Photopolitic

hola muchachos

2009-04-29T21:17:00.003+10:00

Well, I've been taking a couple of photos, and figured I might as well put them up for my own amusement, perhaps yours.

For now a couple of my hometown, Darwin. From the Esplanade into the sun, so not great.

I like them, though.

Cheers

Quiero llevarte lejos, baby...

2007-12-13T17:09:00.000+10:00

...dejame.

Good news. I've got a new keyboard with a space bar that works, and the intertubes are once more funneling the good stuff in and out of our humble home.

And I ditched my summer unit for uni.

Upshot...I've got a bit of time to put some old photos up. But not enough time to think of witticisms, so for these ones you'll just have to make something up yourself.

Trackside campground, Phillip Island. That there is the Southern Loop.

Ant West coming round the bottom of pit straight.

Start finish line during the 250 race.

American 125 rider Stevie Bonsey on his KTM.

Randy De Puniet, Alex Barros and Makoto Tamada.

And finally for today, Vermeulen with his Sheene tribute Suzuki colours.

Heaps more to come.

Chao, por hoy.

Saturday night's...

2007-11-29T11:22:00.000+10:00

...already old.

I still have some more photos to put up, but even with internet on at home, the spacebar on my keyboard has mysteriously stopped working, along with all the number keys. Odd.

ItdoesmakeanythingIwritefromhomealittlehardtoread.

So I’ll do this at work.

The first time I voted in a federal election it was between the Vampire and the Duck – or at least that’s the way I saw it. Keating was tough and acerbic, and reminded me of my grandpa for some reason; Howard was a mean little twerp surrounded by snotty aristocrats. I was sorely disappointed in 1996 – and it only got worse, a lot worse, over the next decade or so.

Now, I’ve just realised what a difference not having Howard in will make to this place. Sure, I was bloody excited on Saturday night (even more so when I found out the new PM and treasurer will have their HQ in the Riverside Centre – I walk past there everyday and the downcast faces of the innumerable private school bullies was wonderful – I bet they’re stoked to have commies in the building), but it didn’t really sink in until my uni contacted me on Wednesday.

They sent me a letter to let me know that the amount of courses on offer had been reduced again. Since I enrolled in economics there in 2001 the number of courses has halved, and those left are geared towards business, engineering, law – basically vocational higher education. It seems that in Howard’s Australia learning how to think, rather than just to do, was a bad thing.

So, as angry as I am about the letter, I dare to hope that it may now change. Maybe too late for a lot of people – we’ll just have a glut of people than can fix stuff with nobody that can make a new one for a while – but eventually.

This election has also finally proved to me that the narrow left-right spectrum truly is dead, or at least only a small part of the story. Sure, economically it helps people work out what’s happening, but it’s glaringly obvious that it completely fails to adequately model social and environmental issues. Disturbingly, I can conceive of a Labor party that assumes the socially conservative mantle, while a Turnbull led New Liberal party openly courts the Greens and the gay vote. While I don’t really think it’s likely it’s fairly clear that the unnatural marriage of the small l economic liberals and the religious right is dying an overdue death.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the reaction from the international media. Of course the Guardian crowed about it, but that’s hardly surprising.

What is more refreshing is the reaction from some other news outlets around the place. Even the New York Times keeps its usual neo-conservative bias to a minimum.

The Howardistas may see Rudd as a me-too man, but it’s not the way it plays around the world. The Kyoto ratification alone completely changes how we might be viewed in a world that mainly dislikes the Bush administration, if not the US as such.

In short, I am beginning to be happy about the way the world sees our country again. It is becoming ok to get angry about overtly racist acts again, ok to be nice to people, ok to put reconciliation back on the table.

Is it because of Rudd? Not entirely – he’s like the rebound guy. A bit like the old one, but without the nastiness and the arsehole friends. The one you have a fling with while you get over your destructive relationship. The one just before you meet the true love – the real inspiration. Maybe her name’s Julia. Dunno yet, but I’m hopeful.

It all means that my life, pretty awesome before, has an extra bit of soy sauce on it*.
Got a place to live, a decent job, a good family
and, top of the list, a hot lawyer.

Yep, k has finished her degree, passed quite well, and graduates next week. Happily (although the money would be nice...) she’s not a sellout and won’t be prosecuting asylum seekers or trying to help big corporation avoid their obligations anytime soon.

This new political climate means k and I can wander about the world, proud to be from a tolerant, forward thinking, and compassionate country. I know the problems won’t be fixed overnight – the damage the divisive little prick did to this place will take a long time to fix.

To the man who declared his “victory over political correctness” his biggest achievement – I hope you die a bitter, twisted old man, forever bewildered by your loss, watching as a little country took a prime spot on the world stage as soon as you left, and rejected your insular, sycophantic, and all around gutless world view.

To k – let’s go places and see places together and talk about stuff and do good things for nice people.
And meet me at the station this arvo, then can we go to the hardware store because I need a wheelbarrow.

____________________________________
*because soy sauce is good on EVERYTHING.

Come as you were...

2007-11-01T11:06:00.000+10:00

I catch the train to work, now, a grand 12 minutes of relaxing against the second door of the first car of the second half of the train.

Yesterday morning, as always, I was leaning back, headphones in, the sounds of Mana (I have a theory this will help me learn Spanish) drowning out all and sundry. Most of the old folk were sitting down. Incredibly enough, the private school kids had given up their seats this time, and four of them were clustered around the middle part between the doors – two boys, two girls.

On of the boys was doing much the same as me – leaning back against the wall as he watched his friend with thinly disguised disgust. Said friend was busily chatting up an All Hallows girl (whose friend was looking similarly unimpressed on the other side of the carriage).

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I was sure it was inane and annoying, so I just glanced from time to time.

A strange look from a fellow commuter, about my age, caused me to turn my music off for a second.

“....so, yeah, I found it last night,” the boy was saying, “It’s sort of laid back, maybe like Jack Johnson a bit? And he sort of looks like that guy from Idol? The surfer?” Everything was a question.

“Yeah, right, cool. What was that song? Teen something? Is there a version of that?” comes the reply.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit, no, it’s other stuff, but it’s not bad – called Unplugged.”

Right, so that’s what the other guy was laughing at. Well, not me. More power to the younguns I say – took me a lot longer to recognise the value of Led Zeppelin.

Then the kicker:

“So, what other cool cds does your dad have?”

Was it really necessary, that comment, just to spite me? I turned my Rock en Español back on.

Which is probably dad rock in Mexico.

A note

2007-10-25T13:04:00.000+10:00

I've just today noticed that the photo's I've been putting up from work don't upload with a link to the actual shot - just a thumbnail.

So, for those with some sort of Google reader action which gave you a post which doesn't exist, I've deleted the post until I can put it up properly. Wouldn't want to deny youse all the glory of the full size photos, hey ;)?

In the meantime, why I still like the man, even if some of the tosspots at the pink blog find him too spicy (I read one comment at LP that Beazley was better, FFS!)

Chao, por hoy.

Like he's riding on a motorbike...

2007-10-19T08:45:00.000+10:00

...in the strongest winds.

So, I'm back from a pretty awesome weekend at the motogp on Phillip Island, during which I took almost a thousand photos, some of them even have bikes in them! I might post a few of them if we ever get the internet back at home, but for now, back to the trek.

The first one is the porters running past us with their 25 kilo packs.

The first camp site, Klaire looking for the dunnies. The porters would carry all the tents and stuff and have them set up by the time we got there. As well as the yellow bucket with beer and soft drink. No fridge – luckily it was so bloody cold the beer didn’t need one.

A shot of a mountain which loomed over us all day as we climbed “Dead Woman’s Pass. On the third day we started at an altitude of about 3000m. Over the next six hours we climbed up to 4200m. Tougher than I expected. Coca leaves worked a treat.

Looking back as we ascended. I can’t remember the name of the mountain.

Note Klaire, sans pack and bedroll, and sans sunny disposition, and lucky that was too. Not much oxygen, and it was cold so our heads were freezing making us dizzy.

Somewhere up there is the top.

And, just because I like mountains, a gratuitous photo of the mountain behind us again.

And we’re there. This was our group. We went with a company that is pretty small (Peru Treks) and they pay more/ treat their porters better. Our group had 16 people – some of the others had up to 40. Most were English (3 Londoners – all law students so they had a lot to chat to Klaire about – 2 from York, and 2 blokes from Northern England who talked like the Pikies from Snatch – when they’d had a few drinks I could understand less than I could Spanish). No Americans, which was good. There were other groups around, handing out little ribbons to the first one up, and woohooing like morons. One of the nicer Yanks I met turned out to be Canadian.

This was the highest point on the trek at 4,215m, and the wind came through the pass like freight train – actually, that’s a stupid analogy, freight trains are slow – more like a shinkansen. There was some scrambling of taking packs off and digging around for some warm clothes – it hadn’t felt that cold on the way up because we were stuffed – I think my sweaty shirt froze. We didn’t hang around that long as it was ridiculously cold.

That’s it, I had better do some work now.

More to come.

Chao.

Kick....

2007-10-09T10:33:00.000+10:00

Push.

Nice one. The evil photo blocking server seems to be having a day off, and seeing how Optus still sucks (3 weeks now) I thought I might put some more shots up.

I did promise it would be Cusco, and I’ll get to that. First a couple of quickies:

A couple of locals kicking the footy on the reed islands. I did wonder who has to get the ball when it goes out of bounds, maybe they’re that good that it doesn’t?

Us on a wall on Taquile.

Finally we got to Cusco. Just in time to make the trek deadline after a slightly hellish 8 hour van ride. We did have a couple of days to look around. This was the courtyard of the little hotel we stayed at – Los Niños Dos. All the rooms are named after the orphans the profits go to – ours was Gladys.

A view of Cusco over the Plaza de Armas. Cusco was the first place we really started to encounter big tour groups, lots of Americans and Europeans. The square reflected that a bit, having heaps of people hassling you to buy various stuff.

An example of an Inca wall in Cusco using the ashlar technique. Apparently this meant it was a significant place – I assume this means a pub, or perhaps some sort of concert venue. This wall is almost a thousand years old – the Spanish, when they took over, tended to just build on top of the Inca foundations.

Then we got up and some ridiculous hour, got on a bus, and ended up at Kilometre 82 – the start of the Camino del Inca (Inca Trail) – 49 kms. At this point we were pretty chirpy and excited. Note K with her pack and bedroll, smiling and ready to go.

And note K, still with pack and bedroll, smile a little smaller, at one of the rest points on the first day. We had gone maybe 6 k’s at that point, and climbed a few hundred metres, I guess.

The first of the Inca sites – Llactapata . It was used mainly for agricultural production, apparently. The guide reckons the curves along the front deflect the flow of the river in flood so it didn’t wash the whole joint away. He also told us the Incas were Socialists. He was pretty cool.

Dammit, I had a whole lot more written, but the server's back to its tricks, so that’s it, I had better do some work now.

More to come.

Chao.

You say times are tough...

2007-10-05T13:54:00.000+10:00

...we've got the best of both worlds here.

So, the question I had for today was – is Peter Garrett a sellout? I was beginning to agonise a bit over that, but I realise the simple answer is...no.

As much as a whole bunch of people are carping on at the moment about his acceptance of US bases, uranium mining, Gunns pulp mill acquiescence, etc, etc; at least he might shortly be in a position to actually do something about it.

Put your single issue ideology aside for a tic and think about it carefully – the ex-lead singer of the Oils as environment minister.

It gives me goosebumps.

I really believe that when Ruddy skips down the carpet at the victory speech Power and the Passion should be blaring out over the PA.

Or maybe “Been Away Too Long”

Have I been away too long
Have I been away too long
Have I been away too long
I just can't wait

I imagine completeness
No spin cycle deceit
Time and tide keep on rolling
Now the world’s at my feet

Of course King of the Mountain is the obvious choice – it reminds me of the rubbery figures ads on telly advertising an Oils tour when I was a kid – Hewson and Keating and I think Oaks – Keatings doll singing while Hewson’s looked sad and wobbly. Well, they were all wobbly I guess, but still.

Maybe not Mountains of Burma, though, given the lack of action on that one.

I was going to go from here to some more photos, but more often than not the work server blocks my ability to upload anything but text, so you might just have to wait until the net is back at home.

Hasta la semana proxima.

Chao.

Just a quick note...

2007-10-04T16:49:00.000+10:00

October 4 headline roundup:

news.com.au:
CCTV pics of Lady Di.

Beer can bomb hoax.

Swim star’s daughter marries just before passing away.

Britney has visiting rights, and Dr Phil wants to help.

Ecstasy stash in potato head.

Home and Away breaches ‘G’ classification.

BBC News:
Australia bans African refugees

NY Times:
Australia bans African refugees.

Washington Post:
Australia bans African refugees.

I can’t decide if I’m happy or unhappy that most of the world won’t see news.com today.

Time for a beer.

There's klingons on the starboard bow..

2007-10-03T14:07:00.000+10:00

..scrape them off, Jim.

Again, the internet is gone from our home. Never arrived actually. I’m on hold to Optus at the moment, trying to talk to that ridiculous voice system. So I’m scanning through some sites I look at occasionally.

Onlineopinion.com.au is an interesting case. Generally, for most of the political/ current issue type sites I read, the post serves mainly as a stimulus for robust discussion. As mentioned earlier, that normally doesn’t extend to news articles, but most blogs seem to attract enough reasonably intelligent commenters, whatever point they speak from, to get a good discussion going. That said, there are more than enough sycophantic love-in sites to go around, with hordes of regular commenters eager to jump to the defense of the poster should anyone new question their wisdom (I’m sure this isn’t unique to the more progressive side of politics – it’s just that the others seem to lack imagination and just end up at Ackerman or Bolt).

Back to OLO – it’s different. I find that I avoid reading the comments more and more on here. For every intelligent comment on OLO, there are five written by complete nutters WHO randomly CAPITALISE shit (incidentally, I think I might include that in my exploding cookie plan). I’ve thought about making comments in the past, but the nearest I got was a desire to pull someone up when they used the word “acronym” to describe an initialisation.

I really don’t have the energy. I recently heard it described as a blog by someone - it's not, but it does have some good articles.

And in a perverse reflection of Sherd’s weird fondness for science blogs, I have taken to reading a lot of economics blogs. There’s a few good Australian ones, like Quiggin and Club Troppo, and many more OS blogs. Because I am super intelligent I like to read them and then forget where they are because I assume I’ll remember the address.

Oh well. Here’s an example I was reading today. I’ve even added it to my bookmarks this time.

Now I have to write an essay. Photos later, perhaps.

Chao.

I wanna rise up..

2007-09-28T13:20:00.000+10:00

...over Mulholland.

On occasion I read the news.com comments, as I think I've mentioned, although I'm really trying to quit.

Much as I am trying to quit reading overly dramatic teenage angst type blogs written by twenty somethings who know everything but have forgotten they're old enough to know better(trouble with that is it doesn't leave very many - on the other hand, that's a good thing - I would rateher read about someone's cat than a tortured sycophantic discussion of right wing politics, or left wing politics for that matter).

The blogs I have come to terms with and tend to stick with the ones with fewer comments.

As for news.com, I propose a solution.

When you go to make a comment a question appears:

Please choose one of the following:

A: I’m making this comment because I know a bloke this happened to therefore this makes me qualified to give my opinion.

