The Fourth Way

Religion of Peace

2009-08-13T22:33:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, a man was charged with murder for shooting his niece, who had been raped.

As it should be worn...

2009-06-30T23:18:00.000-07:00

Ingsoc

2009-06-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

UNIONS have hatched a controversial plan to turn around dwindling membership - by targeting children as young as 14 in their classrooms.

The state's peak union body Unions NSW has hired two young activists to go into public schools and lecture students on "industrial relations" as part of its UnionStart program.

The Daily Telegraph reports the lectures on workers' rights and the role of unions will be built into the curriculum in subjects such as business studies, careers education, vocational work placements and the School to Work program.

Teens are also being lured to join UnionStart for a $10-a-month fee with incentives including discounted tickets to sports events and the prospect of better-paid jobs.

To me this is truly terrifying, to build union dogma into the cirriculum of 14 year olds smacks of the modern day brainwashing in North Korea or the excesses of the Soviet era.

Is the NSW government now so corrupt that it will allow its masters in the unions the power to indoctrinate and recruit impressionable youngsters in its supposedly apolitical education system?

Or is the issue of union power in NSW now apolitical along with that of global warming, multiculturalism and black armband history?

2009-06-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

The muppets are at it again.

2009-06-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

In my two most recent posts I've criticised the government for constantly talking the economy down. Well the negative nancy pants on the treasury benches are at it again. From the Australian: Unemployment will rise this year, Lindsay Tanner warns

Minister Lindsay Tanner said: "We're expecting unemployment to get worse during the course of this year." Mr Tanner's remarks were echoed by Treasurer Wayne Swan, who said: "There's still a very big employment challenge out there."

Enough all ready! God almighty, we all know what the forecasts say, but that doesn't make them a foregone conclusion. Indeed when the principal economic ministers of the country say things like this all it does is increase the chance that their utterances become self-fulfilling prophesy.

Building consumer confidence is the key to domestic recovery. Australia is in a very different position to other jurisdictions like Iceland, the US and Britain were their financial systems have essentially melted down. Australia's fundamental financial frameworks are sound. Our equities markets have taken a hit, but that was only to be expected given the global nature of equities markets. But essentially our domestic enconomy is only suffering from a lack of confidence, and much of that lack in confidence isn't helped by having the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Finance continuously coming out and telling us how terrible everything is.

7000 words the Monthly should have published instead of Kevin Rudd. Part 2

2009-06-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

So what should the Government have done?

In my last instalment I discussed how the Muppets in the Rudd Government have mismanaged the Australian economy from the day they were elected. With the aid of some trusty ABS stats, a memory that lasts longer than a media cycle and some direct quotations straight from the Treasurer and Prime Minister’s mouths I outlined eighteen months of economic buffoonery.

To recap: When the economy was starting to sour, the Treasurer and Prime Minister went on an inflation busting crusade that drove up interest rates and hastened the economic slow down. Then when it finally dawned on them that there was something wrong they started their panic-merchant routine, frightening the already frightened punters which resulted in the most spectacular collapse in consumer confidence. And finally, to add insult to injury, I outlined some of the Government’s expensive and pointless debt fuelled binges, a binge that will undermine the recovery and indebt our children’s generation and probably their children’s generation as well.

But I have a saying that I constantly try to hold true to. “Don’t whinge unless you’ve got a better idea yourself”.

In the second instalment of my political-economic analysis I make some suggestions as to how the Government should have reacted, and what they should do now.

What the Government should have done.

We need to look at this problem from three different angles. Firstly, what did the Government say they were doing, and what should they have said instead? Secondly, what did the Government do, and what should it have done instead? And thirdly, why doesn’t this Government actually do what they say?

Let me deal with the last question first.

Why does this Government say one thing, then do another?

A recurring theme of this Government is its seemingly amazing ability to say one thing and then do something entirely different.

Example 1: 18 December 2007, the Treasurer:

Well there's no doubt that – as I've said yesterday – that we in this country in terms of government need a new era of fiscal discipline. Yesterday and last week I talked about the inflationary challenge. And certainly what we must do as a Government is put maximum downward pressure on inflation and maximum downwards pressure on interest rates in the long-term. That's why we need a new era of fiscal discipline.

And then on 21 January 2008:

Well, we've said that we will aim for a surplus of at least 1.5 per cent (of GDP) in 08/09.

The outcome: a budget deficit of $32.9 billion dollars and a new era of fiscal recklessness.

Example 2: 10 May 2009, the Treasurer:

that's why there will be in this Budget tough decisions, tough decisions which will be unpopular, but absolutely essential to return the budget to surplus over time.

I think its pretty safe to say that the 2009 Budget went down with barely a whimper. The “unpopular” decisions won’t take effect for a decade, the spending cuts were measley and focussed predominately on means testing medical benefits for high earners. On the other side of the ledger, massive new spending on poorly costed infrastructure with doubtful cost-benefits and cash handouts to all and sundry.

There are countless other examples of this Government saying one thing and doing another. 12 December 2007, The Prime Minister:

…we believe that climate change represents one of the greatest moral, economic and environmental challenges of our age.
Australia now stands ready to assume its responsibility in responding to this challenge – both at home and in the complex negotiations which lie ahead across the community of nations.

The proposed emissions trading scheme has been lambasted by all sides of politics for being meaningless. The “greatest moral, economic and environmental challenge of our age” gets a couple of press releases and some half baked legislation that won’t even scratch the carbon emissions targets that Australia has committed to internationally.

Buy why? Why is it that this Government fails to do what it says it will do. I think the answer lies, ultimately, in the office of the Prime Minister.

It is fairly well known that the Prime Minister is a micro manager. It’s also well known that he has a temper and he gets his own way or he chucks a tanty. It is also well known that he works ridiculously long hours and expects the same from his staff.

I’ve worked with, and for, people like this before, and I recognise the typology. These traits are all symptoms of “impostor syndrome”. This typology has been explored in countless psychological articles and books, so I won’t go into too much detail. In short, “impostors” are usually high performing individuals who, in their heart of hearts, believe they have achieved greatness through fraud, that they’d sufficiently “faked it” to make it and their greatest fear is that they will be exposed as the fraud that they feel themselves to be.

Impostors therefore do everything they can to reinforce and remind everyone of their status. They scream at people for making the smallest mistakes, say for example because a stewardess didn’t have a chicken sandwich on board an airplane, or because a hair dryer couldn’t be produced for a photo op. Impostors often work exceptionally long hours and demand the same from their staff, they do so for appearances to remind everyone around them that they are extremely important and busy. During these long hours they don’t necessarily achieve anything - remember its not about results, its about appearances. They’ll review and return drafts of documents time and time again making the smallest stylistic changes. They turn up to meetings late, often very late, or make people wait inordinate periods of time to keep an appointment (the Chief of the Defence Forces for example). Again this behaviour reminds everyone around them that the impostor is a very important person.

But most importantly, because they don’t trust their own judgement (remember they got their job by faking it) they will almost always avoid actually making a tough decision. Give an impostor a choice between making a tough decision, or focussing on minutiae, they’ll choose minutiae every time.

For example, the Prime Minister’s really good at reacting to issues, usually by announcing a review or a working group, or by referring a matter on to COAG. But when has he actually made a tough decision? Even his reaction to the GFC has involved a lot of talking, flying overseas, and handing out free money (which was never going to be unpopular), but when its come to difficult decisions necessary to ensure the medium to long term economic success of our Nation, the PM squibs.

Where were the billions of dollars in cuts to Australia’s much maligned “middle class welfare”?

Or taxation reform generally? It’s off in a “review”.

Our “ailing” public health system? Review pending.

Cutting “red-tape” for businesses? It’s been COAGed, to use the phrase that indicates an issue has been sent off to be discussed ad-nauseum for years before a small, watered-down, symbolic gesture is grudgingly made by the States.

Housing affordability, a huge issue during the election campaign: COAGed.

Reforming Aged Care funding? COAGed.

Japanese whaling, again a feature of the campaign, we were promised the Government would pursue the Japanese through international law. Forgotten.

2020 Summit – does anyone remember anything concrete that’s come out of that?

Fuelwatch. Lying in the bottom drawer of the PM’s office.

Underlying all of these examples is one recurring theme. When given the choice between making a tough decision or focussing on minutiae, the PM focuses on minutiae. The only decision that is ever made in his office is the decision not to make a decision. Hence the number of important issues being “reviewed” or COAGed.

Despite the fact that the PM can’t make a decision to save his life, Minister’s still need to sound like their in control and doing something. And herein lies the reason for why this government says one thing and does another. Minister’s under pressure to respond to the media cobble together some action focussed rhetoric making it sound like they are doing their job.

When the media asked about the budget (either 08 or 09, the rhetoric and results were similar), Wayne Swan had no choice but to stick with the lines agreed to during the election campaign. “The ALP is economically conservative, economic conservatives are fiscally disciplined, fiscal discipline means spending cuts, spending cuts are unpopular, the budget will contain unpopular measures.”

Meanwhile the PM spends his time berating his staff for using green coloured briefing cover sheet instead of the pink ones that he distinctly remembered telling everyone to use, AND is that a staple in the left hand corner? It’s supposed to be on the RIGHT! The advisor in question daren’t mention that CBRC’s recommendations for swingeing budget cuts are underneath the guilty green cover sheet, which of course will now have to be replaced with a pink sheet and go back to the bottom of the four foot pile of briefs awaiting procrastination on the PM’s desk. Decision effectively avoided – well done Kevvie!

I must say that this is all pure supposition. Its based solely on my own personal knowledge of the man (and men like him) and the various rumours that do the rounds within the ranks of Labor and Coalition advisors. I may in fact be completely wrong and Rudd is actually a bloody genius with an inhuman work ethic. But I doubt it.

What should the Government have said, or be saying now?

I’ll do a compare and contrast.

Scenario 1: Due to dodgy deals and poor prudential regulation, Australia’s largest trading partners have undergone a financial meltdown of epic proportions. The Treasurer, Peter Costello, is asked about impacts on Australia, 16 April 1998:

Well, in Australia the growth at the moment is up around four, it’s a little under probably 3 and a half to 4, somewhere around there. In the next financial
year we think it’ll be probably closer down towards, 3, than 4. But these are still quite strong growth rates. It’s on a low inflation base. We’ve got a very strong fiscal position. We’ll be coming back into a surplus in the next financial year. And although trade with Asia will take a little bit off Australian growth, the fact of the matter is that these are strong prospects. They would have been better still, had it not been for the Asian downturn. But by world terms, very strong prospects in Australia with a lot of opportunities, I think, coming out of the Asian situation. Australia is now looking very much like a good place to do business as a regional headquarters. The financial system has stood up remarkably well. It’s strongly regulated, hasn’t skipped a beat on any of the financial or stock markets. And although we, of course, would prefer a stronger position in Asia, the outcome of all of this will have some positive as well as some downward effects on the Australian economy.

I started highlighting the positive comments and gave up because almost the entire quote was bolded.

Scenario 2: Due to dodgy deals and poor prudential regulation, one of Australia’s largest trading partners has undergone a financial meltdown of epic proportions. The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, is asked about its impacts on the Federal budget, 1 May 2009:

Well, certainly there's been a revenue write-down because of the global recession between the Budget last year and February of about $115 billion. That's an enormous amount of money. It's equivalent to about four years of family payments and childcare benefits, and because of slowing growth and because the global recession has got even worse, there will be further revenue write-downs in the Budget. They are very substantial, probably the largest in living memory. But we'll see those on Budget night.

And then:

…Well, we have a very savage global recession which is having a brutal impact on growth globally and domestically. It certainly is going to impact on employment and it is certainly going to impact on government revenues. There's no doubt, sadly, that there will be an impact on unemployment as a result of the global recession but those forecasts will be there on Budget night.

That’s the difference right there. One treasurer saw the silver lining, he talked the economy up, and by doing so he ameliorated the worst effects of the Asian Financial Crisis by bolstering domestic consumer confidence.

He didn’t preach doom, he saw the opportunities for Australia to become a regional headquarters for Asian Business (and in following months and years firms like Virgin and Boeing all relocated their Asian Headquarters to Australia), but he didn’t do so recklessly. He identified the challenges and did so constructively and positively.

Wayne Swan just makes excuses. Nothing’s his fault, its all the fault of the GFC, his reckless inflation pogrom had nothing to do with the accelerated slow down. His luxury car tax had nothing to do with plummeting car sales. His bank guarantee had nothing to do with the drying up of non-bank liquidity in this country. He’s just a victim.

