Ross's Rant

A sad event that only harms the cause

2012-01-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

I don't like to say it, but I am glad that I missed the ceremonies at the Tent Embassy today. That way I managed to avoid the dramas at the nearby restaurant, The Lobby. Now am I defending the comments by Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, that were used as the incitement for a couple of hundred protesters heading to The Lobby to encircle the building and act in such a manner that security forces were needed to remove Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and Jugears Abbot? Most definitely not. But when will protesting groups get it into their heads that acting like thugs only does harm to your cause?

We saw the same thing back in the 1990s following the election of John Howard. There was promptly a protest on the lawns of Parliament House, driven by the union movement. I know - I was there. And like the majority of attendees, I was down the slope, watching the stage which included the rather odd sight of the then-Secretary of the ACT branch of the Community and Public Sector Union, dancing and singing. Like the majority of those attendees, I knew nothing about the drunken antics of a much smaller group of protesters who decided to literally bash down the doors into Parliament House, an even smaller group of them decided to break into a shop and loot it. At one point I did get a bit bored and had a wander around including going by the courtyard where the drama occurred. I couldn't see exactly what was happening but something clearly was and the sheer volume of eskies and discarded beer cans made it rather obvious that whatever was happening was most likely alcohol-fuelled. However I never so much as even suspected an attempted invasion of Parliament House was occurring. But because I was there at that protest, for a long time I was referred to by non-supporters of the union movement at work as 'one of those Parliament House invaders'. This behaviour by a small proportion of the attendees damaged the entire point of the demonstration against then-pending changes to industrial relations. It made the entire union movement look bad. Nor did it help for a small, radical faction to start pushing hard to have the union movement pay all legal fees for those charged for that invasion of Parliament House. The entire point of that demonstration was badly compromised.

I suggest that the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the worthwhile things it stands for, will now be overshadowed by the actions of a minority, compromising the potential good that could have come out of the event.

the REAL Excess Baggage

2012-01-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

Alleged 'reality television' programs seem to go through phases. Obviously weight loss is the current preferred flavour. The newest addition to the stable is the WIN/Channel Nine program, Excess Baggage. This 'reality' sees a group of overweight 'ordinary' people all paired up with an overweight 'celebrity'. Naturally the winner shall be the pair who lose the most weight.

What gets me is this idea of featuring celebrities. In whose mind at least, are some of these people celebrities? Let us have a quick squiz at some of the line-up.

There's a former Australian Rules footballer who retired some twenty years ago. While Dipper is a big personality, was a damn good footballer and well known to Aussie Rules fans of his era, how exactly does that make him a 'celebrity'? What proportion of the country will have a clue who Dipper actually is? I suggest not a lot.

We have a paparazzi photographer who thinks he is a Mohawk Indian with a fetish for psychedelic colours.

Best of all, my favourite, is the international celebrity in the ranks. That's right folks, we have the ex-husband of a pop star. How much bigger can you get than the bloke that Britney Spears gave the boot to via a text message? Answer: much, much bigger. Let us put this into perspective. Kevin Federline was a broke, occasional backup dancer when he met Britney and they hooked up. When the marriage ended, Federline did pretty well out of the deal, now on huge alimony payments that mean he doesn't even have to do the occasional work these days. So he sits around, blowing that alimony on food and drink as is obvious from the size of his gut. Of course there was also his impressive career as a rapper. What a flop that was. He probably should have then tried out for the US diving team as he sure had the nosediving gig right. Yet he is still going by that stage name of K-Fed. Briefly aligning himself with the professional wrestling world to help promote his debut album probably didn't do his credibility much good either. This is a 'celebrity'? This is a 'celebrity' that is worth importing into the country? This is something that the public supposedly want? Oh pluh-eeeze.

For my money, the only saving grace would be that of the program host, the still delectable Kate Ceberano. But even Kate's attractions are going to struggle to get me there. There is probably some grass growing somewhere around my place worth watching.

Hey WIN - I've got some news for you. The REAL excess baggage is the numbnuts who approved this crap.

Here endeth the rant

It is official - Kyle Sandilands is a fuckwit

2011-11-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

Sydney DJ and television personality, Kyle Sandliands has been causing waves for some years now. And they're usually sewerage-ridden stinking waves too.

Exactly why is he ever made a judge on things like Australian Idol and whatever other sad excuse for programming thinks it is a good idea to pick him up? Since when did spouting arrogant verbal shit on radio airwaves somehow make him an expert on any aspect of entertainment - other than spewing arrogant verbal shit of course.

Now apparently, in the Sandilands world, it is some sort of crime to even report what others are saying about his programming, to be subjected to all manner of abuse on the air without so much as a chance of comeback.

Why oh why are sponsors still defending this dickhead? Holden at least had the guts to say enough is enough and dump him in the wake of this latest crap. But what about the others, huh? And what about station management?

I would call Sandilands an arrogant fucking tool, but that would be an insult to sexually active, arrogant adjustable spanners everywhere.

But. Not. The. Cricket.

2011-11-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

We have just seen a very exciting, two-Test cricket series played between Australia and South Africa.

So here's my rant. With all of these wonderful, new free-to-air television stations available in Australia, why is that the only people who were able to see the televsision coverage were those with pay-tv connections? What happened to previous governmental assurances that free-to-air sport would remain free-to-air? But there is plenty of room for crap so-called comedies and old programs that ceased to be interesting or amusing years ago. Even thirty-year-old Leyland Brothers docos are being broadcase. But. Not. The. Cricket.

When checking details online about just what had been happening, I found a link via baggygreen.com.au, which is merely a re-direction to nine-msn, which promised video highlights. Except that even the video highlights were not licensed to be shown.

Fair suck of the sauce bottle!

Thank goodness for ABC radio and the Grandstand radio coverage lead as ever by Jim Maxwell. It was a first-rate coverage, even allowing for my distaste for Geoff Lawson and his broadcasting. Honestly, at times I think Lawson will only be happy if bowlers get to decide when a batter is out, not umpires, and batters are forbidden from hitting the ball. I was a bowler, in my own very modest way, and I hated batters when I had the ball in my hand, but even I wasn't as over-the-top as Lawson gets sometimes.

Incidently, what a gem Farnie de Villiers has turned out to be as a commentator! I near wet myself laughing when he became particularly animated, referring to an English cricketer as a 'real smart-arse' in that thick, Africaans accent. I sincerely hope someone brings him out to do commentary on the next South African visit Down Under.

Yet more on Constable Plod

2011-11-19T03:01:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I was posting about some fun and games with ACT Policing. One of my problems was that I had been named as a complainant against another person who was arrested by the police, yet I had not made any complaint at all. In response to my request for information on what this alleged complaint actually was, to my considerable surprise, a repeated insistence was made that I had to go through Freedom of Information processes in order to obtain that information. Yep, that's right, I was not allowed to know what this complaint was that I supposedly made against another person, that police used to arrest him.

So I went and made my application for this information under Freedom of Information from the Australian Federal Police.

As it happens, the police subsequently informally confirmed via email that I had not made any complaint, but also stated that any person who speaks to the police made be deemed a complaintant even if they haven't actually made a complaint against someone. How ridiculous is that!

The FoI documents recently arrived and the made very interesting reading.

As previously noted, Constable Plod was indeed monitoring this blog and copies of my posts were included in the police file. Nice to have fans! And if they are still reading, well, chaps, as for all the unkind things I had to say about Constable Plod and his mates - I meant every bloody word of it!

Where things became quite alarming was to see in these police records, the number of factual errors and subtle changes to things reported to them through this affair. Even more alarming again was to discover what may only be described as a blatant lie by one of the officers concerned.

The honesty and integrity of all the officers involved in this affair simply have to be questioned.

I considered posting all details of this and naming the officer concerned. But I am passing it all to the Ombudsman instead. The AFP's Professional Standards area clearly are not taking my concerns seriously. For example, why on earth do the AFP issue someone with a history of violence towards others, with a document identifying me as being a complainant against him, when they admit that there was no complaint made at all?

These documents have just lowered my opinion of ACT Policing even further.

Will the fat cats turn?

2011-10-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

The end result of the Fair Work Australia hearings last night was pretty much as predicted. Quantas has been told to get its planes back in the air and the unions told to go back to work. The two sides to the dispute have 21 days to resolve their differences although either side may apply for an extension.

What has not been resolved is the intractability and hypocrisy of a senior management regime that gleefully accepts obscenely large pay rises while essentially refusing to negotiate pay rises for staff. In the case of the pilots' union, they aren't even asking for a pay rise.

For the thousands of people stranded around the world by Alan Joyce's heavyhanded descision to ground the entire Quantas fleet, this is no doubt a good decision and I entirely empathise with them. I dare say I would have been one very unhappy camper if I had been one of those stranded.

There is however a significant point that Joyce has won. Under these orders, the unions no longer have the right to take industrial action which places the position of power firmly on the Joyce side of things. This despite the fact that Joyce's action on the weekend caused fair more disruption than any union industrial action of the past couple of months. While I would certainly not want to see a return to the bad old days when it seemed every other day some union or other was striking because there was too much butter on the sandwhiches or some similarly silly thing, the only power the working stiff really has is that of collective action. With that removed, their bargaining position immediately becomes that much weaker.

So far we have not heard any opinion from the institutional investors who hold such important blocs of shareholder votes. How are they responding to the damage that will surely be done to share prices in the wake of Joyce's actions on the weekend? Are they going to continue to back their fat cat mate or will they start turning on him?

So much for unity

2011-10-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

In the midst of this Quantas bru-ha-ha and the tragic deaths of four more Australian soldiers in Afghanistan (which I am leaving along – let the families grieve), another small event has gone virtually unnoticed. In the face of still-terrible approval ratings, a member of the Gillard government (apologies as I missed their name) has come out claiming Prime Minister Gillard has the full support of caucus and the party.

Now when did we hear that sort of blather before? Back when the Howard government was facing increasing public unrest, we tired of hearing statements like that about party unity under Howard. It seemed for a while there that any statement by that government to either parliament or the media had to include some reference to them being “a team.” Some two months before the November 2007 election, Joe Hockey vehemently declared on ABC radio (I happened to be listening at the time) that the party was 100% behind John Howard. Yet shortly after the election which not only saw the Howard government toppled but saw Howard lose his own formerly-blue ribbon seat, Hockey was quick to join the rush of former government ministers claiming they had not really supported Howard but had been telling him to stand down. So much for unity.

Are we now seeing a repeat within the Labor ranks?

The situations are of course quite different. Howard had a Menzies-esque autocratic hold on his government for 11 years. Gillard on the other hand only achieved her position through political assassination of her predecessor, Kevin Rudd and coming within a hair’s breadth of losing the subsequent election. In the circumstances, given how the approval ratings of Gillard and the government in general are rivalling those that were used as justification for Rudd’s removal.

I find it very hard to believe that the unity within the Labour caucus is any better than that which really lay behind Howard’s ‘team’.

Money, hypocrisy and airlines

2011-10-29T22:41:00.001-07:00

This Quantas dispute has gotten so out of hand, it simply isn’t funny. And the root of it all is money.

We have a CEO, Allan Joyce, who demanded and received a $2 million dollar pay rise, an increase of some 71%. The total bill for senior executive and Board remunerations increases that passed through the recent Quantas shareholder Annual General Meeting is something like $38 million. I understand that there was considerable opposition to this on the floor of the meeting but it still passed. How? Through the votes from the institutional investors – that are controlled by yet more of the same fat cats.

It is one continual, ridiculous round of grossly over-paid executives all looking after each other at the expense of everyone else. Something has to be done but in all honesty I am not sure what the answer is. Small investors can scream as much as they like but they are still essentially powerless in these large corporations in the face of the large blocs of shares controlled by institutional concerns.

The job of CEO is to keep a company running properly. Yet it seems pretty much every level of the Quantas workforce has disputes with the Quantas management lead by Allan Joyce. In those circumstances it is hard to see how he and the rest of his management team could be considered to be doing his job well at all, let alone justifying a $38 million worth of pay rises.

In what at first glance may seem at first glance to be a knee-jerk reaction, on Saturday Joyce grounded the entire Quantas fleet around the world. But since then it has been reported that plans were in train to organise this late last week such as booking thousands of hotel rooms around the world for the passengers who were about to be stranded. Yet news of those intentions was kept away from concerns such as the Australian Stock Exchange, not to mention the poor sods of passengers who might have been able to make other arrangements.

Talk about heavy-handed overreaction. Are these the actions of a CEO justifying a $2 million pay rise? It should be further noted that the decision to ground the entire fleet was not in response to what had been done by the unions or what was being done, but supposedly because of what they might do.

Documentation has allegedly appeared that shows quite clearly that these plans were in place days ago. Quantas management has claimed that the date on the document in question was a clerical mistake, that there was no decision at all about grounding the fleet until Saturday morning.

Anyone prepared to take a bet that someone within the Quantas organisation will eventually come out and admit that there was no clerical error at all? That the date on the alleged document was quite correct i.e. that Joyce and co simply lied?

The government reaction to this escalation of the Quantas dispute has been to force all parties to appear before the Fair Work Australian commission. Prime Minister Gillard has publicly at least, refused to lay blame but instructed both parties to cease their industrial action and allow the conciliation processes under FWA to take place. This will be a major test of both that legislation and the Prime Ministers authority.

I suspect that Joyce may have now in fact over-played his hand. To continue the poker analogy, he has gone all in, expecting his opponent to fold, only for the other player to call his bet, along with other players joining the game.

It should be further noted that the earlier union industrial action was not an overnight whim. It was the product of lengthy yet failed attempts by the unions to bring the Joyce management to the negotiating table. The spin from Joyce and co about this all being the sole fault of the unions should be disregarded.

The biggest hypocrisy in this whole affair however comes from former Industrial Relations Minister in the Howard government, Peter Reith, who has come out condemning the Prime Minister for forcing Quantas and the unions to the FWA commission, claiming that government should never intervene in such affairs. What? Oh give me a break. This coming from the Minister who was directly involved in the waterfront dispute in the mid-1990s as part of his openly declared intention of breaking the unions. What incredible hypocrisy!

Time for another Popsicle Award

2011-10-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

It's that time again folks. It's time for a Popsicle Award to acknowledge an idiot who only has a Popsicle stick keeping his ears apart.

Paul Moran, a budding alchemist in Northern Ireland, has just landed in gaol. Why? Because of his latest alchemical experiment. In true alchemist fashion, he was attempting to transmute something into gold. But rather than lead, he decided to try transmuting pooh. That's right, folks, he tried to turn his own crap into gold.

Apparently not blessed with an abundance of the alchemical tools of the trade, he attempted to achieve this transmutation on the heater in his living room.

Not surprisingly, the grand experiment failed, causing £3000 of damage and requiring the attendance of the local fire brigade. Moran has been imprisoned for three months for 'arson and endangering the lives of others.'

Now this one seems just too ridiculous to be true so here's the link to the Belfast Telegraph so you can read it for yourselves.

Congratulations, Paul Moran, on being awarded this latest Popsicle Award for only having a Popsicle stick keeping your ears apart.

I think I shall have to give up on my fledgling stand up comedy career. How the hell can I compete with real stuff like that?!

WTF???

2011-10-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Flipping heck. And I think I deserve some sort of award for not being far more obscene with my language.

My life has gone on hold for this damn surgery to fix my aneurism. The date of the surgery was carefully selected to fit around other things including family commitments. I was supposed to be entering hospital on Wednesday, going under the knife on Thursday morning.

As I intended going down to stay with family to recuperate once I was able to travel, it seemed a good idea to try and arrange for my next drug infusion for my Crohn's Disease to be undertaken down in Victoria, rather than having to travel back to Canberra just for that. So I called the gastroenterology department to speak to my specialist's offsider. When I explained why I wanted to make that arrangement, she was quite concerned because she did not think I was allowed to have surgery so soon after my last drug infusion. She said she would send an urgent message to my specialist as he was not in the office.

Not having heard anything about 4:45, I called back only to find that the gastro department had closed for the day. The switch operator, after I explained the problem, sent an urgent message to the gastro, asking him to call me. He called me several minutes later.

The upshot is that I cannot have my surgery for at least another four weeks because of the immune-suppression drug that I have as an infusion every eight weeks. With this in my system, should I get a post-surgery infection in the brain, seeing as it is brain surgery after all, it could well kill me.

Here's the thing. I have seen the surgeon twice. I saw his offsider, also a doctor, at the pre-surgery clinic a couple of weeks back. I made damned sure at every step of the way that they knew I was on this particular drug. Yet now they are claiming no knowledge of it at all.

My gastroenterologist was horrified that I was about to be operated on.

Does anybody in that hospital talk to each other? Do they ever read their own damned records? What else have they overlooked or forgotten?

Positively raining money!

2011-10-05T18:29:00.001-07:00

Well golly gee whiz. It seems I am doing even better now courtesy of the United Nations Organization [sic]. I now have a deposit of $50,000 waiting for me, as a first installment of a total of $300,000 USD.

Apparently [my] funds were withdrawn by UN on [my] behalf based on the fact that [I was] subjected to too
many process that will make [me] spend more money before receiving [my] funds.

Golly gosh - what shall I spend all these spondoolicks on? All I have to do to collect is just hand over a great heap of personal identification information. And nobody would possibly want to do anything untoward with that, surely?

But it gets even better. A Mr Peter Wong claims he has 2.25 million to share with me. Presumably for being such a beaut bloke and all that.

cough cough bullshit cough

A Popsicle Award

2011-10-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a while since I awarded anyone one of my Popsicle Awards, to commemorate someone who only has a Popsicle stick keeping their ears apart.

I have just discovered a new angle on the infamous Nigerian scam that regularly infests our spam email. This one is telling me that I have been awarded a huge pile of money by both the Nigeria [sic] government and the World Bank to compensate me for past Nigerian scam activities! I have already been sent $10,000 as the first instalment and I have a total of $250,000 waiting for me. Or so they say.

It beggars belief that these sorts of things are still coming out.

On this occasion, I am awarding a dual Popsicle Award:

to the spammers for thinking I am that stupid to fall for that crap
to the idiots out there are who are stupid enough and greedy enough to fall for that shit.

Clearly there are still far too many people out there with only a Popsicle stick keeping their ears apart.

Hopefully an end at last

2011-10-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Even though he is long in his grave, Carl Williams is still in the news. The fellow prisoner who was charged with the killing of Williams has been found guilty of murder.

While I do not condone any murder, at the same time let us not forget just who Carl Williams was. He was a primary player in the gangland wars in Melbourne in the 1990s, spilling over into the new century. He ordered the deaths of many people who opposed him. Who knows how many more people died from consuming the drugs the Williams organisation was peddling? He flaunted the law for years.

The real measure of the character of Carl Williams came out in the incident that finally lead to him being thrown inside. Having acquired the services of a hitman to kill one of his opponents, Williams then tried to stiff the hitman, failing to pay him for the deed. The assassin get his own back by blowing the whistle, leading to the arrest and conviction of Williams at last.

I find it impossible to have any sympathy for Carl Williams whatsoever.

I am also still yet to find a satisfactory explanation for:

why the Victorian taxpayer was paying for Williams's daughter to attend private school; and
how, for someone who made all his money from criminal activities thus having no actual right to those monies, following his conviction and incarceration, there was still enough money in the estate of Williams to pay for a golden coffin of all things!

Clearly if Williams had survived his time in gaol, the money was still there from his drug dealing activities to allow him to live in luxury on his return to civvie street. What an absolute disgrace and indictment against our legal system that these monies were allowed to remain in his control.

Now that Williams's killer has been convicted, hopefully this will see the end of the media treating Williams and his ex-wife, Roberta, as celebrities.

The thievery of Solomon

2011-10-01T00:57:00.000-07:00

In the state of Victoria at present, we are seeing an appalling example of how money talks.

Billionaire, Solomon Lew, was caught out illegally acquiring valuable beachfront property. Now were it an ordinary person like you or I, we would have had the book thrown at us and lost it all.

In the case of Lew, having not just broken the law to illegally acquire the property, he is now being allowed to legally contest being able to keep it. What other thieves are allowed to retain the goods they were caught stealing? Yet for some reason, Lew is being allowed to contest it and increasingly looks like getting away with it.

Premier Ted Ballieu, in the wake of Lew boasting that he has Ballieu in his pocket, has distanced himself from the entire thing. What a gutless stunt.

Politicians of all flavours have a nasty habit of turning a blind eye towards those who happen to be large contributors to the party coffers. Public interest in those cases comes a very distant second to party self-interest. And Lew is well known for throwing money at politicians.

Why is that the real decision makers in political parties, seem to so consistently put integrity away out of sight in the bottom drawer when it comes to the party getting looked after by some big money interest? "Oh - he gives us plenty of money so we will just pretend everything is OK."

Here is an open challenge to ALL political parties. Show some collective backbone. Stand up to be counted. Send a message to the Solomon Lew's of the world that enough is enough, that they are no longer 'special' cases allowed to flaunt laws, rules and simple morality. The Coalition and the Labour Party in the Victoria have a golden opportunity to do so by joining forces to put Lew out of business with his dodgy dealings.

Of course I am not so naive as to believe that the pollies will actually do anything. This sort of thing leads me again to despair about the human race. Are we even worth saving in the first place when warped morality is allowed run things to the detriment of everyone else?

Screechin' and cringin'

2011-10-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

What on earth was Vanessa Amarosi doing?

Getting to sing the National Anthem at a major event is a pretty big gig. The total audience watching Vanessa Amarosi 'sing' Advance Australia Fair in the opening of the Grand Final of the Australian Football League at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, must have been up around the two million mark. And make no mistake - Amarosi can sing. But on this occasion, she screeched more like an angry Dickensian fishwife than anything else.

Here's a thought for you. How about trying Ricki-Lee Coulter next year? I am prepared to bet she would do a top job.

The other major 'entertainment' for the day was the appearance of Meatloaf. Yet again, the dreaded cultural cringe has reared its bloody ugly head. Yet again, it was deemed necessary to import someone for the occasion. Don't get me wrong - back in the day, Meatloaf ruled. Bat out of Hell is still one of my favourite albums. But that was more than thirty years ago for crying out loud. Are we really incapable of finding good local talent to entertain on the big day? Do we always have to resort to importing old names from the past? And how often do these imports really do that good a job? Meatloaf didn't.

So again, I ask the question: why is it that for big events, we Australians still feel it necessary to resort to importing 'talent'. Why, after all these years, is the bloody cultural cringe still making its presence felt? It really is a sad case of affairs.

more AFP delays

2011-09-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

After sitting on my Freedom of Information request for three weeks of the 30 days supposedly required to meet my request, noting that the AFP refused to even tell me what I was supposed to have made a complaint about against another individual that was used to arrest him but told me I had to request that information under FoI, the AFP have now decided that they need another month. I have no choice other than to agree to the extension. When supplying my request, I even forwarded the email advice that I had to go through FoI, so it should hardly have been a surprise that they would need to go to those required areas.

So now, in addition to one or more officers of the AFP telling blatant lies in response to my formal complaint against them, all of a sudden the documentation relating to the matter is not even available for an extended period. It still beggars belief that one or more officers have not only point blank denied something happening that most certainly did, but then decided to fabricate an entire conversation that under no circumstances ever occurred.

What a load of crap.

Should the Intrepid Investigator still be looking at my blog, please be assured that this bullshit is going to be added to my case being forwarded to the Ombudsman in due course.

Free speech? Oh give me a break

2011-09-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

Andrew Bolt wasted little time in decrying today's Federal Court ruling as being anti-free speech.

What a load of crap.

There are already limitations of so-called free speech. For example, you cannot go around willingly defaming someone and expect to get away with it. Try inciting a race riot and you'll be in strife (Alan Jones skated perilously close to that). There are plenty of examples if you want to go looking for them.

Despite Bolt's protestations of innocence, the articles in question quite clearly accused specific individuals of pursuing their aboriginality for reasons of politics or financial gain which were not found to be appropriate or even necessarily accurate. He made significant errors of fact in his statements. And as rather clearly indicated in the blog of Dr Anita Heiss that I referred to in an earlier post, Blot was not above trying to pull a fast one in front of the court.

These were quite distinct, personal attacks on specific individuals. It was in no way a matter of making comment in 'public interest' as Bolt and his legal team tried to claim in court. And it sure as shit wasn't trying to discuss matters of multiculturalism as also subsequently claimed.

Significantly, the Australian Press Council has come out and disputed Bolt's claims, noting that the finding "says the media is still allowed to discuss racial identification issues, and even challenge the genuineness of the identification of a group of people, but only if it is done responsibly and with due care and attention to facts."

All you had to do was read the reported Court findings to realise that. But far be it for the Bolter to let facts get in the way of a good story.

There is a right way and a wrong way to go about things. In his usual, rightwing nutbag manner, Bolt chose a quite wrong and thoroughly despicable way of shooting his mouth off. Given the quite incorrect and warped things Bolt stated in the articles, such as claiming Dr Heiss's aboriginality got her a position in radio, while conveniently failing to reveal that this was a voluntary and unpaid position, I think Bolt is quite fortunate so far to have avoided defamation proceedings. If it were me, I would have been hitting the pig where it really hurt - right in his fat wallet.

The Bolter gets a bolt up the butt

2011-09-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Andrew Bolt is a well-known, rightwing nutbag who masquerades as being a journalist. He comes out with the most outrageous claims. For example, in the immediate wake of the nuclear disasters in Japan, he openly stated that not only was nuclear power entirely safe, that this was nowhere near as big a disaster as people were claiming. It is noticeable that he went quiet on that subject after it was conclusively shown to be a serious ecological, economic and social disaster.

Where the Bolter really crossed the line however was some two years ago when he wrote a series of columns against indigenous Australians that were nasty, spiteful and more akin to extreme rightwing Nazi propaganda than anything like responsible journalism.

