Horse 3262 - Low-Rent Prole

As someone who works in a law adjacent industry (forensic accounting), I am frequently reminded why I did not go into law despite having a decent grasp of how to read and interpret law. Specifically the area of law that I come across most frequently at work is Family Law, as forensic accountants are asked to value the interests of the various parties before the can and will tear each other to pieces. If there ever was an equivalent of Insect Court, where you make bugs fight in the arena until their various body parts come off, then Family Law is definitely it.

On the whole lawyers are just like ordinary people. In actuality, lawyers tend to rise through the ranks of socio-economic privilege until the best of them reach a point where they no longer think that the rules of polite society apply to them. The supply curve for manners is an upside-down U-shaped curve where the very poor and the very rich do not think that manners are necessary. It is only the great middle class of people, who have order barked at them on one side, while trying to aspirationally rise up themselves, who think that manners are a good idea. Once lawyers acquire letters like KC or OAM at the end of their name, or even Sir and Lady at the front of it, they then assume a new form in which  they think that they are hemi-semi-demigods and can demand and control people. 

Last week as we were working on the case of A.Apple and B.Apple (matter number SY867-5309/23), one of the lawyers at Banana, Banana, and Durian, was increasingly getting tetchy about the timeline of events for appearances, and especially that we had not released our report to the various parties, law firms, and the court. The reason why we had not released our report was that my boss who had seen more of the central papers than I have (hence maintaining a curtain of plausible deniability) had worked out that Mr Apple had business interests in China and as we had not yet been paid for our report, there was a considerable likelihood (in my boss' eyes) of Mr Apple skipping the country.

Ms Banana KC upon realising that my boss was not about to shift position until we had been paid (the thing about the magic piano is that it only plays one song "Ka-Ching"), then turned her attention to me. If you can not get in through the doors, then you should try breaking in through a window, right? I also refused to release the report and instead of accepting this like a normal sane person, any pretense of manners and civility was instantly dissolved and and she turned to abuse.

Now I have endured a lot of name-calling from different people; so it is really really difficult to surprise me any more but Ms Banana's term of abuse for me really threw me for a loop. This is not because I felt sad or mad but because it started to gnaw inside me as to where it ultimately came from. Motor cars will break my bones but words will send me straight to etymology dictionaries. 

Ms Banana KC called me a "Low-Rent Prole".

"Aha!" I don't hear you say because this is the medium of text and I am the one who has just put words into your brain. "Low-Rent" is likely just a jab which accuses me of being poor (which relative to a KC is true) but "Prole"? Prole?!

The word "prole" is not derived from George Orwell's 1948 novel "1984". Given that George Orwell was very much an economic leftist and even wrote essays on why he was a socialist, then this might lead you further down the chain. The word "prole" is not derived from Marx' and Engel's "Communist Manifesto", though given that the Beardy One and the Cranky One were both versed in the writings in economics coming out of Switzerland and Austria, then that seems like a good place to start.

I found a book of essays in the local library by Swiss historian and economist Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, who uses the term "proletariat" to describe the burgeoning working class which was now both fleeing to and being bred in the cities as European economies were shifting from mostly agrarian societies to a more modern capitalist system with factories and they date from about the 1820s onwards. However this still isn't really good enough as de Sismondi uses the term as if the readers already understand what it means. Further investigation was warranted.

One of the neat things about the dismal science of economics is that the earlier that you go back, the fewer and fewer books that exist which have definitely been categorised as economics texts. I think that economics as a modern realm of study has an absolute starting point and that starting point is Adam Smith's 1759 work "The Theory of Moral Sentiment". However, I have Smith's works and I very much doubt that he used the term "proletariat" at all. Shave a bit off the beginning and continue to work backwards and I think that the first use of the word "proletariat" came in 1807.

I had to go to the State Library of NSW to fine yet another collection of essays; this time by the French philosopher Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais; who mostly speaks about a very large number of working class people who have moved into the cities and because they do not own their houses, nor can contribute anything to the economy other than their labour, they are the new modern day slaves. In fact he explicitly defines his use the term "proletariat" as being derived from Latin to describe that underclass of people, in his 1807 essay rendered in English as "Modern Slavery".

Now I can not speak for slavery in French law but in English law, to road to abolish slavery had been at least 40 years in the making at that point. Somerset v Stewart (1772) in part triggered the punitive taxation acts and so-called "Intolerable Acts" under the Lord North Government in 1774, which eventually led to the United States fighting a War for Independence which allowed them to keep and retain slavery. Knight v Wedderburn (1777) more or less abolished slavery at common law in England and the Slave Trade Act (1803) banned the buying and selling of slaves but slavery wasn't properly extinguished until the Abolition Of Slavery Act (18300). All of that aside, de Lamennais makes the argument that people who work for a wage are tied to their employers. Yet again the rich do as they please and the poor must suffer what they must but most of all they must suffer.

I should have guessed that the term "proletariat" was Latin. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution simply adored mining the words of Latin and Greek to give airs and graces to their modern writings. Even today, the "television" and "telephone" are derived from Latin and Greek roots. 

As for the term "proletariat", I should have guessed that it came from the "proletarii" who were Roman citizens who owned no property to speak of. Below the proletarii were the slaves who actually were property which could be bought and sold.  Instead, the proletarii were "capite censi" or heads (caput) of a family who were name in the census who could only list their children as property. From what I can gather, the proletarii owned a total estate amounting to less than 40 aurii and the only contribution to the military of the Roman Empire, was not their service, or horses, or swords, or taxation, or slaves but their own children. Hence they sent their offspring (proles) as their contribution to the military of the Roman Empire. Presumably these offspring could then become proper citizens in the far flung edges of empire as wider still and wider was its limits set.

So now I have a dilemma. I think that I am supposed to feel insulted and abused by Ms Banana KC but now I just feel happy after having learned a thing and after having been sent down such a fun fun rabbit hole. If we use Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE) to determine what an aureus was actually worth, then:

$1838.60 / 5 = $367.72

$367.72 x 25 = $9193.00

$9193.00 x 40 = $367,720

As I do not own a house and as I do pay relatively low rent, then Ms Banana KC calling me a "Low-Rent Prole" is technically correct which is the best kind of correct. In this case, well done Ms Banana KC. You are very well informed.

Horse 3261 - Sydney Trains Encourages Fare Evasion? I Guess?

Sydney Trains in their wisdom, as part of the roll-out of the next wave of automatic ticketing machines have decided in many cases that accepting cash is no longer something that they want to do, and that EFTPOS is also something that that they are no longer interested in. The only acceptable payment that the Opal ticket machines take, is AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. These three forms of credit card can also be used on the Opal Card readers.

What a top idea. Denying people the ability to pay, can and does lead to people not paying. 

When I arrive at Marayong station, as I do not have a credit card, there is literally no ability for me to pay my fare for the week. This quite frankly is an excellent idea, especially in the west because it means that people with no ability to pay for a fare, will simply ride on the trains for free. Why bother tapping on or off, if you literally can not buy a ticket to ride. At stations on the Richmond Line, as there are no such things as barriers which impede entry, then this can and does lead to people simply walking on and off trains.

The cabinet which houses the ticket machine, has remnants of the place where once there was a PIN-pad and where there used to be coin and note acceptors; so it is like the machine is actively taunting people. There is a place in the centre of the machine to place your Opal Card so that you can top it up but given that the Opal Card readers standing on the station also use the only forms of acceptable payment that the Opal ticket machines do, what's the point?

I would expect that at a major station like Blacktown, which is both a junction for the Richmond and Western Lines, as well as being one of the few stops that Blue Mountains trains stop at, that it would have a machine that accepts either cash of EFTPOS. Nope. Blacktown Station has ONE solitary ticket machine that accepts credit cards only. Granted, there is a newsagent and what appears to be a fancy energy drinks shop which both have the ability to charge up an Opal Card but both of those are closed when I pass through the station of an evening. Yet again,  as I do not have a credit card, there is literally no ability for me to pay my fare for the week.

The ticket machines themselves use an Ingenico Near-Field Communication (NFC) reader. In principle, an NFC reader does not care a jot or an iota about the kind of data passing through it. The means that the reason why Sydney Trains ticket machines refusing to accept EFTPOS is not a technical one, but rather that a policy decision.

