Today is the day of the federal by-election for the Queensland seat of Groom, which you can offer your thoughts on on this post in the apparently unlikely event that you have something specifically to say about it through the course of the day. This site will naturally be all over the count this evening, complete with a live results facility that is fully battle-tested so far as federal elections are concerned.
Other news of note:
• Roy Morgan had a result this week from the federal voting intention series it conducts regularly but publishes erratically. This one credited the Coalition with a slender two-party lead of 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of Coalition 42%, Labor 34%, Greens 12% and One Nation 4%. State breakdowns had the Coalition leading 53.5-46.5 in New South Wales, the reverse in Victoria, the Coalition leading 54.5-45.5 in Queensland, the Coalition leading 51-49 in Western Australia, and Labor leading 52.5-47.5 in South Australia. The poll was conducted online and by telephone over the two previous weekends from a sample of 2824.
• The Financial Review reports on JWS Research polling that shows 20% believe states should close borders to other states that have any active COVID-19 cases, “almost 60%” believe the same should happen if there are 25 active cases, and 75% say the same for 100 active cases. The report further relates that 60% of respondents rated the federal government’s handling of the virus positively, down six points from July, and that 87% of Western Australians, 82% of South Australians and 57% of Victorians (up seven since July) did likewise for their state goverments, with due caution for the small size of the relevant sub-samples. The poll was conducted from a sample of 1035 from last Friday to Sunday.
• John Ferguson of The Australian reports on Victorial Liberal Senate preselection contenders for the next election: Simon Frost, staffer to Josh Frydenberg and the party’s former state director (including at the time of its disastrous 2018 campaign); Roshena Campbell, a Melbourne lawyer; Greg Mirabella, Wangaratta farmer and husband of Sophie Mirabella; and Jess Wilson, policy director at the Business Council of Australia. This is likely to amount to a race for the second position on the ticket, with Sarah Henderson to be promoted to first and Scott Ryan not seeking another term. There is contention in the state branch over president Robert Clark’s reluctance to have preselections determined through party plebiscites, with critics accusing him of using COVID-19 to maintain control by the central administration, as it did before the last election. According to the report, “a statewide ballot would favour Mr Frost, while an administrative committee vote would favour those loyal to Mr Clark’s forces“.
steve davis
But does he know it yet? When he realises, will he explode, or melt into a puddle of denial?
The Aussies pick Henriques over Green in today’s ODI.
The curse of the Light Blue Cap strikes again!
The point seems to have been missed by the Lib supporters in Vic.
Shellbell,
Maybe I should have turned on the ABC for the cricket. On this vicious Sunday afternoon, I turned on Fox to watch Australia in action against someone or other. The very first thing I saw, was an Australian player with his finger so far up his nose it would need hotel quarantine when it came out. It told me all I need to know about the Australian cricket team or, perhaps, why I have stopped watching to the point that I know basically none of the players any more. They are grubs. And they have been grubs ever since Ian Michael Chappell had a say in the running of the team.
Lizzie
I hope they carry him out in a straightjacket.
lizzie @ #548 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 12:46 pm
Scientifically, pure water contains only molecules of H2O.
Any water in a natural environment doesn’t come close to this.
Rain water contains salts, clouds won’t form unless there is some nuclei in the atmosphere that the water molecules can attach themselves to.
Spring water picks up additional salts as it passes through the rock strata.
“sterility” is another mater, that’s removing or killing any organic contaminants in the water.
@Cud and C@t:
“ Stevia is ok in small quantities but does have a bitter aftertaste.”
Walter White makes a wicked batch of Stevia…
In other news – 43 degrees in Singleton at the moment. I’m off to Tamworth…
Barney in Tanjung Bunga
Water obtained by Osmosis is pretty pure, but it tastes shit.
frednk @ #557 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 1:04 pm
😆
The taste is form all the impurities.
“form” should be “from” 😆
Lizzie
Now give us the aged care stats Australia wide.
Or is it just unique to Victoria which mismanaged hotel quarantine so badly.
lizzie @ #553 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 3:52 pm
DimTim and Taylormade can’t compute.
Taylormade @ #561 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 1:11 pm
Why don’t you if you think you have a point to counter lizzie’s with.
Or are you just trying to muddy the waters?
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #563 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:17 pm
Nothing wrong with private aged care in Victoria according to empty suit PM, Colbeck, DimTim and Taylormade.
Extremely pure water is completely tasteless.. the university’s chemistry lab had some.
Taylormade says:
Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 4:11 pm
Lizzie
Now give us the aged care stats Australia wide.
Or is it just unique to Victoria which mismanaged hotel quarantine so badly.
The first disaster, the one that should have given the Federal government pause for thought was in NSW.
No deaths in one sector, 680 in another, would not be a problem if the sector was not challenged. Dim Tim would be so proud of you.
Just hanging on and waitting for the change to blow through between 5pm and 6pm here.
Steve777, has it passed through the north of Sydney yet? Probably a bit early.
Taylormade @ #596 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:11 pm
Well, there were the deaths in Coalition NSW at Newmarch House, for starters. Want me to go on?
Barney its pretty hard to make pure water. Even if you filter it, deionise it, double distil it, you still have dissolved gases like nitrogen.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3408-oil-and-water-do-mix-after-all/
Has the media paid much attention to this?
Cud Chewer @ #569 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 1:28 pm
Heavy water is even tougher. 😆
Taylormade makes a fool of himself today.
But no doubt he’ll double down, butter up and do it once again. It’s what his Liberal Lord and Masters demand of all sychophants.
You guys do know that purity makes you impotent.
I prefer water you can chew.
“The reason the ALP Leadership is attracting such comment is precisely because there is none.”…
Those on the left should be worried about the leadership of the Greens and why they keep attracting such a miserable primary vote (see latest elections and by-elections)…. Greens leadership?
Those on the right should be worried about the leadership of the Liberal party and why is that ScuMo, in spite of so much exposure during this Covid pandemic as PM is getting the coalition ahead of the ALP only by a miserable and statistically irrelevant 0.5%….. Liberal leadership?
… And yet, again and again commenters point to the ALP as the “party without leadership”… Oh, only to praise their leaders (Keating, Rudd, Gillard) once they leave politics.
Conclusion: those commenters are not ALP voters or, if they are, they suffer from a very serious case of self-defeating masochism.
Albo is fine… just as Shorten was before him…. but they have to operate in a media environment in Australia that is ALP-hostile in the extreme… With so many real enemies around already, the ALP doesn’t need self-defeating “friends”.
Greensborough Growler @ #3715 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:40 pm
Looxury. I grew up in Adelaide.
lizzie
They often do purify the crap out of it to take the crap out of it. Then add back the “natural minerals” .Beware the definitions of “spring” and “mineral” water. Mineral water just means from “underground” , ie bore water, people in Perth could tell you how wunderbar ‘natural mineral water’ aka bore water can be in metro Perth, the aroma, the free stains 😆 .
rhwombat @ #575 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 1:44 pm
We never went hungry.
Cud Chewer
Double distilled, pfft, once worked at a place that went the full triple distilled. Tasted amazing. There was something in my mouth that had mass but no other sensation. Very strange . Now stop being pedant with the dissolved gas 🙂 Dissolved gas being something I have a particular dislike of…………………do a lot of HPLC work. A wee gas bubble goes a long way to not making my day 😆
RH,
Southwark Beer will kill you in the end.
“But does he know it yet? When he realises, will he explode, or melt into a puddle of denial?”…
He was hoping that Republican judges would deliver him victory… But they didn’t. The next desperate plan would be to call the military in, I guess, alleging a “Communist-Marxist-Leninist coup d’etat via this fraudulent election, led by Che Guevara Biden”…. But, as far as we know, the military didn’t swallow those fake news….
Yes, I think that now he knows that he has lost. The question is: will he step down before time to allow VP Pence to pardon him?….. Stay tuned.
Henriques makes sense as a stop gap when the grand Langer plan is to find a spot for MM when he is fit.
A few weeks in quarantine presumably made Smith a little less self-conscious about sleeping with his bat and spending every waking hour practicing in front of a mirror.
How rife must Covid-19 be in Pakistan !? Herd immunity around the corner for them ? They are taking no chances in NZ and doing serology tests as well as PCR tests on the Pakistan tour squad. Apart from the current 7 positives from the squad the serology tests find……
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-coronavirus-1-new-case-of-covid-19-in-miq-2-members-of-pakistani-cricket-team-historic-infection/WE6GMR2YOD6WS63H3D2CEWDPUU/
There is no official definition of spring water, so the bottlers can put any water they like in the bottles. It’s highly likely that most of it is ordinary town water from a nice clean supply like Sydney.
