Normally on Australia Day I would post the national anthem here for your enjoyment, but this year I feel compelled to post a different patriotic song: Beccy Cole’s “Poster Girl”. It is incredibly moving to hear the pride and patriotism in Beccy’s voice as she sings this song.
You won’t listen to my songs any more
You ripped my poster off the wall
‘Cause I’m the singer that went to the war
You see no good in me at all
Well pardon me if I believe
I haven’t got it wrong
And before you turn your back on me
I’ll sing you one more song
‘Cause I shook hands with a digger
on the wrong side of the world
With a wife at home who holds her breath
and brand new baby girl
And the digger fights for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I let go of his hand
so proud to be Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I’d prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
And I’m just the girl who sings the crazy songs
not qualified to sit and judge
I’ve been right and I know I’ve been wrong
But I’m for peace and I’m for love
And I admire the burning fire
that causes you to fight
I only wish the wrong side of the world
had the same right.
’cause I listened to the wisdom
of the Aussie Brigadier
He spoke of widows and of orphans
and the need to dry their tears
And he leads the fight for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I’ve never been more proud
to say that I’m Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I’d prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
Maybe I’m naive to think we all could get along
But sir I read your words and all I ask
is hear my song…
I shook hands with a digger
on the wrong side of the world
With a wife at home who holds her breath
and brand new baby girl
And the digger fights for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I’ve never be more proud
to say that I’m Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I’d prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
I’m so proud to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
By the way, this post doubles as the return of Samuel’s Musician(s) Of The Week, so on that basis Beccy is the musician of the week.
Australian of the year: Professor Michael Dodson, 58-year-old Indigenous leader from the Australian Capital Territory.
Local Hero: Graeme Drew, 53-year-old sea safety expert from Western Australia.
Young Australian of the year: Jonty Bush, 29-year-old volunteer with with Queensland Homicide Victims support group.
Senior Australian of the year: Pat Lamanna, 76-year-old entrepreneur from Victoria who immigrated to Australia from Italy.
Update 5:22pm: Well, that’s the list. No further updates to follow. End Update
How long will it take for people to get the message that boats, night and waterways with trees in them just don’t mix?
You might recall that, about a month ago, 18-year-old Casey Hardman died when the boat she was travelling in struck a tree on Lake Eildon at about 1:30am. The 16-year-old boy who was driving the boat has subsequently been charged with manslaughter, and had the charge withdrawn pending further forensic evidence.
A 13-YEAR-old girl has died after being impaled on part of a tree during a night-time joy ride on the Murray River.
NSW Maritime says the girl was riding on an inflatable tube towed by a jetski on the Murray at Moama, on the NSW-Victoria border, when the accident occurred about 8.30pm (AEDT) yesterday.
The tragedy has prompted authorities to issue a water safety appeal for the Australia Day long weekend.
With sunset at 8:37pm over there, it would have been pretty dark, probably not dark enough to completely lose sight of the trees, but arguably too dark to use jetskis to tow people with any degree of safety.
One can only wonder how long it will take for the message to get through.
Mobil on Ashley Drive in Wanniassa are currently selling unleaded petrol for 91.9 cents per litre, which is about 20 cents cheaper than most other petrol retailers in Canberra, including various other Mobil outlets.
It’s a pity that I needed petrol earlier in the day…
There is, according to the Prime Minister’s office, going to be an historic event with the (currently on leave) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Governor General Quentin Bryce at Government House at 11:30 this morning. No other details have been announced.
My tip (aka wild speculation) is that, considering the amount of time Julia Gillard has spent talking to the media of late, Kevin is resigning, making Julia Gillard our first female prime minister. It would explain the secrecy over the details, and the “historic event”.
An interesting story just landed in my inbox which I think is worth sharing:
careerbuilder.com’s annual survey on absenteeism shows 33 percent of workers have played hooky from the office, calling in sick when they were well at least once in 2008.
Nearly one-in-ten workers (9 percent) who played hooky admitted to calling in sick because they wanted to miss a meeting, buy some time to work on a project that was already due or avoid the wrath of a boss or colleague.