Here's where we get down to tin tacks. I do not know who Sydney Trains does their banking with but the Ingenico machine in our office at work costs us $24.75/month for EFTPOS transactions.

There are 170 stations within the Sydney Trains network and a further 199 stations within the greater NSW TrainLink network. In total, the 369 railway stations in New South Wales, at $24.75/month for EFTPOS transactions would cost a mere $109,593 to run all the machines in the state. When you consider that many stations in New South Wales are unmanned, then paying for the equivalent of two staff members for an area of 809,952 km² doesn't sound too unreasonable.

WRONG!

Sydney Trains would rather make commuters pay 1.4% for the privilege of paying for fares. If there was ever a way to corporately punch your own customers in the face and to discourage them, this is it.

Sydney Trains are now helpfully being punished by the rag-tag ruffians, hooligans, bogans, and ne'er-do'wells at Blacktown Station, with them leapfrogging the ticket barriers on a very regular basis. If you are a person for whom morality is optional, then stealing from a faceless corporation which in this instance refuses to interact with you, seems like a rational option.

The threat of fining people by NSW Transport Officers seems like a bit of applied game theory. 

If NSW Transport Officers or the Police detect that you have committed the offence of travelling on trains and buses without a valid ticket, they they will issue a fine of $200. In my case, as NSW Transport Officers and Police are likely to check Opal Cards at least twice per week, then this fine is not worth the effort. However, if you can reliably ride the trains without a valid fare, for more than a month, then a fine of $200 is less than the $50/week multiplied by four for a month. Remember a fine is little more than a punitive price. A fine is still ultimately only a tax that can be paid for; which when applied rationally might actually be more cost effective. It should not be. That is stupid.

Of course I also realise that this might very well be one of those things like the North West Metro which doesn't connect Tallawong to Schofields because the other end went to the then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian's electorate and she didn't want to have her electorate infected with poors, or the fact that it took almost 30 years of petitioning to get Doonside Railway Station lift access, but it seems to me that my complaint is view as being silly.

All top up machines have card readers that take eftpos/Visa/MasterCard, and your debit card will be one of these networks. Even if it doesn't have a chip, you can swipe. If it *still* doesn't work, it sounds like there's an issue with your card of some kind.

- Name Withheld, Twitter, 30th Oct 2023

Take note of the use of the word "all" in this reply to me on Twitter. The word "All" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Obviously I have a different definition of "all" to this person, as I would have used the words "practically none". When I begin my journey on a Monday morning, there are zero places that I can pay for my weekly fare at either Marayong or Blacktown. I actually have to have already completed a journey to Town Hall to be able to pay.

Town Hall Station which suffers under the traffic loads that it must carry in the evenings, should be a place where there are lots of ticket machines. As it currently stands, there are but four ticket machines at the station. Two of these machines are Card Only and as before "Card Only" is a misnomer as "Card Only" actually only means AMEX, MasterCard and VISA, only one accepts coins (which doesn't accept EFTPOS), and only one machine accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment.

The curious thing about the machine on the right hand side in the photograph above, is that although it says that it accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment, it does not. The label is actually a leftover from when this machine used to accept EFTPOS and coins.

The one machine which accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment, is on the western side of the ticket hall; which is on the other side of the ticket hall which is the one machine which accepts cash. Even then, this appears to be a legacy machine which will likely be replaced with the current machine, once it has ceased to be in service. As Sydney Trains very much lack the technical staff to be able to service these machines any more, the rollout program is one of replacement and not repair.

Here's the punchline to this whole sad joke. When Sydney Trains says that it wants feedback, including if you openly tell them that due to their own policies of making it so hard to pay for fares that people will actively steal from them, their response was thus:

Hello, 

Thank you for your enquiry to Transport for NSW.

There are now multiple options to top up so that you are always ready to travel.

You can top up: 

• on this site

• via the Opal website

• via the Opal Travel app

• over the counter at Opal retailers. Find a location on the Opal retailers map

• using one of the Opal top up machines available at selected stations, stops and wharves

• at Sydney Airport stations, however a $35 minimum top up applies

• at Transport Customer Service Centres

• at selected Service NSW Centres

When you top up online or via the Opal Travel app, you can access your new balance in as little as 15 minutes for metro, train, ferry and light rail services. Please allow up to 60 minutes for buses.

More information on how to top up your Opal card can be found online.

Yours sincerely,

Transport for NSW

- Transport for NSW, 19th Oct 2023

See the problem here? Their site, the Opal website, and the Opal Travel app, all require AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. Most "of the Opal top up machines available at selected stations, stops and wharves" all require AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. Sydney Airport stations, Transport Customer Service Centres, and selected Service NSW Centres, are not my local railway station at 7 am in the morning, are they?! And "Over the counter at Opal retailers" is also impossible at 7 am in the morning at m,y local railway station. 

Transport for NSW either didn't read my email, or didn't think about it, or else the person at the other end was by demonstration too stupid to understand what it means.

Herein lies the problem. I like an absolute fool, think that public transport should be free as a public service, in which case there is no need for ticket barriers at all. However, if there are to be fares for travel (which is still reasonable and rational) then there should at least be a reasonable ability for people to pay their fares. Having a credit card is not something which is either available to all, nor something which is even desirable. Imposing the use of credit cards as the only acceptable method of payment either seems myopic or discriminatory to me. 

I note that the rate of fare evasion rate on the London Underground is 2%. In Sydney, the rate of fare evasion rate is closer to 8%. Public transport fare evaders cost New South Wales about $120 million a year, and an increase in  disrespect for government combined with what appears to be a deliberate a lack of human interaction, makes fare evasion more of a victimless offence to the public. I suspect that we have almost reached the point where Sydney Trains are passively encouraging civil disobedience.

Good luck to them?

Horse 3260 - Robots And Da National Helth Service

Gather round, young robots. Let Horse tell you a tale of numbers, of paradoxes, and of dollars.

Part 1:

It is the 27th of Oktoburr 40X3. All of the humans, having died in the great Covid/Flu Pandemic of 2525 which immediately came after World War 5, are all dead. Their corpses have littered the streets, have long since been vapourised and/or liquidated and the robots of the world have taken over and are doing quite an excellent job, thank you very much. However, the robots who although having achieved sentience, do not and have not ever understood things like morality or love, having never learned it from the deeply selfish and at times sociopathic humans. This is a tale of insurance.

The Republic of Oztraria, on the island of New Holland, has a population of 10 million robots. The robots all have many and varied jobs, and employment has been always perfectly at 100% for at least the last 1000 years. The central computer in Kanberra called "Da Gubbermint", has perfect information about every expense in every aspect of the economy, and as such is able to make perfect decisions. 

In any given year, 100,000 robots require some kind of maintenance and/or repairs. Sometimes they need simple maintenance such as an oil change or belts and spring replacements, and sometimes they need major repairs due to damage and/or other serious problems. The expense of doing these repairs is carried centrally by Da Gubbermint's agency called "Da National Helth Service". As the economy is very big, DNHS is able to apportion the expense over the entire population, doing some calculations to work out everyone's insurance premium.

The price of performing maintenance on a robot, is obviously going to be very different depending on the circumstances of the robot in question and the nature of the maintenance and/or repair. For instance, Robie ROXMY works in the light box in Kingz Kross and its job is to push the button to make the Vita Kola sign flash on or off. Robie has a very low risk job and requires minimal maintance. Grant KRKTT who plays Krikket (for the nation against other countries like N-dya, Ingerand, and Seff Effrika) is in more danger of being hit with a krikket boll at 200mph. On average the price of performing maintenance on a robot, is $2000. Some robots require minimal maintenance; some work in very dangerous jobs. The DNHS employs exactly 2500 robots across the nation who are all paid $75,000 per year. There are also 10 buildings across the nation; all with standing costs of $10 million. 

We can now perform some basic calculations to work out what the average insurance premium is per robot across the Republic of Oztraria

$2000 x 10,000,000 = $20,000,000,000

$75,000 x 2500 = $187,500,000

$10,000,000 x 10 = $100,000,000

The total of this is $20,287,500,000. 

