Christmas is just over a week away and as Pubsters will be busy or going away I thought I would start this Christmas post now.
First of i would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy new year. I hope you all have a safe time over the break and enjoy this special time of year.
Bugger what the experts tell tell you Eat and drink as much as you want
If you have been good You’ll probably get some nice presents .
If you have been bad you may get a call from Malcolm.
If your driving anywhere please be careful. It’s a nuthouse this time of year.
A great deal of thanks must go to Fiona whom without her invaluable input “The Pub” would not be what it is.
Have great time and enjoy yourselves.
THE PUB 
Tlbd
It’s a bit of a worry that Dr David A Chaikin seems to be one of the reporters ‘experts’.
You mean, a bit like asking Jim Molan about Defence?
How to keep your marbles – being old is all in the mind.
1. Keep gaming.
2. Keep on rocking –
3. Eat your greens.
How Leafy Greens May Protect The Brain From Aging
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/21/how-leafy-greens-may-protect-the-brain-from-aging/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage&ncid=fcbklnkauhpmg00000001
I loathe kale. I’ve been taking lutein for ages, for my eyes, so i’ll just keep on doing that. I dunno if it’s helping my brain though.
Leone,
You are one of the sharpest people I’ve ever encountered. Not to mention that you sound as though you are in your twenties.
It’s a privilege to know you, and I do hope we will meet one of these fine days.
I can say exactly the same about you.
Always be nice to the techies and the props people, always, or else …….
Tlbd
Dr Chicken was imported from the UK as a supposed Extradition agreement negotiation ‘machine’ in the wake of the Trimbole problems.
He was not a success.
I can find some references to Chaikin as an expert witness (eg, https://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/lawcouncil/images/3131_-__Treaty_on_Extradition_Between_Australia_and_China.pdf) but can’t find anything more than that.
Insidde knowledge.
Inside knowledge?
Lutien ? Some “Luteian” music perhaps ?
I’m sure BK will post this in the morning, but why wait until then.
Andrew P Street’s last column for the year, and it’s a good one.
Why 2017 Australian politics has already gone to hell
The internal Coalition battles for 2017 have already begun.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/why-2017-australian-politics-has-already-gone-to-hell-20161222-gtgcyr.html
Tlbd
http://sydney.edu.au/business/staff/davidc
Are we looking at a lawyer turned academic because he was a dud?
I’d imagine he’s a dud as an academic as well.
Snow on sand … Amazing!
Aleppo: Before and after images
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38396747
It only takes one bastard.
All you can do is cry.
Just a little thing I’ve noticed about this site. The snowflakes seem to fall in a different direction depending on where your mouse pointer goes. I just think that’s awesome..
The great benefit of this site over the other – which shall remain nameless – apart from the standard of posts and the absence of certain other posters – who shall likewise remain nameless (but we all know who they are) is that it actually WORKS.
You can log in, log out, read posts, contribute to posts etc and everything stays exactly where it needs to be without you having to log in, pretend to post, then log in again, the refresh, then log in again … ad infinitum until you’re ready to pull your hair out (or have a medium-sized nervous breakdown).
Also, you can’t post photos, videos or anything enjoyable, kept alone moving snowflakes, which are utterly charming, incidentally.
Well done, mods 🙂
So do I, Kirsdarke. Joe6pack is a very clever little vegemite!
Christ I hate it when my iPad incorrectly second-guesses what I want to write. Obviously I wrote LET ALONE until my iPad decided it knew better …
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Have to have an early start this morning as I have thinks to do before setting off at 0830 for the first of two funerals today. And we have another bumper edition.
This is potentially explosive.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/its-personal-turc-cops-sued-over-cfmeu-arrest-20161221-gtfkrh.html
John Hewson writes that we are teetering on the brink of a recession but the government is ignoring reality.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/were-teetering-on-the-brink-of-recession-but-the-government-is-ignoring-reality-20161221-gtgbn6.html
Phil Coorey on the post-Christmas pension blues that Turnbull will have to deal with. Google.