Others missed work because they just needed to relax and recharge (30 percent), go to a doctor’s appointment (27 percent), catch up on sleep (22 percent), run personal errands (14 percent), catch up on housework (11 percent) or spend time with family and friends (11 percent).
Another 34 percent just didn’t feel like going to work that day.
When asked to share the most unusual excuses employees gave for missing work, employers offered the following real-life examples:
Employee didn’t want to lose the parking space in front of his house.
Employee hit a turkey while riding a bike.
Employee said he had a heart attack early that morning, but that he was “all better now.”
Employee donated too much blood.
Employee’s dog was stressed out after a family reunion.
Employee was kicked by a deer.
Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company holiday party and suggested the company post some sort of notice to warn others who may have kissed him.
Employee swallowed too much mouthwash.
Employee’s wife burned all his clothes and he had nothing to wear to work.
Employee’s toe was injured when a soda can fell out of the refrigerator.
Employee was up all night because the police were investigating the death of someone discovered behind her house.
Employee’s psychic told her to stay home.
Source: Ross Round-up Newsletter – January 2009
I think this calls for a song…unfortunately the only embeddable version of this song that I can find on YouTube has a mangled aspect ratio.
I certainly hope it’s a December version of April Fools Day, because this story which I heard on the 5am 2UE news, seemingly from The Daily Telegraph, is just bizarre.
TEENAGERS caught with fake identification will be forced to spend an extra six months on their P-plates.
The move comes as police warn of a thriving blackmarket in fraudulent IDs, with students paying up to $80 for professional-quality altered driver’s licences.
To be introduced early next year, police will pass on offenders’ details to the Roads and Traffic Authority and those already on their provisional plates will have the additional six months automatically added.
It will take their minimum time spent on P-plates to 3½ years.
Uh huh, and what about those who don’t have a licence?
Gaming and Racing Minister Kevin Greene said the penalties would be retrospective, meaning youngsters caught and who are unlicensed will still be forced to spend the extra time on their provisional licences.
Apparently it removes the burden from parents…apparently being responsible for people under the age adulthood is a bad thing.
It is also in response to parents bailing out their children by paying the existing $620 fine on their behalf.
“We’re introducing this sanction because P-platers to be punished for using fake IDs risking your driver’s licence strikes a chord with young people,” Mr Greene said.
“Imposing a fine which might cause some fleeting pain – or even none at all if parents are paying it – but having to stay on your P-plates well after all your mates are on their full licence might just get the message through.”
If they’re so serious about making sure that parents aren’t inconvenienced, why not just make it illegal for parents to pay the fine, with some awful penalty if they are proven to have done so.
I’m not sure that referreing to the great deterrent of our legal system, the fine, as “fleeting pain” was such a good idea either.
All that said, it looks like people who never get a licence, and quite possibly those who move interstate, will never have to deal with the extra half a year of a provisional licence. Could this be a novel approach to curing Sydney’s traffic problems?
What a pity it is that there isn’t going to be a natural thunderstorm around 11:59 on Wednesday night in Sydney. Just think of all the money that the New South Wales government could pump in to schools, roads and hospitals:
SYDNEY will usher in 2009 with a $5 million pyrotechnics display using almost twice as much fireworks as last year.
More than five tonnes of fireworks will explode over Sydney Harbour, in what event organisers have dubbed the Midnight Creation Storm.
The fireworks display will feature “stunning new effects like lightning, thunder and rain,” Sydney New Year’s Eve Creative Director Rhoda Roberts said.
Which makes me wonder why the weather bureau haven’t noticed the impending storm. Their forecast calls for “mostly sunny” weather.
“As we go into the countdown and the fireworks begin, you really are going to be taken away to another world.”
My question though, is where are all of the climate change alarmists? Why aren’t they complaining about the pollution from the fireworks:
More than 5000 kilograms of explosive devices will be fired into the sky, 2000 kilograms more than last year, at a cost of $5 million.
