We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Hmm, what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days?

That's what we're going to talk about.

I'm Trevor, a.

k.

a.

The Iron Fist.

No Scott tonight, he's unavailable, but Joe the Tech Guy is a stalwart, a regular.

He's loyal to the cause.

Joe, how are you?

I'm good evening all.

Yeah.

Don't ask Joe how he is, he's got all sorts of, he's got a laundry list of

ailments and complaints and he started talking about needles and stuff and

I was getting queasy beforehand, so.

Hey, um, are you talking about that last week, as in my list of ailments?

Had an older friend reach out to me who apparently listens

regularly to the podcast.

Right.

So I hadn't seen him in about five years.

We had a catch up today, which is nice.

Okay.

And as a he felt some sympathy for you after hearing all that.

Yes.

Good.

Good to hear.

In the chat room, John's there.

John, good to see you.

Yes.

What are we going to talk about on this episode?

I did ask Joe if he had anything he wanted to get off his chest and he does

want to talk a little bit about attitudes to a ceasefire in Ukraine and Russia.

Of course, we have to talk about the ICC and its decision to arrest

Netanyahu and a couple of others.

What's the

Cricketing Board got to do with that?

Is

the ICC

something to do with international cricketing?

I think, um, from some quarters, the international cricketing, something

or other, would get more attention.

Respect.

Yes, so that's been quite interesting and instructive of how the world's going.

And, um, oh, other bits and pieces.

We'll just work our way through it.

If you're in the chat room and you raise a comment, you've got a very

good chance of having us listen and responding to it tonight.

Because, um, we'll see how we go.

James is there.

Good on you, James.

Um, yeah.

So, well.

Jay, you might as well kick off.

Do you want to kick off with your Perun story?

Yeah, so I literally just watched the end of the latest Perun video.

And he was talking about polling in both Ukraine and in Russia, general

attitudes towards a ceasefire.

And it seems like the majority of Russians and Ukrainians both want a ceasefire now.

However, if you drill down into it and start asking them the

terms of the ceasefire, basically, the Ukrainians aren't willing

to cede any territory to Russia.

Uh, so short of Russia withdrawing and paying reparations, uh, I think

the answer is they're not going to.

The other thing that is complicating any ceasefire is apparently the Ukrainian

constitution says that Ukraine cannot change its international borders without

going to the populace for a referendum.

So there has to be a referendum on any border changes.

So they can't just say, okay, we're going to sign a ceasefire.

Here you go.

Russia, you have the Donbass, um, because basically you have to get a majority

of the whole country to accept that Russia is now in charge of the Donbass.

Well, they could say,

they could say, we think our border is over there, but we agree to a

ceasefire with a demarcation line here.

And that is also the other, that was one of the other, um, possibilities

and, um, Slightly more people were accepting of that with a, we still

maintain that our border is here, but we'll call a ceasefire for the time being.

Mm-Hmm.

Uh, but even so, it still wasn't a majority of people.

I think I've seen that poem.

I think it was something like maybe 55, 60% of Ukrainians

in favor of a settlement.

Mm-Hmm.

. But of that group, only 20%.

Yep, let's just quit where we are at the moment and Russia can stay where it is.

Yeah, basically.

Yeah.

So as to your question about the willingness of people

to fight on, I think even the Ukrainians are willing to fight on.

Even

if they're Where'd the poll come from?

High levels of desertion.

Apparently this is a number of polls.

Right.

As in, there were a number of different polling organisations

who have polled people.

And the same with Russia, a number of Russians who are going, oh yes, a

majority of Russians want a ceasefire, but when you ask them the terms of

the ceasefire, they're never going to be accepted by the Ukrainians.

Yep, they want to keep the territory they've already gained.

Yeah, I haven't looked deeply at the poll, or who generated it, or the

polls, but, um, Perun didn't say?

He did, I just don't remember.

It sounded independent.

Yeah, I think, I think there were a number of polling organisations.

The Russian one was a single, I think.

polling organization, but the Ukrainian one, there were at

least two different organizations.

All right, yeah, when you said that you watched the last 15

minutes of Perun and you wanted to talk about it, I thought you were

going to tell me he'd found some North Koreans or evidence of them, but

so far,

so

far, no.

No, this was more about Um, how, how willing Ukraine is, or

Ukrainians are, to keep sending people to die on the front line.

Yeah, yep.

Alright, um, well, Joe, um, Netanyahu.

So, according to Dave Milner in the shot, he wrote a nice article about it.

Um, I'll extract a few of his words to sum up.

What happened?

Uh, he writes, after 13 months of live streamed sadistic slaughter

inside the open air concentration camp, that was once Gaza.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Galant.

He didn't mention it, but they've also issued arrest

warrants for a Hamas official.

The ICC cited crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at

least the 8th of October 2023 until at least the 20th of May 2024.

The decision was unanimous and the ruling went on to state that there are reasonable

grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility

for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and that Mr

Netanyahu bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime

of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza.

