The Wannabe Wallaby

Who voted for Howard?

2006-12-28T08:02:00.000+11:00

When I talk politics with Australians, they usually go to great lengths to explain that they do not support the Howard government. Yesterday at the cricket, most of the spectators booed loudly when Howard was shown on the big screen to attend as well.

So tell me: who was it that voted this government into power? Somebody must have done so...

IT use in Australian Households

2006-12-22T15:20:00.000+11:00

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released their report on household use of information technology. I just want to quote some interesting statistics.

Only 60% of Australian households have Internet at home. For comparison: the Netherlands 78 percent, South Korea 93 percent.
In Tasmania, 6 out of ten people have a computer at home; in the ACT this is 82 percent; similarly, 49 percent of Tasmanians have home access to the Internet but in the ACT this is 72 percent.
Of my age group (35 - 44 year old), more than 20 percent never uses the Internet. This one really amazes me no end -- am I such a geek?
The main reasons for not getting Internet at home were: "No use for the Internet" (24 percent) and "Lack of interest in the Internet" (23 percent). I really must be a terrible geek...
Even more interesting: in the previous survey, three years back, the main reason given was "Costs too high" (about 25 percent), while only 18 percent thought the would have no use for the Internet. Would this mean that actually less people think the Internet useful now than three years back? Perverse.
Remember that difference between Tasmania and the ACT? Apparently, 29 percent of Internet-deprived Tasmanians aren't interested in the Internet, but in the ACT this is only 13 percent. All that gorgeous scenery must be really distracting...
About 50 percent now has broadband access; in 2004 this was only 16 percent. However, they defined broadband as "an 'always on' Internet connection with an access speed equal to or greater than 256 kbps", which does not satisfy the definition of broadband by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). In fact, I can barely get real broadband were I live, which is less than ten kilometres from Melbourne's CBD. I would guess that the percentages using broadband by the ITU's definition would be much, much smaller.

Now draw your own conclusions...

More smoke

2006-12-21T16:05:00.000+11:00

Yesterday and this morning, Melbourne was shrouded in smoke again. This can be seen very well on the picture above, originally from NASA's Earth Observatory again.

What keeps amazing me is the sheer scale of the whole thing. Just imagine: we are talking of a cloud of smoke that stretches hundreds of kilometers in every direction!

Our buggy knowledge of firebugs

2006-12-16T08:46:00.000+11:00

I wrote yesterday that I could not understand arsonists. Apparently I am not the only one. In an article in today's The Age, criminal profiler Rebekah Doley is quoted as saying that interest in profiling of firebugs in Australia is so low that we "...are beginning to to find out more about bushfire arsonists but there's no determination yet about what is an affective way of managing or funding the whole issue."

Actually, rather incredible for a country that has so many bushfires each year -- and is slated to experience even more of them, due to climate change effects.

I find it quite interesting that most Australians I talk with seem to think of bushfire arsonists as early and mid-teenagers (and that most arson intervention programs seem to be targeted at juveniles), but that in reality they are mostly people in their mid-to-late 20s -- at least, according to Ms. Doley in the newspaper article mentioned above. I wonder where this apparently skewed impression is coming from?

A river of smoke

2006-12-15T16:30:00.000+11:00

What makes this picture (originally from NASA's Earth Observatory) so amazing is the sheer scale (see the left hand bottom indicator): 250 kilometers wide!

Today is relatively okay, but the last few days Melbourne was covered in a thick pall of smoke. The most striking thing (apart from feeling each breath going down your windpipe) was the difference in temperature: at least five degrees lower than on clear days, just caused by the smoke-cloud cover. One hell of a proof for the credibility of nuclear winter.

We have just had the first casualty from the fires: a firefighter who fell of a trailer in the path of the next tanker. Apparently they were rushing to a fire that was lighted on purpose. Police are looking for the people who were responsible; judging from earlier cases they will be charged with murder. I really don't understand these people... especially not in a country where everybody knows about the dangers.

