Motivation Is Key

A lot of people advocate for responsible environmental practices.  This is all good, as we all should look after our surroundings.  It’s what motivates such calls that can be disturbing.

People don’t seem to be promoting these ideals out of an ingrained responsibility to look after the environment. Rather they are advocates based on the vain claim that we can change a climate that has been continually changing on it’s own for millennia.

There’s a plethora of examples where people are flouting the environment.  Many need to be stopped.  Not because we may be able to change temperature by a fraction of a degree, but because it is good for the environment to do so. 

We are so up ourselves as a species thinking we can change and ever-changing climate.

Rudd On Bolt

I’ll give Prime Minister Rudd some credit, not many Labor MP’s are willing to go on The Bolt Report.  He wanted an immediate point of difference to Julia Gillard.  She was unwilling to appear and Rudd was.  Already a win for Rudd, and he hasn’t said anything yet.

From what he said his supporters would congratulate.  Purely because he didn’t allow Bolt to land any ‘killer blows’.

Yet from the beginning Rudd belittled Bolt as “a conservative”, as if that was a bad thing to be.  He interrupted continually, answered long-windedly and robbed Bolt of points of clarification and follow up questions.

His answers seemed rehearsed.  As did his claim that his ad nauseum responses were “a direct answer” to the questions.  He was condescending, patronising and narcissistic.

Rudd admitted that he needed to engage with conservatives then insulted the Liberal Party by calling them an “ungodly kabal”.

Yet unfortunately it doesn’t really matter what we think of his performance.  He appeared, and to enough people that’s all that matters.

Green Jealousy

Christine Milne was on Insiders last Sunday morning the 14^th July.  Her prime objective was to outline her party’s policy position for the upcoming election. 

Basically, for the Greens if you earn money you will be punished.  If you don’t earn money you will be rewarded. 

The Greens plan to slug banks, miners and the wealthy.  All this to fund an overly generous welfare package.  

The Greens hate people who earn money.  They are jealous of them it seems.  How dare people aspire to create wealth when there’s people who can’t or won’t earn money.  It is their intellectual elitist method of wealth distribution.

But they don’t think this through.  By punishing the wealthy they deter aspiration from low-income earners.  And by punishing wealth creation they might decrease the gap between rich and poor but the poor become poorer as job opportunities decline.  They purport to support les poverty, but through their policy the opposite will be the case.

Giant Perspective Required

I got fed up with 'league heads' like Rebecca Wilson (columnist for the Daily Telegraph) having a go at the GWS Giants using flagrant falsehoods and hyperbole.  So I wrote her a letter. 

Take home message is to get some perspective.  Can't find the link to her article.  It was entitled 'No Marks For Giant Folly' from July 13th 2013.

Dear Rebecca,

I am disappointed by your article entitled 'No Marks For Giant Folly' dated  Saturday July 13th 2013.

My disappointment from people like yourself, who are from north and south of the border, is that you wrote off the venture from the start.  Never open to the idea for a second AFL team in Sydney.

People that share your opinion need a large dose of perspective.  We have a team that is two years old, that has made vast improvement in those two years and will make a vast improvement again next year.

You have written off the Giants before they are able to get a foothold.  So of course to you they have no hope.  Shame you didn't ask the players who have expressed the opposite view.  Many have signed on to extended contracts because of their belief that good things will come.

I'm glad David Matthews is standing up for the club.  He is a very switched on CEO and will take this club to great things but your colleagues choose to disrespect him and his role by your lack of perspective.

I'm doubting your knowledge of the game and how it's played.  I'm also unsure if you have an appreciation for how hard the game is to play at the highest level.

I see the skill the Giants have and how they just lack a bit of polish.  This will come with experience and recruitment.  Both of which will be addressed by the end of the season.  One player will make a huge difference.  Your claim otherwise is ridiculous.

Also ridiculous is your claim that the powers that be thought Israel Folau would set the place on fire and win a Brownlow.  Perhaps hyperbole on your part but still far from the truth.

Rest assured this will be a great club.  But you have to start somewhere. 

Tim Haynes

We’re To Blame

There is much controversy about gambling advertising.  But there is a reason why gambling agencies are able to do so much advertising and sponsorship.  And it’s not their fault.

Much of the population is very willing to throw away money into such institutions.  If these people think that gambling is a money making venture then they are quite mistaken.

Seeing the growth in advertising and sponsorship by agencies such as Centrebet, Sportsbet, Unibet, TAB, Tom Waterhouse shows which direction the money is going.

This industry is not to blame.

If you want less gambling advertising then individually and collectively we need to decide not to gamble, and to support those trying to end a dependence on gambling.    This will diminish their profits and therefore their ability to advertise.

Banning the agencies from advertising their product is not the solution and ignores the real problem.  The problem being us.