Galapagos Duck Jazz Group

If you have an opportunity to see the Australian Jazz group, Galapagos Duck, don't miss them.

Be entertained by some very talented musicians.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Roadside Assistance

It's not until you have to use you Motorists' Association service that you really appreciate it. You pay annually for the service and sometimes you wonder if it is good value for money?

My car battery had a dramatic drop in the charge it had & would not start the engine. It was after business hours on a Friday night.

I called RACQ phone and the Aussie operator was pleasant & helpful. She promised help within 45 minutes.

The service vehicle arrived early, after 25 minutes. I needed a "jump start" and I was on my way, very quickly. No paperwork to sign. Very happy with RACQ!

Chicken Nuggets Powered?

Why has professional sport lost so much credibility? Usain Bolt of Jamaica has just shredded the sprinting 100 metres world record. He said that he ate "chicken nuggets" before the race.

Yet, the average punter takes the news with a grain of salt. The standard reaction to world records these days are: "What kind of juice was athlete on?"; "Did the suit assist the athlete?"; "Did the athlete dodge dope testing?" and "Must have an excellent masking agent".

So the main questions to be asked are: Why drug cheats remain so far ahead of the Anti-Doping Authories?; If I consume KFC chicken nuggets, will I be able to break world records, and just not the ones around the waist?

Castle Hill, Townsville.

Townsville's Twin Peaks. The nearly mountain that overlooks Cleveland Bay and The Strand. Used mainly as a tourist lookout and an exercise implement by locals at dawn and late afternoons.

Townsville Dawn 18Aug09

What a beautiful start to the remaining winter days in Townsville, North Queensland. People are out getting their exercise and there is a certain stillness.

This morning, the crecent moon and Jupiter hung in the eastern sky. You can see them in this photo.

The area of the foreground is called Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island is just in the background.

Bad Hair Day in Congo for US Sec of State, Hillary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton has a "bad hair" day in the Congo.

Nthn Aust Regional Newspapers front pages on Wed 12Aug09

Midweek front page headlines must be devoted to local issues. Cairns Post must have a circulation drive on, at the moment.

Miss Universe Australia - Rachael Finch

The latest photos of Rachael Finch, who is in the Bahamas for the Miss Universe Pageant. Good luck to Rachael.
















-- Post From My iPhone

What the Gossip Mags are Publishing.

Me thinks that KAK has had too much plastic surgery in this New Idea photo. Alby who? Catherine Zeta-Jones has a Drug Shame - WTF? JLo in a red bikini.




Brad & Ange again. Kyle sympathy story. Rove & Tasma having a baby. World Exclusive from ONJ.





Ricki-Lee loves her same new body! Kyle Sandilands PR in overdrive. Not "Twilight" stars, again!




Not Jen Aniston, again. Kyle's PR, did they pay to get exposure? MJ family album. Sophie Who? Not a nun, must be a monk!


-- Post From My iPhone

What Front Pages said on Tuesday 11Aug09.

NT News of Darwin


Cairns Post




Townsville Bulletin




-- Post From My iPhone

Stephen Fry in America

Stephen Fry in America is a six part series of one hour per episode.

The series commenced on ABC1, Australia on Sunday 9 August 2009. If you missed the first episode, you can catch it on http:/abc.net.au/iview .

Stephen will visit 50 States driving his left hand drive, black London cab with "FRY" where "TAXI" should be on the rooftop.

Interesting to see that Stephen uses his iPhone and Apple Macbook Pro on the series.

You can follow @stephenfry on Twitter.

-- Post From My iPhone

iPhone Hint

Delete multiple photos from the iPhone's Camera Roll

Fri, Sep 19 2008 at 7:30AM PDT

Submitted by pfernandes

I kept building up my photo collection on the iPhone's Camera Roll. There is no obvious way to delete a bunch of them -- short of deleting all of them -- from iPhoto (or even iTunes). You can, howver, use the Image Capture in OS X to do it.

Launch Image Capture and hit the Download Some button, and you are then free to roam the camera roll, selecting and deleting multiple images. My camera roll had over 1,000 photos in it, and taking pictures got very sluggish. You can erase them from the camera roll and sync them though iTunes. Browsing is much faster on synced rolls than on the standard Camera Roll.

