Hello and welcome to the blog Aotearoa (New Zealand), South Africa, India, and France...and to everybody else...here's to staying on track today whilst Going Off About The Rails...and I am of course referring to the Rail Lands Retail Agenda...but first...(oh, here we go-Ed)...down in the cheap seats...
Selling Australia Post: would see massive price increases in places like Mt Gambier and probably a scrapping of many services where it's not profitable, eg, because of transport costs over long distances...(you mean somewhere that's say 450kms from the nearest capital city would probably lose it's services-Ed)...possibly...(well, Mt Gambier is 450kms from a capital city-Ed)...yep...(so you're saying prices will definitely go up and possibly services will be cut altogether-Ed)...precisely...
The nicest thing I have to say about ACCC Chair Rod Sims and former Chair Stephen King is that they are the best opinion money can buy...their 'advice' is crassly politicised, completely subjective and flies in the face of reality...if those 2 gentlemen would kindly crawl back under their respective rocks they'd be doing us all a favour...and what does this 'advice' say about everything else the ACCC touch?
Breaking News: And the ABC Local Radio (Stuart Stansfield) is about to run a story (it's now about 7am) about why Mt Gambier City Council is spending $1.5million on "a hole in the ground"...and this follows on from The Border Watch article Friday 3rd January 2014, 'Transformation on track' in which Council tries desperately to counter what I've identified on this blog about the Rail Easement and related massive, costly, and completely unnecessary earthworks on the Rail Lands site...again, a situation that would be hilarious were it not so serious...
Quick Summary: When the Rann Labor state government 'gifted' the central Mt Gambier Rail Lands to the City in late 2004/early 2005, the site had not been commercially used for some 15+ years, with only the very occasional 'tourist train' running through there, and nothing at all for a decade now...this happened before I moved to Mt Gambier in early 1997, but many people I've spoken to identify this freight line closure as being the work of a local trucking magnate keen to get freight onto the roads where he would profit...
From the moment that 'gifting' happened a group of vested interests viewed that site as their personal property and they immediately started planning to build a massive extension of the Lakes Plaza on it and their self-importance, selfishness and greed have
completely dominated Planning and Development around Mt Gambier with
devastating results...(don't forget Grant District Council's
corrupt, nepotistic decisions in re-zoning a serving Councillors land to
allow Bunnings on Millicent Rd with adjacent residential sub-division-Ed)...good point, but I think that happened in conjunction with City Council who were desperate to stop Bunnings on Penola Rd.
I have covered this so extensively and thoroughly in previous posts that I am confident in saying to regular readers that debate re the Rail Lands Retail Agenda is now closed...all due respect, but it is no longer open for discussion...it is what it is and it ain't nuthin' but a thang.
I would like to think that regular readers will in good grace accept this 'Discussionary Closure' and related 'Declaration of Factualness'...the RLRA may well be my name for the collusion, corruption, and deceits that have been committed in pursuing the RLRA, but the RLRA is clearly very real, and there's simply no better way to describe the RLRA than, well, the RLRA...my opinion is irrelevant, the RLRA defines itself...(alRight aLReAdy...ah no, now you've got me doing it-Ed)...
But the very first point to make is that nothing needed to be dug up and/or moved on that site...all it needed was 6 inches of top soil and some lawn seed, a few well planned saplings to kick things off, and a bitumen bike track along the Rail Easement, all of which should have happened in 2005...further minimal works, eg, renovating the Old Rail Station, a music amphitheatre, etc, could have been done in stages...instead it's 2014 and we've got nothing...
Secondly, Council itself has acknowledged that they don't know who's liable to replace all of the infrastructure, rails, sleepers, etc, that they have spent a fortune ripping up and removing, and I don't believe that they have 'official permission' to move the Easement...it's either abject lunacy or a glimpse into a deeper deceit...(a deeper deceit?-Ed)...it all makes sense if the key players have had a chat behind closed doors and Council's been given the nod that Rail will never be returning to Mt Gambier...
(Oh my god, you could be right...nobodies making any official noise about this Easement moving nonsense because it's not even real...and that would explain the Council getting state government approval to re-zone the site to City Centre/Retail/Commercial/whatevs...but then why move the easement at all?-Ed)...well, if you did want to keep that 'never-to-return' a secret then you have to follow through with maintaining at least the appearance of an Easement...it doesn't need to be workable if it's never going to be used.
(Fair enough, but why dig a huge trench?-Ed)...well, I'd guess that any sub-soil contamination that would have otherwise remained undisturbed had Council not dug it up...(yes-Ed)...would all need to be removed prior to building anything on that ground to avoid fumes leeching up into said building...(yeah-Ed)...and that 'contaminated waste' needs to get dumped somewhere...(so?-Ed)...so why not kill 2 birds with one stone...get rid of the waste you have to move to build your shopping centre, and then dump it in a 'fake' Easement trench to continue that particular deceit...(omg-Ed).
Here's Stewie: trotting out the Council deceits on behalf of his mates...and the first cab off the rank is the Caroline Land Fill (Rubbish Tip)...(ah damn, I thought it was going to be about the Rail Lands and the Easement nonsense-Ed)...so did I, but don't go anywhere just yet...Council's Operations Director Daryl Sexton is stating that this $1.5m Landfill project is very complicated and urgent and needed to be planned well ahead of time...(hang on, Council suddenly declared this desperate need for a 'New Cell' as part of their Budget 'Consultations' last year, and a justification for doubling their own borrowing capacity...there was no 'long term planning'-Ed)...well exactly...
Then it's the Old Hospital Demolition and all the usual flim-flam about how it's all super and right on time, etc, and then finally, bingo, onto the Rail Lands...and Daryl spewing nonsense about how they've been doing a lot of shifting of dirt to dig up 'contaminated' soil and then rebury it and 'seal it so there's no future contamination', blah, blah, blah...and not one single word about moving the Easement...didn't even mention the Easement...the entire discussion is solely about digging a "trench" to be filled with contaminated soil...hilarious...
As I've previously jibed, how fortunate for Council that the contaminated ground lies exactly in the configuration and at the precise depth that is necessary to engineer the sub-structure for the moved Rail Easement...the whole situation is so convoluted and so corrupted that Daryl can't even name what Council itself has previously explained it was doing, namely, moving and retaining the Easement.
It's so glaringly obvious, so grossly unnecessary what is being done on the Old Rail Lands that Daryl can't even speak to it...and if you don't believe me and you get the chance, go and have a look at the 'works' and you can still clearly see the deep, curved trench that has been 'engineered' where Council is moving the Easement, as they have previously repeatedly identified themselves.
Time and again Council has bleated out the Easement excuse in explaining away their total lack of action on the site and have openly discussed their alleged justification for moving it...and I have no problem with the idea that Daryl carefully avoided even mentioning the Easement so as to avoid the issues I've raised in the blog...it's so bad he can't even own his own justification and actions.
I genuinely believe that this interview/omission was about trying to 'suck oxygen' out of the Easement and Retail expansion issues by focusing on the alleged contamination because Council is copping such a caning about this whole project, not least of all because of what I have identified on this blog.
Don't Know, Couldn't Prove It, Don't Really Care: but it has been put to me by others that the only reason Council has done anything at all on the Rail Lands is because I've been giving them such a hammering about it on this here blog...but it's basically irrelevant because all Council has done is use ratepayers money to clear the footprint for the shopping centre they are still absolutely obsessed with...(wasn't $1.7m 'granted' to Council so it's not really ratepayers money-Ed)...well, yeah it is because be it government grants or straight from rates, whatevs, that's ratepayers money, every cent Council spends is ratepayers money regardless of where it comes from...(fair enough-Ed)...
And I've just realised how long this post has gotten, so sorry, so more RLRA,
Tomorrow: The Rails, The Rails.
(Congratulations, you've done a whole post about what you said you would, and still not got to the post you started 5 days ago...that's good work, even for you-Ed)...I'm just using my words, sob, just using my words...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
The Gospel According To Cory Bernardi
Hello and welcome to the blog, and today's post won't be the Rail Lands again, sorry, there's a couple of things that
have come up during the day and the Rail Lands Retail Agenda ain't goin'
nowheres notime soon...so instead a big shout out to my main man Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi...yoooo, Idiot...and his latest epic tome, "If You're Not A Married White Man, You're A Murderous Slut"...(oh, a book of love poems-Ed)...and I guarantee that I'll get straight onto the subject matter today...as soon as I've done this...
A Whole Different Cuttle of Fish: Typically ironic of Adelaide that with the critical drop in Giant Cuttlefish numbers in the Upper Spencer Gulf they would have some giant Cuttlefish float thing for the Festival or the Fringe or some such flim-flam...(not a fan of the Fringe, etc?-Ed)...don't care either way, it's the vacuous 'Bread and Circuses' governing that annoys me...(sorry, I'm confused...I get the B&C stuff, putting on parties in Adelaide while public services are being slashed in the Regions, etc, but where's the irony?-Ed)...
It is ironic because it's the careless trumping of already vague environmental considerations by approvals for expanded mining and shipping programs combined with the general polluting of the Gulf that is in combination being blamed for the sudden and massive drop in Giant Cuttlefish at their breeding grounds in the USG...(sorry, I still don't get the irony-Ed)...
Well, Labor's desperately incompetent financial management combined with the B&C strategy, means that they are always scrambling for any income, which means that even the very limited Environmental constraints currently in place get basically ignored, leading to more mines and associated shipping, and more and more pollution...(further exacerbated by the rise in sea temperatures, particularly in the top end of the Gulf where the water is very shallow and there is very little tidal flow-Ed)...exactly...
(I think I get it...the need to generate income for the B&C stuff means that Labor have approved/will approve projects that critically impact on that species survival, but back in Adelaide it's yet another festival this time with a Giant Cuttlefish float thingy as the centrepiece...essentially, what's happening outside of Adelaide to pay for Adelaide's parties is crippling the state and destroying the environment, and the Giant Cuttlefish is simultaneously metaphor and example-Ed)...that's about it...
And cheers to the Channel 10 TV weather map that says that there's nothing between Victor Harbour and Melbourne, it's just an empty space...(hey, SA's largest Regional centre Mt Gambier is halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne-Ed)...not on Channel 10 it ain't...nor on most of Tourism SAs promotional stuff...(they're doing the state in sections year by year, don't you know-Ed)...bollocks...Mt Gambier is an inconvenience that both Labor and Liberal can do without...not my opinion, it's fact writ large as life itself...a truth as big as all outdoors.
