The 35 topics we discuss are:

1. Court Case
2. Nativity Scenes
3. On Democracy
4. John Mearsheimer
5. Neo-Liberalism
6. Barnaby and Julian
7. Julian Assange
8. Morrison and ICAC
9. Pork Barrelling
10. Dickson has a very good member
11. A broken system
12. Morrison advocating for religious candidates
13. Bercow on Johnson or Morrison?
14. The two highest-taxing governments of the past 30 years have been Coalition
15. Sam Kerr
16. USA teachers in a gross Dash for Cash
17. USA Stamp story
18. Smoking Ban in NZ
19. Smoking in Australia
20. Birds aren’t real
21. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos
22. California to let citizens enforce ban on assault weapons
23. Olympics Boycott
24. Murdoch Inquiry
25. A Murdoch consigliere to run the ACCC?
26. Covid ep 322
27. The Gap Vaccinations Rate
28. Today just 6.4% of eligible Victorians are unvaccinated and yet they make up 88% of all patients in ICU.
29. Covid Cheat had a fake arm
30. #NotAnOrganDonorAnymore
31. Omicron
32. Libertarians and House Cats
33. Furniture Removalist Job
34. Austria
35. Only 1.7% of people in PNG are vaccinated

Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has over time

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapien.

Despite the reputation of their Homeland, some are remarkably thin skin.

Some seem to have multiple lifespans.

A few were once thought to be extinct in the region.

Others have been observed being sacrificed by their own, but today we observe a small

tribe akin to a group of mere cats that gathered together a top, a small amount

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.

Well, hello deal is now episode 322 on the iron fist and the velvet glove

podcast got the panel back this week.

And it's tough.

You more days until Christmas, just a few sleeps.

I've caught some Trevor Iki.

Well with me whenever she can squeeze us in between flights and work, the

working class, a shy welcome back shy person and J and J the tech guy evening.

All right, dear listener.

If you're in the chat room, say hello, dire straits, is their hair going, John?

Good to see you there.

If you're in the chat room, say hello.

And if you're in the chat room, look, we've got lots of videos

and different pictures that we'll be putting up on the screen.

So I think as this podcast is evolving next year, there might be more and more

videos and clips and pictures and things.

So become more of a visual experience, not just audio, but we'll try and always

make it so that if you are listening to the podcast, you will understand what's

going on, even if we are using a picture, but we'll just add a bit more to it.

So.

All right, well Shay, welcome back.

First of all, you've been working in your job as a hostess.

Is that what, what's the technical term for your job?

I think we prefer having cruel flight attendant now.

All right, good.

Sorry.

Yes.

I knew I was committing some sort of transgression there.

Surely Dolly biscuit Slinger.

Right.

And I was just curious what's the atmosphere like in the planes that

people more or less pleasant or angry than normal or what's it like there.

Business as usual, I've found them to be maybe more tense.

Certainly.

People never liked it when they had people sitting beside them, but they're

even more annoyed about that now.

Right.

Okay.

I would've thought most of the flights would be fairly full.

It varies.

I think Queensland is actually aren't moving around that much, but I think lots

of people coming in were empty on the way out and then we're full coming back.

Very good.

So I know my daughter is planning on coming up from Sydney and she

was very nervous because you have to provide a, I clear COVID test.

That's no more than 72 hours old.

By the time you take the flight.

And the problem was that it was taking longer than 72 hours to get the tests.

It was one of those classic catch 22 situations, but she's got a test

result back it's negative, and she's going to be on a flight tomorrow night.

So that'll be good.

So it's just a really nervous time for normally a holiday.

It has to be PCR.

I think so.

I don't because you can get the rapid tests.

No, that wasn't the pharmacy.

No, I think it had to be something else.

So it's quite a nervous time for everybody trying to get away and worried

whether they gonna get on the flight.

And then if they get on the flight, the idea that the guy in front of

you, the row in front or behind.

Might have COVID and therefore you are then put into quarantine.

That's scary.

So, yeah.

Oh, you know, what was really interesting as I was having conversation with

my today, who was saying that people want people are really fearful of

is Anastasia shutting the border.

And I said, no, I think it's a deadly virus

worried about them shutting the border.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I understand.

It's a consideration, but then I think anesthesia is the whole point of it.

Surely not in this age of personal responsibility.

My main worry would just be being forced into quarantine.

The fact that somebody in another row had done and just out of an abundance of

caution, I'm having to be in quarantine.

I need to be in Sydney at the end of January, potentially.

I think I might drive rather, rather than fly I'm solid yet.

So although I've noticed on the contact tracing thing, they've

actually put it down to rows

instead of the whole airplane.

Yeah.

But it could be the row in the front of behind.

Yeah, that's true.

That would be annoying.

How long in the chat room to Brahman essential law Dawn and grant Clark.

Grants is the white time for visa to get into Australia is eight to 20 months.

Let's say out of China, I would assume grant, is that the case?

So boy, that's a long wait time for visa.

Yeah, because there were people today going we flew them into

Sydney from Melbourne and they were going to Fiji or going to Canada.

Yep.

So there's a few people that are willing to risk it.

Yep.

Yep.

You can make it, you can leave.

But getting back in at a friend was G to come from the UK

to Australia in March, 2020.

And this is the second year that he's now not being able to, or the third

time he's been trying to plan the trip

and he's going March 20, 22 is looking no better at the lower.

Yeah.

Yep.

All right.

Well, another velar chit chat about our COVID experiences.

What are we going to do and talk about tonight?

A little bit of an update on a satanic court case.

We're going to talk a little bit further about what I was mentioning

last week with my democracy rant.

So hope you enjoyed that.

There's some kinda keep ranting about it for a little bit.

Juliana Sanje Polk barreling.

Oh, of course.

Scott Morrison and what he's been up to Sam Kerr and the way she

shoulder charged in pitching.

A whole crazy number of things.

Plus COVID stuff.

I look at the list and there's about 35 topics.

I've checked with Joe and shy, neither a mess to get up early in the morning.

So we're just going to keep going and see how many we get through.

Yeah, so let's let's start off.

First of all, the court case for religious satanic instruction in

Queensland, and I got a message from the judge's associate early last week,

which was, are you available on Friday?

Which is the Friday just go on.

Because the judge might be able to give his decision and we're all

available, but unfortunately the judge then said he wasn't able to do it.

So it was close.

I thought I was going to be able to give you a decision, but now it's

not going to be until the new year.

So by the time we get it in mid January, that's going to be five

months since the court case.

So I don't know, obviously the case had some there it's taken five months.

So so anyway sometime mid January now I would suspect for an answer on that one.

So hanging out for that other things that have happened, I had

to visit a customer at QUT the Queensland university of technology.

And as I walked past yeah, old parliament house building.

What did I spy, but I nativity scene at the front.

So of course I had to take a photo of that and obviously Christian nativity scene.

And I've put that on the list for next year.

If we are successful with our satanic political action is to start working

on nativity scenes and saying, well, if you want a Christian nativity scene

somewhere now, I don't think we'll ever be able to do anything in parliament

house because it's essentially a law unto itself, what they're doing

there, it's up to them, what they do.

But anyway, if I get if I get half a chance, then we'll be having a

nativity scene with this character.

You can see on the screen and it's a baby Beth and my, so hopefully

that'll be one of the things we'll we'll sort of look at next year is a

Christian nativity scenes and equal rights for other sorts of things.

So that's on the agenda, so.

Alright.

Did you guys happen to listen to my rant about democracy and at all?

Or maybe not?

So that's all right.

I'm about half an hour into it.

Are there you go?

Okay.

It wasn't too long.

So essentially what I was saying was that when you have to, when you're looking

at the success or failure of different countries, you just have to look.

Whether the USA treats them as a friend or a foe.

And it didn't really matter whether they were democracy or not.

It was a weather.

The current arrangements were favorable in the, in the

self-interest of America or not.

