Archive for March, 2006
Protected: A Penguin Love Story
Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2006|
A Penguin Love Story
Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2006| 24 Comments »
For all you penguin fanciers –
Free Neville
By KARINA DUNGER
March 31, 2006
NEVILLE and Audrey returned to the sea yesterday with a second chance at life – and newfound love.
The little, or fairy, penguins are lucky to be alive after they were found in January, close to death.
Loving life…Neville and Audrey waddle free on North Curl Curl beach. Picture: JOHN GRAINGER.
Audrey was found on the Central Coast where fire had torn through the area, scorching her feathers and drying out her oily natural waterproofing. Neville was found in a frail condition with severe cuts to his feet and body on a Newcastle beach. He required X-rays and blood tests.
Both were unable to return to the sea and were taken to Taronga Zoo’s Wildlife Clinic where they paired up, much to the delight of the clinic staff, who called their journey a “hospital love story.”
“When Neville and Audrey hooked up that was a bit of a bonus,” Rehabilitation Supervisor Libby Hall said. “They’ve been so sweet and very vocal together . . . they would get into a burrow and not let anyone near them.”
The two rehabilitated penguins were released by Taronga Zoo staff yesterday at North Curl Curl Beach.
They took some time to gather their bearings, cautiously waddling along the shoreline before braving the ocean.
Ducking and diving though the waves, the pair stayed close together as they started their new life. Ms Hall said the pair will probably stay together, despite their differences. “They are quite different, Audrey is bossy and Neville is a wuss,” she said.
The wildlife clinic still has six more injured little penguins to rehabilitate.
They are suffering from various conditions including flipper, leg and foot injuries, moulting and feather damage.
Taronga Zoo takes about 35 injured penguins under their wing each year.
So sweet.*g*
Protected: An Interesting Definition of Australia
Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2006|
An Interesting Definition of Australia
Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2006| 10 Comments »
An interesting viewpoint, perhaps true –
Platypus beats bat in a dog-eat-dog world
March 31, 2006
Said to be torn between East and West, Australia is holding it all together, writes Peter Hartcher.
IN HIS 1996 work The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, the US political scientist Samuel Huntington classified Australia as a “torn country”. Why? Because Australians were “divided over whether their society belongs to one civilisation or another”, divided over whether we were part of the West or part of Asia.
A Chinese scholar described Australia as the “bat” of the international order – neither beast nor bird; neither Asian nor Western. Tang Guanghui, writing in World Affairs, a journal of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, took the metaphor from an Aesop fable.
The birds and the beasts form into two great armies and are about to go to war against each other. The bat hesitates to choose sides and commits to neither. Battle is averted at the last moment, but when the bat tries to join the birds’ celebration he is turned away. Neither will the beasts accept him and threaten to tear him apart. The bat delivers the moral of the tale: “Ah, I see now. He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.”
Tang’s conclusion was that as a bat state, Australia could never be truly East or West, but was destined to forever flit between the two worlds, at home in neither.
We are in the middle of a pretty interesting procession of wildlife.
The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Australia two weeks ago. This week it was the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Tomorrow the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, arrives. These visitors are drawn from both kingdoms, East and West. Just how “torn” are we?
Rice and Blair came and we talked about the importance of shared values. In introducing Rice at a press conference, John Howard said: “The partnership between the United States Administration and the Australian Government in fighting terrorism and in the defence of liberty and the expansion of democracy around the world is both strong, unconditional and consistent.”
Get that? Australia’s support for the expansion of democracy is “unconditional and consistent”.
Similarly, in introducing Blair, Howard spoke of “the fundamental importance to defend values that are not just British and Australian values, but they are values of all humanity and values that we all hold dear”.
And Blair, in his speech to the joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament, spelt out some of those values: “We know the values we believe in – democracy and the rule of law.”
On the face of it, you might think such highly principled statesmen and women would have the deepest reservations about dealing with the world’s most successful dictators.
But by the time Wen Jiabao arrives in Canberra on Monday, the giddiness will have passed, the “unconditional and consistent” commitment to the expansion of democracy will have cooled, as passions declared in the throes of ecstasy can fade in the cold light of day.
The talk will not be of values but of interests, not of struggles for democracy but of the value of constructive co-operation. And this is for a very good reason.
China is the second biggest customer for Australian produce, second only to Japan. Its burgeoning economy is voracious for Australian products. Total trade between the two countries has quadrupled in the past 10 years. Our total exports to China last year generated $15 billion for Australia, growing at about 30 per cent a year. China wants, and will get, Australian uranium.
