A Wedding and a Loss

It is 21 June 2013.
My son is being married today.
I am not there.
Why?
It is taking place in Seoul South Korea.
Our youngest daughter, her darling husband and our first grandchild, our grandson have travelled over to represent us.
Our eldest daughter (the theatre cat) has also decided to just 'turn up'. We are pleased and amazed she is so feisty, but not surprised.

Why didn't you go, say everyone.
Well....we say..something else.
The truth and the fact is we can't afford it. We are on Government 'hand outs' ( as the nasty Capitalist CONservatives and judgemental others call us). Even to leave the country we would have to 'jump through hoops'...."Where, how long, when will you return...do we withhold your payments".

So we sit in the cool of the Southern Hemisphere's Winter Solstice, whilst our darling son marries in the Northern Hemispheres' Summer Solstice the darling woman we so so approve of.
Once upon a time we too were married in the Summer Solstice. But ours was the Southern Hemisphere....22   December, 1973. So that was nearly 40 years ago. How time flies.

So on this nippy and dull winters day on the mid north coast of NSW, Australia, we pop a cork or two, alone...to toast our dear one and only son all those kilometers away.
Both of his sisters are there and our darling grandson, Henry.
Henry is my hearts delight.
No one told me having a grandchild makes you 'fall in love' all over again...same but different as with you own babies you have pushed out of your body.

Happy, loving, forgiving marriage to my darling boy. This time you have the nicest, sweetest, strongest, most understanding woman on earth...she just happens to come from Korea.

Hold tight to her. Hold strong to her. She will be your Alpenstock for the rest of your life.

Contentment will reign if you are gentle, are generous and loyal.

Your father and I love you more than you will ever understand...but maybe sometime in the future, when you are into your fifties you may understand.

Love love love to you dear boy.

