Latest Posts

Can the ADF last ’till September?

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I note Defence Minister Smith is talking about asking for billions to try and fix the enormous stuff-up the ALP have made of the portfolio. I think you will find that Smith is asking for billions so the punters can see that the ALP are serious about defence. He’s unlikely to get it given the horizon-to-horizon black hole the ALP have organized, but at least it will be recorded that he tried. Some background reading on what the military think of Minister Smith  The first indications of ALP problems was Rudd’s white paper that promised, among other dreams, twelve submarines. Twelve!  We have troubles manning two out of six and this beaurocrat, this non-oracle of defence suggests we can handle twelve. Maybe he thought the ACTU could man them. Rudd’s White Paper didn’t survive the light of day. It simply provided a platform for Military historians and civilian academics with some skin in the game to get some opinions and papers recycled. Those of us who are ex-military and the current ADF members simply roll our eyes and sit waiting patiently for adults to resume command. It did nothing for Defence as evidenced by the ADF being stripped of monies right down to the petty cash for office supplies. The ALP have reduced Australian defence spending to 1.56 per cent of gross domestic product, the lowest it has been since 1938. The Commanding Officer of an Infantry battalion, just before deployment to Afghanistan last year, told me he wasn’t allowed to send his officers NCOs and soldiers on training courses that he thought relevant to their deployment to a war zone, due to ALP cutbacks. But, Smith is on record as asking for billions he knows he won’t get whilst a member of a government in serious decline that doesn’t even like the ADF.
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Defence, Politics

$12 Billion deficit

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You have to give the ALP credit – they worked hard for this deficit, the worse ever recorded. Their work and dedication in implementing the Carbon Tax has worked a treat. Companies looking to secure their bottom line are shedding workers and future investments to try and stay solvent; the Live Cattle Export industry mostly closed down until adults are in charge due to Ludwigs brilliant response to an unbalanced TV program has suffered an 86% drop in trade and Fair Work Australia has the government governing for maybe 18% of the population. (that part of the population that doesn’t invest billions and pay large taxes on their profits) The Porous Border policy has added billions to the deficit just so Gillard can be different to Howard only to turn around and try and implement most of his answers. Being Gillard, of course she repeatedly stuffed it up costing hundreds of millions for every failure. Laden with a huge deficit they are still talking about Gonski, National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the NBN powers on, still without any published business plan.
MAJOR contractors handling the rollout of the National Broadband Network are charging the federal government up to 2 1/2 times the amount they are passing on to subcontractors who perform the work.
I don’t know about you but this statement from the Financial Times doesn’t fill me with confidence With education the only point Gillard can still hang her hat on, she is adamant that Gonski goes ahead so she can have the word on her political epithat. Money is not the only answer to education problems – there is more to teaching than interactive whiteboards and quite frankly if the left wing Teachers Union support Gonski then I would look to question exactly how our kids will be better off with it’s implementation. The NDIS, the only insurance scheme I’ve heard of without premiums, is certainly a feel-good idea and lends itself to guaranteed abuse if you don’t wholeheartedly support it. However it is tainted with the same problems as Gonski, NBN and a host of other programs – where’s the money, honey? Henry Ergas in the Australian
Deconstructing Swan’s arguments is as challenging as picking a dead man’s wallet. Shop-worn tropes go round and round, like unclaimed bags on an airport carousel: Labor is the party of opportunity, a sentiment to which Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald and John Maitland are presumably living testimony; Tony Abbott, accused of every possible malfeasance short of starting a leprosy pandemic, would destroy what this country retains of good and true; and only Swan and his colleagues stand between Tony Abbott’s Visigoths and the “fair go”.
and just in case you don’t get the point;
As for Swan, he has become the Cheshire cat of Australian treasurers: his predecessors’ smirks linger, but their competence has vanished. Touchy, testy and tetchy, he scratches on; when he rises Tuesday fortnight, however, it will not be to grasp the future, but as the last gasp of the past.
The prize for missing the point has to go to Windsor who, in the middle of a biblical proportioned economic disaster demands a referendum to pacify the Rainbow activists. Tony, you have under 140 days to make your mark on the world that might compensate your electorate for your treachery – think it through man.
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Politics

