Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

But today, we observe a small tribe, akin to a group of meerkats, that

gather together atop a small mound to watch, question and discuss the

current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.

Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

And we are back, episode 447, Iron Fist and Velvet Glove podcast.

Joe the Tech Guy's here, how are you Joe?

I'm good,

evening on.

Yeah, Scott will be joining us soon.

Apparently he voted today, he's a little bit late.

Be interesting to see who he voted for.

I don't know that the

two are related,

but certainly,

It

is, uh, if you're in the chat room, say Hello, Don Toy.

Is there?

Good on your Don.

So, um, and yes, you first can't rid of him.

. Yeah.

So what's on the agenda?

Um, we're gonna review a little bit about my, uh, special episode I did

last week on the LM Notebook, lm, and, um, a little bit about the Queensland

State election, which is coming up.

So.

Issue of abortion in free school lunches.

I received a letter from the ACL, um, about the dangers facing us, if

other incorrect decisions are made.

Is the danger that people might not have to live by their

interpretation of the Bible?

Dark times, Joe, is the danger.

It's all, it's all Orwellian, dark, biblical type talk.

Just a quote from it, a dystopian nightmare is facing us.

Hell no.

Yes, um, so that's the sort of language that was used in it.

There's a radical anti faith, anti life agenda, which is metastasising

with disturbing speed in the absence of public scrutiny.

It's almost like the There hasn't been a Prime Minister in the last 20 years

who hasn't been a practicing Christian.

Yeah, they persecuted Joe.

Yeah, I know.

That's that martyr patient complex we fond of.

Mm hmm.

A little update on what's been happening with voluntary assisted dying.

Catholics are worried because there's a new bill aimed at

abolishing this information.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And, um, they're worried that that might limit their activities because Their

ability to lie to their parishioners?

Oh no!

Shock,

shock horror, some people might consider, um,

religion to be misinformation.

So they of course, Joe, need special exemptions, um, because

of the concern about that.

So, that's a fun one to talk about.

Oh, what else have we got?

Well, they want the ability to lie about children getting sex changes at school.

Yes, um, so we'll talk about that.

And then a bunch of different videos.

Little bit about Trump, because he's just completely off the scale crazy.

Another nickname for him, Agent Orange.

Mm, indeed.

Uh, Joe, did you keep track of what happened with the UK opposition

with their leadership ballot?

No.

Oh, well we'll talk about that.

Oh, the Conservatives?

Yes.

Oh, I heard something about, they, there was going to be, A black woman

versus a white man, and people went, yeah, the Conservatives are never

going to vote for a black woman.

Yeah, there was a favourite, and some of the favourites, supporters,

tried to game the system by, um, by not voting for their man and voting

for their second best option in order to get rid of the third best option.

And that backfired on them, and the guy who was leading the

ballot completely disappeared.

Um, because too many of his supporters tried to gain the system.

So, we'll talk about that, which is an interesting one.

Tell

me, was a lattice in the running by any chance?

What a lettuce.

Now, well, yeah, it was actually, um, who

was it, um, Actually talking about the lettuce, she was over here

giving a talk to the, uh, Australian Fascist Party or whatever it was.

Yeah, she was.

Hey, that looks like Scott's ear.

We'll put him on.

Hello.

Hi, Scott.

G'day.

How are you?

Very good.

We've just said hello to the listeners and run through the agenda, but we haven't

discussed anything of importance yet.

Oh, that's good.

You

haven't missed anything, Scott.

Excellent.

I hear you voted today.

Yes, I did vote this afternoon.

Vote one, Greens?

No.

I voted one for the, um, Legalised Cannabis Queensland Party.

Yep.

Can you move the, um, microphone slightly closer because you're a little bit soft.

How's that?

That's better.

Yep.

I voted for the, uh, what was I saying?

The Legalised Cannabis Queensland Party.

That was, they got my first preference.

The second preference went to the Labor Party.

The third preference went to the LNP, the fourth preference went to the Greens,

fifth preference went to One Nation, and sixth preference went to Family First.

Is

there a CATA

candidate

in your

No, there's no CATA candidate up here, which is really quite surprising.

Mmm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about, uh, issues related to the Queensland election.

Sorry for everybody outside of Queensland, but, uh, um, let's, let's talk about

it because But you'll get over it.

Yeah, um, you know, we're considered sort of backward hicks up here.

Yeah, we are.

And we are, but, we have, other than the period of Joe Bajelke Peterson, with

this crazy group, there's been a lot of Labour, um, governments in this state.

Over time.

And we've had one that's been there for roughly 10 years or

something like that, I think, Scott.

Yeah,

thereabouts.

And, um, and it's looking like they're in trouble and are

probably going to be deposed.

But there's not been a lot of polls about it, but it seems, um, it

seems like they're going to lose.

But a couple of issues have come up, one of which is abortion.

So, of course, the last time Queensland voted in the Parliament on abortion

and whether it should be legalised, a significant number of LNP politicians

who are still around voted against it.

They were given a conscience vote, yes.

Yes.

And chose to vote against it.

And, um, I believe only two voted for it.

There you go.

Was it only two?

I thought it was three.

I thought it was three.

Three voted for it.

For God's sake.

Yeah.

And those were the same three that voted for Voluntary Assisted Dying too.

So, um, although Blee has said he's not, sorry, not Blee, who's the current?

Chris Ofuli.

Chris Ofuli.

Has said that he has no intention of Uh, criminalizing abortion.

Yeah, as soon as

the Caterpillar, you know, if, if they get within a hair's breadth of

taking government and Bob Cater's kid comes knocking at the door saying, you

recriminalize abortion, I will give you, I will guarantee supply and confidence.

That's where it'll go.

But they've also said if Catter puts up a private members bill, uh, and the

conservatives have control, if the LNP have control, the vast majority of LNP

members will vote to recriminalize it.

Which we'll just highlight to all the people who forgot what a crazy

bunch of Christian fascist nutbags

these

guys are.

And,

you

know, I actually said to the LNP guy up here, I said to him again this

afternoon, because he recognized me, he says, I've met you before, I said, yeah, I

met you at Parkrun a couple of weeks ago.

And he said, oh, you're the bloke that's got concerns about the front bench.