/opinion/columnists/postchristmas-polling-blues-will-be-difficult-for-the-turnbull-government-to-avoid-20161218-gtdu5y
And here a person with a retiree father writes an open letter to Turnbull over said savage pension cuts.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/retirement/2016/12/21/pensioner-letter-malcolm-turnbull/
Michael Pascoe nicely deconstructs Morrison in this article.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/beyond-the-headlines-the-myefo-bit-that-matters-most-20161221-gtg8ot.html
The Coalition’s wafer-thin projected 2020-21 surplus, the linchpin of the nation’s AAA rating, is achieved entirely by a change in accounting for the Future Fund according to David Uren in The Australian. Google.
/news/nation/future-fund-accounting-switch-saves-aaa-rating/news-story/deb03552d1ee465d993f81e4d9685376
The SMH editorial gets stuck into the Turnbull government over housing affordability.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/coalition-spoils-another-christmas-for-housing-havenots-20161221-gtg985.html
Katherine Murphy says the conservatives splitting off could give the Liberals a chance to be truly liberal.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/22/a-conservatives-split-from-the-liberals-would-free-the-party-to-be-truly-liberal
Laura Tingle says that the current prime minister has a particular problem of huge expectations versus crushing disappointment for the many voters who thought he was something other than what he has turned out to be. Google.
/news/policy/budget/malcolm-turnbull-says-hes-committed-to-reform-but-in-a-pragmatic-way-20161213-gtaag6
Andrew Street – “Feeling excited about the end of the year? Got that holiday spring in your step at the thought of starting 2017 on the good foot? Well, great news: 2017’s politics is already looking like a dog’s breakfast. And a really aggressive, snarling, conservative-leaning dog at that.” He says that Australian politics in 2017bhas already gone to hell!
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/why-2017-australian-politics-has-already-gone-to-hell-20161222-gtgcyr.html
Latika Bourke on Tony Windsor’s brilliant outburst about Cory Bernardi and friends.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/do-turnbull-a-favour-windsor-urges-bernardi-to-defect-and-says-malcolm-turnbull-should-piss-or-get-off-the-potty-20161221-gtg617.html
And Jeff Kennett comes out with a well aimed broadside at Bernardi.
http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/he-has-no-record-of-note-in-politics-jeff-kennett-slams-cory-bernardi-predicts-liberals-will-have-closer-alignment-with-one-nation-20161222-gtgbwa.html
Martin Hirst looks at Fizza’s achievement s for 2016 and says he’s just hanging on by a thread.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/turnbull-hangs-on-to-the-keys-of-the-lodge-but-only-just,9862
Section 2 . . .
Does Seven West have its own Roger Ailes?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/tv-stars-fight-to-keep-names-out-of-seven-west-boss-tim-worners-sex-scandal-20161222-gtgvek.html
It’s not only the Coalition that has an extremist rump.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hardleft-faction-forms-inside-greens-aiming-to-end-capitalism-20161222-gtghf9.html
Waleed Aly writes that 2016 was the year in which we became addicted to complaining. Quite a good read.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-we-became-addicted-to-complaining-20161221-gtg9la.html
Can Trump thwart a recession in the US?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/trump-needs-to-thwart-a-us-recession-20161221-gtfzy5.html
Trump said he’d be the president for all Americans. He’s already failing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/22/donald-trump-president-all-americans-already-failing
Will Trump install his daughter as First Lady?
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2016/12/22/donald-trump-ivanka-trump-first-lady/
The cartoonish absurdity of an unhinged megalomaniac like Donald Trump as president-elect will soon be succeeded by the hard reality which is likely to be far more terrifying, writes Sean Hosking.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-reality-of-president-trump-is-likely-to-be-more-terrifying-than-wed-imagined,9865
THE builders behind the troubled new Royal Adelaide Hospital face paying millions of dollars extra to fix defects after losing one of its bitter legal disputes with the State Government. Google.
/news/south-australia/builders-of-new-royal-adelaide-hospital-face-new-legal-bill-after-losing-bitter-supreme-court-dispute/news-story/45ee596e75dd898381cd583c5ec26a24
The government has confirmed Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising, and projected that it will not get near its 2030 climate target under current policies. What a disgrace.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-confirms-australias-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-rising-20161222-gtgolq.html
Tudge is right on top of his job I must say! He’s sitting on a time bomb here.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/22/centrelinks-10-debt-recovery-fee-comes-as-news-to-human-services-minister
Section 3 . . .
