New Years Groove History.

And thanks to lou.

Merry xlmas

That Missing Picture.

For reasons only known to the SMH they removed the above picture from the original article.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-out-for-final-count/2007/12/12/1197135558237.html

New Prime Minister Sworn In.

New Opposition Leader Chosen.

Vile Politics.

Click to enlarge.
Story.

Favourite Movies Edition.

How the Picture can Lie.

Everything just looks so calm and cosy in the picture. Yet it is likely to be a defining image for the electoral campaign. The captured video/audio gives the game away. This is the recalcitrant, naughty boy and the strong women on the move. Note the aggressive standover tactics and stink of scarcely concealed misogyny. Now that Nicola walks past him on the road upwards he can hardly conceal his anger. He is really pissed off because he has missed his opportunity to get out before the crash.

Who is this Election For?

Some 10% of the voting public you would have to say. The rest of us do not matter.

I would prefer to see much less on the 'tax cuts front' (except those earning under $2o,ooo a year who should pay no income tax) and most available money directed to the struggling service sector and decent infrastructure. Let alone, the work that needs to be done to face up to drought and climate change.

Australia has serious problems to deal with but we are reliant on these 'swingers'. Can you imagine being in a room with these people? The party focus groups must be excruciating. A real window into the psyche of moi, moi , moi.

Would you prefer a tax cut or see your granny on a hospital trolley for 2 days waiting for a bed. "I will take the tax cut because she has health care or probably doesn't want to live much longer anyway". Pass the Pretzels, please.

The system is really broken. We are living in a 'clotocracy'. All policy is filtered through the prism of some of the most dumb and venal. All of them working, at our ultimate expense, for the two major parties, tracking, the only ones that matter.

EAT AT JOE'S declares a fatwa against advertising executives, selling away our democracy, as if it were soap powder.

So No Worms Allowed in this Club ?

"With a name like National Press Club, you'd think it would be out there defending the free press and the rights of the media. Instead, it rolled over supinely when John Howard said you've got to ban the worm. That was the problem last night. The Press Club was started by journalists but it's become a haven for PR people, log-rollers (and) real estate agents. It's forgotten what it's supposed to stand for. They should be condemned."

Nice work/words from Laurie Oakes!

Congratulations, as well, to Glenn Milne, vice-president of NPC, who looks to be the only commentator to have given Howard a victory in The Great Debate. And was he the bloke that pulled the plug on worm power?

Political Droppings

I have been reliably informed, since cleaning the sand out of the sedan, after the recent fishing trip, that an election has been called for Australia. Indeed, the country has been thrown into caretaker mode. It got me to thinking how great it would be if we lived in a democracy and rabbits.

Some members of The Chaser Team joined our glorious leader on his morning walk. Boy, was he grumpy. He has never shown any sign of a sense of humour but reckons that they are "a lot funnier when they pick on someone who is alive". Since Howard is technically still alive, men dressed up as rabbits, chasing him, and wondering when he is going to "pull a rabbit out of the hat", is actually very funny because he is such a natural straightman. Video and story.

Funnier still is Chasers' "top blokes after death" that stirred up a bi partisan squirm. Neither of our prospective leaders could cop it. It has to be some of the most edgy, clever, satire you will see.

Blog Back.

Back again with a tip for the election date and a potpourri of thoughts concerning politics and society. First up, I noticed this report in The Age a while back. Chip Goodyear couldn't resist a little crack at the great unwashed as he headed back Stateside with a big bag of loot after years at the top of the now BHP Billiton tree. Apparently, Australians just don't realise how bloody good they have it.

"I read the papers complaining about health care this, or something else, but the facts are that it's a very high quality of life in Australia and the vast majority of people around the world could only dream of the opportunities that they have here," he said.

One thing I am quite certain about is that he has very little to complain about... "when he leaves the country after nine years — five of them as BHP's chief executive — he will be carting home a shareholding worth close to $60 million. His share rewards are in addition to his annual base salary and cash awards, which in the 2007 financial year were $2.03 million and $1.72 million respectively".

Thanks Chip, the peasants are grateful for all you haven't given us. Next time I sit in emergency, waiting 8 hours for a bed, I will try not to moan so much.

