Cate's whinge re Saturday Newspaper 7 Oct 2006
OK I've just driven down and collected my Saturday's newspaper and this week
I actually got around to reading a fair bunch of it, and I'm excited ! Oh
no, sorry, that was that Queensland guy who used to say that in the tv
adverts.....
Actually I'm pretty darn peeved off by a few things I've just read......and
something else outstanding from a few days earlier.
So ok, this communique is being made available to various folks, friends of
mine, plus my 'Blog. Mostly it refers to today's paper, being the Country edition of
Saturday's West Australian newspaper 7 October 2006
Page 6, some poor guy has been charged with "reckless driving" for
travelling at 80 kmh in a 110 kmh zone. Y'say what ? Just how overpaid and
unworked ARE local police that they finding extra work for themselves.
Somewhere on the main highway (about 400 km from here) this guys old car
developed a breakdown. It was a big old Ford LTD model. Now this is a long
lonely stretch of main highway through outback areas. Coolgardie is a large
enough country town and as well as fuel stations would have food-shops and
mechanics/car repairs available.......certainly it has a well staffed police
station, most of their duties in that area being traffic patrol duties
Once out of the main townsite area, there are long stretches of open road,
no farmhouses or phoneboxes to call for help in the event of a breakdown.
Every 50 km or so if you're lucky, often 100 km or more apart, you'll find a
"Roadhouse" a sorta combined petrol station and takeaway food place (a few
of the larger better equipped ones have showers and motel rooms for
overnight accomodation) however roadhouses DO NOT have repair workshops or
mechanics on staff. Mobile phone coverage (aka cellphones) is confined to major towns only, unless you have one of those special "satellite" will-work-anywhere-on Earth type phones, once you're a few kilometres out from a major town, you're on your own.
Well this guy was in between Coolgardie and Bullabulling, some 40 km from Cg
when his old car's auto transmission stuffed up. He was able to get going
again, but only by travelling in reverse, so he was travelling along on his
merry way when a police radar speed trap stopped him for doing 30 kmh
*below* the speed limit. The newspaper article does not make it clear
which direction he was travelling in, whether just to BB to use the phone or
to Cg where mechanical repairs would be available. The article says he'd
driven about 20 km distance when he was stopped by the police.
Now anyone who's driven an auto car in reverse knows that there's nothing
terribly unsafe about it and in a short time you can quite "get the hang" of
driving rearwards in a brisk manner. After 20 km of practice, even starting
off at just normal carpark reversing speed, I reckon he'd be pretty darn
good at reversing-at-speed !
Now this poor bloke only has the money to drive an old clunker of a car and was
already having a bad day when his transmission shit itself (pardon my
language), here he was stranded miles from the nearest help on an outback
highway, he's able to get moving, underway again albeit backwards, and is trying desperately
to get back to somewhere where he can get proper help......and along come a
bunch of boys-in-blue (well actually country and outback coppers have
different uniforms, sorta Khaki coloured)... and spoil his day a little
bit more than it already was.
All I can say Is I hope he gets off when it comes up before the Coolgardie
traffic court on Monday.
I've driven lots of old cars over the years and I know what it's like to
have a previiously reliable vehicle suddenly start failing on me, sometimes
a makeshift roadside repair means you can push on a bit further, hoping to
reach some help, watching the water temp gauge as it shoots skyward, or
listening for that strange noise, and trying to get the speed *upto* 30 kmh
as the fuel starvation or ignition problem cuts in and out
periodically.......yep been there done that.
.......my last car that died on me,an automatic (but it did still keep going
forwards !) got me home with multiple stops to keep refilling the radiator,
it took some 20 or 30 litres of water to get the last 100 km home. Some
kind of major internal defect in the engine had suddenly developed whereby
cooling water was being sucked into the combustion area and blown out the
exhaust, although just for good measure, some was also finding it's way into
mixing with the engine oil......oh well I only paid $100 for the car and got
9 months regular use from it so can't complain. That model is known for
doing in their heads/gaskets as they age
...THIS ADDED on 21 SEPTEMBER 2010...I just found this on a Beaututes website...I believe this item is somewhat dated but I'm unsure exactly when it was written...I'm not sure if the url link will work properly
quoted section begins
A man who was stopped by police as he attempted to drive from Kalgoorlie, in south-eastern Western Australia, to Perth, in reverse, has been fined and had his driver's licence suspended.Scott William Poulton was sentenced in Kalgoorlie Magistrates Court yesterday after he was caught by police earlier this month on the Great Eastern Highway just outside Coolgardie driving his car backwards.
