Too late To Worry

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At the heart of modern politics is a fundamental dishonesty that politicians and governments can solve problems that are inherently insolvable.

These problems -- happiness, material abundance and health -- are part of the human condition. They can't be solved.

And politicians that promise solutions to these types of problems are dishonest and worse still, they corrupt the political system by undermining what the system is good at providing -- imperfect, transitory compromises that keep the place ticking over.

The modern political machine can't admit this truth and to do so would undermine its existence,
and the jobs and careers of those that feed of system.

This dishonesty has been extenuated by the growth after World War II of the ``cradle to the grave welfare state for all'' and in more recent times the end of ideology associated with the end of the Cold War. I am personally glad that parliament sits so few days. Parliament is an institution that is primarily designed to pass laws. And laws, by definition, constrain.

The more it sits the more laws it passes that interfere in people's lives.
This also reinforces the illusion that the government and politicians can make things better, if only they passed one more law. The contrary is true.

Inappropriate expectations from voters and the well-meaning laws generated by politicians can actually reduce the quality of life by diminishing the life-enhancing role of personal responsibility. To be in as much control of one's own life as you can be surely is a good thing.

So do we really need governments to lecture us on what we feed our kids, the amount of water we use, and the type of fuel we use?

Well-meaning people are usually bad public administrators and cause much harm by raising public expectations which cannot be met.

Machine politics is the background for most of our politicians and it is not a qualification for good public administration. The strongest argument for abolishing state governments is that it would remove a layer of political interference in service delivery.

Individually, success in state politics, assuming one doesn't personally self-destruct, is as much a product of luck as competence.

Although some politicians have displayed enormous skill at avoiding difficult, career-destroying portfolios.

Portfolios like health, transport and police are always under-resourced relative to public expectations. The problem in many cases is the expectation, usually fed by the politician, not the resources.

In these portfolios the practice of buying off interest groups is often the best strategy for survival. The system rewards caution and popularity.

The other thing politicians are good at is avoiding conflict, even if conflict means better public policy outcomes. For example, why reform rail maintenance even though it accounts for most failures and delays on the system if it means a fight with rail unions? Another report or consultative process may buy time until the next Cabinet reshuffle.

Timidity and deference to interest groups works, and what works reinforces itself as public policy narrative.

Leave a portfolio with the interest groups happy and you are deemed a success. The cost to the public purse is for somebody else to worry about.

At a state level, special interest groups capture policy and portfolio discussion. And this contributes to the breakdown of service delivery.

The health system is run around the needs of doctors, not patients. The public transport system is managed according to the needs of public transport workers, not commuters. It's the same in education, prisons and justice.

It should be no surprise then that four of the last five premiers never held these major portfolios.

And it is no secret if a premier wants to diminish the status of a potential rival they are given one of these portfolios.

Special interest politics has a distortionary effect on the state government
recurrent capital spending. The squeaky wheel does get more oil. Lobbying pays off, especially where it involves political barraging.

As ideology has evaporated as a political concern, machine politics in its crudest form has filled the political vacuum. The inept attempt by Labor head office to unseat premier Iemma, the subsequent elevation of a so-called ``left winger'' to the premiership in a caucus nominally dominated by the Labor right and the acknowledged, unprecedented influence of head office in the selection of the cabinet, means rightly more public and media scrutiny is required of these positions.
In the past the machine was required to be invisible and neutral in the development of government policy.

Recent party secretaries have abandoned this approach.

Focus groups and key message politics, whilst always a useful tool, now dominate. The problem is these tools are no substitute for real political leadership, particularly at times of political necessity.

The tools and techniques handled by amateurs are politically deceptive.
They can reinforce a self-generated message and lead to a superficial understanding of underlying concerns. In other words, you end up acting on your own spin while the world moves on.

It always amazed me to hear party officials report that particular issues came up as important in focus groups and not realise that the government was coincidentally running a major advertising campaign on the particular issue at the same time.
The environment is one issue that is subject to this type of spin reinforcement. The result is that party office will not only select candidates -- it will determine policy direction, thereby rewarding political conformity.

Three tiers of government are too much. Two tiers are more than enough for our population and geography.

One tier should be primarily responsible for revenue raising and policy formulation. The other for service delivery. The services delivered should be narrow and limited to those in genuine need. They should be based on an honest understanding of what public good government can do.

Michael Costa, Former Treasurer, NSW.



In all comprehension, his arms as thin as sticks, helpless to change anything, I've decided I've had enough. The heart attack, the broken jaw, the tumour on the bladder, all this compounding on top of a diseased wracked body. HIs face was yellow, and if all was not lost then it was certainly grim. How many more had faded slowly in these horrendous times, with garbage for souls, with youth long gone, with his own blurred consciousness unable to meet the challenge. He laughed, it's good to see you. The sunset is beautiful. I love the lookof the boats on the horizon, their lights blinking on.

