Author: dover0beach

Not claiming to be an aficionado of any of these genres, Cats. The ol’ saying, “I don’t know what I like but I do when I hear it” applies here.

Dub – a very idiosyncratic genre. However, there be giants. Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby and the Mad Perfesser, among others. After absolutely loving UB40’s Signing Off and Present Arms as a yoof, to subsequently experience Present Arms in Dub was a somewhat perplexing experience. Dub involving of course, much manipulation of instruments and sounds, in an often seemingly random and discordant fashion. Best enjoyed (presumably) after inhaling a certain ‘erb, Mon.

Ska – In many ways, the precursor of Reggae. Originated in the Caribbean Isle of Jamaica in the sixties, fusing particular musical styles. It experienced its most notable period of popularity courtesy of the 2 Tone record label releases in the hectic New Wave period of music of the late seventies and early eighties. Some of my favourite bands were purveyors of this style, the most notable being the (British) Beat. Yoof subculture fans of Ska back in the day were known as Rude Boys and Girls and tended to dress in mod inspired monochrome fashions.

Reggae – The best known of the three variants, courtesy of a certain Bob Marley. Came to prominence in the aftermath of the Rocksteady style. The term Rocksteady features in one of my favourite Madness tunes. Reggae itself is an immediately recognisable genre, characterised by offbeat rhythms and the use of offsetting staccato chords. Other prominent (and not so prominent) Reggae artists include Jimmy Cliff, Horace Andy (who would later gain a wider audience courtesy of Massive Attack), Keith Hudson, and Desmond Dekker. The Clash and the Police were also influenced by Reggae – see the latter’s album “Reggatta de Blanc”, for example, while two of my other favourite bands are Madness and the Specials, who were exemplars of certain styles identified above.

Now comes the hard part, choosing two songs. Here they are. Please assist to broaden our Reggae horizons by posting your favourite tunes here.

Baggy Trousers

Sea of Love

Honourable mention – BB Seaton, “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”.

Enjoy, Cats!

You will have noticed by now that there have been some technical issues with the site since Monday last week. They seem to be only affecting some of you but there is no easily diagnosable reason for them. This is being worked on but in the interests of diagnosing whatever is causing them could you please let me know the following when they occur:

the action prior to the problem,

your IP address ( I can gather that when you comment or if you email let me know your username),

browser you’re using,

a screenshot of site when problem occurs,

and the time whenever this occurred.

You can leave a comment below or email me at Catallaxyfiles@protonmail.com (later if you are providing screenshots)

Hopefully this will enable the webhost to narrow down and identify the problem.

In 1966 the execrable Mao gifted the word the cultural revolution, this was great for the “West” as it retarded Chinese industry by decades ensuring for at least 30 years China remained a near basket case.

It kicked off with the denouncement of the “4 olds”

Old Ideas

Old Culture

Old Customs

Old Habits

I’d argue we are in the midst of our own revolution which will have the same destructive, generational effect Mao’s did. Much like the original Cultural Revolution it’s being driven largely by the young, manipulated by old power interests to advance their causes. The Children of the 60’s and 70’s will never forgive the Australian public for failing them by not recognising their greatness. Instead, they burrowed down as hard as they could into the culture and education systems to wreak their revenge.

The new revolution is just as nebulous as the old, its demands can’t be fully met because they aren’t explicit, every advance which was presented as meeting a demand was, again, just a staging post for the next demand.

Contrast the Old and New as the current zeitgeist seems to think is appropriate.

Old Ideas

Men and women are different in terms of abilities and talents and compliment each other

Reliable, cheap energy is the wellspring of wealth and modern society.

Children are incapable of managing their affairs competently and should be under parental protection until they hit the age of responsibility.

New Ideas

Men and women are completely interchangeable and are competing in a zero sum game of status and power.

We can restrict and ration our way to prosperity through legislation and forcing people to change.

Children are wise and can make great decisions from an early age. They must be encouraged at an early age to make life changing decisions.

