Anniversary Service, Firefox, Workload Issues, Land Tax

[tcpip]

Gave the 152nd Anniversary Service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church yesterday. An extremely good turnout, over 80 people, with the Brigidine nun, Sister Brigid Arthur giving an address on the human face of asylum seekers. As the above link indicates, I made sure the readings and words were in a common theme. After lunch Actors for Refugees provided a troubling performance based on real interviews and experiences ("Something to Declare". Very pleased to discover that the group was actually co-founded with an old friend of mine, Kate Atkinson (Karen in SeaChange).

On Friday I attended the Melbourne launch party of Firefox which was a pleasant gathering of hackers at the Vault Bar. Is there anyone out their in el-jay land who reads this who is still using Internet Explorer? If so, why?

My workload last week, and this upcoming week, is going into overload. I now have another major website to develop, including lots of Flash, whistles and bells etc, for James Nicholson, who is an extremely competent hair stylist who won the Apprentice of the Year award in 1995, worked for Chrissie Parrot, has had his worked splashed on every major glossy in Australia and spend some time working in Paris and Tokyo.

With four major paying webdesign clients and my usual networking tasks, I'm finding time management difficult - although I have managed however to squeeze in almost daily modifications to my PhD in the quest to reduce it from 160,000 words to 95,000. Damn, I have to include footnotes in the word count. Grrrr.

One thing that I must admit is time consuming is my weekly ICT newsletter, Red Friday. The latest issue has a feature article on how to be kind to people who work in technical support, along with the second article in a series on networking and the first in a series on on maths for computer programming

I've started little nation in Jennifer Government/Nation States, just to see how the game engine works. It seems pretty limited, but unlike many, I've been trying to play the game sensibly. On other gaming related news, Ten Thousand Islands is still running surprisingly well - play be email normally has a reputation for falling apart - and my favourite old gaming magazine Different Worlds has returned - after almost twenty years!

The Age is wrong on land tax. To claim that "Soaring land tax costs jobs, investment" is utterly false. Land tax is the only tax which encourages investment in productive activity rather than speculation. Meanwhile in Australian politics, the Labor Party has lost the plot</>, as
progressive policies continue to be dumped as Labor attempts to appeal to "aspirational voters", a strategy which will effectively destroy the very existence of the Party. Meanwhile, Family First now wants
biblical creation stories taught alongside evolution.

Comments

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Haven't the ALP been pushing themselves further and further from their past association with unions over the years? Especailly since the Liberals bring up all the negative associations with the unions at every election campaign?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, and it's becoming a huge problem. The Labor Party has ended up with very few politicians from a trades/labour background. Instead their MPs are mostly from a legal and teaching background.

Give me a sparky anyday :/

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Instead their MPs are mostly from a legal and teaching background.

So they know how to procrastinate and use the system to the best of their abilities?! At this rate they will forget the "common people" and the blue collar roots they came from! Not a good thing at all

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

the blue collar roots they came from!

The Labor Party may come from blue collar roots, the front bench is mostly from well-heeled middle class families.

[zey.livejournal.com]

The ALP's beyond salvage now. There's no indication at all now that the ALP leadership is capable of being substantially different to their Liberal Party comrades.

What really shat me was seeing some ALP spokesperson or MP on telly talking about how the ALP should "reject the politics of envy." What party committed to any form of social justice talks like that in those terms?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What really shat me was seeing some ALP spokesperson or MP on telly talking about how the ALP should "reject the politics of envy."

Of course, the hidden message is that the ALP should "reject the politics of greed".

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

So they know how to procrastinate and use the system to the best of their abilities?!

God forbid we would want people making the laws who actually understand them.
Some of the best members of the ALP I know were lawyers. Lawyers aren't just stereotypical well heeled wankers - its also a good place to start for a career in civil rights and social justice.

And personally, I get offended at the idea that the ALP shouldn't represent the middle classes as well as blue collar. The ALPs free education policies built the Australian middle classes, if you believe in making university education available to all its hypocritical to disdain the middle classes. Middle class and proud, me.

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

I get offended at the idea that the ALP shouldn't represent the middle classes as well as blue collar.

I agree, it should represent both too. I just think that it now sometimes seems to forget the worker

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

And personally, I get offended at the idea that the ALP shouldn't represent the middle classes as well as blue collar.

Sure, if it wants to win elections it has to make some sort of pitch to the middle classes. But at the moment, the Labor Party takes the working people for granted - and a lot of them are now voting for the Tories.

Thirty percent of Australian household have no net wealth. The next twenty percent own five percent. Yet these people are voting Liberal.

Sometimes the ALP has to make choices on whether it supports the "underclass" or the "new middle class" to use Mark Latham's terms. They don't always have the same interests. Sometime's their interests are in conflict. But most of the time it takes the "underclass" for granted and supports the "new middle class".

The ALPs free education policies built the Australian middle classes

Yes, we want to raise the standard of living for working class people. The ALPs free education policies supported were part of that process. But it's close to twenty years since the ALP abolished free education as well.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The Union movement had better start putting some consistently better candidates forward that some of the ones it has, then.
Sorry, but you seem to be pushing a line that sounds dangerously close to saying that the unions should be allowed to essentially buy places for their candidates regardless of their candidates electoral suitability. Which would be fine if it wouldn't result in the ALP giving up all hope of electoral viability, for a variety of reasons not limited to the unions often attempting to use elected positions (particularly state upper house seats) as a retirement plan.

I have very little sympathy for the view that what the ALP needs is more union parliamentarians. Especially when it means more shoppies in parliament, but they aren't the only offenders.