#genderpolitics

Now I know my ABC

FNF Media has finally got around to updating the state of our ABC as compiled in the 2018/19 annual report.

The national broadcaster still believes we should fork over even more taxpayer dollars to keep this icon producing more of what the citizens supposedly demand, even though more of the audience believes that “efficiency/management quality” is headed south (p.158) and overall ratings continue to slide.

Despite over $1bn per annum, why do ratings in the metro and regional areas keep falling? We wrote about this last year:

“Comparing 2016/17 and 2015/16 the TV audience reach for metro fell from 55.2% to 52.5% and regional slumped from 60.3% to 57.3%. If we go back to 2007/8 the figures were 60.1% and 62.4% respectively. For the 2017/18 period, the ABC targets a 50% reach. Hardly a stretch.”

In 2018/19 it fell into the mid-40s. So inside of 13 years, ABC audiences have shrunk by 10-15%. That is appalling.

We have argued for a long time that the ABC needs a complete overhaul.

In the 2018 annual report, the ABC staff survey revealed engagement was at 46%, 6% below the previous survey. This put the broadcaster in the bottom quartile of all ANZ businesses. Reform was and still is desperately needed.

ABC staff complained that management didn’t do enough to get rid of underperformers. Another clear signal that state-sponsored mediocrity was tolerated and staff didn’t like it.

In the 2018/19 annual report, Chair Ita Buttrose AC made the following comments,

“Staff morale was badly shaken, and my priority has been to reinvigorate it by restoring order and enhancing good governance with the help of Managing Director, David Anderson, and his management team. Our employees, in content areas and vital support functions, need a strong sense of direction and a feeling that management has their backs. I feel we are now providing it.”

Tucked away in the back pages (p.216) is an interesting subsection on the Code of Practice. There is some eye-opening content with respect to the way it conducts its business.

Take this gem to start with on complaints as to whether it constitutes a potential breach of the charter:

“A complainant is entitled under section 150 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth) (“the BSA”) to take their complaint to the ACMA if, after 60 days, the ABC fails to respond to the complainant or the complainant considers the ABC’s response is inadequate.

The ACMA has a discretionary power to investigate a complaint alleging the ABC has,
in providing a national broadcasting service, breached its Code of Practice. Section 151 of the BSA provides that the ACMA may investigate the complaint if it thinks that it is desirable to do so.

The ACMA’s jurisdiction under sections 150-151 does not encompass the ABC’s print content or content disseminated by the ABC over the internet or through mobile devices.”

Print and internet-based content fall out of the remit for complaints. So technically ABC can say what it pleases. ACMA is hardly wielding a big stick when it comes to the ABC.

Accuracy is a fun area which would seemingly fall foul of rarely being presented in context:

“2.1 Make reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts are accurate and presented in context.
2.2 Do not present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience. In some cases, this may require appropriate labels or other explanatory information.”

Why did the ABC report that less than 1% of burnt area in the recent bushfires had been started by arsonists? Given that most fires couldn’t be attributed to anything at the time, the ABC forgot to mention the “unknown” category so it could slice the data so it could list the smallest possible percentage. 12,000 fires had been reported since August 2019. 1,700 had been investigated with 42% reported by the NSW Police as deliberately lit.

Impartiality

“…The ABC’s obligation to apply its impartiality standard as objectively as possible. In doing so, the ABC is guided by these hallmarks of impartiality:
• a balance that follows the weight of evidence;
• fair treatment;
• open-mindedness; and
• opportunities over time for principal relevant perspectives on matters of contention to be expressed.”

Why did it allow a bunch of radical feminists to openly call for the murder of men, providing a platform to a convicted terrorist or happily release a tweet that said former PM Abbott liked anal sex? Or calling conservative politicians “c@nts“? Guess we’re just not open minded enough.

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.
4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.
4.3 Do not state or imply that any perspective is the editorial opinion of the ABC. The ABC takes no editorial stance other than its commitment to fundamental democratic
principles including the rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, parliamentary democracy and equality of opportunity.
4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.
4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another.

Why does the ABC constantly run a climate alarmist narrative? Why does Q&A attack conservatives on the panel almost every episode?

Secret recording and other types of deception

“5.8 Secret recording, misrepresentation or other types of deception must not be used by the ABC or its co-production partners to obtain or seek information, audio, pictures or an
agreement to participate except where:

(a) justified in the public interest and the material cannot reasonably be obtained
by any other means; or
(b) consent is obtained from the subject or identities are effectively obscured; or
(c) the deception is integral to an artistic work.

In cases, the potential for harm must be taken into consideration.”

