Horse 3393 - Why Sydney Lost The AFL Grand Final

 I have been asked to write a piece on why the Sydney Swans lost the AFL Grand Final in 2024. The person who asked me to do this (who asked to remain anonymous), couldn't work out in the heat of the moment why a team which went 17 and 6 during the regular season, should biff it so badly and lose by ten goals in the big dance on that one day in September. Seemingly there is no sensible description as to why a team which won the minor premiership, should splutter so badly when it mattered. On paper, this should have been a relatively easy victory for Sydney but football matches are not won on paper but rather, in a place with thirty-six players, green grass, and a football.

Probably the best way to view this match is to look at the relative formations of the two sides. Sydney nominally played a 6-6-6 formation, with 6 players the back, 6 in the middle, and 6 up front. Brisbane on the other hand, tended to play 8-5-5, with 8 behind, and 5 in the middle and up front. This makes some kind of sense in a big match like the Grand Final as a defensive outlook is generally how a scoreline like this eventuates. 120 is not an overly large winning scoreline but 60 is a scoreline which demonstrates either failure to convert possession into points or what happened here, failure to gain meaningful possession. Suffice to say, this match was more or less won in the first half.

The opening ten minutes were dour. No major score happened at all until Will Hayward opened the account for Sydney, then another goal by Tom Papley drew the lead out further; before Kai Lohmann scored two goals for Brisbane; wherein they took the lead and never ever relinquished it. It was the second quarter where Brisbane really put the boot on the throat of Sydney and chocked them into submission, and a comparison of the scores at the end of the first and second quarter bears this out.

Q1: Syd 3.1.19 - Bri 4.3.27

Q2: Syd 4.3.27 - Bri 11.7.73

One goal either way at the end of the First Quarter is not even remotely interesting. However, 7 unreplied goals in a quarter is the kind of thing which breaks a team's spirit and where the half-time break can not come fast enough. This is the kind of scoreline where you go into the dressing sheds wishing for lighting so that the game is cancelled. 46 points is also bigger than the largest margin that any side has come back from in the entire history of the Grand Final; so unless God himself is handing out miracles (which is unlikely as he doesn't even give the Saints any), then you may as well start tying maroon ribbons to the handles of the Premiership Cup there and then. The postcode of the address to mail the pennant to, already begins with a 4.

So what went wrong that Sydney should score but 1 goal to Brisbane's 7 in a quarter? Mostly formation.

I do not care if you are playing Australian Rules, or Association Football, or Cricket, or Field Hockey, et cetera, or any sport which takes place on a very big field, games are very much determined by how well you manage both personnel and space. This does not apply to basketball where the field is small, or netball where the positions are tightly bound in defined bound boxes, or Rugby League or Rugby Union where the scope of space management is very tightly limited by the shape of active play. Australian Rules Football which is played on a massive field and with a very very loose ruleset surrounding what is offside, is such that to the untrained eye it appears that players are free to go where they please; and it is this where Brisbane absolutely excelled where Sydney did not.

Remember at the beginning of this how I suggested that Brisbane tended to play 8-5-5, with 8 behind. That meant that in addition to the nominal 6 players that a team would logically play if they were playing with a balanced set up, that Brisbane had two extra players in their own fifty, most of the time. This meant that Sydney when they did push forward, tended to find contests for the ball where they were outmanned. Having 30% extra manpower to win possession in your own half, meant that even though Brisbane sacrificed players in the midfield and up front, they could win possession more easily when Sydney did foray forward.

This meant that Sydney had a choice. Should they commit players forward to meet the markups where they were outmanned, or should they make use of the extra player in the midfield and up front when Brisbane did push forward? This choice, is one which tactically gets more desperate when a side goes behind on points because of the dilemma that in order to score points, you need people up front to be able to win the ball in a useful position to be able to do so. When Sydney did decide to commit players forward, this created space and loose men in the midfield for Brisbane, who after winning the ball across the half-back line, played the ball forward through very limited corridors up the ground. 

The third quarter of the match which had the score blow out to 73 points, was simply more of the same. Again this was not about Brisbane trying to win the football up front, but choking out any and all opportunity for Sydney to score anything. In that third quarter, Sydney scored just 1.1.7; which in any match of footy is corpsing. Granted that they were allowed to breathe a little bit in the fourth quarter and they scored four goals, but had they done that then the scores would have both ended up at about 16 goals and change; which is both at about 100.

This match was not won because Brisbane were an amazing attacking side who kicked out and handpassed everywhere. Neither was this match about Brisbane restricting Sydney's repeatedly proven ability to play wide which they do at home very well. This match was won by Zorko, Answerth, Lester, Wilmot, Payne, Fletcher and Dunkley, all led by Harris Andrews who stood at the back directing traffic and trying to make sure that nothing got past him without written permission. 

Sydney's top goal scorer for 2024, Joel Amartey, got nothing in the final. Sydney's second top goal scorer for 2024,  Logan McDonald Sydney's third goal scorer for 2024, Tom Papley, got one goal in the final, right at the beginning and never really even saw the ball ever again. 

This is the point on which the match hinged. Brisbane winning a contest in their own fifty, then never allowing Sydney forward. That's where the match was won. You can not score if you don't have the ball. You can not win the ball if you're outgunned and outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned, in every contest. As Sydney were committed forward, there was consistently little organised defence out back because you can not be in two places at once.

Horse 3392 - The Badness Of The US Constitution - 13A, 14A

Amendment XIII.

SECTION 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

-

The fact that 13A was passed in 1865 and only after the country had been torn in two by the Southern War Of Rebellion And Aggression For The Explicit Right To Keep And Retain Slavery, because let's not pretend that this monumental bout of cussedness was anything other than that, actually points all the way back to the creation of the United States itself and the several states' refusal to accept that Somerset v Stewart (1772) might apply in the then colonies. 

Somerset v Stewart challenged the very idea that slavery should exist in England and when the states refused to accept this as a thing, the government under Lord North tried to bring them to heel with punitive taxation measures. The fact that the states refused to accept punishment and negotiate on the matter of why the taxation was imposed in the first place, says that the people who wanted to keep And retain slavery had so much of an economic advantage to do it that they were literally willing to go to war to defend it; which they duly did. The fact that they convinced other people to fight for them, on the notions of "freedom", set in play the petards by which four score and seven years later, these United States would be hoisted.

Let's make no bones about this. The cost of 13A was blood. The cost of 13A was utterly pointless because it should have been addressed before the invention of the United States as a nation. The fact that this took two wars and 93 years, is evil.

Had the United States accepted the ruling of Somerset v Stewart in 1772 then no punitive taxation measures would have ever been passed or needed, the Revolutionary War would have probably never kicked off and certainly the  Southern War Of Rebellion And Aggression For The Explicit Right To Keep And Retain Slavery would have never happened.

However contained within 13A is still a clause which quite frankly is pretty horrid. Given that the United States fostered and nurtured a culture of really evil racial hatred which still persists in some quarters, the clause "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" strikes me as being deliberately nasty.

Having already proven that racial hatred was rampant, how could anyone ever actually guarantee that the courts of law which were and are presided over by equally racist judges, be free and fair? If the whole process which leads to a party "having been duly convicted" is itself coloured with a poisonous tint, then an unjust judge could and would duly convict on petty grounds to subject someone whom they hate, to slavery all over again.

In fact 13A only addressed a specific issue (albeit a very very important one) but did nothing to shape the culture. There was a period of about five years in which there was some semblance of equality but that soon dissolved as soon as those with money and power were able to shape the system to their own ends all over again.

