So this Intelligent Design Theory is in the papers today - if by 'today' you mean 'yesterday'. For some reason it's gained itself a lot of credibility without, as far as I konw, a scintilla of evidence to support it. As near as I can work out, the theo0ry goes like this:
There are life forms on this planet that are far too complex to have evolved by chance without some sort of overseeing control from Up Above (or Out There, depending on your perspective.)
Seems like a pretty flimsy argument to me. It has gained a lot of support from Christian groups. I don't know why; if the theory were correct, it debunks the whole biblical 'God created the world in six days' story as completely as does the theory of evolution. I mean, if the Bible is the word of God, you would think He would do enough proof-reading to at least get the main facts right. He is omnipotent after all, surely He could have come up with a way of explaining a complex idea to a group of simple people that was accurate.
In this respect, Christian support for intelligent design is a little bit like all these calls for the Church (of whatever denomination) to adapt its teachings and practises to appeal more to modern/young people; the people doing the calling are more interested in power and being on the winning team than they are with the truth. If a piece of writing was God's word a thousand years ago, then it's God's word today. If God wanted people to behave in a certain way a thousand years ago, then He wants them to behave in a certain way today. God is eternal.
This theory seems to me to be a bit like early attempts to explain how the universe worked. Like Aristotle's ethers and all those other now debunked ideas, it is more to do with what the proposer and followers want to believe and are capable of understanding than it is to do with any actual proof. But 'proof belies faith' I hear you say. 'Circular logic.' I reply. You want me to have faith in an idea without proof because there is no proof. Doesn't make sense to me.
For all I know, there is an Intelligent Designer; I would say to all those people who make hard and fast statements on the subject - on both sides of the debate - until you're dead, you don't know and maybe not even then. Which is of course only a step away from the unscrupulous tact a lot of evangelists use - "How can you be sure there isn't a God? Ifffen you wrong you gonna burn in Hell for ever, bo', but iffen I'm wrong, then all that happens is you wasted your Sunday mornings." Trouble is, the coppers tell you to never pay a blackmailer.
Quite a few footy seasons ago, there was a bloke getting about the place called Aleister Crowley. Quite a talented chap was Aleister, chess master, mountaineer and poet. Despite this, he was known as 'The World's Wickedest Man', and it wasn't even because his RX7 had an extended port 13B in it with twin Garrett T04's set at 24lbs of boost and would pull low 9's as well as having a set of fully sick 22's, a 24" subby and a leopard skin gear knob.
Nup.
Some Edwardian proto-papparrazzi had decided that just because Al liked to do things like Black Magick(sic), including one famous occasion when he summoned the Devil, take drugs and have wild orgies (apparently) within the confines of his cult, then he can't have been our sort of chap at all, old bean. See what happens when you don't invite the meeja?
Be that as it may, a few years after the turn of the last century, Al found himself wandering around a museum in Cairo. He piced up A Thing, which was exhibit number 666 (spooky, huh. Are you scared yet?) When he picked up The Thing (can't remember what it was) Al felt a powerful being enter his body. Now if this happened to me, I'd either blow my rape whistle or demand payment, but Al was a bit kinky that way, so he took the being home with him - not sure if he took The Thing as well.
Shortly thereafter, the being began dictating to Al and Al began writing a book using the automatic writing technique made famous in New England society at around the same time. The book was called The Book of Thoth, probably. Apparently the being which entered Al's body was the Secretary of an Egyptian god called Horus. Horus was a fairly busy god, but he always made sure that "My people will be in touch." Horus was the son of a couple of other Egyptian gods, who may or may not have been Isis and Osiris.
According to Horus's setcherterry (Non-Australians won't get that.) we are now in the third age of the Earth, known as The Age Of Horus. Mum and Dad have had their turn and now they've handed the business over to Junior. Junor, being Junior, is a somewhat impetuous and wilful individual and this is why the world has seen so much conflict and ..., ummm, something else that's like conflict but not exactly the same.
Anyhoo, the key sentence in the book, the sentence that any self-respecting Goth knows* is as follows:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
This sentence both passes and fails the Dirk Thruster Reasonable Law Test. Passes, because it is brief, written in easily understood language with no room for contradiction, no legalese, no clauses, bub-clauses, riders or qualifiers.
