Friday! A very busy weekend ahead, but a good one...
Weather pending, I'm playing my first full game of cricket in a month... with weddings and trips to Queensland, I havent been available, so I am looking forward to it. For everyone's info, we're coming first this season so far!
Am looking forward to Sunday where we're having our annual Xmas BBQ with all my old mates from school / cricket days... now that were mid-30's married types with most of us having kids, its a bit of a treat to have all the kids together and one of us dresses up as Santa and hands out pressies. Kate, being the oldest kid, picked Santa last year as Pete... but she "pretended for the sake of the others". lol.
I really just want to get through today at work and get home... its been a long week!
Well, the election is over... I have been informed of who Amy Winehouse is (and I now dont care) and in the absence of any real political scandal I will take today to mull over what is happening in my world...
Well, for starters, work has been very busy. I have been getting home very late at night the last couple of weeks with leaving the office at 6:30pm being "an early mark". Got home after midnight the other night and last night was a 9:30pm home time... but once I reach this month end this week, the pace should slow down.
Between now and Xmas, work will remain busy. My new company doesnt have a massive fancy dress Xmas Party and instead has a big in house lunch on the last day before we break up (Dec 21). Seafood, hot food and heaps of beer & wine is apprently the go... and whilst I was initially disappointed there was no major alcohol fueled shin-dig, I am warming to that idea... besides, I am only newish here and I wouldnt consider myself drinking buddies with anyone yet...
Having said that my ex-drinking buddies at my old work are planning for a night out, so I may have the best of both worlds!
Xmas aside, work will still be busy. I will probably be in Melbourne for 2-3 days in mid-December. With my company having most of its physical operations in Victoria, I do have to get down there fairly often. So, I will probably be down there Dec 17-18 and perhaps 19.
Outside of work, we're having a Xmas BBQ this weekend with my mates and as an indication of how old we are, we're hiring a jumping castle for the kids.
Xmas itself we're determined to alter last years disaster in which we had lunch at my sisters in Ryde and then dinner at our place for Niki's family. We're doing the Xmas Lunch and the Boxing Day Lunch this year. We'll be hosting the Boxing Day affair, so that should be more relaxing.
But before Xmas, its my birthday in early December and I am really unsure what I want... both Dad and Niki have asked me and I have drawn a blank... must be getting old :)
On the gaming front, CanCon preparations on Australia Day are heating up and I have had a stack of new miniatures arrive to paint. So much so, that my friend PianoDan is going to paint me up a Chaos team. Its $300 but money well spent in my opinion. (Check out a sample of his work here)
Oh and little Brookie finished her 1000 piece puzzle and we have mounted it on some timber board and intend to hang it on the wall in her bedroom... but no rest for the wicked, she's helping to do Kate's now too... so again, our dining table is awash with puzzle pieces!
If you don't know already, I am a fan of American Football and in particular the Washington Redskins. So it was a bit of a shock this morning to hear that Pro-Bowl Safety for the Redskins Sean Taylor was shot in his home overnight and died later in hospital. ( story)
If you're following this story, it just doesnt make sense. The guy plays for Washington, but lives in Miami, he was shot in the leg at around 2am in his bedroom and yet had to be airlifted to hospital in the wee small hours. Surely an ambulance could have gotten there just as quick at 2am in the morning. He was also shot in the leg and yet died.
Is this an indictment on US health standards or really is there something not being disclosed.
Nevertheless, it is a sad indictment on the US gun laws in which people can be shot - presumably execution style given the home invaders broke into his bedroom - at any time.
Another sad story arising out of the country that for some unknown reason we want to emulate.
Well.... Costello goes, Vaile steps down, Downer is depressed, Abbot describes himself on the sound bite I saw last night of "having reasonable people skills" (LOL!) and the walking Cone Head Brendan Nelson (ex Labor Party Member) is also keen to step up...
Seriously, it is too comical to watch! Particularly as Howard made such a huge pitch for Costello on his exit speech to see Costello go "thanks, but I'd rather do something else" it just shows how much Howard had lost touch.
Turnbull seems to be light on in experience and is already engaging on the dreaded "me-tooism" that Liberals laughed about pre-election by saying that he supports Rudd signing Kyoto...
Having said that if Turnbull had successfully swayed Howard to sign Kyoto and he had apologised to the Aboriginals AND he had some sort of human compassion, then maybe Howard wouldnt be down at Centrelink today getting his pension.
