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King Arthur's Pasties and Bakery
King Arthur's
All about King Arthur's
Taste our yummy Pasties!
All kind of cakes and pasties ready within minutes. Try one. Call Flint:810-234-0350 or Grand Blanc:810-695-6502 Today !
About King Arthur's Pasties and Bakery
King Arthur's Pastries and Bakery started in 1968 by Art Bowden. 45 years later the tradition is still going at 2 locations. Current owners, Judy and Randy Holdorf, have operated the business since 1998. Specializing in pasties, pies, cookies, and cakes, including wedding cakes.
We pride ourselves on customer service and the quality of our goods. Everything is homemade.
What people say about King Arthur's Pasties and Bakery
Jeff B. Upper Marlboro, MD
This is one of the greatest places on Earth! Hands down, the best pasties and baked goods I have EVER had. I have been enjoying King Arthur's wonderful food for more than 20 years now. I moved away from Michigan to Washington, DC ten years ago and every time I come home to visit family in Waterford, I always make the drive up to King Arthur's to load up on freezer packs of pasties. It is well worth the one and a half hour round trip. Everything here is made from scratch. The crust they use in their pasties and pies has completely impressed a number of old-school pie crust aficionados in my family who have been making scratch crusts forever as being the best crust they have tasted. The pasties are just wonderful.
Dan L. Grand Blanc, MI
My family lived in Marquette for a year when I was 13. They served pasties in the school cafeteria at least once a week for lunch. I got beat up a lot in school, especially at lunch time, so I don't have many good memories associated with pasties. Whenever I feel like I'm having too good of a day and could use a punch in the gut, I head over to King Arthur's for a frickin' awesome pasty. I have yet to surrender a King Arthur's pasty to a bully. I don't think they know I go there. They have good desserts too.
Lisa W. Grand Blanc, MI
I have only had their cookies, but the cookies are great! I love the sugar cookies best! They are thick with frosting...yummm. I had the zucchini bread too which was great! Not open on Sundays though!
mike s. Linden, MI
if you're not up north, come here for pasties. good in the microwave too. haven't tried much of their baked goods but really, how could you go wrong? chinese place next door is also really good.
Mushy187 Flint, Michigan
Not that there are a lot of places you can find pasties outside of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but after spending a few years in the UP for school I still get a craving for pasties every once in a while. King Arthur's Pasties are the best I've had outside of the UP. They also have a wonderful selection of other baked goods, most of which I've sampled, and I've yet to find one I don't like. It's not a dine in experience, so plan on taking your food home to eat, but it's definitely worth checking out if you like Pasties.
Mark S Grand Blanc
their pasties are quite good... their sugar cookies are the BOMB...omg, they are so buttery and flaky! I usually go there for the cookies only.....
Flint Location
1261 N Ballenger Hwy Flint Township, MI 48504
Hours Mon - Fri: 8:00 am - 7:00 pm Sat: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Grand Blanc Location
2259 E Hill Rd Grand Blanc Township, MI
Yelp! Flint
King Arthur's Pasties 9 reviews
1261 N Ballenger Hwy
Yelp! Grand Blanc
2259 E Hill Rd
King Arthur's Pasties and Bakery © 2020. All Rights Reserved.
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When worlds come together their fates collide. . . .
:: Yokohama Share
What intentions they have...only they know.
Reputation Points : 1
Name: Haru
Species: Vampire
Subject: Re: What intentions they have...only they know. Tue Jul 28, 2015 3:03 am
The moment she had moved against Shin, he was there standing in front of him, his cold, hateful glare raining his malice down upon here as he made her body freeze in place, paralyzing her where she stood. "I do believe you've forgotten your place Ao..." he mused lowly, his voice cold as he licked his lips.
"Should I kill you? Should I beat you? I wonder..." he mused as he stepped forward and held out his right hand, bringing it towards her with an intimidating presence that was almost crushing on its own. Yet even as he stood there, his hand coming towards her, she wouldn't be able to move and so he stopped moving his hand towards her. He was too strong to just crush her- that would make a mess. So, to put her back in her place, he just settled for taking a step back. However, that wasn't a normal step back. The rhythm was different, faster and seemed to make after images of Juro.
Without a second step, Aoife's knees buckled and she went down on them, leaving here kneeling down before him. "No...killing you is too easy...hurting your pride is much more amusing...do you remember now Ao? Do you remember why you're not allowed to stand when you do things like this?" he asked her lowly as he stood there, looking coldly down upon his older sister.
Name: Kirameku Takusen
Aoife went wide eyed as she couldn't move her body trapped by her brother who had suddenly moved between her and Shin. And then....no....she was on the ground it had all been in a matter of mere seconds, only seconds and she was there once again reminded of the grand difference between them. "Hai..." she answered lowly she knew....she over stepped. It was one thing to nag about school to whine at him and complain about going but another all together to overstep her place and attack....what he deemed as 'his'. That was her mistake she had misunderstood even if the boy himself didn't understand Juro wanted him....and so he staked a claim in him and now....now woe be to any fool who tried to take him. Ao knew she was spared Juro enjoyed his dominace over her but....no one else would be. Should they harm Shin he would crush them. He would kill them without a second thought. Shin wither or not he realized it belonged to Juro now. Just not in any way he could possibly understand.
Shin had not felt the piecing burn of her claws swiping his skin and so he had opened his eyes to see the deep red of Juro's hair before him, his back to Shin as he stood between Shin himself and Aoife and she frozen in the room mid step mid stance unable to move just like that and then....Juro stepped forward and then back....almost seeming to...trip out of place but that wasn't right, it was like he was stepping through his previous steps all at the same time in perfect step so quickly without missing a beat that she ended up on the floor kneeling with him above her demanding to know if she knew....why she was not allowed to stand when she did things like this. And she answered with a simple yes.
Shin himself stood within the doorway looking between them as she knelt there staring at the floor. As Aofei remained where she was and spoke again.
"I will not touch him." She said lowly closing her eyes she still could not move would not be able to until he let her. Until he let her go....she may be a rank above him but he was in a different world then her....she couldn't compete. She was far to playful enjoyed her games to much...but..."I didn't know he was yours...I thought....he had...done something to you...that he had some power as a Tod Hund to harm you..." That he had gained some power from the Death Hound side to over take her brother her mistake he was still very much Juro. "I won't cross that line....not again....not now that I know..."
Shin glanced at Juro and at Aofei....*his*? The way she said it was not in any context he had ever heard before. Aoife didn't speak as if Master and hound. Of control....The way she said yours held a different tone to it that he didn't understand at all because of his isolation.
Juro smirked as she turned her gaze down to the floor, exactly as she should have done to start with. "Now you remember....good..." he said lowly, coldly as he moved past her, ignoring her like she didn't matter. "Make sure you don't forget again...next time, you'll lose the body part that touches him with ill intent ...understand Ao?" he mused as he moved away and sat down on the couch to glare coldly at her back.
"You know that the Tod Hund have no such abilities...your master's selfishness has rubbed off on you...it's ugly..." he told her as he sat there, crossing his right leg over his left. "If I let him look me in the eyes, you should know by now that I'm letting him do it...remember the others? You must remember the one I promised to gouge my eyes out for...turns out he wasn't worth the respect though..."
Aoife would have nodded if she could but she could not move....only keep her eyes down cast upon the floor as she knelt there. Her master's bad habits were rubbing off on here and it was ugly in other words....Juro disapproved highly of her actions and any further....any punishment her master could give her was nothing compared to her brother. "I...remember him." She said lowly. The one he said he would the one who he fought for and the one in the end who was not worth his time at all. Aoife closed her eyes he allowed him to look into his eyes. Allowed him that contact and brought him home. She fell silent and simply accepted her place there on the floor....kneeling until down cast until Juro would let her up.
