Revoke Article 50 petition – fraudulent figures of 5.3mn

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For the record. CM is a “No Deal” Brexit man. CM respects democracy. The EU has no moral authority and treats the Brits like a country forced to sign an unconditional surrender. Yet how accurate is this number of 5.3mn signatures on a petition wishing to revoke Article 50 so the UK can remain inside the EU?

If you log into the site to sign the petition there is nothing to stop one doing it an infinite number of times. One merely has to click “UK Citizen”, provide a name (bogus or not), use the same or different email addresses each time with a postcode and country of residence. Done. Endless opportunities to cheat.

See CM’s email inbox below. It shows the vote isn’t counted until you click the link but as a beta test, the same email address worked twice to lodge a signature. Is that not the most basic of flaws in an electronic system to guard against our government officials acting on false information? Clearly not.

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CM hoped the petition would reject the same email address for the sake of robustness but no, no, no.  It’s game on for anyone who wants to have a say in British democracy. Just click UK citizen, even if you aren’t and go for it.  Pick a postcode in the UK and pretend. Shouldn’t a passport or proper ID be required to sign a petition to force government to act? So much for Remainers looking to defend democratic process. Typical.

Unfortunately the media will be looking at 5.3mn people demanding revocation of Article 50 as unchallenged fact. CM has proved that it is an utterly false number. The administrators of UK petitions should be utterly ashamed of themselves to allow such a rudimentary safeguard go unchecked.

CM has British citizenship. CM has every legal right to vote. Yet this petition is a flagrant distortion of the truth. Sit back and observe how many times this figure gets bandied about as a true reflection of the mood of overzealous bots and cheaters by a salivating biased media.

Utterly disgraceful.

Immigrant woman steals white patriarch’s job

Gladys Berijiklian has won the NSW election. Her party is leading in the two seats left undecided which would give her a majority if she takes them.

While many pundits point to her being the first woman ever to be elected as Premier in NSW, we could go down the identity politics line and say she was also the daughter of Armenian immigrants who didn’t speak English. What does it matter? The better person won on merit. Did voters honestly think “It’s 2019. Better vote the immigrant woman in so we aren’t seen as a bunch of bigots to others!”? Of course not. Daley was the poorer candidate. The election validated it.

If we were to look at the electorates across the state, the LNP was returned because they thought she was clearly more up to the job than Opposition Leader Michael Daley, whose popularity sunk like a stone in his seat of Maroubra. It was unbelievable to think he wants to retain the leadership of the party after such a disastrous campaign.

For what it’s worth, NSW is net cash. For all the moaners that complain about the widespread sell down of assets under the LNP, the balance sheet shows that since 2011, net assets of the state have risen 75% to $254bn.

The Allianz Stadium rebuild was supposedly a key election issue. It wasn’t. Apart from the fact Daley was exposed as being extremely light on numbers, the media did its best to say that $18mn was all that was required to upgrade it to meet safety standards. The NSW economy gets around $86bn in tax revenues. If we think of $729mn to scrap and build it, that comes to 0.85% of the budget. Tiny.

Scare stories in the media pointed to “net” pension liabilities of an extra $17bn since they took office. The real number was only +$2bn. It only requires a look at the published accounts to fact check these figures. Once again journalists did their best to distort the truth. Perhaps one should congratulate the NSW Government for using realistic 2% discount rates on superannuation as opposed to the world’s largest public pension fund, CalPERS in the US, using 7.5% to mask the massive $1 trillion+ hole in marked to market shortfalls.

While historically true that Berijiklian is the first female leader to win an election in NSW, we must look beyond her gender and focus on her merely being the better candidate on pretty much all measures. Girl power? Or just the reality that the white patriarchy we hear about so much is proving time again that it is nothing more than a myth. Even men will happily vote in favour of a better candidate regardless of gender. CM couldn’t be happier to know the LNP leads for another 4 years with Gladys Berijiklian at the helm!!

