Category: Questions with obvious answers

Which cat killed curiosity?

Billy/ / China Flu, Free Speech, General, Incentives Matter, Legacy Press (c), Questions with obvious answers

You’d be forgiven for not paying attention to the “election” of the new Leader of the Conservative Party (AKA “The Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”) in the UK right now.

As some wag put it on the socials yesterday, it’s rather like having to choose your favourite Covid vaccine. Except you’re not being asked to choose.

There have been a series of press conferences and televised debates. Plenty of opportunity for our media class to pose the hard questions. One topic notably absent from the mouths of any of the candidates, not even the otherwise great Kemi Badenoch, and certainly not asked by the journalists is “whither lockdowns?”.

As in, were they a good idea, should we even consider them again, how did the cost/benefit analysis play out two years down the track, etc.?

Complete silence.

I have to check myself in my surprise at this. Am I wrong in thinking what we just lived through was without precedent in peace time? That the speed at which basic civil liberties and rights were cast aside was shocking and brutalising for huge numbers of citizens?

It seems more than strange that a single question hasn’t been reserved about it during the dozens of hours of candidate scrutiny. Is nobody interested in whether any of the candidates would use these powers again on us. Just me?

Bill’s Opinion

Many of us state a belief we are living with a fiction of choice, that our “democracy” is nothing more than a unaparty, a single party of government.

I would love to hear a counter argument to that view in the context of a political and media consensus to completely avoid discussing what’s just happened.

And when you finished explaining that, have an attempt at describing to me how an Epstein and a Maxwell can be convicted of crimes involving possibly hundreds of other co-criminals but no other investigations or prosecutions are apparently underway?

An end of year IQ test

Billy/ / General, Questions with obvious answers

Many organs publish end of year quizzes and puzzles for the amusement of their readers.

This year, we shall join them in this fun diversion. Our quiz takes the form of a combined memory and IQ test. We will allow this exam to be “open book”, that is, you can open another browser tab and Duck Duck Go the answers, if you don’t already know them.

So, pencils at the ready, here we go:

American Politics

Q.1. President Trump called neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, “fine people”. True or false?

Q.2. President Trump suggested drinking bleach would cure Kung Flu. True or false?

Q.3. How many guns were fired during the “January 6th insurrection” and by whom? Supplemental question; what is the Collins Dictionary definition of “insurrection”?

Q.4. The majority of murders of black people in the USA are committed by which ethnic group? Supplemental question; has this increased or decreased since the death of George Floyd?

Kung Flu

Q.5. What is the average age of death from Covid1984?

Q.6. In Australia, what is the average age of death in a “normal” year, ie prior to Kung Flu?

Q.7. To date, how many children with no underlying health conditions have died of Kung Flu in Australia?

Q.8. In otherwise healthy and unvaccinated adults under the age of 50 years old, the infection fatality rate of Kung Flu is: A. Greater than 5%, B. About 5%, C. Less than 5% but greater than 1%, D. Less than 1%?

Sport

Q.9. In how many events is the female Olympic record equal or greater/better than the male version? A. More than 10 events, B. Between 1 and 10, C. None.

Q.10. Where in the world chess rankings is the best female chess player? A. Top 10, B. Top 50, C. Top 100.

Q.11. The New Zealand rugby team have announced they will play England at Twickenham next November. Why do they play at that venue so infrequently compared to the other main Northern Hemisphere venues?

Q.12. Despite systemic racism, which multi-millionaire ex-British, now Swiss, racing driver was Knighted at Buckingham palace this month?

Finance

Q.13. What’s the economic definition of “transitory”? Supplemental question; when was the last time a tank of petrol for a family car in Australia could be filled for under $100?

Q.14. According to her colour-coded domestic budget tracker, what is the Mumsnet blogger, Jess Irvine’s monthly salary from the Sydney Morning Herald? Supplemental question; how do you think the father of her child feels about that and has he lawyered up to challenge the maintenance payments yet?

Q.15. What are the average fees and average annual returns on an Australian Superannuation fund? Supplemental question; what would you have made if you’d just bought an ETF tracking the Nasdaq this year?

Q.16. Since “Occupy Wall Street” in 2011, has economic inequality, A. Significantly reduced, B. Remained about the same, C. Significantly worsened?

Why is this lying liar lying to me?

Q.17. Who said, in March 2020, “When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face”?

