I know that I have been slack and idle with the blogs and podcast of late, but I have a few excuses.

For a start it is summer. Now that means it is warmer, which in turn means I am not hurting so much, so I am in a good mood and want to get out more. It also means that it is summer break time, and this year Pearl is staying at our weekender for the summer and working for the first time. This in turn means I am now an only child at home and I am enjoying it greatly, small candlelit dinners with my honey, a few glasses of wine and then, well I will not go on as even though this is a very personal media it is not THAT personal. All in all I am having a thoroughly good time.

Now even though I am enjoying my life right now this does not mean the world has stopped and that there is not bad things happening, George Bush is still waging a holy war against the Islam Nation and is hell bent of killing as many of the cream of the youth of America as he can, while at the same time handing over to his rich crones the wealth of the nation, while all the time cutting as much of the money going to the poor of America as he can get away with, while at the same time trashing the bill of rights and the constitution, he is indeed a very busy man.

So, having said all that I have not been totally idle, I have finally settled on a design for the web site, www.swagy.com and am quite happy with it.

So until next time have a great time, and don’t forget to write.

Censorship and still more Censorship

Congress in it infinite wisdom has just increased the fines for broadcasters that send out on the airwaves indecent material. The fines have increased to around $350,000 an incident. Now I am heartily sick of these right wing religious nuts taking my freedoms hostage. This is just another cynical example of how this vocal minority of the community is imposing their warped views onto me. Now although I do not watch a great deal of television it is outrageous how they can dictate to me what is bad for me. Now I have a very well developed opposing thumb that is more than capable of either switching channels or turning off the TV set when I don’t want to watch something, this includes the inadvertent tuning into the moronic ravings of one of those TV evangelist nut jobs. Now if I can do it why cant they, are they afraid they might accidentally come across something they are told they should not watch and watch it anyway? Get a life you people. You are pathetic. Do your insane church thing and leave me alone, stop forcing your dubious values down my throat.

Evil genius

The NSA is apparently decided that given the sheer mass of information freely posted by the internet users on the web in self descriptions that they are going to design and implement a data base using this information to establish a type of six degree of separation database derived solely from information we have published freely on the web.How much is that and evil genius moment. Beware Big Brother is watching.

Mental Health

Listening to a podcast recently about mental health got me to thinking, now I know I am no expert, but, perhaps there is a correlation between the expected peak of population in the world. Apparently the world population is due to peak in about 2040 a mere 35 years from now. My theory is that we are not that far removed genetically from our roots as hunter gatherers and that we are genetically inclined to operate in small, tight knit family groups separated from other groups by some distances with space and time to devote to the mere survival of our families and not over concerned with larger interaction with mass numbers of people. Where conflict arose primarily over food recourses. With the increase in population the inevitability of industrialization that followed along with urbanization have, I believe created pressures on us as humans that we have not been equipped to handle. Hence the ever increasing out of control mental illness, which it follows, is a symptom of population pressure. The worry of impending pandemics, natural disasters and wars and rumors of wars cannot help the situation. Maybe we are heading for a major crash of human culture, a reversion to the simple times genetically encoded into us may just be what the doctor orders, the doctor being the planet that is becoming sick from our appetites as well.

Censorship and still more Censorship

Congress in it infinite wisdom has just increased the fines for broadcasters that send out on the airwaves indecent material. The fines have increased to around $350,000 an incident.
Now I am heartily sick of these right wing religious nuts taking my freedoms hostage. This is just another cynical example of how this vocal minority of the community is imposing their warped views onto me.
Now although I do not watch a great deal of television it is outrageous how they can dictate to me what is bad for me. Now I have a very well developed opposing thumb that is more than capable of either switching channels or turning off the TV set when I don’t want to watch something, this includes the inadvertent tuning into the moronic ravings of one of those TV evangelist nut jobs.
Now if I can do it why cant they, are they afraid they might accidentally come across something they are told they should not watch and watch it anyway?
Get a life you people.
You are pathetic.
Do your insane church thing and leave me alone, stop forcing your dubious values down my throat.

Swag man on the Web

Evil genius

The NSA is apparently decided that given the sheer mass of information freely posted by the internet users on the web in self descriptions that they are going to design and implement a data base using this information to establish a type of six degree of separation database derived solely from information we have published freely on the web.How much is that and evil genius moment. Beware Big Brother is watching.

Swagy on the Web

Mental Health

Listening to a podcast recently about mental health got me to thinking, now I know I am no expert, but, perhaps there is a correlation between the expected peak of population in the world. Apparently the world population is due to peak in about 2040 a mere 35 years from now. My theory is that we are not that far removed genetically from our roots as hunter gatherers and that we are genetically inclined to operate in small, tight knit family groups separated from other groups by some distances with space and time to devote to the mere survival of our families and not over concerned with larger interaction with mass numbers of people. Where conflict arose primarily over food recourses. With the increase in population the inevitability of industrialization that followed along with urbanization have, I believe created pressures on us as humans that we have not been equipped to handle. Hence the ever increasing out of control mental illness, which it follows, is a symptom of population pressure. The worry of impending pandemics, natural disasters and wars and rumors of wars cannot help the situation. Maybe we are heading for a major crash of human culture, a reversion to the simple times genetically encoded into us may just be what the doctor orders, the doctor being the planet that is becoming sick from our appetites as well.

