Back home from Ballarat

Got home from our weekend in Ballarat this afternoon. Did all the usual things there, visited Sovereign Hill and the Eureka centre, stayed with some friends, ate and drank too much, etc. One thing that was different was visiting a bird sale - my daughter and her friend are budgie lovers, so we went to the bird sale that was on Saturday afternoon. Beautiful birds, budgies, finches, canaries, parrots in all sorts of sizes and colours. Could have bought a beautiful pair of Major Mitchell Cockatoos if only I’d had a lazy thousand dollars or so.

Have to gripe about petrol prices. Canberra must have gold dust added to the petrol delivered here - its more expensive than anywhere we saw on the way to and from Ballarat. Why???? And I have to ask why is petrol so cheap (relatively speaking I mean) in Ballarat - 135.5 we saw, but 10 cents more 100 km or so up the road at Bendigo?

Away for the Weekend

I’m having an extra long weekend, taking today, Monday and Tuesday off work. We’re going down to Ballarat.

In other news, I’ll have another trip to New York soon. Got a week long meeting commencing 11/9, which is quite an auspicious date (the 5th anniversary of 9/11 as the Americans refer to it). (I still remember when that happened …just about to head off to bed when Sandra Sully on Ten’s late news started showing images, and ended up glued to the TV till about 4 am, like many others judging from the tired looking people at work in the morning).

Blogger Beta

Being one who can’t resist new toys and gadgets, I just had to update to the new beta for Blogger when I learnt of it tonight. Given the main new thing is a WYSIWYG template editor, I had a play with it and have updated my template. Still a couple of things not quite right with it, but you’ll just have to put up with them until I get around to fixing them.

Happy families …adventures in the wild west

Neighbourhood disputes sure are exciting out in Bonnyrigg - part of Green Valley, near Liverpool and Fairfield, which is real “westie” territory, large tracts of public housing.

Police said a group of people were in the rear of a house in Stubbs Place, Bonnyrigg, about 8pm yesterday when a group of about 15 men approached the house and started throwing rocks and sticks at it, calling for the occupants to come to the front.  A woman in the house said:

“I heard a commotion out in the alleyway and I saw three or four guys run down and then two seconds later I heard Asian swearing words and I was just locking the back door and a bullet went through,”

Police said the matter had escalated from a relatively minor incident.  According to the (un-named) woman, the dispute had gone back at least three months, from when her youngest son was involved in a brawl with men from the house on Stubbs Place and was struck with a piece of wood.

Again, according to police:

“I’ve asked all the families involved to consider that this matter is now with the police. It is no longer some neighbourhood dispute.

“Friends of one or either of both camps have taken it on themselves to escalate this [but now] they have seen common sense and they have said they will now leave it police.”

Sure, everyone believes that, don’t they?  I await the next round when the police lose interest over the current kerfuffle.

Due to the volatile nature of the dispute and the report of shots being fired, the riot squad was called as detectives began investigating the shooting.

Pretty impressive, hey!  Having the riot squad turn out to a domestic squabble.  Seems to be all the rage out in the choice bogan suburbs like Bonnyrigg, Macquarie Fields etc …no doubt also the likes of Airds, Claymore, Minto, Mt Druitt, and their equivalents in other cities.

Technorati Tags: Bonnyrigg, dispute, Green Valley, shooting, riot squad, bogan

He who shall not be named

Heard this little gem on the radio this morning.

Yesterday some protesters over the asylum seekers legislation, got a plane to do some writing in the sky over Canberra.  “VOTE NO” it said.

Apparently some kids at one of the local primary schools were concerned when it got to “VO” that Lord Voldemort was about to put in an appearance, to do his evil worst.

Technorati Tags: Asylum seekers, Canberra, Sky writer, Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter

Ceasefire - "win/win"

Both Hezbollah and Israel are claiming victory following the ceasefire in Lebanon which took effect this afternoon.

According to a Hezbollah MP in Lebanon’s parliament, Hassan Fadlallah, the population in the Shi’te areas of southern Lebanon, where the bulk of the fighting has been:

“They will return home, their heads high, in dignity, after the resistance achieved a great victory for them,’‘

But according to Israel:

“Politically and militarily, Hezbollah can no longer do what it likes in Lebanon.”

and according to Deputy PM, Shimon Peres:

“Hezbollah will not finish as a huge hero, but with its tail between its legs”.

A couple of my own observations about the ceasefire:

1. I don’t think it will stick for long - maybe the war won’t escalate to the same extent, but I think there is going to be ongoing breakouts of shooting
2. doesn’t it strike you as strange that the combatants agree one day that a ceasefire will commence from such and such a time, and then go and try to beat the shit out of each other right up to that time …you’d sort of think that having agreed to stop fighting, they could shake hands on it and stop there and then.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Shi’ites, Shimon Peres, ceasefire

Backdown on asylum seekers

The Howard Government’s proposed changes to immigration laws have been withdrawn from the Senate by the government after it became obvious that the bill would be defeated there, with one or more government senators either voting against it, or abstaining from voting.

