It’s ten years since the world stopped in horror when the World Trade Center in New York suffered and unimaginable attack that destroyed billions of dollars worth of investment, and more importantly the lives of an approximate 3,000 people. Sadly of course the true numbers of deaths will never be known.

The attack was also the catalyst for two of the most destructive and expensive wars ever conducted by the USA, i.e. the incursions into both Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of those has cost untold trillions of dollars and uncounted numbers of deaths and injuries amongst combatants and non-combatants alike.

The economic, social and political fallout from the attacks and the wars is yet to be fully realised but it’s almost certain to affect the course of world history for 100 years. Whether this will be for good or ill is for history to determine, right now all that concerns me is the number of lives ruined around the world for what would appear, from the outside,  would seem to be for no good reasons. Perhaps religion is sufficient cause for some, revenge might be another, perhaps access to oil resources is enough… I wouldn’t be so sure.

For my own part I recall getting up in the morning (on the 12th September in Sydney) and watching in complete shock as events unfolded in front of me. My wife was working for IBM at the time and had flown over to New York to take part in a series of meetings so I also remember clearly the sudden panic when I realised I had no idea if she was ok. I knew she wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near central NY but she could have gone sightseeing, gone to a meeting… I had no idea and for several hours I was unable to make contact at all.

Remember at that time none of us had any idea if these were one off attacks or the start of a major war on US soil! For all we knew there were other hijacked planes still flying towards targets, and having lived through the IRA attacks in London were aware how easy it would be to plant car bombs at strategic points around a city to cause even more chaos!

Eventually however, my father in the UK managed to get through to her to make sure she was safe and well, tho of course it was still several days before she was able to fly out and back home. The experience really affected her of course and even now she can’t watch any scenes of the attacks without having to either switch to another channel or walk out of the room.

If this is how she feels after all this time, what the memories and experiences of those who were close by must be like I dread to think.

It’s hard to believe that ten years have drifted by. The images we see on the television bring back the trauma as clearly as if it was yesterday. For those who lost loved ones in the attacks it must be a thousand times worse. We can’t do much to help ease the pain… but we are thinking of you.

 

Once upon a time, well when I was a callow youth at least, the National Geographic seemed to be the answer to every boy’s dream when it came to looking at half naked women. Without access to the internet… or cash… the images of African or Polynesian women dressed in little more than strategically placed leaves (and very often even less!) the NatGeo was an ideal way of examining learning female anatomy whilst appearing to be intent on academic advancement. What’s more they were often on display at the surgeries of dentists, doctors and the like so were readily available.

Time of course moves on and I forgot all about the magazine for many years and tho occasionally I’d see them dotted and dogeared in various waiting rooms I really never bothered to peruse them. Now I’m beginning to see the error of my ways.

A few days ago I happened upon the website of the National Geographic and had a good look round. To begin with it’s really a very easily navigable place, always a good start, however it soon grabbed my attention because of the quality of the articles available. After only a few minutes I found myself engrossed in stories about evolution, the behaviour of chimpanzees, and even why the ringer finger is longer on men!

I’m sorry I’ve not visited the site before, but I *can* guarantee I’ll be back!

Source: National Geographic Site

Documents published by Wikileaks have thrown new light on the decision making process of the 34 movie companies that sued iinet over alleged copyright infringement.

It seems the deliberately chose iinet in part *because* it was ‘small’ in preference to going after the ‘big guns’ such as Telstra which, with BigPond controls over 50% of the ISP market.

Personally I’d suspect that in the long run the movie makers will just have to bite the bullet and come to the party offering online downloads of current (and old) movies at a reasonable cost, i.e way below the prices currently offered. After all, the main reason people steal media is because they can’t afford to buy it !

Case in point: My daughter wanted to watch 12 Angry Men (the Henry Fonda version) for a school assignment. To order it via Amazon would cost us $10.50 $pp. I don’t want to seem pennypinching but should I *really* have to pay that sort of cost for a 60 year old movie?? The DVD would cost cents to create, far less than the cost of the cover etc. If it was online and I could buy or rent it for $1 or less it would have been priced about right for what it is. After all it wasn’t made for DVD, it was intended to recoup it’s costs on cinema screenings alone!