What the Government should have done from the very beginning was to talk the Australian economy up. You’re starting to hear some of that from the PM, and a little from the Treasurer, thank goodness. I hope they keep it up.

What should the Government have done and be doing now?

A temporary one-off cut in income tax would have provided more “stimulus” than Rudd’s spend-a-thon and it would have cost less to administer resulting in lower borrowings over the forward estimates.

Similarly a cut in company tax would have bolstered corporate bottom lines, leading to lesser pressure for executives to find cost savings throughout their organisations. Fewer cost savings means fewer job losses. Higher profits mean higher returns for shareholders and would assist in restoring confidence on equities markets (and thus credit liquidity).

A payroll tax holiday. It would have taken a bit of work to get the States to come to the table, but a pay roll tax holiday would not only shore up existing jobs, but also encourage employers who have as yet avoided the recession to put on more staff. Higher employment means more money floating through the economy, means higher demand, means higher output, means higher growth, means higher consumer confidence and the cycle goes around and around.

Start talking up the economy. I’ve mentioned this above, but it bears repeating because it is simply so important. Rudd and Swan have managed to do everything wrong and at the wrong time. When they should have been speeding the economy up, they were talking it down. When they should be out there trying to bolster consumer confidence, they were warning of catastrophe and economic holocaust. When they talked up their economic credentials and ability to run a surplus budget they came in $32.9 billion in the hole (it’s useful to note that this government has never run a surplus budget, they talked about one at budget time but when the number crunchers closed off the books they fell $40 billion short of their budgeted figures). When they warned of a “horror budget” they played around at the edges with changes to the age pension that won’t take effect until the next term of Government.

Dump the bank guarantee. Ultimately the global financial crisis, with its roots in the sub-prime crisis in the United States can be sheeted home to the fact that Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were both government backed and guaranteed. That’s why all these “dodgy derivatives” were able to be rated as investment grade securities, because ultimately the U.S. Government had said it would bail out any default. And now they are to the tune of trillions of tax payers dollars.

So one wonders why you try to fix a problem caused by government intervention in the securities market by further intervening in the financial sector?

Wind up the guarantee, got it alone if necessary. We’ve all been told repeatedly that Australia’s financial sector is stronger than elsewhere in the world, so I am sure our banking sector could cope with an orderly withdrawal of the bank guarantee.

Alternatively what will happen is what happens everywhere that government’s intervene in markets. Distortion will occur and eventually collapse. For the same reason RuddBank should be consigned to the dust bin of history.

Create incentives for fleeing global capital to find a home in Australia. The world’s biggest banks and financial institutions have been rocked to the foundations. Except in Australia. Partly this is due to our robust prudential regulation, partly because our finance sector has always been a little more conservative than other countries. Nevertheless there is a lot of scared global capital out there looking for a safe home.

Build it and they will come.

---

And that ladies and gentlemen concludes my rant until next time I hear or see those two buffoons on the Television again.

7000 words that I think should be published in the Monthly

2009-05-31T23:25:00.000-07:00

Otherwise entitled: Why Australia’s Federal Government is a danger to your grandchildren, and what should be done about it.

The election of Kevin Rudd as Australia’s 31st Prime Minister was heralded by the leaches in the media as the “Ruddslide”. The leftist commentariat in the press gallery were falling over each other to overstate the magnitude of Rudd’s win. Personally, I hope that they’re now starting to feel a little sheepish – but I wouldn’t expect journalists, whose memories would be outclassed by a retarded goldfish, to remember what they said in the aftermath of the Federal Election.

And indeed if you scour the daily broadsheets and tabloids today, you’ll not see too much detailed or thought provoking analysis going on. The parasites of the fourth estate are too busy copying and pasting from ministerial press releases and transcribing repetitious drivel recorded at doorstops to actually think about what this government is doing to our country, its economy and the future of our children and their children.

Lets look at some headline facts and figures and then take it from there shall we?

Figure 1: Federal Government Budgetary Position

This little table, ladies and gentlemen, is really the crux of the matter. $181.2 Billion in deficits and accrued Federal Government debt over the next four years. Add in the $32.9 Billion that they shot last financial year and we’re staring down the barrel at $214.1 Billion in debt.

But in these days of talking in billions and trillions these numbers start to lose meaning.

So let’s try to put them into some perspective. If we shut down the Federal Department of Health and Ageing for four years and sacked every one of its public servants, it would take five years to repay this debt.

If we slashed every single federal welfare benefit and left the disabled, incapacitated, aged and infirm without a brass razoo, it would take two years to pay back the debt.

Or alternatively, if we gouged the education budget, de-funded every university in the country and ceased supporting schools, TAFEs and every other educational institution, the debt would take eight years to repay.

This may seem like I’m reducing to the ridiculous here, and people could quite rightly say that no government would ever contemplate such measures, but these examples outline the scope and size of the future problem facing us all.

This government has decided to mortgage Australia’s future to support its reckless spending during an economic downturn. But the piper will have to be paid at some time in the future, probably by our children. While we continue to operate on this debt and deficit basis, government revenues will increasingly be eaten up by servicing this debt. For every dollar we’re in debt between 3%-6.5% must be paid to the holders of the bonds that finance the government’s debt.

Using the lower end of this figure, 3%, by the end of the forward estimates, the Federal Government will be paying $7.5 Billion a year in interest payments alone. Again, some perspective. That’s twice as much money, every year, than we use to fund the Australian Federal Police, ASIO, the Australian Crime Commission and Customs. Heaven help us if the Government’s credit rating gets down graded (as happened recently in Queensland) and those debt servicing figures jump.

For each and every year that the Federal Government goes on recklessly plunging us deeper into debt, these interest payments will keep on climbing, and it is inevitable that we will face decreased services or increased taxes to service it.

And that’s before we even talking about paying down the principal.

How did we get into this trouble?

It’s the $214.1 Billion question. The brain-dead, unquestioning, copy and paste commentariat would have you believe the Treasurer and Prime Minister’s various waffles about the global economic crisis. We’ve all heard about sub-prime, Lehmann Brothers, stock market train wrecks and the like. And sure, I believe that the previous Government would have gone into deficit, but not on the same scale and not so recklessly.

Instead we have a Government that has fundamentally mismanaged the Australian Economy from the second it was elected.

Again, lets look at a few facts.

Figure 2: The nebulous “Inflation Genie”. Note that inflation barely scrapes the RBA’s target band of 2%-3.5%.

In his first ever interview as Treasurer, Wayne Swan started his “The inflation genie is out of the bottle” rhetoric.

“Can I say that I'm very supportive of the announcements by the Governor and the
decisions that the Governor and the Board have taken (in relation to tightening
monetary policy). We fully support the independence of the Board and the
measures they have announced today”

“Tackling inflation is our number
one priority and we have inherited inflationary pressures.”

Swan and Rudd spent their first six months talking inflation up. They stressed overheating household spending and predicted an inflationary outbreak. Despite the fact that inflation remained within the target band for the Reserve Bank, the Government’s ramped up rhetoric forced the RBA to act by increasing interest rates.

The monkeys in the press gallery never questioned the rhetoric.

Figure 3: Killing the nebulous “Inflation Genie”.

These rate rises occurred when developments in overseas credit markets were well known and some pretty dire predictions were being made. However, only two days after the abovementioned interview, Swan was downplaying events overseas:

“Well it's certainly a concern, but all the advice that I have, all the advice
that I have is that we are well placed to cope with the fallout from all of
those issues… the outlook for us is far better than some have said in the last
few weeks…”

Compare and contrast with the public statements of the previous Treasurer, Peter Costello, while he remained at the helm:

There are big risks developing around the world and you have seen even today
volatility on the world stock markets, including the Australian stockmarket,
arising out of more fears of sub-prime default in the United States.
In fact, a warning from Goldman Sachs in the United States of more credit
downgrades for Citigroup and a sell order on shares and a warning from the CEO
of Wells Fargo, the bank Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, who claimed we have not seen
a ‘nationwide decline in housing like this since the great depression’, were the
words that he used of the US sub-prime crisis.
So there are considerable risks in the global economy – the US sub-prime risk, world record oil prices, the lingering effects of the drought. Economic management does not run itself, it takes a lot of hard work.

Rudd and Swan approached the Global Financial Crisis with their eyes wired shut. At a time when the Government should have been talking the economy up, when they should have been using their rhetoric to talk the RBA into relaxing monetary policy to keep credit flowing, to keep domestic spending high and confidence up, Rudd and Swan were squeezing the life out of the economy.

Not only were they using their public appearances to talk up inflation, but behind the scenes Julia Gillard was busily cobbling together the union movement’s wishlist for a new industrial relations system.

The Coalition’s Workchoices was good policy, if unpopular. It was probably too complex, personally I would have preferred it if they’d just torn up every single piece of industrial relations legislation and let the market rule, but nevertheless Workchoices was a move in the right direction toward greatly labour market flexibility.

Figure 4: Compare and contrast unemployment rates.

Figure 4 is pretty indicative. Workchoices only operated for a couple of years – at a time when the economy was running at full capacity – and yet it still succeeded in driving unemployment to its lowest historical rate, saw the highest levels of workforce participation in generations and gave many people a job for the first time in their lives.

Workchoices had one simple message. You should be rewarded for what you are worth and not for any other consideration.

At the lower end of the scale it allowed people who had never had a job to get their foot in the door. Companies like Spotlight created hundreds of new jobs using AWAs. Sure, these were low paying jobs, but they were new jobs taken up by people who had been previously been priced out of the labour market. As many people instinctively know, its much easier to get a better paying job with better conditions if you are already in the workforce putting runs on the board than sitting on the unemployment benches. Workchoices gave these people a chance to get their foot on the first rung of the employment ladder.

At the higher end of the scale Workchoices allowed valued employees to secure better pay and conditions in recognition of their contribution to their workplace. Workplaces previously hamstrung by one-size-fits-all awards and EBAs were suddenly able to attract and retain high performers by offering them more money and better conditions.

And in the middle Workchoices allowed ordinary people, mums and dads, to build flexibility into their jobs and their lives. Money isn’t everything for some people, especially those with young families, and sometimes flexible hours or additional leave allowances are what people are after. We hear all about “work-life balance”, and Workchoices facilitated just that by allowing individual employees to make individual agreements with their employers that reflected their own needs.

But the electorate spoke, or more precisely about 51% of Australians said they’d rather not continue having the Coalition in charge, and so Rudd Labor made one of its first priorities scrapping work choices and re-regulating the labour market.

It took a few parliamentary sessions for Labor to dismantle the “worst aspects” of Workchoices, but we immediately saw the effects. Unemployment starting creeping up (see Figure 4) even before the ink was dry on Labor’s new legislation.

At a time of global economic uncertainty and a slowing domestic economy Rudd Labor was doing everything wrong. With one hand they were pulling on the monetary policy brakes – talking up inflation, causing increasing interest rates – and with the other hand they were destroying hundreds and thousands of low paid jobs that had only been made possible because of Workchoices – throwing the most vulnerable and unskilled amongst us back on the welfare heap.

Figure 5: From worse to worse.

The damage had already been done, but Rudd and Swan soldiered on, going from worse to worse. 23 April 2008:

TREASURER:
There's a lot of people out there hurting, Clinton. People are
hurting. Why are they hurting? Because inflation is high. They're hurting
because inflation is high. The Reserve Bank has an inflation targeting regime.
The previous government didn't play its role in terms of fiscal policy; it left
all the work to the Reserve Bank. Our task in this Budget is to take pressure
off inflation.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, just to repeat David Speers'
question, does this figure mean you're going to have to look harder than you're
currently looking at cuts in the Budget?
TREASURER:
We will be taking
difficult decisions in this Budget when it comes to spending. And we will do
everything that we humanly can to protect the hardworking families of Australia
who are being hurt by rising inflation and rising interest rates.

By April the economy was well and truly beginning to tank. New car sales are traditionally a good indicator of economic activity. People with low consumer confidence don’t commit to new car loans, they stick to what they’ve got and defer any new purchasing decisions.

Figure 6: A tanking economy as families put off buying their next tank.

Inflation was nowhere near breaking out (See Figure 2), the leading indicators of consumer confidence were plummeting, growth was slowing and the Treasurer is talking up a “tough budget” to tackle the nebulous inflation genie.

And then one day something or someone finally got through to Wayne Swan. The economy wasn’t overheating, it was tanking. Inflation wasn’t breaking out, it never had, interest rates were going in the wrong direction and the Government had been putting its foot on the brake when it should have had it flat to the floor on the accelerator.

