Tofurkey of the week

Since I'm back to blogging, it must be time for a Tofurkey, the Daily Suppository's own faux-poultry plinth celebrating all those who act like a complete turkey in the name of the environment, climate or the oft-misused clarion of "sustainability". This week's inedible enviro-fail award goes to none other than Al Gore himself.

Al has embarassed himself by using footage of the recent Brisbane floods to spruik the dangers of anthropogenic global warming on youtube, when even Julia Gillard's own pet climate commission populated by alarmists conceded they were not.

A predictable unintended consequence

Right now I have no love lost for the proposed carbon tax, and not for all the usually cited reasons. Nope, right now, I'm annoyed because it made me do math. I hate math.

Faced with the news that hospitals are not going to be compensated for the increase to their costs under a carbon tax, I had no choice but to gird my mathematic loins and join the fray, so as to put this into some kind of perspective. (Albeit with a quick call to good ol' Dad to translate some of the more technical terms. "Hey Dad, whats this thing..its an EM.DoubleYEW.Haich or something?") So if any of my more learned readers think I have gone astray with my calculations, please consider yourself volunteered. Do you have a calculator? I'll make the tea.

This is what I worked out. Hospitals are very expensive places energy wise. Operating theatres run around the clock, we have expensive kitchens, food bills, heating and cooling, expensive equipment, lots of fun drugs and kit made out of petroleum products and aluminium, linens, the list is endless. Oh, and we leave the lights on all the time. (Except when an enviro-bully has used the bathroom last and insists on turning the lights out when they leave, thus leaving the next user (i.e. Me) to stumble around in the dark groping blindly for where the switch should be if the facility wasn't designed for achondroplasic amputees, and hoping not to encounter bodily fluids / rapists / dead people. When I find you, you will pay.)

Hospital electricity bills alone run into the millions per annum, so just times that by anywhere between 10-20% to factor in a carbon tax, and it works out to be a lot of extra dosh the hospital administration is going to have to pull out of their backsides. Somehow I don't think they are going to voluntarily sacrifice large parts of their pay packets to compensate, and I sincerely hope they don't "find" the extra money in the junior doctor's salaries, either. Worse case scenario: we may have to treat less people, less well.

Let us look at one single, important facet of hospital medicine: The MRI scanner. They are really nifty, they have big-arse magnets and are super cooled with liquid helium*, reliably cost over a million dollars AUD to buy and we don't have enough of them to meet demand. The average wait time in the west of Sydney for a medicare funded, elective MRI is anywhere between 1-8 weeks. MRI is also funky because it doesn't deliver the radiation dose of CT.

They also use a fairly hefty wack of power to run. According to an analysis of the Magnetom Avanto MRI system from 2007, it looks a little something like this:


Just to make the things creates a massive carbon dioxide footprint. A fun MRI fact is that they are often shipped by air to prevent the helium that cools the superconducting magnet from evaporating in the absence of a power source (in which case it needs to be recooled at substantial cost and energy expenditure). If the length of time it took me to ship a box of my posessions from California to Sydney by surface mail is anything to go by, I dont think we can ship them by sea in a timely manner. (Even taking into account the length of time needed for customs to open my stuff and steal my CD's). As far as I know, neither marine or air transport will be compensated under this tax, anyway.

The running costs in terms of energy work out to over 600 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year (at least according to the fine print on the back of my last electricity bill). Thats over AUD $14K a year extra just in terms of the price the government plans to put on carbon dioxide emissions, and not even including the other knock-on effects and existing predicted electricity price hikes. Just for one MRI machine!

So I have a question: What do we do to absorb the cost? Considering the existing waiting times for MRI scans, I'm not sure we can churn more people through. Are the medicare rebates for MRI scans going to be increased? At the moment, say a ball park figure for the rebate amount is around $400 (or you can peruse the list here, if you're feeling particularly masochistic). Thats not very much when you factor in the cost of the technicians needed to run a scan, the cost of purchasing and running the scanner and the cost of keeping a radiologist in luxury yachts and European cars. (I would tell you what a consultant interventional radiologist makes, but you might vomit.)

* For further information on the technological wonder that is the MRI machine, please ask someone more learned. Most of what I know about MRI can be summed up by the phrase "Big magnet = ferromagnetic metal bad" ** or watching the below clip. Warning: People upset by the gratuitous slaughter of melons should turn away now.

** UPDATE: That should probably be "Big Magnet + Ferromagnetic metal = Bad". I told you I was bad at math.

Take that, watermelon

I propose a motion...

If we must have this ridiculous carbon dioxide tax thing which is going to bugger up our nation, I would like to derive some secondary gain from it. Fair is fair, if I can't afford to heat my house anymore, that makes me cranky, I'm a candy-arse when it comes to being cold. At the very least, I want to make someone else suffer more.

This is why I propose taxing cyclists on the basis that their exercising leads to an increase in carbon dioxide exhalation above the baseline of the rest of our sedentary, expanding-girth population. Just to clarify, I mean those sports cyclists who go out in gaggles of lycra cladding on weekends and then clip-clop around coffee shops in those expensive riding shoes. I really have no beef with kids on bikes, mountain bikers, or even cool twenty-somethings with moustaches on fixie-bikes. No, I just have an unreasonable, bigoted, knee-jerk reaction to anyone who takes it seriously. I suck like that.

I have to confess I didn't think of this idea, and it pains me to say that it was actually the Ex-Mr. Paua who came up with it. This is a man who used to have a subscription to New Internationalist, and jealously guarded his box of back issues when the subscription ran out. I would like to point out, that as I am what is known in Australia as a "top chick", I resisted the temptation to "lose" them with extreme prejudice during any of our successive house moves. I have never been the sort of woman who disappeared hated wardrobe items of a spouse either, and its worth pointing out here that the Ex-Mr. Paua owned both leather trousers AND a woolen cloak. Who wears a f#$%ing cloak for f&*$s sake?!