457 Visas aren’t the issue

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Have you noticed how we all appear to be talking about 457 visas.  We need to stop – it has no bearing on any problems we are faced with today other than it is an ALP invented distraction to stop us talking about illegal boats and the occupants. Let’s get back to the problem – over 40 boats and 3,000”asylum” seekers this month alone! So, you’re in the office at the water cooler, on the train, in the teachers lunch-room at school or at a BBQ or pub – the moment someone mentions 457 visas point out to them that the visa issue is a distraction away from porous borders and turn the conversation back to “what are we going to do about our porous borders”. Answer – nothing can be done. The Gillard government has so many problems and so few competent operators that the problem will stand until we get them out of office. In a related matter, the ALP budgeted for an average of 450 illegals every month. This, along with the thousands of other dreamtime forecasts they have made, has an input into today’s news that the budget deficit has gone from a ‘non-negotiable’ surplus to a $12 billion deficit.
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Border Control

Boston bombers are Muslims – I’m amazed!

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Gee, the Boston bombers appear to be Muslims.  This will not please the left and other US haters as they wanted the bombers to be white extreme right wing radicals.  Bob Elliss, for example is punting for the NRA, the Pentagon, MI6, or the FBI and states quite conclusively that there are no Arabs, Pakistanis or Afghans involved.  The two suspects, one already dead, come from Chechyna so Bob’s a little bit right but they are Muslims so the point he is trying to make, is like all his points,wrong. I’ve been reading Bob’s blog for a few days now on the basis of “know your enemy” – he’s literally demented, full of hatred and delusional. And the weirdos he attracts – makes for wide-eyed reading.  
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War on Terror

All about Saturn 5 engines

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A morning read of  Catallaxy is good for the soul and, as in this case, just plain interesting.  A link to Instapundit reveals a great story on US engineering.

At the time, the F-1 was the largest and most powerful liquid-fueled engine ever constructed; even today, its design remains unmatched. The power generated by five of these engines was best conceptualized by author David Woods in his book How Apollo Flew to the Moon—“[T]he power output of the Saturn first stage was 60 gigawatts. This happens to be very similar to the peak electricity demand of the United Kingdom.”

  That last sentence certainly got my attention.  The linked article talks of the great ability of engineers and tradesmen who produced the F-1 rocket engine 40 years ago and how young engineers are using modern technology to map the engine and maybe rebuild it. It’s a great read Full article  here
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Boys Toys

Says it all

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How true! From today’s Australian editorial

After a start to the year in which the Prime Minister ditched her surplus promise, named an election date seven months early, presided over record asylum-seeker arrivals, endured a farcical leadership spill, sacked a former leader, accepted resignations from five other cabinet ministers and abandoned draconian changes to media and anti-discrimination laws, some in the Fourth Estate see it as their duty to turn the blowtorch on the Opposition Leader.

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Politics

Boat people aren’t new

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Interested in the boat people debate?  Do you wonder why the Left support the boat people and the Conservatives don’t? Do you remember the Vietnamese boat people and the ALP’s hatred of them? Gough Whitlam said

 I’m not having hundreds of fucking Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their political and religious hatreds against us” 

It should be noted that the Vietnamese didn’t hate us, as in ordinary Australians but they did hate communism (for very good reasons) and that is where Whitlam and the unions were coming from.  Those that couldn’t flee the retribution in South Vietnam died in their millions as the communists did what they do best – slaughter and/or send to reeducation camps those who had the temerity to fight for freedom. The Vietnamese were fleeing a communist state and the ALP of the time and the union leaders were very clearly pro-communists or anti-US which is the same thing.   The same people today reason that Iraqis and Afghans are fleeing US influenced regions and are therefore welcome.  The left wing Tamils, inventors of the suicide bomber’s vests are likewise welcomed for the same reason – their left wing politics I lived through those days when Australia was governed by a socialist government with very clear connections with the communists of the world. Our service in South Vietnam was denigrated by the Left, Communists Generals were dined out by Jim Cairns, one-time Deputy PM and life under Whitlam reminded us every day of how the world had changed.  Communism was the new ‘way to go’ and wearing the uniform of your country was frowned upon. It was humiliating and it looked like we had lost the Cold War which I enthusiastically contributed to for 13 months of my life but within a decade reason had prevailed.  Whitlam was a nightmare memory and President Reagan correctly identified the ‘Evil Empire’ and proceeded to flog them until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. If you are interested at all in the truth then you do need to read this report by Hal G.P. Colebatch   
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General Musings

The Reef is safe

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Letters to the Editor of The Australian

I CAN’T understand the attitude of the Queensland and federal governments towards the Great Barrier Reef (“Great barrier grief, 1/2).

