Oh, hello and welcome dear listener.

This is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

We've overcome some technical difficulties and we're back for episode 317.

This is a podcast where we talk about news and politics and sex and religion

and with me As always, it's Shea the Subversive, Joe the Tech Guy, and coming

in from, from a satanic venue somewhere in Noosa is, uh, Brother Samael Demogorgon,

otherwise known as, uh, Robin Bristow.

Welcome aboard, Robin.

Thank you.

So dear listener, we're going to rattle through the news and politics

and sex and religion of the last 7, oh 14 days actually, talk about various

topics, things that are going on.

But before we kick off, Robyn's just going to join us because we've got a big event

coming up on Saturday night where the Noosa Temple of Satan is going to be held.

Well, what are we doing, Robin?

Let's tell everybody what's happening on Saturday night and why we're doing it and

what Last year we had our Black Mass at the Junction and this year we reapplied

to have the Black Mass and the council said no, we couldn't have it there because

of the threats that the Christians had made to the staff that worked at the J.

And so effectively they banned us from using our spiritual venue.

And so, so, we're going to protest the fact that we're not allowed to

have our Black Mass at our traditional venue and have it on the streets in

Hastings Street this coming Saturday, and we're meeting there from 7.

30 to start our protest at about 8 o'clock, and we're going to include

events like a pet blessing, and Then we'll be marching down Hastings

Street and turn around at the park and come back to where we started, so it

should be a fun night for everyone.

Yep, and it's a legal event, we've got a permit, so there's no problem

in that regard, so that's all good.

I'll be there, you'll be there, bunch of people, believe there'll be a film

crew as well, so have a look on the Noosa Temple of Satan Facebook page for

any other details that you might want.

But get dressed up, and wear something outrageous.

And it will be a fun event and then we'll de camp to a pub nearby and,

and discuss all sorts of things.

So that's the plan.

All right, Robin, well, because of the technical difficulties, we'll

say goodbye to you and let you go.

And, um, sorry for all that mucking around.

We'll, we'll do a dry run next time.

No worries.

And don't forget we'll have transubstantiation happening.

Yes.

But we've got real body parts here.

We don't have to rely on hosts that have been consecrated.

You're halfway there already, starting with the real body parts.

All right.

Very good, Robin.

We'll see you later and talk to you later.

Okay.

Okay, mate.

Thank you.

Bye.

That's Robin Bristow, Musa Temple of Satan.

This Saturday night, it will be fun.

I've got my outfit already, so I don't want to spoil it and say what it is.

No, we'll probably, probably Facebook live the event.

So right with, with the handheld iPhone.

So look out for that.

If you're in the chat room, say hello and make some comments as we go.

All right.

So that was Robin.

Okay.

Just, it wasn't even on the running sheet, but there was the

announcement of the government's.

Plan for Net Zero 2050 and this was then just another classic Morrison

play of just announcing something without any detail and just saying

we're working hard, we've created this plan, we're moving forward and all of

the weasel words and just nonsense.

Technology, not taxes.

That's right.

And the Australian way.

We're going to do it the Australian way.

I am so sick of this guy.

Yes.

I just want to vomit when I hear him talk.

Yeah.

And surely, Australia, you've worked it out by now.

Surely you can see through this con artist.

If you I was at a dinner party the other night and people were saying, Oh,

what do you reckon about Noel Morrison?

We're not so sure about him now.

And I'm going, you're not so sure?

Can you not see what this guy is?

Still on the fence you mean?

Like potentially might vote for him?

Yeah, they're saying, oh, starting to have second thoughts about him.

And I was going, you're kidding me.

And so, you know, a news poll came out today, you know, which party do

you still trust with the economy?

And of course, I said the Liberal Party.

Yeah.

Way ahead.

I'm just, it's actually quite depressing.

It is depressing.

I'm beyond the outrage.

It is really depressing.

And I'd really like, there is so much evidence in front of you now.

If you really haven't picked up, prick this guy is.

And a, and not even a smart prick, just a, uh, if you haven't worked

it out by now, what can we do?

You're clearly just not paying any attention.

That's right.

It's sort of depressing.

It is.

So, it's like one of those things where you just have to tune out

after a while and go, I don't really want to go into the weeds and the

woods on this because I'll just get depressed the more I read about it.

Yeah.

There was one good line from Chris Bowen who said, I've seen more

detail than a fortune cookie.

Yeah.

That was a great line.

Sometimes a little comedic line sums up the whole thing.

Why go through and talk for 10 minutes when you can just sum it up with that?

So, so anyway, of course, it's all going to, it was a bunch of weasel

words, relying on technology and they said, well, what technology is that?

And it's, well, Technology will be invented.

Technology is always being invented.

In fact, if you were to bet against technology, you would be foolish.

So, so the course of human history is that technologies will arise and we're just

relying on that for a certain percentage.

The Juice Media podcast has a big section on the technologies they're

looking at and the fudgies and the, it's, it's another way to prop up the

fossil fuel industries, the long and the short of it by, you know, clean carbon.

Yes.

And Blue Hydrogen.

Yes.

Carbon Storage.

Yes.

And just dodgy figures.

You just cannot trust a single thing these guys say.

And for this, we got to promote Keith Pitt.

Yes.

Someone gets a promotion for this heap of shit.

And we're, we're being extorted by the National Party.

We've just got a handful of votes.

And probably a lot of their voters want something done on this regard.

It's such.

It's such a blight on our democracy.

This is not a democracy.

No.

We've, we're going to have Barnaby Joyce in charge of the country.

That's right.

And we've been held a ransom by these guys.

Yes.

The Matt Canavans of the world.

This is not a democracy.

No, it's not.

It's something less than that.

It's not a totalitarian state, yet, but It's an oligarchy.

We're just kidding ourselves with the level of democracy going on in this

country and a lot of Western countries.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So What more is there to say except be depressed but be angry as well.

And, and I hope something comes along.

There was, there was a question time with Milton Dick asked the Prime

Minister, Scott Morrison, a question and I'll just play what happened there.

Hopefully it comes through.

Thank you, Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister.

When the Prime Minister arrives in Glasgow in a fortnight's time, will

he tell the meeting electric vehicles will end the weekend, batteries to

store renewable energy are as useful as the big banana and the big prawn?

And renewable energy targets are nuts.

The Prime Minister has, Mr Speaker, I don't accept the caricature

that the member has put forward.

Mr Speaker, it's just simply not the case.

The member's on my left.

It's a complete misrepresentation.

Quoting his own words to him is a complete misrepresentation.

It was all in context.

It wasn't stitching him up.

That was how he felt about climate change.

And look, it's fair enough.

He was the Coal Fondler in Chief, wasn't he?

Yes.

I mean, and it's fair enough to change your mind on something, like, if you've

honestly changed your mind, fair enough.

If he came out and said, yeah, I said all those things, but you

know what, I've changed my mind.

But to just say, oh, I don't accept the premise, you're reading it the wrong

way, I've never really been against it, it just, that's the part, you know, it's

okay to change your mind, if you have.

But, you know, it's just embarrassing to think of some of the leaders

who'll be at Glasgow and we've got that character turning up, so.

And that might be the thing to say, like, maybe climate change isn't important to

you, maybe women's issues isn't important to you, but I guarantee you if there's

anything that's important to you, Scott Mariston is going to handle it the exact

same way he's handled everything else.

Right.

Make an announcement.

Yes.

Cover it up.

Not read the report.

Not do his due diligence.

And then take somebody else's crappy money.

Spin it to his own political advantage and create a wedge if he can.

Yes.

Just with an eye to the election and winning power again is a

whole purpose for being there.

Yes.

Except the one item where he will actually probably try and get something to done.

Religious freedom.

Exactly.

Exactly the one goddamn thing that he does care about and will actually

force some legislative change.

Jesus put him there just for that.

He did.

Of all the things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what we've got to look forward to.

So, um, yeah, just a few things from Twitter.

Amy, uh, Remicus, she's from the Guardian, I think she said, Morrison went on to

say the government won't sign up to net zero without a fully costed plan.

I mean, that's from a couple of days ago, and he's now signing

up without any costed plan.

Which left me wondering how much the submarines he signed

up for are going to cost.

Which is true.

I mean, he just uses words when he wants to.

Oh, I won't sign up without a fully costed plan.

Well, I just have, but who cares?

And I do it all the time with submarines, but who cares?

Truth.

Fact.

Logical, just please be consistent if you're going to rely on a certain premise,

apply it across different other categories where it's appropriate, no, just all

out the window, do whatever you like.

So, Sky News reported National Party Ministers have threatened to quit

Cabinet if Prime Minister Scott Morrison fails to meet their demands

and his net zero emissions target.

And Adam Vance said, you say that like it's a bad thing.

So that's true.

If some of them would quit, that mightn't have been a bad thing.

And yeah, that's that.

So, so that's climate change.

It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

It'll just be more weasel words.

I noticed actually, I followed the Scott Morrison Facebook page.

Do you follow that?

No, I'm basically Not masochistic enough?

I would just grind my teeth to dust and I need them.

