Remembering PRESTAGS

Hexes are awesome

I found this on the ABC (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/us-election-trump-biden-states-polling/12822296). The number of hexes show them number of college votes each state gets. it is a completely archaic system, but makes for a great War Game map. The Chump has Made Elections Great Again!

Clever, but will irritate my mates no end

I noticed an odd flag flying on the walk home from the office earlier this week. It took me several seconds to deconstruct it.

I think it is a clever bit of fun, and, for me, symbolises pride in the past and the future. I think my mates will bitterly disagree and call for a homeland security visit. 

Vive la difference!

Let us never become unable to debate!

Democracy Pie

When the politically correct Maoist vegans take over after the election they'll probably ban meat pies because they contain meat and cows fart.

 

Weep For France

 

^{Decline and Fall:}

But There is Hope:

 

les soldats

at the Arc de Triopmhe, from the bus window on the way out of Paris. shots cropped a bit.

The Dutters Held On

Penghu fell, but the Dutters lost many brave troops and were still cut off.

Nevertheless, the Dutters managed to hold on through the enemy turn.

To be rescued by the right wing just in time.

 

This Morning In Canberra

Has The Entire World Gone Mad?

Am I the only person who thinks World War III is a really bad idea?

I wish I lived in a remote village in New Zealand.

Anyone who claims to know the number of polar bears in the past or present is a liar!

Some light reading for those convalescing!

One of the most frequent myths we hear about polar bears is that their numbers are increasing and have, in fact, more than doubled over the past thirty years. Tales about how many polar bears there used to be (with claims as low as 5,000 in the 1960s) are undocumented, but cited over and over again. Yet no one I know can come up with a legitimate source for these numbers.*

One Russian extrapolation presented in 1956 suggested a number of 5,000 to 8,000, but that figure was never accepted by scientists. The fact is that in the 1960s we had no idea how many polar bears there were. Even now, about half of our population estimates are only educated guesses. Back then, the best we had over most of the polar bear's range were uneducated guesses. Polar bear science has come a long way since then.

We do know (and I have published papers on this) that some polar bear populations grew after quotas were imposed in Canada, aerial hunting ceased in Alaska, and trapping and hunting were banned in Svalbard. All of these events occurred in the late 60s or early 70s, and we know some populations responded—as you would expect. Some populations were not being hunted back then (or were hunted very little) and those were probably unaffected by these three actions.

Back then, the sea ice was solid and not noticeably in retreat. With stable habitat, polar bears were a renewable resource that could be harvested on a sustainable basis.

But the most important point is that whatever happened in the past is really irrelevant. Polar bear habitat is disappearing due to global warming. Even the most careful on-the-ground management doesn't matter if polar bears don't have the required habitat.

Polar bears depend on the sea ice surface to efficiently catch their seal prey. A shorter duration of ice cover over their productive hunting areas means less opportunity to hunt. A reduction in sea ice has been statistically linked to reduced stature and weight in polar bears and to lower survival rates of cubs. So, it doesn't really matter that hunting is now largely under control or that we know a lot about other impacts people might have on bears. Without habitat, polar bears will disappear no matter what else we do. If a farmer has 100 cows out in a pasture, and every year he goes out and paves over some of his pasture, pretty soon he won't have enough habitat to support 100 cows. And, each time he paves over a little more land, his remaining land will hold fewer cattle. There may be some short-term enhancements of the remaining habitat that will forestall the inevitable. But, when his whole pasture is paved there will be no cows! Declining habitat now and the assurance it will decline in the future is why polar bears were listed as a threatened species. Discussions about how many bears may have lived in the past before and after hunting quotas have no bearing on this new situation.

Planetary physics require the world to warm as greenhouse gas concentrations rise, so without greenhouse gas mitigation, the ice will continue to melt. For an animal dependent on sea ice to survive, the prospects are not good. As the ice decline continues, the plight of the polar bear only can worsen.

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/what-scientists-say/are-polar-bear-populations-booming

 

Saint Athanasius - saint for our times

St Athanasius 'contra mundum'

"Saint Athanasius lived in the fourth century during the time of what used to be considered the greatest crisis of faith ever to befall the Catholic Church, the Arian Heresy. (The Arians denied the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ). The vast majority of Churchmen fell into this heresy, so much so that Saint Jerome wrote of the period, "The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Arian"."

Today we might say: "The whole Church groaned and was amazed to find itself Bergoglian Protestant" One might go even further to ask whether "it is amazed to find itself non-christian"

 

Good Boss, Bad Boss

My boss brought cakes into the office yesterday afternoon.  This caused me to reflect on the different behaviours of bosses. Perhaps readers can add their own comparisons.

Good Boss

A good boss brings cakes for his staff.

Bad Boss

A bad boss brings conjunctivitis and lanyngitis for his staff

• 
• 

 Good Boss

A good boss leads his staff to verdant pastures of opportunity

Bad Boss

A bad boss ensures the verdant pastures are glowing green before his staff arrive

Good Boss

A good boss has his staff bomb Syria

Bad Boss

A bad boss has his staff bomb Syria.

Pathetic Boss

A pathetic boss has his staff bomb Syria if it would please his mates.

What is this flag?

I've noticed this flag in several parks in South Australia. I have a guess as to what it is, but am interested if this blog's readers can tell.

It's All In The Walk

It's all in the walk. Real men walk like men.

 

Jerks walk like jerks.

