A Ghost in the Machine (II)

 

My MX5 is making a new noise.

That is not as worrying as when the smoke comes out, but it is not a good thing. (Cars run on smoke - that's why when it escapes you're usually in trouble).

Anyhow, no smoke has yet appeared, but the noise is a worry.

It seems to emanate from the water pump housing, isn't obvious on idle or when the motor is cold, but appears with a vengeance on the overrun when it's warmed up. 

My fellow members in the local MX5 owners' club have provided a range of suggestions from a sick alternator to a problem with the timing chain tensioner.

I know nuffink.

That is why I took it to my local mechanic who had just replaced a water pump on my son's Mazda 323. Interestingly, it has covered a similar distance (about 120000 kms). Maybe there's something about Mazda BP-ZE engines and water pumps at 120000 kms. Or perhaps there is some kind of perfidious virus. They shared a garage for a time. There was no social distancing.

MLM* (whom I trust) had a listen and reckoned it was nothing to worry about. When I asked him if it would be OK to drive to Canberra (which had been my plan) he said "sure".

I trust him, but not that far. I have changed my plans.

Yesterday I took a deep breath and drove it the 146 kms to Automotive Plus (free plug) whose boss mechanic, after complaining that the motor was hot (it was - after driving from Toowoomba), declared that it was most likely a water pump bearing.

It got me home, and the noise is no worse. 

So now, I have to decide whether to get the job done locally, or at the specialist's setup in Brisbane. The latter will require two days. You can't expect people to work on a hot motor after a 146 km highway run.

I'll keep you posted.

NB - This is the second time I've used this title.

Hence the II.

*My Local Mechanic.

Comments closed.

Shame

 

Pic courtesy The Conversation

The media, in Australia and worldwide, is salivating over the release of the redacted Brereton Report.

Even if only some of the allegations are proven, the whole episode is deeply shocking, shameful and sad.

Shocking, because Australians have always held their military in high esteem, and these revelations come as a shock, even if we've been drip-fed rumours for years now. Shameful, because they reflect on everybody who has served or is still serving. Sad, because of the destruction of the lives of the Afghani victims and their families, and the effect they have had, and will continue to have, on the soldiers who were involved.

I can't begin to imagine the suffering being experienced by those incriminated, either directly, indirectly by association, and the fallout that is eating its way up through the chain of command. It seems inconceivable that commanders had no inkling that this behaviour was happening. It seems to have continued across a number of deployments and a number of units.

The reportage has often been over the top and sensationalist, but this is our media in 2020, and sensational reporting sells. The ABC deserves kudos in doggedly pursuing the story, and having the courage to see it through. Two ABC reporters risked everything.

The publicity has reminded me of occasional episodes when we took prisoners. One incident (covered in the chapter entitled TAOR in my memoir) involved my patrol encountering a party of about twenty civilians, woodcutters, whom we encountered in a no go zone north of the task force base.  

We stopped and searched them, and had to hold them all day until the local Vietnamese authorities came to collect them. We treated them well, gave them food and water, and provided shade. The whole episode was actually enjoyable for me, as there were half a dozen kids in the group, and I reverted to teacher mode, finding out that these children were quite advanced in their understanding of long division. It's amazing what can be accomplished with a stick writing on the ground, even when there is no common language.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this whole sorry episode (apart from the deaths of the Afghans) will be the burden these diggers carry for the rest of their lives. The suicide rates are already over the top for this generation of returned soldiers.

Comments closed.

Paul Kelly Gets Better With Age

 

Kelly and Grabowski at their best.

Enlarge it for best effect...

Comments closed.

US Presidential Election - The Washup

I've deliberately avoided commenting on the outcome until today because I was (naively perhaps) waiting for Trump to concede, something that every other previous defeated candidate has done once the results are clear.

Biden's electoral college votes are in, and they put him convincingly in front, at a level slightly higher than Trump's figures in 2016. He has been congratulated by leaders worldwide and all the media, even his megaphone (Fox) have called the vote for Biden.

The counter narrative (allegations of fraud) are characteristic of how he has always operated, and unsurprising. They are irrelevant, and will fade away as they are unsupported by evidence. His reaction, however, deepens the already broad chasm confronting the USA.

