Sunday

8.9 out of 10 based on 27 ratings

169 comments to Sunday

  • #
    Tonyb

    In sunny switzerland.ha!heavy rain today which fell as snow at around 1800 metres.

    The Ethernet connection to our flat was out for a couple of days which meant no internet and no tv.

    Several shops in Montreux also had unrelated connection problems and couldn’t take payments. In another shop someone’s phone payment didn’t work

    At the airport one person couldn’t use his phone to check in and had not printed out a copy of his ticket so looks like he missed the flight.

    A few days ago nineteen UK railway stations were hit by a communications hack.

    Instead of backing off putting all our digital eggs in one basket we seem as individuals and government to use digital at every opportunity even when it causes problems

    Surely this will all end with the most massive cyber attacks or via a series of accidental faults that will take down key areas of our society

    No hire car this time round, they have become far too clever for their own good so using the Swiss rail network instead.

    It seems that electric vehicles do have the capability to be hacked so let’s hope sufficient safeguards are now being designed in.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Wherever possible I ask for documentation such as tickets or bills in paper form, or print it myself if necessary since some places won’t give you a paper copy.

      Unfortunately, many places aren’t able to even generate a printable form of anything. E.g. Ticketmaster has an animated form of ticket that can only be displayed on a smartphone. Paper and non-smartphone tickets are impossible. No smartphone, no entry.

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    • #
      Yarpos

      Enjoy Montreux, its a beautiful location.

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      • #
        Graeme4

        Agree. Stayed in a hotel that had a fantastic view over the lake. Was being renovated so was very cheap at that time. And the Golden Pass train that runs out of Montreux over the mountains is a delight.

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        • #
          Tonyb

          We are taking the train to zermatt today for a night. Went skiing there many years ago where you can ski into italy. If we had taken the golden pass yesterday saturday, it would have been very disappointing due to heavy rain and low cloud.

          All our tickets are printed out in duplicate.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    This article was from 2022:

    “Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty”
    Emily Oster.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/

    No.

    The proponents of the covid lockups knew exactly what they were doing.

    All the necessary information was available on sites like this and anyone who questionned the Official Narrative, including professional scientists and medical doctors was silenced and/or fired and/or registered If a medical doctor.

    NO EXCUSES.

    NO ESCAPE FROM POSSIBLE FUTURE PUNISHMENT!

    Recently someone Tweeted a response to the article with a meme and a comment:

    https://x.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1839513725511848124

    There is a meme which you’ll have to go to the link to see plus the comment:

    Let’s not forgive even one of you sanctimonious irritating little “pandemic” fascists. You destroyed more lives than COVID did.

    The text on the meme says:

    LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY.
    We need to forgive one another for what
    we did and said when we were in the dark
    about COVID.
    By Emily Oster

    Best I could do is a military
    tribunal.
    Followed by executions.

    INCIDENTALLY, if or when Australia introduces its new censorship laws, any such questioning of the Official Narrative will be illegal.

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    • #
      dlk

      instead of seeing the error of their ways, they have doubled down on their tyranny 101, so what forgiveness is possible?

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    • #
      David Maddison

      registered If a medical doctor.

      Correction. It should have read “deregistered”. The stupid spelling checker made an unauthorised change.

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    • #
      John Connor II

      INCIDENTALLY, if or when Australia introduces its new censorship laws, any such questioning of the Official Narrative will be illegal.

      I wonder how the official narrative will explain how manmade climate change only makes the vaxxed sick.

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    • #
      Ted1

      Incarceration suspended should be the penalty, except for a small number of the ringleaders.

      Don’t spare the humiliation!

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    • #
      Fran

      when we were in the dark
      about COVID.

      I stopped worrying when the ages of the much touted “death toll” turned out to be greater than the Provincial life expectancy. What I cannot figure out is why most people did not also figure it out.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    I am still noticing lots of people in Sydney and Melbourne wearing obedience masks.

    What’s with that?

    Surely they all can’t have genuine medical conditions thst possibly justifies possible mask wearing?

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    • #
      Mike Jonas

      I suggest that you think of them as victims too, unless you find exceptions. IOW maybe they in their own way are still suffering from the government Wuhan virus oppression.

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      • #
        MeAgain

        I can’t believe all the thumbs down on this. I think of them as victims, and I mock them to try and snap them out of it – point at them with friends, get the camera out and say ‘I see mask people’ and take a photo of them

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    • #
      RayS

      A fear/brainwashing/cult indoctrination campaign so successful it can never be undone. The true believers are way to invested to ever see the error of their ways.

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    • #
      Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

      David I am sometimes tempted to tell the masked people that they are not protecting themselves. Rather, they are rebreathing CO2 and creating a moist environment to grow germs. The surgical mask is to prevent contamination of surgical sites with a side benefit of avoiding bodily fluids splashing the nose/mouth. We are living in a time of universal deception where the truth is deprecated.

      We have too many “Experts” that fail to acknowledge “What can not be known”.

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      • #
        Ted1

        They are not protecting themselves, but—they are protecting me–if they have a cough.

        The calls made against masks are not all sound. Until somebody produces hard evidence against me I’ll nominate the spittle that flies when people are talking as the probable biggest source of infection.

        If a mask caught 90% of that spittle it would surely reduce infection enough to justify its use.

        Just about any mask would do that.

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        • #
          Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

          Hanky. I have not once seen someone cough into a mask. Nor have I ever seen a patient on a ward prior to covid being given a mask as an infeKtion Kontrol measure. Miasma Ted!
          Anyone else chagrined by the “Cough into your elbow” and “Touch elbows to greet” doublethink the Komrades Promulgated?

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          • #
            Ted1

            I see no hard evidence there. My reference to coughing is as a sign of the possible presence of infection.

            I would expect that only a severe cough would launch as much infective material as does speaking.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Agreed. I don’t like people coughing at me, especially when there’s spittle. It just bad manners . They should turn away or cough into a hanky.

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      • #
        Gary S

        An expert is someone who knows all there is to know – about very little.

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      While a small minority has an actual medical reason to wear a mask, I feel it is still being used as a badge of allegiance by lefties. I’m fine with that. Makes them easier to avoid.

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    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘What’s with that?’

      Fear of influenza, particularly among the elderly.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        Most of the people I see with masks are young. Being elderly would qualify as a legitimate medical condition although it’s not clear that masks would protect them from influenza.

        I know someone who is a fanatical mask wearer and has had multiple jabs and has had covid three times and is super fit and not old.

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        • #
          el+gordo

          Fear of monkeypox.

          ‘The findings revealed that higher levels of monkeypox fear were linked to identifying as LGB+ or having close associations with the LGBTQI+ community, being single, having lower education levels, placing greater importance on religion, receiving more COVID-19 vaccine doses, having a lower current quality of … ‘ (National Institutes of Health)

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      I am still noticing lots of people in Sydney and Melbourne wearing obedience masks.

      What’s with that?

      Up here at the top of the Blue Mountains, a very Green/Labor area that voted YES in the referendum, it is very noticeable that masks are very common. The same when shopping in Penrith, at the foot of the Mountains. I know of locals who have now had 6 vaccinations.

      I have come to the conclusion that this is a leftards trait.

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      • #
        KP

        So do we work on the theory that those still alive with more than 3 jabs are immune to the damage that the jab causes, or are we sticking with the theory that some batches kill you and some don’t?

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    • #
      John B

      I saw a lady, with a mask, listening to music (I presume), last Friday, sitting alone at a picnic table in a park close to the Canning River. The park was almost empty and nobody was within cooee of her. She must have been hooked on the CO2 build up she was inhaling.

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      • #
        Lloydww

        Folks who wear a mask whilst driving alone in their cars do my head in.

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        • #

          So, trying to be understanding to fellow humans, it is possible they are driving to pick up someone who is high risk, like a cancer patient, or they are coming down with something themselves, and they don’t want to fill up the car space with viruses for whomever they are picking up. I’m just saying, they might be a mental case, but they might be someone who studied virology and is very considerate.

