Cats waiting to be fed

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They make it known when it's time to eat. They act together too, Natasha being the ring leader. This is last night when I was battling Turnbull's internet on the PC. Zac and Natasha both jumped up on the little table next to me. Often too Natasha will stare at you constantly until she's fed.

 

Daughter & husband in Queenstown, New Zealand

Daughter is now in New Zealand's south island staying in Queenstown there near the bottom. The first picture below is the view from where they're staying, and the one below that is an hour's walk to Queenstown itself.

I've never been down the south island myself. After the upbringing I had in Taranaki all I wanted to do was get out of the place and away from my asshole family. 

I notice Queenstown is very near Fiordland, the bit on the left with lots of waterways. That's where they filmed the latest Alien movie (as well as Sydney) for those scenes where they found the alien ship. It rains all year there, highest rainfall in the world, only a couple of days a year sunshine. Why it was raining in the movie I suppose. 

Trump & son Oprah inverview 2009 - dumb and dumber (video 2009)

I guess the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree folks. All the more interesting with rumours flying of Oprah 2020.


 So in 2009 Oprah had an interview with Donald Trump and Trump Jnr. The subject in this clip is about Jnr using the Trump name and how he thought it had a stigma attached to it. However that's not exactly what Jnr said, saying instead that the was a "stigmata" associated with the Trump name. 

*bangs head against desk*

 

Public to pay for Foxtel cable maintenance even if NBN ditches it - Turnbull's Telstra deal

This whole National Broadband Network being fucked over by Turnbull is seriously starting to stink like a putrid rotting fish. Namely, how Murdoch's Foxtel is coming out of it all.

It's well known that Murdoch wanted fibre to the node as he didn't want the internet competing with his Foxtel. Ex PM Kevin Rudd who's original broadband plan was for fibre to the premises, wants a royal commission into it.

Now it's come to light that the cable that Turnbull wants to use For the NBN where it's available in cities and the like, will be maintained by the taxpayer. The cable TV that just happens to be what Foxtel uses for it's pay TV service. In fact contractually, even if the NBN ditches using the cable (which could happen given the problems they're having with the cable TV interfering with the NBN signal) taxpayers will still have to pay for that cable maintenance which Foxtel uses. 

At every turn in this whole Turnbull NBN fiasco, Murdoch comes out on top.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull faces expensive embarrassment if NBN Co cannot rectify problems that have halted the rollout of the HFC network he championed, as the company confirmed taxpayers will be forced to pay to maintain it for Telstra to broadcast Foxtel, even if it is ditched from the NBN.

 NBN chief executive Bill Morrow suddenly hit pause on the rollout of broadband delivered over pay television cables last week, due to mounting issues with service dropouts, delaying the roll out to an eventual 3 million metropolitan areas by an estimated six to nine months. 

However, as Labor ups its campaign for NBN to drop HFC in favour of fibre to the curb technology, NBN confirmed to The Australian Financial Review that it is contractually bound to maintain the ailing network for as long as Telstra wants to keep using it for pay-TV transmission. Australian Financial Review

What possible reason would Turnbull have to make such a deal, other than to give Murdoch what he wants?

A national scandal.Turnbull killed NBN model by replacing FTTP with FTTN to appease Murdoch. Needs Royal Commission. https://t.co/wEHmrxBW4i

— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) January 8, 2018

 

The Trump-ets are losing it (video)

*Update: Miller had to be escorted off the premises by security after the interview.
 
I dunno what to say to this. I thought we had political disaster interviews in Australia but we got nothing on this. I guess I'd say we're witnessing the Trump US administration going down in a flaming heap. The sight of a White House person trying to defend the indefensible and re-write future history is indeed a sight to behold. Rarely have we seen such a blatant display of an emperor with no clothes. His enablers will go down in history as such.

 

Calls for Australia to close it's Vatican embassy over child sex abuse in Australia

During the royal commission into institutional child sex abuse in Australia (which became largely an inquiry into the Catholic church with 60% of cases coming from it alone) it became apparent that the Catholic church was using the Vatican's status with Australia as a nation state and thereby using that to protect it's paedophilia priests from prosecution here. 

The royal commission requested documents from the Vatican of child sex offender priests held by the "Holy See". The Vatican refused, using Australia's diplomatic recognition of it as a nation state to do so. 

There are now calles for the Australian embassy to the Vatican be closed.

In an opening address on February 6 to the 16th, and final, public hearing into the Catholic Church, counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness, SC, confirmed the Vatican had refused a request to provide files of all Australian church abuse cases referred to the Holy See. The Vatican advised in 2014 it was “neither possible nor appropriate”.

 Letters made public by the royal commission show chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, wrote to Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin in April, 2014, saying the Vatican files would help the commission understand the extent of clerical child sex allegation referrals to the Vatican, and the action taken by the church in each case. 

