Horse 3452 - Is Boofhead Racing Fun For Someone?

Before I begin this rant, I have to top this with the caveat that I am Australian. I live in the nation where down under is on top and where touring car racing has been the premier category for more than 60 years. Nevertheless, even in this weird part of the world, we have been able to watch NASCAR racing at least in some capacity since about 1980. Admittedly the first NASCAR races that I saw in full were in 1985; so I have only have had about 40 years to watch. If someone from NASCAR stumbles across this and wants to send me to Darlington for the Southern 500 (which is actually the apex Crown Jewel race), then that would be lovely.

What we saw on Saturday in the Xfinity Series (aka NASCAR 2) has been described as disgraceful or something similar among the commentariat. The incident in question happened at the end of the race; so if you would like to watch the highlight reel, the link is provided here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdVA9F-WFkg

For those who simply want to read this post, the description in broad terms is thus.

Sam Smith driving the No.8 car on the last lap of the race and after the White Flag had been showed, decided to one-shot Tanner Gray in No.54 and bash him out of the way. 

This did not result in him winning the race as he wasted so much momentum and speed that he basically became a voluntary sitting duck and at least 10 cars became unwilling participants in the pinball melee. For his effort, instead of finishing second, Sam Smith finished 10th. Tanner Gray was credited with 29th after being an innocent victim in this and the winner of the race... is irrelevant.

The current NASCAR playoff system which is in place across the three series, created such an incentive to win that the difference between 2nd place and 1st place is literally worth junking the entire field for. Say what you like about the apparent skill or lack thereof of these drivers, the unbelievable truth is that it is NASCAR itself which created the format and NASCAR as a management organisation which must be held responsible for what happened here.

The playoff system created conditions where these drivers are not in the bit worried about destroying equipment because there are no consequences for doing so. Maybe if there were actual penalties enforced such as a drive-through penalty, or a stop-go penalty, or a lap deleted penalty then his might have the effect of changing the behaviour. However, as NASCAR fails to enforce anything with any consistency at all, then not only is the incentive there to deliberately junk opponents and throw any and all racecraft to the four winds, but the incentive to do so is live and kicking and encouraged.

NASCAR did start clamping down on this kind of idiotic behaviour in the Truck Series and the number of DNFs due to wrecking fell markedly for 2025. However, a good portion of the wrecks currently being caused in the Xfinity Series  are now being caused by rookies who graduated from the Truck Series. Yet again we have landed back in that old adage of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" and as the rules are stupid and the prizes are stupid, then we should expect and have actually got stupid racing resulting in stupid crashing.

I want to know though, is this fun for someone? 

Presumably all of this has been done for no other reason than to chase advertising dollars and to be fair, if your drawcard is having a lot of cars getting wrecked because the spectacle is the product, then I guess that NASCAR from the outset has as already ceded the notion that motor sport itself is a secondary function. Provided that they can front load the various teams with enough cash in prize money to keep on funding automotive pugilism, then everything is fine. 

As it is, the existence of stage racing means that what might have been a natural flow of a motor race which involved strategy and planning tyre and fuel stops, is now non-existent. Stage racing ensures guaranteed fixed points in time; which also means that those decisions are now forced. The green-white-chequer rule with unlimited overtimes, also means that the organisers are practically guaranteed wrecks near the end of the race, plus with the added bonus that they can claim that the end of the race is 'really close', when they've reracked the field to give an effective actual race of only 2 or 3 miles. Sorry, but a finishing gap of 0.003 is not really all that impressive when the real race was only 2 laps.

But as for the playoff system itself which rewards wins at all costs, even that is amazingly broken. Joey Logano as the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series champion, finished the 'regular season' in 17th. 17th in a Formula One race means that a driver has done so shockingly bad that they do not even escape Q1. How this person is then even considered as being remotely in the picture to win a championship is seventeen kinds of nonsense.

As an aside here, I think that the existence of Final Series in all sports is interminably stupid and that the best format is either a League where everyone plays everyone else both home and away, or a Cup where the winner takes all and the loser not only falls but is eliminated. In the FA Cup, a team does not get multiple bites at the cherry - if they lose once, they go home. The only sensible format for a racing series is either a championship made up of various races where the points tally at the end determines the championship or a racing series of just one race. 

What happened at Martinsville was mostly a snoozefest, with a highlight reel attached at the end. NASCAR got what it wanted, I guess?

Horse 3451 - The All New Lamborghini Tristezza

There is a photograph on my camera which makes less than zero sense to me. So incredibly mind-boggling is it, that I simply have to ask the question...

