Political Tidal Waves

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You know, anyone who reads this blog would think I am a perennial whinger.  I like to think I am a fairly positive person but I just have an ability to see when things will fall to pieces when others believe everything will just work out fine.  To me it seems perfectly obvious when this is due to happen, and scarily I am right about 95% of the time.  When I can see that is about to happen with my work, I labour mightily to ensure it doesn’t happen.  Basically it’s a case of sheer force of will that makes it work.  And I give myself about a 95% success rate there too.  But to be blunt it pisses me off when I see the blatantly obvious and others cannot.  Unfortunately it happens a lot.

And that brings me back to the last Federal election.  Yeah, you saw that coming didn’t you?

The incumbents were thoroughly on the nose for many reasons.  Some of them were actually real, but most of them were garbage invented by the Opposition.  Whose job is no longer to ensure effective policy, keep the bastards honest, or suggest intelligent alternative policy.  No, the role of the Opposition is to act like a bunch of badly behaved schoolchildren.  About Year 2 or 3 at best.  And can I say that the last Opposition were very, very good at that new role.  A new role I find abhorrent I will also add.  And now both sides excel at it.  Race to the bottom, etc.

So, that Opposition dragged down a Government that had some strengths and some glaring weaknesses on the basis of “you cannot trust them” due to some astonishing backstabbing and some sheer stupidity from the Labor Party.  Did the ALP deserve to lose solely on the basis of policy?  I’d say probably not.  Did they deserve to lose for sheer stupidity in their internal squabbling.  Probably.  But did the Coalition deserve to win on policy?  Absolutely not.  Did they have any policy longer than 3 words?  Stop the boats.  No carbon tax.  I switched off so much to their campaign of repugnancy I couldn’t tell you if there were more.

But now we have that Coalition government.  And to be up front I will say that I have never voted for them in my life and generally do not agree with their conservative policies.  I certainly don’t go for their pro-business bullshit.  Or pro-mining or pro-wealthy stances either.  Yet despite not getting a Budget through, not doing anything at all that I would call progressive, they are not totally on the polling nose.  How the hell is this possible?  Because they stopped the boats and we are all just xenophobes frightened of the amount of refugees we get in a year being what Italy get in a bad week?  I hope not.

No opposition.  Pure and simple.

We will see over the coming months a landslide of Labor fightbacks at State level.  But I predict at this point in time that the Coalition will win the next Federal election.  Due to having no credible options.  I still won’t vote for them.  But my vote in a blue-ribbon rusted on National seat is effectively meaningless in the House of Representatives anyway.  The Senate is a different animal altogether.  But with the highly unreliable Palmer United Party quite capable of doing more backflips than Nadia Comanici ever did I would say they are capable of anything and everything simultaneously.

And today I see the USA and China have both made highly significant greenhouse gas emissions statements.  Our Mr Hunt said something like we are always ready to discuss post 2020 abatement programs, or some such nonsense.  5% drop by 2020 is what we are aiming at here.  The Yanks just said 26-28% drop by 2025.  Yep, we look like dicks again.

So what do I want? I would like the Coalition to bring out an actual Climate Change Policy that doesn’t hand my taxes over to people who already have enough to pay for adjustments to their own poor decisions.  I would like the Coalition to have a proper Science agenda.  I would like Labor to man the frig up and actually be an Opposition.  Have a bit of fire in the belly.  Come up with some actual policy that shows differentiation and gives the electoral public some real options at the ballot box.  I’d like the Greens to actually try and talk to Shorten and Co and say “look, we are not your enemy here – we can work with you guys” and coordinate some policy between them.  I would like Clive Palmer to say one thing and then DO THAT THING.  And I would like to be able to walk into a polling booth at some time in the future and not look at the paper I am about to write on and just sigh.

Just that last bit alone would be a political tidal wave I’d love to ride.  I’m not holding my breath though.