Cardinal Parolin declined in July, 2014, in a letter to the Australian embassy at the Vatican, saying the request to “undertake the substantial burden of locating, reviewing and copying all files regarding every accused Australian cleric appears inconsistent with international practice”. 

 He ended his letter to the Australian embassy by reaffirming “the importance of reciprocal exchanges of information between sovereign states”. The Herald

 In other words the Australian gov is letting them get away hiding Australian child sex abuse by the church, by recognising the Vatican as a nation state.
 

Wikileaks put "Fire and Fury" manuscript online for free (link)

*Update: the link stopped working. Drat, I should have saved the PDF!
 
The tell all book "Fire and Fury" has been put online by Wikileaks for free. In the form of a PDF, you can read the whole book here.

I haven't looked at it yet but are we really that surprised at the revelations folks? People have been saying ever since he was elected that he never wanted to be president. The guy has been a charlatan all his life. Bankrupt about 4 times with delusions of grandeur. Can't even run his own life let alone the life of the most powerful man in the world.

I got a lot of blowback from some in the US straight after Trump was elected as I was trying to convey the horror that we felt down under at such a complete imbecile racist fool for president. However everything I said to disbelieving Trump voters has since come true. Trump's presidency is anti-gay, reckless, pro big end of town and trickle down, disorganised lurching from one self inflicted crisis to the next, patently stupid and with the wolves of justice barking at the doors. His foreign policy consists of little more than comparing dick/button sizes.

Come on America, get rid of this moron. He's unfit to lead the free world. In fact he's unfit to organise his way out of a wet paper bag FFS. If the US is ever going to be "great again" then it really does need to look at how it's electoral system allowed such and idiot to become their glorious leader and see that it never happens again.

 

Pulse shooters wife knew he was planning to attack club well beforehand

An FBI statement taken off Omar Mateen's wife, Noor Salmon, just hours after Mateen killed 49 in Pulse, she says she saw Mateen preparing for the attack and knew he was going to the LGBT club Pulse.

The judge is deciding whether the FBI statement is admissible in court. 

If true one wonders how someone of religion in good conscience not go to the police to warn them of what was to unfold. Yes Mateen was a nutter who should never have been able to get his hands on a firecracker let alone a gun. But why would his partner not want to stop Mateen before he killed 49 people? You'd think she'd be just as guilty as him for letting it happen.

Storms are god's wrath because gays - Cow Scat Paster Swanson (audio)

Yes folks, Cow Scat Pastor Swanson, from the US (known for his fetish fantasy of covering himself in cow shit at his son's gay wedding if it happened), is back again for another round of far right christian cowshit folks. This time is he isn't demanding the death of gays, which is never far from his lips. He is however blaming us for evilly sneaking "indoctrination" text books in to California's public school system.

You see the global warming precedents that we're seeing now in the form of severe storms and extreme weather, aren't really caused by that lefty conspiracy global warming. No, it's because there are new text books in California schools non-judgemental of gays. Oh the humanity!

Swanson caught my attention some time ago when he did a sermon at an event during the presidential election campaign where Rubulican candidates shared the stage with him and spoke at the event. The sermon called for gays to be killed because the bible.

During that event he also preached that if he had a son who got gay married he'd turn up at the wedding dressed in sackcloth and ashes and covering himself with cow shit. And he reckons gays are sick and evil :s

 

Auckland NZ 35yrs ago and today (my pics compared to daughters)

So my daughter is still in Auckland with her husband and has taken pictures out and about there. She's been emailing me what they're going to be up to and I've sent her the odd scanned picture that I took about 35 or so years ago and she's sent back a couple of identical ones taken today by her

This first one is my old photo from the early '80's at the top of Mount Eden, which is an extinct small volcano with a crater in the middle, all grassed over now of course. When I lived in Auckland they used to graze sheep on it but I don't know if they still do, although I do see the sheep trails in the crater.

*click to enlarge

And this is the one she took today. Notice how the city centre has grown over the decades.

This next one is from the top of Mount Eden looking south east to One Tree Hill in the distance, another volcanic activity thing also extinct. Despite the oldness of the picture and the wonders of today's image filtering programmes you can actually make out the one tree on top of it, which has been a major Auckland landmark. Hence the name One Tree Hill.

And here is my daughter's picture she took today from about the same spot. Notice that some asshole has chopped down the one tree on top so it's no longer there (some sort of racial protest against whites/Pakehas over it being the wrong sort of tree FFS). The tree underwent two chain saw attacks, one in 1994 which it survived, but the second one in 2000 was fatal and it had to be chopped down.

