Dead1

15 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Centerlink tried sanctions on people about 2 decades ago and it was deemed illegal so I don't know that any government department would be allowed to actually do it. For some it would definitely work, shit for some just being told to fuck off and calm the fuck down might actually work but again governments just wouldn't allow such things.

 

 

Government makes the laws so any illegality is due to their own lack of understanding of their own legal systems.  Again it's overcomplicated.  

Our legal system is basically overcomplicated and dysfunctional.  

One of the big problems in Australia is that government services are now a dumping ground for the lower socio-economic.  Eg middle-upper class will access mental health through private providers who won't admit lower socio-economic types. These private providers are still government funded to some degree (NDIS might be 100%, other healthcare might be 50% or less).

Government services are  not allowed to say no.  Hence you get some lower socio economic person stuck on a waiting list for underfunded overbooked government operators whilst the middle-upper class go their government subsidised private providers.

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Entitlement is something people from all walks of life have. It's not always the same entitlement, often it's vastly different but it exists everywhere and that makes it harder for all humans to get along. I've seen CEO's with it, I've seen mid level workers with it, I've seen shit kickers with it. We're all humans, we all have it to some degree, even those who deny having it, and we all let it escape when it suits us. I don't think there is one group who displays it worse than another, but there is definitely people who display it worse than others.

 

I think today most people are entitled.  It's endemic.  

The shit people can get away with now and the shit people expect is a lot more than what it was when I started working at the turn of the century.

On 9/7/2023 at 8:38 PM, JonoBlade said:

Inexplicably my daughter has decided she likes war movies.

We watched "Dunkirk" the other day which she declared the greatest movie ever made (most recently held by Mary Poppins 2 and practically every other movie she sees until supplanted by the next).

.

 

Dunkirk is awesome.

There's always the old classics - Kelly's Heroes, Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Guns of Navaronne, Cross of Iron, Where Eagles Dare, Battle of the Bulge, Dirty Dozen, Bridge on the River Kwai.

Enemy At The Gates is Ok.  So is modern version of Sahara (1995 with James Belushi).  Platoon.  Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima are good too.

And Black Hawk Down - now there's a movie!  Definitely Saving Private Ryan and Band Of Brothers. Sniper and Hurtlocker are good too.

Tour of Duty was a great Vietnam War tv show.

I also enjoyed the new Rogue Heroes tv show  about the formation of the SAS and LRDG.

1 hour ago, Sardonicist said:

 

For me as a child Das Boot was amazing. 

Fury (2014) is a good one. 

 

Das Boot is awesome.

Fury is shit.  So much rubbed me the wrong way with that movie and the last scene is just the dumbest fucking thing ever filmed.

Oh and I like Cross of Iron - very gritty.  

Yep some people are just cunts.

Hence the need for sanctions to keep them somewhat in line.  Ideally these should be social sanctions ie social repercussions of acting outside of norms (eg ostracization, sense of humiliation and embarrassment).

However in a hyper-individualistic fragmented society, social sanctions no longer work.

So make them actual sanctions - ie client was rude so the staff member terminates their engagement with the client.

But also true cunts are reasonably rare.

Entitlement in the workplace is indeed a big problem.  But IME it didn't start with low level shit kickers.  It started with high level managers whose salaries became insane, who delegated more and more work whilst pushing for things that made life harder for workers.

High level execs never used to earn as much as they do now.  In 1965 a CEO might earn 15 times more than their average workers.  Obviously wealthy but not as obnoxious as it is now (351 times average wages).  In fact executive remuneration grew 1322% since 1978 compared to only 78% for workers (in America - Aussie stats also show this but can't be arsed looking for them).  Executives don't even have to grow revenue anymore to get bonuses which are tied to share prices.

But executives did more work back then and also tended to get sacked if they fucked up.  Now they swan around in meetings and get golden parachutes if they fuck up.

Hence entitlement.

This sense of entitlement then trickled down and has now reached the workers and it's only now viewed as a problem.

Part of the solution is to lead by example - smash executive and high level managerial salary to more acceptable levels, make them responsible for failures. 

Apply same to everyone.  Hard for workers to refuse to work or meet deadlines if the now much less paid executive got sacked for failing to reach KPIs.  

Oh and the current system entrenches social welfare.  My mother-in-law is on a pension and can't afford to really live on it.  Hence she wants to work.  However they start slashing your pension if you earn any amount of money.