Poulton was charged with reckless driving and driving without a licence.He told officers at the time the transmission on his car had failed and the vehicle would only go in reverse.Magistrate Dennis Temby fined Poulton $1,100 and suspended him from holding a driver's licence for 18 months.He said Poulton put the public in danger and he compared his actions to driving blindfolded. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...0/s1771961.htm
quoted section ends
Page 11..... has an article on stolen cars, the procedure known as
"ReBirthing" or "Ghosting". Basically it works this way, you goto an
insurance company sell off of badly damaged cars. Buy a car of a certain
make and model. It can be a total write-off, banana shaped wrapped around a
pole then burnt out. Then you steal an identical make and model car, then
swap the body number "VIN" plate etc Now this system is well known,
depicted in the original "Gone in 60 seconds" film of about 1975. Car
insurance companies actually facilitate this kind of theft because they
deliberately leave the VIN ID plate and number plates and rego attached to
obviously written off cars, knowing that the wreck can never actually be
really re-built, and knowing full well that it will be bought at auction by
car theives, to provide the ghost identity for their next stolen car
project. When some ten plus years ago, car insurance companies were
quizzed publically as to why they were working in with car theives to
promote car thefts, their response was words to the effect that, if they
cancelled the damaged cars legal identity, such as by removing the VIN id
plates and handing them back to the government.....then they would only get
lower prices for the wrecks at auction, because the only people bidding on
such wrecks would be genuine buyers just wanting salvagable parts, it's the
car theif rebirthers who are prepared to pay higher prices for absolute
wrecks
Yep it really really is a case that "car theft, brought to you by your local
insurance company" (apologies to KM, I know you work for an insurance
company, in an unrelated area).
Actually a similar thing was going on until recently with stolen mobile
phones throughout Australia. For years and years and years Telstra and other
mobile phone connection suppliers, would happily and knowingly connect
stolen mobile phones. They didn't care, so long as they got their monthly
connection fees. If the phone when stolen was still under contract then the
original owner still had to pay out the entire connection fee anyway, so the
phone company was "double-dipping" getting paid twice over. The technology
systems in place all along could have prevent stolen mobiles from being
re-connected, (the carrier, to connect you, needs to know each phones set at
the factory internal id) but that would cut into the profit telecoms
carriers make, especially by double-dipping, so they simply chose to support
mobile phone theives. Only recently did govt and public pressure force
carriers to change their policy and come out and say, that from a certain
date onwards, they would no longer knowingly connect stolen. mobile phones.
Of course even before that racket they're making a fortune on the improper
use of premium pay for use telephone services. For almost 2 decades now
unauthorised people, often underage minors (at parent's home) or employees
at a workplace have been racking up bills of between $10,000 and upto
$60,000 in a case I heard of. Yep for *just* $5 a minute you can phone
"Sexy Sarah" and listen to her talk to you about what she's wearing or doing
or whatever, or something like that. I never called that sorta thing
m'self (20 minutes of that kinda pollava and I could buy another car instead
! ) but there's enough folks around who get hooked into an addictive
behaviour of that sort of phonecalls, leaving parents and employers to foot
huge phonebills........of course Telstra and other carriers get HALF of the
fee.....there's no way the'd wanna stop that, eh !
Page 5 ..... About 5 years ago an English family newly migrated to Perth WA
and bought a large old house (they have 4 kids and wanted a decent size
house on a large block). The house is very old and now some 5 years on they
are ready to demolish it and build something newer and better suited to
them.....including complying with the new state laws requiring new houses to
be substantially better designed, far more electric/energy and water
efficient than previously, insulation to keep it warm in Winter and cool in
Summer without having to resort to paying for unnecessary air conditioning
and heating.
