Horse 3272 - I Saw The Sign And It Opened Up My Eyes, I Saw The Sign. Tolls Are Demanding, Without Understanding.

The Rozelle Interchange has taken exactly two days to cause horridness and nastiness to roads in Sydney. The Rozelle interchange which is as far as I can tell the biggest and most complicated underground road junction in the southern hemisphere, contains more than 16 kilometres of tunnels, and its opening day on Sunday went went relatively smoothly. However, a proper regular traffic day like yesterday, caused motorists to behave perfectly rationally and Transport for New South Wales could only blame motorists for being "confused at the new signage". 

What was the signage that motorists were supposedly "confused" at? The single sign, just the one, facing east-bound motorists on Victoria Road after they cross the Iron Cove Bridge, looks like this:

Now I put it to any sane person of reasonable faculties and intelligence, that this sign indicates that there are two options here. The one to the left, is for Balmain via Victoria Rd and does not have a toll. The option on the right, is for the City and Port Botany and does have a toll. I would like to think that I am a pretty good analogue for Billy Brown from Sydney Town, or the Man On the Bondi Tram, or the Man on the Parramatta Omnibus - that is, some reasonable person of average intelligence, who can be expected to act in reasonable, average, and expected ways. I would hope that my reading of this sign, is adequate.

But no.

According to the management at Transport for New South Wales, I am "confused". I do not think that I am "confused". I think that as a some reasonable person of average intelligence, who can read a street sign, that if I do not want to pay the toll (which I don't) then I should move into the left lane.

Apparently, many motorists who have encountered this for the first time, have been making last-minute lane changes and one poor soul who probably got scared of ending up in West Woop-Woop, East Banana, or Umpakumbunka North, reversed their car while in peak hour traffic. I would not have done that but I would have been quietly cursing black and blue, gnashing my teeth, and biting my thumb at Transport for New South Wales.

Transport for New South Wales told the radio yesterday that the reason for "confusion" and tailbacks was that many motorists didn’t realise that the tunnel between the Iron Cove Bridge and the Anzac Bridge is toll-free; which means that the queue of cars wanting to stay on Victoria Road could have actually bypassed the traffic by using the Iron Cove Link underground.

Excuse me?

Firstly, as a sane person of reasonable faculties and intelligence, I do not know how you could draw that conclusion just from looking at that sign.

Secondly, we the decent and fair people of New South Wales, who already live in a city with tolls on the Harbour Bridge, Harbour Tunnel, on-ramps for the Warringah Expressway, the Eastern Distributor, M4, M5, M7, M2, M2 link, and now M8, that is more tollways than exist in the entire of Europe except for Italy, have been punched from pillar to post by knavish tory toll companies for so long, that when we see the word "Toll" on a sign, we believe you.

The thing about a toll on a private road, or private school fees, or private health insurance, is that the existence of a toll is a barrier to entry. Putting a toll on what should be a public service, is almost by definition going to act as a barrier to people using that service. Making people pay money for the use of a thing, has not only the effect of increasing the list price of the thing itself but also will put a psychological stop on people wanting to use the thing. A toll on a thing not only adjusts the price at which the thing is being offered but also adjusts the non-monetary impetus that people might have for using the thing. A toll is very much a market device as it very much adjusts the amount of the service or good that is being used at that particular end user price.

Economics generally is about the questions of what to produce and at what price a thing should be produced at. Markets are concerned about the price of a thing and the volume of that thing which changes hands at any given price. One layer which sits on top of that is the amount of happiness and utility which is derived from the quiet enjoyment of the thing in question. Happiness is related to but not congruous to the amount of utility derived. However economics is not politics and trying to force the two together as though they were, is dishonest. This is why I find it so horrid, that when Transport for New South Wales tries to blame the public for being "confused" when they are the ones who made lots of policies and took actions to force upon the general public to make a decision based upon the opportunity cost of spending or not spending their money and time, they do so without seeming to acknowledge that market mechanisms are playing out in the aggregate, as cooly and coldly as should be expected.

The other thing of note about a toll on a private road, is that being a barrier to entry, it can and will have flow effects through the system. Even looking at the most basic of flow equations (traffic, water, and electricity all broadly follow the same rules), produces what you should expect to be slower speeds.

V = I.R

or 

I = V/R

If R is suddenly massive because you have created a pinch point where traffic wants to go from three lanes back into one because you have placed a toll in the way that traffic wants to avoid, then you have increased Resistance (R). If Voltage (V - that is the amount of traffic that wants to get through the system) remains broadly unchanged from one day to another, then Current (I) should decrease because that's how basic arithmetic works. Increase the denominator and the number should get smaller. Guess what? Less cars per hour moved through; which proves that the maths was right. For the same voltage of cars, an increase in resistance by mushing all of that traffic back into a single lane, must lead to and has led to a decrease in the amount of current, which is traffic flow.

What I find even more stupid about this 16.6 kilometre underground spaghetti junction is that a policy decision was taken to build this and not some other thing. The $16.8bn price tag, means that this cost $1.0121bn/km. Yet again we run into our old friend in economics of Opportunity Cost. At $10m/km, we could have had 168 kilometers of underground railway line. Now admittedly that would not have addressed the problem of traffic flow immediately but placed properly, commuters would have not put their cars on the road and left them at home and taken the train instead. One train service clears about 10,000 people per hour/ which is better than 3000 cars per hour. That has a different effect on current flow. Fewer cars does lower the Voltage which does lower the traffic flow but it also lowers the need to accommodate that traffic flow in the first place. There is a kind of happiness and utility to be derived in not having to sit in traffic; which comes from being on a train.

However that choice was never on the table for the motorists who use Victoria Road. They came across one lonely solitary sign and made their decisions completely rationally based upon the information that they had. The tailback which stretched back along for many kilometres was not because motorists were "confused" but rather, that the road is badly signposted, that motorists are consistently treated like mugs, and that an opportunity cost decision was made so that they were forced to make that last second decision. The tailbacks and traffic are not the fault of "confused" motorists who are acting rationally but Transport for New South Wales who made the decision to spend $16.8bn to build this silly thing in the first place.

Horse 3271 - Milsons Point And The Roundels

One of the questions that I have had for a very very long time, is whether or not Milsons Point Railway Station on the north side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge had roundels or not. I have only found today that the answer is "No", it did not. Game over. Thanks for coming.

Fin.

Okay. This story is way more complicated than that. 

Before 1926, Sydney Terminal was the end of the line. There were no lines heading north to Museum and St James; they would not be open until 1926. There were no lines heading north to Town Hall and Wynyard; they would not be open until 1932. The Eastern Suburbs Railway was dreamt of but this would never open in the form envisaged by John Bradfield, and what we did get would not be open until 1979.The Sydney Metro? Forget about it. 

