Tuesday, December 15, 2015

In which the bold as brass Caterists scribble about pork-barreling, perverse incentives, and stupidity ... as only the truly stupid, pork-barrelled perverse do ...


It's always good to start with a laugh, and thanks to gravel-throated Macca and Barners and David Pope, and more Pope here, the pond was flung back into the world of Mr Blue (Robert Shaw) and Mr Green (Martin Balsam) ...

Only for a moment unfortunately because the usual suspects are out and about today seeking to exploit a tragedy...


Actually just last week the pond was well within cooee of a murder that made it think of the peculiarities of the media, their distorted and distorting obsessions, the randomness of death, and the cruelty of life ...

Last week in Camperdown a teacher waiting to catch the pond's local bus was stabbed to death by a stranger ..

There's been a proliferation of flowers on the seat at the bus stop since, a locality the pond passes on a daily basis, but it was a mere blip on the mainstream media radar ...

Of course there's a clue in the evidence that was led at the local court ...

Magistrate Robert Williams asked Cahill if he was on any medication and he said he was on several drugs, including clozapine, which is an anti-psychotic medication. 
"Ah yeah ... clozapine, metformin ... stuff like that," said Cahill. 
Cahill attempted to escape from the dock as the court was returning from a brief adjournment about 12:30pm. Police prosecutor Sheena Bucknell yelled "stay where you are" as Cahill climbed over the dock. 
Three police officers restrained him, preventing him from fleeing. (more at the ABC here)

You won't find any lengthy exegesis from the dog botherer or the reptiles of Oz on the state of the Australian mental health system or any other similar difficult matters. And yet a much-loved and well-regarded teacher is dead ...

The pond was reminded of a crime show it watched about a mentally disturbed woman in California, who in 2006 killed six postal employees, and herself. It's also listed in a wiki explaining the origin of the term "going postal" ...

Throw in guns and the American health system and nirvana is just around the corner, but you won't find any of this memorialised by the dog botherer and the reptiles of Oz this anniversary day ...

But enough of disturbing matters, it's time to lighten the mood, and what better way than with a Ridley splash, as featured in the reptiles response to Paris this day ...


Ignore the demonic stare, unnerving though it is, and just decode that statement according to a dictionary definition of "multilateral", which sounds impressive but isn't, and let's repeat the thought bubble ...

Agreed upon or participated in by three or more parties, especially the governments of different countries always ends in failure ...

Uh huh. Three or more parties. So that explains why everything everybody does at every day of the week always ends in failure ...

Well, yes, and life always ends in failure, or at least death, but as we make our way to the grave do we have to have this sort of display of monstrous stupidity?

And the pond could have gone on and on about the number of cooks a chef might like to have in a well-regulated and run top-notch kitchen - a lot of cooks can make a tidy broth of simple-minded cliches - but why bother.

It's a measure of the stupidity of the reptiles of Oz that they keep on relentlessly dumbing down the discussion by heading back frequently to the well of Lomborgians and Ridleyians, but it's a smaller and smaller circle ...

Happily there are even lighter bubble-headed boobies around on a Tuesday ready to provide some comedy stylings.

Yes, it's Caterist day, and as usual, the Caterists are in solid form ...


Ah, government money.

Whenever the pond encounters the Caterists, it reflexively reaches for a yarn about quarry walls or governments pissing money against the wall on 'think' tanks ...

Let's see which one comes in handy this day ...


Well yes, speaking of governments wasting money, this seems to capture the thought in all its essential purity and logic ...



Of course if you head off to Source Watch here to take a look at the Centre's longer-term funding, it seems that this has been going on for some considerable time, with Malware an early private sector benefactor.

When you see how the system works, and what it's really on about, everything the thick-headed, muddled Caterist wombat scribbles takes on a rich, smooth, creamy layer of irony ...


Now it's easy enough to see why the pond delights in the Caterists ...

Here's a man with his paws deep in the Commonwealth pocket, and yet he manages to scribble with a straight face this sort of tosh ...

