Don Larsen

It dawned on me today. One thing I miss about living in the US is having men, especially older men, call me "Don Larsen". Whenever they do that, I know instantly that they are a baseball fan. Aussies do not know anything about baseball, except that it has been reported as being extremely boring. So they do not know who Don Larsen is.

I suppose my Uncle Don gets it more than I do, seeing that he has the same first name, and his last name is only different by one letter ("son" versus "sen").

When this mistake happens, it always opens up a great coversation, which I've always liked.

For Aussies reading this, Don Larsen is the only baseball pitcher in history to have pitched a perfect game in the World Series, which he di on October 8, 1956 during game 5 of the World Series.

Life at sea

Growing up on a bare-bones sailboat, I certainly remember life at sea. True, there was little space, no privacy, electricity, refrigeration, television, movies, fast-food, and all the other "benefits" of growing up in modern America. But I would not trade it for the world. My mom and dad were a bit ahead of their time, dropping out of the American rat race to live a simpler life.

The baby boomers have redefined everything that they have encountered. They are living longer, and much more active lives that they previous generations. Even the concept of retirement has been turned upside down.

Leave it to the babyboomers to redefine what my mom and dad did... dropping out and live a life at sea. The LA Times today had an article about the upcoming residential cruise line industry. The idea is that rather than spending your golden years taking ocean cruises, just buy yourself a cabin on a cruise ship and move aboard. Then spend your life cruising the world. It is a floating condo on water.

But, unlike us minimalist Larsons, these companies want to sell first-class, all luxury residences. It is certainly appealing. But I can't imagine that it will actually work. What comes to my mind is the vacation time-share industry. That industry sounds good on paper, but in reality is frightenly full of problems and fraud.

I did enjoy browsing the company web sites. Wow. They sure look nice. But I wonder how they will look in 10 years? Will their owners get bored? Will the service and ship go to hell in a hand-basket? What happens if a cabin owner sells their unit to a family of goat-herding gypsies?

Seriously. If you wanna take a small break and visit fantasy land of luxury and leisure, check out their web sites. Dreams are free.

• The Magellan
• The Orphalese
• The World
• The Four Seasons

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Turkey Eating Gone Too Far:
Tiny little Sonya Thomas, world champion competitive eater, won the Turkey Eating Content in New York by wolfing down over 4 pounds of roast turkey in 12 minutes. I mentioned Sonya before last July 4th when she won the Johnsonville Brat-Eating World Championship in Wisconsin. She calls herself "The Black Widow" and has her own web site with photos and her world eating records.

And yes, she is STILL single. She is looking for a man with a really, really big... fridge.

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The Big Stove Top Stuffing In The Sky:

Ruth Siems, the inventor of Stove Top Stuffing recently died at age 74. She will be stuffed, baked at 1200 degrees, and then stuffed into an urn in her funeral at her hometown in Indiana.

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When Thanksgiving Parades Balloons Go Bad:
I love parades. But sometimes, parades go bad! Two little girls were injured at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York when the M&M balloon attacked a lamp post, when in turn lost the fight and attacked the two little girls by falling on them. As a public service and protect small children everywhere, I have decided to publish a "Field Guide To M&M Balloonss" so you can tell the good from the bad.

The Different Types of M&M Balloons
BAD	GOOD

So I need to add to my list of parades to avoid from the first post:

Now parents. If you want to your kids to live past their 18th birthday, it is a good idea to avoid parades put on by (a) militant terrorist groups that feature live weapons built and manned by untrained idiots, (b) angry drunken college fraternities, (c) Feature "bad" M&M Balloons.

Bunny Rapist

Keep your bunnies away from this man!

It looks like the Sydney Bunny Rapist is going to get away with his violent rampage last August when 17 dead bunnies and 1 guinea pig were found raped and dead on the street outside of his office.

I reported this back in October after charges were brought against him. Today the DPP (The Aussie equivilent of a DA) dropped all bestiality charges against him.

PROSECUTORS have dropped a charge of bestiality against a Sydney financier who is accused of aggravated cruelty against rabbits and a guinea pig. Brendan Francis McMahon was arrested in August and charged with one count of bestiality, 18 counts of aggravated animal cruelty and two counts of possessing cannabis.

The 37-year-old from Tamarama, in Sydney's east, is accused of the mutilation deaths of 17 rabbits and one guinea pig. The dead or dying animals were found in and around his York Street office between July and early August this year, police documents previously tendered to the court allege.

Mr McMahon had also been accused of committing an act of bestiality against one rabbit in the early hours of August 1. But when he appeared in Downing Centre Local Court today, prosecutor Laurie Gray withdrew the bestiality charge against Mr McMahon. No explanation for the withdrawal was given to the court. Deputy Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson continued Mr McMahon's bail.

He will face the same court on December 16 for a hearing to determine whether he was mentally unwell at the time of the alleged offences.

Mr McMahon's lawyer, Douglas Marr, had previously told a court his client had been suffering serious mental health problems brought on by the use of the illegal amphetamine ice.

Mr.McMahon. Please study the following chart carefully. Can you spot the difference? Perhaps you can't.

	or
Jessica Rabbit		A Real Rabbit

US President Hoover's time in Western Australia

Pres. Herbert Hoover

I found out yesterday that United States president Herbert Hoover used to live in Western Australia. In 1897, at the age 23, after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in geology, he took a job as a mining engineer for Bewick, Moreing and Company of London. He was sent to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to develop the company's gold mines there.

Here is a excellent article of Hoover's time in Western Australia from the Stanford University's Alumni Magazine. Hoover was well respected and admired here. He proved to be very successfully and made himself rich. You can now stay in the house that Hoover had built in Leonora because it is now restored as a B&B.