Wynyard Station is the trigger to this story, and the reason why I was curious. Wynyard was opened in 1932 as a triple opening along with Town Hall and Milsons Point. Wynyard though, was opened with the North Shore line in 1932, and was always meant to accommodate the City Circle which was opened in 1956, and the Inner West line which was never opened, and the Northern Beaches line which was never opened but which came tantalisingly close.

The City Circle would use platforms 5 & 6, which they do. The Inner West line would have used platforms 7 & 8, which were never cut. The North Shore line does use platforms 3 & 4. The Northern Beaches line which was never opened would have used platforms 1 & 2, and in fact was dressed for that purpose but as budget cuts in the Great Depression basically killed that off forever, it sort of nascently existed with two stations (maybe three) completely fit for purpose.

Wynyard had four top level platforms, with platforms 1 & 2 being used for trams until 1955. North Sydney has four platforms. Milsons Point, which sits in between them, also had four platforms from 1932 until 1955, with two of them being used for trams.

Now here is the problem.

- North Sydney Station

North Sydney Station was always a suburban station and maybe at best, it was given those suburban white roundels which every other suburban station had until the 1980s candy stripe sign appeared. 

Wynyard had proper full on roundels, to match those at Museum, St James, Circular Quay, and Town Hall.

- Milsons Point Ticket Concourse

I was vaguely aware that Milsons Point's platforms were numbered 1 & 2 for trams and 3 & 4 for trains. When the tram service was ripped out by a knavish Cahill Government, to spite the face of the fair and decent people of New South Wales forever, the two remaining platforms acquired new numbers. That did not happen at Wynyard because it was still unknown how the line from Wynyard to Circular Quay would be connected, and the lower level platforms of 5 & 6 were being used as terminating platforms; just like St James was used as a terminating station before the City Circle was put in.

But what of the dress of Milsons Point?

Milsons Point from ground level, looks to be of a similar style to that of both St James and Museum. The entrance houses at street level, have that same kind of shielded motif with the date opening flanked by flourishes, all set in stone work. 

However, any and all evidence of what was up above at train platform level, was firstly levelled when the trams were ripped out and roadways put in their place, and Milsons Point in my lifetime has carried suburban white roundels, 1980s candy stripe signs, 1990s City Rail corporate blue signage, and now Sydney Trains/Transport for New South Wales orange signage. This means that if it ever carried any original roundels in the style of the City Circle, which would have been entirely plausible given that Circular Quay was given roundels upon opening in 1956, then it would absolutely be well before my ability to remember. 

- Milsons Point Station Platforms 3 & 4 (now 1 & 2)

I came across this photograph of Milsons Point in 1934 quite by accident when looking for something else. This is a funeral procession for someone very very posh indeed, given that the hearse is followed by not one but two cars of flowers and in the Great Depression when most people would be happy to have two shillings to scrape together and wouldn't be spending them on flowers. What do I notice about this photograph? There are no roundels. 

Actually, I do not see any station signage of any kind whatsoever. This probably has a few station signs but not all that many. I guess this makes sense as the signs at Milsons Point are standing outside in all kinds of weather and maybe the NSWGR just weren't prepared to spend a quid where they did not have to. While part of me thinks that the use of the roundels at all is treading the line of intellectual property infringement, another part of me feels a little sad that Milsons Point never got any fancy roundels. 

I like that the Eastern Suburbs Railway was given a unified design language with tiling, tiled barrel columns, and use of the station name in a nice sans-serif Copperplate style font and in triplicate. It's really pretty. I sort of like that Central Walk has been retrofitted in sandstone to tie it together with the existing station. I like that the Sydney Metro has its own geometrica design language. But Milsons Point, overlooking the most stunning view of all the stations in Sydney bar none, seems to have been underdressed and treated as a suburban backwater. 

It's a bit sad that Milsons Point had no roundels. I think it deserves them/

Horse 3270 - Christmas Is Too Long. We need Novemberween.

Happy Thanksgiving, 'Murica. Or as it is called in Australia, and in most of the parts of the world in Not America, Thursday. 

Even though I live in Australia and Thanksgiving is not at all a thing here, that has not stopped various shops claiming to have "Black Friday" sales. This is nonsensical on three fronts.

Firstly, there is no Thanksgiving here and therefore no Friday immediately following it. We certainly are not taking a day of leave off, in order to go shopping. Many Americans, after having the Thursday public holiday off, will also take Friday off as well and turn this into a four-day long weekend. This is sensible if Thursday is a public holiday.

Secondly, the tax year in Australia runs from July 1 through to June 30; so the idea that this is the last chance for businesses and firms to go into the black for the year (hence why this is called "black" Friday), is patently ridiculous. There are still seven months in the financial year and the pre and post Christmas sales yet to come. 

Thirdly, this is Australia. Black Friday sounds like one of many events in history where we might have had bushfires so bad that catastrophic loss of life has happened. In Australia, this is not a commemoration of Black Friday. Black Friday sounds like it is a day of misery, when peoples' houses, property, and many lives, have been blackened and destroyed by fire.

If I may borrow something else from 'Murica... that's one strike, two strikes; you're outta here, Black Friday.

Yes, I live in Australia and as such I live in the remnants of an Empire which reached its peak in 1914, and the slowly collapsed like a flan in a cupboard. Therefore as someone who lives in an area of the world where neither Halloween or Thanksgiving is a cultural thing, or even remotely relevant to the history or geography of the nation, this is going to sound a bit weird.

We need a beginning of summer festival.

We need a Novemberween holiday.

Woolworths and Coles would like to make Halloween a thing so that they can sell chocolate and sweets for children to harass their neighbours to get, and whilst it might be fun for some kiddies to dress up, most don't and it just looks really silly when Civil Sunset is 07:42pm and Astronomical Twilight isn't until 09:20pm. Ghoulies, Ghosties, Valkyries, Skellingtons, and Wolfmans simply do not walk around in daylight. Draculas can not walk around in daylight because they will turn into dust. (Beware though. Draculas can have any job.)

Neither does Thanksgiving actually make any cultural sense in Australia, because while being thankful for what you have is a good practice, our history of genocide of first nations people isn't whitewashed with myth-making of Pilgrim Fathers. The autumnal traditions of Pumpkin Pie and by extension Pumpkin Spice Latte (which is actually just the spice in Pumpkin Pie and not actually a pumpkin spice), also do not make cultural sense here. 

Nevertherless, I think that we need beginning of summer festival and a Novemberween holiday, not because I think that we need those things because I want Australia to culturally shift closer to 'Murica but rather, that without those things, Christmas has invaded and absorbed all of the space left behind. Christmas is a gas. Left unchecked, Christmas expands to fill all of the space in the calendar container and it occupies far more space than the merely the date which it falls on.

