Horse 2848 - What? That.

When? Then

Whose? Those.

Where? There.

I had my mind taken to a delightful new place last week when someone on the radio made mention of the "Wh? Th." question and answer formation.

The rational explanation is that 'who' and 'what' derive from Old English hwa and hwæt, respectively, and in turn are simply the descendants of the masculine and neuter forms of Proto-Indo-European 'kwos' and 'kwod'. The direct Latin equivalents are 'quis' and 'quod'. 'wh' and 'qu' are similar and at some point 'w' merged with 'ū' and that makes sense as they are both velar approximant excpet that /w/ is a voiced labialized-velar approximant.

Why? Thy.

How? Thou.

(I bet that 'how' used to be spelt 'whow').

These questions and answers do in fact work but they're nowhere near as elegant. These answers also attach ownership of the answer to the person directly in front of the one asking the question.

However (just like when you hear the word 'but' you can ignore everything that came before, when you hear the word 'however' you'd better strap yourself in because it's going to be a bumpy ride), I kind of feel as though I've found a word which doesn't exist but absolutely, totally, definitely, indubitably, should. 

Whese? These.

It feels to me that 'whese' should exist as a word because it follows the same construction of this kind of particle but I don't honestly see any practical purposes for it. 'Whese' if it is to exist as a word, needs so much of an explanation as to be unwieldy and ridiculous. 'Whose are these?' 'Which ones are these?' Those concepts are far more complex than the usual questioning words.

Who? Tho.

Which? Thich. 

'Who? Thou.' might be a reminder that the ancient rule which existed, worked in this case after all. What has changed in the meantime is both the great vowel shift and English flirting with the idea and then rejecting the concept that objects have gender.

Whing? Thing.

White? Thite.

Whee? Thee.

The thing that makes the English language the best language in the world is that it is so very brilliant at allowing things that could be built; which fits into the existing rules. The only real hard and fast rule in grammar is that every sentence contains a verb and that verb can either be stated or implied. English is so versatile that you can verb a noun and noun a verb. You can also build words that make sense, from the intuitive rules which exist.

Whither? Thither.

Wherefore? Therefore.

Use of 'th' in place of what would have been a yogh explains neatly why words like 'thee', 'thou', and 'thine' exist in print. Typesetters in looking through their new fangled box of bits, while minding their ps and qs found that they were missing thorns, eths, and yoghs. There might be as many as ten letters that English lost as a result of the arrival of the printing press and this also explains why the Scots name which might be pronounced as Men-ghi-s, came out as Menzies. This also explains why 'The Old Shop' comes out as 'Ye Olde Shoppe'.

Whyfor? Thyfor.

Whyroid? Thyroid.

Whis? This. 

The problem when I start tumbling down the rabbit hole is that I feel as though there is some underlying rule which existed in a proto-English that got baked into the final product but I don't know how you even go about researching this. I imagine that linguists have come across this before and that maybe someone somewhere has written a paper on it but again, I don't know how to find it.

I am left with a lot of 'wh' questions but not many 'th' answers. Oh English, ye weird wayward child of Saxon, Viking, Anglish and French. Do you know what trouble thou hast wrought?

What? That.

Horse 2847 - PORT ADELAIDE FOOTBALL CLUB v COLLINGWOOD FOOTBALL CLUB [2021] - Judgement

The Fake Internet Court of Australia

PORT ADELAIDE FOOTBALL CLUB v COLLINGWOOD FOOTBALL CLUB [2021] - Judgement

H2847/1

It has come to this fake internet court's attention that Collingwood Football Club somehow coerced and twisted the arm of the Australian Football league (AFL), into refusing Port Adelaide's request to play in their traditional black-and-white striped 'prison bars' guernsey against the Adelaide Crows, last month.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/603616/statement-port-adelaide-request-to-wear-black-and-white-striped-guernsey

The AFL confirms it has not approved the request for Port Adelaide to wear a black and white striped 'prison bars' guernsey for the Round 8 match vs Adelaide Crows next week.

After reviewing the request from the Port Adelaide Football Club, the AFL determined the existing signed agreements between the Port Adelaide Football Club, Collingwood and the AFL on the use of the "prison bar" guernsey would remain in place. 

In 2019, the AFL, Port Adelaide and Collingwood came to an agreement that allowed one-off approval for the 'prison bar' guernsey to be worn in Port Adelaide's home match against the Adelaide Crows to celebrate the Club's 150th anniversary.

That agreement, signed by all parties, stipulated the guernsey was specifically approved for Port Adelaide's use only for that single match in 2020 and Collingwood's approval did not bind it with respect to any other future proposals by the Port Adelaide Football Club in respect of the guernsey.

- The AFL, 29th Apr 2021

If that wasn't enough, Collingwood then had the audacity and sheer cheek to fly this banner before their match against Port Adelaide last weekend.

The issue that this court must decide is whether or not Collingwood has a right to protect what it sees as its intellectual property or whether or not it is unreasonable for them to do so.

These are the facts as this court sees them:

Collingwood began as a club in 1892 and was part of the initial core of clubs which founded the Victorian Football League in 1897. From the outset they have played in black and white stripes.

Port Adelaide Football Club began in 1870 as a joint football and cricket club and would play in the inaugural season of the South Australian National Football League in 1877. It has played in blue, pink, and magenta but only acquired its 'Prison Bar' uniform in 1902. Upon entry to the AFL in 1997, Port Adelaide was required to incorporate teal and remove stripes by the AFL to appease Collingwood. It was also required not to call itself the magpies.

Port Adelaide would like to play in its 'Prison Bar' uniform occasionally. Collingwood however, would like this never to be the case. The two clubs (Port Adelaide and Collingwood) have been engaged in this fiasco for a very long time, as Collingwood perpetually claims that Port Adelaide's 'Prison Bar' jumper is too similar to their black-and-white, striped guernsey.

It is the opinion of this court, that when Collingwood play North Melbourne that the two kits are practically identical. Navy Blue and Black are indistinguishable from each other from far away and Collingwood hasn't had a problem with North Melbourne in the more than a century that they have been in the same league.

Furthermore the experience of just about every single kind of sporting code in the world says that if you have two clubs that are in kits that would clash with each other (like Liverpool and Manchester United who would normally both play in read) that when they meet, one of them changes to some other colour. The idea of the away kit is a long established concept.

Collingwood however are not arguing that Port Adelaide shouldn't play in their black and white stripes when the two clubs meet. Collingwood are arguing that Port Adelaide shouldn't be allowed play in their black and white stripes ever; including when the two clubs do not meet.

Final Judgement:

It is the opinion of this fake internet court that Collingwood Football Club, all of their supporters, and especially Eddie Maguire, all need to put up and shut up. Good old Collingwood forever? This kind of carry on and stuff of nonsense is the stuff of two year old children. They know how to play the game? Clearly not, for they neither understand decency nor common sense. 

Port Adelaide Football Club should be allowed to play in whatever they like when they aren't playing you and that includes black and white stripes. It is already a universally acknowledged fact that magpies are knaves and it follows that you Collingwood Football Club, who want to call yourselves "the Magpies", are also knaves. You have proven that you can not work well and play nicely with others.

Collingwood Football Club, you are guilty of both knavery and deliberate stupidity. You have brought hateration and holleration into this fake internet court and as you have no business deciding what other football teams wear when they aren't even playing you, we order you to cease, desist and stop this egregious pretense.

- ROLLO75 J

(this case will be reported in FILR as H2847/1 - Ed)

Horse 2846 - There Are Cheap Cars. There Are Cool Cars. There Are Almost No Cheap And Cool Cars.