Why did the ABC insert ­itself into the election campaign with a program timed to derail the election prospects of the Left’s hate ­figure, Pauline Hanson and One Nation? An Al ­Jazeera expose, How to Sell a Massacre, was a sting three years in the making, employing hidden cam­eras to ­record One Nation’s ­unsuccessful attempts to solicit foreign funding with the aid of the National Rifle Association. Why was the ABC consorting with the national broadcaster of a foreign power which has highly exceptional human rights standards which flies in the face of all the woke agenda pushed by the ABC? Double standards much?

Privacy

“Privacy is necessary to human dignity and every person reasonably expects that their privacy will be respected. But privacy is not absolute. The ABC seeks to balance the public interest in respect for privacy with the public interest in disclosure of information and freedom of expression.”

That is a whole can of worms. Can we trust the ABC to execute fairly in this regard?

Harm & Offence

“7.1 Content that is likely to cause harm or offence must be justified by the editorial context.
7.2 Where content is likely to cause harm or offence, having regard to the context, make
reasonable efforts to provide information about the nature of the content through the use of classification labels or other warnings or advice.”
7.6 Where there is editorial justification for content which may lead to dangerous imitation or exacerbate serious threats to individual or public health, safety or welfare, take appropriate steps to mitigate those risks, particularly by taking care with how content is expressed or presented.
7.7 Avoid the unjustified use of stereotypes or discriminatory content that could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice.”

Again, what purpose was there to get a panel of radical feminists outright calling for the murder of men? Or just use taxpayer funds on an article on how to give blow jobs?

Kids Programs

“Take due care over the dignity and physical and emotional welfare of children and young people who are involved in making, participating in and presenting content produced or commissioned by the ABC…Take particular care to minimise risks
of exposure to unsuitable content…”

Why did the ABC run a kids program attacking white privilege?

We have long supported a shift to the TVNZ model, where the kiwi national broadcaster is forced to raise most of its own revenue by appealing to the demands of the market.

TVNZ gets $310m of its $318m purse from advertising. It’s staff costs excluding capitalizing into programs is $72m which converts to 23% staff cost/revenues. They do with 642 FT employees. Revenue/employee is $495,000 vs half that at the ABC. It paid a dividend back to the government of $3.7m. i.e. it is a revenue generating asset.

In 2007, TVNZ had $339m in revenue. It employed 1,023 people. Therefore revenue per employee was $331,380. So in a decade, TVNZ efficiency improved almost 50%. A 6% cut to revenue on 63% reduction in staff. TVNZ ratings are up too.

So instead of Ita Buttrose impersonating Oliver Twist she should be channeling Jerry Maguire and asking advertisers to “show her the money!”

The ABC needs to live in the real world of media because it provides no distinct differentiation from what is already available in the marketplace. You see our ABC should be confident that it has a sustainable audience for its type of journalism. It shouldn’t be one to fear but one to embrace.

For the ABC, it’s best not risk it. Easier to suck on the teat of the taxpayer and ask for even more money so it can try to arrest the decline in so much content that is totally unsalvageable.

Victoria to become 100% female if superannuation laws passed

The Democratic People’s Republic of Victoria is wanting to push legislation to allow companies to pay women a higher rate of superannuation than men to close the gap. Adjustments to the Sex Discrimination Act would be required.

Given the legislation that allows one to change gender without question in Victoria, why would anyone identify as male if their superannuation might be higher with a company that wanted to be woke? Who are companies to deny my right to identify as the gender I claim to be.

Even if companies wanted to voluntarily pay women more superannuation, they should prepare for a revolt by men. As bogus as those making a gender change claim might be, if they have it formalized on their birth certificate then, as a matter of law, companies would be forced by their own hand to pay men who identify otherwise.

The market is a wonderful weighing mechanism. Obamacare was one of the largest contributing factors as to why 94% of jobs growth under President Obama was part time. Companies avoided red tape by bypassing the legislation that would raise costs to unsustainable levels.

If governments want to create higher unemployment, pushing higher super is one way to put a brake on jobs growth and push companies to hire cheaper male employees.

So by the very misguided altruism of the Victorian government, women could end up worse off and the gap even wider.

What if a person with genuine gender dysphoria identities as a trans male. That would mean under the legislation a company would be entitled to lower super payments.

There are plenty of other ways to address the gap – this isn’t one of them.

50 years of Davoz. The Global Shapers will be the rope the Multistakeholders use to hang the rest of us with

Davos is upon us. That event where the world’s elite congregate via private jet and helicopter transport to tell the rest of us to reconsider our use of a second hand SUV to take the kids to soccer practice for the sake of the planet.

This event marks 50 years. What started as a good idea is now nothing more than a networking event for crony capitalists looking to exploit gutless governments into backing their schemes and ridiculing those that don’t sign up for multi-million dollar memberships.

We should applaud the World Economic Forum (WEF) for helping perpetuate the culture of systemically brainwashing our youth.