Interesting Comparison

An interesting comparison. If the defence budget figures are correct, Russia is definitely getting more bang for buck.

And you would have to prefer the KGB education over the Jesuit education any day of the week.

Constantia et Virtute

The Coming Censorship

While the dumbed down masses are distracted with idiotic news stories about the colour of a dress, or Harrison Ford's latest crash landing, the Obama Administration has sought to commence regulation of the internet. Last week at the initiation of President "Drone Killer" Obama the FCC voted to regulate the internet like a 1930s era public utility, using Orwellian sounding "net neutrality" regulations.

Make no mistake about this, once the US government establishes a foothold into managing how Internet service providers run their networks they will next be deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all. Censorship. And of course where regulations go, taxes follow, so you can throw in an internet tax as well.

In a world when freedom of expression has been eroded by a corporate media which is essentially owned my a small number of commercial interests, and where other basic freedoms are being eroded by so-called "emergency powers" to fight a war against terrorists (of our own creating), the last bastion of genuine freedom of expression is the internet and the on-line alternative media. Needless to say, the Wall Street controlled political thugs wants to plug this gap in their control of information.

But there is some hope. House Representative Mrs Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill to block the FCC from imposing its 332-page “Net Neutrality” Internet takeover plan, which in a further Orwellian twist, has still not even been released to the public over a week after its adoption.

The bill, entitled the Internet Freedom Act (H.R.1212), would not only stop the FCC from “reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service and from imposing certain regulations on providers of such service,” but would also prevent the agency from imposing similar rules unless authorized by Congress. Blackburn said "the Obama administration will stop at nothing in their efforts to control the Internet”and “there is nothing ‘free and open’ about this heavy-handed approach.” Absolutely correct. Good on her.

Given that the US Congress is so beholden to Wall Street and the 1% I am not optimistic that Blackburn's bill will pass, however it is good to know a few politicians are not asleep at the wheel and are prepared to stand up for freedom of expression.

 

Bankrupt Bankers Trying to Start a War

The following article has just appeared in the Washington Post:

"U.S. military combat vehicles paraded Wednesday through an Estonian city that juts into Russia, a symbolic act that highlighted the stakes for both sides amid the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War. The armored personnel carriers and other U.S. Army vehicles that rolled through the streets of Narva, a border city separated by a narrow frontier from Russia, were a dramatic reminder of the new military confrontation in Eastern Europe.

The soldiers from the U.S. Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment were taking part in a military parade to mark Estonia’s Independence Day. Narva is a vulnerable border city separated by a river from Russia. It has often been cited as a potential target for the Kremlin if it wanted to escalate its conflict with the West onto NATO territory".

To my mind this is blatant military aggression by the United States. Just imagine the uproar if Russian troops were exercising on the American border in Canada or Mexico. Note also the deliberate false assumptions in the propaganda article which I have highlighted. There is no evidence whatsoever that Russia has any plans to attack Estonia or that it wants to escalate any conflict with the West. It is in fact NATO that has been building more and more bases closer and closer to Russia, and the US that staged the coup in Ukraine, not to mention the infamous missiles in Poland that America said are a 'defence against Iran' (you can't make this stuff up).

Estonia needs to be very careful playing these games with the US. It has a Russian speaking population of 24%. If Russia agitates them, or even arms them as insurgents, the tiny country of Estonia will become engulfed in civil war and become a disaster and hell hole just like the Ukraine - and it will be America that started it.

The recent assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov also has the smell of American corruption and interference about it. Putin is more popular than ever in Russia and there would be no advantage to him in being involved in something like this. Nemtsov, although a loud mouth, had no impact on Putin’s 85% approval rating. Nemtsov’s support resided in the Washington-funded NGOs in Russia. But America, desperate to stir up trouble in Russia, may have decided they can get more mileage out of this opposition leader dead than alive.

What is really happening? The psychopaths on Wall Street that control the US know that an economic crash is coming. They will do anything, even start a world war, to hide their culpability. Washington’s reckless and irresponsible destruction of the trust achieved by Reagan and Gorbachev has resurrected the possibility of nuclear war from the grave in which Reagan and Gorbachev buried it. Again, as during the Cold War the specter of nuclear Armageddon stalks the earth. It is unbelievable how far the United States has fallen. 

Left Man, Right Man

Lies and Bombings

The man on the left tried to start military intervention and aerial bombing in Syria by lying about the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons. The man on the right exposed the lie, revealed evidence that Syrian rebels had used chemical weapons, and prevented military intervention based on a lie.

Lies and Invasions

The man on the left succeeded in invading and decimating a country, Iraq, based on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is far removed from the United States. The man on the left has an IQ of 59 and struggles to play 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey'. The man on the right has only ever invaded northern Georgia in defence of the Abkhazia Republic which was attacked by Georgian forces. Abkhazia is directly within Russia's sphere of influence. The man on the right has an IQ of 132 and plays chess.

Democracy and Constitutionalism

The man on the left overthrew the democratically elected government of Egypt, crushed the Arab spring, and restored the nation to harsh and corrupt rule by a military oligarchy. The man on the right has undergone three successions of power to positions as President or Prime Minister in accordance with the nation's democratic constitution.