Who is Caleee?

Moreover... what the jinkies is Caleee thinking?

This is genuinely baffling to me because I am simply unable to comprehend what has gone through Caleee's mind. Has anything at all gone through Caleee's mind? Maybe a 7.92mm shot from a standard issue European police pistol? 

I did some basic research and found that this Lamborghini... has X numbers of horsepowers and... okay. I did not do any  basic research at all, because this automotive cipher is so utterly pointless, that I can't even muster the care to do any.

When I saw this limp its way through traffic like an impatient seagull waiting to poop on an unsuspecting person, I genuinely though that this was a new Chevrolet Blazer and that this was an unmasked car on Trade Plates, trying to gauge interest. No. It is not. The fact that this grey blob may as well be a Chevrolet Blazer, means that it has failed the only thing which a Lamborghini should be for. Being cool.

America had the Cadillac and Corvette. These two were symbols of hideous gaudiness that aggressively did not care what you think. Cadillacs should have fins and plush seats as an overt display of deliberate tackiness. Cadillacs are for those people who want to display that they have the cash money cash money, but still want to go to a Burger King and drip grease all over their shirt front. A Corvette is a symbol which also aggressively did not care what you think, by coupling a somewhat cool looking car with an agricultural set of suspension geometry. Corvette is about power without glory or panache.

Italy has Maserati and Ferrari. Maseratis are for people whose star is fading. These are the kinds of people who wrap a SAX Musical inside an MS Bionde, white they alternate between espresso and cinzano. Ferraris on the other hand are for people who have decided that they are not buying a car for sensible reasons but because they want to join the tiofsi. Forza Scarletti. Grazie Reggazie. Forza Ferrari. This is a religion.

Lamborghini? This is a car company with no sporting prowess; and who used to make tractors. To shuffle off the image of the tractor factory, Lamborghini tried to build beautiful cars like the Urraco and Muira, before they realised that beauty was not for them and instead decided to build cars that were bonkers hat-stand mental. Countach. Diablo. Hurracan. In the 1980s, these were the cars which appeared in mechanics' shops and featured ladies of varying states of undress, draped over them. Lamborghini built cars to go extremely fast, with no regards for safety, build quality, or panel fit, but all of those things didn't matter because Lamborghinis weren't cool, they were cooler than ice-cold and dipped into the sub-zero. That's how cool they were.

Now I understand that car companies are businesses and will slap their name on anything if they want to spin a profit; so it does not surprise me that Lamborghini would also stick their name on something as uncool as this, but what I truly don't understand is the mentality of the kind of person who wants to buy this. Yes, it has the name Lamborghini on it but it isn't cool. It makes no attempt to be cool. I don't understand. This car has no telos. It has no point other than to exist. That is why I don't understand the mental leaps of logic of someone who has thrown probably a lot of coin at this. Why? 

Car companies have been raiding parts bins since the emergence of different models from the same company in the 1930s. My guess is that this grey blob is probably borrowing bits from its Volkswagen Audi Group's cousins; probably the Audi A8. I understand the point of buying an Audi A8. An Audi A8 is for someone who wants to look understated to the point where the don't want a BMW 7er or Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse because they have too much personality. A black Audi A8 is for someone who hires other people to go contract killing for them; as opposed to a black Chrysler 300 which is for people who actually do the contract killing. They Audi A8 I get. It makes sense. This does not.

If Caleee wanted a kiddy carrier in which she could carry Tarquin and Jacinta to St Hubris School For The Interminably Profligate, then she should have bought a Range Rover. Jacinta and Tarquin can politely have a vom in a Range Rover, as they sick up the indigestible right-wing formula being served to them in the school's grand dining hall. I don't actually know what kind of upholstery is in the Lamborghini Grey Blob but it is probably made from the hide of 550 Lithuanian Chinchillas, raised on a free-range farm in San Marino. They would not be allowed to vom in Lamborghini Grey Blob.

Because other than carrying hideously expensive kiddiwinks, where Calee knows practically nothing about what a Lamborghini is supposed to be, then I neither understand why this exists beyong spinning a profit for Volkswagen Audi Group. Evidently at least one person has bought this thing but I fail to see why. Can you imagine what kind of looks that Jacinta or Tarquin would get if their mum rocked up in a Hurracan? That would be all kinds of cool.

Horse 3450 - Australia Needs To AUKexit

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the United States under its current kleptministration, is seriously intent on not only burning every single relationship that it has with the entire world, but also the entire apparatus of its own government so that Russian billionaires can swoop in and but everything for a song. A client of mine who grew up in East Germany and lived through reunification, thinks that the process currently going on in America looks similar to what happened in many places which were formerly on the dismal side of the Iron Curtain. 