It is with considerable satisfaction that I read that the Bolter has been given a serious bolt up his arse by the Australian Federal Court, who found the articles "were not written in good faith and contained factual errors."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-28/bolt-found-guilty-of-breaching-discrimination-act/3025918

You didn't have to be a genius to work out that Bolt was acting in a deliberately nasty manner, representing his own spiteful predjudices rather than anything remotely like acting in good faith.

The stunts that Bolt is prepared to pull were amply demonstrated earlier this morning on the blog of Dr Anita Heiss, one of the group sueing his fat arse:

"In his witness statement to the court Mr Bolt claimed to have used a photo of my mother on her wedding day as evidence to determine she, therefore I was of mixed-heritage and could not or should not identify as Aboriginal. The photo Bolt submitted was taken directly from my blog and a post I made on February 7, 2011, almost two years after he wrote his article, so his misrepresentations about me continued."

In other words, this supposed 'evidence' was not even available to him at the time he claimed to have used it ie he's a bloody liar!

I have said it before - live by the sword, die by the sword; write journalist crap and expect to get a bucketing.

Andrew Bolt, you are a despicable and hateful human being and the sooner the media can your arse the better for all.

How about a little humility?

2011-09-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or is Julia Gillard's response to the High Court decision to essentially disallow Australia's attempt to bypass international treaty obligations with respect to refugees, a case of do it my way or I take my ball and go home. A quick caucus meeting yesterday to to enable the Prime Minister vow to fight on against this decision, making necessary changes to the law.

What a good idea.

Let's start applying that more widely across the board. Come the NRL grand final, if someone dislikes a call by the ref, let's hold things up, have a vote and change the rules according to whatever the team in the lead wants them to be. Same thing with tennis. Don't like the linesperson's call, then lets have a quick meeting to change the rules to move the line according to whatever the person holding serve at the time wants it to be. It's about that silly.

At the end of the day, the Australian government is trying to take a position that we should not have to abide by our international treaty obligations at all, at the same time that we expect others to. Sorry Julia, sweetheart - we can't have our cake and eat it too! Talk about colossal arrogance.

Speaking of tennis, how appalling was Serena Williams's outburst in the womens' final of the US Open? After initially boasting that she was going to cruise to a win in the final, once things weren't going her way, she became an absolute harridan. She was quite rightly docked a point for intentional hindrance for yelling as her opponent, Sam Stoser, was playing a shot. Sorry, Serena, the rules say you can't do that. But, oh no, Ms Williams decides that the rules don't apply to her. She abused hell out of the umpire, over and over, not letting go throughout the remainder of the game, using every opportunity to have another go, finally refusing to shake her hand at the end of the match.

The response from officials was to fine Williams a paltry $2,000 US. Big deal. That makes a huge dent into her total winnings of $1.4 million from the tournament, doesn't it. Back in 2009, Williams was fined some $80,000 for abusive outbursts and placed on probation. Remembering that she hardly plays any tournaments now, deeming anything less than a grand slam tournament as beneath her these days, that probation should have hardly taken hold. But in reality, officialdom has shied away from daring to take the next and quite appropriate step - that of acting on her breach of probation and giving her a ban for a while. Not for a period of time, but for a set number of major tournaments. Make it hurt. Make her realise that the rest of the tennis world is not subservient to her wishes. Nope, officialdom wimps out with not even a slap on the wrist.

Making things even worse was the crowd reaction. On the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon (how easily people forget the latter), the crowd was always going to be behind the hometown 'hero'. But after Williams's pathetic display, the crowd got on her side even more, hooting and shouting at Stoser. What an equally pathetic response by the crowd.

Stoser won, as it happens, conducting herself with dignity throughout despite the obvious provocation and I think it clear that not just the better player on the day won, but also the better person.

What a pity that when coaching her at tennis, Serena's father didn't coach her in a little humility and humanity at the same time. Perhaps he could have coached Julie Gillard in a little of it at the same time.

Quick addition re porkie's porkies

2011-09-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick further update. The other resident of the house that the police have claimed to have made certain statements ain't happy. Ploddy and his mates can expect a sworn statement from him now as well as me.

The most outrageous aspect of that part of their statement is that not only did no such conversation even occur, no member of the police in attendance so much as stepped foot in the kitchen/common area of the house as claimed.

What is this? The bad old days where the coppers are allowed to make it all up as they go along? If this were anyone else, we would be seeing them in court for defamation!

As I said in my last post, it's little wonder some call them 'filth'.

Complete and utter bollocks!

2011-09-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well.

Constable Plod is becoming very inventive. I have just received a report into the 'investigation' of my complaint. According to Ploddly and his pals:

I never disputed access to the police
I was having a jolly discussion with police in the kitchen area until another member of the residence left his room and instructed me to cease speaking about the gentleman they had come to arrest.

What complete and utter bollocks! Absolute lies!

I told the police over and over that I wanted them to leave, that I did not want them there or entering the building. To claim otherwise is a 100% proof lie!

I never even spoke to police inside the house prior to or during the arrest, in the kitchen or anywhere else for that matter, other than to say 'that's his room there,' and that was uttered while standing in the hallway. I never even had police stand in the kitchen or common area with me until after the arrest and after the time that police supposedly overhead that statement telling me to be quiet.

Another resident did indeed leave his room to find his doorway swamped with Blue Bottles and demanded to know what they were doing there. I then called him out to the common area which was completely free of the wallopers. There was most certainly no discussion as claimed by the police whatsoever and I would like to know who the hell said it did! It was not until after the arrest that I finally screwed my courage back up again to demand to know why all six of them had all entered the building contrary to my express wishes. I was rudely blown off with some crap about operational procedure. They then had the hide to return and ask me to give a statement against the arrested party - which I flatly refused to do. How much more of their dirty work did they expect me to do?

I have challenged all police involved in this affair to individually stand before a judge and give evidence on oath about this affair, in particular those statements that are complete bullshit fabrications. I'm quite happy to do so and my conscience would be clear. Which is a damned sight more than any of that lot would be if they continued to make those statements under oath.

Here's a little warning to you all. If you ever speak to the Australian Federal Police about anything, according to the information provided to me today by the Intrepid Investigator, you 'may' be called a 'complainant' thereafter, regardless of what you spoke to them about. You could be doing a Good Samaritan act, picking the wounded chap up and letting the police know you had found him. And that is enough to qualify you as being a 'complainant.' Of course, the Intrepid Investigator did say 'may' be called complainant ie you also 'may not' be called complainant. That does beg the question why they did so in this particular instance? Are they really so simple as to not realise that to do so would be causing trouble to be both identifying me and calling me a 'complainaint'? Of course at this point, I only have their word for how I have been described as so far I have been refused access to any actual information on the actual event itself. It's apparently fine and dandy to go naming people left, right and centre but how dare they ask exactly what it is that Ploddly and his mates are alleging you to have said or done.

So far the 'investigator' has successfully managed to 100% avoid any discussion about the officer who originally took my details and stated 'he [the ultimately arrested party] will not know it was you who made the complaint.' FACT: that statement alone makes it abundantly clear that the police were treating this as a 'complaint' from the outset. Never mind the fact that I repeatedly stated that I was NOT making a complaint. So then, just how does my name appear on AFP documents identified as a 'complainant' when there wasn't apparently even any need to refer to me as a complainaint? Doesn't really add up, does it? FACT: I had just been told by the police that I wouldn't be indentified anyway - and I was.

Just what the hell is actually going on here?

The police are also sticking to the story that they originally presented to the court that they had no knowledge that alcohol was involved until during or after (that's their words, not mine) the alleged 'welfare check.' This
investigator's report insists that is correct but also quite happily makes reference to discussions about the consumption of alcohol that occurred before they talked their way into the house for other purposes. Yet the arrest has been justified on the basis that they had no knowledge prior to entry of that existence of alcohol.

Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

Now back to the alleged 'welfare check'. The investigation has successfully managed to avoid any single reference to my complaint about the way this was undertaken - six armed officers, clustered over one individual, interrogating in a hostile manner and even loudly accusing him of spitting on them - I had a clear view of that incident and no deliberate spitting occurred at all. Oh no, this was all just fine and dandy, just another day of sunshine and daisies. Nothing to be worried about at all. As I have stated before - if this is how ACT Policing deal with 'welfare checks' then should not be allowed within a bull's roar of anyone needing one! The investigation has just breezily claimed in so many words that is none of my business.

The reality is that everyone there in that location is simply being lumped together as a collective of undesirables and thus it is apparently quite permissible to treat us all like some sort of filth on the sole of the shoe.

Now did I ever want to live at Ainslie Village community housing? No bloody fear. But I had nowhere else to go. I still don't. I am not allowed access to public housing and thus am one of those who continue to fall through the cracks. Attempts to resume working even part-time have failed and so I am reliant on my small pension - just enough over the general invalid pension to make me ineligible for any assistance whatsoever, my multiple health conditions apparently not worth considering, but sure as shit nowhere near enough to be able to live by myself anywhere. I have already gone over the reasons why I ended up there often enough - all thanks to the lies and machinations of my former employer, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in their desperate bid to avoid ever being found liable for any workers compensation cases at a time when they had openly confessed to staff that reducing the size of the annual premium was considered essential for future financial well-being. I still have all of these well-documented lies if anyone is every interested, not that anyone in authority gave a shit.

I used to think the idea of police treating those lower on the socio-economic ladder was a bit of a beat up. But now I have experienced it for myself. And I am not just talking about this latest mess.

Take for example the fun and games about twelves months when an evicted resident at Ainslie Village was found to have left a bomb and bomb-making equipment behind. The place was put in 'lock down' at mid-morning, with a civilian used to monitor traffic - not a member of the constabulary, not even an employee of the management company, but another resident at Ainslie Village. When I arrived home from my then-work at around 7pm, I was turned away from the entrance but had no difficulty penetrating the perimeter by foot over a footbridge. The police weren't even aware I was there until I approached them. Pretty good 'locking down' work there, boys. At that point I was still wearing my suit from work, and it was all 'yes sir, no sir, can we be even more obsequious sir.' However when a group of us, previously determined to have been safe, were kicked out at midnight, assured to be for only an hour or two, I was in a comfortable albeit tatty pair of trackpants and windcheater that wasn't much better. No more calling me sir! From then on I was lucky to get a 'hey you' for the rest of the night. And rest of the night it was - forced from one building into a supposedly safer location that was actually nearer the potential blast site, in direct line of site, with one side of the building facing open water and thus in even greater risk of ricochet and with the end of the building directly facing the blast, being all glass windows and doors. In reality we were much safer where we originally were. And from the moment we were summarily booted out, we were treated like absolute pariahs. The comparison in attitude to when I looked like just another 'suit' was very marked and not in any positive way!

Interestingly, the best way to become left alone by the police at Ainslie Village, seems to be by becoming a drug dealer. Little enough is ever done about it. Could it be possibly be that they have simply decided that 'all the scum are in one place so we know where they are?' So ignore all that, but by all means ginger up a story in order to make Ploddly and co look better!

The bottom line is that the police behaviour on the night in question was a bloody mess. They have now seen fit to ginger the story up by denying I ever even objected to their presence, not mention inventing farcical conversations as taking place. I shall challenge Plod and his mates again - I dare you all to individually go before a judge, in my presence, and make those same statements on oath. I wonder if they all will decide to continue telling porkies before His or Her Honour?

Pathetic, Constable Plod, absolutely pathetic.

Honestly, is it any wonder that some call them 'filth?

Request lodged

2011-09-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

I have now lodged a request for Freedom of Information access to try and find out exactly what this complaint is that I am supposed to have made against another individual that the Australian Federal Police used as justification to arrest that individual.

I still believe that it beggars belief that police are allowed to claim such information exists but despite it allegedly coming from me, I am not allowed to know what it actually is, let alone sight a copy of it.

Again I ask, why is it that an arrested party can be given that information but the person it is alleged to come from in the first place is not allowed to know anything about it?

As this is a simply outrageous position, I have also brought matters to the attention of the ACT Attorney General and the media.

Anyone prepared to wager that the AFP will be less-than cooperative in providing this information? If it even exists.

Exactly when did we become a police state?

2011-09-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Since posting my last entry, I have already had a couple of people querying this need to go through FOI systems at the AFP in order to find exactly what it is I am supposed to have made in a complaint against another person.

So in direct response to my express request for that information, I received the following by return email from the Professional Standards area of the AFP:

"Should you wish to obtain information in relation to any information held about you on AFP systems you may do so by placing a request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982."

Later in the day this was endorsed by the officer assigned to investigate my complaint against the AFP:

"As pointed out by XXXXXXX below, the Freedom of Information process is the most appropriate way to request documentation or information held by the AFP about you"

Their justification? That they are not permitted to release anything to me about another person. Excuse me? Exactly when did I ask them to reveal jack shit about anyone else? I didn't. The immediate matters of particular relevance I have asked for:

for details of what the complaint is that I am supposed to have made
a copy of the documentation being handed to others that claims I made such a complaint against another person but so far has been denied to me
for any other information or documentation regarding me and this alleged complaint that is being held which may shed some light on the matter.

So exactly what is so secret that I am asking for? Where is all this information about other people that they have implied I was asking for? The bottom line is that the Australian Federal Police have arrested someone, supposedly on the strength of a complaint that I made against them, but I am not allowed to know anything about it!

So it seems that we have indeed descended to the level of police state, without any of us actually realising, that the police are apparently within their rights (at least in their collective minds) to refuse to tell anyone what they are alleging a person has said in an alleged complaint against another party. With that logic, they could make up any crap they like as justification for pinning anything on anyone. And then refuse to release it.

This matter has already escalated to such ridiculous levels that, as well as delivering my FoI request in the morning, I shall also be sending a complaint to the Minister in charge of ACT Policing and commencing a complaint with the Ombudsman.

The really sad thing about all of this is that I come from that lovely, safe middle-class sort of background that is taught to respect the police, that the police can be relied etc etc. Yet the events of the last eleven days will make it very hard for me to ever trust a copper again.

As for Constable Plod that the AFP tell me is now monitoring my blog, happy reading!

Q: When is a 'complaint' a 'complaint'?

2011-09-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

A: Apparently whenever the Australian Federal Police feel like saying so, not letting the little manner of nobody actually making a complaint getting in the way of things.

For reasons of discretion, I have elected until now not make any further comment on my blog about the dramas with the police. However I have just been informed by the AFP that they are in fact reading my blog. All I can do is congratulate them on their taste! For the record, no, I did not expressly provide the link as an additional information, but merely it appeared as part of my signature block.

So here is an interesting little development. Quite a major one actually.

The other chap in this affair has apparently received formal documentation from the AFP, advising him that I both made a formal complaint against him and expressly requested police attendance against him. I say 'apparently' because I haven't seen it although a highly credible witness was shown it on Saturday and reported the contents to me on Monday. Since the emergence of that documentation. Mark has told me in no uncertain terms to get out of his sight and stay that way, so I am hardly going to be able to waltz up to him and ask to see it.

Now as a direct result of this stunt, to the vigelante-minded attitude of people in the immediate area I am a police informant and have had threats made against me- no, not by the other chap. The ever-so helpful attitude of the police to that was 'tell them it isn't true.' Oh yeah, while I'm on the ground, getting the shit literally kicked out of me, all I have to do is squeal 'it isn't true' and that magical mantra will make all the bad things go away back under the bed once more. That advice has now been updated to advise me to report any further instances of such threats. Hmmm let's see now. Police apparently making up a crock, gets me 'outed' as a police informant and cooperative. So that gets me in deep shit with some of the locals. And somehow, running back to the wallopers again is supposedly going to make it all better? Do these people even listen to what they are saying?

In discussion with someone from the AFP today, allegedly managing the complaints purpose, he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such documentation.

This has really put me in a most awkward spot. I have been protesting my innocence for days, claiming I did not make any complaint etc etc. And it turns out that the AFP have gone and handed out documentation informing people otherwise.

So I have been screaming at the police that I want to see a copy of this document, seeing as it makes such free use of my name. I want to see a copy of this complaint that I supposedly made. What about a copy of a statement perhaps? Of course they can't provide these because I did not make any complaint and flatly refused to give the requested statement against Mark. Or has the mere act of speaking to a police officer now sufficient to claim a 'complaint' has been made?

Now we come to the really lovely part. Despite the AFP openly describing me as having been a complainant etc, I am only allowed to see such alleged documents if I lodge a formal request under the Freedom of Information legislation. The ever-so-generous AFP, if they agree to provide me with the documents, will do so - at a charge of $15 per hour to find any such documents, plus photocopying costs, plus postage, plus fees for the time spent deliberating on the decision. Going by that scale of charges, why not also charge me for the cost of dunny paper from toilet breaks, plus an allowance for the biccies and coffee? To get out of those, I have to be able to demonstrate 'financial hardship' or that "the giving of access to documents is in the general public interest or in the interest of a substantial section of the public." And no, this allegedly making a complaint apparently does not fall within the list of things that may be released without resorting to formal FoI processes.

This is beyond ridiculous. It is quite alright to formally advise someone else that I made a complaint against them but I'm not allowed to know anything about it or even get access to the alleged information without invoking external legislation. So one man was thrown in gaol as a direct result of police deliberately conning me and abusing my trust, and now it also seems that they have decided to ginger the story up by making outrageous claims of me being a complainant against the other, making matters still worse by doing everything they seemingly can to block me from getting at any of the actual information. I do hope they are not thinking I will just go away if they stall long enough.

As Agent Muller used to say, 'the truth is out there' even if our alleged custodians of law and order seem intent on placing as many barriers to that truth emerging as possible.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2011-08-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

On Friday evening, one of my housemates arrived home around 10pm, a little under the weather but also greatly upset about something. We had a bit of a chat. He seemed calmer and went to his room. Shortly afterwards, he began shouting and screaming.

I have had manic episodes in the past and I have been around others who have had them. And this is just what that sounded like. I stepped outside to try and think about what to do next. At that point I found something outside belonging to my housemate that was of great value to him. It had been torn to pieces. This wasn''t just a result of a drunken lashing out or something but a deliberate and sustained effort to achieve that degree of demolition. Then the stereo went on - loud. He has never done that before at night, being too considerate of others in the house. And the shouting and screaming were going on over that.

By now, I was getting really worried. Walking around puzzling over what to do next, I saw a police car arrive at the complex. I approached the two police officers who exited the vehicle wanting to speak to them and get their opinion. Initially they did not want to, explaining they had been called to a disturbance elsewhere. But after explaining my concerns about the extent of my friends outburst, they agreed to come and have a listen. However by the time we were back at my place, all had gone quiet. I said if he had enough control to turn the stereo off then things can't be quite as bad as I thought. I apologised for wasting their time and the police gave me every indication that they were now leaving, telling me to call them if any problems arose.

I now walked up to the nearby vending machine for a can of drink. By the time I had returned to the house no more than three minutes had passed but there were now seven police at the rear of the building. I was first introduced as the person who had called them. What? I soon put that straight. I hadn't called anyone and they then backpedalled, admitting that they had originally been called for something else.

I insisted that all was now quiet and there was no problem. But I had seven police, all taller than me (including the single female officer) and staring me down, continually insisting that they needed to enter the premises to do a welfare check. I refused, again insisting that all was now quiet. They continued to argue with me that this was essential.

I then stated I did NOT want all of them coming into the house as that would only be provocative and cause trouble with someone who was already obviously upset over something. Two police then accompanied me back into the house. Perhaps foolishly, I left the rear door open. I pointed the two towards the relevant bedroom door and then stepped back out of their way. Next thing, four more police decided to let themselves into the building and went trooping down the passage to join their colleages.

When my housemate opened his bedroom door, he was now confronted by six police, all grouped around him and staring him down.

According to the subsequent police report, all they were doing was a welfare check. What complete bullshit. The report implies they had no knowledge the individual had been drinking, until during or after the welfare check. Yet more bullshit as they had gotten that out of me earlier.

The police approach in supposedly doing this 'welfare check' and their report says that was all they were doing, was to be hostile, aggressive, demanding and interrogative. I was becoming furious now. They had conned their way past me, not to do any welfare check, but to very obviously act in a provocative manner. They got what they were after. I defy anyone to keep their cool in front of that. At one point my housemate was accused of spitting on one of the officers. Excuse me - I had a clear view of that supposed deliberate spitting. He was answering a question for fuck's sake and a stray bit of spittle may have gone from his lips and landed on the officer's front. That hardly justifies accusing him of deliberately spitting! Yet my housemate apologised and said he had not meant to spit. He admitted to being upset but was not that keen on revealing all the details. He asked the police to come into his room for a talk. They flatly refused.

In the end, they got what they wanted. All of a sudden, my housemate was swamped, handcuffed and dragged away under arrest. As they were leaving, I asked why had they all come into the house and thus directly causing that confrontational situation that I had repeatedly stated I wanted to avoid. I was fed some b.s. that all officers 'called' to an incident 'must' be present in the building. What a load of crap. For that matter, they were not 'all' in the building. Only six entered - the seventh went around to the front of the building and we later realised had let himself into the greenhouse attached to the front of the building. He left both front and back doors open and we found numerous pot plants knocked to the ground and damaged.

I made repeated calls during the night trying get through to the Watch House, to check on my housemate's state and try to the get message across that I was greatly concerned about his mental state. I finally got someone at the City (Canberra) station talking to me. In response to my concerns, I was basically told 'don't worry your little head about that' sort of thing.

I attended court the next morning in an attempt to try and give evidence in a bail hearing. For reasons that still escape me, the magistrate refused to hear that particular application, requiring it to be held over until Monday. My housemate has now been transferred to a gaol just out of town. He is still wearing the same clothes he wore on Friday and I have no way of even getting a change of undies to him. All I can hope is that someone at the court may allow me to give them a change of clothes for him to change into down in the cells before being brought before the court Monday morning.

I should note that while waiting for my housemate's application to be heard, I listened to one made by another person who had breached their bail conditions, being found highly intoxicated in the city centre the preceding evening, despite bail conditions of (a) not entering the CDB between the hours of 7pm and 6am, (b) not consuming alcohol and (c) not entering any licensed premises. Their explanation for why they had breached all three was "I forgot." But it gets better. They then denied entering any premises, arguing that they only drank what they were able to get outside on the street! Oh yeah, we all manage to get skin-full walking around the street. "Hey mate - got a spare schooner? Can you spare a rum and coke, missus?"

To my amazement, the magistrate bought this crap, continuing that individual's bail and letting them go.

Meanwhile, my housemate, who was arrested as a result of my concerns about his mental health, only because I was conned by the police into allowing them into the house, not to do any welfare check but to engineer a confrontation which is what they bloody well did, was refused a hearing and is now sitting in gaol.

I then got to see what I can only call, police stupidity.

An accused drug dealer was also facing a bail hearing. The police opposed him being granted bail. Given the amount of drugs found on the premises, I don't blame them. However the main thrust of their argument as to why he should not be granted bail was that he did not have any income including no welfare receipts, did not have any employment and thus would continue to deal. The police evidence had already stated that they had been investigating this individual for some time. Yet when questioned by the legal aid representative, who had only had a quite short to question her client that morning, the police admitted not knowing he had been in full-time employment until two weeks ago, thus, according to the Legal Aid rep, some of the money found in the premises was part of his final payout. Next the Legal Aid rep asked if they had checked with Centrelink to ascertain the precise state of her client's receipt or non-receipt of welfare monies. No, was the admission. Well if you had, advised Ms Legal Aid, you would have discovered that my client is not only a full-time student, he has an application for AusStudy before Centrelink, currently waiting on the outcome.

I sure as hell don't want drug dealers walking free. But if this is an example of how well the Australian Federal Police investigate a criminal matter, then God help us all. No wonder the Australian Capital Territory has one of the worst conviction rates going around!

I became even further incensed in listening to the police report of the incident at my place the night before. They claimed to have been expressly called to the house in relation to a disturbance. Bullshit. They implied that they had no knowledge of alcohol consumption until during or after the welfare check. Even more bullshit. Not only had they managed to get that out of me earlier, one of the officers subsequently asked me to make a statement about that consumption of alcohol for the police to use against my housemate. In view of their earlier behaviour, I did something I have never done before. I flatly refused a police request. It should also be noted that this report made no mention of my repeated concerns about my housemate's mental health, nor that I had made repeated calls during the night to try and ascertain his state of health and continuing to express those concerns.

On arriving at the court, I had with me some of the remains of the item he had torn to pieces as evidence of my housemate's state of mind. These were some shreds of light wood, some 3mm thick. Security refused to let me bring them into the building as they were a security risk. For crying out loud, I could have done more damage with the pen in my pocket, or the keys in my pocket or the clipboard and pad in my backpack, but they were allowed in. But not evidence relevant to the hearing!

How on earth can we be expected to respect the police and the judicial process when stunts like these are pulled? The law is supposed to be blind - not entirely fucked up! But then again, this is the same system that happily let a notorious drunkard sit as a Justice.

I have already lodged a written complaint to the AFP's Professional Standards area about the conduct of those officers. I can only hope that Monday morning's hearing will be conducted in a much more sensible manner.

Of course, I also have to live with the fact that it was my actions and my letting myself get conned by the police that directly resulted in my mate being dumped in gaol.

No Confidence in ‘No Confidence’ convoy

2011-08-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Oh boy. This was going to be bigger than Ben Hur. Organisers were at one point touting that between 5,000 and 10,000 vehicles were going to be taking part in the Convey of No Confidence, intended to display dissatisfaction with the current Australian Government of Julia Gillard.

Towns along the route were warned to expect large numbers of travellers arriving en route to Canberra. The Canberra populace were warned to expect major traffic disruptions. Parliament House staff were geared up for the thousands that the organisers insisted were going to be arriving for the protest on the lawns in front of that edifice.

