A beautiful photo of waterfalls on Uluru, submitted to ABC News by Sam Parker :



Thanks to plenty of recent rain, the Red Centre today is lush and green.

Within three years, all climbing on the Rock by tourists will be banned.

Not Enough White People Killed?

More than 50,000 dead in Haiti, hundreds of thousands injured, millions homeless, the "worst disaster the UN has ever faced", but Fairfax and Murdoch news readers have already moved on. Nothing related to Haiti, none of the incredible stories of survival, or the stunning reports from journalists who've found themselves in a literal hell of Earth, makes the most read stories lists.

Stories about a Moscow video billboard broadcasting porn, however, been extremely popular.

Murdoch's news.com.au :



Fairfax (click to enlarge) :




And this from news.com.au yesterday :



And to the side this story :


Those million orphaned girls in Haiti are apparently not as brave as an Australian girl in a yacht.



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Cannabis : The Best Way NOT To Get Mixed Up With Heavy Drugs

Another War On Drugs myth destroyed, but don't expect it to drop out of common usage by most of the mainstream media anytime soon. Particularly those who rely heavily on pharmaceutical advertising dollars....which is most of them :

Get Off My Wave

For those who missed it, here's the full 'Surfers' Code' sign (based on the "tribal rules" of the "hardened locals") that's been installed on Manly Beach, because tourists on boards are a pain in the arse (when they're not keeping local businesses alive).




Hopefully that will help keep the locals from rioting and attacking ambulances, and shouting through drunken tears about how their grandfathers died in Europe during World War II trying to protect Manly Beach.

In other Manly news, the local council, like the Taliban, has now banned kite-flying on the beach.

But the anti-fun extremism of Bondi Beach is far more intense. All footie, frisbees, pets, smoking, drinking, collecting of shells and even volleyball have been banned.

Swimming, for now, is still acceptable.



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It's Called 'The Local Angle'

The Sydney Morning Herald :



An actual news site reports on non-Australian fatalities :

Thousands Feared Dead In Devastating Haiti Quake




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Peter Jackson Considers ANZAC Movie For 100th Anniversary Of Gallipoli

Movie maker Peter Jackson (Lord Of The Rings, Lovely Bones) has a lot of movies to finish in the next few years. There's his producing and scriptwriting duties on The Hobbit Parts 1 & 2, and his directorial work on Tin Tin, for starters. But as the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli draws closer, Jackson finds himself thinking about his grandfather, who was there and won a distinguished service medal, and the numerous cinematically untold stories of Australians and New Zealand teenagers fighting together, on the other side of the world.

Here's Peter Jackson on The 7.30 Report :

"I went to Gallipoli in 1990 for the 75th anniversary. That was the amazing year where 50 diggers were taken along, 50 of the original diggers were there. And so, you know, watching the dawn parade with 50 of these old men - the youngest was 92, the oldest was 103 and they were all sitting in these chairs as light came up....

"As the sun rose or the sky started to get light...thee old guys...they weren't interested in the speeches, they were all turning round looking at the hills. And it was an amazing experience to see them all looking at this landscape that most of them hadn't seen since 1915, hadn't seen it for 75 years.

"And I was standing right beside them as they were all turning around and looking behind and up at the sphinx and all the ridges....

"....to me (Gallipoli has) been a remarkable part of our history. And Peter Weir obviously made a great movie, but Peter's movie was set around events of August 7th, August 8th, 1915. I mean, you know, the Gallipoli was a seven or eight-month-long campaign. And that story is yet to be told on film. So I'd like to do that."

You Can Watch The Interview With Peter Jackson Here

The following is rare footage restored by Peter Jackson of the ANZACS fighting at Gallipoli :



And if you're wondering what a Peter Jackson World War I movie might look like, here's the captivating trailer for a short film by Jackson and Neill Blomkamp called Crossing The Line. It was shot on March 30 and 31, 2009, as a test for the Red digital camera system.



And no, I have no idea where you can see the full version of that short movie. If you manage to find it online, please let me know.



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They're Just Cartoons, They Can't Hurt You

A cartoon controversy in an Indian newspaper :




A cartoon controversy in a Danish newspaper :



A cartoon controversy in a Jordanian newspaper :



A cartoon controversy in an Indonesian newspaper :




A cartoon controversy in an Australian newspaper :



They're just cartoons.

The controversy is almost always contrived, made up, whipped up, by story-hungry news media.

I do, however, offer my sincere apologies to those who are offended, and sickened, by one particular cartoon above. Howard taking Downer from behind is a terrible thing to expose your readers to, even on a Saturday.

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Clouds over Sydney, January 4, 2010 :









The closest cloud type I could match these to are Asperatus.

