This week’s two-point move in Newspoll excited a certain amount of talk about a Coalition recovery, but it hasn’t impressed the BludgerTrack poll aggregate – the result landed pretty much bang on where it was already, being well in line with the only othe result published so far this year, namely the Essential Research poll of a fortnight ago. As such, the aggregate records a 0.2% shift in the Coalition’s favour on two-party preferred, no movements on the primary vote greater than 0.4%, and a one seat gain for the Coalition on the seat projection in Queensland. The leadership trends have Bill Shorten up a bit on net approval, but little change for Scott Morrison either on either his net approval or preferred prime minister lead. Full results through the link below:
I can also provide further detail on the uComms/ReachTEL poll from the seat of Flinders that was conducted last week for the CFMMEU and reported over the weekend. Labor’s two-party lead of 51-49 compares with Hunt’s redistribution-adjusted winning margin of 57.1-42.9 from 2016, and derives from a respondent-allocated preference split that gives Labor 62.7% of minor party and independent preferences. Labor’s share of the preferences in 2016 was 71.1%, which if applied to the primary vote numbers from this poll boosts Labor’s lead to 53-47. Compared with my own post-redistribution estimates from 2016, the primary votes from the poll have Greg Hunt down from 50.7% to 39.4%, Labor up from 27.4% to 35.2%, the Greens down from 11.2% to 9.1%, and One Nation debuting on 5.7%. All of which has been superseded to some extent by this week’s announcement that Julia Banks, the Liberal-turned-independent member for Chisholm, will be running in the seat.
Sceptic
I can tell you as someone who makes a living out of electronic design that 5G is not the panacea you think it is. It would require hundreds of cells to cover a place the size of Newcastle and it will never match the bandwidth of fibre.
The same bullshit was also spoken about 4G back in 2010.
Sceptic @ #2225 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 2:00 pm
Every new telecommunications “generation” promises much, and every one fails to deliver.
Sadly, there is just no getting around the laws of physics 🙁
Thank you DTT for the link to this article.
https://mondediplo.com/2019/02/01brexit
It explained some things but like so many it is written from the perspective that Britain and Europe are two different things. (Britain has links to Europe. Conservatives have a relationship with Europe. And so on.) Of course Britain and Europe are different things, but by framing the arguments in these terms it also immediately puts Britain outside Europe. Like so many others, this article’s unconscious perspective is of Britain outside Europe, and I think that is the deeper message it reinforces. Spiritually, Britain is not part of Europe. In that light I find a lot of Britain’s behaviour easier to understand. Perhaps Britain is purging itself of contamination. Like cutting out a cancer this will cause pain, even long term damage, but it will be “worth it”. Or perhaps a kinder analogy is that this is a divorce that merely makes plain what has existed for some time. It may weaken both parties but it simplifies everyone’s lives.
The rest of the article provides the ideological, commercial and political structures that describe the unfolding Brexit. I think it is worth reading.
————-
If anyone wants to have a guess or update their Brexit guess, I’m happy to take notes.
53d 20h until Brexit
On or before 2019 March 30, Britain will decide for one of the following:
41% (a) Hard Brexit – No Deal
3% (b) Soft Brexit – Deal
18% (c) Postponed Brexit – Negotiations Continue
18% (d) Postponed Brexit – New Referendum
5% (e) Withdrawn Brexit
8% (f) Something else
8% (g) Don’t care
No. Of PB Respondents: 35
TPOF @ #2191 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 10:30 am
How does that compare with 80 years of chips on the average Aussie shoulder for Bodyline ?
Cat
Did I specifically say anywhere it was ex-ALP member malcontents who complained about Bhathal?
No I did not. No doubt you will attempt to smear me as saying such.
But, you go girl.
How does that compare with 80 years of chips on the average Aussie shoulder for Bodyline ?
_______________________________________
What’s that?
My Kiwi mates never let me forget the underarm…..sandpapergate really didn’t help…….
Afternoon peeps.
Lib Unionist has retired and I’ve taken his place. How’ve you all been?
@Sceptic
5G is the same as 4G, and all the hype surrounding 4G is the same.
Our daughter has a house in a greenfields suburb and therefore has FTTP. Recently a street close by was dug up to lay a conduit, which turned out to be for a fibre optic cable for Telstra 5G.
I’ll be less than impressed if our street is dug up for a 5G fibre optic cable when we are scheduled to get only FTTN sometime in the future.
Precisely. Carrier grade gear sets you back hundreds of thousands per cell. For something that would serve only ha few hundred houses. And once those houses start demanding multi-hundred Mb connections, 5G will start folding just as the 4G network is doing now.
Zoid its worse than 4G. The frequencies that 5G rely upon rely upon just don’t propagate that well. Its great for very crowded places (CBDs, stadiums) but its uneconomic for regional cities and that’s where Sceptic made me laugh. We’ll have an overlay of 4G for most places (including regional towns such as mine) and 5G in some high traffic places.
