Copied without permission from Donald MacDonald, Sydney Morning Herald 1st Jan 2010:

“So as I worked on my resolutions for 2010 I struggled for several days to get some achievable goals. I long to look back next New Year’s Eve and be proud that I did what I promised I would do 12 months earlier – Lord knows it’s never happened before.
And then suddenly it was all very clear. In truth we have little control of our lives and while we can certainly make some minor changes at a surface level, in reality life will take us where it will. Isn’t 12 months of life reward enough in itself? Wht can’t we just be happy with what we’ve got? Why not just enjoy the here and now while it is, well, here and now?
My resolution for this year is to be me. Warts’n'all, take me as you find me, like it or lump it. And if I make it to December 31 and I’m still smiling, then I will be pretty damned pleased with myself.
Happy New Year!”

I stumbled across this most excellent table of the electromagnetic spectrum from XKCD.com.

The photo above was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it sailed away from Earth, more than 4 billion miles in the distance…
From Voyager’s vast distance, the Earth was captured as an infinitesimal point of light (between the two white tick marks), actually smaller than a single pixel of the photo.
Carl Sagan presented the photo at a lecture in 1994:

“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

More here: Pale Blue Dot

America votes Nov 2006:

“In many ways what’s happening … is what is going on nationally – a rejection of very polarised, conservative policies,” the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Bruce Cain, says. “People are tired of the rancour, the failure to deal with important problems, such as immigration and Iraq. They want to give a signal they are ready for something more pragmatic and compromising.”

New Element on Periodic Table

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named “Bushcronium.”
Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
The symbol for Bushcronium is “W”. Bushcronium’s mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical Morass”. When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

This is a photo taken over looking Rushcutters Bay in Sydney, August 15 2006….

I’m depressed today.

This week our government is trying to push laws through that force all asylum seekers to be processed off shore and another that forces aborigines to swap title over their land for 99 years in return for basic needs such as housing and health.

I believe that reforming the Land Rights Act is necessary but we need more than a one day senate inquiry and disinformation from governement senators to determine what is the best course of action. This is a blatant and immoral attempt to open up the Northern Territory for the mining of uranium.

The Migration Act changes are simply horrible. “…between 1992 and 2005, Australia was the only country in the world to require the detention of both adults and children seeking asylum for the duration of their processing.” Now we’re going to do it again but this time in other people’s countries. We know the damage done to people kept in detention for years (especially children) and we now know that repatriated refugees are often killed.

But what are Australians worried about? The price of oil. Why is petrol so expensive? Well, apart from the fact that it is a scarce and diminishing resource we are also restricting supply from Iraq by maintaining a pointless and bloody war there. Greg Palast has some interesting points on this here. “The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone by just over $666 billion. (The devil is in the details.)”

So what do you do if you actually care about the greater good and not just your hip pocket? One excellent idea is to get along to www.getup.org.au and sign their petitions. An even better idea is to ring your coalition senator and express dismay at the new draconian laws.

Fight the fear and get involved – these things only happen because we let them happen.

The PM & treasurer reckon that oil and banana price increases are behind Australia’s climbing inflation. That’s just bananas.

Austalians normally spend $14 million a week on bananas. Post cyclone Larry we’re spending $7 million per week. Whilst that is an impressively large number of the bendy yellow fruit – here’s a few other items on our weekly shopping list:

• Housing – $1.2 billion.
• Cars – $2.8 billion.
• Alcohol – $180 million.
• Cigarettes – $88 million.

Gee bananas don’t really rate do they? Adds new meaning to the term “Banana Republic.”

Based on 2003-04 ABS and 2006 NRMA figures and with thanks to crikey.com.

Whether or not David Hicks is guilty of a crime has yet to be determined.
He has been kept in a US military prison in Cuba for 4.5 years during which time all other western countries have removed their citizens.

