Hard at work

Intellectual elites know that the word 'dumb' is nothing to do with intelligence, but is actually about the ability to speak. Yours truly ise writing this in the middle of a child Party Land center, and the thought that that children should be seen and not heard is a pretty attractive one at the moment.

[Note to self: next time bring an MP3 with recordings of small animals being slaughtered with blunt objects - it will drown out the sound of the children, and actually be marginally more pleasant].

But most people use dumb to mean unintelligent, and 'dumbness' is something we are supposed to lose in our estimed child educational institutions, which are of course goverened and controlled by the Intellectual Elite.

For any school teachers who happen to have read this far, and reject the notion that they label themselves 'Intellectual Elite', consider the fact that The Government has authorized you to dictate to a totally captive and non-consensual audience what to think, and consider that Yours Truly has no such authorization. Bu we digress ..

A recent survey conducted by some other Intellectual Elites has confirmed what many of us have known for quite some time - that literacy levels in Australian children have actually fallen over the last thirty years.

This generation of Australians are first generation who are dumber than their parents. Dear Reader, indulge me for a minute. Take a look at your parents. Isn't that a terrifying thought? Can you imagine an entire generation desperate to control the lives of those around them via the ballot box, and making worse decisions than the Baby Boomers?

Of course given that the socialist Baby Boomer generation are now mostly grandparents, the previous generation (Gen-X) didn't have a very high bar to jump. But the current generation (Gen-Y) must be playing The Limbo.

In spite of all the advances in technology over the last thirty years, all the extra educational funding per child, all the computer assisted learning techniques, the advances in pedagogical understanding and the reduced class sizes (giving more teacher time for each student), literacy levels have actually decresed.

Of course some of the squishy readers may protest about education being about more than readin', writin' and 'rithmetic. Modern education, we are told, must be about 'life skills': the ability to cope with the rapidly changing world, and installing 'societal values' in children like 'compassion', 'social justice', 'Land rights for gay whales raped in nuclear war', and a hundred other non-outcomes which are totally immeasurable.

'Political awarness' used to be a complusory university subject in the People's Paradise Republic of China, but there is no such subject in Australian schools: mostly because subjects aren't really taught any more. They just move from issue to issue. One politically correct indoctrination session slides into another seamlessly in today's highly efficient streamlined goal oriented educational system. And the result? Something vague, squishy, and immeasurable.

The teachers (assisted by their unions) have managed to put themselves in a posision where they have no measurable goals. Even politicians have to put themselves to a vote every three of four years. Teachers don't even have to do that.

So yours truly thought to have a dig at a friend of the wife who recently joined the Intellectual Elite class as a school teacher - one who is still pumped up about her new found importance, and not yet cynical enough to take it a bit less seriously.

hClearly this is a subject which has come up in the staff-room recently because her response was instantaneous. There was no denial that the reduction in literacy was a bad thing - just a denial that the educational system was to blame.

In spite of the fact that The Teachers have total control of the students for 6 hours a day, five days a week, 35 weeks a year for over ten years, child literacy was apparently beyond their control.

It was the fact that students didn't read any more. The fact that they watched television. The fact that they played video games. The fact that they used computers. The fact that they surfed the internet. The list went on and on. Parents were to blame. The media was to blame. Capitalism was to blame. Society was to blame. Everyone was to blame, apparently, except The Teachers, and The Government Educational System.

It's good to see the teachers picked up one skill in their time at university: sophistry.

And the victims are our children.

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Building character in the playground

Yours truly was recently the recipient of a newsletter on School Bullying. As a parent who last year removed his child from a class because of consistent bullying which the teacher refused to control, I read it with some interest.

The teachers must take lessons specifically to deal with parents who complain about bullying, because the response was flawless.

First she denied it was happening, then when should could no longer deny it, she assured us should would stop it immediately, then when it clearly didn't she met further complaints with statements like 'there are family issues with that child that I am unable to discuss'. Apparently the needs of the bully were greater than the needs of those being bullied. I guess he came from a 'more needy' family than ours, so it was okay.

Clearly we were unable to stop it happening, but we could do the next best thing - make it some other child's problem by moving my own child elsewhere. And we did.

