Categories
Eco-philo-pol

The Great Global Warming Swindle (intro)

Anyone interested in climate change might want to watch this doco. (Via the Andrew Bolt Blog, which I confess I read occasionally.)

Categories
Random observations

Anna gets seriously hooked up

Anna and Will seem to be settling in nicely in Japan. They’ve just had an optical fibre connection installed: 100Mbps (in theory). Sweet! I guess we can expect some more regular blogging by Anna from now on (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Categories
Eco-philo-pol

A gracious victory speech

Nicolas Sarkozy, during his victory speech after the French Presidential election:

This evening is a victory for France.

I ask you to be generous, to be tolerant, to be fraternal. I ask you to hold out your hand. I ask you to give the image of a France that is united, together, which leaves no-one at the side of the road.

My dear friends, I have seen victories before in my career. But victory is only beautiful if it is generous. Victory is not vengeance – it is being open in spirit. Victory only has meaning if it is victory for the country in its entirety.

Millions of French are watching us. Millions of French have placed their trust in us. You must understand that the first people I wish to address are those who did not place their trust in us.

I want them to understand that I will be a president of the republic for all the French without exception.

Sarkozy was elected with 53 percent of the vote and a clear mandate to forge ahead with his plan to rupture from the past.

Categories
Eco-philo-pol

Duplo Rudd

After watching this interview (Windows Media, Real Player) on ABC’s Insiders, I’m wondering whether Kevin Rudd is styling himself after the little Lego men I used to play with as a kid (ah Lego – hours of fun). His hair is so incredibly shiny and plastic looking!

Duplo Kevin - such shiny hair!

Unfortunately, my opinion of the Ruddster, Gillard and Labor in general has slipped even further since my last post. I’m disappointed with their “Forward with Fairness” Industrial Relations policy. If they win government, Labor will scrap Australian Workplace Agreements (individual contracts introduced by the current government), preferring a collective bargaining model. They’ll ditch the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and a bunch of other related bodies, replacing them with a new all-powerful IR referee called Fair Work Australia (or “FWA”, as in “Unions rule, FWAHAhahahahaaaa!”). This is not a forward looking policy at all. In fact, it’s a giant step backwards. I’m not against some protections for low paid workers, but this policy goes a lot further than that. Labor’s got to come up with a more realistic model. And it it has to be a model that doesn’t protect workers at the expense of the unemployed (or, to put it another way, a system that doesn’t protect the working class at the expense of the poor). In the past, keeping the unemployed out of work was one of the nasty side-effects of heavy union involvement in the workplace. Just because Australia has a low rate of unemployment now, does not mean it will stay that way.