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| More!? More!? |
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| Shoot this | |
Australian drug trafficker Le My Linh faces a firing squad in Ho Chi Minh
City after her appeal against her death sentence failed. We can expect the usual outrage from Civil Libertarians, right to lifers,
libertarians and
trendy lefties, who will
be up in arm about this decision, but shouting mobs are rarely rational, even though
extreme situations are always the best for imposing rationality on. Punishing people for taking drugs is both stupid and immoral. Any intelligent
person recognizes this. Punishing people for supplying drugs is only marginally
less stupid and immoral. Unfortunately, however, we live in a stupid and
immoral world. It's tempting to see Le My Linh as someone who took advantage of the free market - she had a
product (supply), there was a customer (demand), she lubricated the market, and
aided in the transaction. Not really - in fact she took advantage of the
black market. The free-market value of the 888g of heroin she was
attempting to smuggle back to Australia would hardly have
paid for her in-flight meals. The reason why her little importation business
seemed attractive was precisely because of its illegality. She took advantage of the illegality of the drugs, it seems a little rich
to now call herself a victim if their illegality. Le My Linh is no different than someone who makes a deal: You play
Russian Roulette, if you win you get 30,000 and if you lose .. well you get
shot, OK? While most of us wouldn't choose to play such a game, the number
of children locked in cars outside casinos demonstrates there are many who
would. Many people choose to take risks. The black market offers a strange paradox - the greater the risk, the
greater the profit, and therefore the greater the temptation. If the risk (and
consequently the profit) had been less, would Le My Linh have bothered to take
it? She is merely someone who lost the bet. After she is executed, people will be reminded of the very real risks,
the prices will increase accordingly, and others will choose to take similar
risks because of the greater gains. Think of it as a kind of free-black-market. And while the notion that all Australians are equal is an attractive one,
the history of Le My Linh is worth examining. She was born in 1959, and
emigrated to Australia in 1979 (at age 20). She has joined the group of
Australian citizens and then gone back to her native country to knowingly break
its laws. She, more than anyone would have been aware of cost of failure. What
obligations does the Australian taxpayer have to attempt to
protect her? Le My Linh's only chance now is a presidential appeal or for communist Vietnam to become
sensible and rational before her execution. That hasn't happened anywhere else
in the world, and the chances of it happening first in a communist country seem
rather remote. Fire away.
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| Cottage Industry or Hobby? | |
People were shocked after September-11 that Islamic fundamentalists could
actually conduct suicide attacks on US soil. It was felt that the
fundamentalists would be softened (corrupted) by having close contact with the
West. In the same way that zombies brainwashed by fanatical communist countries can be
deprogrammed with just a few visits to MacDonalds and a trip to the movies
(without once being asked to show their papers or having their genitals sniffed
by drug dogs on the MET), it was felt that fundamentalist Muslims would
similarly self-deprogram over time. How wrong they were! However the latest wanna-be home bomber may test the convictions of the
rednecks and PC crowd equally. South African born Gill Daniels was arrested in Sydney after police claim
to have found ammonium nitrate, batteries and wires in his flat when they turned up
to evict him after he neglected to pay his rent.[ref] His lawyer has both rejected any connection with terrorism and claimed that this
will be used as an excuse for more Muslim bashing. Yup, you guessed it - this
man is a member of the Religion of Peace. All may not be as it appears though, as apparently this man has a
deep-seated hatred of his ex-wife and mother in-law. Just like every Australian man who has
experienced the 'gender neutrality' of the family law court first-hand!
Surely an adequate explanation for the half-constructed bombs? How could we harshly judge a man who has integrated into Australian culture so well? Blowing up
the ex- is a bit extreme, but the story he will tell in court will doubtless
gain sympathy from at least some of the 'experienced' jury members. Then
they'll put him away because anyone who broods enough to make a dozen bombs
in his kitchen is menace to society. Any civilized person would just use a gun.