Cory Bernadi: may not be a complete tool, but by shrek, he does a damn fine impersonation of one...South Australian Liberal Senator Cory has produced a work of pure stupidity, describing abortion as a form of murderous birth control...haven't read it myself, and I genuinely hope I'm wrong, but I confidently predict that there's not one word in there about men taking responsibility for their part in this 'birth control' bizo, yet the whole piece revolves around a return to 'traditional values'...
At the risk of strolling into a hypocritical minefield, there's nothing that punches my buttons quite so rapidly and thoroughly than a self-opinionated white-boy holding forth definitively about what women can and cannot do with their own bodies...who the shrek does he think he is?...(oh, it's alright, he's got God on his side-Ed)...oh, well that's just fine then...
Oh my gord, it's a whole book...apparently 'Oz needs a conservative revolution'...in 'The Gospel According to Cory' sub-titled 'Married White Man in the Missionary Position', apparently the poor ol' Churches are under attack and so is the family unit...and imagine my surprise that career bigot and professional idiot, that smug, leering Right-wing nut-job Andrew Bolt has supported Cory's latest effort...(wow, a few issues with old Andy eh?-Ed)...I'm openly 'Left-Wing' but I'll still listen to Alan Jones and any number of other 'Right Wing commentators to get a 'balanced' view of what's happening, both sides of the argument, but I cannot stomach Gina Reinhardt's little lap-dog, Andrew Bolt...but I digress...
(I'm Left Wing with a bit of breast thanks-Ed)...stop it, stop it right now...
I fully accept it is Cory's right to express his views and I support that position because it's my right to say what a thorough shrekin' idiot he is...I know someone who had an abortion at 19 because her moron partner just walked away, she had no income and almost no family support, and she was pretty much a child herself...there's no way she could have looked after a child and she made what was for her the right decision...and I supported her decision then and I still do now.
By Cory's self-satisfied sanctimonious damnationings, she's a murderer and I support murder...get stuffed you idiot...(wow, you're not happy about any of this are you, but can I just congratulate you for the relative control of language you are showing-Ed)...ta, it ain't easy...it's this sort of rancid bigotry and pig-ignorant sexism that just makes me embarrassed to be a man...I find the entire episode absolutely offensive.
Mr Bernardi goes on to attack single mums...(again, where are the fathers?-Ed)...exactly...then denounce surrogacy...(you mean like when a woman carries her sister's child because the sister cannot conceive-Ed)...yeah, perfect example...(those sluts, those dirty heathen sluts-Ed)...and then puts his little jack-boot into 'Step Families'...(oh you mean like when someone dies from Cancer and their partner remarries and commits wholly to their new partners children as being their own and raises them in a loving supportive family?-Ed)...another perfect example...(those evil fornicators-Ed)...
This has been well covered today in the media so I won't go any further other than to say that Ed has been heavily working the sarcasm on my behalf, thanks Ed, because I have no humour in me...it just makes me want to spit...and as if on queue, Premier Jay Weatherill on ABC Radio dribbling about the $40million footbridge from the Adelaide Oval straight into the Casino...and how fantastic the Adelaide Oval is and the "beautiful product"...quick, I'm running out of spittle, fetch ma' chewin' tobaccy Ma...
Sweet baby Jesus, this is what rises to the top in South Australia...Jay Weatherill and Cory Bernardi...and whatever you personally think of Cory's 'observations', we should all be concerned because when this latest episode of Cory Mind Vomit gets reported, it's South Australian Senator, and this will build up SA's image and reputation as the preserve of lunatic religious zealots, paedophile sex, and bizarre mass murders, or a montage of all three...and again that ain't my opinion, that's a fact...
I've identified previously the predictable punchlines on pretty much any panel/comedy style show coming out of the Eastern states...any mention of South Australia and it's jokes about bizarre murders and paedophilia, and vice versa...(well that's been happening already for decades, so Cory's drivel really makes no difference-Ed)...no, it does, it reminds of and re-enforces those established stereotypes...(yeah, fair enough-Ed)...
And to round out this post, the extraordinary stupidity bordering on explicit culpability of Rod Sims, Chairperson of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission who has declared that it's alright to sell Australia Post, in fact it's a great idea because it will "probably" bring prices down...(sorry, what?...in almost every instance of Free Trade and/or Privatisation services go down and costs go up-Ed)...well exactly...I challenge Mr Sims to provide one single case where Privatisation has seen services improve and prices drop...(and "probably" is one hell of a Business Plan-Ed)...indeed...
Oh my goodness, now on the ABC it's Monash University Professor Steven King, former head of the ACCC, and currently co-chair of the Business Policy Forum, and this prize tool supports Mr Sims, making the observation that Privatisation has helped keep SA's electricity prices down..(say sorry what?...SA has the second highest domestic electricity costs on the whole freakin' planet-Ed)...kind of undermines Mr King's credibility a bit doesn't it...(where do they find these people?-Ed)...
In closing...get your grubby bloody hands off Australia Post...say NO to Privatisation.
Tomorrow: People Get Ready, There's A Rail Post Comin'.
Honest, I'll start on it right now...promise...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
A Whole Different Cuttle of Fish: Typically ironic of Adelaide that with the critical drop in Giant Cuttlefish numbers in the Upper Spencer Gulf they would have some giant Cuttlefish float thing for the Festival or the Fringe or some such flim-flam...(not a fan of the Fringe, etc?-Ed)...don't care either way, it's the vacuous 'Bread and Circuses' governing that annoys me...(sorry, I'm confused...I get the B&C stuff, putting on parties in Adelaide while public services are being slashed in the Regions, etc, but where's the irony?-Ed)...
It is ironic because it's the careless trumping of already vague environmental considerations by approvals for expanded mining and shipping programs combined with the general polluting of the Gulf that is in combination being blamed for the sudden and massive drop in Giant Cuttlefish at their breeding grounds in the USG...(sorry, I still don't get the irony-Ed)...
Well, Labor's desperately incompetent financial management combined with the B&C strategy, means that they are always scrambling for any income, which means that even the very limited Environmental constraints currently in place get basically ignored, leading to more mines and associated shipping, and more and more pollution...(further exacerbated by the rise in sea temperatures, particularly in the top end of the Gulf where the water is very shallow and there is very little tidal flow-Ed)...exactly...
(I think I get it...the need to generate income for the B&C stuff means that Labor have approved/will approve projects that critically impact on that species survival, but back in Adelaide it's yet another festival this time with a Giant Cuttlefish float thingy as the centrepiece...essentially, what's happening outside of Adelaide to pay for Adelaide's parties is crippling the state and destroying the environment, and the Giant Cuttlefish is simultaneously metaphor and example-Ed)...that's about it...
And cheers to the Channel 10 TV weather map that says that there's nothing between Victor Harbour and Melbourne, it's just an empty space...(hey, SA's largest Regional centre Mt Gambier is halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne-Ed)...not on Channel 10 it ain't...nor on most of Tourism SAs promotional stuff...(they're doing the state in sections year by year, don't you know-Ed)...bollocks...Mt Gambier is an inconvenience that both Labor and Liberal can do without...not my opinion, it's fact writ large as life itself...a truth as big as all outdoors.
Cory Bernadi: may not be a complete tool, but by shrek, he does a damn fine impersonation of one...South Australian Liberal Senator Cory has produced a work of pure stupidity, describing abortion as a form of murderous birth control...haven't read it myself, and I genuinely hope I'm wrong, but I confidently predict that there's not one word in there about men taking responsibility for their part in this 'birth control' bizo, yet the whole piece revolves around a return to 'traditional values'...
At the risk of strolling into a hypocritical minefield, there's nothing that punches my buttons quite so rapidly and thoroughly than a self-opinionated white-boy holding forth definitively about what women can and cannot do with their own bodies...who the shrek does he think he is?...(oh, it's alright, he's got God on his side-Ed)...oh, well that's just fine then...
Oh my gord, it's a whole book...apparently 'Oz needs a conservative revolution'...in 'The Gospel According to Cory' sub-titled 'Married White Man in the Missionary Position', apparently the poor ol' Churches are under attack and so is the family unit...and imagine my surprise that career bigot and professional idiot, that smug, leering Right-wing nut-job Andrew Bolt has supported Cory's latest effort...(wow, a few issues with old Andy eh?-Ed)...I'm openly 'Left-Wing' but I'll still listen to Alan Jones and any number of other 'Right Wing commentators to get a 'balanced' view of what's happening, both sides of the argument, but I cannot stomach Gina Reinhardt's little lap-dog, Andrew Bolt...but I digress...
(I'm Left Wing with a bit of breast thanks-Ed)...stop it, stop it right now...
I fully accept it is Cory's right to express his views and I support that position because it's my right to say what a thorough shrekin' idiot he is...I know someone who had an abortion at 19 because her moron partner just walked away, she had no income and almost no family support, and she was pretty much a child herself...there's no way she could have looked after a child and she made what was for her the right decision...and I supported her decision then and I still do now.
By Cory's self-satisfied sanctimonious damnationings, she's a murderer and I support murder...get stuffed you idiot...(wow, you're not happy about any of this are you, but can I just congratulate you for the relative control of language you are showing-Ed)...ta, it ain't easy...it's this sort of rancid bigotry and pig-ignorant sexism that just makes me embarrassed to be a man...I find the entire episode absolutely offensive.
Mr Bernardi goes on to attack single mums...(again, where are the fathers?-Ed)...exactly...then denounce surrogacy...(you mean like when a woman carries her sister's child because the sister cannot conceive-Ed)...yeah, perfect example...(those sluts, those dirty heathen sluts-Ed)...and then puts his little jack-boot into 'Step Families'...(oh you mean like when someone dies from Cancer and their partner remarries and commits wholly to their new partners children as being their own and raises them in a loving supportive family?-Ed)...another perfect example...(those evil fornicators-Ed)...
This has been well covered today in the media so I won't go any further other than to say that Ed has been heavily working the sarcasm on my behalf, thanks Ed, because I have no humour in me...it just makes me want to spit...and as if on queue, Premier Jay Weatherill on ABC Radio dribbling about the $40million footbridge from the Adelaide Oval straight into the Casino...and how fantastic the Adelaide Oval is and the "beautiful product"...quick, I'm running out of spittle, fetch ma' chewin' tobaccy Ma...
Sweet baby Jesus, this is what rises to the top in South Australia...Jay Weatherill and Cory Bernardi...and whatever you personally think of Cory's 'observations', we should all be concerned because when this latest episode of Cory Mind Vomit gets reported, it's South Australian Senator, and this will build up SA's image and reputation as the preserve of lunatic religious zealots, paedophile sex, and bizarre mass murders, or a montage of all three...and again that ain't my opinion, that's a fact...