Democracy and Self Determination

The man on the left used a CIA colour revolution, and snipers murdering policemen, to overthrow the democratically elected government in the Ukraine before the next election was due, and replaced the government with a far right coalition of billionaires. The man on the left achieved self determination for Crimea by holding a referendum in which there was 83.1 percent voter turnout and 96.77 percent voted in favour of integration of the autonomous republic of Crimea into the Russian Federation (exactly as had happened with Kosovo with the full support of the West).

Freedom of Religion

The man on the left is afraid of religion and leads a regime that openly persecutes religious groups, especially Christians and Buddhists. The man on the right supports religious tolerance and has overseen the rebuilding of Cathedrals destroyed by communists and a revival of Orthodox Christianity.

Lobby Groups

The man on the left has shown weakness in the face of the world's strongest lobby group, the homosexual lobby, and is seeking changes to practices that will expose people including children to erroneous and dangerous ideas about sexuality and family. The man on the right has enacted an anti-propaganda law that forbids the dissemination of deviant information to minors.

Terrorism

The man on the left supplies arms and training to Syrian terrorists, which terrorists have formed ISIS, and which terrorists continue to defect to ISIS on a regular basis. The man on the right supports the Syrian regime, which is the only nation state undertaking direct military action on the ground against ISIS.

Religious Values

The (wo)man on the left gives support and publicity to feminist rock groups like Pussy Riot and Femen that openly commit blasphemy (including desecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior which was rebuilt after destruction by the communists, and the chain sawing of a crucifix) and which use openly satanic imagery in performances. The man on the right enforces laws against hooliganism and achieved a conviction against Pussy Riot for hooliganism promoted by religious hatred.

Federation and Liberty

The man on the left oversees the EU which has become an uncontrollable apparatus which suffocates the liberties of its member nations, and drowns its citizens in red tape and political correctness. The man on the right supports a genuine federation which respects the liberties and rights of its members, and has acted to deconstruct unnecessary bureaucracy and inefficiencies.

Popularity

The man on the left has a personal approval rating of only 29%, and among his own parliamentary colleagues recently survived a spill motion (in which there was no declared alternative leadership contender) by 61 to 39. The man on the right has a personal approval rating of 87%.

Oil and Oligarchy

The man on the left has used the oil wealth of his nation to sustain a corrupt and medieval oligarchy, and to funnel wealth into the hands of a small group of (mostly related) families. The man on the right has broken the post-communism oil oligarchs, even jailing some of them,  and has directed the wealth from oil and natural gas towards the country as a whole.

Economic Development

The man on the left has used unsustainable loans from the World Bank to impoverished nations to create a cycle of debt, and has then imposed austerity and so called 'conditionalities' that require these nations to repay interest before health and education expenditure. Nations in West Africa in particular, now subject to an Ebola outbreak, saw their health infrastructure degraded before the outbreak. The man on the right has been instrumental in creating the BRICS nations' development bank to make sustainable loans to third world nations to build infrastructure.

European Independence

The (wo)man on the left has acted as a puppet of United States interests and has failed to develop a genuine European foreign policy with the capacity to withstand the unfair and dangerous demands of the United States, a dictator supporting nation which is grasping to maintain a position as the world's last superpower. The man on the right has acted with national independence and desires a European solidarity that is independent from the United States and Wall Street bankers.

Health

The man on the left is an elitist prat who maintains health and longevity by transfusions of children's blood and by special treatment in a health system which leaves other people his age to die in hospital with 'no extraordinary measures'. The man on the right maintains health by exercise and eating vegetables.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia, a political giant in a world of cheats and knaves.

What battle it this?

Will We Have an Excommunicated Prime Minister?

In the past I have been an admirer of Tony Abbott, especially of his public stand in favour of genuine Catholic values. Unfortunately he has not been a successful Prime Minister, and has shown himself to be out of touch, even for his natural constituency like me.

Since becoming Prime Minister I have not heard anything about Catholic values, and I lost him early over his premature attacks on Russia following the downing of the Malaysian airline (which has still not been proved to have been shot down by the East Ukrainian separatists, let alone the Russians) and idiotic decisions like the honour for Prince Phillip (a vampire) reinforced my concerns and those of many others.

Abbott is now a dead man walking, and in the interests of a Conservative government he should have resigned to avoid a leadership dispute and all the damage that comes with this. But no: pride prevails. I don't think he will be tossed next Tuesday (he will be tossed in a second round in 4 or 5 months time) but he will be wounded, and drag down the entire government.

But what of the other leadership contenders? I don't think we will end up with another Catholic.

Julie Bishop is an Anglican, and Scott Morrison is a Pentecostalist  (former Uniting Church) with strong ties to Hill Song.

The other contender is Malcolm Turnbull, who describes himself as a convert to Catholicism.

But is Malcolm Turnbull really a Catholic?

Turnbull is in the vein of so called United States "Catholic" politicians who have sold their souls to a number of critical anti-Catholic issues to garner popularity and votes. The trouble is, that this process can take you right out of the Church.

Turnbull is a supporter of abortion, and publicly so, and as the main speaker at the recent Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) conference in Canberra he surprised his pro-life audience by stating quite clearly that he believed women had the right to end an unwanted pregnancy. Turnbull has also expressed in Parliament that he is in favour of cloning and the RU-486 abortion pill, and his pro homosexual views are well known.

Under Canon Law (Cannon 1398) a person who "procures a completed abortion" incurs a latae sententiae excommunication. The phrase "latae sententie" means a judgment which is incurred automatically "by the very commission of the offence" and does not require the future particular judgement of a case by a competent authority.