On the bright side, at least we haven’t been fed the usual nonsense about the fireworks being great for the economy, because think about it for a moment, about the only people to make money out of new year’s eve are licenced premises, taxis, and whichever television network has a bunch of inebriated hosts ooohing, aaahing and rambling at the fireworks. The first two would happen regardless of the fireworks, just in a more distributed manner, and the latter, well they’re on all three commercial networks this year as Seven and Nine have worked out that there are fireworks outside of Sydney…wouldn’t be nice if these were people from whom we could be spared.
When an email from GetUp about climate change was forwarded to me earlier this year by a friend, all that I could do was laugh…I couldn’t even muster up a full rant due to my amusement.
It wasn’t the fact that it was an email pushing the “humans are destroying the planet” line, asking for people to sign an online petition that caused me to be amused, it was the fact that this friend, who I consider to be quite intelligent, had fallen for GetUp’s version of the story which, as usual for this mob, was quite a twisting of the truth.
Perhaps this press release which has crossed my desk late yesterday from The Australian Environment Foundation will adequately explain what I couldn’t find the words to explain after receiving that email and falling in to a fit of laughter a few months ago:
Australian Environment Foundation
Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, 29 December 2008 Getaway GetUp on the ETS
GetUp’s global warming television ads (to air today) are dishonest and inaccurate, according to Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation.
“For all sorts of reasons a number of groups, of which Internet campaigners GetUp.org.au are one, are pretending that the Rudd Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is a minor 5 to15 percent adjustment to our way of life”.
“In fact, the government’s ETS will reduce the amount of energy available to every man; woman and child currently living in the country by an extraordinary 35 percent, absent the discovery and implementation of an unknown source of carbon free energy in the next ten years”.
Dr Marohasy said that this would be the equivalent of closing down all of Australia’s manufacturing and half its rural industries.
“Or thought of another way, it is the equivalent of closing 72% of our current power generation capacity (stationary power)”.
Dr Marohasy said that population growth masked the severity of the scheme.
“Our natural birth-rate plus immigration intake adds around 360,000 to the population every year, roughly the equivalent of another Brisbane every 5 years – 20 percent growth in 11 years – making 35% look like 15%”.
Dr Marohasy said that it was understandable that groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything would want to downplay the severity of the government’s proposals.
“If GetUp has nothing to complain about they are out of business, so of course they want to portray the government’s decision in the ‘worst’ light”.
She said that the government also has a vested interest in downplaying the severity of their scheme.
“Kevin Rudd wants to convince Australians that it won’t hurt one little bit, so he’s happy for groups like GetUp to criticize him for being John Howard lite.
In fact, the proposed ETS will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”.
I just love the “groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything” quote, and I hope this story gets a good run in the media today.
This was played on IGA Deniliquin’s PA system yesterday afternoon, which had me briefly scratching my head thinking “but they don’t advertise here”.
Until now I thought this was just a piece of production music, but it looks like the instrumental version is being used as the bed for a certain company’s ads in Canberra.
And now I can’t remember the name of the advertiser…I may subconciously be forced to visit them and buy their stock upon my return to Canberra though.
I’m in Deniliquin again and was going to write a couple things yesterday afternoon but decided to have a nap instead.
Unfortunately I left the camera at home so I’ll have to wait until later in the week to post the photos I took the last time I was in Deniliquin.
It’s a slow news day here…and it looks like a slow news day in Melbourne and Albury as well as 3AW’s morning show is having a lengthy chat about “the evils of four wheel drives in urban places”. I think one of the emailers got it right that it depends on the driver…I know a number of people who drive four wheel drives in urban areas, some are good at it, and some should walk.
As for Albury…stay tuned because I’ve got a story that I noticed on page three of this morning’s Border Mail coming up shortly.
Residents of Canberra and Queanbeyan would probably remember the suspected murder of Danny Ralph, whose body was found in the Queanbeyan on the 30th of March. It’s been a painstaking process for the New South Wales Police, but it looks like they finally have done enough investigative work to feel confident enough to charge people in relation to the murder.
Three charged by strike force detectives over death of Queanbeyan man
Friday, 05 Dec 2008 10:17pm
Three people have been charged over the death of a 46-year-old man at Queanbeyan nine months ago.
