Aussies

Coral Bay

nobody@vox.com(petermcc) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:31:01 -0700

Gee it’s great to be back touring properly. We cruised into Coral Bay after a 5 day trip from Horsham with proper stops but long driving days. Not the best way to travel but we needed to get moving to get to the hottest areas this side of summer.

Coral bay has a perfect climate this time of the year and the beach area sits inside a reef so the wave action is mild. Probably the best place yet to bring kids if you have them travelling with you and everyone else with kiddies must think the same. We only scored a 3 day stay because the WA school holidays were starting the next week.

It’s the area we have been most looking forward to because you can snorkel right off the beach and we were not disappointed. In fact it’s better than we had hoped. Some folk had not been impressed on the forums but I can’t understand why. Their negative attitude caused us to lower our expectations.

Along with the ability to just walk into the water and start snorkelling, there is a fish feeding program to enjoy watching and it costs nothing to see. You can even sit in the water while they throw the tid bits around you so the snapper swarm all around.

Lots of options when it comes to boats too. You can go on the big cruises or simply hire a belly board with a clear bottom. Or many options in between. When we get back there I’ll be going the kayak option. I’ll paddle further out with Liz and she can snorkel over the reef further out.

Photo 1 the view from the front of the van park

Photo2 A little closer to the protected bay

Photo 3 a feeding frenzy

Photo 4 an excellent wind surfer . Watched the takeoff process and later saw how fast you can go a he rocketed along on a stiff breeze.

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When are we going to stop being considered everyone's dumping ground?

nobody@vox.com(Flamingo Dancer) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:10:28 -0700

US military planned nerve gas test on Aust troops

The US was planning to test Sarin and VX nerve gas on up to 200 Australian combat troops. Defence files have revealed the United States military was planning to test deadly nerve gas on Australian troops in a far north Queensland rainforest in the 1960s.

Australian Defence Department files obtained by Channel Nine show the US was planning to test Sarin and VX nerve gas on up to 200 Australian combat troops by aerial bombing areas around Lockhart River.

The plan never went ahead, but American survey teams inspected the proposed testing site.

The prime minister at the time, Harold Holt, vetoed the plan.

His former staffer, Peter Bailey, says the Australian government was concerned that its Cold War alliance with the US would be damaged if it did not acquiesce.

"If they weren't pretty good and pretty faithful to the Americans we would be dumped, so I think ministers were very aware that this was probably our one main support," he said.

Former Democrats Senator Lyn Allison has told Channel Nine the current Government should make the documents public.

"There's apparently a whole unit which the minister says didn't conduct testing but I think we need to know what they were doing and it is time for these documents to be released," she said.

"Let us have a look at what was being contemplated just 40 odd years ago - it's not the deepest, darkest history of Australia we're talking about."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/06/2295601.htm

As if England testing their bombs and doing nuclear tests on our serving men wasn't enough, America thought they could just murder 200 of our men as well! Wasn't it only a few months ago that Cheney was trying to pressure Howard into taking all their nuclear waste and burying it in our country too? When are we going to stop being used as canon fodder and scientific experiements and respected as a nation? Enough! If it's not good enough for your back yard it is not good enough for ours.

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And so to London and Hyde Park

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:41:48 -0700

We'd had a few days in London four years ago, and I had always wanted to return to see what I'd missed before. The sense of history in London just gets me every time. Mrs Snowy had lived in London in the late sixties, but there was much that she was yet to see, and she also wanted to take a nostalgia trip back to Earl's Court where so many young Aussies had congregated in those halcyon days.

We stayed at Royal Court Apartments in Bayswater, just a short walk from Hyde Park. Ours was a studio apartment with full cooking facilities. The location was just off Bayswater Road with a short walk to both Lancaster Gate and Paddington underground stations, and also to Hyde Park. We'd stay there again, if for no other reason than the convenient location near transport and also the London central district. This is the view of Gloucester Terrace from the entrance to the apartments.

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So, the obvious place to visit was Hyde Park. This is the view of the Italian gardens.

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We continued walking through Hyde Park until we came to Kensington Palace, which is of course where Princess Diana lived after her divorce from Prince Charles. We did the tour of the palace which dates back to William of Orange, and then walked through the room where Princess Diana's evening gowns are on display. Especially poignant were the videos of the Princess obviously enjoying herself at functions where she was wearing the gowns. Such a beautiful, vivacious, young woman with no knowledge of what lay ahead for her. This was also the residence of Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones when they were married. That marriage ended in divorce also. This is a shot I took of Kensington Palace. Somehow it will always be associated with unhappiness for me.