And within minutes of the announcement, Israel called the ruling anti Semitic.

As they do, yep.

Our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, she's of the Gravely Concerned Inc.

She took to Twitter and issued a characteristically vague statement that

assured Australians that international law needs to be complied with.

But she didn't specify whether Netanyahu would be arrested

if he arrived in Australia.

Um, yeah, so, um, so what do you think, oh well, and just, the

whole, Joe, any objections to the ICC ruling in such a way, does it

seem outlandish or anti Semitic

to you?

No more so than, um Putin being charged for war crimes in the Ukraine.

Exactly.

I think it's perfectly valid to hold leaders to account, um, in

the International Criminal Court.

Mm.

Um, the charge of anti Semitism, I think, is very much like

the charge of Islamophobia.

Yes.

It's a useful tool to, uh, silence dissenters.

Mm.

Uh, and that's not saying that there isn't anti Semitism and that there isn't fear

of Brown skinned people who worship Islam.

Um, I, I think they're just loaded terms that you can use

to bludgeon your enemies with.

Yep, and it'd certainly be possible to be a member of the

ICC and come to that conclusion without being anti semitic.

But Joe, the really instructive part of this is the international response.

So, Penny Wong refusing to say what Australia would do, but eight countries

announced they will arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot in their country.

And they are Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Italy,

Netherlands, and Switzerland.

What was that one?

Nine.

UK has also announced.

Ah, in the UK, yes.

Did they

announce that categorically?

Did they, um

Uh, they made a statement that certainly suggested that they were

going to, because my friends who are very pro Palestinian mentioned

that the UK press had announced it.

Actually, I've got it here.

The British government said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

faces arrest if he travels to the UK as officials confirmed that London

would fulfil its legal obligations as a signatory to the Rome Statute.

So I think that means

Sounds like it to me.

It

does, doesn't it?

So add them to the list.

Um, so what else?

Germany said no.

Um,

And, uh, they gave some strange reasons, which I think I'll get to.

Uh, what else have I got here?

Um

And of course, the US response has basically been, this is outrageous,

and if any of our allies were to, um, arrest Netanyahu, then They

can expect serious sanctions.

So they've said

this in the past as well, haven't they?

Yes.

So Lindsey Graham came out and said that in response to this ruling.

Of course, they've previously said they would reserve the right to send in

commandos and extract any, uh, Prisoners.

Held in the hay.

Yes.

And, and of course, issues sanctions against the legal team that's

responsible for this decision.

Like the first thing they go to on all this is sanctions, sanctions, sanctions,

the US, like they love sanctions.

The unfortunate part is that for them, that they've sanctioned

Russia as much as they possibly can.

And, um, Russia's going perfectly fine economically now.

Thank you very much.

With the help of China and Corona.

They've got

rampant inflation.

Have they?

Yeah.

Oh, I think they're doing alright.

I think 20 something percent, I think.

I think the

economy's doing pretty well

in Russia.

Yeah, absolutely.

The government is spending shitloads of money.

So, yes, the military sector is doing really well.

Prices of wages have gone up because they're paying bounties to get soldiers

to go to the because they need volunteers because they can't use conscription

because that's politically unacceptable.

So they're paying large wages to, or large signing up bonuses to soldiers,

which means that the factory workers that would be building munitions are

now signing up for the large bonuses to go to the front line, which means

the factory wages are going up.

So yeah, absolutely the economy is going gangbusters.

Unfortunately, it's propped up by large amounts of government spending

that who knows if it's sustainable.

What happens at the end of that?

I think the economy is going pretty well because

they're selling plenty of

oil and natural resources, so, a bit like Australia in that that's propping

up their economy reasonably well.

Probably.

Hmm.

I saw a, um, a poll, which was asking Russians, speaking generally, to

what extent are you satisfied with the life you lead now, and back in,

um To say, uh, 1992, quite satisfied for the most part, was less than 10

percent and now that's up to 54%.

See, on the ground in Russia, I think the sentiment amongst a large

part of the population is they're going okay and they're happy enough.

Because the people who weren't happy with Russia fucked off.

Yeah, well

Can that many leave?

Yeah, as far as I know, apart from men of conscriptable age in

the last two years, yeah, they were free to leave as they wanted.

Okay.

Has there been a mass exodus?

Yeah.

Like how much of the population?

Ah, I'm not sure, but in terms of skilled and educated

workers, it's been quite high.

Right.

Right, in the chat room, um, John, he saw Perun, thought it was a good analysis.

Alison's joined us, hello Alison.

Um, um, and John, the Ruble is worth one cent US.

Also the Russian economy is not as good as you think, Trevor.

They're making stuff.

The American economy is just financialised.

I, I think, I think some of the fundamentals could actually be better.

But, uh, we can talk about that another time, the comparison of the economy.

Um, right.

So, um, so yeah, look, this just exposes, the whole Netanyahu Israel

thing, just exposes the hypocrisy of the international rules based order, where

you've got ostensibly international groups, part of the international

rules based order, uh, saying.