This is a good beginning, but it is still only a beginning. The World Bank’s annual forecast for East Asia foresees China’s growth, projected to be 8.2 per cent this year after 9.2 per cent last year, to be based on an increasingly sound footing.
And Howard need not feel too sheepish about proclaiming his passion for democracy one week and warmly welcoming the premier of the world’s most powerful dictatorship the next. There are three reasons.
First, the relationship serves Australia’s economic interests, and also its strategic interests. Integrating a big rising power into the world order – without a major war in the process – has never been achieved. Ostracising China would raise the risk of major war.
Second, China’s growth is the greatest anti-poverty project in the world. The number of people in poverty in East Asia fell last year by 51 million, of whom 42 million were in China, according to the World Bank.
At these rates, says the bank’s chief economist for East Asia, Homi Kharas, “the continent with the largest concentration of poor people in the world stands a very good chance of eliminating poverty by 2015”. This is an extraordinary prospect.
And third, it is not only Australia that has an acute case of double standards when it comes to dealing with China. The US and Britain, such ardent actors in the cause of democracy, are devoting enormous energy to pursuing economic prospects in China. Australia is no more “torn” in its dealing with Beijing than the Americans and the British.
True, Australia’s relations with Jakarta are under strain. But, overall, Australia is enjoying extremely good relations with Washington and London, and the best overall relations with the capitals of East Asia than at any time in the nation’s history. We are not tearing but ripping.
Tang’s bat has attributes of the two animal kingdoms and fits into neither, but perhaps he has the wrong metaphor. There is a better one. The platypus defies classification, with features of a mammal and a bird, yet is perfectly adapted to its ecology. It combines useful features of each and has no need to choose – and lives in hope there will be no war between the kingdoms.
Peter Hartcher is the Herald’s political editor.
Yes I think I prefer the platypus analogy to the bat, though recently in Indonesia our leaders are perceived as dingos and the rest of us kangaroos. That might true, we get a good savaging from our leaders now and then, the new IR laws just the most recent.
Protected: Cranky Koalas are Mean
Posted in Uncategorized on March 30, 2006|
Cranky Koalas are Mean
Posted in Uncategorized on March 30, 2006| Leave a Comment »
And koalas are supposed to be the cute ones –
Cranky koala meaner than stolen croc
By Jano Gibson
March 29, 2006
Zookeeper Wil Kemp with the stolen croc’s mate today.
Photo: Kahlia Pepper
A cranky koala achieved what an angry croc couldn’t – it beat off thieves.
The bizarre incident began when Rockhampton police in Queensland received a tip-off that someone had a crocodile in their possession.
“The police came to the zoo, checked out our exhibit and we were down a female freshwater crocodile,” said Tom Wyatt at Rockhampton City Council.
The 1.2 metre crocodile – known simply as “the girl freshie” – was dragged by thieves over a 2.4 metre fence in the middle of the night.
“Can you imagine these people struggling over a 2.4 metre security fence with a writhing wild reptile?” he said.
“It’s not a baby you are holding in your arms here. We are talking about 40 kilograms and 1.2 metres of absolute fury.”
“They are not man-eaters [like salt water crocodiles]. But they can still give you a nasty bite.”
The thieves originally planned to take one of the zoo’s koalas and only changed tack after it proved too vicious, 21-year-old zookeeper Wil Kemp told smh.com.au.
He had been told by police that four people were involved in the wildlife heist, which allegedly involved stealing a koala and swapping it for drugs.
“The original plan was to steal a koala – that’s what they were going to use to swap [for] the drugs,” Mr Kemp said.
“[But] apparently [the koala] scratched the shit out of them.”
“The blokes have quite a lot of scratches and lacerations caused by the koala.”
The thieves then decided to take a crocodile instead.
“I don’t know what makes someone go, ‘Oh we tried to steal a koala and that didn’t work so lets go and steal a croc.’ ”
“The people who did it must have been quite stupid. It’s the last thing I wound have thought a member of the general public would try to steal for drugs.”
Mr Kemp said the meat and skin of a freshwater crocodile were worthless, but the stolen reptile might be sold in the pet trade for about $600.
“I’m worried and angered. I spent the last three years looking after it. I hope at least [the person who has it is] looking after it OK.”
He said police had told him they had been unable to locate the crocodile.
“They can’t find it because it has been passed on to someone else who traded it for some marijuana and speed.”
Two women have been issued with notices to appear in court over the theft of the crocodile.
Sergeant Paul Elliot said a lot of rumours were flying around about what the thieves’ original intention was.
