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Playing Dice With God And Other Stories Of Rupert Murdoch!

During my essential journey to the supermarket to buy chocolate, I couldn’t help noticing the front-page headline on “The Australian” which blared:

TEACHERS DEFYING VIRUS SCIENCE

Quite a neat trick really, I thought. How does one “defy” science? Is it like defying gravity? Or is it like defying your boss and announcing that there’s no way you’re going to perform that task without the correct safety equipment?

Defying science… It reminded me of that quote from Einstein: “God does not play dice with the universe.” Without starting a religious debate here, I’ve always suspected that the reason for that is that the universe worked out who was likely to win, so it was the universe’s decision as much as God’s. But religion aside, I take it that Einstein was trying to argue that there are certain laws of physics set up and there wasn’t some supreme being likely to change them after each roll of the dice.

Whatever, I thought the headline such an interesting take that – for a moment – I was tempted to actually buy the paper to read the article. Mainly because I suspect that were I to ask the Prime Minister’s Office to send me a pirated copy, they’d be a little reluctant to do so. Sanity, of course, prevailed and I merely picked it up and read it as though I was considering the purchase of Rupert’s Rag.

Anyway, I could point out the various logical flaws in the article itself but I’ve done that enough recently. You know the sort of thing: the laws of infection change when a child is not at school so they can hang out with thirty kids in a class but four of their friends in a shopping centre presents an unacceptable risk because God will roll the dice and only those in school will be protected. Or the argument that only a small percentage of kids are likely to be infected so it’s not a worry. Less than three percent and this isn’t worth thinking about even after someone points out that originally there was only one person with the virus and that one person is responsible for every other case. Even without doing the maths, I’m prepared to say that this one person was less than three percent of the world’s population.

What intrigued me…

No, “intrigued” is the wrong word here. “Intrigued” is what I was when I read that Peta Credlin said that she wasn’t “going to climb into the gutter with Turnbull” because the word climb suggests an upward movement and after her shows on Sky, I was intrigued as to whether she considered the gutter a step up from the sewer she frequents.

“Intrigued” is my reaction to Angus Taylor’s announcement that we’re going to increase our emergency reserves of oil… but keep them in the USA. This is like someone announcing a concern that the banks may shut and converting a large portion of their money to gold then putting in a safety deposit box AT THE BANK!

I was “intrigued” as to how the Liberals were going to justify not having a surplus in the May Budget. Of course, I know the answer to that one now… We just won’t have a May Budget.

No, not intrigued. More incredulous. Gobsmacked.

This paper and its various sisters and brothers have consistently told us that – when it comes to climate change – there is no consensus. The science isn’t settled yet. Experts? Who’s an expert? Look, this person doesn’t have any credentials in this area because their PhD isn’t in climate science; far better to listen to university dropout Andrew Bolt or your neighbour or the Uber driver because they think that it’s all a big beat-up because it was cold yesterday morning.

No, when it comes to climate science, there’s no such thing as a consensus view. It’s still open for debate, but teachers, well, they’re all defying the absolutely settled science that it’s completely safe to be in a school because the best medical advice says so. Ok, nearly every other country in the world shut their schools but they didn’t have the best medical advice. We have it and, as Scottie said, teachers are at more risk in the staffroom than the classroom… Not sure how this sits with schools being completely safe, but anyway.

Now I’m not trying to convince you of the rights or wrongs of schools being open here. You can make up your own mind about that and I suspect that if you’ve been stuck at home with some children then you’re more than happy to send them off to school whatever the risks, just as I’m sure that some people think it’s about time their aged parents went on that cruise so that they can enjoy their last few weeks…

No, what I find amazing is the sheer hypocrisy of a newspaper that can switch from an “everyone has a right to an opinion and scientists have been wrong in the past” position to a “you don’t have the right to question because you’ve been told by the PM so shut up and do what you’re told” stance.

And, of course, this completely overlooks the fact that teachers are doing what they’re told. In some states, teacher unions are pushing to ensure safety, but to the best of my knowledge, none have suggested teachers refusing to attend school. Except for private schools, it’s state governments who’ve made the decisions about schools, not the teachers themselves.

Still, Rupert’s editors have never let the truth get in the way of the story.

