(Above: there were more pictures of Sydney's dust storm than boiled eggs for breakfast, but I liked this one because of the way the pool and its reflections dominates what's ostensibly a portrait of the sky).
Alarming news.
Piers Akerman has turned socialist. He's indignant - well, he's always indignant, if not outraged - but he's shocked that a national ritual has been privatized.
While the Rudd Labor Government can’t stump up the $30,000-a-year the War Memorial needs to pay for the daily Last Post ceremony, the nation’s most solemn public ceremony, it is spending at least $40 million to pander to the Prime Minister’s UN fantasy.
Yep, it seems sponsorship, the private sector and business, and national sentiment simply don't go together. This is a job for government. Just like Piers regularly campaigns for socialized medicine and government solutions to conditions like dementia. Perhaps Piers and the Chinese government have more in common than originally suspected.
You might not have caught up with the news that budget cuts have forced the AWM to sign a three year deal with TransACT, a communications company, to fund the daily closing ceremony (here).
Indeedy, it turns out that Liberals in general might be inclined to be wary of the private sector and all that it implies. Come on down ACT Liberal Senator Gary Humphries:
"I'm not sure it's appropriate to have something which is really core business for the War Memorial at the mercy of a commercial decision," he said.
Senator Humphries says the AWM should redirect the funding to other activities such as exhibitions so the ceremony is not subject to commercial pressures.
"How would we feel as Australians if we got McDonalds to sponsor the Anzac Day parade? I think we'd all feel a little bit uncomfortable about something like that," he said.
Well that's about as close to free market heresy as I dare to get. Is there something wrong with Maccas as a sponsor? Sure, they're an American originated company, but truth to tell the Americans saved our asses in World War 11. Sure they contribute to the global obesity epidemic, but is it so wrong to accept their global campaign "make fat, not war"?
The cause of the outcry picked up by little sir echo Akker Dakker? TransACT's corporate logo is now supposed to appear "modestly" on the lectern used in the ceremony. It turns out that 87 corporate and individual sponsors already covered the costs of exhibitions in the museum area (here).
Now poor hapless TransACT has offered to remove the logo to avoid public concern. Naturally those agrarian socialists known as the Nationals chimed in, with senator Ron Boswell outraged at the notion of a telephone company getting into the act.
Fact is, you can't stop these national socialists from wanting to undermine the business community at every turn. Where does this hatred of free enterprise come from? Next thing you know they'll be tearing down all those fancy public private partnerships and then where will Macquarie Bank be?
Meanwhile, the rest of Akker Dakker's rant is thin pickings for the connoisseur. Blowing the dust of wacky Wong stunts, it reads, which doesn't make much sense when you think about it. Perhaps it was a typo for 'blowing the dust off', but whatever, it's just a cheap attempt to integrate Sydney's dust storm into the usual tirade:
The dust-storm-that-ate-Sydney has nothing on the bulldust storm Kevin Rudd’s Labor Government has generated on climate change.
Visibility may have been cut yesterday by the tonnes of red dust from western NSW but Climate Minister Senator Penny Wong is still trying to blind Australians with her wacky enviro stunts.
Akker Dakker is naturally indignant that the Labor party is turning the screws on the hopelessly divided Liberals, and poor old Malcolm in the middle, a civilized man forced to deal with man beasts like Wilson "the ironbar from hell" Tuckey. Talk about a rumble in the jungle.
Akker Dakker serves up the usual McNuggets, but you might end up feeling like you're reading or eating cardboard. Here's what's now a standard serve on climate change:
Even those who have gone along with the totally unproven human-induced climate change nonsense would have to see the idiocy in this illogical humbug.
It is a case of unscientific theory being met with ill thought-through policy which can only have one outcome - the erosion of the industrial base of technically superior Western and Asian nations in favour of development of Third World economies.
It takes a brave man or a fool to say categorically that human-induced climate change is totally unproven. Let's just settle for fool.
Naturally Akker Dakker seizes the chance to slag off everything in sight:
The Rudd/Wong solution is, in short, a joke. Much like the UN itself.
All this in the name of purporting to support evil successful capitalist nations, while Chairman Rudd panders to UN fantasies and helps out corrupt but worthy dictatorships (yep, he used the phrase, not me). Well we now know what Chairman Akker Dakker thinks about private sector sponorship in times of trouble.
Oh there's the usual fine flurry of words, "carpet bagging countries", and "The world is being led by the nose" and talk of the "faceless bureaucrats at the UN", but Akker Dakker lacks the usual fire. Though he does lead with this splendid line:
China has already indicated it won’t be telling its people to slow down their progress toward a higher standard of living, as has India, but Rudd and Wong are telling the UN that Australia will show the way and lead the developed world in going backward.
The world is being led by the nose in the lead-up to December’s meeting on climate change in Copenhagen where Rudd hopes to seize another golden opportunity to grandstand.
The world is being led by the nose in the lead-up to December’s meeting on climate change in Copenhagen where Rudd hopes to seize another golden opportunity to grandstand.
Which surprised me after I read Hu steals Obama's climate thunder. Personally I wouldn't have believed it, but it's a report by Brad Norington in Chairman Rupert's The Australian, so it must be true:
Even though he is relatively new to the international stage, Barack Obama is not accustomed to being overshadowed by another world leader.
It happened yesterday as Chinese president Hu Jintao stole the show with a powerful speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on how to tackle climate change.
All the rhetoric at his disposal - and there was plenty of it - could not save the US President.
In the end, he had platitudes and hope, while Mr Hu succeeded in persuading his audience China was serious about its responsibility for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
As the December Copenhagen summit on climate change looms, the chance of reaching a deal on carbon emissions is probably as remote as ever.
But China has emerged as a leader in the debate. Mr Hu has intensified pressure on the US after taking the calculated step of offering a concrete plan to invest in alternative energy and conservation on a scale Mr Obama could not match.
"The world expects us to make a decision in the face of climate change, an issue which bears on mankind's survival and development," Mr Hu said.
The leader committed China to increasing conservation and energy efficiency by cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Sounds like Hu's on third base, and Akker Dakker's on first, while Watt is doing the pitching and Obama struck out.
I've always thought that socialists should stick together - something about their bee hive collective mind mentality - so let's hope that anti-private enterprise Akker Dakker gets right behind Hu in his campaign to save the planet.
As the dust settles in Sydney, it's just another day in loon pond ...
(Below: let's all tip our lid and raise a glass to the notion that telcos are part of the evil private sector. Yep, sad to say McDonalds have already been in the viral marketing game in relation to Anzac day, way back in 2005, with a campaign featuring a group of four veterans drinking coffee at a table at McDonalds. As a young employee watches, the veterans fade one by one until the table is empty, followed by the message that we must never forget. Some saw it as a potent emotional message about Anzac day, some saw it as McDonalds trading off on the sacred day, and only a few realized it was a devastating indictment of the capacity of McDonalds' coffee to kill off even war-toughened veterans. A few more images here).
(Below: And if you want to see more of VB's ill fated 'raise a glass for Anzac day' campaign, go here. Damn you private sector, leave the business of war to the government and remember if you don't behave nationalization is always an option. And socialist Akker Dakker will lead the charge).
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