Category: General Musings

More tomorrow

I’m back! More to follow

I’m now at Darwin after 3,750 km of pub crawl. I’m on a six week trip through Queensland to the Gulf country, across to Darwin and then Kakadu, (the locals call it Kakadont due to all the nanny state rules) Jabiru, Coburg Peninsular, Nhulunbuy, Gove, Katherine, Eva Valley, Alice Spings, the Simpson Desert, Birdsville and home. Plan to be back by end July with about 12,000 km of Australian under our belt. A friend, Brian, and myself are doing the first part of the trip sans wives – hence the pub crawl statement. The ladies have now joined us at Darwin and from now on things will be more civilized – so I’ve been told. Communications varies from moderate to non-existant so postings will be spasmodic until I get back to civilization. Yes, Darwin is civilized but it gets worse from here. I am logging all the trip and will post in bulk on return. Conversations at pubs with people at the coal-face of outback life and it’s problems has been my purpose and will be the subject of later postings. At Darwin I have had the pleasure and time to speek with Shane Stone, the ex Chief Minister of the NT and Liberal heavyweight, and can only say I now view NT problems from a different perspective. Illuminating. More later. At Nhullunbuy I will be meeting with Galarrwuy Yunupingu and family and look forward to reporting on that. I go there with an open mind and will work hard at keeping any pre-conceived ideas to myself. I want to listen to someone elses point of view, someone who actually lives the problem..walks the walk and talks the talk. Maybe I’ll learn something that has eluded me until now but doubt it. I think the problems are well recorded by now. Otherwise I’m on leave.

Due to my computer’s mother board noticing the expirey of it’s warranty I had to have another one installed with the result that I didn’t collect my emails from Thursday thru Monday. Monday, issued with new passwords I pressed the send/receive and went and made coffee. Wow. 382 emails! So many friends. Obviously some correspondents were old girlfriends with thinly veiled comments of a personal nature and just as clearly some others (with male names) were old old drinking mates who failed to believe my juvenile boastings on conquests – why else would they suggest chemical enhancement for my libido? Jordan, I can’t remember where I knew him, suggested my girlfriend would thank me big time. If such a person existed she wouldn’t thank me after my wife had sliced and diced her and posted her home in a small post bag. Still, maybe he doesn’t know I got married. Worse to come – I have to talk to Telstra Bigpond Technical Help. 23 minutes to get past the gatekeeper with her inane, repetitive waffling and then the Indian accented; “Good morning sir, how can I be helping you” Stay cool, Kev. Don’t waste 23 minutes.

My computer plays up and after wasting a morning trying to recover I give up and call in a guy who’s more nerdier than me. Because I can’t open the big box to get the codes for broadband I hook up an old Pentium 2 laptop to dial-up How did I ever survive at these non-speeds. I opened my 7RAR Association website and it took 4.5 minutes to display the full screen with just a few pics. Give up, watch the idiot box and see Faulkner gloat over a non-victory. I should get the box back tomorrow and then all will be well. Tomorrow night I have a dinner date with a bunch of ex and serving Infantry Officers at the United Services Club in Brisbane. It promises to be a good evening with old friends and as is always the case, a younger, still serving Officer at about Brigadier level will brief us on what is happening. I bet Iraq gets a mention. Otherwise the laptop makes it too slow to blog so will be off and do something useful for a change.

MPs fear backlash on gay marriage. I don’t think that the twenty or so people in each electorate who believe marriages can be anything you want them to be when you wake up on any particular morning will impact on the upcoming election. Misha Schubert, who must have a degree in Social Engineering conjures up dissent where there is none in this article in the Australian I posted on this subject some months ago and have found no arguement to change my mind. I said then;

The Prime Minister rules out supporting ‘Gay Marriages’. Way to go John. Stick with it. Same sex relationships are just that – relationships. Marriage is between a couple, male and female, for the purpose of procreation and providing a secure base for the next generation. Relationships, including ones legaly defined, certainly don’t need to borrow ‘Marriage’ as a base. Why do a small proportion of society feel a need to change that? Maybe they fight to get ‘alternative’ lifestyles accepted as the norm. Well it isn’t, they aren’t and never will be. This is not an anti-gay post as I’m happy to accept ‘different stroke for different folks’ but hey, us hetro’s thought up marriage – you think up something else.

The important matters have been dealt with.

The superannuation changes would allow gay couples, elderly siblings who live together, or parents of a disabled child to leave their superannuation to each other without the present 30per cent tax penalty for someone other than a spouse, de facto spouse or child.

That’s as it should be. Misha quotes Howard as ‘Defending his plan’. Against whom, Mischa? You?

Whenever I hear the words Annesty International I am reminded of a world map they produced years ago with small icons depicting human rights abuses across the globe. It was on the notice board at Nudgee College Brisbane and what struck me as odd was there were no icons in the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Africa or the Middle East. Plenty in Europe, The US and Australia though. The report is available here. Read it but it doesn’t contain much that hasn’t been said previously. I see the AmnestyUS site has a photo of Susan Sarandon pleading for funds to stop torture. Sarandon on Bush;

We stand a chance of getting a president who has probably killed more people before he gets into office than any president in the history of the United States.

Enough said.

Confirming what a small leap it is from apes to humans, a women is in hospital after her dogs attacked her.

Neighbours said Daniella Donaldson, 34, was trying to separate the dogs when they attacked her. She managed to flee inside her home after a neighbour heard her screams and came to her aid. As Ms Donaldson lay bleeding inside, the dogs turned on other terrified neighbours. Armed police finally escorted rescue crews on to the property, where they treated her.

The four of them had attacked and killed the neighbour’s 10 year old jack russell. A council dog catcher arrived just before 8pm and captured one of the dogs about an hour later. She had four. Yep..four pit bulls..like a pride of lions. He then dropped this classic understatement

“Pit bulls are most affectionate dogs, but they have a tendency to snap, especially when in a pack,” the council officer said.

Understatement of the year. Yes… they do have a tendency to snap especially when in a pack and kill people and other dogs In fact they will turn on anything that’s still moving. People will still buy them and train them to kill. Makes it hard to feel sorry for them. Don’t jump in front of speeding buses, don’t go into lion cages, don’t front up to poisonous snakes and don’t buy pit bulls. Simple, isn’t it?

Back from leave – will commence blogging in the morning

I’m not a proffessor and I didn’t do maths beyond high school so the news that a Professor in South Australia wants police to stop letting drivers off the hook for speeding ‘just a bit’ has me confused.

DRIVERS are given too much leverage by police before being booked for speeding, the traffic safety guru responsible for the gradual lowering of the suburban speed limit to 50km/h has warned. Professor McLean uses the analogy of the limit on blood alcohol level to back up his suggestion to cut the police tolerance of speeding. The legal limit of 0.05 per cent blood alcohol level was chosen because statistically that level doubles the chances of a car crash. “So travelling at 69km/h in a 60km/h (zone) is like travelling at 60km/h with a blood alcohol level of 0.1 per cent,” Professor McLean said.

It’s the last sentence that has me confused. I think it’s a case of any figure will do and now I’m in the news again, maybe I’ll finally get that grant. The people who make my car will not guarantee the speedo accuracy to anything closer that 10% so I’m out on a limb here. I guess if I don’t drive in South Australia I should be safe but the ‘Nanny State’ wankers are after me. More>>