Horse 3244 - Amerika Tangata Hiahia Mea

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-recognize-independence-two-small-pacific-nations-biden-2023-09-25/

President Joe Biden met Pacific island leaders for a second White House summit in just over a year on Monday, part of a charm offensive aimed at curbing inroads by China into a region Washington considers strategically crucial.

Before welcoming the island leaders, gathered under the umbrella of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), Biden announced U.S. diplomatic recognition of two more Pacific islands nations, the Cook Islands and Niue.

- Reuters, 25th Sep 2023

US President Joe Biden is meeting with the Presidents and Prime Ministers of 18 Pacific Island nations this week (Australia and New Zealand are included in this), to strengthen US economic and strategic defence interests in the region. The area covered by the land masses of these 18 Pacific Island nations is you exclude Australia and New Zealand would probably fit into a size of smaller than that of suburban Sydney. However, if you include the ocean covered by the land masses of these 18 Pacific Island nations, then you end up with a total area which is bigger than three lower-48-state Americas combined. The Pacific is a big big wide open space of calm blue ocean; one might even call this vast calm quiet ocean 'pacific'. 

The problem that the United States quite rightly sees is that if the giant panda ever wakes up, then just like the British, the French, the Germans, and the Portuguese were able to conquer, colonise, and occupy all of these nations with a force smaller than a pocket flotilla, China will be able to as well. The United States knows this from its own history; having overthrown the government of Hawaii, and taking possession of places like the Philippines, Guam, and half of Samoa. The United States knows that China could take over the Pacific because it knows full well that if it wanted to, it could have already done so.

Realistically, what hope do any of the Pacific Island nations have against China? Sure, a country like Belgium which was literally created out of thin air in 1848 was able to hold up the might of the fully mechanised German Army in 1914 for a whole 11 days but even that's only 11 days. Ukraine has held out against Russia for months and months because Russia's heart truly isn't in the war (obviously by demonstration), but the Pacific Island nations do not have access to such resources. If China wanted to capture Nauru for instance, then could encircle the island with six ships and starve the population until they got what they wanted. I imagine that the whole 'conflict' would be over within a month and without a shot being fired.

This brings up the really obvious question of "why?" Why would the United States want to bother trying to establish ties with the Pacific Island nations when they, just like China, both fully well know that the economic value of these island nations to them is less than zero? The immediate answer appears to be about strategic defence but as the United States also fully well knows, the last time that there was a major conflict in the Pacific, the only strategic purpose of the islands from a military perspective is that they act as fixed aircraft carriers and even then, that's highly limited. From that standpoint, the only purpose of occupying one island is to get to the next one.

I personally think that the reason is actually that the United States wants clear passage to Australia; which actually is of strategic value, as Australia has the ability to provide actual resources. By being friendly with the Pacific Island nations, the United States has the ability to waltz in and out of Australia with their guns and ships and planes, restock and refuel and feed their equipment and staff, and generally swan about as they always have done.

From any objective perspective, if this is a series of either/or decisions, then the Pacific Island nations choosing to side with the United States or China as the big dog in the region, near enough makes no difference as far as I can tell. We seem to be living in a kosmos which is still coloured by the specter of post WW2 communism but given that that same communism in China has managed to lift more  than 300 million people out of poverty, then I really wonder what the net difference is. So much of global politics is people in offices moving trillions of dollarpounds around, while ordinary people do the work for them. As far as the Pacific Island nations are concerned, does it really make that much of a difference in real terms, if those transactions are in US Dollars or Renminbi Yuan?

Take Australia as an example. Can you imagine a scenario where we pay billions for military hardware which doesn't and never will exist, only to have that deal struck off by big brother who wants us to pay for their military hardware? How about having industry set up by the big firms of big brother, only to have them dismantled and shut down, because of the whims of management in that country? How about trade agreements which are actually one-sided ransom attacks, because the physical bigness of big brother's economy is enough to dictate terms of trade? These things have and did happen and not with China as some imagined object open whom we are supposed to direct two minutes of hate to but the United States with whom we are friends.

All of this makes you wonder what Australia gets out of this. Our cousins across the ditch in New Zealand, effectively scuppered ANZUS and didn't even bother to enter AUKUS. Presumably ANZAC, which by the way isn't even a treaty, would still hold up as the two nations who are enmeshed on the sporting field are on amicable terms. As for what Australia actually gets out of a defence pact with the United States, I very much fail to see it. For more than 70 years, we have followed the United States into pointless conflict after pointless conflict; partly caused by the United States' military-industrial-complex being used as a perpetual stimulus package in what looks like very much outdated Keynesianism.

China on the other hand, has been quietly cultivating relationships with nations across Africa; in places where civility and soft power have been a better alternative to the legacy of colonialism. The Belt & Road program is almost overtly about generating favour and making favourable deals for future resources. China can not very do that in the 18 Pacific Island nations because none of them are physically big enough to make things like railways and very big motorways make much sense. Nor do I think that the 18 Pacific Island nations like the idea of having US Navy Bases on their island, when they can look at places like Okinawa or the Philippines and see how shabbily they've been treated.

A friend of mine who is from Tonga, said that if the United States was truly serious about peace and stability in the region, then the best thing that they could do is give Hawaii back to the King and leave everyone alone. If you want to make peace with people, bring a bowl of fruit and not a spear. To that end, I do not know what if anything that the United States has brought to the table. The best thing that they could bring is ham and pineapple.

Horse 3243 - "Not Rich" Lady Has A $3m Property Portfolio And Cries Poor

Last week, the Australian Financial Review ran one of those apology stories on page 3 which in the context of The Fin looks utterly normal and like it is preaching to its choir. However, owing to the fact that The Fin is pitched to a section of the population who very much lives in the top 25% of socio-economic fortunes in Australia, then when an article like this reaches the general public, it looks tone deaf. 

Unlike other nations which have a more vibrant press, Australia's news outlets as far as print media, that is newspapers, are concerned, are very very narrow in vision. Australia has a rightist media group, another a rightist media group, and a series of miniscule independent newspapers which act as a passion projects and move the needle of national discussion exactly three-quarters of four-fifths of diddly-squat.

This apology story in The Fin, came with with the classic local newspaper photograph of someone looking grumpy and pointing at something. It tried to make the argument that the new tax/levy by the Andrews Government in Victoria on short-term rentals, was unfair because of who it would fall on. It tried making the case that a lady with a multi-million dollar property portfolio wasn't rich, as the sorrowful tale of woe.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/i-m-not-rich-i-m-a-single-mum-airbnb-tax-hits-property-owners-20230920-p5e696

‘I’m not rich, I’m a single mum’: Airbnb tax hits property owners

The former real estate agent and hospitality worker now works as a sales executive but has three properties which she rents on Airbnb. She is already feeling the effects of the state government’s $4.6 billion tax slug for property owners in the May budget.

Ms Taylor’s properties are a two-bedroom apartment in Kew owned by her self-managed super fund, which she will hopefully use to retire, her previous residence in Williamstown, which is now an investment property, and a holiday house in Torquay that her family shares with other holidaymakers.

- Australian Financial Review, 21st Sep 2023

Admittedly I can not know for sure exactly what Ms Taylor’s properties are worth but by using realestate.com.au I can at least take a survey and then do some calculations based upon the survey.

2 Bedroom Apartments & units for sale in Kew, VIC 3101

Average of ten properties listed: $832,300

2 Bedroom Houses for sale in Williamstown, VIC 3016

Average of ten properties listed: $729,700

2 Bedroom Houses for sale in Torquay, VIC 3228

Average of ten properties listed: $1,495,800

$832,300 + $729,700 + $1,495,800 = Total: $3,057,800

According to the Australian Financial Review, this is apparently "Not rich". According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Applying a 4% inflation rate to the last census, a property portfolio this extensive would place her in the 97th percentile. Okay, she is not the 1% but she is well inside the top 5%.

The conclusion that we can derive from the numbers is that The Fin is trading in Fine Farms 25L Blended Gold, but why they would peddle a male bovine's third finest product warrants further examination.

At our core, human beings have an amazing ability to normalise everything. From pain, to extreme cruelty, racism, apathy, weirdness, willful blindness; even happiness, luxury, and advantage. You can see this across entire realms of political discussion; which explains why fantastically rich people still want government subsidies to send their children to private schools, why business owners will invent moral justifications why they can treat their employees like garbage, and in this case why someone who is very obviously rich is prepared to have her name dragged and ridiculed through the national press just so she can protect a few thousand dollars.

Generationally speaking, this person is most likely to be member of a third generation of a family with wealth. The first generation will have actually worked for a core of capital. The second generation will be given advantage and may or may not be witness to the work put in. The third generation who will never know what that kind of work entailed, can only grow up in relative comfort and this will be normalised. 