To quote Sherman T Potter: “Horse Hockey”

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Joe Hockey.  Federal Treasurer.  The man who didn’t make the Budget as tough as he wanted to as his party would not support it.  The man photographed obviously enjoying a laugh and a cigar with Matthias Cormann the morning before delivering the most divisive Budget in at least my memory.

The man who said this today: “poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases” as a justification for introducing a fuel excise levy to target the wealthy.  Joe, here is a hint.  A lot of wealthy people have a company car.  Their business pays for the petrol.  And then pass the charges on to customers.  Generally poorer people don’t work in jobs that involve company cars.  Got that?  You can thank me some other time.  You goose.

 
What was in that cigar Joe?  I think you need to be drug tested.  Once upon a time I thought you were a good communicator, with a good general understanding of not just your Northern Sydney constituency but of the issues affecting Australians in general.  Sadly that no longer seems to be the case. 
 
And while the Labor Party just sit back and watch the train wreck that is the Coalition government continue unabated I just wish that this Coalition government had the balls to stand up for its ideals and say “screw you guys – we can’t get stuff through the Senate – let’s go the Double Dissolution”.  You know what I think?  You won’t.  You do not have the courage to stand by your ideals as you can see people running at top speed away from your party in droves.  You know you are unpopular.  And tragically you guys are not intelligent enough it seems to find a way out of this without resorting to the terrorism card.  And that is just about the lowest political depth you can sink to so shame on you, the lot of you.
 
The Labor Party are doing nothing at all.  No policy at all.  No charisma at all.  Barely even bothering to attack Coalition policy.  But they don’t need to.  Bill Shorten has all the credibility of a vegetarian shark when I watch him speak.  But I could send Molly Meldrum or Norman Gunston out with the fodder the Coalition are feeding their Opposition during “Operation Political Suicide”.  Hell, Barney the Dinosaur and Humphrey B Bear could run as a duo and beat the Coalition right now.  Without preferences too.
 
This government is all of the following:
 
Devoid of ideas.  Devoid of credibility.  Seemingly devoid of intelligence.
 
Please, please, please get rid of the PM.  Get rid of your Treasurer.  Get rid of Brandis and all the other cronies that think like those 3, and take Christopher Whine with you to whatever scrap heap you throw the first 3 onto.  Hand the reins to Turnbull and, heaven forbid that I am even thinking this, Julie Bishop (never been a fan of this lady but she has been a highly credible Foreign Affairs minister and I give credit where it is due – note that the whole MH17 bit has nowt to do with my favourable opinion – all credit accrued before that tragedy occurred) and build a party based on an ethos that is acceptable to the Australian people. Not just the wealthy and the interests of business.  Build an alternative to the absolutely offensive tripe you are serving up to us now.
 
Then all I need to do is to get Shorten and co to actual do some policy work themselves so we can actually have a choice.  Where there is a substantial difference.  I guess Joe is trying for that substantial difference now to be fair.  In the most stupid way imaginable too.
 
But right now I just see in my mind’s eye old M*A*S*H episodes of Sherman T Potter yelling “Horse Hockey” at Klinger and Radar.  And I’m thinking of Joe.  But not as the Colonel.  I’m the Colonel for sure.  No, Joe is more like Frank Burns.  Winchester could be Brandis, similar hair, maybe even slightly similar POV.  Klinger would have to be Whine – sorry Max.  Budgieman is out digging a latrine somewhere.  Or wooing Major Houlihan.  And Malcolm Turnbull is Radar, sitting back watching it all, knowing he can fix everything, but knowing he will never be in charge.
 
Vote 1 Radar O’Reilly.
 
Please?

I go a-rambling….

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I have been a gamer of one description or another pretty much since I was 11. I played board games with my school friends. I played Chess against my Dad so I could make that about age 8. Hell, if playing cards counts for anything I’ve been a gamer since before I went to Kindergarten. My parents were called to the school for questioning when I said I could count in Kindergarten and told the teacher “Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King”. I could certainly count properly then so I was probably shit-stirring even then. I dunno, I don’t remember it but my Mum used to love telling people that one.