And if you've got the right of America, you're in trouble, that was essentially

a save yourself, listening to it, show that you have it in a nutshell.

And I don't know, it's a little bit like if you're holding a hammer,

everything you see is a nail.

And so since doing that little rant, I've, I've come across

a number of different things.

And one of them was a little segment by an economist called Michael Hudson.

So I'm just going to play that clip for you.

So let me just find that, and I'll play this clip by Michael Hunt.

Is going to end America's ability to control other countries.

So yes, the CIA's job is to promote what is America's means that

have financial leverage, as we're seeing now over Argentina which

is now running into trouble again.

And the pro us Argentina and government looked like it was going to lose the

election that IMF lent an enormous amount of no money to Argentina, so that all of

the wealthy Argentines and the American companies there could move their money

out of Argentine currency into the dollar.

And then after the left Britain took over the IMF, let Argentina drop and foreign

speculators moved against Argentina.

And so the United States can say, you know, whether your country has an

oligarchy or democracy, if you have a democracy, we're going to crush you.

If we support oligarchy, we said and that essentially I think is a Biden his

hand having the summit between next week between a democracy and authoritarians, he

said, look, America is backing autocracy.

We're the autocracy, our enemy, our democratic countries

that actually a follow up.

Okay.

And so that's Michael Hudson and I've read different things by him,

which are quite interesting when it comes to currency and the U S dollar.

And I just happened to come across another one.

And so what are you going to hear from here as a guy, John mere Shimer and

he's actually speaking at an event held by the center for independent studies,

which is a right wing think tank.

So for people what's that I said, Susan T yes.

Yes.

RT that would have been Russia to die was Michael Hudson.

Yes.

So from the left, you've got that view.

And I'm about to give you from the rides.

Well, you know, Santa Fe, independent studies, you can't get

much more right-wing than that.

Can you maybe the Institute of public affairs?

So so John Mearsheimer is going to be speaking next.

He's an American political scientist in international relations scholar who

belongs to the realist school of thought.

He's the, our Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor

at the university of Chicago.

If you've heard of university of Chicago economic center, you'll know

we've got a right wing center there, I'm speaking at the right wing think

tank center for independent studies.

And he's known for his developing a theory of offensive realism, which

describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the

rational desire to achieve regional.

In an anarchic international system.

So he was a I've got it in the show notes there.

So this is what this guy was saying while addressing the right wing think tank.

And he is from the university of Chicago economic school.

So let me find him here.

Now, the question is, what does this all mean for Australia?

You're in a quandary for sure.

Everybody knows.

Everybody knows what the quandary is.

Security wise.

You really want to go with us.

It makes just a lot more sense.

Right?

And you understand that security is more important than prosperity

because if you don't survive, you're not going to prosper.

So Bibles of the utmost importance, because you can't pursue any

other goals, if you don't survive.

Right.

So security has got to be number one.

So you'll sacrifice prosperity for security, right?

That's what will happen.

That's why you'll be with us.

Now.

Some people say there's an alternative.

You can go with China, right?

You have a choice here.

You can go with China rather than United States.

It's two things I'll say about that.

Number one, if you go with China, you want to understand you are.

You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States, because

we're, again, we're talking about an intense security competition.

You're either with us or against us.

And if you're trading extensively with China and you're friendly with

China, you're undermining the United States in the security competition.

You're feeding the beast from our perspective, and that is

not going to make us happy.

And when we are not happy, you do not want to underestimate how nasty we

can be just as Fidel Castro nervous laughter from the crowd there, but

I'm just quoting Caitlin Johnston.

She said, so that you have it.

Australia is not aligned with the U S to protect itself from China.

Australia is aligned with the U S to protect itself from the U S so

anyway, a left-wing and a right-wing view, sort of in alignment with what

I was saying in my rant last week.

And essential law dances of the ranch was very Ren tequila.

What does that mean?

Essential law daunting.

Okay.

And also as part of that rant or spiel I was talking about, neo-liberalism and

some people really don't understand, or I've never heard of the term Neo liberals.

And George Monbiot wrote a piece, which was when, like the Russians

who have never heard of communism.

So imagine if the people of the Soviet union had never heard of communism, the

ideology that dominates our lives has for the most of us, no nine mentioned it in

conversation, and you'll be rewarded with a shrug, even if you'll listen to this,

even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it,

neo-liberalism do you know what it is?

And in a nutshell, it's a sort of free market deregulation pro globalization

reduce government spending, sell off government assets promoted by

Frederick Hayek, Milton Friedman, and the Montpellier on society.

That's in a nutshell neo-liberalism, which was, again, Reagan

promoted by Reagan and Maggie.

And essentially that's been accepted as, as the dominant theory of how economics

works and should work in the world today.

And what's people just don't know that, but it sort of has a way of insidiously

sort of seeping into our culture where it's accepted those sort of principles.

And, and we don't even see it.

And there was an article here from independent Australia, which talked about.

Journalists have the power to frame reality for audiences because they set

the standards for what is considered good, bad, normal, or controversial.

So we all know what framing is, is is, is where you ask a question or you make

an initial statement in such a way that you sort of set it up to be in a, in a

certain direction from the very beginning.

So in this article it says, you know, journalists have the power

to frame things and, and gave a really interesting example.

I thought and I'm going to apply it now.

It's not the guys for 30 seconds.

And it was a recent interview between Lee sales on the seven 30

report who was about to interview the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg.

So let me just find this one.

And here we go.

Rottenberg joins me now from Cambra.

Thank you for being with his treasurer must be with you.

He's your March 29th budget.

Next GA going to be about starting to recover the nation's balance sheet

and pay down debt, or are you going to be unable to resist taking the

nation even further into debt because you'll want to splash cash around

because you heading into an election?

Well, the buck, so this article gives that as a really interesting example

of framing because the writer says there's nothing neutral about this.

It presents without question the ideologically loaded idea that government

debt is bad for the economy and that the government spending is politically

problematic rather than desirable.

It doesn't matter what Frydenberg responded because the question itself

presents a bias view of the world.

It presents a neoliberal assumption and thoughts is not balanced, but instead

privileges conservative free market ideology ahead of competing perspectives.

For example, it it elides over the opposing perspective of Canadian

economic theory, which argues that government spending is good for

the economy because it stimulates growth, particularly in tough times.

So the way this writer says the questions set a standard for the respondent in the

same way that when I asked my husband, if he has put the bins out, I'm asking

because I want him to put the bins out.

Not because I'm leading him to say yes, I have.

At the end of the day, the audience was served up a boss,

representation of reality.

And this is subtle.

And she goes on.

She could have framed the question like this.

Can you please explain for your audience, how you plan to manage the economy to

ensure there is enough demand to stimulate economic growth and to make sure there is

a job available for everyone who wants one and the writer would have been interested

to hear the treasuries of response.

I thought that was all very good.

I think they're all about jobs and growth.

Yes.

But in which case, why not ask it in that fashion, but Lee sales

definitely framed it as debts.

Bad.

You need to pay this down.

If you're not doing that, then you obviously pandering to something else.

So it was a set-up and yeah, I, myself might have spotted it.

I don't think if I was just watching it, but this rod is gone all

day, guy classic vise question.

And I think the rider is correct.

So, so again, I thought that was interesting.

Right.

That's enough of ongoing about my rant.

Finish on that now.

Julian Assange, sorry.

If John was asking you, if you could define Neo liberal.

Well, I think we did just earlier, like Neo liberal theory is that

you must allow free markets.

You cannot regulate them or you should not regulate them.

There should be no tariffs.

Globalization must be allowed.

So multinational countries must be allowed to operate.

Government spending on social services has to be reduced if the government

owns assets like water and electricity or other things, it should sell

them off because governments should not be in the business of business.

Even if it's essential services.

You know, that's, that's what neo-liberalism is about is, is a total

reduction in the government of virtually nothing except defense and as few

polices necessary, preferably you should hire your own security guards, you

know, that's, that's near liberalism.

