Budget Impressions

I missed Simon Crean's reply to the budget on telly last night: Thursday is always trivia quiz night. Today I'm sorry that I did: according to AM on everyone to the left of Ken Parish's ABC, Crean gave a fine impassioned performance, undeterred by interjections from the Government benches. Peter Costello, perhaps miffed by the way he had been blindsided by Crean's use of his reply time to Labor's alternative policy on Medicare, was less impressed:

Labor hasn't learned a thing. Labor supports budget deficits and higher taxes. Now, this was an absolutely irresponsible budget speech, because this wasn't, in truth, a reply to the Budget. This was a speech to Labor Party faithful, and when Simon Crean speaks to the Labor Party faithful he tells them what the Labor Party stands for – budget deficits and higher taxes.

The Minister for Budget Surpluses at All Cost's response neatly encapsulates a couple of the basic truths of Australian politics, each an example of The Truth that is Established by Frequent Repetition: the ALP never learns and Labor stands for budget deficits and high taxes. Federal Health Minister, Senator Kay Patterson also resorted to the enunciation of repetition verified truths in her interview with Matt Brown:

MATT BROWN: Well he's [Crean] given us a fair amount of detail about how he's going to fund it, and there is some money there in the surplus, presumably. Let's just look at the effect of the package that he's outlined, and the reaction to it.

Ken Mackey, from the Rural Doctors' Association, you've just heard say that under the Labor plan more country practices would be encouraged to boost bulk-billing. In other words, more country people would get a better chance of going to a doctor and not having to open their wallets.

KAY PATTERSON: But it doesn't guarantee bulk-billing. It also gives rural people and people in outer-metropolitan areas, they're treated as second-class citizens.

...

MATT BROWN: Let's look at the lower target for country doctors, before they can quality for their tens of thousands of dollars in incentive payments. Isn't setting a lower target for that just making it easier for them to qualify, just making it more realistic for them to try and meet that bulk-billing target?

KAY PATTERSON: No, what it's saying is that you don't have to reach the same target in a rural area as you do in a city area, so it will be still harder for country people to find a bulk-billing doctor at the same rate.

Now that treats them ...

MATT BROWN: But what's the average rate of bulk-billing in country areas?

KAY PATTERSON: ... as second class citizens. [My emphasis]

Having scored two memorable soundbites, Paterson uses the rest of the interview to demonstrate her excellent ducking and weaving skills:

MATT BROWN: What's the average rate of bulk billing in country areas?

KAY PATTERSON: There are people in country areas, on low incomes, who don't ever have a bulk-billing doctor. Our package increases the likelihood that people on low incomes will be able to see a bulk-billing doctor.

Also, under the Crean package, if you have a doctor who charges a gap, you get a lower rebate, you have to pay the upfront fee, you have to either wait for the Medicare check or go into a Medicare office.

The other thing that he's done is he's said no to our new safety net, both for people on concession cards and for people who are not on concession cards. What he said is, if you're very sick, then we don't care about you, we don't care about the fact that you have unexpected bills that you may not be able to meet, we're going to scrap that safety net.

So there are a lot of losers in the Crean package.

Translation: I don't know what the average rate of bulk-billing in country areas is, but Simon Crean's proposal sucks.

MATT BROWN: You've spoken about people who can't easily find a bulk-billing doctor being disadvantaged by the different rebates that will be paid to doctors who do bulk-bill. But under the Labor plan wouldn't there be a pressure on that doctor who doesn't bulk-bill to keep their fees down because they know their patients might have a better chance of going somewhere else to see another doctor who is being encouraged to bulk-bill?

KAY PATTERSON: There is nothing in Mr Crean's package that will guarantee, and he said, and he's been saying for months, "I will guarantee the 80 per cent bulk-billing".

He cannot guarantee 80 per cent bulk-billing, and now what he's done is backtracked and said I have a target of 70 per cent for people in rural areas, a target of 75 per cent for people in outer metropolitan areas, and a target of 80 per cent.

Translation: I can't answer that point, but Simon Crean's proposal sucks.

MATT BROWN: What target have you set?