I said, yes, I do.

You know, and I actually used, I just used a, um, I, I lint on something

Joe was always saying, he says, well, the biggest problem is, is the

Christian theocrats that are on your front bench, you know, Jared Blay and

all that sort of stuff are nutbags.

And I said, that's why, you know, I'm very sorry, sir, but

you're not going to get my vote.

Mm.

So, so yeah, abortion has become an issue, which just seems incredible

that we just revisit this.

But also, uh, a policy that came out, well, and allied to that

was the fact that, um, they might need the cater for abortion.

Sort of members to sort of form a government in which case he'll definitely

be putting pressure on for Abortion to be revisited and possibly voluntary assisted

dying to be revisited But what did you think of the proposal by Labor if elected?

To provide school lunches free for all state school primary kids Joe and

Scott, what do you think of that one?

If there are figures that Show that it's warranted, that it is a real problem.

I don't have a problem with it.

I know that in other parts of the world that, um, uh, providing nutrition for the

kids is a key part of, um, state schools.

That's what Britain did.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure in Japan I've seen scenes of kids Um,

getting their meals in a group setting, sort of cafeteria style in Japan, so

Well, the United States has school lunches, Britain has school lunches,

so, you know, I know that Britain I mean, in France there's a canteen, and

up until the 60s, I think, in secondary school, they were still allowed,

uh, two glasses of wine at lunch.

And it was only in the 40s that it was banned from primary schools.

Really?

Yeah!

I only found that out this year.

High school, France.

Yeah, high school France was only, it was in my lifetime, and the primary

schools, it was sort of only after the Second World War that they stopped it.

Wow.

Because basically drinking water wasn't safe, and therefore you could have up

to half a litre of wine a day, I think.

Yeah.

Deemed, you know, safe for drinking.

Yeah.

So, I reckon this could be a real vote winner.

Because I just know for a lot of parents, making lunches every day is, um

A pain?

A

pain in the arse.

Yeah, but 40 percent of parents send their kids to private school anyway.

Yeah, well, you know what?

There'll be a big driver of private school kids going to state schools,

because these parents will just go, God, if I can get out of sending I can't

be bothered to make school lunches.

If I can get out of making school lunches, I'm going to send my

kid to the local state school.

Like, it'll be a big winner for people.

So, um Anne chatroom says, I heard today the school

principals aren't happy about it.

Um, I think I was reading on some Facebook page that involved Alison

Cortis, that Um, running a tuck shop is a big responsibility that a lot of

PNCs have basically thrown their hands up and said, we don't want to do it.

And it's sort of one of those things that has prevented people from,

you know, becoming treasurers and presidents of PNCs, the onerous

duty of running the tuck shop.

And finding volunteers and, um, and so some, a fair number of PNCs have

handed the operation back to the school and the schools have had to run it.

So if that's a trend that's going on, that schools are having to

take over these things, and it's not surprising with more and more

people, we're both husband and wife.

Or Wife and Wife and Husband Husband, um, are working, it's sort of just

less and less people available for volunteering in these things, so.

It probably is.

Well, hopefully the budget comes with dinner ladies.

Dinner ladies?

Dinner ladies, that's what they were known as at school.

That's

what

they

were known

as

in Britain.

Yeah.

Dinner ladies.

The ladies who were running the cafeteria.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

And

they were probably employed, were they?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, um.

It's one of those things, like our tuck shop's run by, um, Uh, paid staff,

you know, uh, that's possibly a reflection of the Catholic school, but you know.

Right.

It is, yeah.

You know what's going to happen of course, is the private schools are

going to say, Well where's our hand out?

Yeah.

Where, where,

where running?

Oh but hang

on.

This is a state initiative and um, private schools are federal

so it's a federal problem.

Yeah, but you know what they're going to say?

They're going to be putting their hands out and saying, Hmm.

Hmm.

Well, you know, we pay our taxes, if you're going to be subsidising state

school kids, then you need to be subsidising us as well, is what they're

going to be doing, and looking for the handout, so, um, yeah, so, Anne in the

chat room said she heard today the school principals aren't happy about it, and the

crux of this conversation was about how to cater for all the different needs, e.

g.

Asian, halal, etc.

It's dealt with in France, it's dealt with in the UK.

I'm sure there are ways around it.

It's not a single food it's a choice of.

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting proposal.

Talking of proposals, I looked at the I've only got three possible

candidates, so LNP, Greens and Labour.

Right.

Um, so I looked at their websites.

Labor is woeful.

They just point you off to a 190 page document or something saying,

here is our state party, uh, policy.

Here you go.

Go your hardest.

That's what the labor candidate Yeah.

In your state electorates.

Yeah.

So I looked on the website at the candidate, and all I could find

was, here's our policy document.

Wow.

It was woeful.

Uh, the LNP have a whole load of ideas about how they're going to fix everything,

basically by giving money to private enterprise in the hope that maybe some

of it will trickle down to public people.

So they are going to fix the high price of groceries by ensuring that

there's lots of water for farmers.

Because most people's grocery bills are inflated by the

cost of water to the farmer.

And not by the supermarkets.

Right.

So the Greens are going to take on, um, the supermarkets by stopping them

from insisting that there are no other supermarkets in the same shopping centre.

Right,

yeah.

And a couple of other things.

Yes, yes.

They're talking about giving money Because they sometimes

would sign a deal saying we'll be part of the shopping centre provided

we're the exclusive, um, supermarket.

Supermarket.

Yeah, yeah,

yep,

yep.

Yep.

Um, they were talking about, so the Liberals were going to give

money, they were going to reduce red tape to allow people to build

more houses, so in other words.

Red tape's

the problem.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I think give money to private developers.

And also they're going to cut the first homebuyers stamp duty, which of course

will just force the prices of houses up.

By the amount of the cut, yes.

Whereas the Greens were talking about increasing the number of builders

in QBuild and building 100, 000 state owned, state built homes.

Champion idea.

Well, exactly.

Um, so,

That's assuming you can actually find the Atreides to work in

QBuild.

Well, yeah, but they're saying, you know, it's, it's a secure job

until LNP get back in again anyway.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Right.

Okay.

So, so basically the Greens were talking about, um, oh, they were

also talking about re nationalizing, I think, the electricity grid.

