Australia votes 2019: Shock! Climate action bombs. Pollsters crash. Skeptics Win
cryptogon
May 19
Scott Morrison in Parliament. Photo, ABC: Nick Haggarty The Coalition can now form a majority government with no need to do deals with a GetUp candidate. They may win 78 seats. While this is being hailed as a “great” win it’s nothing like Tony Abbott’s 90 seat landslide in 2013. Of the last three elections, the most skeptical PM won hugely, and the biggest believer, Turnbull, almost lost. Morriso
OK, so some other things might have happened around the world this weekend. Rating: 9.3/10 (24 votes cast) Rating: 9.3/ 10 (24 votes cast)
May 17
Welcome to Election Day 2019 in Australia LOOK OUT for die-hard skeptics David Archibald running for the Senate in WA (Fraser Anning), also for Malcolm Roberts in QLD (One Nation). For Australian Conservatives especially Cory Bernardi , SA and Jonathan Crabtree, WA. For smaller government or skeptical policies, check out Liberal Democrats, Australian Conservatives, One Nation, Yellow Vests Austra
May 16
In Borneo, the Dypterocarp forest, one of the species-richest in the world (F), is being replaced by oil palm plantations (G). These changes are irreversible for all practical purposes (H). Under the radar: In a trade dispute with the EU, about six weeks ago, Indonesia threatened to leave the Paris Agreement. Just like that. – Where was the ABC News? Showing orangutan rescues… Two hundred and sev
May 15
Brazil, eighth largest economy in the world is unashamedly backing out of green schemes. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro is “dismantling” environmental agencies and missions. Brazil pulled out of hosting the 2019 U.N. climate summit, and has now canceled a United Nations climate change event that was to be held in August. Environment Minister Ricardo Salles … said he was more interested in de
May 14
This election has been run on the lowest base primal tactics in Australian history. National policy has become a cult-like hate campaign. Which moderate centrist politician do we despise the most? The Alinsky-ite targeted smear campaign doesn’t attack a party, it isolates individuals, reducing voting to Good person: Bad person. The marked men and sole woman are those who question any part of the
… Rating: 8.2/10 (15 votes cast) Rating: 8.2/ 10 (15 votes cast)
There’s a message to parties that ignore their base: EU Election Poll Has Farage’s Brexit Party Beating Labour and Tories COMBINED Jack Montgomery, Breitbart New polling for the upcoming European Parliament elections shows another astonishing surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, while the governing Conservatives have crashed to fourth place on just 11 per cent. The Opinium poll of 2,
May 13
George Clooney, climate smearist, is here with a slick advert to train Useful Idiots on what they should say. George explains that because science can cure diseases, make phones work, and fly planes, therefore, the equilibrium climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide is 3.3 degrees Celcius. Ergo prompter sock post hoc, and all that. Sure. Who’s the dumbcluck? You might almost think Clooney is doing
May 11
… Rating: 9.0/10 (23 votes cast) Rating: 9.0/ 10 (23 votes cast)
May 10
How much do Australians have to pay to change the global weather? …. First, Bill Shorten called those who ask “dumb”. Then when that was described as his Hillary “Deplorables” moment he changed the insult from “dumb” to “liar”. Here’s Bill Shorten in the third leaders debate: “I accept the cost question is not a dumb question, …it’s a dishonest question. The idea that you only look at the investme
May 09
Once again, bad luck for renewables. The AEMO put out their report for the first quarter of 2019. Despite a massive growth in renewables, power prices are still not falling as predicted. The report highlights that record high spot wholesale electricity prices were set in Victoria and South Australia, and nearly in everywhere else as well: • Victoria and South Australia’s quarterly average spot wh
May 08
Where money goes, jobs follow. Unbeknowst to 99% of Australians, we already have an emissions trading scheme. Thank Malcolm Turnbull and Clive Palmer. Soon, Australians are likely to be sending real money overseas and getting back paper certificates at prices set by the EU. The legislation was snuck through just before Christmas 2015, buried under the name “Safeguard Mechanism”. It cost about $7m
May 07
… Rating: 9.2/10 (17 votes cast) Rating: 9.2/ 10 (17 votes cast)
Suddenly there’s a whole lot of independent candidates running in Australia looking to copy the Kerryn Phelps success in taking the blue-ribbon conservative seat of Wentworth. They all say they are independent, but they are all sworn to climate action and GetUp supports most if not all of them. So if and when they say they’ll support a Liberal National Coalition government, ask yourself if GetUp
