On Death

By Darryl Mason

In the end when death came, there was no final dramatic moment. It wasn't a movie scene. There was no raging struggle to keep breathing, to fight on. She just slept on. She just died.

We saw her shortly before she died. She was sleeping, as she had been sleeping for weeks. The cancer she had was not the most painful kind, it just gradually drained her of energy. A winding down after a long, busy life in which no illness had ever slowed her before.

In July she had been as she had always been, almost bursting with energy and passion. The kind of energy that made you jealous, because you knew you if you had it, you would feel as though you could fly to the stars and back again.

Her mind as sharp as a razor then, her wit hilarious, incisive, absolutely cutting, brilliant.

Within weeks, the switches were turning off. Less than three months ago she was lying in casualty of the RPA hospital in Sydney, listening to a doctor explain that if she were to have a heart attack, or stroke, that they would not try to revive her, that they would let her go, that her cancer had spread too far, throughout her. She nodded, she understood, but as soon as the doctor left us, she was telling us, me and her daughter, how terrible it was that the "poor woman" lying in a bed across the room had cancer "and they can't do anything for her. The poor dear." Did she know that was her, too? That she was the same as this woman she was talking about? Of course she did. But she was more concerned for a sick stranger than she was for herself.

We went to see her the day she died. If she was in pain in those last hours of her life, in those final hours of the 700,000 hours she had lived in her lifetime, it did not disturb her from her sleep. She only woke we came in to see her and touched her arm. Her flesh was cold, as though her death was growing over the hours, with her blood cooling long before she took her last breath.

She cried out only once as her daughter moved the pillows and her utterly frail, thin body to make her more comfortable. She was asleep again within seconds. The kind of sleep only known by those just born and at the other end of life. We watched her breathing, the normal rhythm of breathing out of sync, the loop of regular inhalation and exhalation broken, bent. Not long to go now. Soon it would be over.

The window was open, a dazzling sun razoring through the tree branches and casting glowing anti-shadows on the grounds of the park outside. Next to her, a cup of water she could barely swallow. She could take in nothing but air and drops of water now. Flowers, a wall of cards from all over the country, from around the world, some pills, the bowl of mints she had only stopped eating a few days before, photos of family, friends, neighbours, neighbours who had become like family in that small Sydney street where she had lived with her husband for decades. The sort of neighbour most only ever get to know in fiction, who welcomed all and judged nobody.

The curtains flowed in slow motion, touched by a breeze, the cries of children in the park down below echoed softly into the room. No life support equipment, nothing to monitor her heart beats, no machines that go ping, just an old woman who had lived a long time and was near the end. She wasn't letting go of life, she was just going.

We said goodbye, a last goodbye, because we knew it would be tonight. Sometime tonight. Her husband knew this, the nurses there knew this, she knew it, too. There was no final fight. It was time.

You can feel the phone call coming, before the phone rings. You're not supposed to know when someone you love dies, this is paranormal or at the very least not normal, or so we are told. But you do know. Of course you do. If you listen, not with your ears but with everything that you are, you can hear the lives of the people you love, and when one of them dies, something is then missing from the comforting thrum of that thing that connects you all, that is not supposed to exist, but is still there. It's always been there.

The nurse doesn't ask her daughter if she wants to see her mother, now she is gone, she issues a soft order, "Take as much time as you need and then come and see me up the hall." The nurse knows the daughter must do this, even if she would say no if given a choice.

The nursing home is mostly dark, it's late at night now, and in every other room is an elderly man or woman who will die in the weeks or months or years to come. Not many years. This is a place where you come to die. It never struck me as an utterly depressing place. Some days when we visited, it was like a departure lounge. Old people sitting in chairs, waiting, some patient, some frustrated and impatient. Lots of chatter and noise. The Waiting. Most ready for what comes next, whether they believe there is something next or not.

This night there is not a sound to be heard from the other rooms, where there is usually, always, some babbling, some soft crying if you care to listen closely enough, or the occasional groan of "Nuuurrssse...." and calm mutterings in dreams of youthful times ten thousand days ago, or whispers to those already gone, promising to "be with you soon."

But tonight there is not a sound. Perhaps they all know, not because they have been told, they haven't been, but they seem to know, their silence is respectful, because one of them has gone where they're all going, too, soon. Silence. Not a chilling silence, just stillness.

She is lying on her back. Her mouth is slightly open, her eyes almost closed. She is dead, she took her last breath less than half an hour before. But who she was, the person inside that body, is already gone. There's not a trace left of her. Just her body, a little more deflated, as though something really has left her.

Her forehead is warm, damp with sweat, but her cheek is already cool, and will soon be as cold as her arm was a few hours before.

The window is still open, there is no breeze, and no-one is in the park now. Finding a strength I cannot even comprehend, her daughter pulls back the sheet and lifts her mother's arm off her chest. She removes the wedding ring that has been on her mother's finger for more than sixty years and slides it onto her own finger. We sit there with her but she's not there. Without religion, there are no chants or prayers or noise or activity. Stillness, calm and quiet. It's just memories for now, and grief, but the grief has been there for months, so the shock is not so great. The inevitable is now real, but the reality is not terrible. There is sadness, but not horror.

Her daughter goes to the nurse and thanks her for everything she did to help this elderly woman in her last hours, her last weeks. The nursing home has a funeral director they recommend, but her daughter wants to choose another. She is given a phone book.

We go downstairs and to the table outside, and sit at the edge of the circle of light from the wall lamp to go through the pages of that section of the phone book you always knew was there, but never really looked before. When you're young and people you knew and loved died, there were always others who did these things, made these arrangements. Now it is the daughter who must take care of this duty.

It's still hot outside, even as midnight approaches. The branches and leaves are as still as photographs.

And then a breeze comes, from nowhere, or somewhere. Cool, but not cold, it doesn't pass us, it moves through us. The breeze doesn't touch the leaves only a few feet away, it doesn't disturb the rising blue straight line of cigarette smoke, it doesn't disturb the pages of the phone book, or even shift one hair of the daughter as she leans forward, but the breeze is real enough, because you can feel it on your skin, inside your skin, everywhere.

Not a chill breeze, it's warm but cool, strange but comforting. There's a shiver from the breeze, but not of fear, it's of something familiar, recognition, of something inside you that is not flesh or heart or mind, but is you, recognising the breeze for what it is, and being glad for knowing, not pretending it is otherwise, knowing it is going from from this to that, from here to there, knowing that it is not a bad or terrible thing. Feeling that it is, in the end, good. That this is the end.

A beautiful moment. A final goodbye.

Oh, Shiii....



If the above photo looks like the diver is breaking through the surface of a lake of shit, you're absolutely right.

An extraordinary first person account from a professional diver, who vividly describes what it's like to be submerged in a massive vat of human waste, for four hours at a time.

Definitely read this after breakfast. But do read the full story. Brendan really loves his job, and it's always awesome to hear from somebody who is so proud of the incredibly difficult, remarkable work they do :

I've done about 1000 hours of sewage diving. Working in a pit of sewage is very difficult; you can't see anything for a start, so everything's done by feel.

We can be under several metres of sewage for up to four hours.

