Open Thread – Thursday 12 August 2021

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3,003 Responses to Open Thread – Thursday 12 August 2021

  1. egg_ says:

    We need to harden up both internally and externally, and stop treating politics like croquet. That’s what happened to alleged conservative parties across the English speaking world, they imagined that it was a gentleman’s game with rules that everyone would abide by.

    —————————————-

    Probably a good synopsis of WW2 – the allies rallying in the end.

    /Godwin’s law


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  2. Rockdoctor says:

    Just texted a mate about troops going into the Ghan again. He doesn’t know much about it being a civi now but says will be to get expats out mainly, a protected evacuation. Says “Kabul will be chock-a-block full of busybody women with hyphenated names in various NGO’s who will be clutching at pearls right about now.”

    Have to wait and see I suppose, be curious so see how many are evacuated and their reasons for being there. Lebanon 2006 all over again?


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  3. Dot says:

    *Powering solutions to extremism, hate and disinformation*

    You mean ending socialism?

    *Gamers Who Hate: An Introduction to ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series*

    Oh god these losers actually believe in GamerGate.


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  4. Boambee John says:

    johanna

    We need to harden up both internally and externally, and stop treating politics like croquet.

    From personal experience, croquet is a mild game played by extremely ruthless people. Some of those oldies would eat our politicians and Deep Staters as a morning tea snack, and spit out the bones (but not on the playing surface).


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  5. Bruce of Newcastle says:

    Metallic Wobbling Zombie Star Is Moving Really Fast Thru Our Galaxy

    Was in the science news a few weeks ago. Biggest artillery shell in the universe: half the star exploded in an off-centre Type 1a supernova, whereupon the other half took off rapidly in the other direction. As you do.


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  6. Dot says:

    Will Kabul soon be full of aspirant rappers?


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  7. ikamatua says:

    “The difference is Arky, that if you believe in free speech, then you can’t have it both ways.”.
    I never claimed to put free speech over and above everything.
    I’m not a libertarian.
    we were better off in the days when publishers were held to standards of decency.
    the decency has gone, and so has the free speech for those of us who advocate for those values.
    That’s the reality.
    Once those indecent ideas were allowed, it has been a gradual decline and fall, ending in the triumph of filth and the outlawing of decency.
    There is no middle ground of peaceful co-existence with the Lord of the Flies.


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  8. Tom says:

    Mental illness doesn’t describe Graeme Bird in any way. Like every leftard troll ever, he believes religiously in all kinds of dumb shit lapped up by human sheep with an IQ of less than 90.

    Stay on the plantation designed for you by the left, Bird.

    The scroll wheel’s not fast enough.


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  9. ikamatua says:

    One of the things we have to wrap our heads around is that because we arrived late in the decline, much that we are fond of and grew up with were already horribly corrupt before we were born.
    Many of the most talented and wonderful people have devoted their lives in the service of absolute filth. Cool, witty and sophisticated, in many ways admirable, but filth.
    It’s just the way it is.


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  10. struth says:

    Once those indecent ideas were allowed, it has been a gradual decline and fall, ending in the triumph of filth and the outlawing of decency.
    There is no middle ground of peaceful co-existence with the Lord of the Flies.

    …………………………………………………………
    Or was it because those ideas were not challenged , mocked and derided?


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  11. struth says:

    The worst cyberbullies of the pandemic aren’t schoolkids (14/8); it’s the tech giants censoring and deplatforming anyone who disagrees with their world view. In doing so they’re acting as publishers and not as common carriers. Telstra is a common carrier and it knows not to cut off your phone call to your doctor when you’re asking about covid cures. Try using Facebook to ask the same questions. It’ll be censored or “fact checked” out of existence. Bob, Mission Beach

    I’m doing my bit to keep spirits up during the pandemic. When I see someone wearing a mask I reach out to them with a supportive verbalisation, using simple terms they’re sure to understand. “Baaaa.” Try it, they love it! Angry Steve, Redlynch

    Here’s an idea to repair our governance. Any government that invokes a “state of emergency” must face a general election within three months. F.M.D., Yorkeys Knob

    Can we please lock down the government for two weeks to stop the spread of totalitarianism? Mark W. Redlynch

    OK, help me understand the $600m federal-state cash support package (14/8). Does this mean govts will tax us all to give money to the businesses they killed by deciding to micromanage our health? Or will they borrow money in our names from overseas to give to business and we pay it back for decades? Or do they just print money out of thin air and devalue our savings in the process? Confused, Cairns North

    It’s been estimated that half the death toll of the 1918 Spanish Flu were not from the influenza virus. They were from bacterial respiratory tract infections caused by the masks. If you’re not putting a fresh mask on every 20 minutes or each time you sneeze you’re setting yourself up for a bacterial infection. Medic, Smithfield

    The govt wants to force me to have a vaccine to protect me from a virus that probably won’t kill me, but it won’t allow me to have a gun to protect myself from home invaders that may well kill me. Weird, right? Neil, Bungalow

    Any activity that involves personal risk must also involve personal choice. That is why government vaccine mandates are morally and ethically wrong and unlikely to be supported by the High Court – which is where such mandates will end up. Bethany, Aeroglen

    To understand climate change alarmists you must understand that you are the carbon they want to reduce. Bailey, Cairns

    If anyone is wondering if the ALP still harbours “thugs” then the article about Mundingburra MP Les Walker, his punch-ups in pubs and his banning from the Safe Nights Precinct (14/8) says the answer is probably yes, yes they do. Woz, Parramatta Park

    Peter Carruthers (CP 14/8) is only partly correct on the motivations of capital city residents buying property in the regions. The other significant factor is that city folk have seen how easily a city can be shut down on the whim of the ruling government and how disastrous that would be in a genuine pandemic where supply chains were cut and power, water and internet services were interrupted. Many are planning to flee the cities at the first sign of a real pandemic – which would be homeless people dead on the streets. Stacey, Kanimbla

