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| More!? More!? |
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| Ideas are cheap | |
Greenies and carefully
budgeting battlers might be pleased to hear of a new more 'rational' pricing
option for electricity in NSW. Some new user-pays technology is about to introduced for electricity
charging. Consumers will have the option of installing a smart new electricity
meter which records how much electricity is being consumed at different times
of the day, and three charging rates will apply: Peak: 2pm - 8pm
Off-peak: 10pm - 7am
Shoulder: other times
Good in theory, but the idiocy of this new scheme is the pricing structure:
Consumers will be charged 20% less for shoulder times, 60% less for off-peak,
but (wait for it) 70% more for peak times. Fair enough you say? Wait a
minute .. between 2pm and 8pm, I'll be paying 70% more for electricity than
my neighbor? Not for very long! It'll take 10 minutes to run an extension cord over the back
fence, and share electricity with my neighbor. At peak time it'll run one way,
other times it will run the other, and I'll settle up with the neighbor at the
end of the billing period. Not since the scratchy tickets on public transport has a system been so naively
thought out. Usually government incompetence
brings only misery, but sometimes it brings opportunity. Sometimes it really is hard to disagree with naive leftie slogans: Power to the
people!
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| Homo Erectus - evolutionary dead end? | |
It is generally agreed that we have evolved to maximize our
contribution to the gene pool. Ignoring creationism for the moment, this truth
is self evident, if you consider that animals (or strictly the genes which they
carry) that were not good at contributing to the gene pool would obviously die
out in favor of those which were. In 1492AD, each species on the planet, and each race of humans was uniquely and
tremendously adapted to their environment. Then the Americas were colonised.
Since then, mass migration and technology have changed our environment faster
than our genetic ability to adapt to that environment. The fact that 'we ourselves' caused the change is irrelevant. Yeast fungi
'chooses' to produce the alcohol which eventually poisons it in the
fermentation process. Not all changes are in the genetic interests of the
entity that changed them. Nor is this to say that the population has not exploded due to these new
conditions - yeast has not evolved to grow in sterile laboratory test tubes,
but its population grows very quickly in that environment. So the human species has been thrust into the modern world, but is actually
evolved to something closer to the African savannah, primitive Europe, or
East Asia.
Mankind is an extraordinary creature - weaker than the similar sized animals
around him, much slower than those animals, with very poor defences, no claws for
defence or tree-climbing, teeth which are so far set back in his head as no be
almost useless for fighting, a lack of fur which would see him freeze to
death in a single night in conditions which other animals would thrive, and an
incredibly fragile, and critical, organ on top of his head. Mankind has been equipped with two things which help him survive (and
therefore reproduce) in a primitive world: dextrous hands, and a logical mind.
These, and these alone set this pathetic, naked and shivering biped apart from
all other animals. Minds are much like computers, and run programs to tell them what to do. But
man's mind was not programmed to maximize his reproductive potential - it was
merely a enhancement to the brains of the animals it evolved from. And it was
programmed to fill the basic animal needs - water, food, security, shelter,
sex, and social status. And on the savannah this worked very well. And it adapted well to the cold
of Europe, and into Asia. A
human who had water, food, shelter, sex and social status did genetically
better than humans who didn't have these things. But man's new cognitive abilities were so powerful that it enabled man not
just to adapt to his environment but to change that very environment. Formal education, television, motor
cars, nine-to-five jobs and international trade weren't on the 1492 agenda.
An animal's mind stuck inside the body of a man might be a plot for a B-rate
sci-fi film, but in a sense all of us have the mind of a primitive in the
lifestyle of a modern man. Our desires have become somewhat divorced from
genetic advantage, and our choices are frequently not those which genetic
success would suggest. A full belly is a desirable goal for a human on the savannah, but in the modern
world can lead to obesity, and premature death. A preference for sweet food is
a good thing if the sweetest available thing is ripe fruit, but in an age of
boiled lollies it will rot your teeth, and may make you mal-nourished. And many of the primitive desires can be satisfied by effectively
'cheating' the system. Two technologies in particular have satisfied sexual
drives - the electric motor and the color photograph (or more recently the
video internet download). Even when sex is with a partner,
contraceptive technologies (and the ability to abort) mean that sexual desires
can be met without increasing genetic success. Frequent sexual activity in the
pre-industrialized time would almost invariably result in having children, but
in the modern age we often observe just the opposite. The swinging bachelor
recognizes that his sexual desires would actually be hindered by the presence
of children, and chooses not to have them.