It makes perfect sense why this lady does not 'feel rich'. She likely lives in a very wealthy area and that means that the people around her, her neighbours and friends, and the local community groups of which she might be a member, all come from that same socio-economic group. Australia likes to tell itself the story that it is an egalitarian society but it has spent the better part of 235 years ensuring that this was always a myth and a lie. 

In the second instance, the imposition of any kind of tax or levy to someone who previously did not have to pay it, feels like a very personal violation. Just like human beings have an amazing ability to normalise everything, they also have an amazing ability to take notice of immediate irritations. The story of the Princess and the Pea is less about the Princess' superhuman abilities to detect legumes in her bedding but more about the ability of those who have extreme luxury and wealth to be instantly annoyed by even the smallest irritation. The fable is more or a moral tale than a mere piece of comic farce.

As it turns out, the Second Law of Welfare Economics says that you can provide literally any given economic outcome provided you alter the initial conditions and inputs. Money tends to act a bit like a viscous liquid and flows about the place but it can be directed by putting roadblocks in its way. In this case, the Andrews Government in Victoria would like to discourage short-term rental accommodation in the hope that these properties would be made available for long-term rental accommodation. The principle is sound. Taxation changes the behaviour of the flow of money and capital and by placing a roadblock in its way, it is hope that money will flow somewhere slightly different.

The other reason why taxation like this works so well is due to the marginal utility of money. As someone gets more money, the actual benefit and happiness that they derive from that very last dollar decreases. Of course if you do not have very much then every single dollar is critical but if you have say $3,057,800, you are not likely to miss that last 3,057,800th dollar as much as someone living a hand to mouth existence is. Try the experiment yourself if you don't believe me. Eat five jars of mayonnaise. By the time you get to that fifth jar (if), then that mayonnaise will have ceased to be lovely some time ago; instead of being the kind of loveliness that you get from a sensible amount on a nice chicken sandwich.

The Australian Financial Review of course must run stories like these because as this kind of business, it relies on the continued existence of these kind of people. The chattering and illiterate class will read the Daily Telegraph and Herald-Sun. The people who are prepared to think a bit will read The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. The people who are not prepared to think and want an intellectual right-wing view of the world preached to them will read The Australian. The Australian Financial Review's audience is the 'business class' who live in an almost insulated world away from having to do actual work. This lady is very obviously a member of the 'rentier class' who has managed to normalise her wealth and is now having a panic attack at the thought that the very last few dollars of her fortune might be taken away.

Addenda:

I do not want to dox this lady but comments on The Fin's Twitter account indicate that she owns seven other rental properties apart from the ones which would be taxed under this short-term rental scheme. Almost certainly she has a property portfolio worth more than ten million dollars. 

Horse 3242 - A Seven Bin Army Couldn't Hold Me Back

For almost my entire lifetime, the residents of Number 10 Downing St have either been incredibly knavish, downright incompetent, or dazzling new combinations of both.

Thatcher was horribleness incarnate who demonstrated how good socialism was by running out of other people's stuff to sell. Major took over a government in disarray and never arrayed it. Blair was swept in on a wave of Cool Britannia, lied about documents and helped lead the world to an illegal war. Gordon Brown texture like sun, blathered and dithered until the clock ran out. Cameron (sorry about the pig) tried to blame poor people for the country's woes, enacted austerity to punish them and then when that didn't work, Brexited the country to a new stupid future. Teresa May was given a puzzle with no answer and couldn't solve it. Boris Johnson tried to break every moral and social faux pas in the middle of a pandemic. Liz Truss couldn't outlast a lettuce. Rishi Sunak hasn't really left "The City".

Rishi Sunak is at least a return to the tory Prime Ministers of old, in that he wants to run the country for the benefit of The City and The Square Mile, but has embarked upon an expansionary policy of also including Canary Wharf. His Premiership has been incredibly myopic; bordering on sociopathy. Sunak is very obviously a Prime Minister presiding over a ship of state which has run aground and while it might not sink, is definitely taking on water and might fall over dead in the water. Nevertheless, the taxation policy, the immigration policy, the asylum seeker policy, the policy towards Europe, the health policy, education policy, et cetera have all been thus far about feathering the nests of The City and Square Mile and the new nests at Canary Wharf. Perhaps he wants to join the canaries in the gilded cage once he is done with this obviously temporary and self-serving position, which is probably beneath him in terms of pay-grade.

I note that Britain's star has been falling at roughly the same rate as Australia's. On 15th of February 1966, the Pound Sterling and the Australian Pound were pegged at parity. A day later on Decimal Day for Australia, the Australian Dollar was $1 = 10/- or in decimal terms $1 = 50p. The exchange rate between the £.stg and the AUD yesterday was $1 = 50.000p; meaning that in 57 years, relative to each other we've gone nowhere. Backwards relative to a lot of the world but relative to each other, nowhere.

This is the part of the blog post where I'd make some satirical bon mot about Rishi Sunak's premiership (because this is the fourth paragraph and we are 400 words in; which means that in a four act comic piece, we have reached the first beat point), but not even the wittiest of witticisms do this next thing justice. In comparison, I am but a half-wit crowing about the witlessness of someone with zero-wit.

Sorting your rubbish into seven different bins.

Sorting your rubbish into seven different bins?!

Do what? Come again? Do what? I want to scream at the top of my lungs "What's going on?!", Rishi.

Does Rishi fear bins? Does he think that the witch from the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Bins is going to jump him in his sleep? Perhaps he is making some kind of moral stand but has made a spelling mistake and has confused the Seven Deadly Sins with Seven Deadly Bins.

You've got a housing crisis going on where you need people to work in London but the number of affordable homes to rent within the confines of the M25 is practically nothing, you've got a health crisis caused firstly by austerity and then having to deal with a pandemic and now being starved of funding, you've got a labour crisis caused by both a deliberate aversion to funding training and education and brexiteering brexit to the height of new brexitatiousness; and now you're worried about bins?

The only logical explanation that I can come up with is that the Prime Minister is insulated and divorced from reality and is playing to the audience who used to read the Grauniad, the Times, the Daily Mail, and The Sun, or the most sinister possibility of all, Sunak fears the space aliens.

As First Lord of the Treasury, Premier of the Cabinet, and first ear of the King in Government, Rishi Sunak is likely briefed about the threats to the nation from without and within. We know that these threats exist because the space aliens have already sent an ambassador in none other than Count Binface.

Count Binface, is thus far a multiple unsuccessful candidate for  Uxbridge and South Ruislip and has valiantly tried to stand for the position of Mayor of London but has thus far failed. Last time around, in a field of 18 candidates he came eighth and for the second time in three years, he beat both UKIP and Piers Corbyn in a democratic election. If that’s not a sign of hope, then I do not know what is. 

His policies have included such things as free parking between Vine Street and The Strand (for electric vehicles only), that no shop is to be allowed to sell a croissant for more than £1, that Crossrail should be finished along with Grumpyrail and Happyrail, and most importantly that the hand dryer in the gents’ toilet at the Crown & Treaty, Uxbridge, to be moved to a more sensible position. 

Would a Binface Government be so bad? I mean it couldn't very well do any worse than the abject horrorshow and damage that the tories have done over the last 13 years and what British politics has done generally in my lifetime.

I really have no sensible explanation for this at all other than that Rishi Sunak must have finally enraged the space aliens. Patience can only last so long. The good and fair people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip and London have been asked time and time again to make their vote Count but not enough people have. The invasion is coming and bins are now living collection-free in Rishi’s head. Rishi Sunak is a scared scared little man.

People in the media misinterpreted the chants of crowds at festivals. When the crowds at Glastonbury sang "Whoa, Jeremy Corbyn. Whoa, Jeremy Corbyn." This was not in praise of Jeremy Corbyn but a plea to "Whoa", slow down. Trouble was ahead. The space aliens were already embedded into British Society. "We're gonna find them all. A Seven Nation Army couldn't hold be back." There is was, hidden in plain sight. The warnings were evident.

Count Binface's pleas and protestations to a prevaricating public, were the pleas of an ambassador being sent to warn about the impending crisis. The people may have considered him to be a joke candidate but when British politics for so long has been beyond a joke, and democracy itself is making a mockery out of the very people who live in Britain, then an alien invasion is the best punchline because if it isn't, then cor lummy; junk my jenkins, what the janky jinkies is going on?!

Horse 3241 - Australia Usually Says "No" To Any Kind Of Progress

When Australians go to the polls in October, it will be over the single question of whether or not to add Chapter IX and Section 129 to the Constitution. The addition of Section 129 is to allow the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Voice to Parliament and to do so via the Constitution, rather than just some mere body which can be added and removed by normal legislation.