B: I’m making this comment because I’m interested in contributing to this debate in a meaningful manner.

C: I’m making this comment just to stir shit up.

D: I’m a moron.

Answering yes to any of these makes the website send your computer a cookie.

Subsequently, the next time you type “your” when you mean “you are” the cookie sends a message to the motherboard, causing the monitor to explode. Shrapnel embeds itself in the part of the brain that controls the fingers, rendering you unable to type.

Because people that comment on news.com news stories have too much time on their hands and need to be stopped, regardless of their motivation, and the mangling of the English language is just the final nail.

On second thought, maybe I’ve had too much coffee today.

Cause we're stoppin' all stations....

2007-09-25T11:03:00.000+10:00

Buenas tardes señores y señoras.

It seems my brain is about to collapse under the sheer weight of spreadsheets (although I am inordinately proud of the effectives of my “sumproduct” formula, and its effectives at evaluating data according to various criteria, although given the size of the dataset involved, perhaps a dsum would be better, but then the complexity….arrrgggh).

So I’ve decided to take a break and take up the South American story again.

When last we spoke we were halfway through our jaunt around the Peruvian part of Lake Titicaca, on our way to Taquile - an actual island.

We hopped of the boat, and started our walk over the top of the island – the path was nicely paved for a change.

The Taquileños live by the creed of don’t be lazy, among other things, so there are no beasts of burden, cars, bikes any sort of labour saving devices on the island (although I saw a tv there, and I reckon it had a zapper doover). This is a view looking back across the lake to Bolivia.

Eucalyptus trees – a strangely familiar sight. Apparently they were introduced by the Spanish from here because they’re hardy, to stop erosion, etc, and now they’re close to being an invasive species.

A more long range shot looking back across the lake. That white bit there is the Cordillera Blanca in Bolivia (sorry the link is in Spanish – the English wiki entry points to the Peruvian one) across the other side of the lake.

This is the main square of the village. The little girl was trying to sell us little woven bracelets – school was on strike – and she enlisted her little brother, who was one of the cutest kids around. We relented and tried to buy one of the kid, but he got scared and ran away. His sister saw the lost sale and whacked him.

So he whacked her back.

Then they collapsed on the ground giggling.

Good times.

We then had to walk back down the other side, which was pretty high – the shot is looking back towards the town of Puno.

And it’s adios from us at Taquile.

Proximo semana – Cusco, el capital del Incas.

I can tell it's summer...

2007-09-19T13:22:00.000+10:00

...from the size of the bugs that fly throw my window.

Of my new place, beacuse there's no flyscreens yet.

I thought I’d throw a couple of thoughts out there, just to let you know I’m still alive. Optus isn’t going to hook up our intertubes until next week, so I’ll put some photos up then.

First, I’ve just read an article in which some uni or another has predicted that up to 80% of Australians will be obese or overweight by 2020 (the year, not the crap cricket). A sobering statistic, I thought…at first.

It occurs to me, though, that unless I change my lifestyle significantly, I could reasonably hope to be in the minority. That could be a bad thing – minorities not historically getting a good run in this country – but I guess at least they might start making plane seats bigger in response to market demand.

And, given the new house purchase, 2020 is getting close to the time I could probably afford overseas travel. The seats should be as big as a double bed by then, I reckon.

Then again, that’s well past the peak oil prediction of 2011, so society will have collapsed according to some.

Which will mean everyone will be skinny as things return to the dark ages.

And plane seats will probably get smaller.

Which brings me to – would it be better if Labor lost the election? A few people reckon the world is overdue for a recession , and if even the smallest of the oil shortage predictions, or the climate change predictions, are realised, there’s going to be a downturn.

In a philosophical sense that’s not completely a bad thing – something’s gotta give; infinite growth is a stupid and unrealistic concept. However, while I don’t actually think that the punters in Australia are stupid, I do think they’re generally pretty selfish and insular, so they don’t know (or perhaps even care) about how the economy actually works – I think they’ll blame whoever’s at the wheel.

If that’s Labor, could we see a Whitlam style backlash at the end of what could-have-been a good government? If Howard won, and Costello took over, and economy went bung, they would have even less credibility left, keeping in mind that about the only area they are consistently ahead in the polls in is economic management. Perhaps if Labor threw it away, and could hold out for another three years, they would be assured of a decade in power after that.

Then again, could we handle another three years of neo-conservative bullshit?

At least there’s a positive if Labor were to lose.

But then, I suppose for them to win in 2011, by my theory, the economy would have to go to shit, which wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Arrrrr, ‘tis a right quandary aye foind m’self in.

Chao, por hoy.

Bring out yer dead !!!

2007-09-04T21:29:00.000+10:00

Ever seen the classic scene from The Holy Grail? And wondered what it has to do with Puno, Peru?
Well, then you're a little strange, but I'll get to that.

For today, we're in Puno, a city just across the border from Bolivia in Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (which is impressively large - don't skip a trip if you get over there). Our second land border crossing was interesting. We sort of hopped off the bus, walked a few hundred metres across a bridge, and wound up in Peru.

We wandered around town and took the obligatory autophoto in the main square.

And this is how they do in downtown Puno. There wasn't a lot of cats around, so the dogs sort of pick up the slack.
And Monty Python? Well, it turns out in Puno that the garbage trucks play a tune. We were out to dinner in a nice little place on a small street - actually, most the streets were small- and a garbage truck rolled by. I thought it was an ice cream truck for a sec, as the Peruvian version of Greensleeves wafted through the night, then people started flooding out of houses and shops, arms full of rubbish, to chuck in the back of the truck. The driver just has to cruise about with the stereo playing. Nice work.

And this isn't the place we were out for dinner at. But it was our first introduction to the ubiquitous Andean music band at every restaurant with a chance of a tourist.

There were six of us in the joint that night, tourists, that is.

Happily we were joined by 10 or so band members, along with a procession of dancers.

For two hours.

We managed to book a day trip to the Uros Islands for the next day - and it was pretty good. Some of the other people on the tour were dickheads, but not too bad - really the first sort of tour group people we came across.

This one is a shot of one of the reed islands, made of reeds, with houses, made of reeds, and boats, made of reeds.

And in the background - reeds.

Here is the livestock pen - rabbits and guinea pigs - cows being less than practical on a floating island made of cow food.

A longer shot of one of the islands. There are about 40 islands with a few hundred people living there, although they actually count by family group, not individuals.

This one shows how they make the islands. The reeds actually grow in a shallower area, and they cut chunks out with the roots still attached but floating. then they stack the reeds on top in a cross hatched pattern after tying chunks together to make a bigger island. Eventually the reeds break down and they just keep adding more - I guess one day they need a new one. Once it gets a bit crowded, say more than ten families, they just make a new island as well.

They have a school, too, but it's actually permanently attached, although the playground floats.

Then we jumped back on the boats for the trip to Taquile Island.

Fotos de la isla Taquile la vez proxima.

Chao por hoy.

Life aint only supply...

2007-09-02T21:02:00.000+10:00

...and demand.

Estamos hoy en La Paz, Bolivia. This is a shot from our bloody awesome hotel room. Towards the top there is El Alto - originally sort of a suburb of La Paz, it is now a city of almost a million in its own right. Because it's at the top of the mountains it is also now higher than La Paz.
Semantics, I say - any place that is largely above the treeline, and where breathing gives you a migraine, is high.

This is La Iglesia de San Francisco, or some such name. Sort of at the top end of la Paz, near where we were staying. This was in the news recently - some drunken Argentino climbed up during a festival and killed himself by jumping off. While he was nude. Ahh, good times.

The streets at the top of La Paz. Electricians are busy there, or maybe they're not, given a lot of these jobs look fairly DIY.
The San Pedro Prison, and no, we didn't do a tour - much too gutless for that. Read the book Marching Powder, or just surf the net a bit - very interesting place.

The obligatory local beer photo. Not a bad drop... no, actually, I lie - I can't remember, but it had to have been okay because we didn't have any bad beer on the trip.

A basket of Llama foetuses at the Witches Market. Apparently they're good luck - people buy them to bury under the floor of a new house. Unfortunately, they weren't on a menu anywhere - you'll just have to wait for the fried guinea pig, coming soon.
Finally, I took some shots out the window of the hotel at night and stitched them together. You can sort of see the seam, but you get the idea, right? Oh, yeah, the photo is quite big, give it a sec to open.

Para nuestra aventura siguiente, vamos a la ciudad de Puno, en las orillas del lago Titicaca.

Chao por hoy.

Well I'm a freaky streaker like Winnie the Pooh...

2007-08-28T12:10:00.000+10:00

..t-shirt and no pants I dance the boogaloo.

So, back to the photos. I’m starting to forget what went on , so I’ll do my best.

First, another picture of the street in San Pedro, me walking down it.

There’s this cool little museum in the town. These were some artefacts showing how Incas and others used to use different things for snorting an ancient form of cocaine (for purely ceremonial reasons, of course!)

Ancient drop spindle.

500 year old thongs.

Us on the Bus, just before our first ever land border crossing.

En la mañana, tenemos ir a La Paz.

Chao por hoy.

Set the bullshit...

2007-08-20T14:02:00.000+10:00

...to warp factor one.

If ever I’m having a good day normally all I need to do to bring me down is read the comments on news.com articles, particularly if it’s to do with gay marriage or Muslims.

But it’s stopped working. Just like drugs, I have to read more and more of the moronic neo-con ignorance just to get a bit riled. I have developed a resistance to the gummos of the world.

Happily, Larvartus Prodeo sometimes provides me a hit of stupid. While the posts recently have been reasonable, I can still rely on the comments threads for a bit of insular academic twaddle.

Failing that, online opinion gives both sides too – one-eyed-left and no-eyed-right comment.

And there are countless others which can be relied upon to distract from my spreadsheets.

Why was I thinking this, you didn’t ask? Well, basically, Howard gives me the shits. That’s fundamental, and I think that most of the commenters on the blogs I read would agree with that.

That of course does not automatically mean they support Rudd, and that is reasonable. After all, it is the black and white view of the world, usually the realm of the neo-cons, that really is a worry.

Academically, it’s great to see the progressive, intelligent folk stand up for their principles. Whether it’s the feministas ranting about the wrongness of strip clubs, the greenies upset about the me-too ALP forest policy and the loosening of uranium mining rules, the secularists worried about pro-Christian values, or militant unionists angry with the attempts to show some sky between the ALP and ACTU – I’m impressed. Principles are important.

I do have a question, though –

DO YOU PEOPLE WANT ANOTHER THREE YEARS OF HOWARD? (or maybe costello or probly turnbull coz costello’s shit and downer had a go already and abbott is a bit loony but you know what I mean).

Did you answer no?

Well then, fucking suck it up and stop being stupid.

I find Rudd about as exciting as dressage, but I’m not stupid enough to vote Green just to show my disapproval for some of his mee-tooism.

I just want shut of Howard.

But anyone would think, from reading LP and other political blogs, that there’s a (admittedly, vocal smaller-than-minority) chunk of people that would prefer to live under the boot heel of General Johnny for a while longer than to compromise their principles. People that plan to vote for a minor party or an independent because they just can’t stand the options available. I realise that there may never be a time that it’s not going to be a bit risky to vote independent, and that it means it will always be a choice between the crap and the crappier – but, cripes, that’s pretty much life isn’t it?

It could be that it’s time to take down the Smiths posters, throw the bucket of stinky water out, and have a look outside*.

Maybe they don’t own a house, have no kids, have already got their degrees, and don’t like wombats – I just don’t know.

But whatever the reason it’s comforting to know that, just like the Piers/Bolt/Blair cheer squad commenters, their views have extremely little to do with the real world (I guess that includes me – oh well, as a great man once said “the salt of hypocrisy stings the eye and hardens the artery, but hell doesn’t it enhance the flavour of fish and chips.”)

Chao, gracias.

Sorry, I’ll put photos up when we get our internet back.

* most of this statement is for effect. If I had a Smiths poster, I would probably have it up.

San Pedro de Atacama

2007-08-12T09:56:00.000+10:00

Hola muchachos.

A few more for you today. Then we're off to the Powerhouse to see the Indonesian open day thingo where I'll be able to lament the amount of Bahasa Indonesia I've forgotten.

First, K looking a bit more relaxed on a street in San Pedro.

The plaza at San Pedro, taken from the place we sat back and had lunch a few Escudos

K writing the postcards at our hotel. Really nice place this. It even had enough hot water for k to have a shower first, and leave ten seconds worth for me!

A view of the volcano near the town.

The Andes behind the town.

A desert sunset on the edge of town.

This was the pub at which we watched the Chile v Paraguay game with a bunch of drunken locals.

That's it for today, Viva Chile!

Chao.

I like my sugar...

2007-08-08T19:29:00.000+10:00

…with coffee and cream.

Which is pretty much what you get when you order a cappuccino from this place. This was a café in Antofagasta – a fairly unwelcoming sort of place in the north of Chile. While you can’t see much of the café, it does show the results of deciding to give your hair a trim with the clippers after some farewell drinks. It has mostly grown back. To my left was an electronics shop which sold, next to the washing machines and stereos, motorbikes. I was impressed.

This is the mall at Antofagasta. As you can see, k was very impressed with the town. We had to spend a couple of hours here while we waited for the bus to San Pedro de Atacama. We did originally have plans for staying at least a night – these were soon shelved and we decided it would be a top idea to spend the night on a bus instead.

And here is La Iglesia de San Pedro de Atacama. I’m not sure if that is the actual name, but it sounds pretty. Great little town, this, although I am told that in high season it can become a little touristy. It was very relaxed when we were there, though. Later in the day there were all sorts of flags and banners around the church as they geared up for some saints festival. I’ve always been a little against religion, but I will say that the Latin American version of Catholicism allows for a hell of a lot of parties for one reason or another.

This is a shot of the San Pedro bus terminal, such as it was. As I said below, a little disconcerting to get off a bus in the pitch black on the side of the road, but that was just our uncertainty avoidance poking out.

That’ll do for today – more of San Pedro to come.

Chao.

And when I come back home again...

2007-08-06T12:01:00.000+10:00

...never more will I say, goodbye Muirshin Duirkin.

Buen dia.

So, we’re back in town. Actually, we’ve been back for a few weeks now, but who’s counting.

I’d promised to put some photos of the trip up here so you could have a look if you like, so it begins. Although, as I took about 2,000 photos, I might just put a few up at a time. Some of these earlier ones cover bits I think I’ve already talked about, so scroll down or whatever if you need to know the context.

This is ‘Patio Bella Vista’. The bit at the back is the Hotel del Patio at which we stayed the first night. Really a very nice place, if a little expensive at about $80 a night. A small hotel with not much more than 20 rooms, I think. Behind the hotel is an area with a few bars, cafes and shops – they’ve made an attempt to gentrify and keep a bit of Latin American feel, and it’s not too bad.

This one we took from the verandah outside the breakfast room at the hotel. The building there is some sort of mobile phone company’s HQ – clever I thought, if a little dated now that mobiles look more like ipods.

Same spot – just that this one has K in it.

More to come.

Salud.

Rocks

2007-07-15T09:13:00.000+10:00

There are masses of them.

And the Peruanos have put them all over the roads.

Apparently the teachers are upset about Government plans to privatise the schools, and good on 'em.