Edit (December 16): apparently the first reports about the firefighter's death were incorrect. It now seems the trailer he was in overturned on top of him, crushing him to death.

Spooning it

2006-12-07T09:17:00.000+11:00

The British Medical Journal can be a gem when it comes to original public health research. Consider this longitudinal cohort study researching displacement. Highly recommended original Australian work!

Rosarian section

2006-12-07T07:27:00.000+11:00

A quick explanation: federal health minister Tony Abbott is a practising catholic, and a staunch pro-life (or contra-abortion, depending on your political alignment) activist. When a bill was introduced in parliament late last year to strip Abbott from his responsibility for approval of Mifepristone (also known as RU486 or "the abortion pill"), YWCA Australia printed and distributed these t-shirts as part of their input into the ensuing (very heated) discussion.

Recently, a contra-abortion campaigner asked the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to rule that the shirts vilified catholics and should be banned. The case was struck, so for the moment Abbott's rosaries can stay on those ovaries -- or rather, on the t-shirt.

Uluru should be closed

2006-11-30T15:41:00.000+11:00

So, that is one statement.

Two Irish tourists had to be airlifted yesterday from Uluru (better known as Ayers Rock). They paid for the cost of the helicopter (AU$ 600), and "bought Uluru's rangers a slab of soft drink to thank them for their trouble". The rangers would be really happy with that, I guess, especially the one who had to be treated in hospital for injuries on his leg sustained during the rescue.

Uluru contains several sacred places for the local Aboriginal tribe, the Pitjantjatjara, and they have asked repeatedly that people do not climb the rock. In 1983 the Australian government actually promised to do so; however, when two years later ownership was returned to the Pitjantjatjara, it was under the condition that Uluru would remain open for whoever wants to climb it.

According to the SMH article referenced above, Uluru was closed off after 8 AM because of the heat; so closing it off is a possibility. In my view this should be done indefinitely, definitely to redeem the 1983 promise, but also (and much more importantly) because continued access remains a sore point for the Pitjantjatjara -- who are in the end the original owners, and whom are now hurt continuously in the name of tourism.

Drop bears

2006-11-29T12:51:00.000+11:00

For those of you who always wanted to know the truth about drop bears: TSF's Thommo has finally written the definitive guide to the Phascolarctus Hodgsonii.

AWB scandal is a truck accident

2006-11-29T11:17:00.000+11:00

The Age apparently now thinks that the goings-on around AWB are similar to a "truck dangling off a Melbourne bridge". You really should read the article before somebody at The Age wakes up and corrects it. Should this happen, please let me know and I will publish here the version that I captured just now.

Edit: it seems The Age woke up pretty quickly, so here is the original text in all its glory:

Truck dangling off a Melbourne bridge

A driver is trapped in the cab of his truck as it dangles over the edge of a Melbourne bridge, more than seven metres off the ground.

Police said the truck skidded on a wet road and was left balancing on the edge of the bridge in Dynon Road, between CityLink and Dryburgh Road.

A spokeswoman said the driver was trapped in the truck's cabin as he awaited rescue by emergency services.

Mr Stewart said the board strongly believed the national pool arrangements, including the bulk veto and buyer of last resort power administered by AWB International, had served wheat growers well and was still the best way to maximise returns to wheat growers.

"The board is confident that AWB Ltd will continue to be a competitive and competent service provider to the national pool in the future," he said.

Mr Stewart said AWB would consult widely with all stakeholders prior to the company's annual general meeting (AGM) in February 2007 to ensure positive and meaningful change was delivered to wheat growers and shareholders.

A detailed proposal for AWB reform would be presented at the AGM and voted upon by shareholders at a subsequent extraordinary general meeting.

Eleven former staff face possible fraud-related criminal charges for allegedly deceiving the United Nations and federal government over the $290 million in kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein's regime.

The wheat exporter was censured in Commissioner Terence Cole's report into the affair, released publicly on Monday.

