A resurgent Taliban and its terrorist activities isn't the only concern with Afghanistan.
In recent months there's been a big increase in the production of heroin and more of the drug is finding its way onto Australian streets.
Afghan Brown heroin used to be rare in Australia, but a boom in opium production has made Afghanistan a major exporter and Australia a prime market.
...According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghan opium production is booming. It now accounts for 90 per cent of the world's supply. And much of this is produced in areas controlled by the Taliban.
Traditionally, Australian heroin users preferred so-called China White heroin which is imported from south-east Asia. But now drug users' groups say there is an unprecedented shift towards Afghan Brown heroin in some parts of the country.
Cheaper, smokeable heroin means more weekend users and more junkies. More junkies, more crime. More crime, higher insurance.
What the Taliban once took away, the 'War on Terror' has now returned.
Party Colleagues Want Brendan Nelson Gone From Leadership Within A Year
Nelson "Insincere, Fake....A Nobody"
Opposition leader Brendan Nelson must be a haunted man. Particularly after reading this article.
Nelson's obvious disgust at having to back Labor on the long overdue end to the stalling and conspiracy-mongering of saying 'Sorry' to Aborigines made him look a truly pathetic man when he had to front the media and declare he had changed his mind on one of the most controversial issues of the John Howard era in only a handful of weeks.
"...we have no responsibility to apologise or take ownership for what was done by earlier generations," he said.
The 'Sorry' problem for the Liberals is intense, and it keeps detonating again and again under their feet, like unexploded daisy cutter mines had been scattered throughout their offices by the Labor Party.
Malcolm Turnbull is said to have lost his shot at the leadership of the Liberal Party because he supported a national 'Sorry' statement and official apology for numerous past crimes against the Aboriginal People, and because he did not consult enough, or often enough, with the partyroom before he went to the media and started making declarations.
Nelson supposedly did the right thing, by "consulting with the partyroom" before he announced that numerous Liberals who believe in the Andrew Bolt "unstolen generation" conspiracy would keep their mouths shut and give their backing to something they truly didn't believe in.
A number of senior Liberals find the word "stolen", as in "stolen generation", utterly repellent.
Why, they wonder, can't we simply call them "The Saved Generation."?
Malcolm Turnbull recently got an insight into how some senior Liberals regard him when he was told he was being "too fucking sensitive" by the Opposition senate leader, Nick Minchin, in front of colleagues :
The row started outside of the party room on Thursday, after Senator Minchin went on ABC radio and confirmed Mr Turnbull lost the leadership because his public support for an apology to the stolen generation suggested he would not consult the partyroom.
After Mr Turnbull told him the comments were "unhelpful'' because the whole leadership debate was settling down, Senator Minchin is understood to have yelled at his frontbench colleague, declaring he was "too f..king sensitive'' as he walked away.
Brendan Nelson's leadership of the Liberal Party is stripping away the layers of Howard-era conservatism. Now they're 'Sorry', they're against killing whales, they like Green things, they don't like WorkChoices.
What other old beliefs, clinging on like barnacles, will Liberal conservatives have to betray or cast aside to re-sell themselves to under 40s Australians as "The Ones Who Really Care. Really."
Whatever kind of Liberal Party emerges at the other end of its Renovation Rescue-like attempt to revive a staid room by only changing the curtains, it probably won't have Brendan Nelson as its leader :
"He's a nobody, who is insincere and fake,'' one Liberal said.
"If he was here by the end of the year I would be very surprised. (Turnbull) is clearly the preferred person.''
Sometimes it's not so nice to know what your colleagues really think of you. Particularly if you're Brendan Nelson.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
This Violent Pisshead Nation
The Cronulla Race Riots : the day the world saw the savage, ugly face of alcohol-fueled violence in Australia
The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) says the level of alcohol abuse in Australia is unacceptable, and it is causing more harm than tobacco smoking.
A study commissioned by the AER asked 1,000 people about their experiences with alcohol over the Chrismas-New Year period.
Head of the foundation, Daryl Smeaton, says in that time 2.2 million Australians over the age of 14 experienced physical or verbal abuse from someone who had been drinking.
"It's involved in so much family violence and sexual assault and child abuse," he said.
"It is the major contributor to harms from personal assaults, it still contributes to 30 per cent of the deaths from motor vehicle accidents."
Mr Smeaton says the Federal Government has already identified alcohol as one of the main causes of chronic disease.
"They need to go further, they need to acknowledge that alcohol is the number one health and social problem in Australia," he said.
He says the first step is restricting the trading hours of bars, to prevent drunk people congregating on the streets late at night.
When I was a kid growing up in Sydney's western suburbs, not only was gutter-crawling alcoholism socially acceptable, stumbling drunk children were a perfectly reasonable source of comedy at school and town fetes and local rugby league games. Booze-soaked domestic violence was nothing out of the ordinary. The beaten wife was usually regarded as the problem, not the heavy drinking husband.
I still remember adults in the local supermarket gossiping about a young woman doing her weekly shopping whose entire face was black, blue and purple. Her husband was a known violent alcoholic, but was usually referred to as "a bloody great bloke".
"She shouldn't wind him up like she does," one of the gossiping, older woman said about the savagely beaten young woman. "But she'll learn."
Her husband beat her to death a few years later.
It's a rare day indeed that you see headlines containing the words 'Cannabis Fueled Violence'.
It's a fair bet that a number of this teacher's students were already studying the topic :
Mark Heiberg won a promotion after Victoria's teacher watchdog dismissed a complaint about his assignment entitled: "Is Nudity and Pornography the same thing?"
He told his year eight male students to use the internet for study purposes.
