Airbus Albo !

41 Comments

1. Let them work themselves into a lather, the poor precious fuckwits. They’re not used to seeing a PM who seems quietly competent when his predecessor always gave the impression of being just a coarse actor in the role. Scomo was always there for the camera and nothing else.

2. Typical, what else would we expect?
   Albo is busy repairing our international reputation which was totally screwed up by Scummo. Thank goodness.
   You can see the looks of relief on world leader’s faces when they meet him !
   We can just ignore Sky now, they can’t hurt us. Sticks and stones . . . .

3. I spent some time on Sky fb page. It has to be seen to be believed. They certainly bring down the national IQ – and so self-righteously!

4. Maybe he should wash someone’s hair?

5. There were those here who suggested that talk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine was “warmongering”
   It was (apparently) a ploy to allow Morrison to be a “wartime leader”
   On other occasions, authors posted articles minimising Putin’s brutality
   There are no comments along those lines these days.
   Albanese has shown great leadership in supporting Ukraine and in his comments about the risks to Australia from authoritarian regimes

6. The day I see the slimiest so called leader in Australian history fill sandbags or do anything to help the Australian people I will push a peanut from here to Wagga with my nose. I live in NQ. What a breath of fresh air Albo is after the stink of the last 9 years.

7. Sty non news is visual and audible shit, smeared thickly on the subjects who bear it all, slaves to idiocy and willing serfy slaves to stupidity as a gospel. There are some weakminded types who think from the tiny core of their ignorance outwards to a world they fail to observe or comprehend. Who would sit meek and crosslegged on the floor to hear an irritable talking turd?

8. The old Murdoch ploy of divide and conquer.
   Pity noone is listening or watching.
   He is irrelevant and hopefully getting closer and closer to a long stint in hell.

9. Alice through the looking glass craziness. Sometimes I yearn for an IQ test of 100 before anyone can vote. Do listen to the latest ABC Law Report , interview w attorney general Mark Dreyfus. After the obnoxious Porter this man is like light after darkness.

10. I’ll not take my own advice here. Surely the best way of dealing with such banality is to treat it with the contempt it deserves by not dignifying it with a response.

11. Interesting to see how Sky and other media think and use the same techniques as the Kremlin, RT, Fox News, tabloids and misinformation trolls, i.e. (primary school like) ‘whataboutery’….. even the latter was a stretch…..

12. Agreed, Paul Smith,nobody with more than two functioning neurons would watch it.It should be officially designated as a health hazard.It is no more than a freak show populated with halfwitted barkers who have succumbed to their own bullshit.The most ludicrous part of malicious .Murdoch’s empire of trash.

13. Can`t help feeling the Australian taxpayer could be better off if Albo had been permitted to take a look under the carpet at the Zilensky Palace.
    There he could have found evidence of neo-nazi behaviour, and genocide of the Russian Ukrainians in the 2014 + era.
    But would Washington have allowed doubts to be sown about the need to swamp the country with arms, and keep this biffo going?

14. They lost the recent election… They have learned nothing… They will lose the next federal election too and further shrink their representation in parliament.

    … So far, so good for Rupert and his gang, as far as I am concerned…. Keep up the “good stupid” job, they are sending the Liberal party to total annihilation.

15. “Douglas Pritchard July 5, 2022 at 3:33 pm
    Can`t help feeling the Australian taxpayer could be better off if Albo had been permitted to take a look under the carpet at the Zilensky Palace.
    There he could have found evidence of neo-nazi behaviour, and genocide of the Russian Ukrainians in the 2014 + era.
    But would Washington have allowed doubts to be sown about the need to swamp the country with arms, and keep this biffo going?”…

    Hey, Doug, count the alleged crimes of the Kiev-backed “neo-nazi” against the huge (and growing) crimes of Putin and his gang of Russian criminals (do you still regard them as “communists” or are they something else now?)!

16. It is obvious they are really scared by a competent government and, as is their nature anyway, are just compelled to hang shit on them whenever they can. They “born to rule” are so desperate to be back in government (actually back in POWER) they will do anything, no matter how stupid they look doing it. And as we have seen from Lord Voldemort (on education) their tactics will be to use generalisations and wishy washy rubbish to hide their real agendas and trick the voters.
    Albo and his government have been doing so well since the election and it is pissing them off big time.

