h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mind you in those days I worked with (for) the Secretary From Hell, so hey?

Crown? Does the British monarchy still have a say in Australia? Monarchys are so very unfamiliar to me that I am always surprised when they are involved in something so basic as governing a nation. I am being a bit tongue-in-cheek but only a bit. I thought the British monarchy was strictly entertainment in Britain let alone elsewhere. Also, if Australia is still tied to the monarchy are they still technically a colony? Obviously I haven't studied Australian government ever so please forgive what I'm sure are really dumb questions.

"Go west young man" is a saying about finding your fortune and proving your mettle as a man/feline. It isn't about making more room for people or to get away from people. Not that we don't do exactly that. There is a reason why non-farmers buy large acreages in the middle of nowhere and it generally does have to do with privacy, peace, quiet and a distinct lack of human beings in the near vicinity.

You may think its sad that we like our space but we don't. I've heard that we have the largest personal space needs of any culture. We look at it as rugged individualism, independence and self motivation rather than a lack of personal interaction or social integration. Besides, we do socialize and integrate maybe just not the same way.

The region I live in is considered one of the friendliest places to visit in the US. We wave at drivers in other trucks (not so much cars). We help people who break down and when there is a disaster we pile out in droves to get people cared for and things cleaned up. Wisconsin gets cold and so the idea of leaving a stranded driver on a winter night (even if they have a cell phone) is just plain wrong. They could die and I need to help. We collaborate in business, socialize in church, fill the restaurants and bars, attend sports in droves and generally do integrate.

Internationally I'm sure we integrate much less. We enjoy our identity as Americans and wouldn't want to be confused with other (equally good but different) peoples. I think deep down in every American heart is a bit of pride that we fought for what we are. Our nation was forged from new, incredibly different ideas and many people paid a huge price to see those ideas become reality. We may have a bit of "this road ain't big enough for the both of us" swagger but its there because we believe deep down that we have something really unique that we don't want to compromise. I'm sure that attitude gets us into a lot of trouble.

Also, we are truly a melting pot of peoples. We have a national identity that may unify us but individually we are widely varied. Even here in the most average of places with the most average of peoples we have large groups of distinct cultures, Hispanic, Native American, Laotian, Chinese, Middle Eastern mixed in with century old communities of African, Norwegian, Swiss and German. Huge tractors plow fields alongside tracts of Asian garden plots. We don't have 200 years of sheep ranches and wheat fields (do you?). 50 years ago it was dairy farms. 100 years ago it was logging and mining. Now we are services and biotechnology. We have no long term history to ground us as a people and we have experienced exponential growth, in large part through immigration, so we have little unified cultural history. Every American I know can tell you where they came from even if the "coming" happened three generations before. In some ways it is cool to see all the different cultures but in other ways it makes it difficult. If you're Swiss for example (like Gordy) do you ever allow yourself to become fully American? In that way I'm lucky I'm a mutt cat. My family came from somewhere but through transplantings and adoption, I ended up with no idea where and so had to settle for being from here.

By the way I was being facetious about you being envious of the US. From the way you talk of your home it sounds like 1, you love it, and 2, it is a pretty cool place. After all, any place that figured out making Easter eggs chocolate has my vote as a very cool place indeed. Besides, I haven't met a Brit yet who didn't think their culture was superior to mine. I've never actually met an Aussie so I can't say whether they would give me the same impression. To some degree I suppose we should all like our own best. It would be pretty discouraging otherwise.

So, BOFH, are you saying that, had you been a bit older, you would have swilled beer and kept ladies in your office?

PS. I like lamb - a lot - but not mutton. Sheep, as in the critter, are the most incredibly stupid, obnoxious, stinky, sorry excuse for a food and clothing producer I've ever had the misfortune to live near. They are an evil necessity and if Australia wants to raise them and export their product, horray! I'll buy it and that way they won't be raised near me.

PPS. You're talking to a cat with Celiac's Disease. Sorry - no wheat for me although I am (sometimes painfully) aware that the world lives on it. The US exports a lot also. I suppose we're competitors on the world market for both wheat and beef. Does Australia outlaw hormone-beef or genetically modified grains? The US allows it but I'm fortunate to live in an area where I can visit the farmer and select the critter I want butchered.

Australia uses the Crown as an idea. Essentially all of the executive services of the Government (police, army, navy, courts etc) report to the Crown and not politicians. But under the constitution, the Crown is represented by an Australian (the Governer General) chosen by the Prime Minister (and authorised by letters patent by HMtheQ Elizabeth II). Essentially the British links are fail safes for a deadlocked parliament. The GG always takes the advice of the PM (who like the rest of the goverment is elected to the parliament and is the majority leader) but if parliament stops functioning (and it can), the GG can force a new election or negotiate past the impasse. However, the GG may govern without the advice of a parliamentary government of some kind. The system is quite clever.

In a sense the English overseer of the succession of power is the Archbishop of Cantabury. In the US is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In Australia it is HM the Queen. None of the overseeing entities wield any political power but they do have the function of ensuring a smooth succession. I don't like the idea of putting the Chief Justice in charge of the process because when things go wrong (and during succession is when things _do_ go wrong) the Chief Justice is in charge of determining their own position. In Australia, the High Court would rule on the constutionality of the Queen's actions - an excellent removal of a confict of interest.

I am glad you think that I like Australia. It is a great place and Adelaide has many of the same advantages as your neck of the woods. I suspect I would like Wisconsin for many of the same reasons. Close enough to a city to be able to do city things (like Art, dance, theatre etc) but rural enough to pick your own cow to eat.

