Tag Archives: Australia

Unknown's avatar

Do You Still Think the System Will Protect You?

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It seems to be doing a particularly bad job in this case. How double killer who shot his grandparents and set their home on fire was released unsupervised from mental health ward before embarking on a new drug-fuelled crime spree.

He killed his grandparents and set their house on fire. He was not guilty due to mental illness, and he was supposed to be in a hospital. But just like keeping felons in prison is unfair, keeping crazy people separated from society is also unfair. Or something.

Konidaris pleaded not guilty to the murders of his grandparents on mental health grounds and was ordered to be supervised for 25 years at a psychiatric facility in 2014.

He was granted permission to leave the mental facility on escorted outings in 2016, and was eventually allowed to roam the streets unsupervised in 2019.

So 25 years turned into 5 years.

During his crime spree in September 2019, Konidaris told staff he was going to see his parents and about be back by 9pm, 9 News reported.

Instead, he went to a home in Cairnlea, in Melbourne’s north-west, where he threatened innocent homeowners with knives and demanded their car keys.

Oh, and he was high on cocaine while this was going on.

So how did “The System” let this happen?

Judge Frank Gucciardo asked why hospital staff didn’t know he had relapsed.

‘He doesn’t tell them. They don’t screen him. There’s no system in place that allows for some control. It’s a bit disturbing,’ he said.

Because the honor system for paranoid schizophrenics seems like the perfect solution for keeping everyone safe. Or maybe not.

Unknown's avatar

“Just so you know where you stand.”

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You have no intrinsic value as a human being. Not to the economic powers-that-be. It’s not economically viable for them to protect your lives..

You are only worth something as an economic unit. How much do you contribute the GDP, and therefore, how big a hit GDP would take is THE most important factor in figuring out how much to do to fight COVID-19.

We live in Godless societies, and the worship of money in the form of gross domestic product, free trade and economic growth is all that matters to us a collective whole. All of our politics align around this obsession. All that matters is growth in any form possible. We have cast aside all notions of family and community so as to remain in thrall to the mighty dollar. So we can buy the latest stuff.

And in doing so we have lost our humanity.

Children. Artists. Thinkers. Heroes. None of these things matter. And if the sacrifices are too large in fighting COVID-19, then we will sacrifice the children instead.

It’s ludicrous; you either protect your population or you don’t.

There is more for your consideration at the link. Hat tip to Wombat-socho at The Other McCain.

Unknown's avatar

Not Climate Change, and Not “Just” Arson

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Of course he was laughing. Muslim charged for starting Australian wildfire laughs after court hearing.

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer noted Islamic jihadis have identified setting fires as a tool of jihad.

In 2018, the ISIS-linked Al-Ansar Media claimed wildfires in California were retribution for America’s participation in the civil war in Syria.

Don’t expect to see this story on the 24 hour news channels. Doesn’t fit the narrative. Find my previous post on this topic at this link.

Unknown's avatar

Arson Not Climate Change

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Environmental tragedy or crime? Australian fires in the news. 183 Arrested In Australia On Arson Charges Over ‘Last Few Months’ Sydney News Reports.

85% of the fires were caused by people, either accidentally or via arson.

The fact that the bushfires were deliberately started and have nothing to do with man-made climate change hasn’t prevented that being the dominant narrative.

And it isn’t one or two people.

A total of 183 people have been arrested by police in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania for lighting bushfires over the last few months.

Oh, and people are also banned from burning brush in cooler months to mitigate summer’s problems. It’s for the environment. (That hasn’t worked out too well for California.)

Unknown's avatar

Failing Infrastructure: Australian Edition

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We actually have two stories from Down Under.

First, we consider construction issues on a recently constructed dam. Wasted water: Buried Paradise Dam reports finally released.

The dam in question, the Paradise dam in Queensland, Australia, was only built in 2006, but apparently there are questions about how it was constructed.

However, the original construction methods used on the $240 million dam opened in 2006 has been brought into question. These include issues with the bonds between each layer of roller compacted concrete in the dam wall, the reports say.

Frighteningly, the reports say there is a risk the dam wall could break apart during an extreme weather event.

