Boonta Vista - EPISODE 105: Carrots And Stick

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

Andrew, Lucy & Theo are looking at the government's latest measures to "encourage" people to stop collecting welfare, bad opinion columns capped off by the Return Of The King, our new Planely Speaking segment and your letters. *** Support our show and get exclusive bonus episodes by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista *** Merchandise available at: boontavista.com/merchandise *** Twitter: twitter.com/boontavista iTunes: tinyurl.com/y8d5aenm Spotify: spoti.fi/2DBCXGA Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/s?fid=144888&refid=stpr Pocket Casts: pca.st/SPZB RSS: tinyurl.com/kq84ddb

Welcome to Pointente Vista episode 105 and we are on a farm. Pick and fruit. Gotta tell you, I don't care for it. I'm up a ladder, getting scratched. There's bugs biting me and I'm earning very little money. The next tree over, I can hear a piece of unripe fruit has fallen onto his head, making a sound like a coconut. It's Theo.

Hey, hello. How are you enjoying the farm? I'm not sure how many allergies I've got right now or what they are, but they are debilitating. Hating every moment of this. All of them happening at once and all of it happening under the bright glare of the sun in the outdoors. My arms are weak from being above my head, from lifting their own weight. And in the next tree over from that, getting hot here. It's Lucy. Lucy, how's it going?

It's good. I love exploitative labor, which I assume we're all backpackers from Europe of some kind, some weird country in Europe that you've never heard of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Picking fruit, that is super.

Oh goodness. That's just what we're doing now. Have you ever been to Germany? And everybody calls everything super and it rules? I do actually. I'm into it. Everyone's just like, oh, yeah, super. Like I spent so long after spending like several days in Berlin.

I just spent months afterwards going super about everything because I was like I love the energy, love the energy that you guys got going on that one. I think if we can be racist doing accents of anyone it's Germany. I feel like their actions have at least earned them that much. It was part of the reparations it was an ungodly amount of money theythem that much. Look, it was part of the reparations. There was an ungodly amount of money they had to pay. They weren't allowed to keep an active army and also everybody was allowed to do their accent

extremely raciously for 120 years. That's right. You have to officially, I think like part of the surrender record was also surrendering their accent. So here we are and it sucks and I'll tell you why this is happening. It's because the Australian Conservative government baby they're back in action. Doing what they love to do. Doing what they love to do. We can't be competitive on the world market.

We love to help the poor by punishing them. You might be thinking to yourself, oh I could really do with some help, but what if someone arrived at your house, hit you with a big stick? That doesn't sound like help at all. Sounds like it sucks injury. Oh, that might encourage you to like, um, to get down and grab whatever your bootstraps are, I don't know, and pull them up. Hoisting yourself up into the air with them. What is that?

I'm not sure how that works. I think it's levitation. Ah, okay. Somethink it's levitation. Ah, okay. Some sort of spiritual levitation. So the pulling yourself up by the bootstrap's thing, I just want to, as a quick aside, that started off as like one of those funny kind of jokes about a thing that you can't do, right? Like in the first episode of Future Arm where bend his arms fall off and he uses one arm to put the other one on and then uses the

other one to put the first one on. But then it like because I believe conservatives have absolutely no, that little part of their brain that processes irony is just a small rock like a like a kidney zone calcification and they are unable to process that and have started using it unironically. I think that's the process that happened, right? Yes, and they eventually pass that stone through their urethra. Sexually transmitted onto their horrible spawn. And that's science, science, chaff. It's going to be a very science-heavy episode, I feel. Certainly is. There is a type of science that's being employed here under this article that says,

Testing Welfare Recipients for Drugs, still on the agenda, Coalition insists. It's one of the few things that get them hard anymore. Despite it being proven to not work or not have a success rate every time that they do it. They do want to test unemployed people for drugs but they don't want to let employed people test their drugs. That's right. Well that just makes sense. It's not the right kind of. We don't want the type of testing it stops you from dying dying the but also they're doing like the right kind of drugs, the cool kinds, like cocaine?

Yes, that's the type you can do with the races. Which helps you, I believe scientifically it's engineered to help you buy low and sell high. Oh yeah, it's true. It helps you do business. Not like the poor people drugs. So it says here, internal documents suggest that the government's hugely controversial bid to drug test welfare recipients is no longer a key priority, but the coalition insists that it remains government policy because you wouldn't want anyone thinking that you weren't really committed to the bit, really committed to your whole thing that you do. The incoming brief for the new social services minister Anne Rustin does not appear to list the the the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the drug the the the the the the the the the the te te te te te te te te, te, te.o te te te te te te to te te te te te te te te te te te te te te te te te toe toe toe toe toe toe toe toe toe toe toe.o toe.o toe.o toe.o te.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.ea.ea.e.I.I. te. te. thing that you do. The incoming brief for the new social services minister, Anne Rustin, does not appear to list

the drug testing trials either a key matter for attention in the government's first hundred days or a key milestone for the coming 12 months. The brief obtained by Guardian Australia through freedom of information law shows other controversial policies such as the cashless welfare card expansion, another wonderful way to publish poor people, required more urgent attention. A bill to trial drug testing of welfare recipients in three locations across two years remains before the Senate. Earlier attempts failed to win requisite cross-bench support. Now this is what I like when they explain the justification for this.

Rustin said, substance abuse can be a barrier to employment with consequences for individuals and their families our communities and our entire welfare system. This trial is about testing new ways of identifying job seekers with substance abuse issues, helping them to overcome these issues and increasing their chances of gaining employment. I'm sure they're going to help them. Yeah, through their chances of gaining employment. I'm sure they're going to help them. Yeah, through the conservative method of stopping you from getting any assistance in living whatsoever.

Stopping you from addressing your material conditions. Yep. And then saying, if you would like any help with things like eating, living somewhere and not dying, then you have to prove that you have stopped smoking cones sometimes. So there's really no, like for example, in the internal brief that lists the trials cost of 5.6 million dollars, I'm almost willing to bet that like the majority of that is not earmarked out for like say drug counseling to help people or therapy or or anything that would actually help you I'm almost certain that the entire cost is going to or it's like forcing people to undergo testing and then saying okay you're off new start

now and that's probably gonna be the end of it. Because as we know about this country, pretty much 100% of the efforts that the government undertakes are just about finding ways to disqualify people from it. So that's always good. Of course, the thing that has led us. Great, government. Woo. No means left untested. So you might think to yourself, oh that's kind of shitty. I hope that doesn't come in. Don't worry, they got more. They got a whole pile. From this scorchingly, unfortunately written piece by Jack Horton in the West, the West Australian, Pick fruit or lose welfare, PM says, See if you can pick up any kind of, let's say, bias coming through in this article which opens.