In the meantime, Rudd has turned up at a school, requested Treasury costings for his proposals of PC's in the schools and has requested ALL of his ministers to visit a private and public school in their respective electorates before this Thursday! Nothing like Day 1 enthusiasm! Lets hope it carries on for the entire term...
PS - listening to my favourite radio shows on pod casts (SheBang, Get This, Spoonman) this morning, its amazing how many wowsers rang up on Monday morning and complained about the result and how its going to be the death of Australia. Get over it people! About 55-60% of us voted for a Labor or Green candidate. Your Coalition of Liberal and National barely had an impact and it is clear that people want more than dollars in the bank!
Well, I have been banging on about Howard and his cronies for many years now and its all a bit surreal that he isn't there to whinge about! I think though that the election result is a great victory for the people who think that there is more to the world and our country than a budgetary surplus. Yes, Howard did do a good job of managing the economy in the sense that we had heaps of coins in the coffers, but ultimately he and his party lacked some missing quality of humanity that you cant quite put your finger on, but you knew it was there.
Howard used human emotions and frailties to hold power for most of his eleven years, particularly since Sept 11 2001. He had the fear of global terrorism behind him when he concocted up the "Children Overboard Affair" and he took Australia from a well respected peaceful country to one of association with a maniacal idiot in George Bush that led us into a virtually en-extractable position in the Middle East. Our nation is cursed from Muslim nations such as Indonesia and is seen as a blundering Western nation sticking its nose into Asian and Middle East affairs...
I think Howard's term in office was best summed up in this article and in particular I quote:
"Mr Howard, who almost certainly has lost his seat of Bennelong, said nothing publicly yesterday. His only duty was a private function for staff at Kirribilli House. As the Liberals drowned their sorrows on Saturday night, one former senior Liberal adviser blamed the result on "the f---ing Chinese", an apparent reference to Asian voters in Bennelong turning against Mr Howard"
The Australian Liberal party lost touch with the people of Australia. We are multi-cultural and in many cases bi-lingual with Asian and Middle Eastern descendants now much more prominent than the post war immigrants from Europe. The Liberal party failed to grasp that and I believe that it was a huge issue for them in what caused them to lose the plot.
The other issue that Howard refused to budge on was the whole concept of Climate Change. The World, be it a natural cycle or be it one that we are exacerbating (my view is its a bit of both) is warming up and the world's patterns of climate are going through a major upheaval. That is a fact. They believe in less than one life time there will be no more ice at the North Pole. The worlds oceans are changing and this effects the worlds wind patterns and that effects the rain fall patterns. You cannot escape this. Yet Howard refused to budge one iota and insisted that doing anything would disrupt the blessed economy.
Again, the economy. It always came back to the dollars in the coffers. Seriously, what is wrong with having a zero surplus? What is wrong with the Federal government spending EVERY dollar they get in taxes. I agree that you shouldnt overspend and have a debt, but whats wrong with using our taxes for the people?
I look forward to the new Labor government. I think it will provide a refreshing change. We will probably see Rudd apologise to the Stolen Generation. I expect to see him and his government interacting at a more polite level with our Asian neighbours and build some good will between us and countries like the Phillipines and Thailand. I expect our relationships with China to become even more important to us than the US as they are really the new economic powerhouse.
I expect us to sign Kyoto and become leaders in the subsequent phases of that process.
All in all, I think this is a change for the good. People will have to realise that from a budgetary perspective things will be tougher, but lets not forget that money isnt everything.
Well, tomorrow is polling day and I will be keen to get down to the local school, grab my sausage sandwich, barge past the pamphlet flingers without taking anything, walk in and have my say...
I think you all know who I am voting for...
But then the Senate... I may this year number all of the candidates... I must say I am not keen on the preferencial deals that are done and I want to have my say in who goes ahead of who... so I may take the time to work through the full list... can we have a punt on how long that piece of paper is? I bet its close to 2 metres!!
Then after that, Saturday morning will be generally relaxing, I will go to cricket, but given my Queensland trip, I am not on the team sheet, so its a bit of a moral support and perhaps a field as a sub and then its a BBQ at home with the election coverage in the background.
I dont know why, I am normally not so keen, but I am really keen to catch a bit of the election coverage and watch Johnnies final speech live as opposed to the news feeds.
But what time will that be? I think the election will be close, so I dont expect an early concession from either party... but I am putting it down that the concession will come at 11:30pm... some 3hrs after Perth closes its polls...
