Ban also the Grunters, the Groaners, the Screamers, and those that emulate sounds which could be mistaken for orgasmic excitement.

No, its not a episode out of Underbelly, it’s real life Tennis! The Australian Open Championships has opened our eyes( and ears), to a plethora of players, particularly female, who cannot make a shot without some form of audible assistance. If you are a little perplexed at this comment, then take a look at this short YouTube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1RW4Iiqeys

That’s Maria Sharapova in action.

But the women tennis players don’t have it all to themselves. Jokovic and Nadal sound a bit like piggy grunters. Well at least they are not squealers! But the absolute master of restraint is, and always is Roger Federer. His cool unperturbed expression remains constant throughout the game, and mostly the only sound you hear is him saying” thank you” to his shattered opponent at the end of another Federer drubbing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWdKHIkWlZk&feature=related

At the Australian Open 2012, the crowd were just a little tired of the women verbally expressing themselves (so to speak), so resorted to their own groaning and moaning and shrieking in retaliation. You just have to love Aussies, as Peter Fitzsimons says.

To celebrate Australia Day properly, you need to do four things at the least.

1. Sing the Australian Anthem, Advance Australia Fair. Here are the words.

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair

2. Fly the Flag

A Variation
Provided By Wikipedia

So  go out into the front yard, and start digging a hole into which you can put your flagpole. Have a sqizz in the garage, bound to be a pole of some sort lying around.

3. Fire Up the Barbie

Don’t worry about a little rain. Hold a large umbrella in one hand and the sausage spatula in the other.

Remember the immutable law of being a BBQ chef. The chef must be kept lubricious.

So every now and again, call on your friends to hold another beer for you at mouth level and pour.

4. Watch Sport

The great Australian pastime. If you are near a venue, then take a train, and immerse yourself with the other 30,000 sport fanatics, cheering on your favourite team.

If you are wanting to save petrol, then watch it all on TV. Even better if you have a ceiling projector and a 102 inch screen. It's as if you are right there in the crowd. Better than 3D.

Following on our very popular “Save Water-Shower with a Friend” blog, we thought we might add some savings to your monthly accounts. We are a two person household, shared with three Burmese cats, and two German Shepherd dogs. So their food bill exceeds the human’s food bill per week. After all, they are serious eaters and no el cheapo food for them. It has to be premium; fish for the cats is out, and prime beef mince rolls from That Pet Place, smackos, and dog biscuits for the canines. Hence we are attempting to reduce other areas of expenditure, particularly power. So here are some of our ” home grown” recipes.

#1. Turn Off the Lights.

No we do not sit around in the dark at night lighting candles to see where we are. When it is night time, if we enter a room for some reason, then when exiting, the light gets turned off.

#2. Turn all Power-points Off.

If a particular accessory is switched off for non use, then avoid leaving it on standby. It still uses power, even though a trickle. So the TV, Projector, Amplifier, PC, Printers, are all turned off at the powerpoint when not in use. There are exceptions such as the water bed, fridges, freezers, etc.

#3. Use the Sun, not the Clothes Dryer.

Admittedly this has been a lot harder in the last 12 months, when week after week it has showered, drizzled, poured, deluged, hailed, intermittently stormed, cycloned, and generally been very wet. We have an 8000 litre water tank, and have not had to ourchase water for the last 3 years! So on fine days, do the washing, then leave out to dry by nature. The Sun. The sheets smell much fresher, and think of the vitamin D you are absorbing when hanging out the washing.

#4. Install Natural Gas or a Porta Gas System.

This may only be possible in some suburbs so far as natural gas or LPG is concerned. Should you decide to purchase a Home supply of porta  gas in those huge containers, ensure it is nowhere near an open fire. Behind a brick wall would the least dangerous place.

#5. Baby, Light My Fire.

Reminiscent of the famous song by The Doors, the use of a fireplace in Winter instead of using the Reverse cycle air-c0nditioner will save you a lot of money. We use a wood heater in Winter and very cold snaps, but we do spend money on buying hardwood timber such as Ironbark and Gidgee. (Do not use Gum tree logs, as they burn fiercly, generate little heat, but are good for fire starters.)  Two large hardwood logs keep the whole house heated for the night. The aforesaid animals also appreciate the warmth, and there is a fight for prime position in front of the fireplace.

#6. Short Showers.

As we said in the blog-Save Water, Shower with a Friend, you can have twice the people showering in half the time, and you can use a Chilie Pepper, but the easiest way is to cut down on the showering time. If you want to warm up on a cold winter morning, run round the house before showering. It may be a little enthusiastic to do this naked ( the running, not the showering), but with a lot of running, maybe a cold shower is the answer.

#7. Install Solar Energy.