Dolbludgers who refuse to take jobs at farms will have their center link payments slashed as part of a national push to help Ozzy farmers prepare for the upcoming harvest season. Jesus Christ. Now let's keep that first sentence in mind because this entire piece... I feel like we need to get more specific about that in a bit. Yeah, because this entire piece is this constant tug of war back and forth between why they are actually doing this. Continues, the federal government is prepared to penalize layabouts who turn down short-term harvest work and will step up penalties for those who have no excuse for doing so. I wonder if like I can't afford

like to pay my own rent so I don't exactly have the means to move myself to like North Queensland for a season. Also all the farm work I've seen advertised is basically room and board in exchange for work. You don't get paid money for it. Yeah, you get to continue living a little bit longer but in a different spot where none of your friends and family are. Mm-hmm. It sounds like a great fucking deal. I'm almost choked to death when I coffee just there. I'm okay everybody. That'd be awkward. Great for our ratings though. Yes. Yes. But that would that would that that that that that that that that that that that that that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that would that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that that that that. that that. that. that. that. the the the the they. they. they the the the that. the that. the just there. I'm okay, everybody. That'd be awkward. Great for out ratings, though.

Yes, but that would mean that Lucy and I would have to fill another 30 minutes or so. God, what a nightmare. That's, uh, look. You'd also have to come to my house and say to my grieving wife, we are so sorry, but is his laptop back there? He's got all the Patron login. We need. Can you just swoop that bad boy up and like wiggle the mouse around a little bit before it locks? If you could if you could just wrap up the end of that show and send it to us? Don't worry, we will edit out his death throws. I think, I mean, I don't, Andrew does all the editing, I assume it's easy.

We must be very simple. We would love for you to take some of the Patreon money and get yourself some nice flowers. And then just shoot the rest of that through to us. Yeah, I mean you can have like a quarter of that patron money for the next month. It's basically yours. It is I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I th th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. tho tho tho tho tho th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. to. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to theeeea. We will theea. We will thee. We will th next month. It's basically yours. It is, I mean he's worked for, it's the 30th, that counts. Oh dear. But I'm alive, so luckily we don't have to go through all that. So continues, the worst offenders could have their dull money withdrawn for four weeks.

If this crackdown fails to attract enough workers. So it's a crackdown on dull bludges, but it's also about attracting workers. It's when you've got a carrot and a stick, and you put the carrot on the end of the stick. Mm-hmm. And you both at once, I think. You immediately start hitting someone with the stick.

With the carotid stick, yes. Yep. I'm just imagining like a cat and nine tales and there's a carrot tied to the end of each strand of the thing. You flog somebody with it. This is what they meant. It's what they meant by carrot and stick. Carriots and stick. Where we cannot find Australians to do the work. We cannot allow the fruit to rot, Mr. Morrison said, because he will consider increasing the numbers by changing working holiday visas to push visitors onto farms. We will back our farmers and make arrangements through our Pacific Island worker and migration program to get the job done. Our cheap labor program.

Mm-hmm. So, the PM says he was prompted into action after hearing from farmers about the difficulties of attracting staff to the regions, and he emphasized the plan revolved around getting Aussies into work. Quote, this is about doing everything we can to ensure Australian jobs are being filled by Australians, he said. Our government has heard from farmers about how tough it is now to find workers particularly at the height of harvest season for some crops. We want to highlight exactly where the jobs are and make sure job seekers know where

to be looking. God. So, I feel like, I feel like this has gone very, very quickly from, hey, some people on the doll are refusing to take particular kinds of jobs, and we're going to make them do that so that, you know, this myth, this conservative myth of the choosy job seeker, the person who's been offered like 20 or 30, like, customer service jobs and said,, no, this job is too small. I'd rather get paid less than the poverty line every week. This is good to me.

Yep, it's absolutely nothing to do with the very commonly known statistics of that there's something like, I think it's about 15 applicants for every job that's going. That's a low estimate from ones I've heard. Oh, sorry, let me let me rephrase that. When you compare the number of jobs that are available to the number of unemployed people. Oh, right. In the country, it is like 15 people to a job.the number of people who are actually applying for jobs is in the more because there's a bunch of under-employed people yeah So but I mean like this this government in particular it's it's galling to kind of see this from because they are Possibly the most free market principles Galaxy brain government that we've had in quite a while right right? possibly the most free market principles,

galaxy brain government that we've had in quite a while, right? Or at least since the Howard years. And so you look at like the situation of being unable to attract workers to jobs in farms. Right, you put the whole welfare recipient thing to the side. And you go, well, what, in a, you know, in a purely capitalist system, what is the, what is the whole welfare recipient thing to the side and you go what you know in a purely capitalist system what is the what is the solution you have to raise wages right if people aren't going out there supply and demand it's so but that doesn't arrive in this at all because the concept of of raising wages for fruit pickers is absolutely, you know, impossible for the, for our farmers,

which is, which are, you know, I think, for the great part, probably really struggling with the, with the price of our produce at the moment. And so their only way of addressing this is to bring in basically slave labor, right? There's no indentured servitude. Indentioned servitude, right? Which is legal in this scenario. Which is legal in this scenario. And it's basically the only way that, you know, if you're confused about this as a, you know, as a non-Australian listening to the show or what have you, you know, the only way that Australian fruit farms run most of the time is with a huge surge of underpaid people on work visas, right? Or tourist labour, right? And so at no point do we talk about subsidies for for farms, right?

If you if you consider that the farm industry overall is a positive influence on our economy and you know it keeps our, you know, it's good use for our land or what have you, I'm no, you know, I don't, I'm not an expert on how this all kind of fits together in in Australia, but if you go through all of that and you say, yes, we want farms, but no, we can't afford to pay our people, the obvious answer has to be subsidies, right? But that doesn't, it's, we've been going for so long with, basically slave labor that, we've had a, you know, the taste for it now and it's like... Can't turn back. Once you got a sniffer that slave labor it's everything

else looks very hard by comparison. Have you tried this slave labor it's very Moorish I've got to tell you. Yeah absolutely. I yeah I agree like that there are so many other industries throughout this country and throughout the world where like you're saying the commonly the th th th th th the the the c is the c is the c is the c. the c. the c. th is th th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is thi thi thi thi thi tho tho. tho. the the. the. the. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. that's that's that's that's the. that's the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. th country and throughout the world where, like you're saying, the commonly accepted solution is to say, if we consider this thing a greater good for our economy, as well as for just fucking feeding people, let's not forget. Yep. And like they're saying here, well we're not just going to let this fruit rock, we're not going to let these industries die, so what do we do? We make sure that we're forcing people in this.. this. this, you? Yeah, I think I do. No, not specifically. This makes me think of like a government that has run like the TV show Nathan for you. So yeah, not not my guess but keep going. Where the government comes along and says, what, so I guess we'll just, we'll have a farming industry where lots of people pick fruit and they'll all get paid $3 an hour.