The head of the Australian Christian Lobby is doubling down on his scepticism of the ACT police declaration that a van explosion outside the conservative group’s Canberra headquarters was not politically motivated. The ACL is not known for its reliance on evidence.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-christian-lobby-casts-doubt-on-police-finding-on-van-explosion-20161222-gtglds.html
Shelton is a real piece of work.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-christian-lobby-van-attack-lyle-shelton-links-explosion-to-extreme-left-mps-20161221-gtg8a6.html
The education department may have been under no legal obligation to make a $640,000 grant to Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre until a grant agreement signed months after Malcolm Turnbull had taken over as prime minister, documents suggest. Nice work Malcolm.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/23/federal-grant-to-bjrn-lomborg-centre-made-in-turnbull-era-documents-show
This will not be a merry Christmas for the management and board of infant formula maker Bellamy’s Australia, led by chief executive Laura McBain. Google
/business/retail/fmcg/the-big-lesson-for-investors-in-the-bellamys-crisis-20161221-gtg9k5
Matt Canavan is a very strange man as this encounter with the ABC over Adani illustrates.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cabinet-minister-matt-canavan-accuses-abc-of-publishing-fake-news-in-bizarre-adani-interview-20161222-gtgbz6.html
WA police nab a person suspected of the Claremont serial killings from 20 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/23/claremont-serial-killings-man-in-50s-reportedly-arrested-by-western-australia-police
White supremacists ditch their swastikas and aspire to power in the age of Trump. This is worrying.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/white-supremacists-ditch-their-swastikas-and-aspire-to-power-in-the-age-of-trump-20161211-gt8idv.html
Prince Charles has warned rising populism across the world has “deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s.”
http://www.smh.com.au/world/prince-charles-warns-rising-populism-has-deeply-disturbing-echoes-of-the-dark-days-of-the-1930s-20161222-gtgx0n.html
A timely warning about the risks with gift cards. Remember Dick Smith last year?
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/my-advice-before-you-dig-deep-and-buy-gift-cards-this-christmas-20161220-gtf0ki.html
Have a look at what Soapy’s quietly slipped through!
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australians-phone-and-email-records-could-be-used-in-civil-lawsuits-20161222-gtgdy6.html
2016 – a year of weird weather.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/weird-weather-2016-year-of-melting-ice-monster-storms-and-australias-big-wet-20161220-gtfh0i.html
Section 4 . . . with Cartoon Corner
Remember Lorena Bobbitt?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/22/lorena-bobbitt-is-done-being-your-punchline/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage
David Pope has gone troppo with this one on the conservative defection.
Alan Moir on housing affordability.
Ron Tandberg nicely sums up this government’s emissions management.
Mark David on the chance of a Bernardi defection.
Broelman does well on the ACL and Shelton.
More from Broelman as the US moves into a pre-Trump Christmas.
Mark Knight with Christmas reading for Turnbull.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e406462c3a742c7b1e54bdb796f6fbdc?width=1024
This is London calling.
There is chill in the air but no rain nor wind. It is very pleasant when I think of BK and other Pubsters enduring 40C. in Adelaide. Darling Daughter took me window shopping in Sloane Square. None of the windows were to my taste byt DD found a Chloe handbag and purse which she bought, after the credit card shrank back in fear from the price tag. But as I told her, she earned the damn thing, buy it.
DD found a nearby bar/eatery of the trendy kind, and we ate salted green olives with champers, then steak and hand cut chips, washed down by delightful French red wine.
Another champagne toast for DD’s new bag for her new job in Abu Dahbi (you only live once) was compulsory, of course
A flambe creme brulee washed down with frangelico afogatto, and an extra order of icecream, and then coffee, finished a truly memorable nosh up.
A group of choral singers, I assume, celebrating in the bar area suddenly starting sing Christmas carols in an impromptu performance. It was divine.
Uber seems to the standard for this set and it takes only one to five minutes for a car to turn up, after ordering and paying via the app, so no breath tests to worry about.
