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| More!? More!? |
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| Trumped at last! | |
Dealing the race card has been a time honoured favorite for a generation of
ethnic minorities. Whenever you don't get something you asked for (like
someone else's money for instance), just throw yourself on the floor and scream
'racism' repeatedly. It
works for small children, so why not victims of racial
discrimination? Of course time marches on, pets die, children grow up, and societal attitudes to things
like institutionalized racial discrimination evolve. But not always for the
better. Like in the case of former ATSIC commissioner Alan Wolf,
who is suing the Tasmanian Aboriginal Council for not being racist. Yes, dear
reader, for not being racist. The Australian reports that Alan Wolf, who has presumably based his entire
career on claiming to be a member of the institutionalized racial minority (that
would be the Australian Aborigines for anyone who doesn't get out much), has
suddenly found that the Tasmanians don't accept his qualifications as an
Aboriginal and won't give him preferential treatment in his application for a
fishing licence. He may have apply with all the white people at the back of
the bus. If this all seems a little confusing to anyone with a logical mind, It
really is totally logical. You just aren't considering the bigger picture. Remember that Aborigines (by weighted genetic proportion) are actual less
than two percent of the population. That's not much to support a political
movement. [Actually it's probably about the same as the Libertarians, and look
how spectacularly ineffectual they have been in changing Australian
politics]. Even as a special interest group, the percentage is too low to have
much effect. So in the heady '80s, Aboriginal lobby groups decided that the best special
interests of the Aborigines were served by an 'inclusive policy'. That is, get
as many people as possible to claim to be victims of the Aboriginality,
regardless of whether they were, or weren't actually of pre-European ancestry.
Even in Tasmania. And boy it worked. Never was there so much hand-wringing and self
flagellation for such a small minority group. And the buckets of money started
flowing into 'Aboriginal concerns'. This might have been a surprise to those of us unfortunate enough to have
been educated by the Tasmanian State education system. We were
taught that the last full blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal was a woman called
Truganini, who died in an Aboriginal settlement in 1876 (far too soon to have
given birth to modern political correctness). But the money still flowed. And nothing exceeds like success. Once money
(and affirmative
action policies) were flowing. Then a new strategy was effective - to
maximize your share of the trough by locking people out. Suddenly, people of
questionable ancestral qualifications were having that ancestry questioned. One of the fastest growing populations in the world has suddenly started
shrinking. A new genocide, or just a mercy culling
of a stupid political movement? Normally leftist political movements shrink when the government money supply is
cut. But in this case the movement is just reeling from a reduction in blood
supply.
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| Too much bull in bear market | |
Your ABC headline is Bailout approval fails to boost US stocks And the article begins:
United States stocks have fallen heavily after Congress passed a huge financial
rescue plan, as investors remained nervous about a global credit squeeze and
the weak economy.
After giving Treasury 700 Billion to buy trash for cash, which was
supposed to restore everyone's faith in capitalism to the extent that they
would re-invest their life savings in the stock market. Of course turning to a socialist solution would save capitalism.
Obviously. We knew this was true. George Bush told us so! Oops. At least it's only tax-payer's money.
