Wimbledon finals New Faces

I love it when the Williams sisters are shown the door. This year the Wimbledon finals will not be dominated by the Williams sisters. The contest for the women remains very open, and there are some new names. I would love to support Maria Bartoli, the French contender, and after that Maria Sharapova. However, all of the remaining contenders deserve their spot in the finals.

Should we trust those walk-in centres?

Yet again, this is a story that relates to the UK and not Australia, but those walk-in centres are here. There is one in Canberra that is attached to the hospital at Woden. They might be good for coughs and colds, but I do not think that I would go to something staffed by nurses only, especially if I thought that my symptoms were DVT related. I do in fact think that the nurse at the centre was quite negligent, and that she should have referred the victim (because she died) to the A&E for further testing. Please read the whole story because there are some lessons, and yes, corrections have been made to the walk-in-centre.

The youngest person that I have known to have DVT was also in her 20s when she suddenly became ill. She was caught in time and no I do not know if she is fine because I have not seen her for more than 10 years.

However, this is yet another story that gives focus to misdiagnosis and as one who has been frustrated by misdiagnosis over a period of 20 years, it is something that is close to my own heart. This is a story that can happen anywhere. The man who just did a repair job at my house gave an example that happened at Gosford hospital to his brother who was 40 when he passed away suddenly – from Deep Vein Thrombosis – which occurred after he had a fall down some steps. Only the other day I read another story where the woman, in her 30s died as a result of an embollism, after she had taken a fall and severely hurt her knee. She had bruising on her knee, and the blood clot from the bruising travelled to her heart. That story was a bit of a shock because I have had falls where I have ended up with severe bruising and yes, on my knee (as well as elsewhere) and fortunately nothing like that happened, but oh boy my knee and those other spots really did hurt!!

My fights have not been with any hospital, but with doctors, and yes with specialists as well. This is because of what I had experienced over a period of more than 20 years until I got a firm diagnosis for my arthritis. My own story is complicated because I have fractured my coccyx twice (the second time I had the biggest bruise you can imagine so that it really did hurt to try and sit down). I also have a history of spraining my ankles, and only once did I have really severe bruising (my physiotherapist came to the conclusion that yes I probably did put a crack into the foot – long story on that one), and it took ages to heal. In fact my foot has never been the same since then. On top of that I had suffered severe whiplash in a car accident that left me with stretched ligaments and with limited ability to lift weights.  In the long term it seems that an underlying arthritis was also involved in the lack of healing.

My late sister was also misdiagnosed, and it turned out that she had what was probably primary bone cancer. One doctor told her to go home and drink plenty of fluids – duh, she could not eat or drink at the time. It was extremely unhelpful. As a result of the misdiagnoses, my sister had 6 weeks after she was finally diagnosed with cancer, before she passed away. Incompetence might have been the reason, but some of the blame can be put down to the probability that some of those doctors were judgemental when it came to handling her case.

However, it is the story of my great-nephew, Nathan Lambert that is the real tear jerker. My niece was full term and everything had been fine, yet Nathan ended up as a still-born, and it was due to incompetence which can be put down to procedures and poor judgement. My niece had presented to the hospital when here waters broke, but she was sent home. She went back to the hospital. They did not do any monitoring of the baby, until it was too late. Instead of sending her for a caesarian operation, the doctor determined that the baby’s heartbeat was weak, and he allowed the baby to die in the womb. Then he induced the birth of the baby. The cord was wrapped around Nathan’s neck. If the hospital had been competent at the time, they should have recognized after she presented with her waters broken that she needed to be monitored (especially as it was her first child) and that the infant should have been checked. Also, when the heartbeat was weak, she should have been prepped for a caesarian operation. There was nothing done to save the life of Nathan.The resident did not make contact with her doctor, who just happened to be on holiday when my niece was due to have her baby!! This happened at Sandringham hospital in Victoria. The midwives had the attitude that “she was young and she’ll get over it”, in other words they could not care less about the baby!!