Mr Heiberg said he did not intend for children to download pornographic images, and stood by the assignment.
"When I said use the internet, I didn't mean look at pictures of pornography. It was to get a definition," he told the Herald Sun.
"I think it's appropriate that kids know the difference, because there's so much out there."
The aim of the task, which asks students to define nudity and pornography, is to help students clarify their values.
The Department of Education said the children did not embark on the task...
"Students never undertook this assignment, as it was removed from their computers as soon as the principal became aware of its existence," spokeswoman Melissa Arch said.
How deep into the pages of Google search results would you have to delve to find anything on porn that did not contain pornographic images?
Excuse me, I have to go now and clarify my values.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Police Association Warns Against Fast Introduction Of Harsher Ant-Terror Laws
Many in the Australian media are still picking their jaws back up off the ground following a speech by Mick Keelty, the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, which many in the media claimed was a barely disguised call for a ban to be imposed that would block news media from reporting on terrorism cases. Mick Keelty :
Call me old fashioned, but I don't believe anyone accused of, or charged with, a crime can receive a fair trial if the matter is tested in the court of public opinion before being appropriately tested in a court of law.
It will always be a challenge to get the equilibrium just right, but let's not forget that it is these freedoms that we want to enjoy and protect for the whole community.
(At times when) I find myself not in complete agreement with the conclusions reached by some members of the press, I try to remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
Now the chief executive of the Australian Federal Police Association has issued a warning of his own - that Australian citizens, police and politicians enough time to get their heads around the harsh changes to freedom and liberty in Australia imposed by the former Howard government before new, and more extreme anti-terror laws are introduced :
Echoing the fears of civil libertarians across Australia, AFPA chief executive officer Jim Torr warned against the rapid adoption of new counter-terrorist powers.
"We are of the view that the counter-terrorism legislation is so wide ranging as it stands, and so new to policing and concepts of policing, that any further changes to it should proceed with caution."
Mr Torr warned that the counter-terrorism legislation already introduced in Australia needed digesting before anything new was added.
"It involves concepts that are alien to decades and decades of policing, that is, taking a person into custody without immediately taking them before a magistrate or a bail court or a judge," he said.
"And that is new to policing; it's entirely new."
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Incoming : Classified US Spy Satellite Could Plough Into Australia
Skylab debris in the Esperance museum (photo credit)
The US government refuses to confirm that the surveillance satellite now falling from orbit and possibly heading for Australia in the next few weeks is the classified military satellite USA 193.
The USA 193 weighs about 4000 kilograms and is the size of a small bus. Most of the satellite is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, but large pieces of debris may be heading for Australia.
The Australian government agency Emergency Management Australia has "a number of contingency plans" if the satellite ends up on course for Australia. An approximate destination for the satellite debris is not expected to be known until a day or two before it impacts.
Considering the USA 193 is a classified American military spy satellite, you'd presume that American military agencies already based in Australia are helping formulate those contingency plans :
The plan was developed in 2001 when there was a remote possibility of debris from the Mir space station falling on Australia.
"It's expected to land somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and that's a big space...Mind you, Skylab was supposed to land in the ocean."
The 78-tonne US space station's crash to earth in 1979 spread debris across the south of Western Australia.
How did some of the affected WA shires respond. Esperance issued the US government with a $400 littering fine and then put some of the Skylab debris on display its shire museum.
There is plenty of informed speculation that the "hazardous materials" on board USA 193 is hydrazine (a propellant) and possibly beryllium (used in satellite solar panels and mirrors).
Hydrazine is highly toxic and dangerously unstable, especially in the anhydrous form. Symptoms of acute exposure to high levels of hydrazine in humans may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma, and it can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.
According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), beryllium and beryllium compounds are Category 1 carcinogens; they are carcinogenic to both animals and humans.
The experimental L-21 classified satellite, built for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, was launched successfully on Dec. 14 but has been out of touch since reaching its low-earth orbit.
Limited data received from the satellite indicated that its on-board computer tried rebooting several times, but those efforts failed, said one official, who is knowledgeable about the program and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The satellite carried sophisticated cameras to take high-resolution pictures and test equipment intended for use on the broader Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) program, in which both Boeing Co. and Lockheed are involved.
Australian soldier Jack Millet tried to escape from German prisoner of war camps so often, during WW2, he was shifted to the 'Alcatraz of German prison camps', also known as Colditz. He planned to escape from there, too.
Recently, hand drawn maps of the countryside surrounding the prison camp came to light when it went up for auction in Perth. The maps are now part of the Australian War Memorial's extensive collection of Colditz memorabilia.
The maps were drawn by Western Australian Lieutenant Jack Millet who was captured in Crete in 1941 and sent to the Oflag IV-C high security camp two years later after several escape attempts.
Oflag IV-C - more commonly known as Colditz - was a converted castle in the eastern German town of Colditz near Dresden that was used to hold high risk POW's who had tried to escape from other camps.
AWM curator Nick Fletcher says the Germans considered Colditz escape proof.
Map expert Dianne Rutherford says if Lieutenant Millet had been caught making the maps he would have certainly been put in solitary confinement.
"As the main map maker, he would have been a key person in the escape committees and he was most likely encouraged not to escape because his skills as a map maker would have been so important that they would have preferred for him to remain in the camp to assist others in escaping," she said.
Most of them. I deleted three anonymous comments from a previous post about Blair's cancer battle, but they were so over-the-top and ridiculously vile they could have only come from someone wanting to supply material for a later "Lookit! Lookit those sick Lefties so full of hate! Hate I tell you!"
Of course Evil Lefties don't want Tim Blair to log off permanently. Where's the fun in that?
