Month: October 2009

Vale Holly

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dogs

Holly is in the middle

My old Golden Retreiver has finally succumbed to the ravages of time. The local possums and cats are secure – she never differentiated between them so both species would be confronted with lots of noise and movement. Her problem was she never learned to climb fences or trees, so her doggy fantasies of tearing the invaders to small bite size bits were never realized.  Notwithstanding this small problem they sure as hell knew they weren’t welcome.

I do recall that one litter of possums would definitely have been born pre-traumatised as they were conceived on top of  a very narrow fence with the possum bloke having his way with his girl. Holly was barking her head off jumping up  to within centimeters of the copulating couple trying to tear him (and her) to pieces.  Added to this cacophony was my wife and I, with  torch focussed on the dirty deed, laughing like drains as we admired his tenacity.  How he never fell off we’ll never know but I bet the kittens (or whatever you call baby possums) came out with a phobia about loud dogs.

She gave us all a scare last year but she got another 19 months of loafing around like eldery retreivers do.

She’ll be missed.

2
General Musings

Libs doubting Rudd’s ETS

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turnbullLIBERAL Party frontbenchers have begun to dump their support for carbon emissions trading after receiving party research showing voters are increasingly skittish about putting a price on carbon.

Despite Malcolm Turnbull’s ongoing attempts to broker a deal with Labor that would clear the way for Kevin Rudd’s proposed ETS, political hardheads among the Liberals are moving closer to the Nationals’ view that endorsing carbon trading is political poison.

In an online poll 79% of readers of The Australian do not understand how the proposed ETS will cut greenhouse gases and therein lies the problem.

Explain it to us Kevin, or Penny and tell us how your ETS will help Mother Earth hold back the tide of natural climate variations. If it’s going to cost me more to live I want to know I’m actually helping in a constructive way.

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Climate Change

Indonesian or Pacific?

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KEVIN Rudd has told Parliament he does not expect any difficulty in extending the official clearance for the Oceanic Viking to remain anchored off the coast of Indonesia if the standoff with local authorities and asylum-seekers continues.

If he had left the the Pacific Solution stand he wouldn’t be in such a bind. Admittedly the Left would hate him but they are going to hate him anyway as Caroline Overington explains;

Now, keen consumers of news will remember that Barnaby Joyce was last week keen to portray himself as the nation’s leading asylum-seeker. But if (Foreign Affairs) Smith is speaking the truth – if it’s now government policy to send boatpeople back to Indonesia, where military police will use force against women and children to get them into detention – it won’t be only Barnaby seeking safe haven. It will be the Left of the Labor Party, not least from the people who put them in power.

So now we just delete Pacific Solution and insert Indonesian Solution and Rudd and Smith spin it as humane and compassionate with just a touch of ‘tough on illegal immigrants’ and we are expected to swallow it?

Dig yourself out of this one Rudd.

UPDATE: Perth ABC report another boatload of 40 Illegals has just been detected off Ashmore Reef. Might be time to admit that the ALP are accepted as a soft touch by Lifestyle Shoppers posing as refugees.

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Uncategorized

Long Tan veterans recognized

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THE decision to upgrade honours to Vietnam veterans who fought at Long Tan was the culmination of “a long, hard struggle” for greater recognition, according to Bob Buick, who served as a sergeant in one of Australia’s most famous battles.

Forty-three years after the battle, in which 18 Australian soldiers died, the men of D Company 6 Royal Australian Regiment will receive the nation’s highest unit award — the Unit Citation for Gallantry — with the backing of the Honours and Awards Tribunal.

They have already been awarded the Presidential Unit Citation as were there earlier mates who fought in the battle of Kapyong in Korea but that is an American award so it’s reasonable to give them an Australian one.

Now stand by for the Kapyong vets to put their hands up and say “what about us?”

There still exists anomalies re bravery awards for this battle. Individual cases of bravery are still to be recognized and most probably never will.

Still something is better than nothing.

Just a small point, pedantic as it may be, D Company 6 Royal Australian Regiment should read as D Company 6th Battalion The Royal Australian Regiment The Australian’s version would suggest that we have at least 6 Regular Infantry Regiments which of course we don’t. You’d expect the journalists to at least be able to designate our Army units correctly. Wouldn’t you?

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Defence