy1zb2xhci10b3dlci0wNzAwMDAxMDQuaHRtbNIBVmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnlhaG9vLmNvbS9hbXBodG1sL3RlY2gvc2NpZW50aXN0cy11bnZlaWwtZ2VuaXVzLXNvbGFyLXRvd2VyLTA3MDAwMDEwNC5odG1s?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
Sorry about the length of the link.
“Scientists unveil genius solar tower design that can generate power 24/7: ‘[It’s] feasible to increase energy production’”
Per the press puff, for that is all the link is, the system, requiring two concentric 200 mettre high towers, uses warm air rising in the inner 10m diameter tower, and cooled air descending in the annulus to the outer, 14 m diameter, tower, to turn fans and generate “753 MWh per year”.
About 2.1 MWh per day, so about 88KW. Roughly.
My understanding of the latest sooper-dooper-hyper chargers from Mr. Musk and American taxpayers, is they take over 250KW.
So would need three of these monstrosities to charge one upmarket Tesla, continuously.
Although
“The system has limitations, such as access to water for the operation of the downdraft system,” the researchers told Anthropocene. (!! Auto)
(Not ideal for sunny deserts …)
“The next step is a “techno-economic analysis,” with an eye on scalability, per the report.
Pie in the sky …
Unicorn farts. Again.
Auto
30
Try Canada at -25C.
00
E-bike repair shop went up in flames in Sydney.
https://youtu.be/xnn6OJjFkIg
150
“You’ll Never Believe How Bad This Is for Your Heart”
“I have noticed though that if there’s one thing that sends my blood pressure higher than a lunch of ramen noodles and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, it’s getting stuck in traffic. As it turns out, I’m not alone. ”
More at
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/01/05/youll-never-believe-how-bad-this-is-for-your-heart-n4925248
50
If getting stuck in traffic for an hour is so bad – where does waiting for a hour for your EV to recharge fit?
130
For me, it’s having to listen to the ABC on car radio in remote areas.
150
I take a few USBs.
20
That is all we use in cars, apart from my occasional dabble with spotify when driving zlone.
10
I forgot the unlock code on my work van after a battery change. ‘Twas over a month before I got around to getting it from the dealer. I spent a lot of time in the van, quietly. I used to consider speed limits as advisory but I always kept my mind on the driving.
20
In the past few days, frost locally in Sweden reached nearly -44 deg C., but as it turned out, this was not the apogee of the cooling wave. The highest frost of -44.3 deg. C. the previous night was recorded in Enontekio, Finland. This is the highest frost in Scandinavia in at least several decades. Previously, powerful snowstorms occurred especially in Norway and Sweden. An example is the area of the town of Grimstad, where 70-100 cm of snow fell. There is much more in the snowdrifts. Skis have become the main means of transportation. Another example is the snowdrifts that have formed on the E22 between Kristianstad and Horby in Skåne in southern Sweden. Many drivers and their families were stuck in their cars overnight until help arrived.
160
Its all down to a meandering jet stream and wave-4 pattern.
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/study-identifies-jet-stream-pattern-locks-extreme-winter-cold-wet-spells
11
So… its a bit more complex than just averaging out the thermometers and saying the world is boiling?? Whodda guessed!
100
The “scientists” are working very very very hard to connect the cold waves to warming.
They know there must be a causative connection it’s just a matter of modelling a mechanism.
Type 7 waves….. gimme a break!
60
They are modelling.
‘ … most modelling results show little connection between Arctic amplification and severe midlatitude weather or suggest the export of excess heating from the Arctic to lower latitudes.’ (Cohen et al 2019)
10
Next year’s model will definitely be able to predict why this summer has been the wettest drought on record.
30
So Claudia Gay was finally sacked/fired/resigned.
Presumably she was given a choice to resign rather than be fired.
She was an obvious diversity hire and employed just for her skin colour rather than merit.
She had only 17 papers to her name, and at least half contained plagiarised material, including her PhD thesis.
Back in the day when universities were centres of scholarship, someone who was in a position such as President of Harvard University would have been expected to have probably around 300 quality peer reviewed papers (when peer review itself meant something). Seventeen papers, even if they were all original, is an appallingly low count for someone in that position.
270
The faculty members that read and passed her through the system should be fired or resign.
One must assume those folks knew the literature in the topics of her writing. One or more should be aware of her style of wordsmithing.
The word “incredulous” fits this situation.
251
Claudine Gay took office as the 30th president of Harvard University in July 2023. She is the “first person of color” and the second woman to lead the country’s oldest institution of higher learning.
Two days before she took over, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action for college admissions in a case centered on Harvard’s own admissions programs. The school is currently facing a civil rights inquiry into its legacy admissions.
150
Claudine Gay to continue as Harvard faculty member, likely to keep $900K salary
Claudine Gay earned nearly $900,000 as a Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean in 2021
70
‘Earned’?
190
Skin colour plus sexual and political orientation.
150
The joke is that she has now got a job at Xerox.
140
Copy that.