Bullying has been in the news more and more because of the advent of mobile phone cameras. More and more bullying episodes have been filmed and found their way onto youtube.com or even onto the TrashMedia like ACA.

The DoE, the unions and the teachers closed ranks to stop this trend of course: they banned mobile phones at many schools - making it harder for people to show what happens, and thereby concealing the amount of bullying that was happening under school care.

But, prisons and schools are always somewhat porus. Phones get smuggled in and videos smuggled out. So the DoE was shamed into actually looking like it was concerned about the problem, and commissioned a little booklet to send to caring parents.

And it was full of great information. It said what a bad thing bullying was. It said that bullies were victims. It said that bullies often had emotional problems. And it gave parents advice on how to counsel a child who was being bullied at school.

But there was something missing.

There was absolutely nothing in the book about the responsibilities of the teachers to ensure that a child was not being bullied. In spite of the fact that the children are under total control of the teachers for six hours a day, in spite of the fact that parents who refuse to send their children to school are threatened with goal sentences, in spite of fact that parents are powerless to stop bullying themselves, in spite of the fact that the only people who can protect children from being bullied are the teachers themselves, it said nothing about teachers having a responsibility to prevent bullying. And it said nothing about a parent's recourse if the teachers refused to prevent the bullying.

All care but no responsibility?

Well .. no responsibility anyway.

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A few of the Rudds' favorite things - your money

Baby sitting is not really very complex thing. It basically involves changing the occasional nappy, introducing the children to the delights of late night horror movies, and then pretending they were in bed at 8:30, while helping yourself to the contents of your host's liquor cabinet.

Seriously, a child could to it. And in fact children do. The majority of 14 year-olds seem to do it to earn a few dollars an hour to top up their phone cards so they can flirt via SMS.

But not in the Rudd household. In the Rudd household, the 14 year-old son needs a baby sitter of his own. Huh?

Whether 14 year old Marcus is still breast fed hasn't actually been made clear, and nor should it be. It's really none of our business what goes on behind other people's closed doors and it really shouldn't concern us.

Except of course if we are forced to pay for it.

Yes gentle reader, the baby sitter was being paid for by you - the tax payer.

While the rest of us have to pay for our own babysitters, the multi-millionaire Rudds put their baby-sitter on the staff payroll for The Lodge, and the tax-payer was expected to foot the bill.

This is Uncle Kev's idea of implementing spending cuts, and sticking up for the working class. 'Onya, Kev!

But we shouldn't be too quick to label the man a hypocrite. After all, Kevin Rudd has always been a big proponent of the Nanny State. It's good to see that he inflicts it on his own children.

Even the true believers might need a spoon full of sugar to swallow this little indiscretion.

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Spare the lash, spoil the teddy

Every statist knows that inciting religious hatred and insulting religions is a dreadful thing. So dreadful that responsible governments must lock up their citizens for doing so.

It might have taken Australia some time to catch up with the trend, but the various Australian governments have followed in the footsteps of great nations like Sudan, which have had such laws for centuries - as demonstrated by the recent jailing of school teacher Gillian Gibbons. She was charged with 'insulting Islam' after she allowed her students to name a teddy to be called Mohammed.

They were going to publicly flog her and jail her for a year, but in an uncharacteristic moment of compassion, they sentenced her to 15 days, followed by deportation. Uncharacteristic presumably because of the hordes of angry machete-wielding protesters demanding her immediate execution.

One local quoted as saying "She is a teacher and should be teaching her pupils to be respectful and have morals but instead she is doing the opposite." Morality is truly in the eyes of beholder.

While it's easy to foam at the mouth at the latest excesses from the members of the Religion of Peace, one has to question the motives of 56 year old Gillian Gibbons. What would possess someone of sound mind and (rather overweight) body to go to Sudan to teach?

Any intelligent person would either avoid the world's garbage dumps entirely, on at least minimise their time there to a few shonky arms deals before flying out to somewhere more civilized. But it takes all kinds. Some people feel the need to educate the Muslims. Perhaps she thought that familiarity would breed consideration? Perhaps she thought that she could make them more tolerant by letting them know about western feminist theory? Or (if the nature of school teachers in Australia is any indication) perhaps she is just stupid.

