Another downhill kamikaze pilot

Dude is out of his freaking mind.

Santa parties hard

Worst end of the world ever.

Stupid utterance of the day

If you’re a shop assistant, and you tell me “there’s no demand for them” after *I just asked for one*… you be dumb.

Things to say in the telecommunications industry when you haven't got a clue

Saying: I'll get it tested

 

Meaning: I'll get a level 1 tech to waste some time running a set of standard checks on it, although I know perfectly well that they're not going to find anything.  What I'm hoping is that is I stall you long enough, you'll actually do your job and find what you screwed up and fix the issue yourself.  We'll then end up closing the ticket as no fault found, and we both know what that means even if the management doesn't.

 

 

Saying: I can see some minor packet loss/jitter/flux capacitor oscillation/bunyip infestation

 

Meaning: Yes, all of which is entirely normal, quite expected, and none of which I have any intention whatsoever of doing anything about, including thinking about it.  When you start paying me $20,000 a month (and believe me, that's cheap) for a dedicated mission critical service I'll leap to your 10 millisecond break of service, even though it was just something failing over inside the network exactly as its designed to do.  But hey, for $20k I'm happy to pretend to care.  For $39.95 a month, you're lucky if I take the time to tell you to fuck off before I close your ticket.

 

 

Saying: Let's keep an eye on it

 

Meaning: Let's forget about it.  I did already.

 

 

Saying: Let's monitor it for a week

 

Meaning: Let's do the same as the above, but now I make a calendar entry to close your ticket after a week, because I'm still not thinking about it unless you come to me with more than some vague whining that you can't quantify and hope that I will for you.  Ideally what I'd like you to do is grow a spine and tell your end user a few truths about best effort networks, and explain that they bought a bus ticket, not a Ferrari.  While you're at it, you might want to explain to them that I'm not proactively swapping out $12k pieces of gear "just in case" when there are several hundred other services running off it with zero signs of problems and zero complaints, just to assuage their entitlement syndrome by being seen to be doing something.  I am doing something.  I'm ignoring what's not broken.  Suggest you might like to try it?

 

 

Saying: If this doesn't work, we'll try plan B

 

Meaning: I have absolutely no idea what plan B is.  This had better work or we're fucked.

Reblog

I normally don't like the idea of people reblogging things, because the point of blogging should be to create something original.  It's a bit like TV "personalities" interviewing other "personalities" (especially when you have no idea who they are) - it's just manufactured low grade entertainment, junk food for the brain, filler material in the absence of anything useful, entertaining, original or newsworthy.

Gee, I think I just described the mainstream media - from one original fact they then get three days of coverage out of describing, discussing, criticising and armchair-experting (yes, I just made that word up, so bite me) everyone else's coverage of the original issue.

Don't even get me started on reality TV.

Anyhow, that aside, I shall repent in advance for I shall now reblog.

This is a rant published by a pharmacist in North America (I don't know this for sure, but the reference to monster trucks makes me feel like I'm on safe ground) about a grips of his patients, and why it occurs.  Said pharmacist has since gone to ground, which is a shame, but I want to preserve what they wrote here for posterity and amusement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why does your prescription take so damn long to fill?

You come to the counter. I am on the phone with a drunk dude who wants the phone number to the grocery store next door. After I instruct him on the virtues of 411, you tell me your doctor was to phone in your prescription to me. Your doctor hasn't, and you're unwilling to wait until he does. Being in a generous mood, I call your doctors office and am put on hold for 5 minutes, then informed that your prescription was phoned in to my competitor on the other side of town. Phoning the competitor, I am immediately put on hold for 5 minutes before speaking to a clerk, who puts me back on hold to wait for the pharmacist. Your prescription is then transferred to me, and now I have to get the 2 phone calls that have been put on hold while this was being done. Now I return to the counter to ask if we've ever filled prescriptions for you before. For some reason, you think that "for you" means "for your cousin" and you answer my question with a "yes", whereupon I go the computer and see you are not on file.

The phone rings.

You have left to do something very important, such as browse through the monster truck magazines, and do not hear the three PA announcements requesting that you return to the pharmacy. You return eventually, expecting to pick up the finished prescription.....

The phone rings.

......only to find out that I need to ask your address, phone number, date of birth, if you have any allergies and insurance coverage. You tell me you're allergic to codeine. Since the prescription is for Vicodin I ask you what exactly codeine did to you when you took it. You say it made your stomach hurt and I roll my eyes and write down "no known allergies" You tell me......

The phone rings.

.....you have insurance and spend the next 5 minutes looking for your card. You give up and expect me to be able to file your claim anyway. I call my competitor and am immediately put on hold. Upon reaching a human, I ask them what insurance they have on file for you. I get the information and file your claim, which is rejected because you changed jobs 6 months ago. An asshole barges his way to the counter to ask where the bread is.

The phone rings.

I inform you that the insurance the other pharmacy has on file for you isn't working. You produce a card in under 10 seconds that you seemed to be unable to find before. What you were really doing was hoping your old insurance would still work because it had a lower copay. Your new card prominently displays the logo of Nebraska Blue Cross, and although Nebraska Blue cross does in fact handle millions of prescription claims every day, for the group you belong to, the claim should go to a company called Caremark, whose logo is nowhere on the card.

The phone rings.

A lady comes to the counter wanting to know why the cherry flavored antacid works better than the lemon cream flavored antacid. What probably happened is that she had a milder case of heartburn when she took the cherry flavored brand, as they both use the exact same ingredient in the same strength. She will not be satisfied though until I confirm her belief that the cherry flavored brand is the superior product. I file your claim with Caremark, who rejects it because you had a 30 day supply of Vicodin filled 15 days ago at another pharmacy. You swear to me on your mother's'....

The phone rings.

.......life that you did not have a Vicodin prescription filled recently. I call Caremark and am immediately placed on hold. The most beautiful woman on the planet walks buy and notices not a thing. She has never talked to a pharmacist and never will. Upon reaching a human at Caremark, I am informed that the Vicodin prescription was indeed filled at another of my competitors. When I tell you this, you say you got hydrocodone there, not Vicodin. Another little part of me dies.

The phone rings.

It turns out that a few days after your doctor wrote your last prescription, he told you to take it more frequently, meaning that what Caremark thought was a 30-day supply is indeed a 15 day supply with the new instructions. I call your doctor's office to confirm this and am immediately placed on hold. I call Caremark to get an override and am immediately placed on hold. My laser printer has a paper jam. It's time for my tech to go to lunch. Caremark issues the override and your claim goes though. Your insurance saves you 85 cents off the regular price of the prescription.