Personally, I think that the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Voice to Parliament is in fact the wrong answer to the request as posed from the Uluru Statement From The Heart. However given that the admission that First Peoples always retained original sovereignty, sovereignty which was never ceded, and which should be recognised and afforded statehood by virtual terms at least Six Senators as a result, per Section 121, is never ever going to happen, then this is the best that we can hope for. The reason why that this is the best that we can hope for, is that in essence, Australia since 26th January 1788 has always mostly been a nation of tory knaves. Please note, that I use the word 'tory' in this case in the technical sense. 

tory. n. 1. - robber, highwayman, thief. From the Irish Gaelic 'toraigh' (robber, highwayman, thief).

The word 'tory' is absolutely the best word to describe what happened in Australia. After losing the United States, the British Empire decided that it needed to chuck its convicts and ne'er-do-wells into a giant prison which was out of sight and out of mind. The North Government sent 11 Royal Navy ships and what would instantly become the New South Wales Corps. to take possession of the land, with no regard for first peoples. They then spent the better part of seven decades enforcing that possession through the instruments of land clearances and very deliberate genocide. Very tory. Very knave.

Henry Parkes, the multiple time Premier of New South Wales and so-called "Father of Federation" (who had 19 children; which kind of looks like a self-population project), when asked what was to be done for the Aborigines during the 1888 Centenary of NSW said that nothing was to be done:

"And remind them that we have robbed them?"

The problem then was, having built six colonies out of tory knaves, the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was fashioned out of the same cloth. Edmund Barton's Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat actually wasn't all that coloured at all. The only two colours were white and blood stained red. The Constitution to this day does not admit the original sovereignty of first peoples, does not afford any voice in Parliament like the States have in the Senate and any Member of Parliament who happens to be Aboriginal or a Torres Straight Islander, is not there as a first peoples member but as a citizen of the state who dispossessed their own people. 

When we are asked the question in October, we will still not actually be correcting the original terms of the Constitution but rather, asked to tack on an addition which is still only really a subserviant voice to the Crown of the Commonwealth rather than a federated person to it like the Crowns of the Six States are. Given that though, opposition to even that is still very vociferous because the heart of the people of the Commonwealth of Australia is still identical in 2023 to what it was in 1901 or 1788. We are still mostly been a nation of tory knaves. This can be demonstrated by looking at the answers to referenda posed to us in the past and ultimately why I think that the referendum for Chapter IX and Section 129 to the Constitution will also fail.

It must be said that Australia has never been a terribly progressive nation. From the inception of the various colonies which were literally under martial law, to the eventual dispensation of responsible government, to federation which happened as a result of a perceived impending threat from Imperialist Germany, Australia from the outset was always very authoritarian.

This isn't particularly difficult to prove either. A simple survey of the referenda of Australia will tell you what the people of Australia will agree to. 

We have said "No" to referenda put forward by Labor Governments 26 times. Mostly these referenda have been about allowing the Federal Government to take some control over issues like prices, incomes, industry, employment terms, social service, rents et cetera. Referenda put forward by Labor Governments tend to be about curbing the rights of business in Australia to run roughshod over the top of ordinary people.

We have said "No" to referenda put forward by Protectionist, Nationalist, United Australia, and Liberal Governments 10 times. In 8 of those referenda, the questions posed were about tory governments specifically looking to bash their enemies, like unions, communists, and any kind of socialist policy, into the dirt. Even though Australia has mostly been a nation of tory knaves, as evidenced by the governments that we elect and by the questions that we answer "No" to, evidently there are limits to our knavery. 

On the flip side we have said "Yes" to referenda put forward by Protectionist, Nationalist and Liberal Governments 7 times. In all but one of these these have been to do with mechanical aspects of the parliament, the judiciary, and what was to happen with the finances of the nation. 

That one exception when we have said "Yes" to referenda put forward by a Liberal Government was in 1967 and was the referendum on "Aborigines" in which Section 51 was fiddled with and Section 127 which was the explicit refusal to count Aboriginal peoples in the population, which had other implications to to with allocation of Members of the House under Section 24, was repealed.

We have also said "Yes" once and only once to referenda put forward by a Labor Government. This was in 1946 and related to the provision of various kinds of pensions, endowments and what should have been the establishment of the National Health Service but the referendum question itself was gutted and the National Health Service Bill (1948) was killed off; which ensured that even after Australians had given their lives in two world wars, this still wasn't enough to make tory knaves think that Australians were worthy enough to be looked after in terms of health care.

We can basically assume that every single referendum held in or before 1928 was argued out only in the newspapers. We can also  every single referendum held in or before 1951 was argued out only in the newspapers and radio. From 1973 to 1999, the referenda were argued out in the newspapers, on radio and on television. However, this time around, there is no serious argument to be found in the newspapers which are all tory, radio and television are all editorially tory except for the ABC and SBS, and the exception is the internet which is a Thirty Xanatos Pileup Wild West Horrorshow. The "No" case in the media has almost entirely been a bad faith argument and the "Yes" case which is trying to argue on the basis of decency and moral rightness can not make any meaningful rebuttal on those terms. Trying to fight bad faith actors with argument, is a pointless exercise.

When set against the background of 123 years of the Commonwealth of Australia, and 235 years of a history which includes dispossession and genocide, this referendum which barely pushes forward and sadly is the best that we can hope for, the referendum is still likely to fail. Australia has always mostly been a nation of tory knaves and this is demonstrated by repeated referenda. When the question is posed to ask us to be our better selves, I think that the answer is more likely to be "No."

Horse 3240 - The 'Unity' Argument Is Invalid

Unlike the worlds of mathematics, physics, sciences, and logic, we live in a kosmos which is built out of stories. One of the important things about stories is that they are very very powerful. If facts and logic are bones and muscles, then stories are the blood, mucus, and bile of the kosmos. Smash the facts and logic and you have to rebuild the kosmos but spray around blood, mucus, and bile, and all you get is a lot of filthy mess everywhere.

During this referendum on the addition of the First Peoples' Voice to Parliament via the instrument of Chapter IX and Section 129, you are going to hear the 'unity' argument again and again, as though it were some watertight divine principle. On the face of it, it seems sensible. People should be equal before the law. However the idea that unity as a glib principle, and as the reason why equity should be refused to be addressed, contains a very deliberate denial of the truth of reality and a deep contradiction.

The logic statements look something like this for classes N and R.

Not all N are R.

However, all R are N.

This still means that some N are R.

R is a subset of N.

Therefore, N and not R is valid.

The problem with this kind of logic is that it doesn't actually evaluate the validity or propositions of N. In fact, when you probe with any questions about N, you are almost always met with a wall of blood, mucus, and bile of the kosmos and a lot of filthy mess everywhere.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia itself, just like the constitutions for any corporation because the Commonwealth is Corporation Sole, is a set of replaceable rules which determine the power and scope that that corporation has and the terms and mechanisms by which that power and scope is executed and by which the set of replaceable rules may be replaced or revoked or added to. The idea that the Commonwealth is Corporation Sole is hardly new. The Crown of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth itself are inseparable and as Corporation Sole the Commonwealth is the sole shareholder of itself. The voters and executive, have those abilities and power because the Constitution provides for them.

The instrument of Chapter IX and Section 129 is merely a new replaceable rule being added to the existing rule set. 

It reads:

Chapter IX - Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

s.129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

(i) there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

(ii) the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

(iii) the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

- proposed Section 129.

This text, very obviously looks like an addition which does not materially change any of the other provisions in the other 127 sections of the Constitution, nor does it directly assign any functions, powers and procedures to the Voice, as these are to the domain of legislation made by the Parliament, as it is pleased to assign them. Section 129 is also very obviously a new replaceable rule which is being proposed to be added to the existing rule set. 

Now the central lie of the 'unity' argument is that the addition of this replaceable rule to the rule set, assigns an unjust privilege to people on the basis of race. On the face of it and provided that you did no reading of the rest of the Constitution at all, I would have to agree. However, there is no story told in a vacuum and the addition of Section 129 as a new replaceable rule still lives within the context of the rest of the existing rule set. Section 129 is not some magic stand alone piece of legislation but rather, is an addition to the set of rules agreed to by the settlers and originators of the Corporation Sole. The central lie of the 'unity' argument, demands that you deny the existence of the Constitution, and the terms by which the Commonwealth of Australia came to be. 

The terms by which the Commonwealth of Australia came to be can be found in the Covering Clauses of the Constitution and specifically as it relates to the parties which settled the term:

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble#covering_clauses-definitions

Clause 6.

6. Definitions

The Commonwealth shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as established under this Act.

The States shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia, as for the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such colonies or territories as may be admitted into or established by the Commonwealth as States; and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called a State.

