Look Out Guys!

Today is Feb 29… a leap year.  Does that mean today should be Saturday?  I dunno…

But for the single guys out there, don’t get to close to your girlfriends as today is the day that they may ask you to marry them!

Given that I am married and all my mates are either married or engaged… I don’t see this as a big deal, but I’d be interested to know if any lady has taken the plunge today…

Men.  Stay at home.  Watch a tape of an old Grand Final or some action movie DVD’s and don’t answer the phone.

You have been warned ;-)

Late Night Posting

Sorry, missed my post today... my day was scrambled. Trains ran late, so many work deadlines, including trying to save my own job and then meetings all afternoon.

Had to cab it into the city for a meeting at 3pm... thats cab changeover time and it was bucketing down with rain... not a good afternoon!

Now the kids are in bed, I am waiting for LOST to come onto the tele and I check my comments and realise I hadnt posted anything! d'oh!!

On another front, I have now cracked over 1000 posts on Lime Kettles... freaky when you think of that!

Political Donations...

More stories in the press about the use of political donations to “grease the wheels” to gain profitable political decisions.  Frank Sartor, ex Lord Mayor of Sydney has received donations from a particular developer and then Sartor made a land zoning decision that netted that developer a $2M windfall.

 

Without going into the whys and wherefores of each donation, the simple question is this:  “If you thought that it would not gain you any political advantage, would you give a donation to an Australian political party?”  The answer is of course NO.  Therefore, whilst we jazz up these payments as “political donations” or “campaign funding” they are purely and simply bribes.  If I as a multinational corporate give you $’s you in turn will be more sympathetic to my request for a law change or some other political instrument to be granted to aid my corporation.  Bribery.

 

Political parties have to disclose their donations and their source but what is the point of that?  It simply tells you as a voter who your party is going to favour… it is probably a more important list than a schedule of proposed policy changes as cash is king and any political ideal you may think your party upholds will be washed away should a financial benefactor have an opposing view.

 

So what do we do?

Ban donations.  Make parties a cash-exempt body and grant each political party a stipend that would see them through election campaigns from the parliamentary budget.  For example, every year each party can spend $5M of taxpayers dollars on marketing, promotional material etc and use that as their “funding” for their campaigns.  It will be a level playing field and at least then we wont have to worry about who is actually “sponsoring” the major parties of Australia.

India - GO HOME

Enough is enough... India are AGAIN threatening to pull out of the tour because of "bullying". I know not all my readers are cricket enthusiasts, but it has gotten to the point where I have to have a rant.

To the BCCI, I say this:

"Stop your whinging, play the game, play it hard, deal with "cultural sensitivities" and stop threatening to take your lollies home every time something happens. Your bowler gave as good as he got, and your wicket keeper cheated. We Australians let the officials deal with that, you don't see us crying about it. Grow Up!"

Post Script: I have volunteered my own cricket team, the Mighty Greystanes B8's to play for Australia against Sri Lanka should Sri Lanka win today. This will mean India will be sent packing! I have sent the ACB an email and I keenly await their answer!

Weekend Wrap

A beautiful weekend weather wise and we had a good one to match it!  Saturday, the girls had an ice skating party to go to so I headed to the shops to buy my mums birthday present and also spent a bit too much on myself as well!  Then it was on to cricket and we wrapped up the Minor Premiership with one round still to play by beating Wenty Waratahs by about 80 odd runs… I took a neat catch in the slips as well and then it was onto the pub for some victory drinks!

Showed my age though by being in bed on Saturday night by 10pm after a long week and a long weekend last finally caught up with me… can’t be a party boy every day! Lol.

Sunday I mowed the lawns, clipped the hedge and spent some time out in the sun and then went to Mum & Dad’s for Mums birthday lunch which was nice and relaxing.  Then we ducked over and to my mate Joe’s place to see his new baby boy Adrian.  It was great to see them and they both, Joe in particular, are very happy at their new addition!  Well done guys!

On a sadder note, other friends of ours aren’t doing too well with Scott & Linda having problems with their little baby Jacob.  Their story was actually told in the Sunday papers this weekend and we’re all thinking about them.