We've got a genocide happening over here and we need to

arrest the people responsible.

And certain elements of the West are just saying, well, um, no, because

Israel's different and we pick and choose how we apply these rules.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, but the US has been hypocritical for a long time.

Of course.

Refusing to let their soldiers be tried for war crimes by the ICC.

But this is a very public one, where people can really understand, like,

not many people would have known that the US threatened to arrest Joe Biden.

You know, well, break into The Hague and bring back any Americans that want to.

Because it's sort of hypothetical as well, not many people would know.

But this is one where you could, at any point in the future when, when

Americans say we have to uphold the international rules based order,

then there's one answer to that is Netanyahu and you're full of shit.

Like you just pick and choose.

These rules, it's just the ones that suit you at the time.

What happens if Russia had broken into The Hague to free Milosevic?

Yeah,

well,

indeed, that's what they, or even threatened to.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so, so anyway, I think it's just instructive in terms of the world going,

hang on a minute, How come I pick up the newspaper every day and there's

nothing about this in the newspaper?

And how come certain elements are willing to excuse what we know is going on?

So, Joe, it's starvation time over there now.

Like, they just are not getting the aid in the food trucks and from what I've been

seeing and different things, it's just, they're just starving them to death now.

It's just horrendous.

Um.

Mind boggling that this is going on, mind boggling that it's being

excused and defended by people.

Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, all those guys coming out as well, as you'd

expect, in support of Netanyahu and

Israel.

You know, because of Australia's Judeo Christian heritage.

That's it,

yeah, yeah.

I was listening to, um What's the podcast called?

Um, uh, the Guru one.

Decoding

the Gurus.

Decoding

the Gurus, yes.

Their recent episode is looking at, uh, Jordan Peterson is

debating with Richard Dawkins.

And, and Peterson is just completely nuts.

And he is so pro Christian and so pro Judeo Christian.

Values.

Values.

And you

know Dawkins has said culturally he's a Christian.

Yes.

But I think that means he understands, you know, he went to religious schools.

Oh, absolutely.

He understands the Bible.

He's culturally aware of

Christianity.

But no, I think also he has inherited a lot of his morals from Christian beliefs.

And I don't think he's challenged them.

I don't think he said, you know, um, I don't know if he has a problem

with homosexuality per se, but it wouldn't surprise me somebody of his

generation kind of thinks it's icky.

And that's an inherited belief, it's not a He'll feel that it's wrong, but

he won't be able to put a finger on why it's wrong, if that makes sense.

Can I give you an example of where Richard Dawkins was very wrong?

Sure.

In a tweet?

He's wrong

on a lot of things.

A tweet on the 13th of November, Richard Dawkins.

Oh Jesus, his tweets are awful because he's not capable

of expressing himself concisely.

Well this one's fairly concise.

I take possibly forlorn hope in the fact that although Trump is a

mendacious, malevolent, transparently evil man and stupid with it, Musk

is not talking about Elon Musk.

He is highly intelligent and diametrically opposed to Trump.

He has the welfare of the world at heart.

This is Dawkins

referring to Elon Musk.

Well, yeah, I think there's fairly good evidence that Elon isn't that intelligent.

Yes.

Um And He managed to fool a lot of the world and obviously,

um, Dawkins hasn't caught up.

And he's got the welfare of the world at heart.

Well, he's got the welfare

of his wallet at heart.

Like,

that's

pretty

Just extraordinary,

isn't it?

Why are we listening to an old man who's blithering on in his dotage?

Yeah, I guess, because at one point we did used to listen to

him about other things, particularly his arguments against religion, hey?

He was a bit of a

Yeah, but his arguments against religion were 20 years ago.

He's a senile old man now.

Yes.

And you can be right on one aspect of thought and completely wrong on others.

Look, I'm sure his evolutionary biology, not that I'm in any position

to critique it, I'm sure it's very, very solid and well researched.

But just because a person is an expert on one thing doesn't make

him an expert on everything.

No, that's right.

Yeah, people get, um, anyway.

Decoding the Guru is quite interesting if you Want to be reminded of what

an idiot Jordan Peterson is, and um, um, yeah, there's a discussion

there with, about that and his, his faith in the Judeo Christian

story as, as propelling civilisation forward, without it

we would be a bunch of savages.

Yeah.

Anyway, that was it.

To be fair, the only, um, interesting thing that Jordan Peterson did was that

interview with the Channel 4 interviewer.

And it was more that he didn't let her put words into his mouth.

Yes.

Him standing up for himself was a very good example of how that's done,

but everything else I've seen of his has just been full of bullshit.

And that's it.

Did Buran talk about the Russian missiles?

He did.

So he was saying that, yeah, so what, they have 50 of these types of

weapons, this is nothing new, um, and they were probably not explosives.

It could well be that these were, um, just purely kinetic.

Yes.

So they're literally just bits of metal that fell because of

the speed they were falling.

Yes.

And they would have created huge amounts of energy.