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16 comments

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  1. Phil Pryor

    Maggoty Murdoch has a team of Un Australians to do his spreading of mental aberrations and grandiose imperiousness, a gang of scribbling misfits and filth to suit his foreign agenda. They should be cursed, denounced, insulted and avoided, as the anuses thay are for going along with fascist fantasy and fraud in media muck. Our own Der Sturmer is a disgrace to truth and decency.

  2. Geoff Andrews

    Well, at least you can’t be accused of stealing intellectual property just like everyone who’s read Malcolm’s cry for help.
    I did love the logic of the analysis of Credlin’s stroll around our sewer system – no, I lie. I loved the logic of the whole article.

  3. New England Cocky

    Now, now Rossleigh, poor little Peta has lost her direct political power with the necessary overthrow of her RAbbott and uses her News Ltd position to spew forth misleading propaganda supporting the undeserving wealthy and corporates. Stepping up out of the political sewer of the Liarbral Nazional$ COALition would be too great a task for a saint …. which she ain’t!!

    It is a good thing that parents now conduct home schooling because “anybody can be a teacher” and here is their opportunity to demonstrate their many skills and pedagogy. Moreover, it allows the parents to witness the crass behaviours that teachers suffer every day in the classrooms full of their little darlings.

    Uhm ….. when we need the Australian government emergency oil reserves, how will I drive/transport my vehicle across the Pacific to fill up at the oil dump?

    Since 1974 when Whitlam’s progressive Labor government had Murdoch called before the Senate Bar to answer questions about biased reporting, New Ltd has followed the Murdoch mantra, “I don’t care what you write, make Labor look foolish!”

    Then never let the truth get in the way of favourable political propaganda in case somebody recognises that the Fourth Estate has abandoned its principles of representing theAustralian voters.

  4. Keith

    Rossleigh, thank you for the chuckle, I think we all need a big dose of humour/satire.

  5. Briney

    When it comes to trying to analyse gov decisions it’s a case of putting on one’s ‘dumbing cap’, rather than one’s thinking cap. Pick a topic, any topic and get ready to ‘dumb’ about it. That oil reservation decision, storing oil in another country, brilliant. The gov saves on the cost of transport to Australia, saves on the cost of storage, and when push comes to shove and we need it for say national defence or agriculture, well, look, ‘We have run out of oil and what oil we do ‘have’ is overseas and now inaccessible’. Press PANIC now. Gee, didn’t see that coming. Almost every decision being made, is made with the greater good of the elite in mind because that is the group telling govs what to do. Increasing national debt, shutting down small to medium business, setting up the populace for dependency via socialism and UBI is all part of the scheme. But look, over there, big bad bugs going to get you. Be afraid, very afraid. That is where the elite want your mindset, living in fear. Once upon a time the word courage had currency.

  6. Terence Mills

    I was intrigued when this government finally acknowledged that the unemployed can’t live on $40 a day and I was impressed when they listened to the experts and doubled the unemployment benefits.

    I was intrigued that they found it necessary or expedient to change the name of the unemployment benefit from Newstart to Jobseeker which seemed to me very Orwellian.

    I am also intrigued that the increase in unemployment benefit will only be for six months which implies that the government believes that those who are unemployed will either all have jobs by September or will magically find that they can exist on $40 a day.

  7. Josephus

    Brilliant Rossleigh and all comments. You laugh with one eye and cry with the other.

  8. Vikingduk

    Why is this jobseeker bullshit only available to those 22 and older? Why has Amazon got the job of storing the tracing app data? Even though, since 2018, US law enforcement are legally able to access the data. Having recently spoken with several health professionals in the course of our nomadic wandering, why is it that a certain portion of our supremely well informed population (ha ha) even in one case a friend of one these pros, feel that all virus numbers are fake and overblown by this incredibly brilliant media we are so fortunate to have?

    Could it be that we really are climbing back down into the sludge on our upward journey to be truly really brilliant masters of the universe, secure in the knowledge that the messiah from the shire, the smirking f#cking jerk, really has our welfare at heart. That those seeking the jobkeeper bullshit are expected to take a bank loan, plus interest of course, to keep staff employed because the tax man pays the business a month after the business has forked out the money, yet kerry stokes, a squillionaire, will apply.

