News That's Fit To Punt - 08/Nov/2016

On Political Correctness

Don Watson was on Q&A and summed up what the majority of intelligent people think.

Of political correctness, Watson said: "I hate political correctness. I hate anti-political correctness more, though, and I'm much more suspicious of it. It's nearly always an agenda underneath it. So it is the quintessential vexed question and the reason I gave up dinner parties."

This is pretty much it. Unfortunately the solution with dealing with political correctness isn't the kind of harsh reactionary bullshit peddled by those who declare themselves to be anti-political-correctness, but to take it case by case and use discernment and judgment - which is a lot more tedious and boring a task, and hence the retreat from dinner parties.

I don't think the advocates of political correctness correctly understand how idiotic it is to push a one-size-fits-all language experiment as if it deals with the nuances of the world. I don't think the anti-political-correctness groups understand how they too ignore the nuances of what they say. It is like two tone deaf parties trying to shout out competing songs, neither of which are well written but the yelling part seems over-rehearsed.

While we're sort of on the topic, this IPA thing is turning into bit of a joke. Their alumnus-turned-Senator James Paterson is the same idiot who mused about selling off 'Blue Poles' because it wasn't Australian enough, and the other IPA flunky Georgina Downer aren't exactly what you might call scintillating intellects. The IPA clearly is a bastion of neo-liberalist rhetoric practitioners, more than actual *thinking* as advertised by its self identification as a think-tank. This is evinced by just how predictable and monotonous are the entreaties that emerge from the IPA grandees. It has to be some kind of rort that such non-thinking can disguise itself as actual thinking and earn airtime on Q&A. It makes you wonder just how far the Right has sunk in terms of being unable to offer up a principled argument, whether it be economic or sociological. It's the same downward trend that led America to Tea Parties and Trump. Our misery it seems is to deepen further than a mere Abbott Government - the stupid is readily being embraced by the Right, all over the world. it's going to get worse before there's any recovery.

Here's the rest of it from Mr. Watson about political correctness and its strident opponents:

And of the Turnbull government's contortions over the Racial Discrimination Act and the right or otherwise to cause offence, he confessed to a confusion that seems common even to the cause of it: George Brandis.

"Brandis said everyone had a right to be a bigot and everyone has a right to be a fool. On the other hand, it's funny, because in Brandis's workplace, the mildest slur, let alone a religious or a racist slur, would have the president of the Senate pulling that person into order and ruling it out of order. He works in the safest workplace possible. I'm not sure the parliament should have other rights the rest of us don't."

That sounds about right.

George Christensen Is Still Stupid (And Fat!)

Speaking of safe work places...

Victorian Liberal Russell Broadbent used a speech to Parliament on Monday to express regret for not immediately criticising a speech Mr Christensen made in September, calling it a "diatribe about the rise of Islam" and accusing the Queensland National MP of "cuddling up to Hansonite rhetoric". 

"The issues swirling in our multicultural nation are for me public and passionate, but for me they are not personal," Mr Broadbent said.

"The truth is I didn't act as I should have because I am not Muslim, Chinese, Afghan or Greek looking. Not Italian, Sri Lankan or Sudanese. Not Aboriginal."

That's not all that surprising. It's all classic conservative-speak in line with Winston Churchill and all that guff. It's nothing new; this is exactly what somebody in the Liberal Party should be saying if they want to go around calling themselves the Liberal Party. While I myself am a pinko,  I'm inclined to accept an argument from a Liberal Party member citing liberal principles at face value. That should be par for the course.

Of course, George Christensen's response is as predictable as it is (pardon the pun) fatuous.

Mr Christensen hit back on Tuesday, saying Mr Broadbent was like other "politically correct hand wringers" in Parliament.

"Mr Broadbent is part of the elitist set here in Canberra that we find on all sides of politics," he wrote on Facebook.


"This is confirmed by the fact he told Parliament last night that MPs shouldn't reflect the concerns of their electors but instead should be 'leading' them.
"The last time I checked I sat in the House of REPRESENTATIVES not the House of Lords.

"This is why many people are coming to the conclusion that politics is broken: MPs of all political persuasions don't listen much at all to the public's concerns and they hardly ever act upon them." 

Mr Christen said his critics did not hear the word "radical" when he speaks against perceived threats from "radical Islam". 

"Islam is a religion and we have freedom of religion in this country. Radical Islam or Islamism is an ideology and a dangerous one at that.

"Nowhere in the speech Mr Broadbent has criticised me for will anyone find any criticism of Islam," he said.

