Hello and welcome to the blog and the 351st post...and '351' is of course a famous number when it comes to Australian vehicle manufacture...I just can't remember if it's a Holden or a Ford engine...or is it a Chevy?...(come on, it's un-Australian to not know what car the 351 engine goes in-Ed)...I know, whatevs...but my fallback position is the classic Ford 351 GT 'Shaker', the fastest 4-door production car of it's time...(and for some time thereafter-Ed)...and now worth squillions, eg, $200,000+.
Ah, The Finnigan Defense Ag'in: Former Labor MLC Bernard Finnigan, arrested 3 years ago whilst Acting Police Minister, for a raft of 'Child Pornography Possession' charges (22-23?), has had the charges changed, dropped, re-instated, dropped again, re-instated but changed, etc, in and out of different jurisdictions...(Magistrates and District Courts I believe-Ed)...whatevs...and is currently defending the sole remaining charge via his lawyers - 'it's not a Statutory Offense because you can't tell if the children in the images are under 14 years of age'...(deadset-Ed).
The same defense has just been used by a Kings Cross (Sydney) 'Brothel' owner who was convicted of 2 counts of prostituting a 14 year old girl, only to then receive a 2 year suspended sentence...and her excuse was that the girl approached her, and she didn't know she was 14 and she didn't ask...(seriously?...oh gee whiz sorry I prostituted that 14 year old but I didn't ask so I didn't know...and a suspended 2 year sentence?...deadset-Ed)...
And taking the ABC TV series Rake as my muse, one can't help wondering if the defense didn't employ the famous and very effective 'And Remember Your Honour That I Still Have Those Photos' defense...(ah, the old ARYHTISHTP defense...clever, clever-Ed)...what can I possibly say about this suspended sentence that doesn't make itself immediately obvious...(I'm struggling sorry-Ed)...well if conviction for prostituting a 14 year old gets 2 years suspended, with a defense of 'gee whiz I didn't know', then the precedent is set there, the bar is set there...(oh-Ed)...
So it's open season on 14 year olds and all you have to say is 'Gee whiz, I didn't know skipper'...and the case precedent is set for a suspended sentence...even after conviction...(and the Rake thing?-Ed)...that was supposedly 'based on actual events' about lawyers, politicians, etc, and the drugs and alcohol, etc, and the prostitutes they engaged, dated, etc...but moving on...
Immigration Health Advisory Group: has been suddenly axed by the Abbott government without any specific explanation. The group of 12 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other 'independent' experts was established in 2006 to provide unbiased advice re the Mental Health and other general health issues of people in detention, and was partly due to the Immigration Detention of Australian citizen Cornelia Rau who was suffering a Mental Illness at the time.
There will now be a one person independent panel, former Chair Dr Paul Alexander, but the IHAG spokeswoman states that he has no specific qualifications in the fields he is advising on, and it appears possible that the fractious nature of the IHAG that Mr Abbott is alluding to as the reason for axing it, may well be due to the actions/behaviours of Mr Alexander...I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if a functioning panel of relative experts were replaced by one person who doesn't really know and/or is compliant.
For me this has the whiff of the unilateral appointment of the completely none-qualified Labor 'hack' Mia Handshin to the head of the Environment Protection Authority...or of Grant King to the Regional Development Australia and the Health Advisory Council...an appointment that guarantees no dissenting opinion emanating from said authority, and a massive slice of plausible deniability...I wonder how long it is before they start saying 'Orr, give 'im a chance guvna', he's only one man!'
And there are about 33,000 people waiting to have their applications processed and that number steadily increases...and many of them are 'genuine refugees' by anyone's definition, eg, survivors from war zones...but if you don't want to have to deal with the realities, ditch the panel and appoint a 'silent expert'...this is purely my theory...Mr Abbott obviously feels that they have to go, but why?...and why only one person to replace a panel?
In ignorance of the actual facts I must identify that perhaps the reality is that the entire panel were rabid Labor devotees appointed only months ago, in the looming shadow of an Election 2013 wipeout, to give the Liberals an absolute caning re the treatment of refugees...I recall that the $10billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation was set up in such circumstances, and continues to dosh out taxpayers cash to Wind Turbine companies, amongst others...however, the CEFC set-up does not prove that the same has happened with the IHAG.
A Glowing Report:...not...for the future of Nuclear Energy and therefore Uranium mining and therefore the likelihood that BHP will invest in the massive expansion at Olympic Dam (Roxby Downs, South Australia) that former Premier Mike Rann made a huge song and dance about announcing back in 2011...(signed in Melbourne mind you-Ed)...quite...before BHP only months later scrapped said expansion...(and not quite the same pomp and ceremony for the dumping, eh-Ed)...indeed.
According to the BBC World Service ongoing problems with the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan nearly 3 years after the March 2011 Tsunami all but destroyed it, have dampened global enthusiasm for Nuclear Energy, and that's on the limited information available from the same authorities that have previously outright lied about the situation...can't help feeling that the only one's getting any sort of glow out of this are the reactor workers and stubborn locals who refuse to budge.
So what does this mean for Prime Minister Tony Abbot's statement that SA needs to focus it's future on that mining expansion and should go a courting that fair maiden BHP? Was it a genuine 'plan' or did Tony just grab the one thing he knew about South Australia and trot that out to defer away from the reality of what is going to happen in SA when Holden departs? And who do you believe about that?
Did the Liberal's refusal to discuss increased funding push General Motors Holden out of Australia, or did GMH grab this refusal as 'justification' for doing what they intended to do anyway? Is this an unavoidable reality of globalisation, or should the Federal
government provide increased funding to match the
support/subsidies/trade restrictions, etc, that other governments
provide their vehicle manufacturers?
Which then leads into the stupidity of the 'Trans-Pacific Partnerships' that we are currently signing up to...allegedly Free Trade agreements that clearly leave Australia disadvantaged and in some circumstances open to legal action from private companies claiming 'losses' due to internal political decisions...and the proof is already in the puddin' in that international Tobacco companies are using a Hong Kong Statute to challenge Australia's 'Plain Packaging ' laws for cigarette packets.
And I cannot address any of these issues without the crass hypocrisy of South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill looming large in my mind...bleating about the jobs at Holden and 'Federal support packages' for the workers and the effect on the economy and why does Canberra treat us like this?...and there are apparently plenty of people in the South East who share my sentiment that Mr Weatherill had no such concerns for us when selling off the SE Forestry Estate...
I do not, however, share their enthusiasm for this Karmic Scrotum Kickage that Adelaide has just received, because as stated in a previous post, this will go very, very badly for the SE and all of Regional SA...if what has been happening for the last decade with the Forestry Sale to pay for the reworked Adelaide Oval, other privatisations, cutting of services, job losses, etc, all focused on pork-barreling the people of Adelaide with 'Bread and Circuses' governance...if that has happened in the good times, what the shrek are we in for now?
I'll pull stumps here with the observation that,
Tomorrow: Is Another Day That Never Comes
(Whoa, deep man-Ed)...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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