From your ever lovin' Mum xx

Thanks to Crikey

Rundle: is North Korea on the warpath, or is it a ruse? Yes. GUY RUNDLE Crikey writer-at-large |  EMAIL   |  COMMENT KIM JONG IL, KIM JONG UN, KOREA CONFLICT, NORTH KOREA, SOUTH KOREA North Korea: what the f-ck? The world is staring open-mouthed as the tiny, ancestral, "Juche" dictatorship moves  towards a nuclear footing and threatens the by-now familiar "lake of fire" against its enemies. Both South Korea and the United States have put themselves on a war footing, allegedly, as the North restarts a nuclear reactor, suspends the crisis hotline between  North and South and shuts down a joint industrial complex on the border. Whatever panic there might be among the American public -- remember,  a poll released today shows one in four Americans believe President Barack Obama  may be the Antichrist -- is not shared by its elite, who know the hermit kingdom has not yet managed to perfect an anti-ballistic delivery system for a nuclear weapon.  No easy thing, apparently. They also know well something Western audiences are barely told: the US and South Korea have, in recent weeks, been engaged in large-scale war games on the peninsula, involving up to 40,000 troops and hundreds of planes and tanks. The line in the Western press, when this is aired at all, is that these are purely  defensive measures, because, well, we never start wars against countries we  have nominated as part of the "axis of evil", do we? Simultaneously we are told North Korea is a joke country that no one could take  seriously -- so why the large-scale war manoeuvres? The North Koreans have  one idea: the imperialists intend to annihilate them. Do the power elite in the country  really believe that? Or is it all a ruse designed to keep the game on the road? The question is impossible to determine, because the answer might be: both.  North Korea's leaders are split between those who have spent time overseas --  children of the elite, raised in Swiss boarding schools -- and those, in the military  chiefly, who have never known anything else. Various diplomats, and the occasional  feted Western Stalinist, have said Kim Jong-il had told them they knew the whole  thing was a sham and they would have to transition out of it at some point. Yet on the other hand, the army is an entirely self-supporting system that reproduces  itself generation on generation, defining itself not only against the world, but against  the bleeding heart liberals in the elite of the Workers' Party, who dally with notions of  rapprochement and international co-operation. So, one theory is the North's response is entirely external -- to the movements of the US. Another theory is that it's internal, whereby the Workers' Party elite tries to assert its  power against the army, which accuses it of backsliding. Six weeks ago the leadership made some token measures towards greater openness -- chiefly, allowing tourists to  use their mobile phones while in the country (there are quite a few tourists, valued  for their foreign currency, traipsing through on guided tours). The third theory is it's both, combining the two. In the trade we call that "dialectics". Whatever the case, it has created plenty of opportunity for foreign correspondents  to trot out the usual stories on the essential weirdness of North Korea, alternatively  portraying it as entirely brainwashed or an entirely captive nation. "What Western media outlets find hardest to disentangle is the personality cult  from the economic system, the 10-storey gold-plated statues from the starvation." People are either goose-stepping in front of missiles in ardent fanaticism or they are all  faking tears whenever one of the now eternal presidents dies. The popular story flicks  between the two. What's the truth? Both are right, and I would refer you to the earlier  answer on dialectics. From extensive accounts of North Korean life, such as Barbara  Deming's Nothing To Envy, it's clear the North Korean public is entirely split between  those devoted to the Kim-il cult and the idea of "Juche" and those who think it's a crock  of shit. To some extent the split is geographical -- those closer to the Chinese border and the major crossing city of Dandong, a Wild East gambling/smuggling/pornorama, have a  better idea what's going on because they can get DVDs of Lindsay Lohan movies smuggled in, etc. It's also divided in Pyongyang, a relatively prosperous city -- though everyone there, to judge from their Los Angeles lithe elegance, is on 1300 calories a day -- with some vestigial international connection. Outside of that, well, as far as one can tell (your correspondent is an expert, based  on a four-day tour) it's simply a dirt-poor farming barracks. Villages have been  demolished to house the population in concrete housing blocks, which stand isolated  in the fields. There are no shops, no pubs, no clubs, little electricity and not much food.  Half the population is in uniform, but a lot of them don't seem to be doing anything useful.  In Pyongyang, thousands of them seemed to be planting flowerbeds, very slowly,  like the whole place was a school full of kids who'd been excused phys ed for the  afternoon. What Western media outlets find hardest to disentangle is the personality cult from  the economic system, the 10-storey gold-plated statues from the starvation. They're inter-related obviously, but not identical. It would be quite possible for the North Koreans  to loosen the total economic system, allow private farming, small business and move  steadily to a mixed economy, while still preserving the Kimist idolatry. Unless you're  a mad Hayekian -- and there's a personality cult if ever there was one -- you realise  by now, glancing at China, this is not only possible but quite a feasible historical trajectory. One reason it's so hard to think about North Korea in that way in the West is that if we  did start to distinguish idolatry from efficiency, we'd start to look askance at out own system. Let's face it, if you've lived in Brisbane or Adelaide, or half-a-dozen other  places for the past two decades, the wall-to-wall media has been of singular voice,  no matter who owns it, which is overwhelmingly Murdoch; the party system is more or less unitary; life offers a smooth singularity, lacking real difference. Yes, since you ask, it is considerably more pleasant than North Korea -- which simply makes my point. You never know when you're in the middle of a wrap-around ideology, so all-encompassing  that there's very little opportunity for most people to think outside it. So places like  North Korea become extremely useful in that situation. You can run relentless military  exercises on their border, and construct any response as the product of a paranoid  totalitarian self-enclosed state, a surviving mutant of 20th century history. Of course half the time it is, but the other half, it's just a mixture of rational statecraft, and internal  politicking, and it might be useful if the meeja offered better analysis than "North Korea:  what the f-ck?". Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or submit them anonymously here. RELATED ARTICLES ROLLERBLADES, ROCKY AND WAR PREPARATIONS: INSIDE NTH KOREA  |  IN HARM’S WAY: AUSTRALIA AND NORTH KOREA  |  NORTH KOREA RISKS SANCTIONS TO SIGNAL ITS GREATNESS

IPA

                                                       INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

(A 'public' ...{read 'private'} "Think Tank" who says of Tony Abbott; “We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty”. Doublespeak lives and it bears the IPA moniker and is determined to swing our beloved nation to the Hard Right of the Tea Party in the USA. Be afraid ...be very afraid and aware. IF Abbott says ANY of these points during the election campaign you will KNOW who is pulling the strings, really...and they include Gina Rhinehart [note the dividing Northern Australia from the rest of the country]..)