Now some years back, this house was owned by members of the "Court" family,
almost a dynasty here in WA, both the father and one son having served terms
as state Premiers in the past. The Court family are very very rich and own
lots of houses and other assets, they didn't want this house anymore and
sold it and made a big fat profit and laughed all the way to the bank.
Consequently this English family have come to buy it in 2001, intending all
along to demolish it and build their own dream home.
Now suddenly, people are saying "you can't demolish that house because it
used to belong to the Court family". Note that this house IS NOT subject to
any kind of historical building preservation order, the UK family bought it
with no conditions on a freehold title.
Suddenly their application to council for a demolition permit (usually just
a formality) is held up, the Historical places people want 6 weeks to even
assess it and there's talk of the Court family buying it back at a price
they will decide "derr what !"
Look here you lot "The Court Family" this place was so UN-important to you
that you flogged it off, first chance you got, to the highest bidder. You
didn't care tuppence about it.
To suggest now that the new owners should be forced to live in an
uncomfortable old house with high energy and water bills, or sell it and
move is unfair.
I say to that UK family, *if* you choose to sell it, then offer it at
auction. With Perth house prices currently in "Pyramid Money Scheme" mode
the price will go ballistic, you can even push the price up further by
making pretend dummy bids (called politely "vendor bids" although the laws
regarding them do differ from state to state)
If the Court family have suddenly decided that they wanna own that house
again, let them buy it back at whatever the market rate, on that day, is.
If the UK family wanna demolish their own old leaky drafty dark-and-dank
pox-hole of a house, then let them !
Look it's as simple as this. The old owners no longer wanted the house so
sold it, freehold title, no Historic building preservation encumbrances. If
the new UK migrant family wanna knock it down and build something better
then ok, Live with it.
.....recent news but not in the newspaper this morning....while in NZ it
made the news that a few years before some smart alec had trademarked the
numbers 10 through to 20 in New Zealand. (how I dunno, I guess they
convinced the relavent govt patent/trademark and copyright authority that
they'd invented something new and unique I guess)
More recently NZ set up a new football team to take part in an expanded
Australian Eastern States football league. In NZ the league is known as
"Super 14" (there
are 14 players each side, in that football code). The NZ branch paid the
good old "un-disclosed sum" to the person who had trademarked the number 14.
Now if you want my opinion then they could probably have just started using
the number 14 anyway, but obviously they thought that a negotiated payment
in advance would reduce the costs of lawyers and dragging it through
interminable court proceedings (even if they were to ultimately win).
This was reported in the air of "wasn't this person so clever, trademarking
all the numbers likely to be used for future team sports events then selling
the rights later for massive profit" etc
Well yesterday it was announced that someone (being someone totally
UN-connected with the recently deceased Steve Irwin and the Australian
Private Zoo based in QLD) had taken out the appropriate web url licence on
various web urls to do with his daughter Bindi Irwin (only 8 years old but
already being groomed for tv animal shows) I dunno but I guess
"bindiirwin.com.au" ???
Well I don't support the NZ govt selling off the number 14, I use that
number myself ! (such as whenever I count the number of days in a
fortnight) however if some one has done the required legal steps to rent the
relavent urls, then I say good on them. They'll most likely end up selling
those rights onto the Irwin family/zoo business anyway, golly what a great
idea, I wish I'd thought of it myself. Maybe I could've made enough money to
buy a Perth house.....mmmmm you'd wanna do a title search going back
donkey's years, see if anyone in the Court family has ever owned it at any
time in the past. Don't want them to come a-knockin' on the door one day
saying "you're not allowed to modernise it, and I want it back !"
cheerio
Cate
Note that for your reading enjoyment a limited number of spelling mistakes
have been accidentally, err, deliberately included...have fun spotting them,
"theives" seems to have got through every time !
this email brought to you by Rubbish-Dump computer-power !
Find me at http://myspace.com/catherinejemma
check my weBlog http://catherinejemma.blogspot.com
Patsy....."So is killing NOT wrong anymore ?"
