Doh!!!!!

Corby
Originally uploaded by BLP.

An Indonesian court issued its ruling today in the drug smuggling case involving Schapelle Corby.

The Verdict: Guilty
The Sentence: 20 Years (beats a firing squad)

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

We beat out the competition for the housing of our choice in Richmond. So come June 17th, we take possession of our new apartment (and hope our furniture arrives shortly afterwards).

Surfer's Paradise

watermark
Originally uploaded by BLP.

I'm off to Surfer's Paradise in Queensland for the annual CSIRO climate meeting. At present I have zero responsibilities, so I hope to just listen and snack for two days, but I may be recruited to fill a last minute gap in the program.

Back to School II

I resumed my German classes last night at the Goethe Institut. The new class consists of about 9 people - 7 of which have been taking classes there for some time, and two new people (myself included). It was a very outgoing group of people, and die Lehrerin (Kathrin von Ost Berlin - ihr Mann kommt aus New Jersey) appeared quite enthusiastic and knowledgeable. So it looks like it will be a good time. The classes here clearly move at a slower pace than in DC - spending more time on conversation and day-to-day topics, rather than grammar. But that should be a welcome change. After introducing myself, the other students as well as Kathrin suspected that I was too advanced for the class, but only because I said I was ein Umwelt Wissenschaftler, which none of the students understood. After that, I pretty much kept my mouth shut and tried to keep up.

The Relevance of Climate

In case you haven't heard, Australia has been experiencing a drought, even by Australian standards (and remember-this is the second most arid continent behind Antarctica). Here's an update from the Bureau of Meteorology on rainfall:

"April rainfall was below to very much below average across most of the country, with vast areas registering less than 20% of the long-term average. In many parts of northern and central Australia, no rain fell for the entire month of April, and the Australia-wide average for the first four months of the year was the second lowest on record. "

This means that I get to enjoy lots of sunny weather, but it's very bad news for farmers and water resource managers (reservoirs throughout southern Australia are only about 30-50% full – the Mt. Bold reservoir is at 5% capacity). In developing its budget for the next fiscal year, the current government opted out of including emergency funding for Australia's farmers. Why? Well apparently it rained hard in Victoria one day back in February, and the government took this as a sign that the drought was nearing an end, and thus no need to include farm aid in the budget. Needless to say, the government's wisdom proved faulty, and heaps of farmers are about to lose their shirt and at present there's no safety net in place. [One could argue that no one really has any business trying to farm the Australian landscape, but that's another issue.]

Yet, about 25 years ago, CSIRO told West Australia that the drought they were experiencing at the time was likely to remain indefinitely. Quite out of character for a political institution, the WA government listened and has made water management a priority issue. CSIRO's forecast has proven to be correct, and if anything conditions have grown even worse over the years. The city of Perth in WA recently turned to desalination to address water availability problems - a very expensive solution, yet the only one that exists given the current climate. So there's evidence that when push comes to shove, politicians can actual pay attention to the scientific community when making decisions.

Cancer Chip

100_0294.JPG
Originally uploaded by BLP.

I discovered this poor, cancerous potato chip during our lunch on Sunday.

Zoo

100_0295.JPG
Originally uploaded by BLP.

We visited the Melbourne Zoo on Sunday. Enjoyed a picnic by the reptile house, and then spent four hours dodging lots of little kids to check out the animals. Saw some interesting stuff - nice collections from southeast Asia in particular, so I got to see some animals I didn't know existed. They had big communities of gorillas and mandrills which were interesting to watch, and a variety of cats (leopards, snow leopards, lions, tigers, bobcats, pumas, etc.), but the prize exhibit (based on the number of people) was the elephants. Meanwhile, the kangaroo exhibit was largely vacant, probably because a kangaroo exhibit in Australia is like a rat exhibit elsewhere in the world.

Click on the giraffe and check out the other zoo pictures at Flickr.

