Yet More Brilliant Creativity

Here I am, sitting in a cafe in Las Vegas, expecting to be blogging something about how much fun I'm having, or how spectacular this place is (or perhaps even not blogging at all).

Instead, I have to share this with you...

GO HERE It's a biggish site, but let it load. It's worth it.

I couldn't resist sharing it with you... regular readers will know how much I love open displays of supreme creativity.

And thanks to my dear friend Inge, of Aarhus Denmark, for sharing this with me.

One More Sleep

In about 8 hours, Dr J and I will call a taxi and head off to the airport. 18 hours later, we'll arrive in the Excited States, get fingerprinted and asked a whole bunch of questions about whether we intend to kill the President on our visit, and then we'll be allowed into 'Merica.

I feel like a 6 year old on Christmas Eve.

Anyway... the point is... I may not blog for a while. Or maybe I will. We'll see.

Climate Change Bureaucracy

Right now, bureaucrats from every nation on earth are enjoying some time in the Bali sun trying to hammer out a new protocol to take over from the Kyoto agreement when it expires in 2010.

These are the same bureaucrats who framed Kyoto, so we can expect the Bali Protocol to tackle the "threat of global warming" with the same gusto and effectiveness as its predecessor.

Just so we're all on the same page here, let me remind you...
Bureaucrats are not interested in outcomes, they're concerned about processes. They believe that if you put the right process in place, the outcome will take care of itself. Actually, that's not really what they believe, What they really believe is that if you put any process in place, you will have a process, and that's better than no process because once you have a process, you can enforce that process by ticking (checking) boxes on a list. The outcome is, at best, a secondary consideration and usually doesn't enter the picture at all.

This thinking might help you understand the fine print of the Kyoto Agreement, which our new Prime Minister has embraced with religious fervour. (Until this week, only Australia and the USA had resisted.)

Kyoto sets binding greenhouse gas emission targets. "Binding"?" Ok. Not exactly binding, only sort of binding.

Let me explain, and to do that, I'll put aside my skepticism about the whole "we humans did it" global warming thing for a moment, and join the ranks of believers.

• Global warming, they say, threatens civilisation. Millions are going to die.
• The climate will heat up, food production will plummet, and millions will die.
• Rainfall in some parts of the world will decrease and millions will die.
• Rainfall in some parts of the world will increase and millions will die.
• Sea levels will rise, inundating low lying lands. Millions will die.
• Severe weather will become more frequent and more severe. Millions will die.

It is the catastrophe of catastrophes in the making that threatens our very survival as a species.
We MUST do something, and that means we MUST set "binding" targets for green house gas emission reduction. Now!

(Phew. I'm glad I just joined the ranks of these believers for this blog. If I really believed all that, I don't know how I could carry on.)

So the scene is set. And the solution needs to be put in place by governments around the world. All of our governments need to get together to try to do something about the impending doom.

But who runs governments?

Bureaucrats. In typical bureaucratic style, they set these "binding" targets... a process for dealing with the problem. And the penalty for not meeting targets...?

A fine.

Does that strike you as odd? Here they are telling us that if we do not fix the problem, millions will die. So many millions that it will make Nazi war crimes look like a Saturday evening in Detroit. Their solution? They'll fine us.

Spain, apparently, is already heading towards a multi billion Euro fine. They've failed dismally to meet their Kyoto obligations. So has Ireland, Italy, and a long list of other countries. But that's ok. There's a process. Countries failing to meet their obligations will be fined. Don't worry about the fate of the planet... the system's in place, and I'm sure there are mechanisms for collecting the fine too. Perhaps they'll suspend the driver's licence of the country's president/prime minister/monarch/despot until the fine is paid. That's what they do here.

If it wasn't so serious, the whole thing could be turned into a very sharp sitcom.

These people are making decisions that will effect your future. Whether you believe in Global Warming or not, what these bozos decide is going to have a direct effect on your life. And for what? So that we can have a "process"?

Where are the statesmen? Where are the true world leaders (as opposed to the power hungry, money grubbing politicians)? Where is the common sense?

Our Civilisation Vs Theirs

A few posts ago, I wrote a little piece about Mohammad The Bear, whose naming apparently insulted Islam, sent a teacher to prison, sparked riots and calls for execution, and created an international incident.

Contrast that (over) reaction with the decision of the British High Court this week that a charge of Blasphemy against a BBC executive for his decision to screen "Jerry Springer - The Opera" could not proceed.

The play, based on Springer's show, is a musical that depicts Jesus being referred to as “a little bit gay” and features Eve attempting to fondle His genitals.

Distasteful? Very. Insulting to Christians? Probably. But worth sending someone to jail over?

The charge of Blasphemy had been brought by a fundamentalist Christian group after the BBC aired the play in 2005.

In its decision, the court ruled that "the play had been performed regularly in major theatres in London for a period of nearly two years without any sign of it undermining society or occasioning civil strife or unrest".

Compare... the Sudanese way... our our way?

I don't know. The contrast is pretty stark and a small part of me is repulsed by this sort of disrespect, but I'm reasonably certain which system of justice I'd prefer to live with.

Perhaps the complainants should have attacked the show as being in gross violation of standards of good taste. I'm sure there's probably an EU rule about that.

Cool Stuff

I've been playing around with Firefox over the last few days, mostly because my preferred browser, Crazy Browser, is becoming increasingly unstable.

For those of you who don't use it, Firefox is a really nice browser, configurable with all sorts of toys, themes and play things. It's faster than Internet Explorer, and if one believes the "purists", it's better because it's more "standard". Whatever. It's a browser, and it's still not as good in the way it handles tabbed browsing as Crazy Browser.

However, it does have one VERY cool add-on... something called "Tab Effects". Click from one tab to another, and the web window rolls around. It's almost like turning the pages in a book.

Nice. The sort of eye candy that's addictive. Use it and it's hard to go back to plain boring browsing.

Social Comment?

What is this? You know. The little disabled guy (sorry, person) that's there whenever one needs to enter those asinine code letters. Does it mean I can't park my comment on that blog?

Someone suggested that it's assistance for the blind (sorry, sight impaired, or visually challenged), but isn't that like having a disabled parking sticker for blind drivers?

I even clicked it. All I got was babble. Seriously. Babble. Overlaid with some letters and numbers that bore absolutely no resemblance to the ones in the picture clue. Go try it yourself.

I'm sorry. I know I'm not politically correct, but I just don't get it.

Sub Prime

You've heard about the "sub-prime" crisis, but until you watch this, you probably have absolutely no idea what it all means.

Take seven minutes out of your day. I promise at least a smile.

Save Mohammad

The last known picture of Mohammad Bear, in disguise and on the run in Sudan. Unfortunately, being a bear, Mohammad didn't understand the finer points of religious differentiation.

For those of you who've been living under a rock for the last few days, there's a rather disturbing story out of Sudan.

Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher at the Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested on Monday after complaints from parents that she had insulted the Prophet Mohammad. Her "crime"? She allowed her class (of mostly Muslim students) to name their class teddy bear "Mohammad". Apparently, the Sudanese think Allah is so fragile that He might be offended that a stuffed bear might bare (sorry) his Prophet's name, and Article 125 of the Sudanese Penal Code makes it an offence to publicly insult or degrade any religion, its rites, beliefs and sacred items, or humiliate its believers (unless, of course, they're Jewish, in which case, they're fair game).

Yesterday, Gillian was sentenced to 15 days in prison, followed by deportation. She avoided the maximum penalty of six months in jail, 40 lashes and a fine, but the bit of Sudan that's not prison is such a shit hole that I can't even imagine what prison would be like.

Sadly, there has been no news of the fate of Mohammed Bear, the innocent victim of all this extremism.

I have made several attempts to contact Mohammad Bear today, but he can not be found and I fear for his safety. Is he in hiding, or is he yet another faceless victim of oppression in the name of religion?