It does ean we are going to have to do some funky moves to get back to Santiago in time for our flight home as everything has stopped in Peru.

I'll have to wait until we get back to elaborate, and I can put photos up then too, so, chao for a week.

On a warm summers evening....

2007-07-11T00:44:00.000+10:00

..on a bus that didn't come.

A heap has happened since last we spoke. An my little brain is having trouble trying to fit it all in then spit it back out on the intertubes.

So I'll just start with the day we had to get from Puno to Cusco. We had to be in Cusco by 7 that evening to pay the final part of the money for the Inca Trail trek.

No worries. We had a bus ticket for 8, 7 hour trip, there in plenty of time.

Of course, we had not reckoned on the sometimes exciting political system in Peru. Turns out someone in the Puno department (sort of a state) promised something and didn't deliver, so everyone thought it would be a top idea to go on strike. And strike here doesn't mean 'Great, I can do the washing, some gardening and watch some telly', it means, 'Hey, leats go down and block all the roads out of the state, all the airports, until someone listens.'

Inspiring, I guess, but inconvenient. So the bus station started to fill up with gringos all in the same predicament. Eventually, this dodgy tour company tout that we'd actually bought the ticket through wandered over.

'$50 US each, and we can get you to Cusco', he said. I was a touch reluctant, but K said righto.

So us, a Swiss family of four, and two Spaniards crammed into a van, backpacks on our laps and knees around our ears, and we went.

The van driver had to go around the strikes, so we took some back roads, or back tracks, if you like. It was actually pretty scenic, and as the van driver nodded off once or twice, then snapped awake just as a tour bus came the other way (also trying to get passengers around the strike), it got exciting. The road was only just one car width wide, and the bus was bigger, so our driver slammed on the brakes as we rounded a hairpin. And what happens when you brake suddenly on a dirt road?

So as we went straight ahead towards a two hundred metre drop, I wondered if the couple of hundred bucks we would have lost by waiting for the bus was worth it. Strangely, the rest of the people in the car went quiet, k was asleep.

I reckon he stopped about half a metre from the edge, and he looked quite calm. Then there was a process of parallel parking so he could get closer to the edge to let the bus past.

After that, we quietly asked the Spanish couple to talk to the driver to keep him up.

It was actually a good trip, though.

Memorable was the toilet break and peeing into a gorge deeper than I've ever seen as a local bus drove past and everyone waved at me.

11 hours later, we made it Cusco, and after unfolding my legs we wandered off into the city to find the trekking place and a hotel.

Next time:

the trek.

Salud.

High on a desert plain...

2007-07-05T05:54:00.000+10:00

...where the streets have no name...

Or in the case of Cusco, too many.

Previously on Buffy...

Our intrepid viajeros had just arrived in La Paz. One had died from soroche, the other had od´d on cable.

But by the next morning I felt great, so we decided to do the walking tour mentioned in the good old Lonely Planet. Found a really old church, went inside, it looked amazing, but people were actually praying and stuff...so we left quick smart.

After a bit of wandering around, we discovered the part of La Paz we were staying in could be broken up into sections. There was soccer shirt street, toenail clipper lane, stationary alley, jeans quarter, and a whole hardware block. The streets all have actual names like Santa Cruz and San Pedro - sounds musical but I guess in Spanish it's about as imaginative as 42nd street.

We had been going mostly downhill at that point...altitude? Pfft! What were those Brazilian footballers whinging about. Then we went uphill.

After ten steps we had a rest.

Easy, really.

Then...shopping. Mucho silver jewellry, alpaca stuff, Che t-shirts. I bought a charango, muy cool.

K decided she just had to go to the Bolivian version of Wagamama, so we headed off down the hill and found ourselves in the sort of CBD. Flash hotels, government offices.

Happily, after our 45 minute walk, the restaurant was closed. And we had to walk back...uphill.

Eventually we got back, found a place for dinner, went to bed.

Next day was more of a sightseeing day, but k managed to find time to buy stuff anyway.

Early the next morning we got up and walked to the bus station and caught the bus to Puno. Not a bad trip, apart from the annoying group of French people on the bus. Another land border, sort of. We had to walk across a bridge from the Bolivian side to the Peruvian side - across Lake Titicaca, which was suitably impressive.

Puno at first seemed really quite crappy, but we found a place to stay. It seemed ok, notwithstanding the knock on the door from the French people (different ones, but they're everywhere) in the room next door that asked if we heard who had stolen all their stuff. K figured that if they'd been ripped off we were safe, and I tended to agree, but we still made sure we carried our important stuff around.

We looked around a bit, and it turns out Puno is quite the tourist town. Dinner was great - I had fillet of Alpaca, k had soup. We picked the place because they were playin old school trance - and just after we ordered, the 2 hour set from the 10 member Andean music band started. It included random dance acts, shrieking girls, blokes with jangly pants, the whole shebang. We bought a CD as we left when the set had finished. I'll burn y'all a copy.

I'll leave it here, and see you in a bit.

We´re off on the Inca trail tomorrow for 4 days.

Oh, and mangoman, your manager should be jealous, she'd love it.

And you really do need a bit of Spanish.

Chao.

Arrancame el carazon...

2007-07-01T06:48:00.000+10:00

te pido amor

¡Hola muchachos!

This cool español keyboard has all the upside stuff and cool ñññññññññs!

Question: what is soroche?

It's sort of like the worst hangover you ever had times ten. But I'll get to that.

We spent our last night in San Pedro at this cool little bar place watching the Copa America game between Chile and Ecuador. Had some beers, got into the chant when Chile scored:

Chi Chi Chi
Le Le Le
Viiiiiiivvaaaaaa Chile!

The only bus out of town to Arica left at 8:45 that night, so we toddled off into the cold and stood around with the other gringos waiting.

13 hours later, Arica.

Bus ticket, 2 hour wait, then onto La Paz.

The bus was actually pretty flash, but it didn'stop me feeling like crap as we climbed above 3000m. The view was pretty bloody awesome from the bus, though - llamas (k was beside herself), flamingos, snow capped peaks, lakes.

Then...our first land border crossing. Went through Chilean customs, then a five k drive through...dunno?

Then into Bolivia. The Bolivian cops really look like cops. None of this blue uniform-security-guard look - they look military and have big guns.

Didn't check our bags at all, though, but then, who smuggles drugs into Bolivia?

After a bit, we got to La Paz. I managed to have quite a decent conversation with some weird dude on the bus wearing a leather jacket, one of those hats the Canadian logger types wear, and totin' a massive leather bound bible. I peeked in his briefcase and it was chock full of other god stuff. He was very impressed that we were from Australia and asked if it was a Catholic country. I was tempted to say mainly Islamic, but decided not to rock the boat.

So I said Hindu.

Really though, he then proceeded to tell me how unsafe La PAz was and how someone would steal K if I didn't watch out. Thank's mate - we weren't nervous at all after that.

Down the hill into La Paz (heaps of eucalyptus trees - strangely similar to coming down the Blue Mountains for a moment - but then you remeber the bus is doing a hundred, swerving, and narrowly missing all sorts of shit).

La Paz is mental. Imagine the most mental South East Asian capital (Bangkok, Jakarta, Denpasar, etc) then replace all the mopeds with Hiaces and all the motorbikes with taxis. Then add micros, old buses all painted up. As always, I came up with a theory about the noticable lack of bikes - the cops have Harleys, but a lot of the cars are American, so maybe nobody bothered to import affordable bikes from Japan, and now only a complete psycho would attempt to ride one around.

The bus terminal was sort of a shed and we grabbed our stuff and walked out into the city with no idea where we were. Strangley, I wasn't that worried - maybe my uncertainty avoidance is decreasing, hey mangoes?

Eventually we found the pub the Lonely Plant recommended...and it was booked out. Tops.

Walked around the corner and found another, looked good. We went in, and by that time we had been on buses for 24 hours. Anyway, it turned out to be a top-end type place, quite flash. Hot water, 100 cable channels, internet downstairs, private bathroom, b very exy for La Paz, though - USD$35 a night!

So we booked for three nights :)

And I felt like complete and utter shit. Altitude sickness apparently. Migraine type headache, wanted to throw up, sort of that headache you get when you curl up on the bed into the smallest ball possible and try to block out the entire world and hope like hell you will fall asleep at some point.

Which is what I did, while k happily watched House on the telly without a care in the world!

Whoa, long post.

I'll leave it here then write later about La Paz itself.

I'll leave you with this - flicking through channels we found Steve Irwin dubbed into Spanish.

Piss funny.

Imagine ¡Dios! said like crikey, if you will.

Hasta luego, señores y señoras.

From Santiago to San Pedro...

2007-06-28T01:53:00.000+10:00

..is 25 hours on a bus.

Sort of like the Paul Kelly song, only in Spanish with more dry ham rolls...when in Chile, catch Tur Bus - you'll know what I mean.

So we're in San Pedro de Atacama at the moment. You'll get no photos because I don't know how to say "USB Port" in Spanish and I can't see one.

Our flight from Brisbane sort of sucked - no more then any other plane, I guess, but 15 hours in one hit is not that comfortable. K's little TV got stuck on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game and the cranky Chileno hostie couldn't fix it - I don't think she really tried.

A tip - if you take the flight get a seat on the right hand side of the plane because you'll get a cool view of the Andes on the way in.

Santiago was big and busy, but we made it to the hostel in one piece. Easy really, the Metro is pretty good. The señorita at the hostel was really friendly - she told us in a really nice way that we couldn't stay because she'd double booked.

There was a brief moment of panic - but it turned out that they had another, flasher hotel in a better spot. It was more exy, but they gave it to us for the cheaper price. Hot water, cable, breakfast, a flash room you'd pay well over $100 in Oz - was 33.000 CHP - about $60.

We had a bit of a wander around Barrio Bellavista, found a little square called Patio del Bellavista where we had dinner, Pisco sour and beers. Walked around the corner and found a little bar with a jukebox playing Rammstein.

Very traditional.

I tried my "Dos cervesas, por favor" and the guy brought out two giant tallies of Heineken - about a jug each, really. So we gave one back and he just chuckled.

Proximo dia, we caught a bus to Antofagasta.

19 hours.

Heaps fun.

Antofagasta was a weird sort of place. Not a really friendly place, but we did find a coffee shop serving actual espresso.

Another tip - no such thing as a flat white, just get a black coffee and deal with it. And if you order a "cafe capucino", as K did, they'll give you sort of a hot iced coffee with a big stack of whipped cream on the top.

Another 4 hours on a bus to Calama - a mining town in the middle of the desert. It reminded me of Katherine for some reason.

We just hung out at the bus terminal, then got on our way to San Pedro.

Which is really cool.

It's smack in the middle of the Atacama Desert - which is a real desert. There was a good few hundred k's where there was just rock and sand and us - nothing else, not even cactus or desert grassy stuff.

The bus sort of dropped us off on the side of road, which was disconcerting for a second, but we found a reasonable place to stay very easily.

We then had our first showers for two days, and K took full advantage of the hot water in the Hotel Tambillo. And then I took full advantage of the 30 seconds of hot water left after she finished.

We headed out to dinner and found a really cute little place and had fantastic food. K had a steak with mushrooms and potato - sounds exciting, I know, but it was sort of the traditional food of the area and it was bloody good. I had a steak sandwich with goat's cheese. A steak sandwich?

Yep. By that, I mean they had two small eye fillets sort of baked, with this goats cheese in between. With this super tasty sort of mashed potato thing with a basil based sauce on top.

We had some Chilean wine with dinner - Castilleno del Diablo. A cab sav, and one of the best we've had for ages - not that we're expert, but, again, bloody tops.

Incidentally, Chilenos believe removing the balls from animals is immoral, so there a literally dogs everywhere, and something else I thought mangoman would find interesting - this includes beasts.
So the steak you get is all from young bulls. Would make for an exciting cattle property, I guess.

Anyway, our time's almost up, so we're going to go hav a couple of Escudos as we sit by the plaza.

Salud!

Leads you here...

2007-06-14T19:20:00.000+10:00

...despite your destination.

How dare the Catholic Church attack Amnesty International on its record of defending human rights?

And another from the BBC which almost made tears come to my eyes.

My question today is about left and right. I have been reading a few blog posts on the topic here
and there. The one at Lonely Planet, if you can get past the wankery, isn’t bad. It’s actually an old post, but interesting.

My thoughts? Well, as I said at Blogocracy, I don’t have enough big words to post at Lonely Planet, so I’ll wank on here instead.

I do have a problem calling myself left.

I think there are a few reasons for this. The first reason is an inbuilt dislike of calling myself anything – sort of a standard Australian dislike of drawing attention to yourself, just in case someone calls you on it – “Left? You? Hah!”

Another is the increasing inability of traditional Left politics, mainly based on economics and concerned with people (or so I thought), to explain the positions of people we may describe as Right on things such as gay marriage, immigration or the environment, and vice versa. We often forget how straight out racist the union movement was in the beginning – I suppose based on the belief that foreigners take jobs. And the compromises that people like Peter Garrett have to make in their stance on things like logging in Tasmania don’t fit, either. There are many people who economically Right, as selfish as all get out, but are all for gay marriage and saving the whales. Making yourself hardline Left on industrial relations, for example, means these people will bugger off and vote the arseholes in again.

These are the people who are doing okay economically, they have their big tellies and McMansions, but they have the shits with the Conservatives because of the Neanderthal attitude to social and environmental issues. I reckon there’s a few of ‘em that vote, too.

This narrow view of what the Left is brings me to another issue. Calling yourself Left restricts your ability to argue with morons. Granted, this is not normally that much of a problem, but a lot of people have instant associations with the term.

You can never really get away from dealing with generalisations, but unless you want to spend all day ranting loudly against people that rant equally loudly back, sometimes you need to operate in the system.

It’s all well and good to fight the good fight, to never compromise your morals. When I was a teller for a major bank, I could have told the CEO that the company’s overriding focus on profits was a crime against humanity, and that treating staff like crap was really pretty shitty. Then gone and got a new job and felt better about my day.

Pretty bloody selfish, really. Now, obviously I’d be lying if I told you I really stayed to help out the workers, show solidarity, etc – there was a fair amount of self interest involved.

But when I got to management, and my job became protecting the staff from getting shafted by the company, I did so, and I did it well. They all passed their “performance reviews” even if, according to the company rules, they didn’t deserve to. I did make a small bit of difference. That’s pretty small scale, but I’m sure there are many that toe the line for long enough to get to a place they can actually make a difference, even if that means working for a government they don’t like for a while.

It’s always going to be a balancing act, and there will come a point past which you cannot go – a point where you actually compromise a personal belief and not just a superficial position – and at that point you have to have a go.

My point is that labels are useful, but sometimes deceptive, and sometimes unhelpful. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is admirable, but pragmatic passion gets you further.

About some useless information...

2007-06-12T15:13:00.000+10:00

...supposed to fire my imagination.

I like to think I know a little more about politics than your average born-in-the-late-70s-year-old, and maybe I do. But I've noticed that most political blogs authored by people my age tend one of two ways - and mine is no exception (probably why I revert to photos from time to time).

They are either flippant to the point of being nonsensical, or wank factor off the charts by trying to be too clever (a certain Latin titled blog springs to mind).

