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
From The Spectator Australia –
Rocco Loiacono
22nd of March, 2025
“It has been 94 years since a first-term federal government has been removed from office in this country, and if any government deserves to get the boot, it is the current one. But it is becoming increasingly clear, if current polling trends are to be believed, that the upcoming election will deliver minority government.
Both last weekend’s Newspoll and this week’s Freshwater poll put the Coalition ahead of Labor 51-to-49 on a two-party preferred basis.
If these numbers were replicated at a general election, the most likely outcome is a Labor minority government dependent on the Greens plus any remaining Teals (the latest Redbridge poll sees at least four in danger of losing their seats).”
“Until the Coalition pulls out of the Paris Agreement and abandons net zero, it will be constrained in its ability to counter Labor and appeal to the voters it needs – namely Australian businesses and families – who simply cannot afford this senseless ideological crusade.”
“To win the 2025 election, the Coalition needs to break a near-100-year hoodoo.
To do that, the Coalition will need to achieve a primary vote of at least 42 per cent if it is to have any chance of governing. Both Newspoll and Freshwater have it at 39 per cent.
Fortune favours the brave. It is no coincidence that the Coalition, under Mr Dutton, appeared more appealing to the electorate after the Voice referendum, when it was fighting for a fundamental principle in the face of the prevailing ‘vibe’ at the time which was firmly in favour of the Yes campaign.
If the Coalition continues with the ‘play it safe’ strategy, another three years grazing in the opposition pastureland awaits.”
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Unfortunately Dutton has grown to resemble a grazing animal more than a counter-revolutionary.
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Brilliant analogy, Skepticynic.
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Dutton’s strategy is to look just slightly better than Albo.
Think about that for a moment … it’s Albo.
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Johnny, the polls here as in the US always favour the Left/liberal side of politics, and I believe that is the case with current polling for the coming Australian election. Reckon there is about a 2% “shy” Conservative vote about there that will get the LNP coalition over the line come voting day.
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Only called LNP in Queensland
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One little space would have corrected it
“L NP coalition”
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What difference will the election result make?
I don’t believe the nation can vote itself out of the bureaucratic oppression it suffers.
Now if there was a candidate proposing an annual 20% reduction in bureacracy each year I might get interested.
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The punters have backed a Coalition minority government.
Both sides are already looking for independents, with similar values, who might fancy being in government.
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Campbell Newman tried minor reforms in that direction in Qld and suffered an ignominious first term defeat. The liberals can’t be right enough for the drys or left enough for the wets.
Aussies ❤️ their nanny state.
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Australians are an easy going lot and see the benefit of social welfare, but I think the NDIS will be restrained by a Dutton government.
Two party preferred they are neck and neck coming down the straight.
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“It has been 94 years since a first-term federal government has been removed from office in this country”
I’m thinking Whitlam in 1975.
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https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/prime-minister-urged-to-call-emergency-meeting-after-trump-administration-cuts-funding-to-seven-australian-universities/news-story/2849b3274db1cc6a1774b1991106b6da
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Interview with Ed Miliband
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/03/22/bbc-interview-exposes-milibands-weak-grasp-on-reality/
He is rolling out thousands of solar panels to hundreds of schools in the UK. He admitted that the panels came from China.
Which gives the schools the ideal opportunity to get the children to work on projects as to the use of Uighurs as coerced labour to build the panels, the child labour needed to mine the minerals to create the panels, the environmental damage by the processing of the minerals, the coal needed to make the panels and how much energy the panels will create at the UK’s latitude.
Perhaps they can then do a class project on the ethics of EV’s, asking similar questions and whether it is right for often subsidised EV owners to freeload on the nations roads at the expense of other car drivers who have to pay tax on petrol which is then used to maintain the road network
Perhaps their virtue signaling parents can come to the school to participate in the debates and explain why human rights, slavery, a damaged environment and the use of coal are acceptable when it comes to ‘green’ projects but not with other products.
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Subversives in schools? A counter revolution based on the principles learned during the enlightenment?
As John Lennon once sang, We’re all doing what we can!
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Has this story been playing in Australia? “Trump cuts funding to OZ Universities”
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/prime-minister-urged-to-call-emergency-meeting-after-trump-administration-cuts-funding-to-seven-australian-universities/news-story/2849b3274db1cc6a1774b1991106b6da
Why are they getting funding and are certain woke criteria being applied to projects?