We must do something to save Mohammad Bear. Write to your local Member of Parliament (or congress, or whatever it is you call it where you come from). Call your local talk back radio station. Buy a "Save Mohammad" T-Shirt. And, of course, make a generous donation to "The Save Mohammad Rescue Fund" that will be hiring a team of mercenaries to enter Sudan, kick some butt and get him out of there.

Mohammad Bear... today, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Ten More Sleeps

I feel like a 9 year old just a few days out from my first trip to Disneyland. That's a strange feeling for this Bear, who, for about ten years, lived one of those crazy unsustainable corporate high flyer lives with an almost unlimited travel budget, and who's record was 13 trips around the world in 12 months. Actually, I distinctly remember saying, when I walked away from that stupid life 6 years ago, that if I never set foot on another aeroplane, it would be too soon.

That hasn't dampened the excitement. Ten more sleeps, and Dr J and I are off to a conference in Las Vegas.

It's been 3 years since I was last in the Excited States, and there are some really dumb things I miss... like Taco Bell (which the ex, aka The Evil One, once described as "slop"), or the french fries at In'n'Out Burger, fresh cut from real spuds and tasing suspiciously like potato... or the LA Freeway System, which, when it's not in gridlock, is about as much fun as one can have behind the wheel of a regular car.

I miss the energy and creativity in America... qualities that are often treated with jealous disdain here in Oz... and I miss the stupidity of the place... like the disclaimer on the bottom of the hotel room service menu that basically says eating any of the food this hotel serves may be injurious to your health.

I can't wait.

First, two days in Long Beach, which is one of my favourite parts of LA. Next, a drive to Vegas via "The Big Thermometer", which must be nearly as lame as "The Big Banana", "The Big Marino" and "The Big Prawn" here in Oz. We'll also be stopping at every outlet mall we can find, just because we can, and then it's 6 nights in a hotel that's supposed to be what Americans think some other part of the world looks like.

I'm getting excityed just writing about it. And we get to catch up with CAW, which is probably the most fun bit.

Post conference, it's back in car, drive down to Newport Beach for a night with old friends, then back on the 'plane for home.

Except that when one has travelled as much as this Bear, one learns how to work the airline system... so we're flying Air Tahiti Nui across the Pacific, which is less than half the price of the Sydney LA direct flight with either Qantas or United. Go figure. The downside is that we have to have a "compulsory stopover" on the way home. For 5 nights. In Tahiti . (Yay. I finally get to spend those bloody Pacific Francs I've been carrying around for the last 6 years.)

Yes. It's a sacrifice, but we'll cope.

Ten more sleeps.

Thanksgiving Reminder

Just a reminder to all my American friends... this week, the week after Thanksgiving, is the absolute best week to travel to any American tourist attraction.

Disneyland... no queues, even at the best rides.
Universal Studios... no queues, even at the best rides.
Empire State Building... no queues.
Seaworld... no queues.
Niagra Falls... no-one else in the photo

Don't say I didn't remind you.

Cooking For Her

The Men's Own Guide To Seduction Through Food

I'll admit, up front, that I'm not a brilliant cook, and I've been known to burn the toast on more than one occasion. Those cooking shows on TV are about as interesting as watching bread go mouldy, and cook books are written in an entirely foreign language, laced with just enough cooking jargon to make men feel really stupid in any indoor cooking situation. (This reverses outdoors, where men are the undisputed Lords of the BBQ, but that's another post.)

However, in this liberated world of equality, men are expected to have at least some culinary skill, so I have managed to cobble together a repetoire of a half dozen or so truly yummy dishes that are guaranteed to impress. And believe me, whip up a scrumptious dish and that next love of your life (or maybe even current love of your life) is really impressed. In Australia, we call such things "leg openers", but I'm not sure I can use that in a family blog like this one.

In my last post, I mentioned "Singapore Noodles". Now I'm not really sure if what I cook is this dish from the equatorial orient, but it doesn't matter.

Follow along... this is so quick and easy, and it makes you look like a candidate for a Michelin award...

Before you start, here's your shopping list:
500g (1lb) of minced chicken
1 white onion
1 red capsicum (in the Excited States, I think you call this a red pepper, or bell pepper... it's big, red and shiny, and about the size of your fist.)
2 or 3 big sticks of celery
2 eggs
1 jar of minced garlic
1 bottle of Satay Sauce (make sure you get one without MSG)
1 packet of Egg Noodle Vermicelli (the really thin egg pasta that comes looking like little bird's nests)
Some cooking oil. (Coconut oil is best, not just for this, but for anything, and butter is next best. Never cook with margarine.)

Seriously. Go down to the supermarket and buy everything that's on the list. I don't care if you think you've got a jar of garlic mince in your pantry... it's probably been there since your last serious love tried cooking something for you on NYE 1999. And while you're there, pick up an acrylic chopping board. Chopping food on the benchtop isn't the most intelligent way to blow your security deposit. You might also want one of those wooden spatula things, because you're going to need something to sir everything with.

Ok. Back from the supermarket and ready to go? Here's the first step... and this is REALLY important. Wash your hands. With soap. Nothing spoils the taste of a meal quite as quickly as engine grease.

Now get your knives ready. You know. Kitchen knives. They're sharp. You've seen them in all the movies, and contrary to popular belief, they're there for chopping things like onion and celery, and not for throwing at (or by) Steven Segall. If you're lucky, they live in a big wooden block on your kitchen benchtop.

Peel the onion and chop. Just remember not to rub your eyes with those onion soaked fingers.

Wash the capsicum under cold running water and cut it in half. You'll see that it's mostly hollow, except for some white stuff and a few seeds. Scoop these out. This is important because I remember being told, once, that they might be poison.

Wash the celery and chop each stick into little pieces.

Get a big frypan, turn on the heat to med-high, and put enough oil or butter in to cover the bottom of the pan to about 1mm (1/16"). Throw in the chopped onion, celery and capsicum. Keep stirring until the onion starts to go brown and the celery starts to soften, then take the frypan off the heat and empty the contents into a bowl. Keep the bowl close... you're going to need it in a moment or two.

Get your big pot of water on the heat. You're going to need it boiling by about the time you've finished the next step, so start it sooner rather than later. Remember to throw a little salt into the water. Hey... don't ask why! Just do it, ok.

Now put the empty frypan back on the heat. You may or may not need more cooking oil... use a little common sense here, I can't be there cooking it for you.

Put the chicken mince in the frypan, breaking up the big lump of mince, chopping it with that spatula you bought to break it down into ever smaller pieces. It has to be cooked until the chicken isn't pink any more, but when it's about half done, that is, half pink and half not pink, put in two or three generous spoonfulls of the minced garlic. What sized spoon? Teaspoon? Tablespoon? Whatever... you have to eat it... so the more garlic you put in it, the more it will taste of garlic. I use about two big tablespoons.

Right after the garlic, break the two eggs into the mince. Try not to get any shell in there... she doesn't want a crunchy surprise in this dish.

You have to keep stirring all this, because you want the egg and garlic stirred through the whole mix, and you want to break up the chicken mince so it's not cooking in big clumps.

When there's no more pink chicken to be seen, pour enough of the satay sauce into the pan to just colour the chicken. That's probably about half the bottle... more is not better.

Put the vegetables back into the frypan with the mince. Stir so that it's all mixed up.

In the meantime, your water should now be boiling, so it's time to put cook the pasta. Use the whole packet... no... take the pasta out of the packet... boiled plastic isn't part of the recipe. Remember that you're actually making enough food for four people (or for the two of you, with lots of yummy leftovers).

The pasta will cook in about 5 minutes. Check it periodically by getting a single strand out and eating it. If it's got a hard centre, it's not done. By the way... don't use your fingers to fish out that strand. That is a pot of boiling water.

While the pasta's cooking, turn down the heat on the frypan and stir occasionally. Taste it. You might want to add a little more garlic.