DSC_05691158

We took a stroll down to Speaker's Corner. The symbolism of this corner of Hyde Park where citizens are free to speak on anything at all, including criticism of the government, did not escape me. Britain has much to be proud of, and set a fine example of tolerance for the rest of the world to follow. Unfortunately, all the speakers were preaching religion when we were there, all different of course. I was tempted to point them in the right direction, but somehow I doubt they'd be interested in my atheism. This is Speaker's Corner.

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And this is a view of the Serpentine.

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My admiration for the British people knows no bounds. The world owes them a huge debt for the institutions they have bequeathed to it. To say nothing of the games, including football. No, not that poofy round ball one, real football, Rugby League.

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ICH today

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:17:21 -0700

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." : Albert Einstein - (1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921

"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." by: Tecumseh -(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy

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Is that gospel, George?

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:43:22 -0700

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23974617-12377,00.html

By Kim Christian | July 05, 2008

Blessing to buy papal souvenirs

CATHOLIC pilgrims and the public will be able to buy papal mementos after Sydney's archbishop gave his blessing to indulging in "a little commercialism".

Shoppers will be able to buy World Youth Day (WYD) souvenirs such as special WYD rosary beads, Pope Benedict XVI baseball caps, rugby jerseys and even teaspoons featuring a photograph of the pontiff.

Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell opened one of at least four merchandise stores to be erected in Sydney for the six-day WYDay event.

Cardinal Pell said the church was not looking to make a profit from merchandise sales.

“The church doesn't expect to make a profit,” Cardinal Pell said.

“It was never a moneymaking venture.”

He said he hoped the company established to run WYD merchandising, Event Merchandising Group, made a profit.

“There's nothing immoral with a little commercialism,” Cardinal Pell said.

“Our way of life is built on commercialism, on trade, on industry, on finance and people have got a right to make a living out of doing a good thing, which is spreading Christ's message in a modern way.”

He said he expected merchandise, such as the “WYDGET” token trading bracelet, to be a big hit with pilgrims.

Chief Executive of Event Merchandise Group John Cooper said a “small percentage” of merchandising profits would got to the Catholic Church to help fund World Youth Day.

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Hitchens, you fat fraud, you supported the killing, maiming and displacement of millions of people.

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:23:42 -0700

http://www.alternet.org/rights/90292/?page=entire

Warmongerer and neocon Christopher Hitchens just noticed that waterboarding is torture!

Hitchens

Stop the presses! Christopher Hitchens just noticed that waterboarding is torture!

Hitchens announced the news like he'd brought it down from Mount Sinai, in a Vanity Fair article. "Believe me," he told a waiting nation, "it's torture." Well, yeah. It usually is, when it happens to you. When it happens to somebody else, it's "extreme interrogation." I thought everybody over the age of 5 knew that, but as usual, I misoverestimated the media. Hitchens' tame little torture session is the biggest S&M video on the web since "9½ Weeks."

Hitchens' video is totally fake -- there's even soft-rock background music playing on the video, better music than you usually get at the dentist's office, and his "interrogators" treat him more like a client getting a mud pack at a spa than a real suspect in Iraq. That makes it even more disgusting that Hitch caved in after only 11 seconds of having water poured over a towel on his face. Eleven seconds! Think about the timeline here: For five long years he supported this stuff when it was happening to other people. Once it happened to him, he needed exactly 11 seconds to see the light.

Of course if Hitchens had been a real Iraqi suspect, they'd never have had to waterboard him at all. They do that to tough suspects, not wimps like him. In a real torture cell, everything would be a lot tougher from the start. For example, Chris wouldn't be in the nice dress shirt and slacks he's wearing on the video. He'd be naked -- a gross image, what a lifetime of booze and lying does to the body, but we have to be hard-nosed here -- because keeping the prisoner naked is basic interrogation strategy, especially with a culture as horrified of gettin' nekkid as Arabs are. You'll recall that in those Abu Ghraib pictures, the prisoners were naked.

So that's fake already, and the video gets faker as it goes. The guys "interrogating" him are fat, middle-aged, mild-mannered dudes. They don't even yell at him. A real suspect in Iraq would be snatched off the street, smacked around until he passes out, stripped and dumped into a cell with a hood over his head. He wouldn't be able to sleep off his misery, either, because sleep deprivation is one of the oldest, most effective tortures. The interrogators would maintain this schedule for hours, days, weeks, depending on how well and how soon the victim breaks down. When they think he's ready -- like, they notice with satisfaction that he screams like a steam whistle every time he hears footsteps in the corridor -- they drag him out of his cell and strap him onto that waterboarding table.