          A mask in a park is harder to explain. But for whatever its worth, a build up of CO2 is probably a good thing. (More lies we’ve been told that oxygen is “good” and CO2 is “bad”). Maybe they want anonymity?

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    • #
      Will Gray

      15% of double jabbed fall I’ll every 29 days. The days off work are a serious concern. Folk wearing masks feel it appropriate.

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    • #
      MeAgain

      Muggers love masks. 1. They help them identify a victim who is unlikely to fight back, 2. The Victim, seeing the mugger in a mask, lets their guard down, 3. Mask obscures muggers identity – makes ID parade difficult and 4. They don’t even have the pang of guilt having faced the scared victim and remembering the frightened face

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Senator Babet, United Australia Party, has requested an extension to the short submission deadline for Australia’s proposed censorship legislation (originally introduced by the Liberal faction of the Uniparty so you can’t trust them either plus the e Safety Kommissar is a creation of theirs plus the WEF).

    https://x.com/senatorbabet/status/1839173367204810862

    The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications.

    The committee has allowed just one week for the Australian people to have their say on what is arguably one of the worst bills to have ever been brought into the Australian Parliament.

    Unfortunately many Australians have had trouble accessing the bill online due to the website experiencing technical difficulties. For this reason I have written to the committee and requested additional time be given so that the Australian people can lodge their submissions.

    This bill poses a serious threat to freedom of expression and will likely result in the censorship of much true and accurate information.

    An extension to the date for submissions is not guaranteed, so please act now! Join me in opposing this draconian bill. Take the time to prepare a formal submission and let the committee and the government know your thoughts.

    Click here to lodge your submission and please ask your friends and family to do the same (hopefully it works) – aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_…

    You can also email your submission here – ec.sen@aph.gov.au

    May the government listen to the people. Long live free speech!

    Of course these “technical difficulties” are likely quite deliberate. And what happened to the 23,000 submissions on exactly the same thing sent in March, 2024 which seem to have been totally ignored?

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  • #
    another ian

    FWIW

    Chiefio takes a close look

    “UN Pact “for the future” – or WEF World Takeover?”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2024/09/27/un-pact-for-the-future-or-wef-world-takeover/

    And

    “UN Pact “for the future” – part 2”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2024/09/28/un-pact-for-the-future-part-2/

    That is up to “Action 50” – more coming

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  • #
    TdeF

    I have had a really shocking insight with Kamala Harris.

    We have all wondered about her practice of taking a single phrase and turning it into a dissertation, as on the significance of time, the children of the community etc. It is a really annoying practice to talk as long as possible with a few words, a child’s game. She talks not like someone in charge of three year old children but as a three year old child. But there is something far worse and more significant if that is possible, numeracy, geography, economics, competence. She really does not know where Russia is.

    Kamala has managed to get to the position of being President of the United States by falling at every hurdle but using people with great influence. So she has escaped any scrutiny by anyone. She lies constantly. They cannot find a single case she has personally prosecuted. Being elected to Congress is easy if your boyfriend dominates the Californian Democratic party, the same one who pushed Pelosi to Congress and ultimately Speaker.

    But Kamala cannot even count. She has no idea of Europe or Russia or Mexico or any geography. Or numbers! With the disaster of the Chinese made military bioweapon, Kamala waves her hands about the numbers dead. And on a number of occasions said that sadly 220 million Americans have died in a few months.

    That’s not ‘misspoke’. Does she even know the population of America? Does she know what a million is? Has she been to Canada? Is it North or South? Where is Venezuela? Who is the President of Argentina? In what continent is South Africa? How many continents are there?

    Biden at least has Parkinsons/Alzheimers/senility. Wrong words just tumble out. Numbers don’t matter. People just accept it now. No one complains. He misspoke.

    But Kamala Harris has no idea how many people live in America. No idea what 220 Million people means. Or what a million is. She is innumerate!

    No wonder she does not understand inflation. I would suggest she cannot do fractions or understands percentages either. Kamala Harris is a functional idiot! She could not work in McDonalds except on the chip fryer. And it looks like that was a lie too. Calling her dumb is possibly an insult to dumb people.

    NO wonder they coach her one asset, her ability to remember lines, wave her hands, look sincere, sound sincere and torture phrases until people just lose interest in the answer. People like Oprah Winfrey. Because she cannot answer ANY question. All she can do is murder the questions or statement. And she has a good chance of being President? It shows you can appoint a ham sandwich in the Democrat party, with no ham or bread or sandwich.

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    • #
      Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

      I would ask Kamala –
      1.How does it feel to fail the bar examination?
      2.Why did you keep paying your membership of a Soviet communist youth group years after the USSR fell?
      3.How did you feel when you held your baby for the first time?
      4.How can you be a candidate for the worlds most prestigious position as a diversity hire who has been appointed rather than elected by the party.

      The answers would tell all that needed to be known.

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      • #
        TdeF

        You could ask her how many thousands there are in a million. She could not answer.

        How can you live in California, Montreal, Chennai and not know any geography? Ask Jay Leno.

        Consider that this is the Federal Government. The President has to take on all foreign business. The rest is handled by the individual States. How can someone do this if they have no idea of geography. Or the economy if they do not understand percentages or basic accounting or economics?

        How can you life in California and never have been to the border in San Diego in thirty years. Or to ‘Europe’? What sort of entrance exam is there for President of the Unites States? And none of the 14 million registered ordinary members of the Democratic Party voted for Kamala.

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        • #
          Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

          Too right TdeF
          In case you missed #3 which was kinda a trick question. It is astonishing how most mothers immediately disregard labour pain and exclaim they immediately want another baby.

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          • #
            TdeF

            “3.How did you feel when you held your baby for the first time?”

            Kamala has never had children. She married at 50. Likely a strategic marriage.

            For most of those years from 29 to 50 we are led to believe the full time mistress of the Mayor of San Francisco and he kept promoting her, moving her up and up. She talks about her record as prosecutor but she never personally led any prosecution. It’s obvious now she could not.

            At no point did she have to qualify for anything. And now not even for President of the United States. She failed her first bar exam. Her university was rated #113 in the US and her parents could afford the best. And they attended the very best in Yale and Harvard and more.

            Her PhD economist father is still alive and nowhere to be seen. The last thing anyone wants is his opinion of his daughter’s ability.

            And like Michelle Obama, her family were the slave owners. These are people of enormous privilege. But Kamala has soared to heights of incompetence and ignorance far beyond her childish behaviour and skill set.

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            • #
              Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

              Yep it was a trick question! BTW Obama didn’t father children either- he had the prototype gay marriage prior to it being sanctioned and fostered the daughters of Big Mikes “obstetrician”. If Obama cared about his foster daughter Malia, there would not be a photo of a white powder being chopped up with her bank card on Hunter Biden’s laptop,or the subsequent photo of her naked POV Doggy style. If the world was a just place Hunter would be in jail for sex/drug use with a minor alone!
              The truth is stranger than fiction. I guess if Obama came out as a Gay man who had a red hanky in his right pocket married to a Tranny called Michelle it would be seen as “Stunning and Brave”.

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        • #
          Mike Jonas

          How many units are there in a million.

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      • #
        Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

        P.S. Kamala spent her “middle class” teenage years in Canada, so I guess she is cosmopolitan after all. Given her bizarre narration of what is technically termed “Word Salad” (a term used by psychiatrists to describe formal thought disorders such as schizophrenia) I trust it can be attributed to drug use. Both presidential candidates should submit to drug tests before being entrusted with the “nooklar football”.

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        • #
          TdeF

          She was never Middle Class, never worked in McDonalds but even the best universities have entrance exams. Unless you are a champion football captain from a rich tobacco family as with Al Gore who went to Harvard. In one Olympics, the world’s best and by far the richest university Stanford fielded a quarter of the US team.