17. DISINGENUOUS in the extreme.
    Petulant children who will do anything to re establish their chosen ones, any cost in the extreme.

18. Unlike most Australians who have to subscribe to watch Sky News, it is beamed free of charge into Canberra TVs. Very handy when politicians have the sets in their offices tuned into Murdoch’s misinformation chanel where ratbags continuously indoctrinate policy making pollies and their Public Servant hacks. How to win friends and influence those in power?

19. Angus T expects Labor to fix inflation by taking strong measures immediately and for the PM to focus on national and not international. He claimed the LNP left the economy in great shape. The lies continue. He seems to forget the $1T of fed debt and that inflation was already ramping up at the election, spurred on by $ billions of pork-barrelling and NO measures implemented to stop the trajectory.

20. A Backside Poops At 7PM Weeknights on Sky defaecated that the Left was loving revelations that Scotty From marketing was a bully, yet were silent about Kitching. Kitching was one step from One Notion, and did not die from bullying but from a heart attack. It was a factional tiff not bullying.
    Last night’s Four Corners episode had performances by Concietta that were laughable. It was not factional warfare that caused the Liberals to lose the election, even if it contributed, but arrogance and a refusal to listen that caused it.

21. On his first day in office, Biden signed a letter to reenter the United States into the Paris Agreement. He then proceeded on an international tour to restore International relations and repair the damage done by Trump. In the same manner, Albanese is doing the same thing to repair the damage done by Morrison. Two national leaders with a similar strategy to commence forging alliances with previous allies who “didn’t think but knew” Morrison was a sociopathic liar who could not be trusted. Both nation’s leaders thought this was vital work. They did not swan about on a holiday sitting idly on the beach. They restored diplomatic relations and apologised for the last idiot that was given the reigns of power. Comparing all that with Morrison’s holiday is absurd on the level of comparing Trump’s constant Golf excursions with Biden’s frantic work to restore the network of international alliances.

22. Thank you mr Haley and others for thoughtful comments. Re the alleged neo nazism of Ukraine today : there were nazis active there in the 1940s. In one ukranian village for example peasants locked up its Jews in a barn and burnt them to death. As happened too in France and Czechoslovakia. No doubt the counter claim that there are no right wing nationalists in ukraine is nonsense (some in the Azov brigade) . If to be anti Russian equates with neo nazism, however defined, Putin has surely turned most Ukrainians into patriots or nationalists! Some say that president zelensky being Jewish proves how tolerant etc. While this must be true in part, his comedian past as a tv president surely helped also. The extreme right vote at the last election there was tiny, from memory c 2 %. In Russia it is hard to gauge real support for the hard right , but the neoczarist, imperialist, racist brutality of its ruling elite and the use of banned weapons, rapes, plus the indiscriminate murders of its soldiers is clear for the world to see. To talk of looking under the carpet in Kyiv is silly and lacks evidence. Furthermore, if ukraine is to be lambasted for its past, then we must ostracise today other regimes in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North America that obliterated their native peoples or minorities. Russia has a long history of massacres of minorities and others in Ukraine, Poland, etc. One can find over the centuries inter human brutality in most parts of the world. As for sky news, I have never watched it but public and interpersonal publicising of fact finding sites might help reduce its pathetic audience.

23. Yes, various countries have unsavoury, marginal political groups
    And some aren’t marginal. Paris elected a neo nazi mayor during recent years
    Presumably some would have felt Russia should have bombed the city

24. The Australian taxpayer is the one filling the begging bowl that Zilensky holds out during Albo s visit.
But are we confident that he is standing in front of ruins created by Putin, or those created by the Ukrainian army when it was deleting schools that taught Russian, and clocking up 13-14,000 body bags during the war which was well under way before the "special military Intervention".
I don t mind our losing heaps of bucks to the French who rightly pointed out that “the fella from down under”(if you ever questioned how important we are to US?) was responsible for breaking a legitimate contract on the flimsiest of excuses.
    But pouring fuel on a dubious conflict in Europe sparked by gas pipelines and who should control energy over there is right outside our interests in the South Pacific.
    And then fronting at NATO (notice “North Atlantic” bit?) simply as a result of strings pulled in Washington, well……….