And everybody goes, no, that's stupid. I'm not going to work for that little. Or, as is actually the case, you will get paid $60 per ton of fruit that you pick. Yeah, that's right. That's the cool bit about this. That's the nice. That's th th th th th th th th th th th th the th th the th the the nice the nice the nice the nice th the nice th th th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the the thi thi thi, we'll thi thi thi thi thi thi the the the the the the thi the the the the the the thi the thi thi the thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th th th th th. We'll th th th th. We'll th. We'll the the thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi. thi. thi. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi. thi. the thi thi $60 per ton of fruit that you pick. Yeah, that's right, that's the cool bit about this. That's the nice little scam that they've got going. It's like, well, we're not not underpaying people. You just, you get paid for what you pick, basically. You just didn't pick enough. You know, I was looking at people in the replies to some of the posts about thi, the posts, the posts, the posts, the posts, the posts, the posts, the posts, thi, the posts, thi, their, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, they's like, thi, their, their, thi, thi, they, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the posts about this talking about their own experiences doing it and you know like There's a woman saying You know, I'm like a pretty small person and I was doing this work and I'm just like half the size of some of these other dudes And so what I was doing was like 12 hours of back breaking labor and getting like $60 for it and other people were physically able to pick you know two or three times as much as me in that period and getting a lot more but But yeah like like the Nathan for you model proposing something stupid and then when that doesn't work going

Time to pile layer upon layer of stupid things on top of this just to prove that it's a working model Let's let's also force all welfare recipients to do this and let's also change all tourist veuuuuu tourist???????? tourist tourist tourist tourist tourist tourist the tourist to tourist to to tourist tourist to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to their their to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to their their their the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. te. te. te. te. te. te. tea. tea. tea. tea. tea. tea. toe. the. the. the. a working model. Let's also force all welfare recipients to do this, and let's also change all tourist visas to require people to come and do this, just so that when enough people come through it and do it, you can turn to the camera and say, see a successful business model. I was going to say, though, I thought this may have reminded you of perhaps our car industry. Which was heavily subsidized and then, and they said, and they they said, and they said, and they said, they said, they they they they they th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the, the, the, the, thi, that, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, thus, thus, thus, thus, thu, thu, thu, thu, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to th. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to heavily subsidized and then, and they said, hey, we can't do without these subsidies. But if you want to keep employing people and keeping people on a job and having our, you know, being proud about the things that we make here in this country, you know, you can just keep subsidizing everything's going to be okay. And the government says, we're going to stop subsidizing you and they went oh cool see you what happened then?

Well then yeah strange thing very very strange thing happened the car industry collapsed literally overnight. We woke up after a weekend I believe and there was no car industry anymore. Yep everybody had packed up their suitcases. Waving goodbye to us. Yep they are they left the glue behind the glue behind that the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. their. their. their. their their their. their their their. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the everybody had packed up their suitcases, waving goodbye to us. Yep, they left the glue behind that they used to stick the Holden badge on front of all of the... what's the American brand? What's the American brand? On front of all the Chevroletes. Cars. And yeah, that's right, car brand cars. We buy cars and we rebranded.

They left the stuff on the cars. And they left. Hmm. Here's a wild idea. Crazy idea. Instead of investing in drug testing welfare recipients and cracking down on them. Imagine subsidizing their wages so that they can do farm work. Just spending enough money to make it like a living wage. Imagine. Crazy. Sorry, just throwing things around here. You know. You sound out of your mind right now.

Crazy. Well remember when we had that big mining boom, I don't know if you guys recall, kind of the thing that like transformed our nation and all this sort of stuff. And we needed people to go other places, places where they didn't live. So they lived in one place, but we said, well, we've got these jobs for you out out here in this other distinct place. It's not the place you live in, it's a different place, But what we we going to do is we're going to pay you an eye-watering amount of money to make up for the fact that you are not living in the place where your friends and family and cat and dog are you'll be over here in some shithole I don't know, Mackay. And basically we're just going to pay you, oh fuck, what's a number? We'll make up a number. And then everyone said, yes.

That sounds great. But the difference being is that those people were either digging coal or they had degrees, which is, I think, distinct from treating fruit pickers as human beings. Not sure, there's some distinction there, but it's escaping me at the moment. There's also the fact that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that obviously that's also the fact that that obviously turned out very badly for a lot of people. Oh yeah. Fly and Fly out work has destroyed a lot of families out there. It's also destroyed a lot of suicides and all that sort of stuff.

So, great stuff there from the government. You love to see it. You love to see innovative thinking. You know? Very innovative. Speaking of innovative thinking, I've been struggling lately folks. I've been scouring high and low, trying to find some of that classic, bad Australian opinion writing, you know. People say to us, hey, hey, what's all Daisy Cousins been up to? And the answer is not getting paid to publish anything anywhere and trying very hard to become a YouTube grifter. Which we have no interest in watching.

Sorry, but not going to watch a video, you know, that's too much for us. I don't want to hear that, whatever it is that she's doing to her to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to be to be their their their their their the much for us. I tried, I tried. I don't want to hear that whatever it is that she's doing to her voice. I simply do not like it. I threw one on, I was like maybe I can mind a bit of content out of this, and after like two minutes of the talking I went. All right, time to look somewhere else. What's what's Caleb Bond up to. And also is basically writing nothing anywhere anymore except for like extremely localized news about about like levies on certain types of garbage collection in Adelaide. Hell yeah. I love that he's 80 years old. Yeah, he's transitioned straight to just local news, extremely local news. So I had a look at the Daily Telegraphs Rondave View section.

The meeting place for Newsmaking Views. Oh, Ronday Views. I got it. Ronday View. Runday views. Now I found a piece by a lady named Kerry Parnell, who was not familiar with but she seems to fit this classic mold of I saw one thing that made me mad and now I'm going to write a whole piece about. And sure this piece called fund your own holiday.

Begpacking is not a good look. And she is written an entire piece because she saw one go fund me online. Fancy a trip around the world? Don't bother saving up. Make like a millennial. T. Tuh. And beg for the funds. The phenomenon known as bagpacking has been spotted on the streets everywhere from Hong Kong to Bangkok. But now it's in cyberspace too.

Thanks to Bangkok, but now it's in cyberspace too. Thanks to... Thanks to influences. Thanks to influences like Cat and Elena, self-described lovers, travelers and dream chases of another beautiful day Instagram fame. The couple made the news this week after posting on go-fund me to raise money for a journey from their native Germany to Africa by bicycle. Ah, super. Of course, they're a big pair of diphits, white people with dreads and all that sort of stuff, who cares? They want to take us all on a huge adventure as long as we pay. It'll be good for us, you see.

So she's written a whole piece about how we shouldn't give like $40,000 to a pair of hippie dipshits from Germany, which, to be fair, I wasn't like on my way to do. Wasn't planning on it. No. She's gone through the whole process here from saying, I don't think we should give them all this money to travel, to also referring to the subsequent Instagram post after the big backlash where the guy has said, I'm going to be going offline for 30 days to do a mental cleanse of some form.

