Interesting article in SMH wth which I agree. Especially this part. Yet this bedrock of the game - the Sydney and Brisbane club competitions - the source of most of the players for the four state teams, and most of the Wallabies, is never allowed its day in the sun, never allo...
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Watching a doco about Gallipoli yesterday - was there anything else on? - several exerps from the famous diaries of CEW Bean were read extolling the virtues of the ANZACS. The producers failed to mention Bean "admitted that while the Australians at Gallipoli were a tough and b...
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My accreditation as an Austswim instructor is up for renewal. In order that I may have the privilege of paying an exorbitant sum to register, I am required complete at least 20 (unpaid) hours of teaching and renew my cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certificate. The former...
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You'd think that we'd have learnt something about land speculation over the last 200 years but in Rum Corps to white- shoe brigade by Jim Forbes and Peter Spearritt - thanks to Currency Lad for the link - the authors show that practices started by Macarthur and the officers of...
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Otto de Voogd is a Netherlander who has considered the ethical dilemma of traveling in Myanmar. It is impossible to travel to Myanmar without being confronted by the current travel boycott against the country. Specifically the Campaign for Human Rights and Democracy in Burma w...
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I never cease to be amazed at how, with only a few questions, the quizilla people seem to get it so right. Or perhaps they simply feed back what we want to hear. From Timbuktu to Tijuana, you know all about world culture and politics. You've seen it all, and what you haven't s...
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I tried to post this on the most appropriate blog - our host at ubersportingpundit central - but couldn't log in - so you'll have to put up with me venting spleen here. Probably the best thing that's happened to Australian soccer took place during the third quarter of the AFL...
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I'm looking forward to my parents coming to Darwin next week. That is if my Dad is up to it; he fainted at the pub last week and has been in hospital until today. In any case, I suspect that Mum will come anyway, regardless of Dad's health, she want's to celebrate her 80th wit...
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I can just imagine an echelon of ex-insurance salesmen (there were hardly any seriously successful 'insurance sales-women') salivating at the thought of the commissions to be made when superannuation Choice of Fund is introduced in July. Most of you are too young to remember t...
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Oh the magic of the the internet. Lazily looking through web pages scrutinizing subjects somehow linked to the Teutonic Orders when I came upon this gem. Did you know Australia was discovered by the Chinese admiral Zheng He ? A recent controversial theory put forward by Gavin...
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I find that, with advancing years, my short term memory is fading; it's getting more and more difficult to remember what I did a year ago. I understand that the ability to remember stuff that happened way long ago improves as one slips memory-less into CRAFT's disease, life be...
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Australians aren't very good at donating their organs. A comparison ORGAN DONATION RATE FOR SELECTED COUNTRIES with other countries puts us at the bottom of the list. Why this is so is uncertain. I don't think that we shy away from giving our body parts on moral grounds, indee...
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They've always been an entrepreneurial lot in the West, especially gifted at separating the fool and his money. This perception has been reinforced by Pierpont's dubious distinction awards for 2004. Following in the footsteps of the fellow who successfully claimed the stolen p...
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On the way home the other evening I was stopped at the round-about near home when a beautifully restored canary-yellow LJ Torana accelerated out of the corner and, with a delightful burble of the tweaked RED 273 cu inch six, carried it's pasengers off to enjoy life. Why does t...
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I was talking on the phone to my brother the other day and, included amongst the trivia that expands our conversations; the state of Dad's health, child pornography, our travel plans (he's going to Europe via the Trans Siberian railway next year, I'm following the Silk Road to...
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They're both simply engaging in the sort of expedient lying that is a working politician's everyday lot. Politics isn't a profession for saints. No, perhaps politics is not the career for the scrupulously honest, but that doesn't mean that we should be happy about our elected...
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it's my right to choose. I first heard about Phil Nitschke when he was working at Royal Darwin Hospital and he appeared in the local press waffling on about nuclear warships visiting Darwin and the lack of a disaster management plan in case an accident happened. The next time...
