Brisbane

While most folks spent last Wednesday doing the ANZAC Day/Gallipoli rembrance thing, I jetted off to sunny Brisbane to get a bit of rest and rendezvous with Die Frau, who's been sequestered up there for a few weeks for work. We used the ANZAC holiday to check out the up-and-coming James Street in Fortitude Valley (not the most promising name I've heard for a neighborhood), cruise down the river on the Citycat, grab a refreshing beverage in the Botanic Gardens, and stroll through Southbank which was packed with Queenslanders enjoying the holiday.

Thursday and Friday I was left to entertain myself - most of that time was spent in coffee shops doing work, but certianly strolled around the city a fair amount. I checked out the impressive Roma Street Parklands and its collection of subtropical vegetation (as well as its collection of vagrants who were being sent packing by surly gardeners as I arrived), picked up a new digital camera to replace the bit of rubbish Kodak doomed us to suffer through for the past two years, and glanced briefly at St. John's Cathedral which is still under construction (allegedly the last gothic cathedral to be built in the world. It's pretty young to be comparable to the great gothic cathedrals of Europe, but they've been building it for over a century, so it has some history. In the evenings, we had our choice of emerging hip eateries, and took in a showing of Das Leben der Anderen (which was awesome) at the James Street cinema.

Saturday, we broke out of Brisbane and headed to the ever beautiful Gold Coast - Australia's greatest example of untouched wilderness. Oh, wait. I've got that wrong. How about Australia's greatest imitation of Orlando, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City all rolled into one (which I previously visited back in June of 2005). No shortage of people, high rises, and it's one of the few places we've found in Australia where one can go shopping at night, because the Gold Coast is the city (or rather, sprawling metroplex) that never sleeps. Well, OK, it sleeps, but not until about 10 pm. We booked a hotel with the friendly tourist information office, ending up with a cozy room on the 17th flood of one of the many towers in Surfer's Paradise. We cruised around the strip in the afternoon, walked on the beach (which really is impressive, despite the buffoonery of the neighboring community), and dined at a little cafe called Marmalade. Sunday brought beautiful Gold Coast weather so we ate breakfast at the Northcliffe Surf Life Saving Club and then joined all the European backpackers on the beach before cutting out early to return to Brisbane via the Harbour Point outlet mall.

Shizzle

Snoop barred from Australia? How can you bar a pimp from a country where prostitution is legal? First Rocky was run out of town on a rail and now this.

OK all you American celebrities out there. If you want a tip on how to be welcomed in OZ, try rocking up with wads of cash. Case-in-point, Spielberg and Hanks are set to shoot a Pacific follow-up to Band of Brothers, which will undoubtedly mean heaps of additional sales of coffee and donuts to the city of Melbourne.

Group Think

The Age recently ran an interesting article on the growing phenomenon of "crowdsourcing", whereby companies and organisations draw on the collective wisdom of the massed public to generate ideas and solve problems.

Carbon Credability

John Howard has once again overlooked some fundamentals about climate change and climate policy in a recent speech. As usual, he warned his audience of the potential risks of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and reminded them of his determination to avoid lasting economic damage that such policies might create. On the other hand, he apparently didn't make any mention of the lasting economic damages associated with the persistent drought that has settled over the nation, or the findings of any number of assessments that the costs of climate damages will be equal to or greater than the costs of reducing emissions. As the public increasingly perceive that they are paying the costs of climate change right now, the spectre of potential economic damages from emissions reductions is going to appear more and more transparent.

Pirates of the Coral Sea

Ships off the Queensland coast have lately had a habit of turning up without their crews. . .

Granny Got a Gun

With the shootings on the VA Tech campus now a week behind us, America's fair and balanced media outlets have apparently been in search of a "positive" gun story. What'd they find? A comical yarn about a little old lady (and former Miss America to boot) who put two caps in the wheel of an escape car, allowing police to capture would-be thieves. Yes, yes, another demonstration of how guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is a strong deterrent of crime. We should give guns to all of America's elderly to ensure they never become defenseless victims. Yet it's a bit comical that the Constitution doesn't guarantee an old duffer the right to continue driving his car after frailty and dementia set-in, but it does guarantee that same old duffer the right to blaze away with a handgun. And they call that security?

Article can be found here, and a light-hearted video here.