Hoover did do one thing that changed Australia forever. Hoover was unimpressed with the local Australian workers. They were causing labor troubles. So he decided to only hire Europeans, Italians in particular, to work the mines. That is how the first wave of Italian immigrants ended up in Perth, to be followed by a larger wave after WWII.

The Italian and Greek mark on Australia and Perth is significant. They brought with them their customs, and best of all, their cusine. Every Italian-Aussie that I've met is very proud of their contribution to Australia. They feel they brought a little class and culture here.

So in the words of Johnny Carson, "I did not know that."

Hollywood wakes up and smells the coffee

BitTorrent

Wow! I have to give it to the film industry for doing something right, for a change. Hollywood has recognized that the Internet, digital films, and file sharing are here to stay. So they have decided to embrace it and figure out a way to work with it.

How The Music Industry Failed:
Compare this to the music industry. To this day they can't get it right. They are so stuck in their ways that they refuse to wake up to the reality that the world has moved on. Customers no longer want to pay $20 for a CD that contains mostly crap music, problematic and cumbersome Digital Rights Management systems, and rampaging lawyers suing the bejesus out of little old ladies.

Take for example Sony Music's latest fiasco, which I mentioned in a previous post. Today it came out that they are being sued by the Texas Attorney General for their nasty little XPC software that they snuck into new music disks. Rather than embrace technology, they are doing everything they can to make their customers suffer.

It took Apple Computer Company to show the music industry how to sell music on the web, and make money, with the Apple iTunes Store. Apple sells many times more music per month than all the other "stores" combined. They proved the people are willing to pay for music, at the right price. If you make your product too expensive and difficult to use, then your customers are going to look to alternatives, or not even bother.

The music industry still doesn't get it. They are raving mad that they can't demand that Apple raise the prices of music. They are still withholding the music of popular artists in a futile attempt to launch their own over-priced and over-regulated Internet sales site. In the meantime, their customers flock in droves to iTunes and to free pirated copies of songs.

We have been through this before:
Before the music industry found itself in the mess that it is in, the PC software industry went through the whole pirate-paranoia phase. Back in the 1980's when PC's fist became popular, copies of popular software were everywhere. The software industry fought back. They started installing copy-protection schemes on their product, which started an arms-race with the pirates. Every trick that the software companies would come out with would be defeated within days, if not hours, by hackers.

By the late 1980's it got so bad that copy-protection systems were seriously impacting the functionality of their products. Some vendors went as far as requiring users to buy a "dongle", a piece of hardware that you attached to your PC to authenticate yourself. The copy-protection schemes were hurting the paying customers, but doing nothing to stop the pirated versions.

Then something amazing happened. The software companies gave up. They realized that their paying customers didn't want to deal with cumbersome protection systems. Given a choice, the customer would buy the simpler product that didn't make them jump to hoops to prove they were legit. They just wanted it to work.

And the software industry realized that someone who is going to get a pirated version will do so anyhow. They were not loosing customers because of pirates because they never had the customer to begin with. Putting locks on their products was not going to turn a pirate into a paying customer. Nor was not putting locks on the product going to turn a paying customer into a pirate.

So they stopped wasting time and money on elaborate copy protection schemes and instead focused their efforts on building better products, that paying customers were willing to pay for. They focused their customer service and support to their paying customers, and let the pirates do what they are going to do anyhow.

The companies that gave up and moved on, such as Microsoft, survived, and now are highly profitable industry leaders. Other companies that were industry leaders at the time couldn't come to grips with reality and are now gone. In particular, Ashton-Tate owned the early word-processing industry, until they gave it to Microsoft by focusing on pirates rather than their product. Same for Borland, a leading developer of database and compiler software. They too gave up the lead to Microsoft by spending too much effort copy-protecting their product.

Hollywood is learning!:
Now the movie industry has been watching all of this with keen interest. They know that it simply a matter of time before the technology gets the point where pirated copies of movies can be distributed over the internet with the same ease as music.

Now they could take the same approach as the music industry and fight it tooth and nail. They could hire an army of lawyers to bombard the public with lawsuits, like the music industry has done. They could start sneaking in nasty software in their product, like Sony has done. They could cling to their old pricing system and ways, despite the fact that the customers don't want it.

Yesterday, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) announced that they have struck a deal with 30 year old Bram Cohen, the developer of BitTorrent. Read about it here.

Hollywood's worst nightmare:
For those who do not know, BitTorrent is the peer-to-peer technology developed by Coehn that allows people to share files across the Internet in an extremely efficient manner, and without a centralized server. Unlike the first generation of massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing, Napster, BitTorrent is not centralized. The industry shut down Napster by suing the hell out of it. With BitTorrent, it is everywhere, and no where. Trying to sue it to death it like punching at fog. Also, unlike Napster, BitTorrent uses a swarming approach to file sharing. People who share music and videos online only have to share a small part of their file. BitTorrent collects the file from all over the Internet in small pieces and assembles it on your machine.

How Stuff Works has an excellent tutorial on how BitTorrent works so you can understand how it is so efficient.

In a nutshell, BitTorrent is the movie industry's worst nightmare come true. An untraceable and extremely efficient method to distribute large files across the Internet. So rather than try to beat them, they will join them. Using BitTorrent technology, Hollywood can distribute their films to end users for pennies. Better something than nothing!

The idolization of blandness

Here in Australia they have a television program named 'Australian Idol'. It is identical to the larger 'American Idol' TV program in the United States. The idea is that wannabe pop-stars compete in a series of competitions in front a panel of judges until only one person is left and crowned 'Idol'. The winner then wins a recording contract, and gets to produce an album.

