The States are being snookered by Johnnee's shower of money designed to "solve" the water crisis... Obviously the tone and wordage of the "proposal" seem to be too good to be refused... but something in the pipeline does not smell quite right... The States would have rock in the head to let Johnnee put his hand on the liquid loot, withered dry as it is or not... A six inch downpour tomorrow could fix all this for another five years...

I have the feeling in the back of my mind that the States' leaders are smarter than the average bear, but then I may be wrong... If the states' leaders were smart they would tell Johnnee to go and jump but they may be smarter in these election times and as the game is played now, with "some" in favour and "some" against, there may be an underplay in which one Premier takes the beanie for the collapse of the larger than real Johnnee's proposal, full of strings attached and, to be real, with not a drop of water in sight... One can smell a hint of water "public/private" partnership in which some private firms, without pumping a barrel of dirty water, would cash in effluently while the public States would lose their cash down a drain, like not ever imagine ever before...

Sure, a scam like this is done with some smart incentive to be palatable — like buy back water rights etc, — but then the most likely recipient of a few largess (forget the noises from the Barnaby Joyce of this world — he seem to be used as a counterpoint to Johnnee by Johneee himself, to manage the issue cleverly) would be big guns in the industrialised farming who then could get water as soon as it rained, for free... or near free since many farmers will be taxed on dams and such... So the money goes around back in the treasurers coffers and no one is the wiser and the States pay the bill, eventually...

A scam like this was planned and structured to make us swallow the war in Iraq, and it worked like a charm, despite some of us voicing outraged objection to what was an obvious grab for oil under the pretext of Saddam's (non-existent) WMDs...

This explanation here of course is only a simplified version of the "scam" as like in many hook-line-and-sinker games, the complexities of the details hide the simplicity of the plot: Grab power while appearing benevolent...

read between the lines: "the payment of the money, was conditional on the power referral..."

Yep! A grasp for power... 

That's my humble opinion.

PM set to spend $19b on roads

Frontbencher Joe Hockey has told Channel Seven the money will not just target marginal seats, saying it is "going everywhere".

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Gus: 10 years of neglect and now the money is "going everywhere"... Seen that before. Now, everyone can make that general statement, even if whoopwhoop marginal gets three times as much as a safe labour seat in need of ten times as much as whoopwhoop...

and if the "major" project is staged over 15 years... that would be less that the regular yearly investment in roads...

Can someone tell me if I'm awake?

From the ABC

More evidence of water found on Mars

New images of a craggy, fissure-filled canyon on Mars provide evidence of long-term underground water flows that may have provided a suitable environment for microbial life, scientists say.

"If there are any sort of fossils, these would be good places to look," the University of Arizona's Chris Okubo said.

While previous NASA probes have found evidence of past and even present-day water on Mars, scientists previously had few clues if the water existed long enough for life to evolve.

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Gus: so far I think I have refrained from saying it, but the evidence shows that some "liquid" created the "formations". Whether it's water or not is still the question... could it have been amonia? or Chanel five?

 Send a water truck anyway, just in case...

In the countryside of this good brown land, there are people who do not subscribe to being right or left nor green. They are just feral. If one approaches with a glittering proposal of magic profits on the sale of their dusty patch - or with the whiff of a windmill for green pasture electrical purposes - the visitor could be welcomed with a twelve gauge shot, barely above the head or just below the crotch.

One needs to have no purpose to visit, other than sharing a few grogs and tell a few yarns. Or be a feral oneself: even then there is a vague suspicious mood about the new solitude buster, unless it's a long-time-sharing-this-or-that-friend. One does not mess about with the colour of the well-worn checked-shirt nor with the loose stitches of the leather patches on the dusty pants. The reinforced leather-boots might connect with the disturbancer's arse: "bring some decent booze next time."

A few of these happy-loopy people are "newcomers". Well, they have been there a long time but they joined the locally born natural ferals as drop-outs, when the protest songs were not enough anymore to arrest the tide of stiff white collars exec-draft dodgers - who, unlike the conscientious objectors, were sons of war profiteers - and who by now, after years of refining the art of psychopathic climbing on the ladder of opportunity, act like executors of anything decent or poetic.

