Author: Kev

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.

Brisbane Airport crackdown on illegal parking

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DRIVERS who are trying to avoid the hefty parking fees at Brisbane Airport by waiting at the popular Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Memorial are being hit with fines. The idea is to duck into the Memorial car park and wait on a phone call from the person you are picking up saying they have their baggage and are ready for pick up. The alternative is to park and pay and that can be costly. Maybe the Airport Corporation would have a point if it wasn’t for these figures;
Corporation figures show that parking is profitable. Last year it returned $57 million compared with aeronautical revenue of $87 million.
Parking station or airport? If they try hard and fine a lot of people they may beat the aeronautical revenue.
Uncategorized

I kid you not!

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FORMER Sydney Olympic chief Sandy Hollway is Australia’s first whale envoy. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett announced the appointment today, fulfilling a Labor election commitment.
“Mr Hollway’s appointment builds on the intensive diplomatic engagement the Rudd Labor government has undertaken to date and will see Australia deepen our dialogue with leaders in Japan and other countries ahead of the southern summer,” Mr Garrett said.
I wait with baited breath for a raft of announcements pertaining to Kangaroo, wombat and shark envoys.
Politics

Obama and his friends

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While the ABC, SBS and tabloid TV stations fall over themselves to report Sarah Palin had the temerity to suggest someone should be sacked for behaviour unbecoming an officer of the law; I thought, in the interests of balance, a consideration currently AWOL in the media’s coverage of the US Presidential elections, that I should link to the post below. Question: Does Barack Obama Have Any Friends Who AREN’T Communists? Good question and some answers here This week will be politics free for me as I go to Lamington NP to run a base camp for college boys studying Australian Environmental Studies. I have switched off moderation as I won’t be able to do so until Saturday morning. Go for it! Debate that is, not abuse.
US Politics

Obama careless with the truth

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Watching Lateline and caught a clip of Obama denying there was any substance to the story of his association with William Ayers, a Weatherman of the 60s and 70s.
“And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense…”
This is William Ayres Of the day he bombed the Pentagon, Ayers says, “Everything was absolutely ideal. … The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”
On another occasion, Ayers stated: “There’s something about a good bomb … Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down.”
and this from a memoir of sorts released on 9/11
‘I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”
From Hillary Clinton;
Obama served on a board with former Weather Underground member William Ayers and “that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11.”
and this;
Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago, said Obama was a director from 1994 through 2001. That overlaps Ayers’ time as a director by three years. It also means Obama served with Ayers for the final months of 2001, after Ayers made his comments to the New York Times.
So Senator, we’re not talking about something that happened 40 years ago but an ongoing association with an anarchist that does reflects on you and your values. You were working with Ayres when you were 40, not 40 years ago. Is that what you meant to say? If not, you lied! As far as I’m concerned there is no Statute of limitations on being an anarchist dedicated to a terrorist bombing campaign against your own countryman and even if Ayres now has an aura of respectability about him he is what he was and Obama sat down with him. Worse, he did it in full knowledge of what Ayers had done. Not that the ABC mentioned any of these details – just the denial, leaving viewers with the impression that it all happened when Obama was a just an eight year old. Amazing isn’t it that the US Democrats have a campaign HQ in Australia – ah…the ABC, ever reliable. UPDATE: An article by a victim of William Ayers UPDATE2: Dogfight at Bankstown has good coverage on the subject matter.
Politics, US Politics

With friends like Marr….

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…who needs enemies. EDUCATION department officials will today interview the primary school principal who allegedly allowed photographer Bill Henson into her school grounds seeking children to photograph. Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said today that consent was the main issue. No it’s not. The main issue is Henson takes nude photos of children and sells them as art. The incident came to the notice of the media when David Marr mentioned in a recent book he has published that Henson had been to a state school campus looking for subjects. David is getting good publicity for his book from his marketing agent, the ABC, but in an interview on the ABC’s First Cut he confesses amazement at the reaction. He argues that there is a protocol for movie publishers, artists, et al to approach schools looking for subjects but tries to stay clear of Bill Henson’s raison d’être, ie taking pics of naked preteens for profit. It’s one thing for talent scouts to look at kids for a movie part or commercial work but it’s another matter altogether for photographers to trawl the school networks for kids for nude pin-up shots. He claims Mr Henson’s work was not pornographic but while most Mums and Dads think it is then the opinion of a writer of Marr’s political persuasion and that of the Arts community should discounted. Some of Henson’s work is pornographic and I would put him in the same basket as pornographers although, they at least, admit what they selling is pornographic. Henson is weird and we should continue to keep an eye on him and the rock he lives under.
General Musings