Drain the pasta when it's cooked. You'll need a strainer of some sort, and not one from the garage. If you don't have one, put it on your shopping list at the supermarket. Once the pasta's drained, empty into a deep bowl or dish, and pour the the ckicken/vegetable/egg mix over the top.

And serve.

Yumm.

True Addiction

Dr J retired early last night, leaving Scooter, Mini, Zac and me huddled on the lounge together watching re-runs of Stargate SG1. Ok. They weren't so much watching as jostling for "prime"position, every now and then shuffling themselves closer to the petting hand, or, in Zac's case, juggling the desire to be on-lap with the need to defend his bone which had found its way onto the floor near my feet.

Picture it. A tall glass of iced tea just out of reach on the coffee table. Friday night. The Sci-fi Channel. Occasional dozing. Soft furry critters draped over various parts of me. Some would call it the perfect evening, made even more perfect by the generous portion of the left over Singapore Noodle dish (see next post) I'd whipped up the night before. "So why", I asked myself, "am I so restless?"

Really restless. That jittery, fidgety restlessness more at home in an amphetamine addict.

And in a flash, I knew. I HAD to have a peanut M&M. NOW. "No", I kept telling myself. "You've had quite enough to eat, and the last thing your bulging tummy needs is an M&M."

For twenty minutes, the argument raged in my head. It was war, and the more I tried to block it out, the harder it got to think of anything else. I was understanding the nature of true addiction. It wasn't that I simply wanted to indulge myself with an M&M. I NEEDED an M&M. There was no alternative to me having an M&M, and I will confess that I found this a little confronting because I'm a strong willed individual with a marginally higher than average IQ who ought to be able to control a stupid craving like that.

But no. I just had to have one.

I pressed "Pause" on the Foxtel Box, reached for my wallet and headed for the door... and with a "pop", the power went out, not just at our place, but across the whole block, which included the all night convenience store just around the corner.

There's nothing like deprivation to focus one's thoughts, and by the time I'd rounded the corner and arrived at the darkened store, I actually didn't want an M&M any more. I just needed to remember where I put those candles.

Extreme Chauvanism

Just for fun, it's time to be a little provocative. First, GO HERE. (It will open in a new window.)

Now try to tell me you don't find a little bit of truth buried in that provocation.

American Football Would Be More Interesting If It Was More Like This

Maybe it's because this game looks a lot more like the "football" I'm used to watching... aka Rugby Union & Rugby League... but I've often wondered why NFL coaches don't do more of this. It would make the game far more interesting.

And someone get that commentator a valium. Quickly, before his ticker explodes.

They Read Chester Where?

I received a note from Clustr Maps today, letting me know that I've had my map for a year and it's about to be archived. That means all the little red dots are about to disappear and they'll be starting again. They do this, so they say, because they don't want the map becoming a "big red smear".

That gave me the opportunity to brag a little. I mean... look at all those dots! It's baffling. Why would someone in Santiago or Moscow want to read my blog? There's even a dot in Nigeria, so maybe the Lads are reading too!

Ah well. In the next few days, there will be an empty map again.

By the way, I'm happy to give Clustr Maps a plug here, so if you want a Clustr Map of your own, you can get one for free by clicking HERE.

Anyway... thank you to everyone to has taken the time to drop by. I hope you enjoyed the experience.

The Weather

My thanks to the team on Channel Seven's "Sunrise" program for airing this clip.

More Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats force us to confuse consumers by changing the label at the top to the label at the bottom. Note the name of the product, changed from "Vitamin D3", which everyone knows and understands, to "Cholecalciferol" which no-one can even pronounce.

Our Prime Minister made a comment this week that was closer to the truth than anything ever uttered by any politician in this or any other election.

He was responding to criticism that his government had ignored the advice of departments in allocating grants in some regional development scheme. And he said this...

If governments were always going to follow the advice of the bureaucrats, then why are we bothering to have an election this weekend. The politicians should all just go home and the bureaucrats can run the country.

Um... they already do Johnny. Governments come and go, but the bureaucracy stays the same, with hands firmly on the tiller.

This week, a second front re-opened in my war on bureaucracy, or perhaps that should be "bureaucracy's war on me", because I don't start these fights, but it seems that whenever I'm confronted by rigid midless thinking, I just can't stop myself.

Please forgive what follows, because it's a boring rant that's unlikely to hold your attention to the end, but I need to get it off my chest so too bad.

We have a Vitamin D product. I won't go into the ins and outs of Vitamin D... just believe me when I say a) it's good for you, and b) you're probably not getting enough.

Vitamin D is sold the world over as Vitamin D3, and is usually measured in International Units.

We have a nice label for our Vitamin D. It's strong and clear. Buy our Vitamin D and you get what it says you get... no extravagant claims about curing exotic diseases, no ambiguous language... just Vitamin D.

This week, we received a ruling from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, a self perpetuating bureaucracy which places rigid adherance to rules above looking after the health of the citizens, a role for which is was specifically and expressly created.

We have to change the label. First, we're not allowed to call it Vitamin D any more. According to the rules, all supplements sold in Australia must be named according to the "Approved Name", which is usually the scientific name. We have to call Vitamin D "Cholecalciferol". If that was really what the regulations say (and we don't believe it is), then your garlic pills would be called "Allium Sativum", and your Vitamin C would be "Asorbic Acid" (or Calcium Ascorbate as the Ascorbic Acid actually has to be attached to something).

It's an idiotic regulation, and this Bear can't help but think it's specifically designed to confuse the crap out of consumers.

It gets worse though. We can't say ours is 1000 IU any more. We have to say it's 25 mcg (which is the same thing).

Ok. I can understand the desire to standardise, but here's the problem... if you walked into a store and saw our "Cholecalciferol 25mcg" next to our competitor's "Vitamin D 1000 IU", which one would you buy? That's because the regulations only get enforced if your product gets audited, which is about one in 5 products. The rest don't get audited, so they can say whatever they need to say so that the consumer understands what is being offered.

It's infuriating, and it got even worse than that. On our label, we said "Some sunscreens may interfere with your body's production of Vitamin D." That's self evident, because the UV rays the sunscreens are specifically designed to block are the same UV rays that make your body produce Vitamin D.

We didn't say why that's important. We didn't tell consumers about a increase in the overall cancer rate directly related to a drop in Vitamin D caused by people using too much sunscreen, and we didn't mention specific cancers like breast cancer, where women who get plenty of sun have a 50% lower change of getting it than women who avoid the sun or always use sunscreen. No. We didn't say any of those things. We just stated a fact... using sunscreen blocks Vitamin D production.

We were told we're not allowed to say that because "it encourages unsafe sun practices".

That's when my fuse blew. I told the TGA that the only unsafe sun practice is staying out of the sun, and if they persisted with forcing these changes to our label, then I will file a formal complaint each time a come across a competitor's product that doesn't "conform", such that they will be so buried in work they will forget what a weekend is. The error in that statement, of course, is that they're bureaucrats, so rigid adherence to rules, and not outcomes are important, and the rules say the hours of work shall be 9am to 5pm, which means the work just won't get done, which means they'll need to hire more people, which means the fees will go up. I don't care. Whole nations (you know who you are) have been built on revolt against this sort of stupidity.

I have no doubt the bureaucrats in question believe they're doing the job they're paid to do, and doing it to the best of their ability. It is simply their rigid thinking that depresses me, and it makes me want, more and more, to just run off and grow vegetables.

None Of The Above

We have a Federal Election next weekend here in Australia, and that's given me pause (or should that be paws) to reflect on just how dumb politicians are, and how much dumber we voters are to put up with them.

I won't go into the nitty gritty of this election campaign except that to describe it as boring as batshit would be doing a disservice to guano.

On one side, you have a government trying to convince people we've never been better off, which is probably true, and pointing out that 70% of the other side are ex-union officials.

And on the other side, you have a bunch on ex-union officials trying to convince people that the government has run out of ideas, while at the same time copying all of the government's policies.