Teachers are fond of saying that you're never to old to continue your 'learning journey'. Now she is about to enjoy a few weeks of 'learning journey' herself.

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This part went to the Wong person

Peter Garrett is accident prone. One only has to watch his uncoordinated onstage antics from his rock-star days to see this. Frankly, it's surprising that he didn't fall off the stage sometime during a Midnight Oil gig and experience Human Frailty first hand - and break his neck.

But, one only has to consider Keith Richards to realize that some rock stars do defy the odds to live to an age which challenges actuarial predictions as well as common sense.

And common sense wasn't in great supply when Mark (Maddog) Latham took in the washed up rock star and appointed him to be ALP Lap Dog. And Peter has been messing on the carpet ever since.

He took the dunce's cap in an almost flawless campaign conducted by Kevin (Pixie) Rudd, in which everyone in the ALP was told to just say 'me too' after John Howard said anything. For some reason Garrett felt a need to strong to contain - and said that they would 'just change everything' when they were elected. Oops. You belong to the ALP now Peter. And the company takes what the company wants.

Now Peter is paying the price. He is going to keep the title of 'Environment Minister', but he will actually spend his time opening local fetes dedicated to retarded immigrant Aborigines raped in nuclear war or something. He might call himself King of the Mountain, but any environment duties requiring a Real Man have been handed to someone with real balls - the Asian Lesbian: Penny Wong.

We'll just change everything? Well, some of us are enjoying the changes already, Peter.

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Statists still expecting bundle of joy

Statists and true believers were shocked recently to learn of an expectant mother miscarrying in the toilet in the emergency ward of a major hospital after her cries for help were ignored by hospital staff for two hours.

Apparently Ms Casey was classified as 'level 4' by RPA triage staff, and relegated to the back of the queue. Where she stayed, until it occurred to hospital staff that a still-living fetus on the toilet floor was likely to get them unwanted publicity.

Not that hospital staff are averse to publicity, of course. Nurses seem to run endless ads threatening to leave the profession because it's all John Howard's fault. The fact that they are almost exclusively employed by state Labour governments is not actually mentioned of course - apparently John Howard is failing in his duty to force the state Labour governments to ignore market forces. But clearly Kevin Rudd will. Because .. umm?

As state and federal pollies finger pointed at each other and ducked for cover, more and more people started coming of the wood work and relaying their horror stories at the hands (or more likely not at the hands) of emergency room staff in our glorious socialist health system.

But it's not really clear what people expect from a socialist health system. It's easy to simply retort with 'Guys, you wanted a socialist health system, and you got one. What did you expect? Efficiency?' But the truth is a little more complicated.

If a woman is about to miscarry, there is little which can be done about it. Usually miscarriages occur because of trauma (like a fall or a road accident), or because there is something wrong with the fetus or the mother. The human body is really pretty smart. If the mother's body decides that the fetus is not viable it miscarries. It sounds horrible, but it's simply the truth. The best you can do for a woman about to miscarry is to make her comfortable and (if appropriate) give her counseling.

But comfort and counseling are not the jobs of triage staff in an emergency room. They are there to save lives. In fact, lives may have been saved by ignoring her, and helping those who could actually be saved by the resources available. Exactly what do people expect from a hospital emergency room? Understanding? Sympathy?

Apparently so. But why would they expect this from a socialist health system? Socialist systems are not exactly known for their humanity or compassion. Why would they expect socialism to work differently in Australia?

Apparently they are true believers.

A few days later, The Telegraph showed a picture of the emergency room after the publicity. It was empty. Sick people were either traveling further afield to find better care, or taking their chances simply staying at home. This sounds suspiciously like market forces kicking in.

Imagine for a moment if RPA were a hospital in an all-private health system. The publicity would have cost them millions as people chose to take their illnesses (and spend their money) elsewhere. But our socialist health system will simply waste a few million dollars of taxes having inquiries, finger pointing, writing reports and shuffling deck-chairs, before returning to business as usual.

There can be few better arguments for a privatized health system.

