Windows Error Message #1926

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A poem for Mr. Five Per Cent courtesy of Salter-Duke & Crikey

Linden Salter-Duke writes:

In 2007 we listened to Kevin
And we thought he was boring, but probably straight.
He'd put his green garb on and vowed to cut carbon,
So we thought he'd deliver in 2008.

The Murray is drying, the Reef may be dying,
Kakadu's flooding and farmers face drought.
The evidence clearly says we'll all pay dearly
For ignoring the facts with inaction and doubt.

Rudd consulted with Garnaut, but then he said, "Ah, no,
Even those feeble targets are out of our range.
It's too much ambition to cut our emission
To the point where we'd actually stop climate change."

"It might cause job losses, or so say the bosses
Who make buckets of money from coal and cement.
They can keep on polluting, while I'll be diluting
My promises down to a mere five per cent."

"So bugger the science, I'll propose an alliance
With the Libs -- that'll make 'em break ranks.
In my new coalition, Greens can go to perdition.
I won't save the rivers, but I might save the banks."

NSW Health enters a patient care phantasy land

NSW Health has released its plan to kill off the vulnerable and elderly in rural and regional areas of the state.

"DOCTORS will have to justify to bureaucrats why they admit patients with common conditions such as blood clots, breathing problems and cellulitis to hospital, following an order from NSW Health to slash the number of people given a bed.

The "please explain" directive comes as hospitals try to meet a demand from the director-general of health, Debora Picone, to reduce so-called "avoidable admissions" by 30 per cent this financial year.

Medical groups say they are sick of administrators telling them how to care for their patients and argue the policy contradicts an undertaking yesterday at a Garling report forum by the Health Minister, John Della Bosca, to improve communication between clinicians and hospital management.

NSW Health's Acute Care Taskforce has identified 12 medical conditions, including pneumonia, bronchitis, urinary tract infections, chest pain and gastroenteritis as suitable for community-based acute treatment, such as hospital-in-the-home, where nurses visit patients to administer medication."

Area Health Services in country areas have well-documented problems with levels of funding and attracting staff and now these peak bodies are being asked to hide sick people in their homes and rely on patchy community nursing to provide treatment.

What a laugh - those poor nurses are often so stretched that it is impossible for them to provide daily care for every referred patient and on weekends care in the home is frequently completely absent.

Della Bosca and Debora Picone should hang their heads in shame.

Unfortunately that won't stop deaths occurring as the wheels fall of this insane policy.

Have either of these two looked at the age demographics for the NSW North Coast or considered the fact that many of the retirees living here do not have family support in the area?

Stephen Conroy ignores the elephant herd as it files through his office

Stephen Conroy's Digital Economy Future Directions departmental blog has been up and running for the last nine days or so.

In his welcome post Lindsay Tanner said:

We are also genuine about wanting to use online consultation to improve government-citizen relationships around public policy. We want real outcomes from online consultation, not a new channel to distribute a press release.

We hear you... posted this blog on 12 December.

Really? Then why does this particular post try to avoid mentioning the hundreds of anti-Internet censorship comments that were lodged on the blog.
According to Conroy's spin meisters all is rosy in the garden, despite most of the comments received being considered irrelevant by their calculations. Using a coy and corny tactic to inform us of the fact - FDB suggested.

The majority of the 744 comments on Minister Tanner's welcome were against mandatory national ISP-level filtering.

What does the digital economy encompass? What does it mean for Australians? post is littered with criticism of Internet filtering.

Open access to public sector information contains anti-censorship comment.

Everyone had given up by the time Setting the right regulatory framework was published - not a soul had commented by mid-afternoon last Tuesday.