I've identified previously the predictable punchlines on pretty much any panel/comedy style show coming out of the Eastern states...any mention of South Australia and it's jokes about bizarre murders and paedophilia, and vice versa...(well that's been happening already for decades, so Cory's drivel really makes no difference-Ed)...no, it does, it reminds of and re-enforces those established stereotypes...(yeah, fair enough-Ed)...
And to round out this post, the extraordinary stupidity bordering on explicit culpability of Rod Sims, Chairperson of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission who has declared that it's alright to sell Australia Post, in fact it's a great idea because it will "probably" bring prices down...(sorry, what?...in almost every instance of Free Trade and/or Privatisation services go down and costs go up-Ed)...well exactly...I challenge Mr Sims to provide one single case where Privatisation has seen services improve and prices drop...(and "probably" is one hell of a Business Plan-Ed)...indeed...
Oh my goodness, now on the ABC it's Monash University Professor Steven King, former head of the ACCC, and currently co-chair of the Business Policy Forum, and this prize tool supports Mr Sims, making the observation that Privatisation has helped keep SA's electricity prices down..(say sorry what?...SA has the second highest domestic electricity costs on the whole freakin' planet-Ed)...kind of undermines Mr King's credibility a bit doesn't it...(where do they find these people?-Ed)...
In closing...get your grubby bloody hands off Australia Post...say NO to Privatisation.
Tomorrow: People Get Ready, There's A Rail Post Comin'.
Honest, I'll start on it right now...promise...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Whistleblowers and Gloating
Howdy and welcome to the blog and another dose of the minutiae related to the biggest issue in Mt Gambier...(apart from the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up which involves local Mayors Perryman, Gandolfi, etc, Rory McEwen, Mt Gambier City Council, SAPol, etc, etc, as covered in numerous previous posts-Ed)...ok, the Rail Lands Retail Agenda is the second biggest...
But First: a preemptive apology written retrospectively at the close of this post 'cause I never got to the RLRA stuff...sorry...the RLRA is however financially the most critical issue...(if you don't include the disastrous South East Forestry Estate Sale to pay for the ludicrous Adelaide Oval-Ed)...well, ok, if you don't include that...so the RLRA is the second most...(no, make it third, there's the whole Bunnings/Penola Rd fiasco that has destroyed any future hope of appropriate planning in and around Mt Gambier-Ed).
Well I was of course including that debacle in the RLRA because the February 2006 plans that Council produced/co-authored/whatevs (in previous post), those plans state outright that the RLRA is to stop supermarkets/shopping centres being developed on Mt Gambier's outskirts...and hasn't that worked out well...but first some apparently important news about me...
Housekeeping and Feedback: No, I am not gloating, not even a little, when I talk about running into so-and-so at the supermarket or wherever, and the various hilarious reactions/responses...(now hang on, now that right there, that's gloating...'hilarious' is gloating...when people are turning white with fright and you laugh about it, that's gloating-Ed)...ahh, you got me sort of...yes, I am laughing a little if not quite gloating, but it is genuinely a rye laugh, accompanied by a rye smile...
My natural default position when nervous is always to grin like the Cheshire gorilla, lots of people do this...and I am well aware that being reasonably large it upsets people if I'm frowning and scowling, and I do make a point of never raising my voice in public meetings, etc, so as to not upset other people, but it is really my natural manner anyway...however, when people are 'confronted' to the point of paleness because of what they've done, and I'm just standing there smiling, well that's their problem, not mine...
But that's only a small part of it...for me it's more about a reversal of the behaviours and incidents that were largely responsible for me developing Agoraphobia...(hope you've spelled that correctly-Ed)...the incidents of public abuse I was subjected to re the St Martins Child Abuse Cover-up, where people felt it was appropriate to abuse me at volume in public places, eg, the supermarket, on the bus, etc...I'm sure I spend a good deal of time frowning and scowling at Council meetings, but even then I make a point of not staring or glaring at anyone particularly, and I've got my head down taking notes most of the time anyway.
For example, if the ABC's Stuart Stansfield wants to repeatedly taunt me and mock me and laugh at me and abuse me and yell at me and hang up on me from the other end of a phoneline, but then when I happen upon him in the supermarket he goes a whiter shade of pale and scurries away as fast as he can, that's his behaviours and his problem...and yes, if it weren't so sad, I would find it funny...and no, I don't think he was just being 'appropriate in a public space' himself...not even close.
When you break his behaviours down into their constituent motivations, I find no humour in this because I consider the main issue driving his reaction to be the St Martins Cover-up...(fair enough-Ed).
In My Own Defense: is my own behaviour, as anyone who attended the Council Budget Public Consultation meetings can attest...(or anyone who has read the posts in this here blog TMGI, and believes that reportage-Ed)...quite...that I was often under attack from multiple Councillors, with Mayor Steve Perryman twice deliberately trying to provoke/pick a fight with me, etc.
It is a slight exaggeration but not a joke to state that I feel most at home, most comfortable, that I function best in a room full of people who hate me...I've had to learn how to because of the way I've been treated by, for example, the Lutherans and City Council...I've had to adapt, and the beautiful irony is that therefore it has become relatively easy for me to attend say, Council meetings...doesn't hurt that they look so pleased to see me when I get there.
I know that I've been through this stuff previously but it continues to be the case that it's not strictly about me, these are the issues, this is what's currently churning away just beneath the surface in good ol' Mt Gambier...some other quick news...
Fergus McPherson: is a New South Wales public servant who, from 1998, was responsible for the NSW Maritime leases around Sydney Harbour, and his duties included ensuring that there was no roll over of leases to guarantee that the public received maximum income, and some of his charges were the cafe/kiosks on the Ferry wharves...(very nice little earners-Ed)...absolutely...and directly involved in those particular leases were 'disgraced' Labor politician Eddie Obeid.
Starting from about July 2006, according to Mr McPherson, he was told to 'change his attitude to protect his career' in that his enquiries and official objections to the kiosk leases were not appreciated by Mr Obeid, Joe Tripodi, and several others...basically because of his honesty Mr McPherson's reputation and career was then quite deliberately destroyed by Eddie & Co, and he went a year without any income, etc, but has retrieved a private career.
I include this story for 2 reasons, namely 1) because I'm always ranting how everybody's a crook, etc, and here's a great example of a public servant who was honest and strong and paid the price and was duly vindicated...and if it were down to me I'd be ordering Mr Obeid et al to pay restitution of several million dollars each directly to Mr McPherson...that is after they've repaid the $100millions of stolen NSW taxpayers money...(and paid the massive fines soon to be imposed just before the lengthy gaol terms are-Ed)...well quite, one can only hope...
And 2) Mr McPherson and I are a world apart, but we have a very similar experience of being personally attacked and denigrated by the corrupt politicians we're trying to deal with...he made conscious decisions that trashed his career, I was dragged unwillingly into a disaster...but in both cases these were not situations of our construct, and in both cases the official response has been to attack and attempt to destroy the credibility of the 'whistleblower'.
In Context: for all the criminality and corruption in both our cases, Mr McPherson I'm sure would agree with me that there are other things going on on the planet that makes our experiences seem quite trivial...I was shocked to see the current violence in Iraq is now being referred to as 'a potential Civil War'...(I don't think 'Civil' is appropriate, I'd prefer to use 'Internal'-Ed)...certainly...and I'm not an expert at any level, but what I have seen of Iraq via the media is an Internal War and has been for over a decade because whoever has been doing it, it is happening within Iraq amongst the general population.
I don't think it matters whether it is a basically USofA led 'invasion', or an United Nations led mission, or inter-factional and sometimes even infra-factional conflict, the daily violence in Iraq is a perpetual Internal War that appears to be without resolution...and the constant deliberate targeting of civilians at mosques, churches, markets, etc, mean that the civilian population are living permanently in a war zone...it does my head in just trying to imagine what that's like...
Again I apologise for getting distracted today away from the RLRA, but I promise,
Tomorrow: The RLRA Just Won't Go Away
And so it is that it appears here yet again.
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
But First: a preemptive apology written retrospectively at the close of this post 'cause I never got to the RLRA stuff...sorry...the RLRA is however financially the most critical issue...(if you don't include the disastrous South East Forestry Estate Sale to pay for the ludicrous Adelaide Oval-Ed)...well, ok, if you don't include that...so the RLRA is the second most...(no, make it third, there's the whole Bunnings/Penola Rd fiasco that has destroyed any future hope of appropriate planning in and around Mt Gambier-Ed).
Well I was of course including that debacle in the RLRA because the February 2006 plans that Council produced/co-authored/whatevs (in previous post), those plans state outright that the RLRA is to stop supermarkets/shopping centres being developed on Mt Gambier's outskirts...and hasn't that worked out well...but first some apparently important news about me...
Housekeeping and Feedback: No, I am not gloating, not even a little, when I talk about running into so-and-so at the supermarket or wherever, and the various hilarious reactions/responses...(now hang on, now that right there, that's gloating...'hilarious' is gloating...when people are turning white with fright and you laugh about it, that's gloating-Ed)...ahh, you got me sort of...yes, I am laughing a little if not quite gloating, but it is genuinely a rye laugh, accompanied by a rye smile...
My natural default position when nervous is always to grin like the Cheshire gorilla, lots of people do this...and I am well aware that being reasonably large it upsets people if I'm frowning and scowling, and I do make a point of never raising my voice in public meetings, etc, so as to not upset other people, but it is really my natural manner anyway...however, when people are 'confronted' to the point of paleness because of what they've done, and I'm just standing there smiling, well that's their problem, not mine...
But that's only a small part of it...for me it's more about a reversal of the behaviours and incidents that were largely responsible for me developing Agoraphobia...(hope you've spelled that correctly-Ed)...the incidents of public abuse I was subjected to re the St Martins Child Abuse Cover-up, where people felt it was appropriate to abuse me at volume in public places, eg, the supermarket, on the bus, etc...I'm sure I spend a good deal of time frowning and scowling at Council meetings, but even then I make a point of not staring or glaring at anyone particularly, and I've got my head down taking notes most of the time anyway.
For example, if the ABC's Stuart Stansfield wants to repeatedly taunt me and mock me and laugh at me and abuse me and yell at me and hang up on me from the other end of a phoneline, but then when I happen upon him in the supermarket he goes a whiter shade of pale and scurries away as fast as he can, that's his behaviours and his problem...and yes, if it weren't so sad, I would find it funny...and no, I don't think he was just being 'appropriate in a public space' himself...not even close.
When you break his behaviours down into their constituent motivations, I find no humour in this because I consider the main issue driving his reaction to be the St Martins Cover-up...(fair enough-Ed).
