Category Archives: Cultural

Time to get serious edition

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there is a reason the Founders did not want the franchise for women

because history had taught them that men and women did think differently

men are less likely to trade freedom for security

you see that w/ every gun issue, women more than men are ready to give up the right based on the actions of one deranged person

the reason Dems like single women so much is that single women look to government for the type of support that a husband usually provides w/ children etc

the whole point of the Constitution was to limit gov, which makes the Constitution the enemy of Dems

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Is the new rule that you cannot criticise any politician if they are non-white, non-male and non-conservative?

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Let me take up from where Currency Lad left off. Kamala was chosen for racist and sexist reasons. If it was for her known position on public policy, it is beyond comprehension what exactly she stands for that Kevin Rudd would support. Go on, Kevin, tell us what those policies are. The rest of the pictorial representations of the Democrat nominee for Vice President found below come from the American website, Powerline in the latest This Week in Pictures. What’s wrong with these, Kevin? Might also mention some Australia-related themes are also found at the end.

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AND FOR OUR AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND READERS

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Essington Lewis

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This is from a fascinating article by Geoffrey Blainey in the Weekend Oz: As the Pacific theatre opened, the nation was ill-prepared. In the article he discusses Essington Lewis. This is what Blainey wrote about Lewis:

The leader of Australia’s industrial war-effort was Essington Lewis, an engineer and chief executive of BHP, whose extensive steelworks and allied factories were centred on Newcastle and Port Kembla.

Visiting Japan for a fortnight in 1934 and closely inspecting many workplaces that were out of bounds to journalists, Lewis was surprised to discover that Japan “was armed to the teeth”. In an emergency it could build 100 aircraft a day at a time when Australia had less than 50 active fighting planes.

Back in Melbourne he formed a syndicate called the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, which in 1939 built the first Australian military aircraft, a simple, lightly armed trainer-plane called the Wirraway. Later came fighter bomber aircraft that really held their own. It was remarkable that we mass-produced planes before we mass-produced cars, the first being the now-nostalgic Holden.

In 1940, Robert Menzies as prime minister had placed Lewis in charge of the nation’s industrial war-effort, and eventually a huge workforce of men and women were producing war equipment of a variety that surprised the few foreign industrialists who visited wartime Australia. Lewis, pre-modern in his business ethos, achieved this huge task without seeking payment from the government.

For five years Lewis wielded more power than the high medical officials whose diagnosis of the coronavirus pandemic we now hear each day. He shunned publicity but was known by sight to the hundreds of thousands of workers in munitions and aircraft factories and shipyards, for he inspected each site regularly and minutely.

And do let me emphasise this:

For five years Lewis wielded more power than the high medical officials whose diagnosis of the coronavirus pandemic we now hear each day.

Let me paraphrase what I take Blainey to have meant, and even if he didn’t it is what I understood.

For five years Lewis, who had spent many years at the highest levels in the private sector, wielded more power effectively and with positive purpose than the narrowly-educated and operationally useless medical officials who like the vast majority of the public sector have never spent a moment in a business environment, whose mistaken and highly damaging diagnosis of the coronavirus pandemic we now have to conform with each day much to our cost.

There is a lesson there, if only we could work out what it is.

Gender differences in the concern about the Chinese flu

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It is something I have long-suspected, that the Covid hoax is aimed at women, and this is the first inkling I have had.

Majority of Republican Men Don’t Believe Coronavirus is a ‘Real Threat’ Despite 170,000 American Deaths.

And it’s not that Democrat men are more concerned about the virus but that they understand perfectly well that the massive over-reaction to CV-1984 is about the presidential election and not public health.

Melbourne no longer as liveable as it used to be

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UPDATE: More information from The Australian:

Victoria Police have arrested a young woman not wearing a mask who refused to reveal her name and address.

Video emerged on Monday of an altercation between the woman, 21, refusing to wear a mask and a Victoria Police protective service officer on Wellington Street in Collingwood at about 5pm on Monday.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the woman was not fined because she has a condition exempting her from wearing a face covering, which she did not say to the PSO.

What is China up to?

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I am probably like many others in being unable to focus on the nature of the threat posed by China since I cannot see what is in it for the Chinese. Their own country is threatened by no one. Their leadership can remain where they are till the day not only they die, but also their children and their children’s children when they take their places among the Chinese leadership. Blather blather blather about Taiwan, but then from nowhere the pointless suppression of freedom in Hong Kong. Here, then, is a very comprehensive explanation by David Archibald: Inquiry on Trade with China which is about much more than just trade. It is only the summary but you will get the point.

