Govt considers amending underage sex laws

[DesDownunder]

Like many similar issues, we have not had any further reports on the matter, none that I have seen anyway.

Australia's personal freedoms have been affected by the world's reaction to terrorism and the overly paranoid and officious desire to curb illegal practices at the expense of those freedoms. Sadly, even our left wing parties and governments have vacated the values of human arts and principles for the sake of authoritarian rule...in my opinion. However as I read the reports on violence and the right wing's attempt to be even more aggressively authoritarian, I doubt I would like to live anywhere else...maybe Canada if they work out how to make it warmer. Australia hasn't quite yet abandoned its object of "a fair go for all," but our politicians have wrapped it in a large amount of 'red tape.'

Sometimes, it can't be helped but to wonder what the blazes the politicians are being fed.

[Cole Parker]

I doubt I would like to live anywhere else...maybe Canada if they work out how to make it warmer.

I understand they're working on that. They have people coming across the border in Minnesota, Michigan and North Dakota, purportedly to purchase drugs that aren't available on their nationalized health system, but really carrying large trash bags which they fill with our salubrious warm air and take back. I also understand they first tried this in Maine, but found the air there was colder year around than in Winnipeg in January.

C

[DesDownunder]

Unfortunately the US health for profiteering system affects the costs of running fair and equitable national health systems in other countries.

In those countries the population is shaking their heads at what appears to be the US system of going bankrupt to pay for medical treatment.

I'm quite well aware that no health system is perfect, but I'm way to far politically left to entertain any idea of privatised medicine being the best option.

To my mind the health of the people is as much a collective public concern as any other government infrastructure. And that's before we even get to the principle of compassion for our fellow citizens' suffering, deprivation and extreme poverty. Any society should be able to recognise the wisdom of sustaining a health service that keeps its workers in productive good health without financial ruin. Anything less is much the same as leaving the slaves to die without any sense of the real cost to the community, let alone the injustices generated by the 'user pays' system.

If any country wants to overcome their freezing weather conditions, may I suggest that they offer free accommodation and annual vacations to our Aussie politicians; they seem to be filled with an abundance of hot air.

[Bruin Fisher]

I doubt I would like to live anywhere else...maybe Canada if they work out how to make it warmer.

Hang on in there, Des, Canada, like everywhere else, is getting warmer - about half a degree celsius per decade, according to some. According to others, of course, global warming is a big Commie plot to deceive honest god-fearing Americans into parting with their money for crackpot renewable energy schemes, as if we didn't have plenty of oil for everyone!

[Gee Whillickers]

I doubt I would like to live anywhere else...maybe Canada if they work out how to make it warmer.

Yup, we're working on it, and working fast. Just a few more years of ripping up pristine wilderness to extract, expensively refine, and burn dirty tar-sands should release enough CO2 to make our climate roughly akin to Equatorial Guinea.