The PUB 13th Anniversary

Kirsdarke Featured Posts

Now that things are wrapping up for Christmas-New Year in 2025, this might now be a good time for a new post.

We’ve been here for 13 years now, so while politics are about as relevant as some random wasp nest that can frankly sort itself out at this moment, let’s just maybe hold this time to be something of a break and wish everyone a good holiday season.

13 is an unlucky number, yes, but perhaps with superstitions like this, we can overcome that by openly defying it by not paying any meaningful attention to it? 2026 has a lot of potential one way or another.

Hopefully everyone here has a great Christmas-Holiday-New Year period in the next month.

113 thoughts on “The PUB 13th Anniversary”

  2. I thought this must be from The Onion. Even Trump couldn’t be this big an ungracious PoS. But I was bigly wRONg he sure could be. Quite deranged is our Orange Emperor.

    Cinema
    Rob Reiner was never as famous as his movies – but he certainly deserved to be

    Reiner’s films were not just hits; they were cultural touchstones, with an influence that lingered long after their box office success.

    ………………...President Donald Trump was less generous when he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

    “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” Trump wrote, before turning his guns on the late director. “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling diseases known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

    https://www.watoday.com.au/culture/movies/rob-reiner-was-never-as-famous-as-his-movies-but-he-certainly-deserved-to-be-20251216-p5no3d.html

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  3. I was a bit numb yesterday, but today I feel overwhelming sadness at the deaths at Bondi. I have had this feeling that we were living on borrowed time, due to the legitimising of hate by Trump and his cronies, and our politicians and media not rejecting that behaviour.
    I just want to weep at the sadness and stupidity of the loss of life.

    I repeat this phrase I heard years ago.
    There are causes I may be willing to die for, but there are none I am willing to kill for.

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  4. I distraced myself today by watching Korean dramas. I get a bit sad at Xmas, as I miss my Mum and I am not overseas with the kids out there, like last year. I have one son here, so we will have a dinner, with the doggies. I am trying not to contemplate the evil of the act at Bondi, or how the people of the USA have this every couple of days and do nothing about it.

    I am always happy to see gun laws strengthened, I am from the rural areas and my brothers went spotlighting for rabbits in their teens and I shot tin cans with a single action .22. But I know what it is like to have a gun used to intimidate a woman and scare her to never leave. My Mother endured much because of that, and in time so did I too. We knew how just having a farm rifle in a house meant no choice or control.

    I am sure we were not the only rural women trapped in bad marriages by the fear of the man’s temper and access to a weapon. I do not know the answer to this, because farmers need a gun for injured stock and pest management,

    But the very least we need consistent laws across the states and any loopholes stopped. So far Albo has proposed sensible reforms.

    The truth is we cannot eliminate all risks. To alllow gun possession is always a social risk, a danger. We can only mitigate that risk as we do for all activities that create danger, i.e seatbelts for cars, age limits for teens to drink alcohol,OH&S at work.

    Toughen the gun laws, Albo.

    And it is time former worst-PM-until-the-next-LPA- one John Howard pulled his miserable Australia’s-wealth-squandering head in and stick to jigsaw puzzles on a sunny porch,

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  5. Josh needs to take a very long walk off a short pier

    Frydenberg has said the PM should take personal responsibility for the deaths on Sunday.

    Our prime minister, our government, has allowed Australia to be radicalised on his watch.

    It is time for him to accept personal responsibility for the death of the 15 innocent people, including a 10-year-old child. It is time our prime minister accepted accountability for what has happened here. And it’s time our leaders stood up and led at last. This is a time for accountability and action.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/dec/17/bondi-beach-shooting-live-updates-victims-terror-attack-jewish-festival-al-ahmed-sajid-naveed-akram-shooters-india-radicalisation-gun-control-ntwnfb#top-of-blog

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  6. You’ll be shocked,shocked I tells ya to learn that on the front pages of Rupert’s flagship paper and the Daily Telegraph have zero mention of the muslim refugee who tackled the gunman. The policeman who shot one of the pricks scored a few mentions though . I couldn’t handle looking at any more of Rupes shit sheets. The bilge,bile and stench volume dial was turned up 10 15.