Swagy on the Web

A lousy start to the day today, I had a major computer problem. I could not download my pod casts to my Palm TX for my workday listening. Now to those of us addicted to pod casts you would understand just how dramatic this is, to be forced to listen to hours of inane jocks on t he local radio stations filled me with dread. So here I was at 4.30am in the morning doing a system restore on the computer, reloading the pod casts and still trying to get ready for work. I did manage it though and have now almost recovered from the morning trauma.

Now, what this made me aware of is just how things have changed. The model of yesterday was that your media was delivered to you in allocated slots at allocated times via a non-interactive medium. That annoying boy on the bicycle, who always throws the paper into the deepest mud he can find.. On the way to work you listen the over juiced jocks on the local radio station. And at work you listen to the inane ramblings and dated music of the office radio. Fast-forward to my life now, I listen to my digest of the NYT on the way to work via a podcast subscription. I catch up on the international headlines via my RSS reader on the Palm, then settle into my chosen listening fare for the day with selected pod casts covering a wide range of opinion, talk and music. Things have come a long way; I just wish that the traditional media outlets would get it. They should make their media more amenable to time shifting make it easy for me to get their offerings in whatever format I want and play it whenever I want to.

I am no peacenik, sitting on my butt decrying all war as morally wrong; I have served my country in the past and would take up my body armor and guns and go to war in a heartbeat for a just cause. But, listening this morning to the current death toll in Iraq has given me pause; we have been led into another unjust war by leadership hell bent on serving the interests of those other than the nations they are elected to lead. We have been lied to, kept in the dark about all manner of things that we have a right to know about and have been deceived at every step. Now had these things had been perpetrated by a cynical self serving leader I might take up arms against such a leader, however they have been done by a man who, I think absolutely believes himself to be right. In fact I think he is sure God is speaking directly to him to carry out this course of action, now this is scary, as we are now in a situation of effectively being in a modern crusade, with on the one hand the Islamism idiots on the one side and the right wings Christian idiots on the other, with us caught in the middle. Enough already, please let this slaughter of our children stop, this is just not right.

Modern News

I read an interesting article today about the miners just taken out of that mine in Tasmania; they had been trapped down the mine for 13 days. During the mine disaster they lost a fellow worker as well, a sad story that had a happy ending.


The article in question

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/05/11/1146940644852.html?from=top5

Was about speculation of a cash offer to the miners to sell their stories.


Channel Nine chief Eddie McGuire has urged freed Tasmanian miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb to "quickly" negotiate media deals to tell their story, to make the most out of their ordeal financially.
Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions in Chicago is yet to respond to questions posed by theage.com.au over whether The Oprah Winfrey Show is interested in the dramatic story of the miners' rescue.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if they can get those people to part with some cash more power to those guys.
My concern is the ever increasing degree of checkbook jounleism that is, in my opinion corrupting the news media. It has got the the stage that I believe there is but three kinds of media reporting these days and they are.
1. Partisan ‘reporting’ this consists of taking heads spouting the current line for whichever party they happen to be assoiated with.
2. Infotainment, this seems to be some ginningidiot and buxom parterner reading inane stuff about whatever star was arrested this wee, or which on had a baby etc.
3. Then there is my current favouite the ‘pay to talk’ reports, that is, the ones that have been paid large sums of money to, exclusivly, tell their stories to that outlet.
Seems to me that we are not being served well by the traditional media at all, the saving grace is the sometimes sane voices on the internet.
That’s my rant for the day.

A Stranger In A Strange Land


My experience as an expatriate is by no means unique, like many millions of others before me I have had to come to terms with reconciling my background, culture and experience to my chosen new home.

I do have some observations that I would like to share. I am an Australian transplanted to the USA. Now my expectations on making this move was that it would be an easier move than my past experience of moving from Australia to South East Asia. Now that was indeed different. I may explore it a later missive dear reader. My expectation of moving to the US was that I would have little difficulty in moving apart from changing my spell checker to the US dictionary from the Australian spelling all would be sweet. Oh how wrong can one little swagman be?

The first thing I noticed was just how friendly the local people were, the first person I saw was the friendly person at the customs counter at LAX, I was greeted with a very friendly ‘Welcome to America’, now I thought, this is a great place, they are happy to see me. Well to cut a long story short, some 3 hours later and a small forest of paper filled out I was clear of the place. It seems not everyone comes to America with a couple of suitcases of computer gear, a lot of explanations later I was clear. Now lesson one learned, a friendly greeting does not necessarily mean a friendly experience.