But saying, yeah, so what, Russia have got intermediate missiles, we've known that

for a long time, they fire vertically, the speed they're going is purely a

function of physics, you know, really, everyone's going, oh my god, but this

is nothing new, this is not a surprise, they've had these weapons for a long time.

See, I heard the opposite, that this is in fact quite a surprise.

These things were going at five times the speed of sound.

I thought it was closer to 10.

Ah, well that's what Putin was saying.

Okay.

That 10 times, and at that speed there was just nothing

the

West could do to stop them.

But we know

that about ICBMs.

Well, it seemed that for this category of missile, this was news.

So, um, Perun might say it was, um, unsurprising.

Well, he's involved in

international arms logistics, so I tend to trust him on that.

What is his involvement?

Uh, unspecified.

I think he does, uh, kind of government consulting, but to

what end and exactly how, I don't

know.

Yeah, I'm just trying to see if I can find this quote from somebody highly placed.

Was amazed by it, but, um, um

It was somebody in the US Defence Department, I think.

But it was a politician, rather than a military person.

Yeah.

So, anyway, um OK, Perun says it was nothing I've heard otherwise.

It seems quite extraordinary, something that's going at

five times the speed of sound.

Certainly there's scuttlebutt in the UK that When Storm Shadow and

Scout missiles were, um, allowed to be used that there've been a sudden

number of, um, suspicious packages in public areas around the UK.

So, there was an evacuation at Gatwick Airport.

Right.

Suspicious device, uh, and apparently there's been a bomb

threat somewhere and they're going, they think this is the Russians.

Okay, but is that, that's totally unrelated to the missile thing?

No.

So it's just Russians causing havoc with fake bomb threats.

This is Russians causing

havoc with fake bomb threats UK allowing, um, cruise missiles,

plane launch cruise missiles.

Yeah, entirely possible.

And, um, did you see about the undersea cable that was cut?

No.

Up in, I think somewhere between Scandinavia and mainland Europe?

Right.

Uh, so an undersea cable was cut and everyone was going, Oh, it's the Russians.

But actually they're saying that there was a Chinese tanker ship in the area at

the time, and that they are now monitoring this Chinese tanker very carefully.

So, yeah, the original thought was it was the Russians, but

actually But who's saying that?

Uh, whichever Scandinavian country it is that the cable lands in, their

police force has said, basically satellite imagery at the time shows

that this, this large Chinese shipping tanker was, uh, in the area, uh,

and we're keeping a close eye on it.

What would be, what would be the reason for China wanting to cut off?

A very good question.

Who knows?

But, you know, when something suspicious happens to one of your undersea

cables, you look at who's in the area.

Yeah.

Or who was there a month ago and planted a bomb?

Well,

possible.

And maybe when they pull the wreckage up from the seafloor,

they'll find evidence of a bomb.

Yeah.

Um, it was, there was an article in one of the press, uh, talking about the US

I just, with this sort of stuff, cui bono?

Like, who benefits?

Oh, absolutely.

Who would benefit from that?

And you'd be going, well, what's until you know that.

You're saying it's a false flag?

It just doesn't make any sense.

I can, like,

America cutting, um, Nord Stream or blowing that up.

Yeah, yeah.

You could, you could say, okay, that did make sense.

It just doesn't.

Yeah.

And maybe there is a reason that the Chinese just didn't make sense.

I grew up on an island that was linked to the

mainland via undersea cables.

Mm.

And when there was a big storm in the channel, uh, And Fishing

vessels or whoever would throw their anchor down and then be

dragged by the storm up the channel.

You could literally go, okay, they cut this one at this time, they cut

that one at that time, the next one is gonna go in three hours time.

You could literally time when the next cable would be cut by a vessel

dragging its anchor in a storm.

There you go.

Um, so yeah, there, there are very much natural reasons and quite

often draws will dredge up a cable 'cause they're deep sea fishing.

Um, so there are.

Legitimate reasons, and we actually, we, I think British Telecom had a

policy of if you tell us that you've dragged your anchor past our cable and

cut our cable, then we won't fine you.

Whereas if we find out after the fact, and we have to hunt you down,

then we will bill you the cost of it.

And believe me, fixing an undersea cable is not cheap.

Mmm.

Yeah.

John says, China just stirring the pot, maybe.

Why would they want to?

Like, at this point in geopolitics, when a large proportion of the

world is pissed with the US, um, over Israel and other things,

they'd be courting other countries.

Because they're trying to convert the world into a multi polar

world, it just doesn't make sense that they would make people

Again, nobody was saying, A, that it was deliberate sabotage, all

they were saying was they were keeping an eye on this vessel because it was

in the vicinity when it happened.

Mmm.

And, and they hadn't rung up and gone, oh, by the way,

hey guys, we snagged your gable.

Oops, sorry, it was us.

Mmm.

Yeah, um, let me see here, um, Back to Australia.