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

5 Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

7 Return income taxing powers to the states

8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities

12 Repeal the National Curriculum

13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums

14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’

16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law

17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations

18 Eliminate family tax benefits

19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme

20 Means-test Medicare

21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

22 Introduce voluntary voting

23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations

24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns

25 End public funding to political parties

26 Remove anti-dumping laws

27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions

28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board

29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction

32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:
a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising

71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling

72 Privatise the CSIRO

73 Defund Harmony Day

74 Close the Office for Youth

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

and folks… there’s more…

25 more ideas for Tony Abbott

IPA REVIEW ARTICLE

| John Roskam, Chris Berg and James Paterson

Following on from our 75 ideas in the last edition, John Roskam, James Paterson and Chris Berg offer 25 more ideas to reshape Australia.

76 Have State Premiers appoint High Court justices

77 Allow ministers to be appointed from outside parliament

78 Extend the GST to cover all goods and services but return all extra revenue to taxpayers through cutting other taxes

79 Abolish the federal department of health and return health policy to the states

80 Abolish the federal department of education and return education policy to the states

81 Repeal any new mandatory data retention laws

82 Abolish the Australian Human Rights Commission

83 Have trade unions regulated like public companies, with ASIC responsible for their oversight

84 End all public funding to unions and employer associations

85 Repeal laws which protect unions from competition, such as the ‘conveniently belong’ rules in the Fair Work Act

86 Extend unrestricted work visas currently granted to New Zealand citizens to citizens of the United States

87 Negotiate and sign free trade agreements with Australia’s largest trading partners, including China, India, Japan and South Korea

88 Restore fundamental legal rights to all existing commonwealth legislation such as the right to silence and the presumption of innocence

89 Adhere to section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution by not taking or diminishing anyone’s property without proper compensation

90 Repeal legislative restrictions on the use of nuclear power

91 Allow full competition on all foreign air routes

92 Abolish the Medicare levy surcharge

93 Abolish the luxury car tax

94 Halve the number of days parliament sits to reduce the amount of legislation passed

95 Abolish Tourism Australia and cease subsidising the tourism industry

96 Make all government payments to external parties publicly available including the terms and conditions of those payments

97 Abandon plans to restrict foreign investment in Australia’s agricultural industry

98 Cease the practice of setting up government-funded lobby groups, such as YouMeUnity, which uses taxpayer funds to campaign to change the Australian Constitution

99 Rule out the introduction of mandatory pre-commitment for electronic gaming machines

100 Abolish the four pillars policy which prevents Australia’s major banks from merging

Hot March 2013

There is to be a Federal Election in September. Politicians are nervous. Their jobs are on the line. Poll watching is a favourite sport for some of them.
Shit hit the Australia media this past week. It really wasn't anything much, but the Main Stream Media missed out when our present female PM ousted the encumbant people popular PM, so this past week was a time for the MSM NOT to miss a beat, even if they had to beat it up themselves.
Nothing happened. Nothing awful, or illegal or immoral...just some blokes thought they would give it another go to get their man back into the role before the election takes hold.

Our female PM is still there...she has changed her ministers and all back to normal.

Except for all the hatred, anger, sides, disunity, frustrations, blame and distasteful remarks that are whizzing around the social media, the MSM and opinion pieces.

Then I came across this speech.

THIS is what I like. This ( and I have mentioned this man at some other time) is what politics should be all about. If you can imagine a grey haired smiling Scots/Australian accent when reading this it makes it all the more enjoyable.

• Doug Cameron I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
  
  I would also like to acknowledge Cassandra, my fellow panel members and all of you who have come here to make life better for the most vulnerable Australians.
  
  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address a great organisation, an Australian institution, the Australian Council of Social Services; an organisation committed to building a good society.
  
  The Labor government is responsible for many significant policy initiatives which contribute to building a good society. These include, but are not limited to:
  • Abolishing WorkChoices and giving Australian workers a fair go;
  • effectively managing the global financial crisis and ensuring Australia did not fall into recession;
  • introducing the biggest single increase to the aged pension;
  • introduce the country's first paid maternity leave scheme;
  • pricing carbon;
  • commencing construction of the National Broadband Network;
  • investing billions in our education system including building long overdue school infrastructure;
  • developing the National Disability Insurance Scheme;
  • increasing funding to the health system; and
  • ensuring that cleaners and process workers do not subsidise the health insurance payments of wealthier Australians.
  
  All of these initiatives will be under threat with a change to a conservative government.
  