170
Doesn’t she still have tenure?
20
The xerox thing was a joke —— I think.
40
FWIW
“Chemicals that may cause cancer, infertility ‘widespread’ in packaged products like Cheerios: report”
“Potentially dangerous levels of plastic chemicals have become “widespread” in popular grocery products including Cheerios, Coca-Cola and Gerber cereals, according to a report.”
More at
https://nypost.com/2024/01/04/business/plastic-chemicals-widespread-in-packaged-products-like-cheerios-report/
60
Artificials == Wide Girth. Natural is better. 😎️
60
Ian:
I remember (when I was working) the Technical Director pointed out the report about chemicals (from the can lining) getting into Coca Cola. He had worked out that this would mean someone would have to drink 780,000 cans a year AND THIS WAS SERIOUS. When I queried the last he pointed out that the previous last 3 claims had required people to drink 2-3 million cans in a year.
Concentration is needed, arsenic is a required element in very low amounts, more is harmful. The local Adelaide Hills Council thinks fruit trees cannot be planted because there is arsenic in the soil, despite over 100 years of fruit production without harm.
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In 2012 Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) conducted a small analytical survey examining total arsenic and inorganic arsenic levels in apple and pear juice.
In total, 96 apple juice samples and four pear juice samples were analysed.
The survey found a quantifiable amount of arsenic in 34 apples juice samples and inorganic arsenic in 20 samples. None were at a level that, based on present knowledge, would cause a safety concern over a lifetime of consumption. The range of concentrations reported for inorganic arsenic were similar to concentrations observed in other countries for apple juice.
There were no detections of arsenic in the pear juice samples.
https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/science-data/surveillance/Analytical-survey-of-total-and-inorganic-arsenic-in-apple-and-pear-juice
Arsenic is common but at safe levels.
Apple seeds contain Amygdalin which metabolises to Hydrogen Cyanide. The body can process small amounts of HC, so you’d need to consume thousands of seeds to be at any risk, plus you’d have to crush the seeds or chew them.
70
Through to the 19th century arsenic was a very popular ingredient in makeup, and tonics. People could build tolerance to high doses, using it as maybe a soporific?
20
Big Deal
Seawater contains 3 ppb of Uranium – so much that it can be extracted from seawater.
Every time you go to the beach you are taking aUranium bath!
60
Graeme
“Concentration is needed, arsenic is a required element in very low amounts, more is harmful.”
Why us denizens of south west Qld need to stock up on prawns when possible.
Also makes me wonder on the sheep internal parasite treatment of old times of bluestone and arsenic and whether the response was due to correction of mild dietary deficiencies of Cu and As?
10
another Ian:
I assume that the farmers didn’t poison the sheep.
The scares always start with something that is believed to be harmful or even deadly. I remember another scare that involved can linings in parts per trillion. Once worked out that any extract** was the equivalent of adding a litre to a swimming pool, mixing it and taking a litre and mixing it with another swimming pool, and taking another litre etc. The company wasn’t worried as they hadn’t sold that lining type in over 18 years.
And do you remember the Environment Chemist who got headlines in the 70’s about the cadmium and mercury emitted by coal plants? The amounts were so high that no-one could have been alive within 10 km. It turned out that his analyses were based on 100ml. flasks with coloured stoppers and acids that leached some of the pigment out of them and extrapolating up from 100ml. to thousands of tons of coal per day made a “good headline” but an embarrassing retraction when clear stoppers were used.
These ‘do-gooders’ always assume that industry wants to poison their customers.
40
The aluminium in drink cans is so thin it is porous and the lining is to seal the can. I was in a warehouse where a few pallets of drinks were badly sealed. What a mess. Can makers don’t like much recycled metal in the aluminium, possibly for this reason.
This adds nothing to the topic of toxicity, I know. 🙂
20
Hahrahan:
The linings were originally to prevent the (low pH of) tomato juice dissolving the tin coating of cans. This wasn’t a success as many consumers prefered the tin taste of tomato juice+, but not most other acidic contents (and CocaCola is about 2.2pH from phosphoric and citric acids) so some producer wanted that taste “sensation”.
Originally they were phenolic (bisphenol A) and crosslinkers, i.e. acid and alkaline resistive. After about 40 years of no toxicity, there arose a fear of BisPhenol for some (unexplained) hysteria. Thus coatings without any of the Bisphenols becamed popular (although not as much in the USA). These also prevented acidic attack on cans.
AFAIK recycled aluminium causes the aluminium to be weaker and stresses failure in cans. Since the aluminium car production rate is 600-1,000 cans per minute, it takes a mess of enormous magnitude later.
10
It’s always bloody Cheerios!! Activists love using that breakfast cereal because it is popular with the kiddies.
50
FWIW
“This is why the Russia-Ukraine war won’t be over anytime soon”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/01/this-is-why-russia-ukraine-war-wont-be.html
60
Coincidence, or not….?
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/of1NjsgbcPjDvKHU/
Poor life expectancy for national leaders (of certain small countries) who were opposed to covid “vaccination”. (They were mostly assassinated.)