The bill would have required all asylum seekers arriving on the mainland to be sent to Nauru for processing. If found to be refugees, they would have been resettled in a third country. Defeat of this legislation is a good thing … Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers has been absolutely shameful, and should be highly embarassing for us internationally. Government policy has been developed as a reaction to the redneck vote, and implemented by incompetent, uncaring bullies in the Department of Immigration. The government has absolutely played racism and fears about terrorism and security for all they are worth.

Sure, Australia has a right to determine who comes here and under what terms. But the heavy-handed approach taken to deal with relatively small numbers of asylum seekers has been totally out of proportion with whatever the perceived problem was. Sure, there are going to be some bad people among the people seeking asylum, but surely its not behind our government and its public servants to be able to weed them out and process the genuine refugees humanely and quickly. Instead the government has gone down the path of “all boat people are muslims = potential terrorists”. Shameful pandering to the xenophobes, nothing else!

I’m very pleased that the latest legislation has failed. Its not exactly unwinding some of the bad law that already exists already but at least its not getting worse.

Interesting too that John Howard is saying there will no recriminations for those backbenchers who opposed the legislation. Maybe not officially, but I’m sure clowns like this will try to damage them within the party.

Technorati Tags: asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, redneck vote

Broadband - in the dark ages

Why is it that every time governments get involved in new technologies they manage to fuck things up?

Broadband internet is the latest in a string of debacles of government policy on technology. Remember pay TV, remember digital TV? Problem is that government policy is more concerned with protecting vested interests such as existing free to air broadcasters, rather than getting the best outcomes for consumers. The Department of Communications (and whatever else it has in its name this week) should just keep the fuck out of things and let the market figure things out.

Of course the other big deal for the government is protecting rural and regional interests. Why don’t they just let the players in the market do their thing and if they want to beef up what various parts of the country get that competition doesn’t provide naturally, contract with providers to have it done and pay them specifically to do it? Presently the cost of uneconomic services is buried in the prices everyone pays via cross subsidies …I think it would be better if these were taken out, I paid what it should cost me, and government explicitly subsidises services where they cannot be be provided either commercially viably or at a price that is tenable for consumers.

However, I’m not seeing much urgency to get broadband sorted out. According to Communications Minister Helen Coonan, city users should be happy with their current speed of broadband:

“That is very good technology and currently no one is complaining about the speeds of broadband in metropolitan areas,” she said.

Possibly right, although more likely is that people figure telling the Department is a waste of time. I have 1.5 mbps which is nicer than the 512 kbps I had until about 6 months ago. I think its expensive, at about $70 per month (my employer pays for it so price is not all that critical to me at the moment). When I look at some offers in other countries, its obvious we in Australia are paying over the odds for inferior service … for some examples, try these: Verizon (US) - $29.99/month for 3Mbps/768kbps with free wireless modem/router; BE Unlimited (UK) - $60/month for 24 mbps/1.3 mbps, unlimited downloads, free wireless modem; Singtel (Singapore) - $85/month for 25 mbps unlimited downloads and lots of freebies; KT (South Korea) - $52/month for 50 mbps/4 mbps. We are being seriously overcharged for what we get here.

Australian broadband speeds lag something like 5 years behind key countries we do business with, and nothing looks to be about to move too soon. Chances are we will fall even further off the pace.

Helen Coonan reckons:

“They ought to be (happy with their speeds) in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, certainly.

“They should be reasonably happy with their speed of broadband if they have ADSL II plus. There are nine providers that already provide these speeds, so it is available, it is competitive.

Nice of her to say what we should or shouldn’t be happy with.

I thought also her comments about Telstra were interesting, saying that current management had failed to understand Telstra’s role in the community:

“The importance of Telstra, the importance for the social fabric of this country for getting good telecommunications as against the return to shareholders seems to be the kind of approach that’s been a bit of an impediment,” she said.

Umm, Helen, return to shareholders is exactly what the management of Telstra is paid for. The stuff about social fabric and community service obligations is what the government is supposed to be worried about. Maybe these things should have been thought through better before your government partially privatised Telstra? (In saying this, my view has always been that government has no real business running a telco itself. Telstra should be fully privatised and the government should provide direct subsidies for either it to provide or to enable disadvantaged groups of consumers to pay for, services that are not in the telco’s best commercial interests. Far preferable to having hidden cross subsidies buried in prices of services.)

Technorati Tags: broadband, ADSL, ADSL 2+, Helen Coonan, Telstra, privatisation, cross subsidies, government policy, pay TV, digital TV

20k

Was working in Sydney yesterday, so didn’t get to post, but my blog had its 20,000th visitor early yesterday morning. The 2nd 10k took 107 days …pretty much what I thought after I got to 10k, which took about 220 days (7 months and one week, I’m just guesstimating the days). Now for the next 10k!

Technorati Tags: statistics, blog, visitors

"Fat" versus "Weak"

Federal Opposition leader Kim Beazley and Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey had an adult debate outside Parliament House this morning.

Beazley said to Tuckey:

“Why don’t you take your weak, worthless self in there with the
weak, worthless piece of legislation,”

to which Tuckey responded:

“Don’t you call me weak … you fat so and so.”

OK, kiddies, grow up!

Another point - I’ve thought this for some time, Kim does not carry off angry and indignant well at all ….he just comes across as pompous.

Technorati Tags: Kim Beazley, Wilson Tuckey