I'll put it down to his no doubt hard and painful recovery, but Blair has been completely suckered in by a heavily parsed quote from Bill Clinton where he supposedly said :
We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’
It's the kind of Evil Lefties Want To Destroy World Economies money shot quote that gets the anti-progress Righties all het up and frothy.
Bill Clinton's a bloated old windbag, but even he wouldn't be stupid enough to give the anti-progress, anti-renewable energy chorus such a ammo dump of a quote. Here's what Clinton actually said :
"And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada -- the rich counties -- would say, 'OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.' We could do that.
But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world's fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.”
I expect Andrew Bolt will be suckered in by this heavily parsed Clinton quote as well.
The US ABC network’s Jake Tapper, source of the Clinton quote, has badly misrepresented him - as have I by repeating it.
....there’s no way (Clinton) could fairly be accused of urging an economic slowdown.
Friday, February 01, 2008
The Power Of Heath Ledger....And The 'Drug Video'
An early poster showing Heath Ledger as The Joker in the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight. Already tipped to be one of the most collectible movie posters in years.
One of the world's most popular TV shows focusing on Hollywood yesterday went all-out with its heavy promotion of a cell phone video it planned to air "exclusively" tonight showing Heath Ledger talking about how heavily he used to smoke pot, while others in the hotel room snorted (presumably) cocaine off a table.
The show's producers claim they decided to dump the "exclusive" out of respect for Heath Ledger's family.
Yeah, right.
But the word coming back from friends in LA is that everyone is talking about a planned boycott of Entertainment Tonight by some of the world's biggest movie, music and TV stars if the screening of the 'Ledger drug video' went ahead.
That Entertainment Tonight had even planned to air the video has apparently caused a number of high-profile movie stars, with big movies to promote in the coming months, to already pull out of scheduled interviews with Entertainment Tonight. One LA friend claims the list includes Christian Bale (co-star of The Dark Knight, in which Ledger plays The Joker) and Harrison Ford (who is about to start pumping the fourth Indiana Jones movie).
So the threat from the movie, TV and music stars was : do this and you won't have a show, because you won't get anything more from us.
The threat clearly worked.
But while Ledger clearly had some close friends in Hollywood, and many admirers as well, there's more to the planned boycott of Entertainment Tonight than mere good will and respect to Ledger's family.
The other part of the story is that the owner of the 'Ledger drug video' reportedly scored more than $200,000 for his/her cell phone clip. This was big news across all the American TV networks.
That sort of bounty might prove to be far too tempting for many Hollywood movie, TV and music stars to continue trusting their personal staff, drivers, office secretaries and just about anyone they come into contact with.
Not everyone supposedly involved in the planned boycott threat to Entertainment Tonight is afraid they will be videod banging back drugs and rambling about their consumption, because plenty of them have left those days far behind, but there are obviously still enough big stars doing drugs to worry about what sort of precedent Entertainment Tonight was about to set.
Hollywood stars will tolerate shows like Entertainment Tonight, with vast audiences, reporting on their infidelities, their marriage breakdowns, their divorces, their drunk driving convictions, but lifting the lid on Hollywood & Drugs appears to go beyond the beyond.
Clips from the 'banned' video, meanwhile, are getting massive air-time on Australian TV and online media.
So much for Ledger's family and friends being spared having to be exposed to the footage.
UPDATE : The story of how Hollywood stars rallied to stop Entertainment Tonight airing the Ledger 'drug video' has now hit the mainstream media.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sorry It Took So Long To Say Sorry
It's interesting, and disheartening, to read some of the international mainstream media reaction to the Rudd government's decision to offer an official 'Sorry' (to the tens of thousands of Aboriginal children removed from their parents in the first half of the 1900s) the initial item of business for the new government's first day in Parliament on February 13.
Excerpt follow from longer reports and news stories.
Australia will issue its first formal apology to its indigenous people next month, the government announced Wednesday, a milestone that could ease tensions with a minority whose mixed-blood children were once taken away on the premise that their race was doomed.
Australia has had a decade-long debate about how best to acknowledge Aborigines who were affected by a string of 20th century policies that separated mixed-blood Aboriginal children from their families — the cohort frequently referred to as Australia's stolen generation.
From 1910 until the 1970s, around 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were a doomed race and saving the children was a humane alternative.
Barbara Livesey, chief executive of Reconciliation Australia, a government commissioned agency tasked with bringing black and white Australians together, said the apology on the day after Parliament resumes for the first time since the November elections would be historic.
"It's a moment that all Australians should feel incredibly proud of, that we're recognizing the mistakes of the past," she said.
The history of relations between Australia’s Aboriginal population and the broader population is one of brutality and neglect. Tens of thousands of Aboriginals died from disease, warfare and dispossession in the years after European settlement, and it was not until 1962 that they were able to vote in national elections.
But the most lasting damage was done by the policy of removing Aboriginal children and placing them either with white families or in state institutions as part of a drive to assimilate them with the white population.
A comprehensive 1997 report estimates that between one in three and one in 10 Aboriginal children, the so-called stolen generations, were taken from their homes and families in the century until the policy was formally abandoned in 1969.
Aborigines are Australia's most disadvantaged group. Many live in Third World conditions in remote outback settlements.
The 1997 "Bringing Them Home" report found Stolen Generation children, as depicted in the 2002 film "Rabbit-Proof Fence", were forcibly taken and placed in orphanages run by churches or charities, or fostered out to socialise them to European culture.
Some were brutalised or abused.
But John Howard, as prime minister, rejected an apology, arguing that because the removal of aboriginal children between the 1870s and 1960s was done by past governments, such a move could open the door to reparation claims.