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Yesterday I put my parents on the GHAN which will take them back to dark and wet Adelaide. After a couple of months in the Top End they'll suffer the cold seeping into their 80 year old bones. I don't communicate well with my father but I make sure that we bump along so that w...
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Different bloggers write for different readers. Ken enjoys the cut and thrust of debate in the comments box with threads often attracting scores of extraordinarily erudite contributions to the debate. The Bunyip on the other hand, simply flings his vitriol into cyberspace with...
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Thirty years ago, when I managed the local credit union I received regular requests ( if memory serves it was called a S263 query) from the Australian Taxation Office to search through financial records in an attempt to find those taxpayers who had not declared significant int...
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Here I was, just cruising the blogs when I came upon Al Bundy's latest and, while thinking "he can write a good piece" especially the link to this post by Patrick when who should walk through the door but my beloved with her purse bulging with the well gotten gains of a public...
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As regular readers would know, a young couple that come from the next suburb are currently travelling the world. Every now and then they send me a travelogue which I post to my web site. The latest can be read here . For those who might like to see a wider view of Africa Tarun...
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What's all this hoo-haa about the Iraqi PM dropping a few insurgents ? They said the 58-year-old prime minister "wanted to send a message to his policemen and soldiers not to be scared if they kill anyone especially, they are not to worry about tribal revenge". What better way...
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I'll leave o thers to report on the match but wanted to say that the game and the result, while not unexpected, could have been made more interesting had the Australian coach been more constructive. I say not unexpected because the world's best attacking team vs the best defen...
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It's granny season in the Top End. Visit any shopping centre and you'll see the oldies shuffling around wasting time, looking after the grandchildren, until their working children finish supporting the unemployed and the military and they can go home to get their fix of the da...
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Tarun and Dan have emailed more details of their African Odyssey: read it here.
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I have an investment in a little cashbox that raises finance to invest in biotechnology companies. It's had a couple of successes (e.g. C3 and Starpharma) and I'm hopeful that some of it's current investments will pay off in the future. I received an email alerting me to a new...
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In The Atlantic Monthly : July/August 2004 Christopher Hitchens writes, Leon Trotsky survives as part kitsch and part caricature. But the reissue of a majestic biography reveals him as he always was - a prophetic moralist; The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879-1921: The Prophet Unar...
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ATSIC NT North Zone Commissioner Hill is astounded Mr Bob Beadman, a former senior public servant, has displayed such ignorance. Commissioner Hill made the comments following the release of Mr Beadman's report; Do Indigenous Youth Have A Dream? published by the Menzies Researc...
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I suspect the Professor has been caught speeding past the billabong again. I continue to be amazed at his eloquent loquacity even if not agreeing with his point of view. I think he would agree with this. You may have noticed me at an academic conference or meeting sometime in...
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It looks like Ken doesn't have to resort to blog bile posts, porno photos et al. to start a lively debate in the comments section, he simply throws together a piece about his old favourite global warming and the commentaries flock in, (not that I would for one moment suggest a...
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I received an email today entitled; DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...? All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? It took five minutes for the TV warm up? Nearly everyone's Mum was at home when the kids got home from school? Nobody owned a purebred dog? When a a shilling was good pocketmoney?...
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As you may have deduced from earlier blogs about global warming I don't believe we'll have time to worry about the gradual increase in temperatures leading to asphyxiation from carbon dioxide, world's end will be due to a well-overdue Dansgaard Oescher event. Reading the weeke...
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I got some more emails from Tarun and Dan today, if you want to read about their adventures click here.
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Don't you hate the way advertisers treat you like a moron. UP TO 99% OFF screams the ad. What a waste of money !! Does the advertising guru really believe that the average consumer watches/listens to/notices garbage like that; or has (s)he used so much nose cleaner that connec...
