Tag Archives: politics

Sheets are giving me the Shits.

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Today the Presidents of Ukraine and the USA met in the Oval Office in front of the press. Apparently the first 30 minutes worth went fairly amiably, except for the Tangerine Fascist (thanks for the tag Omar) sledging his Ukrainian counterpart for wearing his fatigues instead of a suit.

Maybe that was what got under the skin of the Tangerine confederation because the last 10 minutes of their meeting turned into a mugging after the smoothly oiled machine that is JD Vanderbilt, err, Veandercross, no um, oh fuck, what was his name again, I dunno, let’s run with Shithead, decided that the only credible President in the room hadn’t got down on his knees and said “Thank You” since walking into the fucking room.

Now, I watch a fair bit of the news. I’m not totally addicted to it, but we generally time dinner to fit in with the general knowledge round of Mastermind (love your work Marc) and the first section of SBS’s one hour bulletin. Quite often it is enough to put you off your food but I do have a strong stomach so I go ok, mostly. And in those first sections of the SBS World News that I have seen, I must have seen the President of Ukraine thank the Americans for their aid almost every single night. He often does it as part of his nightly address to the Ukranian people. So for Shithead, possibly my best ever non-de-plume for someone whose name I really don’t want to soil my blog with, to expect him to beg forgiveness every 40 minutes is, well, the sign of a total sociopath. Congratulations America on your chosen VP, good luck with that.

And from that point on it pretty much degenerated into the Real President (look, I’ll own up, I’m not the best typist and there are too many Y’s in his surname for me to get my fingers around ok? You should see how many times I misspelt “environment” in first drafts while doing my degree. Ridiculous – and anyway, Real President is mostly easier to type, and very reflective of the credibility they exude while talking, plus their actions reflect it too). being the one to explain things to Shithead slowly and in small words, like a kindergarden teacher explaining the order of numbers to a particularly dumb student. Shithead obviously suffered PTSD from this type of explanation from his college days since he is basically just a dumb shit, so it all kicked off, with his Tangerine Boss getting in on the act and bullshitting on endlessly about cards. And then sheets. What the actual fuck is the “sheets” about. “Obama gave you sheets, we gave you Javelins.” Well, I went and looked it up and I’m obviously not the only one baffled by that as CNN helpfully provided an article about it. Obama provided military aid that included blankets – so a blanket is a sheet in the Tangerine Confederacy. Who knew?

So, no deal on minerals was signed and both Shithead and the TF would have hated that. “What? No deal? How do we make money out of this shit if he doesn’t sign a deal? I know, we kill off any aid we’ve already approved. That’ll learn ’em not to play cards! Oh wait, that’ll piss off our weapon manufacturing donors, err, industries. Send another $100M to Israel and bill the taxpayer” is probably how it went. I wasn’t there so that may not be strictly accurate but fact checking is optional anyway in this post-truth world so I’m just running with it.

Fuck. Me. Purple.

If I had a dollar invested for every time I heard that the USA was the “leader of the free world” in my 58.75 years on this planet I’d be calling Elon Musk a peasant and have had the $ to back it up. Now I’d say that little “title” is something of a stretch. No. Outright fucking lie would be a better way to put it. Leader of the American Mafia maybe closer to the mark, with all due respect to the Mafia who I have just really pissed on from a great height by linking them. I probably should apologise for that. Yeah, sorry lads. But the point is putting the word FREE anyhere near the current leadership of the USA should be a criminal offence. They do nothing for free, they do not even promote freedom any more, just ask Canada, Mexico, Panama and Greenland’s populations, and the only thing they are leading us in is one massive race to the bottom of standards for diplomacy, decency and common sense. Oh yeah, you could ask Ukraine too about the freedom bit eh?

I reported three years ago in this very blog what I thought of Putin invading Ukraine and what I thought would happen. As usual, I’m pretty much spot on, though Ukraine has fought way above their weight limit here and have been very bloody impressive. But it’s not enough. Putin will happily bankrupt his people to get his win – that’s what autocratic despots do. And he basically is doing exactly that. Defence spending was widely reported in 2024 to be raised to 6.3% of GDP for Russia. Now Russia is a very large country with a large population and large oil and gas reserves that are still being sold to China, India and North Korea, so the sanctions may be hurting them a bit, but nowhere near the financial strangulation required to stop their war machine. So unless someone puts boots on the ground and planes in the air to help Ukraine hold that Russian war machine back then I can’t see them holding.

And now their biggest donor has had a hissy fit about fuck all and is fairly likely to hold any further promised aid. So that America’s mortal and sworn enemy since the mid 1940’s can takeover a country they are ALLIED with. Go and ruminate on that one for a while.

Putin’s bromance with the TF must be hot enough to melt steel for this one to go down that smoothly. Stormy Daniels ain’t got nothing on Putin.

Oh, maybe that’s why the Tangerine Fascist is hung up on the sheets? He probably shit the bed.

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.

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.

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.