[robg adds: Obviously, you could use iPhoto to import all, then say yes when asked if you want to delete the images after the import is done. If, for some reason, you wanted to keep some images in the Camera Roll, then this hint would work. The use of Image Capture was noted in the comments to this hint, but I felt it worth sharing as a separate hint.]

Comic Capers at NBN Announcement on 6 April 2009.

Mr Tanner (Finance Minister), PM Rudd, Senator Conroy (Broadband Minister) and Mr Swan (Treasurer).

Announcement of the Public/Private Partnership of $43Billion to build the National Broadband Network over possibly 13 years. 5 years planning and 8 years implimentation. Mr Tanner is in charge of the Government "Razor Gang" trying to find cost savings for the annual budget.

Jools & Kev737 in Melbourne - April 2009

Mr Rudd had been out of Australia for two weeks. Julia Gillard, the Deputy PM, was Acting Prime Minister during that time.

Front pages on Tuesday, 6 April 2009

Townsville Bulletin has local stories only.


Cairns Post has local stories only. Victorian Bushfire victims are being hosted.




Darwin's Nthn Crocitorian News thinks 14 bashings per day is GOOD NEWS! It was 15 bashings per day or 5,508 in 2007 compared to 5,285 in 2008. The NT population is estimated at 221,000.

Nick D'Arcy will need help from Swimming Australia.

It's may be within Swimming Australia rules to cut Nick D'Arcy from the team for World Championships in Rome.

I feel that they will be negligent if they do not give the "dropped" swimmer phycological support, for at least the next year. It is part of their duty to Nick D'Arcy.

They appear not to have given any indications that the penalty imposed by the Australian Olympic Federation (Exclusion from the 2008 Olympic Team) would be sufficient to extinguish his criminal behaviour of GBH on an ex-swimmer. He was encouraged to qualify for the 2009 World Swimming Championships. He trained and qualified for the Australian team.

Yesterday, the bombshell was dropped that D'Arcy has been excluded from the team. Of course there will be a fallout from this on the swimmer's mental health. Swimming Australia owe a "Duty of Care" to help D'Arcy in his darkest hour.

Washington Times Editorial 7 Apr 09: Barack takes a bow - The president shows fealty to a Muslim king

In a shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate, President Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah at the Group of 20 summit in London last week.

Mr. Obama later said in Strasbourg, France, "We have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect." Symbolism is important in world affairs. By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the U.S. president belittled the power and independence of the United States.

The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king's subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for U.S. presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt shook hands with Saudi King Abdulaziz in February 1945. Granted, Mr. Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound, but former President Dwight D. Eisenhower shook hands when he first met King Saud in January 1957. Mr. Obama's bow to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques does not help his image with those who believe he is secretly a Muslim, and why he chose to bow only to the Saudi King and not to any other royals remains unexplained.

No Americans of any station are required to bow to royalty. It is one of the pillars of American exceptionalism that our country rejected traditional caste divisions. Article I Section 9 of the Constitution forbids titles of nobility and stipulates that no officeholder or government employee may "accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state" without the consent of Congress. Judith Martin wrote in her Miss Manners column in 2001 that bowing "is not an ordinary bit of foreign etiquette one might adopt out of courtesy when traveling. ... Americans do not properly bow to any royalty. We show respect for other countries' leaders the same way we do to our own."

Press outlets have been conspicuously silent on Mr. Obama's bow. Compare this to the New York Times' reaction when former President Bill Clinton inclined a bit too far when meeting Japanese Emperor Akihito in 1994. According to the Gray Lady, "The image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent president, and the Emperor of Japan." Former President George W. Bush received thorough press attention after being photographed holding hands with then-Crown Prince Abdullah in 2005. "It clearly strikes a nerve," CBS News reported, while David Letterman satirized Mr. Bush as "officially the gayest president since Lincoln." These two cases were tame compared to Mr. Obama's full-out genuflection, which makes us wonder why it is not worthy of comment.

Mr. Obama is proving that one can be elected president without knowing how to behave presidentially. His servile gesture was fully fitting with the tone of his humility tour of Europe. In his eagerness to be loved personally, the president has lost sight of the fact that the leader of the free world also must be respected.

Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

iTunes V8.1.1 Update. 68Mb download

iTunes 8.1 is now faster and more responsive. You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing.