It's often full of stuff, if an Australian's won a gold medal, or if an

Australian's done something, it's, oh, congratulations, or if somebody's died,

oh, so sad to see, and he just comments all his staffers do on his behalf.

But I get the feeling it's him, he's so jingoistic with a lot of stuff.

And, you know, all of his announcements.

And a lot of the time it's just flooded with stuff.

Good on you, Skoma.

You're the best Prime Minister we've ever had.

Keep up the good work.

It's just littered throughout it in the comments.

But on the climate change one with his announcement, people have poured onto him.

Like, the Facebook comments, great, but it's by people saying, How

dare you sign up to 2050 Net Zero?

This is the wrong thing to do.

How dare you?

How dare you cave in to the left?

Did you?

Who?

Caving to the left?

Yes.

It's all along that sort of Oh, some of this.

How dare you give in to the science?

But did you hear about the sock puppet account?

Sock puppets are Fake accounts on social media.

Right.

That people use to comment and it not come back to them.

Right.

And there were a number of Liberal MPs that were caught using sock puppets

to comment on their Facebook feeds.

Right, okay.

And also on their Wikipedia pages.

I saw that somewhere.

Oh yeah, the IP address was traced back to Parliament House.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, so.

So yeah, so he actually got hate from people.

But, from his crowd saying, what the hell are you doing?

You've, you've turned into a pinko commie, you've caved into the left, and

the only people making sense in this world are Alan Jones and Andrew Bolton.

Comments like that.

So you mean Rupert Murdoch releases one bout of climate change positive newspapers

and after years of bombarding us the other way, it didn't make a difference?

No, no, no.

His key columnists have all maintained the line, but what they

have done in the Murdoch press is they're pushing hard on nuclear.

They're really pushing for some sort of nuclear solution to

our energy needs in the future.

So, lots of stuff about nuclear.

They love the idea.

Despite everything we said the other week with former New

South Wales Premier, uh, Carr?

Bob Carr?

Bob Carr, yes.

Saying essentially nobody in business is interested in the nuclear option.

It's too expensive.

Yes.

And I was talking to somebody involved in the energy industry, who shall remain

nameless, and he was saying that there's real issues with, nobody wants to even

produce solar at the moment because they just can't get their money when

they're trying to sell the electricity.

They can't make a dollar because it's just a surplus of electricity being produced.

produced in the system at different times now, during the day, and

they're sitting on excess electricity.

And some of the solar ones are actually selling it at a loss, up to

30 cents a megawatt, because there's a government subsidy of 30 cents.

So they're, they're actually willing to sell it at a loss because

they didn't pick up the subsidy.

So So that's interesting, there's a lot of, there's issues with There's also

talk about households being taxed in the future, being charged for exporting

electricity at high peak, high generation.

We don't want your electricity and we're going to penalise

you for putting it in the grid.

Which is to encourage you to buy batteries and store it.

But also, any new system now, I believe in certain states, when it's installed

it has to have a switch that they can operate at a central location to turn it

off, so it doesn't come out of the grid.

Okay, I've not heard that one.

Yeah, that's what I heard with new systems that they can actually, you can't

enter the system now unless you've got a cut off switch that they can turn on

and off if they need to turn you off.

Right.

So yeah, so interesting times in the energy market.

And the other thing about So who loses if we have a surplus of electricity?

The suppliers of electricity.

Right, okay, right.

Yeah.

Say that like it's a bad thing.

Yeah.

The other thing, the other thing about it is that the problem with

the coal plants is they, they can't switch on and off easily.

They can't ramp up and ramp down.

Like, they just have to keep going.

And that's one of the The inherent flaws with them, or problems, is

that, um, No, no, it's a good thing.

They're not flexible.

It's baseload.

Yeah, baseload.

But that's the same problem with nuclear.

Nuclear can't be turned off and on as well.

It's, uh, so that's part of the problem with nuclear is, is

they'll have this baseload that they then, what do we do with it?

We, we can't switch it off easily, so.

I was at a coal fired power station a couple of years ago.

Mm.

And they were saying historically, middle of the day, air conditioner's running.

It was their busy time, they couldn't afford any damn time, you know, absolutely

had to be up in the middle of the day.

They're now saying it's their maintenance period.

Yeah.

There's no call for them.

And this particular one was air cooled as opposed to water cooled.

And actually their peak efficiency is at night.

So it's a good thing that in the middle of the day, solar, because they're

less efficient in the middle of the day, they produce less electricity.

So it's good for them to shut down, not shut down, but reduce their running

to just idle and then at night ramp up when the solar comes out because

they're more efficient at that time.

Right.

And when the wind doesn't blow at night time as well.

Well, yeah, exactly.

According to some politician who said that as well.

Yeah.

I thought that was a Batuta Advocate thing, but that's real.

That's Satire and reality

it's po.

It's depressing.

It's PO law, isn't it?

PO law, isn't it?

Yeah, it's PO law.

PO Law says that there is nothing there.

There is no way to caricature a creationist that is so ridiculous

that it couldn't have been said by a creationist . That's okay.

So, okay.

Shane, realize that you shouldn't underestimate the underclass.

No, you shouldn't.

It's true.

According to Pru Goward, they are damaged, lacking in trust and

discipline, and highly self interested.

But the poor is still a force that Australia needs to properly harness.

So, uh, she was some former sort of equality commission, commission, and

a former LNP politician of some sort.

So what'd you think of that article?

Yeah, like I said, I was going to come in here raging, but I've had a few moments

to calm down, but certainly like from our, from my personal experience, having pain.

You know, in a secure job for a lot of years, always thought I'd have a job,

basically got my mortgage on the back of being someone who worked for Qantas,

who at the bank said I would always have a job to basically overnight.

Just like completely not having an income, scrambling for any work I could, quickly

worked at a furniture shop, that's part time wages, that's 15 bucks an hour,

with the hope of commission if you sell a couple of lounges, I worked my bloody

arse off, and all the while, and for the past two years, I've basically eaten

tuna and rice, had to watch all of my bus tickets, had to really, I've had to be

really, really I am such a resourceful, capable person now on the back of all

of this, so in some ways she's right, but it has been so hard every time

JobKeeper comes up to have people say things like, oh, but taxpayers paying

for you and, you know, like, it's almost like Australia's become like so mean

spirited and that the Liberals act like taxpayer money is their money and it's

almost like Australia feels the same.

I, like, yeah, I was just like so furious.

It's true.

It's hard to be poor, but also there's, I think you can keep underestimating us

and I think you can keep exploiting us.

Because I actually still can't really see, it's a long road back for me to be

financially stable again, and I'm not speaking for myself, because there's

heaps of flight attendants who, we got stood down for a long period of

time, then Qantas was like, yep, you're all going back to work, and then they

were like, actually, no, you're not.

So we were in secondary employment.

We gave up our secondary employment to come back because Qantas

was like, no, you work for us.

You come back now.

Then we all had to be stood down and find another secondary

employment in the meantime.

Like we are not sitting on our arses and people act like we are.

And then they put shit like this in the newspaper just to reiterate it.

So, yeah.

So the poor people are very wide and varied.

Honey, Pru, right now, so you're talking to all of us, a lot more of

the people than you think you are.

She's an expert on poor people.

So the, you know, the sort of whole tone of it was, it was really sort

of looking down her nose at the underclass, was the tone of the article.

But the point of the article was, that a lot of people have missed,

is she was saying Including me!

Right?

Well the point was, she says, the good thing about the underclass is

they can spot a fake At 50 cases ? No, because they keep voting for Scma.

That's right.

And she said they, they were a significant part of the anti-VAX protests.

They had correctly identified the freedoms.

The rest of us had only been too happy to give up and never have.

We needed them more to challenge modern meek, him the child who cried.

Look at the king in the Emperor's New clothes.

We're surely a member of the underclass, so it had the tone of a sneering looking

down at the downtrodden underclass, but she was actually saying the one thing

in their favor is they're against, they're against vaccination and they

can smell a rat in this whole system, so it was actually a dog whistle.

The one thing they've got going for them is they think they

know more than scientists who've spent billions of dollars.

Yeah, literally their entire career studying a single field.

Yeah, so there's actually also a dog whistle to the anti vaxxers

and whatnot in the community.

Saying that Well, I assert that the people out there fighting in

Melbourne and rioting have never done a hardship in their lives.

Right.

They're small business owners who are living large and making

it rain and snorting cocaine.

And now suddenly they get locked up.

So and yeah, you're right.

That's pretty much.

I don't know what they are.

Certainly they seem like a fair number of construction workers

in there and construction workers can be doing all right.

Thank you very much.

So who knows now.

So that was Prue Gowd and was there anything else I want

to say about her at the time?

No, that'll do, I'm pretty good.

Okay, oh, do you want to talk about, while we're on the topic then, of, of

the poor, did you want to talk about the ex Alitalia flight attendants?

Yeah, although I was actually kind of inspired by this story, so I was kind

of taking a different swing on it.

Mm hmm.

So to give the listeners some background, what's the name of it?

Air Artalia.

Yes.

Yes.

Uh, are, we're in financial distress, like a number of other airlines.