Two different models predict two totally different futures. On the left, catastrophic extinction. On the right, happy bats. Click to enlarge Yesterday a UN supercommittee of 145 scientists from 50 countries declared that one million species are set for extinction. The same day, ten other scientists published a paper pointing out that most modelers forget to allow for genetic variation and thus ov
May 06
A baby-IPCC of biology has just been born The new 145-expert-committee has just uttered its first words, and the headlines are Hollywood-apocalyptic: A million species face extinction. Daddy-UN is proud. Nature is in its worst shape in human history, UN report says Nature is in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over one million species of plants and
Friday April 19th set more records than anyone realized. Not only was it the earliest recorded snowfall at Bluff Knoll and WA, but it was also the coldest ever April day in Albany and many other towns in south-west Western Australia. It may also be the largest single day temperature mystery I’ve ever seen in the official “raw” data. Days like the 19th are extremely unusual in Western Australia —
May 04
… Rating: 9.6/10 (19 votes cast) Rating: 9.6/ 10 (19 votes cast)
May 03
The Climate Cult wears the Fake Badge of Science, but when people don’t agree with them, they give up persuasion and just throw insults and eggs. Yesterday Dr Brian Fisher’s home was targeted after Simon Holmes a Court (son of one of the wealthiest men in Australia once) published Dr Fisher’s personal details on twitter. Dr Fisher used to manage ABARE — The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Re
May 02
In a win for the Summer Fashionthink Parade, the UK Parliament has declared a Climate Emergency It’s has all the legal meaning of a Chastity vow, has no scientific definition and was not voted on. It’s purely symbolic — as such itscryptogon
Today
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned how intercity freight is the low hanging fruit of the self driving world. Here we go… Via: Reuters: The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday started a two-week test transporting mail across three SouthwesternYesterday
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A friend of mine is an AI researcher. I know that “AI researcher” is a nebulous term, but let it suffice to say that he is highly qualified in this area. Back in April, I asked him what he thought about Tesla’s big self driving dog and pony show. In short, I asked him: Is […]
May 19
Via: Wired: Civil liberties activists trying to inspire alarm about the authoritarian potential of facial recognition technology often point to China, where some police departments use systems that can spot suspects who show their faces in public. A report from Georgetown researchers on Thursday suggests Americans should also focus their concern closer to home. The […]
May 17
Flashback 2012: CHAMP – Lights Out Via: Daily Mail: The U.S. Air Force has deployed at least 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Iran with high-power microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless without causing any fatalities, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively. Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced […]
May 16
Via: Bloomberg: Robots are taking over farms faster than anyone saw coming. The first fully autonomous farm equipment is becoming commercially available, which means machines will be able to completely take over a multitude of tasks. Tractors will drive with no farmer in the cab, and specialized equipment will be able to spray, plant, plow […]
Via: MarketWatch: Missing more than one paycheck is a one-way ticket to financial hardship for nearly half of the country’s workforce. A new study from NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent social research institution, found that 51% of working adults in the United States would need to access savings to cover necessities if […]
Via: Medium: Today we’re excited to announce that our Machine Learning Engineers Hashiam Kadhim, Joe Palermo and Rayhane Mama have produced the most realistic AI simulation of a voice we’ve heard to date. It’s the voice of someone you’ve probably heard of before?—?Joe Rogan. (For those who haven’t: Joe Rogan is the creator and host […]
Via: Reuters: Resembling the helmet of a Star Wars stormtrooper, a driverless electric truck began daily freight deliveries on a public road in Sweden on Wednesday, in what developer Einride and logistics customer DB Schenker described as a world first. Robert Falck, the CEO of Swedish start-up Einride, said the company was in partnership talks […]