The glory days are over for subsidised roof installations with paybacks by the Power Utilities paying for your excess power generation, thus amortising the capital cost of solar power, over a short period of 2-3 years. Too many installers and householders rorted the system. Also if you live on rural acreage, shade from those wretched gum trees could thwart your plans.

#8. Use Off Peak Tariffs.

The Utility companies have an Off Peak usage rate which generally applies overnight between 10.oopm and 6.00am the next morning. So if you are a day shift worker, or single, then late night shopping is OUT, and late night hoovering, washing and tumble drying is IN. The reference to being single is out of deference to sleeping partners who may not be as enthused about your power saving endeavours at odd hours of the night and early morning.

#9. Use the Oven to Cook Two Meals

One of the tricks of the trade, is that as all ovens have at least 2-3 racks,  cook food on all three. So if you are doing a Lamb Roast for Australia Day ( Sam Kekovitch free plug), put in some chicken legs and a lasagne to cook at the same time. Same oven, same time, 1/3 the power used. Use a slow cooker as well. A nice big one , so that you can do a boeuf bourguignonne, one meal to eat now, freeze the rest for meals over the next few months.

#10. Buy Energy Saving Rated Appliances.

Look at the Star Rating on all appliances such as fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers, microwave ovens, and air conditioners ( especially reverse cycle). Consider an induction hotplate and slow cookers. Best of all, buy a Bar-B-Q. Nothing like the smell of burnt sausages, and a  juicy rump steak, all washed down with a delectable Cabernet Sauvignon. No electricity. Wood fired, or buy a Weber and use charcoal.

Read Choice magazine as they do articles on all appliances right down to electric shavers, and publish their fullsome research in a monthly magazine. They also have a subscriber facility on their website. For more information go to www.choice.com.au

#11. Monitor Your Bills.

Do not necessarily accept each power bill without assessing it thoroughly. Compare with previous bills, perhaps as far back as 18 months. If there are spikes or troughs in usage, ascertain what happened  with the weather. A very cold winter, or an exceedingly hot summer, may mean extra usage on power facilities, especially air-conditioning.Leaving the external lights on at night, may only aid the snails and possums to follow a path to your vegetable patch. Its OK: they can see and feel in the dark without your help.

 #12 Compare Power Companies.

Nothing like a bit of competition to sharpen the prices. Have a browse for websites which do price comparisons, and evaluate your bills against their statistics. Try these web sites.

www.dodo.com.au

www.lesspower.com.au

www.redenergy.com.au

www.seebeyondwindows.com.au

www.1e.com

For regular latest news on Power Saving

www.news.com.au/Power

Footnote.

Using the above tips we have reduced our last quarterly power account by almost one -third! Circumstances will change according to weather, usage, appliances, and further expected price rises by the Utility Companies.

 If you have any further power saving tips, add a comment to this blog. If you would like to advertise with your banner ad on this blog, call Phillip at 02-96533526. We guarantee there is no call waiting, and we have a real live Australian who answers the phone.

PS. ( I think I might approach Integral Energy as a Sponsor!) 

Or should that read “At Long Last-A Website Millstone”?

The reason for the headline is that at some hour on Friday 13th January 2012,  PBDA achieved its 100,000 nth Visitor! What is further extraordinary about this statistic, is that we started counting visitors to the site only from the 1st. May 2011. So in just 8.5 months we have what I consider to be a great achievement. My thanks go to all the people who have supported me and the website over the last five years. My WordPress webdesigner, marketing consultant, business support group, my partner (who always proof reads my blogs, but does not necessarily agree with them), the supporters who contributed to the PBDA Top Ten Tips for Business, and numerous others who made suggestions as to web page design, content, keywords, SEO, EBS, YouTube, landing page design, and the myriad other facets of living with a web business, which in reality is a MONSTOR as it devours both your waking and sleeping time  with incessant requests to “please feed me!”

That’s right, it demands to have new content, fresh web pages, hyperlinks to other pages, stimulating blogs, url’s to click through to external links, ensure you have statistical analysis as you just MUST know how much time a visitor spends on site, views a page, buys something, what the bounce rate is, did the last YouTube video amuse viewers, did it go viral? How easy is it for people to contact you, at home, at business network events, early morning, and can they do it by phone, mobile, skype, e-mail, and of course the Social Media? You MUST address this are because if you don’t Twitter, Facebook and Link in to LinkedIn, then you are either a social pariah, or you are behind the times and out of date. Do you not realise how many millions of people who are doing this right now, and you will be left behind if you do not join the Families of Followers?