Anyway, I really, really dislike cyclists in a completely unfair and unreasonable way. They sh!t me to tears. I think its the flourescent lycra and their flagrant disregard for road rules. Cycling is reaching epidemic proportions, and there is nothing as terrifying as coming over a hill on a country road doing 100 kph to suddenly find a freaking pellaton of weekend city cyclists in front of you. If they want to be treated as any other vehicle on the road, then that is fine, but then I should be allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road so that I can chat to the driver of the car next to me. In the interest of fairness, they should also be subject to the road rule which says that a motorist cannot do more than a certain amount below the posted limit. A polynesian relative of mine discovered this little known road rule when he was booked by police for doing 30 kilometres under the posted limit. He was so tired after a hard nights work as a nightclub bouncer that he was driving with the door open so he could follow the white line, and it was 4am on a deserted country road, so he figured he better play it safe. A law is a law, however, and he broke it.

Perhaps my visceral dislike stems from my skateboarding days when a fat cyclist in flourescent lycra picked on me at a set of traffic lights to vent some of his cyclist angst, presumably because I represented a fairly soft target. That was the day that a cyclist learnt that the reason why a young woman would skateboard through the inner city at night is because it's an excuse to carry what is essentially a plank of wood covered in grip tape.

Anyway, fair is fair. If they are going to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, they should be taxed accordingly. Kind of like how Greens dislike feral camels on the basis of their farting, and just remember what they proposed doing to camels.

Cycling: You're doing it right

I have a theory

I'm on holidays, and unbelievably for a medico stuck at home with a gaggle of kids in winter, was on some kind of perverse sober health kick. Until yesterday. Happily, I didn't do the usual and get stuck into a bottle of Barbados' finest as a gesture of protest at the carbon tax announcement, instead limiting myself to a bottle or three of sauvignon blanc. I am nothing if not a creature of moderation and rectitude.

Somewhere between tripping over the cat and psychologically profiling Prime Minister Gillard's motivations and likely I.Q. level, I had a sudden revelation:

This carbon tax thing is on purpose! No, wait, still hungover, let me clarify. She doesn't really need The Greens the way everyone has being bleating on about. The Greens are never going to back a conservative government, she doesn't need them the way an obligate intracellular organism needs its host, or even as much as I need a coffee. She could have called their bluff.

Ergo, she must have some deeper motivations, and among the more obvious theories are:

* She actually has deep seated convictions that this carbon dioxide tax thingy is going to do something for the environment and isn't particularly bright. This theory has a certain attractiveness.

* She screwed the pooch so badly on the minerals resources tax thingy that was needed to get the Labour budget out of deficit, that this carbon dioxide tax is a way to recoup the funds, by taxing the same industries that slipped the noose in the last tax-go-round and exempting everyone else.

However, none of the above explains why she would insist on committing political seppuku in such an epic manner. I mean, she's going down faster than a B-grade starlet at Charlie Sheen's house. Then it occurred to me:

* It's all a calculated move to destroy The Greens! She is nobly sacrificing her own continued leadership aspirations, and the future of her own political party, to make sure that The Greens go the way of One Nation and the Democrats! Think about it! Calls have already gone out from both sides of politics to limit their preference flows and sideline them the way One Nation was. Crafty Julia is giving Bob Brown enough rope to hang himself. Just the other day he got so over-excited he started talking about one world government, y'see, it's working already. All those gen-Y knobs who voted for them because they thought they were warm and fuzzy are starting to wise up, and are not about to hand back the keys to the hotted up commodore. Its brilliant.

Julia "KFC"* Gillard, for your noble sacrifice on behalf of the Australian people, the Daily Suppository salutes you!

* Two small breasts, two large thighs and a red box.

Cry. Scream. Vomit.

First of all, a dietary plain language statement from moi: I was vegetarian for a several years there in my teens and early twenties. It wasn't for animal rights, although I did listen to The Smiths a bit, and as a generation X-er I can at least attest to the fact it wasn't for reasons of "sustainability". No. It started as a way to impress a guy. He now runs a grass-roots record label specialising in Jamaican music, has a collection of questionable tattoos, and yes, I would probably still sleep with him given half a chance. In fact, he pursued me for a time there, many years ago, and as part of my cunning plan of reciprocal seduction, I plied him with a particularly lethal home-made dope "chocolate" cake before inviting him into my bed. He passed out on the couch. I guess you could say he's the one that got away.
Thankfully, before I could become a complete wanker, a questionably tattooed lesbian flatmate coaxed me off the vegetarian wagon a fews years later with rump steak, after a particularly bad hangover. Then several successive pregnancies were the last nail in that dietary coffin. In fact, I am cooking a lamb roast as we speak. I also grew up in the beef cattle country of Australia. I, unlike many people in this country, have seen (in real life) cattle being slaughtered, and then eaten their meat.

Now let us examine the recent live-export cattle ban.

For those who have been living under a rock in Australia, or are American and haven't followed the latest Gillard government S.N.A.F.U., the abridged version runs along these lines: Two blonde women from an animal rights group filmed horrendous cruelty to Brahman cattle in a couple of abattoirs in Indonesia prior to their slaughter and a news story was aired. It was horrible. The cattle were live exports from nothern Australia. This apparently made it our fault. The viewing public freaked the fuq out. The government freaked the fuq out. Overnight all live exports were suspended. Beef cattle farmers freaked the fuq out (being several million dollars in the hole overnight will do that to a person). Indonesia freaked the fuq out (losing a big whack of your national dietary protein overnight will do that to a person). Everyone was freaking the fuq out.
To cut a long story short, the Government realised they had, ahem, porked the poodle on this one and backflipped, however the economic effects of this aren't over by a long shot.