I nearly suffered a similar fate, with my youngest son, who is now the father of a little boy. He also had the cord wrapped around his neck when he was born. This is something that is quite common. The difference was that the attending Professor, who was also my specialist doctor, overrode the resident, who was going to send me home. My waters had not broken, but I had the contractions, and then they stopped. He was baby nr. 3, he was overdue, and this had happened in my other pregnancies. I needed help to have my waters broken. The hospital in my case was the Mercy Maternity hospital in East Melbourne, and the doctor who intervened was Professor Boetcher. I am glad that he intervened, not once, but twice to ensure that I had two very healthy baby boys. It was the case history that counted, and the resident kept on overriding my concerns (he did that when I visited the clinic and he was overriding me even when I should have been prepped to have my waters broken).

This young woman’s story is a horror story. It should not have happened, and the nurse who refused to pay attention to what she was telling the nurse was very much in the wrong. Since walk-in centres staffed by nurses could be the future, I think that we need to be well-informed and decide whether or not we want to trust these people with anything other than the sniffles.

 

 

 

Duh…. what do they think is meant by Anglo-Saxon?

UK Mail Online has up an article that for some unknown reason researchers are amazed that over 50% of British have… OMG….a German gene. One has to know the political boundaries in Europe before and after Bismark to understand that the author of the article is indeed being a little bit dim.

The modern Germany is made up of a host of smaller states that existed prior to Bismark’s unification. What this means is that the people who emigrated from Saxony were Saxons first, and perhaps German second.

The article pointed out that the geneticists discovered a Y chromosome that is common to Germans and Danish, and probably other northern Europeans. For some unfathomable reason they were surprised that the gene was common in about 50% of the British. To me that is a real “duh”, because our race is classified as Anglo-Saxon.

In my own case I carry the Anglo-Saxon blood, and probably some Celt blood, being a mixture from England, Ireland, Scotland and Saxony (Germany). My great-grandfather travelled to Australia to escape Bismark. This explains why my father was a blonde, and so are two of my sons as well as my newborn grandson. It explains why my sister had very blonde hair up until about the age of 8 and the same with my cousins in the same family gene pool.  Now add to that information the fact that some of my ancestors also came from the part of the UK where the Anglo-Saxons settled.

However, the article itself is worth a read because it does give a bit of history about how the Saxons and the Angles, as well as the Jutes and a few other tribes invaded the British Isles and became the dominant race, with the Celts being confined to both Scotland and Ireland.  Do keep in mind that these same Anglo-Saxons who remain superior to the rest (they still own the throne in England), conquered the Scots and the Irish, thus infusing the blood-line just a little bit further. This is also the same bloodline that went to the USA as well as Australia.

If the geneticists did the same testing in the Australian population, especially amongst those of us who are Anglo-Saxon, then I think that the same gene would also be found to be very common. It really is a no-brainer.

There is no dilemma – she is simply the worst ever Prime Minister

The Age has yet another story on the worst ever Prime Minister of Australia – Juliar-theMarxist- Dullard. The woman deserves to be held in contempt, especially when she lied so often prior to her coup to get the role of Prime Minister, a role that she never deserved. Her high spending ways prior to her coup should have been a clue that as Prime Minister she would continue in the tradition of the discredited Marxist Gough Whitlam, who was one of the worst Prime Ministers of Australia who led Australia into a prolonged period of Stagflation. The end result of the Whitlam years happened to be that many graduates finished their degrees and ended up unemployed because there was a very big market contraction. For example in the accounting world at the time, the big firms were hiring very few graduates, and there were even fewer jobs available outside of the big accounting firms, including oil companies etc. etc. It left a sour taste, especially for female graduates who also had to face the discriminatory practices of some of the big six at the time. Cooper’s and Lybrand for example told female prospectives that they generally did not hire women because they were unwilling to travel (or some such bullshit that was fed to women at the time). Other firms used other even less transparent excuses that were equally bullshit, especially when few men remained in the one job on a long term basis in the 1970s.