Fails, because it is open to debate and interpretation. For about a hundred years now there have been people saying that this phrase is there to justify licentiousness and lawlessness, while others have been saying that the phrase is there to make people mature into accepting responsibility for their actions, with a third group preferring to have a foot in each camp. I don't have an opinion, although it'd be pretty cool to have divine endorsement of licentiousness.
The DTRLT can be described thusly:
Any law which requires a lawyer to understand/interpret/administer it is a bad law. The Northern Territory vehicle ownership laws are an example of regulations which pass the DTRLT. It states in plain English that having a vehicle registerted in your name is not proof of ownership. Try telling that to a certain finance company.
A bloke I worked for had a car yard, all the vehicles in the yard were registered in his name. He kept a few blank, signed registration transfer forms for occasions when a car was sold and he wasn't there. His son, who is an arsehole, pinched one of the transfer forms and used it to transfer the registration of his Dad's personal car into his own name, used the car as collateral on a loan, then defaulted on the loan. When Dad found out that the kid had transferred the rego, he just transferred it back into his own name.
It became interesting whem the finance company started sending threatening letters. Realising what had happened and being conversant with the law, Dad got me to handle it instead of hiring a lawyer. The process went something like this:
Threatening letter from finance companies Adelaide based law firm.
Hand written note from me (usually on scrap paper)
More threatening letter from law firm.
Request from me to law firm for help with my footy tips
Really threatening letter from law firm.
Photocopy of relevant section of legislation sent to law firm.
Brief respite.
Threatening letter from finance companies Darwin based law firm.
Hand written note from me asking about the principals pool table - has it been repaired yet? Plus a query as to their of opinion on northern Territory conflict-of-interest legislation.
Brief respite. Darwin based law firm had represented my boss on some planning issues.
Threatening letter from another Darwin based law firm, a partner in which went on to become federal president of the Liberal party.
Hand written note.
More threatening letter.
Another hand written note, which included an Irish joke.
Repeat several times, followed by;
A process server, who tried (stupidly) to repossess the car. He may or may not have got a smack in the mouth for his trouble. Cops were called, nobody saw nuthin'. Cops went away. Process server went away. Nothing more was heard on the matter.
We win.
Yay us!
*I don't actually know any Goths. Seems to me that you become a Goth because you don't have any self-respect and are trying to gain some vicariously by building a different persona for yourself.
I was listening to the radio yesterday and found myself agreeing with John Laws. I didn't hear the entire conversation, but from what I could gather, some woman rang up to whinge about having to repay some subsidy she was receiving as part of a drought relief package. She likened it to people on the dole having to repay their subsidies when they get a job. Laws thought that was a good idea, too.
So do I.
Why are farmers constantly singled out? In this age of 'user pays' and HECS fees, why do people on subsidised incomes get off scot free? Of course, there are those who would say that it would -to use a bureaucratism- provide a disincentive to get off the rock 'n roll, but all you need to do then is to provide a disincentive to stay on the bloody thing. Have a sliding scale of ever more onerous conditions which come into force as time passes. Make these conditions enforceable; meet them or get sacked. Anybody who has been on the dole for longer than about three months is a bit fussy about what job they'll take. Anybody still there after six months isn't trying very hard and after twelve months they are just ripping off the system. Personally, I don't mind that. I figure if you've got ten million people and nine million jobs, then either you're going to have a million people out of work, or its equivalent in under-employed part-timers; so you may as well have people who are happy to be that way. However, I'm willing to put aside my beliefs for the Greater Good. You could expand the work for the dole scheme at the risk of inflaming the left, but I'm more in favour of making traing both useful and compulsory. Have some intense counselling to find out what the individual wants and has an aptitude for and train them to do it.
If they refuse or otherwise try to avoid training, put them to work; labouring for the dole. If they refuse that, cut them off. Once they're in work, start recouping the debt. Make them stay employed for twelve months before become eligible for the dole again.
Anybody who still can't get a job can go on a pension, with a rider that, if at any stage in the future their financial situation changes (they get a job, win Lotto, their rich Uncle dies etc.) then they must pay back the debt. In full. First, before they even see the money.
Of course, all this applies to the tax breaks businesses in general receive, big businesses in general. All the sweeteners smelters, refineries etc. get to help with set up costs should be repayable, but it'll never happen. Big businesses are able to do what everybody else always say that they can do, but rarely work up the nerve to actually do; they can just say "no" and go somewhere else.