The first metre or two of sewage can be quite dense. We've had it that thick that the guys have dropped spanners and they haven't fallen.

You can walk through the sewage but not really swim.

The worst thing that can happen in a sewage dive is if you tear the suit and the suit floods.

People usually stand back a bit when they find out what we do — most of the time we can get a clear space at the bar.

It doesn't really worry us, what we're diving in, but it would be nicer if people actually chewed their corn.

Toilet humour.


Go Here For The Full Story

Australia's New Climate : 'Extreme Dry'

How long do you call a drought a drought before it becomes so permanent it demands to be called something else?

A drought describes a climate state that is not permanent, but weather experts are now wondering if the current drought hammering south-eastern Australia, and now recognised as the worst in more than 100 years, will ever lift :

"Perhaps we should call it (the extreme dry) our new climate," said the Bureau of Meteorology's head of climate analysis, David Jones.

He was speaking after the release of statistics showing that last year was the hottest on record in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT.

NSW's mean temperature was 1.13 degrees above average. "That is a very substantial anomaly," Dr Jones said. "It's equivalent to moving NSW 150 kilometres closer to the equator."

It was the 11th year in a row NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin had experienced above normal temperatures. Sydney's nights were its warmest since records were first kept 149 years ago.

"There is absolutely no debate that Australia is warming," said Dr Jones. "It is very easy to see … it is happening before our eyes."

The only uncertainty now was whether the changing pattern was "85 per cent, 95 per cent or 100 per cent the result of the enhanced greenhouse effect".

"There is a debate in the climate community, after … close to 12 years of drought, whether this is something permanent. Certainly, in terms of temperature, that seems to be our reality, and that there is no turning back.

"Last year climate change became very evident in south-eastern Australia, with South Australia, NSW, Victoria, the ACT and the Murray-Darling Basin all setting temperature records by a very large margin," he said.

2007 was an extraordinary year of extreme weather events in Sydney and New South Wales.

Sydney had its stormiest year since 1963, with 33 thunderstorms, compared with the historic average of 28.

The highest temperature recorded in NSW last year was 46 degrees, at Ivanhoe on January 11. Charlotte Pass shivered through the state's coldest night when the mercury dipped to minus 11 on July 23.

The suddenly changing weather in Sydney is getting so weird maybe we need umbrellas with both heaters and air-conditioning built into the handle. Solar and wind powered, of course.

A few weeks back, a weatherman on the evening news was left absolutely flummoxed by the appearance of sudden and massive thunderstorms, where none had been predicted. During the chit-chat between the weatherman and newsreader, the newsreader asked "So should we be packing umbrellas tomorrow." The weatherman shrugged, and said : "We don't really know."

A few seconds of dead air followed.

We don't really expect the meteorologists to know exactly the state of our skies tomorrow, or next week. But they're supposed to make us believe they do know what's coming. When they give up and say "Who knows what's going to happen," it's more than a little weird, and freaky.

Cate Blanchett plays a Stalin-era Russian agent in the new 'Raiders' movie : Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

Cate is in "dominatrix mode" for this fourth Indiana Jones adventure, apparently. Commie bondage sex iconograhy, eh?

It's too early to tell if Blanchett's range of designer Communist wear will kick off any new fashion trends, but with a flashy spread in Vanity Fair, photographed by Annie Liebovitz launching the 'look', who knows?

Indiana Jones And The Alien Conspiracy : Secrets Of The New Indiana Jones Movie

Scrapping Mega-Billions Jet Fighter Purchase May 'Harm Australia-US Relations'

It's nice to know that Australia's much-praised and constantly touted close relationship with the United States is worth more than six or seven billion dollars in questionable war industry purchases from Boeing.

Or is it?

Cancellation of the controversial $6.6 billion contract to buy 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter-bombers could hurt Australia's diplomatic and commercial relationship with the US, a national security think tank has warned.

...Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon yesterday reaffirmed his Government's pre-election pledge to review the purchase announced without warning in March by then defence minister Brendan Nelson.

At the time, Dr Nelson said the deal was made after advice from the Defence Department and RAAF that the US-built Super Hornet offered the best solution to a looming air combat capability gap.

Deliveries of its intended replacement, the state-of-the-art but unproven F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) are not expected until 2013 and, at a starting price of $15.6 billion, the project is running over budget and embroiled in production delays.

Andrew Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warns :

...that any decision to axe the Super Hornet contract would carry "precipitous" consequences. It would require "careful management in Washington", he said, and would result in fraught commercial ties with Boeing...

"The very first question you have to answer is: what sort of stoush do you think you are going to be in when you need something like that?" he said.

So is Australia only so highly valued by the US because we spend billions of dollars a year buying 'product' from their war industries, and pouring billions more into American owned war machine corporations based in Australia?

It's not often the public gets such insights into the politics and blackmail of war industry business between the United States and Australia. And as usual, it's ugly and more than a little seedy.

Brendan Nelson is one of the more spectacular war industry whores Australia has produced in decades. Under Nelson, and the Howard government, Australia's 'defence' budget was set to roar beyond $30 billion in 2008 (including the "extra projects" never announced in budgets).

It remains to be seen whether the new Labor defence minister will stick to all the deals and promises Howard and Nelson made to international war industry corporations, mostly American ones.

Outside of the United States, Australia under Howard had one of the largest defence budgets of any country in the world, with Russia and China only spending a few billion more in the past few years than Howard did.

Akerman Backs Military Dictatorship Over Democracy

Murdoch media columnist for Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, Piers Akerman, like all fervent enemies of true democracy, thinks there is a time and place for military dictatorships. In this case, Pakistan :

The developing crisis in Pakistan, however, does highlight the nature of international terrorism and its ability to destabilise populations well beyond the assassin’s bullet or bomb.

Pakistan is certainly no model of democracy but General Pervez Musharraf’s military dictatorship was a major bulwark - leaky and corrupt as it may have been - against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

Is Akerman, "one of Australia's most respected journalists", really so ignorant and downright dense that he doesn't know Musharraf's intelligence services raised the Taliban and helped shape and empower the collection of extremist groups collectively known as Al Qaeda?

Is he merely playing dumb, or is he lost for an opinion because so many Evil Lefties thought Bhutto's death was as tragic and horrific as Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush thought it was?

Akerman thinks that if Musharraf wasn't ruling by military dictatorship, the 'Islamists' would seize power. He's an idiot. In a free and fair election, extremists in Pakistan would win power. They wouldn't even come close. It's incredibly insulting to the people of Pakistan to entertain the belief that they are literally chomping at the bit to elect a Bin Laden, or that they all want to live under Sharia law. It's fiction. More importantly, it's NeoCon fiction, and Akerman is an enthusiastic subscriber to this trash.

Even while dribbling, Akerman still manages to keep whistling the NeoCon theme song : 'We All Love Democracy, Yes We Do, As Long As Its The Same Democracy That We Want For You'.

It's the Hamas paradigm all over again. Sure, goes Akerman's thinking, vote for whoever you want, it's a democratic election after all, but just because you elect them doesn't mean our nations will recognise who you all voted for, let alone speak to them, or practice diplomacy. Hell, someone else but Musharraf might not buy enough weapons from the West if they were to win a Pakistan election. Or, God forbid, they might buy their weapons from Russia or China instead.