- Covering Clause 6, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

The States, which were previously the Colonies, by 1900 all had Crowns in their own right, and sovereignty in their own right. The new Commonwealth of Australia as a federation of these States, would simply copy the status of the States, except with powers ceded to it. The States retained plenary powers, except where Commonwealth and State legislation came into conflict; and due to Section 109, Commonwealth legislation would prevail to the extent of the inconsistency bewteen the two pieces of legislation.

The States however, as sovereign powers, referred the referendum question to join the federation to the people of their 'state'. There is however a problem here and it relates to the Preamble of the Constitution:

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble

WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:

- Preamble, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

Please note the words "the people" and "have agreed to". The truth being denied with the 'unity' argument and that people should be equal before the law, is that 'the people' in all states which federated together to form the Commonwealth, specifically excluded first peoples. If you specifically excluded first peoples, then there is no way that they "have agreed to" anything. You should also note here that the persons who have settled the terms of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, are not 'the people' as a general collective but rather the Crowns of the Colonies who have been defined as 'The States'. The Crowns of The States, just like the Commonwealth of Australia are also Corporations Sole. This is where things get extremely messy.

Every single State and by extension the territories, since they only exist after the invention of the Commonwealth of Australia, claimed sovereignty upon proclamation of the respective colonies and then immediately set about to enforce that sovereignty through genocide and dispossession. Where I live in western Sydney, there is a road called Davis Road which as best as I can tell was named after Sergeant Jeremiah Davis, of the New South Wales Corps. The road passes through the site of a 1791 massacre of Dharug peoples and as best as I can tell Sergeant Jeremiah Davis was paid 1/3 per head, for every Aborginal person killed in the massacre. This kind of event happened again and again and again, right from the inception of the Colony of New South Wales, via land clearances and battle, where the settlers who took over the land simply assumed that they had the power to do so and they had the backing of the Crown and the use of military force to enforce this.

Until only very recently, there have never been any formal treaty processes between the Crowns and first peoples. Certainly the assumption of lands and the backing of that assumption by military force was never agreed to. You will notice that Clause 6 contains New Zealand as being defined as one of the States. The reason for this is that they were still part of the Constitutional Conventions and could have been part of Australia. Their reasons for not wanting to federate into the Commonwealth of Australia along with the other States, apart from the fact that New Zealand is an ocean away and travel in 1900 was still very very slow, was that the treaty arrangements that the Colony of New Zealand had made with the Maori were active and in force, and that the Constitution at the time specifically excluded first peoples from being counted.

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

- s.127, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900) [Repealed by No.55 of 1967, section 3]

Section 127 affected other  parts of the Constitution. For instance Section 24 states that each state is entitled to members in the House of Representatives based on a population quota determined from the "latest statistics of the Commonwealth." The actual responsibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was left to the states and this also explains the specific exclusion from 'race powers' contained in Section 51 at the time.

It wasn't until the Nationality Act (1920) that Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after January 1, 1921 gained the status of British subjects. And it wasn't until the Nationality and Citizenship Act (1948) that they became Australian citizens. However, none of this does anything to change the original terms of the Preamble or the Covering Clauses which explain why and how the Commonwealth came to be.

Perhaps most stark is the statement by the judge Stephen C.J. in the case of the Attorney-General v. Brown (1847):

"The territory of New South Wales, and eventually the whole of the vast island of which it forms a part, have been taken possession of by British subjects in the name of the Sovereign. They belong, therefore, to the British Crown.

The fact of the settlement of New South Wales in that manner, and that it forms a portion of the Queen's Dominions, and is subject to and governed by British laws, may be learned from public colonial records, and from Acts of Parliament. New South Wales is termed in the statute 54 GEO III, c.15, and in the 59 GEO III, c.122, His Majesty's Colony; not the colony of the people, not even the colony of the empire. It was maintained that this supposed property in the Crown was a fiction. Doubtless, in one sense, it was so.

The right of the people of England to their property, does not in fact depend on any royal grant, and the principle that all lands are holden mediately or immediately of the Crown flows from the adoption of the feudal system merely (Co Lit 1, and ibid.191, a, Mr. Butler's note 6; Bac Ab Prerog B.; Vin Ab same title K.A. 19). That principle, however, is universal in the law of England, and we can see no reason why it shall be said not to be equally in operation here. The Sovereign, by that law is (as it is termed) universal occupant."

- Stephen C.J., Attorney-General v. Brown (6) (1847) 

It wasn't until Mabo and Others v Queensland No.2 (1992) that any notion of original sovereignty of first peoples over the land was entertained.

The "No" case and the assertion that we've moved on from that behaviour, or that we can't expect people of today to act like the people of 123 years ago, or 235 years ago, and then literally doing nothing to change the terms, proves by action, that the 'unity' argument is in fact a lie and a very very racist one at that.

Replace N with "No" and R with "Racist"

The logic statements look something like this for classes No and Racist.

Not all No are Racists.

However, all Racists are No.

This still means that some No are Racists.

Racists is a subset of No.

Therefore, No and not Racist is valid.

Except that No is itself a tacitly Racist position because it does nothing to address or change the terms of the Constitution. Voting No because of some glib principle of 'unity' and that 'we are all one' merely serves to protect the existing terms; which were racist.

Horse 3239 - It's Official: Jamie Whincup IS The Goat - Statistically

The goal of anyone who plays a sport, is to win. The reason why we keep on coming back is because there is always still everything to play for and forever to play it in. Invariably with sport adding to the forever bank of statistics, someone has to be the best. I do not buy the proposition that you can not compare different sports people across different eras because of course you can. That's literally what statistics allow you to do. Statistics are the objective data that does not care about a subjective kosmos.

It was Allan Moffat who said that "Winning the championship only allows you to write '1' on the door. Winning Bathurst allows you to write your name into immortality." The weird thing is that he is still right. Nobody really cares who won the Australian Touring Car Championship. Both Glenn Seton and Marcus Ambrose won the championship twice and Bathurst, which is the thing that everyone wants to win, eluded them.

Nominally, the Bathurst 1000 is worth 4/7ths of a championship in terms of glory and its little brother the Sandown 500, is worth half of that (2/7ths). Knowing this, we can evaluate all of the greats in Touring Car history pretty easily. Peter Brock's 3 championships are worthy but winning Sandown 9 times including 7 in a row, and winning Bathurst 9 times is the stuff of legend.

Peter Brock:

3 championships = 3 x 1 = 3

Sandown 9 times = 9 x 2/7 = 18/7

Bathurst 9 times = 9 x 4/7 = 36/7

3 + 18/7 + 36/7 = 10 5/7 = 10.714

The story of the 2023 Sandown 500, has meant that this weekend just been, for only the second time in my lifetime, the statistical title of the Greatest Of All Time in Australian Touring Car history, changed hands.

Broc Feeney in the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro, held off Brodie Kostecki who got as close as 0.2 seconds in the closing stages, to win victory in the Sandown 500 along with co-driver Jamie Whincup.

Whincup as the Triple Eight Engineering Team Principal, which means that he is the boss, drove into the lead twice in the opening period of the race, before handing the car over to Feeney in a very respectable 3rd place on lap 54.

When Cameron Hill had a steering issue and beached his Camaro at Turn 9, Feeney's almost 5 second lead was wiped out because of the Safety Car, and even though Kostecki attacked furiously, the clock was ticking away and as 17:53 ticked over, Kostecki would finish second; after only 158 of 161 laps were completed because of time and curfew.

Feeney made the win look tense but in control. As he was always under attack, he had no time to relax and the fact that he brought the car home without having to take the lead back once he got it, shows that his defence was excellent.

It was this Sandown 500, which did just enough to tilt the top of the tables so that Jamie Whincup now stands alone as the Greatest Of All Time in Australian Touring Car history.

Jamie Whincup:

3 championships = 7 x 1 = 7

Sandown 9 times = 6 x 2/7 = 12/7

Bathurst 9 times = 4 x 4/7 = 16/7

7 + 12/7 + 16/7 = 11.000

At this point, Whincup has the most Australian Touring Car Championship titles (7), the most Australian Touring Car Championship race wins (123). His seventh championship included Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen; which merely served to prove that Whincup was not just a generational talent but very much a contender for the greatest of all-time. Except now, we've got the statistics to prove it.

Jamie Whincup is the GOAT. Story. End of. Proven. Statistically.

Horse 3238 - Thirteen Seasons In One Day

When the British arrived in what they would call Port Jackson but what the locals would call Gadigal, in 1788, they stuck a flag in the ground and from that time forth English would be the de facto language of whatever country would follow. English is a slightly daft language, from a poxy little island chain off of Europe; it is a language which is perfectly capable of stealing words from everywhere and has done so, but the people who speak it still want to fit words and phrases applicable to that poxy little island chain, to other places in the world.