Late Riser @ #2243 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 1:28 pm
LR
All good points and I fully agree. I was going to add that I did not fully agree with the tone of the writer but i thought the article so analytically excellent that i still wanted it posted.
Unlike many I can think an article excellent even if I disagree, just as i can disagree with people whom I otherwise respect.
Cheers, DDT
No doubt you will get blowback but you know that.
booleanbach @ #2226 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 11:03 am
Bread and circuses.
Alpha Zero @ #1988 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 8:17 am
Nonsense.
I speak from experience. I wore a bike helmet before they were mandatory, because they were an excellent idea.
When another bicycle turned off the footpath (!) directly in front of me and I t-boned it, I went over the handlebars and headfirst onto the road.
The bike helmet was broken, my glasses were broken, but I was unharmed apart from a badly cut lip from the broken glass.
Without the helmet I would have been in hospital with severe concussion – or worse.
I’ve been reading that 5G is a massive public health experiment.
Whatever the risks, it looks like we’ll be finding out, later if not sooner.
I have no informed opinion on this, except to say that we now turn off WiFi when it’s not in use, i.e. essentially during sleep.
https://www.radiationhealthrisks.com/5g-cell-towers-dangerous/
daretotread,
Pegasus is passive aggressive, as opposed to simply aggressive like nath and Rex Douglas, sure. However, her snakiness about Labor is a constant thing, in case you haven’t noticed. So, are you saying we should just sit back and let her let it rip about Labor? Interesting, and somewhat biased position to take, if so.
Now this truly is a shock. Trump wants the US out of Afghanistan and in the NYT………………….
Bravo Barbara Lee.
https://outline.com/N5BKzk
DTT
Don’t interrupt Cat. She is on a quest to provide ‘proof’ about something I did not assert.
December dwelling approvals were released today. Very, very weak numbers for apartments in particular:
Private houses, sa, monthly change – 2.2%
Private non-houses (i.e. largely apartments) – 18.8% (!!!!)
Private total dwellings -8.6%
This will flow through to economic activity. Offset will be infrastructure spend.
I noticed a few days ago that some here were asking about former posters to PB. So, here’s a post from the Batman by-election thread by Ruawake for those that are interested:
Ruawake (AnonBlock)
Saturday, March 17th, 2018 – 9:58 pm
Comment #378
Thanks for the good wishes. The cancer is under control, just dealing with transverse myelitis now.
Feeling much better since GED ripped the black wiggles cojones off.
Good Afternoon
Are The Labor Green wars today because Senator Richard Di Natalie has tweeted out the Greens response including a Peoples Bank?
Edit: Sorry in regards to the Banking Royal Commission
Welcome back Polly.
Some people take themselves ultra seriously.
Cat seems to think she has a right to abuse whoever she likes, whenever she likes about the slightest perceived criticism.
Cat seems to think that the focus of her malign intent has no right to push back regardless how benignly it is done.
Moving on….
“The same bullshit was also spoken about 4G back in 2010.”
Fiber..established growth path to multiple 000’s of Mbps once the major expense of physiscally running the fibers is done. Data compression algorithms will improve wireless through put, but fiber will use the same protocols over time and stay ahead.
A mainly fiber (+90%) backbone network is simply a fwarking no-brainer.
Libs went “multi -technology mix” for utterly political reasons as they had to support their lies and differentiate themselves from the ALP. Their short term political interests will always be put ahead of the interests of the country. Its their DNA.
No bail for Footballer Hakeem. Another court case scheduled
Liberals have no care, no moral – nothing.
Teresa Randal
@RandaltsRandal
15h15 hours ago
Finally a Federal response to the fire disaster in Tasmania…
Marise Payne says – without irony – ‘people will need to contact Centrelink’
How underwhelming.
#auspol
poroti @ #2268 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 1:36 pm
Then clearly they must stay there, for now.
By which I mean obviously the U.S. should withdraw its forces from the Middle East and anywhere else and stop messing around in the backyards of other sovereign nations. But the fact that Trump wants this means that some other players/nations who also shouldn’t be in the Middle East want it too and are just waiting for the vacuum that Trump’s going to create with his strategy-free withdrawal. Trump is just going to hand them an easy win.
Yes, get U.S. troops out of the Middle East. But no, don’t do it unilaterally; it must be conditional upon all other third-party nations playing in region also removing their troops.
“Moving on….”
Promises promises. Please do and take nath and clem with you.
And the Greater Sydney non-house (i.e. apartments) approvals for *December*, NOT seasonally adjusted, totalled 1,730 dwellings, the lowest monthly level since April 2014 and compares to the peak month of 5,109 in July 2016.