I think somebody wants to add to it.

Anything I've missed there, but that's, that's it in a nutshell, I think dice

strain unless the question was why new liberalism, as opposed to old

liberalism, what is the no, how it got the actual terminology neo-liberalism

but they don't like to use it because it's seen as being a little bit evil.

So you won't find people openly saying I'm a Neo liberal they'll

tend to say Neo as in Neo Nazi or Neo nationalism may be, it's

definitely got a negative connotation.

They would prefer to say it's revisionist, isn't it.

It's taking the original concept and almost turning it on its head.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Next time I might look up the origins of the term.

Neo-liberalism how it sort of came together.

I did, I do recall seeing it somewhere, but I can't remember

what the details were saying.

Oh, essential dark central law.

Don says and rant rant.

Tacular means it was a spectacular rate.

Yes.

I just made that word up, Don.

Okay.

Julian Assange, there was an appeal where the us argument got up and

now there's a further appeal.

And so he's still in that terrible prison doing hard time.

They're waiting for this appeal process to go through.

Did you see who's Barnaby Joyce's comments at all about Julian Assange?

Yeah.

A few years ago out in front of parliament house, and now he's locked up in a hotel

saying it again, basically Prius launch.

I don't lock the door, but so deputy prime minister is saying, it's not right.

The son shouldn't be held there.

It should be, you know, all the reasons the left assigning it.

Of course he says it because he comes from a libertarian approach I think,

and also a sovereignty of approach.

So I think he's genuine, very genuine in it.

And this is the part I don't get the guys, the deputy prime minister, like,

well, that's what I, that's what I was going to say is they approach

he is approach this issue the way he's approached everything else.

Like, Hey, he didn't hate.

Didn't actually didn't occur to him.

How absolutely stupid.

When it came out saying, oh yeah, but who's got a plan.

Who's got a detailed plan about climate change and everyone's going, you're

the deputy prime minister maybe.

Right.

Like, I don't know what to do about it.

I think should something should be done, but I don't know what to do about it.

He thinks he's an opposition.

Doesn't mean

he's the deputy prime minister and he can't wrangle a

wine to get this done with.

Julia sounds mean him, you know?

Yeah.

I just, yeah.

So I just, I just find that I'd never say anything where

somebody says, well, hang on.

You're the deputy PM like do something about it.

You are, you are powerful, man.

You should be able to move this issue in your direction.

Is he though?

I think at the moment, it's kind of just keep your Dick in

the pants and keep out of the

people just avoid and meetings.

He's also, he's also deputy chair of the powerful national security committee

of cabinet, which considers the major foreign policy and national security

issues for the federal government.

He's the deputy chair.

Anyway, according to this article from the Sydney morning, Herald

asked for a response to Mr.

Joyce's.

I government spokesman said its position was unchanged.

Australia will continue to respect UK legal processes, noting that

these are ongoing proceedings.

The spokesman said, I just don't get this.

And this, this journalist, how you could write this, that

the deputy PM says one thing.

And they asked the government for a response and he is the government.

And they say an online government spokesman said, well, we're just

going to let the UK legal process run.

What sort of journalism is this?

I'm just, I'm bemused by the whole thing.

And I'm just appalled by the whole thing.

And, and the thing I don't get, like I said, I can fully understand

a, a sort of a libertarian type of guy, like Barnaby, Joyce being a

supporter of Julia . You know, these guys are supposed to be free speech.

That's one of the mantras and say, whatever you like, and

whether you're offend somebody or not, doesn't really matter.

And we are a sovereign nation they're big on free speech and sovereignty.

Like, it makes sense that Barnaby Joyce is kind of in support of this.

The only reason you wouldn't be is that you are so much a lapdog

of the U S that you will just do whatever they say, no matter how much

that compromises your own personal principles just to keep them happy.

So that that's the only sort of hang on.

Are you saying Scotty has principles?

Well, well, you're you're well, he does like religion promoting

religion would be one of them.

So so yeah, so I still get, look, I still get emails from spite and the spectator,

even though I unsubscribe all the time, but they're still coming through.

I still haven't seen anything in those magazines that supports or

says anything about Julian Assange.

So so much for freedom from the freedom of speech loving publications of spite and

the spectator and Caitlin Johnson, Jack Caitlin Johnson is an interesting one.

Dear listener, if you're looking for stuff for independent blogs

and writers and thinkers outside of mainstream media, and we've

mentioned before, crikey is very good.

John Mina do blog is very good.

Previously have liked Kennan Malik.

He's still good.

Lady called Caitlin Johnston, follow her on Twitter or follow her on sub stack.

She's got lots of good things to say.

And she just says in relation to a song.

What's the difference between how the U S deals with journalists

at Heights and how Saudi Arabia deals with journalists at Heights.

And the answer is speed, and that's a pretty fair summation of it.

So so yeah, that's Julian Assange I'll move on to now.

Last week I had my rant the week before that I think we were talking

about Morrison and ICAC and how appalling it was that he came out

and called ICAC a kangaroo court.

And I think we all agreed.

Isn't that terrible?

What's the world coming to in virtually the next day a central

report came out with a survey to that and I put it on the Facebook page.

And the survey question was the prime minister has described the new

south Wales ICAC as a kangaroo court and suggested that premium Gladys

Berejiklian was handed out of office.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with the prime minister and in terms

of disagree or strongly disagree?

The title was only 31%, 36, neither agreed nor disagreed and 34%.

Either agreed or strongly agreed.

So only 31% of the people who was surveyed could say, I disagree

with Scott Morrison, hauling new south Wales ICAC, a kangaroo court.

I'm depressed.

It's anyone else equally as depressed?

It just goes to show it's all about who your party preferences

and nevermind the rest.

Yep.

That's

we're up.

They'd rather a corrupt premiere then Dominic parenthood.

No it wasn't asking.

What's your preference.

It was just saying he called it a kangaroo court, says she was handed out.

Do you agree or disagree?

I think it's a pretty well-worded question to get the proper response.

Even now they're still banging on about how great she was bringing it back.

Yeah.

So anyway, it seems that the efforts to put her in as a candidate in the

next selection of a forum, by the way.

So I'd say maybe he did that as a distraction and just ran it up the

flag pole, see how it flies ups.

That'd be the heat on that.

I'll try something else.

It could have been as simple as that.

So

It's great to say that Gladys is corrupt enough to be in federal poetry.

So I think Leiba is making noises about if they get into power, they will

be creating an ICAC and there'll be asking it to look at, in particular,

the routings that have been going on allegedly with Polk barreling of, of

electrodes by this government side.

That would be good if that happens, sign

well.

I mean, it's helping isn't it.

In fact now I wonder if I've got this Scott Morrison one.

I don't know if I've got him here, but there was an incident where the prime

minister was being interviewed and what that was doing was the there's

been reports in the nine newspapers.

I'll read this article actually.

Analysis found that coalition held states got nearly four times

as much grant funding as ones.

The prime minister has shrugged off the controversy climbing coalition seats.

Far more money than nearby labor seats, simply because they

have quote a good local member.

So this was a defense rejected by labor MP who climbs at every single one of

her funding proposals has been rejected by the government at the last budget.

Despite months of work in contrast, Peter Dutton's neighboring seat got more than

46 times as much government funding.

Now this seems to be funding, which is inherently discretionary.

So it seems to be funding that doesn't have the same process that

Gladys Berejiklian fallen foul of.

That's what it seems to me.

So, but it's just a blatant use of that discretion to favor your own

seats that you hold so that your own politicians can look marvelous because

of the things that you buy for them.

So our reports in the nine years papers analyze the allocation of

19,000 federal grants in the past three years, for which the government had

discretionary power to allocate coalition electorates were given 1.9 billion

labor seats got less than 530 million.

And when he was asked about it, We said Dixon must have a very good local member

and he just sort of laughed it off.

And they've done a he's he's, he's worried that the potato is coming for him.

He's trying to buy him off.