No amount of royalties will ever pay back the value lost to future generations by the loss of this natural wonder.

Generations have enjoyed it and I would like to see future families and tourists have their holidays there too.

I thank the Marine Conservation Society and many individuals for their efforts, and call on governments to ensure the reef’s protection.

John Patterson, Highbury, SA

I would think that there  a lot of things that John doesn’t understand going by his letter.  With 7,000 ks of coastline and about a third of that taken up by the Great Barrier Reef a few coal terminals isn’t going to lead to the “loss of this natural wonder”  In fact, the case could be argued that with the increase in revenue the state government may be in a better position to look after the reef. Nature does more damage to the reef than a mob of coal ships ever will.  Each cyclone knocks the reef about but she recovers from these storms in time.  Very occasionally a ship does go aground and affects maybe a 100 metres of the reef, say one twentysix thousandths of it’s length, and in due course it recovers from that as well. The coal industry depends on getting the coal to market so the last thing they want is a ship grounded on the reef.  The country and state depends on the reef for tourism so the last thing they want is a ship grounded on the reef. I can assure John that everyone will be working to ensure his nightmare never happens. In the meantime John, stop believing The Greens propaganda.
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Politics

To Frack or not

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Hot from the  success of ruining the live cattle export business in North Australia, 4Corners is continuing to govern the country by targeting Coal Seam Gas. With only six months left for their shrill bleatings to have any chance of success while there is a  dysfunctional government in power,  the pressure is on. Billions to be made by business and the government and some want it stopped based on emotional, ideological and anecdotal campaigns run by SBS, the ABC and the Greens movement. Greenie whistleblower, Simone Marsh,  a left over from the Bligh debacle, calls on Environment Minister Burke to reneg on previously approved projects claiming the approval process was rushed.   Surprisingly, the approvals were given during Blighs reign but I feel they are now being pushed by LNP.  I hope so, anyway. Drew Sutton from Lock the Gate is also quoted.  The aim of these activists  is to close down the coal and gas industries  which seems to me to be a contradiction in ideals.  We need power generation and it can be fueled by coal or natural gas.  Gas is a lot cleaner than coal and will reduce greenhouse gases so you’d expect the Greenies to be all over it. Not so! If you get your opinions from the SBS and the ABC then you need to broaden your knowledge base.  This article from a Colorado College touches on the pros and cons of fracking. A sample quote;

The U.S. is at a 20-year low in greenhouse gas emissions. This reduction did not occur due to cap and trade legislation, which we’ve been unable to pass due both to a lagging economy and stalemate in Congress.  Instead, the two-decade low in emissions is due to the implementation of policies limiting the use of coal in electrical generation, and the abundance of low cost natural gas that has encouraged the phasing out of coal-fired power plants. The immediate 50 percent reduction in carbon output from transitioning coal plants to natural gas is a variable in the fracking equation that must not go overlooked.

American University Radio has transcripts of programs headed ” Debating the Pros and Cons of Fracking” It is a short read but what it does do is point out that a lot of opposition to fracking is anecdotal.

“Most evidence brought for this anecdotal in nature, one person complains there’s an issue,” says Cobbs. “Studies have not born that out, and in fact the opposite’s been shown that it can be done safely. In Arkansas, the United States Geological Survey conducted a survey of 127 private or domestic [water] wells in an area that has been highly developed. Over 4,000 production [natural gas] wells have been put in this area over the last 6 to 8 years, and no damage done to the water in those areas.”

I refer to the US because they have been doing it for years and state economies have flourished, greenhouse gas production has fallen, thousands of people are being employed and businesses, and  governments, via taxation,are making money. To most rational people thats a win-win.  To  Greenies it’s sacrilige. Newman should just ignore them and get on with getting the state up and running again after decades of this type of greentape bullshit. Environment Minister Burke should just stay in his office and contemplate life after 14 September and not step out and destroy another industry as his government has tended to previously, as they govern via Twitter and 4Corners.
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Politics

Petty Cash fixed

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HIGH-flying federal bureaucrats have had their wings clipped with the government saving more than $50 million in six months by using many of the methods utilised every day by travellers.

Finance Minister Penny Wong yesterday said the savings were achieved by booking travel further in advance, selecting lower-priced, but less flexible, fares, and using online bookings rather than travel consultants.

That’s wonderful Penny now all you have to do is save another 19 billion plus dollars to try and scrape back to being considered almost sound economic  managers. Blowing the economy but saving on petty cash – yep that’ll do it.
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Politics
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