“Why was she paid to do something using facilities and staff already doing the job and paid for by the government? … there was no provision for the additional load.

What on earth did the million or so pay for?”

A departmental head doing something to earn his bloated salary would call in the manager who ordered the extra work to make his case as to why he should not be sacked by interview’s end.

They treat their authority to spend my money for no good purpose as applause.

Go JC!

A leading health academic has called for fat people to be ‘shamed and beat upon socially’ in order to halt the obesity crisis.

In a controversial article, Daniel Callahan, the 82-year-old president emeritus of The Hastings Center a New York think-tank specializing in health policy ethics, calls for increased stigmatization of obese people to try spur weight-loss across America.

The senior research scholar says fat people should be treated like smokers who have become increasingly demonized in recent years and thus ‘nudged’ by negative attitudes of those around them into giving up the unhealthy habit.

The Cat is always on the cutting edge. Always.

“About this Peris Enterprises thing.

Why did the government pay her a million dollars to use facilities and people to conduct health checks when the government already provided the health workers and clinics?”

From “The Nova Peris medicine show” at Quadrant, by Roger Franklin, Editor:

“Unfortunately things did not work out quite that well, as a scathing independent audit of the programme established:

The centrally-driven approach to the Child Health Check Initiative meant that there was insufficient consideration of the needs of the people, systems and processes already operating in the NT … for many health services the checks were a disruption to normal clinic business and other services were sometimes suspended while the checks were carried out.

This represented a significant opportunity cost as staff attention was diverted to conducting the checks, supporting visiting teams or working to overcome community scepticism and fear about the checks.

…

Once again, a big song and dance. And, once again, for all the PM’s talk of remedying Indigenous neglect, nothing more tangible than symbolism – “tokenism” if you are inclined to be blunt. One more exercise in the theatre of the six o’clock sound-byte.

Meanwhile, as the dollars flow from Canberra, black kids are out in the mulga and going deaf for lack of attention to simple ear infections. Lofty words, millions spent and very little to show for any of it.

Despite what her critics are saying, when she arrives at Parliament House, Peris might just fit right in.”

Once upon a time a lousy reference from a previous employer meant one did not get the job.

In this case the very same employer is ignoring unequivocal advice commissioned by it and offering a promotion to one of the very top jobs!

That organ of record, A Current Affair, has a video report.

Why did the government pay her a million dollars to use facilities and people to conduct health checks when the government already provided the health workers and clinics?

The old man’s birthday (86th) is one reason, and I found a book in a military bookshop in Parramatta about the gear they wore in the Korean War. Right down to the underwear. He was rapt, and spent most of the afternoon with a magnifying glass looking at the photos and picking out insignias etc.

One thing I noticed was that every single photo (there were hundreds of them) depicted a moonscape. Utterly desolate, absolutely nothing but dust or mud or snow.

He explained that the Japanese destroyed every single thing as they were leaving. He said, if there was a a sapling, or a shrub, or an outhouse, they flattened it. The people were the poorest of the poor. They literally didn’t have a pot to piss in.

He’s been back, and South Korea is just a marvel. North Korea is just like when he left. He still hates fish sauce and kimchi with a passion, though.

As for Nova, it’s typical that Gillard picked someone with no political sense at all. In my experience, after 200 years of dealing with “gubbas”, many Aboriginal people have a very acute understanding of how government works. There is no shortage of such people in the NT, either.

But, she didn’t use her ‘captains’ pick’ to choose anyone with demonstrated ability or a track record, because the consequences could only be embarrassing.

Meanwhile, as someone upthread noted, Senator Nigel Scullion is out and about cooking magnificent food wherever he goes.