One says "we have a plan for the future", and it's going to be much the same as it is now, while the other says "we have a real plan for the future", without actually having much of a plan beyond putting a laptop on every school desk, which may be an admirable policy, but hardly falls into the category of "plan for the future".

What's actually missing from both sides is a genuine plan for the future. What's missing is real vision, and an ability to think beyond the next election, or even much beyond this election.

One side says "we'll sign the Kyoto Protocol", which is a complete waste of time and energy, while the other says "we need something better than Kyoto" without actually saying what that means.

One side says "we'll stay in Iraq until the job's done", without telling us what the "job" is, or how long it might take, while the other side says "we'll get our combat troops out of Iraq by Christmas", without telling us that we don't actually have any combat troops in Iraq any more.

One side says "we'll give you $30b in tax cuts", while the other says "we'll give you $30b in tax cuts". Forgive me for my cynicism, but a) it's our money to start off with, so I'm hardly going to be thankful when someone who takes it suddenly decides to give it back, and b) if they've got $30b more than they need, how come they're only finding out about it now?

And given that the extra four bucks a week they're promising isn't really going to make that much difference, can't they find something more worthwhile to spend it on?

There's nothing coming from either side that tells us what they're going to do about building the sort of Australia our great grand children would want to live in. In short, there's no vision. Politics is all about saying and doing anything to get and/or stay in power. Statesmanship and leadership are all about vision, patience and wisdom. Sadly, politics and statesmanship are mutually exclusive.

The reason for that is simple, and it's the same the world over... the politics of the so called "right" is dry, boring, and pretty much thinks it can leave the future in the hands of "the market", which really means our future is driven by self-interest and greed. Politicians on the right tend to be unimaginative accountants and lawyers who are incapable of seeing the future as a different place.

The politics of the so called "left" is short sighted, misguided and generally driven by a "big brother knows best" mentality, which means they focus on the trees (both literally and metaphorically), and can't see the forest. Politicians on the left tend to either be misguided bleeding hearts incapable of seeing a big picture, or they're persuing some agenda driven by jealousy and a belief that somehow, life is unfair, and it's their sacred mission to make it fair.

Neither side understands that true leadership means getting out of the day-to-day lives of people, and instead thinking not 3 or 4, but 30 or 40 years into the future.

It's a shame. I don't know who will win the election here, and to be honest, given the appalling quality of both sides, I actually don't much care because the choice looks like it's coming down to "worse and worser".

If I had the money, I'd hire Brewster and we'd run a "None of the Above!" campaign. Maybe, if we all did that, instead of treating us with contempt, these bozos would start to get the message.

Gullibility

I've received a lot of communication in my time from the Lads in Nigeria...

There was poor Mrs Maxwell dying of liver cancer who wanted to share her late husband, General Setaseni Maxwell's not inconsiderable fortune with me, and for whom we established the Maxwell Smart Foundation.

There was Barraster Nkomo who wanted to share the estate of the late Sir Johnathan Bear, who was tragically killed, along with his entire family, in a plane crash. He was writing to anyone named "Bear", in the hope of finding a long lost relative who could lay claim to the $106m kept in a trunk at a self-storage facility just outside Mombasa.

Or there was someone named Mr Charles Togo, who at least had the honesty to write and say he was onto a big scam, because as the assistant to the Secretary of Finance, he had the ability to move huge sums of money, and if I helped him, we could share the bounty and both be very rich indeed.

Today, though, there was a change of tactic. The above fax was waiting on my machine this morning. Just in case the picture's not really clear, it's on FBI letterhead (or at least, something that's supposed to look like FBI letterhead), and says this...

FBI New York. 26 Federal Plaza, 23rd. Floor. New York, New York 10278-0004.
Tel / Fax:.+1 646-805-2921
Our Ref: FBI/ 847O40 / 07.
November 2, 2007.
Attn: Fund Beneficiary.

We have finally resolved to notify you that we have been monitoring all your communications within Africa, hence it is part of our obligation and mandate to protect lives and properties.

The FBI hereby advice that you maintain a cordial correspondence with only ''Mr. Williams Cole' of Citibank Group London on tel: +44 7045 765 732, fax: +44 8701336897 or Email: info_bfflcole@yahoo.co.uk. & customercare@citibankgroups.com hence our team of anti fraud special agents has duely certified him as the only person that has the capacity to release your over-due payment that has been tired down in Nigeria for a long time.

It may amaze you to know that, we have been taking notice and records of all the money that you have been sending through western union / money gram to Nigeria and other African countries, for the purpose of actualizing your goal desire of receiving your over-due payment.

You are hereby cautioned to stop further dealings with any unauthorized person / individuals in African, Europe and other parts of the world.

If you fail to adhere to this directive, we shall have no other alternative than to come after you for possible prosecution for abating financial crime based on the huge fund transfers you have placed on international route.

Our agents are keeping a close tab on you, so you are once again cautioned to discontinue any form of communique with all those people that have been ripping you off.

It is imperative to let you know at this juncture that powers to pay or cancel any contractual / inheritance payment has been solely vested on Citibank Group London with the stated exclusive payment referrals code #: FBI/RF/CITI/GP/O07, you are to quote the above referrals code upon inquiry so as to authenticate your claims for onward release of the funds to as the bonafide recipient beneficiary.

Finally, be rest assured that the federal government of Nigeria knows that they are being monitored to ensure the release without unnecessary delays this time around or else they shall face the necessary action(s) as prescribed.

Yours sincerely

Mr. Fred Jones. Fredjones646@peoplepc.com
Assistant Director.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Awesome.

The creativity. The eloquence. Absolutely fantastic, with more imagination than a room full of Disney writers.

Oh... and SOOOO believable.
No? Come on. Why wouldn't the FBI be keeping tabs on a subversive like CT Bear? In this age of terrorism and uncertainty, who knows what these soft round paws could get up to.

And why wouldn't an FBI agent have an email address at "peoplepc.com"? He's probably under cover, or maybe People PC is a front organisation, an FBI incarnation of Universal Imports. Whatever. This certainly re-affirms my faith that all that loot is coming my way. That I have never heard from any of the suspects mentioned in the email, and that I definitely haven't sent anyone any money is irrelevant. I want my money now!

I so much wanted to write back, but decided that this week, I just have more important things to do.

The Nature Of The Species III

There's nothing like a little group pressure.

Battling The Bureacrats... Round 21

It's on again... Chester Vs The Bureaucracy is a life or death struggle for common sense.

Here's the background... if you've been reading this blog for too long, then apart from needing to get out more, you'll know we have a little retail store. It was supposed to be a "pilot store", to test new products and concepts before we rolled the whole thing out across the country. Sadly, because we've been losing a battle with some loonie bureaucrats in the Federal Government, we don't have enough products so we've abandoned the whole "retail stores" idea.

Which leaves us with this space at a place in Sydney called "The Entertainment Quarter", a shopping mall attached to Fox Studios (which was supposed to have been a "Universal Studios" type theme park, but instead found itself being a real film studio). The problem is, the rules and regulations governing what we can and can't do there were written on the assumption that it was a theme park, and that makes this exercise a little "interesting".

We've been scratching for something else to do with the space, and because it's important to the story, I will tell you that what we're thinking about involves film, tv and entertainment. That's good, because those rules for development on the site, as set out in something they call a "Planning Instrument", dictate that anything we do, other than a restaurant or specialty retail, must be film, tv or entertainment related (or a theme park attraction, which we're not allowed to do because the local residents don't want roller coasters there).

So we're proposing a TV production company, of sorts, and we thought that would be ok because the Planning Instrument specifically says that's ok. Or so we thought...

First, we have to submit a "Development Application" to change from what we're doing to what we want to do. I can understand that the City want's to make sure that whatever we're doing is appropriate for the area. What I don't understand is why we need to hire an architect to create drawings that show them that we're going to pull out a non structural stud wall. One that we put in when we set the store up two years ago. One wall... 9m long.

