Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies.
Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.
Four youths from Canberra, Australia, pulled off a trick of breathtaking bravado in order to gain revenge on a mobile speed camera van operating in the area. Three of the group approached the van and distracted the operator’s attention by asking a series of questions about how the equipment worked and how many cars the operator could catch in a day. Meanwhile, the fourth musketeer sneaked to the front of the van and unscrewed its numberplate. After bidding the van operator good-bye, the friends returned home, fixed the number plate to their car and drove through the camera’s radar at high speed – 17 times. As a result, the automated billing system issued 17 speeding tickets to itself. Go Aussies!!
Now that’s a ‘feel good’ story courtesy of a SASR forum.
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Janet Albrechtsen says ‘Marriage must matter’ and is happy that Latham mentions the problem. The Left can no longer claim a push for the return to the old standards of supporting marriage is a right-wing conspiracy aimed at leading us back to white picket fences. Latham has said it’s OK to support marriages.
Pointing to the 600,000 children who live in single-parent households, Latham has promised to set up a national mentoring program. He told the conference: “For boys without men in their lives this is a real issue: a lack of male mentors and role models teaching them the difference between right and wrong. I see this in my own community: boys who have gone off the rails. And lost touch with a thing called society.”
These are fine ideas that will resonate with voters who were left wondering if judgment-shy politicians would ever catch up with the social problems inflicted by a 30-year experiment in fatherlessness.
The thirty year experiment in fatherlessness takes us back to social engineering days of Latham’s hero, Whitlam, and his partners in social disharmony, Cairns and Murphy who in paying homage to the gods of the left trivialised marriage. No-fault, easy divorces was a warm and fuzzy ideal that lead to the national trauma of the Family Court and a mentality that thinks 600 000 fatherless kids is cool.
It’s not. It’s tragic.
Relationship too hard – too easy – split – damn the kids. No committment become the order of the day. Married bliss comes and goes and if it is always bliss then it is only so because one or the other partner is ignoring reality. Thousands of years of experience in all cultures of the world has left us with one basic tenet for marriage – committment.
The seven year itch, menopausal uncertainty, the instinctive proclivity of men to keep on ‘spreading their seed’ are, or were, all covered by ‘committment’. Settle down mate, think it through lady, the family unit becomes the driving force and anything attacking this should be repelled. If times are bad, they will improve. If love looks lost it will come back but not if you’re apart.
Most understand this and marriages last. Some don’t and kids suffer. Obviously some marriages should never have been – wife beating, serial adultry and when it happens a split can be the only answer, but breaking up after a bloody domestic arguement is plain stupid.
Janet continues;
As English conservative journalist Roger Scruton wrote last year marriage is more than the bond between one man and one woman in time. It is a social contract where the dead and yet to be born are also parties. It is “the principal forum in which social capital is passed on”. As with same-sex marriages, the push to equate de facto relationships with marriage is misguided. Co-habitation is not marriage. Most people, when asked, express a long-term desire to get married. They don’t say they want to settle down into a good de facto relationship.
Go read Janet’s
article, it makes sense
John Kerry, Presidential hopeful and Vietnam war hero is not all he seems. Hopeful, yes and by all accounts a war hero but some of the gilt associated with heroism has been tarnished.
In an article by Rick Ericson he points to Kerry’s post vietnam slandering of US troops still embroiled in the war.
Rick cuts straight to the chase with this.
Of all the reasons why John F. Kerry will not become President of the United States, the biggest reason has to be that, once he returned home from Vietnam, he betrayed his fellow servicemen who remained at war. Kerry not only allied with the likes of Hanoi Jane Fonda, but, before the United States Senate in 1971, Kerry went as far as to belittle the bravery of embattled troops by generalizing their every action in Vietnam as an atrocity.
Readers should know by now my stand on Vietnam but to repeat; agree or disagree with the war but leave the soldier out of it and under no circumstances is consorting with the enemy acceptable.
Go
read and consider: Do we really want this man with his left wing baggage leading the US and the free world?
Heads up from Wallace at Big Gold Dog.
The Sun Herald reports Stockman may have to wear hard hats after OH&S Nannies took a case to court over the death of a jackaroo.
THE owners of a cattle station yesterday pleaded guilty to breaching occupational health and safety rules after the death of a jackaroo.
Daniel Croker, 23, was killed when thrown from a horse mustering at Gunbar station, near Hay in New South Wales in 2001.
Mr Croker was not wearing a helmet.
The case, the first of its kind to go before the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, could result in hard hats replacing the traditional Akubra worn by stockmen and farmers across the country.
