Welcome dear listener to the Iron Fist and the Velvet

Glove podcast, episode 439.

I'm Trevor, over there in regional Queensland is Scott, the Velvet Glove.

How are you, Scott?

Good.

Thanks, Trevor.

Yourself?

I'm well, I'm really well, actually.

And Joe, the tech guy.

How are you, Joe?

I'm good.

That's good.

In the chat room, we've got Tanya, we've got Alison.

If anyone else is there, say hello.

It's good to know that there's people there.

Oh, what's on the agenda?

If you're looking for good news.

I don't think this is the episode for it.

Just, have I missed something, Scott?

Is there some good news out there that I've somehow overlooked because I've

become so cynical, skeptical, pessimistic,

just

a doomsayer?

I don't think there's any real good news or anything like that.

Um, it's just, uh, it's one of those things.

It's not really a good news week at the minute.

I mean, although, you know, if we do want to focus on good

news, it appears that, um, Ms.

Harris, whatever her Christian name is, um, Kamala Harris.

Yeah, it appears she's making some, um, good inroads against, um, Trump and his

vice president, vice presidential pick.

You know, she's, she's settled on a, uh, rather workable

word and that sort of stuff.

She's just calling them weird, which is really good.

And, um, that just takes away, it takes away having to go and fight

on their territory or anything else.

It just is, they're weird.

And when people can, people can read into that a hell of a lot.

Like if they actually understand what the hell they're after, then they'd

actually conclude that they are weird.

And it's just one of those things.

Like it's, um, it could actually end up being a very good election

result for the Democrats.

You

know, she has also gone the, of course, I'm the prosecutor.

I am a former prosecutor and I'm running against a convicted felon.

Yeah, I know, which is very true.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I did love it when she said that she knows exactly his type, you know.

Anyway, yeah, I just think to myself that, um, she was probably the pick

of them and all that sort of stuff.

And I think she will actually, I think she will actually break that, um, uh, glass

ceiling that Hillary wasn't able to break.

So you think Kamala Harris is the good news story of the week that I missed?

Well, she is the good news story when there's not a

hell of a lot around out there.

You know, it's like it's, it's like you said, you know, there's not a hell of

a lot out there except for the prisoner exchange swap deal, which, you know,

had, um, Vladimir Putin hugging the, um, hugging the, uh, the convicted

murderer and that sort of stuff that they got released from Germany.

All right.

Well, just before we get onto the prisoner swap, let's,

let's go to the Kamala Harris.

Good news story.

I'll just play a little bit of Kamala Harris.

Here we go.

No worries.

So you're now, no longer, are you necessarily keeping those private

files in some file cabinet that's locked in the basement of the house?

It's on your laptop and it's then therefore up here in this cloud

that exists above us, right?

It's no longer in a physical place.

I

don't know about you, but she doesn't strike me as

the sharpest tool in the shed.

Even though she's a prosecutor.

She comes across as quite ditzy on things.

Well, I wouldn't call her, I wouldn't call her, um, interrogation

of that Yank Supreme Court judge, the bloke and everything, whatever his name

is, the, um, you know, she did actually have him on the ropes when she actually

asked him that very pointed question.

She said, can you think of a medical procedure that is for men that is,

that is regulated by the government?

And he had, he was forced to actually admit that there was no

such thing that he could think of.

I think she might be fine with a script and a brief.

But, I don't know, just in terms of general knowledge, she

was asked about what she's I

would agree that in terms of IT, but I wouldn't have thought Biden or Trump

would know what the cloud was either.

No, exactly.

I mean, that's a pretty low bar, I mean, we're supposed to be saying Carmilla

is the, is the good news story, she is the

good news story, she can string a sentence together and stick to the script.

Exactly.

Which is just, it is better than what we've been used to.

Did you not just watch what I just played?

Yeah, I did,

I did understand exactly what you're saying.

However, when you compare her to the alternative, you'd have to actually

conclude that you're better off with her than you are with anyone else.

Yeah, it's such a low bar.

No, no.

Now the other thing too is that the Democrats, because Biden

left it too late to actually have some sort of competitive game.

process and everything else.

You couldn't actually get to see the entire field of democratic

candidates that were out there.

And there were a number of, there were a number of very good state governors,

governors that could have actually got up there and probably taken it to

Trump and beaten the shit out of him.

And there are some people that are younger than Kamala Harris.

However, Kamala Harris is the person that they have decided on.

So, you know, you, you, if you are, if you are living in the United States,

which I don't think we've got many Yank listeners over here, do we?

But if you are, then I would encourage you to go out and vote

for Kamala Harris because she is a damn sight better than Donald Trump.

She, she's 59,

but she looks younger.

She looks a hell of a lot younger than 59.

It might be just because, again, the comparison between the two old fogies of

Biden and Trump that makes her look young.

Maybe.

It's when she switched from being Indian to being black that she became younger.

Yes, because she made that switch, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, um, Alison agrees with you, Scott.

Yeah, I know, it's nice to hear this.

But look, thinking back on it,

come on, Ronald Reagan was an actor.

Yes.

Was he a genius?

Or even smart.

Not really.

George W.

And did Reagan do good things?

No, no, no.

I'm just saying.

Like, it's, it's not

as if he was good.

He was bad.

This is back, this is back to the norm that was before, rather

than the cesspool that was Trump.

I'm just, I'm just really struggling to see this as a

good news story, Kamala Harris.

It is a better news story.

It's a

better news story than the horrible, horrible story, but that

doesn't mean it's Just because it's better than really, really bad, doesn't

mean that it's reached the good level.

I would suggest that it is good compared to Donald Trump.

Yeah,

okay.

What's on the, what's on the agenda?

Um, probably more Israel Gaza.

Yes, it is, um, Algerian Boxers and the Olympics.

A bit on that.

UK riots, um, what else have I got here, uh, oh, and of course

Venezuela and an election.

That should keep us busy.

So, uh, I'll start at the top.

Um, honestly, Israel and what is going on there.

When we say nothing's happened in the last week, nothing's happened.

Good has happened, but lots of really, really bad things

have happened over there.

Caused by the Israelis, where they're just bombing the shit

out of Palestinians in Gaza.