Um, but basically it was a lot more state infrastructure and, um, reduced

the reliance on, uh, private enterprise.

I think they were also talking about, um, uh, toll roads.

As in introducing more?

No, no, I think, um, basically making them free, but also talking

about increasing public transport.

Right.

Yep.

They're saying that effectively, um, public private partnerships as they are,

just make, make private enterprises very rich at the cost of the average taxpayer.

Apparently the 50 cent, um, public transport fare experiment is

going to be continued no matter whether it's Labor or LNP, I think I read.

That's what the whole crux of it was, if the LNP matched them on it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do you have that in Macaulay, is it?

Is it?

Yeah, we've got it up there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's only 50 cents, but we don't have, um, We don't have card

readers on our buses, so if you have to pay, actually have to hand over cash,

right?

Mm.

So

anyway,

I

mean,

there's some big-ish idea.

I mean, the 50 cent transport is quite a significant policy.

Preschool.

It's quite significant.

It's, it's not a very bad idea.

It's, it's probably a very good idea if you could, if you could get, um,

the price of public transport down, down so that more people are actually

catching a bus rather than driving.

I, I've never seen the point of charging.

If you're going to put on the public transport, put on the

public transport, don't charge.

Because the cost of all of that billing infrastructure,

how much of that 50 cents do you think goes to the cost of the card readers?

Yeah, that's a good point.

That would be interesting to

know, what the, yes.

If you just run it as a loss, Rather than try and claw some of that money

back, would it actually be cheaper to run?

But you know what, you probably need it just for

information gathering, almost.

I'm sure there are other ways.

Yeah, I suppose there is.

You could just have a person counter at the door.

I mean, I know

the police wouldn't be happy because they love being able to go to the go

card and go, Who is here at this time?

Yeah, but just seeing what trips people make, when they get on,

when they get off, is probably just valuable data to get from people.

Yeah.

They used to employ people to sit on the train with high vis gear

and a clipboard and mark how many people got on and off at each station.

How long ago did they do that, Joe?

Probably

10 years ago.

Okay, okay.

So, um, so anyway, uh, anything else from the, oh, yes, for some

reason I'm on the, um, Australian Christian Lobby mailing list.

What did you do

to deserve that?

I forgot to actually send a, um, because I'm on

the Cherish Life mailing list.

Binary mailing list.

Right,

well I always share everything that Cherished Life sends me.

I always send to Craig and say, you know, it's more of their

bullshit and that sort of stuff.

I forgot to send you the latest one.

That was they were seeking for volunteers to hand out anti

abortion leaflets on Election Day.

Right.

Yeah, which means they're very firmly in the Cataraustralia

Party camp and that type of thing.

Mmm.

So anyway, the letter I got from the Australian Christian Lobby.

I'll read a bit of it.

Mmm.

Dear Trevor, On October 26th, Queenslanders will vote in a defining

election amidst the gathering clouds of a repressive, woke policy agenda

threatening to black out our Christian voice in the public square and

shroud our state in moral darkness.

The radical anti faith, anti life agenda is metastasising with disturbing speed

and absence of public scrutiny, and Left Unchecked would cast a paw over

everything that makes Queensland great.

That's the opening paragraph.

Fair enough.

Under cover of night on 13 September, Labor and the Greens

rammed through the most oppressive hate speech laws in the nation.

The Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Bill has expired.

Armed, unelected bureaucrats with sweeping powers to stifle fair

debate and persecute people of faith.

This is a dystopian nightmare come true.

2.

5 million Queenslanders who identify as Christian now must live under the

constant threat of activists weaponising these Orwellian laws to silence us.

We cannot allow this depraved moral eclipse to darken the sunshine state.

It goes on and on and on and towards the end.

The stakes couldn't be higher, but armed with God's word as our lamp and his

truth as our anchor, we step forward with confidence and resolve, knowing

that his light radiates through us.

Rob Norman, current Queensland director of the Australian Christian Lobby.

Well, it's um, painting a scene.

Quite dystopian, wasn't

it?

He forgot to sign off under his eye.

Yeah.

He's really painting a scene out of, uh, Lord of the Rings.

Yes.

As the, um, army start marching out of Mordor.

Obviously, um, oh God, what's his name, the Labour leader?

Stephen Miles.

Stephen Miles is Aaron, apparently.

Apparently.

So, you know what I should do is I should take that letter and run it through

Notebook LM and ask it to generate a fake podcast and see what it comes up with.

I got good.

Well, you guys probably don't even listen to the audio only, but you,

neither of you listened to it, did you?

I

did

listen to

it.

Did you?

Alright.

To everything.

I listen, I, I have enough problems with LM, so I don't need another one.

Yeah.

So, um, so yeah, last week, dear listener, as most of you should

know, um, I had that little essay on foreign policy, which I then.

handed over to Notebook LM and it provided an audio podcast of

two fake people discussing it.

And, um, my little brief mention of what might happen to Israel dominated

their thoughts and sort of, um, scared the bejesus out of them and they

spent a lot of time talking about that and this podcast from last week

generated quite a lot of feedback, more feedback than I've had in ages.

So I always get feedback from Watley, thank you Watley, um, and uh, this time

I got feedback from Damon who said, what a fascinating episode, I had not heard

of LM before, the previous episode when you mentioned it would be coming up.

The generated podcast seemed to narrate slash editorialise your essay for the

first half, then went off piste into what I would call hope washing your scenario.

By that I mean it seemed like the podcast decided that your predictions of global

instability following a US crisis slash collapse needed to be countered with warm

and fuzzy, hopeful motherhood statements.

about global cooperation to soothe the pain of a mere

suggestion the US could falter.

I agree, Damon, that's exactly what that was.

It was the warm and fuzzy hopeful motherhood statements.

Um, Noel gave some feedback, um, and he said it was enlightening and the

stark contrast between my reading and the AI generated version was alarming

and the right wing bias was very clear.

And Scott also wrote saying it was interesting, and um, he said it

was crazy how much they sounded like real people for the most part.

It makes me think some of the phone calls I've suspected, uh,

were AI, were definitely AI.

I didn't realise how advanced it's become, um, so yeah.

