The Thinking Man's Fridge

“Justice is the bread of the nation, it is always hungry for it” (François Chateaubriand)

This weekend saw four children, aged 10, 11, 15 and 17, die when they crashed the stolen car they were travelling in. New reports say that the four had stolen another car earlier that night, thrashed it, bogged it, and set it alight.

Amidst the usual throng of people who jump up and down blaming the parents, the teachers, the government, society in general, and anyone else they can think of, there is always a loud public voice screaming ‘they got what they deserved’. This usually is rebuked as being a heartless and Draconian response to what initially appears to be a tragic situation. Comments such as this appeared almost immediately on internet pages:

• “Well all I can say is if you are going to go stealing cars and driving at excessive speed… then you got what was coming.”
  
• “Tragedy? Four less out-of-control louts who would have been of no benefit to society? Almost certainly.”
  
• “They wont do it again.”
  
• “Four less criminals off our roads.”

So why, now that we’re nigh-on a decade in to the 21st century, does the public mass still make such proclamations? Have we, as humans, regressed to a Colosseum-like lust for blood? It’s not as barbaric as people think. No, I think it’s actually far more simple than that.

It is the legal system that has a lot to answer for in regards to the incredible public response to this accident.

For many years the legal system has been handing down weaker and weaker sentences for crimes throughout society. The usual ‘slap on the wrist’ response which we are now accustomed to leave no feeling amongst the public that justice has been done. This is particularly reinforced from time to time when a driver’s actions cause the death of other people, and we find out that they have multiple driving, drinking or drug offences for which they have not served one day in a prison cell.

The public is tired of this happening over and over and over again: car theft, home invasions, attacks on the elderly, rape and child murder, attacks at trains stations and being afraid to walk through public places. If sentences for crime were such that the public could say about the offender ‘they got what they deserved’, then we wouldn’t be waiting for incidents such as this, where the criminals end up killing themselves by their own misadventure, so we could say ‘well… they got what they deserved’.

If you want to find out why the public has such a revengeful or vitriolic response to these incidents, it’s because they have not been able to rely on our legal system to provide a sense of justice when criminals are caught.

I firmly believe that the sense of revenge is a very key part of what makes us human (and before anyone starts lecturing me about ‘an eye for an eye’, learn to read the Bible in context, rather than spouting useless quips like an infomercial, and look up a guy called Hammurabi while you’re at it). Now that custodial sentences have been watered down as being a time for rehabilitation rather than punishment, that sense of revenge and social justice can’t be found by the public. At that point, as happened in this incident, people rely on a sort of ‘natural justice’, where those perpetuating the crime are killed by their own misadventures, to feel that sense of social justice, and to have that desire for revenge placated.

Well, the State Government, in all its wisdom, has finally come clean and released the figures showing that only 2.3% of the state’s gas usage is attributed to residential purposes. So when Premier Carpenter made his semi-presidential address to the nation of Western Australia last week, pleading with us to reduce our gas use by 10%, the overall impact was a potential statewide saving of 0.23%. Brilliant economics, and once again, missing the point entirely. Way to solve a problem.

Why does the State Government continually act in such a way as to serve a guilt-trip for every resident when it’s the piss-poor management to blame for every f*ck up we have? In summer, the power shortages meant we couldn’t use our air conditioners. Never mind the fact that residential power usage accounts for less than 10% of statewide energy demand. It’s still our fault. Go out and swim in your pool. But don’t fill it up, because we don’t have any water, either.

In summer water shortages meant we weren’t allowed to use our sprinklers to save our gardens, even though once again the residential demand for water accounts for less than 10% of overall statewide consumption. It got to the sad state that people were ENCOURAGED to dob in their neighbours if they saw them watering outside their allocated days so the Government could issue a fine. One poor bastard in Sydney died from a one-punch assault that began as an argument over watering the garden. What have we become!?! Don’t get me wrong – I only watered my garden three times last summer, and lost my lawn accordingly, but my choice to do so is a general appreciation of the shortage of the resource, NOT because my retarded Government bean-counters have given me a guilt-trip to make me change my ways. Admittedly, my choice may also have been because I’m the absolute antithesis of Don Burke, and am much happier looking at pictures of plants on my TV, but it’s still MY choice. And besides, when you go past a Council park during the night and the sprinklers are on every day of the week, it’s kind of hard not to get a mixed message.

And now, with the gas, once again it’s our f*cking fault. Never mind that the Government has rejected numerous plans for a second gas pipeline to serve the metropolitan area. Absurdly, Minister Roberts believed not enough consultation had taken place with the native title holders who would be affected, but she had the WRONG TRIBAL GROUPS! The two groups consulted had NO native title claim anywhere near the area, and the group WITH the native title signed agreements for the pipeline to be built. Once again – way to solve a problem.

So we can’t use our air conditioners, except in winter, and we can’t use our heaters, except in summer, and we can’t use our sprinklers ever because we don’t have enough water in summer and we don’t need them in winter… WTF!?! How did it get to this? What sort of piss-poor third-world nation are we turning into?

So I’ve finally worked out that WA does not stand for Wait Awhile. It clearly stands for What Appliances? As for the BOOM economy – Bastards Owning Our Money…

I really want to read this book. I heard about it years ago, but haven't tracked down a copy yet. I haven't looked, really. In fact, I think I've only ever asked in one book store, but they didn't have it.