So here it is 2011, and once again Australia is facing the prospect of stagflation, and more than likely because of the lag effects in economic cycles, Australia is probably facing prolonged stagflation. The signs of the coming prolonged stagflation are already quite clear… it is very much the 1970s redux. This is especially true because we have had high spending governments that have refused to tighten their own belts, but they have hit the poor old taxpayer pretty hard in paying for their prolifigacy.

Take for example the fact that in 2007 when KRUDD won the election, Australia had a Federal budget surplus, yet within 12 months that surplus had slipped away and rapidly became a very large deficit. This was made worse through the high spending pork barrelling called “the stimulus program”. The money wasted on that program has been sufficient to see Australia’s good position go down the gurgler.

When the GFC hit in 2008 Australia was not really under threat, yet money was wasted by the government when it gratuitously gave $900 as a tax refund to people who had not even paid taxes in the first place!! On the other hand, people in a higher middle income bracket (not top dollar earners) were left without any form of tax relief. (there were sectors in Australia that were hit by the GFC, including the travel industry. QANTAS, for example began to shed thousands of jobs at that time. These job losses were across the board and the only thing that counted to management was the $’s earned rather than the skills and expertise of the persons targetted for redundancy. Many people were hit very hard because of overseas factors. These were people who were not eligible for unemployment relief).

The issue that sank KRUDD was the ETS or at least that is what some people claim. It was a lousy and unnecessary scheme anyway, based as it was upon false information about the effects of the air that we breathe out, carbon dioxide. Juliar-theMarxist Dullard, however, and those who supported her, were influenced by the popularity polls, and so the bitch stabbed KRUDD in the back, despite her repeatedly stating that she had no such ambition. What an outright flaming liar.

Here are some little snippets from this Age article:

The question of what sort of person Gillard really is, and the doubts about her legitimacy were compounded by the election campaign and its result. When she declared during the campaign that she was going to be the ”real Julia”, the tactic fed into not just opposition propaganda but the public’s serious doubts. The election outcome – with Labor winning only a minority of seats and clinging to power by deals with the Greens and some independents – was another blow to Gillard’s legitimacy. By delivering a non-result, the voters had shown they couldn’t make up their minds; polling since suggests they subsequently have wished they had gone further in their censure. This sentiment and the perpetual election campaign we are now in have contributed to what social researcher Hugh Mackay describes as a ”savage” public mood about federal politics, with people feeling ”adrift” and critical of both leaders.

Gillard has compounded the distrust arising from the coup by breaking her election promise, made in the last desperate stages of the campaign, not to bring in a carbon tax. This breach of faith is all the more damaging because carbon pricing is shaping as a, if not the, defining issue of Labor’s second term.

The broken promise adds to the difficulty voters are having knowing what Gillard stands for. Much of her agenda is Rudd’s. Nothing wrong with that – except that she said the Rudd government, of which she was the second most senior member, had ”lost its way”.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-gillard-dilemma-20110617-1g85h.html#ixzz1PiRM6wDv

But wait there is a lot more in this article:

THE ”what does she stand for?” question comes up on various issues. The Left in particular shakes its collective head over her apparent opposition to gay marriage. Is this really her view, despite her left-wing origins, or is this poll driven? The Labor man mentioned earlier is blunt: ”She pretends she’s a social conservative – I think she lies.”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-gillard-dilemma-20110617-1g85h.html#ixzz1PiRtp229

 

And there is much more:

Yet she has taken what seem to voters perplexingly inconsistent positions. She advised Rudd to back off the emissions trading scheme, then pursued the carbon tax after the election. Admittedly the Rudd government was jammed by the opposition on the ETS so retreat was not a crazy decision – in retrospect, however, it turned out to be a disastrous one. Then after the election Gillard had to act quickly on carbon pricing because Bob Brown – crucial to the minority government – was insisting. But persuade an increasingly sceptical electorate that this all stacks up.