    The network of like-minded people who own and run the media don’t actually want regional content (CP, 14/08). There’s too much room for regional reporters to deviate from the centralised message. They want everything filtered through central office to remove any unapproved ideas – you know, like treatments for covid as opposed to vaccines. Dot, Whitfield

    (CP, 14/8) No. Wearing masks is not “the new normal.” Masks are a psychological control mechanism – a constant visible advertisement for a fear campaign that is based on blatantly false information. Masks cannot stop viruses. The workers in virus labs wear full-encapsulation suits pressurised by an external air supply precisely because masks don’t stop viruses. Masks are solely to force you to capitulate to an out of control administrative state. Fern, Holloways Beach

    Have you noticed that “fact checkers” didn’t exist until the truth started getting out? Anne-Marie, Earlville

    If our Constitutional Monarchy worked as intended the Governors and Governor-General would have sacked the Premiers and Prime Minister by now for their abuses of our federal constitution and our God-given human rights. Merryl, Port Douglas

    Well done to federal education minister Alan Tudge for showing some spine. (CP 14/8). These “industry associations” led by credentialed folk who fallaciously appeal to their own authority are usually trying to advance a radical left cause of some sort. In the education sector that usually involves dumbing students down so they don’t ask difficult questions. Never give such activists an inch. Jennifer, Edge Hill

    Some government advertising in support of covid vaccinations is referring to “media conspiracy theories” against the vaccines. This is puzzling because the media has dutifully reported all the governments positions on each vaccine. Are they really trying to say that the government didn’t keep changing its advice, especially about AstraZeneca? Isn’t that “gaslighting?” Slavitsa, Mareeba

    Pam (CP 14/8). How would linking Quaid Rd to Black Mountain Rd be a better link to the Cape than the existing Rex Range Rd? Quaid Rd links Southedge Dam to Wangetti Beach – neither is a major population centre. And nobody has suggested using the existing Lake Morris Rd as a regional highway – it would need to be widened and straightened which the UN won’t allow. But that’s still a better idea than the Katter and Entsch Crystal Cascades gorge road. Resident, Redlynch

    Funny how there’s all these “exceptions” to quarantine rules (14/8). At least marine pilots perform a vital role – more so than movie stars, politicians and footballers, who have all had non-vital work quarantine “exceptions.” If this was a real pandemic and the govt had really saved us there would be no exceptions. Haley, Brinsmead

    The governments’ ongoing excessive over the top reaction to Covid outbreaks are not based on sound medical evidence or on the federal government’s own pandemic plan from 2019. They are the result of shallow-thinking narcissists trying to make themselves look heroic for political advantage. TR MacDonald, Clifton Beach

    Covid hysteria has become so irritating that I now only read local, non-covid stories in the paper and the only TV I watch is Outsiders on Sunday mornings. Outsiders was interrupted by a ScoMo press conference. From what ScoMo was saying it appears he now works for foreign pharmaceutical companies and not for Australians. Ex-LNP Voter, Manunda

    Doctors can be attracted to regional areas very easily, but Mr Katter (CP, 14/08) doesn’t seem to know how. You see, doctors are entirely dependent on government for licensing and for income via the medicare system, and that system needs a tweak. Take provider numbers off doctors and pin them to postcodes. Doctors will suddenly be willing to move to wherever they can get a provider number. It really is that simple. Higgs, Tolga

    (CP, 14/08) The top-ranked bureaucrat in a government health department should not be described as the “nation’s top doctor.” That honour rightfully belongs to someone who actually practices medicine as their full-time job. It dishonours committed healers to award their top gong to someone who sits at a desk. Nurse J, Cairns

    Regarding the $44m roads boost (14/8) if the Mareeba to Atherton section is the example then all we’ll see is fewer places to overtake and wider but rarely-used bicycle lanes. Truckie, Mareeba

    The FNQ radio station that plays the Top 40 on Saturday arvo was running pro-vax ads on high rotation. The ads were aimed at indigenous people. We all know that the government has exempted vax makers, doctors and themselves from indemnity for the consequences of the side effects, but are radio stations and other media also exempted? Albert, Cooktown

    CMO Paul Kelly reckons we’ll have a third wave of covid (CP 14/8). How odd. Looking at ABS figures I see we still haven’t had a first or second wave. In fact, 2017 still has far more more flu-related deaths than we’ve seen from covid. Theresa, Atherton

    There’s been several recent reports here of bushfires in the US, with the media blaming climate change. However, a former Professor of Sociology has been arrested for wildland arson in California and is suspected of starting many bushfires (npr.org

    NPR – Breaking News, Analysis, Music, Arts & Podcasts : NPR
    Top stories in the U.S. and world news, politics, health, science, business, music, arts and culture. Nonprofit journalism with a mission. This is NPR.
    npr.org
    ). This is the sort of prove-a-point climate activism that Michael Crichton, author of “Jurassic Park,” described in his 2004 novel “State of Fear.” Without the excessive forest fuels demanded by climate activists this arsonist would have had nothing to light. Darryl, Westcourt

    ……

    Peter Campion’s letter (TB, 14/08) very precisely identifies the serious flaws in the IPCC’s version of climate science and the reasons it will not improve. Campion also correctly describes how to end the frightening but false IPCC prophecies – by defunding it. However, Campion’s concise statement of facts will trigger mass outrage from the rote-learned, the low-info party hacks, and the cultists who exhilarate in feeling afraid. I forecast that the Bulletin’s radical left commentators will inundate the Editor’s inbox with hysterical attacks on the “heretical denier” and on the newspaper for allowing him to speak. Prof. D, Garbutt


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  12. egg_ says:

    For Captain Kirk Dot:

    Two Scientists Are Building a Real Star Trek ‘Impulse Engine’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bp8fk5rosI


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  13. calli says:

    That’s the ticket, Tom.

    Continue commenting on the blog while you have time. Guilt by association and by thoughtcrime will find us all out, bird or no bird. You can see where it’s heading. It’s funny how old bats like Joh and I are encouraging staunchness, while hale and hearty gents are worried about malodorous pixels on a blog.