The ferals are decent. Poetry is spartan but the sky is big. They do not hide but the police knows to let them ride their motorbikes without helmet and sometimes share the smoking of the good weed that is grown naturally amongst the feral tomatoes - the kind of weed that promotes health, unlike the aluminium foil cabinet ultra-violetly lit variety that induces bad dreams because of its 24/7 over-stimulated oils.

Today, in the Sun Herald (25/02/07) Miranda shows us the infra-red light. Whoa, I'm dimly impressed. Was there a wind change and her pen/klavier got stuck? Is our glorious feminism-bagging BeDevil - with no shame in rattling shoddy arguments on bad Britney being the product of the "femmes" (the dancing queen possibly being only a lost brat, while many (most) feminists are doing fan-bloody-tasticly better than if they were not feminist - but that does not make the headlines of most gas-filled opinionators brain) - going to shed some candles on climate change...? Phew. Though I'd never get to the end of this windy sentence...

Well, I do not know (if Mirandola has seen the climate change enlightenment).

Apart from a Turnbull downgrading wedgee, possibly in favour of Costello the brave.

See, Turnbull has had the audacity to recommend that ordinary incandescent lightbulbs, the variety that lasts two minutes beyond their short inbuilt obsolescence, be phase out and be replaced with the long-lasting, low-energy glowing weirdoes. According to our Malcolm, this would stop heaps of carbon dioxide be created: 800,000 tonnes or so of it per annum. According to Madame Vinegar, this is piddly and hypocritical when the same government that sponsors Malcolm as the Minister for Environment and Liquids, also subsidises the four-wheel monsters that produce carbon dioxide by the mega-million tonnes: well said Miranda.

The subsidy on the north-shore-monster-pick-up-kids-at-school-trucks should be removed forthwith, and actually these 4X4 petrol/diesel guzzlers should be penalised for being there, other than the regular no-stopping parking fine on school zones... but who would be brown-bomber brave enough (or tall enough) to stick a reprimanding penalising white paper on the windscreen of one of these war-for-oil generating-machines that could belong to someone with a long-long arm with the shot gun of the bendzeelawforafavour at the end.

Thus Madame Labrave has the courage to mix Chavez, Castro and Turnbull for doing the same thing with light bulbs, while the NSW government in its enlightened wisdom has not so much legislated the globe-switch but genuinely encouraged people to move to the light efficient bulbs via some clever incentives... No noise, not fuss.

Already in NSW, possibly more than half of households have at least six free low energy lights and water-savings free showerheads to boot. More to come from IemaBaby, unless SuperDudman comes onto us, like BlokesMan put his butt onto the comixtelebox.

Do I see a few tugs on the debonaire Minister-who-would-not-be-Minister (see cartoon at the head of this line of blogs explaining the denial from Johnnee) Malcolm's trousers (Gus: apologies about the wrong spelling of Malcolm... Ah was on the turps again). You shan't rise too fast... three blots on Malcolm's copybook... hum... and of course Johnnee defends him from the front, but from the back, who knows?

Beware, Another Johnnee Providores truckload of hypocrisy-charged platitudes, including "national interest" and "common sense tells us" are coming towards you... SuperDudman, not far behind with his own Opus Dei sponsored wheelbarrow. Meantime, Abbott is trying to white-ant Maxine steel'trap mind... Abbott will lose a few teeth... Johnnee might lose his underpants but I disgress...

Well, I hope the ferals take note, but no polly would dare come their way. Thus Dick did not see Australia of the Eureka flag. He came to these shores to see a miniature of himself... and help stuff up Harbour Bridge traffic... And blab about the Chinese, while Johnnee holds the can...

In one hour, Dick's Motorcade might have burnt what Malcolm could save in a year on light bulbs... Ah relativity! you are killing me...

Malcolm? With Chavez and Castro you are in good company... but then one has to ask if this Madame Tirade's effort is not a smart plot to catch a few of the loony-left dozing off and falling into the ratbag right-vote-trap. Who knows... I'm lost, like Britney. May be I should go and join the ferals. May be... Malcolm could come too. Just grow a beard and save water: do not shower more than necessary. Do not turn on the lights, the swtich does not work anyway...

Feralism may be better than Federalism - as PM Johnnee Graball sees it.

Great! Some feral feminists have stickers on their dusty 4X4s: I have PMS and a gun... Beware!