Well, now the potatoes now they're just giving them money left, right.

And center to every electorate that they have in the hope that, that I

can hold onto that electric assigned.

But Dawson, Dustin is inching closer to leader of the liberals.

That's what the talk seems to be.

Yeah.

But that's what the talk seems to be, but I, well, it was in Dutton's

interest that he got so much money.

So if Morrison was doing something, he might've done something to reduce

the amount of funding that dicks that seek, or is it just, just a stop

to him to try and keep him sweet?

Not, well, that's not going to work.

Isn't Dutton's not going to say, oh, I won't challenge you for later because

you gave lots of money to my lecturer.

I'm going to do that.

Do you feel like you live in a $40 million seat?

No, I, I, I you were in Dixon, auntie.

Yeah.

I I'm forever shocked that they keep returning him even

after he ran off to the post.

Because he's still for pre-selection of the gold coast and these then took

him back when he didn't get selected.

Anyway, then the neighboring electorate not one of the 30 proposals was funded.

So she was pretty upset when it was suggested that she wasn't a good member.

She just said, I'll just go knock back 30 times.

So right.

Now case statistics are the largest grant was $90 million to the salvation

army for drought payments to households.

What the hell are we doing?

Giving $90 million to the salvation army so that they can then give

money to drought affected households?

What is going on?

Well, let better place to determine who is worthy or not.

And obviously who is worthy is based on how religious they are and

whether they're the right sort of religious, the largest grant and

an electorate 35 million in Dixon.

Let's see.

So the salvation army got 90 million St.

Vincent DePaul, but 7,200.

To give $3,000 a piece to struggling households in drought stricken reasons.

So, ah, we've, we've spread it around, you know, not only have we given it to

the salvation army to give to drought households, we've given 72 million to St.

Vincent DePaul and said, here, you guys are clearly better at this than

we can you hang out this money for us?

Goodness, psych for Christmas, I got a subscription to the

monthly, which is the, yeah.

These paper magazine connected to the 7:00 AM podcast.

I just glanced at it then.

And LPs has done a interesting article on how that sort of funding

and almost sourcing how charity is another impact of realism.

So you just got out a bit then shine.

He's still with us.

You've frozen.

Can you just say that again?

Now Pearson said what no PSN positive or put forward that that's

another impact of neo-liberalism.

So were most thing ask services to charities and then the

charities need the money.

So it's just, it's almost a cycle of, because we don't have a government

department, that's got people that can actually hand out stuff.

And we've got a government department that's quite good

at taking money off people.

And could quite possibly do the reverse

the suggestion.

So I think it was for UBI, the suggestion was the tax department would do it.

Yes.

Like the drought affected farmers.

Surely you arrived.

Surely the tax department could be best placed to say with, with some other

data about where droughts have been in the country, are you in this area?

Has your income drop significantly?

Okay.

We can give you this amount of money.

Rather than the salvation army walking around, beating their tambourines, as

I decide whether to hand out money or not on vulnerable Brodmann says holy

Roman, our seat, which is the second most marginal seat in Australia.

And they got about 4 million obviously a liberal member.

Isn't a very good member.

Okay.

Still on that topic of the top 20 grants, five went to professional football

clubs for, for swimming pools for winter private manufacturing businesses, an

ammunition factory, a brewery, a fruit processing plant, and a dairy cooperative

seriously and ammunition factory.

And one went to a property developer to build a marina in Townsville.

Wow.

Well the ammunition factory, possibly, because that increases

our ability in case they'd time before to create our own ammunition.

Yeah.

In lieu of the submarines.

Yeah.

Possibly.

Yeah.

But you know, even then they wouldn't give it to an ammunition

factory that was in a library.

Electric.

I can tell you that now.

Yeah.

Yup.

Okay.

I presume the grants or loans.

No, these are grants.

Like grant is a grant.

It's just money.

Just dull down these people who are yeah.

We'd like to go spend it.

Yeah.

I've always wondered about these grants to government school or sorry,

not the private schools, so yeah.

Here's $5 million to build whatever facility.

And then the school goes bust.

He gets the money.

The schools go by.

It's too good.

It's too good.

, it's good to go past.

But if they did, if they decided to wind up who gets to keep the asset,

it's a private school with the government paying all that money.

Well, Oh, look, all these entities are owned by different things.

Aren't they insane being operated entity and then a, and a land holding entity.

And it's the operating entity that goes bust.

But the land is going.

Yeah, I was going to say usually it's the church.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's quite a hypothetical where a school goes bust, you know,

I think they just take the, yeah.

The taxpayers are effectively giving money to the churches though.

It's improving the value of their land indeed.

And ammunition factories, and property developers to build marinas.

You didn't have to build the Murena surely you'd have to

send them a photo or something.

I'll send marina.

Yeah.

But you know, if someone's going to give you the money, it makes it easy.

You're right.

They might even go a step further, not even build the thing and just

put the money in their pocket.

You know, I'm sure that the case will get discounted.

Right.

So for boring.

Anyway we've talked about the caliber of candidates in our federal parliament and

the liberal party is without confirmed candidates in Hughes, Gilmore, Bennelong

Dobell McQuarrie paramedic, green lion, Eden Monaro, and indeed bell on the new

south Wales central coast dire straits.

Is that your territory?

Morrison is backing Pentecostal preacher Jamaima glean.

In what multiple state officials described as I captain's pick that

continues to deadlock the negotiations.

So fear not Ms.

Gleason is a worship leader with the hope unlimited church and she is Mr.

Morrison's preference over cardiologists.

Michael Fennelly has got the boxing backing of moderate

and conservative leaders.

So so yeah, Scott Morrison is trying to work in some of his favorite picks and

it said here a federal source said Mr.

Morrison is not seeking a captain's pick in die bill.

And the prime minister has never spoken to Ms.

Gleason.

Well, he doesn't have to knowing that she's a worship leader with

the high-fat limited church.

I've never met in displacing, but I can tell you a lot of Ms.

Gleason already I'd have to meet her.

She's a Pentecostal preacher called Jamaima Gleason and a worship leader.

Funnily enough, I've got a pretty good idea.

And we go, yep.

Okay.

Now there was an interesting interview with Is going in the UK parliament

was the former speaker Berkow Berko.

And if you'd ever seen sort of question time in UK parliament, you would have seen

this guy he's no longer in the parliament.

I don't think as the speaker, but I've got what he had to say.

So he's talking about Boris Johnson and what you've got when you're

listening to him, talk about Boris Johnson, ask yourself, could this

be said about Scott Morrison.

Here we go.

Person who is in charge of the ship is regarded as a serial

assembler as an a bitch.

You a liar as somebody who has made his career through ducking and dodging and

diving dissembling and deceiving people.

That's the difference.

And that is why it is so incredibly serious and enormously damaging.

I'm sorry to say it, but I ran 12 prime ministers in my lifetime and by a

country mile, Boris Johnson is the worst.

His natural instinct is not to be open, not to be transparent, not to be

accountable, but narcissistically to think what suits me, how can I extricate

myself from this awkward situation?

By what means can I aggregate blame somewhere else?

Apply that to a number of people just insert nine there.

So seems to be current right-wing politics.

Yes.

English speaking states.

Yes.

That's what we've been lumped with.

So so that was him now.

I was talking to my next door neighbor and he you know, is a traditional liberal

five-time and we have great discussions and we're discussing the pros and cons

of Morrison and Albanese and he said, oh, Albanese, he's just an old lefty.

You know?

These, these guys don't change.

And I, I said to him, name me one policy.

What's the most left-wing policy that Alvin EASI has that Scott

Morrison does not also support.

And this guy is quite, well-read very smart, like w and he couldn't answer.

He said, I have to get back to you.

Like, this is the thing.

People get impressions about people.

And, and when they give you an argument like that, it's, it's really, sometimes

when people fire hose you with a bunch of things, side of them, what's the best one.

Like you've just said a thousand things in one sentence, what's your

strongest, best argument for something.