Australia and China are currently in a state of undeclared war. This will switch to actual war at a time of China’s choosing. It is quite apparent that China has no intention of peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world. They have stated that themselves and in recent years have attacked most of their neighbouring countries, even Bhutan. Just because China’s war of choice will be stupid and destructive doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. It seems that the Chinese feel the need to kill millions of non-Chinese in order to be able to feel better about themselves. The fate to be avoided is the Chinese jackboot grinding into our faces forever.

Is that really it? Madness to me, but then this is hardly the first time such ambitions have led to war. This is the constellation of forces in relation to economic strength.

Whatever else may be the case, there is little doubt that the US and much of Asia are expecting some kind of struggle. The Covid has just been a warning, but this is an issue that we should all keep an eye on since there is quite a disaster that will follow if we misjudge where things are heading.

The whole world is watching

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It is astonishing that Victoria, and Daniel Andrews specifically, is now internationally famous for the approach taken to deal with CV-19: Australian State Goes Full Coronafascist. When this is all finally over Victoria will be remembered as the international low point, not just for its incompetence but for the political viciousness that was applied. While Sweden may be remembered for its light-handed approach, Victoria will be remembered for its totalitarian methods, not to mention its failures at every turn. The writer of the article is English and his article is featured on a major American website. It was also sent to me by a Canadian friend so the word is getting out. This is how the article opens which goes downhill from there.

https://twitter.com/MaherRonan/status/1291028291063885827?

From this, we come to this comment:

No, this is not a scene from a prequel to Mad Max where Australia gets taken over by fascists. This is actually happening right now in the Australian state of Victoria, under the regime of power-crazed, hard left premier Daniel Andrews. (Or ‘Kim Jong Dan’, as he is known locally.

Victoria has adopted some of the strictest coronavirus rules anywhere in the world, including an 8 p.m. curfew and police roadblocks to discourage any citizens with pesky notions about personal freedom.

Police are even allowed into your home to carry out spot checks — without a warrant and without your permission.

I’ll end with this, but do go to the link to see it all:

Here — courtesy of Lockdown Sceptics — are the new rules imposed on Victoria’s state capitol of Melbourne, to be enforced for at least the next six weeks:

  • The “state of emergency” in Victoria has been upgraded to a “state of disaster”, meaning police can now enter your home to carry out spot checks even if you don’t give them permission and they don’t have a warrant.
  • Between the hours of 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., you’re not allowed to leave your homes except for work, medical care and caregiving.
  • Outside those hours, you may only leave your home for four reasons: shopping for food and essential items, care and caregiving, daily exercise and work. “We can no longer have people simply out and about for no good reason whatsoever,” said Kim Jong Dan.
  • Daily exercise can only take place within a 5km radius of your home and cannot last longer than an hour.
  • You cannot exercise in groups of more than two, even if they’re members of the same household.
  • Apart from daily exercise, you are only allowed to leave your home once a day for essential supplies and food.
  • In the whole of Victoria, you cannot buy more than two of certain essential items, including dairy, meat, vegetables, fish and toilet paper.
  • Schools have closed again, with all Victoria school students returning to remote learning from Wednesday (except for vulnerable children and children of permitted workers). Childcare and kindergarten will be closed from Thursday.
  • Golf and tennis venues, which were open, have now been closed.
  • Weddings will no longer be allowed from Thursday, and funerals will be limited to 10 people.
  • Face nappies anywhere outside your home have been mandatory for people in metropolitan Melbourne since July 22nd, but that rule has now been extended to the entire state of Victoria.
  • You cannot have visitors or go to another person’s house unless it is for the purpose of giving or receiving care. However, you can leave your house to visit a person if you are in an “intimate personal relationship” with them, even during curfew hours. So no “bonk ban”.
  • If you have a holiday home or were planning a holiday outside Melbourne, tough cheese. You must remain in the city for the next six weeks.
  • The maximum fine for breaching a health order currently stands at $1,652, but Kim Jong Dan said he would have more to say about penalties later today, i.e. he’s going to increase them.

We’re just used to it because we live in the middle of it all. The saddest part is that others can recognise Victoria and Dan Andrews for what they are, but we for the most part cannot.

It is what it is

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TOP 25 QUOTES BY MARCUS AURELIUS (of 777) | A-Z Quotes

A comment in response to my post on The Australian is now the print version of the ABC.