120
Is that a good or a bad thing?
Back to the earlier discussion on fixed 4 year terms for political leaders.
10
Look upon the whole covid fiasco as a test to find those willing to do as they were told. Any dissent and names were quietly taken for people to be used as examples of what happens when you don’t comply.
If there’s any of us left in 2100 they will study this time with a rich basket of social theories and wonder how we could do it to ourselves.
60
Vaxxed?
https://static.onepoliticalplaza.com/upload/2024/1/5/t1-531334-img_2261.jpg
70
Germany Ends Electric Vehicle Subsidies Immediately
Germany has decided to end its electric vehicle subsidy. On Wednesday, December 13th, German leaders announced the ending of these subsidies due to 2024 budget concerns. There was an environmental purchase premium for e-cars of up to 6,000 euros ($6,555 US).
On of the foremost proponents of E-Mobility in Germany, has now fully backtracked: Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, Germany’s leading automotive analyst, just posted on LinkedIn: “That’s it for the EVs in Germany; its good if you haven’t written off the combustion engines, I was entirely wrong on the fatherland.”
Germany has killed the 4,500 EUR EV subsidy as of today – because the government’s budget was rules unconstitutional by the German Supreme Court and they needed to cut subsidies wherever possible.
Germany has been of the forefront of electrification since former chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed her support; German brands have aggressively pushed for the “transformation”, but customers haven’t followed along because of the high cost, the reduced utility and the hidden environmental impact of EV.s, stated Jens Meiner, chairman emeritus of WCOTY:
“EV sales have been a massive disappointment in Europe and it seems that the pundits and politicians are moving away from it as fast as they can. I am not surprised, considering it’s an inferior product.”
“At the end of December 17, 2023, no new applications for the environmental bonus can be submitted,” stated the German Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. The environmental bonus was introduced by the Grand Coalition in 2016. Since then, a total of around 10 billion euros has been paid out for 2.1 million electric vehicles.
Those in favor of the subsidy stated that, “This decision is a blow to the mobility turnaround and climate protection. With the abrupt capping of the promotion of e-cars, the Minister of Economic Affairs is torpedoing the acceptance of electric driving in Germany.”
Germany’s move comes amid tighter restrictions on EV subsidies in France. As of Dec. 15, France effectively limited EV subsidies of up to 7,000 euros ($7,636 US) to electric cars made in Europe. Chinese-made vehicles, including the Tesla Model 3, are no longer eligible.
The Model Y will still be eligible because Tesla makes the crossover at its Berlin-area plant.
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It’s too COLD for electric busses: EV busses cancelled as Sweden experiences the coldest weather this century
As you might have heard, we are still waiting on the global warming in Sweden. We just had the coldest temperature this century.
Back in 2006 the media warned us that by 2026 people would have forgotten how to ski because of the lack of snow…
Now it’s being reported that a person living in Arjeplog noted a chillingly cold -49,7C (that’s -57,5 Fahrenheit) on his thermometer before it stopped working when it hit -50C.
This is very close to being the coldest temperature ever recorded in Sweden. The record sits at -52,6C all the way back in 1966.
This cold weather is causing trouble for public transport. You see, the city of Skellefteå where they “only” had -34C this morning, have been investing in electric busses, to save the climate of course! Their goal is to replace all diesel busses with electric as soon as possible.
It turns out that they are having to CANCEL almost all busses today because of the cold weather – The busses have to be parked indoors to warm up.
They say that the electric busses are struggling to keep warm in the cold weather.
“The electric busses will probably be removed from traffic this afternoon because they have very difficult to keep warm when in service…It is clear that the electric busses are affected the most of this extreme cold” said Marie Larsson, CEO at Skellefteå buss.
When asked if diesel busses can manage these kind of temperatures, she answered “Yes. I mean, no busses can handle these kind of temperatures for long…when it is like this for several days, all busses are affected”
So it is too cold for the new electric busses. They invest all this time and money into something that doesn’t work because of the weather.
Of course, the electric busses use their battery to heat the cabin, meaning that the range is drastically shortened. Is this the real issue here?
Maybe we need some more global warming so that these electric busses can work properly…?
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“Maybe we need some more global warming so that these electric busses can work properly…?
Seems the two things need each other.
110
This is the advisory for Lithium Ion batteries
Petrol freezes at around -40 degrees Celsius.
So heated garages are required in colder climates if you have an EV!!!!
110
“the electric busses use their battery to heat the cabin, ”
Bah! The peasantry don’t need heaters in their buses, just pack them in closer..
60
I’d soon become part of the unpleasantry in such circumstances.
20
You could install small diesel fuelled heaters in the buses that would make them quite comfy. But I guess it sort of defeats the point of their existence and would not be pure in the climate virtue sense.
10
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a sudden drop in Russian gas imports to Germany, Berlin reactivated coal-fired power plants and extended their lifespans.
Germany has an annual solar capacity of only 10% vs 18% (compared to name plate capacity) for sunny Spain (which would be much less in winter).