In the 2020 Global Risks report, we get the following table which highlights adults (‘Multistakeholders’) and the youth (‘Global Shapers’). Who knew that environmental issues took the Top 5 positions among the kids? Privacy be damned. Adults were more concerned with politics and trade wars. Hint hint President Trump.

The long term outlook produced even more drama. The adults seem to have appeased the kids on climate but their private jet powered life styles at the very least mention global governance failure and the risk of asset bubbles popping.

The youth on the other hand ramped up the global warming rhetoric to 11. The Top 6 concerns are climate and #8 turns out to be about climate refugees. That’s the result of a Marxist education, one that NZ is only too proud to boast about. Forget rational debate to engage kids on how to see two sides of an argument. They will be admonished for speaking out against the orthodoxy. Or doxxed on social media. Or both. Is it any wonder we have a mental health crisis?

Although it is worth mentioning that the deteriorating global economic fundamentals highlighted in the same report risk handing the kids their ideal utopia by way of a deep recession thanks to excessive global debt levels and low interest rates. It is unlikely these self-entitled ‘Global Shapers’ have ever contemplated, much less lived through such an outcome with all of their earth ending hysteria. Best tell them that if they pursue their dream of 100% renewables and zero carbon emissions they can bask in the shared misery of having let their teachers blindly mislead them by never challenging them on anything. Experience is a hard teacher. They’ll get the test first and the lesson afterwards. But such reality will be too late and take decades to fix.

Perhaps these ‘Global Shapers’ would do well to study the reasons why inequality and social upheaval will continue to grow if the world pursues the barking mad drive to decarbonise the world. The report even makes a point to talk of the disruption in France by the yellow vests. It noted,

“In France, for example, the persistence of the “gilets jaunes” movement had caused businesses more than US$11.4 billion in losses by December 2019 and complicated the government’s plans for economic revival.”

The yellow vests are protesting over regulation and climate related taxes.

Under the chapter of ’10 years left’, we got the following passage which is full of untruths as to beggar belief.

“Governments, markets and, in an increasing number of societies, voters are awakening to the urgent realities of climate change—it is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected. The last five years are on track to be the warmest on record. Climate-related natural disasters such as hurricanes, droughts and wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent, reportedly now averaging a disaster a week. Polar ice is melting more quickly than anticipated, with drastic implications for sea levels and coastal populations. Severe weather is worsening: the last year witnessed unprecedented wildfires and devasting storms across the globe, sea ice loss in the Arctic and record-breaking heatwaves in Europe.”

Yet how was it that Queenslanders voted to keep the incumbent government in power because of its support for a coal mine? Why is China committing to 300-500 new coal-fired power plants?

How is it that the UN has reported categorically that it has ‘low confidence’ on any shift in the behaviour of natural disasters? In the UNIPCC’s March 2018 report on weather extremes with respect to anthropogenic induced global warming) it says,

“…There is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale phenomena such as tornadoes and hail because of data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems…in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, in central North America and northwestern Australia. There is limited to medium evidence available to assess climate-driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods…low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences..low confidence in projections of changes in extreme winds.. low confidence in projections of changes in monsoons…low confidence in wave height projections…overall low confidence because of inconsistent projections of drought changes…low confidencein projected future changes in dust storms…low confidence in projections of an anthropogenic effect on phenomena such as shallow landslides.”

Where is the evidence of 10s of millions of climate refugees fleeing rising sea levels an coastal populations?

Virginie K. E. Duvat of the Institut du Littoral et de l’Environnement, University of la Rochelle-CNRS, La Rochelle sponsored by the French National Research Agency; French Ministry of Environment, Energy and Oceans (MEEM) wrote.

Analysis “using tide gauges and satellites showed 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands, revealed that no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted.”

This confirms a 2010 study by Webb & Kench which revealed,

“that 86% of islands remained stable (43%) or increased in area (43%) over the timeframe of analysis. Largest decadal rates of increase in island area range between 0.1 to 5.6 ha. Only 14% of study islands exhibited a net reduction in island area. Despite small net changes in area, islands exhibited larger gross changes.”

There is even reference to properties sold in Florida and the risk they become uninsurable. Then why is the Florida house price index at record highs?

What about record breaking cold waves in Europe and Canada? Unprecedented wildfires and storms? Not according to the data.

Unprecedented media sensationalism more like it.

One comment made in the report was the fact that 14x more women die than men during natural disasters. Is this proof there are only two biological genders or are the studies on non-binary deaths during disasters incomplete? This may have to be a separate break out session.

The report also issues this stark warning.

“Aside from a number of vanguard first-mover champions, most companies, too, appear ill-equipped to address climate risk.”

Ill-equipped or paying lip service?