The Search

We visited three different apartments/houses on Saturday in search of our new home. The first was an apartment in Richmond, which quite nice - fairly roomy, up-to-date, nice balcony with a view of the Dandenong Ranges, and strategically located with lots of good stuff in close proximity. The second was off Punt Road in South Yarra - absolutely enormous apartment (twice the size of anything else we've seen), but in rather shabby condition and in a fairly noisy location. The third was a house in Prahran, which we were quite excited about seeing - high ceilings, great hardwood floors, and a big rear patio. But the living space was rather small, and the kitchen and bathroom looked like they hadn't been renovated in 50 years. So we've applied for option 1 - but we've got a few more places to see this week.

Housing

We're starting to take the looking for a place to live thing seriously, but we're not terribly pleased with the whole process. There are a variety of approaches one can take, one of which involves showing up for an inspection, where you get herded through a house with 50 other people in 5 minutes. After that, you can submit an application, which may or may not be accepted. Uta's gone to two of these over the past two days, and we're doing some more over the weekend. This might turn into a full time job.

Then again. . .

. . .maybe we will go to the Interpol show. Tuesday, July 26th at the Metro. It's much easier to spend money when it looks like it came from a Monopoly game.

Back to School

I finally got myself squared away with the Goethe Institut. It took a few phone calls to figure out what German class I should take down here. It's supposed to be standardized, but it seems my classes in DC moved at a faster pace than the ones here (yeah, America rules!!!), so the language coordinator at Goethe had to do some research to figure out where to stick me. So Monday night, it's back to class for me. I'm hoping to get my knowledge of German up to the level of your average German Shepherd by the end of the year.

As my last Lehrer once said, "You don't have to be smart to learn German. There are lots of dumb Germans who speak German very well."

Communication

Scientists are stereotyped as nerdy people who can't communicate with the rest of the world. This stereotype is well deserved. We had a group of Monash U students come by the facility today to check it out and listen to us science guys say impressive sounding things about science. After two 45 minutes talks on a) trace-gas monitoring and isotopic fractionation and b)development of CSIRO's coupled climate model, I think the students were starting to wish they'd stayed home and written an essay (the alternative assignment if they opted out of the site visit). It's not that the aforementioned talks weren't good - they were quite good. But they were so far over the heads of your average 20 year old college kid. I continue to be shocked by scientists' lack of appreciation for their audience.

As the closing speaker, and one not cursed with lots of knowledge about atmospheric sciences or climatology, I simply offered a 30 minute talk re: how I came to be at CSIRO, and showed a bunch of before and after images from climate impact assessments [kind of like those ads from a few years ago with the egg and the frying pan: "this is drugs," this is your brain on drugs," "any questions"]. And I closed by taking questions, but refused to answer questions on the subject of atmospheric science, due to my own ignorance on the subject. They loved it.

And in this corner. . .

In a battle for the hearts and minds of Australians, who would win out: the Pope, or Kylie Minogue? The passing of PJPII came and went down here, but Australians are treating Kylie's diagnosis of cancer like their own September 11th. John Howard even gets questions about it in press conferences. There was an article in the paper here today about how all the tabloids from Australia and the UK plan to allocate staff to cover the story. Allegedly, requests for breast cancer screening among women have surged. I guess the 11,000 women who are diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia each year isn't too alarming for some, but one Kylie Minogue falls victim and risk perception jumps through the roof.

Swamped with Smugglers

Due to either media interest or the incompetence of criminals, the number of stories involving drug smuggling in Australia have skyrocketed. I can't keep up. So from now on, just take it as a given that on any given day of the week, some clown is busted at a major Australian aiport for trying to sneak X kilos of Y drug into the country.