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| On the money! | |
Battling a male dominated patriarchal society is a worthy goal. And
feminists everywhere put self-interest aside in other to join the good fight. Occasionally some chauvinist might question whether shrill cries for affirmative action, and all manner of reverse
discrimination, are actually selfless demands, and dare to suggest that self
interest might be a factor. Sacrilege! Of course, affirmative action did
wonders for middle class white women destined for a career in the public service, which by coincidence were exactly
the people screaming for it the loudest. The actual minority groups seem to
have been marginalized along the way somehow, but everyone has to make
sacrifices for the common good, don't they? But only the very stupid would argue that there could be any self interest in
the latest Productivity Commission initiative: paid maternity leave. The ALP has consented to
this in principle, but refuses to give a deadline. Apparently there will be a
lengthy pregnant pause before the scheme is consumated. Under this scheme, private employers will be obliged to pay eighteen weeks
maternity leave to women who drop a bundle. They will be eligible to be
reimbursed by the government for the wages, but not the compulsory 9%
superannuation. Now, just in case anyone of subnormal intelligence is actually
reading this column (we don't discriminate here, and try to cater to all
intelligence levels), let's think this through: Firstly lets take as given that employers are rich greedy capitalists growing
obscenely fat sucking the blood of the hardworking proletariat who are victims of their
needs. (That's why the employers have an obligation to subsidize a woman's
reproductive desires. Obviously). Now consider a greedy capitalist employer who has two applicants which seem
pretty well matched. One is a young woman (the ones that are still of child
bearing age, not the old wrinkly ones that have either missed their biological
alarm clock, or spawned to excess already). The other is a man. Now for the hard part: What is the employer going to do? (You have
one uncomfortable pregnant pause to think of your answer). Time's up .. If your answer was 'she will employ the woman', then go to the
bottom of the class. Sorry, but you are not even smart enough to work out the
root cause of the pregnancy, let alone pass Wimmin!'s Studies. If your answer was 'she will employ the man', then you get a 'C'. You are too smart to
do Wimmin!'s Studies, but not actually smart enough to succeed in business. If your answer was 'she will factor in the risks of employing the woman, and
offer her less money to compensate' then well done. You are thinking like
a businesswoman! Very soon you too will be growing obscenely fat sucking the
blood of the hard working proletariat! Yes, it's good to see the Wimmin!'s movement finally able to demonstrate
their credibility, by pushing through a regulation which will quite obviously
work against women's interests. Of course, the cynical reader might observe that it will work in
the interests of the old boilers - the ones past child bearing age, and
focused on their career. Those women increasingly concerned about the
competition which is younger, more energetic, and more likely to have
qualifications in something other than Wimmin!'s Studies. Of course not. Their credibility is intact - it just has a few stretch
marks.
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| Lead me to the tax trough | |
The collapse of Socialism provided an
opportunity for the Left
to sort the men from boys. The Leftists had to make a call, declare Socialism a
dead, unworkable and discredited ideology, or to become slimy
crypto-socialists, and try to introduce socialism through the backdoor via
'wars on poverty', 'third ways', or climate change initiatives. Laying the boot into crypto-socialists over these issues has been fun over
the last decade, but now the shoe might be on the other foot, and the Right
might be in for a good kick up the derivatives, as the US financial market
apparently faces its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Banks are collapsing, confidence is collapsing, money supply is vanishing.
And capitalism has been rocked to it's foundations! Babies will starve! The
dead shall walk the earth! And we will all be forced to watch reruns of Melrose
Place! Only the Government is big enough, powerful enough and wise enough to
save us from this crisis! Well, maybe. For the ordinary conservative in the street, it's a bit hard
to see the crisis. There are cries of 'banks are collapsing!' But exactly why a bunch of of
merchant bankers losing a few or their millions (or even all of them) could be
regarded as a 'crisis' is a bit of a mystery. Easy come, easy go. Doubtless the
average sub-prime banker will be back to enjoying his weekends on his yacht and
mistress shortly after getting out of prison and starting up a new derivatives
venture. There are cries of 'people's superannuation assets will fall!' Well, that
may be true, but looking at the unsustainable growth in superannuation over the
last few years, did anyone think that a correction was not on the way? There are cries of 'but people will lose their houses!' Apparently those
people who lied about their income levels, and lied about their existing debt
levels, and who consequently can't afford to pay mortgages for homes they could
never realistically afford have some kind of divine right to continue to use
other people's capital to do so. Here in Australia at least, there
were no shortage of scaremongers talking about 'what if interest rates go
up'. In fact Little Johnny was doing that right through his last two terms
in office. Hands up who didn't know about 17% interest rates under the previous
Labour government. Hands up who didn't think that interest rates could ever
rise. Okay, hands down liars and idiots. There are cries of 'house prices may fall!' But exactly why affordable
housing would be such a bad thing would surely be a mystery to those who would
like to enter the housing market. It might even be a mystery to the many
renters who have to compete for rental properties at unprecedented levels. Of
course for the middle class baby boomers who already have houses it might be a
blow the ego. Bragging about how much your family home is worth is a favorite
past-time at the suburban barbecue, and that might have to be replaced with
.. um .. conversation? Thankfully of course, the government (as usual) has a solution to the
problem: an intervention. Yes, dear reader, yet another intervention. And as
usual it involves
- a bigger more powerful government, imposing greater regulations on what people can and can't do;
- spending a truckload of your hard-earned money; and offers
- no guarantee of success.
