how cute is this...

This ad plays on TV in Australia. I can't find the English version, but this is just gold!

he's baaack...

Oh, my giddy aunt. Bolt's back. 14 posts in one day? Obviously he's not putting much effort into any of them. But we already knew that. Maybe we'll try to get into a few of them, but really, I can't be bothered reading them that much.

It's like a train crash, his blog. You know you shouldn't stare, but you just can't help it. I catch myself gaping open mouthed sometimes. I try to justify it by telling myself its important to engage people like that. But really isn't it true that if you argue with a fool, eventually people can't tell which one's the fool?

And no, I'm not linking to him. I refuse to give him the google juice. Even my tiny little bit!

childish politics reaches a new low...

Well, this is mature! I thought Question Time was inane.

Are they even trying to argue policy anymore?

Meanwhile, check out the Young Ferals conference agenda. If I get the chance I'll get into a bit later, but for now just take a deep breath and try not to cry.

another one down...

Yesterday we cleared another hurdle in our IVF marathon.* Still a couple to go, but we're getting there.

* Actually, this probably isn't quite right. Its certainly been a marathon since we first started two and a half years ago, but this cycle has gone like the clappers. So, perhaps we should call it a sprint to the line!

how do you spell beat up?

Congratulations, Herald Sun, you've done it again! The entire front page dedicated to an isolated bureaucratic fuck up. I have no particular knowledge of VLA's procedures in these matters, but I think its fair to call it isolated. If it wasn't, no doubt the Hun would have referred to "ongoing ineptitude", dragged out a whole swag of other victims and called for the ministers head.

The short version is a kid was sent a letter advising him he'd been named as the father of a child born when he was three years old. Hardly likely, of course, but when questioned the spokesman for the VLA was open and forthright;

Victorian Legal Aid managing director Tony Parsons said the bungle was an isolated incident. "We made a mistake," Mr Parsons said. "This went out under the hand of a junior lawyer here. He got the name from a telephone directory, contrary to his training. He has been counselled and has written a letter to the recipient apologising.

We are very careful about the basis of sending those letters out because we are aware how sensitive they are, and this is the only problem we have had in five years. "In this case it is a one-off, inexperienced practitioner who did something he shouldn't have and is being counselled in that regard."

Sounds fair enough. He was accountable and wore the hit without even trying to offer an excuse. The paper have no evidence of it being a systemic problem. (And lets face it, there'd be plenty of folks like young Mr Holden who wouldn't miss the chance to stick one to the government and see if its worth a quid if they got the chance!)

It's a simple, isolated mistake. So, of course, its a front page story! You can't expect the journo to go out and find a real story when this little gem lands in their lap, can you?

And that was going to be it. I was going to make my point and move on until I saw today's edition on line. They are the still going on about it. Seems a few other folk received the same letter. Which, of course, means it must be more than isolated;

Legal Aid's managing director, Tony Parsons, said on Monday that Tyler Holden's case was a "one-off". But four more men, also named T. Holden, were accused of fathering the same child.

But its still nothing more than an isolated incident, though. Its still just the one screw up which unfortunately involved more than one recipient. For God sake, Mr Guthrie, I know you're new to the job, but c'mon!

To add a personal touch to the matter, one of the other T. Holden's in the story is a relative. I'm not saying which one and he's not immediate family. My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Holden and he's somewhere in that line. Small world, eh!

you make me feel like... walking?

Leo Sawyer walks out of the Celebrity Big Brother house in the UK! Well, I'm using "celebrity" very loosely here. Leo's one of only three or or four genuine has beens on the show. Dirk Benedict, Jermain Jackson, Ken Russell and Leo.

The rest don't even qualify for wanna-be status.

Anyway, on with the prison break :)

space...

Space has been on my mind lately. I've not really mentioned it in this blog much, but I'm a bit of a space nut :)

Anyway, I went looking for a new wallpaper image the other day, one suitable for the higher resolution of our new monitor. We've had FSM on for a while and it was time for a change!


I was hoping to find an asteroid belt, or some kind of nebula or galaxy shot. And I did. But then, just when I was struggling to make up my mind, I tripped over one of the most iconic images of the entire space era. I love it!

Behold my current wallpaper!


Doesn't it bring out the geek in you? :)

no military in space, say... um, ah, the... U.S.?

How funny is this;

WASHINGTON (AP) - Criticizing China's test of an anti-satellite weapon, the U.S. State Department said Friday "modern life as we know it" depends on the security of space-based technology.

State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the administration raised concerns about the test with Chinese officials in Washington and in Beijing, making clear its opposition to "any militarization of space."

And their rationale for this amazing claim?;

"He said tests of the kind China carried out "produce extensive amounts of space debris, have the potential for disturbing or accidentally disrupting communication satellites or other kinds of space vehicles that are out there."