AWB shares were seven cents lower at $2.75 at 10.20am (AEDT).

2006 Age Diairy Man of the Year

2006-11-29T08:31:00.000+11:00

Memo to self: should write about the myth of the Ozzie male soon...

All your base station belong to us

2006-11-21T16:06:00.000+11:00

The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has it made. Or perhaps not.

Chances are that you are using some form of wireless network, be it at home, at work, or at the Internet café. If you do, you probably use the present WiFi standard, known as 802.11 a/g. As as it turns out now, CSIRO has a patent on some of the core technologies in this standard, and hence in most of the wireless networks around the world. Up to now, they have never been paid for this, but they decided they wanted a piece of the cake and now are actively pursuing royalty payments.

Their first shot has been a lawsuit in the US against one of the smallest players, Buffalo Technology -- a shot that hit squarely, winning CSIRO an as yet undetermined amount of royalties from Buffalo. However, with the success also came controversy, with accusations that it killed off research into a potential treatment for cancer and diabetes to use the funds to bankroll the lawsuit; accusations which CSIRO obviously denies vigorously.

Whatever the case, next time you use WiFi technology just remember that you owe Australia -- big time.

A tale of two countries

2006-11-21T07:27:00.000+11:00

There are two Australias: urban Australia, and rural Australia.

Most people think of Australia as a land of wide spaces and large farms (think The Flying Doctors, think McCleod's Daughters, think even Mad Max); even in the mind of Australians themselves "the outback" looms large. It is central to the country's mythology: quintessential Australian songs like The Dog on the Tucker Box and Waltzing Matilda are about life in the outback (although in the former case the action actually occurs "five miles from Gundagai" -- just outside a town area), and most traditional stories concentrate on swagmen, squatters, and bushrangers like Ned Kelly.

However, in fact Australia is highly urbanized: more than 60% of the population lives in the 5 biggest cities, and as the graph above shows, there is hardly anybody living in the outback itself. Most Australians venture seldom if ever into the country's red centre, and most people I have met up to now have actually seen less of the outback than I have.

This is obvious in politics as well. For instance, in the upcoming State elections for Victoria, the urban-rural divide is played up for all its worth, with one polly describing a Labor plan to establish a new national park as "an outrageously bare-faced grab for votes among the latte-swilling, chardonnay socialist, crystal-gazing, new-age tree-huggers of inner-suburban Melbourne". It is also clear in the way political parties work around the water question, with rural players accusing Melburnites of monopolizing the State's water resources (with Melbourne countering that eighty percent of the State's population live within its borders while it uses only eight percent of all its water, with 83% going to rural areas and the remainder to country towns).

This same dichotomy is being played out in Federal politics as well. The National-Liberal coalition that is currently in power is fairly solid, but the rare cracks that do appear are almost always caused by divides between the National Party's rural-based, agricultural constituency and the Libs' more urban, business and mining oriented support base. Most politicians are aware that most votes can be found in the cities and towns, but they are also aware that a disaffected rural population can still decide the outcome of a tightly contested election, like it did when it toppled the Victorian government led by Jeff Kennett in 1999.

As a result of both electoral considerations and the large place rural Australia has in its subconscious, rural interests often get a disproportionate voice in crucial decisions -- disproportionate in relation to the number of people actually affected. Australia's ethos is also much more influenced by rural history and "history" than by what is the actual going on in the majority of the population. Not that I am complaining: I think many things that make Australia such a great place flow from this, not least its laid-back atmosphere and the culture of mateness.

The coolest house in Melbourne

2006-11-19T14:07:00.000+11:00

Outside it's 32 degrees:

Inside it's only 21:

And this without air conditioning or any type of air cooling.

And yes, when it's cold outside I freeze my nuts off.

Chrome-dome union

2006-11-19T07:52:00.000+11:00

In yesterday's The Age: an article about The League of Bald Headed Men (sadly not published on the Internet).

