Posts filed under 'General News'
As a long-time loyal customer of St. George Bank I am rather disappointed that they have agreed to merge with Westpac Bank. Whilst it’s nice to know that St. George shares are being deemed to be worth 1.31 Westpac shares each, forever proving that St. George is a more wonderful institution, the fact of the matter is that I loathe Westpac, and the thought of St. George becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Westpac or even worse being melded in to the very essence of the Westpac existence is a horrifying thought.
It has always been comforting to know that a nice big happy green dragon that I met at the Canberra Show, and with whom I shared a meal of fairy bread, has been looking after my banking needs with a friendly green smile.
I also have to agree with the concerns of the unions about bank branches closing. Westpac and St. George are adamant that branches will not close, but with the Civic St. George and Westpac branches about two doors away from each other, I find that very hard to believe, even if the two brands operate somewhat independently.
My personal feelings aside, I can’t see any logical reason for the regulatory bodies to block the merger, so I suppose I will just have to enjoy the nice warm glow of Happy Dragon while it lasts:
And get ready to run before my accounts are devoured by the not-so-friendly W.
With all that said, I’m sure that with all of those valuable shares, Happy Dragon will enjoy a nice retirement, and a never-ending supply of fairy bread. It’s just a pity that I probably won’t be coming along for the ride.
Samuel
May 13th, 2008 at 12:53pm
On Saturday I started a new photography series which will appear shortly (probably tomorrow) and on the way there I had to travel along Old Cooma Road which starts in the ACT, and within a few metres is in New South Wales. Palerang Council (the people responsible for Queanbeyan amongst other things) are currently upgrading Old Cooma Road, albeit just a bit behind schedule:
A bridge on Old Cooma Road is currently being upgraded, and I decided to stop and take some photos of it. The full set of photos can be viewed on the photo gallery at http://photos.samuelgordonstewart.com/OldCoomaRoadBridgeUpgrade however I’ll share a couple of them with you here.
The scene as you approach from the west:
The new bridge:
The temporary detour bridge. I’m surprised that it remains stable.
Would anybody (who hasn’t already been told by me) like to guess where I was going on Saturday that required me to travel along Old Cooma Road? I took plenty of photos of my destination, and as a clue, I intend on visiting similar sites in the coming weeks to take photos of them. Anybody?
Samuel
April 29th, 2008 at 10:30am
Plenty of people think I’ve gone near-enough to completely mad with my post about turning on all of my lights during Earth Hour…somehow I don’t think the organisers would mind as it just proves that even people such as me who see almost no sense in the theory of anthropogenic global warming are thinking about Earth Hour and giving it more publicity.
Anyway, the reason for this post isn’t to try and convince people that I am sane, rather it is to show the perspective of Michael Carden, somebody who has spent an awful lot of time fixing broken electronic devices.
Most modern pieces of electronics make use of a switchmode power supply. Everything from TVs and DVD players, to computers and kitchen appliances are likely to have one, and in general they are a wonderful thing. Small, light, cheap and able to run from the mains power in most parts of the world without caring whether they’re plugged into 110, 115, 150, 230 or 240 volts. They (mostly) just work.
[..]
If you have this device plugged into power all the time, a small part of its switchmode power supply – the part responsible for kickstarting it from completely off – never gets used. And this part almost always contains a handful of tiny electrolytic capacitors that play no part in the running of the device until it’s disconnected from the power outlet, and then connected again. Then it’s their job to get the power supply started. These little beasties don’t like heat very much, but they usually live in a hot place (the switchmode power supply) and so as the months and years go by, the heat slowly kills them. They can die completely and you’ll never know. Unless you unplug the device or switch off the power outlet.
So I’m wondering what will happen if thousands or millions of people switch off everything at the power outlet all at once. I think that there’s an excellent chance that quite a lot of stuff won’t come back to life when the power goes back on.