13A did not address issues of equality.

13A did not address issues of equity.

13A did not address issues of decency.

For everything 13A is, the one thing which it is not, is just.

13A immediately sparked off the era of "Jim Crow"; which in many circumstances was not an iota any better. Sure, 13A removed slavery outright as a thing but it never attempted to address any issues surrounding segregation, discrimination, or unfair and unconscionable contracts, the existence of things like company stores, or a whole host of issues that grew up and festered in the culture because the initial scar of slavery was never lanced properly in 1774.

13A never corrected the lie that although America said that it held certain truths to be self-evident, life, liberty, and happiness, it immediately set about to explicitly and deliberately deny those same rights to people who it deemed not actually to be created equal.

SECTION 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

- 

I have no idea why this needs to exist. If Article I, Section 8 already granted Congress the power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to execute the powers contained within the Constitution, then by default 13A Section 2 should have already been included? 

I know that the United States really hates the idea of handing plenary powers to government but deliberately hamstringing it to the point where it doesn't even function well is a bad thing. Yes, there are people who defend that design but by default governance does not merely disappear but crystallises to unelected and unelectable private powers; thus making a mockery of the opening words of the Constitution: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union... No. You do not.

Amendment XIV.

SECTION 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

-

One of the curious consequences of that opening line of 14A is that literally anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the United States. This creates the situation of so-called 'anchor babies' where desperate people will enter the United States (legally or illegally) and have their baby on United States' soil. As citizenship is conferred on the basis of land and not parentage, then that child is a citizen of the United States.

There are of course a lot of asterisks all the way down here; which include the problem of whether or not a first nations person born on a reservation is actually a United States citizen, or whether or not someone who lives in an unincorporated territory where not all of the Constitution applies (thanks to SCOTUS's 1917 Insular Cases) is actually a United States citizen, or even the "sad coconut" case where someone both on an unorganised but incorporated territory like Palmyra Atoll is absolutely a United States citizen. Does the US Constitution apply even when nobody lives there? Yes, it does. It turns out that even the void is not an invitation to anarchy.

But it is the second part of this which is really scary. 

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

By implication, the States can enforce any law which does abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States and which does deprive people of life, liberty, and property, by due process of law. It turns out that the States can actually ignore any rights which people think and believe to be inherent, by merely passing legislation to do so. 

Of course, this was in fact always the case. A right is a legal instrument which allows someone to do a thing, or own a thing, or have an interest in a thing. What 14A does is bounce back a lot of power to the States; who in the five years after 1868, which was immediately after the War of Southern Aggression, began to strip away the rights which slaves and black people had won for a brief period of time; all with the endorsement of 14A because legislatures always pass law by due process of law.

As for "the equal protection of the laws", if the law offers no protection at all but to everyone equally, then this maliciously satisfies the conditions of 14A. 

SECTION 2

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, [being twenty-one years of age,]* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

-

Note 1 - the Members of the House of Representatives is apportioned based upon the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State; except when the right to vote is denied to them. Note that women for the purposes of 14A S2 simply do not exist. Also note that there is a difference between someone being explicitly denied the vote by law, and being denied the vote by law because the state has made it difficult to do so (such as by means of reducing the number of polling places, or making those polling places really hard to get to, or by having machines which simply do not work, et cetera). It might be in the State's interest to have people counted in the "whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State" because then they'd get more Representatives but at the same time, it might be in the State's interest to have people unable to exercise their franchise because the self-interested people with power are a bunch of racist knaves.

Note 2 -  The right to vote at any election can be abridged for “participation in rebellion, or other crime”. Yet again this assumes that the justice system itself if reasonable and just, and not made up of a bunch of racist knaves. The actual operation of this secrtion meant that States who were formally in the North could and did deny the vote to people who had fought for the Confederacy; likewise that States who were formally in the South could and did deny the vote to people who had fought for the Union. 

SECTION 3

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

- 

14A which was passed in 1868 was originally supposed to deny people who had previously taken up arms against the United States for the Confederacy from holding public office, both elected and unelected. That seems sensible enough. Why would you want your former enemies engaged in the apparatus of government. 

It does however pose an interesting question. With regards January 6th 2021 when President Donald Trump stood at the end of The Mall and incited people to violence, to engage in insurrection and with the confessed intent to kill various members of the House and Senate, then that should have automatically disqualified him to run again for President under this section. Several States declared that Trump was ineligible to run for President and had him struck off their ballot papers.

Trump then took the case to the Supreme Court, in the case of Trump v Anderson (2024); wherein SCOTUS ruled that 14A S3 was the exclusive domain of the Federal Government and that the States, even though they were correct in applying the law, were not the ones to do so, so their decisions were struck off as invalid. What the cussing cuss is this cuss? If SCOTUS refuses to apply the law because it was deliberately stacked with partisan appointments, then yet again we prove that functionally even engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States and/or given aid or comfort its enemies therein, is basically pointless. 14A S3 is utterly pointless and useless if the court is made of scum.

Horse 3391 - Tim Tams Are Cheaper When They Go Jetsetting

The idea that market forces will naturally make prices cheaper is often touted by eejits who hate any and all existence of government because it imposes some kind of barrier to their imagined liberty, including when all available evidence shows that market forces do not of themselves naturally make prices cheaper. 

The general idea of the market in economics is a theoretical concept, which looks at prices and volumes that buyers which to buy some particular good/service at, and the prices and volumes that seller which to buy some particular good/service at; then describes the relationship between them. Of itself, the market is only truly concerned with prices and volumes: that is, the price and amount that a contract is concluded at by the buyer and seller. 

It is important to note that of itself, the mechanism of the market is a perfectly amoral beast. It cares not an iota or a jot about the moral goodness or fitness of the good being sold, as evidenced by the fact that markets exist for hard drugs, weapons and firearms, and even the going rate for contract killings; nor does it care an iota or a jot about the moral goodness or fitness of the players involved in the buying or selling of goods, as evidenced by the fact that things like slavery and sex trafficking, both are bought and sold by nefarious cusslords.

It should also be noted here that the market of itself, does not care an iota or a jot about the relative power that the various parties have within the market, as evidenced by the fact that the United States' healthcare market profits amazingly by selling essential drugs and treatments to really vulnerable and desperate people because they can get away with it. If anyone wants to point to the moral goodness and fitness of the United States' healthcare market as being the shining example of how markets work, then you must conclude that they are either an idiot or a cusssmith. 

Setting all of this up by way of background, I note that the supermarket duopoly of Colesworth, as two of the ten largest companies on the ASX by market capitalisation, have both decided to rip the wallets of the general public for fun and superprofits; for not other reason than because they can get away with it. Admittedly this isn't quite the moral quandry as hard drugs, firearms, slavery and sex trafficking, but the amount of price gouging going on has been enough to warrant at least raised eyebrows from the Federal Government:

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/woolworths-coles-sued-by-accc-for-misleading-price-drop-claims-20240923-p5kcnj.html

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Coles and Woolworths of adding to inflation and higher interest rates after the competition watchdog alleged the supermarket giants manipulated prices on hundreds of everyday staples to boost their bottom lines.

- Sydney Morning Herald, 23rd Sep 2024

Speaking as someone who has been conditioned most of my life to think that the idea of something being "on special" is an intrinsic lie because as someone who is inside a shop at a particular place and time, there really is no other contract on offer for that good at that time, I have always gone shopping with the expectation that the price listed is the price listed, and that as a customer I can either choose to accept or reject that particular contract at that time. There are no forward rate contracts. There are no grandfathered price contracts. Nevertheless, when it comes to buying things I am very much painfully aware of the weight of the money in my pocket; to the point that I pinch pennies so hard that they squeal. 