Take Josh Bayliss, CEO of Virgin Group. He said,

“It’s definitely true that right now every one of us should think hard about whether or not we need to take a flight.”

Why doesn’t he close down the airlines in the portfolio? Instead of waiting for his customers to grow a conscience and do the right thing why not force their choice? The obvious answer is that it’s hypocritical.

Yet even our own ASIC feels the need to force the minds of corporates to deal with climate change. Forget the data that shows reporting on the subject has collapsed since 2011 from an already low level because the free market mechanism reveals that pricing to offset such fears simply don’t exist in any meaningful way. The regulator’s wish to enforce reporting only proves it needs to construct a narrative to ward off a problem that doesn’t rate much of mention other than virtue signaling.

Perhaps this urgency to get regulators to pressure corporate leaders showed up with this snippet in the WEF report,

“In the World Economic Forum’s survey of business leaders, none of the top 10 risks globally are environmental, suggesting a critical blind spot…industry partners of the World Economic Forum ranked environmental risks higher than business leaders surveyed more broadly…Overall, lack of consistent awareness-raising among business leaders may create first-mover advantages for some, but it also potentially demonstrates the much more concerning overarching risk: that many businesses may not be planning for the physical and financial risks that climate change may have on their activities and across their value chains.”

So in plain English that says that the majority of corporates that don’t pay into the WEF’s Davos slush fund are evil and if we can get the governments of the world to force change, its members will be the first beneficiaries of any new climate legislation.

Yes, Global Shapers are merely the rope that the Multistakeholders will use to lynch the rest of us with.

Civility Wars – 2019 in review

As we roll into the final days of 2019, FNF Media has complied some of the highlights/lowlights of 2019, a year which probably defines the war on civility. To us, confected outrage has been a strong theme. There is no doubt that in 2020 we will only see the battle of the oppression Olympics hit new highs.

Having had the privilege of living abroad for the past 20 years in a country that knows no political correctness, coming back to my Aussie homeland over the past 12 months has opened my eyes to just how pathetic a nation we have become in so many areas and how afraid many are to speak out for fear of being whacked by the woke warriors.

So lets have a look at how 2019 panned out, in no particular order.

1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY & BOWING DOWN TO A 16-YO TRUANT

Climate change causes everything OK and how dare you question a 16yo pigtailed truant for pointing out your wicked ways.

Remember the caring and nurturing Newington College headmaster rolling over to student demands to attend the climate strike in Sydney? As we pointed out, the school’s academic achievement rank in the HSC just completed saw the school sink from rank 98th to 176th.

At the very least we got to see students, so oblivious to their own hypocrisy, happy to gorge on McDonalds after the strike, despite that evil bastion of capitalism summarizing single use disposable waste with their guardians.

We shouldn’t forget how many local councils strayed from the remit of mowing parks and collecting residential rubbish to pass resolutions on the ‘climate emergency.’ Bega Shire Council unfortunately boasted about the increased air traffic through the local airport and Northern Beaches Council championed a 293t CO2 saving which would assist the world by a mammoth 0.000000000699857% saving! Yes 9 zeroes. Little did they know they put a picture of its least efficient fossil fuel powered vehicle on the cover of the latest annual report.

2) BUSHFIRES & A PRIME MINISTER ON HOLIDAYS

How easy it was for the media to lambast the PM Scott Morrison for taking a holiday during the bushfires. Instead of staging political theatre where he handed out water bottles in front of dozens of media crews getting in the way of fire fighters, we spent over a week beating him up. Funny how Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk escaped all criticism for the same crime for taking a cruise?

How quick the media used climate change as the culprit despite almost 100 people being arrested for suspected arson. Never mind the Australian Institute of Criminology’s statistics that show 85% of all bushfires are either accidentally, suspiciously or deliberately lit.

How quickly the press fell in love with former PM Tony Abbott who they admonished for helping fight fires while in the top job now they had a new person to attack.

3) ARMCHAIR EXPERTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Ah but 29 former fire-fighting chiefs (under stewardship from the Climate Council’s very own High Priest of Dud Predictions, Tim Flannery) told us climate change was the main culprit behind the bushfires, even though the West Australian government’s own fire fighting wing categorically writes the exact opposite.

FNF Media stated that we couldn’t hold a candle to these brave firefighters when it comes to battling blazes, but that expertise in climate science was not a given.

What a joke it was to have the Australian Medical Association (AMA) pushing its complete lack of knowledge in climate science to ram home our reckless ways. Never mind that AMA membership as a % of doctors has plummeted from 95% to around 27%. Isn’t their a membership emergency it should focus on?

