The ABC is kicking goals like never before

The ABC is on fire ( no pun intended).

Last night's viewing was compelling.
It started with a fantastic Four Corners program on the bush fires. We were there in the truck after it had broken down and fire all around them. We were there to hear how a man  had lost both his father and brother. We were there to hear about how the fires went across a river , surely the best hazard reduction of all time. We were there to see flames as high as 80 feet high.

Anyone still clinging to the belief that more hazard reduction was all that was  needed to avoid the bush fires after watching this is simply very very stupid.

Mediawatch then got stuck into the climate denialists at News Limited despite Rupert Murdoch tell us to the contrary.

We then had Hamish McDonald on a new Q&A. I admit to being a big fan of his but he was sensational last night. To the point when needed, allowing people to speak etc.

We previously had David Spears changing Insiders for the better.

Now if we can replace Fran Kelly on Radio National breakfast all will be good.

Ostscript:

I should add Andrew Constance was a star because he acted like a normal person. Jim Molan was an embarrassment because he acted like a (poor) politician on  Q&A.

Are the Nationals barking mad?

Barnaby Joyce is challenging for the leadership of the Nationals?

I simply cannot believe this. ever since he resigned in disgrace his judgement on every issue he talked about has been called into question. This from supposedly the 'best retail politician' in Australia whose 'partner' is all about public relations.

The next thing is has everyone forgotten about the last election. The Nationals should have lost quite a few seats BUT they did not lose any.

Scott Morrrison has perhaps been permanently scarred starting with Angus Taylor ( yet another like Brigid McKenzie a hopeless minister) but reinforced by the Bush fires tragedy.

If Joyce regains the leadership then a new coalition agreement is needed. Joyce has been very hairy chested about this. Joyce as a Mister was woeful, just look at water.
Joyce would walk strongly down the climate denialist road, more water for products that should not be growing in Australia, building more dams when water is needed for the rivers., That is  just for a start.

So we shall see in the Nationals are barking mad.

update:

He lost. The Nationals are sane.

I should also add he biggest supporter was Matt Canavan. He wants a new coal fired power station up in Queensland financed by the government as the private sector shows absolutely no desire to build one.
It would take about 8 years to build. By the time it comes on board with its costs of $80 MWh solar PV will be $30 MWh or lower and wind will be attempting to get there  as well.
Then there is the problem of units breaking down on very hot days. The very days when you need electricity.

Chinese acting badly

I live in Eastwood where there are a lot of chinese.

some, only some have been acting very badly.

Eastwood Woolworths do not seem to care quite a few chinese line up and take numerous lots of bags where 2 cans of A2 baby formula are in . One day the line was very long and it was easy to see the same people actually running to a trolley full of bags of 2 A2 cans and then running back to Woolworths to get some more. I counted 4 full trolleys plus some 7 other contraptions being used to store the baby formula.
They then send all this formula to China and make big bucks.

with the coronavirus we have a new problem.  A friend in the street I live tells me his wife works in a local medical centre and ONLY hand out masks to people  who have a medical condition and thus need it.
A chinese person came in ans was taking all the masks until he was stopped. He was forced to give them all back however it was found out he was attempting to to the same thing all al other similar centres in that building.
The reason is exactly the same.

The major problem here is a few chinese  are giving all local chinese people a very bad reputation.

Around the Traps 31/1/20

It is time for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy,

• Thomas Duff on out-of-control-contained-safe-heres-what-each-bushfire-status-actually-means
• Croaking Cassandra on free-up-housing-by-shaking-up-politics , a-speech-from-the-new-secretary-to-the-treasury, an-intriguing-possibility-raised-by-the-rb, retirement-nzs-and-all-that
• Ross Gittins on getting-and-spending-whats-it-meant-to-prove , zero-net-carbon-choice
• renew economy on south-australia-on-track-to-100-pct-renewables-as-regulator-comes-to-party , morrison-urged-to-act-as-arena-funding-about-to-be-exhausted , agl-signs-up-for-giant-battery-in-queensland-paving-way-for-1000mw-solar-plant , morrison-is-dangerously-wrong-on-gas-and-needs-to-wake-up-to-new-technologies, fortescue-to-add-150mw-solar-and-a-big-battery-to-pilbara-iron-ore-mines
• Greg Jericho on were-working-but-not-as-much-as-we-want-to-and-that-keeps-wages-low , few-signs-of-economic-life-as-inflation-stays-stuck-in-its-rut
• Michelle Grattan on view-from-the-hill-politicians-not-bureaucrats-are-the-ones-in-touch-morrison-claims-in-sports-affair
• Geoff House on building-standards-give-us-false-hope-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-fireproof-house
• Larissa Schneider et al on plants-safely-store-toxic-mercury-bushfires-and-climate-change-bring-it-back-into-our-environment
• Peter Greste on the-australian-government-needs-to-step-up-its-fight-to-free-kylie-moore-gilbert-from-prison-in-iran
• Gaurav Khemka and Geoff Warren on the-uncomfortable-truth-about-super-theres-no-one-size-fits-all-contribution
• Andrew Podger on the-sports-rorts-affair-shows-the-government-misunderstands-the-role-of-the-public-service
• Dennis Muller on media-impartiality-on-climate-change-is-ethically-misguided-and-downright-dangerous
• Law and Religion in Australia on straw-men-in-the-religious-discrimination-debate  Thanks Jim Rose
• Simon Homes A'Court on scott-morrison-is-stuck-in-a-time-warp-more-gas-is-not-the-answer

