Category: General Musings

Archaeologists have found a 2,000 year old shoe in Britain.

LONDON: Archaeologists said Tuesday they believed they had dug up Britain’s oldest shoe, dating from the early Iron Age about 2,000 years ago.

The article says the shoes might be for a man, but if not, I bet the poor husband had to walk all the way to Italy to get them for his wife.

An American expatriate living in SEA has this article about Abu Bakar Ba’asyir the head of Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia currently serving a paltry 30 months for his Bali, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden links, that states Abu is likely to be released soon. According to the post;

The prosecution did have a hard time convicting Abu Baka Ba’asyir that the 30 month sentence was in actuality given simply to placate both Australia and the United States.

Elsewhere in Indonesia a Councillor forges his high school diploma and gets three years Better not be true. Still, knowing Indonesia it most probably is true.

Ex Indonesian President Soeharto is seriously ill in Jakarta’s Pertamina Hospital. According to the Jakarta Post he is suffering from internal bleeding with only a 50-50 chance of survival.

The BBC let one through to the keeper and actually published a positive article about Iraq. Reading it, waiting for the negative spin to hit me, I noted the comments on the BBC changing spots was penned by Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff. Good to see you getting around, Arthur. In Far North Queensland the communities of Bamaga and Injinoo are in shock, as is the rest of Australia, as we suffer our first multiple death plane crash for decades. Not only have the communities lost valuable members but the police force have lost one of their own as 28 year old Constable Sally Urquhart died. Her fiancee, CONSTABLE Trad Thornton learned of her death when police colleagues unwittingly called for the passenger manifest from a commercial plane that was missing. Poor bugger. Also killed was scientist David Banks, who had worked tirelessly to keep pests and diseases out of Australia. The area of the crash is very remote and coincidently, I will be travelling up there in June on an expedition to Cape York, at sea level, in a 4WD. In Europe, France releases a documentary under the ‘Put shit on the US’ programme that accuses a US submarine of torpedeoing the Kursk nuclear sub’ Nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get press coverage and bums on seats .

BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a “pack of lies” and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV.

Must be flakey if the BBC won’t run it. I bet the Australian SBS network will grab it though. Just wait a bit and we’ll be able to view it in Australia on ‘The Cutting Edge’.

In a variation of Dog Bites Man a fisherman in Queensland comes off second best in a fight with a fish. The fish beat him up and then escaped.

IN a fishy tale with a different ending, an Australian angler on Tuesday described how a five-foot mackerel jumped into his boat, knocked him down and injured him – and then got away.

The one that got away

If ever there was a victimless crime, this is it. A female teacher has been sent to goal for 6 months for having sex with a student. Watching the student in an interview the other night left no doubt in my mind that he thought he was the cat’s pajamas. She is attractive, he seems to be a well adjusted young man and will be the envy of all his classmates. Not only did he score but it was all over the media. At that age many conversations among young men start with ‘I scored last night’, to be met with calls of Oh yeah…right…like no-way man. His biggest problem must be keeping the ‘chessire cat’ smile off his face when he was discussing it with his mother who is quoted as saying;

… she was happy with the final outcome. “Justice has been done with this woman, and for other victims of sexual abuse, I feel for them as well.”

On being sentenced, Karen Louise Ellis felt alone.

She was all alone, at the lowest point in her life, and no one – not her plumber husband Stephen, none of her three beloved children, nor the seventeen year old with whom she had an illegal sexual relationship – was there to comfort her.

I wonder why.

Some time back I was window shopping while waiting for the Disco to be serviced when I found a Lifeline shop with a second-hand book section. As usual I went straight to the hardback, older looking offers and found two classics. One, Rise up to Life, is a biography of Howard Walter Florey, an Aussie, who took Flemings discarded discovery of penicillin and developed it for every-day use and the other, Arthur C Clarke’s The Promise of Space.(1st edition, 1968) The cost? $4.50 for the two. In July, 1969 I was on exercise with the 7th Battalion in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Training us to fight in the tropical jungles of Vietnam the Army had chosen the training ground well. It was bloody freezing. I remember the night the Eagle landed as some of us gathered around the hand-set of an ANPRC 25 radio and listened to Astronauts Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin talking as they maneuvered in Moon orbit. When Neil Armstrong and ‘Buzz’ Aldrin actually landed I was manning a piquet post and couldn’t listen but from then I have taken a great interest in space. I’m now reading Arthur C Clarke’s book and find it fascinating. Printed a full year before the famous July 69 Apollo moon landing he has the ability to make the technological leap of space travel understandable to us non ‘rocket scientist’ type punters. As the fuelled up Saturn rocket sat on the pad at Cape Kennedy it weighed 3,000 tons, which is just a little bit lighter and about the same length as the current ANZAC Class frigates in service in the RAN. On lift-off 7,500,000 pounds of thrust lifted this frigate sized rocket vertical, consuming fuel at 15 tons per second with the fuel pumps generating a total of 3,000 hp. As Clarke says, 3,000 hp is twice the power of the largest ocean liner (circa 1960s). Well I find that fascinating. Yesterday we were all agog at the Airbus 380 making her inaugural flight. With her Rolls Royce and GE/Pratt & Whitney engines expected to produce 75,000 pounds of thrust, a mere tenth of Saturn V, she is the peak of today’s aeronautical engineering and yet a Sopwith Camel by comparison. None of my children were born when the Eagle landed but I’m sure, in due course, one of them, or even my wife and myself, will fly Airbus. I note that Qantas has put in an order for several so the chances are we will be sitting in an aircraft designed to carry up to 800 passengers that Qantas has cunningly re-engineered to carry 900 in abject discomfort. And if I do fly, I will reflect that I’m doing so in less seat space than Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin had, in an aircraft carrying less fuel that feeds smaller engines, albeit with a virtual guarantee of landing safely. Brave men and exciting times. The Apollo success will stand forever as a tribute to engineering, science, courage and man’s ability to realize dreams.

There must be shortage of sheep in NZ. According to a news release by the NZ National Party, the Kiwi Labour government has approved a discussion paper that proposes legalising brother-sister sex for over-20-year-olds. Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself “When asked in Parliament this morning why he had approved the paper, Justice Minister Phil Goff said ‘because it was an issue’. Damn right it is an issue but that doesn’t mean anyone in their right mind would allow it. The issue is how to stop it. Must be a hoax. Surely. Even Hulun Cluck isn’t that stupid. Mmmm

Fears an unidentified aircraft had entered restricted space near the White House prompted security officials to move President George Bush from the Oval Office to an underground shelter today. Only a so-so story but what got my interest was this;

Security officers toting shotguns took up positions around the White House compound during the incident.

I trust they have a better plan to stop planes crashing into the Whitehouse. Some missiles maybe.

Site back up…still looking for archives…. Have changed Broadband from Telstra to Optusnet, changed hosts and managed to enjoy ANZAC day all over a few tight days. Should be back to normal with posts tomorrow morning.