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There are a lot of spare seats in the Brisbane Convention Centre vaccination centre.

My daughter had her vaccination here a few months ago and it did involve lining up.  Today, I walked straight in and reckon I had Pfizer in my arm in about 8 minutes flat.   (I'm about a week over 3 months since I got my second Astra Zeneka.). 

Despite the mis-steps taken by various Australian governments with respect to COVID,I think there has been some underappreciation of the efficiency of the Australian free vaccination process.  As with the way Australia runs elections, it makes me feel good to live in a country that organises such things well and efficiently.   Gives me a nice communitarian feeling.  

What was he thinking??

It continues to look a near certainty that Ben Roberts Smith's defamation case will go down in history as the most ill considered action of its type since Oscar Wilde thought he would come across as straight. 

What also continues to be dumbfounding is how badly the government has handled the investigation that we're watching the matter be litigated in a civil court before any action in a criminal one.

The stupid Moon movie is falling

Could this possibly be the well deserved end to Roland Emmerich's directorial career?   I've never liked any of his movies:

 

Tim's on a PR bender

Those of us with a decade's long allergy to the vain self promotion robot that is Tim Wilson are having a hard time reading Twitter at the moment, given his relentless PR re-invention as Mr Clean Energy and Somewhat Wet Liberal:

It must be what internal polling (is there any politician more likely to pay for assessments of his popularity?) is telling him will work for him.

I would bet he will dump any leader in a flash if he can see it as a step closer to the Prime Ministership.  Mind you, Morrison thoroughly deserves the humiliation.

Update:  yeah, it's time for the party room to put Scotty from Marketing out of his misery:

 

Update 2:  yeah, cowardice killed his Prime Ministership, but it's hard to not to like him at a personal level:

Conservative Catholics yearning for the days of complete control (of women)

A couple of enlightening comments at dover-beach's Catholics for Fascism (and Complete State Control of Women) blog:

 

Baguette war

A French supermarket has upset (some) Parisians by selling 30c baguettes for a few months.

(Also, have a look at the range of baguette style bread for sale in the supermarket featured - there's a lot):

 

Bill Maher and the nuttiness on the Left (an old theme here, but bears repeating)

Allahpundit notes how Bill Maher has quickly fallen out of Left wing favour (and risen in Fox News esteem) due to his recent "I'm over COVID" complaints (which included, I believe, the nonsense position that he was not going to get a booster because - well, they used to say that two was enough, so how dare medical science change its mind during an evolving pandemic?)   Maher has apparently gone on to complain about the Left going nuts in a more general sense.  (I haven't watched the clip, but I see the screenshot features the "pregnant man" emoji which my daughter told me - with amusement - that Apple had just released.)

I've always been leery of Maher as a reliable political friend - too many libertarian instincts in him are probably at the heart of it.   

And Allahpundit (and Maher) note that the problem is similar on the Right - a part of it goes nuts, and the "mainstream" stands around and fails to call it out.   It's cowardice.

But it's somewhat galling that they don't (well, at least Allahpundit doesn't) explicitly say what is clear:   the nuttiness of the Right is on topics that make it far, far more dangerous than the identity politics nuttiness on the Left. 

The Leftist extreme, for example, thinks gender is completely a choice and former men who grew up with male bodies should face no discrimination when joining a women's competition.  They get people de-platformed from Twitter and elsewhere for being mean to transgender folk, and vow never to read Harry Potter again.   They virtually beg for social media confirmation that they now look "hot" in their new body.   Academics, and sometimes researchers, do get very unfairly targeted if they are perceived to not be completely supportive of the agenda.    And in Australia, the patently obvious campaign to upgrade old Aboriginal society to the status of "civilisation" and sophistication continues apace, with sceptical and realistic voices rarely raised.  

The nutty Right, on the other hand, makes death threats to election workers, scientists and doctors continually, both on social media and directly, based on bad faith conspiracy promoted for greed by both big and small media outlets.   In America, they have no commitment to democracy and enabling greater participation in it.  They wanted to overturn a fair election, and rallied chanting death to politicians who thwarted their plan.  They do not believe in climate change and would happily burn every last bit of coal because they don't believe scientists and the evidence before their eyes.    They are happy to demonise both immigrants and their political opponents as being inherently evil.

It's clear that the conspiracy belief of the Right is priming material for Right wing terrorist acts:  its seems more by luck than anything else that there hasn't been a major incident for a while.

So yes, I would like more on the Left to speak up about extreme and unrealistic views on identity politics and culture war issues - but let's not pretend there is an equivalence of the seriousness of the problem on both sides.

Update:   I've watched the Maher clip and it is pretty weak stuff. Yes, he's upset with identity politics, but also goes on at greater length with a general libertarian whine that Democrats want to regulate too much. 