  One of the fundamental outstanding issues is to ensure that the Newstart allowance is sufficient to allow families who are dependent on government help to survive with some dignity and respect.
  
  I have yet to hear the evidence for the right-wing theory that forcing individuals and families into poverty and on to charity will improve their capacity to find employment.
  
  Simply asserting that it is "self-evident" or "beyond dispute" is not sufficient grounds to force children into poverty.
  
  Frankly, I think too many parliamentarians are unaware of the hardship and social isolation caused by poverty and unemployment.
  
  There are not too many John Curtin’s in parliament, politicians who experienced poverty and deprivation and developed an outrage at injustice.
  
  The great Labor Prime Minister Curtin described his poverty as "tea without milk, bread without butter".
  
  Too many Australian children whose parents are reliant on Newstart are still having their tea without milk and bread without butter.
  Curtin set out to uplift and empower the poorest sections of society declaring citizens can only make a contribution to society when he or she was adequately remunerated, educated and housed.
  
  Bob Hawke, despite the controversy around his child poverty statement in 1997, was correct in raising the need to address child poverty by 1990.
  
  Here we are in 2013 with far too many children in poverty.
  
  Some in the political class try to convince themselves that Newstart is a temporary allowance and that an allowance 30 per cent below the poverty line is fair reasonable and equitable.
  
  It is not!
  
  As the former US President, Theodore Roosevelt said:
  "This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in".
  
  This applies equally in Australia in 2013 as it did in the United States of America in the early 1900s.
  
  The issue before us is how to develop a community consensus for a strong, modern welfare state.
  
  Unfortunately, neoliberal economic theory and globalisation which promotes international economic integration and a race to the bottom in taxation policy and welfare payments is still the dominant approach in English-speaking nations.
  
  When you add to this the massive power and influence of Australia's mining and media corporations the opportunity for progressive economic and social policies is constrained but not defeated.
  
  Financial risk has been shifted from corporations to the state and from the state to the individual.
  
  This shifting of risk has created significant insecurity for many
  Australians at a time of great economic growth and wealth.
  
  This insecurity manifests itself in a focus on the individual at the expense of the collective good.
  
  The key issue for progressive social forces is to develop an alternative economic model and a voice which challenges the dominance of the Friedmanites in politics, government bureaucracies and the media.
  
  We must have a compelling argument as to why the collective good requires a new analysis and debate on the role of taxation as a tool of nation building and the collective good.
  
  The Nobel prize-winning economist Prof Joseph Stiglitz, in his book, The Price of Inequality, draws attention to the argument that taxes required to finance social benefits stifle growth.
  
  According to Stiglitz, over the period 2000 to 2010, high taxing Sweden, for example, grew far faster than the United States – the countries average growth rates have exceeded those of the United States – 2.31 per cent a year versus 1.85 per cent.
  
  Stiglitz quotes a former Swedish finance minister telling him "we have grown so fast and done so well because we had high taxes".
  
  Stiglitz argues that it is not that taxes themselves led to higher growth but that the taxes financed public expenditures – investments in education, technology, and infrastructure – and the public expenditures are what had sustained the high growth– more than offsetting any adverse effects from the higher taxation.
  
  Where should the money come from to fund a substantial increase in Newstart and other important welfare reforms?
  
  I cannot remember the last time I spoke to anyone who did not harbour the aspiration for our country to be a good society; one that is without peer when it comes to looking after people with disabilities, taking care of the elderly and building a public education system second to none.
  
  There is almost universal acceptance that we should do these things.
  But manifestly it seems there is almost universal timidity when it comes to the question of how we pay for them.
  
  Tax to GDP:
  
  I have said this before, and I say it again. I cannot understand why it is a badge of honour for a Labor government to have a lower tax to GDP ratio than the Howard government.
  
  Measured by tax receipts as a proportion of GDP, Australia is the 5th lowest taxing country in the OECD.
  
  A mere 0.7 per cent increase in the ratio of tax to GDP would raise sufficient revenue for us to realise our aspirations to be a good society.
  
  With GDP approaching $1.5 trillion it is beyond me that we cannot see fit to devote less than one per cent of it to fulfilling a promise of a good society.
  
  We would still be the fifth lowest taxing country in the OECD!
  
  It is high time we withdrew from what seems like some international virility contest where those who tax the least win, regardless of the cost to the social fabric.
  