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I don’t think that the Universities listed are high on the Government’s priorities as it is more concerned with being returned to office in the May election (yet to be announced by the dithering PM).
It is just a plea from those universities for money, without any indication of whether those monies do anything other than supporting the huge administrating class that the Universities carry, and trying to panic the Labor “government” into spending more to save their cosy “jobs”.
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RE: Australian University funding sourced in the USA:
Well given the USA is in the northern hemisphere and astronomy is interested in the totality of the (mostly night) sky, I would venture there are a few telescopes in Australia which are grateful to receive their occasional external funding to look at the “southern” skies.
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This is quite a sad story as Germany reins back on its cultural events due to fears of violence
https://rmx.news/article/festival-cancellations-due-to-terror-threat-and-rising-security-costs-are-eroding-germanys-cultural-heritage/
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Just a step in their culture getting washed away
These seasonal/religious events are embedded in the rhythm of life in Europe are are expected and loved events in the calendar.
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But are they all universally loved … ?
Auto
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The polls may underestimate the outcome of the coalition.
Dutton is like Trump a bit hard to say you will vote for him but when in the privacy of a booth you do
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We shall see what the Budget is, the Budget Reply will be as well what the Coalition Policies are.
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“when in the privacy of a booth you do”
Only if there is a reason to, and when they are indistinguishable colourless characters there is no reason to change. The only reason I’ve ever seen to vote Dutton is ‘he’s not Albosleazy’, and that’s why incompetents get into power as Australians vote parties out of power, not in.
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Dutton has one chance, in his Budget Reply, to establish a beach head. The Libs must declare Net Zero is impossible and too costly or risk being an also ran! Under Labor We are about to dive head first into a deep Red Hole that will cause much angst and pauperise the country and will lead to a massive political left turn. Chalmers is baiting us with two $75 tit bits.
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Forgive the intrusion, but I think that should be “tidbits”. Tits are something different.
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In the UK we always said ‘titbits’; nothing to do with mammary equipment.
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Thanks for the mammary or should I say memory
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Get woke Go broke.
(Copied from Farcebook.)
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The Critical Drinker has his rather salty say at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzk0yH9Achw&t=320s
One interesting comment is about the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale and how even that changed over the years even before the 1912 broadway version. Another runs through the original plot and comments that they might be tempted to watch that version.
Wikipedia has a surprisingly unmolested summary at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White
Sadly as Orwell wrote …
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
To which Hans Christian Anderson pre-emptively responded with the story about the Emporer’s New Clothes.
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FWIW
“The downfall of climate change poster boy Michael Mann”
James Delingpole, paywalled
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/03/the-downfall-of-climate-change-poster-boy-michael-mann/
Via https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/03/23/the-downfall-of-climate-change-poster-boy-michael-mann-n3801066
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FWIW
“EPA’s Attempt To Roll Back Climate Regulations May Come Down To One Key Legal Point”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/epas-attempt-roll-back-climate-regulations-may-come-down-one-key-legal-point
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FWIW
“The War on Intelligence”
“It’s often said that if you want to get better at something, stop playing with people you can easily beat and instead play against people who are better than you. This applies to chess, tennis, hockey, and pretty much every other activity.
The hosts of the All-In-Podcast are exceptionally smart and incredibly successful. In the most recent example, guest host Cyan Banister offered strong words of warning for Americans. She provided a long term perspective of how incredibly destructive DEI, Wokeness, and the war on excellence and meritocracy has been. One can only speculate how much worse things are in Canada given the reign of Dear Leader the past 9 years. The other hosts chimed in and this chart was displayed:”
The chart –
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Woke_White_Women-600×439.png
More at
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/03/23/the-war-on-intelligence/
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The law of natural consequences has application here.
Perhaps the attitudes displayed in the chart by college educated white women are related to the MGTOW (men going their own way) phenomenon.
This too shall pass.
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FWIW – more bubbling on the covid scene
“One Flu Out Of the Wuhan Nest”
“@EricAbbenante – Astonishing discussion on Bill Maher as the panelists debate Fauci’s culpability in gain of function experiments after reports that British intelligence knew covid was a lab leak back in 2020:”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/03/23/one-flu-out-of-the-wuhan-nest-124/
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Is the Cyber Truck mankind’s greatest creation?