And Noisy Andrew also provided some feedback.

Thank you to those people who provided feedback, it's nice to know.

It's worth mentioning that AI in quotes, which are

basically large language models.

Uh, literally are predictive text times a hundred.

They don't know anything.

Um, all they do is say, based on what I've been trained on, what is the most

likely word to follow the previous word?

So they're just statistical models.

And it's worth bearing that in mind whenever you come across one.

There was a lawyer who recently was admonished by the judge and

referred off to the bench for, uh, investigation for submitting a, uh

Brief of evidence or something.

A brief of evidence.

Or, I don't know, it would have been an argument which Quoted cases, yes.

Yeah, I think the judge had asked for a list of cases that were relevant and

provided this list of cases which had been generated by AI and had not been checked.

And of course, none of them existed.

Which,

which Joe, if, if this is set up to provide the most predictive

response based on other responses.

How does it hallucinate and make stuff up?

Because wouldn't it be saying, Oh, well, if anyone's talking about the case of

Donahue versus Stevenson, they're probably going to be talking about these other

three cases as the most likely things.

But I just don't understand how it makes up stuff out of the blue,

if that's how it's been designed.

Because it knows what A suitable case would look like, but it doesn't actually

have the real cases in its memory, it just knows what it should look like.

Okay,

so it doesn't have the conscience to say, I shouldn't be lying here.

No.

Right.

And so I, I asked it, um, I've got running one on my computer and asked it

for successful, um, examples of where privatizing, uh, government assets

has been beneficial for taxpayers.

And it reeled off four or five examples, two of which.

which is water privatisation in the UK and was the rail privatisation in the UK.

Water privatisation in the UK was an example of successful privatisation.

So I challenged it on that and it went, well, yeah, I suppose

without the proper guardrails, then it's not such a great idea.

I challenged it again and it said, well, I can see how you think that

privatisation is just a way of transferring money into private hands.

And, um, Yes, it's probably not a good idea unless there is some

very, very stringent guidance around

it.

Mmm.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it doesn't even have

the courage of its convictions.

Yeah.

The more I think of it, the more I am going to just, I'm going to, I'm going

to give it that letter from the ACL and ask it to generate a podcast and probably

whack it onto the end of this one.

It wouldn't surprise

me if it's been trained with American data, whether it's very, very Christian.

Yeah, so we'll see.

So, okay, for a bit of fun, that might appear at the end

of the episode, not sure.

Alison has joined the chat room.

Alison, I was, I was talking about you earlier, Alison, and I think you had a

hypothesis that a number of schools had handed over tuck shops, well, P& Cs had

handed over tuck shop operation back to the schools because it's just too hard

and nobody wants to do it and, Yeah, so, um, I quoted you, tell me if I'm wrong

in the chat room or any other thoughts you've got on school tuck shops and the

Labor proposal, which was stolen from the Greens by the way, Scott, the free, free

lunch was a Greens proposal last election.

It's fine, you know, it's just one of those things I've often said.

Greens turn red faster than a frog in a blender, which is just what

I would just like them to make the ALP just a little bit more pink.

Alison says yep, our school did it two years ago, we just

have the uniform shop for the PNC.

There you go.

Interesting.

Right, um, so, that was Queensland election.

I'll just, um, still kind of on the election because Voluntary

Assisted Dying might come up.

Ah, if Katter has his way.

Are the

Kattermorb actually opposed to that or not?

I suspect they are.

Um,

there's probably a fair number of the LNP who are opposed to it.

Hmm.

Anyway, um, There are,

but there were, there were fewer of them that were opposed to it when they

actually had the conscience vote on it.

Right.

You know, because it, it did pass with quite a, quite a majority.

Big thumping majority.

Okay.

It was a safer than the abortion law stuff.

Yeah, it was safer than abortion.

Yeah So there's been a report on voluntary assisted dying that's looked

at all of the various states and come up with some statistics Bearing in mind that

the different states introduced voluntary assisted dying at different times.

So Victoria was way back in June 2019 Whereas Queensland was

only as recent as January 2023.

So, kind of a four or five year period, but not all states have been

operating the system for that long.

Sort of Australia wide, um, 2, 467 deaths in that period, so 56 percent male,

uh, cancer as the primary diagnosis was 72 percent of the cases, and 79

percent of those people had accessed palliative care, and as to whether

people did it themselves, or it required a practitioner to do it for them.

Uh, 51 percent were done self and 49 percent by a practitioner.

So, not huge numbers, two and a half thousand, so it's obviously

not an epidemic of people using the system, but, um, there we go.

It's

one of those things, my understanding is that, um, a hell of

a lot of people still die of natural causes, well, just allow the disease

to take the, take its course, but they just want the drugs there just

in case they change their mind.

Yes.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Um, there's a state breakdown.

So Victoria's had it since 2019.

Total

number of, um, deaths, 912.

Yeah.

Queensland's only had it since January 2023 and 808 deaths.

So.

Yeah.

But if you look at the number of applicants,

the

number of applicants are almost the same between the two states.

Yes.

So I think a lot of Queenslanders, well, you know, A lot of people

come up here to retire, don't they?

That's true.

We do have, yes, increasingly so.

Good point, Joe.

Elderly population, um, yes.

That's actually part of the problem for the Miles Labor government, is

just the migration from Victoria of old boomers who vote conservatively.

Take the death tax.

And who are really pissed with Dan Andrews, and so the last thing they

want is a, is a Labor government.

So, um, so yeah, I was reading Ross Fitzgerald talking somewhere about

that, saying that the interstate migration into Queensland would most

likely not have helped Stephen Miles and Labor, just by the nature of

the people who are living up here.

Bloody Mexicans.

Mmm, yeah, mmm, ah, um,

Bloodsport.

246 died in WA.

Yeah, so, um, so, anyway, there is a report out

if you are interested in that.

You know, the next thing, really,

that the Voluntary Assisted Dying has to, sort of, hopefully deal with is dementia.

Because, currently, if you Um, you know, full foul of dementia, then you've

lost your decision making capacity

and,

and voluntary assisted dying is not open to you.

Which is, is it voluntary at

that point?

Correct.

Or is it just nature?