We have to assume that as the White House has refused to see the Australian Ambassador on a number of occasions, which deliberately withheld basic intelligence from Ukraine as a bargaining chip to make it surrender and hand itself to Russia, and which on the only occasion that Australia actually asked for military assistance refused, would drop Australia like a plate of cold vomit at the earliest opportunity. We must assume that AUKUS is an extortion program and that any request for US assistance in the future will be met with abject disdain.

The fact that the United States wants to invade Greenland, and Panama, and Canada and has shut Canada out of the Five Eyes intelligence network, should give us immediate pause. Quite frankly, I think that the United States should be shut out of Pine Gap, and the interference which followed after Mr Whitlam suggested such a proposal in 1975, merely serves to proves that the United States has never really seen Australia either as an equal or even as a friend. Remember, it was the decisions of the United States which led to Australians being sent to die in Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again. 80 years of Australian blood being spent on the coin on the battlefield, is worthless to the United States.

Already NATO countries were fearful that the F-35 Lightning II as delivered by Lockheed-Martin may have contained so-called "kill switches"; which although is unfounded, is not entirely removed from the truth. The F-35 does rely on target acquisition software, which does require updates; this means that the United States if it wanted to (which we must assume that it does), would also refuse to update the active target acquisition software. Unlike most NATO countries which have a combination of Panavia Tornado, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, and SAAB JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets, the frontline combat squadrons of the RAAF include the F-35 Lightning II, F/A-18F Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler; which are all US delivered.

If Mr Trump has given anything to the world in seven weeks, it is that any sense of complacency is misplaced. Maybe various nations will increase their defence spending to 2% or 3% of GDP. Even we as we speak, Europe is already preparing for the defence of Ukraine, by actively shutting out the United States from the discussions. 

So where does that leave us? In practical terms it leaves us as a sunburnt prison island hidden in the summer for a million years. 

Even if we assume that we are going to get the first of our Emotional Support Nuclear Submarines at the first available date of 2034 (which is utter insanity anyway), the world will have quietly changed. The United States which has voluntarily been backing away from being the premier Superpower since 1991 once it realised that there was no Soviet Union as its acceptable designated enemy, has been on the slide ever since and will have declined to being World Superpower #4 behind China, India and Indonesia in economic terms. 

China has no need to invade because it already exerts soft power everywhere. India has no need to invade because it will exert soft power everywhere. Indonesia is therefore the only likely candidate to invade and to be fair, I doubt it the political system is such that they're going to be organised to be able to do so for some time yet. If we assume that those three are the three great powers of the twenty-first century and are like giant soap bubbles which sit upon the Earth, then the logical position for Australia is to align itself somewhere sensible so that we can live in peace with those powers, rather than perpetually trying to give them the irrits which is current American policy.

As I write this, this American people are mostly unaware that more than 600 tons of its ordinance has been dropped onto refugees who up until yesterday were living in Gaza. While that might be fine for the American people who are blissfully sung to sleep like pathetic babies constantly being fed indigestible right-wing formula, the rest of the world looks ony justifiably horrified. If we continue to align ourselves with this barbarous and murderous pack of bastards, the rest of the world and especially our immediate neighbours in Asia, would be quite rightly justified in painting us with the same brush, as untrustworthy and unworthy adversaries. Do we really need adversaries?

At any rate, the whole issue of Australian spending more than a third of a trillion dollars on nuclear submarines, never once adequately answers that the basic teleological question - Why? What's the point? What do we expect the defence force to actually do? Moreover, do we actually expect eight singular points (if they ever exist) to be able to defend a nation this big? If we do, is the political class in this country so incredibly delusional that they believe in fairy stories? In some respects, this looks exactly the same as the hoo-haa about the Great Powers acquiring battleships in the decade before the First World War. Even a whole fleet of Dreadnoughts was utterly useless and pointless, when it came to fighting trench warfare in places like Pozier, Ypres, and The Somme. Unless your submarine has wheels or wings, it's pretty difficult to fight on land or in the air.

If I am correct, and that AUKUS will functionally prove to be nothing more than an extortion program, then we needed to be out of it before we ever signed up, we needed to be out of it yesterday, and we need to be out of it today if not sooner. The message hidden in plain sight in the slogan of "America First" is that they ultimately do not care about us, nor what happens to us unless there is tangible benefit in it for them. The world of 2045 and 2075 will look vastly different to the way it does now, and the decisions taken today, will affect the lives of Australians not yet born, to be able to live peaceably and quietly, in our corner of the world.