Shin looked at her a moment longer as he stood within in the doorway with it closed behind him before he stepped down moving to walk in past her he knew better in his own right then to argue with Juro about what he was doing. To say he was wrong for stopping her was saying she was right for going to tear into him for walking into the apartment. It wasn't like there world was all sunshine and Roses.
Aoife followed the movement of his feet with her eyes along the floor noting where he was going although she didn't speak as he walked towards where her brother had gone and sat down. She had done the deed but he....he was a creature that was barely fed and while her. "Will you allow me to to amend and fix dinner for you and your gu...for you and Shin?" She asked..amending in the end and addressing her brothers guest by name....welcoming him into the Den....Aoife knew until she did....until she accepted him Juro would not be very forgiving at all. .they unlike Vampires did actually Eat. And not just people. And Aoife for all her faults could cook...."I will make it...." His preferred favorite which she had a rather dislike for...but he brought home a guest and by while she wasn't a servant usually she had dinner just about ready by now....if not ready. Things done....instead she had been plotting to harm Shin for not other reason then she was acting like her master and that had upset Juro. Aoife was playful but out here....she was a homebuddy she loved tending to things here after school and never minded having things ready making things to eat and treats....and Juro's way of thinking about others even though he punished her always first like this was rubbing off on her making her open her eyes more and more instead of being a mindless dog to her master.
Subject: Re: What intentions they have...only they know. Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:18 pm
He sat there looking down at his older sister. His anger was apparent, but it wasn't the fact that she acted like her master that angered him. No, what angered him the most was that she had went to do just the same as every other hound and attack an innocent man when she was above that- when she had been raised not do things in such a manner. Because they weren't very far apart in age, Juro had taken up a role in raising them both, making sure Aoife had been raised with at least some morals. Not all Kerberos had to be moraless idiots. When their parents wouldn't raise them anymore, Juro took on their role and learned things just for the sake of being able to teach his older sister so she could be able to fend for herself. But when she got older and allowed someone to put a Torque around her neck, she started to change. It was an ugly thing, holding yourself higher than others because you had rank or title...it was disgusting.
"You called him a filthy piece of trash earlier, did you not?" he asked lowly as he looked at her. "When you show how you've forgotten how I taught you...I can only see how much of a piece of trash you've become..." he told her lowly. It was harsh, but it was how he felt. He couldn't get his point across with soft, gentle words. That wasn't him any more.
He looked away from her though, his eyes moving away to let his angry gaze fall upon the far wall. "When I let you go..." he began lowly as he looked back at her again. "You're going to apologize to him and then you're going to bow to him in respect before you go make dinner. Do you hear me?" he asked lowly, coldly as he released her slowly from her paralysis.
Aoifei closed her eyes. "Yes." she said she didn't have the power to fight him for all of her power she was weaker then him and she knew it. But to hear that when she acted in such a manner she herself had become nothing more then trash, such words hurt. Aoife felt the power left from her she knew when it let go and when it did she stood much more gracefully then when she went down and then turned until she was facing Shin. He stood there the subtle tension in his shoulders....he wasn't smiling but he wasn't frowning he was hidden away behind sunglasses so she couldn't see his eyes but that wasn't an issue here little things she did notice was nervous ticks. Despite everything he was the one who even now....and instead of feeling thrilled she realized that although Juro was protecting him here in this apartment, he did not feel safe.
Aoife for all of her faults was not one to repeat the same one more then once. If she had she would not have lived long with her brother. She walked towards him but stopped at a polite distance and then bowed, as a lady of the court dipping her head low. "I am sorry to have spoken in ill offense and out of term I will not make such an offense again. " Aoife said no longer speaking as if he was vile but as she would to her brother rather polite although she wasn't a servant she was the only female so taking care of dinner and different things around here was part of her 'training' growing up as taking care of the den. She knew this. "Please have a set and rest dinner will be ready shortly, and I will see to a change of clothes for the night and tomorrow as well, as well as prepare a place for you to stay...." She said bowing once again showing the more proper respect she was supposed to be not because of rank or station but because she was welcoming someone into there Den, and Although he was younger he was 'Alpha' or Den male and wanted him there and she was 'Den-mother' only because there was no other for one and his sister it was her responsibility to see that his chosen were well taken care of. Aoife had....allowed herself to become what those who put the collar around her neck wanted her to be....not what her brother had told her they were meant to be. At one time they were a much different noble race not the heartless beasts on chains that tore each other apart now. And he had chosen Shin to part of there Den.
Shin looked at her and nodded. "Thank you..." he said after a moment's pause and Aoife upon his words of thanks turned and bowed to her brother a small nod of the head before walking into the kitchen where she set about to make dinner as he moved over and took off his sunglasses and went to sit down...Shin was blinking though he had never seen the actual way a Kereberos Den was supposed to be. Aoife Was high ranked for a female but among the males.....her strength wasn't the same. Shin looked towards the Kitchen Aoife wasn't crying she didn't even bat and eyelash at being scolded she had done wrong and accepted it she busied herself in the kitchen as she moved about gathering things to make dinner.
Juro's angry gaze followed her until she disappeared into the kitchen. Even if he had released her of his powers, he was still very angry with her right now. When he could no longer glare angry, hateful daggers at her, his gaze moved to look back at the door. For all of his kindness and gentleness, he was also a cold, hateful man. He had worked hard to teach his sister the things she'd need to know in order to survive among them, and yet she almost constantly did things to spit in his face. It was annoying.
After a long while of silence though, he he sighed and closed his eyes. If he didn't try to calm himself down, he'd never get to sleep tonight. "I'm sorry for my sister..." he said lowly as he opened his eyes to look at Shin. An apology- a rare event for Juro. "I taught her better than that, but she's spent too much time with her master now...I've got to reteach her slowly..." he explained and shifted, raising himself up slightly so he could take the pair of scissors out of his pocket. If they were in reaching distance....he'd use them on her before the night was out. He tossed them lightly to Shin to avoid hurting him. "Here...I want you to start holding onto those for me...only give them to me when I ask for them at school..." he told Shin lowly as he moved to get comfortable again.
Aoife moved about the Kitchen as she set about making the first and then the second dish, getting things together for the third part and the final desert after. She should have by all rights had this going earlier. It was her place to take care of home....so when did she....She paused looking at the wooden spoon on the counter top when she was taken in by her master and the Troque placed around her throat. She had not the power really to deny it as much as many had thought she did. Not then. And now? She knew not a single hound alive that could remove there own Troque the only one to even come close was sitting in the other room with Juro. The Curb hanging from his....broken. She set the second dish to cook and worked on the third and here she paused as she looked at the spice rack.
Of all the dishes this one was her brothers favorite but this spice....she lifted it up was something that Kereberos adored mostly but....Shin wasn't a full blooded Kereberos and would the dish suffer? No...not really it would taste slightly different. She looked at the spice and picked up a different one safer for the half breed and put that one instead setting the one that would make a Tod Hund ill not on the shelf but back on the wall next to rarely used spices. She would use it now only to make something small as a special treat for Juro.....but the risk of it harming Shin and was too great and she had found the floor once tonight her brothers ire was not so quick to calm down. The last dish was a desert she was fond of not too sweet not to tangy but she thought that he might enjoy it and set that in the fridge to set as she began setting the table in the dinning room. Aoife just hoped that Juro did not get angry with her again....for altering his favorite dish so much...by taking out the one spice that gave it, it's kick....
Shin easily caught the Scissors as Juro tossed them to him to him an also apologized to him for his sisters treatment of him. Shin looked at the red handled blade something that Juro was never without but he knew why. Juro didn't want to kill her with them. He nodded. "thank you." he said looking at him and then slipped the blades into the pocket of his black leather jacket where Juro could see that he was not hiding them and that if he asked Shin did have them and could give them back. "I'll return them when you ask for them at School." He said in agreement as he relaxed in the chair but the scent of the food caused him to turn his head towards the kitchen after a while he had never smelled anything like it....the scents were rich....it made the place smell incredible.