Part 1,Part2. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was your typical upper class British public schoolboy; attending high school in Oxford before going on to Jesus College. It was here that his famous masochistic tendencies became more noticeable, often denying himself simple pleasures for no apparent reason. Four eggs ample, he would often attend banquets, but forgo eating. Dickhead. As part of his research for his Doctoral Thesis, The influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture – to the end of the 12th Century Lawrence embarked on a 300 mile solo walk around the deserts of Palestine to study Crusader forts and castles. Dickhead. “Stop fidgeting up the back, I'll tell you what all this has to do with motorcycles in a minute. You, boy, get your hand out of that girl's dress. You, girl, see me after class.” After his graduation, Lawrence moved back and forth between England and the middle east, where he worked as an archaeologist up until the outbreak of the Great War. Most of what happened next is fairly well known, but Lawrence's greatest achievement was undoubtedly owning a string of Brough Superior motorcycles, one of which he was riding when he died. Actually, he wasn't riding it, he had ceased to ride it in rather a spectacular manner and it was this cessation of riding that caused his demise. As you may be able to tell from this photo, Lawrence was stricken with Duck's Disease. However, he was fairly comfortable financially, so he was able to get his Broughs custom built with 16” rear wheels to accommodate his affliction. Actually, Brough could accommodate pretty much any sort of request you wanted as each Brough was handmade, earning the machines the title of 'The Rolls Royce of Motorcycles'. Rolls Royce didn't object. Here we see Lawrence taking delivery of a new bike from George Brough. No prizes for guessing what Georgie boy did for a living. He did it pretty bloody well, too, although Brough's used proprietary engines manufactured by J.A.P. , even in my personal favourite, the SS100. The name, like the naming of Triumph Tigers, was a guarantee of its minimum top speed. It is, without doubt the most beautiful motorcycle ever built.
It doesn't matter if you are talking about a 1925 racing special destined for the banks of Brooklands (this track was one of the great tragedies of WW2., along with companies like Rudge-Whitworth.)...
or a 1926 touring model such as this one, right through to....
this stunning 1939 bike delivered to the Sheffield coppers. These bikes are gorgeous. I've never ridden one, indeed I haven't seen one in the metal for about twenty years, but I would murder my family for the opportunity of owning one. I have nothing more to say, I have to be alone now...
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately. It's ok, I made sure that I wasn't using power equipment while I was doing it. What I've been thinking about is the recurring outbursts of abuse directed at farmers in general and irrigators in particular. Personally, I don't like to get involved in these sort of arguments as I'm not interested in converting anybody to my point of view and I've already considered - and disregarded as lacking merit - other points of view. I particularly don't like to get into arguments on popular sites because these sites by their very nature attract a lot of groupies and hangers-on whose idea of rational debate is to go "Yeah!, What He/She said!" followed by assorted regurgitated insults. That sort of schoolyard groupthink annoyed me at school (where, believe it or not, I had a small coterie of hangers-on - for all of whom I had contempt.), in adults, it's just pathetic. TSSH, which was one of the first blogs I ever read, and which remains a favourite, has such a coterie who are, admittedly, a lot wittier than the run of the mill groupies you get on political sites. I couldn't be bothered trying to reason with them, but I felt like venting my opinion regarding some of the comments left on this thread. In particular, I wanted to address this comment:
I wish I had the ability to amortise my annual tax bill over five years. "Hi you're from the ATO right?" "...Well fuck off - I'm not gonna pay any tax for the next five years sucka..." I also wish I could enjoy a cosy fuel subsidy. And a machinery subsidy as a primary producer...which I know I should use to buy a new tractor, but I just gotta have me one of them new fucking Fairlanes for the farm. And I wanna know the answer to just one question: Why do we grow rice in this country? It's bad enough that the cunting farmers sell all their best produce overseas and push the shit into the shops for us city folk at ridiculous prices, they use 75% of our DRINKING water to irrigate fucking rice paddies. This ain't 'Nam. This 'salt of the earth' shit is getting mighty tedious too. Just because you get up at sparrows and pull on gumboots instead of Hush Puppies don't make me any less of a hard worker if I work in the Metropolis. 'Farmer' is Latin for 'whinger'. Face it, most are Collins and Macquarie Street farmers anyway - so you can take your cheap rural lifestyle and retirement vineyard and soft goats cheese churning and jam it with supersonic force up your ass. M.E.N.(former Murray Grey & Hereford breeder)
Which was submitted by a Major Elvis Newton. I don't know Major Newton, nor do I have any particular animus regarding him/her, it's just handy to have all the ignorant, misleading stereotypical bullshit wrapped up in one handy package. Let's start at the top shall we?