It should have been obvious by about January of 1790, that having a mere four words for the seasons was inadequate and diarists like Tench recorded that they went through about 10 different seasons. The local people as far as I can tell, had words for six identified seasons; which seems to suggest that as they had been living in the lands for a very long time, that they were more aware of the land and climate.

Indeed just like the all of the animals such as spiders, snakes, sharks, box jellyfish, and that poison thing in the shell that spikes you when you pick it up, even the soil which might contain asbestos, or the trees which drop their limbs when they get stressed, are all actively trying to kill you. This is because Australia is hard country on hard mode, and where the only people who could have ever lived here are all hard and/or sent here against their will.

Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn - why would anyone who has been here longer than two years think that that is even capable of even half-way describing what we have as seasons here. The animals are all on hard mode, the dirt is on hard mode, the original inhabitants are actually pretty hard, and the climate is definitely on hard mode.

The Eora and Dharug peoples were right. Four seasons is inadequate. I'll go on to say that six seasons is also inadequate. In fact, as someone who lives in this insane city by the harbour where the people are awful and the only thing they care about is property prices, that the number of seasons is actually thirteen or maybe more.

To wit:

1 - Winter

As someone who works in an accounting firm and who likes English football, I refuse to accept that the year begins in January. Years contain slashes and the year which we are currently in is 2023/24. The year very clearly begins on July 1.

Winter is that season in which frosts happen, where stepping outside is unpleasant, where working in the office chills your kidneys and where walking downstairs is like descending into a plunge pool.

2 - Fool's Spring

At some point in Winter, there will be a week where people will think that it is over. The coming of three days of 26 degrees is deliberately designed to lull people into thinking that the winter is over. Remember, nature itself actively hates you and will go so far as to mess with you psychologically. 

Fool's Spring lasts just long enough to make people think that Winter is breaking until...

3 - Second Winter

Second Winter is worse than the first. Second winter invents mornings of low single degree temperatures, so you think that it is fine but it really is not. Second winter wants to make your fingertips scream with pain because of the cold and give you chilblains in your toes, so that way not only are you in pain but you small bad. 

4 - Deception

This is not Spring either. Deception is a micro season around about the beginning of August in which there is a faint whiff of wattle on the breeze and you think that everything will be pleasant. As a season it is still too cold to be called Spring and it may include the awful period where it rains all the time, or not, depending on what is most inconvenient that year.

5 - The Pollening

The faint whiff of wattle is merely the opening act. The Pollening is a full on festival where all of the plants throw all of their sex cells into the air at the same time. If plants were people, then many would be arrested for indecent acts in public.

The problem is that you have to walk through the middle of nature's herbaceous horribleness. I have a highly designed immune system which was developed over many thousands of years to live in a peat bog in northern England; which means that as someone living in Sydney, The Pollening results in my immune system triggering off and sending lots of Histamine 1 to every where. Walking outside during The Pollening, is like chopping onions all the time. 

6 - The Swooping

After all of the plants have had their fun, the next thing that follows is the arrival of Magpies and their nesting season. Different birds in Australia have different characters. Cockatoos are shrieking monsters. Galahs want to form committees. Rainbow Lorikeets are colourful vandals. Magpies are black and white terrorists who are actively trying to draw blood and will hurt you, merely because they can.

There aren't enough cricket bats in the world to deal with Magpies. Carrying sticks and painting eyes on the back of your bicycle helmet is pointless. The only rational decision is to give up. Magpies own the kosmos for a time. Is this a season though? Very yes.

7 - Spring

It is not until the seventh season of the year that we get perfection. For a very brief window, temperatures are perfect, the weather is perfect, footy is on the telly and the radio, cars go to Bathurst. Spring is ace. 

8 - Summer

Summer is also ace. Summer is when the weather is still perfect but hotter. Temperatures head northwards of 30. The soundtrack of Summer is untold numbers of cicadas and Cricket on the radio. As Daylight Wasting time is in full swing, the evenings are such that you can go for a walk in the cool of the evening and watch as the skies are painted in millions of golds, yellows and reds. The soundtrack of Summer also includes Christmas songs in the shops, which will have begun in late October.

9 - Hades

Temperatures rise above 40. Going to sleep at night is impossible. The most sensible thing to do is lie on the floor. Depending on when Hades as a season arrives, Christmas Day may fall inside it. If so, then Christmas Day will be awful as not only will there be the pressure to have a good Christmas but there will always be some nutter who wants a roast dinner for Christmas. If Christmas is in the season of Hades then Boxing Day will be excellent as Boxing Day is designed for people to lie on the couch and watch cricket on the telly, and boats leave Sydney Harbour.

10 - Gehenna

Gehenna is like Hades as a season except that as an added bonus, everything is on fire. Roads might be cut. Great palls of smoke will hang in the air to the point where you can cut cubes of atmosphere out with a bread knife. 

Queues at airports will be massive as everyone wants to go somewhere nice but planes will be grounded because they can not fly through smoke. Farmers will despair as their livestock suffers and maybe dies of heat stress. Right-wing media outlets will deny climate change even though the smoke is so thick that from their cramped little commentary boxes in the city, they can't see the Gladesville Bridge. The sun is red; even at noon day. Roads begin to melt in the heat but that's okay if property prices keep on going up.

11 - False Autmumn

For no reason at all, there will be a polar blast from below roaring forties. Temperatures will plunge to the mid teens and everyone will think that winter has arrived, except that it hasn't. For waiting around the corner is...

12 - Abaddon

By this time of year, Summer is gone but things are still on fire. There may be the opportunity for cyclones, floods, or as we saw in 2022, a virus. This is a bit like a second Gehenna except that it may be marginally cooler.

Cricket season ends. The newness of a school year has worn off and all we are left with is the drudgery and curse of work. It is this time of year when people realise that they have not done their tax returns, or when courts will start testing cases, or when people realise that the end of the financial year is not that far away. Apart from everything being on fire, Abaddon is the season when people are frumpy, grumpy, and harumphhy. Nobody is happy.

13 - Autumn

Autumn is almost like upside-down Spring. Days are getting shorter, Daylight Savings is corrected. Temperatures are generally too cold to be perfect but the skies and some trees will be painted in a kaleidscope of colour.

Autumn contains exactly one day of perfection which will arrive unannounced and then leave again. It is impossible to tell when this one day will be and by the time you have realised that it has happened, it will be over. 

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The really weird thing about the seasons in Sydney, is that they can be deleted without warning. The problem with trying to compartmentalise the year into four seasons is that it is inadequate. The problem with nature is that it is not sentient and therefore doesn't even follow any kind of system which we try and impose upon it. 

There might be thirteen seasons in one year, or two. One thing is for certain, there are not four seasons in the year unless there are. Other parts of Australia such as Melbourne, may even get four or five seasons in one day. 

Horse 3237 - PARTY A AND THE PEOPLE v MONSTER ENERGY DRINK [2023] - Judgement

The Fake Internet Court of Australia

PARTY A AND THE PEOPLE v MONSTER ENERGY DRINK [2023] - Judgement

H3237/1

It has come to this fake internet court's attention that a party which wishes to remain anonymous, would like judgement in establishing opinion about Monster Energy Drink. Generally speaking, this court is able to make objective rulings about subjective subjects, because the jurisdiction of The Fake Internet Court of Australia is in a unique position in that it simultaneously asserts that it is both definitive and irrelevant.

This party who which wishes to remain anonymous, will henceforth be named as Party A. The Fake Internet Court of Australia also notes that Party A is a person un their own right and completely unlike collective class actions such as the S Club because there ain't no party like an S Club Party.

These then are the facts as the court sees them:

Monster Energy Drink is a high-caffiene drink which calls itself a "formulated beverage". The actual drink itself is a green liquid that has a flavour which tastes broadly medicinal but with no obvious connection to any thing in nature. The drink is marketed in a black can with a green logo which is supposed to resemble a both a set of scratch marks from three claws as well as the letter M. 

The idea that a drink doesn't actually taste of anything in nature is hardly a new concept. Dr Pepper which was very very late in the timeline of soda-fountain drinks, claims that it is a blend of 23 different flavours. 23 is an interesting number as that is about the upper limit for people to differentiate between different items. This is particularly useful when thinking about school class limits because 23 is about the number of children, when in the mind of the teacher they actually cease to be individuals and instead become a peloton. Dr Pepper as the result of extra-science-sciencey thingamabobs, is therefore not actually 23 different flavours but one unique thing.

Monster Energy Drink on the other hand makes no such claim about being a blend of any kinds of flavour in particular. It is the court's opinion that Monster Energy Drink taste pretty feral but as people will like what they like and dislike what they dislike, then a subjective opinion about the feralness of flavour is about as useful as trying to hammer an egg to the wall. Yes, you can do it but why?