A cyclical fall is to be expected given the *huge* run up in activity, but it’s looking like a hardish landing
Laocoon @ #2271 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 2:37 pm
So restricting Neg Gearing to new builds might just be the thing for new appartments.
Nice to see you too, Kato.
Welcome back
PollyKotter…’cause I played in a high-school punk bad called Horshack.
poroti says:
Monday, February 4, 2019 at 2:36 pm
Now this truly is a shock. Trump wants the US out of Afghanistan and in the NYT………………….
Bravo Barbara Lee.
***************************************************************
Why winning and losing are irrelevant in Syria and Afghanistan – Max Boot
President Trump is already pulling U.S. troops out of Syria and is likely to pull them out of Afghanistan, too, assuming that a tentative peace deal with the Taliban is finalized. Although Trump initially claimed that the United States had won in Syria, the real impetus for both moves is a widespread sense, shared by Trump supporters and critics alike, that not only aren’t we winning, but that also we can’t possibly win these “forever wars,” no matter how long we stay.
James Dobbins, a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his colleagues at Rand are closer to the mark when they write: “Winning may not be an available option, but losing certainly is. A precipitous departure, no matter how rationalized, will mean choosing to lose. The result would be a blow to American credibility, the weakening of deterrence and the value of U.S. reassurance elsewhere, an increased terrorist threat emanating from the Afghan region, and the distinct possibility of a necessary return there under worse conditions.” The Rand report is about Afghanistan, but the same analysis applies to Syria.
Neither the Islamic State nor the Taliban is remotely defeated. The Islamic State has lost virtually all of its “caliphate,” but Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats just warned that it “still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, and it maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks, and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world.” The Taliban is doing even better: It controls or contests 44 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, and it is inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan security forces. An Afghan general says there are more than 77,000 militants fighting the government — far higher than the official figure of 25,000 to 35,000. If the United States pulls out of Afghanistan, the Taliban is likely to seize most of the country, and if we pull out of Syria, the Islamic State is likely to revive.
Just as the police aren’t trying to eliminate crime, so troops are not trying to eliminate terrorism but, instead, to keep it below a critical threshold that threatens the United States and our allies. This isn’t as satisfactory as pursuing unconditional surrender, but, as we may discover before long, it beats the alternative.
Trump is not ending, much less winning, the wars in Syria or Afghanistan. The Taliban’s promises of good behavior are worthless, and the Islamic State doesn’t make any promises at all. If Trump brings U.S. troops home, he is choosing to lose — and to squander the military’s sacrifices since 2001.
MORE : https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-us-cant-win-the-wars-in-afghanistan-and-syria–but-we-can-lose-them/2019/01/30/e440c54e-23ea-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html?utm_term=.2c2705df4961
Lao
Short term bad. Long Term good. Maybe investors will be forced into manufacturing. Perhaps renewable tech.
C@tmomma @ #2261 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 1:36 pm
Cat
Have you ever thought of commenting on the content of here posts rather than just heaping abuse.
Passive aggressive is cop out. She is posting stuff critical of labor. That is her right. She is in a DIFFERENT political party. Liberals who come here also have every right to post stuff. Would you call them passive aggressive.
Honestly Cat get a grip. The Greens have every right to be critical of the ALP. They are a different party. So long as they stick to facts they have every right to their opinion as do you.
Now i do not spend much time here criticising the LNP or praising the ALP, simply because that s stuff is so obvious and boring it is not worth posting. if there were MORE Liberals here then it might be useful but as it is it is a waste of time.
Another lie by the Liberals:
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/watch-out-for-the-next-big-lie-20190201-p50v4s.html?platform=hootsuite
Sceptic @ #2226 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 1:00 pm
A lot of the promised speed increases rely upon frequencies in the millimeter-wave range, which essentially need unobstructed line-of-sight between the transmitter and the receiver and which are rapidly attenuated by the atmosphere so only usable over distances of a couple km’s or so (and possibly less if it’s raining, depending upon the exact frequencies used).
But we can ignore all that, and just carve up the available spectrum. In the U.S. you’ll get about 13 GHz to play with (most other places give about 5 GHz or less). Say you’ve got a modest town of 1500 premises and you’re able to service all of them with a single base-station. That leaves you with about 9 MHz of spetrum if/when everyone is trying to use the Internet at the same time.
5G does good in terms of spectral efficiency so each user will get a decent amount of Mbps from that MHz, but unless everyone is running massive-MIMO it’s not going to be enough to compete with a 50 Mbps wired connection, let alone the 100 and/or 1000 Mbps connections that NBN fiber currently supports (or the 10,000+ Mbps speeds it can support with minimal upgrades).
You’ll get an end-user/peak-usage speed that’s barely adequate today and won’t be adequate 10, or even 5 years from now. With a technology rollout that’s likely to take that long or longer.