(Posted on behalf of Gus Leonisky)

Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs?
Ability to Analyze May Be Affected, Experts Worry

By Lori Aratani
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 26, 2007; A01

It's homework time and 17-year-old Megan Casady of Silver Spring is ready to study.

She heads down to the basement, turns on MTV and boots up her computer. Over the next half hour, Megan will send about a dozen instant messages discussing the potential for a midweek snow day. She'll take at least one cellphone call, fire off a couple of text messages, scan Weather.com, volunteer to help with a campus cleanup day at James Hubert Blake High School where she is a senior, post some comments on a friend's Facebook page and check out the new pom squad pictures another friend has posted on hers.

In between, she'll define "descent with modification" and explain how "the tree analogy represents the evolutionary relationship of creatures" on a worksheet for her AP biology class.

Call it multitasking homework, Generation 'Net style.

The students who do it say multitasking makes them feel more productive and less stressed. Researchers aren't sure what the long-term impact will be because no studies have probed its effect on teenage development. But some fear that the penchant for flitting from task to task could have serious consequences on young people's ability to focus and develop analytical skills.

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Gus: I have been multitasking for years (most of my life really) and as I get older I need to concentrate just a bit more but multitasking is no problem... As I've explained in some unpublished papers but read by quite a lot of people who pass them around, "multitasking" is good for some people while for others it is hard to achieve or be beneficial.

The problem these days is that according to decree 358590-subsection 24, paragraph 2-b every one has to perform the same bland way so that performance can be assessed according to assessors, usually people who failed the grade as performers thus they become assessors, by the book.

For anyone to understand performance on the fly, to let loose and be creative, often, but not always, multitasking will provide faster pathways to enlightened understanding and expression. The only step that demands control will be the final taming of ideas into coherent action or devices... Mind blocks can be unlocked by multitasking.

Some people work best by concentrating on one issue at a time. Nothing wrong with that. Some people will perform best while taking on many different tasks, large and small at the same time, all in flux, unsure and unfinished, helping the brain unlock hidden subconscious pathways that can provide solutions to the greater problems in a tenth of the time. The next important step is to be able to manage this ability in current situations in which we cannot digress from the main subject at hand... such as doing a presentation to a group of people. If one wanders too far or on a different subject that comes to mind, the audience is lost. Thus multitasking can mostly be done in our personal time, in isolation from situations that demands a straightforward streamline. Not a big problem for those who can master the process.

Multitasking helps acquire a flexible mind which is not to be confused with the ability to do back-flips just to suit an opinion. Multitasking often stimulate curiosity and shall not be confused with unrest or attention deficit disorder which in fact can, to some extend be solved, by encouraging multitasking and dietary constraint rather than by drugs.

My thanks to John for posting the blog above this one as a glitch in the site had stopped me from posting under Gus Leonisky... Note: the cartoon referred to is a few pages before... I'll let you find it.

Vic rejects $10b Murray-Darling deadline
The Victorian Government has rejected the Federal Government's latest deadline to sign onto its $10 billion water plan.

Victoria is the only state not to have signed up to the Federal Government's plan to take control of the ailing Murray-Darling water system.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks says discussions between the two parties have broken down due to Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to consider amendments to the plan.

Mr Howard wrote to Mr Bracks today calling on Victoria to sign up by this Friday.

Mr Bracks says he will only sign when the rights of Victorian irrigators and the environment are protected.

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Gus: good on you, Mr Bracks... Don't fall for another Rattus trick... In the long term he wants to steal, even privatise, the whole lot and make sure everyone pays through the nose. Wait till after the federal elections to decide... That will make Rattus fret.

Legislation will force Murray-Darling takeover: PM

The Prime Minister says he will push ahead with the national water plan for the Murray-Darling Basin despite Victoria's position.

John Howard says he will introduce Murray-Darling legislation as soon as Federal Parliament resumes sitting next month.

He says the Federal Government will be able to rely on existing constitutional powers to implement the scheme.

But Mr Howard concedes it will be inferior to the original $10 billion plan, which had been agreed to by New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks says he will only sign a deal when the rights of Victorian irrigators and the environment are protected.

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Gus: here come the jack boots ....

The editorial of the Sydney Morning Herald shows that whomever wrote this is either naive or in Johnnee's pocket...

