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No topless beaches

Some  state MPs lead by Fred Nile want to ban women bathing topless on our beaches:

With women increasingly going au natural, conservative powerbrokers from all sides of State Parliament yesterday supported a ban on topless bathing.

Local councils currently don't fine or prohibit topless bathers as they do not regard bare breasts as nudity.

Liberal powerbroker David Clarke and Labor MP Paul Gibson yesterday vowed to support a Bill by Reverend Fred Nile that would ban nudity at popular beaches like Bondi, Manly and Coogee.

Mr Gibson had this to say:

Labor MP Paul Gibson said topless women made people feel uncomfortable.
"If you're on the beach do you want somebody with big knockers next to you when you're there with the kids," he said.

So I take it he doesn’t mind big knockers when he’s at the beach without the kids.

That local councils are not trying to stop it indicates to me its not a big issue. Surely they have more important things to do a Macquarie Street.

World wide internet censorship

Not content with trying to censor the internet in their own countries leftist politicians are now trying to censor the net on a world wide basis. Its all about trying to protect the children of course.

Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as saying.
Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibilty.
"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Mr Burnham said.
Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.

If parents were really concerned about internet content they can install filters, some of which are free. But of course, if the government believes parents are not responsible then they have to be treated like children too. With politicians as their mummies and daddies.

Western Sydney's black panther

I think some people overfeed their cats:

MYSTERIOUS panther-like creatures, long reported to be stalking the outskirts of Sydney, could be moving towards homes.

With at least 19 sightings reported this year, big cat hunters believe they're becoming bolder as they search for food and mates, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy said the elusive creatures - usually reported as fleeting sightings at night, often on lonely country roads - have been reported as far afield as Kenthurst, Lithgow, Penrith and Appin as they find migratory routes around Warragamba dam, linking breeding populations from the northwest to southwest via the Blue Mountains. ....

Perhaps Penrith Leagues Club could organise a award for the capture of their mascot.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to All!

From the Nativity Story.

Bus Rapid Transport: Solution to Sydney's transport needs?

Here is my brainwave or brainfart for today:

Transport is one of the biggest challenges New South Wales has. Motorists face ever increasing delays and congestion on roads while commuters have to cope with limited inefficient public transport. As the pool of public money is limited the two sides compete for funds and little appears to happen.

Rail is central to Sydney's public transport. Yet its based on 19th Century concepts. Its centralized (all lines lead to Central Station) which means that thousands of people have work in Sydney even if they live in the outer suburbs. Also any union trouble can bring the city to a halt. The expense of heavy rail means expansion is difficult.

Private cars are decentralized, and not under anyone's control. However they have their own limits of pollution and congestion.

Here is my proposal.

1)Place tolls on ALL the freeways and highways. Charge by the kilometer with offpeak discounts. This would stop the discrimination against motorist who pay a toll now on some highways while others don't, and it would provide revenue for....

2) A major highway building program. Give Sydney the roads it needs. With tolls PPPs would be the way to go. However make sure every highway has a specific bus lane because the next step will be...

3) A full bore program to introduce Bus Rapid Transport in Sydney. Bogata has shown what can be done. BRT can move more people then rail and is far more flexible. It would allow a public transport network to be established through out the city at minimal cost. Again the private sector can take the lead. Professor David Hensher has often made the case for BRT
An effective BRT network means we can consider...

4) Phasing out CityRail. Why do we need them if we can have something better? We can use that land for highways and commercial use.

Lets give Sydney a 21st Century transport system. A system based on markets, choice and innovation.

Very Fast Trains

Looks like the Sydney to Melbourne Very Fast Train is back on the agenda. The proposal has some appeal, it would effectively make Canberra airport Sydney's second airport and be a boon to towns like Goulburn. However could it really compete with $89.00 air fares? I'm sceptical of any claims we need it because of rising oil prices. Thats never guaranteed, at the moment oil prices are tumbling.

Murder machine

Euthanasia proponent Dr Philip Nitschke is back in the news again, this time with his latest invention, an undetectable death machine:

As well as promoting the method as "flawless", the Darwin medic, 61, says it has the unique characteristic of being undetectable which will make it harder to prove suicide.

The new process makes use of ordinary household products including a barbecue gas bottle - purchased at a hardware store yesterday morning - which is then filled with another gas which is readily available.

Dr Nitschke has developed a process in which "patients" lose consciousness immediately and die a few minutes later, The Advertiser reports.

"So it's extremely quick and there are no drugs," Dr Nitschke said yesterday.

"Importantly this doesn't fail - it's reliable, peaceful, available and with the additional benefit of undetectability."

Dr Nitschke, if you can't prove suicide how can you prove murder? Because you can sure bet it will be abused to do so.