Old Culture

All races have the same innate potential.

No man should be held responsible for the sins of his father.

A two-parent family, mother and father, is the proven best way to rear children.

New Culture

Your skin colour/race makes you either innately evil or good, culture has no effect on outcomes though. Unless its ‘white” culture, which doesn’t exist, and is innately evil.

Every ancestor, until proven otherwise (or non white) is automatically evil and did everything with the most base intentions. This can never be atoned for and must be kept as a source of grievance/power and status for various race hustlers to exploit.

Single parenting is great, we just haven’t arranged enough resource transfer from other people to make up for damage caused yet.

Old Customs

People who behave in ways that damage others must pay a penalty for those actions appropriate to the gravity of the offense.

People have a right to privacy, including the use of remote or technological devices harvesting information for government or business uses. This cannot be nullified by clicking a box to ‘consent’.

Respect being given to people is contingent on respect being shown in kind. Lying or otherwise violating respectful behaviour norms makes a person unworthy of being shown resect.

New Customs

The offender is the true victim here if they click a diversity box of some sort. It’s only by not applying consequences to actions true reparations can be maintained (but never paid off)

By using something, even if you have paid for it, clicking a little box which makes it work means we can spy on you 24/7 with a granularity which would make the old Stasi blush.

Respect must automatically be given, and maintained for certain groups, but is completely optional for ‘out” groups. Eg: Gays must be shown respect, Christians, unless they capitulate, must not.

Old Habits

Men should be respectful to women and be habituated to step in if a woman is at risk or being taken advantage of.

Women should be aware that they should behave appropriately around men, acting the “slut” isn’t something to be turned on and off as you want it too.

Denial of short term advantage or profit for longer term success, eg, saving money, starting a business and becoming wealthy.

New Habits

All women are sluts, therefore they are to be treated as less than fully functioning people and used/discarded as wanted.

Men are perfectly safe and I reserve the right to be judged by what I say, not how I act.

Anyone who has saved/ started/ and is now wealthy is an exploiter and must be ‘levelled” with taxes and regulation. This curiously enough misses the gentry class wealthy

I suppose in the end its wise to ask who, or what is benefitting from this rolling denunciation of what works for a never achievable rolling utopian nightmare.

Given most of the issues raised are firmly in the class of ‘luxury beliefs” it seems that the constituency is those who feel suitably insulated by wealth or position on the oppression totem pole to be immune to the fallout.

Training herds of youth in grievance studies is prima facie an anti-civilisational idea, yet somewhere, somehow it’s considered acceptable to tax blue collar workers to produce white collar ingrates and agitators.

Where are the “conservatives” actively defunding this idiocy?

Every now and then I peak above the parapet and regale Cats with news from the EV front.  As a year has passed since the last update, I have girded my loins and offer the following for your information. 

The major manufacturers have released assorted production comments in the past few months:

• Toyota – investment of $100 billion over the next decade with a minimum of 30 vehicles to           be offered by 2030.  They expect to be selling 3.5 million EVs per year by 2030.  Hydrogen       fuel cell powered vehicles (including light trucks) are under development and they are        convinced hydrogen fuel cell has a bright future. 

• VW – Volkswagen’s CEO recently said “as much electrification as possible, as much hydrogen       as necessary”.  VW see EV cars for people and hydrogen fuel cell for heavy vehicles and        other requirements.  VW is investing $86 billion from 2021-25 in EVs with more from 2026   onwards.  By 2030, they expect over 50% of all VW group (inc Audi, Bentley, Porsche, Skoda               etc.) sales to be EV and achieving 100% EV sales by 2040.

• Hyundai/Kia – 23 EVs by 2025 and a further 17 models by 2030.  Minimum of $22 billion                 investment and global EV sales exceeding 2 million per annum by 2030.  Hydrogen fuel cell   passenger and light trucks in extensive pre-production testing and Hyundai has commenced   investing in various hydrogen refuelling facilities.  EVs first, and hydrogen to follow.