Akerman is anti-democracy and anti-free market.

Akerman winds out his nasty little pro-military dictatorship screed by leaping into the kind of segue-way that would have the writers of Today Tonight bowing in unworthiness at his bloated feet. Witness :

Pakistan has the bomb and is the linchpin in the war against al-Qaeda.

“It’s a very alarming situation. Could fall like ripe fruit into the hands of the bad guys.”

Indeed. The worrying thing is that Australia is currently being run by a P-plate Government with a Defence Minister in Joel Fitzgibbon who has shown he is yet to understand that responsibility is about more than amiability and a Foreign Affairs Minister in Stephen Smith who thought until last month that he was in line for the education portfolio.

In a word, Australia is, at this time of international crisis, completely rudderless.

Wow. Akerman realised he had actually finished a whole column without sploffing on the Labor Party, and then saw he had a few dozen words left. Surely there must be an anti-Rudd government angle in Bhutto's assassination? There wasn't, but Akerman shoehorned one in anyway.

Akerman backs military dictatorships, but despises Australians when they exercise their democratic rights, having recently labeled more than half of Australia voters as "mugs" for voting in the Rudd government.

Maybe Akerman's brain is still short-circuiting over his hero John Howard's refusal to let him edit the Howard Diaries.

Akerman asked Howard for the gig in person at the Liberal Party election massacre party ("Nooo!!!") and Howard turned Akerman down on the spot, even though he kissed Howard's arse so fervently and pathetically that people standing nearby who overheard Akerman had to turn away in embarrassment.

How Are You, I Mean Really, How Are You?

First day of 2008, 2.58am and this was the lead story on the Sydney Morning Herald website :



Okay, now this is just fucking stupid.

Really, who gives a shit?

Hicks is out of Gitmo, he's home with his family, he fucked up, he did six years, Howard cut a deal with Cheney and got Hicks off heavier charges because Howard couldn't take the heat during nine months of electioneering. Hicks fucked up, Howard fucked up. But it's over, alright? Let Hicks fade into obscurity.

As much as the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, Who Weekly and the rest want Hicks to be their new super-celeb, so they can track him relentlessly through his new relationships, work, marriage, new children, breakdowns, drug and alcohol addictions, rehab, recovery, and so on, you're all wasting your time.

As soon as Hicks does a Denton and tells his story, and then the movie covers what was missed in the interview special and book, that's it. There's only so much story here, and we know most of it already.

Give it up guys, you're already embarrassing yourself.

Hicks ain't Bilko.

Wine And Fireworks

There are no accidents. Just too much wine (or not enough?) and a dropped camera, that was then kicked into the gutter, and then dropped again, before a cop said "Get the fuck off the road!" "yeah, yeah...shit, mate....come on! wow pretty lights....oh yeah...um happy NEW YEAR!"

Cyclones Heading For East And West Coasts

What's climate change? Don't be alarmed, this is all very normal, global warming is a big Al Gore conspiracy (Andrew Bolt says so) and these kind of bizarre weather events have been happening for millions of years....maybe :

Parks and wildlife rangers have begun evacuating holidaymakers from Fraser Island as an intense low pressure system packing gale-force winds headed for the popular tourist destination north of Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

As the volatile system headed slowly south, threatening to bring huge waves and high winds to much of the Queensland coast, the Bureau of Meteorology said there was a significant risk of a severe tropical cyclone developing on the other side of the country, off Western Australia's northwest coast.

There's a good chance that both 'cyclones' will blow themselves out before they do any real damage. Or not. It's always disturbing to hear meteorologists on TV saying stuff like "We don't really know what's going to happen." And of course they don't.

We just wish that they did.

Hicks "On A High"



So the David Hicks saga is over. Finally. Well, the chapters of the saga up to when he walked free from an Adelaide jail earlier today anyway.

No doubt the media will be keeping track of him for most of the rest of his life. You don't invest all that time, energy and column inches making someone incredibly famous just to let them slink back into anonymity again.

Oh yes, we will be hearing much, much more from and about David Hicks, once his media gag falls off after March 30, 2008.

His lawyer read a statement on Hicks' behalf. There was an apology from Hicks, but not for running around with the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden before 9/11 :

"I had hoped to be able to speak to the media but I am just not strong enough at the moment, it's as simple as that. I am sorry for that.

"So for now, I will limit what I have to say - I will say more at a later time.

"I would ask the media and the public understand and respect this.

"Right now I am looking forward to some quiet time with my wonderful Dad, my family and friends.

"I ask that you respect my privacy as I will need time to readjust to society and to obtain medical care for the consequences of five and a half years at Guantanamo Bay.

"I have been told that my readjustment will be a slow process and should involve a gentle transition away from the media spotlight."

Attorney General Robert McClelland all but begged the media to go easy on Hicks :

"Mr Hicks is now entitled to start rebuilding his life."

"I urge the media and members of the public to respect Mr Hick's privacy."

Yeah, as if that is going to happen.

Here's a preview of the next decade of tabloid headlines : 'Hicks Gets Job', 'Hicks Assaults Daily Telegraph Photographer', Hicks Public Breakdown', 'Hicks Falls In Love With FHM Model', 'Hicks To Become Father Again', 'Hicks Marries In Secret Ceremony', 'Exclusive : Terror Dave Wedding Pix', 'Hicks' Divorce Drama', 'Hicks Found Unconscious In Nightclub Toilet', 'Hicks Goes Into Rehab', 'Terry Hicks' Heartbreak : "At Least In Gitmo He Was Off The Gear".

Of course the media's interest level in David Hicks in the years to come will depend on how he performs in his first media interviews in April 2008. If he's full of remorse and has interesting stories to tell, they will probably go easy on him, for a while.

From The Orstrahyun Archive :

David Hicks : 'I've Met Osama 20 Times And He's Lovely'

December 2006 : David Hicks - Unconvicted, Tortured, Broken

February 2007 : John Howard - I Can Free David Hicks AnyTime I Want, But I'm Not Going To

March 2007 : Hicks Admits To 'Backing' 9/11 Attacks In Plea Deal, Is Given Suspended Sentence

October 2007 : John Howard & Dick Cheney Cut A Deal To Release Hicks

Former Prime Minister On John Howard & George W. Bush's "Evil Purpose"

The David Hicks Hex & Mocking Phillip Ruddock

Nothing Worth Billions

Australia's richest man, valued at $9 billion, is a mining entrepreneur. The remarkable thing is that his mining activities have pulled absolutely nothing so far from the ground :

West Australian mining entrepreneur Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest yesterday emerged as the richest man in Australia by a clear margin, having seen the shares in his recently restructured Fortescue Metals Group jump 17 per cent or $1.27 a share to $8.47 after reaching as high as $8.75.

He owns 1.023 billion shares in the company, which - as its critics like to point out - is yet to ship a tonne of iron ore.

The price jump puts his personal worth at about $8.66 billion. His nearest rivals in Australia are gambling and media tycoon James Packer, whose wealth was estimated mid-year by the BRW Rich List at $7.25 billion, and shopping centre magnate Frank Lowy.

