Thursday, 11 September 2025

Around the Traps 12/9/25

 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 ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox wonk

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

okay even more of some more things

 Birthday Card

Trump is now saying Epstein and then his estate kept a birthday card even though it was a fake. funny how the signature look like his. I have said previously I do not believe trump dealt in illegal conduct here but there must be more embarrassing stuff there for all the bulldust coming out of the whitehouse. his apologists are even worse!

Israel

Israel bombs a building in Doha because they believe members of Hamas was there. Please note this attempted assassination was because they gloated over october 7. This is sooo against international law it is not funny. 
Also and this is most important there will be no more talks of getting the hostages back.

Nepal

Nepal is hit by large demonstrations. firstly it was about the banning of several social media sites. It has now morphed into anti-government protests about corruption. Quite a few people have died how this will work out no-ne seems to know. Lets hope it ends in a good solution.

some might call this nepalling

Socceroos

The younguns got a run and played well. They passed well, ran into position well and finished well. And we have a specialist freekick taker who is deadly from 30 yards out!  We have yet to test some of the other young players so the ffuture is looking bright thus far.

Ange

big ange has taken over at Nottingham Forest. I think this is a great fit. The team should really enjoy playing Angeball however the only problem is what are the metrics for success. both ange at Spurs and the last NF Manager thought they had good seasons yet both got sacked!

Japan

Japan is looking for a new PM. although Japan is a 'democracy' the party governing rarely changes which is a very bad thing. hopefully this might change.

Grand Juries

M/s Pirro the DA there now in Washington has been denied an indictment by grand juries 7 times. the most famous case being the sandwichman. This has also occurred a few times in LA. This is unheard of in practice and shows how incompetent the DOJ has become under trump

Monday, 8 September 2025

some more couple of things

 Mushroom murders

Two things that have never been resolved. under cross examination the murder showed she was quite intelligent. however the murders were done by a complete moron. It di not take a lot of investigation.

The actual crime led to very painful deaths so the murder would have hated the victims with a passion but it appears the complete opposite was the case.

something is not computing

Senator Price

I have always thought she was vastly over-rated. If Sky after dark think you are a superstar then head for the hills! James Massola puts some meat on the bone that Price is hopeless. She won't apologise and she blames the ABC

US Supreme court

Just when you think they cannot get any worse towards Trump they allow racial profiling. Usually you would think an offices would need a reason for you to provide proof of citizenship in any country. Not in the USA!!

France

This country is in a mess. Admittedly Macron created this by have early parliamentary elections. POssibly do it again eh!


Ukraine

Why are some people sooo stupid. Russia has very much upped the ante in their war. Increasing sanctions won't do anything. Giving Ukraine  the weapons to do damage to russia so much that it completely change the cost/benefit analysis is the only thing Putin understands. If the war ends badly for Putin then his tenure as President looks shaky!

Trump

Whoopsy I almost forgot this. The birthday card Trump said he never sent exists. Fancy that.the latest excuse is it is fake because it is obvious Trump did not draw it. Err but he wrote it and signed it.

This merely confirms Trump believes MAGA are all morons who will believe anything he saays.

Sunday, 7 September 2025

A couple of things

 China

A lot of people are worried that China may start a war particularly since the invasion of Ukraine. I am not.

China id now highly integrated in the world economy. It would be very costly to start a war to say invade Taiwan. Any sanctions would hurt China bigtime not to talk about the massive disinvestment by firms there now. It could even lead to the CCP losing power!!

Okay people might point to WW1 where similar conditions in play yet war started. Xi is not as stupid as Trump. He would see all of the original countries were a lot worse off after WW1 finished and he wants to stay in power ( until he dies?)

dictator Dan

Heaps of criticism levelled at former Premier Dan Andrews for attending the ceremony in China. Yeah it was a bit silly BUT what countries were represented and remember Dan di not represent any country.

India, Indonesia, Turkey, Slovakia, Romania etc

Blowing up vessels

The US government decided to blow up a vessel in international waters because they alleged a venezuelan crime gang ( they have renamed a terrorist gang) was attempting to export illegal drugs into the USA.

A few problems

  1. no evidence
  2. the crime gang is not invo9lved in illegal narcotics
  3. there were 11 people on the boat thus reducing the space by a lot of loading any drugs on the boat
Football

We only just beat the Kiwis. It could be Poppa needs more time to develop the youngsters into a team. I hope so however the potential is there. Alas he needs overseas coaches to develop that potential

Saturday, 6 September 2025

Harry Nilsson

The late Harry Nilsson made one of the great albums of all time.

Here is  lime in the coconut


Jump into the fire



Thursday, 4 September 2025

Around the Traps 5/9/25

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussei,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, 3 September 2025

GDP

 Australia's GDP figures were released yesterday. They were okay. consumer spending shot up. housing investment is strong, productivity rose however business investment was weak.

Given GDP has been tepid at best for a while because of higher interest rates this is to be expected. We can only hope investment grows as consumer spending gets stronger.

Two things can be gleaned.

  1. We are past the worst of weak growth figures
  2. interest rates wil lnot fall as much because of this.

Tuesday, 2 September 2025

Stephen Grenville on fire

 Stephen Grenville is a former deputy governor of the RBA and he writes semi-regularly for the Lowy Institute.

His latest column is world-without-economic-hegemon.

It won't take long but will be worth it!

Monday, 1 September 2025

some advice for Sussan Ley

 Okay the LNP are really in a funk. They lost bigtime last election and some people like Barnaby Joyce want to stay there by denying climate change.

Last time Dutton tried to portray Albo as a bad liar. It didn't work.  Albo is no Howard!

Portraying Albo as timid or weak would work BUT only if you are not!!

Thus the question is how to make inroads into the Labor government because their majority is too large and bad for democracy.

I really do not have time to reason why but how about targeting these ministers.

  • Catherine King
  • Amanda Rishworth
  • Michele Rowland
  • Clare O'Neil
  • Anika Wells
  • Andrew Giles
It is much easier to attack Albo if some of his key ministers are not performing. He has low standards, he is weak, he is not decisive etc.   
Over time small victories eventually lead to significant swings. ( This is assuming the coalition eventually have a sane climate policy).
at present the coalition has no idea how to attack the government and they are all over the place. In some ways this is understandable and it will take time to develop policies and a strategy but in the short terms attacking weak ministers id=s a good strategy. However it assumes the shadow ministers are up to the job and that is one mighty big assumption!!