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Bracks must be reined in

WHEN the Prime Minister, John Howard, was trying to woo Victoria to his Murray-Darling plan, he said that without Victoria, the scheme would be a three-legged horse. Now Victoria has effectively rejected the proposal, Mr Howard is trying to persuade himself that a three-legged horse may not be so bad. Victoria, meanwhile, is clearly riding for a fall.

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Gus: One does not have to look too far to see how Johnnee operates. His denials smell of sulfur...

_______________

Privatisation charge stupid and wrong: PM

Stephanie Peatling
July 26, 2007

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, has denied his plan to take control of the Murray-Darling river system from the states is masking a plan to privatise it.

The Premier of Victoria, Steve Bracks, yesterday confirmed he would challenge any attempted takeover in the High Court. He indicated that the situation would not be resolved quickly and almost certainly not before an election.

"This is a simple power grab from Canberra and I've got no doubt once Canberra get their hands on the Murray-Darling basin system they'll seek to privatise it; to get private capital in; to do what happens in parts of NSW," Mr Bracks said.

Mr Howard denied that was his intention, saying the suggestion was "desperate, stupid, inaccurate and just totally wrong".

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Gus: Like many of other Australian public institutions that this PM has put his hands on, there is a strong chance (99%) he would eventually sell the Murray Darling management to private enterprise... Don't be fooled by his words. He lied before. He may even construct the whole thing in a very clever way that under a public face, private enterprise would be the greater beneficiary of his plan, paying moneys to private contractors while the states would eventually see nothing of the 10 billions dollars placed on the table. But in the same fashion he denied that he had committed Australia to war on Iraq, Australian troops were in there, fiddling preparation work on the ground inside Iraq, even before the US started to bomb Baghdad.

Remember Medibank Private? Going private enterprise at the whim of his majesty Rattus, whenever he chooses since it is already approved by a stacked up parliament, despite not knowing who the real owners are... Remember the Snowy Mountain Scheme? Lucky, the wheels fell of Johnnee's attempt to sell this one off, not because of any other reasons that it was political suicide to push it, due to the emotional historical attachment of the general public to public "ownership" of something build with public sweat and tears...

If fact, despite all what is said about the war in Iraq being this or that in regard to "terrorism" (undeniably the war in Iraq self-created the "terrorism" in Iraq), it is fought using public moneys to benefit private enterprise — albeit mainly oil multinationals. In the long run, if and ever insurgency abates in Iraq, US troops will still be there for another 25 years, at least 50,000 strong to publicly protect the privately operated oil wells. Sure the Iraqis will get a few royalty crumbs to make the scheme appear honest but the Iraqi people will get far less than they did under Saddam if the US get their way.

The Murray Darling Basin has a few big problems — problems that can be solved without the grab-it centrist attitude of the federal government. Brack is right... He has to fight Rattus and his minion Malcolm to stop these water thieves, aking to Ugolin and César in Manon des Sources... I quote:

Following the events of Jean de Florette, Manon the daughter of Jean, is living in the countryside of Provence near Romarins, the farm that her father once owned. She has taken up residence with an elderly Provençal couple who teach her to live off the land, tending to a herd of goats and hunting for birds and rabbits. Ugolin Soubeyran has begun a successful business growing carnations at Romarins with his uncle, César Soubeyran, thanks to the water provided by the spring there.

After seeing her bathe naked, Ugolin develops a crush on Manon, who is disgusted by him and his uncle; his interest quickly becomes an obsession. At the same time, Manon becomes interested in Bernard, a handsome schoolteacher who recently arrived in the village. Manon overhears two villagers talking and learns that César and Ugolin deliberately blocked a spring to hide it from her father. César and Ugolin then bought the farm cheaply from the widow and unblocked the spring. Many in the village knew of this but also had remained silent because of the importance of the Soubeyran family. The film comes to a head when Manon loses a goat and finds the underground source of the spring which supplies water the the local farms and to the village. She stops the flow of water with mud and rocks to take her revenge on the Soubeyrans, and the villagers who said and did nothing, even when they knew what the Soubeyrans had done.

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Gus: Mr Brack, you deserve a medal for holding on, but please do not swim naked in the river... You are being watched by a few snakes in the grass...