But the point is that as a gamer you know you cannot win every time. Sometimes the dice go against you. Sometimes you are playing someone who is far better than you. Sometimes you just cock it up and cannot recover in time. But eventually you become gracious in defeat – or so I am told. I certainly can be a bad loser, especially when I am playing against a computer player, known as an AI. But I reckon I can recognise when I have been comprehensively outplayed, and some of my very favorite stories to tell about gaming are some of my most astonishing defeats. I do congratulate people when they beat me, though I may well sit there shaking my head at how they have managed to do it. Or how I could so colossally stuff up too. But they key thing is you know victory is never certain. And I think it is a healthy attitude to take. You go in balls and all, you give everything you have, and if it ain’t enough at least take pride in the fact that you did everything you could. That has been my attitude in my games and my sport. I’m nowhere near the greatest sportsman about, but I have never given less than 100% every single time I compete. And I’m like that in my work as well. Nothing half-arsed. I’m there to do the job and I do it damn well. Because I hate doing it a second time to fix it. So I get it right the first time.

So today I got seriously pissed off at what may be a misunderstanding or a change in plan or whatever. I’m still somewhat undecided and being the cynical arsehole that I am, for once, I honestly do not know what to think. But without going into a load of boring detail I consider that today, despite my best efforts, I lost. And as a gamer of substantial experience I can suck it up and live with it. It’s a handy talent. BUT. That doesn’t mean I like it. There is that little voice at the back of my head wishing someone would remove the “kick me” sign that I just cannot reach and cannot see no matter how many mirrors I use. I have been royally rogered in the past with opportunities sailing by me due to cronyism, incompetents above me and being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. I have been beaten by liars, cheats and fools in games, sports and in life. Talis est vita.

Today I may not have won but as Bono, who I admired once a long time ago though he seems to me to be a right tosser now, once sang “they could not take your pride”. I omitted the “they took your life” bit. Hoping that ain’t relevant for a long while yet. I have far too many games still to play. And win. Of course.

So then, the Fudget

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I’ve waited a week or so before bothering to comment.  There is just so much, damn what is the word I want here, hyperbole?  Not really what I’m thinking but it is still appropriate.  The Fudget itself is getting a hyperbole driven sales pitch that any retail chain would admire.  The opposition to it getting a massive hyperbole injection via media, students, talk shows and people who don’t quite understand it.  And quite frankly I think this is a seriously flawed Fudget, unleashed upon us by those who think they know what is best for the country.  And that involves the absolute isolation and desecration of the less well off.

I have serious issues with the loss of support to the States for Education and Health.  These are massive amounts of money being ripped from what most people would readily identify as the 2 most important areas that government fund.  I am very concerned at the lack of support for young people and the ideology that underpins this loss of opportunity for independence for young people.  I am absolutely horrified by the removal of the safety net for those who lose their jobs, especially when this very government is effectively taking a chainsaw to the Federal Public Service.  I know what it’s like to have a job ripped out from underneath you.  I’m sure that many other Australians do too.  But I have serious doubts that any of the people who worked on the Fudget ever had.  And what in my view amounts to the opening salvo in a class war between the haves and the have-nots has been fired by this government, elected by the people, for the people.  I think the people are unhappy.

But possibly the worst of it is only just occurring now.  Last night one Liberal parliamentarian told us we should “go to Asia and live like the locals” if we think the Budget is harsh.  I suggest that sitting member should perhaps go there first, live on the streets for 3 months and then send us a postcard on how much he enjoyed it.  Nothing like a bit of first hand experience before advising us.  Then the person who chaired the Commission of Audit which helped the government frame the Fudget said we should “stop complaining” and lashed out at “modern Australian attitudes”.  Remember government of the people, by the people, for the people?  When the people don’t like the policy that you are attempting to implement, then it becomes incumbent on that government to adjust their policy to what the people desire.