So man has become equipped with a huge reasoning capacity, which has
evolved because it gave him a genetic advantage in primitive times. But man is
still using that reasoning capacity to meet the the goals which his ancestors
needed to meet in order to survive - goals which may not equate to genetic
success in the modern world. The mind is designed to maximize the
number of descendents, but programmed to find food, shelter, sex and
social status. Just as the yeast changes its environment and poisons itself, so too some
groups seem to be dying out. The population in
poorer parts of the world is still growing exponentially, but the birth rates
in rich western
countries is well below replacement level. This is not because of any lack of
freedom to fulfill their
genetic function, but precisely because they do have the freedom to make their
own decisions, and to control their fertility. Should we care? To answer that would involve a moral judgement about what
people's goals should
be. Libertarians generally avoid making moral judgements (beyond the obligation
to not steal). Some racists and white puritans seem to be very alarmed
about this. Others don't really care. And what is the future? It depends on the world migration patterns, but the
future does not look white or red - it looks to be a mixture of yellow, black,
and brown, and the poorer the group, the faster they are breeding. Perhaps we should just bless the poor - for they shall inherit the earth.
Or maybe the common element is not poverty but ignorance, and George Orwell will
be proven correct: Ignorance is strength. Anyway, it's something for Homo Superior to ponder as you exercise your free will to prune yourself
off the evolutionary tree.
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| Little Johnny's border protection | |
When someone suffers an injustice, either real or imagined, they generally
want compensation. In uncivilized nations, this consists of the receiving the
pleasure of revenge - usually the massacre of
innocent people. But in civilized western countries, we
just sue people, and take their money. And determined to not make an exception to the rule, mentally suspect
ex-wrongful immigration detainee Cornelia Rau has demanded compensation from
the Howard Government. But there is a twist here. Australian resident Cornelia Rau spent some 8
months in detention after identifying herself as German Citizen Anna Schmidt,
and claiming to have been brought to Australia by people smugglers. If she had
said 'actually guys, my name is Cornelia Rau, and I'm a permanent resident',
she would have been released in less time than it takes a public servant to
write a memo on 'collective responsibility'. But she didn't - presumably
because she was mentally ill. Except that in her press conference demanding compensation, she claimed that
she was not mentally ill. And if she wasn't mentally ill, she was lying about
her identity, and has to take responsibility for her incarceration, in which
case she can't expect compensation! The best defence for the government lawyers to prove Cornelia is sane - and she
will presumably help them as much as she can. What kind of twit sues the government, and then helps to prove that they are
not entitled to compensation? This behavior is insane! ... hang on. Maybe that's the point. Cornelia is either very clever, or
totally bonkers. Meanwhile, many Australians
will be looking to see how much compo they can get for wrongful detention, and
weighing up the pros and cons of handing themselves in to the local police
station claiming to be electrical
plumbers from Quetta or something. Think about it - you get to be deported to an exotic far away place, and then
get flown home and paid compensation when you are sick of it. Beats working for a living.