    Our governments have entire populations locked up, many now with advanced Stockholm Syndrome, and some of us are the only members of our families who aren’t buying any of it. This blog is important, more important than some realise.


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  14. ikamatua says:

    Now, it may seem strange that one who has a penchant for stupid jokes about stuffing rainbow lorikeets into the never regions of various individuals and for violent and derogatory language of all kinds would bemoan the lack of standards of today, but this is simply the result of two things:
    1. We were all born into a corrupt and decaying society.
    2. I’m easily influenced. Always have been.


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  15. Tom says:

    Says “Kabul will be chock-a-block full of busybody women with hyphenated names in various NGO’s who will be clutching at pearls right about now.”

    Damn right, rockdoctor. Karens like Kerry Chant are busy back home destroying what’s left of the Australian economy and democracy, so the rest of the do-gooder Karens have headed offshore to pointlessly try to stop Afghan girls being raped, enslaved and murdered by their ideological allies in Islam.


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  16. Lizzie of Sydney says:

    “Were this site to be examined by the media, they would find ample proof of Storm Front-like material and would assume – understandably – that I (and everybody else) either endorsed it or dismissed it as so much harmless fare for the scroll-wheel.”

    This from CL, who is now taking a break. I and others too have felt the same way as CL now declares about having their name and known identity elsewhere associated with the sort of unexamined material on various topic fronts being presented here. For two days I have hit the report comment button on most of Bird’s comments in the hope of some moderation, but none is emerging. This seems deliberate, but may not be so.

    I came back in recently in some anger to correct some serious disinformation about a naive misreading of a peer reviewed medical study on Covid vaxination and pregnancy by people who think they have some competence in this field when clearly they have none and are just seeking to discredit testable vax findings. It was typical of a lot of the more way-out critiques of vaxes, which seem to be founded on far less than real evidence or physiological processes, relying mostly on ‘spook’ science.

    Certainly, don’t take the vax if you don’t want it, or are waiting for something better, with fewer side effects, or are concerned about longer term effects (ADE is unlikely but worries some). Balance your risks well in that case though, with Delta on the move here now. That said, I’m not in favour of mandatory vax nor of vaccine ‘passports’.

    Like CL, I hope we can keep the old Cat connections going at least on three other sites – M0nty’s, Dover’s and Nilk’s, and hopefully here too if the moderation issues become solved concerning at least the rampant anti-Semitism. On Nilk’s site there are links to these other two, and Monty’s site helpfully aggregates all formal posts across the sites.


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  17. johanna says:

    Just had a friendly chat with my landlady at the motel. Apparently, she is into weightlifting, and strength training, big time. Used to participate in competitions when that was possible.

    I retreat to my room; shortly afterwards, I hear this THUD THUD THUD. Peer out, and she is splitting logs with an axe. Big logs. Huge logs.

    Training.

    I feel very safe with her as the gatekeeper. 🙂

    Also, apparently I am not the only resident here. There is a bloke called Bill who has just returned from Cambodia. I shall try to meet him.

    Staying in an almost empty motel should have a Hollywood gothic feel about it, but as we are in the CBD of Queanbeyan it doesn’t quite work.


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  18. egg_ says:

    half the star exploded in an off-centre Type 1a supernova, whereupon the other half took off rapidly in the other direction.

    ——————————–

    Should be a “Gravity wave” bonanza.


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  19. Bruce of Newcastle says:

    Graeme – White dwarfs, which are the culprits behind type 1a supernovae have burned through all their hydrogen, then collapsed into a big ball of degenerate matter once fusion ceased due to lack of fuel. They go bang if they then accrete matter from a companion star such that they exceed the Chandrasekhar limit. Which is why one can explode off-centre, since the matter that tips it over the edge is falling onto one side of it.


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  20. srr says:

    Pakistan’s Child Criminals

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiRJkusvY1o

    Aug 14, 2021
    The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
    [they cover more than that issue; it’s worth a watch.]


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  21. struth says:

    https://twitter.com/OzraeliAvi/status/1426671565572231168

    The concentration camps are being built, just in case you thought this was about a cold virus


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  22. Roger says:

    “feelthebern says:
    August 15, 2021 at 10:28 am
    Something stinks about this “mercy dash” by Australia, the US & other countries to assist getting people out of Afghanistan.”

    ————————–

    I’ll repeat the question since there were no takers the first time:

    If the object of the mission is not as stated, what is it?

    Before you answer, bear in mind that the US, who I imagine have roped us into this and not without good reason, is only sending three battalions of marines. That is not an offensive capability in the present context of Afghanistan with the Taliban rampant.


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  23. miltonf says:

    You can see where it’s heading. It’s funny how old bats like Joh and I are encouraging staunchness, while hale and hearty gents are worried about malodorous pixels on a blog.

    Our governments have entire populations locked up, many now with advanced Stockholm Syndrome, and some of us are the only members of our families who aren’t buying any of it. This blog is important, more important than some realise.
    That’s exactly right. It’s surprising really that Sinc, being an RMIT academic, was able to keep the old cat going so long. I’m sure a lot of colleagues would have given him a hard time. Thanks again Adam and to all the astute and interesting commentators like Calli here.


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  24. Professor Higgins says:

    ikamatua says:

    August 15, 2021 at 12:33 pm

    “The difference is Arky, that if you believe in free speech, then you can’t have it both ways.”.
    I never claimed to put free speech over and above everything.

    Everyone has the right to free speech.
    However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that their free speech is impinged upon when they are not provided time on every blog or media outlet.


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  25. Professor Higgins says:

    Bird.
    Tell us about how you would use your mummy as the template for any girlfriend you might take up with.
    Firstly, can you afford to be choosy and, secondly, you don’t think that has a touch of the Norman Bates about it?
    Was mummy totally above board with everything when you were growing up?


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  26. struth says:

    Just on another observation.
    Once those assassinated, oops, sorry, I mean vaccinated, realise that when the borders are open again and all the little viruses they catch will be huge sickness for them , as we’re learning, they’ll be screaming to keep the borders shut and ironically (because they got the fakecine to travel) will be scared of leaving the house.

