Camped at Eagle Nest near Sharks Bay WA
You can just see the glow of my laptop where I was working on a clients web sIte in Tassie hosted through Rumcorps.net servers in Dallas Texas. As good an office as any!
Whales off the NW Coast
A pod of about 20 whales come fast from astern and passed either side of the yacht, frightening hell out of us.
Fire on the road
No flames apparent so I hardly slowed down until I had travelled a hundred odd meters with no visibility. About the time I started to panic I came out the other side.
Have a good one
Photographic Exhibition
Middle child and daughter Jennifer, has a photographic exhibition on at the moment at the Percolator Gallery, 134 LaTrobe Terrace, Paddington.
One of the more adventurous of my brood, she has done the Sandakan Death March Trek, climbed to Everest Base Camp and wondered around Australia, PNG, Europe, UK and the Middle East with camera in hand.
She has an eye for colour, perspective and different angles that I never have and even though I might be considered biased, she has some brilliant shots.
The gallery is open from 10am to 6pm daily up to and including Sunday 8 March. Entry is free.
Included is a gallery of shots but keep in mind, framing brings them to life.
Work involved in Databases and Photoshop work has impacted on my ability of late to post on the site.
Knight Hood still getting mileage
“‘Secret’ Prince Philip knight deal sees the light” headlines this article by Sarah Martin
Asked by the journalist to say something negative about the award Penny Wong simply gets it wrong.
Labor senator Penny Wong said Mr Abbott had for months “secretly planned” to appoint Prince Philip as a knight.
“He kept that plan a secret from his colleagues and the Australian people,” she said. “No wonder he has lost the confidence of two thirds of his backbench and many of his ministerial colleagues.”
Penny obviously doesn’t understand the Honours system. The awards are always kept secret from the public until Australia Day. They are Australia Day awards, not New Years Day awards, or Christmas Awards or awards that should be announced whenever Penny thinks they should.
A comment from the article underlines the reality.
Canada and New Zealand both gave Prince Phillip their highest honours in 2013. Australia was dragging the chain and a reasonable perception was that we were backward. At Phillip’s age honours are largely a thank you for what he’s done in the past and general respect. But Australia can’t do that, can we? We’re too petty.
Between the Left wing Luvvies, Royalty haters and the Republican movement in general, what was a standard award for long and valuable service to the Commonwealth, particularly the hundreds of thousands of young people who have benefited from the Duke of Edinburgh awards, has turned poison.
Anything to beat up a conservative PM.
Auslan detracts
AN Auslan sign language interpreter for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s updates on Cyclone Marcia has been praised as “hypnotic, mesmerising and poetic” on social media.
The animated sign language expert captured the attention of television viewers as he translated the Premier’s updates on the cyclone at Emergency Management Queensland Headquarters at Kedron.
The trouble is he becomes the centre of attention rather than the person giving the message. It is so distracting that as soon as I see a person gesticulating I flick channels.
There are approximately 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss and if they don’t have a caption function on their TV then give them one at public expense and let the other 23 million who don’t understand the frantic finger and hand language, concentrate on the message.
At the very least put the translator in the little box in the corner where he belongs.
Election
Well that’s it then, if the ALP form government, and I expect they will, Queensland is stuffed. With Greens and the unions at the table our costs are going to skyrocket along with the debt.
How did it come to this. Unquestionably Newman came across as a decisive and firm leader and this was portrayed as arrogant but when you have to make calls that hurt some, then this will be the result. He should have better explained what he was doing and why. As in; “We have to cut the public service because it is way to big, so big in fact, that Bligh had to borrow money to pay wages. We can’t afford it. If we do this in conjunction with cutting Green tape, then in due course, business will expand and employment overall will improve.”
The anti- bikie laws got a lot of flack. They should never have been referred to as Anti-bikie because as soon as you do that the criminal gangs will produce a video of some rough head bikie cuddling a toy bear on the way to giving it to a poor little kid. Warm and cuddly images that ignore the fact that said bikie, more than likely, had attended a meeting the previous evening where income from drugs, prostitution and extortion were allocated to other criminals.
The laws as they stand should just have been strengthened and sold as anti crime-gang laws. If consorting is no longer in vogue in today’s Everyone’s innocent climate then just change the laws and tell the human rights lawyers to look up human responsibilities
Media.
It doesn’t matter whether we are working on improving the country or state. It doesn’t matter that were are fixing the economy because the media will just ignore it and find something of no import and make it the catch of the day.