In case I don’t log in beforehand, a Safe, Merry and Happy Christmas to everyone.
In the Conversation there is an article by Darren Curnoe, chief investigator and co-leader of Education and Engagement Program at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, and director of the Palaeontology, Geobiology and Earth Archives Research Centre at the UNSW Australia. that finishes as follows:
“The take home message is clear. Like everyone else, anthropologists are far from immune to unconscious bias, especially the effects of social status and culture in shaping our beliefs on issues like race.
Ironically perhaps, we anthropologists need, as a discipline, to work a lot harder at challenging our own deeply held and culturally embedded views, as well as on giving a greater voice to those scientists from historically non-privileged groups.
Still, the survey makes a very powerful statement. It is a resounding rejection of race by those scientists whose discipline invented the system of racial classification itself.
It also marks the near universal acceptance by anthropologist of decades of genetic evidence showing that human variation can’t be pigeonholed into categories called races.
Stepping out of my ivory tower, I can’t see the political class or broader community adopting such a strong view against race any time soon.”
The idea of race is a really shitty idea as well as being unsound. I think the worst thing about it is that it is build on the unstated but basic notion that OUR race is better than any other race, in fact, it is much, much better,
Why is the Prime Minister holding a Press Conference in SYDNEY about 7 suspects arrested in a terror plot due for Melbourne on Christmas Day?
Who believes that the plot wasn’t due to happen today or tomorrow when the city will be full of shoppers and office workers?
Sorry Malcolm you pick on Melbourne all the time, I reckon this is a confection but I won’t go to town, just in case
My plans to tram it into the city just got modified/cancelled
OK I think that Dan Andrews at a Press Conference is acceptable, Malcolm Turnbull was being oportunistic
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-express-friday-december-23-2016-20161222-gtgumz.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-23/police-foil-alleged-christmas-day-'terrorist-plot'-in-melbourne/8143762 also, see teh video in the tweet
Yawn
Disbelief
Hogswash
Pull the other leg, it whistles
Roast meat cooked, beds changed, beer and lemon lime and bitters and coke in fridge. Roses beheaded, sunblinds down, now we’ll lock ourselves inside so the terrorist don’t get us.
Good news.
BP finally withdraws application to drill for oil in Great Australian Bight
Regulator says company failed to provide information on oil spill response plans, environmental monitoring and risks to marine reserves
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/22/bp-finally-withdraws-application-to-drill-for-oil-in-great-australian-bight
I wish i’d known about this earlier. What a brilliant idea!
Someone Sent Pauline Hanson Halal Vegemite For Christmas
(There’s a reason for the ‘halaal’ spelling)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/21/someone-sent-pauline-hanson-halal-vegemite-for-christmas/?ncid=fcbklnkauhpmg00000001
this mightn’t work
I think corgi bernardi has camel in his ancestry.
I also wish bananaby would have a large amount of cosmetic dentistry. His toothypegs are disgusting.
Things get dodgy for the government, the AFP is involved in a TURC scandal, so what happens? Yet another ‘foiled terrorist attack’.
No evidence offered, no proof, just the usual over-the-top waffle from Fizza and Co. In a few days, when everyone is too full of booze and Christmas food and too sunburnt to give a stuff about anything there will be a small mention in the MSM fine print about terrorism suspects being released without any charges being laid. Happens every time.
How can you be ‘self-radicalised? Is that scaremonger speak for ‘a bunch of young nutters’?
I have to say something –
This ‘Muslims hate Christmas’ bullshit is exactly that. Bullshit. What the haters don’t want us to understand –
Islam respects Jesus just as much, if not more than Christianity.
https://politicalperiscope.com/jesus-muslim-prophet/
It gets better.
Islam also reveres Mary as the mother of a great prophet.
So why wouldn’t Muslims join in celebrating the birth of a prophet they esteem? You could put up a very good case for Muslims having more respect for Jesus than many alleged Christians.
I’m just so sick of all the ignorant, bigoted hating going on now. Islam and Christianity have so much in common, I’ve not even scratched the surface here. Why can’t we all just accept one another’s beliefs and get on with enjoying a good life? Why do we have to hate people because they have a different religion, or a different skin colour, or don’t have English as their first language? It’s all just so ridiculous.