And then also, Bombing their enemies in neighbouring states and taking out

innocent civilians at the same time.

So, at least Why do you hurt Jews, Trevor?

I said the Israelis.

I don't know if they're Jewish or not, the ones responsible, but anyway.

At least 30 people killed when they bombed two United Nations run schools.

Then, that was following a bombing of another school, uh,

in Hamama, where 15 were killed.

And of course, numerous, um, uh, sort of injuries along the way.

And then, um, uh, there was, you know, it's all children.

I mean, they're bombing schools, which are either conducting the bombing,

What they can in terms of a school, but for the most part, these are refugee

centres because they're large places where people can gather who've been

displaced from other places and they're dropping bombs on them because they're

saying, oh, we think there's a mass in there and they're sheltering in there.

So it's quite legitimate for us to just drop a bomb on

there without telling anybody.

And, what else did they do in the last seven days?

They, they dropped a bomb on, in Beirut to kill one of the Hezbollah leaders.

Of course, uh, three other people were killed, including two children.

And then over in Tehran, they killed a Hezbollah senior military commander

who was there for the funeral of the last guy they killed over there.

No, he was there for the inauguration of the new president.

Ah, that's right, the president died on a helicopter crash.

Died on a

helicopter crash,

yeah.

So, um, and meanwhile when I look at, um, Well actually, full marks to the John

Menardew blog because they post some of the horrific images and one of them is,

uh,

is showing um, a terrible picture of a, of a mutilated

girl hanging from some exposed reinforcement on a dilapidated building

wall with half her legs missing.

And it says that, um, The Israeli missile was so powerful it flung Sidra out of

the building she was in, leaving her mutilated body dangling from the ruins

of the destroyed building, with her also killed mother's arm still attached to her.

These are the things that are going on over there, and if you just read the

normal news, or watch the normal media services, You'll not see any of it.

You've got to go looking for it.

If, if, if I was a benevolent dictator, Scott, I would be forcing the news

bulletins for the first five minutes, just showing the carnage and destruction

and the kids in Gaza, and the parents cradling the mutilated bodies of their

children, and just the horror of it.

But we, we, we're all blinded to it.

We don't, it's, it's just hidden from us.

What's the world come to?

It's one of those things, I don't understand why you cannot expose

yourself to some of the gore and that sort of stuff that is happening.

It's not at all pretty, it is, it's very true that this is going on and

that sort of thing, so I think that we should actually be exposed to it.

You know, we're all three intelligent people here, I'm

sure we could cope with it.

I would have put it on the screen, but then no doubt the

video would be somehow marked by YouTube or Facebook and delisted

and all the rigmarole to do with it.

I can't be bothered, but um, it'll be in the show notes.

It's just, it's an unbelievable action that just continues on and on.

And the world's just not only allowing it to happen, but standing up in

Congress and giving 53 standing ovations, applauding the guy responsible for it.

What hope have we got?

We can't get things right.

You know, okay, we could argue about Reserve Bank inflation

rates, um, target rates, you know.

There are things about economics or social policy or other stuff where

you could argue and you could say, You know, there are two sides to this story.

The voice, there's two sides to this story.

You know, a lot of these social programs, surely just a genocide is something

we can all agree on as being bad.

But nope.

We just divide up on that one as well.

I've lost all hope that we can constructively agree on anything.

If we can't agree on that.

It's one of those things.

I don't understand how the Americans can actually.

say to their president and everything like that, that's okay.

You can keep shipping those weapons to the Israelis.

I really would have thought that, um, if Biden wanted to stop this war, he

could do it by ringing up, picking up the phone and saying to Netanyahu,

you better back out now, or we will stop sending you weapons tomorrow.

And that would, that would actually stop them because they wouldn't

have anything they could then drop on these poor bastards.

Yeah, being

crucified by his political party.

Hmm.

He would be.

Biden would be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I bet it wouldn't surprise me, but, you know, it's just one

of those The American Israeli lobby is very, very strong.

I know it's very, very strong, but, you know, Kamala Harris has actually

been making some noise against that.

She's actually been saying that, you know, that they've got to actually stop the,

they've got to actually move towards a ceasefire, which is Now, I know Trevor's

going to say something there, but yeah, you can actually just look at what she has

said just recently, when she said they've actually got to go through to a ceasefire.

Yeah,

but they're always saying that.

What can she control?

The supply of arms.

And as she said, if I'm president, I'm going to stop supplying arms.

Has she said that?

No, she hasn't said that, but the American

Jewish lobby would immediately go, Oh, we're all for Trump.

But it really wouldn't surprise me if the day after she's sworn in and that

type of thing, she might as well pick up the phone and say, No, you've got to stop.

It's the Democrats in charge.

Joe Biden is in charge and they are supplying the arms now.

So why would it be any different under Kamala Harris?

Because she would have the opposite, she would have the

opportunity to put, with the stroke of a pen, she could put it right.

Because you think she has a personal interest in

it that Biden doesn't have?

She certainly appears to have more of a personal

interest in it than Biden does.

And then she can sway her Democrat colleagues who currently agree with the

Biden approach That in fact they've been wrong all along and they should change.

I don't know.

It's one of those things I just think to myself that we've, it's a risk either way.

But I honestly believe this has got to be sorted out before the election.

Which means that um, Netanyahu's got to actually put the guns

and everything away by November.

But you know he won't do that.

No I know he won't do that because he's got to, he's got to

retain power and that sort of stuff.

The only way he can retain power is to keep the killing going.

They're never leaving.

They're there for good, they're there forever until they

get bombed out by somebody else.

Potentially.

Ah, just.

You know, it's one of those things, I, you know, I'm struck by what Joe said a

little while ago when we were first having this conversation about this and when you

were making the comparison between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto and Joe said, yeah,

but the difference was the members, the.

Citizens of the Warsaw Ghetto were not actually there trying

to exterminate the Nazis.

All they wanted to do is to be left alone.

Whereas you've got Hamas, which is actually called for the end of Israel.

Yeah, but how many people in Gaza are not part of Hamas?

