As many probably know by now the Voice is the biggest drama to happen in Australia in years, and it's pretty much taken over my posting. However, the campaign has gotten complicated and self-referential enough that I would 100% understand anyone jumping in for the first time or even after missing a week's worth of news would be incredibly confused about everything. This is why I present- the FULL guide to the Voice! Below is what will be covered, feel free to skip to 3-4 if you just want the drama without the context-

1. What is the Voice?

2. Who are the sides?

3. What is the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart?

4. What are the controversies?

If anything big comes up in the coming weeks/months I'll keep adding to this post, so save this if you want to stay up to date

1. What is the Voice?

The Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a proposed advisory body to Parliament. It would be elected by and presumably composed of Aboriginals, and it would give advice on Aboriginal issues to Parliament and to heads of departments or the PM personally. The election process is apparently going to be weighted, with elders (the oldest members/heads of a tribe) as well as those living in "remote communities" (this is essentially code for still living semi-tribally in bumfrick nowhere) given weighted voting over the mayofied urban Aboriginals.

It is important to note that the Government of the day both a) gets to frick with the Voice's composition, powers and process at will and b) can ignore any "advice" they get, HOWEVER they would not be able to get rid of it entirely. This is because the proposal is to put it in the constitution, which also means the Parliament can't actually just vote it in- the constitutional revision needs to be passed by referendum, and then the corresponding legislation setting it up gets legislated in afterwards. This does mean we have to talk about

1b. Referenda in Australia

Referendums in Australia do not pass by a simple majority vote. They pass by a) a majority vote and 2) a majority of Australia's 6 states (so 4/6). Territories count for the first count but not the second, so sucked in Canberra.

The proposed change is worded as follows-

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

To which when the referendum day comes you can answer Yes or No. So remember- YES means nonchuds , NO means chuds .

We still do not know when the referendum day will actually come, although there are some considerations. Albanese (the Prime Minister) has to call the referendum for early 2024 by the latest, and has committed to holding it in 2023. Voting in September/early November is presumed to be out because that's when Aussie sporting finals are, which means all the will be too busy watching footy and drinking beers to care about the Voice. By law elections and referenda have to be held on Saturdays so that also narrows it down. Pundits generally say October 14, but it could well be in November.

2. The Sides

2a. Yes

The Yes campaign is headed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party (the centre-left party). In Parliament he is also supported by the Greens (left), the "teal" independents (rainbow capitalists) and a few members of the Liberal party (centre right, also known as literally fascism). Albanese brought the Voice as a policy to the 2022 federal election and won, although he mostly won because the PM at the time (Scott Morrison) had become for good reason despised by most of the population as a corrupt smarmy happy-clappy r-slur.

Albanese however is pretty much a fairly inconsequential career politician who has only ever rocked the boat with the Voice, and that was because it wasn't all that controversial a year ago lol. His Indigenous Minister who is currently doing most of the work to push this is called Linda Burney, who apparently isn't drunk when she talks despite the fact that she really sounds like it. She has essentially for the past few months been brought out for damage control whenever something goes wrong for the Yes campaign.

There are also a series of activists who are working towards Yes under the banner of "Yes23", of which I'll highlight two. Noel Pearson is the activist who is meant to get rightoids on board with the Voice, because he says things like "look if you pass the voice and nothing changes you can blame us Aboriginals for it" and "just give us responsibility for our own problems". On the other side there's Thomas Mayo, who's a communist who hates Australia which is why rightoid have been focusing on him despite the fact he really isn't all that important, and I only mentioned him because he gets brought up a lot.

2b. No (chud)

The mainstream No campaign is headed by opposition leader Peter Dutton of the Liberal Party and his coalition partner the Nationals (rural rightoids), and supported in Parliament by fringe parties such as One Nation (gigarightoid lolcows). Peter Dutton is a former cop who became leader of the Liberals after they lost the election, and pretty much leads the rightoid wing of that party. Some state Liberal leaders are actually pro-Voice, so he hasn't gotten his party in line as much as Albanese has.

2c. No ()

A fringe No group is the "Blak Sovereignty" movement, with its parliamentary head being Lydia Thorpe (a lolcow who I made a post about months ago). Their deal is that the Voice would surrender Aboriginal sovereignty to the colonial Australian government so should be avoided. Lol.