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The review of Fallen Order: A History (Karen Liebreich) by Miranda France in The Guardian Unlimited tells us that Catholic priests have been sexually abusing children for 400 years and still nothing has been done to punish the perpetrators. The web is full of reasons, excuses...
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The Troppo Armadillo, posing as a legal academic, was overshadowed by Roger Maynard, correspondent for the London Times in a discussion of the Falconio case in Territory stateline on Friday night. TA blogreaders would have been amazed at how quietly Ken sat while the Times goo...
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A recently-retired friend of my wife applied to a local volunteer organisation to assist immigrants in learning English. She was informed that she would have to acquire an accreditation involving three hour sessions, two nights a week for eight weeks, two assignments and a thr...
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Watching Red Kerry on the box the other night I got a bit prickly over a report that the World Health Organisation was concentrating on obesity at the Health 2004 conference, "attended by representatives of the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, health ministers fr...
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A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a friend in NSW publicising the effort to find Daniel Morcombe. As a rule I don't do anything about pleas such as this because I have been hoaxed in the past, but in this case I made an exception and forwarded the email to my addr...
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I've just updated Darwin travellers exploits in a kibbutz and the Golan Heights and their experience with the Maasai.
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For the parents of teenage girls. Letter to a Mother: A mother enters her daughter's bedroom and sees a letter on the bed. With the worst premonition and trembling hands, she reads it: Dear Mom, It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm telling you that I have eloped with my...
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I just came across this site. I know quite a few people from overseas look at this blog and thought some of you might like to catch a glimpse of how we see ourselves. You know what a sucker I am about Dads writing poetry for their sons, so, if similarly inclined look here .
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While we were hiking in the glorious Argentinian Glaciers National Park were overheard some other hikers speaking strine and started to walk with them back to El Chalten where they had a camp. Along the way we found that they too lived in Darwin and indeed that Dan is the son...
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Both blogging and reading blogs depends upon my mood for the day. It sometimes takes, I'm sure you will agree, a degree of fortitude to bear the tidal wave of crap that spews forth onto the blogpages of cyberspace. However, no matter what sort of mood I'm in, I usually take th...
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Your past life diagnosis: I don't know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere in the territory of modern East Australia around the year 1800. Your profession was that of a map maker, astrologer, astronomer. Your brief...
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Francis Hopkinson - An Oration, Which Might Have Been Delivered to the Students in Anatomy: "No where's the difference? - to th' impartial eye A leg of mutton and a human thigh Are just the same - for surely all must own Flesh is but flesh, and bone is only bone." Why am I not...
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A couple of years ago my brother left his Government job and was eligible to take his quite considerable superannuation benefit out of the fund. Like the smart lad he is, he contacted me to run my eye over the recommendations his financial planner had made for rolling over his...
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I have this terrible fear of spending my last years sitting in a nursing home with my dick hanging out of borrowed pajamas, dribbling studiously at the aquarium as the yellow Hurricane fish play rugby against the blue Waratah fish, waiting for a personal carer to spoon just en...
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On Sunday 14th March 2001, Spain played Romania at home in the first of the IRB Rugby World Cup European Zone preliminaries. Halfway through the first half the Spanish prop forward Iganez was sent off for stamping on the Romanian fly half Corin Abrazu. The Romanian was taken o...
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I've spent the last six weeks or so trying to get enough information together to enable me to profitably day-trade the ASX. The reason it's taken me so long is because I'm innately conservative and pure speculation is contrary to what I spent a large slice of my life trying to...
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Some one in the Labour party must have read my Post about financial literacy (probably some one in the party here in the Territory, I understand that Ken's blog has become compulsory reading for NT party apparatchicks ) and, following the dictum that the Government should have...
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During the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century, Argentina (along with Australia) was considered by objective analysis amongst the richest (per capita) countries in the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Argentina was an affluent society, the most dyn...
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Perhaps I was a little hasty in recording a less than favourable impression of Chile; - after all, our first day was marred by the only example in 2 months of an accomodation provider cheating us, followed by two long bus trips through the centre of Chile, from the sterile des...