I especially love their club anthem, Baldman Song, to the tune of the Monkees' I'm a Believer:

I thought going bald was just for older guys
Meant for someone else but not for me
Hair fell out and left me
My head began to gleam
I'm a bald man, you know what I mean
Then I shaved my pate
Now I'm a receder
Not a trace
Of hair on my head
I'm all bald
I'm a receder
I couldn't grow it if I tried

And if you wonder why this article attracted me in the first place:

The Wallaby Incident

2006-11-17T17:12:00.000+11:00

This is so ironic that it is almost not funny any more... and it definitely was not funny when it happened to me.

I did some bushwalking near Bacchus Marsh today, and was scrambling up the rather steep side of the Western bluff over Ironbark gorge. I had a drop of several hundreds of meters into the gorge behind me when I suddenly heard a noise above me and saw a wallaby running at full speed towards me. It missed me by less than a meter... I don't want to think about what would have happened if it would have hit me.

And just think about the headlines:

Wannabe Killed by Wallaby
Roadkill: Man Hit by Wallaby
Clash of the Wallabies

That last one is not entirely original.

Design changes

2006-11-17T16:44:00.000+11:00

You might have noticed that I am shuffling the design around a bit. This has mostly to do with the new version of Blogger, which forces some small changes but also allows some new features.

Up to now the changes are mostly tiny (a slight change in the fonts used), but I have also added tagging functionality. I am now slowly updating old postings with the necessary tags.

Please let me know what you think of the changes.

Australian box office

2006-11-17T16:26:00.000+11:00

This week's Australian Box Office Top Five:

Jackass: Number Two
Saw III
A Good Year
The Departed
The Wrong Man (outside Australia better known as Lucky Number Slevin)

I have actually seen A Good Year and The Wrong Man. The former is not as bad as the critics make out; the latter definitely is -- and perhaps even worse.

I am not going to speculate on what this says about the Australian movie-going public; but I would be more than happy if you would comment on it.

Doom and gloom for Australia's aborigines

2006-11-13T15:12:00.000+11:00

I really do not know how to place a recent article in The Age that predicts a "major wipeout of indigenous communities, if not total extinction, within this century". Especially not when it goes on to say that "the obesity and diabetes health crisis is the biggest the world has ever seen". Yes? More than e.g. malaria, or HIV/AIDS? Some figures here, please?

Lost Out Back

2006-11-11T14:11:00.000+11:00

I am not the only outsider looking in: the two guys at Lost Out Back seem to be just as lost as I am at times. Their podcasts can be amusing. The one about Talk'n Stralian is especially recommended although a bit cringeworthy at times. (And what happened to good, old "Strine"?)

Melbourne tags

2006-11-10T17:36:00.000+11:00

More tags, this time related to Melbourne:

Australia
Art
Mobile
Cinema
RMIT
Magazine
Culture
Local
Technology
Train
Festival

It is interesting to contrast this to the Australia tags; partly it seems to be a confirmation of Melbourne's image as the arts and culture centre of Australia, and of its festival madness, and perhaps also of its parochiality (see the Local tag).

Two interesting tags are RMIT (the Royal Melbourne Institute for Technologym Australia's premier technology university) and technology; perhaps an indication of RMIT's central place in Melbourne's student life?

What's on a tagger's mind?

2006-11-09T11:07:00.000+11:00

I decided to have a look at del.icio.us as well to see what Australia is most connected with. The list:

Travel
Music (again!)
Sydney
Industry
Accommodation
Media
Hotel
DVD
History
Library
Gallery

I guess this reflects that users of del.icio.us are probably more found amongst travelers/tourists and would-be immigrants, whereas AustralianBlogs.com caters more for Australians themselves (the blogging part of the nation, that is).

The "DVD" tag really puzzles me, and I cannot find a real reason for it, even looking at the tagged pages for the intersection of "Australia" and "DVD". Anybody any idea?