If I may be so bold as to make a declarative statement about the state of the automotive world today, it is that I find the number of SUVs and CUVs on the road today, both depressing and sad. SUVs (of which CUVs are included for statistical purposes) now account for 53% of total sales.

Now admittedly this stems from my interests in watching motor racing and in particular the problem that the V8 Supercars has, that there are basically no donor cars for the category any more but that then maps to the real world and the kinds of cars which are out on the streets. 

With General Motors being non existent here, Ford having no Falcon and now announcing this week that the Mondeo will be terminated by the end of 2021, with Mazda announcing that the Mazda 6 is to be cancelled and with the general malaise of what is out there, it makes me ask - where'd all the cool cars go?

No story is told in a vacuum; so the answer of why there are so few cool cars on the road in 2021 fits into a much broader story of the opening of the twenty first century.

The base problem across the Anglosphere and Europe is that real wages peaked some time between 1975 and 1980. There has been a long term trend since then of capital reasserting itself and if the very long game of history returns to normal (which this pandemic has only accelerated), then wages growth should revert to close to zero forever and the rate of return on capital to 2%.

In theory it is possible that taxation policy could correct this but concerted efforts by those with money and power repeatedly try to unpick any gains that labour power might have made during the twentieth century. Money speaks for money and the devil for his own; nobody comes to speak for the skin and the bone. As such, the Matthew Principle that to those who have much more will be given and to those who have not, even what little they have will be taken away, becomes the core thrust of governmental wages, labour, and industrial relations legislation.

What does any of this have to do with whether or not there are cool cars? Cars are very big capital purchases. As such, people tend to make choices which are far more defined by function, rather than form. Cool cars, tend to be more discretionary spending items; which traditionally are bought by people with more money than they care to care about and younger people who do not have other needs that are addressed by function (needing to carry around children, cargo, equipment, tools etc.).

This being said, it follows that if the motor manufacturers are at their heart nothing more than very big businesses and the prime function of any business is to return benefits, profits, and capital growth to their shareholders and stakeholders, then they will sell only that which helps to return said profits. If over the past 40 years, the amount of discretionary spending which can be done by the general public is falling due to falling real wages, then it should follow that the general public is going to spend less on discretionary spending items, which includes cool cars. 

The most famous historical example of a car which was specially designed, developed, and produced to be a cool car which everyone could buy was the 1964 Ford Mustang. Granted that there were cool cars before then but the '64 'Stang was built just as the first of the Baby Boomers were turning 18. This was a car built purely as a cool discretionary item, for the sole purpose of capturing the discretionary spending of mostly irresponsible kids. It worked brilliantly. The 1964 Mustang is to the best of my knowledge, still the only car in history to sell more than a million units within a calendar year.

If that formula worked then, then where is the modern equivalent? The short answer is that there isn't one. The market for Mustangs simply no longer exists. Parents in their 50s and 60s aren't likely to hand over cars to their older teenage children any more and kids in their late teens and twenties, have never been paid enough in wages to be able to make such a purchase. This also is running in parallel with the fact that as the rewards of the economy now going to wages now go to capital at higher rates than at any point since 1920, that money is now being parked in real estate; which in turn drives up the price of housing, which means that mortgages and rent now has a greater call on people's incomes. When old people tell you that they had it harder in their day, it is simply untrue. 40 years ago a house could be bought on a single average income and that is impossible today. Kids today might have mobile phones and tablets but that has merely replaced records and going out to restaurants.

If you look at the kinds of things that the kids actually are spending their money on, it's mostly housing rather than cool cars. The motor manufacturers know this and rather than build cool cars which they can not sell (because the kids don't have the money like they did 50 years ago), they build SUVs, CUVs, and pickup trucks. I refuse to say "utes" because the actual number of coupé utilities on sale in Australia today is zero.

The SUVification of everything is a perfectly rational response to the market. It is also a perfectly horrible concession that the car makers themselves both follow and pull the marketplace. As far as consumers are concerned, SUVs and CUVs are sensible purchases. However, they are not cool. SUVs and CUVs are the new brown. 

The broad categories of what determines whether or not a car is cool, have remained unchanged. Hot Hatchbacks are generally cool. Coupes are generally cool. Brash brawny cars are generally cool. Rich people have always had the ability to use money to get out of any problem that they desire; the same goes for buying cool cars. The absolute amount of high powered GT cars hasn't changed that much; so this part of the calculus also hasn't changed. What has fallen off of a cliff, are the amount of cheap cool cars. A cheap coupe is now practically non existent.

As little as 20 years ago, there was a Mitsubishi Lancer, Honda Civic, Holden Astra, Peugeot 206, 307, Renault Megane, Subaru WRX etc. which were all smallish coupes and convertibles. There were loads of hot hatches and a few brawny V8 sedans. Practically none of those exist in those forms any more and as far as genuinely cheap cool cars go, there's really only the Kia Picanto GT and the Rio GT and that's practically it. The Toyota 86 was never cheap and cheerful, the Ford Mustang in 2.3 turbo guise was never cheap and what could have been a 3.6L V6 Holden Cruze, never eventuated as General Motors imploded. If I was tasked with going out and finding a cool car tomorrow, I would find that that whole cool car market is pretty light on. 

The 1965 Mustang in Australia retailed for £1200. Adjusted for inflation that would cost $33,703. If you want to find a cool car which is under that price, these are your options from the top ten brands: Toyota Yaris ZR ($33,761), Toyota 86 ($32,180), Mazda 2 GT ($28,295), Kia Picanto GT ($19,990). That's it. There are only four. The other seven manufacturers of the top ten volume sellers, have given up on the idea of a cheap cool car. None of Ford, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, or MG are willing to sell you anything cool for under that mark of $33,703. I even had to include the Yaris ZR from Toyota which is $58 over that mark, simply to pad out this list.

Part of the problem lies in the broad categories which the big families of car makers find themselves in. Those families are both defined by function as well as cultural expectation of what a car is supposed to do. American cars are built in the spirit of turning a profit. European cars are built in the spirit of making a high quality good. Japanese cars are built in the spirit of making a well functioning good. African cars are built to be rugged and to last. Now all of this sounds like a hideous set of stereotypes and hopelessly inadequate at describing nuances but if you're going to paint a picture, then you need to start with the underlying formwork before you start filling in finer details. 

America went down the road of making things cheap; which means the SUVification of everything in the name of profit. The European makers went down the road of quality but still have to sell volume in order to make a profit. Japanese makers went down the road of building a better product but that still means building roughly the same things as everyone else because that's where the profit lies. African car makers have to build things which work properly when roads are sometimes a suggestion rather than a strip of black top  In all cases, profit is the master and it is a very boring and unimaginative one. Profit never cares about being cool because it neither understands it, nor is able to capture coolness on a Profit and Loss statement.

Horse 2845 - It’s Not The Constitution, It’s Not Law, It’s Not The Vibe

When the Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for a passport system which would close the internal borders this week, the inevitable Greek chorus of howling monkeys and wingnuttery reverted to a familiar hymn from the same old hymn book.

The hymn is familiar. It is most commonly sung to the great god Dollar and usually invokes vague notions of freedom or some other abstract concept. 

In this case the abstract concept of freedom found an unlikely ally in the Constitution itself; with a certain newspaper (not saying which one) invoking section 92 as though it was a message from the great god Dollar on high:

http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s92.html

Trade within the Commonwealth to be free

On the imposition of uniform duties of customs, trade, commerce, and intercourse among the States, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free.

But notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, goods imported before the imposition of uniform duties of customs into any State, or into any Colony which, whilst the goods remain therein, becomes a State, shall, on thence passing into another State within two years after the imposition of such duties, be liable to any duty chargeable on the importation of such goods into the Commonwealth, less any duty paid in respect of the goods on their importation.

- Section 92, Constitution of Australia (1900).

There is a problem. Just because the Constitution says a thing somewhere doesn't necessarily make it so. Just because the newspaper has found one clause in the Constitution, does not a rule of law make. Also, even a straightforward reading of this tells you that this is about trade of goods within the Commonwealth. I fear that the person writing the newspaper article was lying to us. Unfortunately, the law doesn't actually hold the press to tell the truth if it is dressed up as opinion.

The thing about law generally is that it is like a many twigged game of kerplunk. There isn't usually one law that defines everything and where there are inconsistencies between various laws, between jurisdictions which have power over the same broad area of law, and even within a single law itself, then the interpretation of the laws together including what is equitable and dare I say sensible, falls to professional law interpreters in wigs who we call judges. While not directly applicable here, the most critical case in US Case Law is Madison v Marbury 1803 in which the US Supreme Court took for itself the right to say what the law is¹. Just like the game of kerplunk, many individual laws hold up bigger concepts and in the case of Madison v Marbury, the judge made case law holds up itself.

In Australia, that role falls to the High Court of Australia, who can on occasion have a judging panel of many people sitting behind an extended bench in wigs, all saying what the law is.

When I heard talkback radio hold court on this same subject, which is held in the uninformed and unthinking Court Of Public Opinion, I couldn't help but question both the source and the truth of the opinion that a passport system which would close the internal borders was unconstitutional. It is almost as if, living in a world where pandemics have happened before and where I assume that in such a world, that the law will have already made a decision with regards to same.

The Constitution of Australia is not some sacred piece of stone handed down by God himself, to some prophet with a weird beard; no matter how much we want to ascribe greatness to Henry Parkes. The Constitution Of Australia was hammered out in the heat of several summers, in sweaty rooms full of lots of weird beardy men. The process for knocking it out took so long that both Fiji and New Zealand opted out of the whole box and dice. 

After the better part of a decade, all that the Constitution has to say directly on the subject is found in Section 51 where the Commonwealth Parliament has the powers to...

http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s51.html

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:

(ix)  quarantine;

(xxiiiA)  the provision of maternity allowances, widows' pensions, child endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorize any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family allowances;

(xxxix)  matters incidental to the execution of any power vested by this Constitution in the Parliament or in either House thereof, or in the Government of the Commonwealth, or in the Federal Judicature, or in any department or officer of the Commonwealth.

- Section 51 (parts of), Constitution of Australia (1900).

In invoking the help of abstract concepts to fight a war of words and ideas, the Constitution is both by operation and in fact a notoriously feeble weapon. The functions of the Commonwealth and the States in a federated system which looks less like the republican forms of government in the United States and more like a strange coagulated union like Canada or Switzerland, frequently overlap and on many occasions, including health care policy, Federal oversight has to negotiate with State Governments. 

In this case, Section 92 which contains clauses about interstate commerce and Section 51 which contains the general provisions that the Commonwealth can pass laws to do with quarantine and health care, are imagined to be in conflict with each other. 

The power and responsibility to say what the law is, falls to people sitting behind an extended bench in wigs, that is, the High Court of Australia.

The High Court had this to say:

"a law which imposes an incidental burden or restriction on interstate intercourse in the course of regulating a subject-matter other than interstate intercourse would not fail if the burden or restriction was reasonably necessary for the purpose of preserving an ordered society under a system of representative government and democracy and the burden or restriction was not disproportionate to that end."

- Cunliffe v Commonwealth (1994) HCA

That's pretty well much the end of the story bar the shouting. If the first responsibility of government is the perpetuation of the entity which it governs, then of course it follows that the general welfare of the general public is generally a good thing to be generally protected. 

All of this brings me back to the initial problem of the chorus of howling monkeys and wingnuttery, trying to invoke vague notions of freedom. The problem of trying to invoke some abstract concept of freedom is that it is fine for individuals but individuals who are selfish and who apparently do not want to care about concepts which are bigger than they are (like general welfare, the Commonwealth, nationhood etc.) but ultimately terrible for the nation. I might personally think that the current Morrison Government is bad but at very least it has acquiesced to the idea that it has some amount of responsibility to the people living in the Commonwealth that it governs.

Individual freedom is an utterly pointless concept in the face of a pandemic anyway. A fire gives no thought about the individual freedoms of the trees that make up a forest; likewise, the virus doesn't care about the individual freedoms of the people of the Commonwealth. This is not a virus that cares about anything (as if there was one); it doesn't care about Section 92 arguments either.

Aside:

Talkback radio does an effective job at amplifying untrue ideas if it thinks that it can find a profit. As newspapers generally come out before people wake up, something in print gets to set the tone of the morning's radio and television programs; who often regurgitate the same bolus of indigestible pica type substances without anyone having chewed it over. 

Horse 2844 - Fragments XIV: Of Badness, Beasts, Burglary, Boundaries, and Bob

SF14 - Spanish Flu

I am going to suggest that the chances of most people getting Covid-19 in their lifetimes is going to approach very close to 1. Granted that there are vaccines currently being deployed but even if you account for that, the likelihood of rolling out a vaccine which is going to have the same take-up rates as the smallpox vaccine or the polio vaccine, in my lifetime is not great. It took the destruction of more than a hundred million people in two world wars to produce a work of community sufficiently large enough in societies, such that they saw very big collective action problems as requiring very big action answers and solutions. I do not think that societies have that same spirit of community and forced altruism today.

If what I have said is true (and I do not know if it is or not) then Covid-19 will follow the same kind of timeline as H1N1 which is more famously and incorrectly called the Spanish Flu.

The only reason that it was called the Spanish Flu was that because Spain wasn't embroiled in the First World War, the Spanish media was actually prepared to report the news in the newspapers.

One of the better theories that I have read was that it started in the United States and came to the Western Front when America threw its hat into the ring. Of course nobody who is fighting a war wants to admit that troops are dying left, right, and centre, due to a flu because that would look poxy and weak in the face of the enemy. So whereas France, Britain, Italy, Germany etc. wouldn't report the truth due to trying to keep morale up, Spain had no such reason. 

In 2020 we saw an equally weird propaganda war where instead of this an epidemic and then a pandemic, which should have absolutely been prepared for and expected in the long run, Covid-19 became this thing which was started in a laboratory. This is in spite of all available evidence that engineering anything like this is as far as we know, orders of magnitude more complex than anything that we are currently able to do, and ascribes imagined power to a designated enemy which they simply do not have.

Moreover, if this was genuinely considered to be the act of a skilled state actor in an act of war, then the United States' response to refuse to enact universal health care in the face of this, suggests to me that the administration is by design incompetent on both sides for the purpose of extracting profits from the general public.

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SM7 - Scott Morrison

Is Scott Morrison hanging on to the Premiership purely because he likes the office or is it because the government is otherwise so internally divided that nobody wants the job? I genuinely do not think that it is reasons for ideology or agenda because this government repeatedly demonstrates that it has no obvious ideology or agenda driving it except for letting business abrogate any obligations that they might have to the economy and people of the Commonwealth of Australia.

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AS12 - Aryton Senna Is Not The GOAT

If you win a competition by being worse than your opponent and by fluke of the rules, then almost by default, you aren't eligible for greatness.

