Sorry I’ve been AWOL folks, but there hasn’t been any time to scratch my nose, let alone blog. I’m involved in a sort of side project that has ballooned, and looks set to become my new full-time career when it’s complete in a year’s time.
Anyway, I’m off on holidays as of today. I have a couple of half-completed articles that I may get around to finishing at my leisure, so if you’d like to be notified when they come out then subscribe to this site if you haven’t done so already.
In the meantime, may you and yours have a very merry Christmas and a New Year filled with joy, prosperity and freedom.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Good on ‘ya Ozboy.
It looks like all your Christmases have come this year.
I wish you well in your endeavours in the project.
Enjoy a very Happy Christmas with your family as well as that rest that you have earned.
Thanks mate. I’ll wave as I pass by on our way to the Spirit – Oz
Καλά Χριστούγεννα to you as well Oz’
I’ve missed your posts.
Hope you and yours have a great Christmas and New Year.
Happy Christmas Oz
Yeh It must be Christmas 🙂
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/crisis-in-russia-seven-reasons-why-obama-shouldve-nixed-the-congressional-sanctions/
This News Limited article quotes an editorial from Russia’s leading business daily, which predicts that if the rouble does not cease its freefall, there will be a run on the banks by next week, as panicked Russian consumers try to convert their currency to euros or dollars before it becomes worthless.
Must be Christmas all right: nothing like the prospect of World War Three to liven things up – Oz
Some music for the less classically-minded (H/T Andrew Bolt)
I’m biased, Sarah is a fave of Mrs Oz.
Hi Ozboy,
Happy Christmas and a ballooning NewYear!
I thought the bar was a bit quiet lately, I hope the real-world distractions are rewarding without being too arduous, and don’t prevent you from opening the bar and grill for the occasional frank discussion..!
Posted my latest animation in your jukebox.
Grin!
Season’s best to you and yours – Oz
Happy Christmas OZ. And all who sail in her…
https://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/merry-christmas-2014/
Gone, but never forgotten.
May I just say thanks for adding me to your blogroll,
and take the opportunity to make a shameless plug for my new post –
https://izenmeme.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/agw-why-worry/
in which I try to combine two interests, climate science and animation!
Not sure which I find most interesting, but I know which takes up the most time.
-GRIN-
Everyone, pop along to Izen’s site and let him know how right he is – Oz 🙄
Ozboy, I know it can be incredibly embarrassing when your Nation’s leader does something dumb,…
But did your leader REALLY just Knight PRINCE Philip !!!
Is this some Southern Hemisphere thing?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6734469.stm
I’m afraid so.
I suppose he is justifying himself by the fact that his son Chucky was invested as an AK back in 1981. Or maybe because Phil opened the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Or something… Oz 😳
Rumour has it that he had Fergy in mind, but he got a little mixed up.
Maybe he also “damed” Liz in secret – Oz 😈
Vale big man, big voice. Here in his first band (with Vangelis on keyboards)
Farmerbraun, this one’s just for you:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/willunga-dairy-farmer-mark-tyler-in-court-for-selling-raw-unpasteurised-milk/story-fni6uo1m-1227199831147
G’Day Oz,
What’s going on with Abbott and the Liberal Party right now? I’ve read about some recent results in Queensland, a bad approval rating, and some grumbles within the Liberal Party against Abbott. Results and approval numbers are what they are but at the same time I know a large swathe of the media is statist / far left.
They’ve shown they’re almost as adept as Labor at shooting themselves in the foot, albeit on not so epic a scale. More later this week – Oz
Thanks sir. Breitbart could really do with a Breitbart Australia for information, in a dream scenario you being a guest author now and again 🙂
Good luck with your studies if pursued as planned if I recollect correctly from late last year.
Thanks mate. That’s largely why I haven’t had much spare time for writing, and won’t again until late this year.
I’ve suggested an Aussie Breitbart myself… all in good time I guess – Oz
This blog may be of interest http://catallaxyfiles.com/2015/02/01/politics-post-qld/
Or this one
http://theredandtheblue.org/2015/01/27/without-change-the-karma-bus-will-come-for-abbott/
And these are avid supporters. Not a good look.
Some more analysis.
http://theredandtheblue.org/2015/02/01/labor-win-in-queensland-a-clarion-call-for-liberal-party-reform/
Taking aim at the problem.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/desperate_defence_of_credlin_is_humilsdf/
@karabar, I suspect if Abbott can hunker down and there is decent economic performance he can slowly swing things back his way. I see though that economic outlooks in Australia for 2015 are all over the place, esp. GDP growth predictions. I don’t quite have a grasp of Australia’s economics and drivers, for some reason it appears to be in a different part of its cycle than the U.S. and U.K., with unemployment recently having gone up but projected to soon peak before going down. It could be because Australia is more honest in data reporting because the top line unemployment rate has been increasing despite the labour participation rate increasing, quite different from the U.S., perhaps a demographics issue.
Tony Abbott is not the problem. It’s the MSM and the voters.
The new normal for economics? Don Aitken blogs, January 29:
THERE has been a marked reluctance by the ALP, the parliament and the mass media to accept that the six-year Labor government spent far too much, and that it committed future governments to a continuation of that spending. The expectation that tightening our belt is really unnecessary, because Australia is doing well in comparison to other countries, seems a tad on the loony side to me, whoever says it. And it is loonier still when you look at the great decline in mining revenue, and the number of companies in that sector that are closing down mines, laying off people or having other troubles…
I agree, that is the problem Abbott and the Liberal Party face as economic performance lags policies and initially poor performance will be due to the previous government. The previous government obviously was able to have a temporal fake ‘sugar’ boost to mask things by racking up state spending and debt. The MSM and academic ‘economists’ will of course not portray it that way. Abbott will just have to hunker down and maintain a tight ship until the economy gets back on track, people can see it for themselves in their daily lives, and hence the power of spin from the media and leftists academics will be less. This is an all too familiar pattern that is seen with conservative governments coming into power after years of a leftist government, so in the big picture no surprises really.
In Europe this smoke and mirrors from the media / cultural marxists was used to pretend for a while that austerity was bad and Keynesian economics was good, until Christine Lagarde (IMF) eventually had to apologise to George Osborne for her previous warnings over austerity when the UK’s economy was clearly outperforming other European economies, albeit with austerity not having gone anywhere near as deep as it should and the UK benefiting from an asset bubble in part due to oligarchs moving their money from other European countries to lock into real estate. The BBC was peddling Keynesian economics propaganda on an almost daily basis until the UK economy was back in unequivocal growth, until that point peddling the fallacious choice of increasing taxes or reduced revenues (brainwashing the public into thinking lowering taxes is never a good option). Osborne has not nearly gone as far as he should, but he also did marginally reduce the rate for the top income bracket band and also lifted the threshold for the lowers income tax band to partially reverse action the prior Labour government had instituted (despite the Labour Party / political left pretending to be on the side of the poor). We see plenty of this here in the U.S. also on a state level with various governors, e.g. Scott Walker, and all the abuse/flak he had to initially face from the media and public sector unions.
To qualify this all though, and Ozboy will have to address, is that Abbott isn’t nearly as conservative as he could be in his policies (still better than the likes of David Cameron in the UK though), and hence why there is significant dissatisfaction from the right as well as the left.
EXACTLY! In the first eighteen months of its term the Coalition has been trying to please everyone and has pleased no one. The Left can never be won over with reducing spending, and the political base that elected the current government cannot understand why it has not drastically reduced waste and especially why it has not carved the broadcasting monopoly (I should say propaganda machine) up into pieces to make it compete with the private networks.