I've never watched American Idol. But I have heard the buzz about it and it seems to be very popular. I also don't watch the Australian Idol here, except when it is on in the background because my housemate Robin watches it.

Last night on TV, the sponsoring television network tied up their channel for 4 hours with the final contest, held at the Sydney Opera House, in front of what looked like thousands of screaming fans. They crowned a winner and gushed all over her like she had won the Nobel Prize for curing cancer or something.

That is all good and fine. But I could not help but notice how the whole 'Idol' machine produces and celebrates singers who are... well, bland. Their sound and image is so over-produced and over-manufactured. They all look, and more importately, sound alike. They have the "safe" bubble-gum sound.

I'm not saying that they don't have any talent. They can sing. But big deal! If I want to hire someone to do Madonna covers for a wedding receiption, they would be perfect.

When I listen to them, I can't help but wonder how some of the most talented musical artists out there would fare when judged by such standards. Think of Bob Dylan's voice. They would have laughed him off the stage. Johnny Cash, Ricki Lee Jones, Lenard Cohen, James Brown, Neil Young, Joe Cocker, Janice Joplin, Chris Christofferson, Ray Charles, and countless others. They have beautiful, unique, and instantly recognizable voices.

What I can not comprehend is where did all those people in the crowd come from? Why do they bother to waste their time screaming for some a glorified cover-band lead singer? They all sound alike, and sing sappy bubble-gum songs written by other, so called, professionals.

Maybe I'm just too old to understand. I've think that I've always been that way. In high-school, I was the only one who preferred listing to blues over the top-40 crap all my classmates preferred.

Air Force Air Show

B-1B Lancer

On Sunday I went up to Peirce Air Force Base for an airshow. It was very impressive. In addition to the RAAF aircraft, the Singapore Airforce also flew down some jet fighters and a tanker.

The best of the show was the USAF B1-B Lancer supersonic long-ranger bomber flown in from Guam for the show. What a beautiful and stunning aircraft! It is, without a doubt, one of the most awesome and fearsome flying can of whoop-ass on the planet. The B1-B was a static display, which meant that you walk around it. Some people got to go inside. I was not so priveledged. I spoke to the crew that was there. They are with the 37th Bomber Squadron out of Ellsworth AFB, Black Hills, South Dakota. Their B1-B had the nose art "The Uninvited" of a tiger ripping through the hull.

I was pretty damn hot out there on the tarmac. And the flies were terrible! I am thankful that a few million of them got sucked into jet engines and roasted to death.

Guardians for profit - More Thoughts

I was thinking about my post yesterday about conservators and their industry. I read read what I wrote this morning. I have the following points to add.

(1) I wish to clarify my point so that I do not hurt any of my family's feelings. In the post, I mention that the only alternative to public or professional conservators is family. In my particular case, I am blessed with a family I trust. My writing where meant not for me personally, but for the average reader who may not be as lucky as me.

However, I do mean it when I claim that I do not wish to be a burdon on anyone, especially my family. I do wish to be a burdon on any insurance company that I contract with for long-term disability.

(2) I worked for a bank for 12 years. The bank had a large and highly respected trust divison, and whom I got to know many of the staff and managers personally. I have nothing but praise for them. They were always extremely professional and diligant.

In addition to working for the bank, my ex-wife was a benefitiary of one the trusts that the bank managed. So I also got to see how it worked from the client side. As I mentioned before, I was deeply impressed with their work.

The bank's trust department is regulated by state and federal laws. In addition, they go to great lengths to be objective and prudent with the assets placed in the trust. The work they do is strikingly similar to the jobs of a conservator. The trust officers would have to take care of the day-to-day needs of the benefitiaries. They keep excellent records. They have strict rules and conflict of intrest guidelines. They are obligated by law to be fudiciary prudent.

Thinking about this, I came to two conclusions. One is that your best bet is to have a professional trust company be your conservator. Second, why do judges not appoint trust companies to do this job when they are asked to give control of someone's life to a total stranger? They do it now.

Their should be no middle ground. If the courts can't find a trust that wants to take the client (probablly cause they have little or assets), then the state needs to have a trust department that works in the exact same way that catches all the other clients.

Guardians for profit

Last week the Los Angeles Times published an excellent special series on the issue of conservators for elderly adults who no have the ability to manage their own affairs.

It is quite a long read, but well worth it. The articles focus on some of the worst abuse of the system that they found. The theft and incompetence they uncovered will make your blood boil.

For those who don't want to read it, the report is about the conservator industry. These are people or agencies who are appointed responsibility for persons who are unable to take care of their own affairs. The article points out some of flaws with the system as currently implemented in California, and Los Angeles County. Problems are things like:

• The ease in which a total stranger can be appointed a conservator.
• The extreme difficulty of removing a conservator.
• The lack of regulation, oversight, and licensing of conservators.
• The looting and theft of their charges' assets by conservators.
• The abuse and neglect of charges by conservators.
• The failure of judges to monitor the conservators they appoint.
• The complete failure of the LA County public conservator.

What I found scary was the ease in which anyone can call themselves a conservator, find an old person with assets, and then ask a judge to appoint them as a conservator based on nothing but their own word. Once granted, the conservator can then do whatever they want with the person's assets, without any supervision, or consequence for abuse. For example, selling the charge's home for far less than market value to themselves or to a family member.

The system sound horrific. Anyone reading would want to take steps to prevent themselves to falling victim should they become infirmed. The article does not go into what people can do to protect themselves. Nor do the articles discuss alternatives.

The two alternatives are, (a) do nothing and allow the elderly to take care of themselves. (b) Have the family take care of this. Obviously, alternative (a) is not acceptable. Some people do get to the point where they are incapable of taking care of themselves. They will die without help. So, the only realistic option is conserveship.

