Score update: 2 All

After Briton’s brilliant early goal and a strong follow up victory is no longer guaranteed with a second own goal being conceded.

In the immediate aftermath of the despicable London bombings Briton scored an vital early goal with a ‘world’s best practise’ initial response along with the heroism and resilience of the British people.

That initial advantage would not last long as soon the balance would shift with the tragic death of Jean Charles de Menezes. It first looked like a second British goal was cleared off the line when it was discovered the victim was not carrying a bomb. Attack soon turned into defence as it turned out Mr de Menezes was in no way linked to the London bombings or any other terrorist activity. The defence eventually collapsed under the pressure of CCTV and witness accounts at odds with Police justifications of the tragic death culminating in the first own goal being scored by Scotland Yard.

This left a lingering scare in the defence but offence was again building with the efficient capture of the second bombers that failed a few weeks after the initial attacks and subsequent successful extradition of one of those suspects. It was back to a 2-1 lead and there looks to be a bevy of scoring opportunities awaiting Briton in the form of convicting these suspects. Achieving this would put Briton in a seemingly unassailable position.

Then an 82 retiree is man handled out of an auditorium for calling British Foreign Minister Jack Straw a liar whilst Mr. Straw was delivering a speech. Another person who defended the 82 year old gentlemen was also removed in a similar manner. While this was an embarrassing slip the second own goal was slammed into the back of their own net when the 82 year old man was denied re-entry to the auditorium based on the new British terrorism laws! Exactly what terrorist act was he going to commit; incontinence with intent, conspiring to nod off, having a walking frame of mass disruption?

The silencing of an 82 year old dissident through the blatant abuse of the new terrorism laws leading to the detention of this retiree without charge is not only a small victory for the enemy but also the first step in a very dangerous direction. The second own goal is on the board and can’t be reversed. Now Briton has to learn from this error and takes action to ensure this does not become a flood own goals to the detriment of freedom. To allow it to continue would be conforming to the type of society that a huge number of fine men and women from many nations are risking and giving their lives to liberate others from. It is important enough to repeat; allowing this it to continue would be conforming to the type of society that a huge number of fine men and women from many nations are risking and giving their lives to liberate others from.

Right now it’s 2 all after the London bombings. It could be 2 - 0 but for the misuse of power. The first instance was in a moment of fear and chaos but had a tragic result while the second was indescribably less tragic but much more calculated. Briton will move into a winning position with the successful conviction of the failed bombers. Even with that they can lose if they do not acknowledge this second error, as they were eventually forced to with the first.

Shoot to kill remains policy in times of exceptional circumstances in Briton and at least there is an argument for that. There is no argument for the fascist detention of an 82 year old man for calling a politician a liar. For the good of the free world Briton needs ensure the terrible abuse of power that caused the second own goal does not become policy or we all lose.

---------------------

N.B.

Safety Tip: If ever surrounded by a mob of angry Rhinos have someone roll a SUV in the vicinity. The SUV will inexplicably burst into flames and the Rhinos, nature’s fire-fighters, will run to stamp out the flames hence allowing for your escape. :-)

DISCLAIMER

The above safety tip has only been tested in a 2 dimensional, animated environment and is only guaranteed if you are a character on The Simpson’s. The author assumes no responsibility for the success of this advice in any non animated environment, especially those with 4 or more dimensions (some string theorists are up to 11).

The author supports the responsible rolling of SUVs and subsequent toxic fireballs only for the purpose of Rhinoceros distraction.

Today's Headlines

'Heck of a job' Brownie defendes roll in Katrina
"We did not lose one judge of Arabian horse shows, not a single blue ribbon was damaged therefore I fulfilled my area of expertise."

US sets new heights in hypocracy
A US judge has decided the US will to continue to harbour terrorist Jose Posada and is now considering invading itself as per it's own foreign policy that states "And America will hold to account nations that are comprimised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists - because the allies of terror are the enemies of civilisation". The judge cited that is was against US law to legally extradite people to countries that may torture. Meanwhile the CIA has stated it does not apply to them with the difference being they illegally abduct people to send to countries that they know will torture. At the same time the FBI are wondering why countries seeking extradition don't just come and murder him in cold blood, a process known internally within the FBI as the 'Ojeda Rios rule'.

The profit gluttony, or fuel crisis

“Motoring companies are deluding the public by suggesting that high petrol prices were due to anything other than the overwhelming impact of soaring oil prices, Prime Minister John Howard says.” Was the opening paragraph in an article on The Age website on 22/09/05 titled ‘PM denies tax reap on fuel’. Prime Minister Howard is a very smart man and a lawyer by trade. Whilst no-one could successfully argue the statement is a lie it is only a very small part of the truth. There is a common misconception in Australia that government fuel tax is a percentage of the wholesale or retail price hence the government is profiting on the current high prices at the pump. The tax is fixed per litre so the government would actually be suffering currently as people are using less fuel because they can’t afford it.