I’m probably not the only one disturbed by the tone of PB today. To help lighten things up, I’ve chosen a music interlude “time out” to allow everyone to chill out.
One of the cinema’s most outstanding musical sequences. It’s from Rouben Mamoulian’s 1932 film “Love Me Tonight.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGNQ7TrVDrg
This nearly 90-year-old classic was made just three years after “talking pictures” arrived, a sparkling pre-Code creation that was years ahead of its time. It features the classic Rodgers and Hart songs “Isn’t it Romantic?”, “Mimi”, and “Lover”.
“The staging of “Isn’t It Romantic?” was revolutionary for its time, combining both singing and film editing, as the song is passed from one singer (or group of singers) to another, all of whom are at different locales. In 1990, Love Me Tonight was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
(Wikipedia)
You’ll have to forgive as tongue-in-cheek, Larry Hart’s less than politically correct lyrics written for Maurice Chevalier. The standard words, partially sung by Jeanette Macdonald at the end of the clip, are among the most beautiful popular song lyrics:
Isn’t it romantic,
Music in the night, a dream that can be heard.
Isn’t it romantic, moving shadows write the oldest magic word.
I hear the breezes playing, in the trees above,
While all the world is saying, we were meant for love.
Isn’t it romantic, merely to be young, on such a night as this,
Isn’t it romantic, Ev’ry note that’s sung, is like a lover’s kiss
Sweet music in the moonlight, do you mean that we will fall in love perchance,
Isn’t it romance.
I hope the Hammerstein organization agrees that my use of the 87-year-old lyric is “fair dealing” as an educational exercise. It’s ironic that Oscar’s family ended up with the Rodgers and Hart copyrights. Comparing Hart to Hammerstein as lyric writers is like comparing Renoir to Norman Rockwell. Rodgers subsequent partnership with Oscar started a downward spiral in the quality of his music that became as banal as Hammerstein’s words.
After Larry’s death in 1943, Rodgers and Oscar’s lawyers deprived Larry’s brother and sister-in-law of their share of the royalties from the Rodgers and Hart songbook. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/words-and-music/309249/
To give the flavor of the witty Love Me Tonight screenplay, here are three and a half minutes of brief sequences featuring one of the great women of the screen, Myrna Loy who plays the man-hungry Countess Valentine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eP7fL8YQ2g
Boo hoo. They love to play the victim. My lasting memory of it was the kiwi batsman who dejectedly threw his bat. Couldnt figure out if I needed a violin or a bucket.
Bail is exceptional in extradition cases. Assange is partly to blame for that.
Plus here when Captain Dragan disappeared as the High Court was considering his fate.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/afp-unable-to-find-war-crimes-suspect-captain-dragan/news-story/ae427e74ead634bce0029eb707059f4d
Besides, Doug Walters proved the next day it was possible to hit it for 6.
ItzaDream
So restricting Neg Gearing to new builds might just be the thing for new appartments.
I did read an article from some developer who expressed the same view
guytaur
Short term bad. Long Term good. Maybe investors will be forced into manufacturing. Perhaps renewable tech.
Probably. And residential pricing in particular. Managing the transition is tricky though
Ok, question for someone who has more knowledge on this than i do.
With the pretty extreme rain events in QLD (good on yah Bill for calling it out re: Climate change) does anyone know enough about where its falling in terms of catchments to say if substantial water will get into the Murray Darling system?? Or is it all heading to the coast in QLD?? Have heard some stuff about communities in western QLD where it may be the drough breaking event??
Will be interesting if it does. A lot of the propery owners who have put in the barriers to confine floood waters to their own properties would have their storages fill up and its the obvious time to get real and definitive data on how much their bastard actions are affecting river / flood flows. Also, how much are they confining as against how much are other property owners getting??
Now, the Govt, vested interests, and RWNuttjobbies would spin any floods as end of problem move on hoping it neutralises the issue pre-election. They should NOT be allowed to do that as it just kicks the can down the road.
The underarm was unintended revenge for what Colin Meads did to Ken Catchpole.
Parliamentary inquiry into the encryption laws passed last year with bipartisan support
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/04/afp-says-new-encryption-laws-have-helped-coerce-suspects-into-unlocking-devices
ar
Don’t tell me the NYT editorial board has fallen under Putin’s influence as well ?
Itza
I call bullshit on that website. The frequency of radio does affect its behaviour, but it is not so much higher frequencies are more dangerous. Microwave ovens operate at 2.4GHz because that gives good penetration and absorption to most foods. Light is also electromagnetic radiation at around 10e14 Hz.
So far the spectrum sold for 5G in Aus is 3.6 GHz.
shellbell
Which was in turn was revenge for calling Phar Lap an Australian horse
imacca @ #2287 Monday, February 4th, 2019 – 1:52 pm
By the look of the map the rain is too far north to be much use to the Darling, but a little may reach the headwaters.