If you then divide this by 10 million robots, then the average insurance premium is $2,028.75 per robot. DNHS is exactly square when it comes to funding. Revenues minus Expenses equal exactly $0.

Part 2:

In the run up to the 40X5 elections, when all of the robots get to choose the policy mix for the next 5 year plan, there have been rumblings and discontentments from various robot factions. The Red Robot Party is quite frankly happy with the way things are being run and wants to argue that Republic of Oztraria is one giant shared project where every robot needs every other robot. The Blue Robot Party has always argued that each individual robot is a sentient being and is ultimately responsible for themselves. The Green Robot Party is almost exclusively concerned with the environment. The Orange Robot Party has no real policies other than keeping robots from other countries out of Republic of Oztraria. The Yellow Robot Party is headed by a robot called Big Rev Kev who is excited about virtually everything and wants to build a giant robot dinosaur. It is not normal.

Within our robot republic, there are many different kinds of robots who all have desires concerning what they would like done with DNHS should their preferred party get control of Da Gubbermint and upload its policies for the next 5 year plan. 

Doris and Boris McPOP are both 80 years old and require frequent maintenance. Parts are becoming increasing harder to come by as models like McPOP, McZAP and O'ZONE, were discontinued ages ago. Their repair bills are progressively becoming more expensive. At some point, both of them will either suffer a fatal I/O error or require terminal shutdown. If the DNHS was a voluntary subscription service, then they would be the most likely to want to pay into the service because they can see the immediate benefit and are most likely to want to use the service.

Bruce BRUSS works for an EFTPOS company. Bruce makes its money by playing international arbitrage markets and trading micro shares. It thinks that because it isn't personally responsible for other robots, it shouldn't have to pay for them. It blames robots for their own troubles, regardless of circumstance and/or age. It thinks that robots like Doris and Boris McPOP should be encouraged to terminally shutdown themselves, or face involuntary terminal shutdown, to reduce costs on DNHS.

Jenny 867-5309 works for Terriffon which is a telecommunications company. It is a 2 year old robot which is well within the warranty period. It requires next to no maintenance at all. If the DNHS was a voluntary subscription service, then it would likely opt out of paying into the system as it can not see an immediate benefit.

Melba T0A5T, Kevin BINGO, Velma CLANK, and Garry WAHEY, all have jobs which do not pay very much money relative to everyone else. Melba files documents. Kevin cleans floors. Velma works in a retail shop. Garry shovels dirt. If the DNHS was a voluntary subscription service, then they would not be able to afford paying into the system. 

Part 3:

As insurance is a collective risk pooling arrangement, then the most efficient position is to have all robots pay into the system and have the system pay for the maintenance and repair of all robots. If the system is a voluntary system; where 10% of the population of robots choose to opt out (robots like Jenny) and where 10% of the population of robots can not afford to pay (Melba, Kevin, Vemla, Garry et cetera), then the best risks have left the system and the robots who can not afford to pay although no longer being a burden on the system maybe have been able to subsidise some of the system through taxation. 

If the system was universal but private, then at bare minimum premiums must increase by at least the inflation rate because shareholders demand reward for their investment. If the system was not universal and private, then the carrying costs of the administration of the system must invariably go up because competing companies will not share internal administration and this must lead to duplication somewhere in the system. 

Then there are robots like Bruce. Bruce thinks that it is not personally responsible for other robots and that it shouldn't have to pay for them. Bruce would prefer that the DNHS was private and that it can reduce its costs as much as possible. Terminally shutting down robots, either voluntarily or involuntarily, is from a private profits perspective completely rational. Except if those robots contribute more into the system then they are paid out, then on a case by case basis if expenses exceed revenues, then carrying expected losses is not advised. 

Applying all of these scenarios, then you might end up a 10% increase in relative carrying costs with a reduced population who will be paying into the system. This now results in a new average insurance premium of $2,235.94 per robot; which is paradoxically more than a 10% increase in premiums.

Of course, being a perfectly controlled economy, Da Gubbermint can implement any policy mix from any of the robot parties immediately. Da Gubbermint has perfect information about every expense in every aspect of the economy, and as such is able to make perfect decisions.

[ I/O error ]

[ 404: file not found ]

[ 503: forbidden ] 

[ restarting... ] 

[please wait ]

[0%]

[17%]

[34%]

[51%]

[77%]

[84%]

[98%]

[100%]

The Blue Robot Party won the 20X5 election.

Jenny 867-5309 has no helth insurance because it chose not to carry any.

Melba T0A5T, Kevin BINGO, and Velma CLANK, have no helth insurance they could not afford to carry any.

Garry WAHEY was damaged at work and as it had no helth insurance, now lives in a state of disrepair on a street corner. It also could no longer afford to live in its home.

Boris McPOP shut down.

Doris McPOP was involuntarily shut down as it was no longer a viable insurance risk.

Bruce BRUSS is happy. Bruce BRUSS has no need to care about Jenny, Melba, Kevin, Velma, Garry. Bruce BRUSS did not care about Boris or Doris and their fates were irrelevant to it. Bruce BRUSS is not a sociopath because such things like morality or civic love, are illogical concepts to robots.

Horse 3259 - Exceed Track Limits? Delete The Lap!

An increasing amount of bacground whinging going in Formula One this year has has to do with the drivers and teams being annoyed that the FIA and the Clerks of the Course at various Grands Prix have been actually enforcing the rules with regards excdeeding track limits. Shock; horror! Those penalties have either happened in Qualifying where laps have been deleted and not been counted, or during the race where 5 second time penalties have been added. The addition of 5 seconds in a race result, when differences can be decided by hundredths of a second, is like an eternity.

Various motorsports media, have been losing their minds over this because drama drives traffic and any and all outrage leads to clicks and ad revenue. As the various motorsports media groups run from side to side like brainless sheep, it is worth looking at what the FIA Sporting Regulations actually say. In a sport where having a legal team to final and exploit the rules is useful, it is a good idea to read the relevant rules:

33.3 Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not leave the track without a justifiable reason.

- FIA Sporting Regulations 2023

It's not like this is a difficult thing to understand. Driving a motor car generally, driving a race car professionally and a Kindergarten student in colouring in class should all follow this one simple rule. Your average 6 year old child in Kindergarten knows that you should stay inside the lines. If this was the early 20th century, then failure to stay inside the lines would result in swift and painful correction. Now I am not saying that the field of Formula One drivers is like a Kindergarten class... well actually I am saying that the field of Formula One drivers is like a Kindergarten class except that the Kindergarteners are more like to behave themselves and less likely to whinge when given a talking to. 

In the olden days, when men and women wore hats to go grocery shopping and to go church, the penalty for exceeding track limits was in some cases very very quick because of primitive and/or non-existent safety measures. The penalty for Antonio Ascari exceeding track limits at Montlhéry, was to have his suspension tangled up in the wire and post fencing on the inside of the track and for him to die slowly due to blood loss from an almost severed leg. The penalty for Francois Cevert exceeding track limits at Watkins Glen, was to bounce off of the armco on one side of the track and be decapitated by the armco on the other side as the car slid right across the track. 

Walls, fences, earthen banking, haybales, and spectators next to tracks, with the resultant rate of death being roughly one driver per fortnight from 1950-1978 was sub-optimal. Ideally, and especially since drivers became paid professionals, the preferred rate of death per race weekend is zero. It wasn't until one of those drivers, namely Jackie Stewart lost his friend, that any meaningful action was taken in a hurry. Progress was still slowish but in the 10 years from 1977-1987, the entire realm of what was and was not acceptable right next to a Formula One Circuit was deliberately changed. Gravel traps, grass verges, sand, even entire painted areas, which were all designed to reduce the speeds of a car not on the track and hopefully  reduce the speeds of a car not on the track before it hit a wall or tyre barrier.

One of the things that I keep on returning to in this blog, which I believe is one of the central qualities of the human experience, is that everyone is selfish; without exception. This also means that every race car driver, in every motor race, is constantly looking for any possible advantage that they can find. If that's the motivation, then a selfish race car driver looking for any possible advantage, is going to nudge every single possible boundary where possible; this includes track limits.