Technocrats are seldom prepared to admit to mistakes, let alone learn from them; government programs never fail because of faulty design, overreach, pork-barrelling, perverse incentives, compliance costs, mission creep or stupidity. They fail because they are underfunded. Which is why, one imagines, that Andrews’s instinctively supplements his saving plan with a demand for more commonwealth cash.

The pond has always believed that the best thieves are the ones that are as bold as brass, and the best liars are the ones dumb enough to believe their own lies ...

So when the Caterists furiously scribble about pork-barrelling, perverse incentives and stupidity, the pond dances with joy. Which proves that governments pissing money against the wall on useless things can indeed have wonderful outcomes ...

Now is there a quarry wall somewhere handy?

Speaking of dumb and dumber, the pond almost overlooked this contribution to a recent debate ...


Poor David.

Of course the Indians take a slightly different view, as might be gathered by a quick read of The Times of India's After NYT, Rupert Murdoch's newspaper takes an 'incredibly racist' dig at Indians.

But there's been an upside, because the pond always looks for an agile, innovative upside, and it came courtesy of the discovery of Bill Leak explained ...

At last many mysteries have been solved and cleared away ...


The ongoing never ending tragedy of being Bill Leak ...

So here's a cleansing sorbet, and remember to Twitter with Rowe here as he flogs stuff for Xmas ...



19 comments:

  1. What an ineffable doofus young Cater is. As evidence for the shortcomings of public sector service delivery, he quotes at length from Edward Syed, lauding the wonders of 'free markets' in improving safety. But, little goat, aviation is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and the medical errors which Cater cites are from the 'free market' US healthcare system.

    Did Cater not bother to read what he had written? (I wish I hadn't - that's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I seem to remember the dividend from IT development in the public service in the 90s was that many fewer people were able to do the same amount, or more, work. Cater can't see that; he seems to expect a buck in his paw.

      Delete
  2. And not a passing thought as to why healthcare costs might be rising; innovative privately run pharmaceutical companies extracting maximum public money through patent laws and the ability to set a price, see drugs ending in mab and cept
    http://www.pbs.gov.au/info/statistics/asm/asm-2014#_Toc425339269
    why! look, the PBS costs are rising because of a few expensive drugs prescribed to a small number of patients!
    but then again you can't expect any kind of coherent analysis from Cater can you?

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  3. Citing aviation safety as exemplar for health care? Hmmm .... Is there a fundamental difference between the two that makes comparisons on safety somewhat up shit creek? Hmmmm, again. I wonder ... Could it be .... hang on, here's a thought ... Could it have something to do with the fact that if something goes wrong in an aircraft the pilot and crew effing DIE? Whereas, if a surgeon fucks up, someone else cops it.
    Sort of suggests, doesn't it, that aircrews have had intense and greater self-interest in getting it right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The one percent have wealth, and tax payer subsidised fat insurance cover too, allowing them access to the best health care. They are able to access the best "private" generously tax payer subsidised health care. They are the one percent, ipso facto their numbers have an insignificant effect on poor overall health care system performance statistics.

      Those who fly long haul once or more per year are statistically members of the one percent. They look after themselves, you know. Their flying safety has been and continues to be heavily subsided by a large publicly funded regulatory and research system.

      Those few one percenter bastards are everywhere impacting on the public purse way above their weight. For example, towards the end of this talk, at 42:06, Kevin Anderson shows how eighty-plus percent of the causes of climate change are due to just the one percent!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZF1zNpzf8RM

      Delete
    2. A military exemplar to boot, UC. The aircraft industry of 1912 can hardly be considered a benchmark. In those days flying an aircraft must have been a very dangerous pursuit, especially in the Army; perhaps that is why the US government set up a separate service, calling it the US Air Force (USAF). Brilliant efficiency strategy that.

      Perhaps Cater could compare it with the success of the Army's mobile surgery units. You know, those blood'n'gore operations made famous in M.A.S.H. The movie, not the TV series. The latter was way too anodyne.