Wollongong - The Hotbed of well... beds!

Wow, who would have thought that the Wollongong area was such a hot bed of scandal! This whole thing about a 32yr old single-mum who was a Town Planner for the Council there having affairs with developers and subsequently approving their development applications has finally reached Premier Morris Iemma's office.

When the wheel starts turning, it certainly gains momentum doesnt it! 32yr old woman probably being taken advantage of by devious developers involved in low grade criminal activity explodes into a connection with a member of the council on sexual harrassment charges who has just landed a plumb job for one of the Premiers cabinet who himself has been known to be subject to sexual harrassment and now the Premier is in the cross hairs.

Who knew that local politics was so seedy! *feigns shock*

Funny how all this stuff comes out with the Government in disarray and waiting for a credible opposition to knock them off... but thats still the issue, the NSW State Liberals are still proverbial limp lettuce at the moment.

The Missing Link...

... is a piece of "brown algae" (read: poo) in Sydney Harbour!

Rejoice!

Story

Indian Premier League

OK, the draft for the Indian Premier League was held yesterday… perhaps “draft” isn’t the right word, but rather “auction”.  Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds earned himself US$1.47M in his own pocket for playing Twenty20 Cricket topped the bidding.  I just cannot fathom where this money is coming from… why are we paying such huge amounts for what is at the moment a version of cricket in its infancy and really is a bit of a hit and giggle!

This article though sums up some of my thoughts on this.  Why?  Why can India – a country of extreme contrasts between the rich and poor – tolerate such expenditure?  It just absolutely stokes me about the dollars dealed out.

Here is the list of who got what… (link) Perhaps the most obvious oddity to me, not picked up in the press, is that Cameron White – who I watched on tele last night leading Victoria against NSW in front of 3 men and a dog at the SCG, picked up $546K – more than Australian captain Ricky Ponting.

You have to wonder where this will be in 5 years time??

The News is not good...

Normal transmission I mentioned yesterday, but what is normal?  A read of the papers today and I am pretty much feel a bit down about how much bad news there is around.  None of these things warrant a full review, but lets take a look at some of the “low lights”.

 

Firstly, a man has been charged in the UK for murder but his defence states that he didn’t murder the lady, but instead simply had sex with her corpse or as she was dying of stab wounds.  He apparently didn’t notice!

 

Secondly, in Sydney a woman kills her 2 children again via stabbing and then serious injures herself in an apparent suicide attempt.  The father comes home in time to save her, but the poor children are dead.

 

Then we have the trial starting for former NSW Aboriginal Affairs minister Milton Orkopoulous on 34 child sex and drugs charges.  Remember this is a seemingly educated man who was a Minister in NSW Parliament.

 

Is it the power of the media and the drive to see the webpages filled with fresh and new content that this stuff gets highlighted?  But perhaps that is not a bad thing as these things are undoubtedly happening and hence it is a mirror of society that historical times didn’t communicate to the people as quickly when the web wasn’t so fluid.  Or is it a bit of both in which the media pump more stories out but the stories are getting more frequent and horrific?

 

 

No Post Today

Work, life, weirdness dominates my psyche at the present... too distracted to read a newspaper or have a comment on world events.

I am sure you will all live and I hope normal transmission resumes tomorrow.

:-P

PS - the whole blogger dashboard has changed and I have lost all the nifty buttons to publish photos, links etc? Any other bloggers out there experiencing the same?

Weekend - A Big One...

Lets just say that this weekend passed in a blur of alcoholic beverages…

Friday afternoon… catch up with old work colleagues… drink too much… lose track of time… home at 2am.

Saturday awake bleary eyed in time to get to my cricket match in which I scored a nice 32 out of a total of 6/236 at stumps. If you’re interested Tommy, the knees held up through my 90min innings but seized up once the pads came off and I sat down.