The apology will include a reference to the so-called "Stolen Generations." These were young Aborigines taken forcibly from their families by the authorities and placed in foster homes. It was an official attempt to dilute indigenous culture, and the practice persisted from 1910 until the 1970's. One-hundred thousand children were affected.
Members of the "Stolen Generations" have said that being taken from their families amounted to kidnap, from which they suffered great trauma.
Senior officials say the apology will not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people, nor will it offer compensation.
The Australian government has said it will make a formal apology to Aborigines for centuries of discrimination.
The previous government had always refused to apologise to aborigines.
Aborigines make up only 2 percent of the Australian population and often live far below the poverty line.
Until the 1970's, aboriginal children were forcibly adopted by white families, with the objective of integrating them into society.
Much of the historical summarisation in the international media regarding racist and colonial policies towards Aboriginals is harsh indeed, as it well should be, for the most part. But for an issue that is rarely mentioned in the international mainstream media, it's still a bit shocking to see how this part of Australian history now reads to the rest of the world.
Which is yet another reason why 'Sorry' is a first and important step towards long-overdue reconciliation.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Murdoch Pro-War Propagandist Retreats From Claims War In Iraq Has Been "Won"
Andrew Bolt : Did I Say "Won"? I Meant "Going Well" By Darryl Mason
After a six week long holiday, Bolt has returned to declare again that the War In Iraq Is Now Won.
It's easy, wrote Bolt last Sunday, "to publicly back George Bush now that the war in Iraq is won."
But a few hours later, Bolt had a sudden and dramatic change of heart about whether the Iraq War has actually been won or not.
Bolt pulled the last Sunday blog post with the big fat "Iraq War Is Now Won" headline and deleted all traces of it from his blog and newspaper archive. However, it's still listed on the Google News archive. When you click the link, you get nothing.
The next time Bolt referred to Iraq, on Monday, he claimed that Iraq has been secured, and its democracy and thousands of Iraqis lives saved, all thanks to the Bush troop surge. But he didn't say the war has been won. Instead he says it is, simply, "going well".
So why has Bolt backed down on his claim that the Iraq War has been "won", and decided to delete all traces of his most recent post referring to a "won" war in Iraq?
Perhaps he wasn't paying attention, while on his six week long holiday, to the relentless death, destruction and horror in Iraq since he last declared the Iraq War had been won.
In his Herald Sun newspaper column of November 2, 2007, Bolt claimed the Iraq War had been "won", in part, because the monthly toll of Iraqi civilian and coalition soldier deaths had dramatically decreased :
Just 27 American soldiers were killed in action in Iraq in October - the lowest monthly figure since March last year.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed last month - mostly by Islamist and fascist terrorists - was around 760, according to Iraqi Government sources.
In the eleven weeks since Bolt's insidious pro-war echoing of NeoCon propaganda was excreted into the public debate, more than 3600 Iraqis have died after being shot, blown up, beheaded, drowned or tortured, beaten, burned or stabbed to death (according to this archive). More than 7000 more Iraqis have been wounded in hundreds of terror attacks.
In those same eleven weeks since Bolt last declared "The War In Iraq Has Been Won" (without deleting the claim), more than 100 coalition soldiers have lost their lives (mostly Americans), with hundreds more wounded, many left permanently disabled.
Winning the war in Iraq sure has led to a lot of killing and torture, shattered American military families and Iraqi children having their arms, legs and genitals blown off.
I've put the question to Mr Bolt on why he has decided to un-declare the Iraq War has been "won" and is now only "going well" and I will update this story with Mr Bolt's response, if any.
UPDATE : No response from Andrew Bolt on why he has backed down so dramatically on how the Iraq War has been "won", but he has mentioned Iraq again today, and reveals the Bush (and Howard?) troop surge strategy is "bearing fruit" and that Al Qaeda has been defeated. His hero George W. Bush would thoroughly disagree with Bolt on that claim.
To recap Bolt on Iraq :
November, 2007 - "Troop Surge Brilliance Means We've Won The War In Iraq"
January, 2008 - "Troop Surge Bearing Fruit" UPDATE :Still no response from Bolt, which is strange. Usually he leaps on any chance to exercise his right of reply. Not this time, however. Is this truth too hard to refute?
Howard Just Won't Go Away
Former Prime Minister Ready To Collect His Iraq Blood Money From NeoCons And American War Industries
Yet another example of the incredible arrogance and utterly oblivious-to-reality character of former prime minister John Howard. Within weeks of losing the federal election, all but destroying the Australian conservative movement and bailing out as leader of the Liberal Party, Howard was on the phones begging to be installed as party president. Incredible :
Party sources confirmed that Mr Howard put himself forward as the next Liberal Party president to replace outgoing Chris McDiven.
One source said that "Howard contacted people to make it known he wanted the presidency", but his candidacy was scoffed at by senior Liberals.
They were amazed he seemed to want a role so soon after the Liberals' worst defeat. "They told him, 'Don't be ridiculous'," a senior source said. "Howard wanted the presidency so he could control the review process the party was conducting into why the Howard Government lost and what needed to be done," another said.
"He wanted to control the way the history of the Howard Government was written."
Like his buddy George W. Bush, Howard is obsessed with how history will view his years in power, and how he will be portrayed by historians. It's already bad, and it's going to get much worse as official government records and reports of the Howard years are declassified.
It's not all bad news for Mr Howard, of course. He will be spending a few weeks, if not months, this year on tour in the US, gigging at NeoCon think-tanks, institutes and universities. Many of which, by sheer coincidence, receive millions in funding from American and Israeli war industries, arms dealers and bomb makers. Howard will likely receive at least one or two million dollars of Iraq War blood money for 'speaking engagements' as payback for his relentless help in creating the reality of the never-ending and very, very expensive 'War on Terror'.
