I hate following the crowd but Movable Type was simply to attractive. The look was attractive but the technical knowledge required to handle the change was decidedly unattractive. Appeals to the better nature of Gary of gravett.org fame bore fruit and I am now forever in his debt…well at least until I can think of a suitable payback….thanks a lot, mate.
I will resume blogging, or should that be movable typing, later today.
Feeling unloved and unread – my infantry ego shattered – no-one was leaving any comments. Then I clicked on ‘comments’ and saw the message – the ‘free’ squawkbox software was only designed to sucker me in and once dependant on comments, like any junkie, I will pay willingly. I have done so and all will be back to normal in a day or two.
For those kind souls who will feel a need to tell me how to have ‘comments’ for nothing please wait till monday so I can start the week in a bad way.
Don’t you just love the idiots writing to the press saying things like “If you don’t want to pay extra road taxes don’t speed”, “speed kills” and “if you speed you’re an idiot.”
Speed doesn’t kill by itself. There are a lot of factors involved such as experience, the condition of the vehicle and tyres, the weather, other idiots on the road, fatigue, testosterone, alcohol,…the list goes on. But if you believe the politicians and police traffic spokesman speed is the killer. It’s a pity stats don’t back that up.
“Every K over is a killer’ just doesn’t cut it as a stand-alone stat and is very clearly an exercise in getting the driving population to accept fines from cameras and radar for minor infringements.
The only speed that kills is “inapproriate speed” and that can be possibly be defined as low as 20 kph in a 60 zone if any of the real killer factors are present. The young hoon drifting around the corner on drugs and two wheels near my quite suburban house is most probably only doing 20 kph but if anything happens he has no escape path – bang – a little kid is killed. That’s what the TV adds should concentrate on. My doing a 120 on a vacant four lane highway passing a semi in a 110 zone is as dangerous as my old golden retriever licking a burglar to death.
The State Government, in this case, Queensland, have TV adds that emotively suggest that travelling at 61 kph in a 60 zone is tantamount to homicidal driving. See the little child killed…see the grieving mother weep…every k over is a killer. No mention of speedos only being accurate to 10% and the driver can’t tell the difference between 60 and 66 kph – only what his speedo reads. `
On the highway behind the B-Double semi that’s doing 110 downhill and 90 uphill you will have to break the speed limit either uphill or down to pass him in a passing lane . It’s unsafe to stay behind as you can’t read the traffic far enough ahead for safe driving but the wowsers would have you stay behind the semi for the entire journey.
They’re the ones that are totally unaware of the traffic around them. So long as they watch their speedo and keep it under the posted limit then they are safe drivers and a warm glow suffuses their bodies after every righteous trip. But watch them on the dual highway doing 90 kph in the right lane alongside another vehicle and blocking ten or twenty people moving on as it’s a crime to speed and the limit is a 100 so why would you want to pass me and I’m actually unaware of the trafic behind me as the TV adds say every k over is a killer and I need to keep my eye on the speedo – not the trafic, not the people on the side of the road, not the body language of the driver in the vehicle in front….just the speedo.
These dropkicks cause accidents but because the role of traffic branch is balanced in favour of revenue from the “every k over is a killer campaign” slow and dangerous drivers don’t show on radar. The hoon around the corner inappropriately speeding at 20 kph doesn’t show either – he’s safe because it has to be a k over before he’s a killer.
Steve Bredhauer, the local Transport Minister quotes;
Total crashes on a stretch of the autobahn in Germany dropped from around 300 per year to fewer than 30 when speed cameras were introduced.
Fine, and your next point is? There must be another point because that stat alone says nothing. What were the limits on the autobahn before speed cameras. If my memory serves me right there was no limit This is the road system where Mercs, Alfas, Massaratis, and Porches drove at over 200 kph and have done so for decades. Driving at 200 kph is a different arguement and unsupportable because that is where speed can kill – not 110 kph in a 100 zone.
What to do. While the state governments are reaping millions from these cameras I can’t see them letting a cash cow go. I note in Victoria they are talking about, or already have, implimented laws that bring the speedo tolerance to 3 or 4%. That is to say doing 64 k in a 60 zone will cost you. How on earth do we reconcile this with the fact that Australian Design Standards only demand 10% accuracy in new car speedos. Maybe I’m being cynical but that smacks of revenue.
Even the dropkick drivers I referred to earlier in this post will be guilty of speeding. Or will they? No, they will simply drop their speed 10% to cover Gods rules on speeding and create more accidents.
Police presence on the road is what we should have. Irrational drivers, dangerously unsafe vehicles or dangerous road conditions never show on camera but a patrol can impact on these real killer factors. Of course the state coffers bean counters will tell the Police and Transport minister that patrols cost money and cameras make money making their decisions easy – go for the money.
For all you blokes having a bad day. Go look at this and remind yourself what it’s all
about – worth a laugh. From my daughter Liz
700 sheep stage a
protest against the treatment of their mates on the good ship MV Cormo Express.
Locals at Clifton, a Darling Downs town in Queensland, think it’s all about a Sheep Dog Trail coming up but impressed by the similarities of other protest marches lately lately I think they missed the point.
In other protests of similar intellect a loser in Britian pushed a peanut with his nose 11 km to protest against something or other.
