Budgets, Bus Shelters and Bull Dust

Welcome to Brazil, South Korea, and the USofA, to this latest 'housekeeping' post across a number of issues...let's get stuck in...

Good on all the Labor ministers for quitting, resigning, retiring, imploding, outgoing, deserting, etc, because I'd just about learned all your names and now you're sliding off away from accountability and I have to learn a whole bunch of new names...thanks for record national debt and not much else...

Just another week of Federal Election discourse through the local media and not one word in The Border Watch newspaper about me as a Candidate, and I believe no messages read out and certainly no air time on ABC Radio, local or otherwise...I rarely get any time or messages read out on any ABC program lately...my reputation clearly proceeds me.

And call me a vain, arrogant, paranoid idiot, but I absolutely guarantee you that the pressure is on across the board, from the top down, to discredit, attack, abuse, and/or ignore me...and both because it is me as much as it is also what I say, and the fact that the two things are synonymous.

For me, this 'excising' from the media is 1) symptomatic of so much about what is wrong with Mt Gambier and South Australia in general...corrupt and/or weak people scrambling about in their own filth desperately looking for someone else to blame, and 2) the greatest confirmation that what I do and say has become a problem...because the truth is a problem.

It appears that TBW intends to make good it's promise that I will be getting no Election coverage at all, and when it comes to me, the ABC is equally biased and compromised...see Tomorrow's post...and a lovely segue into...

Forestry: On  ABC Radio's Friday morning program 28/06/13, there was a long interview with this weeks Minister for Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade, Tom Kenyon that sounded yet again like announcer Stan Thompson was blithely reading off a prepared list of 'Dorothy Dixers' (set up questions for propaganda style answers), to which Tom Kenyon had his carefully prepared answers.

Worst, was the happy question/observation from Stan Thompson that 'we wouldn't be getting this money for these projects if it wasn't for the Forestry Sale' (paraphrase) followed by Tom Kenyon reeling out his spiel about 'the state government's commitment to manufacturing and the Forestry Industry...'...(may I?...blah, blah, blah-Ed)...and 'the commitment to invest from that sale money'...(blah, blah, blah-Ed)...

Cynical I may be, but I'm not the only one..the news that NF McDonnell (Timber Mill) willl receive exactly half of the $8.6million of current 'Forestry Industry Grants' has been met with deep cynicism, disappointment and even anger...may I refer to my previous post 'The Judas Goat of SE Forestry' because it has been referenced back to me as the 'prequel post' for this $4.2million windfall for NF McDonnell.

As per that post, NF McDonnell is receiving preferential treatment from the Labor state government so that their success can be used to make other businesses look bad and therefore hide the reality of the problems caused by the Forestry Sale...the Judas Goat...

Mt Gambier City Council - Following all of the Budget meetings, five 'Public Consultations' and the two 'Special Council Meetings', there has been much talk from Council, and TBW, about listening to rate-payers and adjusting the Budget, expenditure, etc...but I do not believe that they are genuine about this.

I re-iterate that Council has every intention of moving ahead with the borrowing, they have already increased their capacity to do so, and doing exactly whatever they want, and the rates are still going up massively, and the Rail Lands will sit there despite the now $1.7million that the State government have suddenly and mysteriously 'granted' Mt Gambier under the 'Open Space and Places for People' grants...two sudden grants in six months...curiouser and curiouser...

It is an old trick to set the mark well beyond what you actually intend to do and then pull it back a bit and say 'see, we listen to you'...not the oldest trick in the book but an early chapter all it's own.

And Council has done this with several projects, eg, the large 'Blue Glass Tower' original design for the Main Corner that everyone kicked up about, and then pulling back slightly from this plan with the ugly, unjustified 'Riddoch Gallery Front Door/Annex/Wall Thingy' that Council still forced on a community who largely didn't want it...('Thingy'...is that a technical engineering and/or architectural design term, or buzzword, or what?-Ed)...yes, yes it is...

In the Fletcher Dictionary of Linguistic Necessity, 'Thingy' is an accepted terminology for 'That which defies physical definition and has no apparent purpose or justification'...following other words like Fasocracy, Pariahtisation, and Disengenderous (previous posts).

I'll say it again as it is what I'm hearing constantly...many people support the renovation of the Kings Theatre as an historic building of value, but the external 'Thingy' is just a grossly self-indulgent waste of money...as is the external Light Show, the Light Tables, the Commercial Kitchen, and the $650,000 'Volcano' movie.

It's great to see the Cave Gardens Sinkhole all lit up with mood type lighting and music...very ethereal and emotive, but what is the point of a movie on the back of a building where you can't see half of it for the windows now cut into that wall...and how is this Main Corner/Kings Theatre vantage point of the Sinkhole utilised for best views into the Cave?...it isn't!

Three small slit windows that usually have the blinds drawn because of the movies playing inside, and from the Annex Thingy, one window at the back-end of the Mezzanine Level, that can't actually see into the Cave anyway, with a large down pipe right down the middle...

I know I keep harping on about it, but who puts a down pipe down the middle of a window...it's simply bizarre...and matches the downpipes clearly visible in the ugly steel pillars of the 'Thingy' verandah...it's not 'Minimalist', or 'Industrial Realism', or 'Clean Design' or anything other than ugly...cheap, nasty, and ugly...but I digress...

Lady Nelson Bus Shelter: Is now apparently open and ready for business, just so long as it's not wet, cold, windy, and/or hot...(and/or hot?-Ed)...yes, it can be very bot and very windy, or cold and wet but still, etc...(fair enough-Ed)...and according to several articles in TBW this 'completion' now lays to rest the whole ugliness and corruption and deceit of the matter...let's all move on...damned if I will...

Please see previous posts re the Rail Lands Retail Agenda and why the Bus Shelter (and I use the term 'shelter' advisedly) is where it is.

It is a shocking waste of money, in the wrong place, because of Council's unrelenting obsession with the RLRA.

Elsewhere in town people are still standing sans shelter or seating whilst they wait for a Public local bus that may or may not be running...no buses before 9am and none after 5pm and none at all on weekends or public holidays...and not one cent from Council to improve this situation...whilst it gives the Riddoch/Main Corner over $700,000 a year...disgraceful...(careful, you're sounding like Alan Jones-Ed)...ah. now, there's no call for that sort of abuse thankyou...

More shenanigans...

Tomorrow: Rory McEwen and the ABC

Think I've been whining and/or unfair about the ABC?..here's a post about Rory getting me effectively 'banned' off the ABC because he didn't like what I said...this is My Blog and I am Nick Fletcher...made in Australia from Imported Ingredients...laters...