KAY PATTERSON: He will not achieve that. My goal is to ensure that people on very low incomes, people on health care cards and concession cards, have a greater chance of being treated the same, irrespective of where they live.

Crean's package does nothing to do that, in fact it makes rural people and outer metropolitan people second class citizens, and if the people can't find a bulk-billing doctor they get a lower rebate. That is the first time in the history of Medicare that we've seen a different rebate for people depending on whether a doctor bulk-bills or not. [my emphasis]

Translation: We haven't set a target, because we might not achieve it, but Simon Crean's proposal sucks. And incidentally don't forget that he's treating country people as second class citizens.

MATT BROWN: And just briefly, new figures are out today on bulk-billing rates. If they show a fall, what will that mean to you?

KAY PATTERSON: I've said that the bulk-billing rates, the overall bulk-billing rates, don't show the inequities, where you get very high bulk-billing in city areas, very low bulk-billing in country areas, and the people who suffer the most from that are people on low incomes, people on health care card and concession cardholders.

Translation: Don't bother me with questions about facts, you impertinent bastard. Simon Crean's proposal sucks.

MATT BROWN: Why not put up a target though? Why not put up a target, the way Simon Crean has, for what you want to see bulk-billing return to?

KAY PATTERSON: Because Mr Crean cannot guarantee that target. He said, "I will guarantee bulk-billing for 80 per cent". Now he's backtracked. He hasn't funded it. He needs to come out today and say whether he's going to keep the private health insurance rebate or not, because I suspect that's how he's going to fund it, and the nine million ...

Translation: We won't set a target, because we might not achieve it, but Simon Crean's proposal sucks.

MATT BROWN: He said he won't scrap it, if you're asking for no tampering with it.

KAY PATTERSON: He has shilly-shallied around about the private health insurance rebate. He needs to come out today. I challenge Mr Crean to come out today and say to the nine million Australians who have private health insurance, we will not touch the 30 per cent rebate. If he does, it will mean and $800 hike in tax for Australian families.

Translation: Simon Crean's proposal sucks and I refuse to believe him when he says that he isn't going to scrap the health insurance rebate.

MATT BROWN: Kay Patterson, thanks for joining us on AM this morning.

KAY PATTERSON: Thanks very much, Matt.

Translation: Thank Christ that's over.

The overall impression I got from both interviews was that Crean's speech has put the Government on the back foot. I might have more to say on the budget, once I've read Costello's Speech and Crean's response (Hansard in PDF. Crean's speech starts on page 88 of the file).

Stewart Kelly reports that a vanity search for Stewsblog on Yahoo turned up this. I did a self-Google yesterday and found that some charitable soul in Japan is mirroring my site. Dont' forget to check out the link in the top left hand corner of the page - if you're lucky, it might take you somewhere interesting.

Chinese Government experiments with traditional cure for SARS

Another Waste of Public Library Shelf Space

I turned up a copy of Keith Windschuttle's The Killing of History (How a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists) at my local library on Sunday. What I really wanted of course was a copy of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History but that doesn't appear to have arrived on the shelves yet. So I settled for The Killing of History (etc): I though reading it might help me catch up a little on the current state of received opinion.

It's an irritating read, especially Chapter 7 "History as a Social Science", where Windschuttle presents an extended rebuttal of Kuhn, Popper et al drawing heavily on the work of David Stove, who is to Windschuttle as SL MacGregor Mathers is to Aleister Crowley. I have to admit here that it pisses me off when historians and philosophers pontificate about science in a way that makes it perfectly obvious that they know jack shit about that whereof they speak. Reading this chapter is as agonising as watching some klutz with a hair-triggered Uzi point it playfully at his own feet.

Chapter 7 begins:

History is a discipline that straddles both the humanities and the social sciences. History's credentials as a science derive from three of its objectives: first, it aims to record the truth about what happened in the past; second, it aims to build a body of knowledge about the past; third, it aims to study the past through a disciplined methodology, using techniques and sources that are accessible to others in the field.