The economic Ferrari that Peter Costello had piloted so carefully over eleven years was now grinding gears, blowing smoke and swerving all over the road.

9 October 2008:

Well, there is no doubt that we are looking at a financial upheaval the likes of
which has not been seen since the Great Depression. What that means for
Australia is that we’re not immune from the fallout of those events.

14 October 2008, The Prime Minister:

The global financial crisis, as I’ve said before, is the economic equivalent of a rolling national security crisis.

…and can I just say here and now, there are going to be huge bumps in the road yet, it’s not going to be even sailing.

The Treasurer, 15 October 2008:

Nobody quite knows internationally the extent of the downturn, but the briefing
that we received in Washington on the weekend is that growth in advanced
economies is around zero and that emerging economies are slowing more markedly
than had been previously thought. Those two things combined are certainly a
sombre outlook for the future.

19 October 2008:

This is a severe global financial crisis.

You can see the new rhetoric. Gone are the inflation genie comments and references to an overheating domestic economy, wave hello to the “We’ll all be rooned!” comments.

At a time when the economy was slowing rapidly, international credit was drying up and equity markets were crashing on a daily basis, the economic leadership in this country started to scream – at the top of its lungs – about how terrible things were.

Any student of economics can tell you that an economy is merely the total output of all its productive members, and that output depends on consumer demand. If consumer demand dries up, output slumps.

Why does consumer demand usually drop – a lack of confidence.

If you’re worried about losing you job in the midst of an “economic equivalent of a rolling national security crisis”, if you forsee “huge bumps in the road” and have a “sombre outlook for the future”, what do you do?

What you don’t do is go shopping. You squirrel away every cent you can so that when your personal circumstances decline you have some surplus stashed away for a rainy day.

And that’s what happened.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer, at a time when the Australian economy started tanking, destroyed consumer confidence and we’re just now starting to see the results as companies lay off more and more staff because demand for their products is crashing.

Things will likely get worse. Construction companies are coming to the end of projects that were commissioned during the good times. Some are falling over now. No new projects are starting because securing finance is near impossible and those investors that are out there are keeping their powder dry until the economic situation plateaus.

We all know about lay-offs and retrenchments in the finance sector, the next will be building and construction. Retail will follow.

And people will keep their wallets closed for fear that they’ll be next.

So it’s time for some Rudd-o-nomics! Refer Figure 1. When you’ve already crashed the ferrari what do you do next?

Let’s look at the economic policy prescriptions initiated by the Rudd Government to date to battle the “global financial crisis”.

1) Re-regulate the Labor market. Scrap the creation of flexible workplace agreements that encouraged employers to employ the ordinarily unemployable. Then force people on existing AWAs to revert to more expensive, less flexible and more prescriptive Awards and EBAs at the cessation of their existing agreements – leaving the employer with two options: sack the person, or pay them more and receive no increase in productivity or return.
Reintroduce invasive and archaic powers for unions to interfere in the operation of work places. Force non-unionised employees to abide by collective agreement outcomes negotiated by unionised employees – and the list goes on.
NET RESULT: Lower productivity, higher business costs, increased unemployment.

2) Commit future generations of Australian Taxpayers to bail out commercial financial institutions if they go bust. The bank guarantee: one of the single worst pieces of public policy in Australian economic history. The introduction of the bank guarantee had some immediate effects: overnight it destroyed non-bank finance firms, particularly those used to finance new cars and durable consumer goods. Those other firms that did survive immediately froze all withdrawals so that self funded retirees and other investors could no longer get access to their funds. Commercial liquidity in the non-bank sector that had already been impacted by the global environment dried up faster than a Nun’s nasty.
NET RESULT: smashed our new car industry, smashed the non-bank finance industry, dried up capital liquidity with consequent flow on effects to the building and construction industry.

3) Solution to the problems caused by Economic policy prescription 2: get the Government back into the banking game, because as we all know Governments are really good at running banks! Ruddbank: can someone please get Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan a reader’s digest summary of the 1980’s and early 90’s please?
So you’ve destroyed the non-bank finance sector and as a consequence a whole heap of commercial property building projects are suddenly jeopardised – what to do? I know! We’ll set up a bank and fund it with borrowed money and then get bureaucrats to run it. Because we all know that bureaucrats whose job is usually ensuring form 3D is filled out properly and in triplicate can spot an attractive commercial opportunity a mile away! Funded by money borrowed for the purpose, and backed up with a government guarantee (a fancy way of saying: when it all turns pear shaped we’ll tax your children for a generation to pay for it!) Ruddbank will extend commercial credit to commercial property developers if they can’t get finance from the non-bank sector that the Bank Guarantee destroyed…
NET RESULT: I don’t even want to think about it. Can anyone say Tricontinental or BankSA?

4) Give lots of poor people free money just before Christmas! Okay, I’m going to say something controversial. There is a reason poor people are poor: because they make bad financial decisions. Give them welfare and state housing and they spend their surplus on cartons of smokes. If they have a job, do they buy their kids new school shoes and books or do they put their wage through a pokie and then wonder where their rent money went? Give them a “cash handout” and do you really think they’ll suddenly turn a new leaf, discover such concepts as “savings”, “frugality”, “efficiency” and go out there and buy energy efficient durable consumer goods? Or will they go and blow it all on a 50” plasma screen so they can watch Jerry Springer in HD? Yah…
NET RESULT: $10.4 Billion in debt and a barely recognisable blip in retail figures. The interest payments on the $10.4 handouts are enough to fund ASIO each and every year.

5) And then give everyone else some free money! Is anyone else feeling just slightly ill yet? Roughly speaking it costs the government $1.50 to spend a dollar. This is because there are costs involved in collecting the money in the first place (all those ATO folk for starters and their complex IT systems), then it costs money to keep the money (all those pointy headed nerds in treasury who would be employed in the finance sector earning ten times as much if they were actually any good at what they did), and then it costs money to spend money (all those tight fisted flops in the Department of Finance, who are too incompetent to work for Treasury). So for the $900 that I received, it probably cost the government $1350. And they borrowed that money so they’ll be paying interest on it every year that it remains unpaid. So, my two new xBox games, pair of boots and new belt will represent about $1600 worth of debt in 2012/13. I really hope I get some good replayability out of Fallout 3…
NET RESULT: Yet to be seen, but if the pre-Christmas spend-a-thon is any indicator, not much except intergenerational indebtedness.

6) Can anyone say PINK BATS! I’ve just had a wonderful idea! Lets spend taxpayers money putting insulation into the rooves of every house in Australia. Let’s forget the fact that most dwelling have a life span of 30-40 years and that we’ll have to go through it all again then. Let’s forget the fact that this unparalleled excursion into the insulation market will distort the industry for decades to come, pumping up prices in the short term and destroying long term sustainability into the longer term.
NET RESULT: We’re all a little cooler in summer and warmer in winter and I wouldn’t want to be in the insulation business in five years time. Oh and by the way, your kids and your kid’s kids will pay for it all.

7) Every school deserves a multi purpose shelter, or a bike rack, or something! This is part of the “education revolution”, spending bucket loads of borrowed money on buildings in schools that DON’T ADD A SINGLE JOT TO EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT! How does a new sports hall improve English skills? Please someone, tell me.
NET RESULT: More debt, but at least the teachers have proper tea making facilities now.

8) National Broadband Network. Look, I think this is one area where the media has been a bit suspicious, so I won’t spend too much time talking about it. There’s no business case, no cost/benefit anaylsis and even a back of the envelope job indicates that subscription will be super expensive and that the network will never be commercially viable.
NET RESULT: A white elephant… But at least your kids (if they can afford it) can download high resolution porno a lot quicker.

Okay, I’m now feeling really sick. I get even sicker every time I hear the words “National Building for the Future Jobs and Infrastructure Plan” or whatever rubbish Rudd has monikered his debt fuelled binge as.

I think I can summarise his infrastructure plan as follows: Rudd Labor are indebting future generations of Australians to build unneeded, uncosted, economically dubious infrastructure just so they can say they’re doing something. Does that adequately sum up our situation? Oh, and their spending $31 million on little gold plaques just to remind us how wonderful it is that they’ve indebted our children and our children’s children so they can build a couple of school halls.

In my next instalment I plan to talk about what the Government should have done in response to the Global Financial Crisis.

Political quote of the week

2009-05-31T18:56:00.000-07:00

Barnaby Joyce on the PM

"The guy's a psycho chook,'' he said of Mr Rudd. "Who in their right mind gets onto a plane and because he doesn't get the right colour birdseed has a spack attack?''

F**king Idiot

2009-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Is this what we have come to?

President Obama's energy adviser has suggested all the world's roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming.

It is terrifying that a man paid to advise the most powerful man in the world, can publicly make perhaps the most absurd AGW suggestion I have ever heard and not be sacked immediately.

Has he even thought about the fact that the majority of the planet is not covered by manmade structures?

Amazing

2009-05-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accused the Opposition of using dead people for political point-scoring.

Why?

The Government has come under fire since the Tax Office revealed 16,000 cash payments were made to deceased estates as part of the economic stimulus package.

So what did the greatest spinner since Warnie say:

But Mr Rudd says the Opposition is treading on dangerous ground.

"You've got people jumping up and down making a political point, in the Liberal Party and elsewhere today, talking about dead people as if it's just a loose bit of political commentary," he said.

"I think we just need to show a bit of respect here."

You have to be joking...

Headline of the Week

2009-05-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Opposition cheers as Rudd says 'billion'

Power Trip

2009-05-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

In a move typical of his pettyness:

KEVIN Rudd personally blocked the appointment of a senior official he has known since his university days to a high-ranking ambassador's post...

But in what officials characterise as unprecedented interference in what is typically a routine check-off, Mr Rudd rejected the advice, supposedly deciding Mr Borrowman lacked sufficient language skills for the role.

Mr Borrowman — who is regarded by colleagues as a smart, diligent and capable diplomat and has held several key jobs — was last week made Australia's designate ambassador to Sweden.

The mission is commonly seen as a relative diplomatic backwater and effectively a demotion for Mr Borrowman.

Insiders blame the decision on a murky personal history shared between the Prime Minister and Mr Borrowman, who have known each other since attending Australian National University.

Mr Borrowman is said to have dissented from the often arbitrary decision-making process taken by Mr Rudd since coming to office.

If we have got a PM worrying about this sort of shit what does it say about his ability to make the big decisions?

Hypocrite

2009-05-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

Andrew Bolt does what he does best and nails another hypocrite.

Apparently this cow's opinion is more important than mine.

The irony in her lyrics is delicious, even more so for the fact that it is unintentional.

First verse:

Look inside, look inside your tiny mind
Then look a bit harder
‘Cause we’re so uninspired, so sick and tired
Of all the hatred you harbor

Second and third verses'

So you say it’s not okay to be gay
Well, I think you’re just evil
You’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces
Your point of view is medieval

Fuck you, fuck you very, very much
‘Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don’t stay in touch

I wonder if she would understand if someone explained it to her...

Public Service

2009-05-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

A senator has chased a man through the bush in the Northern Territory after an alleged attempted sexual assault. ...

"Senator Scullion [chased] the alleged offender for some time before losing him in dense scrub," police said in a statement...

Police Commander Jeanette Kerr praised the Country Liberal senator's efforts.

"This was a quick response provided by one of our off-duty police members, coupled with the actions of Senator Scullion in an attempt to apprehend the offender."

Wouldn't see too many lefties with the balls to do that.

Well done Senator.

Clowns

2009-05-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

ENVIRONMETAL activists have shut down a coal digger at an Australian power station that provides eight per cent of the country's coal-reliant electricity market, to protest against government climate policies.

Why not protest to the government instead?

"Australia is digging itself into a hole. By phasing out coal and investing in renewable energy, we can protect our environment and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs," Greenpeace campaigner Simon Roz said.

I would love to know where the f**k these jobs are going to come from. They always tell us about how many jobs there will be, but never where and what they will be.

Greenpeace said the station was one of the world's most polluting, producing 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gases every year, equal to the total caused by all 1.4 million households in the state capital Melbourne.

Have these f**kwits been to China or India - let alone the developing world?

A thousand words

2009-05-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Ministerial Resonsibility in Queensland

2009-05-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

HEALTH Minister Paul Lucas has ratted out his staff over an Anzac Day mouse attack on a war veteran at a nursing home on the Darling Downs.

