Tuesday 31 August 2010

The journey of a modern day Marco Polo


Toothbrush and toothpaste packed ... check ... yes!

Righto, preparation for the journey to the New England area was complete.

Day 1 ... left the flood plains of the mighty Clarence behind and headed west.

First stop ... Glen Innes where the early European civic fathers (and, perhaps mothers, but I doubt they had much say in things at the time) had the foresight to plan for an urban centre with good wide streets.

Unlike most touros, who take the shortest route from A to B, a conscious decision was made before departing home that a fair bit of time would be spent meandering around the backstreets and roads of the study area.

And, what delights Glen Innes and Guyra proved to be.

Morning tea was had at a quaint tea and coffee shop housed in GI's town hall building (pictured above). And, it was a delightful bargain! The special of the day was home-made poppy seed cake (with cream, of course) and a mug of tasty coffee for the princely sum of just seven bucks.

But, the best part of the stop-over at GI was the opportunity it provided to catch up with the "news" of the day according to a couple of cockies who sat at the table next door. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the cockies were yarning at a level that was way off the decibel register and their topic of the day was The Merits of Snakes in Australia.

Cocky 1 remarked that snakes were on the move again on his property and that was a sure sign things were beginning to warm up and that spring wasn't far off. Me thinks, should I tell him that it starts on Wednesday? Nah, I'll keep my big trap shut.

Cockie 2 responded, "Ya know, I reckon the best thing about snakes, especially red-belly black ones, is that they make great belts."

Considering the girth of Cockie 2, I reckon he'd need at least half a dozen of the poor b*ggers to successfully complete a circumnavigation around his waist.

Then, off to Guyra. And it, too, didn't disappoint.

First thoughts were that Guyra's central business district was far too quiet and not much should be expected of the small township where I had the misfortune to get stuck on a number of occasions when hitch hiking to the university city to its south and had to cuddle up in makeshift sleeping arrangements and await a next new day before resuming my journeys.

Memories of lazy, biting, bitterly cold winds that went straight through you rather than do the proper thing and blow around you were in the distant past. The day was marked by a few low, ground-hugging clouds (typical of the tablelands) but for the most part it was a gorgeous sunny day with, I suspect, the mercury hovering around the low double digits.

Then, off to Armidale.

A couple of hours were spent exploring the township and the grounds of UNE.

First impressions of the city's CBD gained in the mid afternoon were confirmed via a second site inspection in the early evening ... the mall area is a disaster. Pedestrian traffic in daylight hours was almost non existent - there were very few signs of any post stimulus spending activity to be seen, although good tucker and coffee was had at an establishment a few doors to east of the NAB in Beardy Street.

Dinner was had at a newishly refurbished eatery and watering hole known as the Whitebull Hotel in Marsh Street - in its previous life is was a bl**d house called the Club Hotel. The food was 5-star, the staff were most pleasant and a local vino Peterson's Dangar Shiraz was exceptional (pity about the hotel's wine list describing it as a Danger Shiraz).

Again, it was impossible to avoid hearing the conversations of a group of diners at the next table. The group, who were well heeled and showed no signs of being short of a quid expressed hopes their local federal MP Tony Windsor and his maverick mates would saddle up with Ms Gillard's team - they reckon the stimulus $$$$s made a heck of a difference to their local economy and without it things in the commercial world around the area would indeed have been very ugly. I was in no mood to disappoint them and tell them I reckon it's a done deal - in my mind the three stooges have already crossed the rubicon and it's just a matter of time while they wait for the ink to dry on the memorandum of understanding they've signed up to with Mr Rabbit et al.

Day 11 and the vote count continues......


It's 72 all, it's 72-73 in the Coalition's favour, it's 71-73 with one still in doubt, he's up she's down - everyday brings a reassessment of the possible election result.

Here is the official Australian Election Commission tally at the beginning of Day 11 of the ballot count:

Click on images to enlarge

As of 9.56pm last night 84.90% of the primary vote has been counted and, the two party preferred count was 80.63% complete.

Mad or Dishonest - which is worse?


A Google search delivers about 64,900 results in 0.23 seconds for the search term senator fielding mad?
While tony abbott dishonest? throws up around 22,500 results in 0.21 seconds.
This snippet came from a young fella living a few streets away from me. Thanks, Greg.
Not all the entries accuse these pollies of being either mad or dishonest, but an uncomfortably high number actually do make these claims.
So how do the likes of Fielding and Abbott laugh this off?

Monday 30 August 2010

Rambo of the North: Take a bow Senator H.


Opposition Leader Tony Abbott likes to tell the world that the Labor Party is ill-disciplined and in disarray.

However, it would seem that it is the Coalition which is showing the more damaging cracks in its veneer, as the both sides of the political divide try to woo the four independent MPs who will decide who forms the minority government flowing from the August 2010 Australian Federal Election results.

ABC radio news reports this morning state that NSW North Coast Independent MP Rob Oakeshott is complaining of Rambo-style telephone calls received. In particular one call from a Liberal Party member of parliament who introduced himself as "The Devil".

Now from personal experience I would say that there is only one senior politician who has a propensity to start a conversion in the manner, so..........
take a bow Senator Bill Heffernan.

You've probably reduced your fearless leader to biting through his pillow during the night and, this morning's report of an apology is unlikely to have papered over those cracks.

Whale Hunts: Japan no longer has any 'scientific' excuse left


In The Australian newspaper, 27 August 2010:






For those interested in more detail about this new technique, a recent PLoS ONE open access journal article Thar She Blows! A Novel Method for DNA Collection from Cetacean Blow is available online in PDF form.

The original research was conducted using dolphins but the method is said to be transferable to research on larger cetaceans.

The Australian Government encourages and funds non-lethal research. A eight-page booklet outlining current Antarctic research can be found here.

Photograph from Greenpeace.org

Jaysus, that fork-tongued sssnake is at it again!


Not content with telling pork pies on his own behalf - now Libs Leader Tony Abbott is inventing words for Nats Leader Warren Truss and getting called on it when interviewed on Aunty's Insiders:

BARRIE CASSIDY: What has Warren Truss said over the last three days that you regard as meritorious?
TONY ABBOTT: Well Warren has said that he understands their position, the three rural independents, and he's happy to work with them.
BARRIE CASSIDY: I must have missed that. I haven't seen him interviewed anywhere.
TONY ABBOTT: Well look Warren has been talking to lots of people and certainly I've had lots of conversations with him and that's very much the message that I'm getting.

Sunday 29 August 2010

The NSW North Coast Nationals - better late than never?


Reduced to being the cow's rump of the Coalition partnership in 2007 and on 21 August 2010 further whittled down by voters to a mere handful of hair on the Liberal Party tail (with only seven seats held nationally outside of Queensland), have the Nationals have begun their fightback with this NSW North Coast recruitment drive in the Coastal Views on 25 August:

Ripley's Believe It Or Not - climate change


Connie Meskimen is recorded for posterity as someone who just doesn't understand how the natural world works - as she worries about the effect an extra hour of sunshine (coming her way due to daylight saving time) will have on the US climate.
Hat tip to KHayhoe for uploading the letter to Twitpic.

Click on image to enlarge

Are we over the thought of a hung parliament?


Click on image to enlarge

If the Google Trends graph generated at 5pm Saturday 28 August 2010 is any indication, it seems that Australian Internet users may be well on the way to switching off from the hung parliament negotiations and beginning to get on with the rest of their lives.

By last Thursday football, racing, and a celebrity chanteuse were generating more local searches than two of the terms commonly in use concerning the 21 August federal election result.