The week from hell

As the record heatwave continues to grip the south east of Australia the bad news just keeps mounting. People are losing their homes in the raging bushfires of Gippsland while much of Melbourne has been blacked out by power failures. Worse still (in my opinion, although the media has only given this story 3rd ranking), over in Adelaide 22 people are reported to have died from heat-stress.

Incredible as it may seem though, there are some people who are clearly oblivious to all this pain & sufferring and seem to think that nothing else matters except their own selfish indulgence. I give you:

How to beat the heatwave

 Move to the coast !

The heatwave is making a 'seachange' look even more attractive. It's 10 degrees cooler at Lakes Entrance!

It might be stating the obvious, but Victoria’s current heatwave makes you wonder why we don’t all just move over to the coast. We’ve had a very hot (and dry) January already, but this is the 7 day forecast (from hell) for Bright:

Today: 44°  Saturday: 44° Sunday: 42° Monday: 39° Tuesday: 39° Wednesday: 42° Thursday: 42°

There’s just no relief in sight. Meanwhile over at Lakes Entrance (our nearest beach, about 250 kms away) the forecast is, er, somewhat different:

Strange place names

I wonder what 'act' might have inspired our early explorers to come up with this name? (Photo Libby Price, ABC Local radio)

A copycat crime?

The stolen Madonna is back in church, but is she still a virgin?

Stolen Madonna returned to church

A 1.8 metre bronze & mahogany statue of the Virgin Mary that was stolen from a Benalla church last week has been found, dumped in a nearby school ground.

According to the Border Mail, Father Andrew Fewings said the Madonna icon was undamaged and had been returned to its rightful place at the rear of the church.

“It disappeared mysteriously and it turned up mysteriously,”Fr Fewings said.

But I can’t help but wonder if Fr Fewings (and the police) might be overlooking something here … what was the thief’s motive for taking the Madonna in the first place?

Rudd’s youth army

The Government plans to give students the choice of accepting a relatively easy full-time (tax free) job to pay their HECs fees ... and then call it 'volunteer work'!

Er, Kevin, this is NOT volunteering

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plan to recruit an army of young volunteers to help the elderly, feed the homeless, and clean up the environment in exchange for reducing their HECS debts, is a contradiction in terms, and seriously flawed.

According to the Herald Sun, Rudd’s ‘Community Corps’ plan emerged from “top business minds” at the PM’s 2020 summit last year and is expected to be adopted “within days” when the Government releases its final 2020 summit report. Apparently Mr Rudd has described the idea as “a very practical trade”:

“No going back” on climate change

Er, not really. The best thing we can do is to stop all the stupid plans & arguments and just adapt to it.

Study suggests we’re beyond the point of no return

I generally steer well away from those debates raging arguments about climate change that seem to be going on everywhere you look. I find there’s equal fanaticism on both sides, which is a sure sign that no one really knows what they’re talking about.

BUT, this report on ABC News  seems to suggest that both the denialists and the believers are equally wrong.

A new study has found that global warming is ’irreversible’ for the next 1000 years, even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted. The study, led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a division of the US Department of Commerce) says there is “no going back” and that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are “largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped.”

unAustralian of the year

What does ABC stand for, Eddy? A Bastard and a C...?

Sorry Sam, he’s only a runner up

Outspoken social commentator (and professional promoter of lamb chops), Sam Kekovich, has given his unAustralian of the year award to the former CEO of ABC Learning Centres, ‘Fast’ Eddy Groves, who proved that there are just some industries that should NEVER be allowed to be publicly listed on the stock exchange so that dishonest, greedy and sleazy executives can bleed the firm dry and then deliberately send it into receivership, while stashing all the cash overseas.

Kekovich sums it up pretty well when he says (in yet another ‘cash for comments’ news story’): “That’s what you get if you focus too much on Lamborghinis, and not enough on Lamb.”

BUT,I think there’s someone else who in this past year has committed an act so heinous, so grovelling, so cheap, so low and so … well just plain wrong, that he truly deserves to be named unAustralian of the year.

Dare to top this one if you like, but I think it’s head & shoulders over the rest for sheer unAustralianess. It even beats Sophie Mirabella’s despicable performance on ‘national apology day’. My nomination for unAustralian of the year is:

Australian of the year

I'm sure that my nomination for Australian of the year would support this new design for our national flag.

It’s that time of year again when we honour one person as the so-called ‘Australian of the year’. In my opinion the recipients of this award are very rarely worthy of such elevated status, case in point being last year’s winner, country music performer Lee Kernaghan. I still can’t get over the sight of Kernaghan accepting the award from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while still wearing his ridiculously over-sized black cowboy hat. And that jingoistic, ultra shallow speech … truly cringeworthy!