The voters themselves don’t understand or even consider economics. The young ones vote for handouts and the older ones respond to the media telling them to hate Abbott or Newman and actually vote accordingly.
They read things like Abbott gave Phillip a Knighthood and that’s terrible and take offence. It doesn’t matter that Hawke gave Phillip Australia’s highest honour years ago and that Abbott was simply upgrading it as the awards system itself had been upgraded. It doesn’t matter that the other significant Commonwealth countries had awarded Phillip similar honours and that is simply protocol at that level. The Conservative hating media made it the catch of the day and when voters should’ve been thinking and talking about economics and who best to fix up Queensland’s near bankrupt economy, they were led astray and were talking about insignificant stuff that simply didn’t matter.
The LNP lost control of the debate.
Wayne Swan on ABC literally said “debt and deficits don’t matter!” and he is right. The man who took over as national Treasurer with $50b in the bank and successfully turned that into a $300b debt should know. He continues to act as if he did well as Treasurer and voters, with the memory of a lightning bolt, nod their heads and agree.
The ABC have given up all pretense of being unbiased. They simply campaign for the ALP and we do nothing about it. We conservatives are being flogged by the media and we appear to just accept it.
Fight back you bastards and do something about it. There is no reason for the government of the day to accept that a media arm that they fund, openly campaigns to get them outed from office.
Don’t be weak and roll over. Attack. Don’t be afraid of upsetting ABC watchers. They already hate you because the ABC tell them to. If you do force the ABC to employ a centre-right commentator for every centre-left employed then who knows, their viewing audience might improve.
In Queensland we are in for a rough ride. The ALP, led by a woman who doesn’t even know what the GST rate is, who has a stated plan to pay back Anna Bligh’s debt in 63 years looks like falling over the line and forming government. She will be obliged to reemploy all the public servants that have lost their jobs, give the unions back their business destroying power and considering she will have won by Greens preferences, will have to dance to their tune as well.
Look forward to the slow down of development and the associated jobs and income and increased cost for services as the unions get their payback.
You voted for it.
Qld Election
It appears all and sundry expect the LNP to get a flogging in tomorrows election. The ABC are banking on it and supporting the ALP while The Courier Mail says Labor presents a clear alternative for voters – job creation and no asset sales.
Amazing, in three short years everyone has supposedly forgotten the ALP’s last period of power where they left the state with tens of billions of dollars in debt and the biggest public service in the country whence they were obliged to borrow money to pay their wages.
Cambell gets the arrogant tag because he has to make the hard decisions and cut spending. True, he could’ve explained it more but really, what part of $80b debt don’t people understand.
Now Labor tell us they will pay down debt in a measured and achievable way, all while retaining ownership of our essential assets – power stations, distribution networks and ports.
From the ABC
An elected Labor government in Queensland would merge some power networks and retain all assets earmarked for sale under the Liberal National Party (LNP) to help pay down $12 billion worth of debt in a decade.
From The Australian
QUEENSLAND debt is forecast to be $76.97 billion this financial year, $1.16 billion less than outlined in the June budget. Despite the improvement, the level of debt is on average twice that of other states and equates to about $15,000 for each person.
So the ALP plan is to pay back the debt of the Bligh government in 63 years.
It’s a plan but not a good one and keep in mind the author is Annastacia Palaszczuk who doesn’t even know the current GST rate
The previous ALP government sold;
- Retail arms of Ergon and Energex,
- Suncorp,
- Qld TAB,
- Dalrymple Bay,
- Golden Casket,
- Cairns, Mackay and Brisbane Airport,
- Port of Brisbane, and Qld Rail.
but that’s OK because…
They sold all those assets and still left a IOU note in the empty treasury for $80b.
Left with this huge debt Newman plans to sell of assets to help pay it back and suddenly it’s not OK because….
I don’t know why it’s not OK now, it just is…apparently.
Another Commo dead
One of the intellectual giants of the Australian Labor Party, the former Whitlam and Hawke minister Tom Uren, has died aged 93.
With Tom Uren we see a leviathan of the labour movement passing
Known as the “conscience of the Labor party” because of his principled stands on issues, Mr Uren was a leading figure in the Left faction, and one of the most respected Labor politicians of his generation.
Such accolades! It’s true he gave honest service during WW2 and did a lot for ex PWs during his lifetime. Unfortunately his principled stands on issues led to an association with Jim Cairns, whom he “loved”, thus spending years supporting the Viet Cong both financially and morally.