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  9. Another fly in the ointment for the Rupertatiat scum and the Poorleeen scum. Not only was the guy who took the gun of the killer a muslim and a refugee there is also this guy. Someone else they will no doubt pretend doesn’t exist.

    Bondi bystander who ran towards gunman facing deportation

    Jack Gramenz
    Updated December 17, 2025 — 2:28pm,first published December 17, 2025 — 12:40pm

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    A man who hopped out of a taxi and ran towards danger as two shooters terrorised Bondi faces the threat of deportation after rushing to help.

    The man, refugee from a Middle East country, worked his way towards the footbridge using cars and trees for cover, passing “really horrific carnage” on the way, his lawyer said……………Battisson said the man did not want to be named publicly, but the Department of Home Affairs knows who he is.

    “They’re actively fighting to remove him at the moment, which could happen any day.”

    https://www.watoday.com.au/national/nsw/bondi-hero-who-ran-toward-gunman-facing-deportation-20251217-p5nohn.html

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  12. Morriosn said Islamic communities were “vulnerable” to radicalisation:

    [The] overwhelming majority are great Australians, but their community is vulnerable. The evidence of that is all to obvious. They need to confront those issues, and it won’t be liked, it won’t be supported.

    But that’s the strength and courage that is needed.

    How about a walk-off-a-pier party?

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  13. And it has been a bipartisan policy for decades. Simple self interest,especially after negative gearing became so fashionable for many of them.

    Hurrah also to Mr Jericho for taking the time to point out the difference between ‘average’ and ‘median’ and why it matters that we always get fed ‘average’.

    The stats don’t lie. Australia’s tax system is designed to benefit the wealthiest and the rest of us pay for it
    Greg Jericho

    …………New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal just how much an average Australian earns. Being “rich” might not see you living like a Kardashian but we need to acknowledge that earning more than 90% of people puts you in the top 10%, and that much of the tax system is geared to benefit you.

    Asking who is rich is a question that can send shivers down the spines of politicians…………………………….So lets not let those who want to keep feathering their very plush nests get away with pretending that they are doing it hard scrabble.

    A few years ago Anthony Albanese was quick to argue that being on $200,000 a year did not make you rich. It was a very silly statement then and remains silly now.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2025/dec/18/the-stats-dont-lie-australias-tax-system-is-designed-to-benefit-the-wealthiest-and-the-rest-of-us-pay-for-it

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  14. Crispin Hull lets fly

    The death of 15 innocent people has been used shamelessly and immorally as a political debating point. I hope the vast majority of Australians are disgusted.

    Josh Frydenberg, no doubt gutted and shattered in the heat of the moment and therefore should be given leeway, should seriously now consider what he said. He said that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should take personal responsibility for the death of those innocent people, including a 10-year-old-girl.

    In a moment of quiet reflection, Josh – who knows what it is like to have a 24/7 public job with impossible demands – should understand the effect that such a statement would have on Anthony. Prime Ministers are human, too.

    After that reflection maybe he should pick up the phone, and not apologise, but just say sorry.

    Former prime minister John Howard accused the Prime Minister of lack of leadership in failing to do enough to stop anti-Semitism and using gun control as a diversion. Again, suggesting the Prime Minister is responsible for the deaths.

    This is the man who sat mute in 1996 when the then disendorsed Liberal but successful independent member for Oxley, Pauline Hanson, spouted her poisonous and factually inaccurate “swamped by Asians” speech.

    Howard said he disagreed, but agreed with her right to say it. Hypocrite. Those politicians who have in the past deplored criminalising hate speech against races, religions, and sexuality, now say Albanese, who supported those laws, did not do enough. They argued that criminalising hate speech was woke.

    Worse was Barnaby Joyce and Hanson’s appearance at Bondi. Their utterances were laced with racist comments about restricting immigration from Muslim nations and the gutterally mad suggestion from Hanson that she wear an Israeli flag into the Senate to see how that would compare with the reaction to when she wore a burqa into the chamber.

    Have they no empathy or understanding? Innocent people are dead and injured. Families are grieving. Australian families.