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of those people who illegally download media, this leaked cable gives us an insight into the thinking of the moguls who control our access to it

The leaked cable makes it quite plain that the US companies worked long and hard to get Australian companies involved to head off the possibility that they might be seen as foreign aggressors. The cable also makes it clear they preferred to leave Telstra alone both because it had far greater resources *and* because it was prepared to fight ‘hard and dirty’ in legal stouches!! :)

So far however iinet has maintained the upper hand in the battle – and long may it do so!

 

Source: US studios avoided Telstra battle and went after iiNet instead in copyright case

 

A furore that last exploded in Australia some 3 years ago in relation to photographer Bill Henson has been reignited by the withdrawal from show of a photograph entitled “Black Sheep & White Crow” by Jan Saudek.  (for the comprehensive blog entry see “Bill Henson – artist or pervert“)

Black Sheep & White Crow (with thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald)

Black Sheep & White Crow (with thanks to Sydney Morning Herald)

When it came to Bill Henson’s work I was somewhat confused initially because I could see very little in the works being vilified that one could claim as being of ‘artistic merit’ . However, in this picture, provocative as it is, I can see clear artistic content. Yes it is clearly confronting, yes it is , perhaps, of questionable taste but nonetheless it *does* have intrinsic artistic merit and as such I’d have no objection to it being on public display.

Yet, last week in Ballarat, the image was withdrawn from public view, and in this case I’m asking myself why?

The exhibition, the ‘Ballarat International Foto Biennale’ opened on Saturday but it seems a woman complained to the local council that this image was part of an advertisement for the exhibition and essentially that it “depicted a mother prostituting her child”. On the basis of this complaint the council decided to try to avoid the sort of media frenzy that accompanied the Henson photographs at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery and whilst not requesting the  image be withdrawn, there was a subtle hint that funding might not be so easily obtained if it wasn’t!

As said, I make no apology at all for my criticism of the Henson photographs, or of my support for this one. I appreciate there is a fine line to be drawn between art and exploitation and much of the problem lies in the eye of the individual, but there really needs to be some clearer means of identifying where the line should be drawn. In this case I think it has drifted too far from liberalism and too far towards censorship

 

 

 

Source:  http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/photo-withdrawn-after-child-prostitution-claim-20110821-1j4td.html#ixzz1WI1gbKjk

Hurricane Irene is expected to make landfall in the new couple of hours somewhere in North Carolina. As a side comment I used to have a pen-pal in North Carolina;  if I remember correctly her name was Mary-Ann Bixby. I’ve no idea where she is these days, or how she’s doing, but I hope she’s safe.

Anyway – even though the storm has been reduced to a Category 1 hurricane it still has a *lot* of raw power to cause damage… a lot of damage! New York is of course still in the firing line and despite the reduction in the storm the power surges could still make a real mess of the subways and power grids!

We’re hoping for the best and wish everyone in the path of the storm the best of luck. Make sure you have food, water, and batteries to be able to keep in tough with events outside. Can’t do much to help, but we’re thinking of you.

We learned this morning of the death of Wendy Richards who finally succumbed to breast cancer after a long struggle, she was 65.

Wendy was a favourite on the small screen for in Britain for many, many years both as a ‘blonde bombshell’  Miss Brahms in the classic series “Are You Being Served”, and as the matriarch of the Fowler family in “Eastenders”.

I first heard of her ‘singing’ with Mike Sarne back in the 1960′s on his hit song “Come Outside” but that was a one-off for her and she continued with her acting career to the relief of all.

She was a lovely lady.

Some statistics have been released which, if correct, maye you wonder what’s happening over in ‘dear old blighty’.  The figures released imply that 1 in 9 people living in Britain were born ‘overseas’.

Globalisation, cheap travel, easy migration and wide differences in living standards have encouraged people to move in ever greater numbers from place to place, and especially from less developed areas to those perceived as ‘better off’. There are now nearly 7 million people resident in the UK who weren’t born there.