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| Show us your anthrax, Saddam | |
The UN raised
'concern' over the Iraqi
weapons declaration, given to the UN on the 8th of this month, and the US went further and labeled it as
a 'material breach' of the UN guidelines. Now George Dubya Bush and Tony Blair
have canceled trips in January to spend time on 'foreign policy'. The drums of
war appear to be beating to a
January crescendo. On the other hand, Johnny (don't-leave-me-behind) Howard has hinted at a
troop deployment in March. Johnny, Johnny, it may be all over by then, and in
order to get brownie points from the US you have to turn up before the fighting
stops .. it's one of those little war etiquette things. Dubya's position is a little counter-intuitive here. He pushed the UN very hard
to get it to force Saddam to produce the weapons declaration document.
Now he labels it a sham, but he has produced no hard evidence to prove that it
is. He is just running around saying 'what about the Anthrax?' Well, Dubya,
the answer at this stage is 'what anthrax?' If you weren't prepared to trust
the competence of the UN, you shouldn't have pushed so hard to send them in. UN Weapons inspectors are saying that Iraq has 'failed in its duty to
convince the UN that it has disarmed'. Some may think that this is setting the
bar a bit high - surely the onus is on the anti-Iraq coalition to prove that
Iraq has failed to disarm, particularly as the much heralded UN inspectors now
have free access to even the most intimate and private parts of Iraq. Finding
the WMDs
may be too hard for the UN (who couldn't organize a salmonella outbreak in a
Chinese kitchen), but having made the demand it seems a little hypocritical to
assume guilt without the inspectors finding something more incriminating than
moldy salami in the presidential fridge. Dubya is sounding a bit like a lefty demonstrator, who
shouts 'they are evil' often enough to
believe his own rhetoric, but part of the gamble is that the WMDs will be
found after the war. Contrite Iraqis will come teeming out of the woodwork like
poisoned termites confessing and claiming 'he made me do it'. These
will be followed by the hypocritical nations of Europe jumping on the
band-wagon and saying 'We always said taking out Saddam was a good
idea'. Success has many allies. But the shoot-now-justify-later approach is still a gamble for Dubya.
Either there is a conspiracy afoot, and our great leaders know something which
us mere democratic voters
are not allowed to, or Dubya's IQ has fallen with the winter temperatures in
the Iraqi desert. It's hard to know which is scarier. At least we can still rely on the two invariants of the civilized world:
Iraqi Deaths and the taxes to pay for them.
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| Watching Iraq | |
For the conspiracy theorists, there's also some unusual activity centered
around the Middle East. - Iraqi dissidents have
been given a wink and a nudge from the US that they might like to prepare
for government.
Frankly, if Dubya thinks that a bunch of psychotic Iraqi dissidents who haven't
even lived in Iraq for decades can form a stable government with any support
from the Iraqi people, he should spend some time counting votes in Florida.
- More troops are massing on the Iraqi border in Kuwait. 'Just routine
exercises guys, it's all routine'.
- Japan is sending ships in the Indian Ocean. They seem to have one which
can track 100 planes, and can take out 10 at a time. An odd choice for a strike
against a country with virtually no air-force, but welcome none-the-less.
- The US and UK are stepping
up their enforcement of the 'no-fly zones' in Iraq, bombing any military installations - even
if they are in residential areas. Most intelligent people would visit relatives
for a few days if they saw an anti-aircraft unit being installed on the roof of
the apartment block, but idiocy is one resource which is infinite.
- The US is administering Small-pox immunizations to selected
people. Small-pox died out several decades ago after the one successful global
immunization push in history.
Something seems to be afoot, but what? Still the UN inspectors in Baghdad
have found no WMDs which
would justify the much touted 'regime change', though Iraq has accused the
inspectors of spying. Yes Saddam, that's why they are there - to spy on your
weapons program. This is not a secret - try watching more CNN and less
al-Jazeera. There have also been no more terrorist attacks over the
last few weeks. Either the US are intending to go in regardless of the UN team's findings,
or George Dubya already knows where the WMDs are, and is just getting the team
to do the wild-goose thing until it's convenient to let them know where to
look. Christmas would be an attractive time for terrorists to strike the
infidels in all those decadent Western countries, and an
opportunistic time for WMDs to be found. Maybe George W and Tony B are planning on surfing the wave of public outrage
all the way into Baghdad. Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction, but they also say that you
should never attribute to conspiracy that which can
be explained by good old-fashioned incompetence. Maybe the UN inspectors are as
ineffectual as the rest of the UN, maybe George Dubya is just plugging away at
the military, and maybe the Christmas season will offer no more than the
fat-guy with the reindeer and the puppy you have to dump somewhere after it
makes a mess on the carpet. Either way someone should tell George: a conquered Iraq is forever, not just
for Christmas.