Northern America

• John Hawkins on slow-minded-and-bewildered-donald-trump-builds-barriers-to-peace-and-prosperity
• Calculated Risk on a-few-comments-on-december-new-home-sales
• the conversable economist on the-inflation-puzzle-why-has-it-move-so-little , worries-about-automation-and-manufacturing-job-losses-from-1940 , business-formation-statistics-getting-to-know-you
• run17441 on US-firearms-related-mortality
• David Smith on the-us-presidential-primaries-are-arcane-complex-and-unrepresentative-so-why-do-americans-still-vote-this-way
• John Cassidy on john-boltons-book-is-making-fools-of-trumps-republican-enablers
• Barkley Rosser on which-lie-is-worst
• Fintan O'Toole on trump-senate-trial-whatever-he-wants

Europe

• stumbling and mumbling on we-dont-want-economic-growth
• Mainly Macrro on how-business-lost-its-influence-on-right-wing-parties
• Anne Applebaum on after-brexit-new-identity-crises-await-uk

Asia

• JJ Rose on rohingya-long-distance-between-law-and-justice
• Michael Nguyen on forging-consensus-south-china-sea
• Zack Beauchamp on trump-israel-palestine-peace-plan-deal-century-apartheid
• Fred Kaplan on trump-middle-east-peace-plan-israel-palestine
• Tony Walker on trumps-middle-east-vision-is-a-disaster-that-will-only-make-things-worse
• Vivienne Chow on hong-kong-wards-coronavirus-authorities-struggle-win-trust

Wonk

• Tim Harford on ten-years-of-social-media-have-left-us-all-worse-off
• sandwichman on war-peace-and-end-of-shorter-hours
• the conversable economist on coffee-nomics-supply-chain-story
• Mark Humnphery-Jenner on what-we-know-suggests-the-economic-impact-of-wuhan-coronavirus-will-be-limited
• Menzie Chinn on what-determines-the-strength-of-interest-rate-linkages-between-countries
• Roland Rajah on coronavirus-one-step-forward-one-step-back-global-economy
• Ali Wyne and Michael J Mazaar on real-us-china-competition-competing-theories-influence
• stumbling and mumbling on the-bias-against-social-science
• Gary Sacks et al on dont-believe-the-myths-taxing-sugary-drinks-makes-us-drink-less-of-it
• Tim Harford on will-the-2020s-finally-be-the-decade-that-the-robots-come-for-our-jobs
• Uneasy Money on my-paper-hayek-hicks-radner-and-four-equilibrium-concepts-is-now-available-online

General

• Roger S Seymour on how-smart-were-our-ancestors-turns-out-the-answer-isnt-in-brain-size-but-blood-flow
• C Raina Macintyre on how-contagious-is-the-wuhan-coronavirus-and-can-you-spread-it-before-symptoms-start

Climate

• Real Climate on update-day-2020, bau-wow-wow
• Open Mind on this-is-not-natural
• Stoat on ignore-fake-climate-debate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• which-teams-have-fewer-fans-than-their-namesake-i-pretty-much-like-this-persons-reasoning-except-when-we-get-to-the-chargers-and-raiders
• are-gwas-studies-of-iq-educational-attainment-problematic
• they-added-a-hierarchical-structure-to-their-model-and-their-parameter-estimate-changed-a-lot-how-to-think-about-this
• dont-talk-about-hypotheses-as-being-either-confirmed-partially-confirmed-or-rejected
• its-not-just-that-the-emperor-has-no-clothes-its-more-like-the-emperor-has-been-standing-in-the-public-square-for-fifteen-years-screaming-im-naked-im-na
• statschat on coronavirus-news
• Eran Raviv on understanding-pointwise-mutual-information-in-statistics
• Kevin Bonham on do-it-yourself-issues-polling-due-diligence

Genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)