    Why couldn’t there have been a single dignified national memorial moment on Bondi Beach as soon as possible after the event at which all political, religious, and social leaders could have expressed what has been and should be reaffirmed as the quintessential Australian characteristic of respecting diversity and affirming unity?

    Instead, we had a Punch and Judy show – Pauline and Barnaby, Josh, John and Sussan one-by-one engaging in a disgraceful political puppet show.

    Surely, Australians, in memory of the innocent dead, can rise to the occasion and not let the occasion sink us to these depths. The surfers and swimmers did, but not the above politicians. Are they so desperate to get back into power they will stoop so low?

    Contrary to the “not-enough-done” chanters, no amount of education or immigration blocks would have made a jot of difference to Sunday’s event.

    But a ban on non-citizens owning firearms; banning firearms within city limits unless you are in uniform; limiting the number of firearms one person can own; and better use of intelligence (which had actually identified and questioned these perpetrators) could well have prevented those deaths.

    Without guns, Bondi would have been a controllable even if horrible event.

    Of course it is about guns.

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9136756/crispin-hull-josh-frydenberg-anthony-albanese-bondi-shooting-comments-out-of-line/

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    • Well said. Our rightwng parties are a damned disgrace. As are our Murdoch etc media.

      While praising Australians for coming together in a national tragedy, they ferment division and hatred. They really are ghouls. It is sickening to watch.

  15. Joining the conga line

    Shadow minister for education and the arts, Julian Leeser, also spoke at the Coalition press conference. He described the last few days as having been “the most harrowing few days in the history of the life of the Australian Jewish community”.

    Leeser said there was “white hot, palpable anger” in the Jewish community:

    While there is sadness in the Jewish community, there is also white hot, palpable anger at a prime minister who has had so many opportunities to take action, so many opportunities to show leadership. But on every occasion, his work and his words missed the mark and it always comes too late.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/dec/18/bondi-terror-attack-beach-shooting-live-updates-victims-terror-gunmen-naveed-akram-sajid-asio-antisemitism-anthony-albanese-ntwnfb#top-of-blog

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  16. “Children aren’t born antisemitic. Children aren’t born racist. Children aren’t born with hate in their hearts. This is something that’s taught. This is something that’s learned,” Clare said.

    And by golly gosh hasn’t Bibi the War Criminal and the state of Israel been a busy little ‘teacher’ Mr Clare. Could you perhaps express some concern about what he’s ‘teaching’ them ? LOL ,as if.

    I

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    • Many are born Semitic

      Semitic refers to a group of languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, and historically to the peoples who speak these languages, such as Jews and Arabs.

      …

      It is derived from “Shem,” one of the sons of Noah in the Bible.

  19. This Facebook reply cimment gives a good analysis of our rightwing btards. I couldn’t put it better, myself.

    .I quote:

    “Oh for fuck’sake, here we go again.

    Every time something horrible happens in this country, the Pauline Hanson One Nation crowd crawls out of the woodwork like cockroaches that just discovered Facebook comments, screaming that Anthony Albanese needs to resign.

    Because apparently the Prime Minister now controls time, space, visas, ASIO, state gun licensing, and individual human decisions stretching back three decades.

    Let’s put some actual dates on the table, since vibes and racism aren’t evidence.

    The father immigrated to Australia on a student visa in 1998. Who was Prime Minister? John Howard.

    NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon corrected earlier reporting that the father had held a gun licence for a decade.

    He said:

    2015: an initial firearms licence application was lodged, but it lapsed because a required photograph was not supplied.

    2020: a second application for a Category AB licence was lodged.

    2023: that Category AB licence was issued. ASIO investigated the son, then dropped the investigation in 2019.

    Who was Prime Minister? Scott Morrison.

    But somehow, magically, today this is all Albo’s fault.Yeah mate, Albanese clearly hopped in a DeLorean, fired it up to 88 miles per hour, rewrote twenty years of immigration, intelligence, and firearms policy, then came back just in time for Sky News to yell about it.

    Your argument isn’t just wrong, it’s lazy.This bloke came here under a Liberal government.The gun licence was granted under a Liberal government.ASIO closed the file under a Liberal government.