Families frolicked by the beach side, the water splashing around their feet, an enormous stillness settling from an ancient land, oh joy, joy, wasn't that what we sought? After Tom's death, he said, and Tom's bright face hung like a significant reproach over everything they did. Why did he have to die? Did you introduce him to the dealer? Was it your doing that led him back into his old ways, your approval, even, perhaps, your money? H9ow could he have died, when he had been so young, so vibrant, had such a brilliant future? Even going back to university, finishing courses, overcoming his troubled youth, all our troubled youths. Symbology was important, but here lay the gap in the story, the piece of the puzzle that made no sense.

Other days, other themes, other parts of the life cycle, they had all been important. You seem sad, his daughter sad, after he had returned from the visit, on the highway before dawn, watching the sky turn into concrete. Colin's on his last legs, he said, almost irreverently. The death meant nothing to them. They had only met him as one of dad's strange old friends; the ones that were human wreckage washing on the tide. Why? Why now, why here, why does he have to go? The quicker the better, the mercy saint said, and it was clear there were not many more days. Ifin sickenssand in health, if in darkness, if in lost lives.

The past flashed constantly before them. The strange, bizarre old man who had loitered at his door all day after locking himself out, the man who craved oblivion and was the master of the art, the men who's stick limbs were Belsen like, HIV, the diet that works, the man who's parched skin and sunken cheeks made him look like a refuge from a concentration camp, this man was replaced by insane laughter, by another time, by young people in a room, the smell of marijuana, the conspiratorial huddles, the groups that gathered with the air of hippies, open faced, fresh, money no objects, careers for someone else, people who opened up their hearts to change the world.

And Colin was there, in his twenties, sweeping in, elaborately kissing everybody, darling darling, not well, not well, oh she's butch, get her. And they would fold in on each other, their private lives, their private consolations, the boyfriends that came and went, the loves of an age and an era, the politics of another time. Gough Whitlam was going to save the nation. Catastrophes were simple road blocks, gaps, the dealer wasn't home and they had to wait, someone was bringing something around but they had no money, dear, dear, I'll have to hock my box just to get stoned, it's appalling darling, appalling.

And the rest of the world bristled in their own orthodoxies, and they revelled in their difference, their assault on societal norms, their collapses into laughter, their fresh faces and fresh loves. What was the happiest time of my life, the best time? He repeated the question, and hesitated as he rolled a cigarette of chop chop, the cheap locally grown tobacco that dominated the housing estates. Who, after all, could afford cigarettes any more. It wasn't the fashion statement about health and well being and how could you do that to yourself? questions, it was simply a shortage of money that crimped their lifestyle and held their outrageous binges in check.

These fragmented times, fragmented voices, settled on them as the night settled on the beach. It wasn't all that we were made of. It wasn't all that we should have been. It was a classic darkness and he knew not how to embrace it. He was saddened, that was for sure, but glad to be alive. It wasn't the first old friend he had seen die of AIDS, this terrible disease which seemed to target the youngest and the brightest, certainly the most daring. His clothes hang loosely off his tragically thin frame. You need sustagen, I'll buy it for you, if you want, and Colin shook his head. He was saying his goodbyes, with quietness, with dignity. There wasn't much longer, they both knew that. Five months since he stopped taking his medication. Five months was a very long time. I just decided I'd had enough, he said again, deliberately preparing the cigarette in front of him. Too late to worry about giving up, that was for sure.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/sex-booze-undies-bring-down-a-minister-20080911-4et5.html

THE NSW Government minister fired for dancing on a Chesterfield couch in his underpants yesterday bid farewell at a press conference in front of a Sydney seaside attraction affectionately known as the Kiama blowhole.

In the Sydney CBD, the new Premier, Nathan Rees, was trying to explain how he found out about the "dancing underpants" incident, whether or not it had also involved his Police Minister, Matt Brown, pretending to get it on with an MP twice his age, and whether Government MPs regularly turned up to parliamentary votes drunk and with unexplained bumps on their heads.

"I have a congenitally blocked tear duct, OK, that's why I do that," the Premier said defensively as he wiped away tears.

The NSW punters were getting bored with last week's story, in which premier Morris Iemma was knifed and his treasurer, health and planning ministers forced out of Government by shady characters lurking around the edges of the Labor Party.

Yesterday the NSW Government gave them episode three of the drama that is NSW politics. Dancing in your undies and allegedly pretending to get amorous with the ample chest of a fellow MP is not quite as original as chair-sniffing, but aside from that this story has everything: sex, drunkenness, undies and a hint of mystery.

Whether or not Mr Brown simulated sex with Wollongong MP Noreen Hay — they both deny it — is not the only mystery surrounding the wild budget-night party held in Mr Brown's office three months ago. Did Ms Hay ever see Mr Brown in his underpants? Did he yell rude things to Ms Hay's daughter — who was also there — while pretending to have sex with her mother? Who dobbed him in and why now?