Even better we had our regulators APRA and ASIC stepped into the breach to warn us of why our corporates must report on climate change, even though their own statistics bear out that companies have viewed it as less of an issue over the past 6 years. So if companies won’t comply with things that don’t seem to be a problem, our regulators will enforce it so they can garner extra observatory oversight at taxpayer expense, even though they fail time and time again on catching errant behaviour.

Never mind, the Australian Conservation Foundation has lent on Cricket Australia for not using its platform to push climate change! How wonderful to learn that the UN created yet another body to push the climate change agenda. Would people truly listen to Cricket Australia on the climate emergency especially as day/night BBL matches are played almost daily with players jetting across the country non-stop?

4) HOTTEST TEMPERATURES EVER?

How the media fawned over the claims that Australia had its hottest recorded average temperatures ever. Never mind that the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) starts its data set from 1910, politely ignoring far hotter temperatures in 1896 and 1909.

5) ACTIVIST INDUSTRY FUNDS FAIL TO MEET THEIR OWN STANDARDS

Instead of pushing for maximum returns on investment, half of our ACSI member industry superannuation funds failed to meet the very criteria they set for corporate Australia in terms of gender targets. Poor CEO Katie Page at Harvey Norman had to face a barrage of criticism over these woke metrics at her company despite the long term performance of the retailer smashing the socially responsible industry funds by a country mile.

6) ISRAEL FOLAU & RUGBY AUSTRALIA

No need to go over his controversial tweets. No need to cover the supposed settlement and mutual apology. What Folau exposed was the utter incompetence at Rugby Australia. The complete failure in management that led to the coach of the main franchise to proclaim he had no relationship with the CEO and a poor one with the chair.

All of this aside, when a sporting franchise pursues avenues that alienate the very fans that pay the bills, that is never going to be a wise move. Revenues are floundering alongside match attendance.

7) GET WOKE, GO BROKE

Who could forget the ridiculous toxic masculinity campaign led by Gillette? What a surprise that its parent P&G was forced to write off US$8bn (an entire Qantas Airlines) in market value. There is a high chance when you walk into Woolworths or Coles that Gillette products are deeply discounted. A great lesson in why corporates shouldn’t dictate terms to their customers.

On a hilarious note, a vegan feminist cafe was forced to close in Melbourne. Little did it realise that hating your customers could lead to bad reviews. One Trip Advisor comment went so far as to say,

“A terrible cafe that has no respect for either equality or the law, with horrible staff that I swear the owner had to scour the scum of the earth to find. Spend half an hour trying to get a waitress to come over and when they finally showed up they told me I’d have to wait because I was a “cis gendered white man” and there were women who needed to be served first. According to the waitress I’d have to wait until ALL women in the shop were served before they’d take my order, even those who came in after me. I left at that moment and will never return.“

8) UNWINNABLE ELECTIONS & DUD POLLS

This year has been a year of unwinnable elections. BoJo got his mandate to leave the EU. Gladys Berijiklian won in NSW against ‘thank you for your service’ Michael Daley and Scott Morrison beating Bill Shorten in the federal election. It is no longer about parties but respecting the will of the people. Politicians must not forget this in future elections. Batman summed it up best. How many times have we seen polls miss the mark? Ever more so, people are hiding their true preference until the ballot box.

9) IMPEACHMENT

What a clown show. The Democrats have turned what should have been an exceptionally grave and serious event surrounding impeachment into a complete circus. From Dem representatives wearing Batgirl costumes to vote, to a Stanford law professor who confessed to crossing the street to avoid walking in front of a Trump building when testifying as a key witness to another Dem representative live streaming golf during the hearings. To top off the supposedly solemn occasion, Nancy Pelosi had to zip up her unruly kids after radical left wing representative Rashida Tlaib live streamed her beaming smile on the way to vote to impeach Trump.

So embarrassing have the hearings been that Americans don’t support the impeachment of the president.

10) IDENTITY POLITICS

Where to begin? As a middle-aged white heterosexual male FNF Media has the worst selection from the identikit.

Perhaps the best quote from the radical left on the poison that is identity politics, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley who said,

“We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice.”

Since when did all black, brown, queer or Muslim voices all conform to a predetermined script of how they must behave, act and think? Don’t comments like this make those who practice identity politics as the very racists, bigots and fascists they condemn?

The funniest take on identity politics was a motorcyclist competing as a cyclist because who is anyone to say he wasn’t who he said he was?

11) OUR NATIONAL BROADCASTER & BIAS

Our ABC has claimed forever that it is unbiased. How embarrassing that an internal staff survey showed only 46% of staff were engaged. Many complained that management failed to deal with underperformers appropriately.

How the Q&A program allowed a bunch of feminists who supported the murder of men, the destruction of the white patriarchy and setting things alight. Management issued an apology several days later citing the need for an inquiry.

Don’t forget that ABC Kids also has no problem making shows educating kids about white privilege.