 

Appalling social media story

A Gold Coast doctor has been subjected to death threats and abuse and is living in “utter fear” of anti-vaxxers thanks to false reports that two children died in his clinic after being administered the Pfizer vaccine.

The Pacific Pines GP, Dr Wilson Chin, said “widespread panic” swept through his community when false reports spread online that the two children had died in his clinic.

The girls suffered what Chin described as a “normal” fainting episode while under observation at the clinic a fortnight ago and have since recovered.

But a post to a Facebook page purporting to be a “personal eyewitness account” wrongly claimed the girls had suffered “violent convulsions” and later died in the waiting room.

Another Facebook user posted false information describing the girls as “unresponsive when ambos got there” and encouraging others to share the post.

The backlash ultimately forced the clinic to pull out of the vaccine rollout of five to 11-year-olds after Chin and his colleagues received death threats, which have been reported to police.

But Norman Swan, hey Jason?  

Here's a link.

 

Sounds like an internal move to dump Morrison may be afoot

 

The only problem is, I don't really want him replaced by the only candidate with some degree of personal likeability - Frydenberg - because I badly want to see Labor in power again, and don't want to see anything the might make that harder.   (Also - what's the bet that try-hard, newly hatched green energy believer Tim Wilson will be part of a plan too to up his position?   A slimier ego desperate to climb the slippery pole I have rarely seen.)  
 

Top marks for positive thinking

My kids find it odd that I subscribe too, and happily watch, nearly all videos by some (presumably) Japanese guy who has a not very old Youtube channel called "Solo Travel Japan".   His speciality has been catching overnight passenger ferries in Japan, but he also does capsule hotel and other experiences.  Each video is usually about 20 minutes long, often less, so it's not a huge time commitment.

I had no idea that you could do so much travel in that country by some pretty fancy and big ferries - usually they're overnight trips, and the accommodation ranges from some pretty nice private cabins with views, to dormitory style accommodation where the sound of snoring on a crowded trip must be a problem.  They all seem to just have cafeteria style food, and he show his meals on each trip too, despite the food being pretty standard Japanese fare.

He does not appear in his videos, apart from his hand or sometimes legs, and he doesn't talk; nor does he show other people up close.   (Given the pandemic, so many of his overnight ferry trips look like he is virtually the only person on board!).  It's just a Point of View videos of a silent person making a solo short trip in Japan.  (Maybe I like it because I travelled solo, often being silent for quite a long time too, when I was in my 20's?) 

I find there is an almost meditative peacefulness and comfort in watching him following the same routine -  here he is catching the bus to the port;  now boarding and going to his cabin, checking out the amenities; let's see what he is having on his cafeteria meal tonight.  (He sometimes seems to eat huge amounts, too.)   And there is the matter of his relentlessly cheery commentary in English subtitles, the latest example of which is the reason I decided to write this post.

This last trip was on an actually quite old passenger/vehicular ferry; it had some clear rust on decks and was way below the quality of the usual inter-island ferries he has been on.   He stayed this time in a very cheap dormitory style room:

His bunk featured a blanket that was clearly old and daggy.   Yet this was his commentary, which I found such an extreme case of "looking on the bright side" that it made me laugh out loud:

 

 

OK, maybe it wasn't worth a whole post, but that commentary is funny, and a bit delightful too.  

I don't know, but it's also kind of delightful that a person can make money for a time out of really simple, but cheerful and positive, content on Youtube.   I get bored with Youtubers who are too serious and introspective (or who do podcasts that ramble on for hours) - but people who are cheerful in whatever they do, it's pleasing they can make money from being nice.

Big in Portugual

So socialists do well in Portugal...I didn't know that:

Portugal’s ruling Socialists unexpectedly won an outright majority to govern solo after snap elections on Sunday that also saw the far right make huge gains.  

The results pave the way for a stronger government under Prime Minister Antonio Costa as the country tries to boost its tourism-dependent economy, which has been badly hit by the pandemic.

Oddly:

The results bucked the trend of declining fortunes for Socialist parties in other European nations, including in Greece and France where they have been virtually wiped off the map in recent years.

 

Some Roberts tweets to agree with

 

Maybe I should read up on how ballet became ballet...

Seeing this article on Twitter, my first reaction was "yeah, it's an art form I just can't imagine being interested in.  I can understand girls being attracted to the prettiness, or I guess girliness, of the classic ballerina get-up; but how does any man or boy, straight or gay, get attracted to it?"  

And then I realised, I don't have any idea about the history of this artform and how the look of "classic" ballet became solidified into its current state.   I mean, it couldn't have sprung fully formed into that look and style.   

One day, when I've done that long promised household sock audit, I might look into it.

 

Stop panicking everyone....

...my phone with Smart Launcher is operating again.

I tried one other launcher (Niagra) and didn't like it....