Let me put this as plainly as is possible.  The “narrow, sectional” interests that Tony Shepherd is talking about are not the ones being attacked in the Fudget.  They are the ones benefiting from it.  Everyone needs to contribute is part of the mantra being spread about by the government.  So the politicians are on a pay freeze.  That’s a start.  Then a 2% “temporary levy” will be issued on anyone earning above $180,000 per year.  Temporary.  For 2 years.  2%.  That is not what I call a fair share of the heavy lifting.  Say 10% and make it permanent and I may think the load is beginning to be spread evenly.  Can the Defence spending on the over-budget and behind schedule Joint Strike fighters totally and then the Defence department is beginning to carry part of the load.  Can the 1.5% company tax reduction so that companies can carry some of the load.  Leave the Paid Parental scheme exactly as it was and that will reduce some of your nonsensical spending.  Leave the Carbon Tax well alone as it makes no difference whatsoever to Joe and Jill Average despite your overzealous stretching of the truth on how much more for electricity we pay – it’s pure bollocks.  But most of all, do not send politicians out to sell a Budget when they are obviously so full of crap that they cannot explain anything in laymans terms to the people they need to sell it to.  We don’t need slogans, winks, cigars or overinflated self values and egos.  What we need is a bit of honesty.  Some integrity.  Some actual truth would be nice.

But since this is turning into the Fudget emergency we needed to have I can’t see that happening anytime soon.   My greatest wish now is for the Labor, Green and Palmer United parties to have the courage to stand shoulder to shoulder and deny this Budget passage through the Senate.  The whole damn package.  Not bits of it.  No negotiations.  Just say to the LNP that you can take your Fudget and jam it where they sun don’t shine.  It is morally offensive that in the land of the “Fair Go” that this type of garbage is being served up as responsible fiscal policy.  Yet that is what we get.

So to those who voted for this government, I really hope you are loving this.  You got what you deserved from a party that campaigned on slogans with no meat, no policy, no thought, no intelligence and now we have no options.  Were Labor rubbish?  Probably.  Will this government ever be good enough to just be called rubbish?  Unlikely.

And I present to you, the Fudget.

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Oh dear.

First impressions are somewhat discouraging to say the least but I’ll try not to explode before I get the fine print from my academia sources, or read the damn thing myself. But right now if I said what I thought of it so far I would just have to censor it out anyway. I’ll just hope I have misunderstood some things. I doubt it though. I might just leave it at that for now.

Belt tightening

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It’s something we get told before every Budget. We need to tighten our belts. Costs are up and revenue is down for the Federal Government – we get it every year, and with added hyperbole after each change of government as we get the “they mismanaged the economy” line for their entire first term as an excuse for everything. I’ll get back to why revenue is down in a sec.

So, in preparation for belt tightening 2014 version 1.0, our elected representatives pretty much do what they always and do and come up with a report. Usually they will hire some buddies to write it for them, and that has happened again this time. To make it look more important than ever and make less people actually want to read it, this time it weighs in at 5 kilograms and comes in 5 handy insomnia solving volumes. Now let me just say this. When a 4 page policy is announced 97% of the population will not look at it as it is too long. What chance that Joe & Jane Average will read this weighty tome that makes Tolkien look like a cartoon strip? Since I was being rhetorical I’d best answer that as ZERO. Hell, I am a live away from home person 5 days a week with zero non-online social life at all and even I won’t commit to reading that. Which leaves us with the media to interpret it for us. Obviously the loudest howls will come from those media outlets with affiliation to the opposition parties so I’d suggest reading either The Conversation, Crikey or Get Up for some independent opinion on these things.

From my brief readings so far some of it is acceptable, some of it is dodgy, and the largest component of it is truly bollocks.

Now time for me to go back to why revenue is down. It’s pretty simple and it comes in 2 flavours.