Seattle Schitty Council

A Seattle citizen, Richard Schwartz, asks for the panel of Seattle City councilors to pay some mind to what he had to say. They couldn’t be less interested. Then people wonder why establishment politicians are being booted out.

The irony is looking at what these councilors purportedly have oversight – human rights, community safety, gender equality. The citizen made a point in his speech how the council allowed Seattle Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal to speak for as long as she wished the previous week while all others were given one minute. Some animals are more equal than others animals…

As he rightly points out, it was a damning indictment.

Gladys Berijiklian wipes the floor with Michael Daley

Listening to the NSW Election debate, incumbent Premier Gladys Berijiklian wiped the floor with Opposition Leader Michael Daley. Daley’s opening remarks were well prepared but it was all down hill from there when it was impromptu.

Daley was short on figures on pretty much every issue. Berijiklian knew them off by heart. Schools, climate change spending, public assets, electricity costs, mental health, hospitals, tolls, unemployment, education, water etc etc. Daley mentioned numerous times in his answers that he needed to double check his figures. On TAFE spending he guessed $3 billion. In reality it is $64 million.

When asked for a show of hands over the contentious Allianz Stadium rebuild, the Penrith audience backed the Premier by around 2:1.

The Premier made the rebuild costings clear and pointed out they’ve been in the public domain for over 12 months. Daley didn’t even have clear costings on how much it would cost to renovate. At one point Berijiklian was telling him how much bringing up to meet building codes would be. One would think he’d be all over the numbers on an issue he has expressed much passion over. She said that the new stadium would cost the same as renovating the current one.

Whether 100 undecided voters influence the election is a moot point but Berijiklian was the clear winner. The end result. Of 100 undecided, 50 would vote for the Premier and only 25 for Michael Daley.

Watch out for the growing totalitarian technocracy

ZeroHedge (ZH) has been temporarily banned in Australia and New Zealand by telecom companies to “protect consumers”. ZH is a regular staple for CM. As written with respect to the Facebook ban of last week, ZH is hardly a site which encourages race baiting or inflammatory journalism.

So on what authority do these telecom providers we pay monthly rates to have a say on what we consume? CM is sure there is some fine print backing this move but it is a very worrying sign when corporates arbitrarily start enforcing their own sense of morality on the public. Welcome to the new world of arbitrary censorship. Who are they to judge what is deemed safe? Have they canvassed customers to see if they’re happy to cede control to corporate boardrooms?

They already have tabs on who actually downloaded the horrific Christchurch video? Surely a better gauge on how society is decaying or recovering by getting facts of such trends rather than threatening people with 10 year jail terms. Do people grow a conscience when told they maybe thrown behind bars?

Perhaps if we could confirm more people wanted to watch the full 17 minutes of this latest atrocity it might provide insights on how our value standards in the community have shifted. Is this driven by the increase in broken homes over time? Violent video games? Lenient judiciaries? The advent of sites like Tinder which seek to promote promiscuity?What is it? Slapping on tougher laws that don’t address the problem won’t solve anything other than feed more resentment. We should be careful what we wish for.

The overwhelming majority of us probably have no stomach to watch the NZ gore. So in some respects such people face no direct impact from the heavy hand but who is to say that in the future they won’t if the censors narrow the definition of what is deemed acceptable to them? We the public clearly have no say in the matter.

Maybe underground printed media will make a resurgence? Or will the state seize dissenters and lock them up in concentration camps for re-education. Conspiracy theory? It might sound far fetched now, but if we stay silent we should not be surprised when more freedoms get curtailed. Remember that comedian Count Dankula faced a 12 month jail term for posting a YouTube video teaching his girlfriend’s dog to do a Nazi salute. Poor humour perhaps but hardly an act which was designed to incite hate speech. Welcome to 2019.

Let these poor people grieve in peace!