The figures are interesting. Biden has received more votes than any previous candidate in history, and his popular vote exceeds Trump's by around five million.

Trump's vote is also an improvement on his 2016 performance, and the turnout is the highest since 1900. It still doesn't match what routinely happens in Australia (72% USA Vs 91% Australia). Compulsory voting improves turnout of course, and enhances participation, one of the cornerstones of democracy. Lincoln did not refer to "some" of the people at Gettysburg - 

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The decentralised electoral system in the USA doesn't help, and is largely responsible for the ongoing chaos following this poll. Each state organises it's electoral college districts, and creates the rules applying to mail-in votes, counting arrangements and supervision. The problem with this arrangement is that whichever party controls the state administration also controls the electoral arrangements. Each party does its best to set up boundaries and arrangements that improve its chances. Hence the routine tolerated Gerrymandering. 

The fact that the poll is always held on the first Tuesday in November doesn't help. So many of the conventions that continue to apply to the US process were set up over two hundred years ago. The Tuesday after the first Monday in November was chosen because the harvest would have just finished, and Sunday was for church. This left Monday to hitch up the dray and use the day for travel to the voting booth. These days, people who are on low incomes are often unable to get to vote because they can't afford to take time off work. The fact that in many parts of the USA, they have to queue for hours doesn't help. Contrast that with the ten minute pause (on Saturday) to lodge a vote in this country.

The bottom line, of course, is the gap between the popular vote and the electoral college. Australians find it hard to accept that a candidate who receives fewer votes than his or her rival is not the winner. This processes effectively disenfranchises millions, and to a degree, is responsible for a great deal of the divisions in US society. It infers that the votes of these people really don't count. The same process happens in Australia, but nowhere near to the same extent, and we have a mechanism (state and federal Electoral Commissions) that make a fair job, over time, of addressing it. 

The Electoral College system was a compromise cobbled up over a period of months by delegates frustrated by a lack of progress at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Given that 40% of the population of the Southern states were slaves, and the owners were reluctant to give them full franchise, they settled on this inelegant compromise which has, like the date of the poll, held ever since. The whole compromise thing fell in a heap in 1861, but that's another story.

So the USA is (excuse the pun) a slave to its history. The resulting chaos will continue, as it is almost impossible, given the divisions that exist, to reform out-of-date institutions and constitutional amendments. 

The second amendment is probably the most stark example.

Comments closed.

Dirty Tricks - The Outcome

Pic courtesy ABC

This post is a follow up to my last one (Dirty Tricks - 24th October 2020) .

Now that the state election is done and dusted, it's a good time to reflect on Palmer's activity, and the result.

His intention was apparently to ensure that Labor wasn't returned to government. To put it mildly, that has backfired spectacularly.

He spent, according to reports, $83 million dollars in his efforts to smear Labor. His message was clear and simple, and entirely negative. Often, negative advertising is quite effective, especially when this much cash is thrown at it. In this case, it seems to have been completely useless.

Full page advertisements in all the syndicated local papers up and down the coast, blanket Youtube ads featuring his wife, and unsolicited SMS messages were thrown at everybody with abandon.

In my case, I contacted Mineralogy, the source of the messages, according to the accompanying blurb, and requested that my phone number be removed from the UAP's database, to no avail.

The person who answered the phone promised apologetically to meet my request, but the messages kept coming.

This arrogance is probably a large part of the reason his campaign fell flat. Queensland voters aren't stupid. Most people object to their personal information being used without consent, and this probably got many people offside.

The Youtube ads featuring his wife were also probably counter productive. In my case, looking at her face as she read the cue board in wooden fashion, the only emotion elicited was sympathy. Apparently, the voters of Currumbin (where she was a candidate) had much the same reaction.

Palmer is the closest thing in this country corresponding to the US PAC phenomenon , and it's gratifying to see that Queenslanders, at least, aren't impressed.

Clive has learned (the hard way) that in this country, at least, democracy can't be bought and sold.

The media, especially the syndacted local papers have gleefully pocketed the $83 million. It might keep them afloat for a while longer.

Comments closed.

Dirty Tricks

 This missive was dropped into our letterbox the other day.

It is over the signatures of George Christensen (Federal LNP Member for Dawson) and Craig Kelly (Federal Liberal Member for Hughes). This is passing strange, given that I am a constituent in the Federal electorate of Groom.