And that’s another thing. Gillard did not explain key aspects of her behaviour. She fell back on the defence of confidentiality. Admirable at one level; a copout at another. She says she will never disclose her conversation with Kevin Rudd on the night of the coup. Why not, precisely? Politicians have often talked about crucial, history-turning moments. Has she kept silent to protect Rudd? Hardly.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-gillard-dilemma-20110617-1g85h.html#ixzz1PiSM7NDL

 

Part of the uncertainty arises from the fact that Gillard seems to have extraordinary difficulty getting her messages across. It is another paradox: she used to be so good at it – clear, simple, convincing.

Her delivery has changed, becoming more ponderous and flatter, as speech expert Cate Madill, from Sydney University’s voice research laboratory, has documented on The Conversation website. Her prime ministerial tones ”convey a lack of spontaneity, a highly controlled delivery, and are likely to induce perceptions that Julia is being unnatural, rehearsed and disingenuous – that is, we think it’s all spin,” Madill writes.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-gillard-dilemma-20110617-1g85h.html#ixzz1PiSeAUfI

Another ministerial source regards her as a ”bigger control freak than Kevin”, with a dysfunctional office: ”She manages cabinet to suit her own circumstances. Decisions are expected often without proper paperwork and time to consult.” The source lists the levy to help finance the flood reconstruction, the Malaysia solution and even the suspension of live cattle exports to Indonesia. And before the election, said the source, when cabinet discussed the possibility of a refugee processing centre in East Timor, ”no one walked out thinking we were going to do Timor – a number said, ‘Don’t do Timor, it’s too hard’.” Gillard announced the East Timor plan, and it duly proved too hard, to the government’s deep embarrassment.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-gillard-dilemma-20110617-1g85h.html#ixzz1PiTfp4Kh

 

The Australian population did not vote for the “reform agenda”. If anything there was a resounding no vote against this agenda. Now we have had plenty of time to look at the agenda. Those committee reports on the non-existent global warming are an example of why the public are so angry and this extremely dull and unlikeable woman.

 

How much longer?

How much longer do Australians have to put up with the worst Australian Prime Minister in my lifetime? How much longer can this rabid Marxist, who pretends that she is not a Marxist, continue in her role?

The latest news poll results are quite devastating, and Juliar-theMarxist-Dullard, now has her highest disapproval rating in a year. That is not surprising.

The problem with this particular government is that it is a minority government led by a desperate woman clinging to power through desperation due to her shabby deals with the Independents Andrew Wilkie, Tony Windsor and Robb Oakeshotte (none of these individuals can be classed as having any morals when it comes to their own lust for power), as well as a very grubby deal with the watermelons aka the Marxist Green Party.

The dullard who is leading Australia, as well as her top ministers do not have a clue about running the country. Specifically Wayne the Goose, Swan should be singled out for his extreme dimwittedness. As least with Paul Keating, we had a man who, though unschooled, had a keen brain and who did absorb things, but that is not the case with Goosey, Goosey Gander, Swan.

It is more than the crap about “climate change”, and the absolute bull that is fed to the nation regarding a non-existent problem with carbon-dioxide. It is about the lack of leadership, the inability to formulate policy that will see Australia remain as a prosperous nation. The Dullard polices, especially this totally unnecessary carbon-dioxide tax that will do nothing to fix our weather patterns (as if we could influence nature in that way) can only lead Australian down an abyss.

The most stupid argument that is being used by Dullard and her crew of crooks, is that Australia must implement this iniquitous tax that will cause even more hardship on hard-working Australians because we do not want to get left behind other nations. What a lot of twaddle!!!!  Do Australians need higher utility bills, when we are already struggling with out of control utility charges? NO WAY!!!!  The implementation of this iniquitous carbon-dioxide tax will cause people who are already struggling to pay their mortgages to lose their houses because they will not be able to pay those higher charges.