Don't be at all surprised to see Howard scoring at least high six figures, or low seven figures, for his opinions and memories from a Rupert Murdoch publishing company while he's in the United States. If not for a book, then for a contract writing op-eds for the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch, like the world's biggest arms contractors, owe Howard big-time and Howard won't hold back from taking every dollar of blood money he can get.
After all, he's earned it. Hasn't he?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Freedom Or A Return To Prison Colony Days?
In the latest chapter of my serialized online novel, ED Day (about life in Sydney after a bird flu pandemic kills millions) some of the survivors are finding themselves in growing conflict with the man who has appointed himself their leader. Entire streets of Sydney are now burning, with no way for the survivors to fight the fires, after an act of arson.
The narrator, Paul, is now close to deciding whether he will stay and help the survivors he has come think of as family, or if he will leave the city and make his way to the Blue Mountains, where he knows his girlfriend waits for him.
All the time we were talking, and arguing, Greenfingers had said nothing. He'd sat with us for a while when we were drinking harbour-cooled beers and then he’d gone back to his work. Outside the greenhouse, he was re-potting a huge variety of vegetable seedlings. Mostly salad greens, but also more varieties of tomatoes, beans and root vegetables. The huge garden beds of the Botanic Gardens, now mostly stripped clean of all those foreign decorative flowers and shrubs was filling up with Greenfingers' food crops. The soil was magnificent, rich, fertile (or so he told me). The ashes and crushed bones from the thousands of corpses that had gone through the funeral pyres were now feeding the fruit and vegetables that would soon be supplying enough food to help keep a few hundred people alive.
But as I watched Greenfingers working away tonight, almost oblivious to the towers of smoke and flame rising above the city, I wondered what sort of society would be living here in a year’s time, when most of the crops would be turning out a steady supply of fresh food.
Would this society twelve months from now be the small enclave of mostly free survivors that we’d had for the past two months, or would it be more like a return to the prison colony that gave birth to this nation more than 200 years ago, on the very same harbour foreshore where we now live?
Note : Thanks to all the readers of my blogs who have sent me e-mails of support, criticism and encouragement in the past four months that I've been publishing the chapters of ED Day online. I will be able to make the finished dead tree novel available for sale through this and my other blog sites, and I hope to get the price for a copy down to around $20. The finished novel will, however, always be available online to read for free.
Right now I expect to have the last chapter finished and online by late February. The first print run should get underway by mid-March.
You think it's normal to have a leader called Kevin.
You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden.
When you hear that an American "roots for his team" you wonder how often and with whom.
You pronounce Melbourne as "Mel-bin".
You pronounce Penrith as "Pen-riff".
You can translate: "Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas."
You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep.
You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife.
Hamburger. Beetroot. Of course.
You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels' song Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.
You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year.
You believe, as an article of faith, that every important discovery in the world was made by an Australian but then sold off to the Yanks for a pittance.
You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them.
You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose.
You understand that "you" has a plural and that it's "youse".
Brilliant!
Friday, January 25, 2008
Two Boys Up A Tree, The Crocodile That Killed Their Friend Waits Below...
This is easily one of the most remarkable crocodile attack and survival stories you will probably ever read.
In December, 2003, three young friends went for a bit of a hoon on their quad bikes near a river in the NT. They got muddy, and went to the river to clean off. Something close to a flash flood hit and the three friends were swept away. One was taken by a crocodile, the others climbed a tree to escape, and spent a long and terrifying night up there while the crocodile that had taken their friend waited for them down below. The rescue of the two survivors is almost as incredible as the story of their survival.
Four years on, the survivors are getting on with their lives, shielded by family and friends. After a couple of brief statements and a press conference at which the boys, pale and visibly shaken, paid tribute to their mate, none of those involved directly, or indirectly, has since spoken about the tragedy. Crocodile attacks in the Top End of Australia are not uncommon. But there was something in the boys' ordeal that ensured that their story continues to resonate.
The trio spent a raucous, enjoyable day, spraying each other with mud as they roared around on the bikes. At 4.30pm, they went down to the river, to a spot 200 metres downstream from Walkers Ford, parked their bikes just up from the bank, and began to wash their clothes and boots, which were covered in sand and mud. They had noted that the water was fairly high; they thought this was normal for the time of year, but did not realise how much the river was in flood and that a strong tide was coming in.
Shaun's police statement detailed what happened next: "The three of us walked into the water among some stringy trees. The water was running a little bit at this spot... and Brett went out a little farther and was washed away. I don't know if he lost his footing or the current was a bit strong for him. After we saw Brett washed away, both Ashley and I went out after him. Ashley and I caught up to Brett and we both got in front of him as we went with the flow. I was in front, Ashley was next and Brett was at the rear. We were all within arms' reach of each other. It probably took us about 300 metres to catch up with Brett and then we began to look for a place to get out of the river. We all spoke to each other to check that we were all right. There was no real panic at this stage."
The three young men, caught in the current, travelled for 700m-1km as they looked for a way to get back to dry land. Shaun's police statement recounts the next part of the story: "Ashley yelled out, 'Croc, croc, I'm not joking, there's a fucking croc. Head for a tree, get out of the water.' I didn't see a croc, but swam to the nearest tree and climbed up into the first fork. I helped pull Ashley up into the same tree. We looked around for Brett and called his name out. I didn't see Brett anywhere or hear him call out. I didn't hear a call or a splash or anything. It wasn't very long after we got into the tree, maybe two minutes later, that I saw a croc pop up with Brett in his jaws. Brett wasn't moving, he was lying face down in the water and the croc was gripping him by the left shoulder. I know it was Brett because he was wearing his O'Neill riding gear, which was mainly yellow with black and white stripes. The croc was only about five metres away from us at the time. It was only a couple of minutes that the croc remained looking around at us. It went under the water with Brett and swam away. I did not see Brett again."