Current aged pension is $1,096.70 per fortnight for a single person which is $28,000 a year which is well below $69,888 median income.

If you're a couple, amount is reduced to $826.70 per person ($21,494 per annum, combined $43,000).

But if you work and earn more than $204 per fortnight ($360 combined for couples), they start cutting your pension.

So you have some segment of population that would like to still keep working in some fashion, you can't because they don't gain anything for doing it.  It just increases their vulnerability because low hour work is often casual.

Same applies for the unemployed.  A single person on unemployment benefits gets $693.10 per fortnight ($18,020 per annum).  And if they earn more than $150 per fortnight in paid work, they lose welfare.  Easier then to stay on welfare.

In my 20s I used to work and lose money. After petrol and cutbacks to welfare, I was about $50 worse off a week!   I kept a job simply because it made me more employable.  

40 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

You have no idea what I do and don't do. I pay what I am legally obliged to pay for the work as outlined in the job description. If people work harder, they get a bonus, if they don't, they don't come back. I'm currently in talks with an agency about hiring a group of special needs people who wouldn't ordinarily be offered such work, because most of those people actually want to work and are happy to be employed, But in doing so it appears I need to pay 1, maybe 2 supervisors, depending on how many workers I get, because there is chemicals involved. But you keep assuming the worst while it makes you feel better.

No I don't know what you pay.  But "legally obliged to pay" generally means paying Award rates in Australia.  As stated those are minimums, not prescribed rates.  

(Now I don't know if paying over Awards rates would impact your profitability too much.  But that is capitalism).

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So I see you don't have an actual solution to government workers being treated like shit.

 

No idea what line of work your sister in law is.  Call centre could be anything.

But to be honest from what I can see, improving how people treat government employees requires following.

Some of its macro, some of its micro:

1. Services designed to actually deliver outcomes.    Services should be part of a holistic system.  We know for example financial stability is linked to mental and physical health.

So services should be designed as part of a whole system designed to meet some sort of standard of living.  

2.  Greater transparency

3. Greater accountability for leadership including ministers.

4. Greater promotion of actual equality.  If system is perceived to be unequal or unfair, people will be hostile from onset.

5. Reducing emphasis on risk management.

6. Greater communication between services.

7. Reducing number of service providers and reducing complexity.  Currently many of our services are a messy intertangled web.  You can get bounced around a fair bit trying to access services.

8. Reducing crony capitalism (eg what happened with QANTAS)  as well as emphasis on corporate profitability (eg electricity and gas supply).

9. Reinvest in public education instead of private education (fucking scrap private schools entirely).  

10. Actually implement deliverable KPIs, review them and then fix things that don't work (blame cultures are not good).

11. Some cultural re-brainwashing might be necessary.  We live in an over-tolerant society - ie we are expected to tolerate everything including bad behaviour (customer is right mentality which is very corporate/capitalist).  Introduce penalties for nasty behaviour.  Again be transparent about it.  If Bob didn't pay his power bill, was offered an authentically helpful set of solutions and then told the government person to go fuck themselves then department is no longer obliged to help them.

12. Oh and design services to be sustainable.  Fuck me, I've seen some unsustainable doozies that we've implemented over the years.  Literally designed to fail if 1 person goes on sick leave or services expected to go permanently but funded on 1-3 year funding cycles.

13. I could keep going.  I periodically try to do some of that stuff at my work.  I used to do more.

But when my suggestion and hard work gets flushed down the toilet because some manager doesn't like the fact I've pointed out their pet project is unsustainable or they're stripping duplicating services or they refuse a reasonably full proof yet simple solution in favour of some convoluted personal idea with many potential points of failure then I give up.

TL:DR

- Make services simpler for plebs

- Actually deliver what is expected/promised

- Be accountable for your fuck ups.  But citizens should be accountable for their behaviour too.

- People with full stomach and safe roof over heads are far less likely to be angry or arseholes.  Society seriously needs to reintroduce some 1930-60s social democracy concepts to alleviate these issues.

Thrash Metal by far.

But I like all of those other ones apart from Deathcore.

I don't think Nu-metal counts as most nu-metal had no metal, no punk and was just rap and/or alternative rock.  Basically Faith No More on steroids.

50 minutes ago, Spiderlix said:

 

Death Metal (Wikipedia says it,but i don't feel so much punk here)

 

Not so much in American death metal but certainly in European DM like Carcass, Entombed, early Bolt Thrower.