And so they were bought out by ITA Airlines, took some of their planes,

3000 of their workers, and left the other 7, 000 without a job and

renewed the contracts of the 3000.

To considerably less wages, which is happening aviation wide.

Yep, and basically, take it or leave it, the old company's gone, and this is

a new deal, and we can just put you on.

We can do what we like with you.

Because, strangely, conditions Qantas is playing the same game, by the way.

Because conditions and workers rights, uh Funnily enough, decrease,

um, over time rather than increase.

Yeah, that's right.

So when you're a fresh employee, you get a worse deal.

That's right.

As opposed to property prices and things that work in the

other direction, time increase.

Yes.

So, so yes, so they weren't happy, some of them.

That's right.

So how many flight attendants did we have?

So we had a hundred, was it?

No, probably not that many.

Dozens.

It doesn't say.

Dozens.

Dozens of flight attendants got together and as a silent protest,

wore their uniforms and then started stripping off their uniform.

And then at the end did a loud, loud yell or something.

Right.

And I don't know.

I was just, I was inspired by that because I don't know if this happens to men,

but often women will be photographed.

Naked all the time and it will be positioned for us.

They'll say, Oh, I got naked and posed naked for you guys because

it's so empowering to other women.

Right.

And it's actually not empowering to women to see other naked women.

Yes.

And I just thought that.

That was a beautiful action protest of the fe a perfect balance between the

female form, which is a work of art and the fact that our bodies are also vehicles

and possible communication things.

So that's what I took from that angle.

I took that angle from this.

Have you got the picture up by the way?

I did have.

Yeah.

So I wasn't really that concerned with poor people.

I just thought that was cool.

Really cool for a whole range of ways.

The action, the beauty of the protest, the artwork.

This is the thing, you need publicity and you're just going to.

Fire off a press release and complain.

Hmm.

Or even a protest march.

Yes, indeed.

Who's going to listen?

Yeah.

So, this is, you need some outrageous element in order to gather attention.

But I just still thought, like, they could have got, you know, properly

naked or something like that.

And they would have got the same press, but I don't know.

It was a real beautiful, almost poetry to it.

It was art.

Yeah, so that's what I liked about it.

Oh, we're still talking about Lady Godiva.

Yeah.

How many years?

Who?

Yep, Lady Godiva.

Why did she?

Fill me in.

Why did she?

What did she do?

You've never heard of Lady Godiva?

She rode naked through the middle of town.

Yeah.

As a?

600 years ago.

Yeah.

Why did she do that?

As a protest, but I can't remember why.

Right.

It was a protest, and it got her attention, and Was it supposed to be that

her hair covered everything or something?

Or all the important parts, or like, yeah, but I don't know why Lady Godiva did that.

We'll find out before the end of the evening.

And yeah, that was Anglo Saxon noblewoman, somewhere between 1066 and 1086.

And why did she do it?

It's not a famous story.

Oppressive taxation that her husband imposed on his tenants.

So, to complain against her husband, as his chattel, she rode

naked through the middle of town.

There we go.

There we go.

Learn something every day.

Indeed.

James is like likely never happened.

Yeah.

Oh, well certainly, but it's a good story.

You said in your note to me, I'd like to discuss this at the next podcast.

I'll talk a bit about third wave feminism.

Is this third wave feminism or?

Uh, yeah, I meant to write an article, but leave it.

Okay, we'll let that go.

This is gonna kind of like mix it all in with how third wave feminism

is kind of like Characterized as a confusing topic, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's a whole range of things.

Yeah, I looked at a few things It looks like we're up to fourth wave feminism and

I didn't even know there was a third wave.

Are we?

Yeah, apparently so What's fourth wave feminism about?

I don't know.

I'll have to do some research.

It's just third wave on steroids.

So Did you write this or did I write this?

No, this came from Wikipedia.

Oh yeah, I was having a read of this myself.

Yeah, somebody who wrote, who invented the third wave said, So I

write this as a plea to all women, especially women of my generation.

Let Thomas's confirmation, that was a Supreme Court judge confirmation,

serve to remind you as it did me that the fight is far from over.

Let this dismissal of a woman's experience move you to anger.

Turn that outrage into political power.

Do not vote for them unless they work for us.

Do not have sex with them.

Do not break bread with them.

Do not nurture them if they don't prioritize our freedom to

control our bodies and our lives.

I am not a post feminism feminist.

I am the third wave.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, let's go back.

Protest if ever you want to.

Like, withdrawal of services, labor, you know, what have you got to do

to make change if that's the case?

You think it'll work?

Which part?

Well, you think they'll get their jobs back?

Ah, no.

Yeah.

No, but it'll make people think about it, and make people think, oh, that could

be me, and that's happening all around the place, and maybe we should vote for

a party who's gonna help people in that situation, so, but it won't actually

get them their job back, I don't think.

Or even better, to onionise.

Onionize.

Hmm.

What's that?

Join an onion.

Join an onion.

Yes, join a union.

A union.

Yes.

Right.

There's, there's a very good correlation between working

conditions and membership of a union.

Yes.

Yes.

In fact, the T dubs just won a case to reinstate thousands of Qantas workers.

Which they're still fighting for, but so far they've lost.

So it's a key difference in outcome there.

And if they're saving money on their flight attendance.

Are they going to pass those on in ticket costs?

Ah!

It's too tough, the market, no.

Might be happening.

Okay, back to the top.

Where was I with the next topic?

Ah, just in New South Wales.

They're really in the grip of the Catholics down there.

So, Crikey's been doing a lot on a series of articles on how the religious

groups have taken over New South Wales, Libs, and Federally as well have been

doing a lot and the articles have been not behind a paywall as well.

I think you've been able to access those for free and most of them

on the Crikey the video, but I haven't actually looked at it.

So a lot of their sort of God series they've been doing lately is very good.

So have a look on Crikey and have a look at that.

But, oh, they're making the point here.

So with the voluntary assisted dying legislation, that's gonna

go to the upper house for a while.

An inquiry now, so that'll put that off for sort of a time delay sort of thing.

And they really, in this article, paint an interesting picture, that you've

got Perrotto now who's the Premier, you've got the leader in the upper

house is a guy called Tude Hope, I think it's T U D E, H O P E, Tude, Tude

Hope, he's another hardline Catholic.

And the article just shows the relationship between the two families

where Perrottet hired Toad Hope's daughter, Toad Hope hired Perrottet's

brother, you know, they're all working in amongst their different offices,

they're all part of this Catholic group that was in with Archbishop Anthony

Fisher, who was in with George Pell, and, and these are the people making

the decision on whether the cemetery.

Should be managed by an independent group or whether the Catholics should

maintain control of the bits that they want to maintain control of and

there's clearly a conflict of interest there and There was another article

by Crikey about the Baird family.

Remember Bruce, Bruce Baird?

Mike Baird?

His father, the actual electorate that Scott Morrison took over was a previously

a Baird electorate And just how the family is interwoven with all sorts of

people, particularly out of America, and just the interweaving of all sorts

of people in power based on religion.

And it's too depressing for me to read again, but Crikey have done a really

good job, and all that sort of stuff.

So, meanwhile, Christina Keneally says that no one is seriously trying

to turn Australia into a theocracy.

And she got quite annoyed at the people who have basically looked at Perrottet

and gone, not another bloody Catholic, and this guy's too red hot, like,

he's too red hot, we don't want him.

And she's turned around and said, well, we can't just say you can't have

somebody because they're religious.

Well, The point is, people aren't saying we can't have him, but

they're saying we don't want him.

Yes, which you actually can say.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it's democratic to be able to say we don't want him because of

his views, which we know what they are because he subscribes to this.

Wasn't she?

She was a Catholic as well.

I know that, but wasn't she a secularist?

She was more secular, I think, than most, but she was still against

The, some of the abortion law stuff.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, so anyway, she says it's crazy to say that we're trying to turn Australia,

anyone's trying to turn Australia into a theocracy, you know, at the end of

the day, it already is in many respects, and they're just hanging onto it.

So, so, you know, they just, they really straw man the argument a lot of the time.

So people have legitimately been saying, yeah.

This is unrepresentative of Australia.

This guy has got views that the majority of Australians don't

agree with, yet he is in power.

And nobody voted for him.

Nobody voted for him and it sure as heck looks like he's gonna stop

legislation that most of us want because of his religious views.

And she will turn it around from saying, sometimes I wonder if those who look down

on people of faith and try to stop them from entering political debate Simply

lack confidence in their own positions.

Well, nobody's stopping him from entering political debate.

People are wanting to debate with him.

Yes.

And the process.

So the other thing is, yeah.

So anyway, she stood up for Dominic Perrottet and said back

off and And again, it's not stopping them entering the debate.

It's giving them more power than realistically the majority of society

You know, 90 percent of us don't believe in the same things that he does.

If he starts bringing in laws based on his beliefs, then he's ruling for the 10%.

Yes.

And not for all of us, let alone the majority of us.

Yeah.

I mean, we're having all this corruption stuff about Christian

Porter, who paid the money, is there a corporate interest there that he's

going to then be held on account to?