He was also a staunch supporter of the anti-nuclear movement that demanded unilateral disarmament of the US that was supported and funded by the Soviets.
I wont miss him.
Well done Sir Phil
Before you dump on Tony Abbot for awarding Prince Phillip a Knighthood look up Duke of Edinburgh Awards for young people.
The Duke has done more for young Australians, and youth all over the world, than have most of the Abbott haters currently mocking the man and the Knighthood.
Ignorant peasants, the lot of them.
Besides being a well earned Knighthood it annoys the hell out of the Left and the Media. His politically incorrect comments are legend and never fail to amuse me and wind up the haters.
Good call all round, I think.
UPDATE: A comment from Sabena at Catalaxy Files;
The Duke of Edinburgh was given an AC when it was Australia’s highest honour-now he has been upgraded given that AK is now the highest honour.
Where was the criticism of him being given the AC?
Oh wait-it was in 1988 and given to him by the Hawke government.
Fair comment.
Clancy@the overflow
Picked this up on FaceBook – Clancy in modern times
I had written him a text
Which I’d sent, hoping the next
Time he came in mobile coverage
He’d have time to say hello.
But I’d heard he’d lost his iPhone,
So I emailed him from my phone,
Just addressed, on spec, as follows:
clancy@theoverflow
And the answer redirected
Wasn’t quite what I’d expected
And it wasn’t from the shearing mate
Who’d answered once before.
His ISP provider wrote it
And verbatim I will quote it:
‘This account has been suspended:
You will hear from him no more.’
In my wild erratic fancy
Visions come to me of Clancy:
Out of reach of mobile coverage
Where the Western rivers flow.
Instead of tapping on the small screen,
He’d be camping by the tall green
River gums a pleasure
That the town folk never know.
Well, the bush has friends to meet him
But the rest of us can’t greet him:
Out there, even Telstra’s network
Doesn’t give you any bars.
He can’t blog the vision splendid
Of the sunlit plains extended
Or tweet the wondrous glory
Of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting at the keyboard
And I’m too stressed out to be bored
As I answer all the emails
By the deadlines they contain
While my screen fills with promotions
For ‘V1aggra’ and strange potions
And announcements of the million-dollar
Prizes I can claim.
But the looming deadlines haunt me
And their harrying senders taunt me
That they need response this evening
For tomorrow is too late!
But their texts, too quickly ended,
Often can’t be comprehended
For their writers have no time to think
They have no time to wait.
And I sometimes rather fancy
That I’d like to trade with Clancy:
Just set up an email bouncer
Saying ‘Sorry, had to go.’
While he faced an inbox jamming
Up with deadlines and with spamming
As he signed off every message:
clancy@theoverflow
Hicks still guilty
DAVID Hicks is set to have his terrorism conviction overturned after the US conceded that the former Guantánamo Bay inmate is innocent, his lawyer says.
What they mean is that at that time there wasn’t a law that said it was illegal to fight for the other side and try and kill westerners.
He is guilty as sin by his own word and will never be accepted by decent Australians as anything else.
Adelaide-born Mr Hicks was 26 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which believed he was fighting for al-Qaeda.
He was held in the US-run jail in Cuba until 2007, when he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and was sent to Adelaide’s Yatala Prison to serve the rest of his seven-year sentence.
He was released under a control order later that year.
Hicks said he only pleaded guilty in an Alford plea agreement to escape the “indefinite solitary confinement I was suffering in Guantanamo Bay”.
“I am just sorry it has taken so long to clear my name.”
Believe me Hicks, your name is not cleared.
Anna good Premier!
ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk has declared her predecessor Anna Bligh was a “very good Queensland premier” and said she wants her at the launch of Labor’s campaign today.
Despite being left to rebuild Labor after the wreckage of the Bligh and Peter Beattie governments, Ms Palaszczuk said she was very happy to have both former premiers attend the event in Ipswich.
“Everyone remembers what Anna did during the floods,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“She was a very good Queensland premier. So if she can come and attend I’d be more than happy to have her there.”
I remember what she did during the floods. She fronted the media and behaved like a Premier, the only time during her reign when she did. Otherwise she spent like a drunken sailor and took the state to unprecedented deficits. Campbell Newman is still trying to pay off the debt.
But, she performed well on a couple of occasions and for that, Palaszczuk claims she was a good Premier.
To add to that insanity people are seriously considering voting for them again mainly because Newman has had to do they hard yards to try and fix the financial hole left to him by Anna Bligh et al and they refuse to recognize that we can’t spend more that we earn.
The entitlement mentality.
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