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(I think it's groovy thrash mid-tempo coming from hardcore)

I think metal did mid-tempo first.  Hardcore was originally very fast.  

1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

I pay what I'm supposed to according to the law, which makes the rest of your wage argument pointless.

 

Actually you can pay more.  Awards are the bare minimum for each industry/profession.  You can enter individual bargaining agreements and choose to pay more.

Like most Australian employers, you are choosing not to do it.  I can't blame people for not then wanting to work for you.

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No, people should have to put up with shit in their job but while the general public continue to be cunts someone has to deal with them or government services don't get delivered. Better service requires more staff to run things better, more staff can't be achieved while people wont take the well paying jobs offered. It's catch 22, but by all means if you've got a way to solve the problem of people being cunts that actually works propose it, otherwise it's just more hot air.

Better services usually require better management of resources and better service design. 

You can throw as much money and staff as you want at a service but at some point there is no value added.  In my department we are now the most bloated we've ever been.  Are services better delivered?  Fuck no.

You can throw as many nurses at a mental health patient but if the nurses are demoralised and demotivated because their bosses do as they please and make life difficult for them, then they won't put much effort in.  If you see your bosses not turning up to work on time, not doing any real work and then promoting people based on friendship you're not going to be happy and perform well.

Unrealistic KPIs don't help either.  

Call centres are notorious for it (there's several here in Launceston and everyone from my wife, my ex-brother-in-law, several friends and colleagues have worked in them). 

In my job I am more and more unmotivated.  My pay and conditions are excellent.

But what I do is of no value as my bosses don't act on anything that I do, refuse to make any decisions, barely turn up to work, don't communicate and play political games.  

Blow back is some of my colleagues are now refusing to do work they're paid for unless they got more "support" (ie underlings to delegate all the shit work).  And I am sitting here wasting time on Metal Forum!

The expectation from bosses is do the work and shut up even if what they are doing is corrupt or even dangerous.

It wasn't like this in 2005 when I started in government (though private was).

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Who said anything about expecting others to work a 70 hour week?

I added it in cause it is an expectation with a lot of employers to do additional hours and often unpaid.  One of my first jobs required dozens of hours of unpaid overtime a fortnight including on public holidays.  I refused to do it and left.  I guess that made me arrogant and I should have just put up with it.

38 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I would just like to say for the record that I think this band gets shat on way too much and their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th albums are phenomenal.

Totally agree 100%.  Mid-late 1990s COF were on a real roll.

30 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

I agree with the dude about arrogant workers.

I was talking to the hay cutter I've used for the last decade yesterday and he says he's already back logged because he can't get enough workers and his current staff are running backwards even before the season really kicks off. WAnd I usually get one of the local agencies to find me a few people to do odd jobs like spraying and weed control in the spring/early summer and at $50 an hour I can't get anyone because farm work is too hard.

 

You want to play capitalism well then you have to pay employees more.  It's the laws of supply and demand.

Always find it hilarious capitalists (including small business people) want to get the big bucks but don't want to pay their workers for it.

And why is it OK for big corporations to jack up their prices but not for workers to demand better pay and conditions for their labour?

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here my my sis-in-law is (government department) they need 50+ people to work phones but can't get anyone because no one wants to deal with the general public who constantly get angry and abusive on the phone.

So people should put up with being treated like shit?

And the amazing thought that has never crossed the minds of senior executives including those in government - offer better service and you won't have as many angry customers.

But that involves investing serious money and probably some hard work by those executives.  And we can't have that.

It's cheaper to offer shit service and then have some crappy helpline to act as a safety valve and the illusion of doing something.

As for tradies near every tradie I know used to work 6-7 days a week. When it's not working on site, it's at home getting quotes, invoicing, servicing equipment, picking up supplies etc (probably like your life on the farm).  Most of that is unpaid work.  (And then one carpenter I knew being required to do some free work on his boss's house over weekend just to keep his job).

One builder I knew quit well before COVID and became a garden maintenance guy because he literally never saw his kids.

So I guess it's only fair they want some work-life balance.

What's wrong with that?  Why should we slave 50-70 hours a week?    In the 19th and 20th centuries people were literally killed fighting for better working conditions.

Why should people still keep working in shit conditions?  Why should they accept abuse from customers or employers?  Why should they do unpaid overtime?  Why should they let their bosses run their lives?