By the way, I don't mind the idea of cultural difference. That American's are fond of having lots of their own space is cool (Australian's are renowed for living sparsely too) but there is a question of whether space as the standard way to escape. I have no idea. I don't think watching Law and Order on telly can be called research. And it certainly can't for me, since I don't watch it.

If I were still a BOFH... I am sure that I would have my office full of young secretarial staff desperate for a working copy of Word (the female ones would be naked of course). Yes, I would drink lots of beer during working hours. Actually, I think that workplaces have grown more conservative regarding the Internet over the last 6 years. People no longer send around the same amount of tasteless stuff they did (on work time) and companies are far more aware of employee browsing habits. The BOFH could rely on blackmail in the Internet growth years. Nowadays, I think that in most companies there would be less material. Also as company network infructure has improved (Microsoft didn't support the Internet (TCP/IP) until Windows 95), the job has fewer cowboy characteristics. Which is sad.

GM food is a fierce debate here. Some foods are allowed and others aren't. We are less permissive than the US or UK. Both of my brothers have post-grad biology/botony degrees and seem to be fairly open-minded. Their main issues are that there can be risks using some GM techniques (but other GM techniques are known to be safe) and that seed companies may make natural agriculture unsustainable by making seed infertile. I just listen at their feet.

I've been wanting a quick and simple explanation for a parlimentary structure vs what we have. Thanks. The crown as an appointed official versus a person who happened to be born in the right family makes good sense. The PM wouldn't want to appoint just anyone because they would have to be concerned about repercussions so I would guess that they generally pick pretty qualified GGs.

I went to Washington DC Monday night into Tuesday. I had to go to a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. I was with my boss who travels to DC frequently so I got a really good tour. It was my first time there and I only had about four hours to play but I still got to see a lot. I stuck with the monument and government buildings rather than the museums. (I knew I could't give them enough time.)

My favorite monument for obvious reasons is the Marine Corps memorial. My dad served on Iwo Jima so the Mount Suribachi photo has always been particularly meaningful for me. The other memorial that I was incredibly impressed with was the Korean War Veterans Memorial. It is really powerful. Alongside the rice paddy is a marble wall listing the countries who fought alongside the US. It was the only memorial that honored foreign as well as domestic veterans and I thought it was beautifully done. Australia was first on the list as you walk up from the Lincoln Memorial.

Did Australia build big monuments to their significant people? DC has stuff everywhere. One of the really interesting things I observed was the generational differences in the way people reacted to various things. Kids these days are maybe a bit better than they were when I was that age. When I got back to the office one of my co-workers told me that she got in trouble for setting off a pack of cherry bombs on the front steps of the Jefferson Memorial. There were school kids everywhere but they were generally pretty subdued.

The little that I've read of Adelaide it sounds as though it's trapped between the mountains and the ocean and a long way from any other major city. With over a million people it must be possible to find just about anything culturally. I live outside of Madison which has somewhere around 300,000 people if you include the 'burbs. It is the seat of government as well as the University of Wisconsin and a few other smaller colleges. It is a pretty nice place. A few years ago it was voted #1 city in the US by Money Magazine. It has hovered in the top 10 for many years.

The downside is that it is very expensive to live here. Taxes are high compared to bordering states. Communities have had to spend so much on infrastructure in recent years that every level of government is strapped for money. I've heard that, compared to other countries, we pay relatively little in taxes. When I spoke to the French couple last summer it sounded as though we paid about the same as a percentage of income. I'm curious how you think Australia compares.

You really were a BOFH weren't you? Working copy of Word... you would have to be a miracle worker to produce that. Today I'd settle for a fix to a consistent Pagemaker bug that screws up kearning when I print. Thankfully, I almost never have to use Pagemaker so I can live with the problem. We've had TCP/IP since '98 or so (I think). The bit I know about it is that occasionally I have to restart it when things aren't working. Our server is a component within an IBM AS/400. It has its pros and cons. A pro is that it can contain my backups that my BOFH complains are far too large even though I am not backing up anything other than my data files. I'm just productive.

There was a big court case going on about GM corn here. It may still be. Monsanto developed a GM corn that had a kill gene so that the seed could be eaten without any problems but would not grow if replanted resulting in farmers having to purchase new seed every year. The Monsanto corn cross-pollinated to other farm fields effectively causing the other corn, never purchased from Monsanto, to also have a kill gene. I'm pretty sure the kill-gene thing was relatively contained. I don't think it was a retail product yet when the problems occurred. (Sounds like a similar issue to your bro's conversation.)

Another court case involved Monsanto randomly testing corn crops to see if a farmer had replanted Monsanto corn against Monsanto's policy. Monsanto had created a marker gene that would allow them to verify if someone was replanting their corn. The same thing happened. The corn cross-polinated with non-Monsanto corn crops and so farmers that had never purchased or planted a seed of Monsanto corn were being sued for violating Monsanto's patent. It is interesting the amount of power Monsanto has been able to wield in the courts on this issue. Like you, I certainly don't have an understanding of the issues from a bio-tech point of view, but I do understand how it would impact a family farm. It wouldn't be pretty.

Because of the respect the Queen is held in, GGs are very carefully appointed. The GG acts purely on behalf of the queen, but the constitution and associated acts (mostly) prevent her acting on behalf of herself (unless she is actually in the country). Also a GG can call an election at any time (normally they only do so on the advice of a PM), so they try and avoid cowboys. South Australia has an ex-Olympic athelete as Gov at the moment (she is in her 60s), previously we had an Iron Magnate and before that a reformist lawyer (who has had a very nice statue put up in her honour).