The Trainie

I had my first encounter with a "trainie" last night on the ride home. While riding along, I could look through the window into the next car, where I could see a young man with a cowboy hat and guitar playing and singing quite enthusiastically. Because he was sealed off in the next car, however, I could hear nothing. So I just sat there watching his performance and giving thanks that I didn't have to actually hear anything he was singing. He carried on for about 20 minutes and then passed the hat around, but didn't seem to collect much in reward for his effort. About five minutes from my station, however, the door at the end of my car opened, and the trainie walked through (there were audible groans from my fellow passengers) - obviously hoping to have better luck with a different car. He walked down the aisle and sat down, and I spent five very nervous minutes waiting for him to burst into song. Thankfully, the singing never started, and by this point in time I'd arrived at my station and made my escape.

Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue has postponed the Australian leg of her world tour (including six shows in Melbourne) after announcing she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Southern Ramblings

If bored of Australian nonsense and interested in good old fashioned news from the ATL, check out Sean's new blog Southern Ramblings (http://spmckinley.blogspot.com/).

Move over Ashcroft

Arguably, the story of the month in Australia is the case of Vivian Alvarez. Alvarez was deported from Australia to the Philippines (her country of birth) in 2001. This by itself, is nothing new - Australia is pretty good at sending people packing. However, Alvarez is an Australian citizen, mother of two, and at the time of her deportation, had been living in Australia for 18 years. Left disabled by a car accident, Alvarez was detained by immigration officials and subsequently deported due to her inability to produce a passport (signs of physical and metal disabilities were not considered too carefully). One of her children was forced into foster care. At the time, a missing persons report had been filed by a relative, but this was overlooked by immigration officials.

The mistake was discovered in 2003, but little action was taken until 2004, when Interpol was brought in to investigate. Alvarez was located earlier this month at a hospice center for the elderly and dying in the Philippines where she's spent the past four years in almost complete anonymity. Her brother in Australia thought she'd disappeared and died. She's now indicated she wants to return to Australia, and lawyers are coming out of the woodwork to get a piece of the monetary compensation from the Australian government that is almost certain to follow.

An additional 33 Australians have been wrongfully detained over the past two years.

Verruckt!

German ultra-marathon runner Achim Heukemes, 52, has set a new record for the fastest crossing (on foot) of Australia. Fremantle to Sydney in 43 days.

Prahran Market

Our weekend was filled with lots of walking as we try to familiarize ourselves with several of Melbourne's suburbs (Richmond, South Yarra, Prahran) in an attempt to constrain the geographic area where we'll establish more permanent residence. Both Saturday and Sunday, all roads seemed to lead to the Prahran Market (http://www.prahranmarket.com.au/), where stopped to rest the feet and eat. Great place for bread, fruits, veggies, meats, cheeses, and wine, and doesn't have all the crap that the immense Queen Victoria Market (http://www.qvm.com.au) across town carries (although the latter probably has better deals).

Run to the G

Uta and I are registered for The Age's [Melbourne's newspaper] Run to the G - a 10k being held on Sunday, May 29th. They're giving away free Sunday newspapers for all runners, but I'm not sure why we're paying $30 a piece to run for an hour instead of just paying $2 for the paper and spend our Sunday morning reading it over coffee and pastries. Still the course should be relatively picturesque, as it passes the Melbourne Cricket Grounds ("the G"), the Yarra River, and Federation Square.

Mardigrass

Speaking of festivals, I recently learned from the SBS show Pizza World (a mockumentary series that chronicles the adventures of Rocky, Pauly and Toula as they travel across the globe in search of the first pizza shop in Naples, Italy) that the town of Nimbin holds an annual Mardigrass Festival. The 13th festival concluded just two weeks ago. Some of the events included:

4:20 at the Hemp Bar
The Industrial and Grow Expos in Peace Park
Markets and Music around the Market Stage in the Community Centre
Big Bong Burger Bar Pot Art
Comedy from 9:00pm till late at the Oasis Cafe
Marijuana Music Awards at the Rainbow Cafe
The HEMP Olympix
Kog
Traditional Dance with Nunakal Kanjeil the Mullet Fish Clan Corroboree

Check out all the details and photos at http://www.nimbinmardigrass.com/.