So... A little brain colonic. So the classic, let's write an entire piece about nothing at all, but while I was looking through this, something caught my eye that really, really tickled my fancy. Among the other articles from Kerry Parnell, the Kerry Parnel, we have more from Kerry Parnel. Why has Megan Markle lost her sparkle? And this is the one that caught me. Time to write an entire piece entitled I will never

understand the appeal of horror movies. Okay, that's cool. I was like, why did you write this? Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cinema, there's another deluge of horror films filling our screens. Just like that whole period of say the last 80 years when they stopped making horror movies entirely. There was psycho and then I think basically nothing until Final destination. Yeah, the bye-bye man. Black the two miles.

Yes, have you seen the bye-bye man? I've not seen the bye-bye. You gotta see the bye-bye. Really enjoyed that one, to be honest. We should do a watching of the bye-bye. All right, I'm down with that one to be honest. We should do a watching of the five by the day. Yes, absolutely. All right, I'm down with that. From the Pet Cemetery remake where a family brings the dead daughter back to life to the disturbing child killing the curse of La Larona out Thursday to another version of child's play with an updated psycho-chucky doll followed by the kids slashing clown Pennywise

returning in it chapter 2. Yes, there's a minor murdering bonanza in a cinema near you. I may sound like a total kill joy. Mm-hmm. You do. Although I'll take that over enjoying watching kids being killed while I munch popcorn. But why is this entertainment? I could never stomach it before, and it's even worse since I became a mother.

Admittedly, now this is, this is our favorite part of any like bad opinion article. Is the sentence jammed right into like the third paragraph that negates the entire purpose of the piece. Oh, the, the Caleb Bond sentence. Yes. Admittedly, I have always been a horror light weight. I almost fainted watching a screening of Wolf Creek and not because I was seated behind the lovely David Stratton, which is enough to give any lady palpitations. Oh, really? Keep it in your pants. I'm not sure about that one. Folks we need you to we need you to pause the podcast, open up a search engine of the show Duck. Dock. Go and just Google David Stratton. If you are not an Australian of a certain vintage

who has watched a lot of the movie show with Margaret and David. Google yourself a picture of David Stratton and ask yourself... He's right up there with international sex symbols. They got Tom Cruise. You got a... Warren Beattie. Do people still like Warren Beatty? I assume so. And then David Stratton. So find a picture of David Stratton and ask yourself, does this guy steam my clams?

It's like a ill-looking Jeremy Corbyn. Certainly is. Yeah, yeah. Imagine, imagine if you will, that geriatric, diabetic history substitute teacher you had in high school. And if you thought, I gotta fuck this guy. I gotta fuck this guy while he tells me whether or not he liked the Wolf Creek sequel. Which is probably a bit cruel, because David Stratton actually seems to rule, but. He seems nice. I've got nothing against him.

You can seem nice without being a big fuck object. Yeah, look at him go, wow, that's a fuck machine. Even silly old Blair Witch made me sick. I watched it on a flight, and the combination of detention, wobbly camera and turbulence sent me rushing to the toilets to throw up. Wow. That one upset me too because I was 13 and everyone told me it was real. Everybody thought it was real. Great marketing. I th. th. th. th. th. I th th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I the. I the. I the. I to the. I to to to to toe. I've toe. I'm toe. I was thi. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. I was the. I was thii. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was thi. I was the. I was the. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toean. toeaneaa. I was theaned. I was the can relate. Everybody thought it was real. We all thought it was real.

Great marketing campaign. I'm sure I've said it before but an ex-girlfriend of mine she had, like, in high school she had a book that they put out beforehand that was like the case files of a detective who had gone to they like made up a tr true crime type book and I think I think she saw that before the movie even came out so in her brain she was like this shit is legit genius I also think that the the wobbly camera thing the handheld camera nausea it only affects you if you're like watching it in a fucking cinema where it's taking up your entire field of vision yeah anyway I pushed past the a queue of disgruntled passengers shrieking that I was going to be

sick on their shoes, confirming that all bad opinion columnists constantly out themselves as being the most insufferable motherfuckers in the world. Yep. What made it even more embarrassing was the nine-year-old girl who was watching it in the seat next to me found it and me funny. You're fucking owned by a little kid. I mean first of all this didn't happen. Yeah. And if it did, why are you, why are you writing this publicly outing yourself like this?

I just love pieces like this that get thinner and thinner as they go. I won't ever be downloading the sequel Blair, which, why would you? You've already expressed that you don't like these movies. It's not even a good movie. You've made a great choice here. Congratulations. My goodness. But why do we want to see so much horror?

Why do we enjoy people watching people meet grizzly ends and scaring ourselves with us? . . So? enjoy watching people meet grizzly ends and scaring ourselves with us. Psychologists say we enjoy horror movies because of an excitement. We're just now spiraling out into like Webster's Dictionary to find a horror movie. Like as someone who writes things in a newspaper for a living, she could have gone and interviewed a horror buff and he could have or she could have articulated Their the reasons why they enjoy horror movies, you know in terms that are Personal that so you may understand the psyche of it better, but no what she's done is gone to web

MD and gone in horror movie and copypaste of the result. I think My goodness. I'm jealous. I'm jealous. I'm jealous. I'm jealous. I'm. I'm jealous. I'm. I'm jealous. I'm the. I'm the. I'm the. I'm the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the copypaste to the result, I think. My goodness. I'm jealous of the people that write these, to be honest. They don't even have to research. They don't have to be funny or insightful. They can just write a whole column about I don't like this thing. And they get paid money for it.

How do you get the gig though? I feel like you should have to be especially And they get paid money for it. How do you get the gig though? That's another one one, no? Good Lord. I feel like you should have to be especially funnier insightful to be a columnist, but I don't think that's often the case. That is not the case at all. My goodness. So, you know, I'm gonna keep an eye on this Kerry Parnel, but I've just really struggled. It's been a it's been a darth of quality dumb shit coming out of opinion columns

But the god the OG The king of Australian dog shit opinions has swooped in last minute on the buzzer shooting from half-court and he drains that motherfucker. We're talking about Andrew Bolt. Andrew Bolt is extremely mad about the TV show Chernobyl. Theo would you like to tell us why he is mad about the TV show Chernobyl? Andrew Bol is mad about the TV show Chernobyl because global warming does not exist. Of course. Basically. So he has written an article and then immediately written another article because every conservative columnist needs to get paid twice once for the article and

then wants to respond to the criticism. And it seems like he saw, I think, the last three minutes of the TV show, Chernobyl, which is the part where they go through the montage of various real-life characters and all that sort of stuff and the figures and you know all the bad stuff that that has resulted from nuclear reactor for Chernobyl pop in its top and doing a great big gusher all over the associated nations of the former USSR. So basically the thing that he has taken umbrage with and written two articles about is the claim at the end taken umbrage with and written two articles about is the claim at the end that that between 4,000 and 93,000 people died from radiation poisoning and He has used this to extend to criticize the anti-nuclear brigade as well as the

global warming brigade in a number of very very very very, very the, uh, very, very, the, uh, very, very, very, the, uh, very, very, the, th..... th. th. th. th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the warming brigade in a number of very, very strange ways. So he has basically, the whole thing that this article revolves around is that number, not the six episodes of harrowing TV showing the way that structural kind of lies and ask covering and self-interest overrode the scientific community to repeatedly cover up evidence about unsafe generation of power resulting in a disaster. I can't draw any parallels to the current situation about that either. But instead at the end, this number where he repeatedly kind of cherry-picks studies. So, one thing that makes the speculation so sick is the science now is actually quite

clear. The known death toll from Chernobyl is fewer than 100. That's right. It's not 30,000, 93,000 or 1 million, but fewer than 100. All right, so this next sentence, I feel like I could write a PhD on conservative thinking just based on what is missing from this sentence. And just if you will entertain me and just give me a guess at your understanding of what is missing from this next sentence.