25. That looks wrong:-
    But are we confident that Albo has been instructed to stand in front of a ruin created recently by Putin, or a school treated in a similar way by the Ukrainian Army in its project to prevent Russian being taught, as directed by their President “Bring it on” Zilensky.
    Its our funds in the balance, and our reputation.
    I don`t mind…..

26. Douglas Pritchard, pardon the pedantry (no, on second thoughts…), but everywhere I look ‘Zilensky’ is spelt as Zelensky, or sometimes as Zelenskyy, or Zelenskiy.

    But typically and in the majority, Zelensky.

    Does it matter?

    I think so. Would you be happy if every time you were referenced your name was spelt as Pretchard, or Prutchard, Pratchard, Protchard?

    Why consistently misrepresent this man’s name?

    Taking care with how information is handled and expressed is a necessary skill in today’s mad and chaotic information overload environment. More kudos to those who take such care in their expression.

27. Why consistently misrepresent this man’s name?

    Thanks Canguro. My handler tells me that the reason I do it deliberately is something to do with my respect for his performance.
    I know I am expected to show hero status but I have devoted quite a bit of time to pondering how significant leaders make decisions, and who pulls the strings, ( and how its poor bloody infantry that suffers every effing time).
    Putin is interesting, and KGB trained.
    I absolutely respect your pedant inclination, so hope I have your forgiveness

28. Douglas: You have either your tongue firmly planted or lost grip on reality. If you think the Ukraine war and/or its reporting is phony, then you would have to acknowledge that all Albo had to do was “be instructed” to stand in front of a green screen. That way he could be “seen” in front any number of “ruins”, or whatever your conspiracy theory masters consider appropriate, rather than actually visit the Ukraine.

    Have a crack at booking a holiday in Mariupol at any hotel listed by TripAdvisor. Either a) The hotels haven’t the time to answer booking requests or b) they no longer exist. Think you’ll find the right answer is b).

    You might not mind writing an “alternate truth” but I do. Given a high percentage of crap on the internet/social media, I’ve enjoyed the minimal amount at the AIMN and prefer that not change.

    Canguro: How about Prickchard?

29. Fred,
    Tread carefully.
    There are folk, in this country, and maybe on this site, who actually believe some organisations actually work to benefit from the terrible war we see going on in Ukraine.
    How about that? Unbelievable?
    When I shine a torch into these dark places I find its all about that Devil Putin. He just woke up one day, mad as could be.
    But the batteries are wearing out.

30. Douglas: Putin didn’t just wake up mad one day – it has taken the entire time of his meteoric rise to and sustained position at the top of power in Russia for his brain to change to where he thinks he is a modern “Peter the Great”, capable of reunifying the USSR and “entitled” to rule. Have a look at some of the psychiatric profiles of Putin – the brain change is real. Apparently, this is a common problem with despots that have been in power too long (i.e. >10 years). The west effed-up in 2014 when Crimea was “acquired” which has emboldened Putin. He learned his trade of misdirection and war crimes by bombing Russian citizens then blaming Chechnya and using it as an excuse to raze entire cities.

    As for people “who actually believe some organisations actually work to benefit from the terrible war we see going on in Ukraine” are entitled to believe whatever they want as are those that believe the earth is flat or there is an omnipresent god. Show me the evidence and I might give them credence and if overwhelming become a “believer”.

31. Fred,
    It looks like the thought police have had a go at “Art” who put forward some significant facts.
    However shining a light into dark places can have its drawbacks. You are destined for darkness here.
    We lose that delightful sense of wonder that you apparently enjoy, when you pull on a pair of Army boots and realise that someone made a profit out of them.
    And the tank was not sold to the taxpayer at cost.
    It does seem that war is profitable for some, and also keeping Europeans warm over the next winter for others.

32. Even though this is currently a Fred & Doug chat, and admitting upfront I may have the wrong end of the stick in my hands, but re. the question of ‘war being profitable for some’, and … where’s Blind Freddy (the other one, not you, Fred), what function do the armament manufacturers of the world play? The businesses that exist in England, France, Germany, Russia, Australia, the USA; you know them, the world’s largest arms exporters, the 25 largest of which had sales of arms and military services totally around US$360 billion on 2019, up 8.5% over 2018.