A corollary to that is, that where you have someone finding an advantage without consequence, then they will take liberties wherever possible. In a Formula One race, where you have a whole field of drivers trying to take liberties wherever possible, then they can and will do so; almost as a matter of need because if they do not then everyone else will.

Take a look at the circumstances which resulted in George Russell having a complaint at his teammate Lewis Hamilton earlier this year:

Very clearly there is a car on the outside of the track limits. This is bang to rights. What would I do in these circumstances? The answer in my mind is simple. Enforce the law, without fear or favour. In qualifying, delete the lap. In the race, give people a yellow card which lets them know that you have noticed that they have exceeded track limits and then on the second infringement, delete the lap. Just imagine the outcry if that were to happen. Deleting a lap in the race would mean that instead of mere seconds difference, there would be minutes' and miles' difference. Drivers and teams would cry "blue murder" and yet, if they knew that this was going to happen, they'd change their behaviour quick smart. As in our archaic Kindergarten colouring in class, failure to stay inside the lines would result in swift and painful correction.

The objection immediately would be that enforcing when a car has exceeded track limits would be subject to a subjective opinion. This is the lovely thing about every law ever. The authority which has the power to make law, also has the power to say what the law is, how the law is enforced, and has the discretion to do so. Very obviously a car which has exceeded track limits because they driver went too deep into a corner and messed it up royally, or was pushed by someone else, or suffered some kind of technical fault, all fall under the general remit of a "justifiable reason" per Rule 33.3. Someone on the throttle going full tilt, trying to shave 0.7 seconds off of a lap time, does not. 

These drivers and teams are paid many millions of dollarpounds. Lewis Hamilton makes more money in a year than many people (including me) make in an entire lifetime. There possibly can not be any other sport in the world which is this commercial and professional. Given that, following the rules should be an obvious compliance issue. All y'all can stop whinging now.

Horse 3258 - Sydney Speedway - No Upcoming Events At All?!

https://www.easterncreekspeedway.com.au

The Sydney speedway community is in turmoil after it has been revealed that the entirety of the 2023-24 Eastern Creek season, scheduled to commence on Saturday week, has been cancelled.

It used to be that once upon a time in Sydney, we were spoiled for choice when it came to motor racing venues. Within the confines of Sydney's greater environs we had Castlereagh Dragway and Oran Park, Amaroo Park, Warwick Farm raceways, and speedway held at Castlereagh, Liverpool, Granville, and the old Sydney Showground. As it currently stands, every single one of those venues has been closed; with the last remaining stand for motor racing in Sydney being Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek. It has a Racing Circuit, a Dragway and a completely unusable Speedway. How did we get here?

The long answer is that as Sydney swelled from 3 million to 5 million people, it needed somewhere to house them; and as NIMBYism runs absolutely rampant in this myopic tory paradise, the only option was urban sprawl combined with moving the poors out into less connected or even unconnected areas with regards transport. Housing first ate the fields and what used to be Sydney's food bowl of small market garden farms, and then it picked off the motor racing venues and golf courses. 

This explains why Castlereagh, Oran Park, Amaroo Park, Warwick Farm, and Liverpool Speedway were all demolished but not Granville Showground which was later renamed Parramatta Speedway. This particular venue was eaten up when the then Berejiklian Government decided that it wanted to (or rather was forced to) build light rail services in lieu of proper railway lines, and then proper railway lines. Parramatta Speedway was demolished in order that a marshalling yard for the Parramatta Light Rail was built.

So with Andrew Constance as Transport and Infrastructure Minister, the Berejiklian Government decided that it would demolish Parramatta Speedway and build a replacement venue at Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek. This was find in theory, except that things are not built in theory and what looks good on paper generally doesn't look as good once someone has started ruling through plans with a big red pen.

The Berejiklian Government with Andrew Constance as Transport and Infrastructure Minister, managed to turn what was once a $40m project into one which blew out to more than $100m and which ultimately does not work and can not be used after a shower of rain.

The drainage pools in the infield which were supposed to be 3m deep, are only about 900mm deep and because the grandstands are paved over in concrete, the water flows down the hills and collects between the grandstands and the outer wall; before weeping through at the drainage points.

Building a speedway requires a slightly different set of expertise to merely building ever more soulless apartment blocks. It requires massive earthworks and depending on how the shape of the venue is formed, it might mean banked pours for concrete at at least 10°. For reference, the usual crossfall on either side of the crown of a regular roadway is about 1.2°. After speaking to someone familiar with just the hydraulic aspects of this kind of civil engineering, the impression that I get is that the best option at this point would be a complete knock down and rebuilt but save the grandstands.

Instead of being a simple third-mile oval, packed in gravel and paved over with dirt; what we have is a giant saucer of mud which drains nowhere and as it drains nowhere, is completely useless for the purpose intended. It is an unmitigated disaster; which was built by a tory government who handed the contract to their mates, rather than looking for anyone with proper expertise in building speedways.

The fabulous flood of fever that was COVID-19, was an infrastructure blessing. With everything cancelled or closed, it provided the perfect cover to build things. Unfortunately for the Berejiklian Government, due to its incompetence and corruption, managed to screw this up royally. Firstly the 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID, then the 2021 season because the Speedway had been delayed. Then the 2022 season was run as a patchwork of oddness before they realised that the venue isn't really fit for purpose. The 2023 season has just been abandoned because the underlying issues are simply too great.

The sport has received several setbacks of late, with this being a substantial blow to the NSW Speedway community, with Queensland’s Archerfield having gone by the wayside at the end of last season, as well as the cancellation of the World Series Sprintcars for 2023, as well as scheduling issues with the 2025 Grand Annual Classic.

Billed as a world class facility when it first opened, the design of the track itself is said to be a major drainage problem with its saucer like design and viewing areas that slope steeply down toward the track. Saturated areas would often occur that wouldn’t dry up, which caused many of the cancellations.

Sydney used to be this privateer hub of various motorsport teams across many disciplines but not any more. Sydney is now a terrible place to be based and without a speedway for the foreseeable future, why bother? The nearest speedway is in Newcastle.

If I had $100m to blow on a venue, then I might think about building a proper mile-and-a-half speedway but not a third-mile dirt oval. This is the problem that every motor racing venue ultimately suffers from. It is almost unviable to keep them running and very few people outside of governments have access to the capital needed to build them in the first place. When things are build on the cheap and not by proper experts, then if the thing wants to be able to work, then good money has to be thrown in after bad and there is almost never an economic case for doing so.

In the meantime, Sydney's Speedway community withers and fades and can not be expected to continue as once was. 

Horse 3257 - Gadigal Station Offends The Easily Offended

Whilst it might be true that not everyone who voted "No" in The Voice Referendum is racist, it is certainly true that every racist voted "No". It is also true that any reputation that Australia might have had as being an easy going nation has been burned like a kerosine fuelled magnesium fire, in that in the last few weeks especially, Australia is now visibly more nasty and racist. 

Yet another example to add as evidnence that the racists have all been emboldened, was the naming of one of the new stations on the Sydney Metro extension. Even though just two stations up the line there will be a station called Barangaroo, it is the name Gadigal Station which will be located in Sydney's CBD beneath Pitt and Castlereagh Streets that has really brough out the hate filled racists, like mother to that kerosine fuelled magnesium flame.

The fact that this extension will take commuters under the harbour to Chatswood in just 13 minutes, is neither here nor there. It is purely the fact that this this station has been given an indigenous name, which has brought people out to spit bile and acid.

One of the usual methods of naming stations would be to name it after the suburb that it is in. When this station is opened, there will be eight stations within the suburb of Sydney; those being: Barangaroo, Martin Place, Gadigal, Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay, St James, and Museum. You will note that Central/Sydney Terminal is not one of those, as this is actually in the suburb of Strawberry Hills. 

Thus, this demonstrates the first problem of naming a station. When there is only one in a suburb/city, then the name is obvious but when there is more than one (or eight), it becomes more difficult to let people know where they are.