Over the last few years I have observed some very different approaches to life, one that intrigues me is the American attitude to porn, now as a former professional soldier I have had had a small amount of exposure to porn. The other diggers always had some. Now a great deal of this stuff is produced in the US. But try as I might I cannot understand the attitude in public to this. The population is subjected to the most draconian censorship on late night TV, to the extent that it is laughable. While some of the most disgusting porn is sold over the counter. Americans have a split personality on this whole moral issue. I have decided that the explanation is in the founding of our respective countries. Religious extremists, excommunicated from Europe, founded the US. While for the most part Australia was founded by pimps, thieves and prostitutes. Thus the developments of the respective counties while similar in looks are so different in attitude.

I could go one for hours on this matter of the differences, but will no longer bore you dear reader. The differences make for a very interesting, sometimes perplexing, but never boring life.

Viva la difference.

An interesting week, all in all. I have, like many others been following the mine rescue in Tasmania, it just goes to show that, even when the shit hits the fan and the worst things happen. That attention to safety standards can minimize the loss of life in mining. The US of course, led by the great George Bush, who does not give a fig over the loss of a few miners lives as long as the profits keep coming. Could look to Tasmania and the unionized workforce there as to how to run a safer mining industry. The two miners should be free in a few hours. The loss of their work mate is a sad thing, but at least these two are going to be safe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4974276.stm


WASHINGTON -- High pump prices are pinching the pocketbooks of seven in 10 Americans, a financial hardship that more middle- and higher-income drivers say they are starting to feel, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gaspoll07.html

One of the solutions put forward to help alleviate the problem is to use public transport more, well in the US apart from a couple of major cites there is no public transportation system, it is at best fragmented or adhoc, we have spent our infrastructure money over several generations on more roads to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of cars, not on a cheap, workable and reliable public transport system, we have made some halfhearted attempts in some cites but not near enough to go to change the car usage of the average American driver.
We can not in any way blame the American driver for this system, many if not all have absolutely no alternative to using private transportation, there is no usable public transport available to get to work and back, go shopping or even go to the movies in most American cities.
There have been some suggestions put forward to make more use of hybrid cars, well not many people I know can afford one of those, even if they could get their hands on one.
The real answer is an American Government has to make some tough choices on mandating new car pollution levels and to make those cars more fuel efficient, the new mandates just given to the industry by the Federal Government on those issues are laughable, it seems that the power of the oil and car lobbies along with their money have once again bought an Administration.
If any change is to happen the American people need to make far more noise and let their elected representatives know that they are ready for major change. The current cost of gas at nearly $3 might actually be the spur needed to effect change.

The Beaconsfield Gold Mine says drilling of the rescue tunnel for the two trapped miners is expected to start later today.
Preparations for the work have been going on around the clock.
Eight truckloads of concrete was sent into the mine overnight to make a foundation for a raise borer, which will be used to drill toward mine workers Todd Russell and Brant Webb.
The work was completed early this morning but now the concrete has to set.
Once that happens, the raise borer will be bolted on and drilling through the remaining 12 meters of rock can begin, a process expected to take at least 48 hours.




At last some good news, I have been following this story and it appears that with a combination of good luck and good equipment the two miners are going to come out ok.

Inequality



Once more. Dear friend, once more. I know I should not sit and think, besides hurting my small withered brain it is for the most part useless, resulting in nothing more than a headache.

Nevertheless, here I sat half listening to a podcast about Papua and the complexities of that situation and then followed up by listening to a report on the middle east and its complex web of problems, when it occurred to me that the root of theses problems and for that matter most problems is one of inequity. The poor in these counties are really poor and politically powerless and are faced with massive hurdles just to make ends meet and feed their families and into this mix is the incredible wealth of a small number of people in some of these countries. This I think is aggravating the rise of fundamentalism and the instigation of hate between groups in the region. This region is going to explode into a mass of hatred and will become a true world disaster unless some forward thinking peacemakers do something real soon.

In society when one group become so privileged that the mass of the population are suffering great hardship and the elite are so wealthy, beyond the imagining of the masses. There seems to be an inevitable a redistribution of the wealth, now the methods used thought history have been, for the most part, ineffective and to a large extent merely replaced one group of individuals with another group. There does seem, however, to be a pattern regarding this.


In our own society the rich are getting so fabulously rich and the poor poorer, that the fracturing of the society is inevitable unless an intervention is forthcoming. Now I would not pretend to know what form this intervention or the direction of the fracturing of the society will go, but I do get an uneasy feeling that we are perched on the edge of a very tumultuous time in the history of the human race.

Uninspired thoughts

You ever have a time when you are so totally uninspired to fire up the computer to vent you wrath at the void?

Well I have, and for the past two days have been unable to get worked up over anything very much, I did notice two things though that I do have some half hearted thoughts on. Mind you I do not want to go out onto the streets and wave placards or write to my elected representative about either, although I get the feeling I should.

The two issues are a world apart both in geography and topic.

The first is the planning by the Australian Government to introduce a ‘smart card’ this is by default an id card.

I thought quite a while ago that the electorate had decided that the Australian people did not want one, however, all governments are only temporarily bound by the will of the people and all of them have a tendency to want to draw to them more power.

The introduction of a defacto id card is but one way they intend to subdue the compliant population. For the record I think it is a bad idea, I for one do not trust any government enough to responsibly use the power that a national id system would give them.