Since that would be a bad thing, they are reducing the capacity of the dam by removing 5 meters from its height. That will reduce its capacity to 42 percent of the original design. This in turn is scaring the daylights out of agricultural interests downstream, because they have made plans, mostly in terms of planting trees, to take advantage of the water reserves for irrigation. All that money may now be lost.

Now it would seem to me, that whoever built the dam should be on the hook for something, or the engineer, if it turns out the design was questionable.

Mr Moro said the horticulture industry was brilliant at transforming stored water into quality fresh produce, and ultimately into wealth, jobs and thriving regional communities.

“Growers want a signal from the Queensland Government that our industry is a priority as the engine of so much regional growth and prosperity,” he said.

Now that will be gone.

And existing dams are also a problem, or they are when they are not managed properly. Queensland flood victims win class action against state, Seqwater and Sunwater over dam negligence.

From an “event” in 2011, when dam operators belatedly started releasing water from a couple of dams in response to extreme rainfall. They kept the dams from collapsing, but destroyed a whole lot of homes and businesses when they dumped a lot of water in a short time.

The class action alleged the dam operators failed to follow their own manual and did not make enough room for heavy rainfall until it was too late, heightening flood levels and damaging more properties.

Lawyers for the victims claimed the dam operators were careless and negligent and contributed to the deluge when dam engineers were forced to release large amounts of water to prevent the Wivenhoe Dam from collapsing.

Because in Australia, you can sue city hall. Or the state. And yes I know, this isn’t exactly about failing infrastructure, but in failed management of that infrastructure. Click thru to see photos of what those engineers, who ignored their own procedures, created. (The first photo is of one of the plaintiffs.)

Unknown's avatar

Ransomware Continues to Impact Health Care

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Remember when Obama said computerizing medical records would be such a good idea. U.S. and Australian Hospitals Targeted by New Ransomware Attacks.

Three hospitals in Alabama and seven in Victoria, Australia have been hit with ransomware. Some are not accepting new patients. Some are reverting to manual procedures.

In a related bit of news, a California clinical group is closing its offices because they can’t recover patient records.

In related news, following another ransomware attacks from early August, Californian medical practice Wood Ranch Medical announced on September 18 that it will be closing offices on December 17 because of the extensive loss of patient healthcare records.

Their “backup server” was online, so it too, was encrypted. Having a separate copy of your data is NOT ENOUGH. How many times do people need to be told that before they’ll listen? Well, if they don’t listen to this advice at this point, then they never will. And my level of sympathy for people playing in traffic was exhausted decades ago.

So I can’t decide if Obama and Company saying how great things would be when all medical records are computerized counts as politicians pretending to be engineers (or computer scientists), or if it just evidence of colossal arrogance. From my POV, having all the records on computers, that the doctors won’t pay to secure, hasn’t made things better. I’m sure the hackers LOVE the fact that all those records are computerized. And poorly secured. You could think Obama has some interest in the hacking, but that would be giving him too much credit for understanding what encryption can do. Smartest President Ever™

Unknown's avatar

Defend Yourself In Australia, Get Charged With Murder

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Because you are supposed to depend on the state, even for the things they can’t provide. Are Australian laws protecting criminals from home invasions?.

A guy attacks a woman in her own home. Neighbor comes to her defense. The attacker dies. The neighbor is arrested for murder.

Russell Harrison in Melbourne. The local community regarded him as a hero for rescuing his neighbour from a violent home invader – but the police didn’t see it that way.

Russell was shocked when he discovered what was happening. “When they did my fingerprints I watched them type it in, it said ‘Murder’ and I said, ‘What?'”

He was throwing shade on the cops’ ability to protect people. Even though they really don’t have that ability.

Russell believes the law was wrong in this instance. “In the States, if you are defending yourself against a home intruder and they end up dead, so sorry, that’s your right to defend yourself. You need to be able to defend yourself, defend someone else and defend your property without the fear of prosecution from the police.”

Not gonna happen in Australia.

Unknown's avatar

How Organizations Should Respond to Hackers

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But so seldom do. Electronic medical records locked down as cyber-hackers target hospitals. This is about an Australian medical group.

The IT system across Eastern Health, which manages hospitals such as Box Hill and Maroondah, has been the target of a mystery cyber attack.
The security threat was immediately detected two weeks ago – and electronic medical records were locked down to prevent any breach of patient data.