Germany has also given us “dunkelflaute” (German: [ˈdʊŋkəlˌflaʊtə] ⓘ, lit. ’dark doldrums’ or ‘dark wind lull’, plural dunkelflauten) is a period of time in which little or no energy can be generated with wind and solar power, because there is neither wind nor sunlight.
Twice as much energy is generated from brown coal (lignite) compared to black coal in Germany.
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Germany could still get some Russian gas as Russia has continued meeting its commercial contracts via exports mostly through Ukraine to Austria/Slovakia/Czechia (and some via Belorussia/Poland pipelines).
No sane person thinks that the Russians sabotaged the Nordstream 1 and 2. The latest setback is some ‘weidos’ drilled holes in the pipeline bringing imported gas from a Baltic terminal.
As for coal use, Germany boosted the electricity from coal from below 23% to 35% (and it might be higher in this cold weather). They might also import (coal fired) power from Poland.
30
Another day and another snowfall record:
No new snowfall records in the Nordic region yet reported but very cold and heaps of snow disrupting traffic:
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/0104/1424853-nordic-weather/
This is a very early glimpse of what warmer oceans in the northern hemisphere will look like. In coming centuries, humans will come to appreciate the power of Earth’s climate system. I can guarantee that wind turbines and solar panels are not going to support life under the conditions that will prevail.
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Excuse Of The Week Award, and the winner [loser] is:
“This is not your parents’ or grandparents’ El Niño, this is different…”
NIWA Principal (BS) Scientist
Chris Brandolino (USA/NZ)
5 Jan 2024, RNZ
Three months after his ‘hot and dry’ prediction, Brangelina (as he’s called here) now claims El Niño is a brand new beast which refuses to follow the IPCC/WMO’s soothsaying gospel of hellfire and damnation – and they wonder why we won’t bow down to their NutZero Cult™.
Today: heavy rain, thunderstorms, 24C, 75% humidity, calm. Maybe it’ll get ‘hot’ in February: we can only live in hope.
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It is comforting to know that the weather “scientists” in Kiwiland are just as incompetent as those in Oz.
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It is a wonder Chris Brandolino – NIWA Principal (BS) Scientist {does the “BS” stand for “Bullshit”?} did not lay the blame on that famous butteryfly!
The butterfly effect – coined by Professor Edward Lorenz in 1961, theorises that a miniscule occurrence, such as a tiny butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, could hypothetically set in motion a chain of events that could cause tornadoes to touch down in Texas a few days later.
81
Edward N Lorenz was a superior mathematician by any measure. The “Butterfly effect” is related to minor perturbations in the initial conditions of iterated numerical solutions of partial differential equations. In essence, physical systems definable mathematically by differential equations are particularly sensitive to the initial conditions upon which the model is based. Small changes in initial conditions bring about massive changes in calculated outcomes. Whether or not such a thing is factual is not the issue. It is an issue for the models which may or may not accurately depict a physical reality. Unstable iterated models of differential equations lead to bifurcations, or divergence, from an expected or predicted outcome. That the models are unstable, or lead to bifurcations or other unexpected outcomes is more related to the inadequacies of the model, the incomplete understanding of the modeler, and the realities of harmonic solutions to differential equations. Lorenz explained clearly why long term prediction of weather (climate) was mathematically impossible. Systems are stable, unstable, quasi stable. They are determinate or indeterminate. In the end, climate is either deterministic, indeterministic, periodic, non periodic, or quasi periodic or quasi stable. There are no other mathematically relevant choices. The only ones that matter to us in reality, are the deterministic, periodic, quasi stable, stable states. The other states are not knowable by any mathematics. Non deterministic systems are unable to be modeled. Non periodic systems are random. Unstable systems cannot be predicted.
See: Deterministic Non Periodic Flows https://ysuatmsymp.github.io/papers/SNU/SNU_21.pdf
The end result is that if the climatic system were deterministic and periodic, we would see repeating cycles of weather without exception. If it is non deterministic, it cannot be modeled with any precision. If it is non periodic, it is chaotic and cannot be predicted. If it is quasi stable and quasi periodic, we cannot know the initial conditions of all of the variables simultaneously to predict the outcome. If the feedbacks are negative, the system is stable or quasi stable no matter what humans do. If the feedbacks are positive, all life on earth would have ended millions of years ago, with respect to CO2 forcings.
40
What we do know is that climate is quasi/somewhat periodic, somewhat/quasi stable, and that we do not know all of the variable or their initial conditions, or the accurate modeling of what we don’t know, to be able to predict future climate with any accuracy beyond 3 days. Any other claims are simply voodoo and politics. You’ll get better answers from a farmer whose livelihood depends upon being correct more often than not. The other points of view are entirely political, financial, and ego driven nonsense.
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Lance: “You’ll get better answers from a farmer” … and/or a fisher, a sailor, a surfer – usually an old geezer* who learned to read the weather [clouds/moon/tide/season] long before the interwebs were a wet binary dream.
