Daily-Column

I live just beyond a stone’s throw from Sydney’s biggest army barracks/training area, Holsworthy, and occasionally they do training exercises which are a little… loud. Like this morning, when someone decided a bright idea would be to have a heavy munitions drill within window-rattling distance of the residential areas. Goooooooooooood morning Holsworthy! Hope you enjoy the sound of multi-inch shells blowing up bits of the countryside while you’re having your corn flakes. ...

Kottke points out, on the occasion of NASA’s 50th birthday, that it took 11 years to get people on the moon. Eleven years, from scratch. Three years after, they were on Mars. I’m beginning to think we’re getting quite a bit lazier and impatient even than people were 40 years ago (compared to medieval times, that’s a given).

Maybe I’m just being picky here, but I think someone needs to hand the Catholic church a dictionary for “World Youth Day”, as it is neither “World”, what with only being Catholic and all, nor “Youth”, what with 40-60% of attendees at least over 30, nor a single friggen “Day”. Nor are the attendees allegedly “pilgrims”, given there is no Catholic holy site in Sydney for them to pilgrim-age to, unless the Pope is a walkin’ talkin’ holy site. ...

I’d found The Presidents’ new CD at my local JB Hifi the other day, and listening to it in the car on the way back I got to thinking how rare this brand of what I call “fun rock” is - rock-type music that’s reasonably upbeat and light-hearted. I’ve got a very limited library of it, mostly made up of The Presidents and Do As Infinity (sadly, no longer together). There has to be more of this stuff out there though. To that end, I ask you, dear friend, to tell me where I can find more of this kind of stuff. I don’t know what exactly it’s called - perhaps alternative? - but it’s the polar opposite of both Emo and “heavy metal” and its ilk. The song’s gotta make you smile, make you tap your foot along to it on the train. I’ve heard good things about MGMT for example, but not really sure what their fun rock songs are. ...

The recent kerfuffle between the parties over who has the best strategy for cutting petrol prices - the Liberals pushing for “at least” 5 cents a litre cut in the excise, and the government considering lifting the double-tax of the GST on the excise - effectively cutting 3.8c - is astonishing in its short-sightedness. The Liberals above all are aiming for populism, to say to the people that hey, we’re doing something real about petrol prices. The government appears to be aiming for a pragmatic populism - to say we’re doing something, but we’re not as reckless as the opposition, and we’re doing a “sensible” tax cut. Both appear to fail to acknowledge that the price fluctations could wipe out their cuts in less than a day. ...