I have only been to Canberra once (on a self directed tour on foot). Appart from the naming of a suburb after each past PM, there are memorials for things and events but not many for people. The large central lake is an exception. That is named after the city's architect (who also designed the lake). Adelaide has numerous statues in honour of everyone from greek gods to sporting heros. Most are not very big (marginally bigger than life size). The war memorial is largish. There is, thank goodness, a memorial for Elvis Presley in the Botanic Gardens.

I spent some time at the ANZAC day parade. It was good to see the Vietnamese (both sides I think) marching with the Australian companies. I recall hearing that the march has been opened up to all veterans who faught in wars with Australia either as allies or enemies, and have since settled here and have become Australian. Obviously if there is a warship in port from the US, Canada, NZ or UK (etc) the sailors are automatically invited.

Adelaide hovers in the top twenty cities to live in in the world (according to some survey based on climate, cost of living, saftey and amenities). It doesn't have a permanent art life (only five operas a year etc, unlike Sydney which has a new one a month it seems) but it is pretty good. Of the three Unis, two are really good and one is awful. It is impolite to name the awful one so I won't (we are meant not to notice!). The biggest problem is that the city is very poor: unlike Perth (which has mineral money), Sydney (financial markets), Melbourne (manufacturing) or Brisbane (retirees), Adelaide lost a lot of money in the 70's and it never came back. There are rich people and poor people, but the ratios are not quite the same as in other cities.

Taxes are comprable to the US (I am told, but it would depend on the US state you lived in). Most personal taxation is centralised - income tax and the Goods and Serivices tax (10%) are charged by the Commonwealth and paid back to the states according to a formula (two for me, one for you divided by six). The states charge transaction duties and business taxes. This makes the system transparent to most people and mostly the same throughout the country.

I should note that I never did deliver a working copy of Word to a staff member. The art of being an effective BOFH is never to deliver but to make meaningful promises based upon a hierarchy of favours. You can then play the hierarchy. Hence the beer and naked secretaries (which I was too young to understand or to organise). All I can claim I got right in the whole time I was a BOFH, was that I never got Word working on anybody's desk (other than mine of course). I did learn a lot about power thougha and a fair bit about myself!

With regard to GM'd stuff, I hope that good technology is used to do good things and that the Multinationals don't get too greedy (with the infertility genes and markers). US Patent law is one place where US has let the world down. Instead of using leters patents to provide limited monopolies, corporations use it to lever themselves total monopolies. I am with El Reg on this one.

Today I am eating a fairly authentic Itallian sausage thing and a platted loaf of bread for lunch. Smelly but yummy. This is apropos of nothing.

You are certainly right about the patent issue. I think the DRMA is a self-protectionist scam. At my job I am running into problems with a company that has patented where information can be printed on a piece of paper. What is patent-able about that?!? I think they just paid a lot of money to someone at the patent office.

Another stench is the way our patent system is protecting pharmaceutical companies. We have set expiration dates on patents and then the pharmaceutical company whines that they haven't made enough money yet and the patent is extended. It's no big deal for me, cat medicines are rarely cutting edge stuff, but for humans it is really important.

Well, as long as you have Elvis everything is okay. Do you like him? He was a big long before I became music aware and I pretty much never had the time of day for his music or lifestyle. I think its disgusting to marry children.

Whew! Too very negative. Sorry about that, its a cloudy day. No sun puddles, just grumpy coworkers.

So Queen Elizabeth is your Queen as well? I know I'm being dense about this but I'm not getting it. Separate governments, same monarchy? But the monarchy doesn't do anything other than step in if there's an emergency?

Your ANZAC day parade sounds cool. I don't think I've ever seen any war veterans from other countries in our local Memorial Day parades but I think in the larger communities like Madison they get a more multinational flavor. One of the things I noticed about the Vietnam Memorial was the names, Rodrigues, Hernandez, lots of Hispanic names. I know that the draft called up an inordinate number of blacks and hispanics but I didn't process the idea until I saw the wall.

So do you like it that hot? I'd be shedding constantly in 30 degree heat. Who determines the top cities in the world? I'm curious what some of the others are. Adelaide does sound great (except for the temps) so I can understand why it would be a favorite. Opera only five times a year would be enough for me. We cats think we do it best - preferably in the middle of the night outside the window of someone who is desperately trying to sleep. These staged human attempts at caterwauling are entertaining but not as fun as the real thing.

I looked up hiking trails around Adelaide, something that I enjoy greatly, and it sure looks like a pretty settled countryside. Do you have any wild areas? Places for zero-impact camping and a chance encounter with something worth photographing? I was going to say something that can kill you, but in Australia that would be spiders and snakes, neither of which I want to chance an encounter with. We have bears, big cats, moose and elk within a days drive - very cool if you can get a good shot (photo).

Cats aren't very good at team sports - although they enjoy watching them from time to time. Cats tend to like walking and stalking, climbing and sprawling atop whatever was just climbed, and they don't mind getting wet if the water is rough enough. Not that you asked, but that is this cat's preference for what to do with a couple of days. I'm a bit more heathen than you civilised opera-goers. Not that I wouldn't occasionally enjoy getting a good grooming and dining on food I didn't have to kill, just that it isn't second nature.

Hmmm... wonder what first nature is?