In 1988 Senna dropped many zero points paying positions (in some cases where he'd either crashed or blew up the engine), whereas Prost was forced to drop second place positions. Prost finished in more races because he was both kinder on the equipment and because he made fewer mistakes. By operation of the rules though, Prost was penalised for being better and that is stupid.

In reviewing 1989, the very charismatic accident which took out Senna and Prost going into the final chicane at Suzuka could probably be attributed as a 50:50 incident. However, taken in context of the season where Senna had already taken out Mansell in Portugal, and the fact that James Hunt predicted in the commentary that the accident was going to happen before it did, then what looks like a 50:50 incident, begins to look like a 55:45 incident.

That would be fine except that this doesn't exist in isolation and a year later, there is no doubt whatsoever that Senna deliberately rammed Prost off the road in the first corner at Suzuka. He should have been banned for life but instead he was rewarded with the 1990 championship. As far as I'm concerned, if you deliberately use a car as a weapon, in an action which would normally result in criminal prosecution and a prison term, then I am simply not going to admit as evidence anything which happened after the event.

I strikethrough Senna's 1988 championship because he was worse than Prost. I strikethrough Senna's 1990 and 1991 championships because he was a knave. 

Someone on 0 championships is not the GOAT.

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BU23 - Burglary

Robbery is the act of stealing property. Robbery can occur directly from a person or from a premises. 

Burglary on the other hand, is the act of stealing property from a closed premises. The assumption of a closed premises means that the owner/proprietor/occupier is not present at the time that the stealing took place.

My guess is that the word 'burglary' relates to the concept of the burg and burghers. These are principally city dwellers as opposed to people out in the country and my further guess is that stealing from a premises in a small city, is more daring, more audacious, and more rude, because it happens within the supposed presence of others in the city. I can not say for sure but I think that the act of burglary which happens in close proximity to a great number of people is deemed to be more offensive because it could have happened to anyone. It's weird because stealing things from a farm with wide open spaces seems somehow easier and ruder to me because you could kill someone out in the middle of a field and nobody would be any the wiser. 

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BD4 - Cricket Without Boundaries

"We want to see a bigger future for cricket after this pandemic is over. We want to imagine a better world and cricket without boundaries."

- NatWest spokesborg on BBC World Service

I completely understand Faustian bargain that sport has to make with advertising because essentially sport is an otherwise inherently useless endeavour, where the only actual products are temporary entertainment and narrative building. Sport in that respect is no different than crime dramas, talent competitions, and game shows, where the advertising space pays for the performers and the media companies broadcasting the show.

As someone who follows motor racing, the link with advertising couldn't be more obvious as since the 1960s, the entire liveries of race cars have been coloured by the advertisers as mobile billboards. The most famous articles of clothing in bicycle racing are also the direct result of advertising; with the Pink Jersey in the Giro D'Italia being coloured for the colour of the newsprint of La Gazetto Della Sport and the Yellow Jersey being coloured for the colour of the newsprint of L'Auto respectively.

I very much do not need to be reminded of why sport has to dance like a monkey with cymbals in order to chase the corporate and general public's coin. However, a quote like this is a reminder that people who live in corporate land are often gormless and humourless, and very often do not bother to do basic research about the things that they are being corporate partners to.

For one of the things that both defines the field of play and the scoring of the game of cricket, is the boundary and "cricket without boundaries" defies both the logic and the laws of cricket itself. How exactly does one score a Boundary 4 or a Boundary 6 if you are playing in a game of cricket where there is "cricket without boundaries"?

Unless of course this corporate spokesborg is trying to make a weak pun; in which case I appreciate that and will give it an appropriate "hurrrrrr" for being so horky borky. Does NatWest want to tell Dad jokes?

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GN21 - Guinea

Especially through the era of hammered coinage, British currency is notoriously complex. The Sovereign for instance, at the time of Elizabeth I, was a big flat gold jobby which was tariffed at 30 shillings and not at 20 as it later came to be.

The Guinea which was named after the source of gold in Africa where it came from, was initially tariffed at 20 shillings but as it was purer than other gold coins, it came to be as high as 30 shillings at various points.

The so-called "spade guinea" of the 1790s, seems to be a response to The City of London's request for a trade coin for use within the guilds. At some point in the 1780s, there is a Guilds Act of Parliament which affixes the charge out rates of guilds to firms getting a pound and clerks getting a shilling. The value of the spade guinea at 21 shillings or £1/1/- appears to reflect this in physical form.

I have previously alluded to the fact that Bob Cratchitt in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is very handsomely paid at the rate of 15 shillings a week which is akin to about $130,000 a year now. The firm of Marley and Scrooge as private money lenders, is likely taking in at least 15 guineas a week, if they are legally covered by the Guilds Act (which I suspect that they are). At bare minimum, we can assume from the text that both Marley and Scrooge are taking home £7/10/- if Bob Cratchitt is on 15 shillings a week. If this is true then they are taking home £390 a year; which is an astonishingly astronomical amount of money. If we calculate this further, at the long rate of interest as alluded to by Honoré de Balzac in "Old Man Goriot" then Marley and Scrooge probably have a lending book of at least £20,000 under management. No wonder heaps of people hate them. 

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KN18 - I Know Nothing

We know so very little about the world, it's laughable. I have almost no idea how my own body works, much less how my soul managed to operate this electro mechanical meatbag device.

I have no what most people in the world are thinking (literally everyone in the world minus one) and on top of that, I have no idea how a thought works or even where it lives. If I imagine an apple for example, we (and I mean boffins who know just a little more than I) don't know where in the brain that thought is, nor do we know why some people can not imagine an apple in their mind's eye. 

Having said all of that, when we have a thought that we know that we think a thing and it turns out not to be true, the general reaction in people tends to be one of deep confusion and even spills into anger.

This explains why when after Pluto was declared not to be a planet any more, lots of people got angry. I use this example because it is the biggest reaction to the most trivial thing that I can think of. The actual influence that Pluto has on any of our lives is actually nil. Yet the reason for people's visceral reaction to Pluto not being a planet any more, is that people had put some amount of work into getting a handle on this one thing and that someone can take that away, is outrageous.

Imagine then what happens if that kind of reaction spills into things which actually do matter. People invent narratives about how the world works, even if those narratives run counter to fact. People have gone all kinds of crazy when presented with the fact that people who look different to them might have inherent worth, value and dignity.

I find it maddening that people have to invent wild parts of cruel narratives, just so they can shoehorn in reasons to kill people.

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FC5 - My Five Cents

Why do we still have 5 cent coins?

I feel that the act of picking them up is more rubbish collection than actual picking them up to collect value. Evidently most other people also consider this to be true or else they wouldn't be left lying around with such alarming regularity.

There has to be some point when the utility of their existence is so small as to be minus. At that point they fall in their only function, which is to be part of the universal token system for the facilitation of the exchange of goods and services. That point has not yet arrived, it seems.

To highlight the decidedly bonkers nature of its current almost non existent utility, I shall now enumerate just how many you need to do some basic transactions.

It takes 13 of then to buy a can of baked beans. It takes 20 of them to buy a cup of coffee from 7-Eleven. It takes 40 of them to buy a loaf of bread and maybe another 19 to put something on that bread if you want to make a sandwich.

This presumes that you're only going to use 5 cent coins in these transactions. However, if you do choose to use other coins then by practical demonstration, you've already proven the current almost non existent utility of the little things.

You're better off using them for something else. Drill holes in them to make washers. Use them as tokens for card games. Put a whole bunch of them in a blunderbuss and use them as buckshot; or rather 1/20th of a buck... shot.