  The federal budget still contains waste and unjustifiable expenditure.
  ACOSS has identified some of it in their recent brief on where it thinks waste can be cut from the budget to increased income support payments.
  
  Many of the items identified by ACOSS have also been on my radar.
  
  If we are to fund world-class public education and health systems, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, improvements in aged care, and increases to Newstart including changes to the taper and ongoing indexation then we need to look at how we increase government revenue as a percentage of GDP.
  
  This would include a mixture of revenue raising tax raising initiatives and cutting unjustifiable expenditure.

  
  
• 

  MRRT: {Mining Resource Rent tax}
  
  I still think we will need to widen the spread and increase the depth of the MRRT.
  
  In the medium to long term we will need to change profit based taxes from a tax which is used for ongoing budget expenditure to one which pays for nation building health, education, and infrastructure projects.
  
  Hypothecated taxes:
  
  We should also consider specific hypothecated taxes for ongoing structural expenditure that contributes to the well-being of society.
  
  Financial transaction taxes:
  
  I am also a supporter of a small financial transaction tax on speculative financial transactions. Many countries in Europe are implementing a modest financial transaction tax which has the potential to raise a significant amount of revenue for government.
  
  Trusts:
  
  Over the past year had I have been looking carefully, as part of the budget estimates process, at evidence that private discretionary trusts are being used by high wealth individuals to minimise tax, avoid tax and conceal assets. I will continue to do this.
  
  Superannuation:
  
  I am a long-standing advocate of the superannuation system and have supported many policy measures to encourage retirement savings. I am proud to have fought for superannuation as a union official.
  
  However the time has come for a reappraisal of the tax concessions that arguably act as a device to minimise the personal income tax of high wealth individuals.
  
  Many of these concessions are deeply entrenched and will be politically difficult to get rid of. No government ever built a good society by shirking the politically difficult decisions.
  
  Tax concessions on superannuation that cost about $32 billion a year are not sustainable.
  
  Treasury estimates that this figure will be $42 billion in 2015 – 16; more than the annual cost of the aged pension. At that rate we may as well double the aged pension and do away with government funded superannuation incentives.
  
  Diesel Fuel Tax Rebate Paid to Mining Companies:
  
  Of the $5 billion total cost to the budget of the diesel fuel tax credit scheme, $1.9 billion (or forty per cent of total claims) of that is claimed by the mining industry. As production expands when the investment is that the current boom winds down, this figure is likely to increase exponentially.
  
  Accelerated Depreciation:
  
  Accelerated depreciation concessions available to the mining industry are worth an estimated $1 billion a year. In years to come this will grow as the boom in capital expenditure is included in company accounts. If left unchecked, these concessions will cost the budget billions in tax expenditures in the coming decades.
  
  Profit Shifting:
  
  Profit shifting and tax avoidance by multinational companies is a challenge to all nations.
  
  I am pleased that legislation is currently before the Parliament aimed at countering profit shifting and tax avoidance associated with it.
  
  This would stem revenue losses of around $1 billion a year.
  
  Conclusion:
  The Labor government has done good work unwinding some of the more egregious middle-class welfare measures introduced by the Howard government.
  
  As ACOSS has pointed out, much more needs to be done.
  
  In pursuing the collective good we will confront some very powerful vested interests ad their political sycophants in the parliament. It was ever thus and will always be so.
  
  My role in Parliament is working to build a good society, even if it is unpopular with the rich, the powerful and the Tory press.
  
  None of what needs to be done to lift the most vulnerable in society out of poverty will be popular with those people and organisations.
  
  It never has been.
  
  Thank you.

There's This Thing

There's this thing about getting older. No it is not about wisdom, or wrinkles or slowing down. It is this thing about understanding more about what it's all about.
Knowing that life is really about a short time here, loving and caring and having lots of sex before the whole thing vanishes beneath your energy.
Knowing that life is really about having babies and spending time with those you love and care for and adore and wish to connect with.
Knowing that life is really fragile and very thin in the greater scheme of things.

When you want to scream to the world (well your children, or up your street) that ; For fuck's sake have babies, they are YOUR future, then you know you have moved over the 'hump' of life and are on the downward slide.
If only you had known.

You kinda guessed, didn't you?
That all that smothering, sweaty, lusty, fumbling was about making egg and sperm meet, but you wanted to 'rise about it' and show that it was different nowadays.

