Apparently in the last few days the freebie News Limited newspaper in the capital cities, MX, decided to rename the Koreas, calling North Korea “Naughty Korea” and South Korea “Nice Korea”. This angered the North Koreans which made noises about MX’s actions being against the spirit of the Olympics (because, as we all know, North Korea are the world authority on all of the peaceful sentiments of the Olympics) which in turn caused MX to run a paper with the headline “North Korea launches missive (yes, missive)”. That missive is one of the more amusing official statements I have ever read.
The Australian newspaper Brisbane Metro behaved so sordid as to describe the DPRK as “Naughty Korea” when carrying the news of London Olympics standings.
This is a bullying act little short of insulting the Olympic spirit of solidarity, friendship and progress and politicizing sports.
Media are obliged to lead the public in today’s highly-civilized world where mental and cultural level of mankind is being displayed at the highest level. Brisbane Metro deserves criticism for what it has done.
The paper behaved so foolish as to use the London Olympics that has caught the world interest for degrading itself.
The paper hardly known in the world must have thought of making its existence known to the world by joining other media in reporting the Olympic news.
Then it should have presented its right appearance to the world.
Editors of the paper were so incompetent as to tarnish the reputation of the paper by themselves by producing the article like that.
There is a saying “A straw may show which way the wind blows”. A single article may exhibit the level of the paper.
Many people were unanimous in denouncing the small paper for defaming the mental and moral aspects of the players of the DPRK who earned recognition from several appreciative world famous media.
Even hostile forces toward the DPRK heaped praises on its players’ successful performance at the London Olympics, saying that “Korea whirlwind” sweeps the world.
The Australian paper cooked up the way of moneymaking, challenging the authority of the dignified sovereign state. The paper deserves a trifle sum of dirty money.
As already known, it was reported that a lot of petty thieves sneaked into the London Olympics together with tourists. Players fight to the finish in the stadium, but those petty thieves demonstrate their “skills” outside the stadium.
The paper Brisbane Metro is little different from those petty thieves. In a word, the paper discredited itself. How pitiful it is.
The Brisbane Metro will remain as a symbol of rogue paper for its misdeed to be cursed long in Olympic history. The infamy is the self-product of the naughty paper Brisbane Metro which dared challenge the spirit of Olympic, common desire and unanimous will of mankind.
MX were having a bit of fun…probably not as much fun as I have been having while reading the peculiar missive from North Korea. MX’s altered medal tally may have been in bad taste, although I personally think it was quite amusing. In fact, I think the names should stick. From now on, I intend on adopting MX’s names for the Koreas, referring to the North and South as “Naughty” and “Nice” respectively.
Now, let’s see if I get a personal message from Pyongyang describing me as “most sordid” and “cursed long in Olympic history”.
And a good morning on this quite lovely Canberra morning. It is starting to get a bit colder now, but I have to admit to quite liking the way April and May unfold in Canberra. The leaves change colour, the nights become a bit more nippy, and for those of us who are fortunate enough to be awake in the mid-dawn hours, there are some interesting and patchy fogs which adorn the roads.
On this lovely morning I, taking advantage of the windscreen-mounted position of my phone, took this photo of a couple hot air balloons wafting over Commonwealth Avenue.
In this edition:
* Bye bye Bob!
* Canberra is a good place for an international airport
* To Japan’s credit, unfounded fear-mongering does not derail nuclear power
* Mike Huckabee will not be VP
* New brain research leading to better reading skills in school kids
* Is Metricon Stadium breaking AFL rules?
* Heidi Harris to announce her new station on Monday
Bye bye Bob!
As you have probably heard by now, Bob Brown is retiring from politics. The current leader of the Greens in federal parliament will quit his post as leader of the party, and also as a Senator. He will be handing the reigns over to current deputy leader Christine Milne.
In some ways it is nice to see Bob go. One less strange person in parliament pushing an abhorrent wheelbarrow of nutty ideas can only be a good thing, except for one small problem. I see the Greens as being left-wing extremists wrapped up in fuzzy feel-good environmental stuff designed to make them look nicer. They use the guise of being worried about the environment to enable them to push all kinds of socialist and Marxist ideas. Bob Brown, to me at least, is more moderate than the likes of Christine Milne or (I get a shudder down my spine from merely mentioning this name) Sarah Hanson-Young.
Bob Brown is patient, and doesn’t seem to mind how long it takes for him to get his way, and in many ways I think this is what has helped the Greens to reach a point of having some influence in politics. The fact that, under Bob Brown, the Greens have very rarely aggressively pushed their underlying ideas, and have instead made sure that their message is carefully wrapped in pleasantries, is one of the main reasons they have managed to attract voters. They have attracted the people who are uninterested in politics and “like the environment and stuff”; the rusted-on Labor voters who couldn’t support various Labor people but knew that a vote for the Greens would result in Labor government; as well as the true lefties who have quite happily understood the underlying message of the Greens, and have agreed to follow Bob’s lead and not make too much noise, because they know that the majority of Australians want no piece of a socialist country.
Sure, the Greens have been right there every time the Socialist Alliance has held one of its weekly protests about everything, but they don’t go out of their way to publicise it.
This will change under Christine Milne. Anybody who has watched her whenever one of the non-ABC TV stations has given her a platform will know just how forthright (or would that be forthleft in her case?) she is in her support of anything and everything that Karl Marx would have supported. Equally, Sarah Hanson-Young does her bit to whip up the socialist fringe of the country.
This isn’t to say that Bob Brown didn’t have his moments. His repeated attempts to have the “hate media” (read: anyone in the media with whom he disagreed) silenced were a good example. Bob clearly has an angry streak under the surface, and I suspect that 2UE’s Mike Jeffreys may be correct in his analysis that Bob Brown is a very angry man under the surface, but uses that anger to carefully craft a very controlled outward appearance in the hope of getting his own way eventually. Think about it. It really didn’t matter whether Bob was talking about his love of trees, the carbon dioxide tax, or about the latest story in the “hate media”, his delivery was always the same. A continuous monotone hypnotic boredom-fest. I suspect that he was trying to brainwash people through sheer boredom.
It seems to me that under Christine Milne, the Greens will solidify their core socialist voters by being more strident in their advocacy of Marxist views, but will scare off most people in the process. In the short term, this will create waves, but in the long term it should destroy the party.
All that said, if in three weeks time the Greens decide that the Bob Brown approach is better for them, all they need to do is recruit former Obama propagandist press secretary Robert Gibbs, who had the same entirely uninteresting delivery as Bob Brown, with the added ability to never answer a question which he didn’t want to answer, something which dear old Bob never did quite manage to accomplish.
***
Canberra is a good place for an international airport
In other domestic news of late, the subject of Sydney’s second airport is back on the agenda, with Canberra being touted as an option. I like Canberra as an option, but if it happens, I don’t want it to be considered as “Sydney’s second airport”. Canberra Airport should take international flights, especially given Canberra’s status as the capital city of the country. In fact, part of the reason Sydney airport is so busy is because it’s the connection point for many people who are travelling to Canberra from outside the country.
I would also like to see a residential development occur at Tralee. Canberra Airport’s Stephen Byron is opposed to this because it would be under a flight path, but I don’t see this as an impediment. The airport is already there, and therefore anybody who buys or builds at Tralee would be well-aware that aeroplanes may fly over their house, and should therefore be unable to complain about it.
I see both things as being extremely beneficial to Canberra and surrounds, and while I expect to only ever see one come to fruition, it would be nice to have both.
***
To Japan’s credit, unfounded fear-mongering does not derail nuclear power
You may recall all of the fear-mongering after last year’s Japanese earthquake about the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe, and all of the anti-nuclear activists trying to use it as an excuse to end nuclear power generation around the world. As we know, despite the claims that the death toll would be high and the people who would be afflicted with radiation-related illnesses would number in the many thousands, the fact is nobody, repeat, nobody has died, and a mere 10 people have radiation-related illness.
The Japanese government decided Friday that two nuclear reactors in western Japan are safe to restart, in a major step toward bringing idled plants back online for the first time since last year’s devastating nuclear accident — though local opposition could still prevent a restart.
The decision effectively gives the government thumbs up to a gradual return of nuclear power, after nearly all the country’s 54 reactors — which provided roughly 30 percent of Japan’s electricity — shut down because of damages or for routine maintenance and stayed offline amid concerns about their safety.
The Japanese government still needs to convince locals that it’s a good idea, but given how small the fallout has been from the Fukushima plant, especially given the magnitude of the natural disaster which occurred (the earthquake and tsunami), a simple statement of the facts should be enough convince any sensible thinking person that the nuclear power plants are a good and safe option.
***
Mike Huckabee will not be VP
In the wake of Rick Santorum’s unfortunate decision to abandon his run for the Republican Presidential nomination during the week, almost making it certain that Mitt Romney will be the nominee, there was some peculiar speculation that Romney will choose Mike Huckabee as his candidate for Vice President.
Let me tell you right now, that will not happen.
Mike Huckabee, while certainly a plausible person as a candidate, is out of the race for this election cycle. He recently (in the last few weeks), launched a new syndicated talk radio show in conjunction with US radio giant Cumulus Media. The show, which airs at the same time as Rush Limbaugh (the single most listened to talk radio host in the country) has replaced the Limbaugh show on a decent number of Cumulus stations, which is a massive gamble for Cumulus, and is airing on over 180 stations.
Neither Huckabee or Cumulus will be abandoning this show any time soon. Cumulus has way too much riding on this to be suddenly left without a decent show in the midday eastern timeslot, especially seeing as letting Rush go from many of their stations has allowed competitors to air Rush, giving them potentially crushing competition if Huckabee were to walk or flop.
I would rule out Rick Santorum as a VP pick at this stage, but I’m not willing to make a prediction as to who will be Mitt’s running mate if Mitt does get the nomination. What I will say is that it will have to be a solid conservative, because Mitt is not enough of a conservative to enthuse the Republican party’s base.
I just hope some lessons have been learnt from the 2008 campaign. America can not afford another four years of Obama, and another dumb lurch away from the right and to the centre, politically speaking, is the sort of bad idea that could once again see the GOP botch a campaign and give Obama a perfect opportunity to win, despite his terrible polling numbers.
***
New brain research leading to better reading skills in school kids
An interesting story out of Michigan.
New brain research has led educators in New Buffalo to try a different method of teaching kids to read. Instead of teaching just the letters of the alphabet, they are teaching kids to read the sounds in words. It’s having remarkable results. Reporter Ryan Klund from ABC57 News in South Bend, Indiana, has the story:
If you sit in Ms. Selir’s kindergarten classroom you’ll see something, maybe, you’ve never seen before. Every kindergartener is reading a book and pronouncing words that other five and six-year-olds, usually, would never read.
[..]
“It used to be we just thought it was the 26 letters of the alphabet and that’s it,” said Laura Selir. “But there are 44 sounds the kindergarteners all learn.”
“We now know every child can read if taught the right way,” said Erika Milovich, the Instruction Literary Specialist at New Buffalo Schools.
Milovich helped implement the program in ever grade at the school and said that the results speak for themselves.
On state testing this year New Buffalo improved K-5 reading and writing scores, moving into the top three schools in Berrien County. It was the first time New Buffalo made that mark.
(h/t ABC57 News, and also thanks to Casey Hendrickson who alerted me to this story when he mentioned it on his radio show on 95.3 Michiana’s News Channel on Friday)
It’s only being taught in a handful of schools at the moment, but hopefully that number will rise soon as the results are very promising.
***
Is Metricon Stadium breaking AFL rules?
Last night while watching the AFL, I noticed something strange about the way Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast is putting the vision of the match on the big screens. They appear to be taking the full TV feed rather than a modified version and, consequently, the countdown clock on Seven’s graphics is visible at all times on the big screen.
For those of you not familiar with the way AFL timing works, each quarter runs for 20 minutes of playing time, and events such as the ball going out or someone scoring temporarily disrupt the “playing time”. At the ground, a clock counts up from zero in each quarter and does not stop for these interruptions to playing time, meaning that the players and the crowd can not see how much time is left in the quarter, but instead can see how much real time has elapsed. Most quarters take between 25 and 30 minutes of real time, but can take more or less time.
It is not against the rules for a team runner to pass on a message to players about how long is left in the quarter, and it is common practice for the coaching staff to keep an unofficial record of how much time remains, but it is against the rules for the amount of time remaining in a quarter to be visible.
At many grounds, where a broadcast feed is used on the big screens, the spot on the screen where the time would be shown in normally covered up, however at Metricon Stadium it is not.
I wonder if the AFL have noticed this, and what will be done to fix it?
***
Heidi Harris to announce her new station on Monday
If she’s going to another radio station, anyway.
You may recall that a couple weeks ago I mentioned that Alan Stock had taken over Heidi Harris’ morning drive program on KDWN-AM in Las Vegas, and that there was a rumour going around that Alan’s former station (Heidi’s too, for that matter) KXNT had signed her but not made it public. Well, Heidi has announced that, on Monday, she will be able to make an announcement.
Regardless of where Heidi goes, she has a strong following and will most probably do very well. I wish her all the best, and look forward to her announcement on Monday US time.
Good evening and Happy Easter Andrew and Blocker…don’t let Daryl eat all the Easter Eggs!
A disappointing result for the Dogs today, but that’s what happens when you only play for one half, and don’t even win that half. Congratulations to the Bunnies.
As for tonight, I think it’ll be tight, but the home ground advantage might just get the Tigers over the line, so I’m joining Blocky in supporting the Tigers tonight.
I had a to clean up a lot of coffee after hearing Rex Hunt announce this during the AFL Live call of Melbourne V Brisbane this afternoon.
Melbourne’s game plan has been as useful as a flywire screen on a submarine
That, plus the return of Rex Hunt’s Fat Lady Singing (whom I have not heard since Rex’s 3AW days in 2009), and Rex’s great rapport with Sandy Roberts, made that an absolutely fantastic afternoon of radio listening for what was otherwise a fairly ordinary AFL match.
Rex, Sandy, and the AFL Live team at Crocmedia, you have made my day! Thank you.
From yesterday’s NASCAR Daytona 500, this is what I call a spectacular crash.
(h/t Fox Sports)
This happened shortly after another crash had placed the field under a yellow caution flag. Juan Pablo Montoya lost control of his car, seemingly due to a mechanical malfunction of some sort, and careered in to the back of a truck which had a jet engine on it which was being used to blow debris off the track.
Amazingly, nobody was hurt. This always amazes me as an awful lot of careful planning and design has obviously gone in to the whole car racing industry so that people can usually simply walk away from incidents such as these.
The couple hundred gallons of burning jet fuel damaged the road surface so badly that it took two hours for the track to be fixed up to a usable state. It wasn’t great, and the drivers did mention that it was still a bit rough, but the fact that it was usable at all a mere two hours after such a large and intense fire is quite extraordinary.
The race had a number of other spectacular crashes with multiple cars flying all over the place, and set a few records too. It was the first Daytona 500 to be held on a Monday night, and was also the first in history to finish on a Tuesday morning. I have my doubts that the V8 Supercars here in Australia would bother continuing later in the day if there was going to be a two hour delay to fix a melted track.
It’s good to see the NRL commission making decisions, as the NRL seems to have lacked proper decision making for a long time, but I don’t like their decision to scrap the McIntyre system. I like the uncertaintly of the first week. I like the fact that only the top two teams are guaranteed a second chance. I like the battle among the rest. But, the decision has been made, and there are more important things in the world…
Sadly Kevin Rudd is one of them. Hopefully his resignation as Foreign Minister will help to bring down this farce of a government. The situation is so dire that you could see Simon Crean’s eyes light up when he realised that even has half a chance of being Prime Minister.
It’s ridiculous Andrew. We need an election. The people should decide this one, because it’s clear that the politicians can not.
I was just checking the radio schedule for tonight’s start to the AFL preseason competition and noticed something which I was hoping would come out of the new radio broadcast rights. Crocmedia, who produce “AFL Live” for regional stations, headed up by Rex Hunt and Sandy Roberts, are listed as being streamed tonight.
This is fantastic news, especially for those of us who really enjoy listening to Rex Hunt call matches and were disappointed to find out that he was leaving Triple M at the end of last year to move exclusively to Crocmedia.
I can’t confirm that Rex will be calling the three matches tonight between Richmond, North Melbourne, and Hawthorn, but seeing as tonight’s games are in Melbourne and are the only ones which Crocmedia are covering this weekend, I’d say that it’s a pretty safe bet…hopefully.
Either way, Saturday and Sunday afternoons with Rex Hunt this year are going to be awesome.
(Crocmedia and other AFL radio broadcasters are only permitted to stream their coverage via afl.com.au and not via individual stations’ webstreams)
UpdateCrocmedia do not appear to be covering tonight’s matches after all. Oh well, later in the preseason or when the main season starts I guess…it’s probably a bit hard to convince all of the small regional stations to cover relatively unprofitable preseason matches. End Update
Good to see NSW get a try. They made a big boo-boo when they kicked for goal from a penalty rather than taking the tap and trying to score a try. They lost momentum after that. It’s good to see them get a try and get some energy back as this has all the makings of a great Origin match as long as both teams fire on all cylinders.
Still, go QLD. A win in extra time would be awesome.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
Full time:
I’m taking credit for this! Once again I tip a team and they lose, so I’m taking credit for us going to a decider. Now if only I could make a profit out of tipping the losing side, I’d be set.
Great call as always, can’t wait for Origin Three. Bring it on!
I heard plenty of good news on the radio yesterday. One of the highlights was the decision by Cricket Australia to reinstate the Tri-Series.
CRICKET Australia has reinstated the one-day international tri-series this summer with India and Sri Lanka to contest the series in February.
The 2011-12 summer schedule was released today, boasting six Tests against New Zealand and India, two Twenty20 internationals and at least 14 one-day matches in a triangular format.
It marked the first time in four years there would be an international one-day tri-series in Australia, after the concept was dumped due to lack of interest in matches not featuring the home nation.
(h/t AAP via The Australian)
It’s actually ironic that I can pinpoint the year that I started to lose interest in the “summer of cricket” as the first year without a tri-series. I love the 50-over version of the game, and I love the competition between three sides. Sure, when Australia was dominant, we all knew who would win the series, but I found that this made the clashes between the two visiting sides all the more interesting. I’m glad that it’s back, as it will make my summer more interesting, and with Australia not being to dominant force of the cricketing world that it once was, I think public interest in the tri-series will be revived.
Good Sunday Morning. Plenty to get through this morning, so we’ll dive straight in.
A little while after I posted many details on the fact that the US economy is in serious trouble, more evidence of this came to light.
The US government’s jobs report showed hiring by US companies slowed markedly in May, while the unemployment rate kept rising.
Non-farm payrolls rose by 54,000 last month as the private sector posted the smallest job gain in nearly a year, according to the Labour Department. The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.1 per cent in May.
[..]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 97.29 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 12151.26, led lower by Alcoa, which dropped US28 cents (1.7 per cent) to $US15.92. The blue-chip index has dropped 5.1 per cent during its five-week losing skid and closed today at its lowest level since March 23.
(h/t Steven Russolillo, Dow Jones Newswires, via The Australian)
The fact is, the US economy was never in recovery despite what the Obama administration would have you believe. It had a decent period of stability on the back of over-the-top government spending, but it never entered a recovery, and as was always going to happen, the government’s crippling debt is now an even bigger problem than the original economic woes were. If there ever was any doubt (I’d say that there wasn’t, but it’s an arguable point), it’s gone now, Obama owns this recession and seemingly has very little idea of how to fix it.
THE World Bank has revealed the global market for trading in carbon permits has stalled, just weeks out from the federal government’s release of its detailed plans to shift to an emissions trading scheme.
[..]
The value of the primary Clean Development Mechanism market fell by double digits for the third year in a row, ending lower than it was in 2005.
(h/t Graham Lloyd and Siobhain Ryan from The Australian)
Even the bankers can’t work out how to make a quid out of this crazy scheme. It seems that trading in fresh air just isn’t lucrative, so what makes Ms. Gillard and friends think that taxing the air will be any more successful?
CHILDREN as young as 12 would be allowed to drive under a radical road-safety training proposal to be put to the State Government this week.
That opening line sounds crazy, but if we dig a little deeper, we find that it’s misleading.
Under the CAMS plan, schoolchildren would be given up to four practical lessons each year from age 12. CAMS will explore the idea of using dirt tracks or paddocks for lessons, which would include driving along a skid pan.
CAMS president Andrew Papadopoulos – who taught his own children to drive at age 12 – said the existing school driving courses needed to include a much greater practical component.
He said waiting until students were 17 or 18 to teach them driving skills was too late, because many young people had already developed attitudes towards driving by that age.
“This is about instilling the right attitude to driving in kids early,” he said.
(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)
If, as the opening line suggest, this idea was about letting twelve-year-olds loose on the roads, then I’d agree that it’s “radical” and alarming, but the actual idea is an incredibly good idea. Our current system puts kids (they’re under 18, they’re kids, even if the ACT government disagrees and thinks 12-17 is “young person” and not “child”) in a position where driving is a novelty to them, and generally a fun thing rather than a serious thing. The problems tend to be attitudinal ones more than capability ones.
This idea would change the attitudes of kids before they are old enough to drive on the open road by taking them through practical sessions which would imprint the fact that driving is a serious activity.
If it were up to me, I’d be implementing this idea immediately. I also have ideas to overhaul the driver’s licence system in a way which would make the process of getting a licence similar to the current arrangements for motorbike licences, with an emphasis on solo learning under limited demerit points. People who could successfully graduate from such a system would then go straight on to a full licence, while people who fail either by racking up too many demerit points or by failing assessments would be forced through a logbook system for basic skills before they could graduate back to the solo-learning system.
I believe that one of the great flaws of our current system is that it teaches reliance on a passenger rather than on one’s own judgement, and considering that the vast majority of driving is done on one’s own, it is important for people to learn on their own…and people who are incapable of that simply shouldn’t be on the road. Of course another thing I would do is get rid of the crazy system which is in place in New South Wales where artificial speed limits are imposed on L and P platers which prevent people from learning to overtake, prevent them from learning to handle a vehicle at highway speeds, and provide a slow-moving hazard for the rest of us.
Anyway, my plan could probably be legitimately considered “radical”. The plan from CAMS on the other hand should not be considered radical, and should be implemented immediately, and it’s good to see the O’Farrell government taking it seriously.
***
Also in New South Wales, and the sideshow this week has been centred around filibusters, not that I can work out why this has caused so much excitement.
The basic story is that the O’Farrell government introduced a bill which would give the Premier the ability to set wages for public servants, something which sounds like a sensible idea for a boss to be able to do. The Greens and Labor, predictably, didn’t like the idea and so tried to block it with a filibuster and a deluge of amendments. Nothing out of the ordinary here, this is a regular tactic in politics and is permitted under the rules of parliament, even if it’s not a regular occurrence in Australian governments. Then, after a few days of this, the Liberal/National coalition used their majority to, as is allowed under the rules of parliament, break the filibuster and restrict debate on the deluge of amendments.
The bill passed the lower house yesterday, and will pass the upper house soon.
Yet, incredibly, this has all sparked outrage from both sides of politics. On the right, there was outrage about the Greens babbling on and on for hours and hours and hours, with individual members setting new records for the amount of time a person has spoken in the New South Wales parliament, and now on the left there is outrage over the government using their massive majority to break the filibuster and pass the bill. Both sets of outrage are ill-considered. It could just be that, due to the rarity of these events in Australian parliaments, people think there is something wrong with the events, but it’s more likely that people are just using the opportunity to make their points on the bill rather than the actual events which have occurred in the parliament.
Either way, I think the simple solution here is to say “move along, nothing to see here” as the political machine just moves through its regular processes.
***
Of course there was also a sideshow in federal politics this week involving cat noises. While it was dumb of Senator David Bushby to meow at Senator Penny Wong, at least he had the grace to apologise for it afterwards. We’re still waiting for the apologies from Ms. Wong’s colleagues for the similarly sexist comments which are shouted at Julie Bishop during every session of parliament.
FOUR overstretched and stressed-out State MPs will quit their second jobs as mayors, declaring they can’t cope with the workload of both positions.
But the most prominent double-dipping MP – Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore – refuses to concede there is a problem despite missing every day of parliament last week while on a mayoral junket to Brazil and New York City.
In fact, while parliament was open for business yesterday continuing its marathon session about public sector pay, Ms Moore was tweeting from New York City, where she was checking out bike lanes.
Ms Moore, who has missed 25 per cent of parliamentary sittings since Barry O’Farrell took office, is tightly holding her grip as the Lord Mayor and the MP for Sydney despite politician mayors from all sides of politics admitting it can’t be done.
[..]
Ms Moore, who pulls two six-figure salaries, has three offices and two distinct sets of advisers and staff for each position despite insisting there is overlap in the positions.
(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)
It should be illegal to hold political office in multiple governments. It’s illegal to be a public servant and hold a political office, and the conflicts of interest there are similar to the conflicts of interest in holding multiple political offices.
In Clover’s case, it’s beyond me why she needs to inspect bicycle lanes in New York City when she has already plastered the darn things all over Sydney. And the climate change summit in Brazil…catch a plane to that one did we Clover? Wouldn’t a teleconference have been less carbon dioxide intensive? And how exactly are you being an effective member of the New South Wales Parliament if you’re absent a quarter of the time?
Beyond Clover, we’ve seen similar issues with politicians missing votes in the federal parliament. Here’s a thought, perhaps the rule should be that in order to get paid, the politicians have to turn up to the parliament. If you don’t turn up, your pay is docked…just like it would be in the private sector.
***
In business news, AAMI Insurance is set to close all of its branches, moving all of its customer service to the phone and online.
Spokesman Reuben Aitchison says the branches these days contribute just two per cent to the business and transactions of the Suncorp-owned company, while there has been a significant growth in business through the Internet.
He says the insurer will now concentrate on providing telephone and online services, and hopes to employ half of about 100 affected staff in call centres.
(h/t Australian Associated Press via The Herald Sun)
Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. If the branches, which are retail outlets anyway and not really able to manage insurance claims, are costing more to run than they are bringing in, then effectively my premiums are subsidising the branches, and I would much rather see AAMI’s running costs reduced than to see my premiums go up. I have no problem with their telephone and online customer service, in fact I have nothing but praise for it. If people really want to sit across a desk from an employee of their insurer, then they can go and pay some other insurance agency the extra money to make it happen.
(Image: AAMI’s Fyshwick building at a tad after 5am yesterday morning).
***
As a general rule, I find that most reasonable people like to help other people. A decent proportion of people are nice enough to want to go out of their way to help people that they don’t know, and are often willing to pay more for a product if they think it will provide a better deal for the person who produced the product. Unfortunately, as a result, these people tend to open themselves up to charlatans who have no qualms with pretending that an expensive product is helping someone, when in fact it isn’t.
For a very long time I have suspected that the “Fair Trade Coffee” market was a scam which was, at best, not helping farmers, and at worst, making their lives worse. Until recently, this was just a suspicion which lacked proof. Now though, proof exists.
That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot of poor farmers, it may actually help to impoverish them, according to a study out recently from Germany’s University of Hohenheim.
The study, which followed hundreds of Nicaraguan coffee farmers over a decade, concluded that farmers producing for the fair-trade market “are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers.
“Over a period of 10 years, our analysis shows that organic and organic-fair trade farmers have become poorer relative to conventional producers.”
(h/t Lawrence Solomon, National Post, and additional h/t to Casey Hendrickson who alerted me to the story some time back)
Have a read of the article. Lawrence, its author, is very well versed in the coffee trade and goes in to some detail about how much of a scam the whole fair trade coffee thing is, and how it discriminates against the poorest of farmers. The highlight of which, for me at least, is:
It discriminates against the very poorest of the world’s coffee farmers, most of whom are African, by requiring them to pay high certification fees. These fees -one of the factors that the German study cites as contributing to the farmers’ impoverishment -are especially perverse, given that the majority of Third World farmers are not only too poor to pay the certification fees, they’re also too poor to pay for the fertilizers and the pesticides that would disqualify coffee as certified organic.
Their coffee is organic by default, but because the farmers can’t provide the fees that certification agencies demand to fly down and check on their operations, the farmers lose out on the premium prices that can be fetched by certified coffee.
To add to the perversity, it’s an open secret that the certification process is lax and almost impossible to police, making it little more than a high-priced honour system. Although the certification associations have done their best to tighten flaws in the system, farmers and middlemen who want to get around the system inevitably do, bagging unearned profits. Those who remain scrupulous and follow the onerous and costly regulations -another source of inefficiency the German study notes in its analysis -lose out.
I won’t repeat the whole thing here, although I do implore you to read it. Lawrence Solomon’s work here is exemplary.
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In domestic media news, Derryn Hinch continues to fight his decades-long battle for the right to name sex offenders who prey on children, despite the fact that it could very easily see him spend his final days in a jail cell.
3AW drive time host Derryn Hinch has been found guilty this afternoon of breaching suppression orders relating to the naming of two sex offenders.
AAP reports that the journalist is facing the possibility of up to five years in prison, after Magistrate Charles Rozencwajg ruled he had breached suppression orders four times on his website and at a public rally. A fifth charge was dismissed.
[..]
Hinch remains defiant over his decision to name those guilty of sexual offences towards children.
“I still feel the same way I always have… people have a right to know,” he said outside the court.
“I know what I have done. I am not sorry for what I have done. It is a good cause and the law is a bad law.
“I don’t like getting convictions. There are always risks in doing the sort of work that I do and you pay for it.”
(h/t “Big Dan”, Mediaspy)
I happen to agree with Derryn on this one. I am of the belief that people who commit sexual offences against children are sick, vile people who are beyond help. I think they should rot in jail for life or face the death penalty, however in lieu of such laws, we should have the right to know exactly who these people are. The existing laws are wrong.
I hope that Derryn doesn’t have to spend his final days in prison, although if he does, then I have to admire his courage and his convictions (moral, that is, not legal).
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To sport, and you may have noticed that I gave up on the footy tipping again. Truth is, I’m pretty hopeless at it, and I’ll gladly accept it and move on. I just can’t see the point in continually tipping with less than 50% accuracy.
That said, I am still a fervent fan of the Bulldogs in both the NRL and AFL. Alas that means this weekend has been a pretty poor one.
Watching David Smorgon’s (AFL Bulldogs’ President) body language yesterday, I got the distinct impression that he had a heavy heart from a difficult decision, and as such, I believe that Rodney Eade’s days as coach are very limited and he will not see out the season. This is a shame, because I think Rodney is doing a good job, and it’s the players which are letting him down. Just watching Rodney’s pure frustration in the box each week makes that obvious to me.
As far as I can see, the Dogs had a great chance at winning the Grand Final last year with a team which could not physically last beyond the year. The chance was squandered by the powers that be when they sacked Jason Akermanis. Jason provided the team with the extra option on the field that they needed, and were never able to fill once he left. Rodney Eade tried to work around the loss, but it simply wasn’t possible.
This year, be it through injury or an aging lineup, the situation is worse.
I strongly believe that Rodney could build up a great team within a few years if given the chance with some new talent in the side, and that this is our best shot at a flag in the coming years. A rebuilding phase is needed, but sacking Rodney is a bad idea at this time. I do hope that I misread David Smorgon yesterday.
In the rugby league’s version of the Bulldogs, it is reported today that coach Kevin Moore has lost the support of the board. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I’ve never been a big fan of Kevin Moore as a coach, and I don’t credit him with much of the success the club had in 2009 as I see a lot of that as being the result of board decisions and good players rather the coaching decisions. Kevin is one coach who I won’t miss should he happen to leave.
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Some audio for you this morning which will touch the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.
Mark Levin, a great radio host and constitutional lawyer in America (we’ve discussed his work here previously), is a dog lover. Sadly his best friend, the lovely dog Pepsi passed away a couple weeks ago. Mark took a week off to mourn the loss and spend the time with his devastated family. I was very saddened when I heard about the loss (Mark mentioned it on Facebook before disappearing for a week) and sent a card to Mark which apparently arrived on Friday. Many thanks to the nice people in Landmark Legal Foundation’s Virginia office for passing the card on to Mark.
When Mark returned to work on Tuesday, he devoted some of his show to explaining what had happened, and just how much Pepsi meant to him. I cried when I heard it, and I gave Nattie a really big hug when I got home. The audio moved me so much that I have to share it with you, with thanks to Citadel Radio for the audio.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/MarkLevinPepsi20110531.mp3] Download MP3
Mark, whose two other dogs Sprite and Griffen were shelter dogs whom he and his family rescued, is very passionate about rescuing dogs which have been abandoned. To that end, he and his family have set up a special fund, “Pepsi, Griffen & Sprite’s Legacy Gift” to help dogs who have been abandoned for one reason or another. All proceeds of the fund go to the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation who provide dental services, surgery, heartworm treatments, diagnostic testing and more for dogs who would otherwise be overlooked in crowded shelters. I know that Mark contributes greatly to the fund, so I simply ask that if you are at all interested in helping out and can spare a few dollars, please consider donating. I know that you will make a dog somewhere very happy if you do.
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And that’s it for this week’s rather large Sunday Bits (3,500 words or thereabouts). I visited the Captains Flat weather radar during the week, so you can look forward to some photos from that trip soon.
An email to 2GB’s Andrew Moore who is currently calling the match between the Warriors and the Storm
G’day Andrew,
It sounds like the vuvuzelas have found their way to the NRL. Good! They grew on me during the world cup, and I’ve been suffering withdrawal symptoms ever since. When will you be giving Blocky and the Big Marn a vuvuzela each?
Not surprisingly, the psychic octopus is better at tipping than I am. Spain won the world cup, and deservingly so. Holland would have been better off focussing on their own game rather than playing an overly aggressive game of “lets see how many yellow cards we can get in a single match”. It was only after one of those yellow cards doubled up and turned in to a red card that Spain were able to score…Holland have only themselves to blame.
I thought Spain’s performance in extra time was much better than their performance in regular time as they abandoned their “pass the ball around as if we’re in the dying moments of an AFL match” tactic in favour of a more interesting “move the ball forward” tactic. It worked well for them, and combined with the strange Dutch attacking of players, it was enough to give them the win.
In the end, I’d rather see the tournament awarded to Germany who won a much more interesting third-place playoff yesterday, but Spain won today, and are therefore champions. I congratulate them, and hope to never see a soccer game as boring as that ever again.
Thanks SBS for the great coverage. It’s been fantastic to listen to SBS radio while watching SBS TV. Go Holland! Lets prove that octopus wrong! Samuel, Canberra
As you would have undoubtedly heard by now, the Melbourne Storm have been stripped of two premierships, three minor premierships, all of their competition points so far this year, are unable to accrue any further competition points this year, and have been fined $1.6 million dollars for systematic breaches of the salary cap totalling at least $1.7 million over the last five years.
I can’t help but feel very sorry for the fans of the Melbourne Storm right now. They, of all people, have the most right to be angry, and should be the most upset by the atrocities committed by the club’s management, and it is them that it hurts the most.
The fans are the innocent victims; they are the people who supported their club in what is already hostile territory, and they have now not only lost two premierships and three minor premierships, but have absolutely no good reason to attend a single match for the rest of this year. The Storm can not gain any points this year, can not be lifted off the bottom of the ladder, and quite frankly have no reason to bother putting in any effort on the field. The only reason they might even think about playing well is to try and prevent their hometown supporters from deserting them.
The corruption, fraud and blatant dishonesty of the powers-that-until-today-were at the Melbourne Storm deserve everything that is thrown at them. Whether criminal charges can be laid I do not know, but I have no doubts that, given the nature of the cover-up, and the devastating results of the scandal, News Limited, owners of the Storm, have every right to sue the people responsible for this travesty. And I hope they do. In fact, I hope the NRL as a whole join in.
The damage to the game is immeasurable. The NRL has worked long and hard to stamp out this sort of nonsense after the breaches of the salary cap in 2002 by the Bulldogs, and has now had all of that hard work undone by a bunch opportunistic creeps in suits. It takes a lot to make NRL Chief Executive David Gallop sound disheartened, and today he sounded absolutely shattered. His work over the last eight years has been trashed, and it was obvious that he was distraught when he fronted the press conference this afternoon.
Fans have every right to follow in Gallop’s footsteps here. This is a shock to the Storm fanbase, and to the NRL supporters in general. The entire game has been brought in to disrepute, and I wonder how long it will take the game to recover. I suspect it will take years, and for the Storm, even longer, if they recover at all.
As I said earlier, the Storm are in hostile territory. Melbourne is AFL territory, and given that the team now have the better part of the year to be unable to play a game which means anything, it could be years before the team has a decent supporter-base again, and I really do think it’s going to be struggle for them to survive over the next few years.
As many of you will know, I’m a Bulldogs fan. I was devastated by the Bulldogs’ salary cap breach and its consequences in 2002, but I was lucky in comparison as the season was almost over. The Storm find themselves in a much worse position, and with all the excitement of weekends filled with AFL down there, Storm fans would have to be very loyal indeed to continue supporting their team.
I do hope that the Storm can rebuild and recover in an honest manner, as it would be a shame to lose them from the competition due to the actions of a corrupt few. That, however, is a long-term thing. What is of more importance now is finding out who knew, how much they knew, and taking swift and decisive action against them.
In my view, everyone who is found to have been knowingly involved in this (and if it includes players, then so be it) should be sacked, fined, and banned from any involvement in the NRL for life. There can be no room for this kind of disgusting act. For those that were involved, I can only say “sack them all and sack them now”.
2GB, as one would expect from the nation’s leading NRL broadcaster, were all over this story this afternoon. Jason Morrison’s show crossed live to the press conference and then had the reaction from chief NRL commentator Ray Hadley, followed by that of callers and others. Here, courtesy of 2GB, is the audio of the press conference and Hadley’s reaction as heard on the Jason Morrison Drive Show.
I was saying last night that I would love to hear Rex Hunt and Eddie McGuire calling AFL together now that Rex has found a home at Eddie’s station of Triple M in Melbourne, and that I was surprised that Eddie wasn’t calling football.
My prayers have been answered this afternoon. Rex Hunt and Eddie McGuie are both calling the North Melbourne V West Coast match right now.
This year, with a lack of the annoying Brian Taylor and the addition of Rex Hunt and Eddie McGuire, it’s more than fair to say that Triple M rocks football!