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| Shaken, not Stirred | |
Life, they say copies Art. Some wouldn't consider the James
(shaken-not-stirred) Bond series art, but there is no accounting for the taste
of a Vodka Martini. CIA operatives have been given something palatable though -
every armchair general's wet dream: A license to kill. It's not as good as it sounds, though. The hit list is disappointingly small,
and reportedly only includes 20 or so people. None-the-less, the CIA, neutered by three decades of political correctness,
now has a chance to dust of the cold-war assassination gear - the poison gas,
the strangulation chord in the reading glasses and those umbrellas with vile
tropical diseases in the spikes. The targets are no surprise - the usual suspects - basically Osama bin
(there-done-that) Laden and his psychotic band of murderous Muslim thugs. Unfortunately it's a little hard for the predominately Caucasian CIA to
infiltrate the tribal lands in western Pakistan. They stand out like ghosts. Maybe Australia could deploy some of the Baktiaris for the task? Australia
is experiencing a Baktiari surplus at the moment, Baktiaris are well acquainted
with Pakistan, quite comfortable using lies and deceit to achieve their
objectives and, just like 007, they love celebrity. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
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| Suspects hard to identify | |
The Australian 2002-12-14
reports of 13,737 failed asylum seekers vanishing into thin air in Australia
over the last five years. However, in 1997 Phil Ruddock's office stated that no
bridging visa recipients had failed to meet their reporting obligations. What
happened? Well, in the good-old days, the asylum seekers were
given taxpayers money for doing nothing except
reporting in occasionally, and telling the immigration department (DIMA) when they were moving house. Nice work,
if you don't have to do it. There was also little or no prospect of being sent
home. The mere suggestion that such a person might lie or deliberately vanish
was simply regarded as racist, and ignored. Suddenly in the post Tampa-tantrum, post September-11 and post Taliban world, there is a very
real chance of them being sent home - at least for the Afghans (and the
Pakistanis pretending to Afghans) if not (after the coming Gulf War-III) the Iraqis. Add to this the fact that
the opening batches of temporary protection visas are expiring soon, and
suddenly turning up to meet their reporting obligations seems rather less
attractive. The result is nearly 14,000 asylum seekers reverting to type. After
employing criminal
people-smuggling gangs to organize their trips to Australia, they are now
relying on on similar criminal networks to meet their needs while in Australia. Fortunately the burden on the tax-payer is reduced. While many absconders
will be sharing Medicare cards and suchlike, they will find it quite difficult
to get educational
benefits, or to suck directly on the welfare tit. And if any are
picked up committing crimes, they can be thrown straight into Villawood. In the meantime, the ALP's
policy of releasing all asylum seekers into the community within 90 days has
about a Baktiari of credibility.
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| Facing Cauldron of Hate | |
The final sitting day of parliament for the year failed to pass the bill to
increase ASIO powers - a bill which would have allowed ASIO to detain anyone
for 48 hours without a charge - even if they were not suspected of committing a
crime. The merits of such a
bill are, as usual, irrelevant to the political game which is being
played. Johhny (the-government-only-wants-what's-good-for-you) Howard wants more government power, and Simon
(lizard-in-a-tin) Crean is under pressure to make a stand. After the ALP's disastrous run of me-too
policy shifts, caving in on Tampa, excision, and strong border protection,
Simon has to differentiate himself on something - anything. However this is a dangerous one to differentiate on. Australians are
either going to die on Australian soil in a terrorist attack, or they are not.
If there is no terrorist
strike, Simon will look like a struggling (if ineffectual) leader. However if
there is a strike, the government will blame it on Crean's legislative
recalcitrance, and he will be out. Not only that, but the government will have a surefire double dissolution
trigger, and will probably win control of both houses of parliament. So Johnny is betting on a terrorist strike, and Simon is betting against
one. However Johnny (I-talk-to-ASIO) Howard has better information than his
opponent, who has good reason to feel nervous. Presumably Simon has been listening to that old John Cougar-Mellencamp
song:
"You gotta stand for something, or you're gonna fall for anything". If there is a terrorist strike, Simon will do both.
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| Science - the New Religion | |
Once again the issue of teaching evolution versus creationism
has reared its ugly head in the glorious US of A. Redneck creationists have been fighting a devolving rear-guard action
across much of America's 'bible belt' for decades on this score. First they
wanted to ban the teaching of evolution. When that failed they tried to force schools to give equal time
teaching 'Creation Science' (an odd title since there is virtually no science involved). And now
they are demanding that the textbooks come with warnings like 'Evolution is
Only a Theory' on them. Of course it's fun watching the slow extinction of an archaic and idiotic
ideology designed to exert control over others. Few religions have much to
offer in the 21st century and new generations, armed with a more intelligent
and rational view of the world around them, have good reason to reject most of
the beliefs of their parents. But what is the 2000 year old ideology being
replaced with? Simply new form of political
correctness. But apart from the obvious giggle-factor, why do intelligent people care
about this so much? Why fight the creationists at all? Why not just privatize the schools,
let them set their own curriculum, and let parents make a choice about which
one to send their children to? Some of them will create sensible young adults
with the knowledge to succeed in the world. Others will create people who try
to run their life according to the confused and contradictory writings in a
2000 year-old book (like believing some weird story about two naked people in a
garden eating apples, or some old coot herding animals into wooden boat), and
grovel to the tooth-fairy every Sunday. That's OK, we need people to work in factories and clean floors, and who
better than ignorant bible bashers muttering to themselves "I might be a
nobody, but at least I didn't descend from monkeys". And they could keep the
Arts students company when they serve fries at MacDonalds. On the other hand, if their interpretation of that book is that they have
to fly large airplanes into your office to secure 70 virgins in the afterlife,
then this it becomes a problem, but it's a problem which can be contained. One thing that the evolution of economies has taught us is
that generally those who make the best decisions have better lives. Islamic countries, still tied to
the notion that 'education' is synonymous with studying 'Koranic Verse', are
living in corruption,
filth and squalor, while those in the West are richer than at
any time in history. Rather than try to convert others to their way of life,
the West has largely done their own thing, and they are reaping the rewards. As the difference in standard of living grows ever greater, and the
inadequacies of religious
ideologies become undeniable, some will try to destroy the wealth of the West through terrorism, but that threat
can be contained with a little care and planning. Two people trying to force each other to accept their
truths are both repressors. If you try to force someone to accept scientific truth, you have
just turned science into a religion. People who truly believe in survival of the fittest also believe it applies
to ideas, and are happy to let those ideas evolve, and survive according.
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| Squashing Welfare Fraud | |
Liberal heavyweight Amanda (starve-them-back-to-work) Vanstone has started
momentum on welfare
reform. While the goals are as confused as the approach, some of what she has
been saying makes sense.
- Simplifying the current system, by replacing 15 different payments currently, with one base rate.
- Removal of 'poverty traps' in which people get little (or in some cases
negative) extra income from moving from welfare to useful employment.
- Elimination of payments which discourage people from finding partners.
Unfortunately the proposal also contains the usual government idiocies.
- Paying people rent relief. Apparently the taxpayer will still be obliged
to pay more to someone who chooses to live on Sydney's north shore than someone
who chooses to live in the western suburbs.
- A participation payment for education. Apparently someone who studies
Philosophy or Womens
Studies is meeting their 'mutual obligation' requirements,
and is doing the taxpayer a
favor.
- A participation payment for job seeking. Apparently someone who seeks to
improve their standard of living by earning more money is meeting their 'mutual
obligation' requirements.
Much of the problem with these three is the cost of compliance enforcement.