The other issue is the rising gasoline prices here in the US; I noticed an interesting article this morning suggesting the rising numbers of people brewing their own ethanol at home using old-fashioned stills.

The days of the revenue cops are on the way again. We will soon see a still on every street corner, and I for one don’t think it could be such a bad thing to depose the energy giants a little.

Chernobyl shelter is crumbling

Birds and rainwater are inside the steel-concrete shelter hastily built over the reactor that blew up in 1986, and officials worry about what is getting out.

read more | digg story

Personal Smile Day

Today I saw a sad thing, a person I deal with sometimes came into my office and he was not a happy camper, not angry just profoundly sad. His demeanor was that of someone that had just given up on being happy, and had sunk into a demise of depression. This got me once again to thinking after he left, that perhaps we should all work a little harder to be happy. Even if we cant feel happy, ecstatic or joyful, perhaps just faking it by smiling at others might help to make us feel better. I have to admit that I on occasions am not the happiest, bright and shiny happy creature, so I will work on this as well.


I looked up happiness in the online wikipedia and found the following. It seems to me that we do have some pretty strict rules on being happy, some of them are beyond my reasoned understanding but the rules like everything else we learn are complicated and I suppose serve some useful purpose. I think the definition is not quite as satisfying as I would like, as I think we can all be fulfilled and happy most of the time if we work on it.

Happiness is a prolonged or lasting emotional or affective state that feels good or pleasing. Overlapping states or experiences associated with happiness include wellbeing, joy, sexual pleasure, delight, health, safety and love, while contrasting ones include suffering, sadness, grief, and pain.
Societies, religions, and individuals have various views on the nature of happiness and how to pursue it. (1)

It is my view that if we smile we feel better and it is infectious, others feel better and tend to smile at you when you smile at them, this in turn makes you feel better yet. A kind of self-fueling chain reaction.

The artist who made the smiley face said in a speech the following,

Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes the world seems big and filled with problems that are too hard to understand much less solve. We start to believe that we are too small to make a difference. But that’s not true. The truth is that every one of us has the ability to make a difference every day.” (2)

He even had launched a world smile day a great concept, so I am going to make this my personal smile day, how about you?





1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness
2.http://www.worldsmileday.com/

Sprint GPS


I came across this article from the ABC online (1) this morning and once again it got me to thinking.

While I can see the valid uses of this technology. The technology is quite amazing. I have some pause in unfettered enthusiastic support for the product. My paranoia quickly ran into overdrive with thoughts of an overenthusiastic government tracking me, or worse my wife keeping tack on me or perhaps my boss wanting to know just what I am up to and just where I am when he is paying me.

Now I know that I am being paranoid here, as the government would not breach my right of privacy with this technology, umm wait on, did they not just install a monitoring office in a phone company, are they not doing this already. I guess the government is doing it so that pipe dream of freedom just bit the dust, but I know my partner would not do it, umm, maybe. My boss I know would, the only thing stopping him is his tightwad attitude, he may do the math and find that it is cheaper just to pay me rather than pay extra to find me.


First, the federal government is requiring new phones to include global positioning system chips to assist police and fire services in finding distressed people who make emergency calls with mobile phones. (2)


Now I am beginning to get really paranoid after reading that quote from that blog, could it possibly be that the government is really planning this to track those it does not like? Or is the government really just trying to improve the quality of the safety net in our society?

CE Petro (3) in that blog raises some very good points among them was the possibility of lawsuits from those being tracked by others trying to hurt them, such as an abusive husband/wife.

The more I think of this the more concerned I get, the potential for abuse is greater, I believe than the benefits.

1. http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Technology/story?id=1880779&page=1
2. http://movingoutmovingon.bloghi.com/2006/04/17/cellular-leash-lets-parents-track-kids.html
3. http://toaaw.typepad.com/toaaw/2006/04/cell_phone_extr.html

Presidential Authority

Nixon was pardoned for some crimes committed while he was the President of the United States, by President Ford in 1974. (See link for overview of this and other pardons)

Perhaps given the unprecedented secrecy of the current President GW Bush, there should be no pardon given by the next President for the soon to be Past President GW Bush.

I have not enough information to be able to make any judgment of many issues because of the secrecy, I think that there should be a commission given the job of determining if President GW Bush has committed any crimes while President and if he has then he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

There are just too many questions in my mind about some of the decisions made by President GW Bush that should be examined after he leaves office.

Some of the answers I would like to see, and this by no means an exhaustive list:

What involvement has the US had in the extraordinary renditions reported on?

Does the US really have the authority to hold people without trail in Cuba?

Did the President knowingly lie to the world about the reasons for the Iraq war?

These are just the tip of the iceberg there is so much I and the rest of the world just does not know, I for one just simply want the truth.

Life in the 21st Century


I made a mistake this morning I stopped to think, now in the ordinary course of events this is a definite plus, however, this morning I began to think on just how complicated life has become for all of us in this new century.