Does this sound familiar? The US taxpayer is being forced to invest 700 billion dollars into cash for
trash assets and, ever anxious to emulate his US superiors, Kevin (Pixie) Rudd
is going to force the Australian taxpayer to invest 4 billion on his pet
home-loan scheme. Of course the government interventionalists are in good company here. There
are many educated, intelligent and well-off
individuals who claim it is our last best hope for prosperity. The market, they claim, has
failed. The government must intervene. Industries must be
nationalized. Corporate welfare must be given out. And the taxpayer must
pay. And pay. And pay. And there are others who point out that this is not a failure of the market. It is merely part
of the market. There are many people who made bad decisions.
- People made bad decisions to buy houses they could not afford
- People made bad decisions to lie about their finances in order to borrow money they couldn't repay
- People made bad decisions to lend those people money
- People made bad decisions to lend the money to the people who lent money to other people, ad infinitum.
- People made bad decisions to invest in institutions which were lending money to these people.
- These people will be poorer as a result of that decision.
Sounds pretty much like creative destruction at work - something the free
market is pretty good at. People who make bad financial decisions lose their
money (they end up being 'poor'). People who make good
financial decisions make money (they end up being 'rich'). Rapidly plummeting
share prices are an opportunity. Undervalued assets are an opportunity for people to
buy bargains. But of course, governments must be seen to be doing something - anything,
because we all know that making this worse is better than doing nothing. It's time for the true free marketeers to come out of the woodwork. All the
free-market-real-men who believe that the free market will do its thing and
recover over time, versus all the choir-boys who want to panic and push the
'Daddy save me' button and bring the forces of government
crashing down on the last bastion of free enterprise and capitalism. It's time
to separate the men from the boys. Separating the men from the boys is usually a pretty good thing. It's just
that sometimes you have to use a crowbar. Or at least the blunt instrument of government intervention.
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| Hard at work | |
Intellectual elites know that the word 'dumb' is nothing to do with
intelligence, but is actually about the ability to speak. Yours truly is
writing this in the middle of a child Party Land center, and the thought that
that children should be seen and not heard is a pretty attractive one at the
moment. [Note to self: next time bring an MP3 with recordings of small animals being
slaughtered with blunt objects - it will drown out the sound of the children,
and be marginally more pleasant]. But most people use dumb to mean unintelligent, and 'dumbness' is something we
are supposed to lose in our esteemed child educational institutions, which are
of course governed and controlled by
the Intellectual
Elite. For any school teachers who happen to have read this far, and are bristling at the
suggestion that they label themselves 'Intellectual Elite', consider the fact that
The Government has
authorized you to dictate to a totally captive and non-consensual audience what
to think, and consider that Yours Truly has no such authorization. But we
digress .. A recent survey conducted by some other Intellectual Elites has confirmed
what many of us have known for quite some time - that literacy levels in
Australian children have actually fallen over the last thirty years. This generation of Australians are first generation who are dumber than their
parents. Dear Reader, indulge me for a minute. Take a look at your
parents. Isn't that a terrifying thought? Can you imagine an entire generation
desperate to control the lives of those around them via the ballot box, and
making worse decisions than the Baby Boomers? Of course given that the socialist Baby Boomer generation are now mostly
grandparents, the previous generation (Gen-X) didn't have a very high bar to jump. But
the current generation (Gen-Y) must be playing The Limbo. In spite of all the advances in technology over the last thirty years, all the
extra educational funding per child, all the computer assisted learning
techniques, the advances in pedagogical understanding and the reduced class
sizes (giving more teacher time for each student), literacy levels have
actually decreased. Of course some of the squishy readers may protest about education being about
more than readin', writin' and 'rithmetic. Modern education, we are told, must
be about 'life skills': the ability to cope with the rapidly changing world,
and installing 'societal values' in children like 'compassion', 'social