Well, Chris is a busy man and didn't have time for all that background research, so what you see in this video is a guy who hasn't been so much as slapped or yelled at. Who probably just finished a 10-martini lunch at some upscale restaurant. That's ridiculous enough, but the interrogators make it even more ridiculous with their little introduction to the torture session. One guy says, "All right, listen up, I'm going to give you some instructions ..." Then he tells the fat man on the table, "We're going to place metal objects in each of your hands," and if he feels "unbearable stress" at any time, all he has to do is drop the objects and they'll stop.

I've had dentists who did root canals on me without being that nice; they stuck to "this is going to hurt." More to the point here, putting the victim in "unbearable stress" is, uh, the whole point of torture, or "extreme interrogation," or whatever you want to call it. The last thing you'd ever do is give the victim a sense of power, like he can stop the process by dropping a "metal object" on the floor.

That kind of etiquette is what you get from those expensive dominatrixes English dudes like to get whipped by, or those nerf BDSM sites that talk about "consensual power exchanges." What reminded me most of those BDSM sites is the "code word" they tell Hitchens he can use to stop the waterboarding: "That word is red, R-E-D." They ask him if he understands and he says, "Yes, sir." That "sir" only added to the ridiculous porn feel here, like Hitchens was paying a hundred pounds an hour to have Baron Whipsong or Lady Cruella, whichever way he likes it, wear out their riding crop on his eager little bum.

The real thing isn't nearly so nice. After you've been beaten on bruises (which hurt more each time) for a few days, they slam the cell door open, screaming abuse at you, kick you to your feet and take you down the corridor, slamming your head into the walls as often as they feel like it, and strap you down. And all the time they're screaming: "OK, you worthless (Arabic obscenity here) -- We're through with you! We don't even want you any more! Ever drown before, (obscenity)? Ever go swimming head-first, (obscenity)?"

If you remember "The Big Lebowski," you can get a better idea of what waterboarding is like by remembering the scene where the Dude walks into his bungalow, where Jackie Treehorn's yuppie thugs are waiting for him. The blond one grabs the Dude's hair and runs him headfirst into the toilet, screaming, "Where's the money, Lebowski? Where's the money, shithead?" See, the point is to show overwhelming, terrifying power over the suspect, not give him little safety words.

But all that niceness doesn't matter once the torturer's helper takes a plastic milk container full of water and pours it, bit by bit, over a towel covering Hitch's face. The "metal object," whatever it is, drops after 11 seconds. And of course these fake interrogators are all over Hitch, making sure he's OK. That's also totally fake, but why bother listing any more fake features of this nonsense? The truth is that anybody who's been through as much dentistry as I have knows that nobody holds out under torture. It's not just the pain, it's the fear of the pain. I used to try to be a hero like the ones in my war books every time I went to have a root canal from the mean old Armenian who did our dental work. He scrimped on the Novocain, so I had plenty of scope to practice. And I learned the same thing any sane person knows by the time they grow up: Nobody can resist torture. Just like anybody knows what having water poured over a towel on your face is like: It's like drowning. Duh. Anybody who wanted to know that already knew it.

So why does Hitchens make such a big show of just realizing it now, after five years of supporting it? To me, the answer's easy: He's withdrawing from Iraq, making a big Jesus-on-the-cross demonstration, like a public punishment, for supporting the war all this time. By getting himself tortured in this half-assed way, he gives himself a reason to see the light, desert from the Neocon forces before it's too late. Karl Rove won't be happy, though, because the last thing the GOP wants is for people to start realizing what we're actually doing in Iraq. Reminds me of the debate about abolishing flogging with the cat-o'-nine-tails in the British Navy. The first time the bill was introduced, everybody laughed at how ridiculous a notion that was. Then somebody thought of having a real cat-o'-nine-tails introduced to the House of Commons, a bloody old Exhibit A. Nobody said a thing; they just voted unanimously to forbid it.

That's all it takes to change anybody's mind about torture, getting one little 11-second whiff of it, even if it's nowhere close to the real thing. The interesting thing is not that Hitchens changed his mind; it's the strategic thinking that made him decide to do it now. The timing of this little martyr is the key here, and what it tells you is that Hitchens is declaring martyrdom and getting out. He just unilaterally withdrew from Iraq, and in only 11 seconds.