Now in the downward spiral of life you can see the importance of lust. Good, loving, energetic, joyful, committed, strong, grunty, sweaty lust was the need to reproduce and carry on the life force of the world.

And now it is all too late.
Men are slower ( good for us women), calmer (good for us women), more attentive (good for us women) and far more understanding about their mortality ( good for us women).
They didn't know it would happen.
We hoped it would happen when we reached OUR zenith at 33 but it took them another 15 years...pity..but ..such is life and Nature and such.

And all those women in the past who upon reaching menopause said; No more when in fact they ( if they understood and were smart) were randier and readier and gruntier than ever!
Poor men. They miss the mark. They miss their mark.

But we women are poorer still coz we are feistier and more ready than ever before, that is if we can resist the pharmaceuticals and (male) doctors who tell us to go on 'hormone replacement'.

If we don't we would realise what we are missing....but again we daren't tell other women what they are doing to themselves. It is a secret and I am exposing it here ...and now...You can quote me for the future 'reports and studies' that ....
Women who accept their menopausal state will quickly revert to sexual hunger as in their 20's.

Shh...don't tell men. They will feel so confronted. But...BUT; the difference is
We are far more giving, patient and accepting now than ever before...and we are willing to do ALL the work.

You lucky lucky bugga!!!

Asylum Seekers In Australia

A piece written by an amazing Legal Eagle; Julian Burnside.
This is the truth;

Further down the wrong track By @JulianBurnside Julian Burnside #AsylumSeekers #refugees this is #Australia #Auspol

It is clear enough that the revived Pacific Solution has not stopped the boats: it has not even slowed them.

In 2002 the boats stopped, some months after Pacific Solution Mk I was introduced. The supp

orters of the policy said that it was the Pacific Solution that stopped the boats: post hoc, ergo propter hoc. In 2012 boat arrival rates increased after Pacific Solution Mk II was introduced. By the same logic we could argue that the Pacific Solution caused arrival rates to increase.

Bob Carr has since said that the arrival rates would have been higher but for Pacific Solution Mk II. It is difficult to argue against that species of logic, beyond saying that it sheds light on the frontier which optimism shares with desperation.

Chris Bowen yesterday announced some running repairs on Pacific Solution Mk II. Because Nauru and Manus Island between them have no chance of taking the people who have arrived here by boat since the new policy was introduced (much less accommodating them for five years - the “no advantage” principle at work), people will be allowed into the Australian community on bridging visas, but they will not be allowed to work and they will have to wait for five years (the “no advantage” principle again).

While this announcement will, for a while, prevent the Pacific Solution from imploding, it just takes us further down the wrong track.

Almost everything that has happened in refugee policy over the past 11 years has been informed and supported by dishonest rhetoric. Specifically, calling boat people “illegals” and “queue-jumpers” is not only false, it is calculated to prejudice the public against a tiny group of weak, vulnerable people who deserve our help, not our hatred.

The poison was started by John Howard, but it is still streaked through the Coalition rhetoric. Earlier this week Tony Abbott shamelessly referred to boat-people as “illegals”, and spoke of them entering Australia “illegally”. Either his policies are founded on a gross misunderstanding of the facts, or he is being dishonest. With him, It’s hard to tell.

To be clear: it is not illegal to come to Australia without papers and seek asylum. Boat-people do not commit any offence by their manner of arrival.

Furthermore, the notion of “queue-jumpers” is equally wrong, and is used with equally malevolent intent. Most of the boat-people who have come here over the past 15 years have been Hazaras from Afghanistan. Hazaras are an ethnic minority in Afghanistan. They have been persecuted since the middle of the 19th century. The Taliban are intent on wiping them from the face of the earth. Imagine a Hazara who wants to find safety from the Taliban, but has heard Australia’s criticism of “queue-jumpers”. Suppose he decides to do things the way Tony Abbott would approve: he looks for the Australian Embassy in Kabul in order to seek asylum. Sadly for him, the address of the Embassy is a secret, for security reasons.

Not much of a queue, if you are not allowed to know where it is.

But leave aside that the location of the Australian Embassy is a secret, the larger point is that refugee flows are always untidy. The idea that desperate people will conduct themselves as if waiting for a bus to take them to the shops is not only ludicrous, it reveals a complete lack of empathy, or even understanding, of why refugees flee for safety in the first place. The instinct to survive generally trumps an instinct for good manners.