Mr Lucas yesterday said ministers were not responsible for setting mouse traps and blamed his department and own office staff in State Parliament for him only finding out about the incident through the media on April 30.

Queensland Health had known about the plague since early February before two residents at the Karingal Nursing Home in Dalby on the Darling Downs were attacked, including an 89-year-old Digger who had his face and neck bitten by the rodents.

He may not be responsible for setting them but he is responsible for the failed management culture in the department that prevented them being set.

Dealing with mice in a facility is not a matter that requires ministerial intervention, or it ought not to be," Mr Lucas said. "It should not be necessary for ministerial intervention or notice in relation to these matters as we expect them to be resolved locally.

"If the Leader of the Opposition (John-Paul Langbroek) thinks that every day the Parliament should direct where the mouse traps will be laid, that shows how unfit he is."

Nice diversion... but kind of missing the point. I wonder how many spinners he has on staff.

Greens Called on Hypocrisy

2009-05-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

The greens have been called out for what they really are - hypocrites:

THE green movement "treats Aborigines like hairy-nosed wombats" that need protection and is as oppressive as the white colonisers who took away indigenous land.

The head of the newly created Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, Warren Mundine, has vowed the new body will campaign against the green movement's attempts to block development proposals across the country.

He told The Australian that environmentalists were using their numbers and power to lock up land and stop economic development, and must be stopped.

"The green movement treats us like hairy-nosed wombats that need to be saved and protected. They only care about themselves -- they don't care about Aboriginal people," Mr Mundine said.

Mundine is right, of course it isn't just aboriginal people they don't care about it is all people. Most of these radicals would be happy if we just went back to living like cave men to save their precous environment.

Cape York leader Noel Pearson has stepped down from his position at the Cape York Institute to fight a green-driven campaign that has led the Queensland Government to declare 19 major northern river systems as "wild rivers", a move he said denies Aborigines the chance for economic development in those areas.

And the clincher:

"They are always offering us jobs as rangers but not all of them can get these ranger jobs -- we want real jobs in a real economy.

All seems quite paternalistic really.

While a touch extreme, I prefer this view:

Mother Earth can kiss my ass. The earth only has value because I can exploit it to make my life easier. Humans are important. The earth is not, and it has no rights. My toilets empty into the earth, and the earth should be grateful to receive and process my waste, because it's helping a human being live a clean and healthy life. Open wide, Gaia. I got another little snack for you.

Assumptions

2009-05-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

IT is fascinating to watch a smart man stumble. Kevin Rudd’s performance on the ABC’s Lateline on Monday night had it all.

There were budget forecasts misplaced and economic concepts misapplied. Then there was the spin. In trying to avoid the phrase “billion dollars” when asked to nominate the figure for government debt, the Prime Minister produced a number too big for logic.

The mistake is in assuming he is smart...

Impartiality

2009-05-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

This man can't be trusted:

BOLD moves by the Government and RBA have saved Australia from 10 per cent unemployment, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has said.

Dr Henry says the Government took "extraordinary" action in past months to cushion the nation from the global financial crisis.

The characteristics of the current recession are particularly nasty, he said.

But without fiscal stimulus packages, and monetary policy adjustments, the unemployment rate would have been on track to peak at 10 per cent, rather than the 8.5 per cent rate forecast by Treasury for 2010-11.

More extraordinary is Henry's overtly political behavior. If he want's to be Treasurer he should run for parliament.

Witch Doctor

2009-05-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

A SYDNEY eye specialist says if baby Gloria Thomas had survived, she would have lost at least one eye due to an extreme vitamin deficiency usually only seen in Third World countries.

Paediatric ophthalmologist Ian Kennedy told a NSW Supreme Court jury he had never seen a case like Gloria's, and that if she had lived, it would have been impossible to reconstruct her eye.

Why?

Manju Sam, 36, and her homeopath husband, Thomas Sam, 42, have pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of their nine-month-old daughter by failing to get her proper medical attention.

If the case is proven this couple are idiots and should be goaled, however society will need to accpet some of the blame in this for our tolerant and often favourable attitudes towards 'alternative medicine'.

It is about time we started to call bullishit on the charlatan's peddling this garbage.

More on the Johns Furore

2009-05-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

Federal Sport Minister Kate Ellis lambasted the male domination of sport, saying more women should be appointed to sporting boards.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called on all sporting codes to foster greater respect for women and backed the sidelining of Johns.

Ms Ellis said one of the ways to weed out a "culture of disrespect" towards women was to appoint women to key roles.
She was disgusted with Johns and the others involved. "I found it disrespectful, degrading (and) predatory behaviour towards women, and I found that offensive."

And now out come the feminists using this as a Trojan horse for other agenda's.

By the way Kate - the best way to stop this sort of thing would be for the young women involved to stop behaving like sluts:

Tania Boyd has told the Nine Network that the woman in the ABC's Four Corners report, identified as "Clare'', had boasted to her workmates about bedding several players and only contacted police five days after the alleged incident.

"She was absolutely excited about the fact. She was bragging about it to the staff and quite willing, openly saying how she had sex with several players,'' said Ms Boyd.

"We were quite disgusted about it. There was no trauma whatsoever.

"I'm disgusted that a woman can all of a sudden change her story from having a great time to then turning it into a terrible crime.

"One minute she was absolutely bragging about it, she did not know names. These names only came to light to us in the last day.

"We all just thought it was hilarious until five days later the police came to work and were horrified she had now changed her story to say she was now a victim of crime.

"It was definitely consensual, absolutely.

"She is saying she is still traumatised etcetera, well she wasn't for five days, or four days at least, after that affair.

"I can't work out what's happened. Does it take five days for it to sink in?''

Costa on Rudd

2009-05-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

My favourite former Labor Treasurer, Michael Costa, writes:

KEVIN Rudd was a fiscal conservative, then a neo-interventionist, now he's an instrumental rationalist, but for how long? Many commentators have remarked on the confusing and conflicting themes within the federal budget. This confusion is making it difficult for the Government to convincingly sell its budget message.

It would be easy to accuse the Prime Minister of falling victim to the dangerous strategy of trying to be too clever by half, attempting to cover every base and appease every potential critic. If this is the case, he has ended up achieving nothing more than general dissatisfaction.

A simpler, and possibly more generous, explanation is that Rudd is incapable of fundamental logical consistency. The heart of Rudd's problem seems to be that he does not have a consistent framework to analyse and construct solutions for the country's economic problems.

As much as I love that opening I don't think he really nails our PM, who is little more than an arrogant, power hungry spin merchant cut from the same cloth as Tony Blair, until later in his article:

Rudd has a highly developed ability to ignore inconvenient views he has recently held when they conflict with his immediate political requirements. This is what makes him such a good, media-driven political operator. In his desperation to sell the budget, he has even resorted to accepting the endorsement of the much-maligned ratings agencies he chastised as playing a dubious role in the fiscal crisis.

Matty Johns

2009-05-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

I am 100% behind Matty Johns. The vilification of him this week has been appalling. There is no question that the girl involved consented to sex with Johns and others. Thus it becomes a moral and political issue.

Did Johns do the wrong thing? Of course he did, he was married at the time and is lucky his wife didn't leave him.

Is group sex inherently wrong? In my view there is nothing wrong with it if it is between consenting adults.

The issue here arises because certain feminist's and others in the commentariat think group sex between several men and one woman can't be consensual. This is of course garbage and betrays a deep hypocrisy which says women aren't mature enough to make their own decisions about their sexual behaviour.

I have seen this sort of thing before - two good friends of mine had a threesome with a girl they met at a night club. Things were entirely consensual and according to independent witness reports she said afterwards that she had enjoyed herself.

Weeks later, after she realised neither party was interested in a relationship with her she decided she had been raped.

The case, rightly, was thrown out at committal - but not before it had trashed two innocent guy's reputations and cost them about $15k they couldn't afford or recoup.

The law rightly protects women against rape, but it is a dangerous precedent to set where society shames people for taking part in consensual behaviour or punishes individuals ex post facto for the changes of heart of others.

Fairy

2009-05-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

KEVIN Rudd has denied he threw a "wobbly" over a hair dryer while in Afghanistan.

Coalition frontbencher John Cobb claimed the Prime Minister became agitated when Diggers couldn't find a hair dryer for a photo opportunity.

A livid Mr Rudd last night rejected the allegations as "laughable, ridiculous and untrue".

Don't you just love having this powder-puff running the nation.

Rocket Scientist

2009-05-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

THE leader of Sydney's radical Middle Eastern street gang - Asesinoz MC - yesterday accused Australians of racism.

The 29-year-old, who calls himself Sam "The Assassin", defended the Parramatta-based gang's violent image in its YouTube videos and MySpace site.

They promote anti-Australian sentiment and flag burning.

Sounds like the sort of chap you would like your daughter to bring home.

He claims:

"There are a handful of good Australians but most are racist by assuming Lebanese people are responsible for all crimes," he told The Daily Telegraph, speaking publicly for the first time.

His website says:

"Now we can't be f. . . . . with, coz we will take your life, we are the true soldiers."

Let's play spot the irony...

More Hypocrites

2009-05-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

A GROUP of Melbourne powerbrokers, including Graeme Samuel, Terry Moran and Geoff Walsh, will set up a major new club at the top end of town after resigning in disgust from the exclusive men-only Athenaeum Club.

The mixed-gender club, to be known as the Melbourne Forum, threatens the biggest shake-up in a century to Melbourne's stuffy men-only associations such as the Athenaeum and the Melbourne clubs.

This garbage - to which I will not link - appeared today in the online edition of the Australian, a paper I usually respect.

Ignoring the fact that it is not news I have a few points to make, first why do mens-only clubs always get referred to as stuffy? I have been to the Athenaeum club and am a member of one of its brother (mens only) clubs and would not describe either club as 'stuffy'.

Perhaps it is just that journalists like Cameron Stewart need to use their imaginations to dream up epithets to cover for their jealousy at never being invited in.

Secondly, why did these malcontents join a male only club if they wanted to be somewhere that admitted female members?

Thirdly, why is it news that these people want to establish a club?

Fourthly it is interesting they claim to be committed to equality - if so are they going to offer cheap/free memberships for the poor? Are they going to let the uncouth join?

If not, they are no different to those who they claim to despise.

Where to begin?

2009-05-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

Eco Sailors Rescued by "Big Oil" Tanker

I would love to hear one of them say I owe my life to big oil.

Spot the Irony

2009-04-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIAN Diggers risking all on the deadly battlefields of Afghanistan are fighting on a diet of tasteless gruel.

Meanwhile:

...taxpayers are forking out thousands so Kevin Rudd is served a gourmet three-course meal when he's in the air, even on half-hour flights.

Spot the c**t might be a more accurate title.

Not Bush

2009-04-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Another one from the if it had have been Bush files.

When are the media going to stop giving this clown free passes?

Quote of the Week

2009-04-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

Again (unsurprisingly) the quote of the week comes from P.J. O'Rourke:

The Left is the party of government activism - the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, slimmer, taller, and take a dozen strokes off your golf game.

I also enjoyed this passage:

America has wound up with a charming leftist as a president. And this scares me. This scares me not because I hate leftists. I don’t. I have many charming leftist friends. They’re lovely people - as long as they keep their nose out of things they don’t understand. Such as making a living.

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don’t understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people’s money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.

And that’s what one of their friends says.

And everyone loves a dig at the French:

...France is a treasure to mankind. French ideas, French beliefs, and French actions form a sort of lodestone for humanity. Because a moral compass needle needs a butt end.

Whatever direction France is pointing - toward Nazi collaboration, Communism, Existentialism, Jerry Lewis movies, or running for cover in Afghanistan - we can go the other way with a clear conscience.

Personal Responsibility

2009-04-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

As a Queenslander I don't know vey much about AFL and even less about Daryn Cresswell, but what I do know about him impresses the hell out of me.

Daryn has been forced to declare himself bankrupt as a result of a number of failed investments and some gambling debts. When asked about it he said this:

"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because I don't deserve to have anyone feeling sorry for me," he said yesterday.

"I created my own problems. I made mistakes. I gambled and it got me."

Mistakes including:

"My financial problems started towards the end of my career. When I retired I had four properties, in Hawthorne (Brisbane) and in Coolum.

"I had a company, Dardon Financial Services, I invested in shares. And the shares brought me undone, and then I invested more and more, trying to get it all back. I tried to win back what I'd lost, and got hooked, and it got me.

"It was the old outlook -- if you lose it, you can always get it back.

"There were times I didn't take advice when I should have, but there were other times I took advice and it didn't work for me.