And if I deal with that, then you know, the rest of it Paul's white,

but often of people are having a bit of a rant about something.

If you really put it on them and say, 9 1, 1 policy.

Because let's face it every time that liberal comes out with some

statement at the moment or in the last three years, labor just agrees

how hardly with whatever it is.

They are so determined to be a small target that I just can't just can't think

of anything that they have stood up for.

And, and I was genuinely curious, like it just nine, one thing that

you think is left wing that Albanese stands for and he couldn't name it.

So if you're having arguments with people or discussions, then try that tactic.

I would hope workers' rights, but you know, but it's not

a specific policy, is it?

No, you can't, you can't think of that particular thing.

So so, and just in terms of the other arguments, if you're having with people

about, you know, if you're not arguing over COVID and you've moved on to,

on to just politics in general, every Christmas with your favorite relatives,

and you've had a few too many drinks and your right wing uncle is just going off

about that high taxing labor government, then introduce them to this concept.

So The government has sought to paint the opposition as the party of high taxes.

But according to the labor is the coalition, his track record on taxes

fall short shadow treasurer, Jim charmers tweeted whenever treasury,

Josh Frydenberg bangs on about tax.

Remember that the two highest taxing governments of the last 30 years

have both been liberal national governments, including his, and

the question is, is that correct?

That the two highest taxing governments in the last 30 years have been liberal

national governments, including the current defined highest taxi

we'll get to that, is he correct?

And in this article from the IVC, they had a little fact checking sort

of thing that they did and their response was the claim is a fair call.

Tax revenue, as a share of the economy was highest under prime minister.

John Howard next was the current coalition government elected in 2013, then the Hawke

Keating government, and then Rodan Gilad.

So but direct comparisons are complicated.

So the introduction of the federal goods and services tax the GST in 2000,

that distorts things a bit because.

The federal government said we'll collect, we'll collect GST in return for state

governments, not collecting a bunch of other taxes, sales taxes, for example.

So, so the GST sort of artificially bumped up what the federal government

got prior to the GST years also that tax figures are subject to factors

beyond the control of governments, including resource prices, for example.

So so yeah, in assessing it, they've, they've looked at the Australian federal

government's tax take as a share of GDP.

That's how they've ranked the government's total tax received as

a share of gross domestic product.

That way you can deal with the economies that are getting larger over time.

So the problem with that measurement is that in, for example, the Howard

Costella years, there was a mining boom, where resource prices skyrocketed,

and as a result, the governments tax take on those resources skyrocketed.

So one of the reasons why Howard and Costello's government was the

highest tax in government wasn't because they actually write.

Texts percentages, but it's just that the resource boom was so big

that they collected all of these tax money from resource companies.

And they took it right at tax time.

So, so when you are having your argument, you have to concede, okay, the GST

effected things, introducing it increase the federal government's texting.

And there are things beyond the government's control that

affect it's textile like price of resources, but on the other.

But that's why, you know, when you talk about, well, was a government high

taxing or not, there are things beyond their control, but if you just want to

go with the actual statement of a high tax in government the tax collected as

a percentage of GDP how to Castillo, where the highest the current government

started in 2013 and second, then it's all CADing and then it's rod Gilad.

So do you have any idea that would be the case shine?

No, but I'm, I'm glad, right?

So I'm not even glad about it because to some extent you could

argue, well, Texas should be higher.

Like there's not enough tax.

Like you might as a lefty argue that for example.

But I'm curious where the burden of the tax is lying, correct.

It's just a total tax collected.

So it's corporations resources during.

A coalition governments that falls more proportionately on the middle and lower

classes than during labor governments.

Yes.

Although again, when you look at Howard and Costello, he is as, as

Paul Keating said about Costello, he was kissed on the ass by rainbow.

Like the, just the money was flowing in from the resources that

personal income tax rates could be cut because of that resource.

Boom, that, so everybody got, you know, middle and lower classes got tax breaks.

The problem was it's the higher income levels also got tax breaks

and, and, and those breaks have been kept in place even when the

resource boom stopped and we arguably needed more money for other things.

So so yeah, it's it's complicated, but it's also a fun thing to do if

you want to poke fun at a sort of your right-wing uncle, he talks about the

high taxing, loving labor governments.

Try that one around the kitchen at the dinner table when the Turkey served

and and just say, Hey, fun fact, everybody who recommends the highest

tax in government in the last 30 years checked by the left leaning ABC.

So it doesn't matter if it's fake news.

Yeah.

But the fact that you can actually deal with it's total tax collected GDP, it's a

pretty it's one you can actually measure.

So so yeah, I like that one.

All right.

Now, did you guys see Samantha Kerr, the soccer player at

all with her hip and shoulder?

You probably haven't seen it.

Well, didn't mind nifty clips that I've got here.

I can show it to you.

So so you want to be out?

Well she is our best female soccer player and, and this was her

and a match with a pitch invade.

I came onto the field.

So check this.

and she's playing a soccer match fits in five accounts on just the layout.

Obviously it's geared off and he's got his phone out.

He's taking a selfie of himself.

He's taking his time getting off.

And Samantha has just come in from the side with the hip and shoulder

and knocked him onto his back.

So I heard the reaction there.

This is interesting shy because Sam, Kerr's knocking this according

to an article from Michael Bradley and crikey Sam Kerr's knocking down

male entitlement raises ethical questions, but feels so right.

Sam Kerr, Taka team, captain executed a perfect hip and shoulder drop on a

pitching Vader putting anomalies ass and earning a standing ovation from the crowd.

She also got a yellow card by the way for that presumably full on gentlemen.

The writer says, I imagine many people shared my immediate reaction, give

her a metal micro strain of the year, a good old fashioned data argue.

Could anything be according to our cherished self image,

Australian, but violence is bad.

Always.

What if she'd been a bloke in that pitching Vader or a woman all hell

would be breaking loose right now?

These points are not illegitimate, nor is it wrong per se, to watch the video

of curd delivering her Kuda CRA to the smirking fool and feel unalloyed joy.

The standard ethical position on violence, whether retaliatory righteous

or not is that it is unjustifiable except in either self-defense

or defense of the defenseless.

Otherwise violence is reserved exclusively to the state,

which defends us collectively.

Once we begin allowing for exemptions or exceptions to the slippery slope,

ah, the slippery slope runs all the way down to the gladiatorial

equivalent of love island.

Then however, there are Nazis and can be controversial, but in my

view, well justified argument that it is always okay to punch them.

The basis for that principle is essentially look what happens when you

don't the motivations and impacts of your average football pitching Veda are a

long way from genocidal totalitarianism.

So it's difficult to find a general principle which supports Curtis.

She wasn't in any personal danger, nor was anyone else there was security

albeit less effective than her.

And the only immediate downside risk was delay of the game.

So I want someone who is, I know someone who is on the wrong

end of one of those, right?

There was a Brisbane, Sydney footy match, I think, at the Gabba.

And he rang it up, ran on during one of the during the match.

He was pissed and tackled one of the Sydney players who put him

in his place and he was there probably arrested and charged.

Right.

Okay.

So in that case, it was the pitch invader who tackled a player and the player then

retaliated by doing what, by thumping him.

This was a mate of yours, a former colleague.

Right.

So he was, he was young drunk and stupid.

Right.

It was kind of a lesson learned.

Yeah.

I sort of, I was interested in the sort of gender lens.

So I had tried to have a poke around to see what stats of men running onto the

field versus women running onto the field.

I couldn't find anything, but there's certainly plenty of cases

of women getting on fields as well.

So not sure that running onto a field is about male entitlement.

I think the reason that people love it and even I've watched it 15 times is

more like, I kind of say it as a almost underdog sort of clap down where yeah.

She it's like YouTube is just full of these types of videos where

someone gets put in their place.

And I know that there's yeah.

I think putting a gender lens on it might be over-analyzing it.

I'm trying to justify it because obviously you look at it and you just want to go.