The following from Major Michael Mori’s guest blog at www.getup.com.au

David has been detained for four and a half years without trial, and has been in isolation for the past four months. He sits in a concrete room for 23 hours a day. He is allowed one book per week and one hour outside his cell for exercise in what best could be described as a large dog kennel, and to shower….The Australian government keeps saying we can not prosecute David in Australia. That is simply because David has not violated any law, Australian or international – not that the laws don’t exist. If the charges against David in the commission system were valid international law crimes, Australia could charge him with these offenses. But the charges made up against David by the commission system are not real. Every time the Australian government says “we can not charge Hicks”, they are in fact saying “David Hicks has not violated any law”. But the Australian government tries to use this as a reason to abandon him. It should be reason to stand up for him and bring him home to his family.

There is an extremely important principle at stake here – people can not be held without trial. No matter what your opinion on David Hick’s motives or actions, he is being detained illegally and our government does nothing because most of us simply don’t care.

Get over to www.getup.com.au and sign the petition – we must protect our basic rights.

These sobering figures are from the United Nations:

January: 1,778 civilian deaths

February: 2,165 civilian deaths

March: 2,378 civilian deaths

April: 2,284 civilian deaths

May: 2,669 civilian deaths

June: 3,149 civilian deaths

14,423 in the first half of the year.

What a god-damned mess.

Milan Kundera said that the struggle of the people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting – which is why I’m writing this post.

“My wife and daughters were looking at me and crying as the boat capsized. I lost three children and my wife, but the 150 children are like my own too. Those who perished with their families have found reprieve, but as for us, we are mere empty shells, our souls went with them. Every time I saw a child I could not differentiate between it and my children. Anywhere I placed my arm, a drowned child or woman would emerge and lift my arm and the surviving women would cry more. My wife and children stayed under the boat – they never came out.” [HASSAN JASSEM](http://www.sievx.com/archives/2003_07-08/20030707.shtml)

I’ve been following the [SievX](http://www.sievx.com) tragedy for a couple of years now. On October 18 or 19 a boat designed to carry 100 people sank in [international waters](http://sievx.com/images/MapSeries1small.jpg) with nearly 400 people onboard. 146 children, 142 women and 65 men drowned. Although about 120 people initially survived the sinking, only 44 were rescued by an Indonesian fishing boat after spending up to 20 hours in the water. More first hand survivor accounts are [here](http://www.sievx.com/articles/disaster/KeysarTradTranscript.html) – please read them.

The boat sank right in the search area of Operation Relex which had just been setup by the Howard government after the Tampa rescue. Australian Airforce Orion P3 surveillance planes flew over this area at least three times a day in search patterns and 5 extra navy ships also patrolled the area. Immediately after news of the tragedy broke John Howard stated that the ship sunk in Indonesian waters and was therefore not an Australian problem – he went onto to win the 2001 federal election. It was only some years later that the government started saying that the boat had actually sank in international waters. In fact the 353 people drowned in an area the John Howard himself had described as being under “saturation surveillance” (Brendan Nicholson, Age, September 2, 2001).

It gets worse. It [turns out](http://sievx.com/articles/challenging/20020325CTTonyKevin.html) that the boat had been stripped of all registration and identification marks, set to sea with a long crack in the hull and the refugees report being loaded onto the boat at gunpoint by Indonesian military or police.

So what gives? The Australian Federal Police knew the boat was coming and there were navy boats in the area – why wasn’t the boat intercepted? Why hasn’t the government (AFP) released the full list of the names of the survivors and victims? Why did the government maintain that the first they knew of the existence of the boat was when it sank – which was a monstrous lie soon exposed in the Certain Maritime Incident enquiry? They knew when it left, how many and who was on it. They knew it was overloaded and in danger of sinking. They know who drowned and won’t tell anyone. Why not? What is served by keeping the death list secret after four years?

[Tony Kevin's](http://www.tonykevin.com/psievx.html)
[book](http://www.safecom.org.au/tkevin-book.htm) offers a full account of the evidence that SIEV X was expected by the People Smuggling Taskforce in Canberra to arrive at Christmas Island over the weekend 20-22 October, that detailed intelligence reports had been coming down to Canberra from AFP on it, and that it had even been given a name, SIEV 8. The senate has called for an independant judicial inquiry each year for three years now and our “relaxed and comfortable” government ignores it each time.