• nuttin

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• the-wreck-of-welfare-economics
• coffee-table-economics
• varieties-of-neoliberalism
• Andrew Gelman on my-review-of-ian-stewarts-review-of-my-review-of-his-book
• Tim Harford on book-of-the-week-4-the-body-a-guide-for-occupants

vox wonk

• threatening-central-bank-independence-one-tweet-time
• nature-nurture-and-intergenerational-mobility
• housing-speculation-and-its-economic-consequences
• british-aviation-government-versus-industry-after-wwi
• impact-first-professional-police-forces-crime
• tracking-long-run-growth-euro-area-atheoretical-tool
• theory-versus-statistical-fit-macroeconomic-modelling
• silver-lining-forced-migration-investment-education
• share-women-top-incomes
• human-capital-millwrights-and-industrialisation-18th-century-england
• learning-about-demand-abroad-wholesalers
• data-are-development-issue
• how-ecb-purchases-corporate-bonds-helped-reduce-firms-borrowing-costs

Female sport is rubbish

Given all that is going on why write about a lightweight issue.

When sport is played why is it not played on an open basis that is the best of men and women play against each other. Because dear lonely reader women are not good enough to do so.

Remember Heather Mackay. She was the greatest female squash player of all time. She actually played in the Sydney local grade competition against men and usually got thrashed each time. ( My uncle played against her.)

When working in the city I worked with a man who went to a Uni in Texas. It was where Martina Navratilova practised at.  He also played tennis indeed he played in the Australian open at one stage. He informed me that those male players who were going to the Uni regularly beat her easily.

Let us go to the two sports I know well.

Football

Women are not the well balanced runners men are. They cannot control the ball as well, They cannot jink inside a defender and they make terrible goal keepers ( they cannot dive on their side well for some reason).  It is a low skilled game. Our Matildas got beaten  ( thrashed  actually) by a U/16 team or thereabouts.

Cricket

Women cannot bowl side on for some reason hence they struggle to bowl out swingers, When they bowl in swingers it swings from the hand and the spinners are better described as pie chuckers. Notice no female bowlers have their speed measured. I wonder why.

I see better cricket on Saturdays when umpiring D grade Shires.

I am by no means saying women should not play sport however do not attempt to put it o n equal terms with men.
Equal pay simply does not work. At the office we all do similar work and get paid accordingly. There is no male and female work
Not so on the sporting field yet some females get paid as much as males. political correctness gone mad

Brigid McKenzie must still go

Andrew Probyn has belled the cat on the Sports Grants rort.  McKenzie completely changed the criteria for gaining a grant. Sports Australia has a list from 1 to whatever based on merit.
McKenzie put all potential grants into safe seats marginal seats, winnable seats.

In an irony on ironies the grants had no impact whatsoever.

What we are seeing is the real Canberra bubble at work. The nationals and others just do not get this does not pass the pub test.  From now on in applying for any sort of grant people and organisations will know if they are not in a marginal or winnable seat they will have no hope.

I have been involved in many a community organisation and this will cause white hot anger. all that effort to write a brilliant submission and all for nought!

Postscript:

Two further points

1) This will give a lot of hope to independents wanting to contest safe national seats.
2) It further shows Scott Morrison just like John Howard or Kevin Rudd might like to highlight their 'christian' credentials but when push comes to shove those credentials are nowhere in sight.

Bushfires rap

Quite clearly the bush fire season is not over yet however I thought I would outline some things that occurred this season.

This could well be the first 'bad' season' that El Nino was nowhere to be seen.
Every State and Territory had 'bad' bush fires
The chances of four successive days of over 40C has fallen like a rock.
We had not one but TWO one in one hundred droughts in less than twenty years
We had the driest season on record.
Thus far we have seen off that arsonists caused the fires, 1974/5 was worse however it is clear the cultural war 'rightists' have put there was not enough hazard reduction done. Just rem,ember they never put a figure on what was needed only MORE was needed.

A big problem here is hazard reduction is usually done in colder times and when there is humidity around.
When it is dry the problem of controlling such reductions rises exponentially.  In Sydney we saw this in Hornsby in 2018 where houses in West Pymble and the like were threatened. homes have been burnt because hazard reduction gets out of control.

however when it is sooo dry and you combine it with searing temperatures and very strong winds then you can have hazard reduction until the cows come home it won't make a difference. Just a little example the RFS in NSW reported flames climbing heights never envisaged during the[present season.
There are of course a few examples where hazard reduction was done and people were confident they were prepared BUT the fires simply swept through. Kangaroo Island is possibly the best example of this.

It is a moot point whether politicians will understand the lessons of these bush fires. The National Party leader would seem to show they won't have a clue