12) DO AUSSIES REALLY WANT JACINDA ARDERN AS PM?

How many times have we read media comments that Australians pine for NZ PM Jacinda Ardern to lead us?

Yet how many of the 570,000 kiwis living in Australia have made a B-line to return to the land of the long white cloud and bask in the wokeness of the Wellness Budget? We wrote, that Ardern’s wonderfully ‘marketed’ package was less generous than what Australia already provides in the mental health and social wellbeing areas. What a surprise no media bothered to report on it? Instead we had Lisa Wilkinson implore ScoMo pick up the phone if he was ever in doubt, despite winning the unwinnable election! Her husband, Peter Fitzsimons had his finger off the pulse re Brexit, slamming the decision by Brits as harking after Little Britain.

13) THE WAR ON FREE SPEECH

It is quite disturbing to read what constitutes as hate speech. Rigel Robinson, a young councillor in Berkeley, California has said that “words matter“. The city will remove gender-specific language like “manhole” and change it to  “maintenance hole.” In his proposal, the words “policemen” and “policewomen” will also be phased out. “He” and “she” will also get the boot in favour of “they”.

One story that many missed was one about Oberlin College in the US. The university was sued $44m for falsely accusing a bakery of racism when they had simply caught several students shoplifting. The university blew it up into a racism story.

14) JUSSIE SMOLLETT & HATE CRIME

Who could forget the elaborate hoax set up by Empire actor Jussie Smollett in order to stoke tensions against MAGA hat wearers. How fantastic that the Chicago Police turned on him for wasting their time and charging him with the bill for their investigative work. What a surprise to see the mainstream media latch onto the hoax which was further pushed by politicians like Maxine Waters.

Hate crime in America according to the FBI has plummeted in the last two decades. For Smollett’s reference, Anti Black Hate Crimes have more than halved since 1996. As a % of the black population, Anti-Black hate crimes have fallen from 0.0131% to 0.0046% of their racial background.

15) THE STATE OF EDUCATION AROUND THE WORLD

We should be really worried at the state of how our universities have ceased to be campuses of free thought and open mindedness.

The Inclusive Communications Task Force at the Colorado State University has introduced an appropriate language guide and it has deemed the words “America” and “Americans” might prove offensive to some and have discouraged their use on campus. The reason?

“The Americas encompass a lot more than the United States. There is South America, Central America, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean just to name a few of 42 countries in total. That’s why the word “americano” in Spanish can refer to anything on the American continent. Yet, when we talk about “Americans” in the United States, we’re usually just referring to people from the United States. This erases other cultures and depicts the United States as the dominant American country.”

Some of the other loony words that are deemed offensive include:

Basket case, Eye for an eye, Takes the cake, Crazy / Nuts / Maniac / Lunatic / Insane / Deranged / Psycho / Demented / Depressed / OCD, Freshman, Eenie meenie miney moe, He or She, Ladies or Gentlemen

The University of San Francisco went on a mission to ensure that white students checked their privilege and ran an entire ad campaign around campus which can ge seen here.

If we wrap students in any more cotton wool they will not know how the real world works when they enter it.

It extends to kindergarten too. The loony left are looking to equate kisses from a grandparent with sexual consent. It doesn’t take much imagination but in the Democratic People’s Republic of Victoria some educational apparatchiks believe a grandparent kissing their grandchild can violate them. In what world does a grandparent showing affection to their own flesh and blood have incest on their minds? Most likely never.

Is it any wonder we have falling PISA scores when our educators are focused on this irrelevant garbage?

16) WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT THE WISDOM OF CELEBRITIES?

It wasn’t so long ago that Will.I.Am got into a disagreement with a Qantas stewardess who asked him to follow her guidelines. So incensed was he that he posted her name on Twitter to dox her. Good on Qantas for agreeing to support her legal defamation case.

Hollywood Actress Rosanna Arquette told the world of her “disgust” and “shame” at the “white privilege” afforded her. She tweeted, “I’m sorry I was born white and privileged…it disgusts me and I feel so much shame“. If she feels so badly about maybe she should sell her mansion, move to a poor neighborhood and give her money away to charities that support non-white minorities. Only then can she atone for the sins of her parents for not making her another colour.

Who could forget the praise for US Women’s Soccer Team champ Megan Rapinoe who pushed the equal pay movement in soccer despite every other person and their dog knowing that revenue drives pay. She used her Sports Illustrated sportsperson of the year award to attack the very people that gave it to her.

At least her antics rubbed off on the Aussie Matildas women’s team which happened to be beaten 7-0 by a bunch of 14yo boys. When will sporting codes just face up to reality? If men’s sports attract 4-5x the audience, is it any wonder pay rates are different? Could it be both men and women prefer the men’s game in most sports.