In a Dateline program about SIEVX Greg Humphries of the Australian immigration department stated clearly that our government had them sinking boats in Malaysia to prevent them coming here. And there’s this from a [Channel 9 Sunday report](http://sievx.com/articles/challenging/20020901_SundayEnniss.html) into Mr John Enniss who was acting as a people smuggler while working for the Australian Federal Police in Indonesia:

“Last year Enniss boasted to myself and two other colleagues about how he had paid Indonesian locals on four or five occasions to scuttle people-smuggling boats with passengers on them. When we reacted with horror he was unrepentant, saying the boats were sunk close to land so everyone got off safely.”

According to the [Department of Immigration and All Other People We Don't Like,](http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/pdf/74a_boatarrivals.pdf) since 1989 13,593 people have arrived illegally by boat in Australia. Of these, 9,490 were granted visas. That’s 906 boat people landing per year over 15 years, hardly a flood – equivalent to two 747’s full of New Zealand and British immigrants. Of course boat people don’t look or sound like us white folk, do they?

[A lot happened](http://www.tonykevin.com/RawNerve.html) in the month leading up to the sinking of SievX and all of it during an election campaign. Palapa, the disabled adrift boat rescued by Tampa, nearly sank in a fierce storm the night before the resuce, with over 400 people on board. It had been twice spotted on the previous day by an Australian Coastwatch aircraft. The pilot reported the passengers waved clothing to indicate their distress, but no rescue boat was sent out from Christmas Island just 60 miles away on that day – a clear violation of Australia’s legal and ethical rescue at sea obligations. Eventually Arnie The Good rescued these people and the Australian government greeted them with SAS troops – made great TV footage.

Under direct orders from Canberra, over 200 people were left on board a crippled, unseaworthy SIEV 4 (Olong) during a 22 hour circular holding tow by HMAS Adelaide, just outside Christmas Island’s Australian territorial seas, When the boat suddenly began to founder, the people were instructed to jump into the water. They were then left up to 51 minutes in the water or in Adelaide’s rubber dinghies before Adelaide received permission to allow them onboard.

Arguments about reckless parents and queue jumpers don’t matter one iota here. What matters in these cases is that we, as a nation, did not do our best to help people in need. It’s that simple. If the cost of helping illegal immigrants is that it will only encourage more, then so be it. Contrary to what a small, lying man said some years ago – we do not, and can not, control how people arrive here. We can control how we treat them. John Howard has used refugees as political pawns and scapegoats. He has played with people’s lives to win votes, people with no power and often no state for support. A truly despicable act that reflects poorly on us all.

“…. the 150 children kept floating up looking for air to breathe inside their cabin – more water went in and they were drowned. We were a group of 28 doctors from Khuzistan. We lived in Iran for 11 years, only 5 remained. There were some children and some women amongst the group.” [Dr Haydar from Khuzistan](http://www.sievx.com/archives/2003_07-08/20030703.shtml)

“I boarded the boat with my wife and four children and also my brother, brother’s wife and two children. One of my children survived, my wife, my brother and family all drowned. My brother screamed out to be rescued but I could not help him. He was too far from the children. One of my other children kept crying for water until the morning when he died of thirst. I kept two of my children on my shoulders all night. It was raining heavily, I did not know where my wife was. One of the children died in the morning from thirst … ” [FAWZI QASIM](http://www.sievx.com//archives/2003_09-10/20030911.shtml)

I like this article so much. I’m quoting it whole.

Turns out that Venezuala holds 90% of the world’s extra heavy crude oil which becomes economic to refine into synthetic light crude with the oil price at about $40 a barrel. Crazy (Canny?) Hugo of Caracas wants to set the world oil price to US$50 a barrell, about $15 down from todays price and also have Venezula’s official OPEC oil reserves lifted. This is [a man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chávez) the US press generally [denegrate or lie about](http://www.alternet.org/story/16255/) so his street cred is pretty good. On the other hand he does have some of the [crazy-left-wing-dictator](http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR530032004?open&of=ENG-VEN) feel about him.

