Hello Venezuela, Portugal, India, and China...(and everyone else-Ed)...indeed, welcome one and all to the blog and another series of shocking puns done to a dinner and then served-up slapped unceremoniously onto a platter of glaring reality...
Talk About A Chopper Gets The Speaker The Chop: as the now former Speaker of Federal Parliament, Bronwyn Bishop, 'resigns' from the position...(on a Sunday? that's a bit odd...and sayin' she 'resigned' is like sayin' that the Plank-Walking Pirate is resigning from the ship...sweet baby cheeses, one can still see the sweaty palm-prints of her Liberal colleagues on the back of her jacket from where they shoved 'er...hard-Ed)...sure is all a bit odd, but even then there are those, Bronnie included, who say that this massive and previously unthinkable back-down, her resignation as the Speaker of the House, even then it's still all about what a top sheila she is and how she's quitting because of 'her love for the common people', 'cos she's like just so caring and responsible and shizzle...
And coming from PM Tony 'The Mad Monk' Abbott, it's all about how it's the fault of the Entitlements Structure that Bronnie spent, for example, $250,000 on limos in just 5 years...(what?!!!-Ed)...oh, yeah, and including obviously several years before she was Speaker, in fact, even when she was still a Liberal Opposition member...(wow...but she has access to fully funded government cars, Cab-charge accounts, etc-Ed)...yeah, all that stuff, and Tones wants to blame the system that allowed this avarice as having created it...(way to take responsibility Tones-Ed)...and imagine my surprise that by last evening's news cycle, Tones, finding himself invited onto The Plank, is actually saying 'yeah, Bronnie did get it wrong, a bit'...
And Just Because:...the joys of the language of Englishing that 'resign' means 'an end' to whatevs, but chuck in a well-considered hyphen and it's about 'continuation'...(whaaa?-Ed)...because it becomes 're-sign', an extension of a current contract...(nice-Ed)...And Also: the line the bee dude so nearly said several times in that interview I heard, and that I so wanted to hear him say, that here t'is anyway...To be a bee enthusiast one needs to be enthusiastic...
Reality TV This:...just a few weeks back a magnificent Basking Shark was accidentally caught off Portland, Victoria, and it reminded me that 1) there's a massive cast/model of one in the Adelaide Museum...least there was 20 years ago...and 2) the extraordinary 1933 black and white movie Man of Aran, which I saw quite by accident 'round 0200hrs post work and numerous attitude adjusters, ways back in the misty murky distant past that was me working part-time nights in Adelaide and commuting weekly to my child just then moved to Mt Gambier (1997), sleeping at either end in my van and/or on friends floors, etc, and therefore technically homeless for years, etc, etc...the movie is a doco-style record of an Irish fishing village that hunt and harpoon Basking Sharks that gather in the local waters to feed on krill...the fishers use the shark's huge livers and other oils, fats, etc, for lamps, etc, all fascinating stuff, but it's the hunting that's mesmorising...
It looks like cheap models getting dragged around near their small wooden boat, but it's actually the snouts and dorsal fins of literally dozens of these enormous fish krill-trawling along the surface, and which, when harpooned, drag the boat over the horizon...but even with all that, what's truly stunning about this movie is the matter-of-fact way the fishers deliberately run their boat up slip rocks in a raging storm and then just hop out before the next wave drags the boat back and smashes it to kindling...they row manically to remain unmoved at the relatively calm centre of a surging cauldron (highly reminiscent of Nene Valley down this way), then they pick their wave and row like sweet baby cheeses, surf that wave right up the rocks until the boat's dumped, and then just hop out, never looking back...it is singularly extraordinary footage and I urge availees to try and find it and watch it...but we digress...
(With that Tone's excuse for Bronnie, blaming "the system", it's almost like saying that the bank caused the robbery by being a bank-Ed)...lovely work Ed, it's exactly like that...(to say the system created the rorting by being rortable, completely ignores the reality that Bronnie made those trips and claimed those 'Entitlements' knowing full well that she was not entitled-Ed)...indeed, and not just the occasional dodgy limo run to the shops for paté and bubbly, or even a few fabulous flights to Liberal fundraisers daaarling, but a relentless and extended rort of public monies...there are apparently a bunch more things to come out...and even though it's true that this 'Entitlement' set-up is grossly flawed, the rank failures of 'the system' neither explains nor excuses Bronnie swanning about like Lady Muck on the Taxpayer's dollar...I reckon she should be given the equivalent of a Cabcharge for every day she claimed a limo, etc, and then made to repay the other $200k+...for starters...