Now, on to some hypocrisy worse than my past case of vegetarianism:

There are better ways to slaughter animals. Just ask Temple Grandin if you want a pragmatic approach. However, insisting that the worlds most populous majority muslim nation adhere to the principal of stunning prior to slaughter, when we allow exemptions for Halal and Kosher slaughter here in Australia, is somewhat hypocritical.

It gets better. Not only do we allow exemptions to be granted for ritual slaughter here in Australia, we also allow for wholesale extermination of animals that we deem to be "pest" species. Apparently, poisoning foxes, shooting feral cats, fumigating fluffy bunny babies in their nests and unleashing biological agents of death on same, are OK. Even The Greens think that's OK, in fact, its part of their platform, right under the bits about banning live exports and circus animals, they just say it should be done more "humanely":

5.the most humane and effective means available to be used in the control of introduced and pest species, including humane population management methods.

So what does the Department of Primary Industries say about about animal welfare in relation to a "Pest Animal Strategy"?:

In general, the National Consultative Committee on Animal Welfare has advocated the use of techniques that result in high level and long lasting control, therefore reducing the need to frequently apply controls.

Oh, well thats alright then. Pass the myxomatosis

We also do not require stunning to be performed on wild game prior to slaughter, which means Skippy can get shot in the head from the back of a truck while being chased by dogs, and the little Joey in its pouch "humanely" terminated, all in the interests of supplying the pet meat trade.
And bright sparks, yes, even in government ministries concerned with climate change, have at various times advocated the shooting of everything from wild buffalo to camels to stop them farting. Seriously. Considering that part of the complaint in relation to the Indonesian abbattoirs was that the footage showed animals being slaughtered in front of the other animals, I find it hypocritical in the extreme that the same people wouldn't bat an eyelid about shooting a camel from a helicopter, in front of its mates. Like we do regularly with wild horses and pigs. The link supplied mentions that the RSPCA even monitors the aerial shooting cull of the horses to ensure they are shot "humanely", yet puts spokespeople on national television to state their position on mandatory stunning of cattle prior to slaughter for other sovereign nations.

I will now finish with the most blatent hypocrisy of all. So much uproar over the treatment of Australian animals in Indonesia, leading to the (temporary) suspension of live exports, and yet this is a country that executes Australian citizens by firing squad. I don't see the federal government immediately suspending package tours to Bali.

Hi all

Wow. Its been a while. Sorry 'bout that (to the, oh, one person left who will notice this post since I lost my entire readership while away from blogging).
I had this medical degree thing to finish, and kids to wrangle. I had this horrible moment recently during exams, where I became very cranky at the Medical School's seeming expectation that as a final year medical student I was somehow expected to know ALL of medicine. Then I realised I was. Am. In other words, I've been busy trying to learn how not to kill people accidentally.

So, what a couple of months we've had here in the antipodes! Here was me thinking post climate-gate that the alarmism bandwagon had lost momentum. That an eventual collapse of the global mass delusion was imminent. That we were all going to wake up hungover after some massive "end of the IPCC" do, with sketchy memories, torn fishnets, between James Delingpole and Adam Baldwin on a coral atoll somewhere. (Maybe that last bit is just me). Instead, I'm sober, and woke up to Julia Gillard's wide-load arse preparing to announce a climate tax. Seriously, world, WTF?!

So much WTF-ery, so little blog space. I feel to do current events justice I need to probably triage them somewhat and arrange my thoughts into some kind of coherent snark, else this turn into some kind of rambling manifesto. Speaking of which, I realised that my facebook friends list is getting somewhat unwieldy. I mean, I have facebook friends who I went to high school with who are now militant union, labour lawyers with political aspirations. Just ugh, frankly. The things they clutter up my news feed with, honestly. I have another friend who actually ran as a Green's candidate, and shares thoughts bemoaning the cumulative radiation dose of air travel. Another one was spruiking her idea for a liberal, left-wing, angry emo blog. Pfftt. I need to cull. So I was thinking of "outing" myself, and letting them drop by the wayside naturally. Something along the lines of this:

It's time I came clean. Many of you who think you know me, really don't, and I can't live this lie anymore. In a political sense, in many ways, I'm conservative. I mean, I'm slightly to the right of Genghis Khan. In fact, some of those Mongol policies smacked of socialism to my mind. I think P.J. O'Rourke is hilarious, (albeit a trifle catholic) and James Delingpole is hot. I even think Andrew Bolt is a good guy, although I disagree with his assertion that women can't be Navy clearance divers (You're wrong Andrew, I can prove it). I wish we had a flat (low!) taxation rate for everyone, regardless of income, instead of tax brackets, and a simplified taxation system. I also think that Government subsidies are rarely, if ever a good idea.
Sure, I'm all for access to education and health care, my kids go to a Government school and I'm to too broke to have private health cover. I'm also pro-choice and have a past checquered with questionable recreational past-times involving mind altering substances, loud music and occasional episodes of nudity. However, I went and grew the hell up, abandoned a particularly embarassing bout of vegetarianism in favour of rump steak, took out the nose ring (it was too mainstream) and went back to my red-neck roots. Which were never very far away, anyhow. At no stage did I think that MORE regulation and MORE government was ever going to solve any of my problems, and even with my elementary mathematical ability I could do the sums of beaurocracy and come up with a zero. Or a negative. So please, stop sending me text messages inviting me to a rally against red-meat/live-exports/carbon dioxide/poverty and / or economic summits or instructing me how to vote during the next election.
I'm sorry if this means we can't be friends.