Also what do you think about this?  1700 illegally sacked workers just won a court appeal against QANTAS for their sacking. The airline was deliberately trying to water down their rights and protections.

Is that arrogant workers?  Or should the workers just suck it up and get lower paid jobs with the new contractors?  

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-13/high-court-rules-in-qantas-twu-battle-over-ground-crew-staff/102848684

But more critically can you see why more and more employees no longer offer any loyalty to their employer?  The system is breaking down.  For every action there is a reaction.  Rich fucks rorting  workers and eroding their livelihoods over 30 years would eventually lead to those same workers thinking "fuck you". 

And with death of unions and collective bargaining in many workplaces, most workers are doing the only thing they can - silent quitting, ceasing to do unpaid overtime and taking advantage of the flexible working arrangements (eg lower hours) companies themselves championed for 40 years. 

12 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I think Tony mentioned that they have the master tapes for this so it could be remixed. The production has been universally accepted as bad ever since it was released, which overshadowed its actual content.

 

I find production is a real killer for me.  Content can't override production. 

3 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Of those early metalcore acts you mentioned I had only fleeting awareness of Hatebreed and Earth Crisis, and never heard either of them mentioned as being 'metalcore' as it were.

 

Much like groove metal term, metalcore wasn't really used in 1990s.  I did hear metallic hardcore though and metalcore is just a shortened version of that.

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Things might have been a little different in the areas of the nation that I was in at the time, but even the oldiest and moldiest metalheads I knew would give Hatebreed and even DRI along with the entire hardcore scene a passing scoffing remark at best, and a lot worse if they'd even been mentioned as being in the same galaxy as metal proper.

Depending on who you talked to back then, a lot of metal wasn't metal.   I've met black metallers who denied Iron Maiden was metal.    

Scene's a lot more accepting and it's been acknowledged metalcore and crossover were legitimate metal/hardcore fusions (but also thrash, death, speed and black metal are also punk/metal fusions!).

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I might've been a bit too young, I suppose, but I just never really learned to think of those early metalcore acts as  prototypical 'metalcore', and typically associate the term with the weird burst of At The Gates + breakdowns acts that were suddenly for no apparent reason bloody everywhere post 2010-ish.

Did you get into the scene in 2010s?

I only ask cause melodic metalcore really broke out in early 2000s - Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall (who started out as melodic DM), Darkest Hour, Trivium, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains (also started out melodic DM) and Unearth. 

KSE's Live or Just Breathing was the first biggish success and that was released in 2002.

By 2005 melodic metalcore was a fucking plague - it was everywhere.  Even older Swedish DM bands like In Flames and Soilwork became more metalcore.

I fucking hated it at the time though I did like Shadows Fall and Lamb of God.  LOG were associated with the scene but their music didn't really fit the mold and was closer to Pantera.    And Shadows Fall started off as OK melodic DM and kind of went down a mainstream thrash pathway (think Death Angel's 1990s output).

35 minutes ago, Sardonicist said:

Pantera will hold a prominent place in my listening agenda for the rest of my life. I have zero time or interest in anything influenced by Pantera. Like I would rather listen to Transylvanian Hunger 10,000 times than listen to a new low fi black metal album. 

 

I find some of the stuff influenced by Pantera really does appeal to me - Lamb of God, first two Machine Head, some Prong, Skinlab, Vision of Disorder, White Zombie and even occasional Devil Driver and even Hellyeah.  Also a fan of some of the groove metal-ified thrash ala modern Onslaught and Testament (who still write good albums today for the most part).

Note most of those are from 1990s.  I find a lot of the modern stuff lacking in song writing, riffs and intensity that Pantera or first two Machine Head albums had.  

Plastic production doesn't help with modern stuff but then that's the whole goddamn mainstream and sub-mainstream metal scenes today.

Probably only modern metal music I enjoy is blackened speed/thrash metal with odd death metal album thrown in for good measure (though nothing beats the late 1980s/early 1990s for DM).

Cradle of Filth - Bitter Suites To Succubi

The revamped version of The  Black Goddess Rises is savage! 

Kreator - Phantom Antichrist

Last album of theirs I was interested in.  It's already getting too melodic too samey and certainly overpolished.

However still has enough good riffs, song writing and intensity to be worth a spin every so often.

Vision of Disorder - Imprint

Still one of my favourite albums of all time.  Metalcore done properly.