What utter rubbish –
“Australia’s terrorist threat level was elevated to “probable” in September 2014.
Since that date, there have been four terrorist attacks in Australia and 12 “successful major disruption operations”, Mr Turnbull said.”
http://rock.ly/5h39g
What terrorist attacks? Where? When?
Since September 2014 we have had a couple of incidents involving lone nutters – the Lindt siege, the Curtis Cheng shooting at Parramatta – and that’s it. Man Monis had a gripe with the Family Court and could not get anyone to take any notice of his complaints, so he did what he thought he had to do. The Cheng shooting involved a young man who may or may not have some sort of ideological or religious motive. We’ll never know why he did it because he was killed at the scene.
That’s it. As for the alleged ’12 successful major disruptions’, we have only the word of governments, the AFP and the state police. I don’t trust any of them when it comes to crying wolf and drumming up fear and loathing.
Obviously not “grown up ” yet?
Wouldn’t it be wiser to say nothing about what was planned, in fact not say anything about arrests or anything. Deprive the culprits of any publicity at all. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I agree, but the plan is to keep us all fearful.
A climate of fear is a great way for a government to control the plebs and/or achieve dodgy political aims.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp
We have a government in deep trouble so a diversion is needed. As usual they drag out the ‘terrorist attack’ unicorn.
I suppose Daniel Andrews had no option but to go along with this.
A solar highway:
http://www.thelocal.fr/20161222/normandy-village-home-to-worlds-first-solar-panelled-road
My idea is to use railway tracks for solar panels to may be power the trains.
—Former One Nation MP Rod Culleton has been declared bankrupt and will lose his right to be a senator—
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-23/senator-rod-culleton-bankrupt/8144758
Snap
How does that line from Shakespeare go: something like “here shines a good deed in a naughty world”,
Portia:
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Thanks.
Rod Culleton is insisting he is solvent and will remain in the senate. It’s all a plot, he says, the gummint is behind it, he’s put the AG on notice, his appeal is ready to go …. blah ….. blah ….
Maybe he hasn’t seen this Michael West newsflash from this morning.
“Gun-toting thugs” slap senator with creditor’s petition
http://www.michaelwest.com.au/gun-toting-thugs-slap-senator-with-creditors-petition/
Brian,
Portia in The Merchant of Venice:
That was the play we studied in Form 3 English.
I hope I will never forget Warren Mitchell’s Shylock. Sheer brilliance, and deeply moving.
Our quadrella (45 to 49) were Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Julius Caesar and the Scottish Play.
And a wonderful Alf Garnett.
Brian,
One morning back in the 1990s I was driving to university to attend a lecture. As I almost always did back then, I had the radio tuned to ABC 774 Melbourne.
The interviewee of the day was Warren Mitchell. It might have been his last visit to Australia.
He told a joke I’d never heard before. It was so funny, and his delivery was so superb, that I had to pull over to the side of the road, as I was laughing so much.
This is the joke (I still love it):
Fiona
That joke was hilarious.
For anyone in twitter, they now have a thing that you can add emoji’s. I did this one as a test.
Gravel,
I’m delighted that you enjoyed it.
Teeth when young, toothless when old:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38392397
Wow, I just got my results back for my thesis… and it’s a H1. Top grade.
I’m… absolutely speechless. I thought with the work I did I’d probably just get a H2 or the like, but, this news is just so good.
I’d just like to say thanks to everyone here for providing so much support throughout the year, I really do appreciate it.
Well done, you!
Excellent result!
Kirsdarke,
Congratulations!!!!!!!
Kirsdarke
Well done, congratulations, we had faith that you could do it. Celebrate. 🙂 🙂
Congratulations!
Good, very very good.
Take a bow , victory lap , gold koala stamp and a chocolate fish. Well done on the H1 , thank goodness it was not an H1N1 !! 🙂
Chocolate fish ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_fish
Well done, indeed!
Your posts here indicate an earnest hard working young man so I am pleased your hard work has been recognised and rewarded
This is such a good image:
kirsdarke – Congratulations and deserved, I’d guess.