Author’s Note: I feel that kind of dirty that can’t be cleaned. Those last few sentences could sound like I am siding with, or even making excuses for the government, Oh the shame!
I strongly believe the dissident has a very important role to play in democracies and I am passionate about throwing my little grains of sand onto the beach of dissidence. While I live in a two party system I will never support a sitting government and only dislike the opposition slightly less until they come in government, then it’s their turn; it’s a great sport :-)

The soaring prices at the pump are predominately due to unconscionable profiteering of Oil companies. US oil giant ExxonMobil (think first half Valdez, second half large Australian presence) has just posted the largest first half profits for any company ever (US$15.2 billion profit for 6 months!) according to their own website. Since US oil companies where handed huge tax breaks in 2001 the 5 largest US Oil companies have reaped combined profits of over US$220 billion. In 1999 US oil refiners were making 22.8 cents per gallon, by 2004 that had increased 80% to 40.8 cents per gallon according to www.consumeraffairs.com. US oil companies have a huge in presence Australia and reliable data is more readily available, no doubt profits are similar in relative scale / growth for Australian based subsidiaries and others. Australia has not yet given tax breaks to oil companies but was about to. Up until this week the Australian government was planning to increase the petrol tax by 0.6 cents per litre to give back to the oil companies to develop cleaner fuels. But now they have come up with a much better solution. They will dump the increase in fuel tax but still give the money to the oil companies to develop cleaner fuel and every tax payer gets a slice of the bill. It is so ridiculous it sounds like a plot from UK sitcom ‘Yes, Minister’. I wonder how highly environmentally conscious people that don’t have cars feel about their taxes going to oil companies pulling in huge profits in a hope they will destroy the world at a slightly slower rate.

When Deputy John comes out with things like the this, ‘Children Overboard’ and ‘WMD in Iraq’, I never quite know if he is just plain lying, trying to exercise his legal training by saying something that could not be called a lie but does not go close to revealing the truth, or if he's simply so out of touch with reality that he really believes the nonsense he expels. I find it offensive that he would think the Australians would believe the ridiculous propositions he put to us in these cases. Even worse would be if he was actually silly enough to believe his own ‘private realities’. Wasn’t there are catch phrase going around a while ago something like ‘...is either a liar or really gullible’.

The beginning of increasing oil prices in Australia coincides exactly with the invasion of Iraq. The oil companies seized on the publicly perceived, and no doubt to some extent real, decrease in supply to play the public for fools and this has been going on ever since. The steady rise in prices is certainly the product of disaster. There have been now the years of man made disaster that started with the WMD / Iraq + Osama lies, disastrous lack of planning and imperialist ignorance in relation to the Iraq invasion that has needlessly taken the lives of so many. More recently the natural disasters of Katrina, and now potentially Rita, will soon make an impact on prices at the pump. The devastation caused to oil rigs in the gulf and oil refining capacity on land, not to mention the countless desperate people that could not be saved because their national guard was busy in the futile quagmire that is Iraq, only exacerbated the real cause of the oil crisis which is oil companies mauling consumers in times of perceived short supply; and that was before the hurricanes! What are they going to do to us now?

Whilst there is no doubt that there is an imbalance in supply and demand due to increased demand, mainly in China, and the man made and natural disasters has decreased supply. But not for a second can China be branded the ‘bogey man’ in this current oil crisis. Statistics from the US governments CIA and DoE (Department of Energy) websites show that China has 1,306 Million people and consumes 14.2 million barrels of oil per day; a rate of 0.0108 barrels per person per day. The US has 296 Million people and consumes 20.7 million barrels of oil per day; a rate of 0.0699 barrels per person per day. Finding current Australian consumption data is proving difficult but no doubt Australia would not be far beind the US on a per capita basis. China has a population 422% larger but only uses 66.8% of the oil that the US does.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez pointed out in an interview in New York recently that the US having 5% of the world’s population while consuming 25% of the worlds oil production is quite obviously unsustainable. In that same interview President Chavez offered to donate fuel to the America’s poor as he does in to the poor in Venezuela and other countries that region. Due to the dangerous and typically ridiculous rhetoric being thrown around by Dick Cheney, not to mention Rev. Pat Roberts, about Venezuela and it’s President at the moment I doubt that offer will be accepted. That’s OK though, after all it’s only the poor that suffer, those that make the decisions can afford all the fuel they could ever need several times over.

I believe the solution is two fold:
1) Obviously all the world, including the author that has a 2 seat sports car that uses over 20 litres of fuel per 100 kms and goes through tyres like an active growing child does runners, needs to address our Phoenix like fascination with oil.

2) In Australia we need to regulate oil companies, if only to provide visibility for consumers to decelerate the swelling ill feeling against the oil companies.
There is a perception that pump prices going up the very moment crude up goes up but comes down very slowly if at all, there is the inexplicable different prices on different days of the week and the constant coincidence that is the price similarities. I just find it stunning that every oil company has exactly the same production costs; and no one has been able to find a competitive advantage in all the years I’ve been on this planet?
Sounds like a consulting opportunity for someone.
-----------------------

NB - You don't make friends with salad :-)

More on Telstra

The Australian stock exchange watchdog (ASIC) has launched an investigation as to why Telstra executives did not make a public statement in line with what the government were told and they may well have a case to answer. Surely though the government has a duty of care to Australians to fully disclose any and all information about a company they are looking to sell to its constituents. The Howard government are ducking that question entirely or lying saying it would be have illegal for them to do so, instead saying this highlights the conflict of interest in being the largest shareholder in a company it also has to regulate in the age of open competition. Yet the government does not have the same problem with Australia Post, they are the largest shareholder in that company and manage to regulate them in a highly competitive.