The phone rings.

At the cash register you sign....

The phone rings.

......the acknowledgement that you received a copy of my HIPPA policy and that I offered the required OBRA counseling for new prescriptions. You remark that you're glad that your last pharmacist told you you shouldn't take over the counter Tylenol along with the Vicodin, and that the acetaminophen you're taking instead seems to be working pretty well. I break the news to you that Tylenol is simply a brand name for acetaminophen and you don't believe me. You fumble around for 2 minutes looking for your checkbook and spend another 2 minutes making out a check for four dollars and sixty seven cents. You ask why the tablets look different than those you got at the other pharmacy. I explain that they are from a different manufacturer. Tomorrow you'll be back to tell me they don't work as well.

Now imagine this wasn't you at all, but the person who dropped off their prescription three people ahead of you, and you'll start to have an idea why.....your prescription takes so damn long to fill.

Things I learned this weekend

Women do not think its as funny as you do when you take your iPad to the bog and refer to it as an iCrap.

 

Occupying a steel and concrete shed with small squealing children for any length of time is a poor idea.

 

Karcher pressure blasters not only hurt feet, but they take toenails off before you can say “FUC…” too.

 

Large plant pots should not be painted in the presence of small inquisitive pugs.  Unless you don’t mind your black pug with contrasting sandstone coloured whiskers, anyway.

 

Women don’t regard it as a much of an achievement as you do when you manage to do a beer burp and fart simultaneously.

 

No matter what you get done around the place, women will always have three or four jobs more lined up for you.

Works for me

<No_One> Damn my land mine collection is gone.
<No_One> Also so is my shed
<No_One> That's gonna be fun in the morning

15 minutes later.

<No_One> Fuck afk police pulled in
<Dwarf> k
<Dwarf> have fun

10 minutes later.

<No_One> Shiit
<No_One> Someone broke into my shed
<No_One> They won't do that again

3 hours later.

<No_One> Can I be charged with criminal negligence even if the said deceased person used bolt cutters to access something that killed them?
<noregister> I doubt it
<No_One> Good

And the war to demonise mobile phones continues

The mainstream media has today regurgitated up yet another puff piece load of codswallop from the Queensland plod that mobile phones will be the death of us all while driving.

Bullshit.

As I previously pointed out - to a police spokesman on callback radio - mobiles have nothing much to do with the issue.  They are just a convenient and (more importantly!) easily detectable scapegoat to blame.

The current "road safety" message attempts to boil down a huge number of factors that cause crashes to a very few points.  What gets up my nose is that those points are not only incredibly oversimplified, but they are all very easily identifiable and fineable by J. Random Plod - gee, isn't that lucky!

What shall we demonise today, o lord?

Speed.  Listen to any plod media drone reporting on a prang anywhere, anytime, and you'll get a statement in a voice learned in the Keanu Reeves School Of Wooden Acting that "speed was a factor".  Of course speed was a factor, you cretin.  The cars were MOVING at the time, because people want to GET SOMEWHERE.  If speed was the issue, half the population would be dead already.  The root cause of the problem is that some people lack the combination of good judgement and skill to handle driving at any speed, and lowering the speed limit to walking pace is NOT going to change that.

What's that, Robert?  It's a "no brainer?".  I agree, no brains at all were used in that one.

'''Research shows if we reduce the speed limit … we will prevent one fatality, nine serious injury crashes and up to 25 casualty crashes every year,'' Cr Doyle said. ''If it saves a single life, it's worth doing.''

Bullshit.

The base reality is that society accepts a certain rate of death as a matter of expediency.  None of us want to walk instead of driving, or give up flying in airplanes, or drive at 40km/h either.  We don't like it, but we accept that 0.0001% of the time (or whatever it is) someone will die on an airplane due to mechanical failure, or because someone couldn't drive their digit up their freckle.  So let's stop pretending.

Speed is demonised because it's an easy scapegoat, easily measured by any flatfoot with a hair dryer (or better yet a tax camera) and bloody profitable.

What's next?

Ooh, yes - mobiles!

I can quite legally perform all of the following simultaneously:

• change the CD
• eat a pie
• balance an open Coke in the fork
• hold a conversation with someone in the car
• hold a conversation via phone as long as I'm screaming at a handset just far enough that it picks up every bit of cabin noise, or via a gadget mounted to the sun visor where I can't talk and see at the same time due to my eyes being fairly conventionally located in the top front of my head
• give someone helpful hand signal feedback on their driving technique
• hold pretty much anything I like in my hand, like a CB radio handset (which involves holding something and having a conversation with someone not in the vehicle, but is, you know, like *totally* safer than using a mobile)

But the PRECISE MOMENT I hold a mobile phone while driving the seas will boil, the sky will fall, and there will be a fatality.

Bullshit.

Again, easily detected, easily demonised, and the reality that the precise same combination of factors causes crashes every day is ignored - because it can't be easily, conveniently and lucratively detected.

What's next?  Ah yes, fatigue.  Apparently we're all death on wheels driving home from work now after a long day.

Bullshit.

Gee, maybe if we could all just DRIVE and not have to put up with congestion and traffic jams caused by totally inadequate road systems, we got the cretins who can't drive or think the road is a racetrack out of the way, and got the rusted out unroadworth shitboxes off the road... it wouldn't be a problem?

I'm actually surprised the cops bang on so much about fatigue.  They can't test for it, can't prove it, and can't charge you for it.  I'd almost think they were genuinely concerned, if not for the fact that it would be the sole example of it in the midst of every other one of the revenue raising excuses.

To go back to the original article... here's Flatfoot McPlod's 5 top complaints:

TOP 5 DRIVER DISTRACTIONS1. Using mobile phones
2. Changing CDs and choosing music
3. Reading newspapers and books
4. Eating
5. Getting dressed and applying make-up

How many of these have a specific law against them?

What a surprise - only mobiles.  The rest come under " driving without due care and attention" or "dangerous driving", both of which come down to "we couldn't bust you for anything specific, so we've got this nice and easy categorisation where anything  that goes wrong is deemed to be your fault".

As far as I can see, that means that basically *anything* you're doing while driving can be deemed to be at fault if there is an accident, ranging from shooing a fly away to getting a blow job while tooling up the M1.

So what should the plod go and do something about that might actually make a difference?