If Coca Cola can make hundreds of millions of dollars in Australia selling us our own spring water at prices more expensive than petrol, then why shouldn't a super-smart ex-jackeroo turn a few billion mining nothing?

Jars of air for sale! Genuine air! Fresh, fresh air! Anyone?

Howard Legacy Not So Pretty, Liberal-Party Loving Media Got Screwed

This piece by Michael Duffy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald is one of the better short pieces looking at the Howard legacy, and it is a marker for Howard really will be remembered by historians and political addict alike. Duffy is particularly harsh on the Howard lackeys, propagandists and spin masters in the mainstream media for rarely holding Howard to account, or to even shine a harsh light on some of his more questionable policies and lack of reform :

There's a real possibility that people in the future, especially those on the right, will look back on the Howard years as we now view the Fraser ones: as a time of wasted opportunity.

The main achievement of both men was to bed down the reforms of their predecessor, in Malcolm Fraser's case Gough Whitlam's social policies, such as multiculturalism and changes to divorce law; in John Howard's case Bob Hawke's economic reforms.

The main claim made for the government is that it managed the economy well for 11 years, but the notion on which this is based, that governments these days actually do run the economy, is largely false. One reason it's false is that the Howard government gave the Reserve Bank more independence: it deserves credit for this, but the action further reduced the extent to which government can be said to "manage" the economy.

The main influences on the economy are various national and international trends, plus the hard work and ingenuity of the Australian people.

The Howard government deserves little credit for these.

Duffy then details how Howard failed to deliver on a number of nation-changing reforms, including the Aboriginal intervention, until it was all but too late...

Howard was able to get away with all this partly because we were in a boom where there was little demand for reform, and partly because the intellectual right did not criticise him sufficiently. Conservative and liberal commentators, think tanks and magazines got too close to the government and generally allowed the agenda of public debate to be set by politicians, rather than themselves.

In contrast, conservative governments in other countries receive more vigorous and wide-ranging comment and criticism from friends outside their ranks - just as Labor does in Australia.

Howard attended conservative and liberal functions and told those there how important they were. His attendance was most useful for fund-raising, but in the longer term I suspect he played the conservative movement for suckers.

They got played all right. Howard told them exactly what they wanted to hear, and the reaction from the committed-Liberals media was like that of a cult hearing from their leader about how he was going to lead them to paradise. Yet again.

The genuinely bizarre Quadrant dinner where John Howard basically said that those on the right were the saviours of the nation (from all those Evil Lefties) received not a word of caution or criticism from the likes of Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Janet Albretchson, Piers Akerman or Dennis Shanahan. They all fervently lapped up Howard's praise and lock-step agreed with him : "Yes, the prime minister is right. We really are wonderful and important!"

Of course, Howard screwed them all, in the end, and destroyed the Liberal Party as a political force for years to come.

Which is probably why so many once-proud Liberals are repeatedly referring to themselves as 'conservatives' instead of 'Liberals'.

What A Way To Spend Christmas

You invite the relatives to come and visit for Christmas Day, but then, thanks to some of the most welcome, but heaviest, rainfalls in nearly a decade they're forced to stay for a week :

Residents in the north-west NSW town of Coonamble are preparing for a tense Christmas Day, with the rural centre set to be cut off by waters from the flooded Castlereagh River.

With more than 200mm of rain falling in the area in the past few days - more than Coonamble's entire three-month average - the State Emergency Services predict that 5.2-metre flood waters will reach the town by 9pm.

Several thousand people could be isolated for up to a week as waters continue rising, with flood waters already destroying fences and killing stock.

...at least 20 rural properties on the outskirts of the town have already been cut off due to the flooding, and at least 50 more are bracing themselves for up to a week without contact with the outside world.

"As the flood moves downstream, more of these rural properties will become isolated," a spokesman for the State Emergency Services, David Webber, said.

"They are used to experiencing these kinds of events and they are all well stocked up with supplies. At this stage no one has requested supply and we have not had any emergency call outs."

Would you be pushing it to get emergency services to airlift out the annoying uncle who's threatening to drain your Christmas week beer supply by Boxing Day?

By the way, I hope all of The Orstrahyun's regular readers and occasional visitors have a great and safe Christmas. I hope you get to spend it with the people you love, and those who love you.
I'll be posting here through the Christmas and New Year's break. It's not hard work, so why take a holiday?

If you're stuck for something to read in your time off, it's not too late to dive into ED Day, the free online novel I've been writing for the past few months. There should be a new chapter or two posted over the Christmas break, but if you're not already a regular reader, you can start at the beginning with Chapter One, right here.

Love to you, and yours.

Snap


The above photo of the Pasha Bulka is by Simone De Peak

The Sydney Morning Herald has a magnificent slideshow of their 'Photos Of The Year' up for viewing here. You need no further proof than this that Australia has the best sports photographers in the world.

The Herald, and other Australian online newspapers, have got to work out a better way of presenting the brilliant work of their photographers online, on a daily basis. The images they use on most stories are far too small. Most days, the work of these very talented photographers are no bigger than thumbnails. It's a damn shame.

And the showcasing of the Herald photographers work won't get any better in the dead tree editions once they go to a tabloid size later next year.

Here's my pick for two of the best political photos of the year.

The first is by Glen Macurtayne:

"You're Not A Quitter, John."

This fantastic shot of former prime minister Bob Hawke, in electioneering mode, is by Peter Morris.


"Ladies...I'm Back!"

(Note, the above two photographs are screen captures of much larger, and more impressive, images here)

Tears Of A Clown

Akerman's Latest Conspiracy Theory : Beware The "Third Force" In Australian Politics

By Darryl Mason

Liberal Party propagandist and, surely by sheer coincidence, Murdoch media columnist Piers Akerman is shocked, shocked and outraged, by the revelation that the union movement spent some $14 million dollars in 2006 and 2007 telling Australians workers how the now former Howard government's now former WorkChoices regime would eat into their paypackets and family time.

Incredibly, as he half-heartedly tries and fails to fire up some more union-related fear-mongery, Akerman doesn't even mention that the Liberal Party has now utterly dumped its WorkChoices regime and will not stand in the way of the Rudd government freeing Australian workers of it completely in the next few years. WorkChoices is dead and buried, and Brendan Nelson hand-carved its tombstone, but Piers hasn't noticed yet.

Akerman also clamps on his tin foil hat and becomes all conspiratorial as he warns of a "third force" in Australian politics. Outside of the "third force" that is the mainstream media, and the "third force" that is the public relations budgets of our largest corporations, and the "third force" that is the accumulated ad spending power of the business community and the "third force" that is the multi-million dollar budgets of energy and oil industry lobbyists.

He means that other "third force", the one he doesn't like much. The Unions, and GetUp. Boogah!

Akerman thinks it's disgusting that a bunch of unionists can raise millions of dollars at public rallies and spend that money on advertising their point of view. The hide of them participating in public debate and democracy like that. Shocking.

The ACTU funded the anti-WorkChoices advertising campaigns, to little opposition from its members. Whereas you, the taxpayers, funded the former Howard government's pro-WorkChoices advertising campaigns.