But I'll try and confirm it with the most harmless, most benign, society in existence. The Cloud Appreciation Society.




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Whales To Show Appreciation For Being Saved From Japanese Harpoons With Ceremonial Mass Beaching

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair on the latest whale-related fundraising promotion by depopulationist Paul Watson :

The notion that the 491-ton Shonan Maru 2 – maximum speed 12 knots – could outmanoeuvre a 13-ton, 45-knot trimaran like the Ady Gil is insane, but the media seem to be buying it.

Note, Blair doesn't name 'the media' who seem to be "buying it".

Why?

From the Daily Telegraph online :



That's why.

This is standard operation procedure for Blair.

If the Sydney Morning Herald or the ABC promote someone like Sea Shithead's Paul Watson, who wants to see the world's population reduced to less than 1 billion people, then he and his droogies will go to town on the "leftist" Herald and gronk about privatising the ABC, but when his own newspaper leaps onto the latest eco-clickbait bandwagon, well, the Daily Telegraph becomes simply "the media".


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Rare Australian Plant Has Been Cloning Itself For At Least 43,000 Years



There are believed to be only 500 examples of this native Tasmanian shrub, King's Lomatia (Lomatia tasmanica), growing in the wild south west of the island.

From Wikipedia :

The plant has shiny green leaves and bears pink flowers, but yields neither fruit nor seeds.

King's Lomatia is unusual because all of the remaining plants are genetically identical. Because it has three sets of chromosomes (a triploid) and is therefore sterile, reproduction occurs only vegetatively: when a branch falls, that branch grows new roots, establishing a new plant that is genetically identical to its parent.

Although all the plants are technically separate in that each has its own root system, they are collectively considered to be one of the oldest living plant clones. Each plant's life span is approximately 300 years, but the plant has been cloning itself for at least 43,600 years (possibly up to 135,000 years).

Fascinating.


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"Is This A Game.....Or Is This Real?"

The 'story trailer' for the Predator Vs Alien game Australian censors assessed, banned, endured a storm of controversy over, then reassessed before creating a new category, "strong science fiction violence", which then allowed them to pass the game for release with an MA15 rating :





Here's how the Australian Classification Review Board explained its decision :

In the Review Board's opinion the violence depicted in the game can be accommodated within the MA 15+ category as the violent scenes are not prolonged and are interspersed with longer non violent sequences. The violence is fantastical in nature and justified by the context of the game, set in a futuristic science-fiction world, inhabited by aliens and predators. This context serves to lessen its impact. The more contentious violence is randomly generated and is not dependent on player selection of specific moves.

Aliens Vs Predator is released on February 18.

Did you know koalas have been around for tens of millions of years, and that they're bigger now and more abundant than any other time in their history? Neither did I :

Scientists have gained a glimpse into how the koala, one of the nation's most loved creatures, may have acted tens of millions of years ago.

....perhaps the most important finding to come out of the research is that never in their history have koalas had a period when they were so abundant as they are now.

The fossil remains of the extinct koalas....were about a quarter to a third smaller than today's koalas....

....24 million years ago, koalas and their close relatives, wombats, had long diverged on their evolutionary tree. Koalas were already creatures living in the forest canopy and specialising in eating leaves.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the ancient koalas and the modern variety is that it is clear from the fossil jaws and teeth that whatever the extinct creatures were eating it was nowhere near as tough as the leaves from present day gum trees.

The dominance of eucalypts in Australian forests is a relatively new thing - the result of the drying of the continent following a succession of ice ages. Koala teeth reflect this rarity of eucalyptus in ancient Australian forests.

The Full Story Is Here

Rudd's Totalitarianyrannical Grip On The Nation Even Extends To The Family Pet

7.30 Report, August 28, 2009 :

Q : So (PM Kevin Rudd) doesn't come home and kick the cat?

Therese Rein : Oh, no, he would never kick....

Q : ....to use a well-known imagery.

Therese Rein : He would never kick Jasper or the dog or anyone at home. No. I don't see him do that.

No, Rudd has other ways of disciplining Jasper The Cat :



Looks like a combination nerve and throat hold.

Every cat owner knows the expression on Jasper's face. It's equal parts "Someone or something's about to get shreddded" and "Help Me!"

Free Jasper!

Meanwhile, Rudd exploits the cat and the dog, by turning their adventures around The Lodge into a children's book :

"...we've interviewed the cat and the dog. They have been very co-operative in their responses..."

Yes, I bet they were.


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Eyes In Australian Skies

Surveillance drones very similar to the one in the below story have already been test-flown in the skies above Australian cities by the Australian Federal Police. All a journalist has to do is ask the AFP to officially deny it :



Surveillance drones were used, briefly, during the Victorian bushfires in February 2009, though there doesn't seem to be anything online about their effectiveness.

