“For reasons that still remain obscure, Abbott got it into his head that wind and solar power were the enemy and had to be crushed, while the fossil fuel incumbents, particularly coal exporters, had to be glorified.

“Never mind that around the world, renewable energy industries are emerging as real industries of the future, while coal seems to be in terminal decline. Facts like these had no impact on Abbott’s apparent loathing of renewables.” [The Conversation https://theconversation.com/with-a-single-sentence-malcolm-turnbull-can-end-tony-abbotts-war-on-renewable-energy-47694 ]

This was bizarre. How could such an idiot ever have been thought suitable to be the Prime Minister of Australia? He did serious damage to the renewable energy industry, including stifling investment, job creation and employment, for no good reason whatever. This was just madness. This man was a Rhodes Scholar, but to me he just wasn’t intelligent. He was a slow thinker, said the wrong things and made utterly weird decisions. I listed some of them a couple of days ago but the list of his stupid, silly things is huge.

We can only hope that the new PM will end the madness, but I’m not counting on it. Already Turnbull is showing that he is ready to repudiate his own previously held positions. He’s a coward. He knows that evil is being done on Manus Island and Nauru, but he won’t speak out against it.

Different leopard, same spots. He’s changed his views to appease the dinosaurs of the Liberals and the Nationals. He’s a coward.

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I’m writing this on the new Acer CB280HK 28″ 4K monitor. Wow. It’s beautiful. Absolutely smooth edges – the pixels are completely invisible. No more squinting to read the 10pt type in my Photobooks. I can easily read the text and it shows up my typing errors straight away. Too many times I was only discovering the errors after the book had been printed and delivered. It was very frustrating.

But there are some bizarre effects. I’ve discovered that my password storage program won’t show the password data! The headings are there, but the data spaces are blank. This is crazy. Why would changing the display cause this? It’s not fatal – I can double click on a record to put it into editing mode and the data shows up then. I dunno, Windows is utterly mad at times.

I upgraded to Windows 10 on my laptop last week and I’m not sure about it so far. The upgrade went OK, taking about an hour, but when it finally booted up, the screen res came up at 1600×1200 (native for the LCD screen is 1920×1080) and the text size came up as 125%, so it looked awful. It took a lot of fiddling to get it right.

I can do the upgrade on this desktop PC whenever I want to, but I’m holding off until I’m sure everything is ready. I’m making sure all Win updates and fixes are installed, then doing a full backup so that I can go back if I have to. Won’t be too much longer.

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I had a hypo (hypoglycaemic, low blood sugar) attack yesterday morning while I was out, in a cafe (oh, OK, it was a McDonalds for breakfast). I can easily recognise it and I had my jelly beans in my bag so I got through it, but urrrgh, it’s not a nice feeling. It’s just a matter of drinking an OJ and eating the sweets and waiting, but I was perspiring and woozy and feeling shaky and sick. Not good. But the funny thing is that my BS on rising was 8.2, and when I measured again when I got home, it was still 8.2, even after eating all that sugary stuff. Odd.

I felt pretty tired after it so I went back to bed and slept for another three hours. Doesn’t happen very often.

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I’ve been urged to do more travelling and a flyer has turned up advertising a cruise from the UK to Sydney via Fremantle. It’s in September next year, so plenty of time to think about it.

The thing is, it’s 46 days, nearly 7 weeks, and goes from London, through the Mediterranean with a couple of stops (Italy, Greece), then through the Suez Canal, round to Dubai, then to Cochin in India, Phuket, Malaysia (Penang, KL), Bali, Fremantle, Margaret River then on to Sydney. Many other stops on the way. $6,999.

It attracts me, but I immediately remember the crowds and the awful queueing, plus the very expensive costs in getting off the ship and onto the bus tours in each port. These would add another $2,000 – $3,000 at least.

Nah. A business class round world air ticket would be about the same price, I think, and much more flexible. Something to think about.

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Still no action on the car idea. I’ve asked Barry to see about getting a test drive on the John Hughes CLK500, as I’ve never even seen one of these, let alone touched one or sat in it. I might not like it.

One thing that puts me off is that it’s so black. Black exterior, black interior. It’s very boring. All these Mercs are either black or silver. It’s rare to find any other colours, except grey. Boring.

Ah, a beautiful coal mine. Liberal politicians love things like this because they keep the gold flowing in.

The Liberal senator Ian Macdonald has said children are being “brainwashed” by education campaigns urging Australians to take action on climate change, describing the political debate about how to tackle it as “puerile”.

