Watching this whole Djokovic situation unfold has led me to theorise a few things and I’m sure others have thought the same.
To be honest, I don’t care about the Australian Open or the Djokovic thing. The situation seems to be the usual case of no-one taking responsibility and some kind of Dan v Scomo kabuki theatre thing. Rich athletes have been skirting the rules for the last two years at the expense of the plebs. If this wasn’t an election year, I honestly don’t think anyone would have given a fuck if Novak is jabbed or not, and neither do I.
Also ironic that our current China stance has led us to pull a Peng Shuai (sort of). I would not be surprised if the Australian Open is eventually moved elsewhere, given Melbourne is turning into Detroit and fast.
There’s also the refugee angle. Some sob stories about the people locked up in the hotel who have been in detention for years (ie taking the absolute piss out of the visa appeals process and appealing in the courts over and over until they get the answer they want) have been in the press and whatever, I don’t care. Hundreds of thousands of EZFKA units are out of work, broke and have had to put up with all kinds of nonsense since March 2020 and they are now expected to turn on the tears for some country shoppers who refuse to leave.
Yes, I’m harsh on borders but a simple look at France, Germany, Sweden, UK-France channel debacle, Italy-Africa, Greece-Turkey border and the US southern border situation proves my point. Demographics are destiny and EZFKA is headed the same way unless course is averted.
Now for the record, the border situation with COVID has been ridiculous. I could see the initial justification when it first began and we didn’t know what had happened in China. However, as time went on and also as athletes, politicians and billionaires could do as they please it became obvious it wasn’t about health. The interstate border situation is even more stupid and the ban on returning citizens was insane.
The one benefit of the external border closures has been the temporary pause in Australia’s mass immigration ponzi scheme. A temporary interlude from waves of non-skilled third world cannon fodder for the real estate and corporate sectors was turned away for two years. The screaming from the business lobby has been non-stop since the borders closed, and one thing it has done has forced Joe Normie to acknowledge how bad the ponzi scheme is. The borders have re-opened (sort of) and EZFKA Inc eventually got their wish.
How many will want to come back is the question. I’d say a fair few as normal but nowhere near 2019 levels. Our international reputation is trashed, a lot of businesses employing slave labour have been wiped out and international students were left hung out to dry during the closures (which I didn’t have a problem with at all and they should have just gone home).
Now, more to the point. In my opinion, the Djokovic situation is a distraction from other things that are happening in EZFKA right now.
The supply chain shortage is starting to squeeze and it’s not just toilet paper this time. Meat and fresh produce is really affected in multiple states. How long this goes on for no-one knows, but I would hazard a guess it will be rolling shortages until March at least. Part of this appears to be from testing and isolation requirements and partly border and freight issues (the AdBlue thing and several important international flight routes like Hong Kong are closed). Throw inflation on top of that pile.
The psycho-in-Chief Minister Michael Gunner has locked the unvaccinated out of society from last Thursday as well as yet another lockdown in the NT. An egregious human rights breach, but that hasn’t mattered since 2020 so it’s not surprising. I would expect the same to come to other states shortly.
And of course, NSW has essentially rolled out the third jab mandate after WA announced theirs in December. Following the usual incremental process of health workers first, then everyone else later. Dan Andrews comes back this week and I would expect similar for Victoria as he has now cancelled Australia Day. Just an amazing coincidence as the case count goes through the roof and people are lining up to get tested in the thousands. Don’t worry though you can go to the tennis, Novak or not.
That’s my one cent. I’m betting 2022 will be rougher than last year and we’re not even two weeks into it.
yeah what is going on with the supermarkets? is this to do with supply chain issues with china?
No meat, TP and fuck all fruit at my local in Melbourne this morning.
Imported stuff seems to be ok at the moment but would hit later, NFI.