Flavour A which I will call “BumFur Flavour” – tax cuts. We have been given tax cuts by government after government after government. Even when surveys at the local shopping mall said “bugger the tax cut, fix the hospitals and schools” they still gave us tax cuts so they could go to the election and say “the other guys are bad and we gave you a lolly tax cut
‘. Oh yeah, people buy it all the time. “They gave me a $10 tax cut a week“. Yep, then they jacked up the fuel price, train tickets, beer tax, wine tax, your health insurance went up too and somehow you think you are still in front? Moron.

Flavour B which I will call “Bite size chocolate Flavour” – privatisation. We have had highly profitable government run businesses sold off or just dissolved to bring in a single cash injection (in the case of sales) into the coffers. Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, Telstra, soon to be Medibank Private and the Clean Energy Corporation. Now I hear stupid ideas circulating like privitising HECS debts and the like. Oh yeah, that’s great, that will work brilliantly. I’m sorry, but how stupid are these people? Is it not better to receive an ongoing income than a lump sum once and never again? So here, have a bite size chocolate from the money we raise from selling this profitable government agency and later we will come back and tax the living crap out of you as we have no income anymore. Which probably got spent on directors fees, consultants, travel costs for study tours and the like anyway.

And so next week we come to our Federal Budget where the latest person of limited experience with the real world gets to tell us how we should live our lives. That way we can happily continue to pour massive subsidies into industries run by billionaires and people struggling to get by can have it even harder than they have it now. Because we tighten our belts right? Well, some of us do.

A small instruction for our current Federal Government if I may. Belts go around the waist – not the throat you idiots.

Retire at 70 – pig’s arse!

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Oh my God.

I am so glad I could testify on a pile of whatever religious books you care to name that I did not vote for the parties running the country right now.  These bunch of lunatics, yes it’s time for strong words kiddies, are now telling us that we need to work to age 70 before we can gracefully retire.  Well then, allow me to say the following on behalf of all working Australians that are not in love with their jobs, which I imagine is a hell of a lot of us.

“Get stuffed Joe.”

This is the same government that is committed to “lowering taxes”.  So in return for them lowering taxes, I get to work an extra 3 years?  Hey Joe, put my taxes UP.  Yes, UP.  Here is my layman’s view of what out tax system should look like.

Since I process payrolls for a living I have a bit of an idea on how much people pay in tax.  People on low incomes, and I work for a Group Training Employer so I know all about that since I pay 550 apprentices and trainees each week, get little to no tax deducted, which is as it should be.  I still say the Tax Free Threshold cuts in a bit low but it’s a decent start.  But working in payrolls I have had to complete returns to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for years and years and they come up with great numbers like what the Average Wage is in this country.  So why is it Joe that people earning obscene, and yes that is a fully appropriate term here, amounts of money that they never, at any stage, pay 50% of it in tax?  So let us start a new tax scale right now.

$0 – $42000 per annum = tax rate of 0

$42001 to $60000 per annum = tax rate of 25%

$60001 to $90000 per annum = tax rate of 38%

$90001 to $150000 per annum = tax rate of 45%

$150001 plus per annum = tax rate of 60%

Why that number?  That ladies and gentlemen is DOUBLE the average Australian weekly wage as determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as of November 2013 and can be found at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/6302.0~Nov+2013~Main+Features~Key+Figures?OpenDocument

Next we wipe out all of these stupid things that the mega-wealthy can claim in on their tax returns.  Film Australia grants, tax losses on investments and all the other complete bollocks that I have to skip through when I do the tax for myself, my wife and my father.  What should be a five minute job to do our taxes takes almost an hour each by the time you run through all the dribble that people can claim back on their tax.  Hell, I had a meeting with a Salary Packaging specialist who advised me to put my car in my wife’s name, lease it to my employer and claim all of my running costs as a tax deduction.  He also suggested some of my higher paid colleagues should eat out a lot and claim expenses as the tax differential between it being fringe benefits versus PAYG was favourable and could save us thousands,  Not that any of it is legitimate “entertainment” expenses as part of our work – no, it’s a way to “legally” dodge the tax system.  Can it all.  All of it.  Get rid of negative gearing, fringe benefits, all the crap that I end up paying for so that people wealthier than me can get benefits from the tax system.