My current favourite use for then is as a plectrum for a guitar, which was made famous by Brian May. It certainly isn't for using in a transaction; including when transaction is helped by a robot.

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VS8 - Supercars' Closed Premises

The Bathurst 1000 is five months away but because we are currently in a time of weirdness with sport running limited and cut back schedules, it means that with less going on, various teams are making longer term announcements.

Already we've had full driver lineups for the 1000 announced; as well as announcements for so-called wildcard entries where the bigger teams in particular have planned to run a third car. Already there have been two such wildcards announced.

While that's all good and fun, it still only brings the total number of cars in the field up to 26; which is poxy compared with the fields of 55 which used to occur when I was a lad.

The excuse given is that there's simply not enough space for everyone but as I confirmed in person at the track in April, there are in fact 36 double garages with space in between them, which means that it is probably possible to pit 108 cars and certainly possible to pit 72 cars.

What this means is that not only is there enough space to house the entire field multiple times over but given that the number of cars entered in Super 2 and Super 3 is less than the remaining 46 available spaces, they could all have their individual garages. In fact at last year's Bathurst 1000, that is precisely what happened. Super 2 and Super 3 got their own garages for the weekend but still didn't compete in the main race. They competed in their own race which counted for their own championship.

The problem is that Supercars as it stands is a closed shop. The teams which exist have decided that the number of teams allowed to play is more or less fixed by instruments called Racing Entitlement Contracts; the kinds of cars allowed are specifically mandated in Vehicle Specification Documents. With both of these being closely held by the existing teams, it means that the number of new competitors allowed to play, is tiny. The pandemic allowed the existing teams the ability to close the number of entries to 24 and although they are playing with the idea of expanding that to 26, once you add the possibility of 'wildcards' which they deign to admit, then that means that for the foreseeable future, three will be a maximum of 30 cars at most.

There is exactly zero opportunity for a new team to join unless someone else either sells up or they hope for new REC to be released. This is a very far cry from the days when privateers could show up and play.

There will of course be people who actually like this new era of increased professionalism but I do not think that it is good for motor racing in this country and the proof is that the Bathurst 12 Hour has become the race where the rest of the world comes to play, and the Bathurst 6 Hour is set to become the place where the same kinds of people who would have been privateers in the past come to play. The 1000 apart from being the race meeting for a category which rudderless and which doesn't really know what it wants to be, is no longer the place where dreams are made. 

Horse 2843 - Victory to Nobody

There are several things all going on at once which I need to lay out before I can even hope to build an answer. Part of the problem in imaging the world complexly is that you actually have to take the time and effort to look at the various complex pieces, so that you can imagine the world complexly.

The modern state of Israel is in no way shape or form congruous to the ancient theocratic judgedom/kingdom. The modern state of Israel exists as the result of a kind of a modern political crusade which began in the 19th century and came about through the instruments of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the aftermath and consequences of World War I, the total collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the mandatory carvery of what used to be Ottoman Palestine by the great powers of Europe, the results of World War II, the apathy of those great powers of Europe, a series of conflicts which should properly be called a civil war between 1945 and 1948, and finally the declaration of the United Nations.

This presents a bunch of internal logical inconsistencies and disputes. Any argument which disputes the right of the state of Israel to exist, must also dispute the right of the states of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine to exist. The genesis and creation of one, is the same modern genesis and creation of all of them. 

This means to that that people who hate the existence of Israel on political grounds, I think must also hate the existence of the other modern nation states and if they do not, then I will default to the only reason that any of them exist and that is the collapse and subsequent vanquishment of the Ottoman Empire. The proper custodian of all the land is Great Britain by means of conquest and that is an utterly stupid and evil starting point.

Of course I say that deliberately as a stupid position because if someone else is going to take hating the existence of Israel as a thing and not the rest, then we can only throw acid into a bucket of acid. If however we are prepared to concede that Israel has an historical right to exist along with the rest, then we open the nuance window and look into a complex landscape.

Israel was conceived as a secular state and a homeland for the Jewish people. Unfortunately what it almost immediately became was a two state ethnocracy, with both sides unified in mutual hatred of each other, while also being bound with their own internal sectarian tensions and turmoil. The modern secular state of Israel started with the displacement of around 700,000 Arabic people who were then forcibly herded into what would become the nominal state of Palestine. Palestine which should appear as a victim here by virtue of actually being the result of displacement, then promptly turned around and sought revenge.

Palestine has over the years funded terrorist organisations and even elected them to secular poorer in the forms of Hamas and Fatah; while Israel achieves state terrorism against their neighbours through the instruments of the state armed forces. I think that both are quite quite evil and that your position whatever it is, is completely undermined if you use violence against civilians who have no part in the conflict, except through unfortunate historical accident of being born into stupid nation states. There might be a place to fight against injustice and unjust governments but in this case, there simply is no just government on either side of the conflict.

Most people just want to be left alone. They want a reasonable level of government services and a reasonable level of government protection and order, so that they can live boring lives. There is a lot of good in a boring life because if you have the ability to live a boring life in safety and quiet happiness, you are then free to pursue other more rewarding things. People want a roof over their heads, nice dinner on the table, a family and community that shows practical love, and a rewarding job. That's not too much to ask for.

But, when you have governments in charge who are hell bent on raining destruction on innocent people who have done nothing except live on the other side of a border, then those governments can take a long walk off a short pier. Do not say that you hate anything unless you want it to die. I want both the governments of Israel and Palestine to die and be replaced with kind ones that actually do the job of governing kindly.

There are five million displaced people and refugees in Palestine. That's awful. If Israel is supposed to be some kind of moral virtue keeper here, then I do not understand why foreign governments send it something in the order of about $5bn a year in military aid to Israel; which is then is used to demolish Palestinian homes, imprison Palestinian children and displace Palestinian families. Our government should not fund state violence in any form, anywhere. Yet we tolerate it.

I do not think that it is antisemitism to speak up against the actions of an evil government which started a war purely for internal political reasons. I do not think that it is anti-Palestinian to speak up against the actions of an evil government which started a war purely for internal political reasons. At the moment there is a far-right Israeli government emboldened by a need to appear strong in the face of all manner of political pressure; it has had 4 elections in 24 months because it can't even resolve the factionalism within its own borders.

Having said that, Palestine is also engaged in its own stupid internal political struggle with terrorist groups at the helm of both halves. If you were to quite rightly speak out for Palestine, it is also a deep mistake to suggest that Hamas is firing rockets "due to Israeli actions." Here to the bottom line is that they are also firing high explosive ordinance at Israeli civilian's because their stated founding purpose is the annihilation of world Jewry, starting with Israel.

Almost from the outset the lion's share of the reason of existence for the movement for Palestine Liberation, is that it is built upon on the notion that in order to be pro-Palestine you have to be anti-Israel which turns a nuanced situation into a binary for no other reason than it makes it simple for people with no connection to take a side. 

I like the idea of Political Zionism; which suggests that there should be a homeland for the Jewish people and that made political sense in the 1890s when the whole land was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire now has its remnants in the modern state of Turkey; which is neither Israeli nor Palestinian. However, just because I like the idea of Political Zionism, does not mean that I am anti Palestine. 

I’m scared because when tensions are high in Israel and Palestine there is a carry over into the diaspora. Anti-Semitic incidents increase because people conflate Jews and Israel. Anti Arabic and anti Islamic incidents increase because people conflate Palestine and the Arabic and Muslim worlds. 