    NEVER comply or submit to tyrants.
    It will kill you as quick as those who resist.
    Sometimes quicker.


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  27. HD says:

    Dot says:
    August 15, 2021 at 12:15 pm

    “Have you read Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars?”

    Had a look at it. The preamble makes it sound a bit suspect. Perhaps it is legitimately what it is made out to be. Perhaps not. It reads as something written by a high school kid with a particular flair for creative writing and a moderate understanding of economic and system theory. Though stupid people like Klaus Schwab and his Davos mates probably are dumb enough to believe in approximations of social function as given within the short text.


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  28. johanna says:

    we were better off in the days when publishers were held to standards of decency.
    the decency has gone, and so has the free speech for those of us who advocate for those values.
    ——————————————————————————-
    You have rose tinted glasses, Arky.

    Who was in charge of ‘standards of decency’ and how did they apply it?

    Once again, lack of historical knowledge besets the Right.

    Even in the US, the Constitution and the Amendments are, and have been, constantly under challenge. It’s Whack-a Mole territory.

    When I was growing up, The Sydney Morning Herald was a benchmark for accuracy, perfect spelling and grammar, and it had a slightly conservative tilt.

    Do the current owners and denizens give a fig? Of course not. As with TheirABC, they trade off the intellectual and social capital built up over decades and piss on the graves.


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  29. JohnJJJ says:

    How come the Taliban aren’t dying like flies? They are in groups of more than 2, over 5 km from their home, outside, no masks, close contact, no bubble friend, no hand sanitiser… I recon just wait for two weeks and most of them will be dead.


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  30. struth says:

    Did mummy touch little birdy in the Tarsus?


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  31. Bruce of Newcastle says:

    I don’t know about all that Graeme. The Sun is shining sufficient energy that you can tell the difference easily when a cloud occludes it. Happened to me yesterday when on bicycle (made of supernova stuff!) whereupon it felt like the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. So I cut short my ride, which on hindsight was a bad move since I got home to the news that Gladys has now restricted my exercise to within 5 km of my house. Makes it hard to do much treadlying since 5 km is stuff all. By Christmas, at this rate, I’ll be forced into bicycling in circles around the Hills Hoist in the backyard.


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  32. Muddy says:

    Lizzie of Sydney says:
    August 15, 2021 at 12:48 pm

    That’s a solid point, and one I have been considering since the beginning. It seems inexplicable to permit the continuing presence of those whose intention is obviously to discredit this blog, and those who use it. I’m aware of course that Adam is busy with his own life, but to persevere with this acceptance of comment vandalism can only result in his efforts being wasted when the site implodes.


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  33. Mark A says:

    Tom says:
    August 15, 2021 at 8:21 am

    The new Catallaxy troll swamp is worse than the old one with a racist anti-semite roaming free because no-one is in charge and the new webmaster has no management plan for the site.

    Maybe Tom, an other explanation is that it is happening with a tacit approval.
    There was enough time to get organised, at least on the moderation side if not on the tech. issues.

    I’m not a libertarian, don’t believe in unfettered speech.


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  34. Grigory M says:

    Voters in NSW are sitting in front of their TVs – slapping their baseball bats into the palms of their hands – restlessly waiting for the coming Federal Election. Both Morrison and Berejiklian have followed the wrong strategies – trying to preserve the coalition’s NSW seats. That has clearly been a waste of time – the voters will use those baseball bats to send first the Morrison government and then the Berejiklian government into oblivion. They both richly deserve it.


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  35. egg_ says:

    BIGgles must have sh1t the bed again and they didn’t let him have access to the iPad till after lunchtime trifle.


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  36. Speedbox says:

    Roger says:
    August 15, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    The detachments are too small for any other purpose that I can see. Kabul is finished – a “dead city walking” so to speak. This evacuation has parallels with the evacuation of Saigon.

    Several days ago I posted a message that all foreign nationals were being told to leave the city ‘NOW’. A day later, the MSM was reporting similar advice. The Taliban advance is gaining momentum and fighting with government troops, whilst fierce and vicious in some places, is not holding back the tide. In other areas, government forces are in full retreat. (actually not so much ‘retreat’….more, run for your lives).

    There are huge regional implications from the fall of Afghanistan in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran but also for India and China.


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  37. rickw says:

    Just texted a mate about troops going into the Ghan again. He doesn’t know much about it being a civi now but says will be to get expats out mainly, a protected evacuation. Says “Kabul will be chock-a-block full of busybody women with hyphenated names in various NGO’s who will be clutching at pearls right about now.”

    Taliban steamrolling through everything help to a large extent by NGO efforts to disarm everyone in Afghanistan. Not sure how many times this needs to happen before they work it out.


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  38. egg_ says:

    “Graeme – White dwarfs, which are the culprits behind type 1a supernovae have burned through all their hydrogen……”

    Thats all just silly talk. You got any evidence for that? Stars don’t have much in the way of hydrogen in the first place. Lifting gasses (hydrogen and helium) naturally float to the top of any gravitational body and the dummy looking through a telescope assumes that goes all the way down.

    ——————————

    They’re trying to explain the metallic composition as the result of a “nuclear explosion” causing heavy elements that then coalesced.

    Pure guesswork/fantasy.

    The zombie star cited, LP 40-365, is a type 1ax Supernova.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_40-365


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  39. m0nty says:

    I’m not a libertarian, don’t believe in unfettered speech.

    Libertarianism is not anarchy. There are some rules, to protect others’ liberty.


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  40. mh says:

    Daily Tele

    ‘The four people who died were an unvaccinated woman in her 50s, women in her 70s who had only recently been vaccinated, an unvaccinated in his 80s, and a female in her 80s who was vaccinated but had underlying health conditions.’
    ***
    So it looks pretty much the same as last year. People in their 80s and above are most likely to die.
    The vaccines may or may not make a difference.
    The government refuse to take Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine seriously, putting all their eggs in the ‘vaccine’ basket.