There has been much debate about whether a politician who votes in favour of abortion laws "procures a completed abortion". I think so because legislating in favour of abortion creates substantial assistance for tens of thousands of women to commit the mortal sin of abortion, and is a form of procurement. Nevertheless, there are some Catholic commentators who doubt this.

However, the issue of abortion and Canon Law does not end here. Under Cannon 1364 "an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententie excommunication". And heresy is defined (Canon 751) as "the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is believed by divine and Catholic faith". The Catholic Church has always taught that abortion, like all voluntary killing of an innocent human being, is always gravely immoral.

For example, Saint John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, n. 57: “Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.”

As Saint Thomas Aquinas said: "The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval." We now calls these heretical Catholics "cafeteria Catholics".

Sadly, Malcolm Turnbull's consistent and public position on abortion makes him a heretic, and subject to excommunication. I'm sorry to be graphic but abortion is mass production pure evil and is devouring the world. We should not forget what abortion is and we should pray for his conversion.

 

More Charts of Doom

Here are four more charts, to add to the already significant pile of negative economic news, that dispel the myth of a US economic recovery. If the US has been experiencing a recovery for the last few years I would sure hate to see a recession let alone a depression.

Real Median Household Income has not increased since 2000.

Student Debt has risen dramatically and now totals a ridiculous $1.2 trillion.

Child Poverty has risen, and in the United States a staggering one third of children live in households earning less than 60% of the median income. In many so called 'First World' countries this figure is above 20%, and even in Australia it is above 10%.

Home Ownership in the United States has been declining for the last 10 years.

What is Extremism?

The following was in the news on Sunday:

"(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will invite allies to a Feb. 18 security summit in Washington to try and prevent violent extremism, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Sunday after meeting his European counterparts in Paris.

The gathering of justice and interior chiefs came as France mourned 17 victims of Islamist gunmen this week in the worst assault on its homeland security in decades.

"We will bring together all of our allies to discuss ways in which we can counteract this violent extremism that exists around the world," Holder told reporters."

When President Obama says that there will be a world forum on combating "extremism" I worry. The reason is that Obama's definition of an extremist is very different to that of most fair minded people. And this is coming from the President of a nation that has supported more brutal dictatorships and bombed more civilians than any extremist group has. Not to mention America's own track record of murdering unborn children, and the export of a vulture corporatism that pillages the third world.

Over the last several years various US government agencies and documents have described groups or viewpoints that the US Government regards as "extremist" or "potential terrorist". There are now at least 72 categories and this says a great deal about the "big brother' mentality in the US and the terrible decline in genuine American values of liberty and freedom. Below is the list and all of the categories are links to US source documents.

This list should terrify all rational and fair people because it covers a very large percentage of the population and includes just about everyone that I know and respect. The common theme is 'independent thought' and 'scepticism of government'. If this makes people an extremist or potential terrorist then our society is in real trouble. If this is what our society has become, we have more to fear from our own governments than from extremists.

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

16. Members of the American Family Association

17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”

18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol

19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform

20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition

21. Members of the Christian Action Network

22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”

23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”

24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21

25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps

26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”

27. The militia movement

28. The sovereign citizen movement

29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”

30. Anyone that “complains about bias”

31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”

32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”

33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”

34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”

35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”

36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”

37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”

38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”

39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”

40. “Militia or unorganized militia”

41. “General right-wing extremist”

42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.

43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”

44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

45. Those that are “anti-global”

46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”

47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”

48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”

49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”

50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”

53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”

54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”

55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”

56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”

57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”

58. “Rightwing extremists”

59. “Returning veterans”

60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”

61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”

62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”

63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”

64. “Anti-abortion activists”

65. Those that are against illegal immigration

66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner

67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations

68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”

69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)

71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies

72. Evangelical Christians

I regard myself as a moderate and compassionate person, and someone who reads widely and takes an interest in world affairs. I like to think I am an objective thinker, and I certainly don't derive all of my information from the mainstream media. I have highlighted above all of the categories which apply to me and apparently I am an extremist x 20! There are other categories that do not apply to me but are groups I do not have issues with, eg.  returning veterans and evangelical Christians. This is absurd. All of my friends are also extremists by these definitions, as are all of my work colleagues notwithstanding a very diverse range of opinions and belief systems in my workplace.

Ever since 911 the response of our governments has been to attack civil liberties and to turn the apparatus of the state against its own citizens. Not to mention several wars, including the invasion of a country based upon lies. We are now spied upon in multiple ways by our own government and any form of independent behaviour or thinking is suspect. The tragedy of events like the Paris murders is that governments will use the event to devise yet further ways to turn the state on its own citizens without actually doing anything significant to combat terrorism.

I find it particularly ironic that the Gadsden Flag is regarded as a sign of extremism or potential terrorism. This flag derives from 1775 and was an American Independence flag in the War of Independence against the British. The flag is bright yellow, emblazoned with a fierce rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, with thirteen rattles which symbolise the 13 colonies, and sporting the motto "Don't Tread on Me." The flag also evokes a statement made by Benjamin Franklin in 1751, when he made a reference to the rattlesnake in a satirical commentary published in his Pennsylvanis Gazette. It had been the policy of Britain to send convicted criminals to America, so Franklin suggested that they thank the British by sending rattlesnakes to England.

The flag is and has been for over 200 years a symbol of liberty and resistence to tyranny. It says everything about America today if it is now regarded as a symbol of extremism.

