Well, hello and welcome back to you listener.
Trevor:Episode 441 of the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast, where we talk about
Trevor:news and politics and sex and religion.
Trevor:I was all alone, solo last week, ranting about Venezuela.
Trevor:Um, this time I'm joined by my two co hosts as we rant about other things.
Trevor:Scott the Velvet Glove, are you ready for a good rant, Scott, about anything
scott:in
Trevor:particular?
scott:Yeah, I suppose, you know, it's just one of those things, there's a
scott:hell of a lot coming out of the US.
scott:There's not so much coming out of the Australian, although Dutton is apparently
scott:trying to channel, uh, trying to channel Trump, you know, he's trying to channel
scott:him, so God knows whether or not that'll work, it'll probably blow up in his face.
Trevor:We'll talk about that, uh, Joe the Tech Guy, how are you?
Trevor:Evening all.
Trevor:Yeah, Joe's good.
Trevor:If you're in the chat room, my promise to you, actually there's nobody there
Trevor:yet, if somebody turns up they can choose whatever they topic they like and we'll
Trevor:talk about it because I was kind of looking at the list of topics and it was
Trevor:all international geopolitics type stuff because it really just felt like the only
Trevor:thing going on in Australia to talk about was AUKUS and foreign policy to do with
Trevor:our defence and Just, it just seems like there's not a lot happening locally, um,
Trevor:so it's all international foreign affairs.
Trevor:It's just war and disaster, whether it's Gaza or crazy ideas or theories on Nord
Trevor:Stream or all sorts of other things, so, look, uh, as people appear in the
Trevor:chat, this'll be the one episode where they don't appear, because I've said
Trevor:I'll let them run the show if they want to, um, but anyway, we'll see how we go.
Trevor:Anything you want to get off your chest at all, Scott?
Trevor:You mentioned Trump and you think Dutton is wanting to emulate
Trevor:the Republican Party here?
scott:Well, just some of the stuff he's already started to come out of
scott:his mouth and that sort of thing.
scott:Like, you know, the asking the government to deny visas from people
scott:that are fleeing the war in Gaza.
Trevor:That
scott:was a ridiculous thing to say.
scott:And, you know, it's, it just seems that he's prepared to blame anything
scott:on security problems and all that type of thing, which sounds like it's coming
scott:right out of, out of Trump's mouth.
scott:You know, it's just, it's reminiscent of the Muslim ban that the Yanks had
scott:when Trump was first elected, when they said, well, we're not going
scott:to allow, we're not going to allow you to come into the country if you
scott:come from a majority Muslim country.
Joe:It's because they're not big toe pairs.
Joe:Sorry?
Joe:I said it's because they're not French au pairs.
scott:Okay, gotcha.
scott:Um, it's one of those things, and I just think to myself, that is
scott:probably where, that's probably what Dutton is trying to do.
scott:The other thing too is, this was said to me only just recently, he says, well
scott:A mate of mine up here, he says, well, if the way Dutton's carrying on anyone,
scott:it's where it's the NLP, not the LNP.
scott:He reckons, he reckons it was the National Party take over the Liberal
scott:Party, rather than the Liberals taking over the National Party.
scott:And you can actually see some of that in the way the Nationals are seeming to be
scott:pointing the direction of the Coalition.
scott:Like, the Nationals don't like their party.
scott:Beautiful vistas and all that sort of stuff being taken up
scott:by ugly overhead power lines.
scott:So they said, well, we just got to build nuclear power stations where the, where
scott:the coal fire power stations were, and then we can, then we don't have to,
scott:then we don't have to build new power
clip:lines.
scott:And that is why Dutton seems to be so hell bent on nuclear
scott:power as a, as a It's a generation.
scott:It doesn't make any sense.
scott:The Orcus thing doesn't make any sense at all.
scott:And also, the other thing too is that, um,
scott:If the ALP actually did come up and say, yes, we're going to have a total blanket
scott:ban on gambling advertising entirely,
clip:you
scott:can bet your bottom dollar that Dutton will turn
scott:around and say, no, that's wrong.
scott:I mean, right now, right now, he's right now, he's pushing for a total
scott:blanket ban on gambling advertising, but Albanese, he doesn't want to go that far.
scott:So
Trevor:is Dutton pushing for that, is he?
scott:He is.
scott:Yeah.
Trevor:Oh, okay.
scott:But, you know, That's one thing he's actually pushing for, but I just
scott:think to myself, it's not gonna last.
scott:No.
scott:You know, as soon as they say, yeah, fair enough, we will actually go
scott:for a blanket ban, he'll be actually saying, no, you can't do that.
scott:That's ridiculous.
Trevor:Yes.
scott:He's
Trevor:from the Tony Abbott School of Opposition Leadership.
Trevor:Yeah,
scott:Dr.
scott:No.
scott:I just find him a vacuous old windbag who's got nothing sensible to say.
scott:You know, he just says no to everything.
scott:And then, um, and occasionally when he does actually
Trevor:And despite all that, Scott, he's doing okay in the polls.
scott:Yeah, I know, because Albanese hasn't had the balls to
scott:actually go in and do anything.
scott:And this was a very easy kick that he could have actually said, It was a cross
scott:party, um, committee that came in there, they came out with the unanimous report
scott:saying we shouldn't allow advertising, we're going to stop advertising.
Trevor:This is the gambling advertisement.
Trevor:Yeah, that's
scott:what they should have actually said.
scott:And they should have also then taken it one step further on the whole religious
scott:schools and everything else where they should have said, the Productivity
scott:Commission has recommended that we disallow this as a tax deduction.
scott:Therefore, we're going to disallow as a tax deduction,
Trevor:you know,
scott:they could have blamed someone else for those two things, but anyway,
scott:they haven't, and had they have actually done that, then I think that they
scott:would have actually found themselves, a lot more people would actually be
scott:applauding them for doing stuff like that,
Trevor:but instead
scott:they're just being so cowardly.
Trevor:You know how, sort of, um, racist, basically, Dutton's
Trevor:been with the blanket ban on, on Palestinian refugees into Australia?
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um, the sad part is, online, when you look at, you know, as I do on your
Trevor:behalf, dear listener, you know, Sky News, um, Twitter and Sky News Facebook
Trevor:pages and places like that, when you look in the comments section, it's awful.
Trevor:It's so mean spirited, goddamn awful in there where people are just basically
Trevor:saying to the Palestinians, fuck them.
Trevor:We don't want them.
Trevor:And just, they're just awful.
Trevor:So it's been a real,
Trevor:you know, just, uh, misrepresentation, propaganda, manufacturing of consent, all
Trevor:those things of just brainwashing people into holding some pretty nasty views.
clip:And they're
Trevor:genuinely hilled, and therefore, Peter Dutton.
Trevor:Picks up quite a lot of that along the way, so.
Trevor:For sure,
scott:it's just like one of those things, I just think to myself that, um, he's
scott:starting to emulate, um, Pauline Hanson.
scott:You know, like, it's He doesn't actually say anything sensible, he just seems to
scott:pick up a talking point and run with it.
Trevor:You
scott:know, he's just an imbecile.
scott:Well, they're aiming
Trevor:for the same sort of, uh, electorate, aren't they?
Trevor:Really, that rural redneck.
Trevor:Absolutely, that's what they're
scott:trying to get.
scott:He's sort of given
Trevor:up on the inner city.
scott:Oh, he has.
scott:He has.
scott:And that's one of the things that I just think to myself that was, um, I'm
scott:very grateful that the Teals actually contested that election and won because,
scott:um, that was a kick in the pants to the Liberal Party that they, and also the
scott:other thing too, is like the sensible commentariat have already said, if
scott:you don't get those Teal seats back, you're never going to form government.
Trevor:Which is, they're doing everything to not win those seats.
Joe:Exactly.
Joe:If only we could get a Teal MP or a candidate standing here,
Trevor:I'd be tempted,
Joe:just to get him out.
scott:Yeah, it's one of those things, like, there was actually talk of the
scott:Teals moving north and that sort of stuff.
scott:They're thinking that, you know, I think that they might have picked up on the
scott:fact that Ryan isn't really a green seat.
scott:And that the Brisbane and Griffith aren't really green seats, but
scott:they have fallen to the greens.
scott:And I just think to myself, had they had a sensible teal candidate up here,
scott:then those three seats would have probably gone teal more so than green.
Trevor:Yeah, don't know.