It's astounding to see a MP talk Parliament like it's a schoolyard with bullies. Here's poor little George Christensen trying to represent his electorate of xenophobic homophobic reactionaries as he imagines all good Australians ought to be, being picked on by the big city politically correct brigade. I know philosophically - as per David Hume - an *is* does not give rise to an *ought*, but in his case we should make an exception and say he ought to give up and go home and the LNP find a better candidate, because he is a truly fatuous moron.

As I wrote above, the problem for the Liberal Party is that their future belongs to the Christensens of this world and not the Broadbents.

The Future Is Not Only Here, It Too Is Stupid

They've started counting the votes overrun the USA. It's looking like Clinton is maintaining her edge in the polls into the voting booths. I myself can't believe that too many women would want to vote for a man as contemptuous of women as Donald Trump, so that's like 50% of the vote right there! You can tell Nate Silver won't be asking me to join his team at FiveThirtyEight anytime soon.

Just how will things turn out after this irascible, execrable, awful US election? Here's a glimpse:

Politico magazine sets out a troubling scenario: "Suppose on Election Night, Pennsylvania's secretary of state announces that Clinton has won the state, and with it the presidency, but Trump says, 'Prove it.' The secretary of state responds, 'That's what the machines tell us'. Trump responds, 'Well, how do I know that the machines weren't hacked?' What is the secretary of state supposed to say then? 

"So who will resolve the conflict if Trump loses Pennsylvania and insists on seeing proof, and the state can't provide it? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, despite being dominated by Democrats? The US Supreme Court, despite being hamstrung by a vacancy and thus at risk of a 4-4 split? Congress, paralysed by partisan gridlock?"
The extent to which the GOP establishment backs any trump challenge will be the first post-election measure of how seriously the GOP establishment will be in fighting to regain control of the Republican Party. 

A natural segue from a Trump challenge to the result would be for him to assume a leader-of-the-opposition role, to become a freewheeling face and voice of all opposition to the Clinton presidency – its existence and all that she might do. 

When Trump was not running his "rigged" argument in the last days of the campaign, he was crying "constitutional crisis" – warning of back-to-back congressional committees investigating Clinton and likely efforts to impeach her. Loser Trump will be deeply conflicted – wait for the Twitter storm.

Or you know, Donald Trump could suck it up and declare himself a loser. Likely, he won't. And if he starts insisting on these kinds of recounts it's going to be more of the same hell, with no end in sight. 

I guess this is the bit where I join the chorus and say how amazing it is that American politics has come this point of immense stupor, but I don't want to go there. The Republicans had all the opportunity in the world to reform themselves with a coherent policy platform after Mitt Romney's defeat in 2012. In fact, the writing on that wall was there after Obama defeated McCain in 2008. Instead dealing with it as an anomaly, they should have engaged with the challenge as a demographic shift. That they didn't and doubled down twice (call it quadrupled down, I guess) on pretending none of it was real, has resulted in the Republican party identifying itself as the party of racists, fascists, misogynists, rapists, and disgruntled white people without a clue or an education, which is kind of sad.

Of course, this kind of politics is well on our horizon as well. The stupid is heading our way like a wayward iceberg, ready to sink our little ship Democracy.

News That's Fit To Punt - 07/Apr/2015

RBA Doesn't Cut Interest Rates

It's amazing how a non-news makes the news. The RBA did not cut official interest rates and so the share market went into a bit of a spin. You can read the statement they issued but a non-change should mean no news, but here we are.

Fear of fuelling the Sydney and Melbourne real estate markets appears to have trumped hope for job-seekers and borrowers across the nation with the Reserve Bank leaving the official cash rate on hold in April rather than opting for cheaper credit to spark a new round of hiring. 

But a rate cut has now become almost certain in May - just before the federal budget - after the RBA listed the pre-conditions and backed specific efforts through tougher regulation designed to "contain" house price growth being inflated by prospective landlords. 

"Growth in lending to investors in housing assets is stronger than to owner-occupiers," RBA governor Glenn Steven said in his monthly statement. 

"Dwelling prices continue to rise strongly in Sydney, though trends have been more varied in a number of other cities. The bank is working with other regulators to assess and contain risks that may arise from the housing market."

The unemployed go a mention in there. It's this traditional thing where if unemployment is too high, they cut rates in the opes that it promotes businesses to hiring people. You get the feeling that they're not hiring at 2.25%, would they necessarily hire more if the rates gets down to 2.00%? And keep in mind, at such historic lows, what kind of fragile business would it be to need 2.00% interest rates to decide, "hey, we'll hire more peeps!"?