Wonder how many truck drivers and packers are at home isolating.
at 30,000 cases a day an awful lot of people are close contacts that have to isolate for 10 days. The story is distribution centre staff and drivers just aren;t there because covid or isolating.
f this is the case expect significant changes to the isolation requirements real soon now.
Edit: I have literally got half a dozen covid case alerts second hand from people i have been with from service NSW.
One of my predictions around 9 months ago was we were going to have massive food supply shortages in the country. My rationale was that we would have a fuel crisis that would halt the transport industry with knock on effects. So I was close? I don’t think people here thought it was crazy or doubted it, but the normies in the real world choked up laughing.
What’s next?
What’s next?
I think it would be neat to see the current logistical supply ructions drag on for a good 2-4 months and become entrenched in the common consciousness. That would be very fertile ground for further displays of EZFKA operations and the mean-spiritedness of the average EZFKA unit.
It’s the middle of summer with very high levels of vitamin d in people, people spending a lot of time outdoors, poor conditions in general for an seasonal airborne respiratory disease.
It will be chaos come winter.
It’s a Woolies/Coles thing (it what happens when you run a busines on thr red line) IGA, FoodWorks etc are holding up way better. Hopefully more people ditch the duopoly and shop locally.
I was in Woolies yesterday afternoon and they had plenty of stuff except red meat and chicken where the shelves were bare. I didn’t look at the rice and pasta aisles though.
Good screed.
I can totally see the tennis being moved as Melbourne deteriorates. F1 as well maybe who knows.
Third jab mandate nationwide by end of month is my call.
All the F1 drivers and support staff are jabbed. I think it was only one or two nobodies such as the Safety Car driver that refused the jab. Melbourne would only lose the F1 if it was to get cancelled again.
Monaco and Melbourne should both be off the F1 list for these are the two most boring uneventful road shows. More excitement is down Kingston Rd somewhere near Nobel Park than at both events. Sydney’s M5 in the morning is the second more eventful road stretch too.
It is by now known to all that jabbed or not makes no difference. Q is why people still don’t think for themselves. By now so many political pseudo science has been peddled, to believe further fecal matter one needs to have lesser IQ than all the Sunrise team members combined (which is on par with Scummy’s __ – Co Vid policy).
Read up about the F1 2022 rule changes. The redesigned aerodynamics should make it possible for cars to follow close enough to be able to overtake on tracks like Albert Park. Monaco will always be useless but too much history and money to be made.
They still seem concerned about hospital numbers rising. I suspect they will drop all social distancing and vaccine passport rules once the current wave starts trending downwards. The issue will be legalised employment discrimination.
Melbourne losing the tennis is not such a bad thing. It would cost taxpayers a fortune to have it in Melbourne and the WTA would make more money anyway holding it in Dubai or Shenzhen.
One can only hope we lose the F1 too. Given there are a lot of F1 races per year, it is not as though it has a scarcity factor to entice people to spend 14 hours on a plane to get here.
Have heard that distribution centre staff are the ones isolating, with this mainly affecting the major chains. Noticed this afternoon that local fruit and veg shops, butchers etc seemed to have plenty of stock.
In won’t stop some people though. One guy I know who stocked up on a few 100 toilet paper rolls last time told me he “topped up again” just in case.
Amalgamating and centralising the warehouse and logistics is great…. But it creates vulnerabilities – central points of failure.
I guess that the McKinsey presentation didn’t talk about that much. Doesn’t matter, the costs can just be pushed onto the EZFKA units!
I will wholeheartedly disagree on the assessment of the 9yr detention and Nauru/PNG treatment of the asylum seekers.
There is no doubt that there was commercialisation of other people’s misery and the only worse aspect of that is the detention centres.
Majority of economical asylum seekers have flown in rather than took the boats, in case of Australia. Placing them in the limbo is a psyop game to make them return by themselves and avoid rejection of asylum applications. It is less humane than the treatment of cotton pickers in ‘merica during boom times.