Trevor:There's two people in the chat room.
Trevor:If you're in the chat room, say hello, and we will discuss any
Trevor:topic that you want to raise, because I mean, that's kind of nude.
Trevor:Sorry.
Trevor:Um, we'll riff on anything if you want to put it forward as a topic.
Trevor:I'll be careful
Joe:with your promises.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Anything within reason.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:I've got a pretty broad feeling of reason at the moment.
Trevor:So yeah, um, Scott, you mentioned Orcus in that little rant you had there.
Trevor:That was nice.
Trevor:Um, I'm seeing More pushback against Orcus, even amongst the Hawks.
Trevor:I've seen people from Aspie are now complaining about this submarine deal.
Trevor:I'm seeing articles in the Australian Financial Review, seeing
Trevor:articles in Sydney Morning Herald.
Trevor:Starting to see a pushback, because the people who want war, or want,
Trevor:um, you know, are pro spending money on defence, can just see that we're
Trevor:going to get nothing from this, and, and so, it's really the opposite.
Trevor:Getting to the point where the only people who want this are going to be Albanesey
Trevor:and Miles and Dutton and his crew.
Trevor:Like it's just the politicians, oh, and the And the defence
Trevor:people, perhaps, narrow that down to the naval defence people.
Trevor:Yeah,
scott:but even, even amongst them, you don't see a hell of a lot of
scott:them coming out in support of it.
Joe:I, I actually watched, uh, an American YouTuber who's just spent
Joe:a week in Australia, and he was saying, I couldn't believe it, I was
Joe:sat in a restaurant and the waiter started talking to me about August.
Joe:Wanting to know what I felt about it.
Joe:It's like, how come the WAIS staff are involved in politics over here?
Joe:Really?
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Well
scott:that's
Joe:good.
scott:Yeah, exactly.
scott:Because we've got an engaged electorate because of our
scott:compulsory ballot, that's why.
Trevor:Well
scott:exactly.
Trevor:Wow, you reckon they're, well
scott:We, we are not as engaged as engaged than other countries.
scott:We are more engaged than other countries for sure.
scott:We are not as engaged as you would want.
scott:Yeah.
scott:But we are more engaged than other countries.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:So anyway, I can see a turning of the tide on the right where they're
Trevor:basically acknowledging this is just a shitty deal and we won't get any
Trevor:toys from this and we want our toys.
Trevor:And so that's what I'm seeing as I'm reading stuff.
Trevor:Um, um, yeah.
Trevor:What else?
Trevor:Forgot.
scott:It's one of those things, I just think to myself that once you actually
scott:look at Orcus in the cold light of day, when you realise that there is
scott:nothing in there that guarantees they're actually going to hand any of that over
scott:to us, then you've got to actually ask yourself the question, why the fuck
scott:are we spending 400 billion dollars?
scott:when there's no guarantee of any of these toys.
scott:And even with that, the only other, the only reason you would want a
scott:nuclear powered submarine is so that you can travel from wherever the
scott:name of that port is over in WA.
scott:So you can do it in a submarine, you can do it under the water's surface until you
scott:actually surface just off the coast of China and you want to lob missiles up.
scott:That's the only reason you'd want them.
scott:They're not
Joe:going to be SSBNs, so they can't love missiles.
Trevor:Well, by the time What's SSBNs, Trevor?
Trevor:Well, Capable of Launching Nuclear Missiles.
Trevor:In theory, at this point, they're not supposed to be.
Joe:Supposed to be hunter killers.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:Perun, the YouTube channel, did a thing on submarines recently.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:What did he say?
Trevor:I don't know.
Joe:Uh, just basically, he's doing his usual defence analyst money wise,
Joe:talking about, um, all the different, in fact, he only barely touched on
Joe:Australia, he was mostly talking about the US, China, and Japan.
Trevor:Right.
Joe:And talking about, and Russia, talking about how many nukes, or how
Joe:many different submarines of each type, and their capabilities, and,
Joe:you know, why you'd want this type of submarine or that type of submarine.
Joe:So that was quite interesting.
Trevor:Um, what was I going to say here?
Trevor:So, yeah, I mentioned Australian Financial, or Sydney Morning Herald,
Trevor:somebody from ASPE, the headline is, AUKUS is unhinged from reality.
Trevor:So, um, and then we've got, um, we'll get on to Paul Keating shortly, but
Trevor:Gareth Evans, Gareth Evans came out.
Trevor:He said it's one of the worst foreign and defence policy
Trevor:decisions our country has made.
Trevor:Mm
Joe:hmm.
Trevor:Um.
Joe:You do realise, though, that when we have our nuclear submarines, because they
Joe:are small modular reactors, then we'll be able to have small modular reactors
Joe:and we can plug them into Shoreside.
Joe:And power cities with them.
Trevor:Yes, we'll be able to power a small neighbourhood with them.
Trevor:That's, yeah.
Trevor:So, um, but more, more information came out about the deal that we struck.
Trevor:And, as if it wasn't bad enough, but David Shoebridge came
Trevor:out and has done a summary.
Trevor:In layman's terms about how the deal works.
Trevor:So, oh, we've got, uh, Alison in the chat room and Don.
Trevor:Open invitation, Alison and Don, pick a topic and throw it in the chat room.
Trevor:We will talk about it momentarily.
Trevor:But meanwhile, here's Shoebridge explaining this
Trevor:deal that Miles signed up for.
Trevor:By the way, in relation to Miles, um He's an uptrop.
Trevor:Uh, Gareth Evans said about, this is what Gareth Evans said about Richard
Trevor:Miles, he said, His love for the US is so dewy eyed as to defy parody.
Trevor:From Labor guys, bagging the current punch.
Trevor:But anyway, um, Green Senator Shoebridge sums up the deal here,
Trevor:hopefully.
Shoebridge:Made public the new AUKUS 2.
Shoebridge:0 agreement and it must be the most one sided international agreement
Shoebridge:Australia has ever put pen to.
Shoebridge:There are so many problems that it's hard to wrap your head around
Shoebridge:how anyone could have agreed to it.
Shoebridge:So here's a little thought experiment.
Shoebridge:Imagine I'm trying to buy like a second hand car or a second hand
Shoebridge:truck from Uncle Sam's car dealership.
Shoebridge:Well, before I can buy the car, I need to pay Uncle Sam billions and billions
Shoebridge:of dollars to modernise and uplift his car yard and the car factories.
Shoebridge:I also need to promise Uncle Sam that I'll only drive the car to places he
Shoebridge:wants, and only use it in ways he approves of, otherwise he can take it back.
Shoebridge:I will also not get this car for maybe another decade, at least.
Shoebridge:And during that time, while they've got my money, if Uncle Sam's car dealership
Shoebridge:decides doesn't have enough cars for themselves, they get to keep it.
Shoebridge:And I have no way to claw back the money I've given them.
Shoebridge:It's also a well known fact that Uncle Sam doesn't actually have enough cars to
Shoebridge:sell to me and won't have enough for the foreseeable future for their own needs.
Shoebridge:But, despite all this, let's say I do end up getting a car, and if in the process
Shoebridge:of reversing it out of Uncle Sam's car dealership, the engine blows up because
Shoebridge:I was sold a dud, I actually have to pay Uncle Sam for the costs and damages.
Shoebridge:Oh, and Uncle Sam also gets to decide how much I pay for all the fuel for the car,
Shoebridge:which he happens to also be selling to me.
Shoebridge:Now, if you think that's a bad deal, you're right.
Shoebridge:But that is exactly the Albanese government has signed us up to, with
Shoebridge:support from Dutton's coalition, in this new August agreement.
Shoebridge:Only it's not for a 40, 000 Ford Focus, it's for a multi billion dollar bunch
Shoebridge:of second hand nuclear submarines.
Shoebridge:The US and the UK have found a sucker in Australia and must be laughing all
Shoebridge:the way to the bank with this deal.
Shoebridge:We need to scrap the agreement.
Shoebridge:The more we sink into this rigged deal The worst it'll get
Shoebridge:for Australia and Australians.
Shoebridge:We need to have a defence force that's focused on defending Australia,
Shoebridge:not threatening our neighbours.
Shoebridge:And we need a foreign policy that's actually made in Canberra, not Washington.
Shoebridge:And to get there, the first step is ripping up AUKUS.
Trevor:Well, Scott, first step would be voting Green, if for no other reason.
scott:Yeah, I know, and I'm going to do that next time round, but anyway.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Oh, we've got some topics in the chat room.