Scientists

CSIRO's Division of Mathematical and Information Sciences is organizing something called "Tech Fest 05" [http://www.cmis.csiro.au/techfest/]. In case you're wondering what kind of exciting stuff happens at such a festival, check out a couple of the advertised sessions:

“What’s Hot in Statistical Modelling”

and

“Opportunities Related to Large Data Sets”

I would like to think these titles were meant to be satirical, but probably not. Though useful, I would be quite shocked if there is, in fact, something (anything at all) "Hot" about statistical modelling, and although large data sets are nice to work with, I'm not sure if they generate a festival-like atmosphere.

Flying High

A police raid Monday led to 11 arrests in Sydney (including a former police detective) after a five-month investigation into a conspiracy among Sydney airport baggage handlers to import $15 million in cocaine from South America.

Tax Cuts

It's budget time for the Australian government, and new tax cuts have been proposed. The tax cuts come after a big budget surplus for the last fiscal year and several years of tax reforms designed to reduce income taxes in general. This reduction has been offset to some extent via the goods and services tax. Australian income tax rates are relatively high (compared to the U.S., but there is no state income tax), with the highest tax rate being 47 percent which is applied to all income over $70,000. This threshold is being raised to $95,000 in July 2005, and $125,000 in July 2006. Most of the lower tax brackets remain relatively unchanged, so this is predominantly a tax cut for the wealthiest Australians. Surprisingly, the Howard government doesn't seem to have a problem advertising it as such. I have no idea what this means for me, because (a) I'm not one of the wealthiest Australians and (b) as a non-permanent resident, I get taxed at a higher rate anyway. Unlike Australians who don't get taxed on their first $6,000 of earnings, I get taxed 29% on the very first dollar I make.

Four Amigos

Uta and I dined last night with Ian and Lisa, who live just a few blocks from us. The former works with me at CSIRO, the latter (Ian's girlfriend) works for the UK Met Office out of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. We picked Amigo's on Chapel Street, which turned out to be a tasty, although hardly authentic, Mexican restaurant. It was a bit on the expensive side (roughly $20 for a burrito), but then so is most dining in Melbourne. Our meal was interrupted by a car accident in front of the restaurant instigated by an allegedly very drunk driver. Big scene - lot's of excitement. We had dessert (mostly in beer form) at Bridie O'Reilly's down the street - an Irish Pub that becomes very un-Irish late at night.

Other concerts we can't afford to see. . .

Moby is coming to town in July. Tickets are $72, so we won't be going to that show.

Interpol is also coming to town in July. Tickets are $55 (more than twice the cost of a ticket to see the Wiggles, Australia's highest earning entertainers), so we won't be seeing that show either.

Reality TV for Nerds

Scientists, or science communicators, now have their own reality TV show (of sorts), allowing them to compete for cash, television air time and, of course, celebrity status. [http://www.famelab.org/]

Never Say Never

From Science Now (5/28/05)

"A woodpecker believed extinct for 60 years has turned up in Arkansas. The ivory-billed woodpecker, one of the world's largest, once lived throughout the southeastern United States. But extensive clear-cutting destroyed its habitat, and by the mid-20th-century, the red-crested bird was thought to have vanished. Now, a team of ornithologists today reports evidence online in Science of at least one living in a wildlife refuge in east-central Arkansas."

Big Brother

Proving that even Australia has its share of awful people, Big Brother V started last night. As a Badly Drawn Boy once sang, "Big Brother needs to end, let's hope this one's the last."

Speaking of grand slams. . .

Bec Cartwright, star of Home and Away and better known as the fiance of tennis-star Lleyton Hewitt, was reported over the weekend to be expecting a child in October, making the whirlwind relationship all the more absurd.

Crocs-o-plenty

Record numbers of salt water crocodiles have forced the closure of popular tourist spots at Australia's World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park near Darwin. Wildlife officials and local aborigines have said the threat to visitors is so great that many swimming holes will be closed indefinitely.