Monster Energy Drink positions itself in the drinks market, in competition to other so-called energy drinks such as Red Bull, V, et. al.; which also mostly taste feral and with no obvious connection to any thing in nature. As with Red Bull, Monster Energy Drink chooses to market itself in motorsports, which seems to be the 21st Century marketing equivalent to that of tobacco companies in the 1970s and 1980s.

The nutrition information on the side of the can, informs us that Monster Energy Drink contains 160mg of caffeine in a 500mL can. This likely is the central problem as to why Party A has chosen to bring this case before this court. This court notes that this is similar to other so-called energy drinks such as Red Bull, V, et. al.

Before judgement is pronounced, this court would like to thank our learned friends and esteemed colleagues, Robin D Banks acting as counsel for Party A and The People and Marsha Mellow who acted as counsel for the defence.

With these known facts, the court is more than adequately armed to be able to make judgement.

Final Judgement:

This court notes that people like what they like and do not like what they do not like and have every right for that to be the case. However, as Monster Energy drink comes in an absurd size of can, this judgement is less about what people like and about the ontology of the product itself.

Monster Energy Drink is sold in US Pints in the United States, which is 473mL, and un Demi in the sensible metric kosmos, which is 500mL. The perfect cup of tea is 8 Imperial Fluid Ounces, which is 227mL. So not only to we have a wee-wee making chemical but we have that same wee-wee making chemical in far greater amounts and in a bladder filling serving size. This is absurd for not one but two reasons.

This court also would like to ask the question of why pray tell anyone needs to be that awake? Caffeine is a diuretic which means that it induces urination faster; which means that it is like its other wee-wee making cousin Alcohol. Alcohol because of its ability to reduce one's inhibitions, is famous for producing revelry and/or violence in people. Caffeine on the other hand, tends to increase alertness and awakeness; which is perfect if people are in social situations because mental alertness fosters closeness and community. It is no surprise that the Enlightenment was caffeine fuelled at night time, in almost direct opposition to the Gin Craze which made rapscallions and ruffians out of people. Being that awake though is not necessarily an advantage, if the thing that you are being made more alert to is the existential problem that everyone without exception suffers an existence failure and that Grimaldi Reaper will eventually collect his due. 

The question is also begging as to why this court would bring Monster Energy into its domain as a unique defendant and not the whole suite of energy drinks such as Red Bull, Prime, V, et al. This relates to an older issue and one that demands its own tale by way of explanation.

A very long time ago when I was in the United States, I bought a Mountain Dew from a vending machine. I was informed, nay chided, nay almost reprimanded, for buying something with so much caffeine in it. Of course being from Australia, I came from somewhere where Mountain Dew was not caffeinated; so I was unfamiliar with the US product. This means that in the court of public opinion, that there can be a moral judgement against an amoral product. As precedent already exists, then this court asserts that a moral judgement against Monster Energy Drink can be made here.

As for why this court chooses to make a judgement against Monster Energy Drink as a unique defendant and not the whole suite of energy drinks, this is a matter of scope and merit. To bring a class action of Everyone v Everything, is incredibly difficult to manage. Perhaps if some other discrete case was brought forward, then this court would consider it.

Monster Energy Drink, as a bladder bursting, jitter making, feral tasting, liquid of insanity, you are guilty of both dastardliness and knavery. You have brought hateration and holleration into this fake internet court and as you have no business to exist, we order you to immediately suffer an existence failure. If we ever see you back before this court, the penalties will be severe. Get out; lest you make a mockery of my courtroom. We are already perfectly capable of making a mockery of this fake internet courtroom as it is.

If we allow things like this to exist, then where are we as a society? It is one thing be terrible on one's own time but to ensnare others in your villainy is malevolent. Can you not see what trouble thou hast wrought? 

- ROLLO75 J

(this case will be reported in FILR as H3237/1 - Ed)

Obiter Dictum: 

While we are at it, Ty Gibbs is a dastardly little chipmunk who needs to grow up an stop punting people into walls. This Fake Internet Court suspects undue influence of Monster Energy Drink. Jittery people who need to go wee-wee tend to do more irrational things.

Horse 3236 - Paw Patrol Movie 2: I Fear Something Darker May Lay Under The Surface.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my personal hatred of the TV series Paw Patrol. The reason why I as a 44 year old man with no children should have such a visceral reaction to a piece of media which isn't designed for me, is that I have been subjected to watching more hours of Paw Patrol, while waiting in line at the bank, than I care to have seen. The actual number of  hours of Paw Patrol that I care to have seen is zero; so I suspect that waiting in line at the bank and watching Paw Patrol is in contravention to some UN Convention. I can only dread the fates of the futures that await the banking staff, which I imagine are as unpleasant as what happened to the radium girls.

In any given episode of Paw Patrol, the small town of Adventure Bay which appears to have no more than about two dozen residents, is plagued by some very minor complication which then requires a small boy named Ryder and his unholy army of puppies, to sort out. If someone's chicken goes missing, or a cat has somehow wandered into the middle of a stream, or a fire in a kitchen has trapped someone (these are all real stories), then the hideously incompetent villagers will call Ryder and the Paw Patrol, with their absurdly expensive machinery, to solve their relatively minor problem. 

I think that the reason why I abhor this show in particular, is that the formula is predictable almost to the second. The complication will happen at exactly 94 seconds. There will exactly two beat points in the plot which will happen at 212 seconds and 256 seconds, with the denouement playing out from 325 seconds. There will also be the obligatory flat joke and laughter at the end. Now I am all for animated cartoons as I think that the scope can be wider than live television, but something about Paw Patrol just makes me want to bang my head violently against the coffee table and pass out on the floor. 

The best rational explanation that I have come across for the reason why the very small and limited world of Paw Patrol exists, is that the small boy Ryder has suffered some kind of very serious head trauma and is in a coma. In a desperate attempt to be in control and likely induced by pain medication, his brain has constructed an entire world for him to live in; in which he is the hero and his own dead puppies have been resurrected in some kind of Gary Stu self-insertion character wish fulfillment. This theory best explains why he never has to go to school, why there is no sensible parental figure, and why this town relies upon him. Of course being a small boy, it also explains why the world is in fact so very very limited because a brain that is unable to imagine the world complexly is also unable to imagine a complex world.

In this edition of Complaining About Media Which I Haven't Seen And Have No Intention Of Seeing, I have learned of the existence of "Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie". Usually when a TV franchise announces a movie, it is the beginning of the end for the TV franchise as it is usually the last few booms of a dying supernova. In "Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie", one of the pups named Skye (and in an effort to try and correct the Bechdel Test failure of the series), has found a meteor which gives the pups superpowers. Mayor Humdinger, whom we have previously seen in prison, intends to steal the meteor. The fact that I can work this out just from the long version of the movie advert on the television while waiting in the bank, suggests that the plot can not be all that complicated.

I note that the movie is rated PG and "Contains scenes which will unsettle young children" as well as "Contains mild peril". Personally I like warnings like this as this will serve as a warning to parents that someone else's small child is going to have a very very loud cry in the cinema. They can not directly say that "this movie will make your kids cry" and so the phrases "unsettle young children" and "mild peril" are brilliant euphemisms. If I was subjected to being in that cinema then I would join them as I share their grief; as I too wish that I could cry in quivering heap. 

However the existence of not one but two Paw Patrol movies suggests something even darker lying underneath the surface. As a movie is the last few bangs of a franchise shedding layers before it finally dies, just what is happening to our unseen boy in the coma? His drug induced coma appears to be getting worse. The Ryder whom we can not see, as the mind which contains this extremely small universe, is going through its last few desperate grasps for consciousness and cohesion. These last few attempts to give the pups superpowers must surely indicate that either the drugs have changed, or that Ryder is in fact dying.

That's the kindest and most rational explanation for what is going on here because if that's not what is happening, then I don't know what is. Okay, apart from the obvious that this is media designed to sell tickets because that has been the basis of professional actors type thesp since the late 1500s but in universe, the idea that the pups find a magical meteorite which gives them superpowers, is pushing it it even for this saccharine drug induced coma dream.

Aside:

PG warnings about "mild peril" and that a piece of media will "unsettle young children" are mildly amusing but G warnings that a piece of media "contains numbers", or "contains letters", or even worse that it "contains numbers and letters", are guffaw producing. Now if only they could produce some kind of warning for Cocomelon. I am sure that Cocomelon is definitely in contravention to some UN Convention.

Horse 3235 - The Tesla Siberchonk

Everyone's favourite billionare temper-tantrum chucking oversized 3-year old, Elmo Moss, has taken the best part of four years to bring his Cybertruck to market and the final product by all accounts, will suffer from awful panel-fit and poor quality control. 