Yeah, so what we need next, the next challenge is, is an ironclad

system where you can say, if I reach a level of dementia, of X amount,

then I want someone to kill me.

I'd be signing up for that.

The thought of them of existing with dementia for five, six, ten years,

it'd just be awful, wouldn't it?

Well, you

wouldn't know.

It's one of those things.

Both my auntie and uncle died from it, and they both had different types of dementia.

My auntie had a very slow acting dementia, whereas my uncle, he

went downhill really very quickly.

And the octogenarian that met them both, well, the octo

whatever, the octogenarian doctor.

That met them both, and that sort of stuff.

He actually said, he said, look, you've got to get into care.

General Prologist.

Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Met them both.

He said, you've got to get them both into care.

And they, um, found a double room in Gaynda, which is up where one of their

daughters lives and that sort of stuff.

So they moved up to Gaynda.

And unfortunately, my auntie, You with with dementia and that sort of stuff

Once you get it really badly you go one or two ways you either become nice and

passive You become an absolute bitch.

She became an absolute bitch And um, they moved into this double room and all that

sort of stuff barely a month later They moved him out into his own room You know

And then he just um after she died and all that sort of stuff She kept he kept

on going back to her room saying where's dot and I said, oh dot's no longer here.

She's died you know, it's just one of those things and You You know, I think

he died sort of six or nine months later.

I mean,

I'd much rather that than locked in syndrome.

Oh God, yeah, that'd be awful.

Yeah.

To be completely lucid but unable to do anything about it would be

a thousand times worse than being completely delally and not knowing.

Exactly.

If you are completely mental on that sort of stuff that, you know, if you're not,

if you're not a bastard or anything else, If you completely lost it, you know,

you're in your own little world, you don't know what's going on, it's okay.

Dementia is like being an LNP supporter, you know, it's only

the people around you who suffer.

Yeah, I know that, exactly.

It's one of those things, I remember years ago I saw, I

saw an advertisement on a bus.

There was an old lady sitting in a chair and that sort of stuff and they said she

has dementia, they all suffer from it.

And that was her family that was around her.

Mind

you, as people slip into dementia and realise where they're

heading and knowing what's ahead, but it's too late to do anything, I

have seen people in that position.

Yeah?

And, yes.

So, whether they're not in Because,

um, I was being forgetful and I said to a GP friend of mine, Oh,

you know, I must be having dementia.

And they went, no, the first sign of dementia is where you forget things,

and then you make up excuses as to why they're not where you expect them to be.

So all the time you're going, oh shit, I've forgotten where

this is, you haven't got it.

But the time, and I wonder really with mum hallucinating, um, how

much of hallucinations are her justifying not remembering things.

So yeah, she has an Indian family living in her room.

She, uh, hallucinations, and the kids are writing things on her books that

are very obviously in her handwriting.

And

I'm, I'm wondering whether she's just not remembering it.

And yes, she is seeing these hallucinations, but she's justifying her

loss of memory with, Oh, it must have been my hallucinations that did this.

Did he describe it as a justification for the loss?

Yes.

Right, or just as an alternative explanation?

Yeah, basically, I didn't forget where my car keys are.

Somebody must have moved

them.

Interesting.

Oh, well.

Yeah, I mean.

My wife and I, we've lost both of our parents now, but we've been through

lots of that stuff, and we have other friends now who are entering that

stage, and we just go, been there, done that, and you have my sympathy.

Uh, it's not easy, so.

No,

it's not at all easy.

Right, um, what else have I got here?

Um, uh, sort of related to that would be, not related to that.

Catholics and misinformation.

So, the Federal Government is not happy with misinformation and

disinformation on social media.

So, has drafted a bill, um, to combat this.

A misinformation bill to make it illegal and, um, and, The Australian Catholic

Bishops Conference said, hold on a minute, some people consider elements of

religious belief to be misinformation.

Well, it is basically

misinformation.

Yes.

So they are concerned that their activities, um, if promoted on

social media, uh, would be, uh, full foul of this law for spreading

misinformation or disinformation.

So, they were up in arms.

The government changed it, um, and inserted the word reasonable.

But the bishops aren't happy because there's now a question of what

is a reasonable religious belief.

So, so yeah, I had a quick look at the draft bill.

I think I saw the latest version and it said the meaning of misinformation and

disinformation Content that contains information that is reasonably verifiable

as false, misleading or deceptive.

And the content is provided on the digital service to one or

more end users in Australia.

And, the provision of the content is reasonably likely to cause

or contribute to serious harm.

And the dissemination is not excluded dissemination.

So, um, it's looking at content that is reasonably verifiable as

false, misleading or deceptive.

that is provided on a digital service and is reasonably likely to cause harm.

Excludes excluded dissemination, and if you look at the definition of excluded

dissemination, um, information that would be regarded as parody or satire, um,

professional news content, and Reasonable dissemination of content for any academic,

artistic, scientific or religious purpose.

So of course, once again, religious groups get a special exemption from

laws that apply to everybody else.

because they're special and they're religious.

So if it's a reasonable dissemination of content for a religious purpose,

then it is going to be exempt from that.

Yeah.

I

mean, I think if you're lying about abortion causing breast cancer,

uh, that's not a religious belief.

No.

And I think that is more around where the misinformation and disinformation

If, if you're going, we believe that if you do that you're going to hell,

well, that's a religious belief.

How embarrassing that you have to have a special exemption in an act

because your, um, creed is misinformation.

But, um, there we go.

Well, no,

it's only because you bloody atheists haven't seen the light.

Yes.

To any reasonable person, it's obvious that God exists and

it's not misinformation at all.

Yeah.

So, um, anyway, we're safe here as we're kind of a

professional news dissemination, professional news content, maybe.

Anyway, that's what's going on there, and um, oh, before I forget, um, Orcus,

just briefly, Orcus, remember I did an interview with Cameron Leckie?

He has, um, done a petition, um, with the Federal Government, uh, saying that

the Australian people were never asked if they wanted a new 368 billion nuclear

submarine deal with the USA and the UK.

This deal not only undermines Australia's sovereignty, but

creates a more dangerous world.

Consensus says that most Australian citizens are against

it and see it as a waste of money that could be used elsewhere.

And the petitioners request we therefore ask the House to cancel

the AUKUS agreement immediately.

