Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Anzac Day - Celebrate this Land


On Anzac Day on Ngunnawal land, the Aussie and the Kiwi went on a bit of a trek in the Namadgi National Park. A bit of kanga stalking, rock tripping, a picnic under the gum trees - and heaps of sunshine! Highly recommended.

Entered the track from Gudgenby, a few Ks from the Gelndale Crossing about 30ks from Tharwa. Bring a 4WD cos it can get a bit hilly and dusty. Don't forget hat and sunscreen cos 70% of the track is open air with very little trees overhead due to land clearing. At Yankee Hat rocks you can see Aboriginal rock painting. The indigenous people of this land resided here till 1860s till it was turned into farm land. Its only been protected and heritage listed in 1984 when Namadgi was made national park. The rock painting is done by a mixture of clays, red ochre and some blood. The rock and the rock painting is likely to be a meeting place, with the black markings most likely from an open fire. You can see that the different figures in the painting depicts different animals - ie. the big white one is a kangaroo (looking suspiciously like our Milly...) smaller white ones are dingos, and the birds depict emus. The figures with the longer limbs are humans, and you can also see figures of a turtle and an achidna. The above picture is of a type of eucalyptus tree - commonly called scribbly gum - a type of moth's (called scribbly moth- eh!) lavae lives just under the bark and makes those marks (apparently doesn't hurt the trees). And on the right is another gum tree waiting to bloom.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Chuckle chuckle...

Was wondering if I was the only one that noticed...

but, does the outfit which controversial model Michele Leslie - infamous inmate of the Bali police for possessing two ecstacy tablets on the way to a dance party with two male offsprings of Indonesian politicians- wore on her runway debut for Michael Azzollini since being released from jail totally resemble the classic prisoners' stripes to you or what? oooops.

photo courtesy of The Age website.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

To Chris And Alice!!

hey gorgeous people (or, brave souls) - YOU DID IT YOUR WAYYYYYY!! (and not much more cos I have no voice left and I lost my glasses...) Have fun in Thailand!!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

100!

You are the 1ooth person to hit my blog since 22nd February. Woohoo!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Uranium, China, Australia, Taiwan

Well why the bloody hell am I not surprised that the federal government is selling uranium to China? and why do I think its the most stupidest decison they have made (this week)?

First of all, second of all, and third of all: Money
Obviously domestic pressures would never see Australia have a nuclear power station (for all the right reasons ofcourse), so what are they going to do with all the stuff sitting in the ground (by the way, aboriginal land, where the traditional owners don't want a mine, and don't want a waste dump put back in there to pollute their land and their health either). Export it. Where? Anywhere where public information is limited and controlled, and political oppression is rife and demand for energy for a booming industrialising economy is high, and the government and the big businesses licking their arse can do whatever they want. The offshore businesses loves you, the onshore businesses loves you, you get a big chunk of GDP growth/foreign reserves, voters are happy cos the nuke waste isn't coming back here, wah lah, k'ching!

No empathy for the environment nor public health
The environmental impact of radio active activity and waste is obviously extremely severe. Areas near the Chinobyl disaster is still badly contaminated and highly radio active (researchers need to enter in high-level protection suits) after almost 20 years after the disaster, never mind the cancers and feotal deformities of the people exposed to the radio activity in that area. This is considered short term. So think about what the long term impacts will be of other nuclear accidents. Over 22 known nuclear accidents around the world from power stations and other experiments have happened since Chynobyl. Given the fact that the Australian Government wants to contrain Australia in an energy system from 2 centuries ago rather than investing more towards renewable energy research and development, its not really that surprising that the environment isn't given much consideration in this decision to sell uranium off to China. I refer you to "Blowing In The Wind", a documentary by David Bradbury about the environmental destruction and health affects to local indigenous ppl from uranium mining and nuclear waste storage in South Australia (and other places) for an Australia context of the issue.

And now comes China, the most accident prone country in the world. They are prone to easily avoidable disasters because of corruption and lack of stricter controls in their rapidly growing industries. over 5000 miners died in coal mine disasters in China last year alone. Imagine what's going to happen in a completely new field of nuclear fission with a much greater risk of destruction to human life compared to coal mining.