What is stranger is that this is an open letter addressed to a Queensland state public servant, a couple of weeks before a state election.

Under the Westminster system, federal members (especially those from interstate) have no business writing to state public servants. If either Kelly or Christensen were senators for Queensland, there may have been some justification for the letter, but the process is actually a reversal of Westminster protocols, in that public servants are expected to advise politicians, rather than the other way around.

But it gets stranger. I emailed both Christensen and Kelly. The latter replied to my email (Christensen was prepared only to acknowledge it) and Kelly claimed to have no knowledge of the letter, despite that it was over his signature.

The staffer in Christensen's office in Mackay said much the same thing when I phoned to ask why there was no acknowledgement to my email. She claimed to have reported it to the electoral commission.

This begs a couple of questions. The first is the origin of the letter. It did not stem from the office of either of the signatories, so has to be a forgery. Where did it come from, and who disseminated it? It was a glossy pamphlet, offset printed, and had the Commonwealth coat of arms on both sides. Getting it circulated (setup and distribution) would not have been cheap.

As election material produced in a lead-up to a poll, it did not carry the required political party authorisation, which is a breach of the act.

There is one very wealthy and fairly large Queensland businessman prone to disruptive stunts. Perhaps I am cynical, but I can see his grubby hands all over this one. The content is classic snake-oil material, typical of this individual who is reported to have bought large quantities of the chemical referred to in the letter, only to find that no doctors anywhere in the country will use it.

Remember how he was going to build a Titanic replica, and how that sunk without trace?  

Update -

By the way, if you're in Queensland, and tired of getting unsolicited SMS messages from Mineralogy about the state election, here's a remedy - email admin@unitedaustraliaparty.org.au and request that they remove your personal details from their database. Send a copy to ecq@ecq.qld.gov.au (Queensland Electoral Commission). 

Alternatively, you can phone 08 9324 2227 (Mineralogy Perth - the only number that is answered) and make the same request.

Comments closed.

Fear

 

It's a while since I've posted a book review, gentle reader, so I'll make amends with this one.

The author, Bob Woodward, has impeccable credentials as an investigative journalist. Along with Carl Bernstein, he produced extensive and forensic reporting on the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon.

He has also written 19 books on US politics, most of them best sellers.

He is a navy veteran, and a Yale graduate and his writing style is direct. His style reminds me of the work of a good police roundsman - no nonsense and sparse. 

Because of his celebrity status, Trump was happy to give him unfettered access and he has used it to good effect.

Woodward's narrative recounts some gobsmacking behaviour, not only on the part of Trump, but also on those working for him. He cites examples of senior officials hiding memos by removing them from Trump's desk. They were doing this, because they believed he had absolutely no idea of the consequences of policy decisions made on the basis of many of his decisions, which seemed to be driven by whims or obsessions. His termination of the Korea Free Trade Agreement was a case in point.

Trump was determined to abolish it and a memo was drawn up to that effect. The paperwork was hidden, until he could be persuaded to modify, rather than terminate it. In this case the strategy worked. (Trump had roundly condemned the agreement prior to election).

Trump's senior officials were also bewildered with the freedom he gave his family in terms of access and decision-making in the White House. Woodward recounts Trump's daughter Ivanka's indignation at being told she was "just a staffer" by Steve Bannon, who at the time was Trump's Senior Counselor.

Bannon had a strong agenda of his own, and Woodward claims he used Trump to advance it. This seems to have been borne out subsequently by Bannon's fall from grace, and most recently his indictment on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection to the We Build the Wall campaign.

Trump has bulldozed through a bewildering array of advisors and political appointees.  The turnover rate is unprecedented. The more notable include National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, White House Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price. Their tenures have been brief and chaotic. By May this year, there have been 415 White House staffers dismissed or resigned.

Woodward puts this down to Trump being unprepared to continue to employ anyone who disagrees with him. He paints a picture of senior military men, such as James Mattis and H R McMaster being unwilling to kowtow, and leaving the administration as a result.

Perhaps the most telling reflection on Trump's style is this quote -

Real power is - I don't want to use the word - fear. (Trump 31st March 2016)

I'd recommend it.

(Fear, Trump in the White House, Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster, 2018).

Comments closed.