I wish I had the ability to amortise my annual tax bill over five years."Hi you're from the ATO right?""...Well fuck off - I'm not gonna pay any tax for the next five years sucka..." You could do that, I suppose. Particularly if you were very stupid. I must admit to not being the most knowledgable person in the world when it comes to taxation law, but I know what amortise - or as the Americans and therefore, the interweb would have it; amortize- means.
I'm not entirely certain that Elvis's plan fits in with this definition. He follows up this piece of stupidity with another one:
I also wish I could enjoy a cosy fuel subsidy.
Here we come to one of the great hypocrisies of the anti farming brigade. In one breath they will proselytise about how farmers are really socialists who want to live a subsidised life and be supported by everyone else, then in the next breath they will complain that farmers aren't subsidising them. The alleged subsidy is, in fact an exemption from a portion of the taxes which are payable on diesel fuel, provided that the fuel is only used on-farm (audits on fuel use are fairly common, so is creative book-keeping) - ULP is not affected. I was under the impression that it was a Queensland only thing, but I'm too lazy to research it. Be that as it may, in Budget after Budget, Policy Speech after Policy Speech and complaint after complaint by motoring organisations, we are reminded that these taxes are raised specifically for the construction and maintenance of transport infrastructure. If we're not using it, why should we pay for it? Britain has a similar scheme, but a much more elegant way of administering it; fuel for on road use is dyed one colour and off road fuel dyed another colour. Get pulled over with the wrong coloured fuel in your Scania and you're in deep do-do. Moving on...
And a machinery subsidy as a primary producer...which I know I should use to buy a new tractor, but I just gotta have me one of them new fucking Fairlanes for the farm.
I don't see how the Fairlane relates to the subsidy, nor was I aware of the subsidy. Farm machinery is eligible for a rebate in the form of GST input credits, as is Murdoch's printing press. Fairlanes aren't. For a farm motor vehicle to be eligible it must be diesel powered and of a commercial type (4WD ute, truck, etc.) However most urban business people seem to find a way to write off the leasing costs of their SAABs and BMWs. That's ok, though; they aren't farmers therefore they're clever, not crooked. I wonder how many dirty weekends on the Gold Coast find their way onto tax returns as 'seminars' and 'field trips'? Now we get to a really good one:
And I wanna know the answer to just one question: Why do we grow rice in this country? It's bad enough that the cunting farmers sell all their best produce overseas and push the shit into the shops for us city folk at ridiculous prices, they use 75% of our DRINKING water to irrigate fucking rice paddies. This ain't 'Nam. This is stupid in so many ways; first the classic Green Left Weekly language of identifying a crop and asking why is it grown in this country as if the mere presence of agriculture is going to cause the end of life as we know it. The short, blindingly obvious reason that rice is grown in this country would be that the people growing rice believe that they can make money doing it. It isn't some dark plot by the Secret Planet Raping Overlords™ to destroy the environment - it's a business decision made in the interests of profit in much the same way every other business decision is made. They assessd the geology, geography, hydrology, climatology and regulatory environment and decided it could be a profitable venture. I would also ask how Major Newton arrived at his ridiculous water usage figure. Rice Growers don't use ANY of my drinking water, nor that of anybody else in Queensland, Northern NSW, eastern NSW(including Sidderny). They use very little water of anybody in Victoria and, unless they're growing rice on the Ord these days (research it yourself, lazypants) they don't use any West Australian water. Which leaves the people around- and downstream of- Deniliquin. The major population centre of this area is, of course, Adelaide. Leaving aside the interesting development that somebody besides the cotton industry is getting the blame for Adelaide's woes, if the rice industry really is depriving Adelaide of 75% of it's drinking water, then more power to the rice industry. I think that it would be immensely satisfying to cause 75% of the morose cousin fuckers living in Adelaide to die a slow, agonising death. You could sell tickets for that. Adelaide is a shit hole with very few redeeming features. The Penfolds Winery in Magill and some of the roads in the hills are worth saving, apart from that it is already a wasteland filled with generic colonial architecture that croweaters rave about because they have nothing else to speak of. Also, how DARE those filthy ricegrowers sell their produce to the highest bidder?!?!? That's..., that's..., capitalism!! Not that I can remember buying a kilo of rice and thinking "Shit, now I'll have to put the hotpants on and go and sell my arse a few times to pay for that." It's rice. It isn't all that prohibitively priced. Moving on:
Just because you get up at sparrows and pull on gumboots instead of Hush Puppies don't make me any less of a hard worker if I work in the Metropolis.
