Saturday salon 30/9

1. The power of Tweet

South Australia’s Craigburn Primary School organised a Do It In A Dress fundraising drive with the aim of raising $900 to help girls in Africa who did not have access to education.

    Senator Bernardi tweeted his frustration about the idea on Wednesday by writing, “This gender morphing is really getting absurd”.

    That tweet prompted a backlash and a flood of donations and in less than 48 hours, the school had hit $200,000.

Here is the Chief Executive of the SA Education Department in a dress raising money for charity when he was in the Attorney General’s Department:

2. Tweets from angry old white men

For many it was the biggest story of the week. US rapper has been hired to perform four songs including “Same Love” about same-sex marriage.

Back in 2014 when Abbott was PM Tom Jones sang “Delilah” – about stabbing a woman who was unfaithful. He did not complain.

Now he reckons Macklemore is “bizarre”, and politicising the grand final. George Brandeis says what about free speech.

Macklemore says he is going to go harder in response to the tweets from “angry old white men”.

The real issue is that the Cowboys have been denied access to the ground for the captains run, bumped by a rehearsal.

For the record, I heard on our ABC that the fans had chosen the entertainment, and Macklemore himself is straight. Apparently the song topped the charts here in 2012, but nowhere else in the world. It’s top again now and Macklemore and the NRL have had publicity that money can’t buy.

Tony Abbott says ‘no’ voters are fighting for respect and understanding.

My view – understanding “yes” but respect “no”. Tony can express his view, but bigotry does not evoke respect.

3. Amazon is taking over the world

Here is the market capitalisation of the big four tech companies which have emerged since the GFC:

Combined they are worth more than the GDP of Italy or Mexico, and a bit less than that of France and the UK.

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, says that Amazon will win, hands down.

    After spending most of the past decade researching these companies, I’ve come to the conclusion that our fears are misplaced in focusing on what I call the Four. We should instead be worrying about the One: one firm that will come to dominate search, hardware and cloud computing, that will control a vast network of far-flung businesses, that can ravage entire sectors of the economy simply by announcing its interest in them.

    That firm is Amazon. Jeff Bezos has been disciplined and single-minded in his vision of ­investing in the most enduring consumer wants — price, convenience and selection. Coupled with deft execution, it has made Amazon the most impressive and feared firm in business.

    As for the other three, don’t be misled by their current successes. They are falling behind as the One marches ahead.

After a recent quarterly report the worst that financial pundits could come up with was that growth in the company’s cloud business had slowed to 43 per cent. He says:

    Since 2008, Wal-Mart has paid $US64bn in federal income taxes, while Amazon has paid just $US1.4bn. Yet, while paying low taxes, Amazon has added $US220bn in value to the stock held by its shareholders over the past 24 months — equivalent to the market cap of Wal-Mart.

Galloway says that Amazon is now the top recruiter of his best students.

Jeff Bezos’s main intellectual contribution to the world is as a proponent of a universal guaranteed income. He wants the government to pay people so they can buy his products and services.

4. The bellicosity of Trump and Kim Jong-Un is no joke

On Trump watch, the most disturbing piece this week was an interview by Phillip Adams of Dr Peter Hayes, who is Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at Sydney University, and Director of Nautilus Institute in Berkeley, California.

Hayes specialises in watching North Korea. He now says that the shouting match is in fact quite unprecedented, and he puts the chances of war as more likely than not.

He said such a war would be fairly short, perhaps three or four months, and the number of people killed would be roughly the same as in the Korean War of the 1950s. That had high military casualties and about 2.5 million civilian deaths according to Wikipedia. I think he said, one every two or three seconds on the average.

British think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) thinks war is a “real possibility”.

    It “will not be surgical or short,” the think tank said, and there would be “scenes of carnage.”

    Even without nuclear weapons, such a war could kill hundreds of thousands of people in a week, produce millions of refugees, and wreck the global economy.

Usually Twitter does not allow people to use its service to threaten murder and mayhem, but they made an exception for Trump because his stuff was “newsworthy”.