We have to provide SIX sets of plans, together with SIX copies of something called a "Statement of Environmental Effects". The latter is now a 50 page tome, in which we've needed to dissect every bit of legislation pertaining to the site, and to what we've got in mind, proving that we're actually allowed to do what we're applying to do. Oh... I forgot to mention that along with all those trees, we're to provide the whole thing electronically, on CD-Rom. Why? Because they don't like storing all that tree extract (paper) in their archive.

50 pages. And growing, to apply to do something that's expressly and specifically allowed under legislation created just for that site. 50 pages. Of bullshit.

For example, we have to show that we have a "Conservation Strategy". Part of that is a statement of effect on Heritage or Historically Significant Property. Um. We're ripping out a Gyprock wall. It's two years old. What part of that is supposed to have historical significance?

In another section, we're expected to outline the strategies we're incorporating into our development that will help combat global warming. What? Um. It's a 72sqm shop. It's tiny. Even if I was in the "we evil humans did it" camp, which you know I'm not, the impact of whatever we're doing is so insignificant as to be utterly irrelevant.

Of course, there's one thing I've learned about bureaucrats... that that is that, by and large, they don't actually care about outcomes. They're only concerned about processes, so as long as they have a box to tick, we're ok, and that means I've written some very nice words about energy efficient light bulbs.

And because the site is actually owned by The Centennial Park Trust, another bureaucracy, we need to get the whole thing signed off by them first.

*sigh*

I think my head just exploded.

More Great Advertising...

Regular readers will know that I love great advertising.

A great friend of mine sent me this today.



Thanks Si.

The Nature Of The Species II

If you really want to understand why that "truth" thing is so important in our lives, take a look at this fabulous little video from Dr Joseph Mercola.

This is a more accurate portrayal of the real world, especially in Medicine, than anything else I've seen or read.

Everyone "sees" their own truth, guided by their own vested interest and their own perspective of the world. We see how that "truth" is distorted every day, from healthcare to global warming.

Someone a great deal smarter than I am once told me, way back in my advertising traineeship days, that perception is reality. "Reality", he said, "is irrelevant. It is only people's perception of reality that's important. What they think is, is way more important than what really is."

And it doesn't matter how objective we try to be, because even our objectivity is distorted by our reality.

That cave is looking more and more inviting.

The Nature Of The Species

There was an interesting commentary by journalist Andrew Bolt on today's News website, the reaction to which says a great deal about human nature and the things we choose to believe.

Bolt's story is headlined "The War in Iraq Has Been Won", and in it, Bolt presents a picture of Iraq that's very different to the one most of us probably believe.

The story, of itself, is either "spot on", "interesting", or "a fantasy", or "sicophantic US biased propaganda", depending on your political leaning, your love for or hatred of America, and your current belief system.

Some while back, I wrote a piece or two about the nature of evidence, and how the human brain assigns value to information. For those who missed it, I suggested that humans assign value according to two factors. The first is how closely the information you're given reflects what you already believe. The closer the two, the greater value your brain assigns to the information. The second is how trustworthy you deem the source, and while that might sound obvious, it has as much to do with the form... that is, how it looks... as it does with the trustworthiness of the source.

I've believed for some time that the popular view of the war in Iraq is distorted, and that things on the ground in Iraq, while still awful, are nowhere near as bad as populist media and the far left of politics portrays. Bolt provides some interesting evidence which confirms my preconception, so I thought the article fell into the "spot on" basket. Sadly (from my perspective), many of those commenting had a very different take-out and it made me wonder again about the nature of "truth".

Truth, you see, is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Two people of opposing views could take the time to actually go to Iraq and see it form themselves, and, after looking at exactly the same things and talking to exactly the same people, they are likely to come back with entirely different views of what is or isn't happening there.

I don't "know" what the truth is in Iraq. I've simply formed a view based on a) the things I've heard, and b ) what experience has taught me about the nature of information and political bias. I read a lot, listen to way too much talk news and talk radio, and spend far too much time watching TV, so I think I'm well informed. That makes me, in my view, more likely to be right, but hey... I've been wrong once or twice before so this could be #3. The point is, I don't know, and never really will.

That gap just shows us how easily our minds can be manipulated by people who want us to conform to their beliefs.

Ah well... I guess it's just the nature of the species, and I have this overwhelming urge to run off to some mountain somewhere and spend the rest of my life on my own in a cave. Anyone want to come?

It's War!

Dancingmorganmouse had this excellent link on her blog. Thank you!

Muscle Up

Anyone who has cable TV will have experienced those oft-too-frequent times when, across [insert number of channels here] channels, there's nothing on that's worth watching... or at least that's how it seems...
...so you go channel surfing in the forlorn hope that you might stumble over something interesting enough to hold your attention.

And that's how I came to be watching "The World's Strongest Man", a competition for the over muscled, where the girth of a single arm was greater than Dr J's waist.

Leaving the concerns of the World Sports Anti Doping Agency aside for now, this competition was a brilliantly conceived test of strength in the real world. Each event was an every day application of power, agility, endurance, toughness and finesse.

Anyone can press... but it takes real skill to heave a cannon ball down a track, against a clock and your oponent who's trying to perform the same feat right next to you. If you were on a man-o-war, having a few of these guys on board might save your life (not to mention your back).

Try flipping over a 300kg (660lb) pole, against a clock and your oponent through a multiple pole course. I'm sure there are construction companies the world over wishing they had these guys on the team.

Anyone here in Oz will appreciate the Keg Toss, and yes, those kegs are full, though current OH&S regulations might curtail the demand for this skill.

Those cars weigh 900kg (1980lb), the clock's ticking and it's a long way to the finish line. How many times have you thought "now, if I could just carry my car home..."

By the way, the guy carrying the car is Bill Pfister, a fireman from somewhere in middle America, and the eventual winner. If I ever need to be rescued from a fire, I want Bill to do it because I weigh considerably less than 900kg.

WSM... Olympic weight lifting on some pretty serious steroids... probably the same 'roids that some of the contestants... oh... no... Chester... don't be so unkind.

Oh... and thanks to IMG Media for the pics. I hope they don't mind. For more, go here.

If Only I'd Been A Doctor...

... because I'm sure my mother would have sent this invitation.

All Class

Watch the blond guy in the second row. If you believe the polls and the book makers, come the evening of November 24, he's going to be the next Prime Minister of Australia.

Mmmmm. Nothing like a tasty snack during Question Time.

Class. All class.

And While We're On The Subject...

...I tripped over this pic.

What a strange and delightful world we live in. I wonder if they've trained her to put the lid down and flush afterwards.

A Most Inalienable Right

The Romans weren't big on privacy.

If I asked you what the three most important rights are in your life, which would you choose?

Would it be the Right To Free Speech?

What about the Right To Vote and elect your government?

Or the Right To A Fair Trial?

If you live in the Excited States, would you choose the Right To Bare Arms, or perhaps even the Right To Pursue Happiness?

Is the Right To Free Worship important to you?

Maybe you'd even choose The Right To Life, or the Right To Food.

Would you have even thought about the Right To A Proper Toilet? It's one of those thing we just take for granted, and the wost we have to endure is the occasional queue at some over crowded outdoor event somewhere.

But for two and a half billion people in the world... roughly half the world's population... such facilities are an unattainable dream. This is the #1 topic, or perhaps that should that be "#2 topic" (oh... sorry) at the World Toilet Summit to be held later this month in New Dehli.

Founded in 2001 as a non-profit organisation, the World Toilet Organisation aims to make sanitation a key global issue and says it has 55 member groups from 42 countries. These people are on a mission, and at the 2002 Toilet Summit in South Africa, they set a clear target to cut the toilet waiting list in half by 2015, and to provide toilets for all by 2025.

Puts our overfed and overprivileged lives in a little perspective, doesn't it?