Now I'll just see if I've got this, I don't know if I put these videos up, maybe

I didn't, um, actually they're probably, I'm going to try and add a scene here on

the fly, Joe, um, this one of Shoebridge with a bit of luck, uh, is going to be,

sitting here, yes, um, so, I'm just going to, um, and here we go, so I'm not, So

this is the Greens Senator Shoebridge, who I quite like, and he has been grilling,

um, the guy in charge of the National Anti Corruption Commission, Paul Brereton.

So here's him talking to Brereton, so, here we go, I'll drag

that

back, it's from the beginning.

Um, and you reject the conclusion of both the

Inspector and Mr Robertson.

That you failed to appropriately deal with your conflict of interest.

You reject that, don't you?

I have said that we accept the finding that there was a mistake of law

in the way that I dealt with the conflict.

You

said you disagreed with it.

I said I accept it, even though I You said you

disagreed with it, Commissioner.

You

said it in this hearing.

Chair,

I think I've made my position quite clear.

You said you disagreed with it.

Do you want to change that evidence, Commissioner?

I do not want to change my position.

Personally, I disagree with it, but I accept it because I am

used to accepting processes, including being found to be wrong.

You see, public officials at every level are expected to

appropriately manage their conflicts of interest and in fact face the threat

of a referral to the NAC if they fail to manage their conflicts of interest.

And you've just sent them a very clear message that they can be involved

in the discussions, can be, um, involved in requests for legal advice.

Um, settle media releases, um, all the way through the process, but if they

just step out at the last minute, you as Commissioner will say they dealt with

their conflict of interest and you as Commissioner will see nothing wrong.

And do you not accept that that is a very dangerous message to send to thousands

and thousands of public servants who have to deal with conflicts of interest?

I don't accept that that's a message.

Well, it's the message you've given today, Commissioner, in rejecting

the Inspector's finding, in rejecting Mr.

Robertson's finding, and in trying to justify, as you have continued to do,

your deep involvement in this matter, notwithstanding a conflict of interest.

I have said that I do not reject the finding.

I have said repeatedly

You disagree with me.

Look,

we're

voting Greens, just to keep that guy there, grilling

wankers like It does seem to

be an argument over semantics, you know.

I, I, I, I, yeah, accept the findings, but I don't think it's right.

Yeah.

So he's basically saying that he thinks that conduct

Is acceptable.

is

acceptable.

Yeah.

And

Shibbridge makes the point, well if it happens again to somebody

else and they come before your commission, they'll expect to get off.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Because they'll say, well, you did it.

Yep, and you've said that you think you were right in doing it.

So you must think I'm right in doing this, in proceeding this way.

Yeah, I mean, in

theory he could say, well, I think you're right, but the

process says you're wrong.

Yes.

Because, you know, you can, the same as, I don't know, if you morally

object to, uh, people being, you know, fined for possession of marijuana.

You can say, well, the law says this, so technically you're guilty.

But personally, I think the law is wrong on this.

So I have to find you guilty, but I personally disagree.

Yeah.

It's just worst possible.

Yeah.

This is the sort of numbnut you would have expected Morrison to have appointed.

And I think for an anti corruption commission, they're

supposed to be squeakier than Yeah, Squeaky Clean, they're supposed to

be whiter than white, aren't they?

Yes, um, there's a good reporter, uh, Morton, I think, I'm

just trying to think what his name is.

But um, like this commissioner was saying that, you know, corruption

is when people do things, um, blah, blah, blah, for private benefit.

And the actual Act says no, it does not necessarily have to be

for a private benefit at all.

So this Commissioner has a total misjudgment of, of what corruption is as

under the Act that he's operating under.

And uh,

I know someone who actually got off on a large court case because of that.

Right.

He, he lost his bank 10 million pounds.

Right.

He, he had, he was a foreign currency trader and he'd made some unwise

decisions and rather than reporting it, he hid it and thought he was

going to trade himself out of debt.

Yeah.

And he got himself deeper and deeper into a hole.

And finally he was tried for fraud, I think.

Mm.

And, um, The judge said, well, fraud is if he personally benefited,

and he didn't personally benefit.

And also he, I think the, uh, defense attorney, um, questioned the bank

manager and said, so if he'd made 10 million pounds instead of lost 10

million pounds, would we be here today?

And the bank manager said, well, no.

At which point the judge said, well, you know, you can't pick

and choose just because he lost money instead of winning money.

So that was

quite interesting.

James in the chat room says, I think they might have put him so they

wouldn't get any pushback from the LNP.

Would not surprise.

So much of what this pathetic Labor government does is to

avoid fights with the LNP.

The LMP or the Murdoch Media?

Didn't he

write some report or is this a different Barton?

I dunno,

isn't there a Baran report?

There would be about what?

I, I, I dunno, the name comes up in my memory as being related to something.

Yeah.

Dunno Joe.

But, uh, what a, just a debacle end.

You know, we complained at the very beginning with this National

Anti Corruption Commission that everything was going to be in secret.

Um, and it was, it's only because it's such a schmozzle that we're

finding out all this stuff.

So, um, so yeah.

Hey, I didn't have it in the notes, but um, um, the Misinformation Bill.