Trudy....."We don't have to worry about Right and Wrong anymore, ZOOT
decides for us"
................The Tribe episode 2:49
I actually got around to reading a fair bunch of it, and I'm excited ! Oh
no, sorry, that was that Queensland guy who used to say that in the tv
adverts.....
Actually I'm pretty darn peeved off by a few things I've just read......and
something else outstanding from a few days earlier.
So ok, this communique is being made available to various folks, friends of
mine, plus my 'Blog. Mostly it refers to today's paper, being the Country edition of
Saturday's West Australian newspaper 7 October 2006
Page 6, some poor guy has been charged with "reckless driving" for
travelling at 80 kmh in a 110 kmh zone. Y'say what ? Just how overpaid and
unworked ARE local police that they finding extra work for themselves.
Somewhere on the main highway (about 400 km from here) this guys old car
developed a breakdown. It was a big old Ford LTD model. Now this is a long
lonely stretch of main highway through outback areas. Coolgardie is a large
enough country town and as well as fuel stations would have food-shops and
mechanics/car repairs available.......certainly it has a well staffed police
station, most of their duties in that area being traffic patrol duties
Once out of the main townsite area, there are long stretches of open road,
no farmhouses or phoneboxes to call for help in the event of a breakdown.
Every 50 km or so if you're lucky, often 100 km or more apart, you'll find a
"Roadhouse" a sorta combined petrol station and takeaway food place (a few
of the larger better equipped ones have showers and motel rooms for
overnight accomodation) however roadhouses DO NOT have repair workshops or
mechanics on staff. Mobile phone coverage (aka cellphones) is confined to major towns only, unless you have one of those special "satellite" will-work-anywhere-on Earth type phones, once you're a few kilometres out from a major town, you're on your own.
Well this guy was in between Coolgardie and Bullabulling, some 40 km from Cg
when his old car's auto transmission stuffed up. He was able to get going
again, but only by travelling in reverse, so he was travelling along on his
merry way when a police radar speed trap stopped him for doing 30 kmh
*below* the speed limit. The newspaper article does not make it clear
which direction he was travelling in, whether just to BB to use the phone or
to Cg where mechanical repairs would be available. The article says he'd
driven about 20 km distance when he was stopped by the police.
Now anyone who's driven an auto car in reverse knows that there's nothing
terribly unsafe about it and in a short time you can quite "get the hang" of
driving rearwards in a brisk manner. After 20 km of practice, even starting
off at just normal carpark reversing speed, I reckon he'd be pretty darn
good at reversing-at-speed !
Now this poor bloke only has the money to drive an old clunker of a car and was
already having a bad day when his transmission shit itself (pardon my
language), here he was stranded miles from the nearest help on an outback
highway, he's able to get moving, underway again albeit backwards, and is trying desperately
to get back to somewhere where he can get proper help......and along come a
bunch of boys-in-blue (well actually country and outback coppers have
different uniforms, sorta Khaki coloured)... and spoil his day a little
bit more than it already was.
All I can say Is I hope he gets off when it comes up before the Coolgardie
traffic court on Monday.
I've driven lots of old cars over the years and I know what it's like to
have a previiously reliable vehicle suddenly start failing on me, sometimes
a makeshift roadside repair means you can push on a bit further, hoping to
reach some help, watching the water temp gauge as it shoots skyward, or
listening for that strange noise, and trying to get the speed *upto* 30 kmh
as the fuel starvation or ignition problem cuts in and out
periodically.......yep been there done that.
.......my last car that died on me,an automatic (but it did still keep going
forwards !) got me home with multiple stops to keep refilling the radiator,
it took some 20 or 30 litres of water to get the last 100 km home. Some
kind of major internal defect in the engine had suddenly developed whereby
cooling water was being sucked into the combustion area and blown out the
exhaust, although just for good measure, some was also finding it's way into
mixing with the engine oil......oh well I only paid $100 for the car and got
9 months regular use from it so can't complain. That model is known for
doing in their heads/gaskets as they age
...THIS ADDED on 21 SEPTEMBER 2010...I just found this on a Beaututes website...I believe this item is somewhat dated but I'm unsure exactly when it was written...I'm not sure if the url link will work properly
quoted section begins
A man who was stopped by police as he attempted to drive from Kalgoorlie, in south-eastern Western Australia, to Perth, in reverse, has been fined and had his driver's licence suspended.Scott William Poulton was sentenced in Kalgoorlie Magistrates Court yesterday after he was caught by police earlier this month on the Great Eastern Highway just outside Coolgardie driving his car backwards.
Poulton was charged with reckless driving and driving without a licence.He told officers at the time the transmission on his car had failed and the vehicle would only go in reverse.Magistrate Dennis Temby fined Poulton $1,100 and suspended him from holding a driver's licence for 18 months.He said Poulton put the public in danger and he compared his actions to driving blindfolded. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...0/s1771961.htm
quoted section ends
Page 11..... has an article on stolen cars, the procedure known as
"ReBirthing" or "Ghosting". Basically it works this way, you goto an
insurance company sell off of badly damaged cars. Buy a car of a certain
make and model. It can be a total write-off, banana shaped wrapped around a
pole then burnt out. Then you steal an identical make and model car, then
swap the body number "VIN" plate etc Now this system is well known,
depicted in the original "Gone in 60 seconds" film of about 1975. Car
insurance companies actually facilitate this kind of theft because they
deliberately leave the VIN ID plate and number plates and rego attached to
obviously written off cars, knowing that the wreck can never actually be
really re-built, and knowing full well that it will be bought at auction by
car theives, to provide the ghost identity for their next stolen car
project. When some ten plus years ago, car insurance companies were
quizzed publically as to why they were working in with car theives to
promote car thefts, their response was words to the effect that, if they
cancelled the damaged cars legal identity, such as by removing the VIN id
plates and handing them back to the government.....then they would only get
lower prices for the wrecks at auction, because the only people bidding on
such wrecks would be genuine buyers just wanting salvagable parts, it's the
car theif rebirthers who are prepared to pay higher prices for absolute
wrecks
Yep it really really is a case that "car theft, brought to you by your local
insurance company" (apologies to KM, I know you work for an insurance
company, in an unrelated area).
Actually a similar thing was going on until recently with stolen mobile
phones throughout Australia. For years and years and years Telstra and other
mobile phone connection suppliers, would happily and knowingly connect
stolen mobile phones. They didn't care, so long as they got their monthly
connection fees. If the phone when stolen was still under contract then the
original owner still had to pay out the entire connection fee anyway, so the
phone company was "double-dipping" getting paid twice over. The technology
systems in place all along could have prevent stolen mobiles from being
re-connected, (the carrier, to connect you, needs to know each phones set at
the factory internal id) but that would cut into the profit telecoms
carriers make, especially by double-dipping, so they simply chose to support
mobile phone theives. Only recently did govt and public pressure force
carriers to change their policy and come out and say, that from a certain
date onwards, they would no longer knowingly connect stolen. mobile phones.
Of course even before that racket they're making a fortune on the improper
use of premium pay for use telephone services. For almost 2 decades now
unauthorised people, often underage minors (at parent's home) or employees
at a workplace have been racking up bills of between $10,000 and upto
$60,000 in a case I heard of. Yep for *just* $5 a minute you can phone
"Sexy Sarah" and listen to her talk to you about what she's wearing or doing
or whatever, or something like that. I never called that sorta thing
m'self (20 minutes of that kinda pollava and I could buy another car instead
! ) but there's enough folks around who get hooked into an addictive
behaviour of that sort of phonecalls, leaving parents and employers to foot
huge phonebills........of course Telstra and other carriers get HALF of the
fee.....there's no way the'd wanna stop that, eh !
Page 5 ..... About 5 years ago an English family newly migrated to Perth WA
and bought a large old house (they have 4 kids and wanted a decent size
house on a large block). The house is very old and now some 5 years on they
are ready to demolish it and build something newer and better suited to
them.....including complying with the new state laws requiring new houses to
be substantially better designed, far more electric/energy and water
efficient than previously, insulation to keep it warm in Winter and cool in
Summer without having to resort to paying for unnecessary air conditioning
and heating.