Did you not also realise my fellow web site business owners, that whatever you are doing, is just not good enough! Your paltry efforts to achieve a modicum of success are laughable. You have no real expertise, so for a mere $29.95 or $2,995.95, the Acme Knowall Company Inc. will provide you with a Beginners Kit, then an Intermediate Kit, and then the Mother of All Emerald Expert Kits so after 3 years of instruction, you too will be acknowledged as a Business Expert, Coach, Mentor, etc , produce your own How To Kits, and retire in luxury to your island paradise, to sip French Champagne and eat Beluga Caviar. Such are the rewards for success.

But I digress. Having reached the 1oo,ooo milestone, what now? Go for Gold, and aim for the next 100,000 visitors in only half the time? No. My challenge in 2012 is to convert my current sporadic Newsletter, into a Monthly Business Newsletter, with informative content . Any relevant contributions will be most welcome. Also if you wanted to advertise your business with a Banner Ad then now is the time to call me while I am in a benevolent mood and get a good deal. (This offer expires 31st January. That is, the benevolent offer). The PBDA offer to contribute otherwise is open for the rest of 2012. 

Late Breaking News! As at Sunday 22nd January 2012, PBDA had received a total of 104,800 Visitors.( and that figure is still climbing)

Every motorist who drives from the outer suburbs of Sydney knows the frustration of early morning traffic and the return journey home in the evening. Just mention the M2, M2,M4, F3, and the Hume, Cumberland and other highways. “Freeways” is an oxymoron as tolls apply to most of our freeways. Likewise the terminology “Expressways” is equally fatuous. After some 20 years of driving each day to and from the Sydney CBD I know how it feels to be crawling along in bumper to bumper traffic. Road rage may be a small problem, but the biggest problem is boredom as one proceeds at less then snails pace.

It was fascinating to observe the morning traffic. In clogged lanes, you are close enough to the vehicle in the left or right lane, to observe their in-car behaviour quite closely. Many women drivers applied make-up, eye shadow and lipstick and used the rear mirror tilted towards them to accomplish this feat. Many males drove with a newspaper or magazine lodged in their lap, and in the times the traffic halted, would read the newspaper and turn the pages. Males were using hand held cordless electric shavers, while others were eating breakfast cereal with the bowl lodged firmly on their lap, and many also drank coffee and soft drinks from bottles, cans and drink flasks. It brought to mind the story of the American person who left McDonalds with a hot cup of coffee wedged between his legs, only to have the lot spill all over his private parts when he had to brake suddenly.

There must be numerous ways to alleviate what is a stressful time for all motorists and here are several thoughts on the subject.

1.  Travel by Bus

In Sydney the traffic authorities have set aside express bus lanes. The lucky bus travellers who embark at the home depot will get a sit down ride all the way if in fact it is express to the CBD no stops. The bus runs which pick up at many stops on the way, may not be so lucky as the bus draws nearer to the destination. At least though one can listen to an i-Pod, read a magazine or watch the clogged traffic in the next lane.

2.  Travel by Train

This just has to be the answer for mass traffic movement. Major world class cities have had mass urban rail for years. Think Paris Underground, New York,  London Underground, Japanese Bullet Train, Mag-lev railways in Germany and the rail transport in Switzerland where tunnels are bored through mountains. NSW is about to have delivered the new Waratah diesel locomotives after 10 years in the production. ( they are still under test conditions with the  State Rail Authority. Bit of a problem at the moment with doors closing and squashing patrons). There will be a delivery date soon but more taxpayer dollars will have to flow in the meantime.

3.  Carrot and Stick

You know what I mean, and its not about using baseball bats. What we have to do is penalise drivers for being the only person in the car ( a waste of car room), and reward the drivers with a car full of people. Not in the boot though. Sydney has an extensive network of CCTV cameras trained on the roads for better traffic control, and also located in most CBD streets for that matter. The RTA have bridge cameras to track truck speeds between two overhead bridge locations. Many retail stores have in store cameras to thwart shop lifting, and we also have sophisticated movement and infra red cameras. Utilise all this technology by integrating it into one system, and at our toll payment centres track the number of occupants of each vehicle as it passes the toll camera. The system will count the occupants of each vehicle, apply the appropriate toll per person and immediately debit or credit the vehicle toll account. Credits go in for a full vehicle and debits accrue for single driver cars.

4.  Position Car Parks above Train Stations

Architects and Town Planners will be familiar with the concept of air space. Most railway stations are built at ground level and vehicle parking is on the sides of adjoining roads. This is problematic for the people who have cars parked all day outside their homes. Visitors cannot park where they are visiting and may be forced to park blocks away or not park at all. Business deliveries are similarly inconvenienced. The answer is to build the car parking facilities in the air space above the stations. That way the motorists enter the car park, park their vehicles in appropriate time zones ( all day, early-bird, 2 hour only, etc) take the lift down to the station platform and alight the next train. Ensure that when car parks are designed that they incorporate a small range of shops. e.g. a cafe, small size supermarket like a 4711, and perhaps a dry cleaner.