We've had Glarice Berry Jickling and her boyfriend, and A conflict of

interest, and these people are under a conflict of interest when they are

so heavily involved with the church, and the church is a major player

in, in our politics, in our society.

So he may not be a shareholder.

In the Catholic church, but they don't have shareholdings.

It's as good as you get as, as being a shareholder.

So it's relevant.

This is the best we can expect from the ex Labour Premier of New South

Wales, who is, what have we got here?

Deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate.

Has decided it's not good enough for her to be third on the ticket of the

Senate and is now going to run for House of Representatives seat, which

was just this hugely factional dispute.

This is, this is where her attention is right now.

On defending the opposition.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Not, not, not our best work.

Yeah.

Even, even Michael West Media did a great expose on the JobKeeper rorts,

basically, which saw 40 billion going to corporations that made money or

paid bonuses to their executives.

And essentially it showed how during the crisis, in the heady days of the

crisis, The government was meeting with corporate power groups who were

saying, Oh, you've got to keep it going.

Don't put any sort of constraints on this.

And, and Treasury had sort of observed that there's problems here where we're

giving money to people who don't need it.

And anyway, the government has decided that it won't be

clawing back any of that money.

Like it could pass.

Some legislation of some sort to say, well, you guys got money

you didn't need, we want it back.

Forty billion dollars, gone to some of the wealthiest companies and biggest in

Australia, many of them foreign owned.

Hardly normal.

And what's the Labor Party response?

Oh, well, they're not going to stand up to the business lobby, are they?

Rolled over.

Qantas needs that 28 new aircraft they're planning.

Rolled over and said, yeah, we don't think they should be clawing

back that 40 billion either.

Fuck.

Let it go.

Let it go.

Let it go.

There we go.

It's the most depressing episode so far.

Whereas if you owe Centaline money, they'll hound you till you're dead.

Absolutely!

Get the last 50 bucks out of you on a robo date.

Exactly.

Yes.

Made to feel like I was just, you know, my cap in my hand, begging

Australia to keep me alive.

Yeah.

In the chat room, Bronwyn says, uh, have a look at Andrew Lee, Labor MP for Canberra.

He's, uh, adopted it as a special issue.

So.

Have a look at him and definitely have a look at Michael West Media.

So, so good on you in the chat room.

Keep chatting away there.

Yeah.

So the next article.

Maybe companies should be paying a CEO tax based on the amount they pay their CEOs.

Hooray.

Yes.

Yeah.

Certainly Qantas crew would love that.

I reckon there should be a different tax rate depending on

How many employees you've got?

Or, or maybe just the taxation and the difference between the median wage The

multiple between the CEO wage and the median wage of the employees or something.

Formulas like that, and also I reckon just number of employees because I can

remember we did something on Instagram in Australia or somebody like that, and they

had like four employees, something crazy, because everyone was just outsourced

on contracts and so Oh, so taxing on outsourced rather than the small business.

Well, something to encourage people.

So maybe turnover per employee?

Yeah, something to sort of reward companies who actually

do employ a lot of people.

As opposed to companies who have very few employees.

Yeah.

Because that's what we want our companies to be doing is employing people.

So they're just going to say that they're very efficient.

Yes.

And we're going to say, well, that's fine.

That's fine.

But we're going to reward people who employ people.

So if you don't get that reward.

So that might affect your efficiency.

Anyway.

Okay.

So that was the multinationals.

That was Labor rolling over.

Oh, we had Christian Porter's blind trust.

So we had a situation.

Blind trust or brown paper bag.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we had a situation where there was a vote on the floor of parliament.

About putting this to, I think, some Privileges Committee, and the Speaker

of the House, a Liberal, said there's enough of a prima facie case here

that it should go to this Privileges Committee to be investigated.

Not saying he's guilty, but it should go there.

Speaker of the House.

Mm hmm.

And they goddamn called a division, got everybody in,

and voted it down and said no.

Apparently first time in history, in parliamentary history.

So essentially saying it's fair enough, and for a politician just to get a

million dollar anonymous donation, supposedly anonymous, without having to

declare it, and, and the next day in the Courier Mail, guess how many words were

written about that particular event?

Zero?

Zero.

Not a single word in the courier mail about it at all, and the Australian

on page two had one column that would possibly have been 200 words maximum.

Porter Funding Pro blocked.

Like a massive blow to our democracy.

Just, whoosh, no mention of it.

Never you mind.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Who cares?

No, no, no, I'm just thinking, Sir Joe.

Yeah, well, it's good.

Shades of.

Yes.

Yeah.

This Perretier reminds me of Joe Earer.

I think, I think the pictures of him, does he wear brill cream?

Is Perretier got, he looks quite slick with his hair.

It's that whole 50s, 60s sort of brill creamed hair type dude that just,

That's what I keep seeing in him.

Some spooky eminences of my father in him or something.

I don't know.

That's part of what harks back to that era.

So maybe that's what he aspires to.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, that's right.

And a big family because there should be no social welfare because that

That people don't have a big family to look after, relying on the state.

Yep.

So, if we were to speculate about whose million bucks it was, what

would be our worst case scenario?

Like, why is it so important that they protect whom donated it?

I reckon it's gonna be some dodgy member of the underworld who's been

smuggling in large quantities of drugs.

I was gonna say, a taxpayer.

I think it's just gonna be some That's money.

Famous minor of some sort, I would have thought.

Probably, but if we're saying worst case.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

We are just speculating.

The worst case could be a drug smuggler, you think?

Oh, I'm just, or Cardinal Pell, he wants reduced.

Catholic Church.

Yeah.

Twiggy Forest!

Bronwyn reckons it's Twiggy Forest.

Yeah, there's all sorts of rumours going around, so.

Goddammit, Bronwyn, am I now potentially responsible for your

potentially defamatory comment?

No, no, it's a rumour.

It's a rumour.

It's a rumour.

She's not actually saying it's Twiggy Forest, there are rumours

about all sorts of mining magnets.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And.

Thanks, Bronwyn.

What's the thing?

There you go.

Could potentially be liable for a defamatory comment there.

Okay, right.

We've done the flight attendants.

We've done that one.

Bronwyn did send the Ernie Awards through.

Yes.

So there's Ernie Awards, but basically for the best sexist comments of the previous

year and the gold Ernie went to Ernie.

Erika Betts, when asked by Tasmanian speaker Sue Hickey if Christian Porter was

the unidentified minister who was accused of rape, he allegedly replied, Allegedly

replied, Yes, but not to worry, the woman is dead and the law will protect him.

As for that Higgins girl, anybody so disgustingly drunk who would

sleep with anybody could have slept with one of our spies, put the

security of the nation at risk.

An industrial silver Ernie went to General Angus Campbell, Chief of

Defence, who told incoming female ADFA candidates they should avoid making

themselves prey to sexual predators.

By being aware of the quote, four A's, Alcohol, Out After

Midnight, Alone and Attractive.

Good advice there from General Angus Campbell.

Is he a, is he a um, is he a Governor General or something yet?

They normally get the gig, these guys.

They normally do, but I don't think so.

I've lost track of my Governor's General.

Jeremy Cordeau, South Australian radio host on Brittany Higgins said, I just

asked myself why the Prime Minister doesn't call it out for what it is,

a silly little girl who got drunk.

Here's one from Ricky Stewart, coach of the Canberra Raiders.

He said, if I can't have tough conversations with my better players,

I might as well coach netball.

Did you get tough conversation?

Tell me what's it like at a halftime chat on a netball court.

Does it get direct?

Yeah, it's intense.

Who needs to pick up the slack?

Who needs to do this?

Who needs to read the play?

Tough conversations are made.

Shay, pull your socks up.

You're not covering this person well enough.

Exactly.

We never had to tiptoe around the fragile male ego.

No, no, no.

Bang.

There we go.

Ah, and then of course That was a joke by the way.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Then we had Morrison.

Jenny and I spoke last night and she said to me, you have to think

about this as a father first.

What would you want if it were our girls?

Jenny has a way of clarifying things.

General Campbell is still a general and the head of the army.

There you go.

Protecting our young female staff.

One advice.

Okay, that's enough of the Ernie's.

Colin Powell.

Did you ever hear of Colin Powell before his death this week?

Naming anyone after a body part.

Right, yes.

Strange guy.

I mean, his first name's Colin, but he insisted that he'd be He was Colon.

Yes, Colin Powell.

Military guy from the USA.

It's amazing how much press it got about him.

He was conservative, wasn't he?

He was, but in the end he was anti Trump, though.

He did Oh, good.

So, a never Trump Republican, I think.

But, you know, there's quite a lot of press about what a great guy

he was in Australia, and such an honourable man, and all the rest of it.

And even on things like the ABC News, you'll see Colin Power.

Colin Power, American legendary general, dies amid a claim of What

a great guy he was, essentially.

Like, without going into the detail, but actually, you know

what, maybe he wasn't so great.

Because he was the one who painted the picture at the UN to say that Saddam

Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

He should have known it was bullshit that he was sprouting,

and he should have said no.

And he didn't.

He's got form on that regard because he was in Vietnam with the Milay?

Milay?

Milay?

Massacre?

