audentes fortuna iuvat

I am up in Sydney for Christmas, and if you are in Melbourne and reading this, please dont rob my house. All the good gadgets are with me anyhow so there is nothing worth lifting.

I am up here to spend Christmas with my mother and our extended family. This is the first time in about 7 years we will all be together and we are all looking forward to it I think. I came up here last night to spent the night with Paul. He is off to Canada to go skiing, which had been planned a long time ago. I am a little disappointed he isn't going to be here for the holidays, but its not a big deal. I am glad he is going to have a good time, and what I am doing is the right thing for me. No drama.

HE is even kind enough to be letting me stay at his place which I am in Sydney and he is away.

So I am sitting here tonight, watching some TV and writing, and I find that it seems a little strange to be without him.  And its good to recognize that, at last, I am missing someone else.

Indeed all things do come.

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I am flying in the face of my mate Scott on this opinion, and those who read his sensational blog will realise that this is not a wise maneuver. Scott is an ex-Marine, or Navy Seal or something. He is 3 parts bad temper, 2 parts foul mouth,  4 parts pig headedness with just a dash of saint to round things out.† And he is not happy with Google, which is why we moved him off Blogger. But lets face it, Scott's a grown up blogger now and deserves a home of his own. Given his combat experience, and ignoring that in my own time I have been a SAS(SY) commando, I seek to not piss Scott off.

But daring his ire for a sec, Google has done some good things, even if Blogger is a bit dinky and contrary. Recently I came across their new customisable homepage and I have to say I likee, I likee a lot. Google has long been my homepage, because its a good start to the internet, even if all my browsers have a search box now. With the custom homepage I can get the other thing I use as a home – and thats news etc.

But there is something else I found amongst the widgets they provide, and it makes me very happy.

A web cam showing live shots of the Eiffel Tower .

Sigh!

Imagine getting up every morning to the Eiffel tower lit for the night (remember the time difference) or working in the evening and seeing it bathed in dawn light.

Its just beautiful, and needs to be nothing else.

I have even added a world clock and a weather report showing Paris to round out the experience.

Anyone who knows me, will know I love to travel and this is a window on the world that makes my days a little brighter. So thank you for this one Google, you have brought me some happiness.

Its interesting to reflect as to why this service is so good, and Blogger kind of sucks.I suspect it has something to do with the homepage actually being an extension to Googles core business of search – its about brining together the things I am interested in in a relevant way – where as something like Blogger is a different kind of service altogether. Perhaps a gentle reminder to Google to focus on doing what they do best, and to watch out for things that are peripheral.

 Just a thought.

But for now its back to contemplating Paris. 

†Most of my friends are like this

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Being one of the un-mutilated, and having gone through the process of being teased about it at school only to go on to discover having some additional skin is actually a GOOD thing, imagine my horror at the recent news that circumcision actually helps to stop the spread of AIDS.

CRAP!!!

Apparently , in three separate studies designed to clinically assess the connection between circumcision and a lower risk of getting AIDS began in 2002,.  preliminary results showed an astounding 63 percent decrease HIV infection in circumcised, heterosexual men compared to uncircumcised, heterosexual men.

Not flattering numbers I have to say

Apparently all of the cells that make things significantly more sensitive ALSO make one more vulnerable to infection.

The conspiracy theorists are going to have fun with this one – who would profit from killing of uncut fags?

Meanwhile I need to decide if I can actually put myself through that. Apparently its one of the MOST painful operations one can have as an adult. 

Oh joy. 

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Land-a-goshen

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Last weekend I went on a get away from Sydney with Paul. We drove down the south coast of New South Wales visiting Jarvis Bay and stopping for the night at Batemans Bay . Both were really gorgeous and it was a pity we didn't have more time to spend there, but we were enjoying the road, the opportunity for uninterrupted conversation, and the weather on the coast was a little grey, so we pushed through to Canberra on Saturday morning.

That afternoon was glorious in the ACT and we decided to start sightseeing at Parliament House, New Parliament House that is. Its been there something like 20 years, you would have to wonder when we will stop calling it "new". I guess since we didn't do away with the charming, stodgy old pile of "Old" Parliament house and instead built it into the New House's ambiance, it will likely always be part of the landscape and so the new house will always be "new".