5.  Make the Journey Pleasant and Safe

The benefits of driving your own car is that you are able to select a variety of entertainment. For a driver this means radio station AM or FM of your choice. It also means being able to listen to pre recorded music from an i-Pod or CD, and for back seat passengers to be able to watch a DVD. For telephone calls there is the mobile phone with automatic dial and answer, and in very sophisticated motor vehicles all this can be configured with voice control. The latest BMW does not even have an ignition key and all requirements are controlled by a personal electronic card. Air bags protect the driver and passengers in an accident and there currently trials where sensor equipment is used to warn a driver if he is following a car too closely or exceeding the speed limit.

So a train or bus journey must equate to at least a pleasurable experience akin and comparable to your car journey. This is not an impossibility. Airlines allow use of electronic equipment such as laptop computers while flying. They supply ear phones for listening to music or watching films. They also food and beverages, and liquor, dependent on the class or air travel you pay for.

6.  Duplicate Service on Trains and Buses

Long distance train travellers are used to an “in house” service for meals, drinks, etc and the cruise boats have customer service and hedonism down to the finest art. So for ordinary daily short distance  train and bus travel what can be done to make the trip at least pleasurable and not pure misery. Lets start with a galley on each bus and train just like the airlines. But not as extensive. Each bus or train will have one volunteer on board. Do you think we will lack volunteers? Think retired people with nothing to do, think pensioners, think unemployed and recall all the Sydney Olympic volunteers! For morning travellers there are croissants,  coffee or tea an for evening passengers, hot finger food and beverages. The price is incorporated in the cost of the ticket.

7.  Entertainment 

TV screens at roof locations in the buses and trains which are HI-def, flat LED screens the size being dependent on how many and their interior location. Each traveller who is seated has a control console with earplugs, tuning device fore AM and FM radio. For TV channel selection, it will depend on where you sit in the bus or train. Up front the News, down the back Cartoons.

8.  Promote Solar Powered, Hybrid and LPG Vehicles

If all efforts fail to reduce road traffic, at least make all cars non-polluting. We already have made some steps in the right direction with the LPG conversions from petrol driven engines. Diesel and hybrid engines are being produced now by American and European car makers, and greater use of these and solar powered vehicles will do a lot to reduce pollution.

This goes back to the same carrot and stick methodology except we must provide on a much larger scale. This is where our Federal and State Governments have to be involved.

9.  People Power

The power of public persuasion is manifest.Look at the most recent demonstration of this in the cattle brutality incidents in Indonesia. Pressure groups such as GetUp, Animal Liberation, and others were immediately involved and in 48 hours the Federal Minister declared an interim ban on live cattle exports. Whether that is appropriate for our cattle breeders is questionable , but at least we all have some thinking time without histrionics. People Power can influence governments to effect changes and not by necessarily building more roads, freeways and expressways and other needless infrastructure. Roads, bridges and tunnels are infrastructure costs which are a huge drain on our economy. Our taxpayer dollars would be better spent on projects that benefit our trade and our communities.

10.  Utopia

Imagine a highway with only solar cars, buses and trucks.  Is utopia a car less society? Or is a fossil fuel less society?

What do you think? Any more ideas to convince our motorists that there are better way to travel to work. Perhaps Walking!

 An Ode to the English Plural

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,

Words, words and more words.

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England . We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop.??????

All of us are facing price rises for electricity, water, general inflation, the laws of supply and demand coming into play, and quel horreur, the dreaded Carbon Tax on 1st July 2012. So all Australians are searching for ways and means to save money and decrease their dependency on the institutions that provide water, power, transport, and petrol for our motor vehicles. Hence the title, as by doing a small amount of maths, you will get the gist of where we are heading.  Showering is a common place daily event. Most families shower once per day and that includes weekends. So, one person x 7 days x 1 shower x 10 minutes per shower x volume of water used = Total Water Useage per week, x 52 =PA water useage. All that can be expressed in kilolitres per year, and multiply that by the cost per kilolitre and there you have your yearly bill. We are a two person household and our total water useage cost is xxxx

That is just for water! Now move to electricity. Same exercise. Do all the multiplication and you have another yearly total. Just for maximum masochistic pleasure, do the same for petrol for just one motor vehicle. Yet another shock to the system. The spreadsheet gets bigger. Now calculate some “what if scenarios”. What if all the fundamentals increased 10% per annum, year on year. That is in addition to CPI inflation rate.