“I am not suicidal.” Via: Vigilant Citizen: Isaac Kappy – the actor who accused several Hollywood figures of child abuse – died after throwing himself off a bridge. A few days prior to this fateful day, Kappy posted a haunting video about him “crossing the line” and becoming “one of them”. What actually happened to […]
Via: Daily Mail: Police fined a pedestrian £90 for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face when he saw a controversial facial recognition camera on a street in London. Officers set up the camera on a van in Romford, East London, which then cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against a database of […]
May 15
Here are the videos that attracted the attention of the police. This is a Facebook post with the video of one of the police visits. In case you don’t use Facebook, someone mirrored the video on YouTube: Via: Cross the Rubicon:
May 14
Via: Reuters: Oil prices rose on Tuesday after the world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said explosive-laden drones had attacked two pumping stations belonging to state oil company Aramco. … The Saudi state news agency quoted Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih as saying that Aramco had halted pumping on the East-West pipeline until the damage was […]
May 13
Via: BBC: French officials are investigating after revelations that agro-chemicals firm Monsanto compiled a potentially illegal file on critics on chemicals and genetically modified crops. The document was made by a PR agency working for Monsanto, which makes the controversial weed killer glyphosate. Marketed as Roundup by Monsanto, the weed killer has come under fire […]
Via: TechDirt: We’ve noted repeatedly that if you’re upset about Facebook’s privacy scandals, you should be equally concerned about the wireless industry’s ongoing location data scandals. Not only were the major carriers caught selling your location data to any nitwit with a checkbook, they were even found to be selling your E-911 location data, which […]
There is a purge underway on the wordpress.com platform. Anyone dealing with controversial topics has to self host. It doesn’t mean that your hosting provider won’t terminate you, but you have a much better chance of remaining up than on any of the major blogging or social media platforms. Via: Jon Rappoport: On May 11, […]
( opit.wordpress.com was taken down in Dec 2007 after threatening to break into top 10% of all blogs. It's quite a shock for an author - the readers don't seem to say much )
Via: Reuters: A California jury on Monday awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused their cancer, in the largest U.S. jury verdict to date against the company in litigation over the chemical. … It was the third consecutive U.S. jury verdict against the company in […]
Via: Electrek: A new Li-ion battery technology developed by the US Army has piqued the interest of Jeff Dahn, Tesla’s main battery research partner. In the latest issue of the journal Nature, the CCDC Army Research Laboratory (ARL), which is an element of the U.S. Army, released a study demonstrating a new battery technology based […]
Via: Discover Magazine: Coca-Cola has poured millions of dollars into scientific research at universities. But if the beverage giant doesn’t like what scientists find, the company has the power to make sure that their research never sees the light of day. That’s according to an analysis published in the Journal of Public Health Policy that […]
Via: Reuters: Amazon.com Inc is rolling out machines to automate a job held by thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders. The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelopes them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two […]
Via: AFP: Four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, were damaged in mysterious “sabotage attacks” that further inflamed Gulf tensions on Monday amid a standoff between the United States and Iran. In the face of growing international concern, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scrapped a planned visit to Moscow to head to Brussels instead […]
Make sure to get shot up with vaccines being peddled by the perpetrators of, “One of the most egregious and damaging price-fixing conspiracies in the history of the United States.” Oh sure! You’d have to be out of your mind, and possibly a terrorist, or worse, if you don’t trust their statements about vaccine safety […]
I can’t deposit foreign currency checks that are valued at under NZ$500 anymore with my bank (Kiwibank). I had been depositing foreign currency checks with smaller amounts with Kiwibank since I moved to NZ in 2006. They just recently changed the policy. So, yeah… The screws are tightening a bit more. Thanks very much to […]
