SUPPORTERS of the Eureka rebellion against the British empire plan to disrupt the Queen’s Baton relay as it passes through the site of the 1854 uprising in regional Victoria this week. For non-Commonwealth readers, the baton is being carried around AUstralia as a prelim to the Commonwealth Games – previously known as the Empire Games. I always presumed the Empire Games were established so Australia could have off-season Olympic Games training but I could be wrong. The spokeman, Marcus Neofitou, is reported as saying;

“These brave men wanted independence from the British Empire. The Commonwealth Games were the Empire Games right up to 1954.”

Imagine the stress of arriving at my point in life and realizing I had been poorly tutored, and worse, all the books I had read were wrong. I was always under the impression that the miners at Eureaka were protesting about Miners licences and the heavy handed monitoring of them by the Victorian police but Marcus says the were protesting against the entire British Empire…..well now, that’s a new approach. True, there was talk of a Republic at Eureka but let’s face, get two Irishmen together and amidst the alcohol-driven conversatons the words “Republic”, “Bloody” and “British” always gets a mention. There could be a case for Australia to become a republic but only if it happens because it is seen as best for the country; not just because certain people ‘hate the British’. However I may still be right and Marcus Neofitou wrong as the Eureka Centre at Ballarat shares my view. They do quote politicians who think the eureka rebellion was about a republic but their emphasis is not on this issue, it is on the issue of hard policing. I have to conclude that Marcus has got some press for his nefarious little protest against the British by saying something outrageous. Poor Fellow, my country has a distinct lack of wars in our long march to democracy. No War of Independance like our American cousins; no religious and monarchist wars like the Europeans; just a plain old get together and make a commonwealth. Given the lack of millions of war dead as the basis for a free country we are left to make do with what we have – 30 miners killed in a fight with the local police. This makes the Eureka rebellion an important event in our history and it also makes the Eureka flag (depicted on the stamp above) historically significant but unfortunately the BLF has used the flag as their logo for many years and Australians won’t accept it as a national icon, let alone flag, until the thugs of the BLF are long forgotten.

Police have arrested a woman over the food poisoning scare at two Sizzler restaurants in Brisbane.

The Sizzler chain has closed all of its self-serve salad bars in Australia after rat poison was found in food at two Brisbane restaurants.

That last sentence should read;

The Sizzler chain has closed all of its self-serve salad bars in Australia 37 days after after rat poison was first found in food at two Brisbane restaurants.

The Queensland Health Minister is not happy and I would imagine the thousands of Sizzler customers who visited over the last five weeks would be a little miffed as well.

Apparently Australian labs can’t identify rat poison as Sizzlers sent the sample overseas for testing.

Jane Fonda is in town. Readers may wonder why a man who is normally reserved would resort to such profanity but I have along memory, and the years to develop it, and remember Jane Fonda more as an agent for the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War than an actress. In 1968 Jane starred in the sci-fi movie Barbarella where she drove every young male into fantasy overload with her looks, figure and costumes. I too was taken in untill four years later we all saw beyond her looks, figure and costumes and discovered her intelectuall appreciation of all things communist. Dropped her like a red hot coal, I did. No more could she have her way with me as even then I appreciated there was more to woman than looks. Here’s my favourite pin-up picture of Jane. It shows her manning a Communist Anti Aircraft gun during a trip she made to North Vietnam in 1972. She had accepted their offer to star in communist propaganda movies and radio interviews to the detriment of her fellow Americans. As one disgruntled marine pilot said. It’s one thing to protest about the war and the government’s involvement but that gun wasn’t aimed at the government; it was aimed at US pilots. To put her treason in perspective one would have to imagine an Australian actress posing on a Japanese gun emplacement when the Japs were busy shooting down Australian and US pilots during World War 2. Treason, plain and simple, writ huge. Here for more details of her treason. Over at Tim Blairs people are discussing the roll of actors and entertainers in society and the thread settles on the fact that good or bad, actors are just entertainers. A lot of people get confused with a pretty or handsome face and the parts actors play. I swear there are film buffs out in the world who confuse the lines actors ‘read’ with reality and end up thinking an actor is smart when the only smarts are from the script writer. George Clooney is a case in point. In this article in the Age he says;

….he is proud to be denounced as unpatriotic for questioning US policy because he wanted to be on “the right side of history”.

I have enjoyed his acting over the years but I know it’s acting and that the parts he plays are just that, parts in a movie. George, and not a few of his peers in Hollywood, seem to think that being popular translates as being intelligent and that people will vote out a Political party because he doesn’t like them and, don’t you know, he is smarter that us…he is, after all, a popular actor. Whether or not he is on “the right side of history” remains to be seen. Jane Fonda’s communism has been defeated and only remains in a few countries that no-one cares about and I believe George Clooney’s terrorists will eventually go the same way. Life is too short (at least in my time of life it is) to spend valuable time watching movies and supporting actors who think they are always on the right side of history based on their Tinsel Town life experiences. I mean, just how much history has George read?

POLICE in NSW’s top robbery hotspot, Redfern, have demanded 20 more frontline officers be posted to the area or they will consider industrial action.

Robbery rates in Redfern are spiralling, a Police Association branch meeting was told yesterday. Redfern local area command last year experienced a massive 7.4 per cent of all robberies across the state. 

The meeting voted to give NSW Police 30 days to meet the demand or face industrial action. Association president Bob Pritchard said the extra numbers were essential to ensure the community got the service it needed. Maybe we should level the place, turn it into a giant CBD carpark and call it Whitlams Folly but then we would have to number it to account for all of his folleys…maybe “Whitlam’s Folly 3615” or similar.

Landline down Thursday…ADSL down…can’t fix until Monday…Monday…landline fixed….ADSL coding has to be reprogrammed…will take another four to five days.  On the seventh tele call to Optus had a win and spoke to someone whose first language was English. Dialup is so slow I forget what I was looking for by the time I get there so will work on the 150 emails (two-thirds spam) tonight and post tomorrow. You remember the dialup problem…Dad, can I make a phone call?