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Very, very interesting read. Not another anti US rant, but telling it like it is from (gasp) Murdoch

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:21:23 -0700

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23968711-7583,00.html

Nirvana out of American reach

Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large | July 05, 2008

THE energy, financial and political woes that grip the US signal a decisive shift in world power, mocking the liberal delusion that Barack Obama or John McCain can return American prestige and power to its pre-Bush year 2000 nirvana. There is no such nirvana. There is instead a new reality: the greatest transfer of income in human history, away from energy importers such as the US to energy exporters; the rise of a new breed of wealthy autocracies that cripple US hopes of dominating the global system; and demands on the US to make fresh compromises in a world where power is rapidly being diversified.

Far from the Obama-McCain contest being America's saviour, it has another dimension entirely: evidence of the generic failure of the US political system. The US struggles but seems unable to confront the world that exists. It slips into pessimism while fooling itself another irresistible revival is just around the corner. But the structural trends offer a different conclusion.

Despite cyclical fluctuations, world oil and energy prices will stay high, driven by long-run changes in supply and demand. This provokes a global wealth redistribution without precedent to oil exporters, mainly in the Middle East and Russia, that marches in tandem with China's export-driven current account surplus. It is an extensive transfer of economic power away from the US to nations that are not mainly democracies, a dynamic that is the subject of agonising review in seminars and debates in the US.

Flynt Leverett, former director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council, says: "The international economic position of the United States has deteriorated substantially since the new millennium. The big trends in global finance and energy markets are working against the US. There isn't any solving this problem in terms of making it go away. These are ongoing realities. The energy picture is not going to change: it is here to stay."

World oil prices have risen from $US16 a barrel in 2001 to $US140 ($145.50) a barrel today. No respite is in sight. This week the International Energy Agency warned that the oil market would stay tight for the next five years, with the capacity to expand supply severely restricted. Non-energy-rich developing nations will be crippled and confront recessions, dislocation and violence; giants such as the US will face deep political and economic adjustment. Australia is both a winner and a loser as its coal and gas export prices rise and it pays more for petrol; but it is a big winner overall from the broad-based commodity boom likely to run for decades.

Writing in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs, US strategic analyst Fareed Zakaria, whose new book The Post-American World is reviewed in The Weekend Australian Review today, puts the oil trend into a wider context, arguing that the third great power shift of the past 500 years is under way.

The first was the rise of the Western world that began in the 15th century; the second was the rise of the US in the late 19th century; and the third is what analysts call the rise of the rest. This is the shift in power to parts (but not all) of the developing world that are "experiencing rates of economic growth that were once unthinkable" and whose total gross domestic product surpasses that of the industrialised nations. Countries driving this structural change are China, India, Brazil, Russia, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Gulf nations, and parts of Southeast Asia.

This points to a more complex global power structure, unlike the duopoly of the Cold War or the brief US unipolar period post-1989 that so deceived US President George W. Bush. For Zakaria, "on every dimension other than military power - industrial, financial, social, cultural - the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from US dominance. That does not mean we are entering an anti-American world. But we are moving into a post-America world."

Opinions are divided about the strategic consequences. In his new book The Return of History and the End of Dreams, US analyst Robert Kagan argues that "the world has become normal again" with the smashing of hopes for a post-1989 liberal international order based on democratic values and US dominance. Instead, Kagan argues, the future will witness a range of powerful nations aspiring to be global or regional powers - Russia, China, India, Japan, Europe and Iran - working in various forms of co-operation and competition with the US.

Energy and financial trends are reinforcing. Sovereign wealth funds from nations with a current account surplus have more than $US3trillion in assets and this figure will grow to $US12trillion by 2015. The biggest funds are those of China and the Gulf Co-operation Council. This technique, in one form or another, is followed by China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore, Brazil and Russia. Leverett says the GCC will surpass China to "become the world's most important investor".

Western oil companies own only about 8 per cent of proven oil reserves. Energy-rich governments and national oil companies own more than 80 per cent, a significant structural shift since the 1970s. As demand for energy continues, the cash reserves of oil exporters and their sovereign funds will expand dramatically. This drives a transfer of global financial power and creates huge imbalances.

Where do such funds go? They finance America's excess of consumption over savings. The US needs about $US2 billion each day to finance its trade deficit. These funds are coming, increasingly, from the energy and export-strong developing nations courtesy of their governments, which control sovereign wealth fund strategies. Going into US bonds and securities, such investments constitute a heavy US dependence on the developing world's trade surplus nations.