The former Howard government spent more than $17 million on advertising its WorkChoices boondoggle in less than 10 months, and that's only until mid-way through 2007. We still don't know how much of taxpayers money Howard And Friends blew flogging WorkChoices from July 2007 through to the eve of the election, but it's easily another $15-$20 million.

Of course, Piers Akerman mentions all this absolutely nowhere at all in his one-eyed screed.

Akerman also refuses to tell readers that former Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey had a report on his desk at the start of October, detailing how many taxpayers dollars his government was shoveling into its pro-WorkChoices campaign for the 2006-2007 financial year. Nor did Akerman report that Hockey refused to release that report before the election.

And here's some more details of the millions Howard And Friends blew marketing, hyping and generally flogging WorkChoices, which achieved little except annoying the hell out of television viewers every night for months on end :

More than $1 million was spent researching the effectiveness of the ads with the Open Mind Research Group.

And $12.6 million was spent buying advertising space for “welfare to work, support the system and workplace relations system campaigns”.

Dewey and Horton was paid $44,404.25 to take photos for Work Choices advertising while advertising agency Whybin/TBWA received $1.4 million for “creative services” that were part of the Work Choices campaign.

The final tally for the advertising and marketing alone on WorkChoices could hit more than $50-$60 million.

So out of control was Howard's ad blitzing on WorkChoices that in May, 2007, he had spent more on WorkChoices ads than he spent on national security awareness. Terrorists? What terrorists?

Akerman, like the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt, and like half the op-ed writers at The Australian, still can't believe that the Howard government lost the election, and the Labor Party is now in charge of country.

It's like some kind of waking nightmare for them all, and they've still got their fingers in their ears and their eyes squeezed tightly shut as they chant "This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening."

It'd be funny, if it wasn't so sad, bizarre and downright disturbing.

Bolt and Akerman are promoted by their respective newspapers as "leading journalists".

But leading journalists where exactly?

Andrew Bolt is having such a hard time adjusting to the new political reality of Australia that he has now abandoned his Herald Sun blog for more than a month, if not forever :

I hope and expect at this stage to be back in a few weeks - perhaps around Australia Day. I toyed with the idea of keeping the blog going during my holidays, but my wife got angry cross (wife’s edit) and I think I probably need the break, to be honest. I need to look around me for a while, read a bit more, draw breath and recalculate perspective.

Wuss.

Terrorists? What Terrorists? Howard Spends More Flogging WorkChoices Than He Does On National Security Awareness

May 2007 : WorkChoices Forces Grim Future On Workers - Millions Already Work Overtime For No Extra Pay

May 2007 : Taxpayers To Foot Astounding $110 Million And Counting Howard Advertising Bill

June 2007 : WorkChoices Killing Liberals' Election Chances - Millions Of Australians Demand Return of 40 Hour Working Week

June 2007 : Howard's Claim That Australian Families "Have Never Had It So Good" Will Haunt Him All The Way Into The Election

The Quote Of The Year Tim Blair Somehow Missed

Daily Telegraph light-relief columnist Tim Blair has rounded up a bunch of quotes from 2007, including some examples of the fear-mongering associated with climate change and global warming.

But how did he miss this one from Rupert Murdoch, which must surely rate as one of the most fear-mongering quotes of the year?

"Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats."

Or this one from Murdoch where he explains how he will use his vast global media empire to inflict psychological warfare on the public and make them believe climate change is a dangerous reality :

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

Al Gore and Tim Flannery are fine targets if you want to highlight how public figures are terrifying the public about the possible effects of climate change. But Gore and Flannery can only dream of having the media influence and control to get their message out that Rupert Murdoch has. Murdoch is the biggest promoter of climate change in the world today, and his newspapers and cable channels regularly ramp up the fear-mongering.

But of course, Tim Blair is thoroughly compromised. Rupert Murdoch is, after all, his boss, and like all good Murdoch employees know, you don't diss the boss, even when he's making you look like a massive hypocrite.


September 2007 : Murdoch Media Launches 'Coup' To Take Down Australian Prime Minister

Rupert Murdoch Lectures Australians On The Dangers Of Becoming Too "Anti-American"

Hey Rupert? What Happened To All Those Post-Saddam $20 Barrels Of Oil?

Murdoch Admits He Tells His Newspapers What To Print - "We Can Change The Way People Think"

Murdoch : "Climate Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats" - Fear Monger In Chief Warns Of Apocalyptic Future

Tim Blair's Bush-Mandela 'Gaffe' Gaffe

Blair Forced To Trawl Blog Comments When 'Anti-War Lefties' Fail To Live Up To Soldier-Hating Cliches

Tim Blair Just Can't Stop Lying

Internet Censorship Clampdown Begins In One Month

Chatrooms Will Be Forced To Undergo "Professional Assessment" To Continue Operating

Will Fight Against Child Pornography Prove To Be The Trojan Horse For Far-Reaching Online Censorship?

By Darryl Mason

A new wave of "restrictions" on mobile phone content, websites, chatrooms and message boards will be introduced in Australia by late January, 2008.

Do you like the way this has been announced only days before Christmas, and will be in place by the time most Australians return from their Christmas holidays? Surely, it's just a coincidence?

The first push in this new wave of censorship of Australian internet content begins with what may well prove to be a 'trojan horse' of sorts - the almost unanimously supported push to keep children from viewing "unsuitable material".

You are supposed to immediately think of child pornography, or graphic adult pornography, but the censorship regime is wide open to interpretation. For example, "violent imagery" also falls under these news bans. It doesn't simply mean photographs of children being abused or raped. It also means imagery that shows the results of acts of violence. War violence, for example. The censorship body in Australia has already tried to ban imagery from a video game that showed two animated android-like women kissing, and backed down to widespread outrage and mockery.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will be able to force content providers to take down offensive material and issue notices for live content to be stopped and links to the content deleted.

But ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said adults will not be affected by the new laws.

Of course not. Not yet, anyway.

"In developing these new content rules, ACMA was guided by its disposition to allow adults to continue to read, hear and see what they want, while protecting children from exposure to inappropriate content, regardless of the delivery mechanism," Mr Chapman said in a statement.

Providers of live services, such as chatrooms, must have their service professionally assessed to determine whether its "likely content" should be restricted.

And what if you are a one man chatroom operator who can't afford what is likely to be very expensive "professional assessment"? You won't allowed to operate your business online.


story continues after...
-------------------------
Other Blogs By Darryl Mason

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Orstrahyun'

Go Here To Read The Latest Chapter From Darryl Mason's Online Novel About Life After The Bird Flu Pandemic

--------------------------
story continues...


Earlier this year, The Orstrahyun reported on moves to censor online content that is deemed, by the government censor, to be supportive of terrorism, or supplies information on how to carry out acts of terrorism. President Bush tells us we must read what Osama Bin Laden has to say to understand the threat of terrorism, but the Australian internet censorship body will be moving to stop you from getting access to that kind of information. Which must also mean you can forget about reading histories of Jewish terrorists fighting for the establishment of Israel, and the history of the IRA.