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| For Christ's sake, Flush! | |
Guantanamo guards were in the poo over allegations in Newsweek that soldiers
had put copies of the Koran on toilets to upset the inmates, and (horror of
horrors) even flushed some down the loo. This had the expected respons: cries of 'desecration!' from the
Religion of Peace; riots which killed over a dozen people in Afghanistan
before spreading to Pakistan and Indonesia; and frantic efforts by the
Whitehouse and US state department to calm the situation, declaring that any
"perpetrators of the abuses will be held responsible". Art lovers may remember a related incident in Melbourne in 1997. The Victorian
Art Gallery put on an exhibition for painter Andrew Serrano, including his work
'Piss Christ' - a painting of a crucified Jesus immersed in the artist's own
urine. Admittedly this was some time ago, and we've all passed a lot of water under
the bridge since then, but it's interesting to recollect the responses. The
Catholic Church went to court to try to stop the (government owned) art gallery
from displaying the work, lots of Melbourneans took the artists picture, and
one loony damaged the artist's work. Stupid behavior perhaps, but it was all
calculated to gain publicity, no-one was no-one was attacked, no-one was hurt,
and an obscure artist got his ten minutes of fame on talkback radio. The Left at the time mocked the Catholic church, and made proclamations about
freedom of speech. The quiet response at the time was 'what if the work
was Snot Crescent Moon, or Shit Digeredoo? Would freedom of speech remain the
dominant paradigm?' Apparently not. Desecration of the Koran is punishable by death in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, and it seems that the Kaffir are expected to follow Islamic law
even in non-Muslim countries. The fact that Newsweek later retracted their Koranic desecration claims, and
said that their original report was based "only on the testimony of detainees"
didn't make any difference of course. The outrage, and the violence promise to
continue. The truth rarely gets in the way of a good story, and even less often
gets in the way of religious zealotry. Another report said that inmates had deliberately clogged their own toilets
with pages of the Koran as a protest. Maybe. It will take some time to flush out
the truth.
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| Boogie board blues | |
Australians love travel, but they don't seem very good at behaving
themselves when they go overseas. They generally don't do antisocial things
like fly planes into tall buildings or strap on explosive vests, but they do
stupid things. Like baring their buttocks at the Eiffel tower, picking up a
social disease in Bangkok or smuggling drugs in Bali. Recently beauty student Schapelle Corby was caught with 4 Kilos of
dope coming into Bali, and all Australia witnessed her pleading for her life in
a courtroom in the second most corrupt country in the world. Clearly she didn't
know who to bribe. 'Beauty student' is normally a euphemism for 'pretty, but
not too bright', Schapelle's cute looks support the euphemism,
but, like the question of her innocence or guilt, distract from the real issues
of the case. Not that her innocence or guilt is not interesting in itself. For instance, why would anyone smuggle 4Ks of dope into Bali? It's
much cheaper there, and you don't have to run the risk of having your bags
searched at the airport. Taking in enough to party with you and your mates is
admirable, but 4 Kilos is a pretty stoned party. How long were they going to
stay? How many of them were there? No point taking a boogie board - you'd be
too stoned to find the water. Schapelle's defense that a baggage handler may have been trying to smuggle
dope from Brisbane to Sydney via a passenger's baggage didn't really float
though. Anyone who wanted to smuggle drugs from Brisbane to Sydney would
hardly run the risk of bringing it into a secure area, and the further risk of
it not being picked up at the other end. The safest way to smuggle anything
from Brisbane to Sydney is to get someone to drive a registered, ordinary
looking family car, and stay under the speed limit the whole way. However if you wanted to smuggle drugs overseas it would be a very
different matter. Passenger's baggage would be the go. And indeed charges have
recently been laid against QANTAS baggage handlers on drug smuggling matters. In spite of this revelation, the chief judge in Corby's trial was quoted in
today's Telegraph as saying that he couldn't take into account events which
happened in Australia. In other words it was irrelevant under
Indonesian law whether it was packed by Corby, or placed there by a baggage
handler? But these are distractions for armchair politicians and lawyers. The
tragedy is not related to her legal guilt or innocence. Who would have been harmed by Corby bringing in 4 Ks of weed? Would they
have forced it on anyone? Held someone down and administered it like a truth
serum in a B grade American thriller? What is the justification for locking
someone up for offering something to informed and consenting adults? Asking whether Corby is innocent or guilty is a bit like arguing whether a
rape victim initially got into her attacker's car willing or not. She may have
been stupid, but this is no excuse for initiating force against someone. The crime here is that a government has incarcerated the woman. Frying
your brain with chemicals might be stupid, but stupidity is any anyone's
right. Initiating force is not. At least she'll live. The Indonesians are not about to create an attractive martyr for the cause
of freedom. They will probably just leave her languishing in a filthy cell as a
warning to others. But the real message is don't go to Indonesia. The
civilized parts of the world are no less stupid, but they are less
brutal. Smoke a few jays and go surfing at Bondi. There's no place like home.
