Quote of the week

“As a child actor, I guess I have to get used to it all being downhill from here. I’d like to thank a few people before I fade off to a life of obscurity, nightclub appearances and reality TV.”

Kodi Smit-McPhee
11 years old co-star of Romulus, My Father
accepting his AFI award for Best Young Actor.

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Desktops of my mind

click to enlarge (250K+)

The desktop machine in my study simultaneously runs remote access via the wireless network to the notebook pc in the living room (top) and the pocket pc sitting on the table across the way (bottom right) — whilst watching Silverchair and Powderfinger on the tv monitor (bottom left)...

Just to be a smartarse... and plug some cool freeware...

PC remote access with t-VNC Server.

Pocket PC remote access with My Mobiler.

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Future Ilk Club President

Ilk Club founder and President, Father Park, in more innocent days. Taken sometime around 1970, there is an edge to the innocence. Already the makings of an unchecked ego are readily apparent and the eyes betray a growing tendency to sick, very sick racist thoughts and bigotry. There is a clear air of the developing grotesque liar about the face.

Dreaming of Marsha Brady (in a thoroughly "G" rated fashion), future moon shots, of a bigger telescope and of one day being able to afford that Airfix "Superkit" of the Supermarine Spitfire, young Father Park had no inkling that one day he would become the founder and founding President of the infamous Ilk Club.

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School is Boring

School is really boring,

I hate the work.

I feel like snoring,

But then I'll be a jerk.

I'd rather be dumb,

But then everyone would tease me,

After I dip my thumb,

In tea.

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Face of evil

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“Oh puh-lease, can we just wrap this up...?”

Pictured above is blogmeister Jacob in a formal portrait at Hitler Youth induction school-pic circa 1966.

Forget snips and snails and puppy dogs tails. Prod this kid with a walking stick and he spews spit, bile, snot and diahaerra [sic].

As a backdrop for his picture, my brother had a world map. I had “The Good Shepherd” as my backdrop. But I wanted the world map!!

[Cue spooky music...]

So already fantasies of world conquest were taking root, while the outward impudent pout is telling of something festering and toxic on the inside.

Yep, blonde, blue-eyed... der werks.

Should have been smothered in the cot. Or exposed in the wilderness.

CREDITS

Photo scan courtesy of No 1 Niece, from a collection scanned for her Dad’s 50th birthday project.

Proprietary trickles of verbal diahaerra [sic] courtesy of the blogosphere’s most prolific and shameless troll.

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Warley blues

The popular tourist destination of Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia attracts people from all over the world. The most famous attraction would probably be the Penguin Parade — though I’ve always considered the Koala Conservation Centre a superior gig. (If one wants to see fairy penguins up close without having to pay to be herded into designated areas, go to Victor Harbour in South Australia.)

But the latest news for the Island is not good, as there seems a real danger that the island’s Warley Hospital in Cowes may have to close down due to accreditation and viability issues. Reports have it that they’re selling equipment in order to pay staff.

It’s always a sad thing when a community faces the loss of such a facility. Think of the closure in the mid-’90s of the Latrobe Valley Hospital in Moe, which was amalgamated into the massive Latrobe Regional Hospital in Traralgon, about a half hour away by road to the east. The only other hospital is at Warragul, roughly the same distance to the west.

The closure of the Moe facility was bitterly fought by many in the community there, who had over the years built a huge stake in their hospital. In a very real way it belonged to that community, who had financially supported it over the years through funding drives, supplementing public funds that never seem to be enough.

We pay our public health administrators to give us the biggest bang for our public health buck. But as Melbourne Health chief Robert Doyle recently observed, it may be the case that “it is now impossible for the health system to deliver all that the community expects of it.”

Where that leaves the Warley Hospital is anybody’s guess at this point. Before the recent federal election, the government local member Greg Hunt promised $2.5 million dollars to save the Warley. Sadly Mr Hunt’s commitment isn’t binding on, and may not be honoured by the new Labor Government. At this time the fate of Warley is being haggled over by federal and state health officials.

As would be expected, there are competing claims about the desirability and practicality of keeping the Warley open. The most immediately compelling among these is the fact that Phillip Island has a growing population of ageing retirees, and a huge turnover of tourists, especially during the summer months.

As vice-president Gwen McRae of the Warley board told ABC radio, if their hospital is closed, the only other nearest hospital is in Wonthaggi “which is 45 minutes away.”

A local resident, whose mother is an in-patient, laments that “if the Warley closed, it would mean an hour-long round trip each day to the nearest hospital at Wonthaggi.”

Er... so that would put the nearest other hospital at 30 minutes away. Come to think of it, I reckon I could easily do the drive from Newhaven to Wonthaggi in 20 minutes without breaking any laws.

Well whatever, but we know that time is of the essence in life-threatening situations, so let’s hope the Warley can survive to serve its community, as well as the wider humanity who visit the Island in droves.

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Goat Friday

click to enlarge  —  image source wellingtonfarmpark.org

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‘Swan dives’ begin

To my knowledge, this is the first of many such headlines that will appear in the years ahead:

Garrett snubbed as Swan dives into climate

Tee hee. Swan... dives... Get it?

Expect to see many more of such clever word play, particularly when the economy takes a ‘dive’, as it inevitably will.

Who knows, maybe ‘swan dive’ will become Australian vernacular for ‘economic downturn’.

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Intel assessment nukes ‘Iran nukes’ hysteria

George W. Bush in January 2007:

I take the Iranian nuclear threat very seriously, even though the intel on Iraq was not what it was thought to be.

Happily not too many people seem to be taking this man very seriously at all of late.

Iran hasn’t had a nuclear weapons programme since 2003, a stunning new assessment released by US intelligence agencies has found.

Perhaps this is a tad premature, but this could be the final nail in the coffin of the credibility of this clown and his troupe.

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Nelson to channel Howard?

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has indicated that he intends to regularly seek advice from his former leader, John Howard, on “a variety of things”.

This was apparently said without irony, despite Mr Howard having led Nelson and the rest of his colleagues to a comprehensive electoral thrashing less than two weeks ago — and just months after they begged Mr Howard in vain to please leave!

Perhaps Dr Nelson’s strategy might be to do the precise opposite of whatever Mr Howard advises. Sounds like a plan...

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Voters got it right

To paraphrase former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Venezuelans are a very practical people whose innate wisdom is demonstrated at the ballot box.

Having twice endorsed their socialist president Hugo Chavez, the people have spoken again.

Venezuelans have refused Chavez’s bid for constitutional changes “that would have scrapped term limits on Chavez’s rule, given him control over foreign currency reserves and boosted his powers to expropriate private property.”

Students, rights and business groups, opposition parties, the Roman Catholic Church, former political allies and even his usually loyal ex-wife all lined up against Chavez ahead of the referendum vote...

Seems that, although Venezuelans have by and large endorsed their president’s socialist program, they were not willing to do away with the opt-out clauses guaranteed under their constitution.

Perhaps Robert Mugabe’s salutary example was one of the influences that guided Venezuelans in their verdict. This is perhaps the sole positive contribution Mugabe has made in his miserable life.

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this garden universe

view on YouTube

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