The sodium in Liźzie’s is just plain old salt. The sparkling is carbon dioxide.
Alpo @ #574 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:43 pm
Your conclusion is wrong. I am a Labor voter and I want to see Labor win. But I don’t believe Albo is the person to do it. Neither do any of my Labor voting friends and colleagues **
** Okay, I probably should add “unless Morrison stuffs up big time”. But honestly, do you think we could take any bigger stuff ups than what has already happened this last year? I have personally been through fire, flood, plague and recession, and have watched Morrison stuff up badly in every situation … and I have seen his popularity increase, and Albo’s decrease every time.
Have a look at William’s BludgerTrack. It tells the story of why Albo needs to go. I just don’t think I could survive a stuff up big enough to make Morrison lose if Albo remains his opponent. To me, this means Albo has to go. And soon.
Alpo @ #574 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:43 pm
The media bias has little effect on Victorians.
Why does it have an effect on eastern state voters ? ..or doesn’t it ?
Greensborough Growler
With its Bitter having a much vaunted 25 IBUs , which ‘end’ ?
Vale the “hero” of the RW section of the “How to respond to The Plague” community.
.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Sweden’s government sidelines epidemiologist as deaths rise
The high-profile epidemiologist who led Sweden’s no lockdown strategy in the spring appears to be being sidelined by the government after his prediction that greater immunity would mean a lighter second wave proved badly wrong.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-swedens-government-sidelines-epidemiologist-as-deaths-rise/CNY3FNHE27DQONSB7B77ZDFVBQ/
poroti @ #587 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 2:15 pm
He really should have studied some Mathematics.
poroti @ #618 Sunday, November 29th, 2020 – 4:59 pm
Life is cheap in countries like that. The powers that be calculate it costs more to try and save lives. Not that they have the resources to have a choice.
C@t,
Just catching up with today’s posts on the blog, and this stool out. Can Melbourne do a Liverpool UK, and just stop buying Murdoch papers?
Shellbell,
They could never mount a case for Mo as a good enough alternative to MM.
You now have the most exciting all rounder talent since Miller and the selectors choose Mo.
Light Blue cap is the only explanatio.
poroti
This reminds me of when I stayed at a farmhouse in upstate New York. The farm came with its own gas well. And you know what that means – gas permeating the water table.
The water out of the water well tasted sulphurous. It even stank having a shower. Ewww.
I guess you could describe it as mineral water!
I’ll never forget the way Perth bore water turned the sides of houses a rainbow of colours.
Extremely pure water is completely tasteless.. the university’s chemistry lab had some.
_____
Cud Chewer
In my very early days of working in a chemistry laboratory we had distilled water on tap. We used to get a 5 litre beaker which we had thoroughly cleaned with sodium metabishulphite, half fill it with distilled water and heat until it was able to reach about 103 deg C (superheated due to the absence of impurities and lack of nucleation points on the glass surface. Then we would throw in the required quantity of tea leaves and POOF!!!!. Nucleation would occur as would instantaneous boiling. The tea was delicious.
GG
Slightly different perspective to the fact that Henriques is wrong choice.
Green comes in – shows his obvious class – ends international careers of two Langer darlings in Stoinis and MM.
Henriques bowling is way off too.
poroti,
The end that leads to a Liberal Government.
But, I’m sure you would support that end.
Sorry I couldn’t stay to play with Taylormade (but thank you all for taking the baton). I had something more important to attend to – a little dog with diarrhoea.
Dave Prowse, the Bristolian former bodybuilder best known for playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged 85.
Prowse was cast as Vader for his imposing physique, even though the role was voiced by James Earl Jones.
But the weightlifter-turned-actor was most proud of playing the Green Cross Code Man. The role, promoting road safety in the UK, earned him an MBE.
“May the force be with him, always!” said his agent Thomas Bowington.
“Though famous for playing many monsters – for myself, and all who knew Dave and worked with him, he was a hero in our lives.”
Mr Bowington called the actor’s death, after a short illness, “a truly and deeply heart-wrenching loss for us and millions of fans all over the world”.
BK
I think you are sitting on a gold mine with that recipe. The devotees of crap like ‘molecular gastronomy’ would lap it up and pay a fortune for the ‘privilege’.