justice', 'Land rights for gay whales raped in nuclear war', and a hundred other
non-outcomes which are totally immeasurable. 'Political awareness' used to be a compulsory university subject in the People's
Paradise Republic of China, but there is no such subject in Australian schools:
mostly because subjects aren't really taught any more. They just move from
issue to
issue. One politically
correct indoctrination session slides into another seamlessly in today's
highly efficient streamlined goal oriented educational system. And the result?
Something vague, squishy and immeasurable. The teachers (assisted by
their unions) have managed
to put themselves in a position where they have no measurable goals. Even
politicians have to put themselves to a vote every three of four
years. Teachers don't even have to do that. So yours truly thought to have a dig at a friend of the wife who recently
joined the class of the Intellectual Elite as a school teacher - one who is still
pumped up about her new found importance, and not yet cynical enough to take it
a bit less seriously. Clearly this is a subject which has come up in the staff-room recently because
her response was instantaneous. There was no denial that the reduction in
literacy was a bad thing - just a denial that the educational system was to
blame. In spite of the fact that The Teachers have total control of the students for 6
hours a day, five days a week, 35 weeks a year for over ten years, child
literacy was apparently beyond their control. It was the fact that students didn't read any more; the fact that they watched
television; the fact that they played video games; the fact that they used
computers; the fact that they surfed the internet; that teachers weren't
properly respected. The list went on and on. Parents were to blame. The media
was to blame. Capitalism was to blame. Society was to blame. Everyone was to
blame, apparently, except The Teachers, and The Government Educational System. It's good to see the teachers picked up one skill in their time at university:
sophistry. And the victims are our children.
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| Building character in the playground | |
Yours truly was recently the recipient of a newsletter on School Bullying.
As a parent who last year removed his child from a class because of consistent
bullying which the teacher refused to control, I read it with some interest. The teachers must take lessons specifically to deal with parents who complain
about bullying, because the response was flawless. First she denied it was happening, then when should could no longer deny it, she
assured us should would stop it immediately, then when it clearly didn't she met
further complaints with statements like 'there are family issues with that
child that I am unable to discuss'. Apparently the needs of the bully were
greater than the needs of those being bullied. I guess he came from a 'more
needy' family than ours, so it was okay. Clearly we were unable to stop it happening, but we could do the next best thing -
make it some other child's problem by moving my own child elsewhere. And we did. Bullying has been in the news more and more because of the advent of mobile
phone cameras. More and more bullying episodes have been filmed and found their
way onto youtube.com or even onto the
TrashMedia like ACA. The DoE, the unions and the teachers closed ranks to stop this trend of course:
they banned mobile phones at many schools - making it harder for people to show
what happens, and thereby concealing the amount of bullying that was happening
under school care. But, prisons and schools are always somewhat porus. Phones get smuggled in
and videos smuggled out. So the DoE was shamed into actually looking like it
was concerned about the problem, and commissioned a little booklet to send to
caring parents. And it was full of great information. It said what a bad thing bullying was. It
said that bullies were victims. It said that bullies often had emotional
problems. And it gave parents advice on how to counsel a child who was being
bullied at school. But there was something missing. There was absolutely nothing in the book about the responsibilities of the
teachers to ensure that a child was not being bullied. In spite of the fact
that the children are under total control of the teachers for six hours a day,
in spite of the fact that parents who refuse to send their children to school
are threatened with goal sentences, in spite of fact that parents are powerless
to stop bullying themselves, in spite of the fact that the only people who can
protect children from being bullied are the teachers themselves, it said
nothing about teachers having a responsibility to prevent bullying. And it said
nothing about a parent's recourse if the teachers refused to prevent the
bullying. All care but no responsibility? Well .. no responsibility anyway.
