Given historical and current events, will be starting this thread to post on Seapower, the oceans as our global commercial commons and most important strategic domain, and all ships, vessels, boats, etc, floating & submerged, that interest me. "Look always to your moat!"
In peace & war, the sea & its sailors are - esp if you speak English - your most crucial strategic doman. The ships at sea as combatants & escorts & cargo/POL carriers plus your ports/wharves/railheads all join up to make supply chains work ... Our most precious infrastructure
This very good visual should focus the mind on what truly matters ... why fleets, naval and merchant, matter so much to the life and death of nations, especially in the Anglosphere, as the British Empire spread by sea ... and why our ancestors were, wisely, 'offshore balancers'
To put today's crisis in perspective: snap shot from the approaches to Long Beach port. Every ship waiting has a next sail for a next 'job'. You can see the concertina effect when ships cannot offload cargo & load new cargo & sail on-nightmare for rail, trucks ... and Insurers
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For most sensible people, climate change is, mainly, an energy generation problem that can be solved, calmly.
For post religious esp white people, climate change - with its obsession on sin, the wrath of Gaia, etc - fills the void that ancestral Protestantism once filled.
The world's pajandrums gather in Glasgow to debate climate change commitments (for 2050 when all will be long gone from office) as European energy markets collapse under Renewables failure & the US meets the perfect 1970s storm: inflation, supply & energy cost rises
We in Australia (like Canada - do not let Trudeau's antics fool you) will do the bare minimum as we are an energy superpower that is supplying coal, gas, uranium, etal to the world at near record prices. We have a massive & people dispersed island & we cannot all work for an NGO.
For those in NSW & VIC: both IBAC & ICAC are de facto inquisitions ala Roman Law. The commissioner & counsel assisting may go wherever the evidence leads. At the same time, people adversely reflected on (publicly!) may not have the same protections under common law. Caveat.
The ICAC problem in NSW is it is the closest body we have to a 4th branch - it is not a court & thus not part of the appellate hierarchy. It is part of the executive govt but not really responsive to any Minister. It is a body made necessary by NSW's endemic corruption problems.
The problem for anyone who lives in Sydney & New South Wales (and has grown up with our historic corruption problems) is that unless there is some public inquisitorial (in the Roman Law sense) body like ICAC threatening public officials, then NSW is back in the Askin & Wran years
After 107 days, I am hoping that I never, ever, have to again make these daily posts ... And for those fools esp in media who platformed hysterics & uncredentialed 'experts', you have urged ruination on innocent people as surely as any crank anti-Vax
Not sure how @billbowtell got himself into the partisan nastiness but the pandemic has been a test case on why the 'experts' predictions need to be treated with great caution. (via @evmulholland)
Watching our own Brad "Chad" Hazzard - the most local Northern Beaches guy, ever - describe Redfern as the 'crossroads of Australia' is why we are living in not just a Pandemic but a golden age for content. The greatest Health minister since Augustus. #Covid19NSW#SydneyLockdown
The salient fact of all New South Wales politics is that the Labor party never split. Labor kept its Right & that is why NSW Labor has been so dominant historically. A lot of wet liberals who could not get into Labor went into the Liberals (where they proved electoral death).
The upshot of all elections in NSW is the winner is whoever wins socially conservative / "not rich" voters, esp migrant voters, in the suburbs that surround Sydney from north to west. In short, You win the Telegraph demo, not the ABC/Herald. Winning the ABC=you are losing.
Chris Minns is the best recent Labor leader in NSW in recent times - very normal guy from the suburbs & ALP's Right who could win a lot of the voters that Gladys & Morrison won in 2019. Labor often goes to Right of Coalition on law & order cf if Speakman goes soft on crime.
The 'almost not Gladystan' statistics for New South Wales in the past 24hrs:
- 67.1% fully vaccinated
- 88.4% first dose
- 623 new local cases
- 76,000+ tests
NB: Gladys remains NSW Premier until there is a new Liberal leader (X). Gladys then goes to the Governor to resign and advises the Governor to send for new leader X to form a new ministry.