How about people who patently haven't got a bloody clue how to drive, including use of indicators, ability to merge, or who can't get their act together to get into the right exit lane despite 20km of runup and the fact that they take the same exit every afternoon on the way home?  Nope, we'll just pull a kamikaze across three lanes of traffic.  If you pulled every asian off the road and retested them to some sort of standard half the problem would go away right there.

How about dickheads who think the place is their own personal racetrack?  Surely it wouldn't take much to round up every wog and fully hektik leb in the place with a WRX and put them under the microscope, you'd shift half of the moving violations unpaid fines in an afternoon.  Same for the japs and wannabes who have watched The Fast And The Furious a few too many times and own some old blowing clapped Skyline.  Or are driving around on P plates in V8s and turbos, restriction laws be damned.

Heaven forbid we should introduce numberplate recognition cameras FUCKING EVERYWHERE and start catching some of the pricks driving unlicenced, disqualified, in unregistered vehicles.  Why this isn't done on every major road utterly baffles me.

Gee, how about we develop a half effective roadside drug testing method, and ACTUALLY USE IT?  That's half the reason that politicians won't legalise weed, inability to effectively test for it - the other half being they can't figure out how to tax it effectively if people are growing the stuff in the backyards.

We could get the unsafe shitboxes off the roads, like the van I saw the other afternoon that had such a badly bent chassis that the rear end was tracking a solid 4" to the left of the front.  I was in the left lane about two lengths back and I couldn't see the side of the vehicle.
How about doing something about morons who hoon on the road?  I the car is their, crush it - no warnings, no chances, just get it done.  The lock them up for 6 months or so (to give them a decent chance of getting reamed a few times), fine them $10,000 and disqualify them from driving for 10 years.  While the current laws are a joke both in terms of enforcement and penalty, they are ignored.

But what will we do?  Ban the use of mobiles in cars and buy more speed cameras to catch people 3km/h over the limit on the freeway, because that's obviously the problem, right?

Morons.

Seriously, people...

Rod Laver arena

Evermore just warmed up for INXS, Matchbox 20 on stage shortly.

Rube Goldberg gets into Parkour

Now this is one heck of a big tree

 

Announcement

I would just like to announce that stabbing yourself in the hand SUCKS.

Suck it, Huawei

Despite Huawei's protestations about being banned from bidding on NBN work, and the usual tired old knee-jerk reactions of the coalition, I am delighted to see that the US has similar concerns about letting a firm owned and controlled by a communist government potentially install back doors and easter eggs into their networks.

And that's quite apart from the fact that they make cheap shite.

And muslims wonder why the rest of the world regard them as terrorists

Muslims get really pissed off when they're told they are terrorists, and insist they they are a peaceful religion of tolerance.

Then half the muslim world starts rioting because one person posts a dissenting point of view on Youtube, and you've got a Pakistani government minister offering a $100,000 bounty for the murder of the amateur film maker.

Yeah, tolerance.  Right.  The reality is that muslims are a brainwashed set of mindless automatons still following a centuries outdated and idiotic belief that they've got the best imaginary friend of all, while carrying out some of the more barbaric ongoing practices the world has ever tolerated.  If you want to act like that then by all means do so - in Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Go for your quoit.  But while you're in MY country, which nobody wants you in anyway, I don't want to here it.

Australia - love it or leave.  Leave would be good.

 

 

By the way, here's the video that started it, I hope it pisses someone off.  I am SOOOO glad that Youtube and the US justice system showed some spine for once and refused to pull it down just because some snowflake feels sad as a result of it.

 

Ham sandwich, anyone?

 

The silent majority has spoken

Who would have thunk it, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott agreeing on something?

Apparently both still hold some fundamentally conservative core values, as both helped defeat the same sex marriage bill in the House of Representatives today, thankfully ensuring that Australia's legal values continue to represent the wishes of the vast majority who want nothing to do with it.

Sorry, gay marriage supporters, but the reality is that most people don't care about your cause, don't like your lifestyle choice, and are not interested in seeing it intrude into their own culture and lives any more than it has already.    If nothing else, politicians can be counted on to curry the favour of their voting constituency, and 42 for to 98 against sounds like a pretty resounding sort of result to me.

"Now the federal parliament has effectively brushed the wishes of a majority of Australians aside" said some poofter with a with a vested interest, but little demonstrated skill at basic mathematics.  If you get the greenies and small "l" liberals out of the road, the polls show the majority of society isn't interested in it.

If nothing else, I'm exceedingly pleased to see this defeated, because acceptance by the state is a imposition of acceptance upon all, and it sure has hell doesn't represent my point of view on the matter.  It's also yet another further step towards legitimisation of a fundamentally deviant lifestyle, and we're way too far down that particular track already.

Homosexuality may well be further legitimised in the future, but hopefully not until after I don't have to put up with it.

Another helicopter parent's dreams crushed

Must be a slow news day... apparently it's important that some precious snowflake's helicopter mum is outraged that, perish forbid, she and her badly behaved little shit might actually be held accountable for his actions.

What is the world coming to when all of a sudden it's not someone else's fault or you're no longer a victim of neglect by the system, and you're actually responsible for the things you do and say?  Holy crap... that means... we can't just do whatever the hell we want anymore without any repercussions!  And parents might have to actually take some responsibility for teaching their children discipline, manner, appropriate behaviour, respect for authority and others, and to generally behave themselves!  Crazy talk.

'Ms Evans said her son was often in trouble but the incident had prompted her to search for another school.'

So in other words Ms Evans, you acknowledge he's a little prick but you think the school should just deal with it.  I'm sure there won't be a dry eye in the house when you take your little hellspawn elsewhere.

Shame...

So I see that there's a new batch of deadly drugs on the street.

Carefactor?  Hang on, let me find it, I'm sure it's here somewhere.

Hmm, nope - don't seem to have one, so put me down for carefactor zero that people taking drugs made in bathtubs by criminals are being killed by them.

Overdeveloped self importance

I see that Andrew Wilkie is yet again suffering delusions of overdeveloped self importance in thinking that anyone gives a set of fetid dingo's kidneys about his opinion on asylum seekers.  Or, indeed, pretty much anything.

News for you, Andrew - you're a typical looney nutbag greenie (despite your refusing to admit to your politican leanings one way or the other, and sitting on the fence as an "independant") whose grip on the real world is tenuous at best.  The only reason you've had a few moments of anyone taking you seriously is the Australian public's lamentable failing to deliver a clear mandate one way or the other at the last federal election - something that I predict won't occur again for some time.

So be a good chap and pull your head in, because nobody cares what you think.

A nonny mouse?