      Delete
    3. The MYEFO proposes fiddling with bulk billing rates (again). Shorten has taken a stab (in the dark?) to say that people with cancer will cop more expense. Will wait for the detail, but anything that makes cancer care more expensive is a f*g disgrace and should be shouted down. IMHO, expenses for treatment & care of *all* cancers should be approaching zero, by continual policy reform.

      Delete
  4. I like your term 'monstrous stupidity' DP. They are manifestly stupid, but it also comes with a monstrosity that is quite frightening.

    I guess that's what they're out to achieve, in the end

    ReplyDelete
  5. The lizards caught 'bribing' Margaret Cuneen for inside info on ICAC.

    And what ever happened to her corrupt attempt to pervert the course of justice concerning her son's girlfriend's breath test? Jones and Hadley are in on it too.

    http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2015/12/13/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-caught-bribing-australian-crown-prosecutor-for-news-stories/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Some good news for all just in time for Christmas:

    "the new evening line-up on 3AW - introduced in early October after the end of the AFL season - has proved a ratings disaster."

    "The station has shedd a massive 3.8 per cent of the audience between 7pm and midnight share since the previous survey - falling from 15.0 to 11.2 per cent, with ABC 774 on 10.4."

    "That is by far the biggest drop in any timeslot on either AM or FM recorded in this final ratings survey for the year.
    The evenings slot on AW is dominated by Price and Bolt (who joins Price for the first hour of his 8pm-10pm show). Their move into that slot pushed out veterans Bruce Mansfield and Philip Brady, whose show was cut from its traditional 8pm to midnight slot to an abbreviated 10pm to midnight airing"

    http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/steve-price-and-andrew-bolt-a-ratings-disaster-for-3aws-evenings-audience-20151215-glnosa.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. For yonks government departments have had arbitrary "productivity savings" of up to 10% each year levied on their budgets. How else to pay for Gina's rising fuel subsidy?

    With computerisation, and the abolition of typing pools, were the vast savings made by the FIRE industry sector passed on to consumers?

    No.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh Oscillating fan, why hast thou deserted me?

    Straight after the news of yet another Bolt/Price failure on Melbourne radio, Fairfax have been trawling the letters pages, and have found a cracker.

    It regards Battlelines, and the subject of the book appears to be, as is the day to day these days, in denial.

    But the Oscillating Fan sets him aright:

    "This is a book about a failure of leadership," van Onselen, a host with Sky News, said in response. "We don't resile from the fact that it's a book about him being a failure. How could it be anything but? He got knocked off less than two years into the job."

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/stitch-up-tony-abbott-writes-letter-to-the-editor-complaining-about-new-biography-20151215-glnqxj.html#ixzz3uM23GdfW
    Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and Abbott pens a letter to the Oz editor to set the record straight that he did not "engage" with the Fan, he merely wrote an email to the Fan denying some assertions whilst refusing to answer other questions.

      Was the email "engagement"? You bet he is. You bet it was.

      DV

      Delete
    2. You bet you are. You bet I am.

      I could go on all day.

      Delete
  9. Apparently the "Lindt Siege' is now designated "Islamist terrorism".
    See Chris Kenny photo/article at the top.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's been a hell of a year for Kenny.

      He has been pushing the "Islamist terrorism" line on Man Monis all year, and it just doesn't stick does it?

      This is a bloke who has written to authorities over and over and over again flagging that he is a genuine loon. He's written to Obama. He's written to the queen for god's sake!

      His MO is so far from Islamist terrorist as to be science fiction.

      Whicj brings us back to Chris Kenny's writing style.

      Delete
  10. How the fossil fuel industry fund denialists and corrupt scientists who then launder the fees they receive.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/12/14/breitbart-news-go-to-outlet-for-academics-for-h/207474

    ReplyDelete
  11. If memory serves, "going postal" was already a thing when Frank Vitkovic shot up the Australia Post offices in Queen Street in 1987. At least, that's my recollection. If so, it would seemed it was coined after the first of the US events listed in the wiki article.

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  12. What a great set of comments. Now please have a gingerbread Xmas cookie on the pond, or should we send a tin of them to the Caterists for being so inspirational?

    ReplyDelete

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