In My Own Defense: is my own behaviour, as anyone who attended the Council Budget Public Consultation meetings can attest...(or anyone who has read the posts in this here blog TMGI, and believes that reportage-Ed)...quite...that I was often under attack from multiple Councillors, with Mayor Steve Perryman twice deliberately trying to provoke/pick a fight with me, etc.
It is a slight exaggeration but not a joke to state that I feel most at home, most comfortable, that I function best in a room full of people who hate me...I've had to learn how to because of the way I've been treated by, for example, the Lutherans and City Council...I've had to adapt, and the beautiful irony is that therefore it has become relatively easy for me to attend say, Council meetings...doesn't hurt that they look so pleased to see me when I get there.
I know that I've been through this stuff previously but it continues to be the case that it's not strictly about me, these are the issues, this is what's currently churning away just beneath the surface in good ol' Mt Gambier...some other quick news...
Fergus McPherson: is a New South Wales public servant who, from 1998, was responsible for the NSW Maritime leases around Sydney Harbour, and his duties included ensuring that there was no roll over of leases to guarantee that the public received maximum income, and some of his charges were the cafe/kiosks on the Ferry wharves...(very nice little earners-Ed)...absolutely...and directly involved in those particular leases were 'disgraced' Labor politician Eddie Obeid.
Starting from about July 2006, according to Mr McPherson, he was told to 'change his attitude to protect his career' in that his enquiries and official objections to the kiosk leases were not appreciated by Mr Obeid, Joe Tripodi, and several others...basically because of his honesty Mr McPherson's reputation and career was then quite deliberately destroyed by Eddie & Co, and he went a year without any income, etc, but has retrieved a private career.
I include this story for 2 reasons, namely 1) because I'm always ranting how everybody's a crook, etc, and here's a great example of a public servant who was honest and strong and paid the price and was duly vindicated...and if it were down to me I'd be ordering Mr Obeid et al to pay restitution of several million dollars each directly to Mr McPherson...that is after they've repaid the $100millions of stolen NSW taxpayers money...(and paid the massive fines soon to be imposed just before the lengthy gaol terms are-Ed)...well quite, one can only hope...
And 2) Mr McPherson and I are a world apart, but we have a very similar experience of being personally attacked and denigrated by the corrupt politicians we're trying to deal with...he made conscious decisions that trashed his career, I was dragged unwillingly into a disaster...but in both cases these were not situations of our construct, and in both cases the official response has been to attack and attempt to destroy the credibility of the 'whistleblower'.
In Context: for all the criminality and corruption in both our cases, Mr McPherson I'm sure would agree with me that there are other things going on on the planet that makes our experiences seem quite trivial...I was shocked to see the current violence in Iraq is now being referred to as 'a potential Civil War'...(I don't think 'Civil' is appropriate, I'd prefer to use 'Internal'-Ed)...certainly...and I'm not an expert at any level, but what I have seen of Iraq via the media is an Internal War and has been for over a decade because whoever has been doing it, it is happening within Iraq amongst the general population.
I don't think it matters whether it is a basically USofA led 'invasion', or an United Nations led mission, or inter-factional and sometimes even infra-factional conflict, the daily violence in Iraq is a perpetual Internal War that appears to be without resolution...and the constant deliberate targeting of civilians at mosques, churches, markets, etc, mean that the civilian population are living permanently in a war zone...it does my head in just trying to imagine what that's like...
Again I apologise for getting distracted today away from the RLRA, but I promise,
Tomorrow: The RLRA Just Won't Go Away
And so it is that it appears here yet again.
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Railing Against Going Off The Rails
Hello USofA, France, Russia, and India, and welcome to the blog...and an old favourite that I would rather have nothing to do with...(sorry, what?-Ed)...well the old Rail Lands Retail Agenda is a frequent visitor to these shores, yeah, but that's only because it's a shipwreck looking for somewhere to run aground...I'd rather not be having to write about what a deceitful and costly farce this whole process has been because I'd rather it wasn't happening at all...(fair enough-Ed).
But First: caught some cricket yesterday after a nice little heart starter...was just turning into my street when a police car came speeding around the bend behind me, and in the same moment I spotted kids playing on the road so I jammed on my brakes...I half expected the police car to plough into me, but by the time I'd negotiated the corner and glanced back, it was gone, off down the road and around the next corner...that sort of excitement I can do without.
Then in the cricket, Australia was already 5 for 100ish, and I joked to myself that, given their history this Ashes series against England of being 5 for not much and then getting decent scores from their middle order batsmen, they would be 6 for 300 by the end of the day...close...later that day they were all out for 320ish...and I've just got back in and England are 5 for 25...(sorry, that's now 5 for 58-Ed)...ta.
Oh yeah, and I ran into my favourite City Councillor Ian Von Stanke at the supermarket...walked past a foot behind him and I don't know if he even knew I was there...(oh, he knew, I saw him glance at you over his shoulder and quickly look away-Ed)...really? not so mouthy now 'ey Ian?...particularly for someone who has abused me at volume in public meetings, come out to my home with a threatening letter, etc...and a lovely segue given that he has featured regularly in The Border Watch trotting out Council's latest deceit re the Old Rail Lands...(and it was the Rail lands stuff that had him half out of his chair half yelling at you at that Budget Consultation meeting-Ed)...so it was, hilarious...
Anyhoos, I have thoroughly, repeatedly covered Mt Gambier City Council's Rail Lands Retail Agenda, but just for the record...various vested interests are completely obsessed with building a massive expansion of the Lakes (Centro) Plaza across that site, and this obsession has completely compromised Planning and Development in Mt Gambier for a decade now, starting with the Bunnings/Penola Rd fiasco (previous posts).
Then the Library and Main Corner Projects, both fundamentally unnecessary and irretrievably over-budget, were jammed into the Cave Gardens area so as not to compromise the RLRA...and the same with the Lady Nelson Bus Shelter fiasco, an outrageously expensive and atrociously pointless piece of infrastructure set a kilometre out of town rather than centrally in a renovated Old Rail Station.
According to The Border Watch Friday 3rd January 2014, the Old Rail Lands site was "Gifted to the council and community in 2004..."...(I thought it was early 2005-Ed)...whatevs, it's basically a decade ago...and the moment that 'gifting' happened a small group of self-important, self-righteous, self-entitled vested interests viewed that site as their own personal property for them to do with as they please for their own personal profit...and so it has progressed.
If Council are supposedly so super-dooper keen to be 'more transparent with ratepayers', then perhaps they could release the gazetted Labor state government's 2009 re-zoning of the Rail Lands site to Retail/Commercial...(a reality which Council has tried to hide by calling it 'City Centre' or whatevs-Ed)...exactly, and an admission that I politely bullied out of Daryl Sexton at Council's Budget sessions...the site has been re-zoned and that cannot happen without state government approval.
And while they're 'disclosing and exposing', perhaps Council can also publish the official approvals from federal and/or state Rail Authorities to move the Easement...I cannot believe that they have official approval to cram 2 tight kinks in the line, let alone 2 so close together...come on Council, show the people of Mt Gambier the approvals, etc, that Daryl Sexton stated (at the February 2006 meetings) Council were already in possession of.
Whoever has officially approved this ludicrous re-routing of the Easement should be sacked and publicly vilified for allowing not 1 but 2 major 'De-railing Points' to be built, let alone for allowing this right in the middle of town...it is a ridiculous, highly dangerous and completely unnecessary action that defies basic logic, let alone reality, let alone fundamental principles of planning for safe, efficient egress.
Any train traveling on that line would have to move through those kinks at an absolute crawl so as to not de-rail, and there would be endless screeching, shunting and rattling of rail cars, etc, because of the tight angle...can you imagine a perpetual freight train screeching and clunking and clinking it's way through there, because it would have to be a freight line...(a very lucrative freight line-Ed)...indeed, to justify the expense of replacing it in the first place, and their would need to be multiple trains daily, and they would have to crawl through town.
Furthermore, Council have openly admitted that they don't know whether or not they, and therefore ratepayers, would have to pay for the replacement of all the rail and other infrastructure they have just spent a fortune on ripping up needlessly...why would you proceed with a potentially massively costly works without definitively establishing who is liable to pay for what?...it's gold-plated lunacy, and in that context, classic Mt Gambier City Council.
Everybody has an opinion about whether or not Rail will ever return to Mt Gambier, but given that Council's justification for maintaining/moving the easement is that they are required to in case it does, let's take that return as a given and review Council's plans in that context...(oh, strewth, it just gets worse and worse...is there any up-side to this debacle?-Ed)...no, absolutely not, it's a rancidly corrupt disaster from start to finish...let me explain.
Please refer to the various maps and plans, etc, that I have provided in previous posts, all of which have the Easement moved to the Southern boundary and represented as a 'Bikeway/Walking Track', with, according to TBW, a large drainage pond in the South West corner...now fence off the Rail Easement as indeed would be required, and suddenly you have not a parkland, but a series of unconnected small spaces fenced off from one another with a train line through the guts and all of the back of the Margaret St Precinct completely cut off...
If the Easement weren't moved, an operating rail line could be safely fenced off and there would still be a long, albeit narrower parkland running unimpeded from Bay Rd right through to Wehl St Sth, and the 'amphitheatre' type structure that Council allegedly has planned for the centre of the site could back immediately onto the Margaret St businesses, etc...
Sorry, because this is blowing out, I'll stop here and do Part II,
Tomorrow: RAGOTR Part II
Because I like to offer solutions not just criticism...but there's still plenty of that to come too...the RLRA is a definitive study in the greed and incompetence of City Council.
I am Nick Fletcher and the best part of this post comes tomorrow on this here my blog...just wait 'til you read Council's feeble scramblings in TBW as they try to address my criticisms re the Rail Lands...hilarious...cheers and laters.
But First: caught some cricket yesterday after a nice little heart starter...was just turning into my street when a police car came speeding around the bend behind me, and in the same moment I spotted kids playing on the road so I jammed on my brakes...I half expected the police car to plough into me, but by the time I'd negotiated the corner and glanced back, it was gone, off down the road and around the next corner...that sort of excitement I can do without.
Then in the cricket, Australia was already 5 for 100ish, and I joked to myself that, given their history this Ashes series against England of being 5 for not much and then getting decent scores from their middle order batsmen, they would be 6 for 300 by the end of the day...close...later that day they were all out for 320ish...and I've just got back in and England are 5 for 25...(sorry, that's now 5 for 58-Ed)...ta.