*As young dudes keep calling me ‘geezer’, I guess I’m in that hoary old hairy age-bracket: I’m happy with that, I’ll take the compliment!
50
Meteorology –
Astrology, but with sciency numbers!
Certainly beyond about five days, anyway!
Auto
20
Does “evolution” apply beyond life forms?
That is has our world evolved in harmony with lifeforms so that over long periods of time the plant earth has remained hospitable for life – even if many species have come and gone? The ups and downs of atmospheric CO2 over billions of years being just one example?
20
Lifeforms shaped Earth. However it was the moon-forming impact that has made Earth hospitable for life.
The moon impact knocked off most of the atmospheric gas but left a lot of water behind. It also imparted higher spin. Earth was formed by the same accretion of cosmic material as Venus. But Earth now has higher spin than Venus and higher proportion of water to CO2 than Venus. The Venus atmosphere takes around 4 Earth days to circulate while the land takes 243 Earth days. So the atmosphere distributes heat longitudinally as much as latitudinally.
So Earth’s second starting point after the collision was water on the surface and a thin atmosphere of N2, CO2, H2O. The cyanobacteria consumed predominantly CO2 but also fixed N2. Over time, the atmosphere got so thin that the entire globe turned to ice. Over the next 200Myr, the outgassing of CO2 and N2 from the mantle restored enough atmosphere to unfreeze the globe and the cyanobacteria again survived and more complex lifeforms evolved.
A couple of Ga later and a few cycles into glaciation due to reducing atmosphere, the Carbomiferous period resulted in atmospheric oxygen increasing from trace levels to something like the present level. In fact, before the Cretaceous period extinction impact, oxygen levels reached up to 35% of the atmosphere.
So Earth is as much a reflection of the life that it has spawned as its place in the solar system. The moon forming impact could very well be the defining moment for the Earth we inhabit.
The abundance of water over the surface relative to the lighter atmospheric gasses imbues unique characteristics that lifeforms are able to exploit. But there have been periods when those lifeforms have “eaten” their way to near extinction. Life started in water. Terrestial life is a relatively recent emergence in geological time.
Table 1 in the linked publication gives a range for the various atmospheric constituents over the Eons:
https://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Catling2020_and_Zahnle_Archean_Atmosphere_Review.pdf
Humans have engineered systems that multiply human power by many orders so can have significant influence on the environment. But there are some other power lifeforms capable of changing the landscape. There is around 60Mt of human biomass compared with 450,000Mt of plant biomass. Bacteria is three orders of magnitude higher than in mass than humans.
If humans keep releasing CO2 then humans will be fighting for space with plants. The wildfires they fuel are an effective control on human life.
50
The butterfly effect – coined by Professor Edward Lorenz in 1961, theorises that a miniscule occurrence, such as a tiny butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, could hypothetically set in motion a chain of events that could cause tornadoes to touch down in Texas a few days later.
Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” a very famous short story originally published in 1952 predates Lorenz
00
It’s odd that his job as a “Principal Scientist” seems to involve “media” as well as forecasting.
Since when has a job as a scientist involved working with media? That’s normally for a dedicated “public relations” department or whatever woke expression they go by these days.
40
CO2 Lover – correct re BS.
David – Brangelina & his fellow countryman, Ben Noll, are imported weather presenters from the USA who have ‘taken over’ what was once a respectable NZ scientific institution. The only color [sic] they know is RED, the only temperature HOT, yet they’ve only lived here for about 10 years. NIWA’s data was paid for by us, ie. public, yet the new boss charges for it: hence BS.
The opposition govt weather bureau, MetService, has nary a ‘Kiwi’ amongst them: their media reps are English, Irish, and South African (a woman whose name is unpronounceable and her English unrecognisable – all I can understand is ‘fine’ and ‘rain’). Local knowledge? Bah humbug, they’ve got a (brand new) ‘supercomputer’ and UN-trained immigrant spokesbots.
BTW we maxed-out on 21C, didn’t even hit 24, pathetic: I want my warming NOW! 😃
60
I was thinking of writing to the BOM and asking if they might forecast the rest of summer to be COOL AND WET as distinct from our Hot & Dry summer they forecast; but I aren’t sure they would oblige.
50
They are praying to the weather gods to bring about ‘hell on earth’, which they had prophesied, but its all in vain.
40
Australia’s wet season is sagging southwards, to Adelaide and Victoriastan as well as NSW… has the Great Inland Sea returned to its former glory again?
20
Make a complaint.
The BoM have a “feedback” form that can be framed as a complaint and I think they are required to respond to genuine issues. So you would have to give a reason for the “feedbacK’ and what problems it created for you. Could be you had to cancel a long planned road trip due to severe flooding.
https://reg.bom.gov.au/other/feedback/
I have not used this form but I expect you would get an automatic acknowledgement that you can use as the basis for follow up.
The CSIRO have a complaints procedure that I am working through regarding their ACCESS climate model. BoM also use a version of that model for weather forecasts.