While I'm sometimes conflicted as to whether I support Anonymous or not, this time they are officially dead set legends if only for their choice of music.  :)

What if your dog could text you?

False idolatry

I read with amusement that two of Australia's Olympic swimming hopefuls are apparently in hotter than normal water over their posting of a Facebook picture showing them posing with some guns in America.

OK, a few points here.  Let's get the simple ones out of the way first for people with simple minds who can't quite cope with anything more complex.

For starters, guns are NOT evil.  They are an inanimate object.  Deal with this.

Secondly, the guns in question are no doubt perfectly legal where the picture was taken.  Different parts of the world have different laws.  Deal with this too.  Would the bunny hugger brigade be similarly outraged if the people in question had their photo taken in Utah in front of a polygamist family?  Or eating a meat product that can't be legally imported into Australia?  Take your moral high horse somewhere else.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the whole furore is utter crap.  Regardless of what people would like to think, these people are NOT role models - they're just people, who happen to able to swim very well.  That doesn't make them upstanding examples of anything other than sporting achievement.

Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh were two of Australia's most legendary cricketers of all time.  Both are bascially complete pricks, something which has been proven more than once.  Idolising them doesn't change that.  The local Melbourne community constantly battles with the conundrum of worshipping AFL players who, that aside, often behave like complete cunts - because the people involved are basically thug arseholes who just happen to be able to play a peculiar code of ball game (I won't dignify it by calling it football) well.

Do I like the two swimmers in question?  I've honestly never really heard of Kenrick Monk.  His parent(s) want slapping for the pretentious name, but that's my only feeling on the subject.

Nick D'Arcy, my inbuilt dislike for people with pretentious names aside, is apparently a bit of an arsehole, although I do hold a certain sneaking prejudice against the second place combatant for apparently not only being a cream puff, but also a sore loser too.  (I have no idea if Simon Cowley was right or wrong in the dispute in question, and to be honest it's not relevant to the argument - either way he got a kicking.  If he was right, he might want to learn to pull his head in in the face of superior force.  If he was wrong - he can hand his man card in at the door on the way out.)

Ultimately, sports people are people good at sports, regardless of what virtues we'd like to invest them with.  That's a construct of our own making, and for every Kieran Perkins, there's a Grant Hackett.  Any invention of idolatry is of our making, not theirs.

We have the choice of picking sportsmen who either excel at sport, or picking nice people.  Very occasionally, someone like Ian Healy comes along who can do both.  These people are the exception.  The rest of the time, the choice is often winning medals or giving a charming concession speech.  Pick one.  Any disappointment resulting is far more a reflection on our shallow minded expectations of idealism than anything else.

Oh YAY

Great, so it looks like Flame has managed to subvert the digital signature system used for MS updates, with the result that it now has a backdoor delivery system to the majority of PCs on the planet.

Personally, I'd get KB2718704 installed ASAP and hope that the update itself doesn't get man-in-the-middled.

Knots in the family tree

Have a read of this little gem.

As far as I can figure out, if the kids got married:

• the baby’s grandmother will also be his mother
• his stepfather will also be his father, and
• his stepmother will also be his half-sister.

I say go for it, if only just to have something to talk about at barbies.

TGIF

Shitful day at work, dealt with a variety of bullshit that is NOT my problem, but got stuck with it anyway.

Equally shitful drive home through totally unnecessary roadworks and a cluster of morons who are either cruising at 85 on the freeway weaving back and forth between two lanes, or think the place is their private cannonball run.

Two exits from home someone's precious little snowflake and leader of tomorrow thinks it's fucking hilarious to be egging cars from the pedestrian bridge over the freeway.  I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't a brick.  15 minute diversion to the carwash to get the crap off because I can't leave it until morning - the paint is ageing disgracefully but I'd prefer it as is thanks.  Briefly toyed with the idea of calling the cops but couldn't be bothered, because the cops wouldn't catch them and precisely nothing would happen if they did.  Satisfied myself with calling the radio station and telling them that anyone listening had my full and complete permission to beat seven colour of shit out of them if they happened to be in the area.  I can dream.

Get home and the handbrake is freaking because the cat isn't home, but can be heard making distressed cries from a few yards over.  It's 00:15hrs, brilliant time to be prowling around in people's yard with a torch, good way to get yourself shot, and there's going to be no way to carry the bastard home if I can find him, because when a nervy 6kg cat decides he's leaving it's like holding onto a running chainsaw by the business end.

After sneaking around in 3 yards I give up because anything further means ringing doorbells and it's now 00:35hrs, which is a bit much really.  Go back to the yard for a recce because he at least replies when he hears my voice, and I still reckon he's in one of the two yards I have already been through fairly thoroughly.

Finally discovered the furry little sod on the second storey roof of the house diagonally behind us, not distressed in the slightest, just talking back and enjoying his death-from-above view of things.  Couldn't pinpoint him from sound because of the fences and brickwork, but cat eyes will reflect damn near anything.  Once he learned I could see him, he happily got down and zipped along the fence back into his own yard, stuffed his face, and is currently asleep on the bed.

Fucking cat.

Where's the shiraz, I'm getting blasted.

News of the morning

I see Moany Tony want all preschoolers to learn a second language.  An excellent idea, might I suggest English as the language of choice?

Also in breaking news, I see Tony also doesn't like the federal budget.

Slightly more back to the real world, the poor beleagured smokers of the world are now whining that they are being excluded from applying for some jobs, presumably on the basis that the potential employers would rather not have someone taking numerous smoke breaks to kill themselves with cancer while on company time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, smokers have a problem with that, but that's OK because nobody else gives a flying fuck about their wish to slowly rot themselves to death with poisonous chemicals.

Acting Victorian Equal Opportunity Commissioner Karen Toohey said job advertisements must not discriminate.  "Stipulating smokers need not apply for a job may be against the law."

Sorry, Kazza - you might want to recheck the definition of illegal discrimination, which is discrimination on the grounds of "age, colour, creed, disability, family status, gender, nationality, marital status, parental status, political opinion/affiliation, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, race or social origin, religious beliefs/activity, responsibilities, sex, responsibilities, or sexual orientation".

I think most people would agree it's OK to discriminate against hiring a heroin addict, for instance.  I don't see anything in the definition above that says you're required to hire someone that voluntarily carries on an addictive practice that requires them to absent themselves from work to poison themselves, affects their performance when they are jonesing for their next hit, affects their performance after it, creates objectionable smells and odours for co-workers, leaves toxic waste behind that other people need to avoid and someone else needs to clean up, and slowly rots the addict to death from the inside out.

