This is Abbott’s problem, caused by Abbott’s policies.
Ignoring the UN’s climate conference is not going to endear him to the Pacific island nations who are already annoyed for a lot of other reasons. Spending money on attacking ISIS is not going to cheer up the folks at home, who don’t see the need to get involved in another Mideast war.
People are starting to notice that after a year things are getting worse, not better, and the next election is probably closer than he wants to admit. You can at least change governments without waiting a specific length of time if the government can’t do its job.
]]>This should give you some idea about what Abbott cares about:
276. Unemployment hits highest level in 12 years – 7 August 2014
272. Axes the carbon tax with no viable policy to address climate change or Australia’s emission targets – 17 July, 2014
251. Excludes Australian shipyards from a major new contract, sending jobs offshore and threatening the industry in Australia – 05 June, 2014
246. Abolishes funding for Building Australia’s Future Workforce — Connection Interviews and Job Seeker Workshops and the Experience+ Career Advice initiative – 13 May, 2014
220. Cuts Australian Research Council funding – 13 May 2014
201. Scraps a range of grant programs aimed at funding innovation and start-up businesses, including: Australian Industry Participation; Commercialisation Australia; Enterprise Solutions; Innovation Investment Fund; Industry Innovation Councils; Enterprise Connect; Industry Innovation Precincts; and Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business and Building Innovative Capability – 13 May 2014
137. Spends $12.4 billion on new fighter jets whilst claiming a budget “emergency” and preparing to make big cuts to health and welfare – 23 April 2014
136. Abolishes the research and development tax incentives board – 11 April 2014
125. Cuts 400 jobs from the industry department – 25 March 2014
120. Cuts hundreds of jobs at the CSIRO – 14 March 2014
119. Reopens 457 visa loopholes to allow employers to hire an unlimited number of workers without scrutiny – 12 March 2014
115. Introduces legislation to allow people aged between 17-24 years old to work for half the minimum wage and be exempted from all other work rights including health and safety laws and protections should they be injured at work – 26 February 2014
and there is much more!!
Oh! But he did do this:
126. Brings back the awards of knights and dames which were abolished in 1986 – 25 March 2014
Fuck me!
And we have these also…
131. Imposes fees and charges on people who become bankrupt – 1 April 2014
249. Takes money from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and gives it to the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Scheme – 28 May 2014
And much more of that also!!
He needs to be removed. And very soon!
]]>The only people prospering under Abbott’s policies are the extraction industries. You can’t base your economy on exporting raw materials if you want to survive in the long term, because they are finite, and when they run out you are screwed.
The agricultural sector is dealing with climate change and as one of the major grain exporters in the world the bad weather interfering with Australia’s grain harvest is going to raise food prices worldwide. Meanwhile, Abbott has no policy directed at climate change because it might impact the coal exports.
Does anyone believe that voters will figure it out before the next election? I’m personally doubtful.
]]>283. Breaks election promise to build replacement submarines in South Australian shipyards, spending more than $20 billion on Japanese submarines instead – 8 September, 2014
It’s f***ing insane given that the Collins is regarded as possibly the best non-nuclear sub in the World! RAND Corp released a report that stated:
“It remains one of the most impressive diesel subs in the world because of its strenuous operating environment, the report said, despite contracts being rushed through in time for an election.”
And what? The USA would NEVER rush anything through for an election! LMAO The difference being, apparently, that in spite of that, the Collins worked!
The Collins submarines experienced a wide range of problems during their construction and early service life. Many of these were attributed to the submarines being a new, untested design, and were successfully addressed as they were discovered. Most systems and features worked with few or no problems, while the boats’ maximum speed, maneuverability, and low-speed submerged endurance were found to exceed specifications.
Anyway, my main beef is this: The ASC (Australian Submarine Corporation) originally held 60% of the shares in the Collins, with the rest split between US/Swedish and other Nations companies. Over the next 5 years, the ASC began buying back those shares, and it now owns over 90% (with other Aussie industry partners). This was to ensure that the fleet and future submarine would be kept wholly Australian. In 2003, ASC was awarded a 22 year contract to maintain the fleet, and develop the next gen sub. The contract was worth about $25 billion (2003 dollars). All the planning and billions spent over the past decade have just been tossed out because Abbott decided the new Sub would be built in Japan (without any tender process), and he plans to bring the commissioning date forward 5 to 10 years! The Collins was designed to have a full service life until 2025. Which means that the ASC shares are pretty much worthless now!