Thoughts?

Back again!

Sorry 'bout closing the blog for awhile there, but with my unerring ability to mistime holidays I have been in Queensland for the last 4 weeks visiting family. During that time it was brought to my attention that a company was rather profitably copyright-trolling blogs and litigating accordingly (see: I'm too poor to sue!) thing was brought to my attention, and in a fit of paranoia I just closed the blog until I could get home and do the necessary, tedious searches of my old posts.

Anyone interested in donating to the Queensland flood relief see here. Or alternatively, if you have a high-pressure hose, a pair of gumboots* and live within driving distance of south-east Queensland, they need YOU. (My family has a rich relationship with hurricanes, cyclones and floods ripping through the house. Its messy, to say the least, the mud is quite unbelievable. And as I discovered at the age of 11, if you dont wear shoes in the aftermath of a flood, its quite possible to do something like punch the broad side of a nail covered in mud through the bottom of your foot. Several weeks of crutches and the scar still twinges in cold weather.)

Oh, and for those not of a technological bent, if your house was flooded and you have a solar electricity system, it IS STILL GENERATING ELECTRICITY even though the mains power is out, and if the inverter has been immersed, there can be arcing. Please be careful, some systems can deliver enough DC volts to be fatal.


* Galoshes or wellingtons, depending on where you live.

Waking up is hard to do

Just when you thought funding for ridiculous climate studies was on the wane, Professor Ole John Nielsen of Copenhagen has discovered that gases used in anaesthesia are up to 1600 times more potent as greenhouse gases than CO2. Happily, he reassures us that he won't call for them to be banned. Yet.
Nielsen, who got the idea while his wife was having a baby (whereupon the Daily Suppository will restrain herself from defamatory comments against the male persuasion...its been a rough few weeks) has written in the British Journal of Anaesthesia that the global impact of inhalation anaesthesia is comparative to a million cars. This sounds exciting, until you work out that that is the same as one coal fired power plant. Lets not freak out prematurely or anything.
Prof. "Not a medical doctor" Nielsen, has advised anaethetists that they should "sit up and take notice" of this, and since of the three anaesthetic gases analysed, one is more potent as a greenhouse gas than the other two:

If all three compounds have equal therapeutic work, there is every reason to use the one with the lowest global warming potential.

A statement so cute in its over-simplicity and mis-identification of significance. Just hazarding a guess here, but from what I know of anaesthetics (which isnt much, and Im not looking it up because Im on holidays) Im going to go right ahead and guess that the complex physiological and pharmaceutical science that is anaesthetics takes into account more factors in selecting an agent than its "therapeutic work". Thats because the "therapeutic work" of an inhalation anaesthetic is usually "knocking you out", and they all do that. Amazingly though, the pharmacokinetics of the agent, and dare I say it, the patient's individual physiology, plays a part, too. Not to mention the availability and cost of the agent itself.
Thinking of the anesthetists I know, I'm somehow not too worried that this is going to radically change the profession. Perhaps Prof. Nielsen should have investigated the climate impact of runnning just one hospital laundry, instead.

EDIT: Anthony Watts just debunked the paper's claims in a particularly educated and erudite fasion. His rebuttal is based on science-y stuff, mine on hanging out with anaesthetists at three in the morning on a labour ward, or watching one napping against a wall while I helped put a rubber hose up an unconscious patient's bum. Probably go with what Watts says, Im thinking.

Weather update

Hi All,
Usually I get the irrits with all these medical students who constantly update their facebook pages with comments about how many lives they've saved. Go and notch your stethoscope, or something. Seriously, who saves lives? I certainly dont. I'll be happy if I can just get through the next few years without accidentally killing anyone.
Until two nights ago that is, when I saved a life! It was actually my own. Good for me.
Yes, folks, I had "thunderstorm asthma", and it really sucked. I had never even heard the term before, nor ever had asthma, but realised something was wrong when I couldn't breathe. I find thats usually a diagnostic giveaway. Reasoning that it seemed to be occurring in line with a rainstorm, I thought perhaps pollen could be implicated (in your face all those people who said that being a science nerd is a bad thing, knowing how pollen behaves in the rain is useful after all!) and rummaged around until I found some old antihistamines and a bottle of prednisone left over from the last time the kids had croup. Then I sat around wheezing heavily until they kicked in. This is the point in the story where people are probably wondering: a) Wheres the weather / climate angle? and b) Why didnt you go to a hospital, you retard?
The answers are as follows: a) I'm getting to it. b) Medicos make terrible patients and usually dont go to an ED until they are unconscious, whereupon someone else takes them. Also, the kids were asleep and I didnt want to wake them.
Now, on to the weather angle. Australia is one of the worst places in the world for asthma and hayfever. I could provide links, but cant be bothered, just google it if you dont believe me. Interestingly, when people move to Australia from overseas, they run the risk of developing asthma and hayfever that is a function of how long they have been here for. 2-4 years seems to the magic number, then you get a bunch of expats suddenly presenting to their doctors with their heads exploding, saying things like "I've NEVER had this before." Lets just say our environmental conditions can be tough on the atopic.
Anyhoo, this is one of the wettest, coolest summers in southern Australian since around 1996. All of those bastard pollinating thingies are going apeshit. Then you get a couple of hot days where they pollinate themselves into a frenzy, followed by a thunderstorm, which bursts the pollen grains in the air. So instead of getting stuck in your nose and causing hayfever, you breathe all these antigenic particles down into your lungs and suddenly find it difficult to breathe.
Melbourne has been hardest hit and had 300+ people calling for an ambulance due to thunderstorm asthma in one night, which doesnt count those people who presented to ED themselves (or sat at home in Sydney self-medicating with kiddy prednisone and Phenergan). The Alfred hospital has had to open another wing to deal with the number of cases. Apparantly this hasn't happened on such a scale since the 1970's.
Television news are running stories warning people with hayfever to go straight to a hospital if they start wheezing. Fun times.
Global warming has clearly foresaken us. Bring back the drought.