Ah, yes.

Let's, let's die to death.

So, that's not getting through, but Joe.

This one with social media for kids under 16 or whatever is gonna get through

it.

Was the Afghanistan inquiry into, um, the uh, um, um, um, uh, the Victoria Cross

guy and when there was Yeah, I think so.

Is it the same ton?

Uh, it looks like it, uh, James seems to Yes.

James is saying that,

right?

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

And John says.

John says, I've heard in a branch meeting that he was a consensus pick, so he would

not be removed when the Libs get in next.

That would be so typical.

Yeah, and Alison says it's about war crimes in Afghanistan.

I thought I didn't yet recognise the name.

I've lost my train of thought then.

Um, social media.

Yes.

That's going to get through.

A complete disaster this is going to be for Labor.

Even

though Libs

have agreed to it,

it's going to be Labor's baby.

Implementing it is going to be a nightmare.

Um, Elmo has said this isn't about safeguarding kids, this is about Australia

trying to force people to sign up with valid ID documents to social media

so they can track down who says what.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just going to stink at the next election.

And LNP are voting for it, it's, it's going to be elbows baby.

Probably.

Mmm.

Mmm.

Can't believe, it's just incredible that they're falling for this.

But there you go.

And more and more evidence comes out from people saying, for God's

sake, if you want to protect kids, you Train them, teach them, yeah.

Media literacy and all that stuff.

Same with pornography.

You can't shield kids from seeing it.

The best thing to do is educate them.

Joe, with VPNs so easily accessed, it's hard to imagine that

any kid, or adult for that matter, with VPN can't get around this so quickly.

Yes.

Just by locating their Internet traffic somewhere else.

In America or something.

That's what's happened to the states in the US with this,

um, Preview Over 18 bill for porn.

Right.

People are VPNing.

They're saying basically all the traffic from wherever it was,

Utah, have just dropped off.

But suddenly there's now another half a million people in some other state.

Yeah.

Honestly, couldn't It's just going to be impossible.

It's hard to imagine anything.

That could, that could actually work.

Well, it's very much like the government has a list of naughty,

naughty sites that are blocked by Australian service providers.

Um, and they do this by DNS settings.

So you just point your DNS, so your DNS is blocked.

When you type in a web address, it translates into the IP

address, the numbers that the computers talk to each other on.

And so if you use Telstra's server, it'll hit the block list.

But if you use Google's server, it'll work.

So all you need to do is update your address, your DNS servers, and you

get around the government blocks.

So, there is a history of the Australian government doing stupid things like

this that are easily circumventable.

I

just can't believe there's not enough people in the room

saying, Guys, as much as you might think this is a great idea, even

though it's not, You can't do it.

You won't effectively do it.

But this is quite often the case with government experts

thinking they know better than people who actually do the stuff.

Yeah.

Probably these guys have just never used a VPN in their

life.

They probably have somebody set up the computer for them, point

there, log on for them, and their password is stuck on a sticky note

to the front of their computer.

Which is

password

1234.

It would not surprise me in the slightest.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Have you seen the courier fail, by the way?

I think it was the courier fail.

I read it every day, Joe, for my sins.

Talking about the 50 cent fares and how, um, Stephen Miles had

gone against the recommendations of some expert not to do that.

No, he didn't say that.

I did see a social media post that was saying, yeah, this is basically

the social media, sorry, this is the courier mail softening up.

the electorate for the Liberals to abandon 50 cent fares.

Right.

Okay.

Despite it being an election promise.

Right.

Okay.

That would make sense.

That would make sense.

So, yeah.

Honestly, you read that rag and you just treat LNP propaganda sheet.

Yeah, very much.

With a little bit of football and Harvey Norman ads thrown in.

Yeah, what else have I got on this list here?

Um, um, look, I've got a, just for fun, because I know that, um,

you're keen on flat earthers, Joe.

I've got some here.

Joe Rogan was, um, famous during the campaign for interviewing Donald

Trump and people think that that was a big deal and helped him.

get ahead.

So here's a guy talking to Joe Rogan and they're basically, this guy's going,

you know, all these crazy conspiracy theorists and starts listing them and

they scoff at them and anyway, just pay attention, just for a bit of fun.

I get it if you're just completely stupid and you got sucked into this cult

thing, but what I don't get is how can you be, how can you be on the fence about

whether, about the shape of the earth.

Well, it's just people that really are not educated,

that's, that's number one.

And people that believe that there's a collusion that's so large that all of the

space agencies from Japan, from China, from Russia, all of them are liars.

That all of them are colluding together to hide the true shape of the Earth because

if we really knew the Earth is flat, then we would, it would, it always is

connected to some sort of a Bible thing.

Like it's the firmament and they believe that we're hiding the fact

that God is real and somehow there's some mass conspiracy that all these

world governments and every person that ever was involved in the space

agencies, they've all hid from us.

Yeah, and the, you're, moon landing, you're not a, you

believe in the moon landing, right?

I used to believe in

the moon landing.