I - proudly - display a Gadsden Flag in my office, which has additional meaning for a lawyer who fights for client rights.

Another good response

A Great Picture

A Nice Christmas Encounter

This morning I ran into John Howard outside my office. I shook his hand and wished him a Merry Christmas, and said something else nice to him of a confidential nature. He was very gracious.

While I do not agree with all of Howard's policies, especially the blind allegiance to the United States, he was certainly a better Prime Minister than the current one, and way better than the previous two Labor ones.

And I am pleased that Australia is still a country where a former Prime Minister can walk the streets safely.

This is a big bear!

47 Ursae Majoris is a white dwarf (a small star like our own) with three Jupiter sized planets in a very close orbit. It is 46 light years away. However, big Putin's head might inflate to, it will never come close the size of one of these planets, let alone the white dwarf. Ukraine is closer. Let him play at Napoleon there.

In the diagram below, red shows the distance to 47 Ursae Majoris; green shows the distance to the Ukraine.

Of Bears

Winter is coming - Part II

Saw it. Loved it. Had to have it.

A Statesman in Australia

I am rather chuffed that a genuine statesman, and a courageous leader prepared to stand up to the United States Wall Street billionaires club, President Putin, has arrived in our country.

I feel sorry for him having to deal with morons like our own Prime Minister, who spent the day rehearsing for a United States Wall Street suck up by practicising with the UK Bank of England Prime Minister David Cameron.

I so wish we had a little independence, like our cousin New Zealand.

It Didn't Take Long

It didn't take long for t-shirts like this to appear, but frankly, given Obama's lack of decisive action in relation to ebola he deserves this criticism.

Russia: 1 - Australia: 0

The headline today on the Sydney Morning Herald (which is actually a left wing anti-Christian rag) was quite ridiculous, although unfortunately a true account of something our inadequate Prime Minister had said.

Abbott should be fronting Obama for meddling in the Ukraine and starting the whole mess. My money is on Putin, who is a real statesman. Our PM is a populist American-arse-licking hack.

I'm Starting to get Really Worried

My views about governments, especially the United States government, are well known. Governments: (a) lie, (b) react after the event and are not proactive, (c) are massively wasteful (d) reduce organizational effectiveness, (e) do not listen to good advice, (f) attempt to solve problems with force, rules or taxes, (g) govern in the interests of the wealthiest 1% of individuals and corporations, and (h) lie again. The so called media in the United States, and most of the Western world, is owned by a handfull of corporations who are far from a fearless and independent source of news. It is always a battle to find out what is really going on.

In this context, I am very concerned about the ebola pandemic in West Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) has done the most woeful job in mobilising resources, and the major powers with resources to help have been far more interested in planning the bombing of sections of the Middle East and aggravating Russia than protecting the health of human civilisation.

The are now so many cases in West Africa that it will take monumental effort (thus far no sign of this effort) to contain the disease in West Africa, and a spread to other parts of the world is inevitable. In fact, the spread has already begun.

The response of our Western governments has been so pathetic that it is almost as if it is deliberate. And is it a coincidence that it is amongst the elite 1 % that control these governments where one finds psychopaths who have actually called for a massive cull of the human population. I fear for all of us.

Just looking at the news today, ebola is now in four countries in West Africa plus the United States, Spain and probably Brazil. That is what we know about, but who knows how bad the reality may be.

From the news today:

West Africa

The number of deaths attributed to the Ebola outbreak has risen above 4,000, the World Health Organization says.

The latest figures show there have been 4,024 confirmed or suspected deaths in the worst-affected West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Eight deaths are linked to the haemorrhagic fever in Nigeria and one in the US.  In total, there have been 8,399 confirmed or suspected cases, mostly in West Africa.

United States

One of the Sheriff’s Deputies who was forced to enter the apartment where Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan stayed before he was taken to hospital has fallen ill.

A statement issued by the City of Frisco, a suburb of Dallas, suggests that a second potential Ebola victim has been taken to the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, the same facility where Duncan stayed before his death this morning.

The CDC claims “the patient did not have direct contact with Duncan and he was not one of the 48 people being monitored by federal, state and local health officials.”

However, according to a Dallas Morning News report, the individual was one of the Sheriff’s Deputies who was forced to enter Ebola victim Duncan’s apartment last week. Duncan’s family told the media that they received no advice from the CDC on how to go about cleaning the apartment and it was a number of days before a professional Hazmat team arrived to clean the building.

Spain

(Reuters) - Spanish health workers angry about the government's handling of an Ebola outbreak jeered Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and pelted his car with surgical gloves on Friday at a Madrid hospital where a nurse lay seriously ill with the virus.

Recriminations are growing over how nurse Teresa Romero became the first person to contract the virus outside West Africa, but Rajoy said it was extremely unlikely that the disease - which has already killed more than 4,000 people - would spread in Spain.

Seven more people were admitted to a specialist isolation unit at the Carlos III hospital on Thursday, taking to 14 the number of people now under observation or being treated there, including Romero's husband.

"Our first priority is Teresa Romero - she is the only person that we know has the illness," Rajoy told reporters on the steps of the hospital.

Tempers are fraying over the case, with labor unions accusing the government of trying to deflect the blame onto the nurse for the failings of its health system. The health workers who have been protesting outside the hospital this week heckled  Rajoy as he left the news conference in a motorcade.