• Ford – Ford announced it is splitting its business into two separate divisions.  The ‘E’ division         will be responsible for the all-electric vehicles whilst the ‘Blue’ division will develop internal        combustion models.  In March 2022, the Blue division registered a patent for a combustion          engine running on hydrogen with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office.  Meanwhile, Ford announced that its entire vehicle range offered in Europe will be electric by 2030.   

• General Motors – GM plans to completely phase out vehicles using internal combustion engines by 2035 including SUVs and those giant utes they call ‘pick-ups’.   $35 billion investment to 2025.  GM have partnered with Liebherr-Aerospace to develop fuel cell technology for aircraft and other applications.

•  Mercedes – Last year the European Commission voted to uphold the ban on the sale of new         petrol or diesel ICE passenger cars starting in 2035.  Mercedes claims it will have an all-      electric line-up by 2030.  Mercedes have shelved their research into hydrogen power and     will focus exclusively on EVs.   

It doesn’t really matter where you look – BMW, Volvo, Renault, Mitsubishi, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Fiat et al – the answer is the same from every manufacturer.  They are all moving to EVs and many are active in hydrogen fuel cell research.  To be fair, some manufacturers such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lotus, McLaren and others have no choice if they want to continue to sell their cars in Europe.  Many European countries are imposing sales bans from 2030 and no later than 2035 on new ICE petrol/diesel vehicles including hybrids.

Of course, the US market is key and in August 2021, President Biden announced a target that by 2030, half of the vehicles sold in the United States will be battery electric, fuel-cell or plug-in hybrid.  This matched the major US automakers plans for the inevitable future of electric vehicles with GM pledging that 100% of its cars sold would be zero-emission by 2035 whilst Ford announced that 40% of its US vehicles sold by 2030 will be electric.  Coupled with EV imports of foreign manufacturers, it’s likely that Biden’s target will be achieved.

But why are we doing this?   Simple really.

Transport, in all its forms, is estimated to produce some 24% of global carbon dioxide emissions with passenger vehicles and trucks contributing 75% of that total (45% and 30% respectively).   Aviation (12%) and shipping (11%) make up most of the balance. 

The global fleet of passenger vehicles is approximately 1.4 billion cars and as manufacturers produce some 90 million vehicles per year, it will obviously take about 15 years to ‘replace’ the global fleet with non-emission vehicles.  As ICE vehicles will effectively cease production from 2035, that dovetails with the internationally agreed requirement to reduce emissions by 2050.  

Coupled with that, hydrogen fuel cell technology will be sufficiently advanced to power trucks, trains, heavy equipment, aircraft and boats/ships no later than 2030.  Large ships burning tonnes of bunker fuel per voyage will be a distant memory by 2050 for example.  But importantly, achieving the 2050 emissions target cannot be achieved without eliminating ICE petrol/diesel passenger vehicles.

Overarching all this, global organisations such as the UN, EU and IPCC plus every major political party and most politicians on the planet has been captured, rightly or wrongly, by the environmental movement.  Everybody is singing from the same song sheet egged on by every NGO, chancer, influencer and charlatan – all of whom recognise the vast, almost incalculable, sums of money to be skimmed.    

I acknowledge the gigantic infrastructure and cost* issues with charging all these EVs and hydrogen refuelling, but a transport transformation is underway and it cannot be stopped.  By the end of this decade EV production will be frenetic and growing rapidly.  Demand for lithium, graphite, ‘heavy’ magnets, rare earths, hydrogen production facilities (plus transportation) and rechargers, to name just a few, will be immense.  Invest now.  You don’t have to necessarily agree with the rationale for the global shift to net zero, but you might as well make some money out of it.      

* The current consensus seems to be that the cost to achieve net zero will require expenditure between 1.5% – 2% of global GDP per year until 2050.  Global GDP is currently around $US87 trillion per annum. 

The GDP expenditure forecast is very likely optimistic.