In his comments this week to the Carnegie Council workshop in New York, Leverett said that when US politicians talked about achieving energy independence, "either they don't understand how stupid that is or they do understand and say it anyway". He argued that the classic remedy to confront the US's declining currency was to raise interest rates and balance the budget, but there was no sign "that either McCain or Obama will do this". The US debate "was about some other planet from where we are now".

In the current issue of The American Interest, Gal Luft, from the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, argues that "perpetually high oil prices will undoubtedly transform the existing world economic order". Even below today's prices, OPEC could potentially buy the Bank of America with two months' worth of production and General Motors with six days' worth. This dictates only one sensible response: non-petroleum fuels must become the US's top strategic economic priority, to be introduced over a generation.

The US is tied to interdependence with sovereign wealth funds. In the present US crisis, Bear Stearns has disappeared but other US financial institutions would have sunk without the operation of these funds.

The US is hostage to global oil markets, for years having refused to embark on radical reforms to break its consumer oil addiction. The price of such refusals will plague the present generation of politicians and consumers.

Addressing the same Carnegie Council workshop, Nikolas Gvosdev, editor of another publication, The National Interest, said the idea that the US could determine the global order has been terminated. It is not clear whether the US Congress grasps this reality. The alternative world order to the liberal internationalism favoured by the US is that defined by state-to-state negotiations and agreements. This is the favoured model of Russia and China and many other emerging countries.

This model gives priority to state sovereignty and non-interference; it asserts the international system is for states, not individuals; it contradicts New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's theory of globalisation based on the rise of individualism via technology; and it means that the rise of the rest equates to a growing premium on state power as more countries feel able to assert their national interest.

This is the threat that dominates Kagan's book. "Chinese and Russian leaders are not just autocrats," he says. "They believe in autocracy. The modern liberal mind at 'the end of history' may not appreciate the enduring appeal of autocracy in this globalised world."

The logic of Kagan's position is that the UN Security Council is paralysed not just by different interests, it is paralysed by rival ideologies about the international system.

Kagan quotes Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying that "for the first time in many years a real competitive environment has emerged in the market of ideas" between different "value systems and developments".

China puts it bluntly: the selection of whatever social system by a country is the affair of the people (read government) of that country. This strikes at the deepest orthodoxy of US strategy and ideology. The first sentence of the 2002 National Security Strategy signed by Bush says: "The great struggles of the 20th century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise."

This claim is now in doubt. Such doubts will be reinforced by the shifts in global energy and financial power during the next decade. US analyst Steven Weber, who has written for The National Interest on the fracture between the West and the rest, says of Bush's declaration: "These are powerful sentiments, powerfully expressed. But they are simply not factual representations of today's operational global reality. The world doesn't look like that."

Zakaria remains an optimist. He says the choice for the US is between adjusting to a world of more diversity and viewpoints and watching a process of "greater nationalism, diffusion and disintegration" that rips apart the post-World War II order shaped by the US. He argues that the trend among emerging nations is still towards markets and some form of democracy.

In its presidential season, the US, far more than Australia, is caught with a political system unable to respond to challenges. The Obama-McCain contest is a cosmetic that conceals the nature of the US's difficulty. The downturn reflects problems in the financial system and the real economy.

For the US there is no easy solution to the structural forces driving oil, energy and financial markets. Yet much of the political debate remains in denial of these forces.

The task for the next president is to reform US economic and energy policy - to strengthen the US at home - and to conduct a foreign policy that recognises a more diverse world defined byinterdependence.

www.foreignaffairs.org
www.the-american-interest.com
www.nationalinterest.org

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Friday night philosophy

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:50:35 -0700

Whenever I travel overseas, I'm always glad to return home to my country, Australia. I suppose some of this has to do with being tired of living out of a suitcase; tired of the frantic pace where one feels one must fill every day with sight seeing activities; and the recurring thought that "this is costing a bloody fortune!". But I think it's more than that. In this country of mine that I love, my accent isn't out of place.; this is where I understand the cultural mores that were instilled in me during my formative years, and that make me feel rather privileged to be an Australian; this is where I belong. But, above all, this is where I can appreciate a luxury that most other countries that I've visited don't have. And that is the luxury of space.

I can remember reading that one of the highlights for Japanese tourists is to visit the outback in the Northern Territory where one can look around and see not another living soul. For them, this is a novelty they experience for the first time. I'm only now beginning to understand why they feel this way.