Consider this:

This is the price of a packet of Tim Tams at Woolworths in Prospect.

This is the price of that sane packet of Tim Tams at Tesco in Inverness .

At the current market rates, Au $6.00 = Au $6.00. Also the current market rates, GBP £2.50 = Au $4.86.

There are some things which are so incredibly baffling, that the great Sherlock Holmes thought that this was too much and decided to take up apiary, that Jane Marple thought that this was all too much and decided to take a mental health trip to Bertram's Hotel, and that Farmer Giles Brown had a case of their airs with excitement because he could see and identify the massive pile of male bovine excrement here. 

Now I don't to wish to embarrass a poor operative at Woolworths because I know that this whole issue has to do with forces and motives way beyond this person's control but when I emailed Woolworths to get an explanation of what was going on, I received this glorious piece of marketing puffery:

Please understand that our prices have been changed because of increased distribution costs. We hope that you continue to enjoy the savings at your local Woolworths.

- email from Woolworths, 24th Sep 2024

I love this.

Firstly, this takes no responsibility for their own choices in price setting and instead shifts the blame onto an unnamed third party. 

Secondly, this poor operative at Woolworths knows that I am clearly a nutbag who is a bad faith actor who has asked a question knowing full well that both they and I are chained to system like thespians in a morality play who are both doomed to play the parts given to us.

Thirdly, we both know that Michael Bliss has been hauled into an Uber against his will. This takes the Mickey Bliss. We have all bene taken for a ride. There is no way in Hades, Mordor, Valhalla, Sheol, Abaddon, or any other of the clubs in the Nefarious Football League (NFL) that the excuse of "increased distribution costs" makes any sense at all.

Even if we were to assume that's true, the total distance from the factory that makes Tim Tams, to the Woolworths distribution centre in Minchinbury, to Woolworths in Prospect is less than 16.5km. The total distance from the factory that makes Tim Tams, to Tesco in Inverness, is just a mere 16,797km. It is brazenly illogical to blame "increased distribution costs" when the retail price that same good landed at a place literally a thousand times the distance, is 19% cheaper.

You can not blame distribution costs, or wages which are roughly similar, or taxation because the retail price in Inverness which includes 20% VAT is still less than the retail price in Prospect which includes 10% GST. No. This is possibly the classic example of where market forces are in action, where the mechanism of the market is a perfectly amoral beast and cares not an iota or a jot about the the moral goodness or fitness of the players involved in the buying or selling of goods. This has to be about the purest example that exists where price gouging occurs purely for no other reason than because they can get away with it.

So the next time that someone wants to tell you that market forces will naturally make prices cheaper, you should laugh in their face and they should accept it because this is clearly a comedy routine and they are a clown. They are not a very good clown and unlikely to get a gig in the Melbourne Comedy Festival, but at least they tried.

Horse 3390 - The Badness Of The US Constitution - 11A, 12A

Amendment XI.

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

-

The thing to note about the Amendments to the United States Constitution is that without exception, they are all tacked on after the fact, to modify or clarify something inside the document, or to give spring to some new concept hitherto unrecognised within the document. In principle this either says that the original document was bad and/or the kosmos changed and/and/or the people affected by it finally had the clout to be able to effect the change.

11A is quite frankly strange and bizarre in most legal frameworks. 11A limits the scope and power of SCOTUS to decide cases which cross over state lines and where there might be a dispute, as well as cases which cross over national borders where there might be a dispute.

My reason for why I think that this is strange and bizarre, stems mainly from the United States's strange and bizarre legal conception of what republicanism is. In the United States of America, the United States is a person in its own right as corporation sole and that makes sense. The several States are persons in their own right as corporations sole and that also makes sense. But the fact that the United States is limited to not being able to rule on disputes which cross state borders because they want to keep the personhood of those several states not only distinct but jointly equal in status with that of the nation, leads to weirdness.

Once upon a time in English Law, there were local benches, then benches in Hundreds, the benches in Baronies and Counties, and finally upwards to the Supreme Court and the King Himself. So allergic is the United States to organised hierarchy and the insane fear that someone might actually get the power to do anything, that restraints such as 11A are imposed as a check to that imagined power. That's fine as a concept but in practice what this means is that an already clunky judiciary becomes even more clunky and instead of having national cases which might be able to impose a uniform ruling, the Federal Government and SCOTUS is legally unable and in fact barred from making any kind of ruling at all.

Suppose there was a wage case being argued by a combination of workers in the State of Jefferson and the head office of XYZ Co. was in the State of Kalmia. 11A means that this must be decided in one of those states. If XYZ Co. then has various manufactories in the States of Lincoln, MacKenzie and Norton, then a suit making a wage case must be launched in each of the several States of Jefferson, Kalmia, Lincoln, MacKenzie and Norton and SCOTUS and the lesser Circuit Courts are barred from deciding a national wage case. In my country, a national wage case would be decided by a Federal Industrial Relations Tribunal of some sort, or maybe even by the High Court itself. That is legally impossible in the United States due to 11A.

11A might have been sensible in 1795 when companies were small, but the rise of factories and the joint-stock corporation, and then the multi-national joint-stock corporation, makes a complete mockery of what 11A was intended to do. 11A as a handbrake on the imagined power of the United States' Federal Government, by design restricts its power to act; including when that power to act could have been really useful. 11A inadvertently could be a reason why the United States is one of the few countries in the OECD with no real Labour Party to speak of. Actual governance in many cases such as labour relations, education, the franchise, is either left to the several States or ceded to private concerns. The only people who really win out of this, are the killers, thieves, and lawyers, who can either exact and extort outrages across state lines, or who stand to make profits from suits which cross state lines and/or national borders. 

Amendment XII.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;-the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.

But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. [And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.] The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

-

12A is a ramshackling mess. 

The Electoral College which was a stupid answer to a bad question, was in fact such a bad answer that it had to be changed pretty well much immediately. 

The new form of government invented for the United States of America, is almost exclusively the design of Alexander Hamilton. I have no doubt that he meant well in considering how the mechanics of the House of Representatives and the Senate should operate and they're mostly a copy of the Houses of Commons and Lords in London, but when it came to the appointment of the President it is really obvious that Hamilton never thought beyond the tenure of George Washington and wanted to install him as King.

Hamilton's answer to appointing the President was so incredibly rubbish, that as soon as Washington got tired and stepped away, the next election in 1800 was an omnishambles. John Adams who had previously been Vice President and who described that office as the most insignificant office ever devised by man, won the election but the idiocy of Hamilton's design meant that the person with the next number of votes in the Electoral College became Vice President. The position fell to Thomas Jefferson; who it must be said absolutely hated Adams with the same kind of passion that Hamas and Likud have for each other. Of course Jefferson agitated for the system to be changed because he knew that he would probably (and subsequently did) assume the office of the President and did not want his Number Two to cling to his shoes like a number two. 

12A stipulates that there are in fact two elections, and that at least one of the people who the electors vote for shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; which is presumably to stop a state for voting for their favourite son. In practice the "ticket" of a President and their nomination for the Vice President, means that the functional requirements of 12A are always met. So-called "Presidential Elections" are not strictly the case in that they are in fact "Presidential AND Vice Presidential Elections". On certificate day when the Electoral College certificates are opened and read and counted, there is not one election but two. Thus the ticket of Apple/Banana versus Morris/Norris are actually stapled elections. At time of writing, the two sets of tickets for the big parties are Trump/Vance and Harris/Walz. 