It’s criminal that this incredible piece of engineering is not allowed on Australian roads. As Musk has stated, these are the actions of the woke mind virus. The government has banned this incredible piece of machinery because it goes against their self interest.
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“David Defeats Goliath. Again”
Another US windfarm not approved
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/22/david-defeats-goliath-again/
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Trump has yet to learn that Govt interference only leads to a lower standard of living-
“a Trump administration proposal to impose “extreme” fees on China-linked ships that visit American ports will harm trade and undermine the booming market for Australian red meat… foist port levies of up to $US1.5 million ($2.3 million) on Chinese-built or operated ships, as well as vessels from fleets that include ships made in China….announced his plan for a new shipbuilding office within the White House and tax incentives to “bring this industry home”… ships transporting meat required many powerpoints for refrigerators, and this “would likely make it quite difficult to replace China-built vessels with US-built ships”…China now accounts for more than half of commercial shipbuilding production worldwide – much higher than rivals South Korea and Japan, and dwarfing the rest of the world”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/the-new-trump-threat-to-australia-us-trade-and-it-s-not-tariffs-20250323-p5llpu.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
So the American Govt collect extra fees for berthing Chinese ships and gives them to the American shipbuilders, who build expensive ships no-one wants to buy, while costing American consumers more for everything delivered by Chinese ships, which is over half the world fleet.
That sounds like a Govt!
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It’s good to have friends in high places….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/putin-said-prayed-donald-trump-2024-assassination-attempt-rcna197629
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Haha! Typical Democrat propaganda, a couple of truthful words buried in anti-Russian and anti-Trump slanted rubbish! Still, we now know who pays for this stuff, and killing off the free money will make these Biden mouthpieces go broke.
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https://kyivindependent.com/russia-used-chemical-weapons-434-times-in-december-ukraines-general-staff-says/
The Kremlin Party replies….
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Yes, CS gas, same as the West, including Australia, uses on its own citizens because its ‘non-toxic’. They use riot-control gas to disorientate the enemy, and both sides have done. Russia says Ukraine has used hydrogen cyanide, decidedly worse.
Landmines similarly, banned yet widely used by both sides. Now you can clearly see the usefulness of the UN.
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Trusty little fellow like me would believe anything. No, sorry – accept that anything is possible.
Anything, except that Putin is a Christian.
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“Anything, except that Putin is a Christian.”
more chance than Albosleazy..
“9 Mar 2022 … MOSCOW. March 9 (Interfax) – Most Russians (68%) consider themselves Orthodox Christians”
“Australia, with a total of 43.9% of the nation-wide population identifying with a Christian denomination in the 2021 census.”
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Waiting… still waiting… Where’s Warming?
-48 C Amundsen, South Pole
-45 C Summit, Greenland
-22 C Arctic / North Pole
+41 C NW Western Australia
Despite their BoM’s child-like crayon colouring-in competition (CCCC) heatwave map for the weekend gone, the warmest I could find was the above 41C, with Carnarvon on the edge of the umber-hued patch [seek shelter! drink water! Hail Greta!] a very pleasant 33C max.
Subtract a mythical UN-approved 1.5 degrees from any of the above temperatures and who in their right mind would even notice – apart from sensitive types but they’re not the kind who live/work in the Gascoyne or Pilbara.
Hi, I’m from the govt and I’m here to funk you.
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Almost 38 outside today in Perth and will still climb a bit higher. High temps expected all week. Now back to fixing the irrigation…
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…and the latest twisted loony left fad is vabbing…
Look it up yourselves then wish you hadn’t.
/Poor lonely females with zero chance of hooking a real man…
/maybe a robotic dog. We all read that piece didn’t we…
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If they’ve got bacterial vaginosis or trichomoniasis they’re not likely to be attracting anyone by vabbing.
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From urban dictionary [which I need regularly]
Guy-“I meant it smells like a strip club or your sister’s bedroom.”
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“…and the latest twisted loony left fad is vabbing…”
Nah. Back in the 60s & 70s the feminists were into that, eschewing the expensive perfumes that made you smell like something else.
It not something you would consciously smell really, it hits the subconscious more, the difference of ‘she smells of sex’ to ‘she smells sexy’.