Trevor:From Don, the new Deadpool and Wolverine movie, and what the multiverse
Trevor:means to the future of comics.
Trevor:Uh, no.
Trevor:Um, can I just say, that when it, I haven't been to a cinema to watch a movie
Trevor:in, I don't know, a decade or something?
Trevor:Cause somewhere along the way, People decided that adults wanted
Trevor:to watch superhero movies and that's all they made for about 15 years.
Trevor:I'm not interested in superhero movies.
scott:Well I just went to see The Trap on Saturday afternoon,
scott:that's a very good movie actually.
Trevor:Is it a superhero?
scott:No, it's not a superhero.
scott:It's sold as a, it's sold as a, it's sold as a horror movie, but
scott:it's nothing horror in at all.
scott:It's just a very dramatic sort of movie.
scott:It's really good actually.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:There's an
scott:interesting twist in the end.
Trevor:There's my riff, Don, on Deadpool and Wolverine movies.
Trevor:Is Wolverine also the Australian actor?
Trevor:What's his name?
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Hugh Jackman, I believe.
Trevor:Is he overrated?
Trevor:Honestly?
scott:He looks all right without a shirt on.
scott:But, you know, but, um, in terms of acting ability,
scott:it's one of those things.
scott:He's, he's probably not bad.
scott:Um, yeah.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Um, so.
Trevor:Then we've got Alison says, how about the New South Wales Liberals missing the
Trevor:deadline for about 130 council candidates?
Trevor:And I think they're now going to sue, they're proposing to sue or take the
Trevor:electoral commission in New South Wales, whatever the body is, to court over it.
scott:But yeah,
Trevor:there was a deadline for nominating your candidates.
scott:That's why that guy got sacked, because he didn't actually do it.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:Too bad, so sad.
Trevor:Too bad, so sad.
Trevor:But, um, Wow, what a bumbling organization you've got if you haven't done that.
Trevor:So, Scott, should special circumstances be given?
Trevor:What about our democracy, Scott?
Trevor:I'm going to play devil's advocate.
scott:Okay, but no, I, I honestly believe that you've got rules for a reason.
scott:And one of those rules is you had to have your, you had to have your
scott:nominations in by a certain time.
scott:Now, I'm sure that they, that they could actually do it.
scott:But they've decided not to and I honestly believe that the
scott:referee's decision is final.
scott:The referee is the whatever you call it in New South Wales.
scott:They've decided that you're not going to get the nominations through.
scott:So you can't actually do that anyway.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:So Alison says they managed to submit the rest of them, so she doesn't know how
Trevor:they mucked up not getting 130 in there, but uh, that is a balls up for sure.
Trevor:Absolutely.
Trevor:In an organization like that, you had one job to do.
Trevor:Yeah, and they
scott:fucked it up.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Anyway, Don is still defending Hugh Jackman.
Trevor:Yeah, I know,
scott:but I haven't seen him actually act in a long time, and I couldn't
scott:tell you about his acting ability.
scott:He looks all right without a shirt on, but that's about it.
Trevor:Just, and on actors generally, we just project onto these people.
Trevor:Oh, we do far too much.
Trevor:The characters that they play, and we just You know, they play a smart,
Trevor:clever, all knowing person, and he's something I think that the actor is.
scott:Yeah, exactly.
scott:You see, like, I'm a freak of the 70s and that sort of stuff.
scott:I was born in 73 and the first movie I actually remember watching was Star Wars.
scott:I loved it.
scott:And I still watch anything that's out, anything now that's Star Wars, I watch it.
scott:And as a result, I started to follow some of the actors and that sort of stuff.
scott:And
scott:Luke Skywalker, what's his name?
Joe:Mark Hamill?
scott:Mark Hamill.
scott:That's it.
scott:He's actually a real Democrat and everything else, and I thought, I
scott:see him actually turning up to the Democratic National Congress and
scott:convention and everything else.
scott:And I just thought to myself.
scott:Yeah, he's probably projecting just a little bit too much power there, but you
scott:know, it's just, it's one of those things, I just think to myself, okay, they're
scott:very good actors and that sort of stuff, but that's where their intelligence comes
scott:to an end, is once you've been an actor.
scott:Do you
Joe:see, um, when Margot Robbie was being interviewed for Barbie,
Joe:some American was going, why is she putting on that pretentious accent?
Joe:Why can't she speak in a proper American accent?
Trevor:Yeah, um, yeah, we do project.
Trevor:The other one was a guy from Star Trek, uh, who played Mr.
Trevor:Sulu.
Trevor:He, George Takai or whatever, he's, he's, he's big on Twitter, um, but
Trevor:I think on the basis of his clever commentary along the way, I think.
Trevor:But
Joe:yeah, I mean, also he's openly gay.
Joe:He was one of the first people who was openly gay, I think,
Joe:in, in that group of people.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Um, and he's become a big spokesman for gay rights, kind of like Stephen Fry.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:So if you have eloquent people who are members of the community who are
Joe:eloquent, can speak, uh, and suggest why the bigotry is just being an
Joe:asshole, then I think fair play to them.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Why shouldn't they be?
Trevor:I'm all for them commenting and for them to be judged on their commentary.
Trevor:It's just when people fawn over these actors and actresses and really
Trevor:they're just ordinary, sometimes very ordinary people, um, uh,
Trevor:playing pretend in front of a camera.
Trevor:They're not that special.
Trevor:So yeah.
Trevor:Hey, I actually, uh, well on the topic of movies, you can watch
Trevor:on, uh, Netflix, I think it is.
Trevor:Have you seen The Holdover?
scott:Yes, it's a really good movie.
scott:I saw it at the cinema.
scott:It's really good.
scott:It's a very good movie and I've seen it just recently again on Netflix and
scott:it was really very powerful and I was really pissed off at the time because
scott:they had the um, cinema at the, at my local cinema and everything like they
scott:had the posters up for it and I saw a short for it when I was down in Brisbane.
scott:I thought that looks good.
scott:I'll watch that when I go back to Brisbane.
scott:And then they never showed it in Mackay.
scott:They just never actually showed it, which really gave me the shits.
scott:So after that, I saw it when I was next time down, when I
scott:was down in Brisbane again.
Trevor:Yep.
Trevor:Not a superhero in sight.
Trevor:No.
Trevor:Just good acting.
Trevor:It was really
scott:good.
scott:Yeah, it was really good.
Trevor:Highly recommend that one to you in the chat room, Don Toovey.
Trevor:Um, try the holdover and tell me how it compares to a
Trevor:Marvel superhero comic movie.
Trevor:I'd be keen to know your thoughts.
Trevor:Thanks.
scott:I think if you're actually honest about it, you'd have to, you'd have to
scott:be, you'd have to conclude it would be preferable to a Marvel superhero movie,
Trevor:you know.
Trevor:I don't think Don's going to agree with that,
scott:but anyway.
scott:No, Don will be going, he'll be out there defending it to the end of the world.
scott:And
Trevor:Alison recommends, uh, The Greatest Shaman.
Trevor:The Greatest Shaman.
Trevor:I think was a, um,
Trevor:what's his name again?
Trevor:Hugh Jackman.
Trevor:Hugh Jackman.
Trevor:Thank you, yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Don's going to give it a go.
Trevor:All right, we've diverted in the chat room.
Trevor:It's open slather.
Trevor:You can nominate the topics.
Trevor:I will stop and jump into them, uh, in, in mid rant.
Trevor:Um, if you want to keep, keep introducing topics.
Trevor:I've
Joe:just gone back to, um, the Pelican brief.
Joe:Not that I would ever recommend, um, shooting members of the Supreme Court.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:Is that what happens in the Pelican Brief?
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Right.
Joe:So, basically, there's some oil drilling that's wanting to go on and it's
Joe:been stopped because it's in the wetlands somewhere down the south, Louisiana maybe.
Trevor:Hmm.
Joe:And, um, The Supreme Court is going to rule against them being able
Joe:to drill because of these pelicans in the wetlands and so they killed two key
Joe:members of the Supreme Court with the knowledge that the President will, um,
Joe:appoint a couple of pro business judges.
Joe:That will overtone this ruling and will allow them to draw for oil.
Trevor:That's quite an old movie.
Trevor:It is.
Trevor:Back in the day when there was respect for the Supreme Court.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Possibly, yeah.
