Howdy and welcome to the blog...and one week today we allegedly get to choose the way that we will be governed via the farce of a South Australian state election...and oingo boingo as if on cue the South Australian Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley on ABC Radio telling me how great it's all going to be...(yay-Ed)...
And she's away....bring your 'registration' card even though it doesn't actually do anything in normal circumstances, but don't call us now (Saturday 8th March 2014) for details because we're closed across the long weekend...(so if you haven't received a card already you call Tuesday and hope it gets to you by Friday-Ed)...yep...(even though it doesn't actually really do anything-Ed)...uh-huh...(and did you ever get that Official SAEC Candidates Information Pack that you, as a potential candidate, rang and asked for 3 weeks ago?-Ed)...nope...
(So you rang the SAEC on Thursday 13th February?-Ed)...that or the day before, yeah...(spent 10 minutes organising to see if they could send you an official pack and giving them your details, etc?-Ed)...yep...(and not nuthin'?-Ed)...nothing...(do you think it's like, because it's you, and/or your reputation re politicing, etc, or is it just because you're a complete bastard?-Ed)...well one doesn't like to limit oneself, so one will just say 'yes'...
And Ms Mousley mentions that boxes will be carefully numbered and, as though she can read my mind, states, 'we've never lost any Ballot papers'...what a lot of alleged* rot...(well technically, those votes allegedly found in a box under a table when they were cleaning up the Mt Gambier Electoral Office after the 2010 election, those votes weren't technically lost because, well, because they were found-Ed)...hilarious and true...but Ms Mousley continued on about the SAEC's super-dooper success rate and good reputation and that the Feds are coming to SA to learn from us...
*I have 'alleged' this re the disjointed conversation I had at a supermarket checkout with an SAEC employee where he alleged the aforementioned 'found box' but I was talking about The Border Watch, etc, and didn't realise until later that day, etc...(previous post)...because it was just a conversation and I have no proof, and when I spoke to SAEC Returning Officer Bill Russon about it, he assured me that it hadn't happened...but I absolutely stand by what the employee said that day, as confusing and convoluted as that was.
A Big Shout Out To The Homiesless: Having been technically homeless for several years across the 1990s into the 2000s, I find it a little offensive that the Riddoch Art Gallery would have a 'Beggars Banquet' as a fund-raiser...come dressed as your favourite dis-enfranchised homeless person, possibly with a mental illness and/or drug addiction issues...(perhaps guests could sleep in their cars with their children for the night-Ed)...indeed...my only concession would be that I think these people just don't get how inappropriate this is, I don't think they set out to be offensive.
I choose to put this in the same file as the CEO's Homeless Sleepout, the 40 Hour Famine, and a number of these similar events...even my rank cynicism about pretty much everything, cannot deny me acknowledging that there are many people involved with such events who are absolutely genuine and that sometimes good stuff comes of these things...I believe that 'we' are all in agreeance that the issue is that these events often do need to happen to provide services that should be government funded...(particularly in Regional SA-Ed)...indeed...
(But it's not all bad 'cause I'm just reading in TBW about how service provider ac.Care are putting on a dinner for the homeless at The Barn, which includes a 2 course dinner and wine and beer, although I'm not sure that's appropriate, and free transport...sounds very nice-Ed)...read it again...(2 courses, etc, transport, yeah...hang on, $100 per ticket...how's a homeless person going to afford $100 for one meal?-Ed)...because it's not 'a meal for the homeless', it's a 'net-working event' that costs $100, part of which then goes to ac.Care to then be used for homeless people.
Similar to the Beggars Banquet, I take some offence to a $100 per ticket Support Homeless People networking fundraiser to be held at The Barn, to support ac.Care and their Homelessness Services and that I can't imagine many homeless will be attending...admittedly, apart from the various flyers, pamphlets, etc, I've collected and the people I've spoken to at things like The Homelessness Day event held last year, I have no idea what 'Homelessness Services' actually are in Mt Gambier because I have not accessed that service.
Ana again I will acknowledge my cynicism because my mind immediately drifts to issues like how much is The Barn making on this?...how much goes on the transport?...bureaucracy within ac.Care?...how much of that $100 actually ends up with the homeless person? why can't people just donate $50 and have done with it?...how much Federal/state funding does ac.Care already receive?...and so it goes on...
Hopefully I'm wrong and The Barn are donating the meals and only covering wages, and the transport is also a donated service, and $90 of every $100 gets to the homeless as food, accommodation, health services, etc...anyway, again, I'm sure there are many involved with true intent, and that it's nowhere near as offensive as...
Tom Koutsantonis: just cannot open his mouth without lying, it's part of his DNA...there is a clinically socio-pathic air about him...he is empathetically empty and morally bankrupt...today he was on again (ABC/BBC?), and again with the 'there's never been an aquifer contaminated in South Australia by Fracking'..and he carefully cobbles together un-related time-lines and production methods, and 'we've been doing this for this long and no problems'...even I know there are vast differences between actual Gas Extraction and Fracking to release gas, and the huge complications of a 4km deep shaft through 2 aquifers, and the stability of the Cooper Basin compared to a relatively unstable South East, etc, etc...
And just today, SANTOS has been convicted and fined for contamination from the tailings dam of a coal seam gas 'well' seeping into the Aquifer resulting in Uranium levels 20x regulated safe levels...and this is their second fine this year following a $52,000 fine (+$100,000 costs) in January...and the second fine was?...$1500...the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority impose strict conditions, apparently, but not particularly troublesome fines...more on this tomorrow...
But none of this is even in the offensive ballpark when it comes to the Queen of Offence, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart and her observations that Australia needs to cut wages and support services and payments...a billionaire complaining about how her profit's are nibbled around the edges by the woefully inadequate taxes she pays on the massive profits she makes selling our National minerals off overseas...(now that is offensive-Ed)...
You've Not Got Mail: apparently a search by Telstra failed to find the notorious 'missing email' that was sent to somewhere by then Education Minister Jay Weatherill's Chief of Staff Simon Blewett, and Simon can't remember to whom but it definitely wasn't Jay Weatherill...(again, so he can't remember to whom, but he definitely knows it wasn't Jay-Ed)...that's the story...Telstra has not located it and/or who it was sent to...and as per usual the Labor spokesperson says 'dealt with by the DeBelle Inquiry'... what a sick joke, where the punchline delivers no humour.
Gonna' finish here...lost Internet connection twice this evening and it's already getting late...
Tomorrow: Another Fracking Protest
As happened today at the Cave Garden...and oddly enough there wasn't anyone from Labor there to defend what they are doing...tomorrow...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...and if I may throw in a little late positivity, it was good to see that people really are trying to stop that Fracking, to see local Liberals standing beside Greens and agreeing that this is a disaster for the South East...more power to you...
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