Mr Cricket …

Thank you, Michael Hussey, and all the best.

Your international cricket career could easily have started sooner and lasted longer.

Your cricketing brain was unmatched. Time and again you rose to the occasion, usually a crisis, and steered your team towards victory.

The quintessential cricketer, Mr Cricket, you will be missed.

Gold plating …

When I arrived home my clock was flashing. Elementary my dear Watson, a power failure. Enquiries revealed it was that very hot day last Friday, everyone turned on their air-conditioning and out went the suburb, all day.

Out in the bush it was a day of total fire ban. And hot as hades. And windy. Naturally you’d want to know where the fires were …

The CFA have been running TV ads urging people to check the warnings before they travel. Nonetheless I heard a spokesman today say that they were taken by surprise by the volume of hits on their website on the first real fire risk day of the season! Naturally the web site buckled under the strain. Meanwhile the CFA app is not working so well either.

Make sure your fire plan is in place. If it depends on access to real time information or the availability of power … make another plan.

 

 

And a happy new year …

Back in town.

I would like to say cool and refreshed, but can admit to being back in town.

I wish all of you a happy new year except Bashar Asad, if you’re reading … you’re not included.

I haven’t been in touch, so I have a bit of catching up to do. I’m pleased to see that America failed to disappear over the fiscal cliff. And they go on shooting each other, everything normal there.

Julia is charging from hot spot to hot spot saying things to improve her profile. Reminiscent of Anna Bligh, whatever happened to Anna Bligh?

In fact the prime minister’s special vehicle has been charging around a little too quick at times and has run up a few speeding fines. Her office is refusing to say who was at the wheel. Tim Blair is running a cheeky little poll as to who it might be. Pop over and join in – just click <HERE>.

The nice Mr Slipper has been summonsed to appear at the Canberra magistrate’s court, something to do with taxi vouchers. I expect Nicola or Julia will mussel up on his behalf.

Interesting year in store …

Merry Christmas …

Tomorrow, at an ungodly hour, I shall head to the farm.
I will in the next two weeks …
bottle the 2012 vintage which is shaping up very well
await the arrival of the NBN
sample the 2012 vintage
await the arrival of the NBN.
play my saxophone
await the arrival of the NBN
If, on my occasional trips to civilisation (or Maryborough) I have broadband I may make a post or two …
In the meantime, please stay safe, enjoy Christmas and be grateful that global warming has taken a break for the last decade or so …

Picture 4

There has to be something better.
Back January 7th …

No ifs, no buts …

… and no surplus.

A sigh of relief from the business community, grateful that we are not going to stop the economy in its tracks just to make the treasurer look less of an idiot. A sigh of relief turned into praise from the ABC for a treasurer ready to make the tough choices. In reality, though, just further evidence that we are governed by a bunch of raving incompetents, left to them we will end up as financially bankrupt as they are intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Remember that the promise of a return to surplus was made at a time when Labor were throwing money around fresh from the printing press. It’ll be alright we will be delivering a surplus … That promise was made over and over again.

When elected Labor stumbled upon a $20 billion surplus, no net debt and $70 billion in commonwealth net assets. The Treasurer of the year has had nothing but praise for the economy that he has managed ever since, it’s the best money can buy. Even this morning he was boasting of anticipated growth, low unemployment and low interest rates. True commodity prices have slipped back … presently they are only three times higher than they were when Labor got in! They have raised completely new taxes. How did they ever run out of money?

The reason is simple, Labor has done what Labor does – spend. This Labor government has spent very enthusiastically and delivered less in return than even Whitlam’s.

Everything they have actually done has gone wrong … from frying apprentices installing insulation in houses that later burn down to an Education Revolution that has seen us plummet to new levels of illiteracy.

To play safe they have replaced action with unfunded promises – the Gonsky spend, the Disability scheme.

Since it took office a government that promised to take “a meat axe” to an already bloated public service has appointed an extra 10,000 public servants. It has increased spending from $271 billion a year to more than $370 billion.

The debt on the nation’s credit card now stands at $144 billion.

Very civilising …

Polio is a dreadful disease that modern medicine has largely overcome.

The majority of infections are mild or even asymptomatic but about one in a thousand are quickly fatal and about one in a hundred result in muscle weakness or paralysis.

Depictions of people with withered limbs and young people walking with canes suggest that polio has been with us for thousands of years but prior to the 20th century, polio infections were rarely seen in children under six months, most cases occurring between six months and four years of age. Poor sanitation resulted in a constant exposure to the virus, producing a degree of natural immunity. In developed countries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries better sewage disposal and clean water supplies radically changed the picture. Small localized polio epidemics began to appear in Europe and the United States around 1900 becoming widespread through North America, Australia, and New Zealand in the next 50 years.

By 1950 the peak age incidence of paralytic poliomyelitis in the United States had shifted from infants to children aged five to nine years, when the risk of death and paralysis are higher; about one-third of the cases were reported in persons over 15 years of age.The United States experienced its worst ever outbreak in 1952.  Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

Vaccination programs have turned the tide against this cruel waste of young people’s potential. New cases are now few, there are, however, quite a few disabled survivors.

There are now just three countries acting as a reservoir of reinfection – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. The vaccine is cheap, the effort to distribute it has been well funded and well coordinated.

Gunmen shot dead five female health workers who were immunizing children against polio on Tuesday, causing the Pakistani government to suspend vaccinations in two cities and dealing a fresh setback to an eradication campaign dogged by Taliban resistance …

There have been similar events in Afghanistan and Nigeria.