NO MORE CHEAP OIL SAYS CHAVEZ

By [Greg Palast](http://www.GregPalast.com)

The Guardian [article](http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1745467,00.html)

[BBC Newsnight](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm)

Monday April 3, 2006
The colourful Venezuelan leader hosts the OPEC meeting on June 1 in Caracas and he will ask OPEC to set $50 a barrel – the average price last year – as the long term level. During the 1990s the price of oil had hovered around the $20 mark falling as low as $10 a barrel in early 1999.

Chavez told Newsnight “we’re trying to find an equilibrium. The price of oil could remain at the low level of $50. That’s a fair price it’s not a high price”. Hugo Chavez will have added clout at this OPEC meeting.

US Department of Energy analyses seen by Newsnight show that at $50 a barrel Venezuela – not Saudi Arabia – will have the biggest oil reserves in OPEC. Venezuela has vast deposits of extra heavy oil in the Orinoco. Traditionally these have not been counted because at $20 a barrel they were too expensive to exploit – but at $50 a barrel melting them into liquid petroleum becomes extremely profitable.

The US DoE report shows that at today’s prices Venezuela’s oil reserves are bigger than those of the entire Middle East including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Iran and Iraq. The US DoE also identifies Canada as another future oil superpower. Venezuela’s deposits alone could extend the oil age for another 100 years.

The US DoE estimates that Chavez controls 1.3 trillion barrels of oil – more than the entire declared oil reserves of the rest of the planet. Hugo Chavez told Newsnight’s Greg Palast that “Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. In the future Venezuela won’t have any more oil – but that’s in the 22nd century. Venezuela has oil for 200 years.” Chavez will ask the OPEC meeting in June to formally accept that Venezuela’s reserves are now bigger than Saudi Arabia’s.

Chavez’s increased muscle will not go down well in Washington. In 2002 the Bush administration welcomed an attempted coup against Chavez. He told Newsnight that the Americans had organised it in an attempt to get hold of Venezuela’s oil.

Ironically by invading Iraq George Bush has boosted oil prices and effectively transferred billions of dollars from American consumers to Chavez. Up to $200 million a day – half of it from the US – is flooding into Caracas. Chavez is spending this on building infrastructure and increasing the minimum wage and improving health and education in the poor ranchos which surround the cities. As a result even his opponents accept that Chavez is extremely popular and will easily win the next Presidential election in December.

Chavez is also spending billions in the rest of Latin America – exchanging contracts for oil tankers and infrastructure projects and buying up loans in Argentina and Brazil. He has made cheap oil deals with Ecuador and the Caribbean.

He has also spent some of the dollars which have come in from the US supporting Fidel Castro in Cuba. In return Cuba has supplied the thousands of doctors and teachers who are transforming conditions in the barrios of Caracas. Washington accuses Chavez of buying influence in Latin America.

The Newsnight team had to endure the long speeches and marathon six hour TV shows which Hugo Chavez delights in. Chavez posed for Newsnight posing with the sword of Simon Bolivar the 18th century liberator who drove out Spanish imperialists from South America. The symbolism was clear but behind the showman is a clever political brain.

Chavez has not invaded any foreign countries. He does not have secret prisons at home or abroad. Chavez has repeatedly won democratic elections and the opposition operates freely although some members have been charged with accepting illegal foreign donations. Nonetheless George Bush’s administration repeatedly targets Chavez on human rights and finances his opponents.

Earlier this year US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Chavez to Hitler – because he was elected democratically – and last year the influential American evangelist Pat Robertson called for his assassination. Robertson later apologized and said that he did not “necessarily” have to be killed so long as he was kidnapped by American special forces.