Michael goes on to point out that the percentage will be quite low, but if you’ve never turned off the microwave, the DVD player or the cordless phone at the wall, so you really want to risk it?
My other thought on the subject is this. The electricity suppliers have their systems set up to expect a certain minimum load that never goes away. While I’m sure that their systems are designed to cope safely with the sudden loss of load when everyone switches off, I can’t help but wonder just when they tested this.
Hmmm, it’s one thing to be voluntarily without power for an hour, with a switch to turn it back on at any time a couple metres away, but if enough people take part in Earth Hour and something does go “bang” in the power grid, how many people are actually going to enjoy Earth Week?
Samuel
March 29th, 2008 at 02:29pm
I could have been certain I misheard this story this morning:
We could see graphic warnings on alcohol bottles .. and a ban on under-age drinking at private parties .. under a national plan to curb binge-drinking.
Prime Minister KEVIN RUDD will ask state and federal leaders meeting in Adelaide on Wednesday .. to consider labels warning about the dangers of excessive drinking.
The graphic warnings I don’t really mind, but the “ban on under-age drinking at private parties” is the part I thought I misheard…did anybody stop to think, before issuing the press release, that it would be a ban on something which is already illegal. I would have thought the term “underage” would have been enough to work that out.
Samuel
March 24th, 2008 at 11:54am
Paul B. Kidd on 2UE this morning referring to the Rudd government’s promise to do something about petrol prices:
“They have done something, it’s gone up!”
For the record, I think that the ACCC sound like they will soon have enough information to do something constructive, but to the same extent, I got a good chuckle out of Paul’s comment.
Samuel
March 24th, 2008 at 07:40am
2UE News is reporting that there was a small fire in the kitchen at The Lodge, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s official Canberra residence today, and two staff were treated for smoke inhalation.
It is apparently not known if Mr. Rudd and/or his family were in The Lodge at the time.
I can’t find this story anywhere else to verify it yet, and I didn’t see any emergency services near The Lodge when I went past there twice in the last few hours. Regardless, I hope everyone is OK.
Samuel
(originally posted 7:05pm: Promoted back to top of page at 7:51pm)
March 21st, 2008 at 07:51pm
I can’t help but agree with Andrew Bolt on this one:
Kevin Rudd: “I don’t have a magic wand, but the Australian Government will do everything within our power to put pressure on the …. …. to bring this slaughter to an end.”
Fill in those missing two words. Did he damn the:
A: “Chinese Government”, now killing Tibetan protesters.
B: “Japanese Government”, now killing whales.
Now contrast those fighting words with this mild caution:
“…from my point of view, I would call upon the … … to exercise restraint.”
Again fill in the missing words. Was Rudd tut-tutting the:
A: “Chinese authorites” (sic), for killing people protesting its occupation of Tibet.
B: “Japanese authorites” (sic), for killing animals for food.
The answers, “B” and “A”, respectively.
I can’t help but feel that in a country where human life is generally considered to be the most valuable resource of all, the fact that our government is more than willing to lambaste the Japanese government for slaughtering whales, but won’t extend the same courtesy to the Chinese government for a greater travesty, is downright strange and lousy, especially from a governing party that are happy to try and prevent our drug smugglers from being executed.
Samuel
March 18th, 2008 at 02:44pm
There’s an interesting proposal from the unions doing the rounds of the media today.
SYDNEY workers should have commuting time included in their official work day because public transport and traffic troubles make journeys so lengthy, a union boss said.
New technologies mean many employees are able to start their working day while in transit, Unions NSW secretary John Robertson said.
[..]
Mr Robertson takes his argument as far as to recommend wireless internet connections be installed in trains, until the state and federal governments introduce fast trains to transport workers from regional and outer suburbs into the city.