They went out on the harbour today over to Auckland's north shore Devonport and she took a photo of their harbour bridge. Of course Sydney siders refer to the thing as a "mechano set" after the Sydney harbour bridge over here :) 

 

Latest image from Jupiter spacecraft Juno

This one is the newest to be processed from the Juno spacecraft in it's latest flyby of Jupiter, the image taken on Dec 16th 2017. At a height of 13,000 kilometres above, this is from the northern hemisphere. Amazing colours and swirls generated by Jupiter's extremely turbulent clouds. 

I'm continually amazed by what this Juno spacecraft is accomplishing and sending back to earth. If only such human success could be replicated in humanity across the globe. If only we could all see beyond our tiny planet and realise just how tiny, petty, and insignificant our squabbles with each other really are. 

The above is just the thumbnail. You can download the full image file here. 

Why does the gov want to keep secret submissions to religious freedom review?

So the gov has decided that submissions made to the religious freedom review will not be made public, in a major departure from process and their claim of an "open gov". This is a serious concern. 

For the review to have an credibility at all requires transparency. To have the submissions kept secret would give the impression of a star chamber making decisions about our lives without us having any idea of what input they had to come to that decision. It's no secret that winding back anti-discrimination laws in Australia are aimed squarely at us LGBT who have dared to gain marriage equality, thus sparking the review. The far right bitter and twisted gov christians have their feathers flying all over the place in a great flap. What they tried on in parliament to put discrimination against us into law over marriage equality they will be trying on in the review into religious freedoms. 

LGBT aren't even represented in this inquiry, but of course the churches are. This will have an impact on our lives if the churches get their way and we're not even supposed to see the process? No representation and a secret process? Bullshit!

Honestly this is the most homophobic anti-gay gov I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing. They're at war with us, clinging to their pitiful religion of paedophilia and self serving secrecy to protect them. The state should be taking away some of their religious freedom to be an autonomous law to themselves, not expanding them to inflict pain on a vulnerable minority. 

BTW you can read my submission here as I put it online when I made it as a matter of course.

LGBT advocates are now calling for transparency:

LGBTI advocacy group just.equal has called for the religious freedom inquiry led by Philip Ruddock to make its submissions public. 

The call was made in response to news this week that the submissions will not be published. 

 “It’s vital that the Ruddock inquiry adopt the conventional process for publicly releasing submissions if its findings are to have any credibility,” said just.equal spokesperson Ivan Hinton-Teoh. 

“The misuse of religious freedom to justify discrimination is an important issue for many LGBTI Australians and we have a right to know what different interest groups are influencing our federal government. 

 “It is the height of hypocrisy for an inquiry into freedom of religion, conscience and speech to keep its submissions under wraps. 

“It is astonishing that the Turnbull government would make submissions secret when this review could entirely re-shape Australian anti-discrimination law. 

 “It begs the question, what has the government got to hide?” Star Observer 

Daughter and husband on holiday in New Zealand (pics)

*click to enlarge

They're having a week or so in Auckland. They went to Auckland zoo and of course saw Kiwi's. Would be very interesting for her as she's never been there (although heard a lot about it) but it's where I'm from. I lived in Auckland for about two years before moving to Sydney in the '80's.

 

Gov & media bashing welfare recipients - Angry Aussie (video)

If you're as sick to death of this gov dragging out the welfare recipient bashing lines over and over (the latest one this last week in cohouts with a compliant right wing media parroting their lines) then you will like this video. Angry points out the bleeding obvious, as only Angry can :)

Given the drumming both the main stream media and the gov received on social media online, my guess is that most Australians are sick of it too, particularly only a matter of days since the report was released that one third of large companies in Australia pay no tax at all.

Australia has one of the lowest pension rates in the OECD, and the dole is absurd at being 30% below the poverty line and completely unsurvivable on. Over 40% of us on the DSP live below the poverty line. David and I have been forced to get by with drawing financial hardship money once a year out of our super. After rent we probably have only $12-13k for everything else for the year without that, between the two of us. How about the gov do something about bloody affordable housing  instead of bashing us at every opportunity?

Thirty yrs in full time printing, hard physical labour before I got sick. I've worked harder than any of the politicians in Canberra bagging me right now.

 

OECD Chart: Social spending, Public, % of GDP, 2016https://t.co/sU56ZSgQJr

— Peter Hiv (@HivPeter) January 3, 2018

 

Should all Australian states have a big Telsa battery? (video)

That's the question being asked now with the huge initial success of the world's biggest battery in South Australia assisting power production on the existing grid.

A big slap in the face for the federal gov as the states go it alone on renewables, proving that renewables are cheaper, clean, more reliable, and faster than fossil fuel power. The thing was up and running in less than 100 days, how long would it have taken to build a coal fired power plant for example?

Tesla’s enormous battery in South Australia is only weeks old, but it’s already responding to power outages in record time.@BenOquist says it’s ‘one of the big success stories of 2017’ pic.twitter.com/AbsdtvkKvt

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) January 1, 2018