Oh sorry, I forgot about heroin.  I was talking about tobacco addicts.  Yeah, that's OK, because it's socially acceptable and legal!  Yeah, that's totally discrimination if you don't hire a smoker.

Your Wednesday bullshit of the morning

News of the morning is this little gem, a real charmer who attempted to murder his wife's younger sister because she dared take the wife to the beach.

The court heard, because of his religious beliefs and because he thought he had absolute authority over her, Belghar felt it "abhorrent" that his wife, Hanife Kokden, had been to the beach where she "displayed her body".

Gee, sport - the last time I looked this was Australia, and by living here you agreed to abide by Australian law.  If you want to treat your wife like a repressed lower form of life behind closed doors then unfortunately there isn't much that can be done about it, but you bloody well should be accountable to local law, under local law, if you breach the values and beliefs of the country you are living in.

The Crown appealed against Judge Solomon's ruling arguing that, if the judge was correct, every Muslim would be entitled to a judge-only trial.

My oath.  I am so glad this one was dismissed, because this sort of crap would be the thin edge of the wedge of muslims getting their own treatment outside of Australian law.

If you want to live and be judged under sharia law then feel entirely free to fuck off and live somewhere else where it's practiced.  Australia won't miss you.

News of the day

Good news (freaking EXCELLENT news) -

A New Your judge has ruled that an IP address is not sufficient evidence to identify copyright infringers via the Bittorrent protocol or similar, due to the fact that an IP identifies only a connection, not an individual.  On top of the final defeat of the AFACT vs iiNet trial, this is very good news for file sharing, because it seems we are moving closer to a position of being more or less untouchable.  ISPs cannot be forced to cut off connections, now we can't be identified  individually remotely (so no need to worry about VPNs for obscurity), and with index sites like TPB going exclusively to magnet links, there is effectively nothing less to shut down.

The next step will probably be a pure peering client where even indexing sites are no longer required, and the client searches the swarm for content directly - in effect the swarm will generate its own indexing system.

In less good news, Micro$oft are being their normal corporate prick selves, and Windows 8 won't have DVD playback capability unless you purchase the additional "media centre" module.  How fucking petty is that?  Luckily, using VLC or something like it neatly sidesteps their little attempt at extortion, and I'm just going to pirate their ultimate version anyway, like I have every single version of their OS to date.

Uninformed radio DJ of the morning

I was listening to Ross Stevenson bang on about this article about how apparently we're all apparently going to be killed in the ever crowded skies this morning, when the segment producer apparently decided it was a good idea to tee up a brief interview with the vice-president of the Australian and International Pilots Association for his take on the matter.

(As an aside, the bloke in question was on a mobile in the back seat of a cab in London at the time, and the time delay on the call was damn near zero - I wouldn't have even noticed it if the announcer had not mentioned it.  Bloody impressive.)

Rossco made the point that one "near miss" had been 7.4 miles - which he compared to parking his car in Collins St and nearly getting hit by a car in Balwyn, and was generally taking the piss.

The AIPA bloke made the reply of the morning -

"What you've got to understand is those limits are set by time, not distance.  Those aircraft are traveling at 8 miles a minute.  That breach means they were less than 28 seconds from a collision at a little under a combined 1,000 miles an hour.  You still feeling safe?"

New work roster

Starting a new work roster (again) in about 4 weeks.  We had a chance to vote on a 6 week or 8 week rotation, and the former overwhelmingly won.

 

Pros and cons –

 

6 week – more penalties, about 22% as opposed to 18%.

 

8 week – still only work 1 week of nights and one of evenings per rotation, and three full weekends, so less ‘nasty’ shifts.

 

 

The new roster is effectively identical to my current one, I also get to keep the same shift partner and even slot in the rotation, but they are now synchronising the tier 1 teams with us so we get some permanent tier 1 shift partners too.  I consider myself lucky as I really did get the cream of the crop.

 

What surprised me was that I thought the tier 1 crew would have voted for the 6 week rotation mostly for the extra penalties (they’re coming from a 12 week horror), but I was informed last night that that wasn’t the primary motivation.  It was that the higher proportion of afternoon/night/weekend shifts meant less time working when their moron management were there to ‘help’.  Nice.

Hey, y'all hold my beer and watch this!

Today's ironic comment from the leaders of tomorrow

Came across this little gem on the net this morning…

 

“we should be alowed to go to work and earn mony instead of going to school and waisting mony on uniform and books when we dont nee to no half the stuff they teach uss”

 

Direct cut and paste.

Gee, this has only dawned on you *now*?

In breaking news, rocket scientists have discovered (shock!!!) that Nutella is actually not a health food after all.  Wow, who would have thunk it?

CONSUMERS who feel they were cheated into buying Nutella as a nutritious treat could be entitled to cash, after class action lawsuits inspired by a Californian mom were settled to the tune of $3 million.   
It's hardly a surprise this happened in California, which surpasses even Florida as North America's official Moron State, but I really have to ask whether the decision is actually justified.  Anyone so blitheringly, cretinously stupid as to believe that a jar of liquid chocolate would  "nourish their children with whole grains" as "part of a balanced meal" just because it's got a few ground hazelnuts in it pretty much deserves to be ripped off as far as I'm concerned.

Perish forbid, the next thing parents will be expecting their hand held over the slightest decision regarding their children - I know, let's create an I'm-a-moron traffic light system so I don't have to understand any of this stuff!  Because there's *no* worries that a food industry that knows people don't want monosodium glutamate in their food would label it "flavour enhancer 621" for instance, because clearly everyone out there understands the International Codex Alimentarius food numbering system and this wouldn't be *any* sort of impediment to understand precisely what they are being flogged.

Or that products can be clearly labelled "reduced sugar", because it doesn't have sugar in it - it has sucralose!



Hint, parents of the world - kids like anything sweet, salty or fatty.  It's why they will only eat the Cheerios for breakfast, and want McDonald's the rest of the time.  Instead of expecting to be spoon fed and complaining when you're expected to take some goddamn responsibility for your own actions, maybe *try* some of those Cheerios (or Coco Pops, or Fruit Loops) yourself - let's see how many of you spit them out in appalled horror at getting a mouthful of pure sugar, shall we?

And maybe instead of asking for a traffic light system for good/bad foods, perhaps you could exercise a neuron or two and stop being sucked into blindly believing advertising for the credulous - like that fucking label on the front of the Nutella bottle that claims it's "hazelnut spread".  Yeah, and the bomb at Hiroshima was actually just a really, really good tanning salon.