"I tried to work it out myself and went in harder and harder when I should have pulled away."

And:

"When you're going through this, there is a lot of weight on you, and I know that that weight changed how I dealt with people," Cresswell said.

"It all happened before I knew it. I wasn't getting the footy dollars, the income was not coming in as it once did, but I was still living as though I was on the income of the playing days.

"I wasn't able to adapt to it at all. I'd bite at people. I know I carried a lot of anger around with me and my whole personality changed.

"I know people started to not like me from then and I know I gave them reason not to like me. And I now carry that. Some of those people may not think much of me, and that doesn't sit well.

"I regret the whole thing. I regret putting myself in the position I did. I regret everything."

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to admit to a list of personal and business failings this long and it is rare in this day and age for a public figure to accept this level of responsibility for their actions.

On that basis I would like to say: Good luck Daryn

MEDIC!

2009-04-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

Via Tim Blair

Impotent Rage

2009-04-21T20:49:00.001-07:00

This guy...

...and his cronies define impotent rage:

"The reckless provocation perpetrated at a time when the military confrontation between the North and the South has reached an extreme phase is a vicious criminal act of seriously getting on the nerves of the servicepersons of the Korean People's Army and lashing them into a great fury," the North's official KCNA news agency said.

All because South Korea allegedly moved a boarder marker 'dozens of metres'.

Apparently they plan to reduce the South to ashes.

Of course this isn't the first time they have made threats.

Waste of Money

2009-04-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

As if the construction of this edifice wasn't a big enough waste of taxpayer money:

We now have this:

FOUR people have been charged with stealing fallen branches from the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine in central Queensland.

Police say the branches were taken in the early hours of yesterday morning when four people got into a secured site where the historic tree is being reconstructed.

A $5 million memorial is being built after the tree was poisoned and died in 2006.

It is credited with being the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party.

Two Brisbane men, aged 19 and 22, have each been charged with two counts of stealing.

They will appear in Longreach Magistrate's Court on May 19.

A 19-year-old Mackay man and an 18-year-old Barcaldine woman each face one count of stealing.

Police say they found one branch in a house at Barcaldine and the second at the rear of a local business. Both appeared undamaged and have been returned to the site.

It's a F**king Tree!

Hardly seems worth the time of our overworked police and DPP.

Quote of the Week

2009-04-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

From P.J. O'Rourke:

The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale. "Jeez, 105kg!" But we can't pass a law making ourselves weigh 85kg. And socialists and fools -- to the extent that there's a difference -- think we can.

As an interesting aside tghe article mentions a quote from Regan:

"The nine most frightening words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help."'

Sounds a lot like:

My name is Kevin, I'm from Queensland and I'm here to help.

DIY

2009-04-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

A North Queensland woman has been charged after successfully performing a DIY abortion:

A CAIRNS teenager who allegedly self-aborted at two months with an abortion pill smuggled in from overseas has gained support from the pro-choice lobby.

Tegan Simone Leach, 19, is believed to be the first woman charged in Queensland in nearly 50 years for organising her own miscarriage and is facing up to 14 years in jail.

And the abortion lobby say:

"She is our cause celebre," Ms Marsh said. "It comes as such a shock that someone can be charged with this offence in this day and age".

"We'd like to see abortion removed from the criminal code and be regulated like any other health procedure."

Ignoring the terrible euphemism health procedure, s 255 of the Criminal Code 1899 (Qld) says:

Any woman who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, or permits any such thing or means to be administered or used to her, is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years.

It seems pretty clear-cut to me.

Interestingly the pro-abortion lobby claims the case sets an ugly precedent for the rights of women.

s 313(2) of the Criminal Code says:

Any person who unlawfully assaults a female pregnant with a child and destroys the life of, or does grievous bodily harm to, or transmits a serious disease to, the child before its birth, commits a crime.

The Criminal Code is internally consistent - it values human life, regardless of who chooses to destroy it.

The abortion lobby is not - they say mothers can play god with the lives of their unborn children however I bet they would support the prosecution of anyone who assaulted a a pregnant woman resulting in a miscarriage.

Note: Not all authors of The Fourth Way would support my view on this.

Free Speech

2009-04-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

REVISIONIST historian Fredrick Toben does not regret defying a court order to stop insulting Jewish people, saying "freedom of speech demands sacrifice".

The Federal Court, sitting in Adelaide, today found Toben guilty of 24 counts of contempt of court.

Justice Bruce Lander ruled Toben acted "wilfully and contumaciously" by uploading, to his website, articles implying Jews offended by Holocaust denial were of "limited intelligence".

Other articles claimed the Auschwitz concentration camp had no gas chambers, and that some Jewish people "exaggerated" the Holocaust "for improper motives".

Toben now faces a fine, jail time or both – under Australian law, the severity of those penalities are at the court's discretion.

I loathe anti-semitism more than most, however Toben's line "freedom of speech demands sacrifice" rings true.

Obviously his sacrafice for daring to speak his mind is a goal sentence, but we as citizens need to make a sacrafice too.

We need to stand-up for a Fredrick Toben's freedom of speech regardless of how repugnant we find his views.

Our freedom of speech requires this sacrifice because who knows when something we wish to say will be classed by the state to be unacceptable.

It isn't like there haven't already been attempts made.

MSM Nailed

2009-04-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

The Onion does a fantastic job nailing the MSM's infatuation with Obama:

WASHINGTON—More than a week after President Barack Obama's cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

"I know there's a story in there somewhere," said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama's home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. "Right now though, it's probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation."

Do yourself a favour, read the whole thing.

Sweet Irony

2009-04-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

Angel Galvan-Hernandez, 26, facing a long prison term after being convicted in a Seattle court, begged the judge in February to execute him, that he'd rather die "a thousand times" than be jailed. The reason, he said, was his fear of being raped in prison because of his petite frame and his history of being attacked as a youth. He admitted that he was a coward, "but I just don't want to be raped." His crime: He had pleaded guilty to raping two women. (He got 20 years.)

Can't say my heart is bleeding.

Thuggishness

2009-04-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

From one pack of criminals to another:

The notorious Construction division of the CFMEU has embarked in a high-stakes game of industrial thuggery and corruption that threatens to disrupt the upgrade of the West Gate bridge.

VEXNEWS has learned that the union is currently paying picketers - some of them from the ranks of a Geelong bikie gang - $1000 per week cash in hand.

The union has promised all of them lucrative jobs on the bridge should they “hold the line.”

And these crooks have the gall to call for the abolition of the ABCC.

Think about the children.

2009-04-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Chairman Kev has found a new way to introduce his own blend of Ingsoc to our children.

Under the Inner Party's draft Early Years Learning Framework teachers will force under fives to:

* Contribute in a meaningful way to reconciliation, including flying the Aboriginal flag and inviting elders to give talks.

* Use "social inclusion puppets" and "persona dolls" to explore exclusion and ethical issues.

* Challenge and resist bias and discrimination.

* Take action in unfair situations and learn to act when injustice occurs.

* Assess and act on power dynamics as they get older.

Obviously us Proles are no longer able to teach our children appropriate values ourselves.

This really is beyond satire.

Posting

2009-04-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

I have not posted this week because I have been inter-state for work. I am going away for easter so will not be posting until I get back.

Doublethink

2009-04-01T23:02:00.000-07:00

How is this for an Orwellian series of statements:

GOVERNOR-GENERAL Quentin Bryce has defended her recent trip to Africa against Coalition claims it was a lobbying exercise on behalf of the Federal Government...

Speaking at the conclusion of her trip, the vice-regal said that while the Security Council bid was discussed at most of the meetings with African dignitaries and officials, her bipartisanship was not compromised.

"I think very deeply about these issues, I know how much Australian people value the bipartisanship of the governor-general's role,'' she told ABC Radio.

"I take on the responsibility of that bipartisanship very seriously and very thoughtfully.''

Of Australia's aspirations to gain a Security Council seat, Ms Bryce said she received a "polite and positive response''.

So she is lobbying for something that only one of the major parties supports but she is being bipartisan.

Bureaucracy Gone Mad

2009-03-31T22:49:00.001-07:00

According to the Courier Mail (no link) the Environmental Impact Statement provided by Santos LNG for its proposed Gladstone coal seam gas to LNG plant is 13,500 pages long and weighs 65kg.

While the third party harm principle allows for some level of environmental protection (insofar as environmental harm can directly effect third parties) those risks could not possibly take 13,500 pages to evaluate?

Just another case of the wealth taking sector of the economy placing roadblocks in the way of the wealth generating sector to appease the welfare recieving, hemp wearing sector.

Unbiased

2009-03-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

The Friends of the ABC says two new appointments to the ABC board show efforts to stop political interference are moving in the right direction.

If Friends of the ABC said that it almost certainly means the appointees are notorious lefties.

More from Andrew Bolt.

Fairness in the family court.

2009-03-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

A heartening step from the Family Court:

TWO children who have been in the care of their mother since their parents separated in 2005 have been sent from Hobart to live with their father in Melbourne after the Family Court heard the mother encouraged them to have "negative" feelings about their dad...

..."These children are slowly indoctrinated into believing that their father is cruel and unkind and likely to hurt them, when this is not the case," the psychologist said.

It is about time women who use their children as weapons against their ex-husbands/partners had their right to parent withdrawn.

In my experience this is not an isolated case.

Liar

2009-03-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

Australia's censor in chief tries to drop something down the memory hole:

Senator Conroy said the Government had never claimed the filter itself would stop child pornography.

"We've never tried to pretend that this was a silver bullet, we've never tried to suggest this was the sole solution,'' Senator Conroy said...

"If I stood up anywhere and said 'hey, this filter will block peer-to-peer' then rightfully I should be ridiculed,'' he said.

"I've never said that ... it is not designed to deal with peer-to-peer.''

Fortunately he has been caught out:

Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said Senator Conroy's comments were at odds with previous statements.

Senator Conroy previously said:

"Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial," Senator Conroy says on the website.

If Conroy is so willing to lie about this why should we believe his assurances that he will not censor political content? Particularly given the fact that his thought police banned links to a political site.

All is not as it seems

2009-03-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

Reading this:

The right-wing MLC and strict Catholic, known for his conservative views, was promoting a lobby group committed to stamping out the sexualisation of children.

...you would assume Greg Donnely was a Liberal, National or Independent.

He is in fact part of the ALP.

This is not mentioned once in the article - makes one wonder about institutional bias in the Courier Mail.

It also makes one wonder about the assumptions created about those of us who consider ourselves right.

I am an economic liberial (in the classical sense) and pretty laissez-faire socially - yet I am lumped in with clowns like this.

Conservative catholocism (or conservative or radical pretty much anything-ism) is inherently of the left because it seeks to control and prescribe how we as individuals can live our lives. The sooner people realise this the better.

The hallmark of the left is control, both economically and socially - as the two are symbiotic. The hallmark of the right is freedom, both economic and social for the same reason.

Out of Government

2009-03-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

What is it with former Labor economic Ministers? They always seem to get a lot smarter once they are out of office.

Take Michael Costa in today's Oz, commenting on the latest piece of policy dross from our glorious Treasurer:

WAYNE Swan's legislation requiring shareholders to approve executive termination payments worth more than a year's base salary is another political stunt from a government that has run out of economic policy steam.

As well as nailing the Treasurer for his class warfare crap Costa also analyses what appear to be some of Swan's simplistic motivations:

Swan seems to think the interests of the broader community and the individual shareholder are one and the same. They are not. Shareholders want their companies to do well. Often this is at the expense of other companies and their shareholders. The community, on the other hand, wants the best and cheapest products. Workers want their firm to survive and provide job security. Their job security and wages, despite union attempts to take wages out of competition, often come at the expense of rival firms. Workers want the equity investments in their super funds to perform well even if they happen to be in rival firms. These are the fundamental tensions in our economic system. It is the creative destruction that provides our enviable standard of living. The sooner the Government wakes up to this, the better off we all will be.

Of course, when one looks at the Treasurers employment history his failings are easy to understand - he has never held a private sector job.

Sea-kittens resemble people

2009-03-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is beyond ridicule.

Headline of the Week

2009-03-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

Name Shame Causes Cock Shrinkage but Wang is on the Rise

Lessons Learnt

2009-03-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

Sinophile, pathological liar and occasional Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had lunch with the head of the Chinese Communist Party propoganda machine, Li Changchun.

The funny thing is that media whore Rudd didn't tell the media; except of course through his fawning commentary suggesting that China should play a bigger role in the IMF.