Before CGI, They Made Real Commercials

That's right... all these stunts are real. All the driving's real. There's no CGI. No animated special effects. No green screen.

Amazing.

Ignoble Prize

I'm not going to comment too much about the Nobel Peace Prize, other than to say that I agree with a commentator I heard on the radio over the weekend who said that the award to Al Gore reduces the Nobel Prize to the level of the Eurovision Song Contest.

For an interesting perspective, see the words of pioneering climatologist Dr William Gray, who told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina over the weekend that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

He went on to say "It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

So... it's about money and power... and not about "saving the world". Really? What a surprise.

Go HERE.

Concrete Proof That Information Can Be Useless

Sydney's Gladesville Bridge... The longest and largest concrete arch suspension bridge in the world. So there!

Regular readers will know that I care as much about "greenhouse gasses" as I do about the mating habits of jellyfish, but I have to share some truly useless information with you.

Did you know that concrete accounts for 5% of the total amount of "greenhouse gasses" produced by humans? I didn't.

It seems that for every tonne of conrete made, between 1 and 2 tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere. Apparently, some people think that's bad, though regular readers will already be familiar with my views on the subject.

Here's more... every human being on earth uses 3 tonnes of concrete a year. (I plan to use my 3 tonnes to build an Al Gore proof bunker, but that's for another blog).

And next to water, concrete is the single most consumed resource on the planet.

Never say you don't learn stuff here at The Adventures of Chester The Bear.

Phrases For Time Travelers

I was looking for a good English to Latin translator this morning for a project I'll tell you about some other time, when I came across a list of moderately useful Latin expressions.

I thought I'd share some of them with you, secure in the knowledge that many of my readers will wish to blend some of these one liners into their every day language.

Nescio quid dicas
I don't know what you're talking about

Nemo hic adest illius nominis
There is no one here by that name

Ita erat quando hic adveni.
It was that way when I got here

Noli me vocare. Ego te vocabo.
Don't call me. I'll call you.

Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione
I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult

Canis meus id comedit
My dog ate it

Die dulci freure
Have a nice day

Fac ut vivas
Get a life

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem
Stand aside, little people! I am here on official business

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
I have a catapult. Unless you give me all of your money, I will fling an enormous rock at your head.

Utinam barbari spatioum proprium tuum invadant
May barbarians invade your personal space

Quo signo nata es?
What's your sign?

Utinam coniurati te in foro interficiant
May conspirators assasinate you in the hall

Magister mundi sum!
I am the master of the universe!

Unitam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant
May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy

Emptito ergo sum
I shop, therefore I am

Cogito ergo doleo
I think, therefore I am depressed

Senito aliquos togatos contra me conspirare
I think some people in togas are plotting against me

Vah! Denuone latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.

Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est
Yes, that is a very large amount of corn

Braccae tuae aperiuntur
Your fly is open

Subucula tua apparet
Your slip is showing

Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt!
Hey, we're all in line here!

Non, mihi ignosce, credo me insequentem esse
No, excuse me, I believe I'm next

Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt
When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults

Sic hoc adfixum in obice legere potes, et liberaliter educatus et nimis propinquus ades
If you can read this bumper sticker, you are both very well educated, and much too close

Quid agis, medice?
What's up, Doc?

Dic mihi solum facta, domina
Just the facts, ma'am

Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert
Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn

Fac ut gaudeam
Make my day

Illius me paenitet, dux
Sorry about that, chief

Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem!
The devil made me do it!

Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
Beam me up, Scotty

Just remember... if it's in Latin, it must be important.

Dancing To A Different Drum

WARNING... EXPLICIT CONTENT THAT MAY OFFEND SOME READERS!

Sorry... but if you're faint hearted, narrow minded or easily offended, this entry is definitely not for you.

But if you're normal, well adjusted, and can stomach seeing momentary vision of male private bits dangling from muscular footballers, then click here.

The interview takes place in the locker room of the team that lost the Rugby League Grand Final (that's our equivalent to the Superbowl or FA Cup final) here in Oz a week or two back. Fox Sports was doing its usual post game stuff, but the crew was oblivious to the antics of a team member in the background who (claims he) was unaware that the cameras were rolling.

Fox aired the footage before anyone noticed.

I remember a leading commentator of the day, many many years ago when the whole locker room invasion by journalists started, warning that if cameras were allowed into locker rooms, they might film stuff no-one wanted to see.

The reaction has been predictable. The network says it's the responsibility of players to be camera aware.

The players are trying to get the cameras banned for 45 minutes after the game.

And the League is in damage control for an oops that makes the famous "wardrobe malfunction" look a little tame.

By the way, the well endowed player, winger Michael Robertson, called it "Wang Dancing" and said he was just trying to cheer his team mates up after their loss, which leads me to ask why he thought that would cheer them up at all.

Indulgence

Wednesday is Day Care day for little Zac. Yes. Day care. For dogs. It's all the rage here in the Emerald City, and this smart guy gets so excited from the moment we turn into day care street that it's surprising he doesn't wet the seat of the car.

The centre where we send him has a webcam so that obsessive owners like me can waste an otherwise productive day ooo-ing and aahh-ing everytime he wanders by the camera.

Today there was a bit of a treat... for the first time, Zac actually stopped in front of the lens. Apparently, it's downtime... the time of day when all the dogs take time out from play.

Aawwww.

(I'd give you the webcam address, but for reasons only known to the centre owners, access tot he cam is password protected and they change the password every day.)

Right Brain? Left Brain? No Brain!

Thanks to Sydney's Daily Telegraph this morning... go HERE

The problem is, for me, the girl turned anti clockwise, then clockwise, alternating every revolution or two. And now my brain hurts.

7th Century Enlightenment

I have nothing to add.

The Stuff Of Life

Moving house has been a bit of a wake up call.

First, let me say that this isn't the first time I've moved in a while. In fact, I'm almost ashamed to admit that in the last 10 years, I've moved house 10 times!

It came as a surprise, therefore, that I had so much useless stuff. You know the "stuff" I mean. Robert Kiyosaki, in his book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" calls them "doodads". They are the useless things we seem to spend money on just because we feel we need to, as though some retail therapy is going to make our lives better.

I had boxloads of "stuff", some of which was so useless it was still in the boxes it had been in when I moved into my apartment. In fact, some were still in the boxes they had been in when I moved back to Sydney from Perth in 2003, which ought to tell you what sort of contribution this stuff was making to my life.

All of it had to be moved, and moving ain't cheap.

There's one box filled to overflowing with those little packets of film negatives you used to get from the photo shop before electrons replaced silver as society's primary visual memory storage medium. These aren't "important" negatives of life changing events. Most of them were work related, and were pictures of mind numbingly dull ferry, cruise ship or container terminals. I kept them because... um... I'm sure there was a reason... I'll get back to you...

In another box, there are ten 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, all of which had, at some stage, been properly assembled and then packed neatly back in their boxes, and each of which had cost less than $10 at the local supermarket. These were kept because... um... no... I don't think I ever envisaged doing them again so... um... I'll get back to you...

I have enough glassware to pull on a Presidential or Prime Ministerial post inauguration bash (that's aussie for 'party'... the fun kind, not the political kind), much of which had been whittled down to one or two odd pieces out of sets of 6 or 8. Some are chipped. Some even have vague shadows where the printed image used to be before the dishwasher did its work. I kept these because... um...

I have one not terribly attractive glass platter about 18" across, still in it's original box. It had been a wedding present from my first marriage, more than 25 years ago. I kept it because... um...

There's another box full of enough of those little toiletry kits you get in business class to start my own ariline.

