It's All Downhill From Here

The weather has continued to be quite pleasant - mostly sunny but not too hot. Round 3 of the Downhill MTB Nationals was held over the weekend drawing a good crowd of competitors and onlookers. Luckily the snow depth indicators were not required ;-)

I have found it very encouraging to see the Thredbo ads on Ten TV during the Winter Olympics. A well thought out and executed plan. I'm not sure how widespread the campaign was but I did hear of sightings from as far away as Sydney.

And it's less than 4 months to the official start of the Australian Ski Season.

Practice runs before official racing begins

A little dusty but only minimal after recent rains

A great day for the officials to lounge in the sunshine

Rnd 3 of the National MTB downhill titles in Thredbo 2014

Air-time is good time

Spectators gathered all over the mountainside

Taking the family out for the spectacle

And a spectacle it was

Now just to throw in a ringer - here's one from Marion from
Villars sur Ollon

Ah, so much to grump about and so little an attention span ;-)

Life Imitating Art:
Listening to the excuse after last week's raid by Federal Police on Channel 7 you could be pardoned for thinking it was straight from the 1985 movie 'Brazil'. In 'Brazil' an innocent man is persecuted to death because of a 'bug' in the typing, while the AFP say their raid was a mistake due to a word processor error. God help us all! 'Brazil' should be compulsory viewing at every high school.

But wait there's more - because you're entitled to it:
We are hearing the government keep saying: "The Age of Entitlements is over". Does that mean that they will repeal the recent maternity leave package for high income earners? What about politicians wages, pensions and allowances? Of course not - they wouldn't stop or cut back their "entitlements".

And in regards to recent statements from government about Medicare co-payments: "If people can afford more they should pay more". Well, either I'm missing something basic here or the government is playing you all for fools. Isn't Medicare funded by a percentage of income tax? The more you earn the more you pay - therefore if you can afford more you already pay more. If government needs more funds for Medicare shouldn't it simply raise the percentage taken from people's income tax? Taking a co-payment from all is a sneaky way to tax the poor - it is not a percentage based tax it is a flat rate tax.

Now don't get me wrong, if indeed as I suspect, the problem with Medicare is because some are abusing the bulk billing system then the abusers should be dealt with rather than punishing everyone for the misdeeds of the few. With all Medicare payments being digitally recorded it is really easy to see who might be abusing the system and easy to ask for a "Please explain". Making the poorest pay more will only put people off seeing medical help until their condition deteriorates so badly that it costs the system (i.e. the taxpayer) a whole lot more. Prevention is better than cure. Well that's what they used to keep telling us.

Here endeth today's rant ;-)