This year, I was Whammed on November 7th. This is ridiculous. Whamaggedon should not begin until the 1st of December. Whamaggedon is a game of strategy and skill in which the player tries to go as long as possible without without hearing "Last Christmas" by Wham! If the player hears the song between those days, they are out of the game. All I can think of is that Woolworths and Coles and Aldi et al. are a pack of dastardly knaves without remorse, and try to Whambush players against their will.

A similar problem happens when one of forced to hear the almost psychotic 'wob wob wob wob' of "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney. The ex-Beatle, having decided to include 122 "Nah"s in the ending of "Hey Jude", simply couldn't leave well enough alone and made use of the fact that as Christmas is an annual event, he could use it inflict pain and suffering to millions every single year.

A third member of the triumvirate of the Christmas house of audio pain, which begins with a series of chimes played on a celesta, is of course "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff. Now there is a lot to be said about this song, which is a masterclass in song writing as the chorus runs from Cmaj, C7, Fmaj to the deliciously spicy and christmassy D minor 7 flat 5 chord (Dm7b5); so I can't fault it from a technical perspective but I am convinced that if you play that song backwards you will hear the Devil and even worse, if you play that song forwards you will hear the Mariah Carey.

Then there is the problem that Christmas things go on sale seven weeks before the date itself. That might very well be fine for things like mince pies which have an expiry date of 13th January 3024, or bottles of wine which can be laid down for years before they are woken up, but for chocolate that's simply too far away. Chocolate does have an expiry date, when the cocoa butter in the chocolate separates and rises to the surface due to temperature fluctuations, or 'sugar bloom' where the sugar in the chocolate absorbs moisture and then crystallises on the surface. Then as the chocolate which is a solid mixture loses all of its structural integrity, it crumbles and blows away as though it were an Egyptian pharaoh.

As it currently stands, the run home to Christmas in the calendar, pretty well much begins on the Monday immediately after the Bathurst 1000. The end of September has the Festivals of the Boot with the Australian Rules and Rugby League football Grand Finals and apart from that weekend of Bathurst, there is nothing of import whatsoever. Indeed the last public holiday before Christmas is Labor Day which is on that first Monday in October.

Some say that "the race that stops the nation" The Melbourne Cup, which is on the first Tuesday in November might be a thing to break up that last quarter but as more people work from home, as less people work in big offices, and as the banks and insurance companies lay off people left, right and centre but still make super-super-profits, the ability for people to care even a jot about a horse race which they don't care about, is way way less. The Melbourne Cup for lost of people, only really mattered because it involved mid-week sandwiches and booze at work. With fewer and fewer people working in big offices, that kind of one-day community has been dissolved. There are no more free sandwiches. There is no more free booze. The Melbourne Cup no longer stops the nation. Most people, have no idea it is on. I do not know who won it this year. I do not care.

That space in the calendar with Halloween being a joke and Thanksgiving not being a thing, has meant that Christmas reaches further and further back into the year. This is rather a bit ironic given that as more people from different faith traditions call Australia their home, even the cultural hold that Christmas has, is fading. Those lights that you see over people's houses, are now equally likely to have gone up in mid-October as preparation for Diwali than for Christmas.

Simply flipping what exists in the Northern Hemisphere, to a point in the year exactly six months later, doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. The end of April and beginning of May would equate to events like Easter and May Day but given that Easter is already Easter and May Day might already map to Labor Day in October, then this seems silly. There is no obvious end of May and beginning of June holiday that I can think of, which would fit for November 30.

If were Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else, then with my powers untold I would install some kind of spring festival on the last Friday in October because everyone loves a long weekend and another summer festival on the first Monday in December because everyone loves a long weekend. Call them Magpie Day and Waratah Day for all I care. Name one of them after Australia's favourite saint, St. Bin Chicken. Crikey wikey argumente, amen.

Because Christmas in its current three month form is a monster. Monster is a technical term for a plant which has either grown oversized or has developed oversized and possibly cultivated growths. Christmas and now Black Friday with no Thanksgiving, have become monstrous and hideously too long. Make it stop. I can only hear Mariah Carey, Wham and that 'wob wob wob wob' so many times. 

wob wob wob wob

wob wob wob wob

wob wob wob wob

wob wob wob wob

<i wanna bang my head on a coffee table... make it stop>

Horse 3269 - No, Miranda, Nigel Farage Will Not Be The Next Tory Prime Minister

I can not believe that we are here again. With the news that Suella Braverman has been ejected from the Sunak Ministry, and that David Cameron has been appointed as Foreign Secretary (as well as being given a free seat upstairs in the House of Lords for life, to become Baron Cameron), various right-wing news media outlets which have decided to abandon truth, have suggested that Nigel Farage could be the next tory Prime Minister. What rot.

Now I don't expect Sky News, GB News, or Sky News Australia to tell the truth, but I do expect them to wrap their lies in some shred of plausibility. Lies work better if they are a bit plausible. If you want a cat to swallow medicine, you wrap it in a blob of meat and they can't tell the difference. Here though, the various right-wing trashmedia outlets aren't even trying. Admittedly there is a non-zero chance of Nigel Farage being be the next tory Prime Minister but so many things would have to happen first, that it is very very very very very very very very very unlikely¹.

What I think is happening here, is that in an effort to generate column inches, television minutes, and most importantly ad revenues, that news media outlets simply just make stuff up with no reference to truth. Then having made up stuff, other news media outlets will parrot it without bothering to check if it is possible, plausible, or probably. The unthinking portion of the population (which appears to be massive) don't seem to care about truth, and that portion of the population who already control capital don't have to care about truth because they're doing fine thank you very much. The first reason why Nigel Farage will not be the next tory Prime Minister should be immediately obvious to all and sundry. He is not a tory. The second reason, related to the first is that parliamentary democracies do not work that way.

In a parliamentary democracy and specifically a Westminster Parliament, the Prime Minister / First Minister / Premier is selected in caucus, by the available members on the floor of the chambers which can control supply. In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, et cetera, supply aka the Appropriation Bills are originated from the lower house of parliaments. Whoever can control the passage of Appropriation Bills, that is whoever can pull the purse strings of the nation, makes the parliament and by extension the government dance like a puppet. Westminster Parliaments are completely agnostic when it comes to where the Prime Minister comes from, and there have been instances of Prime Ministers having come from the upper houses but in general Prime Ministers come from the lower houses in Westminster Parliaments. Why this is so should also be pretty obvious.

The Prime Minister as head of executive government, is selected by that caucus of members who can control the public purse. That caucus of members is made up of a majority of members on the floor of the chamber; which does not necessarily imply that they even are all of the same political party. There have been instances where the Prime Minister has come from smaller parties within a coalition group; usually because the coalition in total has come to the conclusion that that person is the best person for the job. Here's where the argument that Nigel Farage will be the next tory Prime Minister falls down on so many counts.