My lie.

Hmm.

And he'd received a letter from an infantryman saying there's an issue

here and he went, oh no there isn't.

And of course, there was.

And what else?

A third thing, he was involved in torture, he was in meetings, how much can we

torture people and get away with it?

And, and even with the gays in the military, he sort of promoted and

instituted the Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Although that was under Clinton, wasn't it?

Could have started under that, but he was happy to keep it going.

So, so he probably had, he was probably a lovely guy to have for

dinner party and to talk about things.

Oh, I'm sure.

And probably, you know, would've taken your bins out if you, if he

was your next door neighbor and you're away on holidays and stuff.

But on the really crucial things, that was his job.

Sounds like Roger Rogerson.

Yeah.

So I just, I'm quite amazed at how much coverage, even on the weirdest

of places, like there's this guy John Dixon, who is this sort of pastor type.

And he had a thing about Colin Powell, and what a great man he was, and there

were all these comments about it, and yeah, a lot of talk about him.

And around, that he would take the bins out and was a real community guy, or

was it more about what a great guy he was, and what a great American, and

what a sad to see him go sort of thing, without any of the acknowledgement

of the crappy things he did.

Caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

Okay, there we go.

Tom the Warehouse Guy was also astounded by the Angus Campbell quote.

Okay, what else have I got here?

Nuclear, I've got some notes on.

Yeah, essentially, I mentioned before, News Corp is going hard on nuclear.

COVID.

Doesn't exist.

No.

Well, that guy down the Gold Coast, he's got COVID.

Who hadn't used his QR code check in in months and was on oxygen and

assisted breathing so that they couldn't actually ask him where

he'd been and who he'd exposed.

Yeah, and he was trying to fight his way and abscond from the hospital,

claiming that COVID was a hoax.

You can't do anything.

Euthanasia?

Yeah, yeah.

Dire Straits, did you read my comment on nuclear?

I did, Dire Straits.

You said something about smaller suburban nuclear modular type stuff, I think.

And, Dire Straits, did you read, did you listen to my comments

about nuclear a week or two ago?

Which said, How expensive nuclear is, how hard it is to get up and running,

and nobody's doing it, how it's NIMBYS?

Not in my backyard.

Exactly.

So If they honestly think they're gonna be deploying a little

nuclear reactor in every suburb.

Yeah.

You gotta be joking.

Yeah, I mean if the Scandinavians can't build one on time and on

budget, how are we gonna do it?

Honestly, so yes, I did die straight.

I just didn't want to argue with you.

But now I have.

There we go.

COVID.

Here we go.

There's a tweet by this guy, Jeff, who says, Holy fucking shit.

Vaccine mandates are causing teachers who don't believe in science to

quit, nurses who don't believe in medicine to quit, and cops who don't

believe in public safety to quit.

I'm failing to see the downside to this.

It's, it's, it's a sorting out, um, process, isn't it?

Now you had previously poo pooed.

Nurses as being potentially a group of large, with an

above average level of COVID.

Above average for medical professionals.

Yes, of sort of vaccine skepticism and whatnot.

Yeah, a worrying amount.

Yes.

And before we started, you mentioned you saw some statistics.

Yes.

Yes.

Which was that the Queensland Nurses Union has lost 4, 000 members over

And that they are mandating vaccines.

Yeah, that's a lot.

And that they are going across to NPAC who are going to supposedly

fight the fight for them.

This is mandating that people who are working with a at risk

population should be vaccinated.

Not general members of the public, this is people who are working

with sick patients who possibly have suppressed immune systems.

Yes.

Right.

And your mother wasn't happy with his comment, was she?

She wasn't.

She thought it was, she thought it was, I think she even said that she

thought it was ironic that we spent the first part of the session talking

about defamatory remarks and then saying that nurses, that we made remarks about

nurses entertaining pseudoscience.

Wasn't supported.

How many nurses are there are in Queensland?

It's not going to be a small number.

So what proportion is 4, 000?

So the Nurses Union is the largest union in Australia and I think

they have close to 50, 000 members.

Oh, so it's 8%?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's a fair number, isn't it?

Hmm.

Boy, you would have thought if you'd sat down at the beginning of the

pandemic and said, this is what's going to happen with nurses and vaccines.

You could have got a lot of money betting against that.

You could have got good odds betting against it.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's interesting.

So there was a case in Well, I don't know if it means they, just to answer

Ross's question, I don't know if it means whether they did or didn't get vaccinated.

There isn't actually a causal link there, but I'm just saying they

resigned from the union that was No, no.

I think the question is, at all, any vaccines, not just COVID vaccines.

Right.

Oh God, I don't have those.

No, don't have that kind of information.

But there is something I'm specifically, and I'm seeing a

lot of, no, no, I'm pro-vaccine.

Just not this one.

Yes, but when you listen to anti-vaxxers, that's what anti-vaxxers say, oh no, no.

I'm ProSAFE vaccines.

I'm pro vaccines in a spaced out.

Whatever it is, there's always an excuse.

They're pro-vaccine, but just not this one.

Or not in this dose.

Or not in and and so they're never anti-Vax, okay.

They've done their arrest needs to be, they've done their

research on this particular one.

Yes.

And so they're going, well, we're not anti-vax.

And you're going, you are using exactly the same tropes as the anti-vaxxers use.

Mm-Hmm.

. Well, in New South Wales, a judge has dismissed two legal challenges

to health orders requiring.

COVID 19 vaccinations for workers in NSW.

Did you read the ruling?

No.

I've read it.

He's quite scathing.

Oh.

I've got some of his quotes here.

We'll see what he says.

Right.

So the cases we heard in NSW Supreme Court involved 10 plaintiffs,

including workers in health, aged care, construction and education.

All of them said their employment had been impacted by orders requiring vaccination.

Each unvaccinated worker cited similar concerns about insufficient

long term data on COVID 19, vaccine safety, and the side effects.

And they used various arguments to attack the validity of the health orders, but

they contained some common threads.

They contended that the orders violated rights to personal integrity and

privacy, implemented civil conscription, represented a breach of natural justice,

And were made without clear legislative authority and Justice Robert Beach Jones

on Friday ruled that all those grounds had failed and he said any consideration

about the reasonableness of orders should be undertaken by reference to the objects

of the Public Health Act which were directed exclusively at public safety.

The judge found that if an order was made interfering with freedom of

movement and differentiating on arbitrary grounds unrelated to public health.

Such as race or gender, then it would be invalid.

However, the differential treatment of people according to their

vaccination status is not arbitrary.

Instead, it applies a discrimin, discrimin, namely vaccination status that

on the evidence and the approach taken by the minister is very much consistent

with the objects of the Public Health Act.

One of his rulings was that There were reasonable curtailments in freedom,

given the pandemic, and there was an exemption granted to those people who

were vaccinated, and therefore, it wasn't forcing you to be vaccinated,

it was saying you could escape from the reasonable conscriptions on your movement.

Yes.

If you were vaccinated.

Yes.

Yep.

And so that wasn't coercing people.

So a general restriction is applied, which you can release yourself from rather than

A specific restriction is imposed on you.

Correct.

You are not being punished.

It's a blanket ban on movement.

Yeah, you've chosen not to avail yourself of the escape clause.

Basically.

Yes, that's a good way of putting it.

So he was saying these are the very types of restrictions that the

Public Health Act clearly authorises.

So, there we go, in New South Wales at least.

Interestingly enough, I'm talking to my friends in the UK and they were

saying that they think the challenges in the UK are going to succeed.

Right.

Because the health acts are not written in the same way as they are

over here, where they effectively say the health minister can bring out

a State of emergency type of order?

Well, no, no, yeah, public health order.

Yep.

And they're saying basically the public health order is lawful because of this

law that says, kind of like speed limits.

If you look at the law, it doesn't say this stretch of road is this speed.

It says Ministry of Transport has the right to set the

speed limit on, on all roads.

And that bears the force of the law.

And this is much the same.

Whereas in the UK, I think there isn't any such legislation.

And so when they've said, You must do this.

There's no legal status behind that.

There we go.

All right, we'll see what happens.

Bronwyn says there's a class action underway in Victoria.

The group includes teachers, nurses, a surgeon, and even

someone who works at CSL.

Manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccine, of course.

And there were a whistleblower who's going to spill the dirty secrets.

Yes.

Yeah.

So.

What's the latest?

Okay, if you are vacc Okay, clearly, in terms of the community, having people

vaccinated's, I think the main argument in favour of it is that It clearly has a

big effect on the severity of the illness in keeping people out of our hospitals

and out of intensive care and therefore keeping the hospital's beds available

and not crunched by, uh, crazy demand.

Like that's, that's the number one reason it seems to me requiring vaccinations.

People who are vaccinated though can contract the disease and the virus.

Yeah, very much.

Yep.

And.

But does vaccination slightly reduce their chances of contracting the virus?

I'm not sure.

Effectively, yes.

So it reduces your risk of contracting the virus.

It makes it less of an impact when you do.

It means you clear it from your system more quickly.

So you're infectious for a less amount of time.

So you can infect, so you could be vaccinated, double vaccinated,

you could contract COVID 19, you could pass it on to somebody else.