The new censorship regime for internet content was introduced by Howard government in September, and emulates the steel fist approach used by China. More on that here.

Back to the current story :

Personal emails and other private communications would be excluded from the new laws and so would news or current affairs services.

Is that all news and current affairs services, or just the ones approved by the government censor?

The censorship of website content will begin with tough restrictions on access to pornography and "violent images", but the temptation will be strong to broaden the scope of what material is deemed to be unsuitable for under-18s. Or what should not be available online to Australian web surfers at all.

Pornographic images of children are clearly unacceptable to all Australians, but what about an image of children torn apart by NATO bombs in Afghanistan?

Will a particularly feisty message board about government corruption or filled with commenters voicing great displeasure at the 'War on Terror', with lots of swearing, fall under the censor's blanket bans and restrictions?

Not yet.

But what about six months from now?

And what happens when independent internet media in Australia start pulling the same sort of visitor numbers as the mainstream media news sites?

This is already happening in the US, where sites like Crooks & Liars and PrisonPlanet, on a good day, can pull the same volume of readership as CBS News. Will the mainstream media work behind the scenes to freeze out the new competition? Will they push for tighter censorship and restrictions that makes it all but impossible for the independents to remain in business?

The use of the extremely distressing issue of child pornography is the beginning of the widespread censoring of internet content in Australia. It remains to be seen just how far this new censorship will go, or how far independent media and bloggers will allow it to spread before they start fighting back.

Government Expands "Black List" Of Banned Internet Sites

Porn, Violence, 'Terror' And Social Networking Sites Now In Firing Line

Australia Now Bans More Video Games Than Any Other Country In The World

'Terror' Books And Movies To Be Banned Under Extraordinary New Censorship Laws

"Patriotic" Movies, Video Games That "Glorify War" Will Be Excluded From New Ban Regime

"I've Met Osama 20 Times And He's Lovely"

David Hicks In His Own Words

In only a few days time, David Hicks, a convicted terrorist supporter, will be released from the Adelaide Prison where he has spent almost nine months, after being freed from five years of controversial detainment in Guantanamo Bay.

Saying that the detention of any Australian citizen, without charge, without trial, for five years by a foreign government was wrong doesn't mean you automatically supported the prisoner's views, or beliefs. But that argument was clearly too complex for the thin minority of Australians who praised former prime minister John Howard's decision for many years not to ask the US to send Hicks home, as he admitted he could have easily done. At any point during those five years.

Federal police believe Hicks still poses a threat to the Australian public and will monitor his movements through the use of a control order. This has been supported by the Rudd government, and has drawn only scant criticism from the vast number of Australians who previously opposed his detention in Guantanamo Bay. Which surely proves that they were not supporting David Hicks' views, actions or beliefs, but merely the fact that his detention was illegal and unjust.

John Howard moved quickly to get Hicks set free, earlier this year, when he realised that the scandal had already become an election issue. He cut a deal with US Vice President Dick Cheney, and Hicks found himself facing greatly reduced charges before the Gitmo military commission. Where one week prosecutors were confidently claiming he would be convicted of trying to kill American troops in Afghanistan, the next week he was preparing to come home after a plea deal that saw him only being charged with supporting terrorism. The military prosecutors were stunned and humiliated. You can thank Dick Cheney and John Howard for Hicks going down as a 'terrorist supporter' instead of something perhaps more applicable.

Below are excerpts from David Hicks letters home to his family from early 2000, to mid-2001. When Hicks wrote these letters, there was no official 'War On Terror' and there were no laws in Australia or the United States to convict foreigners for fighting against "Jews and Christians" in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

That these letters were not referred to more often in the media, to help explain why he was viewed by authorities as a possibly dangerous extremist who supported Osama Bin Laden's brand of terrorism, was an inexcusable failure.

David Hicks, in his own words :

Dear family I spent around three months in a muslim military training camp in the mountains.I learnt about weapons such as ballistic missiles, surface to surface and shoulder fired missiles, anti aircraft and anti-tank rockets, rapid fire heavy and light machine guns, pistols, AK47s, mines and explosives. After three months everybody leaves capable and war-ready being able to use all of these weapons capably and responsibly.

There is a very heavy war in the north (of Afghanistan) I have arranged to go to the front. Slowly I am becoming a well trained and practical soldier. As a muslim we believe in destiny that when it is my time then so be it. If it is my time that is called martyrdom I will always fight for Islam.

***********************

There is one thing I wish to explain about jihad the non-believers, Jews and Americans in the western world are determined to prevent it to come back again. Jihad is still valid today and will be for all time. The West is full of poison. The western society is controlled by the Jews with music, TV, houses, cars, free sex takes Muslims away from the true Islam keeps Islam week and in the third world.

Real jihad is possible just like before in the Prophets day where martyrs die with a smile on their faces and their bodies stay smelling of beautiful perfume for weeks after death.

The West lives in the dark in a narrow sort of living. Allah will use his servants to punish non-believers in this world.

As a Muslim young and fit my responsibility is to protect my brothers from aggressive non-believers and not let them destroy it.

One reward I get in being martyred I get to take ten members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell

But first I also must be martyred. We are all going to die one day so why not be martyred?

The only true Muslims are those fighting.

************************

The Western World has mastered the art of propaganda global ignorance stresses me at times.

The Muslim world is ready for war but not the governments...It is exciting and promising but it is not the answer. The other governments are worried about losing their luxurious lifestyles and wont take serious action.

***********************

I have told you about the non-Muslims they send a lot of spies here especially to Osama Bin Ladens Arab organisation which is where I am.

I have met Osama bin Laden about 20 times he is a lovely brother the only reason the West call him the most wanted terrorist is because he got the money to take action.

If David Hicks ever agrees to, or is allowed to, be interviewed by the media, hopefully he will be questioned on whether or not he still holds many of the repellent views he expressed in these letters.


December 2006 : David Hicks - Unconvicted, Tortured, Broken

February 2007 : John Howard - I Can Free David Hicks AnyTime I Want, But I'm Not Going To

March 2007 : Hicks Admits To 'Backing' 9/11 Attacks In Plea Deal, Is Given Suspended Sentence

October 2007 : John Howard & Dick Cheney Cut A Deal To Release Hicks

Former Prime Minister On John Howard & George W. Bush's "Evil Purpose"

The David Hicks Hex & Mocking Phillip Ruddock

The 'Government Gazette' Becomes The 'Opposition Oracle'

We keep hearing how the new Liberal/National Opposition government is lost. They don't have a clue. They are "Me Tooing" the Rudd government, with their acceptance of the reality of climate change, the need to ratify Kyoto and that WorkChoices is about as popular as a rusty razor to the nipple being just a few of their "We're With You Guys!" whiplash-inducing policy turnarounds.

But before the Libs go out and blow much needed money hiring policy experts and advisors to shape their party platforms, they should just turn to the main op-ed page of The Australian today, where the editor is, once again, telling the Libs exactly what they need to do to win back the public support.

When the Libs were in government, The Australian was known in the blogstream as the 'Government Gazette' for its near ceaseless support of the Howard government and its constant hyping of utterly abysmal poll results for Howard & Friends. 'Howard Stages A Comeback' and all that.