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| A few of the Rudds' favorite things - your money | |
Baby sitting is not really very complex thing. It basically involves changing
the occasional nappy, introducing the children to the delights of late night
horror movies, and then pretending they were in bed at 8:30, while helping
yourself to the contents of your host's liquor cabinet. Seriously, a child could to it. And in fact children do. The majority of 14
year-olds seem to do it to earn a few dollars an hour to top up their phone
cards so they can flirt via SMS. But not in the Rudd household. In the Rudd household, the 14 year-old son needs
a baby sitter of his own. Huh? Whether 14 year old Marcus is still breast fed hasn't actually been made clear,
and nor should it be. It's really none of our business what goes on behind
other people's closed doors and it really shouldn't concern us. Except of course if we are forced to pay for it. Yes gentle reader, the baby sitter was being paid for by you - the tax payer. While the rest of us have to pay for our own babysitters, the multi-millionaire
Rudds put their baby-sitter on the staff payroll for The Lodge, and the
tax-payer was expected to foot the bill. This is Uncle Kev's idea of implementing spending cuts, and sticking up for the
working class. 'Onya, Kev! But we shouldn't be too quick to label the man a hypocrite. After all, Kevin
Rudd has always been a big proponent of the Nanny State. It's good to see that
he inflicts it on his own children. Even the true believers might need a spoon full of sugar to swallow this little
indiscretion.
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| Spare the lash, spoil the teddy | |
Every statist knows that inciting religious hatred and insulting religions is a
dreadful thing. So dreadful that responsible governments must lock up their
citizens for doing so. It might have taken Australia some time to catch up with the trend, but the
various Australian governments have followed in the footsteps of great nations
like Sudan, which have had such laws for centuries - as demonstrated by the
recent jailing of school teacher Gillian Gibbons. She was charged with
'insulting Islam' after she allowed her students to name a teddy to be called
Mohammed. They were going to publicly flog her and jail her for a year, but in an
uncharacteristic moment of compassion, they sentenced her to 15 days, followed
by deportation. Uncharacteristic presumably because of the hordes of angry
machete-wielding protesters demanding her immediate execution. One local quoted as saying "She is a teacher and should be teaching her pupils
to be respectful and have morals but instead she is doing the opposite."
Morality is truly in the eyes of beholder. While it's easy to foam at the mouth at the latest excesses from the members of
the Religion of Peace, one has to question the motives of 56 year old Gillian
Gibbons. What would possess someone of sound mind and (rather overweight) body
to go to Sudan to teach? Any intelligent person would either avoid the world's garbage dumps entirely,
on at least minimise their time there to a few shonky arms deals before flying
out to somewhere more civilized. But it takes all kinds. Some people feel the
need to educate the Muslims. Perhaps she thought that familiarity would breed
consideration? Perhaps she thought that she could make them more tolerant by
letting them know about western feminist theory? Or (if the nature of school
teachers in Australia is any indication) perhaps she is just stupid. Teachers are fond of saying that you're never to old to continue your 'learning
journey'. Now she is about to enjoy a few weeks of 'learning journey' herself.