To keep up with technology you need to work at it almost twenty-four hours a day, and then you always miss something Don’t get me wrong I love the new things that technology has enabled me to do, but it does get a little overwhelming at times. Being able to have a voice and having others read/listen to what you have to say is such a great thing that it must be a worry to the traditional media moguls, but to the everyday person like me it is a great boon. It just seems that the rate of change is accelerating beyond my ability to keep up.

The advances in medical technology are truly amazing and awe inspiring, yet many in the world do not have access to even basic health care, the disparity of health care access in the world is a true testament to the inordinate amount of resources devoted to things such as war and ego boosting ‘national projects’. Even in the so called developed world there is an increasing number of ‘have nots’ who can not afford primary health care and use the emergency heath system at a much greater cost to us all. One wonders if in the not too distant future there may be a caste of people who enjoy almost never ending long life with a corresponding well-being and there would be the rest of us short lifers. Some things need to change radically in this field before this too becomes an excuse for militant action by the people excluded.

The emergence of a real problem of oil availability looms large over most of the world as a potential life changing event on the horizon, with a dumb ass President in the pay of big oil not able or willing to make the necessary hard choices to begin to address this problem we all have to hold our breath and hope that the wheels do not fall of this creaky system until there is someone in charge that will make the hard choices. With virtually no attempt made to curb the use of oil or the development of new energy sources that do not pollute and are renewable. Call be a cynic but I do not trust the current market system to rectify this.

In conclusion there are these and many other instances of inequity, injustice and plain greed in this green world of ours. Maybe I worry too much; things have a habit of turning our ok, don’t they?

Global Warming

I have been giving some thought, not much mind you, but some nevertheless on the subject of global warming. It seems to me after listening to and reading some, that one of the major causes for this global warming is the pollution from motorcars.

Now on the face of it is a simple process to remedy this major cause of global warming by simply stopping the use of the gas guzzling cars currently on the road. This is simply not a practical solution to the issue however.

One of the solutions put forward to help alleviate the problem is to use public transport more, well in the US apart from a couple of major cites there is no public transportation system, it is at best fragmented or adhoc, we have spent our infrastructure money over several generations on more roads to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of cars, not on a cheap, workable and reliable public transport system, we have made some halfhearted attempts in some cites but not near enough to go to change the car usage of the average American driver.

We can not in any way blame the American driver for this system, many if not all have absolutely no alternative to using private transportation, there is no usable public transport available to get to work and back, go shopping or even go to the movies in most American cities.
There have been some suggestions put forward to make more use of hybrid cars, well not many people I know can afford one of those, even if they could get their hands on one.

The real answer is an American Government has to make some tough choices on mandating new car pollution levels and to make those cars more fuel efficient, the new mandates just given to the industry by the Federal Government on those issues are laughable, it seems that the power of the oil and car lobbies along with their money have once again bought an Administration.

If any change is to happen the American people need to make far more noise and let their elected representatives know that they are ready for major change. The current cost of gas at nearly $3 might actually be the spur needed to effect change.

What so you think?

Well, today I am in relief.
Perhaps I should backtrack just a little so that that statement does not seem quiet so, well, here goes.
I have a minor phobia about dentists, so, I had been living with a toothache for a number of months till a few weeks ago.
Well the pain finally defeated me and I went to the dentist, the first trip to the dentist in over 10 years.
The dentist proceeded to take a look into the deep chasm of my oral cavity and proclaimed that I had at least three teeth that were beyond rescue. He then preceded to extract the three of them, well the drugs were fine and for the first time in months
I was feeling no pain. This is good.
The next day I had a really badly inflamed tongue, now I put this down to some minor damage as a result of the extraction of the three teeth.
Over the course of the next week the swelling went down in my gums and my mouth was beginning to heal, except for the tongue.
I began to notice what appeared to be a piece of tooth poking out of the inside lower gum, irritating my tongue and making things difficult to eat and swallow.
Well today I was playing around in my mouth as one is inclined to do and presto out pops a piece of tooth, ahh, relief at last already I am feeling no pain, my tongue is diminishing rapidly in size and I am without mouth pain. The moral of the story, attend the dentist more often, at least every 5 years at a minimum.

I am in love, with Pod Casts after many years overseas, away from my culture I now have access on a daily basis to the best of the commercial and public broadcasts of my home country. This is invaluable it keeps me in contact with what is happening on a daily basis in Australia. I know what is happening, what people are talking about, what the current issues are. I have a job that enables me to play these Pod Casts all day, in effect in the morning I download my Pod Casts arrange the play lists and have for all intents and purposes my daily radio programs.

There are Pod Casts available for all sorts of tastes, there are Tech programs, cultural and political, as well as the idiotic and the bizarre, no matter what your tastes there is a program for you.

Get with the program check out the new world of Pod Casts, you can even make your own and be a radio star in cyberspace!!

CROCODILE Hunter Steve Irwin has defended his influential lobbying of the Federal Government to put a halt to crock safaris in the Northern Territory.
The Queensland-based khaki-clad wildlife expert took Environment Minister Ian Campbell on a personal tour of Cape York to observe crocodiles in the wild.

