Saturday Sanity Check
Friday April 29
LABOR’S election campaign was rocked by Covid for the second time, with Deputy Leader Richard Marles announcing he had tested positive to the virus on the same day that leader Anthony Albanese emerged from isolation.
Interesting isn’t it …
Anthony Albanese had a horrible first week of the campaign – forgetting key economic numbers and continually back-flipping on policy.
Then he contracted Covid and was forced into isolation for a week.
In bumbling Albanese’s absence, Richard Marles led the campaign, and had a stinker.
He fumbled around on carbon tax, national security, and Kimberly Kitching. Now, amazingly, he has Covid and so will take an enforced break from the public.
Once, that’s life.
Twice, that’s coincidence.
But if a third senior Labor MP has a shocking week on the campaign trial only to be suddenly disappeared with Covid … people will start to get suspicious!
Thursday April 28
DISNEY stock was trading at $113, down from a high of almost $200 in March 2021.
The tumbling share price is set to see Disney rank as the worst performing stocks in 2022.
The stock price has fallen 31% in the past year.
Disney’s financial meltdown comes as it opposes a Florida bill to prevent school teachers talking to small children about gender and sexual orientation.
And it follows the release of a series of leaked videos in which Disney executives are heard promising to inject more LBGTQ characters into children’s programming.
You know the old saying … go woke, go broke.
Disney’s pronouns are were/was.
Wednesday April 27
SCOTTISH officials are clueless as to why almost a million people failed to fill out census forms which were due last Sunday.
Only 74% of people returned the forms, the lowest response in Scottish history. The response rate was 97% for the rest of the UK.
Experts have warned that, with 1 in 4 people not participating, the census data would be “useless” for determining government spending and policy.
The low participation rate could have something to do with the government’s decision to allow people to record their sex in line with how they live their lives rather than their biology.
Citizens were told that when answering whether they were male or female “if you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate”.
Trans activists said this was important since it allowed trans people to “be counted as who they are”.
A court appeal arguing the advice would encourage Scottish people to commit a crime by giving a “false” answer on census forms was dismissed.
The court said a trans person giving a “reasonable” and “good faith” answer to the sex question would not be breaking the law.
Anyway, as I said, 1 in 4 people didn’t even bother filling out the census, evidently believing it really wasn’t going to be of much value.
And now Scottish officials are desperately trying to work out where people go that idea!
(The census cost taxpayers around $38m Australian)
Tuesday April 26
WHENEVER someone adds the conjunction “but” to the phrase “Freedom of speech is vital” you know they don’t believe freedom of speech is vital.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted Tuesday
Freedom of speech is vital, but free speech does not mean a free pass for hatred.
Online hate speech fans the flames of prejudice and leads to appalling and tragic real-world violence. Social media companies must do more, not less, to protect their communities.
Where to begin?
First, hatred is an emotion. The government has no business criminalising emotions. What will they ban next? Certain facial expressions? (Don’t laugh. George Orwell predicted in his famous dystopian novel 1984 that “face crime” would be a thing)
Second, who decides what constitutes “hate speech”? Mayor Khan?
Tellingly, when Mayor Khan was asked in an interview whether women could have a male appendage, he chastised the interviewer for being “in danger of inciting hatred against people” … just for asking the question.
One could be forgiven for assuming that “hate speech” is speech the political class hates. Or, to put it another way, our political class simply use the charge of “hate speech” to hijack free thinking.
Finally, knife crime is a far greater threat to Londoners than so-called hate speech on Twitter. If only Mayor Khan would do something about that!
Monday April 25
THE GREENS announced a plan to allow flood victims to sue coal mining companies.
If your house in Lismore gets flooded, you will be able to sue BHP.
Greens leader Adam Bandt explained:
“Coal and gas are the leading causes of climate change, which is ravaging the Northern Rivers. Coal and gas corporations fuelled the floods and they should pay for the damage they have caused to the Northern Rivers.”
Excuse the pun, but I’m not sure that argument is going to hold any water in court.
What next? Do we hold Glencore responsible for my son’s soccer game being washed out at the weekend, and Yancoal for the sunburn I suffered during last summer’s heatwave?
If Labor do a deal with the Greens to form government on May 21, God help us all.