Here's a review I blatantly plagiarised from Amazon.com:

"According to British journalist Jeffreys' well-documented book, aspirin was born a little more than 100 years ago. That is, the word aspirin was coined in 1899 as a label for a new product, acetylsalicylic acid, manufactured by the German textile dye and pharmaceutical company Bayer. The concoction had been a known pain and fever reliever for well more than 6,000 years, but it took Bayer, which would eventually lose control of its baby in America for more than 75 years, to create the very first drug that owed its existence to a commercial rather than a scientific or medical ethic. Yes, aspirin was the earliest offspring of the increasingly uncomfortable yet wildly profitable marriage of medicine and commerce. What with Americans knocking back about 80 billion (yes, billion) 300 mg aspirin tablets a year, to say nothing of even more billions taken throughout the rest of the world, the story of this little white pill makes fascinating reading. Besides the drug's widely known medical applications for pain and fever relief, heart attack and stroke prevention, and more, its colorful history includes drama, pathos, plot twists, humor, intrigue and even a handful of scurrilous and despicable characters."

I find it particularly intriguing because Bayer was once a part of IG Farben, the company responsible for producing the Nazi's supplies of Zyklon B, used for gassing humans in their numerous extermination camps throughout World War II, when the German military leaders decided that using bullets to execute their prisoners was too slow, and far too stressful for their soldiers. Bayer also used slave labour extensively throughout the war, using prisoners from concentration camps such as Mauthausen. They also reportedly sponsored the experiments of Josef Mengele (Google him - I'm not going into it now). One of Bayer's executives, Fritz ter Meer, was actually sentenced to 7 years prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. On his release he became the supervisory board chairman of Bayer until 1961.

I find it funny that the social conscience can be so readily placated by a head-ache pill. I suppose if a company like that are still free to trade in the global economy, IBM have nothing to worry about. Ironically, the Bayer scientist who discovered the right formulation of Aspirin, and indeed came up with the name 'Aspirin' was Jewish, and therefore never credited, with Bayer claiming it was discovered by an Ayran scientist.

As fate would have it, Bayer also discovered Heroin (which was a Bayer trademark until around 1914) and Mustard Gas (which is much more dangerous than normal Mustard), but on the flipside they also discovered the polycarbonate used for making Lego, and Levitra, used for fixing erectile dysfunction, so, you know... it's not all doom and gloom.

Update: I bought a brand new copy off Amazon.com last night. It cost me a meagre $1.98 for the book, and a whopping $12.49 for postage - I love the global shopping experience! I'll let you know how it reads...

"The greatest wealth is health" (Virgil)

There’s been a lot of talk around Australia in the last few weeks with respect to changing the current opt-in system for organ donation to an opt-out one. I am frustrated that once again the Government is playing around with an idea that has been implemented elsewhere and shown to have negligible impact on the rates of organ donors. If a person has a genuine personal, physical or religious basis for their reluctance to become an organ donor, surely they are just as likely to opt out, as the system would permit.

The bottom line is, the solution to this problem has to be better than the Government hoping that they’ll reap a windfall of organ donors because people are just too darn lazy to strike their name off the organ donor list (obviously assuming that the only reason they’re not currently organ donors is because they’re just too darn lazy to put their name on the organ donor list in the first place).

I think, as with everything in life, that people respond to financial incentives. It’s sad, but it’s just a part of the human condition.

I’m not suggesting that people are able to sell their organs. That’s a little creepy. But what if people who donate organs on their passing were to have their funeral paid for by the Government, up to, say, $10,000. How would that compare with the costs of the health system supporting someone in need of an organ until one finally becomes available? Probably great for families left behind to give their loved one a fitting send off, too...

It's just an idea, though. It's not rocket science. Rocket science is all about space-age plastics and rockets and stuff.

"There's no such thing as stupid ideas, only stupid people" (Anon.)

If Brendan Nelson’s haircut wasn’t enough of an indication that he was living in the 90s, his gallant claim that the Liberals would save everyone the heartache of inflated living costs by cutting 5 cents per litre off petrol should surely ring some alarm bells.

I’m going to make the bold assertion that Nelson hasn’t filled a car with petrol in quite some time. He was elected to Federal Parliament in 1996, at which time I can only assume he embarked on his lifetime journey of tax-payer funded cars and fuel cards. Even before that, he was the Federal President of the AMA, after three years as Vice-President (positions which I would certainly presume had similar tax-payer funded entitlements).

I’ll put it to you simply, Mr Nelson. The other day I put $60 of petrol in my car. I used my docket which cut 4 cents per litre off the final bill (another consumerist rort), saving me a whopping $1.62. Going by a 5 cent reduction, my saving would have been $2.02. Do you REALLY think you’re going to ease the incredible financial burdens on families by saving them $2.02 on their weekly tank of fuel? How the hell will a 5 cent reduction make an impact when some petrol stations vary their petrol prices by up to 12 cents between a Tuesday and a Friday?

Worse still, this frivolous token gesture is set to ‘cost’ the Government millions (and I argue the Government’s use of the term ‘cost’ here). I’d rather those millions of dollars were used for something productive, like a cheese factory.

Mr Nelson, if this is the best you can come up with, please sit down and let someone else have a go.