Trevor:Ah, and Alison says, Young Julia Roberts in the Pelican Brief.
Trevor:Very good movie.
Trevor:There you go.
Trevor:Get extra votes for
Trevor:that one from Alison.
Trevor:Reverting back to where we were temporarily, um, So yeah, that was David
Trevor:Shoebridge giving us, um, detail on.
Trevor:Orcus and, um, what else did I have to say about Orcus was, um, well,
Trevor:um, A little bit of background here.
Trevor:Apparently, we've signed a forced posture agreement.
Trevor:Have you guys ever heard of that?
Trevor:No.
Trevor:Hmm.
Trevor:This was in the Michael West news blog.
Trevor:And two authors, Michelle Fahey and Elizabeth Minter, explained the
Trevor:forced posture agreement that we've already signed up to previously.
Trevor:And so the argument in this article is that we're not.
Trevor:AUKUS is just the continuation of the takeover by the US of our sovereignty
Trevor:that has been going on for a long time.
Trevor:So it's
Joe:the Marines base up in Darwin and things like that.
Trevor:Yes, indeed.
Trevor:Uh, it's been underway for more than a decade.
Trevor:And, um, so, um, let me just see here.
Trevor:When asked last year whether Australia would allow US aircraft operating out
Trevor:of Tyndall Air Base in the Northern Territory to carry nuclear weapons,
Trevor:Penny Wong said, We understand and respect the longstanding U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:policy of neither confirming or denying.
Trevor:So, that's about U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:aircraft in the Northern Territory carrying nuclear weapons,
Trevor:and Penny Wong says, Do they
Joe:have any air launched nuclear weapons?
Trevor:Well, we're not even going to ask.
Trevor:We're just going to respect their policy of neither confirming or denying.
Trevor:Like, I mean, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped from an
Trevor:aircraft, weren't they, Joe?
Trevor:Like, is it possible?
Trevor:Yeah, but I mean, that
Joe:was in the
scott:50s, and then they created ICBMs.
scott:You know, you've got a missile that you, you know, the, um, the cruise missile,
scott:you drop it out of an aircraft, and then the wing's out, and then it ignites,
scott:then it ignites its engine and flies.
scott:So that's why I honestly believe that's what they would have.
scott:You know, if you've got any of those, um, B 52s and that sort of stuff, they
scott:carry a few cruise missiles in them.
scott:Then they drop them out of the bomb bay, they come down there, they
scott:extend their wings, then their, then the engine ignites and it flies off.
Trevor:Anyway, Petty Wong is happy for them to do it and to hold nuclear
Trevor:weapons because she just respects the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:policy of neither confirming or denying
Joe:nuclear powered vessels.
Trevor:What's
Joe:that,
Trevor:Joe?
Joe:I thought nuclear powered, um, ships weren't allowed to visit?
scott:No, they're not allowed to visit New Zealand, but
scott:they could visit in Australia.
scott:Yeah, because, um We've, we've had a, we've had a couple of their carriers
scott:and all that sort of stuff come into Australia which are nuclear powered.
Trevor:The writers of this article say, compare that with Malcolm
Trevor:Fraser, then Prime Minister, stood up in Parliament and insisted no US
Trevor:aircraft or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports.
Trevor:or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian Government.
Trevor:So we've gone from Malcolm Fraser saying no you can't to Penny Wong saying
Joe:yeah.
Joe:Are you aware that back in the 60s there were a number of aircraft
Joe:permanently on station loaded up with, um, nuclear weapons, nuclear bombs,
Joe:that were flying the Border Patrol on the edge of Russia, and there
Joe:were a number of broken arrows, i.
Joe:e.
Joe:lost nuclear weapons, including in Spain.
Trevor:There's a frightening book, I can't recall the title of it,
Trevor:but it outlines all the near misses of nuclear mishaps, and yes, it
Trevor:talks about those planes, and how
Joe:they had to scrape up a large, it was like a kilometre square.
Joe:of, um, Spanish Desert because of the radioactive waste
Joe:that was scattered across it.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:And just a series of near mishaps with those planes, which
Trevor:invariably had flying problems and.
Trevor:Scary how close they were to other sort of incidents.
Trevor:But yes, they used to just fly around with nuclear weapons in a plane, just
Trevor:on the off chance that you might want to turn left and drop it on somebody.
scott:Yeah.
Trevor:Probably still happening.
scott:One would hope it's not happening.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:As John Menendez said, this is our territory, it's our sovereignty.
Trevor:Yet today we won't even ask the Americans operating out of Tyndall whether
Trevor:they're carrying nuclear weapons.
Trevor:So, we have this Force Posture Agreement with the FBA, with the United States,
Trevor:which the Abbott government signed in 2014, building on agreements made
Trevor:by the Gillard Labor government.
Trevor:And the FBA provides the legal basis for the extensive militarisation
Trevor:of Australia by the US.
Trevor:And it permits the US to prepare for, launch and control its own military
Trevor:operations from Australian territory.
Trevor:In it, it says, quote, United States forces and United States contractors
Trevor:shall have unimpeded access to and use of agreed facilities and
Trevor:areas for activities undertaken in connection with this agreement.
Trevor:And Minister Miles is effusive in his support of this.
Trevor:And only last week he announced, American force posture now in
Trevor:Australia involves every domain, land, sea, air, cyber and space.
Trevor:This is Miles cheering this on, and um, two months after Labor won office, Miles
Trevor:was in Washington announcing that Labor would continue the ambitious trajectory of
Trevor:its force posture cooperation with the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:So, unimpeded access to our airfields and airports,
Trevor:unimpeded access to our seaports,
Trevor:construction of a U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:Air Force center in Darwin, various other bits and pieces.
Trevor:It's just.
Trevor:So yeah, that's all part of the, um, uh, was already happening before AUKUS.
Trevor:Let me just check, um, Alison asks, does the US have any other countries
Trevor:with reciprocal military bases?
Trevor:So, reciprocal would mean, um, as in Yeah, yeah, that we get to
Joe:build bases on American soil.
Joe:I don't think they do that.
Joe:Nobody
Trevor:has the ability to do that.
Trevor:Put their bases on American soil, do they?
Joe:Not that I'm aware of.
Joe:And why would you want to?
Joe:Well, false prediction.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:Unless We wanted to attack Mexico, and we could start putting some of our
Trevor:bases on the uh Oh no, no, no, I mean,
Joe:for instance, uh, U.
Joe:S.
Joe:Marshall Islands or Guam.
Trevor:Yes, we might want to there.
Trevor:Don't, I've never heard of it, good point.
Trevor:Funny that, hey, says Alison.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:John says, isn't that all just part of alliances?
Trevor:No, John, we've had alliances in the past where we do military exercises
Trevor:with them offshore or even onshore.
Trevor:And at the end of the exercise we say, see ya, that was fun, now you go home with
Trevor:your stuff and we've practiced together, but you don't keep your military base here
clip:with
Trevor:a written legal agreement that says you can do whatever
Trevor:you want to while you're here.
Trevor:That's not an alliance, that's a takeover.
Trevor:Singapore
Joe:have access to Shoalwater Bay,
Joe:paid us a lot of money to build infrastructure up at Shoalwater in
Joe:return for, cause Singapore is um, short on land space, strangely enough.
Trevor:Right.
Joe:So they are leasing Shoalwater Bay for a few weeks,
Joe:a year to run their exercises.
Trevor:Well, that's to run an exercise, but not to, um, yeah.
Trevor:But Singapore live launch a war.
scott:Singapore is also a neutral country too.
scott:It doesn't actually get involved with a.
scott:Alliance or anything like that.
scott:They are neutral and they have their own standing army and everything else that
scott:is, um, that they would ever use should Malaysia ever decide to invade them,
scott:which I don't think Malaysia ever would.
Trevor:John says we can land on U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:soil.
Trevor:We
scott:have to see permission each and every
Trevor:time.
Trevor:And we can't set up an autonomous base on U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:soil.
Trevor:And just do whatever the fuck we want to, John.
Trevor:It's outrageous what we're giving up to the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:here.