Apparently the tinfoil hat mob think that the legislation in ACT which makes Dan’s Despotisation law a human rights bill in omparison. There are lots of other stuff too.
In my post here I partially explain all the Novax Novak fluckup on exactly that: usual EZFKA sheetfluckery. I saw it at work I got sacked from for novax, success had many fathers but failure is an orphan. The Djoker saga is, my current view based on currently available facts, nothing but a cock-ups of epic proportions no one wanted. A Volgograd effect.
There is no way to distract from empty shelves other than to point the blame and as much as they succeeded shifting blame for longest illegal imprisonment from benecaptors onto Novax Novak, for empty shelves it is just too much for at least 51% of plebs to absorb it (in this wave of blame shift).
Never underestimate the power of the shlitfluckery.
The City of London war-hawks expressed their panic that Biden may “appease” Russia in the upcoming meetings, in an article “U.S. Must Seize the Initiative at Talks with Russia.” Written by Keir Giles, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program for Chatham House, or the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the British Empire’s premiere think tank, he cautions that “there is every sign Russia may end up getting something for nothing—which will only confirm for Moscow that military threats are the best way to achieve its goals.” He cites Biden’s mention of “finding an accommodation” for Russia’s concerns, and the “promise of negotiations” which endorses Moscow’s demands as acceptable for discussion as signs that Moscow believes it can “extract substantial concessions.”
Giles calls this a “Chamberlain moment”—the ugliest possible insult to a nation that lost 27 million people fighting the Nazi occupation—warning of the danger of appeasing Russia for the sake of “temporary peace.”
He concludes his diatribe against Russia, but implicitly targeting Biden, by writing, “It is no longer time to discuss how to deter Russia when it has become clear that deterrence has failed. At that point there is no option but to plan not for deterring Russia, but for defeating it.”
Looks like they want to start a war to cover up the mess
I have been watching the developments in Ukraine, and now Kazakhstan, with interest and increasing concern.
I guess it’s a case of the U.S. having a whole bunch of service personnel sitting on their arses with nothing to do since their outstanding victory in Afghanistan, and the MIC looking down the barrel of diminishing returns.
Couple that with a financial system that is on the verge of implosion (again), and the social and political fabric of the U.S. being increasingly torn asunder and polarised, and you have a text book setting for a (diversionary) conflict.
When your society is at its own throat, and there’s a financial tsunami on the horizon, there’s one sure way to galvanise a population……find (or create) a mutual enemy.
As for Giles’ statement:
I think that the last bloke who was of that opinion ended up toasted in a bunker somewhere.
But for pure comedy gold, you simply can’t go past this one:
I lost half a cup of coffee over that one 🙂
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, this site provides a bit more texture, and a bit of the “view from the other side”.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/
My favourite weekend reading….
Here is a different perspective
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/negotiate-peace-russia-prevent-war-over-ukraine-198738
I will have a read, thanks
that cvnt giles can crew a tank then
Here’s something to take into consideration.
In 2019, the RAND Corporation, which is a major part of the military-industrial complex, put out a report called “Extending Russia; Competing from Advantageous Ground”. What they said is that the United States must act in a way to unbalance the adversary; cause Russia to over-extend itself militarily or economically…. They offered a six-point plan. First, lethal aid to Ukraine. Use Ukraine as a battleship against Russia; as a destabilizing influence on Russia. Two, increase support to Syrian rebels. This shows what we have said all along, that the U.S. strategy in Syria was to overthrow the government of Assad using support of what was ultimately ISIS and al-Qaeda. Three, promote regime change in Belarus. This is underway. Not successful so far, but it’s continuing. Four, exploit tensions in the South Caucasus. That in particular would mean Armenia and Azerbaijan. They had a brief shooting war not that long ago; it’s still very unstable there, and they see that as a lever they can use against Russia. Their fifth point is to reduce Russian influence in Central Asia. The most important of these countries in Central Asia is Kazakhstan. It’s part of the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] military-security alliance that exists there. It’s also where the Russian space launch pad is, in Baikonur. It’s a relatively important oil-producing center….