Then with said bung knees I went off to a mates Bux Night on Saturday Night. It was billed as a big one and we didn’t disappoint. Not only was my mate Wayne getting married and his brother Simon put on a good session of food, grog and “entertainment” but it was announced that another mate Angelo was going to be a first time Dad and the fact that all the old boys had gathered together it was an appropriate time to announce. His wife Karen is only 11 weeks along, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

And we didn’t miss! In a session that went until 3:30am, we celebrated being 35 years old and too old to be in a nightclub by drinking our collective weights in Bourbon, Scotch and Beer. Needless to say, it was a good night but bloody hell was Sunday messy!! I took little Brookie to the Springwood Pool on Sunday afternoon at about 3pm and I wallowed in the water with her nursing a thumping head ache and the knees were beyond reproach… I have made a new friend and his name is Voltaren!

Pictures of shame below!

(edit - Blogger not receiving pics... will put them up later)

(edit#2 - Pics below... perhaps I shouldnt have!)

Me and the mysterious "Ray Siebs"

Noyz, looking for the SpyVsSpy Concert...

Angelo... Dad to be and very happy and perhaps a little bit pissed....

Serving Two Masters...

Odd feelings at work today… its very busy at work at the moment and but I had an interview yesterday with the company taking over “half” of my company.  It’s a bit hectic, but to paraphrase I am trying to protect my current company’s interests as they’re being taken over partially by a rival company and at the same time being courted by that rival company… all a bit odd and one we’re all going through at the moment.  Depending on what people’s roles are here, you can clearly see yourself being in the taken over bit or the retained bit or somewhere in the middle.  I am in the latter category and will really have to make a choice I at some stage… and that may be coming sooner than expected with the new company saying that they will have a job description and an offer (on equal or better dollars than I am now) sometime next week.  Given its Friday, it feels a bit rushed!

 

Very odd dynamic at the moment… you feel kind of displaced and yet busy all at the same time.  Probably why this post doesn’t make a lot sense too!

More On Sorry

My posting yesterday caused some heated comments and I have also read this mornings press in which the right wing (and lets be blunt) racists have manned the bastions that is talk-back radio to denounce the apology.

I just cannot believe some of the bigotry that is going on in this country.  There are essentially four factions spinning around at the moment; those for & against apologising and those for and against compensation. The compensation element is out there and there will always be those who will want to see it and then the counter argument is that there is plenty (albeit misused) money being directed to Aboriginal interests.  Lets put all this to one side and look at the bigger picture.

The Australian government has wronged a section of our community on the basis of race and Kevin Rudd has simply acknowledged and apologised.

The big picture of this though is that this is what we wanted when we elected Rudd.  We voted in a landslide to dump the hardline economic management driven Liberal party who have done so many divisive things in regards to our standing in the world’s view for a party that was prepared to put the people first and deal with the humanitarian issues.  Don’t let Nelson & Turnbull fool you, this inflation driven interest rate rises were coming no matter who was in power.  Labor knows this.  They know that they have inherited power at a bad economic time, but they will be dipping into the budget surplus to address issues like health, education and other humanitarian issues.  These are what would have been called “soft” issues by the Liberals, but the reality is that a big surplus is rubbish when the average Australian cannot access appropriate health care or gain access to a university.

The apology was one of the soft issue promises that Labor campaigned on and he has a mandate to deliver which he has done and I think that’s a small but positive step for this country.

PS – the absence of John Howard amongst the gallery of ex-Prime Ministers has been noted.  Bigoted little turd that he is!

Sorry!

It's about time! But credit to Kevin Rudd who has done what John Howard has refused to do for many many years and he today apologised to the Stolen Generation.

For those who are not aware, in the 1950's the Australian government of the day removed many Aboriginal children from their families and raised them in white Australian orphanages and foster homes for their "benefit". Essentially the Anglo-Saxon government deemed Aboriginals to be inferior and not deserving of raising their own children in their own culture.

Many years later, the Aboriginal people still feel hurt and pain at that program and families were ripped apart and never recovered.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today apologised for the events unreservedly and I applaud that.

Having said that though, I received an email today that was perhaps the most vindictive and callous thing I have ever read before and I paste it below. Bear in mind I dont agree with any of these sentiments:

SORRY...
AUSTRALIAN APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION

We apologise for giving you doctors and free medical care,
which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand
apologies.

We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.


We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.


We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.


We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed your people, where before, you had the benefits of living off the land and starving during droughts.


We apologise for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace that animal skins/dogs you used before.


We apologise for building roads and railway tracks between cities and building cars so that you no longer have to walk over harsh terrain.


We apologise for paying off your vehicle when you fail to pay the instalments.


We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever.


We apologise for giving each and every member of your family $100.00 and free travel to attend an aboriginal funeral.


We apologise for not charging you rent on any lands when white people have to pay.


We apologise for giving you interest free loans.


We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.


We apologise for developing Ayers rock and Kakadu, and handing them over to you so that you get all the money.


We apologise for allowing taxpayers money paid towards daughters' wedding ($8,000.00 each daughter) We apologise for giving you $1.7 billion per year for your 250,000 people,
which is $48,000.00 per aboriginal man, woman and child.


We apologise for working hard to pay taxes that finance your welfare, medical care, education, etc to the tune of $1.2 billion each year.


We apologise for you having to approach the aboriginal affairs department to verify the above figures For the trouble you will have identifying the "uncle toms" in your own community who are getting richer and leaving some of you living in squalor and poverty.


We do apologise. We really do. We humbly beg your forgiveness for all the above sins.
We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the "outback", whenever you are ready.


Disgusting.

Until we Australian's can stop having this sort of attitude things will never get better. Until people can learn to appreciate another persons view, we as a "species" will never improve ourselves and wars and conflicts will never end.

I hope that Kevin Rudd's speech will be the first step of stamping out racism in this country. I hope its the first step to stopping political parties such as One Nation (warning: Redneck alert) playing the race card in our Federal Parliament.

I also hope it is a step in bring more tolerance not only to race but also religion and a sign that this new government is not going to war anymore for American foreign policy (read Oil).

To the person who wrote that email, I hope you have a good hard look at yourself.

I was sent a link to MyPersonality.info in which you can undertake some traditional Personality Profiling.

Turns out I am an "ENTP" (if you want to read what ENTP means, click here) which is what I was expecting as I have taken this Myers-Briggs test in the past and the results are always the same... which I guess shows the test is fairly consistent...

So to satisfy my ENTP desires, dear readers of Lime Kettles, I want you to take the Personality Profiling and then join your results to this group I have set up and I'd be keen to know if there is a trend in my reading demographic!

SimCity Online?

Bumped into MyMiniCity.com today... I used to play SimCity alot as a kid... perhaps this may be an online version? I am yet to register and actually play, but it looks pretty neat.

Quick Post - Good News

My mate Joe and his wife Rosa had a baby boy last night.  Adrian Nicholas Puglisi was born at 11pm last night.  6lb 6oz or 3.0kg and 51cm in length.  Well done Joey and Rosa!  All the best and we’ll see you soon (don’t know why I am saying that, I very much doubt perusing Lime Kettles is high on your agenda today lol!)

Wet Weekend Wrap

Wet Weekends! According to the weather men, we had better get used to them.

Cricket was washed out despite the sunshine peeking out on Saturday afternoon, the ground was awash with water…

So instead, we played board games most of the weekend. I had bought Settlers of Catan when I went to Canberra a few weeks ago and I thought it would be good game to play with the girls. If you haven’t played it, it’s a board game in which you collect cards to trade in to build roads and settlements on the island of Catan. First to 10 points wins… game play is supposed to be 60mins. But 2 and a half hours later after 3 sittings, Kate eventually won and was very happy. Having said that though, everyone enjoyed it – even Niki who tends to shy away from my Tolkien-esque genre of games. So that gets added to the “play when the sky is pissing on us” list.

Sunday was Niki’s mums 75^th birthday and we had nice weather to go to the Norman Lindsay Gallery café for lunch. It was very wet on the ground though so we had to dodge the puddles to get to the restaurant but it was a good lunch with a couple of bottles of wine. It was good for Beryl to be out and about after her layoff recently (for the record, Beryl left our place on Friday after about 2 weeks).