There really is no substitute for having been there, done that, burnt the t-shirt and walked the picket line. This post by mangoman is an instruction to all of us on the south side of 35 on how to discuss politics.

Don't beat people over your head with knowledge, don't wank on and use unnecessarily large words and obscure thinkers to illustrate your point, actually have a point, and listen.

We all have to start somewhere, I suppose.

Television, the drug of the nation..

2007-06-05T19:29:00.000+10:00

....

I have a new challenge, based on what has become one of the most annoying TV franchises this side of Big Brother.

Do it at work.

You have to pretend you are on an episode of CSI and explain in great detail exactly what you are doing, step by step, to people who should really already know.

We tried it today.

"A, I'm now pressing the print button on Word, ensuring that the correct print queue is selected, subsequent to which I will walk to the printer, an LXZ5000, and remove my document from the output tray. This will enable me to have an actual physical copy of my Word document I can then peruse whilst seated at my work area."

"Great, R, while you're doing that, I'm going to use insert function contained as part of the Excel program for Windows XP to add an extra column into my financial spreadsheet to provide an extra set of available data..."

And so on.

And, in an amazing coincidence, the world of CSI and blogging have collided.

Eso es todo.

Salud.

All the lonely people....

2007-06-05T15:25:00.000+10:00

...where do they all...find the time to carry on so much?

But, really, it’s all relative, isn’t it?

I’ve just been in a conversation with some folk telling me how hard they work. Apart from that sort of garbage pissing me off in the first place (the irony of having time to congregate in little groups and whinge about how busy it is seems to escape most public servants), I find it hard to sympathise.
Many will argue that the sort of work that goes on in the public service is not the same as that which happens elsewhere – that it can be mentally challenging and leave you feeling drained at the end of the day. As buggered as you would be after a day digging holes in the sun, just in a different way.
While that may be true, I doubt you’d find many people that wouldn’t swap digging in the sun for an airconditioned office fairly smartly.

At the moment, my job is fairly crap. It’s as boring as batshit, and doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That’s not to say I’m stuck in it, but I will move on, probably in the next few months if I can swing it.

But I still like working here. All I have to do is imagine what life was like about two years ago and I feel pretty damn good about things. I content myself with simple equations.

2 years ago: 50-60 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay
Lunch: 45 minutes only when no one else was gone.
Now: 40-50 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay and the rest in flex.
Lunch: whenever.

Obviously people on contracts and that sort of thing still tend to get ripped off, but it will NEVER be as bad as the conditions in private enterprise.

The common thread that runs through the complaints about how much hard work public service is that the people making them have either never done anything else, or it has been a long time since they have.

Interestingly, the higher up the ladder you climb the less people tend to complain. I suspect this is because these are the people intelligent enough to realise how good they have it.

The other one that crops up is “but the stuff we do is sooooo important! It’s for the minister/ director general/ CEO/ insert grand poobah/ etc. We have deadlines/ meetings/ presentations to be ready for!”

Whoopdee fuckin’doo. Possibly, if things weren’t checked eight times and the meetings about having meetings about how good we all are were cut back there would be more time available. The term ‘sycophantic pedants’ comes to mind.

I watched the Four Corners show on torture last night. Finally, the reason that spending your whole working day with the eyes of a hundred people boring into your head, a hundred people that have been waiting in a queue for longer than they’d like, became clear. Finally it made sense why it made you stuffed at the end of the day.

But all I had to do was remember back to being a cook for a year.

$10 an hour, stinking hot kitchen, singed eyelashes and stupid hours.

But then, to brighten my day it was just a matter of remembering how my scumbag sister would bribe me into doing her chores (the going rate was a dollar per tree planted, that sort of thing) then not actually give me any money. My own stupid fault for not getting the money up front, really.

Stupid IR laws.

The upshot of it all is that my job is pretty good. I do my work, listen to my headphones, have my lunch, listen attentively to the complaining folk, and leave at four on Fridays for a beer.

Sometimes others even join me.

So if I sound like a cynic, sorry, I don’t mean to be.

Have a good one.

Salud.

We only come out at night...

2007-06-03T16:12:00.000+10:00

Yo!

How was your day?

Good?

Great...

I haven't put anything up for a while, so I thought I would just post some photos of a trip K and I took up to the Bunya Mountains, west of Brisbane.

These are clouds, over the cars at the camp site.
These are some more clouds.

And a couple more clouds.

Clouds, and a tree!!

Clouds, trees, power lines, even some cars. This is looking towards the start of the walk we took the next day. I've got some photos of that I'll put up tomorrow, or later.

It was a really nice trip. We sort of wanted to try out some of our cold weather clothes, and the Bunya Mountains didn't disappoint. It was pretty cool at night.

This time, in contrast to our last effort at camping, we took chairs and a mattress with us. It made for an infinitely more comfortable camping trip.

Had nabe for dinner - which turns out to be the best camping food ever. Just chop everything up before you go, whack your pot on the stove thing, and away you go.

We even had plenty for breakfast the next day. This turned out to be crap.

Tip: nabe reheated the next day is hopeless.

Good camp site, too, the only sour note the noisy Christians who had some weird kumbaya style sing along late into the night, long after the drunken teens closer to us had gone to bed.

Cheers

It’s only funny until someone gets hurt…

2007-05-18T10:24:00.000+10:00

…and then it’s just hilarious.

The Australian government descends further into farce. If this wasn’t for real it would be hilarious.

You have to check it out . It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a fair while…and I read blogs!

But it makes me happy for another reason.

It reminds me that Howard pays far too much attention to redneck opinion gathered through Today Tonight, A Current Affair, talkback radio, etc. He, or his marketing guru, has decided that this sort of shit is representative of broad Australian opinion.

Maybe, to an extent, but in their carry on about so-called “Aussie Values” they forgot an important one – Australians don’t like to be told to suck eggs, and, unlike Americans, they don’t like to look like idiots.

And this test makes us look like idiots to the rest of the world. This is the sort of story that makes it to those weird and wonderful pages on the news sites, like the dog who can drive and the man who sues because he chopped his penis off with a chainsaw.

In particular question 15 pisses me off. Maybe it’s true, but it’s pretty backward looking, and it really is a trick question. Everyone I know answered “secularism” and the ones that got the right answer only did so because they realised the mindset behind the test.

I’m happy.

To the tune of the Everly Brother’s classic,

Bye Bye John
Bye bye viciousness
Hello hopefulness
Don’t fuck it up, Rudd, or I’ll cry-y
I want to see the back of that guy-y.

Ba Baaaaaaaaa....

2007-05-17T10:30:00.000+10:00

...this is the sound of Centrelink.

And I'm bored, so I've been surfing the news sites. Here's a couple I liked.

Indian Whisky – caught my eye, but it wasn’t what I thought. Turns out the “Indian Richard Branson” has just bought the company that makes, among many other things, Glayva liquer. Expect a rise in drunken telemarketers.

After hours chute for babies – A kid that was able to tell the nurses that his dad dropped him off was left in the after hours drop off chute at a Japanese hospital His dad will still get stung with the late fee as it was after 6.

Fully furnished – Someone buys a flat in Spain and finds a dead woman on the couch. Turns out the woman’s brother’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin’s friend had a one night stand with the wife of a guy whose brother once cleaned a toilet at an American naval base. NCIS has been called.

Why Europeans weren’t completely wiped out by the Black Death – turns out they all had herpes. Or something.
Seems it’s good for you. I still don’t want it.

That is all.

Chao.

If this isn’t making sense…

2007-05-16T13:24:00.000+10:00

…it doesn’t make it lies.

For years I have just accepted the general Western line that the Dalai Lama and Tibet were pretty hard done by. To be honest, I had never given it much thought.

Recently, though, I read an article about the improvements in Tibetan health and socio-economic status since Chinese rule. Although it read as propaganda it got me thinking…but only a bit.

My first thought when I read the ‘Rudd snubs Dalai Lama’ headline this morning, was “that was a mistake”. After all, the DL is above reproach. Interest piqued, I had to look up Wiki, upon which I found ….criticism of the DL.

I may have been asleep, but this was all new to me.

The criticism wasn’t very detailed, so away I went with a small grain of salt…only to go to Blogocracy and discover a similar discussion.

A few googles later and I’ve discovered it’s not as rosy as I thought.

I’ve never actually thought Buddhism was all that, anyway, given my natural opposition to organised religion. As a kid, I remember reading about Oda Nobunaga’s massacre of the Buddhist monks on Mount Hiei in Japan after they did some uncool things – I figured it couldn’t be all made up.

Anyway, I’m not going to go into too much detail – go here and here for the opposing viewpoints.

I personally don’t have the information to know what is the truth, but I guess it lies somewhere in the middle.

I think that the Chinese have probably done some pretty nasty things during their time there, and perhaps continue to do so. Their record on human rights generally doesn’t exactly instil confidence.

However, the picture of Old Tibet as a less than idyllic country with a great deal of social and economic inequality certainly has the ring of truth about it.

Neither side is correct, I’ll warrant. The Russians may not have had that great a time under communism, and the current picture isn’t great either, but you can just bet they don’t want to go back to the oppressive aristocratic regime of the czars.

It all just reinforces the fact that everything needs to be questioned, even if it seems right.

It'll soon shake your windows....

2007-05-15T19:50:00.000+10:00

...and rattle your walls.

You know the rest.

And they are.

I'm just now watching Little Johnny get roasted by Kerry The Man...again.

He's running scared and I am going to make a bold prediction.

I hope I'm not wrong...but, fuck it.

In five years time everyone will look back on the Howard years and wonder where it all went wrong. Why did they lose the October 2007 election when the economy was going so well? Why weren't people scared anymore?

The generally accepted answer will be Workchoices.

The Libs let finally let their masters and servants ideology overtake their common sense. they were so determined to break the unions they lost sight of the main point - Unions are made up of workers, and workers vote.

All the rest was window dressing. It was not quite the socialist awakening of 2007, but it got the bastards out.

That's my call.

With four hundred children...

2007-05-15T12:52:00.000+10:00

...and a crop in the fields.

At least, that's what I always thought it said.

Anyway, I've been a bit busy lately with an assignment on Aboriginal Economic Development, in particular the new land tenure arrangements. So if you want to know about it... go ask mangoman, coz I made most of it up.

And by busy, well, you know. It's not so much that I was actually engaged in the process, more that I couldn't justify writing something which wasn't uni related.

Mostly, I wrote nothing at all, but at least it wasn't off the track.

I have noticed that I have not yet posted a things that shit me list, and in the blog world, that seems to be a prerequisite. I believe that’s because negative people have more time to write and broadcast it to the world.

There are a few things that pop into my head instantly, but on further consideration just make me look like a wanker.

Like old people walking slow used to get to me, but I realise now that that’s my problem.

So I’ll just quickly list a couple of things about blogs that shit me.

Top of the list is people that remove the next blog button from their template. If I was a hacker, I’d paste nude photos of Bush and Thatcher on their page it annoys me so much.
People that get precious and wank on in their posts shit me. Now, I know that's what blogging is about, and I am guilty myself - and that's why I just stop reading them.
People that post lists of things merely because they’ve not blogged for a while and need to post something and can’t think of anything shit me too.
And that's about it. Can't think of anything else, really.

Most of what shits me about blogs is merely a result of my thinking the topics are stupid, or boring, and that again is likely my problem.

Politics wise, it's been a good week.

The budget came out, some people thought it would give the Libs a boost in the polls, I was only a little worried.

And, as it turns out in the latest Newspoll, it hasn't. Not in the slightest. (Incidentally, for a poll carried out by the Australian, it lasted about 10 seconds on their website - The Oz, biased? Noooo...)

But it's okay, say the Libs, wait until the actual Budget bribes hit the punters' bank accounts.

Which should be about the same time the record credit card bills and mortgage payments come out again.

I try not to get too hopeful, but it is hard not to.

On another note, I sometimes think Mother's Day is an exercise in commercialisation, but isn't this going a bit far? I think the kid read Musashi one too many times.

Salud!

Blues fallin' down...

2007-05-03T20:04:00.000+10:00

...like hail.

I've noticed that I said I'd put some photo's of the blues fest up. Better late than never, I suppose.

First, a leaf. This was just near the food tents. I think that night we had some sort of excellent taco.

The ferris wheel at dusk.

The ferris wheel not at dusk.

Lots of punters at the Mojo stage before Paul Kelly.

I tried to get the full length rainbow that fell over the festival one evening, did the best I could with the photo stitching. Don't know if you can get it, but it looked pretty cool.

Eso es todo.

Adios.

Oh, mangoman has a blog now.
It's better than this.

Highway to the...

2007-05-03T15:05:00.000+10:00

..Danger Zone.

Hola.

Sorry, loyal readers, I have been a bit quiet lately.

Excuses?

Well, lack of motivation, existence of an actual life, other things to do, etc.

So I thought I’d check in, only because I thought you should know about Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability.

Why? Well, firstly, it really is very interesting. But mainly it is a cautionary tale about the use of Wikipedia’s random article button.

I was surfing Wiki today when I came across the article about this. Basically, the paradox challenges the theory of knowability which proposes that all truths are knowable, or something.

Fitch’s Paradox sort of states that “if there is an unknown truth then that it is an unknown truth is itself unknowable.”

The example Wiki gives is the question “before Mt Everest was discovered what was the highest mountain in the world?” The answer is of course Mt Everest. Which then means common sense says we could have said, before Mt Everest was discovered, that an undiscovered mountain which will be called Mt Everest is the highest mountain in the world.

The paradox points out that accepting the statement as true means the statement cannot be true, as the word ‘undiscovered’ is paradoxical.

Or something.

I am fairly sure that in my attempt to simplify and understand this I have destroyed it, like a banana.

My point is after trying to understand it, my brain started to hurt, quite a bit.

Have a care when you press the random button.

I'm just a sucker....

2007-04-24T13:50:00.000+10:00

...like you.

I have been thinking about writing a bit about the WorkChoices stuff, but, to be honest, it’s a little daunting. I started to list a few points I could discuss and it ended up heading for ten pages. If I’m going to write that much, I should probably direct the energy to some uni work.

It did get me thinking about the reason people support it, that is, support tipping the scales back in favour of the employer.

The first group that might support it would be the employers, obviously, but it turns out that most Australians consider themselves workers so that doesn’t explain it all.
Then we have the one eyed Howard supporters who see their little man through weird reality distorting glasses.
The people with some knowledge of economics tend to support the idea that labour is a commodity and therefore should be treated in the same manner as any other input, such as materials or land. Those people obviously slept through everything past first year, though.

I figure it all boils down to the FYIAJ* syndrome. But that’s the problem with liberals, both small and big ‘L’, isn’t it? Even thought the Libs here are more of a conservative party when it comes to actually using your own mind, they like to be pretty liberal economically. It’s a pity this free for all doesn’t extend to human rights.

If you don’t make it, it’s your fault. If I make it, then all is right with the world, although I might buy the Big Issue from time to time to assuage my guilt.

Maybe, though, it is the economists fault? Having studied a bit of physics before this stuff, I do have trouble with the assertion that economics is a science.

Yeah, just like intelligent design.

One of the basic rules in the science world is, roughly, that you don’t get something for nothing. So how does economics come up with the idea that, in total, the world economy can always grow?

By assuming a closed system, which is obviously crap. If someone’s getting more, someone else is getting less. End digression.