Trevor:You don't see that?
scott:You think it's all okay?
scott:It's one of those things.
scott:I just think to myself that, you know, the country has got to have
scott:a long, hard conversation with itself about, um, the whole alliance
scott:agreement that we've got with the U.
scott:S.
scott:because it started off during the second world war when Curtin,
scott:rightly so, said, you know, we look to America for our protection.
scott:And because the British were, British had their hands full dealing with
scott:Nazi Germany, they couldn't send any more troops down to Singapore.
scott:So Singapore fell and everything else.
scott:And that's when Curtin said, we look to America.
scott:And I could understand in those first years for Post the post of Second
scott:World War, wanting to always look to someone stronger and everything
scott:like that for your own protection.
scott:However, if you actually look at what the alliance has actually cost Australia,
scott:and it has cost us a hell of a lot.
scott:It has, you know, it's got us involved in at least Two or three wars that we should
scott:not have been involved in, you know.
scott:And it's going to make
Trevor:us a target now, because we have these bases.
Trevor:So, um, oh, John says he's just, uh, providing pushback.
Trevor:So he doesn't say it's all He's playing devil's advocate.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Fair enough.
Trevor:I thought you were serious, John.
Trevor:This is where we need a sarcasm font or a devil's advocate
Trevor:font on, um, social media.
scott:It's one of those things, I just think to myself that, you know, it's,
scott:um, probably the first target for a Chinese ICBM would be, um, Pine Gap,
scott:which would irradiate, um, Alice Springs.
Trevor:Yes,
scott:now people would say if there are worse places to bomb than there is Alice
scott:Springs, but anyway, it is it is what it is So that's probably the first place
scott:that would disappear under a mushroom cloud It's probably the only place that
scott:would never disappear under a mushroom cloud cloud in Australia because the rest
scott:of the country is pretty much useless
Joe:No,
scott:they're not gonna bomb Darwin But they would actually look at you know
scott:If they were gonna if they were gonna extinguish anything over here would be
scott:pine gap because that would actually be
Trevor:Well, certainly if there's a war between the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:and China, then the military bases here in Australia would be targets.
scott:Yes.
scott:Now, I would imagine that the military targets and everything in the Philippines
scott:and Guam and Japan and everything would come under, uh, attack first, but
scott:probably they would then start to look at the further away bases in Australia.
scott:I
Trevor:think Point Gap is really vital for communications.
Trevor:Which is
scott:why, which is why I'd say that would be the first place that would
scott:go, disappear under a mushroom cloud.
Trevor:Yeah, yeah.
Trevor:So, um, So still on this topic, um, I'm going to be talking about
Trevor:Paul Keating's interview on the 7.
Trevor:30 report and, oh, who was that, uh, lady on the 7.
Trevor:30 report who was interviewed?
Trevor:Lee Sayles?
Trevor:No, she's gone ages ago, um.
Trevor:Oh, is
clip:she?
Trevor:Yeah, who is it?
Trevor:It's Sarah Ferguson.
Trevor:Mm
clip:hmm.
Trevor:So, at several times during this Sorry, Joe, did you say something?
Joe:Princess Sarah Ferguson.
Trevor:No, different, um, different Sarah Ferguson.
Joe:Okay.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:I'll just, I'll quote a bit from this interview.
Trevor:She's quite
scott:a good journalist, actually.
Trevor:Oh, no, well, I thought she was, but, um, So she says she's
Trevor:interviewing, um, Paul Keating.
Trevor:Um, let me just get to the relevant bit.
Trevor:She says, What's wrong with cooperating with an ally deemed
Trevor:indispensable for Australia's security?
Trevor:Keating responds is, What's wrong is we completely lose our strategic autonomy.
Trevor:Let me amplify.
Trevor:If we didn't have an aggressive ally like the United States, aggressive
Trevor:to others in the region, there'd be nobody attacking Australia.
Trevor:We are better left alone than we are being protected by an aggressive
Trevor:power like the United States.
Trevor:And she goes on, Well, the rationale for this has been, um, that That is
Trevor:the rapid escalation, the rapid and undeniable escalation of Chinese military.
Trevor:Why shouldn't Australia embrace an alliance that counterbalances that power?
Trevor:Keating says because that power has no strategic designs upon Australia.
Trevor:But just going back to the point here, um, he didn't take it up
Trevor:with her but she claims that there's been a rapid and undeniable
Trevor:escalation in the Chinese military.
Trevor:And, um, Is that the case or not?
Trevor:One way of measuring military expenditure would be as a percentage of GDP.
Trevor:And, um, somewhere here I've got a picture.
Trevor:Let me find it.
Trevor:I'll put that up.
Trevor:There's a picture.
Trevor:Military spending as a percentage of GDP.
Trevor:And, uh, and guess what?
Trevor:Way out in front is the United States and Australia spends more as
Trevor:a percentage of GDP than China does.
Trevor:So okay, because China's got a large GDP, it's spending more than Australia.
Trevor:But it's only doing, um, what people would expect any country to do,
Trevor:as in spend a couple of percent per annum on military spending.
Trevor:It's not, um, An exorbitant amount, and just quoting from this guy here
Trevor:who says that, um, it's actually trending down, China's expenditure.
Trevor:It's now 1.
Trevor:6 percent of GDP, which means that if China was a member of NATO, it'd actually
Trevor:be criticising, it'd be criticised for having overly low military budget, given
Trevor:NATO member countries should aim to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP.
Trevor:And the US spends 3.
Trevor:5%, so it's just dishonest to be suggesting that there's
Trevor:this incredible China build up.
Trevor:When, given the size of the country, what they're doing is actually
scott:fairly normal,
Trevor:fairly normal, or even abnormally low Compared to other countries below
Trevor:what NATO would be telling them to do if they were a member of NATO So this
Trevor:is the sort of shitty journalism from people like Sarah Ferguson on on the
Trevor:ABC If I get to it at another point, I'm going to talk about some shitty
Trevor:journalism in the Guardian and Just in recent times, guys, I'm just getting
Trevor:tired of, um, I expect shitty journalism from Murdoch Press and Fairfax, 9
Trevor:Fairfax, but it's just getting worse and worse from the ABC and The Guardian,
Trevor:the sort of people you have some sort of hope for, so, um, yeah, anyway, um.
Trevor:Let me see in the chat room, because I've promised in this
Trevor:episode I'm dealing with the chat.
Trevor:Um, John, you would think if the US was hotting up for a war with China,
Trevor:they would put a couple of Patriot systems on Pine Gap just because
Trevor:she doesn't ask the questions you want doesn't make her a bad journo.
Trevor:It's not her lack of asking a question, John, it was her statement that China
Trevor:spending inordinate amounts on military when in the scheme of things they're not.
Trevor:So it wasn't, I haven't criticised her for not asking a question, if that's clear.
Trevor:Right, still back to the interview, um,
Trevor:Keating says China's got no strategic interest in us.
Trevor:Keating says Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest.
Trevor:Um, um.
Trevor:He says we're not threatened by the Chinese military.
Trevor:Um,
Trevor:oh, this is what I've been saying for years, dear listener.
Trevor:For years I've been saying this exact point.
Trevor:Australia is capable of defending itself.
Trevor:Let's say, what is a threat?
Trevor:And that is an invasion.
Trevor:An invasion comes in an armada, in an armada.
Trevor:With satellites today, you see the armada formed.
Trevor:You would see it leave its harbour.
Trevor:You would see it for 10 or 15 days come to Australia, and you would
Trevor:sink every one of them on the way.
Trevor:You don't need the United States to defend Australia.
Trevor:Australia is quite capable of defending itself.
Trevor:And we've made this point for years, dear listener.
Trevor:When you are just on the water, you're a sitting duck for a whole
Trevor:host of Uh, missiles that could be lobbed at you in any number of ways.
Trevor:You'd be scared shitless as the captain of a Chinese troops ship, navigating
Trevor:its way to Australia over 10 to 15 days, hoping to arrive unscathed.
Trevor:That's where we should be spending our money on, is, is, uh, missiles
Trevor:and whatnot, and defensive submarines, and alliances with Indonesia.
Trevor:and people like that, so that we're intercepting these things along the way.
Trevor:It's one of those
scott:things, I was actually talking to a mate of mine the other day,
scott:and I said, you know, that China's a long way away from Australia.
scott:It's got to come down via Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia.
scott:It's going to sail past a number of Fairly friendly countries to Australia,
scott:they're going to pick up the phone and say, Hey boys, you better watch yourself
scott:because the Chinese are heading south.
scott:It's so much easier just to buy it.
scott:What are they, what would they be coming
Trevor:for?