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Just to let those of you who are both forgetful of the fact that I am traveling in South America and at the same time sufficiently geographically challenged to be unable to distinguish Bolivia from Belgrade, I left the area of Bolivia currently being flooded a couple of weeks...
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The Peruvians are great wall builders. Show the poorest campesino a field full of rocks and before you can say Sexy Woman, he ´s knocked together a wall - around his house, around his field, along the river, up and down the mountain side. Travelling across the altiplano throug...
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Ahhh the magic moments in travelling. Not that I could begin to match the masterwork by Yobbo, but then anyone who goes to that sterile island off the coast of Malaysia and compounds the error by flying Qantas deserves what he gets. I ´m sitting at an Entel terminal in La Paz...
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Words can ´t really do the vision justice. As one walks into the main entrance the view of the site is amazing, mindblowing, I can ´t imagine what it must be like to see it through the Sun Gate at sunrise. That ´s right, I didn ´t walk the Inca Trail because my knees are shot...
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G ´day from Cusco in Peru, I write these words breathless from the high altitude and the grandeur of the Inca empire. Contrary to what Ken said about taking time to blog while on holiday I will post regularly if for no other reason than it helps me to remember the finer points...
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The DFAT site is supposed to alert travellers to any difficulties that are being experienced overseas.I suspect however that they don't really know what's going on outside the embassy, and in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, outside the embassy means the streets of Santiago...
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Australian's let us rejoice, For we are young and free. For a start if it means me, that's ageist, I'm now chronologically superior and if it refers to the age of the country, when do we become grown up ? Apropos the debate about freedom to espouse a political ideology and fre...
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Just surfing the blogs and I came across this . Love the way s/he pays out on government , irishmen , looks at love , and gives a great example of the art of teaching . Go read, the whole blog is very refreshing.
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I've been mean I know, leaving poor wen to bear the load all by herself, a newly hatched armadillo no doubt wondering what she's let herself in for; me, I'm more interested in watching the rugby than blogging. But I have more excuses. For nearly a week my computer has lain idl...
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Reading Gianna's blog I had to look at the orgasm simulator and decided to read the blog Bifurcated Rivets when I saw an interesting bit on credit cards . My credit card (CC) has been taking a hammering lately as I book flights and accommodation in preparation for going to Sou...
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For a while now I've read the global warming debate on this site but, not having sufficient knowledge of the arguments to be able to contribute, have not added to the comments of JQ, bark, draino and sMiles flying back and forth. Anyway, I'm much more interested in the 'big pi...
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Now be honest ! Who amongst you hasn't had a full blown, boots'n'all sexual fantasy about some one, depending upon your preference, male or female, depending upon your age, older or younger than you ? I want a lover with an easy touch I want somebody who will spend some time N...
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My son's IQ exceeds 150. Consequently I am of the view that IQ is hereditary,and further that boys inherit their IQ from their father (I made up that last bit). I read an article in the AFR a couple of days ago about how the traditional concepts of IQ were being supplanted by...
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Lots of Rugby news over at RWC Round Up but I can't agree with the list of posers (def; drink in lounge bars and sit down to piss) so I've decided to show you some of the players I admire most. Sure they may have faces only a mother could love but they are the one's that, at t...
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The RWC game France v Fiji was extremely disappointing for me, apart from the score, it's sad to see one of the most exciting rugby teams in the world having to recycle Serevi, a player whose most trenchant supporters would admit, has passed his peak, added to the likelihood t...
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Two articles in Friday's AFR, John Hewson's "Reaping the whirlwind" and Laura Tingle's "Full of promise but short on substance" (only available online to those prepared to pay) make interesting reading, partly because they are about the same subject, looked at from different p...
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My mum always told me I had 'big bones', I'm not really fat, just 'cuddly' according to my wife and so I've always had a reasonably positive self image, but I was doing some research on Metabolic , a company involved in finding drugs to reduce obesity, in preparation for buyin...