    If Blind Freddy were here to have his say, I’d reckon he’d be saying that the reason these business exist and appear to do so well is that there’s a ready and willing market for their products, and they’d be rubbing their collective corporate hands together in glee that there’s hot conflicts being enacted on the planet, because…. punch line … It’s…wait for it… it’s Good For Business.

    Profits are up. Bonuses are up. Shareholders are happy. Just don’t mention the war, the dead and dying, the uncountable misery & suffering, the uncountable cost to infrastructure, the appalling acts committed, the loss of trust in human relations, the hatreds spawned that will last for generations… bad for business – the shareholders don’t like to hear all these nasty facts. Just sanitise the story, talk about the necessity of being ready, of having to have a strong defence force, of the need for modern weaponry. That’ll keep ’em happy, and deeply asleep.

33. Canguro,
    A man with a torch and fresh batteries. The light is refreshing.
    Therefore, if conflicts are good for businesses that are publicly listed, then shares will be available.
    And anyone can buy them, even politicians.
    And they could be the same people who have the benefit of the CIA, or something similar.
    So they could change a “this could happen” situation, to a “make it happen situation”.
    And move lots of redundant machinery around so that contracts for new stuff can be raised.
    I mean this gives “War crimes” a whole new meaning.
    But of course all this is pure conjecture……it would never happen…..would it?

34. Canguro: Feel free to step in. I really cannot be bothered with Douglas as I largely don’t understand what he is on about. I hope the erudite long term readers, who have developed an understanding of his cryptic writing style, challenge him when required.

    “It looks like the thought police have had a go at “Art” who put forward some significant facts” is beyond my comprehension skills. Equally “I mean this gives “War crimes” a whole new meaning” leaves me with the question of: ‘What does give “War crimes” what meaning’? (You need not bother to explain what it means as I don’t care and more importantly really do not need to build an understanding of how he thinks.) I’m used to the dark and always carry a charged phone that doubles as a torch.

    I might have misunderstood “And they could be the same people who have the benefit of the CIA, or something similar. So they could change a “this could happen” situation, to a “make it happen situation”, but I took it to imply that others rather than Putin started the latest war.

    Sure, arms are big business and manufacturers are more than happy to advocate their product to anybody in government/military they can get to listen. Unsurprisingly arms manufacturers like to make a (healthy) profit and they do care about the effects on victims – generally that there is an effect and the greater the better. This is true for both the West and in Russia. It’s a long bow to blame the arms manufactures for the current situation. If our politicians are prepared to go to war then there will always be somebody prepared to make the tools.

    It is worth remembering how the USSR was born – it wasn’t pretty or nice and Putin’s approach to reunification is much along the same line. https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/soviet-role-world-war-ii-realities-and-myths

35. Fred,
    I dodged bombs as a child and went on to read “The prince”, and “Mein Kampf” just to find out why that happened.
    You would not want to listen to my diatribe about war.
    I like reading stuff that makes me think, and will recipricate.
    Plain english….I received what looked like a legitimate comment from “Art” on 7/7 at 14.30, and another 2 minutes later delivering very pertinent news. You did not? it was not mainstream thought.
    It did not appear on the main site, with your, and Canguro`s comments either side.
    I like independant slant in this room and no idea how the site works, but I do know its moderated, and this was maybe deleted?
    Keep thinking, Fred, and look outside the box because this is where the answers may be.

36. A good read, douglas, right down to over easy.
    What irks sky and the rabbottians most is Albo, Wong et al have landed sunny side up.
    ps Just wondering who is Володимир Олександрович Зеленський?

37. Wam, try using Google Translate. It’s quite useful.

    [Ukrainian Cyrillic]: Володимир Олександрович Зеленський = [English]: Volodymyr Oleksandrovich Zelenskyi

38. WAM, Cute, love it. Can`t stand the bastard……

39. Fred, re. ‘ If our politicians are prepared to go to war then there will always be somebody prepared to make the tools.’…. I think that’s the salient point in all of this.