Weekly Global Waming panic report

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CLIMATE change is likely to deprive us of the pleasures of eating beef and lamb, instead forcing us to contemplate platefuls of kangaroo meat and threatening another Australian table staple — seafood. A report to be released by the CSIRO today says changes in temperature, ocean currents, rainfall and extreme weather events could cost Australian fisheries tens of million of dollars.
Hardest hit could be stocks of Tasmanian salmon, estimated to be worth $221million in 2005-06 and representing 30 per cent of the total national aquaculture production. The report says projected ocean warming of 2-3 degrees by 2070 could render salmon farming unviable, leaving open the possibility of salmon farmers having to shift their operations offshore to deeper, cooler waters.
That’s assuming the industry place their respective heads in the sand and ignore any climate change over the next 50 odd years. It also assumes no one will google Salmon farming+optimal temperatures. and find as I did that 2-3 degrees variation over 50 years is totally irrelevant when the current industry norms say optimal temperatures for salmon/trout farming currently works on a temperature range of +- 8 degrees. In addition to this genetic research and development is looking for stock that can be grown commercially in 3 to 21 degree range as stated in the Australian Fish Farmer
Although selective breeding for a genotype that displays Upper and Lower Critical Tolerance (UCL & LCL) should enable growers to farm the species in regions that would otherwise be marginal, The UCL for cold water species would be something like 21 degrees C and the LCL would be 3 degrees C.
Panic, you bastards and join the Church of the Latter Day Alarmists but don’t, whatever you do, question our gospel.
Climate Change

Howard not insane: Tanner

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Lyndsay Tanner On the 18th of September Lyndsay Tanner attacks the “insane” Howard government for their procurement and renting procedures
…he outlined “crazy” wastage in property management, describing how the Australian Customs Service pays $380 per square metre a year for space in a Canberra office building, while the Department of the Attorney General pays $303 per square metre for space on the same floor of the same building.
Two weeks later he’s forced to retract (Permalink not working – scroll down)
FOLLOWING advice from my department, I told Matthew Franklin (“Tanner targets agency wastage”, 18/9) that the Attorney-General’s Department is paying $303 per square metre rent for space in a building at 2Constitution Avenue, Canberra, while Customs is paying $380 per square metre for similar space. I have since been advised that the $303 figure is incorrect, and that the Attorney-General’s Department is paying rent that is similar to Customs.
Oops! Too quick to play the blame game me thinks.
Politics

Vietnam Veteran taken by Charlie

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The poor man spent his 20th or 21st year in a smelly Centurion tank in the Republic of Vietnam with Charlie firing RPGs at him trying to ruin his day. Thirty plus years later Charlie gets him only this time Charlie is a 5.5 meter saltwater croc Croc MONSTER … the crocodile, pictured being tagged three years ago, believed to be responsible for the Cooktown attack. Pic: Professor Gordon Grigg, The University of Queensland. A VIETNAM veteran who had gone to retrieve crab pots after breaking camp in north Queensland vanished yesterday, the first suspected victim of a fatal crocodile attack since 2005.
Arthur Booker, 62, from Logan south of Brisbane, has not been seen since he went to check a crabpot at the Endeavour River Escape campsite near Cooktown, north of Cairns, about 8.30am (AEST) yesterday. Rangers at the campsite believe a 5.5-metre crocodile named Charlie dragged Mr Booker into the river.
For those metric disadvantaged readers 5.5 metres is about 18 feet
Uncategorized

SASR getting new vehicles

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Ending a 50-year relationship with Land Rover, the army will also sign off next month on a $314 million contract with Mercedes Benz for 1200 new G-Wagon light four-wheel-drive vehicles as its off-roader of choice. Special Operations Command troops, the SASR and commandos can expect to be driving an altogether new vehicle, the British-made Supacat – named the Nary in Australia in honour of Warrant Officer David Nary, who died during a Middle East pre-deployment operation in 2005. Nary I doubt the SASR will use them in yellow livery but this is the vehicle ordered 1200 new Mercede Benz Gelaendenwagens (G-Wagons) are also coming on line. gwagon The pic is of the Canadian G-Wagon stolen from here (scroll down) Could be a lot of Land Rovers coming on the market soon. Maybe I could buy another one……and maybe I could be divorced…mmm…decisions.
Defence

Men’s clubs

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The Australian is leading a charge against that bastion of of old conservative ways, men’s clubs.
Melbourne’s Athenaeum Club has been split over the issue of women members, with a high-powered group of 130 business and civic leaders being blocked in their push to have women accepted as members for the first time in the club’s 142-year history.
It’s a Men only club. If that’s not your bag, don’t join! To join a club knowing it’s constitution and then agitate to change it suggests an agenda outside of the clubs reason for existence. If you find it objectionable that men gather as a group and talk men’s business then complain to each other at your next mixed-gender function and leave the blokes to have their fun. There are woman’s clubs I can’t join, and don’t want to; and I belong to an ex-infantry officers group that meet regularly. There are no woman as there is yet to be a woman commissioned as an Infantry Officer. What’s wrong with that? For that matter, what woman would want to join? Let the old guys have their fun; nothing to see here, move on
General Musings
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