Was it revenge after last week's bloody factional battle, or an attempt to secure the cabinet spot that would be left by Mr Brown? Is it cool for a state Labor MP to have the same couches as those favoured by John Howard?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/14/do1402.xml

Recent events have seen the scare campaign over global warming descend to the level of a Monty Python sketch.

Much publicity was given, for instance, to Lewis Gordon Pugh, who set out to paddle a kayak to the Pole to demonstrate the vanishing of the Arctic ice. At 80.5 degrees north, still 600 miles short of his goal, he met with ice so thick that he and his fossil-fuelled support ship had to turn back.

But this did not prevent him receiving a congratulatory call from Gordon Brown, nor boasting that he had travelled "further north than anyone has kayaked so far".
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It took the admirable Watts Up With That blog, run by the American meteorologist Anthony Watts, to point out that in 1893 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen found the Arctic so ice-free that he was able to kayak above 82 degrees north, 100 miles nearer the Pole than our hapless campaigner against "unprecedented global warming".

Then there was the much-publicised speech to Compassion in World Farming by Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pleading for people to give up meat, on the grounds that the digestive methane given off by cattle contributes more to greenhouse gases than all the world's transport.

Although hailed by the BBC as "the UN's top climate scientist", Dr Pachauri, who holds PhDs in economics and engineering, is nothing of the kind, but just an apparatchik.

A vegetarian Hindu, Dr Pachauri not only used highly tendentious figures to promote his cause but said nothing about the contribution made to global warming by India's 400 million sacred cows, which presumably would still be free to vent wind even if the rest of humanity is converted to eating veggieburgers.
# Telegraph.co.uk/earth
# Read more by Christopher Booker

There has also been an acclaimed new paper by Michael Mann, the creator of the iconic "hockey stick" graph, purporting to show that the world has recently become hotter than at any time in recorded history, eliminating all the wealth of evidence to show that temperatures were higher in the Mediaeval Warm Period than today.

After being used obsessively by the IPCC's 2001 report to promote the cause, the "hockey stick" was comprehensively discredited, not least by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian computer analyst, who showed that Mann had built into his computer programme an algorithm (or "al-gore-ithm") which would produce the hockey stick shape even if the data fed in was just "random noise".

Two weeks ago Dr Mann published a new study, claiming to have used 1,209 new historic "temperature proxies" to show that his original graph was essentially correct after all. This was faithfully reported by the media as further confirmation that we live in a time of unprecedented warming. Steve McIntyre immediately got to work and, supported by expert readers on his Climate Audit website, shredded Mann's new version as mercilessly as he had the original.

He again showed how selective Mann had been in his new data, excluding anything which confirmed the Mediaeval Warming and concentrating on that showing temperatures recently rising to record levels.

Finnish experts pointed out that, where Mann placed emphasis on the evidence of sediments from Finnish lakes, there were particular reasons why these should have shown rising temperatures in recent years, such as expanding towns on their shores. McIntyre even discovered a part of Mann's programme akin to a disguised version of his earlier algorithm, which he now calls "Mannomatics".

But Mann's new study will surely be used to push the warmist party line in the run-up to the IPCC international conference in Copenhagen next year to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, temperatures continue to drop. The latest Nasa satellite readings on global temperatures from the University of Alabama, one of four officially recognised sources of temperature data, show that August was the fourth month this year when temperatures fell below their 30-year average, ie since satellite records began. The US National Climatic Data Center showsis showing that last month in the USA was only the 39th warmest since records began 113 years ago.

http://enewsmediamagazine.com/?p=100

We Are All Going to Die From Global Warming and This is Our Last Chance

Do you believe in Global Warming; if not they call you stupid? But whose really mentally challenged here? You know, it’s pretty amazing that you can no longer have a meaningful discussion on Climate Change, but why is this? It’s because those who believe in it have adopted it as some sort of religion. A religion to heal the planet. Now mind you I do not like pollution either, and I am all for cleaning it up.

What bothers me is the thought that we would systematically destroy human civilizations and our energy infrastructure in preparation for a Global Warming Holocaust, for if it were true, that’s the last thing you would wish to do.

The Global Warming alarmist scam is nothing more than a group who borrowed an old theory and are using it to wrestle control from the large oil companies and industrial base here in the US. It has been joined by other nations who find themselves far behind the United State’s economic might.

Further, of course the planet goes thru cycles, ice ages, warming periods, it’s been going on some 5.5 Billion years and will continue with or without humans on the surface of the planet. Science has been hijacked and it is just disgusting, it seems this doom and gloom is Y2K all over again, cold war fear or an asteroid will hit the Earth tomorrow.

Now then, with that said, yes lets reduce pollution, that’s the right thing to do, but let us do it with a sound energy policy and not thru crisis when everything costs more and change moves too fast. Remember, even if Global Warming was a reality, the worst thing you could do is tear down civilization now to prepare for the inevitable later anyway.



Mural on the wall outside Redfern Station, Sydney, Australia.