    I’ve been reading Destined for War (Graham Allison), a discussion of the Thucydide’s Trap concept and its relation to the hegemon USA and emergent China; he makes the point again and again that situations such as the one cited create tension in politicians, bureaucrats and other power mongers; tension that leads to emotional disturbance and perturbation, loss of rationality (or second-rating against the powerful emotional reactions of fear, anger, hatred etc. etc), and that these lead in turn to almost inevitable outcomes, viz. live conflict between opposing parties.

    That emotions trump rational thought is an observation as old as recorded history, the Buddha had plenty to say on the subject, as did a raft of sages, mystics and philosophers throughout the following times.

    Gurdjieff, the early 20th C Greek-Armenian teacher, was adamant that ‘civilization’ as we call it is nothing but a thin veneer layered over a savage beast, and easily stripped to reveal the potential cruelty and barbarism that lurks beneath. He used as one of his teaching examples the parable of the coach, horse, coachman and passenger; the coach representing the body, the horse, emotions, the driver, the mind, and the passenger, what we refer to as our ‘I’, our individual and actual self. Using this analogy, we can see that the horse is really in charge, the driver has only marginal control over the horse – which may bolt at any moment, or refuse to move – and the passenger is an ever-changing phenomenon.

    This is, in essence, an apt summary of the human condition, and none of us escape that set of circumstances; not Putin, nor any of the western leaders or any of us, really, unless we take the time and effort to see & try to understand that psychological reality for ourselves and verify its truth. And until we do, we’re just going to keep getting more of the same old same old.

40. Douglas: I am not privy to anything in this thread by “Art”, whether “Street”, “Impressionist”, “Modern”, “Renaissance”, “Cave”, etc. When I look for answers, I never stick to whatever group/echo chamber I am in at the time because most issues exist in a spectrum that usually has a median and an average. Understanding what is in the fringes is useful, however spending one’s entire existence there isn’t. You have my empathy if you grew up experiencing war – chances are that you find war to be abhorrent and pointless, however the same crucible also produces those with a “bring it on” paradigm. Imagine if the Nazis had won the war – it would embolden the RWNJs to seek power. …err wait a second, we are there already.

    Canguro: There is a recurring theme to despotic rulers that embrace war. Either they inherit the reins of power (royalty/feudal or nominated replacement viz. Yeltsin -> Putin) or claw their way to the top using a variety of attributes such as charisma, skullduggery, hard work, coercion, murder, etc. On the way up or when there, surround themselves with “supporters” and implement laws and systems that ensure they remain in power, i.e. imprison all opposition candidates 🙂 Then they go and start a war because… (insert whatever your favorite despotic nut job thinks is good idea).

    The really scary thought is that society at large has become so acclimatised to war that large portions are ambivalent. I clearly remember when John Howard announced that we were going into Iraq as part of “the coalition of the willing” on the basis of “weapons of mass destruction” despite Hans Blix of the UN saying there were none. About 1/4 of the crowd were very upset, another 1/4 thought it was a good thing and the other half didn’t care. It was confronting.

41. The young have always killed living organisms till educated
    For nearly the last 50 years children have been able to play games that kill people. Children see movies that, not only sanctify killing people who ‘deserve’ to die but kill in ‘real’ violence.
    Children see tv news with weapons of war prominent and see them being used against ‘other’ people.
    War holds little fear for us with only virtual experience. We are at the beck and call of those in government, in production and users who gain by war and for whom a huge profit is derived from wars. The profits are so huge that prolonging outweighs ending conflict.
    How many and for how long have the septics had bases in japan and europe?
    June 2, 2022 by Everett Bledsoe
    “There are roughly 750 US foreign military bases; they are spread across 80 nations! After the U.S is the UK, but they only have 145 bases. Russia has about 3 dozen bases, and China just five. This implies that the U.S has three times as many bases as all other countries combined. Quite astonishing if you ask us.”
    Vietnam is a prime example of how christian countries use war. They fought against the french who were driven out by the japanese. They were armed by the septics and drove out the japanese. The septics let the french back in and they lasted 11 years till dien bien phu then, unbelievably, the septics and us stepped in for another 20 years. Then, to appease the public, petulant anti-vietnam sanctions and vilification, for another 20 years.
    ps
    The lying rodent should be exposed every time his name is mentioned.