Q.18. Who said, in July 2020, “I don’t think we’ve ever had a situation where you mandate it for the general population…. I can see individual institutions mandating a vaccine… I don’t see it on a national level merely because of all the situations you have upon encroaching upon a person’s freedom to make their own choice of their own health”?

Q.19. Who said, in May 2021, “I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I’m fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again: the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded ‘gain-of-function’ research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology”?

Q.20. Who said, whilst talking about the Kung Flu vaccine, “We know it’s safe, because if you look at the process that it’s gone through for the determination of whether it’s safe, as well as if it’s efficacious, was a clinical trial involving 44,000 people”?

Bill’s Opinion

I’m sure regular readers will get nearly all of these without recourse to a search engine.

Maybe send a link to people you know who take their news exclusively from the BBC/ABC/CNN and see how many they get?

Perhaps read the quiz out to the family once the first couple of bottles have been consumed on Christmas Day, to make the slow late afternoon more exciting.

Anyway, stay safe, stay independent of mind and enjoy the holidays.

Best wishes,

William of Ockham

So, Debbie McGee, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Cultural Marxism, Gender Politics, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, Incentives Matter, Questions with obvious answers

The circling of the drain leading us down to the cesspool of stupidity continues to pick up speed. The evidence for this is contained in this classic example of Sailer’s First Law of Female Journalism.

That law states; The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.

I’m not going to fisk the article in detail because it is both repetitive and boring. I hope you’ll agree I’m not doing it a disservice with the TLDR version thus:

On dating apps and websites, men can often be very creepy. Sometimes this manifests itself in an expressed preference for specific physical features and racial stereotypes. Some men find Asian women attractive.

That a journalist has spotted the phenomenon of creepy men on dating sites is not particularly interesting, at least it’s a break from “reporting” celebrity Twitter spats. What’s more curious is the reasons offered and the people offering these reasons.

At the risk of being a little cruel, I do need to illustrate the reference to Sailer’s Law with some pictures. These three academics have provided explanations as to why some creepy men on Tinder prefer Asian women:

And these women have complained about creepy men on Tinder:

I think this might be some kind of Woke Purity Test that we’re not supposed to notice what is immediately obvious to anyone with eyes, or if we do, we’re not supposed to say what we see.

The first picture is of Dr. Michelle Aung Thin, who doesn’t present any empirical data to support her claim that men who find Asian women attractive do so due to “Oriental stereotypes in historical and popular culture”.

Our second picture is of Dr. Sophie Loy-Wilson, who claims men find Asian women hot due to well documented “racism against Asian women in the 19th and 20th centuries”.

The third picture is of Dr. Shawna Tang, who has managed to get inside the mind of the man who murdered workers and bystanders in an Atlanta massage business, and can categorically state it “was evidence of Asian women being the subjects of sexism and racism, which could be traced back to colonialism in Asia”…. as opposed to his well-documented struggle with evangelical Christianity and a sex addiction. Probably no need to bother with a prosecution and trial then, eh?

Bill’s Opinion

Anyone who has ever dated other humans will know there are a bunch of bloody weirdos out there, of both all genders.

It is somewhat unfortunate the three academics who claim to know for sure why some men prefer young, pretty, lithe Asian women all look like they’ve fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch face first on the way down.

I’m sure it’s just one of those strange serendipitous coincidences these academics aren’t hot yet they are certain the reasons some men like cute women can be blamed on something something Hong Kong brothels during the Opium Wars.

I suppose we’re not allowed to call it racism when (comparatively) rich white men are targeted by young women in bars across Asia as highly-desirable future spouses?

In the meantime, if you find your fingers hovering to swipe right on a profile of a cute woman on your hook up app of choice, don’t comment on her ethnicity. Say she looks like she’s got a great personality or something.

Goodwin’s Law

Billy/ / Evolution in reverse hypothesis, Free Speech, General, Questions with obvious answers

Anyone with more than 5,000 followers on Creepbook for Business is most likely to be a purveyor of vacuous bollocks.

Followers, rather than connections. And there’s a clue in that adjective; these charlatans rely on the ovine nature of many users of the networking site electronic Rolodex of people you met at work.

Obviously, Goodwin’s Law is not to be confused with Godwin’s Law, which states:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches”. That is, if an online discussion goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds, the point at which effectively the discussion or thread ends.

Goodwin’s Law is, instead, named after this prolific onanist, Tom Goodwin. As well as posting his utter shite on Creepbook for Business, he liberally sprays his brain diarrhoea on Twitter, here.

