Another Nice Storm

It's been humid here for a few weeks now so, not surprisingly, we've had some quality storms. We had another nice one last week (20th).

I tried taking some pictures but it's not easy. I tried resting the camera on the balcony with a 15 second exposure time. I tried my best not to move the camera, which was particularly hard when I saw some huge lightning. And I tried taking photos with different ISO settings. I also tried taking pictures of trailing car lights.

Anyway, this is what I came away with. It was a big hit and (mostly) miss but I'm quite pleased with the results.

Politics for the Eco-Nationalist

Hello one and all.

As I haven’t updated my own blog in a little while (like a year) I thought I’d do a little post on Jonny’s blog. And what, might you ask, is the thing that has inspired me to write a bog entry after all this time?

The local election.

Yes I’m living proof that you turn into you parents at a certain age, and as I am approaching 30 this year I’m getting old.

Anyway, I got up this morning and remembered that we had elections in NSW yesterday and maybe I should find out who now represents Manly.

I was hoping for a Green win, partly because the Liberal Democrat and the Labour politicians here seem to run their election campaigns by throwing mud at each other and not much else. There’s no such thing as the Conservative party over here, well, not officially anyway. But with politicians like John Howard you’d think there was.

Anyhoo, I digress. The Lib Dems won. But that’s not the reason for the blog.

I had a look to see who was standing for election in Manly and discovered that there is a party called “Australians Against Further Immigration”. Or eco-nationalists as they like to call themselves.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we have our own BNP.

Note that they have to say “further” immigration, as if they were against immigration completely they would be against themselves. The irony doesn’t end there.

So I thought I’d consult trusty Google to find out more, and this is what I found:

Who are we?
Australians Against Further Immigration is an eco nationalist party founded in 1989. We have contested elections at both State and Federal levels.

We acknowledge with pride the important role that immigration has played in the making of Australia, but we believe that the time for mass immigration has past.

Our primary aim is an immediate halt to net immigration and the implementation of a policy of zero net immigration under which immigration levels would be equivalent to average annual emigration.

Continuing high immigration across New South Wales is having a negative impact on our education, healthcare and legal systems as well as the environment.

Note the second paragraph. What this actually means is “we're lucky enough to live in this beautiful country but everyone else can sod off”.

What do we stand for?
Education and Training: With high unemployment and skill shortages we should be training our own unemployed instead of importing skilled workers, often from developing countries that can ill afford to lose them. Past governments have cut back funding for apprenticeships and training, whilst we would work to reverse this by decreasing large scale skilled migration with a view to its complete cessation and rather investing in education and training for Australians.

It’s the age-old, fool-proof argument a la The Sun newspaper that “they come over here and take all our jobs”. They’ve neglected to mention that many people with skills have to completely retrain when they come over here (many in the building trade and construction for example) as their skills aren’t recognised and many companies in other industries will not employ workers that don’t have Australian experience on their CV.

Healthcare: Our public hospital system is in crisis! Expenditure has not kept up with increasing needs. Our hospitals are short staffed and pay is inadequate. Savings from cuts to immigration would enable the hiring of more staff at better pay rates.

Um, surely bringing skilled workers such as doctors and nurses into the country can ease this? And due to the stringent medicals immigrants have to go through to get into the country, along with the crack down on immigrants over 30, they are less likely to be a drain on health care resources but are all the while paying the taxes that support the healthcare system. As immigrants have to be skilled to get into the country, they are likely to be earning over the £20K annual salary limit that dictates Australian residents have to take out private medical cover.

Savings? I was under the impression (obviously misled) that immigrants paid to get into Australia and were unable to claim any kind of income support for two years so therefore are less of a drain on taxes.

Rural and Regional Australia: High immigration has had a devastating effect on smaller rural communities. Some of the results have been cuts to rail and health services. Cessation of large scale immigration would contribute substantially to at minimum arresting, at best reversing this insidious process.

????
Answers on a postcard.

Environment and Law and Order: Continuing immigration means more pollution, gridlock, traffic and social dislocation which translate into more crime and social unrest. Such social tension was demonstrated at Cronulla in late 2005.

It’s true. Research has revealed that immigrants have produced twice the levels of CO2 when they exhale compared to the average white Australian therefore causing more pollution.

“Social tension” or to you and I “racism and ignorance”.
Speaking of which…

Furthermore, Australia is currently experiencing a catastrophic drought and on account of this immigration should be drastically reduced. It is illogical to have such high levels of immigration when we do not have enough water for our existing population consequently leading to the possibility of our people having to drink recycled toilet water.

