News and current affairs
Sometimes I’m up late. Sometimes it’s close to midnight. And sometimes, I decide to stay up just that little bit longer, to midnight, to check tomorrow’s newspaper. Because The Age usually pushes its new stories onto their web site at midnight. The front page may not be updated, but the National news page is. I ... [More]
You wouldn’t read my blog for any kind of comprehensive analysis of course, but here are my initial impressions: Means tested baby bonus for incomes over $150K; extra tax on cars more than $57K? Excellent! Dunno why some are complaining about hitting the rich. The rich can afford it. Welfare should be reserved for those ... [More]
Last week I gave $100 to my old school’s building fund. I figure I can give at least double that to Burma cyclone disaster relief. Donations in Australia can be made through: Care Australia Red Cross Save The Children Caritas There’s probably others; these are the first four I found. For those overseas, Google has ... [More]
It was easy to find a taxi this morning in the city, but more difficult to find a driver — or at least one who would take you anywhere. Taxi drivers were protesting about driver safety, blocking the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Quite a few empty cabs were parked nearby. Despite claims of ... [More]
Tomorrow is ANZAC Day. Obviously up until now I haven’t really been paying attention, because this week I’ve read things I didn’t know about it until now: Four days before ANZAC Day 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, was shot down over France, probably by Australian anti-aircraft gunners. (Thanks Jayne) On ANZAC Day ... [More]
One of those frantic days. E Day — the Eddington report came out. Age story. In summary: do we really want to blow $20 billion on tunnels, when one (the road tunnel) appears to serve no purpose (hardly anybody drives NE to W) and the other (the rail tunnel) tries to solve a capacity problem ... [More]
Proposal for a Yarra car ferry. Google Australia introduces predictive web searching, which can show you how the Web will look tomorrow. Google USA and Virgin have combined to form Virgle: sending a human colony to Mars. Andrew Bolt to run for parliament in Peter Costello’s seat. A bunch of stories: SCG stand to be ... [More]
After a little cynicism, I did in fact join in Earth Hour. Over at Marita’s, we shut off all the lights for an hour and survived by the light of the TV, candles and a torch. In fact there seemed to be few lights on in the street, and it was hard to tell how ... [More]
I’m not convinced that I’ll participate in Earth Hour. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a terrific idea for raising awareness of climate change and energy issues. But I’m already well aware of those issues, thanks, and I’m working on reducing my emissions every day, not just one hour per year. And besides, I’m ... [More]
Given how their parliament occasionally carries-on, I wonder if the Taiwanese politicians campaigned on how good they are at hand-to-hand combat? That level crossing smash near Geelong is tragic, and the government should do more on improving crossing conditions. But one radio jock was almost making excuses for the car driver, not just missing the ... [More]
How is it that this happens every year, every Good Friday? Almost every shop in the country is closed. And yet there’s a continual stream of cars into the supermarket car park, driving up to see if it’s open. It’s not open guys. Almost nothing is open on Good Friday. The empty car park should ... [More]
When I first needed childcare, back in 2000, I first looked at council-run places. There were none without a long waiting list, so I looked at private. I found a place nearby called Wilmar, run by a lovely couple called Neville and Pat, with a handful of staff. So I signed the kids up there. ... [More]