Trevor:Whatever they want, it would be so much easier just to buy it.
scott:Yeah.
scott:Even with that, like, you know, even if, even if they did come here to
scott:buy everything up, then we'd always just put in export controls and say,
scott:well, you can't sell that anymore.
scott:You know?
Trevor:But from the Chinese point of view, rather than force a war to take
Trevor:something from us, it'd just be easier to buy it, to pay above market price
Trevor:for whatever it is that they wanted.
Trevor:Exactly.
Trevor:And work on alternatives in the meantime, so, um, Sarah Ferguson, I just want
Trevor:to come back to what you said about Taiwan, because it sounds from what
Trevor:you're saying, you'd be perfectly happy to give up any support for Taiwan.
Trevor:And Keating says, Any military support?
Trevor:Absolutely.
Trevor:He says, I mean, does anyone want their kids to be shot to
Trevor:death on a sandy beach in Taiwan?
Trevor:This is the outcome of such a policy.
Trevor:Like, that is the straight talking that we need.
Trevor:It's a
Joe:sandy beach though.
Joe:It's a fairly rocky beach.
Trevor:Indeed, on a sandy or a rocky or just a Taiwanese beach, um, you,
Trevor:Sarah Ferguson, put your kid up in the front line if that's what you think
Trevor:is a great idea, just, I'm so glad that he's bounced back and said that,
Trevor:um, so, um, what else he's got, um,
Joe:well we support China.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:We just don't
Joe:say which China.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:One China.
Joe:Exactly.
Trevor:Um.
Trevor:To rule them all.
Trevor:He says, the only threat likely to come is because we have an
Trevor:aggressive ally, because of Orcus.
Trevor:And um, and Sarah Ferguson, great journo that she is, says.
Trevor:Just to finish, is it your contention that faced with the rapid escalation of
Trevor:Chinese military, which is a misleading description, Australia should do nothing?
Trevor:And Keating says no.
Trevor:Australia should have submarines, which protect the waters of Australia.
Trevor:It should have attacking and bomber aircraft to sink ships.
Trevor:It should have self propelled mines.
Trevor:It should have all of the things, the modern things, that you can keep.
Trevor:Look, there's no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an
Trevor:armada of ships without it all failing.
Trevor:I mean, Australia is quite capable of defending itself.
Trevor:Here here.
Trevor:There we go.
Trevor:Good on you, Paul Keating.
Trevor:There'll be emus on
Joe:them.
Joe:They've already won one war.
Joe:Say, say who won them?
Trevor:Emus.
Trevor:What's, what's emus?
Trevor:Joe, you've lost me with that.
Joe:You're not aware of the emu war?
Trevor:No.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Scotty, you?
Trevor:No.
Joe:Back in the 1920s, the WA farmers decided that the emus were
Joe:coming in and destroying their crops.
Joe:and agreed to hire the Australian army to go and shoot emus.
Joe:And apparently, emus are very bulletproof.
Joe:They zig and they zag, and they've got fairly thick hides, and apparently
Joe:they were impossible to kill.
Trevor:An emu might have a thick hide, but it's not The board's
Trevor:not going to bounce off it.
Trevor:It must have been a pretty lightweight bullet.
Joe:Basically, the army were unable to kill very many emus.
Joe:It's known as the Great Emu War.
Joe:There's apparently two films out, either last year or this year, based on it.
Joe:It's worth looking up the Wikipedia article or just googling the Emu War.
Joe:In
Trevor:the chat room, John says it's a bit harder to get a good
Trevor:price for your coal when there is a figural battleship off the coast.
Trevor:Well, John, if the battleship is stopping the transport of coal,
Trevor:then the battleship ends up at the bottom of the ocean pretty quickly.
Trevor:Because it's easy to shoot down.
Trevor:That's the whole point.
Trevor:It's a bit hard to stay put, uh, if you're going to start attacking merchant ships.
Trevor:Navy, then at that point, uh, Australia would say, move out the
Trevor:way, we'll see this missile here, it's going to land amid ships.
Joe:Just sail a couple of gunboats up Yankton.
Joe:Yeah,
Trevor:it's, it's a bit harder to sit off the coast and do
Trevor:that than you might think.
Trevor:What else we got?
Trevor:Um, Don says giant chickens are a menace, they can change direction, um, Joe is
Trevor:right, Australia lost the Emu war, and.
Trevor:When you're shooting at a pile of feathers, they're
Trevor:very hard to hit from a Huey.
Trevor:Thanks, Don.
Trevor:All right, we'll be back to the chat in a second.
Trevor:Part two of the Keating.
Trevor:Um, so after Keating's interview, Prime Minister Albanese said the world
Trevor:has changed between 1996 and 2024.
Trevor:The world is different, implying that Paul Keating, you know, times have moved on.
Trevor:Paul just doesn't understand.
Trevor:And Paul Keating says, the relevant issue is our geography has not
Trevor:changed, and geography is the primary factor in geostrategic settings.
Trevor:And then, um, Nancy Pelosi came out and, um, and said that, uh, Paul Keating's.
Trevor:Comments were not in the security interests of the Asia Pacific region for
Trevor:people like Paul Keating to talk that way.
Trevor:And, um, uh, he gave her a blast.
Trevor:That was the Paul Keating stuff.
Trevor:What else have I got?
Trevor:Is there anything else on that?
Trevor:It just, um,
Trevor:You guys got any other comment on that?
scott:Well, I'm still just not exactly sure what to do about Taiwan, because,
Joe:you know Did you watch that video I shared with you?
Joe:Not yet.
Joe:So it was the Perun video, that was an hour and a half long,
Joe:talking about How realistic, uh, Chinese invasion of Taiwan was.
Trevor:What was this conclusion?
Joe:It wasn't Peron, it was, um, Lines on Maps guy.
Joe:Um, Game Theory 101 is the YouTube channel.
Trevor:And, and what was the, uh, what was the Basically the conclusion was,
Joe:um, it's not an easy, just, uh, Get in there, boots on ground.
Joe:In terms of geography, it's really, really difficult to get on the shore.
Joe:They'd be shot to pieces, they don't have the manpower and basically, it
Joe:would be a slaughter and they just don't have enough young people.
Joe:To sustain that sort of slaughter.
Joe:Meaning
Trevor:China would do it, do it, would win easily.
Trevor:Is that what you're saying?
Trevor:Or the opposite, right?
Joe:So, so they were saying basically, uh, Defender has a five to one advantage.
Joe:Um, there are high mountains around where you'd be landing unless you went
Joe:all the way around to the other side.
Joe:So you'd have to get over the mountains, you'd be, basically, your defenders
Joe:would be shooting down on you, you'd be shot to pieces, and, um, so, basically
Joe:the number of people you'd need to successfully have the beachhead.
Joe:He's more than the number of young people that China has.
Trevor:Did he say anything about a siege?
Joe:Uh, no.
Trevor:No, because that's what you do.
Trevor:Yeah, probably.
Trevor:You just maintain a siege until they gave in, because that's
Trevor:You'd sit back and just stop.
Trevor:I
Joe:heard the Russians tried it with Berlin, didn't they?
Joe:Well,
Trevor:arguably it might be easier for China to conduct a siege on
Trevor:an island territory like Taiwan.
scott:If that was serious.
scott:Yeah, but then you've also got the Yanks and the Japanese and all that
scott:sort of stuff that could come in there and clean up the PLA navy, you know?
Trevor:But with a siege, you don't even need to have your navy on the water.
Trevor:You can just fire missiles.
Trevor:From the Taiwanese mainland.
scott:Yeah, in which case you've then got Patriot batteries that can be used
scott:to intercept the, um, used to intercept the missiles that are fired from China.
scott:Yeah, yeah, well.
scott:It's one of those things, I just think.
Trevor:And is America prepared to then enter a war on Taiwan's behalf?
Trevor:Are they?
Trevor:I don't know.
scott:Donald Trump, certainly not.
scott:Yeah,
Trevor:you might say, leave it to him.
scott:Yeah, exactly.
scott:Or
Trevor:just an economic siege.
Trevor:Well, I don't know,
scott:because the jungle hates China.
scott:It's one of those things,
Joe:I've
scott:actually been reading a fair bit of stuff on that, and there's um, I can't
scott:even remember the name of the chip company in Taiwan, but they reckon that is the
scott:one thing that's actually keeping Taiwan independent, because it sells chips all
scott:around the world, and Although the Chinas are getting very good with their chips,
scott:they can't actually sell the chips to the rest of the rest of the planet because
scott:they don't trust China to actually sell.
scott:Who doesn't complete chips that
Trevor:maybe Western powers don't wanna buy the Chinese chip's, but
Trevor:there's plenty, plenty of others.