This bold claim is what leads Windschuttle, the apostle of history as science to his disastrous excursion into the history and philosophy of science. After David Stove, Windschuttle takes Kuhn, Popper et al to task for using causal [sic] expressions (such as 'is defeated', 'is removed') as if they were logical expressions, such as 'is refuted' (p 201). This is shortly followed by a spectacular howler (the first of several):

... By applying Stove's distinctions to the most common example used by the radical sceptics, we can put these myths in their place. Even though the Copernicus [1473 - 1543] -Galileo-Kepler theory that the Earth and the planets orbit the Sun has now been replaced (a sociological concept [sic]) by far more sophisticated and adventurous Einsteinian theories of cosmology, the central findings of the seventeenth century [sic] thesis have not been refuted (a logical concept) by the newer theories. The planets still orbit the Sun, just as the scientists of the Renaissance discovered 350 years ago ... [my emphasis]

Here Windschuttle has tripped over his own petard. Earlier in the chapter he has denounced Kuhn, Popper et al for:

... their attempt to resolve questions of logical value by appealing to matters of historical fact.

There's also an obvious logical howler here: if modern cosmology fails to refute Copernicus, then equally, Copernican cosmology failed to refute Ptolemaic cosmology, or Tycho Brahe's alternative geocentric cosmology.

Reading further in Windschuttle's defence (after Stove) of Knowledge accumulation, we find this bold statement:

Even if we concede to Feyerabend that Einstein's theory does not share a single statement with its predecessor, this is not an argument against the accumulation of knowledge. Einstein, as a matter of historical fact, wrote his theory of relativity in response to Newton's mechanics.

I'm not sure where Windschuttle got this historical fact from, but it's a gross oversimplification: for one thing it ignores the importance of James Clark Maxwell's electrodynamics to Einstein's theory: it was from Maxwell, not Newton, that Einstein got the idea that the speed of light was constant in all frames of reference.

One last example (because I'm getting as bored by this as you probably are by now): at the bottom of page 202, we get this:

Another furphy in this debate is the claim that all observation statements are already preladen with theory. Now, if all observations were laden with theory, we could ask of any observation which particular theory it is laden with. Once we do this, it becomes apparent that the claim cannot be sustained. Consider the case of Galileo's observation through a telescope of the planet Jupiter and its moons in 1609. ... would anyone imagine that if a supporter of the old Ptolemaic theory of astronomy had looked through a telescope at the same time he would have seen anything different? Would we expect the Ptolemaic theorist to see the moons not in orbit but roaming the skies above Jupiter as his own theory might have expected ... ?

Once again Windschuttle is resorting to historical example as a substitute for logical argument. Worse, as a soi-pissant historian, he is ignoring the social, intellectual and above all technological context in which Galileo made his observations. Windschuttle also conflates what Galileo saw with what he inferred from what he saw. It's not as if Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter and saw the moons whizzing around the planet at amazing speed. A Ptolemaist would have seen precisely what Galileo saw through his telescope: most likely a vague greenish dot (Jupiter) with some smaller dots (the moons) around it. What he might infer from that observation is anyone's guess: possibly that Jupiter was falling apart and that the end of the world was nigh. As most of Galileo's contemporaries preferred Tycho Brahe's cosmology, the point is moot anyway.

In his introduction (p 4), Windschuttle tells us how he intends to defend history from the murderous hordes of literary critics and social theorists:

Apart from the first, introductory chapter of this book, each of the others can be regarded as a road test of one or more of the latest season's theoretical models to see, first, how it handles the rougher terrain of actual historical subject matter, and second, how it stands up to competition over the same ground from those empirical jalopies that the new crew want to consign to the junk yard.

I think Keith drove his own anti-theoretical Land Cruiser into a tree and wrote it off.

Letters From Mum

Thanks to this AM report on the procedures involved in the Governor-General stepping aside, I learnt a new phrase the other day: Letters Patent. Apparently, Peter Hollingworth can't stand aside as Governor-General until John Howard gets her Maj to change the Letters Patent. It reminds me of the letter from mum I forged when I was in 5th Form, to give myself permission to skip Religious Instruction. From memory, that one went something like this:

Dear Petit-Bourgeois Lackey of the Capitalist Expropriators,

I demand that you immediately desist from poisoning my son's mind with reactionary religious dogma. His father and I both agree that he gets no educational benefit from weekly doses of the opium of the masses.