    Have we really fallen into an alternate universe or a maniac’s movie script, where a supposedly intelligent and civilised country (USA) allows citizens to parade the streets with assault rifles, our sad joke of a crime monster consults the psychotically deranged narcissist of this USA thing on opening up the economy, a prancing ponce (the parrot) Controls policy via a radio show, ably supported by andy blot & co, that our fine christian society finds it acceptable to lock up indefinitely refugees in an offshore gulag, acceptable to incarcerate a family of four on Christmas Island at a cost of some $27 million and a staff of one hundred.

    Yep, sounds fair to me, onward christian soldiers, the subjugation has only just begun.

  9. Matters Not

    The late 1960s saw the arrival of ‘deschoolers”, including Illich, Reimer, Holt plus a host of others.
    A movement in fact. They argued that existing (schooling) arrangements served at least four crucial functions. First, was custodial care. Schools looked after children and kept them off the streets allowing parents to go to work – which was not surprising because it’s why public schooling in England was established circa mid-nineteenth century. Second, schooling facilitates social role selection. Through elaborate testing and credentialing arrangements, schooling decides who’s most deserving and therefore given preferred access to higher status, higher paid jobs.. And, because schooling offers the same chance to all, then those who aren’t so successful are more likely to be satisfied with an inferior class of employment etc.

    The third function of schooling is seen to be indoctrination. Through the hidden curriculum (the methods employed, the content chosen etc) children learn what is natural and right – and they do so uncritically. In short – they are indoctrinated. Finally, the deschoolers accepted that schools did develop certain knowledge and skills which were of benefit to both the individual and to society as a whole.

    With that in mind, one might see the urgency of what Morrison et al are doing through a different lens.

  10. Rossleigh

    Yes, I can’t help but think that this current push is merely a distraction. Ask any teacher and I’ll bet they’d tell you that they much preferred Term 1 to what they’re doing right now.
    Whatever the truth about young people and Covid-19, I find Morrison’s pronouncement to day that the medical advice is that social distancing rules don’t apply IN THE CLASSROOM strange. I mean, how can it be that specific. Why can’t we start junior sport again? Why can’t you have an unlimited number of students at a funeral or wedding? Why can’t teenagers hang out together at their houses? Because, apparently, the safety only occurs in classrooms.

  11. Matters Not

    Perhaps it’s the the rarefied atmosphere of a scholarly symposium that keeps out evil forces. And if teachers aren’t there, then how can you vilify … And besides Kevin needs some living, breathing targets.

  12. Phil

    This is all about Morrison and those other God bothering morons in his government and church, being able to do the ‘ St Vitus Dance ‘ and gibber jabber at each other in tongues in a few weeks time.He doesn’t want to make it too obvious to the half wits that support him. We have lost the collective plot in this country.

  13. wam

    beauty rossleigh nearly pissed myself at anyone, who can read for meaning, being “tempted to actually buy the paper to read the article”.
    For the majority of rupert’s readers the story could be in complete agreement with the unions but the heading is the concept the paper gives the reader.
    NW Tassie tells us the risk for teachers,??

  14. TONY HOGARTH

    I LOVE ALL THESE ANTI LNP / MURDOCH COMMENTS ! SHOULD BE MORE OF IT !

  15. Briney

    Rossleigh “social distancing rules don’t apply IN THE CLASSROOM strange. I mean, how can it be that specific.”
    Great question. Either covid19 senses it will have a problem making school children sick and doesn’t want to get into a fight it can’t win, or, the gov senses it will have to stump up more money if it closes schools completely.
    I have no idea how it’s possible school children are not getting exposed to the virus. One adult with a child at school, and that adult tests positive – the whole school is going to shut down and all parents with children at the school will be forced into isolation. Welcome to the world forever, every flu season is going to be the same story, new viruses, same story.
    Chant the mainstream media’s mantra to the your favourite nursery rhyme tune:
    ‘When we get a vaccine, when we get a vaccine, happy days when we get a vaccine.’

  16. New England Cocky

    @Briney: Naturally DoG protects the innocent and so kids in school are protected by prayer and good works, like going about he old people neighbours and exposing them to COVID-19 when they have become infective but asymptomatic. This becomes a great business opportunity for Nazional$ financial donors in the undertaking business and releases the wealth accumulated by the hard working older generation before they can spend it all on holiday cruises. Obviously a greater financial contribution will be expected for the next Federal elections.

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