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  41. Professor Higgins says:

    struth says:

    August 15, 2021 at 1:14 pm

    Did mummy touch little birdy in the Tarsus?

    When allegedly grown men say they want a girlfriend just like mummy, it is a dead certainty there was some illicit stuff going on under the doona at bedtime storytime.


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  42. Boambee John says:

    Grigory M says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:17 pm
    Voters in NSW are sitting in front of their TVs – slapping their baseball bats into the palms of their hands – restlessly waiting for the coming Federal Election.

    And voters in Victoria, the prototype for the current NSW policies? Happy little campers, are they?

    You are an idiot (with a political agenda).


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  43. ikamatua says:

    How pathetic is it that given 20 years. Twenty fucking years. To put in place something in Afghanistan that might resist these scruffy religious nutters with AKs and Toyota Hiluxs, the US military has again utterly failed in it’s mission.
    Heads should fucking roll.
    Thousands of dead US personnel. Tens of thousands of dead Afghanis, Trillions of dollars squandered. Strategic priorities warped and actual defence of the nation ignored.
    And the rsult? After a month or two of leaving the joint will be back under the control of the same wankers who sheltered Osama.


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  44. Barry says:

    When it all explodes, there’s a fair chance confidence in vaccines will be destroyed for decades.

    All for vanity hubris and greed.


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  45. ikamatua says:

    The population of Afghanistan has quadrupled in the last 30 years.
    Not only haven’t we pacified the motherlovers, there are now a shit tonne more of them.


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  46. struth says:

    Empower now news.
    Worth writing the letter?
    Of course it is, even if it isn’t.
    …………………………………
    Empower now
    Extremely Urgent Breaking News August 6th , 2021
    Congratulations to Senator Rex Patrick of South Australia who took the Department of Premier and Cabinet to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and got a ruling that Scott Morrison’s totalitarian ‘National Cabinet’ is not a real cabinet and cannot enjoy the same privileges of confidentiality/secrecy as a real cabinet.

    The guilty are Scott Morrison (Federal), Daniel Andrews (VIC), Annastacia Palaszczuk(QLD), Andrew Barr (ACT), Gladys Berejiklian (NSW), Michael Gunner (NT), Peter Gutwein(TAS), Steven Marshall (SA), Mark McGowan (WA).
    It is time to stand-up and get rid of these totalitarian thugs from all sides and usher in a new government that believes in the liberty and freedom of all people and will create a process and system to listen to their voices.

    This means every totalitarian decision made in this secret club, that state premiers and chief ministers have been absolutely complicit with, is blown wide open. The shroud of secrecy has been lifted.

    Encourage every Australian to write to the Department of Premier and Cabinet under freedom of information laws to seek the truth about what has been happening in these secret National Cabinet meetings that were never lawful and were always the most tyrannical blow against our Country in history. In fact, one even wonders if the decisions and directives,over the past 18 months, from this bunch of tyrants are even lawful and enforceable.


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  47. A Lurker says:

    I like the idea of a team of volunteer, tried-and-tested, long-time posters to act as moderators to remove the most odious comments.


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  48. srr says:

    johanna says:
    August 15, 2021 at 11:16 am
    […]
    When I worked as a temp at RPA in NSW in the late 1970s, the boss of my section (medical records) openly wore a Masonic ring.
    […]
    __________________

    That reminds me of a time a member of the public was sent to records to get records for an emergency admission. No association with the hospital or medicine but the admissions person knew them & knew they knew where to go.


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  49. Bruce of Newcastle says:

    The zombie star cited, LP 40-365, is a type 1ax Supernova.

    As I said, it’s an off-centre Type 1a supernova. So when the added mass from the companion star disrupts degeneracy, thereby causing higher elements to fuse and for condensation into a neutron star to initiate (but not continue) you get an explosion on one side. Half of that explosion blasts outwards, therefore accelerating the chunk that hasn’t exploded. And the other half of the crazily fusing elements go splat: straight into the remaining chunk of the star – and get incorporated into it. Hence the high metallicity.


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  50. Mother Lode says:

    Free speech means you cannot be prosecuted, or persecuted even, for what you say. This is between the individual and the state.

    It does not mean you have free access to private property (which this blog is) to use as a platform.

    I don’t have the right to barge into someone’s house and berate them from the living room for how they live their lives.


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  51. egg_ says:

    The guy who lampooned Catholic priest Georges Lemaître’s Universe “Big Bang” miraculous birth origin.

    https://www.famousscientists.org/fred-hoyle/

    In 1946 his work began to bear fruit. He showed that the cores of massive stars could reach sufficiently high temperatures and densities to bring hot atomic nuclei together to form heavy elements such as iron.


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  52. johanna says:

    Thanks calli, fellow ‘old bat.’

    I agree that the lack of rigour and strength of the so-called men on this site has been revealing.

    C.L. ought to join the US National Review, which devoted a whole issue in 2016 with diatribes about why Trump should not be elected. The National Review is a leading allegedly conservative journal.

    He was vulgar, he was a ‘populist’ (whatever that means) and so on. Like C.L., style was much more important than substance and results.

    Enjoy your port in the Senior Common Room, outlining the abrasions to your delicate sensibilities, well away from the battle.


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  53. Bar Beach Swimmer says:

    I don’t think they were acting

    Well, I should’ve checked that out first! 😁


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  54. egg_ says:

    Yet it should eventually circularise itself and become spherical again. If there is a mystery its why its taking a long time to become spherical again.

    —————————————

    9 hour rotation period, apparently.


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  55. Makka says:

    They both richly deserve it.
    ________________________________________________
    The stupidity here is that by getting back at Gladys or Scummo, somehow one receives a magic benefit by having another gang of incompetent parasitic leftards in your pocket and your life, rather than the incumbents.