Well holiday mode is now off, and I bring you back to reality with what is perhaps one of the biggest political scandals breaking as we speak. And not only that, its happened in my neighbouring electorate!!
I could throw a rock from my house into Lindsay and given my wife and girls spend alot of time shopping and dancing in Penrith, this is a bit of a laugh given the proximity and the fact that we're bombarded with these people's faces more often than my own electorate.... actually now that I think of it, I hear more about Lindsay issues with that nut job Jackie Kelly than I do about my own seat Macquarie...
So what do the Liberals come back with? We're doing a Chaser-like comedy sketch!!
Read the last paragraphs of this story from the Chaser's Julian Morrow. Yes, he's being funny, but it is kind of scarily true. Liberals do a shamefully racist act and laugh it off as mimicking a comedy act? WTF??
Whilst I didn't read or see much news whilst on holiday, I did note that the Liberals also suppressed via a Supreme Court injunction the release of further papers that outlined their views and options on WorkChoices should they be re-elected. Since when do political parties have their papers suppressed from release 1-2 weeks from an election? Clearly they have something to hide!
I watched LateLine last night on the ABC and Andrew Robb was doing a good job of trying to defend the indefensible, but he was totally outpointed by Penny Wong on the Labor side and clearly the Liberals are a desperate sinking ship!
As it turns out, we're having friends Julie & Con over for dinner on Saturday night... I am going to enjoy BBQing dinner and watching the Liberals similarly get grilled at the same time!
Bon Voyage Howard, don't let the door hit you in the arse as you get punted!
Edit / Update: Jackie Kelly, the sitting member of Lindsay and wife of the alleged letter box dropper of this material was interviewed on ABC radio this morning. (Listen to that interview here) Is it just me or is she a) dumb as b) ignorant of the significance c) lying through her teeth or d) all of the above?
PS - turns out Mr Clark is our girls' orthodontist! How cool is that going to be at our next visit!!
Pop is 83 years old and still goes strong. He walks every day around the beach and we experienced that first hand when he turned up at the hotel at 5am Saturday and I took the girls along with Pop and Dad for his daily walk... bloody long way! When we got back at about 6:30am, the girls and I went back to bed for a good 2 hours!
Saturday was spent at the pool and at the beach. The weather was fantastic and we had a great day. Kate, buoyed by her time in the wave pool went out up to her chest in the waves with me and Brookie for the first time went beyond her ankles in the water. It was a great day:
Niki & The Girls at Greenmount
After the pool and beach, we went out for dinner to Felini's in the Mirage Resort complex with my Nan and my Aunt Jan... the girls were excited as we had booked a limo for the occasion. They were very excited as you can see:
The dinner itself was great. The waiter was a bit snooty - particularly as we had the "audacity" to bring children to a fancy restaurant, but the girls were impeccably well behaved.
Dinner @ Felini's
As you can see, Brookie was enjoying being at the head of the table!
Sunday we had lunch with my Nan again, but this time there were 16 of us all up as Nan's sister (Aunty Nancy - who's 87 and deaf as a post), Mum's cousins and Nan's neighbours and friends all piled into Oskars at Broadbeach.
The lunch was huge and desert was a Bomb Alaska (sp?). Nan seemed to have a good time, there were two red wine spills (none from Niki or the girls!), a girl in a skimpy bikini played badminton on the beach for a good 2 hours for entertainment and the food was excellent.
Nan & The Girls
Nan enjoys her Birthday cake / Bomb Alaska
And thats about it! We didnt eat much for dinner... the girls were hungry so we went out for pizza which went largely uneaten, we went back to the hotel, packed and then got up early Monday for the flight home.
We flew back on JetStar which I thought was very good. It makes you realise how tired the inside of a Qantas plane is in comparison to JetStar's relatively newer fitout. The only hiccup home was getting the car out of the Long Term Carpark at Sydney Airport after I had lost the ticket, but that was about it!
Well, this is going to be a bit of a massive post... a review of our trip to the Gold Coast for Nan's 80th birthday. Lets just say the whole weekend was fantastic, we had beautiful weather and the accommodation at The Calypso Coolangatta was excellent.
We flew up on Thursday night on Qantas and the trip was smooth and the girls were most excited. Landing in Coolangatta, the girls enjoyed walking across the tarmac and we hopped into a hire car and headed to the hotel which only took 10mins. After checking in, we had a quick walk around town, had some ice cream at the Cold Rock and crashed out.