Update...

Hi all,
I realise I kind of went AWOL for awhile there, so I thought I would put up a quick note to explain that I am around and will return to blogging in another 2 weeks or so. Lets just say that a perfect storm of hospital work, the obligatory hospital acquired illness, end of year exams and Mr. Paua going FUBAR in the head and disappearing on me in the midst of all this has put The Daily Suppository on a backburner for awhile. (BTW Mr. Paua, they have pills for that. Oh, thats right, you stopped taking them...)
I have been reduced to yelling at ABC news 24 stories instead, (which FYI would have made their way into the blogosphere had there been a Daily Suppository intern with a dictaphone and mad typing skills on hand. Just a thought, people.) And listening to angry nerd music about recalcitrant boyfriends.
Whatever gets you through.
See you in a couple of weeks.

Its funny 'cause my nickname for him really is "bitch":

I heart the Gore-acle

Like fading A-list celebs the world over, Al Gore has taken to paid appearances in Asia and the Subcontinent to boost his bottom line. Most of his contemporaries end up lending their services to wierd advertisements for Japanese whiskey or toilet paper, or in the case of Al Pacino, spruiking a C grade coffee in Australia. In Al G's case, he recently jetted in to address a selected crowd of Indian cardiovascular specialists in Chennai.
After picking up his check, he immediately flew out again, avoiding any contact with the media. Even the event organisers thought that was a little wierd:

"His lecture was meant to be a private address to delegates at the congress" the media was told by members of the organising committee. But they themselves found it incongrous that "a man interested in creating global awareness on climate change and other environmental issues should have himself restricted the reach of his message."

Not so surprising when you hear the content of his speech. Al clearly struggled for common ground, and, dare I say it, relevancy when catering to cardiologists and cardio-thoracic surgeons, so went with comparing the human heart with the Earth's hydrological cycle. Clearly because he knows so much about both. I believe the word he was looking for instead was "plumbing". (Sorry, little doctor joke there.)
Also touched upon was the challenges faced by a rising global population, perhaps somewhat impolitic of him considering he was in one of the world's most populous nations.
Now, I've been to India, and I find it seriously hard to believe that the most entertaining thing anyone could come up with was Al Gore? Even the German's do a better line in weird conferecne entertainment. I once had described to me in great detail a German pharmaceutical conference where the entertainment consisted of a middle aged German guy jumping out of a large cake and attaching two toilet plungers to his chest, complete with song. And I probably saw wierder things in India just catching a suburban train through down-town Mumbai.
I certainly hope those doctors were on an all expenses paid junket, because if it was me and I was picking up the tab, I would vote for the Bahamas and Lady Ga Ga next time.

Everything you ever suspected about psychiatrists confirmed

So hands up who saw the "hilarious" 10:10 fest promotional video? I was one of those people who watched it and was completely appalled, and I get splatter humour. Seriously, if you didn't cry with laughter during the lawn mower scene in Peter Jackson's Brain Dead*, theres something wrong with you. The 10:10 promotional video, on the other hand, just wasn't funny.
The predictable fall-out of 10:10's epic own-goal fail, was that all of their corporate sponsors suddenly went the way of Pierce Brosnan's Remington Steele era chest hair in the 1990's, and just disappeared. Which kind of makes one wonder why on freakin' earth 4 of the major UK medical societies suddenly signed up to their campaign after the 10:10 splatter video?

And just like that....it was gone....

Seriously. I don't mean to sound indelicate, but f*ck me drunk and bury me pregnant, what were they thinking?! According to the Royal College of Psychiatrist's own website:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), have all joined 10:10, mindful of the threat posed by climate change.

The president of the RCPsych, Dinesh Bughra (is his last name really pronounced the way I think its pronounced?), even goes so far to say that living a low carbon life style will cheer you up. On the one hand, he may be right - apparently people in developing nations have historically rated their general happiness as being better than whingeing princesses in developed nations, but they tend to die quicker of really gross things like TB, and childbirth. Its also been put forward that peopled rated their happiness as higher during the world wars due to factors like a united sense of purpose, but in the long run I would counsel against invading Poland as a means of cheering everyone up.
A more recent compilations of studies into mental wellbeing created a global "happiness map", that showed a differing picture, and fairly clearly highlighted that the main predictors of happiness were access to health care, followed by wealth and education.


In Australia, there are longstanding media agreements to not report certain types of suicides and violent crime. It is well known that publicising suicides off of bridges, in front of trains and knife assaults (unless particularly extreme events) increases the number of similar events in the community. Due to this, most people here are happily unaware of the weekly parade of knifings and jumpers unless they work in a health care field, or, like I did 10 years ago, live next door to a train bridge. So if the media would voluntarily censor itself in the name of the greater good, this begs the question of why a national body of Psychiatrists would back an organisation that normalises blowing up innocents, including children, that show deviation from an arbitrary, political party-line.
Physician, for f*cks sake, heal thyself.


* And to think, this man went on to make Lord of the Rings and is now a knight of the realm.