Instead, the whole affair came and went as a major anti-climax. I have three separate reports of there being 180, 200 and 300 vehicles that took part. Even the highest of those three estimates is a long way short of what we all were told to expect. Organisers are now back-pedalling claiming ‘oh, we never actually said how many would be coming.’ Rubbish. It was being bleated far and wide, not least of all by Sydney DJ, Alan Jones.

Never one to shy away from creating controversy, Jones addressed the ‘rally’ claiming that police had been turning vehicles away from Canberra’s border. More bullshit. But this is Alan Jones after all. Don’t expect him to ever let the truth get in the way of a good sound bite. Al-baby wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the arse.

Jones supposedly later recanted the statement. But as a caller to Canberra local ABC radio pointed out this morning, it wasn’t Jones who made the retraction but merely his radio station on his behalf. Well, really, did anyone expect Jones to actually admit that he was wrong? He was quite possibly mislead by the organisers, but isn’t the onus on him to get his facts right? But then again this is the same clown who thought it was a great idea to actually advertise the Sydney race riot that spilled over from the beach to the streets and public transport system. He read out text messages on the air that said where and when. And he escaped unscathed from that mess. How he has any credibility left at all after the infamous Cash for Comment scandal is beyond me. I’d probably get more accurate information on pretty much anything from Dodgy Brothers’ Used Cars than from Alan Jones.

The whole Convoy thingy has been a fiasco. At present it is the local Canberra taxpayers who have to bear the cost of all the infrastructure movements set up in expectation of the vast hordes, expected to be the biggest and baddest flock of visitors anywhere since the Vandals decided to go on a package holiday to Rome. Reports have also emerged of the organisers contacting businesses on the travel route, asking them to be ready to cater for large numbers. Instead, hardly anyone showed, leaving said businesses out of pocket for all the perishable food stuffs brought in at the request of said organisers.

Do I have confidence the Gillard government? No, not really. But nor do I see the Jug Ears Abbott’s Opposition being much chop either. Sadly Australia has gone from being essentially a ‘two’ party system (remembering that the Liberals only get government from their Coalition with the National Party, who are increasingly becoming non-entities anyway) with some minor players at the fringes, to a No Party Worth Jack-shit system. I suspect the lack of confidence in the Convoy of No Confidence suggests public apathy more than anything.

An open letter to Miranda Devine

2011-08-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Miranda

You really stirred up a shit storm with your recent column about the perils of the 'fatherless society'. And now in your follow up, you stir even further.

Now if what you claim in that follow up about persons inciting others to harass and bully your Facebook friends is true, then that is unacceptable. Before firing up, I will agree that you did indeed make some positive comments about Senator Wong and the impending birth. And I will also happily agree that 'Twitterverse' can soon distort a story. However your earlier column is nowhere near as innocent as you are making out.

"We are supposed to ignore Tony and Margie Abbott’s three daughters because every time he is seen with them it is some sort of unfair snub to Julia Gillard and reflection on her marital status."

What complete and utter crap. I have never once heard ANYONE make any such claim or suggestion. What about all the media coverage last election where Tony Abbott spent several weeks hardly making a move without the girls being seen with him? How does that exactly equate to us being 'supposed to ignore' them?

"The traditional heterosexual norm of a nuclear family and children is something to be kept in a closet like an embarrassment."

Where the hell did you come up with that piece of tripe? How about having a look at your own paper some time at the number of 'traditional heterosexual' marriages being reported on and included in the classifieds? Yeah, that's really pushing it all into hiding in the closet.

"In countries where [same-sex marriage] has been legalised, there has been no rush to the altar."

At the risk of sounding Hansonesque - please explain; how about some figures to back that one up? I'd go and look for myself, but hey - you're the one being paid to write that crap, not me.

The real gem however was "You only had to see the burning streets of London last week to see the manifestation of a fatherless society."

The rest of your article up to that point had opened with focusing on Penny Wong and her partner (and no, they cannot call each other anything other than 'partner' cos they ain't allowed to get married, are they), then fired salvo after salvo against same-sex marriage. From there, 'fatherless' children (which by definition includes those of two-female-parent families) were now the cause of the London riots. Now if you really weren't trying to give the impression that lesbian couples with children weren't part of that problem of rioting fatherless children, then why in hell did you even bother introducing the subject in the first place? Sweetheart, you've only got yourself to blame for that backlash.

I shall happily take your word for it that Britain is "reported to have the highest proportion of single mothers in Europe and nearly half of all children suffering family breakdown by the age of 16." But...

Miranda, honey, I think you better have a bit of a think about a little thing called cause and effect next time. It is not the lack of the father per se that is the cause of those problems including the rioting (and indeed the problems on housing estates that your friend referred to) but the fact that it is a single parent trying to cope with it all. Then there is the little thing called parental responsibility and example. By your argument, it necessarily follows that put a father in the scene and hey presto - the problem is gone. Golly - didn't the Moran family of criminals have a dad? Why yes they did. Two of them over the years in fact. And the Moran boys turned out to be such pillars of society, didn't they.

I have experienced single-parent families with children running wild but I have sure as hell have also experienced 'nuclear' families that were absolute hell on wheels. My aged parents went through an unbelievable time with a 'nuclear' family terrorising their entire street. I grew up right next door to another such family. And I have also experienced single-parent families that do not have any such problems whatsoever. In fact I was having coffee with a single-mother only earlier today and I can 100% guarantee you that her child is about as well-behaved as you're going to get. Then there is another friend of mine who finally threw her junkie husband out and is raising their three girls on her own. And those girls are as polite, respectful and well-behaved as you're going to get. Oh yeah, they really need their Dad back in their lives, don't they!

A breakdown in family structures is definitely a social problem. No argument there from me. But don't deliberately try and paint a picture that same-sex marriage is bad then leap into suggestions that the fatherless (ie including the product of all-female-parent families) were the cause of the London riots only to put your hands up and try to claim innocence afterwards.

It isn't a matter of having presented 'unfashionable mainstream views' (although isn't that something of a misnomer?). It is a matter of you writing a distorted mess that leaps about all over the place and crying foul afterwards when people follow your arguments to their logical conclusions.

Live by the sword, die by the sword; write journalistic crap, expect to receive a bucketing afterwards.

Politically incorrect love and kisses

Rossco

Pathetic, Telegraph. Bloody pathetic

2011-08-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

There will be people who would ask 'who's Robert Crumb?' But a great many of those would recognise some of his artwork.

Crumb is a cartoonist. Some of his images are absolutely iconic, like these two:

Now I find some of his stuff quite vulgar and tasteless. And others are clever, funny and even thought-provoking. But, please, let's put this in its rightful place. Crumb and his work came out of and to prominence in that quite wild and strange place and time - the late 1960s US. Guess what - a lot of things have changed since then. Things found funny then would not necessarily be seen as funny today.

Here's another thought. Does every artist think everything they have ever done is forever beyond reproach? Of course not. I had the good fortune to spend some time with Tim Ferguson about 18 months ago. I took the opportunity to ask a few things about those heady days with the Doug Anthony All Stars. Tim freely admitted that sometimes they would go off-stage and ask themselves 'Oh God - did we actually just do/say that?' In talking about some of the old DAAS stuff, Tim actually became a little embarrassed.

So what does that have to do with Robert Crumb? I watched a quite interesting documentary about him a few years back. In that, Crumb admitted somewhat shamefaced that some of his work was pretty terrible in what it depicted.

In a simply staggering display of gutter journalism and hopeless fact-twisting, the Daily Telegraph produced this piece of absolute shit. Crumb is depicted as some sort of crazed sexual deviant, not fit to be let loose on the streets. They then attempt to give this garbage some validity by having anti-child abuse campaigner, Hetty Johnson, giving her take on this 'depraved' person ie let's give the world the impression that he's a child abuser as well.

Here's a little test for y'all. Go and look up Robert Crumb artwork in Google. Or better yet with Bing as I believe that is a better search engine for finding images. I'll just sit here, sip my coffee and daydream a bit while you do it. Go on - I'll still be here when you get back.

Jessica Simpson...big grapefruit...flowers....Marieke Hardy...veggies...have I done the shopping yet...did I remember to throw that old milk out this morning?

Oh you're back. Goodo. Did you find some tasteless and vulgar stuff. Yep. OK, now how many child molestation images did you find? I couldn't find a single bloody one. T & V does NOT equate to perverted etc etc.

Now for the next question. According to the Telegraph, "A spokesman for the federal Attorney General's department told The Sunday Telegraph that Crumb's work cannot be shown in Australia unless he submits his illustrations for classification. The spokesman said his work would almost certainly be refused classification."

What? We now supposed to believe that ALL of Crumb's work will now "almost certainly be refused classification?" Oh give me a frigging break. How many decades has 'Stoned Agin' been sold on posters, t-shirts and Lord knows what else in Australia. C'mon Tele - give us a name and prove that complete utter bullshit quote.

How the Daily Telegraph can justify calling itself either 'news' or 'journalism' is getting well and truly beyond me. Why don't they just pack up and piss off to the UK - the Poms seem to appreciate gutter journalists and journalism there. That way you pack of fucktards won't have to ever worry about letting the facts get in the way of your story ever again. As for Hetty Johnson - hey lady - how about worry about the REAL issues rather than pandering to cheap, nasty sensationalist so-called journalism.

Pathetic, Telegraph. Bloody pathetic.

When is information actually information

2011-08-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit it. I have a secret guilty little pleasure that I sometimes get to indulge. I enjoy Judge Judy. OK, there - I've admitted it. Now I rarely get an opportunity to watch the old girl given that it was on at 3pm on the relevant network here.

Note the use of past tense - WAS on at 3pm. Some weeks ago, I noticed on one of my rare opportunities to actually be home and indulge, that Her Honour had been cut in half for a so-called 'encore's screening of the latest 'reality' program on that network. Followed by an 'infomercial. But today I realised that Her Honour has been given the boot entirely, replaced by a 30 minute-or-so 'informercial'. Of a fat guy selling cookware.

Rather annoyed, I did something I have never done before. I telephoned the television network in question to complain about their programming choices. The invidual concerned with programming for that particular channel was not available however I spoke to someone else. While that person could not discuss my specific programming concern, I took the opportunity to have a good old whinge about the proliferation of these bloody 'informercials'.

'Whyy not be honest and just call them what they are - half-hour advertisments," I said.

"Oh I don't think that would be accepted very well," was the reply.

Now come on, commercial television networks. Do you really think we are all so simple and feeble-minded that we haven't realised that these 'informercials' are nothing more than extended commercial advertisments? Is it really necessary to talk down to us like that, treating us like small children?

For that matter, an encore is something that occurs in response to an enthusiastic audience response, calling for me. Now just how many people have been standing up, crying 'Author! Author! We want it repeated at 3pm in the afternoon!"

I think at the end of the day, it has been a case of dump the program they have to pay for in favour of (a) a solid half-hour block of pretend advertisment of a fat guy selling knives and cooking appliances, and (b) a repeat of something local we have already paid for.

While I'm on the subject of 'infomercials', do the producers of a certain anti-acne preparation think we're all equally as dumb as the commercial televsion stations all think we are? We're supposed to accept a barely pubescent boy who has most likely only just started getting his big boy hairs, and one look at his baby-soft skin makes it quite apparent he has never had anything remotely like an acne problem, is suddenly supposed to be a believable spokesperson for getting rid of pimples? Oh please! But of course, he is a celebrity and therefore we are assumed to automatically think 'oh - he is a best-selling recording artist to the bubblegum tenny boppers - obviously he MUST be an expert - I better start getting the stuff in by the pallet!'

How thoroughly demeaning and insulting to our collective intelligence. And I still think Her Honour, Judge Judy was a vast improvement!

Here endeth the rant

Interested in what I had to rant about? Feel free to lodge a comment or tell someone else.

In this lesson, you shall learn...

2011-07-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

A tweet from Sir Tessa (not sure I should post her actual id or even her name so I shall play it relatively safe) has prompted this post.

"Protip: always confirm the presence of toilet paper committing to a cubicle"

Words of wisdom indeed.

This made me think not just of my own proclivity in trying to ensure at least some source of paper is to hand (surprising how well an old supermarket docket can do the deed), but also of one of the slightly more bizarre methods I have learned of in the past.

Back in the day, I was in the SAS (Saturdays and Sundays). That's right - I was a proud serving member of that august body dedicated to defending our right to get shitfaced in the mess, the Australian Army Reserve.

Now like all good little footsloggers, I put on my 'L' plates and toddled off to recruit camp (what the Seppos call Boot Camp). There I learned the use of the special toilet paper that came as part of the ration packs issued to you when going bush. This special toilet paper was shiny, tough and made far better writing paper than it did a bum-wiper. The number twos did not so much get wiped off as pushed around from one spot to another if used in the conventional manner.

You see, there was a special trick to using this toilet paper.

It came already folded in half. The trick was to then tear a small square from the middle of said folded sheet of toilet paper.

Now place that small square safely to one side - don't lose it as it plays a particularly important function.

Unfold the square of arse-wiper and stick your index finger through the hole so it is sticking up out of said square.

Proceed to wipe your bum-crack with your index finger. Once said crack is sufficiently wiped to your satisfaction, pull the paper back up your finger, wiping it clean.

All done.

Oh, and the little torn-out square I told you to save? Use that to wipe under your fingernail.

Ahhhh the joys of serving your nation!

Return of the cultural cringe?

2011-07-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

Remember those 'good' old days when we Australians had this terrible cultural cringe about our own inadequacies? At least those in charge of the arts thought so. The best example was that of the theatre - a major production could not go ahead unless a 'name' was imported from the US or Britain to play the lead.

It seems those bad old days are not so far behind us as we all thought.

Not long ago, the Red Roughy aka Prime Minister Julia Gillard, embarrassingly grovelled to the US Congress, tearfully exclaiming that the US can do anything, like some sort of overly-excited six-year old having just met her favourite member of The Wiggles.

Then we had Oprah bring her show to Australia. Oh, the things this was going to do for the Australian economy. Nay-sayers were howled down. This was Oprah, people - Oprah!

Except now the figures are starting to come in.

The Australian taxpayer coughed up some $5 million to bring Oprah and her show out. Heavens knows how much Oprah, her organisation and the television network made out of it all. But it wasn't just Oprah, it was the grand lady herself along with 92 companions. Read the list of freebies handout out to them during a short, three-day visit to Melbourne alone.

But this was Oprah, people - Oprah! The tourism dollars were going to start flooding in. Why, the tourism places were going to have to start buying new wheelbarrows to be able to cart all their takings off to the bank! This was going to be the biggest tourism bonanza since Paul Hogan conned the Seppos that we all waste good shrimp by throwing them on a barbie instead of the snags and chops! Oprah - Oprah!! squeeeeeeeeeeeee

Except - US tourism has actually dropped since then.

In other words, the Australian taxpayer was sold a super-size lemon. Perhaps not quite as big a lemon as the millions thrown away on a ridiculous bid for the FIFA World Cup. But that's another rant for another time.

Now this is not a dig at Oprah. Why wouldn't she make the trip? After all, it wasn't costing her damn thing. I doubt we shall ever know exactly what the Oprah machine made out of it all. But it was Australian authorities who thought it was such a brilliant idea that they just threw money at her.

Just like the bad old days, now we are apparently unable to sell the touristic delights of our own country without someone being imported to do it for us. And now, just as then, it is a load of crap.

I am left wondering, just who on the Australian side of things made money on the deal? Obviously not the tourism industry!

The medical crap continues

2011-07-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the medical crap still keeps going.

After the assurances that my aneurism was suitable for being treated by a far less-invasive procedure and then going through the surgeon doing nothing with the file for a full month rather than referring it to the hospital that could do that particular procedure. It turns out that the aneurism is not suited to said procedure, so all that delay was completely pointless.

When a senior hospital administrator called me to resolve the mess, almost a month ago, I made it very clear that in the event of the procedure not being suited, I wanted another surgeon. But, as usual, my wishes were ignored. I have been pretty much told I have to go see this surgeon. So I have to go for a further review in a week's time. It is only four days short of two months since I first saw this clown and frankly we absolutely no further ahead with treatment of what he assures me is a serious matter requiring attention.

I am being treated for a couple of other things as well. The doctor looking after one has been wanting to increase my medication for about two months now. But the medication could potentially increase my blood pressure which would be a rather irresponsible thing to do with an untreated aneurism in my brain. So now I have been unable to be properly treated for this other condition because of the hospital's irresponsibility.

So here's a question - who is responsible if the aneurism crashes while the wait for treatment continues? Or if the other condition becomes even worse because of the forced delay in treating it properly?

Is it just me or what?

2011-06-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Back in May I was admitted to a local hospital with breathing difficulties from a severe respiratory infection. A scan was taken of my head which revealed a hitherto unknown and unsuspected aneurism. An 'immediate' referral to a neurosurgeon resulted. I saw said neurosurgeon on May 23rd. He impressed on me the serious of the aneurism and its location, informing me that I did need treatment. The good news however was that he believed it could be successfully treated by a far less invasive procedure called 'coiling' as opposed to actual brain surgery. But as Canberra does not yet have a facility to undertake such procedures, the case needed to be referred to the Royal Prince Alfred hospital in Sydney.

Today, having heard nothing further for a month, I telephoned The Canberra Hospital to see if they had heard anything further from RPA. After being bounced around all over the place and being given ridiculous information such as a denial that I had even been there to see said neurosurgeon, I was finally put onto someone who did know something about the matter.

The location of the aneurism is such that I am advised should it leak or worse, I would most likely lose cognitive functions. And any brain aneurism can cause death. This is serious stuff. So perhaps you can imagine my considerable upset today to learn that the file information was still sitting in The Canberra Hospital gathering dust a month later.

I am told that I am to reduce stress in deference to the condition. Being made to wait in the dark for a month only to discover that everything has been dumped in a pile somewhere and just left there, is hardly conducive to stress reduction!

I am under psychiatric care but the psychiatrist is loathe to do anything with my medication at present as this may interfere with treatment of the aneurism. So through no fault of mine, I cannot even get proper psychiatric treatment now because of this ludicrous and entirely unnecessary delay by The Canberra Hospital and its staff.

So I decide to lodge a formal complaint and see if that can get something happening. The only problem is actually trying to find the appropriate area to lodge a complaint with. I found their website feedback but last time I used that in relation to an important matter, it look a long bloody time for anyone to bother doing anything in response to that online submission. So I hit the telephones. In the end I had to be put through to nothing less than the office of the Chief Executive of ACT Health. That or go to the Human Rights Commission.

Do I really have to go through the Human Rights Commission? Is going through another agency entirely actually going to speed things up? Not bloody likely. In my experience, involving another agency merely slows matters down further. So in the apparent lack of ACT Health actually having an area to which you may direct complaints, you have to talk to the staff in the Office of the CEO.

This is bloody ridiculous. Why is it that whenever I am forced to rely on something through the public health system, I am subjected to outrageous treatment. Take for example the arsehole alleged case manager, David Kendall (and I am quite happy to name him as the documentary evidence exists to defend my claim), who flatly refused to even allow my name to be added to the waiting list to see a psychiatrist for eight months. Not eight months on the waiting list - that's eight months trying just to get added to the waiting list. When I eventually complain, Kendall thinks it quite alright to telephone me at home at 8:06 am to start abusing me. He routinely canceled appointments, continual blaming this later on a single absence of 2-3 weeks some time previously. Multiple complaints against him achieved nothing other than assurances matters would be 'dealt with'. Once Kendall deigned to allow my name to be added to the sacred waiting list, I eventually did get to see a psychiatrist. Kendall then invited himself into the consultation and proceeded to utter the most outrageous lies including that there had only been a delay of a few weeks. He even feed my GP that line of bullshit. I was later informed by an insider that they received more complaints against Kendall than any other of their staff. So why was he allowed to get away with that shit? Why were continuing complaints ignored?

Fortunately I no longer have to deal with that shaven-headed arsewipe and access to psychiatric care is now much easier than it was under Kendall's regime. But I have that really terrible feeling that this is now all starting all over again.

Failure to access proper medical care in the past cost me pretty much everything. About all that is left for me to lose now is my life. Not that this is any great deal. And the neurosurgeon allegedly in charge of my 'care' seems quite happy to let that happen. Just leave the file on the counter beneath a pile of crap and dirty coffee mugs - she'll be right. Oh, he's dead? Oh well, never mind.

So, friends, if in the near future my friendly little aneurism does indeed decide to burst, leaving me with the cognitive abilities of a mouldy carrot, or if I'm lucky, dead - you all know who to blame.

Scammer warning

2011-05-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

Be warned - the scammers pretending to be from Microsoft are hard at work in Australia.

I received a telephone call late yesterday from someone claiming to be from Microsoft, claiming that my computer was sending error messages to Microsoft and this call was to resolve these.

I hung up.

I telephoned the telephone company, Telstra, hoping to be able to trace the call and pass that information to the police. Unfortunately they were unable to advise me of the origins of the call.

During subsequent discussions with both Telstra's Unwelcome Calls Centre and the ACCC's Scamwatch, I learned that these thieving scum are very active. The reason why they are so active is because they are finding people who fall for their b.s. and give them the details needed to perpetrate their scam.

There are a couple of points of concern with this matter.

One - why are people still falling for this? There has been report after report about this in the media. Microsoft do NOT telephone people as some sort of courtesy.

Two - all the relevant authorities are well aware of the activities of these scammers, so why is it they are unable to close them down?

What's it all about??

2011-05-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was standing in the checkout line at the local supermarket earlier today and with nothing else to do at the time, I glanced at the covers on the magazine rack.

'KIM AND CHRIS SHARE BABY SECRET' shouted one cover, over a picture of Kim Kardashian and her presumed latest beau, a toddler on Ms Kardashian's knee. I looked further. Every single magazine cover on display seemed to be of various 'beautiful people', all announcing earth-shattering news such as 'my bikini secrets' or 'how Miranda lost it [her baby weight apparently]'.

The checkout line was a little slow, leaving me with 4time to have a think. So I thunked a bit more about this apparent cult of celebrity-ism.

Take Kim Kardashian for example. Several years ago, the entertainment 'news' greeted me with excited announcements that Ms Kardashian was going to pose for Playboy. 'So what? Who is she anyway?” was my response. Ever since then, it seems virtually impossible to get away from the Kardashian clan.

After several years of this Kardashian phenomenon generally inflicted on us, I am still left wondering just what it is that makes them so famous? What is it that they actually do? I even watched a couple of episodes of 'Keeping Up With The Kardashian's to try and understand who and what they were but I was left even more mystified. A lingerie shop apparently comes into it somewhere, not that I saw much evidence of them actually working in it.

Out of curiosity, I have pulled some of the story together. Mr Kardashian, father of the three Kardashian girls among other siblings, was a legal eagle who shot to fame (infamy?) by being part of O J Simpson's defence team. He presumably made a packet from that and his other legal dealings, judging by the apparent post-divorce lifestyle of his wife and children. Mrs Kardashian, after divorcing Mr Kardashian, met and married former Olympian, Bruce Jenner. OK, I knew who that was, not just because I am an old sports head but because I will actually admit to seeing the Village People film from 1980 that he appeared in. In my defence, it was a group of female friends from High School who were one short of a group discount that talked me into going to the film with them.Ultimately I was glad I went – not for the film but because the feature was supported by a full-length Captain Kremmin adventure. Who is Captain Kremmin? Oh you poor, benighted philistines. Kremmin was one of the late Kenny Everitt's finest comic creations. But back to my original ranting.

When Mrs Kardashian married Mr Jenner, it was a Brady Bunch-esque situation with each bringing three children to things. The newly married couple wasted little time in producing three more children of their own, although at least one of them in more recent times has apparently decided Dad's name wasn't good enough and started going by the name Kardashian even though she isn't actually a Kardashian at all.

Right – all this trivial information is just that – trivia. It does not actually indicate what these people do. Jenner was at least in the past involved in home fitness stuff and for all I know still is. I don't really care.

The three Kardashian girls grew up. The baby of the trio, Kim, became chums with that media whore, Paris Hilton. But with her good looks and apparently (at least back then) natural and substantial curves, the media began talking an interest in Hilton's friend, Kim.

Aha – now we're getting somewhere. Apparently Ms Hilton did not appreciate her chum taking away 'her' media, leading to a bad falling out between the two, which was also reported extensively in the 'entertainment news'. What is this – junior high school?

This was only the start of the media attention for Kim Kardashian. A 'reality' television program resulted. Ummm since when was their lifestyle anything remotely like 'reality?' Mrs Kardashian even became Kim's manager. In fact it was Manager Mum who thought it was such a great idea for her daughter to be getting her kit off for Playboy. But again I have to ask, just what is it that they actually do that makes them so 'famous' and such 'celebrities'?

At the end of the day, Kim Kardashian and to a lesser extent, her two older sisters, are simply famous for being famous. That's it. Is KK Junior attractive? You betcha. I am honest enough to tell you that my breath comes just that bit faster when I see a picture of her. But so what? And the three girls seem to have made a pretty darn good living out of this being famous for being famous and in short, becoming media whores. An ugly term to be sure, what what else can we describe it all as? Pay me enough and you can put me on the cover of your magazine!

Out of curiosity, I followed Kim's Twitter feed for a while. Nope, no further real illumination to be found there. Sure, there was the seemingly obligatory release of a Kim Kardashian label perfume, but so what? Who doesn't have their own fragrance range these days? Even I'm about to release my own fragrance line: Rossco's Reek. You too can smell of stale cigarettes, shaving cream and sweaty armpits! When I saw Ms Kardashian boasting in her Twitter feed about going shopping with Lindsay Lohan, I lost all interest. Being friends with that drug-addled skank has-been actress that no movie studio is prepared to work with any longer, is something to boast about? Oh please.