May 12
Step 1: Facilitate and encourage illegal immigration to the point of collapsing European society. Step 2: Deploy swarms of surveillance drones to interrogate/track/identify individuals at random. You know, since we created the problem in the first place, we’ll come up with a “solution.” Step 3: ….. (Fill in the blank) Hmm. I know. How about: […]
Via: The Intercept: Last year, a coalition of privacy advocates and child psychologists warned against putting an Amazon Alexa speaker anywhere near your child on the fairly reasonable grounds that developing minds shouldn’t befriend always-on surveillance devices, no matter how cute the packaging. Now, a group of privacy researchers, attorneys, and U.S. senators are calling […]
Via: Bloomberg: Bitcoin surged more than $1,000 this weekend to the highest level since August, as cryptocurrencies extended their rebound from a slump last month amid the New York attorney general’s investigation of a key part of the market. Bitcoin rose as much as 6.9% to $7,445, before trading at $7,323.86 as of 2:15 p.m. […]
May 11
And wreck the CIA’s illicit drug running business? I don’t think so. Imagine the whinging you’d hear from the militarized cop industrial complex. Also, what would become of the private prison industry? Oh no no no, Mexico, let’s not go there. Via: Newsweek: Mexico’s president released a new plan last week that called for radical […]
May 09
Via: The Vaccine Reaction: Governor Kate Brown of Oregon signed a bill on May 6, 2019 that will allow dentists in that state to administer vaccinations. House Bill 2220, which passed Oregon’s House of Representatives on Mar. 28, 2019 and Senate on Apr. 25, will make it possible for dentists to give vaccines, including MMR, […]
Via: Reuters: Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the founder of rocket company Blue Origin, will unveil plans on Thursday for missions to the moon tailored to the U.S. government’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years, people familiar with the matter said.
Very, very strange. Read this for background: The curious case of Cynthia Beck’s abandoned Malibu and Bel Air mansions And now… Via: Los Angeles Times: A 57-year-old man identified in court records as the longtime companion of Los Angeles real estate mogul Cynthia Beck was arrested Wednesday after authorities seized more than 1,000 guns from […]
May 08
Mmm hmm. IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black Via: IEEE: Growing skepticism toward vaccines has sparked a flareup of measles outbreaks affecting New York City neighborhoods, cruise ships, international airports and even Google’s Mountain View headquarters. To help family physicians reach out to […]
Via: Bloomberg: Americans are good at popping pills. About 46 percent of the U.S. population used one or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days, according to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics. With almost half the U.S. population taking drugs, it may be surprising that this figure is a slight […]
May 05
As the ghastly Washington Post runs an opinion piece recommending arrests, fines and isolation for people who don’t vaccinate their children… Via: Global Research: The U.S. has the very highest infant mortality rate of all industrialized developed countries, with more American children dying at birth and in their first year than in any other comparable […]
Via: The Scientist: Neuromorphic chips’ ability to perform complex computational tasks while consuming very little power has caught the attention of the tech industry. The potential commercial applications of neuromorphic chips include power-efficient supercomputers, low-power sensors, and self-learning robots. But biologists have a different application in mind: building a fully functioning repli
Via: Los Angeles Times: The atmosphere of incongruity that pervaded this week’s annual Milken Institute Global Conference was practically palpable. The gathering of billionaires, hedge fund managers and other financial industry professionals who converged on the Beverly Hilton hotel largely had a particular end in mind: how to increase their alpha, which, not to get […]
Via: Stanford: Stanford scientists devised a blood-based test that accurately identified people with chronic fatigue syndrome, a new study reports.
Via: Real Clear Politics: ZUCKERBERG: We’re taking a more proactive role in making sure our partners and developers use our services for good… We’re very focused on making sure our recommendations and discovery services aren’t highlighting groups where people are repeatedly sharing misinformation or harmful content. We’re working hard to remove groups if they exist […]
Via: Richard Dolan: