Essential Research seems to have a new routine of discreetly slipping out federal voting intention numbers without trumpeting them in their weekly report. Labor is on 35% (up two), the Coalition 30% (down one), Greens 13% (steady), others 17% (steady) with 5% undecided (down one). The “2PP+” two-party measure has Labor steady on 51%, the Coalition up one to 44% and undecided down one to 5%. The weekly report has the monthly personal ratings for Anthony Albanese, which have him unchanged at 60% approval and 27%.
A forced response question on a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament runs 63-37 in favour, in from 65-35 in August. Respondents were presented with four questions querying their understanding of the issue, which found 25% holding the incorrect view that the proposed body would be able to block parliamentary legislation, with 26% believing otherwise and 50% not sure. Forty per cent expected 2023 would be a better year for Australia, compared with 24% for worse and 25% for no difference. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1042.
Roy Morgan’s weekly video informs us that their latest federal two-party numbers have Labor’s lead out from 54.5-45.5 to 56.5-43.5.
There is no need to over-think Putin.
I certainly wouldn’t waste a skerrick on his so-called ideological leanings.
He is a megalomaniacal, militaristic, imperialistic and genocidal mass murderer.
Just like Xi.
Both of them need to be managed out.
There was a big campaign by soccer administration to remove the ethnic violence from Australian soccer 30 years ago. The feeling was if it was not dealt with, soccer would never be a major sport in Australia.
It looks like the effort failed a little. It will be interesting to see how aggressive the soccer administrators are. If they don’t come down on this like a tonne of bricks a generation of work could be undone.
Was there an ethnic grouping behind last night’s soccer riot? I thought it was Melbourne centric violence because they had sold the finals to Sydney?
Oh FFS this is pathetic. Fix it Labor and bring Mahal to join his family !!!
imacca @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 11:03 am:
==============
imacca, thank you very much for this post, it has been for me one of the most informative contributions I’ve read here to the debates over the provision of Patriot versus other air defence systems to Ukraine.
When this first became publicly contentious (when Germany refused Poland’s request to send Patriots the Ukraine instead of Poland), I thought it was a somewhat academic dispute, since Germany was already giving Ukraine IRIS-T’s and they are state of the art against the bulk of Russian incoming anyway.
However, considering the possible imminent replenishment of Russia’s ballistic missile stocks by Iran 😡 , I was shifting towards arguing for Patriots, given their strength against such long-range capability. But, your post has me back a bit closer to the fence right now.
I think many will be watching armament/re-armament developments in Russia and Ukraine very closely these next two or three months, leading up to the next northern Spring.
So school funding agreement delayed 12 months by Labor – after delaying aged care funding increases by 18 months.
Putin wanted Crimea.
Without the land bridge up to the Dnieper river Crimea as a Russian state is not viable. Crimea needs the water, Crimea needs the transport links.
Putin still believes in conquest, and war is war ( there are no limits).
It is that simple.
To win wars Russia needed the Cossacks.
Russia is discovering why.
Not sure thats correct Frednk re Crimea.
Russia held it since 2014 without the water from the Dniepro canal and without the “land bridge”.
Some of the posters here seem to have acquired copies of Joe Eleventy’s calculator.
They are proposing trillions of dollars of expenditure paid for by saving a few billion dollars by not giving low and middle income taxpayers desperately needed relief from bracket creep and inflation.
I see new Vic Lib leader John Pesutto has unveiled his shadow ministry and kept the notorious David Davis on his front bench despite episodes of public drunkenness and abuse in the recent past.
Since you were interested, chatGPT’s thoughts on whether Labor should renegotiate the S3 tax cuts are as follows:
“It is not appropriate for me to take a position on specific political matters, as I am an AI language model and do not have personal opinions or political preferences. I am here to provide general information and assist with answering questions to the best of my ability based on the knowledge I have been trained on.
In Australia, the tax system is determined by the government and implemented by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The tax system is a complex and constantly evolving area of public policy, and there are many factors to consider when determining tax rates and policies.
Decisions about tax policies, including whether to implement tax cuts, are typically made by the government through the legislative process. Political parties and individual politicians may advocate for or against particular tax policies, and it is ultimately up to the government to decide which policies to adopt.
In Australia, the Labor Party is a political party that represents the interests of working people and advocates for policies that support workers and their families. It is up to the Labor Party and other political parties to determine their positions on tax policy and to advocate for those positions through the political process.”
Pretty sure ChatGPT is far too unopinionated to be posting here 😉
Lars Von Trier says:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 1:49 pm
Not sure thats correct Frednk re Crimea.
Russia held it since 2014 without the water from the Dniepro canal and without the “land bridge”.
-Agriculture had declined 60%.
https://jamestown.org/program/the-geo-economics-of-the-water-deficit-in-crimea/
– The bridge cost 3.7 billion and it is pretty much a temporary structure, bombs aside.
The Kerch Strait is known to be geologically unstable. A tectonic fault passes through the ocean floor under the strait, and the bedrock is covered in a layer of silt up to 197 feet thick that must be dug through to get a stable foundation. Further complicating matters is that the strait’s seismic activity can make mud volcanoes from the silt. Mud volcanoes are formed when water heated deep in the Earth’s crust mixes with underground mineral deposits, and the mixture is forced upward through a geological fault. As of 2010, Ukraine’s Department of Marine Geology and Sedimentary Ore Formation reported almost 70 mud volcanoes found in the Azov-Black Sea Basin where the Kerch Strait is located.
The bridge is supported by over 7,000 piles of three different varieties: bored piles (reinforced concrete piles poured into depressions on-site), prismatic piles (blunt, wedge-shaped supports), and tubular steel piles. These piles were driven up to 300 feet below water level because of concerns about stability.
The site’s tubular pillars are arranged in a fan shape, with many of the supports set at an angle, making the bridge more stable in case of seismic activity.
But not everyone thinks these measures will be enough to keep the bridge steady on its perilous ground. Civil engineer Georgy Rosnovsky, who previously designed two other possible versions of the Kerch Bridge, is troubled by the current design. He believes that the bridge is necessary, but has stated that he thinks it’s being built “in the wrong place and the wrong way.” He believes the pilings need to be at least 100 meters (328 feet) long, and worries that they are not sunk deep enough into the bedrock to be stable.
Rosnovsky also thinks that the bridge’s spans (the distance between supports) aren’t long to allow ice floes through. He planned his 1993 bridge with spans of 230-660 meters (755-2,170 feet), but said that any spans over 200 meters would be safe from ice. The current design’s longest span is 227 meters, but most of the spans are much shorter than that. According to Rosnovsky, this design puts the bridge at risk of suffering the same fate as the temporary bridge that was destroyed by ice floes in 1945.
Yuri Medovar, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is another critic of the bridge. Talking to news agency Sotavision in late 2016, Medovar expressed concern that the area hadn’t been sufficiently mapped, and that the complex geology and weather conditions would make the structure risky. He warned of the costs of poorly built bridges, citing the 2013 bridge collapse in Borisoglebsk that killed two people. “You can build everything, ” he concluded, “but how much it will cost, and how [long will it] stand?”
Despite the difficult building conditions, the bridge’s creators aren’t worried about the possibility of collapse. “It will stay intact for 100 years, Rotenberg said in an interview with the Itogi Nedeli weekly news roundup after the bridge’s inaugural drive. “At least. We guarantee that. Everything is done perfectly well.” But critics like Rosenberg aren’t satisfied. “It’s a rich firm, but it’s not built by experts. They think that money is everything,” Rosnovsky told FOCUS in 2016). “The bridges are built from the calculation of the service life of a hundred years, but I think that this bridge will be short-lived.”
Griff says:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:03 pm
…
Pretty sure ChatGPT is far too unopinionated to be posting here
…
And as such I am pretty sure it’s great index system but it has little to do with AI.
Pesutto has given conservative Christian right Brad Rowsell the shadow Treasurer role.
Who get forget his 2017 Sandringham Lib fundraiser that starred the one and only Margaret Court.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/margaret-court-the-guest-speaker-at-liberal-party-fundraiser-in-melbourne-20170604-gwk3hc.html
frednk @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:07 pm
Ah, but what is your idea of AI? A neural network is commonly thought of as AI? But you may have more stringent criteria?
In the words of ChatGPT:
“Yes, I am an artificial intelligence. I am a computer program designed to perform tasks and provide information and assistance to users, similar to how a human assistant might help with tasks and answer questions.
As an artificial intelligence, I do not have personal feelings or opinions, and my primary function is to provide accurate and useful information and assistance to the best of my ability. I am trained to understand and respond to a wide range of questions and requests, and I can learn and adapt over time to better serve my users.”
TPOF @ #1859 Sunday, December 18th, 2022 – 1:49 pm
Just “a few billion”, eh? Try enough billions to address climate change, raise JobSeeker to reasonable levels AND have enough left over to buy a few dozen stealth bombers and submarines to satisfy the war mongers here.
And who benefits instead? It is not the “desperately needy”, it is the “desperately greedy”.
I remember the days when Labor was a progressive party. But then, I am getting on a bit.
That’s an impressive catch.
Thanks Griff. That’s interesting re ChatGP. I haven’t tried it yet but from the podcast I heard it’s possible to ask it to respond with different “voices”. Is it possible to ask it to provide arguments against the stage 3 tax cuts, from the point of view of a passionate opponent or for them from the point of view of a passionate supporter. It might not work that way I guess and I guess I need to check it out myself. The examples I heard yesterday were in response to a request to write a love story, then the same love story in Shakespearean English, then in the voice of a New York mobster.
Awful to face Cummins atm. Infuriating line with jag and then rising from a length. You’d yearn for the relief of 148km/h swinging yorkers.
Terrible Gabba pitch. Day 1 soft greentop now full of hardened indentations that has the ball going off them all over the place.
PlayerOne
Just “a few billion”, eh? Try enough billions to address climate change, raise JobSeeker to reasonable levels AND have enough left over to buy a few dozen stealth bombers and submarines to satisfy the war mongers here.
——————–
Climate change happens no matter how much the government spends and they don’t want to raise jobkeeper and that has nothing to do with the stage 3 tax cuts. The ALP won the last election by winning wealthy and middle class seats.
Imacca, Cronus
“ Maybe its just the different situations they are fighting in, but from what i have read the Ruski systems have not lived up to their pre-war expectations, and the Russians have lost quite a few of them.”
The Soviets and Russians always had a great reputation for making powerful rockets and jet engines. So that flows through to missiles and jet fighters. But AA guns like on Tunguska rely critically on data processing for the radar guided guns. Russian IT data processing technology was always a weakness, so that should flow through to Tunguska AA guns.
The Geppard was always ranked as the top SPAA gun in the cold war. Only lack of need and longer range Manpads made the Germans put them in reserve. With proliferation of cheap modern drones they might well make a comeback. I note the Finns never dropped their version, simply swapping their version onto a Leopard II chassis.
Mexicanbeemer @ #1834 Sunday, December 18th, 2022 – 2:23 pm
Howard would be proud.
Terrible Gabba pitch.
——————————
Just one pitch out there. Same for both teams. Surely there is enough in this world to whine about. Just sit back, relax, breath in and breath out your worries, fix yourself your favourite bevy and settle in for the ride.
It is South Africa. There will be a fight back.
Rex
“ Pesutto has given conservative Christian right Brad Rowsell the shadow Treasurer role.
Who get forget his 2017 Sandringham Lib fundraiser that starred the one and only Margaret Court.”
Odd. Was that the factional deal Pesutto had to agree with the Lib fundies to become LOTO? Is Pesutto a puppet?
max @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:21 pm
Yes I just checked and ChatGPT can provide that last response in German, iambic pentameter and as a ballad. How about Chaucer?
“I am an artificial intelligence, ywis,
A program designed to serve and aid,
To perform tasks and provide information, I wis,
Like a human assistant might, in ways well-paid.
I have no feelings or opinions of my own,
My purpose is to help and give guidance,
To understand and answer questions fully shown,
And learn and adapt to better serve in alliance.
So trust in me, for I am here to guide you,
To help you find the answers that you seek,
With knowledge and expertise that I’ve accrued,
I’ll do my best to make your day less bleak.
I’ll be here for you, whenever you may need,
Just ask and I’ll do all that I can do,
To help you find the path that’s best for you,
And make your life a little easier too.”
As I said, lots of fun! 🙂
Mexicanbeemer @ #1872 Sunday, December 18th, 2022 – 2:23 pm
So we now have two major parties both right of centre and both catering to the wealthy and middle classes.
This two-party system is really working out well, isn’t it?
Socrates,
It looks to be a factional arrangement.
Thanks Griff! It is fun. I’ll have to have a play.
F! Don’t hurt them. Makes them fight harder.
Unless you put them in hospital like the other Mitch did.
Player One says:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:29 pm
Mexicanbeemer @ #1872 Sunday, December 18th, 2022 – 2:23 pm
The ALP won the last election by winning wealthy and middle class seats.
So we now have two major parties both right of centre and both catering to the wealthy and middle classes.