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Leaving the meat out

Those of us concerned with the future of humanity sometimes take comfort in the Darwin Awards. Darwin Awards are granted to people who, by acts of their own stupidity, prune themselves off the evolutionary tree, thereby improving the quality of the human gene pool. The ultimate sacrifice to the collective good.

While not technically qualifying, surely an honorable mention should go to the couple who fed their baby to their pet dog. On the 28th of August, the Daily Telegraph's readers were titillated by the news that a couple were watching tele as their pet Siberian Husky ate their two week old baby. Apparently the couple thought Fido was outside eating his doggie biscuits, when he was actually inside munching into something a bit more tender.

Technically these couple could have another baby, thus allowing their obviously defective genes to survive another generation, so they don't qualify for the Darwin Awards. One can only hope that responsible friends and family will discourage them from doing so. While not a great fan of state intervention, there are few stronger arguments for compulsory sterilization.

While also not a great fan of The Religion of Peace, yours truly can't help but think that these people would have done a little better attending Sheik Hilali's sermons about leaving the meat out. It seems that it's not just cats and Muslims that are unable to resist unguarded meat - it applies to dogs as well. And really really stupid people do seem to need guidance from their elites.

Astonishingly, the following day, a family member was quoted as saying there couple were 'unable to understand how or why this happened'. Guys, it's not complicated:

The. Dog. Ate. The. Baby.

Is there some part of that which is hard to understand?

Apparently so. The paper went on to report that:

Canine Association of WA president Phil Thompson said Siberian huskies were generally agreeable companions.

normally they just eat each other?

It just seems to be a one-off freak accident,

Apparently he has never heard of any previous dog attacks. He mustn't get out much.

Dogs can show possessive natures.

Yeah, I get that way around my big juicy steak too.

Siberian huskies are not that sort of dog.

All evidence to the contrary. Moron.

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Absolutely Bereft of Credibility

Suppose that you could do something that would cost your worst enemy $10,000, would you do it? Of course. But what if doing it would cost you $5,000? Would you still do it? Would it be worth it? You'd have to hate them an awful lot wouldn't you? Hold that thought for a minute.

The distinction between a liar and a promise breaker has been explored before in this column. And politics has no shortage of either. Hatred is a strong part of politics too. Especially when the ABC is involved with the Coalition. And even more so when grubby little ABC journalists try to make themselves part of the story. Like Michael Bissenden.

In case you missed the story:

• Peter 'Smirky' Costello is asked whether he ever made certain unflattering remarks about his boss, Little Johnny.
• Smirky denies making the comments.
• Three grubby Journalists, led by Michael Bissenden contradict him and say that yes, he did say those things 'off the record' over dinner two years ago.
• The credibility of all four people is called into question. Smirky is accused of lying. The journalists are accused of violating a trust.

The details over exactly what Smirky is accused of saying, or the fact that the journalists got the month wrong are merely a distracting detail here. And as for the fact that all politicians tell lies, well, don't bother to alert the media.

Clearly Bissenden saw the opportunity to damage the much hated Liberal party. He could damage the Treasurer's credibility. But there was a price to be paid - he had to give up his own credibility.

It will be interesting to watch Bissenden's career after this. His ABC cronies may be anxious to reward him for his efforts, but will any politicians be willing to feed him stories 'off the record' after his little stunt? And will he be able to compete with other journalists who can get those scoops?

This hasn't affected the credibility of the ABC of course - the ABC had no credibility anyway. But it has highlighted the depth of the hatred that the organization has of the Coalition. You have to hate someone an awful lot to pay that price to hurt them.

That's your ABC.

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The website of the ALS is going through a major make-over at the moment. The current website can still be accessed at www.libertarian.org.au, but at the same time we are working on the new look site at www.australianlibertarian.wordpress.com.

There is no need to adjust your links. Once the new site is fully operational and the bugs have been ironed out then we will make the final move and www.libertarian.org.au will take you to the new site.

If you have any comments or suggestions about the new look ALS then please get in contact.