Firstly, Nigel Farage is not a member of the Conservative Party. Now while it isn't impossible that the tories would select someone who wasn't their own to head their executive government, it's so unlikely that the mere suggestion of it is laughable. There are hundreds of tory MPs in the House of Commons and more hundreds of tory MPs in the House of Lords. The tories might be bereft of talent, competence, and ability but they're not bereft of ambition and selfishness. There would be many many tory MPs queueing up for the job of head of the Conservative Party well before Nigel Farage would be considered for the job.

Secondly, Nigel Farage is not a member of the Conservative Party. The thing that I can not answer at this point is whether or not having achieved Brexit (which has made Britain oh so smaller in terms of influence) he would even consider joining the party. He might very well if he thought that there was some political path to him becoming Prime Minister, however I just don't see it.

Secondly and a tenthly, would the Conservative Party endorse him as a member? I have no idea what kind of terms that he and Conservative Party leadership are on but for him to get on the ballot as a tory candidate would mean that he would need to be placed there instead of a local rank and file member. Yes, local politics is often twelve old fuddy-duddies and a dog called Kevin in a local Scout Hall but really? 

Thirdly, Nigel Farage is not a member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. If he set his heart to become a member of the House of Commons, would he do so as a Conservative Party candidate or as an Independent candidate? Then having somehow made his way onto the ballot paper, would the constituents of that electorate then elect him to be their local member, knowing full well that he is actually unlikely to do all that good a job at representing them? As for how he would be appointed as a peer in the House of Lords, I have no idea of who would give him that post.

Third and a halfly, if we suppose that Nigel Farage does manage to win a seat in the House of Commons as an Independent member, then in what world does either a Labour Party or a Conservative Party choose him as Premier, over one of their own. One of the massive flaws of the BBC Television series "Years And Years" is that Vivian Rook becomes Prime Minister as the only member of her Four Star Party. This might very well work in a fictional television series (provided that you suspend your belief in common sense) but in the real world, that just plain barking mad².

Fourthly, the tories have done such a monumentally rubbish job they they almost certainly will not be returned to government at the next General Election. While this might mean that Rishi Sunak steps out of the way as current tory leadership crumbles and implodes even further, that would likely mean that the tories would not get another crack at government³ until 2029 or 2030. That's so far in the future that while all bets are off, it would be nigh on impossible to predict if Nigel Farage would even be in politics by then.

Is that 4.6 reasons? To be fair I have no idea what kind of mathematical nonsense and nerdery that I have created but I do know that a little bit of nothing multiplied but a lot of rubbish equals a whole lot of nothing. Yeah, nah. Nigel Farage is not going to be the next tory Prime Minister. The idea is madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of the 2023 Mister Madman Competitition. He could very well win Bingo at the Kebab And Calculator Hotel, in the village of Much Waffling but that's about it.

¹Three times repetition means to draw reader's attention to a certain quality or phrase in a passage. Three times three times repetition means to take that to its extreme ridiculous conclusion.

²Barking Mental Hospital is on the other side of London from Bethlem Royal Hospital which is in Bromley.

³The next United Kingdom general election is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025.

Horse 3268 - No, Virginia, There Aren't More Broken Toe-Links

This is mid-November. The last Supercars round for 2023 is in Adelaide. Formula One will be in Las Vegas.  The TCR and Trans-Am2 seasons have already drawn to a close. The NASCAR seasons have also already drawn to a close. Collectively the off-season as far as motorsport fans are concerned, is when you look back into the archives, mining the past for dreams which never existed. Or maybe mining the past for things which you didn't see the first time because the interconnectedness of all things via those series of pipes we call the internets, wasn't a thing.

As was my wont, I decided to look back through the 1992 NASCAR Season. This was the one where Allan Kulwicki won the championship by 10 points, at the very end of the season, at the last race of the season, and due to tactics which only developed in the context of that last race of the season; where he'd worked out while inside the car, that if he closed out the number of laps led to 109, then it wouldn't matter if Bill Elliot won the race or not. There are lots of things that could be said about that particular season but they thing that I want to explain for the benefit of a select few readers (you know who who are) is to do with the alleged fragility of the rear toe-links on the NASCAR Gen-7 Cup cars. The reason why I watched 1992 in particular, is that there are sufficiently enough complete races that people put on videotape and now on YouTube, that a good enough comparison can be made.

What I found was that there are no appreciable differences in the amount of rear toe-link failures between the current 2023 Gen-7 Cup cars and then then 1992 Gen-4 Cup cars.

Shock! Horror! Lock all the doors. Batten down the hatches. Sell your kids for cheese and your mothers-in-law to the circus. Rub my nose in the dirt and call me "stinky". 

No, really. 1992 was not particularly all that much different in terms of the number of rear toe-link failures and the cars that retired from races as a result of those rear toe-link failures. Actually, when you bother to think about this for more than 15 seconds, that should be the case. The case are not markedly different. They still are 3300 pound rectangles moving about a mile-and-a-half of concrete at 190mph. The function is identical. The form is very very close. The componentry in this area has not changed. Of course this begs the question...

What's a toe-link?

The toe-links, pull or push the tops of the wheel-hub mounts, relative to dead vertical camber. Camber is the amount that tyres lean inwards (negative) or outwards (positive) relative to dead vertical. On normal road cars, camber is likely to be either dead reckoned to vertical or very slightly negative. This has to do with setting up the geometry of the car to chase better handling, or better wear on the tyres since they are the only point of contact on the road. Tyres that engage the road better make for better road holding.

You can get a better idea of what the toe-link does, by looking at one out in the wild. These photos are looking at the rear suspension setup of a VE Commodore:

We should expect that if the banking is different at different tracks, and eve different at different places on those tracks, then relative to the face of the tyre meeting the road, that the banking will be different can the camber should be different on the two-sides of the car. NASCAR is mostly not a technology battle, nor specifically an equipment battle but a specific engineering battle to see who can come up with the best suite of geometry settings in terms of camber, stagger, rear wedge adjustment and tyre pressure. To a far far far lesser extent, the toe-in/toe-out of the front tyres and how much bite that the steering can take out of a corner.

Granted that some minor adjustments can be made in terms of numbers of turns on a worm gear to pull or push the tops of the wheel-hub mounts, relative to dead vertical camber, but it isn't particularly all that much. Mostly that is baked in before a session; based upon the physical length of the toe-link. 

Very obviously, when you have a side impact which is going to bend a piece of steel, it is not going to unbend in a hurry. Steel tends to be strong in compression but not all that strong in tension. Having a 3300 pound car strike flush against a concrete wall (also bearing in mind that kinetic energy has a velocity squared component in the equation), will compress directly through the centre of a toe-link but if the micro forces are not perfectly balanced (which we can assume that they never are), then the point of failure and bending will happen where some part of that toe-link is in tension. All of this is a fancy way of saying that an random force, bends metal.

