The New Aristocracy

The new aristocracy is the 9.9%. They have convinced themselves that they deserve to be at the top because of their superior intelligence, talent, and work ethic. And yet, somehow, those traits get passed on to their kids... but not through genetics. More through legacy college admissions and other mechanisms of privilege.

Here in Australia college really is meritocratic. You need good scores to get into good schools, and all the schools are free (you have to pay them back after you graduate, but only if you earn enough money. The point is if you are accepted to a good school you can afford to go). So what's a wealthy family to do? Private high school. Many of which charge over $12,000 a year.

Elite colleges don't have better instruction, they have better research projects. Go to an elite college and your Teaching Assistant is doing Nobel prize work as his day job. That has obvious advantages, but the point is that the advantage isn't so much from teaching skill as other factors. Factors that don't apply to high schools. The education isn't that much better at a private high school than at a public one.

What does apply, though, is sending your children to school with the children of the rich. Not just because all of the kids there are studying all of the time (so your kid does it through peer pressure) but because the connections they make will keep them in the aristocratic class more than any education they get.

“Our new multiracial, gender-neutral meritocracy has figured out a way to make itself hereditary.” - The Birth of the New American Aristocracy

And in one of the enduring absurdities that always makes me crazy:

You see, when educated people with excellent credentials band together to advance their collective interest, it’s all part of serving the public good by ensuring a high quality of service, establishing fair working conditions, and giving merit its due. That’s why we do it through “associations,” and with the assistance of fellow professionals wearing white shoes. When working-class people do it—through unions—it’s a violation of the sacred principles of the free market. It’s thuggish and anti-modern. Imagine if workers hired consultants and “compensation committees,” consisting of their peers at other companies, to recommend how much they should be paid. The result would be—well, we know what it would be, because that’s what CEOs do.

The Full Australian

I took the pledge and became an Australian citizen tonight. Now I have to accept that meat pies are an actual food item.

Sharks with lasers

Or at least twitter feeds: Australia's sharks will now tweet before attacking.

As if there weren't enough social pressure on teens to use social media, now we've added an actual evolutionary advantage. Tweet... or be eaten!

An American Halloween

I was having lunch at a burger joint on Halloween, and the staff was dressed up. It's not a big holiday here yet (we had about 7 trick or treaters all night) but it's growing.

I was the first person to recognize his costume, so he gave me a bag of Blue Crystal. I guess being an American has its perks after all. :D

The Australian Tea Party

The 27-year-old ''poster child'' of the One Nation movement did her campaign no favours in an interview with Channel Seven on Wednesday night, mistaking Islam for a country, confusing haram with Koran and drawing a blank on the nationwide disability scheme.
(Sydney Morning Herald)

The difference here is that in a parlimentary system you can have many parties (instead of just two), so our Tea Party types form their own parties (almost all of which have the word Nation in them). The Coalition (as the conservative political branch is called here) gets to separate itself from the nuttier wackos, who run under their own party banner; but they can still count on them for votes when it comes time to govern.

Of course, the problem in America is not that the Tea Party can't have a distinct identity from the Republicans; it's that the conservatives can't count on the whack jobs for votes anymore.

Politicians here and there

One of the differences between here and there is that there, Anthony Wiener sends pictures of his wiener in shorts to his girlfriends; here, Peter Dowling sends pictures of his wiener in a glass of red wine:

The letter, tabled in parliament yesterday, follows the revelation Mr Dowling had sent text messages to the woman of pornographic images of himself, including one in which his penis is in a glass of red wine.

So I guess our politicians are just that much classier than yours! Suck on that, America! Er, metaphorically, of course.

Australian TV is a libertarian's dream

Channel Nine pulls next episode of The Voice

Nine would not confirm it but, Media understands the network did not have an episode to air tonight after the "Battle" rounds concluded last night but kept the program in TV guides to fool its competitors.

Changes to programming, "foxing" with schedules, and running episodes beyond natural half-hour breaks have become more frequent as the TV ratings battle heightens between the in-form Seven and Nine networks in an effort to keep audiences from changing channels.

What's the point of a DVR and a digital guide that lets you preset recordings of your favorite shows... if the broadcasters are going to lie to the guide?

We don't watch The Voice, but we have had this problem with Big Bang Theory. You can't actually tell when the new episode will be on, and you can't just record all of them because they show four episodes a day.

Ironical

Watching Super Bowl coverage on Australian TV, and they actually uttered the words,

"let's be honest, no one really understands this game."

This from people who play cricket?

House auctions

There was a house auction in the neighborhood yesterday, so we stayed and watched.