    But now the same people who voted for those governments are demanding the Labor PM resign because screaming “immigrants” feels better than admitting your own side ran the system for most of the last 25 years.

    And let’s talk about this fantasy you people live in.You act like radicalisation is a checkbox on a visa form.

    As if someone arrives at the airport and ticks “Yes” or “No” under “Will become dangerous in 20 years after consuming global propaganda, grievance politics, and endless war footage”.

    Radicalisation is a process. It happens over time. Often decades later. Sometimes to people born here. Sometimes to people investigated and cleared years earlier. That’s reality, whether it fits your racist Facebook meme or not.

    But reality isn’t the point, is it.The point is blame.Blame migrants.

    Blame Muslims.Blame Labor. Blame anyone except the systems you cheered for and the governments you kept voting back in.

    And here’s the kicker.The same mob screaming “law and order” is suddenly pretending ASIO is useless.

    The same people who worship John Howard now want to memory-hole the fact that this all started on his watch.

    The same crowd that defended Abbott and Morrison to the death now wants to act shocked that long-term failures exist in long-term systems.

    You don’t want solutions. You want a target.

    Because if you actually followed the timeline, you’d have to shut up. And that seems to be the one thing you’re constitutionally incapable of doing.

    So no, this isn’t Albanese’s fault. It’s not a migration switch. It’s not a religion problem. It’s not a magic border spell you forgot to cast.It’s decades of policy, intelligence judgement calls, individual agency, and a world that doesn’t run on talkback radio logic.

    And if that makes you uncomfortable, good. Facts usually do when racism is the only thing holding your argument together.

    Now scream into the comments about “lefties” and “wokeness” while the dates sit there, unmoved, not giving a single fuck about your feelings.”

    Unquote.

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  21. Makes sense now. Gonski being appointed to oversee the education stuff and kill off any overreach and unaccountable Czarism. Nothing about arts and media funding being held hostage by narrow views of a Commissioner either, which was a ridiculous set of proposals.

    — Possum (@pollytics.bsky.social) 2025-12-18T01:04:17.158Z

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-18/antisemitism-education-taskforce-review-david-gonski/106158642

    EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration is asking U.S. oil companies if they’re interested in returning to Venezuela once Maduro is toppled, per sources familiar with the discussions.So far, the answer is a hard “no.”

    — Politico (@politico.com) 2025-12-17T21:34:57.862Z

    Trump's oil & land accusations toward Venezuela likely stem from the 2007 expropriation of US assets by the then President Hugo Chávez. (This article is not an argument of support or endorsement of the military action. It provides some historical & legal context). http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...

    — David Marler (@qldaah.bsky.social) 2025-12-18T02:32:21.066Z

    NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years.My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed. http://www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...

    — Sam Dumitriu (@samdumitriu.bsky.social) 2025-12-17T11:49:21.077Z

    “Soelberg did not turn violent until ChatGPT became his sole confidant, validating a wide range of wild conspiracies, including a dangerous delusion that his mother was part of a network of conspirators spying on him, tracking him, and making attempts on his life.”

    — Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka.lpm.org) 2025-12-16T00:42:45.538Z

    NEW: In an historic pick, Pope Leo XIV will appoint Bishop Ron Hicks — a protégé of progressive Cardinal Blase Cupich — as the next Archbishop of New York. He replaces the retiring Cardinal Dolan, who recently faced criticism for calling Charlie Kirk a “modern-day St. Paul.”

    — Christopher Hale (@christopherjhale.bsky.social) 2025-12-17T00:04:36.733Z

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  22. I particularly lurve the purity of bullshit,double standards and hypocrisy from the meeja,particularly the Rupertarium Sewerage Works, the Opposition and of course the Poorline Hanson wing of pollies. The utter outrage they express at the ‘vilification’ and ‘hate’ etc directed at people in Australia due to the actions of their coreligionists overseas. Sooooo ‘UnAhStrayan’ we hear from the same people who have spent decades profiting politically and making careers from doing just what they wail about to muslims.

