Time ... keeps flowing like a river ...
Aug. 12th, 2009 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonA really really fast river with rapids.
Anyway, a couple of very short political rants today. Christopher Pyne, who is the Gregory Goyle of Australian politics (one of the main sidekicks of Opposition Leader Malcolm 'Draco Malfoy' Turnbull) blathered through a news interview that his party was going to join with independents to vote down the government's carbon trading bill because, in part, he wants to wait for the American model and follow it.
With the greatest respect to American flisters, following American political models is akin to saying 'we would like a complex, expensive and unwieldy system that we can pretend works'. Furthermore, given the fact that the US population is some 15 times the Australian, spread over a mostly similar land area, the American model, whatever it ends up being, will not smoothly translate to this country.
Regarding the US, Investor's Business Daily had a fascinating editorial on why socialised healthcare is akin to instant death, including the immortal line: 'People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.'
Alas, it has since been amended, though they at least admit to the error. A bit.
In happy news today, another friend is in town and we found her a very lovely skirt for $40, which turned out to be on special and marked down to $12. And Ben and Jerry's is coming to Sydney. Now if only Boots and Dalloyau would appear and Perugina would sell their Nero hot chocolate powder here, I might stay forever.
Back to editing, housecleaning, writing and a wee spot of sleep ...
Anyway, a couple of very short political rants today. Christopher Pyne, who is the Gregory Goyle of Australian politics (one of the main sidekicks of Opposition Leader Malcolm 'Draco Malfoy' Turnbull) blathered through a news interview that his party was going to join with independents to vote down the government's carbon trading bill because, in part, he wants to wait for the American model and follow it.
With the greatest respect to American flisters, following American political models is akin to saying 'we would like a complex, expensive and unwieldy system that we can pretend works'. Furthermore, given the fact that the US population is some 15 times the Australian, spread over a mostly similar land area, the American model, whatever it ends up being, will not smoothly translate to this country.
Regarding the US, Investor's Business Daily had a fascinating editorial on why socialised healthcare is akin to instant death, including the immortal line: 'People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.'
Alas, it has since been amended, though they at least admit to the error. A bit.
In happy news today, another friend is in town and we found her a very lovely skirt for $40, which turned out to be on special and marked down to $12. And Ben and Jerry's is coming to Sydney. Now if only Boots and Dalloyau would appear and Perugina would sell their Nero hot chocolate powder here, I might stay forever.
Back to editing, housecleaning, writing and a wee spot of sleep ...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Time ... keeps flowing like a river ...
Date: 2009-08-12 02:43 pm (UTC)Re: Time ... keeps flowing like a river ...
Date: 2009-08-12 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 03:12 pm (UTC)Also hi! *waves* I got nothing, just wanted to say hi.
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Date: 2009-08-12 03:26 pm (UTC)*Waves back!* I have been tidying, working, and taking people shopping for what feels like months now. Probably because it has been ;-)
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Date: 2009-08-12 03:54 pm (UTC)What's so bad about a health care system that produces a longer average life span and where everybody actually has an insurance and gets to be treated without piling on debts that you'll never be able to pay off?
Gee, I guess something that everybody! will profit from must be communist... and "evil" to quote Palin.
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Date: 2009-08-12 04:19 pm (UTC)The last time I was in the US I had a woman ask me how I could possibly feel safe living in Australia after the government came door to door and took all of our guns away (presumably a reference to the gun buy-back scheme and amnesty after the Port Arthur massacre in which a lone loony killed 35 people using high-powered weaponry). I pointed out that this had never happened, and that most Australians didn't own guns anyway.
She assured me that it had happened, and that I was clearly just covering up because I was a loyal Australian.
I pointed out that I am British, and live in Australia.
She tutted 'Socialist' and walked off.
I supposed the difference between socialised services and socialist services has never really been made clear on that side of the Pacific/Atlantic ...
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Date: 2009-08-12 07:48 pm (UTC)Yes, British always equals Socialist, we've known that since Maggie Thatcher, right...
"socialsed services and socialist services" - I've got to remember that one.
I always snicker when I read something about someone in the US being deadly afraid of Communists - they wouldn't know one if it bit them in the ass! Over here we've got quite a few of them in active politics, and they average just as many loonies as the other parties do, not a big distinction.
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Date: 2009-08-12 06:21 pm (UTC)I don't think so.
One wonders whether they supposed he was American vbecause of his speech synthesiser.
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:36 pm (UTC)Prof Hawking today declared in the US that he would not be alive without the NHS, bless him.
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Date: 2009-08-13 05:19 pm (UTC)He wasn't bleeding famous when they started treating him.
Fuckwits.
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Date: 2009-08-12 10:51 pm (UTC)I'll never get that idea out of my head now. *cries*
I am resolutely not going to rant here about the ridiculousness and futility of carbon trading as a means to address CO2 levels produced by this (or any) country, or the even great stupidity of then having a bitching match about whose scheme is better. I am equally resolute about not commenting on the white wash that is untested US carbon scrubbing technology or the idea of burying CO2 waste under the Aussie desert.
This is me not ranting or commenting on any of that. You will not hurt your neck watching me up on my soapbox while reading this comment.
*is strong*
And consequently, in the spirit of this comment, I will also not mention healthcare or the idea that a nationalised system somehow equates to the great evils of socialism, with the reds marching in lockstep just a prescription pad behind.
See how good I can be?
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:38 pm (UTC)You're very good. I have tiny feet, can I have a corner of your soapbox? Not that you're using it, of course!
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Date: 2009-08-13 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 12:45 am (UTC)Really though, there's a small, VERY loud, very well-funded by corporate health care group that is a fear mongering, idiotic mob that bases nothing on fact. The sad part is that people who don't know better think they're right simply because they can scream louder.
The idea of health care as a BUSINESS and patients as CUSTOMERS is terrifying and revolting, and yet that's the reality I live in. I HAVE insurance, and I just sent off $100 for my annual girlie exam, and I'm not sure why. Isn't that what my insurance is FOR? I think the very fact that health insurance can deny a patient coverage BECAUSE HE/SHE IS "TOO" SICK is, in and of itself, blatant and obvious PROOF that private health care is broken.
Ok. I'm stopping here before I get to frustrated.
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:55 pm (UTC)The health debate is just crazy! America is one of the richest countries in the world, and yet an American has a life expectancy below that of a citizen of Bosnia Herzegovina. You're the only rich democracy in the world that does not have a socialised health system. And yes, you give EXCELLENT reasons as to why a socialised system will always be more desirable than a private one.
Americans are fantastic at knowing the word community is not akin to communist. Hopefully they may one day be just as good at separating socialised and socialist.
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:51 am (UTC)I would also like it if the Greens could see fit to drop the idealism for a moment and realise that it is better to get something in place now, even if it isn't a strong as you'd like it, and then work on increasing it once it's in place.
The libs I expect to be, as ever, wankers and concerned about their pals in big industry. Must not endanger the money.
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:57 pm (UTC)HE MAKES ME SO MAD!!! 'Oh it's all new science!' RUBBISH! This was all coming out in the 1970s, and the Greenpeace treatise on Global warming came out in the early 1990s. ARGH! ARGH!
But yes, would have been nice if Brown et al could have come to the table. Perhaps now it's been knocked back once.
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Date: 2009-08-13 04:23 am (UTC)♥
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Date: 2009-08-13 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 02:10 pm (UTC)Also, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I KNEW SOME OF YOUR PEOPLE COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIALISED AND SOCIALIST! I KNEW IT!!!
*Fans self, makes cup of tea.*