There are boxes of electrical things... headphones, walkpersons, an outdated cable modem, two dial-up modems (one of which, I'm reasonably sure, is broken), two old dot matrix printers, one old bubble jet printer and two antiquated computers, one of which had been hard wired with an obsolete version of an obscure rendition of Linix. All of these were kept under the misguided rationale that perhaps outmoded technology might come in handy for some as yet unknown task at some point in the future. Next to that was a box of floppy disks... not the cool hard shell 3.5" kind, but the utterly useless 512kb 5.25" soft ones, containing obsolete programs, data or games. And I bothered moving them?

Oh look. There's my old kettle.

There was a box containing the microscope I had been given for my 11th birthday. Actually, I rather liked this box, useless though its contents might have been. It also contained my old N guage train set (sans transformer, so I don't even know if it still works), a game called Qubic, which I was given for my 9th birthday and which, while looking a little worse for wear, still has all its bits. My giant lego set is there too. I suppose these are connections to childhood, so maybe they're important in my life though for what, I'm yet to figure out.

There were old sheets... really yuck ones that were probably kept because I thouight they might make great dropsheets (the ones you put down when you paint the house). Unfortunately, I'm not well known for painting houses.

The point is this... all this crap... and largely, that's what it is... cost me a bloody fortune to shift, and has taken days to sort through here in my new place. Some of it might have been useful once. Get over it... in most cases, it will be cheaper to replace than move and store.

Some of it had been kept because I felt it formed a part of the history of my life... arrogantly (and somewhat delusionally) thinking that anyone would care.

And then it occurred to me. We spend our meaningless lives accumulating worthless posessions that tie us down. We part with our hard earned money acquiring the latest fashion dictates, and when the fashion passes, the storehouse swells to make room for the next "must have" thing. And in between time, we spend precious days packing and moving such stuff, and yet more precious days unpacking and storing away at the other end. For much of it, that's the only time it will be touched by the light of day until we do the moving thing again.

Really. This is life for 21st century civilisation... I Have Therefore I Am.

Are we mad?

Gotta go. I need to get up to the Sony shop... they're having a sale on wireless noise cancelling headsets...

It's A Sign

Packing up to move house is life's #1 Pain-In-The-Arse job, but dredging through the meaningless collections of ones life, sometimes one can unearth a memory or two.

I snapped the pic during a trip to Ireland about 10 years ago. It was on a railway crossing on a side street, and somehow, I caught it out of the corner of my eye, screeched to a halt, backed up and whipped out the camera.

It appeals to my rather twisted, Larsonesque sense of humour. Life imitating art?

Viewing Pleasure

In my rush to ignore my birthday, I forgot to mention that I bought myself a birthday present... a massive 47cm wide (18.5") widescreen LCD monitor.

It took a little getting used to, but now, all I can say is "wow". Widescreen gives one the ability to see so much more of what you're doing, and if I didn't spend so much time playing games on it, I'm sure my overall productivity would have increased.

The best part was that it was on sale, reduced from $599 to $399, which I know is still a slab of cash that I didn't really have but I'll justify the outlay by saying that, as I spend so much of my life sitting in front of it, it's worth it. Apparently,it has a lower "carbon footprint" than my old monitor too, though that, of course, doesn't take into account the carbon produced to make it (or the environmental damage caused by the disposal of the old one) so it's just as well I don't really care about such things.

Motel Mediocrity

Sorry readers. I've been away from my desk doing a roadshow for most of this past week, and internet access hasn't been high on my agenda.

We were doing a little tour of country New South Wales, stopping in fast paced towns like Dubbo, famous for its zoo and not much else, and Tamworth, famous for its country music festival, in which a whole bunch of Australians who wouldn't know an American if they ran over him in their ute (pick-up) get together once a year and sing with American accents, because, apparently, country and western sounds a little odd if you don't.

Which leads me to the whole topic of country town motels. These are strange places that haven't changed since I was a wee todler.

To start with, there's always a strip of paper across the toilet seat that says something like "Sanitary and Clean", as if, somehow, putting a little strip of paper around the toilet makes it cleaner than it would otherwise have been.

The smell is ubiquitous too. Not really a bad smell... just sort of musty, and tinged with cheap carpet deodouriser. This is a universal motel room aroma and, probably because scent is the single most powerful memory trigger, a little comforting in a weird sort of way.

Then there's the TV. The programs are the same, but the advertising is often a highlight of the stay. Local car dealerships using scantily clad and over-endowed women are interspersed with ads for things decidedly rural... Bobs Drenching, or Post Holes R Us... that uncomfortably remind this city born-and-raised bear that the stuff in the middle of the burger used to roam fields and eat hay.

The establishment we stayed at in Dubbo rather misleadingly used the word "resort" in its name, as is often the way with these places. It did have a tennis court and a bubbling hot tub, but I'm sorry... any place where your car space is less than a metre from the door of your room has little in common with Le Moana Intercontinental Resort on Bora Bora, by which all such things ought to be judged.

I suppose the sign at reception should have provided the first clue... "Warning. The Gate Will Be Shut At 10:30pm. If You Require Access After this Time, Please Ask For The Code." The receptionist cheerfully explained that the town had a problem with an "undesirable element" breaking into cars late at night.

Airports in country towns are an interesting experience too. You know the places... way too small to take anything with jet engines, and where you walk across the tarmac, past signs that say stuff like "it is illegal to retrieve you own baggage from the rear of the aircraft". Like I'd want to. With the amount I paid for that ticket, I want the airline to supply my own personal butler to carry it and unpack it for me.

And the highlight, of course, is the allergic reaction to all those plants on the edge of town... runny nose, itchy eyes, tight chest... accompanied by the inevitable "you're so lucky to be here during wildflower season" from the desk clerk/motel owner as you sniffle your way through check-out. Yeah. Lucky.

Ettiquette

Maybe that's the sort of thing I need to train Zac to do. (Or better still, maybe I should just house train him.)

And no. I'm NOT that nutso.

Time Shift

The clock on the clubhouse wall.

The weirdest thing happened to me today. Really weird.

I had a bit of a late night last night, and Zac has been setting his alarm clock for 05:25 so I hadn't had much sleep.

The opportunity came up for a mid-afternoon nap... I looked up at the clock on my wall, and it said '2:15'. Actually, it didn't say anything at all, but the little hand was pointing to 2 and the big hand was pointing to 3... you know what I mean.

My fabulously expensive Patek Phillippe copy ($80 on Canal Street) said much the same, and the clock next to my bed said 14:15, and I'm sure you can figure out what that means.

Head hit pillow, eyes closed, and I was deep asleep within seconds. A deep, blissful 'wake me in a week' sleep. With the wildest dream too... detailed, complex, rich with content and story... and it went on and on... I was asleep for hours...

...until the phone rang, jolting me back into the land of now.

I looked at the clock... 14:16. I had been asleep for less than sixty seconds.

No. That can't be right. I was refreshed. I was relaxed. I was wide awake. You don't get that from 60 seconds of shut eye.

It felt like two hours, or four hours, or even all night, and besides, it would take WAY more than 60 seconds to flash through the best bits of the dream in fast forward.

Did the rest of the world freeze in time for a couple of hours?
Did I accidentally role over and push that secret "freeze time" button on my watch?
Did aliens take me away?
Did the matrix lock up?

Or maybe I'd actually slept for 24 hours? (No. That can't have happened. Zac wouldn't have put up with that.)

Sixty seconds!
Weird.

Missed Opportunity

21 of the world's most powerful people are in town today. Ok... maybe the President of the Philippines or the Prime Minister of New Zealand aren't so powerful, but George W, Vlad Putin and the wonderfully named Chairman Hu (pronounced "who") are here, along with the leaders of Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Korea, Taiwan and a bunch of other places for something called APEC.

Why? I don't know, but I guess they don't often get an opportunity to get together in the same place at the same time, so it's not a bad thing.

George arrived a few days early and found himself with an afternoon of free time. Now don't get me wrong... everyone deserves some leisure time, and especially when you're travelling on business. But George went trail bike riding.

No. That's not a mistake. He and his 600 vehicle motorcade headed north to one of Sydney's leafier suburbs where he spent an hour or two zooming around a National Park right next door to the place where Zac goes to puppy school.