Interestingly, the person who is taking credit for this, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who was briefly the Kazakh energy minister, and then a banker, fled the country I think in 2004. Where did he go? He went to London. He’s now operating out of Paris, but his political party is based in Kiev. You put that all together, and you see the elements of Soros, the NGOs. I’m sure the U.S. is playing a role in this, because the idea of destabilizing Kazakhstan at the same time as the Ukraine crisis, is to force the Russians to have to divert resources and attention from these meetings coming up. The U.S.-Russian Strategic Stability Dialogue on the 10th; the Russia-NATO Council on the 12th of January; and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) meeting on the 13th. With the possibility that there could be improvements toward de-escalating the situation in Ukraine. The ideal time to launch a further destabilization on Russia’s largest border….
The underlying cause of all of this is the collapse of the trans-Atlantic system. The fact that the banking system, which is integrally tied to the military-industrial complex and to the strategic intelligence policy of the Western powers, is collapsing. It’s collapsing at an accelerating rate, with inflation; with pandemic disease, which is not being stopped because we don’t have the health care facilities because of the privatization and the neo-liberal policies that tore down public health in the advanced sector economies; with the Green New Deal; the fact that we have energy shortages, we have higher priced energy. As a result, when you add to that the narratives that create polarization, the identity politics that literally create a war of each against all, so that people are driven to despair trying to make sure they have enough beef jerky and bullets and gold bullion and Viagra in their basement to survive a prolonged civil war. That’s the situation politically that we have in the United States, and you can see it around the two sides sniping at each other over the January 6th activities.
Yes. Isn’t the plan to dismantle US as the “centre” and move it east? Something about Israel / Russia / China. Covid being used as the scape-goat / distraction, albeit quite the rush-job.
Sorry to be pedantic, but the correct term is ‘escape-goat’.
Eng Lit grad here.
Here in Perth I shop at Spud Shed. Basically a giant no-frills grower direct fruit n veg plus everything else superstore. Not a whiff of shortages of anything. Same at local Farmer’s Markets. The only thing I buy from Woolies is cat biscuits, because my cat insists on a specific brand, ironically that brand is “Fussy Cat”.
WA should be fine for everything except the stuff they depend on the Easter states for.
if Spud Shed is supplied by local farmers, then there shouldn’t be any shortages, as it’s not plausible that the farmers will suddenly decide to ship East, while there are not enough trucks, etc.
Yeah, we “should” be, Spudshed for veg, Farmer Jack’s for meat (selection and price!) but our Gruppenfuhrer Mark came out with a warning today, that life foe the unvaxxed was about to become more complicated, and we would miss out on …. GASP!….. AFL!
And then this: “Far too many resources are being used over east to care for individuals who have not taken the basic steps to care for themselves”.
So we are back to the pandemic of the unvaxxed argument.
WA has epic local grown produce. Tropics up north for melons, mango, bananas, cooler parts of Perth for berries, leafy greens, veg and hills for apples, stonefruit, citrus etc. I suppose thing like rice, grains, legumes etc need to be imported, so may be impacted. But 100% not going to starve anytime soon over here, in my opinion anyway. I don’t eat meat though (or eggs, or dairy), so perhaps am a little out of touch!!
I know it’s a distraction, but you can’t help but laugh at the Novak story. It just gets better and better after the court overturned the decision today.
It’s scandalous what he’s endured.
https://youtu.be/t9zXZRrAClA
A bit if a different view. May offend snowflakes, viewer indiscretion advised.
So they cancel his visa at 6pm on a Friday, when they have had all week to do something… Tell me this isn’t all theatre!
They will drag it out in courts and kick him out in some spectacular fashion. The general public picking their side and eating this shit up! Meanwhile, more pressing issues in this country will go unchecked and unnoticed…