Yep.

That is the right.

There's nothing wrong with that.

And I think my justification is that it wasn't actually a violent act.

Like what was that?

Was he seriously?

He dusted himself off and off.

He went.

So, I mean, there's a risk that he was, you know, had an eggshell

skull and could a dog or something.

But I mean, at the end of the day, it just wasn't a violent act.

I think, I think calling that a violent act is either stating

it and essentially it was like a parent smacking a two-year-old he's

just having a tantrum in a sense.

It don't see it as a violent act.

So I think that's where I can justify it and saying good on you.

Whereas if a big beef.

120 grand footballer shoulder charged or hip charged a female 70 kilos.

You know, I think, I think then the risk that C could have actually broken

something would be much higher and general risk of you got to see as the

genuinely more violent if they picked them up and just carried them off the

pitch as if they were a naughty child.

Would you object to that?

If the security did?

No.

No, no.

If the player, so if, if, if, if some, the beefy footballer picked

up, I a 70 year old female carried her off the field, a pitcher Vader,

no, I wouldn't have a problem with that because that's what sometimes

security guards have to physically do.

So just be you know, you'd recommend against it because

you might get injured doing it.

Like Terry alderman was a cricketer in Australia who tackled a pitch invader

in a cricket match and he busted his shoulder and was out of action for a

long time and affected his bowling.

I think almost for the rest of his career.

Like it was quite a significant injury for him because he tackled the guy, say

to apply, you'd say, don't do it because.

Tackling somebody might hurt yourself.

I'm sort of contradicting myself there because if you admit that

then maybe her giving a hit and Sheldon might've injured that guy.

Anyway, I think that risk is so low.

That good honor.

I think showing any thoughts for the system, was that okay for that to happen?

Think about the context.

As part of my research on women running on fields, they're mainly streaking.

Another reason why a male footballers shouldn't touch them,

but the reaction is quite different from the crowd as well.

And they seem to be fairly compliant when security sort of surrounds.

What's a blanket on them,

the punch, the punching Nazis.

On the other hand, I do have a problem with I do as well because the definition

of Nazi seems to be very loose and now seems to be anybody I disagree with.

And I don't know, what's a punching now, ah, that is that if somebody

was at a rally or something, and there was somebody stood up and made

all these sort of pro Nazi comments, it would be okay to punch them.

You know, some of these obvious there was, there was a Neo Nazi leader in

America who was being interviewed on TV and somebody walked up in the

street and punched him in the face.

Yeah.

And there was a meme that went around on that saying it's

always okay to punch a Nazi.

Yeah.

But then I've heard the term Nazi banded around and arguments

against everybody and anybody.

So by the, as soon as you say, it's okay to punch a Nazi, you're basically

saying it's okay to punch anyone.

Yes.

Yeah.

Time.

And you know, there's a difference between punching somebody in the

face and her giving this guy hip and shoulder wary lens on the ground.

The punch is differently violent.

The other one, not so much.

The other thing that happened once a few years ago was the egg boy.

I remember there was a politician and egg boy came along and cracked an egg guy,

raised his head and he wanted, I mean, Stuart, Robert or somebody like that.

And lots of people were like, good on egg boy.

Like that was okay.

But now that wasn't something that was going to harm you, but

what's that it was just a yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks Jay.

But you know, that was unacceptable because the guard was in a

mess, then covered in an egg.

Like he couldn't just dust himself off and keep going.

And he had an invited, a pitch and asked for trouble, like he was just conducting

it, press conference at the time.

So quite different in that, in my opinion, Right.

And you could argue with similar, the, the, the lots of

people said good on egg boy.

He was a bit of a hero to people and yeah, wasn't the

politician sort of Pauline Hanson.

Escalade.

Yes.

So everyone hated the politician.

And so they felt like a bit like a Nazi.

You could throw an egg at this person, but at the time we sort of said,

well, no, that's not on, but yeah.

So they were just conducting their affairs, Fraser running.

Thank you.

Fraser writing.

Thank you, Julia.

I got egged.

Yup.

So yeah, he hadn't invited a pitch and done anything wrong.

He was just minding his own business sprouting, his usual nonsense and yeah.

The people who were in favor of a boy and that it was a good thing really

needed to think harder about again, what if it was a female politician?

Who'd and some big burly guy had crushed an egg on her head.

Maybe they might've thought the same thing.

So, yeah.

Alright.

That same Kerr, that's an interesting conundrum.

Ah, here's a depressing one for you.

I think I've got this one on I've gone to town on video clips.

Here's one for you.

It's got sort of strange background to it.

So what you saw there was about a skin to cash at the front.

What you saw there was about eight people on a basketball.

I know it's maybe it's an ice hockey arena and they're on carpet and

there's all this money and they are grabbing obviously thousands of notes.

They're stuffing them into their shirts and it's, you know, it's

obviously some sort of competition grab as much money as you can.

And whatever you can grab, you can keep, but the twist and the title of

this one deal listener in his dash for cash, they're actually teachers on their

knees fighting for $1 bills that they could use in a classroom for supplies

while spectators watch and cheer.

Oh, what's, what's a marathon, man.

The devil is similar, seen in marathon man to die.

I'm Steve.

No, no, no.

Stephen King it was one of the Stephen King films where basically it

was just anything for entertainment and they were murdering each other.

It was, it was gladiator.

It was fight to the death, but it was the fact that American entertainment

is getting to the point where.

Basically, we're going to have people killing each other for money, just

for entertainment, squid game, but actually televised sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you ever see marathon man shine?

No, don't go before going to a dentist.

There's this, there's a scene where he gets tortured by dentist.

It's horrendous.

It's horrendous.

You'll just squirm.

It's awful.

Anyway well it's good with saying I recommend it.

So yeah, that was a picture dear listener of about eight different teachers

on their hands and knees scrambling around grabbing dollar bills, starting

them into their shirts so that like, you'd use it for classroom supplies.

All the audience watched him.

You.

Yeah.

Running man.

Mel says, Joe, there we go.

Alright.

Martin, remember our stance issue with the satanic temple where we created a

satanic stamp Australia post knocked us back and said, we couldn't have it.

Even though they agreed that we could have a new church of Christ

stamp, we just couldn't have a noose of temple of sight and stamp.

And beginning in the end, we decided not to pursue it at this stage because

we just didn't have the energy.

But next year we might order some stamps and good our loins and run with it.

Let's see what else.

But in America, they have a similar thing, customized stamps.

And there was an artist who won a legal battle with the post office.

So the artist wanted to print a stamp that had some sort of political message on it.

It had a painting that featured the words.

Democracy is not for sale, and it showed uncle Sam being strangled by a snake,

bearing the name of citizens United.

So I referenced to a Supreme court ruling that revoked limits on

political donations from corporations.

And there we go.

He took it to court and the court found in his favor.

So so that was an American customized stamp, free speech issue with

some similarities to what we were trying to do within this template.

Satan.

So there we go, right.

Do this.

Now this could be the last podcast for the year I suspect.

And look, I don't mention it enough.

I should, because there may be more people would sign up and do it, but we have

patrons out there who have gone to the website, iron fist velvet glove.com today.

Probably the first time.

I've mentioned that in all year, I really need to do a bit more

self promotion on these things.

So we have a website, you can go there, you can find all that old episodes and

you can find the IFPG secular index.

Whereas you can look up any federal politician and find

out what religion they are.

If it's publicly known and also a writing about their secularity.

And you could leave a SpeakPipe message.

If you are land hard and bottom, you could click on that and leave a

recorded message, which is possible.

So, and the other thing you can do is you can click on the link

and become a donor to the show.

So I subscribed to a number of different publications.

Let me just see if I've got this handy.

Cause I didn't have this ready, but I might be able to find it.

So there's the hosting of the website.

There's the media file that has to be hosted.

There's this nifty restrain thing that we're using, but you can see the

chat room and we can play these clips.