Overall, never go to bed with someone who doesn’t smell great, an even better parameter for picking a partner than boobs!
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I wonder has Dutton heard what Pauline has proposed today, he could run with at least some of it.
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FWIW
I heard on a rural radio show this morning that wind power has a real rails run in Qld.
Not only do they not have to worry about the Vegetation Management Act but they also don’t have to worry about existing wind farm noise regulations.
Sounds like more will be heard on this
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There are a couple of problems though: The closer the equator the quieter the air, you have heard of the furious fifties, the roaring forties and the placid tropics but there is also GBRMPA which rules over the seas north of about Rockhampton. The trade winds are Sou Easters which parallel the coast, not cross it so much, so you would have to go offshore to catch the wind.
Hello, is that GBRMPA?
NO! Click.
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Then all that land clearing in the CQ coastal ranges was entirely optimistic then?
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Tell me the story and I’ll reply.
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https://joannenova.com.au/2024/01/former-greens-candidate-now-warns-wind-turbines-are-lunacy-and-a-scam/
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https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1937/mar/18/influenza-and-common-cold#S5CV0321P0_19370318_HOC_184
Mr. R. MacDonald Research on influenza and the common cold has been assisted by the Medical Research Council from time to time. In particular, the investigations into influenza which are now being made by the council’s own staff at the National Institute for Medical Research have been in progress since 1933. An account of recent progress is given in the annual report of the Medical Research Council for the year 1935–36, presented to Parliament and published last Tuesday. During the past year there has been further confirmation from different parts of the world that the virus originally isolated at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1933 is the infective agent which causes epidemic influenza, and on this basis attempts to devise preventive measures are being continued. Substantial progress has been achieved by these scientists working in the service of the British Government, and there is considerable ground for hoping that a satisfactory means of producing at least temporary immunity will be evolved. Earlier methods of inoculation against influenza have been unsatisfactory, because they were not based on the accurate knowledge, which is now believed to be available, regarding the nature of the causative agent. The council are not at the moment supporting any direct attack upon the common cold, but the problems are closely related and an advance against the one disease is likely to assist attack on the other. A statement which has been made in the Press to the effect that the council have, as a matter of policy, abandoned work on the common cold is without foundation. It is not possible to state the cost of this investigation separately from that of other work involving the same personnel and equipment.
§Mr. Macquisten Is not the surest way to cure the common cold and influenza to reduce the Whisky Duty?
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And egg imports: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1937/feb/22/chinese-liquid-eggs#S5CV0320P0_19370222_HOC_348
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) The answer to the first part of the question, in so far as the Medical Research Council are concerned, is in the negative. As regards the second part, I am informed that the matter is not of a kind which would come within the Council’s sphere, except on representations from the appropriate administrative Department that there was need for special research work going beyond the scope of ordinary methods of examination. In this connection, I am informed by the Minister of Health that samples of frozen Chinese eggs have been examined in the laboratory of his Department and that no evidence was found of the presence of any pathogenic organisms.
§Sir G. Fox Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nearly 1000,000,000 of these eggs came into British ports last year from China?
§Mr. Lambert Has the right hon. Gentleman tried a diet of Chinese eggs?
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FWIW
“The science is settled” ?
“”The Science” May Have Miscalculated The Number Of People On Earth…By Billions”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/science-may-have-miscalculated-number-people-earth
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‘Plug pulled on $750m green hydrogen plant.
‘A $750m green hydrogen project in South Australia has been quietly shelved, adding to a string of projects failing to move beyond a feasibility stage.’ (Oz)
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” Preparations for a provocation are underway in Sumy Oblast. A film crew from one of the major Ukrainian state channels has arrived in the city of Putivl. A group of children have been brought in on buses to create a story about the consequences of the Russian Armed Forces’ strike on a kindergarten. Most likely, a story will be filmed to disrupt peace talks, and the strike will be shown as an attack on infrastructure.
https://voenhronika-ru.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
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Of course it’s all lies, Russia has NEVER bombed civilians.
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Pity they rush over to Belgorod to see the results of random attacks there. Sadly its a warzone and as much as we would like it to be a fantasyland where only the military got hit that isnt reality.
If Russia truly targetted civilians ie total war like London, Dresden, Tokyo and Nagasaki then Kiev and western Ukraine would be gone, and we would probably be in ww3
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