Friday was the big fun day at Wet'N'Wild. The girls were out of their skins and they were determined to go on everything! Brookie though was a bit scared of the rides when she got there and she was a bit under the height requirements anyway and it was left to Kate & I to fly the flag for the family.
The hit of course was the Tornado, which is a big tube that can hold 4 people which simply shoots you down a near vertical drop and out into a huge spirralling funnel. It really is an impressive ride and great fun. Kate & I did this 4 times and this video clip is that 4th time... listen carefully, you can hear Kate yell "ready Daddy!" as we're about to go down the drop! I recommend going backwards for the maximum thrill!
Kate really was the dare devil on this trip, she even went down the rides I baulked at. We went down together on the "JetStream" which is a near vertical drop slide in which you cross your ankles, put your hands behind your head and kiss your backside good bye (well, in my opinion!). We did it together, but she was keen to go once again and she went up by herself, climbed about 12-15 flights of stairs and bravely went down. It is a scary sight up there and I thought she might back out, but as you can see she loved it!
Brooke though also had a great time and warmed up to the rides as the day went on... from not wanting to get splashed in the kids "Buccaneer Bay" in the morning, just before lunch she decided she was ready to go on a ride. She picked the AquaRacer! Talk about a quantum leap in fear management!
Overall, the day at Wet'N'Wild was fantastic. Because the whole place is rides, you dont have to timetable things like at SeaWorld or Movie World. You basically wander around and jump on what you want when you want.
For the record, Kate & I went on the Tornado 4 times, the Black Hole 3 times, the SideWinder twice, the AquaRacer (with Brooke) twice, the JetStream twice (me only once!), the Terror Canyon once (big queue for that!) and the Whitewater Rapids twice. They were the traditional waterslides and even Niki went on that. I wont mention she beat me down the mountain though!
On top of the rides, there was plenty of fun times in the wave pool, Buccaneer Bay and Calypso Beach (where you float on a tube down a river dozing all the way).
I will post more about our weekend, and Nan's 80th, next post :-)
Having a little vent today... took me 2.5 hrs to drive into work today! And I paid close to $14 in tolls to do it! Plus $18 in parking!
The traffic on the M4, M7, M2, Lane Cove Tunnel route was horrendous... it is a weird feeling when you crawl through an electronic toll booth at about 10km/hr.
Then when I got to the office (late), I had to jump in a cab and cross the Harbour Bridge for a meeting... was heading down to Sussex St and near the QVB I saw a young guy (about 18) whacked in the head with the side mirror of a turning bus. The guy was standing on the kerb, head turned away from the traffic talking to a mate, when the bus turned in front of him and the left side front mirror cracked him in the back of the head.
The bus kept going and I watched as the guy seemed at first stunned, then clutched his head and got really wobbly legged.... his mates were laughing at first, but where then showing concern.... not sure what happened, but the cabbie I was in got a green light and we took off.
How can we have such a fucked up traffic system when the roads are useless to the point that they cant hold the traffic - even on a Motorway - and then the streets are too narrow for buses to go past without whacking people in the head.
Anyways... I am off to the Gold Coast tonight... I certainly need the de-stress!
One thing I haven't mentioned is that we're off to the Gold Coast this weekend, leaving Thursday night and not back until Monday. It's my Nan's 80th birthday and the family are trekking up there for a big lunch on the Sunday.
But we've taken the opportunity to pack the kids into a plane, fly up early and head to the Wet'N'Wild theme park on Friday before the extended family arrives later in the day. The girls are really looking forward to it, as am I and Kate in particular seems to have no fear of the rides from the look of them on the website.
We'll wait until we get there though and she sees how big they are!!
Going on a Friday though during the school term should pretty much mean we will have the park pretty much to ourselves (touch wood) and that will mean less queuing, more action!
I dont normally do these online things with an intent to post them, but I found this description of me pretty accurate... (cue freaky music)
What Your Handwriting Says About You
You are sometimes a very energetic person, but you are sometimes quite lethargic. You're moody, prone to ups and downs, and you don't have a lot of endurance.
You are somewhat outgoing, but you're not a natural extrovert. You think first before you act. You tend to be independent, rational, and logical.
You are balanced and grounded. You know how to get along well with others.
You need a bit of space in your life, but you're not a recluse. You expect people to give you a small amount of privacy, and you respect their privacy as well.