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| Dividing the pie - government gets fatter | |
Those of us wanting to see the budgets headlines of old - "Beer and
Cigs Up" were bound to be disappointed by Peter (Smirky) Costello's 10th
budget last Tuesday. Instead it contained a mish-mash of tax cuts, increased
spending and a surplus which had had Kim (Fatboy) Beasely licking his lips. In
the heady days of the 10 billion plus deficits of the ALP dominated '80s,
Finance Minister Fatboy regarded revenue the way he regards fried food, and
surpluses were few and far between. Every was expecting a horror 'post-election' budget after the orgy of
spending which preceded the last election, and many were pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the most confusing reports were those in the Canberra Times and the
Telegraph. The Canberra Times - appealing to residents of Canberra, the
socially aware, middle class public servants with the highest median income in
Australia had a big cartoon containing an ever rising graph titled Greed
Factor, and a beaming (well, okay smirking) Treasurer. The Telegraph a
working class paper if ever there was one, described Smirky as a working class
hero, and was headlined 'Workers: 1, Shirkers: 0'. The Left has surely lost
the plot when the working class vote for The Right. But the left, unfortunately, have a point here. Smirky has moved the top
marginal tax rate up, saving some wealthy Australians some money, and has
lowered the bottom tax rate from 17 to 15 cents in the dollar, but this has
done little to change the crippling effective marginal tax rates suffered by
low income earners, which trap them into poverty. Far more important than how
much tax you pay (or welfare benefits you get) is the amount of money you get
to keep when you earn another dollar. With many families losing 32 cents in
direct tax (and the Medicare levy), and another 30 cents in lost family
benefits, there ain't much incentive to increase your income, or for the missus
to get a part time job. Any tax cut is a good tax cut, and being nice to rich people will decrease
the brain drain as talented hard working people leave Australia to work in
countries with less unreasonably income tax regimes, but middle Australia, and
lower-middle Australia comprise a much larger proportion of the population. Mark (Maddog) Latham's single constructive contribution to Australian
politics was to force the expression 'effective marginal tax rate' onto a body
of people who had been in denial of the concept for nearly a century. And his
legacy seems to be that for once the ALP have a better tax strategy -
organizing cuts to those with the highest effective marginal tax rates. This
would create incentive, and reduce the poverty traps which the welfare state
has imposed on the Australian population. But we do have a 'future fund' - a big pot of money which every tax-payer
has to contribute to whether they want to or not, which will be used largely to
pay superannuation for public servants. Having saddled future generations with
90 billion dollars unfunded superannuation liability for the very people who
spend their lives over-regulating businesses, and inhibiting wealth creation,
our government is going to take it off us in taxes with the expectation that a
fund run by 'an eminent group of Australians' will be able to use the money
more profitably than the people who actually created the wealth. Exactly how 'Eminence' qualifies people to invest money more profitably
than those without Eminence is a mystery known only to our government. But it's not all bad news. Most of us will get an extra six dollars a week
to spend, and at least beer and cigs didn't go up.