And then Aoife was in the doorway to the dinning room off the Kitchen and looked at them. "Dinner will be ready in about forty five minutes. Juro, Shin did either of you need something to drink in the intern?" She asked and she looked at them. Dinner would be a while yet....she was late.
Juro's anger still wasn't calmed completely, and at the sound of her voice, he narrowed his eyes. Even if she was asking a simple question, it made him want to get away. He was too close to her right now. Even though he wanted to leave, he wouldn't. He couldn't go lock himself up in his room like he normally did when he got this angry. It wasn't fair to Shin to just invite him here and then lock himself in his room. "I don't want anything..." he said lowly, coldly as he turned his head away from the direction her voice was coming from. As long as he didn't look at her, he would be okay.
When he was calmed a little again, he turned his gaze to look at Shin again. "Shin's your name right?" he asked lowly, but his voice was different when he addressed Shin when compared to how he was when he addressed his sister. It changed only slightly. "Why are you sitting by yourself? Come here and sit beside me..." he requested lowly, scooting over to the end of the couch to make room for Shin to come and sit.
Shin looked at her and shook his head no. "No...no thank you..."He said after a moment he wasn't thirsty and would wait for the meal anyways she nodded and stepped back into the dinning room she had made the mistake and knew that her brother would not really wish to speak with her. She disappeared back into the kitchen.
Shin blinked and heard him looking over at him as he said to come....sit beside him why was he sitting beside himself. He almost blushed and took a deep breath after a moment and got up hesitant and walked up to the couch sitting down he was so nervous suddenly. He took a deep breath as he sat there so very nervous as he sat beside Juro on the couch. He swore he could feel all the heat rushing to his face to be asked to come sit so close to someone....and he did as requested but still. His sunglasses off in his jacket pocket the scissors in a pocket as well. He took a deep breath and looked down at his lap a moment before turning his head slightly just enough to be able to see Juro out of the corner of his eye....his voice lost to him at the moment. Walking beside him and talking was one thing but this was different, so very different and he was so very nervous all at once not because he thought Juro was suddenly going to hurt him. That wasn't it at all.....he after a moment as he was hot took off his jacket and laid it with everything in it carefully over the arm of the couch beside him out of the way. "Alright...." he said after a moment's pause once he settled jeans and muscle shirt only now.....but nervous he swore his whole body might as well be light and all Juro did as ask him to come sit down next to him it wasn't that big of a deal right?
Juro watched him move over to sit beside him. Shin was still so nervous. It was so hard to make someone relax when he hardly ever did it himself. Without really thinking too much about it, he moved, laying his head down in Shin's lap and closed his eyes. He wasn't really worried about his sister anymore, she would keep quiet now that she understood things.
"You're warm..." he grumbled lowly as he rested his head there. He didn't worry much about anything else now. This was his main focus.
He blinked when Juro suddenly moved and decided to use him as a pillow and then grumbled about him being warm?? He looked at him blinking as he said that and rose and eyebrow as he said that and sighed of all things to complain about warmth was not something he had ever heard of as he closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly. He brought one hand up and around before it came without thinking to rest on his head so that his fingers moved through his red hair in a soothing manner. "Oh is that a bad thing?" he asked as he looked down at him having never had anyone complain about him being warm before. A half breed sure warm no. The entire time he asked though and the funny thing was he calming down right now which was odd since here was Juro putting his head in Shin's lap but Shin was without thinking playing with the thick soft red locks....a unconscious habit....because he had put his head there....
"I think that's the first time anyone's grumbled about my being....warm.." he mused. Trash, and everything else....but Shin wasn't tensed.....although he wasn't thinking about it he didn't stop to think wither or not Juro would find it offensive that Shin was playing with his hair.
Juro relaxed even further at the sensation of fingers running through his hair. "Mm...no...it's not a bad thing..." he said lowly as he yawned a little. Now he remembered why he didn't like people playing with his hair- it made him sleepy. "I've never..." he began lowly, the thought stopping half way though. Never what? Never been pet? Never used someone as a pillow?
He sighed and spoke again though, more certain of himself this time, "I've never been close enough to someone to let them touch me...I've never been pet or done this before...I'v never...felt how warm someone else could be before..." he admitted lowly. Even his sister. He had never been comforted or even felt the warmth of someone else's body heat before.
Shin listened to him as he seemed to get a bit sleepy? Relaxed as if he was falling asleep. He said he had never been like this before. "Do you want me to stop?" He asked although despite his words his fingers continued to gently play through his hair, if he wanted it stopped he would but at the same token....Shin himself was relaxed as he looked at Juro was himself. That anger that he seemed caught up in mere moments ago seemed to have let him go.
He continued the red hair was like river or red silk falling between his fingers and yet Juro himself had never been close to anyone? Not even his own sister like this and yet with Shin just after meeting....then again he had reached out and grabbed Shin's wrist and pulled slightly almost as if a silent plea not to leave. So he sat here on the couch with him relaxed as he played slightly offering this comfort. But now was this why Juro sought him out? Was it because he thought perhaps Shin was someone he could be comfortable around.
Aoife set the first dish out and the second in the heavy metal serving plates with lids to keep it hot. the second dish and third.....she was putting the finishing touches on right now having no idea at all that right now...Juro was doing what he never did....with anyone. He was relaxing and allowing Shin to touch him.
He moved, snuggling up closer to Shin, turning over to turn his head into Shin's stomach, his face burying into the material. "No...it feels....good..." he breathed as he insisted on grabbing hold of Shin's shirt. It wasn't something anyone had ever seen before, but it was happening now. Juro who had never been soft or gentle with anyone since he was a young boy was not only being gentle with Shin, but he was cuddling up to him like a child.
Truth be told, Juro had never really trusted anyone very much before. He hardly even trusted his own sister, but with displays like the one she had put on tonight, no one could really blame him for that, could they? "Mm...You smell...like...Mikan..." he said as he relaxed into the scent of Oranges mixed with Shin's own scent.
Shin looked down at him as he rolled over and said that he it felt good. "Alright." He said as he continued to run his fingers through Juro's hair in that comforting manner but blushed a bit as he rolled over into him. He watched as he rolled over and then snuggled up a bit more hugging him more and more closer up.
He curled up as if a child. Juro looked as if he had never had this, with anyone, with anybody not even his own family. But the way Aoife had been acting....it was as if he was alone living by a standard and code that was different then any other. And so he continued but as he looked down he heard Juro murmurer something against his stomach about scent, as he seemed to relax even more as if that scent was the most pleasing thing in the world to him. Shin blinked and did something he had not done....not since meeting him and not certainly ever in his life. He had never really had a reason to, he chuckled softly a light sound not mocking but sort of relaxed at ease. "Ah....that would be because I....have found a large grove of Orange tree's in which I tend to make a place to sleep at night, the humans there do not chase me out, but rather leave me be....and often in the morning I'd wake since coming here to find presents left for me and once and a while one of them leaving and thanking me for watching there grove over night...." He said lightly. "Not originally what I was doing....but in the end it ended up being the same thing. But because of that I end smelling like the grove..." he said between laying amongst the flowering orange tree's his fur and body seemed to become immersed in it's scent and so he smelled it all day long and now, come to find out it was something Juro seemed to find relaxing.
He did not know how well things would be if and when the scent of oranges no longer clung to his skin, his frame. Either way right now his fingers continued there path gently through Juro's hair 'petting' him but then again he had never heard of Juro being so very relax. Juro who always looked as if he was tense and alone.