Is there not an unwritten pact between the generations that when you become too old to take care of your affairs, that you will be able to trust your family. Apparently not. For every case of abuse by the for-profit conservators in the article, there are even more abuse by family members. I suspect that of the percentage of "bad apples" in the for-profit industry were compared to the "bad apples" of abuse by family, the for-profits might seem like a safer bet.

I can think of many examples of elderly people being striped of their ability to manage their own affairs by their own children who seem to more keen on preserving their inheritance than the interests of their own parent(s). A recent example this year within my own extended family (Aunt Louise), illustrates how bad this can be.

It is all a bit depressing to me. You can't trust strangers motivated by profit. You might not be able to trust your own family. What are you suppose to do?

Good thing I am poor. No one will benefit from my demise. That will keep the wolf from the door!

On the other hand, I refuse to be a burden on someone else. I don't want that kind of life. So the only question is if I will get the point where I can no longer take of myself, will I be able to recognize it? And if I do, will I be able to do something about it? Will the last thing I own be a gun and two rounds (in case on misses). I've always reckoned that if I knew I was on my last days, I would disappear, and die on my own terms, in my own way.

I see the makings of good novel of film here. What if there was a secret insurance company, or a sect, that guaranteed that if you become infirmed, they would have a hit-man take you out? It could be triggered by a test they administer every year or so. If you fail, they shoot you. Then you would not have to deal with greedy family or conservators. It would be a self-destruct contract.

MIT says "Tin-Foil Hats Don't Work"

I read on the net today that tin-hoil hats do not work. In fact, the MIT study demonstrates that some models of tin-foils hats actually amplify the signals that they are designed to shield the wearer from!

Read it here!

'Glow in the dark' pork chops

Here in Australia, the New South Wales Food Authority today told the public not to worry after a Sydney resident reported glow-in-the-dark pork chops in their fridge. The authority claims that the organism that causes the luministic glow is harmless, but you should probably NOT eat the glowing meat.

Well no shit, Sherlock...

I can see it now... Wife to husband at dinner:

"Honey! They had a sale on pork chops at the supermarket today. They have a new brand called 'Chernobal Farms'. And look at the money we can save on dinner candles!"

Sony went too far this time

In another example of the music industry's sheer arrogance, Sony was slammed by the Homeland Security Office for their latest little trick they tried to pull on the public.

Sony Music secretly started hiding software on their music CD's called XCP. The problem with this is that the program installs itself in your computer without your knowledge. It buries itself deep within the operating system using a method called "rootkit".

Once embedded into your computer, this little program prevents you from copying the music to MP3 (so you can download it to your iPod). It also tracks what music you play and reports it to Sony. All of this without your knowledge or consent.

In addition, this little program can be exploited by hackers and viruses to allow access to your computer without your knowledge.

" It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. "

If you attempt to remove this little program, you will find that there is no way to do it. If you are very technically savvy and dig it out, you will probably find that it renders your CD ROM drive useless.

If I recall, writing a piece of software that installs itself without your knowledge or consent for the express purpose of restricting your computer system is illegal. That is what viruses do. Sony claims it is not a virus. But this program walks, talks, and quacks like a virus. I'd say it is a virus.

So does Microsoft and the Office of Homeland Security. Today, Stewart Baker, the assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, said

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days."

This comment was aimed squarely at Sony.

Microsoft and all of the major anti-virus vendors are putting out fixes that will disable Sony's evil little gift to the world. Sony has agreed to stop putting XCP on their disks.... for now.

In praise of mobile phone cameras

My V3 Razr

Even though I work in IT and deal with software and complex computer systems all day long, I am not a gadget freak. I do not own the latest and greatest version of anything. I don't even wear a watch. I own a small, old fashion CRT television with rabbit ears. No satellite, cable, or anything. My only computer is a 3 year old laptop that doesn't even have any games on it. I don't own a camera, an iPod, a radio, or really anything.

The only "nerdy" gadget I own is a 3 year old simple Palm Pilot PDA which I use for the basic functions: contacts, appointments, and information archive. No Wifi crap. No games. No email. No internet everywhere. I frankly couldn't care less. I just need help remembering names, phone numbers, and appointments.

A few months ago I needed to get a new mobile phone. When shopping around, I quickly discovered that most of the phone models offered these days come with a digital camera. My feeling about cameras on phones is that it is a waste of space, money, and battery power. I simply want a phone that works well, is easy to use, and is small. If I want to take pictures, I'll buy me a digital camera that does the job right. I'm not going to bother with some half-ass excuse for a camera jammed into a cell phone.

Then I found a phone that I fell in love with. The Motorola V3 Razr. I liked it because it is small, flat, and strong. It fits perfectly in my back pocket. It is quad-band, so I can use it anywhere in the world. And the thing I liked about it most. The keys are big, easy to use, and easy to read. It also has a nice big bright screen too. It was everything I was looking for.

Telstra Mobile had a sale, so I bought one. I also noticed that it comes with a camera. "I'll never use that" .... so I thought.

The ads for phones with cameras and mobile services project an image of using the camera to capture all the fun you are having at bars, parties, the beach, dating, etc. And then using the mobile service to send these images to your friends to make them envious of your glamorous life. Who cares if that photo cost you $2 to send? It will make them green with envy!

Guess what I use my phone's camera for? I use it to remember where I parked my car.

Sexy, no?

Being a 42 year old divorced male working too hard, I don't have a glamorous life. My life is far more mundane, with my day to day struggles of keeping up with my workload, home, health, and commitments to friends and family. What the hell is there to take pictures of?

You know the saying... "A picture is worth a thousand words"? I got to thinking about the camera in my phone, and I realized that it makes a perfect notepad. So now whenever I see something that I want need to remember later, I simply take a picture of it.

