Horse 3507 - Survey Says: Poorer People Don't Deserve Anything Nice Ever

 I came across this survey, which was being touted in a newspaper (I won't say which one because I'd rather that that particular whole media group goes bankrupt; they don't need the advertising revenue); trying to say how generous people are: 

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/45956-what-should-living-standards-look-people-benefits-

- 76% of Britons believe that everyone should be able to afford their utility bills

- 74% think everyone should have the means to eat a balanced diet

- 60% think seasonal celebrations should be attainable for everyone 

- 55% think that everyone should be able to afford a television

- 27% think that those on any income should have the chance to go out socialising

This particular media group was patting itself on the back; trying to suggest that only through voluntary means, should anything get done, and that we should look at how generous people are.

All of that sounds good and proper until you realise what the other side of those equations are.

A quarter of people think that poor people don't deserve electricity or clean water. A third of people think that people don't deserve holidays. A staggering three-quarters of people surveyed think that poor people don't deserve to see their friends, or possibly even have any friends at all.

I won't say that I am surprised at this. There has definitely been a cultural shift over about the last fifteen years, where you have a very brutal and cruel rich and powerful, dictating to people how to think. This looks very much like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theory of the rise of The Stupid, being weaponised for fun and profit. People are easily convinced to hate people who look different from themselves because at the centre of the human heart, is the beating out of a selfish rhythm.

This current gilded age is slightly different to the previous gilded age of the 1890s to 1914 because this gilded age comes with the leftovers of the post-war welfare state. Things like mass literacy, sewerage systems, telephony, gas, and electricity, were mostly constructed around the world with monies raised by governments because the people had actually fought in two world wars and won the moral justification and ability to make a claim at law, to things that they aught to have.

Curiously, the winner of the post-war peace, which was unashamedly the United States, never actually paid the price for modern civilization in anything like the same degree as European nations did. Consequently, it has spent the past 80 years marinating its brain in the myth that it constructed for itself, that it was rampant individualism which caused its greatness, and not the destruction of 100 million souls across Europe and Asia, and untold quadrillions of PoundMarkFrankRoubleYens in the destruction of physical capital everywhere else.

If you choose to marinate an entire population in the myth that individuals built the nation, instead of the obvious and easily proven realty that this is nothing more than a cussing lie (quite literally the Eisenhower Interstate System was the biggest and most expensive piece of socialist infrastructure in the history of the world), then what you get is a very small and powerful group of evilly cruel cussjacks who benefit, and an awful lot of people who actually aren't that marginally better off than their forebears were a century before.

The United States' rampant individualism and the propaganda which radiates out like the smell from a maggot infested corpse, has poisoned the media networks of other nations; because there is good profit motivation for doing so. I live in Australia, so that means that American media groups now control one of the free-to-air television networks as 70% of all the print media, and quite a sizable pay-TV outlet.

So it really doesn't surprise me, that Britain and especially the kinds of people who are likely to take part in a survey such as this, have swung further to the crueller authoritarian right. If they were to ask people slightly more pointed questions and ask if they think that poorer people are in fact human, then history has also given us the term "unnützer Esser" or "useless eaters" to describe people with disabilities and others deemed "life unworthy of life.

By labelling some people as a burden on society, it's not a far lap to justify their persecution and euthanasia. Remember, it isn't murder if we don't consider them as worthy of life in the first place. 

Over here on the other side of the world, we like to imagine ourselves as being different than our anglophone cousins on the other side of the world but really, the same kinds of people who run media and marketing companies up there, are not only the same people but actually the same media and marketing companies.

Worse, if you actually do bother to look at an empirical measurement at how generous people are, we find that total charitable giving amounts to no more than 1.9% of GDP and if you include donations to religious organisations like churches and mosques, this is only bumped up to 2.7%.

The actual truth is that people are not generous and that the number of people who think that poor people don't deserve even the basic things in life to make it tolerable, is and was and always will be the case. What's worse is that this is only going to get worse in the future.

33% of people rent, and a full 16% of GDP is  on rent. That rent is paid out of post taxed income, to the very same scumbags who think that poorer people shouldn't have anything nice ever.

It's hardly surprising. 

Horse 3506 - JEFF VADER V COMMISIONER OF TAXATION [2025] - Judgement

 JEFF VADER V COMMISIONER OF TAXATION [2025] - Judgement

The Fake Internet Court of Australia

H3506/1

This week we received the following correspondence from a Mr Jeff Vader, who appears to be in command of some kind of galactic delivery company or some such. He has given us the following taxation question: 

Dear Fake Internet Court of Australia,

I am the Operations Manager for a very large off-world firm which is resident in Australia for taxation purposes. I wish to claim depreciation for my Defence Sphere Mk 1 (DS-1) and am wondering what the appropriate rate for a Defence Sphere is. 