Read Here


I for one have always had a slight chill every time I see Steve Irwin on TV here in the US, he has seemed to me to display the yobbo traits of Australia that most of us living away from Australia have tried to get away from for years. A little like the stereotype some still have of Americans all being Rambo types.

I now have to say that Steve has demonstrated some fine qualities, he has vocally opposed some wild ideas from the idiot Government of the Northern Terrirory to allow big game hunters to come in to shoot some of the giant salt water crocs in the territory.

The fact that they did not prevail in this idiotic scheme is a victory for the enlightened people of Australia, and my hat is off to Steve for using his high profile to assist in this endeavors.

I was passed the following and for the life of me have been unable to find where it came from, so if it is your writting let me know, I love it, Enjoy!!!!




How to gainfully employ your night security guard
The security guard straightened his tie and buttoned his uniform jacket before knocking on the managing director's half-open door.
"You wanted to see me, Mr Bignoise?" he said, peering inside. "I'm Jim Jones."
"Oh yes, Jim, thank you," the boss said, gesturing from his chair. "Come in. Come in. Sit down."Bignoise reached into a desk drawer and extracted a file as Jones sat down on the chair at the other side of the MD's majestic blackwood desk.The file was contained in a manilla folder and the words Personnel - Private and Confidential were emblazoned across the front.
Jim Jones had suspected that something was wrong for him to be called to the boss's office; he had one look at the file and he now he knew it."Mr Bignoise, if it's about those boxes I didn't finish packing last night," he spluttered, "I can explain. There was rather a lot of them, and I worked like crazy all shift but just couldn't complete the job. I'll finish them tonight, I promise."
"Boxes?" said Mr Bignoise. "I know nothing about any boxes, Jim."Why would you be packing boxes? You're the night security guard, aren't you?"
"Well, yes," said Jones. "But some years ago, a decision was made to better utilise the time of security guards on the night shift and remove the perception they didn't actually have anything to do."
"That's ridiculous," said Mr Bignoise, who had only been in the job for some months and was still feeling his way and trying to negotiate his way around the effects of past idiotic decisions. "Security guards are employed to provide security, don't you agree? We have a lot of goods in our warehouse that equate to a lot of money we can't afford to lose."
"Yes," said Jones. "But we've never had any trouble, Mr Bignoise."
"Until last night," said the MD grimly. "It seems, Jim, that while you were stacking boxes, a gang of thieves broke into the west wing and removed $220,000 worth of goods on the back of a semi-trailer."
"You're kidding me," said Jones.
"I wish I was," said Bignoise, pulling at his hair with his left hand, while he gently waved his pen with his right hand.
"Well, I didn't hear anything, " said Jones. "My hearing-aid HAS been playing up, but I certainly didn't see anything."
"What times did you do your rounds to the west wing?" the MD asked.
"Oh, I didn't have time for that," said Jones. "I was too busy packing boxes. There were lots of them - many more than usual. We've never had any trouble here before, though, so doing rounds is one of the corners I sometimes have to cut if I am going to meet deadlines."
"Mmm, yes, I see," said the MD, flipping open the folder and chewing at the end of his pen thoughtfully. "It says here, Jim, that you've only been with us a couple of years."
"Oh no, that's not right sir," Jones said. "I've worked for this company for a good 22 years."
"Oh," said the MD. "This file must be wrong then."
Jones peered across the desk at the file. He spotted the mistake straight away, even reading upside down."I think I know what's happened," he said. "Personnel has started a new file on me using the name I go by now."
"Isn't it your real name?" asked the MD, puzzled.
"Well, no sir - actually it's James. Rhys-Jones. "But it's probably an honest mistake. When I worked in the big office, the name suited me. But then I got moved sideways, and people started calling me Jim. Then I was demoted two or three rungs and I thought it best to drop the Rhys. Less prententious."I've hit rock bottom - you can't go much further down than a night security guard who packs boxes, can you? - and most people just call me Jonesy now."
"Oh, I see," said the MD."You certainly HAVE been around the place, Jim. Um, do you mind if I call you Jonesy, too."
"Well, actually sir, now that I'm back here, albeit briefly I expect, I was rather hopingI could be called James Rhys-Jones again. It's still my legal name, you know."
"Of course," said the MD. "I didn't realise you worked up on this floor."
"Oh yes," said James Rhys-Jones. "In this very same office, in fact. It's more or less exactly how I left it, too, when I was removed as managing director, two MDs ago."I expect my initials are still engraved at the side of the desk, eh?"I remember carving them with a pen knife - "J.R-J was here" - the same day I made the decision to give the night security guards more to do during their shifts."Bloody blackwood. It took me half the damn day."

One of my chores at work is to on occasion produce a piece for the company newsletter, the following is one that I submitted and to my surprise it was not printed.




The Company Car



Written by Stephen J Carlyon


The company car is an amazing thing; it can travel for months without oil or coolant. The company car has been known to run for many miles on a flat tire and only when sparks appear from the rim should a tire be changed and then only after calling the company service people to come out and do the dirty work.