The two survivors described the crocodile as "big, black and aggressive" and around four metres long. Five minutes later, it returned and remained at the foot of the tree, bobbing up intermittently. The traumatised teenagers spent the night in the tree, keeping each other awake. Shaun was in the second fork of the tree, Ashley in the third. Just on nightfall, Shaun tried to move higher up and, in a heart-stopping moment, fell into the water. Terrified, he scrambled out again within seconds.
As night closed around them and the temperature dropped, Ashley moved down to the second fork so the two friends could huddle together and try to keep warm. Throughout the long night they didn't say much, apart from checking the other was all right. "Because we couldn't see each other, because it was dark, I had my hand on Ashley's foot," Shaun said later. "Whenever we moved, we'd say, 'I'm moving', and just check in on each other and make sure we weren't going to sleep. We were worn out from hanging on to the little tree. The tree was swaying all night because there was a lot of wind and rain."
**********************
"It's something [the boys] will never completely recover from," Sgt Casey says, "but they're doing well and trying to get on with their lives."
Now in their mid-20s, Shaun and Ashley still live locally. Shaun works for his family's business and one of his jobs is cleaning swimming pools. He tells customers that if they have any blow-up croc toys in their pools to make sure they are out of sight before he arrives.
Ashley took the longest to get over what happened, and is said to be still very affected by the ordeal. Brett's parents are now divorced and both moved away after their son's death.
Every year, however, Brett's family, Ashley, Shaun and their friends return to the spot where he died to remember him. "It's a nice occasion, obviously very sombre and emotional," Casey says.
"Everybody arrives in their cars and goes down to the river to where he disappeared. Some people say a few words or maybe there's some music. Afterwards we have a barbecue and a couple of drinks in his honour."
Heath Ledger was one of those character actors that you knew was going to keep taking on challenging, and interesting, roles for the rest of his career. Like Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando, it didn't mean every film he would do would be brilliant, but he would always be watchable.
In his far too short career, Ledger turned out some magnificent performances in some good to excellent movies - BlackRock, Two Hands, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Ned Kelly, The Brothers Grimm, Brokeback Mountain and I'm Not There. His completed work in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, will likely prove to be the most interesting and powerful work of his career, judging from the few minutes of footage I've seen of him playing The Joker as an utterly unhinged manic-depressive.
Ledger didn't have a great relationship with the media, and didn't do a whole lot of interviews. One of the best and most revealing was with, of course, Andrew Denton on Enough Rope.
When the interview was conducted, shortly before the Iraq War began, Ledger had been copping a disgusting amount of vitriol and and filth from the pro-war media, particularly the usual suspects in the Murdoch columnists' stable. Ledger led one of the biggest pro-peace marches in Melbourne. From the Denton interview :
Andrew Denton : ....You were in Melbourne the other day, leading the march. I saw you on TV last week, after a bit of thought referring to our Prime Minister (John Howard) as 'a dick'.
Heath Ledger: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: You stand by that?
Heath Ledger: Well…yes, I do stand by that, absolutely.
Andrew Denton: There are those…and they've written over the weekend to suggest that you've been duped, that you're grandstanding.
Heath Ledger: Well, you know what? It's like… Screw it, man, everyone has their right to their opinion and that's mine. And, look, I'm not alone, am I?
Audience: No.
Andrew Denton: And to those who'd say, "Get your hand off it, Ledger, what do you know?"
Heath Ledger: ....the unfortunate truth is none of us know enough and we will never know enough. But, screw it....This is the first time in the history of our country that we're an aggressor, and we're not an aggressive nation or people. I'm certainly not, and I'm very proud of my country and I'm the very proud of the people here. We shouldn't be a part of this. It's not a fight for humanity. It's a fight for oil....I think we should all pull out and live a peaceful existence down here.
Andrew Denton: Are there people around you saying, "Just pull back, Heath. Don't say this, don't blow it?"
Heath Ledger: Yeah, but at the end of the day, what am I going to blow? My career? At the end of the day, my career is so insignificant in this…this war. It just is, and I'm willing to lose a few jobs over it. God. Yeah. I'll start to cry soon....I don't know how much effect it will have on it, but hopefully we can stop this thing before it's too late. Unfortunately, you know, within the human kind of instinct, we don't… It's like, I could tell you, Andrew, "Don't touch the fire because if you touch it you'll burn yourself," and you'll go, "OK." But then when I'm looking that way, you'll go over and you'll touch it and burn yourself and then you'll learn. I just hope we don't take it that far. I hope we learn before something disastrous happens.
One of Ledger's best performances was as Australian bush ranger legend Ned Kelly. Fantastic role and Ledger absolutely carved. The closing moments of the movie, with Ledger's voiceover contemplating the death Kelly knows is coming for him, at only 25 years old, are some of the most powerful in Australian movie history. Definitely worth seeing if you haven't already seen it already.
Here's a clip of Ledger as Ned Kelly :
Below is the trailer for the new Batman movie, 'The Dark Night'. With Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) directing, it should prove to be a memorable last role for Ledger. No doubt, the mentally unstable, death-fixated character of The Joker will go down as some of Ledger's best work :
He is here in London filming the latest episode of the “Batman” franchise, “The Dark Knight.” (Mr. Bale, as it happens, plays Batman; Mr. Ledger plays the Joker.) It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much. “Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.