The body of Danny Ralph was located by police divers in the Queanbeyan River on 30 March this year.
It will be alleged Mr Ralph was assaulted after leaving a local pub sometime between 3am on Friday 28 March and 5am Saturday 29 March.
His body was discovered in the river not far from a footbridge, off Isabella Street.
About 6.30am today (Friday 5 December), Strike Force Potch detectives simultaneously executed warrants at two houses in Henderson Road and Morton Street, Queanbeyan.
A man and two women, all members of the one family, were arrested and taken to Queanbeyan Police Station for questioning.
The 25-year-old man was charged with murder, while the two women, aged 20 and 50, were charged with being accessories after the fact to murder.
The trio has been refused bail to appear in Queanbeyan Local Court tomorrow.
Tom Farber gives a lot of tests. He’s a calculus teacher, after all.
So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they’ll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.
Hmm, it’s a basic problem of business, what we want to do costs this much, but we don’t have enough funds to cover it…what can we do to cover our costs? Tom’s solution was ingenious.
“Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.
San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving, and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.
Not everyone is convinced of the merits of the idea though
That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.
“The advertisers are paying for something, and it’s access to kids,” he says.
About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”
The school doesn’t seem to be worried though, hinting that there are limits as to who can advertise.
Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but he notes, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’ “
One can only hope though that the New South Wales government don’t get any ideas, because a statement like this:
To Farber, 47, it’s a logical solution: “We’re expected to do more with less.”
Because if they do, then we might see entire schools being built out of advertising billboards as they try to find money to plug their never-ending budget holes.
The event in questions was a protester setting himself on fire outside Parliament House. The opposition and sections of the media have jumped all over Mr. Bidgood for his actions, but I really can’t see the problem.
If a newspaper photographer had been there, or a television camera crew, or even if I had been there with a camera, there would have been footage and/or photos. The photographer or camera crew would have taken the pictures back to the newsroom for their News Director to decide if they wanted to publish it, whilst I would have taken the photos home and published them here on this blog.
People sell photos of newsworthy events to the media all the time, so I can’t understand what the problem is here.
Joe Hockey, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect, has been the loudest critic of Mr. Bidgood…frankly Mr. Hockey, pull your head in, and ask Julie Bishop to actually answer a question the next time she appears on Lateline.
As for Mr. Bidgood. He has apologised for his actions (unnecessary in my view), but I will be writing to him to support his actions. What he did was attempt to bring the truth to the public, and it’s nice to see a politician doing that for a change.
A new minority government in New Zealand will be sworn in this week after John Key, prime minister-elect and leader of the conservative National Party, signed power-sharing agreements with three other parties.
[..]
Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples was appointed Minister of Maori Affairs and his colleague Tariana Turia Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, a new portfolio designed to give wide-ranging responsibility for the welfare of her people, who are the most disadvantaged sector of the population.
Key admitted the two parties held opposing views in some areas and conceded his new government was moving into “uncharted territory”. But he said he was confident the relationship was built on mutual respect and trust, and would last for the three-year commitment to the next election.
[..]
As a result of the agreements finalised on Sunday, the Nationals are now guaranteed 70 of the 122 seats in the House of Representatives.
The Maori and the free market ACT parties – who each won five seats – and the sole United Future member Peter Dunne, agreed to support the Nationals on all critical votes in exchange for ministerial posts outside the cabinet.
The agreements said that by staying outside cabinet, the ministers would be free to present their parties’ policies where they differed with the government on areas that were not within their portfolios.
The Maori Party leaders were also made associate ministers for health, education, social development and employment – all areas they identified as important for the nation’s 565,000 Maoris, who account for about 15 per cent of the population.
This sounds like a very interesting experiment, especially considering that former National Party leader Don Brash had a policy that would have abolish the seven seats in parliament reserved for Maoris, removed their traditional indigenous rights and scraped the government’s obligation to consult them on new legislation. That was four years ago, so one does have to wonder how many supporters of that policy are left in the party, and what sort of strain that could place on this seemingly fragile coalition.