Yet China's state-owned media was ushered into The Lodge and Mr Rudd was splashed across the Chinese press with footage of his talks on the nation's main television station CCTV. As a result, hundreds of millions of Chinese knew more about Mr Rudd's diplomatic activities than did his own countrymen. Australians were therefore none the wiser about what motivated Mr Rudd to declare on Sunday, less than 24 hours after meeting Mr Li, that he would push for China to be given a more central role in the global financial system. Mr Rudd will argue for China to be elevated within the IMF at next week's meeting of the G20 in London.

Rudd's excuse:

When asked why such an important meeting would be kept from the Australian media at such a crucial time in the bilateral relationship, a spokeswoman for Mr Rudd told The Australian: "It was a private meeting between the two. It is not the Prime Minister of Australia's role to put out a press release announcing what every visiting politician is doing."

Of course that didn't stop him lying about the content of a conversation he had with George Bush or his spouting off about conversations he has had or over-heard.

Still - maybe he was just trying to get tips on the best way to filter undesirable internet content from the experts.

Principled stand

2009-03-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIA'S third largest internet service provider (ISP) has pulled out of the Government's web filtering trials, saying the plan is "no longer just about stopping child porn."

Of course the plan was never about stopping access to child-porn but rather was driven by the desire of the ALP and its thought-police to regulate what material adults can access.

Still, kudos to iiNet, not just for pulling the pin but for explaining why:

The Government's plan involves a nation-wide filter that stops "unwanted material" from appearing on Australian user's computer screens.

iiNet says the ambiguity of "unwanted material" is what caused it to pull out of the trials.

“We are not able to reconcile participation in the trial with our corporate social responsibility, our customer service objectives and our public position on censorship,” iiNet managing director Michael Malone said in a statement.

“It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the Government simply describes as 'unwanted material' without an explanation of what that includes."

If ever there was an illustration of how the government intends to abuse this power it is the banning of a US anti-abortion site and the stand-over man tactics applied to get an Australian site to stop linking to it ($11k fine per-day).

The idea of a secret government blacklist of material that I am not allow to view because it is undesirable reminds me of the language of certain regime's which do not value individual freedoms:

BEIRUT, March 16, 2009 (MENASSAT) - In the report titled, “Enemies of the Internet,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused authorities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Tunisia, of “transforming their Internet into an Intranet,” in an effort to hinder the public from accessing online information deemed “undesirable” by the national government.

The four Arab states, along with Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, are the top countries that allegedly practice the most extensive Internet censorship in the world, earning RSF’s title “Internet enemies.”

RSF’s report states that the web censorship practiced in these countries is often based on a government policy of "protecting morals," "national security," religion and ethnic minorities.

This says it all:

Appeasement

2009-03-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

To borrow from Winston Churchill - Barack Obama is a sheep in sheep's clothing:

IRAN has responded negatively to overtures by US President Barack Obama for improved relations, but has stopped short of an all-out rejection of ending three decades of hostility.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a rally in the northeast of the country on the weekend that while the US used "the slogan of change", in reality nothing really changed.

While he criticised the US and its history with Iran, he also left open the possibility of improved relations.

He told the crowd that his message to Washington was: "We will watch and we will judge - you change, our behaviour will change."

...In a dramatic change of tone, Mr Obama said in a video address on Friday that the US wanted Iran to take "its rightful place in the community of nations", but said there were conditions for this to happen.

Their rightful place is one where they are excluded:

...George W. Bush branded Iran part of the "axis of evil", and called it a terrorist nation seeking to gain nuclear weapons.

Interesting how the so called moron knows that appeasement never works; while the allegedly visionary has no understanding of the lessons of history.

Queensland Election Watch

2009-03-20T04:23:00.000-07:00

For the record my guesstimate on tommorows result is:

ALP: 40
LNP: 46
IND: 3

Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Just Desserts

2009-03-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

As predicted, former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld has been goaled for perjury.

Einfeld was sentenced to 3 years prision with a 2 year non-parole period.

In his sentencing remarks James J found that Einfeld had engaged in planned criminal activity.

He also described Einfeld's lies as deliberate, premeditated perjury.

Considering the position of responsibility and trust Einfeld held he should consider himself lucky he didn't recieve double the sentence.

UPDATE: Sentencing remarks here.

Internet Censorship

2009-03-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

This:

Neatly sums-up the great big hole in the federal governments argument for internet censorship.

Via the aptly named website: Stephen Conroy is a c--t.

Bumbling Idiot

2009-03-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Another one from the if it had have been Bush files:

... here is how US Vice-President Joe Biden explained the Obama administration’s strategy to help small business. He was asked on the CBS Early Show by a viewer who had laid off most of her staff last year how the US President’s trillion-dollar stimulus package would help small business. Biden was plainly stumped. After buying time by suggesting the woman contact his office, he then spluttered that “it may very well be that she’s in a circumstance where she is not able, her customers aren’t able to get to her, there’s no transit capability, the bridge going across the creek to get to her business needs repair, may very well be that she’s in a position where she is unable to access the - her energy costs are so high by providing smart meters, by being able to bring down the cost of her workforce”.

This is not a spoof. Either Biden is a buffoon who does not know his stuff or there is no stuff to know. The best Biden could conjure up for a small business owner was to build a bridge to improve her customers’ “transit capacity” and smart meters so she can count her energy costs.

I am going for buffoon - although there is little doubt that the Obama administration has no idea of what it is doing and no understanding that it is the private sector that generates wealth.

Another reason to win...

2009-03-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

I was reflecting this morning on the Qld State Election and how rattled the ALP seem to be.

The attack ads aimed at LNP deputy leader Mark McArdle are far more grubby than anything I have seen from Qld Labor in a long time.

They are also defamatory, something which is becoming a bit of a theme for Labor in this election.

Remember the slurs that Bligh and Fraser levelled against Clive Palmer?

Those comments are defamatory too. A pattern is emerging.

While I couldn't care less about Bligh and Fraser defaming Clive Palmer, I do have a problem with their expectation that the taxpayer foot the bill for their defence.

That is why it is good to see Lawrence Springborg saying that if he is elected Premier then Crown Law will not defend Bligh and Fraser - meaning that for once they will have to wear the consequences of their own actions.

Ridout Grows Spine

2009-03-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

I gave Heather Ridout a fair touch-up here about her relationship with the Rudd government; and her willingness to endorse their policies sight unseen.

Maybe I was a bit harsh:

Ms Ridout says the Rudd Government has broken its word after repeated assurances that bargaining for low-paid workers would not involve "compulsory arbitration" if negotiations fail.

Still - she is supposed to be a senior industry lobbyist - surely she should have known better than to believe that serial liar Kevin Rudd was telling the truth.

It must have been terribly embarassing to have been caught out like this.

Raaaacist!

2009-03-15T21:15:00.001-07:00

As my better half said this morning: if Howard had have made this change he would have been labelled racist.

AUSTRALIA'S intake of skilled migrants will be slashed by 18,500 over the next three months — 14 per cent of the annual intake — in a dramatic move to protect local jobs.

Oh that's right, the decision was made by the Labor government; which has the support of the race baiters on the left.

Dear John... Shut-up

2009-03-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Failed former opposition leader John Hewson:

"Costello is just being a petulant child these days," Dr Hewson told Sky News, adding the former treasurer was taking his bat and ball home because he wasn't made captain.

"In the schoolyard analogy, somebody should take him out behind the dunny and beat him up at some point."

It was "ridiculous" Mr Turnbull was being denied the opportunity to do something because Mr Costello was "basically doing nothing".

When is the media going to stop paying attention to this bitter old man's exersises in self-indulgence.

One wonders if his attacks on Costello are symptomatic of a combination of jealousy and deep seated feelings of inadequacy.

Innocent until proven guilty

2009-03-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

Federal Minister for the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek weighed into the Brett Stewart debate when she:

...criticised Stewart’s planned return to the field on Saturday in light of the charges laid against him over the alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl.

"I think that it is quite disappointing," she said.

"I think my personal view is that it would be more appropriate for him to stand aside while investigations are conducted but, of course, this is an issue for the rugby league to decide.

"They need to make a decision on the basis of what they feel is an appropriate image for their code."

On a personal level I don't care one way or the other about Stewart or Manly and have no opinion on his innocence or guilt.

What I find amazing is that we have a Federal Government Minister making comments on whether he should be allowed to continue working pending the outcome of these charges.

Would Tanya demand others stand aside from their work on the basis of an unproven allegation - and hence, in the event they are innocent, be punished for nothing?

There seems to be an assumption here that the alleged victim is telling the truth. If she is Stewart deserves whatever punishment he gets; but what if, for whatever reason, she isn't?

That is why we have a presumption of innocence.

UPDATE: The thing I find even more amazing is that there is a Minister for the Status of Women.

UPDATE II: We now have the White House Council on Women and Girls:

"The purpose of this Council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy," Obama said.

What's the bet that "treated fairly" really means treated "preferentially".

Keynsian's Hate Freedom

2009-03-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

This quote from Peter Kline (via catallaxy) pretty much sums up what I think of Keynesians:

...the Keynesian delusion afflicts not only policymakers, but professional economists as well. I’ve long suspected that the appeal of Keynes to people like Krugman and DeLong is ultimately based on aesthetic, not scientific, grounds. Deep in their hearts, they just don’t like private property, markets, and individual choice. They don’t think ordinary people are capable of making wise decisions and think they, the elites, should be in charge. They resent the fact that most people don’t want their lives controlled by liberal intellectuals. Technical arguments about the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy, the relationship between aggregate demand and output, the experience of the 1930s, and the like are really beside the point. For Keynesian economists, the belief that markets are naturally unstable in the absence of government planning is a matter of faith.

Queensland Election - Some Personal Observations

2009-03-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

I was just walking down Margaret Street contemplating making a post about the Queensland State Election, the LNP and why I fear an LNP victory when the Borg Express passed me by. I’m not usually a superstitious person, but the coincidence has firmed my resolve to get a couple of things off my chest.

I actively opposed the merger of the Liberal and National parties, for a range of reasons. But I guess the biggest reason is my complete and total rejection of what the National Party represents.

A cheeky wag once pointed out that Billy Hughes (former Australian Prime Minister) had been a member of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party (mark 1), the United Australia Party, the Nationalist Party, the National Labor Party and the Australian Party. Said wag asked why Hughes hadn’t ever joined the Country (now National) Party. Hughes responded by saying that even he had some standards. I support his sentiments.

With few exceptions the National Party represents rank sectional interests: pastoralists seeking government favour, agricultural interests seeking protection of their unsustainable farming practices, small and unsustainable communities who have been left behind by changes to industry, communications and technology. The National Party has historically been a foil against progress, either economic or social.

The great liberal reforms Queensland has undergone in the last two decades: trading hours liberalisation; the legalisation of brothels and prostitution; abortion law reform; electoral reform; and legislative modernisation – among others – have occurred in spite of the National Party, not because of it.

For decades Liberal Party activism ameliorated the worst of the National Party’s excesses. Without Liberal support the Nationals found it difficult to form Government, and securing Liberal support required a muting of the National Party’s worst tendencies toward extreme reactionism.

I fear that with the merger those voices of progress and reason will be gagged and systematically annihilated. We have already seen this happen in relation to tree clearing policy and daylight savings.

The former Liberal Party may have been dysfunctional, but at least it stood for something. It stood for a reliance on free markets and lesser economic regulation, it stood for modernisation and progress. It also, in many parts of the party, stood for social liberalisation, in extending social freedoms to people in the same way that the party’s philosophy argues for economic freedoms for individuals.

The National Party believes in little or none of this.

I truly hope that the LNP wins, and that as a result of its election a tranche of moderates are elected to the Parliament who will help dull the National’s natural tendencies. But I fear that this simply won’t happen.

That’s one of the reasons why this blog exists. Because there is a fourth way, a way that is neither collectivist, conservative or liberal (in the European sense). There is a way forward that celebrates individuals and individualism; that promotes economic growth through lesser regulation and a greater reliance on economic freedoms; that promotes social cohesion through deregulation of or social sphere and rejection of homogeneity.

There used to be a political vehicle for people who wished to promote these ideals, and now it is gone. Subsumed into a party that has little to offer Queenslanders except a (partial) return to the dark bad old days where Queensland was (rightfully) a backward backwater full of reactionary hicks, corrupt officials, brown paper bags and no Sunday shopping.

Religion of peace

2009-03-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is how members of the religion of peace decided to welcome Britians' 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment back from Iraq.