57 thoughts on “Saturday salon 30/9”

  1. The tweet

    Tony Abbott ✔ @TonyAbbottMHR
    Footy fans shouldn’t be subjected to a politicised grand final. Sport is sport!
    2:42 PM – Sep 27, 2017

    Which I agree with. He’s not banning anything or threatening free speech.
    But can’t he see irony of a politician lecturing a private sporting organisation on what they should or shouldn’t do ?

    Also, it gives me the irrates the symbiotic relationship that Governments and Big Sport leaches have. Virtually all the Parties are complicit and the leaches all line up.

  2. In approx. 1963 when a South African cricket team reached Melbourne on a Test tour, enthusiasts were handing out leaflets outside the MCG.

    Pro-Sth Africa:”Keep politics out of sport! Don’t boycott this cricket tour!

    Anti-Sth Africa:Keep politics out of sport! The South African Test team is selected on a racial basis. Boycott it!

    The Hungary/USSR water polo match at the 1956 Olympics became infamous. No keeping politics out of that contest. No keeping blood out of the pool.

    “Ping pong diplomacy” so-called, was a very public demonstration that US/China relations were unfreezing. before President Nixon’s visit to Beijing.

    Sir John Kerr booed (or was that boozed?) at the Melbourne Cup.

    Greek city states competing quadrennially at a little village called Olympia.

    Not much chance of separating politics and sport, Mr J.

  3. According to the story on the ABC Macklemore was selected as entertainment by the NRL by demand from the fans. Not sure what process they went through.

  4. It’ll be at half time, most will be lining up at the loo or bar anyway, it’s a nothing anyway.
    How many will change there vote in the survey one way or the other ?
    Exactly none.

  5. Can’t see Kevin Bloody Wilson being allowed to sing ‘ Living next door to Alan ‘ though even when he won an Aria for it….

  6. Jumpy, Andrew Moore on the ABC the other day had a rant about the quality of half-time entertainment at the NRL.

    On the coldest, wettest night they had a race of crawling babies, and in the last SOO in Sydney they had rugby league immortals being face painted.

    Macklemore seems a step up.

  7. Brian
    Hmm, I’d like proof of the Baby race thang.
    But either way politics should stay out of sport.
    Can we agree ?

  8. Craigburn Primary ended up raising more than $275,000.
    That’s a lot of people who really dislike Cory Bernardi and what he stands for. I’m interpreting it as a good omen for Australia.

  9. Excellent Googleing there Zoot.
    Didn’t look like the coldest or wettest or nightest judging by the pics.
    ABC bullshit again doncha think ?

  10. BilB, zoot has thrown me that gag a couple of times before.
    I feel sad you missed out on those but happy you caught this one.
    🙂

  11. Abbott’s got a hide complaining about the use of the sports platform to highlight the need for racial fairness, in another country, right after he blatantly politicised marriage equality in ours.

  12. Jumpy, you are completely missing the reality that when peoples, between whom there are significant issues, sport together with goodwill regardless, that is a political statement.

    When such goodwill fails to invoke introspection and a desire to change, that is another kind of political statement.

    When it is clear that change will never be forthcoming and injustice perpetuates, sport ceases, and that is yet another political statement.

    The only way to separate politics from sport is for there to be equality, mutual respect, and universal fairness.

  13. The only way to separate politics from sport is for there to be equality, mutual respect, and universal fairness.

    As it is and should be at all levels.
    What reality am I missing ?

  14. Well! the reality that ” equality, mutual respect, and universal fairness” is not the way things are and therefore when people choose to sport together regardless political statements are unavoidably being made.

  15. Nonsense, sport overcomes prejudice because its egalitarian.
    When it’s not it’s a Governments fault, Mr A gave examples above.

  16. So you are saying that a man whose brother was just shot in the street simply because he was black by the brother of a white man on an opposing team who did so because he knew he could with impunity, and who chooses to play despite his grief is not making a political statement, in the face of blatant inequality?