Rumours still float around the Defence Department that the Rudd government will be buying less Joint Strike Fighters so they can purchase some three dozen unmanned aerial combat vehicles (UACVs), which will fly fast enough to be used in missions with the JSFs.

In the 1980s, to have even suggested that by 2015 there would be 'Eye In The Sky' flying robots, and armed robots at that, cruising around Australian skies would have seen you labeled a loon, and a science fiction-addled paranoidian.

And yet, here they come.

There will be little outrage or fuss because UAVs, particularly in this age of Catatrosphic Bushfire Warnings, will likely prove extremely helpful, and life-saving, in spotting outbreaks of fire as soon as they begin, and essential in tracking the spread of those fires.

The future is here, and it makes a weird buzzing noise.

It's Time To Begin The Debate On A Big New Tax On Knee-High Socks

You'd think living somewhere nice and green with an open sky, fresh air, breeding beautiful alpacas might put you in a positive, optimistic mood about the future.

Not so, as alpaca breeder Gerard Oosterman reveals while detailing "My Dreams For 2010" :

A kind of BUG A UP campaign to install loathing towards those that continue, despite many warnings, to drive obscenely large fuel gulping hydrocarbon, nitrogen oxides, CO belching four wheel drive vehicles including SUVs, especially when those vehicles are black.

Spray cans will be distributed for the more sensible 1200cc electric/gas/diesel combo car owners to spray those ratbags car owners that defy all warnings. Those with spray on their fat cars will thus be stigmatised and shamed, and, furthermore, they will only be allowed to drive in slow lanes and by push power only.

To help combat obesity, closure of all food-courts at shopping malls, with the exception of coffee lounges with Portuguese cakes, Sushi bars and fruit juice bars. All tuck shop mothers to be trained in giving dietary guidance to school kids.

All McDonalds to be phased out, replaced by Finnish, Estonian or Balkan black bread with cottage cheese outlets. Those 'car stop' eating venues will be indicated by modest signage portraying a thin but healthy couple with smiling kids munching on black bread with rising sun and sheafs of golden brown Rye in the background. Meat pies still OK, but one per family; no sauce.

Of course, all this to be funded by steep increases in tax on all alcohol, cigarettes, petrol, knee-high socks and drivers of hum vees and enormous four wheelers.

You've got to have a troubled mind to want to deny working families a bit of sauce for their pies.

ABC's The Drum Unleashed also has "My Dreams For 2010" from Tony Abbott, Sophie Cunningham, Keysar Trad, Robert Manne, Julian Morrow, Jonathan Green and others here.


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New Zealand philosophy professor, Denis Dutton :

Apocalyptic scenarios are a diversion from real problems — poverty, terrorism, broken financial systems — needing intelligent attention. Even something as down-to-earth as the swine-flu scare has seemed at moments to be less about testing our health care system and its emergency readiness than about the fate of a diseased civilization drowning in its own fluids. We wallow in the idea that one day everything might change in, as St. Paul put it, the “twinkling of an eye” — that a calamity might prove to be the longed-for transformation. But turning practical problems into cosmic cataclysms takes us further away from actual solutions.

This applies, in my view, to the towering seas, storms, droughts and mass extinctions of popular climate catastrophism. Such entertaining visions owe less to scientific climatology than to eschatology, and that familiar sense that modernity and its wasteful comforts are bringing us closer to a biblical day of judgment.

The Full Story Is Here

Then again, being blindly optimistic has its downside, as well :

A study published in the November-December issue of Australasian Science found that people in a negative mood are more critical of, and pay more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who are more likely to believe anything they are told.

“Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world,” Joseph P. Forgas, a professor of social psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia, wrote in the study.

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A UFO Encounter Of The Third Kind At Milne Bay

Rowan Callick digs up extraordinary letters from an Australian Anglican missionary, William Gill, detailing a spectacular UFO sighting at Milne Bay, in Papua New Guinea, back in 1959 (excerpts) :

"Last night we at Boianai experienced about four hours of UFO activity, and there is no doubt whatsoever that they are handled by beings of some kind. At times it was absolutely breathtaking.

"We watched figures appear on top - four of them - no doubt that they are human.

"Two smaller UFOs were seen at the same time, stationary. One above the hills west, another overhead.

"On the large one, two of the figures seemed to be doing something near the centre of the deck . . . were occasionally bending over and raising their arms as though adjusting or setting up something (not visible).

"One figure seemed to be standing looking down at us (a group of about a dozen). I stretched my arm above my head and waved. To our surprise the figure did the same."