In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides many other improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).
• Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.
• Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.
• Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.
• Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.
• Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.
• Includes many accessibility improvements.
• Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.

iTunes 8.1.1 adds support for renting HD movies and provides a number of bug fixes, including addressing issues with VoiceOver and syncing with iPhone or iPod touch.

A FURTHER MIND WANKING MOMENT

Mind Messing in Washington

Mr Rudd & Mr Obama Meet

Former ALP leader, Mark Latham will be squirming at this bum and boot licking!




Illustration by:
Cathy Wilcox
in Sydney Morning Herald.

Castle Hill, Townsville

Castle Hill, Townsville. View from the North Ward side. Photo taken on my iPhone.

Truth or Fiction! Economics or Safety?

There appears to be a trend in Society where people blindly accept the spin (bullshit) that is peddled to them. For example, the airlines have different policies when it come to mobile phone use when taxiing to the terminal.

Qantas allows its passengers to turn on and use their mobiles, while Jetstar and Virgin Blue do not. The reason given by the latter two is for safety reasons, as they will be refueling.

After researching the internet, I can't find anything to verify the claim of volatility of jet fuel.

I think that the real reason that Jetstar and Virgin Blue don't want their customers to use mobile phones is because it will delay the boarding/departure process.

Customers handling their luggage, children, talking on mobiles and texting would further delay the process. So, the real reason is an economic one. Slowing the turnaround process costs the airlines money. The utilization of their jet fleets is maximized with a quick turnaround.

Qantas is not concerned as it has the dominant market share. It charges a substantial premium over the low cost airlines and does not have the economic pressure of quick turnarounds.

It would be unplatable to tells customers the truth. However if it is presented as a "little white lie" about safety, customers will blindly accept this.

Related Story to MacAir Collapse

The owner of MacAir Airlines, Mr Terry Byrt, is a substantial shareholder in RMA Energy Ltd, an ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) listed mining company. It was a darling of the bull market in 2007 when it's share price peaked at just over $2. In 2008, the highest price was 53c per share. Currently in 2009, the shares are trading in the 3.5c to 5c range. It was one of the best price improvement performers on the ASX in 2007.

RMA Energy Ltd was named after Sir Reg Ansett, an Australian aviation pioneer, who Mr Byrt greatly admired. Ansett Airlines of Australia Ltd, one of the Australia's airline duopoly, together with Qantas Ltd. Ansett disappeared into liquidation about 7 years ago and this has led to low cost ailines such as Virgin Blue and Jetstar, filling the void. This has resulted in fairer airfares for all Australian air travellers.

Mr Byrt had only acquired ownership of MacAir on 4 April 2008. Sadly, Mr Byrt's dreams of creating another Ansett Airlines has been flushed away with Suncorp appointing Justin Walsh of Ernst & Young as receiver. Mr Byrt had appointed Jonathan McLeod of McLeod Partners as voluntary administrator on Thursday night.

MacAir "Crash & Burn" After Suncorp Pulls Plug

Townsville based MacAir Airlines has been grounded by Suncorp Metway Ltd when it pulled the financial plug on the Company. Competition from Qantas on the Townsville to Mt Isa run has accelerated it's demise. Mining fly-in and fly-out business would have been reduced due to the falling commodity prices and mining companies shedding contractors and staff. It will be interesting to see if the Queensland Government steps in to assist MacAir. Travellers have been stranded. I don't know whether Qantas will offer to move these passengers. MacAir Airlines is a another local casualty of the World Recession.

Obama's Student Days

Collage of Barack Obama as a student

Brisbane GPO at night

A panorama shot of Brisbane City Post Office taken on my iPhone. Click on the photo to enlarge it and see more detail.

Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Byron Bay & Main Beach, New South Wales about 8pm on 25 January 2009. This was taken with time lapse on my Canon G9. At the lookout on Clark's Beach.

My First Blog

This is my first attempt at blogging. I have had a little practice at Micro-blogging with Twitter and this has given me the confidence to start a blog. I don't believe how easy it was to set up my Blog on Blogger. It is extremely easy, if you have a Google Account. Linking my Twitter feeds to my Blog was even easier. This is done through the "Settings" tab of your Twitter account.

The Real Web - Brisbane Backyard

Beautiful spider's web in a friend's backyard in Brisbane. Click on the photo to see greater detail of the web.