          So Kamala went to a traditionally low performing historically Black university and plays the race equity game. Smart move by her mother in California where Gavin Newsom just signed a reparations bill to compensate slaves although California was a free state and never had slavery. Female, incompetent, ignorant, Hindu and black and utterly compliant. A shoe in for a Biden replacement. And even Biden hates her.

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    • #
      a happy little debunker

      The most unpopular VP in history does not become the leading candidate for POTUS (inside of 2 weeks) without extreme gas-lighting by a compliant MSM.
      .
      Yes , she is an empty suit (picked for the colour of her skin rather than the content of her heart).
      Yes, her ‘values’ (the same values that failed to make any electoral impression in the 2020 primaries) have not changed.
      Yes, she has failed at all tasks allotted to her, by her dementia ridden boss.
      .
      But none of that matters in this contest between the DNC Insiders & Oligarchs VS the working class MAGA.
      .
      What matters is who hates Trump and who loves Trump.
      AND that contest is too close to call.

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      • #
        TdeF

        It has been turned into a race of who has the better PR, not qualifications for the job. Kamala is utterly incompetent, unqualified, unsuitable and scatterbrained. So where we had months of Joe Biden is ‘sharp as a tack’ now we have ‘Donald Trump IS Hitler”.

        Can someone please shoot him? The FBI/CIA/Secret Service will not notice the man on the roof in plain sight with a scope rifle. Besides the roof is far too steep to risk the lives of security personnel.

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        • #
          TdeF

          And with the attack on the Golf Course, we are told those bushes were a popular spot for paparazzi. Which raises a lot of question. if blind Freddy with a camera would hide there, how was the security man sure he was not shooting a photographer? The assassin had set up black slits for shooting and a black rifle and a camera would also sparkle. There are a lot of questions about this attempted murder too. That agent will be fired. Perhaps he did not get the memo.

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      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        “What matters is who hates Trump and who loves Trump. AND that contest is too close to call.”

        Which, if true, puts the election “within the margin of steal” (h/t Mark Steyn)

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      • #
        el+gordo

        ‘DNC Insiders & Oligarchs VS the working class MAGA’

        In the old days the Democrats were workers and the Republicans stood for the moneyed set and wannabes, now its the other way round.

        On the question of Harris, this is insightful.

        https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/363859/kamala-harris-prosecutor-record-tough-crime

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    • #
      Ronin

      She didn’t visit the border because she doesn’t know where Mexico is and didn’t know to ask.

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    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      You’ll get no argument from me about any of that Tdef.

      But, and it’s a very big but … that’s just perfect if you are a deep state puppet.

      There seems to be a slight shift in the polls but those are clearly being manipulated as well.

      It is not yet clear whether the dems are inside or outside the margin of fraud but they are cheating and will continue to cheat.

      The world will just have to wait to see how big, how blatant and how effective the dem cheating is this time around.

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    • #
      Annie

      ‘Until people just lose interest in the answer’

      Or they just lose the will to live wondering how to respond to such stupidity.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The Amish community in Canada is being fined C$300,000+ for not using Trudeau’s smartphone covid person tracking App even though these people use mostly 19th century technology and don’t use phones or computers of any kind, not even electricity. (It sounds like Australia after grid collapse.)

    Now, Amish had legal covid “vaccine” exemptions but the Canadian Government of Trudeau is still pursuing them for not using the App on phones they don’t have and has attached liens against their properties for the value of the fines.

    This is a recent story.

    https://youtu.be/DcZYUJYQLAs

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    • #
      Eng_Ian

      I can see it now, Trudeau being dragged behind an Amish wagon down the main street. Bearded cheer leaders lining the roadside, all wishing him a fine day.

      And not a single smart phone or camera to record the sight.

      And that’s the travesty, it’s like DD stairs, no one saw a thing. We can’t replay it over and over, smiling and smirking at our screens.

      Revenge is a dish best served cold, (especially if you don’t have a microwave oven).

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    • #
      David Maddison

      I thought Israel’s strategy was brilliant. Make the terrorists too paranoid to use any electronic communications to force them to meet in person, then take them out at their in-person meeting (and be able to find the secret location).

      Now watch the antisemitic Left (a tautology I know) mourn the loss of their beloved terrorists they have propagandised so hard for. And I wonder if Foreign Minister Wong will be sending condolences to the terrorists which she tried so hard to protect from Israeli self-defensive actions?

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Oh, BTW Lefties, while you are fanatical supporters of the terrorists, not even the Saudis support so-called Palestinians.

      https://x.com/TimesAlgebraIND/status/1839752468852248750

      BIG NEWS 🚨 Saudi Arabia bans Imams from praying for Palestine or even mentioning it in their sermons in Saudi mosques.

      Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman said he personally DOESN’T CARE about Palestinian issue.

      Saudi says THERE IS NO PLACE for ‘political slogans’ in Hajj in Makkah and Madinah.

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      • #
        Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

        That is quite significant David. We should wonder why the fabulously wealthy proximal Oil states won’t have a bar of fellow Muslim Palestinians. I guess listening to the ABC won’t give me the reason.

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      • #
        Vladimir

        This is the best chance for HRH to make himself equal to his grandfather.
        He could easily use his influence in both East & West to the benefit of his own realm and people as well as of the whole region.
        How?
        Very simple – by doing his job.

        As a comparatively minor bonus he could build Gaza – “Makkah and Madinah” Hadj Railway.
        Read about Linear City if you think I am joking.

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        • #
          el+gordo

          Charlie is doing his job, however he’s now a senior citizen and has to be careful not to over do it.

          The Linear City idea is unlikely to take off.

          ‘In April 2024 it was reported that the project had been “scaled back” after foreign direct investment investors had not “bought into the crown prince’s vision”, according to Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal analyst at risk consultancy Maplecroft. Fluctuating global oil prices had contributed to the decision.’ (wiki)

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        • #
          Annie

          The King is HM (His Majesty), not HRH (His Royal Highness). He was HRH while he was Prince Charles.

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          • #
            Annie

            Was Vladimir referring to the Saudi ruler? I missed that and took my cue from EG’s reference to Charlie!
            The linear city should have woken me up!

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            • #
              Vladimir

              Of course, HRH Mohammed Bit Salmon !

              Linear City can run from Gaza to Eilat and start making very quickly – in terms of the project of such size.

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    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      It remains to be seen whether killing enemy leaders is ever a good idea.

      The pluses would be destabilization of the enemy and putting fear into the hearts of those who thought they were acting with impugnity.
      The minuses would be encouraging the enemy to kill leaders of the good guys.

      Hopefully the good guys have done their planning well and have judged that they can destabilize the enemy to the point where the enemy collapses. And the good guys have done their planning well and have judged that they can protect their own leadership.

      Sun Tsu and others offer much wisdom.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      And while Leftists mourn the loss of Nasrallah, Arabs in Syria celebrate his killing.

      https://youtu.be/Lq5uHz_Mqbg

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      • #
        John Connor II

        ..and a new record redthumb count for DM.

        Ssshhh…don’t mention Isra##.
        I mentioned it once but got away with it.

        /insert grinning dog 😉

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      • #
        OldOzzie

        Syrians take to the streets to celebrate Hassan Nasrallah’s death

        People cheer and clap and motorists honk their horns as news of Israel’s fatal strike on the Hezbollah leader spreads

        Fared Al Mahlool in Idlib. Sophia Yan Senior Foreign Correspondent

        Syrians danced in the streets of the north-western city of Idlib on Saturday to celebrate the death of Hassan Nasrallah.

        As news of Israel’s strike on the headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut spread through the rebel-held city, people cheered and clapped while passing drivers honked their horns.

        Guns were shot in the air as fireworks exploded in the sky in the north-western region that has been locked in conflict with president Bashar al-Assad since war broke out in 2011.

        Here, Nasrallah is seen as a key ally of Assad, responsible for assisting his brutal crackdown on opponents and helping to turn the tide of the civil war in his favour.