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The Australian Libertarian Society has now merged with the blog "Thoughts on Freedom". The official ALS blog can now be found at:

www.alsblog.wordpress.com

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There is continuing debate over whether Telstra should be renationalised, sold off, left alone, or as the Liberal Democratic Party and I would prefer, to have the remaining shares allotted equally and gifted to all Australian citizens. Ideally, all other Government business enterprises should divested in the same manner.

The reason why there is such a strong argument for the Government owned version of Telstra, a cost based regulated public monopoly to be precise, is over costs to regional areas. This is wrong for two reasons: firstly, there are smaller scale competitors in telecommunications, such as IT&T and Pay TV, being countless ISP providers and Austar Television for example. Austar is quite a profitable company after a few years of loss making, so the business is viable. While it may be inefficient for Telstra to run copper lines out to Alice Springs, it is not inefficient for the smaller competitors to service newer technology to Alice Springs and other remote areas at higher average costs.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly there are issues of international trade and foreign direct investment. Tesltra ever will never be truly efficient and have an incentive to invest in new technology on a large scale until South East Asia has fully opened up its trade and investment regimes. The best way to encourage this is to fully open up our trade and investment regimes and encourage South East Asia to do the same, and in Telstra’s case, drop Government ownership. At worst, we will have more foreign competition against the current domestic and international carriers.

A Telstra with a larger market size could truly become a global company. With no avenues for expansion and the public ownership and community obligations and conflict with private ownership which removes any incentive to upgrade the network, a refusal to liberalise trade and investment regimes will see the share price falling ever downward, and Australian service levels lagging behind the rest of the OECD.

Copied with permission from catallaxyfiles.com

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.. just don't provoke them!

Sometimes people get themselves into arguments which are unwinnable. Like when someone says to you:

'you always have to have the last word, don't you'. Any protest to the contrary proves their point, and while silence demonstrates just the opposite - that it is really the speaker who has to have the last word, this invariably gets lost in the background noise, and the situation is unwinnable.

Likewise 'you are an incredibly argumentative person - the fact that you are still arguing with me proves that', has the same effect.

On the other hand 'I don't want to argue about this anymore' is easier to counter - 'well, don't then'.

Sometimes however the solution is quite easy. And involves no response at all. It's pretty easy to make a fool of someone who says 'you are such a violent person that you are about to hit me'. You just have to smile, and say nothing, or simply say 'no I'm not'.

So you would think that the followers of the Religion of Peace would have responded in a similar manner when the Pope quoted some long dead Pope about Muslims being violent.

Sadly, this wasn't to be. Some Muslims were so outraged by the suggestion that they were violent, that they went out and committed acts of violence. Including the murder of an Italian nun.

And the argument has reached shores of Australia. Now Cardinal Pell has come out defending his man in the Vatican, by pointing out the obvious - that subsequent events kind of justified the original statement. So now the Mufti, Sheik Hilaly has challenged Pell to a debate. Hilaly can't even speak English!

No problem says apologist Keysar Trad. He can be given written questions in advance and prepare answers. Huh? Isn't a debate where you .. like .. engage with each other?

Hilaly just wants to increase his status by sharing a stage with someone more important than he is, and to get an opportunity to preach. It's all about exposure.

More rational Muslims, like Muslim Community Reference Group chair, Ameer Ali, have taken a different tack. Ali is calling for 'and end to the war of words'. He would like to quietly bury the debate and move onto helping himself to the 31 million dollar slush fund Little Johnny is setting up to raise awareness of Islam in Australia.

This has got to be a good thing. There are many of us who seek to raise awareness of Islam in Australia.

You might say that we are on a Crusade for the Truth.

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Oh no, not again

Some readers may be laboring under the misapprehension that yours truly is insensitive to the threat posed by global warming, so it seems appropriate to disabuse them of it.

As someone with aging parents who own a valuable holiday property some 4 feet above sea level, I can assure everyone that I am very concerned about the possible effects of rising sea levels.

So concerned in fact, that I felt the need to spend the weekend monitoring the situation first hand, from the private jetty in the back yard.

I did take time out though to catch the news, and was distressed to learn that Tuvalu is already under water! Carefully edited shots on the leftist media show waves crashing over the .. um .. well .. over the beach, and depict children happily splashing in the water! The horror, the horror!