The next available option would be to name the station after the street that it is on. The obvious choice would be to call the station Pitt St Station, expect that Pitt St as one of the long streets of central Sydney, is 2.5km long. Also, it does not help that there already are three stations on Pitt St; those being Circular Quay, Town Hall and Central (which isn't even in Sydney). Naming the station after the vague and long location of Pitt St is equally daft.

Most people with some quanta of common sense would prefer a station to be name after the specific location it is in but when that isn't possible, then the naming of railway stations becomes really difficult really quickly. 

Melbourne has this problem everywhere; mostly this is because Melbourne towards the centre of the city has good overlay of both trains and trams. Melburnians who live closer to the city are much more spoiled for choice than Sydney Siders are. Melbourne has railway stations called Southern Cross which isn't a place; Melbourne Central which is named after a shopping centre and has been renamed twice since it opened from Museum to Daimaru to Melbourne Central; then there are stations in Melbourne called Jewel Station and Batman Station which also aren't places.

If we look overseas, Grand Central Terminal in New York isn't named after a place, the nearest Underground station to Trafalgar Square is Charing Cross which also isn't named a place, and Paris has such station names as Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Reunion et cetera, which are also not named after places.

The same kinds of people who will hide behind sock puppet Name 8 Digit accounts (John88483756) are likely to have an Australian Flag, or a picture of someone like Benito Mussolini, or perhaps most laughably of all, the crest of their favourite rugby league team such as the Parramatta Eels or the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. 

In the part of the world where I live, from Marayong to Parramatta, the places are named after a Dharug word, an internment camp, the Seven Hills of Rome, another Dharug word, a place in Lancashire where witch trials were held, an explorer, a brewery, and then another Dharug word. 

Maybe its just a rich people thing in places like Bondi or Coogee, where they have the luxury to complan about indigenous names. It must be really frightening to live in a city which has places named Waitara, Waroongah, Warringah, Cabramatta, Parramatta, Bondi, Coogee, Cronulla, Warrawee, Toongabbie, et cetera et cetera et cetera, without going complete apoplectic. 

It could also be that I am just too dog ignorant to see why this should cause such offence. Naming an Australian place after the Australian Australian word for that place, seems like kind of a no brainer to me. More generally when it comes to the naming of things, people get used to it really quickly. As much as it annoys the racists, of whom I will take as a confession that they are actively too ignorant and stupid to work out where they are, the name Gadigal Station will in time not be named after the location, it will be the location. "Near Gadigal Station" will appear on stationery and directions within weeks of it opening. 

Quite frankly the name Gadigal, which is named after the traditional Eora name that the station is actually located in, seems about as good as any. However, as this is the new emboldened racist cry-baby twenty-first century, then an aboriginal name for a place just seems to be really infuriating to some people.

Horse 3256 - Halloween Building Estimates Gone Wild Accidentally Cause Protestantism

All the way back in Horse 1122, I declared that I hate Halloween. My stance hasn't really changed since in the thirteen years since I wrote that piece, this diabetes inducing festival of kiddies roaming the streets and demanding sweeties has only gotten worse. However this year, instead of complaining about Halloween like a misanthrope, I am going to complain about Halloween like a clergyman. 

The universe is bonkers. The tragedy of history is that although it follows a logical series of events, the actors who create history, or at least the big events which change everyone else's lives, are frequently stupid, obnoxious, and daft. Scratch the surface of just about any objectively bad event in human history, then what you will find at the centre is not religion as many people will want to blame, but the more base motivation of people's selfishness. The universe is so bonkers that the idea that the bidding process for a building renovation got so wildly out of hand that it accidentally split the church into fragments and created Protestantism, is a viable explanation of the truth.

In or about 1506, Pope Julius II set up the Vatican Museum systems, organised the Swiss Guard for his own personal protection and then promptly used that Guard for the invasion of Romagna, defeating the local lords. However this tale of papal madness, came when Julius wanted to rebuild the Old St Peter's Basilica, because twelve hundred years of use had left in in a less than stellar state. This very much looks like Pope Julius II was an egomaniac weirdo who wanted something to outlive him after he'd gone and he had the means to achieve it with other peoples' money.

Seemingly with the same sorts of power of a king, Pope Julius II ordered that the Old St Peter's Basilica be restored, as this would be a shining beacon to all of Christendom. This was all find and dandy until you realise that things cost money and not even the Pope in Rome can command money to just appear out of thin air. Nevertheless, he ordered that a report be made for the estimates of cost, which the intent on exacting taxation from the various states and kingdoms which paid homage, fealty, tribute, scutage, sackage and increasing amounts of umbrage to the church.

At first Julius II was pretty gung-ho about the affair until the reports came back with regards fixing the existing buildings and at that point, the whole project was doomed to economic irrelevancy. That Jesus bloke in the book which they were supposed to have read, once told a parable of everyone laughing at a chap because he set out of build a tower and ran out of money during the build.

Pope Julius II upon receiving the estimates of cost, decided against fixing the building and instead decided that it would be cheaper to knock down the whole thing and rebuild. It likely wasn't economical or possible to keep the façade of the existing buildings, however from what I have read, some of the pre-sixteenth century basilica, such as some ornamentation and some parts of the ancient crypt are still there. 

In an ever increasing act of massively expensive hubris, Pope Julius II committed the church to demolishing the Old St. Peter's, which was a major controversy in all of Christendom, because this was probably a twelve-hundred year-old building at this point. Supposedly the building had been commissioned by Constantine the Great, on the site of where the early church in Rome had been. There are many many flaws to this; including the fact that the early church was seen as just another cult and it is highly unlikely that a first century cult would have anything preserved but don't let truth get in the way of hubris, right? 

Pope Julius II also convinced the City of Rome that the Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Colosseum) to be demolished, to provide some and masonry for the new church. Thankfully, owing to good old fashioned Roman arguing, they didn't get very far with that, and ended up just taking chunks off of the top. I suppose that the rationale was that these were a loaf of old Roman ruins, and given that these were erected in some respect as a state homage to the Roman gods, then nobody had the right to complain if they were used as one  giant quarry. Interestingly, four hundred years later when Benito Mussolini was fascista-ing his was to power, he came up with the idea to abandon the ancient city of Rome and built an entirely new capital. 

The difficult part about Pope Julius II's plan was that being a member of the clergy and being driven by the fumes of his own hubris, he had no idea how he was going to finance the new fancy church complex. The answer which was finally decided up was that the church in a brand new wave of hedonistic hubris, decided that it was going to sell an unholy amount of Indulgences. Just think through the logic of this. The church, which is supposed to be the agent and ambassador for God, has decided that it could sell favours with God, and sell what basically amounts to exemptions for sin, in order to fund the building of the largest church the world will see for five hundred years.

However, the church isn't exactly equipped to organise sales of goods and services because it isn't and arguably shouldn't ostensibly be a business. So then, in order to finance the New St. Peter's Church, they send out various clergy across the Holy Roman Empire; including one friar who gets the job of visiting the town that Martin Luther was in, to sell all these Indulgences.

Martin Luther, who was already known for being somewhat of a rabble rouser, got really really angry about this. When Martin Luther gets mad, he does what every Teutonic clergyman does and wrote a strongly worded letter to his bishop and let's be honest about this, in polite society, that is what one should do when one is angry, one should write to one's local official.

Luther was of course probably thought of by the local bishop as some letter-writing crank and promptly ignored. Not being content with being ignored, Luther republished his strongly worded letter as a general circular and this letter became known as the "Dispution of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences."

Rather, Luther's dispution was actually mostly a list of 95 things that he thought was wrong with Indulgences and the church in general. Supposedly he then nailed his dispution to the All Saints Church in Wittenberg. The story that he nailed the 95 Theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg may or may not be real. The truth is that we really do no know and have no way of verifying if this tale is true or not. At any rate, the nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg supposedly happened on October 31st, 1517. Take that spooky little kiddies. TRICK OR TREAT? Yes, have a pamphlet. 