Well, I think there's probably a hell of a lot more that aren't part of

Hamas and a hell of a lot of them are being innocently destroyed in this war.

Exactly.

So for those people, it's It's a, um, it's a Warsaw Ghetto, thank you very much.

Well, it probably is for those people, but, if you've got the political

move and that sort of stuff on that side, and they're actually saying that

we don't want Israel anymore, we want Israel to go, then, you've No, that's

gonna make me sound like a bastard.

I'm gonna actually think about what I'm gonna say here.

Fair enough.

Let me tell you something else that's happened in the last week in Israel.

So not only have they bombed two UN schools, a different school, gone beyond

their own borders to bomb somebody in Lebanon and then someone in Tehran, but

in addition to that, oh, they bombed a Uh, a water facility as well that was

provided by international people, so no water, but they've, in the prison where

they're holding, um, uh, Palestinian prisoners, um, basically they, uh,

the prison officers gang raped one of the prisoners so brutally that he was

paralyzed and had to go to hospital.

Which caused the, this caused the military police to go in and arrest

nine of the, um, of the prison officers.

And there was a riot by Israelis saying, what are you doing?

You can't arrest these guys.

We can do whatever we want to, to Palestinian prisoners.

So, Israeli settlers, far right activists, Knesset members, broke

into the detention centre in defence of these detained soldiers.

Security, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gavir and other officials urged

their followers to storm the facility and demand the release of the soldiers.

And members of the Knesset, representing several political parties, including

the Likud, took part in the riots.

So this is a country where it riots when its prison officers are being

arrested by their own military police because they have gang raped

a prisoner so badly he's paralysed.

In the end, they had to release the nine prison officers in order

to avoid essentially a civil war.

That

is where they have got to.

I think it probably would have been actually worthwhile had they

gone through a civil war because they would have thought that those, um,

those soldiers and everything were, were on the right side and they would

have actually liquidated the right wing of the, um, Israeli government.

Had they actually gone down to civil war, you probably would have had the

right wing of the Israeli government getting liquidated in that war.

They're not

up for a civil war yet,

but have you heard that story?

I had heard that story only when I read it this afternoon.

I hadn't heard the story before that.

Right.

It's shocking.

Oh, it is appalling.

It's utterly appalling that someone would actually do that.

Like, this isn't a foreign country.

International court condemning them.

This is their own military police saying shit guys This guy didn't this guy

didn't anally rape himself so badly as to be paralyzed Somebody did it to him.

Hmm, and we've got to arrest a few people here because we're not savages

and And a significant proportion of the country said, well, we can do whatever

we like to Palestinian prisoners.

They are not human.

And what's that Joe?

Bunta

Mention.

Subhuman.

That's what the Germans used to call, used to call everyone

that wasn't German.

Well, that's what they called the Slavs and the Jews.

Yeah, I know.

They were Bunta Mention.

Hmm.

I mean.

Extraordinary.

This is extraordinary stuff.

And yet, pick up a newspaper, what are we going to get?

A gold medal around some girl's neck at a swimming pool?

Or, or worse, a US Congress joint sitting, applauding the bastard responsible for it.

What can we do?

It's, this is a depressing tale of civilization's demise.

If, if, if this is where we're at, it's hard to put.

Yeah.

Anyway, if you want to look for the bright side of that story, I'd

actually say that the military police that went in to arrest those nine guys,

you know, my hat is off to them because they did try to do the right thing.

It does show

some level of humanity left in some sectors of

Israeli

society.

But,

the right wing of that country are clearly lunatics, you know.

Yes.

Yeah, so you're right, Scott.

Journalists and observers like you, Scott, have highlighted that the incident

brings to light the deep divisions in Israeli society, particularly between

the far right religious settlers, who support Benjamin Netanyahu's

coalition, and those on the other side of Israel's political spectrum.

What a dysfunctional generation you are creating when you subject your young

people to serving in the military and telling them to commit atrocities.

What sort of effect is this going to have on your society in the generations to come

when these, goodness me, what a way to just ruin the moral fibre of your society.

It probably will end up tearing the whole country apart, I would have thought.

You know, because you're going to have those few, uh, you probably still got

more than 50 percent of the population would actually be appalled by that

story, but I couldn't tell you what prison they're in or anything like that.

If it was a prison that was near one of the settlements and all that

type of thing, you probably got some nut jobs that live around there that

would actually be supporting the, um, prison guards that did what they did.

It's, it's, uh.

Yeah, I would have thought that those, see the settlers are, they're a breed apart

from the rest of the Jewish population, the rest of the Israeli population, you

know, they are, you know, they've got this, it's, you know, I watch um, Last

Week Tonight every week from um, with John Oliver, he's a very funny bloke, but

he was actually, he does do some serious stuff, he was actually going through

a, like these settlements are basically butt up against the, Palestinian areas.

And there was just something, it was, it was just, he just showed a footage of,

there were people in that sort of stuff that were down there interviewing a bloke.

He was a Palestinian bloke.

And.

The Jews and everything threw beer bottles out their window down out in.

Yes.

You know, it's, they have utter contempt for the

Palestinians that live amongst them.

You know, it's.

It is an

apartheid state.

Oh, it is.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, I think it's worse because God's promised them that land.

Yeah.

And I don't

know that the South Africans, I mean, they, they did, some did to a

degree, but I they were quite as convinced that, God had given that to them.

Mm.

Hey, Joe, can you just turn up slightly your volume, if possible?

You're just slightly less than Scott, but anyway.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Um, well, that's enough on Israel and Gaza for the moment.

That's just, um, 27 minutes of a horror story there.

Scott, did you see the story about the female boxer who was accused of

being a man in a female sort of sport?

No,

I didn't hear that.

I don't watch the Olympics or anything like that.

Sorry.

I told you, did I not, that years ago I signed up to, there was

a marriage equality campaign and I told up to, told a bunch of right

wing bigots to go fuck themselves.

And I, since then, have been on their mailing list and

they're now called Binary.

And I get emailed about three or four times a week by some Christian

knockjob who is anti trans.

And so, yes, I saw that because she was complaining that.

Some, uh, man was going to beat up on a woman.

Yes.

Was

she actually a transsexual athlete, was she?