What can we all do the reduce the costs and make savings? Let us take saving water to start with. If one person does the amount of showering as above, then by simple mathe, two people will double the water useage. Now imagine showering with your spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend, bundle all the little kids in the shower and do the lot of them in one hit. Since we are confined to “friends”, that excludes the next door neighbour, the gardener (shades of Lady Chatterly), the pool cleaner person, the house cleaner and any other hired help around the house. So long as the showering time remains a constant, then you will save water. I recall as a youth visiting my uncle who was a grazier and ran a sheep station out west in Qld  near Dirranbandi, Bollon and St. George. A fierce drought was still in progress after five years, and water was at a premium. Showering was timed to 30 seconds to wet one’s body, turn off the water , soap up and scrub the dirt off, then turn the shower back on for 60 seconds, then stop.

 Quite apart from the current reticence of Australians to indulge in consumer spending, thus saving dollars, there is now a plethora of articles, essays, blogs, newspaper advertisement etc, all exhorting us to save, reduce, do away with, eliminate, and 50 other synonyms, each providing ways to save or educe consumption.  Or ads spruiking products that will do it for us. Want to save on power? Easy, put in solar panels, or if you are really serious, erect a Wind Turbine and if you are seriously serious, power your local village or town with a Wind Farm.

The purpose of this meandering is to bring to your attention a small device which will save you water use, some power, is easy to put in place in a normal household (probably even an abnormal house hold as well). It’s called a Chile Pepper. (Not to be confused on any way with the band “The Red Hot Chillie Peppers”). Simply explained, you attach this to your kitchen tap, run a couple of water pipes from the tap to the water heater and back, add a little black box with the smarts in it (a rheostat), a button to press, and you are in the business of saving water, and money. When you go the kitchen sink to wash some pots, crockery , cutlery, then, instead of turning on the hotwater tap and waiting several minutes with cold water pouring out before the hot water arrives, press the red button before you turn the tap on, the Chillie Pepper goes into action immediately and re-circulates all the cold water back to the Hot Water System to be heated. One the water in the pipe is heated, the CP stops, you turn on the tap, hey presto, hot water. No waste of all that cold water going down the drain. Save water, and your Friend is now Chilie Pepper. http://www.chilipepperapp.com/

Interested? Why not? Here is the address of the website wher you can read all about it. The website is quite extensive, and provides both easy understood explanations, and for the plumbers, all the technical details. You will need a plumber to install the device, and not many plumbers know about the CP.

First-the website for your water saving Chile Pepper is

http://www.chiliepepper.com

In Sydney, NSW, a professional plumbing service to install your Chilie Pepper water saving device and with a wide geographic reach is Mr. Chips.

http://www.chipsplumbing.com.au

Telephone 02-96211960     24/7

Now if you are in Australia and order one, make sure you note that we use 240 volt power. Ensure you notify the correct voltage. The folks in the order department know to send 240 volt decices to Australian addresses, but if you do have an overseas relative who will buy you one, make them aware.

Readers of previous blogs in 2010 will recall the blog headed Goodbye Lara Bingle-Welcome Kevin Bungle in which were listed the well published failures of the federal government and some of the political campaigns. The disastrous ceiling batts home insulation program, the ETS, the Trades Training Centres, Fuel Watch and Grocery Watch to name a few. For the full list go to the entire blog at  http://www.pbda.com.au/farewell-lara-welcome-kevin/

With the transition (note the political correctness in not using the word “assassination”) of Kevin, and the assumption of Prime Ministerial Power, Julia has put her personal stamp on the following:-

Debacle #1. The Carbon Tax Promise.

This was one of the first public enunciations relating to carbon pollution and a tax on the carbon polluters. “There will never be a Carbon Tax under my Government.” Unequivocal, incapable of any misunderstanding, huge sighs of relief from the big mining giants, the large energy producers using coal as the fuel to fire up the power generators, and all the thousands of other corporations who pollute the atmosphere one way or the other. The public also welcomed the news that yet another imposte would not be made on their residual incomes. Julia will stand by her promise that “there will be no carbon tax under my government”.

Debacle #2. The Carbon Tax Actuality.

As the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbot proclaimed that Australia did not need “a great big new tax”! He stumped around Australia visiting miners, gas producers, manufacturing companies, transport companies, country shows, and any other community group offering an opportunity to present his case. His message was simple, when this tax comes in, prices will rise, costs will rise, companies will reduce staff to cut costs, and you will lose your jobs.

The bill relating to the Carbon Tax was introduced into Federal Parliament in October 2011. With the votes of some of the Independents it has passed the lower house and proceeded to the Senate for ratification. In November with the backing of some of the independents and some of the Greens, the bill was passed. The Carbon Tax will be implemented on 1st July 2012. Meanwhile life goes on and there is now a plethora of learned and scientific writers who have published conflicting material on the effects of increased carbon pollution and its effects on climate change. To read more, just do a Google search. You should get over one million references. Happy reading for the Christmas Holidays!

Debacle #3. Live Cattle Exports.