I have been to the new house before, but not for long, and this time we did the tour. It was well worth it, a better hour sight seeing I have not spent in a long time.

To my mothers lasting disappointment, I am not especially patriotic, but there is something about the New House that made me proud of my country. We are a smallish country, economically prosperous, generous internationally with our wealth and generally a friendly people. And we don't take ourselves too seriously. It turns out our government house really suits us.

There were a few things that stood out to me, that made me proud of my nations accomplishments and our restraint. 

As you arrive at the building, the first thing you come to is the Forecourt, with its stark beauty and its island water feature. The centre of it is a huge aboriginal art work, recognising the original inhabitants of the country. Even if the current government cant say sorry, my nation wants to be made whole through integration not assimilation. The water feature and the mosaic make an island surrounded by a ring of water. Like my country, a small island girt by sea.

This is what the place is like, not subtle but not crass. It has some simple, realistic messages that it speaks plainly. Again, like my people, the place is simply spoken and to the point. 

Across the Forecourt is the Great Veranda, which is grand as well as charming and welcoming, how many government houses have marble clad in vines and creepers. Unlike the US Houses of Government which, in my opinion, cold and forbidding Parliament House welcomes you and offers you respite from the heat generated in the Forecourt.

The doors the Veranda leads to are personal and welcoming. Its a place anyone can and should enter. Its the people house of government, not the governments house of the people.

The building is designed in a modern style that looks forward and does not try to conquer the landscape. Rather it melds itself into the hill on which it sits, enhancing the scene by joining it rather than fighting it. There is grass on the roof, and you can walk up there. So that the people stand over their government, not the other way around.

Hows that for symbolism. And its intentional.

There is lots more I could say about the place, I just loved it, but I will stop my rambling and say that it was the highlight of the trip (apart from the time with Paul, but that kind of goes without saying). If you get to Canberra make sure you make time for a visit.

More pictures, if you are interested, at Flickr . 

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Not something you hear about every day, the creation of a new island, but its going on right now. Somewhere in the Pacific, inside Tonga's Territorial waters, a new volcanic island is forming.

A passing boat, the Maiken †, came across a field of floating pumice stone. A field that thickened so fast that they had back off quickly to avoid getting caught. Moving around the area, they spotted an island in the distance. An island that was smoking and steaming. An island that wasn't on the maps, or the satellite images. A map that Google Earth didn't know about.

A new island.

Apparently they were not the first to notice something was going on, just the first to investigate. A point that should highlight the difference between the Tongans and the Germans.

Apparently Allan Bowe, at the Mounu Island Resort, reported seeing an eruption on Late Iki that could be seen from Mounu Island between August 9-11, "We could hear what sounded like continuous thunder rumbling to the south and there was a huge plume of smoke and cloud rising up into the sky," he said.

Allan said that at the time they rang the tower at the airport in Vava'u and asked if the pilots could have a look, but they didn't get around it .

What ever else you might get from the story, the thing that jumps out for me is that the planet we are living on is changing and evolving. Its a process that has nothing to do with humans and will likely go on long after we are gone. While thats intimidating, and implies a certain insignificance, to me its good to know that there is more to the universe than man can ever control.

†a truly enlightened vessel since the owner manages to run a blog from the middle of the ocean. Welcome to 2006 folks.

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micrology

[fr. Gk mikrolog�a : minute discussion, frivolity]
/mahy KROL uh jee/
1) attention to petty details or distinctions;
nitpicking

"Micrology registers the occurence of thought as the unthought that remains to be thought in the decline of grand philosophical thought." – David Rodowick, Reading the Figural, or Philosophy After the New Media

not to be confused with a science dealing with the handling and preparation of microscopic objects for study

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The Cole Enquiry handed down its report yesterday and it was tabled in Parliament.

The gnashing of teeth from the opposition was audible here in Melbourne as the Government and its Ministers were exonerated of any criminal charges. AWB and it leadership on the other hand have been dealt a stinging rebuke which is (likely) going to result in ugly, painful, personally damaging legal action. 

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fellows far as I can see.

The report concludes that the employees of AWB knowingly paid money to Saddam Hussein's regime and actively sought ways to get around the UN Sanctions against Iraq and Australian Business and International law. They actively engaged in analysis to find ways to skate as close legal line as possible – and clearly they skated over it.