It's a bit complicated to try and figure out exactly what is going on.

It's hard to know, but I thought I'd provide a summary for the people who are

sort of had a passing interest in it.

So they

were certainly raised as a girl because there's photos of them as a child.

Yes.

Dressed in women's clothing or female clothing.

Yes, so, um, so, Kalief, uh, the lady in question was certainly raised as

a, as a woman and it's, it's complicated because there was an international

boxing association run by a Russian and it had Um, it had dis well, this lady

had been boxing for many years, and she made the mistake of beating a Russian

boxer and making the final, and so the Russian controller of the International

Boxing Authority, uh, disqualified her.

on the basis of, of sort of gender issues, which I'll get into.

And this was then subsequently ratified by their, their council or whatever.

The International Boxing Association has had governance issues and has

basically, the International Olympic Committee, um, basically said, we're

not going to recognise you as a group.

And they're not, haven't been allowed to run the boxing at the Olympics.

There's been a subgroup of the Olympic Committee who's been running the boxing.

So they've said.

This in IBA International Boxing Association run by this Russian

guy has got governance issues.

We're not recognizing you we're gonna run the competition anyway.

They had, um, they had banned this boxer and apparently there was some tests

performed they say, um, in Istanbul in 2022 and in New Delhi in 2023.

And they've said this international boxing association.

that this lady and another boxer have XY chromosomes and high testosterone levels.

So it's not a suggestion of doping, it's a, a suggestion of DSD,

Difference of Sex Development, and the, and the XY chromosomes.

So you do get people who are In this sort of halfway house between

a man and a woman in many respects.

And it seems that that's where this lady falls, but we can't be sure

because nobody really trusts the IBA and the Olympic Committee hasn't

done any tests, so nobody really can be exactly sure what's going on.

So, um, a pretty sad situation.

Um, and I've got a link to an article.

Well, it's an article in Quillette, which I haven't quoted Quillette since the 12th

man left, but I came across this one, which seemed a fairly thorough treatment

of it by this, by this, uh, doctor.

And, um, well, Scott.

I think this is a case where I would say, we don't know what the situation

is with this lady, but if it turns out that she does indeed have XY chromosomes,

and increased level of testosterone, way beyond what a normal female testosterone

level would be, then, I think, You'd have to say, I'm sorry, but you can't

qualify for the women's event of boxing.

Um, and, uh,

yeah, but

how did she end up with an XY chromosome?

Well she's born that way.

Okay, so she's born that way and that's possibly why she's

got an elevated testosterone level.

It's not like she's been doping in any way.

Correct.

That's what this, that's, that's what it's all panning out to be.

It's just a

Well, a

response to her XY chromosome,

then I would suggest that, um, the other ladies in the competition

are just going to have to suck it up.

And then it's going to be, they're going to have to fight someone that's

physically better than they are.

I would have thought.

Yeah.

A lot of Alison saying.

She's not.

She's

been

beaten.

Yeah.

She's been beaten on many occasions, unless she's sort

of hitting form at this time.

AIS is one of those things.

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, I think it is.

Where you're born genetically male, but, um, you, basically the testosterone,

although you have raised levels of testosterone, It has no effect on

your development, and so you don't change, because all babies are female

at conception, and then the male babies become male from female, and

the males with AIS never change, so they basically go through a female

life cycle, because they are immune to the testosterone their body produces.

Right.

And do they have testes?

Uh, some testosterone, I believe.

Internal ones, yes.

Mm mm Yeah.

Well, um, I like this paragraph in this article.

The female category in elite sport has no reason for being, apart from the

biological sex differences that lead to sex differences in performance, and the

gap between top male and female athletes.

So, the suggestion that we could choose to rationalise the category differently, for

instance, on the basis of self declared gender identity, Or that we could make

increasingly numerous exceptions in the interest of inclusion, um, has no legs

outside of certain progressive enclaves.

Um, I think that there would be a pattern of testosterone levels, and if

you're closer to the male testosterone levels than the female, um, then, um.

Even though it's occurring naturally, um, I think you just have to be in a

position where you then fall into the male category, even though you might have

identified as a woman all of your life.

Or you scrap the categories all together and you run a seeded competition.

Quick quiz, Scott.

Which Olympic event has males and females competing against each other?

Uh, the equestrian, wouldn't it?

Yes, indeed.

As well as, um, some of the mixed sports like, um, mixed doubles,

badminton or something like that.

Yeah, so, um, I mean, Some people would say, gee, that's tough, but, um, not

everyone can be an Olympic athlete.

Not everyone can be a professional sports person.

And sometimes we have to say to people, you know what, you're just unlucky.

You've fallen into this category that, um, is quite unusual and quite difficult, but

it gives you an advantage of being a man.

And it's particularly ugly, Scott, in a boxing cage.

Arena, when you've got what looks like somebody built

like a man beating up a woman.

It's just not a good look.

I know it's not a good look.

I know it's not a good look, but if you can actually prove that it isn't,

it isn't because of doping or anything else, and it's just something that

this person has a natural advantage of, there are other people, I don't think

they're just going to have to accept it.

Is pugilism a good look?

We should just get rid of, um, boxing.

Yeah.

I just think to myself that, um, you know, it's like Alison said,

you know, She said she was born female, raised female, and boxes as a female.

She's not trans, which is what my first question was, but it's, see, I've got a

rather outdated, uh, moded information perspective when it comes to transsexuals.

I just think to myself that, If you've gone through puberty as a man, you're

going to have greater muscle mass than what you would as a woman would.

So I think to myself, if you go through the transition and my hat is off to these

people, anyone that wants to offer it up to a surgeon's knife, then they must

have thought long and hard about it.

Then I just think to myself that they've got to actually accept then

that's where their sporting career is going to max out at the club level.

You know, you can go and compete as a woman in a club.

But I don't believe that because you've been through puberty as a man

that you should then be able to go out and go and become a NRL champion

or something like that, you know?

I just think to myself that you've, you've got to accept that you can only ever go to

a certain height and after that it stops.

So like I said, it's quite old fashioned, but it is just what I think.

I don't think there's anything wrong with, I agree with you totally.

