Just a little Musical exercise for a wet Sunday morning .
As popular music is constantly feeding off itself I just have to wonder if the Rogue Traders will find themselves in the same boat as Men at Work with a writ for copyright infringement? Because there is no doubt at all that the Rogue traders have pinched the guitar riff from the Elvis Costello song.
Cheers Comrades
The Australian newspaper, which is not a paper I normerly read, brings us some shocking news:
The inaugural Pink Stiletto Gay and Lesbian Race Day at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney was held yesterday. It was the perfect prelude to tonight’s renowned Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade to be held in Australia’s number one gay precinct, Sydney’s Oxford St.
We all know that Sydney is the gayest capital of the world and that 90% of Sydneysiders are gay. But that does not bother me in the slightest as I think it’s actually a good idea to keep them all in one spot (you don’ see many down here in Melbourne).
But what makes them think that racehorses want to be part of their Gay Mardi Gras festivities.? Did anyone ask the horses? I thinks not.
Horses are not gay – have you ever seen a stallion trying to mount another stallion? No way. Have you ever seen two fillies trying to get it on? Impossible. And what would happen to our thoroghbred racing industry if male horses refused to have sex with female ones? We’d be racing 20-year-old-hacks just to keep the numbers up, and that is just cruel.
Geldings are a different matter and they don’t have sex at all on account of they have had their balls removed to make them settle down and race straighter. Not nice, but if you had a choice between the knackery or being de-knackered what would you say?
By coincidence the Sydney Swans AFL team will miss tonight’s parade as they are playing real men’s footy in Melbourne tonight – minus “Gay basher” Barry Hall who theyy sacked and sent to Footscray where poofter bashing is allowed and encouraged.
“Peer review allows ideas, scientific views to change, to be corrected. It allows experts to spot mistakes and omissions. Peer review allows scientists to rigorously test their ideas. It is the robust nature of this process that has given people confidence to fly in planes and feed their children nutritious food.”
Ian Chubb, vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, said some populists had found it easy to denigrate science because many scientific conclusions in the field of climate change rested on a balance of probability rather than of incontestable proof
Because they continue to argue that there is “incontestable proof” of the AGW proposition when there is in fact no such thing. It is just one part of their argument that annoys this empiricist.
Cheers Comrades
Source: The Australian
KEVIN Rudd has sacked Peter Garrett over his handling of the bungled $2.45 billion roofing insulation scheme and overhauled the government’s core climate change policies in the wake of the emissions trading scheme being put on hold until at least May.
As the Prime Minister moved to find a circuit-breaker to quell the air of crisis surrounding his government – by stripping the environment minister of responsibility for the roofing scheme, and appointing troubleshooter Greg Combet to fix the mess – he gave the Department of Climate Change a new energy-efficiency role.
“There is no point sugar-coating this,” Mr Rudd said, announcing the changes in Sydney.
“This does mean a different range and reduced range of responsibilities for Minister Garrett. Let us simply acknowledge that fact.”
But Tony Abbott said the government was in a “political panic” and Mr Rudd lacked the guts to sack Mr Garrett. His demotion would be “a small comfort to the tens of thousands of families who have suffered through this horribly botched home insulation program, that Mr Garrett remains in cabinet and continues to collect his salary”.
Now while there are certainly lots of people out there who are still willing to forgive Brother Number One almost anything because he ousted John Howard but I think that they are going to be out numbered by those who are starting to worry. If they took up the inducements and had their roof insulated they will be worrying big time. If they have private health insurance they will be worrying about it becoming too expensive to keep. If they use electricity they will be worrying about the way that this government wants to make their energy more expensive. If they think that our borders should be secure they will be worrying big time because this government has ceded our refugee resettlement programs to the people smugglers. If they are any kind of number cruncher, they will be worrying about the level of debt that has been incurred in all of our names and they will be wondering how it will be repaid. If they are environmentalist they will be worrying that this government put all of its eggs into the ETS basket and continue to do so even though the arse has fallen out of it.
I don’t know why any Labor voter would not be worried about this government while it does some deck chair shuffling the ship is still sinking and no matter how loudly our dear Brother Number One insists that the ice on the fore deck is their purely to cool the Gin and tonics we know that below it is the stokers (insulation installers) and those in the bowels of this ship (ordinary voters) who are laying down their lives as the sea begins to flood each successive compartment…
Perhaps Poseidon will heed the supplications of our dear Brother Number One because it is clear now that Gaea is far from amused by the monumental cock up in the insulation program and being served Petter Garrett’s ministerial balls is hardly enough when his incompetence should have required his head on that platter along side the head of his master.