More generally, Leon Muss' story arc is the kind of think that one would see in comic books. He has gone from being the son of a property developer and emerald mine owner, to being in the right place at the right time to sell off businesses like Zip2 and PayPal, to become a weird Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne type superhero who owns The Boring Company, Tesla Motors, Space X; who then decided to enter the culture wars and buy Twitter, to ten turn into a right-wing nutter who millions presumably hate.

Noel Mess' Boring Company seems really intent on inventing things that already exist but doing them worse. The Boring Company Loop System in Las Vegas, reinvented the train but used electric cars; to make a not very usable mass (?) transit system.

Not content with inventing worse trains things than trains which already exist, Olen Mask's Tesla Motors has decided to invent a worse version of the pickup truck for reasons that make no sense to me. From what I can determine, the Cybertruck which was supposed to have used a proprietary exoskeleton will revert to a normal unibody or railframe construction. However all that aside, the Cybertruck's existence is a strange strange exercise in ontology. Why does it need to exist?

I saw this photograph of what is presumably a pre-production Cybertruck on X the other day and to be honest, the sight of this thing made me sad.

Every single view I ever see of this truck, looks more and more ridiculous. I don't know that's even possible.

I shall use Imperial Units for this as I am a metric man, every inch of the way.

As far as I am concerned, the final form of the evolution of the motor car, is the VE Commodore Ute. Quite literally no vehicle beyond that dat has been better backed, better built, better engineered, or better suited to purpose. It is a good donkey which was sufficient cool enough, sufficently big enough, sufficiently strong enough, and sufficiently capable enough to do most things well. The relevant details are thus:

VE Commodore Ute:

Weight: 3726 lbs

Wheelbase: 114.8"

Tray bed: 72.0"

Price: $36,000

In comparison the Tesla Cybertruck is expected to have the following dimensions:

Weight: 6800 lbs

Wheelbase: 149.0"

Tray bed: 70.0"

Price: $96,000

This means that for a mere $60,000 more, you can have a thing that weighs 1.8x as much, has a wheelbase which is not quite two feet longer, and has a tray bed which is two inches shorter.

Perhaps the one redeeming thing about the Cybertruck is that it allegedly produces 800kW of power from the electric motors. Electric motors by virtue of operating because of the motor effect in physics, produce maximum torque at zero revs. This makes electric motors the best theoretical motors to put on things that need to start and stop, such as trains and cars. 800kW is about 1070 horsepower; which means that on the signal, more than a thousand horses are unleashed. That's pretty tyre shredding, as it is only about 6 pounds per horsie as opposed to the nearly 20 pounds per horsie in my Mazda 2. The fewer number of pounds per horsie, means that the horsies that are there, can be angrier and with more than a thousand, that's plenty angry. 

Except when you have more than 6000 pounds, that's an unpleasant driving experience. The founder of Lotus Cars, Colin Chapman, said that if you wanted to add speed, add lightness. Lighter cars have less mass to accelerate, stop, and change directions and the Cybertruck, is a very very hefty chonky boi. The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 that I had, at 4200 pounds and a wheelbase of 116.7" felt like a massive thing because it was. This is even more massive by almost half again.

I suspect that this stainless steel Porygon type body on this truck is supposed to evoke sentiment for a future that never was, as though it were from Back To The Future Part II. The problem is that not only would it be impossible to see anything peripherally from behind the B-Pillar and back, but the massive C-Pillars which extend all the way to the very tips of the rear quarter panels, would ensure that the view out the back of this truck would be an extreme case of tunnel vision.

All of this leads me to ask the question of exactly who is this Eisschrankpanzer for? The kinds of good-ol-boys who buy Brodozers such as the F-150 or Silverado, will not be able to afford this thing, and the kinds of people who would buy G-Wagens and Range Rovers will continue to buy Mercedes-Benz EQS and Range Rover EVoques. 

The only logical conclusion that I can make as to who the jinkies would want a 6000 pound, hideous looking monstrosity, which looks bad at doing the only job it was designed for, is none other than Elmo himself. There is no Plan B. There is also no Plan A. He has no idea what he is doing but he's got more money than the sense to use it. He could have bought a Formula One Team, or started a sensible car company but no. Siberchonk is Elmo's car for Elmo and only Elmo will ever want one. 

Horse 3234 - Snow White And The Explanatory Note

This post is like Araldite in that it comes in two parts and when combined, is a hideous sticky mess.

Part 1:

If I may be so bold that I may say something stupid, I have a guess that the reason why everyone's 'favourite' number is 7, is because it is a smallish prime number which is a little bit mysterious. Okay, people probably neither care that it is prime, not that it produces stupid decimals when used as a divisor but they are at least aware that there are seven days in a week, seven deadly sins, and seven dwarves in the tale of Snow White.

Or rather... the seven dwarves are an invention of the Disney corporation because in almost every edition of the story which existed before the animated feature (that I could find), they are merely described as 'some' dwarves. Now I have heard it said that Disney made the choice to use the number seven after they'd done internal A/B testing with nine dwarves and decided that this sounded better; which if this is true, then the arbitrary amount of dwarves is an aesthetic choice. 

Probably ever since the 1937 Disney animated feature, many people like me have seen the number of dwarves and the number of deadly sins and wondered it there is a connection. Certainly in mining fairy tales and folk stories, the Disney corporation has made more than passing use of witches and wizards and even The Mouse himself was pressed into service as 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'; which has made many people wonder what kind of witchcraft is going on underneath the house of the mouse.

The thing is though that if you actually try to map the seven deadly sins onto the seven dwarves, it very quickly falls to pieces.

Sure, two are obvious:

Sleepy - Sloth

Grumpy - Anger

Maybe there is a case to be made for their leading press-ganging the rest of them into diamond mining:

Doc - Avarice

But the rest?

Bashful - Superbia?

How do you map Happy, Dopey, and Sneezy, onto Lust, Envy, and Gluttony?

I just don't think that there is a particularly strong case for Snow White and the Seven Deadly Dwarves. Indeed if there is a case for Lust, Envy, and Gluttony in the film, then those three defects can be properly mapped onto Snow White's stepmother and stepsisters. Also I find it interesting that the useful trope of having an orphan child who has been adopted by an unkind family is used here, because then we feel no kind of remorse or sadness when they finally leave. This is a useful plot device.

To interrogate the dwarves themselves, is having an allergic reaction to the environment really a sin? How come Doc neither has a character trait, nor a physical trait associated with him? How come he is a doctor? Is it by trade or academia? What's up Doc? Are these even their actual names or are these nicknames? Are we in fact looking at a series of NPCs with no actual characters at all beyond their names?

If we run the question backwards, then what kind of dwarves would we get? Mr Lazy, Mr Angry, Mr Greedy, Mr Proud, Mr Sexy, Mr Envious, and Mr Hungry? Congratulations, you have just reinvented the Mr Men. Maybe we have invented Snow White and the 14th Century Morality Play. To be fair, I would watch "Snow White and the 14th Century Morality Play"if it was an animated film.

It matters not which way you run around inside this question, seven dwarves and seven deadly sins are not connected. 

Part 2:

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives.

Every wife had seven sacks;

Every sack had seven cats;

Every cat had seven kits.

Kits, cats, sacks, wives - how many were going to St Ives?

Answer: 1. The perpendicular pronoun: I.

Maths time!

Man: 1

Wives: 7

Sacks: 49

Cats: 343

Kits: 2401

However, having more than two-and-a-half thousand cats is a problem. That is unless they own that weird cat island in Japan. This is the unholy kitty army of the night that they warned you about. Even with a rough guess, that's ten thousand cat poos per day which someone is cleaning up (or not clearning up). 

I do not know what kind of legal or moral framework the man with seven wives is living in but I do know that he has a very serious feline infestation problem. Nobody needs more than two-and-a-half thousand cats. 

This is the proper amount of cats to have and why:

1 cat - unacceptable because they get lonely.

2 cats - is the perfect number of cats to have, if you are going to have any at all.

3 cats - is already too many cats because that's a dozen poops a day.

2744 cats - is utter madness.

Horse 3233 - The Missing Middle Will Stay Missing

There is currently something of a grassroots campaign being formed, around looking at changing the prevailing narrative of how we look at urban infrastructure and in particular, housing. It has the attractive name of "YIMBY" for "Yes, In My BackYard"; as opposed to "NIMBY" for "Not In My BackYard". I think that the campaign is blessed with all of the optimism and naivety of a sheep looking at a Mitsubishi Triton's lights, doing 67km/h towards it - it ends badly and we all get kebabs.

YIMBY has correctly identified what it calls the "missing middle" and I think that this name is apt and brilliant.  The so-called "missing middle" which has been identified, is that section of medium density housing between free standing dwellings which make up the majority of suburbia and grand multi-storey apartment complexes, and which doesn't really exist in great swathes of this conurbation we call Sydney. To understand why this missing middle remains missing, it is perhaps helpful to consider how we got here.