From what one can gather by a quick MBA at the University of Duck Duck Go, he’s a British expat living in the Miami area.

As an aside, speaking as someone who also has an English accent and has spent time working in the USA, it isn’t hard to understand the reason behind an element of his success: many Americans, bless ’em, seem to assume a magical extra 20 IQ points just because someone sounds a bit like Hugh Grant. Fair enough if he’s leveraging that advantage.

What type of bollocks does Tom Goodwin spout?

Well, there’s this drivel, replete with supernumerary apostrophes:

Sometimes he comes up with insightful business ideas like these two niche opportunities which might be already be filled by things called “hotels”, “taxis“, Airbnb and Zip Car:

Sometimes, after a few glasses of Paul Masson rosé, we are lucky enough to gain an insight in to The Tao of Tom, such as this deep enquiry into the human psyche:

Bill’s Opinion

When somebody posts this type of tosspottery into your LI timeline, do yourself a favour; click the three little dots to the side of their name and select, “unfollow but stay connected“.

Repeat until the pollution ceases.

If Tom Goodwin (or Brigette and Oleg) can make a coin from this nebulous wankery, best of luck to him. After all, the effort and cost is minimal, it only requires suspension of the duty of care for his soul.

How long have you got?

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, General, Questions with obvious answers

  1. Underarm bowling.
  2. Ansett Airways.
  3. Russell Crowe.
  4. Pavlova.
  5. Crowded House.
  6. Welfare tourism.
  7. Phar Lap.
  8. Raising the IQ of both countries.
  9. Four more years, boys.
  10. Brenton Tarrant.

Bill’s Opinion

Frankly, it’s a wonder the two countries aren’t already at war.

Actually, it’s not; New Zealand has evolved into a thumb-sucking safe space for virtue signalling purple-haired wokistanis who value feelings over facts.

We should offer asylum to Buck Shelford and his generation of All Blacks. They must surely not recognise Head Girl, Jacinda’s country:

Important questions of our age

Billy/ / Gender Politics, General, Incentives Matter, Questions with obvious answers, Transgender Regret Industry (c)

The great news is, we’ve really solved all the biggest issues facing humanity and the human condition.

We must have done, because otherwise there wouldn’t be time to ask why women don’t want to date a woman masquerading as a man.

The only difference between Lee and a man…Is that Lee has one fewer penis than a man.

It’s such a little difference (well, I’m not speaking for myself here – my nickname at the rugby club was “Tripod”, after all), but one that seems to significantly matter to single women with whom Lee would like to have romantic relationships.

Lee’s complaint seems to be that regardless of whether “he” is honest from the start of the online flirting phase or saves the big (non) reveal for later, once he’s excited the potential partner that he might be a possible mate, the reaction is universal; they decline.

Obviously (?) this confuses Lee and, presumably, the commissioning editor of Vice who published this column.

How can it be, in 2019, that women can be so prejudiced and cruel to just a regular trans man seeking romantic partners? Love is love, after all, is it not?

Bill’s Opinion

If the entire world disagrees with you, particularly in the form of revealed preferences, consider the possibility it’s your world view that’s at fault.

Given that we’ve only decided women can be men and men can be women in the last decade or so, one wonders how long we might need to wait for societal norms to overturn the millions of years of biological expediency that has resulted in our arrival at this point?

In the meantime, our golden rule when reading heartfelt articles about matters trans remains true; look at the picture first, if the person provoked an immediate reaction that they are one of the ugliest men/women you’ve seen, it’s because they aren’t.

Low information journalism

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, General, Legacy Press (c), Questions with obvious answers

Part of the phenomena of the decline of traditional or “legacy” media is a failure to come to terms with the unprecedented connectedness of the world in which we now live.

The old world where only a select few gatekeepers were privy to a majority of facts and selected which ones made it into the finite resource of tomorrow’s paper or this evening’s TV news has gone. The delivery capacity for news is, in effect, infinite and the key restriction is now the curiosity and availability of time for the recipient to gather information.

We get our world views from diverse sources and quickly write off as not credible those which have been proven to be untrustworthy or, worse, manipulative either by false reporting or selective reporting.

The older generation of journalists are taking a huge amount of time to realise this and their failures to come to terms with it are highly public.

Today’s particularly excellent example is courtesy of Jaqueline Maley, “Columnist and senior journalist“;

Let’s get the easy response out of the way first; the reason so few people are talking about it is because the accuser is clearly suffering from severe mental health issues that call into question her credibility, as this disturbing interview demonstrates.