The thing is that I do not think that there is a sensible way to stop the issue. You could simply attach the hub with hinges to the top and bottom of the A-Arms in the suspension, and then have the rear axles pass through a hole and have universal joints at the bearings; but the adjustability of the suspension is gone. I note that Supercars use an even cruder system by having a solid dead rear axle and suspension setup, with a crown-wheel acting as a single spool drive. This is almost certainly not an option on a NASCAR Cup car, given that they regularly go on banked tracks.

The real answer would be to stop hitting the walls as much and change the culture such that drivers act far less pugilistic with 3300 pound machines. I would even go so far as to ban pushing as a tactic because that creates all kinds of longitudinal forces through the yaw axis which nobody and guess much less control. 

Specifically with regards toe-link failures, well they have not markedly changed. I suspect that the reason they appear to be so common has to do with perception. People think that toe-link failures are more likely to happen; so tend to notice them more when they do happen because they are primed to notice toe-link failures when they do happen. I am sure that this is similar to the phenomenon of why you notice more cars on the road that look like yours, or why I am on the lookout for shopping trolleys in the wild.

Horse 3267 - Baron Cameron, Barren Talent

It seems that British politics, has reverted back to feudalism and patronage. The Conservative Party having emptied itself of anyone competent in management, has decided to try a late term reset and is mining the past for classic hits and memories. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67401753

Suella Braverman has been sacked as home secretary, after she defied No 10 over an article accusing the Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of protests.

Mrs Braverman was accused of stoking tension ahead of protests in London.

James Cleverly has been announced as her replacement, with former prime minister David Cameron unexpectedly replacing him as foreign secretary.

- BBC News, 13th Nov 2023

Wait what? David Cameron? As in former Prime Minister David Cameron?! Yes, that David Cameron. 

Immediately after this was announced, the commentariat on Twitter, and formal news outlets like the BBC collectively went apoplectically into confusion:

How could Cameron take up a ministerial post if he is neither an MP nor in the Lords, or is this not a requirement but a tradition?

- (name withheld) via Twitter, 13th Nov 

The specific answer to that question was not yet known but was answered upon the opening of that famous black door at No.10 Downing Street.

https://news.sky.com/story/david-cameron-appointed-foreign-secretary-in-shock-cabinet-reshuffle-move-13007124

The ex-party leader is no longer an elected politician as he stood down as an MP in 2016, having called the Brexit referendum and his campaign to remain in the EU losing the vote.

But the government has confirmed he will now enter the House of Lords as a life peer, giving him the opportunity to serve as a minister once more.

- Sky News, 13th Nov 2023

The short answer is that owing to the Peel Convention of 1936 (which was named after William Peel, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the  youngest son of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel), that Ministers of the Crown of His Majesty's Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, should be a Member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. By appointing David Cameron to the House of Lords, the requirements of the Peel Convention have been met and everyone is satisfied. 

Or not.

It's like, wow; whatever.

Here's the thing about parliamentary conventions. Parliamentary conventions are in fact materially different to constitutions. The United Kingdom talks about an unwritten constitution, which is actually a series of untied laws which are not held together in a collection. A constitution is really just a set of replaceable rules, with instructions about how that body corporate will operate; including replaceable rules about how you replace those replaceable rules. However, parliamentary conventions are not even replaceable rules. They are in reality nothing more than vapours and suggestions about how things should operate. As they are not laws, they aren't actually legally binding. As they are not laws, they actually only last exactly as long until the point that they don't any more. 

The appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary inadvertently lets us peek behind the curtain of the law and see what actually stands behind it. What we actually see is that even in the twenty-first century, the United Kingdom still has the raw naked power of the Crown behind the veil of law. The Crown as of now, as in days of yore, still has powers that sometimes dares to use.

As I live in the remnants of empire; and under not one but two sets of law made by Westminster Parliaments, I live in a place bound by law and convention duplicated. This also means that if we examine the written constitutions of the place where I live, we get a formal look at those vapours as though they were stopped from swirling, because in the case of both Australia and New South Wales they have been frozen. Section 64 of the Australian Constitution lends some insight as to what that frozen vapour looks like.

https://aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter2#chapter-02_64

Ministers of State

The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish.

Such officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor-General. They shall be members of the Federal Executive Council, and shall be the Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth.

Ministers to sit in Parliament

After the first general election no Minister of State shall hold office for a longer period than three months unless he is or becomes a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

- Section 64, Constitution of Australia (1900)

Here's some fun and scary things of note. The Governor-General who is the King's Representative, holds massive amounts of mostly sleeping reserve power. Frequently throughout the Constitution, the Governor-General is granted power with no direction or advice coming from the Constitution about how to wield that power or what it is for. The appointment of Ministers of the Crown, to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth, is one of those powers.

Note that Section 64 offers no direction at all about who the Governor-General can appoint as a Minister of the Crown. The only impedance is that the person must become "a senator or a member of the House of Representatives" within a period of three months. Without any binding whatsoever, this means that the Governor-General could appoint anyone they wish. Think about that, Section 64 allows the Governor-General to appoint literally anyone in the world as a Minister of the Crown (including the role of Prime Minister which isn't even mentioned in the Constitution) for 89 days. When we get to 90 days, we start to test the boundaries of what is meant by "three months".

The Constitution of Australia does not exist in isolation. It is the end point of more than a decade of argument, counter-argument, at least one fist fight, perhaps lots of swearing; by a lot of fuddy-duddy old men, sitting in the basements of town halls in Sydney and Melbourne, hammering it out. Yes there were some legal scholars amongst the men in the various Constitutional Conventions but the most important thing to remember is that they weren't inventing some new form of government but rather, trying to establish descriptions for what already existed and come to some set of formal agreements. The six several colonies of Australia already had their own Westminster Parliaments and the new Commonwealth Parliament was yet just another copy of the form, coined from the die cut in the Palace at Westminster.

Section 64 formally states what always was and apparently what always will be. That is, that The King can appoint anyone he jolly well feels like as a Minister, at any time, for any reason.

Ministers of the Crown are still officers who administer such departments of State as the King is pleased to establish. Ministers of the Crown are agents of the Crown and curiously, so is the King. The person of the Crown did not magically disappear upon the death of the Queen, nor has it done so upon the deaths of previous Kings and Queens, nor will it do so upon the deaths of future Kings and Queens. Parliament and every Ministry of the Crown and every Department of State of the Crown, are the property of the Crown; and the King who is the executive agent at the centre, still formally has untold and unknown power to make and unmake officers to administer that property.

In my not very well paid opinion, the question of whether or not David Cameron could take up a ministerial post if he is neither a Member of the House of Commons not a Member of the House of Lords, was never an issue. The answer was always "yes". The power to make and unmake Ministers of the Crown always resided with the King; who always had that power. Whether or not David Cameron actually was a Ministers of the Crown without having a seat in parliament will be a question of fact, that will be answered upon the minute by minute signing of writs.