Horse 3449 - &

 Accident & Accident

Accident & Breakfast

Accident & Dragons

Accident & Emergency

Accident & Gin

Accident & Marks

Accident & Recreation

Accident & Spencer

Accident & Tonic

Bed & Accident

Bed & Breakfast

Bed & Dragons

Bed & Emergency

Bed & Gin

Bed & Marks

Bed & Recreation

Bed & Spencer

Bed & Tonic

Dungeons & Accident

Dungeons & Breakfast

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Emergency

Dungeons & Gin

Dungeons & Marks

Dungeons & Recreation

Dungeons & Spencer

Dungeons & Tonic

Emergency & Accident

Emergency & Breakfast

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Emergency & Emergency

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Gin & Accident

Gin & Breakfast

Gin & Dragons

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Gin & Gin

Gin & Marks

Gin & Recreation

Gin & Spencer

Gin & Tonic

Marks & Accident

Marks & Breakfast

Marks & Dragons

Marks & Emergency

Marks & Gin

Marks & Marks

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Rest & Accident

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Tonic & Accident

Tonic & Breakfast

Tonic & Dragons

Tonic & Emergency

Tonic & Gin

Tonic & Marks

Tonic & Recreation

Tonic & Spencer

Tonic & Tonic

Do with that what you will...

Horse 3448 - What The WA Election Should Tell Us

As at time of posting on Wednesday 12th March, the results of the WA Election have still not been concluded, even though the McGowan Government will undoubtedly be returned to power; still with a thumping majority. The seats which have been declared are:

Labor - 41

Liberal - 5

National - 4

Undecided - 9

Even with an 18.3% swing against the Labor Party, the Liberal Party has more than doubled its representation in the lower house, which sounds excellent until you realise they only hold five seats in total. That 18% swing against Labor did not correlate into an 18% swing to the Liberal Party; with more than half of those primary votes going to minor parties, and a chunk going to One Nation. Herein lies a problem for the Liberal Party, its hopes of being any kind of credible opposition remain in shreds, and even its hopes are the 2029 election look dim; which might very well extend the current run of Labor Governments in Western Australia to four or five terms.

The problem with the Liberal Party in Western Australia is... the Liberal Party. On election night; when being questioned by Sky News Australia, an absolutely deluded WA Liberal President Caroline Di Russo, still insisted that the result could still change and that they needed to wait for pre-polls and postal votes in order to get a better picture. In either a case of optimism through ignorance or delusion through entitlement, she outright refused to say how many seats she would be happy with for the WA Liberal Party at this election. Perhaps trying to being collegial, she repeated the line that it was "too difficult to say"; when in actual fact what I think that she meant to say is that it was "too embarrassing". However that is dependent on whether or not people in the Liberal Party can actually be embarrassed. Current indications point to 'no'.

Under every normal circumstance, an 18% swing away from Labor, should be ecstatic news for the Liberal Party. Even in defeat this should indicate that the results of the COVID election of 2021 were something of a statistical anomaly. Ms Di Russo could have played the line that Mark McGowan’s cult following has been hosed down and washed away, however even in defeat, there was still no kind of indication that she understood what had happened.

- This is the face of someone who didn't understand what happened, or why.

Admittedly I do not follow Western Australian Politics as closely as I follow it in my own state of New South Wales, but the manifestos on offer from the Liberal Party seemed to offer literally nothing that would have convinced most people that they would make a good government. Most voters when they go to the polls at least on some level, ask and should ask the question "what's in it for me?" or "what are you going to do for me?". Politics is the game upon which the contestation of ideas is fought, but Governance is the domain of the enactment of policy. In order to be able to enact policy, a political party needs at very least to have some kind of idea of policy.

The Liberal Party in its current form, simply refuses to offer much by way of policy at all. I do not know if the minders of the party realise this but the general public doesn't really watch Sky News Australia at all, and I no longer see any newspapers on the train which means that they are not getting opinion from print media. Increasingly what we are getting play out in politics, is the Liberal Party trying to weaponize American talking points as culture war ammunution, treating politics like a game, and offering nothing but obstruction. It isn't even that the general public are tired of this, it is more that the genuinely don't care.

The Liberal Party lost this election because they made no indication that they intended to serve the state of WA. They offered literally zero promises, or statements, or policies, or vision, on how they would improve anything. Unless people's grievances are so acute that they are forced into action, then no indication that a party is going to serve or improve anything means that they don’t deserve to win. I suspect that Ms Di Russo genuinely didn't understand the result at all and had no idea why the Liberal Party lost because she and the party generally, stand for absolutely nothing but their own entitlement.