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  56. ikamatua says:

    “Mother Lode says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:34 pm
    Free speech means you cannot be prosecuted, or persecuted even, for what you say. This is between the individual and the state.”
    ..
    How’s that worked out in the long run?
    After they stopped prosecuting indecency, did our world get better or worserer?
    That is a rhetorical question.
    It got worserer for everything, including your right to express political opinions or to state your opposition to the current madness.
    Free speech was a load of fucking crap.


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  57. struth says:

    Am I too old to join the army at 54?

    I know I am a white male as well, but maybe they are still taking them.

    I can drive and fix their trucks and I get Permission TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY, and get to Afghanistan………………..
    I’ll AWOL from there under a black mussie sack until I get to Florida or Texas.


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  58. ikamatua says:

    I can now say “fuck” as much as I like, including in publications, broadcasts and in front of passersby. But I can’t publish my opinion that the current vaccine strategy is utterly nuts, or that people should protest them, without risking arrest.
    Free speech as we previously thought of it was a load of cobblers.


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  59. Knuckle Dragger says:

    When allegedly grown men say they want a girlfriend just like mummy

    I told you he was Sheldon from Big Bang.


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  60. Professor Higgins says:

    It does not mean you have free access to private property (which this blog is) to use as a platform.

    The ABC are all over the cancel culture to control “hate speech”.
    But the merest suggestion that maybe dicks like Dylan Voller and Zaky Mallah shouldn’t be given free rein on Q&A and they suddenly discover freedom of speech.


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  61. struth says:

    Free speech was not a load of crap.
    It’s the basis of all the west’s wealth.
    That’s why the country that enshrined it became a superpower.
    The problem we have today is not caused by free speech, it is caused by those decent people not bothering to use it against evil.
    Apathy, was how we got here.
    Not because the other side was on the pulpit, but because we deserted it.
    Persecuting indecency?
    Like the indecency of not doing your part and getting jabbed as we are now told?
    Decency according to those controlling speech??
    No one has the right to silence bad or evil words, because the bad and evil might become the ones to be doing the silencing…….as is what is happening.


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  62. calli says:

    The stupidity here is that by getting back at Gladys or Scummo, somehow one receives a magic benefit by having another gang of incompetent parasitic leftards in your pocket and your life, rather than the incumbents.

    No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote. – Mark Twain

    Like the scene at the end of Animal Farm, the differences are almost undetectable. We cling to those minuscule differences as if they are a life raft but, like Rose’s door, they are insufficient for the weight of the many who need them. I live in Labor-land, state and federal. Any whisper of marginality has been swept away.

    Or has it? If so many people, as is claimed, are supposedly clamouring for lockdowns, then surely those who impose them must romp home. There’s a lie in there somewhere. Can anyone spot it?


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  63. struth says:

    That’s correct Mother lode.
    But we are both guests at the moment in Adam’s house, and it’s not up to you and I as to decide what is said in it.
    Unless Adam decides we can.


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  64. srr says:

    “ikamatua says:
    August 15, 2021 at 11:58 am

    […] one Catallaxy now isn’t enough.
    There needs to be a whole suite of Catallaxies, with movement and loose co-operation between them.”
    _________________________

    This is why I don’t get anyone still trusting those flitting between all the cats, calling for the banning of anyone they don’t like or the banning of those platforms that don’t comply with the needs of their ever so sensitive minds.

    THE TARGET is to have NO Free & Open Public Forums in Australia & they are going hell for leather to make it so.


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  65. Speedbox says:

    ikamatua says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:29 pm
    …..put in place something in Afghanistan that might resist these scruffy religious nutters with AKs and Toyota Hiluxs….

    Yes and no. The Taliban, and the Mujahideen before them, and their capacity to engage in guerrilla warfare is incredible. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviets were utterly ruthless in their use of airpower and heavy weapons and an estimated two million Afghans died. Helicopter gunships were like fireflies in some areas and still the Mujahideen prevailed.

    Then the coalition forces, led by the US, came and faced the Taliban. Over a trillion dollars later and many lives, the US have left behind a treasure trove of weapons and mountains or ammunition. Hiluxs have been replaced by Hummers and light armoured personnel carriers; AK47s, although still in popular use, are backed up with any array of better weapons such as light artillery. The weapons were supposed to be for government troops but as they disintegrate, the Taliban captures the weapons. If that wasn’t bad enough, there are two factories in Pakistan (near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border) that provide new weapons and have been doing so for years. The Taliban will live in caves and endure any hardship to fight. Yes, they are ruthless on the local populations but they see this as ‘their life’. It is warfare to fight oppressors and to save Islam.

    Afghanistan is finished. The bigger question is about the domino of Pakistan and the regional implications beyond them. This ain’t over yet, not by a long way.


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  66. Knuckle Dragger says:

    Being born into an already-corrupted system, as ikematueaea mentioned.

    The eastern Roman Empire saw this coming, and told the original one to fuck off. The Great Schism was an excuse. Nothing more.

    The Western Roman Empire fell to bits. Rome was sacked a dozen times over a century and a half before it died, writhing.

    The Byzantines, on the other hand, lasted a thousand or more years before succumbing to the same problems.


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  67. Tom says:

    I hear on Sky’s Weekend Business and read in Wikipedia that Twiggy Forrest has a PhD, unrelated to his only tertiary study at University of WA in economics and politics.

    UWA “awarded” Forrest his PhD in “marine science” in 2019, which he is using in a drive for ethics in his agri-business investments, including in Tasmania’s Huon Acquaculture, which he owns around 20% of, presumably so he can’t be accused by vegan activists of unethically killing salmon.

    It sounds smart to me if you’re trying to enter consumer product plays where a big slab of your market comprises anaemic Western millennials who feel guilty about eating meat to keep themselves healthy.


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  68. struth says:

    No lockdown independents will come out of the woodwork.
    Voting for the UNiparties by then will be anathema to enough people to get ’em worried.
    So they’ll do a Venezuela/US election stunt and rig the stuffings out of it.
    Anyone, (like the Naive Outsiders) who is waiting to flex their democratic muscle at the ballot box, in a dictatorship is , well, let me put it midly, a fuckwit.
    Read some history.
    You don’t have to go back very far.