Horse 3389 - B1 Bus: The Data Proves That It Got Worse

https://manlyobserver.com.au/bus-issues-drag-on-for-northern-beaches-commuters/

March has seen bus commuters face long lines and extended wait times, with several Manly Observer readers telling us they have simply given up and opted to drive in.

It’s been even worse for commuters in the Frenchs Forest and Belrose area, where driver shortages are even higher and cancellations a daily event.

The primary provider of local bus services, private operator Keolis Downer, which franchises the operations from NSW Transport, said the issues were caused by a number of drivers calling in sick.

- Manly Observer, 16th Mar 2024

Well... it somehow got worse. 

Horse has previously written on both the gap in the Sydney Trains network on the Northern Beaches (the Northern Beaches needs an L - Horse 3286) and the seemingly Schrodinger's Bus that is the B1 (Horse 2550). The B1 Bus from Mona Vale to Wynyard, in lieu of the Northern Beaches Line which was touted in Bradfield's 1916 plan and for which provision was made on the eastern side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, by the time it gets to Mosman is always so full of an evening that the headboard will frequently read "Sorry Bus Full".

The B1 Bus which was originally run at a 7 minute frequency, immediately after privatisation and take over by Keolis Downer was reduced to a 10 minute frequency. Well now, thanks to  Keolis Downer being a for profit business, the B1 Bus has been degraded even further. And because (and yes I started this sentence with TWO conjunctions, so there) I am an accountant and data is beautiful, I thought I'd take a highly unscientific survey of every bus that I took between Wynyard and Mosman in both directions; taking note of the waiting times.

The data set covers from 13th August to 14th September

In the Morning:

9, 11, 14, x, x, 15, x, x, 19, 13, 16, 13, 16, 13, 11, x, 1, x, 12, x, 15, x, x, 16, x, x, x, 21, x, x, x, x

In the Evening:

x, x, 11, x, x, 18, x, x, 11, x, 2, 12, 13, 13, 14, x, x, x, x, 9, x, 22, x, x, x, x, 20, 19, x, x, x, 16

Here's the problem, the blank spaces in the data do not indicate a blank space in the data but rather a time when another bus (usually the 172X or 173X) arrived before the B1 bus arrived. Even so, assuming that we have a large enough data set, then the average waiting time for a B1 bus is a little over more than 13 minutes.

I very much realise that this is a first world problem and that my complaint is somewhat petty in the face of there being lots of bus services on the Northern Beaches, and further to that looks really silly when you consider that out in the west the 752 bus which I will often get operates on a 30 minute service (sometimes) but the point is still illustrative.

Once upon a time the 133 bus would leave Wynyard for Mona Vale on a tight 7.5 minute frequency. It was designed to chime off all of the quarter hours and the spaces in between. It was replaced by the M30 which became a "high frequency" service and then blew out to 10 minutes almost immediately; which was then was replaced by the 100 which is also supposedly a "high frequency" service and runs at a 20 minute service at best. Likewise, the B1 was touted along similar lines and although the route has not changed (probably because the big yellow double decker buses are so distinctive that they can not very well change the service in a hurry) the bus is likely now running on a 13 minute service.

The common thread here is that Keolis Downer being a for profit business runs both the B1 bus and the 100 bus services as for profit services. Of itself that is not a bad thing but a for profit business almost by definition does not want to do anything that is not profitable. In principle, the way that you make a profit is by collecting monies and then not spending any monies. If you can continue to collect monies while at the same time restricting the things that force you to spend money, then you are well on the way to spinning a profit.

What are those things that force you to spend money? As a bus company, those things are almost purely the running costs of buses. This includes registration, insurance, petrol, maintenance, somewhere to house the buses, and of course someone to drive the buses. Although I do not have access to Keolis Downer's accounts, I can tell you that running fewer services means that all of the running costs such as  petrol, maintenance, and paying someone to drive the buses, must invariably be lower. The fact that Keolis Downer has been more or less forced to admit that it has been skimping on maintenance because of in-service breakdowns, indicates that it has been deliberately minimising its costs to spin a profit. The fact that immediately after what used to be the various Sydney Buses companies were sold off to various private corporations including Keolis Downer, that all of the drivers were fired and then hired back for lower wages indicates that it has been deliberately minimising its costs to spin a profit.

Lowering costs, in terms of reducing maintenance costs, paying drivers less, and running fewer services, means a worse service for the customer. Of course this is irrelevant for a private corporation as long as they can continue to collect monies; which they will as people who use public transport will continue to do so unless the service is so bad that they will be forced to change their habits. Also, as we don't have anything remotely like competition due to the fact that the various bus companies are assigned geographical areas of operation, then the general travelling public literally have no choice about the quality of the service because there are no competing operators. The 'choice' is really something of a Hobson's choice; which in this case is literally 'take it or leave it'; where leaving it actually means leaving the service.

Here's the kicker which turns this from a mere straight argument into a straight flush. When people leave the service and take their own car, they contribute to and actually become part of increased traffic. That in turn reduces the speed of traffic because of fluid dynamics rules; which means that as the B1 Bus is a bus and must live inside traffic, then the service gets even worse because it gets slower.

Horse 3388 - The Badness Of The US Constitution - 6A, 7A, 8A, 9A, 10A

Amendment VI.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

-

6A sounds noble. 6A sounds fair. 6A sounds just. Is it? I agree with most of the text of 6A except for the actual epistemology of two words; upon which 6A collapses into rubble. What is an "impartial jury"? Can an "impartial jury" truly exist in a kosmos of knaves? Let's throw in race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, political affiliation, et cetera. If the accused is in a court of law and the jury has othered them,  the right to a speedy and public trial does not ensure that the outcome will be just or equitable. How many people have been left hanging on the decision of an "impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed"? How much strange fruit has been left to rot upon the tree?

In principle the idea that someone should not be imprisoned without lawful judgment of their peers, was already on the books some 576 years before the US Constitution adopted it and not quite two hundred years before any English people had ever set foot in America.

http://magnacarta.cmp.uea.ac.uk/read/magna_carta_1215/Clause_39

No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

- Clause 39, Magna Carta (1215)

This means that effectively, the right already existed in English law and by extension in American law. 

In Australian, we incorporated the principle contained in 6A and in fact what had already existed in various pieces of English Statute Law, as Section 80 of our Constitution:

http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s80.html

Trial by jury

The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament prescribes.

- Section 80, Australian Constitution (1900)

Note that Section 80 differs from 6A in that 6A frames this as a right which is owned by the individual, rather than a directive imposed as the operation of law. Again we need to ask what the Constitution is for: where in Australia it is the set of rules by which parliaments make rules, whereas in the United States it is repeatedly unsure as to what it is supposed to be. It does not understand its own epistemology nor its own telos. 

Amendment VII.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

- 

On the face of it, 7A sounds reasonably reasonable. In 1789 twenty dollars was a lot of money. A day labourer could expect to earn about $1.50 a week. $20 would have been about six weeks' wages or probably the equivalent of at least ten thousand dollars now. The amount is large enough so that ordinary people would have felt pain upon its injury but not so large that the very rich would much be affected by its absence. The idea that "the right of trial by jury shall be preserved" sounds like a good idea for equity's sake but the next part comes with an awful awful sting.