Unbelievable!
]]>I’m waiting for 4.1, the bug release, because it should be out shortly.
It would be nice if there was an ‘old school’ branch for the traditionalist bloggers who eschew all the multimedia stuff. I’ll upgrade, but be really pissed off if the new version breaks any of the plugins I use.
Yes, the editor does tend to be weird at times and do things I don’t want done for unknown reasons, but I know about it and how to fix it.
]]>Over all, it get’s a “Meeeeeh.” from me! 😉 😀
Marketing… where would we be without it? *sigh*
]]>BTW the article just confirms my set up on comments. I have used those comment settings from the beginning and was trying his second recommended spam plugin suggestion when everyone got bounced as spammers.
The guys developing the WP core aren’t concerned with what happens to plugins when they start adding ‘features’. New features are nice. I don’t use any of them, but others may want them. It’s the same with themes. There aren’t any new three column themes that don’t waste space. I don’t need all of their features.
Coders, to be really good, need to find someone else to look at their code, because if you have been writing it, you often see what you intended to write instead of what is actually on the page. Reading it aloud helps a little, but you really need to have another set of eyes look at it. When you make a mistake you admit it, fix it, and move on. People will forget it. If you refuse to admit you made a mistake no one will ever forget it.
]]>Yeah, I liked what I’ve seen of NearlyFreeSpeech since you pointed them out to me a couple years ago. 🙂 They are no use to me for my Biz site, but they would probably be just fine for my WP blogs (though not the MU blogs). I did the numbers with their online calculator, being as realistic as possible for 12 Mth hosting of two WP blogs. It came to about $96/yr, with almost half of that being for MySQL ($40 for 4 dB’s). That’s pretty good really! 🙂 If I wasn’t now committed to Prometius (we have been doing a lot of work together now) I would certainly consider them seriously. 🙂 I know several hosters that could learn from them.
As for WP and the attitude to bugs generally, and security issues specifically… It reminds me very much of what I went through with Joomla! in ’09/’10, especially the extremely arrogant attitude of the Dev’s. At least the WP Dev’s are polite, mostly. I finally had enough and abandoned Joomla! I fixed 4 very annoying yet trivial to fix bugs in Joomla! by hacking the bad code in php files with zero help or support from the Dev’s, but a lot from the community. Two of the bugs had been in the core since the first release, and for several updates with no fix. And one was simply a stupid single line code mistake! I see this often. Too many developers have ego’s bigger than the moon and are so stubborn that if you find a bug, they will simply not hear you and rather do nothing than acknowledge they made a simple mistake!
When I issued the fixes to the Joomla! community, i always added this to the code and the attached document:
*sigh*… One more down… so many more to go!
Thanks to the Joomla! user community for their help and positive responses to this simple fix (though it was not simple to track down, especially without help from pathetic developers).The Joomla! developers can drop dead; or learn to listen, learn to properly write and test code, and learn some humility. I shan’t hold my breath.
This is my second fix for an inherent (and fairly simple) Joomla! coding bug submitted freely to the Joomla! user community. The Joomla! developers may not use this without appropriate credit in the code and on the development forum and any related documentation.
There are no guarantees or warranties given or implied. Use at your own risk. E&EO.
And lo and behold… the bugs magically disappeared a few years later in v2.3! Of course, I got zero credit (as expected), but the community knows who was responsible (and I received several eMails attesting to that! Of course, I also received the expected hate rants from ass-kissers and ignorant fan-boys, who nonetheless used my fixes! Humans… They never fail to be predictable hypocrites!) Amazing, it only took them three years to fix a few single line code bugs! LOL
So no… I shan’t be holding my breath! 🙂
Oh, here Bryan… You may find this useful. Was just posted on the WPMU DEV blog:
Stop WordPress Comment Spam With These Pro Tips