The threat was identified, contained, and there was no impact to the clients. So props to Eastern Health. At least for today.

For the other side of the equation consider the aircraft-parts manufacturer hit 2 weeks ago. Asco closure after cyber-attack to last another week.

Asco, the Zaventem-based company that makes aircraft parts, will now remain closed at least until 28 June, following a cyber-attack two weeks ago.

Rebuilding/restoring systems “is taking longer than foreseen.” Now this might be in part to the forensic analysis that is ongoing.

Unknown's avatar

Don’t Believe the Polls – Australian Edition

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Remember how the polls said there was no chance Hilary could lose the 2016 election? Well they’ve done it again. This time in Australia. The expert who predicted Trump, Brexit – and Scott Morrison

The referenced article, or any of the others on the Australian elections, isn’t really of interest. What is of interest is the polling was wrong. Completely wrong. Again.

Despite trailing in every major poll for three years, the Coalition retained power on Saturday night and could yet form majority government.

With polling and betting markets missing the mark, experts are increasingly turning to social media to judge voter sentiment on a larger scale.

And with the crackdown on conservative thought by Big Social Media, even that will be hard to pin down.

So the next time some talking head, or politician, says that X percent of the population favors their latest Big Government power grab, ask them about 2016, or Australia.

So I’ve been trying to figure out how polling companies can get so much wrong. So I went looking for their methodology. Pew Research was my first (and only) stop. What I found is inexplicable. Trump’s Staunch GOP Supporters Have Roots in the Tea Party: Methodology.

This isn’t the only piece of Pew’s methodology I looked at. And what I saw wasn’t 100 percent uniform, but a whole bunch of what I saw, fell into this pattern.

The ATP [Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel] is a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults recruited from landline and cellphone random-digit-dial surveys.

They will determine that 312-555-12XX is in a particular part of the Chicago area (for example) and dial random digits. They do similar calling for blocks of numbers that are cellphones. I can’t think of a more self-selecting group to answer questions. If you “randomly” call my number, and you aren’t in my contacts list, I’m going to assume you are the credit fraud scammer, and ignore the call. (Anyone with real business will leave a message.) If Pew research left a message – which I don’t believe they do, but I’m not 100 percent clear on that – I wouldn’t call them back. Would you?

Maybe dialing people randomly could have worked back in the dark ages, before answering machines, but with caller ID and voicemail, and the proliferation of scams, who answers a call from an unknown number?

And this isn’t a poll from the dark ages. This is from a document published in 2019, based on group recruited to be on this panel in 2014 and 2015.

Polls in which the surveyed population is a self-selecting sample are not usually too good. People who will answer random calls from unknown numbers. People who will agree to work with Pew for years out. I don’t know anyone, of any political affiliation, that I think would fall into a group like this. Random sample? Not hardly.

And then I’m still a fan of Mike Royko’s call to lie to exit pollsters, from 1984.

But he said if enough voters lie, ‘The entire nation will be treated to one of the finest evenings of television viewing since the tube was unleashed.

‘As the evening wears on and the actual votes are counted, we will see Dan become more and more wild-eyed. We’ll see Peter hyperventilating. And even Davie will look like he is fully awake. And they’ll all be stammering about how ‘goodness, something seems to have gone wrong.’

Surprisingly good description of what happened in 2016, even if the players had changed.

Unknown's avatar

Australia’s View of Self-defense in the USA

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Countries that don’t allow their citizens much in the way of self-defense, are fascinated by what goes on in the US. More the UK than Australia or New Zealand, but in this instance we have Australia.

On April 22nd, there was a self-defense shooting in Seattle. The shooting happened while the homeowner was on the line with 911. Details of the shooting are at this link, and details relating to the release of the 911 call are at this link.

But the reaction in Australia… Deadly home invasion captured on 911 call.

They do a fair job describing the original event, but they seems shocked by a couple of things.

Seconds later a volley of gun shots can be heard in which a 29-year-old unarmed suspect was killed.

The home owner tells the operator: “I just had to shoot.”

Police say the man will not be charged over the incident.

Self-defense for homeowner facing a home-invader at 2 in the morning. Maybe it isn’t fair to say that they are shocked he won’t be charged. But they are covering a relatively minor story from Seattle. It’s not like this was front page news in the WaPo or NYT.