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for instance, says 30 people died in the blast or shortly thereafterweds. Is there, can you guys pick what might be, what might be missing from this count? Just at a guess, just, I mean, we're not health experts or anything. Is, is it anything to do with the part that killed a lot of people not being an explosion? Is it, oh, hold. They didn't report that, the famously above board Soviet Union. Mm-hmm. What about, what about, is it anything to do with the fact that there's still a massive exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant that people can't go into and they write

all this stuff about how there's like lots of animals there, but no people at all for some reason? Hmm, maybe. He might cover this, I'm sure, like, let's read on. The Chernobyl forum, a multinational agency, set up to monitor the effects, says another 19 first responders died prematurely over the next two decades from various causes, but their deaths are not necessarily, and in some cases are certainly not directly attributable to radiation exposure. So again, this is like a masterpiece in cherry picking and and just excluding the facts that you don't like. So the Chernobyl Forum also produced a paper that estimates an additional 5,000 deaths

came from radiation exposure, from increased cancer sort of thing. And there's like, there's a whole, there's a whole spectrum. And I want to kind of get into this briefly, but that it's sort of, it's one of those things that takes subtlety to approach and to talk about, to say, well, look, not his strongest points. We're not quite sure what the, what the end result is, that the end result is th is, th is, there is almost certainly a long-lasting effect that needs to be considered, that we need to you know talk about the you know upwards of half a million people used as you know labor to pick up radiated graphite blocks and all this sort of stuff and where they're at and all the sort of stuff that that that you know that that that you know the sort of stuff that, that you know that's th that, th th that, th th that, th th that, th that, th th th that, th th that, th th that, th that, th the that, that, that, ne that, ne ne ne ne that needs the ne need need the the the that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs that needs need need ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne the the the the the the the the the the the the the the that that that that that their their their their their their the to be their the that that that that that that that that that that graph graphite blocks and all this sort of stuff and where they're at

and all this sort of stuff that you know it may be something that we can only ever understand statistically instead of man die and explosion. Man go boom die now. Yeah that's right and you know maybe perhaps to to Andrew Bolt even 4,000 deaths isn't enough to make a big deal about, so basically, you know, 9-11 was not so bad. But he kind of, but then he of course turns this gun that he has just expertly loaded. His gun of hypocrisy. And he points it to blast at the anti-nuclear brigade. That you know, there is, Shinobel is used as an example, you might say the example, until Fukushima,

of the dangers of nuclear power. And the irony is, of course, that nuclear power, as he highlights, and possibly the only good nuclear power and the irony is of course that nuclear power as he highlights and possibly the only good point he has in the entire article is that you'll read the it's the irony there is that nuclear power is actually the power source warming alarmists should be demanding and I want to get to that as well, reliable, relatively cheap, and with zero carbon emissions. And that's the only place where he's sort of approaching a point with any kind of subtlety where he's sort of considered the spread of factors. But of course, that requires like a discussion with some sort of nuance and that sort of thing.

Whereas he seems to have just missed the entire previous six episodes where the show is never explicitly anti-nuclear. Have you seen it? I haven't. I haven't. I've seen it. I wouldn't say it's specifically about that. It's just more about how it was handled. That's exactly right. I'd, I, I, I, at that, that the that that, th, th, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi to to to to to to to to th. thi thi th. to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the th, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. the the th wouldn't say it's specifically about that. It's just more about how it was handled. That's exactly right. At no point was the show like, nuclear power is bad. It actually seemed to not be interested in that point whatsoever, which is probably a good idea. Instead, it talks about the way in which it was repeatedly covered up. Information was not taken seriously, you know, the previous cover-ups of things from the, from the nuclear industry to say, well, the RBMK reactors, when you go to shut them down, there is a flaw. It causes a small power surge. That's probably bad if you're already in a power surge.

And all of this sort of stuff. So at no point is it specifically anti-nuclear power. But that has not stopped him from saying that it is. He calls it. Connecting those dots himself. Also, I wouldn't say that climate change believers are specifically anti-nuclear crowd either. No, I think it's a strong man, Andrew Bolt. Absolutely. I think there is a fairly reasonable split, right?

I think that the Greens, by the Greens, factions, factions that go for NewfKlea even. That's exactly, that's that that's that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right that's right, that factions that go for NewfKlea even? That's exactly that's exactly right and it's because they, you know, like like us or like like any kind of right-thinking person, you are taking all of the factors involved and going well there is the possibility of tragic accident right and and huge accident that has required tens of thousands of people to leave their houses, you know, hundreds of the square clan. of of of of of of of of of to to th. to th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the of the of the of the of the of the. And theons. And theons. And thea thea thea thi their their thea' thi thi thi thi thi the. And it thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi. And it th. And it th. And it th. And it th. And it th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thi. And thea. And thea. And thea. And theans. theans. theans. toeans. toeans toeans theans theans theans. And it's theans. And it's th has required tens of thousands of people to leave their houses, you know, hundreds of square kilometers to be uninhabitable, versus this slow, constant grind of carbon emission from the coal, gas, oil that we burn every single day that is contributing to a gigantic disaster that we cannot see.

But... So it's not a problem. But it's not... But it's not a problem. You can't see it. So it's basically fine. Like like radiation. So like so many of these things, Andrew Bolt has taken the exact wrong message from this. Where instead of saying well you know we need to be listening to the scientists and we need to be open with the information and making the right policy decisions to make safe electricity, he is saying, no, actually, radiation good for baby. Who's to say otherwise? And also, what if carbon was good for plants? You'd feel pretty foolish then if it turns out carbon's good for plants.

But no, he says, instead, scares cell and calm sense does not. That's why nuclear power remains so demonized today and why global warming is causing such a needless panic. I would like to note as well that he has of course, in the style of all Australian Australian right-wing commentators has had to frame this in the context of because this show has been screened on the ABC. It is part of... Sorry. That makes sense now.

Why he's so mad about the drama Chernobyl. It is therefore part of the ABC's ideological agenda. Well, hang on, hang on. Did it? Did it screened on the the the right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right? the the the th? th? th? th? th? th? th? th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi in right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right?? th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. thfore part of the ABC's ideological agenda. Well, hang on, hang on, did it screen on the ABC? Because I believe that his, so this is the second article now, right, where Andrew Bolt, ABC seems to fear the truth on Chernobyl and cancer. I'll read a little bit. The ABC's new chairman, Ida Butroes, Ida Butroes, I thi thi. But-Rose has admitted the state broadcaster may be biased after all. Quote, Ida But-Bot-Rose, we are biased.

Oh no. And on Monday came more proof. Last week I wrote the new HBO series, blah-blub-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. And then they, on Media Watch, it was criticized directly for being extremely galaxy-brained bullshit. And now Andrew Bolt is mad about that. Right, okay, that clarifies things because, so he has said, yes there's this thing about bias at the ABC, also here are my thoughts about the HBO produced and screened show Chernobyl. And if you look at the comments in reply to

that article, the entire thing is about like, ah, so that's why the ABC made such a biased TV show called Chernobyl, because nobody has watched the show or watched the ABC and they're extremely mad about both. Does he ever just enjoy things? It's a good show. It's fantastic television, just go on and enjoy a nice spot of racism from time to time. Mm-hmm. Doesn't enjoy being convicted in a court for any acts of racism.

Now, from there, folks, we're going to take off. That's right, we're going to take off to our new segment that the people are demanding more of. They're bloody demanding it. Ah, this is your captain speaking. Please return your seats for their upright positions as we are coming in hot on another edition of Plainly Speaking. That's right, folks, plainly speaking, it's plane time.

That's a good pun. Hit us Lucy. What's up in the world of planes? Well, well, I would just like to talk a little bit more about the Boeing 737 Max. Great plane. That I will not be boarding. That I absolutely will not be boarding. So it looks like it's not going to be back in the air until next year at the least. But I've read in an article in Bloomberg today some deeply upsetting stuff. It says, long-time Boeing engineers say, the effort to complete the plane was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower paid contractors. Shocking how that works. I wonder if that was perhaps anything to do with the problems in the first place. Maybe, this article'sled 737 Max Software outsource to $9 an hour engineers. Fock. Mm-hmm. It

says the Max software was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs. I would like to point out also that Boeing's gross profit for the 2019 year was $19.4 billion. Yeah, I can really see why they've got to chop those corners so heavily. Yeah. Doing really wonders for their brand, which I'm not biased against because the Airbus is a better plane manufacturer in any way. Not at all. I guess like I find this stuff interesting because it's it's such a it's such a good kind of encapsulation of the end point of this type of capitalist approach to everything

where you know obviously everybody has been used to the very slow transfer from you used to get a ticket for a plane and the price of your ticket included getting to take some bags on the plane because you are probably going somewhere when you bought a plane. Therefore you might need to take some stuff with you. And also you're going to be on the plane, so they'll give you a meal because you are in a confined environment and you don't really have access to anything and they don't like take food on the plane and they'll give you a drink and all that kind of stuff. They'll let you sit in a seat all that kind of chairs. But then over time it has become, oh,

you can have this much bag and if you would like more bag you can have it but you're going to pay $30 a kilo of luggage or whatever the fuck. And they th. th. th. they they they they they they they they they they they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll the they'll the they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll we'll give you like some pretzels, a tiny bag of pretzels, but if you would like an actual meal, you've got to pay for that. And also we have internet on our planes now. But if you would like that, you would need to register an account for our special thing and lay down your credit card, pay this extra money and you know everybody's familiar with the whole the windows not lining up with any of the seats anymore because they keep making the seats smaller and smaller. Yeah there's a lot to be said for like cost-cutting and airlines and how that's affecting things but for the most part planes have just been getting increasingly, increasingly safer until you

you know something terrible like this happens, which is extremely rare still, but it's pretty upsetting when it's come directly from capitalist cost-cutting. Yeah, exactly. And this is the one where this is the very, very natural extension of, in what ways can we cut costs? Yeah, it's not just this. It's the fact that they, a main reason that these pilots weren't trained in it is that they wanted to to to to to to to to to to to to to to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut to cut the ways w w wa the ways wa the ways wa their ways their their their ways ways their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their, their their, their their thea.coa.coa.coa. thea. thea. te.a. te. tea. tea. tea. tea. thea. thea. thea. thea's the fact that they, a main reason that these pilots weren't trained in it is that they wanted to cut costs by not having to train pilots on a new aspect of the software, so they just didn't inform a bunch of people about it. They just, you know,

left the software in there didn't think there would be any problem with it. So the pilots, the pilots apparently, you know, their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their to to to to to to to have to have to have to have to have to to to to to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to have their, so. So. So. their their their their toe.. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. So, so. to to to to to to to airlines just didn't know what to do in the scenario. Yeah, what if, what if, what if you could have a plane, well, you can have the plane that has all the sensors that tell you not to crash, but what if we took some of those sensors out and didn't cost you so much? What if you got to unlock them through loop boxes? Mm-hmm. What if it was the DLC? And then of course, yeah, you wind up at this point of, well, now we have to fix it. But we don't want to pay somebody all that money to fix it. Let's outsource this to some $9 an hour, guys.

Have you guys seen the photos of all of them parked on runways and out in parking lots? No. It's extremely good. They have like such a long queue of grounded 737's waiting to get, waiting to get repaired that they're like literally out in the car parks of airports. Yeah, it's very depressing images to look at. It's a lot more than double parked, to be honest. It certainly is. It's pretty

depressing scenario. This is you know the these planes are meant to be in the air until at least next year and it's to be costing airlines money and everyone's losing basically. Boeing's profits in this quarter it's significantly down. So good for them. Good choices. This all comes back to the type of stuff we talked about of. It's almost as though if you actually put in a little money up front, you can help avoid some of these things and continue your skyrocketing profits. You certainly can.

But instead, no. We won't be doing that. I don't want, that's a bad plane. Just get rid of it in my opinion. We'll be grounding up. You're done, you're done with these planes, you've done your dash. You've used up your time. They should just renovate them into hotels or something, you know, for aircraft enthusiasts.

I think that would make significantly greater profits. Yeah, just turn them all into the, turn them all into the Austin Powers thing where you can press a button and the bed starts spinning and all the lights come on. Exactly. Genius. Austin Powers themed, um, Austin Powers themed honeymoon, hotel suites. I think is where we've got to go with this. I agree. I don't have any good plan news. Is there usually good plane news? There's not usually good plane news. There's also bad plane news here. There's a plane crash here in Hawaii last week, a skydiving plane.

Oh. People going up to skydive and the plane crashed and killed everyone. It's like combining two horrors. Yeah, it's really the last thing you'd be scared about in that scenario. The worst part was I was reading the Facebook post on one of the news sites, which is always the worst kind of commenters and everyone was saying, why didn't they jump? Oh. Sometimes people don't think of their brains. They certainly don't understand physics and flight, or just the world around them sometimes.