But the whole point is that The possibility of that is reduced

than if you went unvaccinated.

So anyway, you'll see people arguing on social media and stuff.

Well, people who are vaccinated still get COVID.

Well, yeah, they do.

I'm not saying they don't.

And people who get vaccinated can still pass on COVID.

Well, yes.

Haven't said they don't.

But it's about, is it less a risk than if they were unvaccinated?

But more importantly, If we're all vaccinated, then the health system

is not going to get crunched.

That's the big one.

What's, what's the drink driving limit?

Well, for an open license, 0.

05.

All right.

So if I get in the car and drive at 0.

05, I could have an accident.

If I get in a car and drive at 0.

5, I could also have an accident.

Yes.

So drinking less has no impact whatsoever.

Yes.

It's, you know, say it's a 10th of the, of the rate, it has an impact.

It's not gonna completely stop it from happening, but there is a huge difference

between unvaccinated and vaccinated.

And that's what people, it's not an on or an off, it's a reduction in risk.

Yes.

And, and wearing a mask is the same.

It reduces the risk.

It doesn't completely save you.

Yes.

Being vaccinated and wearing a mask.

Yep.

It's just a really shallow argument to just say, oh, vaccinated people

still get it and they can still pass it on, therefore We shouldn't

be insisting people to vaccinate.

We'll take into account all these other bits of information.

If people have time, UQ are running a massively open online course.

on edX called Avax 101 and it's all about how do we know vaccines work, bit of the

history, how do they work and also why do people, why are people vaccine hesitant

and how do you counter their fears?

And they did one on climate change denial which was very very good and

I've just started the the Avax 101.

So is it like online lectures is it?

It's online lectures, it's How many hours is that?

It's like two hours a week for a period of about eight to ten weeks.

Right.

That's a commitment.

Yeah, but it's free.

And any time you want?

At the moment it's sign up and they're saying that the free access, you only

get it for a certain period of time.

Okay.

So I'm just thinking uni's over next week.

Yeah, and I don't know how many of the lessons are up, but it's worth looking at.

The climate change one was up for a while, one was very, very good.

And the videos are now up on YouTube.

And it's possible these ones will end up on YouTube.

Very good.

Okay.

So if you want more UQ website.

No, it's edX, edx.

org, I think.

Okay.

And just look for AVAX.

And it's, it's run by UQ.

Okay.

All right.

One of the arguments as well has been, you know, just with lockdowns is you've got

to take into account the mental anguish and the other deaths that are being

caused to people because of lockdowns.

So we're getting people, mental health issues as a result of financial strain and

other, you know, not seeing their family.

So the anti lockdown movement would say.

You need to look at those flow on effects of lockdown as part of your calculation

as to whether lockdowns are worthwhile.

And that's a fair enough argument.

You should look at those.

And if it was a really chronic case of, of people in lockdown areas

suffering enormous mental health problems at a chronic level, you

would say, yeah, maybe we shouldn't be locking down because of this.

So anyway, there's an article by Alan Austin from

Independent Australia blog, and.

He says here, data released last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics

confirms that mental health actually improved dramatically in Victoria.

So this article was a lot of about how Victoria compared to the other states,

and of course Victoria had much longer and harder lockdown than anybody else.

So if there was to be mental health issues and suicide issues, As a result

of a lockdown, you would expect to see it more in Victoria than in other states.

So, total deaths in Victoria from all causes last year was 41, 093.

That's actually 2, 851 below the previous year.

So, in Victoria, deaths from all causes were down.

And in fact, in Australia, nationwide, deaths were down.

Nationwide declined 4.7%, so, so overall deaths down in Victoria and Australia.

Suicide statistics, so suicides in Victoria actually fell from 717 in

2019 to 694 in 2020, so, so suicides in Victoria are actually lower during

the lockdown year of 2020 than they were during the non lockdown of 2019.

There's a decline of 3 percent and relative to the population,

the 2020 rate was the second lowest in the last seven years.

So extremely low suicide rate in Victoria.

Second lowest in their last seven years.

And it's interesting looking at the Coalition versus the Labor.

Right.

Suicides.

Suicides seem to be higher under Labor.

Yes.

Don't know if this is up.

A causation to that correlation.

They just give him, like, I'm tempted to, no.

Yeah, you're right.

You could find, this is when you look at stats, you could, you could do a chart

and say, well, having the coalition government's better for your suicide rate.

Maybe.

So, yes, more people in Australia sought suicide prevention help in

2020 than in previous years, but the author of this says, well, you

could say that there were extensive campaigns promoting the services.

So.

That's because more people saw it, it doesn't necessarily mean

more people were feeling it.

If you've done a big campaign, hey, are you worried about

mental health in lockdown?

Go and use this service.

They even made it accessible to poor people.

The poor people, the underclass.

That's right, or more accessible.

You only need to pay 70 or something.

It was subsidised a bit for it to see a psychologist.

So suddenly you're thinking, oh, well, I probably wouldn't

pay 150, but I'd say pay 70.

Sorry.

Virtually all indicators of morbid anxiety and depression improved during 2020.

Heart attacks fell by 9 percent nationwide.

Victoria's was 14.

3 percent reduction.

So this is one of the other things is people saying, you can't get

to hospital, so you're going to be dying of other things because

the hospitals won't let you in.

So, heart attacks and other things will increase because people aren't getting

the treatment they should be getting.

Because the hospitals are closed because of COVID.

So, in Victoria, there was a 14.

3 percent reduction in heart attack deaths, which was leading the country.

The question is whether People are not getting preventative treatment, which

will lead to long term impacts, and that we won't see in the statistics.

Correct.

We won't have statistics for that for several years.

Fatalities attributable to mental and behavioral disorders were down 9.

9 percent in Victoria.

Cancer deaths The all causes mortality, though, has been

touted by the anti vaxxers as reasons why COVID doesn't exist.

Yes.

Because we've got very, very low rates.

Yeah, we've had all this COVID around, and we've got these really low rates of death.

They're lower than they've ever been.

That's alright.

We haven't had COVID.

Yeah.

And we've been locked down, so we haven't had road accidents because

we've not been driving around.

Yeah, I know.

Anyway, cancer deaths fell by 2.

4%, lung cancers.

Fatalities by 4.

6%.

See, that makes no sense.

Mm hmm.

Probably restricted, probably attributable to restricted access to smoking outdoors.

Hard to say.

No.

In such a short time.

Exactly.

Maybe people are just happy at home with people and they ain't saying,

Look, I'm enjoying my life now.

Gonna hang on.

So, maybe people are happier.

Well, there's, there's a lot of discussion about work life balance.

Yes.

Yeah.

But they're also saying that the problem with working from home is, is,

incidents of anti vaxx freedom fighting, freedom fighting nut jobs increased.

Increased.

Increased.

Every one of the kids I went to high school with, I was on my way to uni

last week and he was just getting out of the car and didn't have a mask on, so I

recognised him, I said G'day, insert name here, and I said, oh, what are you doing,

and he's like, oh, I just come down from the Sunshine Coast to sell some silver.

Going off grid, not going to be vaccinated, not, like, really, really.

So, sell some silver?

Sell some silver?

He's not even using normal currency anymore.

Right.

So, sell, sell silver so he can't interact.

Just because he's not going to participate in the Marxist, what did he say?

Marxist regime around communism and Yep, okay, yep.

So yeah, I thought, yep, the incidence of anti vax freedom

fighting has increased, definitely.

Hmm, okay.

Meanwhile, New South Wales had higher rates than Victoria in fatalities

caused by mental and behavioural disorders, heart attacks, arterial

disease, gas stricken duodenal ulcers, And a whole bunch of other things.

So, New South Wales did worse than Victoria.

So, so there we go.

In terms of the evidence so far, you'd have to say that lockdowns have

not been detrimental to the mental health or Mortality rates in Victoria.

Mind you, if people haven't been going to get tested or treated, that's a statistic

that could show up in a few years time.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, I certainly noticed working from home that I'd become a lot more sedentary.

Right.

Yes?

Because, you know, the walk from the station to the office, the walk

from the office back to the station, going out at lunchtime to get food,

whereas everything is now, yeah, a 10 metre walk to the kitchen.

Yes.

Or if you have an Esky beside you with a beer.

Well, exactly.

You can just reach across and get it without even getting up.

Jack H says, History of depression.

Found my mental health improve.

Easy to suffer alone with depression.

Had something in common as we all suffered through last year together.

I did remember seeing something like that, Jack H, where people In that

situation felt, and you're not the only person to express it that way.

So, you know, I haven't had to commute to work in a long, long time.

But I reckon if I was suddenly introduced to not commuting, I'd be very happy

compared to my previous existence.

Like, commuting sucks.

So, all these people have been able to avoid a commute and have that extra time.

All those rich people.

So, well,

yes, maybe, yes, let's face it, it is the very working poor who are the cleaners.

That's right.

The hospitality workers.

At first we were essential.

Nursing homes, yep, all that sort of work which are actually

essential and we need them to do it, still have to physically turn up.

The rest of us who are doing white collar work.

