The 48 Laws of Power: Sharpen Your Pencils!

This is the name of a book my Mad-Scientist husband bought some time ago. Given the overwhelming trouncing of the federal Labor/Green Government in the recent Federal Election, its time to look at these Power Laws.
Law 1: Never Outshine The Master:  

By Robert Greene, 1998

Something Malcolm Turnbull has had to manage, successfully it seems.
Major failing by Labor Party and reason they got chucked out - revolving door of leaderships peeves the people off, big time!

Law 2: Never Put too Much Trust In Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies.
Friends are easily aroused to envy - hence the rise of Julia Gillard and the backstabbing by Kevin Rudd. See her Guardian Essay.
Clive Palmer is interesting as he is certainly one who can use Enemies. His current success in Parliament and his performance on ABC TV, Q and A last night was fascinating to see.
I would imagine Tony Abbott knows all about this one also.

Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions
This was a major ploy by Tony Abbott and the Federal Liberals in the last 3 years with minimal policy details, costings at the last minute and 3 word sound bites.
Clive Palmer also looks to be guiding people down the wrong path, envelope them in enough red-herrings (ex-military conspiracy in the Australian Electoral Commission on Q and A perhaps?). Bring along a Pen next time you vote!
Federal Labor was open and overly transparent, except when back-stabbing, deal-making and back tracking!
So the Conservation Movement is in for a fight with Abbott intending to allow fishing in Marine Parks, Commercial development in National Parks and opening the Great Barrier Reef to oil drilling and huge development of Coal shipping facilities, roll back of World Heritage forests in Tasmania. All mentioned in the first week of power!
Leaving it up to State Governments to do the 'Conservation' after many years of state over-development, resource extraction, land-clearing, fracking in farming areas, water pollution and coral reef degradation.
Hand in Cookie Jar surely!

But that's enough Power for now. I'll go back to the birthday cake I need to start icing!!

Are all librarians gay? AKA Hairdresser question.

Walker St Gallery, Dandenong: "Burqas, Veils and Hoodies "

No.

Who cares and whose business is it anyway!

BS reporting!

Reporters, please lift your game!

Debate the issues not this rubbish !

Sensationalism and stupidity.

Lets not have the wool pulled over our eyes with this type of rubbish.

Burqas, Veils and Hoodies picture.

Carbon Tax and Me

Since the announcement of the Carbon Tax by the Prime Minister on Sunday media commentators have been asking people to call in/tweet/comment on the Tax and how it would affect their lives and families.
So how will it affect me?
My family income is above the $85,000 but nowhere near the $150,000 - $200,000. So we will get something from the household compensation package.
We have recently changed our solar-electric hot water system to a solar-gas hot water system at some cost to ourselves. We used the 2x $900 handout from the Federal Government (2 years ago) to purchase 1 KwH of Solar Electric Photovoltaic Panels and will keep an eye out for any decrease in cost/ improvement in technology to increase this if possible.
We are looking at Double Glazing part of our windows, though without any cost estimates as yet this may be delayed again.
And the triple-burn, enclosed wood fire is our main heating at night.
I am pleased there will be a $10 billion Renewable Energy fund but whether this will be aimed at the small consumer or to raise the $$ for large renewable energy research and development is not clear to me. I suspect the fund is there to benefit the latter stuff and hope Solar-Thermal and Geo-Thermal developments get going quickly to try and answer the critics regarding base-load power generation.(Note considerable rise in stock prices of some of these firms - you might have got a bit richer yesterday)
While watching Julia Gillard answering questions on Q and A, I noticed that she failed to convince many of the questioners. I wonder if the lady who asked her to simplify her answers got what she needed.
Hopefully, simplifying the conversation about the Carbon Tax doesn't lose sight of a number of scientific, moral and competitive reasons it was brought in. Many of the tweets were spot on with their comments.
I did like one of her last statements to the question " Can the Prime Minster guarantee the Carbon Price won't rise?" by Suleman Khan, NSW. Quick as a whippet she replied "Absolutely none", as she explained the whole point is for the price to rise. I would have liked more direct language like that. Download the transcript and see for yourself.
No Prime Minister can guarantee all your jobs, that interest rates will or won't rise (or decrease), that all people make the right decisions. After all we are an irrational race, especially seduced by simplified language for complex questions that require more attention than even Q and A can give.
So I urge all doubters to keep asking, keep reading and wait to see if the sky falls in from this time next year. I survived the GST (10%) price increase without bi-partisan support.
Time will tell if the price on Carbon will change both the "Big Polluters" behaviour as well as our own. So download the plan from http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/our-plan/ and read it yourself.

Carbon Tax Hysteria

Now that Federal Parliament is back the absolute hysteria surrounding the proposed Carbon Tax is so aggravating. I expect our elected representatives to debate the issues, using facts and appropriate language.
Comparing Julia Gillard to Muammar Gaddafi is disgusting.
Creating hysteria around the basis of a tax on Carbon before the extent and price of Carbon is established is also  hysterical.
I don't like taxes, mainly because I don't earn a large salary and can only off-set a few $$ of income in my tax return.  But I also believe that the community of people in Australia need to pay taxes towards developing services and infrastructure used by all.
I like driving on good roads, I like having National and State Parks, I like Libraries (local & state taxes), I like knowing that there is some safety net for those poor people who can't get jobs and don't have housing. I think companies should pay tax.
I don't like pollution and having grown up in the period where the chemical industry has produced a range of environmentally damaging chemicals (DDT etc) I am well aware that industry, by itself, will only reduce pollution when it's forced to.
So lets have a Carbon Tax. If it enables us to invest in jobs and new low-carbon technology, then lets get going before the rest of the world leaves us behind again. This is what happened with the silicon-chip/computer industry and now the solar cell manufacturing industry.
We managed to have a GST and did you see what happened with that Great Big New Tax! We survived. So long as the very poorest are cared for appropriately under the tax regime, then lets price in the cost of pollution to our very core production systems.
Perhaps getting a new large screen TV might not be the best use of your money, perhaps then investing in power generation capacity or dare I mention it, insulation might seem more worthwhile.
But cut out the hysteria, inappropriate comparisons and irrational arguments.
Try this Crikey blog on facts, polls and opinions.

Surgical strike in progress!

Wow - fast moves on the part of Julia Gillard. In an hour or so we will know if she will be the first woman Prime Minister in Australia. Peter Costello, eat your heart out!
But, if she has the numbers, will she get the voters? Its one thing to win an election and be made PM, its another to (possibly) oust the tottering PM with surgical precision and then win the hearts and votes of the people. Something the factions may not know too much about!
Abbott is probably laughing all the way to the Advertising Bureau.
Too bad about World Cup Soccer!