For example, like where I left my car.

I also find it very handy to take pictures of phone numbers, business names, or addresses that I need later. When I am reading the newspaper or a magazine at my coffee shop and I see an article or ad that I'm interested in, I take a picture of it.

I also find it handy for automobile and handyman work. Before I take something apart, I take photos of it so I can remember EXACTLY how it looks assembled, or where a part goes. It really helps when you are putting an engine together and end up with an extra part or bolt that you don't remember where it went.

When working on the house, I find it easy to take pictures of what I need, or are working on, then reviewing it when I get to the hardware store. I keeps me from forgetting to buy things, or trying to describe something to a clueless clerk.

So there you go. I've discovered, to my complete amazement, that I enjoy having the camera function on my phone. But I'm sure that Motorola and Telstra will be seriously disappointed in my reasons. Perhaps they can create an ad campaign for us middle age boomers showing a frazzled mom using her phone camera to remember where she left her car at the mega-mall parking lot. Not sexy... but practical.

Spider causes freeway pile up in Perth

Huntsman Spider

Yesterday, I heard that a spider caused a pile up on the freeway here in Perth. A woman was driving on the freeway and lowered her sun visor to block the sun in her eyes. A Huntsman spider fell out and landed on her. She freaked, lost control of her car, and crashed.

I also heard that a large, burly man was one of the first to come over to her to offer assistance. When he heard what happened, he ran away. He must have been afraid of spiders.

I don't blame her. I'd freak too if a Huntsman landed on my head or lap while I was driving.

Huntsman spiders are ugly critters. I mentioned them in my blog back in 2001 when I first moved to Australia. They can be quite large, the body the size of a golf ball, and when their long legs spread full out, about the size of a small dinner plate. Most that I've seen and captured are about the size of my palm. And they are fast. Amazingly fast. I've never seen a spider that can move as fast as a Huntsman can.

They are harmless by Australian standards. They are poisonous. It won't kill you, but you will surely remember it. Unlike Redbacks (an Aussie version of a Black Widow), and Funnel-Web Spiders (very poisonous!) which will chase and attack you if you get near them, Huntsman spiders are pretty docile.

Speaking of spiders and cars. My little Ford has become the happy mobile home for an ever growing family of Redback spiders. You can tell there is a Redback because of the distinctive web they weave. It is a mess, like candy floss. It looks like they were drunk when they wove it.

For the last six months, a Redback has taken up residence in the right hand mirror. I've tried washing him out with the hose, but he is still there. I've never actually seen him. He hides deep inside the mirror housing. But every morning I have to clear his web off the mirror. So I know he is still there.

A couple of months ago I noticed that another redback moved in under the rear fender. There is a Redback web under the spare tire. Tried the hose again. No luck.

Yesterday I noticed that another cousin of the Redbacks moved into the other mirror on the left side of the car.

I really want to roll all down the windows and air the car out from time to time. But I am afraid that a family of spiders will crawl in overnight and take up residence inside. Then with my luck, I will get bit by a Redback while driving on the Freeway.

Well. I guess I will have to get my car fumigated. These little arachnoids aren't helping me pay for fuel, so NO MORE FREE RIDES!

Why aren't these thugs being charged?

Last week the Australian police busted a terror ring in Syndey and Melbourne. When the police took the suspects to court in Melbourne for arraignment, the press was outside to cover the event. So was a group of "supporters" of the suspects. These "supporters" were upset that their friends had been busted, so they took out their anger by attacking the press that was there.

The attack was all caught on video and broadcast through the nation. These 20 something thugs attacking, punching, and kicking a camera man outside the court. They didn't even attempt to hide their faces or their actions. They just brutally attacked an innocent man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I waited to find out what would happen to these thugs. I never heard anything about it since then.

I found out today what happened. NOTHING. Not a damn thing! No charges have been filed by the police or prosecutors.

They have it all on video tape. It happened in broad daylight infront of the police. It was broadcast on national television. The camera man was seriously hurt. Yet, no charges are being pressed.

Now it gets worse. It turns out these thugs in the warehouse of Wooloworths, a large Aussie grocery store chain. Their co-workers recognized the thugs and are refusing to work with them. They found out that the thugs had called in sick that Monday, but were seen later beating the shit out a camera man. But, Woolworths has threathened the jobs of the co-workers who are afraid of these thugs.

Read about it here!

What your gasoline dollars are paying for

Every time I fill up my fuel tank on my car, I get angry knowing that some of the money I'm paying is ended up supporting the sponsors of Saudi Arabian religious zealots.

Saturday, a Saudi Arabian high school chemistry teacher was sentenced to 3 years in prison and 750 lashes in public. His crime? Mocking Islam.

It turns out that he was sued for this "crime" by some students of his that had failed an exam. Back in 2004 he had made the mistake of asking the students of the school to examine the claims of the Saudi extremists who have been blowing up buildings and killing people. He asked the students to ponder if these nuts represent true Islam.

The Islamic teachers at the same school took offense at his questions. The told him that no matter what these people did, they were Muslim, and therefore could not be criticized. That is right. You can be a savage mass murderer of innocent women and children. But as long as you are Muslim, it is wrong to have other Muslims doubt your intentions.

So the Islamic Sudies teachers pushed the failing students to sue him for Mocking Islam.

Read about it here: Arab News, and The Religious Policeman.

I'm no tree hugging hippie. But please think about this the next time you go out to buy a car.

Insurance Companies are evil!

The husband of one of my co-workers died about 1 month ago. They have children at home. Then her mother died two weeks later. My co-worker has been devastated.

She has not been back to work yet. But I heard today that she is being given a hard time trying to get the insurance company that carried her husband's life insurance policy to pay up. So far, they have not.