If all of that garbage was gone, and we had NOT have sold assets that were profitable such as Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, etc, then the government would have legitimate income streams.

But no, let’s dig a multi-billion dollar hole in our budget and give the average Australian a $10 dollar a week tax cut.  YOU IDIOTS – WE DON’T WANT PIDDLING LITTLE TAX CUTS – WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO EDUCATE OUR KIDS AT STATE SCHOOLS, WE WANT TO GO TO A DOCTOR AND NOT PAY $65 TO BE TOLD WE HAVE THE FLU AND NEED TO STAY HOME AND HERE IS A MEDICAL CERTIFICATE.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg of what I could write there.

How.  Hard.  Can.  It.  Be.

Ah, yes. The Media

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This week the biggest headline of all is that of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby being released from prison in Indonesia.  Schapelle has to stay in Indonesia as she is effectively on parole, for a further 3 years I think.  During this time she will apparently stay with family based there.  Fine.  I think a 3 minute news story would have been sufficient for that.  Oh nooooo.  Let’s have a reporter from every network effectively camped at the front of the prison to see her come out.  Let’s have a cameraman waiting at the Parole Office where she needs to sign her parole documentation.  And don’t forget to stake out her family member’s surf shop or whatever it is.  And we must report on the bidding war for the first interview as well.  Reportedly $3M is what she may get for that interview.  And it is with the Seven network as she wanted to snub the Nine network for showing a movie based on her story.  My apologies for the next line to Schapelle and her family and friends but seriously, who the hell cares?  Why should the reporting about this be at saturation point?  Note the earlier bolded bit – convicted.  Not alleged, convicted.  So is the news so dull at the moment that we need saturation coverage of the parole of an Australian prisoner in another country?  Perhaps it is.

But.  And to me it is a big but.  There was a great hoo-haa when David Hicks was released from Guantanamo Bay about how he could not sell his story as he was a convicted terrorist.  Now my point of view here pretty much coincides with that of his father Terry in that only thing he should have been convicted of was stupidity in being where he was, when he was.  One day I’ll read the book he wrote and see his side of the story, but the extensive amount I read during his trial added up to being convicted of wandering around and talking to bad people.  Ridiculous.  But now that I have derailed myself yet again, let me make my main point.  He was not allowed to sell his story like Schapelle Corby was.  He gets locked up in GB for years with no recourse to anything, is allegedly tortured, sent to trial (ha!) and convicted in what I would call legal absentia (meaning “look guys I’ll admit to anything if I can go home“).  Surely he has a hell of a story to tell.  Schapelle gets caught at an airport with a bag loaded with drugs, goes through a media circus where her every move outside her cell is documented by the media frenzy, including the trial, appeals and the whole lot.  We’ve seen and heard all of it other than her time in a cell.  And her story is worth $3M to a TV network and David is told to shut up?

Say what?

We’ve all heard about media bias and countless conspiracy theories that have been spread through the media about politicians, actors, musicians, sportspeople, bikies and many more.  It just rams home to me why I watch the small amount of news that I do, and why I graze the news sites that I do so I can avoid the fluff that poses as news today.  Bieber, Miley Cyrus, reality TV shows, how wonderful the current [insert relevant sport] team is now.  It drives me bonkers.  Honestly.  I sit back and read the Science literature I have available to me.  I listen to podcasts that interest me on Space Science, Physics and the like.  I play computer games.  And I take less and less interest in what actually goes on around me.  I used to be a voracious news watcher and reader.  Used to read 2 newspapers, cover-to-cover, every weekday in my early teens,  Used to watch the news every night with my parents as a kid at school.  And then watch a Current Affair, which wasn’t about dodgy tradies and which shampoo works the best then.  It was actually, wait for it, journalism.  But that is almost dead now.  Well it certainly is if you only watch commercial free-to-air TV.  And it is a shame.