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| This part went to the Wong person | |
Peter Garrett is accident prone. One only has to watch his uncoordinated
onstage antics from his rock-star days to see this. Frankly, it's surprising
that he didn't fall off the stage sometime during a Midnight Oil gig and
experience Human Frailty first hand - and break his neck. But, one only has to consider Keith Richards to realize that some rock stars do
defy the odds to live to an age which challenges actuarial predictions as
well as common sense. And common sense wasn't in great supply when Mark (Maddog) Latham took in the
washed up rock star and appointed him to be ALP Lap Dog. And Peter has been
messing on the carpet ever since. He took the dunce's cap in an almost flawless campaign conducted by Kevin
(Pixie) Rudd, in which everyone in the ALP was told to just say 'me too' after John Howard said anything. For some reason
Garrett felt a need to strong to contain - and said that they would 'just
change everything' when they were elected. Oops. You belong to the ALP now
Peter. And the company takes what the company wants. Now Peter is paying the price. He is going to keep the title of 'Environment
Minister', but he will actually spend his time opening local fetes dedicated to
retarded immigrant Aborigines raped in nuclear war or something. He might call
himself King of the Mountain, but any environment duties requiring a Real Man
have been handed to someone with real balls - the Asian Lesbian: Penny Wong. We'll just change everything? Well, some of us are enjoying the changes
already, Peter.
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| Statists still expecting bundle of joy | |
Statists and true
believers were shocked recently to learn of an expectant mother miscarrying
in the toilet in the emergency ward of a major hospital after her cries for
help were ignored by hospital staff for two hours. Apparently Ms Casey was classified as 'level 4' by RPA triage staff, and relegated
to the back of the queue. Where she stayed, until it occurred to hospital staff
that a still-living fetus on the toilet floor was likely to get them unwanted
publicity. Not that hospital staff are averse to publicity, of course. Nurses seem to run
endless ads threatening to leave the profession because it's all John Howard's
fault. The fact that they are almost exclusively employed by state Labour
governments is not actually mentioned of course - apparently John Howard is
failing in his duty to force the state Labour governments to ignore market
forces. But clearly Kevin Rudd will. Because .. umm? As state and federal pollies finger pointed at
each other and ducked for cover, more and more people started coming of the
wood work and relaying their horror stories at the hands (or more likely not at
the hands) of emergency room staff in our glorious socialist health system. But it's not really clear what people expect from a socialist health
system. It's easy to simply retort with 'Guys, you wanted a socialist health
system, and you got one. What did you expect? Efficiency?' But the truth is a
little more complicated. If a woman is about to miscarry, there is little which can be done about it.
Usually miscarriages occur because of trauma (like a fall or a road accident),
or because there is something wrong with the fetus or the mother. The human
body is really pretty smart. If the mother's body decides that the fetus is
not viable it miscarries. It sounds horrible, but it's simply the truth.
The best you can do for a woman about to miscarry is to make her comfortable
and (if appropriate) give her counseling. But comfort and counseling are not the jobs of triage staff in an emergency room. They are there to
save lives. In fact, lives may have been saved by ignoring her, and helping
those who could actually be saved by the resources available. Exactly what do
people expect from a hospital emergency room? Understanding? Sympathy? Apparently so. But why would they expect this from a socialist health system?
Socialist systems are not exactly known for their humanity or compassion. Why
would they expect socialism to work differently in Australia? Apparently they are true believers. A few days later, The Telegraph showed a picture of the emergency room after
the publicity. It was empty. Sick people were either traveling further afield
to find better care, or taking their chances simply staying at home. This sounds
suspiciously like market forces kicking in. Imagine for a moment if RPA were a hospital in an all-private health
system. The publicity would have cost them millions as people chose to take
their illnesses (and spend their money) elsewhere. But our socialist health
system will simply waste a few million dollars of taxes having inquiries, finger
pointing, writing reports and shuffling deck-chairs, before returning to
business as usual. There can be few better arguments for a privatized health system.
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>> Please Sir, I want some more
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| Feedback/Forum |
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- ANON -- Anonymous Coward 2011-12-02
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