The seven new admissions late on Thursday included two hairdressers who had given Romero a beauty treatment before she was diagnosed, and hospital staff who had treated the 44-year-old nurse after she was admitted on Monday.

Brazil

Brazil is treating a 47-year-old man who has become the country’s first suspected case of the deadly Ebola virus.

The man, originally from Guinea in West Africa, has been placed into isolation at a hospital in the city of Cascavel, where Brazil’s ministry of health have sent specialists to provide additional help and care.

He arrived in Brazil on 19 September and is believed to have travelled from Guinea.

On Thursday afternoon the man went to the emergency department at the hospital with a fever. His case is being treated by medics as suspicious as his symptoms have developed within the maximum incubation period for Ebola, which is 21 days.

Brazil’s health officials said the man has not experienced any bleeding, vomiting or shown any other symptoms at this time, but he will be transferred to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases at the Evandro Chagas hospital in Rio de Janeiro, in accordance with security protocols in place for suspected cases of Ebola.

Health officials are now attempting to identify people who may have come into contact with the patient while displaying any symptoms, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported.

Macedonia

Meanwhile, Macedonian authorities said there was only a "small probability" a Briton who died in Skopje on Thursday had the Ebola virus, according to an initial analysis.

Macedonian health authorities have sent blood and tissue samples from the dead Briton to Frankfurt for testing.

CDC

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is responding to only half the calls it is receiving from doctors reporting Ebola-like symptoms in patients, according to doctors who spoke to Infowars medical correspondent Dr. Edward Group.

The CDC’s lackluster response to upwards of 40 calls a day regarding potential Ebola cases is disturbing to the medical professionals who spoke to Dr. Group and it follows a similar pattern of performance by CDC officials who were slow to decontaminate both the apartment of the late Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan and the ambulance used to transport him to the hospital.

When asked to comment on the response rate to these calls, the CDC Media Relations office at first referred us to its unrelated “CDC Hotline” and then refused to connect us directly to a public information officer on a sequential call because the office is screening questions from the press.

It’s no wonder then that doctors are having similar problems reaching the CDC, and such behavior is typical of the agency, which has so far placed more emphasis on the proper burial of Ebola victims than following proper disease protocols meant to prevent the virus from spreading in the first place.

Case in point, the CDC is now instructing funeral homes to bury Ebola victims in sealed caskets and had previously warned funeral workers not to embalm corpses.

Additionally, previous reports suggested the CDC had purchased thousands of airtight coffin liners and were storing them in Madison, Georgia.

Dr Gil Mobley, a Missouri doctor, recently showed up at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport dressed in protective gear to protest what he called mismanagement of the crisis by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He checked in and cleared airport security wearing a mask, goggles, gloves, boots and a hooded white jumpsuit emblazoned on the back with the words, “CDC is lying!”

Dr Mobley has made a prediction about this pandemic, and his prediction is unfortunately more plausible that the information coming out of CDC news conferences:

“Once this disease consumes every third world country, as surely it will, because they lack the same basic infrastructure as Sierra Leone and Liberia, at that point, we will be importing clusters of Ebola on a daily basis,” Mobley predicted. “That will overwhelm any advanced country’s ability to contain the clusters in isolation and quarantine. That spells bad news.”

A True Statesman

The patience of Vladimir Putin is saving the world. As the Western economies come ever closer to collapse, the lunatics in Wall Street and Washington beat  the war drums in the United States. These lunatics are desperate for a war to hide theeir greed and failures. A recent lead editorial in The Economist attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin in such a one-sided manner that it was laughable. 

One may not be an admirer of Putin, but the West is really attempting to engage Putin in some sort of military action. Meanwhile, Putin has acted with great patience, even with the West’s continued aggression at his doorstep. It was the West that filled Poland and the Baltic States with missiles and miliary hardware with the laughable excuse that it was protection from Iranian missiles. It was the West that overthrew the Ukrainian government, not Russia. It was the West that tried to bomb Syria with false claims of a chemical weapons attack, and Putin who prevented a war then. It is the West that supported (and still is) the terrorists in Syria, out of which ISIS was spawned, and the West who is using its new creature from hell as a pretext for more bombing and murder.

There are some very intelligent people suggesting that we could be headed to a world war as a result of the West’s aggression. I don’t really want to consider that possibility because of the famous quote from Albert Einstein:

 “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

I don’t think people should take Einstein’s warning lightly. So the constant efforts by the West to stir things up on the geopolitical front are supremely dangerous to the world. If Putin was a lesser man the world may have destroyed itself already.

In such an environment, and the anniversary of 911 tomorrow, let us pray there is not another false flag attack, to be blamed on whatever group or country the lunatics in the West want to use to start another war. And another shredding of whatever civil liberties are left in the West.

Still No Answers. Still No Justice.

911 Remembered this Thursday.

Still no justice.

In the case of a murder, there is normally an extensive enquiry using the whole spectrum of forensic tools. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, there was no thorough and painstaking forensic investigation, there was a political commission of enquiry.

In the case of a murder, all of the evidence is preserved, even after the trial. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, the remains of the world trade centre were shipped off to China for disposal as fast as possible.

In the case of a murder, statements are taken from every possible witness and incorporated into the investigation. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, the 911 Commission did not hear all possible evidence, including evidence from firefighters on 9/11  that secondary explosions occurred immediately before the collapse of the twin towers, and how bombs were going off in the lobby of WTC1 as they were staging to move up the building, and how after two explosions in the lobby, a third went off and the whole lobby collapsed.