Here we are still in perpetual election mode. Obviously the running of government is a pretty slack job. The wheels just keep turning, though our P.M. and Ministers are on the road all the time, and have been for over a year. And fools keep making a case for them being underpaid. The money being spent every day on election propaganda, dressed up as community service announcments, is scandalous. Bushfire Bill a blog commentator has put his finger on the great "heist".

"Howard is not failing to call the election because there is so much more pork to hand out to his cronies. This includes the “information” ad campaign. It doesn’t matter if it fails. The moolah will have been paid out - at full freight - just in time for the discounts to the party to arrive, come the campaign. The cronies are minting money and it’s all coming from our taxes… pissed up against the wall.

He still needs a parliamentary session to lock in some legislation (nuclear waste disposal, anybody?) that will bind a future Labor government or force it to pay millions, if not billions in reparations to the cronies. forget nuclear power. That’s a trojan horse. The aim is to get the ancilliary industries up and running. The rest is diversion (which many are falling for by arguing about the siting of power plants).

The aim is not to win the election. That might be a bonus, but it’s not of paramount importance. The aim is to shovel out as much money as possible into the hands of urgers, sycophants, business cronies, advertising gurus and suchlike. It will all be repaid whether or not the Libs win… after the election… and in private, in the form of jobs for the boys, consultancies, positions on various boards, discounts to the party on election campaign ads, donations to the party and backdoor deposits to Swiss bank accounts.

The aim isn’t to grease the palms after the election. They’re already being greased, and plenty. What we are seeing is one of the biggest heists in Australian history, right in front of our noses."

Sums things up you would have to say.

A diversion next to the speech made by John Buchanan at politics in the pub which apparently made everything he has said or done since totally without value. I would have liked to have heard more.

Now for the election date prediction stolen from Damien Kingsbury who really seemed very confident about it. December 3rd with a visit to Yaralumla in the next few days to save a return of parliament, next week. And a special thanks to Bilegrip Admin for their kind words and always compelling blog.

Blog Gone Fishin'

Bishop on Drugs.

Bronwyn Bishop chairwomen of The Federal Parliamentary Committee on Family and Human Services has let the cat out of the bag on future drug policy. The Tough on Drugs theme will move to new heights of madness if The Liberal Party is returned. They wish to redirect the entire drug strategy away from harm minimisation to harm prevention, as does the failed American model, for purely dogmatic reasons.

"The inquiry into the impact of illicit drug use on families" suggests the abandonment of needle exchange programs. As Dr Alex Wodak, director of St Vincent's Hospital's Alcohol and Drug Service in Sydney, so rightly says the report's contents were "frightening". He said the report's advocacy for drugs to be considered a moral issue ignored evidence from the US. About one person in 100,000 contracted HIV in Australia each year, compared to almost 15 in the United States, where a zero tolerance stance meant needle exchange programs could not receive federal funding. Let's not forget, also, the other STD'S that needle exchange has helped protect the population from.

It also recommends that the Federal Government establish adoption as the "default" care option for children aged up to five where child protection orders involve illicit drug use by parents. Any illicit drug use by parents would trigger the new Centrelink income management provisions under which payments to parents can be withheld and only spent on food and essentials.

The report blames "drug industry elites", who it said had hindered the zero-tolerance approach advocated by the Federal Government. These "elites" advocated treatment approaches that aimed to reduce harm, "but do not have the aim of enabling users to become drug-free". They are, of course, the people who work in the field, day after day, that Bronny and co Know far better than.

Coupled with that, the committee has proposed a new wave of television advertising that is even more graphic than the current campaigns.It wants words like "harm" to be replaced by "damage", "destruction" and "danger". Yeh, let's give another grant to advertising executives and media companies for more pointless propaganda at the publics expense.

Tony Trimingham's son died 10 years ago from a heroin overdose. He the CEO of the Family Drug Support organisation and is appalled. "I could have actually cried this morning when I read the recommendations and some of the report," he said. So also, might the rest of us, if these morons ever get to implement any more of their, head in the sand, nonsense.


Picture by Tim Sanders.