Whitlam again

Henry Ergas sure got stuck into the Rudd government this morning:

How can it make sense, for example, to reduce labour market flexibility just as the economy heads into recession? And having increased the effective cost of labour, is it wise to then subsidise investment, further distorting relative factor prices and accentuating the substitution of capital for labour, exactly as happened with the investment subsidies many European governments provided in the late 1970s and early '80s?

As for the emissions trading scheme, if the main emitters are not reducing their emissions -- as the Government's 5 per cent target assumes -- why go it alone? Far from serious reform, is this not merely costly symbolism, with the pain disguised by subsidies thrown at each possibly affected group, entrenching the fantasy that no matter what harm it does to the economy, government can ensure no one is worse off? "Every man a winner": speak of fiscal illusion.

Nor is the Government's penchant for nation-building any better thought out. Now in tatters with the Telstra fiasco, the scheme is based on the false premise that vast new projects are what this country needs. But whatever Australian politicians lack, ribbon-cutting opportunities are not among them. Rather, our infrastructure suffers from the fact that having willed the ends, we persistently misuse the means, including by sacrificing maintenance for ambitious, poorly judged but electorally popular new projects.

I just hope if it is Whitlam redux we don't see Rudd followed by Fraser redux.

Rudd crashing the Australian economy

Heres some good sense:

Obama's seat

Crikey, the bloke has not even been sworn in yet and already he's walking through crap:

PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's choice for White House chief of staff spoke to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's office about who the governor should appoint to replace Obama in the US Senate, the Chicago Tribune reported on today.

The talks did not suggest that Rahm Emanuel, currently a Chicago congressman, was involved in an alleged deal-making scheme for the Senate seat that has resulted in federal charges against Mr Blagojevich, a 52-year-old Democrat.

The two-term governor and his former chief of staff John Harris are charged with attempting to peddle the Senate position for campaign cash or a lucrative job for the governor, as well as paid corporate board appointments for his wife.

More on buses

Professor David Hensher makes the case for Bus Rapid Transport here. The Bogata system can move 35000 people an hour one way. The best CityRail can do is 14000. So why the hell do we need CityRail? Pave over the rail tracks and convert them to bus lanes.

Super-buses?

This sounds simple enough that it might actually work. Also its something the private sector could do.

THE State Government is sitting on a $1.9 billion plan to roll out high-speed gas buses running on sunken train tracks and tunnels from the Sutherland Shire to the city in just 30 minutes.

It's a vision that now gathers dust in Premier Nathan Rees' office despite recommendations that a network of high-speed "super-buses" could solve our transport problems.

A Cabinet-in-Confidence report, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, has revealed a $1.9 billion transport plan submitted by the Ministry of Transport to deliver a 22-minute rapid "metro"-style bus service from southern Sydney to the city.

It was also proposed as a cheaper alternative to the $12 billion Northwest metro rail system axed in the Rees Government mini-Budget.....

cartoon sex

The New South Wales Supreme court has determined that pictures of cartoon characters having sex can be child porn:

CARTOON characters are people too, a judge has ruled in the case of a man convicted over cartoons based on The Simpsons, in which children are shown having sex.

In the New South Wales Supreme Court today, Justice Michael Adams ruled that a fictional cartoon character was a "person" within the meaning of the relevant state and commonwealth laws.

OK, so a cartoon character is a "person". What about cartoon animal characters? If we had pictures of Donald Duck bonking Huey, Duey and Louie would that be pedophilia, bestiality or just plain incest?

I think we are getting into ridiculous territory here.

The third sex

The Federal government's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission wants to create a third sex:

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission wants people to be able to change their gender on their passports and driving licences even if they do not undergo surgery.

And transgender lobby groups say that even this does not go far enough and are demanding a fourth legal gender called "other" for people who feel like their gender is indefinable or changes from day to day.

The extraordinary proposals are contained in a discussion paper quietly issued to transgender and transexual advocates by the commission, a statutory body that advises the Government on such matters.

Transexuals I know personally prefer to be recognized as the sex the change into. But why stop there? As Mr Dennis Avner , or Stalking Cat as he prefers to be called has shown, some people are just not satisfied with their species, so perhaps we should give some special legal recognition to such people too.

Anyway, do we have any members of the third and fourth sex in parliment?

Fred Thompson on the Economy

This is just brilliant.

Its so 70's

The Reserve Bank has slashed interest rates by 1%, but we still have higher inflation and a stagnating economy. Does anyone remember the70's term, stagflation?

On a related matter, Henry Ergas thinks we have forgotten the lessons of the 70's:

CHRIS Higgins, former director of economics at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and treasury secretary in 1989-90, once described the 1970s and 1980s as "the school of hard shocks".

Increases in oil prices and spiralling inflation tested to the limit governments' ability to manage economic policy. In the process, vital lessons were learned which deserve not to be forgotten. As governments struggle with the global financial crisis, three of those lessons seem acutely relevant.

The lessons are very much worth knowing. Read the full article to learn what they are.