I disagree Steve. The Australian is by the far the most balanced newspaper in Australia. And I saw the Swan interview of Trump – I think Trump looked like an idiot. He really has lost the plot; moreover he has destroyed the Republican brand and therefore has really been the Manchurian Candidate – the Democrat sleeper agent to tear the GOP apart. This he has done an amazing job – basically he will lead to a left wing Democratic Presidency with a Democrat majority in both the HoR and the Senate. I can’t believe you can support this man. The response to Covid has been appalling and the data shows clearly the excess deaths due to the incompetence of the Trump administration. We have had four years of idiocy and he has achieved none of the promises, which is not surprising since he stood for nothing and has no substance. All those people who wanted to take down the elites in Washington have only managed to cement them in more power thanks to their support of Trump.

You may take this comment as you find it. So far as The Oz being the most balanced of the papers, let me note that this article was in The Age: The economic crisis is still to come, and was written by our very own Sinclair Davidson. As for the C&P, this is the most “cutting edge” of the comments:

When asked, Donald ducked:

Trump: Well what’s your definition of control? Under the circumstances, right now, I think it’s under control.

Swan: How? A thousand Americans are dying a day.

Trump: They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is.

The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon:

It is what it is? You’re the President of the United States. You’re not Paulie Walnuts delivering bad news to Tony Soprano! “Sorry T, things got a little messy and, uh, it is what it is, capiche?”

I suppose what these fools were looking for is an approach along the lines taken by Daniel Andrews, such as by the Governor of New York, who sent individuals who were diagnosed with the coronavirus back into their nursing homes. But the real point is first, no one is arguing against what Trump did do, since he was early on the scene and attempted against all the opposition the Democrats could muster, to stop everything he tried to do. They were the ones inviting people to come along to Chinese New Year celebrations in February or to BLM marches just last month.

But the second part I am astonished about is that Trump actually said this:

“They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is.”

This is a comment worthy of Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism in the face of adversity is all that can sustain us.

AND LET ME CONTINUE: I wish to continue with a bit of further research since posting. On Wikipedia, I confess, but since none of this offends modern political agendas, we can probably rely on what I found.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 which happened to coincide with the Antonine Plague.

The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD, also known as the Plague of Galen (after Galen, the physician who described it), was an ancient pandemic brought to the Roman Empire by troops who were returning from campaigns in the Near East. Scholars have suspected it to have been either smallpox  or measles. The plague may have claimed the life of a Roman emperor, Lucius Verus, who died in 169 and was the co-regent of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whose family name, Antoninus, has become associated with the pandemic.

Ancient sources agree that the plague appeared first during the Roman siege of the Mesopotamian city Seleucia in the winter of 165–166. Ammianus Marcellinus reported that the plague spread to Gaul and to the legions along the Rhine. Eutropius stated that a large population died throughout the empire. According to the contemporary Roman historian Cassius Dio, the disease broke out again nine years later in 189 AD and caused up to 2,000 deaths a day in Rome, one quarter of those who were affected. The total death count has been estimated at 5 million, and the disease killed as much as one third of the population in some areas and devastated the Roman army.

Australian sinologist and historian Rafe de Crespigny speculates that the plague may have also broken out in Eastern Han China before 166 because of notices of plagues in Chinese records. The plague affected Roman culture and literature and may have severely affected Indo-Roman trade relations in the Indian Ocean.

A number of interesting parallels there, I’m afraid. There is then this on Stoicism:

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BC…. According to its teachings, as social beings, the path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand the world and to do one’s part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly.

But beyond that, there is Modern Stoicism where we find this:

 “Following nature means following the facts. It means getting the facts about the physical and social world we inhabit, and the facts about our situation in it […] before we deliberate about normative matters. It means facing those facts – accepting them for exactly what they are, no more and no less – before we draw normative conclusions from them. It means doing ethics from the facts constructing normative propositions a posteriori. It means adjusting those normative propositions to fit changes in the facts, and accepting those adjustments for exactly what they are, no more and no less. And it means living within the facts – within the realm of actual rather than hypothetical norm.” Ethical reasoning of a Stoic “cannot begin until all relevant description, representation, and prediction are in hand, […] – until, let us say, the empirical work is done.”

Or to quote another modern political philosopher, “It is as it is”, which will be the only approach for people such as ourselves for getting on with life should Joe Biden become President.