"As dark was beginning to close in, I sent Eric Kodawara for a torch and directed a series of long dashes towards the UFO. After a minute or two of this, the UFO apparently acknowledged by making several wavering motions back and forth."

"...there was nothing eerie or other-worldly about any of this. It was all so ordinary, as ordinary as a Ford car.

"It looked a perfectly normal sort of object, an Earth-made object. I realised, of course, that some people might think of this as a flying saucer, but I took it to be some kind of hovercraft the Americans or even the Australians had built. The figures inside looked perfectly human."

There were almost 40 other witnesses, and the encounter lasted for hours.

Read The Full Story Here

The Australian and/or American military were obviously test-flying some very interesting new aircraft in PNG during the Cold War, piloted by crews bored enough by their tasks to want to do something to excite the locals, and willing to flash their lights in return to the blinking torch light coming from William Gill and his friends below.


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"I Don't See Why It Should Be Blasphemy....Just Saying Jehovah"

How sad. Ireland steps back into the dark ages :

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion....

There's a list of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Here published by Atheist Ireland to commemorate the utter stupidity of the reviving of this old law, but it's always hard to go past this piece of brilliance :



As the number of true believers of all religious faiths continues to plummet, those who profit the most from organised religions will do everything they can to try and stop the criticism, and mockery, that is ultimately freeing people the world over from dangerous historical lies and fear-ruled absurd mythologies. The introduction, or reviving, of blasphemy laws are just one of the weapons they are utilising in their war against the loss of faith in Faith.

Note: I've used the Google Cache link for the 25 Blasphemous Quotes because the www.blasphemy.ie page has been inaccessible for hours.

Feel free to include your favourite blasphemous quote in comments.

And so forth....

2009 : You Mean That Was It? Part One

I was going to cram a full year of posts from The Orstrahyun that I thought you might be interested in revisiting, but the list got too long, too fast, and I kept stopping to re-read stories I'd forgotten I'd written, about incidents that have already washed down most peoples' memory drain. And then the sun came up....

So here, in no particular order, are January/February 2009 :

Black Saturday, 3.26am

Holocaust Of Fire, Cyclones Of Flames, Burn Hundreds To Death

Mother Nature : Terrorist Or Mass Murderer?

Sam The Koala : "C'mere Mate, You All Right Buddy?"

One Beer-Battered Sea Kitten And Chips, Please

Even Teenage Girls In Australia Can Punch Out A Shark

Tragedy Porn : Did It Do It For You?

John Howard Happy That Al Qaeda's Prayers Have Been Answered

Raging Against The Firey Accused Of Killer Arson Challenges Online Freedom Of Speech

Thousands Of Working Families Live Without Electricity, Gas

Australian Ally Slaughters Hundreds Of Women And Children

Adelaide Always Delivers

Essay : This Is Australia, We Burn

Peter Costello : Non-Christians Threaten Australia's Future

Moderated Mainstream Media Blog Bleeds 'Assassinate Bob Brown' Comments

"Fuck Off, We're Full"....Of Racist Bogans

True Blue Australian Stuff Australia-Hating Lefties Love To Hate

Tony Abbott : May I Compare John Howard To The Lord, Or Is That Going Too Far?

Just Another 'Possum Goes Wild In A Leagues Club' Video

The Anti-American Hatefest 2009-2017 Begins

The Rise Of The Mid-Life Crisis Hoon

Australia's Bermuda Triangle.....Or Is It Australia's Area 51?

You Can Dump A UteLoad Of Horse Shit At The Gates Of NSW Parliament And
Only Cope An $1100 Fine

Photography : A Native Garden In Springwood, New South Wales.

The rest of the year in highlights to come.

I hope you've enjoyed reading The Orstrahyun this year as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

I think I might have to get into video stories a bit more next year, or at least some audio as opposed to just words and the occasional photo.

I've been editing a movie I shot with Dave Gleeson (as brilliant an actor as he is a lead singer) a few years ago, about an anti-war protestor who takes the prime minister hostage for 48 hours. I decided to wait until Australian troops were out of Iraq before I finished the movie, it gets a bit hardcore, and I never liked the way it ended before, with the Iraq War still unresolved, at least as far as Australia's involvement.

But the editing of that movie, and trying to fix an infuriating number of sound problems, has been the sort of fun but frustrating challenge that I think I need to wrap my brain about a bit more next year, lest it grow (more) dull.

I'll try and get some clips from the untitled-for-now movie up on this blog in a few weeks.

Have a great New Year's Eve.

And to the thousands who visit here regularly, I'm glad you like what you read enough to keep coming back. And thanks, as always, for not making me spend hours a day moderating comments, or reminding me too often of the stories I've promised but haven't yet finished.



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