Hello and welcome to the blog Singapore, Germany, Ukraine, and China...last evening I had the distant pleasure of attending the inaugural meeting of the new Mt Gambier City Council...(don't you mean 'distinct' not 'distant'?-Ed)...I know what I mean...and I'm pleased to announce that I was entirely wrong ...sortta'...(how can ya' be 'sortta' entirely wrong'?-Ed)...well when one says that strange shizzle will happen, and it does, only not the shizzle one quite expected...(ok, fair enough-Ed)...
Last evening was pretty much all routine stuff like swearing at, I mean in, the new Mayor and Councillors, passing through various issues re process, Committees, etc...but Council couldn't even get that underway without some bizarre distortion of proper process...new Councillor Frank 'The Ghost' Morello...(Frankieee, maaate-Ed)...was not in attendance but the meeting was started anyway and the new Mayor Andrew Lee and the 9 other Councillors were sworn in and away they went...dunno' what happened to 'The Ghost' because I saw him outside at the Smoking Ceremony for Mt Gambier's first Aboriginal Councillor Mark Lovett (congrats) immediately prior to the 1800hrs meeting...
Anyhoos, about 30 minutes in, TG strolls into the chamber and takes his place, and proceedings were temporarily suspended so that he could be sworn in, and then he literally immediately stood up and tabled a Motion to stop any Electronic Recording and/or broadcasting of Council proceedings...(well there's nothing like a good ol' chunka Censorship and Fascism to show the Ratepayers that their Council is genuine about Public Consultation-Ed)...excellent point Ed...what does Council have to hide from their standard 'open to the public' meetings that they need to ban recording?...
(I'll take that one...it's because even their standard 'open' meetings are such a litany of Corrupted Process, Nepotism, Conflicts Of Interest, etc, etc, that they couldn't possibly run the risk of some half-wit having a word-perfect recording to quote, say, on their stupid blog or some such shizzle-Ed)...interesting observation...(particularly given how inaccurate their own Minutes usually are-Ed)...true, and they know full well that none of it will appear in The Border Watch, so controlling the Chamber is paramount to maintaining control over the dissemination of information...
And I reckon that I may have broken one of my own 'Fundamental Rules For Attending Public Meetings', in that I may well have been 'glaring' rather than just looking at Steve Perryman when he was on his feet talking last night, because he looked out the door at me, faltered, recovered and continued on...(well consider your own words in that simply showing ya' ugly mug can be enough-Ed)...fair enough...and that's why I make such a point of not glowering at people on such occasions because it does lower the tone of the room...
It is the gifted burden of the large gentle person that they may cause dismay just by the way that they go about their day where any display of dis-ease brings the wringin' of sweaty hands and much gnashing of teeth...but I digress...
This continuance of personnel and their participation in guiding new Councillors, advising on process, etc, is entirely appropriate in a Mt Gambier where everything I've put on this blog about Council corruption, etc, is just an inane load of bollocks, an insane ode to the frollicking voices in the meadows of my mind rather than a definitive diatribe on the state we all find ourselves in...(and believe me, we all wish it were so, we all wish we were just voices in your head-Ed)...hey! shut up...(no, you shut up-Ed)...no, you shut up...(no, you shut up-Ed)...no you shut up...etc, etc...but seriously, I've often stated my preference that what I blog about be my personal delusion rather than a continuing reality...
And unfortunately the word 'No' is in itself a deeply disturbing segue into yesterday's White Ribbon Day, and the 'Yelling No To Domestic Violence' thingy that they do here in Mt Gambier...I've been through this stuff before...I get that the idea is it's men shouting 'No To Domestic Violence', but the word 'No' is a word of control and arguably the one single word that defines DV, eg, can I have some money to shop?-No...can I have friends?-No...can I leave you?-No...can I escape you ever?-No...why not yell 'Yes' to equality and respect?
When Applying FRFAPM: always apply liberally...and so it was I came to not attend several events recently, including White Ribbon stuff, because of the potentially tone-lowering nature of my participation, and regardless of my deep cynicism for the said events, I'm at least prepared to acknowledge that they were important for their subject if rather empty in their application...and this White Ribbon stuff falls exactly into that category...the continuing epidemic of DV is far too critical for me to interfere in any action, albeit that I may not agree that's the way to do it...
But I do refer back to my most recent 'DV' incident where a young man was abusing the crap outta' a young woman sitting in a car, and when I intervened he got outta' the car and threatened me, several people rang SAPol, who attended, spoke to him, and then just drove off, letting him walk away...pathetic...following on from the numerous DV incidents that I've had scrolling through the house down the back, the times I've spoken out at the Housing Trust office, Centrelink, etc, etc...I don't need to attend any empty stunt yellin' nuthin' at no-one to show where I stand on this issue...I am the action these others speak of...
Up Shit Creek In An ASC Canoe: goes Adelaide paddling furiously as Liberal alleged Defense Minister David Johnson yesterday said in parliament that he 'wouldn't trust the Adelaide-based Australian Submarine Corporation to build a canoe'...this is the reality really hitting the fan, and it don't look real good for the ASC getting the contract for building these new subs ...Davo's thin-lipped ranting was "bizarre, ridiculous, unfounded" says Sow Strayn's own Senator Nick Xenophon...and he used the "up shit creek" line too...(rhubarb rhubarb-Ed)...yelled Ed...(actually I was saying 'you bastards, you bastards', but I had a mouthful of food-Ed)...oh right sorry, yes that makes more sense, 'you bastards, you bastards'...
As per usual, the truth lies somewhere in between...I reckon I've previously mentioned some of the issues with ASC cost over-runs, poor performance/maintenance records, only usually 1 of the 6 Aussie designed and built Collins class subs actually in the water, etc, etc...but Johnno yesterday was specifically cuttin' crook about the Air Warfare Destroyer thingos that the ASC is currently building...and the whole thing looks like a marginally justifiable excuse to ship our shipbuilding overseas regardless of the devastating effects this would have in Adelaide, the loss of not just many jobs, but also the accumulated experience and knowledge base of that workforce, the notorious brain-drain...
And that's where the Creek hits the fan for Adelaide because it's highly likely that there'll be a massive exodus from the ASC...and as with the closure of the Holden GM car manufacturing plant at Elizabeth, there's the multitude of peripheral supplier businesses, support businesses, eg, the local shops adjacent the site, etc, that will be immediately affected, and then the tsunami of resultant business problems as there's far less 'income' coming in to that community so people spend less at their own local shops, uniform and safety gear suppliers, stop buying new cars, etc, etc...it will be devastating...
Turning Defense Into Offense:...(what did one sardine say to the other sardine as a submarine went past?-Ed)...dunno...(hey look, there's a tin of people-Ed)...where?...(no no, that's the punchline-Ed)...ah, hilarious...and shouldn't you identify that as a joke stolen from British comedian Spike Milligan...(spoil sport-Ed)...come on, you love Spike's work...(ok, fair enough-Ed)...and nearly as hilarious as Johnno's entirely disingenuous 'apology' made in parliament today, where-in he said "I regret that offense may have been taken"...(clever-Ed)...well I'd call it 'being a trite arsehole', but I'm sure that passes for clever in some circles...
That is a statement not an apology, not even close...it has nuthin' to do with the people he's abused, not addressed to them, and does nuthin' to address the offense he's caused...all this says is that the D-Man is pissed-off about the flak he's quite rightly copped for his ludicrous outburst...(yeah right, he's not sayin' sorry at all to the people he denigrated, or the ASC in general, he's actually whinging about the dis-ease his own comments have caused him-Ed)...exactly...this is an absolute insight as to how these people think and function, it's all about the White-Boys in the Liberal Party and how it affects them...pathetic and sickening...
And whilst we're dwelling in the costing of defending this fine wide land let's stroll into the field of bastardry that is the current 1% 'pay-rise' offer recently made to Defense personnel...(but CPI, the Consumer Price Index, is around 3%, so that means their wages need to rise 3% per annum just to stay with CPI, anything less than that is definitively, unquestionably a pay-cut, not a raise-Ed)...and hence the term 'bastardry'...(so the same highly paid desk-jockey bastards who are sending Oz troops into/over/whatevs Iraq amongst other places, and are constantly hitching their wagon to the 'brave diggers' paradigm, and constantly give themselves massive pay rises, those bastards reckon everyone else including defense personnel need to be 'efficiency dividended'...
The First Efficiency Dividend Is The Deepest: And the real genius of this bastardry is that it's being used as a wedge to justify an across-the-board Public Service payrise of 1%, whilst the Liberals try to hammer home the guilt factor about how our dudes in uniform are only getting this much so how dare y'all complain about getting the same...(yeah, I see what you mean, using an absolute bastardry to justify more mainstream 'efficiency dividends' through-out the Public Service-Ed)...indeed, where the Liberals are using the term 'efficiency dividends' as poli-speak for funding cuts and resultant job losses...(just charming-Ed)...indeed...
I'll pull stumps here and more;
Tomorrow: Some Stuff
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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