I am so impressed with your tax system. I understood it when you explained how it worked. It made sense and it sounds fair. How do your representatives manage to get pork back to their districts? Where is the political wrangling to get extra funds through defense spending and road construction? Does the tax rate vary based on income or property?

Does Australia have government paid health care? Do you think it works? Health insurance is a big deal here. We have seen huge increases in health care costs and expect the increases to continue. I think that my humans would pay somewhere around $500 a month for health insurance if their employer didn't kick in a large portion. As it is they pay 25% of their income in taxes plus health care expenses. I guess that isn't bad compared to say, Canada, but it feels like a lot when tax day comes around.

My BOFH and I have a very unique relationship. I spec my own machines, pick and load all of my own programs and peform all my own periodic maintenance. My BOFH steps in when I need an expert, which is rarely. We get along well because I always stop before I do damage and I rarely get so far as to need to bother the BOFH. I am the only employee that the BOFH allows to do those sorts of things. I do have a working copy of Word, as much as any copy of Word works as well as many many toys that keep my short attention span entertained.

My BOFH used to go around claiming to be God. I think part of why we get along is because I quietly and respectfully pointed out the difference. Also, we have attended a few conferences together and I have never spoken about them. My BOFH appreciates a feline that can keep her mouth shut.

I know why you wanted to add the part about lunch. You wanted to brag that you can eat bread. I don't mind. I'd rather feel good than eat bread any day. And besides, I think it smells great.

The idea of providing a limited monoploy after working to come up with an idea is fine. Being able to sell it is OK to. I could come up with an product that I could never build but a manufacturing company might. As odd as it sounds, I think that Disney should be able to protect Mickey Mouse as long as they still keep the character active. However, if an idea isn't being used then it should move into the public domain imediately.

As for Elvis, he does nothing for me. I just think it is cool that somebody wanted to build a memorial to the guy in Adelaide. It is in a prominant place but fortunately I don't think many people know what it is. Did Elvis marry children? Is this common in the US entertainment scene? I knew about Woody and also MJackson, but it appears to be spreading backwards through time too. Weird!

As for the Quink. Yup, she is Queen of Australia and Queen of England. She is constitutionally limited in the powers she can exercise when out of Australia (she can appoint and dismiss the GG) but she holds the title. If you think about the Crown as being the lynch pin to ensure the succession of governments and that the government's first duty is to ensure the succession of the Crown, you can see why our system works. In the US you need a third person to ratify the succession decision of the Crown (President) - that is the Chief Justice. In England it is the Archbishop of Cantabury. In Oz, the Queen does it between the Parliament and the GG. The person/organisation must be honest, disinterested (but not uninterested), powerful (to prevent usurpation) and credible.

For household opera, I have possums and, occasionally, koalas. They sound worse than cats, more like dogs being sick. You can confuse a possum with a small dog being sick and a koala with a very large dog being sick while having an asthma attack. I would prefer a cat anyday. The locals also prefer to sing after dark.

When it gets too hot I don't like it. On the city streets pedestians stay very carefully in the shade and away from the roads. When they have to cross a road they stay bunched up by the buildings until the lights change, then they scurry accross. Most city buildings have awnings which helps.

Hiking near Adeliade is never going to include complete wilderness. There are some bush areas (the hills overlooking the sea are all parklands, empty grass or bush) with nice walks but nothing too challenging. If you are interesting in heading north there are some spectacular walks in the Flinders Ranges. Canyons and all sorts of things. However, you need to carry water as there are no non-man made regular sources of water in the South Australia (with a few notable exceptions). It is quite beautiful. Though it is full of snakes and spiders - most of which are really poisonous. Australia has all of the world's top ten most poisonous snakes and most of the spiders. There are few large animals bar kangaroos (lots of these), emu (quite a few, depending on where you are), koalas (there to be found but you have to look), echidnas (lots of them but you need to be lucky to see one) and that's about it.

There are lots of very good beaches here if you like cavorting in salt water. All sand, no pebbles (I didn't realise pebble beaches existed until I saw a photo!)

Porking is done mostly by direct industry/company subsidies and a bit of public infrustrucure. Tax cannot be played with much since it has to be uniform accross the country (according to the constitution). So income tax is something 0% ($0-$8000), 15% (8000-25000), 33%(25000-60000) and 50%(money earned beyond 60000). Each person divvies the money they earn into the brackets and pays the appropriate percentage for the money in that bracket -this means noone pays tax on the first $8000 they earn. There are property taxes: they are at about 1.5% of valuation and go to local government (rubbish collection and local roads).

Healthcare is 1.25% of total earnings (Medicare) and pays a fixed part of all medical services recieved. So visiting a GP with a sore throat normally costs about $AU30 (or something) and Medicare pays $24, then the patient has to find the $6. It is so long since I had a sore throat the figures I have given are wrong. Health costs are spiralling and the courts are not helping to medical make insurance affordable.

I have been having Word problems all day. Grumble. Fortunately I am getting a twice as fast powerbook tomorrow. Yummy.

I am bummed because I had written most of a reply and then looked up echidnas and lost my entire post. I hate it when I do something stupid. Particularly because I never think I get it right when I redo it. Oh well. The first one was better but we'll never know.

Elvis was 24 when he married Priscilla who was then 14 (and 1/2 as if that matters). Michael Jackson never married a young 'un, he just, well played. And he claims that he never did anything other than innocent play - no sex. Yeah right.