There were about 10 families there, but when the auctioneer started the bidding, only one family was willing to bid. They started a bit low; the auctioneer eventually called a "Vendor" bid, which is to say he bid over them by $20K on the seller's behalf. They've always had plants in the audience raising the bidding, but these days they have to identify themselves instead of pretending to be genuinely interested parties. The original bidder finally made a second bid. The auctioneer outright said he was disappointed, and made another vendor bid. Then he passed the house in - that is, declined to sell

I can't imagine buying a house this way; not only am I unwilling to walk around with 10% of the purchase price in my pocket, on the off chance that I win an auction, but the deal is final: you need to have already hired a house inspector and made your inspection, because whatever state the house is in, you are stuck with. This is crazy; before I can even find out how much a house costs (because they never tell you beforehand) I have to make a full inspection? Why not find out if the seller and I can even hope to reach an agreement before we start spending money on inspections?

Immediately after the auction was over, a different family signaled the auctioneer and went inside to make an offer. The original bidder did the same. At that point it was just like an American house sale, with interested parties making offers and the seller making counter-offers. I'm not sure how final the deal was, but I imagine you could make your offer conditional on the house not having any major undisclosed flaws.

I've talked to several Aussies about this, and they all have the same take: suppose you're selling your house and somebody really falls in love with it. You could have a bidding war and the sky's the limit! Except, how ridiculous is that? People don't suddenly decide to spend an extra $50K on a house because they're impulsive. Who has that kind of money? And even if they did, the entire auction system - wherein the seller is hoping to sell for far more than the house is worth, and the buyer is hoping to find someone so desperate that they'll sell for far less - is just distasteful. It's an arrangement where both parties are hoping to screw over the other one. That's never a good business model.

The American method seems to be growing; only about half of houses go to auction these days, and half of those get passed in (to eventually be sold through ordinary wheel-and-dealing, I guess). More and more houses are listed in the ads with actual prices, so you know if it's in your range or not. This is one part of American culture I won't mind seeing displant the local flora.

Two years before the mast

I've been in Australia two years now. Honestly, it feels like one. Maybe time just goes slower on this side of the globe?

Obama's new campaign slogan

"Well, the American people aren’t stupid."

The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise; they elected Bush twice, and in 2010 gave the House back to the Republicans.

But Obama has to be right. We know the American people are childish, self-indulgent, and a little bit racist; but if they're actually stupid enough to reward the Republicans for four years of open sabotage, then democracy is over.

The poison is already spreading: Tea party tactics have snuck through customs in Kevin Rudd's luggage. Rudd was the Prime Minister, before he was ousted by Gillard in a minor coup. She gave him Foreign Minister as a consolation prize, possibly hoping that keeping him out of the country would keep him out of trouble (hey, plenty of Roman emperors tried that).

Instead, it exposed him to Washington politics. He watched the Tea Party threaten to bankrupt the nation and largely get away with it. He saw that an uninformed, self-centered populace pays so little attention that only the name at the top takes any blame; the rest of the government can hold the entire nation (including themselves) at gunpoint making idiotic demands without any negative consequences.

So now he's trying it at home. The Labor government came to power without enough seats; they had to sign on all three independents just to form a government. Losing even one seat means they can't wield a majority, which means there has to be a new election. But nobody wants a new election - even the leaders of the opposition (the Liberals) are afraid they'll lose their leadership positions. So, despite the unpleasantness, everyone tacitly agreed to just muddle on.

Until Rudd walks in the door and threatens to wreck everything unless they make him boss. Seriously, this is exactly like a mobster threatening to machine-gun both his old gang and the cops if they don't make him the mob boss.

Under normal circumstances, it is a strategy so self-defeating that only a suicidal lunatic would try it. But with America setting the fashion trend, expect more and more of it. This next election is a chance to turn it around, make it clear that irresponsible politics leads to loss of power. It may be the last chance.

Down but not out

Another reason I chose to raise my daughter in Australia.

However, the sheer difficulty of filing my American taxes almost made me give up the whole idea. And this year was easy - next year will be actually difficult, because I might not fall under the foreign wage exclusion.

Come on, America, get that dollar up. If it falls any further I'll have to start sending money home!

Anyway, I got the taxes done, and am now busy with edits for the sci-fi novel, which will now be called THE KASSA GAMBIT. I think that name goes well with the cover, so that's good. After that maybe I can get back to some kind of regular posting.

Ah, who are we kidding?

Bugtopia

I spent the day weeding the back garden. A steady flood of little beasties fled before my trowel; ants, crickets, spiders, flies, worms, and other things I did not recognize. The ground is thick, black mud which stains everything it touches.

It wasn't like this in Arizona. Nothing lived in that sandy clay. Usually not even plants. It was great!