According to one tourism operator (clearly attempting to reassure potential tourists): "A lot of us have questioned the existence of crocodiles in that area, but maybe they really are there." Tell that to the family of a German tourist killed in Kakadu by a croc 2.5 years ago after taking an ill-advised midnight swim [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2352669.stm].

Reunification Day

Uta arrived in Melbourne on Friday morning to find me conspicuously absent. My well-timed journey to the airport to meet her fell apart when my train stopped at every station along the city loop except Spencer Street Station (don’t ask me why-something about it being the first Friday in an odd numbered month), forcing me to back track on foot (which was actually faster than waiting for the next train). This delay was exacerbated by the fact that Uta's flight arrived about 20 minutes early. By the time I caught up with her, she'd made a number of friends in the airport and was contemplating why she married me in the first place. She now gets to temporarily enjoy a life of leisure - exploring Melbourne and relaxing after completing her second Masters degree and an international move in the same week.

Preston Burns

Preston Hall, student housing on the campus of William&Mary, burned to the ground yesterday. Read about it here (courtesy PWC): http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3294311&nav=23iiZOsu.

Multiplex

I've delayed discussing the Multiplex extortion case until something dramatic happened. I’m now tired of waiting. According to their website,

"Multiplex Group is a diversified property business listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, employing over 1,800 people across four divisions: property funds management, property development, construction and facilities and infrastructure management."

All I know is that the company builds big buildings and use big cranes to do so. The company has been plagued by an extortionist who's been demanding $50 million or he'll start shooting crane operators in Australia and/or the UK. The deadline for payment was April 18th. Multiplex didn't pay. Crane operators discussed the issue-ultimately opting to ignore the threat and keep working. April 18th came and went. Nothing happened. However, the issue won't die, because every now and then a new threat is issued, and anything odd showing up at a construction site is taken as evidence that someone might have meant it as a signal that he/she plans to do something potentially harmful at some point in the future. Case in point - this morning a dummy was found hanging from a Multiplex crane is Brisbane. Multiplex has amassed a plethora of enemies over the years, from subcontractors to, more recently, shareholders dissatisfied with corporate management.

And the Winner Is. . .

For those who seek to demonstrate their intellectual gigantism by pointing out errors on this weblog with respect to spelling and/or grammar, I have chosen to create a special place to acknowledge your great achievements. [I find this marginally more amusing than actually going back and making corrections.] You will be recognized in the Copy Editors' Hall of Fame, and I'll keep a running count of the errors you catch. To ensure that points are awarded only for the truly trivial mistake, no points will be awarded for errors of fact or mistakes made in languages other than English.

At present, there are only two contenders, both of which are members of my immediate family (coincidence?), with my brother Tad tied with my mother at one point a piece. I'm sure you will all be enthralled as this battle of wits unfolds.

Fall has Fallen

There is now a chill in the air as fall arrives in southeast Australia. Although high temps are still in excess of 20C, at night, temps are frequently falling below 10C, and northern Victoria experienced its first frost warning of the year over the weekend. But then even in the dead of winter, temps won't be much colder than present. Daily temperature ranges for July are ~5-15C [41-59F].

More Hooliganism

The Balkan conflict returned once again to Sydney this past weekend, with Serb and Croat soccer fans once again coming to blows. At least they finished the game this time.

Bags are Packed. . .

2500 Clarendon Boulevard #433 now stands vacant. The movers (or as they say here “removers”) came last week and packed up everything we own and hopefully loaded it onto a container ship, which will slowly make its way to Melbourne. Uta is is thus temporarily homeless, and is spending her last few days in Washington with friends. She flies out on Wednesday – arriving here Friday morning (giving me an excuse to cut my work week short). If timed correctly, we should take possession of more permanent (and desirable) housing just before our belongings arrive, and from there we can get this whole Australian adventure thing rolling.