Oh yeah, and I ran into my favourite City Councillor Ian Von Stanke at the supermarket...walked past a foot behind him and I don't know if he even knew I was there...(oh, he knew, I saw him glance at you over his shoulder and quickly look away-Ed)...really? not so mouthy now 'ey Ian?...particularly for someone who has abused me at volume in public meetings, come out to my home with a threatening letter, etc...and a lovely segue given that he has featured regularly in The Border Watch trotting out Council's latest deceit re the Old Rail Lands...(and it was the Rail lands stuff that had him half out of his chair half yelling at you at that Budget Consultation meeting-Ed)...so it was, hilarious...
Anyhoos, I have thoroughly, repeatedly covered Mt Gambier City Council's Rail Lands Retail Agenda, but just for the record...various vested interests are completely obsessed with building a massive expansion of the Lakes (Centro) Plaza across that site, and this obsession has completely compromised Planning and Development in Mt Gambier for a decade now, starting with the Bunnings/Penola Rd fiasco (previous posts).
Then the Library and Main Corner Projects, both fundamentally unnecessary and irretrievably over-budget, were jammed into the Cave Gardens area so as not to compromise the RLRA...and the same with the Lady Nelson Bus Shelter fiasco, an outrageously expensive and atrociously pointless piece of infrastructure set a kilometre out of town rather than centrally in a renovated Old Rail Station.
According to The Border Watch Friday 3rd January 2014, the Old Rail Lands site was "Gifted to the council and community in 2004..."...(I thought it was early 2005-Ed)...whatevs, it's basically a decade ago...and the moment that 'gifting' happened a small group of self-important, self-righteous, self-entitled vested interests viewed that site as their own personal property for them to do with as they please for their own personal profit...and so it has progressed.
If Council are supposedly so super-dooper keen to be 'more transparent with ratepayers', then perhaps they could release the gazetted Labor state government's 2009 re-zoning of the Rail Lands site to Retail/Commercial...(a reality which Council has tried to hide by calling it 'City Centre' or whatevs-Ed)...exactly, and an admission that I politely bullied out of Daryl Sexton at Council's Budget sessions...the site has been re-zoned and that cannot happen without state government approval.
And while they're 'disclosing and exposing', perhaps Council can also publish the official approvals from federal and/or state Rail Authorities to move the Easement...I cannot believe that they have official approval to cram 2 tight kinks in the line, let alone 2 so close together...come on Council, show the people of Mt Gambier the approvals, etc, that Daryl Sexton stated (at the February 2006 meetings) Council were already in possession of.
Whoever has officially approved this ludicrous re-routing of the Easement should be sacked and publicly vilified for allowing not 1 but 2 major 'De-railing Points' to be built, let alone for allowing this right in the middle of town...it is a ridiculous, highly dangerous and completely unnecessary action that defies basic logic, let alone reality, let alone fundamental principles of planning for safe, efficient egress.
Any train traveling on that line would have to move through those kinks at an absolute crawl so as to not de-rail, and there would be endless screeching, shunting and rattling of rail cars, etc, because of the tight angle...can you imagine a perpetual freight train screeching and clunking and clinking it's way through there, because it would have to be a freight line...(a very lucrative freight line-Ed)...indeed, to justify the expense of replacing it in the first place, and their would need to be multiple trains daily, and they would have to crawl through town.
Furthermore, Council have openly admitted that they don't know whether or not they, and therefore ratepayers, would have to pay for the replacement of all the rail and other infrastructure they have just spent a fortune on ripping up needlessly...why would you proceed with a potentially massively costly works without definitively establishing who is liable to pay for what?...it's gold-plated lunacy, and in that context, classic Mt Gambier City Council.
Everybody has an opinion about whether or not Rail will ever return to Mt Gambier, but given that Council's justification for maintaining/moving the easement is that they are required to in case it does, let's take that return as a given and review Council's plans in that context...(oh, strewth, it just gets worse and worse...is there any up-side to this debacle?-Ed)...no, absolutely not, it's a rancidly corrupt disaster from start to finish...let me explain.
Please refer to the various maps and plans, etc, that I have provided in previous posts, all of which have the Easement moved to the Southern boundary and represented as a 'Bikeway/Walking Track', with, according to TBW, a large drainage pond in the South West corner...now fence off the Rail Easement as indeed would be required, and suddenly you have not a parkland, but a series of unconnected small spaces fenced off from one another with a train line through the guts and all of the back of the Margaret St Precinct completely cut off...
If the Easement weren't moved, an operating rail line could be safely fenced off and there would still be a long, albeit narrower parkland running unimpeded from Bay Rd right through to Wehl St Sth, and the 'amphitheatre' type structure that Council allegedly has planned for the centre of the site could back immediately onto the Margaret St businesses, etc...
Sorry, because this is blowing out, I'll stop here and do Part II,
Tomorrow: RAGOTR Part II
Because I like to offer solutions not just criticism...but there's still plenty of that to come too...the RLRA is a definitive study in the greed and incompetence of City Council.
I am Nick Fletcher and the best part of this post comes tomorrow on this here my blog...just wait 'til you read Council's feeble scramblings in TBW as they try to address my criticisms re the Rail Lands...hilarious...cheers and laters.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Seeing Through The Transparency
Hello and welcome to the blog...and for those of you disappointed with my almost polite effort yesterday re City Council, this ones for you baby...and it will bring back memories for many people, particularly for those of us who were there and can remember the occasion...(hey, that's a line from Derek and Clive, aka, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore-Ed)...indeed it is...we're so very highbrow here at TMGI.
In Case Anyone Needs Reminding: I would like to acknowledge that for all my Grinching across the festive season, I had a roof over my head, plenty of food for me and the dog...(and Aristotle the Axolotyl, and the fish-Ed)...well certainly...and petrol in my little registered and insured car, and clothes on my back, and a fridge, a TV, etc, etc...all the material things that so many millions don't have everyday.
As previously stated, I never lose sight of the fact that for all the bollocks I've been through...(and in many circumstances have been deliberately put through by others-Ed)...yeah, sometimes...I live in a society/culture where we provide support to others who find themselves knocked down if not out...and again, that's the society I want to live in, that's the society that I strive to maintain, and where it fails or doesn't exist, to improve and achieve...
But what I see happening legislatively at Federal, State, and even Local Government levels is a concerted effort to re-establish a firm divide between the haves and the have-nots, a divide that can be accurately described as a 'class structure'...it is absolutely unacceptable that basic services are being slashed in Aboriginal Health and Legal Services, the Disability Support Pension...(that is currently a 'poverty line income but still well above Newstart-Ed)...indeed...and Mental Health and Alcohol and other Drug Services, all Regional services, eg, Court access, PATS, etc, etc, whilst 'middle-class' welfare is being expanded, politicians wages massively increased, etc...
And it doesn't matter which side you pick because, apart from the lunatic fringes, Labor and Liberal are completely indistinguishable...eg, Labor under Julia Gillard axed the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme, forced mums onto NewStart Allowance when their youngest turns 8, etc...but I digress...
I See Icy Sea Shepherds: The Australian government has either 1) cowered from a potential diplomatic row with Japan, a row in which Oz is perhaps being a tad hypocritical given our fondness for Cetaceous Slaughter right up to the 1970s when we started to actually run out of whales, or, 2) has tacitly expressed support for the Sea Shepherd organisation and done them and the whales a huge favour...(whaaa?...the Oz government have refused to send a monitoring ship to Antarctica...how is that helping?-Ed)...
Well, if there was an 'official' ship present, that would heavily compromise Sea Shepherd's ability to act and give the whalers the wriggle room of deferring to 'international regulation' whilst they continue to whale...(ok, sure-Ed)...with no 'official' ship on hand to intervene, this gives Sea Shepherd all the justification they need to act in ways that no 'official' ship could even contemplate...(fair enough, but you don't really believe that this is a deliberate strategy of support?-Ed)...no, that bit was just a joke.
For Balance: it has been put to me, quite demonstratively, in fact quite tersely, in fact quite rudely...(oh you poor thing-Ed)...that I'm absolutely wrong about there currently being a vast majority of paedophile inmates at Mt Gambier Gaol and it's never been the case, and that they are all returned to Adelaide, they're not moving into Mt Gambier...not ever...the words 'conspiracy theory' were mentioned several times...(oh well that is plain rude-Ed)...quite.
And the identifiable credibility of the information is the same accreditation that immediately undermines it...(sorry, what?-Ed)...the information would claim to be based on extensive experience within the Adelaide corrections system, and so it is, and therein lies the credibility...but that information is therefore effectively the 'official line' from a South Australian government authority via someone working 'within' that system...(and that immediately compromises the credibility because of the state government's proven history of deceits-Ed)...exactly...
It's an opinion based on information emanating from Adelaide, made without specific access to the reality of what is happening on the ground...(and in the shipping containers-Ed)...here in Mt Gambier and our shiny new Gaol Expansion...and conflicts greatly with yet another 'allegation/rumour' that has crossed my path, namely that when a local family recently reported a small child missing from home, they were shocked by the sudden proliferation of SAPol officers on their front lawn.
It is alleged the police response was explained as being so robust and immediate because that street was considered a 'high-risk area' due to the proximity of 'paedophile housing' or supported housing for paedophiles, whatevs...I emphasise that at this stage this is just another amongst many such rumours that I regularly hear...but I digress, again...
Clear As Mud: could be the alternative title for this post, or even 'Look, Nothing To See Here'...either would accurately describe City Council's latest attempt to fake Public Consultation and/or Transparency as reported in The Border Watch Tuesday 31st December 2013, 'Confidential items to be released' (attached below, sorry about orientation).
(This is a joke you are playing at me yes?-Ed)...I wish, this is apparently serious...ridiculous but serious...this vacuous rhetoric about 'enhancing ratepayer connection' is a whole lot of puff and absolutely no substance...and flies in the face of how Council has definably behaved re public consultation and the expenditure of ratepayers money, as covered in numerous previous posts here in TMGI...
This 'Confidential Item Register' is an attempt to address the criticism Council is receiving about their cavalier and self-serving decision processes...it's nothing but a cynical joke...even in that uncredited article Council CEO Mark McShane's own admission is that 'some items would remain in confidence' to be 'perpetually reviewed'...and all of the Workshops info and minutes, etc, is largely irrelevant and typical of the 'un-threatening information' that will be provided to bulk out this alleged new strategy.
Furthermore, it only goes back to April 2011 so therefore does not include any of the stuff related to the Library and Main Corner projects and the associated massive cost blowouts and missing monies, etc.
I'm sorry...my tolerance is slipping a little, but I'm not just lashing out at Council, this entire production, from inception to implementation to reportage is absolute waffle, poppycock and balderdash...I don't believe that anyone is going to be fooled by it...nobody I've spoken to is...