Now some years back, this house was owned by members of the "Court" family,
almost a dynasty here in WA, both the father and one son having served terms
as state Premiers in the past. The Court family are very very rich and own
lots of houses and other assets, they didn't want this house anymore and
sold it and made a big fat profit and laughed all the way to the bank.
Consequently this English family have come to buy it in 2001, intending all
along to demolish it and build their own dream home.
Now suddenly, people are saying "you can't demolish that house because it
used to belong to the Court family". Note that this house IS NOT subject to
any kind of historical building preservation order, the UK family bought it
with no conditions on a freehold title.
Suddenly their application to council for a demolition permit (usually just
a formality) is held up, the Historical places people want 6 weeks to even
assess it and there's talk of the Court family buying it back at a price
they will decide "derr what !"
Look here you lot "The Court Family" this place was so UN-important to you
that you flogged it off, first chance you got, to the highest bidder. You
didn't care tuppence about it.
To suggest now that the new owners should be forced to live in an
uncomfortable old house with high energy and water bills, or sell it and
move is unfair.
I say to that UK family, *if* you choose to sell it, then offer it at
auction. With Perth house prices currently in "Pyramid Money Scheme" mode
the price will go ballistic, you can even push the price up further by
making pretend dummy bids (called politely "vendor bids" although the laws
regarding them do differ from state to state)
If the Court family have suddenly decided that they wanna own that house
again, let them buy it back at whatever the market rate, on that day, is.
If the UK family wanna demolish their own old leaky drafty dark-and-dank
pox-hole of a house, then let them !
Look it's as simple as this. The old owners no longer wanted the house so
sold it, freehold title, no Historic building preservation encumbrances. If
the new UK migrant family wanna knock it down and build something better
then ok, Live with it.
.....recent news but not in the newspaper this morning....while in NZ it
made the news that a few years before some smart alec had trademarked the
numbers 10 through to 20 in New Zealand. (how I dunno, I guess they
convinced the relavent govt patent/trademark and copyright authority that
they'd invented something new and unique I guess)
More recently NZ set up a new football team to take part in an expanded
Australian Eastern States football league. In NZ the league is known as
"Super 14" (there
are 14 players each side, in that football code). The NZ branch paid the
good old "un-disclosed sum" to the person who had trademarked the number 14.
Now if you want my opinion then they could probably have just started using
the number 14 anyway, but obviously they thought that a negotiated payment
in advance would reduce the costs of lawyers and dragging it through
interminable court proceedings (even if they were to ultimately win).
This was reported in the air of "wasn't this person so clever, trademarking
all the numbers likely to be used for future team sports events then selling
the rights later for massive profit" etc
Well yesterday it was announced that someone (being someone totally
UN-connected with the recently deceased Steve Irwin and the Australian
Private Zoo based in QLD) had taken out the appropriate web url licence on
various web urls to do with his daughter Bindi Irwin (only 8 years old but
already being groomed for tv animal shows) I dunno but I guess
"bindiirwin.com.au" ???
Well I don't support the NZ govt selling off the number 14, I use that
number myself ! (such as whenever I count the number of days in a
fortnight) however if some one has done the required legal steps to rent the
relavent urls, then I say good on them. They'll most likely end up selling
those rights onto the Irwin family/zoo business anyway, golly what a great
idea, I wish I'd thought of it myself. Maybe I could've made enough money to
buy a Perth house.....mmmmm you'd wanna do a title search going back
donkey's years, see if anyone in the Court family has ever owned it at any
time in the past. Don't want them to come a-knockin' on the door one day
saying "you're not allowed to modernise it, and I want it back !"
cheerio
Cate
Note that for your reading enjoyment a limited number of spelling mistakes
have been accidentally, err, deliberately included...have fun spotting them,
"theives" seems to have got through every time !
this email brought to you by Rubbish-Dump computer-power !
Find me at http://myspace.com/catherinejemma
check my weBlog http://catherinejemma.blogspot.com
Patsy....."So is killing NOT wrong anymore ?"
Trudy....."We don't have to worry about Right and Wrong anymore, ZOOT
decides for us"
................The Tribe episode 2:49
posted by Catherine Jemma at 1:15 pm
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