Wednesday, 21 January 2026

The coalition in a pickle

 Wow, three members of the national party who are also in the shadow cabinet thought after shadow cabinet agreed to the new hate laws thought they could vote against the laws.

See  Michelle Grattan


The essence of cabinet government is once cabinet agrees to something all members of cabinet vote that way otherwise you would have anarchy!
 The Nationals want it both ways. It aint possible.
Why then are the National party reacting thus. Maybe because of THIS

The One Nation surge is coming at the expense of the coalition.  They appeal to uneducated, low income regional voters so if this surge stays it is the Nationals who are in trouble rather than the Liberals. The Liberals cannot embrace one nation policies as it would mean losing more seats to teals.
What is interesting is what occurs to preferences. See Kevin Bonham. Just imagine a regional seat where the contest is between the ALP, Liberals, Nationals and one nation. Let us now imagine the ALP preferences flow to the lib.They overtake the national and it becomes a contest between the lib and one nation. How many national preferences would flow to the lib. what a pickle!

I think it is far too early to speculate on these things BUT the Nationals actions means the LNP vote should not recover in the short term.

Is Albo having a Menzies moment?

Tuesday, 20 January 2026

The security forces are most likely not at fault

 Alas too many people are blaming albo for the bondi massacre which is clearly absurd. Some twits like Minns are associating it with the pro-palestinian protests which on present information would be absurd as well and totally ignorant.

If the terrorist's were highly influenced by ISIS and believed in a palestinian state then they would be all over the place in terms of ideology. Just remember they are in possession of a video from the living terrorist and thus far we have heard nothing meaning it tells us very little.

The murderers were lone wolves and lone wolves are very hard to detect. They used very little if any social media making it so much harder to detect. Finally no-one had a clue about their obvious fanatical beliefs. Neither the wife, relatives or close friends.

In other words it would have been next to impossible to stop the massacre!

In the past preventing any incident has been relatively easy for ASIO and other agencies as the people concerned were idiots and easy to detect. Not so here and the two people were not highly educated. The massacre was highly planned and researched.

One obvious answer to this sad incident is for the authorities to rely more on old fashioned intelligence. This is highly labour intensive and would need 'snouts' that have great discernment. They would need to understand islam intimately for a start.They would thus need to know which preachers are leading towards violence and who are people who believe in their teachings. 

It is all hard yakka but necessary.


Monday, 19 January 2026

More on australian Polity

 It is stil la big pickle.

Security forces

Up until bondi the security forces has saved us from a major terrorist incident. ( no the Lindt cafe was NOT a terrorist incident.)  This is mainly because the alleged terrorists were idiots. It is not hard to stop things occurring when the people are stupid!

We still know little about bondi. There is apparently a video on the survivor's phone saying something about bondi however we do not know whether it is in vague general terms or specific. Given nothing has been said I suspect it is the former.

We do know the security forces believe both father and son were strongly aligned with ISIS. This incident was well planned and they did not tell anyone of their 'religious' understanding of the koran and other documents. since they are poorly educated and the father was from India it is unlikely they knew much arabic. They also were off the grid having little to no social media and were lone wolves. given the father was not a mad islamic terrorist or had views that way when he came and neither did the son when ASIO examined him their belief structure appears to be recent. Whether it was slow in forming or was sudden we have NO idea.

Hence it is not surprising our forces knew little about them or could stop their murderous actions.

Hopefully Richardson and the RC can assist us in this.


LNP

If albo and the government were slow as a wet weekend on this matter the Opposition have been all over the place. They wanted parliament to be open before christmas and legislation passed. But now things are running too fast. We need time apparently to study any legislation. Huh

Hate speech 

This will need very careful wording. I see some people not agreeing quoting from a religious text should not be exempt Hmm picking on the Koran although it is satanic, brings up a load of problems. If you can say something is hate speech from scripture for example then can a pastor talk about homosexulaity in a sermon? most importantly it would v be viewed as picking on muslims and thus could exacerbate islamic radicalisation.

Also what exactly is hate. Defining that like anti-semitism will be very important.You do not want to lower the standard to bring in unthought consequences.

Polling

Kevin Bonham writes a great column concerning one poll. well worth a read. IF One Nation continues to poll well this will be a major consideration.  If you are going to vote for an idiot I would rather Jackie Kelly than Pauline Hanson. although both have constant with others Jackie never has a svengali behind her!

Sunday, 18 January 2026

OZ Politics in a pickle

 Oh dear what is happening.

Adelaide writers festival

A highly distasteful Palestinian writer was barred from the festival. She made an almighty fuss which led to the festival being cancelled. Most invited people said no thanks to the festival.