I don't agree that creations still in use should have unlimited copy protection. I think the 50 year standard congress originally passed was about right. Now with the continual 20 year extensions we end up with intellectual copyrights lasting indefinitely. It results in things like UW Madison having to pay Paul McCartney for the use of the school song because he bought a recording studio that owned the rights at some point. Now we have to count how many times we play it at a game so we can pay for the use. Rediculous. The song has been around for a very long time. Longer than anyone I know can remember but because Congress extended the rights we pay.

I think the limitations on the scope and duration of patents should be much greater. Patents reward creators for good ideas by allowing them exclusive use of their idea for a period of time. During the time period they can derive revenue from the patent but the time period should not be long. I think the standard is 10 years in the US. Once again though we have Congress stepping in and extending it in certain situations, like for pharmaceutical companies that happened to make very large campaign contributions. Restricting access to patented ideas for longer periods of time limits future development.

Also, we allow people to patent things that should not be patent-able, like the US allowing a company to patent the human genome. Did the company create the genome? Did they find it? No. They published it. Maybe the process to publish it is patent-able but the genome shouldn't be.

Wow, your evening entertainment sounds disgusting. I mean not everyone can enjoy the full chorus of yowls, growls, hisses and mews of a caterwaul but puking dogs? Blech. Most of our evening noise comes from raccoons. I don't think the Opossums make noise here or if they do I've never noticed. My humans had a terrible time keeping the raccoons away while implementing the feline torture device known as a bird feeder. Eventually they figured it out so the raccoons come onto the deck but they can't get to the feeders to destroy them. Too bad. The feeders cause excruciating agony. All those birds only a few feet away...

We also have coyotes. They are pretty cool except when their pups are young. Imagine a group of stringed instruments playing an eerie haunting piece. Now tune every instrument off by 1/2 step so that no instrument is playing the same note but they all move in the same direction. Coyote chorus. It's cool except when I'm home alone and the windows are open.

I imagine you don't like it when it gets too hot. Your average temp is on the hot side for me. I hope you at least get low humidities or a breeze.

So I looked up echidnas and they sound pretty interesting. I don't always have to go to wild places. I just generally prefer them. That being said, our wild places tend to have fewer of the crawling nasties than yours. (to borrow a Crocodile Dundee phrase) It sounds as though Adelaide has been settled much longer than my region. I guess I've always thought of Australia as a much younger and wilder country than the US but I think I must be wrong - at least in the South Australia region.

I also didn't realize it was so dry. We tend to carry our own water when we hike anyway. Filters can't protect you from a nasty taste. But dry air means significantly more water/salt needs and requires better planning.

I have never actually gone swimming in an ocean. Wisconsin is close to the great lakes so I have done some swimming there but that is fresh water (and mostly pebble beaches). We have lots of lakes and rivers so logically, swimming is mostly done in chlorinated pools. Lots of people go boating here and fishing tends to be pretty popular.

I think we could learn something from your tax system if only we would be willing to. It sounds so much simpler. Does your medicare kick in only for low income people or is it available to everyone?

You're getting a new powerbook? Lucky you. We use desktops and have floater laptops for when we travel. Because it can be a drag moving files I usually won't work on a computer when I travel. (That'll teach 'em. And yes, I'm inherently lazy.) I think we'll eventually move to laptops with docking stations for most of the people that travel. I'm not sure I ever will though because I'm such a speed baby. I work with graphics periodically and have been known to get annoyed if my machine is less than blindingly fast.

Word hasn't slowed my machine down for many a year. It has however crashed it and was the reason I had to upgrade to Windows 2000 - on a new machine, of course.

I have a friend with a bat box. It got taken over by possums but they still had bats anyway.

Never underestimate the viciousness of a Koala, its speed or its cuteness.

I don't understand how one can patent an algorithm (neither can any non-US government that I have heard of).

I can understand MJ wanting to sleep with a beautiful child (but not sexually of course), but which child would want to sleep with him? Have you seen "The City of Lost Children"? It is one of my favourite movies. It is best seen in the cinema. It has some views on small children and sleeping.

Echidnas are very interesting.

It is very dry around here. But it does mean that you often can walk around without getting wet.

Swimming in the ocean is really fun. But if you are the type to wear bathers (especially women's one-pieces), you need to make sure that they are not the sun-bathing/pool only kind. The ocean has waves and waves bounce you around a bit. The water is also salty so you tend to float a bit more (not too much). It also doesn't hurt your eyes a bit.

I have made our tax system sound simpler than it is. The devil is, as you know, in the detail of tax deductions etc. Medicare is universal and applies to all medical services (but not to resources: an X-Ray operator gets paid, but not a bed).

I have my new 17" powerbook here and it is charging for the first time right now. I will set it up tomorrow. Lucky, lucky me. It is getting to be night time and I must go.

I rented The City of Lost Children - don't really have the option of seeing it on a big screen. I've never seen it before so I'll let you know what I think.

I faintly remember catching a news article about koalas getting hit on the road in a city - could that have been Adelaide? The gist was that koalas are hard to see and travel about at night so drivers were being fined for genuine accidents. Not that it is any different here. If you slide off the road in an ice storm and damage nothing you still get a ticket.

Bathers as opposed to...? I'm a functional kind of cat but the alternatives to a bathing suit are beyond my sensibilities. (American prudishness rears its ugly head.)

You _are_ lucky to have a new powerbook. Without reveaing trade secrets why do you merit such a fancy gadget?

