ANOTHER HUGE GOVERNMENT BUNGLE

"Australia's Child Support Agency is grossly mismanaged and driving dads onto the dole queue, according to a new report.

The PIR Independent Research group report found many dads were opting out of the workforce because they faced the prospect of losing up to 62 per cent of their after-tax wages in child support payments. As a result, the CSA system had driven up the unemployment rate for separated fathers to more than six times the national average, it said.

More than 70 per cent (221,375) of all unemployed men aged over 20 in Australia now pay child support. With more separated dads on welfare, children now received less money than before the CSA was set up in 1988 - just over $48 a week then to about $36 a week now. "PIR Independent Research has reached the conclusion that the child support scheme is the primary driver of unemployment in Australia," it said. "On top of high income tax rates cutting in at low levels, separated fathers can be left with less than 20 cents in the dollar".

More here.

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ELSEWHERE

Krauthammer summarizes well the treacherous attitude of the Kerry campaign towards one of America's real allies -- Australia. Despite the efforts of the Kerry campaign, however, Australia is not likely to desert the USA in Iraq. We have heard the same bleats from our own Left ad nauseam.

A good summary here of possible Kerry campaign involvement with the forged "Rathergate" memos.

Laura Ingraham: "Intellectuals around the globe -- lost and adrift for years after the failure of socialism -- have largely settled on anti-Americanism as their new ideological vehicle of choice."

And a good saying from Winston Churchill: "'All men are created equal' says the American Declaration of Independence. 'All men shall be kept equal' say the Socialists."

The Czech farmer's goatsmilk cheese. Be glad you are not in the EU. EU officials are trying to prevent willing customers from eating the cheese.

Further to my post yesterday about Turkey joining the EU, it looks like it is not going to happen. This statement seems to typify the French attitude: ""We do not think accession negotiations should be opened with Turkey ... because to bring Turkey into the European Union is not consistent with our concept of the European project and it is not good for Europe," he told a news conference. Toubon called for a special partnership with Turkey rather than offering it EU membership" The French have already had a gutful of Muslims from North Africa so want no more of them.

Abortion. Typical Leftist inconsistency. Pro-Life Democrats get a hard time now: "The Democratic party is the party that should be pro-life," Day says. "We should be the ones to speak out for those vulnerable in our society --those who don't have a voice." Marginalized by their own party, overlooked by campaign donors, attacked by pro-choice groups and targeted by Republicans seeking to win their seats, many pro-life Democrats live out Hobbes's dictum that life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short..... "It is really tough for a pro-life Democrat," Day says. "There is so much pressure on members to change.".... In the 95th Congress (1977-78), the Democrats had a 292-seat majority that included 125 pro-life Democrats. In 1976, then-candidate Jimmy Carter opposed public funding for abortions. Emerging leaders like Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, and Jesse Jackson Sr. were all originally pro-life.

A good point from a reader: It is perfectly consistent for Christians to be opposed to both abortion and euthanasia. Both stances are pro-life. But how come Leftists are generally ANTI-euthanasia while being PRO-abortion? How come a mother is empowered to kill her baby but a sick person is not empowered to kill himself?

Looming retirement realities: "In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, President Bush revived several initiatives from his first presidential campaign. Not the least was a pledge to 'fix' Social Security by letting younger workers invest some of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts. Opponents of modernizing the Depression-era system quickly jumped on the proposal as too costly. But such criticisms are penny-wise and pound-foolish. Trying to keep the ailing system going another generation will wind up costing taxpayers far, far more than making reforms today. Demographic realities -- the increasing longevity of Americans and the mass, looming Baby Boomer retirements -- make it impossible to maintain the current system indefinitely."

Get government out of science: The big myth about scientific research is that government must fund it. The argument is that private companies will not fund science, especially pure science, for fear that their competitors will "capture" the fruits of that investment. Yet, in practice, companies fund pure science very generously, and government funding displaces private research money..... Zvi Griliches of Harvard University, in a study of 911 large American companies, discovered that the companies that engaged in basic research consistently outperformed those that neglected it... "Current Contents" magazine recently reviewed the institutions that produced the largest number of cited papers in biology, and two of the top seven were private companies.

Acidman very kindly recommended this blog yesterday but I was a bit amused at his comment: "Some people write really well, in spite of public schools". I did indeed go to a public school but that was 45 years ago and I actually learnt Latin grammar there: Hard to imagine in most of today's public schools. But, if it did happen today, it would still work to help people write clearly and logically.

I occasionally get grumbled at for not having a "comments" section on this blog. One reason why I do not is that there seems to be a great preponderance of low-quality comments on other people's blogs -- though Gene Expression is a notable exception to that. I am always pleased to get emails, though. Most of the links that I put up are in fact ones that readers have kindly mailed in to me.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They have put up a man whose policies seem to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though they have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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