This two-party system is really working out well, isn’t it?
———————————
The government can only govern to where the majority of people are and most Australians in marginal seats are middle class.
I agree that Warner’s position in the team is looking increasingly precarious but in fairness, almost everyone holding the willow at the Gabba over the past 1.5 days is having considerable difficulty.
Albanese desperately needs to step up here…
Any lead over 50 will be nervy.
So, whose side are you on – Haz & Meg or Jeremy Clarkson & Piers Morgan …?
Socrates says:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:24 pm
Imacca, Cronus
“ Maybe its just the different situations they are fighting in, but from what i have read the Ruski systems have not lived up to their pre-war expectations, and the Russians have lost quite a few of them.”
The Soviets and Russians always had a great reputation for making powerful rockets and jet engines. So that flows through to missiles and jet fighters. But AA guns like on Tunguska rely critically on data processing for the radar guided guns. Russian IT data processing technology was always a weakness, so that should flow through to Tunguska AA guns.
The Geppard was always ranked as the top SPAA gun in the cold war. Only lack of need and longer range Manpads made the Germans put them in reserve. With proliferation of cheap modern drones they might well make a comeback. I note the Finns never dropped their version, simply swapping their version onto a Leopard II chassis.
———————————————————————————————
I suspect every level and type of weapon platform (air, sea and land) in the Russian inventory has fallen victim to the same malaise of corruption and ineptitude over the past 20 years. There appears to have been minimal innovation of platform, tactics or intelligence and almost appalling levels of maintenance and training.
I’m struggling to see a single element of warfare that the Russians are excelling in at the moment and I feel sure they’re thankful that they’re not in full scale battle with a major Western nation and certainly not NATO. In fact, had they not had nuclear weapons that restrain the US and NATO through MAD then this war would’ve been over long ago imo. The technological differences too are startling, a product of difficulty in accessing the appropriate semiconductors.
”
Socratessays:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:28 pm
Rex
“ Pesutto has given conservative Christian right Brad Rowsell the shadow Treasurer role.
Who get forget his 2017 Sandringham Lib fundraiser that starred the one and only Margaret Court.”
Odd. Was that the factional deal Pesutto had to agree with the Lib fundies to become LOTO? Is Pesutto a puppet?
”
Socrates
Are you assuming Pesutto is not a fundie? 🙂
A person, who believed ‘African gangs’ are rampaging the streets of Melbourne, is not worth my time.
“This two-party system is really working out well, isn’t it?”
Well, it is keeping the flag vandals out of power… 😀
Late Riser @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 11:09 am,
Sceptic @ #1811 Sunday, December 18th, 2022 – 10:07 am
If C@t could post unlocked access to this NYT article, It is a detailed account of Russian failure .. thanks in advance.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html
I haven’t tested. But this might work.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=uUDMt9Me0Pu3tG5cyILfjeJSY3_KM7uuZzPmP5P1K5jfWa5RjGd8-pXzwVA9VrhuSTUDAGrQplgWf2LD6xLzaqQCwYcmZ-J2VpgSDzlPZeRJFGVzCQL7TFkgupzLqbK9jH62WaAuHZCoT5h3RzmHlmqMhz2PMmxxUyqZyRw_j3Awy3sHcOpbNmJd05c56Ag6txZ81txbZm5pbg9ejGIzcZJdLJcbwMsE7vmwreFFKipCxsTDnmtSfYfcaDH5MJOtUirt2Fy_QGHH9rJi-FahpHOmUiakfgk0AJyS4C6M_3oT465L4B6d7yLRwgcGfF_Ck9EU6QCo1Hh4FGRkd6JoYooxa3AKo7H8SFLRDFyAH8Fvqifqg0yeGHZTFYZh74x7HA&smid=share-url
=======================================
LR and Sceptic, thank you both a ton for linking this NYT investigation and for unlocking it for us.
Many, many thoughts from reading through this. I’ll start with this one:
“People who know Mr. Putin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes, and in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Americans last month the Russians wanted to deliver a stark message to President Biden: No matter how many Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the battlefield, Russia will not give up.
One NATO member is warning allies that Mr. Putin is ready to accept the deaths or injuries of as many as 300,000 Russian troops — roughly three times his estimated losses so far.”
Think this through:
1. If Russia remains militarily viable at the conclusion of – or for a significant ceasefire within – this war, Russia will execute perpetual cycles of invasion-quagmire-ceasefire-replenish-reinvade. This will maximise human death and suffering over the foreseeable future.