I am left with the conclusion that the Kardashian gift to the world is a life spent travelling around the world to parties, photo shoots and personal appearances, sudden weddings and equally sudden divorces. That's about it.

Now you could be forgiven for thinking I really dislike that family, especially Kim. Not really, although it has to be said that I am not particularly favourably inclined towards a mother who not only whores her children and family in general out to the media, but takes a managerial commission on it all. I am old fashioned enough to think that parents seek to protect their children etc.

Who I am really contemptuous of is the public that can elevate people like the Kardashian's into such massive media celebrities and famous for nothing more than being famous. And even more sadly, the Kardashian's are just one example, albeit a very large example. Appear in a couple of direct-to-DVD movies ten years ago? Look good on camera? Preferably female with plastic tits? Then you have a full-time career ahead of you appearing in the media, being feted for doing nothing of any consequence. And still yet more alarming, these nobodies have become role models for a generation who think that soft of lifestyle is something to aspire to!

Really, just what does this say about our society? Forget about global warming, nuclear threats etc. If this is the apparent pinnacle of our 'civilisation' then we probably aren't even worth saving.

Here endeth the rant.

Bloody Outrageous!

2011-05-04T23:01:00.001-07:00

I know that I am far from the only one person with mixed feelings about what happened in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden. I was just as disturbed by the sight of partying Americans in their streets as I was at the sight of similarly celebrating Palestinians etc in the wake of the World Trade Centre attack in 2001. For Barack Obama to be using this as an opportunity to claim that the US can do 'anything' even smacks of an arrogance that the US is not accountable to anyone or anything, although I suspect that was not his intention with that remark.

Things have gotten way out of hand however with some outrageous comments by New Zealand MP, Hone Harawira. Mr Harawira, an indigenous Maori politician, has praised slain bin Laden as a freedom fighter. Quoting from a press report: "We have heard nothing but negative things about him from the Americans, but he fought for the self-determination of his people and for his beliefs," Harawira told Maori-language television on Monday.

This is simply outrageous. Bin Laden was not about 'self-determination for his people' at all. He was a militant religious extremist, who publicly rejoiced in the murder of thousands of innocents. The fact that this phenomenal act of murder actually included fellow Muslims, seems to have been overlooked by the bin Laden apologists. His actions inspired yet more acts of murder by extremist terrorists, including the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002.

Are we supposed to rejoice in all who murder for their beliefs? OK, let's start handing out Nobel Peace prizes to Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot and all the rest of the murdering filth everywhere. What about Ted Bundy - he had the belief that he should be allowed to brutally torture and kill people simply because he liked it. So should we be celebrating his pursuit of his beliefs???

Just as bin Laden did NOTHING to push towards peaceful reconciliation between the nominal Christian world and the Arabic, Harawira is giving his own credibility a shot in the foot and thus doing little for his ability to pursue Maori rights in a meaningful manner.

I am not that naive to expect the world to just simply all start holding hands, sitting in a circle while singing Kum Ba Yah, but wholescale murder by extremists is NOTHING to be praising as Harawira has effectively done.

A reason for rejoicing and sorrow

2011-05-02T00:42:00.001-07:00

The death of Osama Bin Laden is a reason for both rejoicing and sorrow.

The end of the leader of one of the most militant extremist groups going around, has to be a reason to be pleased. Extremism of any flavour is abhorrent but when it is used to justify wholesale butchering, it ascends to a whole new level.

The death of anyone in stupid, pointless conflict is also a cause for sorrow. However there is a distinct possibility that Bin Laden's passing shall be seen as creation of a martyr thereby birthing yet more violence, more reprisals and so the cycle would continue.

Far more intelligent people than I have been unable to come up with a resolution of the issues behind the rise of militant extremism so I shall not attempt to do so here. However blatant manufacturing of excuses to go to war as exemplified by the Bush Junior administration, supported by Britain's Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard, not only fail to address those concerns, they created far more. Let's be honest - we were presented with a complete load of bullshit to justify that Coalition of the Willing or whatever the heck it was called. The phrase Weapons of Mass Destruction eventually became nothing but a bad joke because of the way it was used in the Iraqi context.

There are times when I briefly consider worrying about environmental issues is a waste of time as we will have already killed ourselves off as a species before environmental problems could do so.

an end to the Comsuper saga - almost

2011-04-10T22:03:00.001-07:00

An end to the saga about my superannuation invalidity pension and Comsuper is almost here.

Last Wednesday I received advice that Comsuper were about to make me an offer to resolve this whole mess that they created. To refresh your memory, as well as months of poor information and messing around, Comsuper recently decided that yes, they had underpaid me but at the same time they had also failed to deduct the right amount of tax deductions leaving me a whacking great tax bill to be repaid to Comsuper before June 30.

Under a national scheme introduced in 2009, many victims of government department 'defective administration' can now seek compensation. Now we're not talking multi-million dollar settlements like the things you see reported in the press coming out of the courts. The object of this compensation exercise is merely to return the victim to the position that they would have been in had the loss not occurred.

Last Thursday I received the official offer and accompanying documenation that I had to return which included an indeminty for Comsuper from further action over this matter. Seeing as I was getting what I wanted so I had no qualms about agreeing to the proposal.

I now have confirmation that my arrears and compensation payments (which reimburse me for additional tax deductions being taken from my arrears) are now being processed.

We're almost there. It's only taken some six months, but we're almost there. But I shan't be saying it is definitely closed until I have actually received the payments in question.

On a more positive note of sorts, I am assured that the details of my case have been passed to relevant members of the Comsuper executive in order to demonstrate just how shoddy their 'service' has actually been. So hopefully no other poor sod has to go through the garbage that I had forced onto me.

A return to the saga of the pension...

2011-03-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

I have previously blogged about the ridiculous saga of trying to have my small invalidity pension reinstated and receiving arrears owing to me. I previously warned potential superannuation retirees under Comsuper to be worried. Well things have now well beyond suggesting people be worried. It is instead time to be bloody panic-stricken based on the latest developments.

The latest in this saga is that at long last, after going through three formal complaints processes, Comsuper agree that yes, they still owe me the best part of $1,000 in arrears. But they can't give it to me. Why? Because the stupid phuckers had not been making the correct income tax deductions from my pension last year. Yet this matter came up in early December last year and I was assured that not only had they fixed things, there were no further tax installments outstanding. Complete and utter bullshit as it turns out.

So I now have to wait on an application for compensation to sort the mess out.

Isn't it absolutely outrageous that the Trustee of a Goverment superannuation fund can simply forget to deduct income tax instalments! Even worse when they know about it months earlier, claim to have fixed the problem only to really just let it fester until becoming a much greater concern and financial burden on the pensioner.

Along the way, I have now conclusively proven that:

Comsuper lose documents but will attempt to put the blame on the superannuation fund member, claiming the documents were not provided;
It is impossible to sight a copy of your actual file even under Freedom of Information as all Comsuper will allow you to sight is a copy of the electronic file (well it wouldn't do to let the poor sod of a member find hardcopies of all of these documents they claim said member never sent!);
Comsuper will not initiate any contact with their pensioners whatsoever even when they have overpaid/underpaid/forgotten to pay etc;
Comsuper routinely do not bother to respond to matters at all;
Comsuper staff think nothing of telling blatant lies to superannuation fund members; and
Comsuper are simply incapable of even elementary mathematics.

Now matters are in the hands of the Comsuper CEO. Assuming it eventually wends its way to his In-Tray. With luck, by about next October he might have gotten around to glancing at it. Of course by that time I will probably be facing prosecution by the Australian Tax Office for failing to pay my income tax deductions, but let's not let a little thing like a criminal conviction get in the way of things, shall we?

Julia, my Julia, what a sickly, sickly display

2011-03-10T03:58:00.000-08:00

Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia. The US Houses of Congress. What a sickly, sickly sweet combination.

The Red Roughy's [for my North American friends, that is a brightly orange coloured fish] performance was the most grovelling, sycophantic thing I have ever seen. And to think that not long ago we were sticking the boot into John Howard for his blind following of Georgie Wubblya Bush.

Should the US need any further proof that for whatever reason, that Australia blindly follows wherever they may lead, it just needs to look at how eagerly Howard threw us in with Georgie Wubblyah that Saddam had whacking great piles of Weapons of Mass Destruction laying around all over the place. Tripping over them he was! I tell ya boy, them things was blowing up all over the place, soon as spit terbaccy on 'em! Never mind it has since been amply demonstrated that intelligence services, both US and Australian, were saying "actually, we don't think that's quite correct." But off we toddled, part of the Alliance of the Terminally Dyspeptic against the Axis of Really-Quite-Naughty-Boys-Indeed or some such claptrap sounding like the cover of a Marvel comic. All based on a whopper, a prevarication, in short, a lie. So our friends in North America already know that we can be sold the Brooklyn Bridge at ease. They didn't need reminding.

No, I am not setting out on an anti-US rant. The great love of my life was a Seppo* after all. But in this day and age, was it really necessary to carry on like a grateful colonial native, ever so grateful to Bwana and his White Fella Magic for the used shirt and stick of barley sugar, hopeful that by licking the boots long enough, a plug of tobacco might also arrive?

Julia, I am embarrassed, and that sure as shit ain't easy to do.

*rhyming slang - Septic Tank = Yank

they get rehab, we just get in trouble

2011-03-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

Ricky Nixon has really screwed up. I doubt anyone will contest that statement. But has anyone ever noticed that for the rest of we poor sods, if we crack up or have problems with the drink, whatever, we just become part of the numbers game that is Australian pyschiatric care and that's pretty much it? Two trips to the funny farm myself, and overcoming alcohol abuse. But if you are 'somebody', you get 'rehab'. Britney Spears has a mental breakdown, she goes into 'rehab' in what was apparently a private psychiatric facility. Charlie Sheen continues his years of erratic behaviour, he has to go rehab. Michael Douglas couldn't keep his pecker in his pants, he needed 'rehab' for sexual addiction. I am surprised that Shane Warne hasn't been into 'rehab' for his habit of failing to keep it tucked away in his undies. How many trips to 'rehab' has Brendan Fevola gone through? And now that Ricky Nixon is in trouble, he also has to go into 'rehab'. No, he says, there was nothing actually going on with the girl in question, although to be fair, her credibility is about on par with Joe Hockey denying Liberal Party leadership aspirations, but to cope with it, Nicco (as we called him at school - that's my lame claim to fame) has to go into 'rehab' to cope.

You name it, it seems to be covered these days by the 'panacea' of 'rehab', some special form of 'treatment' for 'special' people who are somehow better than the rest of we poor slobs.

Here endeth the rant

Q: When is a gift, not a gift?

2011-02-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

A: When it is a Borders Gift Card.

The international Borders bookselling group has been in difficulties for some time now. That is hardly news in itself. The operations of its Australian arm were bought out a little while back by the corporate group that includes Angus & Robertson booksellers. I recall reading some media speculation not long ago which was suggesting the Australian Borders operations were likely to survive due its divorce from the US Borders, which was in turn expecting to crash. Hard. Soon.

Earlier this week, news broke that the group containing A&R and Borders was going into Voluntary Administration ie going broke.

Earlier this evening I was down the street, doing a little shopping. I happened to walk past the local Borders. To my surprise, the following signs were prominently placed in the store's entrance.

Due to Borders being placed in Voluntary Administration, the administrators are redeeming existing Gift Gards when the transaction is double the face value of the card.

EXAMPLE

Gift card value = $50
customer needs to spend another = $50
total transaction value needs to be = $100

This is outrageous.

A customer has come in and paid say $50 to Borders, receiving a 'gift card' with a face value of $50. This is a commitment to honour that 'gift card' by the bearer presenting, to claim goods to the value of $50. In contractual terms, the payment is called 'consideration' and is the sealing point of an implicit contract being present. Why are Borders are not allowed to unilaterally change contract conditions simply because they have gone into voluntary administration! Could you or I get away with pulling a stunt like that? Could a car dealership accept payment for purchase of a car but then suddenly decide to refuse to hand over the keys unless the full purchase price is forked over a second time? No way. But will Borders get away with this form of corporate theft? Almost certainly. Because for some strange reason, our society supports that sort of behaviour, despite all the supposed laws to the contrary.

Out of curiosity, I then went for a walk past the nearby Angus & Robertson outlet. Interesting that no such notices were present there.

Fair suck of the sav, Channel Seven!

2011-02-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Gee I really, really hate it when I find myself defending Tony Abbott. Well, to be honest, I am pretty sure that this is a first time. But I'm still unhappy about it.

OK, so what actually happened? Tony Abbott, leader of the Australian Opposition, was in Afghanistan, visting Australian troops. While in conversation with senior officers, he was filmed making the comment 'shit happens'. Australian prima donna television network, Channel 7 aka Prime, captured the footage. They were very quick to start claiming this was Abbott dismissing the latest death of an Australian soldier on active service in Afghanistan as 'shit happens.' That is not what happened. Watch the footage for yourself. This comment was made in a far broader context. That didn't stop Prime however from ambushing Abbott, playing the footage for him on a laptop and quizzing him over the angle that he was so dismissive of the death of Lance-Corporal Jared MacKinney.

Fair suck of the sav, you lot. Tony Abbott does not need Prime's assistance in making an utter dill of himself. He has shown his true colours and hypocrisy often enough over the past few years. But in this instance, Prime and the reporter in question, Mark Riley, have been guilty of nothing other than twisting the facts in a cheap ratings stunt. Spare a thought for a moment for his poor widow, 26 year-old Beckie MacKinney. Her husband and father of her young son, Nathan, has just died on active service. Beckie now has to relive all this over and over again, for no other purpose than Prime trying to score a point or two over arch-rival, Channel Nine.

Abbott being one of those individuals that so many of us just love to hate, Prime and Riley decided to play fast and loose with the facts in order to blow up a 'story' that didn't actually exist.

It is stunts like these that make me ashamed to be generally grouped with the media as a writer (having been so informed in no uncertain terms by a journo on a previous occasion after letting rip on the media). However I am not a journalist and make no pretense of being so. I am a story writer, primarily a fiction writer. And so should Mark Riley probably be after last Tuesday's stunt.

Unfortunately, Abbott does not get it all his own way. His response to Riley was to stand in quivering, rage-filled silence for some twenty-five seconds. He honestly looked like he was about to up his fist and clock Riley one on the jaw. But it was his later response that gets my goat. Jug Ears Abbott has come out, jumping up and down about how dare the media take a tragedy and use it just to push their own agenda.

Hold on a minute. Isn't this the same Abbott who has been using the floods in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia as a simple excuse to start pushing his own political agenda of unseating the current Federal government? And as usual, he doesn't let the facts get in the way too much. For example, his biggest platform has been that because of the floods, followed by Cyclone Yasi, the proposed National Broadband Network should be dumped. He then states that the loss of mobile communication (cell phones for my US friends) in the area hit by the cyclone is somehow proof that the NBN won't work. Ahhh excuse me Jug Ears. Mobile comms relied on physical broadcast towers that were damaged in the cyclone. The NBN will run on optic fibre cable buried underground and safe from the tender attentions of cyclonic winds.

Of course this also happens at the same time that press releases, email and a website statement all appear under Abbott's name, followed by requests for donations to the Liberal party for a fund to fight and cease imposition of a national levy to pay for rebuilding of shattered Queensland. In other words, don't give money for Queensland flood relief, give it to the Libs instead. Abbott denies all knowledge of this request going out. He and his mates then claimed it is common practice and referred to the Labor Party doing a similar email request only a day or so before. The only problem however was that the Labor Party request was for people to donate funds to flood relief funds, not a political donations grab.

For Abbott to go claiming Prime/Channel Seven have used a tragedy for their own purposes is nothing short of appalling hypocrisy as he has been doing exactly the same thing but on a larger scale.

If all this wasn't PR-suidcide enough, while Abbott is wandering around flood- and cyclone-ravaged parts of Queensland, accompanied by the non-entity that is the leader of the National Party (does anyone actually know who that is these days?), the Nats leader decides that is exactly the right time to start publicly claiming that Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, has let all of Queensland down during the floods and cyclone.

Give me a break. Just at present, Bligh is rapidly approaching sainthood status in parts of the country due to her non-step efforts during these crises and her frank and honest presentations to the press. There was a complete absence of any spin or political grandstanding. No make-up, tears, even appearing like a drowned rat at one point. And this wasn't stage-managed opportunism. This was genuine. Even if the subsequent Inquiry into the floods finds her government 100% culpable (which is not that likely given she hasn't been in the job long enough to be responsible for any and all infrastructure problems), that should not detract from her frank humanity during that terrible few weeks. But Jug Ears's partner in crime, leader of the Nationals, thinks it is a good time to go for her jugular. How many votes will that ultimately cost them in Queensland?

So, Channel Seven, Tony Abbott and his mates do a damned good job of screwing up all by themselves. They do not need dodgy stunts like that pulled by Mark Riley. The management of Channel Seven should be bloody ashamed of themselves for ever allowing this appalling stunt to go ahead. And how dare you put me in a position of having to defend Jug Ears!!

Meanwhile, that other commercial television network with the morals and attitude of a cheap used car salesman, Channel Nine, are probably now congratulating themselves for not dreaming up Prime's stunt for themselves, considering how it is blowing up in Prime's face, big time.

A Reflection

2011-01-21T01:55:00.001-08:00

Not a rant this time but a reflection. And I promise - no profanity this time whatsoever. Oh wait - better get it out of my system. Buggershitbum. Right. Done.

I arrived home this afternoon to Canberra after a month down in Victoria, staying with Mum.

Dad passed away back in October and this was the first trip back down since the funeral.

The house seemed strangely empty. The past couple of years, Dad occupied the same seat in the living room, or on a fine day would sit on an old park bench at the rear of the house, enjoying the sun. Those seats seemed strangely vacant without him. Several times I found myself about to say something to him, except of course he wasn't there.

That park bench had been a bugbear of mine the last couple of years. Mum bought it for dad years ago and time had taken its toll. The wood had deteriorated, some screws had come adrift and the whole thing wobbled badly. I wanted to replace the worst of the wood but initially Dad wanted something else done to it instead, then didn't want that done either. Well, it's not wobbling now. The worst of the wood has been replaced, painted up, screws replaced, more inserted that had never been put in when the original kit was assembled, other bits tightened and tweaked. After it was hauled back outside, I sat down and for a moment, it felt like Dad was there with me.

Dad's funeral was in October. He was cremated but his ashes were not returned to Mum until after I had had to get to Canberra and work. On Boxing Day, I saw his memorial plaque in the rose garden at the cemetery where his ashes were scattered beneath a rose bush. I was there with some of the family. When the others moved on, I stayed back for a moment, crouched down and told Dad that I missed him. Then for the first time since Mum had called me with the news of Dad's passing, the tears came.

While I was home, in conversation with Mum, I learned things about both Mum and Dad that I hadn't known before. It left me wanting to ask more questions, even though I already knew a fair bit about Dad's life. I was also left with an even greater appreciation of just how much family had meant to him. At one point, I admitted to Mum that I would have loved to have learned to box in my teens but knew there was no hope of ever getting Mum to agree so never brought it up. Her initial reaction on hearing that was 'would have been over my dead body.' After a moment's thought, Mum said that if Dad had gone along with it then I would have boxed. He as well as Mum supported pretty much everything we kids wanted to do. Within reason. But until talking about this with Mum, I hadn't realised just how much Dad supported us behind the scenes even though it was Mum who took the kids to sporting events etc.

In all this, it got me to thinking just how much my parents put into their family over their years. I like to think that I am going to put it to good use. Somehow.

I have plenty of regrets for things I have said or done over the years, particularly when I was still drinking. Yet probably my biggest regret is that I have not had children. The great love of my life was sadly unable to have children and she passed away before we could do something like adopt or foster. At my age (47), I believe I am now too old to be starting a family. So I am not going to be able to do the same things for my family that Mum and Dad did for we four kids and there is only so much that one can do in living that experience vicariously through nieces and nephews.

Right now I am feeling closer to my parents than ever.

Thieving insurance bastards!

2011-01-19T00:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it's happened. Despite appeals from the Prime Minister downwards (appealing to insurance companies to show the same generosity of spirit shown by the community), thieving bastard insurance companies have struck. Then again, who really believed that they would be so generous? Nobody who has ever had to try and deal with the scum.

Unbelievable as it may sound, claims for flood damage are being refused in places like Toowoomba, Queensland, with insurance companies claiming that the floods weren't actually floods! Huh? Yep. That's what is being reported in the media. Apparently, massive rains do not create floods. What these thieving bastards are relying on is an insistence that the policy holders were not subject to floods, but to rising river levels which, according to the esteemed insurance assessors, are not in fact floods at all!

Unbelievable. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

Why oh why are insurance companies and banks consistently allowed to write their own rules, answerable to none but their shareholders. This is not what deregulation was about. And what do governments actually do about it? Sweet Fanny Adams. At best, tinkering and nothing more.

David Koch wrote a good piece on the subject recently at The Punch, highlighting the dirty tricks that insurance companies rely on in circumstances such as those being experienced in Queensland, northern New South Wales and Victoria, with the worst still yet to come in some parts of the latter. But how blatant a lie is it to claim that the likes of Toowoomba were not subject to flood???

Here is another one for you. The Victorian town of Newstead was flooded last week. Why? Because during the torrential rain, the relevant water authority thought it would be a really great idea to turn the storm water drains off, meaning they were not emptying into the river system. End result - massive backup of storm water through the streets of this geographically pretty flat town, flooding basically the whole damn place. Who's going to pay for that damage? It's an easy out for the insurance companies, "sorry, you're not covered for bureaucratic idiocy." Just where on earth did the responsible shit-for-brains think all that water was going to go? Vanish into thin air? Get sucked up by his anal-retention? New Victorian Premier, Ted Ballieu, leaping in front of the flood waters, opening his gigantic mouth and swallowing them up?

It is more than bad enough that so much death, hurt, loss and misery has been suffered, not to mention the long-term economic problems that will result. But should the victims really have to be subjected to yet more heartbreak just in order to keep the financial services sector secure in its multi-billion dollar profits? The problem is we simply do not have a single government with the cojones to stand up and be counted in any meaningful manner. Joe Hockey was and still is pretty good at blustering and posturing about it, but that was it.

One last, irrelevant to the subject, rant. But it's my blog so I'll write what I bloody-well want to. Queensland premier, Anna Bligh was out on the flood scene, making heart-felt public statements about the status, announcing more deaths etc. Ex-Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd was out in waist-deep water helping recover people's belongings in his electorate, later throwing a public BBQ open to all comers. Prime Minister Julia Gilliard has been just about anywhere and everywhere, on the ground, meeting the victims. Victorian Premier, Ted Ballieu, a man that I normally consider a total git, has been out at the coalface, gumboots and all. So what have we seen from Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott? Out in his best suit, pulling the hems of his trousers up, tip-toeing through a patch of mud that might, just might, have almost made it to the top of the soles of his shoes. And out of all the main political players, who has tried to make political mileage out of it? You got it, Tony Abbott. Good one, dickhead. Oh alright, yes, yes, Bob Brown from the Greens started jumping up and down, claiming the coal miners were the cause. And the real pity of that was it made Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce actually make sense when responding to Brown. However that is still a little different to Abbott's blatant attempt to use the Queensland flood to kill off the National Broadband Network, to his obvious political advantage. Arsehole.

Here endeth the rant.

Outdated Amendment

2011-01-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

This latest mass-shooting the USA, despite suggestions of political culpability, is really a product of this so-called ‘right to bear arms.’ But how many of the US defenders of that ‘right’ are aware of the actual wording of the infamous Second Amendment? The key passage is:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Clearly the Amendment was to support the existence of a citizen militia in those formative years after the War of Independence. Further, the 1792 Militia Act required all ‘free, able-bodies, white, male citizen’ between ages 18 and 45 to be enrolled in their local militia.

This US militia is long gone. It has a massive regular defence force, supplemented by its National Guard. There is no need for the citizens militia any longer and the concept of mandatory service outside of wartime is long gone from the US statute books. So why retain this massively outdated amendment?

Exactly how does having enough guns present to make it easy for gang bangers to go armed for drive-by shootings, support a free state? Or enough guns to make it easy for depressed teenagers to go on shooting rampages at their school? Or an eight year-old being able to play with an Uzi sub-machine gun at a gun show and blow his head apart? Or this latest deranged man having access to the firepower to kill and injure people at a political rally?

Surely it is time for the US to show some real leadership for a change and finally do something about gun control?

Ironically, the subject of Saturday’s attack, Gabrielle Giffords, claims to own a 9mm Glock pistol, stating she is “a pretty good shot.”

Corporate thieves arise once more

2010-12-31T19:04:00.000-08:00

The floods in northern Queensland have barely begun to recede in some areas yet we have already seen a regular post-disaster event occur: insurance companies reneging.

It has been reported in the press that insurance companies are already refusing to pay out for destruction of seafood factories in the Bundaberg region.

Why are insurance companies apparently the only part of the wider community that are allowed to contract for provision of a service only to renege in the face of wide-spread demand on realising that contract? They will undoubtedly resort to crying poor if questioned about this seemingly unlawful and regular stunt. We seem to see this in the wake of every large scale natural disaster.

Insurance companies are clearly just as unprincipled as the banks (hardly news to anyone who has had to deal with both). Whereas banks insist their outrageous fees, passing on more-than official rate rises along with refusals to pass on the entirety of any rate decreases, are necessary to just cover costs, the big four banks still manage to achieve literally multi-billion dollar profits each year. Insurance companies in turn like to cry foul when they are called on to honour their obligations in wake of a large-scale natural disaster, similarly protecting their profit margins.

When will we see a government that will actually do something about these corporate thieves?