As for Martin Luther himself, he wrote a number of works which were critical to the Reformation of the Church, and since the printing press had just been invented, these works started circulating very quickly throughout the German states. This was taken badly by the church and sparked a pamphlet war with the indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel, which merely spread Luther's fame even further. As the beef escalated to more than just a quarter pounder with cheese, to a full-on five-stacker bacononater deluxe, Luther's ecclesiastical superiors had him tried for heresy, which culminated in his excommunication in 1521.

Luther became a Doctor of Theology and through a lot of critical study of the Bible, he came up with the concept of "sola fide", which is salvation by faith alone; which is enough for the church in Rome to excommunicate him and basically yell all kinds of nasty popery at him; to which he did not care. Yay, building renovations which caused Protestantism - who'da thunk it?

Horse 3255 - The Australian Has Led The National Conversation Straight To The Slaughter

Just as I am convinced that Sky News Australia exists purely for creating an faux-exotic authority to speak to American politics (because the viewership numbers inside Australia in no way look even remotely viable), I am also convinced that The Australian newspapers exists purely for creating an faux-exotic authority to speak to Canberra. Australia which is massively massive, has no easy and obvious ways of distributing a truly national newspaper. The Australian, which is created almost exclusively in the offices of Holt St Sydney, free-rides on top of the existing distribution networks of the other News Corp newspapers; plus it has the added benefit of being Canberra's de facto newspaper because Canberra has no printed daily newspaper of its own.

Essentially The Australian is a loss leader; which by its own admission existed to "lead the national conversation"; which I take to mean that being in Canberra, leading the national conversation means grabbing the ring in the snouts of the pigs in the trough and dragging them where the firm wants them to go. Also as a loss leader and being Rupert's special doyenne, I have questions as to what happens to it and indeed all of the mastheads once the old khan dies. I can not say with any certainly in any direction, what is going to happen to any of the News Corp masthead once Lachlan is actually free to do what he likes.

This week, The Australian ran this piece; which I think very much looks like it is trying to use its faux-exotic authority to speak to Canberra and pat the tory half of politics on the back, for being good little compliant tory apparatchiks. 

https://t.co/CLZ9Ul9CgX 

The meteoric rise and rise of ­Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has taken much of the country by surprise – even her parents, Dave and Bess, who are now willing to entertain the possibility she may one day live in The Lodge.

- The Australian, 18th Oct 2023.

I am going to say this now, that the chances of Jacinta Price being Prime Minister whilst non-zero are well within the zone of statistical anomaly that they can be written off as such. This is a piece of journalism which I should be proud of as this plays with the theoretical toys of the law and parliament before it places them back in the toybox, to be shut out of sight and out of mind.

Jacinta Price is a member of the Country Liberal Party. The Country Liberal Party is the Liberal Party's provincial outpost in the Northern Territory. This means that while she caucuses with the Liberal Party, she is not a member of the central party. The is different to the Liberal-National Party in Queensland which was formed as a result of the Liberal Party itself suffering an existence failure in Queensland and the then Queensland National Party assuming the apparatus of the Liberal Party in that state. The National Party in Queensland is unique in that it was able to hold government in Queensland's state parliament in its own right for a while.

Whilst it is true that there have been National Party (and previously Country Party) Prime Ministers, the National Party has always been the smaller of the two broad caucuses which have formed the coalition since 1923. The National Party has only really managed to convince the larger of its coalition partners that there should be a National Party Prime Minister, for a grand total of just 89 days since Federation. 80 days in total is not even one quarter of one year. 

This is where the numbers game begins. In absolutely no scenario is it likely under normal circumstances, that a member of an even smaller caucus of the coalition is going to convince everyone else to put its member at the head of Cabinet ahead of their own. On the occasions where there has been a National Party Prime Minister, is has been because the United Australia Party and then the Liberal Party has been in so much disarray that National Party premiership was preferable to no premiership at all. Those occasions have been when Menzies spat the dummy and ran away to London during World War II, and in the wake of Harold Holt going off for a swim at Cheviot Beach and never coming back. 

Under current circumstances, the obvious Prime Minister if the Coalition does manage to win government in 2025 is Peter Dutton. I can guarantee that Dutton's premiership will be run exactly the same way as his previous government departments have been; that is like a rural Queensland police office, where government whips will be replaced by government clubs. Please parse that last sentence with all possible meanings of words. 

If Dutton is a one-term Prime Minister, then the next-next Federal Election would likely occur in late 2027 or 2028; which is when Ms. Price's seat as Senator for the Northern Territory comes up for reelection. Assuming that she also wins that election, the conceivably the earliest that a Price Government would be returned is in about 2030 or 2031. 

Just think of the sheer unlikelihood of that. For the scenario in The Australian to play out, we would need a premiership from the Senate, being led by someone who to this point has not yet been proven to be a long term politician much less one in central cabinet, who can somehow convince not one but two caucuses to place her above their own, for the office of Prime Minister. Yeah, nah. What, bro? Daheq? 

The Australian likes to occasionally run puff pieces and fly bits of utter madness up the flagpole to see how it flies; knowing full well that the chances of that thing happening are the same as Hades announcing that it will hold the NHL Final between the Montreal Canadiens and the Edmunton Oilers. This particular piece in The Australian's virtue-signalling campaign of the referendum, is kind of the very last piece of triumph which ticks the last necessary box before it goes back to its company wide standpoint of race-baiting, for which the firm's journalists have fallen foul of the law in the past.

Horse 3254 - "No" Won. The Process Has Ended For A Long Time

As we wake up on Monday morning and the country begins to forget about what happened over the weekend, we can be sure that many people who have worked hard over the past six years, from the Uluru Statement to the Voice design process, will be left feeling emotionally and physically gutted. I am also sure, given the sheer amount of gloating by news organisations such as Sky News and 2GB that the "No" trolls will take great glee hearing this. I don't know what has to go wrong in people's lives where schadenfreude, that is people taking pleasure in your pain or people's happiness at the misfortune of others' but it seems that it is rampant.

I have almost gotten the impression from talkback radio this morning that the kosmos actually needs people who have been knocked around by fate because when people who lack empathy and decency see them, they certainly do not want to be them and that makes them feel great.

Perhaps I have been a little too harsh in painting the "No" case as purely racism. I think that we can now take it that what the results show is actually far less complex than that and most of the "No" voters cast their vote out of simple mean spirited envy. The beast that shouts "I" at the heart of the world acts out of selfishness above anything else, and when people began to start thinking and asking why First Peoples should get a special voice when they don’t have one, then any rational reason immediately got trampled. That was the essence of the "No" case. "No" voters thought incredibly small; whereas "Yes" voters were big enough to look beyond themselves to the justice of the cause.

You can almost track the moment in data, when from roughly a year out a majority of Australians did support the Voice, to the point where 10% of the population swung in the other direction. It isn't a lot but a 10% swing equates to a 20% difference in voting patterns. If I can notice this by looking at simple data, then I am sure that professional Psephologists whose job it is to look at a proper quantitative analysis of elections and balloting (I am sure that the political parties employ people like this because data is beautiful), will have seen this months ago.

The simple facts are that of the 45 referenda that we have had, every referendum that hasn't had bipartisan support has been defeated. That meant that when the Liberal Party under Peter Dutton decided to oppose it, the referendum was sunk.

It is probably true that the only way to defeat the Voice was to lie about it. The thing about truth is that truth needs time and logic to defend it. The thing about a lie is that provided one can flood the public square with lies then those who might defend the truth, then have to waste time. This is the modus operandii of the right in Australia and has been the way that the authoritarian right has done politics for more than a century.

It was clear from the day Mr Dutton decided not to offer bipartisanship, that he was intent on destroying what could have been a historical moment of reconciliation. What we also saw was a layer of personal attack on the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; which is de rigueur for any Liberal member. In trying to hurt Albanese, Dutton hurt the country. I do not know what side of history Mr. Dutton is on but he most definitely won this battle.

Furthermore, on the radio yesterday morning, Mr Dutton said that when he wins government in 2025, this would not be an issue which would be raised again under a government he leads. With that, if the Liberal Party takes government in 2025 (a normal election is likely to be held in May 2025), then the effects of this referendum will be to quietly kill any and all hopes of reconciliation for quite some time.