I guess that what I am trying to say here and incredibly badly is that not only that two wrongs don’t make a right buy many wrongs just makes everyone even wronger. As I write this, both the Palestinian and Israeli Governments have refused to agree to a ceasefire. As far as I am concerned Hamas, Likud, Fatah, Yesh Atid are basically four terrorist organisations. If you want to present any argument in favour of either the current Palestinian and Israeli Governments, then you are also wrong.

When I see something like this, I hate the Governments which caused this. This girl has seen more pain and destruction than I ever will. I'm not even going to tell you which side of the political divide she is on, because she isn't. 99% of people caught up in this have no part in this, they did not make the decision, but they suffer.

This is Abraham's children fighting each other for no good reason whatsoever. There is literally zero virtue about any of this.

Horse 2842 - Christian Porter's Defamation Action (again)

This week, the Attorney General Christian Porter, as part of his ongoing attempt to sue the ABC for defamation, applied for suppression orders so that the ABC wouldn't be allowed to publish what their defence is.

Porter's case which follows from reportage which the ABC did months ago, alleges that he has been defamed by the ABC when they reported that a cabinet minister was the subject of an historical rape case. What makes this odd is that not only did the ABC not publish the name of the then unknown cabinet minister but contemporary social media posts of the day prove that the general public had no idea who it was. The only reason why anyone knew who it was was because in a strange turn on events, a Liberal Party MP had a fit of conscience and then outed himself in a press conference. This anomaly was quickly resolved and he returned to the usual pattern of graft and knavery and launched the defamation case.

I suspected at the time that the ABC's strategy for defending the case would have been that at the time, Billy Brown from Sydney Town going home on the Bankstown train would have been unlikely to make the connection because until recently, nobody knew or cared who Christian Porter is. It is exceptionally difficult to be defamed if you have virtually no fame in the first place. I would have argued that the only reason why Christian Porter is remotely famous now is because he is that knave who is suing the ABC.

Moreover, given that the original article published by the ABC did not name the plaintiff, then not only must the precise words said to have been written or spoken must also be pleaded but the plaintiff must also plead "those extrinsic facts said to give rise to the defamatory imputation, and set out how persons knowing these would have understood the publication to refer to the plaintiff": Collins v Jones [1955] 1 QB 564.

The problem with applying for suppression orders is that not only does this highlight the case even further but given the seriousness of the origin reportage of the ABC, it now makes me think that something even more serious had been going on.

We already know for instance that Britney Higgins who was a former staffer within the parliament was raped within the walls of Parliament House in Canberra and the perpetrator has been mysteriously protected. We also know of at least another rape case within the building; also involving other Liberal Party staff members.

In Porter's case it has been brought to light that the victim has subsequently died and that at the time the NSW Police did not investigate it. Actually bringing a criminal case to court on those matters is materially impossible now. That is of itself serious.

What Christian Porter applying for suppression orders does in this defamation case is effectively turn the proceedings into a de facto star chamber; which is apt given the Prime Minister Scott Morrison's refusal to hold an inquiry, which means that the defamation case is itself a de facto inquiry.

I personally think that these suppression orders fail the suggested tests which the court would apply in granting them. Porter asking for suppression orders is after the fact and not part of the material of the case. I think that it fails even basic questioning.

Are the suppression orders in the interest of national security?

No. At least not unless Christian Porter has matters of an even more critical international outrage which is currently undiscovered.

Are the suppression orders needed to protect the safety of witnesses?

No. At least not unless Christian Porter genuinely fears an angry mob.

Are the suppression orders needed to guarantee a fair trial?

No.

I do not know if it is beneficial or not for the public broadcaster to make public their defence or not but I do know that a Minister of the Crown applying for suppression orders, looks very much like an attempt to destroy justice for personal gain. This neither passes the pub test nor the sniff rest. This is the equivalent of leaving a maggoty piece of meat on the counter of the pub and telling the patrons to eat it. It's not sane or sanitary.

My suspicion is that the ABC has something material in its possession, which is irrefutable, and which if it came out would actually damage the reputation of Christian Porter. Again we come back to the "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe where one's own Mens Rea is the thing that convicts. I personally think that it is in the public interest to see the ABC’s defence because if the defence is suppressed then in all honesty, then this is inconsistent with Porter's 13 pages of allegation of conduct re the ABC and Louise Milligan.

I also have questions about who exactly is funding Christian Porter's legal fees which are said to be something in the order of $20,000 per day. Firstly there is the question about why the Attorney General is using the courts to run personal vendetta against an organisation to which he is personally ideologically opposed to.

Second there is the more serious issue of a Minister of the Crown taking undeclared benefits from an unnamed donor. Quite apart from the actual points of order within either the historical rape case which is never going to be investigated, or the vexatious defamation case which he is running, how is taking undisclosed benefits not of interest to the people of the Commonwealth? I am not saying that Christian Porter dies not have the right to defend his name and reputation but we the people of the Commonwealth who are his employer have a public interest to know whether or not our paid representatives are on the take or not.

Also see: Horse 2818 - https://rollo75.blogspot.com/2021/03/horse-2818-christian-porters-defamation.html

Addenda:

"Because of this action and the potential conflicts that could arise, my client had to step aside as Attorney-General. This is of the most urgent nature." 

- Sue Chrysanthou SC, acting for Christian Porter, 7th May 2021.

Problems:

1. Christian Porter never stood aside. In fact, he refused to stand aside and was removed from the portfolio by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

2. Christian Porter was the one who chose to launch defamation proceedings. Those are his actions and he stated that he knew that that there was a potential conflict of interest when he did it. That is on record and is materially the matter of fact which caused his removal from the portfolio and the Cabinet reshuffle by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

3. This is the problem with the Offence of perjury in the Crimes Act.

http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s327.html

327 Offence of perjury

(1) Any person who in or in connection with any judicial proceeding makes any false statement on oath concerning any matter which is material to the proceeding, knowing the statement to be false or not believing it to be true, is guilty of perjury and liable to imprisonment for 10 years.

- Section 327, Crimes Act 1900 (NSW).

Perjury only applies to people under oath; which does not apply to counsel. Silks are actually allowed to tell lies in court... these are two... in one sentence.

Horse 2841 - Rosebud Is The Name Of His Hat

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-02/paddington-2-citizen-kane-as-best-film-of-all-time/100109944

The much-loved 2017 sequel to Paddington has knocked Citizen Kane off its long-held perch at the top of Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh list, thanks to its 100 per cent rating and the emergence of a very old film review. And that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is enough to earn it the title of the best movie ever. 

- ABC News 3rd May, 2021

In news that I neither needed to know nor cared about, the movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has recently had a change at the very top of the stack.

The Orson Welles' movie "Citizen Kane" has been replaced by the movie "Paddington 2". One is a critically acclaimed movie about a newspaper magnate; the other is a film which stars a small bear from Peru who is clad in a raincoat.

This would have gone completely unnoticed by me if it wasn't for the fact that I was asked what I thought about this. I except that because I am generally quite anachronistic, that this was expected to elicit some kind of concern or outrage from me but the truth is that although I could care less, I fail to see how. If you like Citizen Kane: good. If you like Paddington 2: good. Unless you like a piece of culture which is hideously offensive and is explicitly designed to destroy the dignity and humanity of people, then that's mostly your business. We still are allowed to disagree. This however has to do with maths and that is highly relevant to my interests.

Rotten Tomatoes as a movie review aggregator website, the scores which are generated are a weighted average. Just like Test Cricket averages, just one terrible score changes the numerator by some factor but changes the denominator by one. If most of the scores are roughly the same, then this is fine but there's a different dynamic going on with the scores for movie reviews.