The demand that no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, was allegedly put there to preserve the sanctity of the jury system. While that might be true, the halt upon all facts being  re-examined in any Court of the United States, is quite nasty. 

7A is an excellent way to ensure that people with money and power, can preserve it. There is no restraint upon the makeup of juries, nor any thought about what happens if a jury is packed, and this 'right' prevents any and all future courts from  looking at the material of the case. This is excellent if you have money and power and the means to pay off a jury because it means that having shut down a case, future courts can no longer rule on it. 

This is especially excellent when the thing itself "where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars" is a chattel good which might have escaped. That same chattel good might also have zero ability to dispute the means that they became a chattel good; and now no longer have the right to have any facts being re-examined in any Court of the United States. Yes, slaves were considered to be chattel goods. 7A actively defends this evil.

7A reads as though there is the assumption that a jury and its members are reasonably reasonable. Do you really honestly believe that in 1789 that an all-white jury would be reasonably reasonable, or fair, or just, to a black slave? Run the clock forwards through the Civil War, the whole period of Jim Crow, and the current iteration where people have been re-invigorated and can now add other factors of identity politics to their bow on both sides of the idiotic identity spectrum in the United States and 7A looks just as cruel and monstruous now as it did when it was added. 6A's promise of an impartial jury is equally as false and idiotic as it is here in 7A.

Amendment VIII.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

-

8A is an okay thing to write down. The problem in principle with 8A is that it is both vague and reductive.

Exactly who is to say what "Excessive bail" is? Exactly who is to say what an "excessive fine" is? Exactly who to say what "cruel and unusual punishments" are? In all three cases, the power, authority, and responsibility, to decide these things, lays with minor courts and SCOTUS. 

If SCOTUS was to demand bail, are they really going to say that their own bail demand is "Excessive"? If SCOTUS was to impose a fine, are they really going to say that their own fine demand is "excessive"? If SCOTUS was to prescribe and meter out a punishment, are they really going to say that that punishment is "cruel and unusual"? 

Have I made the point yet? 8A contains not only a vague and reductive directive but a directive which creates an internal conflict of interest. 

Amendment IX.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

-

So?

So what?

I have a massive problem with 9A on the basis that it and in fact most of the enumeration of certain rights, in principle, is stupid.

In his commentaries on English Law, which mostly looks into the nature of what pieces of legislation were on the books as well as the corpus of active common law, said that:

"An Englishman is free to do whatever the bloody hell he likes, as long as the law doesn't put up a fence which barres him to enter."

- William Blackstone, Commentaries On The Laws Of England (1769)

In other words, the rights of "An Englishman" are assumed to be otherwise unlimited unless the law says something different. American Law, where people often say "it's a free country, I can do what I like", then act as if that were true, doesn't quite make it to Blackstone's assumption. 9A would like to pretend that people have unlimited rights, but the mere existence of law and the monopoly of force behind it, immediately concedes the point that Blackstone was right. The law is a series of fences and boundaries; as it should be.

In the American conception of a right in American law, the blinkers which people seem to have with regards rights are such that general conception of what rights are, is that they only exist insofar as much the empower a person to do a thing, and nothing else. This is in star contrast where a right is a claim at law to do a thing, to own a thing, to have an interest in a thing. Americans generally understand at law that a property right is a claim to own some piece of real or unreal property, but not to be able to make claims upon the state itself to provide a thing. That seems stupid. The very point of government is to provide governance. Every citizen can and should have and  be able to make claims upon the state itself to provide things. 

Amendment X.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

-

If a right is a claim at law to do a thing, then why does it not follow that in order to do a thing one needs the power to be able to do that thing? Yes, there are a wealth of cases at law where people have made 10A claims but those same cases could have been easily made under 9A. 10A is the Department of Redundancy Redundancy Department for Redundancies. 

I spoke to a client of ours who is a KC and he thought that any competent reading of 10A would be identical in outcome to that of 9A. Even the internal reading of 10A is somewhat dim. Of course the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution must be held by someone else and if not the States then whom else but the people? 

Actually I find it kind of repulsive that in the discussions during the Constitution Conventions and the subsequent agitation for these amendments, that 10A was specifically argued for on the basis that the several states should have the right to write their own separate legislation to do with slavery. The Southern War of Aggression which would kick off in 1861, is always invariably touted as a "states' rights" issue but as the question of "states' rights to do what?" relates to slavery, then the motivation for the inclusion of 10A seems pretty cussing evil to me. 

Horse 3387 - ALDI Has Fans?

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I think that too much sport is never enough and that unironic fandoms for everything is excellent. Politics is essentially a game to political football teams; and the result we saw last night was a 0-0 draw between Rolling Idiocy and Dramatic Incompetence. Fizzy drinks that taste of weirdness have long sorted themselves into rivalries with the red-v-blue derby of Cola-Cola and Pepsi, and now the tripartie energy drink rivalries of Monster, Red Bull, and V. And to complete the Rule of Three, we now have supermarkets also playing as football teams:

https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/too-good-to-be-true-disappointment-after-aldi-advertises-new-store-assistant-jobs-in-tasmania/

Fans disappointed after Aldi mistakenly advertises new store assistant jobs in Tasmania

- Pulse Tasmania, 11th Sep 2024

In the green corner we have Woolworths playing a traditional 4-4-2 against Coles who also play a similar formation, with Fruit and Veg up front, Meat and Cheese also playing in defence, Bread, Canned, Jar, and Boxed goods all playing in a solid midfield, with Frozen and Pet slamming it home. Impulse Buy plays a solid part to make sure that the customer does not get out without giving up every single red cent they can.

In the past there have been other teams playing for championship supremacy but most of those have either folded or been relegated to minor divisions. Bi-Lo, Jewel, Franklins, Flemings, IGA, Safeway, Roelf Vos, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, have all made tilts at the championship and have occasionally taken the title but the big two in the league have won the vast majority of flags.

Apparently, according to Pulse Tasmania, ALDI has "fans".

Seriously?

"Fans" of Aldi?

They exist?

Or rather... WHERE DO I SIGN UP?

A L D I, S Ü D K U R V E

ALDI SÜDKURVE!

Allez der ALDI Super, Allez Allez!

Allez der ALDI Super, Allez Allez!

Allez allez allez,

Allez allez allez,

Allez der ALDI Super, Allez Allez!

Rather, specifically in Australia we get ALDI Sud. ALDI Nord which is the other German club, was split off in the early years because they wanted to sell cigarettes and the two founding brothers had different ideas. ALDI Sud with no ALDI Nord playing in Australia, does not need the differentiating post-epithet; so is just ALDI.

ALDI does not play a traditional 4-4-2, though it does start out with Fruit and Veg and Meat and Cheese playing a solid line; but Bread, Canned, Jar and Frozen might be playing anywhere in the lineup.

ALDI's lineup gets really confusing in the midfield, where it decides to play "total supermarket" (as made famous by  Rinus Michels), and absolutely anything can be in the middle: Lawnmower, Violin, Cheezels, Book, Garden Ornament, Helmet, Big Laundry, Work Shirt, Shoes... who knows what you are going to find playing in the middle of the park from week to week? Nobody. That's who.

Unlike the Socceroos where you might hear chants of "ARNOLD OUT, ARNOLD OUT", or Matildas fans clamouring for Gustavsson to go even though he brought never before seen success to the team, if the Aldi Ultras were to demand that one of the players such as Ski Mask or 60 Chips were to be stood down, they'd get it. The club management at ALDI is not afraid to try out new players and formations; which does make it difficult to find your favourite player sometimes (they might not even be playing) but at least they are trying to live up to their club motto of "Good. Different".