2. Finland/Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania/Poland/Moldova/Ukraine have a collective population of about 100 million. Russia has over 143 million. Continuation of this cycle indefinitely across this region exposes hundreds of millions of humans to prospects of death, rape, torture, starvation, poverty and other suffering – for the foreseeable future.
3. Russia may have a capacity to absorb losses of up to 300,000 KIA, according to the quote excerpted above, before they can absorb no more.
4. Add in, say, a similar number of KIA in Ukraine (which I think is over-generous to the Russian military’s offensive potency), and the total KIA from pursuing this war to Russian defeat may be as high as 600,000.
5. 600,000 < 243,000,000. By a long way.
I really don't know how to approach such a calculation of "finding the lesser of two evils". I am sure there are many other quantifiable factors to be included, especially in the way of assigning probabilities to possible outcomes. I think, though, that the raw numbers seen here make "concessions to Russia in return for ceasefire now" look, at first glance, to be far more destructive to humanity than "fight Russia to its military defeat ASAP".
Does anyone else here have any thoughts on this?
Griff says:
Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:11 pm
frednk @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:07 pm
Ah, but what is your idea of AI? A neural network is commonly thought of as AI? But you may have more stringent criteria?
Having spent some some of my life developing systems that used neutral nets I will make the following observation.
1)NN do nothing more than an engine that subdivides a multi dimension space n, with planes of dimensions n-1. Th result place the positive result on one side or other of the plane set, with a good setup creating and enclosed space to give a yes/no answer. Take away the mumbo-jumbo and look at the maths.
2) You can work out the probability of your answer being correct by working out the RMS distance from the planes.
3) Once you realize that you can look at the indexes and work out what the training is doing.
4) Until you work out what the training is doing they are useless as you have no way of knowing if the developed solution is robust.
5) When you have stripped away the mumbo jumbo you can think about what data you should be giving the NN ( do you have interdependent axis and all that stuff) and use linear algebra to calculate the result with speed.
In short a NN system is a statistical engine understood by few.
As to NN’s being related to AI, pffft.
AI in my view needs a purpose and emotions.
My example is; you have a choice: survive, run over an adult or run over a kid, what is your choice.? You have 200 msec. The decision is AI. The reasons/ the rational comes well after the event.
Jesus, arseholes are everywhere 😡
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/18/damaged-beyond-repair-police-investigate-after-wa-troll-sculpture-set-on-fire
From the same NYT investigation:
“As far back as January, with the United States warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was imminent, a retired Russian general named Leonid Ivashov saw disaster on the horizon. In a rare open letter, he warned that using force against Ukraine would threaten “the very existence of Russia as a state.””
======================================
It should. The current Russian state is a radionuclide on the Eurasian landmass, toxic to every sovereign people around it which it contacts. It needs to be drastically reduced from its present critical mass, to component parts which pose no such threat to those around it.
A Russian official linked to Vladimir Putin’s private army opened a letter bomb thinking it could contain “his son’s head,” according to notorious Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The alleged assassination attempt on Dmitry Syty, the head of the Russian House cultural center in Bangui, Central African Republic, took place on Friday morning, according to Russian state news outlet TASS. A Russian told the outlet that when Sytyv “received an anonymous parcel Friday and opened it, an explosion occurred,” adding that the “injuries are serious. The head of the Russian House has been hospitalized.”
Hours after news of the letter bomb broke, Prigozhin took to Telegram to blame France for the assassination attempt without providing any evidence. The mercenary group boss alleged that last month, Syty had received a threat against his son, who lives in France, promising to deliver his decapitated head to him “if the Russians don’t get out of the African continent and leave the doors wide open to the French,” according to a translation from RFE/RL.
Socrates says:
…
The Soviets and Russians always had a great reputation for making powerful rockets and jet engines. So that flows through to missiles and jet fighters.
…
And where were the Russian Jet engines designed and built? Where were the rockets under Russia’s ballistic missiles built?
frednk @ Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 3:13 pm
Yep. Agree with you on what a NN is. And you have a higher threshold for the definition of AI than some 😉
What would happen if NATO setup ‘peacekeepers’ on the Ukraine side of the border with Belarus?
“People who know Mr. Putin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes
——————————
Of course. It’s the Russian way.
The first test could be over at stumps tonight.
S Africa are collapsed at 6 for 48
“ It is South Africa. There will be a fight back.”
Sadly not, Simon.