Having said all of that, there should absolutely be outrage. The outrage should exist as a result, not of the King having plenary powers to make and unmake Ministers but that David Cameron can become a life peer of the House of Lords with no election whatsoever. Thankfully the reform process in Australia meant that our upper houses are elected. Ultimately every single Senator or Member of a Legislative Council can be removed by election. The fact David Cameron can not be removed by the people, says that the United Kingdom is still not a democracy in this respect. If you can not remove the people who govern you, you do not live in a democracy.

Horse 3266 - Timed Out? Yes, Out.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2023-24-1367856/bangladesh-vs-sri-lanka-38th-match-1384429/full-scorecard

Sri Lanka - 279 a.o (50 overs)

Asalanka - 108

Bangladesh - 282/7 (41.1 Overs)

Najmul - 90

Shakib - 82

- ESPN Cricinfo scorecard, 6th Nov 2023

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Sri Lankan Captain Angelo Mathews has labelled Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan "disgraceful", followig his own dismissal by being Timed Out, during Sri Lanka's loss to Bangladesh in the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Sri Lanka was sent into bat Shakib, and looked like they would have been in trouble except that Charith Asalanka scored 108, as part of Sri Lanka's All-Out for 279. Bangladesh never looked like they were troubled in chasing down the 280-run victory target in just 41.1 overs.

However, it was the Angelo Mathews' Timed Out dismissal, which was the first in any form of international cricket, which made this match actually interesting.

What do I think about this dismissal? I can understand that Sri Lankan Captain Angelo Mathews is disappointed and angry after being dismissed this way because as captain, his team lost. I can understand Sri Lankan fans being disappointed and angry because their team lost. 

However, I do not accept that that this was a violation of the "spirit of cricket" because this was well within the laws of the game. Like it or not, Angelo Mathews was out, he was definitely out, and the decision of the Umpires is final.

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

40.1.1 After the fall of a wicket or the retirement of a batter, the incoming batter must, unless Time has been called, be ready to receive the ball, or for the other batter to be ready to receive the next ball within 3 minutes of the dismissal or retirement. If this requirement is not met, the incoming batter will be out, Timed out.

- Law 40, MCC Laws of Cricket

Quite often a violation of the "spirit of cricket" is invoked but those people that are ignorant of the law, or happen to be at the wrong end of a mistake. The thing is that even if the Umpires are wrong, and even if they are not actually watching the game, their decision as sole arbiters of space and time and laws and decisions and dismissals, is still final.

Jump up and down. Yell like a moron. Flail about like a mad thing. There are Laws by which the game of cricket is played and you must play within them. Exactly how you play inside those laws, and how you play the game, is your choice.

When it comes to the actual dismissal itself, Shakib Al Hasan was well within his rights to appeal for a dismissal and it is not for us to decide whether or not he should have. The decision about how he wants to play the game, including bearing the weight of responsibility of the nation of Bangladesh upon his shoulders, is up to him. 

Secondly, in the case of Angelo Mathews, if the umpires have said that two minutes had elapsed and he was out, then two minutes had elapsed and he was out. This is not even a case of the umpires applying the law incorrectly. They have made the right decision. 

More generally, in the case of Angelo Mathews, as is often repeated in criminal cases and civil cases in a court of law, ignorance of the law is no excuse. If a law says a thing, and you have infringed it, you don't have a leg to stand upon.

There is already an outcry about over rates in international cricket where bowling sides are taking too long and not bowling the required number of overs in a session and in a day. Quite frankly if the laws require fielding teams to bowl their overs in a specified time, it isn't asking much for a batter to have checked everything and be ready to bat in two minutes.

I myself have fallen foul of this very law when I was listed as coming in at number seven on the batting order and given that we were only two wickets down; with the two batters in the middle in a partnership which had just passed 30 runs, I thought that I would visit the smallest room in the pavilion. In the time that I was sat sitting, enthroned upon the porcelain seat of contemplation, four wickets fell. As it was somewhat impossible for me to get up at that point, I assumed that someone else would go out into the middle. When I did strap my pads and gloves and helmet on, and carry my bat to the field, I was immediately shown the index finger pointed towards heaven. Out. Not only out but out 0 (0), Timed Out (Lavatory). I now can at least feel vindicated many many years later.

Angelo Mathews' case though, is very very different from the usual violations which might cause this kind of ire. This is different from a batter backing up too far at the non-striker's end because in that scenario, a batter is seeking, or getting, an unfair advantage and the bowler must run him out if possible. Here though, Mathews was getting no advantage whatsoever, not do I think that nor was he seeking any. If I was a Fielder or a Bowler who saw a Batter creeping at the non-striker's end, then I would absolutely run a non-striker out every day of the week.

Granted that batters routinely pick up a ball in play to give it to the bowler or a fielder and no one appeals, though careful batters ask if they can. Perhaps if Mathews had asked the Umpires and the opposing Captain if it was okay to change his helmet, then I am reasonably sure that there would have been no appeal. However, he did not speak to anyone about changing his equipment; so the appeal however unfortunate for him, was absolutely justified. 

However disappointed and angry Angelo Mathews is now, after being dismissed this way, I am sure that he will look back on this with pride in time. Forever into the future, he will be famous in pub trivia for having been the first person to be dismissed Timed Out at international level. Sure, he would have like to have scored a hundred, or perhaps taken a five-wicket haul but going into the record books this way means that he wins the fame and ovation of the people forever. 

Horse 3265 - The Media Wants You To Believe That Harassment, Rape, And Murder, Are Acceptable

I would like to ledge a formal complaint about the entire of the so-called journalist class in Australia, and the evil misreporting of the murder of Lillie James.

I shall not go into the specific details of the case because quite frankly I do not know anything other than what the media has told us; but I do take issue with the way that this has been reported and the language used.

Everything that we believe about how the world works, is shaped by the use of language and stories. I absolutely reject the notion that anyone is areligious for instance, because everyone without exception believes something about how the world works and has a set of practices based upon that belief set. In the broadest sense, everyone has a belief set and everyone has a religion of sorts.

Everyone's internal belief set and religion is based upon the information received by the individual. News media outlets, whose job it is to collect and report on what has happened, are generators of a lot of the information received by the individual.

This means that the stories and language employed by news media organisations, has an outsized effect on what the general public at large believes and what they then do. Very clearly, media organisations in the broadest sense shape peoples' belief sets and their religion. The Australian newspaper used to have a statement on its website that its purpose was to shape the national converstation, or something to that effect; this says to me that news media organisations are keenly aware of their position in the kosmos and as for-profit-organisations have a vested interest in making sure that the general public at large believes certain things.

What does this have to do with "violence against women"? Simply, the reportage of this is very much a protection racket for the powerful and often rich people) who desire to get away with it, so that they can continue to be powerful and rich. If a poorer person were to do these things, then the story reported would look quite different as they are an acceptable target and can be demonised (justice is sometimes acceptable if the target is orthodox); which makes the media organisation appear in a better light.