Things could have turned really nasty in season 2020/21 when everyone decided to make toilet paper casserole (there is no other sensible explanation as to why people wanted so much toilet paper during a respiratory disease pandemic - people had to have been eating the stuff), and shelves were completely empty on occasion. The ALDI Ultras could have gone berko and feral and brought out flares (including the ones that Suzi Quattro used to wear) and turned full-on hooligan. That did not happen but if there are ALDI Ultras, then who knows what kind of supermarket based shenaninganry we'd have?

I would be willing to be that just like the Bunnings Ultras can and do wear the Bunnings Straw hats like a bunch of Bavarianbauer, that if ALDI were to release a line of ALDI replica football kits, they'd sell loads. If that sounds daft, which it does, then remember that Pulse Tasmania thinks that ALDI has fans. Well they do now; I wanna be an ALDI Ultra!

Gib mir ein A - A

Gib mir ein L - L

Gib mir ein D - D

Gib mir ein I - I

Was bedeutet das? ALDI

Singen, ALDI ALDI ALDI Tätärä Tätärä Tätärä

Singen, ALDI ALDI ALDI Tätärä Tätärä Tätärä

Singen, ALDI ALDI ALDI Tätärä Tätärä Tätärä

Singen, ALDI ALDI ALDI Tätärä Tätärä Tätärä

Horse 3386 - The Badness Of The US Constitution - 3A, 4A, 5A

Amendment III.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

-

One of the tests of how good or bad a piece of legislation is, is the number of cases that have been brought upon its basis. The number of number of cases that have been brought to the Supreme Court of the United States on the grounds of 3A, is exactly nil.

0

Zero.

This either says that this piece of law is either:

a - perfect,

b - useless, and/or

c - both.

The fear which is hinted at within the text of 3A is perfectly reasonable to understand. The first proper police force in the world, that is one that had been trained from the outset to enforce and prosecute the law, was founded in London by the Peel Government in the 1830s. This is why Robert Peel's police force subsequently became known as "Bobbies" or "Peelers". Given that 3A exists roughly four decades before this, then who acted as the de facto police force? Soldiers.

Just as they had been since the days of the Greek City-states, 2300 years before, it was soldiers who became the de facto sheriffs and prosecuting magistrates of the land. The British American colonies operated practically identically to the conditions back home in England; which meant that policing in the 1770s up until the outbreak of the unpleasantness was done by the redcoats; thence after by various minutemen in America.

The actual clause in question from the Quartering Act 1774 which was probably still in the memory of the people who agitated for this to be pinned to the Constitution, reads thusly:

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/quartering_act_1774.asp

That, in such cases, it shall and may be lawful for the persons who now are, or may be hereafter, authorised be law, in any of the provinces within his Majesty’s dominions in North America, and they are hereby respectively authorised, impowered, and directed, on the requisition of the officer who, for the time being, has the command of his Majesty’s forces in North America, to cause any officers or soldiers in his Majesty’s service to be quartered and billetted in such manner as is now directed by law, where no barracks are provided by the colonies.

- Clause 1, Quartering Act (1774)

Astute observers will note that this specifically related to "his Majesty’s dominions in North America" and that neither the Quartering Act 1765 which this act replaced or the Quartering Act 1774 had any force outside of North America. It is also worth nothing that the "such manner as is now directed by law, where no barracks are provided by the colonies" in order to quarter and billet soldiers, required a writ and that the owner of the public house be paid at five shillings in the pound higher rates than the usual asking price. 

Even more astute observers will note that 3A doesn't actually give rise to a right but an imposition on government which of itself is neither here nor there; but does mean that the common soubriquet of the "Bill of Rights" is a misnomer. Should this have been simple legislation? Probably. Did this need to be attached as an Amendment? Almost certainly not. 

My conclusion is that 3A meets the criteria of Condition C (both perfect and useless) and that it isn't likely to be looked at because although it is on the books as a fun little appendix, it has no practical effect whatsoever. 

3A in principle demonstrates why attaching rights to the Constitution is a stupid idea. The so-called "Bill Of Rights", which isn't even called that within the legislation, was a list of demands to government at one particular time in history. Its existence has very much blinkered Americans' perception of what rights actually are, for more than 230 years. Legislatively they have a hideously myopic view about what rights are and what in fact the Constitution itself is supposed to do.

3A was written in response to the memory of the Quartering Acts; which empowered British Troops to be quartered in public houses by writ; which was without the consent of the Owner. The reason why you want troops in a public house, was to enable the quick and easy setting up of court houses in lieu of public buildings. The truth is that the Quartering Acts could have all been repealed by simple legislation but a Constitutional Amendment can not. Thus there is an appendix which has literally had zero effect which forms part of the United States Constitution but more important things such as health care, education, equal rights on the grounds of sex and race, and even the franchise itself are not explicit rights.

Amendment IV.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

-

4A says that if government wants to look into peoples' houses, papers, and effects, they need a warrant. Get it? Got it? Good. Again we need to ask if this should this have been done with simple legislation? Probably. Did this need to be attached as an Amendment? Almost certainly not. 

Where I live in New South Wales, the current version of the Search Warrants Act in NSW hedges in the common law powers of the officers of the law; and does so by equally striking off the power to search and seize without a warrant:

http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/nsw/repealed_act/swa1985175/

Any common law power conferred on a justice of the peace or any other person to issue a warrant authorising a person to enter premises for the purpose of searching for stolen goods or any other thing is abolished.

- Section 24, Search Warrants Act (1985)

Note that this version of the Search Warrants Act which replaced and repealed previous versions of the relevant legislation, only dates from 1985. Does that mean that the government had the ability at law to look into peoples' houses, papers, and effects, without a warrant before 1985? Far from it. What the 1985 legislation demonstrates though, is that law should always be up for review and be dynamic enough to change as society changes.

Yet again the clauses within 4A about needing a warrant, don't really define a right but rather they define a set of limits which are placed upon the officers and administrators of the law; which simple legislation could have done. Moreover in an age of electronic surveillance, and property that might be only found in digital form, having law which can dynamically change, is far more useful than crystallised echoes of the long since dead.

If 3A didn't demonstrate the point, then 4A's inclusion very much does demonstrate the point that even in the 1780s and 1790s, the United States' Constitution wasn't really doing what a Constitution was supposed to do; including when compared to the constitutions and charters of other companies. 

If the base assumption is that you are free to do whatever you like unless that is hedged in by law (which by the way existed in English Common Law long before this Constitution was written), then this whole thing is redundant. 'The right to be left alone' and 'the right to quiet enjoyment of one's property' are both rights which have been proven to exist at law in Australia but which would have never have been thought of in the United States and now, can not be thought of due to the blinkering effect of the Constitution.

Amendment V.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

-

Broadly speaking, where I live in Australia (both at state and federal level), if you believe you are a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation, then you have you right to refuse to answer any questions which relate to the alleged offence.

The right to speak or not to speak, which is the basis of the United States "Miranda Rights", already sat within the bounds of the right to free speech and the right not to exercise same. In Australia, while there is no compulsory reminder to someone that they have right to remain silent, this is more than tempered by the fact that Australian law actively protects an accused person in court from any inference that exercising their right to silence is an admission of guilt. Juries are even directed as part of their instruction, to refuse to consider silence as an admission of guilt (though what actually happens inside a Jury Deliberation Room is subject to absolute secrecy).