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| Don't leave home without it | |
Seeing public
servants devote themselves to their tasks with zeal is a happy, if unusual
thing. However immigration officials may have gone, well, overboard with two
recent cases - Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon. Not content with deporting Pakistani plumbers pretending to be Afghanis, or
throwing out whinging poms who haven't realized that Australia became an
independent nation a century ago, immigration officials have taken to locking
Australian residents themselves into immigration centers, and even deported an
Australian citizen. The flood of illegal immigrants which looked like getting out of control
three years ago has been reduced to a trickle by the hard-line Liberal
government. Carting off a few boaties to Papua New Guinea and Nauru worked a
treat, not to mention the freak drowning of some 350 illegal wannabes off the
coast of Indonesia. Perhaps all the public service task forces ran out of things do to, and had to
start deporting Australian citizens to keep themselves busy? Middle managers do
not get promoted to senior managers by saying 'everything is working just fine
- there's really nothing for us to do'. No no, promotions come from
change actualization and crisis management. In fairness to the public service, the Rau and Solon cases were
extraordinary. Both involved individuals with mental illness who would not give
their officially recognized names. Cornelia Rau was a mentally ill German citizen, with Australian
residency. Unfortunately she gave authorities a different name and told them
she had paid people smugglers to bring her into the country, so they put her on
ice until they could get the German government to identify her. Oops. Details of Vivian Solon are still sketchy, but it seems she was a mentally
ill Citizen of both Australia the Philippines, and gave authorities a
different name to that appearing on her Australian passport. Australian
officials identified her as Philippines citizen, and deported her in 2001. Oops. An honest mistake in both cases perhaps, but both people were reported
missing, and officials did not think to cross-check the missing persons list
with the mentally ill deportation list. No-one who has dealt with the public
service should be surprised by this, of course. Competent people generally don't work
work in the public service. Competent people don't mind working in environments
with personal accountability. But the disturbing (and as yet unverified) additional claim is that
immigration officials knew of the error in deporting Vivian Solon in 2002, and
kept it quiet. Australians expect incompetence in their public service, but
they do not expect dishonesty. If this had been reported in 2002, the error
could have been corrected then, and the Cornelia Rau mistake may have been
avoided all together. Open-door-immigration nutters who believe that an embarrassed Howard
Government will repent, and let all the occupants of immigration holding
centers into the country are stupid. But they do now have something very real
to embarrass the government about, and they don't even know it. The issue is not that an Australian citizen was mistakenly deported by an
incompetent public servant, but that immigration officials may have tried to
cover up the mistake after it had happened. Meanwhile a fragile Vivian Solos is considering a return to Australia. One
can only imagine the law suit that is going to result from this. Especially if
she can prove that her injuries have been exacerbated by lack of access to the
Australian health care system. Wouldn't it be nice to think of her compensation money coming out of the
superannuation of dishonest public servants? No chance. The budget has set up a
'future fund' to make sure the public servants are well cared for, regardless
of the injustices they inflict on the Australian people.
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| Avoid rape - dress sensibly | |
Followers of the Religion of
Peace are often keen to convince others of their great capacity for
tolerance. It is also refreshing to see someone - anyone - advocating personal
responsibility. Unfortunately, this time the tolerance is for rapists, and the personal
responsibility is borne by the rape victim. The Sydney Morning Herald
quotes
Sheik Faiz Mohamad as saying ".. A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No
one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world
. . ." Huh? Yes, gentle reader, the rape victim is to blame for displaying
her beauty. She has to take personal responsibility for her actions in choosing to
wear
"Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts,
translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal
to his carnal nature." The thought of all those women spending all that time, effort and money to
just appeal to a man's carnal nature is something that gives most of us a
warm inner glow, and a definite sense of self (or at least of gender)
importance, but clearly the Sheik doesn't think so. She has to take
responsibility for her actions. The rapists on the other hand? Well ..
"Would you put this sheep that you adore in the middle of hungry wolves? No
. . . It would be devoured. It's the same situation here. You're putting this
precious girl in front of lustful, satanic eyes of hungry wolves."
Mere animals can't be responsible for their actions, so no responsibility
for the rapists. Feminists have long
portrayed men as unthinking, uncivilized brutes, so they seem to have something
in common with the proponents of the Religion of Peace. Maybe that's
why women's groups have been strangely quiet in condemning the statements, leaving
it up to the likes of Bob Carr, Peter Costello, John Brogden and (horror of
horrors!) John Laws to criticize the Sheik. Once again it falls to the men to protect women, while getting little in
return except criticism from women's groups. The Sheik has of course defended his statements in the usual way. When such
statements are made in Arabic, the standard defense is 'mistranslation', but
when the statements are in English, the standard 'out of context' is a little
harder to sell. Out of context? Absolutely. This is twenty-first century Australia. If you don't like it Sheik, you can leave.
