Vale Donna Summer aged 63

From the 70s.

Love to Love You

Don't laugh too much at the dance troupe...

Brrr.

No wonder I feel the cool, 4C thismorning - with a chance of frost.

Not sure about the frost, not getting up before sunrise to check!

Gone, gone, gone

Thomson.

Dead "Archbishop" blogs "homophobic" marriage advert

This is ridiculous.

Fair Work Australia - this is ridiculous

A protest against the big supermarkets who are "making truck drivers take risks", this World Today piece jabbed at FWA.

ADAM HARVEY: Well, the drivers might support the campaign, there's a couple of truck drivers down here amongst all the other union volunteers, but the companies obviously don't agree with what is being said.

I spoke with Danny Borg who is the managing director of Fred's Interstate Transport. Now Fred's is one of those four companies that have had about 1,000 charges laid against them and some charges have been laid against the directors of those companies. Police and the road's authority in New South Wales say that the high level executives are responsible for the breaches of their drivers.

Now Danny Borg doesn't agree with the Transport Workers Union. I spoke to him about that and about his responsibility for unsafe drivers.

Here's Danny Borg.

DANNY BORG: We've already had an instance here where a driver some time ago was found to be speeding. We went through the process with him; ultimately he was terminated and we found ourselves being sued by Fair Work.

I mean if a driver has been speeding and that is something that he has done off his own bat then the driver should be dealt with accordingly. It is a little bit rude I think to be accusing directors of tampering with speed limiters when, you know, they're home with their wives and children or you know at the office doing whatever they're doing.

It's much easier for them to try and beat me around the head and police me than it is to police every individual out on the road, I guess.

Sexist politics

What do you think?

(I have to go to work!)

Back in the Black?

Headlines today trumpet that the government is "back in the black", with this budget deliving a tiny surplus. How can you be in the black if you still have debt? HUGE debt!

How Obama got Bin Laden

Fore!

When the carving knife slides off the plate

don't try to catch it. ('s okay, just a little slice)

Dark Shadows

I feel like I must see this movie.

Jesus rode an arse into Jerusalem?

Yes, yes. If you live in Queensland and are under 40 it appears that this is true.

Everyone I have heard talk of the idiotic craze that is Jackass who is a Queenslander in that particular demographic calls it Jackarse.

I cannot convince them that it is Jackass because a jackass is a male ass or donkey.

Now I'd like to suggest that people click on the link and click on the UK and the US pronunciation of the word to clarify.

And while I'm complaining about this I'd like to add a couple more words.
Sachet. It is not pronounced "satch-ette", as Queenslanders seem to say (why don't their teachers correct them?). Listen to this one, too!

Pamphlet.  It is not pronounced "pamp-let", as Queenslanders pronounce it. Listen, learn.

And while I'm at it, so glad I won't be hearing "Arks" instead of asks from the Queensland Premier any more. Anna, you must practice, here you go! Start of with ask and then just add the s on the end.

Here are some more.

Cpl Ben Roberts-Smith VC on MMM (lessons to the liberals)

Part 1


Part 2


I really do think it's time for Australian primary school children to learn Australian history as they did when I and previous generations learned, perhaps they wouldn't be so prepared to trash Australia's traditions and what we have here in Australia

Think of them now

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them

Lest We Forget

Why is this day special to Australians?

When war broke out in 1914, Australia had been a federal commonwealth for only 13 years. The new national government was eager to establish its reputation among the nations of the world. In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in order to open the Dardanelles to the allied navies. The ultimate objective was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, an ally of Germany.
The Australian and New Zealand forces landed on Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Ottoman Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated, after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers had been killed. News of the landing on Gallipoli had made a profound impact on Australians at home, and 25 April soon became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in the war.

Although the Gallipoli campaign failed in its military objectives, the Australian and New Zealand actions during the campaign left us all a powerful legacy. The creation of what became known as the “ANZAC legend” became an important part of the identity of both nations, shaping the ways they viewed both their past and their future. (more)

Tomorrow morning at around 4:30am, and at services later in the day, millions of Australians will gather at their local cenotaphs to remember.


Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made. Charles Bean 1948.