Seeing as The Australian already looks like it will stick to helping the Liberal Party in every way that it can, it's time for a rebranding of the newspaper that "keeps the nation (and the Libs) informed". Forget the 'Government Gazette'. It's now the 'Opposition Oracle'.

As long as Nelson and the Libs do what they're told by the editor of Opposition Oracle, and its conservative-heavy op-ed writers, they can expect plenty of good press this year.

But only if they do what they're told.

So listen up Mr Nelson, the Opposition Oracle is speaking. Get out your highlighter pen and mark up Your Brand New Policy Platform For 2008-2010 :

In charting a course back to government, the Coalition leadership needs to...learn the lessons of recent history. They will not win power by fighting the centralist Rudd Government from the rigid Right, any more than the Labour Party in Britain was going to beat the Thatcher/Major Conservatives fighting from the rigid Left.

Rather than trapping itself in a time warp, the Opposition's job is to exploit the weaknesses in the Rudd Government's IR policies. Later in the election cycle, when the impact of the Government's changes are clearer, the Coalition should refine andrebadge its alternative and sell it positively as the way of the future.

Just as the genesis of New Labour's victory in Britain was the pragmatic dumping of sacred "white elephants" such as socialism and nationalisation of the means of production, Australia's Coalition needs to review some of its positions. Welfare reform is now long-standing and was central to theHawke/Keating governments as well as to the Coalition. It is no coincidence that single mothers were heavily over-represented in eight of the 10 seats in which the Coalition suffered its heaviest losses. This suggests that too many felt antagonised at being forced off welfare and into the workforce.

To be competitive, the Coalition must learn how to soften its sales pitch, using more encouragement and less of the big stick. And while the culture wars are of no interest to many in marginal seats, the Coalition could make ground by focusing on issues such as what is taught at school.

So the advice is : keep sticking it to single mothers and the poor, but don't be so obvious about it. You've got to find yourself some new punching bags, preferably ones that don't have a lot of voting power.

Labor campaigned cleverly on interest rates and petrol and grocery prices, which are largely beyond the control of any government.

But if the Rudd Government fails to meet voters' expectations in a worsening economic climate, the Coalition could argue that they were indeed more competent at steering Australia through challenging times, such as the Asian economic crisis.

In 1996, John Howard won by promising not a conservative revolution but to govern "for all of us" and to make Australians feel "relaxed and comfortable". He wooed the battlers by lifting their aspirations, just as Kevin Rudd did 11 years later. Such a strategy should also mean uniting disparate groups in the national interest, rather than playing the politics of division.

Translation : The Liberals should stop basing their policies on the hysterical opinions of Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman (eg - Global Warming is an evil Green conspiracy), and realise that all the bitterness hacked up from their religiously committed commenters only represent the nuttier fringes of conservative Australia.

While playing the competing interests of one group off against another can appeal to particular constituencies in the short term, punters wise up over time and tend to reject such cynical politics.

Punters know that self-appointed extremist spokespeople-provocateurs for Australian conservatives, like Bolt (who regards Pinochet as a hero), are crazier than a burning cat dumped dumped into a bucket of ice water.

In its new role, the Coalition should understand why fighting on the fringes is no place for an alternative government.

Translation : The so-called 'Culture Wars' are a mind-numbingly tedious bust for most Australians, those that have actually heard of them, and nobody reads Quadrant, but the few that do are hardly representative of the Australian people as a whole, or even a broad slice of Australian conservatives.

Maybe the New Liberals could adopt an anti-globalisation platform, considering the globalised economy is one of the key reasons why our economy is getting hammered right now by the financial meltdown in the United States. Or fight with the unions against Labor as it stalls the winding back of WorkChoices. Or start demanding that Labor do more to embrace alternative energy. Now that would be interesting.

More Than 1200 East Timor Veterans Now Suffering PTSD

Almost one in ten Australian veterans of the East Timor conflict have sought out help to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a stunning figure, and is reflective of the horrors that many Australian servicepeople experienced during that deployment. Events that most Australians remain blissfully unaware of.

It's too early yet to know how high the PTSD numbers will be for Australian veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The last figure I heard was about 500, but PTSD has a nasty habit of taking more than three or five years, or a solid decade, to really kick in, therein making normal life next to insufferable.

More on this from the Sydney Morning Herald :

He served in Afghanistan for just six weeks, but it was enough time to see things that would haunt Andrew Paljakka long after his tour of duty ended.

He told of having witnessed an atrocity with a civilian victim, and of having to listen to the sounds of a man he had shot slowly dying.

After Captain Paljakka, 27, returned to Australia last year, he began drinking heavily and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and severe depression. In February he was admitted to a private hospital, but discharged himself.

On February 26 he was found hanging from a bootlace in a cupboard in a Kings Cross hotel room. He left a young widow.

Captain Paljakka was the youngest army recruit ever to graduate as an officer from Duntroon Military College in Canberra. He went on to become a specialist weapons expert in the field of major explosives and their destruction.

He was based at the army's Explosives Ordinance Distribution Ammunitions Centre at Orchard Hills. His expertise in destroying unexploded bombs, bunker systems and booby traps led to his deployment in Afghanistan with an SAS group in April last year.

His suicide is the second to have occurred among troops who have returned from Afghanistan.

In May, a former SAS trooper, Geffry Gregg, took his life in Perth. He was a signalman, and had been among the first SAS soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. He had been involved in a bungled mission in which 11 civilians died and many were injured in an attack by Australian troops.

Mr Gregg's family were angry that the Defence Department did not try to find out why he missed psychiatric appointments in the nine months before he killed himself. He had been suffering from post-traumatic stress, and they said he was frustrated at having to deal with three different agencies.

In August, war veterans urged the Government to provide greater access to psychiatric treatment for former soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress, particularly those who had served in East Timor.

About 1200 claims for shell shock and post-traumatic stress from the 16,000 veterans of the East Timor peace-keeping operation have been filed with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There have also been suicide attempts.

In August 2005, two years after being discharged from the navy after rising to the rank of lieutenant commander, David Buck, 53, a Timor veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of seeing machete-wielding mobs and hacked bodies, tried to get police to shoot him by staging a robbery at the Umina Bowling Club with a fake bomb. He hoped the police would kill him in the belief he was a terrorist.

Last year the District Court judge Michael Finnane, in deciding not to jail Mr Buck, described his case as tragic and bizarre, and a case of post-traumatic stress.

"He is a tragic and broken man who has been exposed in the course of the service in the navy to terrible events which it is hard for me to fully comprehend," Judge Finnane said.

In many cases it's not just hard, but downright impossible, for the friends and family of Australian war veterans to understand how the sound of a traffic helicopter, the backfire of a car or the cry of a distressed child can reduce the veteran to a quivering mess years, or even decades, after they've come home.

The Rudd government promised during the election to increase and ease up the avenues through which veterans can seek help to deal with PTSD. It's a promise they better keep, and keep expanding on, particularly if they are going to keep Australian combat troop in Afghanistan for another decade.

For far too many Australian veterans, the war doesn't end when they come home.