And here's the rub. The Labor Party has been flirting with culture war issues of its own, and even lost its case at a referendum on the Voice because it couldn't successfully make the case of why it deserved the votes either. This WA Election is instructive as this is the first election in more than a century, across the Australian political landscape where independents scored more than 30% of the primary vote (and yes, I include One Nation in that because they are not functionally a political party). The 2025 Federal Election will probably fall roughly the same as in 2022 but how successful both sides are at responding to this problem, it might decide the long-term futures of both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. The National Party is fine because they don't need to assume very much beyond a policy mix for big farmers and landholders, but at least they have policy.

Horse 3447 - Measles Does Not Care If You Are A Vaccine Denier - It Can Still Kill Your Children

One of the fun things about an age of anti-intellectualism is that no matter how much the fools and idiots who like leading them refuse to admit it, the truth invariably wins because it can not be outwitted by deliberate stupidity.

So it goes with the truth and its current bout with paranoid middle-aged predominantly white suburban women, and proudly ignorant freedom loving mostly gun-toting white men. The truth is that vaccines work and it's more pleasant to be a bit nauseous for a few days because of a preparatory reaction than to actually have a disease and die from it. Being dead is sub-optimal unless you have an eternal insurance plan and even then, you won't be here to tell us how it went.

There is currently a Measles outbreak in Texas. In any other first world country this would be seen as a massive failure of public health policy but in the United States, it is apparently acceptable and excusable. As Measles is a preventable disease, this would be far far far more unlikely in Australia as the Department of Health at both Federal and State level, will have taken adequate measures prevent it.

As at the time of writing this, there are 124 reported cases, though given that the CDC in the United States is currently being white anted by DOGE, that figure can not be trusted. There have also been 4 deaths due to measles, which again due to the fact that the CDC is currently being white anted, that figure will almost certainly have gone up.

The Health And Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has called this outbreak as "common", even though the last mass outbreak in the United States happened more than a decade ago. He is a well known vaccine denier, and in this case should absolutely not be listened to. If measles does become common in the United States, it will be directly because people like him are deliberately stupid fools and those responsibility for future deaths should be placed firmly on his shoulders.

The truth is that measles is highly contagious. I won't claim to know anything about the mechanism of transmission but the maths for it works pretty much the same as most time-generation series calculations; so I can at least work through the numbers. Any Reproduction Index (R0) value of less than 1, and an outbreak will naturally fizzle out. Anything R0 between 1 and 2, and an outbreak will be maintained. Anything above 2 and you have something similar to an exponential type curve of reproduction and infection. Most measles outbreaks have an R0 of between 12 and 18.

Assuming that you are a sensible parent, then your child will usually get two vaccine shots which are different from each other for maximum efficacy. Children between the ages of 4 and 6 who have had both shots, have a protection rate of +99.9999%.

Adults who were born before 1957 in Australia, are assumed to have existing immunity; because they will more than likely have had measles and survived. The children who were born before 1957 and didn't survive, are not around to complain like a stupid fool.

If you were born between about 1957 and 1970, then getting a booster shot is probably a good idea, as the vaccine used in Australia back then utilised an inactive form of the Morbillivirus hominis virus; and may not be as effective as second generation vaccines.

Everyone born after 1970 in Australia is good to go. Due to public health measures in Australia being excellent, the Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine has been part of the standard program.

If you were born outside of Australia and especially in the United States, where public health measures are not as good, then getting a booster shot is not the worst idea in the world.

If you are unsure, then you can get what is known as a 'measles titer test'; which is a blood test that checks for antibodies in the blood to determine if someone is immune to measles. It is also known as a Rubeola titer test.

The difference between the United States in this respect is that because the United States is staunchly stupid and actively foolish when it comes to the health its own citizens, it is generally cheaper for Americans to just get an MMR booster vaccine that it is to get bloods drawn and to get their titers tested.

One thing that is undeniable fact is that if you are afraid to either get your children vaccinated or refuse to because you choose to believe idiocy, that the Morbillivirus hominis virus absolutely doesn't care about what you believe and is capable of killing people. The death rate from measles in unvaccinated people is about 3 in 1,000 people; so if you're willing to roll that particular dice knowing full well that the death rate from measles is about 3 in 10,000,000,000 people, then that's fine. You are allowed to be a stupid dead fool with stupid dead children.