If you have a job, the Greens don’t like you

How many people who voted Green at the last election have any idea what their actual policies are? Originally the Greens represented a protest vote, and as such were essentially a protest party. It didn’t really matter what their policies were, they were just assumed to be warm, fuzzy and had something to do with lesser spotted quolls or numbats or something. “Maybe”, people said hopefully, “they might legalise pot”. What wasn’t to love, right? Now, however, they have a member in the lower house and the resulting power-broking alliance with the minority Labour government, plus holding the balance of power in the senate. They would have us believe they could be a party of governance. So in the spirit of this, let’s have a little look-see at what they actually want to do with our country.

I started looking at their economic policies first, just because. Most Green’s voters could tell you that they want a price on carbon, but few probably realise that they want to tax you up the whazoo, redistribute your wealth and (probably) send you to the country side for re-education.

First off, let me preface this with a personal position statement: I’m poor. Really poor. However, given that I can get an education with little cash up front, eat pretty damn well and don’t have to bash my clothes on a rock down by the river to get them clean, I figure I have little to complain about. One day, though, I wouldn’t mind being better off, and so I’m a little bothered that the Greens want to:

• Increase the maximum tax bracket to 50% for high income earners, impose a minimum income tax obligation in your bracket so there is no way to reduce your personal tax burden and do away with concessions for capital gains tax. “That’s alright”, you say, “I can put it in a trust for my kids or post a loss on those dodgy soy-burger stocks that never broke even”.

• Au contraire. They want to tax your family trust as a company (whilst mentioning elsewhere that they will increase the company tax rate to 33%) and reckon you can only post a loss on an investment against income from that same investment. (This is kind of missing the point, if you ask me.) “Fine”, you say. “I’ll salary sacrifice and get as many fringe benefits out of my employer as I can”.

• Ha. Sorry. They’re gonna end fringe benefit tax concessions (and remember that fringe benefits tax is paid at the maximum income tax bracket which will then be 50%. Try selling your boss on that.) Purportedly, this is because fringe benefits tax concessions encourages people to drive more in company cars, confirming that, indeed, all Green policy seems to come out of the inner city. Seriously, just look at a map of this country sometime. Some people have to drive for 4 hours just to get to a shop. “Instead of driving the company car, why not just catch public transport?” the Greens say. (It’s the long distance coach that stops past twice a week, you can’t miss it.)

• “Alright then, I can give my hard-earned to my spouse or kids, or failing that, they can have it when I’m gone”. Nope again, if the Greens have it their way, they’re going to end capital gains tax concessions, too, and introduce an additional death duty that would be imposed on estates over a certain amount. Don’t worry, though, Bob Brown has made an unspecified promise he’ll help protect the family farm when you die (which is what I thought family trusts were for). An unfortunate shame when you won’t be able to operate that family farm anymore because of its environmental impact.

“Wow. That’s scary.” You say. But wait, there’s more, let’s have a little look at some of their foreign policies:

• They want to cancel the ANZUS treaty. You know, the one usually touted as “the only reason we aren’t all speaking Japanese or Indonesian right now”. Perhaps it’s time to send a memo to the Greens that the treaty is an agreement to be allies, not best buddies? We can have a treaty and still bitch about the US behind their back when they have a bad hair day, dress tres slutty or want us to cancel our national pharmaceutical benefits scheme.
If you think dropping ANZUS would be bad for Australia, consider what could happen to New Zealand if we dropped the treaty. Since New Zealand took the high ground, and themselves, out of the treaty with the US over their nuclear stance, they enjoyed treaty-by-proxy because we were allied with the US and they were still allied with us. In the event we drop ANZUS, hopefully that would mean their little nuclear-free, small population idyll would be invaded first. Sorry NZ.

• Hidden in the environmental section, I also discovered another gem. The Greens would like to limit our maritime Economic Exclusion Zone to only a 200 (presumably nautical) mile limit. At the moment our EEZ is 200 nautical miles OR the limit of the continental shelf. This was ratified by the UN under the Convention on the Law of the Sea. If we limit ourselves to 200 nautical miles (or the equidistant line between two countries less than 400 NM apart), East Timor may pick up a couple of natural gas rigs, but we would lose rights to 2.5 million square kilometres of seabed. Count them. Not that it matters, because they would lock up most of the oceans in Marine Protected Areas with a minimum 30% of that “no take” zones and oppose any new non-renewable resource drilling operations, anyway.

East Timor picks up a couple of gas rigs that they are already getting royalties from with line C, we lose 2.5 million Sq Km of seabed.
If you think that’s a worry, have a read up on their “Peace and Security” section:

• Among other things, they want to “close all existing foreign bases in Australian territory and end foreign troop deployment, training and hosting on Australian territory” (sorry America, we don’t want any of your high tech communications and satellite equipment anymore, we want to pay for it all ourselves and get a (Greens designated publically owned) Telstra to run it) and “end training and joint exercises by the ADF with the armed forces known to have committed human rights abuses”. Which would kind of rule out, ummm, everyone except the Swiss, who are famously neutral and lay claim to the second most boring city in Europe.

• Now for my favourite: “support the development of an Australian Coastguard to replace military personnel and equipment in coastal policing.” Ba ha ha ha. Just ask the US (while we’re still on speaking terms) how their hooligan’s navy is working out for them. A coastguard isn’t a police force, it’s a repackaged defence force for alcoholics, generally with the primary objective of dealing with illegal immigrants among other things, but with the unintended consequence of harassing recreational boaters trying to get their beer on. This amounts to an expensive marketing ploy, but what scares me is they probably think its solving some kind of imaginary problem. (I have been advised that the US coastguard isnt quite the same as it used to be, and has been known to do scary rescues in huge seas in places like Oregon, but the basic ridiculousness of the Australian proposal still stands.)