I can’t see the proposal working, mainly because of the many inequities in it. For example, this would only really work for people who have office jobs which don’t require much telephone contact with colleagues, let alone the public (it would sound rather unprofessional having a telephone conversation with a customer while a baby screams next to you and it’s announced that “the next station is Redfern”). This would not work for people who have to be physically on-site to perform their duties (cleaners, builders and plumbers to name a few) and would only be viable for people on public transport, as you can’t really write a detailed business email while driving through Sydney’s CBD.
I also don’t understand why he only wants to apply it to Sydney.
Ultimately it might work as an option for a few very select people, but I can’t see how anybody can be as productive in a moving vehicle as they can be in an office when it comes to the type of work which could be done in this manner.
It’s nice to see Unions NSW secretary John Robertson thinking about things, but this really sounds like a case of “I need to say something so that my name can appear in the media today” to me.
Samuel
March 18th, 2008 at 11:28am
Yesterday afternoon Glenn Wheeler asked his listeners to pre-empt the inevitable rise is the price of petrol over the Easter long weekend by guessing the next ridiculous excuse that the petrol companies will come up with. I called Glenn to submit my entry:
We have to cover the cost of our insurance premiums, which have gone up due to all the people who faint when they see the price of petrol.
Glenn had a few good entries and it will be interesting to see if the Petrol companies ever use the excuses he received. Would anybody here like to come up with a reason?
Samuel
March 18th, 2008 at 05:53am
Clean Up chairman IAN KIERNAN says there was a three per cent drop in litter found by an estimated 800-thousand volunteers around the country yesterday.
[..]
Mr KIERNAN says more than a third of the seven-thousand-200 tonnes of rubbish collected at over six thousand sites was recyclable drink cans and bottles
Another report suggest that cigarette butts were the most collected item in Canberra. Did anybody really count each item either at the time of collection or by ripping the bags open later on? The overall figure is pleasing, but why we need a fabricated brak-down of the rubbish is beyond me.
Samuel
March 3rd, 2008 at 03:37pm
I was just wondering if anybody can explain to me why the fair pay commission hands down its increases to the minimum wage in July, when in my mind it would make more sense to make the announcement in late May or early June, with the change to take effect from July 1, so that businesses can budget for the increases?
Can anyone think of a reason for it, or is it stuff-up by the previous government who introduced the Fair Pay Commission a couple years ago?
Samuel
February 25th, 2008 at 03:29pm
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a male and a female superb fairy-wren (other than the obvious)?
Click of Creativity has an answer:
The male superb fairy-wren and the female superb fairy-wren.
To quote another Canberran, “now you know”.
Samuel
February 20th, 2008 at 03:26pm
This was also supposed to appear on Friday.
On Wednesday, a legend of the Australian radio industry and the Australian music industry, Smoky Dawson (real name Herbert Henry Dawson) died at the age of 94.
2GB’s Jason Morrison has very kindly provided permission for me to reproduce the tribute he and 2GB produced on Thursday.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/SmokyDawsonTribute.mp3]
Download MP3
Smoky is survived by his wife Dot, currently aged 102.
Samuel
February 17th, 2008 at 06:03am
Wednesday: Kevin Rudd apologises to Aboriginal Australians.
Thursday night/Friday morning: The first noises of compensation claims.
It was obviously going to happen, but it happened a bit quicker than even I could have predicted. One does have to wonder if perhaps this is part of the reason the Rudd government have been so enthusiastically cutting expenses anywhere they can find them since gaining power?
The compensation claims don’t have to be successful, the money which will be spent on the legal proceedings is bad enough.
Incidentally, I’ve been drafting an editorial about the apology since Tuesday, I’ll try and finish it by tonight…it’s probably better now that the compensation claims are starting.
Samuel
February 15th, 2008 at 08:43am
How about informing people that federal treasurer Wayne Swan and housing minister Tanya Plibersek would be holding a press conference at 3:30pm?
One wonders if AAP were just watching Sky News, saw the press conference and decided that they better write something, anything, anything at all, about it.
Samuel
February 4th, 2008 at 04:32pm
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