“The children of Australia have been brainwashed into thinking if you turn off a light in Australia, somehow that is going to stop climate change,” the Queensland senator told parliament on Wednesday.

“This is a puerile debate in its extreme. We have to bring some sense into the debate.”

Because Australia emits less than 1.2% of the world’s carbon, considering an emissions trading scheme was “nonsensical,” he said, adding that “few serious countries” outside of the EU were implementing such schemes.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics places the country’s emissions as closer to 1.5%. According to the Climate Institute, Australia is the largest per capita emitter in the industrialised world.

Macdonald said he did not deny the climate was changing. “As I repeatedly say, Australia was once covered in ice,” he said. “Of course the climate changes.”

But he challenged the theory that humans were contributing to this. “This new theory, I refer to it often as a fad or a farce or a hoax, that suddenly since man started the industrial age, a change of climate has happened is just farcical and fanciful.” [The Guardian]

Yep, that’s the guy who said he hadn’t actually read the report on refugees by the Human Rights Commission, but he knew it was rubbish.

The IQ test for membership of the Liberal Party: Q. What is IQ?

They all have shares in coal mines, oil companies and shale oil miners. They receive large monetary contributions (read that how you like) from these companies. See the revelations coming out of Queensland.

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I bought my first 4K monitor today. I’ve been thinking about it for a year or so and waiting for the prices to fall.

What’s triggered it is that I’m trying to compose my books in Photobook, using 10pt text, and I’m finding it too small to read properly on screen. If the program allowed easy magnification it might be OK, but it’s slow to do it.

As well, ever since I changed to my current computer, I’ve been using a 19″ Acer monitor at its native 1920×1080 resolution. It looks good, but it makes text quite small. My eyesight is not as good now, so I’m having trouble reading the screen.

So today, I bought an Acer 27″ 4K monitor for $537. It has 3840×2160 resolution. That should fix things. Naturally I researched it and I’ve got a new AMD graphics card with a Display Port connection to drive it.

I haven’t connected it up yet – tomorrow.

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The Guardian ran an item today asking for stories about good and bad bosses. Naturally, there are far more bad stories than good.

I started writing and found I could hardly stop. The period from 1989 to when I finally took the redundancy and left in 1999 was the decadus horribilus of my life. Unbelievably poor management. Awful stress. Literally drove me to the brink.

I found I’d exceeded their 5000 word limit without even getting close to finishing, so I had to heavily prune my story, but I’ve saved it and will tell the full story here asap. Stay tuned. It’s an amazing, awful but true story.

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Here we go again:

As published. The tilt is 2.8deg!

Horizon corrected. Why don’t they do this before printing?

He’s gone. He’s gone! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

From Twitter: Karma – Time in office: Gillard: 3 yrs, 3 days Rudd: 2 yrs, 286 days Abbott: 1 yr, 357 days

From Twitter: Wondering what hurts more. Being knifed like Gillard and Rudd, or spending less time in the top job than either of them?

Apparently Abbott falls three days short of reaching the time in office to get an ex-PM’s “lurks and perks.” Hoo-bloody-ray.

From a video list on the Guardian:

• “Coal is good for humanity. Coal is an essential part of our economic future.”
• If people live in remote areas it’s a lifestyle choice. (Closure of Aboriginal communities in the desert.)
• “Good government starts today.” after the first challenge to his leadership. So what did we have before?
• Introduced to Viet Nam’s top army general, he says “We Australians know well the power of the Vietnamese army.”
• Calls the loss of jobs under Labor “a Holocaust of job losses.”
• “No-one is the suppository of all wisdom.” He didn’t know what he’d said.
• He was going to “shirtfront” Vladimir Putin. “You bet you are, you bet I am.” What?! He did nothing.
• The wink about the sex worker on the radio program.
• Trying to speak French to French school kids in France, telling them he’s the “Premiere of Australia.” He can’t speak French.
• He eats an unpeeled raw onion on camera to show his support for Tasmanian growers. Why?

Add to these:

• The “captain’s pick” to introduce knights and dames to Australia without any consultation.
• After all the ridicule and criticism, a year later he makes Prince Philip an Australian knight, again with no consultation. More ridicule, especially as he announces it on Australia Day.
• Makes comment about being on “Cape York time”, belittling the people who live on Cape York.
• Laughs loudly about time not mattering with “water lapping at your door”. Pacific Island nations are highly offended.
• Calling windmill power generators “ugly” and trying to stop their use.
• Making a sustained and spurious attack on the office and integrity of the Human Rights Commissioner Professor Gillian Triggs.

And on and on. This is just a small sample! What a rotten PM, what a rotten party.

One good thing is that we’ll probably hear the last of the loathsome characters Eric Abetz, George Brandis, Peter Dutton, Cory Bernardi, George Christensen and others like them. And make no mistake, there are plenty just as bad as them in the Liberal Party.

Holy smoke, what have I done to deserve the long list of faulty products I’m getting? The latest is the Yamaha tuner I bought a few weeks ago. This is the second one to die on me.

The first one I received from Sydney was dead on arrival, just no power-up at all. I had to re-box it and send it back at a cost of $35 postage and a trip to the post office at Clarkson. I got the postage refunded by PayPal (but only in the form of a credit).

The replacement arrived and things were going well. It powered up and appeared to be working well, except that the remote control didn’t work. I went through a checking procedure and verified it was the remote at fault, so I posted it back to the Sydney shop and asked for a replacement. I still haven’t received one a week later.

But while I was manually tuning and using the buttons on the front, suddenly it seemed to get into a lockout situation and that was that – no sound from the DAB+ digital radio section. Dammit! I tried everything I could think of but nothing worked.

So, first, a completely dead unit, then a faulty remote on the replacement, and finally a faulty tuner itself. It has to go back. This is crazy. I question Yamaha’s quality control. I think this is a firmware problem. The unit is made in China, as just about everything is these days.

This joins the long list of faulty products I’ve had. Three successive faulty capsule coffee makers. A pair of lens adapters that fouled the body of the camera and had to be sent back to HK at a cost of $25, not recovered. A model train loco that was dead on arrival that cost me another $28 in postage to the UK, not recovered. I forget the rest at the moment but there have been other items. I’m gettin’ a bit tired of this. I think a common factor is “Made in China”.

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At last!  This ABC News item: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-10/is-it-time-to-change-the-nil-by-mouth-protocol/6765312 says that doctors are finally coming to realise that starved and dehydrated patients before surgery are not ideal.

I’ve been complaining in hospitals for years that disallowing any water before surgery was making me dehydrated, and lack of any food, specifically carbohydrates i.e. no breakfast allowed, was making me light headed, nervous, grumpy and generally feeling unwell before any operations.

Now they’re rethinking this rule and saying that a high carbohydrate liquid such as apple juice or other specially formulated drink should be OK. It should be given up to 2hrs before the op. At last! I’ve been telling the nurses and doctors that as a diabetic, it is bad that I can’t have some kind of food.

However, although it’s been adopted in the UK and US, this country’s medicos are still dragging their heels. Huh.

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I’ve been watching the Channel 9 program Kings Cross ER, about the emergency department of Kings Cross Hospital in Sydney. Gee it’s good. Very well made.

I compare it with the British made programs of the same type – I think one is called Kings Cross, but it’s in London. There’s also Great Ormond Street, also in London. Our program shits all over the UK ones. It’s far better made. Recommended.

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Another bad night. I was tired at 11pm and fell asleep easily with no Valerian, but I awoke 90 mins later and that was it. I couldn’t get back to sleep all night. I read a bit, rolled over and tried to sleep, and probably did, very lightly for a while, but I was wide awake at 4am and now at 0620am I’m writing this. It just means I’ll have to catch up a bit after breakfast again.

Trouble is, itching. Not rashes or anything serious, just constant little itches that need scratching briefly all over me. All over my face and scalp, on my arms. Scratch one spot and immediately another place needs it, and another and another and on and on. I’m not red raw or anything, it’s just nerves, I think. Difficult.

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The sheer nastiness of this awful Liberal government just goes on and on. Kapitan Rabbott first says we can only take a relatively few Syrian refugees but at the expense of refugees from other parts of the world. Then he sniffs the stink this releases and changes his mind, basking in the praise he gets as if he is such a compassionate bloke.

There is a long, long list of evil acts by this government, ranging from our torture camps on Manus and Nauru, to the terrible attacks on Professor Gillian Triggs, to the stupid joke about rising sea levels on Pacific islands which just shows the couldn’t care less attitude of Dutton and Rabbott. The list is endless. This government MUST be voted out in 12 months’ time. This one of the worst governments we’ve ever had.

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Good result in the footy, ay? Crumbs, I’m not much of a sports fan but to have the Eagles and the Dockers 1 and 2 in the finals, with one of these WA teams a very likely premiership side is quite exciting. I don’t watch the games, but I’m interested in the results. Good stuff.

Here we are again. Why do they publish a photo with tilted water?

That’s better. It’s only 0.6deg but it only takes a minute to fix. How does it get released? It bugs me.

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Uuuuuuh. Something’s wrong. I am not well. I’m just exhausted, nearly all the time. I went to Clarkson shops today and had to use a trolley as a walker, sit down for 5-10 mins on the couches in the mall, and although I wanted to do more, I was wondering if I had the strength to reach my car. I got there, but groaning and had to sit for a few minutes before I could start the car.

I suspect this might be a drug side effect. I started a new diabetes drug, Jardiance, a couple of weeks ago and I think this started then. I skipped the dose yesterday and felt reasonably OK (which for me is still pretty slow), then took it again today and I’m zonked.

I see the GP on Monday with a long appointment so we’ll see what she says. I’ve asked Dr Google about side effects and fatigue is shown as “rare”. I don’t usually have troubles with side effects.

I also saw the cardiologist last Tuesday and he’s happy that my heart is fine. Flutters and palpitations are not dangerous, so if it doesn’t bother me (I get ’em, but it doesn’t bother me) then that’s OK.

But he has no answer for my wooziness and peripheral vision/tunnel vision/glare intolerance problem. “I don’t know what that is.” It’s good that he was honest and didn’t waffle.

I’ve been told I should do more travelling as that fires me up. True, but I’m just not capable of it at the moment. I can hardly go to the local shops. I’d like to fly to Melbourne, buy that Merc SL350 and do a long driving holiday, but I don’t feel I could cope with it. Not good.

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There’s talk today of WA seceding, becoming a separate country to eastern Australia. It’s a simple idea and superficially attractive to people who don’t think it through, but it’s a stupid idea.

There are Commonwealth government functions that would have to be taken over which people don’t think about:

• aviation and air traffic control
• air navigation beacons and radar stations
• weather services (vital!)
• Australia Post and postal services
• radio/TV/phone spectrum management and regulation
• Medicare – how would WA provide Medicare services?
• taxation collection
• customs and immigration
• defence – all our naval forces would relocate back to the east coast.
• army – the SAS would have to pack up and leave Swanbourne

This is just a partial list. There would be a lot more. It’s just impractical for a state of 2.5m people to exist on its own in 1 million square kilometres, especially with a border stretching from nearly Darwin down the coast to Esperance and Eucla, tens of thousands of kilometres.

But that’s the MP David Leyonhelm for you. A Sydney man, a gun lover, a Christian, with radical ideas. Better stay in Sydney and shut up, I think.

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“G’day. How are you?”  Well, I’ve already heard a hundred times that the announcer is “Fine thanks”, but the next caller will ask again, and the next, and again, and again. It is impossible for Australian people, whether slobs, ordinary people or politicians or businessmen to just say “Hullo Jamie” or whoever it is, or just “Hello, good morning …” What is wrong with people that they can’t control what they say?

Then we get into “Y’know.” This is a worldwide epidemic! Most people insert Y’know every 2 seconds while talking. Some people say it two or more times in succession. Some people say it so often that it becomes “y’ow”, just an abbreviation, a short, meaningless sound.

This applies even to BBC announcers on radio. I’m driven mad by Y’know. I hate it, but it’s a world wide infection, an epidemic. Think about what you’re saying, y’know.

Bloody hell, I’m fired up about this SL350 in Melbourne. It’s a 2007 model, not 2006 as I said, and has only done 72,000Km.

The interesting thing is that it’s disclosed as a “Written off” vehicle. Usually that means it’s been in an accident, but in this case the reason is shown as “Storm/flood” in 2010. A little research shows that Melbourne had a whopper storm on 6 March 2010, with big hailstones. So it would appear that the car might have been hail damaged. If so, I can’t see any signs in the photos. Looks good to me.

The value seems to be right for that year and distance driven, with a few thousand discounted.

What I especially like is the combination of the tan leather interior with the black ash polished wood grain. Usually you get aluminium metal in this model. I want the wood grain, and especially on the steering wheel. Love it!

My thoughts are – I’ll never get another chance to drive a really good car; if it proves too expensive to own and run, I can always sell it in two or three years’ time  😉 ; I’m only using up a fraction of my assets; I’m not likely to do much travelling in the future – too much fatigue, too little stamina. Last chance. Just do it.

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I’ve been listening to the BBC radio coverage of the refugee crisis in Europe, and two German commentators talked about three things that struck me hard – I hadn’t thought of these before.

One is the argument that “We’re full, we can’t take any more people.” Well, the German people are lining up and cheering the refugees as they arrive, as they cross the borders into Germany, handing out water, food and shoes and toys for the kids. People in Munich are making beds for them in their private homes. What a magnificent attitude, and what an utter contrast to the attitude of this country. Australians who oppose refugee immigration, be ashamed! You are disgraceful.

The second point is that the population of Germany and other advanced countries is actually falling. This leads to a falling GDP as well, as there are fewer people with money to spend. Germany actually needs between 250,000 and 400,000 more people each year just to maintain their economic growth. (Look at Japan – they are in serious trouble with an ageing population, a falling workforce and deflation. Thy could do MUCH more to help, even if only with money.)

So that’s 250,000 immigrants for Germany alone. France, Italy, Spain, they are all the same – ageing, declining populations. They need more young families. They have plenty of capacity to take these refugees.

A third point was that Europe is rich. European people are rich compared to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe can well afford to give up a very little amount of its wealth. It would be a very temporary gift anyway, as the new arrivals would soon boost incomes again.

So bloody hell, what a refreshing attitude by Germany. Full marks! Amazing. Congratulations.

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Yes, contrast this with our Australian Department of Immigration and the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade DFAT.

I commend an article in The Saturday Paper about the way Mike Pezzullo, the secretary of DFAT has effectively militarised the department since this Captain Abbott government came to power. About 25% of the department’s senior staff have resigned and left since Pezzullo took over, and staff have been told to refer to him as Mr Secretary or Mr Pezzullo; no first names allowed any more.

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/immigration/2015/09/05/inside-border-forces-power/14413752002322

The Dept of Immigration is deaf to any allegations of rapes, torture and child abuse in our torture centres on Nauru and Manus Island and regards any negative stories as good publicity if it scares refugees away from trying to come. This is awful stuff.

This is frightening. It is serious. This Liberal government is deliberately stirring up fear in the electorate and militarising the government departments responsible for immigration and border affairs. Disgraceful!

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Michael Keenan MHR, a WA Liberal member and Minister, stood alongside Kapitan Abbott VC DSO DFC KCMGB KVO DICK and told a reporter, in answer to a question, that reports of massive cuts to the health budget are wrong.

Well, Mr Keenan, or is that Herr Leutnant Keenan, deny this: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/12/budget-cuts-18bn-from-health-to-pay-for-medical-research-fund-and-pbs-drugs

Herr Leutnant Keenan, you are a liar.

Mercedes SL500. Phwoooaaar.

Reading about Julian Assange, imprisoned, effectively, in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

How odd that his lawyer is Aussie Jennifer Robinson, and the other prominent Aussie lawyer is Geoffrey Robertson. Such similar sounding names.

What a rotten thing the UK is doing. That’s Britain as always, dirty, cruel, arrogant, lying bastards.

As for Sweden, they go to the bottom of the pile as far as I’m concerned. Utter bastards, a rotten country. I’ll never go there. They can’t be trusted – there’s no guarantee I’d get out of Sweden if I went in. Sweden, go away!

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I  talked to HBF about insurance if I changed my car to the Mercedes CLK550. Aaaarrrgh. At present I pay $35 per month for $5,000 worth of comprehensive cover for the Magna.

But if I bought the Mercedes, the cover has to be for $38,800 (that’s their agreed value amount), and the monthly premium jumps to $116 per month – $1392 per year. That’s just about the deal breaker for me. I don’t think I can afford that. I don’t want to, anyway.

I suppose the alternative is to go for the Mercedes CLK350 at the same dealer. That’s the same body, just a 3.5L V6 instead of the big V8. Advertised price $21,660. That would drop the insurance premium considerably.

Another alternative which someone suggested, and has some appeal, is to go for a Honda Legend. There’s one for sale at a dealer in Bunbury – 2007 model, 114,000Km, $19,990.

But what boring, bland styling. Frankly, I don’t like the looks. This is what I’m trying to get away from, styling which dates, and this is dated already. They are not made any more – production stopped in 2010, I think.

Compare it with this:

2006 model and to me, it will never date. I like it. Hard decision. Luckily, I have all the time in the world. I don’t have to make a decision at all. The 2001 Magna is still a pleasure to drive – smooth, quiet, powerful, no rattles or squeaks. Even at 14 years old it still feels good. Maybe I should just get a paint and panel job done and keep it.

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Another alternative might be a Ford Territory Ghia. I’ve always liked them, but the old original styling, not the new look. Hmmm. The question is, would the seating be too high for me to get in and out easily? One way to find out, try it.

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LATER 1pm:  I’m told I’m hypersensitive.

I’ve just been in a cafe and noticed a particularly pretty, sweet Italian looking girl, about 20 or 22 I’d guess. Then she turned her head towards me and she had a big ring pierced through her right nostril. Ugh! Ugh! I had to look away. I can’t look at piercings like that. Too sensitive?

Then a guy came in and started talking to the guy in front of me. Every third word was fuck or fucken. A torrent of them, into my left ear. I’d guess he used it 30 times in two minutes or less. He didn’t seem to be able to make a sentence without starting, including and finishing with those words. I wanted to ask him to tone it down, but I doubt he would have understood what I meant. To him it was normal speech. Am I too sensitive?

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I’ve made an appointment with my GP for a new prescription and a couple of other things. But the earliest I can get in is the 14th, Monday week! This is wrong. Not happy. Too sensitive, I suppose.

OTOH, I phoned for an appointment with my cardiologist, and I’m in next Tuesday at 0815. Quick service on that one. Unusual.

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Two days running I’ve gone to the pharmacy to get a script filled, only to find I’ve left my prescriptions at home. Twice in two days! Getting old, I think.

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I went to the Thirsty Camel grog shop to buy beer. Their price for a 6 pack of Guiness stubbies – $22.99. They say they will not be beaten on price. I pulled out my IGA Liquor till receipt to show that IGA’s price is $17.99. “Oh, no mate, we only price match with Dan Murphy’s.”  What??!!  I said no thanks, I’ll buy at IGA and walked out. What do they think they’re doing?

Likewise, Woolies supermarkets have done their dash with me. I’ve said many times that they cheat the customer. There’s a pricing/scanning error nearly every time, always in their favour.

Yesterday I was going to do some grocery shopping at Woolies and Burgen bread was on my list. Coles normal price is $4.90. But at Woolies, it’s $5.67, or $4.97 if you’ve got a Woolies Rewards card. NO! I’m not putting up with that. Therefore I stopped my shopping and left – they lost my entire purchase. Too sensitive?

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Thinking about that Mercedes – bloody hell, just do it. Live a little. Enjoy buying a car for a change. Sell it again after a couple of years if it’s too expensive to maintain.

AND! Wot about this?

It’s a convertible, 2006 SL350 V6. It’s in Melbourne. Price $49,888. More than I ever4 bargained for, but no more daring than buying a Toyota Land Cruiser 4WD. Just thinkin’.

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Too sensitive? I’ve just been asked to open my bag at IGA! I’m a shop stealing suspect, in other words. From now on, I’m going to refuse. Call the manager, call the cops if you want to, or lose my business entirely. I’m not putting up with this.

Yes, sensitive to false suspicions by juvenile checkout chicks.

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I frequent a web site called Red Shark, about professional video production. A few days ago they ran a maker’s news release about a new device, and it included this line: “… will ship with a bright red Amour Bumper for added ruggedness.”  It means it has a rubber sleeve to protect it.

But Amour bumper?

I submitted the following to the comments section: “Ah, amour, amour. Love will penetrate armour, no?”

They’ve censored my comment! They won’t run it, and the spelling error is still there. Huh!

In the previous post I talked about the 7-11 story without knowing the full details.

After seeing the Four Corners program on Sunday night (actually I recorded it and watched it yesterday afternoon), I’ve realised it’s even worse than I thought. As they say in the documentary, nearly all 7-11 franchisees were underpaying their mostly foreign student staff and telling them if they reported it or made any complaint, they would be reported to the Dept of Immigration. That would have meant loss of their job but also cancellation of their student visa and deportation.

The entire business model for 7-11 depends on underpaying their staff. If they paid proper wages, there would be no 7-11 businesses. But there have always been convenience stores like 7-11s, but paying proper Australian Award wages. If 7-11s ceased trading entirely, something else would fill their place, without needing to exploit staff. I’m sure they wouldn’t be open 24 hours, but so what? How many people really, truly need to buy simple things at 3am or 4am? (Interesting that the map shows there are only seven 7-11s in WA, compared with over 200 in Sydney.)

The result is thousands of foreign students are (present tense, because it’s still going on) being forced to work in slave-like conditions. Working days of up to 14-16 hours, no meal breaks, no sick leave or annual leave, no public holidays, no superannuation.

The employees would be covered by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Trades union but they are too afraid to speak out. The union knows of the practices, but can’t get evidence to take action.

This is a particularly severe case, but there’s hardly a week goes by without news of some exploitation of employees in this country. Four Corners even said that this is the second program this year that they’ve devoted to showing gross exploitation of workers.

So don’t try and tell me that employers have their workforce at heart and unions aren’t needed.

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First day of spring yesterday and snow on the Porongorup Range. Minimum temperature this morning  2.8 degrees. Brrr. But I’m sitting here in just a T-shirt, with no heating. It’s not too bad.

More worrying is the ABC News story about the water supply at Denmark on WA’s south coast (west of Albany). They are running out of water. One of the locals said he noticed it in the 1970s, the reduction in rainfall, and it’s continued to now.

I agree. I remember going to Britain in about August 1977 (work training courses) and telling the local Brits that WA had gone through our last summer with 100 days without any rain whatever. I also noticed, that year, how dry our winter was compared to previous years. That was the start of the shift in climate in WA, in my opinion.

Right now I’m noticing how mild our winter has been. Where’s the wind? Day after day after day is still, calm. WA used to be regarded as one of the windiest places. We got regular winter storms and tempests. I used to need to rug up in bed. We got minima of down to zero degrees. Now I just use one blanket and the quilt cover without any quilt inside it. Another blanket on top, but often I throw it off.

But now — well below average rainfall, month after month, record dry spells, no wind, very few storms. Our climate has really, truly changed here in the last 40 years and it’s accelerating.

Northern invaders?           © Peter Croft 2014

Lord the Viscount Rabbott VC and 37 bars of Moonee Ponds has been rattling the sabre for the past couple of years, trying to scare the country about the “Daesh death cult” and stirring up fear that the hordes from the north are coming to invade us. Sound familiar? It’s the Menzies Liberal government all over again. The story that the communists in Viet Nam had to be stopped lest the red menace work its way down through Asia to our shores, the so called Domino Theory. It was utter bullshit, but unfortunately it led to Menzies and Holt lobbying the US government to “invite” Australia to commit troops to fight the Communists. The idea that the US pressured us was later shown convincingly to be a pack of lies.

The result was about 500 young Aussie guys being killed in the Viet Nam war and many, many others being maimed and injured. The survivors are still suffering horribly and killing themselves even now. Courtesy of the Libs. This is the Liberal way – they love a military solution to perceived threats.

Boot camps are an offshoot of this. Queensland was the latest state to try it under the discredited Newman government (Newman was a former Army officer, of course. They love these military guys).

Once again, the scheme has had to be dismantled in Queensland at a cost of many millions of dollars as a failed idea. They learnt nothing from the failed WA Liberal government’s boot camp in the outback near Leonora in the late 1980s under then attorney general Cheryl Edwardes. That had to be abandoned too as a failure. I think the cost was about $5m.

Now history is again being repeated. Lord Rabbott and his henchmen have asked the US to ask us to commit RAAF planes to bomb in Syria. This is Viet Nam all over again. This government lobbies the US, applying pressure for them to “invite” us to commit more military force. Why? To make us feel unsafe and to make it look as if the government is doing something to stop the invading hordes. It’s stirring up fear, all over again.

Now they’ve created this quasi-military style Australian Border Force. Notice that name – Force. They are authorised to carry guns and wear navy blue uniforms so dark that they look like blackshirts.

Then they schedule an exercise alonside Victorian police, also carrying guns, and transport guards, for crying out loud. They announce beforehand that they’ll be stopping and questioning “anyone who crosses our path”.

So who are they most likely to question? Why, anyone with Asian features, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, racial selection, in other words. There is no legal requirement for anyone to carry a passport or visa on them in this country, so what did they hope to find? What about UK or Irish people, who are often overstayers and visa violaters. How would the Border Force troops know who was a likely suspect?

It was a farce from the moment it was conceived. It had to be called off after street demonstrations (good on ’em). The top Border Force guy held a press conference and shoved the blame down the line. The guy at the top took no responsibility. What a guy.

But the point is, this Border Force is yet another attempt by this awful government to create the impression that we need armed men on the streets to stop the invaders, the “death cult”.

How many fiascos does it take to make people realise that this is an utterly incompetent government? Every week, almost every day, a fresh debacle.

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Liberal governments have been trying to tell us for years that we don’t need unions, that it’s much better for employees to deal one-on-one with employers, that employers are good guys and will deal fairly with employees.

Well, yet another nail in the coffin of that idea. It turns out that many franchised stores in the 7-11 chain have been employing students and backpackers at only half the award rates and making them work up to twice normal hours! It’s not all the franchisees, but a substantial number of them agreeing in secret to do it.

So much for the fairness idea, once again. What a crock of bullshit, the idea that employees can trust employers to have their interests at heart. Many do, but many many employers exploit their workers any chance they can get. It’s shown time and time again.

Don’t need unions? Trust the nice employers? Bullshit!! Unions work for employees’ rights. They have to. If you oppose the idea of unions, then you don’t care about the exploitation of employees. Simple as that. How else do you put it?

Postscript: it gets worse. The way the 7-11 managers did it, i.e. forced the casual employees to work these long hours, was to blackmail them! When the casual employee first started the job, the owner/manager told them they had to work 40 hours or more in the first week to establish their employment. Of course, the employee wanted the job so they complied.

But this contravened the 457 visa conditions, where the employee is not allowed to work more than a certain number of hours a week (20 I think). So these nice guy employers then told the employees that if they didn’t accept the half pay and long hours, the employer would report them to the Dept of Immigration for breaching the 457 visa conditions.

Nice, huh? We can trust employers, right? Employers have employees interests at heart and would never do them wrong, right? We don’t need unions, right?

Bullshit! Unions are the bulwark between weak employees and rapacious employers. I’m not saying all employers are like this, of course not, but there are too many stories like this.

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In these posts I’ve made remarks that the Liberal Party takes backhanders from the big companies, the big miners and banks and so on. I didn’t have any particular facts to go on, just many, many articles and inferences in the news.

Well, I’m not the only one who thinks this way. See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/frijters-foster-battlers-and-plutocrats/6725118

A few select quotes:

• … 65 per cent of the richest people in Australia had amassed their wealth via political connections rather than via innovative businesses.
• Over 80 per cent of the wealthiest Australians have made their fortunes in property, mining, banking, superannuation and finance generally – all heavily regulated industries in which fortunes can be made by getting favourable property rezonings, planning law exemptions, mining concessions, labour law exemptions, money creation powers and mandated markets of many stripes.
• … the list abounded with mining magnates who enjoyed favourable government concessions; CEOs of superannuation funds who personally benefited from government guarantees locking hundreds of thousands of people into doing business with them; banking and finance CEOs who received government guarantees and favourable legislation; and the largest group of all – property developers who rely on rezoning and other favourable political decisions.
• The last budget could have been written by the super-rich and the Treasurer is already making noises about more income tax cuts that will predominantly favour the rich.

Why is the Liberal government so favourable to the big companies and the super rich? Follow the money trail. I’m not suggesting that the politicians are taking bribes. I am saying that their friends are the big guys in big companies and they look after friends with an eye to the future, setting themselves up to have a very comfortable time after they leave parliament by way of directorships and consultancies and such like. Politicians, from local government up, don’t do favours for businessmen without expecting some kind of favour in return, even if later in life. Follow the money.

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It’s been two years since Mr Abbott became top dog, and in this time we’ve lost so much. Massive cuts to our ABC and the SBS, thousands of experts forced out of the CSIRO, attacks on clean energy, pensions and social welfare – not to mention efforts to dismantle our world-class Australian healthcare and education systems. No generation has been spared, no working family left unscathed.

And despite widespread public consensus they’ve overstepped their mark, Mr Abbott’s Government continues to ram through his radically conservative agenda. He’s now becoming isolated even from his own cabinet colleagues.

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I’ve just received the replacement Yamaha TD-500 DAB+/FM/AM tuner, the replacement for the faulty one that I had to return last week.

This time it’s working. Mostly. But the damn remote control is not! Is there no end to the faulty goods I’m getting? On top of the faulty supermarket bills, always in the supermarkets’ favour, almost never in my favour. The system is weighted against us, the individual.

Add to that the rotten TV and radio reception at this location. It’s only the ABC I’m concerned about. But with the budget attacks from this evil Liberal government, designed to damage the ABC simply because the politicians think they are being excessively criticised, I think the chances of getting any improvement are zero.

Grrrr grrrr grrrr.

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No sleep at all last night, not one minute. I felt sleepy when I went to bed, but gave up after two hours of trying. I got up, had a hot milk drink and some computer time, felt groggy and tried again from 4.30am to 7.30am, but no luck. I’ve just had three hours from 11am to 2pm, but this is getting to be a problem.

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Torrential rains and floods on the NSW south coast. If I’d bought a car in Melbourne last month and hit the road as I thought I would, I’d be in that area now. Crumbs, with all the snow as well, it might have been a washout.

It drives home (pardon the pun) how WA’s climate is so different from the east coast. It’s 24C today, and we’re heading for another record low rainfall for the month and the winter. Yet on the east coast they’re drenched. WA is another country. We’re different.