Bringing Cross-Strait Arms Race to a New High
Great - China and Taiwan hates each other, and have been building up their arms on both sides of the coast of the Taiwan Strait for over 50 years. US sells billions of dollars worth of (old/retiring) arms over to Taiwan to deter China's edging military buildup each year. China buys more from other sources so it could just top Taiwan. Next year Taiwan stocks up more. On it goes. I ask you, if you were Taiwanese, would you feel safer if you had MORE weapons or less? Not the point, but certainly a sad one I should point out.

So here Australia goes fuelling this whole thing. China "promises" that its not going to use the uranium for weapons (as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty) but Taiwan, who is not a signatory to the NPT, (Only BY DEFAULT not cos they are a rougue state, but cos they got kicked out of the UN and China won't let them back in) does not have an obligation not to develop nuke weapons. How do you think this make China (who loves their bloody ugly face, on top of it all) feel? They could never be trusted at the first place not to develop nukes in secret anyway, and now Taiwan possessing more uranium is going to ENCOURAGE China to do so.

The Taiwan Strait is probably one of the biggest flashpoints for conflict in the Asia Pacific - neither side are quite desperate enough yet to start any war yet, but if you think about the human, environmental and economic casualties if these two countries go to war. And especially if both sides had nuclear war heads. (by the way I staunchly stand by my view that Taiwan is/always should be an independant country, and this mess with China could be easily sorted by peaceful means if they'd barge, rather by brutal force from either side).

Hypocricy - now that's new
Meanwhile Downer sits around counting his cash from his free trade agreement, not really particularly concerned about human rights, a country's sovereignty, environmental degredation, blah blah blah, not going to help Taiwan if China declares war on it, cos you know, its ok to go to a totally unjustified and illegal war in Iraq to promote so called Western Democracy, but its not particularly justifiable to stand on Taiwan's side cos its a fully fledged democracy that elects their own parliament and goes about their business without hurting anyone, and instead stand by China which is an autocratic, corrupt, human rights abusing freedom hating regime.

I love Australia, I love this government, and where the bloody hell are ya?

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Should One Name Their Goldfish?

Wooooooo hoooooo! Templeton and I took an interesting leap in our relationship this week - firstly purchasing an incredibly funky giant wine glass this week as part of an accident while looking for something else 2 days ago - then secondly taking up co-stewardship over three little goldfish from the appropriately named Fyshwick Markets earlier today so they could go in our giant wine glass.

The last time I had goldfish was 8 years ago as a very irresponsible young adult and it all ended in tears. So this time I consider as a fresh start and a new commitment to lives other than my own. I have done very good research and got all the necessary gear and ready to give our new friends a good start in their new spunky home.

Though I do have one dilemma - should one name their goldfish?

Identity
Should a goldfish have an identity like another member of your house as more common and larger and longer living pets such as cats, dogs, rabbits? I understand that animals raised for the purpose of food are not usually named but animals kept as companions are. Goldfish is in that grey area (for me anyway) - I do not keep them for the purpose for food, but neither are they companions as such, as I don't actually interact with them. Sounds aweful but they are for me more like "live ornaments". Don't get me wrong I still consider them as living feeling things (particularly how prone to stress they are). But they are not really you know, companions like Sexton and Millicent. I mean, I wouldn't name a vase or a wall hanging yeah?

I am aware that some less significantly regarded animals only get names after a particular incident. For example the hen that surviveds two consequent dingo attacks or the duck that rides for 200km in the engine room of a train would be called "Lucky". My goldfish only got 4km over the hill in a VW Beetle. But I am open to the option that they will do marvellously adventurous things.

Also - Templeton's argument - they don't live very long (induced by us??) and it would be traumatic to be sentimentally attached to them, aggrevated further by giving them a name. By the way my last one was called Finglebunce. yeah it does hurt.

Identifying
Usually people and animals are given names or a number so they could be identified from their population for a variety of purposes from feeding, taxation, mating, and when they get lost. When there are quite a few goldfish it probably isn't useful to refer to one particular fish as "the fish". Although our friends are not likely to "get lost" unless the cats work out how to fish them out. But it would be particularly unuseful when you are trying to describe which one is sick, hasn't had enough to eat, or stressed out.

In our case there are only three and I particularly chose three quite different looking ones - not because it would be hard to identify but simply because I like variety. There's the black and red spotted on white one, the orange one with a white tummy, and the classically orange one from the TVNZ and tampon ads. I could just identify them as that but that's quite a bit of mouthful. And giving codes instead of names ie 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C in a small population of fish would be just rediculous.

MMM... I think I'll sit on it for a few days.