A picture says a thousand words.

Still, there is some fight left in the Brits - with the crowd turning on the protesters:

Reminds me a bit of John Smeaton.

My message for the protesters:

A new home

2009-03-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

I am moving to the Czech Republic:

Massive government spending and tighter regulation would prolong recession, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Monday, as he urged U.S. President Barack Obama not to endanger the free market economy in his response to the financial crisis.

In a speech at Columbia University in New York, Klaus, a former Czech prime minister who championed the free market after the fall of Communism 20 years ago, said he never expected to see such extensive government intervention again in his lifetime as he now sees around the world.

"I am therefore convinced that fighting for freedom and free markets, something we always appreciated here in this country (the United States), remains the task of the day," Klaus said.

The man speaks a lot of sense:

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

Chinese Emboldened

2009-03-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

This wouldn't have happened under Bush:

FIVE Chinese vessels manoeuvred dangerously close to a US Navy ship in the South China Sea on Sunday, closing within eight metres of the unarmed surveillance ship, the Pentagon said...

The Chinese ships surrounded the USNS Impeccable, and after two ships came within 15 metres, waved Chinese flags and told the Americans to leave the area, the Defence Department said in a statement...

The US ship's commander asked the Chinese ships by radio "in a friendly manner" for a safe path to leave the area, it said...

Two Chinese boats then moved directly in front of the Impeccable, forcing it to take emergency action to avoid collision, and then dropped pieces of wood into its path, it said.

Sounds like they are testing Obama out, which isn't surprising after this:

U.S. President Barack Obama's proposal to reach out to moderate Taliban will fail to end the Afghan insurgency as it is inflexible Taliban leaders who are orchestrating the war, not moderates, analysts said.

Coupled with this we can really see Obama's foreign policy nous.

Still I guess he could just focus on the 57 states.

Labour Relations

2009-03-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

Sounds like the perfect time for increased labour market regulation:

THE total number of job advertisements in Australia fell 10.4 per cent last month, signalling a collapse in the labour market.

According to a survey by ANZ, total job ads fell to an average of 161,583 ads per week, contributing to a 39.8 per cent annual decline.

Gift Imbalance

2009-03-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

Imagine if it had have been Bush:

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. The Prime Minister gave him an ornamental desk pen-holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President. The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office. And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In return, America’s head of state gave the Prime Minister 25 DVDs of classic American movies.

Via Andrew Bolt

Jules Crittenden offers some thoughts on the reasoning behing the gift:

Here’s a Brit who posits “Lady Macbeth” was behind the Obamas’ slighting of America’s staunchest ally. UK Telegraph again. That’s higher praise than Michelle deserves. His evidence goes back to her Princeton days, but he hit the mark before he got to that part: They did it because they could. In the most juvenile way possible, they wanted to show they’re in charge, things are different, they have other priorities, and besides, Britain needs to be punished for its Bush enablance. Either that or neither of them are really that bright.

Another thought. Sadder. Maybe just ill-bred.*

The Obama administration seems a little gaffe prone when it comes to the giving of gifts:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in greeting Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, presented him with a red plastic button emblazoned with the English word “reset” and the Russian word “peregruzka.”

The gift was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to “press the reset button” on their relationship.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”

“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.

Update:

QLD Election Watch 2009

2009-03-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Crime and Misconduct Commission has launched a probe into the role ALP candidate for Bulimba, Di Farmer, played in approving a $131k government grant to the Mitchelton Soccer Club.

The grant was allegedly the price of club president Rohan Clarke's vote in the pre-selection of boy Treasurer Andrew Frasers' chief of staff Michael Dart - for the council ward of Enoggera.

Must have hurt when, after all of that effort, he lost the election to 23 year old Liberal kid Andrew Wines.

This could hurt Captain Bligh who is facing a mutiny from Queensland voters; however it is a little early to get too excited - after all Beattie won despite the Shepherdson Enquiry into vote rorting - something with which the Premier's chief of staff is quite familar.

Thought of the Week

2009-03-09T01:44:00.000-07:00

The people most likely to criticise the pay and conditions of CEO's are the people least likely to ever recieve them.

One of us?

2009-03-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

In response to being accurately labelled a toxic bore by Tony Abbott the great leader responds:

Defending his Government's decision to spend $42 billion to save the nation's faltering economy, Mr Rudd warned punters to expect a "political s---storm" during a pre-recorded interview of Channel 7's Sunday Night program that aired last night.

And gets pinged for it by Robert Doyle

Melbourne's Liberal Lord Mayor Robert Doyle told Sky News this morning that the colourful language was no accident. "I don't think he dropped it, I think it was a carefully scripted attempt to make himself appear human ... one of the lads," he said.

Of course he has form:

Kevin Rudd swore on camera a fair bit during his day in Afghanistan last week. Two s--ts, a bugger and a bloody. He also dropped his g's and lowered his language level generally. At Tarin Kowt, he reminded the reconstruction taskforce soldiers of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, an event over which Australia went to war, with the declaration: "Bugger that for a joke, we're in."

He was pinged then too:

It was Rudd the verbal chameleon, changing his language to suit his audience. The critics soon emerged, with one former diplomat citing it as a lack of character for a prime minister to feel to need "to speak like a wharfie". "Most people can see straight through that," he said.

Of course the funniest thing about all of this is that he is not speaking like an average Aussie, but like a caricature of one.

The face of cowardice

2009-03-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

Kristopher Cowie:

Was goaled for two years for assaulting 82 year old WWII Digger Earnest Evens (inset).

Cowie's charming girlfriend Tracey Prater was acquitted of charges relating to the incident.

In Sutherland Local Court this afternoon, Cowie was sentenced to two years in prison, with a minimum sentence of 15 months. He will be eligible for parole in April 2011...

Witnesses said Cowie punched Mr Evans at least three times after his request for 50 cents was refused, knocking him to the ground, Sutherland Local Court heard today.

Surely the penalty for the cowardly assault of a man of that age would have to be at the upper end of the scale - assault occasioning actual bodily harm is punishable by 7 years imprisionment in NSW.

It isn't as though the guy is contributing to society:

The court heard Cowie was already serving a 12 month jail term for threatening to kill airport security staff. He was due for release in January 2010.

Or as though he showed any remorse:

Cowie claimed he had been acting in self defence because Mr Evans had waved his walking stick at him and told him to get a job. He said Mr Evans attacked him first

.
Or told the truth:

But Magistrate Clare Farnan said neither of the witnesses supported Cowie's version of events.

One said she had not seen Mr Evans throw any punches and the other said he had only thrown one, after he had been hit.

"He was quite impressed when he saw the older man hit the younger man in trying to defend himself," Ms Farnan said.

She did not accept Cowie's claim of self defence.

"A reasonable person in the position of Mr Cowie, confronted by an elderly person waving a walking stick would walk away," Ms Farnan said.

The manifestly inadequite sentence here isn't a failure of the law however - it is a failure of the Judge.

At least Cowie was unimpressed:

As he left the dock, Cowie said "that's f---ing bullshit'', and grabbed his girlfriend's hand before security moved him out of the courtroom.

Judgement of the Market?

2009-03-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

A classic from Michelle Malkin:

And an amusing graph from Andrew Bolt showing the relationship between Obama's popularity and market performance:

Where is the hope in that?

A fair days work...

2009-03-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

Members of the notoriously corrupt Construction Division of Victoria's CFMEU are blockading construction work on the re-development of the Royal Childrens Hospital, Melbourne.

The dispute arose from management's introduction of a swipe card system to stop this:

With the blessing and sanction of the union, it is alleged that workers were pretending to be present at the site while spending time at a nearby pub for hours and hours, day after day. It’s a huge site and management clearly were having issues keeping track of all the workers.

Makes you wonder why the ALP wants to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission by 2010.

A fair day's work for a fair day's pay this isn't.

Admission made

2009-03-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

WAYNE Swan has admitted there is little the federal Government can do to limit salaries of executives of companies outside the finance sector.

Little except engage in the politics of envy that is.

The Treasurer said yesterday that while the Government was working on penalising banks that paid bonuses to encourage risky investment practices, its powers over pay contracts in other private companies were limited.

Of course:

The admission follows angry attacks on corporate greed last week by a series of government ministers.

Threats made...

2009-03-03T23:36:00.001-08:00

Funny how North Korea - which can't even provide its people with electricity:

Can make threats like this...

"Our military and people cherish peace and do not want war," Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling communist party, said in a commentary.

"But should the enemies invade even 0.001 mm into our territory, we will mobilise all our potential and deal retaliatory strikes that will be hundreds of thousands of times stronger."

The paper added: "The United States and its puppet forces must learn that (the North's) revolutionary armed forces' strong military countermeasures will be taken in the form of resolute and merciless acts that cannot be matched by any means."

...against nations which can keep the lights on.

Kind of reminds me of this little fellow:

GFC and Climate Change

2009-03-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

A friend sent the following article to me in relation to one of the root causes for the global financial crisis. And seriously its worth a read if you want to get yet another insight into our current plight.

However the last two paragraphs really caught my eye:

In the world of finance, too many quants see only the numbers before them and forget about the concrete reality the figures are supposed to represent. They think they can model just a few years' worth of data and come up with probabilities for things that may happen only once every 10,000 years. Then people invest on the basis of those probabilities, without stopping to wonder whether the numbers make any sense at all.
As Li himself said of his own model: "The most dangerous part is when people believe everything coming out of it."

Now in the first sentence remove the words "in the world of finance" and replace with "in the world of climate change science" and re-read.

Nuff said.

Its just a cult.

2009-03-03T18:56:00.000-08:00

The right-wing blogosphere has got it wrong. You can’t call Julia Gillard’s new guidelines for grovelling the foundations for a personality cult – for that to be true she would need a personality.

Queensland Election Watch 2009

2009-03-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Springborgs' promise to save $1 Billion in waste from the state budget is a clever one; straight out of the Krudd playbook on how to look economically responsible without costing yourself a vote.

Rudd's efficiency dividend didn’t cost him many votes because public servants will, by and large, vote for the ALP regardless of policy.

It won’t cost Springborg much either because the only people against the policy (public servants and assorted lefties) wouldn't vote for him anyway.

In addition to making the opposition look economically responsible, it paints the government into a corner, because they can’t match the dividend without admitting to having being wasteful and their alternative – defending public service jobs - is not a vote winner with the broader community.

Put your money where your mouth is.

2009-03-02T18:25:00.000-08:00

An excellent article in the Australian by Alex Robinson:

THERE is a view going around Canberra that the Government's planned emissions trading scheme will put a floor as well as a cap on emissions, and that once a target is chosen, emissions will not be able to fall below that floor.

This view would be correct if:

...the number of permits in circulation could never fall, then the Australia Institute view would be correct: if a business or individual were to reduce their emissions then the demand for permits would be lower than it otherwise would be, and commensurate number of permits would be freed up in the system for useelsewhere.

Hence the conclusion follows that there would be nothing that any individual or business could do to reduce aggregate emissions.

However, once the price cap is removed:

there is always another option for citizens who are concerned about climate change: the "buy and hoard" method of emissions reductions.

By purchasing and hoarding permits environmentalists could prevent that emission allocation being used - therefore reducing total emissions.

Of course they would have to fund their own radical beliefs and since most greenies are watermelons (green on the outside and red in the middle) Robinson rightly concludes that:

They would rather compel the community as a whole to bear all the costs than to reduce their own lobbying output. The last thing they want to do is to go out into the market and try to persuade business to reduce emissions by paying them to do so, even though that is the logical and most straightforward way of reducing emissions under an ETS.

QLD Election watch 2009

2009-03-01T20:16:00.001-08:00

The ALP are due to release their latest ad in tonight's peak time television slots. It's here in case you're interested.

Its similarly themed to the last one - the "front ending jobs" and making positions "de-necessary" ad - and its pretty effective at lampooning a guy who isn't the best media performer in the world.

The ad really brings this election into sharp focus for the LNP. To win they need to pick up an astronomical swing of 8.9% and to do that, they are going to have to take this type of attack on head on.

Pretty tough when you're most recognizable quote is about making jobs "de-necessary".

Demeaning the Office

2009-03-01T18:03:00.000-08:00

GOVERNOR-General Quentin Bryce has raised eyebrows by ordering private security briefings from top public servants - including the head of the armed forces.

Of course she has raised eyebrows, sections 62 and 63 of the constitution are quite clear about her role; she exercises her powers on the advice of the executive council, not on the advice of public servants.