Worse still, the more deserving nomination, Jonathan Welch, had to look on and be satisfied with his ‘local hero’ (or runner up) award. Welch was a stand-out, in my opinion, for his selfless and inspiring work with society’s ‘down & outs’ via his wonderful Choir of hard knocks. If you missed the first doco-series in 2007 it’s currently being replayed on ABC TV, or you can buy the DVD. It’s stirring stuff; not only did Welsh restore a lot of self esteem to these poor souls, his work with them actually saved lives. 

Anyway, on the eve of Australia Day 2009 I think you need look no further than the front page of today’s Herald Sun for the most deserving recipient. My nomination for Australian of the year is:

We’re all in WHAT together?

Maybe the PM doesn't realise how much influence he has over the mood of the entire nation.

Rudd too focused on external issues 

It’s hard to fault Kevin Rudd’s leadership since taking over as PM. Overall I think he’s doing a great job, but lately he’s become just a little too bleak about the ‘world financial crisis’ and seems to be talking the Australian economy down … which is a sure way of ensuring it goes down!

Rudd’s “We’re all in this together” speech left me cold, and somewhat bemused at why he would adopt the title of a recent pop song - that carried no real message at all - as his catch-phrase. We’re all in what together, a sinking ship?

AFL 2009

Life re-starts in just two months time!

AFL round one is on March 24th. (I just thought you’d like to know that)

Summer footwear

I'm still looking for the ideal summer footwear

One of the reasons I love summer is that it means you don’t have to worry too much about what to wear. It’s just a simple matter of deciding each morning which pair of shorts and which T shirt to put on. No great dilemmas (or brain power required) there BUT, the one constant dilemma I have in summer is what to put on the feet. I mean, normal socks & shoes are clearly out of the question, and getting around in Blundstones with shorts on is not the greatest of looks (although you’d be surprised how many people do that around here!) Here’s a summary of the problem:

Council snubs Bright

Mt Hotham is featured on the front cover of the Alpine Council's 2009 calendar AND for the month of August. Nice shot, but Hotham isn't actually in the shire. Bright is, but it's not even mentioned in this glossy publication.

 I’d like to know which idiot shire employee put together and/or authorised this expensive looking publication that’s currently being delivered into every household in the Alpine Shire. Why doesn’t Bright rate a mention? Well, OK, under May there’s a (black & white) shot of the Ovens River titled “Centenary Park at Night”, but that’s hardly an appropriate recognition of the shire’s iconic tourist town and its greatest asset, the town of Bright. It’s easy to see what this council’s priorities are by just listing the photos by month: 

Where’s the meeting?

They’re not off to a great start

Oh, this is good. Not only is the new Alpine council taking a 7 week ‘holiday’ and NOT holding a meeting in January, they don’t seem to know where the February one will be held. For the past few weeks the council website has stated this:

Alpine Shire Council – Meeting schedule 2009
Month        Day             Date            Meeting   Venue    Time
February     Tuesday    03/02/2009      Ordinary     Bright      7:30pm

UPDATE: See foot of post

A solution for the Chalet …

What's happened to this 'icon' is a crying shame but our council needs to get on the front foot and DEMAND action - like kicking Burbank out and just getting it re-opened, anyway it can be.

Get rid of Burbank and re-open it for ‘day use’ only

With all the carry-on about the closure of the historic (and magnificent) Mt Buffalo Chalet perhaps there’s a simple solution that would see it preserved AND put back to a viable use as a tourist attraction.

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sick & tired of the continual half-hearted efforts of our Alpine council to lobby the State Government to have the Chalet re-opened for accommodation. That is simply not going to happen and the pathetic pleas of our council are merely paying lip service to this ongoing problem. What the council SHOULD be doing is showing some real leadership and putting forward a viable alternative option.

After all, it’s this area that is most affected by the two-year closure and ’dispute’ between the State Government and the current lessee, Burbank Property Group.

The monster mash

'Scooby Doo' was apparently "wrecked" in Albury's monster truck show.

Albury’s low-brows disappointed with truck show

According to a report in the Border Mail, a monster truck show in Albury held over the weekend has been labelled “pathetic” and a “monster dud” with disgruntled patrons declaring they won’t go to the event again.

Again? I wouldn’t bother with this type of low-brow ‘entertainment’ in the first place let alone go back for a second dose of monster trucks driving over and mashing old cars like a Sherman tank. I mean, once you’ve seen one monster truck show you’ve seen them all, I’d suggest.

The event attracted a “disappointing” crowd of about 1800 people at the Albury Showgrounds but, with tickets at around $100 for a family of 4, I’m surprised that those people this event might appeal to would be able to scrape up that sort of dough – maybe they used the $1,000 welfare handout to pay for their tickets? Anyway, some of the comments in the report are quite amusing: