Monday, 22 December 2025

Why the poms lost the Ashes

 gosh where do I start.

Batting.

Few of the batsmen has been to Australia before. In England and other coun tries where bounce is problematic you can get away with hit the ball on the up and not moving your feet. Not here. Moreover if the ball is on the 5th or 6th stump you either move your stance to off stump or ignore the deliveries. You only play deliveries to a left arm bowler who rarely moves it into you that are short outside the off stump or full or on the hip on the leg stump. Take lots of singles which bowlers hate and just hit bad balls to the boundary.

Remember bowlers  need a good rest between innings. If you are quick then bowl quick!!!

Bowling.

If batsmen are susceptible to short balls and all of our batsmen are then only bowl a short ball sparinglingly. Make the batsman think each ball is short and so play off the back foot to full  length balls.

Opening bowlers have to swing the ball in australia because the useless kookaburra ball stops swinging after 20/30 overs. If a batsman uses a cross batting stroke then it is usually because it is a bad ball.

Preparation.

If most of your squad have not been out here before you need a few matches as experience counts for more than 'advice'. They have to understand pitches are usually faster and bouncier out here. You also  need a proper spinner.


I have never been so disappointed by a team out here as the poms do have talent.  Just look at how Brook and smith got out in the second innings in Adelaide.

Sunday, 21 December 2025

Chris Minns is a major disappointment

 Chris Minns seems to be getting a lot of positive headlines. He says the same things as albo but he gets cheers but Albo gets jeers.

However minns is a knee jerker Albo is not.

Remember the Caravan of explosives. I said at the time it was likely a hoax  and If I could see it why could not minns? instead he panicked and pushed through legislation which was not needed.

Now he is doing three things poorly.

He is associating pro-palestinian rallies with the bondi massacre. ( so is Jillian Segal !) A few problems here. Firstly the marches were peaceful. Second the marches had to do with the genocide Israel was imposing on innocent palestinians.  The terrorists were highly influenced by ISIS. ISIS has killed more muslims than any other people of a religion. They regard any muslim that does not accept their version of islam as an apostate and hence deserving of death. Their version is a bad version of Sunni islam. The Palestinians are either shia muslims or christians. Hence ISIS has never cared about the palestinians or their cause. It is not patently absurd to associate the two events it is profoundly ignorant.

He is banning globalise the intifada phrase. Hang on the intifada or uprising is about palestinians protesting about the injustice in palestine. Stealing the land amongst other things which they are still doing even now in the West bank. The intifada can only occur in a specific geographic area hence globalise the intifada can only mean spreading the message of the intifada and thereby gaining world wide support for the cause. Again it patently absurd to associate this with the bondi massacre. It is also profoundly ignorant.

Lastly he is allowing people to possess four firearms. that is far too many. I fail to see how anyone but a farmer needs more than one weapon.

Minns is again making a knee jerk reaction with out thinking or research into the matter.

Thursday, 18 December 2025

Around the Traps 19/12/25

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk


Wednesday, 17 December 2025

There is no relationship between the pro-palestinian protests and the massacre

 I am getting sick of hearing , sometimes from the usual suspects , that the massacre was partly due to the pro-palestinian protests. 

Firstly it is only the two gunmen that are responsible for the 16 deaths. Trying to tie albo to it is despicable

Secondly the two gunmen were clearly 'inspired' by ISIS. despicable. Thus we can confidently conclude two things. This has nothing to do with any events in Gaza as ISIS has no affinity with palestinians and ISIS has always wanted to kill jews simply for  being jews. This evil event was clearly well  planned. I for example had no idea that jews met at bondi beach for hanukkah.. I said yesterday if the police or indeed jews  had any idea of what could eventuate. There would have been a demand for more police and experienced police at that.

Thirdly the protest against the Israeli government actions in Gaza had nothing to with the massacre. It is an entirely different subject and of course has nothing to do with jews here unless they defend the Israeli government's behaviour. Just remember you would not be able to differentiate them in such a crowd thus the gunmen would not know even if they 'cared'.

People need to settle down and take the emotion out of the problem.

Fourthly NO anti-semitic program would have stopped this  murder spree.

Fifthly terrorist attacks only occur by definition when they can get past the security's forces guard. If that occurs the government of the day can hardly be at fault.

Lastly a lot of the so-called anti-semitic incidents were:

  • organised by a criminal trying to get a good plea deal
  • organised by Iran
  • criticism of Israel
When you take these out the incidents are a lot less

There is understandably a lot of emotion around at the moment and it leading to a lot of silly statements.

Tuesday, 16 December 2025

reflections on bondi beach and other matters

 I am sick and tired of hearing people say they 'knew' the bondi beach massacre was coming. really. Why didn't these people protest there were only two coppers at the function? Why didn't they change the venue?

I will give those people who attended a leave pass as they are still in grief but not people who yanks would say  are being monday morning quarterbacks!  No-one but no-one expected this. Our security forces did not expect this and that is their job!

No amount of countering ant-semitism would have prevented this. The two killers were bent on murdering jews. They were 'helped' in this regard by ISIS propaganda. They were in other words always going to attempt tp murder jews. Just remember a lot of the anti-semitic behaviour was perpetrated by a criminal who wanted to get a better deal and Iran. Take both of those away and you really do not have a lot unless you include criticising Israel's criminal behaviour.

Give thanks to John Howard there two murders did not have semi-automatic weapons. If they had the number killed would have been ten times the number.

People are still conflating anti-semitism with criticism of Israel. When I hear that the burning of the Israeli flag should be made a criminal offence. sorry if I am in a demonstration against a  nation perpetrating genocide burning their flag is something I would expect.


I wonder if the Israeli PM ever cogitates on whether his behaviour and his government's behaviour has exacerbated anti-semitism across the world.

Two students were murdered at Rhode Island. This was another tragedy. Vance issued a statement on the white christian girl but not  of the young muslim man.

Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered by his son. Who could forget Spinal Tap, when Harry met Sally or a few good men. Trump issued a despicable rant on the man in yet another example of his senility.

A terrible week for mankind

Monday, 15 December 2025

the Bondi beach massacre part 11

 Here are some good articles on the topic.


Can I note a few things.
  1. The hero is a syrian immigrant possibly muslim. Do people want to deport him.
  2. The  murderers had a ISIS flag in their car. The son we know had friendship with ISIS leadership here in Australia. ISIS HATES jews. They have little support for palestinians.
  3. There is thus far NO evidence this had anything to do with Israel's behaviour in Gaza.
  4. Criticism of Israel is NOT anti-semitism although the Israeli government regularly tries to conflate the two
  5. Australia clearly needs to update its gun laws

If I can offer some advice to some. D not have any pro-palestinian rallies until this dreadful offence dies down. Yes the two issues are not related few people will see the nuance.

Sunday, 14 December 2025

The Bondi beach massacre

 I got into my car last night and instead of listening to my music I put on the radio and on newsradio expecting to hear the BBC world service. Instead I heard the locals reporting on a shooting in which ten had been killed at that time.

This was an evil act. To do it it necessarily means the killers have deliberately not recognised their humanity.

First a few things.

  • We do not have any evidence to say it was a terrorist attack. It may well turn out to be but as yet the authorities have not produced any evidence. Remember the Lindt cafe was a terrorist attack yet it wasn't!
  • A father and son were involved. They knew about a hanukkah celebration at bondi beach which i had no idea about.
  • We have no idea of the motive. It may involve retaliation about Israeli government killing of palestinians, it maybe just pure old fashioned hatred of jews.
Clearly a lot of people who want to criticise the government for not doing anything have no idea of what they should do, they just need to do something.

If the pair have killed people for Israeli government actions then they are merely copying them. They are killing innocent people for something they have nothing to do with.

Thursday, 11 December 2025

Around the Traps 12/12/35

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 10 December 2025

The Fed fiercely disagree with the RBA

 Take two countries. Each have a trimmed mean inflation rate of over 3% with no falling trend as yet.

One country ,Australia, leaves rates on hold and waits on data.