Australia's Driest City Comes Back From The Brink

Great news from Goulburn, as the rains fill the city's vastly depleted dam and the locals are freed from the harshest water restrictions faced by any city dwellers in Australia.

The dam was down to 14% capacity earlier in the year, but the rains began to fall in June and water restrictions started to be eased back in July. The rains have kept falling and now the Level Five Restrictions have been wound back to Level Three.

Goulburn's water restrictions became infamous when we learned that many showered surrounded by buckets to collect every splash, so they could try and keep their gardens and lawns alive.

But the ultra-tight water restrictions have had an interesting effect on Goulburnians. Even though they don't have to conserve every spare drop of water like they once did, the years of restrictions have ingrained a conservatism when it comes to water that will delay the day, if the regular rains fade away again, when they have to go back to Level Five once more.

Goulburnians are using less water than they did before the drought hit their city, and the water they do use, they are using more effectively :

For three years, Goulburn in southern NSW endured the tightest water restrictions in the country. But as rains continue to bring relief to swathes of eastern Australia, the town's dams are more than half full, kids are playing on the ovals again and the deputy mayor even has his vegetable garden growing again.

Under Level 5 restrictions, residents were allowed only 150litres a person a day, but they were so water conscious many cut their use to closer to 100 litres a person a day.

Under Level 3 restrictions, residents are allowed to water for an hour a day by hose, and there is no limit on watering cans.

Sally Nelson, from Goulburn's Gehl Garden Centre, said the business had had a good spring. Townspeople had stopped buying plants during the severe water restrictions, she said, but after the June rain they began to garden again, opting first for vegetable and annual flower seedlings.

Playing fields that were rock hard and closed at the height of the drought are now green and in use again. (The mayor) Mr Sullivan pointed out the local racecourse and soccer fields were being watered with recycled water, and there were plans to increase recycled water use on all sports fields.

Goulburn's water supplies are now at 60%. There were predictions earlier this year they would run out of water completely by May, 2008.

By the time the next drought arrives, if it actually does, Goulburn should have a new pipeline in place, but even then they won't use as much water as they did before the drought began in 2004.

These are lessons in water conservation that are, and have been learned, in towns and cities all over Australia in the past few years.

For the world's driest country, these are lessons we probably should have learned a long time ago.

July 2007 : The Skies Finally Open Over Australia's 'City Of Drought'

Brendan Nelson Hand Carves WorkChoices Tombstone

Radical New Liberal Policy : "We Are Listening To The Australian People"

What exactly are the Liberal Party going to be opposed to in opposition?

Apparently, the Brendan Nelson led Liberals have vowed to fight to ensure that the Labor Party lives up to promise to rollback the WorkChoices regime they forced onto the Australian people, against their will.

At a news conference with Deputy Leader Julie Bishop, Dr Nelson said the Coalition would now scrutinise the Rudd Labor Government's scrapping of the laws to ensure it was "implemented as stated''.

"We will be working very hard to make sure that the legislation the Labor Party and Mr Rudd present to the Australian Parliament is consistent with the last stated position of the Labor Party,'' he said.

Wow. who needs drugs? Just try and wrap your head around that. The Liberal Party is now going to "scrutinise" the Labor Party's windback of WorkChoices to make sure that they live up to their promise to get rid of the John Howard's biggest political ambition : utterly stripping away the most essential rights of Australian workers, destroying the unions, and handing control of Australia's workforce to the country's biggest corporations.

Nelson is basically saying : "We introduced it, now we're going to make sure that you really get rid of it."

Parliament next year will be hallucinogenic if this is any indication of how Monty Pythonesque the Liberal Party will be in opposition.

The rest of the story :

"We have listened and we have learned, and one of the issues that was very important to the Australian people in changing the Government on November 24 was that of WorkChoices," he said.

"We've listened to the Australian people, we respect the decisions they have made, and WorkChoices is dead."

Dr Nelson said the package of industrial reforms was "one of the reasons'' Australians voted to change the Government.

The Liberal Party insist they are now listening to the Australian people. Talk about a revolution. Actually listening to the majority collective opinion of the Australian people? WorkChoices was brought in because the Liberal Party had spent so long listening to the opinions and demands of Australia's business community.

So WorkChoices is dead. Well, that was a complete waste of another $700 or $800 million dollars.

How many hospitals and schools would that kind of money brought up to world's best standards?

Brendan Nelson is busy chipping away at a new tombstone today. The one that will mark the political grave of Australia's biggest champion of WorkChoices - Joe Hockey.

It's no exaggeration. John Howard really did destroy the Liberal Party.

Dry your eyes.

Australian Metal Band Loses Singer In Van Crash

UPDATE : There was much confusion in the media about which rock band was in the van that crashed earlier today in New South Wales. It is now being reported that the van belonged to Australian metal band The Red Shore, from Geelong, who were touring with US act All Shall Perish. The lead singer of The Red Shore, Damo, is now believed to have died in the accident.

From ABC News :

Melbourne death metal band's lead singer and merchandiser were killed when their mini-bus crashed on the Pacific Highway, north of Coffs Harbour, earlier today.

The Red Shore were on tour with US band All Shall Perish at the time of the accident.

Earlier reports claimed members of All Shall Perish were involved. But a spokeswoman for touring agency Destroy All Lines has confirmed the mini-bus was not carrying the US band.

The Red Shore's lead singer and merchandiser were killed when the driver of the mini-bus lost control of the vehicle near Moonee Beach and crashed into a tree at 7:00am AEDT.

The Red Shore's My Space is here. You can hear some of their songs at the top right of the MySpace page. Sounds like they carved.

Considering the amount of ks a van or bus tour of Australia wracks up, it really is amazing that there aren't more tragic tales of life on the rock road like this one.

McKew Farewells The "Brutishness" Of The Howard Era

At the launch of the book that chronicles her fight to overthrow John Howard's 33 year reign in Bennelong, Maxine McKew finally spoke her mind on the legacy of the man she removed from Australian politics :

"I think Paul Keating got it right...this election has wiped away the toxicity. People are smiling, a sort of sense of, we can get on and do things.

"And I think we all want to get on and do things in a certain way, in a civil way, in a sensible way, and get rid of perhaps I think that brutishness that has characterised our politics probably since 2001.

"A terrible thing happened then, but we all, we all have assembled here today, haven't we? And I think it's time to get rid of that horrible absolutism - because it's just not going to get us through the complex issues we need to solve."

The Liberals should be thanking McKew. They wanted to get rid of Howard, but they couldn't do it. Too scared, too gutless, too spineless. So they had to rely on a former ABC host and Labor candidate to do the job for them.

The Battle For Bennelong book was launched by Julian Morrow from The Chaser, who showed how easy it already is for comedians to rip the Rudd government, as they so enthusiastically shredded Howard & Friends :

The Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, he was going to be here today, he even penned a short jocular speech for the occasion. Unfortunately Penny Wong couldn't be here to deliver it, so …

Garrett is set to replace Alexander Downer as the most popular power figure for comedic mockery in Australian politics. At least until Alex Hawke gets a position of some power in the opposition, around the same time that Brendan Nelson gets ousted from the leadership.