Yours,

Gummo's Mum

According to AM, the process works something like this. First, the PM has to write to the queen:

Dear Mrs Battenburg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,

Please change the Letters Patent to allow Peter to take the day off from being Governor-General as he is in bad odour with the Australian media and the Australian people.

Yours,

John Winston Howard

Then the Queen writes back:

ELIZABETH THE SECOND, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth,

Greeting:

WHEREAS, by the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, certain powers, functions and authorities are vested in a Governor-General appointed by the Queen to be Her Majesty's representative in the Commonwealth:

AND WHEREAS, by Letters Patent dated 29 October 1900, as amended, provision was made in relation to the office of Governor-General:

AND WHEREAS, by section 4 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, the provisions of the Constitution relating to the Governor-General extend and apply to the Governor-General for the time being, or such person as the Queen may appoint to administer the Government of the Commonwealth:

AND WHEREAS We are desirous of making new provisions relating to the office of Governor-General and for persons appointed to administer the Government of the Commonwealth:

NOW THEREFORE, by these Letters Patent under Our Sign Manual and the Great Seal of Australia-

The Governor General can take a few weeks off while this unholy mess is sorted out.

GIVEN at Our Court

at Balmoral
on 21 August 1984

By Her Majesty's Command,

(JOHN HOWARD)

Prime Minister

PS: Don't forget to publish this in the Commonwealth Gazette.

PPS: Try not to let this happen again.

This is going to take a few days, so in the meantime, Peter Hollingworth will just have to bunk off and hide behind the shelter sheds. Which is what I did, after my brilliant forgery had been exposed.

Grace and Sour Grapes

Now we know. Contrary to reports published in Sydney's Daily Telegraph and other newspapers, the flag that was (briefly) wrapped around the face of Saddam Hussein's statue came from the US Senate gift shop. In response KnobBlog makes this graceful admission:

I WAS WRONG. The flag that was draped over the statue of Saddam did not come from the Pentagon. Media Watch last night presented two impressive sources who contradict widespread international reports - and my own repeated and, as it turns out, incorrect claims - that the flag was sourced from the Pentagon on September 11.

But what Media Watch won't admit is that they didn't know they were right when they aired their initial report. It took Media Watch three weeks of research - prompted by this site and various comments at the Media Watch website - to prove their case. Their situation is analogous to someone who assumes OJ Simpson is guilty because of his race, and who is subsequently proved correct by DNA evidence.

On the other hand, Tim was wrong when he criticised the original report, he's been wrong for the past three weeks and now he's man enough to admit that he was wrong all the time - he just didn't know it yet. Sounds logical enough to me.

Meanwhile ...

I'm feeling lazy today, so I'm going to take a book out of James Russell's leaf and post a brief round-up on what other bloggers have been saying.

While Ken Parish has been on a short hiatus, various commenters have been lowering the tone at Troppo Armadildlo.

John Quiggin has been collecting suggestions on how to restock his library. He also complains the The Bill has jumped the shark. Obviously he never saw The Noble Conflict, the celebrated Taiwanese chop-socky soap opera which jumped the shark in the very first episode and never looked back.

Pedantry has some interesting thoughts on the American education system.

Rob Schaap found some worthwhile ideas in this article.

meika has been traumatised by discovering the US' foremost gutter intellectual.

And in the mainstream media Chris Puplick has resigned from his position as president of the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board. I think it's even money that Ozblogistan's favourite conservative harridan will have something to say about this on Wednesday. In fact I'm prepared to bet my blog on it.

If your blog is listed on BlogShares you can take up the bet by posting a comment. Just tell me how many shares of your blog you're willing to put up for a chance to win an equal number of Tug Boat Potemkin shares. The house limit is 100 shares.