In the case of a murder, if evidence emerges after trial the case is re-opened, and if the jury or judge subsequently disclose errors and irregularities, there is a further investigation. With 911, a mass murder of over 2,900 people, even when commission members from the 911 Commission have come out and made statements which cast huge doubt on the Commission's findings, there is no further investigation.

Thirteen years later and still no proper investigation. At least more and more people are waking up.

 

It Is Enough to Make Them Weep

As the 17th year without global warming has passed, it is enough to make the global warming alarmists roll up in a corner and weep. Let us summarise ten setbacks for global warming alarmism, and celebrate the slow awakening of the masses.

1) Studies show that the world was warmer than it is today during the Roman Empire and when the Vikings were plundering Europe and North America. In fact, even in the 19th Century, there were discussions surrounding the fact that the Vikings could settle the northernmost reaches of Greenland and North America because there was less ice coverage.

2) During the second week in December 2013 , the U.S. saw more than 2000 record low temperatures and record snowfalls, according to the National Weather Service and HamWeather records center. There were 606 record low temperatures, 1,234 low maximum temperatures and 285 record snowfalls across the country. In the meantime there were only 98 high temperature records and 141 high minimum temperature records.

Of course, it was slightly warmer in Sydney on two days so there just must be a global crisis.

3) Satellite data shows that the polar bears have at least one reason to be happy this year – Arctic sea ice coverage was up 50 percent over last year’s record low coverage. Contrary to Al Gore’s prediction that there would be no polar ice cap by this year, sea ice coverage spanned nearly 2,100 cubic miles by the end of this year’s melting season, up from about 1,400 cubic last year.

4) Global cooling is on the way, according to an increasing number of scientists. German scientists have predicted that based on declining sunspot activity and natural climate oscillation the world will cool over the next century. Temperatures will eventually drop to levels corresponding with the “little ice age” of 1870.

There is a strong correlation between solar activity and earth global temperatures, and a clear mechanism as to how this works. This is the science that should be in the media, not the man made global warming alarmism. Climate change is controlled by clouds, and the amount of clouds is determined by the amount of cosmic rays, and cosmic rays are affected by solar winds, which are more potent with more solar activity which has been measured through the amount of sunspots.  Climate change, temporary global warming,  is cyclical and is really brought about by sun activity. It is not due to anthropogenic CO₂.

5) Other scientists have also been coming around to the global cooling side of things. The BBC reported that Professor Mike Lockwood of the Reading University predicts that at the current rate of decline in solar activity, another “Little Ice Age” could envelope Northern Europe.

6) The United Nations climate bureaucracy’s latest global warming report was called “hilarious” by a leading scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Richard Lindzen said the UN’s report “has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence” because they continue to proclaim with ever greater certainty that mankind is causing global warming, despite their models continually being wrong.

“Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean,” Lindzen said. “However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans.”

7) As the global warming 'consensus' has disintegrated, the alarmists have used censorship to suppress dissent. A content editor on Reddit’s science forum wrote Monday that the site has banned climate-change skeptics, and asks why more news outlets haven’t done the same. “About a year ago, we moderators became increasingly stringent with deniers,” Reddit content editor Nathan Allen wrote in grist. However this has backfired, because censorship only highlights that science has been highjacked by non scientific agendas.

8) In addition, the climate alarmist agenda has not stopped at censorship, but has assumed a religious fanaticism that simply cannot accept any contrary opinion as being normal. The elites in Europe continue to move forward with an agenda to change how we all live, and in 2012 they concluded the Planet under Pressure conference in London with public aims of not only lowering the number of humans on the planet but restricting them to cities so they don't disrupt nature. This is nazism with a green uniform, and people are now seeing it as such.  And people are also waking up to the hypocricy of the elites who consume without restraint while preaching austerity for others.

At the same conference, an American college professor issued a paper that said skepticism of man-made climate change is a sickness like racism that should be treated. More nazism.

9) The fact that Arctic ice is growing may not be the good news that it seems to be. There are signs that the Earth is entering a very unpleasant cooling period. Sunspot activity remains very low.

"The sun has been very unusual for almost 15 years now," Jens Pedersen, senior scientist at the Denmark's Technical University, said. Pedersen said the sun recently reached solar maximum and that there should be a lot of sunspot activity, but there isn't.

"We have to go back 100 years to find a solar maximum that was as weak as the one we are in right now," he told CBN News. "And the recent solar minimum…one has to go back 200 years to find one that was as weak."

The last time the sun was this quiet, North America and Europe suffered through a weather event from the 1600s to the 1800s known as "Little Ice Age," when the Thames River in London regularly froze solid, and North America saw terrible winters. Crops failed and people starved.

10) More and more people are waking up because it is becoming increasingly obvious that climate change alarmism is about politics, not science.

Pedersen said climate scientists know the Earth stopped warming 15 years ago. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of which Pedersen is an expert reviewer, suppressed a recent report from its own scientists that the U.N.'s climate model has been proven wrong.

"In particular one of the issues has been why global warming has stopped during the last 15 years, and climate scientists were very frank that the climate models do not match the climate we observe," Pedersen said.

But politicians removed that embarrassing finding from the final draft.  It's as if the alleged danger from climate change can't be wrong because it is now too important.

