Friday 5 July 2013

Just imagine ...

Let's see - where to start.

Imagine a man and a woman - very much in love. So much so, that they have announced publicly - with an engagement ring - their intention to marry.

The man makes a public comment, that some consider in bad taste, and is inappropriately punished for the remark.

So unwarranted and inappropriate is the punishment that the courts recognise it and order the wrong done to him be undone.

What do you think is the likely action of those in authority?

1) Ignore the court.
2) Undo it.
3) Undo it and apologise.

WRONG.

Instead they punish him through his fiancee by sending in the police, without so much as a good cause, let alone a warrant, to trespass in her home, and steal her personal property.

All men and women everywhere would see this as wrong. I won't beg the question by saying "all GOOD men and women" - this is categorically evil and repugnant.

Now I add the one detail that I omitted from the above.

The items stolen by the police at gun-point are guns.

I can hear the cries now - "but that's DIFFERENT!"

In a pig's ear, sunshine.

I am TJIC.

See: This article at View From The Porch.





Wednesday 3 July 2013

Water, Water - Not any

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague this morning:- he was telling me of a report that he had read in the local press about how, if it wasn't for the de-salination plant and the underground water of the Jandakot and Gnagara mounds, Perth would have no water.

Not to rain on the politicians' self-congratulatory parade - no shit, Sherlock.

In 1979, my (extended) family, along with many others no doubt, held a family reunion to celebrate the Western Australian sesquicentenary. We decided to hold it on the farm originally settled by our ancestor (one of the first 100 settlers on the first fleet to the Swan River Colony).

Of course this was an issue - the farm was compulsorily acquired by the State government in 1976 - so access required all sorts of permits and clearances, primarily from the Water Corporation.

The reason for the acquisition was "to build a new dam on the Serpentine River to ensure Perth's water supplies into the new century".

It's now 2013, but there is no new dam. Is it any wonder that Perth has a water supply issue, with visionary planning like that?





Monday 1 July 2013

It's official - the police state is here

I went driving on Friday - quick shopping trip on the way to pick up my son after a late night school function.

A couple of kilometres from home, and I find a police road block, restricting all traffic to a single lane where multiple officers wait by a booze bus - mandatory breath check for alcohol above some arbitrary limit.

Now, I don't drink alcohol at all, thus I was unconcerned about consequences of the breath test, but I had a tight time frame to meet - being late to collect a teenage boy from a school function is not an option. So I decided not to insist on things being done properly as I normally would. Still it was eye-opening.

The person in the fancy blue suit, with the drop leg holster carrying a Glock .40 S&W made NO attempt to identify himself (as required by law); he made NO attempt to justify his demand for a breath sample (as required by law); and his badge number was NOT visible (as required by law) as it was obscured by his high-vis vest (as required by law). So, one out of four isn't too bad, is it?

He got his sample, waited for the measurement to come back 0.0, handed me the disposable straw when I demanded it, and told me to be on my way.

No harm. no foul, right?

In a pig's ear, sunshine.

That officer didn't even give lip service to the law, and he was supremely confident that there was not a thing that I could do about it. The law itself is worse - it says that the whole stop was legal, despite there being no way that there was any reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime had been committed.

I could have been difficult, and wrapped him up in all sorts of procedural knots, but the only impact would have been to ME and my son. That puppet of the police state won't suffer a thing - not even the pangs of a guilty conscience.

Given the number of people that don't see a problem with the concept of booze busses, it's too late - the police state is already here.