They can't seriously have forgotten, can they? Surely not! They've been at it since the Reagan days. In 2002 the U.S. renamed the BMDO to the MDA, having changed it to BMDO from SDIO in 1993.

As recently as 2002, the current Administration was planning "Son of Star Wars";

President Bush has ordered the setting up of a rudimentary missile defence system as early as 2004, underlining Washington's fear that the United States faces a real threat of intercontinental attack by rogue states.

As the Administration unveiled "Son of Star Wars" it asked Britain and other allies for their backing, apparently hoping to defray part of the cost, expected to be hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades.

The U.S. have also consistently vetoed U.N. treaties proposed by China and Russia aimed at banning the militarisation of space.

UPDATE: 23/1
Just re-read this and it probably sounds a little like I'm suggesting China are harmless. They're not. China are clearly bad news. I'm simply saying that blaming them entirely for starting a space arms race is a bit rich.

new toys...

We bought a new printer today. An HP Laserjet 1600 colour laser. Tidy little unit, too!

The plan is to create some business making invitations and cards and the like. As well as maybe short run presentation printing and some other sideline things we're bouncing around. The cost of the technology required continues to drop and drop. The 1600 we just bought was only $445! For a colour laser! And if I'd done my research a little better I'd have noticed the $100 cashback on the next model up, which would've made it the same price!

But here's the really absurd part. It came with half filled toner cartridges included. Given the retail price of the full article is about $120 and it takes four cartridges, my math says the included toner was a bit over half the value of the printer!

Anyway, the cards and invites are the main plan. C is a very creative young lady. This sort of thing is right up her alley. We spent an hour and a half at the Doggetts outlet store this morning, taking samples of pretty much one of everything! Next step is to start laying different colours down together and see what we can come up with!

Wish us luck!

ivf...

Things are progressing nicely for my wife and I with our latest shot at IVF success. You can see her blog for the details and earlier posts of mine for some background.

I don't really want to go in to too much detail. There are a couple of real life friends who read this and we haven't even told our families this time! Suffice to say we've cleared a couple of major hurdles in the last week or two and with a bit of luck we'll clear a couple more next week.

Its hard yakka, I'll tell you that much.

journalist was wrong... other journalists tell all!

Looks like Terry Lane has earnt the ire of the Herald Sun again! I'm sure he's deeply hurt by their lack of faith.

SUNDAY Age columnist Terry Lane has been caught out again quoting unreliable Internet sources, despite a similar "almighty stuff-up" last year leading him to offer his resignation.

It is the second time Lane has used spurious Internet claims to back anti-George W. Bush attacks in the paper – and this time to criticise Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

Its good to see his boss standing up for him this time. Last time he pretty much hung him out to dry. But there are fighting words from The Sunday Age's editor this time;

"I think Terry Lane has made an assertion in an opinion piece," Mr Fray said. "It's a bit like me critiquing everything that Andrew Bolt has claimed. If we critiqued him like you're critiquing Terry, we'd have someone online from The Age calling you everyday.

Amen!

Still, one can only assume that if the Herald Sun is so strident in their criticism of just these two pieces from Terry, then they must agree wholeheartedly with his multitude of other writings for the Age. Like this one;

Sending in another 20,000 soldiers to search and destroy is not the way to liberate Iraq, writes Terry Lane.

Liberation goes like this. You see a country under occupation or ruled by a tyrant; you send in the army to drive the occupiers out or to depose the tyrant; then you bow to the natives' grateful applause and go home. Simple.

Or this one. Or this. Or this.

Stick with it, Terry. I still loves ya!

tamworth opens its heart... finally

So, Minister Vanstone is happy that Tamworth have opened their heart to a handful of Sudanese refugees. Woop-de-doo! She must be pissed off that it took such an effort;

Tamworth City Council voted this week to spurn an offer by the Department of Immigration to resettle the families for fear it could lead to a "Cronulla riots- type situation", Mayor James Treloar said.

Cr Treloar said that "of the 12 Sudanese people who live in Tamworth, eight have been before the courts for everything from dangerous driving to rape. These people don't respect authority … They come from countries where there are outbreaks of TB (tuberculosis) and polio. How can we trust the department to screen those things?"

The part I fail to understand is exactly what council had to agree to anyway. As far as I'm aware they have no part in housing funding, visa applications or migration issues generally. While councils can be helpful in terms of leadership in community acceptance, I wouldn't have thought any decision they made would be binding in this regard.

here we go... this was always on...

Okay, so the source is the Herald-Sun. Worse yet, the Sunday Herald-Sun. So I'll wait until I hear it from a reliable source like, I don't know, the three year old neice. But this one rings a bit true, don't you think.