Well, hey, even outside of that, I don't know if they understand just the general idea of being a decent human who knows that other people can read the thing that you're posting. The people that just died have families. Yeah, maybe they're looking at an article about this and they're seeing a whole bunch of dip shits underneath the the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world the world thi the world the world the thing that you're posting. The people that just died have families. Yeah, maybe they're looking at an article about this and they're seeing a whole bunch of dip shit's underneath, go, boo, boo, terrible stuff. So we'll, we're gonna try and find some good plain news. Yeah, I don't know what that entails. There'll be something. For future additions of plainly speaking. But we're running out of time, so we're gonna the the the the th the th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th entails, there'll be something. For future additions of plainly speaking, but we're running out of time, so we're going to jump over into the

old great big gigantic heaving sack of mail pull out some letters. Lover of the show, Travis asks best apple variety. Golden Delicious. Ooh, it's so seasonal though. Content delicious. Ooh, it's so seasonal. Contentious, I know it's so seasonal. Sometimes you can't find it, that's why it's so good. Sometimes it's the best apple you've ever had and sometimes it's all chalky and shitty, flowery. Yeah, the chalky ones are bad. Other than that, it's a pink lady.

I think a big frontrunner is the jazz apple. Those motherfuckers are delicious. Jazz is a good apple. Jazz is a goddamn good apple. Theo, what's your pick for apple? I don't know. I've not bought apples. Like I, when I buy apples, I just grab the red ones, but I know that red delicious is a scam now.

So, Fujiy is good. I feel like I've had some good Fujiy, is that good? Fruji's good. I feel like I've had a good Fuji apples, just like a, just like a standard apple. Um, the only time I like actively, so I'm like thinking back, because I don't, I don't really like eating apples. Me either. Like, I'd rather just eat a banana. But, like, the last time I can think of actively eating an apple was when Caitlin stewed a whole bunch

when I'd had all my wisdom teeth out and I couldn't open my mouth and my lips would just block any real solid food. So I was just like pathetically mushing boiled apples through the tiny gap in my lips. And they were I, the green ones. Granny Smith. Granny Smith Apples. Probably a Granny Smith, yeah. But I wouldn't eat them actively.

Okay, very anti-apple dude over here. No, no, no, it happened. It's just ambivalent. Wife of the show, Connor Stokes asks, this question is for Theo. Oh God. What was it like to drink a million beers, get up on stage and stay up so so, so, so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so to so th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thirty thirty thirty thirty thi thi thi, thi, thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably thian, probably th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the the the the the the the the an thean thean thean thean thean thean thean thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th, this question is for Theo. What was it like to drink a million beers, get up on stage and stay up so far past your bedtime? Oh God, okay so first of all it was a million wines. We went to, so we, my kind of like the job and their business group went to a Vietnamese Chinese slash karaoke bar or restaurant. It's like it's way big than I was expecting to eat food and then do karaoke.

And they're like get your things in quick so like thinking that okay we'll put it some in now put in put something later. Anyway we put ours in first and we were the last ones to go, or not at like 11 o'clock. And by this point, I was absolutely irresponsibly drunk and I had a good time, and then I went home and went to bed and then woke up drunk. Ooh, that's a bad feeling. I was like, I was talking to Caitlin and she's like, you know, you, you, you, you, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, th, th, oh, th, oh, th, oh, thi, thi, th, th, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, th. Oh, th. Oh, th. Oh, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, like, thi, like, like, thi, like, drunk. Ooh, that's a bad feeling. I was like, I was talking to Caitlin, she's like, oh, you know, how many more would you have needed to puke or whatever? I'm like, I should have just puked.

Do you know where you're at that line where if you'd have had one more drink and puked, you would have felt better in the morning? Yeah. That puk, that, that'm out of shape, out of drinking shape. Very bad at drinking now, so I just went to bed drunk, woke up drunk, spent most of yesterday miserable. What did you sing there? Iris? By Gugot.

Wow, that is an interesting karaoke choice. That is not what I would have picked. All right. Okay, we've got a serious one here. Friend of the show Space Dome says, Good-Abunter, a member of my high school group chat recently asked for help in drafting a letter to our alma mater about... Does that mean the school you went to? I think it just means the school you went to. They just used these words here.

Okay, drafting a letter to the school we went to about some current students from the same school misbehaving on his bus route, blocking the walkway, leaving trash that kind of thing. My first th was that he's a mad knock who should get over it, especially when he gave reasons for it, like, thinking of the community. However, this is an elite Catholic boys' school we're talking about, so throwing his weight as an old boy behind attempts to make would-be patriarchal shitheads marginally less shitty, is thr-o'n't-s............. their, their, their, the the the thii, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thr-s, thr-s, thr-s, thr-s, thr-s, thr-a, thr-s, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, and, and, thi, and, and, and, and, thi, and, and, and, and, thi, and, and, and, and, and, thi, and, and, thi............. thi. thi. thi. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-s. thr-auuuui. thr-auuui. thr-auuu. thr-au. thr-au. thr-au. thr-term solution before the socialist revolution does away with private schooling altogether, or is it just another way of asking it to self-regulate with its usual amounts of success?

Cheers. Go for it. Have you considered taking a baseball bat onto the bus? Y'kneck on school kids on the bus? I think you can knock on school kids because they suck and they're awful and they intimidate me and I'm scared that they're laughing at me when I hear them laughing so go for it. Yeah also I guess if you are an adult on a bus with some teens who are being shitty consider being the person who goes, hey, fucking knock it off.

Because a lot of the time, I think that, like, now look, look, I'm gonna preface this upfront by saying, of course I'm scared of teens. We're all scared of teens. We're all scared of teens. We're all scared of teens. But I'm pretty sure that like 98% of the time Teenage boys Just being boisterous dickheads because that's how they're learning to

Express themselves with their pals and all that sort of stuff and a lot of it is like snakes. They're more scared of you than Yeah, they're more scared of them. Yeah, probably. I mean not in my case, but I think that a vast majority of the t, an adult saying to a group of teens or school kids, particularly in uniform and all that sort of stuff, guys, can you fucking knock it off? Or also putting it in the context of, you're bothering everybody else on this bus, um, will go, ugh. I, um, I've got an example of example. But also don't get yourself stabbed or anything. No, absolutely not. Um, so where I, um, when I finish up at uni, like if I finish up a lecture at, um, at three, I got to walk to the bus station and there's like a million kids there. And because high school now starts at 12 for some reason. No, they'd be like 11 or not.

No, because the prep thing changed. Hello? Hello? Andrew, can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can hear you, Lucy. Okay. Is it just Andrew?

Oh, sorry. I think he's turned his thing all the way down. I'm back. My computer suddenly muted itself for no reason. No problem. Go ahead. Um, yeah, so like, kids are now 12 and going to high school, which is extremely wild. Uh, and there's like a thousand of them on the bus platform. And I'm standing behind one of these shitty kids and he's got like this packet of lollies and he's holding it behind his back and you know that thing as a kid where you would just like really surreptitiously just drop some garbage. Oh yeah yeah yeah like so he's like...