Agreed. This annoys me, too. Most of the people who talk like this wouldn't work hard if they were test pilots in a brothel. The most tiring job I've had was when I was an insurance agent. You can't disagree with somebody over everything, despite what the political parties would have you believe. Anyway:
'Farmer' is Latin for 'whinger'.
Whatever. See my earlier comment re; regurgitated insults.
Face it, most are Collins and Macquarie Street farmers anyway - so you can take your cheap rural lifestyle and retirement vineyard and soft goats cheese churning and jam it with supersonic force up your ass.
Don't get too many of those around here. I imagine they'd be fairly annoying to have around.
M.E.N.(former Murray Grey & Hereford breeder)
Not sure of the relevance of his status as an ex- cattle breeder, except to say that graziers, out of all sectors of the agricultural industry are the most deseving of the title of whinger. Oh, and the Murray Grey Breeders' Society had a seminar or something to celebrate the 100th anniversay of the breed this week.
Leaving aside Major Elvis's little outburst for a second, I also got to thinking about the water situation in this country, particularly the way that farmers have been scapegoated over it. The reason is obvious, of course - their aren't as many farmers as non-farmers and most farmers are white; therefore it's ok to vilify them. I would ask all those urban psuedo-greenies just what they are prepared to do - personally - to help alleviate the problem. Here is where I have some respect for genuine greenies; they are prepared to back their words with actions. I don't agree with them on much, but you've got to respect someone who has the courage of their convictions.
How many Elvis Newtons have lobbied their local council to get rainwater tanks made compulsory? Ditto grey water re-usage? Waste water recycling plants? Why aren't we deveoping desalination plants? Adelaide is the capital city of the driest state of the driest inhabited continent on earth. To the best of my knowledge it has done none of these things, preferring to shift the blame rather than assume responsibility for it's own predicament.
Sydney has an annual rainfall of approximately four feet. All 4,800 points of it go out sea through the storm water drains. This may have changed in the last year or so, but until recently, rainwater tanks were banned. But farmers are wasting water.
Why do we need golf courses? They use more water per acre than rice and cotton combined, are the single biggest contributor of the nitrogen necessary for outbreaks of blue-green algae and spunky chicks don't play it; not since Jan Stephenson, anyway. Which reminds me of a story about the Greatest TV Blooper Ever. Ms. Stephenson was playing a tournament on a windswept course in Scotland wearing a mini skirt. In the commentators booth the monitor was showing an overhead shot of the hole she was playing. The picture going to air was a rear on shot of Ms. Stephenson lining up her putt. As the wind blew her skirt up, showing her derriere, the following conversation took place between the commentators:
Commentator no. 1: What a lovely tight little hole that is.
Commentator no. 2: Yes, and I can tell you from personal experience that it used to be even tighter.
Day Something of the geat creativity drought and I still got nuthin'. So, a brief update of things around the farm: We trucked out 120 steers that had been on oats for about seven weeks yesterday as the market is up and we made more profit that way than we would by putting them through the feedlot. The same trucks that took those steers out brought in 160 more that we bought on Friday from a bloke further west who is running out of feed. They were argumentative little buggers, too. Not cranky or aggressive; they just didn't want to do what they are told. When they are that small they are able to turn around in the race without too much effort. It's a lot harder to turn them back around. Then the NLIS reader didn't get a couple of them so we had to put them all through again. Bugger. The shed's finished, sort of. We haven't poured the floor yet, but there are more important things to do. Such as get the planter ready for, well, planting obviously. We have hardly any water so we are only planting 350 acres, down from 2,500 last year. At least irrigating will be easy. I'm trying to talk the boss into planting a paddock with all of our leftover seed from previous years, giving it one water to get it going and then letting it fend for hitself. He's resisting, but I'm persuasive.
Went to St. George with The Young Bloke on Friday night. My liver may never be the same again. It was amusing to see a young wannabe pants bandit in action. Well, attempted action, anyway. Apparently one of the barmaids was seventeen. I thought that you had to eighteen to work in a pub 'less you were related.
Work beckons so it is that I must leave you (typed in my best John Laws voice.)