So Oh,

it's closed.

Oh, is

it closed already, is it?

Yeah, on the 9th of October, 2024.

That's why I'm being so slack.

Sorry, Cameron.

Well, there was a petition.

I signed it.

Um, let's see what happens with that one.

Um, thank you.

It's only got 1535 signatures.

Right.

That's not many, is it?

No.

Speaking of not many, patrons to this podcast.

And listeners!

Hey, uh, thank you to the patrons.

I have been forgetting to mention when I've been thanking patrons, a friend

of the show, local identity here at The Gap, Lee, who provides my family with

a regular supply of free sourdough.

Good on ya, Lee.

So, um, you can be a patron via Patreon.

Patreon, or you can make donations via PayPal, or you can drop sourdough

around regularly like, uh, Leaderz.

What's that?

You can contribute via Trevor's stomach.

That's it.

Um, so, look, the good news is, nobody has quit as a patron since April 2022.

That's pretty good.

The bad news is that only six have joined since that time.

In over two years, come on.

So we haven't pissed enough people off is what you're saying?

So thank you, from the newest to the oldest, uh, from the most

recent to the, um, to people who've been with us over six years now.

Thank you, Noel Hamilton, Paige, Damien Van Schneidel, Danny

Ball, and Obrad Puskarica.

Noisy Andrew, Mark Clavel, Tom Stubbings, Rico, Greg P, Shannon Legg, Matt Dwyer,

Sue Cripp, James, Liam, Leanne, James I've got to find out how to pronounce

your name at some point, Wayne, Virgil, Craig Ball, Shane Ingram, Yam Yam Blue,

Zambuck, David Copley, John in Dire Straits who's in the chat room, Camille,

Paul Waper, Alexander Allen, Matthew, Craig S, Glenn Bell, Professor, Dr

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

who won't be happy with your voting.

today, Scott.

That's

fine.

I realise I'm going to upset a few of our listeners, but I have got some very

valid reasons for not backing them.

DomDom282, that'd be Don.

Is that Don?

Nothing.

Maddockman, Kane Birch, Jimmy Spud, Tony Wall, Steve Shinners, Alison,

who is in the chat room, Ayame, Wayno, Craig and Janelle Louise.

And people who have helped us via PayPal or whatever over time has

been Mr T, Ann Reid who was in the chat room and Dave S from Cairns.

So that's around about 50 people, which is an excellent percentage given

that, for example, the episode 446 was only listened to, um, by 148 people.

So nearly, nearly a third of the people who listen to this

podcast are contributors.

That is a high percentage.

Thank you for that.

It'd just be nicer if there were more people listening,

but anyway.

You can't have everything, can you?

Stop needing to be so offensive.

Yeah, I think the algorithms are going to work against me.

You know, maybe, dear listener, tell your friends about the show.

A bit of word of mouth.

Right, um, So, Scott, we just mentioned, I think before you arrived, Right?

UK opposition, the Conservatives, have you been keeping tabs of them at all?

I've got no idea who's going to lead them now that,

um, what's his name, Step Down?

Well, there were three in the race.

There was, um, a guy, James Cleverley, who was the number one favourite candidate.

And there were two others, Robert Jenrick and Kearney Battenock.

Um, Kearney, uh, Kemi Battenach.

Kemi being a black woman.

And it seems, um, they then had to do a vote to reduce it to two.

And the people who really liked James cleverly, many of them

did not like Kemi Battenach.

So instead of voting for James, um, uh, only, um, They voted

for How did they do this?

They wanted to make sure that Kemi didn't get into the final two.

So instead of voting for their man James, they voted for Robert.

And unfortunately for them, not enough of them voted for James.

Oh, shit.

It ended up that the second and third candidates came through because James

group stupidly tried to game the system.

Despite, apparently, James group, James Cleverley's sort of, um, uh,

whips and counters and everything.

Told people, do not game the system, we need every vote, do not try and be

clever about this, just don't do it.

And these stupid old conservative guys, said, I know what I'm

doing, and they mucked it up, and their man was knocked out.

And um, so he was a slightly more moderate character.

And now they're just faced with two very right-ish people as their options.

So, so that's what happened in the UK with the, um, conservative party there.

That's why you've gotta have a conser, that's why you've gotta have a

preferential vote in everything you do.

Mm-Hmm.

And apparently because it was such small numbers, there's

not that many, um, mps to vote.

No.

Um, it gets riskier and riskier to try and, um, game the system so.

Right, um, do you guys have anything in particular you want to talk about?

I've covered off the elections.

What's that?

I said I've covered off the elections.

Yes, I have.

Um, in

terms of, if you want to actually talk about it, um, there

was a guy that was arrested today near a Trump rally that was armed.

Oh, yes.

And

they, they don't know whether or not it was a third assassination attempt.

Well, you know, he's, he's flagging dangerously behind

Kamala, so I wouldn't, sorry.

Kamala.

It's pronounced Kamal a.

I thought it was like

Pamela,

but Kamala.

No, Kamala.

Okay.

Listening to the various people pronounce her name and taking the piss out of Trump.

Hmm.

He, um, by the way, in case you didn't know it, he really hates immigrants.

I know he hates migrants, absolutely he does.

Um, here he is talking about them.

I've got him at one of his rallies.

You cannot get into a hospital, by the way, because the

migrants have all of the beds.

You cannot get into a hospital.

You cannot get your kids into a school because there are migrants there

that don't even speak the language.

It's unbelievable.

They're giving, because of Biden and Kamala, they're giving precedence over

your children who've been in that school.

Is it not even thinkable?

Yeah,

he's

an old man who's completely lost the plot.

I mean, he was never rational.

He was always a shyster.

He's now lost the plot.

Um, there's been comments.

He's apparently in a number of speeches recently be complaining

about flies, and I wondered whether he was hallucinating them.

But no, uh, there's also been clips of him passing gas on the stage.

Uh, it sounds like, um, it's only recently been noticed that his personal physician,

who had been around since the 1980s, who wrote this book, Wonderful eulogy of how

great a president he was gonna be in 2015.

Mm-Hmm.

, Joe: um, had that dictated over the phone to him by Trump, and then Trump's

bodyguards broke in and stole Trump's personal records from him later on.