Following the airing of the ABC Program 4 Corners depicting dreadful cruelty to cattle in abattoirs in Indonesia, the Minister for Primary Industry Joe Ludwig, issued an immediate proclamation that live cattle exports to Indonesia would cease immediately. News publications welcomed the decision as being right and proper, animal activists cheered, the Labour Party voters endorsed the decision, and the viewers went back to viewing Australian made “soapies” on the TV. OOPS, someone forgot to tell the boys from the bush, the Cattlemen of the North whose whole livelihood was selling cattle to Indonesia. They were now left with thousands of unexportable cattle and a feed bill that could pay for enough caviar for the next 50 years for the population of Australia. Not to mention the sheep graziers who wondered “Are we next?” Query by Editor. Why not export live kangaroos to Indonesia instead?

So the pollies visited Indonesia and found there were “good” Indonesian abattoirs that used stun guns prior to slaughter and generally followed Australian “humane” killing procedures.The Federal Beancounter worked out that Australia would lose Millions of export earnings, budget revenue would be affected, and the Meat and Livestock Board, who imposes a levy on each head of export beef, saw a normal cash flow of veritable flood proportions, reduce to a trickle. Redundancies and salary cuts for everyone. The only market to sell to was the domestic Australian market. Normal supply and demand ratios would rocket on the supply side, and plummet on the demand side, thus reducing beef prices. Cattlemen were not amused at selling beef at a price so Australian consumers could buy a rump or fillet steak for 50 cents.

Back to the drawing boards, and in September legislation was passed restoring the live cattle trade, to Indonesian abattoirs with a classification of “These are Good Guys”. Whew, exports resumed, cattlemen rushed to the boats, loaded the mooies, and waited for the cheques to roll in. Cattlemen saved, Meat and Livestock mangers could restore caviar to the lunch menu, prices at the butchers’ rose to pre-banning price levels and they breathed a sigh of relief as well, as they now got their cut. (so to speak)

Whoops, some alert vegetarian discovered that the legislation had left out the bit about “humane slaughter practices”. No references to using stun guns, tasers, chemical euthanasia, etc. So we must presume the use of all those methods will be voluntarily followed by the aforementioned  ” Good Guys” . (yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny).

Now it all may be irrelevant. The Indonesian Government were apparantly not amused at having their name besmirched by our Julia led government, so recently in the lead up to Christmas, announced halving cattle imports from Australia in 2012, and making further reductions possibly down to zero after that.

{ picture of an Brahman cow with big tearful eyes} {picture of an Australian cattleman in Akubra Hat with tears in his eyes}

Update: In a recent Channel 7 Sixty Minutes report, the reporter interviewd Marlee Henderson from Buloo Cattle Station in the Northern Territory. As a result of the live cattle exports debacle, Marlee is left with some 5000 head of Brahman cattle which were set for export to Indonesia, but thanks to Joe and Julia, are now not leaving Australia. So the whole mob is now parked in Marlee’s largest paddock. What to do with 5,000 mooyies? Well, the feed bill is astronomical on a daily basis, you can’t run a cattle drive from south of Darwin, down the highway to Alice Springs and then to Adelaide where the input would take about 50 abbatoirs to handle. What’s left ? You shoot them where they stand. Marlee will not be able to afford professionals, so as she said with tears in her eyes,” I will have to shoot the lot myself.”

What a debacle!!!

Debacle #4. Illegal Immigrants.

Is there a man, women or child who has not read, heard or viewed material for and against current Government practices? The previous Liberal Government appeared to have the problem under control. John Howard actually reached the situation where the boats had stopped infiltrating Australian waters and illegal immigration resorted back to legal immigration where people made visa applications.Julias policy is out of control. The recent High Court decision as to outlawing the Malaysia processing solution leaves her in a quandry. Does she or can she accept the offer from the Opposition to agree to pass legislation for the previous method of illegal immigrant processing? What about a real Australian solution? Tasmania. The logic is palpable. Tasmania needs people, it needs more money, it needs more industry in addition to felling forests, and it needs more breeding diversity as by now every Taswegian must be related to the person next door. Immigration will give Tasmania all their needs. The Federal funding which now amounts to billions for trying to eliminate the illegal flow, can be directed to more housing, more industries, more labour in the vineyards and grazing areas etc. Don’t forget , the English made Tasmania a convict settlement and the remains of Port Arthur are a reminder.

Debacle #5. Good Government.

A good government must be a stable government. Australians vote at election time for the politicians they think will form an effective single party government, or as in previous cases, a coalition of like minded parties. But a hung parliament, with good government relying on the whims of four Independents plus the Greens Party virtually being the Great Big New Lobby Group. Does the Green Leader Bob Brown get more air time on National TV than Julia? Does the rambunctious Deputy Leader of the Greens Mirabelle Muck, who appears on ABC 24 and the ABC program Q & A quite regularly and certainly on more occasions then Julia. The current opinion polls that rate the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition leave no-one in doubt as to how Australians view this Labour Government and Julia.