The company car can go from 0-60 in under 8 seconds and if it cant it must need a tune up at company expense, the company car can double as a bulldozer to push large object out of the way. It goes without saying that the company car is also fitted with the worlds best four wheel drive ability and can go places you would never dream of taking any ordinary car.

The company car can also go great distances when the low fuel light is on, and anyway should it actually run out of gas you can always call your supervisor to come out on that snowy, windy night to the back of beyond with a gas can full of fuel.

The company car can of course go from doing 50 mph in one direction to reverse just by changing the gear selection. The company car can mount curbs with a single bound and carry loads many a tractor-trailer would never carry.

The company car is a marvel of modern technology; it can protect you in a crash even when you don’t put on your seat belt. Just an aside, the company insurance company will also pay any damages done even when you don’t bother to tell the company about the 20 speeding tickets you got last week. This is truly an amazing thing to behold, the normal rules of the road of course do not apply when driving the company car and stop signs are purely advisory. The company car makes a great street racer as well so you can cheerfully drag all those rice burners at the lights.

So, in conclusion knock yourself out, it is only a company car. The only downer? The boss takes the costs out of your pay.

Sometimes in my idle moments I think, now maybe this is an overstatement, but I was listening to a pod cast at work and it started my mind to wander down this particular track.

I use Google services as we all do, I use Blogger, Gmail, Calendar, Rss Feed etall.

Now would it not be a good idea if all these services we integrated on to one page so that I could more effectively use these services, while I could see email as it arrived, work on my blog and see new Rss feeds as they arrived. They could also tie into this whole thing interactivity so that I could see if contacts were reading my blog on my google website, the mid explodes with the possibility, now the stickablitlty of this concept would be enormous, I would spend hours being exposed to a constant stream of Google adds scrolling along the top of the page be able to use the google chat etc.

Now I happen to think this is an enormously great idea. What do you think?

Education bill advances after patriotism debate

A ruling coalition task force agreed Wednesday on a bill to revise the Fundamental Law of Education after a compromise was reached on the definition of patriotism.
The bill defines patriotism as "an attitude which respects tradition and culture, loves the nation and homeland that have fostered them, and contributes to international peace and development."
The definition, proposed by Tadamori Oshima, head of the panel tasked with drafting revisions to the law, is a compromise between his Liberal Democratic Party and coalition ally New Komeito.

That is a quote from the Japan Times Online link here (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060413a6.html )

At first blush on reading this I was struck with the controlling attitude of the Government of Japan in its bald faced dictates in teaching this stuff in the public school system, then I re read it and thought on it some more and have decided that the evidence of the cultural cohesiveness in Japan along with its low crime rates and advancements in industry etc might make some sense in exploring it more. Perhaps we in the west could adopt some of these mores in our society, yes, I am aware that we have a much more racially diverse population and yes we have language barriers within our county to overcome but the underlying factor of teaching love of nation over love of self is perhaps not a bad one to emulate even in a small way.



And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy









What do you think?

The whole issue of immigration is one that is complex and involves many issues.

The simplistic solutions from the extreme right and left will never work; there are enough laws on the books right now to enable effective control of the problem the real issue is the will to enforce the laws already in place.

As I have stated in other forums one real way to effectively control the problem is to cut off the supply of illegal jobs, this would encourage people to get in line and immigrate legally.

The scumbags that want a cheap maid or gardener or picker of crops are the ones that perpetuate this inequitable system. They in turn need to be the ones to pay the price. Prosecute those low lifers and most of the problem will go away.

The heat and fire generated by this issue is, I believe hiding the true tragedy of this issue that is the human toll that the whole thing is generating, from the people who loose their lives crossing the borders, to those that are persecuted once they get here to those that are suffering in sub standard conditions of work. Additionally at the other end the costs to the whole community in providing health care, education and law enforcement, these are cost borne by us all.

Prosecute the employers first, stop people from risking their lives crossing and make available a workable immigration system that is the way to end this whole mess.

In My Humble Opinion
Got something to add? Disagree? Then comment………

Education, this is one of my pet peeves, just how is it possible to have a child in your care for 12 years and not manage to teach that child to read and write. I am in a position to see first hand the product of the modern education system, for a great many kids are sent out into the world functionally illiterate. They can read at a primary level and can sign their names, but much beyond that they can not function at any level that requires some assimilation of ideas from the written word. I believe that teachers, and to a lesser extent parents have failed the children. It is my belief that far more accountability is needed to totally reorganize and make accountable teachers and parents for the outcomes of the children’s education.

We in the western nations are in a position that requires us to be better educated not worse. To maintain our leadership into this century we need a great many imaginative, skilled and educated people.

Every time some brave politico tries to insert some level of accountability it seem that the educators shout from the rooftops about it, it is time for all those responsible for education to bite the bullet and take the bull by the horns and start earning their money, the same money that they have been taking under false pretenses for years.

This piece was written a while ago but is worth another look, I think so anyway!!