Cheers Comrades
Is this appropriate behaviour for school teachers???
Maybe this is another lesson from the team that brought us Buggery 101
Cheers Comrades
Over 1,000 people in Great Britain were questioned on their views on climate change as part of the Ipsos Mori poll. Photograph: Ann Pickford/Rex Features
My interest in this topic is as much about the sociology of belief as it is about climate science, so I find it fascinating to watch the way that the belief in the AGW proposition has waxed and the way that it now appears to be waning. The Guardian in the UK has been one of the most vociferous supporters of the AGW proposition and this has helped cement the my view that AGW alarmism is the vehicle that has been used by frustrated Uber-lefties to continue their attempts at anti-capitalist revolution after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism. Take a bow George Monboit
Public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined sharply after months of questions over the science and growing disillusionment with government action, a leading British poll has found.
The proportion of adults who believe climate change is “definitely” a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori.
Overall around nine out of 10 people questioned still appear to accept some degree of global warming. But the steep drop in those without doubts will raise fears that it will be harder to persuade the public to support actions to curb the problem, particularly higher prices for energy and other goods.
The true level of doubt is also probably underestimated because the poll only questioned 16 to 64-year-olds. People over 65 are more likely to be sceptical, the researchers said.
“It’s going to be a hard sell to make people make changes to their [people's] behaviours unless there’s something else in it for them – [such as] energy efficiency measures saving money on fuel bills,” said Edward Langley, Ipsos Mori’s head of environment research. “It’s a hard sell to tell people not to fly off for weekends away if you’re not wholly convinced by the links. Even people who are [convinced] still do it.”
John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace, said concern about fluctuations in public opinion have also prompted many environment groups to re-think their approach to campaigning – which has often focused on threats of climate disaster and making people feel guilty for their part in it.
“All of us have [talked about these changes],” said Sauven. “A lot of [recent] headlines have been grossly distorted, but that doesn’t get away from the fact it’s quite a complex issue, so we have got to talk about what is engaging and positive in terms of the response [which] can have many benefits to our society, for example energy security.”
You know it just makes me wonder why, if the science is so right, that the AGW proposition is losing credibility ? Those who are so strongly pushing the AGW proposition seem to be entirely immune to any sort of analysis that does not rely on obscure math. The equation is simple and it is contained in the very old truth that if you seek to instill alarm by , for example, claiming that the world is going to burn then you can only yell “fire” for so long before people start to treat you cries of “FIRE!!!” with the same level of disdain and annoyance as they do when they hear a car alarm go off.
For those of my readers who are believers I recommend that you read this open letter from Dr Judith Curry because what she says there puts this polling by the Guardian into perspective.
Cheers Comrades
In Sydney they has Kate McCulloch doing the right thing by keeping the classy outer-western suburb of Camden a Muslim-free zone.
Kate #1, protecting Aussie values in Sydney
And here in Melbourne we have Scientologist and Jazz singer Kate Ceberano fighting back to kick the Jews out of her street in the inner-suburb of Elsternwick.
And Kate #2 doing her bit too.
I’m with the Scientologist Kate on this one. She’d be the better root.
What is in a name is the crux of Catherine Deveny’s latest column and she certainly seems to have a bee in her bonnet of the entirely innocuous tradition of children having their father’s name. Straight of the top of my head I can think of one very simple reason why this tradition still has value, it helps us avoid unintentional incest. In an age of lose and transient relationships individuals could very well have different mothers but the same father. At least if their paternity is acknowledged by the names they carry. The question “we have the same name so are we related?” is likely to be asked before the individuals do the deed. Deveny is just so much of the bitter and twisted Feminist and exemplar of the progressive notion that everything that is traditional should be torn down just because it is a tradition.But the real issue is the denial, the self-delusion, the mutually accepted ”don’t go there” zones that inform the decision and the reluctance to rationally discuss it in depth. Discuss what we are still getting out of this primitive decision – the paternal surname providing proof, or illusion, of paternity and the hope of protection for our progeny and the genes we are hitching our wagon(sic) to?
Why are so many people still clinging to this convention in this day and age of divorce and DNA? A convention that insidiously reinforces power, control and ownership.
It’s a patriarchal minefield we deny even exists. Despite so much social change, this is a rusty nut that will not budge. And don’t be fooled by being fobbed off with ”it’s not important”. It is. Wait for the feedback from this column. Readers will doubtless attempt to undermine the importance of the issue, then me personally. They’ll announce their ”special circumstances”. Declare that it ended up going paternal because his name sounded better, his family name was dying out, it was important to his family, my surname is in the middle, etc.
