Melbourne transport

Having worked in Melbourne all week, I'd like to make three very obvious points about Melbourne's transport system.

1. Riding a bike is very dangerous due to arsewipe drivers who haven't got a clue, and bike lanes thinner than catwalk models. I saw 4 accidents, three of them were the driver's fault.

2. Don't get your bike wheels caught in tram tracks. You go down faster than Frankston chick on the Breezers.

3. Let's just end the charade that is public transport ticketing. Firstly it's virtually impossible to validate your tickets at peak hour, and secondly it's only a tiny minority of tram travellers who actually pay. The whole ticketing system is monumentally inefficient and should be scrapped in favour of publically-owned and free transport.

The week that was.

It's been a tough week for conservatives.

Moose murdering mom, Sarah Palin's facade of being a Jo-anne Sixpack has crumbled after it was revealed the Republicans spent more on her clothes in the last two months than Joe the Plumber earns in three years.

Polls indicate it's going to be a blue November everywhere except the deep south and the huntin' states. This of course means a black muzzie is going to be sitting in the White House in 2009.

Melbourne's top music conservatorium has closed due to funding cuts. Normally this would see teh conservatives celebrating in the street, but it was Peter Garrett who slashed and burned the dreams of young musicians. Can't praise any ALP people can we?

The investigation into the Dr Haneef fiasco is getting very ugly indeed.

John Ray over at A Western Fart keeps humiliating himself with wild conspiracy theories.

Ayoung Liberal supporter showed stupidity beyond the call of duty.

And your bigotted brethren in Austria have admitted they enjoyed putting from the rough together

Where is the outrage?

If any anti-globalisation protestor behaved like this bloke, the commercial media would have him hung, drawn, and quartered in a nano-second.

If you look at this dispassionately, you can only conclude that the G20 and S11 protestors look like Sunday School teachers compared to this vicious thug.

Have another look at the footage and watch how the logger's colleagues behave. The fuckers are acting like this happens every day. Not one of them tries to stop the violence, while others are keen to join in the kicking.

Judging from the footage, and seeing the results of "greenies" getting bashed, I can only conclude that violence against environmentalists is commonplace in the forests.

The Age is giving this story a run but the Hun somehow thinks this incident and the unbelievable footage is not newsworthy.

The Tasmanian Forestry Contractors Association's executive director, Ferdie Kroon, said the contractor involved recently had been through "absolute hell" personally.

"It's just boiled over in absolute frustration," Mr Kroon said. "These illegal protesters flout the law and get away with it. Unless the Government takes decisive action, this will get worse."

Hang you head in shame Kroon. This attack is a gutless act and completely unjustifiable. Warning that it will get worse because of the protestor's action is tantamount to endorsing violence.

And I would love to see this thug use the "absolute personal hell" excuse in front of a judge.

Where the hell are the law and order buffs on talkback? Oh that's right, it's only greenies getting bashed so no story here.

Staff wanted

I was having a quiet browse through my local paper and stumbled across an advertisement for my old job at the local shire.

It's funny how I have not been contacted to help fill a void. Actually it's not. It's a pathetic tale about how a council caved in to baseless complaint from two particular councillors.

After a sustained and thoroughly accurate campaign reporting on the strange behaviour of Cr Ron Humphrey, and a couple of mild posts about Cr Lindsay Schroeter, the two councillors tried to get me fired from my council job.

After a protracted series of meetings (and a great deal of rate-payer's money being wasted), council officer Robert Krall (who, according to one friend, is infamous for firing unionists) sent me a few threatening letters about "serious misconduct".

Of course Krall, Humphrey, and Schroeter provided no proof that my blog was written using council resources or using information gained through my employment. In other words it was written on my own time and any disciplinary action taken against me would be an obvious breach of Victoria's Equal Opportunity Act 1995.

Discrimination based on political opinion would have resulted in a complaint to the Commissioner for Equal Opportunity. Council and myself would then need further attempts of conciliation, and if that was unsuccessful, the matter would go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for hearing and legally enforceable determination. A couple of shit-hot lawyers had expressed an interest in helping me out on this matter.

So what happened next?

I moved to a new and better job in the private sector but asked my immediate manager to keep me on as a casual for transitional purposes and to help out in cases of emergency. This course of action was agreed to.

The threats of disciplinary action from Krall stopped.

News from a very good source came quickly. "You won't get officially fired, nothing is going to be put on paper, but don't expect any shifts".

This whole scenario and the costs to the rate-payers should have been avoided. Council should have just told the complainants that their case was pissweak at best, get over the fact that publically elected officials get criticised, and firing BLL was a gross attack on free speech and would open up the coucil to a lawsuit.

Cue the mad conspiracies

With things going from pathetic to hopeless for the Republicans, it was only a matter of time until the wacked out conspiracy theories came out.

The sad little cry of "Obama can't be the next POTUS because it would be unconstitutional" is being picked up by hopelessly desperate hacks.

No credible news service is touching this story because it comes from a source with less credibility than "Dr Mahoud Fazza" who wants to give you 10,000,000 US dollars if you can assist with his Nigerian Christian charity.

The silence from the sensible media will ultimately lead to a, "Leftist media are protecting the chosen one" post-poll whinge.

The "Osama is a terrerst" and "He's a muslim" Hail Marys have failed, and now these evil Republican bastards are left with nothing but this out of Africa tale.

At least we know why the African e-mail scams work so well. It's the hard core republicans who keep the money flowing.

House on the line.