So what is the difference?

In my rarely humble opinion poor quality of management and governance led to Telstra stock being significantly over priced at initial sale due to both the ignorance of the neglect of the core infrastructure and the impact of growing competition. That led to a vicious circle of continued under investment in core infrastructure in favour of a period of risky overseas investments in hope of quick fixes to prop up the share price. The reasons to prop up the share price are juxtapose; many ‘Mum and Dad’ investors, retirement funds and institutional investors were seeing Telstra lose significant value and these are the same the people the government hopes will purchase its remaining 51%.

Among other things the document stated what any person with basic corporate awareness knew and what the Telco analyst had been saying for years. Delivering high dividends by dipping into cash reserves was unsustainable and a significant percentage of the core infrastructure was old and in disrepair due to lack of investment in the distant and recent past. Being exactly the opposite of wanted the government wanted to hear this has been the latest in an ongoing feud between the government and Telstra since Sol landed on our shores with a long overdue dose of bitter reality that could not have come at a worse time for the major shareholder looking to sell its interest to regular Australians. Another blow to the government worth mentioning is that of a new senior Telstra executive brought in by Sol was recently quoted in the press saying he would not recommend the stock to his mother. Prime Minister Howard reacted by stating is the duty of all company executives to talk up the prospects of the company they represent apparently ignoring the recent spate of jailed executives both here and in the U.S. that are looking at lengthy sentences for doing exactly what the Prime Minister suggest. In fact would it not be illegal for this executive to state that he had just recommended the stock to his mother when he had not. I would not deny that these are hardly appropriate comments from a senior executive of one of Australia’s largest companies, even more so as he could be perceived by the public as a hired gun from overseas with little understanding of the incredibly complex national quandary that is Telstra. We must consider these comments could have been born of frustration from the vast divide between the perceived (expected) condition of Telstra for public sale and the reality as seen by the new management team. Again the Australian government may pretend, or in fact be surprised by these comments but there are many that are not; I certainly would not recommend them to my mother.

Plain ole’ Insider trading isn’t it

Telstra is Australia’s largest Telco which is 51% owned by the government. This Howard government, in office some 10 years, is planning a third and final sell off of Telstra stock to the public. The previous two sell offs, known as T1 and T2 have been nothing short of disastrous for investors as the stock only briefly traded above prospectus price and has been steadily declining for some years. Amazingly Telstra has continued to dive into its cash reserves to deliver ‘false’ dividends to it shareholders. Coincidently one of deepest dives into it cash reserves to buy dividends was just prior to the last federal election where the sale of Telstra was one of key election issues. In that election the Howard government won control of the Australian Senate, a sitting government having control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate had not been seen in for some 20 years, paving the way to pass the necessary laws to allow the full sale of Telstra without opposition. I do not contend the false dividends handed out by Telstra prior to the election had an impact on the outcome; their opponents were appalling.

Local and international Telco analyst have for years been saying that Telstra are not investing nearly enough money in their core infrastructure. I myself have been saying for years that I will not have a land line in my home because I refuse to pay such high monthly rental fees for 100+ year old copper wire. Those who have worked at Telstra, as I have on two separate occasions for different consulting firms, know that while the pack of cards may have had some Blu-tack added in the past 3-4 years there is still an enormous amount of work to be done to provide a quality, modern network to cover this vast land.

Around mid August the new CEO of Telstra, Sol Trujilo delivered a comprehensive document to the government broadly discussing Telstra’s position. The Howard government introduced legislation for the full sale of Telstra into Parliament in the first week of September. Later that same week the document the government had in it’s possession for a number of weeks was leaked to the opposition.

So let’s assume that you are a 51% shareholder in a public company where you held no office and you receive information that could be derogatory to the value of the company. You do not disclose this information and put your 51% up for sale. At some point it comes public that you had information pertinent to the sale and did not disclose it. Very obviously you would be in a Martha Stewart of a pickle. Very recently Steve Vizard, a high profile ex Director of Telstra, was heavily fined, barred from being a Director of company for some time, and publicly humiliated for making trades based on information he received as a Telstra Director before that information was made public. Rene Rivkin, flamboyant stock market ‘player’ was sentenced to jail for similar yet this government, a 51% shareholder holding no office in the company, has declared that it was not their responsibility to disclose the information. There seems to be 3 separate set of rules there. If you are opinionated and flamboyant you go to jail, if you are high profile and popular you get a fine and if you are the Australian government you seem to above those laws altogether?

It would be plain ole’ insider trading if it were you or me.