        While Hezbollah’s core motivation is to defeat Israel, Nasrallah sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside Assad’s forces.

        It was “the most beautiful day of my life,” said Ahmed al-Ali, 30, who hated Nasrallah and his foot soldiers for killing many of his friends.

        Yasmine M@hammad, 30, said she felt an “overwhelming happiness that cannot be described” when she heard of Nasrallah’s death.

        “I consider this revenge for the thousands of Syrians who were killed by Hezbollah, the main support of Bashar al-Assad,” she said. “Hezbollah committed the most heinous massacres against Syrians, and it also participated in the starvation and displacement of thousands of Syrians.”

        Nasrallah was a “criminal… who caused pain to the Syrian people through killing, displacement, and bombing, and his standing with Bashar al-Assad,” said Ahmad Taama, 27. “He stole our dreams and ambitions. He killed many young Syrians in the prime of their lives.”

        “Unfortunately, we lost everything because of Nasrallah and Assad – our home, our work, our store. Literally, everything, because of these criminals,” said Omar Ghazal, 24.

        “Now I hope that the region will be more stable and better without this criminal.”

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        • #
          OldOzzie

          From the Comments

          – This is wonderful news and it leaves the world a much better place with this evil man gone. It is astonishing however to see that both the Washington Post and the Guardian mourning his loss? What planet are they on?

          – Why is there no media coverage of Iranian people gathering outside the Israeli embassy in London to sing the Israeli National Anthem in thanks for finishing him off? Iran and Syria have suffered terribly under Hezbollah, haven’t seen many lefties protesting and flag-waving about that.

          Godspeed Israel 🇮🇱

          – The world needs Israel to target and destroy Assad and Khamanei.

          Thank God for Israel.

          – Is the BBC still broadcasting or have they taken time off to grieve?

          – People celebrating the death of Hassan Nasrallah? The Guardian and the BBC will be furious.

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          • #
            OldOzzie

            Iranian plane turns back from Beirut airport after warning from Israel

            Lebanon airport authorities send alert to airborne plane after IDF threatened to shoot down aircraft ferrying Iranian weapons for Hezbollah

            Israel hacked Beirut International Airport’s control tower to warn an Iranian plane not to land, The Telegraph understands.

            The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday night said that they would shoot down planes ferrying Iranian weapons to support Hezbollah.

            Earlier, IDF jets had carried out an airstrike that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terror group.

            With the Iranian plane in the air, Lebanese authorities intervened and ordered it to turn back so it would avoid being fired upon by Israeli forces.

            Reuters first reported the story, citing a source at Lebanon’s transport ministry saying that Israel threatened to use “force” and that the priority of the ministry is “people’s lives”.

            On Saturday, the Isl@mic Republic’s Iran Air announced that all flights to Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport have been “suspended until further notice”.

            A senior Israeli official told The Telegraph that Israel planned the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, “for years.”

            The official added that the last thing Nasrallah saw was Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the UN on TV. He said: “He was sure he knew the Israelis, but he didn’t understand what was coming.

            “The Iranians used Lebanon and abandoned it at the first opportunity.

            The whole world sees that the Iranians are a paper tiger.

            When the Lebanese soldiers started paying the price for Iran, Khamenei simply abandoned them.

            The Iranians used Lebanon and now have left it behind. Khamenei exploited Lebanon and discarded it.”

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              OldOzzie

              Khamenei Goes Into Hiding

              After the confirmation of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s elimination by Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly gone into hiding.

              According to sources, Khamenei has been whisked away to a secure location within Iran, allegedly due to fears of a potential Israeli strike against him.

              Khamenei’s Response

              In a statement, Khamenei emphasized the importance of resistance against Israel, with Hezbollah at its forefront. He called on M@slims to stand by the people of Lebanon and Hezbollah, urging them to use whatever means necessary to confront the Israeli threat.

              International Reactions

              The Middle East is witnessing widespread celebrations among M@slims following Nasrallah’s death.

              The situation remains tense, with Israel vowing to “reach” anyone who poses a threat to its citizens.

              The Iranian Supreme Leader’s decision to go into hiding reflects the heightened security concerns and potential for further escalation in the region.

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                OldOzzie

                The Decline and Fall of the Iranian Empire

                Robert Spencer

                The killing of Hassan Nasrallah and the entire Hizballah high command, followed almost immediately by the killing of Nasrallah’s designated successor Hassan Khalil Yassin, could mean the end of Hizballah as a force to be reckoned with in Lebanon.

                Nasrallah’s death also strikes a serious blow to the Isl@mic Republic of Iran’s decades-long effort to gain hegemony over the entire Middle East.

                Back in 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, explained that once Israel is destroyed, “the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited”…

                In fact, the assembly of the “Shi’ite crescent” began in Lebanon.

                As The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains, Hizballah (“Party of All@h”) rose to prominence during the Lebanese civil war of the early 1980s. Hizballah was an Iranian proxy from its inception, as the U.S. Supreme Court recognized when it ruled that Iran was liable for payments to the families of the victims of Hizballah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in which 241 Americans were killed. Indeed, Hizballah began at a meeting in Tehran between the Ayatollah Khomeini and a delegation of Lebanese Shi’ites, including Hassan Nasrallah.

                At this meeting, Khomeini gave his approval to the creation of Hizballah as a competitor to the dominant Lebanese Shi’ite group, the Amal Movement, whose leader, Musa Sadr, opposed the idea of clerical rule that was the guiding principle of the Islamic Republic. Khomeini gave Shiekholislam Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who would later succeed him as Iran’s Supreme Leader, the task of supervising the establishment of Hizballah. According to Nasrallah, Iran “offered Lebanon everything in its power: money, training, and advice.”

                Yet now Hamas has been decimated and Hassan Nasrallah is dead. Is Iran’s dream of a “Shi’ite crescent” dead with it?

                If Kamala is elected president, the American gravy train to Tehran will likely continue running,.

                [SNIP]

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    Skepticynic

    This man crossed Google and Hillary Clinton – then his life fell apart

    A democracy campaigner who accused Google of trying to tilt the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton’s favour is a cautionary tale for those brave enough to take on the collusion between big tech and political elites, writes John Mac Ghlionn.

    Sky News

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      David Maddison

      A tragic story, and exactly the sort of thing the Left are trying to achieve with Australia’s proposed censorship laws.

      You can follow Dr Robert Epstein on free speech platform X.

      https://x.com/DrREpstein?t=jypNEPSQpCD_n4spJjq2gA&s=09

      If the Australian censorship legislation is passed, I think Elon Musk might close down X operations in Australia or the Government will block the site. It has already happened in Brazil.

      https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-global/brazil-supreme-court-ban-x-elon-9547637/

      Why the Brazil Supreme Court shut down Elon Musk-owned X in the country

      A Brazil Supreme Court judge had ordered X to block accounts for allegedly spreading misinformation. X accused the judge of overreach, with Elon Musk calling him a “dictator”. Here is what happened.

      SEE LINK FOR REST

      We have already seen how Australia’s e Safety Kommissar is going after Elon Musk in the same manner and trying to censor him globally.

      What do you think Australia’s censorship legislation is about?

      Who are these people that think they can tell me what opinions I am allowed or not allowed to read or write? And why?

      The only people who will know the truth will be the Left Elites.

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        Simon Thompson M.B. B.S.

        My guess is the censorship is at the behest and to further the interests of our oligarchs and a handful of companies (Black Rock/State Street/Vanguard). DEI can be traced back to the financers. Huxley, Blair et. al. wrote about the dystopic totalitarian society which is coming soon to a screen near you.

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    YYY Guy

    Forgot to mention, Joe Hockey at the NPC, when asked who he’d like to see in a Harris administration – “Hillary Clinton”.
    What have you got to hide, Joe?

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      TdeF

      Like everyone who wants friends in Washington DC, as 98.4% of people voted for Hillary Clinton, you have to hate Donald Trump. It’s not an option. Or you live alone and have no friends. And no work. Just like Canberra.