I was looking around on the net and read someone use the quote, supposedly from Churchill, “if you’re not a radical in your twenties you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative in your forties you have no brain” to support a neo-Conservative argument.
Putting aside the idiocy of using questionable throwaway lines from dubious historical leaders to support an argument, the idea itself is garbage. The fact that Churchill probably only used it to justify his own politics doesn’t help.

Perhaps it is telling.

Clearly, the idea is that having compassion is not intelligent. Caring a bit about what happens to others is somehow stupid? ‘Bleeding heart’ *insert own label* is an insult. Apparently it means you are weak, naïve and unable to use your brain.

I don’t suppose this is anything new, but the gutlessness displayed by people in this country is. As long as they have a new tv, cheap childcare, a four wheel drive and a low interest rate, they really couldn’t give a shit.

And both major parties are equally culpable.

As someone more intelligent than me pointed out, Labor is compromising their founding principles to get elected – but they never compromise to the left. Going on strike will continue to be as close to illegal as it is possible to get under Labor.

It is not weak to worry about other people. Just because my job is secure and my family is doing well doesn’t mean I won’t join a union and sing out at the occasional rally.

Perhaps it is significant that coming up to ANZAC Day we all talk about the sacrifices the soldiers made to give us the way of life we enjoy.

I don’t hear anyone thanking unions (which are made up of workers, for god’s sake) for enabling people to have the bloody day off in the first place, as well as every other condition employers would prefer not to pay for.

Bugger it, I’m going to South America. I hear they’re having a socialist revolution.

¡Viva Chile!

Dis 'ere is a old dodo boid...

2007-04-20T14:06:00.000+10:00

...whatchoo got a dodo boid fo'?

I first remember hearing music known as “The Blues” about the time my sister and I thought “One Summer” by Daryl Braithwaite was the most topsest song, ever. It was the summer of ’89 – those were the best days of…..

Sherd, of course, was into a bit of NKOTB action when not rockin’ out to Roxette. About the bluesiest I got in those days was my new Ian Moss tape. (Oh, by the way, people that tell you they had decent music taste before their teens are either lying or still have crap taste in music.)

Saturday morning. June, 1989. Two kids have been up since seven, keen as mustard to…watch Rage.
Eventually, the parents drag their sorry arses out of bed and saunter downstairs.
“Alright! Time to go!” the bearded one hollers, almost as if he wasn’t the one holding up the process in the first place.
“But, daaaaaaad! Can’t we just watch the number one song?” comes the confident, forthright reply…oh, okay…whining complaint.
“One saaahhhmaaahh, I’ll find a waaaaaay!”
Barely had the image of a dorkily grinning Daryl Braithwaite faded from the hastily killed telly than the kids were packed off to Wongabilla.

No, not an paddlepop flavour, but an equestrian centre.. As a kid, the place was pretty cool. We got to ride around on horses, the cops taught you stuff, there were other kids on horses. As an adult looking back it takes a slightly different slant. Wongabilla was run by the cops, situated next door to the prison, the rich kids went to Pony Club instead, and the horses there had names like Redeye and Ghostkiller (or something).

It wasn’t long after that I heard a bit of Robert Johnson on an interminable trip down South (which means everywhere else but Darwin to you Brisvegans). To be honest, I had been listening to some BB King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and the like at that stage so I wasn’t that impressed with the raw scratchy recordings.

That came later, when I actually got to listen properly, rather than just waiting until it was my turn to put my Soundgarden cd on in the car.

Fast Forward ten years (geddit?) and we’re watching Michael Veitch on Sunday Arts. Accidentally, mind you. I think we were hungover, woke up late, and were flicking.

We caught the end of the program and Veitch was interviewing a strange looking white bloke called CW Stoneking. He has the weirdest accent I’ve heard in a while.

Turns out his parents were Californian, he was born in Katherine in the NT, and grew up in a community called Papunya. He’s ended up with a weird combination of an American drawl with a Territory inflection – if you don’t know what that sounds like, maybe visit Taminmin.

Anyway, he has this awesome dobro style guitar, and he closes the show with a song…

..and is like Robert Johnson reincarnated.

So when we heard he was on at Bluesfest, we had to go.

And it was absolutely brilliant. It was just him on the stage with a guitar and a banjo, and he seems to become a different person.

He engages in dialogue with himself in different personas, he mutters to himself and it sounds like the background noise you can hear in those 1930’s blues recordings, and the Dodo bird song is a classic.

He really was the highlight for me, mainly because it was the only real Delta blues type stuff on offer over the weekend. I mean, I love my electric blues stuff, and the more modern rock blues, but this sort of real blues really is the greatest.

Anyway, pictures later (I’m doing this from work :)

My reflection…

2007-04-19T14:20:00.002+10:00

…dirty mirror.

Thought for a boring Thursday.

I think blogging used to be primarily a pastime of self indulgent tossers – people who fervently believe the rest of the world needs to hear what they have to say.

And a lot of it still is, especially in the so-called political blogosphere. But not any more. There are some good blogs out there outside of that, a lot really – here’s one I found via the trusty next blog button (pet hate – wankers that remove that bar from their template so you can’t skip from their blog). http://4thavenueblues.blogspot.com/

Some get a bit wanky, but most are okay.

But in the political world, people tend to think they’re smarter than everyone in the room (and I by no means exempt myself from that – not that I can make any real claim to actually being a political blogger). As an example, there is a particular Australian blog which epitomises everything the proletariat dislike about the latte swilling intelligentsia - which is to say in their language they have quite a reasonable world view but carry on like wankers at every opportunity. Frankly, it gave me the shits every time I read it – the Castle comes to mind “Get your hand off it, Daryl.”

The problem is, though, people are so desperate to speak they’ll say anything. And, even worse, people want you to know how smart they are, so they use obscure words and concepts they secretly hope others won’t really understand.

That said, there are many political blogs which aren’t chock full of insular academics.

Blogocracy, on the news.com.au site is not bad – especially given its location. It is somewhat anti-conservative, but still pretty balanced. Some of the American blogs are good – Huffington Post, etc – and onlineopinion (more of a forum, really) is good too.

There’s plenty, really, even if some of them you go to have zero comments – and no one ever wants to be the first person at the party, do they?

Now, back to work.

PS. I completely forgot to talk about the best act at Bluesfest - CW Stoneking. I have pictures - wait till then.

What's up my Negus?

2007-04-15T21:47:00.000+10:00

So, kids, a Bluesfest review. How do I do it? I mean, the Big Day Out is easy – spiky haired shirtless wankers, orange girls who need to eat more, emos who need to eat less, all poncing about in the burning sun occasionally glancing at the stage – festival tragics, one and all. Oh, there’s the occasional punter who actually came for the music – they're the ones in the corner, looking wide eyed and panicked, wondering what happened to the 90’s.

To be honest, after a disappointing Future Music Festival experience (I thought it was going to be a great dance music day – turned out to be full of boozed up, iced up wankers too), I was a little scared Bluesfest might have been the same.

I did not reckon on the power of old people – sorry, oldER.

Bloody brilliant, it was.

Three days of mud, drizzling rain, beer and blues (and roots, and modern folk, and rock, and neo-folk, and arguments about what was what), and only scatterings of wankers. Like those stupid silver cake decorations that break your teeth – a bit annoying, but you can always flick them off.

One discordant note – the whingeing locals of Byron who seem content to gouge the tourists over Easter, but would prefer they not come.

So I might just post a list, being quite lazy. I’ve gone through the timetable to write down everything we saw a bit of.

Amos Lee – Very good. A bit smooth, although the set he played was pretty bluesy, due to the setting, I guess. (On the strength of this the Mangoes bought a double album which turned out to bit a lot more poppy). Sort of your standard American city soft blues rock stuff, a bit whiny, but good. ~~Download some~~ Go and purchase a cd today.

Bo Diddley – Great to see him, he’s the same age as my grandma, but I think she’s more genki than him. The music was good – standard rock blues stuff. Personally, a little to 50’s pop for me, but then, that was all him anyway, wasn’t it? He seems to getting a bit old – I saw him at Bluesfest two years ago and he was a bit more lively then. Still, great show.

Eric Burdon and the Animal(s) – One for the parentals, really. He was a bit like an aging rocker with a bunch of session musos – hang on, there was one original band member. Well, maybe, but there was certainly an old dude, with grey hair in a pony tail, on the keys. The show was good, though, because everyone knew all the songs, As expected, House of the Rising Sun brought the house down. Listening to a record I borrowed from the parentals I realised he had lost all of his edge.

Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges – Wow, the man needs to be paying royalties to BB King! Fantastic guitarist, he was King with a pony tail. He even played a black Gibson 335 (which he was plugging shamelessly during the set – Gibson was a major sponsor of the Bluesfest, I gather).

Lucky I love BB King then. Fantastic electric blues show, awesome guitar playing.

Fred Eaglesmith - Redneck rocker, Steve Earle without the heroin, and from Canada – where your neck’s just as red but frozen solid. Great country blues stuff, with some fantastic crowd interaction. One of the highlights. He provided the best quote of the weekend - “You got a lot of hippies in Byron,” he murmurs, pausing for effect, “I fuckin’ hate hippies!” – thunderous applause.

“I been on that many folk festivals, all this fuckin’ patchouli. Y’all got patchouli down here? Tried to get a workers compensation claim – fuckin’ lungs filled up with patchouli, can’t breathe right.” Absolute gold.

He also had a nice word to say about our PM – “In Canada we have a Howard – it’s a rotary Ho.”

Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch & Fats Kaplan – Nice set. A bunch of middle aged dudes sitting down playing acoustic country blues stuff, tending more towards country, I guess.

Kill Devil Hills – Not bad, but not great. Australian mob, I think, almost hillbilly blues – the drummer was the best performer.

The Fumes – One of my personal highlights. Fantastic! Go out and buy their album, I did. Don’t download it, either. If you listen to JJJ you would have heard a couple of their songs. Great Aussie Blues Rock, a real dirty sound. Electric slide with great vocals.

John Butler Trio – Obviously, the set was mega packed, and sucked in the wankers as well. I don’t want to sound like a tosser (but I will) but the first time I saw JBT it was me and about a hundred other people, crammed into the backroom at Beachcombers in Darwin. They played for a good two and a half hours, then did a half hour encore. Since then I’ve seen them a fair few times, each time the gigs getting progressively larger. I know it’s a good thing that more people are listening to his music, especially as he has a lot of good stuff to say, but the crowd was too big to get a good feel for the music. And the same goes for…

…Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals– Although I’d not seen him live before, so that was good. There were a couple of songs where I danced about in the pouring rain, sans emergency poncho, in a true festival experience. Great stuff.

Xavier Rudd – Not bad, although he’s to John Butler what Disney is Warner Brother cartoons.

Kasey Chambers – I have never liked her stuff, she’s far too whingy, but I have to admit she played a good show for a woman as fat as she was (she may have been pregnant :)). Best bit – Bernald Powderfinger does a surprise guest appearance and the parentals ask “Who the hell is that bloke?”

Paul Kelly – What can I say? Awesome. Just as packed as some of the others, but we got a good spot. Knew all the songs, the whole crowd singing along. He played How to make Gravy, I swear I got goosebumps.

And he was introduced by George Negus! All good. (Incidentally, I saw a tshirt with a picture of George Negus on it wearing lots of bling – Caption: What’s up, my Negus.)

Vanessa Amorosi – I saw a bit, so I have to list her. What the hell was she doing there? Absolute rubbish. I had thought there was a chance. At the last Bluesfest I went to they actually had Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets playing – you know, those clowns from Idol that did the beatboxing – and they surprised everyone with a decent blues set.

Not this time. Shite.

With a capital I.

Taj Mahal – Awesome. Risqué lyrics, rocking blues tunes, great atmosphere.

Chris Smither – Solo acoustic blues stuff, a little bit of country folk in the mix. A nice, middle of the afternoon set.

Imperial Crowns – A mix between Aerosmith and a pub band – shite.

Normie Rowe – What the f…? Shite, again. His only shining moment was when he clocked Ron Casey on Midday.

Missy Higgins - I first saw her when she supported JBT once and she was pretty good. Now she is far too whingy – didn’t watch much of her set. It was okay.

The Waifs – I thought they were great, the parentals didn’t agree.

Bonnie Raitt – Fantastic. She put on a great show, and the crowd really got into it.

Ash Grunwald – I’ve seen him a couple of times before, the last time was at the Prince of Wales in Melbourne. It was so smoky that we literally couldn’t see the stage, or breathe. So we left early.

This time it was great. He puts on a great show, one man band style. Or at least a man with a guitar and a couple of drums.

I highly recommend getting an album.

Oh crap, there’s heaps more, well a few anyway, but I’m all done.

Suffice to say it was a fantastic weekend.

Oh, you missed out?

Sucks to be you.

I’ll put some photos up a bit later – turns out we’ve been shaped and they take a while to upload.

Cheers

Everything I do...

2007-04-11T20:51:00.000+10:00

In other news, it turns out I have a watertight claim to a “Merry Man” ancestor.

Yes, that’s right, it turns out one of my ancestors was born around Derbyshire and then got busted in Nottingham for larceny.

I see your “First Fleeter” and raise you a Prince of Thieves, sucker!

A Bluesfest wrap up shortly. Spicks and Specks is on at the moment.

Whoa! Even more freakily, the movie of the week on ABC is Robin Hood and his Merry Men!

Don't come over here...

2007-04-03T21:34:00.000+10:00

...and piss on my gate.

So said Señor Cornell.

And it's true.

What gives people the right to tell me if I can kill myself, take drugs, marry a bloke, marry a goat, eat poo or anything else which doesn't impinge on their right to have a nice day? (not that I actually want to do any of those things - poo tastes like...poo).

I watched Insight tonight, in case you were wondering. I had been too distracted lately to whinge about anything, but I had clearly forgotten about the inspiration SBS could provide.

It was about voluntary euthanasia. Happily, they had Marshall Perron (which always sounded like a type of bird to me as a kid) and good old Phil Nietschke (yes! I spelt that correctly! first time!) on. Took me back...to a time when a bunch of fat middle class white men overrode the wishes of an elected legislature because of a bunch of outdated, narrow minded Western morals.

And the idea that a mere spark of life somehow has more value than the respect, dignity and choices of a capable, cognizant human being.

Same as the abortion debate, really.

I noticed, though, that the arguments used by the conservatives have morphed into the standard 'for your own good' line they use for most things.

In a way, one of the arguments they carry on with seems at odds with basic neo-liberal garbage in general - the focus on personal responsibility.
Chris Pyne, the Ageing Minister (incidentally, he must be a good friend of Costello's - he came up with a wonderful range of contemptuous smirks this evening) piped up with the 'what if the person would have changed their mind' line. Hypocrite.
Yeah? What if?
What if they didn't?
Isn't that up to them?
Isn't it their mistake to make?
And don't talk to me about seat belts, etc. That's about keeping idiots alive, not providing choice to an adult who has considered their options carefully.

I do have a challenge, or two.
First, come up with an anti-euthanasia argument that does not have, at its heart, a spiritual moralistic basis.
And then (and I ask this not as a rhetorical, but I actually am wondering what there is) come up with a victimless crime which you don't think had its roots in religion.
Now, if what I have said above is really quite stupid, I apologise. I'm tired, and haven't run this past my legal team :)
Really, I felt a bit lazy just putting photos up so I thought I'd try to write something.