When she called them up so start the claims process on his life insurance policy, they refused to speak to her. They claimed that their privacy policy only allows them to speak to the policy holder.

Uh... the policy holder is DEAD bozos! It is a life insurance policy. You are NEVER going to get a policy holder to call you to file a claim on a life insurance contract.

That didn't matter. They company refused to bend their policy. Finally she got a hold of a manager who accepted that she might have a claim. It took 3 days to get this far.

Now they are throwing other monkey wrenches into the works. They now refuse to pay a claim unless she gets his will "validated" by the Western Australian Supreme Court. WTF? What about the designated benefitiary on the policy (HIS OWN WIFE!). Not good enough. They claim that someone might come along later and claim they were due some of the insurance money and sue the insurance company.

Have you ever heard of such hogwash?

So now she has to pay $500 to start the processes of getting her husband's will "validated" by the courts. God knows how long that will take.

It gets worse. Now they company is insisting that she sign a waiver that will allow them to get all his Medicare records. They seem to be on a fishing expedition to find some clue that he might have been sick years ago when they took the policy out. Never mind that they are married, had children, and covering the risk of his death was a prudent thing to do.

In the last month, she has had to pay for 2 funerals, and she has not been able to work. They haven't even sent her any money at all to help her. Not even $10k to get her through.

This just pisses me off. They really need state insurance regulators in Australia like we have in the US. The only body that controls insurance companies here in a worthless and toothless federal agency in Canberra.

Jesus of the week

Stumbled across this great little website featuring Jesus in all his bizarre manifestations. There are truly demented ideas of there. This is hilarious. For example, here is a picture of jesus playing football. Notice that he is not wearing a helmet. Nor is he wearing a uniform.

In fact, I think it is down right unfair for the red team to get the son of God on their team and the other side doesn't.

Of course the advantages are probablly offset by Jesus being a lousy wide receiver, on account of those holes in his hands.

The "Religion of Peace" shows its true colors

Scanning the news this weekend, I can't help but notice that the "Religion of Peace" (Islam) continues to demonstrate how totally f**ked up it has become.

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Let us start in that model of Islamic life, Pakistan: This weekend in Lahore, crowds burned down two Christian churches, a priest's house, a school dorm, and the school, because someone started a rumor that a Christian had burned a Koran. Turns out there was no Koran burned. Instead, a Muslim man was angry because he had lost money gambling with a Christian man. So to get revenge, he started the rumor.

It amazes me that Muslims get to bent out of shape and go on murderous rampages simply because someone started a rumor that someone out there doesn't like their religion.

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Egypt: In Alexandria, riotious crowds attacked a church and stabbed a nun, simply because someone started a rumor that the church was selling a DVD of a play from two years ealrier. The play about a Christian, who switched to Islam, got disillusioned, and switched back.

In Islam, you are not allowed to switch back. Doing so is punishable by death is most Islamic countries. And you thought your cell phone contract was bad!

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Indonesia: The father of one of last month's Bali suicide bombers, who walked into a Bali restaurant and blew himself up, claims that his son was "just a normal kid".

If that is normal, then you have some pretty f**ked-up kids dude.

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Indonesia (again!): Last week the Indonesian police found and killed one of JI's master bomb makers, Azahari Husin's. In his house, police found 30 bombs that he had made. It appears that he was planning for a mass bombing "party" over Christmas of Christian chuches in Java.

What a nice guy. That is the way to show those evil Indonesian Christians what you think of them.

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Indonesia (once more!): Recently, 3 teenage girls were ambushed and beheaded by local Muslim fanatics who want to start a religous war. On Tuesday, two more teenager grisl were shot in the face in the same area, for being Christian.

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Phillipines: For the last few days, the Phillipine Army has been engaged in all out warfare with al-Qaeda linked Islamic insugency rebels. 20 people have been killed in the last 3 days.

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Jordan: As you know, Iraqi suicide bombers walked into 3 hotels in Amnan and blew themselves up, killing dozens of people.

Here is the sick part. A husband and wife team of suicide bombers walked into the middle of a wedding to do this. The husband suceeded. His wife's bomb failed, and she fled.

I can't comprehend how screwed up one has to be to think that this is good. What on earth motivated her to try to kill as many innocent people as possible. Didn't it occur to her, even for a second, as she walked into the wedding reception and saw the familes, wives, children, grandparents, etc, that murdering them for no reason might be wrong.

She claims that after she tried to detonate her vest, and it failed, her husband pushed her out of the room and blew himself up. What was up with that? This is what I think. I think he rigged her vest to not blow. He knew it was not going to work. He didn't want her to come along for his journey because he was convinced that he was going to heaven and get his 72 virgins. Why in the hell would he want his wife around He was looking forward to his personal orgy in the sky.

These are really sick times, people.

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Lastly, I ran across a LA Times article that asks muslims WHY... Why are they tolorating this madness done in their name? The author asks five questions of Muslims who claim that Islam is the relgion of peace.

November 13, 2005

THE RIOTING IN France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.

Here are five of them:

(1) Why are you so quiet?

Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?

(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?

Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims — in the name of Islam — murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.

(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?

No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.

Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.

As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.

Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better — for you and for the world — than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.

We await your response.

Travelling in Western Australia

I stumbled across a good little travel narrative in the LA Times about Western Australia. The author drove across the state from Perth to Darwin. It is a long slog, 3,522 outback miles — about the distance from Seattle to Miami.

Did you know that Western Australia is 6 times the size of California? But it only has about 2 million people, about the same as Houston, Texas. Three fourths of the people live in the Perth area alone (about 1.5 million). So once you get a few clicks outside of Perth, there ain't a lot of people around.

The travelog is a good read. The author goes up to Monkey Mia, where humans and dolphins interact. He went to Shark Bay, and to Exmouth, where Australia's other Great Barrier Reef can be found.

Well. This has me hankering to take off in my trusty little Ford Laser wagon. I don't think it will make it. Perhaps it will make it to Darwin, and I could fly back to Perth, sans car.

Peter Drucker (1909-Nov-19 :: 2005-Nov-11) RIP

Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker died last Friday. For those who do not know who he was, he was a very influential professor of corporate economics and management. His theories on labor, the corporation, government, and management, were far ahead of his time. He was a great believer in people, and simplification. He abhorred massive management, corporations that try to do too much, and companies that treated labor as a disposable commodity.

Here are:

• a brief Wiki summary of his career and accomplishments.
• His own corporate management website
• A CNN Obit with some of Drucker's takes on recent events.
• An excellent LA Times obit on him.
  

Damn Addicting!

Wow. This little egg game is so addicting. Arrrgh!

Latin America like my blog graphics

Just for fun this weekend I took a look at my blog's visitor and traffic monitor. I noticed a strange spike in the number of vistors from Latin American countries. In paticular, they all seemed to be coming to this post from 15-July-2005 in which I was talking about the news of the video game "Grand Theft Auto San Andres" had hidden x-rated content.

Stranger, all these Latin American visitors are coming to this post because the of the above image of the girl that I had on the blog. They are all being referred to me from a Google search of this girl.

I wonder what is going on?

Off to a good start

A local couple got married yesterday, Friday. They booked two nights at the Sheraton Hotel for their honeymoon. Around 1 am the bride came downstairs to the lobby screaming for the staff to call the police.

It turns out that after the wedding reception, they got to the hotel and had one huge fight. He started acusing her of cheating on him (12 hours after they exchanged vows), punched her, bit her nose, and God knows what else.

According to the paper, the groom later apologized for his behaviour. He explained that he had drank too much and lost control of his temper.

Lovely. I hope she has the brains to file for an annulment on Monday morning.

Alla Luce del Sole (In The Light of the Sun)

I went to the catch a flix at the Italian Film Festival at the local indi theater. I saw "Alla Luce del Sole", which means "In the light of the sun" in Italian. What a movie! Very sad.

It is based on a true story about Don Giuseppe (Pino) Puglisi, a priest who tried to make a difference in a mafia controlled neighborhood in Palarmo, Sicily. He founded a center to help the local children and teenagers escape the clutches of the mafia, and give them an alternative in life other than crime. He started to succeed, and was murdered by the mafia in 1993 for his efforts.

Look for this film and try to catch it or rent it.

The Quasiturbine Engine

I don't understand why the car companies are so obessed with sticking with the classic petrol powered, cylinder & piston, internal combustion engine. Outside of that, they only seem to be interested in developing electric motors powered by chemical reactions from batteries, or hydrogen & oxygen.

The pure hydrogen engine is a long ways off. We are going to be stuck with fossil fuel motors for a long time yet. Toyota and Honda are leading the way with hybrid motors that combine petrol ICE and battery powered electric motors.

I can't help but notice that hybrid motor is pefect for a Sterling Engine. They are far more effecient than ICE's.

Another common type of motor is the gas-turbine engine. This is the same engine used on commercial jets, large ships, and military tanks. They are very effecient, but also very expensive to make. They don't work well for cars in stop and go traffic. That is why they don't put them in cars.

However, there is something new on the horizon that looks very promising. It is The Quasiturbine Engine. This is awesome. Invented by a nuclear physicist in Canada, and patented in 1996. It promises to be the perfect hybrid between a pure gas-turbine engine and a rotary motor (aka. Wankel engine). It is very interesting. Please take a look at the How Stuff Works demo of it.

The beauty of it is that version of it can be used to run a motor off of compressed air, steam, diesel, bio-fuels, or almost anything. It is very effecient, small, and has no vibration.

Idea for better fuel efficiency

Almost every safety feature and efficiency feature of modern cars has come from the racing world. Rear view mirrors, seat belts, safety glass. The list goes on and on. Even if you are not a fan of car racing, you owe them a debt of gratitude. They are the ones who are always pushing the envelope, trying new ideas to make their cars faster, more efficient, and safer.

Now that the days of cheap gasoline are over, why don't we take another idea from the racers and apply it to mainstream cars for everyone else? Why not take a serious look at Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS)?

One of the biggest factors that goes into make a car purchasing decision is the issue of motor power, usually measured in kilowatts or horsepower. Obviously, having more power is good. But there is a costs to having that power. A more powerful motor is a less fuel efficient motor. So one must strike a balance between their need for power and their desire for costs efficiency.

For the last 15 years, fuel in the US has been relatively cheap. This allowed people to be able to afford to operate powerful motors, which in turn could drive larger automobiles such as SUV's, and tow a boat or load.

Now that fuel prices have jumped, people are now more sensitive to the operating costs of a motor. Now they have to give up excessive power capacity. They have to strike a balance between their power needs and the cost of providing that power.

So when one looks at a smaller engine, they naturally think of the worse case scenario. What if I need a lot of power quickly? What if there is a short freeway on-ramp? What if I need to pass a truck while going at 65 mph? Can this engine give me that? Will it give me WHAT I need WHEN I need it?

Here is where NOS comes in. NOS acts like adrenalin for your car. It give your motor a quick and sharp boost in power. Racers use it in short bursts when starting off to get them at top speed quickly.

You can't run your motor on NOS. It is just too expensive. And the size of a tank that would be too large. But when injected at high-demand moments, it can give you the boost you need.