Whacko of the day

Your greenie idiot whacko loony of the day is this chick, who voluntarily sat in the front window of a Lush shop and underwent product testing normally done on animals for 10 hours.

Fine by me if she wants to.  It doesn't change the fact for an iota of time that the testing has to be done somehow, but if she's happy to consent for it to be done to her as opposed to a rabbit, then by all means go for it.  It would be better if she lost the body stocking, though.

Humane Society spokeswoman Wendy Higgins said it was ‘morally unthinkable’ that cosmetic companies should continue to profit from animal suffering, adding there could be ‘no justification for subjecting animals to pain for the sake of producing lipstick and eye shadow’.

And how else are they supposed to do it, my dear?  How about you keep your morals to yourself and stop trying to impose them on other people.

Day two

Everything is definitely a lot more comfortable on day two, and closer to conventional size as well.  Got to be happy with that.

Following on from my post of a couple of days ago, I am sure that everyone's flabber is thoroughly gasted that the 14 year old who ran over a woman on the footpath whilst trying to evade police and driving a stolen car is a multiple repeat car thief offender.  Never would have thunk it, eh?

The revelation came as Redfern elder Mick Mundine said he feared people seeking justice for the teenagers would incite violence.  Mr Mundine admitted he was worried about a repeat of the revenge riots in Redfern after the death of T.J. Hickey if people took matters into their own hands.

That's OK, Mick.  There's plenty more ammo.

Nut cutting 101

Today was the dreaded day.  V-day.  Yep, I got a vasectomy.

 

Despite all the briefing material there was a considerable amount of trepidation on my part, perhaps understandable.  I don’t like needles at the best of times, the occasional horror story doing the rounds doesn’t help, and there’s a certain reluctance to allow someone to lay sharp tools on your tackle at the best of times, I think most sane people would agree.

 

The nurses at the clinic were, as usual, thoroughly professional and efficient, and totally unshockable and unflappable.  I was instructed to disrobe from the waist down, place everything other than “supportive underwear” on the chair, and the daks next to the table.  Eh???

 

The surgery has a TV screen on the ceiling, which I was informed could be used for displaying the news, Two and a half men, or The Simpsons.  Or for broadcasting the procedure to the TVs in the waiting room.  I’m going to get that bloody nurse.

 

A doctor with a sense of humour way too cheerful and warped for a Monday morning appeared, and started wiping things and draping other things, and making a quite disconcerting serious of metallic clicks from just out of range of sight.  I don’t need to see or hear that, please.

 

The nurse complimented me on the preoperative self-care I had done.  Well, what she actually said was “Nice shave job on the balls!  Best of the morning!” at which stage SWMBO  - who was in the room for immoral support – burst out laughing.  Thanks, everyone.  No, really.

 

At this stage the Doctor gave his little “this may sting a bit” speech followed by sticking a bloody cold needle into bits you normally wouldn’t wish stuck.  I managed to refrain from using intemperate language but only just.  After some faffing about there was another stick, much less sensation than before.  We then played the “can you feel that?” game for a couple of minutes during which I am bloody sure the bastard was sticking a bulldog clip onto my nads, but while I could feel pressure, there was no pain.  I assured the Doctor he would be informed with great haste and aclarity should discomfort be experienced.

 

A small incision is then made at the top of the apparatus and the Doctor gets to go fishing for plumbing.  This is by far and away the most uncomfortable part of the procedure, as by this stage the boys have decided to seek shelter and have retreated.  Nurses have a way of dealing with this.  It involves getting a firm squirrel grip and hiking everything out where it needs to be, and if the patient indicates this is less than fully enjoyable you’re told to relax and stop trying to retract the things into the back of your throat.  This is what I was told, at any rate.

 

I might point out at this stage that the nurse is actually pretty hot, but the fact that she is aggressively manipulating your balls isn’t a problem considering the handbrake is holding your hand, and the nurse is executing a manoeuvre that I think gets taught in women’s self defense classes as a standard deterrent to attackers.

 

Finally, the Doctor locates the target plumbing with a device resembling a boathook.  The necessary hydraulics are hooked out, tied and severed.  SWMBO declined the offer to perform the actual cut.  I did mention the staff have a warped sense of humour.

 

Finally, appropriate padding is applied and the aforementioned supportive undergarments are deployed into place so as to provide mild pressure in the right places.  I haven’t had someone dress me for some time, and I did seek leave to balance the just-short-of-lift-and-separate tensioning with removing the wedgie that was resulting.  The nurse opined it probably wasn’t often that strange women put underwear on me, and I agreed, adding it was more normally removing it.  I think it was bloody unreasonable that the handbrake should punch me at that stage, my being a patient and all.  I received no sympathy from the staff.   :(   At least now I understand the tactical location of the foundation garmentry.

 

I then got a showbag of goodies with instructions, drugs, sample cups, a stubbie cooler I am *very* tempted to take to work, and some other paraphernalia.  You then get invited to sling your hook so they can have at the next poor sod.  I think the surgery was poorly placed on the first floor, as stairs are not all that terribly comfortable to negotiate.

 

The washup is a set of tackle about twice normal size which does promote a certain modification to walking technique, and I highly advise the wide stance before approaching a chair.  Low set lounges are to be avoided, because even if you can find a comfortable spot, you can’t bloody well stand up afterwards.  Your wife *will* laugh at you when you ask for help.

 

Day 2 to come.

Bleeding heart Monday

I see the bleeding heart never-anyone's-fault brigade are at it again following the shooting of the two little scumbags in Sydney last week.

Greens justice spokesman David Shoebridge said the footage raised "serious and legitimate questions about police conduct".

"I will be referring this matter to the Police Integrity Commission seeking the watchdog's immediate intervention in this case," he said in a statement.

"It is not good enough to only have police investigating police in cases where there are serious questions about the police use of firearms and violence".

Yes, someone has to protect the rights of the two little lambs who were brutally injured by the nasty totalitarian oppressor police.

Or maybe the little fucks shouldn't have been driving a stolen car around at 4am, with the 14 year old driver attempting to evade police and running over a woman on the footpath, and the occupants of the car were drunk and high on cannabis at the time?  Just maybe?

Just a few beds away, Troy was still fighting for life with his father furious about the "brutality factor of what happened to him".
Poor little lamb.  He should be able to do whatever the hell he wants and not be punished for it.

Personally I wish they had done a better job and shot the little fuck in the head at the time.

I did gotted me a beer :)

That's a 4 litre chateau collapsible it is sitting next to.