The news cast assumed, not only that the earth was warming, but that the oceans had already risen! Tuvalu was being swamped!

They must have gotten their facts from the Earth Policy Institute, who reports that

As sea level has risen, Tuvalu has experienced lowland flooding.

Huh? Sea level rise in ocean monitoring centers in the first world have not even been objectively measurable, but Tuvalu is already under water?

Clearly some more experiments in the bath-tub are required.

The fact is that the Tuvaluans have blasted away much of their coral reefs to dynamite fish (a practice banned in most parts of the world), and have excavated sand for building materials. This has greatly reduced the natural protection from storms.

And a rapidly increasing population has put further strains on the production of food.

Unlike the credibility of the Left, it seems that Tuvalu is not sinking at all.

Of this doesn't mean that it won't, just that it hasn't yet. This is clearly a situation which requires careful study. I for one intend to spend more time studying it. It can be monitored closely from the family coastal property.

Maybe I could get a government grant?

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It is understandable that Martin Feil opposes free trade on the unfounded argument that it helps "large bullies". One cannot, after all, expect commentators like Feil to argue government should leave business alone, as that would negate the reason for their existence.

Indeed, their very jobs would be in limbo if they were to argue for an industry policy that is based on a hands-off approach. An admission that Australia should be left free to develop its own comparative advantage would be to negate the supposed informational advantage 'experts' like Feil possess.

In reality, Feil and other industry commentators cannot predict where Australia is most efficient and productive, nor should they need to. Feil will not tell readers of the copious amounts of public choice literature that discuss the incentives powerful lobby groups and commentators have in attracting more attention to their area of specialisation.

Most revealing in this regard is his discussion of the "virile partnership between the industry and government" in the US. When experts advocate closer links between industry and government, consumers should beware.

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Those who can't do teach

Anyone who attends a university where they train teachers will tell you that the trainee teachers are the only group dumber than the PE students. Except the trainee teachers themselves of course, who will bristle at the suggestion. Of course they also bristle at the suggestion that they regard themselves as the intellectual elite. Apparently someone who has a government charter to tell other people what to think doesn't qualify as the intellectual elite. Go figure.

But some other university intellectual elites have produced a study which shows that teachers are actually a pretty dumb lot.

In particular, it reports that

the academic achievement of women entering teaching has declined substantially.

You mean all those feminists who became teachers through affirmative action aren't really that smart? Who'd have thought?

The study actually confirms what the rest of us have known all along. The feminisation of the school curriculum alienated a generation of boys from the education system, and did nothing for the girls beyond giving them a sense of entitlement to affirmative action. Allowing the teachers unions to run the education system has simply resulted in a slow deterioration of teaching standards. And driving male teachers out of the profession through affirmative action and subtle innuendos about men being pedophiles has been a disaster.

But it's not like the teacher's unions don't have a solution to the problem. They are demanding that teachers be paid more money. The argument is that better, and smarter teachers will be attracted to the profession if it pays more money.

Can you imagine any organization other than a union demanding more money because they are doing such a poor job? **

Of course the teachers unions have always fought the concept of performance-based, or merit-based pay. Across the board pay rises have always been the demand in the we-are-all-equal culture of the socialist-rooted elites.

They have even resisted Little Johnny's demands for standardized report cards. There have been many squishy arguments against this, usually based around the notion that all children are different, and their needs can only really be assessed and met by Trained Professionals (ie increasingly dumb women teachers).

The real reason they are resisting the standardized report cards is because it will create accountability. Teachers are terrified of actually having to admit that they have only managed to get Junior's reading level up to the bottom 20 percentile because then their teaching performance (or lack of it) would be obvious, and parents would be able to compare schools and might (horror of horrors) actually demand a choice in how their children are educated. Next, parents might actually demand an education voucher system.

Oh the horror, the horror.

It's ironic, that in the state education factories, in which the teacher's unions have tried so hard to create uniformity, their argument against standardized report cards is based on individuality.

It's also ironic that the favored slogan of the teacher's union is State education: it's our future. Now that's horrifying.

** Actually yes, I can: the government. It does this all the time.

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>> Please Sir, I want some more