Strange Bedfellows

It's not often that I find myself agreeing with Stanley of the Billabong but he makes a very good point here:

The Victorian government is about to waive its own discrimination laws in order to indulge Commissioner Nixon's desire to attract more female recruits. "It will also bring a greater diversity of approach to policing, particularly in areas such as negotiation and communication, where women are acknowledged to have different approaches to men," Nixon was quoted as saying. She's peddling trendy tosh from the syllabus of some womyn's studies collective at one of Australia's institutes of higher learning. But let that go - and overlook, too, the sad spectacle of those paid to enforce and uphold the law blithely circumventing those parts of it they find inconvenient.

As a reasonable citizen, what really troubles the professor is that this priority to achieve gender equity in the ranks is an example of grossly misplaced priorities. Since the police force's primary brief now appears to be raising public revenue via speeding fines (and private funds via cooperation with drug runners), does it really matter if it is a male copper or a female one who chooses not to enforce the laws that matter the most - the ones intended to safeguard property and safety? If Victoria had a parliamentary Opposition worthy of the name, some honourable member would point out as much on the floor of the chamber. Sadly, like Mrs. Bunyip, the very people who should be raising a stink prefer to peddle fibs. In this case, the lie of silence. [Stanley's emphasis]

Back in my early days as a bureaucrat, working for the now defunct Department with a Continuing Identity Crisis, I learned the difference between affirmative action, which is what they have in the US, and equal employment opportunity, which is what we're supposed to have in Australia. It's worth spelling out the difference, because a lot of people confuse the two. Affirmative action aims to overcome discrimination in favour of incompetent white heterosexual males by promoting discrimination in favour incompetents who are otherly genitalled or of other sexual orientations and colours. Equal employment opportunity is based on the principle that the best person for the job is the most competent, regardless of these factors, although it's unlikely to be much help if, despite your obviously superior vocational competence, you keep missing out on jobs because you can't resist picking your nose during the selection interview.

As Stanley points out, it's unlikely that Victoria's decimated opposition will have much of an effect here. It's also probably too much to hope that anyone on the Left of the ALP might get up on her hind legs and point out that this action flies in the face of Leftie principles too.

Curiouser and Curiouser

I took a look at the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 today. I wanted to find out whether the Therapeutic Goods Administration might have dealt with Pan's quality control failures without suspending the company's licence for 6 months. Section 40, Subsection 2 looked promising:

(2) The Secretary may, by notice in writing given to the holder of a licence, impose new conditions on the licence or vary or remove existing conditions.

I'm not sure whether this means that the TGA could have made it a condition of Pan's licence that they replace their entire senior management or submit to a period of outside administration but either of those possibilities strikes me as being preferable to the licence suspension.

I vaguely intended a longish, "well-considered" blog on the topic, but I got derailed by the latest revelation about Pan's bizarre corporate culture:

The theft of a million cold tablets from Pan Pharmaceuticals two years ago led to a security upgrade at the embattled pharmaceutical company, a NSW Health spokeswoman said today.

The theft of the cold and flu tablets, which can be manufactured into amphetamines valued at tens of millions of dollars, from the Pan factory at Moorebank at the end of March 2001 is currently the subject of a police inquiry, NSW Health said.

...

The spokesman [sic] confirmed the tablets, contained in eight packing pallets, were left on an external loading dock on the night of the robbery.

She also confirmed a large external floodlight was not working on the night of the theft and a security camera had been disabled.

Doing the Numbers

Rob Corr has found reason to be outraged in this Boston Globe report on further shootings in the Iraqi town of Falluja and this report from The Age of a US Marine who mistakenly adopted Tom Highway, Clint Eastwood's character in Heartbreak Ridge as a role model.

It's obvious that Rob hasn't got the hang of our new style of moral clarity. As Gareth Parker has pointed out, apropos the Iraq Body Count, what really matters in assessing the morality of US actions in Iraq is not the body count from isolated, and regrettable, incidents where "excess" force has been used by the US military, but how the casualty rate compares with that Saddam might have inflicted if he were still in power. John Quiggin has obviously got the hang of this, and provides a reasoned discussion of recent events, based on a more rigorous quantitative approach to the problem.

