America's REAL death panels

A very scary article from the USA

America’s Real Death Panels: Jurors in capital cases must pledge support for the death penalty.

So much for a trial of your peers - more like a trial by 12 right-wing nutters.

Declaring war

Tonight I declare war on morons who cannot spell.

"Your" is not the same as "you're". I am so sick of morons who cannot spell. Did these drop kicks go to school? Why must I constantly read bad spelling? Is it that hard to know the difference? No, it's not. Engage your brain before you type something! Argghhh!

Will 'Mr less than 2% vote' please fuck off

Steve Fielding. Anyone else sick of him popping up every 5 seconds? Why are the media giving this rat the time of day? He polled so few votes and gets so much attention - fuck The Australian!

Capitalism: A Love Story

I saw Capitalism: A Love Story this evening. It was sad but also inspiring. I knew some of the stories that were told but possibly the scariest one was how major corporations in the USA (the example used was Walmart) take out life insurance policies on their own staff - ordinary workers like you and me. It was truly disgusting. The memos talking about how this "investment" had not returned enough returns (i.e. enough deaths) made me so angry.

Capitalism is a failure. Socialism has largely failed too. There must be a better way. A way that treats human beings with respect. An economic and political system that rewards effort but doesn't mean people are left to rot in the gutter if they're not able to fend for themselves.

Think I might blog about this more later...it's too late right now.

Conservative paper attacks public servants saying they threaten economy. For its evidence they cite

1. A report by the conservative Julie Novak of the right-wing think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs
2. An ultra-conservative free marketeer champion professor Scott Prasser from the newly established Public Policy Institute, which the paper's editor-in-chief Paul Kelly helped to launch (bit of a free plug for the new institute)
3. A conservative politician from the Liberal Party in NSW.

Good to see balanced reporting in The Australian. I was starting to get worried they were going to show some bias in their reporting.

The tax dodge needs to stop

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the tax perks for certain employees working in the not-for-profit sector just reinforced my opinion that this rort needs to be stopped.

This perk was designed for the not-for-profit sector to help them attract staff as the pay many charities pay is obviously low. The problem is that employees such as those working for church run hospitals and even the publicly funded health system also get access to this perk - and they're not badly paid.

This also skews the market. Private hospitals owned by companies pay roughly the same as the church owned ones yet the church owned hospitals can give their employees extra perks that the company owned hospitals cannot.

I'm not going into bat for capitalists. I just believe it shouldn't be all workers footing the bill for some well-paid workers to get an extra tax perk. The tax perks need to be removed and any staff attraction issues in the genuine not-for-profit sector can be dealt with by proper government funding!! I think you'd find the church owned private hospitals and government run health would still attract staff - the pay is still way higher than aged care.

Federal judges get 6% pay rise

The Remuneration Tribunal has awarded a 6% pay rises to members of the federal judiciary. So whilst the lowest paid get nothing this year these guys get a big boost. Outrageous!

Review of Remuneration Relativities among Australia’s Federal Courts, Remuneration Tribunal, October 13, 2009

Why does no one complain about the real problem illegal immigrants?

I am of course talking about overstayers - people, mostly from developed countries, who come into this country on tourist visas and never leave or massively overstay their visa. Then there are also all of those who come into this country legally on tourist visas but illegally work, depriving the Australian government of taxation revenue, for a start. I knew one guy from Scotland who did just that. In the construction industry this is a huge problem that the fuckwits at the ABCC do nothing about.

The debate on illegal immigration always turns to those who coming in by sea, yet they make up the smallest numbers of the problem. If I read one more letter to the editor about "boat people" and how they're "taking our jobs" and going to make everything bad happen I think I will vomit - hopefully on one of those right-wing maggot letter-writers.

Catholic chemist won't sell the pill

A chemist in Griffith won't sell the pill or the emergency morning-after pill because of his Catholic faith. This is bullshit. If you're going to provide a public service, where most of your products are government subsidised, or even free to low income earners, then you've no right to shove your belief systems onto others' bodies.

What if this was a town with only one pharmacy? What would be the option for women then? If you have some moral objection to selling some kind of legal drug then don't become a pharmacist. It's that simple.

Next we'll be hearing of chemists who won't sell drugs to schizophrenics because under their beliefs these mentally ill people are really possessed.

Bye bye Costello: don't come back

Mt favourite quote from his retirement:

"Successful organisations plan for succession and engage in renewal."

Surely that is a shot at the party that did so appallingly bad at succession planning with respect to moving Howard on.

I don't really care too much. I can't say I will miss Peter all that much either. I liked him marginally more than Howard but he was such a gutless wonder about the whole leadership issue. I quite enjoy the power vacuum at the Liberal Party at the moment.