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        Steve of Cornubia

        “Like everyone who wants friends in Washington DC, as 98.4% of people voted for Hillary Clinton …”

        I think you’ll find the actual figure was 109%.

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          TdeF

          Teams hunted down and eliminated that 1.6%. It includes Australian diplomats and journalists. No one has a good thing to say about Trump, who after all was the last President and very successful. Apart from interference from the Republicans Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who saw to it personally that Congress worked with the Democrats to frustrate Trump. They still do. Ryan from within Fox as a director.

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            Vladimir

            IMHO
            D. Trump figure is unique in political history.
            Does nearly always right – speaks always wrong.

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              TdeF

              Can’t agree with the second. His speech is video edited, truncated, misused. The Very Fine People hoax, inject with bleach hoax, the Ukraine telephone call hoax, the bloodbath hoax,… There are about fifty of the most popular distortions, omissions, straight lies about what he actually said. By the people whose job it is to report speech accurately.

              And where Kamala will not have an unscripted conversation, Trump will speak freely anywhere, anytime about anything to anyone.
              Kim Jong Un, Putin, Merkel, QE II, Boris Johnson, President XI or his direct enemies. That’s his job. Who else dares do that? And the press are just waiting for an opportunity in an hour of speech.

              After a vicious political attack last week by visiting Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump met him, shook his hand and thanked him profusely for telling the truth about the telephone call. It’s important to work with people, not create enemies. That’s business and its diplomacy and it’s essential for the Commander in Chief, responsible for all America’s relations with the world. Trump would negotiate with Satan himself.

              That’s exactly what you need in a dangerous world, someone who will not retreat behind his missiles and friends. It is where the UN has always failed, captured by the endless military dictatorships and China and 80,000 UN staff. Plus the EU, another would be global military power with fake elections.

              Would be President Kamala Harris doesn’t even know where China is on the map. And cackles under pressure as a cover for extreme ignorance about everything. Until proven otherwise completely ignorant, innumerate, illogical, she cannot hold a conversation and reverts to a teenage girly stereotype in conversation, waving her hands with ‘right’, ‘you see’, word stalling, empty talking. She is impossible to deal with publicly, even for Oprah Winfrey. Absolutely nobody’s home. Which would put the world in grave danger, as at present with Geriatric Joe Biden.

              My concern is how many players desperately do not want Trump as the next President. The list is endless. And includes all of Washington and the media. And who is planning to run the US government. Or is it Obama, Pelosi, Clinton, Jeffries as they slide from puppet Biden to puppet Harris?

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                Vicki

                Spectacularly accurate picture of Kamala Harris. Particularly the conclusion: “Absolutely nobody’s home”.

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                Yarpos

                If there was video somewhere of her talking intelligently, discussing issues and answering questions meaningfully (at any stage of her various roles) you would think it wpuld have surfaced by now. Is it possible to be that shallow?

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    YYY Guy

    Also at the NPC this week were Robert Fitzgerald, Age Discrimination Commissioner and Dr Marlene Krasovitsky, Consultant to the WHO’s Global Campaign to Combat Ageism – why Australia needs Ageism Awareness Day”.
    And if that isn’t bureaucratic boll I don’t know what is.
    Every newly invented word needs a bureaucracy and a website because that’s all they do.
    It’s called Every Age Counts and it has a board of professional parasites
    Following the links within they don’t seem to do anything. Anyway, Ageism Awareness Day is October 9th (told you they did nothing).
    I’ll leave you with a direct quote from the NPC address by Robert Fitzgerald – “We have a chance to shape Australia in a way that ensures ageism doesn’t become the racism and sexism that is entrenched in the Australian population today”. Not a single journo questioned this.
    A pox on them all, preferably monkey.

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      KP

      What a load of crap!! You cannot become the object of your sexism or racism, so that is a divide utilised by some who wish to divide us.

      However EVERYONE becomes old, has parents and grandparents, and knows that if you push for ‘things to happen’ to old people, they will be visited upon yourself in a few years.

      There is no correspondence between “ageism” and racism/sexism! Those people should not be allowed jobs on the public purse, they are just unthinking drones given jobs to soak up the unemployable.

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    Greg in NZ

    As seen on powerline‘s comedy post today:

    I identify as sarcastic,
    my pronouns are ha/ha/ha.

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    OldOzzie

    NTSB issues ‘urgent’ safety alert on Boeing 737 rudder system

    NTSB is still investigating a February incident where an aircraft’s rudder pedals were stuck

    The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued urgent safety recommendations on Thursday to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in response to the potential for a jammed or restricted rudder control system on some 737 Next-Generation and 737 Max 8 aircraft.

    The rudder controls the side to side movement of the nose of the aircraft, otherwise known as the yaw motion.

    The agency is in the midst of investigating a February incident in which the rudder pedals on a United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 were “stuck” in their neutral position during the landing rollout at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

    At the time, the captain had to rely on the nosewheel steering tiller to control the airplane’s direction after touching down, the NTSB said.

    As part of the investigation, NTSB investigators tested one of the rudder control components from the incident airplane at the component’s manufacturer, Collins Aerospace.

    After conducting testing in a cold environment, investigators discovered that the function of the component was “significantly compromised.” Collins Aerospace subsequently discovered that the component was incorrectly assembled during production.

    As part of Boeing’s 737 flight manual, pilots that have a jammed or restricted rudder are instructed to “overpower the jammed or restricted system [using] maximum force, including a combined effort of both pilots.”

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      OldOzzie

      Boeing 737 Hard Over Crash

      Causes and Consequences

      The NTSB found that a faulty rollout guidance actuator, manufactured by Collins Aerospace, was responsible for the jammed rudder pedals. The actuator’s sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled, leaving it susceptible to moisture that can freeze and limit rudder system movement. This defect affected more than 353 actuators delivered to Boeing since February 2017, with 25 installed on 737s originally registered to US operators.

      Recommendations

      The NTSB has recommended:

      1. Boeing to determine alternative flight crew responses for situations where the rudder control system jams, beyond the current instruction to “overpower the jammed or restricted system” using maximum force.
      2. Boeing to notify flight crews operating affected aircraft that the rudder control system can jam due to moisture accumulation and freezing.
      3. The FAA to determine if actuators with incorrectly assembled bearings should be removed from service and to direct US operators to do so until replacements are available.
      4. The FAA to notify aviation regulators in other countries overseeing 737 operators to remove affected actuators and replace them with new ones.

      Historical Context

      This issue is not new to the Boeing 737. In the 1990s, a series of incidents involving rudder malfunctions led to two fatal crashes: United Airlines Flight 585 (1991) and USAir Flight 427 (1994). These accidents were attributed to a faulty PCU servo valve, which was designed by Boeing and manufactured by Parker Hannifin.

      Current Status

      The FAA has confirmed that United Airlines is the only US operator affected by this issue, and that the units are no longer in service.

      Boeing is working to address the problem and provide replacements to affected operators. The NTSB’s recommendations aim to minimize the risk of similar incidents occurring in the future.

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        Paul Siebert

        OldOzzie, #14.1, Sept 29,
        ____”The actuator’s sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled, leaving it susceptible to moisture that can freeze and limit rudder system movement.”

        ____So pilots need to be packing WD40?

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      David Maddison

      DEI?

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      Ronin

      A bit of grease might have cured this, ‘for want of a hap’eth of tar.’

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    David Maddison

    If Donald Trump doesn’t get elected, there will be no stopping the Left as they go full steam ahead for a global dictatorship.

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      Forrest Gardener

      And if he is permitted to win there will still be no stopping the bad guys in their quest for a global dictatorship.

      The next dark ages are looming, and the next renaissance will look nothing like the first. The key will be rendering the currently fashionable control mechanisms ineffective.

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        dlk

        red-thumbed by mistake😳

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          Forrest Gardener

          No worries dlk.