I mean, in that situation where people transition, they've had the benefit of

testosterone and have, you know, Bilte physique that they wouldn't otherwise

have, necessarily, in many cases, so.

But, um, I just don't have a problem in saying to somebody, you've got a

really unusual biology happening here, where you've got significant parts of

you are manly, or are masculine, and significant parts are feminine, and,

Unfortunately that means you don't fall into the feminine category of a

professional sport and I don't think that that's a big problem to say to somebody.

Um, I don't think that's being particularly unfair.

I'm surprised it's not being particularly unfair, but

I just think to myself that

Where are you falling on this one, Joe the Tech Guy?

I'm falling on sports is a quirk, these people are outliers anyway.

Professional sportsmen, uh, or sports people are not normal

in terms of physique anyway.

These are not your average people.

The people who run, you know, whatever it is, sub five minute miles or,

um, to be at that level of athlete.

And really, I think we're buying into a.

Uh, a false flag operation that's just to get the ire of the populace.

Right, yes, that's a distraction.

We shouldn't be paying attention to this.

Right.

It's such a minor, um, culture war issue.

Yeah.

Is that the sort of thing?

Yeah.

I noticed again in the Olympics, the outrage about

the people ogling the women's volleyball, beach volleyball outfits.

And how disgusting it was and the, Oh my God, how dare they headlines followed

in the next article with a, My God, look at the package on that French swimmer.

Or the pole vaulter who collected them.

Yeah,

no.

It's

like, really, I don't care.

Yeah.

Right.

Joe's saying I shouldn't have had it on the agenda because I've, I've, it's

a, it's a culture war issue that I've.

dived into and I should have just stayed out of because it's a

distraction from the other fun things we could have been talking about.

Well, I think, I think in terms of the real impact.

Yes.

Uh, it's fairly minimal.

Yes.

It's one of those things, I find it very amusing how people can tear

themselves apart over something like this.

Yes.

You get very angry

on Facebook over it.

Yeah, I know.

The whole gender dysmorphia thing, as they call it, it is such a

tiny percent of the population.

Those people that actually do suffer from it and all that sort of

thing, and they have suffered on it.

They have suffered for years and everything else.

And if they decide to go and have a, if they decide to go and have the surgery,

a man that actually has his penis cut off and his testicles cut off and

everything else, and then has a vagina shaped where his package used to be,

he's no longer interested in girls.

No, some of them are lesbian.

Well, maybe not.

Okay.

Some of them are lesbian.

I'd be very interested

still.

This

wants to be

a woman who is interested in girls.

It's you!

A gay man should have just Yeah, okay, alright.

What's going on here, Scott?

Fair enough, fair enough.

You're an old

fashioned

gay guy.

No, I'm a very old fashioned gay man, that's right.

Of the

two trans men that I know, one is married to a trans woman,

and one of them Uh, as, as they're attracted to men and they're gay.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's just one of those things.

I just don't understand why we would go to that sort of length

to actually still be straight.

And that's why I just think to myself that it is ridiculous that you've got these.

American politicians tearing themselves apart over bathroom bills and everything

else to keep trans people out of a, out of a bathroom unless it, unless it matches

the gender that they were assigned at birth, you know, which is ridiculous.

And also then forcing trans men into female toilets.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And if you've ever seen a trans man Um, I mean, there are, there are lots of

examples of trans men who you would go, that's a man and they're going, well,

no, no, you must go to the toilet that's on your birth certificate, you know,

the gender on your birth certificate.

So you're going, these people should be going into a woman's toilet.

Or change your birth certificate, which is can be done as well.

They won't stop

that.

Yeah.

Anyway.

One of the more ridiculous things, I just can't believe that, you know, it's like

up here that, um, that Christian nutcase that was the federal member for Dawson,

he's now in our council and all Yeah.

Minister for what the fuck

he was

Christian.

Christians?

Christians something or other.

Christianson.

George

Christianson.

Yeah, he's actually made his, he's making a name for himself and all

that sort of stuff saying he wants to oppose, um, Drag Queen Story Hour.

I haven't heard of any Drag Queen Story Hours up here in Mackay.

If they have one, I will go.

Now I, I don't even, no, not in drag.

I don't like, I don't really like drag performances, but I'm already going

down to Drag Bingo, which is on next Friday night, because I'm going to go

down there and just give the, raise the middle finger to George Christensen

and his outdated, outmoded nonsense.

What gets me is the, the, um, the fact that it's caught on in the UK.

I grew up, I grew up with pantomime dames, yeah, the pantomime every Christmas,

the leading man was a woman, yeah, and the leading man's mother was a man,

yeah, and that was perfectly normal and that was in front of kids, panto was

for kids, and nobody batted an eyelid.

So pantomime is just a play, isn't it?

It's a play.

It's a play put on at Christmas,

it's silly, it's generally Mother Goose, or one of those children's stories.

Right.

But it's like the adults to entertain the kids.

Yeah.

Right.

At a school concert type, sort of end of the year, knees up type thing.

Or at a theatre.

No,

I mean, it's in a local theatre, and it's very much a family thing.

And there's

a set, and there's some sing alongs and then, you know, when the

baddie comes on, all the kids shout out, Oh, look, he's behind you.

Okay.

And he turns around.

Yeah, exactly.

Sort of like the puppet show.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

So, so it's very much a family thing.

And so you have the leading woman and the leading man, and the leading

man is played by a young female.

Yes.

Um, and then the leading man's mother, who is A ditzy old lady is played by a

man, a middle aged man, and nobody thought twice about any of this cross dressing.

No, exactly, it's just one of those things, I just cannot believe

that we have, we have become a really Backward looking people and all that

sort of stuff, like you compare some of the stuff that they got away with in

the 50s and 60s, well, the 60s and 70s.

Yeah.

You know, like number 96 and everything like that, you know what that stood for?

That was number 69.

Right.

You know,

which is just one of those things, and they had full frontal

nerdity on it and everything else, and no one batted an eye to it.

David

Bailey.

David Bower, yeah, what about him?

Well, I mean, the fact that he was very much, um, gender

bending, as it was called then.

He was presenting other than as a man.