There's a descript software that cuts out the ums and ours there's subscriptions

to the guardian crikey an RSS feed up the Australian I've actually paid for

the Sydney morning, Herald the Korean mile, New York times per episode, it's

costing about 80 Australian dollars.

By the time you add up all those subscriptions.

So there's some patrons who contribute one or two or five or $10 per episode.

And if you'd like to become one, that would be great to help me

pay for some of these expenses because as you can see, they add up.

So I'm going to call out the names of the people who have been supporters.

Can you believe it?

I think we've only lost a couple over the last 12 months, even though I never

mentioned their names, they stay in.

So thank you.

I really appreciate it to the following patrons.

And by the way, this was updated from patrial on this morning.

And if I don't call your name, that it could be that your, and you think

you're a patron, it could be that your credit card was declined and your

payments haven't been coming through.

So if you think you're a patron on Patrion and I don't mention your name, hop on

there and update your credit card, please.

So I'm going to start with the most recent patrons and then work our way to

the ones who've been around the longest.

So thank you to say thank you to warehouse guy, Tom Ricco, Greg P.

William Halley Dawn to the Daniel Flanagan, MedWatch

SU crib, James Branwin wine.

David Hanby Virgil Craig, Shane Ingram, yam yam Ballou, Zam buck, David

Copeley grime Hannigan yet another Pinker fan John in dire straights,

Donnie Darko, Camille, Tom Doolan.

Paul wiper.

Hello, Paul.

Haven't heard from you.

Are you back in Brisbane yet?

And let's catch up.

Alexander Allen Clinton rigs, Matthew Craig S professor, doctor dentist,

Len bell, Adam priest, Marie wiper.

Andy Daylin, captain doomsday he'd to speak is Daniel Curtin, Leah McMahon,

Dominick Damascene medic man Pele.

Ron went.

Thanks Brahman.

You've been a patron since 2nd of June, 2018.

Kane Jimmy sparred is back Jimmy's back.

He was a patron.

He disappeared.

Now he's working again.

Tiny wool, Steve Shinners.

Alison, are you in the chat room?

Thank you, Alison and beat a patron since December, 2017.

Uh, Yama.

Why?

No, Craig glad SPE do know Louise and the original, the one the

only going all the way back to the 5th of February, 2016, Sean.

Thank you, Sean.

And there are some people whose support via by via PayPal rather than Patrion.

And that is Mr.

Anderson madman.

Mr.

T.

Paul Evans, Wayne seaman, and raid a bread, a postcard Rica, Darren Giddens.

And what Lee and red Clark and Dave is from Cairns.

Thank you.

It is appreciated.

There are some shows and some podcasts where they rattled

through those nines every week.

And I think it sort of puts people off in my water fast forward.

So you are unsung heroes.

And even though I don't mention it very often, thank you very much.

And if you'd like to become a patron hop on and and do that, that'd be good.

So, all right.

Okay.

Right now, Mel Jay says updating credit card excavation there.

We're good.

Okay.

Here we have the smoking ban in New Zealand.

Yeah.

What I say basically that they going to pass a law that passed

it preventing Kiwis born from 2011 onward from ever buying tobacco.

It will be come a fence to sell or supply tobacco products to

anyone aged 14 or under when the legislation kicks in from 2025.

And they're also going to Wiccan weaken the nicotine content.

So you know, in 2050, they're going to say, you want to buy.

I'm sorry, you're younger than 39.

We're not going to give you a pack of cigarettes, but you might there who's 40.

We'll let him buy it.

Like the, Tetes find it thoughts on whether this is a good idea or not.

It's been suggested that this is the fairest way to ban smoking is to figure

out a demographic that aren't yet smoking that aren't yet hooked and make it illegal

from that demographic onwards shine.

Is it a lawyer pass?

If you're yeah.

Yeah.

I actually suggested this ages ago and it was my son who found the article

and said, look, dad, the finally did what you suggested years ago.

It's going to be, it's going to be a little bit tricky a little bit tricky

because tourists, like, I suppose they could lose a lot of tourist trade, but if,

and you just get you cigarettes duty gray, if you're going to get through all the

NACARA and then your holiday, that's true.

You could bring in your own cigarettes.

That's true.

That's answers that I would imagine.

Probably not.

Yeah.

So they're going to say at the.

If you're a distant 18 year old and you've come in from some cigarettes, then they're

just going to let you come in with them.

Is it, is that what you're saying?

It's cause it's not going to be illegal to possess them.

It's just going to be illegal to sell or buy them.

Correct.

There we go.

That answers that.

Okay.

That solves, that, that strange thing is, and they're going to sort of

weaken the nicotine content as well.

And the strange thing is that it's not going to fake vaping, so they're

still gonna allow people to Vipe.

Yeah.

And the question is how vaping is very much aimed at a younger demographic,

especially with all the flavors.

So yeah, I I'm sorry to interrupt, but there was a good interview by, I think

the man who has been putting forward this policy is the professor of public

health at the university of Auckland.

And he did a very good interview where he said that it's recently

been a study come out that says 25% of young people, something vaping.

And that that research has been, it was very poorly designed and he wouldn't

bank any sort of serious factual evidence from that study at all.

And that primarily what they're seeing is that vaping is used

as an aid to give up smoking.

And I see it as less harmful than cigarettes smoking.

Very good.

Didn't see that.

But anyway, so public, so you could Google him.

That makes, cause it just didn't make sense.

I didn't understand why they had to let vaping out.

So there you go.

Ricky, Ricky and the chat room says, great idea.

Can we do it for religion?

If only dire straits is trouble is prohibition never works.

I don't think it will work.

Sadly.

It's going to make it difficult for people to get hold of it.

It depends what, what you're looking for as a result.

Doesn't it say it doesn't work.

Yeah.

I'm in this concern about the long-term health risks of vaping.

And if it's used as a stop gap for cigarettes, it's probably not bad,

but if the tobacco companies are using it as a revenue filler to ma

to make up for the revenue loss from cigarettes, then that's a good turn.

I guess I can always watch it, see what happens.

And if vaping sort of takes over as a substitute, then I could do something

about it and just own that as well.

The supply of nicotine over here is now illegal to import because

people were buying it from an Zed.

Right.

You now need a doctor's script to get nicotine.

So if you're vaping, it's nicotine free.

Ah, okay.

Right.

No that there we go there.

Okay.

Let's do it in the chat room, says have a read of John Safran's new book puff piece.

It looks at vaping, the cigarettes and finds big tobacco

has their hands all over it.

Yeah.

So I'm sure they do.

Anyway, but then I'm sure that medical professional had some valid

reasons for it in New Zealand.

So interesting to see where that ends up.

I think crikey article, I've got a link here to, to while

since I read it was against it.

Saying that basically we've texted people as much as we can.

My dad was a smoker, but he quit cold Turkey.

When packets of cigarettes reached a dollar, a packet,

he said, that's outrageous.

I'm not paying that.

And he stopped at that point.

I gave up when I was on a training course in Belgium and

I ran out of English cigarettes.

Right.

And I couldn't smoke the Belgium ones.

They were disgusting.

They, again, I gave up shy.

Are you a smoker at any point?

Yeah, this is the pandemic.

It

relieves pressure on my lungs.

All right.

How old were you when you started?

14.

There we go.

It's saying a law like this presumably would have made difficult for you to

get a hold of cigarettes unless you had older brothers and sisters or

friends who could have supplied you.

I started smoking at 10 and it definitely wasn't legal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess it just gets progressive.

The point is it will just get progressively harder and harder.

Okay.

In the first few years, as a 14 year old, it's easy for your 16 year old

mates to get cigarettes and to supply.

But 15 and 20 years later, a 14 year old can't get their 16 year old

friend to buy-in for them is going to have to some 40 year old to do it.

He's going to say piss off, like, and the big leap all we had was the cafe

that was, I don't know, a mile down the road, had a vending machine in the lobby.

Right.