The media killed my interest in the media.  Almost poetic isn’t it.

Damn it’s hot

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Yep, it has been rather stupidly hot this summer in Central Western NSW. So hot in fact I have only mowed the lawn three times in the last 2 months. Normally it is a weekly event, but it just isn’t needed. In fact what appears to some to be a bit of laziness in not mowing is actually me using the knowledge I gained of how to conserve soil moisture. It is really simple and I’ll give you a hint.

Don’t let the soil get hot.

It really is that easy. By letting your grass be a bit longer, even if it has undesirable species (for you) in it like dandalions and paspalum, you keep the top layer of the soil cooler. If none of the soil is exposed to sunlight at all then you are winning the battle. And I refuse to water the grass, unlike some who are mental enough to water it during the day when it is 35 degrees outside (cough, nearby neighbours, cough). My grass gets watered when it rains. By leaving it a little longer and mulching any cuttings straight back onto the ground while mowing I conserve some of what is about. My yard hardly looks like an Irish paddock, other then the lush green strip I attack weekly with a whipper snipper (grass that has roots down into an old septic trench that gets overflow from the rainwater tank), but there are still plenty of green bits out there. My trees that need mulching have a good layer of pea straw about the bases to conserve moisture on shaded patches of bare ground, and all in all it ain’t anywhere near as bad as it could be. Most of the nasty weeds have been taken out over the course of some years (no caltrop at all this year – YAY!) with only a bit of Khaki Weed left fortunately. So much for the plants, what are we expecting next?

And so, the upcoming 6 day forecast.

Sunday 19 – 39
Monday 20 – 40
Tuesday 19 – 38
Wednesday 17 – 37
Thursday 17 – 36
Friday 20 – 36

Long term average maximum for February – 31.7 – and amazingly that weather station has only kept temperature records since 1998. Rainfall records to 1952 but no temp data. And since the mid 90’s we are reliably informed that temperatures have been gradually rising with the climate change spectre hanging over us, and it is STILL way above that short time average.

The other piece of data of interest is this. Number of February days on average above 35 degrees here is 7.1. Hmmm. It’s the 8th, and 5 days already have been above 35. One was actually exactly 35 and I didn’t include it. We had one day below average, at 31.0, so a whopping 0.7 degrees below average. And now the next 6 look like being above 35 as well.

What I know is electricity usage is sky high during these times. Water usage tends to go up overall, but in my house it’s about the same. This kind of prolonged heat causes stress to plants, animals, humans, infrastructure and our society itself. And without getting too political, my science training and my evaluation of the evidence presented thus far at fora like the IPCC, the UN, the Royal Society, and elsewhere is the heat is going to become more common and more extreme events will occur. And we need to get on to that. But it costs $, and we all know that is more precious than anything else, that mighty $. I say bullcrap. Well I actually say a lot more than that but I am keeping this G rated. So we need to get on to it. NOW.

In the meantime though, damn it’s hot.

I’m easily wound up but this is ridiculous

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It’s true – the title says it all.

To set the scene allow me to mention that in Australia we have a national broadcaster supplied by taxpayer funds, which is of course the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. And yes I had to go and check that was what it stood for. The ABC also has offshoots like SBS, the Special Broadcasting Service, which concentrates on a World viewpoint with many non-English speaking programs, and in my not-so-humble opinion provides the best news service by light years, in this country at least. Also we now have NITV, which is National Indigenous Television, which I’m more than happy to have around even though I’ve hardly ever looked at it. Not the target audience I am but still I’m glad it exists to give some perspective to an indigenous audience, the original owners of this continent.

Ok, scene is now set.