Police chases

So I see the police are yet again being blamed by the bleeding heart liberals of the world for a death during the pursuit of a criminal.

'The crash has prompted a call from opposition police spokeswoman Michelle Roberts for a review of police pursuits, which she says should occur only in extraordinary circumstances.  Pursuing a stolen car in the middle of the day in built-up areas was not warranted, given the risk of injury to innocent members of the public and police officers, she said.'

Gee Michelle, it must be nice to be able to sit on the sidelines and just have all the answers, while taking none of the heat for actually making the hard decisions.

The simple reality is that setting any sort of automatic limit on when a criminal gets pursued - be it based on speed, time of day, location or anything else - simply tells criminals when they can get away with flouting the law with impunity.  Abandon chase at 140km/h?  Cool, steal something faster.  Can't pursue through a built up area?  Awesome, let's deliberately drive through a built up area as fast as we can.

Yes, it's tragic that an innocent member of the public died.  That's horrible.  The cops involved were running a red light, they have a duty of care to the public at the best of times, let alone when breaking traffic rules in pursuit.

Yes, I think it's reasonable that consent be sought for a pursuit to ensure there is oversight of the safety of doing so.  I'm quite happy with the decision residing with a senior officer as opposed to a potentially junior officer, in the name of making a mature decision.

But no, I don't think that eliminating every single possible danger to the public at the expense of abandoning any effective hope of preventing criminal behaviour is workable.  And I'm sure that ol' Michelle would be the first person putting out a press release about the failure of government to control criminal behaviour if it was done, too.

Homebrew electronics

Not quite what you might think… I just poured about half a shot of bourbon into my keyboard.  This will be interesting.

Live long, and prosper.

Very, very interesting photo, despite the idiot on the left.

Anyone not quite getting it should have a look at the necklace the lady in question is wearing. And no, she hasn't changed much over the years at all.

Calling captain obvious

Read this little gem in the news this morning, another shining example of rubbish journalism.

If this is a surprise to anyone, wake up and smell the coffee.

The reality is that 89% of Australia's population lives in urban centres, and if I average the population of NSW, Qld, Victoria, SA and WA living in the capitals, it's 65% - Australia is one of the most heavily urbanised countries in the world.

What this means is that in the major metro areas, you have two choices.  Actually, three.

1. Pay a fortune for a house block somewhere reasonable.  Reasonable means not having a two hour car drive or train ride to work every day, or not having to live in some hole of a suburb where you can play spot-the-Aussie out from between the bars on the windows.
2. Pay a lesser fortune and put up with the soul crushing degradation of spending 20% of your waking life commuting to and from work.
3. Abandon hope of owning your own home, and watch prices spiral out of control faster than you can accumulate any sort of savings to enter the market, all while paying off someone else's mortgage and funding their home and wealth.

Good choices, hey?

Maybe if as a society we didn't think that we'd just *die* if we didn't have flat screen TVs in every room, expensive internet, IPTV and a $120 a fucking WEEK mobile phone bill, we might be able to focus a little more on what's actually important, like a place to live.  In other words stop being a shallow little gen-Z waste of space and think more than 5 minutes into the future.

Pitiful.  Deserve everything they don't get.

Office jargon and what it means.

Compiled after several long nights of reading documentation and lab reports.

Statement - All methods of procedure and standard configuration templates have been approved by the chief technology group.
Means - Don't complain to us if you don't like the way it's been done.

Statement - A commercial solution from an approved, industry leading vendor has been utilised in line with their recommendations.
Means - We wasted heaps of time trying to do this ourselves, until we discovered you can just buy one.

Statement - The test lab was configured with a standalone VLAN environment, and real world physical conditions were simulated with a 20dB attenuator between the port and the termination device.  A JDSU HST-3000 test set with 3HE12398BAA01 optical module and LC-SC/APC patching was configured to simulate a termination device before throughput testing to T-BERD/MTS-4000 console acting as a host device.
Means - This has little relevance to the real world, but it's what we had available.  If you come to us complaining that your results are different, we will point out that you're using a different setup to us.  Don't expect to replicate out results.

Statement - Packet filter and forwarding settings varied with test conditions and objectives.
Means - We dicked about with the settings for ages until it suddenly started working.

Statement - Simulation parameters were chosen based on empirically realistic values and expected real world conditions.
Means - We made stuff up.

Statement - Standard port configuration should be in line with the supplied table of VLAN settings, 0x800 802.1Q encapsulation requirements, FDB table entries, MTU 8192, Ethernet regeneration profiles and optical transmission parameters.
Means - No idea why this works.  We got it from the last guy who touched it.

Statement - The completed installation was left to heat-soak overnight in order to assess the thermal tolerance and stability of the proposed solution.
Means - We went for a few beers.

Statement - Performance analysis was conducted using a world standard diagnostics package from an approved vendor.
Means - We put all the numbers into a magic box and we're calling what came out a design.

I see dumb people

Dumb act of the day –

My computer idiot mate has just sent me an error message from his machine.

He achieved this by writing down the error, then scanning the note, then e-mailing the scanned image.

Fuck me...

What a bastard of a day

Still dealing with a cut hand, had a blue with the handbrake over the kid being a little cunt as usual, then sliced my index finger badly on a pair of shears I had just sharpened (well, apparently).  Claret everywhere.

 

Then discovered the clothes dryer was stuffed, suspect secondary to the aforementioned handbrake not flicking the start switch back to run, and burning out the start capacitor.  Handbrake protests “it’s only a $20 secondhand dryer.”  No, IT’S BLOODY NOT.  IT’S A $400 DRYER, WHICH IS WHAT IT COSTS TO **REPLACE**, regardless of what I paid for it.

 

Then I cut myself shaving for work, paid $1.55 for fuel on the way in, and had a bastard of a shift handling irrelevant bullshit we should not be worrying about in the first place, only intermittently interrupted by some intelligent conversation with a couple of people I respect. I did get to hack on some gear though, which is always good – especially when I have proved the vendor is bullshitting us.

I gotta get me one of these.

Igor, pass me another brain

Rebrained my router with DD-WRT on Sunday evening, and I’m amazed at the performance increase.

 

(I’m even more amazed I managed not to brick the thing in the process due to being somewhat impaired by homebrew bourbon at the time.)

 

Transient response improvement I can only describe as a quantum leap over the stock Linksys firmware, and the configurability is all that I could ask for.

 

Software companies of the world – you should look at the DD-WRT model carefully.  It’s a beggarware/crowdsourced product that I would actually pay money for, BECAUSE IT WORKS.