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  69. mh says:

    Paywallian

    ‘Impossible’ to eliminiate Delta: Berejiklian
    ***
    Definitely the take-out from an otherwise appalling presser.
    The madness of the elimination strategy must end now.


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  70. Steve trickler says:

    Her face reminds me of someone here. I will not drop names.

    Doris Day – Dream A Little Dream of Me


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  71. cohenite says:

    I told you he was Sheldon from Big Bang.

    So bird is Sheldon? So, he’s gay.


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  72. calli says:

    There is a place for a salon where everyone agrees respectfully with everyone else. Let’s face it, it’s comfortable. And civilised.

    My preference is for the scarred, ciggie burned coffee table and bodies rolled into the corners for quiet disposal at a later date. Robust debate, real talk, disagreement. Maybe free speech comes with free fists. Could be if it’s worth fighting for.


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  73. DrBeauGan says:

    I can now say “fuck” as much as I like, including in publications, broadcasts and in front of passersby. But I can’t publish my opinion that the current vaccine strategy is utterly nuts, or that people should protest them, without risking arrest.
    Free speech as we previously thought of it was a load of cobblers.

    There are four possibilities:
    1. We can ban you from saying ‘fuck’ and ban your opinions on vaccines.
    2. We can let you say ‘fuck’ and ban your opinions on vaccines.
    3. We can ban you from saying ‘fuck’ and let you give your opinions on vaccines.
    4. We can let you say anything you like.

    We are currently in 2. You seem to want 3. I prefer 4.


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  74. Speedbox says:

    struth says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    I can drive and fix their trucks and I get Permission TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY, and get to Afghanistan………………..

    With respect Struth, the last place you want to be is Afghanistan. If you feel the need to ‘do something’, go to the Central African Republic, Yemen or Somalia…..somewhere where it is relatively safer.


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  75. Farmer Gez says:

    Our political leaders are strange people.

    Spoke to a bloke who has a mate that went through Mannix College with Dan Andrews for three years. He said none of his friends from those years can recall Andrews at all, yet here he is as Premier.

    It’s the one common element with all the state leaders, they are seriously odd and perhaps friendless in ordinary society.

    Bob Hawke was the last leader who was genuinely a people person.
    It’s disturbing if you think about it.


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  76. ikamatua says:

    “You have rose tinted glasses, Arky.

    Who was in charge of ‘standards of decency’ and how did they apply it?

    Once again, lack of historical knowledge besets the Right.”
    ..
    Incorrect.
    Who pushed the “free speech” barrow at first?
    It was the Marxists.
    In order to collapse society.
    Which you can see in action on this blog today. The chaos caused by idiots like Bird is exactically what they wanted. One of the first big test cases for “free speech” was a Nazi march in a town with a high proportion of Jewish residents. The indecency unleashed in the 60s and 70s also caused chaos. Divorce rates, facilitated sex tourism, fuelled drug use and social decay. Which again IS WHAT THEY WANTED.
    To see it was the chaos they really wanted you only have to look to their actual attitude to real speech: How they decided to not debate anyone who doubted their take on global warming. The de-platformings. The going after ideological enemies in real life.
    If you wanted the freedom to speak about real and important things, attaching the phrase “free speech” to filth and idiocy was the precisely opposite way to doing it.


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  77. ikamatua says:

    “We are currently in 2. You seem to want 3. I prefer 4.”
    ..
    That’s my point.
    4 is an illusion held out to you by rogues in order to get to 2.


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  78. caveman says:

    This is the cat unplugged , just like what the first ever blog would have been like.
    Like the cantina in Star Wars.


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  79. Mother Lode says:

    How’s that worked out in the long run?

    You can be prosecuted for other things.

    The old “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre”, for example. You don’t get in trouble for shouting fire, but recklessly putting people at risk of injury in a stampede.

    Defamation is not about the words but the financial or psychological harm done to an individual.

    Public decency laws were based on the idea that certain words could be used to intimidate or deliberately offend – the idea that it injured people like physical violence. But the same words could be used with the same feeling in a different context. Wharfie so could have conversations sprinkled liberally with ‘F’ words and ‘C’ words on the job talking about football. The same conversation on the bus would be indecent.

    Things are turned into a law when social checks are not sufficient. Doing what is legal merely because it is law is the lowest level of virtue. If decency legislation is being resorted to, just because morality and social mores have failed. The reason I don’t steal from people is not because it is illegal, but because I consider it wrong.

    People can have morals, legislation does not. A nation may be in a dreadful state of moral decay, yet everyone could appear as genteel and deferential as you can possibly imagine. Is that a good thing?

    With the decency legislation repealed, we have a clearer view of where we are really at as a society. Indecency legislation merely has the effect of concealing that.


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  80. srr says:

    “ikamatua says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:45 pm
    I can now say “fuck” as much as I like, including in publications, broadcasts and in front of passersby. But I can’t publish my opinion that the current vaccine strategy is utterly nuts, or that people should protest them, without risking arrest.
    Free speech as we previously thought of it was a load of cobblers.”
    _________________________________________

    When the word this ICONIC AUSSIE song featured (while being about the idiocies of hypocrisy), was banned at the old cat, I saw it as the free speech equivalent of the Catholics allowing the pill, step onto the slippery slope down to the death of Free Speech in Australian Forums.
    Remember when Aussies were proud & warmly loved around the world for calling out hypocrisy wherever it lay. The old cat helped kill that –

    You Can’t Say C@#T In Canada
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG_cp-xxHsw


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  81. egg_ says:

    I told you he was Sheldon from Big Bang.

    ——————————————-

    More like father of two, Sir Fred Hoyle, than “celibate” Catholic priest Georges Lemaître?


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  82. Rockdoctor says:

    Speedbox, I worked in the Central Asia region once for 4 months. IMO there would have to be some alarm in Beijing and even Moscow. One wonders whether they will intervene or by proxy. My money is on Russia using proxies like Iran but the Chinese if compelled to act would be more direct. If Pakistan falters or gets propped up by Winnie the Poo I can’t see India sitting on the sidelines either.