That's true.

And sure, it was groundbreaking, but I don't think people were up

in arms in quite the same way.

No, exactly.

It's probably one of the worst exports the United States has ever

given to the rest of the world.

This whole right wing Christian nonsense, which is infecting us, it's infected

the UK, and it only seems that Europe seems to have managed to avoid it.

You know, although you have parts of Europe that are starting to say the

same sort of nonsense that the right wing Christians are saying in the US.

Scott, maybe you could write to Christensen and say that

one of your podcast colleagues had a childhood of growing up with

cross dressing men in pantomimes.

And he's a heterosexual man.

And he's perfectly normal and there you go, there's proof that

it'll all be fine.

Exactly.

Anyway, it's just one of those things, I found it absolutely hysterical

that he's actually worried about Drag Queen Story Hour when there is

no Drag Queen Story Hour in Mackay.

Yeah.

Well, he just wants the publicity, doesn't he?

Absolutely.

He wants to generate red meat so that he can commentate on it.

Mm-Hmm.

. Yeah.

Well, he joined

one neuron, didn't he?

He did one, he did join One Nation and all that sort of stuff.

Mm-Hmm.

. Which I think was very amusing because, you know, one of the,

one of the things that you, that, um, Hitler used was Iron Reich.

One Nation.

Iron.

Iron, Rike.

Iron Führer, you know, so One Nation, One People, One Führer, you know,

which is just one of those things.

That's why I did find it very amusing that in the first, in the early days of One

Nation, you had um, someone that used to write for Crikey all those years ago, she

always used to refer to as Iron Reich.

Anyway, sorry, I've just completely got off track there.

No problem.

Uh, did you see the riots in the UK?

Yeah, I did.

And, it, it's not those bloody Muslims.

It was the, it was, it was the Christians that were actually attacking the Muslims

and everything else that were, even if they weren't Muslims, they were, they

were certainly, there were certainly migrants and that sort of stuff.

So it was because of a stabbing of three girls, was it?

The killing of three girls.

Mm-Hmm.

of the wounding of five others at a dance class.

Yes.

By 17-year-old who was born in the UK but had black skin 'cause

his parents were from Rwanda.

Mm-Hmm.

. Joe: And the, uh, Stephen Yaxley, Lenon, whatever he calls himself,

Tommy Robinson, went on about how the Muslim immigrants were causing this.

Mm-Hmm.

went and burned down a mosque and there have been riots in various places.

And it turns out that, you know, obviously being Rwandans, they're

Christians and his parents were heavily involved in the local church.

Yep.

I didn't hear that bit.

Right.

Even more so.

Right.

Oh yeah.

Which makes you wonder what the hell his motivation

was because he was out there targeting a dance class that was

around Taylor Swift, wasn't it?

No, and Joe's lost it.

Joe's

disappeared.

Yeah, I think it was a Taylor Swift dance class, wasn't it?

Uh, it was a dance class that had some homage to, to

Taylor Swift happening, so, um

So it makes me wonder if that was what was motivating

this young Christian bloke to get

Well, I think there may well be some mental problems as well.

Oh, I've

got no doubt there's no, there's no doubt there's mental problems over

there because the Tories have stripped everything out of that country, you know.

But it just goes to show that in a civilised society,

you're only one incident away from mass riots breaking out.

Yeah, I mean,

don't forget, this is on the back of the riots that

were up in Manchester, was it?

I'm just trying to remember, somewhere up, um, towards, oh

no, sorry, it was, um, Leeds.

So, a week ago, there were a bunch of riots.

Oh, really?

So, there was a Romanian family, the kids had been left babysitting their

younger sibling, who had fallen out of the first floor window and ended

up with head injury, but they didn't report it to the parents, so the

parents only noticed the following day.

Crikey.

that the baby had some head injury and took it into hospital.

So social services came out to take the children away and then

the Romanian refugees rioted.

And then the local fascists joined in because they could.

No, hadn't heard that.

Okay.

Wow.

So there has been a series of immigrants versus white people, uh,

unrest for the last couple of weeks.

Yes.

And the likes of, this is all in the groundwork of the likes of Tommy Robinson

and Nigel Farage and people like that who are basically saying to the poor

Brits, Blame the immigrants, because they're the ones taking your jobs.

Yeah, yeah, actually

Landon, um, illegally showed a video in the middle of London.

Last week, which was under a court injunction for him not to show it, and

then ran off again to escape out of the country before he was arrested,

got detained at the border under the Prevention of Terrorism Act because he

refused to let them look at his phone, and eventually they had to release him

and he jumped on a ferry, and I believe he's somewhere back in Europe now.

Hmm.

Yes.

Really?

Because, of course, his name isn't Tommy Robinson, that's his nom d'ere.

Ah, okay.

Sorry.

He's a posh twat.

For want of a better description, his name is Yaxley Lennon, but so that he

doesn't show off his posh heritage, he calls himself Tommy Robinson

because he's a man of the people.

I didn't realise it, ah right, okay.

Yep, so that's the UK.

Bear that in mind if you're planning a visit.

It's one

of those things, that country is going to descend into

third world status unless they actually get their act together.

You know,

some of my friends have been complaining that Starmer

hasn't, he's called this unrest, he hasn't called it riots.

Because there's been white people doing it.

Yeah, I know, but I think he should actually call it riots

because they are bloody riots.

You know,

it's like the poll tax riots and everything else, they actually

called them riots back when Thatcher was in Prime Minister, you know,

it's just a ridiculous bloody thing.

And you know, Starmer's being very disappointing, so anyway, we'll have

to wait and see how he goes, but um, I would have thought that Was he

making noises like Kamala Harris was making noises and

this didn't go through with?

The noises that he was making.

He just basically made as little noise as possible to actually slink by.

He has certainly bitten off more Tony Blair near labor than he can chew.

And he has basically, he got.

Elected on fewer votes than the Labor Party got under the last left winger.

What was his name?

Corbyn.

Corbyn.

Now this was basically disaffected Tories and everything else that weren't

turning up to vote for them because they thought that they can't actually vote.

They couldn't actually vote for the Tories, but they couldn't

actually vote for the Labor Party.