You are somewhat traditional, but you are also open to change. You listen to your head and your heart.
You are a decent communicator. You eventually get your point across, but sometimes you leave things a bit ambiguous.
My mum & dad gave Brooke a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for her 6th birthday last March. It was a bit of a daunting task for a little girl, but she had a crack... then put it away.... had another crack and put it away again.
And now, she's doing it.
6 years old, she sits on the table with the pieces spread out around her and she's doing it by herself and I reckon she's not quite halfway through.
She's made that much progress probably over the past week as you can see below, but she really is amazing at it.
I sat down with her last night and was gazing at the mass of pieces with my eyes glazed over... we were working on one corner of the puzzle which was a primarily blue and white section.
I'm looking for the pieces that would go in there and was struggling to find them in the jumble and yet Brooke's not only finding them, she's placing them.
Then amazingly she grabs a greeny-black bit straight off the pile, turns 90 degrees and puts it down in the correct slot! I looked at her and she simply said "that bit goes there."
She's a bit freaky our Brooke... we're calling her Puzzle Girl with the "Freaky Puzzle Eyes"...
Skimming the paper, I saw this article on Blackberry's...
I have one and I am finding it both addictive and intrusive. I can remember getting my first work email account back in the mid-90's and it was going to be amazing how much more free time you will have with such a nifty application. Our desktops were all individually hooked up to the Internet via our own dial up modems and there would be a cacophany of sound as the modems would wirr and beep every morning. The speed was amazing as it took "just minutes" to load a website.
We had a 12 year old boy - a nephew of an employee - come in and design a website for my work and it took him just 4 hours and he got $200! (We werent terribly concerned that the website looked like it had been designed by a 12 year old boy, that wasnt the point!)
The new age of "greater efficiency at the office equating to greater hours of relaxation time" had arrived.
Now, fast forward 10-12 years, this morning my neighbour in the next cube is tired because he has been dealing with our partners in Spain all weekend via his Blackberry and laptop, my boss is in a tizz because some deal has gone awry over the weekend and he has 100's of emails in his system, I myself spent the greater part of my train trip in dealing with an issue from our Adelaide office that cropped up over the weekend and we all have these little black devices within arm reach of us 24x7 to deal with any crisis that may arise.
And thats the difference... with email, the definition of a "crisis" has changed... basically it is now expected that you deal with ANYTHING that comes onto your email - either via the work PC or the BlackBerry - with immediate expediancy. No longer do we "deal with it on Monday", but now it is the norm that things are dealt with before anything else - even if thats a family matter.
Sad, but true, we are now working longer than ever before....
Another shooting tragedy yesterday combining disaffected teenager, YouTube and a gun... probably since the dawn of time, teenagers do it tough as they go through the angst of puberty... it must be true because what else would the Violent Femmes have sung about?
But anyway, it was said in the various press re this tragedy that Finland surprisingly has the 3rd highest gun ownership rate in the world... behind the USA and Yemen!
Now we dont get much free press out of Yemen, but I assume they have a fairly high gun crime rate and along with the US events of recent years, there is one common denominator... GUNS.
Do we really need to keep pushing this idea? Do people really still dont get it? If we got rid of the guns from the regular family homes, none of these things would happen!
Lets not crucify teenagers, lets not talk about the power of the Internet and social networking sights like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, lets talk about why and how a teenager can get his hands on a gun.
Seems so obvious, but why do people struggle to get this done?
Am painting up a new Blood Bowl team for CanCon in January... am playing / painting a Nurgle Rotters team... for those not familiar with Warhammer fantasy, Nurgle is the Chaos Daemon of Decay...
Firstly, the Nurgle Warriors... they were Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warriors, with the mutation sprues and painted in a nice shade of green which actually was base coated a light brown but with overlaying green washes...
And here are the Pestigors... the team ball handlers / blitzers... They were Warhammer Plaguebearer of Nurgle figures with the weapons clipped off. Very happy with these... with some yellowish pus coming out too as a nice touch :)
Beast of Nurgle and the general rotter linemen to come :)
I am not arguing about the interest rates themselves, I am not too bothered as I am in a fixed rate and will be for some time, but the point is that Howard keeps arguing about how good it is for the average Australian and really it isnt. We live in a world of credit and pay through the nose for everything due to compounding taxes (state based stamp duty is taxed by the Federal GST).
Petrol this morning was a $1.36 at Glenbrook this morning and the price of groceries is obscene. I had to buy some spare razor blades for my razor - something like $24 for 5 blades?! WTF is that?!