In most situations, this means that a jury would need to determine the innocence or guilt of a party from the facts of the case. If someone chooses to exercise their right to silence, then it is incumbent on the presiding judge to direct the jury that they can not interpret that silence as an admission of guilt.

At least in New South Wales, this has even found its way into statute law:

http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ea199580/s128.html

128 Privilege in respect of self-incrimination in other proceedings

(1) This section applies if a witness objects to giving particular evidence, or evidence on a particular matter, on the ground that the evidence may tend to prove that the witness--

(a) has committed an offence against or arising under an Australian law or a law of a foreign country, or

(b) is liable to a civil penalty.

- Section 128, Evidence Act (1995)

The common law privilege against self-incrimination entitles a person to refuse to answer any question, or produce any document, if the answer or the production would tend to incriminate that person. Although broadly referred to as the privilege against self-incrimination, the concept encompasses three distinct privileges: a privilege against self-incrimination in criminal matters; a privilege against self-exposure to a civil or administrative penalty (including any monetary penalty which might be imposed by a court or an administrative authority, but excluding private civil proceedings for damages); and a privilege against self-exposure to the forfeiture of an existing right (which is less commonly invoked).

Section 128(1) of the uniform Evidence Acts applies where a witness objects to giving particular evidence that ‘may tend to prove’ that the witness has committed an offence under Australian or foreign law, or is liable to a civil penalty. Under Section 128(2):

Subject to subsection (5), if the court finds that there are reasonable grounds for the objection, the court is not to require the witness to give that particular evidence, and is to inform the witness:

(a) that he or she need not give the evidence; and

(b) that, if he or she gives the evidence, the court will give a certificate under this section; and

(c) of the effect of such a certificate.

So what does any of this have to do with 5A? This is the third time in a row, that in my not very well paid opinion, that a thing which has been included as a 'right' should not be included as a right. Yet again we are forced to ask what a Constitution is supposed to do? If it is the set of rules that tell you how to make rules, then it makes no sense to include second order rules in the Constitution. Why is this in particular a fundamental right at law but the right to life and the right to vote are not?

Horse 3385 - A Broken Network Is Better Than A Neverwork (Sydney Metro)

Yesterday morning at Central Station, a crack in a track, warranted sudden urgent critical repairs; this caused Sydney's train network to turn from a network into a notwork, and from a boring boring swift service of silver snakes into a slow moving omnishambles. The repairs had immediate knock-on effects which affected the Northern and Western Lines, the Inner West and Southern Lines, and the East Hills Line. Nominally it did not affect the Olympic Park shuttle service, nor the Cumberland Line, though when I got to Marayong Station, there were no trains running in either direction; so I think the Cumberland Line was temporarily cancelled as well. Who knows? I didn't.

With no trains at Marayong Station, I decided to walk back to Davis Rd; wherein I found that the 752 Bus to Blacktown had already passed through and the 752 Bus to Rouse Hill was already speeding down the street, so there was no chance of me making it to the stop on the other side of the road and catching the bus unless I sprouted wings and became an aeroplane. 

Faced with the horns of a dilemma and the worst case scenario playing out, I could either wait for the next bus to Rouse Hill which would take 30 minutes to arrive (mind you, this is peak service) and then a further 58 minutes to get to Rouse Hill Station. That would be 88 minutes to get to the Metro, or I could schlep to Blacktown and roll the dice to see what I'd get. 

It was actually not too bad. In 78 minutes, I had walked from Marayong Station, taken a Blue Mountains' service from Blacktown to Central, and then the Metro from Central to Victoria Cross. So yes, I did ten minutes better than the 88 minutes to get to the Metro, or rather, I got to the other end of the Metro in less time than public transport at my end would allow.

Here's the issue. In what world does it make any sense to be able to get from Marayong to Victoria Cross in less time than it would take to get from Marayong to Rouse Hill? To those people who like to tell me that the Metro is not for me, even though I happen to live reasonably close to it, perhaps they'd like to explain why it is better for me to be able to get to the other end of the Metro to make the connection than to make what could and should have been an 11 minute connection at this end? 

Victoria Cross is lovely. 

The North West Metro itself is a fine piece of infrastructure. It is just that due to the dendritic nature of how the connecting bus services operate, which also have to go in an and out and everywhere to be useful to the most amount of people, the whole purpose of providing public transport to take cars off of the road is entirely negated if it is more efficient by magnitudes to use a car. 

The first problem here is that major piece of infrastructure cost massive amounts of money. One side of government would rather never ever provide anything that the public wants because they can't spin a profit for their backers; while the other one side of government must constantly cower like a bunch of craven little jackasses because they know that the first side of government can and will sell off infrastructure for peanuts to their criminal friends for peanuts, at every single opportunity. I don't know who runs the matryoshka game of companies which ultimately run MTS (Metro Trains Sydney) but as with any set of matryoshka dolls, they are full of themselves.

The second problem here is that the state of New South Wales is governed by two political parties - the Nutcons and the Wingnuts. Both are corrupted in different ways. Every so often the voting public are asked what kind of poisonous slop in a bucket we would like to put our heads into. In addition to being run by criminal knaves and craven little jackasses is that they hate each other; I mean really really hate each other. The Metro when it was approved by corrupt Barry O'Farrell's  Nutcon party, deliberately stopped mysteriously short of an electorate which votes for the wingnut party. Likewise when equally corrupt Neville Wran's Wingnut party opened the Eastern Suburbs Railway, even though it owned all of the necessary land to be able to build a full heavy rail line all the way to La Perouse and connect to the Botany Goods Line, it sold all of that land to spite the voters and as such, there is no Southern Beaches Line. There was no Airport Line until 2000; so that's two sets of spite fulfilled in one go. Dr Bradfield's plan was submitted in 1915; so that's only 85 years to get the job done. 

The Network Effect, which is mostly true for transport networks, telephone networks, communications networks, the internet, et cetera et cetera et cetera, basically stipulates that the usefulness of a network increases when there are more nodes added to the network and when those nodes are interconnected with each other. (This is also the reason why the United States has such an efficient method of killing people with guns. The Network Effect is working excellently.) The least efficient parts of a network and by inference the most annoying, are those stub ends which have limited access to the network and/or only connect to it at one point. The idea of waiting for a bus in the elements for extended periods of time, can and does drive people to use their car; which again undoes the point of public transport.

When the Chatswood to Epping rail link was built, it connected to two points at either end and was excellently excellent. Upon conversion to the Metro, that part of the network was still excellent but the western end as a stub, was deliberately not connected to the Richmond Line. At this point, I don't care what you're excuses are for not connecting it, if you want to defend this deliberate act of knavery, then you are a either a criminal knaves or a craven little jackass who hates the public. The whole rail link was build after the people of the north west called out for one since 1931 and what they got was a private tolled motorway initially. The Castle Hill tram line was supposed to be replaced by a train line; which meant that when Castle Hill Station did finally open in 2019, that only took 88 years to get the job done; so at least we are consistent here.

This morning when Sydney's train network was again running like a boring boring swift service of silver snakes, taking the Metro from the western end to Victoria Cross was still not an option because of the connection problem. I took a train from Marayong, then another from Seven Hills, then another from Central, and got out at Crows Nest because I wanted to test the 144 bus. See that? Connection and connection and connection. That's how a network should work; by working across the various nodes of the network. I do fully expect that the North West Metro will connect to the Richmond Line, in 85 years' time from when it opened because that's the going rate in Sydney. That will be in 2104; so I guess the kids of the twenty-second century will be happy.