It's a voluntary vote, so you couldn't get enough people out.

It was a win win issue.

It was a win by a mission.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, and yeah, it does look like a very good win because it was a sizable

majority that he's got, but he's only just got it on the back of Yeah.

Not being a

Tory, he's, he's slightly less shit than the Tories.

Absolutely, he is.

And the Tories have been in power for 14 years.

Yeah,

exactly.

We did that a few weeks ago.

It was one of my, um, question marks over democracy.

Um.

It's one of those things I just think that you've got to accept

that we've got it pretty right here.

Having a compulsory ballot and everything else, I think it does work for us.

And also the whole, a single transferable vote.

Yeah, it does.

If people understood it, it would be great.

Unfortunately, people don't understand it.

Yeah, but then the Senate system is undemocratic here.

Well, yes.

So, half of our parliament is unrepresentative swill, Scott,

I think somebody described it as.

Yeah, I know,

and that was Paul Keating that actually used those exact

words to describe the Senate.

He actually said it was unrepresentative

swill.

Now, Sorry, are there 12 archbishops in the Senate over here?

No, there's not.

No?

Any life

peers?

No, we don't have any of that.

Any inherited peerages?

No, we don't have any of that.

So come on,

it's

better than the UK.

It is better than the UK and it's um

That doesn't mean it's good.

Stop it, you guys.

We started off with this just because something's really, really

bad and the alternative isn't quite as bad doesn't mean it's good.

So Scott, we've got it pretty much worked out here.

We've got half of our parliament are unrepresentative swill.

What would you have instead for the Senate?

Um, I would have just, um,

oh,

I don't know, I'd have to think about a bit harder, Scott, as

to even whether I would have a Senate.

Yeah, so

you want a unicameral system?

So you want a unicameral parliament?

Yeah,

if you want a unicameral, if you want

to, if you want to have a unicameral vote.

Proportional

voting, where if you get 12 percent of the overall vote,

you get 12 percent of the members.

Yeah, okay.

I

would be okay with just one house, proportional voting like that.

Yeah, which

is, which is probably preferable to this current system that we've got.

Okay.

It's one of those things I just think to myself, I think that's considering

that the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is now dead and we're talking

about becoming a republic, I think we should actually do it properly.

We should sit down with a, we should sit down and start

with a blank sheet of paper.

And we should actually work everything out from start.

You know, how many years do you want your parliament to be?

Do you want it to be five years, four years, or three years?

And all that type of thing.

We can't

even agree that Israel is committing atrocities

and is a shit country.

If we can't even agree on that, we can't agree on the preamble to a

new constitution because we'd be arguing about whether it should be

including, with thanks to God in it.

We

are

incapable of any sort of I think that

those sorts of unsubstantial things like an agreement about whether

or not you can have God in your preamble, I think that that would

be brushed aside fairly quickly.

No, it wouldn't.

The Christians wouldn't brush it aside.

They would latch onto that as the most important thing in their life,

and there's enough of them.

And they are not represented by a hell of a lot of people.

So, as a result, I think that you would end up losing, they

would end up losing that vote.

The people in power are over represented as Christians, and the

people deciding this are Christians.

So, it may not be the population, but the people who'd be

drafting it are Christians.

They wouldn't let us vote on it.

Why don't we go and change the constitution?

Change the constitution.

It has to be more than a majority of the states and

A majority of the vote in the majority of the states.

There

you go.

There's

no change ever happening in anything.

No.

Let's get through a few bits, because we haven't mentioned

submarines in a long time.

Oh, for God's sake, yeah.

Yeah, and it turns out the Ukraine military is claiming that it attacked

and destroyed a Russian submarine.

And the claim is it did it while the submarine was anchored at

port in the Crimean Peninsula.

They've already sunk a submarine in Sevastopol.

I don't know if this

is the same one or a different one, but Rex Patrick makes the point

that, um, you know, if we're going to have all these submarines that are incredibly

expensive, they're very, very vulnerable.

When they're in port.

Yeah, that's why you want a nuclear one.

Because you can go underwater for long periods of time.

Yeah,

but they can never come back to port in that case.

Because they're a sitting duck.

Almost literally.

Well, I think the port

is within targeting distance.

Yes, yes.

Is any distance not in targeting distance?

Well, I mean, of an ICBM, no, probably not.

But yeah,

yeah.

Anyway, it's just another vulnerability of having really, really expensive subs

with all of your money, uh, in such a single, uh, sort of weapon that, uh,

it's particularly vulnerable when it's in dock and something's happening to it.

So.

But I mean, the aircraft costs stupid amounts of money and they get

shut out of the sky all the time.

So.

Yeah, but they don't cost as much as a submarine, like, at least.

Yeah.

I don't know the, the B2, whatever it is.

The Stealth Bombers, I'm sure they cost a similar amount.

As a submarine?

I don't think they cost 400 billion a submarine though.

I don't know.

I don't think they cost that much.

If we were to buy I don't know how many submarines we're actually

getting over this because I've lost interest, but I think there was

Eight.

Eight.

Eight submarines.

For

368 billion.

Yeah, which is a ridiculous amount of money per sub, you know, let's say

I thought it was three with an option to buy a further five

If zero is the answer, yeah, I'm not gonna get any of them.

Yeah, I know we're not gonna get any of them But anyway, what was it?

What was the?

It was 368 billion.

So we'll call it, we'll call it 37 Yeah, it's about 4.

65, 4.

625 billion dollars a submarine.

I don't even think a B 2 bomber costs that much per, per fighter.

I think they're only 500 million dollars or something like that each.

I don't know, but it's a good point that they're particularly

vulnerable when they're in port.

That's enough on the subs.

It's one of those things, I just think to myself that the only reason

you want something that can go that long underwater is you can drive it,

sail it up outside of China, park it off the coast and lob missiles at them.

That's why we're doing this.

Yes, which is the absolute worst reason possible.

Oh God,

it is.

It's ridiculous.

It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna drag us into a war with China that I don't believe

that we have any need to be involved with.

And I honestly believe that we should have a grown up relationship with all the

countries in the world, but we should be able to stand up to the United States and

say, you want to go to war with China?