17) WHEN COUNCILS IGNORE THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

One of FNF Media’s favour the clips was from the Seattle City Council which was criticized by a resident for planting with their phones while he was asking a legitimate question.

18) WHEN TRUMP CUT FUNDING FROM THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

So the media unsurprisingly hurled abuse at Trump for his plans to cut National Science Foundation (NSF) funding by $1bn. Typical. Yet maybe it’s worth reminding ourselves how the NSF has misappropriated taxpayer funds with such reckless negligence. 

The “National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope” paper from 2011 documented some of the misappropriation of funds as follows,

“An $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness”, a “$315,000 study suggesting playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop and maintain relationships”, a study costing “$1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names”, a study costing “$50,000 to produce and publicize amateur songs about science, including a rap called “Money 4 Drugz,” and a misleading song titled “Biogas is a Gas, Gas, Gas”;” a study costing”$2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends”; and “$581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist”.Ineffective management examples, cited in the report, included “ineffective contracting”, “$1.7 billion in unspent funds sitting in expired, undisbursed grant accounts”, “at least $3 million in excessive travel funds”, “a lack of accountability or program metrics to evaluate expenditures” and “inappropriate staff behavior including porn surfing and Jello wrestling and skinny-dipping at NSF-operated facilities in Antarctica”

We should reflect on the wise words of Thomas Sowell,

“Those who cry out that the government should ‘do something’ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.”

IN CONCLUSION

Thank you to all FNF Media’s readers, critics and comments. Wishing everyone a wonderful 2020 even though we should prepare ourselves for it to be 2019 with more of the ridiculousness we have compiled for this year.

We will endeavor to fight for free speech and use data to disprove much of the group think espoused by today’s mainstream media and increasingly our academics.

The Battle of Lilliput

Quite a good summary of the best moments for the Democratic debate last night done by conservative Ben Shapiro. FNF Media awaits howls from the leftists who will justify the complete garbage these politicians spewed.

Grab some popcorn. Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren gets completely poleaxed by Pete Buttigieg who attacked her hypocrisy over her criticism of him schmoozing with billionaires (from the 31st minute).

Joe Biden happily said “yes” to the losses of 100,000s of blue-collar jobs for climate change.

Andrew Yang lamented he was the only candidate of colour on the stage and that he wished that Cory Booker would be back to boost the ranks! Identity politics! Yawn.

Amy Klobuchar looked the best on the night as she clocked Buttigieg over his record in winning elections. Buttigieg won in South Bend, Indiana with a total of 8,000 votes which he championed as a success because he was a gay man in the evil Mike Pence’s home state. Klobuchar slapped him over the fact he lost the bid to be state treasurer in Indiana in 2010 by 25 points.

Alas, the winner of the debate, yet again, was Donald Trump.

Note since the impeachment announcement (which embarrassingly is not official according to Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, one of the Democrat’s star witnesses from the hearings), Trump has seen a surge in political donations. You can’t make this stuff up.

If you don’t have enough time to watch the full video above, spend 30 seconds watching Nancy Pelosi sound like a town drunk explaining her decision. It is an incoherent rabble.

Why the WEF’s 2020 gender gap report rankings are utterly meaningless

The most glaringly obvious anomaly in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF)’s 2020 Gender Gap report is that Syrian women are supposedly luckier to have a higher health and survival ‘gender gap’ score even though they live 15 years shorter than Aussie women. Go figure?!?

Await the media parroting headlines based on the WEF’s executive summary of the latest 371-page 2020 report on gender equality without any context. Australia slipped in the rankings, so don’t be surprised to see our media slam us without analysing the data behind the claims. Because within the data, it is marginal. Moreover, the basis of the data collection is frankly ridiculous.

We should remind ourselves that the WEF is an organisation that prides itself on rank hypocrisy. It wasn’t so long ago that 1,500 private jets landed in Davos to debate the number one concern at the WEF conference – climate change. As there is no airport at Davos, some took helicopters from Zurich Airport to the summit.

The WEF believes that the economic gender gap will take 257 years to close, up from 202 years in 2018. Technological change is driving a disproportionate effect, with women more highly represented in roles hit hardest by AI (e.g. retail). What’s more, not enough women are entering professions where wage growth is fastest. It is most likely the old white male patriarchy that forced women to go into retail rather than of their own volition.

It would be all too easy to chastise Australia for falling from 39th to 44th position, but the reality is that we improved our overall score versus 2018. Before the luvvies lavish praise on New Zealand, which climbed two places to 6th but saw its aggregate score decline, Australia is only 8.5% below NZ. So is that worth beating ourselves up for?

In the subcategory of Economic Participation and Opportunity, Australia ranks 49th vs NZ at 27th. Even though there is only a 4% difference. Liberal heads will explode to know that Trump’s America ranks above NZ.