Then it was to be home to watch the cricket, but my mate Tommy rang who had a comedy gig at Springwood for both a lunch and a dinner session and had 3 hours to kill. So he came over and we played “Return of the Heroes” with the girls as well. That too went for about 2 hours but the girls did really well and were very much into it with Kate playing the lady spell slinger and Brookie taking the role of a lady Dwarf (no beard!). Tommy and I did comparatively shit house and the girls managed each to battle through their quests and then take on the “big baddie” at the end – a Demon. Unfortunately both the girls were killed with Kate going down first and then Brooke but they had good fun. With time running out and with both Tommy and I a million miles away from getting to the bad dude, we called it quits… the girls were very happy that they did so well so it was a good fun afternoon of rolling dice.

Proof! Mancurians Don't Speak English!

Ha Ha!

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92011

Lying Thru His Gappy Teeth

Big news day!  Ray Martin “STORMS” out of Channel Nein!

Yee Gods!  Stop the Press!  Call the Government to an emergency sitting of Parliament!  Ray Martin has QUIT!

Of course I am being sarcastic.  Ray Martin has long lost his credibility as a journalist and is now considered the male version of a talking head that suits the commercial needs of attracting the older demographic.  Compared to current and previous news men such as Ian Ross and Brian Henderson, Martin is the “Richard Wilkins” of news media.  By this I mean he is everywhere, always talking but ultimately irrelevant.

But there was a time when Ray Martin was respected and I am struggling to think back to when he lost it.  I think when A Current Affair turned into a serial on stories about “back pain” and “angry neighbours” as opposed to in depth 60 Minutes style coverage his reputation took a hammering.  Also, I personally couldn’t stand it when he went to Indonesia after the Boxing Day Tsunami and spent 4 weeks or so standing in his Country Road gear with one foot up on some rubble shaking his head and “tsk tsking” through his gap toothed smile and doing inane stories about it, that really killed him off in my opinion.

So, again, the news media loses one of their own and act like we all give a toss.  Front page spreads… mmm… remember the Interest Rates guys?  Remember the Iraq War and the impending US elections??  You know, the things that really do matter….

ShittyRail

Its been a while, but here goes…


CityRail is the most fucktard service in which 100 or so years of work, design and planning can be washed away with the simplest and most expected issues.

Hey CityRail engineers… it does occasionally RAIN. Don’t listen to what the Greenies say, despite the drought and El Nino, it does rain from time to time. Therefore design a system that can cope with that.


And when you have a truck crossing railway tracks, there is a possibility for a bingle. Last night a truck was struck on the tracks. Thankfully no-one was hurt, but guess what ShittyRail did? They stopped trains at Penrith – some 50kms or 1+hr away. So in the pouring rain, people had to get out, get on crappy buses and be driven all stations all the way to Katoomba.

This morning, the trains were running 35mins late because of the same problem and the accompanying signal failures from “lightning strikes” and the rain. Incompetence. Lets hike fares some more hey!

/rant off

Interest Rates

Well, the Interest Rates are going up… never mind the fact some banks raised them anyway last month, the Reserve Bank raised the official interest rates by 25 basis points which lead the Commonwealth Bank to raise its lending rates by 30 today.

Whilst the interest rates are one thing, I want to make 2 comments.

1.      This is not a result of a Labor Govt.  Do NOT listen to the likes of Malcolm Turnbull that may (will) come out and say that Labor is “mismanaging” the economy.  This is a load of rubbish and is pure out and out politicking point scoring.  The real reasons stem from a Liberal govt coveting the US foreign policy whilst at the same time providing tax cuts whilst maintaining a massive budgetary surplus.  Perhaps if they had invested in infrastructure rather than our back pockets we wouldn’t be this flush with cash.

2.      Second, there is another way to relieve the inflation in the market.  What about income and GST tax increases?  Would that be political suicide?  At the moment our increased interest rates means we are relieved of dollars via our mortgage payments and other investments and that money goes into the banks for the benefit of shareholders.  We spend less as a result and inflation subsides.  But what if we lost our dollars via increased taxes and then those dollars were then shipped into the Governments coffers for the benefit of all via hospitals, education et al?  Again, we wouldn’t be able to spend as much but at least the dollars would be put to the general good.

I presume this makes me a Communist as well, but maybe they were on to something!