Why don't the car companies start to implement NOS systems that kick in when the driver pushes the gas pedal to the floor? It will allow the owner to run a small, more fuel efficient, and less powerful motor, yet get the boost they need from time to time.

The owner will have to top off their NOS tank from time to time. The more the use it, the more it will cost them. It allows them to decide how to drive.

The difference between guts and balls

Sent to me by my mate Andrew (hat tip Andrew).

The difference between guts and balls.

Guts -
is arriving home late after a night out with the lads, being assaulted by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to ask: "Are you still cleaning, or are you flying somewhere?"

Balls -
is coming home late after a night out with the lads, smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping your wife on the ass and having the balls to say - "You're next, fatty."

Is Marxism the cause of France's riots?

I stumbled across this excellent essay on the net that looks into the issue of Marxism as a cause of the rioting going on in France. The author compares the Asian immigrates to America to the Arab and African immigrates to France. Her hyphothis is that both sets of immigrants come from backwards, repressive, and agrigrian countries. Yet the Asian immigrates seem to thrive while the Arab/African immigrates in France stagnate.

She looks at France's socialist system as the cause, because it removes all incentives to get educated, work hard, and make something of yourself.

Very interesting. Well worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to read it!

Mary Bryant

Last week on network television they broadcast a special two part movie named "Mary Bryant". I recorded it and watched it this weekend. It was awesome. I understand that it is on DVD now and can be rented.

It is based on the true story of Mary Byrant, a young Cornwall woman who was convicted for stealing food and send on the first convict ship to Australia. She, her husband, and a couple of other convicts stole the only remaining boat and managed to sail over 3000 miles to across the east coast of Australia and land on Timor Island in what is now Indonesia.

Biography From Wikpedia:

Mary Bryant (1765 - ?) was an Australian convict known for making a well planned escape.
Born Mary Braund in Cornwall, England, she was sent as a prisoner with the First Fleet to Australia aboard the Charlotte after being arrested for highway robbery of a silk bonnet, food, and a few coins. As the early colony of Port Jackson struggled, she fled there with her husband William Bryant, her two children and other male convicts. When they arrived by ship in Timor, which was then Dutch, they claimed to be shipwreck survivors. They were later proven by Dutch officials to be English convicts. To avoid an international incident they were sent back to England to stand trial. During the voyage back her family perished. She expected to be hanged, however due to a public outcry and publicity by writer James Boswell she was pardoned.

It is very good! If want to watch an excellent movie, rent this.

Maria Full of Grace

Sorry I've been so quiet. I've been very sick with a nasty bout of summer cold. I had to take 3 days off to rest.

While I was home resting, I rented this DVD named "Maria Full of Grace". It was very good and I recommend it as a rental. It is a very gripping drama about a young Columbian woman who is disatisfied with her poverty and agrees to become a cocaine mule. She swallows ballons of cocaine and is to fly to New York to deliver them to drug dealing connections there.

Put this one on your short list...

And they wonder why no one respects them...

In Gaza, the government has condoned the car theft industry to such a degree that they issue lisence plates that indicate the car was stolen. Not only that, they even register PA (government) cars as stolen the same way.

Amazing.... and they wonder why no one respects them.

Read it here.

The Revillagigedo Islands

Man I love Google Earth. I did not know that there are active volcanos in the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico's west coast. There is a cluster of tiny volcanic islands way off the coast called The Revillagigedo Islands. This archipelago consists of Isla Socorro, Isla San Benedicto, Roca Partido, and Isla Clarión.

Check this one out. This is the volcano Barcena on Isla San Benedicto. It last erupted in 1952. Here is a photo of it erupting. The island is nothing but ash. It looks like it belongs on the moon.

Here is another one nearby. It is called Isla Socorro. Socorro means 'help' in Spanish. It last erupted in 1993. If you look at the south end of the island you can see the fresh lava flows.

Isla Clarion is way the hell out further west. It is a beautiful little island with a perfect natural harbor. It looks like the kind of island you picture Robinson Coruso being stuck on. The Mexican military maintains a small 9 man garrison out there. I wonder how long they get to be stuck out there?

Roca Partido is nothing but a rock sticking up from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. It means "broken rock" in Spanish.

Now there is another island even more isolated off of Mexico's coast called Clipperton Island. It is a French posession and is not considered part of the Revillagigedo Islands. It is a strange little Island, the shape of a donut with a completely landlocked central lagoon full of stagnate acidic water.

It has a bizarre history. Back when Mexico owned it, they put a garrison out there and built a light house. The Mexican Revolution caused the mainlanders to abandon the 100 men, women, and children living on the island. By 1917, most of the men had died, some in a failed attempt to sail to the mainland and fetch help. The lighthouse keeper, Victoriano Álvarez, found himself the last man on the island, along with 15 women and children. Álvarez promptly proclaimed himself King and began a rampage of rape and murder, before being killed by one of the recipients of his attentions. In July 1917, almost immediately following Álvarez's death, three women and two children, the last survivors, were picked up by the US Navy gunship USS Yorktown.

Read about it here.

Stupid Human Tricks

An Oxford University student was killed when he was flung through the air by trebuchet catapult and overshot the landing net. Turns out this is old news, since this happened back in November 2002.

The student was a member of the Oxford Stunt Factory, a "Dangerous Sports" club.

I love doing stupid things too. But I think that I would have launched a pig who weighed about the same as me before I personally crawled into the launching seat.

BBC News Story

Got a spare $450 billion laying around?

Talk about weird! A Chinese company has offered to buy Exxon for $450 billion US dollars. The company, King Win Laurel, seems to be run out of a $200 a month apartment Beijing and is run by a 25 year old man. This is not the first time this "company" has made an outragous buyout offer.

A bit of advice for Exxon. Don't take a personal check.