As for Jacinta Price spending the run up to the referendum claiming to speak on behalf of Aboriginal people, I think that the results firmly say otherwise. Ms Price repeatedly told us that First Peoples in show remote communities did not want the Voice and that she was speaking on behalf of them (which is a strange paradox).

However, if you drill down into the results for Remote Mobile Teams in the NT electorate of Lingiari, the reality tells a different story. 21 out of 22 remote polling booths in NT First Nations communities resoundingly wrote “Yes”. Actually, the "No" vote only flipped the NT’s final count in the major non-Indigenous centres of Darwin, Katherine, and Alice Springs.

What I found utterly galling were the comments on Saturday night when Jacinta Price basically claimed that the AEC rigged the results in the Northern Territory.

“One thing we do know is the way in which Indigenous people in remote communities are exploited for the purpose of somebody else’s agenda. I think we probably need to look at the way the AEC, the [Northern Territory Electoral Commission], conduct themselves when it comes to remote polling at elections, at referendums. I think we should take away those who come in with their how-to-votes, unions that come in and overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities.

There is a lot that goes on in remote communities that the rest of Australia doesn’t get to see. If we had cameras in those remote communities, at those polling booths, Australia would see what goes on in within those communities. There’s a lot of manipulation."

- Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, to Liberal Party HQ, 14th Oct 2023

To run a campaign which deliberately denies the First Peoples' Voice to Parliament and then undermine the process which gave you the result that you wanted is pretty low. 

It must be said though that as it stands, the injustices which lay at the heart of this country's constitution remain. The fact that the referendum was defeated and that "No" won, means that 14th October 2023 was a sad day for progress, truth telling, and a likely end to any kind of treaty process for the foreseeable future. What we know is that Justice has been turned away, and Decency stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the public square, and Honesty is not allowed to enter.

It will take something special to keep on listening to Indigenous Voices from here on. This country which has decided to do nothing still has some reckoning to do.

Horse 3253 - Australia Has Voted "No" To The Voice

 

As I write this at approximately 09:30pm, both requirements for a referendum to change the Constitution per Section 128, being a majority of voters and a majority of states both carrying the change, have failed.

The numbers for this election are very much looking like it will not be carried in any state but stil have a vote of support of about 40% in every state. The numbers also look very much like the 1999 Republic Referendum which also fell 0/6 states but with the ACT voting "yes".

The really obvious question is "what went wrong" and the answer to this is ludicrously simple. Broadly speaking, even though this referendum has been many years in the making, some Australians are extremely selfish and they can convince others to endorse that selfishness.

This is not an election which has fallen down party lines but rather down class lines. Sydney falls almost exactly No/Yes down the Red Rooster line; which means that better well off Sydney voted "Yes", while less well-off Western Sydney voted "No". 

The biggest voice that was yelling in this voice was people's wallets. Rather than John Farnham's "You're The Voice" being the actual song of this referendum, the actual anthem of this referendum is an anthem of perceived white lower class social disadvantage from 1982. It was "What About Me?" by Moving Pictures.

Without a doubt, a class dynamic is central to the result. You cannot achieve social change in this country unless class politics is at the centre of the campaign. Sure, a cost-of-living "crisis" is a lousy excuse for voting "no" but that case doesn't even have to be valid or sensible. It probably sounds obvious but people who can't see First Nations' marginalization and exclusion as a priority can't see First Nations' marginalization and exclusion as a priority. It is not an issue for them; and quite frankly what you can not see and do not care about, you are fine with.

Granted that you do not have to be a full-blown racist, bigoted, intolerant, mouth breathing rusted-on Dutton/L-NP supporter, but the data coming out of the election would suggest that if you voted "No" you are more likely to be over 40, and living in the less well-off outer suburbs, the regions, or the bush, and more open to casual racism.

News Corp, Nine Ent Co, and Southern Cross Austereo which is quite agreeable to News Corp, have all traded upon casual racism in this election campaign. The kinds of listeners who leave radio stations like 2GB, 4BC, 3AW, B105, Fox FM, SAFM, 2Day Fm or who leave Sky News on all day long, are more likely to parrot the opinions dished out to them and the media companies know this. I wonder if the tory & working class "No" voters truly understand what's going to happen now that this referendum has been defeated.

Probably about the only thing that will happen is that the cookers will have to drop their conspiracy theories about the vote being rigged, about corrupt the AEC is, and they'll have shiny new pens instead of the sinister pencils that they would have to mark the ballot with. Most likely those people will go back to denying covid is killing people and hating vaccines tomorrow.

On the other side will be the sad silence of the "Yes" voters, who will not be acting like a bunch of juvenile tantrums throwing primitive dolts against the AEC and the electoral system. Like normal civilized people, they will accept the result and must.

If there's one thing to be said about this, it is that progress doesn't always move in a straight line and sometimes, it does retreat. The truth is that race and indigenous relations have likely been set back two generations and given that there have been only two referenda in my lifetime, then this issue will likely not come back in a hurry.

The opening words of the last chaper of Donald Horne's 1964 book "The Lucky Country: Australia In The Sixties" read:

Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

- The Lucky Country, Donald Horne (1964)

I think that we have proven as a nation that we most definitely not a fair, just, or compassionate people. Australia is a second rate nation of second rate people. Could you have imagined back in March 2023, that when our indigenous sisters and brothers asked for something as simple as a representative group to speak to policy makers, that the majority of the nation would say "No"?

What a pack of truly miserable bastards we are.  

Horse 3252 - We Demand To See The Writ!

If there is one thing that this referendum is proving, it is that there is a small section of Australians who are completely unhinged. Helpfully they often mark themselves by carrying the red ensign (sometimes upside-down) and/or by trying to invoke some utterly bonkers and irrelevant legal nonsense like claiming that their rights under Magna Carta or some Maritime Law have been trampled.

One of the favourite mottos of the unhinged is the call for you to "do your own research". This call is basically an appeal to authority except that the authority being invoked is usually some equally insane trail of nonsense which also isn't true. The other thing that that call for you to "do your own research" does, is try to place the burden of proof upon you to prove the pile of nonsense wrong, by which time they will have moved on and claimed moral victory.

This week as pre-polling stations opened, the usual garbage that ballot stuffing is going on, or that the AEC has some magical unlimited funds whereby they can employ hordes of people to rub out and change votes, was added to by several instances of wingnuts and self-declared sovereign citizens demanding to the see the Writ which commanded that the referendum take place. I have also seen reports where in several places across the country, there have been instances of wingnuts being arrested for causing a public nuisance and disturbance after getting aggressive with the AEC workers when demanding to see the Writ.

In the first instance 'no, don't do it'. Although the people working at polling centres are paid by the AEC but they are there on a voluntary basis. The AEC does not have a massive permanent staff because it doesn't conduct elections on a weekly basis. In the second instance 'no, don't do it'. It is rude and gauche. 

Immediately upon hearing about this, my thoughts wandered to ponder if these wingnuts actually know what a writ is. One of the delicious ironies of the "do your own research" crowd is that quite often they have not done their own research and fail to understand basic concepts. Put simply, a 'writ' is an instruction to do a thing; which usually stems from a piece of law and/or a standing authority which has the power to order a thing happen.

In this case the writ is the instruction from the Governor-General (David Hurley) to the Australian Electoral Commission to organise and hold the polling and vote with regards the referendum. Similar instructions exist when Governor-General dissolves parliament and instructs the AEC to hold an election for members of the House and Senate. Writs also exist when the Governor-General sends the country to go to war, or when they wish to expel Members of the House and/or Senate, or commissioning and/or decommissioning a Minister of the Crown. Writs invariable contain includes relevant dates for various events to happen, or commencement dates for things to happen if the expiry date is not yet known.

Yet another completely unhinged about these wingnuts demanding to see the Writ, if acting with aggression and/or violence wasn't already rude and gauche and stupid, is that the Writ to the AEC for this referendum has been a matter of public record almost immediately after it was issued. For the record, the writ can be found here:

https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/referendums/files/writ-for-2023-referendum.pdf

The bill to cause this referendum passed through and was approved by the House and Senate and was enacted into law by the Governor-General; by exactly the same process as any other law. What I find interesting here is that it is the Governor-General himself who has commanded in as many words, "I command you...", to the AEC to conduct the referendum. This is different to normal legislation where words like "it is my pleasure that", or "I hereby order that", a thing happen. I suspect (for I do not actually know) that there is a legal distinction between an instruction from the relevant Minister of the Crown to their own department and the command coming from the Governor-General as the King's representative.