    And before you say that is ridiculous this is exactly what the knee taking is all about. Abbott is attempting to trivialise the agony of the black community in the US just as he does here. Abbot is the face of such inequality in so many ways. Its not at all surprising that he doesn’t like it.

  17. Wow, Ive no idea what the hell leaps of logic your making tonight BilB or why.
    I’ll call it over till tomorrow.
    Sleep well all.

  18. The logic you can’t cope with, Jumpy, is that the NFL league as a whole, in the spirit of egalitarianism, appreciates the rising authoritarian injustice in society and is calling it out, calling for society to live by the same spirit of equality as the league does. Taking a knee at the time of the anthem is a plea for society to live by the principles of the founding fathers and the constitution.

    That is what is so offensive to the likes of Trump and Abbott, because that is the last thing they want to do.

  19. Malcolm Roberts appears to be blaming his wife, on whom he depends, for the stuff-up in his citizenship.

    She was seriously ill at the time and was also in the US tending to her dying mother.

    OTOH, his lawyers are seriously suggesting that when he fired off a couple of emails into the ether, in his mind the matter was dealt with, and that’s all that matters.

    However, others who were citizens and just didn’t know it are in the stew, according to him.

    It takes a mind like that to think there is a conspiracy between all the climate scientists.

  20. Yes, its every body else’s fault. I wonder how his marriage is going after that line of defence. And then he seems to be using the Islamic divorce approach of emailing to his British passport “I renounce you, I renounce you,…….” , damn he should have done it three times.

  21. I was Impressed by the submission by the Greens, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters to the High Court. They prefer that the words in the Constitution mean what they say, and ignorance is no excuse:

    In their written submission to the court filed late on Thursday, the lawyers argue the Commonwealth’s claims are “not supported by the text, context, history or purpose” of the constitution. The government cannot ignore the “clear wording” of the nation’s founding text just because it is politically inconvenient, they say.

    “Ignorance or wilful blindness ought not excuse a person from the constraints of the constitution that would disqualify a more diligent or more perceptive candidate,” the submission reads.

    “In complying with obligations under the constitution, negligence should never produce a more favourable result than diligence. The referrals presently before the court fall into the category of ignorance or wilful blindness.”

  22. I agree, that is very much how it should be, and with this experience highlighting the multicultural reshaping of our society serious consideration should go in to rewording that part of the constitution to reflect the present day reality.

    In NZ for instance one only needs to be a permanent resident to vote and become a member of the government, I believe. We should be rethinking our requirements, but for the present and for the law makers themselves very specifically, ignorance should be no excuse, particularly as the government has shown callous disregard for the fates of average people, throwing them out of the country on a regular basis for their nationality and visa irregularities.

  23. Barnaby Joyce’s ignorance argument beggars belief. My father was born in the US and became an Australian citizen, but I have always known that despite that I had the right to apply for US citizenship. Now a farmer for whom the parentage details of every sheep or cow in their possession is carefully considered and documented, I find it impossible to believe that such a person would be so careless with their own details, and if such a person was so careless then should that person be in command of the destinies of other Australians?

    Barnaby’s Busted.

  24. To return to the NRL final entertainment, Turnbull came up trumps calling it a free speech issue in relation to Abbott’s gripe.

    Jumpy, what I think about politics and sport is irrelevant. I’m not going to tell NBL players they shouldn’t kneel during the national anthem.

    In this case, I don’t think the whole same-sex marriage issue is so much about politics, as Abbott and his mates suggest, rather about human rights.

    Politics is essentially the contestation for power. Abbott may see it in those terms.

  25. My view is that marriage should not be a political issue.
    None of Governments business at all.
    The prime drama is Government intrusion in the first place.
    But yet again they want coercive influence for votes.

  26. None of Governments business at all.

    That means having no laws around marriage at all. Honestly, too silly to think about.

  27. Don’t let lethargic thinking hold you back.
    State laws on marriage are a relatively recent human development.

  28. Jeff Bezos’s main intellectual contribution to the world is as a proponent of a universal guaranteed income. He wants the government to pay people so they can buy his products and services.