Aoife set out the second the third dish having finished it and with the lid to keep it hot and pulled out the fourth as she worked on putting it together and finishing it. She just hoped that Juro would not think she had made the third dish the traditional way. The one spice was from the neitherworld. Only that one was dangerous well might be to Shin...but hopefully he'd be able to scent the difference know that she used the Earth spice Curry instead it gave a sweet spicy taste instead of the kick....she was nervous now. She had already so heavily angered him but this dish was his favorite and she had said she would make it but only after had she in the middle of doing so remembered about the spice and now she worried about that change. She worked on the last touches and then put it on the hot plates and then carried it out and took a deep breath as she walked back in and grabbed the drinks and glasses as she walked in and poured the drinks and set about making sure everything was in the right places for everything. The table settings everything....in a moment she would call them as she went and got the desert and set it on a side table with the plates and such there. It seemed grand but she always did this. But normally it was just the two of them. The thing was....Aoife loved this stuff....she loved cooking and stuff like this so it wasn't like he was putting her down.....it was that....she messed up. Standing there as she looked at the table she brought her hand up to her mouth and touched her lips looking at everything trying to figure out if she was forgetting anything before calling them in for dinner.
"Am I forgetting anything? Anything at all? It's bad enough....I have taken on my masters traits.." She said lowly to herself but how many. How many and how bad? When there parents left them as children Juro had dug into things and learned what it meant to be a Clan and family....to be....what they were truly meant to be. And she messed up royal today. And how many more times would she? Lowering her hand she touched the Troque at her neck and closed her eyes and this thing would never come off....lovely. Even if Juro could get her to remember all that she was supposed to be what would happen the moment her master go bored with waiting and used the spell of summons to force her back through the gate and home?
He wanted to ask questions- questions like "What do they look like? What are the people who own the grove act like? Where they nice? Did they like big dogs like him? But instead of asking his questions, he kept his mouth shut. Not one to open up easily, Juro wasn't about to move too quickly on opening up to Shin. Not yet at least. However, the one question that did escape him was, "What's it like...getting a present?"
In all of his life, Juro had never been given a present from anyone. Never anything special or even a tiny token of respect or appreciation. His sister's idea of a gift was a bouquet of flowers that smelled horrible in his opinion.
Shin looked down at him and tipped his head. "Getting a present?" he mused. "It...felt...different, nice." he said as he continued to run his fingers through Juro's hair. "Like this but different...." He said as he continued to run relax there. "I had not been expecting anything I was ready to just leave but they had left breakfast there and the next morning...." He said. "I hesitated the first two days the third a man was there and he said it was to thank me...a 'present' for protecting the grove from the ones who were taking the oranges when I didn't have to. They weren't coming so long as I was sleeping there."
He continued to run his fingers through Juro's hair and then paused as he reached over and into the pocket of his jacket they a little girl who put a orange with the breakfast every morning the 'parents' always told her they didn't think the big doggy ate the orange but she said why not? So they let her anyways. Shin reached into his pocket having not eaten that one this day he usually ate it on the way back but....he instead brought it down down to Juro's hand and placed the round orange fruit in his hand. The source of the smell he liked so much. "They have a little girl there who comes with them every morning with her father and puts an orange with the food....they smile and shake there heads let her go. I never say anything to them since I'm just sleeping in among the trees but she always wants to leave one or two of the oranges with the food they leave."
He gave the orange to Juro thinking nothing of it, the fruit was fine, even though it had been in his pocket warm or cold it still tasted fine. "But I suppose a present would be something like this...." He said as he let it go having bent his arm behind his own back enough to touch one of Juro's hands with it, since he was clinging to Shin while cuddling he wasn't dislodging him but since he seemed to like the scent of oranges so much....he'd give him this one. It wasn't that big of a deal after all.
Shin wasn't sure but he figured Juro liked the scent of citrus. He didn't tell him he just surprised him by giving him the small orange fruit.
Juro felt the sudden round object in his hand and moved his hand and head, bringing his arm back so he could look at the orange Shin had put in his hand. He stared at it blankly at first, not realizing what it was that Shin had put in his hand, but the scent..."Mikan..." he breathed and felt the faint smile spread across his features as he moved again to hug Shin, burying his face back into Shin's stomach. "A present...my first one..." he said, the words muffled, but he was sure Shin could understand him. He wanted to cry, but at the same time he was too happy to cry.
After he had hugged Shin like that, he brought the orange back and he moved to look at it, his eyes in that moment reflecting complete joy. Even if it was a fleeting moment and the look would disappear the moment he had to move to go eat, Shin would have something to remember in the days to come. The look of happiness on Juro's face- the look of happiness on a man's face who no one ever believed could feel such an emotion. "Thank you Shin..." he said as he turned over to lay on his back and stare up at the white hound.
Shin smiled as he understood what it was like to be on the other end. To be the one giving the present and seeing the smile that warm smile and the hug. Juro to see such true happiness in the eyes and face of a man who many believe knew none, he knew he did. Shin in that moment knew that Juro in this moment in time was happy even if the moment was small and would not last long.
Shin as he was hugged without thinking gently hugged the laying hound back looking down at him as he rolled over and held the small round fruit. Shin had guessed right Juro liked that scent that smell it meant the most to him. "Your welcome Juro." He answered as he looked down at him as he laid there in his lap still holding the orange. The Mikan. The first one he had ever gotten from the looks of it. Even if others had tried to give him something it was meaningless if the present was given by paying attention to the person you were giving it to. Shin didn't give him something that Shin himself liked and adored he gave him what it was in that moment that seemed to mean so much to Juro the scent of the oranges clinging to him had relaxed him so much more....it was clear that Mikan for what ever reason was comforting to him.
Shin just smiled down at him. "I'm glad you like it." He answered it.
Aoife looked at everything and then nodded and then walked up to the living room where they were and paused not saying anything at the moment as she was caught off guard by the sight. Shin was sitting there and Juro was laying down with his head in Shin's lap holding something small and orange in his hand and his face....she had not seen him look like that in a long long time and then she stepped back not interrupting not saying anything just yet and letting Juro have this moment in time. She could never in all her life get him to smile like that look that relaxed and happy and as she stood there just within the doorway to the dinning room dinner ready she said nothing for the moment as she waited for that moment to pass. She would not take it form Juro.....she stepped a few steps back into the back into the dinning room to wait a few minutes. Dinner would hold....in fact she could wander off and get some dinner biscuits.
Subject: Re: What intentions they have...only they know. Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:34 pm
Juro nodded. "I like them..." he said and sat up so that he could set the orange down on the table. "When I first came here...I wandered off on my own and got lost, but in the midst of being lost, I found a market that sold these...they called them Mikan...they were what had attracted me to that place..." he explained as he looked at the orange.
"I didn't have any money then, but I remembered the smell...and when I got money, I'd go and buy them from that little market...I stopped going after a while though...I had to blend in and so I started school..." he said as he looked from the orange to Shin. Opening up was hard for him, but it was just a story about oranges. Of course, it was a story his sister hadn't heard. She didn't even know why he had started disappearing, but nagged him for doing it all the same.
Shin listened to his story, as he told him when he first came here and got lost. He had found the market and it was there that they sold them. There they called them Mikan, and it was there scent that drew him. When he gained money he would return to buy them., but had to stop to blend in. Shin looked at him as he listened without interrupting.
"I don't know how to make money and other then the clothes on my back I knew I had to blend in and I heard about school...so I enrolled but.....I had to find a place a safe place to go to hide, to sleep." Shin said in return. "I was looking all over when I scented it, the grove and found my way there so large I wandered in and found a place to lay down and sleep setting up wards....and you know the rest. But strong smell of the Mikan hide my own amongst it so it felt safe to rest there." he said looking at him. "So as I came to attend school it came to be the place I returned always....but always taking a different path to get there..." he closed his eyes the scent of Mikan was probably deep into his fur right now.
Aoife finished finding any small last touches she could think of for the dinner table and bit her lower lip....dare she go? Juro, Juro opened up to no one....grew close to no one. He had spent so much of his life alone.....she had made her mistake but for some reason Shin this white hound no one wanted was the very white hound that Juro could get close to. What was it about him that drew her brother in? She didn't know but she would not make the mistake of being so disrespectful to him again. Juro would not tolerate it a second time.