Gareth estimates that Saddam Hussein's regime would have killed 4,420 people since March 20 if the war had not gone ahead. If we throw in the death toll since the first Gulf War (when Saddam was very firmly repudiated by the administration of George Bush I) it's obvious that the US has a lot of catching up to do before the Left are entitled to claim that the actions of the US have any moral equivalence with Saddam's. The fact that the US' actions are taken in the interests of promoting democracy and ridding the world of the threat of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and various other forms of unpleasantness extends the ethical leeway a good deal further. As does the fact that the "innocent civilians" involved in the Falluja incidents were anything but innocent: they were anti-American demonstrators.

Perhaps it's time to move on to more important things, like the scandalous increase in car registration fees that Victorian drivers will face from July 1st this year. Now there's an issue worth getting outraged about - unless you're a West Australian of course.

Lentilgrad

The German port of Hamburg has been offered 10,000 euros ($US10,500) to change its name to "Veggieburg" by animal rights activists, who are unhappy about the city's association with hamburgers.

Qu(ot)e?

Instead, history has degenerated into mere emotion. The black armband is fastened so tightly, it has cut circulation to rational thinking. Historical facts that make us feel proud have been expunged. [My emphasis]

The anatomically correct Janet Albrechtsen in today's Oz.

Mouldy Oldie

I don't know why I got two referrals from Ken Parish's oldest site looking for Slavery and Double Effect but it's a good excuse to revive a personal favourite.

Placebomol

Thanks to James Russell for this report on the interesting business background of Pan Pharmaceuticals founder Jim Selim:

... In 1976 Mr Selim appeared before the Pharmacy Board of NSW charged with professional misconduct.

The charge - failing to include a substance in a manufactured item - related to his making of paracetamol tablets. Some batches contained no paracetamol.

Not exactly what you'd call a fair cop - it's well known that in about 40% of cases the tablets would have cured headaches anyway.

Woomerenstein

Phil Ruddock is very cross:

It's a dose of virtual reality that the Immigration Minister could probably do without: a computer game in which players try to escape from Australian detention centres has received $25,000 in federal funding.

The game, Escape from Woomera, will be modelled on four of the country's most contentious detention centres. It received the money from the Australia Council, the federal arts funding body, last month.

...

"The decision reflects poorly upon the Australia Council and its judgement, that the organisation should lend its name to the promotion of unlawful behaviour," Mr Ruddock said yesterday.

He's going to hit the roof when he hears about the boss monster on level 9.

An Unfortunate Contrast

According to ABC News, there have been two gunfights today in that dangerous WMD-owning rogue state which recently got democratised. First, there's this report of a gunfight involving Australian troops:

In a statement, Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan says the soldiers came across three men carrying guns during a patrol of the city on Sunday.

Brigadier Hannan says rather than engage in a street battle, the patrol broke off the contact after a few shots were fired.

And then there's this report of a gunfight involving somebody else's troops:

Lieutenant Christopher Hart, of the 82nd Airborne Division, says his unit, which is occupying the school, used smoke to try and disperse a crowd of 100 to 200 people who came down the street towards them chanting.

But US troops opened fire after two men carrying AK-47s suddenly came from behind the crowd on a motorcycle and started shooting at the school.

"They had AK-47s and, as they drove by, they opened up on the near side of this building here," he said.

"What happened was we engaged personnel on the motorcycle."

He says some people in the crowd also fired at the US troops.

He says he is not sure how many people were killed but estimates the death toll at between seven and 10.

[Local people, including the head of the main hospital in the town, say at least 13 people were killed and about 75 wounded.]

Looting the Looter State

I got an E-mail from dj the other day about Strawman's post Treasure the Memories at the Australian Libertarian Society Blog. Strawman questions whether the looting of Iraq's museums is such a bad thing:

The fact is that some individual (or individuals) made a decision in Iraq to deprive the collective of these relics of the past. Perhaps this was the act of a thoughtless hooligan, or perhaps it was someone who thought that it was time for Iraq to move forward.