          Two improvements to the forum software would be an ability to undo thumbing and an ability to identify who is doing the thumbing.

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            TdeF

            I would prefer that a simple sentence was required to explain the red thumb for it to be valid. That’s not a lot of effort. You should not be able to express a negative opinion without some attempt at justification. You always have the option of doing nothing. What is needed is to understand and debate, not just kick the chair. There is nothing quite like a good argument to establish the truth, as long as it is not personal.

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            KP

            “an ability to identify who is doing the thumbing.”

            Would not the observing of the incident have an effect on the incident itself? Thumbers will then feel ‘observation pressure’ on top of their opinion that they were about to express, a bit like the Govt plans for an ID to get on the net to start with.

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              Skepticynic

              >observation pressure

              In that case there needs to be two different grades of red thumb.
              1. The sneaky red thumb for the lurkers who want to hit and run anonymously. Those red thumbs would be relatively insignificant.
              2. The substantial red thumb for those brave enough to support their criticism with some context.

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            John Connor II

            and an ability to identify who is doing the thumbing.

            I already have a mental image of Jo shaking her head at that. 😉

            Maybe a post by me on the psychology of downvoting instead?
            That’ll be good for some redthumbs.

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        Kim

        There are technical means. They just require the will, the money, and good implementation.

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      Honk R Smith

      “If Donald Trump doesn’t get elected, there will be no stopping the Left as they go full steam ahead for a global dictatorship.”

      I like history.
      I’ve often mused about what it would like to experience an historically pivotal person in real time.
      Like Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, or that fellow from Nazareth.
      Now I know.
      Donald Trump.
      Who’da thunk?
      *Time traveler visiting the future … “you mean THAT guy!?”

      In all seriousness, if they weren’t crazy (just watch MSNBC for two minutes), and constantly talking about the guy, he probably would be not have been elected and golfing relatively unnoticed by now.

      Now, after TDS/PDS, I’ve learned historical pivots are mostly rooted in hysteria.

      And how incredibly dumb the smart people are.
      I would now go re-watch the movie ‘Being There’, but now the humor is muted and it might be painful.

      *(Actually, Wikipedia and their spook managers, will make history unrecognizable to those of us living it.)

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    Penguinite

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/09/28/eco-madness-leftist-uk-govt-green-housing-demands-could-cost-up-to-36-billion-report-finds/

    And something similar will occur in Australia if we allow Black Out Bowen to continue on his path to nett zero stupidity!

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      Jock

      The recent changes to Basix ADDED another 10-20k onto the cost of building a house. I suppose all Basix requirements add up to a nice tidy sum that has to be paid for by the owners. The regs are chokka with “green” mandates and requirements. I cant imagine that any real cost\benefit analysis has been done.

      But we will undoubtedly see far worse environmental\green regs in the future. All of which will cost a bomb but do absolutely nothing to reduce CO2.

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        Kalm Keith

        Exactly. Building regs have been “greened” in the last two decades to give the impression of environmental concern that’s no more than tokenism.

        Two examples: the collection of roof water in large tanks with internal pumps and the requirement that hot water tanks incorporate heat pumps.

        Both of these do nothing for the environment and add to base costs, no savings at all.

        China provides these two items, and they have a poor life span.

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        • #

          Indeed – who profits?

          Not the householder/buyer.
          Not the builder, much.
          The Civil Servant newly employed, charged with enforcing new regs – and with a pension.
          And China …

          Why can’t builders build houses – or flats etc. – that they think the buyer will want?
          Some will have all the green gizmos …
          Bit like cars – so much useless, but costly, kit on so many nowadays.

          Auto

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    RickWill

    The level of the Caspian Sea is declining. It is now minus 28m below sea level.
    https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/the-caspian-sea-level-changes-causes-and-consequences/

    The Caspian Sea is the largest lake on Earth. Its area is greater than the Great Lakes of North America.

    The Caspian Sea is located between 36N and 46N. On average, all latitudes north of 27N are net heat loss through radiation so, on average, they have net precipitation. But Caspian Sea is not average. It has dry, barren land to the east with the consequence that evaporation exceeds precipitation over the lake. Hence it relies on water coming in from the Volga to compensate for net loss through precipitation minus evaporation.

    From the chart in the linked article, the level was steady from the 1840 til the mid 1930s. It is worth noting that the Moscow canal to the Volga commenced in 1933 and was completed in 1937. I expect it resulted in the rapid fall through that period. I do not know why there was a significant recovery from 1980 that reversed in the mid 1990s.

    I doubt many would have guessed that the fall in level of the Caspian is being blamed on ……….. CO2. Yes the evil CO2 does it again.

    There are some 100 million people dependent on the Volga and Caspian Sea. The changing ecology and habitat of the Caspian Sea could have dire consequences for about half those people.

    My take is that the precession cycle has been warming the northern land masses for about 500 years now. That inevitably increases land temperature and the temperature of land bound waterways. The Caspian Sea is large enough to support tropical storms so surface temperature will limit to 30C but average temperature is increasing and that increases evaporation. Cyclones can shift vast quantities from water to land and not all will necessarily return as runoff. Cyclonic weather over the Caspian is influenced by the Mediterranean. Both will experience increased incidence of these storms.

    The increase in atmospheric water globally is contributing to increased snowfall particularly over the northern land masses. The upward trend in snowfall will increase flow in the Volga but the amount reaching the Caspian depends on how much is taken from the Volga before it gets to the Caspian.

    I expect the Caspian Sea will become a poster child for the UN seeking the next climate catastrophe.
    https://www.thepamphlet.in/english/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/seal-fea.jpg

    Russia has the greatest influence on the level of the Caspian Sea. I wonder if Putin will agree to regulate Russian water consumption to limit how far the Caspian Sea falls.

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      Vladimir

      We were told about that problem in 50ies, as an unresolved scientific puzzle.
      Not much in the 60ies and 70ies. Volga-Don Canal could only shift the balance to Azov Sea which not enclosed but really small so some increase of level would be noticed…
      Then, in the 80ies, under Yeltsin, irrigation of gigantic cotton fields was blamed – another environmental crime of the Soviet regime…
      As I understand, by now the cotton industry there nearly disappeared.

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        RickWill

        I have not seen any news articles that prompted my interest in the Caspian Sea. I was looking in the region of Israel and wondered about the water quality in the Caspian Sea. I then saw articles on the falling level. None mentioned it was worse in the 1980s than now.

        Was out the demise of the cotton industry that caused the rise? If so, why is it now falling again?

        I could not find any data on how much water is taken from the Volga but I was only do English language searches.

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      KP

      “I expect the Caspian Sea will become a poster child for the UN seeking the next climate catastrophe.
      https://www.thepamphlet.in/english/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/seal-fea.jpg

      ‘2500 seals found dead in the Caspian Sea’

      The Canadians have obviously been visiting.. I don’t think the UN will use the Caspian, beyond just demonising Russia to suit the Yank’s agenda, it would be embarrassing for them to tell Russia to do something and the Russians tell them to sod off.

      I see CO2 got a mention, maybe that was necessary to get a paper published in the West..

      “Meanwhile, the study by Roshan et al. (2012) finds that precipitation and evaporation along with the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide account for 87% of the CSL oscillations.”

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      TdeF

      Largest lake on Earth? It is a sea. Lakes have to be fresh water. Or at least that is my understanding. The Caspian is brackish at best.

      The largest freshwater lake by far is the amazing Lake Baykal. I have been there in summer, an amazing sight, fjords on both sides to 1,000km of snow capped peaks. Fresh water. Only 2% of the water necessary for animals, plants and humans is fresh water and most of that is in Antarctica, then Baykal, and the Great lakes. Baykal is a crack in the planet surface. The mountain sides go straight into the water as in a Fjord. There are no beaches. Just the occasional shelf of sand and then you plummet. Like Santorini.