Mainstream Akubra Man.

Commander in chief Howard triumphantly touched down in Hermannsberg, conveniently close to Alice Springs airport , to make it "very clear" to the community that the Government had a simple aim.

"And that is whilst respecting the special place of indigenous people in the history and the life of this country, their future can only be as part of the mainstream of the Australian community," he said.

"Unless they can get a share of the bounty of this great and prosperous country, their future will be bleak." In other words, if you want some of the funds we have been making from ripping up the ground, our ancestors stole from, you better drop your old ways and do what we say.

He then goes on to spell things out more clearly. "I want to assure you that we haven't come here to take anybody's land or to push anybody around." Directly translated from the Howardish ... "I have come to take your land and push you around".

Adele Horin, from "The Sydney Morning Herald", is about the only journalist to put one aspect of the Howard governments intervention in the N.T. under the spotlight. The end of the CDEP scheme. She identifies in this article how aboriginal employment has been cut by 8000 to fit in with generalised control freakery. As she points out, "It will turn many workers into unemployment statistics, rob communities of vital services, create havoc and potentially deal the death blow to 50 Aboriginal organisations". All aboriginals, regardless of perceived good/bad behaviour, are to have half their payments held, in Howards' new paternalistic world. Adele Horin continues...

"the real reason for the abolition of the scheme is that it is the only way the Government can get control of the money paid to such workers. Ironically, it must convert workers to welfare recipients and replace their wage with an unemployment benefit before it can legally quarantine their money to ensure it is spent on children not alcohol.

Regardless of whether the programs are effective, or the workers are model parents, the Government is moving against them. Will this sledgehammer approach deliver children better lives? We can hope. If it doesn't, the losses will be incalculable".


It is worth popping over to mattjjin-nehen to read a bit about this and the real squanderers of money claimed to be spent for indigenous needs. Also some very ugly propaganda that the government is pedaling in the top end.

Photo by Wayne Taylor.

UPDATE: See this Crikey report for advanced cruelty.

Were On the Road to Nowhere.

Click on the piccie for a larger view.

Naturally, when Gummo Trotsky at L.P. called for an "Apec Dress Up Challenge", the resident artist swung into action. It might not be real oz gear but they are talking heads.

We were thrilled today to find that violent protesters are to blame for the disruption that has not yet happened at the conference that is, so far, yet to happen. Good to get in early in the blame game, I guess.

Family Snapshots.

John Howard is often referred to as a clever politician. People go further and call him "tricky". Given this report, "devious" comes to mind.





Some interesting links on Exclusive Brethren and fundys below...
peebs
unBelief
EB

Wink, wink and say no more.

Postscript: Mud will stick. After all the discussion, about this storm in a teacup, organised by Poison Dewarf, the real details came through. Trouble is, the media cycle relys on the next 'big thing'. Which means that there is never a chance to catch up with the truth of the matter. Funny, that!

The Higher Plane

Says Simon Bowes from the British Airports Authority, operators of Heathrow, that the protest is "naïve" and further...

"If you look on, at what they're talking about this week, it's a version of sustainable living which involves no one going on holiday, veganism (phonetic), compost toilets and the end of capitalism, and I just don't see that that's a vote winner over in the UK, or in the rest of the world."

This bloke is the complete diplomat. The sought you need if you want to ark up WW3. It gets better. The powers that be most stupid are planning to invoke terrorism laws to quell this domestic protest. Yep, their idea is to deem it a terrorist activity. There are lots of interesting links/ pictures to this story, so I have no plan to give any more details.

Just saying, though, that what is happening there is likely to happen here. People have real concerns about climate change and aeroplanes are big polluters. They quite reasonably believe that world leaders are dragging their feet and want to let them know, predominantly, in a peaceful manner. When they are seen as terrorists for exercising their democratic rights it becomes clear who the legislation was really really drafted for. Not Bin Laden and co but to control the population.

"before the cock crows you will deny me three times"

How wimpy,sooky and spooky is this?

Peter Costello is likely to deny 3 times on his Leo-style, 50th birthday, that he ever had the ticker to take on his boss.
See hear for appropriate biblical references.