crazybrave

You know what I’m not looking forward to tomorrow morning? Stories like this one from this morning’s Daily Telegraph:

Tony and Avril Melhem, who earn a combined income in excess of $150,000 from their Gloria Jeans coffee franchise, spent the bulk of the baby bonus they received five months ago after the birth of their daughter Sage on medical fees.

You just know it’s going to be good when they own a Gloria Jeans and have called their daughter your son’s name.

Under proposed means testing they may have missed out. Mr Melhem said: “It was really helpful as Avril had an emergency caesarean and we used it for our obstetrician and anaesthetist fees, and setting up Sage’s room with a cot, change table and stroller.”

While he understands the “spirit” of means testing, he said a combined family income of $150,000 does not go very far.

Not very far COMPARED TO WHAT?

“The baby bonus should be maintained as it provides parents with an important head start,” he said. “Means testing has a place in certain aspects of life, but in regard to bringing a new life into this world, I think that it should not be subjected to means testing.

Because that would not be Thinking Of The Children, would it?

Or try out the next colour couple:

Northmead parents-of-three, Lyndal and Thomas Spooner, who earn a combined income of about $120,000 per year, spent their baby bonus money on their mortgage.

“It is probably a fairer system if only lower-income families get the baby bonus, but people who are on a combined income of $150,000 are not necessarily well-off,” Mrs Spooner said.

COMPARED TO WHAT, Mrs Spooner?

And this is the the Tele, not the SMH. Perhaps they’re just confecting some pre-budget outrage? It will be interesting to see if any different types of stereotype representing people appear in those budget wraparound “will you be better off? fillers this time ’round. Not bloody likely.

I had so much fun doing it last year, I decided to do it again.

7:24 I don’t think I can handle the suspense any longer. *pours drink*

7:28 The ALP members appear to be quietly singing “We are the conservatives” to the tune of Queen’s “We are the Champions”. All the pretty ones are sitting right behind Wayne with their best lippy on. The plainer ones are sprinkled about and seem to all be wearing cerise jackets.

7:31 omg, heeeeere’s Swanny! Just seeing someone other than Peter Costello up there gives me a deep sense of smugness.

7:33 We live in uncertain times. This will be a budget without gimmicks or bribes. Things are tough and getting worse all over the world. The surplus is $18.5 squillion! But this will be the results of our own effort and sacrifice. Not for us the gormless pantywaist style of the last mob who just waited for all the lollies from the pinata to fall at their feet. We make it happen because we are the party of Toughness!

7:35 Labor will fulfil its promises to Battling Working Families. Labor is all about being modern, and about the future. Rich cunts will not drive modern cars in the future as we shall make them even more expensive. They will also have to pay all the tax they owe, even if it’s on a capital gain. We all have to make sacrifices, and we are for the Battlers Working Families like no government before us.

7:37 New Labor is about getting the fundamentals right. That’s why we’re going to completely re-envision the way it goes about its business. We’re going to investigate the tax system – root and branch. We’re going to get the head of Treasury to tell us what bits are rooted and then we’ll get the maths whizzes who organised our branch stacking in NSW and Victoria to fix it all up.

7:38 There will be downward pressure on interest rates. There will be downward pressure on inflation. There will be downward pressure on prices, particularly at the supermarket and the service station. In fact Labor will ensure that downward pressure is so omnipresent it is a matter of some doubt whether the daffodils will manage to raise their sunny little heads next spring.

7:41 This budget, and Labor, are about the long term. So instead of offering nasty middle class welfare like the Liberals, we’re going to decline to increase university funding.

7:44 We do really care about rural and regional Australia and so will build fancy infrastructure with bad public art every regional centre. Except Canberra, which lacks Working Families, particularly since all the public servants under the Kevin 24/7 regime glued their shiny bums to their chairs and stopped going to their homes. Without Working Families Canberra beyond the perimeter of Parliament House is a pointless waste of resources and we’re going to stop funding it altogether.

7:47 Doctors are good and we shall have more of them. Also Nurse Practitioners, especially in the country. Private health insurance is … I didn’t get that bit, he just kind of did the spirit fingers in front of his face. Medicare surcharges are bad for Working Families, and can get stuffed. You can use that money to pay for the dentist, ‘cos we’re not covering that.

7:49 Partially or Somewhat Working Families who wish to become Fully Functioning Working Families will be encouraged and supported. With cash. Non Working but Caring Families will get some more help.

7:51No more baby bonus for the toffs! No matter, they’ve already got a plasma telly. What’s this – childcare rebates through the roof! Non Indigenous parents who are on welfare won’t get the rebate because they are not Working Families and don’t use childcare. They may be send to the naughty step clutching their debit card just like the Indigenous parents because they are not Working Families either we are not racialists.

7:53 Superannuants who pay no tax and have become accustomed to randomly appearing government cheques in the mail are safe and need not take up the pokies to fulfil their need for surprise windfalls.

7:55 We’re tough. You didn’t think we could be this tough, did you. Well showed you. Damn missed another bit, something tricky about climate changes or the environment, as we have two relevant Ministers and at least one of them needs to be kept busy because we’re not only tough, we’re visionary.

8:02 It’s over. Swanny smiles, but thinly.

8:04 Oh dear, Brendan doesn’t look well. He’s kind of bending over,and a bit green around the gills. I think he’s just vomited into the Despatch Box. Malcolm Turnbull is looking at the Coalition members. One by one. He looks concerned, yet stoic. Just over his shoulder you can almost make out the shadow of a shiver slowly circling the opposition and fading, fading …

I was excited to hear Paul Barry on RN this morning* saying that the Summer Breakfast show would have a blogger on each morning to blather on about their particular thing.

Ooh! Who’ll be first! How interesting! How will the wonderful diversity of excellent Australian bloggers be portrayed?

I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Their first “blogger” was Jack Waterford, a name some of you may recognise as belonging to the editor at large of The Canberra Times. He has been a journalist since 1972. I don’t care if the man runs some bloody jumped up page he calls a blog. IT’S JUST THE SAME FECKING DAY, PEOPLE.

A man with a web page perhaps; not a blogger.

</rant>

*although not as excited as I always am to hear Fran; I totally ♥ Fran.

… from this morning’s rally in Canberra.

Important for all the family.

Update: lots more photos in the Your Rights at Work flickr group.

“It’s not plausible, it’s not based on anything other than a house-to-house survey,” Mr Howard said.

From the front page of today’s Canberra Times, “Iraq toll study ‘exaggerated’ ” which (really unbelievably this time) is not online.

In general I’m very glad that Janet Albrechtson is out there busily fighting the straw feminist orthodoxy of 1974 and letting the rest of us get on with our lives. It’s only every now and then I’m tempted by the teaser on the cover of The Australian, and find myself reading her column.

Today’s column is about how women have female brains. Actually, it looks as if the research she’s discussing might be considerably more sophisticated than that, but you can’t really tell by reading Janet. [However you can get a hint of what poorly constructed crap it might be, and an indication of how generous a soul I really am by reading this at Language Lab - thanks to Kate for the heads up.]

My favourite part of Janet’s story (well, my favourite bit from as much of it as I could bring myself to read) is the answer to the question of why teenage girls never shut up:

Talking activates what [author Louann] Brizendine describes as the “fluffy, purring kitty … feel-good brain chemicals” – oxytocin and dopamine – “which together deliver the biggest, fastest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm”. Maybe that explains why women like to talk during sex, perhaps looking for a double dose of delight.

Eww. Too much information, Janet.

Mr Albrechtson, my thoughts are with you.