ANZAC Day, AWM 2012

UPDATE:

A Tribute to ANZAC Day
With their hair a little whiter, their step not quite so sure
Still they march on proudly as they did the year before.
Theirs were the hands that saved us, their courage showed the way
Their lives they laid down for us, that we may live today.
From Gallipoli’s rugged hillsides, to the sands of Alamein
On rolling seas and in the skies, those memories will remain.
Of airmen and the sailors, of Lone Pine and Suvla Bay
The boys of the Dardenelles are remembered on this day.
They fought their way through jungles, their blood soaked desert sands
They still remember comrades who rest in foreign lands.
They remember the siege of old Tobruk, the mud of the Kokoda Trail
Some paying the supreme sacrifice with courage that did not fail.
To the icy land of Korea, the steamy jungles of Vietnam
And the heroic battle of Kapyong and that epic victory at Long Tan.
Fathers, sons and brothers, together they fought and died
That we may live in peace together, while at home their mothers cried.
When that final bugle calls them to cross that great divide
Those comrades will be waiting when they reach the other side.
Ken Bunker
http://www.anzacday.org.au/anzacservices/poetry/tribute.htm

Channel 10 now - Port City

Right now on Channel 10 is an interesting program about the Port of Brisbane and how the ships come and go. It encompasses everything from the port shipping pilots, to AQIS (Quarantine), to the stevedores.

Fascinating. I think it's been on before but I didn't see all of it.

It's not on the TV guide I have.

Elk Horn fern - updated

I bought this elk horn many years ago (nearly 20!), it was lovely with purple dendrobium orchids filling the top of the basket and the elk horn around the base and sides. The orchids died a long time ago and I haven't been able to replace them. The stag died off and I thought it had gone to God, but hadn't thrown it out. After years of this dead looking brown thing there was a lot of rain and it was quite damp. New little rosettes of leaf plates appeared and suddenly it was back from the dead!

I made sure I kept it damp and it's still got little plants appearing. I repotted it (in the wire cage it is in) as the old one had rusted away. I'm so happy I didn't throw it out. I now need to harvest some of these little ones and make a couple of new plants.

and this is a stag horn fern, waiting to go up on the wall (or in/attached to a shady tree):

The stag horn is harder to grow, it is much more sun sensitive than the elk. They are tied to a block of hardwood with pantyhose and attach themselves (same can be done with the elks), I hear it is good to feed them with banana skins (put down between the wooden board and the back of the plant). I have two of these waiting to be hung up, one for me and one for my sister in law. I just need to figure out where and how!

Update:
For Merilyn, some hoya flowering currently - this is the first time this specimen has flowered. And a picture of where the hoya are, getting only morning sun.

I need to mow along the front there but it keeps raining, probably best if I poison that weed there!

150,000

Today it clicked over, I've had 150,000 visits on my blog since 26 May 2008 when I started it up.

Wow!

Thanks!

I haven't been blogging much for a long time as I've been exhausted from work. I am hoping to soon have time to relax at  home and put more words together to entertain myself. But not for a while yet.

I've won the $13M lotto!

$13.00

Division 7.

Close and yet so far.

Interesting fact about WiFi & CSIRO*

I found this so interesting I sat in the car to listen to it, making myself a few minutes late to the office.
CSIRO, back in the day....

The WiFi technology was invented by five CSIRO scientists in the early 1990s and is now used in billions of electronic devices around the world.

Doubt anyone noticed.

*now with no scientific credibility, unfortunately.

A good read

Morning Post.

H/T SandiM

ABC Now - Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide

This is a fascinating program about Australia's ancient geological history. Using palaeontological information it travels all over Australia exploring the history of the earth through the evolution of the Australian continent.

Of all continents on Earth, none preserve the story of the formation of our planet and the evolution of life quite like Australia. Nowhere else can you simply jump in a car and travel back through the entire history of the world.

Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide takes you on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. Buckle up for a rocky ride down the Road of Time with series host Dr Richard Smith. Over four one-hour episodes, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and exploding asteroids.

I think I'm going to have to buy it. I missed last week's program and my ABC reception (along with my channel 7 reception, all channels owned by them), is very bad and sometimes not watchable.

When I see programs like this I am very sad that my father isn't here to see them. He would be delighted with the information packed into the program. He collected fossils and had trilobites and crinoids and other Australian fossils which he had collected over time. I'm pretty sure they're still at home in the drawers under the little telephone table where they've lived for over 40 years!

Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide.

A bonus, if you search for the name of the program you will find links to creationists' blog/s, which make for fascinating reading as they try to debunk the fossil evidence and tell us you can only know something really happened if there were witnesses, so all this program is a myth.

Thomsometer!

Here you are!

Newman's changes II

Cutting spendig in all the right places... from BoltA.

Update:
Here you go, he's taking to the climate change sinks with a meat cleaver!

Who do you trust?

Newman's changes

Campbell Newman will be leaving Greg Withers, Mr Bligh, assistant director general of the Office of Climate Change, in his position.

Withers is tasked with reversing all the climate change policies which have been brought in.

I love that twist.

Might take him a while, though.

Quite a while!