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Following on from my post about the Defence Symposium held in Darwin, some of the papers are now available. If you are interested in obtaining some background, the details of the economics of the defence forces in the NT 2000/1 are here . The (very heavily censored?? edited) p...
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Oh what a feeling ! (perhaps Toyota have trade-marked that, never mind)..... Lovely to know that somebody makes the effort to trek on over to TA every day to read the musings of the post-moral majority. I thought I'd better post something to assuage Mork and those readers of h...
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Ken Parish alluded to the Charles Darwin Symposium titled "The Eye of the Storm: Northern Australia's Location in an Arc of Instability " in which several speakers explore[d] ... the regional security issues that have arisen since the commencement of the 'War on Terror' and th...
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I've been catching up on surfing my favourite blogs (it seems many blogspots were down yesterday) and I came across a 'pome' on Gummo's blog. Even though I'm a "wise old wood god" who has seen the offspring of "first primeval calf", to tell you the truth I don't understand why...
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Mark Latham has achieved his aim of deflecting attention from Simple Simon's poor poll results by hyping his 'saving plan for low income families'. Mr Latham said breaking the poverty cycle was crucial in overcoming many social ills, such as welfare dependency and crime. "If y...
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I had a relatively late start to REAL work. I was having such a good time at Uni (supported by my wife; I only agreed to marry her providing she graduated successfully and was able to keep me etc. etc...) Then after one year masquerading as a teacher, bumming around Europe for...
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I was just thinking about the last time I wore shoes. Since ceasing work in an office I find that the occasions where I have to wear 'proper' footwear are becoming less and less. Going to work these days involves donning a pair of bathers and an Austswim instructors shirt to p...
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My brother and his wife are currently touring the old dart and I thought you may be interested in an extract from their recent newsletter. On the Isle of Skye we went to a Highland Games, great entertainment, the spectators sit on a grassy rise surrounding a flat arena where s...
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Now that the debate about what white Australia can do to improve the living conditions of Aboriginals is back on track I thought I'd add my two dollars worth. $2 because this is a subject that I actually know something about, having put my snout, along with almost every other...
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In response to the question "I was wondering more whether the antipodean Aristotle might have a range of Op Ed commentators in mind whose prose might "make the heart skip a beat?" Whose legacy might be enduring?" posed by Geoff, in this blog Chris mentioned the name Charles Be...
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The responses to the blogs I've written about David have been, without exception, very supportive, and thank you one and all. I really expected that there would be one or two that said something like "wake up and get a life loser, stop wallowing in self pity and write somethin...
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We watched the first doco 'The Topic of Cancer' ten years ago while our son David was in the middle of chemotherapy treatment. At the time we were certain that he would pull through and consequently found the program interesting but not particularly upsetting. Even when the Da...
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MEMO TO : OFFICE OF NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS FROM : DEFENCE SIGNALS DIRECTORATE SHOAL BAY ECHELON INTERCEPT DATE : August 28 2003 CLASSIFICATION DISTRIBUTION TO LEVEL MSC1A Based on identification of DICTIONARY item " Department of Defence" the following intercept was received on...
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My father reached his 77th birthday two weeks ago. I love him dearly and I don't like to disagree with him but in the last few years he's become obsessed by, what he calls, the blight of single mothers. It started out with his bitching about the cost of welfare payments. He us...
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Sonia Harford has written a pretty piece, A long-lashed barman leaning across the counter to ask for your order. A couple on a bus smiling smugly and leaning into each other as the vehicle bumps and sways. A woman's long, languid yawn, bangles skittering down her arm. A police...
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In the late 1800s, economist and avid gardener Vilfredo Pareto established that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. While gardening he later observed that 20% of the peapods in his garden yielded 80% of the peas that were harvested. And thus was born a...