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

I've had a nasty cold for the last week, and finally went to the doctor, primarily because I had a bunch of symptoms I've never had before. Swollen lymph nodes that only responded to regular doses of Ibuprofen (I think I've taken more Ibuprofen in the last week than in my entire previous existence) and having to blow my eyes instead of my nose.

Apparently this is a fairly common Australian virus. It makes me think of the great scene in Ursula Le Guin's Rhocannon's World where the space invaders, after several generations, finally begin to catch local diseases. Now I am a true Aussie!

On the way to the doctor's we stopped at Makker's (McDonald's, in the local parlance) and I ordered a cheeseburger, ketchup and mayo only. What I got was two buns, a soup can's worth of red and white sauce, and a slice of cheese. No burger. Seriously.

I took it back, and the shift manager had to ask me three times what I wanted. When I saw the receipt, I understood; the cashier had filled out an order for a cheeseburger sans everything, then added cheese, tomato sauce, and McChicken sauce (what they call mayo). Oddly there appears to be a key on the cash register for subtracting the patty, which shaves 90 cents off the price of the burger. Considering the mayo costs 40 cents, you have to wonder about the relative economics of their ingredients.

I think the problem was not just that the cashier was Asian and apparently had a bad grasp of English, but also that she had a bad grasp of burger culture. To her, a burger without meat was probably no stranger than a burger with cheese. How is she supposed to know what these crazy people consider normal?

I realize that this post, coming as it does on the heels of my paen to multiculturalism, might be construed as ironic, but it's not; it's just coincidental.

What I don't miss about America

22% of children live in families that subsist on less than $22,000 per year for a family of 4.  9% of American children starve on less than $11,000 per year for a family of 4.

Fighting for the Other 22%

To be fair, I looked up Australia, and its poverty rate is 15%. But the poverty line here is $26,000 a year. More importantly, the number is going down, not up.

Of course, Norway came in with 3%. I asked Sara if we could move there, but she made a face and said they speak funny. This from the woman who says "bat-trees!"

A year in Oz

Well, I survived my first year in Oz. To celebrate I had a Whopper at Hungry Jack's, which is what they call Burger King out here. It was just as lousy as the real American deal.

So what penetrating insight do I have on this august occasion? Well, two of them:

1) There's a lot more movies shown on TV. Late at night, several stations broadcast full-length movies. We've got District 9, Pitch Black, and Star Trek on the DVR now. Also, I've watched sub-titled French and Spanish flicks.

2) They show full frontal nudity on broadcast TV here. After 9:00 PM, it's presumed adults are watching, and are therefore capable of not only seeing graphic senseless violence (just like in America) but the occasional thematically appropriate nudity.

The price of health care

Regular readers of my blog - all three of you - will already know how much I've complained about prices in Australia. Everything costs twice as much. Except used cars, which oddly seem to cost the same as in the USA, even though new cars cost twice as much.

Well, I went to the dentist today for a cleaning and check-up. The total bill was $102. In America I would pay $230 for the same service, at the hands of a dental hygienist instead of an actual dentist.

Other health care services, such as hospital stays, are also cheaper. When I tell people what the bill for Sophie was, they can't believe it. Here it would have cost 1/4 as much. Now you might argue that is because the government subsidizes health care; the actual out of pocket expenses for a hospital birth here with public care are probably similar to America with insurance.

But dental care isn't subsidized by the government at all. So why is it so much more affordable?

The United States of Delusion

During my recent trip to America, I noticed something that has taken me a while to put into words. Ironically, David Brooks, mostly famous for being the most fatuously irrelevant and dense columnist to hold a slot in a major newspaper, expressed it perfectly:

(Rick Perry) does very well with the alternative-reality right — those who don’t believe in global warming, evolution or that Obama was born in the U.S.

Here in Australia, people still believe in stupid things. "Chinese" medicine is ubiquitous; astrology, homeopathy, etc. are still out there. But the amount of delusion is muted. I don't see psychic palm reading shops every few blocks, or ads for psychic readings on late-night TV. That, in itself, is not that remarkable. The difference lies not so much in New Age silliness as alternate history.

In America, perfectly reasonable people believe in facts so orthagonal to reality that they must come from some other planet. I have met wonderful, good, intelligent people who believe any or all of the following:

Social Security is unnecessary. Because apparently, in the good old days, churches and local communities took care of the indigent. Apparently in this alternate reality there were no Hoovervilles.

Taxes are theft. The concept of paying for the government services you receive does not impact this view, because in most American's minds they receive nothing from the government. They hold this view while driving on publicly funded roads, fueled by subsidized oil, paid for by a stable currency that is the envy of the world, in cars that are ten times safer than they used to be thanks to federal regulations. Literally like fish, they spend so much time enveloped by the benefits of the government that they don't know they exist.