She walked up to the dinning room door this time and instead of opening it because her brother was talking and having no idea of how his ire with her was, she did as she did when he locked himself in his room and did not wish to hear her voice least he hurt her. She knocked twice on the dinning room door in a set pattern to signify that dinner was ready without interrupting there conversation. The only indication that she was aware that she knew she was still in her brothers disfavor and would not push him further. He was speaking with Shin and so at the moment she treated the living room as if it was his bedroom private and she knocked as if he had locked himself there.
She walked in and undid the lead of each dish and served up each one onto the plates so that they looked as they should on the plates one for her brother, one for Shin and for herself lastly each dish. Her brother's spot at the head of the table, Shin she had placed beside him and herself at the other end as always next to the desert and it was there she stood waiting for them to enter. She still did have her manners after all.....even if....she had been unsightly and rude to a guest she could make amends and act a proper lady of there house now.
Juro listened to Shin's story and looked at him then. "A job...you don't have one do you?" he mused and looked down for a second and then back up to Shin. "I could help you find one...it's not very fun, but it makes money so you can have some to buy new clothes that you like and other things..." he explained as he turned his head towards the dinning room door. The knock that signified his sister understood that she was still in trouble with him.
He stood up then, and motioned towards the door. "Come on...dinner's ready...let's go eat..."
Shin looked at him. "A job....I don't know....if I'd be any good at them." He said. "Or even what they are..." He said lowly but he nodded. "But I'm not opposed to learning." If it meant that he would be able to buy things for himself and perhaps one day get a surprise smile again out of Juro who did not smile so easily....it would be worth it. Especially since...he had did not want to go back. But at the mention of going to eat he stood with Juro and nodded moving to follow him.
"Alright." He said as he walked with him towards the dinning room...a bit slower...this was something unknown to him even the humans had been odd, they had been setting down bowls of actual meats and the such for him being a 'wild dog' not scraps but....this was different this was....being invited to the actual table right? Him? He would not be asked to sit on the floor and wait? But as he walked in with Juro he paused as not two but three places had been set and the entire table was set beautifully as if set for royalty or nobility everything in it's place it was an elegant place setting but it was something Aoife took pride in and had fits if she failed to miss making a meal completely. But...Shin hesitated to move towards that chair....because part of him was in shock that it was really okay for him to join anyone at the table and eat with them....
Aoife looked at them as they entered standing with her hands before her behind her chair waiting not sitting and eating but simply waiting for them to enter before she herself would even sit down. She looked at them as Shin hesitated and went a touch wide eyed. Bringing her hand up to her mouth. She fought the urge to upset Juro further and ask Shin if something was not to his liking....surly she hadn't done something wrong? He clearly had a place waiting for him drink, dinner set everything.....she had told Juro she would prepare a meal for him and Shin and she did....she did not lie to him. She never lied to him. Messed up and acted stupid yes but lied no.
As Juro walked into the room, he completely ignored his sister and instead moved towards his own seat. Hands once again slipping into his pockets. They were in his pockets for a reason though. If he walked past her without putting them in his pockets, he'd likely hit her...or worse...take a swipe at her with his claws out. But when he was safely past her and at his spot at the table, he looked back at Shin who still hadn't moved. Oh...he had forgot that they had treated him so poorly...Shin likely didn't know what it meant to be allowed to sit at someone's table and eat at the same time as them.
"Come here and sit down beside me Shin....it's ok. It's really ok to come and eat at the same time as us. You're allowed to sit at my table with me..." he reassured the white hound lowly.
Subject: Re: What intentions they have...only they know.
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LostFox20
Most users ever online was 33 on Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:59 am

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This game's objective is a light-hearted examination of a serious matter.
Load restraint, quality in all we do and safety are exceptionally important to us. We need to ensure every unit leaving our branches, or a customer's premises has a safe, and secure load. Our responsibility is to ensure that our customer's freight arrives at the right destination, within the right time frames and in the same condition as when we picked it up.
This game explores the tension of meeting these requirements, what happens when things go right and when things go wrong.


Why does one photographer walk by an opportunity that someone else turns into a magazine cover? How can you learn to see creatively? Your camera manual won't answer these questions. But with the right tools and process, you can improve your photographic vision.
The tools that help photographers to creatively see include patience, positive attitude and an open mind. While most people possess these traits to some degree, they usually lack the process that pulls it all together. On your next photo shoot, use these steps to improve your photographic vision.
1. Elimination. Most photographers identify their subject using a logical pattern. They usually eliminate items from the foreground and background until something catches their eye and they make the photograph. Unfortunately, most shooters eliminate things until only the most obvious choice remains. Then they fire away at the subject without thinking about other options. Photographers who see creatively establish routines that lead them to see other ways to frame a subject. A photography teacher unknowingly taught me this very point when he opined, "Look up, look down and then look all around." He was trying to get me to see the same subject in many ways. To this day I practice his approach.
2. Evolution. Try raising your camera in six-inch increments from the ground to your tripod's maximum height. Look carefully at the subject on every level. This incremental approach to making different photographs of the same subject is a perfect example of evolutionary creative seeing. Make many small refinements to your composition for the best chance to see the best shots. This approach is especially valuable when photographing familiar subjects.
3. Reinvention. In the late 1800s, the head of the U.S. Patent Office advised Congress that the Patent Office should be closed to save money. He decided that everything worth inventing had already been invented! I once heard a photographer say that he would not photograph national parks because they'd "already been done." This is the opposite of creative thinking. There is always a different or better way to shoot what has been photographed before. You just have to "see" it.
Do it your way without regard for how it has been done in the past. Reinvent the shot.
4. Revolution. As photographers we need to approach our photographic subjects from the inside / out perspective if we want to see creatively. Turn the problem (or subject) around. After the paper clip was invented, someone created the staple gun. This lesson can be applied to photography. For instance, when you are trying to shape light for a portrait, instead of using strobes for the usual three to one ratio with a main and fill, try subtracting light altogether with scrims. Or try making your next landscape both horizontally and vertically. Which is better?
5. Synthesis. Think of this as the multiple exposure method to seeing creatively. Combine multiple ideas (seemingly related or not) to make one image. Ansel Adams did this by always trying to put an interesting object into both the foreground and the background. Think of things like audio books, dinner theatres and drive-in movies. These were all invented as the result of synthetic thinking. How can you apply this form of thinking to your image making? How about putting a canoe in a field of wheat to illustrate "amber waves of grain?" Or juxtapose two things that don't seemingly belong together. Try putting a uniformed basketball team in the swimming pool for the team portrait.
6. Starting Over. Use things that were invented for one purpose, and maybe even discarded, for a brand new purpose. Throw out all the rules and see what you can see. Maybe you will photograph your next subject while lying on your back. Perhaps it would be a good idea to shoot slide film in a situation that normally calls for prints. This kind of thinking led to surges in cross-processing, selective focus and toning of color rather than just monotone photographs. All are now very popular with the magazines but out in left field when they were first applied. Other possibilities include the more traditional techniques like iteration, use of color as subject, use of line, shape or form to draw the viewer's eye to the subject.
7. New Directions. Try a brand-new angle, both literally and figuratively. Try all your lenses. Shoot from different perspectives. Change formats. Maybe your shot would look good as a panoramic? Shoot with a Hasselblad 503 as if it were round or rectangular rather than a square format. Focus your complete attention on the opportunity. Let the process take care of itself. Don't approach your composition as if the solution is more important than the result. For example, a friend and I went to make waterfall pictures. He broke out his trusty polarizing filter saying that all waterfall shots should be polarized. I decided to try some new directions and used the fish net of my photo jacket as a diffuser to get a nice soft look to my image.
Creative photographers refuse to conform. They see opportunities where others see problems. They always look for more than one "right" answer. While you may not always be rewarded for seeing or thinking creatively (just look at what happened to Galileo), go for it anyway. Be willing to fail until you get the result you want. In order to see creatively, focus less on the science of photography and more on learning to see things in a new way.