And of course it doesn't ask for proof of age.

Yes.

Presumably vending machines are no longer allowed anywhere.

So, alright.

Smoking rates just out of interest Australia, smoking lights are smoking

rights, a low by global standards at 10%.

He countries have squeezed smoking lower than that.

New Zealand is aiming for 5% by 2025.

So there's a chart there.

I don't know if you've got that one gel on smoking rights globally.

I don't want to be able to put this one up myself.

Hang on a second.

Oh, actually hang on.

Yeah, I've got that one.

There we go.

The big pink line is Spain.

19.8%.

Astonia Luxembourg Finland, 12% Australia, 10.3, New Zealand, 9.4

Canada, 9.1, Norway nine and Iceland 7.3.

So international smoking rates.

Okay.

Oh, hi.

It's smoking rates are falling in Australia.

Still.

The pandemic has accelerated the, the trend because smoking is for many, a

social activity, not being able to go to the pub meant fewer chances to smoke.

Quitting smoking has been like baking sourdough, a trend of the pandemic.

Are you baking sourdough as well?

Okay,

there we go.

All right.

It was basically another chart here that shows that smoking

rates have declined significantly.

Actually put that one up if I can put that one up.

So back in the two thousands, the smoking rates look to be around

20 to 23% to just over 10%.

Now that's a big drop.

Excellent.

So the fallen smoking rights has been acute enough.

That major supermarkets are calling out the impact of

cigarette sales on their revenue.

So tobacco use is in free fall already without having to rely on a band

that could create opportunities for organized crime and unfair employment.

According to this article and crikey, that is a significant decline.

According to that chart in smoking rates from 2000 year, 2000, it was 20 to 22%.

Now just over 10.

That's a lot.

It's interesting.

It was from crikey.

What else we go in?

Okay.

Now the topic, how are we going for time?

Right.

We've got shy out of the shark tank already with a three minutes ago.

Joe, you would have heard of birds.

Aren't real.

Like I have heard of birds.

Aren't real.

They're actually government drones that are monitoring everybody.

Yes.

And you would have heard of the story, cause it would be up your

alley of the thought this is a, of the tech guy sort of story.

True.

So there's this, I love conspiracy theories and the wackos that follow them.

Yeah.

So in Pittsburgh, Memphis, Tennessee, and Los Angeles, massive billboards

recently popped up declaring birds.

Aren't real.

And on Instagram and tick-tock birds, aren't real accounts have racked up

hundreds of thousands of followers and YouTube videos about it have gone viral.

So it's all connected to a gen Z field conspiracy theory that posits that

birds did not exist in our really drone replicants installed by the

us government to spy on Americans.

So hundreds of thousands of young people who joined the movement wearing

birds, aren't real, t-shirts swarming rallies and spreading the slogan.

So it might smack of Q Anon except the creator of the movement and

its followers in on the joke.

Imagine that a political movement that's in on a joke anyway.

So it's a parody social movement with a purpose.

And essentially the guy who started it was watching some Trump rally, I think.

And he thought these guys are just nuts.

This is crazy.

And he just grabbed a sign and just wrote what came into his head, which was birds.

Aren't really.

It's just started marching up and down the street.

Cause he was like, if people can coming out with a rubbish,

these people are coming out with all the state birds aren't real.

And anyway, he was sorta videoed on and a YouTube video went viral and then

he and his mate went well, he's a gig.

And I sort of milked it for as much as they could and started selling

t-shirts and the actually remained in character saying genuinely

of course birds aren't real.

And but in recent times they've had to admit openly that of course birds

are real and this is a satirical movement just to demonstrate the

knotty conspiracies that are out there.

So you've heard of Poe's law.

Yes.

Cause you've told us this is the one there's nothing you could say.

So crazy that I, something about Christie's the creationist couldn't

say it or something like that.

Is that it?

Basically?

Yes.

And have you seen behind the curve yet?

No, it's brilliant.

It's up on Netflix.

Eighties, a documentary who very respectfully went and talked

to a bunch of creationists and their experiments to prove.

And a lot of creation is flat earthers and they're prove the earth is flat.

And it's the fact that they perform these experiments and come out with the exact

answer that you'd expect if the earth was round and it's, they're explaining

away of these results that somehow the experiment had been performed wrong.

It couldn't possibly be that they were wrong when the

earth was round the experiment must've been done wrong somehow.

And it's this mindset of how, even when presented with evidence, people

will justify, they will rationalize their rationalize of where the

evidence to square with their beliefs rather than change their beliefs.

Yup.

Yup.

Melon and chat room talking about birds.

Aren't real says I knew it was a piss take when the apostrophe was used correctly.

What are you doing now?

Are you and Ricky, just sitting back with a beer, just watching the shower.

Are you, is that what's happening there that you too okay.

Shy.

I don't get this one.

Did you want to skip out Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of

theranostics and this whole story?

Was it when you wanted to do talk about, or do you want they're an

OSCE just to give that background is this young woman who she's part

of the Silicon valley and she did a startup where she well, it's not yet.

But I think she pretended that you'd had this amazing scientific discovery where

she could do blood tests, just take a drop of blood and it's been no, not COVID

whole thing, diabetes, a whole, she said this one drop of blood could accurately

test for a whole range of diseases.

I'm not sure, but I do remember the hype.

Yes, it didn't work.

So she got funding from people like Rupert Murdoch, a whole

range of wealthy benefactors.

She had very influential people supporting her and then it started

to become clear that it didn't work.

And how she's mounting her defense is she is saying that her boyfriend at

the time was using coercive control.

She, that she is just a victim in a coercive controlling relationship.

And I just wanted to.

As a woman just sort of call that out.

We cannot be pushing for seats at the table as leaders, as entrepreneurs.

And then as soon as the going gets tough, say he made me do it.

It's buying into the sexist rhetoric that we can't be cutting.

We can't be strategic.

We can't be, you know?

Yeah.

Is her name Gladys wanting to, I just wanted to put that forward,

hopefully in a constructive way, just as I'd expect any bloke to call

to account these sorts of things.

Yeah.

We're another bloke.

Okay.

So that's kind of a little bit in line with, or similar to the politician, Alan

Tage and his mistress, who was like a staffer who, who basically said are,

you know there was a power imbalance and I knew he was married, but I ended

up having an affair with him and, and she sort of excused herself because

of a power imbalance that was there.

Did you hear that one or that story?

There was the power imbalance woman.

There wasn't a parent balance.

She was the same.

It's been widely covered.

It's been very well investigated.

People raise the alarm with her on a number of occasions.

It was at the helm of this debacle where, whereas that other, a woman, she

was constrained by a power imbalance.

She may not have had the conditions where her choices were made,

where they made as freely.

I'm not sure actually liking it more to what's happened with Gladys, Gladys.

It's just, you know I w wanted to give her a fair game before, because you know,

she's a woman and I'm biased, but when all the recordings came out, I just thought

she had, she's taking the piss here.

Big time playing into this thing.

Finances fell in well as though she's not canning, she's not strategic as though she

wasn't, you know, potentially in on it.

It's not possible.

No, no, no.

She wasn't in love because she, she denied it being anything more

than a fuck buddy relationship.

I just think it takes.

Y it's a very costly case.

It's a very costly argument to make for these seats, that these important

tables that we be of entrepreneur and leadership material, and then at the

first sign of trouble, it's his fault.

Okay.

So just getting back to the, okay.

So I, okay.

I can see the distinction between the Allen Taj case.

I give you that, but accepting that distinction, I'm just a little bit

uncomfortable with her saying there was a pallet, a power imbalance on the victim

here, but she knowingly had an affair with a man who she knew was married and

it was kind of like, can you really fight?

You know, like I can, there might've been a pairing balance, but you went and had

a family, the man that he was married, like some, it was almost like she could

say, Aw, I'm, I'm the victim here because of the parent balance without, without

taking any responsibility for knowing the God was already hitched up and

hadn't yet exited his first relationship.