The whole scheme is nothing more than a cheap attempt at the Marxist “redistribution of income” policy, which most of us do not swallow in the first place. The proposed compensation scheme is nothing more than a smokescreen. Dullard needs the carbon tax because her spendthrift policies that are bankrupting the nation are not sustainable and she needs the income from an iniquitous tax in order to try and balance the budget. However, this balanced budget will not happen because Dullard and her dimwitted dwarves refuse to rein in the excessive spending on things like the BER program, as well as on the white elephant NBN network. 

With Dullard and crew, it is “everything is gung-ho” and there is no end to the madness. One very good example of the stupidity is the “buy-back” scheme being touted between Malaysia and Australia when it comes to those boat people. It involves a swap of 800 people for 3000 people, and it will cost the Australian taxpayer a lot of money for a scheme that is full of problems. What a disaster!!

An Australian post-natal story – a follow-up from the British story

My first grandchild, a grandson, Nathan, was born 5 and half weeks premature. He was born in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. My son made the right choice when it came to the hospital chosen to have his child.

First of all, Nathan is a good weight considering that he is so far premature. He suffered jaundice and he had some breathing problems. It was an instruments birth, and the poor little thing had some shocking bruising on his little face.  He is now out of hospital and is safe at home with his parents. We went to visit him today. He has a feeding tube but he is breast fed most of the time.

Second, this is the part that is the follow-up to the story I posted recently, and it is based upon what I witnessed today. In the case of a premature child, the nursing staff from the hospital actually come and visit the home after the child has come home. Whilst we were there a nurse turned up to check Nathan. She checked his weight, and she checked the log that has to be kept on feeding times and the amount actually fed to the baby. She also checked him for other little things, getting him to stand and into crawling position. Everything was really fine.

I was very impressed with this home visit. It is great knowing that the mothers of premature infants can draw upon the nursing staff from the hospital in this manner – it was so different each time I gave birth. The professionalism of the nursing sister who came on the visit was very evident. She also did a bit of checking with regard to the home environment and no doubt made her observations .

This particular situation is a direct contrast to the home visit received by that poor woman and her baby daughter. The contrasts in the situation could not be more obvious.

My observation is that resources in the U.K. are being stretched to the limit. This is in part due to the rise in immigration, but a dip in the number of employed taxpayers, meaning that there is a rise in welfare recipients who are placing a lot of pressure on an already stretched system. Something has to give in such a situation, and it in part explains why this kind of accident can happen in the first place. However, the lack of professionalism of the nurse who was accompanied by the student nurse is also a factor.

I am already well aware of the manner in which resources in hospitals are being stretched to the maximum, especially in NSW. This was evident several years ago when they could not pay their bills on time. The lack of funding was due to the government of the day (there were delays due to the budget available to pay for the bills). Just like the UK Australian resources are being increased by an influx of immigrants who end up on welfare. What I am stressing here is that when these people are not contributing to the tax system, but are takers, the end result is that all of the govt funded resources become over-stretched. This is indeed the situation in the UK and Australia could head in the same direction (I have first hand experience with the difficulties faced by major hospitals to pay their bills).

However, it is with pride that I can point out the professionalism of the staff at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital and the way that they have cared for my grandson.

What some people fail to understand here, is that you cannot have an economy where there are too many welfare recipients with the burdern falling upon those who are contributing by their work. The alternative to this problem rests with the private sector’s ability to create new jobs. Government created jobs do not alleviate the chronic condition, but only adds to the burdens already being placed upon taxpayers. Whilst I believe that having a mechanism in place for those who are temporarily unemployed, I certainly think that some of the benefits being thrown at the long term unemployed can be counter-productive.

For example, there are people who have more than one “wife”, and this is not confined to Islam either. These people secrete their “wives” in different locations, and then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th wife claim benefits. There are examples where the women have lived together, producing a swag of children, and the whole lot of them live off welfare benefits. The man does not work because he lives off those benefits as well. The point here is the behaviour and the way in which a system actually encourages this form of cheating on the system. The remainder of the taxpayers, and I might add other welfare recipients are hurt by such people.