On the other hand, the correlation between lowering interest rates and more investors entering the market is more direct; I mean, there is no cushion of business sentiment, it's straight up maths. So the equally blunt question is, what kind of investor gets into property on the basis that interest rates are at 2.00% but it's too hard at 2.25%? Equally weird as the business that can only hire at when interest rates are at 2.00% - but not necessarily symmetrical. I would dare say the investor balking at the border of 2.25% is far dogdier than the employer balking at the borderline of 2.00% and 2.25%.   

Either way, the unemployed person is like the garni du jour next to the sandwich. They can't get a job because god only knows why and until they do, they can't get into property and even then it's doubtful that they can without shouldering greater risk or higher interest rates. It simply doesn't help them in the near-, mid-, or long-term that interest rates are cut, and it can hurt them when they go up. That's a tough spot. I was thinking as I was reading the article that the CPI under-reporting has doubly hurt the unemployed because they get less dollar value from the dole than they used to, and they're further away from ever owning any assets so they're locked into being poor in the medium term if not right out to the end of their lives. 

Well done RBA! 

Ideology Gives Rise To The Thought Police

I was doing the St. Johns ambulance First Aid course last week. Every time it came to dealing with the upper torso and the inner thigh, the male instructor would lay down the fact that it would be better to find a female person to do it than doing it as a male. I get it. It might be misconstrued. So, the First Aid instructor might have had a few brushes with the gender politic thing and came off second  best, or maybe he witnessed the results of being misconstrue, but it was made absolutely clear there's a gender divide. Personally, I'd do exactly as instructed. I sure as hell wouldn't do anything that could be misconstrued and that would mean I would go look for a woman to deal with a female injured person. Vital minutes could be lost, but - fuck that - I'd rather not be misconstrued either. 

The point is, you still have to think of gender in an emergency. Why the hell would sexism ever disappear? This led me to think that even when the final bastion of sexism is destroyed, it would just get reinvented as this kind double-think. On that note, I present to you this stupid article:

Labor's health spokeswoman Catherine King attacked Senator Leyonhjelm for another of his posts in which she said he trivialised the serious issue that is breast cancer.

Under a Catallaxy Files article titled "Feel a boob day", "DavidLeyonhjelm" wrote "It's not enough to perve. Detecting breast cancer requires palpation." 

"One of the best ways to do this is to bet a woman 20 cents you can make her tits wobble without touching them. After a minute or so of close up staring at them, you grab them with both hands and make them wobble. Of course you then give her the 20 cents. It's a small price to pay for reducing breast cancer." 

Senator Leyonhjelm admitted making the second comment, saying this was a "longstanding joke" between him and his wife as it had actually happened to her in real life and urged others to see the humour. 

"At the time a guy actually did it to her, she giggled but I think I found it more amusing than she did," he said.
"Have you ever heard of FTITCTAJ? F--- Them If They Can't Take A Joke," he said. But Ms King said it was no laughing matter.

"Breast cancer is a tragic disease which takes a terrible toll on Australian women," said Ms King. 

"Every day in Australia, on average, 40 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 8 women will die of this disease. 

"I cannot comprehend how anyone could make light of this in such a degrading, and juvenile fashion.

Argh. It gives me a headache that they're arguing this in the Senate. If there's one thing worse than the doublethink necessitated by the political correctness, it's the unreconstructed sexism of older men who make no attempt to re-examne their position. 

And wowsers. 

Go On Joe, Bite The Hand That Feeds You

Down in Eden-Monaro, a famously swinging electorate, the voters have been polled and they say they are angry with tax avoidance by big corporations and are anxious about penalty rates. 

Polling obtained by Fairfax Media found more than nine out of 10 people in the NSW bellwether federal seat of Eden Monaro believe the government is not doing enough to ensure large companies pay their fair share of tax. 

The issue will take centre stage this week with the first public hearings of the Senate inquiry into tax avoidance. Representatives of Google, Apple, Microsoft, News Corp and miner Glencore are due to appear in front of the committee.

Almost 75 per cent of 707 people polled in Eden Monaro said big companies paid too little tax, while just 3 per cent said they paid too much. In launching the tax white paper process, Treasurer Joe Hockey flagged the need for a corporate tax cut to make the Australian business environment more internationally competitive.

You wonder if this message is getting to WTE Joe. After all, given how much the international miners  donated to the Coalition, you'll never be sure that the Coalition isn't a puppet for these interests.  WTE Joe is allegedly trying to get more tax out of these companies through a 'Google Tax' but it wouldn't mean much unless it was getting everybody - and by that we include Rupert Murdoch, whose Australian operations shipped 4.5billion out of Australia before tax. Will WTE have the fortitude to tax the biggest media benefactor for the Coalition. Or will he do what he did last year and go after the small fry harder while letting the big fish swim away with billions? Because being even handed with this would mean going after the very hand that feeds him and his party.