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  23. Minns:

    We made it clear there’s nothing we can do about a group of people meeting on a street corner, we can’t do it, other than the powers that’s in the front of a synagogue or a mosque or a church or a religious institution, it’s not possible to do that.

    What we can do is stop the marches through the heart of the city to national landmarks which I think would sow division and hatred in our community.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/dec/19/australia-news-live-bondi-terror-attack-latest-updates-antisemitism-liverpool-suspects-victims-funeral-hate-speech-preachers-ntwnfb#top-of-blog

    You really want to, don’t you?

    Planning to ban marches on Anzac Day?

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  24. Latest by John Birmingham

    https://aliensideboob.substack.com/p/what-would-ahmed-do

    This is a tough one. I usually know what I’m going to write days in advance, but I’ve been thinking about Bondi all week and still don’t quite know what to say.

    Partly, that’s because I don’t want to inflame feelings any further. I don’t see anything good coming from stirring up fear and loathing in the aftermath. And yet, watching how this has unfolded, that seems to be the preferred response of some people.

    At first, I thought I might focus solely on the unlikely hero of the day, Ahmed Al-Ahmed. Were it not for him, an unknown number of additional lives would have been lost. Had he not intervened, I suspect this week would have been far worse than it already has been—and it has been pretty bad. Not everyone, it turns out, is possessed of Ahmed’s selflessness, courage, or love of humanity.

    We owe him a great deal, not only for the lives saved, but for sparing us a much darker path we might otherwise have found ourselves walking. A Syrian Muslim who risked his life to save hundreds of Jewish people under fire from a pair of self-styled Islamic State killers, he was not the hero The Daily Telegraph wanted, but he was what we needed.

    Whenever I feel bad about how this week has gone, Ahmed Al-Ahmed appears in my timeline. Most recently, he was smiling and fist-bumping two of his surgeons, themselves both Syrian expats. The joy and fellow feeling in their faces is enough, for a moment, to remind me that not everything is darkness.

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    • Yes, he seriously screwed up the narrative. I spent a little time on Facebook, etc, correcting people who claimed Ahmed was a Maronite Christian. They never thanked me for the update! The other escape clause was that his religion didn’t matter. I said it was important that I provide balance to the reports of the religion of the attackers. I got agreement from a few people on that, or no response at all. John Birmingham is correct, Ahmed did not just save lives, he saved us from a lot more anti-Muslim slurs.

      I happen to have Muslim family members (Asian Australian) by marriage, whom I do not see often, but I worry their young son will get bullied. I told a rightwing member of my family to pull his fkg head in and not to post or like one thing anti-Muslim because he was part of the problem. I told him he actually was partly responsible for Bondi by spreading religious hatred. I gave it to him in spades. I told him that if my relative got bullied, he would know my anger. He has not said a peep since.

  26. Donald J Nero-Caligula is at it again.
    The Kennedy Centre named after President John F. Kennedy in 1964, after his assassination ist kaput. Laydeeeez and Genulmun I give you…………

    Donald Trump’s hand-picked board renames arts centre as the Trump Kennedy Center

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-19/donald-trump-renames-kennedy-arts-centre-after-himself/106161980

    He already has his Incitatus moment

    Trump appoints Jared Kushner to top White House post

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/1/10/trump-appoints-jared-kushner-to-top-white-house-post

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  27. A fave Trump play is to do something ‘outrageous’ like this to get the ‘chattering classes’ wound up. Then while the media and public attention is laser focused on that Trump outrage de jour he slips through under the radar something truly fcuked. This has the hallmarks of one of those moves. It seems designed to push buttons. But with Donald J Nero-Caligula perhaps that is all there is. He’s just doing it for fun.

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  30. It’s always a sad LOL when one of the Rupert Orcs does this. Wail about some ‘non Rupert’ group’s ‘awful behavior’ with the alleged behavior perfectly describing they and their fellow Murdoch propagandists modus operandi. Planet Janet and Peta are frequent fliers on that plane as is this Kenny.

    Moral narcissism of the left has poisoned and divided our nation

    ………..and visceral hatred for alternative viewpoints have torn our once resilient society apart.’

    CHRIS KENNY

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