And here's a photo!
Of my street.

cheers

You can squeeze my lemon..

2007-03-28T19:09:00.000+10:00

...till the juice runs down my leg.

If you can tell me what song that classic line comes from, well, go you.

I haven't got much to say today.

Actually, I've got bucketloads, but between the Hicks fiasco and the burning down of the Rebels clubhouse, I can't focus.

What to do?

Just put photos up.

The beauty of blogging with photos, I guess.

these are some older ones I actually thought weren't that great, but I've tried to clean them up a bit, cropped some boring bits out.

The first one is a shot looking upriver towards the GoMA at Southbank.

This one is of the big balls outside the new council building.
There were some peckers dancing or something in the shot. You can see their feet.

That's all.

One day I'll rant about something again.

Any ideas?

River Runs Red...

2007-03-20T21:11:00.000+10:00

...black rain falls.

Or sort of blue, in this case.

I went for a walk down to Portside Wharf this evening.

By myself.

Which, as it turned out, was a good thing, given how much time I wasted down there. In addition, having had a few beers before I went down, I thought it would be a top idea to climb down into the disgusting river mud to get a better angle.

It wasn't, and I didn't.

But I did get these shots.

All with 20-30 seconds of exposure, iso 100, various f-stops just to get the right exposure. Basically I just adjusted the aperture to get as long a shutter speed as possible to smooth out the water.

By the way, I've played around with Photoshop settings, so the images are higher quality and may take a sec to load.

Enjoy.

(PS the last shot with the branches isn't great, but it was an experiment where I had the camera flash once to pick of the twigs, then a 30 second exposure. I think it might work with some practice)

Let's waste time...

2007-03-19T17:14:00.001+10:00

...chasing cars.

It upsets me that a song I really don't mind (a bit whiny, but good nonetheless) makes me think of the completely ridiculous crap waste of airtime that is Grey's Anatomy.

Sure, the OC was also crap and I watched that, but it wasn't anywhere near as moralistic and cloying as Grey's Anatomy.

In other news, I had a read of this today. As usual, these threads only really serve to give the absolute shits. Mainly, they make a polarised stance completely impossible.

The good thing is that there are incredibly diverse opinions. Some of these types of comments are readily available on other sites, like Blogocracy and Akerman. These run from intelligent debate with the (very) occasional idiotic rant on the former, to monkeys with internet access on the latter.

The problem with those blogs, however, is the noticeable lack of diversity in opinion. One thing I have found lacking is the intelligent defence of a right wing, or socially conservative position. At least on online opinion, there is the occasional instance of this.

Why is this good, you ask? Well, unless you’re an idiot, it’s a good idea to have an idea of arguments you’ll come up against.

On another topic, Sherd recently rehashed her paleo-feminist rant about having doors opened. I have given up on this one over there, not wanting to fill her comments section up.

I’m not going to go through the basic arguments, read it if you need to.

The basic issue the argument faces is one of relevance. Her points, and those of her comrades, were well argued, and on the face of it are reasonable. The logic falls down when applied pragmatically, and the context is all wrong.

Perhaps thirty years ago the argument had resonance, but the world has moved on, at least in Australia.

And - in much the same way that the original intent and meaning of such actions as wearing green on St Patricks Day, or giving eggs at Easter has disappeared over time – politeness to women no longer has any relation to the more insidious forms of sexism.

In a sense, I think the anti-chivalry is somewhat demeaning to women themselves. Viewing modern chivalry in this way continues to define the issue in terms of men’s actions.

I.e. you continue to assert that the solution to the problem will be found when women are treated in the same way as men, rather than on a gender neutral basis.

Chivalry, or the intent behind it, continues to be viewed in a negative way, as something which needs to be fought against.

But then we agree that the content of the action is not the issue, that no one really dislikes having these things done for them. So what will be achieved if men stop being polite?

And if it is the intent that may be suspect, and needs to be changed, how, in reality, do we do that?

Surely, the way to do this is to adopt a more positive approach. Assume all of these actions have an entirely gender neutral basis, and behave accordingly.

I believe Sherd likes a particular Gandhi quote “be the change you want to see in the world.” I have to assume this is the reason for the stance on modern chivalry.

That is, at best, a distortion of the intent of the quote. Gandhi did not rant, he did not bluster. He continually performed actions which were, at the time, illegal and accepted his punishment quietly. Over and over and over. Until things changed.

For what is the change you want to see? Is it not that you wish all forms of politeness to be based on a shared set of standards, rather than their sex, without reducing the general level of polite behaviour? If so, how would you propose to ensure that the intent was above board?

The only way I can see is to live your life according to your principle.

As for leaps of logic linking spousal abuse and levels of housework to chivalry, that’s a little hard to swallow.

Granted, if you accept the proposition that chivalry is fundamentally sexist, then accept that sexist behaviour also includes spousal abuse and sitting on your arse while you lady friend does everything, there is a link.

In the same way, there is a high level of crime in the immigrant Sudanese community, and murder is a crime, therefore high levels of Sudanese immigration cause the murder rate to rise.

This argument first requires one to accept the basic premise on the first point – in the first case an opinion, in the second case distorted statistics – then to draw a causal link based on distorted logic between two unrelated outcomes with one common characteristic.

In any event, I think it would be the case that a man who is polite to a woman, i.e. overtly demonstrates respect, would be less likely to abuse women, not the other way around.

That would go back to the countless arguments about the relationship between basic respect for others in ones actions in public and how that translates to private life.

Fundamentally, I’m not going to change the way I do things. If offer a seat on the bus, or open a door, or buy dinner for a girl, I’m going to keep doing it.

And if that girl takes that as sexist, that’s really her problem, isn’t it. I will be content in the knowledge that I have demonstrated some respect, maybe affection for a group of people who are generally much nicer, less violent, more attractive, less stinky and more intelligent.

Because, really, whichever way you look at it, men and women are different, and unless we turn into snails, always will be. There will always be differences in the way people treat each other, whether that is based on sex, or religion, or whatever.

When the results of this are bad, we should stamp it out. But good people will try to adjust how they act towards different people in order to make things go smoothly. Sometimes this can be misguided, or patronising, so we try to guide it in the right direction.

I try not to swear around my grandma and my mum, I offer to get my workmates coffee when I go out, I make an effort to learn the language and culture when I visit other places.

I have respect for my grandma as a strong woman with a sense of class, I like my workplace to be friendly whether or not the sentiment is reciprocated, and I want things to go smoothly, and respect and cherish the difference in the world.

I will continue to open the car door for my lady. I will continue to enjoy it when I cook a good feed and the girl in my life smiles and thanks me, and eats with gusto. I will continue to moderate my boorish behaviour when women are around and save it for poker nights, for I believe women are worthy of that respect for putting up with crap from blokes for time immemorial.

And I will continue to let ladies go first when it is reasonable - and be quietly chuffed when I get a smile from a nice lady, and slightly bemused when I get a accusatory look.

Cheers.

Attack of the degree wielding experts

2007-03-15T19:11:00.000+10:00

Hotel Charleville.

Dodgy, don't stay there.

So, I've been out at sunny Charleville for work for a few days this week.

An interesting little place, I actually had quite a good time. We went out there to have a look at how a company which we manage a chunk of funding for was spending our dough. The dough is generally for landcare type projects - conservation with real results, I suppose.

We went to the RSL with a bloke who is a roo shooter.

Got into an interesting conversation about "degree wielding experts" that come out form the city, think they're the smartest person in the room, and don't talk to the locals.

Because they're scientists, and they're economists, and they've been to uni. Therefore they must know best.

Typical yokel comment right?

The bloke's a roo shooter, for god's sake.

Of course, just like the young gunslinger that rides into town and picks a fight with the old hand, it's not real bright to start throwing your weight around when you don't know what the other blokes holding.

A roo shooter that used to be a hippy surfer with a long series of letters after his name, if he was enough of a wanker to want to do that.

Anyway, it was an interesting conversation.

In the end, it just boiled down to one thing - there are NO correct answers.

We sit in the city and carry on about global warming, when the farmers can actually see it. And it seems we have the nerve to assume they are all rednecks that just want to rape the earth.

Of course, there are more than a few of them too, rednecks I mean. But they're not all morons.

An example - an idealistic public servant tells a local sheep farmer that he must start thinking about carbon offset trading. The world is in trouble and you can't just go around denuding the land with your cloven hoofed devil spawn. You need to do something proactive.

So, says the farmer, sort of like the deal I have with a large mining company where they pay me to plant trees and not exercise my clearing licenses? The one I went and negotiated five years ago?

Ummmm, yep, just like that.

I know I'm being a bit all over the place, and I'm well aware that these types of stories are really the minority.

Most farmers aren't doing the right thing, and most will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.

The danger is lumping people into one group and treating them like children, and alienating the people that are going to be able to help fix this problem the world has created.

These landholders control most of the country, and we certainly aren't going to fix things by driving less cars in the cities.

Anyway, here are some photos from the trip.

The Warrego River from out the back of the Waltzing Matilda Motel.
And again.

The Warrego River again, but at 6 in the morning.

A place called the trucking reserve. It's a couple of thousand acres where cattle used to be rested on long trips, and it's being regenerated.

Cheers.

Something so strong...

2007-03-06T19:50:00.000+10:00

Dah dah, dah dah, danananana....

We decided to run up to the top of Mount Coot-tha on Sunday afternoon.

"Why?" you ask, and well you should, for there is a road that goes all the way to the top, and a car I do have.

Apart from not being very bright, I did have a good reason.

I am a bit unfit, and we are shortly to go wandering about South America, climbing up and down mountains whilst carrying packs.

It behooves one to start training a bit.

Happily, I took my camera, so we took a break at the top long enough to grab a few shots. I say long enough - in fact, as stuffed as we were, I had tons of time to take photos.

In case you are wondering, that is the Brisbane city centre in the distance there. We were going to hang around and wait until the sun went down a bit to get some better shadows, maybe some city lights....

...but we didn't. Maybe next time.

photo info :

Make	SONY
Model	DSLR-A100
Software	Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows
Exposure Time	1/500 sec
F-Stop	f/4.5
ISO Speed Ratings	100
Focal Length	18 mm
Date Taken	2007-03-04 15:55
Metering Mode	Spot
Light Source	Daylight
Flash	Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

Hasta luego.

Trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup

2007-03-06T11:35:00.000+10:00

So.

A request.

What do I think about the scary man from WA? Well, that narrows it down. Which one?

In truth, I really wasn’t going to bother about it.

It’s a little bit like Wolf Creek.

I heard all about it. It was going to be the scariest movie ever. Full of gore, suspense and terror.

Full of shit, more like. It was crap.

A bit like this garbage.

I realise I am a bit biased, but it really is a storm in a heart shaped teacup (these are cool, from this shop in Melbourne, BTW)

The media seems to be in a frenzy about it, so much so that I am completely confused as to whether or not anyone even cares. The media certainly does, and they would have you believe that it’s a very big deal. And, por supuesto, Howard and co want you to think that too.

But I asked a couple of people in the office about it. These are public servants, people who have time to read the news websites. Most didn’t care, and I had one ask “Burke? The guy with the gardening show? Did he go to jail?”

I have to conclude that the only people that care are the so-called elites and journalists. The politicians and the politics bloggers.

I realise what Howard is trying to do. He is using it to attack Rudd’s credibility, and it’s worked so far.

But only very slightly.

And now he’s gone too far. He should have been satisfied with a few points scored, but he’s pushed that extra bit. Sacking his minister for the sole purpose of scoring political points was a mistake.

Howard’s, and the Lib’s, problem is that he has for too long done whatever he likes, without anyone asking questions. He thinks he can carry on and people will lap it up. And the punters have certainly not given him any reason to think differently, so far.

He’s pushing too hard on this one, and people aren’t listening.

One thing worries me, though. This meeting first came out in November last year. It was a non-issue then, and suddenly becomes an issue when the Lib’s need some ammunition.

Now, even they must know it’s pretty weak, even if they’re flogging it for all it’s worth. They’ve pulled it out very early in the piece if they want it to affect Rudd’s election chances – I don’t think anyone will remember it by October.

So either they couldn’t wait any longer because waiting that long after November last year to bring it up would have looked even more stupid, or they have something really juicy that they’re saving for closer to the election.

I think that Labor’s adopting the right strategy so far. They appear quite calm about it, while the Lib’s look like a bunch of laughing hyenas.

As long as they can bring the discussion back to actual issues, they should be right.

It’s Bennelong time since the rock’n’roll

2007-02-28T12:44:00.000+10:00

...Bennelong lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. It’s why Howard will lose.

In other news, I was forced to argue a position I disagreed with last night. This was because Sherd took the point of view I would normally have argued, thus forcing me to argue the opposite.

Why?

Well, what’s the point of all agreeing? You don’t learn anything that way.

We were watching Insight again and this time the farmers were whinging about water.

“Stuff ‘em” said Sherd, “They should have thought of it before. They made their choice, and they can’t expect people to bail them out just because the world has changed. That’s what happens – things change, people go under, businesses which are no longer viable fold.”

As I said, I have generally taken that line. I realised, through being forced to find a way to argue the point, that this sort of position is flawed.

I’ll use an example. Sherd and I come from similar backgrounds. One of the things people like us believe is that we’ve royally fucked over the indigenous people of this country. We wandered in here, claimed the whole joint by landing in one spot, and told them to deal with it.

So we agree in principle that we have a responsibility to disadvantaged people to help them, if it is our power to do so. The methods we use are often terrible – paternalistic, patronising, downright insulting in many cases.

But the intent is the same.

So we agree that we cannot expect a particular group of people to just suddenly cope when there is a significant shift in the priorities and aims of the dominant culture. We are not people who get the shits with drunks, homeless people, long term unemployed. A lot of these people are victims of circumstance. They have been taught their whole lives that the world works a certain way, and they have lived their lives to suit.

Suddenly they find out that the world has moved on, and they need to adapt. We believe they need to given a chance to do so, and some help if they need it.

How are farmers any different? Sure, they used wasteful practices for many years; they degraded the environment they were in. They lined their pockets with no thought for the future.

But they always had, and they didn’t know any different. Some would say that’s a pretty weak excuse, but it’s used for a lot of things.
And even if this was entirely their fault it doesn’t change the reality – there is not enough water, and a hell of a lot of farmers are going broke.

All of the solutions offered are going to cost money and are going to cause grief to various groups.

Carrying on with “I told you sos” doesn’t do a lot to help the situation. Some people even suggest that farms are unnecessary full stop, and we could shut them all down.
I’ll tell you what, you sit in the corner with Pauline Hanson and her 2% tax on everything while you read “Economics for Dummies”.

I am not arguing that farmers are right. Quite the opposite really. They’ve stuffed the joint up with unsustainable land management, by trying to force a European way of doing things onto a land which can’t handle it.

But all of us are complicit in this. We all benefit from relatively cheap groceries, good food standards and standard of living originally built on a century of farm prosperity.

So we need to change the way we do things on the land in this country. Whether we do it by appointing an autonomous body (politics), diverting a river from the tropics (stupidest idea I’ve heard since nuclear power) or getting people to move to where the water is (holy shit – you mean people aren’t welded into the Murray Darling Basin!?), I don’t know.