The only time she is permitted to consider or accept advice outside that given by the executive council is when she is exercising the reserve powers.

Two weeks ago, Ms Bryce summoned the head of the defence forces, Air Chief Marshall, Angus Houston, along with the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Michael L'Estrange and the Treasury Secretary, Dr Ken Henry to her official Canberra residence, Yarralumla...

A spokeswoman confirmed the official briefings by three departmental heads was the first of its kind in the 107-year history of the office.

It followed another first for the Governor-General, a televised address to the nation by Ms Bryce following the devastating loss of life in the Victorian bush fires.

The spokeswoman said Ms Bryce regarded her request for the briefings as "appropriate'' given global economic conditions - and the fact Australian soldiers were serving on the front line in Afghanistan.

Sorry Quentin - there are no reserve powers for you to exercise in relation to the GFC or Afghanistan.

And the bushfire thing that seems like little more than an attempt to get her mug on the box; still what more can we expect from a lifelong activist:

Ms Bryce said she was most proud of her time as sex discrimination commissioner and being a champion of equality of opportunity and fighting against sexual harassment.

"I've never owned a pair of jeans but I had a fantastic denim boiler-suit and it got a lot of wearing," she recalled.

The controversy probably wouldn't have happened if she had retained senior staff:

Ms Bryce caused a flurry on arrival at Yarralumla by sacking long-serving Official Secretary Malcolm Hazell from his $225,000 job, replacing him with ex-ambassador Stephen Brady.

Mr Hazell had been on former prime minister John Howard's personal staff. Ms Bryce's predecessor, Major-General Michael Jeffery was reportedly "livid'' and confronted Ms Bryce over the sacking.

Ms Bryce has a chequered history in retaining senior employees. In her five-year term as Queensland Governor, there was a revolving door of personnel at Government House.

Anyone wonder why this egotist had trouble retaining senior staff?

Oh Shit

2009-02-26T23:32:00.001-08:00

From the "you have to be joking files".

Bye bye Marcus

2009-02-26T20:47:00.001-08:00

Disgraced former Federal Court Judge Marcus Einfeld will be sentenced on March 20 for one count of perjury and one count of lying to pervert the course of justice.

In granting Marcus conditional bail until sentencing Justice James:

...ordered Einfeld to surrender his passports, not to approach any points of departure, and to report to Waverley Police Station in Sydney every Wednesday.

Which suggests that Marcus will recieve a custodial sentence for his gross dishonesty.

Funnily enough however I think it is the public disgrace that will hurt this priggish, activist, bore the most:

His barrister, Ian Barker QC, in the former Federal Court judge's sentencing hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, cited an article from Monday's Sydney Morning Herald newspaper which, he said, contained "nasty, vicious stuff".

Mr Barker said it demonstrated that journalists like the article's author thought they had a "licence to attack" the retired judge without restraint.

Such articles were "calculated to have a result they achieve - maximum humiliation", he told the court.

Mr Barker said the "persecution of Mr Einfeld" by some sections of the media was a factor which could be taken into account when sentencing the former judge.

The "persecution" has already begun:

THE collapse of Marcus Einfeld's public standing was almost complete this week after moves to strip the disgraced judge of his last remaining honours.

The NSW Bar Association launched proceedings this week aimed at having the disgraced former Federal Court judge expelled from the legal profession.

The Council of the Order of Australia is believed to be considering whether to recommend that he be stripped of his award.

The council, which advises Governor-General Quentin Bryce on when honours should be revoked, held an all-day meeting yesterday.

All so he could dodge a speeding fine.

UPDATE:

At the start of his sentencing hearing in the crowded Sydney court today, Einfeld's lawyer asked if his client could sit behind him.

But the Crown objected and Justice Bruce James said: "Mr Einfeld, you should go in the dock."

Green-eyed red

2009-02-26T19:21:00.000-08:00

"I think Australia generally has a serious problem with excessive executive pay and pay-outs," Mr Tanner said today.

He refused to comment on Mr Trujillo's payout, but said there was justified widespread public anger at the remuneration of top-level executives.

"We have lived through an era here and in other countries, in (the) most extreme form in the United States, where the rewards paid to executives have ballooned and where there is widespread public anger at excessive remuneration of top-level executives," he said.

It isn't public anger Lindsay, it is jealousy.

The great leap forward

2009-02-24T17:59:00.000-08:00

Australia under Chairman Kev:

TAXPAYERS are funding "happiness" workshops designed to teach positive psychology to public servants who didn't even know they were miserable.

Sounds kind of Maoist to me.

Dick Head Releases Map

2009-02-24T17:42:00.000-08:00

BRISBANE city-fringe dwellers have been told to get on their bikes and stop making excuses.

International design and planning company EDAW has released a ``No Excuse Zone'' map of Brisbane, which urges residents living within a 9km radius of the CBD to ride bikes to work.

The map is part of EDAW's CycleCity strategy.

EDAW landscape architect Mike Harris said No Excuse Zone maps had already been established in Sydney, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Berlin and Copenhagen.

I have a message for Mike: Fuck off - you self-righteous wanker.

Queensland Election Timing

2009-02-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

The most eloquent explanation of Queensland's election timing to date:

Via Currency Lad

Monstrosity paid for...

2009-02-24T16:54:00.001-08:00

Someone in the ALP has an edifice complex:

My only question is: why am I paying for it?

...controversy builds in Barcaldine, in central Queensland, over the size and shape of the state-backed memorial to the Tree of Knowledge.

Locals have nicknamed the $8 million, 18m structure "Barky's box" and "the gallows" as they grapple with the size and meaning of the monument.

Striking shearers met under the original ghost gum tree in 1891 in a gathering that eventually led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party, but the tree was poisoned in 2006.

State taxpayers contributed more than $2.5 million to the memorial in Q150 grants and roadworks costs, with funding also provided by the Federal Government and Barcaldine Regional Council ratepayers.

Could be worse... I could be a Barcaldine Regional Council ratepayer

People in glass houses

2009-02-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Child safety campaigner Bernadette McMenamin is upset that a conference she addressed got a bit hostile:

Ms McMenamin accused filtering opponents of spreading "hysteria" – a reaction that drew a hostile response from the room.

"Yes, there's been an awful lot of vitriol, there's been an awful lot of misinformation, and certainly I think there's been an awful lot of hysteria, and most of that hysteria is not coming from the child protection advocates, but it's coming from all these anonymous bloggers and people that write to you and just call you every name under the sun, and it's not helpful," she said.

What sort of response did she expect? Standing up at a conference and accusing the majority of people in the room of hysteria and peddling misinformation is not the best way to start a civil dialogue.

Speaking of hysteria and misinformation, here is a sentence from one of McMenamins own press releases on ISP filtering:

It would be a way to prevent the rape and exploitation of the world's most vulnerable children and it would also reduce the numbers of Australians engaging in criminal activity".

She seems to be an expert in hysteria and misinformation.

The consistency of the left

2009-02-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

The guy who drew this (see second panel):

Is criticising the guy who drew this:

Guess which cartoon drew the ire of Al Sharpton and the left in the US and elsewhere?

I will give you a clue - it wasn't the one calling Condoleezza Rice a 'house nigga'.

So it is ok to call a black Republican woman a 'house nigga' but not to call the authours of the stimulus package - who were presumably a mixed race bunch - crazed for authoring the largest, most flawed, economic stimulus in US history?

UPDATE: Some say it was payback from Sharpton for this:

And the article which goes with it; which presents Sharpton as the professional race baiter he is.

UPDATE II: The apology from the Washington Post seems to confirm this:

...to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

WTA: Soft on Anti-Semitism

2009-02-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

In a move that can only be described as gutless:

Organisers of the Dubai women's tennis tournament were on Friday fined 300,000 US dollars by the WTA Tour after the United Arab Emirates refused to grant a visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer, the WTA said in a statement.

"The actions taken today are intended to redress the wrongs suffered by Shahar Peer, who was victimized by an unjust policy of discrimination by the UAE," WTA Tour chairman Larry Scott said.

"These actions are also intended to send a clear message that our Tour will not tolerate discrimination of any kind and that we will never allow this situation to happen again, in the UAE or elsewhere."

If the WTA wanted to send a clear message to the tournament organisers they would cancel it.

If the WTA wants to right the wrongs suffered by Shahar Peer they would cancel it.

If the other players on the tour had any principles they would boycott it.

Can you imagine if Shahar Peer was black or a Palestinian instead of a Jew?

This is just a nod and a wink – 300k is pocket change to these clowns – by allowing the tournament to continue the WTA is condoning anti-Semitism.

Individual Responsibility

2009-02-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

Apparently:

LABOR and the coalition are locked in a tit-for-tat battle over who should accept the blame for home owners who locked themselves into fixed mortgages just months before interest rates started falling.

No surprises who each side is blaming:

Treasurer Wayne Swan lays the blame at the feet of the former Howard Government because it presided over 10 interest rate rises.

He acknowledged that people on fixed rates were in a difficult position.

"The main reason that they are there is because interest rates went up something like 10 times under the Liberal Party," Mr Swan said.

"And, of course, many people reacted to that by fixing their rates."

And

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey insists the Rudd Government has to take responsibility for what happened to home owners.

"The Government took exactly the wrong path in trying to deliberately slow down the economy in its so-called war against inflation at a time when there was a looming credit crisis and, obviously, very dark clouds on the horizon," he said.

"The Reserve Bank was egged on to increase interest rates by implication if not directly by the government." Mr Hockey said it was a disaster for people on fixed mortgages.

"Now, they may well be paying 400 basis points or up to 4 per cent more for their mortgage today than they would have if Kevin Rudd had not declared a losing war on inflation," he said.

I have a better idea; how about these people accept the consequences of their own actions? They took a gamble that rates would continue to go up (despite the spectre of global recession) and lost.

That’s the nature of gambling, they wouldn’t be complaining if they had won.

Next they will want the government to mitigate their losses.

Headline of the Week

2009-02-19T23:45:00.000-08:00

Naked PETA Members to Give Fishy Welcome to Aquaculture Conferees

Cufflinks

2009-02-19T16:36:00.001-08:00

Having just seen another ass-hat wearing these:

I have a fashion tip for all of you trend-setters out there. Cloth cufflinks are for in-store display purposes only. For gods sake; take some pride in your appearence and get a pair of real cufflinks:

These:

do not count... unless you are six.

Parasites Enraged

2009-02-18T18:29:00.000-08:00

A push by penthouse and sub-penthouse owners to revamp body corporate fee structures has enraged the parasites living on the lower floors:

Airline pilot Michael Corr, who owns a one-bedroom unit in The Pinnacle, slammed the move by penthouse owners as "greedy and completely immoral".

"These guys are worth millions and they are trying to screw everyone else in the building," he said.

I would love to know how the desire not to subsidise someone else’s lifestyle is greedy and immoral.

... penthouse owner Nigel Neaves said the current body corporate fee structure was "inequitable and ridiculous".

He said he was paying 10 times more in body corporate fees than lower-floor residents to use the same facilities.

Sub-penthouse owner David Callard said too many unit owners had been "getting away with low body corporate fees for years".

To put all of this in perspective:

Mr Corr said if the penthouse owners were successful, their body corporate fees would plummet from about $30,000 to $12,000 while lower-floor unit owners would see their fees jump by up to 70 per cent to almost $7000.

So the penthouse owners would still be paying nearly twice as much as the parisites to use the same facilities. Who is really being screwed here?

About time Heather

2009-02-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

Heather Ridout has finally ended her sickening, seemingly symbiotic, relationship with Kevin Rudd and attacked “Fair Work Australia”.

The Australian Industry Group yesterday spoke out against Labor's Fair Work Bill, identifying seven areas it argues are unworkable and should be dumped.

AIGroup chief executive Heather Ridout said all seven -- including compulsory arbitration for low-paid industries, increased union access to worksites and obligations on employers to deal with unions -- were not released prior to the election.

The AIGroup has identified 60 provisions of Labor's bill where the role and power of unions have been increased, while employers had received virtually nothing.

This is after she earlier declared the system “workable”.

She could have saved herself a lot of trouble had she opposed this when she should have – during the election. Maybe her members told her to speak-up or look for another job?

Poor old Kevin. At least he still has his other trained monkey - Rod Eddington – who refused to quit as the ALP’s business advisor, despite this.

UPDATE: Maybe now Turnbull will grow a pair and oppose this legislation, as he should have done from day one.

UPDATE II: I am not sure neutered is the best description of Ridout - then again, considering the wording in the last update, maybe it is.