As the recession starts to bite, unemployment rates are increasing and large numbers of non-uk born residents are qualifying for, and receiving the dole.

I suppose this is an issue countries around the world have to deal with, especially Australia which relies on immigration to keep the economy growing. The question to ask is are we going down a similar path to the UK and if so… is it really such a good idea?

It also makes you reevaluate what exactly it means to be “British”!

Source: One in nine people living in Britain now born overseas

You really have to ask yourself if there is something to the continuing complaints of Mohamed al Fayed (the owner of Harrod’s) that the ‘powers-that-be’ (including Secret Service, the Royal Family, and the police) in the UK are conducting a conspiracy intended to ruin him… in other words… people are out to get him… and have been for a very long time!!

This time the police have spent months investigating claims he groped a 15 year old girl in his office.

Somehow the claims reached the media, and despite him being able to prove he was elsewhere at the time the offences were said to have occured, the police nevertheless took several months to clear his name… whilst leak after leak managed to find its way into the media.

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself if his apparant paranoia really does have some basis in fact!

Source: Furious-Fayed attacks police cleared alleged sexual assault girl 15.

The fires are not yet out… the death toll not finalised… and Melbourne suffers another blow as projections of some of the long term issues become clearer.

This time the problem is water supply. Rainfall in the catchment area for Melbourne is already at its lowest on record, and the dams are currently only at 30% capacity. Now, with much of the catchment burned and blanketed in ash, when the rains come it’s likely that the water collected will be far too dirty for use. Eventually it will clear of course as sediment settles, but it might take years in order for that to happen because each time it rains… if it rains… the dams will be again polluted by turgid ash filled water.

Despite the problems this will cause, it is nonetheless a short term problem and can be fixed. The issue is far more serious than that and projections have been mooted that suggest the *minimum* period affected will be fifty years, and the situation may not revert to ‘normal’ for up to 300 years!! 

So what *is* this problem that is so serious? Basically it’s the possible, actually probable death of hundreds of thousands of Mountain Ash trees. The Mountain Ash is the dominant species throughout the affected catchment area and there are grave fears that the crowns of these trees have been destroyed by the intense heat of the fires.

Whilst it is a Eucalyptus, the evolution of the tree has produced one that *requires* fire in order for seeds to sprout. It is of course, no more fire resistant than others, and these fires were so severe they may not have survived over immense areas. What’s worse is that this variety they won’t shoot new growth from the sides, or the base of the tree. These trees regenerate from seed alone.

This may not sound that serious… until you learn that new growth can use up to 50% more water than a mature tree, and as the growth period of these trees is very extended, the total water supply from the catchment could drop by that amount for the foreseeable future.

What sort of effect this massively reduced water supply will have on Melbourne in the short and long terms is open to discussion, but serious questions are already being asked about the city’s ability to function with water supply so critically threatened. Something will obviously have to be done… the question is, just *what*.

One thing is certain however, the decision of ex-NSW Premier Morris Iemma to push through the building of our desalination plant may well turn out to be a life-saver for Sydney. If similar disastrous fires were to scour the Blue Mountains our water supply, already a bit shaky, would be stretched to the limits and beyond. If that happened, then the plant could be put quickly into full production.

The death toll currently still stands at 181 but there are areas yet to be accessed by police and there are known dead waiting to be moved and counted amongst those lost. The end total is still estimated at ’300′ but it will be some time before anything like a final ‘exact official figure’ can be issued.

There are still 120 people unaccounted for and there is still the possibile loss of tourists and the like who are as yet included in the total who might (or may never) be included in the total.

The damage bill is estimated at @ billion, over 1800 homes have been destroyed with 7,500 made homeless. 

Donations and pledges are now running close to $100 million but this is clearly nowhere near the amount needed to help those who can, rebuild their lives.

We’ve been very lucky in the Sydney basin not to have had something similar happen… so I’m hoping lessons are being learned that will prevent *us* from becoming statistics in the future.

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