Having developed a reputation of being an accurate political tipster, I'm keen on making some cash with my talent.

Despite a truly fucked up campaign, two wars started and none won, and a fucked up economy, it has come to my attention that there are RWDBs still predicting a McCain win.

I'm so confident of a Democrat win I'm willing to bet my house on Obama being the next POTUS. C'mon RWDBs, who wants to put their property on the line.

I've got a really nice beach house.

And for any idiot willing to bet on a Republican win, I'll be fare. After you lose the roof over your heads, I'll still let you live in your shitboxes for rent at market rates. Being a slum lord for a bunch of dumb conservative fuckers would be really fun.

Local draftsman has cracking idea.

While discussing the effect of increasing the first home owners grant on the drafting profession, a friend of mine came up with a cracking idea.

Give it to people on the proviso that it is spent on solar hot water, energy efficiency, insulation, and water tanks.

Now before you howl down the draftsman as a dopey greenie, you should know he has a "No Damn Poofters" sticker on his car.

Let's look at the basic economics of this issue.

The grants have not brought housing prices down at all, and increasing it to 21K may actually have a negative effect on the family budgets.

The grants will allow first home owners to super-size their homes and increase the costs of running their dwellings. Bigger houses = bigger electricity bills, bigger water bills and bigger furnishing bills. Water and electricity charges are rising very quickly and young families should seriously be considering these factors before house plans are drawn up or before a couple signs a contract.

21K spent wisely will massively reduce the costs of running a household thus providing an ongoing benifit for families. Crucial environmental dividends will also be reaped.

21K to a first home buyer that purchases an existing dwelling creates absolutely no direct jobs. Make the grant conditional on improved environmental performances of houses, and plumbers, electricians, draftsmen and builders get to cash in as well.

I defy anyone to come up with a decent argument why this plan is a bad idea.

Wannabe Councillor wants to fuck up your Estuaries.

In Garry Kerr's recent fishing column, the wannabe Surf Coast councillor expressed a desire to artificially open the region's estuaries to promote fishing.
Can I be the first to say that this is one of the most irresponsible things ever proposed by a council candidate for the Surf Coast shire.

From the folks at Landcare

What is an Estuary?
It is not a river!
It is not the ocean!
It is something completely unique in between!
An estuary is the place where fresh water from a river mixes with salt water from the sea.
Estuaries are unique environments that include some of the most biologically productive ecosystems on earth – how amazing that we are so lucky to live right beside these ecosystems here in the Corangamite region.
Estuaries help filter pollutants, act as buffers to protect shorelines from erosion and flooding and provide essential food and habitat for birds, fish and other wildlife.

Get it Garry, they are not just fishing parks.

Draining an estuary to improve the bream fishing would severely upset the natural balance of fresh and salt water in these ecosystems. These "rivers" will break into the ocean during times of flood. This of course is natural, and the high levels of freshwater run off from the catchments prevents excess salt water entering the estuary system.

Kerr's suggestion that the Anglesea River be drained during a time of extremely low rainfall and a hot dry summer approaching is mind-numbingly irresponsible. I wonder what the tourist operators in Anglesea think of this plan to turn the their river into a reeking fly blown mud flat?

Barwon Water turds

With the huge number of sewage spills in the Geelong Region you'd think Barwon Water would be experts at cleaning them up, but this one got away.
And here is the local Torquay park were the turds flowed freely to an area where kids like to play.

The shit flow then went into the local creeks where people like to fish.
.
Considering Barwon Water pump 60 million litres of effluent into the sea every day, what's a few thousand litres of crap between friends?

Typical Hun.

This story about MP's super by James Campbell sums up the Hun's style of journalism perfectly.

It's battlers vs politicians and the story is aimed purely at making the "little people" angry. Super rules are exactly the same for all MPs but which parliamentarians get singled out because their "payouts are guaranteed."

Four ALP members and not one Liberal party MP.

You're a fucking disgraceful Campbell and you know it.

Father and son blogging.

Mum and Dad have retired and it seems they desperately need a new hobby. They actually waste time reading my crap. I got the call from Mum complaining about my foul language on the last post, but worse still, Dad wants to do a guest post. At first I agreed, but then I remembered he votes Liberal.
I then thought I'd burn him, but I relented because Dad had actually put in the effort.

So here it is. BLL's bapak's first post.

GOVERNMENT IN ACTION – KEV07 STYLE

It’s taken me almost a year to work out the way Kev and Co run things. Its(sic) very clever and carefully thought out. Here’s how the system works.

You want to look as though you are proactive especially when it comes to voter friendly policies such as the ecology, maternity allowances etc. So you call for a study or White Paper to deliver the ‘required’ outcomes. Then Kev hits the media to announce that the Government is 100% in favour – throw in the backdrop of a few Australian flags and a couple of nodding dog ministers (Julia and Jenny Macklin excel at this.) Back it up with a trip to a hospital or Primary School (capitals?) complete with Kev holding new baby or sitting in class with the 8 year olds and you have some wonderful news grabs.

There is just one small problem with all of this. They don’t actually do anything. The hard core decisions are shuffled off to further committees or budget reviews, to be conveniently forgotten or deferred indefinitely. The phrase ‘We want to get it right’ has been used on many occasions to avoid the annoying problem of decision making.

Is this the trend of things to come? Or will Labor suddenly burst into life with some really hard core decisions? As Kev himself would say ‘I don’t think so”

Dad's ambition is to get more comments than me. That is not going to be hard.