There is a lot that I could write on the subject because I most certainly have observed a lot of what is wrong with the “welfare state” as it exists, especially when we get one group of individuals who bleat and fart about “alleged middle class welfare” which is not middle class welfare at all. Yet these same individuals will push for more immigrants who come into Australia but without a job (which cannot be filled by someone already here) lined up. Inevitably these immigrants remain a drain on the economy until they are in the workforce.  In other words, a first step is to slow down that form of immigration. I think that the failure is actually the fact that the government has failed with labour market policies. This, in my view has been a long term failure. One of the aims of government should be full employment. It should not be an aim of government to hand out benefits to people who are able-bodied.

There will always be a class of people who cannot work for a variety of reasons:

1. illness including some forms of arthritis, heart disease, etc. etc.

2. accidents – including the loss of limbs and senses etc. This includes doing things like fracturing one’s coccyx.

3. birth defects

4. age

These are just some reasons that are legitimate. With regard to birth defects, I could have said “Downs Syndrome”, but I know better, because it is all about the way those children are treated and accepted. Plenty of them are employed and employable.

However, there are some people who have self-inflicted their “disability” such as drug addicts and alcoholics. This is a class of people that need rehabilitation but how that happens, without them wanting to rehabilitate, is not possible to comment.

My point is not about individual welfare recipients, but it is about government response to the needs of a group of people who need help, which ends up being exploited by healthy individuals.

Even in regard to accident and emergency, there is a need for some reform that could relieve some of the stress on the hospital system due to a class of people who turn up to emergency because of every sniffle. YES, I have used the A&E at weekends when there is no available doctor. The last time was in January when I had a severe chest infection. So, again this is more about people who use the hospital A&E on weekdays when they could go to a GP instead. Yes, I am well aware of the problems due to the doctor fees, because I live in a location where there are no doctors willing to take just the medicare benefit. YES, I am an outpatient at a hospital for my arthritis. 

My point is that without reform there will be a continuing stress upon an already stretched hospital system. My point is that immigration needs to be slowed down. My point is that the labour market needs to be reformed and government needs to see to the needs of all, not just some. In other words, there are times when government policy excludes people because of income from being able to seek help to get into the job market. This is where the government policy remains wrong.

Alexander the Great – was he Greek or Macedonian?

My history books stated that Alexander’s father was a Macedonian, which makes Alexander a Macedonian. This is based upon the ancient map of Greece, when Macedonia was in the northern part of Greece. Philip and his son, Alexander came from the north of Greece but the new Macedonia is in a slightly different location. Here is a link to an excellent site that explains the old borders, and the new borders in one map.

Other parts of the world referred to Alexander as a Greek, but the truth is, that is not strictly correct. Therefore, it is interesting, since Macedonia and Greece are now separate countries that both are fighting over ownership of Alexander the Great.

Several news outlets have the same story about the Macedonians erecting a statue that has the face of Alexander, but naming it “warrior on a horse”.  The new Macedonia is not quite in the same region as the old Macedonia, and I think that it can be argued that Greece has more claim to Alexander the Great than modern Macedonia.

Even the Age has a few things to say about Dullard

I have already highlighted two articles written about the worst Prime Minister Australia has ever had, outside of Gough Whitlam, and I note that even the Age (normally a Juliar-theMarxist-Gillard) supporter, has a not so rosy report, indicating that even they are turning their backs on her government. This is astounding, especially when these little lapdogs were slobbering all over the dullard during the last election campaign.

Here are a few excerpts:

FEWER than 48 hours separated the two extremes of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership

The information campaign is a small step in the right direction if Gillard is to do anything other than lead her government to its doom at the next election

But for the Gillard government, for every step forward, there is a step back. And unfortunately for the ALP, on television on Sunday night Gillard did exactly what she shouldn’t be doing.

Structurally, the ALP is barely functional. An incredibly tiny proportion of the electorate chooses to belong to it.

Its sense of direction is unclear, as is its sense of purpose. Incredibly, the longer it holds office nationally, the fuzzier its mission appears. Gillard has been at the helm of the government one week short of a year.