Who can, to a large extent, do it on the phone or on a computer, have been

the ones who have taken advantage of it.

Yep.

So, true.

But the Dole Bludgers still work from home, right?

Or Dole Bludge from home.

Here's an interesting one.

I think we've previously talked about this sort of concept with transplants,

organ transplants, and whether you should lose eligibility for transplants.

Transplants in certain situations, and we were talking about

people who were vaccinated.

Well, okay, we've got no beds in ICU, we've got limited number.

Oh, you didn't get vaccinated?

Well, we're not going to waste a bed on you because we've got other

people who haven't, who have been vaccinated, and in fact, they've

got a better chance of living now.

than you do, so you miss out on that bed and, you know, where

there's limited resources.

We're talking about that could be a problem for the unvaccinated in

that they, you know, if in a triage situation, they could legitimately

miss out on a treatment, you know, where resources are slim.

So in Colorado, a health system told a prospective kidney transplant

recipient that she would not receive an organ donation if she remained

unvaccinated against the coronavirus.

So, the patient had about 12 percent of her kidney function

left, and they'd found a donor.

And, uh, UC Health told the TV station that studies had shown that transplant

recipients who later tested positive for COVID had a significantly higher

mortality rate, 18 32%, compared to 1.

6%.

Among those in the general population who tested positive.

So, so, if you've got a kidney transplant and you test positive,

you've got a higher chance of dying than people who don't have a transplant.

So, they've got a policy and they said, that transplant patients were

generally required to meet similar requirements before and after

surgery even before the pandemic.

Patients may be required to receive Vaccinations including

Hepatitis B, MMR and others.

The spokesman told the paper in an email, Patients may also be required

to avoid alcohol, stop smoking, or prove they will be able to continue

taking their anti rejection medications long after their transplant surgery.

The patient, Leilani Lutali, told the TV station that she had learned of

the hospital's policy as her donor was undergoing the required testing.

She said that she worried about how the vaccines might affect her health in the

future, and that she and her donor had declined them for religious reasons.

I'm being coerced into making a decision that is one I'm not comfortable

making right now in order to live.

Ms.

Lutale said.

Well, Jesus sent her a lever and set the boundaries required.

Yes.

Kidney.

God helps those who help themselves.

Who knows how much medication she's had to take and what not she's been on

with a 12 percent functioning kidney.

And now she says, uh, actually Not so sure about this COVID vaccine.

And so the immunosuppressants actually stop your ability to react

to vaccines as well as to diseases.

Right.

And so they really want you to get vaccinated before

you start the medication.

So you build up the antibodies that are sitting there in your bloodstream

to give you protection afterwards, because the chance of you mounting

a response afterwards is very low.

And so this is, this really is preventative medicine.

Yes.

And, and you can imagine all the time they'd be saying to people,

stop smoking, stop drinking alcohol.

Uh, we're going to give you this other.

Hep B, vaccine, whatever.

A whole bunch of things where you just gotta go, yep, give it

to me, whatever I've got to do.

And my cousin has a very rare sort of, I don't even know the name of

it, and his kidneys are failing.

And his dad said, I'll give you one of mine.

Yes.

And I don't have an outcome yet, but it's going to look

like they're taking it all in.

His, his health, his likeliness to live after the surgery.

It's a major surgery.

There's a whole range of considerations, you know, and, you know, If you're going

to have a kidney transplant and you've got to trust your doctor, they'll cut

you up, cut you up, put somebody else's kidney in, but you won't trust them to

say, here's what you need to do first?

Weird, weird.

I'm seeing a lot of fatiguing medical professionals who are going, we're

putting our lives on the line.

You're coming to us when you're sick, you want the help, but we're

offering you something that's going to keep you out of the hospital.

And you're turning it down because you don't believe in that, but you believe

in it when you turn up and you want a ventilator and you want us to treat you.

To be fair, I, I empathize with them saying, I've had enough.

You're not looking after yourselves and you're putting our lives at risk.

And if you can't be bothered to do that, then I I've had enough.

I'm not going to do it.

And we're either going to see them quit or we're going to see them going.

More and more refuse to treat the unvaccinated.

Look, I can see there'd be fatigue in the medical community.

I see fatigue in the podcast community, just arguing the points all the time.

Just a little bit on Taiwan before we finish up.

Did you hear about the Chinese invading Taiwanese airspace and sort of running

sort of aircraft into their space?

And it was a threatening action by the Chinese saber rattling, sending signals

to the west and all the rest of it.

And one of the things you've gotta recognize in this is that they have these

zones, which is called A DIS, air Defense Intelligence Zone, A-D-I-Z-I think it is.

Yeah.

So.

Essentially, let me first find this, airspace is a concept in international

law referring to a line 12 nautical miles beyond a nation's border.

So that's airspace, 12 nautical miles.

ADIZ is an area much further out from the borders within which a nation

declares it has the authority to identify, track and control foreign

aircraft approaching its territory.

So roughly 20 nations have established an ADIZ.

And they define it, scope, differently.

So the U.

S.

zone extends 200 miles beyond its borders.

So the U.

S.

says, if you're going to fly in the zone within 200 miles of our border,

we demand the right to track, identify, and control what you're doing.

Even though it's not above our land space.

So, so, Taiwan's ADIZ Covers all of the Taiwan Strait, part of the East

China Sea, in a section of mainland China's Fujian and Xinjiang provinces.

So, there's a map that will go up on the screen.

And so, there's Taiwan, the island there, and there's China.

And that sort of funny rectangular type thing is what they claim is Well,

the ADIZ zone that they claim they need to be told if an aircraft, so an

aircraft could be flying over mainland China and the Taiwanese would say

it's, it's an invasion of their ADIZ.

So there's a reference here to a tweet, which was from the Taiwanese.

I don't know, Aircraft Ministry, or whatever they're called, showing where

the, where the planes came into their zone, and it was just incursion, they were

much closer to China than they were to Taiwan, so when you hear about the Chinese

Sabre Rattling and flying into Taiwan.

Taiwanese airspace, in quotes, just, it's hard to tell exactly where they

were and what they were doing and whether they might've been actually closer

to China than they were to Taiwan.

By the looks of it, and I'm guessing the red arrow is their flight path.

Yes.

They flew in at a direct vector to hit the southern tip of Taiwan.

And at the speeds these aircraft are traveling at, you don't

have much time to respond.

Which is why they want the alert.

And so a plane traveling northeast up the coast of China, so what?

Don't care.

If it's coming through China.

heading towards Taiwan, they want to know.

Yeah, but, but when you hear a report that says the Chinese had aircraft

invading the Taiwanese ADIZ, it's quite possible they were actually within the

boundaries of China at the time, because the Taiwanese ADIZ is such a broad area.

Yeah, but looking at that, They were flying deliberately at

Taiwan and then turned around and that is a provocative act.

Well, there's a lot of provocation going on, but it's all about

putting it into perspective.

Saying, no doubt the Chinese were doing a little bit of, they would

have known exactly where the so called Order was and they're just

saying, the Russians were flying at Scotland a couple of years back Right.

And they were doing it deliberately.

Right.

And, and when you want to find out the strength of your opponent's

defense force you do a lot of that flying up to the line to see how

people respond and What comes up and.

The Chinese were probably doing the Taiwanese a favor Just testing them out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Helping them out with a little friendly exercise.

Yeah.

Can you explain why we care?

We care because the Americans are having finished one war in Afghanistan, but

a lot of spare capacity and there's the industrial military complex wants

budgets for spending more money on Military equipment that they'll supply,

and so a new Cold War with China is exactly what they want because they

can sell more stuff, so it's all about beating up the security risks because

they can sell more stuff, essentially.

Mm.

Yep.

So there's no actual threat to us.

Well, and we'll get dragged into that.

Yes.

Because we're the lapdog.

And look, China could actually consider, would be considering taking back Taiwan.

But in terms of a military response, if they do that, we'd be crazy.

They've done all the war gaming.

The Americans have done the war gaming and said, what do we do if China really

does make a solid attempt to take Taiwan?

Can we stop them?

The answer was no.

They can't do it.

So really what they've got to do is use other methods like, Okay, we'll get

together with the rest of the world, we won't buy their shit, and we won't

sell them stuff, and You know, all that sort of, um, economic sort of tactics

is, is what you would do in the event that China decided to take Taiwan, so.

You can also make it very, very costly.

Yeah.

In terms of, for the Chinese, in lives, like, yes, so, yes.

And therefore the question is, is it a Pyrrhic victory?

Right.

Where, you know, yes, you won, but, you know, So, but then it could cost

a lot of American lives as well.

So, so yeah, that's, that's basically just bear in mind if you hear about

aircraft incursions into area, it may not be what it seems at first blush.

Right, I think we've reached the video.

Hour and a half mark, we've kept Shea out of the shark tank, and now I am,

like, I've made my notes for my, for my, for my next little, okay, so I had

a book, which was, what was it called?

In the ruins of, oh where is it, hang on a sec.

You got some hold music, Joe?

Trevor's the man with the, um So I know, I know I promised a book review

last week, and here's the problem.