Halt Climate Change

Brought to you by Climate Movement.Org

Guns

In the wake of last week's shootings on the campus of VA Tech, Newley has assembled a collection of insights on the incident and America's gun culture in general. I was flattered he asked for my input, which you can find at Newley.com. In addition to simply ranting away, I provide a quick summary of Australia's experiences in this arena and its policies on gun control.

Also, here's an opinion piece from The Age, which offers a wholly Aussie look at the issue.

Water, Water. . .Nowhere

We're approaching crunch time for water availability in southeast Australia. John Howard indicated last week that unless the nation gets rain in biblical proportions in the next 6 to 8 weeks, the irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin would have to go without water next season (to which the irrigators responded - "duh, John"). In addition, John's gone as far as to suggest the Murray River may be effectively turned off, as environmental flows are cut-off to maintain water in the dams and weirs along the waterway.

Melbourne got a good soaking yesterday, last night, and this morning. Just 39 more days and nights to go. . .

Ode to a Q-Club

OK, I've been a member of Qantas Club for all of two weeks, and given the numerous trips I've made over the past ten days, I've had ample opportunity to take it for a spin.

First, I must acknowledge that my membership is provided for by the fine folks at CSIRO out of respect for those of us burdened to jet around the country (or world) for the sake of science in the public interest. After listing the 14 trips I made in the last 12 months and the 12 already scheduled over the next 9, I was deemed worthy.

Now you're all familiar with airline clubs - special back rooms located in airport terminals where frequent travelers and VIPs can hide out and soak up some perks while they await their flights. The Qantas Club is Australia's most ubiquitous and upmarket of these - you walk through the doors and there's lots of genuine wood, comfy chairs, brie, espresso machines, and wine. Very nice. Every elite. Very exclusive.

Well, nice, yes. But exclusive? No way. From what I gather, Australian's are granted a membership at birth, because it appears more people are members than aren't. For example, while waiting in Melbourne for a flight to Canberra a few weeks ago in my pre-Q-Club days, I was quite shocked to find that I was one of about 5 people at the gate. But once the flight started boarding, the Q-Club masses came a running, and thus something like 95% of the flight's passengers had been hanging out together in 'Da Club. Last Tuesday, I was in the Q-Club in Townsville and I couldn't find a seat. The place was packed (granted, there was only seating for about 30 people, it is Townsville after all). So except for the free beer, brie and reading material, I would have been better off out with the small number of proletariat travelers soaking up the space in the main terminal.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Club. It does make frequent flying a bit easier. But the bottom line is Australians act like the Q-Club is hot shit and if you're inside, you're a far sight more elite than everybody on the other side of the door. The only problem is this - there's no one out there. The reason why people join the Q-Club is so they won't be lonely. So enjoy the beer, but drop the attitude. Any place that lets my chronically under-dressed ass in can't be that highbrow.

Back to the Beach

Sometime in 2005, I ventured off to the great state of South Australia to join the Adelaide crew for Easter buffoonery on the beach. I played Trivial Pursuit (South Australia edition - a game at which I truly excelled), watched a bizarre U.S. film called "The Wanderers", and came within inches of spewing all over the SS Minnow on a fishing expedition at a quiet coastal spot called Death from Below Bay (or something like that).

Easter 2006, we, uh, hell I don't know. My blog is barren as is my Outlook calendar. Oh well, obviously we didn't do much. . .

But Easter '07, it was back to SA, different beach (Aldinga), same crew (well, not really, Uta was there this time along with our kid, and various other folks came and went, but I was there and that's all that matters, right).

All manner of beach-side buffoonery was pursued - beach cricket, walks on the beach, fishing from the beach, running on the beach, lying on the beach, and so on. Trivial Pursuit was replaced by Jenga, and although much was made of my allegedly shaky hands, I opened up the schoolhouse to allow my competitors to learn a thing or two. Just like the good old days of our youth, we busted the place up a bit. A bottle was broken within minutes of our arrival, and a number of other glasses met their maker on the hardwood floors. But with the ladies vacuuming the floor 8 to 10 times per day, the place remained immaculate.