Super Bowl

As an Australian, I am very much in the minority when it comes to following the NFL or American Football.  For some reason, the game has appealed to me from the perspective of its tactical variables and the use of players for specialist roles as opposed to a free flowing game like all other codes of football.  I am not saying one code is better than the other, but I do not understand how some people seem to have such a narrow view of the game.  Case in point yesterday when discussing the Super Bowl yesterday with a work colleague… “its just a game when one guy throws the ball down the field and they hope to catch it”… this degenerated into a ‘discussion’ on tactics vs free range instinctive play.  She is an Aussie Rules fan and that for a start gets my goat up… damning “point for missing” crowd!

Then last night when watching the end of the game on repeat on Fox Sports, I tell Niki that there is 2 minutes to go and the Giants were driving to win.  Of course 2 minutes of game time is not 2 minutes of real time, so Niki proceeded to say things like “come on! Hurry up!”…. all while the teams, particularly the Giants were trying to make the right play call.

Gridiron is a game of nuances and calculated risk.  Its pretty much a human game of chess.  It has moments of athletic brilliance – such as the classic 3^rd & 5 play yesterday when the receiver took the catch on his helmet, but it is the mental side of the game that is to me what makes it a good spectacle.  To see the “God Like” Tom Brady falter in the last 30 seconds when I thought the most likely option would be to go for comparatively short yardage for the field goal and to see Eli Manning, younger brother of the respected Peyton Manning beat his older brothers rival is a classic reason why the NFL is a game within a game.

Well done to the Giants as well… beating the previously 17-0 Patriots and causing a great upset… was a good thing to see.  Whilst I am a Redskin fan and hence the Giants are a rival team, it was good to see the NFC come out on top.

To add to the sporting spectacular this week, Australia plays a World Cup Qualifier against Qatar tomorrow night! Cant wait for that one either!

Weekend - Documenting Not Much At All

Pretty tame weekend this weekend hampered by the weather and also Niki’s mum still staying with us.  Did play cricket on the Saturday and we turned up and the grass was very long and we had a heavy downpour about half an hour before play was to start.

We gave it half an hour to dry a bit and we promptly lost the toss and were sent in… with a wet, long outfield we struggled and batted for 60 odd overs to be all out for just 86.  Yes a run rate just over 1!  Yours truly opened and faced a dozen balls before I middled an on-drive and short leg stuck his hand out and it stuck… great catch, but sucks to be on the end of that!  We have the opposition at 1/2 at stumps after 4 overs.

Sunday was wet but Niki’s brother and sister-in-law relieved us and we took the kids to see the Water Horse.  Not a bad movie considering it’s a kids movie.  The girls loved it and it was nice to see a kids movie that wasn’t the usual American clap-trap.

So other than that, not much happened.  Brookie registered this year for netball like her big sister and we bought the girls a netball hoop – that remains inside given the weather and we’ve come to the realisation that the girls are just doing waaay too much this year.  Brooke has added Gymnastics and Netball to her already busy schedule.

I was so tired and flat yesterday that I went to bed at a bit past 9:30… must be getting old!

Wild Weather...

Its Friday! Where has the time gone! Today I am very busy at work and will be out and about today but I am very keen to get out the door closer to 5pm rather than 7-8pm. Last night I left the office around 7ish and was driving home rather than training it… and I was absolutely pelted with the largest storm I have ever experienced! It was torrential rain and the wind was blowing but what was freaky was that the lightning was almost solid. The bolts would come down from the clouds and instead of being instant flashes they would sit there and hold their position for a good 4-5 seconds. Whilst this happened the cloud looked like it was being heated by a laser beam rather than it throwing bolts down from the sky. I have to say it was very surreal.

This story from the smh.com.au shows a picture taken where I was driving last night – exiting the Lane Cove Tunnel and onto the M2. As you can see the lightning is very solid. But when I drove through the storm and out the other side, the clouds were the most weird looking... we had high clouds sitting up still whilst underneath, almost horizontal tornado looking clouds were whooshing by at a very low altitude. Then as I approached the M7/M4 junction, I snapped the picture below...



It doesnt do it justice, but that horizontal cloud above the exit sign was moving very quickly and rolling on itself and then when I went up the M7 off ramp (at the Lighthorse interchange) I was probably above it looking down.

Very weird...