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AUSTRALIAN DIARY

ARCHIVES 1997-2007  --- ARCHIVES 2007 +


AUGUST 2011

NSW RTA

The Road Transport Authority is not above sneaky skulduggery on a quite generous scale.  As l have learned to my regret.  Take for instance the speed camera outside Sydney Boy's High in Cleveland Street.  Driving around, one learns to judge at what speed a particular road should be traveled.   The speed on that road should be 60 KPH, not 50 KPH.

Another sneaky trick is the stop light in South Dowling Street.  We get a delay of 3 tenths of a second after the lights turn red before the radar is switched on.  Traveling North along South Dowling St, the distance from the radar to the stop line on the left lane is 3.5 meters shorter than the distance from the radar to the stop line on the right lane.  That means that a car can be 3.5 meters past the stop line at 0.3 seconds.  If the car was traveling slower than about 30 KPH it would have crossed the stop line before the light turned red.  It appears also that the RTA is collecting videos of the cars, but they seem very reluctant to provide copies.  I suspect that this is probably because they are misleading and not approved by legislation.

Another racket is parking.  I have several instances where I have complained that the ticket issued was totally unjustified.  (For instance, a trailer I owned was moved by persons unknown into a "no stopping" zone.  I offered a statutory declaration to that effect, but was told that "NO STOPPING" zones were somehow sacred, and the case would go ahead).

So far as I can determine, the RTA has a policy of refusing any explanation whatsoever, and continues to prosecute.  This is probably because that is the most remunerative response for them to make.  I suspect that most people would rather not lose a day's pay to present their case before a magistrate, even though (as in my case) there was a virtual certainty that they would be found to be "NOT GUILTY".

Then on the day in court, they drop the charges.  In one case I was even advised a few days beforehand they the parking officer was going off sick.

For further help fighting RTA charges email me.  And I strongly request that you ask for court orders that the RTA provide a copy of the video recording before the hearing.


ENERGY

The liberals (and other non technical people) do not seem to have woken up to it yet, but the world energy balance has changed dramatically in the last few years.  This is because of the discovery of new ways to extract coal seam gas.

Cars can operate quite efficiently on gas, and coal seam gas extraction (CH4) technology is coming to maturity.  All that remains is to convert cars and the various power plants that currently use oil to gas.

Peak oil is now quite irrelevant.  One commentator stated that "there is enough coal seam gas in Australia to equal the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia."  The USA & Canada have shale from which similarly huge amounts of gas can be extracted.

This is of course bad news for the Greens.  That is why they so virulently attack CSG projects.


WHAT'S WRONG WITH CAPITALISM

First a definition of capitalism.  I do not mean a lassaiz faire economy, I mean an economy with really large corporate structures worth hundreds of millions or more on the stock exchange.  Examples of such corporations are mall developers, retail chains, transport monopolies, health, banking, insurance organizations.

The following are the aspects of our Corporate capitalist system which our legislators love, because:
 Small business (Corner shops, small tradesmen businesses, owner driver private transport contractors etc) on the other hand:
 Governments need tax income to pay out bribes to constituents (pensions, military hardware etc), unionists contribute to Labour/Democrat governments, and large corporations are substantial contributors to political party fund raisers.

As a consequence, those capitalist enterprises have laws made that benefit them.  Those laws are subtle, and mostly I infer their existence from the fact that they are so successful, when logic suggests that a large corporate structure is not needed.  One example in Australia is the building code.  Australia really only has Federal & State levels of government.  The States completely control local government.  Consequently, if you wish to build a local shop, or a Mall, you really need state government permission.  However the existing mall owners do not want competition, because they would become less profitable, so you are not going to get that permission.  By control of the statewide building code, state governments in Australia have a cornucopia.  And boy, are they milking it!

BIN LADEN REVISITED

There is a low probability chance that my website will again suffer as it did following the May edition of this blog.  I speculated in that blog that Bin Laden was not dead, but alive and being questioned in a secret room.

Following the upload of that blog I was off the air for some weeks.  My internet is run from home.  It was unexplained problems with my internet provider, and with routing to my website that stopped communication.  I complained and suddenly, some weeks later, without any comment by the provider, my blog was again online.

It seems from recent reports that Bin Laden's cohorts are being found (and killed) at a fantastic rate.  Of course the US government has explained those successes as deriving from "information taken from the hard drives of the Bin Laden computers".  And perhaps with assistance also from the person who owned those computers?

LOCAL (AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL) POLITICS

Tony Abbott (Federal opposition leader) is one tough mother.  He has attacked the government and stayed "on message" in a dedicated fashion, seemingly untouched and certainly unresponsive to Julia et al's most virulent and slanderous attacks.

I expect Labour party tacticians have been examining his strategy for flaws, and have decided that ad hominem attacks are the only way to go.  Their problem is made especially hard by a lack of policy flexibility brought about by deals made with the independent members of their minority government.  So Tony can attack policies as he likes (e.g. Carbon Tax) but Julia cannot remove that tax because she would then no longer be in government.

Tony's latest attack is on a former union boss who leveraged himself into parliament circa 2007.  Documentation exists that establishes that in the years before entering parliament his union credit card was used to hire prostitutes, and that around $100,000 was "cashed out" or used for purchase of personal items.  The comeback is that a liberal senator from Labour state South Australia has been charged with shoplifting.   The Labour party counterattack never specifies the amount, which the coalition has advised is $97.
                
 
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