20
FWIW
“Colonel Jacque Baud, a Swiss officer, a strategic intelligence and a former head of the United Nations peace operations doctrine, is not saddled with the analytical deficiencies of Mr. Clark. Baud is author of a new book, The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat, and presents a detailed breakdown of Ukraine’s hopeless task. He summarizes the problem succinctly:”
https://www.thepostil.com/the-russian-art-of-war-how-the-west-led-ukraine-to-defeat/
More here –
Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/ukrainian-post-mortems-starting-appear/
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Medical madness in the 18th century: the meaning of “blowing smoke up your a$$”
Tobacco was believed to have invigorating properties and the ability to absorb moisture and warm the body from within. Thus, blowing tobacco smoke through various orifices of the human body was the recommended procedure for reviving the apparently lifeless body of a drowned victim. The bellows in the kit enabled the physician or reviver to pump tobacco smoke through various nozzles that were ideally designed to fit the victim’s nose and rectum.
Around this time, word spread that North American Indians used tobacco as a medicine to cure a variety of ailments. Apart from inhaling the smoke of burnt tobacco leaves, another process was to expel the smoke through the rectum. European doctors thought it was a good idea to revive drowned people, because smoke was hot and drowned people needed warmth.
By the end of the 19th century, the Society had over 280 depots across Britain, equipped with life-saving tobacco smoke blowing equipment. These devices were installed along the banks of the River Thames in London in the same way that defibrillators are found in public places today.
By the end of the 19th century, enemas of tobacco smoke had become an established practice in Western medicine, treating not only drowning victims, but many other ailments such as headaches, respiratory failure, cramps, colds, hernias, and stomach cramps. He also treated diseases.
https://www.libraryhistt.com/2024/01/when-blowing-smoke-up-your-ass-was-real.html
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Saturday poser: what is this man suffering from?
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1722307280266273265
1. He’s pregnant.
2. Severe gas from mexican food.
3. Way too much beer.
4. Cancer.
5. Liberal delusions.
40
No matter how you spin it, obfuscate it, deny it… its all just plain queer. Mankind was never designed to be like that.
30
‘He’s’ an ugly sheila.
40
Some Dutch guy put a finger in the Dike and it’s about to explode?
40
Arctic sea ice at normal level.
‘The end of 2023 had above average sea ice growth, bringing the daily extent within the interdecile range, the range spanning 90 percent of past sea ice extents for the date. Rapid expansion of ice in the Chukchi and Bering Seas and across Hudson Bay was responsible.’ (NSIDC)
60
Scientists drilling into magma chamber for potentially unlimited energy
Scientists in Iceland are steaming ahead with an ambitious project to drill straight down into a magma chamber that could provide not only the first direct look at the oceans of molten rock stewing miles beneath the Earth’s surface, but a revolution in geothermal energy that could potentially see the technology be used anywhere on the globe with never before achieved efficiency.
“You could never really propose to drill into magma,” John Eichelberger, a volcanologist at the University of Alaska told New Scientist. “People would laugh at you and say, you’ll start an eruption. And besides, you can’t find it.”
But by an incredible stroke of luck, scientists did. In 2009, a geothermal drilling project for the Iceland energy firm Landsvirkjun unexpectedly hit a magma chamber near the country’s formidable Krafla volcano. That the crew weren’t instantly obliterated by a volcanic eruption was relieving proof that drilling into magma could be safe.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/drilling-into-magma-chamber
What could possibly go wrong…
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It’s a beautiful specimen.
RipleyJC, think of the possibilities!10
See Crack in the World (1965)
10
I find it interesting that today’s attitude of the Left toward homosexuals is much the same as the Islamic state of Iran.
Rather than just let people with such tendencies live life as they will, for what might be an effeminate boy/man or masculine girl/woman, in both the case of the Left and Shi’ite Iran, they have a sense of urgency to hormonally and surgically sterilise and mutilate them to create some semblance of the opposite sex.
In Iran the alternative is getting hanged for being homosexual. In the West, it is extreme social pressure to “transition” because the Left think it’s trendy and “kool”. The ultimate status symbol for a Leftist is to have a “trans” kid such as quite a few Hollyweird “celebrities” (preferably more than one).
None of this is going to end well as we see increasing numbers of legal cases against health “professionals” for their butchery.
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In terms of the most insane policies in support of the anthropogenic global warming fraud, which would you rank as the top five or ten countries in order of madness for the worst to the slightly less worst.
And what countries have the least insane policies?
10
Australia should be #1 on any list.
Our population is too small to make any difference even if our CO2 (plant food) emissions were reduced to zero.
We have huge reserves of Coal and Natural Gas which we export – but which are being banned for use in Australia.
We have the world’s largest Uranium reserves but Nuclear Power is banned in Australia.
We are already at “Net Zero” if you factor in nature sequestration of CO2 by Australian plants and coastal ocean waters as advised by Professor Ian Plimer.
Our leaders ignore what has been happening in Germany and the UK with the rush to “Green Energy”.