What is on an Australian's mind?

2006-11-09T10:53:00.000+11:00

Looking at the tag cloud for AustralianBlogs.com, it seems that the following issues are highest on the subject list of the Australian blogosphere:

Australia
Politics
Books
Feminism
Food
Humour
Music
Technology

I wonder what this says about Australian psyche...

Other blogs

2006-11-09T10:32:00.000+11:00

A good place for a rather large dose of Australiana is Australianblogs.com.au (also known as buggerall.com.au -- and that is saying something about Australian culture as well). Have fun!

(And yes, the Wannabe Wallaby is there as well).

Australian joke about Dutchmen

2006-11-08T14:04:00.000+11:00

Q.: What is the difference between a wombat and a Dutchman?

A.: A comma: a wombat eats roots and leaves, but a Dutchman eats, roots and leaves.

30,000 turn out for global warming rally -- a good sign, isn't it?

2006-11-05T21:15:00.000+11:00

Yesterday 30,000 people turned up for a rally in Melbourne against global warming, with an additional 12,000 hitting the streets in Sydney, and thousands more in numerous places around the country. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Well, yes, it does -- until you realize that more than four times as many went to one horse racing event on the same day...

Emissions and added value by industry

2006-10-31T11:30:00.000+11:00

Australia's biggest independent electronic newspaper Crikey ran an interesting article yesterday (sorry, only accessible for subscription holders) on the stance of the Business Council of Australia towards Kyoto. Its most interesting feature was probably the graph copied below -- which was based on Australian figures, but probably will look similar for any developed nation. I think it speaks for itself.

Kenny

2006-10-29T13:39:00.000+11:00

I don't know whether the movie has been released where you live, but if it is, don't miss it: the Jacobson brothers' movie Kenny. It is one of the warmest, funniest movies I have seen for ages, but it is also very clearly made by sharp observers of Australian society and the Australian psyche -- including its love of self-deprecation.

Highly recommended!

Australia is a great country... or is it?

2006-10-29T09:55:00.000+11:00

I don't think many people would argue against the fact that Australia is a great country to live in. It has some of the best climates in the world (even with global warming threatening it), a "great outdoors" that really is great (and huge), some of the nicest people in the world, a laid-back attitude that I am enjoying every day, a terrific cultural life if you are lucky enough to live in a city like Melbourne...

But reading the newspapers one would be excused to think otherwise. Let's have a look at today's front page national headlines from newspapers from around the country.

The Age (Melbourne):

Cheated by the law: about how top lawyers played dirty to deny a cancer victim damages awarded to her in a case against Big Tobacco;
Apology for Australia's Cup Shame
Hilali stand-down offer
School chaplain plan get go-ahead (the only article of the four that can be seen as slightly positive)

The Australian (national):

The Sydney Morning Herald/The Sun Herald (Sydney)

The Advertiser/Sunday Mail (Adelaide)

...and so it goes on. It makes you wonder whether this is representative of the negative view the average Australian has of his land and its people, The way many people I have met react when as soon as they find out that I am not Australian definitely seems to bear that out: you can be sure that at some stage in the conversation they apologise about the government's stance on asylum seekers or the climate, about the climate itself, about the lack of cultural nous in Australia, about how insensitive the average Australian male must seem to me (the silent assumption being that as a European I am a sensitive bloke), etcetera etcetera... and sometimes ad nauseam.

Perhaps it is about time that Australians woke up to the beauty of their country, to their cultural achievements, and to the general niceness of the Ozzie mate.

The worst beer in the world...

2006-10-28T17:07:00.000+10:00

..must be Fosters. It is actually so bad, that even the Australian wheat farmers suffer from it -- at least according to the headline of this article in the Washington Post.

(Please don't heckle me about using a bit of a light touch on the drought problems. Humor is indispensable.)

Did he drop the ball?

2006-10-25T08:53:00.000+10:00

The recently released Lowy Institute poll 2006 revealed that no less than 68% of Australians find that "[g]lobal warming is a serious and pressing problem [and w]e should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs".