White Zombie - Astrocreep: 2000

Rifftastic and a ton of fun.

1 hour ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Just because they got heavier instead of lighter doesn't mean they weren't chasing fame and fortune

 

Pantera started off as a glam band.  Of course they were chasing wealth and fame.

In fact by 1987-88 so was nearly every single thrash band.  So was Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.  By 1992-93 so were most death metal bands!  Metal was becoming big business with lots of opportunities for rock stardom.

Pantera were never Celtic Frost or Metallica or Kreator - there was no extreme metal edge or hardcore punk values in Pantera between 1981-90.

As such they could never really sell out in 1980s as the initial premise was commercial success playing the most mainstream form of metal.

And their transition to heavier stuff wasn't just adopting thrash metal 101 which would have been the obvious way to do it (ie sound like Metallica or Slayer).

They actually had their own sound.  Closest was actually Sacred Reich's American Way (released in May 1990 by the time which Pantera's CFH was also already recorded).  Exhorder was still far heavier and more extreme than Pantera.

And note Pantera got heavier whereas nearly every other band with any level of success just got less extreme in that same time period.  Eg look at Metallica, Death Angel, Carcass, Megadeth, Anthrax, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Prong, Entombed, Death etc etc.  Oout of thrash bands only Slayer and Testament got more extreme in early 1990s - literally keeping up with the times and Pantera.

Far Beyond Driven went number 1 in the US and at the same time nearly every thrash and death metal band was effectively selling out in a bid to stay relevant.

You'd think a more "heavier downtuned percussive approach" would actually have done them wonders like it did Pantera.

But Pantera offered something reasonably unique.  They also fit the zeitgeist of the 1990s  - technological innovation, Rodney King riots,  mainstream acknowledgment of gang violence, realisation of American dream not functioning as promised etc.

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high production values 

Given Pantera's origins as a glam band, they probably would have wanted to have a crystal clear mainstream sound from the start (think Mutt Lange on Def Leppard's Hysteria or Bob Rock on Motley Crue's Dr Feelgood)!

The better production was the result of being signed to a major label.  All metal bands did it as more cash became available - I mean listen to Carcass' Symphonies of Sickness or Morbid Angel's Covenant etc and compare to their earlier sound.

And credit where credit's due, 1990s top end metal production is the peak of metal production in my opinion.  It's not plastic and sterile sounding unlike today.  Terry Date's work on Pantera is some of the best in the biz in my opinion.

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Their influence on metalcore though... I think it's a case of them being just as strong of an influence there as they were on nearly every other genre to come up around that specific time frame. It's too ubiquitous to tack onto metalcore in particular, and, as you pointed out, a stronger point of reference by far would be Gothenburg styled melodeath plus breakdowns.

The original 1990s metalcore (Vision of Disorder, Integrity, Earth Crisis, Overcast, Merauder, Hatebreed etc) had nothing to do with melodic death metal.  It was influenced by groove, death, thrash and sludge metal.

The Gothenburg inspired "melodic metalcore" scene is a late 1990s innovation which incorporated elements of the original metalcore scene with melodic death metal and emo vocals.

Eg

One personal favourite is Vision of Disorder and especially their album Imprint.

38 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

I don't really know that much about Nirvana. I know their radio songs, but beyond that I have very little idea. A mate of mine borrowed Hormoaning from the video shop and kept it because paying the fine for loosing the CD was cheaper than trying to find it in store once it sold it's initial print run. I listened to that, but nothing else.

 

That's fair enough.  Used to be hard getting anything in back in the 1990s and early 2000s!

I listened to Nirvana a fair bit when I was a teenager, dropped off in late teens but then got back into them in 2010s after I had remembered there was music other than metal.

Crowbar - Crowbar

50 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Nirvana's In Utero is getting a 30 year anniversary release this year, it apparently has 52 tracks on it. I didn't know Nirvana had 52 songs.

Those extra songs are probably just demos and live versions - the usual pointless fillers.

They did apparently have 102 songs though that list does contain a few covers.

https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/no-apologies-all-102-nirvana-songs-ranked-626/

Nirvana - Incesticide - for a compilation of B-sides this is quite a surprisingly coherent release.  Again some great alternative rock.

In a real nostalgic mood.  I miss being young and I miss the 1990s music scene!

The sound grates and the song writing is nothing to write home about.  Zero the Hero is a decent tune though.