As it is impossible to score more than 100%, then the aggregate of movie review scores do not end up being a measure of greatness but a measure of how much people don't hate something. If loads and loads of people like something but it causes a visceral reaction of hatred in someone else, then the average is going to be dented more by that one bad score than the legion of others. What this ultimately says about Paddington 2 is that although it might not necessarily be a great movie, it is sufficiently nice enough that practically nobody hates it. If nobody hates a thing, then there simply aren't the statistical downer scores which are going to drag down the average.

I know that I might not be either hip or cool (as evidenced by my use of the words 'hip' and 'cool') but I am not so ignorant of popular culture that I haven't seen Paddington 2. It is an objectively nice movie. I do not think that it is one of the top 10% movies of all time but it certainly deserves an 89/100. If my score was added to the pile, then it would sit among other scores which are broadly similar.

Citizen Kane got a one star review in a credible publication some 80 years ago by someone who really hated the movie. That single score which has been added to the aggregator is vastly different from the other reviews; because it is so low, it moved the average just enough to topple it.

I suspect that this will outrage movie buffs and purists for a bunch of reasons including that Paddington 2 is a sequel. The one inescapable fact here is that there is always going to be one movie, whatever it is, that will be at the top of the stack. The other inescapable fact, which is far less rage worthy and fair more boring is that people will like what they like, dislike what they dislike, and it ain't gonna make a lick of difference.

My suspicion is that movie reviews might be of some value if you have not seen a movie but once you have, they in principle don't matter at all. All that is left is some vague appeal to authority; which you are either going to cite as proof of the goodness of your own opinion or of the badness of everyone else's opinion. People still like what they like and dislike what they dislike.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/sir-don-donald-bradman-missing-four-runs-average/100078546

The discovery threatened one of Australia's iconic truths. No number (to two decimal places) is better known in Australia than 99.94: Donald Bradman's average. That's four runs shy of an average of 100.

So when historian and author Charles Davis spotted something odd about the scoring for the 1928-29 test at the MCG, he knew it had the potential to change history books.

A boundary that was given to another batsman — but that, according to bowling records, may have been Bradman's.

- ABC News, 22 Apr 2021

For a maths nerd (I have not ascended to the rank of geek or boffin), it is rare that there are two stories in the news about averages. So imagine my pique of interest when it was reported that Charles Davis, a cricket statistic nerd after reviewing hundreds of score cards, thought that he had found 4 runs which were incorrectly attributed and should rightfully belong to Sir Donald Bradman.

Batting averages in cricket are calculated by adding up the total number of runs that a player has scored and dividing it by the number of times that they have been dismissed. If a player remains not out, they are still credited with the runs that they have scored but the number of dismissals does not increase.

Donald Bradman famously was dismissed for 0 in his last Test innings at The Oval in the Fifth Test against England in 1948. That put him on 6996 runs and with 70 dismissals it gives him an average of 99.94. Had he scored just 4 more runs in his Test Cricket career, he would have had an average of 100 (7000 divided by 70 is 100). Even at 99.94 he is so many standard deviations above the mean that that makes him statistically the best sports player of all time and of all sport. When you also add his anti racist stance which included standing up to the Australian Cricket Board over the issues of brown and black players from India, and The West Indies being allowed into various places and later on making the Australian Cricket Board take action against South Africa due to Apartheid, then this also means that his character off the field was also brilliant.

However, irrespective of what this person thinks that they have found within the old scorecards, there is a distinct problem with going back and amending the record: the Law.

Law 16.10 of the Laws of Cricket states:

https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/the-result

Once the umpires have agreed with the scorers the correctness of the scores at the conclusion of the match – see Laws 2.15 (Correctness of scores) and 3.2 (Correctness of scores) – the result cannot thereafter be changed.

- Law 16.10, The Laws of Cricket, Marylebone Cricket Club (as at 6th May 2021).

Now what that means is that even if the scorebooks are wrong, because the umpires of the day signed off on them, they are the truth. The sole arbiters of space and time and here and now and even reality itself as far as the Laws of Cricket are concerned, are the Umpires. I don't care what this person has found, even if he is right he is wrong. The result cannot thereafter be changed. Amen.

The difference between Rotten Tomatoes which is an aggregator of opinion and cricket statistics which are a matter of fact, is that opinion can always be changed whereas fact can not. If someone wants to go back and make Citizen Kane the best movie again, they can either write more reviews to elevate it or have someone else review Paddington 2 and tear it to pieces. 

I don't know how you even objectively compare movies in the first place. How one might feel about a movie or indeed any piece of work might be different from one day to another. I for instance thought that "Santa Claus Versus The Martians" was a fun movie despite, in spite and possibly because it is objectively hokey. I'll go so far as to say that the only reason why I think a lot of people like Citizen Kane is because they think that because it is a work of import, that they are obliged to like it. I think that it is okay; I don't get the hype. What I do know is that what we have here is averages which have moved in an acceptable data set and that of itself, that is interesting.

Addenda I:

Not long after this was posted on Twitter, I was asked what I think is objectively the best movie of all time. Immediately I can think of one; which usually indicates that my opinion must be unconsciously solidified and then can be rationalised later. The idea of giving an objective answer to a question of subjectivity is itself internally a paradox.

It is:

"The Wizard Of Oz" (1939).

Judy Garland as Dorothy is good. Ray Bolger and Jack Haley as the Strawman and Tinman are good. Bert Lahr and Margaret Hamilton as the Cowardly Lion and the Wicked Witch Of The West, eat scenery and have played what I think are the two greatest performances in the entire history of cinema. This is where actors are deliberately so far over the top, that they spill into cultural artefacts.

I do not know if this was the first colour movie but it is famous enough that it has changed reality and owns that spot. There is also one scene where the film changes from monochrome to colour which is not only one of the most iconic set pieces in cinema but the transition shot which makes that dissolve through the front door of the house, does such an excellent job, that you don't even realise that the technical change actually happened before the shot.

The musical numbers are ridiculously cheesy but given that the film has already abandoned reality from the outset, who cares? 

I think that it is just a good movie, which knows that it is a hokey movie and then never mind hanging a lamp shade upon the fact, it builds castles on top of it. There is a very good reason why an 82 year old movie is still played on television. 

Addenda II:

At time of publication of this post:

1. Black Panther (2018)

24. Paddington 2 (2018)

--. Citizen Kane (1941)

--. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Yeah, averages shift.

Horse 2840 - May The Force Not Be With You

I would like to think that working in and around law courts for 20 years has taught me something about human nature. Unfortunately, it has not. My opinion is still roughly similar to what it was then because the whole world has only provided data to confirm my base assumptions about human nature.

Economics tells us that humans are rationally selfish. I do not think that they are rational. Most religions tell us that humans are sinful or unreformed, which usually stems from that same origin of human selfishness. 

I do not think that humans have a rational capacity for justice either. Humans have a deep seated sense of when they have personally been slighted but practically zero natural empathy or care for when they slight and hurt others. We be sorry after the event but we are more satisfied by seeking and exacting revenge. Revenge also has no rational capacity for justice either. Taken to the illogical conclusion, revenge keeps on going beyond generations and even has the capacity to destroy hundreds of millions of people. The 37 days between Gavrilo Princip killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the formal outbreak of the Great War could have been avoided if it wasn't for the unlimited capacity for irrational selfishness moving the fates of nations.