Plus we have the world’s dumbest and most corrupt politicians who should be kicked out of office at the first opportunity.
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We have much to thank Vlad Putin for.
Russia may play the game of talking about reducing CO2 emissions – but actions speak louder than words.
Should Australia be relying on China for all of its solar panels and most of its wind turbines?
The largest windfarm in NSW is owned and operated by a Chinese Company using Chinese Goldwind wind turbines .
20
See my comment 15.2.1
Germany has lots of lignite (brown coal) and their latest station using it emits less CO2 per MWh than any of Australia’s plants. (about 800 as against Victoria’s 1120+).
20
It is already here.
Remember the recent OPTUS network outage? The Medibank Hack?
100,000 EVs Suddenly Turn To JUNK! China’s No.2 EV Company Goes Bankrupt! The EVs were networked back to a central computer and they all stopped working when there was no one to man the Head Office central computer.
If Digital IDs and Digital currency become the norm – then fact may become stranger then fiction.
Could our fate become that of the Krell in Forbidden Plant – my favourite Science Fiction movie?
30
It was a great movie from a long time ago. It captured the essence of science fiction, as distinct from the over CGI’d and cerebrally challenged fantasy so common today.
20
Here ya go Adel.
https://youtu.be/kFtR9bQupak?si=lTl7hHIZzERCA5yE
Audio added, badly colourised.
No comparison to T2 (remastered).😎
20
Nothing ever changes
“Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it.”
– Nicolaus Copernicus
Preface to De Revolutionibus (1543)
30
A rebuttal of previous scare.
In 1499 the astrologer Johann Stöffler predicted that a “Grand Conjunction” in Pisces would occur in February of 1524, and being in Pisces might mean a flood. But the genie was out of the bottle, and between 1519 and 1523 over 60 astrologers wrote about the coming flood. Boat builders became rich as landowners and nobles prepared emergency arks for their own survival. Local merchants played up the Apocalypse angle by stocking their shelves with a variety of emergency supplies and prepared to do brisk business. River banks across Europe were dotted with new boats laden with all the food and water they could safely carry.
Of the various known arks to be built, the most ambitious was by a German count named von Iggleheim who constructed a luxury, three-story ark for his friends and family. Crowds had gathered, mostly out of curiosity, although some of them were having fun at von Iggleheim’s expense. The jeering stopped when the rain started however. While it wasn’t a particularly impressive rainstorm as such, it was enough to panic the crowd. Hundreds were killed in the stampede that followed and then they turned their attention to von Iggleheim’s ark and the other ships nearby. When von Iggleheim refused to allow any of them aboard, he was dragged off his ship and stoned to death by the crowd. The panic only ended when the rain stopped. Weather wise, the year 1524 was actually dryer than usual in Europe.
50
Thought for the day
God: creates the universe out of nothing, but needs Adam’s rib for one more thing.
/big mistake dude
Why do all depictions of Adam & Eve have bellybuttons? 😉
42
Because their depictions.
00
And… He needs money!
LOTS OF MONEY!
(apologies to George Carlin, RIP)
31
What I don’t get is that there was Adam and Eve, and then they had Cain and Able. One of them killed the other. So there was only one male left. How then did the human population increase without a woman to have the babies? Where did this woman come from? Were there others just around the corner or what?
Never explained in anything that I have ever read, so God only knows………………………
52
Can o’ worms there, bud.
God created man but needed a woman for Jesus?
God didn’t create man, man created God.
Time to move on from superstitions.
71
Yes, there were others to the east of Eden.
Genesis 4:16-26
For the crime of killing Cain, God exiled Abel from His Garden at Eden. Abel travelled to the land of Nod, east of Eden, met a woman there and the rest is Biblical Genealogy.
It’s not surprising there were other hominids on earth at the time because aside from Adam & Eve and those who dwelt in Nod, there were at least three other different types of beings, as described in Genesis 6:1-4. They are the giants, the nephilim, (the fallen ones), and the “heroes, the mighty men of renown”, who, like the Ancient Greek heroes, were the offspring of the nephilim and mere mortals.
40
One of the energy policy drivers in Australia is the assumption our economy is and will remain 80%+ a service economy. Dominantly small individual power demands in the economy can be met by local renewable sources. The 15-20% primary industry will look after itself or wither and (continue to) die without material economic impacts.
What the problem is the economic model is a flat model that doesn’t consider compounding effects of removing primary industry.
My view is it’s not so much political tenure by itself is the answer but the bureaucratic process including public consultation around game changing policy that should be debated.
Where is the outrage?
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JC can’t operate without money.
31
Remember: flying is safer than driving
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1743488160229724529
Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air
Little noticed, the Federal Aviation Administration in December published a Boeing request for an exemption from key safety standards on the 737 MAX 7 — the still-uncertified smallest member of Boeing’s newest jet family.
Since August, earlier models of the MAX currently flying passengers in the U.S. have had to limit use of the jet’s engine anti-ice system after Boeing discovered a defect in the system with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The flaw could cause the inlet at the front end of the pod surrounding the engine — known as a nacelle — to break and fall off.