I was reading this book, which was Less is More, so, by Jason Hickel.

So, he was really making the argument that even if we get to Net zero by 2050.

The way the world works with capitalism is it needs 3 percent

growth per annum in order to function.

And 3 percent growth means you're essentially doubling GDP every 23 years.

And if you keep doubling and every 23 years and doubling and doubling,

you might have met net zero on carbon emissions, but it's going to get

increasingly harder to keep it there.

And there's a whole bunch of other things in terms of things to do

with overfishing, soil degradation, species extinction, just deforestation

that will just keep going because of Extraction is growth, essentially.

So he was really saying that ultimately in the long term, there's

no such thing as green growth.

You have to start taking growth out of the system because this sort of capitalism's

imperative of growth means that as far as the planet's concerned, we're just

going to keep extracting things in order to meet the demands of capitalism.

So anyway, problem was, This book sent me down a whole bunch of

other rabbit holes along the way.

So I have a really interesting expose of what happened.

Because when you say, well, if I say to you, we've got to stop with capitalism,

for example, people would go, but hang on a minute, capitalism is what got us

out of the dark ages, you know, the sort of medieval type of system we were under

and it gave us all this great stuff.

And so it put me onto this book, which was basically describing life in the middle

ages and the use of the commons and, and essentially the lifestyle of people.

And I found it quite interesting.

So I went down that whole rabbit hole.

And then there was another one, which another rabbit hole, which was basically

looking at when neoliberalism came in with Hayek and, and Milton Friedman,

Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan.

The whole point of neoliberalism was not just economics, which was

get rid of government regulations, allow globalization, and I think

what the third one was, but.

A lot of the, there's actually an anti society component in neoliberalism, which

was, you know, not only is government bad, but The notion of society and

the notion that society could compel individuals to do things against

their will, um, is just outrageous.

And so it was more than Very Ayn Rand.

Yes.

And so that's really part of where this whole, there's this whole tension all the

time between The ability of the collective and the commons to impose conditions on

people, which we're seeing all the time in this goddamn vaccination argument.

And so, he actually examines Friedman and Hayek and how they were very much,

there was not just economics involved, but there was this sort of sociological

conditioning and indoctrination.

That the commons and society were bad and that personal freedom was, you know, in

terms of hierarchy, far more important.

And in actual fact, these people who are so pro individual rights actually

are not that democratic quite often.

They would be happy With a totalitarian state that allowed personal freedoms.

They wouldn't care if it was undemocratic because personal freedom

is, is the most important thing.

And in fact, a democracy that might then impose conditions on people and

restrict their freedom was, is just evil.

So, so a lot of people, the notion, you know, for libertarians,

and their almost religious sort of zeal for personal freedom.

Democracy is a danger and and the thought of the majority imposing a condition on

an individual is is abhorrent to them.

They'd rather a totalitarian dictator who just allowed free will and markets to

apply and, and if he didn't get to vote him in or out, well, that's, that's okay.

So the Thatcher quote here, I think we've been through a period where too many

people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's

the government's job to cope with it.

I have a problem.

I'll get a grant.

I'm homeless.

The government must house me.

They're casting their problems on society.

And you know, there is no such thing as society.

There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can

do anything except through people and people must look to themselves first.

It's our duty to look after ourselves and then also to look after our neighbor.

People have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.

There's no such thing as entitlement unless somebody

has first met an obligation.

So, so, and, and that argument has won through, and we've got Barnaby

Joyce now, like he's, Goddamn.

But, but one would argue that the obligation is, certainly in terms of

the vaccination, the whole freedom, is your obligation is to make sure

that you protect the other members of the weaker members of society, and

the obligation, you know, conversely with the libertarians, is to pay your

way in taxes, you know, looking after your neighbour is paying your taxes.

And paying for those who are less fortunate.

So, so anyway, I've decided on my book as a result of all this.

Yes, so, so, so, it's really on this concept of, you know,

the honeybee or the fruit fly.

So, human beings are honeybees, we're not fruit flies.

And, essentially, the parts of it would be that, the first part would be that

we as humans have some hardwiring, which has come about through evolution.

So, my favourite topics of the Whispering Beta Males and Humans are a Domesticated

Animal and Psychopathic Chicken Story and all that sort of stuff is sort

of hardwiring that we as humans have.

And then, if you think of it as a computer, and then the software that

we have, our operating system, is our sort of philosophies and moral systems.

So, starting off with, uh, Homer and the ancient Greeks, Socrates,

Plato, Aristotle, and, and basically explaining how we've got that tension

between personal liberty versus the community, the collective, that's in

different At different times in our history, we've had different software

and that, that, that is a thing that we can change by decision if we want to.

And then just looking at, well, what has actually happened in terms of

history and basically then looking at the industrial revolution and, and, uh.

And Neoliberalism and how that basically brought the rise of this

individual freedom as sort of one out and that we need to return to

an appreciation of the commons.

And did individual freedom also come about from the Enlightenment?

Yes.

It absolutely did.

So, so yeah, so all that's really interesting to figure out who was

responsible and how we got there and, and, and still lay on top

of that, things like free will.

I mean, the evidence seems to be that we don't actually have free will.

There's arguments in either direction.

Yes.

But if you are, you know, a super rational person who demands

the freedom of the individual.

In all respects, as a first priority, and that you're incredibly

rational about this, and scientific.

Well, you have to deal with the free will argument because if there is no

free will, then that personal freedom and liberty that you are talking

about so much is actually a bit of a figment of your imagination, perhaps.

Yes.

Quite tricky.

That thing.

So anyway, because having thought about this, I sort of see it

everywhere in these arguments now.

Like the whole vaccination thing is all about that tension.

Between personal liberty and the right of the collective to impose

conditions on using the commons.

Essentially, if there was a libertarian island that these people want to just

fuck off to and go to, well, good go.

But no, do you actually want to hang around and use the commons?

Well, we get to regulate it.

Yes.

And you might think it's authoritarian, but it's actually democracy.

And it's actually how we've been operating in our communities.

And arseholes like Barnaby Joyce are in Parliament saying I'm sick of the

state, the state and its interference and this whole, if you look at what's

happened today and yesterday in terms of the argument for 2050 and net zero,

Morrison is basically saying we're going to do it the Australian way,

we're going to do it through innovation, we're not going to impose conditions

on people, we're going to allow people to do their choices on this.

We don't believe as a, as, uh, on our side of politics that we

can impose conditions on people.

So, so if they don't want to impose conditions, can I go and break into

his house and take all his goods?

Yeah, well, this is the point.

All the time conditions are imposed.

Yeah.

Yes.

So, so yeah.

So anyway, I, yeah, I'm going to work on that.

I think I need to do that.

So that'll be next week, will it?

Well, that'll be the start of it next week.

Yes.

There we go.

So it's guaranteed to be less depressing by the sounds of it.

Bit more meta, because we just get into the weeds on these most

depressing things and be like, Oh God.

Just as a complete sidetrack, have you heard of the Kardashev scale?

The Kardashev scale.

Kardashev.

Ardyshev, no?

He was a Russian something or other, I forget.

It's about the amount of energy a civilization uses.

And so a Type I civilization uses all the energy that falls onto it from its star.

Right.

And then you go Type II and Type III, and they're saying effectively these are more

advanced civilizations that are able to capture and use large amounts of energy.

Right.

Without, yeah, resorting to fossil fuels effectively.

What's an example of that?

So they're saying that future civilizations will have huge amounts

of energy that is almost limitless.

Yes.

And so you were saying we're, we're profligate in our energy use.

Yes.

And they're saying that future technologies will enable us to capture

and use large amounts of energy.

Yeah, but, but what Jason Hickle is saying in Less is More is, Okay,

you might get energy under control, but if you, if you are extracting,

um, all the time from the, you're going to run out of stuff to extract.

Right, okay.

Deforestation, overfishing, soil degradation, that sort of thing.

So, so we'll have the energy, which might be carbon neutral, but we'll

still be having problems as a result.

Yeah.

Not, perhaps we might sort global warming out, we'll end up with

a barren earth in any event.

Yeah, but I mean, if we're, if we're That sounds more depressive.

We're we're efficiently capturing all of the energy that's coming from the sun.

Yes.

And using that, that, that could possibly fuel a civilization that

is much greater than we have now.

As, as in bigger.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What are we gonna eat and what are we gonna sit on and what are

we gonna wear and Oh, if we have a larger civil number of people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There, there's a limit in terms of the number of people, right.

That is sustainable, unless we escape the planet, which is also a possibility,

because at the moment, again, the problem of escaping the planet is energy, and

so if we have limitless energy, We can possibly go elsewhere and terraform.

One day, I'm sure we will.

Anyway.

Well, that's enough.

We've really dragged on now.

Deep philosophy.

Yes.

So, so yeah, that's what we'll do next week.

Kickstart on that.

In the chat room.

Good on you.

If you feel like contributing to the, I'm going to mention the patrons next week.

I'm going to do that.

And if you can make it to Noosa this Saturday, get along, that'll be fun.

And.

Otherwise, talk to you next week.

Bye for now.

Good night.

That's a good night from him.