Chavez told Newsnight that he was still concerned that George Bush had not learnt the lessons of Iraq and would order an invasion to try to secure Venezuela’s oil. “I pray this will not happen because US soldiers will bite the dust and so will we, Venezuelans”. He warned that any such attempt would lead to a prolonged guerilla war and an end to oil production. “The US people should know there will be no oil for anyone”.

Chavez does not accept Tony Blair’s criticism of him for lining up with Fidel Castro. He told Newsnight “if someone is sleeping together it is Bush and Blair. They share the same bed.”

[funny and irreverent!](http://downwindmedia.com/mov/wtfrudododoH264.mov)

Tourism Australia lawyers have already tried to stop this one – check out that mighty fine quicktime H.264 quality – it’s gold, gold, gold for local oz talent

Look at the output from more than 100 different Macintosh hardware sensors and more than 200 hard drive temperature sensors.

[V.cool](http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html)

Run the demo version first to see what sensors can be read on your mac before buying.

HOWARD DIDN’T KNOW

With apologies to Banjo Paterson.

©Mike Carlton 2006

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better

Knowledge, sent to where I met him at the wheat board, years ago.

He was chairman when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him

Just on spec, to make the point, that “Howard doesn’t want to know”.

And an email came directed, not entirely unexpected

(And I think the same was written in some Middle Eastern bar)

‘Twas his CEO who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it

“Trevor Flugge’s gone to Baghdad and we don’t know where he are.

But when he left Australia, he was going to meet with Alia,

A trucking mob in Jordan, who were keen to grease the wheels

For 10 per cent commission, they could swing Saddam’s permission

To get our wheat accepted: it’s the mother of all deals.

But I guarantee, Prime Minister, that there’s nothing at all sinister:

The chaps at DFAT told us that the sums looked quite okay.

When you’re selling wheat in billions, what’s a quick 300 million?

If it keeps the Nationals happy it’s a tiny price to pay.”

Sitting here at Kirribilli, I’ve been thinking, willy nilly

That it’s somehow reminiscent of the children overboard:

But I can handle Rudd and Beazley as I always do, quite easily,

By endlessly protesting that there’s nothing untoward.

I’ll tell Bush next time I meet him at

The White House, when I greet him,

That I’m sure he’ll understand about the wheat board’s quid pro quo:

He’ll forgive this minor error in the global war on terror

When I look him in the eye and tell him Howard didn’t know.

[From here](http://www.unionsong.com/u342.html)

This parody of Banjo Paterson’s “The Man From Snowy River” first appeared in the Mike Carlton column in the Syney Morning Herald as the Australian Wheat Board scandal broke.

I just learned that originally the current US led expedition in Iraq was called Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). Strangely enough Karl Rove quickly had that changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom – a deft move, Karl.

In this article by Greg Palast I also learned that “…the five largest oil companies pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 — compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation.” The price of oil is up 371% since Clinton smoked cigars in the egg room and OPEC are very happy chappies (the price of oil is up 148% since early 2002). It seems there were two plans developed for post-war Iraq, one to privatise the oil industry and the other to control it. The control option won, Iraq plays nice with OPEC and everyone prospers. Well, everyone in the oil business anyway.

This is not new news – this BBC article and this Democracy Now movie were released along with the original Harpers article in March 2005. By the way the movie link requires RealPlayer (get the free version) and the reprint of the Harpers article is good. There’s a good timeline of nefarious events here.

Hey All,
Relaxed, tired and happy Adam here after two regattas in 10 days!
I’ve been sailing on a [Sydney 38](http://www.sydneyyachts.com/index.cfm?paraID=12) called Easy Tiger for the past couple of months with a most excellent crew who have taught me heaps.
We came 5th in the Nationals (out of 22 boats) and 6th in the Internations Cup (out of 23). This one design racing (all boats are identical) is very competitive with the winner of the four day, 10 race series (called the Internations Cup) only decided in race 10.
More info [here](http://www.sail-world.com/indexs.cfm?nid=22236)

Many thanks to my pregnant lover, Karen for her infinite patience, to Steve and Julian for looking after the office and to Chris Way and the team of Tigers for allowing me to hunt with them.