The broadest of facts in the case of Paul Thijssen murdering Lillie James, are that this happened inside St Andrew's Cathedral School. What we have here is a private school, in the centre of the city, with a lot of richer and presumably more powerful people's children attending. This case has been generally reported that Paul Thijssen had a psychotic episode; who suddenly flipped out one day. He was even reported as being a "good man"; which is also a common trope which is used to whitewash over murder.

I am not a clinical physician. I am not a psychologist. I am not qualified to make a statement for which I would appear as an expert witness in court. However, I have been in and around the courts, both as a recorder in civil and criminal cases, including ERISP (Electronic Recording and Interrogation of Suspicious Persons), and in a forensic accounting firm in many Family Law cases for more than 20 years. Take what I am about to say as some times Forensis Amicus.

Psychotic episodes do not just appear. No story is told or exists in a vacuum. Ask some really really basic questions. What is more likely?

Is it more likely that someone with no history at all of psychotic episodes just happened to have his very first one immediately just after buying a hammer and arranging to meet his ex-girlfriend? Or, is it more likely that a man who was raised and continually washed in an environment of entitled masculinity, then played out an all too familiar trope of a murder-suicide act?

Do you see the problem here? This is not a case of "violence against women". Any and every claim that this man had to be a "good man" was instantly dissolved by deliberate action on his part. Including if she was awful to him, murdering her is not commensurate to what she has done. There is not just a passive victim here. There is an active murderer.

This is something that makes me quite angry with the news media in this country. The way that news media organisations report things, is also a deliberate use of language. We talk about how many women were raped last year; not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many women were sexually harassed at the workplace; not about how many men harassed women. We talk about how many teenage girls got pregnant last year; not about how many men and boys impregnated teenage girls.

Use of the passive voice in terms of tense and verbage, has a very obvious political effect. Not only does it shift the focus away from men and boys who perpetrate rape, harassment and violence, it shifts that focus onto women and girls. Even the term "violence against women" which is a passive voice construction, is evil. There is no agent in the term. This is just a thing that happens against women but within in the confines of the term "violence against women", nobody is actually doing it to them. Men who do this, are not named and within the confines of the term not even named.

Of course this is exacerbated when news media organisations have the convenient legal responsibility to report that a rapist, murderer, or harasser has the legal position of being innocent until proven guilty. In certain high profile rape cases, where news media organisations have connections to the accused, they can and do run screen for them. 

In this case though, where the murderer has murdered, the various news media organisations still want to paint this in the passive voice. The only conclusion that I can come to is that the news media organisations think that sexual harassment, rape, and murder, is both morally acceptable because it happens against women.

Why are sexual harassment, rape, and murder, morally acceptable by the various news media organisations in this country? Because they are run by powerful and rich men, who not only want to get away with what they do but they have a vested interest in making sure that you believe certain things.

Horse 3264 - When A Jar Of Mayonnaise Was Mayor of Antwerp

Sometimes you come across a fact which is so strange and so weird, that curiosity simply beckons you to follow every single possible lead. 

When slowly falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole while looking for some background information about the various players in the 1844 US Presidential Election (featuring James K Polk the "Napoleon Of The Stump", Lewis Cass who was a general, and Martin Van Buren who had already been a president), I followed the trails of  Martin Van Buren back to The Netherlands which is not actually The Netherlands any more, and the curious tale of the Pennsylvania Dutch which in this case might not even be Dutch but Vlamingen (Flemish). Martin Van Buren's family may have been involved in a turbulent period in what is now Belgian history, with some of the Van Buren family being involved in local politics.

This is where the story got really weird. There were Van Burens who had been Mayor of the City of Antwerp, but if you read further down the list you find one really curious and insane entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Antwerp

Jar Of Mayonnaise - 1752

Jar Of Mayonnaise?!

Come on! Clearly writing the Wikipedia article was someone's local history project, but how can you write "Jar Of Mayonnaise" and leave this in red, without filling in that particular article?! Don't leave us hanging!

Cue a series of frantic searches in the 900s section in my local library and delving into books which only half glance at Belgium and merely hint at what could have been. The story which I have been able to piece together is only surface level at best and probably wrong in parts¹. This then, might be the story of how a Jar Of Mayonnaise came to be Mayor of Antwerp.

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Europe in the 1750s was a chaotic mish-mash of sometimes kingdoms, sometimes city-states, sometimes duchies, sometimes principalities, and sometimes entities that were so vague that even they weren't really sure of what they were. Belgium in the 1750s was not really a thing and the Kingdom of the Netherlands generally was in a period where it wasn't really sure what it owned. The City of Antwerp in the 1750s was one of these places which was in a kind of bonkers flux. 

With tensions brewing between France and the United Kingdom over what was going to happen to North America, and which did spill over in the Seven Years' War, the various crowned heads of Europe were cautiously eyeing each other's patches of dirt on their own continent. The Netherlands wanted to consolidate its power in the north, Prussia was more than willing to use military strength to annexe districts from its neighbours, France was otherwise preoccupied and then there was Venice.

Yes, Venice. Italy as we know it had been coagulating and splitting every since about 473, into variously named entities including the Holy Roman Empire which was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire, not in Italy for that matter. In the vacuum the various Italian city states were eyeing off what they could take for themselves and this is where Antwerp comes in.

Antwerp in 1752 was actually owned by nobody but itself. The story of why this is the case is beyond the scope of this blog post but the important thing to note about his here, is that Antwerp was its own thing.  In late 1751, The Kingdom of Venice had made several appointments to its parliament (known as the Doge) and there was something of a political crisis where by the various factions of electors, could not gain the approval of the public at large to declare a mandate to rule. Electors generally mean freemen of cities and stadtholders across Europe who owned sizeable estates. Remember, this was 1751 and democracy was not really a thing across Europe at that time. 

In an effort to raise public confidence and declare a mandate to rule, a chap named Antonio Garibaldi thought that his best shot at claiming power, was to go on a tour of shock and terror through Europe and thus prove that he was the best person for the job. And so, taking two battalions of troops northwards, he firstly decided to attack Basel in Switzerland and then kidnapped the Mayor. When the City of Basel refused to pay the ransom monies demanded, they summarily executed him. Naturally this caused an outrage right across Europe because even though news doesn't travel as quickly as today, it still spreads pretty quickly.

Garibaldi, now General Antonio Garibaldi, being something of a semi-sensible madman, sent out various spies and scouts to assess then next city for this small army to attack and they reported that the City of Antwerp, which was nominally owned by nobody but itself, had such a small native army of its own, they they could in fact take the city as a possession of The Kingdom of Venice. Taking a city would certainly add to the credentials of General Garibaldi if he was then to return an assert a mandate to rule over the Doge.