You don't anymore?

I had a joke in my act about it, that before COVID I would have told you

vaccines are the most important invention in human history, and after COVID I'm

like, I don't think we went to the moon.

Yeah, I know that was in your, but

you actually think

that.

I think there is a less than zero possibility that

we did not go to the moon.

Oh my gosh.

I know.

So I did hear that the moon landings were faked, but James

Cameron was such a perfectionist that he insisted doing it on site.

Oh, that's good, Joe.

Yeah, so yeah, Joe Rogan and Matt Walsh, they're making fun

of those dumb shit Flat Earthers.

And then Matt Walsh wants to make fun of moon landing conspiracy theorists,

but uh, Rogan believes in that one.

Um, have you ever seen Behind the Curve, Beneath the Curve,

whatever it's called, the documentary?

On Flat Earthers?

On Flat Earthers.

Uh, no.

It is brilliant.

It really is.

It's not taking aim at them, it is following them as they try

and prove that the Earth is flat.

And then, you know, spending thousands on some experiment, and then the

experiment showing that the Earth is doing exactly what a round Earth would do.

And then coming up with reasons why the experiment failed, and all they

have to do is just tweak this slightly.

And it's, it's a really good way of introducing, um, uh, positive

bias, uh, conformational bias.

Mm hmm.

as a subject to people and go, all right, we all suffer from something like this.

What is your bias?

And just getting people to sit there and critically think, oh shit, if

these people are disappearing down this rabbit hole this way, am I using

this way of thinking, uh, for something that I think is critically important.

It's a really good non challenging way of getting people to

think about their beliefs.

So what's that called?

Uh, let me just quickly check one.

It's, it's behind or Beneath the Curve.

And you reckon that's on YouTube?

Uh,

it's on Netflix.

Okay.

Plus other dodgy websites.

Right.

Okay.

in, in the dark areas of the web that, uh, well, exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well that's a good one.

There's another, uh, podcast.

Oh no.

Ross and Carrie, um, did be on Flat Earthers as well, and.

There was one part where It's

called Behind the Curve.

Behind the Curve, there we go.

That sounds like a worthwhile one.

Um, it's good when people treat these people with some compassion.

Just not completely belittle them.

And that's what Ono, Ross and Carrie did, I think.

And, like, I think at one point these people went to some lake

and got somebody on the other side of the lake to light a fire.

That's

a train or end.

There's a lake in just outside of New Orleans, which is big enough,

and there's apparently power cables that run across the lake, and you

can see the power cables curve.

You can see the bridge as well.

Right.

Okay.

And like the, uh, so the experiment would be to light a fire where the pylon is

on the other side of the Probably, yeah.

And if the earth was flat, you should be able to see the fire.

Of course you can't because of the curvature and then they come

up with all sorts of reasons why refraction of light off the

surface of the lake or other stuff.

Behind the curve they try and fire a laser light along the canal.

So they, they have, they held up wooden boards and fire a

laser along the length of it.

And they're going, you know, if I get Fire it from the first board at 10

foot above the, the, the water level.

Hit the second board at the top at 10 foot above the water level.

Then if the earth is flat, I'll hit the third board at

10 foot above the water level.

Yep.

Um, and, and so they're doing a series of experiments like this.

Mm-Hmm.

Fascinating.

Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm . John, did you hear about the flight to the

South Pole that has been arranged?

It's flat Earth nutters going, okay, so we're gonna.

Yeah, but they'll, they'll just say, they'll,

they'll just say The plane went in a, in a gradual circle

that, or something like that.

Yeah.

It's, it's like you can take 'em up in a plane and show

'em the horizon of the earth.

Yes.

The curvature of the horizon.

And they'll say, oh, you know, it's distorted lens, it's

distorted windows or something.

Yes.

There's always a reason why.

Mm-Hmm.

. Mm-Hmm.

. Joe: So

yeah, that was, uh, I had that sitting there.

Had to get rid of that one.

Um.

Oh,

and that's the guy who went up in a rocket, built his own rocket.

Mm-Hmm.

because he was gonna get high up enough, high up enough into the atmosphere

to see the curvature of the earth.

And I dunno if it crashed or whether it exploded, but he died

in his rocket whilst he was trying to prove that the earth was flat.

Oh.

Ah, dear.

Hmm mm-Hmm mm Uh, there was an article in Crikey, I didn't, um, put a copy

of it here to refer to, but it was just talking about Richard Miles.

Our, our Defence Minister.

And just what a simple man he is, and totally caught up in the

trappings of office, and totally um,

swept up in American stuff and thinks it's fantastic and just

swallowing the whole thing.

He just sounds like the worst possible person to be our Defence Minister.

He's in control of the Right Faction, and Albanese's done a deal with that faction,

and he'll be there as long as he wants to, and, um, Defence wise, sending us down

the toilet, but yeah, interesting article in Crikey, just about the sort of nature

of Richard Marles, and what a shallow, pathetic human being he is, and the last

person you'd want in charge of anything, um, and, um, That was, uh, depressing.