Catherine Deveny
I asked my beautiful wife if she wanted to keep her name when we married and she was actually happy to lose her difficult to spell Dutch surname. When we registered the births of our children we did not even discuss giving them my wifes maiden name. So I agree with Deveny that this is a non issue for parents. Personally I think that the Christian name that we give our children is far more important and it has a much bigger influence on the person they become. As someone in the comments to Deveny’s column points out there is always deed poll (or even just common usage* of an alternative name ) if you don’t like that which is chosen for you.
This piece by Deveny is the perfect exemplar of the “its old so tear it down” mind set that so infects those of a “progressive” persuasion. This is the same sort of thinking that gave the world the likes of Pol Pot and his “year One” destroying everything that had come before so that it can be replace by the grand socialist utopia.
The trouble is that these campaigns generally end up destroying much but building little of value.
We don’t own our children but that is not the point of children having their fathers names. the point is that when mother gives her child the fathers name she acknowledges him and gives that child a chance to know who they truly are. Its feminist ideologues like Deveny who want to reduce or remove fathers from the parenting equation and the ones who will end up suffering from this nonsense is the children.
Cheers Comrades
Cheers Comrades
His admission came after he had earlier spent question time insisting he was completely satisfied with his performance in administering the scheme, which has been linked to 93 house fires and four deaths. (click to go to link)
Garrett going for the “Sargent Schultz” defence has been a particularly sad indictment of the way that the administration of his department has been run. His position is entirely untenable and the only thing that I can see in his current behaviour is a sad and futile attempt to avoid, for as long as possible, the inevitable banishment to the back bench. A better man would have gone already. Some how though I think that it is Brother Number One who wants Garrett to remain for as long as possible so that it is he who will be the front man and patsy in this debacle when the fault lays as much with our PM as it does with his subordinate.
Grand schemes need equally grand planning but the lesson to be learned here is that blind green faith is just not enough.
Cheers Comrades
Peter Garrett (picture from the Australian)
ENVIRONMENT Minister Peter Garrett has admitted he did not see a damning risk assessment of the federal government’s roof insulation program until 10 days ago, 10 months after it was delivered to his department because of concerns the scheme could lead to death or injury.
Kevin Rudd has revealed he was also in the dark about the taxpayer-funded report until February 11, the day Mr Garrett told parliament about its existence, despite it having been handed to the government in April last year.
The report from the consulting arm of law firm Minter Ellison gave specific warnings on house fires and property damage by dodgy installers, substandard batts and a department ill-equipped to roll out such a massive program.
To be unaware of such a damning report for this long when it contains such dire warnings about how the insulation scheme was going so horribly wrong is an example of gross negligence on the part of the minister. The writers of Yes Minister could not have invented a more bizarre example bureaucratic incompetence even if they had taken a whole shit load of drugs.
My prediction is that Garrett will reluctantly resign by the end of the week as the puss in this boil comes to a head
sadly for many homeowners who took up the scheme the fear and loathing will go on for very much longer.
Cheers Comrades
Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir - gay and proud of it.
It has been a while and for a while I wondered if I would ever return here to Chez Hall to give you a few encores of my stylish wit, insisive comments, observations & opinonions, not to mention my side-splitting humur, or if I’d just leave the souefley risen and unable to be reheated again (cos as we all know youse cannot reheat a souefley, not even if you are a Beatle like Paul McCartney).
But nothing gets my blood boiling more than this stuff. What is going on here?:
CHANNEL Nine commentators Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy have attracted international attention with their controversial comments made about the men’s ice skating.
Why is Eddy McGuire being Eddie-bashed for just calling it as it is? Look, this bloke Johnny Weir is a gay as it gets and what’s wrong with saying so?
I’m no fan of Eddie ‘isn’t-Collingwood-the-greatest’ McGuire but give me a break. I may not like his football, I may not like his fat face, or his hair - and I may even hate his guts! – but I will defend to the death his right to be as homofobic as the rest of us. You tell em Eddie.
(By the way, as for Eddie’s side-kick, the so-called comedian Mick Molloy, his lowbrow toilet-based humour usually leaves me cold and I have never found him the slightest bit funny, although he did play a good part in the lawn bowls movie Crackerjack when he bowled like Warnie)
This cartoon from Nicholson sums up the governement's woes on this troubled scheme
KEVIN Rudd was standing by Environment Minister Peter Garrett last night after the government scrapped its botched $2.45 billion insulation scheme, admitting that about 80,000 households faced safety risks.