Scott Bourne is a professional photographer, author, teacher and pioneer in the digital imaging field. His career started in the early 70s as a stringer covering motor sports for Associated Press in Indiana. Since then, he has shot commercial, portrait, wedding, magazine and fine art assignments. His new passion is wildlife photography.
Scott is the author of "88 Secrets to Selling & Publishing Your Photography" and "88 Secrets to Photoshop for Photographers." Both are available from Olympic Mountain School Press, http://www.mountainschoolpress.com. His work has also appeared in books, magazines, galleries, calendars, on greeting cards, web sites and on posters.


text:
IRELAND'S TRAVAILS
24 February 2010 Bryan Kavanagh
Those who've not caught up with David McWilliams' insightful Irish financial journalism might remember his recent television series "Addicted to Money". The latest post on his website is a thoughtful deconstruction of the absolutely ludicrous hoops through which Ireland is jumping, presumably for the sake of 'saving face' and doing 'what is expected of it' [or rather, expected of its taxpayers and inhabitants by the international financial community for the next generation or so].
I'm much more impressed with McWilliams' alternative solution.
NEW ZEALAND DEBATES A LAND TAX
24 February 2010 Bryan Kavanagh 2 Comments
New Zealanders are debating the introduction of a land tax to counter their savage decline into the GFC. Of course, it's arguable that if they already had a significant land tax in place, their economy wouldn't have experienced the financial collapse caused by their bout of speculation, and would have generated more real wealth instead.
All the old property lobby canards are already being trotted out: What about the 'poor widow'? [She needn't pay the land tax and can put it as a charge on her estate.]; It's a wealth tax! [Er, yes, it's based upon the value of the land the community has ceded to your use, and those with more valuable land will pay more than those with less valuable land, or none. This is unfair? ]
Go for it New Zealand! The main question is will Australia and the US allow you to go for it – because the first country that raises itself out of the economic mire in this fashion will stand out like a beacon from all the others – and they'll have to follow. But Australia and the US both heavied you over your 'No nuclear ships' policy and you stood tall. So, you're more likely to introduce it than we are in Australia. This could get very interesting!
LEARNING OUR LESSONS
18 February 2010 Bryan Kavanagh Leave a comment
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION, ANYONE?
As the negative fallout deepens from the government roof batts and solar panels stimulus saga, the question becomes whether Peter Garrett will survive as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. It seems to confirm that governments are pretty useless in areas other than defence, law and order and public infrastructure.
What about education, health and social welfare, do I hear you ask? I'd suggest that governments have been drawn into these areas simply as a safety net from the pathologies that will always flow from aberrant taxation. Think about it. May not the fact that government has been drawn into the business of education, health and social welfare signify that too many people have paid too many taxes over three levels of government for too long in Australia, and that this acts to destroy many other possibilities and opportunities?
Maybe we should more rightly conclude that 'taxation and bloated governments destroy'? In my opinion, this is a much more productive way in which to consider the world's failing economies. 'The only certainty in life is death and taxes' could be re-written 'the only certainty in life is death and land rent' because, whereas taxes can be abolished, land rent cannot. It is either collected privately, publicly, or both.
John McRobert has made a great contribution in educating Australians to the devastation taxes wreak upon the Australian economy. While his suggestion of a 2% tax on spending in Online Opinion yesterday would be a vast improvement on what we have today, I was inclined to respond:
"John McRobert has long displayed an excellent understanding of the vast damage wrought upon the Australian economy by an incredibly perverse taxation 'system'. The role of taxation on industry and thrift in delivering the world into the GFC is undoubted.
However, I am less seized by his spending tax to replace the multitude of taxes with which we've been shackled. How would this deal with the undergound cash economy – or with barter? Also, although John's proposal is infinitely superior to what we have now, a tax on spending will still tend to inhibit spending to some small extent.
Nor is his spending tax likely to curb property bubbles which is clearly the other half of the reason we're having this GFC. A tax on land values would do all John McRobert is seeking and then some. It also addresses housing unaffordabilty for this and future generations of Australians by putting paid to the property speculation industry."
DECLINING REAL WAGES AND RISING LAND PRICES ARE THE EFFECTS OF TAXATION
I've showed here and here that real wages increases actually topped out at the outset of the 1970s, at the peak of the Kondratieff Wave, and have consequently headed downward into the current depressionary K-wave trough.
Had we drawn more revenues from land immediately post WWII, and less from production and industry, the real wage increases and prosperity up to 1972 would have been even greater. And had we captured only half our land rent since 1972, my report "Unlocking the Riches of Oz" demonstrates that Australia's GDP would now be more than $2 trillion per annum (double what it is today).
If we took the more natural approach to revenue raising, we'd be able fend for ourselves much better without government intervention. But now, like the FIRE sector, government has come to believe that the world revolves around it when, as with the FIRE sector, government has grown to pathological proportion at the expense of real wealth creation, whether it be of a Liberal (conservative) or Labor (liberal) stripe.
When we come to see political parties, government and the FIRE sector for what they are, the primary ingredients of the GFC, then we might be able to remedy it; but not before.
In the meantime, governments of all persuasions will continue 'stimulating' economies, bailing out banks and real estate markets while, as it's being done in the eye, an ill-informed public clings in misguided hope to one or other of the impotent political parties for a salvation that aint going to come.
The best stimulus any government can apply right now is to abolish taxes and capture its land rent. It's revolutionary, but it works. Unfortunately, neither the Right nor the Left accept this solution, because it's only the Georgist school of economics that advocates it. Interesting that it was predominantly Georgist economists who called the GFC. Maybe they've studied and learnt the lessons of history better?
TAX MAN BREAK-INS 'APPROPRIATE'
IT GETS WORSE …
As if to underscore why income tax must be abolished, Australians now learn the tax man's been given the power to break into your home. People once resisted taxes upon their earnings, equating it to theft, but we've long surrendered the point to powerful interests and errant policy makers.
Income tax was introduced in the United States as a temporary WWI measure. Similarly, the Commonwealth of Australia assumed the power from the states in WWII. But, like geese, we've come to accept that being taxed on our income is as natural as night and day. Forget the fundamentally intrusive nature of income taxes, we've got to get revenue from somewhere, and politicians have come to see the incredible income tax bureaucracy as a great source of non-productive employment – a bit like the FIRE sector – and it doesn't offend the wealthy.
For those with smart lawyers and accountants, income taxes remain relatively easy for the wealthy to avoid and evade. Fred Harrison's excellent book, "Ricardo's Law – House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam" provides insight into how the wealthy claw back every cent they've ever paid in income taxes, and then some, through increases in the land value of their real estate holdings. It goes unremarked that this privilege is unavailable to renters and those whose only real estate asset is their home.
The privacy intrusion and unfairness accompanying income taxes are, of course, done away with when revenues are drawn mainly from publicly created land values. But land-based revenue remains low on purpose – so as not to threaten the same power and privilege that has been permitted to widen the rich-poor gap and deliver us the GFC.
C'mon, off those sofas and back onto your hind legs, people!
WHY INCOME TAX MUST BE ABOLISHED
~~~~~~~~~~ What we take, NOT what we make! ~~~~~~~~
ENDLESSLY ESCALATING LAND PRICES MEANS WE MUST ABOLISH INCOME TAX
My colleague Dr Gavin Putland's work is so compelling, sometimes I should step aside from my blog and invite others to take a peep at it.
Gavin sums up why the GFC occurred and what we need to do about it here. It might sound technical, but it's worth reading, because it says it all. Policy makers take note:-
"A simple equation involving price, rent, appreciation, interest and tax predicts that for realistic values of the parameters, the price of land should be infinite — or, if finite, far in excess of lenders' capacity to supply credit and of borrowers' capacity to service loans. In practice this means land prices will be bid upward until the financial system breaks, causing a credit crunch whose effects flow through to the rest of the economy. The associated "correction" in land prices, perhaps combined with financial reforms ostensibly designed to prevent any recurrence, eventually restores confidence. But unless the parameters in the equation are permanently changed, the recovery merely sets the stage for the next crash. The only parameters that can be permanently changed are those pertaining to tax. Paradoxically, the indicated tax reform would enrich property owners: by removing perverse incentives and encouraging investment in infrastructure, it would increase capacity to pay for land, so that the new (stable) price trajectory would be higher than the present (unstable) one. The alternative to such reform is a continuation of periodic financial crises and recessions."