The construction costs were just over One Trillion Galactic Credits and it became operational on August 1st.

Thank you, 

Lord Jeff Vader of Cheem, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet and Military Executor, ATM, KFC, BBQ.

This is an interesting case as The Fake Internet Court of Australia is not often asked to make interlocutory orders or non-binding arbitration rulings, however we are still prepared to make a preliminary hearing as an  obiter dicta in lieu of further passage to a court with proper jurisdiction. 

These are the facts as this court sees them:

The "Defence Sphere 1" as described by Jeff Vader in his correspondence, appears to be some very large machine which is capable of mass destruction on a planetary scale. Colloquially within the documentation it is referred to as a "Death Star", though it is not a star, however it seems to be quite capable of doing death to people and things.

There is not explicit provision for spacecraft, though Communications Satellites and Satellite Earth Station Electronic Assets generally have an effective life of 15 or 10 years depending on the use case. 

We consider an orbital defence sphere to be a habitable spacecraft and on the face of it, it looks more like the example of Aeroplanes (general use); in which case the Defence Sphere 1 likely has an  effective life of 20 years, which is similar to fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. 

We suspect that for a highly specialised asset such as this, that the Australian Taxation Office is going to want to make a Private Ruling based on like technical data and industry experience; from an appointed expert witness.

Final Judgement:

We determine that the Defence Sphere 1 is analogous to an Aircraft (general use) and as such that it has a comparable effective life of 20 years.

As such we determine that:

A - it has a Straight Line depreciation rate of 5%

B - it has a Diminishing Value depreciation rate of 10%

Whilst we can not explicitly determine the actual conversion rate between Universal Galactic Credits (UGC) and Australian Dollars (AUD), the use case seems to be that the ratio should read something in the order of 1 UCG : 6 AUD.

If it follows that the initial capital costs were One Trillion Galactic Credits, then the take up rate should be about $6,000,000,000,000. 

The actual amount of Depreciation Expense will need to be decided upon by the client, and the method retained for the life of the asset. 

This court hereby advises that the takeup rates as stated above be used, and further advises that an amount of Depreciation being claimed in a Tax Return as a business expense of $300bn which by itself is more than 16% of the GDP of Australia, is likely to cause at least a few raised eyebrows at the Australian Taxation Office. We hope that the ATO does not bring hateration and holleration to proceedings.

We trust that our mutual friends at the Australian Taxation Office will adhere to the advice given in this judgement, because we have seen what happens in the Catering Department if you are not happy with the moisture and condensation on food trays.

- ROLLO75 J

(this case will be reported in FILR as H3506/1 - Ed)

Horse 3505 - THE PEOPLE V THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [2025] - Judgement

THE PEOPLE V THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [2025] - Judgement

The Fake Internet Court of Australia

H3505/1

We have learned of a crime against all that is decent and good; which has arisen and which rattled through the internuts until it finally made its way to this court until it found this fake internet court's attention:

https://nomoreteabags.com/

Usually this Fake Internet Court is asked to make decisions about trivial matters that do not affect all that much in society but this is a crime so heinous that it warrants immediate judgement.

These are the facts as this court sees them:

"No More Tea Bags" appears to be a highly compressed and liquidised version of tea, much in the same way that Condensed Milk is supposed to mimic milk for those occasions. Unlike Condensed Milk which has applications other than just making milk (such as in making cakes), No More Tea Bags prima facie is only for making tea.

The method for making tea with No More Tea Bags is to pour out some of the liquid tea concentrate into a cup, then add boiling water and wait five minutes for the tea to steep. This sounds like a remarkably similar process to making tea either in a pot with loose tea leaves or with tea bags; which is what No More Tea Bags is probably trying to solve.

The United States has a semi-foundational story with tea. When the British Government imposed a tax of about 3% on the value of tea imported into the United States (actually as a coercive Act to get them to abandon slavery), the 13 Colonies were not happy. When the British East India Company was given a specific exemption in 1775, things kind of kicked off and people decided to make the world's largest cup of tea in Boston Harbour by dumping all the tea into the sea in protest. The United States has had a strange relationship with tea ever since.

The United States since 1775 has famously become a nation of coffee drinkers, which curiously doesn't know how to make a cup of coffee either. American drip coffee is quite frankly an affront to Italian espresso, or French café, or Turkish coffee. This suggests in principle that the United States sees coffee as having utilitarian purposes only; this might explain why it seemingly is also so terrible at making tea, that No More Tea Bags exists at all.

No More Tea Bags is trying to solve a problem, for which there were not only adequate solutions but lovely ones. If No More Tea Bags isn't trying to solve the problem of Morning Tea, or Afternoon Tea, or the lovely cup of tea in the evening, or the position of Work Juice which is what Coffee and Strong Builder's Tea is already doing, then what the jinkies is it trying to do? I just don't know.