I thought the poms brought the rain with them? According to the Australian office worker “it never rains where we need it”. My suggestion is this. Take the poms and stand them in these crucial areas. This may also relieve the “devastating effect” we are having on the smaller rural areas.

Cutting immigration will ease pressure on our environment and promote social cohesion, raise living standards and make a better quality of life for all Australians.

Shouldn’t that be “…a better quality of life for all white Australians”????

I suppose it's good news for the Australians Against Further Immigration Party that immigrants can't vote until they get citizenship. It's also worth noting that a key policy of the AAFI in the upcoming NSW Elections is the proposed deportation of all migrants arrived in Australia since 1990.

Well, it's a free flight home I suppose...

H

Book Twenty Two

Book Twenty Two was another good read but when I try and think about the other three books of Coben's that I've read so far (here, here and here) I find it quite hard to distinguish between them all. They all seem to follow the same pattern. Something bad happens and a guy. Guy gets on a mission to avenge the bad thing. The FBI think he did it. He didn’t. Guy seeks wrong-doers. FBI chase guy. Guy eventually finds wrong-doers. The FBI realise they got it wrong. Queue a few major plot twists and it was his best friend (or even himself) all along.

You get the picture. I'm bored of it now.

It's time for a change. After reading four books in the row from the same author it's time to hit the bookstores, which is one of the best things about reading. Bring it on.

Turning Left

After nearly ten and a half months of leaving of our flat and turning right (except when we go to the Bottle Shop), H and I turned left on the weekend. Yes. We went left! We had planned to go for a bike round around the local area on Saturday but a heavy night on the Cooper's, Tequilla and Sambuca in Russell Crowe's local in Woolloomooloo put paid to that idea. Instead we went for a walk on Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, this is what we found! Freshwater Beach, Harbord and Curl Curl Beach. Not bad eh - all within a short distance from where we currently live. Ok, we've been through the area on the bus, but we hadn't walked around it. It was a shame it was a bit overcast, but given the humidity we've been experiencing recently, that was probably a good thing.

The Night It Rained Lightning Bolts

One of the great things about living here is the storms we get. Ok, they cause a lot of damage for a lot of people (our garage has been flooded twice) but they are spectacular. I've seen more storms in the last 10 months than in the the last 5 years in the UK. Most of them linger around the ocean for hours.

A huge storm came in from the ocean last week (Sunday 4th) and made it's way over the city. I dont think I have ever seen so much lightning. It was stunning.

There's some amazing pictures of the storm below (I hope the owners don't mind me using them - I took them from the gallery on the news story above). I took three videos; here, here and here. Bear with them as there is some cracking moments in amongst the darkness.

Book Twenty One

It's a Harlan Coben hatrick (see Books Nineteen and Twenty)!

There's definitely a common theme running through Coben's books and I wasn't surprised to read a couple of twists in the last few pages. Unlike the other two books I read though, I thought the final twist in this story let the book down. It actually seemed like a bit of a kop out and I didn't think there was any need for it. Maybe I just missed something glaringly obvious (highly likely) which would've meant that it made sense. Oh, and I used the newly found technique of listing all the main players names in the back of the book (and trying to link them together) to be of very little use at all this time around.

Sydney Mardi Gras 2007

The month long Mardi Gras season finished on Saturday night with the street parade and party. H was out of town, in Byron Bay on a girlie weekend away. I was left in Sydney for probably the biggest gay event in the world.

I saw the parade when I was last here and it is arguably one of the best nights in Sydney. Oxford Street is rammed with people and basically anything goes. Check out a couple of videos here and here. Everyone is up for a good night. And we had a cracker. I spent the evening with watching the parade on the steps of The Burdekin, which is a bar at the start of the parade. Simo was putting a night on there after the parade. The streets were rammed with people and the parade was entertaining, although we had more fun with the randoms in the crowd - here, here, here and here.

To make things even better, Andy and Jamie Pole were in Sydney for the weekend, so I hooked up with them at the party. H and I have known them for a few years now and ever since I met them they have talked about wanting to go travelling. And now they are doing it, so it's great to catch up with them down here. They are living in Brisbane at the moment but are planning of moving to Sydney in a few months.

Simo put on a great night and the place was well up for it. Naturally I had my camera at the ready, and I'm bloody glad I did because I caught this and this - sound familiar? Bloc Party are my new favourite band and after weeks of wanting them to come to Australia they have finally announced that they are, in August. I'm now hoping I manage to get tickets. I took a few more videos here, here and here. As you can imgaine, we had loads of fun. I finally got home at 5.30am! I'll apologise for the parade pictures now, they aren't very good.