 As dreadful as this seems, even in with the hindsight provided by being at this end of the WMD-less Iraq war, why is this so surprising?

Does anyone really think that corporations are paragons of virtue? That they don't attempt to manipulate situations, the law and government to their advantage? That business wont do whatever it takes to make a profit?

It seems that the current business climate is more about what you can get away with, rather than what is right or honourable. And that for business the horizon for planning doesn't extend much further than the current financial year, or the next reporting period.

When there is so much money on the table, when senior executives stand to make such enormous personal profit, is it surprising to see corporate misconduct like Enron, Halliburton and Parmalat; and now like AWB?

I don't agree with it, I don't think it's right, but it just doesn't surprise me. The western capitalist system is set up to encourage greed, so lets not fool ourselves that results like this are anything other than expected. Not that I am suggesting that the alternative is any less intrinsically corrupting, that is if there is actually an alternative in play at the moment.

When piles of money are raining at you from on high, I suspect that its hard to resist. Even though, lets face it, there is actually only so much money needed to get you to happy. More money, doesn't make you more happy. Its just more money. Don't get me wrong, I like nice things, and I like to live well, but if two years as a (very) poor student taught me anything, it was that I could live and be happy on very little.

A lesson I suspect the folks from AWB are about to need to learn.

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Earlier this year our fearless Prime Minister, J'Ho, set up a panel of scientists, engineers and nuclear policy advisor's to look into the prospects of nuclear energy in Australia. Led by former nuclear physicist, and one time Government Employee/CEO of Telstra Dr Ziggy Switkowski the "Nuclear Task force" was charged with examining nuclear energy as a viable, safe and relatively clean alternative source of energy to the country’s heavily polluting, carbon-emitting coal industry.

The Switkowski report, a draft of which was released last week, found that it would be feasible to build 25 nuclear power stations around the country by 2050 with an estimated one third of Australia’s electricity derived from nuclear energy by this time.

The proviso was that this would only be economically viable if the government imposed a carbon "tax" through policies such as emissions trading schemes or green taxes. The report seemed to think that this was appropriate because

1. new industries, such as power generation, have been heavily subsidised by government in their early years to get them up and running and make them viable.
2. the underlying "cost" of carbon emissions, meaning climate change, was not being factored in to the cost of energy

Interesting.

Here is my problem with this – while pointing out that the long term costs of Carbon Energy, the report is not factored in the long term costs of Nuclear Energy. Those costs are difficult to calculate but include waste that can take thousands of years to stop being inimical to human life. Much more hostile than carbon emissions can ever be, and thats just the dangers that we KNOW about.

Who would have guessed how dangerous carbon emissions could be when, in 1663, Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester published designs for, and may have installed, a steam-powered engine for pumping water at Vauxhall House.

Jump ahead 323 years to  April 26 1986, when the central reactor at the nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded and caught fire, killing dozens and inciting panic as plumes of radioactive smoke spread outward; the toxic fallout eventually killed thousands. A massive exodus saw 150,000 people abandoning their homes and workplaces; everything for a 30-km radius from the reactor was left behind in the evacuation, creating an instant ghost town.

20 years later the area is still contaminated, the areas is largely abandoned, people still suffering the effects of radiation poisoning and the long term effects on health are still unclear.

I am a huge fag, with little to no chance or interest in procreating – but I am really concerned. Is this the future we want for the next generations, one where the dangers of climate change have been exchanged to one of radiation poisoning?

It feels to me that this nuclear debate is moving the control of energy from one industrial complex to another, that the focus of the policy makers is the success of industry. While the economy is important, its the means, not the end in itself.

Renewable energy sources are cheap and have no consumables, so why would the oil barons be interested in them? And since there are no consumables, there is nothing for governments to gain tax revenues from, so why would they be interested in them?

Answer – they're not. What they appear to be interested in is the fact that Australia has an estimated 40% of the global reserve of uranium and so any nuclear boom is going to benefit this country enormously.

That self interest is more than a little embarrassing, even to watch. Even for a "faggot" who is too "selfish" to have kids.

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After a bit of a break, Wørd of the week returns, with a word that could have been crafted just for me:

Schizothemia

from. Gk schizo-, from schizein, to split + thema, theme]

A digression by means of a long reminiscence;
repeated interruptions of a conversation by the speaker
introducing other topics.

(not to be confused with schizothymia)

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