That's fine.

We don't wish to go to war with China.

Good luck.

Hear, hear.

Now, uh, I think, Joe, you sent an article about this, um, by Thomas Hartman, about,

uh, what the Republicans are planning.

Alleged.

Now, this was in the event that Joe Biden won the re election.

So this was written at a time when Biden was still a candidate,

but the same could still apply.

And he claims that in 2020, he predicted the January 6th, um, sort of events.

And he's saying that he's hearing from Republican contacts and, um, Democratic

strategists and others of another plot that could potentially take place if

Trump doesn't win on this occasion.

And what they're saying is that, um, uh, if you've, even though the Democrats

may not have enough seats to take back the House in the 2024 election, um, or

even though the Democrats might have won enough seats, Speaker Johnson will

refuse to swear into Congress a handful of those Democrats claiming there

are irregularities in their elections that must first be investigated.

So he'll swear in all of the Republicans and most of the Democrats But leave

out a handful of, of contentious Democrats, state, um, members.

And he'll withhold certification, um, which he can do.

And, um, and then with, uh, Speaker Johnson in charge of the House.

They can refuse to accept Electoral College certificates of election from

those states, and it's likely that Johnson would do this because he was an

organiser in the January 6th debacle, and um, he says, regardless of how many

votes Biden won by electoral or popular, the House simply refuses to certify the

Electoral College votes of enough states that the minimum of 270 isn't reached.

Under the Twelfth Amendment, that throws the election to the House, where each

state has one vote, with a majority of the states being Republican, that

would give the House the vote to put Trump back into the White House.

So, in summary, um, refuse to acknowledge a handful of democratic victories, you

don't reach the 270 that's required.

And you then are doing a vote where each of the states gets one vote.

That means it's Republican and they put Trump in.

And then all sorts of shit happens and, um, there you go.

There's a possibility, Scott, to look forward to.

Yeah!

And, um, I've seen, so I've been looking at a couple of Subreddits.

One is Defeat Project 2025 and the other one is Leopards Ate My Face.

And, uh, the project, or Defeat Project 2025 is saying that there've

been a number of attempts to stack, um, election committees to basically

deny, um, a free and fair election by putting Insurrectionists on the board.

They're also pushing through a lot of voter deregistrations at the moment.

Lots and lots of people saying, we've been deregistered.

So, you turn up on the day to vote and sorry you can't vote because for whatever

reason your vote has been purged, uh, and this also gives them the excuse, because

this will be challenged in court, to then ignore the, um, outcome of the election.

Because there will be so many people who have been purged and there will

be court cases because of that, which will throw the results into doubt.

So they've been doing this in key states.

There are allegations that, you know, of a family of five,

some of whom are registered as independent or are registered

as, uh, no party, not affiliated.

Um, they're not being purged, anyone who's being, who's registered as a

Democrat is being purged, everyone who's registered as a Republican isn't.

So they're finding excuses, they're going through the electoral rolls and going,

Oop, delete that one, delete that one.

And people are going, you know, check week by week because you

could be purged at any time.

It's literally keep checking and make sure you're registered.

What they need is a proper democratic voting system

like they have in Venezuela, which we'll talk about next week.

But, I have been meaning to do this for a while, I haven't thanked the patrons

for a long, long time, and I even looked in, um, because there's various ways of

donating to this show, dear listener, you can do a one off payment, Which

goes through, um, my hosting provider and I didn't even look for ages.

And then I saw one from Colin Eli, who made a donation back in June.

Good on you, Colin.

Thank you for that.

And my apologies for not shouting out earlier and just want to run through

the current patrons and, uh, thank you for supporting the show with your

regular donation through Patreon.

Good on you, Noel Hamilton, Paige, Damien Van Schneidle, Danny Borland, Obrad,

Puskarica, Anti US Sentiment, Mark Clavell who was in the chatroom, Tom Stubbings,

Rico, Greg P, Shannon Legg, Matt Dwyer, Sue Cripp, James Lean, Wayne, Virgil,

Craig Ball, Shane Ingram, Yam Yam Blue, Zambuck, David Copley, John Indire

Straits who's also in the chatroom.

Camille, Tom Doolin, Paul Weyper, Alexander, Alan, Matthew,

Greg, uh, sorry, Craig S, Glenn Bell, my brother, Professor Dr.

Dentist, Murray Weyper, Peter Gillespie, Gavin S, Daniel Curtin, Liam McMahon,

DomDom282, Matic Man, Kane Birch, Jimmy Spud, Tony Walsh, Steve Shinners, Allison

who was in the chat room, Ayame Ueno.

Uh, Craig and Janelle Louise, and I sometimes get Paypals from,

uh, Noel Hamilton and Dave S.

Cairns, and maybe Mr.

T.

I think, so, and Anne also.

Drops in a lump sum every so often.

So thank you very much to the people who are supporting the show that way.

There are a number of expenses, um, subscribing to different things

including this restream and Descript and other bits and pieces, um,

Crikey and other subscriptions.

So it means I can buy books and other things without really, um, Having to

check with my wife beforehand and say Do you mind if I spend 50 bucks on

this book because I've got a little bit in my kitty from this sort of stuff.

So Thank you.

If you have been listening to the show for 20 listens and you're sort

of looking forward to it and you watch everyone or you listen Time

to stump up and become a patron.

You'll see a link.

A dollar or two or five a show, um, greatly appreciated.

And once every six months you get a shout out like this, and not much extra, but

um, you get a warm fuzzy feeling as well.

So there you go.

Yes, that's right.

Scott is yawning away.

It's past election time.

And so that means I'm going to save up Venezuela for next week.

Because I've got a soft spot for Venezuela and I want to get into the disputed

election there, so we'll talk about that.

We'll talk about the Prisoner Swap then, we'll talk about Essential Pole and the

Chinese Economy and the other stuff we didn't get to on this occasion, so um,

so yeah, for the people in the chat room, thank you for being there and having

your two cents worth, and um, yeah.

You're good next week, Scott, not going anywhere?

Yeah, I am, yeah.

Good.

Joe will be around.

Alright, okay, we'll talk to you then.

Bye for now.