Our current Prime Minister heretofore regaled as “the Mad Monk” as that is the nickname I prefer to use rather than polluting my page with more mentions of his actual name, has come up with the great statement that our national broadcaster is “unpatriotic” in its news reporting. Now let me just say here that I swear. More than I should but rarely in front of the kids. When I read that a fairly lengthy barrage of expletives exploded from the back of my throat and may have caused people within a kilometre or two to have vague feelings of unease from the telepathic backlash of my utterances. Patri-blanking-otic I most likely shouted. (The blanking bit you may need to use your imagination for) Why the blanking blank should our national and INDEPENDENT news broadcaster be blanking patriotic? Ah, well you get the picture of how I felt.

Now having watched a few thousand episodes of World News Australia on SBS from the days of Mary Kostakidis through to Stan Grant, Lee Lin Chin and the utterly professional Anton Enus, I can say I’ve seen plenty of patriotic newscasts shown as news stories. And they generally come from North Korea or Zimbabwe. Or some of those rippers that Hugo Chavez, and even Fidel Castro in the real old days, used to do. They were what I call patriotic. One sided, generally no different to propaganda. Broadcast made to brainwash the people. Actually I’m being a bit harsh to Hugo Chavez there – his were at least entertaining and passionate, though hours in length mostly – most of the others were wooden and staid in the extreme. But that is my main whinge/whine about the whole patriotic crap. I believe it is propaganda, setting an agenda for control of the populace.

Patriotism is in my view just an excuse for xenophobia of one type or another. I’m an Aussie. Born here, lived here all bar a few months while travelling about our little world. So far it’d be a tossup between here and New Zealand for best place to live that I have seen so I’d say I mostly like the country in which I was born. Apart from Sydney but that’s another issue altogether. But. Patriotism – and make allowances for my impersonation of our current Environment Minister here for a moment by quoting Wikipedia below – is:

…generally cultural attachment to one’s homeland or devotion to one’s country, although interpretations of the term vary with context, geography and philosophy. It is a related sentiment to nationalism. Source – Wikipedia, 30.01.2014 @ 2142hrs EDST.

Devotion to one’s country? Um, why? Why is my dirt, with apologies to my soil science lecturer who promised to hit anyone using that word, better than someone else’s dirt? I haven’t lived on any patch of dirt for longer than 20 years. I feel no specific affinity for a particular patch of it except for the trees I planted there. But my civilisation lives in a built environment, so it means diddly squat where I am surely. We see immigrants or colonists try and construct a place in the image of where they were, like the English did to Australia bringing their rabbits, foxes and other rubbish out here to ruin what already existed as it wasn’t English enough for them. I can understand an affinity with a culture, anyone should feel free to supply me with a definition of Aussie culture by the way, built up over many generations. Like my father who showed me Stockholm when I was 8 and explained to me that the following year that city would be 775 years old. And then told me there was “no history in Australia” except Aboriginal history. I can understand why Aboriginals are proud and devoted to the longest continuous active culture on Earth. But that is culture, and that can be far smaller than a country. What about some of the patriotism we see in Europe with clashes between sports fans from some of the Balkan nations in particular at the football? Madness is what it is. Really it is just nationalism, as alluded to by Wikipedia there. And how that is in any way positive is probably an issue for another article at another time.

I suggest a different type of patriotism. And I know I’m far from the first to say it. Patriotism to our planet, and the critters that live on it – including people. It’s where we live. It is a dynamic system so huge and complex that we do not understand it, and most likely never will. But a line on a map will never fill me with pride and devotion. I will never dislike a person because of where they are from or where they live now. I may well dislike them for their points of view, their philosophy, their different tastes, their excesses – or in short WHO they are. But never for WHERE they are. And I suggest the Mad Monk extracts his head from his largest sphincter and says something more like “Journalism should never be tainted by special interests including patriotism and I am proud to be the elected leader of this nation who has a fine, independent and unfettered national broadcaster able to report the facts, safe from political interference”.

I won’t hold my breath though. I expect an “I was misquoted” or “taken out of context” addendum any minute now though.