Well done Anderson Cooper and CNN team for putting her up for public consumption simply because you don’t like the result of the 2016 election. What next, trawl the mental institutions for more accusers?

Another reason few people are talking about it is that it’s an accusation in a book, but no police report has been filed. Apparently, she is “considering” it.

You and I are not in a position to know and certainly not to judge whether or not Trump forced himself on Ms. Carroll, but we can judge Ms. Maley’s article where she does exactly that and finds him guilty.

Rape is a terrible crime with long term consequences for the victim. It’s also a crime that can be practically impossible to prove once any significant time has passed. If you were raped in the 1990s, 2019 is somewhat too late to press charges and expect a satisfactory result.

If your expectation is otherwise, may I suggest you haven’t spent enough time considering the consequences of applying that standard to the males you care about, such as your father, spouse, sons, grandsons and close friends.

The more amusing point though is Jaqueline Maley’s failure to treat her readers as having an intelligence quotient much above molluscs.

To even consider writing her opinion piece with a laundry list of reasons she dislikes Trump anchored around Ms. Carroll’s book published accusation, requires her to have completely discounted the possibility of her readers seeking an alternate source of information.

The simplest of internet searches would have given her readers the following internal answers when they read the question, “why are so few talking about it?”;

  1. Ms. Carroll does not present well, and in fact gives off an air of being a nutter,
  2. She’s publishing the accusation in a book but hasn’t informed the police,
  3. The alleged assault happened 4 decades ago.
  4. With the best will in the world, Ms. Carroll seems to have been a bit of a serial target of rape, if her writings are to be believed.
  5. All things considered, Ms. Carroll is really not credible. That’s not to say she’s lying but just that the “optics” are terrible.

Bill’s Opinion

Dear journalists in 2019,

The internet is available and can be used as an incredibly quick and convenient fact checker against which your entire audience can judge your work.

You may wish to consider keeping that sentence at the front of mind whenever you submit copy.

There is a form of bigotry you may not have considered that you are guilty of; the bigotry of low expectations. An example of this would have been evident if you had asked most Australians whether they knew the name of the person this article was referring to in 2013;

They knew it was Rolf Harris despite nobody in the Australian media being brave enough to name him.

Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me.

There seems to be an obvious solution waiting to be found

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Economics, General, Legacy Press (c), Questions with obvious answers, The “Are we there yet, Mum?” index, Whither Aussie House Prices

The new oppressed class living amongst us is, apparently, single people.

No, don’t laugh. It’s true; The Sydney Morning Herald managed to find space between the Folau-dering to published an article about it, so it must be correct.

Grab a coffee, settle back and let’s try not to laugh too loudly as we witness mental illness given a public forum yet again in Sydney’s premier progressive organ:

Ok, you were warned. Here’s one of the oppressed;

Lucy Bloom says everyday household expenses such as rent, utilities, insurance and buying food or furniture can be twice as expensive if you’re single.

You may find this to believe but Marilyn, sorry, Lucy is single. Hardly credible, is it?

Now that you’ve got over that shock, here’s some barely believable maths for you to come to terms with;

A one-person household can spend $2835 per month on living costs – 27 per cent more than couples, who spend a combined $4118 per month.
Lucy Bloom can attest to the fact the singles tax is alive and well in Sydney, too.

If, like me, you’re struggling with the underlying equation resulting a statement that $2,835 is 27% greater than $4,118, consider inserting the words “per person” somewhere in the sentence. Sub-editing going well?

Lucy is a financial giant amongst us pygmies, however;

“So many things cost the same whether you’re a single or a couple, so it’s effectively twice the price to be on your own,” the management consultant says.

She’s a “management consultant”? Let that one sink in for a moment. 

It gets better;

“If I had a live-in partner, the only cost that would change would be food, but there would be two incomes to play with,” she says.

And if my mother had wheels, she’d be a trolley.

Actually, Lucy, if you had a live-in partner with another income, you’d have two incomes to play with.

But regardless of language semantics, she’s doing it tough. She barely knows where next month’s hair dye is coming from; 

“The only way I make it work is by renting out my spare rooms on Airbnb, which covers my mortgage.”

“Living by one of the best beaches in Sydney certainly helps my occupancy rate,” she says.

“On the upside, I have my personal freedom and an asset that has increased in value by $600,000 since 2017,” Ms Bloom says.

Right. Not exactly walking 20km barefoot to the well to collect drinking water each day, are we?