And of course, we found time for cultural pursuits. The ladies took-up a short study of language, whereupon we discovered that Uta's name, when translated into English, means "Cindy". I suppose that explains some things. They also got their intellect on by attempting to power their way through a pirated copy of Babel - one which lacked sub-titles. They got about half-way through before they gave up. And apparently without translation, the movie can be completely misinterpreted, as they walked away convinced it was a documentary about the international child sex trade.

Ryan took the award for most productive house member, slaving through the weekend to write an essay on post-war urban planning in Australia. He also took the award for the greatest contribution to the region's biodiversity as he diligently fed the fish off Cape Jervis during Sunday's fishing outing. But this award was promptly revoked once his heaving off the starboard side was determined to be a clever ruse to attract more fish, ultimately contributing to our efforts to deplete the region's snapper stocks. Herbie walked away with the prize catch. Despite hooking my fair share, I couldn't land anything of legal size (so I had to remain satisfied with clubbing the odd baby seal). During our expedition, we also had a crash course on what to do when you're in an overloaded fishing boat in open water, the bilge pump doesn't work and you can't get the engine started. Answer: keep trying until the bloody thing starts.

All in all, another successful escapade. Granted, these days every one's going to sleep and rising earlier and the alcohol consumption is falling off. But on the other hand, the quality of cooking is rising, and what could be more important than that?

My only concern is about the quality of care our kid's receiving. Kerry and Mike tried to convince us that Ava's wounds were the result of mosquito bites, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the evidence. Any more of this nonsense, and we'll have to bring her back to Melbourne.

Security Alert!!!

The UN Security Council took time off from its usual agenda of doing nothing to debate the issue of climate change in a security context. Some apparently consider this to be an inappropriate encroachment on the council on other UN bodies, but hey, let's face it, the Security Council needs something to do other than sitting around talking about what they're not going to do in the various insecure parts of the world, so I say give them a break.

Around Australia in 8 Days

This time last week, we were flying back from sunny Adelaide after an Easter retreat on the SA coast. 12 hours after landing, Uta was off to Brisbane, while I flew off to Sydney, followed later in the week by Canberra. We regrouped back in Melbourne Friday night, but were off again on Sunday - Uta back to Brisbane, while I headed out to the novel destination of Townsville.

Townsville. What to say? Nestled on the coast of northern Queensland, it's a small tropical paradise (of sorts). It's an important military town, used by both the navy and the army. With under 200,000 residents, there's not much going on, just sunshine, beach, and water. Arriving yesterday on a Sunday night, I was a bit taken aback by how quiet the town was - I mean, I'm accumstomed to sleepy Aussie towns on Sunday evenings, but this was absurd. It's the kind of place where the local news reports on scandals at the local primary school or thefts of street signs. Two of the commericals I saw on TV this evening featured a medication to rid cattle of parasites and a public service announcement asking people to be vigilant against pools of standing water on their property to aid in the prevention of dengue fever. The pedestrian mall next to the Holiday Inn (the tallest building in town) features as many vacant store fronts as occupied ones, so it appears that the rapid economic boom that's plauging southeast Queensland has yet to make it this far north.

That said, it's actually somewhat of a picturesque little community. The cliffs backing the beachfront have a diverse array of quaint houses perched on their sides, commanding what I'm sure are wonderful views. Meanwhile, the town is an excellent jumping off point for other spots such as the wet tropics, Magnetic Island, or the Great Barrier Reef. And I'm guessing the cost of living here isn't nearly as high as Australia's more famous and populous seaside communities, yet there's no shortage of late 19th century tropical architecture (some of it reminiscent of New Orleans, only here they've got enough sense to put things on stilts). I'd be interested in coming back at some point in the future and exploring a bit more of the city and the surrounding region.

Another Deadly Creature

As if there weren't enough things in Australia that can kill you, now it turns out that even the stuff that can't kill you can, apparently, kill you. How nice.

'Harmless' snake proves deadly
Dan Harrison
April 16, 2007 - 4:34PM

"Friends of a reptile enthusiast who died after being bitten by a snake have expressed their shock that a man who knew snakes so well had been killed by a species generally regarded as harmless."

Climate $$$

At today's meeting of the Council of Austrlian Governments, the PM announced a new climate change adaptation centre to the tune of $126 million as well as an additional $44 million to CSIRO to support a ramping up of research efforts on climate change and its consequences. This represents a significant boost to the nations' efforts to understand climate change consequences. However, the PM balked at committing the nation to greenhouse emissions reduction targets. So the States are left again to go it alone.