Debacle #6. The Morrison Affair.

This is a case where it is alleged that a Labor back bencher has been accused of alleged misuse of union funds, by using a credit card for salacious purposes, and refunding the payments using union funds. A Victoria Police investigation is underway and Morrison proclaims his complete innocence. Normally one politicians future would only raise a few eyebrows, but in this case, if Morrison is prosecuted and if found gulity and if all appeals fail, then he must resign. That leaves Labor a man short and in a minority government position. If the Greens and Independent withdraw support, then the flood gates open with political scenarios. Double dissolution, an election before the four year term date, and what about an Opposition strategy that leaves her party in power with Julia as a powerless leader. The taunting will go on for another two years.

Update. Just before the retirement of Parliament for the Christmas break, we witnessed a piece of political skullguggery. The Speaker of the House resigned to become a Labor Backbencher, and the Deputy Speaker ( a National Party member and member of the coalition) was therefor appointed speaker. Julia one member up, Tony 1 member less, a palpable victory for Julia. Crisis averted, elections in 2013.

Debacle #7. The Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Yes, its our old friend Kevin Bungle. Replaced by Julia with the assistance of Brutus, Cassius, Calpernia and Uncle Tom Cobbly et al, Kevin racks up the frequent flyer points as he wings his way to Very Important Conferences around the world. Julia has adopted a strategy that ensures Kevin is more out of the contry than in the country. The intention is to keep his face and opinions out of sight. But our Kevin is made of sterner stuff. He opines from whatever country he is visiting with a political rhetoric on any subject. His latest foray in media obscurity, is to chair the CHOGM meeting with Heads of State of the Commonwealth. Obscurity? Is not Julia aware of the homily “its better to have your enemies in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in”! Asked recently if she “liked” Kevin, Julia’s reply was that she and Kevin had a good working relationship. Ha. We all know what he is “working”on.

Debacle #8. The Political Debt to Whatshisname the Anti Pokies Wowser.

As a result of a deal done between Julia and Andrew Wilkie the Independent, Julia now gets to pay the piper. Wilkie wants legislation to curb, reduce, and eliminate the risk of losing the household budget, by banning problem gamblers. Those are the people who sit for hours in front of several poker machines dropping coins in the slots, and pushing the go button repeatedly until the wallet is bare. Personally, I find that process utterly boring, and when visiting the local licenced club, drop about 20 cents into a machine, lose the lot, and walk out the door. It’s that simple Andrew. And just another note, if a player is banned from the Clubs, what will you do with the chronic losers betting at the racecourse, the private poker games, on line gaming, sports betting, and all those who lost their shirts betting the bull share market? Sorry, it’s not called betting in the august halls of the ASX, its called investing. “A rose by any other name–”

Debacle #9.Qantas Debacle

Julia and other Ministers have been going gung- ho on ABC, ABC -24, ABC 7.30 PM Report, pointing the finger at Alan Joyce for the despicable act of closing down the airline. Various allegations were made against him for failure to inform the Goverment that he would take this course of action, and likewise swipes were taken against the Opposition for their failure to do anything as well. The Fair Work Act and various sections were quoted.  Joe Hockey refuted these claims as did Tony Abbott by pointing out that they were not the Government, and secondly it was up to Julia to invoke the Act. Of course nothing was mentioned about the trade unions behind the scenes fomenting unrest with plenty of threats for the baggage handlers to go on strike, the pilots to go on strike, and possibilities of customs officers to also have a paid holiday. How can you run an airline with that chaos going on? No wonder Alan Joyce wants to diversify into other countries where union tactics do not confront one daily with undermining airline operations to the point of extinction.

 Debacle #10. Surround yourself with Friends.

Julia has taken the recent publised step of re-shuffling the deck. A bit like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Or even the hokey-pokey. Demote a few friends from the right, appoint a few friends from the left, dish out a few extra porfolios, make a few mates chairs of committees, a few more Friday lunches, and bingo, all will be well. Just one big happy family and no threats of dissolution, legislation being rejected, continuous falling in the political polling to lowest percentages in the last 50 years. But Julia now has the numbers and can govern until the next election. But how much of the population is now thinking and saying, “Is this really good goverment? I did not elect Julia as Prime Minister. She attained the role by virtue of an intra party coup. I want another election ASAP!” Interesting to note one new bestie is Greg Combet, who you will recall assisted the Waterside Workers Union in the wharfies v patricks container loading dispute. You know who won that one, don’t you?

Debacle #11. Japanese Whaling.