I live in the good old USA, now for someone that is not born to this land, it can be, and often is, a confusing, frustrating and wonderful place to live.
Americans are a very patriotic nation, and in truth they have a lot to be patriotic about, they love their country and most people can see nothing better than America, it is in fact a wonderful place to live, and I for one love living here.
The people are a mix of all things strange and wonderful with the best and worst of all that you can imagine
One of the first things to strike you on arrival in the US is the number of churches, boy do these people love to go to church, unlike Australia where a mere 3% of the population go to church on a regular basis in the US about 40% of people go to some sort of church on a regular basis, and that brings me to the TV church people, my goodness what a bunch they are, I shall refrain from my usual comments on them but they have to be seen to be believed.
Now at the same time this culture produces some of the most bestial people you could imagine, now that to me is a paradox, how a country as seemingly moral as this one can produce and foster such monsters in its midst. I read a piece in my local paper the other day about a mad man that had killed and eaten a little boy, and then served parts of him up to others, now that is one sick man. Now the thing that struck me is that, even in my local paper this piece was on page five not even a lead piece, now what that tells me about the country I am not sure but it is a worry when the public is that sated with violence that this rates only a small page five piece.
Do not get me wrong now, there is much that I love about this country, for one my car, I drive a Cadillac and love it, I also love that I can in almost every town in the country, breakfast at 3 am, now this might not seem a big deal to you, but as one that works strange hours, often long into the morning this is a real big deal.
This brings me to yet another thing, food, once the newness of the change of country evaporates thee comes a time when the tastes of home are missed with much passion for tastes not had for a long time, now the Outback Streak house just not cut it when it comes to those things unavailable here, such as a chicko roll and real fish and chips, not to mention Tim Tams etc.

Saturday, April 08, 2006


There are occasions when I miss home; I am an Australian living in the US. What prompted this latest fit of homesickness was the recent death of Pro Hart.

He is one of the icons I grew up with in the Land of Oz, it seems the sayings you can never go back are quite true, things change, but my image and remembrances are dated from the time I left the country. Mind you it is not that I am unhappy, quite the contrary, I am the most happy I have been in years, it is just that I can feel my country slipping from my grasp.

I had a look at an interesting web site last night http://www.clivejames.com/ Clive has been a hero of mine for many years, his urbane, witty and sometimes insightful comments on contemporary life are a delight. If you value intelligent comment take a look at his site.

I love pod-casts, and today I heard a great one, it had to do with the progression of technology. It was interesting in that the impact of technology is predicted to operate in an ever increasing way in all our lives. The following review is of the man and his book I heard
Starred Review. Renowned inventor Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines) may be technology's most credibly hyperbolic optimist. Elsewhere he has argued that eliminating fat intake can prevent cancer; here, his quarry is the future of consciousness and intelligence. Humankind, it runs, is at the threshold of an epoch ("the singularity," a reference to the theoretical limitlessness of exponential expansion) that will see the merging of our biology with the staggering achievements of "GNR" (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) to create a species of unrecognizably high intelligence, durability, comprehension, memory and so on. The word "unrecognizable" is not chosen lightly: wherever this is heading, it won't look like us. Kurzweil's argument is necessarily twofold: it's not enough to argue that there are virtually no constraints on our capacity; he must also convince readers that such developments are desirable. In essence, he conflates the wholesale transformation of the species with "immortality," for which read a repeal of human limit. In less capable hands, this phantasmagoria of speculative extrapolation, which incorporates a bewildering variety of charts, quotations, playful Socratic dialogues and sidebars, would be easier to dismiss. But Kurzweil is a true scientist—a large-minded one at that—and gives due space both to "the panoply of existential risks" as he sees them and the many presumed lines of attack others might bring to bear. What's arresting isn't the degree to which Kurzweil's heady and bracing vision fails to convince—given the scope of his projections, that's inevitable—but the degree to which it seems downright plausible. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The following is from the website about the pod cast:
Technology is ever-changing. But are new technologies on the verge of fundamentally changing what it means to be human? In this hour of Science Friday, Ira talks with inventor and author Ray Kurzweil about technological change and its effects on everything from your health to artificial intelligence. If you manage to live for another 50 years, might it be possible to live forever? Would people today even be able to comprehend the technologies of the future?

I just made a new video from some film taken over the week end of the Bar in Point Roberts, it is silly and all but I like it. The bar is just fun for fun.

It seems to me that the inevitable rubbish we consume every day is going to rot our collective brains, I listened to the news this morning from the CNN, now with the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and with numerous hot spots around the world. The giant news organization of CNN with its worldwide recourses and thousands of news gatherers, the lead story was about a coyote that was discovered in Central Park in NYC.

Have we so soon become sated with news of our boys and girls being slaughtered in foreign wars?

While it is apparent to all that bother to read these rants that I have nothing original to say and that in effect I am just spewing forth the thoughts and ideas of other people, I hope that you may either agree with me or take issue at the things I say and conduct a dialog. Arguments I leave to the professional politicians of this world but I am quite willing to get into a dialog and discuss things, you never know you may even change my mind on some issues.
While I have been fiddling with this thing I added a message board to the home page footer, it is not the best but should hold till I can get a better one.