Hamarana

Alas there will be no photographs. A one kilometre exclusion zone has been set up not only by sea and air, but also on land. There will not even be any pedestrian access… only residents living within the zone will be able to enter the area.

I expect a chosen few commercial and ABC news teams will be permitted to set up cameras to film whatever is going to happen. The rest of us will have to wait until later tonight to find out how it all went. There’s a high tide mid evening and thats when they are going to attempt to get her off the beach. I don’t much like their chances of doing it without damage, they are going to be dragging her over a reef no matter which direction they choose to pull from.

Fingers crossed. The exclusion zone has been set up from 6a.m. AEST, an hour ago as I type this, so no more shots from me for a while unless at some point in the future they give up and just carve her up right there on the beach.

Dear heavens… what’s the world coming to? Tony Blair, just resigned as Britain’s PM, the man who jumped at the chance to send British troops to Iraq, the guy who supported George Bush all the way, the Brit warmonger…. appointed as a Middle East Peacemaker.

He will work towards a Middle East peace settlement on behalf of the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations.

Read about it here

Let me see now…

1. Problems of child abuse, alcohol abuse, poor health access etc etc have existed in Aboriginal communities in this country for… forever…

2. Our Prime Minister, John Howard, has in the last couple of weeks decided to do something about it. So what he’s going to do (has already begun) is to send Federal Police and army into communities in the Northern Territory… to discuss things… of course…

3. A few weeks ago the issue of whether we would have nuclear power in this country came to a bit of a head, and the Liberal government has decided that we are definitely going to head in this direction…

4. We have a HUGE supply of uranium… available through mines located where? (You guessed it!) in the Northern Territory, where the land owners are Aboriginal.

I wonder how much of his sudden decision is based on that, on the perceived need to get moving on nuclear power, and on the desperate need for another “children overboard” episode to fight off what right now seems like an inevitable defeat at the next election.

The plight of the communities and an intelligent summation of the situation can be found in The Age, in the article “Please Listen to us, PM”. Thanks to Minx, an Australian Opinion member/mod, for that link.

I went into town for a reason other than going to Nobbys. I failed at that, and so I wandered down to Nobbys anyway. It was early enough for me to be able to park within a reasonable distance on the top road under Fort Scratchley, which, to me, seems to be the best vantage point, although not the closest.

Today, there is a rather large tug attached to the Pasha Bulker by long lines. I am assuming its the tug which brought, and is to lay (if it has not already) a couple of massive anchors wtih which they hope the PB will be able to winch itself off the beach. I don’t know squat about these kinds of things but it seems to me, flat bottom or no, trying to use two anchors to drag 40,000 tons sideways might be a bit of overblown ambition.

It will definitely be an interesting few days.

This little guy is one of three, born sometime in the last few weeks. The plovers have been occupying the street for a year, I guess, and I wondered when they would have babies.

They seem to nest wherever they feel like it, and return to the same spot year after year.

By the way plover mum settled down on this front lawn earlier today, I’m guessing one of my neighbours is the lucky (or not so lucky) host. These little devils can be quite vicious where protection of progeny is concerned, today they attacked a woman walking her dog and minding her own business.

Anyway, they are here for the duration, so I suppose I might find some way of putting up a sign to tell people to drive slowly… plovers have no road sense at all.

Nothing for the rest of us

Here we are, most of the working population of Australia barely able to make ends meet, and our Federal Government decides its worth an additional 7%. The least paid of them currently gets around $118,000, they get expense accounts, various lurks and perks and in all the package would be worth a lot more…

I haven’t seen evidence of an increase in productivity. Watching parliament “perform” on TV, or listening to them on radio… they deserve about the same wage as a 14 year old…

How about 7% for the whole country? Including people on social security payments. Better still, how about a rational wage for all of them according to what they actually DO? (Which, in many cases, is pretty much nothing)

A link from Whirlpool this morning rendered this piece of information from Wikipedia:

Cherry Venture was wrecked due to a combination of severe storms and a lack of cargo. The unladen ship sat high in the water, which when combined with the high tides and strong swell propelled it to a point far enough up the sand that it could not be successfully re-floated, despite attempts that involved dredging the beach.

Cherry Venture: 1,600 tons – stayed stuck on the beach for 34 years
Pasha Bulker: 40,000 tons – ?

Well, the technology is more advanced now. Maybe they’ll shift it…