Comments on: Wednesday Forum: January 9, 2013

By: johanna

johanna — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:12:05 +0000

Tracey, don’t feel bad. As many on Tim’s site have commented, the problem with his strategy is – how can you tell which ones are fake?

By: Tracey

Tracey — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:07:56 +0000

Oh, thank God. Stupid me. Sorry all.

By: Gab

Gab — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:07:49 +0000

After noticing the prohibitionist tendencies of this government, seeing them as a natural ally, he felt the next step was obvious:

A radical sheik … has called for Australia to become an Islamic state ruled by sharia law …

Sheik Ismail Al-Wahwah, the Australian head of extremist Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, suggested during a Christmas Eve sermon that jihad should be used to implement hardline teachings …

He said under an Islamic government, alcohol would be banned, a strict dress code enforced for all Australians and languages other than Arabic banned in schools.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/sheik_wahwah/

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:04:27 +0000

Milne is now calling for minute’s silence in Parliament to mark the tragic passing of Dennis Ferguson

Tracey, that's a Tim Blair prank.

By: Gab

Gab — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:01:20 +0000

The Obama administration is considering funding many more police officers in public schools to secure campuses … Via Instapundit, who notes: “Wait, weren’t the lefty pundits telling us that only an idiot NRA shill would endorse this idea?”

It's always different when they suggest it.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:56:24 +0000

Dan, it’s a down-market, low-rent, shitkicker colonial version of the Obama campaign: having finally, officially disavowed fisal responsibility as an objective, they will spend however much of our money they reckon it will take to buy enough votes of minorities and women to get them over the line in an election. McTernan’s 2013 election slogan will be: “Who’s Your Daddy?” It’s a cynical, blatant vote-buying exercise.

By: Tracey

Tracey — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:51:05 +0000

It seems the idiot Milne is now calling for minute’s silence in Parliament to mark the tragic passing of Dennis Ferguson, a harmless victim hounded to his death…
Christ, someone deliver us from this nightmare.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:25:56 +0000

A major flaw with Newstart, (from what I remember, things could have changed) is that to ‘access’ specific help through job agencies and what have you is the requirement that you have to have been receiving benefit payments for 6 months. You are actually encouraged to sit on your arse. You also can’t access help for retraining or specific certification courses for 6 months. Bit of a joke really.

Of course, these agencies don’t really do anything that you can’t do yourself, they exist only to ascertain your integrity. For which they require, depending on how far you have to travel, upto 2 hours out of your life, adding to the compliance cost. Swannie changed it so you can claim travel related expenses to find a job…

The whole system is a big bloody joke.

By: steve from brisbane

steve from brisbane — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:21:24 +0000

I trust you are suitably outraged by comments such as this, Tom?:

If we are to expect the unemployed to search for employment with confidence, there is no point pushing them into grinding poverty.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:46:59 +0000

Budget austerity? Yeah, right. The socialists want to throw around even more of other people's money fixing the lifestyle problems of unemployed Greens-ALP voters:

THE Gillard government has begun modelling a suite of measures to assist those on unemployment benefits, amid a growing cabinet push to deliver an increase to the Newstart Allowance payment in this year's budget. The move is designed to help the most vulnerable people on Newstart, including single mothers who were forced on to the payment after Labor tightened eligibility for the single-parent payment. The Weekend Australian can reveal that one option being modelled is to allow Newstart recipients to keep more of their payments if their number of hours of paid work increases. This option is gaining strong support inside the government because it maintains the "work first" policy while giving unemployed people incentives to look for work. A second option is for a more "moderate" increase in the dole; not the full $50 a week being pushed by welfare advocates and the Greens. This would cost the budget less, but still offer some relief to those on the low payment. The last option is a suite of options to help single mothers who will be forced on to Newstart when their youngest child turns eight. A senior source said this option could involve more education and childcare options for those mothers.