The NSW WorkCover Authority prosecuted Gunbar’s owners, B.H. MacLachlan Pty Ltd, claiming the company failed to provide safety equipment and training for Mr Croker.
B.H. MacLachlan faces a fine of up to $550,000 but will contest some facts of the case when submissions on penalty are heard in June.
Seems a bit odd to me. Will MacLachlan and Company have to muzzle the horses as well. They bite you know. What about hobbling them to stop them kicking. We should also look at filling in all the small holes in the paddocks to stop the horses tripping in a rabbit warren and maybe we should get rid of the cattle – they’ve been known to spook horses.
Yellow hard hats – bloody hell. The hat rack on the verandah of the Boulia Pub will never look the same.
And the new OH&S Ringer – hardly an inspiration for country music.
The ALP want a US style Coast Guard and whereas images of cutters like the USCG Cutter Hamilton (pictured) might make us feel grown up and a significant player in the world all such thoughts would disappear when the first payment fell due.
Peter Reith, when Minister for Defence had
this to say more than two years ago when Kim Beazley first raised the coast Guard issue.
You can read the ALP policy on the Coast Guard issue in their
Policy Paper – 007 – 27 November 2002 Although mentioned in this election build up, the ALP have yet to update their site with more recent considerations.
Try as I could I couldn’t find a picture of our Coastwatch cutters. If the debate continues could we have some please – Mr Coastwatch PR man. I know they won’t be as big and as flash as the US Cutters but they sound OK to me. Our cutters are 38 m long versus the US 250m plus versions.
The division of Customs that handles Coastwatch vessels is the National Marine Unit (NMU)
The NMU fleet comprises eight vessels:
ACV Roebuck Bay
ACV Holdfast Bay
ACV Botany Bay
ACV Hervey Bay
ACV Corio Bay
ACV Arnhem Bay
ACV Dame Roma Mitchell
ACV Storm Bay.
All ACVs are surveyed under the Uniform Shipping Laws Code (USLC) to class 2B standards with a 200 nautical mile (NM) offshore capability. Bay-class vessels have an operational fuel load of 25,000 litres and are powered by two MTU 1050-kilowatt diesel engines. This provides endurance in excess of 1000 nautical miles at 20 knots and considerably more at lower speeds.
Each ACV has two 6.4m tenders capable of carrying two crew and four passengers. Each tender is powered by twin 90 hp outboards and has a cruising range of 150 nautical miles. Tenders are deployed from an ACV via compensated davits on the port and starboard sides aft.
The standard crew for an ACV patrol consists of eight Customs Marine Officers. These officers come from a diverse range of backgrounds and spend 22-30 days at sea per six week roster cycle. Southern ocean crew will work under modified conditions and will generally spend around 40 days at sea. A variety of training is undertaken to ensure crew are skilled to operate as a safe and professional team. Training includes:
occupational health and safety at sea
Bay-class operation
operational safety and defensive skills
statutory Federal and State marine qualifications
other Customs specific training.
More than two years ago I was sailing off the West Australian coast and while at the Monte Bello Islands a Coastwatch plane (pictured above) come over and demanded all sorts of answers such as yacht’s registered name and home port, who was on board, last port, next port, ETA next port and what did we know about the other yacht nearbye that they couldn’t raise on radio. I was impressed. Days later we witnessed Coastwatch operatives conducting training with heli fast-rope inserts onto a small rock way out in the ocean. I’ve been there, done that, am critical and they looked professional to me.
The Australian Coastwatch service has a website
here and the National Marine Unit
here
Coast Watch is a uniquely Australian answer and currently under the umbrella of Australian Customs. Why change that?. If the ALP think Coast watch is not working properly then why not just boost Coatswatch?
Canada are looking at our system and ask; ‘Australia’s Coastwatch ? What Can Canada Learn?’ Read that here. It’s a short
piece
Could someone tell me why we shouldn’t just develop and improve Coastwatch. Why do the ALP insist on a Coast Guard when we already have one? Is it just a name change or do they want it under the umbrella of Defence?
All sounds like books for kids to me – the wrong angle of approach.
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It had to
happen. A techno dropkick has called his son Ver 2.0.
Mark Latham has a ‘free book’ plan to help kids improve. The fact that the problem is the parents and not the kids seems to slip through the net. The Herald Sun has the
story
“Most would agree that kids spend too much time with computer games and TV,” he said. “If we can get them reading and doing more exercise it will give them a more balanced lifestyle.