That's alright,

America won't want us fairly soon.

Well, if, if we support Netanyahu being arrested.

Oh, no, no, no, I just meant, um, Trump's isolationism.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well.

It'll be what's in it for them.

He wants a war with China.

Hmm.

And a lot of the people he's appointing, um,

They seem to be very hawkish.

They've got all sorts of things.

That's

true.

I don't know if he's just appointed them to have a fight with

them later, but, um, if he's appointed them to let them have free reign,

then, look out world, it seems.

Ah.

I've just started watching The Apprentice.

What?

Joe?

What?

No, not the TV show.

There's a 2024 film.

It's a biography of Donald Trump's early days with Roy Cohn, the lawyer.

Roy Cohn?

Yeah.

So he was allegedly a lawyer for the mob.

Ah.

Who was close friends with Donald Trump and fought a lot

of his fights in the early days.

Okay.

So they were an unstoppable pair.

Basically, he got all the, uh, deals through, and certainly the film

is alleging that it was through blackmail that Roy Cohn got a lot

of these sweetheart deals for Trump.

Oh, and it's called The Apprentice, it's a documentary.

It's not a documentary, it's a fictionalised, but

it's a biography of Trump.

Right, okay.

So I don't know how accurate it is, but it's supposedly the

story of Trump and Roy Cohn.

Okay, look out for that one as well, folks.

What else we got here?

Um, oh,

um, done that one.

Done that one.

Uh, I dunno really where to start on some of these topics, just because

one bit over the shop on this one.

We might sort of call it an early evening Joe without Scott here.

Um, so, uh, actually it might've been.

You know, like we're talking about missiles, I might have been

thinking about the Yemeni missiles.

Ah.

Um, because, um, the US had one of their aircraft carriers, um, poised

off Yemen, ready to create mischief.

And they got bombarded with enough stuff from the Yemenis that they

had to vacate the territory.

For fear of losing an aircraft carrier to the Yemenis.

So, um, so yeah, and it was one of the, um, the U.

S.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Bill

LaPlante, said last week that the Yemeni's operations are getting scary.

He said, I'm an engineer and a physicist and I've been around

missiles my whole career.

What I've seen.

What the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that I'm just shocked.

So that's what I was thinking about with missiles was what the,

right.

So, you know, on the face of it, Joe, these, you know, large

aircraft carriers with very expensive planes on them, in theory, with

the, um, improvements in missiles and, you know, Firing them from

the land, the risk to the U.

S.

of losing a large, a large piece like that is pretty high.

Um, if you read the report on the Falklands, that's quite interesting.

The American, the U.

S.

Marine Corps did a report the year after about the war in the Falklands and

talking about the risk to the carriers and saying, you know, how the Americans

would have gone in with multiple aircraft carriers and had complete air superiority.

But saying, um, the Argentinians had access to modern weaponry, even

though they were a conscript armory.

They certainly had, still had access to what were at the time modern weapons.

Um, I'd be surprised if the Yemen have the latest and greatest in weapons,

just because it costs a lot of money.

Well, I think people like Iran would give it to them.

Possibly.

Maybe if they're going, yeah, take out an American cruiser, I'm

happy to give you a shiny new toy.

Yeah, so, um, so yeah, scared them off.

And, you know, it's been quite a while since the Falklands and just

the improvement in technology for these missiles, I think is putting

large, large ships in big danger.

Yeah, same.

Which is what we'll face 30 years down the track if we

ever get delivered a submarine.

Who knows what sort of underwater drones will be available to, uh, at a fraction

of the cost, blow up expensive submarines.

But we'll never get them anyway, so, no need to worry on that score.

But it's

alright, we've upgraded America's dockyards for them.

Yes, yes.

Ah, well, dear listener, um, bit of a grab bag of different things on this occasion.

Yeah.

Winding our way down for Christmas.

Um, Joe, are you around next week?

Yeah, as far as I

know.

I think Scott's around next week.

We'll find out.

So, um In the chat room, anybody else got anything to say?

Alison says it's all TranLink transport in Queensland.

TransLink.

TransLink, hmm.

Somebody was asking what the 50 cent fares were all about.

Yeah, yep, um,

uh,

I think that's about it, so.

John, John was saying that the reason the Flat Earthers are going to

Antarctica is basically if they're there for 24 hours and the sun doesn't set,

then they must be at a polar region.

Right.

Right, OK.

So in winter the sun doesn't arise above the horizon and in summer

it doesn't go below the horizon.

Right.

But couldn't they have some theory of a flat Earth also spinning?

Possibly.

Which would account for this?

But I think whatever the model of this particular mob is, doesn't include that.

So they'll have to change their model.

They won't accept that the Earth is not flat.

They'll just update their model.

Mmm.

Yep.

There we go.

All right, um, I've got anything else on those that I wanted to do?

I don't think so.

I've shopped and changed around to different topics.

I'll leave that for the moment.

All right, dear listener, thanks for your attention.

We'll be back next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good note from him.