Don't Be Confused By the Mere Fact Of Words: as Bernie bobs-up on my li'l telly, mouth-breathing his way through a brief speech in the Big Red Room (the
furniture/fittings in the SA Legislative Council/Upper House are all
red, very, very red, as per the House of Lords in England)...(is that the Bernard Finnigan who, whilst Labor's Acting Police Minister, was busted by SAPol (police) back in April 2011, when they raided his home, seized computers, etc, and charged him with approx 20 Child Pornography offences?-Ed)...yeah, that's him...(and was immediately dumped by Labor whilst they screeched about his 'innocence until proven guilty'-Ed)...yep...(and has then had 30 hearings/adjournments in different Courts across 4 years, and finally faced trial back in April this year, where his lawyer's defense centred around "the mere fact of words", only to have that hearing effectively disappear since then?-Ed)...yep, yep, and yep...
There was a
brief mention of the fact that Bernie's still facing those charges (whittled down to 2 now, from 20+), and there he was stating that he has "concerns" about Labor's so-called 'Anti Bikey' legislation, laws that restrict association, gathering, etc, but seem to include all citizens not just alleged and/or actual 'bikies'...not to confuse himself with his own "mere fact of words", Bernie said he had "concerns" but didn't apparently expand on that to explain what those "concerns" actually were/are, and then voted for the legislation anyway...(so he's concerned to the point that he felt driven to say so, but without explaining exactly why, and then voted for it anyway?-Ed)...yep...(and his trial?-Ed)...dunno, disappeared...(wow-Ed)...
It's Official:...apparently I'm being officially/unofficially blamed for the failure of the attempt to ram Jazz Academy students into those Public Housing units/homettes in Harrald St (as per previous posts)...(your fault? how?-Ed)...I dunno', apparently, me just pointing at other people's malfeasance/corruption/incompetence/whatevs and saying 'hey, that doesn't look right', my completely outrageous habit of ragefully outing 'whatevs', that makes it my fault when the reality of that 'whatevs' catches-up with them what done create it...(so's it's your fault too then I s'pose that there's this very odd stuff about building units somewhere/somehow on/at the Oatmill site so as to accommodate said students?-Ed)...probably, apparently, no idea...all I do know is that pretty much everyone else's corruption and selfishness is my fault...(it's the St Martins stuff all over again...a handful of parents try to get the "text-book grooming paedophile" teacher Glyn Dorling held to account, and at every point you've been attacked and blamed by corrupt Authorities, other parents, the Lutherans, et al-Ed)...indeed...
(S'pose it's your fault then too that City Council ripped down the Old Hospital, a perfect site for the Jazz Academy with tonnes of extra room for accommodation...a purchase/demolition with it's own long list of gross corruptions attached, eg, paying the shadowy SkyTowers Mt Gambier well above market rate for an otherwise allegedly unsaleable property, then borrowing a further $2million+ to rip it down, and then in the Council meeting to vote on the Demolition Tender, the then Mayor Steve Perryman declared a 'Conflict of Interest' re some 'Accommodation Arrangement' with the Tender winners McMahons...Stevo goes through the vacuously corrupt pantomime of calling a COI, then walks out, and within minutes, the Tender goes to his business partners/mates, McMahons...s'pose all that's your fault as well?-Ed)...probably...
And I'd just like to thank all the Tax-payers and Ratepayers who paid for the li'l soiree that the good folk at the ABC threw for my mate Stan Thompson on Friday night... a catered farewell for my man Stanley at the City Hall means another very nice earner for the people who quite corruptly have control of that Ratepayer Owned and Funded Commercial Function Facility as part of the broader Main Corner corruption, and all paid for by either Taxpayers (if the ABC coughed-up anything) and/or Ratepayers as we pay via our rates for all the Utilities, security, etc, that are used during any event at the Main Corner/City Hall...(and including the interest on borrowed monies, the stuff being 'billed' through other Council departments, etc-Ed)...yep, all of that...(and you didn't go?-Ed)...shreck no! why the heck would I put myself through that bollocks?...at best it would only offer fresh fodder to those whom hunger to criticise me regardless...(fair enough-Ed)...
And apparently there was another catered soiree at the City Hall yesterday...and those involved in the local Arts scene who know me know that my criticism of the monies that Council gifts the Riddoch, etc, is in a context where other public services get next to or actually nought...(like public transport-Ed)...exactly Ed...for example, why are Ratepayers forking-out for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra to come here?...we all already pay taxes that help fund organisations like the Adelaide SO, they should be coming here anyway...for me, all of these issues boil-down to one thing, who Council decides to give Ratepayers money to and why...(yeah, why do Council give Stand Like Stone money? SLS has 'over $500k in their account' and regularly hold highly profitable 'fund-raisers', etc, so why do they get handed Ratepayers money?-Ed)...you tell me mate...and recently Stevo as Councillor declared a "Non-Pecuniary Interest" in moving that Council hand $15,000(?) over to the self-appointed 'Tourism Taskforce Thingy' that Stevo is the self-appointed Head of, and so Council did...(wow-Ed)...