If John Howard had not poisoned the public debate so effectively between 2001 and 2007, perhaps more Australians would be concerned about the present government’s treatment of boat-people. Make no mistake, all human rights NGOs, and most Western countries, regard our treatment of boat-people as wantonly cruel. We are a rich, secure nation, insulated by sea from most of the world’s refugee flows. How different our international reputation might be if all Australians understood a few basic facts:

boat-people are not illegal; they have not broken any law by getting here;
there is no queue;
about 90% of them are ultimately accepted as genuine refugees, legally entitled to protection;
the numbers getting here are tiny, by any measure. This year, total boat-people arrivals will amount to less than 8% of our annual migration intake;
boat-people do not represent a failure of border control. Around 4 million people cross our borders with permission each year (mostly for tourism, business or study). If 20,000 boat-people get here this year without authority (it will likely be fewer), it will mean that border control is successful 99.5% of the time. It takes a special form of deceit to reframe this as a “failure of border control”. Let me make my meaning clear: members of the Coalition who criticise boat arrivals as a failure of border control are either dishonest or so utterly uninformed that they should not speak publicly on the subject;
indefinite mandatory detention costs a spectacular amount of money, and causes untold psychiatric harm to people who are already vulnerable.

The latest announcements about boat-people have us heading further down the wrong track: a track marked out by the Howard government for political reasons, and sold to the public by dishonest rhetoric which the Coalition continues to peddle. The result is that we are spending vast amounts of money on indefinite mandatory detention (at least $1 billion per year, but increasing as we spin them off to more remote, more expensive, places).

The cost of indefinite detention has to be clearly recognised. Detention on-shore costs around $150,000 per person per year. It costs about $350,000 per person per year to hold them off-shore. But the cost goes further. Since most boat-people are ultimately recognised as refugees, and are accepted into the community, they come into the community profoundly damaged by their detention experience and (in some cases no doubt) resentful rather than grateful. They are less able to contribute fully to the Australian community because of the damage we inflict on them. This is a profound irony, given that boat-people show great courage and initiative by getting here the way they do. In principle, they are just the sort of people we want here.

The number of boat-people who get here is small, by any measure. This year we might get 20,000 boat-people arriving, but it is likely to be fewer. Just recently Greece – not in great financial shape right now – volunteered to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees. If Greece can manage 20,000 refugees in one hit, I dare say Australia can cope with 20,000 in a year. Incidentally, the population of Greece is about half that of Australia.

If things keep going as they are, we will lock them up, ship them off to Nauru, or condemn them to a life in the shadows as a new underclass prevented from working for five years regardless of their true status as refugees. To put this in perspective, each of these responses involves Australia in breaches of various international human rights standards but more importantly it sits badly with our vision of ourselves as a generous, decent nation.

There is an alternative.

If I could re-design the system, it would look something like this:

· boat-arrivals would be detained initially for one month, for preliminary health and security checks, subject to extension if a court was persuaded that a particular individual should be detained longer;

· after initial detention, they would be released into the community, with the right to work, Centrelink and Medicare benefits. Even if none of them got a job, it would be cheaper than keeping them locked up;

· they would be released into the community on terms calculated to make sure they remained available for the balance of their visa processing;

· during the time their visa applications were being processed, they would be required to live in rural or regional areas of Australia. Any government benefits they received would thus work for the benefit of the rural and regional economy. There are plenty of towns around the country which would welcome an increase in their population.

It would take a bit of political selling, although I suspect that rural and regional Australia would be quick to see the benefits of this new approach.

But it should not be too hard to persuade the community that we can do better than we are doing now. The present system is supported by lies. Of course criminals should be treated as criminals. But when you see that boat-people are not criminals it is more difficult to understand, much less accept, our treatment of them.

I believe most Australians are decent, generous people. Our record in both world wars stands as a tribute to our national character; our response to the Asian tsunami is another. It was tragic to see our national character brought down by the Howard government’s deceptive rhetoric about boat-people (most of it calculated to win back voters who had drifted to One Nation). It is equally tragic to see our national character being damaged by a Labor government which does not have the political spine to tell it as it is: to point out to voters that there is a better way; that we are better than this.