In terms of educational attainment, Australia ranks =1st, despite the quality of our education system leaving much to be desired. Although it is a bit disingenuous as 38 countries are equal first. We just happen to benefit from alphabetical ordering.

Australia ranks 104th in health & survival but it is less than 1% difference to the 39 first placed countries (which include Angola and Syria). Although if we take Syria as a reference market, the average healthy life expectancy for women is 59.5 years vs 52.5 for men meaning that the gender gap helps score the war-torn country higher than Australia. Australia is 74.1 and 71.3 years respectively. Still,  FNF Media is sure Syrian men and women would gladly trade places with Australians even if, in this instance, the gender gap narrowed on this metric.

Note that even last placed China is less than 4% off the top spot in the health and survival gender gap subcategory. Precious little insight.

Political empowerment is where Australia gets smashed with a paltry rank of 57th. Presumably, if Australia had more female politicians then perhaps our rank would catapult. Should the voting public be admonished if Dr Keryn Phelps was beaten by Dave Sharma? Do voters select candidates on ability or genitalia?

Of interest, all one need do is a simple weighted average of the four subcategories to come up with the aggregated ranking scores provided by WEF.

If we stripped out political empowerment, Australia is within 1% of NZ and 4% of where #1 ranked Iceland is. Hardly anything to feel triggered by. Our score would be 0.898 vs the 0.731 awarded. NZ would be 90.8% vs 0.799 awarded. Iceland would be 93.5% vs 87.7%. Why haven’t the media done their homework?

In short, the supposed gap WEF thinks will take 99.5 years to close won’t be anything near that for Australia.

Which stands to reason, shouldn’t some categories be weighted higher than others in terms of closing a gender gap? Surely women in one part of the world might rank economic participation at 50% as opposed to 25%. Given health is so close across 153 countries measured, is it worth ditching that as a metric?

Between countries, maybe Zambian women place 100% emphasis in their struggle on economic wellbeing but Icelandic women 100% on political empowerment. If that was so, Zambian women would rank 0.831 vs Icelandic women at 0.701. The most value that could be added by the WEF would be to ask women in each country what was important to them. That way we wouldn’t have to standardise rules and regulations. Because this report effectively says that we should all aspire to be Iceland even if ambitious women in Botswana don’t wish to seek a career in politics.

The WEF concluded the 371-page report with,

“The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the global gender gap and of efforts and insights to close it. The index offers a benchmarking tool to track progress and to reveal best practices across countries and subjects. This year the report finds that the gender gap has closed slightly since last year, yet it will still require 99.5 years to achieve full parity at the current pace.”

Unfortunately if one flips through to the country profiles, there are so many statistical gaps in certain categories making meaningful comparisons even more meaningless than they already are.

Therein lies the fatal flaw in this doorstopper. Data can be used in ways to paint a picture. It is so easy to put Australia in a negative light but in most metrics, while our rank may have fallen our raw scores have improved. But don’t be surprised if the media just tells you how bad we are. Narratives are easy to draw from a document that proves the adage of “garbage in, garbage out!” Yet don’t be surprised to see politicians making hay over the findings, if we can even call them that!

All cl(ass)

This is what happens when organizations roll over and pander to political correctness. It ends up eating the very people trying to appear worthy. Sports Illustrated (SI) may regret its Sportsperson of the Year award choice.

As FNFM wrote earlier in the week, US Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe has what it takes on the field but lacks all credibility off the field with the constant bluster around identity politics. She didn’t disappoint.

Rapinoe slapped the very magazine that bestowed her with the award in her acceptance speech,

“Am I only the fourth woman worthy of this honor in 60 years?…I don’t think so…Is it true so few writers of color deserve to be featured in this publication? No. Is it true so few women’s voices deserve to be heard and deserve to be read in this publication? I don’t think so.”

You get the drift.

The question will be whether SI caves in and goes on a massive overhaul of their internal hiring practices or sticks to what works with subscribers.

There are too many examples of woke businesses that have lost a bundle for failing to provide the very good/service that the end customer will pay for.

Gillette dropped $8bn in value after it’s toxic masculinity campaign. Attacking one’s core clientele wasn’t smart.

A vegan feminist cafe, Handsome Her, had to close its doors for good. It had imposed an 18% gender surcharge for men to account for the ‘wage gap’ and given women priority seating. Clearly not enough sisters to share the cause.

NBA and NFL have seen dramatic erosion in audience numbers since backing China and kneeling.

Pretty simple. The overwhelming majority of us don’t require politics dished up with whatever else companies are selling, especially the words “these actions don’t represent our beliefs” from a bank.

As always Jonathan Pie says it best about the oppression obsession.