I'm almost tempted to buy one...

...but I quite like remaining married.

http://www.nervoussquirrel.com/badgermin.html

Stupid journo of the day

Just in case you haven't had your morning dose of stupid yet, you might as well get it over with and read this little gem of an article.

It doesn't appear to have occurred to the scribbler that people are paid an annual income, which gets divided by 52 to derive a weekly pay - something that doesn't change whether it's a leap year or not.  If our rocket scientist journo (who presumably does their rough drafts in crayon) can point to the work week where anyone works 8 days instead of 7 for the same money, I'd love to see it.

Personally though, I reckon the idea of getting married on February 29 would be awesome - only one anniversary every 4 years.

OK, I just found a use for a tablet.

Damn, this is one hell of a cool idea.

Are you listening, AppleMicrosoftSonySamsungAcerPanasonic?

I need to have a phone with me.  It needs to be a smartphone, because I need mobile web and mail.  What I don't need is to be paying for more than one cell account just because I want connectivity on other devices, and I won't pack a lump of tablet with me 24/7 just for a few lousy inches of extra screen.

Wires, cables and connectors suck.  I hate carting them around.  I'm not so sure about tying myself into one proprietary format and manufacturer like this, but as soon as you go off the reservation and start inventing your own standards, the attractiveness of your product goes down.

Put some freaking connectors on your device (are you listening, Apple?).  I need a couple of USBs, ethernet, and a HD video out at least - I don't care if it's HDMI or Displayport, you can't please everyone.  You might as well include line-level mic and speaker for basic earbud usage.  Wifi and Bluetooth will take care of most everything else.  The SD slot is cool, but I'm not paying a premium for it.

Hey, Apple - notice the device still has a freakin' optical drive??  We want those, and will for some time yet.  Deal with it, you don't define the world.

Now, if the whole thing just ran open source, we'd have convergence.  Although the video card is still going to suck.

PS - gadget manufacturers - will you please, FFS, get it together on a standard for inductive charging.  Everybody, every single person, without exception, in the entire world, hates charging devices.  Around my house at the moment I have on charge:

• at least four mobile phones
• three laptops
• a cordless drill
• a cordless vacuum
• a robot vacuum
• a torch
• a set of wireless headphones
• a bunch of Ni-MH batteries for the damn devices that take cells
• a camera
• a fish tank gravel cleaner
• a wireless keyboard
• a wireless mouse

We FUCKING HATE CHARGING BATTERIES.  For the love of dog, PLEASE do something about this.  It's well into the 21st century, and I can accept (grudgingly) that I don't have my flying car yet.  But batteries PISS ME OFF.  Please do something about it, thanks.

Gun rules

1. Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians.  Australia has both, and the latter is far more destructive.

 

2. It’s always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

 

3. Cops carry guns to protect themselves - not you.

 

4. Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arm’s length.  Preferably several arm’s lengths.

 

5. Never say, “I’ve got a gun.” If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they hear should be the safety clicking off.

 

6. The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .45 is 1000 feet per second.

 

7. The most important rule in a gunfight is:  always win.  Cheat if necessary.  There are no points awarded for style or chivalry.

 

8. Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets . . . You may get killed with your own gun, but he’ll have to beat you to death with it, because it’ll be empty.

 

9. If you’re in a gunfight:

 

- If you’re not shooting, you should be loading.

- If you’re not loading, you should be moving.

- If you’re not moving, you’re dead.

 

10. In a life and death situation, do something . . . It may be wrong, but do something!

 

11. If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?

 

12. You can say ‘stop’ or ‘alto’ or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much a universal language.

 

13. You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.

Talking crap with the right wing media

There really is no end that the right wing media in this country will not crawl to to find an excuse to criticise the current Labor government.

Liberal supporters, I realise you're really bitter about losing the last election.  I appreciate that it burns inside you how close you came to making it, but still failed.  I can understand how you're so close you can almost taste it, and constantly obsess about it.

But the reality is that you lost, and at the moment you come across as the most petulant, tantrum throwing, foot stamping, whiny, needy children Australian politics has seen for years.

Case in point:  federal unemployment figures were released yesterday, showing a surprise fall in the national unemployment rate falling from 5.2 to 5.1 per cent - something that apparently took even the government a little by surprise.

This apparently wrong-footed the right wing media for a while; they would have had their usual, tired old "the carbon tax is going to ruin the Australian economy" spiel printed out and ready to go.  Unfortunately for them, the real world isn't behaving and supporting their nice little prejudice this time around.

So what left to do?  Play the man and not the ball - let's attack the basis the figures were measured using!  About the only thing they could find to do so was that "employment" was defined as working at least 1 hour per week.  This was immediately parodied by every right wing radio jock in the country, I personally heard Chris Smith and Brian Wilshire having a go.  Their points of view came down to this being an unrealistic way of gauging workforce participation, not reflective of actual numbers, a way of hiding actual FTE rate etc.

Unfortunately for our increasingly desperate anti-Labor campaigners, they are, as usual, full of crap to the eyeballs, as the most casual analysis demonstrates.

The basis on which the figures are measured is largely immaterial to yesterday's announcement, because what was announced was a change in rate.  As long as the measurement basis remained unchanged from sample to sample, the improvement was real.  Sorry boys, but yes - real unemployment fell.

Secondly, the basis for measurement of participation rate as been the same since February 2001, and the last time I checked, the federal Liberal party were close to the middle of an 11-year term at the time.  I'd say the basis for comparison has been pretty stable?

Finally, some of the other tripe I hear Chris Smith dribble was that "encouraging students to stay in school until the end of year 12 would be artificially lowering the ranks of the unemployed".  Chris, you are really reaching with that one.  Quite apart from the fact that every government for the last... gee, more or less forever? has been trying to do that, the numbers involved are a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the total.  According to the ABS, there are approximately 250,000 students in year 12 study at a given time, whereas over 46,000 people found new employment according to yesterday's report.  If class sizes went up nearly 20% in the last six months you'd hear the screams of the teacher's unions across the country.

It would appear that the numbers Chris is quoting are about as tiny as the amount of work he put into dreaming them up.

I found the amost perfect picture this morning to illustrate the outlook of the right-wing media in this country, just substitute names like Chris Smith and Steve Price in as required.



And as always, a truer word has never been spoken.

eBay ad of the day

Read carefully.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170650112633&ssPageName=ADME%3AB%3AEF%3AMOTORS%3A1123&clk_rvr_id=239509824886#ht_4311wt_1165

Signs you're not getting on with the neighbours