3. What is the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart?

The Uluṟu Statement from the Heart is a document published by a bunch of Aboriginal elders and activists in 2017 under a bipartisan program, that called for the Voice, plus Treaty (we admit the authority of the Crown in exchange for gibs) and Truth (a commission that's meant to tell all the bad things that happened during colonisation). The controversy here is on whether or not to count the meetings and notes that went into the signed first page- the meetings and notes call for reparations and all forms of other gibs, which the first page omits. The characters involved in the Statement from the Heart have also been scrutinised (this is where Thomas Mayo comes from for example). Albanese has committed to implementing the Statement in full.

4. Controversies

Controversies so far include but are not limited to-

• the Voice becoming increasingly unpopular

• Yes campaigners being communists

• No campaigners being racists (some really were, some weren't really)

• No ads showing Thomas Mayo begging for gibs (this is racist obviously)

• National carrier Qantas putting vote yes on their aircraft

• Other big corps supporting Yes

• The mining industry supporting No (except it never did)

• Whether the chud No or the Blak Sovereignty No would make the No official argument in a state-funded information pamphlet- chuds won

• Whether the wording of the amendment would accidentally give the Voice power over the government of the day (it doesn't)

That's pretty much it, dramaussies tell me if I've missed anything big

Since summer is coming all too soon to !texas I got to work on a project I been needin to do recently: fixing my window unit

A little backstory. I live in a trailer. pulled this circa 2003 ish unit, from another trailer. it sat since the end of 2010

it was 2021 I pulled it out.

when you're a country boy, you make do. why go buy a new window unit when the old trailer's got some sitting around?

actually, I pulled 2 sister units of the same vintage and manufacture at the time. one had a bad refrigeration circuit, probably the compressor rotted out on the bottom and leaked the gas

a parts unit

it sat in its new home beside the driveway patiently until it would be needed

lo and behold, just 2 yeears later, its time came

the working unit had served me well for 21 and 22 but the bearings on the fan were shot from sitting 10 years without moving, partially exposed to the weather.

it was pretty loud.

and since you need AC at least 8 months out of the year in this glorious state , it was working pretty hard.

I had alreaty scrounged the capacitor from the parts unit bc it was going, and every six months or so I had to oil the bearings or they'd start to seize.

and it was getting worse. as 'winter' finally rolled around last year and I only needed the thing some days I could spare time to try and fix it. the seizing was terminal at this point and she would suffer no more

this wasn't my first time putting together a frankenstein unit. I had done basically the same thing before with 2 other sister units from another building. these were from 1998/1999, the good old days , older than me

they also sat since 2010

well one had no refrigeration and the other had a seized motor right from the get go. so I took the good from each and made one working unit

back to the newer unit... I pulled the fan assembly from the driveway machine and put it in. one uuge problem. It was so fricking loud

I couldn't even sleep with it on. these bearings were worse than the old ones, but at least they were still spinnign. there was still some heat to get through before november brought peace so I powered through

but it got worse. the plastic condenser fan, having sat outside, dissembled in the driveway, had been exposed to a bunch of UV I guess and had turned to more or less cardboard. (I could just peel pieces of it apart when I took it out)

the fan blades were breaking and making it go out of balance.

So by the end of the cooling season this thing was an ear bleeding and earthshaking monstrosity in my windowsill.

something had to be done... but its december now there's no need for AC I'll fix it later

that time was (is) now. ferbruary is coming to a close and with it will go the beutiful cold I've been enjoying. ( can't wait to find home)

I took the seized fan unit that was just waiting for some kind of final solution. I tore that motor open

there they were...

2 easy to replace 608s

got a 10 pack online for $7

pulled the mfs and pressed the new ones on

spin the thing

silence

so I threw her back together and into the window.

turned it on and there's only the sound of the air (and compressor) now

now you might have read this (probably not ) and wondered, what's that title about?

well its about what happened last night when I got the thing in the window and turned it on.

the satisfaction of a job well done washed over me as I sat down at the old puter to browse rdrams.

and then thought popped into my head. the pernicious idea. only for a moment, but made me stop right in my tracks: "why didn't I take pictures of everything to make an effortpost?"

and then I was sick

I realised this was the thought of a social media user. this is not me. no.

so no I DIDN'T take pictures. No you DON'T get to see

I'm going to enjoy my life with my own dmn eyes and I'm not going to become a 'gram zombie posting my every meal.

everytime I see a picture of a modern concert or venue where every. single. person. there is more concerned about filming the thing than actually being there, I want to vom.

it's disgusting and I feel ashamed for even the brief moment of remorse I felt about not filming this mundane task for the viewership of what, like 23 r-slurs online.

still felt the need to make the text post albiet

I should be making marseys like I came here to do but instead I've been gooning to stable diffusion building workflows and exploring advanced generative ai systems all weekend. at least I went outside and fixed a AC