Now I have little time for the aggrieved writer. She supported the murderous killings on October 7. Just remember no-one knows whether those murdered supported Israeli actions or not . We do know several actually supported palestinian rights!!  what also gets on my goat is she wanted thomas Friedman disinvited from a previous festival. Hypocrite!!

Despite that She should have been allowed to be there. Idiots are allowed to espouse their nonsensical views in a democracy I hope.  They merely show they are an idiot.

The Premier who is easily the best in the country had some shine taken off him from this incident.

Fallout from the bondi massacre

Where do we start. 

If you think antisemitism is on the rise then show it but beware. 

  •  It will be artificially heightened by a criminal attempting to do a deal with authorities. Re caravan with explosives where Minns was shown to be anc absolute goose and wood duck.
  • Iran artificially increased the numbers 
  • criticism of the Israeel i government artificially increases the numbers. Indeed the said government put out a report on anti-semitism which essentially included only criticism of the government. Little mention of neo-nazis!!
  • NSW police included incidents against muslims in their anti-semitism numbers
You need to start with a decent definition of anti-semitism. 'Our' envoy could not and criticism of the Israeli government was included in the defintion she used.given her background this was to be expected.

Both the terrorists were said to be highly influenced by ISIS if not disciples of the organisation. ISIS does not give tuppence about the palestinian cause. That is because they are either Shia muslims or christian. Thus they are either heretics or apostates.Both 'worthy' of death.

Bozos like Minns or THIS article conflate the killings and post october 7 demonstrations. Unless the murders held contradictory views then the conflation is sheer ignorance or racist tripe.

Others want to clamp done on muslim immigration. Again  it is the sane thing. The father came here and married a white european who was NOT a muslim. does that sounds like someone in the ISIS camp? I hear time and time again problems of Lebanese and Gazan immigration. Only general mind you never specific. See above for problems for believing all muslims are the same.
Austraalia, like all Western nations made it harder to not only immigrate but visit nations after 9/11.

There is also comments on social media. Previous 'terrorist' attempts in Australia were easily stopped. The people involved were idiots.
We doo not know much in this instance but it appears to have been well planned. Not only that but everyone was shocked by their actions. The wife. their close friends, their family in India. Thus they did not use social media and they were lone wolves making it very hard for security forces to know what they were planning.

I do not mind a RC BUT only after Richardson has done his work and most importantly we know what definition of anti-semitism they will use

Thursday, 15 January 2026

Around the Traps 16/1/26

 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, 14 January 2026

hopefully the last word on the minnesota killing

 I am getting very annoyed at some of the mis-information coming out of the this.

Fact 1. 

SHe had earlier put her daughter into day care and was coming back to where she lived in support of whomever ICE was targeting.

Fact 2.

Her cat was parked ( with engine on) ALONGSIDE an ICE SUV. IF she was impeding traffic so was ICE BUT only a minute before she had waved an ICE past her. THUS no impeding was occurring.

Fact 3.

THe ICE agent who killed her moved around her vehicle filing all of it on his phone. HE had her registration plate details.

Fact4.

The ICE agent moved in front of the vehicle, even though the motor was running, in strict ignorance of ICE protocols.

Fact 5.

SHe reverses her car and we see from his phone she is turning hard right. If his camera captures that he can be hardly ignorant of this.

Fact 6.

His gun is out of the holster when she reverses. His phone is in his left hand and his gun in is right hand.

Fact 6.

He shoots her three times. Again shooting a person in a car is against ICE protocols. The 2nd and 3rd shots cannot be because he was worried she would hit him with her car.


Thus far we have no evidence she hit him, there is a suggestion she touched him BUT we do know he was not injured in any shape or form.

The statement by the deputy AG does not pass the pub test and given the FBI and Justice departments immediately stopped any cooperation with local law enforcement it is entirely reasonable to conclude they want to hide something.

Why is there so much antagonism towards ICE.

My guess is because

  • ThEy are the only people to wear masks and have no identification.
  • They have had little training and are poor at their job. They escalate trouble not reduce as in this example.
  • They have no idea of the law and often disobey it.
  • They have been caught lying many times. They do know about smart phones surely.
  • They ask anyone for identification without having any reasonable cause to do so.


Tuesday, 13 January 2026

Noah on fire

 Noah Smith who writes noahpinion ( get it) has a fantastic column entitled gangster-affordability.

It is one of the best pieces on how the Trump administration operates!

Monday, 12 January 2026

Trump is playing with fire

 The announcement by Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, that he is the recipient of grand jury subpoenas is very bad news  for both the US and world economy.

This goes back to to allegations regarding renovations of a fed building. If you remember well the news conference showed Powell knew more about spreadsheets about buildings than a former property developer!!  Trump was shown as a fool.