George... you can go trail riding anywhere mate. Why didn't you take the time to play tourist. Seriously, Aussies are so laid back you could even have dropped into a pub near your hotel for a cold one and no-one would have noticed (or even cared). After all... members of European Royalty have been known to go trawling for wives there.

Or maybe he should have just turned up at the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb instead? He and 7 or his closest secret service agents could have enjoyed climbing to the top of our most famous landmark. If he'd done that, most Australians would have said "mate, we've been wrong about you. You really are ok. How did you enjoy the climb?"

Ah well... I guess his presidency really will be remembered for missed opportunities.

Aussie Makeover

And while we're on the topic of what it takes to be an Australian, the Herald also has this gem... an Aussie Makeover Kit for President George, who arrives in Sydney next Tuesday.

It's HERE

Citizenship

There's been a great deal of debate here over the last few weeks about a gumnut (that's aussie for 'government') proposal to have some sort of a "Citizenship Test" that asks dumb questions like "who votes for the government?" (to which my answer would be "given the state of New South Wales, dickheads", but that's for another blog).

There's a fabulous alternative to the"official" test, proposed in today's Sydney Morning Herald. The questions it asks are far closer to the requirement. For example, under language, it's proposed that an applicant for citizenship should be able to explain the following passage...

"In the arvo last Chrissy the relos rocked up for a barbie, some bevvies and a few snags. After a bit of a Bex and a lie down we opened the pressies, scoffed all the chockies, bickies and lollies. Then we drained a few tinnies and Mum did her block after Dad and Steve had a barney and a bit of biffo."

Later, under "Food", the proposed test asks "What purple root vegetable beginning with the letter "b" is required by law to be included in a hamburger with the lot?"

Aussie readers of this blog will know exactly what all that means. The rest of you are challenged to provide answers.

The full test is HERE.

Half Century

I have to admit that it was with some trepidation that I actually woke up this morning. Life, you see, has changed today because of a benchmark annual event that has suddenly and mercilessly made me "old".

Today, I turned 50.

As yet, I haven't had the need to speak it, but if the difficulty I'm having even typing it is any indication, I'm in for a protracted period of adjustment counselling before I can resume my proper place in society.

I certainly don't "look" 50, even if I do have less hair. I don't "think" 50 either and my bedroom and desk are the same mess today as they were when I was 17.

I still play computer games, get excited by fireworks, drive too fast, stay up too late and sleep in too long, buy lollies (candy) at the supermarket, eat coco pops for breakfast, watch Trar Trek and Stargate at every opportunity and prefer books with pictures.

I think South Park and the Simpsons are funny, and would happily watch Night At The Museum a third time. I've read Harry Potter, seen all but the most recent of the films too. My favourite rides at theme parks always involve going fast or a roller coaster or a boat that finishes the ride with a death plunge into a pool of water, and I deliberately drive through deep puddles just because the sploosh is fun.

I am as net savvy, and tech savvy as anyone, though, I don't like the music today... actually, having listened to some of it, I have concluded that there isn't any original music today so that's not a problem either.

The language hasn't changed all that much, and neither has fashion, so I'm certainly not dressing or sounding 50, though I do occasionally hear myself chant "young people today have no respect", just as my father, and his father, and all fathers before that have done for thousands of years.

And if I was single, I'd still be chasing girls in their twenties and thirties, even if that did mean having to deal with the discomfort of having to explain stuff to their parents, some of whom may be younger than me. Of course, a twenty something or thirty something will happily go out with a bloke in his 40's, but mostly, they wouldn't be caught dead the the company of a 50 year old (unless he was exceedingly rich, which I'm not), so that proposition's entirely academic on two counts.

I must face the reality of the day though, so I've set aside a little time, just before my mid-afternoon nap, to go out and get a walking frame, a box of incontinence pads, some tinned prunes and a hat to drive in. I'll be trading in my little Smart car for something more like a lounge room on wheels though sadly, I'm not in America where I'd be able to buy the aptly named "Oldsmobile".

A little later in the day, I'll call talk back radio and tell the world that "back in my day", things were whatever they were, and I'll call for jay walkers to be publicly flogged and complain about young people having no respect.

Strange things, birthdays. I think they mean far too much.

Here's Some Recommended Viewing

Urban Koda, in a comment on my last climate rant, asked for some web references so he can be better informed.

I'll give a couple to you, but before I do, if you're interested in really getting up to speed, there's a film, "Climate Catastrophe: Cancelled" that's been put out by the Canadian organisation "Friends of Science".

It's a MUST WATCH for anyone remotely interested in the whole climate debate. The thrust of that film is much as it has been here on my blog... the earth may well be warming but to blame human CO2 output for the change is dangerously wrong. There are a couple of other statistical "corrections" in that film too, that bring into questions the entire basis of the pro Climate Change argument.

Click HERE to watch that doco. It's in 5 easily downloaded parts and really is worth the effort.

As for that "error" in my last rant, first, go to the website of the guy who discovered the mistake. Steve McIntyre is a statistician who runs a blog called Climate Audit. His work, in auditing the statistical analyses that the climate doomsayers trot out to "prove" their theory, has brought some real balance into the debate. The blog's HERE.

If you really must, you can go to the Goddard Institute site, where the data is published. It's HERE, but finding any reference to the change in the nubers will be hard, because the scientists at Goddard are True Believers, so this error is just a minor inconvenience to them.

And finally, for a very good comment on the change in NASA numbers, go HERE to an article in Canada's National Post, and then go HERE to a well written article at News Busters. In that article, by the way, there are some references not just to the way the doomsayers misinterpret data, but how they're deliberately and calculatingly selective about the data they choose to use to support their cause. It's scary.

I'll say this one more time (and no, it won't be the last time I say it)...
There can be no argument that humans have been reckless with the environment. There is no doubt we've squandered precious resources and we need to change our ways.

However, to blame changes in our climate on human activity, and in particular, on human produced CO2, is arrogant in the extreme. It's also dangerous, because politicians (who are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier) are making serious, far-reaching changes based on junk science.

Oh. Really? You Made WHAT Mistake?

I know. I know. The Bear seems obsessed with Global Warming. And yes, I know. I promised that, because for most of my readers, the Global Warming thing is about as interesting as watching a thermometer rise, my most recent rant would be the last for a while on the subject (not counting, of course, the piece a few days ago about driving to the shops).

Unfortunately, like a seasoned politician, I'm going to break that promise because "The Media" has been remarkably silent on something that, had it been the other way around, would have been front page news...

Last week, without fanfare, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies corrected an error in its measurement of "global" temperatures. Actually, to say they "corrected" an error is somewhat misleading, because while they certainly fixed the numbers, their disclosure of the said "correction" was buried in an obscure statement posted to the GISS website as follows...

"...the USHCN station records up to 1999 were replaced by a version of USHCN data with further corrections after an adjustment computed by comparing the common 1990-1999 period of the two data sets."

I have no idea what that means but I'm sure Sir Humphrey would be proud of them for using so many words to obscure the real meaning of whatever it was they're trying to say. All I know is that the GISS is the place that's responsible for monitoring the world's temperature. It's the place that's published the numbers that the doomsdayers point to when they want to make us feel guilty about exhaling all that CO2. You know the numbers... the ones that say 1998 and 2006 were the hottest years on record... and the ones that were supposed to show solid evidence for run away global warming....

... except that when they corrected the error they now produced a set of numbers that didn't fit the accepted Global Holy Truth. That's because 1934 regained its crown as the hottest year on record, with 1998 second, 1921 third, 2006 a dismal fourth and 1931 fifth on that list of all time hottest years. Yup... three of the five hottest years on record were BEFORE WWII. These are numbers that can not be explained by the Holy Truth of Global Warming thinking.

Oops.

I've said it before. The climate heats up. The climate cools down. Get over it.