    I support the introduction of a payment (UBI) that may vary with age but does not depend on income or assets as a replacement for at least unemployment benefits and the pension. My may reason for supporting this are the disincentives to working that re built into our current welfare system. .
    However, Jeff Bezoz has a point. Our economy is struggling to grow because the people who are want to buy additional goods and services often cannot afford to buy these goods and services because they are unable to get the income needed to do so. This situation will probably get worse due to advances in automation and the weakening of people’s ability to negotiate better wages.

  29. Somehow it is OK to say things about us old white men that would be completely unacceptable to say about anyone else. I had an incident a while ago where a woman tried to dismiss what I had said on the grounds of being an OWM. Bit hard to take given that I am in denial re being old. (My definition of old is 10 yrs older than I am – Means I am forever young!!!)

  30. John, when the houseo teenagers next door have the latest iPhone, same as Trumps, we have little problems with our poor.

  31. Nate Silver goes into Trump’s motivation for tweeting.

    The first is that he is rational and using deliberate political tactics.

    The second is that he is impulsive and primarily emotional.

    If the first, then he criticises NBL players to distract from his government’s neglect of Puerto Rico.

    But then he gets stuck into San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, who criticized the White House response to Hurricane Maria.

    Silver quotes the saying “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

    One can understand why journalists who rely on having close access to Trump avoid explanations that portray Trump as being irrational, incompetent or bigoted. But sometimes they’re the only explanations that make sense.

    I think he’s predominantly a narcissist, thin-skinned and reactive. There is often evidence of reason and strategy, but that doesn’t mean they are applied to good effect.

  32. Well that’s Mickelmore done, not my style of preferred music but relatively lyrically incoherent.
    What’s with the frequent genital grabbing ?

  33. Jumpy I thought it was baseball, but in all honesty I haven’t been following it closely.

    On Macklemore, I didn’t even notice the genital grabbing.

    For those who didn’t see, it was quite long and pre-match. Highly dynamic with lots of nubile bodies in motion on stage. Crowd reaction reminded me of the Beatles in Adelaide in 1964., apart from the mobile phones held high.

    It was obviously very exciting and entertaining for young folks about half a century younger than me.

    No politics to be seen or heard anywhere.

  34. If you go here, you’ll see the song, and if you hang around, the highlights.

    I tuned in about 10 to 6 our time when Macklemore was in full flight, so missed that one, which evidently went on first.

  35. !Viva Lluis Companys i Jover!

    President of the Catalan Republic, 1934 to 1940. Arrested in exile in France, handed over to Spain, 5 weeks in prison, one hour trial. Executed shouting “Per Catalunya!” For Catalonia!

    source : Wikipedia

  36. Testing
    Testing
    Are you there Mr J?
    My dear spouse opines, “where would you all be without Mr J?”

    Answers in less than 666 words. Neatest correct entry wins a prize.

    Employees and relatives of J**** Enterprises not eligible.

    Permit no. ***** issued and verified.

  37. I’m just an observant pinyata in an echo chamber Mr A.
    Tell your dear spouse you’d all be in exactly the same spot.

  38. zoot
    “”Orthodox or Reformed?””
    The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
    And we can’t have that sort of dichotomic outburst, it’s not that type of blog !

  39. And we can’t have that sort of dichotomic outburst, it’s not that type of blog !

    Hey, don’t blame me, it was the pinyatas who had the schism.

  40. Can’t call a pinyata that never joined a spltter.
    That’s just mean, have you no empathy?

  41. * hands up, don’t verbally shoot *
    My grammar, punctuation and spelling are …..suboptimal, I had a state education with disinterested teachers.

  42. uninterested teachers.

    I’m sorry to hear that.
    Good teaching is important and undervalued.

  43. My pedometer says I’ve done 25,000 steps today, and I have an eye bunged up that feels as though it has a grain of sand in it, so don’t know how the new Salon is going to go.

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