Horse 3384 - Don't Do Retro: Just Admit It Was Right And Go Back

This is a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747. 

"Well yes, I can see that. Thank you for pointing out the ruddy obvious," I don't hear you say because that's not how text works.

The reason for this photograph is that I want you to take note at what appears upon the tail of this magnificent bird. The JAL logo, which was introduced in the 1970s, went away for a period in the late 1990s and if you look at current JAL planes, has come back again. 

Of itself that is nothing special but when you consider that when airlines do special throwback liveries, or when railway companies do throwback liveries, or when sporting teams do special throwback jerseys and uniforms, or when motor racing teams do special throwback liveries, in every single case when someone shows off their own branding then I always ask the same question; namely:

If the livery, branding, logo, or other design, is good enough that that you want to remind us of how good it was, then why did you ever get rid of it? Why go through the effort and expense of rebranding something, if you've made it worse? Why not just go back to the old logo forever and be done with it? Why not keep the old logo? 

If you have got the company logo, the company branding, and design language right the first time, then why not employ inertia and leave well enough alone? If you have settled upon something which looks good, then that is a solved problem. You get a Skippy badge. Good job. Well done.

The general case here is that this just doesn't apply to airlines and sporting clubs but every single thing which is going to be around for the long haul and live in the cultural psyche. I have complained long and loudly that the roundels should be put back at Circular Quay railway station; not because I hate the current burnt orange Hail Corporate branding all over the station but because it was right the first time; that also goes for the entire station dress on the Eastern Suburbs Railway line.

Probably one of the reasons why Pepsi which used to be No.2 in the Cola Wars and is now an irrelevance, is that they have had seventeen thousand logos; all of which have come with loads of sound and fury but signify nothing. I note that Pepsi's latest rebrand is something closer to what it was in the 1970s and 1980s; which is what it should have been all along. Pepsi's rival in the red corner, Coca-Cola, has kept the same Spencerian Script word logo since 1885 and the same distinct bottle since 1915; which means that it has survived two World Wars, and several world cups (doo-dah), and apart from the odd clean up here and there, it is still broadly the same.

In principle, the corporate branding of a thing has to communicate the presence of a thing in a hurry. The purpose of a brand is to create ongoing recognition of some corporate endeavour or person, so that that communication of the presence of a thing happens more effectively. You simply can not create ongoing recognition if the brand keeps on changing. Slow an incremental evolution to change with the technology or location might very well be advisable, but humans are pattern recognition machines with salty meatbag thinking muscles, pattern recognition can only happen if people can recognise a pattern. 

The reason for any of this rant is that as I am sat sitting still underneath the approach to Runway 16 at Sydney Airport while the train network goes into meltdown, I noted that a JAL plane arrived and that it looked like a JAL plane because they had undone their mistake and rebranded JAL planes to look like JAL planes again. Qantas is progressively breaking its branding and the Flying Kangaroo logo on its tails, no longer has any hands, nor wings from its previous iterations. The whole point of a Flying Kangaroo logo is that it is supposed to look like a Flying Kangaroo. JAL has conceded the point that its rebranding achieved nothing and that the crane of peace should have always flown everywhere. 

Retro branding is the concession that you got it right the first time. Why change?

Horse 3383 - Officehenge 2: The Revenge Of Henge

This post has been several months in the making. I blame this on the changing of the seasons and the rotation of the earth.

Back in 2021, Julian O'Shea published a video on YouTube about Melbourne Henge. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eENuq2v28rY

Melbourne Henge is the idea that when the sun sets, on some days of the year, that the sunlight lines up perfectly with the cross streets of the central grid of Melbourne. The fun thing about the alignment of the grid of streets in the Melbourne CBD, is that although they are not cardinally north/south and east/west, they are according to Melbourne CBD North which exists only in the central grid of Melbourne. It is about 20° out of alignment.

When it comes to the original 'henges' in Britain, the problem in understanding what they were for, is that not only are we cut off in terms of any kind of written record but we also have the problem that they serve no obvious function. British Henges are kind of rubbish at being defensive structures and if they are religious sites, then their lack of any kind of inscription gives us no indication as to what kind of religion is going on.

For the purposes of this post, since we have no real idea of what a henge is for, then Julian O'Shea's definition is as good as any. We shall take a 'henge' to mean a thing which by design or accident, has various architectural objects which line up with the sun. Just like Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures Through The Looking Glass And What She Found There", how we shall use the word is how we shall choose to use the word; nothing more and nothing less.

I live in Marayong and work in an office in Mosman. Marayong is so far inland that hills cast shadows all over the place. Marayong is a desert for henges. However, Mosman is close enough to the sea to be considered a seaside suburb of Sydney. As there is nothing to the east within the sightlines to the horizon, then Mosman is one of those suburbs in Sydney where it is possible to stand on the beach and watch the sunrise out of the ocean. This probably accounts for why this suburb has property values which would make an o on cry as well as why the average age of the people who live in Mosman, is very much older than the rest of Sydney. The ironic thing about the average age of the people who live in Mosman is that they are so old that they are highly unlikely to ever be awake that early in the morning to ever see a sunrise; which undermines the very point of buying exorbitant housing by the sea. Mosman is God's Waiting Room, where people are waiting for the hearse to come - man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe.

Mosman has lots of buildings which also cast shadows, which means that the eastern side of the building gets direct sunlight, but usually only after the sun has risen considerably. For the building to get direct sunlight, exactly at the correct angle where light streams in through the window, is one of those crazy architectural accidents which gives rise to a very small henge.

On exactly two days a year and for a total of no more than four minutes, the sun happens to be at a perfect angle, such that it peeks through the windows and between a very big cupboard and a wall, so the light can be seen at the front door. Now that's either some mad coincidence which is madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of last year's Mr Madman competition for Mad Mad People, or that coincidence has a scientific reason behind it, to do with the angle of the Earth.

It is so much of a mad coincidence that as we are an accounting office, whose stock and trade is purely in the wrangling of numbers and arithmetic, and because you need to be a very specific kind of person to even think about doing accounting as a job (the kind who actively takes joy in finding patterns and doing arithmetic), that this day was flagged in the diary months ago.

The last time that Officehenge made itself known was on 8th April; which was 75 days before the Winter Solstice. Using simple maths, we worked out that the next occurrence of Officehenge should happen on 6th September (today); which is 75 days after the Winter Solstice. Without knowing any of the exact science behind this, we reasoned that as the last time that Officehenge happened between 08:27am and 08:31am on Friday 8th Apr, that the next very very specific Officehenge should happen would be about the same time on 6th September.

Lo and Behold!

Officehenge happened for four minutes between 08:39am and 08:43am this morning; as calculated.

Isn't it pretty?

Owing to the fact that the Earth is changing speeds (albeit very slowly), then this means that the usefulness of a henge has a limited time frame. Even if we assume that the British Henges were massive timekeeping devices of some sort, they might not be as accurate now as they were when they were installed. That probably doesn't really matter if you are a neolithic people group on a cold wet island, in the days before there was even BBC Radio 4 but even so, ancient Britons were still likely to be interested in farming dramas like "The Archers".

Officehenge serves no religious purpose, no defensive purpose, and no timekeeping purpose as far as I can tell, but the future historians who look upon this troubled world of twenty-first century Mosman, just might be as daft as we are in assuming that it does. But then again, no. Officehenge and the building will rot over that scale of time.