But whichever way we do it, let’s do it fairly and reasonably.

This country is quite mean enough already.

Know your enemy

2007-02-26T12:32:00.000+10:00

I was reading another one of my regularly visited sites the other day and I came across a discussion of the relative merits of the Islamic and Christian faiths.

While I was reading through it I was almost tempted to comment. However, the fact that a lot of the comments are clearly penned (or should that be keyboarded?) by dangerous loonies caused me to desist. That and the presence of others who clearly have the same view as me writing more coherently on my behalf.

I remember sitting on a Shinkansen (Sherd, should that have a capital?) next to my grandma. I asked her what religion she had followed as a girl.

"None", came the reply, "And I certainly don't follow any now, well, not seriously. Religion is for weak people with nothing better to do. I am not an empty person." Or words to that effect. The actual words would have been more disjointed - just think Yoda - but I'll not confuse you.

Now, I wouldn't go to that extreme, but I have always had a lot of difficulty understanding why people feel the need to have these beliefs for no concrete gain. Sure, you do get some social benefit on occasion - charities, a sense of well being, friends - but the strategic application of alcohol and chocolate can have the same effect.

I figured, though, that if they weren't hurting anyone, I didn't care what they got up to.

As a kid I came to the conclusion that a belief in a higher power or powers was a result of the fear caused by an inability to comprehend the universe. Try this, close your eyes, imagine sitting at your computer (you might have to close your eyes after you've read the whole passage), then imagine where the room is in realtion to the house, then the suburb, then the city, then the country, then the globe, then the solar system - you get the idea.

If you keep going far enough you get to a point that you don't know. Then you ask, where the hell am I?

God provides a simple answer to that, and you can go on about your day. Or you can ignore the question completely. Or perhaps you can ask the question and be comfortable not knowing.

But if you're not comfortable, you either get comfortable or go crazy.

The question is: if people did not believe in gods, would more of them have focussed on trying to answer the questions, or would everyone have flipped out?

Which doesn't really bring me back to the article.

There is a lot of back and forth about which religion is the most peaceful/ violent/ tolerant/ etc. It's pretty clear to me that it has bugger all to do with religion, and more to do with the adherents.

So if we accept that Muslim extremists are more common than others (I must say I don't actually accept this for a second), then what is the reason?

The Christians seem to attribute that to the religion, but not in a balanced way - their view is Muslims are extremists because of the religion, but Christians that are extremists have lost their way. The Muslims seem to fall into the trap of demonising Jews, which just makes them look stupid.

The extremists, from all religions, appear to come from poorer areas. I just can't think of an example of rich people blowing shit up.

There are the Muslim groups, the Christian groups (you know, Branch Davidian, skinheads, National Front types), those crazy Aum Shinrikyo dudes (not sure what their caper was) and even a Jewish one.
And then, of course, there are all those Leftist type groups - Shining Path, Baader-Meinhof (that last one I got from Ludlum books - it may or may not be real and I can't be bothered checking). Relgion is generally not an issue for these types.

Obviously, religion is not the issue. As much as god-botherers give me the shits locking them all up will not solve the terrorist problem, even if it would enable our society in general to move forward in other ways.

They all have one thing in common, though, and that is a general grievance with the world at large. If we spent a bit more time and resources on figuring out exactly what that was, and adressing it, maybe we wouldn't have all these dramas (except for those Aum blokes, maybe, and those ones with the sports shoes and the comet with the stupid name).

Settle for nothing now...

2007-02-25T21:59:00.000+10:00

Hey guys.

No chance to post this weekend. I've been drinking, resting, drinking, painting, sleeping.

But I did read this the other day. From the Noam man.

It makes interesting reading.

And, another photo.

This is not a great one. It's a shot of the temple at Southbank.

Essentially, a lesson in why you should pay attention to your ISO setting.

For this shot it was set way too high, hence the amount of noise.

Cheers.

Why people that don't know should shut up and listen: part 2

2007-02-22T17:47:00.000+10:00

As someone recently said when asked "Did you inhale?"

"Of course, that was the point".

This from a middle aged politician. You see, apparently it's okay to have smoked a few joints, done a few lines of coke, and be a recovering alcoholic.

But, to anyone over forty and a disturbing amount of naive tossers under, popping a pill is one step from heating a spoon with a dirty Bic.

I think this is understandable, if not exactly reasonable. For example, I am not personally in favour of skydiving. It can kill you, it's really expensive and it seems like a lot of effort to go to for a brief thrill.

But I've never done it, and I probably never will, so I keep my mouth shut. If you want to do it, go for your life. The only thing I'll say is - make sure you have a decent parachute.

It would be handy if the rest of the world would do a similar thing with drugs. If you've never done it (and I haven't, but I've heard all about it) then shut up.

Because all this ridiculous panic and misinformation just makes it less likely that drug users ever get their parachute.

Annabel Catt died on the weekend at a dance festival. The usual media frenzy ensued. Then we find out today what every person that has ever bothered to research the topic already knew - she didn't take ecstasy.

Pill testing would have saved her - nobody in their right mind willingly takes PMA.

On top of that, the police have refused to release information about exactly what type of pill it was - the colour, the shape, the logo. Because this might encourage young folk and it might put the message out that the pill you have is okay if it's different.

No. It won't.

What it will do is make it more likely someone else dies.

People aren't that stupid. They'll take the information they have and make an informed choice. Statistically, most ecstasy users are well educated, stable, intelligent people. But because pills are illegal and not that easy to come by - (nobody just walks up and offers you a pill - you have to ask for them), nobody is going to throw theirs away on the off chance it's a bad one. They'll neck it, and hope.

So make up your minds, legislators.

If you don't want people to die, help them figure out a safe way to do what they're going to do anyway.

Or be honest and tell us you don't care.

Enough with the for-your-own-good bullshit.

Please go and have a look here.

Learn something.

I can almost believe that they're real....

2007-02-20T21:39:00.000+10:00

Pictures of you for you today.

But first.

I just watched the Insight episode on SBS about David Hicks. Big names they had on, too.

Michael Mori, Colonel Clink (at least, I think that's what the prosecution guy from the US was called), Ruddock, Hicks' dad - the whole crew.

I'll tell you something. I generally start discussions trying to keep a level of objectivity.
Personally, I can't stand the antics of the conservatives parties of Australia, indeed, the world, but I realise a lot of what they do can look reasonable for those with a different set of ethics or morals. And a lot of people tend to ascribe motives depending on a personal like or dislike for a particular politician.
As an example, Turnbull the Toff-man announced a politically motivated band aid idea to ban incandescent lightbulbs.
"Too little, too late, what a joke" we all said. And it the motivation behind the announcement is a joke. We all know that the Howard Government doesn't believe it's really a problem.

However, ask yourself what you would have said had Peter Garrett made the same announcement.

Just saying...!

Anyway, balance, objectivity. I will support people who want to have a say on most anything. That's what democracy is all about.

Except when I hear people say that Hicks is being treated fairly.

Bullshit. I don't care who you are, where you come from, and what causes you to think Hicks should be where he is - the fact is, if you do, you are an idiot.

You have no cause to even open your mouth on the topic.

Thinking about it is making my head sort of boil at the moment, so I'm going to put a couple of photos up.

Two American Audio turntables, Numark mixer, a couple of vinyls.

An experiment with depth of field, that sort of thing.

And a hell of a lot of fun. If you don't like dance music, you are both too old and too young. And narrow minded. Oh, and this crap electro they're playing in clubs now for the posers is not dance music. We're talking 140bpm, children.

ISO: 100
Focal length: 20mm
F-number: F/13
Shutter speed: 1/8 sec

Australia Day.

Couple of nice young ladies.

An experiment in combining exposures - the sky from one, the foreground from another.

ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
F-number: F/5.6
Shutter speed: 1/25 sec

Anyway, that's it for now.

Cheers.

Tyrant or visionary - a matter of perspective

2007-02-16T11:17:00.000+10:00

I have an addiction to certain sites on the internet.

No, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not 16 anymore, so now it’s news sites, politics blogs, and photography websites.

One of them I read regularly is the Asia Times. It gives a slightly different perspective on world events. It is good to see things which aren’t filtered through the Western media now and again.

Also, as someone recently pointed out to me, after the flush of excitement over the new Labor team evaporates, the election process here is likely to become interminably boring.

I came across this article.

I really urge you to have a read. It really confirms what most of us already believe – the leader of North Korea is a more than slightly deluded lunatic and his apologists even more so.

Crazy stuff. Talking about “use its nuclear umbrella to contribute to maintaining peace and security” and invoking the name of gods. Weird rhetoric about history and duty to the people and the Axis of Evil…oh, wait…was that someone else?...

I’m all confused.

Try something for me. Replace “DPRK” with “USA”. See how it reads.

Let me know how it goes.

Oh, by the way, I’ll post some photos when I get my bloody home computer back on the net.

Cheers.

CODA: Okay, you all need to look at this too.

Think when you vote

2007-02-13T15:44:00.000+10:00

I have always been a Labor supporter, and I really can’t foresee a time I won’t be. I have come close, on occasion, to voting for other parties. There was a time I was particularly unimpressed with the gutless position Labor took on ‘border control’ and environmental issues. At that point I came close to voting Green, but I was keener to get rid of Howard and it would have been a wasted vote. Of course, as it turned out, I should have just done it.

I will definitely be voting Labor at the next election. Rudd, his touch of smarminess aside, really does seem to have what it takes to win it. I think the punters will believe it and, as long as nothing goes wrong, he’ll be our next PM come, say, October this year. Labor won’t win the senate.

Of course, eight months is a long time.

A terrorist attack, a boatload of refugees, a riot in Lakemba where an Anglo gets killed – this will bring fear back into the equation.

Today there was a post on Blogocracy about being fed up with politicians lying. This was primarily a response to Howard’s flim-flamming about whether he criticised the whole Democratic Party, or just Obama. Tim Dunlop gave it a clearly anti-Howard slant, but then it makes for a good antidote to almost every other news.com opinion page.

The responses varied. Many were rabidly anti-Howard, and more attacked the left for their audacity – “Yeah, but, you lied TOO!!” – childish arguments from both sides.

There were also some well thought out comments from both sides.

Anyway, the comments raised some questions for me.

Basically, I am not stupid. I realise that a lot of politicians from all sides of politics lie. They all spin the truth, and try to convince the public they’re not full of shit.

So if they’re basically the same, why do I vote Labor?

It’s a good question. Mangoman, for example, supports any team who plays against Collingwood, and hates any team playing against Carlton. Similarly, I had recently fallen into the trap of supporting any team that played against Australia in the cricket, mainly because the sheer size of the Aussies’ egos meant only a handful of spectators could fit in the MCG with them.

These things are perfectly reasonable, if you’re talking about sport.

I realised, though, that a lot of people vote like that. I certainly did, for a while. I blame my parents for that. Now, though, I can ask myself why I vote that way.

It’s probably because my parents taught me a few things about the world. Ridiculously high HECS debt aside, 12 years (yes, that’s right TWELVE) of uni have taught me things. As have books. And the Discovery Channel.
So I though I’d make list, like a Cosmo quiz, and find out who I should vote for. It’s simple – write down the things you feel matter, then align a party to them. The party with the most hits wins!

1. Everyone is equal, i.e. position is nothing – well, broad small ‘l’ liberal tradition would get the vote there, but the Liberals are a conservative party with an ironic name, so one point to Labor.

2. Collective action makes people more powerful – (thank’s to the mangoes) no contest. Although Labor at times risks its union base, Howard’s IR laws are a joke

3. People in authority are not always right – this goes against both parties from time to time, so, no points. Bob Brown tends to stick it to people all the time. Often he’s a bit loony, but I like that too. Greens 1 point.

4. Economic rationalism is a foolish dream based on an overly simplistic world view – again, this is something both parties got wrong – Greens, one point.

5. Music is important – sounds frivolous, and it is, but I like music. Peter Garrett gets a point for his party. Used to be the Greens, now it’s Labor.

6. Governing with one eye on the Bible is dangerous and inappropriate in a secular country – Difficult, this one. Both the major parties have their fair share of god-botherers. I still have faith in Rudd not to let his religion cloud his decision making, like it does with Abbott, but am still concerned. Labor, ½ a point.

7. The environment actually matters to us, maybe more than our mortgages and mining jobs – Howard’s recent backflip is less than convincing, but Labor still panders to the unions on this point. Greens, 1 point.

8. Nuclear power is dangerous, unnecessary and discussion of it diverts resources from renewable energy – Rudd has recently ruled out nuclear as an option. Labor – 1 point.

9. Internal party structure makes for a coherent and powerful political force – I am going to have to give this to the Libs. The idiotic factional shit that Labor goes on with is more conservative than the Tories. Sort it out.

10. Dubya is a dangerous fool who will go down in history as the worst president the US has ever had – this is the kicker. Most of the US can see this. Most of the world knows this. Most of Australia believes this.

Except Johnny. Labor 1 point.

Score – Labor 5 ½ out of 10
Libs 1 out of 10
Greens 3 out of 10

The world gets madder..

2007-02-12T14:39:00.000+10:00

Or should that be more mad?

Apparently not – Word has put the annoying green squiggle under that.

The big news today is the AC Neilson poll results. Rudd has severely outpolled Howard again, and this time by quite a margin.

Well, that I was supposed to be the big news. Unfortunately Howard said something, and as Howard tends to do when he is allowed to speak for himself, he stuffed it up. It has caused quite a kerfuffle (love that word – the spell check thinks it is “kafuffle” – stupid Miscrosoft). Almost every new website I checked had the story on its front page.
The Blogocracy post today generated a flurry of excitement but I think there is an orgy of glee from the Left for the wrong reasons.

Perhaps from a foreign policy perspective it is not very intelligent to jeopardise relations with an ally like that.

On the other hand, will this really jeopardise relations? Surely Obama is smart enough to know that it is only Johnny’s opinion. I think most Americans are smart enough to realise that whatever Latham said, and whatever Johnny says, the two countries are more than the opinions of their leaders. Whatever you say about Bush, I think most Americans are more intelligent than we give them credit for - remember, most Yanks don’t vote.

I don’t think the content of Johnny’s words will lose him many votes - on the contrary, I remember a fair bit of the reaction when Latham made his comment was “good on him, he can say what he wants.” Those of us who realise it was a stupid thing to do in light of intrenational relations may be right, but that doesn’t change the fact that a hell of a lot of Johnny lovers don’t care about that.

It is right to acknowledge this bodes well for Labor, but mainly because it shows that Howard is losing it a bit. He wouldn’t have made a mistake like this a while ago.

He really is getting old.

Finally, I have just read a comment on the Obama story by a right wing nutjob. It was a comment on the main Obama story on the new.com website.

This guy used a Noam Chomsky quote to support his contention that left wingers are idiots and Howard and Bush are top blokes.

And he wasn’t being ironic.

Puritanical psychosis

2007-02-09T11:09:00.000+10:00

I am surely not the first to observe this phenomenon. It is prevalent in many Western countries, in particular the US. I am not entirely sure of the historical basis for this, but I suspect it has to do with the weird folk with buckles on their hats who murdered the native folk and only shagged for procreation.

As an aside – it may be the result of too many movies, but I cannot think of these folk without imaging the devil and glowing eyes.