PS. After three days of rain I can appreciate the concept of walking around without getting wet. Here it is getting nicely warm out (16 C) and the rain keeps me indoors curled up with a book. Not that I mind curling up with a book - just that I've had a winter of that.

I don't think you can get fined for hitting a native animal with a car (if it is not deliberate). Most news generated in Australia comes from Sydney (all the TV stations broadcast out of Sydney now so there is very little local content on telly nowadays) so it probably was a Sydney koala.

If you are in an ice storm, what sort of parking inspector is walking around giving out tickets? You have very dedicated government employees where you live. Ours go inside if it looks like it might rain.

I thought that if one were a cat and one were to swim, one might just wear one's fur.

I get the gadget because I move around a bit and I do a lot of word-processing. Initially I had the Mac G4 to do Unix/NT integration work (and the Macs run BSD Unix natively and I needed a portable Unix workstation that would run MS Office and Unix without having to reboot). Now, I am working with big documents, I needed a faster CPU (my old powerbook is too slow for BIG word documents) and so I bit the bullet. I priced a Dell desktop machine with similar specs (inc 17" flat screen display etc) and it was only AU$1000 or so cheaper. I have used the new powerbook, it is very nice, but it isn't fully set-up yet (and I don't have a bag for it).

When we have bad storms, ice or snow, police officers act as emergency personnel along with fire and rescue. Typically when you slide off the road into a ditch you can get out with a little help, so you call a friend to pull you out or try to rock the car yourself. A lot of us have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicles. The bummer is if a patrol sees you trying to get out they'll ticket you for getting into the ditch in the first place. They don't ticket you for hitting animals unless they suspect it was intentional. Albino creatures are protected so the chances are pretty good that you would get into trouble if you were to hit an albino (particularly buck deer) unless you could prove that it was a totally unavoidable accident.

You caught me on the idea of swimming in one's fur. It just goes to show that cats are not particularly comfortable even imagining themselves in water. (Unless its whitewater and then it's with a wetsuit and life-vest.) I can swim, really, I just never choose to.

Working with big documents in Word is what got me my newest PC. It is nowhere nearly as nice as yours, and I can't claim to move around enough to justify the cost of a laptop with the same horsepower as my desktop. I have a beautiful office and I guess the powers prefer me there.

Did you hear that Prez Bush thanked Australia for their support in the Iraqi conflict? It made our radio and TV news - an unusually strong emphasis.

The anti-French movement is still going strong here. I thought when the worst of the fighting was over we'd get on with getting along but it appears that the American people have been longing for someone to dis. Sad.

I was thinking about your patent issues with GM plants (and animals). To a large degree I am unable to comment since it is a highly technical field (patents and GMed plants and animals). But I was thinking about the US attitudes to patents and trade and war and the French.

Of all of the countries I know, the US likes change least and most. Government legislation seeks to pin-point and then protect the status quo, rather than providing open technology standards and increasing innovation within the regulated framework. It is a mixture of hands-off allowing enormous freedoms but also perpetuating monopolies (and hence total stability).

The isolationist attitude is similar. Interacting with the world as partners (minor ones in Austalia's case) promotes change. Isolationism and protectionism etc prevents it.

Anyway these are the thoughts of an outsider.

GWB's nice comments to JH were widely reported. The newspaper cartoonists had a field day with political cartoons showing JH (in a big texan hat) standing next to a small GWB making silly comments.

Having got my new machine (it is not quite on my desk yet), I have decided to break up my huge word documents into lots of smaller docs. It hopefully will improve my mental health. Personally for long (200+ pages), cross-referenced documents I would use anything other than Word. Word is great for one or two page docs, but it really struggles with longer stuff (not just resource-wise but its functional support is not strong either).

Did you read El Reg's article on ChoicePoint. Scary stuff.

Did you read El Reg's article on ChoicePoint. Scary stuff.

I hadn't read the ChoicePoint article yet so I went and checked it out. What's wrong with a little information gathering? You can trust these guys. Really. No, I mean it. Honestly. (Checks over shoulder to make sure camera can't pick up slight head shake. Turns on water to drown out voice.) Run! It makes me wonder what they have gathered on me. "Lazy feline spends days lounging in office sun pools writing to nefarious character known as PT on h2g2. Mostly harmless."

I agree with your opinion on US patents. It does seem as though we spend an inordinate amount of effort protecting investments rather than incubating further development. I think some day there will have to be some sort of international body that overrides national governments on patent issues. Probably the US would refuse to participate in that as well.

I was talking to Gordy about American isolationism and he asked whether you knew that most Americans prefer it that way. Did you? Even highly educated people tend to be a bit us vs. them in their attitudes. Gordy works with carpenters who don't trust their own government and certainly would be suspicious of any foreign government getting too friendly with ours - even good guys like Australia.

We had a young man from El Salvador in our office for a while and he was telling me that he wanted to figure our how American schools managed to brainwash us so effectively. He didn't understand the almost militant patriotism that accompanied so many activities. Last fall we attended a September 11th rememberance together. Alex said that he was amazed that we all are so willing to participate in such things. Don't we understand that our government is often the bad guy? (No.) Why do we grieve over people we have never met? (We know people just like them.) It was a revelation to me to hear his attitudes about things. He thinks there was a huge coverup and that possibly the US government was behind the strikes in order to justify our aggression on Afganistan and now Iraq. Interesting. I don't agree but thought it was interesting to hear what he thought.
Another thing about Alex that really got me thinking was his willingness to start a revolution in his own country if he doesn't agree with the government. To me, in my comfortable surroundings, a revolution is just plain ludicrous. If my government heads in the wrong direction vote differently, don't revolt. Alex is old enough to remember revolution. He has no loyalty to his government and no desire to see it moulded into a better one. He'd rather throw the whole thing away and start over. It is practically an alien idea to me. What that has to do with American isolationism I'm not sure except that thinking about one got me thinking about the other.