    I know for a fact a lot of Australian DFAT & NGO’s in Pakistan. Destabilisation of that region could even draw us in.


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  83. Knuckle Dragger says:

    Afghanistan is finished.

    It never started.

    Anyone at any point in the future who uses the term ‘nation-building’ should be lashed to the nasty end of an anti-aircraft gun, and then given a lesson on what the military is for.


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  84. egg_ says:

    “Ji’s 2015 discovery helped overturn that conventional wisdom. Two years later, a dramatic observation seemed to confirm the new thinking. Astronomers saw heavy elements actually forming when two dense neutron stars spiraled into each other, which implied that merging neutron star binaries and not supernovae were the main source of the heaviest elements.

    Now, however, doubts have arisen, suggesting that the original solution—supernova explosions—may be an important part of the answer after all.”

    https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2026110118

    Sounds like an each way bet.


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  85. ikamatua says:

    “We are currently in 2. You seem to want 3. I prefer 4.”
    ..
    Or to say it more precisely:
    4 was in a very calculating way held out to you by people who were cultural Marxists, which is to say just Marxists, in order to move society from the stable situation of 3 through the chaotic situation of 4, to the stable outcome of 2.
    Which is precisely what has occurred.
    How’s your ‘”free speech” today?
    Why would you think that going back through the process that had an outcome of 2 would end any other way than how it was designed to end?


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  86. Top Ender says:

    Dylan Voller should be in the money from the $35 million awarded against youth detainees recently.

    It includes the legal firm’s fees, so every young lad should get about $5.50 from the settlement, once that’s worked out.


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  87. Franx says:

    The people who favour lockdowns are often working from home.
    Yet more often than not they fail to realise that they are not working from home but are living at work, that their homes are the domain of their masters who can inspect and demand oh&s measures, can determine who enters and under what conditions, can determine when the worker can leave and for how long and how far. The idea and reality of ‘home’ has morphed from sanctuary into gulag. How easy was that. Not a shot fired.


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  88. egg_ says:

    My money is on Russia using proxies like Iran but the Chinese if compelled to act would be more direct.

    ————————————–

    China taking over Russia’s former interests in the region?

    US Deep State playing (p1ss poor?) chess?


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  89. ikamatua says:

    “A nation may be in a dreadful state of moral decay, yet everyone could appear as genteel and deferential as you can possibly imagine. Is that a good thing?”
    .
    Yes.
    If it exposes young people to less drugs and prostitution.
    People used to understand that expousing standards were important even if some, or even a majority flouted them, because it gave people space to raise young people.


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  90. Knuckle Dragger says:

    Dux of a fairly large school. Head of the maths department. Actually turned down the role of Principal. Had three degrees. Incredibly strong for a woman. A superior individual. Sadly never found out that Rockefeller medicine was full of shit.

    And, apparently, girlfriend material.


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  91. Barry says:

    armer Gez says:
    August 15, 2021 at 2:08 pm

    Our political leaders are strange people.

    Bob Hawke was the last leader who was genuinely a people person.
    It’s disturbing if you think about it.

    Most folk would rightly reject the hypocrisy and bastardry required to achieve those positions.


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  92. Steve trickler says:

    The only thing spoiling this is her wearing a mask. Take it off.

    Concert Pianist Jams with A Boogie Woogie Pianist


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  93. egg_ says:

    Yet more often than not they fail to realise that they are not working from home but are living at work, that their homes are the domain of their masters who can inspect and demand oh&s measures

    ———————————————-

    Probably saving on workers comp premiums.


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  94. JohnJJJ says:

    Speedbox says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:59 pm
    It is warfare to fight oppressors and to save Islam.

    From my experience of our Pashtun fellow humans, Salafi Isalm is a just a method to get back to the old Pashtunwali. They can use it to exterminate the Hazaris and any extant Shia- as least the ones that won’t be their boy slaves and dancers (they invented ‘transitioning’ and made it compulsory). Give them a few years and they’ll get back to tribal warfare. The ones I met hated the Arabs ( Osama and his men) and put up with them for the money. Let the Chinese invade. It’ll keep them both busy for 20 years and the Arabs won’t be back.. Bit of a blow for the Yanks, though. I can’t see how USA morale will recover from this retreat.


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  95. Speedbox says:

    Rockdoctor says:
    August 15, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    More than alarm in China and India. Especially India but the Chinese have a huge issue as well. The Taliban have made overtures to Russia but (surprise!) the Russians are very ‘cool’ on the idea of sitting around singing kumbaya with the Taliban. But there are the restive Muslim groups to the south of Russia in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan etc. These could be problematic for Moscow. There is previous bad blood between the Taliban and Iran but even so, when the Taliban control all of Afghanistan, I can see a change.

    This whole thing is a mess and it has global implications but especially for Pakistan, India and China in the near and medium term (and longer term for Russia).


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  96. egg_ says:

    The translation of that egg is that as the two dense objects exchanged materials guess what? The materials weren’t neutrons at all. But heavy elements.

    ———————————

    Seems to agree with Hoyle.

    From the article, they found 9 stars containing Europium (atomic number 63) in the same galaxy, Reticulum II.

    All galaxies are not alike?


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  97. srr says:

    “struth says:
    August 15, 2021 at 1:52 pm
    Free speech was not a load of crap.
    It’s the basis of all the west’s wealth.
    That’s why the country that enshrined it became a superpower.
    The problem we have today is not caused by free speech, it is caused by those decent people not bothering to use it against evil.
    Apathy, was how we got here.
    Not because the other side was on the pulpit, but because we deserted it.
    Persecuting indecency?
    Like the indecency of not doing your part and getting jabbed as we are now told?
    Decency according to those controlling speech??
    No one has the right to silence bad or evil words, because the bad and evil might become the ones to be doing the silencing…….as is what is happening.”
    ___________

    +1


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