When my kids were at school there was no TV during the week AT ALL. That didn’t happen because some loopy MP gave them free books, it happened because I said so and therein lies the rub. It’s the parents, stupid.
If most would agree that kids spend too much time with computer games and TV then it’s the parents who need counselling, not free books for kids. No parental discipline and the free books will be lost uner the TV Times on the coffee table.
Parents who don’t read to their kids don’t do so because they’re stupid and don’t understand education and its benefits. The same people think homework is an invasion of their leisure time and take-away is healthy and for these reasons they are most probably already voting for the ALP so what’s Mark Lathams point.
Free books for kids? He hasn’t heard of school and public libraries chock-a-block full of free books?
Mark’s point is this; Look at me, I read to my kids. Look at me, I plan to give free books to people so they can read to their kids. People who read to their kids are are responsible parents and people who give them books to help them be responsible are very responsible. Ergo, I am very responsible – vote for me.
It’s not the wherewithal Mark, it’s the motivation.
Work on the parents. Encourage them to go the local libraries where they can access free books for thier kids that won’t cost the country another 80 million dollars.
Update: One of my progeny states I turned soft later and the younger kids could watch TV for an hour after school but not after dinner. Another tells me the rule only worked when I was home which explains the flurried activity as I drove into the driveway. At least I tried.
In another life I was a recruiting Sergeant and on one notable day lectured to Year 12 kids at two Hornsby High Schools. The first lecture was at a St Leo’s College where the boys, all well dressed and well mannered, listened politely, asked discerning questions and the School Captain thanked me for my time and my service (I was in uniform).
After lunch I entered the hall at the Hornsby High School to be met with pro-communist propaganda on the walls and a group of young people that could only be described as a noisy rabble. Vitriolic abuse flowed freely and the teacher in charge could only smirk. I requested she take some control but she couldn’t or wouldn’t see my point.
I left without another word.
Life, and love, gave me five children and I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised as to what type of schools my children attended. I’m not Cathiloc but they all went to Catholic schools; not that all State Schools are like Hornsby was, but because they could be. A heavily Union or left wing orientated Principal could negate all that is good about the state school system.
All of my children went on to teriary education and two, both men, teach. One in a private school and the other public. Don’t try and tell me it’s different – it isn’t.
The responsibility of teaching young people is heavy and the all to often situation of teachers putting their point of view as fact to young impressionable minds is an abrogation of this responsibility and should be cause for censure.
And no! I am not suggesting all state schools have this problem. They don’t, but while the left wing is in the ascendency in the tertiary institutions it will surface all too regularly.
I don’t want my right wing views espoused as fact either. Kids need to be taught that there are different views on how things should be and given a good impartial education should be able to make up their own minds when they mature.
Howard is right, there is a problem and the biggest aspect of that problem is the left wing refusing to see it. Like the ABC, proof that there is bias is emphasised by the fact that the left wing never complain about bias – it’s biased their way.
While we’re discussing education can we bury this red herring that suggests Federal Government funding suggests some social engineering project on the Government’s part. The fact that the Feds allocate more funding to Private schools than State is a part of their charter. The States have the responsibility of funding their own schools. The Government helps State and ensures private schools have some funding as they do eduacate over 30% of our kids.
Don’t be alarmed though, the Australian public knows all this and will says so come the election.
I’ve been to sea in yachts and ships of the ‘Grey Funnel Line’ (RAN) but I’ve never seen seas like this. Just goes to show it aint all beer and skittles.
Photo courtesy of the
Australian
The summer storms hit Brisbane with a vengence with considerable damage to the community and the power grid.
I flew in from Perth yesterday just in time to notice my website had been hit by spammers before the storm struck and took away the power. I was actually in the pool when it struck having given up on fixing my website. I couldn’t get out quick enough. Water – lightning strikes- run for cover – run back and try and secure umbrella (too late) patio furniture (too late). Later all secure – now find the camera to take a shot of horizontal palm trees. Found the camera but couldn’t switch it on due to lack of reading glasses.
After the storm had passed I found them in the middle of the pool along with my coffee mug and a considerable amount of local flora and fuana.
Ergon Energy reported up to 100 000 homes without power and I went without until 1:30 the next afternoon. Third world service in a state that promised bells and whistles with the new ‘privatised’ power company.
37 degress celcius – no power for the airconditioner or the computer – water for coffee heated on my old gas camping stove – light in the kitchen from my Mothers old Kerosene lamp from the farm in the fifties – hurumph.
Tomorrow will be a better day, I’m sure. I hope. Similar storms are forecast for the rest of the week.
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