Rudd wont be able to correct the rises... my point is he wasnt the one saying that a Liberal government would keep rates low and that they'd go up with a Labor government... unfortunately he has been exposed yet again for the crock of shit liar that he really is.
My views have not changed. However, to add to my bitter relationship to the Melb Cup, it appears that I wasnt added to some sort of email distribution list for North Sydney staff when I joined my new job 3 months ago and I was not aware today was a) Mufti Day b) that the Office Sweeps were drawn YESTERDAY and c) that there is a function on at 2pm that I had to RSVP to.
Well, the weather went from really crap through to really good yesterday and disappointingly my Saturday cricket was washed out... which meant I found myself at Bunnings on Saturday afternoon instead stocking up on things for the "odd jobs" that had been building up...
So, I found myself successfully re-valving the toilet in the ensuite, changing halogen lightbulbs that had gone out, fixing some door stops, put up a new curtain rod in Brookie's bedroom but the damn cold tap in the ensuite wouldnt budge when I tried to change the valve in that! Can someone explain to me how you take off a bell cover off a tap when it has been perhaps cross threaded without destroying the white enamal? I tried WD40, hot (boiling) water and all sorts of attempts to grip it but it wouldnt budge. So the tap in the ensuite remains unuseable (its not dripping, no water comes out at all!). Seems silly to call a plumber out for just one freaking tap, but thats what it may boil down to...
Also with all the rain, I found 4 big (and I mean BIG) funnel web spiders nesting in the eaves above the back door under the pergola. Funnel webs that were 3 cm in diameter and black and evil looking were sitting in their funnel webs... now they'd be just eating bugs and flies, but they are nasty and if one of the kids were bitten it could be curtains for them! So I carefully soaked them in bug spray... they got angry and rared up, but when the got sluggish, I flicked them off the eaves with a broom and then squashed them under my trusty sandals.... The kids were at the glass doors freaking out, but it reinforced the "no shoes, no play" philosophy. I do recall later on the Sunday, Brooke calling out when she was on the trampoline because she had dropped her shoes and was now marooned on the trampoline, too scared to come down! LOL.
Sunday, a much better day weather wise was spent with Niki's sister and family coming over for lunch. Because the weather looked so bad on Saturday we cancelled any ideas of a BBQ so Niki made lasagne and salads... but in hindsight the day was beautiful. The kids played on the piano, my nephew Alex was playing his clarinet and it turned into a musical day... mind you my headache later in the day was a bad side effect. Our guests left at 5:30, but by 7pm I laid down to see off the headache... the next thing I knew it was 9pm and the girls were waking me up to say good night!!
Feel good today though... and the weather has turned bad again, we're supposed to get 7 days of rain apparently...
Martina Hingis tests positive for Cocaine... and then says she's innocent, but then retires instead of defending herself. Very odd behaviour of an innocent person... she is effectively pleading guilty via her actions.
And guess what. She is guilty. Listen to this world:
"Rich people who have more money than they know what to do with, take drugs!"
Is that so hard to understand? What does a person do with millions of dollars? They do the things that if they were poor they couldnt do and presumably that includes sticking cocaine up your nose.
Whilst I always enjoyed Hingis as a player when compared to the muscle bound behemoths that are the Williams sisters and Moresmo (sp?) she was a breath of fresh air... but you know what, she's only a rich girl with a drug habit in the end. Sad, but true.
And I dont mean "Jesus!" in the "hallelujah" sense, but rather in the "Jesus Christ, what are they doing now!" sense....
An American Church has been picketing and protesting funerals for dead US soldiers from Iraq / Afghanistan with slogans such as "Thank God For Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates America"...
The Aussie dollar has hit US 93 cents... that, in my life time is unprecedented and given when I went to the US at one stage with the rate at 43 cents, I cannot fathom how this change has come on... the US cut interest rates last night whilst ours will probably go up next week so I anticipate this rate differential will see the Aussie dollar surge past the $1 mark and we will be stronger than the US currency.
And why do I propose this macro-economic theory on Foreign Exchange and how its influenced by the differentials in interest rates? Is it because I am concerned about our budget surplus isnt working hard enough to pay off foreign debt? Am I worried about the "Economic Tsunami" that Treasurer Peter Costello predicted last week? Am I worried that the floundering US economy may propagate further military adventurism from the US as they seek to gain resources by force??