There’s more, but halfway through the blatant hypocrisy of their indigenous policy I suddenly needed to go and have a drink, and don’t worry, they’re going to tax that, too, based on the alcohol content of your beverage. I see a Green led future, and it involves light beer.

Tofurkey of the week

The faux-poultry environmental idiocy awards just keep coming. This week, Alain Robert, the French "Spiderman", has been arrested for climbing a Sydney skyscraper in a bid to raise awareness about climate change advertise a web site. (The web site is great (not), BTW, its a ticker that says how many months we have before greenhouse gases kill us all. At the moment its going with 75 months.) Anyway, his efforts weren't widely reported, and he got arrested as a result, so we figure this probably deserves a Tofurkey, since Brad Pitt appears to have gone back to being pretty for the time being.
The Daily Suppository would also like to point out that dubbing Robert a "Spiderman" does not a hero make. For starters, he's fallen off very tall things at least twice, and in addition, he's up against true heroes in Spidey suits. Like, um... SPIDERMAN for one. Or failing that, the Thai fireman who just "happened" to have a spiderman suit in his work locker one day and was able to don it in a hurry to coax a young autistic boy from a third floor window ledge in downtown Bangkok. Sonchai Yoosabai, the Daily Suppository salutes you!

Is that piloerection, or are you just unhappy to see me?

In case you're wondering, piloerection is one of those medical terms, like formication, that sounds rude, but actually isn't. It merely refers to having your body hair stand on end. Which is always a nice introduction to anything to do with Clive Hamilton, Green's candidate, "public intellectual", internet censor, anti-semite, climate hysteric and all round 'freakin wierdo.

This morning your beloved author was busy trying to read her weekly horoscope and Jeremy Clarkson's auto review in the Weekend Australian, when she was distracted by Clive Hamilton's "advice" to the three incumbent MP's who currently hold the balance of power in our newly elected hung parliament. (I really wish I was blogging about the Sex Party right now, because at least they appreciate a well-hung parliament. Snicker.)

Anyway, Clive "it should have been me" Hamilton would like the three (fairly conservative and rural) independents to know that should they back a conservative coalition government chaired by a climate skeptic, that they will be responsible for the worst death of the entire planet, evah, it will rain fire and locusts will eat their babies. Or something. For pure, bizarre vitriol bordering on the libellous, it really has to be read to be believed. Really, he brings in everything from Monckton to the Tea Party movement and with liberal sprinklings of the word "denier".
Even the title of his piece: "MPs' obligations to the planet" sort of misses the point of a democratic election, which in my opinion would put their obligations rather firmly with their local electorates rather than "the planet". Which FYI, would like to see their MPs back a coalition government, and largely have major issues with most Green's policies.

Sensing that his views wouldn't hold much sway with skeptical independent Bob Katter in a bar room brawl, Clive took a swing in print:

Bob Katter is a lost cause, another climate denier from the bush who reinforces every urban stereotype about rural backwardness.

Thanks, Clive. Suspicions about the Greens confirmed. Does it not seem incongrous to you that you and your party seek to speak for the people of rural and remote Australia, whilst holding them in utter contempt and with power based solely on votes from the inner-city? Not just the city, but the inner-inner city?!

A little known fact about this author is that as a very young woman, starting at the age of about 15, my only available mode of transport for many years was via hitch-hiking in rural and remote parts of Australia. I largely avoided any trouble of the "fork it or walk it" kind and emerged from this experience unscathed, but in the process developed a finely tuned psycho-meter. On the hitchiking-teenage-girl-psycho-meter, I can tell you now which out of Bob Katter and Clive Hamilton I would be most concerned about being alone in a car with on a deserted country road.
Bob Katter is exactly the type of guy to yell and bluster alot about politics close to his heart, let out an occasional "yeehaw" when overtaking and take it upon himself to lecture you about anything stupid he thinks you're doing at the present time. However, he would probably drive out of his way to take you to where you were going and stand you a counter-lunch at the pub on the way. Clive Hamilton, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of guy to keep an old tarpaulin and cable-ties in the boot of his car and to think you were "asking for it".

A double-dip Tofurkey

Heres something to go with the impending double-dip recession: Two notable Tofurkey awards for the same week! For those just joining us, the Tofurkey of the Week Award is a faux-poultry plinth awarded to those who have acted like a complete turkey in the name of the environment. This weeks shared prize goes to University of Virginia activist Ryan McElveen and hollywierd star Brad Pitt.

McElveen has been nominated for a Tofurkey for his services in arranging a mass protest against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's continued efforts to formally inquire into Mike "Dodgy Tree Ring" Mann's climate research.

The 2008 UVA graduate had been hoping that at least 50 people would appear for the protest he launched with some emails and flyers. He chose Friday, August 20, because that was the day that a judge, just a mile away, was hearing arguments on whether Cuccinelli’s inquest could move forward. Turns out that’s also the eve of move-in for the fall semester at UVA.
“Bad timing,” McElveen admitted as just two students and two professors rallied with him on the marble steps of the UVA Rotunda.

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt has been nominated for his bizarre on-camera rant against BP, calling for the death penalty for those involved in the gulf oil spill. Slightly excessive, you say? If having an accident by definition attracted punishment by death, we would probably be having difficulty keeping the globe populated. Shhhh, don't tell PopOffSets. Personally, this reader is of the opinion that the death penalty has its place, but should probably be reserved for those people who leave dirty dishwater in the sink for hours under the guise of "soaking stuff" and LEAVE THE SPONGE IN THE WATER, TOO.