Blue Skies

The Age's expose today on Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy (currently touring Australia).

House Party

In the universe of profoundly stupid acts, this must rank fairly high:

MySpace invite sees party home trashed
April 13, 2007 - 10:15AM

"Two British parents were left with a $48,000 bill after a party advertised by their teenage daughter on MySpace attracted hundreds of revellers who trashed their home."

The Grates

Recently watched a live concert by Australia's "the Grates". Loved it. Here they are via YouTube with "Rock Boys."

Live Earth a Go!

The Live Earth global concert to raise awarneness about climate change is set to do it's rock & roll thing on July 7th. The-line up for the U.S. show is as follows:

AFI
AKON
ALICIA KEYS
BON JOVI
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
FALL OUT BOY
JOHN MAYER
KANYE WEST
KELLY CLARKSON
KT TUNSTALL
LUDACRIS
MELISSA ETHERIDGE
RIHANNA
ROGER WATERS
SHERYL CROW
SMASHING PUMPKINS
THE POLICE

Can't say that's inspiring me to fight climate change, but the line-up for the UK is a bit more promising:

BEASTIE BOYS
BLACK EYED PEAS
BLOC PARTY
CORINNE BAILEY RAE
DAMIEN RICE
DAVID GRAY
DURAN DURAN
FOO FIGHTERS
GENESIS
JAMES BLUNT
JOHN LEGEND
KEANE
MADONNA
PAOLO NUTINI
RAZORLIGHT
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
SNOW PATROL

Still waiting to hear who'll rock up for the Sydney show. . .

Go Dollar Go

The Aussie dollar (not what one would normally consider a titan among developed world currencies) has surged in recent months, gaining almost ten cents on the U.S. greenback.

Boom Town!

The Age ran an interesting article over the weekend describing how the resources boom is transforming regional communities in WA.

"Many workers earn more than $100,000 a year, have pay TV and get six days straight off work. So what is it really like in a remote Western Australian mining boom town? David Cohen reports on life in Tom Price."

Kill the Rabbit

"WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) -- A New Zealand environmental body is targeting the Easter bunny in a renewed war against one of the country's worst natural pests. Environment Canterbury on the country's South Island wants people to come up with an alternative Easter symbol as part of a campaign to highlight the damage caused by the non-native pest.

"They're like an environmental curse," Mark Oldfield of Environment Canterbury said.

"We did have a similar competition a number of years ago and we came up with the Easter Kiwi," Oldfield said, referring to the flightless bird that is the country's national bird."

Cities on Top

The the long-fought battle for urban supremecy, yet another annual quality of life/living survey has been released, this one from Mercer. Once again, if you live in a highly taxed city in Europe, your livestyle is apparently fabulous (despite the cold), and if you're in New Zealand or Australia, you're not doing to badly either. A list of the top 50 for 2007 can be found here.

CO2=Pollution

It's official. That bastion of liberal ideology, the U.S. Supreme Court, has ruled that carbon dioxide can be regulated as an air pollutant, clearing the way for the U.S. EPA to take up the regulatory cause. In fact, the old agency even received a bit of a rebuke:

""EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. The agency "identifies nothing suggesting that Congress meant to curtail EPA's power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants," the opinion continued.""

I guess it's back to the drawing board for the climate policy obstructionists in the U.S. Wonder what gem of policy logic they'll come up with next.

Kids

What better way to spend a Sunday morning than running one's ass around the city of Melbourne. I joined 25,000 or so of my close personal friends on the annual Run for the Kids benefit tour-by-foot of the city. Having not run in oh, I don't know, let's say many moons, I was a bit intimidated by the 15.2km distance (especially since I usually ahve enough sense not to sign up for anything over 10 km), but managed to plod my way through with little or no hardship (thanks in part to a kind granny who paced me around the course). Final damage - a time of 1:27:45, almost ten solid minutes behind Uta's time from last year (but then she only had to run 14.7 km. . .).

Earth Hour

Enlightened City Knocks the World's Lights Out
Sunanda Creagh, Urban Affairs Reporter
April 2, 2007

"MORE than half of Sydneysiders - as many as 2.2 million - switched off their lights to celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night, a poll has found."

The Real Cause of Global Warming

Courtesy of Kevin

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