Tomorrow: Mo' Rail Lands Retail Agenda Nonsense
Can't help but laugh when I see issues raised in this here blog feebly countered by articles in The Border Watch, and so it is with the latest Rail Lands article in TBW.
I am Nick Fletcher and this is arguably at least the second greatest blog in the history of large, angry, hippies...and it's mine, mine I tells ya'...laters.
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In Case Anyone Needs Reminding: I would like to acknowledge that for all my Grinching across the festive season, I had a roof over my head, plenty of food for me and the dog...(and Aristotle the Axolotyl, and the fish-Ed)...well certainly...and petrol in my little registered and insured car, and clothes on my back, and a fridge, a TV, etc, etc...all the material things that so many millions don't have everyday.
As previously stated, I never lose sight of the fact that for all the bollocks I've been through...(and in many circumstances have been deliberately put through by others-Ed)...yeah, sometimes...I live in a society/culture where we provide support to others who find themselves knocked down if not out...and again, that's the society I want to live in, that's the society that I strive to maintain, and where it fails or doesn't exist, to improve and achieve...
But what I see happening legislatively at Federal, State, and even Local Government levels is a concerted effort to re-establish a firm divide between the haves and the have-nots, a divide that can be accurately described as a 'class structure'...it is absolutely unacceptable that basic services are being slashed in Aboriginal Health and Legal Services, the Disability Support Pension...(that is currently a 'poverty line income but still well above Newstart-Ed)...indeed...and Mental Health and Alcohol and other Drug Services, all Regional services, eg, Court access, PATS, etc, etc, whilst 'middle-class' welfare is being expanded, politicians wages massively increased, etc...
And it doesn't matter which side you pick because, apart from the lunatic fringes, Labor and Liberal are completely indistinguishable...eg, Labor under Julia Gillard axed the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme, forced mums onto NewStart Allowance when their youngest turns 8, etc...but I digress...
I See Icy Sea Shepherds: The Australian government has either 1) cowered from a potential diplomatic row with Japan, a row in which Oz is perhaps being a tad hypocritical given our fondness for Cetaceous Slaughter right up to the 1970s when we started to actually run out of whales, or, 2) has tacitly expressed support for the Sea Shepherd organisation and done them and the whales a huge favour...(whaaa?...the Oz government have refused to send a monitoring ship to Antarctica...how is that helping?-Ed)...
Well, if there was an 'official' ship present, that would heavily compromise Sea Shepherd's ability to act and give the whalers the wriggle room of deferring to 'international regulation' whilst they continue to whale...(ok, sure-Ed)...with no 'official' ship on hand to intervene, this gives Sea Shepherd all the justification they need to act in ways that no 'official' ship could even contemplate...(fair enough, but you don't really believe that this is a deliberate strategy of support?-Ed)...no, that bit was just a joke.
For Balance: it has been put to me, quite demonstratively, in fact quite tersely, in fact quite rudely...(oh you poor thing-Ed)...that I'm absolutely wrong about there currently being a vast majority of paedophile inmates at Mt Gambier Gaol and it's never been the case, and that they are all returned to Adelaide, they're not moving into Mt Gambier...not ever...the words 'conspiracy theory' were mentioned several times...(oh well that is plain rude-Ed)...quite.
And the identifiable credibility of the information is the same accreditation that immediately undermines it...(sorry, what?-Ed)...the information would claim to be based on extensive experience within the Adelaide corrections system, and so it is, and therein lies the credibility...but that information is therefore effectively the 'official line' from a South Australian government authority via someone working 'within' that system...(and that immediately compromises the credibility because of the state government's proven history of deceits-Ed)...exactly...
It's an opinion based on information emanating from Adelaide, made without specific access to the reality of what is happening on the ground...(and in the shipping containers-Ed)...here in Mt Gambier and our shiny new Gaol Expansion...and conflicts greatly with yet another 'allegation/rumour' that has crossed my path, namely that when a local family recently reported a small child missing from home, they were shocked by the sudden proliferation of SAPol officers on their front lawn.
It is alleged the police response was explained as being so robust and immediate because that street was considered a 'high-risk area' due to the proximity of 'paedophile housing' or supported housing for paedophiles, whatevs...I emphasise that at this stage this is just another amongst many such rumours that I regularly hear...but I digress, again...
Clear As Mud: could be the alternative title for this post, or even 'Look, Nothing To See Here'...either would accurately describe City Council's latest attempt to fake Public Consultation and/or Transparency as reported in The Border Watch Tuesday 31st December 2013, 'Confidential items to be released' (attached below, sorry about orientation).
(This is a joke you are playing at me yes?-Ed)...I wish, this is apparently serious...ridiculous but serious...this vacuous rhetoric about 'enhancing ratepayer connection' is a whole lot of puff and absolutely no substance...and flies in the face of how Council has definably behaved re public consultation and the expenditure of ratepayers money, as covered in numerous previous posts here in TMGI...
This 'Confidential Item Register' is an attempt to address the criticism Council is receiving about their cavalier and self-serving decision processes...it's nothing but a cynical joke...even in that uncredited article Council CEO Mark McShane's own admission is that 'some items would remain in confidence' to be 'perpetually reviewed'...and all of the Workshops info and minutes, etc, is largely irrelevant and typical of the 'un-threatening information' that will be provided to bulk out this alleged new strategy.
Furthermore, it only goes back to April 2011 so therefore does not include any of the stuff related to the Library and Main Corner projects and the associated massive cost blowouts and missing monies, etc.
I'm sorry...my tolerance is slipping a little, but I'm not just lashing out at Council, this entire production, from inception to implementation to reportage is absolute waffle, poppycock and balderdash...I don't believe that anyone is going to be fooled by it...nobody I've spoken to is...
Tomorrow: Mo' Rail Lands Retail Agenda Nonsense
Can't help but laugh when I see issues raised in this here blog feebly countered by articles in The Border Watch, and so it is with the latest Rail Lands article in TBW.
I am Nick Fletcher and this is arguably at least the second greatest blog in the history of large, angry, hippies...and it's mine, mine I tells ya'...laters.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Better The Devil Ya' Know
Howdy and welcome to the blog...and a very apt title today because as much as I believe that all of Mt Gambier City Council should be sacked, genuinely independent Auditors appointed, and criminal charges laid against specific members for fraud and/or theft, inside trading, corruption, etc, and there are some I'd like to see in stocks in the Town Square...(we don't have a Town Square-Ed)...shoosh...in stocks being pelted with sloppy produce...others I'm just bitterly disappointed with.
There are those for whom I feel a degree of sympathy, in that they are effectively ineffectual if not quite irrelevant when it comes to the big decisions because the Liberal bloc that runs Council don't need them and don't listen to them...and there are those that I'd prefer to remain as Councillors after the November 2014 local government elections because if we're gonna' have a shrekin' Council, then we need some shrekin' Councillors who at least give half a damn about people other than themselves.
Unfortunately, I understand that we will lose 2 senior Councillors this year whom I include in this number...my opinion (and the St Martins Child Abuse Issue) aside, I would consider these two as being critical players in a future Council that had some hope of removing itself from the cycle of nepotistic financial lunacies that the current Council has unleashed on Mt Gambier...unfortunately at this time I haven't been able to speak with them specifically about blogging this information, and don't know if there are specific personal reasons and/or if they would want them discussed, etc, so I'll just make the observation.
I would think that regular readers of the blog will have no problem working out roughly whom I'm referring to when I say that I would have certain people remain on Council as opposed to those I feel should be sacked and jailed...I'll talk to these Councillors when I can and post what I can...none of this is immediately relevant with elections still 11 months away, but I wanted to raise it as an issue for future consideration.
And you'll all appreciate the fine line I walk with this...(even sans personal opinion and the St Martins stuff-Ed)...indeed...given that these 2 are obviously part of the current Council, that at it's first meeting post the November 2010 election massively increased the cost of the Main Corner with the Commercial Kitchen, etc, then mid 2013 doubled it's borrowing capacity to do the Old Hospital Demolition and the Rail Lands fiasco...I have covered this extensively in previous posts.
But I'm not above revisiting the extraordinary issue of the new $2million 'cell' at the Caroline Rubbish Tip/Landfill site, because it is an issue so transparent and so indicative and so deserving of derision...even if you believe Council's excuse that part of the reason they had to raise their own borrowing limit was because they had suddenly realised they needed to borrow millions for an allegedly critical project, this 'justification' only indicates a total lack of planning, abysmal infrastructure management, and woeful financial planning...
Council must have known for years that the Caroline site was filling up a certain rate, and would therefore be full by such and such, and that therefore they needed to plan to save $X over period Y...and where have the 'Rubbish Collection Rates' gone that Council collects supposedly for the removal and dumping of rubbish?...the whole thing stinks, and does not bear scrutiny...
Mayor By Default: Steve Perryman is Mayor because no-one else ran against him in the November 2010 Local Government elections...no-one voted for him...he self-nominated and was unopposed...when I saw this on 'Nominations Day', I nearly changed my candidacy application from Councillor to Mayor...(orrr dude, can you imagine you as Mayor?...hilarious-Ed)...indeed...
Hilarious maybe, but Mt Gambier wouldn't be in half the mess that it is now...and it is in a whole world of trouble and I don't care what bullshit Council spews out about it's budgets and financial position, etc, because they just lie as and when it suits them, and their own 'Internal Auditors' are either completely incompetent or fundamentally complicit...and my favourite example is of course the nearly $350,000 that then Council CEO Greg Muller took without appropriate authority and that has apparently not been spotted by Council's Auditors...(although it was front page of The Border Watch-Ed)...indeed.
And given the cockamamee excuses about that money going toward 'window insurance, fire-rating', etc, and if that's what's making the front page of TBW, then what else is happening without exposure?...just how much money has been 'spent without appropriate authority', by whom, and on what?...the evidential argument for a genuinely Independent Auditor to be appointed, is absolute and irrefutable.
Ultimately, for all my bleating about their abject failures, etc, I can't help feeling that the loss of these 2 Councillors is very much a case of 'better the devil you know'...and now some other news...
Volgograd: has been targeted 2 days in a row by 'suicide bombers', killing 35 people and terribly injuring dozens of others, with grim potential for the upcoming Winter Olympics to be held in nearby Sochi. There are just so many issues here...starting with an acknowledgement of the horrors and suffering that Russian forces have been involved in in the Caucasus region of Chechnya, including carpet-bombing parts of the capital Grozny, that has led to retaliatory 'terrorist attacks' in Russia...both sides argue that they are the aggrieved party.