3 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Obviously both Pantera and Slayer were influential bands, but you're going to end up chasing your own tail trying to make the case for an equivalence of that measure. It's important to remember that Pantera also had some very distinct phases where the genre hopping in an effort to gain commercial appeal is almost comically obvious. As much as the remaining members might disavow their glam material the fact is that it's part of the Pantera catalogue (and in my opinion what little remainder of that 'glam' melodicism there was as they moved further toward Dime's more natural blues rock style is probably the reason Cowboys From Hell is the only Pantera album I still enjoy). 

Not sure how Pantera's earliest days is pertinent to the discussion.  

Pantera certainly didn't genre hop for appeal - noting they were playing the most trendiest kind of music in 1980s (glam). They started shifting to a heavier approach throughout the 1980s but note both the Abbott brothers had an interest in thrash metal - Dimebag was offered a slot in Megadeth in 1989 and both the Abbott brothers were friends with Metallica in the 1980s.

Phil Anselmo never was glam - he joined Pantera at age 19 and his first album Power Metal was a far heavier album than the previous 3 glam ones.

Pantera just got heavier despite collapse of heavy metal as commercial music.  Cowboys From Hell was heavier than Power Metal, Vulgar heavier than Cowboys, Far Beyond heavier than Vulgar and Great Southern Trendkill had some truly extreme moments.

Note by the time Trendkill is out, metal is commercially dead.   Pantera could have trend hopped to write a nu-metal influenced album (like Sepultura).  Instead they did it their own way and wrote probably their most extreme record despite the commercial scene.

Reinventing the Steel was more similar  to Vulgar in terms of heaviness but again there was no trend hopping to nu-metal or emerging melodic metalcore scene.

7 hours ago, Spiderlix said:

Can we say Pantera influences on early metalcore it's like Slayer to death metal?

Pantera certainly is a massive influence on metalcore - bands like Earthcrisis, VOD, Integity and then later KSE etc.  Many of these bands have never denied this.  

Pantera also had an influence on extreme metal including thrash and death metal - that more muscular approach and chunky sound that is common now comes from Pantera.  In death metal you can see the impact of Pantera on albums like Domination by Morbid Angel or Diatribes by Napalm Death or Wolverine Blues by Entombed.

(Yes I know Exhorder is a thing.  So are Sacred Reich, Forced Entry, etc... but I doubt Exodus or Testament were channelling those guys in 1990s).

Melodic metalcore was basically Swedish melodic death metal crossed Pantera with some emo vocals thrown in.  Pantera was one of the first bands to really do breakdowns eg This Love.

As for Slayer and influence on death metal - definitely yes.  But I think it was more Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits that directly influenced death metal than Reign in Blood.  Core death metal visionaries like Possessed as well as Chuck Schuldiner were already down that pathway by the time that Reign In Blood came out.

You can actually here that progression if you listen to Hell Awaits -> Seven Churches -> Scream Bloody Gore. 

Alice In Chains - Dirt - party like it's 1992.

Nirvana - Nevermind

Certainly not metal but a damn fine alternative album!

At home sick so things get to be louder than usual when the family are around.

Cancer - To The Gory End

Dark Angel - Leave Scars

Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Misanthropic Euphoria

Pig Destroyer - Head Cage

7 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Pantera - Far Beyond Driven

Great to see I am not the only person who listens to Pantera here.

9 hours ago, navybsn said:

Many people regardless of discipline in positions that direct purchasing budgets, especially in government service, make questionable decisions. I will say however that there are many regulations when it comes to purchasing that dictate what and who you can buy from. So basically, your hands are tied by folks much higher on the food chain (legislators). I would agree though that more scrutiny on who is issued what is the right angle. I have a government issued phone myself, but I only ever use it when on travel. I do need it, but it only sees use a few days a year.

We have no functioning regulations at all.

We do have rules on paper eg spending limits, supply contracts, approval chains etc.

But adherence is non existent and pretty much voluntary.  There are no repercussions for not following them.  

Even budgets are voluntary eg one service was given $10 million per snnum  for new services

Their plan will cost $16 million pa to run. This isn't scope creep- it is the initial plan.  I have advised every one up the chain of this.  No one cares.

Given all senior managers are mainly nurses or doctors,they don't care about finances or financial accountability and transparency.  They don't even care about service delivery.

Indeed two senior executives eho got caught engaged in fraud, corruption and data manipulation were merely stood down with expectation they would quietly resign.  No charges laid.