Mark McGowan, a 37-year-old artist, arrives outside 10 Downing Street, in London Friday September 12, 2003. McGowan rolled the nut 11km using his nose as a protest against student fees. McGowan handed the nut over to Number 10, along with a letter asking Prime Minister Tony Blair to accept it as payment for his student debt.
Click here for a pic of the idiot
artist
And theres more. A peace activist attempted to pay a court fine with a check chiseled on a small tombstone Friday, as a protest at the number of civilians killed in the recent war in Iraq.
At least the cheque won’t ‘bounce’.
Thumbs up to the sheep at Clifton. There protest is pointless but then they make no claims of intellect.
Just when I was thinking Arnie had yet to graduate to speaking in whole paragraphs he enters a 76 day race for the governorship of the world 5th largest economy and wins. Today I note he has a BA in business and economics from Wisconson so maybe I need to look up the recipe for humble pie. Then…… I remembered that in my previous life, I considered BAs earned by subalterns as a ticket stating – this man has shown an ability to learn, conduct research and study and is therefore considered capable of learning his profession.
I resist the temptation to comment on Arnie’s groping in case some poor girl from my past has a flash back occassioned by repressed memory syndrome and trolls my site. (I wish)
With the quality of advise Arnie’s type of money can buy I’m sure it can work but the relevant point about the whole affair, to me at least, will be the sound of the squealing of California’s ‘we have been bloody robbed again’ left wing. Like El nino these harmonious sounds will burst across the Pacific and when they hit the Great Barrier Reef, slowed by the her bulk, will reverberate around the east coast giving me pleasure on an otherwise boring day.
It appears we still have a lot of work to do to help our fellow Aussies, the Aborigines, to come out of the Stone Age.
Telstra, only eight weeks away from connecting Mornington Island to high speed computer access, have had to stop work while The Carpentaria Land Council are demanding more than $300 a day for cultural monitors. Yep, thats what it says ‘cultural monitors’
What the hell are cultural monitors? Luddites with the role of keeping these poor bastards in the Stone Age.
$300 a day is stuff-all but the principle is huge. Whoever thought of the cultural monitor scam needs to be locked in an outback dunney with a big angry red roo. I know kids are going to play computer games when the link finally over-rides ‘cultural issues’ but maybe, just maybe, someone will access the internet, the greatest library since Alexander’s time, in the search of knowledge.
For foreign readers, Mornington Island is as remote a location as you might see anywhere in the western world and the thought that they were about to get internet access was great until cultural tom-foolery came to the fore.
Bourke Shire councilers are furious and flying to Brisbane to confront the State Government about ‘cultural issues’. The person who had handled the issue for the Carpentaria Land Council was ‘on leave’ and no-one else was prepared to comment.
Independant Federal MP, Bob Katter, who should know, says the issue is all about deciding which Aboriginal group/tribe had rights to which area. They are also fighting among themselves over who belongs to which tribe. Bob puts a kind spin on it but I think the fight is over who belong to whom and which tribe stands to get the best ‘sit down’ money.
Mining companies with associated jobs and income for Aborigies are falling over themselves to leave the area for politically stable new sites and I don’t blame them.
Poor fella my country indeed.
Update: Dave, a reader, comments $300 per diem may be stuff all but not when paid to every local tribesman
This article underlines the problem and makes further mockery of ‘cultural issues’.
Can we do something to stop this…..NOW!
Tim Blair links to an article in todays Age by Mark Forbes and John Silvester. It deals with how the AFP and the Indonesian police got onto the Bali Bombers. It’s a great piece of reporting and you should read it in full. I have included the direct link below to save your mouse finger.
Over the years I’ve had a lot of comments from people that are against training Indonesians in our military and police institutions. I’ve always argued that if we train them then we know how they are going to react in any given circumstances and this is important if we ever have to fight them. However, presuming this is unlikely to happen, a real and obvious advantage of letting Indonesians into our colleges is that a certain rapport will develop between Police and Army Officers from both countries as they get to know each other.
Never understimate how important this is. When Gen Cosgrove or Leah have an Indonesian based problem they can pick up the phone and talk to their counterparts. When Gen Lewis, Director of Special Forces and Bahasa Indonesian speaker has a problem then he does the same but in Bahasa. All these officer will have done a lot of courses with Indonesians of similar rank over their respective careers.
Keelty, AFP Commissioner has a similar network.
The week after the attack, President Megawati Soekarno-putri signed an agreement in Jakarta for a historic joint investigation into the tragedy. Luckily for the Australians, the straight-talking officer General I Made Pastika was named as chief investigator. He had become friends with Keelty after the pair did a police management course in Canberra in 1993.
and;
Ashton, the Federal Police liaison officer in Jakarta between 1995 and 1997, spoke Bahasa and was friendly with senior Indonesian police.
Go read the
article in full and then thank your lucky stars that we have people like this working diligently and professionally to track down the terrorists.
Over at
troppo Wayne Wood accuses me of parroting a line and Niall thinks I’ve fizzled out. My wife might agree with Nial and the kids most probably could quote most of my parroted old lines but a debate needs more than cliches to win a point.
Still, I welcome any debate on defence. I allows me to climb up on my soap-box and wave my sword around in my best Colonel Blimp impersonation. Great stuff. You might read the ‘Defence’ posts below before you go over to troppoarmadillo or you might just miss Wayne’s point.
Pics too good to miss. Heads up from Slatts
Facebook
Twitter