The Japanese whaling Fleet still continues to wend its way south into Antarctic waters. The death ships are still portrayed by the Japanese Goverment as “research vessels”. The slaughter of these behemoths of the ocean still continues. What a senseless massacre! The Federal Government is a member of the International Whaling Commission and still lacks the clout to swing votes against the continuation of the “killing fields”. We have our anti-whaling groups and activists. Every now and again we hear from the Sea Shepherd and some footage on the ABC, but are protestations mainly fall on deaf ears. We have too many other  causes to pursue, too many other bureaucracies to featherbed, and too many election promises to put in place before 2013.

Watch This Space-Still 2 Years to Go!

When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. 

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. 

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. 

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. 

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. 

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. 
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I.

I had thought of another title to this blog , which was “The King has no Clothes On.” You may recall the fairy story about the king who was gulled by his tailors into believing that he had the finest set of clothes, shoes, hosiery, hat and coat, and they were so fine that they were invisible! They were all very expensive, costing many gold coins. So it was with the utmost joy to impress his subjects that the King made a public appearance. His loyal subjects were a bit taken aback, but being loyal and not wishing to risk royal opprobrium, they cheered his appearance and remarked as to how wonderful, resplendent, bright and fashionable he looked. The King enjoyed this display of affection, until a little boy in the crowd remarked very loudly,” but the King has no clothes on!” The rest of the crowd soon took up the cry, and the embarrassed King retreated to his palace chamber and did whatever Kings do in their chamber. Frankly, I would have ordered the pair of tailors to report to the Royal Hangman.

So it is with that part of the current social media known as Twitter. As I have a web site I have been exhorted over the last four years of its presence to embrace the social media and to have a presence on Linked In, Face-book, Yahoo and Twitter. Now as a business owner I can understand that Linked In has some business advantages. First it allows you to write about your business, previous business experience, your areas of expertise, your specialties, and what services or products you currently are providing or selling. It allows you also to paint a picture of your likes and dislikes in art, music, painting, study etc so that like minded business people may find a greater empathy with you.

So it is with Facebook, except that it provides a medium for virtual instantaneous contact with friends and the ubiquitous “followers”. On your Facebook “wall” you can provide the latest news, views, and comment on everything from the best restaurant you visited that week, or how you went whale watching, and here are the photos to prove it.

But, and this is a very big BUT, what did we do to deserve and encourage Twitter? This social media phenomena, allows social commentary in just 124 characters, and commas and full stops and explanation marks all count. So we have Shane Warne commenting, “I’m having a good time with Elizabeth Hurley and thank goodness you are not here! We both went to Chez Nous for lunch & enjoyed roast partridge and mints.” Thousands of twitterati followers read this twaddle and then re-tweet the lot with comments!

The dangerous part of all this is that we have been induced ( conned) to believe that unless we have a Twitter account, and unless we indulge every day in mass tweetings , we are somehow unsocial, misguided, and doomed to life as a nonentity. A virtual non-person! Shades of Orwellian proles or of being a single unloved and unwanted entity in the mass of Earth’s current population of seven billion.

Big Business as well as SME’s, have also been gulled into believing that (a) it must communicate with its customers using social media, and (b) all the staff should be empowered to twitter to friends, family, business colleagues, and the person they stood next to on the bus that morning at any time during the working day. No wonder Australian productivity statistics show a down-slide. We are not working, we are twittering.

Who am I though to criticise? One man’s meat is another man’s poison. I too was unable to resist the tsunami of twitterers and twitter followers who exhorted me to establish my own Twitter site. And so I did. To complement my web site and the blogs entitled PBDA Top Ten Tips for Business, I established tips4biz. Just what will you see on site? Well, originally it published in short form a precis of the top ten tips content, the url itself, and maybe a photo or piece of clip art. I achieved followers which was most gratifying. See, said my friends, its working! Little did I know ( poor stupid me) that being accepted as a follower, allows the follower to blog or comment from MY Twitter account. And what fascinating stuff did the put on the site? Pictures of babies in all shapes forms and sizes, pictures of themselves in all shapes and sizes, and pictures of females in various states of undress claiming to want to be an ardent follower and be my best friend yet.

Not once, and I repeat, not even a smigeon of a once, have I ever received any contact whatsoever about business.( apart from funny business, that is) Over a period exceeding three years I have never received a call, an e-mail, a hotmail, nor even a letter, from a Twitter participant wanting me to provide the business services which are offered from the website. If you are a believer in statistics as I am, then one does a cost/benefit analysis with the conclusion that the effort involved is producing a NIL return. As every successful business owner will tell you, if the ROIC or the ROI is nil or unmeasurable, then whatever is the subject matter of the analysis, gets the flick.

Goodbye Twitter.

PS.  I will next turn my attention to the other paradigm of social media:  Facebook.