The set of afflictions that was harming the Rudd government this time 12 months ago, deterring people who had supported it in 2007 to vote for it again, has not been obviated by the replacing of Kevin Rudd with Gillard; the malaise has, if anything, intensified.

That this has happened under Gillard, the ministerial star of the Rudd government, long considered outstanding leadership material, renders the situation all the more remarkable. In a year, Gillard has gone from being highly popular to being unpopular, from trusted to not trusted.

The carbon tax issue – her reversal on her pre-election pledge ruling out such a tax – is obviously a substantial reason for this. But there are other fundamental causes, too.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/the-longer-labor-holds-office-the-fuzzier-its-mission-appears-20110614-1g1qe.html#ixzz1PJYcVF5Y

 

With regard to those fact sheets, if they are like most facts sheets, they will do nothing more than bamboozle people with figures and statistics that are easily manipulated to come up with the desired outcome. In other words, for many of us, such facts sheets are not going to change our point of view.

 

Juliar-theMarxist-Gillard, the dullard stinks as a leader. She never really had the popularity with the public. We see her as nothing more than a husband stealer, and as someone who cannot be trusted.  Her record with regard to fiscal responsibility totally stinks and is even worse than that of Gough Whitlam, and up until now the Whitlam government had been pretty much unbeatable as far as being bad for the Australian economy.

 

The legacy of the Whitlam government had been the prolongation of stagflation that had begun to take hold by the late 1960s/ early 1970s. This was due to the rash spending spree that occurred as soon as Whitlam was elected to power. It was also due to other factors which are interrelated – high interest rates, high inflation, high unemployment. The only factor that was outside of the government’s control was the first oil shock. 

 

History is repeating itself with an out of touch, high spending government wasting money of unnecessary programs, including the BER and the insulation program as well as the other “incentive” schemes. Then of course there is the obvious pork barrelling that was meant to bolster the ALP in certain electorates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The worst places in the world to be born a woman

I am glad that I am an Australian woman where I have freedoms that are not afforded to women in other parts of the world. I am glad that I was born an Australian and that I am a Christian, so that I do not suffer the deprivations that are experienced in other cultures. Women in Australia get paid very well for the work that we are offered. We do in fact have equal pay. For example, as a public servant I would get the same pay as a man at the same level in the public service. Anyone who says differently is talking trash. On top of that as an Australian I had access to good hospitals in order to have my children (just do not mention the bitches who were the midwives at Sandringham hosptial in Victoria).

In countries like Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India and Somalia, to be born a woman is a very bad thing. Up until the the Taliban gained control of Aghanistan, the lot of women in that country was not so bad. However, under the Taliban women lawyers and doctors for example, were forced out of the workforce. On top of that the maternity hospitals and other clinics looking after women’s needs were allowed to deteriorate. In some regions girls are forbidden to go to school, and they risk having acid thrown in their faces, or face death due to unknown substances being placed in the pipe system of the school. In the streets the women faced being beaten for showing the tiniest amount of flesh. Things have not gotten all that better since the Taliban were defeated, except of course the women are not beaten for showing a bit of leg or arm. Afghanistan is considered the worst place to be a woman. However, I would have thought that India and Pakistan were worse places. The survey report included the fact that there is a war in Afghanistan but I would discount that factor.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is extremely bad for women, and this is because of the excessive number of rapes that are committed each year. Sometimes the victims are as young as 3 years old. Obviously the DRC has a very lawless society. It is one where the rights of women are neglected.

In a previous post I dealt with one aspect of life in both India and Pakistan where girls as young as 5 are married off. This kind of practice is simply unacceptable. However, in both countries there are other reasons that it is not safe to be born a woman. India has the worst reputation since it has a high level of infanticide of girl babies, as well as abortions for girl babies. Once again, it is unacceptable that these people think that it is ok to murder the unborn. There are multiple problems in these societies that leads to these appalling practices:

1. the dowry system puts a lot of pressure on families with girls. Pakistan has the highest rates of dowry murder in the world.