Even as he spoke, Mr. Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat, put the hood back up. He went outside and had another cigarette. Polite and charming, he nonetheless gave off the sense that the last thing he wanted to do was delve deep into himself for public consumption. “It can be a little distressing to have to overintellectualize yourself,” is how he put it, a little apologetically.
An open bag with clothes spilling out lay on the floor of the master bedroom. “I’m kind of addicted to moving,” Mr. Ledger said, perhaps on account of having had to shuttle back and forth after his parents’ divorce, when he was 11. He carries his interests around with him, and his kitchen table was awash in objects: a chess set, assorted books, various empty glasses, items of clothing. Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny. (AIDS is one of them.) Mr. Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school.
Mr. Ledger now lives in Manhattan, and, when he’s home, likes to play chess with the chess sharks who hang out in Washington Square Park; sometimes he beats them. But mostly he likes to hang out with (two year old daughter) Matilda— “it’s kind of like your whole body has a lump in its throat,” he said, of having to be away — and goes back as often as he can to see her.
Mr. Ledger was born in Perth, Australia, a place so far away, he said, that “sometimes when you’re there, it feels like the earth really is flat, and you’re sitting right on the edge.”
He acted in some Australian soap operas before moving to Hollywood in pursuit of a girlfriend. (The relationship did not last.) He was cast in “10 Things” opposite Julia Stiles, starred in a brief-lived television series and began appearing in movies like “A Knight’s Tale,” playing a swashbuckling medieval lover-jouster.
“I was more concerned with having a good time than with focusing on work,” he said.
But suddenly he realized that he cared. “I started to look at the work and think, ‘Oh, God, maybe I should be taking this seriously, because people are going to see this,’” he said. “All I saw were mistakes — a lack of care, lack of attention to detail.”
Among his next projects are a film directed by Terry Gilliam, and another by Terrence Malick. Mr. Ledger is learning to play the piano and to sing. He also directs music videos, has a small independent record label called Masses Music in Los Angeles and is planning to direct a film at the end of next year.
“Some people find their shtick,” he said. “I’ve never figured out who ‘Heath Ledger’ is on film: ‘This is what you expect when you hire me, and it will be recognizable.’”
He continued: “People always feel compelled to sum you up, to presume that they have you and can describe you. That’s fine. But there are many stories inside of me and a lot I want to achieve outside of one flat note.”
An Australian pitcher plant - more images at Gecko's
Australia has the most kick-arse natural predators in the world. Boat-attacking sharks, tourist-eating crocodiles, flesh-shredding Tasmanian devils, eucalyptus-crazed koalas and funnel-web spiders and brown snakes that can kill you with one bite.
A rare new species of plant that eats small rats has been discovered at the tip of Cape York.
Pitcher plants, otherwise known as flesh-eating plants, grow throughout Cape York but now a new, larger species that grows like a vine has been discovered.
The new species has been called "Tenax".
James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague found the new species at a swamp near the Jardine River, but exactly where is a secret.
"They are quite vulnerable," he said.
"They are only found in a few small areas and if we broadcast the location then there are people out there who would take advantage of that.
"There's a lot of interest in pitcher plants from Australia, even from people outside of Australia.
"And while people often associate these things with New Guinea or Borneo or Sumatra, the fact that there's more species here is actually very exciting."
Very exciting. Every backyard should have one.
Can they also devour small cats?
Australian Markets Lose $300 Billion In 21 Days
$110 Billion Worth Of Investors Savings Wiped Out In One Morning
Last Friday Reserve Bank Said 'No Need To Panic', So How About Now?
If anyone tries to tell you, "No-one saw this coming," tell them they're full of shit. The real players on the Australian stock market saw this horror story coming and pulled out, or shifted, their money months ago. Those who could afford to do so, anyway. Others with millions to play with laid bets that the Australian stock market floors would be awash with blood in January, 2008, and are now raking in their winnings.
But not the 'mum and dad' investors that former prime minister John Howard and ex-treasurer Peter Costello did so much to encourage to pour their money into stocks. No, thousands, if not tens of thousands, will lose most of their money, their houses, their cars and their nest eggs.
What is happening today, what has been happening early December, is not an accident, and it was not unforeseen.
This is business.
And it's time for a few hundred thousand moderately rich Australians to taste the bitter lemon of poverty again. And the bloodshed is not over yet.
In the words of Keith Richards, "It's funny how things go around, but go around they do..."
They sure do. They always do.
Watch and see how many people lose their eastern suburbs mansions in the coming months, and then compare those numbers to the newly homeless in western Sydney. Who wants to bet that for every mansion lost in the eastern suburbs, there will be twenty homes lost out west?
The biggest share market rout since the October 1987 crash has caught millions of Australian shareholders off guard and raised fears the China boom might not protect the Australian economy from a looming US recession.
Panic engulfed world financial markets yesterday, with Australian shares plunging by 7.3 per cent to suffer their fourth-worst day in history and wipe $110billion off the savings of investors.
The carnage - which was worse than the financial market reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - left traders stunned.
The S&P/ASX200 index lost 393.6 points to close at 5186.8, the lowest point in two years, while the All Ordinaries was smashed by 408.9 points to end at 5222.
Until now, most analysts believed China's seemingly insatiable demand for mineral exports would protect the Australian economy and its share market from the fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Instead, Australia's share market has fallen harder than Wall Street.
Australian shares are down 18.2per cent since the start of the year, a much bigger fall than Wall Street's 8.8 per cent, not including last night's performance.
HSBC chief economist John Edwards said the market was now pricing in a harder hit to the Australian economy from a US recession than first thought.