I've never taken the time to learn how to link multiple Word docs into a single document for purposes of indexing and table of contents so I too struggle with huge unwieldy documents. I will probably have to learn how to link docs eventually. Word appears to be getting worse rather than better so I imagine that I'll soon lose the ability to manipulate hundreds of pages in a single doc.

I appreciate your outsider viewpoint. It makes me think about things from a different angle. I'm still getting used to the idea of a modern, democratic country choosing to keep a monarchy as part of their government structure. The concept is very culturally foreign. It flies in the face of our "be your own man" and "It's not where you came from but what you become" philosophy. That geneology should make a person qualified for anything is very un-American.

One of the things I like about the American Constitutional documents is the fact that they acknowledge Universal rights that belong to all Human beens and their cats. The thing which I don't like is that they don't apply to Americans regarding non-Americans. Trial without Jury (or in fact, why bother with a trial), spying, bugging etc are all OK provided the other guy isn't American and, even better, doesn't speak English. I understand mutual responibility and stuff but that isn't what the Decl of Indep mentions.

Makes you want to park a plane in downtown NY. (OK, harsh and not true, but if you don't have economic muscle or military muscle...). It is so easy to believe that everyone in the world has the same fundamental belief systems we do (ex-European completely-took-over colonies). We don't believe in silly government conspiracies because our governments gave up on them a century ago (although the US seems to have forgotton why and restarted again). We don't try and do revolution because our governments are not (basically) corrupt.

American isolationism is interesting. It is the first thing they taught us in high school about American foreign policy. If you want to learn about cool US things (other than how much breast you can show on "Charmed" without revealing _too_ much) you have to do specialist subjects or read up in the subject yourself. Maybe America rejected not so much the British but the world during the famous tea party. When the world rejected slavery, America threw off the world so it could keep it. The whole point of being free is that it allows you to buck world trends. This means hanging on when others have moved on and moving on before others have even got there. To be truly free you also need to be top because then you can deal with criticism.

But anyone who is free in that manner builds up resentment and you get into a cycle of violence. Chritianity permits you to break that cycle of violence (among other things). I think the English have been there, the Spanish are still there and the French cut their losses some time ago. The Russians seem to love it. Are the Americans so disbelieving that anyone might not love them that they cannot see it happening?

I can believe in the US Government being involved in huge coverups, I certainly don't trust Poindexter or Nixon's Foreign Secretary (forgotton his name, got a Nobel Prize). Irangate has not given confidence to the world that everything is OK. In the US, there probably is a reasonable belief that the Ollie Norths of Iraq will eventually be found out by Congessional Oversight committees but this offers little hope to the Cambodias of this world that might be carpet bombed out of existance before Congress detects the accounting anomalies.

The same issues don't happen in Australia because the stakes are not as high. The pressure to be part of things is real, but not the pressure to lead. We have other problems - for instance our GG is deeply involved in a child sex scandle in his previous job (Archbishop of Brisbane). The only problem is that he didn't do it, nor did the person he appoint to a school board about 10 years ago. However the person he appointed had failed to investigate a child sex abuse claim when he had been a school principal and the ABofB had known of this failure when the ABofB appointed him to the school board. It is all to tenuous for me. I agree that it is wrong to appoint someone to an oversight position in a school system if it is known they have failed to followup (true) child sex-abuse claims, but is it a hanging offence? The real issue is the anti-royalists (of which there are many) are also often anti-church and love the idea of lots of kiddie fiddling in church circles and want to stick the boot in. The PM and GG are sitting tight.

By the way, there is an international convention on copyright and patents (the Berne Convention?). The US is one of the few countries that hasn't signed it. Most Australian books used to have on their backs "For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the USA". I think the rules have been weakened, but now we allow parallel importation of copyright material - which means the Holywood distributers cannot licence one firm to import a film and set their own prices: anyone can import it. Holywood apparently hates this because Australians can source material from HK, Europe or whereever it is cheapest.

We're just so danged adorable we can't imagine anyone not loving us - ever.

I don't understand why US law doesn't extent to activities done within the US to individuals outside the US. From a state to nation perspective, we (Wisconsin) definitely enforce our laws on activities occurring here even if the victim is out-of-state. One of the things that I picked up from the El Reg article is that ChoicePoint is constrained by the laws of the country in which the people reside. The solution for our bad behavior is for every country to pass a personal privacy law.

Incidentally, I have done work in recent years that required knowing a bit about the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act, HIPPA, as well as the one that I can never remember named after some actress that was stalked. How ironic that we have new laws going into effect placing onerous dosclosure responsibilities on lending institutions (among others) at the same time the government is doing whatever it wants with the same information. Apparently it is the fact that it is the government, rather than a private organization, that makes the gathering and storage of non-public personal information acceptable. Like you, I wonder if Joe American is really aware and comfortable with that fact. I just keep hoping that the challenges to the Patriot Act will get bumped up to the Supreme Court. With the court as conservative as it is, it may not rank personal privacy over national security but I think they're the best shot we have to get our privacy rights restored. It sure isn't going to come from the legislature.