THE Bracks Government is outraged at a leaked federal proposal to tax rainwater collected from roofs. The idea was revealed in a leaked email seen by the Sunday Herald Sun.

In the email, National Water Commission chief Ken Matthews says, "Legally, all water in Australia is vested in governments."

Mr Matthews' email continued: "Governments have not yet considered the capture of water from roofs in rainwater tanks to be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the issuing of specific entitlements to use this class of water.

Can't wait to see who's brave enough to trying taxing rain water!

end of bolta?

For the unitiated (you lucky buggers), Andrew Bolt is a regular opinion write in the News Ltd stable. He writes directly for the Herald-Sun in Melbourne, but I believe he is cross-posted to some of their regional papers and appears on TV and the like.

Right Wing Dead Beat.

Anyway, its beginning to look like we might've seen the last of him. As a columnist, at least. The last post in his blog is telling. That and the fact that everyone else seems to have come back from holidays, but still no sign of Andy.

Understandable, too. His positions of denial on global warming have become ridiculously stark over the last year. Recently more and more of the media and political class have come to accept the blindingly obvious. Toward the end of last year even John Howard and Rupert Murdoch have jumped on the bandwagon! Bolt truly is alone on this issue. His publication will, in coming months, take on a much greater environmental message than it ever has before. As a result, Bolt's position must be considered untenable.

Of Bolt's other two high end flogging horses, Islam and Water, he is on safe ground with one. The News Ltd stable is showing no signs of reducing it's vilification of our Muslim community.

But on Water, the ground has shifted under him, too. The Herald Sun is beginning to take something of a "campaign" approach to water saving. Bolt's simplistic and generally derided solution is to simply build another dam! Of course, this is thoroughly pointless. The fact remains that, at least for the forseeable future, rainfall patterns have changed. We must capture more water in the cities of Australia. And use less. A new dam will not help when it isn't raining!

I may be wrong, but I believe the capacity of our current dams when full are adequate for a few decades yet. If they were full! I'll stand corrected, if anyone wants to refute that.

So, where to for Bolta? He's a loyal company man. The editorship of the Hearld-Sun is up for grabs, with Peter Blunden being kicked upstairs. Perhaps it would be easier to hide from the humiliation of abandoning his long held views from the privacy of a different office!

We shall wait and see.

simple and effective...

Why isn't this thing mandatory in new homes? Or subject to a rebate of some kind?

Image shameslessly stolen from The Age

It's perfect in its simplicity. And absolutely correct in its core assumption that we lazy humans won't make any effort to save water that involves more than a seconds work.

The way this thing works is it allows you to flick off the water in the shower, while you're lathering up or whatever, then turn it back on at the same temperature setting. Rather than all that hassle of resetting the water when you turn it back on, you see.

Ingenious!

Oh. My. God.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo who in turn have cited the New York Times, how about this little gem. An Assistant Secretary of Defense in the U.S., responsible for detainee affairs has added this delightful little opinion to the mix;

In his radio interview, Mr. Stimson said: “I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there?’ and you know what, it’s shocking.” The F.O.I.A. reference was to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Monica Crowley, a conservative syndicated talk show host, asking for the names of all the lawyers and law firms representing Guantánamo detainees in federal court cases.

Mr. Stimson, who is himself a lawyer, then went on to name more than a dozen of the firms listed on the 14-page report provided to Ms. Crowley, describing them as “the major law firms in this country.” He said, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

How do you like them apples. A government official suggesting there should be economic consequences for businesses daring to actually consort with "the enemy". Heaven forbid they should actually care for the rule of law when they try achieve justice for the poor bastards stuck in that hellish legal blackhole.

I don't know the chapter and verse to say exactly what sections of their constitution or laws are being violated here. If anyone wants to add something about that in the comments, I'd love to hear it. That's just unbelieveable. David Kurtz, the guy who posted it at TPM finished with this. I can't add to it!

"Each of us will mark our own low point in the Bush Presidency. This is on my short list."

ruddock v nicholson?

I'm not a lawyer. I haven't read any documentation about the makeup of the new US military commissions, or even the old ones for that matter. I wouldn't know where to start looking and, really, even if I had I probably wouldn't have known understood much of what I was reading. Certainly I don't have the legal training or nuanced understanding of any relevant precedents to say with enough certainty that someone's claims are wrong.

All I've got is my gut. And an ability to assess for myself the quality of a source of information. I can take in to account perceived and actual conflicts of interest, perceived or actual truthfulness of previous statements, the consistency of someone's position in relation to a claim. (Is this opening drawn out enough yet?) In short, my BS detector is fully functional.