Joe:Being created with backdoor chips on, which I think turned out to be a
Joe:furfee, but there was a big scare story in the press about it at the time.
Trevor:Hmm.
Trevor:You know, in terms of, um You know, countries like the BRICS countries, the
Trevor:Global South, they'll all buy chips from
scott:China.
scott:I agree.
scott:However, they're not Europe, they're not the United States, they're not
scott:Australia, they are, you know, they're not the big economies of the world.
scott:That's why Germany is building its own chip manufacturing plant in Germany
scott:because they're getting ready for Taiwan being taken out, you know.
Trevor:Yeah, Don says China is fine, I love their tucker.
scott:Who loves their
Joe:taco?
Joe:In terms of the chip manufacturing, apparently one of the big things, um,
Joe:helping, um, the Democrats in this current political climate in the U.
Joe:S.
Joe:Is the whole, we're building our own chip fab on shore, we don't want to buy one,
Joe:uh, and so there's a big amount of, um, U.
Joe:S.
Joe:government investment in basically skilling up poor areas to go and work
Joe:in these factories of chip fabrication.
Joe:And so, large investment of cash in rural seats.
Joe:Mm hmm.
Trevor:Mm.
Trevor:Um, I'm just going to divert right to the top of my, um, notes here.
Trevor:Did you guys hear about the change of government in Bangladesh?
scott:Yeah, I did and I wasn't really sure what to believe on that because
scott:there was stuff that you've already picked up on that you'd say, was it a
scott:revolution or was it a coup, wasn't it?
Trevor:Was it a popular uprising or was it a coup is the question and this
Trevor:sort of come about in the last week since I did my episode on Venezuela
Trevor:and the multiple attempts by the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:to conduct a coup.
Trevor:And I did a bit of an examination of just how many coups the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:has been trying to do around the planet.
Trevor:And the point I want to make about this is like, I know nothing
Trevor:about the Bangladesh situation.
Trevor:Um, but I started listening to a podcast.
Trevor:It was the Guardian podcast.
Trevor:How Bangladesh's long serving leader was toppled by student protests.
Trevor:And, um, it's basically an interview with this guy, David Bergman, which he
Trevor:essentially says, um, that the Bangladesh government used to be good guys, But,
Trevor:um, but they went all authoritarian and undemocratic and this has been a genuine
Trevor:student uprising and, um, thankfully a much better bomb have been installed.
Trevor:And um, and that was, you know, this British journalist interviewing
Trevor:this, uh, Bangladesh expert.
Trevor:If you just listened to that episode of that podcast from The
Trevor:Guardian, that was the story you got.
Trevor:Plucky, plucky students, cause, uh, they changed, they made a law which said A
Trevor:certain percentage of government jobs had to go to the descendants of people
Trevor:involved in the War of Independence.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:And this was seen as being, um, you know, the people who weren't related
Trevor:to somebody who was in the War of Independence were kind of pissed because
Trevor:they were now second class citizens when it came to getting a good job.
Trevor:A good example, dear listener, of why hereditary rights Not a good idea,
Trevor:but we've talked about that before.
Trevor:Um, yeah, so if you listen to the, the Guardian podcast, plucky, uh, university
Trevor:students, um, uprising, um, previous, um, government in power for 15 years
Trevor:just goes, whoops, nobody likes us anymore and scampers out of the country.
Trevor:Thankfully, as a, as a new, less authoritarian regime moves in.
Trevor:And I subscribe to a few podcasts, as you can imagine, and, um, for
Trevor:example, the Duran and the Geopolitical Economy Report, both of them
Trevor:absolutely convinced it's a US coup.
Trevor:Now, I don't know, um, whether it was or not.
Trevor:Like, they might be completely wrong, but Given the history of America's
Trevor:plotting around the world, this Guardian journalist interviewing this guy
Trevor:should have been alert enough to say, hey, any chance this was a US coup?
Trevor:Can you give me the reasons why maybe it wasn't, if you're so convinced?
Trevor:It wasn't.
Trevor:Not a single mention of the possibility of a U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:coup, if only to dismiss it.
Trevor:Like, it was really pathetic, one sided journalism.
Trevor:And then when you do a Google search on the journalist that she was interviewing,
Trevor:this guy, David Bergman, you can find all sorts of Stuff about him that suggests
Trevor:he is not an independent commentator on what's going on in Bangladesh.
Trevor:It's a U.
Trevor:S.
Joe:coup because all of the government infrastructure will be
Joe:sold off at a very cheap price to U.
Joe:S.
Joe:corporations in the next two or three years.
Joe:Well,
Trevor:you'll really know when a U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:base appears at some strategic point in, um, on Bangladesh territory, because
Trevor:apparently it's a very important seaway nearby for transporting oil to China.
Trevor:So, funnily enough, the group that's now installed, um,
Trevor:has been applauded by the U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:and, uh, are very pro U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:and that's almost certainly going to happen.
Trevor:So It just gave me the shits that The Guardian spent 20 minutes talking to
Trevor:a guy who's related, is the son in law of one of the key opposition members,
Trevor:and, uh, has a history of, of, of not being an independent observer.
Trevor:Completely relayed everything he had to say and didn't even contemplate
Trevor:the possibility of a US coup.
Trevor:And I just thought, fuck.
Trevor:Terrible.
Trevor:Terrible, pathetic journalism that's just misleading people.
Trevor:And I think it was only just before that that I'd seen the Sarah Ferguson one of,
Trevor:Sarah Ferguson with Paul Keating saying, you know, China they're building up a
Trevor:massive military, um, totally beyond what would normally be reasonable.
Trevor:And I'm just, I'm giving up on, on, on these characters in mainstream media,
Trevor:who you thought might be helpful, but they're not, you've, the only thing
Trevor:left is small independent little podcasts like this one, little, Little
Trevor:YouTubers like, I don't really like Perun, but you know, people like that.
Trevor:The John Menardew blog, dear listener, if you are not subscribing to the John
Trevor:Menardew blog, and you should be paying them some money, um, five bucks a month or
Trevor:something like that, because, um, that's where genuine information is coming.
Trevor:So, yeah, that's my little rant about that.
Trevor:Um, what have we got, um,
Trevor:What's in this chat?
Trevor:Let me scroll through it a bit.
Trevor:What does it say here?
Trevor:Ah, John says, China holds the vast majority of rare metal deposits.
Trevor:Joe, you said not so sure about that.
Trevor:Yeah, I'm
Joe:fairly sure lithium is a fairly minor player.
Joe:It just happens to be the only country that's digging it up at the moment.
Trevor:Yeah, um, Scott's gotta go.
Trevor:You gotta go, Scott?
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Okay, I'm just gonna go through a bit of this chat.
Trevor:I'll only be another five minutes.
Trevor:You go, and we, you won't have missed anything.
Trevor:Thanks, Scott.
Trevor:We'll see you next week.
Trevor:Good night, all.
Trevor:Actually, next week I may not be doing anything, because that's my birthday.
Trevor:No worries.
Trevor:Yeah, I'll let you know.
scott:Happy birthday.
Trevor:Thanks.
Trevor:Okay, see you, Scott.
Trevor:See ya.
Trevor:Bye.
Trevor:Okay, just running through this chat.
Trevor:Um, China holds the vast majority of rare metal deposits.
Trevor:Here
Joe:we go, apparently Lithium.
Joe:Australia is the largest producer of Lithium, accounting for nearly
Joe:half of global production in 2022.
Trevor:There you go.
Trevor:My understanding was that Venezuela had a lot of Lithium.
Trevor:It may be Colombia or places like that.
Joe:Bolivia, Chile and Argentina have the largest estimated resources of nearly 50
Joe:million tons between the three countries.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:Is Venezuela in that list?
Trevor:It wasn't listed.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:It
Joe:was, hang on, uh, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Because I thought Venezuela was for, lithium's for batteries.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:There might be some other rare mineral that's important for
Trevor:batteries because, you know, Elon Musk on Twitter has been applauding every
Trevor:move to overthrow the Maduro government.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:One of the theories being that if U.
Trevor:S.
Trevor:corporations can access some metal that's used in electric
Trevor:cars, that will help him out.