An army of public
servants will have to be employed to check whether people are actually
paying as much rent as they say, whether people are actually studying, or
whether they are actually seriously looking for a job. There is also a move to get people into low income employment, and let them
continue to collect some welfare. Needless to say, the objection has been raised
that this will create a class of 'working poor', presumably by people who think
that creating 'working poor' is worse than perpetuating 'unworking poor'. However on balance this has to be a step in the right direction. The whole
welfare/incentive issue rests on the principle of Marginal Net Income
(sometimes expressed Effective Marginal Tax Rate). This is the amount of money
that someone gets to keep when they earn an extra dollar. Rich people pay 49.5
cents on the dollar in tax, so their Marginal Net Income is 51.5
percent. People think that Marginal Net Income goes down as people make more
money, because of the 'progressive tax rate'. But people on welfare lose
welfare as they earn more money - they lose unemployment benefits, child
allowances, rent subsidies and a plethora of other payments from the
government. In some cases their Marginal Net Income is as low as 20 percent, creating
a poverty trap, where it is just not worth someone's while to earn more, so
they stay on poverty indefinitely. Far from being 'progressive', the effective tax rates are actually
regressive, particularly when 'sin taxes' (taxes on gambling, alcohol and cigarettes) are taken into
account. At least the government is aware of the
poverty traps, and seems genuine about removing the worst of them, but they are
still determined to continually tinker with the Marginal Net Incomes for each
sector of the population. This is quite a logical thing to do - by creating a plethora of tax
brackets the Liberal
Party can effectively target sections of the population for pork-barreling in the
lead up to the next election. Changing position suddenly is something Amanda (pushing-her-weight-around)
Vanstone will find quite challenging, but she will still have an army of public
servants to help her do it.
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| Standard Issue for RAN? | |
An Age 2002-12-11
article presents accusations of asylum seekers against
Australian authorities
with the confusing headline "Army accused of beating asylum seekers". Most
Australians had thought the Navy was responsible for turning back SIEVs
(suspected illegal entry vehicles) - but after Kim (submarine buyer
extraordinaire) Beasley spent all the Navy's money on useless
submarines, as Defense Minister maybe the Navy was not up to the task, and the
Army had to be called in for the job? Maybe this is why Kim wanted to set up a
coast guard. The Age article is a fun document which quotes people who clearly have a
complex relationship with the truth, for instance:
- Military officers used 'electric sticks' and touched them against their
metal badges to 'show the sparks'. Anyone who thinks this is a credible claim
is invited to use an electric cattle prod (ask any truckie for one) on
a metal badge they are wearing repeatedly to demonstrate [tip - you will be
writhing in pain instantly].
- "Then they beat the sides and ribs of my husband with the electric sticks
until he was unconscious". Isn't the point of 'electric sticks' that you
don't need to beat someone? You can just touch it against them and electrify them
into submission.
These kinds of lies can make people's hair stand on end, but before any
red-blooded Australian bristles too obviously at the stories of a bitter
group of people-smuggler-employers, maybe they should think about the pragmatic
effect of the stories. Australia is being identified in Mosques everywhere as 'one of the
countries aligning against the Islamic world', (yes guys
that's what happens when you murder 80 of Autralians in a Bali nightclub) and these
people are likely to believe the worst things possible about Australians. Why
not exploit their lies? Phil (we've-tried-everything) Ruddock's little movies
about Australia being a land of snakes, crocodiles and angry park-rangers is
laughable in comparison to the documentary-style video that could be made.
The sun rises on a group of thugs in Australian naval uniforms. Suddenly a
shout goes up - they have spotted another SIEV! Led by their commanders (naked dominant women with flesh-colored cattle prods), they board
their gunboat and quickly intercept the floundering vessel. They throw all the
women overboard, abduct the children, and then sink the
boat with the men still on board. Laughing, they go back to their camp where they get drunk and store the
children in a barbed-wire cage until they are ready to boil them alive in
pork-fat in a huge bonfire. Arguing over who gets to eat the best bits, one
yawns lazily and fires off a few rounds at a tribe of frightened Aborigines cowering nearby.
This little gem would be distributed in Mosques all around the world, as
the corrupt leaders of
the Religion of Peace saw the opportunity to increase their power over their followers by
vilifying the West. And their followers would be just a little more reluctant
about employing 'unofficial' travel agents to come here. Now that little video has to be worth an Arts grant!
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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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