That last sentence in the quote is almost “Peak Sydney”; I’m sad and lonely and need to seek attention by dying my hair bright pink and whining about my life in a national newspaper but at least I’m an economic genius when it comes to investing in property. 

Let’s hope nobody bursts her bubble by showing her the CoreLogic indices relating to apartments in the Eastern Suburbs any time soon.

The best is saved for last though. Apparently, the oppressed singletons have one significant expense the privileged couples don’t;

One in four Australians spend $100 or more on pre-date preparation, including new clothes, shoes, hair and makeup and a further $79 on the first date.

They didn’t mention the additional costs associated with veterinary bills for cats, strangely.

Bill’s Opinion

This seems to align closely with Sailer’s First Law of Female Journalism;

The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.

Never ascribe to mendacity

Billy/ / General, Questions with obvious answers, The end is nigh

…that which can be explained by incompetence.

Let’s be honest, we all have a secret place in our hearts for the occasional conspiracy theory. Some people believe the moon landings were faked, others think the Jews are the secret rulers of the world, some poor deluded souls even believe Kylie Minogue can hold a tune.

The fire that destroyed the Notre Dame cathedral has set off a plethora of conspiracy theories. My favourite is that the fire was set by Muslim terrorists and has subsequently been covered up by the dhimmis in the French Government.

As I wrote over at Tim Newman’s gaff, “because that’s what terrorists do, isn’t it; destroy a cultural icon and then not tell anyone”.

This is why William of Ockham’s razor is so useful; the explanation which requires the fewest number of assumptions to be correct is likely to be the truth.

This podcast is the best example of the conspiracy mindset. Stefan Molyneux is a famous YouTube and podcaster, and like the proverbial stopped clock he sometimes gets things right.

This is unlikely to be one of those occasions.

As I understand it, the evidence suggesting an arson attack and subsequent governmental over up is as follows;

– The fire started after workers had left the site.

– Other churches in France have been attacked.

– A brown man was seen smiling nearby

Bill’s Opinion

Perhaps some terrorists set the fire, didn’t call Le Monde to claim responsibility and the French authorities have hushed it all up.

Or, perhaps sloppy work practices by the renovators resulted in a spark lighting a fire in a church with plenty of dry wood.

We’ve always been at war with the Eurasia Group

Billy/ / Economics, General, Questions with obvious answers, The end is nigh

The usually sound Ambrose Evans Pritchard regurgitates a press release from the Eurasia Group risk report in the Telegraph (Sydney Morning Herald paywall avoidable version here);

The answer to questions like this in headlines is almost always, “No, you’re just trying to get eyeballs“.

Oh, that’s worrying.

By that I mean, it’s worrying that the UN isn’t also in the list of global institutions past their sell-by dates that are in crisis. In the words of Saint Augustine, “Oh Lord! Make me pure, but not yet!“.

Bloody hell, we’re almost on the brink of another world war? There’s no way the government will allow that, just think what it would do to their plans for annual skiing holidays and the values of their Caribbean villas.

It all sounds very worrying though, whatever might be the cause?

Ah, it’s just another #OrangeManBad #LiterallyHitler article.

One of these political thinktank pieces isn’t compete without an economic prediction, of course;

Sure, the EU is going to have a few challenges ahead, especially if the UK is lucky enough to exit without a deal and gets to keep the £39bn ransom, but we’re heading for deflation, are we?

Given that the USA inflation figures for 2018 were 2.54% and projected to be ~2.44% this year, I wouldn’t go holding one’s breath for it to turn negative. Something like a meteor strike would have to happen in 2019 to turn that into deflation.

Oh goodeee, another article telling us the reason why we voted to leave the EU.

Personally, it was Magna Carta, 800+ years of Common Law, legislative sovereignty, the right to determine our own immigration laws and the fact that calling 73 MEPs for a population of 67m “democracy” seems like a sicker joke than anything Louis CK could come up with. But no, Eurasia Group, do tell us why we voted Brexit.

As for the problems between China and the USA, yes sure China is not running as hot as before (-16% sales of smartphones was an interesting recent data point), however, Xi looks to be trying to rapidly build bridges with Trump. It’s almost as if, I dunno, Trump’s strategy is working. Perish the thought.

So, after you’ve scared us half to death, what’s the chances of any of this happening?

“Muddle through”.

We do like a good old fashioned muddle.

Bill’s Opinion

As you were, platoon. We’ll be just fine.