Global warming isn't real. Or if it is, man's activities have nothing to do with it. The planet spent hundreds of millions of years sequestering carbon in the form of fossil fuels; we've spent decades releasing it back into the environment. But somehow that simple basic formula of 1,000,000 to 1 doesn't matter?

Evolution isn't real. Mind you, these same people are perfectly capable of holding an informed discussion on how antibiotics are having difficulty coping with newer strains of disease.

Obama wasn't born in the USA. This from a Democrat!

Giving tax breaks to the rich create jobs. Despite, you know, thirty years of evidence. And rich people like Warren Buffet saying, "No, it doesn't."

Government regulations are bad. Asbestos apparently never existed in this time-line. Nor did the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

Welfare queens are bankrupting the nation. Note that no one who worries about welfare queens ever, ever, complains about: the bloated, inefficient Defense industry, the wholesale theft carried out by Wall Street, or the fact that catching the welfare cheats that do escape the system would cost more than ignoring them.

Vaccinations are bad. Not just that they cause autism, but they are unhelpful and unnecessary. Because... I don't even know. Seriously, this is such a complete repudiation of the last hundred years of scientific medicine that I can't even guess what the hell they're talking about. Just look at an epidemiology chart. Any of them.

Obama is a: Socialist, Muslim, Atheist, Republican... I believe you could quite literally add any adjective to Obama's name, and find someone who believes it. Note that this delusion is not solely a feature of the Right: the Left has plenty of people who deduce the slightest nuances of Obama's character based on legislation passed by the Republican House. People project the most amazing conclusions, and the fact that they contradict each other (often at the same time!) has no more bearing than the fact that they contradict observed reality.


Again, I'm not talking about the ordinary issues of differing belief, like religion, UFOs, psychic powers, etc. I'm talking about history. Americans just seem more influenced by, and more certain of, histories that never happened. We're not arguing over the uncertain or the unknowable; we're arguing over recent history. Did polio retreat in the face of massive vaccinations? Did Bush or Obama pass TARP? Did Reagan raise taxes? These are things you can look up in a history book. Hell, most of these are things people lived through. And yet, their actuality seems fluid: their truth is either denied or declared irrelevant in the face of the desired narrative.

Invariably, I find that confronting these narratives with actual facts leads to argument, followed by silence. And the next day, I overhear the very same person reciting the very same narrative to someone else. The vitality of these alternate histories, their utter immunity to fact, is matched only by their convenience. Invariably the alternate history supports the conclusions of the speaker. This is standard psuedo-science nonsense, as practiced by every woo ever. The difference is that now it is practiced by ordinary citizens, on national politics.

Debt, war, racial tension, natural disaster: America can overcome all of those, in fact has done so repeatedly. But this? I don't know. This isn't a disease of the body politic, or poison, or traumatic injury; it is addiction.

BBQ!

Here's a picture of my birthday present:

Notice that huge, ugly flat spot on the left? That's a big iron plate. While I was at the BBQ store, I pointed to it and said, "What the heck is that?"

The clerk said all the Americans that come in say the same thing. Cheaper Aussie BBQs have nothing but a flat plate! I don't understand why; if you don't have a grill, it's not a BBQ, it's a stove. I already have a stove, thank you.

Anyway, I bought another grill rack to replace it, and cooked burgers for the Aussie relations for my birthday. I've also cooked chicken and steak on it (I think this might be Sara's present, too, since I suddenly seem to be cooking dinner twice a week). The good news is, I can eat steak again! Properly cooked, I can't tell it's grass-fed instead of corn-fed.

But at $27 a kilo, I don't think I can eat a lot of steak.

Scandals down under

Here's another difference between Oz and the US. Right now we have a major scandal developing; an MP has been caught spending hundreds of thousands of other people's money on hookers and booze. He's probably going to lose his job, and his seat will probably go to the Liberals, thus changing the balance of power in Parliament. This probably spells the end of the Carbon Tax, since the Liberals are our conservative party (Labor is our liberals. Can you imagine an American political party called Labor? Neither can I.)

The member for Dobell is a former national secretary of the Health Services Union, who is accused of paying for escort services and drawing out more than $A100,000 ($104,000; £63,000) in cash on the union credit card. Mr Thomson has claimed that other union officials had access to that credit card, and denies any wrongdoing. But Fairfax media claims to have obtained documents revealing that phone calls were made to two Melbourne brothels in 2006 from rooms hired in his name.

The scandal that could bring down Australia's government

The difference, of course, is that sex scandals happen so frequently in American government that nobody expects them to change anything.