This was the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, May 4th:

There has been a kind of a sleepwalking match to stupidity from the Sydney Morning Herald in the months after Fairfax Ltd was bought outright by Nine Entertainment Co. In a two newspaper city like Sydney, the Herald used to be a centre rightist voice of semi- sensibility which stood in opposition to the populist authoritarian rightist howling monkeys at the Daily Telegraph and the sneering authoritarian rightist propaganda loud hailer of The Australian. The Daily Telegraph and The Australian and the rest of their Greek chorus at News Corp have been singing a song of revenge against China and the Chinese Communist Party almost from the beginning of this pandemic but I didn't think that the Herald would start singing from the same hymn sheet.

I do not understand in principle what the point of yelling at China is. We seem to have started a trade war for no reason at all and which we are losing, which doesn't help either. Even if we assume that the idiotic dumbwittery conspiracy theory that China engineered the virus in a laboratory is true, what good does it do for us to yell at China? Yelling at China doesn't solve the problem that the virus exists, and the Federal Government in trying to combat it is taking active steps to be useless. Other countries are well on the way to rolling out vaccinations but our Federal Government seems uninterested in either governing or actually taking action. Yelling at China is the stupidest and cheapest option because it costs practically nothing.

Let's assume for a second that Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald is the Defence Minister and has the power to start a hot war against China as opposed to the cold war which we want to start. If hostilities were to break out, the entire nation of Australia against the might of China would be like trying to fight a Great Wall Wingo pickup truck with a watermelon. You might make a dent of embarrassment with the watermelon but beyond that it would just make a sticky mess and the pickup truck wouldn't care.

We would cry out to our imagined saviour of the United States but the Democrats would dither and blather and blither their way to idiocy and the Republicans would hum and har and hern hern hern their way to inaction. Even 70 years of support for the United States into stupid wars which they almost never win, wouldn't make much of a difference. The United States has enough sense of its own self-interest and self-preservation to not want to start a hot war with China. 

Ideally if we were to start a war with China it would want to be between 10:15 and 10:25 on a Monday morning; which is after everyone has had morning tea. We would still lose but at least those people wanting to play at war would have had their tea and bikkies before having a nap. The actual soldiers on the ground who do the work, who have a proper sense of national pride, who see the nation as a concept bigger than themselves and who are prepared to act accordingly, are always far more noble than people sitting behind desks who are ten thousand miles away.

In general we have this weird obsession with China because the narrative of geopolitics for more than a hundred years can not imagine anything beyond some fairy tale wrestling concept of goodies and baddies. We have had a string of baddies including Kaiser Bill, Hitler, Stalin, the Soviets and Communism as a general concept, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, ISIS, and China fits the narrative as a baddie character very well. China is big, red, and eats rocks. We do not need to imagine the world any more complexly if our designated enemy is nothing more than a big red rock eater.

As for any collateral damage which happens in society, where Asian people generally and Chinese people in particular, become the subjects of racist comments and abuse for something the they are in no way shape or form remotely responsible for, that's just consequences of our irrational revenge seeking selfishness; which results in zero natural empathy or care for when we slight and hurt others. The Sydney Morning Herald obviously thought that this was a good thing which would help them sell future advertising space.

My hope that this story by the Sydney Morning Herald is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but I fear that it by virtue of being published in two of the most prominent newspapers in the country will have been heard by other idiots who are also full of sound and fury. My hope is that this will actually result in nothing more than the Sydney Morning Herald looking like a bunch of idiots as they continue to sleepwalk into stupidity because this really isn't news. It is sabre rattling which does nothing but to add another data point to confirm my base assumptions about human nature.

Horse 2839 - A Man In A Mask

 In my now obligatory post on Star Wars Day  (which happens in a week that contains Ed Balls Day and May Day), I want to talk about the most Starwarsian thing of all, Darth Vader.

He is the principal character around whom six films are dedicated and he spends just over half of the time, as a man in a mask.

Episode I is a film which tried to build the world; which is fine but it fails as a film. I have no idea what Episode II was trying to do and it has left so little of an impression upon me that I have no idea what it was about now. Episode III is a love story with an unhappy ending; which dovetails into Episode IV, where the man has become machine monster. Episodes IV, V and VI are basically a long redemption arc; which resolves itself in an ending where we are all supposed to be happy that Mr Vader finally did something heroic.

The six arc story is Wagnerian in its approach and properly lives up to the title of epic space opera but for that central character of Darth Vader, it is an awful existence.

He spends his childhood growing up as a glorified slave, he then gets trained in a weird religion with space laser swords, then he falls into a volcano, loses his legs, is progressively radicalised, and becomes a machine monster whose only redemption arc appears to be death. We the audience are mostly fine with this because characters as device within fictional narratives, don't necessarily have to have nice things happen to them. Because characters are puppets who exist and dance purely for the entertainment of the audience, whatever happens to them ultimately isn't real.

The visual look of the design of Vader is undeniably cool. He's got an expressionless mask and a long cowl. Would you really want to inhabit the space inside the black expressionless machine monster? Unconditionally, no.

Not only does he have no legs as the result of being burned in a volcano, it is unclear whether or not he needs help to breathe. It is unclear what he eats, or how he eats, or even if he eats anything. For all we know, his whole diet might be piped in through a straw or perhaps directly intravenously. We also have no idea how or if he goes to the toilet. I imagine that he would still need to poop and pee but how that is connected is a mystery. I imagine that living inside the machine monster would be deeply unpleasant.

On top of that, throw in the complications of being a moody 22 year old when he lost both his legs and his wife. I have no idea how force sensitivity works in the Star Wars universe but setting that aside, not knowing what happened to your children when you were 22, is troubling and traumatising.

Also, what does Vader do when he is not at work? Even hardened criminals need some kind of down time and the very worst of dictators still need relaxation. We have no idea what Vader does when he is not in charge of armies. I do not think that you would see Mr Vader down at the pub on the Defence Sphere (Death Star). I doubt that he'd be at the movies. I also very much doubt given what else we know about the Star Wars universe that he'd be watching Emmerdale on BBC 1. I do not think that he would be allowed to play sport because of his obvious mechanical advantages and I do not see him engaging in playing cards or board games.

Apart from Emperor Palpatine, it is unclear who Vader's friends are, or if indeed he has any. The last people who would have been his friends are Padme who is dead, Jar-Jar Binks who is dead, and maybe Obi Wan Kenobi who may as well be dead to him. Being the man inside the machine monster strikes me as being a very lonely existence however, quite literally nobody seems to want to pursue anything approaching friendship with him.

Vader appears to be a character with no outside support and a deeply unpleasant inner life. His physical circumstances appear constantly uncomfortable and his job is one of deep mistrust and complete lack of familial connection. Unlike Emperor Palpatine who looks like he has all kinds of knavish and nefarious fun, Vader appears to have power without benefit. His access to technology and medical care prolong his existence but they don't really seem to do much for the quality of his life.

Quite literally everyone else in the universe has philos, telos, pathos, storge, agape, and even eros but none of this is open to Vader once he becomes the machine monster. He is forced to be imprisoned within a body that doesn't work, in a cosmos that doesn't work, with a strange set of inputs coming back to his senses.

I would not want to be Darth Vader. I do not think that Darth Vader wants to be Darth Vader. I do not think that the cosmos even remotely cares an iota about what it is like to be Darth Vader. Darth Vader apart from being one of the most famous and iconic villains ever to appear in cinema, probably also lives one of the most prolonged and unpleasant experiences as a character in cinema.

Darth Vader lies at the other end of the spectrum of the paradox of asking a masked man who he is because as far as I can tell, literally nobody seems to bother or to care about asking the question. Nobody knows what it is like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind expressionless machine monster eyes.