Unknown's avatar

Prosecutors Hate Self-defense – Australian Edition.

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Or “Self-defence” as they would have it Down Under. When will self-defence in a home invasion get you in trouble with the law?.

He was charged with the Australian version of assault, but won at trial.

The charge stemmed from a night in February 2017 when Mr Denigan shot a man in the leg on his rural Darwin property.

Prosecutors argued his actions had not been in self-defence, but Mr Denigan’s lawyers successfully argued to the contrary.

Because you must be completely dependent on the State for EVERYTHING. Including your personal safety, even in those situations where it is clear they are so far away, they would be of no use. That’s assuming you can call them before bad things happen.

Self-defense is a human-right, even if they bureaucrats would prefer that it wasn’t

Unknown's avatar

$140 Per Day Electricity Cost in Australia

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Because renewables. Nearly a billion dollars for electricity for just one day — $500 per family. That $140 (Aus) is per capita, so if you live by yourself, you might pay more. And 1 Australian dollar is 72 cents US, at the current exchange rate.

For South Australians, Thursday’s electricity bill was $140 per person. (So each household of four just effectively lost $565.) In both these states those charges will presumably be paid in future price rises, shared unevenly between subsidized solar users and suffering non-solar hostages. The costs will be buried such that duped householders will not be aware of what happened. Coles and Woolworths will have to add a few cents to everything to cover their bills, and the government will have to cut services or increase taxes. No one will know how many jobs are not offered or opportunities lost. This is the road to Venezuela. [My emphasis, Z-Deb]

Which seems to be the road that all the Left wants to be on.

How did Australia (Victoria in particular) end up here? Well, let’s look at an article from Victoria’s Herald Sun: VICTORIANS SWEAT THROUGH A GREAT GREEN HOAX. The story starts out with reiterating the usual Green mantra:

Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s warmist Minister for Energy, in 2017 claimed Labor was helping to “deliver affordable, sustainable and renewable energy”.

Turns out, it is none of those things.

Affordable? Victoria actually had wholesale power prices hit $14,500 per megawatt hour – when prices used to average less than $40.

Sustainable? Wind power generators on Thursday delivered a feeble 3.8 per cent of the state’s power, thanks to fickle winds. They could not deliver when needed most.

Reliable? Victoria – which helped drive the giant Hazelwood coal-fired generator out of business – ran short of electricity in the heat wave, and suffered blackouts that hit 200,000 homes and premises, even after it ordered big power users like the Portland smelter to shut down.

And just for perspective, consider that people with health problems can be really impacted by blackouts. Oxygen concentrators stop working, and people have to switch to backup tanks. Which means a caregiver had better be present, and someone needs to be managing the backup supply – if blackouts are frequent occurrence. Even a lack of air-conditioning can be hard on the infirm. Insulin has been made shelf-stable, so the loss of refrigeration doesn’t impact diabetics the way it used to, but there are probably some medicines that need to be temperature controlled. (Should we talk about the use of diesel generators?)

The green contingent often downplay the economic realities, but a 36,000 percent increase in the wholesale cost of power, means you have just destroyed your economy. No one voted for that. Could you afford a $3000/month electric bill? Evey month? Most people can’t. Those who can, probably have to means to move elsewhere.

Why does Victoria, sitting on hundreds of years of supply of coal and big gas reserves, have an electricity system that can no longer deliver enough electricity?

In a word, Renewables. (Hat tip to Ice Age Now, and Pirate’s Cove.)

Unknown's avatar

This Won’t End Badly

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I guessing that “Wanting to get in on the ground-floor of “Skynet” isn’t one of the reasons. Why Australia Needs Robot Tanks.

“Greater reliance on autonomous systems and unmanned platforms makes a great deal of sense, given the small size of our military,” says Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Who knows? Maybe this will evolve into the BOLO program. But somehow I don’t believe that we will get Autonomous Weapons done right.

Unknown's avatar

ISIL Claims Responsibility for Melbourne Attack

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Terror down-under. Melbourne stabbings: Isil claims suspected terror attack that left one dead.

In an attack described by the state premier as an “act of evil”, the man sped a utility vehicle down Bourke Street, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, and then stopped and apparently set it alight before randomly stabbing pedestrians. One person was killed and two, aged 26 and 58, were injured.