Right.

Apparently he's a gastroenterologist.

Right.

His personal physician.

So it, it

suggested that actually Trump may well have serious bowel problems.

Yes.

And has been for a long time.

The flyers could be because he's soiling his pants on stage.

Basically.

Witches are the rumours that have been going around for a long time anyway.

And if it was anybody else, you would feel very sorry for them.

But, just for that arsehole, it's, um

Well, I mean, given the way that he laughs about other people who are

disabled in any way, shape or form, yes.

I can't get how the minorities over there are willing to vote for him.

Uh, the Latinos and the Blacks.

It doesn't make

any sense at all.

Yep.

This is his

war I mean, you really need that Batman clip, where he, he breaks

in and plays the, he's recorded, is it the Joker, laughing at all

those suckers who voted for him.

Oh, um.

And, yeah, basically, we need somebody to have caught Trump laughing at

all those suckers who voted for him.

Because he does apparently laugh at them.

But we need to be able to play that on air.

In the

chat room, Alison says two out of his three wives are migrants.

Well, exactly.

And Don says, well, he's been giving us the shits for years.

Here's an example of one of the guys doing the warm up at one of his rallies.

which is a black man, and just, this is the sort of stuff that um, you'd get in

North Korea for the Great Leader, and we would all be laughing at it, but this

is, this is modern day America for you.

President Donald Trump is the master of his fate.

He is the captain of his soul.

And with you, my brave fellow Americans, we will make him our 47th president.

I've had the honor and the privilege of traveling with the president today, and

I'm here to tell you he wants to fight for you every single step of the way.

Has that started yet?

Oh, you can't hear it, Scott?

No, I can't hear, hear it or see it.

But you heard the other one, Scott?

Yeah, I heard the other one.

I don't

know why you wouldn't

hear that one.

Sometimes it does this.

Anyway, he's going to be totally shocked when he finds out that a

whole bunch of Trump supporters are calling him that n word in tweets.

Because they will be.

Of course they will be.

Because over and over, I mean, J.

D.

Vance was so shocked that Republicans were going on about his Indian wife.

And how racist they were

about it.

I cannot understand that because, you know, this is a bloke who's married to an

Indian lady and all that sort of stuff.

She's a Hindu.

And what was the first thing they all said?

They said, well, he can't be very serious if he's not got a

Christian wife, for God's sake.

Yeah.

Anyway, Trump supporters are pretty clever because, um, there was that, uh, Hurricane

Milton that was bearing down on Florida.

And, um, fortunately Didn't cross as a category 5.

It had decreased to a category 3 or something by the time it got

there, but, um, a lot of, uh, Trump supporters, well, here's an example of

a Trump supporter who felt that Dark forces opposed to Donald Trump, i.

e.

the government, uh, were manipulating the weather and

seeding That's because Marjorie

Taylor Greene had tweeted it.

Right, okay.

Well, these tweets fall on fertile ground when it comes to Trump ones.

Scott, I hope you can hear some of this, but we'll play it anyway.

Um, here we go.

What do you think happened with the hurricanes?

I think there was an upcoming storm and then I think government set in

with whatever it is that they do.

I don't know all the specifics about it.

I'm not an expert in cloud seeding or whatever it is that they use to magnify

the storm to a higher degree to disturb a land that may be wanted for lithium

that Harris's husband is partaking in.

Um, or, so they made the storm stronger so it would, it would,

it would hit the, this one.

You think that Milton, they're making it stronger?

From a two to immediately to five, like instantaneously.

You're implying that the government made a hurricane stronger to hurt its own

country, the United States of America?

Correct.

If you ask it about Helene, it'll tell you the government

actively used seed clouding.

This is before Haleen even happened.

Why would a country want to have a hurricane be strong

and hit its own country?

Because they want to control certain places.

And if you're looking at where the hurricane's going,

it's a lot of red states.

If you're looking at the counties in North Carolina that were

hit, there were all of them.

26 out of 28 of those counties were for Trump.

They're doing whatever they can because they can't rig the election.

Even control the weather?

Yes.

It just goes on and on.

She needs some

lithium.

Yeah, with this stupid woman, um

This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, isn't it?

No, no, no, this is just a member

of the crowd.

She's just a member of the Trump crowd, um, hypothesizing that, uh, it was,

it was a government plot to to whip up a bigger hurricane because that

would somehow be bad for the Trump.

It was

going to punish the Republican voters.

Yes.

That was the argument.

Because this weather system was hitting a Republican state, yes.

Well, it was also Republican areas in a Republican state.

Yes.

So,

uh.

Are you into musical theatre at all?

Um, I liked the Book of Mormon.

Okay.

I'm going to suggest you look up Randy Rainbow.

Who is a theatre kid, he's very camp, and he basically takes news clips of whichever

mad republican is being interviewed, and then puts him interviewing them

instead, and then breaks into a song based on generally mad republicans.

Quite funny.

He's been around for about seven or eight years.

Okay.

Um.

But well worth a listen to.

Randy who?

Randy Rainbow.

Randy Rainbow.

There you go, dear listener.

Look for that one.

So, um, so, all right.

Well, gentlemen, that's an hour.

I've still got an enormous amount of stuff to get through on this, uh, agenda at some

stage, but, um, With a bit of luck, I'm really tempted to run that letter from the

Australian Christian Lobby and give it a note for LM and see what it comes up with.

If you've been watching the show, but you don't then bother with the audio

version, just check it out in case I managed to put it in for a bit of fun.

So, all right, dear listener, for your attention.

Thank you to the patrons for your support, I will be back with the guys.

You're all around next week?

Yeah, I am.

Very good.

Okay.

We'll be back next week.

Thanks.

Talk to you then.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.

And here it is.

This is what Notebook LM had to say about the letter I received from

the Australian Christian Lobby.

AI Male Voice: Okay, so, you know, listeners sent us some

pretty interesting stuff.

AI Female Voice: And, um, this one, this one's a doozy.

AI Male Voice: Oh, yeah.

AI Female Voice: Yeah, it's a letter, right?

AI Male Voice: And

AI Female Voice: it's from the Australian Christian Lobby.

AI Male Voice: Right.