It has become a political movement, a cash cow for climate scientists and environmental groups, and a way for world leaders to control economies and people. That is the bottom line: it is all about the control of economies and people.

 

...but don't forget to pack clothing

If you forget clothes and do not pay for affordable Russian natural gas, you have to hunt bear, like me, to stay warm

American Hypocrisy and Poodles

At present I am disgusted by the American actions in the Ukraine, and by our own Prime Minister's cheap and nasty commentary. The worst kind of leader is one who is unpopular (like Abbott) and uses a tragedy to try and appear tough.

The destruction of flight MH17 was terrible, but the cause has not yet been determined and already the American warmongers (who will do anything to hide their dire economic problems and increasingly fragile fiat currency) are framing Russia. American poodles like Abbott are chirping away in the background. Personally I suspect the flight was shot down by Ukrainian fighters, after Ukrainian air traffic control directed MH17 off its normal course right into the middle of a war zone.

EVEN IF it was the case that MH17 was shot down by Russian backed separatists, there are four things that the Americans (and Abbott) ignore. First, the shooting down would have been a terrible accident and not deliberate. Second, the United States itself backs 'separatists' in Syria who deliberately murder and have murdered thousands of civilians, including genocide against Christians. The complete hypocrisy of the Americans is nauseating. Third, the Ukrainian crisis was started not by the Russians but by America which backed the undemocratic overthrow of the previous government and the installation of a regime which appears to be a coalition between fascists and IMF loving billionaires. Fourth, the Ukraine is literally next door to Russia. What would America think if Russia was meddling in Canada and supporting an anti-American regime in Canada?

Where is President Obama and Prime Minister Abbott when it comes to the destruction of Christianity in Syria and Iraq? Why is Mr Abbott not on TV deploring the beheading of little girls in Syria just because they are Christian? Why has Mr Abbott condemned Russia for arming and backing seperatists but not condemned America for doing exactly the same in Syria?

The Climate Debate is Over

I now have absolutely irrefutable evidence that my position in the climate change debate is correct. There is no man made global warming and the debate is over.

My proof is that the Australian Greens Party Senator Ms Sarah Hanson-Young, on the repeal of this nation's silly little carbon tax, tweeted that climate change sceptics were grubs.

Since Senator Hanson-Young is a complete idiot and wrong on all issues of public importance, her comment is firm evidence that the climate change sceptics are correct. No sane person would ever want Senator Hanson-Young to agree with them.

Australia's biggest contribution to humour since Rolf Harris!

Tony Abbott made history last week by finally getting the numbers in the senate to be the first world leader to repeal a carbon cap and trade system. This is despite him paying lip service to the need to abate climate change and the recently released reports showing that the carbon tax was reducing Australian emissions. However it wasn't all clear sailing, and the one shining aspect of the debacle is that he has learned how to negotiate.

He started his career as prime minister by singing the mandate song to all who would listen.

I have a mandate to to have my own way,
    the rest of you must do what I say

Although the house of reps by an large sang a long, the senate did not find the song very funny. So, Tony found other ways to get what he wanted.

I have a mandate to slow down the web
    but my senate support is reaching low ebb
I'll set up a commission to study a while
    So the NBN can rot while I smile

Meanwhile, it appeared that his education minister had forgotten the words of the song and thought the Gonski reforms were to go ahead. He was quickly brought into line.

I have a mandate to say what they teach
    With less staff and less tech, I'll say no to each,
Gonski was a mandate too long before
    Despite pre election my support I did swore

Refugees was another area where support was tricky. However, in the absense of information, it is very hard to know if we are doing the right thing or behaving immorally.

I have a mandate to turn back the boats
    I'm sure that that line gave me the most votes
"Turn back the journalist" is part of the mandate
    To find out what's happening, you just have to wait.

When it came to the Carbon Tax, the senate refused to sing. Some wanted this and some wanted that. It is interesting to note that although he had a couple of double dissolution triggers, he never pulled them. Pundits suggest that had he done so, he would have lost the senate for good, with 12 PUP senators likely to get in. So, he found a way to negotiate the repeal through, and it seems he made private promises to the minor party. It clearly was no longer a popular measure, but since when has a mandate for self harm ever stopped Tony?

I have a mandate to act the fool,
    Science and facts have never been cool,
I said what I meant, and I don't want to bore,
    But the promises I skipped never were core!

 

How could anyone miss "Tie me Kangaroo Down" after hearing the "Mandate Song"?

Proud of My Country

Today I am proud of my country. This great nation has repealed the insane carbon tax, and this makes us one of the first nations to wind back legislation derived from the greenhouse effect global warming climate change climate disruption carbon pollution hoax.

Of course, even if there was man made global warming Australia's stupid little tax would make no difference. And even if there was man made global warming and Australia's stupid little tax would make a difference, there is no justice in taxing all the ordinary citizens while our trading partners don't have the tax and our own major Corporations pay very little tax by using tax havens and all sorts of other devices.

Unfortunately the alleged greenhouse effect global warming climate change climate disruption carbon pollution has become a religion, and the zealots and social engineers will keep going with more taxes and schemes, and their relentless war against humanity, especially ordinary folk.

Even well educated people are being deceived, and even (dare I say it) some wargamers who really should know better.

Meanwhile, over at NASA (the Pythons's favourite source for climate information): NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

I am not holding my breath. The purvayors of the greenhouse effect global warming climate change climate disruption carbon pollution alarmism have not shown the slightest signs of honesty to date.