Treasurer Wayne Swan’s proposals for the banking sector merely tinker at the edges and do not address the root cause – the unaccountability of banks to any but shareholders who benefit by their excesses. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey’s blustering rhetoric is all very well but he was full of the same bluster in a finance portfolio while part of the Howard government but still failed to do anything meaningful. Any questions raised about the insurance companies basically scamming people will be met with more of the same.

This begs the question of why do governments of any persuasion in Australia continually fail to address these issues properly. Could it be that the big players in the financial services sector simply donate too much to political party coffers, buying themselves protection? More rational answers are rather thin on the ground.

And that's my rant.

Are you a Comsuper pensioner? Be afraid!

2010-12-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

I thought it time for an update on my continuing saga over my invalidity pension.

My pension was finally reinstated. And, after furious efforts on my part and attempts by Comsuper to put me off including even resorting to outright lies, I was finally paid backpay that I was entitled to.

Through this ridiculous saga of Comsuper losing documents, failing to act on information repeatedly provided, promising the world but only delivering a couple of badly eroded pebbles from the Stuart Desert, I have lodged formal, detailed complaints. I received written confirmation of these being lodged and also received assurances of certain explanations being made and data being provided.

I received a formal response to it all yesterday. In short, because I have dealt with other people in the organisation, the entire thing has been wiped. Thanks for coming, now piss off.

This is an organisation that:

has repeatedly lost documentation provided to them - proven!
has thought it fair play to outright lie to me - proven!
routinely fails to return promised contact - proven!
does not supply Call Centre staff with the correct data regarding pensions paid - proven!
has computer systems that are unable to cope with someone working part-time, forcing them to manually calculate pensions each fortnight - proven!
promises to provide information but routinely and repeatedly fails to do so - proven!

And now, having gone through hell on wheels just to get my pension properly reinstated, Comsuper think it is quite fine to just blow off formal complaints with a single paragraph response that figuratively says 'hey - you got your pension back so piss off.'

This mob are in charge of literally billions of dollars of people's money. They are in charge of safeguarding those monies and with establishing a pension fund that will actually pay people their entitlements. Based on current performance, I wouldn't trust this lot to organise a trip to the public shithouse.

Are you a member of CSS, PSS, Defence Super etc? Then be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Because this lot will stuff you and your pensions up. They do not give a rat's arse about the financial and emotional stress they will cause you. They will refuse to do anything unless forced to it by someone shouting at them. Contrary to popular belief, I do not enjoy doing that. They will lose your records. They will willingly lie to you. And we are somehow supposed to be happy about leaving them in charge of our financial future???

Very mixed feelings

2010-12-14T03:13:00.000-08:00

I am still one very unhappy camper. However at the same time I learned a lesson in humility today, to remember that there is always someone worse off than yourself.

A dear friend of mine in the US has just been royally screwed by their Family Court system. She fell pregnant to a boyfriend at a young age. He promptly didn't want to know. She has had to raise their son by herself with zero support from Mr Deadbeat. Out of the blue he wants to start playing Happy Daddies. Then a court application to assume custody and guardianship. A hearing where he and his lawyer present a load of lies, accepted by the judge without the slightest evidence and now she has lost her child to a deadbeat who only recently was living on someone else's sofa. If I am feeling gutted by recent events, how can she be feeling???

I feel so utterly powerless in everything.

Can Comsuper be trusted? No.

2010-12-12T23:01:00.000-08:00

I recently posted about some harsh lessons I learned to my cost about dealing with the regulatory authority, Comsuper, and payment of my invalidity pension. Things are still yet to be resolved with matters now reaching the simply ludicrous.

I am on invalidity paid through a superannuation fund under its early exit arrangements. I did not want to go onto invalidity. I was forced, kicking and screaming out of employment and left to my own devices, denied access to rental and housing assistance, healthcare concessions and more. I have consistently been conscientious in ensuring Comsuper have been advised promptly about any changes in my circumstances. That respect has not been repaid in kind. The chronic inefficiency of this department is simply staggering. Emails and faxes are not only just lost, they see fit to deny receiving them at all even if I can prove that they did. Even the front-line inquiry people do not have access to the correct information. I was repeatedly told that their record of payments was different to what I was saying I had received. I was told I was wrong even though I was directly quoting my bank statement. It turned out that these inquiry staff do not have access to the appropriate system which lists the correct information. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?

Today’s developments include nonsense such as assurances that I have been sent email confirmation of various things which I most certainly have not received. The best one however is as follows.

From the outset I was advised that I have a generous earnings allowance of monies I am allowed to receive in excess of my pension before my pension is affected. I was in part-time paid employment from May 31st to October 20th this year. My total earnings were well short of this limit. Comsuper staff first of all claimed to know nothing about being allowed to earn any monies whatsoever in addition to this invalidity. Then the story changed – that while I am allowed to earn some extra money, this does not apply if that money is earned in paid employment. Comsuper staff then denied all knowledge of any materials being sent to me that stated what this earnings limit is.

Guess what I found a copy of – a letter from Comsuper dated September 1st, 2010, confirming the exact amount that I may earn, before my pension is affected. And guess who signed this letter? The same officer now denying I am allowed to earn these monies!

How’s that for a staggering load of crap.

I am owed what is to me, a lot of money. I have been offered restitution of $400! Now I can appeal their decision to a Superannuation Tribunal however I am not allowed to even lodge that application until 60 days after Comcare have provided a formal response to the matter. I have already been advised that this will not be provided to me this week. I leave for interstate this weekend. At least I am supposed to be – provided I can find the money somewhere to pay for the tickets, seeing as Comsuper have so far failed to make good on paying me monies that are clearly owed. I do not return to Canberra until late January. I have been assured that details of the calculations regarding the back-pay have already been supplied to me when I am yet to see them. I am unable to anything meaningful about the matter for literally months!

Bear in mind, I am not talking about trying to get paid damages or some other sort of compensation. I am just trying to get paid my pension! Of course if I take things to the civil courts rather than the Tribunal, I can seek more than just the monies owed but costs and even potentially damages. But all I want is simply what I am owed in my pension, nothing more.

I think I would be justified in refusing to inform Comsuper of any future changes to my financial situation where that may to be my detriment.

Clearly Comsuper cannot be trusted to act accurately or even honestly.

This is my rant, but on this occasion it ain’t finished yet.

A harsh lesson about superannuation

2010-12-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Sadly, life seems to be a series of harsh lessons.

Through no fault of mine, I was forced out of the workplace and onto an invalidity pension paid by Comsuper who managed my pension fund. At the end of May, I commenced part-time work. Like a conscientious thing, the following day, having signed my work contract, I emailed a copy of the relevant part of that contract through to Comsuper, advising them of my change of circumstances.

Still being conscientious, having heard nothing from them by September, I contacted Comsuper again, this time by telephone. I was now advised that they had no record of any such information being received from me. Fortunately I was able to forward a copy of that earlier advice, confirming that I had made all reasonable attempts to keep them advised of such changes. However it took several attempts before being able to get that email through. I ended up having one of their staff stay on the telephone with me until, finally, an email does get through. What happened to the other attempts is unknown. All I know is that they did NOT bounce.

Eventually, my pension was reduced.

On October 16, I was advised that my services were being dispensed with by that employer. So I telephoned Comsuper to check what they needed from me to reinstate that pension. On being advised that they needed details of that cessation, it was agreed that I would fax this information through to them, as I could hardly afford a repeat performance from when I first tried to alert them to a change of my status. I faxed that letter through with a covering note explaining what it was about. I then telephoned Comsuper yet again to confirm that they had received it.

All seems pretty straight forward, doesn't it. But here is where things start getting really screwy.

A couple of weeks later, I noticed that I was paid both the partial pension plus a second, much larger amount. Ahaa, I thought to myself. That must be the backpay so things have all been sorted.

Last week I noticed that my bank account balance seemed much lower than it should have been. I examined more closely. Not only had Comsuper continued paying me only a half-pension, the latest one had been inexplicably decreased yet further.

I telephone Comsuper that Thursday. Nobody is able to make sense of the situation. They even disputed the actual amounts that I had been paid. However I was assured that this matter would be placed in the hands of the pension administration area who would contact me further the following day. I advised that I was heading interstate the following Tuesday, the 7th, and would appreciate this being sorted out before then.

The next day, Friday December 3, not having heard anything from Comsuper by lunchtime, I telephoned yet again. Initially I was told that due to an overwhelming number of calls, all they could do was take details for someone to call me back later. I explained the situation and I was transferred to someone in the pensions area. I was now told that I had not provided any such information about cessation of my employment. Yet again there was more disputing the actual amounts I had been paid. The fact that I was quoting things direct from my bank statement didn't seem to cut much ice with this man. To my amazement, he even claimed no record existed of any communications from Comsuper to me last September about the reduction of my pension. Never mind the fact that I had previously obtained electronic copies of same from them. However this man, named 'Luke', stated all they needed was an email from me confirming my change in circumstance and he would have this immediately forwarded to the administration area for actioning on the Monday. It was now that he admitted the real reason for their inability to actually do anything that Friday. It was not a matter of an excessive number of telephone calls. Most of their staff were in fact away at a Christmas Party. So in point of fact, they were telling blatant lies.

I emailed them as requested, noting in the subject line 'attention Luke' as requested and also forwarded a copy of the email containing some of their earlier correspondence that Luke claimed did not exist.

Come Monday, I decide to telephone yet again and see what is going on. And yet again, I was told that there was no record of my having contacted them last Friday. Getting increasingly frustrated I went through my story yet again. I was assured that this was to be handled by the admin area that day and a return telephone call promised that day. However I pointed out that I was going to be in a research library for a while where mobile phones were banned. I was assured that this had been noted.

Well, as you might have guessed by now, when I got out of that library around 4pm, I found a telephone message had been left at 3:30pm, when I was not available (remembering I had already told them I would not be available). So I return that call to the number advised in said message. No answer. So I call the main line and ask for the admin area. I now find myself having to go through the entire story yet again. They advise that 'Katherine' who had called me, was no longer in the office. I was further advised that nobody else would be able to assist me and I needed to speak to Katherine and only Katherine. Yet another return telephone call is promised.

I point out, yet again, that I was departing for inter-state first thing the following morning. I was assured that Katherine would be calling me at 8:30 am the following morning.

So I manage at very short notice to change the travel arrangements.

To my surprise, Katherine did indeed call me at 8:30 Tuesday morning (yesterday). Except we were now back to square one as she insisted that I was actually in paid employment and the pension I was receiving reflected the necessary reduction for that.

I admit to losing it a bit then. She confirmed that there was nothing on file to even show that I had been in contact with them last Friday, let alone details of my emails that day about this matter. Katherine now assured me that they would recalculate things and process ASAP. Except that as it takes three working days for a payment to be processed through the banking system, I would not get paid before next week.

"So what am I supposed to live on in the mean time?"

She did not have an answer for that.

I stated that I would be making a formal complaint about their actions and Katherine stated she would email me the necessary contact details. An email dated Dec 7, 9:09am, was indeed sent to me by Katherine, containing contact details for the complaints area. The email also included the following statement:

I have contacted invalidity so they can recalculate your benefit for you again. I have also requested that your arrears be paid ASAP.

Yet that is not all that occurred in this telephone call with Katherine. She also revealed the following staggering snippets of information:

that the information available on their system to people answering queries, is not the correct information about what amounts one is actually paid - hence Comsuper staff disputing with me the details of my payments received;
that their systems cannot cope with a pensioner returning to part-time employment and therefore they need to manually calculate and process each payment for each pensioner in that situation;
the mysterious one-off payment made to me was not backpay as I had thought but merely an inexplicable overpayment made by Comsuper; and
the latest reduction in my pension was because their manual calculations had been wrong and they had not been deducting enough tax.

In the meantime, before departing interstate, I telephoned the complaints area direct to express my dissatisfaction. I was assured of immediate investigation.

An email arrived today from the complaints area, confirming yet again that there was no record of any contact from me about the ceasing of my employment other than a note on file that I had said I would be forwarding the evidence.

On my return to Canberra, I shall be searching my records and taking a copy of the materials I faxed to them along with a copy of the fax header and delivering it in person, demanding an apology.

The complaints response however gets even better. It included the following statement.

In order to progress reinstatement of your full pension evidence is required from your employer stating you have ceased work. On receipt of this documentation the Invalidity Assessment team will approve reinstatement of your full pension and calculate the arrears owing to you which will be paid to you with the full pension.

Hold on a moment. I offered to get a copy of that letter scanned and sent to them last Friday, only to be told that they DID NOT need it, that just a confirmatory email was required from me. Yet more incorrect information being disseminated and yet more time being wasted in resolving this matter.

Don't go away just yet - things get even better. I am now told that the turnaround time for an urgent payment to a credit union is 4 days. So a regular thing takes three days, but an urgent one takes four???

Here is a reality check. It does NOT take three and four days to process things through banking systems, including going to a credit union account. My former public service employer, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, had no difficulty in arranging over-night corrections to one's pay. In that most recent part-time employment, I was paying the organisation's bills electronically not to mention the staff pays. These did not take three and four days to go through but no more than two!

So what are the harsh lessons that I have learned?

if you are dealing with Comsuper, DO NOT entrust them with either email or fax - it seems that registered mail may be the only safe way to get anything to them;
expect Comsuper to routinely lose things, failing to put them on file, entirely disregarding their legislative obligations to maintain detailed and accurate files;
never expect to get the same information from any two staff at Comcare - I seem to get as many different stories as the number of different staff I talk to, and so far, none of them seem to have any of it right;
if you are experiencing financial hardship because of their fuck-ups, don't expect much sympathy from them, just yet more stonewalling.

Warnie - be a man and suck it up!

2010-11-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Philip Agnew

What is this nonsense between ex-cricketer Shane Warne and commentator Johnathon Agnew?

As I understand things, Warne offered Aggers a bet at the start of the tour on which bowler would take the most wickets for the Australia v England Test Series. Warne took Aussie Nathan Hauritz and Aggers selected the Pom quick, Steven Finn. The loser was to take the winner for a meal at a restaurant of their choice. However once Hauritz was left out of the team for the First Test, Warne has apparently bailed on the bet.

Fair suck of the sav, Warnie. If you make a bet, you take the rough with the smooth and don't go changing conditions after the fact to suit yourself. By Warnie's apparent logic, you should be able to bet on a horse race but if your nag fails to get a good jump from the gate, you go and ask the bookie for your money back as your horse is now unlikely to win. Yeah. Like that's going to happen.

Come on, Warnie. Stop acting like an idiot and take it like a man rather than a whiny six-year old.

Here endeth the rant.

The Thieves Gather

2010-11-11T23:16:00.000-08:00

First up, a correction.

In my wrath the other day, I incorrectly stated that the Commonwealth Bank had raised its base variable interest rate by 0.45% more than the recent Reserve Bank increase. In point of fact, the CBA's total increase was 0.45%. But that is still a long way over the actual RBA increase.

All of the Big Four Thieves have now increased their base rates considerably more than the recent RBA increase. They continue to argue that this is a result of the cost of raising funds to lend out.

Give me a damn break. The F.B.T. are all making literally multi-billion dollar profits. They are purely and simply profit-gouging.

Blubberguts Joe Hockey, Shadow Treasurer, is naturally blaming the Gillard government for this, claiming it to be proof that they are useless, pathetic etc etc. OK Joe - just exactly what do you expect them to do? The Gillard goverment is operating under the same conditions that your lot did. So you would not have been any more successful than Gillard and co. And don't forget that in your time as a junior finance minister, you were no more successful in pulling banks into order despite your public 'putting them on notice'.

It is interesting to note that of comparable economies, Germany is the only one that similarly allows banks to have variable interest contracts ie charge what they want, when they want. The US, Japan, Korea, Canada, Spain, France and Holland - those countries do not allow banks to engage in this variable rate profit gouging. The Brits only allow it to happen in certain circumstances.

The reality is that both main political flavours have failed the Australian society at large by creating this monster and refusing to do anything to pull it back into line.

With the mining industry making massive profits as a result of high commodity prices, the Labour government wanted to introduce a super-profits tax on the miners. How about penalising the banks for their making excessive profits that are being taken straight out of the pockets of ordinary Australian consumers, not taken from foreign multinationals who are purchasing minerals etc. Of course this would need to be done with care to avoid them simply passing that straight on to consumers.

How about a massive fine per basis point above rate increases that the banks institute? Make it non-tax deductible. And give the ACCC or another authority the power to monitor and implement further retrospective major fines for any increases in charges beyond reasonable CPI-related increases in fees. Then another whacking great fine for every basis point that banks fail to pass on when prime rates are reduced by the RBA.

These thieving bastards MUST be brought into line. This profit-gouging CANNOT be allowed to continue.

I reiterate a statement I have made before: the objective of de-regulating the banking industry was not intended as a free ride for profit gouging.

C'mon Ms Gillard - give us something positive in response to this unconscionable behaviour. And you too, Blubberguts Hockey - quit grandstanding and offer up some positive suggestions.

And that's my rant.

Calling all pedophiles

2010-11-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

This is simply unbelievable - except that it has in fact actually happened.

Amazon are selling an ebook entitled The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct.

Unbelievable. Un-be-fucking-lievable. But it gets worse. Amazon have defended their selling this piece of filth. Don't believe me? Here's the report.

What in the blue blazes of hell is Amazon thinking about? There is the possibility that it is a sting operation, but all the same... Amazon even agree to have their name associated with this garbage?

Not happy, Jan. Not bloodywell happy.

The Chief Thief Speaks!

2010-11-09T01:32:00.000-08:00

From the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph:

Commonwealth Bank CEO Ralph Norris has conceded his bank’s mammoth 0.45 per cent interest rate rise will cost some of his customers their homes, a reality he says causes him immense angst.

But in defence of his bank’s Melbourne Cup Day rise, Sir Ralph said it was better to see “a few” foreclosures than have an economy hamstrung by a low-profit banking system.

In an exclusive interview yesterday, the $16.2 million a year man also urged customers feeling mortgage stress to contact the bank and seek temporary relief from their monthly payments.

On what planet did the CBA find this dipshit? Let us review a few facts:
1. A bank is admitting that its actions will be forcing people out of their homes;
2. Since when is making multi-billion dollar profits, a low-profit banking system?
3. Since when would failing to increase rates 0.45% more than the last Reserve Bank increase, hamstring the Australian economy?
4. What the fuck does someone on $16.5 million a year know about the reality of making ends meet?
5. What ‘temporary relief’ will the CBA be giving? One thing is sure as shit after breakfast – they will be making sure mortgagees catch up any payments and don’t forget that any slackening on making your mortgage payment just increases the amount of interest being generated on the balance, to the bank's benefit of course.

How much more is it going to take before our piss-weak governments will act on these thieving bastards?

Legalised Theft!

2010-11-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it. The big four main Australian banks have really been copping it of late. A senior industry representative (unfortunately I cannot now locate the reference for just which of the Big Four Thieves he was representing) has claimed this is just populist bank-bashing. In other words, there isn’t really anything in it.

What a load of crap.

I am an ex-banker. It has been years since I got out but even back then they were rapacious in their fee-gouging and things have gotten considerably worse.

The BFT have decided that they need to back off a bit. They have announced intentions to remove a fee. But exactly what fee are they proposing to do without? Answer: the fee for early mortgage loan exit. This is supposed to be a reduction on the impost on Australians who are already paying ludicrous levels of bank fees. What’s more, this is somehow supposed to increase competition in the industry. What utter A-grade crap!

Oh give me a frigging break. Just how many people are charged that particular fee? What proportion of their overall fee base does this actually represent? Infinitesimal, that’s what.

This is a nothing response. The Big Four Thieves will continue to gouge the Australian public to the tune of multi-billion dollar profits. It is basically legalised theft.

When the banking industry was de-regulated, the intention was not to create an oligopoly that seemingly answers to nobody other than shareholders, and what shareholders are going to be complaining about their dividends from multi-billion dollar profits? Other industries had regulation forced on them. When will our government act in the interests of all Australians and introduce appropriate regulation to make the banks act in an economically and socially responsible manner?

And that's my rant.

I HATE agreeing with Joe Hockey

2010-11-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing that I really, REALLY, hate, is being forced to find myself on the same side of an argument as the likes of Joe Hockey. But, like Hockey, I find the behaviour of the major Australian banks simply unconscionable. However it should also be remembered that back when Hockey was a junior finance spokesman, he publicly put the banks ‘on notice’. The reality of course is that they didn’t take any notice of him then and shall be taken even less notice of him now.

It must be remembered that the major Australian banks are making quite literally billions per year in profits. These profits come largely from the seemingly never-ending scale of fees being introduced. The basic operations are traditionally funded by the difference between interest received and interest paid to depositors. But for the last couple of years the banks claim that the cost of raising funds is so high now that they cannot afford to pass on the full extent of any cuts interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Yet, just as the oil companies play silly buggers with petrol prices at the pump, the banks are equally as quick to pass on the entirety of any increase in interest rates. Until now that is. Now that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has passed increased rates by more than the latest rate increase by the RBA.

The bottom line is that the banks are allowed to get away with such behaviour for several reasons. Deregulation of the banking industry years ago, freed the banks from the last of such regulation that could have controlled such behaviour. The Commonwealth Bank used to be a publicly-owned asset (note – contrary to public perception, CBA staff were not public servants as they were not paid from the public purse). However following the privatisation of the CBA, like all the other banks, the CBA has to look after the interests of and respond to shareholders. Thus the minor curbing effect the CBA used to have on the market is now gone. Finally, government has absolutely no power to force the banks into line.

Sure, there is plenty of rhetoric, but the Coalition proved unable to stop the banks (Malcolm Turnbull’s boast of 2008 that the banks were scared of them has been proven the load of shite that anyone with half a brain knew it to be). The current Labour government seems unable to do so either.

It must not be forgotten that the recent Global Financial Crisis was caused by a poorly regulated banking sector. That Australia came through the GFC in pretty good shape was no thanks to the Australian banking sector. As the banks have now well and truely shown themselves to be the school ground bullies we all suspected they were, the time has come to really draw a line in the sand. While other sectors were being forced into greater regulation of their activities, the banks were given less.

What is needed now is a re-introduction of a degree of regulation. Please note that I am not advocating governmental control of interest rates that was the logical extenstion of Hockey’s recent public announcements. However legislating that banks are not allowed to exceed the prime rates as determined by the RBA is not an unreasonable thing. Legislation forcing them to pass on all of any rate reductions in prime is similarly reasonable.

Clearly the banks are not prepared to act in a socially and economically acceptable manner, therefore the school principal needs to step in.

As I said, I really hate being on the same side of an issue as Joe Hockey, but in this instance his basic principle was right on the money.

And that’s my rant.

Burning the Koran?

2010-09-08T03:01:00.000-07:00

It beggars belief that a so-called Christian pastor in the USA is going to hold a bonfire, burning copies of the Koran, supposedly to remember the Sept 11 attacks.

Exactly how is that going to achieve anything positive? All it will do is further inflame the very people on both sides who need little incentive to cause trouble as it is. Did militant extremists of the Islamic faith commit an atrocity in the attack on the World Trade Centre? Yes. Should that be condoned by any sane, rational person? No. But how does attacking the entire Islamic faith by burning the Koran do anything other than stir up more bigotry and intolerance?

Intolerance. That is what lies at the heart of this matter. This stunt is saying 'the terrorists were Islamic extremists, therefore all of Islam is to be reviled.' And these are Christians behind this stunt? What is this - a return to the values of the medieval Crusades? I suggest this pastor go and have a closer read of Christ's teachings in the New Testament.

here is a question for these redneck, right-wing extremists in the USA - what about those Muslims have have aided the War on Terror, or whatever we are supposed to be calling it these days?

A friend of mine is unashamed of her Sunni Islamic faith. She is from Iraq. "Uh oh," the redneck ratbags will be already thinking. "She is an Iraqi Muslim from the same sect as Sadam Hussein - she must be a bad one.

A reality check: my friend's father was an opponent of Hussein's and was murdered for his trouble; my friend worked as an interpreter for the US troops invading Iraq to topple Hussein; my friend was then forced to leave her homeland due to the death threats she received from Hussein's die-hard supporters. Did the USA do anything to repay her support? Nope.

A thoroughly modern and independent person, not to mention being a talented poet, my friend was persecuted again on her return. She refused to wear the burka because there is no basis for it in the Koran. She believes she should be allowed to leave the house without having to be accompanied by a male member of the family. Ironically, she did enjoy those 'freedoms' during the Hussein days. But with the conservative Shi'ite faction now largely in control, she was forced to leave her homeland yet again.

According to these right-wing ratbags in the US, my friend is on the Islamic faith and is therefore 'bad'. She is to be lumped in with the rest of of the Islamic world and symbolically burned by burning the Koran. Yet is my friend somehow a one-off? I very much doubt it.

Have any of these idiots given any thought to the idea that such a stunt could just encourage the militants and the moderates together in a unified front: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Should the events at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon be simply forgotten? No. Thousands of innocents were killed and rescue workers are developing all sorts of health problems from their exposure to all sorts of materials in the rubble. But is this blatant agitation of hate even remotely warranted? NO.

All this really demonstrates is the power of far-right conservatives have over so much of the political agenda in the USA. Sadly, Australia has its own right-wing elements determinedly heading in the same direction, forming a bloc of gross intolerance that is every bit as bad as the extremists they claim to e opposing.

That's my rant.

Don't ask Borders for anything!

2010-07-23T03:24:00.001-07:00

It is a general occurrence in business that if a store does not have a particular stock item available, said store will make at least some attempt to order it in. That is, unless it is the Borders chain.

A while ago I made inquiries about a particular title listed in their database. By pure chance, it was that store's manager who assisted me at that time. He confirmed that they did not have it in stock, despite it being a recent release by a major publisher. However he assured me that they could order it in for me when I was ready and gave me a coded discount card towards the purchase as an apology for not having it in stock. Because he made the attempt and offered me a discount, I did not go looking for it anywhere else.

Today I attempted to redeem that discount voucher in ordering said title. Only now I was told that Borders do not order anything from anyone, but only move stock between stores. Obviously that is a load of codswallop else they would soon have quite empty stores. Or do they have fairies in the bottom of the garden who magic stock in at night while everyone is asleep? Perhaps they rely on publishers and distributors being psychic?

I was momentarily dumbfounded. You DON'T order stock for customers???

The 'assistant' (what an oxymoron as they did anything but assist me) confirmed it - no, they do not order anything for anyone. I was instead basically told to go online and sort it out for myself.

Was I trying to order a rare seventeenth century manuscript or a copy of Mein Kampf, translated into Swahili and printed on elephant hide? Nope, just an anthology from a major publisher that is already in their database.

A few minutes ago I lodged a complaint about this experience on their website. An automated response came rocketing back, thanking me for my inquiry and informing me that my nearest store could assist with information about pricing and availability. Uh uh - no they don't. Because that means actually looking it up and they no longer provide such an exotic service.

A book store that refuses to help a customer obtain a book? Have you ever heard of such a thing?

What's the deal, Danny?

2010-07-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I am a fan of boxing. I freely admit that it speaks to something primeval in me, not to mention admiring the skill, strength, guts and stamina that make up a successful fighter. However boxing has long had a reputation of shady dealings, arising from dodgy things in the past like fixed matches.

The future of boxing in Australia, at least, has been dealt a telling blow.

Last night saw a title fight between IBO cruiserweight title holder, Danny Green and Paul Briggs. The fight was mired in controversy from the outset with it being banned in New South Wales. Briggs was returning to the ring after a three year layoff and NSW authorities deemed him medically unfit to take part. Authorities in Western Australia took a different view, claiming that the medical scans they viewed show no reason to disallow the fight.

Less than thirty seconds in to the fight, Green’s glove little more than brushed Briggs’s head. But Briggs went staggering down, to be counted out with the win on a Technical Knock Out going to Green.

The crowd present were far from impressed, pelting Briggs and his minders with pretty much everything they could lay their hands on. Back in the ring, Green took the microphone amidst loud boos from the crowd. But Green got them somewhat back onside by shouting defiance in the ring, describing Briggs as ‘less than a canine’. He seemed genuine in his anger.

Things have taken a decidedly murky turn today.

For a start, after his apparent anger in the ring last night against Briggs, today Green has come out claiming that he did strike a blow that legitimately hurt Briggs. Having repeatedly seen the blow in slow motion, I find that decidedly hard to believe.

The really concerning thing however, is what has now been revealed by sports betting agencies. A sudden major betting splurge came out on a first round knockout. TAB Sportsbet smelled a rat and suspended betting. Today, that agency announced that it will be refunding money to people who lost on the fight. That is the first time I have ever heard of bookies refunding money like that!

There is yet another issue. This was a title fight for an international title belt. So just how does someone who has not fought for over three years, get a first-up crack at a title shot? What was this – a bad (worse?) version of Rocky?

The evening’s fights were put together and promoted by Green’s own promotion company which makes things look even more suspect.

Some big names from Australia’s boxing past have made some telling comments today. Legendary trainer, Johnny Lewis, described Australian boxing as being ‘raped’ last night, saying the punch that put Briggs down, wouldn’t have dented a Sao (a brittle Australian dry biscuit/cookie). Multiple title holder, Jeff Fenech, was similarly unimpressed, saying it was shameful and describing Green as getting what he paid for. “He paid for a knock-out win.”

The final, telling word for the moment came from Johnny Lewis. This stalwart of Australian boxing now says he would rather encourage youngsters to go and play football instead.

To butcher Shakespeare, something stinks in Denmark, my friends – worse than my socks in summertime.

Abbott losing race to a non-starter?

2010-07-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

My oh my. How interesting and embarressing are the latest polls in the Australian election race.

Firstly, new Prime Minister Julie Gillard has an approval rating of 52% over the man she deposed, Kevin Rudd (21%). That was a surprise.

How much would Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, like to have a lead like that? But the same poll showed that Abbott, with an approval rating of only 24% is actually less popular than the man he knifed in the back, Malcolm Turnbull with 29%. Abbott ties for second place with the man that I confidently expect will eventually be putting himself forward as the ‘saviour’ of the Liberal Party, Joe Hockey.

This is simply priceless – Tony Abbott is coming second to a man who, when he was leader, ran the approval ratings down practically into negative figures!

The Mad Monk clearly is the Weakest Link, so get off our fecking island!

Chuck ruins Fromelles ceremony for me

2010-07-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

I began drafting this post while watching 'Remembering Fromelles'. For those outside Australia and England, Fromelles was the first action that Australian troops took part in on the Western Front, World War 1, accompanied by a lesser force of British troops.

I have previously posted about the events of Fromelles.

Many of the dead were not recovered, being left behind in the German lines after the attack failed. The Germans, on re-taking their lines, buried the Allied soldiers they found there, in a mass grave.

The location of that grave was missed in the years after the War when the War Graves Commission were relocating other such remains to War Graves Cemeteries. It remained unknown until the efforts of amateur Australian archaeologists, particularly those of Lambis Englezos, who would not rest until the site was researched and excavated. Many of those remains were now identified and moved to a newly commissioned War Cemetary.

The last set of remains to be interred were those of an unknown soldier on the 94th anniversary of that disastrous battle (the brainchild of a British General who was as happy to slaughter 'colonial' troops as he was his own). That single coffin was placed on a restored WW1 horse-drawn carriage and moved on its last short journey to the new cemetery.

Along that short trip, groups of soldiers fell in behind the carriage, forming a procession.

Now here is where I get cranky. Near the eventual head of that procession was Prince Charles, his chest resplendent with all his medals for doing nothing during a brief peacetime service in the forces. I said the procession fell into step behind the carriage - all except Charlie Boy that is. He managed to be entirely out-of-step with everyone else. Striding out next to him was Australia's Governor General and she had no difficulty managing to march in step, but not our Chaz. Then the procession moved into slow-time, admittedly not always the easiest pace to do. But by now Prince Pratt looked like he was stoned while on a country ramble, gawking at the scenery, his hat flopping around in his hand.

Frankly, Chuck, if you couldn't be arsed even pretending to show a modicum of respect to both your countrymen and mine, then, please, just fuck off (yep - I am seriously pissed off).

And that, ladies and gents, is theoretically our next head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, blah blah blah. If ever there was a need for an argument for an Australian Republic, look no further than the heir to the throne: all the brains of a maggot but not nearly as good looking.

reality elections

2010-07-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

Time check please: 9:37 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, called an election on the weekend. Most pundits were suggesting it would be August 28 which would permit some days for those not currently on the electoral role to get on there. Instead, the poll has been called for August 21. To help those not on the electoral roll a chance to get that sorted, offices of the Australian Electoral Commission were open until 8pm.

So perhaps someone could tell me why, more than an hour-and-a-half after the AEC offices had closed the doors on those extended hours, television stations are still advertising those extended hours. Now unless commercial television stations have suddenly turned into charities, this extra television advertising isn't being provided for nothing. Just what is being gained by paying for television advertising that informs people that they have actually missed their chance for that last minute registering on the electoral roll?

On the subject of the election, rather than the usual boredom of interminable advertisments, telling us how wonderful one party is and how terrible the others all are, accompanied by footage of smiling pollies wandering the streets, shaking hands with the elderly, kissing babies and all the other stuff that they wouldn't be caught dead doing any other time, how about we spice things up for a change. Let's run our election like a reality television program.

Sorry contestants - this week Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Wayne Swan - you're all in the elimination round. Your task will be to produce a convincing line of spin about why politicians do not get enough allowances, while baking a souffle and changing the baby's nappies. Whoops - sorry Tony - your souffle is as flat as your policies, wearing Speedos detracted from your presentation and you ended up with baby shit all over your face. You ARE the weakest link, you're fired, leave the fecking island right now, do not pass Go and do not collect $200.

Surely that would be an improvement on the usual?

UPDATE - Just to make me look like a total dick, their hours have now been extended to Thursday.

Live longer? Or help us all live better?

2010-07-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

Today I heard an interview with one of the founders of the Methuselah Foundation.

I had never heard of this foundation before and was surprised to learn that their interest is in extending human life spans.

It was admittedly interesting to hear that their research has produced mice with lifespans increased by 20 percent and more. However consider that in human terms. With average western lifespans in the region of 72 years (it varies from country to country and by gender) that means an increased lifespan of at least 14 years. Multiply that across an entire population, even one as relatively small as Australia's (21 million) and you have a recipe for a major disaster.

Think about this for a moment. Is there going to be a corresponding fall in birthrates? Pretty unlikely. Yet with a fall in death rates as a result of across-the-board extension in lifespans, the current world problem of over-population is only going to continue to worsen. That means a huge economic impact on ever increasing number of older people on welfare through aged pensions etc. In a country like Australia with an aging population, this would be economic bad news to put it mildly.

An even greater concern is that of the impact on our environment. Despite all the awareness being raised about the severe impact humanity has had on our world environment, extending lifespans along with the current ever-increasing birthrates of a continually expanding means a disastrous increased demand on not just scarce resources but reducing resources.

Bear in mind, we are not talking about research to combat disease but simply to straight out extend lifespans beyond what we currently enjoy.

Now let us consider the practicalities of such a research outcome. Are the results going to be readily available to those in poorer and less-developed countries? Or is it the more affluent countries that are going to be able to reap the benefits? I think it rather obvious that it will be the latter thus driving that gap between affluence and poverty even wider.

Is there anything really wrong with accepting that eventually all of us come to the end of the road? Why not instead devote that research effort to solving the problems of health, environment, over-population and poverty?

I'm not complaining, but...

2010-05-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

After the joy, no - the thrills, no the sheer frigging hysteria of finding out I have a decent crack at a 'real' job once more (interview next Monday - stay tuned), things have returned to the mundane ordinary.

Jessica Simpson still refuses to respond to my marriage proposals. Don't know what her problem is. Like, what girl wouldn't be jumping at the chance at life in an occasionally dry hole with an almost-employable, broken down, wannabe writing hack?

Tony Abbott has come out and admitted what we all flipping knew - that you can't believe what he is gibbering about anyway. Including those promises not to wear Budgie Smugglers again. Good on ya, Dumbo.

After being invited to be a guest blogger at another site (was told to sod off over the paying blogging job, but fine and dandy about asking me to do freebie ones), I have submitted a magnus opus featuring an all-star cast including Muffy the Monster Molesterer, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Speed and Dirty Harry, only to have a test reader say she didn't get it. Bloody women, can't live with 'em, can't chomp 'em up for dog food.

Strangely enough, Tyra Banks has joined Jessica in stubbornly ignoring my marriage proposals. I mean, like, come on, surely one of you can be conned, eventually, one day, maybe?

My pants are too frigging tight. My hair is too frigging grey. And I have a pimple on my hairy arse. And why is it that while the hair on your head starts disappearing, great frigging tufts of it start poking out everywhere else that you don't frigging want it? Like, was it really necessary to design a male human nose that after age 40 decides it simply must sprout things like jungle vines from the nostrils?

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

What an incredibly small world!

2010-05-17T05:25:00.000-07:00

I have had some contact with the Australian War Memorial in recent times about potentially writing for one of their publications. Earlier today that correspondence began discussing Australians who flew with the RAF in World War 2. I mentioned that a cousin of my grandmother's was with the RAF's elite Pathfinder squadron but his Lancaster bomber was shot down over Germany.

It turns out that my contact is currently doing an article about the Pathfinder squadron and asked me what my relative's name was and what squadron he was with. I could only supply the name but had no idea of anything more about my great-cousin's war service. My contact did a quick bit of looking out of interest and came back with a rather startling piece of news.

He was talking to one of the other staff at the memorial recently. That other staff member had also mentioned that his grandfather flew with the Pathfinder squadron and was also shot down. A quick bit of research later and my contact had established that this other chap's grandfather was the pilot of the same Lancaster that my great-cousin served in.

My grandmother and extended family had made inquiries after the war but never established what had actually happened to my great-cousin. It now appears that there is documentation in the National Archives of Australia about the crash and where the flight crew are buried in Germany. I shall be researching that further quite soon.

The picture above is of the Lancaster bomber 'G George' that forms part of the collection at the Australian War Memorial and worth a look at. This is much the same plane that my great-cousin and this other chap's grandfather were flying in over Germany in 1943.

Recycling isn't necessarily always good

2010-05-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

So now we have The Mad Monk's (aka Tony Abbott) reply to the Budget. High on his list is a cut to the public service. Specifically, he states that they will not be sacking people, but instead losing 6,000 people per year by natural attrition through a recruitment freeze.

Now hold on there a moment, Jug Ears. We have heard something like this before. Back in 1996, on the day of the election, the Liberals ran full-page ads in The Canberra Times which set out a number of 'promises' it was making to members of the Australian Public Service. This included a very precisely worded assurance that staff numbers would be cut via natural attrition over the next two years. Yet almost as soon as Johnny 'Eyebrows' Howard assumed office, across the board retrenchment of thousands of public servants commenced. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost. So much for the reassurances of the use of 'natural attrition'. And now The Mad Monk expects us to believe the same nonsense all over again.

What made that 1996-onwards position even worse, was then-Treasurer, Peter Costello, coming out afterward and saving that the loss of all of these jobs in Canberra and the heartache and difficulty it caused to many thousands of families across Australia, was a good thing. I would hate to see what he called a bad thing.

Adding to the hypocrisy of the new Liberal position is that, just as widely predicted, we see the essential elements of Work Choices rearing their ugly heads again. So much for those assurances that Work Choices was gone.

For some reason, the Liberals are seemingly incapable of coming up with a single original idea these days but just constant recycling of John Howard's crap.

Telstra resolved - at last

2010-05-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be receiving a promised call from a Telstra technician yesterday, hopefully to finally resolve my issues with their mobile broadband.

Things did not get off to a good start by receiving a form letter in the mail, commenting that my concern had been resolved (it wasn't) and assuring me of all the wonderful things that Telstra had been doing to improve resolution of consumer complaints. That rubbed me up the wrong way - big time.

The telephone rang at roughly the appointed time. During my conversation, I soon realised that I was talking to yet another Level Two technician, rather than the semi-mythical Level Three that I supposedly needed to talk to. He soon determined what had been worked out back on Day One, roughly a month ago - that there was a hardware issue rather than a network issue. I was then given the jolly news that the three previous Level Three requests that had been raised in relation to this matter, had all been directed to the wrong area. By now I was thinking "Yeah, Telstra - you've improved things no end - NOT." However he actually put me onto a real, live person. What's more, this was someone that actually had some idea of what they were talking about.

In considerably less than five minutes, we had done some troubleshooting and voile - problem solved. At last. It only took a month, repeated formal complaints, a complaint to the Office of the CEO and starting action with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to get that point. Not to mention well over fifteen hours spent with a telephone glued to my ear, most of the time on hold listening to the same infuriating tunes over and over, that made me just want to hurl the telephone receiver at the wall. But we got there at looooong last.

2010-05-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

Melbourne drug dealer, Carl Williams, who was at the heart of the gangland war there through the 1990s and beyond, died in prison recently. He was serving time for organising the murder of several people although he was implicated in more killings than just the ones he was actually done for. Williams was bashed by another inmate and died of heart failure.

His funeral was the other day and the event received quite a bit of press coverage. Who cares that this scum is dead? The world is a better damn place without him! But get this - his coffin was gold-plated! How the hell did that come about? He made all of his money from unlawful dealings, mainly drugs - so why was there still enough money of his floating around to afford a damned gold coffin???

Williams's ex-wife, Roberta, never short of a word for the media, is now splashed across the face of a national Australian magazine, mourning the fact that some 'maggot' has stolen her daughter's father. What about all the people whose children were taken away from them via Williams's drug dealing? What about the families of the people he organised hits on? Exactly who is the maggot in this picture?

One of the ironies of the situation is that Roberta's actions are repeatedly so like those of her arch-enemy, Judy Moran - live off the proceeds of crime but then bleat about how awful things are when events catch up with you. And of course there was a biography appearing on the shelves of bookstores not long after Moran's appeared.

The murder of Williams occurred shortly after reports appeared in the media that his daughter's private schooling was being funded by the tax-payer although I have not followed that through as I am disgusted enough by the situation as it is.

An amusing aspect to the situation, if there is one, is to reflect on just how Williams ended up inside. He tried to ripoff one of his hitmen, refusing to pay him after doing the deed, with said hitman turning him in.

Now that 'Fatman' is dead, hopefully we will see an end to this sorry saga of major criminals and their families being treated as media celebrities, losing sight of the fact that he was a multiple murderer and major drug dealer.

Get Boxtox while you're young???

2010-04-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Headline news today in Australia is so-called cosmetic 'king', Napoleon Perdis, claiming that women should be turning to Boxtox much younger. According to Perdis, women should be getting jabbed with Botox by the time that they turn 3o.

The article I have linked to above does not mention that age of 30. However I saw Perdis in interview on Australian television earlier tonight and I can assure you that he did indeed make that claim.

Just what precisely is wrong with aging 'gracefully'? With looking after yourself with proper nutrition and facial care that does not require injecting yourself with foreign matter that gives you all the facial expression of a brick. But it is not just Botox that Perdis claims these younger women should be using. They should also be getting their faces treated to laser treatment.

Where this became particularly disturbing was to see just what impact these sorts of stunts are already having. I watched a woman in her early 20s, getting a Botox treatment. Her justification? She is already getting the occasional wrinkle and the price of beauty means those have to be removed, presumably at all costs.

You just have to look at how many young women, even adolescents, have been starving themselves for years in pursuit of supposed ideals of beauty which publicly insist that only impossibly thin is beautiful. With the likes of Perdis now openly pushing for younger women to resort to facial injections and laser treatments, we shall almost certainly see younger and younger women resorting to this sort of nonsense.

Ironically, this stunt, obviously done to support Perdis releasing a book, occurs at the same time that the push to show women as natural in magazines, is gathering momentum.

What on earth is wrong with admitting that we have lumps, bumps and other things?

In my opinion, Perdis deserves a major kick in the butt for his comments that will almost certainly have an irresponsible impact on the young.

Where there's smoke...

2010-04-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

The Australian government has just announced the intention to introduce new legislation that will require oil companies to no longer share price information.

This raises an important issue. It is hard to imagine government introducing something like that unless it had evidence that the oil companies were indeed sharing price information. So it is a pretty fair assumption that the oil companies have indeed been sharing price information.

Why would oil companies, all competitors with each other, be sharing price information? The is only one plausible explanation - that they are sharing price information in order to collectively set prices? No other possible explanation would make the slightest sense.

Now if the oil companies are sharing information to collectively set prices, that is considered anti-competitive behaviour.

There is a little organisation called the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Their entire reason for being is to enforce matters such as the Trade Practices Act. Their remit involves taking action against anti-competitive behaviour. Yet the ACCC has for years allegedly been unable to find any evidence of such behaviour by the oil companies. But it now appears to have been something of an open 'secret' with enough evidence existing to warrant passing of legislation to stamp out the practice.

Just exactly why was the ACCC unable to find the same evidence? Former head of the ACCC, Prof Alan Fels, the man behind the push to remove Parallel Import Restrictions on books, who declared those who opposed the move to be ill-informed and ignorant, was apparently unable to find evidence that was clear enough for others to find.

I have said it before in this blog - just exactly who was the ignorant one, Prof?

The oil companies have been blatantly manipulating prices to suit themselves and engage in price gouging at the expense of the consumer for who knows how long. And the regulator was proven to be completely and utterly useless in combating that situation.

Pathetic. Simply pathetic.

Being My Own CEO

2010-04-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

It is time to take a break from my now perpetual rants against the telecommunications industry and turn my attention to something else that I am passionate about.

There are a number of people in the world that I really admire. One of them is Tyra Banks. That admiration is not just because I think she is absolutely gorgeous. Tyra is one very clever and accomplished lady. She made it to the top of her profession but has gone on well and truly beyond that.

One thing that I particularly like about Banks is the way that she freely shares things with people. On one hand, it probably makes good business sense to do so, keeping and further developing that fan base. But even if that were the only reason she does so, emphasis on if, then so what? We all need professional mentors, whatever our calling or vocation. And Tyra Banks certainly has plenty worth paying attention to that goes way beyond the world of being a model. The silly side of me has an almost overwhelming desire to make crass comments here about just exactly what I would like to be 'paying attention' to, but frankly I respect the lady far too much to do so. I do not let too many opportunities go past to make a joke but that is one I shall pass on. :-)

Over at her website (www.tyra.com), Banks is sharing her tips on becoming your own CEO, taking control of your life and profession. This program neatly dovetails with her long-running theme of the importance of not just having dreams but pursuing them.

I have joined the Tyra Banks 'Inner Circle' over at her website. And I am paying particularly close attention to her Be Your Own CEO column. Each week we get another step or tip as Tyra shares the things she has learned over her rather illustrious career.

Now and again I have the privilege of interviewing interesting/fascinating people. Tyra Banks is waaaay up the top of the list of people that I would dearly love to interview. However that is unlikely to be happening any time soon. In the meantime, I am quite happy to simply learn from her.

I recommend this Be Your Own CEO program to everyone.

Peace and out.

Telstra? '3'? It appears I spoke too soon!

2010-04-14T05:28:00.000-07:00

First, the latest Telstra developments.

After all of my problems trying to get assistance, now that I have finally been refunded for the dud product, all of a sudden Telstra staff are falling over themselves trying to do things for me. First there was an email, suddenly expressing concern that I have had complaints about their service. Then a whole new Customer Service person is calling me, having assigned an entirely new Complaint Resolution case. Naturally when I called back they were not available and I did not receive a return call in response to my message. Situation normal. But they wait until after I have been refunded for their dud product and after I had confirmed receipt of the refund before suddenly wanting to assist? WTF??

I also heard from 3 today by email. First there was a blurb apologising for the distress I experienced. Then, in response to my quite specific complaint about 3 continuing to sell a product while assuring customers that they will receive service on their network when in fact the network is not broadcasting in that location at all and they have known this for weeks but kept on making bullshit promises to the contrary, 3 have entirely ducked the matter. Instead, I am told that due to privacy restrictions, they may not discuss any aspect of the matter.

What a load of absolute, prime-grade bullshit. The Information Privacy Principles that form the core of the Australian Privacy Act, 1988, specify what personal information about individuals may not be revealed. For 3 to hide this entire matter under a veil of secrecy, claiming 'privacy' restrictions, is absolutely pathetic. Just as well that I have already reported them to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. I have now reported this latest stunt to them as well.

How can anybody ever trust organisations who are quite prepared to pull stunts like that?

Why did they bother?

2010-04-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who watched tonight's re-launch of Hey Hey It's Saturday (now on Wednesdays) and wondered why they bothered?

OK, so their couple of reunion specials did well, but those were sort of retro looking back, remembering, blah blah. But 're-launching' something only to do the same things they were doing 20 years ago? It just seemed tired. Sure, it was nice to see the lovely Lavinia Nixon again and I have to say that the young lady playing the violin in the new house band not only can play a real storm, she is absolutely dead-set gorgeous. But aside from that, Red Symons and Wilbur Wilde just did the same sort of gags they were doing way back when. Johnathon Blackman is even reading the same voice-over scripts from at least fifteen years ago. Daryl Somers still can't tell a gag to save his life.

If we are going to just dig something up from the television graveyard, try and do something more than just the same old thing, otherwise, why not not just dig Graham Kennedy up from his hole in the ground and re-launch In Melbourne Tonight. Or perhaps resurrect Bob and Dolly Dyer with Pick A Box (Dear Lord that shows how old I am, even if I was just a wee tacker at the time)?

The Telstra saga over... sort of

2010-04-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have now settled for a refund from Telstra that has been paid direct to a bank account, having confirmed that has been received.

Several days ago, I found a contact for Telstra's CEO and sent a very strongly worded complaint. I have received a reply this morning.

On behalf of our CEO, David Thodey, thank you for contacting us about your prepaid service. I apologise for the service issues you have experienced. Your loyalty to Telstra is valued. We are committed to a prompt resolution of this matter and a member of our team will be in contact with you.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address your concerns.

Regards

Executive Customer Contact Team

Yet another assurance of 'prompt resolution'. However I have received my refund. No doubt this will be written up as a successful resolution of complaint action. As far as I am concerned, it was anything but a successful resolution. It is staggering to realise that Telstra's complaints and higher levels of tech support are so overwhelmed that they cannot cope. Surely that should be a sign of things being anything but right?

At the end of the day, despite more than two weeks of trying I was singularly unsuccessful in having any contact with the mysterious Level Three technicians, despite it being determined on Day One that this was required. There were repeated attempts to offload the blame onto my equipment despite products from Telstra's competitors working on the laptop in question. And after Telstra staff refused to accept the product for forwarding to technicians unless I coughed up a bond, their only suggested solution was to have me wear the cost of mailing it in myself. Like hell I was. If the purchase contract had specified me wearing costs of 'return to base' servicing, then perhaps that would have been fair enough. But that was not mentioned anywhere.

For some reason, Telstra seem to feel entirely justified in charging a premium for certain products while providing an utterly sub-standard level of service and support. Not to mention my previous rant about how well they manage to hide the presence of their Complaint Resolution Centre from its customers.

I have been a customer of Telstra's for more than twenty years. During my long-distance courtship of the great love of my life, Telstra could have probably paid an extra dividend to shareholders just from my international phone calls to her. I really think I deserved far better treatment than I received. Needless to say they are losing all of my business from now on.

If David Theody and his staff are genuine in their remorse, then there would be an immediate major overhaul of the way that they do business. But that would cost money so it is a pretty safe bet that this won't be happening. Instead it is just we poor slobs, the users, who have to wear the consequences.

Bulging Bellies and Follicle Follies

2010-04-09T20:28:00.001-07:00

I need a new pair of pants. But clothes shopping has become one of my pet hates.

Once upon a time, all I had to do was pick a pair off the rack and get the hem taken up. People with my then-sylphish waist were all intended to be 6'7” bundles of animated pipe cleaners. But as I have advanced in age, the dreaded middle-age spread arrived. Now it is a juggling act between finding pants that fit, that are not so tight that the seam at the back takes cover between my hairy buttocks, that I can put my hand into the pocket without something tearing, that makes my gut look a little less prominent but all the while avoiding the look of an over-sized potato sack with a pair of feet attached at the end.

Forget 'does my bum look big in this?' It is more a case of 'does my fat gut bulge out over the top like a hideously malformed muffin top?' The real irony is that I have a serious case of beer gut – except that I haven't had a beer in more than eight years.

Back in the Rubenesque days, women with more 'fulsome' figures were the epitome of all that was desirable. When is it going to be the man's turn? When are going to see male models that reflect what all too many of us end up like? Forget the rock-hard abs down the catwalk. What about the soft-bellied bloke with thinning hair that is going grey and his bad knee from a football injury giving him trouble because the weather has turned cold?

And then there is... the hair. Just what, pray tell, was the Dear Lord thinking of, when he decided it would be a good idea for men to loose the hair on the head, replacing it with follicle outbursts else where in the body? Do we really need tufts of hair deciding to emerge from our already-deafening ears? Was it really necessary to give us things emerging from our nostrils like lima vines, other than boogers? And why oh why, the tufts of hair appearing on the back where only an over-active contortionist could reach?

According to Darwin, we have evolved from the great primates. I suspect as we blokes get older, our bodies succumb to racial memory and start trying to devolve back to our origins.

I need a new pair of pants.

Warning - '3' are trading under false pretenses!

2010-04-09T05:52:00.000-07:00

Following the latest ludicrous display from Telstra, I headed off to the competition that I have used previously, hoping to be able to obtain a unit with better receptors such as the Telstra unit supposedly had. However the store manager burst out laughing when I showed him the delinquent Telstra unit that supposedly had better receptors in it.

"They're all made by the same company," he laughed. "It has nothing to do with receptors in the unit but is all about strength of the signal from the network you're on. Telstra have had you on, mate."

Just as I thought. Telstra staff pulled a fast one on me to sell me a more expensive unit that did no more than their cheaper one. Yet another instance of Telstra being scam artists!

At this point, I expected the manager of that shop to be trying to sell me another one of his products. He didn't. Instead, he sympathised with my problems and admitted that he has difficulty in getting a signal at his home as well. Like me, he lives just next to the CBD of Australia's capital, Canberra. Also like me, with networks other than Telstra, it has proved normal to not be able to get a 3G broadband wireless signal inside a building. The best he could suggest was investing in a lengthy USB extension and drape that outside in hope of getting a better signal. For God's sake - are we that backward in Australia??

I wonder how long the modem would last in the weather outside my window? As for any warranty after that treatment? Forget about it.

As I was stalking through the shopping centre in high dungeon, I stopped at yet another of Telstra's competitors and was checking their product out. It seemed promising. This was '3'.

First things first - what is the reception like in my area? The assistant checked on their computer system, down to my actual street address. She assured me that I had coverage at that address. So I spent another $94 (noting that I am still $160 out of pocket from Telstra's piece of garbage - as a pensioner, that bloody hurts) on one of their modems plus initial data purchase. And headed home.

First things first - activate the unit. Check. Next, call and validate the prepaid voucher - Check. I am told that it will take five minutes or so to replicate through their network. No problems. I find something else to do for half-an-hour.

Time to test the new wonder-gadget. Except I kept getting an error message that I was not registered on their networks. I call tech support. First they check my location and confirm that yes, I should have coverage there. Eventually they had me take the laptop out in the car and drive around for a while, seeing if I could get a signal in the surrounding suburbs. After doing that, feeling like an absolute idiot, not to mention having a householder challenge me, wanting to know what I was doing and telling me that he had called the police because I was 'acting suspicously' while parked outside their house, I headed home.

Another call to 3's tech support, reporting the distinct lack of success. More messing around - and then the bombshell.

They now admit that there is a network problem in my area. And they have known about this since March 20! Nor do they have any idea when it will be rectified. Yet they are happily still selling product to people, assuring them that there is coverage in this area when in fact the network is non-existent. When protested this, I was initially assured that the coverage did in fact extend to my area but the network actually transmitting is another matter. Talk about playing with semantics!

What a load of frog shit. That is nothing sort of trading under false pretenses.

I have successfully argued for a refund and have been given authorisation numbers to provide to the store tomorrow. What's the betting that the store quibbles over it? Be sure that you shall be hearing about it if they do.

In the meantime, I am still stuck with my existing service from GRLmobile that only works while sitting outside in the company of the mosquitoes, the increasing cold and the dubious company of the passing junkies on their way to visit their friendly local dealer.

Wireless telecommunications in Australia is an absolute farce. The biggest provider with the strongest network, Telstra, is doing nothing short of price gouging while failing to provide anything like technical support. Any why not? Just like the old days, they still have more or less a monopoly on things. But unlike the bad old days, the industry is now deregulated and there is SFA that can be done. Even the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has proven to be more or less powerless.

The moral of this particular part of the story folks, is do not purchase any wireless product from '3' including any mobile technology, unless they have checked the status of the network in your location. Do not, repeat, do not accept their assurances about 'coverage'. And the theme that has been running through the posts on this subject remains the same: Do Not Trust Telstra! Unless you are one of the shareholders. You lot can rejoice in all the profits being made at the expense of the rest of we poor slobs.

I was right - Telstra ARE scam artists!

2010-04-09T05:12:00.001-07:00

I have learned, much to my cost, that the wireless telecommunications industry in Australia is an absolute farce and a rort.

Following my protracted negotiations with Telstra, it has been agreed that I am to be refunded for the unit that will not work with my computer and that Telstra are not prepared to provide proper technical support for. All I have to do is return the unit, requesting it be forwarded to the tech support people for testing.

I returned to the point of purchase. But the store manager refused to take the unit back for tech review unless:

I provided a credit card number; or
I paid cash bond.

Like hell I was giving them either of those things. It was Telstra staff who requested me to return the unit for technical support. My refund is dependent on this. But I am expected to hand over cash money that they will hold for an unspecified period of time and have been anything but up front on what the conditions are for it being returned.

What a brilliant scam this lot are running:

keep giving customers incorrect information via technical support that forces the customer to keep calling back at twenty-five cents a time;
hide the existence of the Complaints Resolution Centre
tie refunds to return of the equipment BUT
only if you provide a bond up front or give them a credit card to bill you for the process of providing the tech review that the refund is reliant on.

If you or I tried such a thing, we'd be done for fraud, trading under false pretenses and who knows what else. But, as ever, the big corporations continue to be allowed to do what they wish, when they wish, to whomsoever the hell they want to do it to. Just look at how the ACCC have consistently ruled in favour of the oil companies and their staggering degrees of uncompetitive behaviour.

But the story is not yet over - see my next post that is about to come.

Overqualified??

2010-04-09T00:43:00.001-07:00

Back in 2007 when my beloved former employer, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, saw me thrown on the scrapheap, having thoroughly wrecked my health and leaving me with not much more than the clothes on my back, their parting advice was that I would have no difficulty in eventually returning to the workplace.

More than two years on, I'm still trying to find that elusive workplace to re-enter. Today I received the quite joyful word that it is not my age (46, almost 47) that is going against me (like hell it isn't) but that I am too highly qualified.

I am so over trying to climb corporate ladders and that b.s. Yet for some reason, nobody seems interested in believing that all I want is a job that I can do quietly and well, keeping a roof over my head and food on the table, while I continue to develop other interests. I am long-term proposition but nobody seems interested in that fact.

A round of applause folks, for Australia's national Statistical Agency for getting it wrong - yet again.

A Popsicle Award

2010-04-07T03:11:00.000-07:00

This would have to be one of my favourites so far.

Two women have been caught trying to sneak a dead man onto a plane flight in England, heading to Germany. The 91yo was definitely deceased so they just tried to hide the fact by sticking a pair of shades on him and pushing him along in a wheel chair. They then tried to claim that he was asleep.

I keep getting mental images of the women saying things like:
"Don't worry about granddad - he's asleep. Truly ruly. No, it only looks like he isn't breathing. Look - he just waved at you. What, you didn't see that? Huh? No, granddad always smells like that."

Forget the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, now we have the Dead Grandpa in a Wheelchair sketch.

So for only have a Popsicle Stick keeping their ears apart, I hereby bestow the Noble Order of the Popstick Award on this pair of dimwit shelias.

Telstra - a serious warning!

2010-04-07T01:11:00.000-07:00

Are you in Australia and thinking of using Telstra for a pre-paid telecommunication device i.e. mobile phone or mobile broadband? Then there are a few things that you need to be aware of. These are matters that I have uncovered over the past two weeks during my extended saga.

There is a Complaints Resolution Centre whose role is resolving complaints over Telstra's failure to adequately address complaints. They can do things like give you credits on your account as compensation for the difficulties you have been put through as well as elevate the complaint too higher levels. But Telstra are under no obligation to reveal its existence. It is not listed in any telephone directory, Directory Assistance or on the the Telstra website. Their staff will not tell you the number. I even found staff who denied the Centre's existance. But if you call the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and lodge a complaint, they will require you to contact that Resolution Centre before the TIO can take action. And now (drum roll please) that ever-s0-secret telephone number is 1800 665 376. If you are having problems and Telstra are not resolving it properly, call this number before doing anything else. If they continue to mess you around then call the TIO but note that this entails another ten day wait before they can actually act. But every call that the TIO receives in complaint about a telco provider, that telco provider is billed for the call. So you if you wanted to be particularly nasty, keep calling the TIO to run up the charges being billed to your telco. :-)
You will be given repeated assurances that a Level Three Technician will call you. But do not expect this to happen in anything remotely like the promised time frame. That is because Telstra have such a backlog of serious technical complaints yet to be resolved, that they are unable to cope with it. But this is not actually revealed unless you elevate the matter to higher levels such as the Resolution Centre.
The 'Customer Service Centre' will declare your case closed once they have directed it to technicians for further action. The excuse given to me is that they have so many complaints to deal with that they cannot afford to leave them 'open' until the problem is actually solved. So congratulations all round to Telstra for being able to hire a workforce of psychics who can accurately foretell the future and declare matters closed before anything has actually happened.
Telstra charges twice the price for half the amount of data download in prepaid mobile band than does its competitors e.g. GRL charge $29 for 750Mb, 3 charge $15 for 500Mb or $29 for 2 Gig, Telstra charge $3o for 400Mb;
Telstra's customer accounting systems are not able to tell you what your download limits actually are for pre-paid mobile broadband. That accounting is kept in dollar terms even though you are purchasing a set amount of download capacity that is expressed and monitored by the Megabyte. But the download history is expressed in Bytes making it impossible to work out your remaining download limits unless you create and solve an increasingly complex quadratic equation for 'x'.
Late today, Telstra staff have made the quite damning admission to me that their interest in customer support is not in looking after pre-paid customers but instead devoting its attention to post-paid customers. Any difficulties requiring technical support that may not be resolved by the immediate technicians (who merely use a prepared script) then it is moved to quite low priority queues. Telstra have virtually no interest in providing real support for its pre-paid products.

The bottom line is that if you are after a pre-paid telecommunications option, then do not use Telstra. Their service is virtually non-existent and any interest in you as a customer ends the moment they have sold you the product.

Bastard Banks - again

2010-04-06T03:36:00.001-07:00

In my experience, there are three particularly unprincipled industry groups in Australia: the banks, insurance companies and oil companies. Being an ex-banker who worked in the industry through the madness of the 1980s, I know who I think is the worst. I have previously blogged on the subject.

An ongoing matter for a couple of years now is the fact that when the Reserve Bank changes interest rates, there is no compulsion on any of the banks on what they may or may not pass on to the consumer. In fact we now have a standard practice in the banking industry. When the Reserve Bank lowers interest rates, the banks refuse to pass on all of this rate cut, protesting the cost of raising funds as the cause. But when the Reserve Bank increases rates, the banks all but fall over themselves in passing on 100% of that increase.

Now back in late 2008, when the banks passed on 80% of an interest rate reduction, after earlier generally expressing the view that they would only pass on less than that, we were subjected to then Leader of the Opposition, Chief Turning Bull (Malcolm Turnball), claiming the credit. His justification? He claimed the Opposition drew a 'line in the sand' which somehow forced the Banks into line. Does that mean they have to also carry the can for when the banks pass 100% of a rate increase after shortchanging their customers on rate reductions?

Ironically, dear Ex-Chief Turning Bull has just announced he will be standing down from politics at the end of his current term. Oh how the mighty have fallen. After failing to talk the former Labour government into handing him a seat, he suddenly became a true believer in the Liberal Party (for my friends outside of Australia, replace 'liberal' with 'conservative') cause. And now as the banks continue their bastard practices, Turning Bull is cowering away, his tail well between his legs.

A reality check - despite the arrogance of Turning Bull (and his then mate, Blubberguts Joe Hockey, although TB is still walking around with Fatboy's knives in his back), the banks are not in fear of the Liberal-National coalition. Or the government for that matter. They are in fact a law unto themselves.

Enough is enough. Deregulation of the financial sector has plenty of things going for it. But this was never intended to be a free pass for the banks to blatantly engage in price gouging.

A Current Affair strikes again!!

2010-04-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I had a crack at Australian television program on the Australian Channel Nine network, A Current Affair, for putting ratings above justice. I commented that this was hardly an isolated incident.

Channel Nine and two of its staff are now being prosecuted for making illegal recordings. They received a tip-off that a former Mayor of Sydney was ordering a hit on another person. Rather than take this to the police, A Current Affair did their own sting, fitting out a car with listening devices and had someone pose as a hit man. It makes good viewing, but once more, in pursuit of ratings, Channel Nine has thrown the rules out the window. Once more we face the spectre of justice not being seen because any jury panel would have been compromised and thoroughly tainted.

When is something going to be down about these cheque-book journalists? How many more years are television networks going to be allowed to continue to abuse the law in the pursuit of cheap, nasty ratings? How many more criminals and dodgy characters are going to be able to duck proper punishment because due process has been hopelessly compromised?

The Telstra saga continued...

2010-04-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

Right - next step - elevate my concerns to the Telstra Complaints Resolution Centre. One problem though - I no longer have their number. So back once more on the phone to Telstra. Get this - nobody in Telstra knows anything about their Resolution Centre. They are only required by frigging law to have the thing. Nor is it listed in any telephone directories. Nor can Telstra's own Directory Assistance provide it to you.

In the end, I was told by Telstra to call the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and get their number from them. Huh? Telstra, ie the telephone company, tell me to call someone else ie the Telecommunicatoins Ombudsman, to find the contact for one of Telstra's own departments!

Have you ever heard of anything so ludicrous?

Before the TIC can help me however, I have to first start a formal complaint with them. Once the basic details are recorded, TIC give me that closely guarded secret, the number for the Complaint Resolution Centre.

I call the Resolution Centre and start to have a little success at last. It is confirmed that I should have definitely heard from someone by then. In compensation for all the difficulty and frustration, I am offered a $100 credit on my phone bill. Well that is better than a slap in the face with a dead fish, so I accept. But what about the actual technical assistance that I want. I am told that I shall have to continue to wait. No, they cannot give me a number to call the Level Three technicians myself. No, they cannot put me through to them direct. But someone will call me in a couple of days.

That isn't bloodywell good enough, I exclaim. Telstra staff have a distinct habit of not returning calls to me, so why should I trust you now? Besides, I need that goddamned mobile connection working properly for tomorrow - that's why I bought the stupid bloody thing 1.5 weeks ago to ensure that I did have it up and working.

You guessed it, I was put on hold....................................... while he tried to see if he could talk to a tech somewhere. Eventually he returns with the dubious news that I have been appointed a case manager and he would now attempt to put me through to the next step in this interminable chain.

Another looooong wait on hold until I eventually find myself talking to a receiptionst. Once more through all the identification waffle. And put on hold again while she tries to locate my case manager.

Waiting................

Waiting................

Finally, I find myself talking to my case manager. He assures me that he is there to ensure my properly resolved. I shall spare you the full details of the conversation but the highlights included:

suggesting that I go pay for my own technical support
suggesting I buy another dongle and hoping to get a refund or credit for the existing one (note - not exchanging the unit but buying another one)
suggesting I buy a new laptop to see if the unit works on that - I shall reiterate - buy another grand's worth of laptop to see if a $160 dongle will work on it

I am now assured that a technician will call me direct sometime over the next two days.

"Why can't I talk to someone now?" He waffles rather than explain

"How do I know that he will actually call - nobody else has when you lot have made those assurances before?" He gives me his 'guarantee'. Yeah right, like that means anything. I can 'guarantee' you that the next time I fart, it will produce a shower of emeralds, but that doesn't mean I actually will.

Not surprisingly, I am becoming increasingly frustrated but managing to hold onto my temper - just. Then he made a crucial mistake.

"I am now closing the complaint."

What? I congratulated him on Telstra's ability to only hire psychics who are able to see the future and know beyond any question that things will happen as he says they will. What business did he have declaring the case closed, up to two days before a technician even calls me?

He hastens to assure me that a technician will call and will be staying on the line until we have resolved my problem. Again I ask, how can he make any such assurances? More blather.

I become increasingly cranky and mouthy. Again not surprisingly, he starts to a bit as well. He goes off on a lengthy explanation that may be safely summarised as they have so very many complaints to deal with, that they cannot afford to leave any open indefinitely.

Bingo! Telstra has just admitted that they are getting more complaints than they can deal with!

My suggestion - rather than just declare the case closed, if the technician is able to resolve things, then he should surely be able to enter something into their systems to indicate that the problem has been fixed and then it could be safely declared solved.

To my surprise, I am hit by a counter-offer - that if the problem is not resolved, then it is up to me to call them and get the case 're-opened'.

The moral of the story is do not believe any performance statistics from Telstra as they are obviously utter crap. Trust me - I worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics and I know how to massage figures to get a pre-determined result! What's more, I know the signs of someone else doing it only too bloody well.

A definitive response from MySpace

2010-04-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Well it took three goes and increasingly blunt requests but I finally have a definitive response from MySpace.

Hello Mr. Hamilton,

MySpace does not cooperate or aid spammers in identifying currently active user profiles.

Thanks
--
MySpace.com

I am still suspicious. I doubt that I shall be using MySpace any longer anyway. But I shall be keeping that response on file just in case they are finally caught out. And for what it's worth, I would suggest being even more careful with what you may post on your MySpace account. Something stinks here worse than my socks in summer (and that's a lot).

Dear Mr Rudd

2010-04-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Damn it.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Kevin Rudd - I am so bloody angry with you right now? Why? Well I'll tell you, mate.

Prime Minister, you have just forced me into the position of having to agree with your opposite number, The Mad Monk, Jug Ears Tony Abbott.

I simply cannot stand this abusive prat who changes his mind more often than I fart after dining (and trust me, that's plenty). But for once, he is right on the money.

A full inquiry into the disasterous home insulation scheme is not only warranted, it should have been a given once the details of just how bad this scheme was, became public. Four people are dead, Kevin, FOUR. There shouldn't have even been one but once that first tragedy occurred, why wasn't someone stopping to think hmmmm maybe there is something wrong with this scheme after all. But nothing happens until after four people have been killed due to the dodgy nature of this dumping insulation over top of live wiring within house ceilings that was allowed to go on. And largely paid for by the Australian tax payer.

Just how many Australian homes have been turned into potential deathtraps?

Who is going to answer for ignoring the many warnings received from industry bodies that were in a position to be concerned?

For crying out loud - this whole thing is looking more and more like criminal negligence! And you have made me agree with Tony Bloody Abbott!

More on MySpace

2010-04-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

In my last post about MySpace, I posed the questions - are MySpace co-operating with spammers and would they respond to my inquiry on the matter?

Well MySpace have responded but once again, have studiously avoided answering the question. Instead, I have received yet another string of instructions of what to do to avoid spam.

Now I have zero interest in reading spam. There are only so many penile enhancers that I can use at one time, I already have a good supply of my drugs (ie required medication) courtesy of my GP and local pharmacist, complete strangers offering me their undying love arouses the cynic in me, and I already have a wristwatch. I think that covers the bulk of spam that I receive in one form or another. But MySpace seem to think that I have been trying to find out how to avoid spam. Not so.

I am on a quest to obtain a definitive statement from MySpace about whether or not they are co-operating with spammers. It is just ever so convenient that no spam comes in while my MySpace account is inactive but it starts up again almost the moment I begin using my account. Sure, it might be possible that the spammers sit there trawling through every single MySpace page to see who has been active. But a far more likely explanation is that they are using applications developed to show who has been active. And what is it that MySpace have previously admitted to doing? You got it - working with third party application developers to access publicly available information.

Is it just me or does this sound suspiciously like co-operating with spam merchants and MySpace making a buck out of it along the way?

I have upped the ante a little further, asking MySpace whether or not they are co-operating with spammers, advising them that any failure to answer shall be considered a reply in the affirmative.

Are Telstra just scam artists?

2010-04-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

And the saga continues.

You see, I had managed to get this mobile connection working on a small netbook but that is not my laptop that I use for working purposes and general internet connection. But with no working connection on that main laptop for the foreseeable future, I went to use the netbook again.

The connection is now running at a download rate of zero on this unit that it worked fine on before. But I decide I shall be smart this time and call 125 111 which last night I was informed was the direct line to technical support. Only one problem with that – once again I had been told the wrong thing. This number has absolutely nothing to do with prepaid services. So I had to hang up and call 125 8880 for the umpteenth time and yet another twenty-five cent hit.

After being on hold for a while, I was put through to a ‘consultant’. She asked me for my service number but quite inexplicably put me on hold once more only part-way through my recitation of the necessary digits. Then the call was disconnected.

I called yet again - yet another twenty-five cents. After more delays I finally spoke to a ‘consultant’ who now claimed that I had used up all my credit – more than a Gig! From a unit that isn’t working properly! I was told to check my balance via the Telstra Turbo connection manager. Except that doesn’t tell you anything. I was then told I should have registered online to check such details. First I have been told about that. I was further informed that I would have to validate this new credit voucher via the telephone.

So I put petrol in the car, drive into town, incur a $2 parking fee for the time it took me to get into a shop, purchase a credit and return to the car to go home.

While waiting for yet another interminable time on hold, I read the voucher which was quite adamant that I could do this online. So I tried, while my phone was jammed between cheek and shoulder. It appeared to accept the voucher number but now a message appeared saying that it would be up to 48 hours before this was put through! In the meantime, I am still on hold, listening to an incredibly annoying tune that has me wanting to just hurl the phone across the room.

At last – a person answers the phone. She updates the account. I query my balance. She keeps telling me it is $30. I have a considerably difficulty in getting her to understand that I want to know the balance in download terms ie the download limits. She is unable to tell me anything meaningful. So I ask where I am supposed to be registering online for such information as told earlier today. She is unable to tell me and has to put me through to a ‘specialist’. Someone else takes the call. I ask him where I am supposed to be registering so I can find out what is going on with my account, and he just hangs up in my ear. Was I rude? Abusive? Nope.

I start experimenting with Telstra’s website. I manage to work out how to register. I explore my account. The account balance tells me NOTHING about available data download. The history is meaningless as it shows extensive use when the unit was not working!

I have purchased a set amount of data download. It is not unreasonable to want to know how much download I have left. Instead, it appears that I am supposed to just whip out the calculator and convert $ into Mb by some arcane formula that I first have to work out for myself. But wait – that would also depend on how much my original purchase was for – larger purchase amounts, the price per Mb becomes cheaper. So now my formula for working out what my balance actually is depends on a range of factors in an algebraic formula – solve for X – and just hope that you got it right. What is this – I have I suddenly slipped into a time warp back to 1980 and am studying Higher School Certificate Pure Mathematics once more?

This is an amazing scam by Telstra. Consistently tell people the wrong information so that they have to keep calling back at another twenty-five cents a time – and tell them yet more incorrect information. Set up a system that forces you to call them to sort out updating. Then only give useless information after they have registered, so that you will have to call them back yet again to find out what it actually means. And then leave the poor sods who are silly enough to use their service, now having to go through complex mathematical calculations to work out what their available download limits may be.

At present, I now have to have two computers on my desk: my laptop with everything on it that I need to do the work I am supposed to be doing but which cannot connect to the Internet for reasons still unknown, and a netbook that will connect to the Internet – sort of- but does not have the software I need on it, and as those units come without a CD/DVD drive, I cannot install the software that I require. So I am forced to download information onto a flash drive and keep going back and forth between the two units. And in the meantime, Telstra are still yet to give me a single, sensible, useful response to anything.

You want to know the real irony of all of this? The doctor wants me to avoid stress!

And there is one more aspect to this that I have so far refrained from ranting about. Telstra now have their call centres somewhere overseas. By the accent, I am guessing Indonesia somewhere. But the operatives refuse to answer my question as to where they are. I do not hold it against anyone for being from another country and only speaking my language with a strong accent. I am quite sure they are speaking English far better than I would speak their native tongue. But that accent makes it quite difficult for me to understand what they are saying. And their prepared script is so insincere it isn’t funny. If I hear that accented ‘I am sorry about that sirrrr’ one more time, I shall be looking for someone that I can ram sharp pointed objects into. But where their performance really goes down hill is when they try to spell things. There is an accepted, international phonetic alphabet for English – alpha, beta, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot etc. But these clowns use silly words that could mean anything. For example, telling me in heavily accented English to type B for Bob sounds equally like telling me to type D for Dog.

This is beyond ridiculous.

Telstra and the Third Level of Hell

2010-04-02T02:52:00.000-07:00

I decided that I had had enough of the El Cheapo mobile broadband service that I had been using. Sure, it was cheap, but there were little inconveniences such as the fact I could only connect at broadband speed while sitting outside amid the cabbages. Not to the mention the disgusting, vivid pink colour of the dongle. And just who came up with that name?

Off to visit my local Telstra shop. Surely our biggest and original telecommunications provider could point me in the right direction? Indeed they did – and I left the shop with a new dongle that was equipped with far better receptors than that of the old El Cheapo unit.

At about 3pm a week ago, the account was activated. Five hours later and I was still on the phone, trying to find out why it was only connecting in the region of 1K or less per second. Let me put that into perspective – in Australia, dial-up landline speeds average around 42K per second on an alleged 56K connection – our old copper landlines don't like trying to faster than that. So my brand spanking new broadband connection was running at one-forty-second of dial up speed. Not surprisingly, nothing would work.

During that five hours on the telephone, I made call after call to the tech support line. I was repeatedly put on hold so long that the call timed out and I had to call back over and over. Calls would end for no reason. When putting me through to a Level Two technician, I usually just ended back with the general staff who first answer the phone – and had to go through the entire charade yet again. And why is it that no matter how many times I tell these people my service number, I have to keep telling them all over again every time that I am put through to someone else?

It was finally decided that there must be a problem with the network broadcasting in my region. But then I am given the joyful news that the only people in the entire country who can check to see if a particular part of the broadband network is broadcasting or not, is in the state of Queensland. And they will not be able to actually get back to me for three business days. What?? Then of course on yet another call, I learn that there are actually people who can read a computer screen to see if there are any reported network outages and I don't have to wait days for that information. Except the network in my area is apparently working just fine.

So matters are now elevated to an esteemed Level Three Technician. In Queensland again. But I am assured that I shall be receiving a call in three days to sort things out.

A week had gone by with no calls from these Tertiary Gurus of All Things Technological, so I decided to dare Telstra's telephone 'help' service again.

Another six hours are spent in utterly pointless, fruitless calls. Yet more calls end up timed out and lost in their system. Yet more contradictory information being passed along. Finally, after several hours, I am told that it needs to be elevated to a Level Three technician. I explain that it has already been elevated to there with no response. An argument now ensues with this particular Telstra operative insisting that there hasn't been any Level Three technician inquiry raised. I insist that I have been told that one had been, a week ago.

I am told to recite the 'Trouble Ticket' number. Huh? I have no idea what they are talking. That is then used as 'proof' that nothing had been elevated to that Most Holy Third Level. What?

Then all of a sudden, this tech changes her story. She has found that a Level Three inquiry has been raised after all. But not for my problem but to investigate actual network broadcasting. And I am now informed that all inquiries to Level Three will take seven to ten working days for a response.

Oh great.

I am left with the encouraging news that if I am able to find anything with my actual laptop that may have implications for the connection, that I was to contact them again.

I commence running diagnostics and yes, I discover a problem. There is a problem with the network connection equipment resulting in invalid IP addresses. So... I call the tech line again. This time I ask to go straight to a Level Two. More debate about it but I finally convince this woman that I have already gone through things at her level over and over again already. She agrees to put me through to a Level Two. I find myself talking to another woman. She discusses things with me for some minutes before admitting that no, she isn't a Level Two tech at all. Yet more time on hold, listening to Telstra's maddening bloody muzak.

I finally talk to a real, live Level Two technician. I ask if she is able to assist me with this IP address issue or should I go looking for assistance elsewhere. Yes, she claims she can help me with that. But all she does is start going through their basic script again, although she denies doing so when I challenge her about it. How many frigging times am I expected to have to uninstall and reinstall this stinking software. Thirty-four minutes later (I timed this particular call) she now announces that it is not Telstra's policy to assist with resolving IP addresses. What?? So why in the name of Hell did she not say so at the bloody start and save us both more than a half-hour of frustration and growing angst.

You guessed it – yet another discussion about Level Three assistance. More arguments about when this is supposed to have started. This woman insists that yes, it is indeed a seven to ten day wait but the count started from when my inquiry was first lodged ie a week ago.

I get off the phone, fuming. This is complete and utter crap. I'm not going to put up with this. So I call back yet again, going through the maddening muzak and automated answering service, yet again. I finally get to speak to a live person once more. She is very reluctant to let me speak to a Team Leader unless she has gone through all the trouble shooting first. She agrees, yes, there is a lengthy record of all this on my file already but she still wants to go through it all again. No. Frigging. Way. But she did give me one bit of help – apparently there is a direct line to their tech support – just that not one of the other multitude already spoken to, thought of bothering to tell me this.

At long last, I get to speak to a Team Leader. Except he is even more useless than his staff. He. Knows. Nothing. This clown, the boss, has to go and ask one of his Level Two staff what to do! Another 12 minutes on hold and I am put back to - you guessed it – a Level Two once more. But not before I have a whinge about the ludicrous number of calls that I have had to make at my expense at twenty-five cents a time. Not a lot by itself, but when you realise that I have now made in the region of thirty fucking calls!

In fairness, this one did have some idea of what she was talking about. Unfortunately her accent from her home base in Indonesia or wherever it is that Telstra has hidden its call centre, is so thick that I cannot understand her half the time. Fifty-nine minutes this time, according to my handset. And still no further along. In fact, I learn that I have gone backwards. The original Level Three inquiry had been directed to the wrong area so it has had to be re-lodged to the correct area, and I am now at the end of the queue again, where I was a bloody week ago! I have absolutely no idea of when I am supposed to be hearing from The Third Level of Hell as I was once again given a story that kept changing.

Mind you, that's not all there is to the story. Back a week ago when all this started, after being told that nobody in Telstra could possibly tell me if the network in my area was even broadcasting, I came up with the bright idea of contacting one of their competitors to see if they were able to broadcast on the 3G network at the moment. The only problem is that I didn't have a number for any of them. But that is not a problem, surely? All I have to do is contact Directory Assistance.

So I call Directory Assistance. The automated system cannot understand what I am saying so I am put through to a human being. He asks where 'GRL mobile' are located. I have no idea – I need a telephone directory to work that out, and if I had a telephone directory, then I would not need to be calling Directory Assistance. Of course I could always just look them up on the Internet. Oh wait – riiiight.

To my considerable surprise, this clown says he cannot look any number up unless I can tell him the location. I am now told to go find the location before calling back. He hangs up in my ear.

I call back immediately, hoping to get the same dickhead so I can give him a mouthful. Instead I get hold of a much more helpful and pleasant woman. Except that she can't find 'GRL mobile' either. But she offers to put me on to her supervisor to see if the supervisor can assist.

The supervisor is able to find the number in about six seconds. I then complain about the earlier treatment and being hung up on. She is not impressed and asks me for the precise time I spoke to that idiot. Yeah, right – we all take careful notes of the exact time we make a phone call, don't we. So much for that complaint being resolved.

On Tuesday I shall commence trying to talk to the Resolution Area to get something sorted out. But I have been down this route before. You see, Telstra staff do not like admitting that they even have a Resolution Centre. If it is in the Telephone Directory anywhere, then it is well and truly hidden. Nor can it be accessed through the main call centre networks. You have to cajole the separate number out of them. But not until you have had several layers of people insisting that you have tell your entire story to them first – over and over again. If you persevere for long enough and if their delaying tactics haven't made you hang up in disgust, eventually you will be given the magic telephone number.

So what do I want? Pretty simple, really. I just want my broadband working. And my money refunded for all the calls I have had to make that should not have been necessary at all. An explanation for all the fuck ups wouldn't go astray either. Because of the public holidays over Easter, I shall not have moved up the queue in the waiting list for Level Three assistance. But you can be pretty sure that despite all of this utter balls-up and incompetence, the Resolution Centre will almost certainly prove to be unable to do anything about elevating my concerns.

What a very long and bloody awful bad joke.

Is MySpace co-operating with spammers?

2010-04-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

I recently blogged about the rumour of MySpace selling user data to third parties, posting the MySpace reply to my inquiry of them.

The emergence of that rumour saw me start to use my MySpace account for the first time in ages. I spend a little downtime playing poker with pretend money (and yes, I'm ahead). However, after zero spam hitting that account for a long time, almost the moment I started using it again, despite not doing any updates to my status etc, I suddenly started receiving spam once more. Just the usual - women I've never heard of before, suddenly pledging their undying love, blah blah blah.

This started me wondering - just who are these third party application developers that MySpace help access the public information from MySpace accounts? Could they in fact be assisting the spammers?

Rather interestingly, MySpace responded with a string of instructions on how to make my account private. Sorry folks - that wasn't the question, so would you kindly answer the actual question I asked?

Call me a cynic, but when people avoid answering questions by changing the subject, I immediately start thinking 'ah haaa - they are doing it.'

I have responded to MySpace with a more pointed question that they could not fail to understand. I wonder if they shall bother responding?

Ratings before justice!

2010-03-25T01:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Dad was a very popular and highly rating sit com on Australian television in the 1980s. As I begin typing this entry, the latest in a continuing run of interviews is airing about the alleged inappropriate behaviour of the show's adult star, Robert Hughes, in essentially molesting young children on the set, in particular young actor, Sarah Monahan.

There are two aspects to this issue.

First, did he do it? With the number of people now coming out, including other members of the cast being pretty up-front about matters, things seem to be looking pretty grim for Mr Hughes. It also possibly explains his sudden departure from the series and also possibly the fact that he no longer lives in Australia but in Singapore. More and more people are now speaking up about the matter including other alleged victims.

Where things become particularly nasty is what now has the appearance of a senior management cover-up that has continued for years. Fellow actors from the set have now openly spoken about how they approached the executive producer, Gary Reilly, about what was going on, and how they were intimidated into staying quiet. Yet a couple of nights ago on national Australian television, Reilly emphatically denied any knowledge of the situation. Yet at the same time, he admitted that later in the series, he arranged a chaparone for another young i.e. child actor.

Last night, actor on the series, Ben Oxenbould, stated that Reilly knew. A few minutes ago, footage has aired of actor Simone Buchanan in interview on the program, A Current Affair, stating that she did take the matter to Reilly, and that Reilly's response was to tell her to be quiet about it. Further, Buchanan states that after she had left the show, when Reilly learned that she had discussed the matter with someone else, he rang her and told her in no certain terms that she was never to discuss the matter with anyone again.

It is appearing more and more that this actor has been a serial molester of young girls, that his television employers were well aware of the situation and that Hughes has been protected for years by others bullying people into silence on his behalf in order to protect their ratings and investment.

If these things have happened as described, then this man deserves the full strength of the law coming down on top of him. And if Gary Reilly and others, senior in the Australian television industry, have protected him as claimed, then they ALL need to be charged for their role in this. Exactly what charges, I don't know but there has to be something.

There is a second aspect of this matter. These revelations have all come via public exposure on an Australian television program before anyone went to the police. After an initial interview with Sarah Monahan that did not name the alleged perpetrator, since then he has been named repeatedly by the program and tracked down by a camera crew in Singapore.

If Hughes has done these terrible things, he needs to face retribution and justice. But by this week-long ever-increasing amount of exposure by A Current Affair, how could anyone possibly claim that any trial would be free of pre-existing bias as a result of this media coverage? There is now a real risk that these matters will not go to trial because this media circus could been seen to have tainted the chance of a fair trial.

This has happened before. Infamous Australian 'current affairs' reporter and DJ, Derryn Hinch, once named an alleged pedophile on national television. He had been warned by the judiciary not to do so but blatantly defied the courts all in the name of ratings. Hinch would later regularly boast about the strength of his 'convictions' in naming that alleged pedophile as he was sentenced to weekend detention on little more than a hobby farm of a detention centre. The real result of that stunt was to taint the judicial process and the offender, despite strong evidence against him, WALKED. Hinch's convictions were more about boosting his ratings rather than seeing justice done. And the arrogant clown boasted about his actions.

A Current Affair should have let matters on air rest after the initial exposure, passing all material including that of other victims who have since contacted the show, to the police. Instead this material is only now being handed to the police by which time the damage has probably been done. A Current Affair has had every opportunity to stop this matter becoming the media circus that it now is but is pushing a position that they have somehow been acting in the public interest.

Great for ratings but does SFA for seeing justice done.

What goes around...

2010-03-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

According to testimony recently given to the Court, when Melbourne criminal identity, Des Moran, was gunned down in a coffee shop last year, the last thing he said was 'oh shit'. I would have thought it more likely to have been something like 'arrggghhh', but there you go.

What amuses me about this whole thing, if anything about murder can be considered amusing, is the role of Moran's sister-in-law, Judy Moran.

Dear Judy, wife of the late Lewis (convicted drug dealer, gunned down), mother of Mark and Jason (drug dealers, gunned down), was apparently one of the first on the scene of Des Moran's last cuppa, wailing in grief. Yet it was also apparently common knowledge that the pair of them detested each other. So it was perhaps ironic that Judy is one of the four people charged with his murder.

A while back, Judy Moran's biography came out, featuring her quote on the cover, " I am a wife with no husband. I am a mother with no children". Oh please. Of course the first edition of that biography had to be recalled by publisher Random House with some 20,000 copies being pulped because Mother Moran couldn't resist gingering it up with some false allegations.

Are we supposed to be feeling some sort of sympathy for her? Give me a break. At least that other notorious Melbourne criminal matriarch, Kath Pettingill, has never pretended her family were anything other than what they are - criminals. But Mother Moran would have the world believe otherwise about her own family.

Mother Moran condemned the series, Underbelly, that charted the underworld war in Melbourne which saw the deaths of her sons among others. She claimed it was all a beat up etc etc. I don't know what she was complaining about - she came out it of looking like nothing more than an ordinary mum and grandma, dishing up dinner to the family. As scriptwriter, Felicity Packard, explained to me, they had to be very careful how they portrayed Mother Moran as she had never been found guilty of anything. But it's a bit hard to believe she didn't know what was going on.

If, as looks likely, Mother Moran is found guilty of her part in Des Moran's murder, I suspect there will be more than few people having a laugh at her expense.

What goes around, all too often comes around.

MySpace selling user data? MySpace responds

2010-03-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Reports have been popping up around the place lately, claiming that MySpace is, or about to, sell data on their users to third parties.

This is a sensitive issue for me after discovering back in 2008 that Australia Post was conducting a 'lifestyles' survey and using that to create mailing lists for sale to pretty much anyone who wanted them. I still maintain that Australia Post did not properly alert survey respondents about what was happening with their responses. Getting offers from 'partners' is reasonably common, but wholesale selling of individual data to pernicious junk mailers is something else entirely. I was staggered by the array of organisations using that data, including the ubiquitous Readers Digest - get on their list and you never seem to get off again!

So when I first read these stories of MySpace selling data to third party users, I became rather concerned. When you consider the MySpace links to Google and the latter's quite blatant attempt to rip off rights of authors via its digital library, I believe my concerns were justified. I contacted MySpace direct and here is their response.

Thanks for contacting MySpace.

Numerous blog posts have surfaced over the last few days that have created confusion surrounding MySpace’s user data. We want to set the record straight - MySpace is not selling user data.

Through the MySpace Developer Platform, third party developers can access - free of charge - MySpace users’ publicly available real-time data (such as status updates, or updates about when a user adds music, photos, or videos to their profile) using our Real Time Stream feed. This is the same MySpace data that is already publicly available through Google’s real-time search feature.

Sincerely,
The MySpace Support team

So it would appear that MySpace are not selling or making available data to third party users but merely aiding those third party users to access what is already publicly available. So the moral of the story is don't put up anything about yourself in your MySpace pages that you would not want another party to make use of.

Another Popsicle Award

2010-03-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I awarded one of these.

Earlier today, I watched an absolute lunatic, joyriding in a nearby car park. He was throwing his vehicle around in all manner of wild skids, at one point sliding off to bump around in the vegetation at the road's verge. The carpark was jam-packed full. This idiot was using it as a high-speed obstacle course.

I could not believe what I was seeing.

This was late morning. The office block beside said car park had a quite clear view of it all. Being a government building subject to security restrictions, there will be sure to be security cameras all around the place. Neighbouring places such as my residence had a clear view of the idiot's antics. As did the secondary school next door.

I wonder just how many calls the police received about it, apart from mine?

So I hereby bestow a Popsicle Award on this anonymous effwit for only having a Popsicle stick keeping his ears apart!

not so much a race as a stately procession

2010-03-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

There was a time when I loved motor sport. Nowadays, I have little interest in it at all. Part of me wonders at the dichotomy of glorifying competitive use of the internal combustion engine at a time when we are generally trying to minimise the impact of that infernal device on the rest of our environment.

It has to be admitted that there was still an element of excitement - drivers jousting for position, the tactics of the race including when to head to the pits, the challenge of aligning a vehicle to prevailing conditions. And let's be honest - the horrible thrill of seeing a prang.

Yesterday's Spanish Grand Prix (last night, Australian time), showcased the full range of the accumulated new rules which include:

carrying sufficient fuel for the entire race, rather than strategic pit-stops for refueling or nursing a vehicle for economy;
mandatory use of only two types of tire - hard and soft - and who is going to use a slower hard tire when they can use a faster soft tire that grips the track surface better;
safety rules in pit lane - no longer relying on speed restrictions but instead on space between vehicles, a driver cannot head out if a vehicle has pulled into the pits somewhere ahead of him i.e. driver A hits the pits and is just finishing a lightening speed pit-stop as driver B pulls into a bay ahead of him - driver A is now not allowed to head out of the pits until driver B's vehicle heads out at which time A can head after B but only while maintaining the minimum distance restrictins, despite the fact that A was in there first and had already finished; and
mandatory design and engineering restrictions.

The end result of this continual interference by Formula 1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone was less a race and more a highish-speed procession.

First there is little incentive to conserve fuel as you have to carry enough for the entire race to begin with which has direct implications for exactly how the drivers approach things on the track, removing a major element of tactical approach.

Next, the homogenisation of design etc, while arguably helping the lesser teams to catch the bigger teams in terms of vehicle performance, has at the same time created a real sense of sameness about it all, pulling the leaders back to the pack.

The old trick of pulling in behind someone to ride in the slipstream has no benefit any longer as you do not have the incentive of the fuel efficiency that creates. When riding in that slipstream, drivers have less direct control of their tire's grip on the track and the vehicle moves around more. This is harder on tires and as everyone runs on the softer tire, there is now an active disincentive to joust for position by sitting on someone's tail in their slipstream. Consequently drivers now sit further back from each other, no longer jostling for position with those lightening slips around the man in front. Changes of position only happen if someone ahead makes a real mistake.

The lunacy of the new pitlane restrictions was demonstrated when Aussie driver, Mark Webber, was in the pits, finishing his pit stop, when another driver entered. As the new arrival's pit was further along pitlane than that of Webber's team, Webber had to wait until the latter had finished his pit stop. If Webber had left any earlier, he would have breached the minimum distance restrictions by virtue of driving past the other's pit.

Consider the difference between two tennis players, each hovering at the baseline, patting it back and forth, merely waiting for the other to make a blunder, compared to the excitement of serve and volley. Someone like Chrissie Evert who was a master of baseline play could run her opponents ragged. But all too many baseline players are doing nothing more than just waiting for their opponent to make a blunder. The new state of Formula 1 racing is the equivalent of those boring, uninspiring baseline players. When something merely relies on one person holding on long enough to profit by another making a mistake, it becomes about as exciting as watching bottles of beer come off an assembly line.

Good one, Bernie.

Oh come on

2010-03-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one finding it rather hard to swallow Joe Hockey's latest public stance?

In a recent speech, Hockey made himself out to be some sort of deep, feeling, civil libertarian.

Oh please.

The current Coalition i.e. the Liberal Party, under Tony Abbott's leadership, has regressed right back into the Howard years, to the point of practically recreating the Howard Cabinet in Opposition. Recycling does have its limitations as a good thing, you know.

Joe Hockey was a vigorous and vocal supporter of John Howard from before they even first assumed government in 1996. Only about two months out from the 2007 election, I vividly recall listening to Blubberguts on ABC radio, ranting about how the entire party was 100% behind John Howard. He dismissed results from a survey conducted by a university, that showed significant public opposition to his government's Work Choices legislation, as only being the product of union influence and interference. Yet it was with almost indecent haste that after the disaster of the 2007 election for the Coalition, Blubberguts jumped onto the "I didn't really support Howard or Work Choices" bandwagon.

Anyone who really thinks that the Abbott-led Oppostion will win the next Federal election, whensoever it is called, is frankly kidding themselves. Should Abbott last that long in the leadership, he would be sure to fall on his sword. Blubberguts is rather obviously positioning himself to then be seen as the Party's 'saviour'.

Mind you, last time I looked up the definition of 'saviour', it did not include words like opportunistic, self-serving hypocrite.

breaking news over Gurshan Singh death

2010-03-07T05:18:00.000-08:00

Several hours ago, Victorian police charged one Gursewak Dhillon with manslaughter by criminal negligence over the death of three-year old Gurshan Singh. Dhillon lived at the same address as Singh. Details are still somewhat sketchy but according to police, Dhillon placed the unconscious child in the boot of his car and drove around for at least three hours before dumping the child's body in long grass where it was later discovered. Exactly what Dhillon was trying to do and how Singh came to be unconcious are still unclear.

Dhillon appears to have taken his court appearance rather calmly going by the news reports I have seen. One would have thought that an innocent man would have been protesting vigorously even though his appearance at an out-of-hours court session was merely a bail hearing, with bail being refused.

One would hope that this swift result will put paid to any potential beat ups about racial attacks in this case.

The burning question in my mind at this point, is what on earth Dhillon was doing?

A tragedy - and let's not make it worse

2010-03-07T00:32:00.000-08:00

How horrific has been the death of three-year-old boy, Gurshan Singh? Pictures in the media show an innocent young boy whose death seems pointless, not to mention strange. How on earth did a child of that age end up some 20 kilometres away from his home unless someone took him?

I desperately hope that this does not end up being portrayed as another supposed 'racial' attack on Indian nationals within Australia merely because of the child's nationality. This has been tragic enough without a media beat up making it more so.

If someone is responsible for the child's death then they deserve all that is coming to them and more. Having said that, I have not long finished reading an account of the appalling murder of a young girl in Melbourne in 1921.

In response to a public outcry, public pressure and what can only be described as ineptitude by police and the judiciary, an arrest was quickly made and just a mere three months later, the accused found guilty and swiftly hanged, the accused's rights to appeal blatantly trampled on. Evidence relied on was hopelessly tainted, with the Crown's 'expert' witness testifying whether or not hair discovered belonged to the victim, making a totally bizarre finding that flew in the face of the facts. Only the determined efforts of a researcher 70 years later and the chance discovery of hair used as evidence in the case still in existence within the official file rather than having been destroyed, revealed that an innocent man was hanged. The real perpetrator was never found and almost certainly long since died of old age.

Let us not lose sight of reality, justice and due process in getting to the truth of such things including this tragic and puzzling loss of young Gurshan.

Are medicare staff snooping on your personal information?

2010-03-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

In news posted only about two hours ago, a large number of employees of Medicare have been busted for unauthorised access to people's private information.

According to the ABC, 1058 employees have been investigated since November 2006 for unauthorised access. Apparently just over half were found to have spied on personal information but 30% of these were just looking at their own records.

Let us assume for a moment that it was exactly half who were found to have spied on personal information ie 529. Deduct the 30% who were just looking at their own files and we are still left with 370 - that is 370 employees of Medicare making unauthorised access of other people's personal information! 370!! And of course it is actually more than that because it was just over half who were found to have made unauthorised access.

What sort of outfit is Medicare if 370 of its employees feel safe in snooping in other people's personal information? What sort of system controls do Medicare have in place, or more to the point, what is missing that should in fact be in place?

This is ordinary to put it mildly. And why is it only now that action is being taken on matters that occured as much as three years ago?

Not happy, Jan

Please explain, Pete

2010-02-28T03:03:00.001-08:00

When Peter Garrett first entered politics way back when, it was contesting a seat in the Senate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party. With his profile, he was a god-send for their fledgling cause. For my friends outside Australia, Garrett was better known as the enigmatic singer of the band, Midnight Oil.

Come 2007, Garrett was now a high-profile recruit for the Australian Labour Party, although it was former Labour leader, Mark Latham, who originally recruited Garrett to the cause back in 2004 during Latham’s failed leadership. Perhaps not surprisingly, given his prior public vocal stances on green issues, Garrett was given environmental issues as his portfolio after the Labour Party won office in November 2007. However, being a minor Senator without portfolio interests was a very different kettle of fish to being placed in a Cabinet portfolio role that while not necessarily the most senior, was always going to be one in the public spotlight. There were plenty of pundits who wondered if he was up to it. I was one of them but was more than happy to be proven wrong.

Regrettably, history has proven the doubters right. Normally I am only too happy to win an argument. However this time, I wish I hadn’t.

The question has to be asked, why was he permitted to continue to hold any portfolio interests after his repeated bungling and failures in a Cabinet post? On that track record, others would have been long before dumped from such interests entirely, yet Garrett was permitted to stay.

That Garrett is a principled person who has gone into politics for all the right reasons – to make Australia and the world a better place – is beyond question. But he, at the minimum, needed a damn sight more experience in the game before being given such responsibilities. Instead, the deaths of four Australians are now on his conscience for what may only be described as a staggering display of ineptitude over the government's housing insulation scheme. Ultimately, the blame for those deaths has to be shared by those who left him in that role where he continued to be damaging.

The question also has to be asked, just how much real damage has Garrett unintentionally done to the Rudd government’s re-election chances? Quite a bit, I fancy.