Read more here …
Whither Australian real estate?
I attended the joint Australian Property Institute-Real Estate Institute of Victoria "State of the Market" seminar yesterday in the inspiring BMW Edge Theatre at Melbourne's Federation Square.
I often find myself cringing throughout hubristic keynote speeches delivered by this or that bank chief economist at these six-monthly professional gatherings. As the GFC slowly loomed onto the horizon, they continued to regale us with charts and data purported to proclaim how strong and invulnerable the Australian economy is. Never a mention of the incredible $2.4 trillion real estate bubble into which Australian real estate had developed, nor of the $670 billion or so in debt that will have to be wiped off, making our big four banks tremble at the knees.
At a dinner function about a year ago, I mentioned to Chris Plant, Victorian President of the Australian Property Institute, that I usually have to grit my teeth throughout many of these episodes, reminding myself that I need my continuing professional development points to total at least 20 by the end of the year. I've found there's never a heterodox view permitted within the real estate industry, and the "State of the Market" presentations are upbeat to a fault.
However, while Westpac's senior economist, Matthew Hassan, didn't mention Australia's real estate bubble (the biggest in the world incidentally), he gave an excellent presentation yesterday. It was laced with a number of meaningful charts, clearly explained. This can be no V-shaped recovery, Matthew suggested: there is unsustainable debt to come to light in the US which virtually ensures we may expect a 'double-dip', or 'W-shaped' recovery.
Hallelujah, Matthew! You said it like it is, and the conclusions you drew from your research seemed pretty solid to me. And you know what? (as Keven Rudd would say), I'm sure the packed audience appreciated your research and lack of BS.
Tony Crabb, Director of Investment Strategy at Savills, gave an optimistic account of the outlook for commercial, retail and industrial property in his inimitably smooth fashion, while Tim Church, head of real estate at UBS, opined that Australian real estate investment trusts seemed primed to climb back out of the hole into which they'd recently descended.
When I couple my barometer of the economy with the data presented by Matthew Hassan, however, as much as I'd like to believe Tony Crabb and Tim Church's optimism, I have a feeling they were wearing the industry's usual rose-coloured specs yesterday.
Peter Garrett responsible for four deaths?
Peter Garrett
I loved Midnight Oil's "Beds are burning" both for its great anthemic quality and for the line "the time has come to say fair's fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share". It's a pity it only related to our aboriginal brothers and sisters, when it could have been employed in the broader sense, to include us all.
On radio 3AW this morning Neil Mitchell held the "Oils" lead singer, now Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, responsible for the deaths of the four men who died installing the roofing insulation provided as part the federal government's stimulus package. Implementing the program hastily and with insufficient training was destined to be extremely risky, if not disastrous, as it has proved to be. As the responsible minister, maybe it could be said that Peter Garrett was ultimately responsible for the four deaths?
Neil Mitchell
On exactly the same reasoning, Neil Mitchel, I trust you accept responsibity for the deaths of those who die for lack of daily wherewithal because of your publicly aggressive opposition to land tax? When the 'Harvey Report' into Victorian state business taxes recommended reforming the land tax system you said on 28 February 2001: "I think we (3AW) have a job … to convince the government not to do it!" Every year since then you have sympathetically taken calls from listeners claiming the state land tax to have affected them unfairly. Nevertheless, for all its distortions caused by the threshold, exemptions, multiple rates and aggregation provisions, most of which the Harvey Report had recommended reforming , it remains a fairer tax than any other state tax. Had it been reformed along the lines of the Harvey Report recommendations, but also extended to all residential properties and increased significantly in order to replace Victoria's share of the GST, payroll tax and stamp duty, it is arguable that Victoria's state product would currently be double what it is today.
The reasoning behind this statement is carefully explained in "Unlocking the Riches of Oz" showing that Australia's GDP would now be about $2 trillion instead of $1 trillion, had we captured half our publicly-generated land rent since 1972. In other words, the deadweight costs of the taxation of thrift and industry and bursting real estate bubbles are in fact costing Australians some $1 trillion dollars a year. That's an incredible amount. If the Australian public were also to get a better return (than the crimnially low 10 cents a tonne) for the natural resources we ship overseas, it is quite arguable that most taxes could be scrapped, and that every man woman and child could receive a citizens' dividend that would abolish the need for pensions and superannuation. I hope people might peruse the reasoning accompanying the spreadsheet figures in "Unlocking the Riches of Oz" before they were to dismiss this apparently exaggerated claim.
So, I agree that there is, unfortunately, a sense in which Peter Garrett is responsible for the four deaths of the roof insulation installers. But I also consider that your spreading disinformation on land tax has done similarly, Neil. At a minimum, it has acted to reduce Victoria's gross state product to favour real estate speculation, and is at least partly responsible for Victoria's decline into the GFC.
A big call? Maybe. But yours this morning on Peter Garratt was no less so.
RBA to stop bubbles?
Glenn Stevens
The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Glenn Stevens, now considers central banks should be more proactive in dealing with dangerous asset bubbles.
I made the same suggestion to the previous governor, Ian Macfarlane in "The Coming Kondratieff Crash" in 2001, but Mr Macfarlane sought to place the blame for the financial threat well and truly outside his own backyard, saying in a talk to the Economic Society on 10 July 2001: "The major threat to our future growth prospects now comes from the international economy, not from domestic factors."
Mr Macfarlane and others will undoubtedly claim that the GFC did indeed emanate from overseas, but this would be to ignore the case made by my colleague Dr Gavin Putland that data show recessions usually begin at home.
Glenn Stevens' statement does merit a hearing from our policy makers: but it won't get it. It never does. Nor would ratcheting up interest rates be the most appropriate policy.
Don Mercer
Stevens' earnestness reminds me of a statement made by Don Mercer when he took over as CEO of the ANZ Bank from Will Bailey in 1992. Surveying the rubble surrounding him following the bursting of the 1989 real estate bubble, Mercer bravely declared that we had learned lessons from the ensuing recession that would see to it that such crashes would never occur again.
Maybe Australia's recession hasn't happened yet, Don, but it is only a matter of time. Whilst messrs Rudd and Swan congratulate themselves for having forestalled an Australian financial collapse by means of their stimulus package, they might contemplate the possibility that their action was premature, because our real estate bubble hadn't even burst, and that, in fact, their pre-emptory action acted to re-stimulate Australia's incredible property bubble.
It's implicit in Glenn Stevens' statement that he believes early action on interest rates might choke off future bubbles. It could help a little, Glenn, but didn't you notice that property bubbles also developed during the high interest rate regimes of the 1970s and 1980s?
No, I'm afraid the ONLY way to put an end to property bubbles, Glenn, is for policymakers and our elected representatives to ensure that a man's home (or, more properly, his block of land) is no longer his tax haven. That is, tax policy should encourage industry and destroy real estate speculation, not vice versa.
Central bankers meet secretly in Sydney
8 February 2010 Bryan Kavanagh Leave a comment
A CLOSET OF BANKERS?
It has come to my attention from a usually unreliable source that the secret meeting of central bankers convened in Sydney for today and tomorrow has come together to discuss my blog. Apparently, most central banks consider that my assertion that we're having this GFC because tax systems around the world have for too long been slaughtering wage and salary earners and rewarding real estate speculators is valid.
My source, who shall remain nameless, believes that the final paragraph of the letter calling the meeting posed the question: "If Kavanagh is correct that finance, insurance and real estate is not the hub of the economic universe as we had previously thought, and if we are to end issues involving sovereign debt, then maybe tax systems do need be altered to send the right signals?"