Naturally as you should expect, the eldermen and burghers in the City of Antwerp were terrified that their life expectancy was now only a matter of weeks; so therefore it made sense that nobody wanted the job of Mayor of the City any more. This however caused a problem. Even in a city-state with only small government, the functions of governance still need to go on and rather than leave the post vacant they decided that they had to appoint someone even though nobody was willing to accept the job. 

A decision was made in council, on 1st March 1752, that some name simply had to be put forward as Mayor of the City; so the eldermen decided that this would be left up to secret ballot where names could be deposited into a box on the steps of the town hall, and whomever gained the most votes would become the next Mayor, with no questions asked. Four weeks went past as was customary for these kinds of things and upon opening the box on 29th March 1752, they found that they only name which had been left in the box was "A Jar Of Mayonnaise". As those were the rules employed, then that is what was decided; so on 6th April 1752, a Jar of Mayonnaise was formally installed as the Mayor of Antwerp.

Suffice to say, the threat however real or imagined, of being attacked and killed by the army under General Garibaldi soon dissipated in May, when he suddenly died of cholera and the troops in the two battalions realised that they were not going to be paid for their efforts. The troops soon returned home back to Italy and back to their families. The City of Antwerp though, remained perfectly ambivalent to not having a Mayor as the functions of government despite not having a figurehead, carried on regardless as though nothing had happened. I have no idea what happened to the Jar of Mayonnaise² but presumably it was simply thrown into the garbage.

Charles Joseph della Faille would become the next Mayor of Antwerp in 1753 and hold the office through three election cycles; which says to me that business as normal was resumed in Antwerp. Belgium seems to be generally fine with government not having positions filled, and more recently went through a period of more than 500 days of no formal national government.

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¹By wrong "in parts", I did not specify which parts. Which parts? All of them. The whole premise of this is a lie; based on a single Tweet³: https://twitter.com/tashkindred/status/1719746838041968717

²As this story is a lie and the Jar Of Mayonnaise never existed, then it simply continued not existing³. Welcome to Epistemology Today.

³If you say something with enough force and authority, then it becomes fact, yeah?

Horse 3263 - Palestine and Israel: Perpetual Infantile Savages

I hate been asked to comment on the current unpleasantness which is going on between Palestine and Israel. The simple fact of the matter is that whatever you think of the relative causes of the two sides of the conflict, whatever was noble, whatever was just, and whatever was kind, has been obliterated. All that is left are two sets of murderous governments who are both packs of complete bastards, and a lot of very scared civilians.

The government of Palestine which has been captured by Hamas, has as its long term objective, the obliteration of Israel. The current government of Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, appears to have taken the stance that it intends bomb Gaza to the point of evacuation, including the destruction of any and all people who happen to be there as irrelevant.

The unsaid truth here is that war is not hell. War is war, hell is hell, and of those two war is worse. Hell at least has a citizenry which is formed by an admittance of sinners. There are no innocent bystanders in hell. War on the other hand, is absolutely full of innocent bystanders. All of the children, people injured who were going about their business, the old people, even most of the soldiers who under any other circumstance would have no reason at all to point a gun at someone else, are all innocent bystanders. The people who are not innocent bystanders, are the generals and politicians who conveniently manage things from offices far away and then decorate themselves after the fact in shiny bits of metal as a reward for all of the innocent bystanders that they were able to mangle to death.

One quote which always gets dragged back up in circumstances like this, is from philosopher George Santayana's 1906 work, The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress. It is thus:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

- George Santayana, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense. The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1906)

Placing this back into context, the misquoted bit at the end that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is not a statement about learning from history but rather a statement of fact. Remember, this was written in 1906; which was actually before two bouts of massive unpleasantness across the world. 

Experience only comes by actually being somewhere and witnessing it first hand. Remembering in this context, is not studying the past and trying to learn its lessons but rather, actually remembering something by virtue of having lived it. The scope of human memory is no more than 120 years. It is entirely possible that there could have been some people in 1906 who would have had a birth date in the 1700s. That means that human memory extended as far back as the War of 1812, Napoleon cutting his was across Europe in 1814, the complete disarray of 1848, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. 

At the time of writing this in 2023, there are no veterans of World War 1 in the world. There are a few veterans of World War 2. The percentages go up for wars after those dates. When it comes to the modern states of Palestine and Israel, quite literally no-one can actually remember the promises and agreements made and the immediately broken, which created the British Mandate for Palestine; so anyone who wants to claim that one or the other of the current states but not their preferred token in this fight is illegitimate, then they are blowing smoke into a fug of falsehoods.

One of the slogans which became popular after the First World War and was then formally picked up by people like Hannah Arendt and Karl Popper after the Second World War, as they tried to unpick the human psyche to explain the absolutely insanity and bastard savagery which saw Jewish people sent to death in gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing across eastern Europe (particularly Armenians) thirty years' earlier is "Never Again".

The problem with "Never Again" that George Santayana realised, even before the world kicked off twice with bouts of unpleasantness, is that "Never Again" is a lesson which only lasts exactly as long as the last person who can remember a thing is still alive. Even if you were 18 years old when the modern state of Israel was declared open, then that would make you 93 years old now. We can practically assume that nobody born in the post-war Baby Boom and beyond can remember a world where the current set of hostilities didn't exist. This is not because they can not study the past but because they physically can not do so.

The consequence of all of this is that the horrors of the past, must revisit us in the eyes of George Santayana because as we  rapidly approach the end of memory of the two bouts of unpleasantness, we stare full into the abyss once more. What do we find? We find ourselves. We find perpetual infantile savages.

Yet again we come back to the beast that shouts "I" at the heart of the world. The centre of the universe is 19mm behind the front of people's corneas. Nobody on the face of the planet can see the world from any other perspective other than their own and this constant feedback loop creates people who are the heroes of their own stories and obsessed with themselves. The problem with a world populated with perpetual infantile savages is that as they are obsessed with themselves, they very very often come to the conclusion that they are right and will fashion morality around themselves to prove by force, that asserted fact. 

I think that it probably can be taken as fact that obsession with one's self in is a dead end. Why? Because focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on other people and the kosmos at large. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores other people and ignores the kosmos at large, and they end up thinking more about themself than anything else. People whose minds are governed by their own animal instincts for fame, money, power, sex, et cetera, end up being hostile to anything which impedes those ends. Eventually they will not submit to common sense, logic and reason and arguably, they can not even do so. Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.

This is what lies at the heart of every single person including the people who are currently in charge of Palestine and Israel. They are utterly convinced of the moral rightness and fitness of their actions but in the end, it leads to death en masse. 

How anyone can take any side on this, other than calling for the immediate dissolution of both Palestine and Israel is beyond me. Anyone calling for a free Palestine by default would return the place back to Hamas. Anyone calling for a free Israel by default would return the place back to the Netanyahu Government. The only winners out of this are Death, Hades, Gehenna, Sheol and Abaddon. Feeding time is all the time and these empires are more than willing to accept new arrivals.