You were trying to think of Henry Kissinger. Admiral Poindexter is another jewel in our crown of master manipulators. For all of Kissinger's ideological faults he was an accomplished statesman - something we tend to lack. He also was not born or raised in the US.

Aren't sex scandals just sickening. It isn't as though the priests named are actually proven guilty before they are trashed publicly. Yes, I think its appalling that a few priests abused their position of trust to molest children. Even worse, I think it is inexcusable that church leaders failed to properly investigate accusations of abuse.

But I see two mitigating factors. Firstly, at least in this area the abuse allegations typically date back to the 1970s and 80s. Some are even earlier. At that same time women were told to lie back and enjoy it if they were raped. Statutory rape was rarely prosecuted if the girl looked older or dressed "immodestly". Homosexual activity of any kind was strictly limited to the truly strange. (They were the only ones willing to declare themselves.) No normal people did that therefore the accuser had to be lying. Priests are good men. Sex abuse of any kind was dealt with by firmly placing your hands over your eyes and singing "La La La" until the accuser and everyone else left the room. It doesn't excuse the behavior but hopefully it does put it a bit more into perspective. I served at a church where a teen molested a 4-year old boy. I watched the teen's parents defend his actions. I can understand a church leader defending a poor, down-trodded priest, even if the leader is in the wrong. Does the leader deserve correction? Absolutely. What the correction should be? I'm not sure. I don't necessarily agree that he should be removed from an effective ministry because he was blind in that area. I guess it would depend on degree and the specific circumstances of the accusations.

Secondly, there have been false accusations that have still resulted in severe punishments for the accused priests. I think that the RC church has done its priests a disservice by insisting that the church handle the accusations rather than a court. Neither the victim or the accused is properly served.

To me, the most important issue is assisting the victims, whether they be the molested or the falsely accused priest. The US tort system allows for huge payoffs to victims as if money is going to help the healing process. I would rather see a church sponsored support and counseling network, paid counseling and a "truth in reconciliation" style of dealing with the horrible hurt.

I can actually speak from a bit of personal experience. My attacker wasn't a church official. I didn't know him. I actually was one of the few statistics that fought and got away before any "real damage" was done. Even now, after 26 years, I would still like to see him punished. I really am not interested in getting money from him although I wouldn't mind hurting him that way if I could. Rather I would like to tell him what it is like to live with the legacy of what he did. Maybe he wouldn't care but at least I would have the opportunity to face him - not in fear or retribution but in strength.

I guess I just don't see that committing another wrong, punishing an individual who acted with their best judgement at the time, makes things right. If your ABofB is a man of conscience he is torn up as it is.

What is an anti-royalist?

A royalist is someone who is in favour of maintaining the current constitutional arrangements with regard to the crown. An anti-royalist (republcian) is someone who would prefer anything else. We had a referendum (compulsory vote of all Ausralian's over 18 - needed for any constitutional change) on whether Australia should drop our links with the crown two years ago (I think) and it lost quite convincingly. This isn't because most people like the queen, but because the alternatives put forward not thought through.

As I understand it, the US constitution was formulated in an age where the social contract and mutual responsibility were all the rage. The government provides a framework for social behaviour and people pay taxes and engage as citizens to maintain the framework. It follows that those who don't pay taxes or vote (and have no reasonable expectation that they should - e.g. foreigners, tourists, POWs) have no place in the social contract and get none of its protections. Nor nowdays could they engage in the contract if they wanted to since the US doesn't accept immigrants openly anymore.

If the US were to apply the Bill of Rights to the actions of any US Citizen: that is, any US Citizen who abused the Bill (not who was abused) anywhere in the world could be tried an convicted in a US court, I think that the world order would change dramatically right then. The idea that no US Citizen could freely perpetrate a cruel or unusual punishment on an Iraqi, or fail to give a fair trial etc would be fantasitic and not, I believe, unreasonable. There would be no reciprocal arrangement: US citizens would be bound by their human rights commitments overseas (and in the US) and they would take their own chances with the Taliban. This would be a great control on the "civilian" governor of Iraq.

I am, as you might guess, not in favour of sexual misconduct but nor am I in favour of teachers who deliberately fail to teach non-favoured students how to read. Both create difficult problems for the victim in later life. I am not trying to compare them: some sexual misconduct is not even understood by the victim, some illiterate teenagers suicide, and vice verca. What I am against is witch hunts, even where the witch is a witch.

The argument against the GG is not that he abused a child, nor that he supported child abusers (he did not and as an independent enquiry has just reported). What he did was, while he as a bishop, put someone who did not report child abuse into a position of trust over a school system. He has admitted the error of judgement. People have lost faith in him as GG not because of what he has done, but because others have lost faith in him (witch hunts feed on themselves). The PM is supporting him (but not the opposition parties) and so he will stay, but everyone can smell blood.

If he resigns, not because he has done anything wrong with regard to his job as GG, but because of one powerful opinion poll by a newspaper, then we will have an elected GG indirectly (a bad way to do it). Further, everytime an oposition can smell blood on a GG, there will be a precedent for a sacking. It will be the end of our political system as we know it. The people who want a new system (no crown) hope that they can destabilise the current system by employing polls of people who don't know the real importance of the questions they are being asked. I don't mind a new political system, but I want it created in the same manner as the US system - get the best political minds in the world (Edward DeBono springs to mind for nowadays) to come up with a political philosophy that people will be quoting for the next 400 years. Then I will welcome change. Let's face it, the US constitution is one of the worlds politically inspired documents.