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| Twists and turns .. | |
Fiction is sometimes stranger than truth. All politicians have ghosts
from the past which haunt them, and Tony (Punch-Drunk) Abattoir's has been his
adopted-out son. Many years ago, between boxing matches, Punch-drunk Tony was
mixing his seminarial experiences with a few seminal ones, and didn't bother
with protection. He and then girlfriend Kathy Donnelly adopted out their
unwanted son. So Punch Drunk Tony has had to wear this in his time in federal
politics,and tolerate the taunting of the ALP about hypocrisy and
irresponsibility. A difficult cross to bear, particularly with Kathy running
around and whining that Punchy's family had exerted the pressure to have the
child adopted out. A single mother forced to adopt out her newborn babe
because of the cruel manipulations of an uncaring Abattoir family? Truly a victim if anyone could
qualify! But at least the story had a happy ending when Punchy was reunited with his
long lost son. It transpired that the prodigal son had actually worked along
Punchy at parliament house, recording Punchy's morally enriching sound-bytes
to be broadcast for the enlightenment of all via the ABC. Yes, conservative Punchy's
son was an aging leftie hippy sound-recordist for that
collectivist
showpiece, the ABC. Same goal, different techniques. Like father like son. Beaming with apparent pride, Punchy announced that he was building an
(albeit belated) relationship his son Daniel after all these years, and that he
was struck by Daniel's resemblance to his eldest daughter. A chapter closed on
27 years of regret and uncertainty. Or so we thought. In a twist which would have a scriptwriter for
soap-operas blushing about implausible plot-enabling mechanisms, it turns out
that Daniel isn't what he appeared to be. A DNA test confirmed that Punchy and
young Daniel ain't related. Presumably Kathy wasn't quite as enamored of Tony
as she made out, and in the true spirit of the '70s was sharing it
around. Oops. Tony wriggled and squirmed and spoke about what 'a great girl' Kathy was, and
slunk out of the spotlight. It's hard to know whether the taunting from the ALP will stop after
this. Can you legitimately taunt someone for something they have not actually
done, but just believed they have done? Of course! All's fair in love and politics. It's only war
that has rules. It could have been worse. Kathy could have kept the kiddie and hit Punchy
for 18 percent of his parliamentary salary for child maintenance. And at
least Daniel can now hold his head up high in the lunchroom at the ABC, knowing
he's not Tony Abattoir's son. But in the end it's a pity that Punchy became the politician, and not the
morally bankrupt Kathy. It would test the powers of even a seasoned feminist to twist this little
deceit around to make herself the victim.
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| Impotence and suicide bombing | |
Statists on the left and right of politics seem to have been a little
surprised by the number of suicide bombers popping out (so to speak) in
Iraq. Hearing about some psychotic suicidal Muslim making a public
spectacle of himself by blowing himself (and often several hapless bystanders)
into more pieces than a space shuttle crew member seems almost a daily
occurrence. Having not collected statistics on the kill ratio of such events (ie the
number of dead bystanders versus the number of dead suicide bombers), a
guesstimate will have to suffice: it's probably around 3:1, which makes it a
pretty inefficient way to fight a war without population
superiority. It means that you have to have to start with more than one quarter
of the population of the enemy to actually win. Even at September-11 ratios, where
19 Muslim psychopaths managed to achieve a kill ratio of 150:1, they would
still need two million psychos to take out the American population. And that's
even assuming that the psychos had the same fertility rate as the rest of the
population. Most suicide bombers seem to be young and childless, so taking out
someone who already has 5 grandchildren is kind of pointless. So unless the Clerics can recruit two million suicide bombers and get them
US visas, the whole thing is
pretty pointless really. Likewise in Iraq - more people die in car
accidents than suicide bombings, so the population are not actually that
alarmed. And taking out two American soldiers a day from an army of around a
million? It might make good TV, but strategically it's a bit of a
giggle. There's no shortage of rednecks volunteering for a bit of Middle-Eastern target
practice. Suicide bombing is basically like a powerless infantile tantrum of an
objectionable teenager who wants something that no-one is willing to give
it. An annoying, but futile exercise, which serves to underscore their
immaturity and inability for objective thought and reason, and the refusal to
take responsibility
for their own problems. But every cloud has a silver lining - it does marginally reduce the
population of Islamicists. Maybe suicide bombing is Allah's way of pruning
psychos off the evolutionary tree? About
time Allah helped to clean up his mess!
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>> Please Sir, I want some more
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- ANON -- Anonymous Coward 2011-12-02
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