And the government released figures suggesting up to 160,000 homes had been fitted with sub-standard ceiling batts with minimal benefit to the environment.
After weeks of pressure, Mr Garrett announced the scheme’s immediate termination yesterday.
Declaring the risks “unacceptably high”, he blamed “unscrupulous, sometimes illegal and shonky operators” for problems in the scheme, which has been linked to four deaths, at least 87 house fires and alleged rorting.
He also released damning legal advice the government had received last April warning that the program could result in house fires and fraud, and might be of little benefit to the environment.
Mr Garrett dumped a major plank of his troubled Green Loans program and the government’s solar hot water scheme, plunging key environmental sectors into chaos and prompting outrage from green groups.
In the bloggosphere it has been clear that one of Brother Number One’s biggest election assets was the simple fact that he was NOT John Howard the other was his promise to scrap the very unloved “work choices”. Now that he faces an election he will not be able to draw on the Howard haters for inspiration, in fact he is going to have to rely on the virtues of his government rather than the sins of his predecessor. His problem is that the virtues of his administration are actually rather thin on the ground. Oh we have certainly have had the grand gestures like the signing of Kyoto and His apology to indigenous people but what substantive matters will we have to look back upon when we are looking at the “the Brother Number One years” ?
Not much by my reckoning. Its like I suggested with the picture for the previous post Brother Number One ‘s government comes from the same producers that gave us ” The Gough Years” but I some how think that the minions of teh left will be hard pressed to find virtue in the insulation scheme , the Eduction revolution, or the CPRS, in fact I think that we will find that the only thing that they will seeas an enduring virtue is the fact that Brother number one can be thanked for ending the Howard tenancy of the lodge. Its not much to show after all of teh fanfare now is it?
This latest debacle from Brother Number One has certainly improved the odds that this government will not be returned at the next poll. The question is how many more policy disasters does there have to be , how many more houses have to burn down and how many young people have to die because of the schemes and policies of Brother Number One?
Cheers Comrades
8)
During a shutdown at Norske Skog Paper Mills in Albury last September, Paul Quinlivan and a colleague were cleaning out a tank that captured staples from recycled pulp, when he repeatedly removed his safety glasses and was told four times by a manager to put them back on.
The tribunal accepted that his repeated failure to wear the safety glasses and his disdainful and abusive response to management amounted to serious misconduct.
It also acknowledged that the company’s managers were required to give effect to safety policies and procedures.
“Quite apart from an employer’s legitimate interest in minimising its exposure to civil liability arising out of injury to any of its employees, the obligations imposed on employers by state occupational health and safety legislation are onerous,” the tribunal found.
“Employers are entitled to treat conduct that may expose them to prosecution or civil liability seriously. Employers are entitled to have employees take safety rules seriously.“
It said Mr Quinlivan, on most of the occasions he had removed his safety glasses, must have done so conscious that he was breaching the requirement to wear them and the specific instructions that he had received.
But the tribunal said the sacking was a “disaster” for Mr Quinlivan, taking into account that he had worked at the mill for 20 years, was married with two daughters, aged nine and 11, and had a mortgage of about $70,000.
I was NEVER a fan of the Howard Government’s “Workchoices” mainly because I felt that it went too far and disadvantaged workers but the current regime takes us back to the sort of inflexible industrial relations regime that will ruin business who try to do the right thing when it comes to ensuring that safe work practices are followed.
Fairness in employment requires bosses to do the right thing but it also requires workers to follow reasonable direction as well. The personal circumstances of a misbehaving employee should not have any part in the substantive matter of how justified or fair was the dismissal in question.
But then its all about class warfare to Kommissar Gillard, sadly I think that she and her union masters don’t realise that the Australian people expect that when you call your IR instrumentality “Fair Work Australia” that it should actually make fair decisions.
It kinda reminds me of Orwell’s “Ministry of truth”
Cheers Comrades
His problem is not being homeless. His problem is his drug habit, and how he sets the priorities in his life. Not everyone has a dream of living in a renovated 19th century manor house, or in a newly built McMansion. For some, housing is not a priority. Decorating is not at the top of their list of things to do. They care nought about plumbing, matching tiles with curtains and what sort of dimmer switches they should install. Unfortunately, our public policy appears to be being made by inveterate readers of Vogue Living and House and Garden. They think that just because they want the dream home with the 6 burner stove and the 50 inch plasma in the media room, that’s what everyone else wants, and should have.
I liked the post very much and as a consequence of my reading it I have been inspired to do what I should have done a while ago and I have added Boy on a bike to my blog roll.
Cheers Comrades