Unknown's avatar

Speaking of Not Treating Violent Crime Seriously

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An armed home-invasion in Australia (where they have all that lovely gun control). Though this wasn’t the guy with the shotgun. Judge shows ‘no mercy’ to armed robber who terrorised a couple during a violent home invasion.

His victim had been bashed, robbed and left for dead

He could have been sentenced to 25 years (not counting stealing a vehicle). Instead the “no mercy” judge sentenced him to “five years and three months in jail, with a non-parole period of three years and two months.” Given the time he has been in jail waiting for trial, he will be eligible for parole in about 15 months. (Actually most of this was the result of a plea deal.)

This guy has been in trouble with the law for some time. Click thru and scroll down.

For contrast to how to handle violent crime, and how to get more of it see the posing at this link.

Unknown's avatar

Your Tax Dollars at Work – Australian Edition

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Government screw-ups are not new, but this is epic – at least in terms of cost. NSW Intercity fleet: New trains too wide for tunnels

So New South Wales (in Australia for all you who are geographically challenged) decided they needed new commuter trains. The old trains are 114.17 inches wide. The trains on order are 122.05 inches wide. There’s just 1 problem.

They’re too wide to go through the tunnels.

You think the person responsible will lose their job? I don’t. They are either an elected idiot, or an idiot protected by a union and raft of civil service laws. Better yet, it is probably a committee of idiots, because no one person would want to stick their neck out this far.

But don’t worry. They have a plan. They are going to modify some existing tunnels and relax the safety standards.

As someone said, “A special kind of incompetence.”

Unknown's avatar

Another Step Toward Heating Up Cold War 2.0

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It is a good thing that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize before he did anything, because I think starting a war with China might nix his chances. The U.S. Could Station Long-Range Bombers in Australia | TIME

Still in the “negotiation phase,” which I take to mean that we want bomber is Australia but the Australians aren’t sure they want them there.

The placement of U.S. B-1 bombers in the Pacific region would almost certainly aggravate China, which has claimed much of the South China Sea as its own despite the protests of its smaller neighbors in Southeast Asia.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Go back to the antics of the (not so) Presidential Candidates.

Unknown's avatar

I Thought Anti-gun Laws Kept Multiple-shootings from Happening in Australia

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I guess this guy didn’t get that memo. Sydney shooting: Police, ambulances rush to multiple shooting at Ingleburn

I was sure that Obama said this couldn’t happen in other countries.

Unknown's avatar

Heartburn

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Wafia, from Brisbane, Australia, performing her song “Heartburn.” This was just released in the fall of 2015 on an EP.

This is how Hillydilly describes things.

Wafia rose methodically through the music ranks. We first came to know of her a couple years ago through a fabulous feature on Japanese Wallpaper‘s “Breathe In“, and, while she’s featured on a couple other tracks since, we’ve not received yet any original tracks from her….

Ta-ku, one of her several new label partners, provides downtempo, percussion-infused production for her to glide over, and glide she does. “Heartburn” is a special piece from her, and we can’t wait for more to come out.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, I am really starting to appreciate the Australian music scene.

Unknown's avatar

New Record Sniper Shot in Afghanistan Did Not Receive Much Attention

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Not surprising that this isn’t interesting to the mainstream media. Barret_M82_DA-ST-92-07336 Taliban remain in fear of lethal strikes, writes Chris Masters

The only thing I can find is that it happened “earlier this year” in Helmand province of Afghanistan.

See Taliban in the distance, 2 snipers set up to take the same shot. (It was a long way, OK.) So we don’t know which of the two made the fatal shot.

As the bullet yawed through the thin air on a windless morning, GPS aids measured the distance at 2815m. That amounts to 2 1/2 times the length of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The targeted Taliban would not have heard the gunfire.

The previous world record achieved by British Corporal Craig Harrison occurred also in Helmand in November 2009. Firing from a distance of 2475m, Harrison killed two Taliban.

For those of you who are metrically-challenged, 2815 meters is 1.749 miles. I think you can see why two people took the shot.

The snipers were members of Delta Company of 2 Commando Regiment of the Australian military.

The weapon was the Barrett M82A1 in 50 caliber. (Click the photo above for a better view.)Hat tip to From the Barrel of a Gun.