The Other, USA, cuts rates again. This is very strange unless you are very confident the Supreme court will not allow trump to use tariffs!

This decision makes it easier for companies to raise prices when costs rise instead of becoming more efficient. It is sort of Burns lite

Tuesday, 9 December 2025

The RBA is not being conservative.

 Yesterday the RBA governor ruled out any interest rate cuts in 2026.  This is getting into Phillip Lowe territory. She might be right however she might be wrong. We are in unsure territory as I emphasised yesterday. The Latest quarterly CPI number might well be a rogue number. It may not. We won't know for a while. The new CPI series will have operating problems before it is smooth.

It makes sense to leave rates where they are given all the uncertainty. Ruling out any cuts next year only means you are very certain of the data. Given how wrong the RBA (and the rest of us) have been this year this is very courageous of the RBA. I might note most business surveys have inflation falling still.

Let us assume that the CPI numbers come back to what we thought pre-quarterly release. Then rates could fall but only to 3.25% which is the neutral rate.

Monetary policy is mildly contractionary whilst fiscal policy is mildly expansionary.

Data will be all  important next year and the RBA won't know more than anyone else.

It will be an interesting year.

Monday, 8 December 2025

Alas the market has no memory

 You know you are getting long in the tooth when you remember things that people in the market are to young to remember.

Prior to the last quarterly CPI number everyone was expecting further rate cuts. However that result was bad. One warning no-one saw it coming. suddenly people hopped onto the rare rises bandwagon.

The new expanded monthly CPI serries came out and seemingly confirmed bad inflation data. The full series does not go back very far and it is a new series.

In the  past we have had rogue CPI numbers. Just ask Glenn Stevens. He experienced not one but two!! New series always experience problems sometimes few sometimes more.

Either way we need to be quite wary and thus the RBA has to be conservative. Hence today the only responsible decisions is to leave rates where they are. Mildly restrictive.

The pint here is we do not know where rates are going yet. We do need more information. Rates may well rise but they could also fall

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Sport

 the Ashes

The test went as I thought it would. Stokes is a very good captain but just not now. He should be opening the bowling not atkinson. Have the ball swing two different ways from two ends. Their batting which should be their strength is their weakness, Harry Brook personifies this. He is the best batsman on either side yey no bowler gets him out. He gets himself out.

Why is Archer bowling his highest speeds when the test is almost over? How can Carse bowl at 98 mph is NZ but can't get anywhere near 90 mph here is OZ? 

They take two quick wickets and have only the tial to go and then take the new ball yet Atkinson bowled faster than Archer huh?

If the Poms can't get fair dinkum they are looking at a 5-0 defeat!


Football

We are not in a group of death and can make the next stage IF we play well ( which we haven't in the last two games). Poppa id usually a good coach in a tournament and if our promising young players improve we are a chance. We shall see. We do  need a fit Harry Souter back however.

Thursday, 4 December 2025

Around the Traps 5/12/25

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mostly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 3 December 2025

GDP was okay

 Before I start here are two comments on the GDP release:

Strong investment growth, the forth rise in productivity, strong growth in housing, the private sector taking over the reins of growth all give the right signs. However CBA research says we are fast approaching the speed limit of the economy which is a problem.

This means we need more investment fast.

We shall see how good this government is and whether they understand the problem

Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Russia/Ukraine 'peace' talks

 I do not have much hope here.

The first 28 point 'peace plan' was clearly drawn up by Russia. this was stopped in its tracks by europe as it should have been.

Putin thinks he is in a strong position. He isn't. Ukraine have shown up dramatic weaknesses in russian defence forces. His tanks he thought were the best in the world have been shown to be anything but. His missile defence systems have also been shown up as well. His economy is in a mess. It is getting worse as ukraine attack oil refineries and thus curtail oil supplies.

However his lies to Witkoff are taken in holus bolus. since he has deliberately taken no state department research or personnel one can understand why he is such a wood duck.

Given all this I would suggest there is only one solution. Give Ukraine enough resources to BEAT Russia.

When that occurs encourage russia to be part of the Western world!