Final Judgement:

Whilst this Fake Internet Court is prepared to accept that the useful invention of arts and science for the purpose of business and profit, this doesn't mean that all things need to be invented in the first place. Especially not when already adequate and lovely solutions exist. Inventing something which is actively worse, hurts society at large because it pushes open the cultural Johari Window further into the unknown and into places that did not need to be known. By inventing worse things, people begin to accept worse stuff. In relation to a lovely cup of tea, this may as well be a crime against humanity and decency.

America, you are guilty of both conspiracy and deception. You have brought hateration and holleration into this fake internet court and as you have no sensible business by ruining tea like this. 

As this is not the first time that you have been brought before this Fake Internet Court, America, the penalties need to be severe. 

This court hereby orders all of you in the United States to sit down with a lovely cup of tea, made with either a tea bag or in a pot and take a good hard look at yourself. We would order you to watch a day's play of cricket with Afternoon Tea already built into it but we realise that you aren't ready to become a real nation yet.

Get out; lest you make a mockery of my courtroom. We are already perfectly capable of making a mockery of this fake internet courtroom as it is. You are malevolent and have now ensnared others in your villainy. Can you not see what trouble thou hast wrought? 

- ROLLO75 J

(this case will be reported in FILR as H3505/1 - Ed)

Horse 3504 - The Day That The ATCC Dam Wall Of Legitimacy Broke

 This is the moment that the 2025 Supercars Championship was decided. It was not a piece of brilliant racing. It was not some hideous turn of fate which came about due to mechanical failure. It was not even some display of dominance which showed all and sundry that a new champion had arrived. Nope. It was an act of barbarism, aimed from the teammate of the eventual champion; directly and squarely at their rival. This was sheer cussed bloody mindedness and nothing else.

Fair play to Chaz Mostert who after waiting so very very long, finally has the second biggest prize in Australian Motorsport: the Australian Touring Car Championship. Literally everyone in Australia who cares a jot about motor racing knows that Bathurst is the only thing that truly writes your name into immortality, and that the ATCC title merely allows you to write a number 1 on the door.

Supercars Management, in an effort to market the sport have come up against the very real problem that when you take the sport off of free-to-air television, the number of eyeballs watching, falls off of a cliff. There has simply never been the same viewership numbers since 2013; since Lachlan Murdoch vampired Channel 10 and stripped all of the assets from it. Formula One also disappeared from free-to-air television at the same time.

With viewership numbers down to roughly a third of what they once were, advertising revenues have also fallen dramatically and the whole finals series is little more than a spork and cut and paste job from NASCAR in America. The problem is that after hiding the Supercars Championship safely behind a pay wall, not even a gimmick like this is enough to draw back the fans, much less attract new ones who they deliberately choose not to court, 12 years ago. Effectively there is almost a generation of missing fans. 

For me this is a classic tale of "Hate The Game And Not The Player". I can not hate Chaz Mostert as the champion. I can not really find fault with Ryan Wood who deliberately punted Broc Feeney off the road, because while that's despicable that is the job that he was given and he did it to the best of his ability.

This is unlike Senna deliberately taking out Prost in 1989 through a moment of opportunity, or Senna deliberately taking out Prost in 1999 through an act of unabashed bastardry. This is closer in spirit to Matt Kenseth intentionally wrecking Joey Logano at Martinsville in 2015; where the sport had long since decided that pugilism was not only acceptable but actively encouraged. Nobody particularly hates Matt Kenseth for obvious and deliberate knavery, but as NASCAR has only added gimmick after gimmick, it did kind of herald the end of the NASCAR Cup Championship being worth anything. The fans hate it, the drivers only like it if they win, and the dam of legitimacy has long since given way.

It didn't help that Broc Feeney won 14 races in the year to Chaz Mostert's 4. It didn't help that Chaz Mostert famously had his car fail on Conrod Straight during the Bathurst 1000 and he went to get a beer with the fans during the race. It didn't help that parity problems meant that the Mustangs only started being semi useful after the mid-season tinkering. Had this been any other season since 1960, Broc Feeney would have been Champion with two races to spare and everyone would have been happy. Instead on the first outing, we get borky broken gamified result, and a championship which is tarnished.

Mind you, the Australian Touring Car Championship was always second fiddle to Bathurst. Even Peter Brock only won it three times; so it's not like there's a whole lot lost. For Broc Feeney to have lost the championship, not because he was beaten by a better driver but because the operation of the rules erased literally all the work that he had done previously, is purely a result of policy decisions made by Supercars' management. Play stupid games - win stupid prizes. This prize is truly stupid.