Probably in demanding that the AEC workers produce the Writ, these wingnuts hope to achieve some kind of personal moral victory by raging against the machine of government? I don't know and do not understand what if anything, getting mad at someone doing their job, actually achieves.

For the wingnuts demanding to see the writ... okay... now what?

Horse 3251 - The Trolley Problem 3: The Threequel

You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.

The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

Good Evening Ladies and Germs, welcome to the Court of Public Knavery where once again we throw open the windows of observation and let in the sunlight. What scurrying little agents of malfeasance will we see today? 

It is strange that once you start noticing shopping trolleys left hither and yon and willy and nilly everywhere,  you start noticing even more shopping trolleys left forlorn. What kinds of animals are these unthinking beasts who refuse to return their shopping trolleys?

In previous pieces I was mostly puzzled at how far trolleys have strayed from the supermarket. Travelling long distances is apparently no difficult task for an intrepid trolley which wants to make its way in the world. It is one thing to travel, it is quite another thing to try and guess what kind of adventures that trolleys get up to; for every time I see one of these poor things stranded further and further away from home I am tempted to wonder if shopping trolleys are in fact more sentient than the beastly animals who left them where they are.

This shopping trolley which is out and about at 07:30am, is preparing to enjoy a lovely day watching local parish football. See how happy it is? The fact that it has black bump stops means that I am unable to determine which shop this trolley is supposed to serve. It is not Woolworths, Coles, or Big W or K-Mart. 

It is exceedingly unlikely to see a trolley at a very big sports venue and so if trolleys want to enjoy sport then they are forced to watch purely amateur competition. What is curious about a trolley in particular is that because they are meant to hold a useful amount of shopping and groceries, they are by coincidence large enough to become a makeshift football goal.

Our friend here who is on a fire trail in the Blue Mountains National Park, is about 2 kilometers down the track, and is clearly spending a day in nature.

I wonder if this was taken down the fire trail by people who had loaded it up with cases of fermented vegetable products in order to get progressively inebriated. That would explain why it was abandoned here and perhaps if there is a corresponding pile of bottles and/or cans some distance down the trail, then that would complete the picture but sadly, we do not know.

The blue trolley is from Big W in Blacktown, whereas the green trolley is from Woolworths in Quakers Hill. I wonder if these two lovebirds have finally decided to move in together and start a family. I think that it's nice to see trolleys from different nations set aside their differences and come together in harmony.

After you have spotted a few different trolleys in the wild, it becomes apparent that in addition to there being no standard design, there is also difference in terms of wheels and the terrain that the trolleys are expect to run over.

The blue trolley in this photo has skinny little tyres which are supposed to engage with a travellator somewhere and that will be bespoke. The green trolley just has chunky rubber tyres because it likely goes over a rough carpark most of the time. How they both ended up in suburbia is unknown to me. 

This green trolley who is next to a brand new block of terrace houses being built, has got some serious work to do and has brought along a barbecue for the lads. Good job, bro'. The framers on building sites will bring the wood and scaffolds. The plumbers will bring the copper pipes and connect the house to the water supply and the sewerage lines. The electricians will will bring the wires and points to bring light and power. The plasterers and interior dressers will fit the walls and doors. All the while, this trolley has brought the barbecue to fuel the workers.

Can someone explain what the jinkies is going on here? Failing to return your trolley proves that you are a bad member of society but cutting the wheels off? What fresh kind of demon hellspawn is this? How is anyone ever supposed to use this trolley for its intended purpose ever again. A trolley's raison d'etre is to be that vehicle to move stuff from one place to another and this poor trolley can not even move itself.

This is heinous. This is horrid. This is lower than a snake's belly. This is like pulling the wings off of a fly or pulling the legs off a spider.  Whoever did this, you have won this week's "Knave Of The Week" award.

Over the course of taking these photographs, I chose to ignore the more than a hundred trolleys in and around Blacktown Railway Station and Bus Station. These are clearly used by people who take their shopping over the concourse and then take their shopping onto the bus or train. It has become apparent that the supermarkets in Blacktown have a policy of only bothering to go out and collect their trolleys, even though they are reasonably expensive assets, when sufficiently large numbers of them have not come home.

The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society. There are many bad members of society

Horse 3250 - Xerry Red Telefone Bocs

This blog post is not about the state of the website formerly known as Twitter. Nor is this website about the Universal Container of Sets and all probable possible propositions P. This blog post is about the 24th letter of the alphabet and about the daftness of the glyph that we use.

I have no idea of what kind of English that the people of the rainy islands to the northwest of Europe spoke before the arrival of the Roman Empire (men think about the Roman Empire several times a day apparently) but I do know that the runic system of letters that the Anglish English used was slowly abandoned for this new fangled Roman character set. Some letters were added and some went away as needed. We've lost some like Yogh, Eth, and Thorn, and we've picked up a J and W but X was one of the original gansta stylee Roman letters, yo.

The dumb thing about picking up the Roman letter set is that English ended up using X for the same purpose as the Romans did. Sure, X rox da box, like a fox with pox, but then we have to use unwieldy combinations of letters for other things when X would have done.

When we transliterate Chinese into English, X takes on a kind of "zh" sound. Chinese Premier Xi Jing Ping would sound quite different if his name was pronounced in English with the usual "cs" that X takes on. Likewise when we transliterate Spanish into English, X takes on a kind of "sh" sound but where the back of the tongue creates a tighter point at the roof of the mouth. Both "sh" and that "sh" in Spanish, are aspirant noises and can be made with no vocal chords whatsoever.

If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else then I would remove all instances of X as it currently stands and re-use it for a better purpose. If I am not putting X to use as the "cs" sound, then "what am I going to use it for?", I do not hear you ask because that's not how tecst works. Simple. I am going to make X take on the sound that it had in Greek, which is "ch".

In English "ch" is a plosive sound which has no right to be rendered with a 'c' or 'h'. However, by using X instead and suddenly X and that sound have a happy home together. "King Xarles the First" might look silly to us now, but all written systems are ultimately arbitrary anyway. To someone who grows up with X as "ch", then this would look normal. 'Xarles went to xirx' is a sensible looking thing. The train from "Rixmond to Xatswood" would still run on time. 

Remember, the King of Korea got mad with the daft preponderance of Chinese characters and locked all of the academics in a palace until they invented the Hangul (Korean alphabet); then on 9th October 1446 it was published and released into the kosmos and suddenly Korea had an excellent writing system which everyone eventually learned. Likewise, President Mustafa Atatürk in an effort to modernise Türkiye, made Türkiye change from an Arabic script to a Latin script. The point is that people can and have got used to changes in writing systems and pretty quickly. 

As for taking a tacsi home, or grabbing a bindle and riding the rails in a bocscar, if this sounds garish, obnoxious and daft, then remember that there is no X in the Welsh language and they cope perfectly well. That black cab that charges a fare? That's called a Tacsi. Suddenly "Ecks rocks da bocks, like a focks with pocks" looks daft but intuitively correct.

Also as Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, I would put an end to "ph" in place of "F". Again if we turn to Welsh, then "Teleffon" looks strange to an English speaking audience but it still looks intuitively correct.

Of course as I am writing this, I am very much aware of my nemesis in grammar, Noah Webster. Webster who is famous for his "Blue Backed Speller" which would ultimately lead to the Merriman-Webster Dictionary, deliberately changed the spelling of American English because he saw existing words and spellings as arbitrary and bad. Is what I proposing to do any different at all? Absolutely not. I will readily admit that I stand upon Mount Hypocrisy and cry "Havoc! Let slip the dogs of war!" into a kosmos that doesn't care. Webster thought that the 'u' in words like 'colour' and 'flavour' was unnecessary and he was also liberal with chucking about 'z's and also preferred the 'ize' ending. However, not once did he correct the X problem or the 'ph' problem.