For in every country that I've ever visited, with the possible exception of New Zealand, space is at a premium. Yet, I've always had that luxury in this sparsely populated country of mine. In the small Western Queensland town where I grew up, each house was built on its own one acre block. Every summer weekend my friends and I would swim in the waterholes in the river, yes, bare arsed, as I recall. We'd go exploring the bush around the town. Sometimes we'd visit the waterhole that bears my grandfather's name, because he had a dairy farm nearby where he raised his ten children. I used to feel rather important when other kids asked my permission to swim there. I always generously gave it. They were not to know that the little farm had long been sold to a large cattle station nearby.

I live now on a quarter acre block in a city of 90,000 people. Yet I know I can be in the bush within ten minutes drive if I want to. I also know that the only place on this earth where I ever completely relax is in that little town where I grew up. I'll be forever connected to that little patch of ground in a dying outback town. Because that's my little patch.

And ever since I've returned from overseas, I've had a yearning to go back to my little patch. To visit my grandfather's grave, and to tell him that I visited the little village in Cornwall that he left as a child, and to reassure him that his father did the right thing when he emigrated. Because he gave us more than material comforts. He gave us space.

And I think that it is this space that is the soul of my country. And that is what the aborigines mean when they say that their spirits are linked to the land. There, in that space, their spirits can soar unimpeded by the earthly concerns that enslave we of European descent. I think I experienced it in my little outback town, but didn't recognise it. My aboriginal friends did, but they had forty thousand years start on me.

So, I've been listening to a CD of aboriginal spirit music that I bought in Alice Springs. You can listen to samples here. Close your eyes, and imagine yourself under the stars somewhere in outback Australia.

Then let your spirit soar.

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I wonder if he knows what he did.

nobody@vox.com(Snowy) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:31:11 -0700

The below article appeared in the newspapers today, which, I imagine, triggered a stampede into Dan Murphy liquor outlets by young and old alike. I'm now sipping on my $1.99/bottle shiraz. So what's it like? Well, it's definitely worth $1.99 a bottle. Read into that statement what you will. I had to buy a dozen bottles. I figured I could always use it for paint stripper if I didn't like it. But this is Friday night, so I think it'll serve the desired purpose in creating the right, er, atmosphere, for more Friday night philosophy. You've been warned...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/04/2295078.htm?section=justin

Cheap booze adverts 'encouraging binge drinking'

Posted 54 minutes ago

A drug and alcohol expert says advertisements for cheap alcohol are encouraging young people to binge drink.

A major Australian alcohol retailer is advertising wine for less than $2 a bottle.

Dr Jake Najman from the University of Queensland's Alcohol and Drug Research Centre says it is irresponsible to sell alcohol so cheaply.

"To the extent that we make alcohol cheaper, we're literally encouraging young people to buy more alcohol," he said.

"The outcome of that is that a number of them will get injured and some of them may even die, so we're talking about really some very, very serious consequences."

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The solar panel subsidy

nobody@vox.com(petermcc) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:21:38 -0700

Solar cells

I have just been reading a petition for the removal of the means test for a Solar Subsidy when you put Solar panels on the roof of your house. It makes interesting reading and some of the additional comments make a mockery of supposed environmentally aware attitude of the folk who left them.

Firstly, I can see where the Government is coming from here. Assuming their figures are correct, and I’m happy to see them challenged, it offers a better outcome than subsidising the whole industry. Folk with the means to afford the panels (those earning over $100k by Government reckoning), should be happy to do their bit rather than ask the Government to help them be responsible.

The subsidy is designed to bring more folk into market. Those not quite rich enough to be able to afford the panels. If people of wealth drop out simply because we, the Tax Payers, won’t give them money, then the environment must be of little concern to them. I’d call that cutting off your nose to spite your face. “Yes, the environment has gone down the toilet but I gave Rudd a bloody nose.”

With the changes we are facing in response to Global Warming, people had better start thinking about how they can play THEIR part. It’s a cop out to expect the Government to carry your can for you. Especially if you have the ability to pay your own way.

I’m happy to concede that some folk on the subsidy margin are not going to be able to afford it, but I would rather see them raise the threshold to $150k or perhaps higher, than waste money on folk who will already do the right thing. That way we get the highest possible number of participants.

In all the complaining I don’t see too many asking for a threshold increase which seems to me to be the more thoughtful approach.

There is a long way to go on addressing Global Warming and of course it’s going to cost. Campaigns suggesting everything can be paid for out of the Magic Pudding of Government revenue are simply unrealistic.

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