Trevor:Um, um But not if
Joe:Trump has his way.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um Oh, what else we got here?
Trevor:It's always more complicated than it seems.
Trevor:Yes, it is.
Trevor:I'm John and maybe the US helped it along a bit after it got going.
Trevor:Don't know what that means.
Trevor:Do you know
Joe:what that means?
Joe:That they didn't cause the coup, but once it was running that they provided support.
Trevor:Yeah, maybe.
Trevor:Who knows?
Trevor:And as I say, I don't know whether it was a coup or not, but to run an
Trevor:article, a podcast for 20 minutes and not mention the possibility
Trevor:of it was just Poor journalism.
Trevor:Misleading.
Trevor:There
Joe:you go.
Joe:Mm-Hmm.
Joe:Um, apparently China is digging up most of the rare earth but not lithium.
Joe:Mm-Hmm.
Joe:, uh, but mostly because of, uh, low cost, high pollution
Joe:methods that are in use there.
Joe:Mm-Hmm.
Joe:enables them to dig them up cheaper than anywhere else.
Trevor:Dig 'em up.
Trevor:Where?
Joe:China.
Joe:Oh, okay.
Joe:So this is not lithium, this is other rare earth metals, right?
Joe:Yep, yep, yep.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:So there are rare earth metals elsewhere.
Joe:And China can compete because it can use horrible chemicals and not worry about it.
Trevor:Hmm.
Trevor:Hmm.
Trevor:Okay, um, let me just see if there's anything pressing in my
Trevor:notes that I have to get off.
Trevor:Um, uh, Joe, Nord Stream, The Washington Post came out with an article.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:With a theory claiming that I
Joe:thought they were going to lay charges.
Trevor:Who?
Trevor:The
Joe:Germans.
Trevor:Well, the Washington Post reported that Zelensky Yes.
Trevor:The Ukrainian president ordered Zelensky, former commander in chief
Trevor:of Ukraine, to bomb the Nord Stream and that the CIA tried to stop them.
Trevor:Laughter.
Trevor:But the Ukrainians went ahead and did it anyway.
Trevor:This was the argument.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Was Did they put this in the comedy?
Trevor:Was this in the comics comedy section of the Washington Post?
Trevor:Joe?
Trevor:No, it just, you Sure.
Trevor:I thought
Joe:you'd appreciate the, um, the article.
Trevor:Ah, so the official story is now that Germany for the past two
Trevor:and a half years has been sending.
Trevor:Tens of billions of euros plus military machinery to the country that
Trevor:committed the worst act of industrial terrorism against Germany in history.
Joe:And they're concerned that if this news came out that people would
Joe:withdraw their support for Ukraine.
Trevor:Cameron Leckie who has been on this podcast says what an insult
Trevor:the fact that they fly a fairytale narrative like this and expect adults
Trevor:to take it seriously is symptomatic of the collapse of the West.
Trevor:It is?
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um,
Trevor:I think that's enough.
Trevor:Joe, unless you've got something pressing you want to get off your chest.
Joe:No, just the usual, um, Project 2025 stuff.
Joe:I've been following quite a lot of those.
Trevor:Yes.
Joe:Watching the adverts coming out, I have to say that, um, Kamala
Joe:seems to be on a good formula with just calling Trump weird.
Joe:And he really doesn't seem to know how to respond to
clip:her.
Joe:He seems to be digging himself into a bigger and bigger hole.
Joe:He's pissed the unions off.
Joe:By saying that, um, Musk had it right by sacking his union workers.
Joe:Um, he's also pissed Musk off by saying that he wants to ban electric vehicles
Joe:or do something about electric vehicles.
Joe:He was slagging them off.
Joe:One second he's saying, oh, I suppose we're going to have to
Joe:do something because the man's giving me 45 million a month.
Joe:And then in the next breath, he's going, oh, well, but they're bad.
Joe:You know.
Joe:We're better off having oil guzzlers.
Trevor:Do you know, I've got the exact clip right here.
Trevor:I'll play that right now.
Trevor:Trump on electric cars.
clip:to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly, Elon.
clip:So I have no choice.
clip:But he knows.
clip:No,
clip:I am for him.
clip:I'm for him for a small slice is a slice.
clip:But you want to have gas propelled cars.
clip:You want to have hybrids.
clip:You want to have every kind of a car imaginable.
clip:They want to go all electric.
clip:And there's no way you can ever There's no way you can ever load them up.
clip:They call them loading them.
clip:You can't load them.
clip:We're gonna have to spend nine trillion dollars in the middle west.
clip:You saw they built chargers.
clip:Now a charger is a gas pump with electricity come through.
clip:Is that good?
clip:So it's like a, for eight chargers, they spent nine billion.
Trevor:Who would go out of their way to listen to that?
Trevor:But so anyway, the first part, um, for electric vehicles, I have to, because
Trevor:Elon endorsed me and everybody cheered.
Trevor:So, just the concept that I'm for something because a billionaire is
Trevor:going to pay me money, I've been bought off and everybody cheered.
Trevor:So there was that part.
Trevor:And then there was the technical term of loading.
Trevor:Just, it's such crap.
Trevor:And then,
Joe:however many billion dollars to build the charges, which I'm going, I
Joe:don't believe his figures are correct.
Trevor:Oh, would you like another example of perhaps a
Trevor:dodgy figure, Joe, from the past?
Trevor:Donald Trump.
Trevor:Here we go.
Trevor:Here's a, see, uh, you know, you don't need to be an expert at math,
Trevor:dear listener, to spot an error in this, in this, uh, thinking.
Trevor:Here we go.
clip:Virtually one job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.
clip:You know that?
clip:Most of the job creation has gone to migrants.
clip:In fact, I've heard that substantially more than, uh, beyond, actually beyond
clip:the number of a hundred percent.
clip:It's a much higher number than that, but.
clip:The, uh, government hasn't got,
Trevor:there you go.
Trevor:Joe.
Trevor:Jobs created, have gone to migrants.
Trevor:More than a hundred percent of 'em.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:That's 'cause migrants earn those guys.
Trevor:They work two jobs.
Trevor:Maybe that's how, that's,
Joe:oh, maybe.
Trevor:Maybe that's how they've done
Trevor:more than a hundred percent of new jobs.
Trevor:Go to Migrants.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:He's getting wacky, um, just losing it in terms of He's never had it.
Trevor:Well, you're right, he never has, but Maybe they're picking on him more.
Joe:They are picking on him more.
Joe:Because Joe's not around him.
Joe:It's hilarious because, yeah, he built up this whole, oh my god,
Joe:you're too old to be a president.
Joe:And now that Biden has gone, all of that, oh my god, you're too old, is
Joe:just coming straight back at him now.
Trevor:Yes, yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Okay, John says, he just says whatever comes into his head
Trevor:as it doesn't stay there long.
Trevor:That's true?
Joe:No, I mean, he's a bullshitter.
Trevor:He's not a
Joe:liar, because a liar knows what the truth is.
Joe:He's a bullshitter.
Joe:He doesn't care what the truth is.
Joe:The truth is whatever suits him at the time.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:All right, dear listener, we're done and dusted.
Trevor:That, uh, episode.
Trevor:Don't know if there'll be one next week because, uh, it definitely won't
Trevor:be live on a Monday evening because, uh, I'll be celebrating a birthday.
Trevor:Might pre record something beforehand.
Trevor:Not sure.
Trevor:See what happens.
Trevor:Might look at Bangladesh.
Trevor:Not sure.
Trevor:All right, we'll talk to you then.
Trevor:Thanks for listening.
Trevor:Talk to you next week.
clip:How did you get my from him?
clip:As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr.
clip:Anderson.
clip:It seems that you've been living two lives.
clip:One of these lives has a future and one of them does not.
clip:I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr.
clip:Anderson.
clip:You're here because we need your help.
clip:My colleagues believe that I'm wasting my time with you, but I believe
clip:you wish to do the right thing.
clip:We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start.
clip:All that we're asking in return is your cooperation and
Trevor:a simple donation of one dollar per episode
clip:Wow, that sounds like a really good deal But I think I got a better
clip:one how about I give you the finger
clip:And you give me my
Trevor:free podcast
clip:Mr.
clip:Anderson
clip:You disappoint me.
clip:You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap.
clip:I know my rights.
clip:I want my
Trevor:free podcast.
clip:Tell me, Mr.
clip:Anderson, what good is a podcast if you're unable
Trevor:to hear?