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I like reading ... anything, everything, my tastes are exceedingly eclectic. I'll sometimes pick up half a dozen books from the library and read the lot in a day or two, even though I know from the first page that they are crap, it seems that once started I feel as though I ow...
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You were Columbus! You were born in Corsica in 1451. As a child you caught rides on ships; you always loved the sea. You didn't get much formal education but you were very clever when it came to navigation and sailing. Your idea to sail west to Asia was not to prove that the w...
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Remember you read it here first ! Well, after you probably saw it here . Today's NT News reports that the local Army Reserve has begun training the ultimate deterant to invasion of the Top End. Major 'Sammy' Serambuka, project team leader told the News, "Crocs may appear stupi...
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Apropos Ken's article on the Evatt Foundation site (contributors to TA are required by our verbal contracts, you know the one's not worth the paper they're not written on, to shamelessly promote the chief Armadillo's work), it's pleasant to see the toothless revolutionary deli...
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I don't really understand the in-depth research done by the IPCC, and always thought a 'hockey stick' was something Nova Peris used to get a gold medal. Then there is the usual dash of Ricardo ridicule, providing evidence once again that somebody enjoys Ken's blogging so much...
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My wife and I have been away for a couple of days, far from the madding crowd. We went 250 kilometres down the Stuart Highway to a place called Edith Falls, actually it's called some other Aboriginal name now since it's been incorporated into Nitmiluk National Park, but we'll...
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I generally like the way Deirdre Macken writes for the AFR. She has the happy knack of making the most mundane report appear interesting. Her piece in the Weekend AFR is no exception. She discusses the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's 2002 report, in particular the...
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Ken rang me today telling me to read a comment he put on a blog exhorting me to comment on the Rugby. When I went there, I notice Chris said the same thing. While I was looking I read the Wog's piece for her/his father - and I had to email her/him saying that her/his father wo...
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Now that James has access to all the dirt - well everything that goes on in (quasi) government departments must be filed in the library, n'es pas ? - we'll all be much better informed. Personally I'm pleased to see he has got a (nearly) real job, all he needs now is a haircut!
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In a previous blog The Business of Health I copied a paragraph from Penelope Williams's book, Alternatives in Cancer Therapy ; The economic argument is certainly compelling. The cancer industry, indeed the entire health industry, is a tangle of vested interests including the p...
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It's estimated that as much as half of the world's wealth is tied up in real estate. The value of the world's real estate far exceeds the market capitalisation of all the world's stock markets, futures markets and bond markets. Vast fortunes have been made and lost in real est...
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I was searching a reference and somehow got here.
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Contrary to Geoff Honnor's opinion, I have little respect for Dodson and I think that many of the endemic problems that beset ATSIC, are at least partly the fault of Dodson in his previous incarnation. His recent address is the same old same old; long on rhetoric, short on sol...
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It seems the Teachers Union Health Fund has got itself in a spot of bother with government regulators over some of the financial deals the TUH board has done using members funds. In an article by Colleen Ryan as a sidebar to a feature on health funds in the AFR 13/6/03 (availa...
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When David Morgan suggests (AFR 12/6/03) "...accelerating the phased increase in the preservation age for superannuation from 55 to 60....." those of you currently aged less than 50 who are anticipating (semi)retirement at 55, should be re-assessing your plans. It's most unlik...
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Watching the 7.30 report the other night I was interested to see a segment on Human Growth Hormone. The pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee (PBAC) has restricted subsidy to children, thus causing anyone over 14 that reckons they need the drug to pay full price if they w...
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I've just completed an agribusiness project for my brother to offer to a couple of his friends who have expressed an interest in raising cattle. One is a lawyer, another an architect, both of whom have been moaning about changes to the tax laws that prohibit them from 'hobby f...
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I've just returned from the International Golden Oldies Rugby Union Festival in Brisbane (I'll try to get around to posting something on ubersport) to find that Ken has been chastised by the cyber fairies for some, as yet undisclosed, transgression against cyberfuddle. I've be...
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