The Journal
All writing
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Varied Responses to Barack Obama. From ‘Non’ and ‘Nein’ to ‘No’
And yet, the things the Europeans said ‘no’ to were things I would have said ‘yes’ to. Namely, a stronger response to North Korea’s missile launch (which was meant to be threatening, demonstrated an ability to strike as far Alaska…
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Education Tax Refund
I only heard of this today. Australian parents and caregivers can get back up to 50% of the cost of eligible education expenses for primary and secondary schooling. The link is worth following if you live…
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Global Warming – a Brief Inroduction
I have just uploaded a brief introductory essay called Profits of Doom – An Introduction to Global Warming. Left click the link to open the PDF file in a new tab, or right click to save.…
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Barack Obama Won’t Visit Normandy to Avoid Upsetting Germany
It’s 65 years since the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy. Over 9,000 Americans are buried at the American cemetary there, including the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. President Sarkozy invited President Obama to visit…
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LED TVs
Faster, brighter, lighter, more colour depth, more power efficient, vastly better contrast ratio. And you can get one now (or in early May if you live in Australia) What’s not to like? Well, apart from the…
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Breastfeeding Mum Too Drunk for Breath Test
Oh dear. A 19 year old woman drives her car out of a hotel car park into the path of a police vehicle. She is breast feeding her baby son, who is unrestrained. She is so…
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Take Care at the ATM
A couple of different reports over the last 24 hours about skimming (information trapping) devices attached to automatic teller machines. Just take care. If an ATM looks suspicious, don’t use it, and report it to bank staff or…
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Couldn’t Some of the Internet Cash go to Emergency Medical Care?
Emergency medicine specialists say as many lives are lost in Australia each year because of inadequate ER resources (including staff), as are lost on our roads. Time to think about your priorities, boys and girls. Or…
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Government to Spend $43 Billion On Internet Infrastructure
National broadband gets the go ahead, but the government will do it itself. There are already some criticisms. No time to write in detail about this today, but a few questions spring to mind. If the Federal Government has…
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First Day Back at Work
So posting will be a bit light. My apologies. Two months worth of accounts, phone calls, emails and clients to get my head around. I should be better organised tomorrow.
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New Zealand’s Murder Rate Halved in Last 20 years
Murder rates in Australian have moved up and down at about the same time, in about the same way. That’s interesting, because as this NZ Herald article points out, most people believe that crime rates, and…
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George Strait – Country Artist of the Decade
I always hated country music as a teenager, but got to know it better, and to respect and enjoy it, when we lived in Western Queensland. Lots of country music fans will be pleased to see…
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Heat Wave but no Global Warming?
Interesting… Several stories on major Australian media sites about extra deaths possibly caused by the Victorian heatwave in January. But so far, not a single mention of CO2 or global warming. Quite rightly, of course, because…
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NSW MPs Putting State in Darkness
But I thought that’s what everyone wanted? Surely that couple of extra Earth Hours didn’t bother anyone? Where are your priorities? Pretty obviously, if your population increases, and you don’t build new power production infrastructure, you…
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Holden Cuts Production to Half – Good News?
According to PM Kevin Rudd, Holden is the bright star in the GM firmament, the only good GM news anywhere in the world. This because a new four cylinder car is due to come into production in 2010.…