“There’s a lot of that going around. We can’t confirm or deny if their intention was initially to get a koala. It’s all specualtion at the moment.”
He would not comment on the drug deal allegations.
Police believe the crocodile was taken in the early hours of Saturday morning but Mr Kemp remembers seeing it on Sunday morning.
He thinks it must have been taken on Monday morning when another drama occurred at the zoo.
“One of the wombats got bitten by a snake. No one can officially remember seeing [the female] crocodile on Monday.”
Protected:
Posted in Uncategorized on March 29, 2006|
Let’s do the Time Warp again
Posted in Uncategorized on March 29, 2006| 6 Comments »
I think I prefer my steady, unexciting job than the carefree and occasionally impoverished life of a temp worker very much, no matter what the Lying Rodent and his friends from the HR Nicholls Society say about the joys of temping –
Workers beware tax carrots in a time of hard labour
THE WRY SIDE
Emma Tom
March 29, 2006
DEAR fellow workers,
Good morning and welcome to a) a bold new era of workplace flexibility or b) the beginning of Australia’s dastardly slave labour-fication (the outlook depends on whether its source is a prime minister in line for a bloated, old-style parliamentary pension or someone who’ll have to live with the new industrial relations regime).
It has been two days since Work Choices went live and advocates are gleefully pointing out that the sky has not fallen in or been replaced with an inferior pirate sky manufactured by cheap labour in China.
No en masse sackings. No flat-chested personnel replaced with uber-boobed Paris Hilton clones for operational reasons. Hardly any Monty Python “I had to get up a half-hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work 29 hours a day down at the mill and pay mill owner for permission to come to work” Australian Workplace Agreements.
But – to paraphrase the master sage that is the hair-care commercial – just because change hasn’t happened overnight doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
About four million of us already deal with the insecurity of existence as casual workers or independent contractors and we’re in a fine position to report back from the flexibility front line.
The good news is that some of the claims in those Brazilian-dollar Work Choices ads are right: Get into the groove of flying solo and the prospect of being locked into a single, 38-hour-a-week gig becomes as attractive as a pair of ye olde leg irons.
Sure, some days the work dries up and there’s nothing to do but colour in the letter Os in the newspaper employment pages (usually while trying to work out what a remuneration services manager is and whether you’re qualified). But other days are a beautiful bombardment of job offers, requiring you to write sitcoms for mobile phones, visit Asian prisons with awe-inspiring Pentecostal ministers and interview women who have a fetish for men with diminutive secondary sexual characteristics.
Then again, maybe that’s just me.
The point is that unstable employment does have its upside. My dim recollection of protected, permanent work is that obtaining a change in scenery or a promotion is a difficult and decade-consuming business. In particular, I remember the malignant frustrations of small-town pen-pushers whose only hope of advancement was the death of a superior. (They used to gnaw at themselves like dogs with anal mange.)
Inhabitants of insecurity-ville, however, know that at any moment everything can suddenly change for the better. It’s the meritocratic Australian dream.
The downside is that, as with all gambles, everything can also suddenly change for the worse. Months pass when no money comes in. Holidays are rarely doable and a lack of sick leave means dragging yourself out of bed even when you feel like a Ganges corpse. If multiple fractures and deep coma make income earning a complete impossibility, your recuperative process may very well include eviction and intimate exchanges with baseball-bat wielding debt collectors.
Much scarier than all this, however, is Peter Costello’s recent reminder that further tax cuts will require a slash in spending on wasteful knick-knacks such as public health, education and aged care.
Here’s the thing: A user-pays system is just tickety-boo if you’re getting enough small penis work to cover non-negotiable expenses. But what happens during the job droughts, during the poxes, during the times you’re forced (at fine-point no less) to relinquish what uncertain income you have to perform jury duty? Should you really have to reconcile yourself to spending a certain proportion of the financial year parked outside city cinemas soliciting donations via ill-spelled cardboard signs?
If you think not, dear fellow workers, why not decline our Treasurer’s kind suggestion of further milkshake money and insist that the powers that be beef up rather than water down these all-important social safety nets.
You may not be living like one of Monty Python’s four Yorkshiremen right now, but earning a crust in Australia really is about to get a whole lot more dicey. Don’t wait until you’re the one having “to lick road clean wit’ tongue” before taking a stand.
info@emmatom.com.au
Protected:
Posted in Uncategorized on March 29, 2006|
Klingoleeza Rice 101
Posted in Uncategorized on March 29, 2006| 9 Comments »
I always thought there was something of the School Ma’am about Condi, lecturing to the rest of the world about how they should behave.
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