The Volgograd attacks on the transport system have such severe and immediate implications for the Olympics because approx 70% of visitors to Sochi will be arriving/departing via rail services, and over half of those via the Volgograd Station that has just been bombed...these 2 main rail links are obviously a prime target for anyone seeking to disrupt the games...and those threats/promises have apparently already been broadcast from Chechnya just prior to the latest bombings.
The situation is so bad that the USofA has offered security advice and personnel if required, and I understand that Russia is very much considering this offer although of course wanting to handle this situation themselves...I don't really give a damn about the Olympics, but sincerely hope that these attacks never eventuate...the unfortunate reality for Russian citizens is that they will always be vulnerable to attacks, and there may well be bombings away from the actual Games on 'softer' targets.
Rocky Mountain High: Colorado has become the first state in the USofA to formally legalise Marijuana for public sale with a predicted $70million annual windfall for the state...nearly 20 other states already approve medicinal use and have various legislation, officially registered clinics, etc, but Colorado is the first to allow public sale and possession for legal recreational use...and kudos to the ABC/BBC who have covered the length and breadth of the debate - pros, cons, and almost everywhere in between....I'll review this issue in a post soon.
Permissible Slapping: I'm normally a pacifist, but PS may be applied to anyone in South Australia's desert North who today says "hot enough for ya'?" because it's set to hit nearly 50C (that's into the 120s Fahrenheit) for the third day running...and that's in the shade...in the shade...yesterday it was 16C and raining here in Mt Gambier when I heard it reported as just passing 40C headed for 48C at Oodnadatta (I think? Williams Creek?)...that's triple what we were...triple...
Enough for today and so much more Council stuff to cover,
Tomorrow: I See Through The Transparency
Council is apparently about to enter a brave new age of transparent governing and public publication of documents, etc...except of course for those documents...and all the stuff re that other issue...oh, and those things there...and that...and these...um, I'll get back to you...no don't look at that...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...woohoo and waha...cheers and laters...
There are those for whom I feel a degree of sympathy, in that they are effectively ineffectual if not quite irrelevant when it comes to the big decisions because the Liberal bloc that runs Council don't need them and don't listen to them...and there are those that I'd prefer to remain as Councillors after the November 2014 local government elections because if we're gonna' have a shrekin' Council, then we need some shrekin' Councillors who at least give half a damn about people other than themselves.
Unfortunately, I understand that we will lose 2 senior Councillors this year whom I include in this number...my opinion (and the St Martins Child Abuse Issue) aside, I would consider these two as being critical players in a future Council that had some hope of removing itself from the cycle of nepotistic financial lunacies that the current Council has unleashed on Mt Gambier...unfortunately at this time I haven't been able to speak with them specifically about blogging this information, and don't know if there are specific personal reasons and/or if they would want them discussed, etc, so I'll just make the observation.
I would think that regular readers of the blog will have no problem working out roughly whom I'm referring to when I say that I would have certain people remain on Council as opposed to those I feel should be sacked and jailed...I'll talk to these Councillors when I can and post what I can...none of this is immediately relevant with elections still 11 months away, but I wanted to raise it as an issue for future consideration.
And you'll all appreciate the fine line I walk with this...(even sans personal opinion and the St Martins stuff-Ed)...indeed...given that these 2 are obviously part of the current Council, that at it's first meeting post the November 2010 election massively increased the cost of the Main Corner with the Commercial Kitchen, etc, then mid 2013 doubled it's borrowing capacity to do the Old Hospital Demolition and the Rail Lands fiasco...I have covered this extensively in previous posts.
But I'm not above revisiting the extraordinary issue of the new $2million 'cell' at the Caroline Rubbish Tip/Landfill site, because it is an issue so transparent and so indicative and so deserving of derision...even if you believe Council's excuse that part of the reason they had to raise their own borrowing limit was because they had suddenly realised they needed to borrow millions for an allegedly critical project, this 'justification' only indicates a total lack of planning, abysmal infrastructure management, and woeful financial planning...
Council must have known for years that the Caroline site was filling up a certain rate, and would therefore be full by such and such, and that therefore they needed to plan to save $X over period Y...and where have the 'Rubbish Collection Rates' gone that Council collects supposedly for the removal and dumping of rubbish?...the whole thing stinks, and does not bear scrutiny...
Mayor By Default: Steve Perryman is Mayor because no-one else ran against him in the November 2010 Local Government elections...no-one voted for him...he self-nominated and was unopposed...when I saw this on 'Nominations Day', I nearly changed my candidacy application from Councillor to Mayor...(orrr dude, can you imagine you as Mayor?...hilarious-Ed)...indeed...
Hilarious maybe, but Mt Gambier wouldn't be in half the mess that it is now...and it is in a whole world of trouble and I don't care what bullshit Council spews out about it's budgets and financial position, etc, because they just lie as and when it suits them, and their own 'Internal Auditors' are either completely incompetent or fundamentally complicit...and my favourite example is of course the nearly $350,000 that then Council CEO Greg Muller took without appropriate authority and that has apparently not been spotted by Council's Auditors...(although it was front page of The Border Watch-Ed)...indeed.
And given the cockamamee excuses about that money going toward 'window insurance, fire-rating', etc, and if that's what's making the front page of TBW, then what else is happening without exposure?...just how much money has been 'spent without appropriate authority', by whom, and on what?...the evidential argument for a genuinely Independent Auditor to be appointed, is absolute and irrefutable.
Ultimately, for all my bleating about their abject failures, etc, I can't help feeling that the loss of these 2 Councillors is very much a case of 'better the devil you know'...and now some other news...
Volgograd: has been targeted 2 days in a row by 'suicide bombers', killing 35 people and terribly injuring dozens of others, with grim potential for the upcoming Winter Olympics to be held in nearby Sochi. There are just so many issues here...starting with an acknowledgement of the horrors and suffering that Russian forces have been involved in in the Caucasus region of Chechnya, including carpet-bombing parts of the capital Grozny, that has led to retaliatory 'terrorist attacks' in Russia...both sides argue that they are the aggrieved party.
The Volgograd attacks on the transport system have such severe and immediate implications for the Olympics because approx 70% of visitors to Sochi will be arriving/departing via rail services, and over half of those via the Volgograd Station that has just been bombed...these 2 main rail links are obviously a prime target for anyone seeking to disrupt the games...and those threats/promises have apparently already been broadcast from Chechnya just prior to the latest bombings.
The situation is so bad that the USofA has offered security advice and personnel if required, and I understand that Russia is very much considering this offer although of course wanting to handle this situation themselves...I don't really give a damn about the Olympics, but sincerely hope that these attacks never eventuate...the unfortunate reality for Russian citizens is that they will always be vulnerable to attacks, and there may well be bombings away from the actual Games on 'softer' targets.
Rocky Mountain High: Colorado has become the first state in the USofA to formally legalise Marijuana for public sale with a predicted $70million annual windfall for the state...nearly 20 other states already approve medicinal use and have various legislation, officially registered clinics, etc, but Colorado is the first to allow public sale and possession for legal recreational use...and kudos to the ABC/BBC who have covered the length and breadth of the debate - pros, cons, and almost everywhere in between....I'll review this issue in a post soon.
Permissible Slapping: I'm normally a pacifist, but PS may be applied to anyone in South Australia's desert North who today says "hot enough for ya'?" because it's set to hit nearly 50C (that's into the 120s Fahrenheit) for the third day running...and that's in the shade...in the shade...yesterday it was 16C and raining here in Mt Gambier when I heard it reported as just passing 40C headed for 48C at Oodnadatta (I think? Williams Creek?)...that's triple what we were...triple...
Enough for today and so much more Council stuff to cover,
Tomorrow: I See Through The Transparency
Council is apparently about to enter a brave new age of transparent governing and public publication of documents, etc...except of course for those documents...and all the stuff re that other issue...oh, and those things there...and that...and these...um, I'll get back to you...no don't look at that...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...woohoo and waha...cheers and laters...
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Just A Little Light Reading 'Bout Dolphins
Hello and welcome to the blog and the first post for 2014...and I have no idea why there are apparently more people reading the blog in the USofA than in Australia, but welcome as always...and I do apologise again if I offended with my Astrological Predictionings with associated Language Warning, but there was just no way to better encapsulate what I hope to achieve this year.
'Spose I could have gone with 'Don't Mess With a Scorpio', or 'It's Possibly Unwise To Upset a Scorpio' or something similar, but really that would only be scratching the surface. As I stated, it is a prediction, a promise, a statement of fact, a commitment to working harder and more effectively...and it's only a warning, only a threat if you're one of those who feel threatened by the blog...outside of that I'm more of a danger to myself than anyone else...(clumsy bloody hippy-Ed).
Anyhoos, to restore the balance after yesterday's venting and carry-on, I'd like to open the New Year with a little something I heard late yesterday on the ABC/BBC about dolphins...I nearly fell off the chair...and far more uplifting than the series of interviews I heard on the same program the other day about what bastardry the major supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths visit upon our primary producers...but that's for another post.
Asthmatic Yuppy Dolphins: have provided the bestest, funniest story of 2013...by sheer fluke I managed to catch the tail-end of a tale about some dolphins...(and the prize for most bad puns in one sentence goes to TMGI-Ed)...yeah, sorry about that...unfortunately I didn't catch where it was, but apparently researchers have observed dolphins repeatedly using puffers to induce a state of relaxation.
(Whaaa? is this some story about 'Plastic Pollution' in the world's oceans, and mammals, birds, etc, mistaking these plasticky bits for prey species and accidentally ingesting large quantities, to the extent that species that regurgitate to feed their young, eg, Albatross, kill their young by effectively filling them with indigestible rubbish, leading to the bizarre landscape of nest sites littered with small, neat piles of bottletops, breadbag tags, cigarette lighters, and assorted bits of plastic crap like Ventolin inhalers, all neatly contained by a little ribcage?-Ed)...errr, no...
(Or about 'Morbilovirus' and/or some sort of lung infection that has something to do with the toxic sludge spewed out of Adelaide's Desalination Plant early last year (March?) that added significantly to the pollution already pouring out of the Onkaparinga and Torrens Rivers, the Sturt Creek outlet via the Patawolonga at Glenelg, and multiple other run-offs and/or drains, etc, leading to the massive fish die-off and a concurrent but officially 'unconnected' spate of 30+ dolphin deaths-Ed)...ahhh, nup...
(What about a combination of the 2...something about the medicinal polluting of our waterways, environments, etc, with medical waste, excreted and/or discarded medications, anti-biotic over-use in livestock, poultry, etc, potentially compromising the effectiveness of those medications in the future, possibly causing increased cross-species disease transfer, and/or causing effects in the food chain, often at gene level...eg, excreted 'oestrogen' entering water systems and affecting the gender of 'indicator species' like newts, salamanders, and frogs?-Ed)...again no.