Thinking about it, there's some merit to the idea of depriving the collective (an organisation which imposes the wishes of the group at the expense of the freedom of the individual) of treasures that they really don't appreciate anyway. Especially in my current circumstances: as well as feeding the cats and fishes (but not, I hope, acting as feline undertaker) it would be pleasing to repay my absent hosts with some small gift to show my appreciation for the way they have more or less given me the run of their house for the next couple of weeks. There's a couple of Arthur Streetons and Frederick McCubbins at the National Gallery of Victoria which would really enhance the decor. However much the curators might miss them, I doubt that the hoi-polloi who drag their icy-pole sucking toddlers through the place would notice much more than a few blank spaces on the walls. While I'm at it, I might as well pick up a Norman Lindsay for myself. After all, it was my taxes that paid for the damn things.

Back In the Saddle

I'm house-sitting for the next couple of weeks: in return for feeding three cats, six siamese fighting fish and nine goldfish, I get access to Foxtel. As usual when people go away and leave you in charge of their house, there's been a swag of last minute written and verbal instructions: how to set the video recorder to record Due South each time it's on, when to put out the garbage, where to find the spade if the oldest cat dies and you have to bury it.

Now I have the place to myself, I figure it's time to get back to blogging, although there's a lot to catch up on since I last posted 11 days ago. Just to ease back into things, here's a little gem from AM's Finance Reporter and master of purple prose, Stephen Long, reporting on the OECD's latest economic forecast:

The OECD's forecast was glum enough six months ago. And since then, war and pestilence have further undermined the outlook for economic growth.

Still, with only two of the Four Horsemen of Global Economic Recession abroad, the news isn't too grim: at worst we're in for a period of slow growth ,that is "growth below potential" or "growth below trends". Thank heaven for minor mercies.

Maybe, Maybe Not

When I was 14 years old, my father would sometimes drive me home from school. He drove an EH station wagon. He always had the radio on: there was Mitch Miller and Doris Day and Connie Francis. And I would sit there wishing it was The Beatles and The Stones and The Who. Then one day, I heard a woman speaking softly against a low accompaniment say:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement ...

As she spoke, I was drawn into her story, although I thought it was a little strange: this couldn't be a song. Then she reached the chorus and I realised that, yes, it was a song. And though I resisted - this was not the sort of music that I was supposed to like - I came to like it. After a few weeks, it wasn't getting played and I forgot about it. I never made the mistake of mentioning it to my friends, in case they thought me daggy.

Years later I fell in love, head over heels in love, with the most wonderful girl in the world. While there were no long walks by the river, there were times when we would sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes. It ended just as it did in the song - she went away and I thought I would die, but I didn't. I did go out and buy an album of Peggy Lee's greatest hits; not intentionally, it was there in the record store when I went in to buy something else. I picked it up anyway. That night I played that one song over and over for hours, until the guy in the flat below started banging on his ceiling, to let me know that it was now his turn to piss me off by playing Help Me Rhonda ad nauseam.

I know what you must be saying to yourselves: this piece isn't going anywhere, why doesn't he just end it now?

In the Red Purple

I'm starting to go off waking up to AM in the morning. Especially after this report on the HIH Royal Comission by finance reporter Stephen Long. Here's a potted version:

At times the hearings into HIH's collapse became an unseemly squabble between the culprits to apportion blame. Some claim the purchase of FAI from Rodney Adler was the straw that broke the camel's back. Rodney Adler said: "It's got nothing to do with me."

...

Justice Neville Owen's report tells a story of a company killed slowly by ineptitude as it shambled towards oblivion. ...

But the latest sale of FAI's profitable insurance lines to the German company Allianz was the "harbinger of doom".

The report says Ray Williams ran the company like a personal fiefdom, unchallenged by an incompetent board.

...

Justice Owen says HIH was not a place where wholesale fraud and embezzlement abounded but as it slowly disintegrated, key executives stand accused of lying to paper over the cracks.

...

Still others looted the ship as it sank.

...

Like Julius Caesar, HIH toppled on the Ides of March, March 15th, 2001, and also like Caesar, the regulator APRA failed to heed the warning signs.

...

But the victims could still be left wondering why so few criminal charges? Their careers may be over but it seems few, if any, of the culprits will go to jail.

LINDA MOTTRAM: Finance Correspondent Stephen Long.