The punishing loss yesterday was the fourth-worst day in history, behind the October 20, 1987 crash (25 per cent), the junk bond collapse on October 16, 1989 (8.1 per cent) and October 29, 1987 (7.6 per cent).
Brokers said retail investors panicked, and many had to dump stock immediately after receiving margin calls to meet emergency loan repayments.
The popular online broker CommSec collapsed for 25 minutes because so many investors attempted to sell as the market opened.
The plunge in Australia means it is in official bear territory. More than $300billion has been wiped out since the start of the year, three weeks ago.
The damage will hit Australian superannuation savings.
ABN Amro's head of institutional sales, Justin Gallagher, said there was widespread fear despite most experts believing the market has become relatively cheap.
"I've been in the markets for 15 years and I've not seen anything like this," he said. "To fall 7 per cent in one day, you expect that from the emerging markets, not the developed markets, and certainly not Australia.
"There was no rationale today, it was just sheer panic. For us to fall by this much without any catalyst does not make sense."
No catalyst. No major terrorist event. No nation-crippling natural disaster. Just sheer and total panic, because the myth that the markets just needed a little 'correction' could not be maintained for one day more.
A 10% loss of value in the markets in one day is the very definition of a stock market crash. Yesterday, Australian markets lost 7.3%.
Last week, Reserve Bank boss Glenn Stevens was in London meeting with UK and European central bankers, who were no doubt preparing for what they surely knew was coming. In other words, they were preparing their spin and getting their stories straight :
Asked at a business lunch in London overnight what his message would be to Australian mum and dad investors who had been hit by the market falls, Mr Stevens said: "Share markets go up and down.
"Mums and dads shouldn't be trying to play them on a short-term basis."
The clip of Glenn Stevens comments on the evening news revealed the audience of bankers and business leaders laughed, they fucking laughed, when Stevens said "share markets go up and down..."
The sound bite version of Stevens' comments used in newspaper headlines and on the evening news was 'No Need To Panic'.
How about now, Mr Stevens? Can all those mum and dad investors panic now?
They sure as hell can't pull their money out of the market without losing a bundle.
How exactly the Reserve Bank, and the mainstream media, will contain the panic isn't exactly clear. They probably won't be able to. But it's the 'mum and dad investors' that need to be convinced that they can't pull out now and eat their losses. They have to keep their money in the market or the whole thing truly falls apart.
The big boys have already mostly protected themselves, and taken the few hits they were willing to sustain, hence the crash-level losses yesterday.
When millions of 'mum and dad investors' suddenly start saying "Oh, fuck this for a joke" and demand what remains of their money back is when the markets shut down and the banks start locking their doors.
Robot Trains, Robot Trucks And Autonomous Drilling Platforms For Outback Australian Mines
One of the world's largest miners is preparing to unroll a new 'automated' mining process, which is expected to result in robot drilling platforms hauling up iron ore, loading it onto robot trucks, which then deliver it to robot trains that will then carry it to the ports, with minimal human hands involved.
And they're not talking twenty years from now, Rio Tinto wants this 'mine of the future' program to kickstart within two years.
A number of new technologies including autonomous drilling rigs, trucks and trains will be deployed in Rio Tinto's Iron Ore division in Western Australia's Pilbara region over the next two years.
The vehicles will be part of a two-year trial of autonomous technology and the company hopes to install robotic gear at other iron ore mines from 2010.
The autonomous vehicles will be controlled from a remote operations centre 1300 kilometres away in Perth, eliminating the need for hands-on operators to control heavy mining equipment.
The operations centre is scheduled for completion in 2009...
The centre's first major task will be to operate a driverless train that will run on a 1200 kilometre track connecting Pilbara mines to ports.
A number of major mining companies are trialling a range of autonomous vehicles and other leading edge technologies, such as radio frequency identification, in order to boost the productivity of mines and processing plants.
And the robot mining technology that works in the harsh Australian outback will presumably pave the way for mining on the Moon and Mars.
Expect NASA, the European Space Agency and Japanese and Chinese space entrepreneurs to be watching these 'autonomous mining' programs very, very closely.
So robots will soon be mining, loading and transporting iron ore. It's only a short step to robots turning that iron ore into the materials they need to build more of their own kind. And another Philip K Dick reality is born.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Now It's The Liberals Turn To Say "Bloody Howard!"
The nation's Liberal leaders have blamed an unhealthy focus on the former Howard government for contributing to their electoral woes.
State and territory Liberal Party leaders held a crisis meeting in Melbourne to try to revive the fortunes of the party, which languishes in opposition throughout Australia.
Victorian opposition leader Ted Baillieu said while it had been important to focus on keeping the party in power federally, the situation had changed following the November 24 election loss.
"The focus on the federal coalition from time to time drew resources, staffing and focus to that effort," he said.
"The efforts of the state and territory division have not been helped.
"We need to assert the states and territories, who are central ... to reviving the fortunes of the party."
Is that it? No quotes hammering Howard, or shredding Abbott, Nelson, Downer or Costello for spending most of 2007 singing the praises of John Howard when they all knew, from their own polling, that Howard was a key reason why they would lose the federal election?
Baaah!
At least the state Liberal leaders showed what they thought of the new federal Liberal 'leader' Brendan Nelson. He wasn't invited to the pow-wow.
Baillieu took the time to spell out just what the Liberals now stand for :
"We stand for freedom of the individual, freedom of enterprise, growth and aspiration, small government and a strong and productive, safe future for all Australians," he said.
So basically they stand for everything that Howard was opposed to, or did his best to ensure Australians were denied.
Smells like a nasty war is brewing between state and federal Liberals.
What a shame. And just when they where showing signs of....well, nothing much really.