      Baykal is Melbourne to Sydney and up to 9km deep, more fresh water than all the US Great Lakes combined.

      But then you get salty seas, which can be very salty. As with the dead sea. It was fun, sitting in water which is 30% salt.

      And vast salty oceans. As far as I can tell the seven seas were in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean, Tyrennian, Adriatic, Aegean, Balearic, Ionian and the sea of Marmara. The Black sea is connected by a river, the Bosphorous of 40km to the Marmara.

      But there was a time when big rivers flowed into the Caspian, apart from the Volga. A whole civilization lived along the Oxus and the fortresses are still there in the valley, a civilization too. Likely it was connected to the Black Sea and Greeks could actually sail nearly to China. Which explains the lifelike statuary in China in the tomb of the warriors.

      It is all drying up, regardless of the cotton. Flows are changing. Even the ships on the Volga have trouble these days with low water levels, stopping them completely. I have sailed down the Volga to Astrakhan and the Caspian. Great if you love geography and history.

      The oceans though are vastly bigger. The Pacific covers half the planet.

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        Vicki

        What an adventurer you are, TdeF! I have seen some of the seas you mention – the Mediterranean of course, and the Adriatic, Aegean, Balearic and Ionian. I have been to Russia, but did not get to see Lake Baykal. A pity. The Great Lakes of the Northern hemisphere are beautiful. I think that the sheer beauty of the northern American landscape – especially in the lake and mountainous forested areas – are very unappreciated by travellers.

        I once went on a tour up the “canal towns” of China – Wuxi, Suzhou, and the very very beautiful Huanzhou. Thought about Marco Polo’s great journey.

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          TdeF

          I did forget Ligurian and Alborean. Sorry. This map adds a Libyan sea and Levantine sea. I had never heard of these.

          In our modern world these seas are small, an hour in a jet. But to the coast hugging traders they were vast distances and direct crossings out of sight of land were very dangerous.

          I suspect also that their boat were flat bottomed so they could be dragged onto the beach or sailed up rivers but that made them both slow and unstable. And suitable for repair without a dry dock. James Cook’s choice of the Endeavour, a Whitby Collier, was inspired. And saved him and his expedition after holing on the Great Barrier Reef.

          The idea that he was somehow a villain is absurd. A very skilled navigator and incredibly accomplished, a hero for all the people of the South Pacific, he gave his life in his job. Something few people would consider these days, especially the haters of the left who inherited everything and appreciate nothing.

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        RickWill

        Lakes have to be fresh water.

        Lakes are most commonly defined as water within an inland basin. That means they are not getting inflow from the oceans. It has been 11Ma since the Caspian was connected to the oceans. The salinity of the Caspian is about a third of the oceans likely the result of glaciation lowering the salt content then being replenished with freshwater river runoff during deglaciation..

        Lake Eyre has salinity on par with the oceans so about three times more saline than the Caspian Sea:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bodies_of_water_by_salinity

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          TdeF

          Sure, but Lake Eyre was almost sarcastically named. The search for the inland ‘sea’. And they found a gigantic lake of salt. Though I have flown over it when it was full. The real treasure is up the Diamantina to the Goyder, an equal sized amazing emerald green delta filled with cattle and surrounded by desert. Channel Country. You have to see it to believe it.

          And you do get lakes which double as seas. The Sea of Gallilee is also the fresh water Lake Tiberias.

          The treasure of the Caspian are the ancient sturgeon which grow up to a tonne. They are heavily armoured fish, reminiscent of crocodiles in plates. Not like a fish at all. I wonder what the predator looked like?

          And of course the Molossal Black Caviar at the markets. You have to get special permits for the caviar as it is in principle strictly controlled, which is a joke really. The time I was there they stopped a hearse with a coffin filled with black caviar.

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        Skepticynic

        >Lakes have to be fresh water

        Victoria, Australia:
        Lake Tyrell
        Lake Paracelmic
        etc…

        South Africa:
        Lake Victoria

        TdeF I thought I was well travelled but I take my hat off to you. After reading your experiences here in these pages, I’m humbled and jealous in my admiration.
        Write more!

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    dlk

    Continuing on the Misinformation & Discrimination legislation…

    The Explanatory Memorandum (p19) indicates that for restriction of freedom of speech three conditions must be satisfied.

    One of these (“first limb”) is that the restriction must be “provided by law” and “formulated with sufficient precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly” (p19)

    The explanatory memorandum then states that “the first limb of the test (requiring that restrictions be provided by law) is satisfied because “the measures set out in Schedule 9 are either prescribed in the Schedule itself, or will be prescribed in digital platform rules…” (p19).

    This, however, does not address whether the law has been “formulated with sufficient precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly”.

    How can it be so formulated when the definition of misinformation in s13 leaves what is and what is not misinformation open to different conclusions? (ie. what is per s13 “reasonably verifiable” may be open to an alternate and equally reasonable or plausible interpretation).

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      RickWill

      The comments are more interesting than the video. There is a good deal of angst directed at EU and USA.

      BEVs are hard to live with. The insurance indiustyry is hastening their demise.

      This video talks about a trade war over BEVs. The ridiculous aspect is that the market is dead. Fighting over it is like rats fighting for a few scraps.

      BEVs is another item chiosen by governments rather than the market. But it is different to power generation. Apart from the showroom there is not much difference between a new car and a 10 year old car. Buyers can easily defer replacement.

      Globalists have been deluded by the fantasy they have created. They are yet to realise that there is no manufacturing without coal. Their industries have been gradually moving to China or sourcing from China where coal has not been demonised.

      European industry is buried under a carpet of green bulls!t so thick that they are all suffocating. They all need production arms in China to survive. The EU trade tariffs will simply create an opportunity for companies to work out how they can source from China and make it look like they are making stuff in Europe but there will be no workers in Europe and only the government bureaucrats able to afford the cars.

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      RickWill

      Are they concerned that Harris could win and what 4 years of her would look like. So now they are trying to make Trump look acceptable.

      Or are they concerned that Trump will win and seek retribution. So are now making themselves look like they are supporting Trump.

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      KP

      “I want foreign leaders to look like they just got dental work after meeting with my President; not walk away with a pallet of cash.”

      I just can’t keep up with the way word meanings are changing these days. That sentence makes no sense at all!

      “We’ve seen, again and again and again, that when the Ukrainians got resources and generated forces, rather than admitting they are the weaker power here and working to strengthen their positions and conciliate, they instead squandered them on hugely ambitious and equally doomed offensives.”

      That explains it all really, their massive offensive to take Crimea last year has been completely erased, the Russians have pushed past the front where Ukraine started their counter-attack. It is the greatest show-acting war I’ve ever come across, the announcement is the important bit, not the follow-through to make sure it worked. Its just American politics in an action scene.

      A real country that managed to start a civil war within itself and ended up with a large neighbour stepping in to save the revolting regions would have said- “Take the unruly peasants and good luck”. Instead Zelensky has ridden a unicorn pony powered by America’s plan to cripple Russia, and it has cost him the whole country.

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    OldOzzie

    Big jobs question facing the Anthony Albanese government

    The PM recently boasted about a record breaking achievement – however, there was one crucial detail missing that changes everything.

    Tarric Brooker

    When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted a chart on X (formerly Twitter) recently detailing the level of jobs growth seen under the governments of the last four PMs at this stage in their tenure (25 months in), it raised an interesting question.

    How does the Albanese government compare with its predecessors when it comes to the labour market?

    While the Prime Minister’s chart makes for a nice piece of political grandstanding, there is a great deal more to it.

    Since becoming PM, the expansion of the working age population and by extension the labour force has reached its highest level on record, necessitating an extremely high level of jobs growth just for the unemployment rate to stand still.

    In order to get a more concrete read on the state of the labour market and the lot held by Australian workers, we’ll be looking at the performance of three metrics under the Albanese government and its predecessors over the last 30 years at this stage in their respective tenure.

    Relative jobs growth

    [SNIP.]