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Now it seems that the Canterbury Crusaders rugby union team is getting pressure to change the name in the wake of the horrible events of last week in Christchurch. At what point will activists stop creating outrage where none had existed to date? Can they cite one incidence of the NZ Muslim community demanding the 9x Super Rugby champions change it for the sheer offence it triggered among them before this tragedy? No. Would rebranding it the Sultans help redress the balance in the eyes of these apparatchiks? Let these poor people grieve without this politically correct nonsense to deal with! Where is the compassion? Where is the respect? Stop politicizing this tragedy to grief signal.

There have been numerous atrocities caused against the Muslim community around the world and even then we never heard the Islamic councils in NZ  murmur a word against changing the name of a professional sports club. Probably suggests the majority were already well above such trivialities and probably didn’t see any relevance. All Blacks legend Sonny Bill Williams, who converted to Islam in 2009, played for the Crusaders in 2011. He did not raise any issues against the club based on his learnings. Surely he should have rejected the contract if he thought it would create a problem for his brothers and sisters. He didn’t. Although he did take exception to having Bank of NZ sponsorship displays on his uniform as it conflicted with his religious beliefs on institutions that charge interest. So he has proved he is across his subject matter. Are the activists?

Crusaders CEO Colin Mansbridge, posted on the team website the following.

“Like all New Zealanders, the Crusaders team and organisation are deeply shocked by this tragedy and our thoughts are with the victims and their families. This is bigger than rugby and we’re absolutely heartbroken for our wider community, which is where our thoughts are.
 
In terms of the Crusaders name, we understand the concerns that have been raised. For us, the Crusaders name is a reflection of the crusading spirit of this community. What we stand for is the opposite of what happened in Christchurch on Friday; our crusade is one for peace, unity, inclusiveness and community spirit.
 
In our view, this is a conversation that we should have and we are taking on board all of the feedback that we are receiving, however, we also believe that the time for that is not right now. Emotions are very raw and real at the moment. There is the need for this community to wrap our support around those who are most affected by Friday’s events, and that is the immediate focus for the Crusaders team. At an appropriate time, we will thoroughly consider the issues that have been raised and our response to that. That will include conversations with a range of people, including our Muslim community.
 
This team and the wider organisation are united with our community in standing against such abhorrent acts as that which occurred on Friday in Christchurch, and in standing in support of our Muslim brothers and sisters.” 

CM truly hopes that the Crusaders hold the line and refuse to buy into this political pressure. Good on the CEO made these sensible remarks. The club has never pushed a narrative other than playing rugby. Why then must it being singled out for demonization like this? Are we to believe that there are no Crusaders rugby fans that happen to be Muslim? While the activists are at it perhaps the Newcastle Knights and St George Illawarra Dragons should remove these symbols of Christianity from their logos to show their solidarity across the ditch. How did devout Muslim Hazem El Masri ever play for the Canterbury Bulldogs given that canines are considered impure? Can the social justice warriors answer that? 

There is a strong betting that the NZ Muslim community won’t ask for a change in the name of the Crusaders when things settle down if and when it gets to such a conversation. One can be confident it will be so far down the list of priorities. Far more pressing issues to help with the healing process after this senseless act than meddling with a professional sports club.  

Grazie Mille?

German MEP Elmar Brok has apparently told German media that Nigel Farage has secured Deputy PM Matteo Salvini’s assurance that the Italians will block the plan to extend the Brexit deadline. All 27 EU nations must unilaterally agree to such terms. Nice to see one nation state honour the democracy of another.

Note that even left-leaning UK House of Commons speaker John Bercow has said that May’s mildly altered versions can’t be brought before the House again for another vote. He’s right. Nothing short of wholesale change would alter the current drubbings.

How quickly can Eurocrats back down to offer the deal they probably ought to have done in the beginning? Did the British public ask for a watered down relationship with the EU at the time they voted to leave? No.

Hopefully Farage’s plan works. Sad to see that it takes a foreign leader to uphold democracy in the UK than the very people elected to do so.

Or do we cynically need to consider the idea that the EU will cut Italy some generous concessions to vote with the herd. Although siding with the British forces much needed change within the EU which probably can achieve the same result.