I knew carbon trading was a scam...

So anyway, a family member just got a phone call from a telemarketer with a subcontinental accent, who said he was calling on behalf of Microsoft because they had identified a virus on his computer. Apparently, for the low-low price of AUD $59 they could remove this for him, but first they just had to go to this web site and...
Behold! The "your computer has a virus" phishing scam is now available via telephone.
Anyway, in the process of convincing my relative that it was, indeed, a scam, I was checking out the SCAMwatch website, which is where I saw this:

WesternField Holdings Inc. carbon credit investment scams

WesternField Holdings Inc., a bogus overseas based telemarketing business, offering so called ‘investment opportunities’.

SCAMwatch understands that overseas telemarketers are making unsolicited calls to Australian consumers and businesses. Recipients are asked about their views on current environmental concerns and whether they would consider investing in environmental projects.

Recipients who express an interest in the environment or indicate that they are interested in investing are then contacted by a representative from WesternField Holdings.

WesternField Holdings has gone to great lengths to convince investors that it is a legitimate investment opportunity. It has a genuine looking website (www.western-field.com) and assures potential investors that they can review their ‘investment certificates’ online through a supposed independent website registered to CTR Limited (http://carbontrustregistry.com).

Green on black

One thing that has been bugging me for along time, but seemed to get relatively little media play, is the rather overwhelming evidence that the Green party, who bang on about cultural diversity, are racist against indigenous Australians.
Apparently, they care more for beleagured boat people than they do for our first people. Alright, I'll go right ahead and say it: The Greens don't like Aborigines.
Or, to put it another way, they like them as long as they stay suitably poor and nobly savage. How else can you explain the Wild Rivers Legislation?
I dont tend to get too excited over current events, but when the Wild Rivers legislation came in, I was almost apoplectic with horror. I grew up with Eddie Koiki Mabo's fight for basic recognition of his people rights. I still get tears in my eyes thinking of what red-neck cocksuckers did to his grave in Townsville, and this felt far, far worse.
Contrast that with the attitudes of most of our white, urban population, who really think that eco-salvation ranks above economic and cultural autonomy for Indigenous Australians on their own land. Most people either haven't heard of it or think its probably a good idea. The vast majority of people would have no inkling of the true implications for indigenous Australia.
Read more here.
Rather strangely, the conservative opposition leader was so aware of the travesty of this he entered a private members bill to overturn the legislation (which was subsequently quashed). Somewhat not in keeping with the traditional Coalition, and with Labour happy to sell out Indigenous Australia for Green preferences.
Lately, Tony Abbott has even been quoted as saying that on many of his policies, he has been "channelling Noel Pearson". When was the last time a would-be Prime Minister recieved policy advice on non-indigenous affairs from an indigenous Australian?
How bizarre that I still don't particularly like the man, he is just another politician (and I'm not quick to forgive on his Catholic anti-abortion drug stance during the mefipristone block), and I'm convinced that Noel Pearson and Abbott will have wefare recipients on food stamps before this is done, but on the other hand: hes sworn to overturn Wild Rivers, suspend the ridiculous Marine Protected Areas that were once again brought in at the behest of the Pew Conservation Trust and the Greens and is going to stop the ridiculous GP superclinic idea.
He had me at "climate change science is utter crap", anyway.

We're gonna need a bigger flow chart

Hows this for a beauty of a left-wing circle-jerk:

Picture this. A government department hands out cash to community activist groups, who in turn use the money to run a campaign to pressure political parties to devote more money to the department. At minimum, it seems to be a conflict of interest. Foolish, more like it. A betrayal of public trust even. But that's exactly what Australia's overseas aid agency, AusAID, has done

Turns out that under a Labour government grant scheme, AusAID has handed out AUD $1.5 Million in local grants to raise public awareness of global poverty, so that we all donate more money to AusAID. In particular, multiple grants were given under several guises to the Make Poverty History campaign, who seem to spend most of it on plastic armbands.

And the No. 1 goal for Make Poverty History is to "accelerate growth in the aid program" - to push the government to devote a larger share of national income to foreign aid. In other words, boost the AusAID budget.

Noice one, mate.

Where's the love?

Its not that I don't love you guys anymore, I'm just in the process of moving house and was stupid enough to sign up to a Telstra bundle because it was actually the best one going at the time (normally I get a bit twitchy around our national telco). However, true to form, they are moving my connection ahead at the speed of a geriatric snail, and all I have in the meantime is a mobile-broadband USB dongle that is *possibly* faster than dial-up and an LG phone that is begging to be thrown against a wall everytime I try and access the internet. (I never wanted to be a Mac-whore, but after this bloody phone I might treat myself to an i-phone for no other reason than you can get a free medical eponym app that goes over well at trivia nights down the pub.)
At least telstra managed to get my home phone connected eventually, but not before they managed to connect me on an extension to the house next door, and when I say "house", I actually mean "church". A telecommunications factoid I only discovered after the Vicar's wife rang up looking for her husband and got me instead, much to both of our suprise.
Stick with me, and before long I'll be back in full snark, but it does blow my election coverage somewhat. Sorry 'bout that, so in the meantime, here is my take-home federal election coverage boiled down to one pithy statement:

"In the upper house, if you can't be bothered voting below the line and are feeling a bit vote-freaky a la diversity in the senate, read the preference flow cards for every party and vote for one that preferences everyone, including, but not limited to, the Australian Sex Party before they preference the Greens."

Hell, I would preference the Australian Socialist Alliance before the Greens at the moment. I could tell you why at great length, but my internet is going to max out and make me poor (er), so you will have to wait a few days.