Were this most unreliable rumour found to be true, the central bankers' Sydney initiative would deserve international support.
OF PATERNALISM AND SOCIOPATHS
PATERNALISM ('WE KNOW BETTER THAN YOU WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR MONEY')
Phew! Good to hear from Davos 2010 last week that things are looking up again. A 'fragile' recovery is underway it seems. Looks like I was wrong and will have to pull the plug on this blog!
Not really. What a cacophony of misbegotten ideas to set world economies aright! Try as I might, I didn't hear one suggestion that came close to solving the world's social and economic problems, notwithstanding the presence of Sharan Burrow, the Australian president of the International Trade Union Confederation.
Davos didn't properly define the cause of the collapse, so it stands to reason that it can't possibly have a valid response to it.
Banks got a bit of a hammering. While they can't hold their heads high over their part in the GFC (and many bankers were conspicuously absent from Davos 2010), might I suggest we dig a little deeper than the role bank credit played in the collapse?
Was it banks that caused the decline in real wages ever since 1972, Sharan? No, it was rather the combination of increasing taxation and increasing land prices.
People understand how taxes reduce net incomes: but land prices? That's a bit more difficult to explain but, trust me (or else take a peep at Unlocking the Riches of Oz again), there is necessarily an inverse relationship between escalating land prices and real wages. It's also explained by the equation P = R + W + I (production is the sum of publicly generated land rent, plus private wages and the return to private capital).
So, if real wages are declining and real land prices are heading moonward, OF COURSE people had to resort to taking on greater and greater levels of debt!
Hey, Davos! Here's a hint: maybe we can create effective demand, pay down debt and abolish impossible land prices if we capture more land rent for revenue, and pay less taxes on our productive efforts! So, stop patronizing us with stupid, interfering solutions! Get out of the way, and out of our pockets!
But that's not all! Listening to the entertaining breakfast team of Ross Stevenson and John Burns on radio 3AW this morning, I learn that the superannuation industry isn't happy taking only 9% of Australians' wages to make some asset or other favourite in their speculative binges with our billions. They want more – maybe 12%-15%! So, that's taxes taking, what, a third?; mortgages taking a third; super taking a sixth? I guess that still leaves us another sixth on which to live (i.e. for food, clothing, entertainment, etc.)?
The really sad part is that when Ross and John ran a survey on whether we should pay more, as the super funds are seeking, one third of the respondents said 'yes'! Sigh! When will we be left alone to retain the salary we have earned – without the government and super funds demanding we give more and more of it to them? When will we begin to stand on our hind legs about this enormous con! There's a natural source for government revenue, fellas! Try publicly-generated land rent! [Sorry, I forgot: that's a 'no-no'!]
Oh! And I just heard on the news that the federal treasurer, Wayne Swan's got plans to assist with Australia's ageing society. [Isn't it great the government's always coming up with these ideas to spend our money?] Hey! It doesn't include getting out of our pockets so we can look after ourselves, does it, Wayne?
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
We know that taxation destroys, and that land rent conserves, but policy makers nonetheless favour taxes on production, thrift and exchange, incorrectly stating "There's not enough rent".
It's not stretching the truth to say that current revenue regimes were designed by sociopaths. Here's a story that might reinforce this proposition.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield's dad, also Edward, was a rotten father. Oh, yes, he hung around philosophising with John Stuart Mill's dad, James Mill, but, what with that and his real estate business and his farm, he had no time at all left for young Edward Gibbon.
By age 15, Edward Gibbon Wakefield fulfilled every criterion for a sociopath. He'd been kicked out of three schools. His mother, not being able to control him, had sent him to his stronger-willed grandmother. When Edward was 11, grandma Priscilla wrote back in 1807: "my mind painfully engaged in the perverseness of dear little Edward – his obstinacy if he inclines to evil terrifies me". His "pertinacious inflexible temper makes me fear for his own happiness and of those connected with him" He "has a mind that requires delicate handling".
Whilst in Newgate prison for marrying the second (or was it the third?) heiress he had abducted, Wakefield had this great idea! You could keep the masses genuflecting to the landed gentry if they couldn't afford the price of a block of land! All you had to do was to set the land at "sufficient price" and they were your slaves! So, you didn't need convicts in new colonies if you had tax-paying wage slaves who couldn't afford a block of their own!
The idea was enthusiastically taken up in founding the new, gentrified colony at South Australia. Although it worked up to a point, it was a bit of a pity that workers were thrown into unemployment within the year and that economic depression ensued.
Nevertheless, Adelaidians still erected a monument to Wakefield and named roads after him, because he was part of the landed gentry, you see, and he foreshadowed the very system to which we adhere today: i.e. let landowners line their pockets with the real wages stolen from those who work and produce. The middle class won't even understand the process, or, for that matter, why recessions always follow the bursting of land price bubbles. Just ask all those who attended Davos last week.
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Yesterday was our one month anniversary! It hardly seems like a month ago we were at Dalvay.
Kevin and Jean (Heather's parents) were in Toronto this past weekend. We had a good visit on Friday. We had dinner at our place, and then went to OverJoy for dessert. They were in town to see Heather's uncle who's ill. It was short visit as they had to be back in PEI for Monday, but it was fun to have them over.
Sunday was a really nice day (sunny, 22C -- just like our wedding day) so Craig and I went golfing at Deerfield. I had a really good day of putting and chipping -- I one-putted the first 3 holes! On the front nine I shot 43 with only 13 putts. I then parred 10 and 11, and was thinking of breaking 90 again. However I then went triple-bogey triple-bogey quintuple-bogey to mess up a perfectly good round. Parred 15 though, a long 443-yard par-4. Ended up with a 96 for the day.
We actually won both our games last week! On Wednesday we won our Ultimate game 26-14. We were better than the other team, but we also played really well. Our defense was strong and we made good decisions on offense. We're also getting to know each other a bit better on the field. We could probably beat the previous week's team if we play the same way.
Hockey was a bit more dramatic. We were up 3-2 late in the game. The other team pulled their goalie, and they scored with 12 seconds left in regulation. It went into overtime (3 on 3 for five minutes, run time). Craig got the puck off the draw, went down the wing, drove for the net and scored! It was a fun game.
Well it's getting late and I should get to bed.
Wedding pics! Wedding pics! Wedding pics!


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text:
Peta ad banned by ASA for claiming wool is 'just as cruel as fur'
by Gurjit Degun September 04, 2019
Peta: ASA said ad was misleading
There were 10 complaints over claim from animal-rights organisation.
An ad encouraging people to steer clear of wool by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The out-of-home campaign showed a woman with the neck of her jumper covering her face alongside copy that read: "Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes. Wool is just as cruel as fur. Go wool-free this winter."
The ad watchdog received 10 complaints asking whether "wool is just as cruel as fur" was misleading.
Peta said that even though the public has become more aware of the cruelty that exists in the fur trade, similar issues in the wool trade were not as well-known. It provided the ASA with reports on abuse to sheep by farmers, often during the shearing process.
It added that most animals in the wool trade were "ultimately killed" and that many "died far shorter of their natural life expectancy". Peta noted that while sheep naturally live to around 15, in the wool trade they are killed between four and eight years old.
"Many died from exposure to extreme temperatures, while giving birth or of injuries and illnesses that went untreated," Peta said.
The organisation added that "while the public would have different ideas about what was cruel, it was undeniable that cruelty existed in the wool industry in the same way as it did in the fur industry".
In its ruling, the ASA said the claim that "wool is just as cruel as fur" would be interpreted as meaning the conditions in which sheep were kept and the methods used were similar to those of the fur industry.
The ruling concluded: "However, sheep were not killed for their wool as animals were in the fur industry and there were standards in place relating to their general welfare, including relating to the shearing process. We therefore concluded on that basis that the claim was misleading and in breach of the code."
Government / Non-profit Advertising
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