In an August Airworthiness Directive, the FAA stated that debris from such a breakup could penetrate the fuselage, putting passengers seated at windows behind the wings in danger, and could damage the wing or tail of the plane, “which could result in loss of control of the airplane.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-wants-faa-to-exempt-max-7-from-safety-rules-to-get-it-in-the-air/
Boeing: not safe or effective, unsafe and defective.
Sounds familiar…
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Sounds like
Boing, Boing, Boing
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boing)
10
Up just now –
“Gaping hole in Alaska Airlines plane after section blew out during flight”
“Passengers’ belongings were reportedly sucked out of the Alaska Airlines plane during the scary ordeal and the airline has decided to ground its entire fleet of 65 Boeing 737 MAX-9 aircraft.
”
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/victoria/gaping-hole-in-alaska-airlines-plane-after-section-blew-midflight/news-story/f990fdcce3188f5316aa2f117300bf43
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Alaska has just had an explosive decompression on a new B 737. Still looking for details. Fortunately no one was ejected.
Just when you thought it safe to get on a 737. lol
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ielqi4OkTbc
WEST SIDE NEXT STORY
20
The Australian Government has announced tax cuts. That is good in principle, but since Liberal and Labor Uniparty Governments are addicted to spending, where is the money going to come from to make up for lost revenue? I fear they must have a new and sinister tax in mind.
20
The output of the economy does not change much. So tax cuts means there is more buying power for the same output unless the governments reduce spending and/or cut numbers on the government payroll.
Iron ore price is going strong and a decent slice of that gets back to government coffers. The current price is way above their budget forecast so that could support tax cuts but it is still inflationary unless savings go up to offset the tax break or buys more Chinese manufactured imports – maybe more wind and solar generators!
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It’s deficit spending that creates inflation, when the central bank balance sheet grows with the weight of non-market low interest rates. Governments want someone to buy their bonds at the lowest rate possible, and go to the central bank demanding interest rates are held down … always results in money printing and expansion of the balance sheet.
Inflation can easily be prevented if governments refuse to run large deficits, and central banks don’t force down interest rates below the market rate.
A central bank is supposed to be a lender of last resort (i.e. higher rates than everyone else but always available) instead of a lender of first resort which is what we have now. Inflation is always driven by money printing at the heart of it … the only variation is who gets that new money first and where it enters the economy.
30
Tripping the not so light sarcastic –
“Replacement Theory”
https://kunstler.com/clusterf*-nation/replacement-theory/
And the thread before this
20
For the record – I haven’t watched
“Something different-
If you have a few hours to kill…
This channel has some great documentaries about the Australian fishing industry..
this one on Orange Roughy explains why I was eating a ton of the stuff in the late 1990s but haven’t seen any in years.
https://youtu.be/Gs2hF7xOo-I?si=Yo-e3zvsnDx-p4xy ”
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2024/01/06/january-6-2024-reader-tips/#comment-1848077
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FWIW
“Tucker Carlson and Bret Weinstein Discuss Big Pharma and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Dark Globalist Agenda
January 6, 2024 | Sundance | 62 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/01/06/tucker-carlson-and-bret-weinstein-discuss-big-pharma-and-the-world-health-organizations-who-dark-globalist-agenda/
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Add
“UN Puts “Climate Integrity” at the Heart of their 2024 Election Plan”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/01/05/un-puts-climate-integrity-at-the-heart-of-their-2024-election-plan/
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“Climate Integrity” now!
WE’ve had everything from “Climate Change”[TM], “Climate Emergency”, “Climate Catastrophe”, to “Climate Breakdown”.
Climate Nonsense!
Actually, it’s all flagrant CLIMATE BULLSH!!!T !!
40
Ah, the propaganda wars! Never in the history of mankind have so many been paid so much to do absolutely nothing useful with their lives!!
“This is especially worrying as our colleagues around the world continue to report grave impacts of weaponized mis and disinformation and hate speech. They flag information wars which distort actual events on the battlefield or in humanitarian arenas and disinformation is targeting our peacekeepers too, lies that result in division, vision polarization and even violence online posts as well are clearly turning anti-semitic racist or islamophobic.
We are worried how this free online atmosphere is undermining Democratic processes, a challenge we cannot afford to ignore as we head into a bumper election year in 2024,
The Secretary General has made it crystal clear we cannot go on like this, we need to become more nimble, more targeted and strategic in our use of digital media and in our information literacy tactics, such as pre-bunking….
Such user power will be one of the key principles of the UN Code of Conduct on information Integrity on digital platforms which my team and I are working on. The code will be presented at the summit of the future in September 2024 and will set a global gold standard to make the digital sphere more humane and it will call for a firm Global commitment to information integrity.”
Another one where you’d need to turn the light off first during the pre-bunking..
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Minerals and oil royalties.
Petroleum Resource Rents Tax.
Offshore petroleum exploration permits
Penalties, permits, leases and licences
Growth in GST from the minerals/gas boom.
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