BK> Some of us pay attention, but too many get bought by
BK> advertising spending.

 We're in election-mode too. Next month we discover if a Prime
Minister can take us into an unjustified war spouting ridiculous lies
about WMDs and the terror threat and get away with it. I used to think
that Australians were too cynical to be taken in by advertising, but I
was given a terrible shock at the *last* election when they bought a
pack of lies, hook line and sinker.

 Advertising works. God help us all.

BL> And we've just signed a FTA with the US. Aaargh!

BK> Well, take comfort in the fact that we will probably both
BK> suffer for it.

 You don't have to worry about cheap Oz labour...

BK> One of our traveling engineers told me they set up a factory in
BK> Mexico where the machinery is all on steel pallets, so they can
BK> just pick them up and move them.

 ROFL! I saw that back in the 70's when ITT moved in here to make
semicondutors (to sell here). It was a lovely plant, immaculate. They
put the whole thing on a Boeing 747 one weekend and flew the whole
thing complete, to Brazil!

BTW, here in Sydney we've just had the mildest winter on record, with
an average of 20C (68F) and hardly any rain. Now it's Spring, it's
cold, and it's hailing! The lawn has gone under an inch of hail stones
(little ones, thank goodness), the gutters are overflowing.. oh shit!
They're getting bigger. The poor old car is taking a beating. But on
the upside, I won't have to prune the hedge. It's like a Xmas card
outside. I'll be able to go skiing... they're up to marble-size now,
but it's okay so long as they don't get up to golf balls. And it's
cold! Bloody hell. I cut the grass last week, after winter, and now 
there's two-inches of ice on top.

 I haven't seen that much hail for years...

BL> If you need the perfect way to build a poor country up, look at
BL> Singapore, or even Hong Kong.

BK> I doubt they are all that perfect. They trade freedom for
BK> money, and they get taken in the end.

 Oz is the refuge for Asia. We got Dutch immigrants out of Indonesia,
Vietnamese, South Africans... and at the time of the HK takeover there
was a flood of HK Chinese into Oz to escape the Communists. There are
not many coming now and there never were many from Singapore... quite
a few from Malaysia, though. I've always thought that wealth and
freedom were pretty-much the same thing. If you're wealthy, you want
the freedom to spend it; if you're poor, you can't make much of a fuss
if you are not free.

... I've just come in from a snowball fight with the bloke across the
street! I think I won, I had bigger balls. There are two-inches of ice
on my lawn! It'll kill it. Wish I had a snowboard... I could ski down
the hill before it turns to slush.

BK> No dictator's main concern is his people. In the end he will
BK> sell them out.

 There have been notable exceptions, and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore
is one of them. Julius Caesar and Augustus did rather well as
dictators, Cromwell, Peter the Great, even Deng in China. A dictator
is no different from a President or even a King, there are good ones
and bad ones, it's just that democracy makes it easier to remove the
bad ones. In fact, Lee was elected continuously for 30 years. I don't
like the two-term policy in the USA, btw. I you get a good one, why
not keep electing him?    

BK> The leader's vision is only good in the short term at best. The
BK> culture must incorporate a good vision or it will fail.

 A "culture" does not have a vision, just a heap of individuals with
individual concerns, none of which bear any relationship to a single
direction... which is why we elect leaders, one man or one party to
lead where the majority want to go.. and even then we don't get what
we voted for. It is my belief that a leader's vision is only good for
the long-term, that short-term is for the apparachiks of political
parties.

 It is so long since we have seen a great leader that we think hacks
leading us day-to-day is all there is. Kennedy had vision, even LBJ
although he was mired in Vietnam, but what has there been since? Here
in Oz, we have to go back to the 60's to find the last leader with a
vision for this country. Admittedly, the twit we have now has a
vision... screw the poor, bash the needy, help my rich mates, and
smile while I'm doing it.

BL> Clinton was flawed, obviously, but compared to this latest dill
BL> you have running the show, he was the two Roosevelts in one!

BK> Daffy duck could claim that.

 ROFL! I love it! It's disthpickable.

Regards,
Bob
      

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