Attempting to remove a Fed chair for extremely specious reasons will not end well. Just remember property developers even alleged ones always want lower interest rates! Trump's hand picked member wants to cut them by 50 basis points. That is only the first step. Cutting rates and ignoring inflation data will only raise inflation and then they will be reluctant to raise them when it is needed. We have seen this before. Arthur Burns. Se HERE and HERE for two explanations.

If companies see an easy monetary policy then they will increase prices to boost profits hit by tariff measures. Employees will want larger wage rises to compensate for the increase in inflation. 


It would take years for the Fed to regain the respect of the markets! This may involve a recession. Just ask Paul Volker.

If have a convicted criminal with limited intelligence then this is what you get. A wannabe dictator

Whoopsy this is done under Pirro who cannot indict a ham sandwich literally!! Perhaps confected smoke and no fire at all.

Okay why the  muted market reaction. My guess is the pushback. Perhaps the thinking is the senate will not approve any future trump candidates. however we must not forget Lisa Cook!  I have no confidence in the corrupt Supreme court

Sunday, 11 January 2026

Minnesota and a few other things

 The killing in minnesota was disgraceful.

Let us just go through it. The lady in question is calm and says she is not mad with ICE. The ICE agent photos the licence plate amongst other things which the lady's partner say fine. We do not mind or words to that effect. There is no attempt to get her out of the car not arrest her. She is not impeding ICE. She waves an ice car past her only minutes before this incident . There is aa ice car parked right next to her car. She has the car on so can drive at any time if asked. The agent in question has a phone in one hand and a gun in the other when she reverses. He already has her registration number so has all the information he requires.

If she wanted to hit him she would accelerate towards him not reverse! The agent is ready to shoot as she reverses and shoots as she moves right which is not where he is! He shoots three times. Why? The 2nd and third shots are made for on reason at all!! He then calls her an effing bitch showing his state of mind.

For a man who is a 10 year veteran three questions should be asked.

  1. no-one but no-one gets in front of a car whose engine is running. Why
  2. Why did he get his gun out as no-one else did.
  3. Why di he shoot. This is extremely dangerous to other people.
He performed as a person who has little training if any. Why? Is he suffering from another incident or incidents. ICE procedures are problematic.

If you think she was trying to kill him you need to go to specsavers  It is clearly 1984.

Noah Smith ,god bless him, has just written on this. It is almost everything i wish I could do. Read it!!

Whoopsy. I should have mentioned how DHS lies about arrests and their actions. Judges have even chastised them. A number of arrests have been aborted when CCTV has shown up which showed the complete opposite of what occurred. The department and officers seem not to know peoples phones now are cameras

Venezuela does not have a lot of oil reserves at present. Their oil is poor quality etc   Trump is ill informed as usual. Very few oil companies will want to invest there for this very reason.

How in the hell could he do anything about what is happening in Iran? Just exactly what would he do? I don't think he has any idea.

Saturday, 10 January 2026

joe cocker

 Hmm,

I am sol old I can remember Clyde Cameron deporting Joe Cocker and his band from australia for smoking pot!


Here he is at woodstock and doing a beatles song far better than they ever could!!




Thursday, 8 January 2026

Around the Traps 9/1/26

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, 7 January 2026

Inflation still a problem

 the new  monthly CPI was released yesterday.

The good news is the annual rate slowed somewhat. The bad news is that the trimmed mean was still too high. annualise 0.3% and you get a high figure this I disagree with Greg Jericho.

However let us first add in a caveat. It is a new series. There will be problems to start with. They maybe large but more probably small and we won't know this ex-ante only ex-post !

I think we have enough information to say we do not have a number of outliers.

We have a problem of potential GDP growth as Mark the Graph points out. CBA economic research agree with him ( or is it vica versa).

Jim Chalmers is in an invidious  position.

Tuesday, 6 January 2026

the 'pink' test

 On every sydney test I get very frustrated.

I ask why the McGrath foundation has such very high administrative costs.

It appears no journalist is aware of this because McGrath has never had to explain this.

It could well be there is a good reason for this BUT until I hear it I will not donating a penny

Monday, 5 January 2026

the A-League

 I went to watch the Wanderers against MacArthur on news years evening.

Alas it was a poor game. Well we are running second last. replacing a striker with a central defender at half time down 0-1 di not make sense to me.

There was a lack of creativity in the midfield from both teams. Both teams were far too slow when turnovers occurred. The wanderers strategy on corners left me baffled. A player who is not left-footed took the corners on the right side that meant everyone knew would be a short pass to a colleague who usually stuffed things up.

However having said all that the last 10-15 minutes were very exciting where we could and should have scored two or three goals.

I have said many a time we have two major problems in the A-League.

  1. the quality of the coaches.
  2. the lack of young promising players and the reliance of older players way past their peak

Thursday, 1 January 2026

Around the Traps 2/1/26 News Years edition

 It is time for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

  • too much christmas cheer

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk