Scientology warned

And Dawn Olsen is on the warners’ side.

Just in time for Scientology leader David Miscavige’s 50th birthday (this Friday, April 30th, Happy Birthday Dickhead), internet activist group Anonymous has released a list of 1000 people who’ve left the Church — and spoken out against it.

I remember when the wave of criticism grew from a few outspoken critics, like Arnie Lerma, Mark Bunker and Gerry Armstrong, to a massive body of masked and unmasked individuals who decided it was time to take the Church of Scientology to task. Since then, a grassroots movement has helped add their voice to those who’ve been abused by this government sanctioned ponzi scheme/cult, that enjoys tax benefits no other religion gets, may have killed members, has driven members to suicide or bankruptcy and uses famous celebrities to create a facade of legitimacy built on bilking innocent people for millions upon millions of dollars.

Good on her.

And here’s the video she posted, too.

And just to prove that the Left and the Right aren’t quite two different species, here’s a call from the Huffington Post’s, Steven Hassan, to quash Scientology’s tax exemption status.

Good stuff, considering Scientology is the end result of a bar bet between sci-fi authors L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. Heinlein (but you already knew that).

All that said…

Face it, Scientology is here to stay. They’re a permanent fixture. And twenty or thirty years from now, no one will pay them any more attention than the Lutherans.

The first bit, I hope not. But in reality, and referring to the second bit, I hope so.

*cross-posted

Kevin “Turdfingers” Rudds latest diversion.

For sheer, blatant spin Mr Rudd is to be congratulated. Faced with a multitude of looming debacles what does he do?

Throws up a smokescreen, literally:Cigarette tax to increase 25pc from midnight

Hes announced out of the blue that smokers will face a 25% increase in the price of cigarettes from midnight tonight. Mouthing all the usual platitudes about saving chiiildren it allows him a free kick at a group hes already driven outside, and tried to ban from smoking in their own cars.

I hate ciggies, they make my nose run and sneeze, but I hate do gooder wankers even more. No-one in Australia should be under the impression smoking is good for you, it costs a lot and it stinks. Everyone has been informed about that for decades. Please piss off and moralize somewhere else.

My Grandfather died of asbestos, he was a builder/carpenter in the bad old days.His death was listed as “due to smoking”, despite his lungs asbestos related degeneration. Every smoker who goes to hospital now can expect their every aliment traced back to smoking, no matter how tenuous the link.  tobacco is a killer, so why inflate the figures even more?

I dont believe the official statistics anymore. The semi-government cancer council and various lobby groups exist to let the government look as though its community pressure driving the bansturbation and tax raising. That same increase in tax revenue helps fund ever more generous grants to these same “charities” to start all over again.

Heres the group responsible for the report, and a few highlights of the members backgrounds.

Unbiased bloke N#1: He is currently President of the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Council on Smoking and Health and the WA Heart Foundation, and Chair of the WA Alcohol and Drug Authority. He has played a leading role in tobacco control, alcohol and other public health issues nationally and internationally for many years, and has advised governments and NGOs in some thirty countries.

Unbiased lady N#1: has developed national cardiovascular health programs within Australia, has been extensively involved with cancer prevention programs and is regarded as an expert on tobacco control matters.

Worrying lady N#1: She has been an active environmentalist since the early 1980s and is particularly passionate about climate change. She was recently trained as a climate change presenter by former US Vice President Al Gore, who is training climate change presenters around the world as part of the Climate Project.

All in all a roundup of people of similar opinions, very “Yes Minister” collection.

Still it achieves Turdfingers objectives nicely.

A: Moves the news stories away from his stuff ups.

B: May move debate back to health, where he has a temporary advantage (since it will take a couple of years for his new stuff ups to unravel there)

C: Raises more money for him to hose up the nearest wall.

In addition to the massive increase in tax, there is a move to “plain package” cigarettes to remove the distinctiveness of various brands.

Australia would be the first country in the world to force cigarette companies to use plain packaging.

“From 2012, companies will only be allowed to print their brand name in a standard style and graphic health warnings will remain on the packets.”

I suggest he goes one step further and does this instead.

He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the floor." Orwell.

One little problem, this is almost certainly not legal in any way. I dont have a huge amount of sympathy for the tobacco companies, as for some weird reason, defying all logic, they seemed to feel their previous concessions to the anti smoking lobby would appease them. What a surprise it hasnt, again.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be cured against ones will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock”

More under the fold, including how its increasing profits for criminals.

UK election game changer

Wow, theres no words for how bad a gaffe Brown just made.

Set up for the traditional “nice old lady” interview with a bunch of cameramen around. He was lacklustre but competent. Then he drove away….

With a microphone on…

Abusing the old lady….

Heres the whole interview, if you want just the end of it skip to the last 20 seconds or so.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid69900095001?bctid=81636194001

This link here goes straight to a guardian page with just the excerpt in question

Eric Northman, True Bloods main attraction

 

Im a bit of a fan of the show, whats not to like outlandish concept, boobies, vampires, boobies, shapeshifters boobies, and violence. Did I also mention it has some nudity in it?

My other half is rather enamoured by this chap

Eric Northman.

Funny she hated him at first when he had long hair, then he scrubbed up a bit and she thinks hes sex on legs. Luckily for me I bear a strong resemblance to the bloke… in the dark.

It is a fun sort of show, they manage to mix the sex/horror/humour well.

More Eric goodness under the fold

Psych test

Via the Intertubes…

This is the most important part of the respected Mayo
Clinic psychometric test.

In the following pictures you see women with a range of
facial expressions.

Study the expressions, and try to imagine what is
taking place?

Then scroll down to see the answer…

Bats are burning.

4 corners, the long running current affairs show, ripped Rudd a new hole last night. Hes been exposed as a shonky little operator who KNOWINGLY put lives at risk in order to shovel out money and grandstand. 

The show didnt let the installers off the hook either, with some shonky practices being exposed there as well. 

 

I have a few excerpts and links below, but for me this last exchange between the parents of a dead installer and Kevin shows just how manifestly unworthy of high office Rudd is. 

..More than six months after the death of their son, the Fullers are still searching for answers. It’s taken them to Canberra and into what they thought was a private meeting with Greg Combet. 

KEVIN FULLER, MATTHEW’S FATHER: Kevin Rudd burst into the meeting after about 15 minutes and sat right next to me and he didn’t, he didn’t remember my name, so I shook his hand and said it’s Kevin, it’s not that difficult to remember type logic. Ah same as his, you’d think he’d remember that one. 

CHRISTINE FULLER, MATTHEW’S MOTHER: I can’t even remember what he said, it was nothing important. Yeah, we we told him we held him responsible, um and that we would we and I’m sure the other families of the other young lads would like a public apology. We’ve never had a a public apology, an admission that they’ve stuffed up, you know. 

WENDY CARLISLE (to Kevin Fuller): Did he personally apologise to you in that meeting? 

KEVIN FULLER, MATTHEW’S FATHER: No. Absolutely not. 

WENDY CARLISLE (to Kevin Fuller): No expression of sorrow? 

KEVIN FULLER, MATTHEW’S FATHER: Ah there may have been, in it’s an unfortunate or um you know talking around the issue and around the program, but no looking in my eyes or Christine’s eyes and saying I’m sorry. Even sorry for your loss would’ve been good. 

Heres the full transcript, and a link to the site. The episode can be watched here. 

 

Update: My just how sincire do you think this apology is? Nothing to do with any criticism of last night 4 Corners at all eh??

Speaking in Sydney today, Mr Rudd apologised on behalf of the Government.

“Certainly, when it comes to the Fuller family, I am deeply sorry for what has occurred,” he said.

“The Government and ministers and myself are deeply sorry for the loss of life that has occurred, and that goes to the loss in the Fuller family and the other families as well.

“Nothing, no action actually brings those loved ones back.”

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said it was disgraceful, weak and hollow that Mr Rudd did not express sorrow to the Fullers.

“I have said the Prime Minister of Australia is a creep … because he was with people who had suffered a tragedy.

“That tragedy was intimately associated with a program which was designed and botched by the Government and the Prime Minister, and he couldn’t look them in the eyes,” he told ABC television.

 

Hes the worst PM weve ever had bar none.

highlights under the fold 

Nationalize US banks?

Former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, thinks it’s necessary in the short term to get to the root of one of the major problems that caused the GFC.

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

The American Right would have a fit if Obama suggested that, but Johnson insists it would only be temporary.

The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary.

Nationalization would not imply permanent state ownership. The IMF’s advice would be, essentially: scale up the standard Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation process. An FDIC “intervention” is basically a government-managed bankruptcy procedure for banks. It would allow the government to wipe out bank shareholders, replace failed management, clean up the balance sheets, and then sell the banks back to the private sector. The main advantage is immediate recognition of the problem so that it can be solved before it grows worse.

In fact, Johnson goes even further.

This may seem like strong medicine. But in fact, while necessary, it is insufficient. The second problem the U.S. faces—the power of the oligarchy—is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy.

An overhaul of anti-trust legislation is also proposed.

Anything that is too big to fail is too big to exist.

The entire article is well worth consideration. Either way, something has to change. Some economists out there are far from convinced the crash is truly over. Anyone who’s signed up to Newsmax email alerts will be familiar with this. Me? I dunno. But what I do know is that my investments (global) still aren’t making any serious headway (although they’re not hemorrhaging anymore), and that’s a bit of a bugger. That, and my Australian tax dollars aren’t being used appropriately… and I suspect many of my American buddies feel the same about theirs.

*cross-posted

Govenment employees should pay no taxes

What sort of wild mumbo-jumbo is this you ask? Let me explain my thinking on this.

 

At the moment there are 2 classes of employees, those who produce “capital” and those who redistribute and tax that capital.

That isnt to say most government workers arent performing a service, but that service is (in many cases) provided by imposing a cost on non government workers.  By paying those employed by the government without removing tax from them it would make the true costs of government much more obvious.

It would deliberately separate the 2 classes of workers from each other, the tax payers and the tax eaters.

This would be a good thing and strengthen the legitimacy of may government employees. Few will dispute the nurse earning their salary of $50,000 per year tax fee. (there would be an overall wage drop to reflect lack of taxes). However it would make an army of non productive government workers much more nervous.

 

How much harder would it be to justify paying a ministerial researcher or spin doctor $100,000 when they lack the legitimacy to say “but I pay taxes too”?

That might start to see a more rational check on the growth of government than any other idea I can come up with. I want to see resentment and defensiveness from overpaid and overstaffed sections of the public service. I want people to be able to get angry at inefficient or poor service and shout “I pay your bloody wages”, most customers have the option of taking their business elsewhere in the private sector, the government doesnt have that competition.

I badly want public service bodies to feel under pressure to justify their payroll, and Id love that tax gobbling monster that is Canberra properly resented as the money sink it is.

 

Which brings me to my second point.

No voting without paying tax.

With a few exceptions (those who are disabled/unable to work), the voting franchise should be limited quite strictly to those who pay tax. This would prevent the cultivating of a “client class”, that section of society able to be brought at election by promising to take more from the “capital” class, to give to them. There is a reason most of our labor party hacks seem to spring from public service/unions…

Canberra and sections of most capital cities will never vote for less government as they are effectively dormitory suburbs of tax eaters. As such they tend to be well serviced, “model” sections of the community, a Potemkin village version of the real world.

Is this harsh, yup, but no harsher than digging ditches for a living and seeing 1/4 of it pay for an arts council member or ABC TV presenter.

There are the vast majority of public servants doing just that, providing a service. But Id be willing to bet most of them can point to useless “mouths” within their organisations, which, if they had to justify their position/wages, they couldnt.

 

So tell me, why should public servants/government employees pay taxes?

 

For anyone looking for a US (and far better version) of this rant, they could do far worse than this one, or even this one.

This bloke seems to sum up the US problem well

Turdfingers strikes again!

Kevin Rudd is now officially turdfingers, pretty well every project his government has touched has turned to shit.

Turdfingers in action.

Im indebted to Bolt commenter “BBP of Omnipresent” for this wonderful list of turdfingers achievements.

1.  Grocery Watch
2.  Fuel Watch
3.  Never taking Japan to Court over whaling as promised. We have now re-issued our threat. Guess when our “deadline” for Japan to stop it is? After the next election.
4.  Talking up inflation in early 2008 leading to two rate rises just before the GFC, making it worse.
5.  Wasting $900 cheques on dead people and people who live overseas.
6.  Unlimited Bank Guarantees freezes people’s cash in non-deposit taking institutions.
7.  Stimulus spending totally out of proportion to Australia’s situation during the GFC. Now we are paying for it with rising interest rates. Not to mention taxes will never be cut until the debt is cleared, in say … 10yrs, 20yrs ? Who knows.
8.  Green Loans Scheme shelved and Wong announces an audit into frauds. A tiny number of loans were granted at a cost of how many millions of dollars to set up the scheme?
9.  Prior to 2007 he was a “fiscal conservative”. After election and after GFC, he wrote a ludicrous essay claiming that “neo-capitalism” was evil. You can’t have it both ways. If you were a fiscal conservative in 2007, then you were a neo-capitalist too !
10.  Pink bats – people die, electrified houses, houses burn down, fake insulations get paid. Garrett demoted after Rudd said he was a “first class minister” and that Rudd would “take responsibility” for the scheme’s failure! No compensation for industry yet.
11.  BER – Building the Education Revolution (or Builder’s Early Retirement) fund rorts. Eg. $900,000 for a single new class room. And it was a pre-fabricated.
12.  Crazy boat people policy. When Howard left Christmas Island was a ghost town. There are now over 2500 I think. They are building more beds there too, and others have been transported to Villawood and some air force base in the outback.
13.  Child care centres at schools broken promise. 38 will be built, not 260.
14.  Failed ETS/Copenhagen debacle. 143 were taken to Copenhagen. Count ‘em … However, as soon as public opinion shifted, the great moral challenge of our time became no urgent problem at all.
15.  Promise not to means test the private health insurance rebate broken.
16.  Means testing the baby bonus sucks the big one.
17.  Promise to “take over” the health system by “mid-2009”
18.  New health policy to “stop the blame game” actually means a 60/40 Fed/State funding split and management of hospitals to be by state controlled Local Boards. So when waiting times don’t come down or someone dies because they are sent home early from hospital, does that mean it is because the Feds aren’t putting in enough cash, or the State isn’t? Or is it because the State isn’t properly controlling the Local Boards, or is it because the Local Boards aren’t doing a good job. What a complete joke.
19.  Former Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, basically admitted being bribed by female Chinese government official. Fitzgibbon forced to resign.
20.  National Broadband Network. Initial cost was under $10b I think. Now $43b. The only player capable of handling it, Telstra, was rejected, then accepted back, and now is in limbo. The NBN does not have a business plan. That means no one knows whether it will add value to the economy, and if it does, no one knows when that might be.
21.  Spent the last 10 years criticising Costello’s ability. Then appoints him to control the Future Fund.
22.  Tantrums because he doesn’t have a hair dryer or because he got the wrong meal on a plane.
23.  Lies about Abbott taking $1b out of health when he was minister.
24.  Lies about those boat people who were taken to Indonesia on Oceanic Viking not receiving a “special deal” to get them off the boat. They were all processed in 4wks weren’t they (and granted visas)? What’s the usual timeframe? 3-4 months?
25.  He appoints a former Labor member, and family friend, Quentin Bryce, as GG – the most important apolitical, impartial, position in Australia. Then has her travel to Africa to promote his political agenda and personal ambitions – 10 nations, 19 day lobbying tour to drum up support for Rudd’s push to gain a non-permanent seat for Australia on the UN Security Council.
26.  All time record levels of public debt and annual budget deficits, with the economic wizard, Wayne Swan, in control of managing it.
27.  Every primary school child gets a laptop. Bugger all have. And most of them can’t connect to the internet with it.
28.  Playing politics with the Henry Tax Review. Not releasing it until very close to the May budget, no doubt in the hope that the Budget news will drown out anything nasty in the HTR.
29.  Giving Toyota Aust $15m to help build a hybrid Camry, that even Toyota said they didn’t need because they had already started building it.
30.  Industrial laws that prevent teenagers working after school because if they work less than a 3 hour shift, Gillard’s laws say they are being exploited !
31.  Industrial laws that give Unions a statutory right to enter any employer’s site. That is, even if the employer owns the land or has a right to exclusive possession, they cannot prevent them from entering. On their own land !
32.  Insane levels of expensive trips overseas for the PM.
33.  2020 Summit in Canberra. Countless ideas were produced. PM said everyone of them would be the subject of consideration and a written response by the government. A paltry amount have got their written response – since January 2008. To my knowledge, none of the ideas have been implemented.

Not a bad list all up, I cant think of anything extra to add to it…yet.

Update, but another Bolt commenter has: 

“$842 million spent on a new computer system for the tax office which has resulted in processing delays and 140,000 assessments but no refund cheques been sent to taxpayers and relaxation of laws allowing temporary residents and student visa holders buying residential property pricing Australians out of the market.”

Not to worry though, Turdfingers has seen the necessity for a new Australian government run airline, the prototypes are under the fold.

Hurt feelings report needed stat!

One of our local shiftbosses is copping a bit of flack over some comments he made on facebook. Hes down the road at KCGM, one of WAs bigger gold producers.

Heres a sample from the news article.

“Good old KCGM made the front pages of the (Kalgoorlie) Miner Saturday, apparently the place is full of bullyboys, fancy that, upsetting the kids with bullyboy tactics … me, I can hardly see the keyboard because of all the tears coming out of my eyes because someone once told me to harden up or f..k off, for f..k’s sake someone give me a hurt feelings report so I can fill it in and run to the union and my member for Parliament.”

Now its not to be disputed he was a little harsh, outside of work, but now a Greens State parliamentarian and the union are using this as a way to generate a bit of business for themselves.

These girls blouses should know better. The greenie because he lives in the area, and a union rep, whining about harsh language?? hahahaha!

Still the golden rule was broken, dont write anything you may regret on the net unless its under a false name!

Hitler reacts to Hitler’s Downfall’s downfall

You’ve probably heard of the Hitler’s Downfall parodies being removed from YouTube by now.

Well Adolf isn’t happy!

Watch it while you still can.

*cross-posted

Random image dump, cutest cat in the world?

Just a bunch of pics I havent found an excuse to post before, indulge me…

So cute you'll puke.

 

Cant they both lose?

 

Just wrong

 

Evo and the gay chickens.

Bolivian nutbag-for-life Evo Morales has shown just how good his grasp of science and reality is at a Glowbull warming conference being held  as a pre-Mexico warm up for the next attempt to pass a global tax in the guise of emissions laws.

First his least nutjob statement.

The Bolivian president also suggested that European food made men go bald.

So food makes you go bald, not genetics, disease or other factors…food…

Now for his most nutjob statement.

“Bolivia’s opposition and homosexual groups criticised comments made by Mr Morales at the first “people’s conference” on climate change the previous day, in which he said chicken producers inject birds with female hormones and “when men eat those chickens, they experience deviances in being men.”

So homosexuality is caused by hormonal chickens, thanks for clearing that up Evo…

Only one little problem with Evos rant.

Currently there are no approved growth hormones for chicken and pork. So all chicken and pork products on the market are hormone-free.

and another.

The US department of agriculture has given permission to use six hormones that can be used for cattle but not in the poultry

I think Evo protests a little too much, after all isnt his country a major beef producer? And according to those 2 links chicken isnt approved for hormone injection, but cattle are.

Maybe Evo needs to be worried about bull cows rather than bull dykes?

Evos nightmare.

A challenger appears!

Full story here.

Al Gore vs the Unabomber

Who said what? Take the quiz!

*cross-posted

Carl Williams: dead

Arguably Australia’s most notorious, and certainly most high-profile, well-known gangster, Carl Williams, died today in prison. And it looks like he was attacked for doing deals with the police vis a vis the cops paying $8000 for his daughter to attend a top private school – a story that was in the papers mere hours before Williams was attacked. He sustained head injuries then went into cardiac arrest.

Williams (and this is for any non-Aussie readers) was the main character on the Australian television series, Underbelly Season 1 (clips), which documents Melbourne’s gang wars from 1995 to 2004. He took over Melbourne’s ecstasy and amphetamine market during that time. Most of his prison sentence was for ordering contract killings.

UPDATE

Derryn Hinch isn’t mourning.

Others, on Facebook, are. And that’s one of a few Facebook pages already up.

UPDATE II

For better or for worse, like it or not, Carl Williams, like the bushrangers before him, has become part of Australian folklore.

So why did Rudd relax the laws in the first place?

Better late than never, but all this could have been avoided.

KEVIN Rudd has reopened one of the most controversial Howard-era detention centres, the Curtin facility in Western Australia, in an attempt to send a clear signal to prospective asylum-seekers that Australia is toughening up its refugee policies.

Rudd would never say as much, but essentially he has vindicated Howard. And not a moment too soon considering the number of asylum-seekers has gone up five-fold, and the centre on Christmas Island is literally overflowing since Rudd’s heart started bleeding.

And what does this actually seem more about? This just looks like more Rudd spin. He hasn’t indicated that he’ll actually change any of the policies (laws?) that he so disastrously weakened over a year ago. Rather than “toughening up its refugee policies”, this smacks of a PM applying a band-aid solution to a gunshot wound. With the same weakened laws in place, and no will to change them, Rudd has no other option than to open up more accomodations. One doubts this sends a clear message at all, other than, “Keep coming, guys, we’ve made more beds available.”

UPDATE

An insight from someone who worked in a detention centre, what it’s really like, and some of the types Rudd has let in.

More.

*cross-posted

Rudd’s dud Internet slug

Today, Andrew Bolt posted a blurb highlighting that Kevin Rudd’s $43 billion high-speed broadband network wouldn’t see a return for investors for up to 20-30 years. So, especially being computer technology, what idiot would possibly invest in it?

And not just for that reason, either. The government website states that it will be a 100 Mbps network. Well, sorry folks, but those kinds of speeds are already way obsolete… let alone what they’ll be when I’m retired.

Take South Korea.

The Korea Communications Commission is working on plans that will boost broadband speeds in that country tenfold by the end of 2012. That means Koreans will access 1 Gbps service by 2012. That’s 200 times as fast as your typical 5 Mbps DSL connection sold in the U.S. At present, Koreans can get speeds of up to 100 Mbps [and that was in 2009 – bing] from their broadband providers. Availability of such high-speed connections has allowed Korea to emerge as a leader in the MMO and online gaming industries. Even higher broadband speeds are going to unveil many new usage scenarios, which can lead to new company creation.

That’s right. One gigabit per second is already here.

Kev’s broadband plan is a joke.

Let’s see, we have the $3.9 billion Pink Batts fiasco which burned many a home and even, sadly, took some lives. Then we have the (so far) $16.2 billion (revised up from $14.7 billion already) Building the Education Revolution farce, and now even that is dwawfed by Rudd’s wasting of $43 billion taxpayer dollars on technology that, even before it’s rolled out – which will take around a decade – is already obsolete by a factor of ten to one.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, we’ll also likely be seeing Rudd apply Internet filters. So even if Australia’s network had the potential to be as fast as South Korea’s, it wouldn’t be.

Nice going there, Kevin.

The Desperate Left

A bunch of Lefties at the California State University have sifted through Sarah Palin’s trash to find out the details of her speaking engagements contract, handed it to a local Democrat pollie, who dutifully handed it to their propaganda department the media. And now Democrat California Attorney General, Jerry Brown is investigating.

Gee, nothing desperate going on there.

And as for Palin’s speeches, shock horror, she makes some decent coin from them – and with a few perks thrown in. We’re talking $100,000 bucks a speech.

OMG, it’s “embarrassing” writes Tim Reid at The Times and reprinted in The Australian.

Yes, it is. Even I’m embarrassed that the Left is getting so desperate nowadays. Noteable also is that the Australian places Reid’s article in the “news” section.

Bollocks his article is “news”.

SARAH Palin faced embarrassing revelations yesterday about lavish demands that she makes before speaking engagements, including first-class air travel or large private jets, suites in hotels and even bendable straws in her water bottles.

…

The latest revelation will do little to damage her reputation among the party’s grassroots activists, who view her as a straight-talking hero, but it undercuts her claim to be a down-to-earth “hockey mom” who is fighting for ordinary working Americans.

Sounds more like Leftist opinion to me, and a media beat-up, Chris Mitchell.

Anyway, let’s just have a look at who earns the big bucks for speaking engagements. There’s Al Gore who gets over $250,000 to peddle speculation. Australia’s Tim Flannery get’s $50,000 to do the same.

And here’s a tidy list from the website whose company drew up Palin’s contract.

The following receive upwards of $40,000 per engagement. Is Palin’s deal out of the ordinary?

Crazy dog man!

It’s good to see suburban Australia still has well-balanced chaps like this on in it.

Ht: Shadowlands

UK Labour want to lose the election, Proof!

I can’t see how anyone thought the UK Labour party wants to win the election based on their campaign launch and their new advertising.

Heres their manifesto lauch presentation.

FFS crudely drawn Mr Men as your pitch to voters? The nose candy must be flowing at party HQ for this to have seemed like a good idea.

Now onto the main campaign ad, grey grim, meant to show a chap “on the right road” in the face of adversity, FFS its even got the old Dr Who doing the voiceover at the end, what could go wrong?

2:42 of earnest grimness….

Now funnily enough a spoof of this sprang to mind straight up, and withing about 4 hours after i saw the original someone had made it up already.

30 seconds to demolish the first ad.

Now to their rather foolish “Quattro ad”, where they took a stab at linking Cameron to a popular, but politically incorrect character from the TV series “Ashes to Ashes” (which is quite good IMHO).

Their ad

The Tories version

When your own advertising is this bad its hard to escape the idea that UK Labour want to lose the election so they don’t have to fix their own mess. Theres serious cut in spending which HAVE to be made, and I think many are much more comfortable with the idea of sniping from the opposition benches rather than having to wear the odium fixing their stuff ups will bring.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00684/debtcounter585_684127a.swf

Dear Mr Conroy #6

  

Mr Conroy, and his new friend...

 

Again Im having a little trouble deciding an action. Can you in your all encompassing wisdom help me out again. 

Boxers or jocks? 

I have no great bias either way, but if you decide Jocks can you please ban ones that are too tight, or made of no-breathing material? Nylon undies can be a bit like steaming the goolies if the temp is a bit high, so I think a ban is in order. 

With ALL due respect…

More BER waste; MSM still missing the real story

Another day, and yet more stories on the momumental waste of taxpayer dollars that is Rudd and Gillard’s Building the Education Revolution.

Unfortunate but, that the MSM is still failing to see the guts of this story. That being 1) the tender process was an absolute joke. There’s no way, in the day or so it took the government to decide who built what, that tenders could have been properly assessed and not awarded on anything but price. 2) The scope of works wasn’t really a scope of works, ususally a detailed document containing at least 10 pages, often more. Instead, Rudd’s was a few achitects notes, barely half a page long. 3) In the private sector, if a builder makes an RFI (request for information), this is usually handed in a matter of days, yet in the government’s case, this would often take weeks or even months all the while as workers are being paid to do nothing. Part of this is because instead of the industry standard of one overseer to about ten projects, in Rudd’s case, it has been closer to a 1:100 ratio. 4) The unions have been making work hard on many a site.

C’mon MSM. Report this properly.

But does he live in a barn?

A 66-year-old man pleaded guilty today to having sex with a horse and a donkey.

Joseph Squires appeared at Leicester Crown Court charged with buggery of a donkey between February 2 and February 5, 1999, and buggery of a horse between March 15 and 18, 2004.

The fact that he didn’t have a ménage á trois with both the horse and the donkey, in theory, makes him slightly less of a pervert than I had originally assumed from the headline but the difference doesn’t seem discernible.

He also faced charges of damaging property – relating to the two animals on the same dates.

Squires, whose address was previously given as Overpark Avenue, Leicester, was due to stand trial but pleaded guilty to all four counts at Leicester Crown Court today.

Defence counsel Amar Mehta told the court Squires had no previous convictions and was of previous good character.

Requesting he be released on bail, he said: “The defendant does not have a stable address ….”

Dear Minister Cleenfeed #5 Adults only version

 

Mr Conroy hard at it. Those books wont burn themselves you know.

Under the page, an adult topic but no piccies.

George Galloway, meet reality.

Now as dirty as I feel linking to this site its just to good to pass up.

Three Muslim extremists charged after attack on Galloway

George Galloway was set upon by a group of Muslim extremists while campaigning in East London this afternoon. Three men, believed to belong to the extreme sect Islam4UK, the latest name for Al-Muhajiroun, were arrested and subsequently charged with public order offences.

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Couldnt happen to a nicer bag of shit.

“They called me a filthy Kaffir” said Galloway, “and shouted that no one should shake the ‘filthy Kaffir’s hand’.

Assume a virtue if you have it not. 

Well in all fairness I wouldnt shake the vile shitbags hand either, but thats just on moral grounds, not religious nuttbaggery.

Galloway was also attacked, held hostage and received death threats from Al-Muhajiroun, then called Al-Gourabaa, in the 2005 General Election.

Held hostage refers to them locking the front doors of the meeting room he was in, he fled out the back, leaving his 23 year old daughter behind… Nice one George!

Nice area you represent there George, nothing to do with you though eh? Must have been Mossad stooges or something…

A reminder of the trail of slime this toad leave behind him.

more slime