2. in the villages where there is often the marriage of underage girls they are bartered off sometimes being used to pay back a debt.

3. in India there is a large trade of trafficking in girls, turning them into prostitutes.

Somalia is on the list as a dangerous place for women because there is no antenatal clinics which means that there is a higher probability of maternal and infant deaths than other places around the world.

To the things that were pointed out in the article I would add quite a few more items, including female circumcision. This particular practice is extremely dangerous for girls being born into such cultures. There is an extremely high risk of infection in these girls due to the unhealthy practice. Also, I would add that girls as young as 11 being forced into marriage face even bigger risks. I would add Yemen in with India and Pakistan when it comes to child brides. The risks include damage being done to the girls when their bodies are simply not ready for sexual activity, and they risk bleeding to death as a result of injuries sustained when an older man forces them to have sex.  There are added dangers if they fall pregnant, and having babies when their young bodies are simply not ready, including fistulas.

The ever present dangers are the high levels of maternal and infant deaths because the mothers are way too young to be giving birth in the first place.

Other dangers being faced by women in these countries, especially in African nations is HIV/AIDS. This is probably due to the fact that the men treat women as sex slaves, and in some African nations the women are passed between members of the tribe.

 

 

The incredible shrinking Prime Minister

Juliar-the Marxist-Gillard has been Prime Minister for roughly one year. She has brought a new disrepute and disrespect to Australia, especially on the world scene (these are my thoughts). Who can respect someone who flip flops all over the place like this woman? Who can respect someone who, for the sake of power did a deal with the devil, in the form of the Watermelons aka the Green Party?

Janet Albrechtson, writing in the Australian has an even harsher critique than the one given by Paul Kelly:

Julia Gillard is our very own incredible shrinking PM. Except her problem is the other way around. Gillard’s failure to garner respect is causing her to shrink in stature. And the PM can blame only a small part of her rapidly diminishing political character on external forces of minority government, taming the Greens and satisfying the eclectic demands of limelight-loving independents. In fact, Gillard’s lack of credibility and legitimacy as PM is due to her rank political opportunism.

Yet their opportunistic decision to use a 60 Minutes puff piece on Sunday night to try to turn the media cycle Gillard’s way only reminds us of the PM’s nagging political problems. The fact so many people are still asking “Who is the real Julia Gillard?”, and the fact the PM had to articulate the arrival of the real Julia during the last election campaign, and then, on Sunday night, Gillard had to tell us that “there is only one Julia”, betrays her inherent lack of authority and authenticity.

The best political leaders grow in the job. Consider Bob Hawke and John Howard. Or Gough Whitlam and Robert Menzies. Love them or loathe them, these prime ministers commanded respect. They had convictions. Politicians being politicians, they sometimes strayed. But mostly you knew what they stood for. Importantly, you could track a path of beliefs almost as long as their careers. Again, the path was not perfectly straight. As Howard told the Mont Pelerin Society annual conference last year, when he first became federal treasurer under Malcolm Fraser, he was far from being a committed economic rationalist. His experience helped convince him that freeing up the labour market was critical to Australia’s prosperity.

Even then, no one had to ask: “Who is the real John Howard?” Or who was the real Hawke or Whitlam or Menzies. Similarly, senior political leaders such as Peter Costello and Paul Keating grew in the job as treasurer. Alexander Downer did the same as foreign minister. They commanded respect, even if it was begrudging respect.

Yes, Janet, it is all about respect. You are right to some extent, because I cannot respect Gough Whitlam, but you are right that we at least knew what he was standing for, which is something that is impossible to know about Julia-theMarxist-Gillard, because she is hiding her authentic self from the public – or at least she thinks that she is hiding her real positions. As a Marxist it is in fact not hard to find out about her positions – she wants power, and she wants the redistribution of income. She also has no positions on most subjects because she has no real understanding of those issues. She knows how to spend and waste money, just like Whitlam spent and wasted money.