Category: Uncategorized

I’m sympathetic to old diggers still holding a grudge against the Japanese given the historical context, but in 2009 there’s no place for this, particularly when a lot of the message is coming from people born well and truly after WW2 who simply don’t have an excuse to hold a grudge.

Age: Japanese ship unsettles Darwin

TERRITORIANS paused to remember the 1942 bombing of Darwin yesterday, but for some the commemorations were marred by a Japanese vessel docked in the harbour…..

Controversy rose over the presence of the Tokyo University ship Umitaka Maru, docked at Stokes Hill Wharf only metres from the ceremony. “A lot of people are very upset about it being there,” said Andrew Burford from the Maritime Union.

Mr Burford said he had been inundated with calls from people, outraged that the vessel, in Darwin to pick up supplies, could be berthed so close to the ceremony.

Japan is Australia’s No 1 export market, we’ve been at peace with Japan since 45, and trading with them since the mid 50s. It reeks of unfounded Xenophobia.

Absolute steal.

Received an odd email yesterday from someone I hadn’t heard from in years. Someone who out of the blue cut me off despite a once close working relationship.

Turns out that she got a serious dose of karma, and is rather bitter about it. Wrote to me to say as much as well. Very strange person, maybe a cultural difference given she’s originally foreign.

My crime apparently was expressing surprise on another site about her bitterness.

The thing I’m most sad about is how this person happily picked her own personal profit over others, and yet now claims she was dedicated to those very same people.

I guess, and it’s one of my flaws, is that I’ve never been able to balance both. I tend to side in supporting those around me, and it’s often cost me dearly.

I know at least one serious dick with a grudge against me had claimed I have an issue here, but let me say that I sleep well every night, and I didn’t send myself two emails now on the issue; be it I might add, 2 years too late.

None the less, for me it’s an interesting lesson in morals; sometimes you take hard knocks, but karma always balances things out if you always try to do the right things in life.

A lesson well earned.

Up to 60 people dead, hundreds, possibly thousands of homes lost, and Senator Bob Brown (leader of the Australian Greens) uses the opportunity to warn people about global warming

More fires to come as climate change continues: Bob Brown

Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more,” he told Sky News.

“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”

What, arsonists are gong be more prevalent with global warming…because that’s who the CFA is blaming for at least some of the fires. And wow, like we’ve never had deadly fires before either.

Bob Brown, you’re an insensitive little turd who seeks to gain political capital off the deaths of your fellow Australians. Shut the fuck up.

The Age confirms what I observed the other day:

THE leaves may be turning brown and falling, but it’s not an early autumn….

Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens have been undertaking a program to save plants and director Richard Barley said they were in reasonable condition, but he is concerned about the long-term prospects for Melbourne’s established street trees such as planes and elms. “Dropping their leaves is a normal reaction for trees in these circumstances. They have been hit by the two factors of the extended dry and the extraordinary hot air temperatures of last week.

“If we had cooler, wetter conditions to the end of April it is possible they could grow back some of their foliage, but if these conditions continue over the next two or three years, it will put them under enormous stress and it is likely a lot of them will die.”

The photo doesn’t do it justice (hard while driving) but I noticed today that around Hawthorn, Canterbury and Camberwell that all the trees are dropping their leaves….in January, and not Autumn.

One of the best parts of living in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne is just how beautiful the streets are. In Autumn, the trees lining nearly every street drop their leaves, in spring they grow back. But if they’re dropping their leaves now, they wont be come autumn.

A quick search of Google shows that the trees may survive, and that in drought European trees can do this; but likewise, they also drop leaves before they die as well.

The solution of course is more water, but we aren’t getting more of that any time soon. It’s ironic really to consider that water restrictions in WA are less severe than Victoria, and WA is the drier state with the lesser opportunities for dams and water capture.

Whoops.

Rudd reveals $115b loss

I read last week that Keating’s giving economic advice to Rudd, no surprise when you read this stuff.

Sorry in advance about the language, but we’re now officially fucked.

– $115 billion.

Projected surplus in November was $5.7 billion.

See the magic difference, and that’s before yet another stimulus package.

In the space of a year or two, Rudd will run up the Government Mastercard to higher than Keating levels.

Not bad for a first term. Wonder though who’s going to pay for it, and what interest rate they’ll demand.

$115 billion.

Struth.

My experience at 3:45 AEDT this morning:

Hulu: audio/ video out of sync, could only be fixed by closing the stream and restarting it…then slowly the same thing would happen again

CNN/ Facebook: people are gushing over this. I’m sure it was great, except that I got a message that it was full and I’d have to wait to get in. Yeah, I’m going to wait in the middle of Obama’s speech. Fail.

Livestation: I love Livestation, but I don’t have the client installed on my laptop, only my desktop, and I had no intention of getting out of bed. Page time outs, and when you got anything up only half would load. Couldn’t download the client to watch.

MSNBC: seriously delayed, maybe 10-30 seconds or more. So I’d switch to MSNBC from Hulu, then have to sit through parts of the speech I’d already heard.

Suprisingly though, there was one site I like, but admitedly I only hit it AFTER the speech.

Fox News, no, not the Hulu feed, the actual feed from the Fox News website.

Quality was ok, not brilliant, but in sync, and easily went full screen. They also offered different camera angles in the same box, so you could watch raw footage, or footage with comentary, and you could also switch to Fox Radio. Next time there’s something live like this, I know where I’m heading.

I didn’t get a a chance to hit Ustream, but I’ve heard quality wasn’t great, but it’s also a possible.

CBS was suppose to be good from reports.