A political cartoon recently showed Australia's prime minister, John Howard, as having dropped the ball on climate change. I think the poll shows that he might even have dropped his chances on reelection.

Lousy weather and a beautiful song

2006-10-25T08:52:00.000+10:00

The weather is playing up again. Melbourne's weather has a lousy reputation within Australia, and some of it might actually be deserved (although exaggerated): you know the "Four Seasons in One Day" effect. The last two days were perfect: 25-30 degrees and sunny with some nice winds to temper the worst of the heat. This morning however I got up to rain and fifteen degrees -- and a forecast of more rain and 18 degrees...

Correlation, causation, and representation in the media (OT)

2006-10-24T10:38:00.000+10:00

When will they learn? Ladies and gentlemen journalists, repeat after me: "Correlation does not imply causation".

Again: "Correlation does not imply causation".

So what brought on this rant? Basically, how the press chose to represent recent research results about a possible link between drinking alcohol and a lower chance of heart disease. Although I would argue that the researchers themselves jumped the gun a bit (e.g. they neglected the possibility that non-drinkers might have different personality profiles from drinkers that would predispose them to heart disease), the way this was covered in the news was even worse.

Reuters reported that "[t]wo drinks daily help men avoid heart attack", and the coverage in The Age (sadly not posted to their web site) went even further, saying that "... not only is a daily tipple good for the heart, but abstinence could be harmful to your health."

So my question remains: when will they learn? Isn't this sort of thing taught at Journalism 101?

Kyoto: Australian versus European outlook

2006-10-24T10:28:00.000+10:00

Two interesting articles in The Age, one outlining the differences between the Australian outlook on the one hand and the European (specifically: the Dutch and British) one on the other; and another about Australia's stance towards the Kyoto protocol, this one from an unabashed coal supporter.

Fear and obesity

2006-10-24T09:52:00.000+10:00

No, that is not fear of obesity, although there is plenty of that to go around too.

No, this article in Melbourne's biggest local newspaper, The Age, deals with how fear for their kids' safety makes parents put them at risk for obesity. An interesting dilemma if there ever was one... and not entirely without reason either: with Australia ranking eighth worldwide for motor vehicle deaths and sixth for obesity (almost 22% of the population!), parents are put between a rock and a hard place.

The cartoon going with the article is so close to the bone that I personally don't know whether it is funny or not.

The Big Dry

2006-10-24T09:09:00.000+10:00

Australia has finally woken up to global warming.

We have had two disastrously dry years in large parts of a country that already is quite dry (only 6% of its land mass is actually arable land, as compared to 22% of highly urbanised the Netherlands or 55% of flood-prone Bangladesh). Most Australians now believe that climate change is actually a fact, something that Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth has had a lot to do with. However, until recently the government's official stance was that there was no proof and hence it didn't exist, and as a result did not want to sign the Kyoto Protocol, as this would cost Australian jobs. In view of the upcoming elections, he had to do a volte-face and now proposes technological solutions (most of which he is rather vague about, with one exception: nuclear power) as the panacea.

Having woken up to the greenhouse effect and what it means for them, you would think the average Australian would now be diligently looking for ways to lessen their impact on the environment -- and with the seventh-biggest ecological footprint per capita in the world that would make eminent sense. But it takes a lot of time to change the impetus of a whole society, and Joe Average is still too attached to his suburban home and his Holden Commodore V8 to really change his behaviour (let alone to do away with his four-block water-guzzling lawn and high-powered airconditioning). I have yet to see the first Australian home that uses water-saving shower heads or that has replaced light bulbs with energy saving ones. Even my wife, a self-declared environmentalist, still doesn't see the point of e.g. waiting with washing until you have a full load.

So now it is waiting for the Real Big Dry, when Australians will finally really wake up. Let's hope it will not be too late.

(Originally posted on October 23, 2006)