Friday, May 26, 2006

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.

Friday, May 12, 2006

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.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

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.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

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.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006


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.