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Anniversary Service, Firefox, Workload Issues, Land Tax
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.
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.
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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.
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I agree, it should represent both too. I just think that it now sometimes seems to forget the worker
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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.