You may ask yourself what has inspired these thoughts. Of course, you may not, but I have to assume that you do – artistic purposes, you understand.

I used to subscribe the Bulletin magazine. It was not a bad read, and I could leave it lying around on the coffee table to make me look intelligent. About the time the editor of the Bulletin moved to Channel 9 to work on their news section, the Bulletin went to shit. It became nothing more than a print version of the Sunday program, and, at times, started to resemble A Current Affair. I made my decision to cancel my subscription, and did so. Of course, they only got my request to cancel after I had already paid for another year, so I still get the bloody things.

Occasionally there are flashes of its former brilliance. Firstly, they gave Tim Blair the arse, which was a good start. Then they had Peter Garrett on the cover. This last made me question my decision to cancel for a moment.

Until this week’s.

It started out quite well, actually, with an insightful and well written piece about the coming election.

But the twenty plus pages of business crap were not a good thing. Then Newsweek.

Which brings me to the topic.

Americans are even more obsessed with sex than the Poms. To read Newsweek, you would thing that the single greatest threat to the youth of today is them seeing a naked boobie.

Not getting hooked on ice.

Not getting morbidly obese and going blind from diabetes.

And certainly not getting shipped off to a Gulf State to fight for another man’s oil.

No, seeing Britney’s shaved nether regions is a direct threat to their moral fibre.

Internet porn is going to bring down Western Society.

I recall watching an interview with Spike Lee a few years back. He had just made a movie in which he had deliberately added some ultra violent death scenes – people getting their ears ripped off, shot in the face, that sort of thing. He did it to make a point.

You see, his movie also had some graphic sex scenes.

Funnily enough, the sex scenes had to be removed. None of the violence did.

Is it me, or are our morals completely stuffed? Perhaps we don’t want our kids imitating Britney and shagging crap rap stars (I, for one, would advise every one to avoid that), but maybe we don’t want them slicing off small chunks of their mates brains and eating them, either. (I once saw ten year olds watching Hannibal).

Suffice to say, the Bulletin still sucks.

A bit of both

2007-02-06T20:02:00.000+10:00

Yay!

I'm happy. Although Kruddy still worries me a bit, the rodent worries me more and it looks like he's getting shafted!

Normally I surf the net at work to look for news stories, but tonight I watched Kerry and the parliament coverage.

Johnny is really starting to look irrelevant. His new thing is drawing the line on nuclear, it seems.
Labor won't consider it, the Libs are pushing it.

I think he's stuffed it. It might be wishful thinking, but I don't think people are going to go for it.

Anyway, this is supposed to be for photos, so I'm going to put up some really old ones. They're pretty crap, taken with my little Canon Ixy 50. I've played with them a bit on Photoshop.

The Energex building on Kingsford Smith Drive.

A boat. On the river.

An alley.

A church and random duck.

Same church, sans duck.

All these were taken on a drunken walk home sometime last year.

Adios.

Angry gnomes and obscene gestures

2007-02-04T22:12:00.000+10:00

A quick trawl through some international news netted me this from the UK and this from the US

Obviously, both report the same thing. It is interesting to note that the UK report paints all Americans in a pretty bad light, pointing out the inappropriate reaction of the authorities.

Read the CNN report, it was all a bit of a joke. They take pains to point out that it only happened in Boston – no one else in the States appears to be as humourless - they even put them in Texas!

The devices were planted by Turner Entertainment, though. (Who owns CNN?)

So I was forced to have a look at the Fox news website to get a balanced opinion *chokecoughsplutter*. They, of course, have a balanced approach, labelling the “suspects” as “wild” and “mocking”.

Which, in fact, is reasonable given their status as artists.

Then I got distracted by this IMPORTANT INFORMATION. You need to scroll down to the two interactives.

I have just contacted Fox to see if I can get a copy of these downloaded to my mobile phone – because I need them always.

Finally, a happy development. These signs are now for sale on eBay! US$625 at last count.

PS. this just in

from the toast woman.

Thanks. I cried.

Pertinent questions...

2007-01-31T12:08:00.000+10:00

Why are the Poms obsessed with sex?

I have a confession. I have a soft spot for British politics. This article reads like a storyline from the OC (which, as an aside, is clearly going to be as weird as possible until it whimpers its last – out of body experiences, gigolos, frogs and otters Brokeback Mountain style).
It’s certainly a refreshing change from trying to separate the parties in our country from each other. It can sometimes be like getting the bread from the freezer and trying to get a bit to put in the toaster. Economic rationalism still rules them both, thank god for the differing stance on industrial relations. So far, Rudd hasn’t snapped off into crumbly bits – I am only slightly worried about his overtly Christian stance.

Who are they trying to kid?

Another report commissioned by the industry with the most to lose from renewable energy advancement, and another article on the news.com site which throws any pretence of balanced reporting out the window.

Now, I don’t know enough about the subject for an objective comment. For one thing, I fumbled through three years of an electrical engineering degree and, as you can imagine, those people aren’t the most environmentally conscious about.
And on the other hand, my olds are my olds. Grass Roots magazines, Franklin Dams stickers, Steeleye Span (I’m not sure if that’s related, but there must be a link somewhere).
The new thing seems to be that there is general agreement that climate change is an issue which needs to be addressed (random flat-earthers aside). The difference in the camps now concerns the best way to address the issue.
The mining corporations and big business (read: those with most to lose) support tarting up coal generation, nuclear power and other big capital power projects. Most scientists, environmentalists (obviously) and, according to the polls, the general public seem to favour renewable power generation.

There are strong arguments on both side.

Or so they seem.

You really need to do your own research, and also ask yourself what people have to gain. I mean, when a person gives you an opinion on something, there is always a reason they feel that way.

My personal belief is based on the realisation that a corporation must put the profit motive above all others. They don’t have a choice – it’s the law. So when a corporately funded report supports nuclear and coal power, there must be a profit motive behind it.

And what is the major difference between nuclear and coal power, and renewable energy?
First let’s assume that cost is ignored: do some research – you’ll find out that the cost of developing renewables to a viable level is line ball with the capital costs of nuclear and clean coal technology.
Forget about the fact that renewable energy produces no waste: I don’t give a shit how “safe” we can make nuclear reactors – this diverts from the fact that renewable energy simply does not have this problem in the first place!
Ignore the “renewables cannot provide base load” – that argument is also bollocks. In some ways this is the case now – the first reason is the technology is not advanced enough (read point one). Another is that the assertion is wrong anyway – it’s being done in parts of Europe. And finally – the grid is set-up for single large source power generation, so replacing old power stations with new ones would be easy. Of course, a progressive replacement approach to the power grid could be taken to insert more localised generation capacity, and this leads straight to the real reason there is strong corporate support for the contents of these types of reports – nuclear energy in particular.

The major difference is that once you have a solar panel, or a wind turbine, you don’t have to pay anything for the juice to run it. How can the poor old miners make any money if they can’t sell someone yellowcake?

Holy crap. That was longer than I expected.

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Adios, amoebas.

A few more....

2007-01-30T21:08:00.000+10:00

¡Hola!

Tonight a few from the same spot - Kangaroo Point. That bit in front of the crazy Mormon joint with the freaky gold statue, with all the barbecues.

We were coming back from West End, quite late on a Saturday night. I may have had a couple of drinks, which made me confident enough to brush aside the random deals and snoggers.

The details of above:
Photo 1
Focal length: 18mm
F-stop: F/4.5
Shutter speed: 30 seconds
ISO: 100

Photo 2
Focal length: 50mm
F-stop: F/8
Shutter speed: 30 seconds
ISO: 100

Photo 3
Focal length: 22mm
F-stop: F9
Shutter speed: 30 seconds
ISO: 100

Anyway, today I read a debate about religion.

Made me cranky.

However, I am tired so I can't be bothered now, and I'm too busy at the moment to blog at work.

The photos I already have.

But stay tuned.

Cheers.

The Bris at Dusk

2007-01-26T08:10:00.000+10:00

Morning all.

This one was taken from just near the Brett's Wharf restaurant at Hamilton. That blur is the citycat going through the shot, also leaving the wake. The rest is self explanatory - Brisvegas skyline, river, sky and clouds. I have just sharpened it a bit in Photoshop and cropped a bit of the river out, no other post processing.

This was one of the first shots I took with the Sony Alpha DSLR. The details are below:
Focal length: 70mm (using the 18-70mm lens that came with it zoomed right out)
Aperture: F/16
Shutter speed: 4 sec
ISO: 100
Taken 19/11/2006 6:46PM.

Cheers!

"He remains delusional”

2007-01-25T13:55:00.000+10:00

This next may be somewhat controversial, I will preface by stating that Holocaust deniers are dangerous lunatics. That said, isn’t the consistent use of the Holocaust by some Israelis to justify aggression just a bit disrespectful?

The whole Middle East situation is problematic for me, a person who likes to pontificate on most everything.

I can remember as a kid being suitably impressed when told about how those tough little Israelis successfully defended their tiny little country from the evil intentions of their Arab neighbours in various short, intense conflicts. Sort of an underdog thing – and what Aussie doesn’t like the underdog?

Then I got old enough to understand what the news images of Israeli soldiers shooting kids throwing rocks meant. And at the same time, the blowing up of people on buses in Tel Aviv wasn’t very pretty, either.

Who the bloody hell was in the right?

It’s only now that I realise the danger of applying Western (I mean genre, not political sphereJ) storylines to real situations. Shit, I even started to find out that the Indians weren’t all bad, either. (I blame mum for giving me “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee” to read for that – “You like reading Louis L’amour? Here, read this.”)

It is never black and white, is it? Problem is, too many people think it is.

Like Dubya.

"He remains delusional”

Succinct, isn’t it? It was, of course, said about Dubya. This was the response from Greenpeace’s Steve Sawyer when asked about Dubya’s new environmental stance.

Off topic, maybe, but certainly apt.

Cheers.

Have a good weekend.

The River

2007-01-24T19:38:00.000+10:00

My first photo. On the blog, I mean. A shot up the river from the newish Portside Wharf. For the technically minded, I might put up those sorts of details. This is a combination of two exposures using Photoshop. The darker photo which contains the sky has the following details:

Exposure time: 1/40
ISO: 100
Focal length: 18mm
Aperture: F9

The foreground shot uses exactly the same but with a 1/25 shutter speed. The two shots are -0.3 ev and +0.3ev respectively.

Anyway, enjoy.

Cheers.

This week’s bans: iPods, North Face and Benetton apparel and, apparently, most fish.

2007-01-24T12:37:00.000+10:00

iPods: This ban really is redundant. iPods are absolutely hopeless – hard to use, overpriced and prone to manufacturing faults – so I would never buy one anyway. However, I have just read a story in the Big Issue regarding the conditions of factory workers in China who really build these products. It’s a bit involved; suffice to say they’re not great.
It turns out this story is actually quite old. It first appears to have surfaced in July or August last year in the UK’s Sunday Mail newspaper. Have a read.
Initially, my first thoughts were predictable – “Apple, you bastards!” followed by “Crap, how can I justify buying a MacBook now?”
As with anything, of course, further investigation is warranted. Apple has had a chance to respond to the claims and, while it really reads as a lot of PR garbage; at least they actually have a code of conduct for this.
It is a pity, though, that it took a media story to draw Apple’s attention to the conditions in their sub-contractors factory, if we are to believe that Apple didn’t know already.
The devil’s in the detail here. Apple mentions the workers receive minimum wage – all of three fifths of five eighths of fuck all is still fuck all. They also make mention of the great living conditions – good food, ping pong tables (one of life’s essentials) and air-conditioning. But no mention of how much of the workers income must go back to the company to pay for these.
On the other hand, how many products made by these types of places do we consume every day, products we know less about than this? I’d hazard a guess at a shitload. But it becomes convenient for us to place a ban on a particular product – “Look at me, I’m doing my bit to save the world because I buy dolphin friendly tuna and biodegradable detergent – what are YOU doing?”
Don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do our bit – I just think a lot of our motives are suspect, or at least misguided.]
And, if I really consider this objectively, is this argument just a lame attempt to justify buying a MacBook, saying Apple may well be the best of a bad bunch, but mainly because she really wants one?
It’s a difficult one.
But iPods are still banned.

North Face/ Benetton: It turns out the Argentinean government has sold great swathes of land to various parties. Two of the most prominent are the Benetton family and the founder of North Face apparel, Douglas Tompkins. They sort of stick out because of their public position as environmentally conscious and socially progressive business people.
The problem is similar to Australia’s – whose land is it, what are they going to do with it, and was it the governments to sell/ give away in the first place?
The Mapuche tribe claims parts of it as theirs, and they have some Argentinean political support. Tompkins, in particular, claims he is buying the land to save its precious ecology – an admirable goal.
But is it a paternalistic attitude? The “we know better” approach which has caused so much damage elsewhere, especially here in Australia?
I tend to think that, like the Big Day Out flag ban, it is trying to reach a great goal in a very stupid way.

Fish: Sherd’s fault, this one. There are so many fish I can’t eat because of sustainability issues that my brain hurts – paradoxical, fish being brain food and all.
Anyway, this will sort you out.

Other news: I watched the 7:30 report last night. Howard and Rudd were on. Firstly, I watched Howard for a bit. I was basically ignoring the words, the usual garbling we’ve all heard before, and looked at him. I noticed for the first time that he really looks like an old man. It’s as if he aged 10 years over Christmas or something.

And Kevin. I will be voting for him, I suspect, but he did come across as smarmy and a little arrogant. He rabbited on far too much, with this supercilious smile. I am just worried he’ll lose the punters a bit.
I mean, he’s definitely no Downer, but he needs to tone it down a touch.

Still, the LLR is rearranging deck chairs, so it might be he knows what will happen.

Cheers.

You are now entering ...

2007-01-23T18:38:00.000+10:00

Today’s thought is just a quick one that grabbed me.

According to the Independent, Tony Blair has announced plans to set up “respect zones”

These are going to be areas of the UK which will receive extra funding on the proviso they come down hard on “anti-social behaviour” (I believe this refers to the practice of not wearing deodorant or not brushing your teeth, according to anecdotal evidence about the UK).

According to Blair, it reflects a need to get back to how things used to be. I think he secretly wants to announce as many weirdo policies as possible before he pulls the pin, just because he can.

Prediction: The llr hatches plans for a similar policy in Australia involving areas which mandate the wearing of Australian flags as hats (not thongs or underwear as that would be disrespectful), the hanging of Menzies and Lizzy pics, the winding back of the clocks to 1955, and general bowing and scraping to authority figures. The bushy eyebrows twitch as he happily scrawls “exclusion zone” at the top, humming to himself as he drifts away, dreaming of shiny brown surfer boys wrapping themselves in their icon and beating the snot out of minority groups.

Meanwhile, as a staffer gently suggests a name change back at the ranch, the Krudd Krew pounce, beating him to the punch. Taking time out from a particularly tough game of D&D chess they hold a press conference, where Kev declares that when he wins power he will turn all of Australia into a progressive/ conservative enclave – where the rights of women, ethnic minorities, the worker, the environment and industry are protected by the maintenance of good Catholic values. (How could he have known that when he won in a landslide the paradox would cause a rip in the temporal fabric just west of Barcaldine, sucking the entire dimension into oblivion?)

We’ll see.