AI Female Voice: The ACL, they're They're not exactly known

for mincing words, are they?

AI Male Voice: They, uh, no, they're, they're very, uh,

straightforward in their messaging.

AI Female Voice: Yeah, and this one's

AI Male Voice: like, next level.

We're talking like, moral darkness, dystopian nightmare, depraved

moral eclipse, like, whoa.

So, uh, What is going on in Queensland that's got the ACL?

Like, it's

AI Female Voice: riled up.

AI Male Voice: Yeah, I think what's really interesting here is the language

that the ACL has chosen to use, right?

Because it's, you know, moral darkness, dystopian nightmare.

That's not just like, we disagree with this policy, right?

This is, this is like, we are in a spiritual battle

for the soul of Queensland.

Right.

AI Male Voice: And so I think it's really fascinating that they've, they've

chosen to go with such strong language.

AI Female Voice: So it sounds like we need to kind of back up a bit, right?

For, for those of us who might not be like totally up on who the

ACL is and what they're about.

Give us the kind of the thumbnail sketch.

Like who are these guys?

What do they care about?

AI Male Voice: So the ACL is a kind of, you know, political lobbying group

and they advocate for Christian values.

AI Female Voice: Yeah.

AI Male Voice: And they have a.

Pretty significant influence, particularly on conservative

politics here in Australia.

So they're, they're definitely a force to be reckoned with when it

comes to these kinds of issues.

AI Female Voice: And so this letter, this very dramatic letter, it's

all about this Respect at Work bill that's coming up in Queensland.

Correct.

So break it down for us.

What, what is this bill and why is the ACL so concerned about it?

AI Male Voice: So imagine you're in a workplace, right?

Right.

And let's say there's a discussion going on about same sex marriage,

a pretty, a pretty, you know,

AI Female Voice: hot topic

AI Male Voice: these days, and someone expresses a view that's based on their

religious beliefs, and others in the workplace find that view Offensive.

Right.

AI Male Voice: Now, currently, proving that that's harassment,

legally, can be tricky.

Right.

Because it's like, well, they're just expressing their religious beliefs.

Right.

What this Respect at Work bill seeks to do is broaden the definition of what

constitutes a hostile work environment to include those sorts of expressions.

AI Female Voice: So it's not just about sort of like direct harassment anymore.

It's about

AI Male Voice: it's about creating a more inclusive and

respectful workplace for everyone.

AI Female Voice: Right.

So the ACL is saying that this bill is going to make it basically

impossible for people of faith.

AI Male Voice: They're worried.

They're worried that people of faith won't be able to even have casual conversations

without the risk of being accused of creating a hostile work environment.

AI Female Voice: Okay, so they're using really interesting language here, too.

I mean, we talked about moral darkness, we talked about dystopian nightmare.

They also throw around terms like woke agenda, radical anti faith.

Like, what's the strategy there, do you think?

AI Male Voice: Well, they're trying to tap into, I think, a broader cultural

conversation that's going on, right?

They want to make it not just about this specific bill, but about a broader agenda

that they see as hostile to their values.

AI Female Voice: So they're trying to rally the troops a little bit.

AI Male Voice: Absolutely.

I mean, you know, when you say radical anti faith, that's

going to get people's attention.

Yeah.

It's going to get people worried and it's going to get them motivated to act.

AI Female Voice: And it sounds like they're planning to do more

than just, sort of like, send out a Strongly worded letters.

Oh, yeah.

They're talking about launching an election advocacy offensive.

What does that even look like?

AI Male Voice: So that means, you know, we're gonna see advertising campaigns.

We're gonna see voter mobilization drives.

All right, you know getting people to the polls, especially in those Key electorates

where, you know, a small number of votes could really swing the outcome.

AI Female Voice: So they're really trying to put their thumb on the scale here.

AI Male Voice: They are not messing around.

AI Female Voice: And, and it's not just about Queensland, right?

They kind of connect this back to a larger national conversation.

AI Male Voice: Absolutely.

I mean, they're saying this is a threat to every church, every Christian school.

Right.

Every person of faith in Australia.

AI Female Voice: So it's a much bigger battle than just

this one bill, in their eyes?

AI Male Voice: Exactly.

They're trying to frame this as a defining moment for religious freedom in Australia.

AI Female Voice: Okay, so we've got a, we've got a lot to unpack here.

A controversial bill, a high stakes election.

AI Male Voice: Powerful lobby group, really trying to use their influence.

Um, what do you think, what's the, what's the big question that

we should all be thinking about?

As we kind of watch this play out.

AI Female Voice: I think the big question is, how do we balance

these competing rights and values?

You know, how do we protect religious freedom while also ensuring that everyone

feels safe and respected in the workplace?

AI Male Voice: Right, because those aren't necessarily And mutually exclusive.

Right, exactly.

It's a tough one.

Yeah.

It's a tough needle to thread.

AI Female Voice: It's a tough needle to thread.

AI Male Voice: And I think it's something that we're gonna continue grappling with.

AI Female Voice: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.

AI Male Voice: And I think

AI Female Voice: that's what makes these deep dives so interesting, right?

It's like we don't have the answers.

AI Male Voice: But we're trying to at least lay out all the

different pieces on the table.

AI Female Voice: Exactly.

So that

AI Male Voice: people can kind of come to their own conclusions.

AI Female Voice: Yep, informed conclusions.

Right,

AI Male Voice: exactly.

AI Female Voice: Informed by the facts and the arguments on all sides.

AI Male Voice: So, what should people sort of be watching for as this unfolds?

AI Female Voice: Well, I think the big thing is, what

happens with this ACL campaign?

Okay.

AI Female Voice: Are they successful?

Right.

Do

AI Female Voice: they manage to influence the outcome of the election?

AI Male Voice: Right.

AI Female Voice: And if they do, what does that mean for similar

legislation in other states?

AI Male Voice: Right, right.

Could this be a kind of a domino effect?

AI Female Voice: Exactly.

It could be a sign of things to come.

AI Male Voice: Wow, okay.

AI Female Voice: Yeah.

AI Male Voice: All right, well Buckle up, everybody.

Stay tuned.

Stay tuned.

Right.

This is gonna be an interesting ride.

It is.