Sydney is a relatively young city in terms of the cities of the world. Unlike the cities of the old world like London or Paris, which are wens upon the land with a series of orbital rings like a fungus, or cities constrained by geography like New York City or Tokyo, Sydney started as a single point which then had to claw outwards. Sydney grew along the rutted roads, then the railways, then infilled the motorways later. However this doesn't quite explain the missing middle.

The terraced housing suburbs to the east, were all sold off in blocks and/or built as government housing. IN the grand scheme of Sydney though, this is not normal. Sydney was mainly claimed by sprawly housing developments, with free standing houses on single blocks. This is where the story is.

Unlike England in the 1830s, or Paris in the 1880s, or New York after the imposition of the grid, or even Tokyo which forced houses into small spaces, Sydney never had to. When those places had to replace housing stock, in almost all cases it was like for like but in Sydney, it is not.

The way that land works in Australia generally, is that land is sold with the house. The only way that big apartment complexes happen is when a developer happens to wait and buy lots of free standing houses as a clump. Here's the rub. No developer in their right mind is going to build terrace housing, if they can build a big apartment complex. Why would they? Why build and sell six terrace houses, when you can outlay three times the cost but bring in ten times the revenue. Why build six when you can have sixty? Why replace forty houses with one hundred and twenty, when you can replace them with six hundred and thirty apartments?

And it shows. Medium density housing in Sydney, is unlikely because there is no economic incentive to build it. What used to be cute two bedroom houses in the 1940s, are never replaced with terrace houses, but ten storey archologies. 

This is also partly the reason why housing is so ridiculously expensive in Australia. Not only do we allow idiotic taxation policy such as negative gearing and the 50% CGT discount but investment housing is held by property trusts which pay no tax at all and merely make distributions. The myth of the Chinese investor buying up all of the houses, is nothing more than racist claptrap and everyone who pushes it must be considered to be of extreme xenophobic character. 

This has by itself created a feedback loop. As property is an insanely easy investment machine, owing to the fact that every single landlord without exception is either absent or derelict or both, then returns on property expressed as rent, are basically the second least effort of all the passive income streams. Banks already control the least effort of all the passive income streams by money lending. It is by no accident that the biggest companies on the ASX200 are mostly banks and property trusts, with a few dirt farming, data farming, and retail farming companies thrown in. 

It also helps the feedback loop in that people who pay rent, are excluded from owning houses because they pay rent and money while fungible, still comes with an opportunity cost. In this case, the opportunity cost is forced upon renters and the entire rentier class then gets to plough that money back into buying more property. By the way, that is exactly how the game of Monopoly works, in that the rate of return of developed property is higher than salaries; so at the point when houses start appearing on the board, the game must have a conclusion.

As the eternal pessimist who knows just enough to know how badly the kosmos treats people, I have been blessed with exactly zero power to be able to do anything about it. The weird thing is that I am fine with it. The rich will do as they please and the poor MUST suffer what they must.

Sydney is going through the same kinds of public housing problems that England went through in the 1830s, that New York went through in the 1860s, that Paris went through in the 1880s, and that Tokyo went through in the 1890s. All of those places found an economic solution.

New York more or less suffers continual dereliction and regentrification, London and Paris ended their gilded age through the destruction of 100 million people across the battlefields of Europe in two bouts of unpleasantness, Tokyo solved its problem by helpfully being firebombed by the United States from March 1945 until August of that year. 

The economic solution to a housing problem like this is simple and has been exacted in the past. Destroy people. Or destroy capital. Or destroy buildings. Economics which neither fixes nor solves problems but merely converts them from one problem into another, is completely apatheistic to the plight of people.

It does not help that Australia will elect openly tory government roughly 2/3rds of the time. Tory government generally refuses to address any housing issue because that offends their voting base, that is the people with money. This is why the missing middle exists. Pure economics and the rational selfishness of people with money dictates that this is the only solution. 

Horse 3232 - Pegasus With Clipped Wings Is Just A Horse

The introduction of the Gen-3 Supercar has been nothing short of horrific. The cars themselves have had driver cooling issues and there have been risks of the cars catching on fire. From the fans' point of view though, this year's season has basically boiled down to a two-team contest between Erebus Motorsports and Triple Eight Engineering, with Ford teams picking off maybe 1 of 20 odd wins in the year. If Gen-3 was supposed to provide close racing, it colossally fails to deliver with every single race basically falling to either of those two teams.

It shows as well. Three-time Shane Van Gisbergen wants out, as does Will Brown, and it can not be very much fun for anyone who knows that they best that they can hope for on any given weekend, is fifth. In one fell swoop, we have returned to the days of 1992, with this year's GTR being the Camaro. If you don't have one of those, give up and go home.

It didn't have to be this way. As the cars are bespoke and literally could have been anything, Supercars' management could have decided that the teams be reined in by Balance of Performance regulations, or decided from the outset to make the field level but they did not. Instead we have a 5.4L production based V8 going against a racing crate motor 5.7L V8, and they've expected them to try and fight around the whims of parity directives.

On top of this, Supercars' management could have decided that the cars themselves could have been identical in profile save for the front and rear taillight clusters; in the same way that NASCAR does when it approves new models for its series. The front and rear taillight clusters on Gen-5 NASCAR were merely stickers; on Gen-6 they were moulded sections; and Gen-7 actually holds the underlying pieces to an even tighter bound box. Supercars' management did not. In an effort to make the cars look more like the road going counterparts, they allowed the manufacturers more freedom; which is fine from a marketing perspective but awful if the cars then have to attach common aero pieces.

The complaint from the Mustang drivers is that relative to the Camaro drivers, they feel that they have a lack of rear grip, which is likely predicated by the rear wing being ineffective and the under-car aero pieces, such as the diffuser, also not being as effective as on the Camaro. The drivers are the best feedback monitors (they are the ones who drive the car after all), and I think that they are probably right. The reason why, can be readily determined by looking at the cars themselves.

That rear wing and rear diffuser are common pieces. As you can see though, the rear profile of the Mustang from the B-pillar back, is a very sleek and swoopy line. What I think is happening which is different to the Camaro, is because the rear of the Mustang more closely resembles that of the road car than the Camaro does, it is in fact cleaner through the air. My impression by looking at it, is that air travels over the rear window and past the B-pillar, and then spills out under the rear wing; very very efficiently. I think that this means that the Mustang is probably about 6km/h faster in a straight line at the top end but that minimal advantage is utterly destroyed when going through any corner. 

What I think is happening is that that wing is actually out in orphaned air and while it acts a little bit, the minimal suck force pulling it down, is woeful compared with the Camaro; which has a less efficient rear end but more effective rear end aero as a result.

The other thing which immediately strikes me is just how high off the ground that rear diffuser is. that looks to have as much ground clearance as the rear bumper of the normal passenger car. Again, because the  diffuser is so high up, I wonder if in fact it is actually doing anything meaningful. If the Camaro's diffuser is closer to the ground, then that same part will work better, and the suck force which is generated by creating a lower pressure area underneath the car, will be higher.

When engineers design cars for the road, they are not looking at downforce as their main objective. They are looking for a more slippery car through the air because the slipperier the car is, the less petrol it will use. You can recreate this design problem, the next time that you are in a car by making your hand play as a dolphin, the next time you are on the highway.

When Supercars' management wanted to set out the conditions for the bound box of the Gen-3 Supercar, they wanted something when would be skatier than the Gen-2 car because "the fans" wanted to see cars slide around more. It seems that they got precisely that with the S650 Mustang but not the Camaro, whose engineers may have pulled a little bit of a swifty on Supercars' management.

There is a an elephant not in the room but lumbering over the horizon. That is that Ford Motor Co. have just released their Ford Mustang GT3 for use in GT3 racing around the world. I think that this may have struck the first death knell for Supercars. Quite frankly I do not see Ford wanting to drop very much more coin into a project, if it means that they get their but kicked every week, which is what is happening now. Ford have already announced that they will be going for a bigger prize at Le Mans, as well as other GT3 racing series such as the Blancpain series in Belgium and France, the DTM in Germany, and GT300 in Super GT in Japan.

If this is true and Ford gives up, then the Supercars has maybe the 2024, 2025 and 2026 seasons to think about it. 2023 is practically a dead rubber and if Fords are made to look silly at Bathurst, then they will see it as a dead loss. 

I am in two minds about this. On one hand I think that this might hasten some kind of Gen-3.5 Supercar in a hurry, which might be good; while on the other hand I can see that GT3 is clearly a cheaper option. As it stands, Supercars' management has closed the shop to privateer teams and they have taken their money elsewhere accordingly. This is like living in 1992 combined with 2021 all over again. In the mean time, the Ford teams are perpetually being punished for running the Mustang and I do no know how long their patience will last.