So when I read Philip Ruddock's op-ed piece in The Age the other day it seemed wrong. But, sadly, I didn't have the facts to just come out to call him a liar. But it seems Mr Alastair Nicholson has! Well, he doesn't call him a liar, of course. He's far too dignified a character for that. But his response piece yesterday was a wealth of information.

Mr Nicholson doesn't need to dip into any more dignity than he possesses in his little finger to surpass Mr Ruddock as a quality source of information. So, even though they're both only second hand sources of information and naturally, each comes with their own particular viewpoint, if its okay with you I'll accept the assessment of the former chief justice on this one!

feeling like an idiot...

The last few days I've been feeling like a bit of an idiot. I'm making basic, dopey errors; I'm procrastinating on the most simple requests. They should be easy to complete but I'm drawing them out and making mountains out of the tiniest mole hills.

I've cocked up communication between my new brother in law and my sister about a possible fencing job. In order to cover my arse I've kind of lied to my sister. Its too long and boring a story to go into, but suffice to say I haven't really lied to her - the info she got is correct - but I've embellished the circumstances a bit.

Last night at work I made the kind of stupid, unnecessary mistake that I just don't make. Not a slip of the pen or anything. I utilised a function on the system that I knew nothing about and cocked things up royally.

To make matters worse, C has a new job. Well, of course thats good news in itself, but you see we've just gone back to IVF. So while I'm sitting here wasting time, my darling wife, who is about to undergo a painful drug regime, invasive tests and finally an operation in hospital is actually working longer hours and more physically demanding work than me.

I'm feeling lazy, stupid and very sorry for myself at the moment.

This is going to sound like changing the subject, but possibly its all tied in together. I don't know if its the root of the anxiety or not, but I've always been scared shitless of not being able to afford to support my family. Here we go again with the IVF and who knows, if it works this time we might be parents by November. Then where will we be?

My income alone is unlikely to be enough. Sure, there are tax benefits and so on, but still what if we can't afford stuff. Is C is going to go back to her backbreaking physical work while I cruise through in my cushy little 40 hour a week, entry level, somewhat poorly paying job?

I'm scared out of my mind.

The thing is, there is no need to be. I'm not without prospects. Together we have a broad range of skills and a couple of really good ideas, but getting off my arse and making them happen is proving rather problematic and I wish I knew why.

By the way, I'm not unaware of the irony of one in an essentially good place being so down on himself. It'll pass!

Anyway, I'm off to contemplate my navel some more.

it's not the same thing...

When will folks get it through their thick skulls that just because some who claim to be Muslims commit acts of terrorism, that not all Muslims are terrorists. Why is that this flawed logic, this blatant breakdown in deductive reasoning has taken become so widely accepted?

It just doesn't follow, people. It just doesn't follow!

Just because some men beat their wives, therefore all men are guilty of domestic abuse? No, that doesn't follow. A Doctor diddles a patient while they're under anaesthetic, therefore all doctors are sex offenders. Nope, no truth there, either. Yet somehow it is acceptable to claim that all Muslims are terror threats, simply because of the actions of some.

I think one of Islam's "PR" problems is they don't have a formal "command" structure like the Catholic Church does. There are respected local leaders who effectively take the title Immam (sic? excuse my ignorance) from no greater authority than the respect of their peers. As far as I'm aware there is no process of ordination or formal authority. Everything is decentralised.

This leaves them open to so-called "journalists" describing every nut who opens his mouth as a "muslim leader". Generally speaking, they're no such thing. The closest analogy to the Christian world would be the over-zealous young who frequently claim, say and do the oddest things in the name of their religion. These young zealots, though, are routinely ignored, written off by the media as over-exciteable youngsters. Yet somehow these same overexciteable youngsters of Muslim faith are deemed to speak for their entire religion.

Then you get nuts like Cr Paul Donovan, saying straight out that Islam is a violent religion. I heard him call in to 774 ABC yesterday morning. There is no transcript I can find, but apparently his views are well known. He claims that the Koran contains a number of "war chapters".

Well, newsflash, Councillor and all you other holier-than-thou types. There's a fair bit of violence in the Holy Bible, too. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of your own holy volume you choose to live by, while holding another religion to every archaic verse in their book. So, in honour of all those Christian types who want to hold Islam to every verse in the Koran, I introduce to you a new, regular segment:

"Ancient, Hideous Verses in The Bible".

Join me as we shed some light on some of the things that apparantly all Christians must agree with, since it appears in their sacred text!

personality...

I took this personality test.

On balance, I reckon it got me pretty right. Slighty off on a couple of trust in authority ratings, but rather spooky in a number of areas. I'd recommend it. Gets you thinking a bit, too!

There's a graphical representation in the sidebar. Ah, pretty pictures :)