So he's like... You think you're being smooth? Yeah yeah he's trying to be 12 year old smooth right and he's like standing in front of me and he's got this packet in his hand and he just like drops it behind his back and lands on the ground. And then like 20 seconds later he turns around to have a little look to see if he gets away with it. I look at him. And I look down at the packet on the ground and raise my eyebrows. And he picks it up. Yeah. It worked. It is the most powerful I have ever felt. My dominion over this small child. So that's all you've got to do really is just give them a little eyebrow wiggle and they'll straighten straight up. I guess what I'm saying is that I think that number one,

don't underestimate your own ability to have an impact in the world and to more directly answer the question, which was, is writing the letter a knock thing to do or isn't an acceptable short-term solution? I think the reality is that there are, that is not the pure binary of ways in which this person can attempt to do something. Yeah. And yes, you can do that, but to me, that's kind of looking at an issue,

especially if he's going to put it to you with reasons like, I'm thinking of the community, it's like then fucking do something. Yeah. If you're bothered by this as a thing that you think is affecting people in your community and making a shitty time for you and the other people on your commute and all that sort of stuff then to me writing a letter to a school that these kids go to and go I went to this school and these kids whose names I don't know are on this bus..... their. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their name. their. their name. I th. I th. I'm th. I'm th. I'm th. I thi. I thi. I'm thi. thi. I thi. I thi. I thi. I's thi. I's thi. I's thi. I's thi. I's thi. I's th. I's th. I's th. I's th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. I's is is is is th. I's th. I's thin. I'm th. I'm th. I'm thin. I'm th. th. th. th. thin. th. th. th. th. the. the. thi. the. the. thi. thi. thi. thi. this bus route at this time and they're kind of being dicks, to me is just outsourcing the attempt for someone to talk to these kids as long as it's not you. Yeah, and it also extends the idea that authority exists to punish you. Right? Like, like the way that this will go about is that they will be pulled into the office and You know told that they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not they're not. they're not their their their they're not. their their their their their their their their their their their their. their. their. their their their. their. their. their their. their their their. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their th. thi. Are. Are. Area. Are so somea. Area' they're their theau. their their their their their their their the office and you know told that they're that they're naughty instead of an attempt to find this

guy who knocked on us and kicked the shit out of it. Yeah but but also like that kind of just continues the binary of of well there's good people and there's bad people right and if you're a bad person you're gonna be punished so basically, that's the only mechanism through which you can improve people's lives is putting the fear in them to say, you know, if you do this, then you may show up to your to your school or later your job and not have it any more instead of actually trying to talk to these kids and say, hey, that sucks because that garbage may just go into the ocean and be there forever. Which is a bad time.

I don't think it has to be a detailed lecture. Sometimes it can be as simple as, come on, man. Come on. Yeah, that's no good. Like, so yeah, I think, um, I think we've talked about this in great detail in the past, but Australia really is a nation of cops, and I think that what is being proposed is under the guise of, well, someone's got to do something, I guess I'll write a letter to someone and see if they'll do something. Instead of, like, you either care enough to say some shit about it, or you don't. If they are private school kids from an elite boys' school in their uniforms on their way to school, I think your chances of like being beaten half to death and stabbed a bunch of times by them

are probably very minimal. So that's my advice. Lucy, what's your take? Yeah, that's pretty much my take. Or you're going to get sued by one of their fathers which that's not ideally there. Oh you've got to take the law into your own hands. That's right. All of a sudden it turns into taken. Sure why not? Don't kill the kids. Don't beat up the kids. Maybe just say, come on man. Hey guys, do you mind keeping it down? Pick your shit up. Come on. Hey guys, come on. Raise your eyebrows of the kids, but don't make it look like the fuck them. Any of those sorts of things. Um, and finally, finally, we have a question from a friend of the show, Reid, who says,

Ask Lucy how getting married in Vegas went. It was the best. It was the best thing ever. Mm-hmm. It was incredible. I've always wanted to do that. My unfortunate husband got dragged into it because we don't have enough money for a wedding because we're a millennials and we live in different countries so we went to

a Graceland wedding chapel and got married by Elvis Presley, the Elvis Presley and it was incredible and I had such a good time. Ben seemed convinced that that was the Graceland. It was like... It was not the Graceland, which is in Memphis, I believe. Yes. It's like I'm almost certain. I'm almost certain it's not. But it was the real Elvis. And it was a good time.

I highly recommend it. Very good. Who can afford weddings these days? Ah, it's a whole thing. It does blow my mind. I mean we got married in our backyard and with a lot of help from people like a lot of people like we had friends you know someone who was previously a florist like did all the flowers for us as a gift and some friends that my wife worked for at a cafe were like, well you just,

you buy the ingredients and we will do all the prep and the cooking and all that sort of stuff and all that kind of thing as a gift and so a lot of people contributed like their own labor as a gift to our wedding which is really nice. And we, yeah like I said, we did it in our backyard and I think we had less than a hundred people and it was still, it still costs your money and shit, so that's why I'm like. I'm blown away when I see people doing the whole shabang where they're like renting cars and big venues and all that sort of stuff because I'm just like, wow. That seems like it costs...

You live in a different life to me. Yeah, it seems like it costs a lot of money. So, that's about it for us this week, folks. Thank you for joining us. You can get an extra episode of the show every week. The day it comes out may vary over at Patreon. We're doing our best or at least we're doing it. We're doing our best. It's been a long winter of everybody being sick all the time.

So tired. I'm just so tired. And anyway you can get an extra bonus episode every week. Patreon. For slash Bontevista. We also do our fun get an extra bonus episode every week. Patreon.com.s slash, born-to-vista. We also do our fun movie nights. You get access to the Discord server. You get to ask us questions in the mail bag. You get all kinds of things. Head on over there and check it out.

Or hey, maybe you just, you don't even love to support the show. You could do that. You can do that. You don't have to listen to the bonus episodes. We're not going to, no one's going to make you. No. No one's going to make you do it. No. No one's going to make, and it will keep working. Yeah, we don't know whether beyond that it will keep working because no one's ever tried. But look, give it a go. Give it a red hot go. Merchandise available at Buntavistus.com forward slash merchandise. That's the, that's the URL that makes the most sense when you think about it. It sure does. Uh, yeah. So that's, so that's, so that's, so that's, so that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it. that's it. that's it. that's it. that's it. It's it. that's it. that's it. that's it. that sense when you think about it. It sure does. Yeah, so that's it. That's it for us this week, folks.

Thank you for joining us. Oh, Theo's just fallen out of his ladder on the tree. It's a long time to be standing up here talking. I think his legs have gone dead. I'm now a conservative columnist. Time to do some racist cartooning, Australian star. God, I've been doing a hard wave all this time. Now I just get to do racism for money.

That's it. Easy gig around here. An easy gig. Thanks everybody, and we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. you know