And those don't sound like very amusing stories...no, this is about some dolphins who were spotted getting hold of the infamous Puffer Fish and giving them a jolly good gumming...(a gumming?-Ed)...yep, the dolphins are grabbing the Puffers out of their hidey-holes on whatever reef it is, and giving them a jolly good gumming, rolling them around in their mouths repeatedly but eventually spitting them out unharmed and the Puffers then swim back to the reef, basically unharmed, and straight away I was fairly sure I knew why...(bizarre...and aren't Puffer Fish poisonous anyway?-Ed)...exactly.
The dolphins were then observed to "hang vertically" in the water just under the surface in a trance like state...the interviewed researcher said it looked like they were staring at their own reflections...and even before he said it, it was immediately confirmed to me my first thought about this 'gumming behaviour', namely, that them there dolphin's are stoned to the bejesus, just like the dirty hippies of the sea that they are...(sorry, sorry you've lost me now...what hippies?-Ed)...
It's an old 'hippyism' that licking the 'bufotoxin' (I think?) excreted by agitated cane toads will cause hallucinations, etc, as a result of a mild poisoning...similar reactions are at play with caffeine, nicotine, etc...and so it is with the Puffer Fish...(oh yeah, yeah, the Japanese restaurant thing where specially qualified chefs carve up Puffers and the resultant mildly poisoned sashimi gives a tingle on the lips and even mild euphoria-Ed)...exactly...well that's what the dolphins have learned to do...a combination of both.
(Oh, of course...the dolphins are gumming the Puffers who naturally then excrete their toxin bizo that the dolphins are imbibing and then getting very, very stoned...them cetaceans are stone-cold tripping-Ed)...exactly...(it's just like that 1960's American show about the kids with their pet 'wild' dolphin-Ed)...sorry?...("They call him Tripper, Tripper, spaced out on Fugu...no-one you see, is more baked than he...they call him Tripper, Tripper, looped-out cetacean...nothing in the sea is more wasted then he"-Ed)...brilliant...(yeah, but where do the yuppies come in?-Ed).
Well is there anything more yuppy than sashimi?...(well no-Ed)...exactly...and is there anything more sashimi than eating the fish alive and then spitting it out, still alive?...(no I guess not-Ed)...well you can't get anymore yuppy or hippy than that, sashimi that swims away from the meal that it was part of...(fair enough-Ed)...
(Eeek, eeek, I can't feel my beak-SD1)...(dude, look at my flipper, look, look, look at what my flipper does heek heek heek-SD2)...(excuse me while I kiss the sky-SD3)...SD?...(Stoner Dolphin-Ed)...ah of course.
And there's also the famous footage from decades ago (on the Interweb I'm sure) of monkeys, birds, elephants, and I reckon a warthog or two, getting absolutely hammered on fermented Persimmons...monkeys and birds falling out of the tree, an elephant staggering about then half asleep leaned up against said tree, etc...all completely plastered on Persimmon Schnapps...hilarious.
Derailed Train Fire: in the USof A has been burning for nearly a day already and will continue to burn because no-one wants to go near it 'cos there's the potential for explosions...I believe that no-one was hurt in the crash, but at least part of the load of diesel has already ignited in a huge mushroom cloud of flame as terrifying as it was spectacular...a town 5km away has been evacuated because of the huge plume of toxic smoke billowing off the still burning diesel and oil, and a wind change would make that town vulnerable.
And as I manage to get back on the Internet again in the late afternoon (bloody thing just dropped out again for 4-6 hours) it is reported that the fire has burnt itself out and that Casselton, North Dakota is no longer in danger from the fume plume...and I was just throwing this in as an example of my point about the Mt Gambier Ambulance and Fire Stations being located near the rail easement...there was also a terrible crash mid-year in the USofA where a train de-railed and exploded, flattening a local bar and killing a dozen people.
That's enough postage for one day, so,
Tomorrow: Some City Council Stuff
(It took you a whole 2 days into the New Year to get stuck into Council-Ed)...how do you know I'm going to get stuck into them about something?...(seriously?-Ed)...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
'Spose I could have gone with 'Don't Mess With a Scorpio', or 'It's Possibly Unwise To Upset a Scorpio' or something similar, but really that would only be scratching the surface. As I stated, it is a prediction, a promise, a statement of fact, a commitment to working harder and more effectively...and it's only a warning, only a threat if you're one of those who feel threatened by the blog...outside of that I'm more of a danger to myself than anyone else...(clumsy bloody hippy-Ed).
Anyhoos, to restore the balance after yesterday's venting and carry-on, I'd like to open the New Year with a little something I heard late yesterday on the ABC/BBC about dolphins...I nearly fell off the chair...and far more uplifting than the series of interviews I heard on the same program the other day about what bastardry the major supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths visit upon our primary producers...but that's for another post.
Asthmatic Yuppy Dolphins: have provided the bestest, funniest story of 2013...by sheer fluke I managed to catch the tail-end of a tale about some dolphins...(and the prize for most bad puns in one sentence goes to TMGI-Ed)...yeah, sorry about that...unfortunately I didn't catch where it was, but apparently researchers have observed dolphins repeatedly using puffers to induce a state of relaxation.
(Whaaa? is this some story about 'Plastic Pollution' in the world's oceans, and mammals, birds, etc, mistaking these plasticky bits for prey species and accidentally ingesting large quantities, to the extent that species that regurgitate to feed their young, eg, Albatross, kill their young by effectively filling them with indigestible rubbish, leading to the bizarre landscape of nest sites littered with small, neat piles of bottletops, breadbag tags, cigarette lighters, and assorted bits of plastic crap like Ventolin inhalers, all neatly contained by a little ribcage?-Ed)...errr, no...
(Or about 'Morbilovirus' and/or some sort of lung infection that has something to do with the toxic sludge spewed out of Adelaide's Desalination Plant early last year (March?) that added significantly to the pollution already pouring out of the Onkaparinga and Torrens Rivers, the Sturt Creek outlet via the Patawolonga at Glenelg, and multiple other run-offs and/or drains, etc, leading to the massive fish die-off and a concurrent but officially 'unconnected' spate of 30+ dolphin deaths-Ed)...ahhh, nup...
(What about a combination of the 2...something about the medicinal polluting of our waterways, environments, etc, with medical waste, excreted and/or discarded medications, anti-biotic over-use in livestock, poultry, etc, potentially compromising the effectiveness of those medications in the future, possibly causing increased cross-species disease transfer, and/or causing effects in the food chain, often at gene level...eg, excreted 'oestrogen' entering water systems and affecting the gender of 'indicator species' like newts, salamanders, and frogs?-Ed)...again no.
And those don't sound like very amusing stories...no, this is about some dolphins who were spotted getting hold of the infamous Puffer Fish and giving them a jolly good gumming...(a gumming?-Ed)...yep, the dolphins are grabbing the Puffers out of their hidey-holes on whatever reef it is, and giving them a jolly good gumming, rolling them around in their mouths repeatedly but eventually spitting them out unharmed and the Puffers then swim back to the reef, basically unharmed, and straight away I was fairly sure I knew why...(bizarre...and aren't Puffer Fish poisonous anyway?-Ed)...exactly.
The dolphins were then observed to "hang vertically" in the water just under the surface in a trance like state...the interviewed researcher said it looked like they were staring at their own reflections...and even before he said it, it was immediately confirmed to me my first thought about this 'gumming behaviour', namely, that them there dolphin's are stoned to the bejesus, just like the dirty hippies of the sea that they are...(sorry, sorry you've lost me now...what hippies?-Ed)...
It's an old 'hippyism' that licking the 'bufotoxin' (I think?) excreted by agitated cane toads will cause hallucinations, etc, as a result of a mild poisoning...similar reactions are at play with caffeine, nicotine, etc...and so it is with the Puffer Fish...(oh yeah, yeah, the Japanese restaurant thing where specially qualified chefs carve up Puffers and the resultant mildly poisoned sashimi gives a tingle on the lips and even mild euphoria-Ed)...exactly...well that's what the dolphins have learned to do...a combination of both.
(Oh, of course...the dolphins are gumming the Puffers who naturally then excrete their toxin bizo that the dolphins are imbibing and then getting very, very stoned...them cetaceans are stone-cold tripping-Ed)...exactly...(it's just like that 1960's American show about the kids with their pet 'wild' dolphin-Ed)...sorry?...("They call him Tripper, Tripper, spaced out on Fugu...no-one you see, is more baked than he...they call him Tripper, Tripper, looped-out cetacean...nothing in the sea is more wasted then he"-Ed)...brilliant...(yeah, but where do the yuppies come in?-Ed).
Well is there anything more yuppy than sashimi?...(well no-Ed)...exactly...and is there anything more sashimi than eating the fish alive and then spitting it out, still alive?...(no I guess not-Ed)...well you can't get anymore yuppy or hippy than that, sashimi that swims away from the meal that it was part of...(fair enough-Ed)...
(Eeek, eeek, I can't feel my beak-SD1)...(dude, look at my flipper, look, look, look at what my flipper does heek heek heek-SD2)...(excuse me while I kiss the sky-SD3)...SD?...(Stoner Dolphin-Ed)...ah of course.
And there's also the famous footage from decades ago (on the Interweb I'm sure) of monkeys, birds, elephants, and I reckon a warthog or two, getting absolutely hammered on fermented Persimmons...monkeys and birds falling out of the tree, an elephant staggering about then half asleep leaned up against said tree, etc...all completely plastered on Persimmon Schnapps...hilarious.
Derailed Train Fire: in the USof A has been burning for nearly a day already and will continue to burn because no-one wants to go near it 'cos there's the potential for explosions...I believe that no-one was hurt in the crash, but at least part of the load of diesel has already ignited in a huge mushroom cloud of flame as terrifying as it was spectacular...a town 5km away has been evacuated because of the huge plume of toxic smoke billowing off the still burning diesel and oil, and a wind change would make that town vulnerable.
And as I manage to get back on the Internet again in the late afternoon (bloody thing just dropped out again for 4-6 hours) it is reported that the fire has burnt itself out and that Casselton, North Dakota is no longer in danger from the fume plume...and I was just throwing this in as an example of my point about the Mt Gambier Ambulance and Fire Stations being located near the rail easement...there was also a terrible crash mid-year in the USofA where a train de-railed and exploded, flattening a local bar and killing a dozen people.
That's enough postage for one day, so,
Tomorrow: Some City Council Stuff
(It took you a whole 2 days into the New Year to get stuck into Council-Ed)...how do you know I'm going to get stuck into them about something?...(seriously?-Ed)...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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