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      KP

      This is common over the Western world, for as we firstly automated much of our industry and then off-shored what was left we removed the jobs of the private sector. This was expected and at the time it was proclaimed that we would only need to work three days a week and would have most of our lives for intellectual/artistic pastimes.

      However this didn’t suit the big business economic models or the politician’s empire-building. To keep people employed the Govt just created new Ministries, Depts, secretariats and the whole bureaucracy needed to accomplish absolutely nothing, although it did make the unemployment figures look better.

      Because a reduced private sector cannot pay for a bloated public sector through taxes, Govt debt has expanded more and more. In 15years Australia’s Govt debt has exploded from $75billion to well over $750billion, nearly all of which has been spent on ‘consumables’ not capital.

      The party called Labour is the greatest irony ever seen..

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    OldOzzie

    The Startling Metadata Hidden within the Polling: Voters Love Trump

    By Andrea Widburg

    This past week, American Thinker partnered with Rasmussen polling to look at the battleground states, plus a few blue states in which there seems to be a softening toward Trump as Kamala’s campaign blunders along. What emerged from the ten states (AZ, GA, MI, MN, NC, NM, NV, PA, VA, and WI) was fascinating.

    In the swing states, Trump and Kamala are close, although Trump seems to be pulling ahead. In the blue states, Trump is closer than one would expect. Most amazingly, voters in all states, often by significant majorities, love Trump; they just don’t know it.

    On the kitchen table, bread-and-butter, money-in-the-bank, our-children’s-future issues, people accept the Republican view that Democrats have done a terrible job and that Trump can do a better job. Democrats prevail only on “emotion” issues generated by media hatred and “vibes.” See here, here, here and here.

    To win, Trump cannot suddenly retrain voters to like him. Instead, he must tell them, “I’m not going to be your best friend. But I’m going to be your best president. You know that things are deeply wrong in America, you know that I’ve correctly diagnosed what’s wrong, and you trust me to fix it. Vote for me to save yourselves.”

    I’ve appended below a chart showing my analysis of the ten-state poll data. Here’s a link to a bigger version of the chart.

    Most obviously, the chart is a sea of red. In a sane world, anchored to reality, the 2024 election should be a Trump blow-out.

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      OldOzzie

      Donald Trump for president

      Americans deserve to break the machine politics that have dominated our country

      By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Friday, September 27, 2024

      November’s election presents a clear choice. One side offers a candidate who is a replaceable cog in a party machine. When President Biden sagged in the polls, it wasn’t a problem for the Democratic Party machine.

      Party elites merely appointed one of the worst-performing primary contenders to stand in place of the man chosen by the party’s voters. The leaders of the Democratic Party, it turns out, are not as big on democracy as they often claim.

      That’s why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard recently renounced their lifetime association with the Democratic Party — and help the candidate on the other side as a result.

      The party that once represented the anti-war left has evolved into a cheerleader for endless foreign conflict. The Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy choices have poured gasoline on the fire of international strife — to the delight of defense contractors happy to enrich those who help sell more of their bombs and missiles.

      The party that once celebrated the burning of U.S. flags in the name of free speech is now sending people to jail for posting funny pictures on the internet. For example, Douglass Mackey is appealing his federal conviction for mocking Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign as the party gleefully uses the power of government to silence anyone with a divergent opinion by calling it “misinformation.”

      The machine’s latest candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is not a particularly charismatic figure. Her speeches lack the eloquence of President Barack Obama or the sincerity of President Jimmy Carter. She has few solid accomplishments, having never earned a paycheck outside of government — aside from her alleged past employment slinging fries at McDonald’s.

      This is not what the resume of a presidential aspirant is supposed to look like. Fortunately, there is a better choice, and that choice is former President Donald Trump.

      Mr. Trump spent his career building things and employing people. He ran for the White House in 2016 not to enrich himself — he was already a billionaire — but to give back to his country. He has been attacked like no other chief executive for one simple reason: He refuses to do the bidding of the machine.

      The former president has been spied on, investigated, audited and examined more closely than any other candidate in the history of our republic. The FBI searched his home, snooping through the belongings of his wife and teenage son. Mr. Trump has been brought to trial on farcical crimes before a conflicted judge and a biased jury.

      He has even taken a bullet to the head, but he stood back up, defiant, vowing to “Fight, fight, fight.”

      That moment captured who he is. Instead of cowering in the face of opposition, he has committed to winning the election and breaking the machine.

      With America’s prosperity on the line, we can’t afford to elect another machine candidate. The Washington Times endorses Donald Trump for president.

      America’s future is on the line.

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      RickWill

      There is now warning. This is using Elon Musk as click bait. If it wasn’t it would have Musk actually stating what is claimed.

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      RickWill

      Lomborg is conflicted. He has no clue as far as climate is concerned.

      The truth is that ocean surface temperature cannot sustain more than 30C. It is the atmospheric regulation of open ocean surface temperature that limits the ocean heat uptake.

      The whole CO2 fairy tale is simply that. It is fraudulent. It is a scam.

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      RickWill

      Barbaby has a nice turn off [hase for weather dependent generators – SWINDLE FACTORIES. I like it.

      The problem of course is that his brand of government enacted the legislation that legalised his “swindle”.

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    el+gordo

    A cloudy debate.

    ‘In a conversation with the EIKE editorial team, our reader Garik Müller noted that recent solar storms have promoted cloud formation – which would contradict the Svensmark-Shaviv effect and the Forbush effect.

    ‘But the Earth’s atmosphere is known to be much more complicated than the computer models of climate researchers – solar radiation can also have a different effect under different circumstances.’ (Notrickszone)

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    another ian

    FWIW

    “Hoori or Whore? How Islam’s ‘72 Virgins’ Inspire Muslims to Suicidal Violence”

    Concludes

    “Until such time that Western secular minds stop projecting their own materialistic paradigms onto Muslims in general, jihadists in particular, and start understanding Islam’s paradigms and motivations on their own terms, the West will continue to ignore the oldest and simplest advice concerning war: “know your enemy.” ”

    https://pjmedia.com/raymond-ibrahim/2024/09/26/hoori-or-whore-how-islams-72-virgins-inspire-muslims-to-suicidal-violence-n4932865

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    another ian

    FWIW

    “CNN hypes climate activists declaring WE TOLD YOU SO after Hurricane Helene hits Florida – Meteorologist Bastardi rips as ‘total crap. Storms are smaller. Not larger’ ”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/09/28/cnn-hypes-climate-activists-declaring-we-told-you-so-after-hurricane-helene-hits-florida-meteorologist-bastardi-rips-as-total-crap-storms-are-smaller-not-larger/

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    KP

    “@GeromanAT
    2h
    “In Starokostiantyniv, in a bunker for storing Storm Shadow and SCULP missiles, 9 NATO Air Force staff officers who had arrived from Rammstein via Chisinau to Ukraine were killed. They were coordinating and guiding, using NATO AWACS aircraft, missile launches from Ukrainian fighters.
    Six of the nine were US citizens of Ukrainian descent and three were French.
    Polish Air Force planes are evacuating three air ambulances from the border area with Ukraine today. Each plane is designed for five people, including resuscitation equipment and three doctors.
    According to preliminary information, 7 British instructors and 6 technical specialists from the Netherlands were seriously injured.
    Two Russian hypersonic missiles were missed by Ukrainian air defenses, resulting in the destruction of three fighters: two F-16s and one Su-24, plus at least 15 SS and Sculp missiles.”

    WinWin 🇷🇺 TG
    Sep 27, 2024 · 12:25 PM UTC ‘”

    Turned up on Moon of Alabama. Its getting harder to keep repeating ‘NATO is not involved’. Much more of this will slow down any Western volunteers too, although I expect it is already active soldiers who have no choice in going or not.

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    JB

    It could be called the Misinformednation Bill.
    Anyway it will become a double edged sword, only those swinging it at the moment don’t realise it.

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