Hervey Bay Gossip

I’m sure that I read or heard somewhere that our Premier was going to make sure that the petrol companies didn’t rort the system by charging more for petrol on weekends.

And I’m sure I’ve seen politicians and petrol company executives claim that the practice of increasing fuel prices for weekends just doesn’t occur.

If that’s so then I wonder how they explain ULP prices in Brisbane on Thursday of around 98 - 99 cents a litre but yesterday we saw prices down there ranging from $1.03 up to $1.08 a litre. Of course, the fact that yesterday was a Friday and just two sleeps from Christmas had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Yeah Right!

Sitting here in Hervey Bay it’s not hard to think that what is happening in the rest of the world is really happening on another planet.

Over the weekend we learned that the US President thinks he has the right to spy on his own countrymen and to do it from outside the law. Where was he when Watergate was happening?

As one commentator put suggested, Bush is now the US President who has achieved so little despite having more power than any other President before him.

Then on Sunday we read revelations that after World War II the British government ran a torture camp in Nazi Germany where innocent people were beaten and starved to death.

And of course, here in Australia we have a government that is so driven by ideaology that it is prepared to push more Australians into poverty just for the sake of settling old scores with the Union movement.

Here in the peace and beauty of Hervey Bay it’s hard to believe that a world like that really exists in anything but our worst nightmares.

Les Hiddens was well-known a few years ago as the Australian Army’s Bush Tucker Man on the ABC. Les eventually retired from the Army and was one of those Vietnam Veterans who was instrumental in setting up a retreat for veterans at Kalpowar Station up on Cape York.

They did no harm there, they cared for the environment and it was a place of peace where the men who served in Vietnam could try to come to terms with the unresolved internal conflicts that they faced every day of their lives.

Of course life was never going to be easy for them. Kalpowar Station is part of Pandanus Park and they were basically there without permission. The land wasn’t being used for anything and I doubt that most bureaucrats and politicians even knew the place existed but in a democracy you can’t have people running off and doing their own thing. Why, people might find that they can do without half the population of Canbera and that would never do!

So Les and his mates have been threatened with eviction for quite some time now but finally common sense has prevailed. The Aboriginal Land Council who owns the land are happy to have the vets up there and a little public pressure has made the pollies change their mind too.

Project Pandanus now has a 15 year agreement that allows the vets to have unrestricted access.

Why couldn’t the pollies have done that four years ago?

Last weekend surf lifesavers were bashed on Sydney’s Cronulla beach as they went about their voluntary duties. The people who carried out the crime were said to be of Lebanese origin.

This weekend text messages inciting violence in retaliation for those bashings were circulating and mounted police patrolled the beach. Thousands of people waving Australian flags gathered around the beach and the situation turned ugly when a number of ordinary beach-goers who simply appeared to be of middle-east origin where the victims of racial attacks.

Even an ambulance officer was attacked by people in the mob as he and a partner tried to evacuate some of the victims.

Yesterday I watched the Queensland v Victoria cricket match and saw kids of middle eastern origin enjoying the game and participating in Kanga Cricket events during the lunch break.

I don’t understand, this was once a country where migrants were welcomed and assimilated and accepted. But now there are some who seem to forget that background and the fact that migrants from all over the world have made Australia the great country that it is today.

Somewhere we’ve taken a wrong turn and I hope that we can get back on track and continue working at making Australia an even greater country. To turn in upon ourselves would undo all that good work that we have achieved so far.

Yesterday was not a day Australians will remember with anything but shame.

It seems that over the last year Webster’s Online Dictionary has recorded more requests for the definition of ‘integrity’ than any other word.

Sadly a few of our politicians in the Senate should have checked the meaning of that word and one one-seat-wonder from South Australia obviously has absolutely no idea what the word means and whether or not it should apply to him.

And just in case you’re wondering what the definition of ‘integrity’ is then I can tell you that Websters defines it as ‘firm adherence to a code’ and ‘incorruptibility’.

A sad indictment on some of the people who are supposed to be representing our wishes.

It’s a fact … I read it on the ABC website … so it must be true.

Male and female dolphins find it difficult to mix socially.

That sounds like some human couples I know.

For many years scientists have known that the continents of the world are moving and there was a time, millions of years ago, when they were joined.

Of course no one was around then to observe what happened as the continents slowly separated but now it seems that scientists have a front row seat as a part of the African continent begins the slow process of seperating from the rest of the land mass.

In September a fissure almost 60 kilometres long appeared in the Afar desert in the remote northeast of Ethiopia. The fissure opened over a period of three weeks after an earthquake struck the barren region. The fissure is now over 4 metres wide.

Now the scientists estimate that the rate of separation is around several millimetres a year and expect water ffrom the Red Sead and the Gulf of Aden to flow into the fissure ‘eventually’.

Let’s hope that Santa does not use a compass to find his way back home to the North Pole. Scientists report that the magnetic North Pole is drifting away from its current position and some time in the next 50 years could be located in Siberia.

The introduction of wireless technology to computer networking has led to some interesting trends that I’m sure will interest sociologists in future generations.

While you may be reading this and surfing the net on a computer that is sitting on a desk or a table and is connected to a modem and power outlet by cables, a recent survey of US Net users have found that a significant number of them are logging on in the toilet.

Hmmmm

Ok it is the beginning of the silly season but this one might be really beat everything that is yet to come.

If you’re a little cramped for space in your home but you still want to put up a nice big Christmas Tree then perhaps you really should put it up … literally … upside down on the ceiling.

A number of retailers are offering Christmas trees designed to be mounted on the ceiling. As I write this Christmastreeforme.com has several models for sale.

It’s not even December and the silly season is already in full swing.