(*may be $10k or $20k, sorry, can't find my notes, will be in Minutes somewhere from May/June 2015)
A Truncated Root And Branch Investigation: re politician's 'Entitlements' is what we'll actually get from all these promises from PM Abbott and others that 'there will be a like totes thorough review dudes of all these allowances and shizzle..."root and branch" (PM Abbott)...honest'...(yeahhh, not holding my breath on that one...and can't say I'm exactly enthused by these alleged promises from our PM re building $85billion worth of Ship in Adelaide, what with the outright lies before the September 2013 Federal election about knockin' together a dozen subs in Adelaide, etc-Ed)...exactly Ed, how do you believe anything that a proven liar says after the proving...it really looks like just another pre-election stunt, setting a start date (2018) that's at least 2 years after the next Federal election...
And our Federal Liberal Member for Barker Tony Pasin, was on the ABC stating that he's so concerned about the plight of 3 (?) families in his electorate that he's had funding/assistance re-instated...sorry, I missed bits of this interview, but thought I heard him say $11.7m worth of funding, but possibly that's a national fund because it seems like a lot for 3 families...I fully empathise with these families that their kids have such serious, specific and demanding allergies/conditions/illnesses, and as a parent I'd sure as shreck welcome that funding were I in their position, but why so much for so few?...imagine what just a small part of that money could do for Palliative Care services or any of the many other drastically under-funded local medical services, etc...what about all the funding the Federal Liberals and State Labor have slashed in other areas? what's going on here that it gets such special attention?...I am genuinely sorry to be so cynical but it's the unavoidable consequence of a decade of dealing with these rankly corrupt and selfish individuals we call our elected officials...
And clearly I ain't Robinson Crusoe when it comes to the vitriole rollin' 'round the town re Liberal Party 'Entitlements', particularly these stunning revelations about the lavish renovations to Mr Pasin's offices...and in an act of the most arrogant dis-contrition, in today's The Border Watch, page 2 is a Tony Pasin ad...the whole page...(you're welcome Tones...and please don't apologise, of course we don't mind paying umpteen taxes for largely substandard services just so long as we get to read what a great guy you are and how lucky we are to have you, via an ad we paid for-Ed)...but Ed, I'm sure this falls under 'Office Expenses' and/or some other 'Entitlement' that makes-up the $1.3million Tones has 'Entitled' himself to...
And now we have to find another Speaker...and when asked about Bronnie's dodgy dealings, Mr Pasin laughed, said 'it's her decision', and that he is 'in a sense glad' that this is 'out in the open'...and when asked 'what about your entitlements Tones?', he mentioned his expenditure re his 2 office renovations, etc, as being 'nothing to do with me', going on to say 'there should be a cap for spending with more for me/rural electorates, but capped allocations for everyone'..."there will be reform"...this was just another rancidly pathetic 'Dorothy Dixer' platform as provided by the Mt Gambier ABC...mates gettin' together to promote the Party line via a wholly corrupt local ABC and nobody held to account for nothing...pathetic, absolutely pathetic...
And good ol' Sophie Mirabella (Liberal) has been mouthing-off again about how she, like Tony Pasin, supports the 'traditional definition of marriage'...(you mean as in a marriage that all your parliamentary colleagues fly to on the Taxpayer's dollar?-Ed)...nice one Ed, but no I don't think she was referring to her own wedding what Bronnie did fly to, but rather, stating that she (Sophie) supports the Anglo-Christian ideal as per the Bible, etc...(oh you mean where it says that everything and everyone, particularly women, are all the goods and chattels of men and created/destined to 'obey'?-Ed)...yeah, that 'traditional definition'...(or maybe she just hates gays the same way Tony Pasin does-Ed)...possibly...at the very least it offers a prime opportunity to look-down on a whole cadre of society that is otherwise largely just normal people, and what senior Liberal is goin' to pass-up a chance to be so narcissistically judgmental of others?...(I've always said you'd make a great senior Liberal-Ed)...cheers...
Tomorrow: Another Go At The Court Stuff
As best I can given the vastly undefinable nature of the legislation where naming the legislation is potentially a charge in and of itself, etc, etc...(and again wow-Ed)...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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