the bigot test

A very simple way to detect a bigot:

1. the bad guys are always them, and the good guys are always us.
   
2. they never do good things.
   
3. we never do bad things.

They can be countries, states, religious groups, social stratas and many other things.

different tyres

Back when I was living in Cammeray (1997 ish), my car was parked out on the street. We were at home, watching the TV. There was a loud bang of a car crash. One of our neighbours near the front of the block of units ran out onto the street. The car that crashed into the back of mine was a suzuki switf. He tried to get the car to stop, but it would not. He got the number plate. 6 months later, the police sent a letter that they could not track down the car and were closing the case. The numberplate was for a car registered in the town of Urana (If I have remembered that correctly.)

Sometime within two years I purchased a Suzuki Jimny and joined the 4WD drive club. They made some comments about people who stole tyres and the need to keep a watch out for cars with different tyres. They seemed to know who might be doing this.

time man of the year

Brian's selection of time's man of the year awards:

2007 - Vladimir Putin

scary...

a long history of WWII

Britian and France joined the war to free Poland, which had been invaded by Germany an Russia. For a while Germany kicked out the Russians, and then the Russians kicked out Germany. In the end Poland was only freed in 1989. So WWII ended in 1989 even though the fighting ended much earlier.

short sighted

I have been short sighted for a long time, since I was in my teen years. I watched the interest of laser eye surgery with interest but I have never taken up the option. This is for a few reasons:

• Initially I was concerned with the long term effects. Although the doctors said that there were no reasons for worry, until the actual experience is gained, there is too much uncertainty and my eyes are important.
• Wearing corrective glasses has never bothered me.
• I knew that eyes change continuously over time. So initially I become more and more short sighted. Originally I expected this to occur for a time and then stabilize. But I have found that it did this, then got worse again stabilized again and so on. I think I have been through this for about three cycles. When you get older, the eyes tend to become longer sighted again. This was believed to be caused by the mussels in the eye relaxing and stretching as they become older. This mean that even with the surgery there seems to be good reason to expect to have to wear glasses again.

I was asked the other day about the effect of bifocals on all of this. Do a bit of reading, it would seem that is it a realted effect, but there was not enough knowledge I could find to make a call. Bi focals are requred becuase of a condition called presbyopia. This seems to be a limit the the closet range that you can see. I suppose if you are short sighted then this would be less of an issue. Though recently I have noticed that I am having difficulty focusing at close range with my glasses off. But I do not know the cause of this effect.

I will do some more reading when I have more time and see if I can come up with a better answer on this latter question.

springboks

Well I just watched a documentary on the effect of the Springbok tour of NZ in 1981 (I think) and the immense impact it had on the overall process in South Africa. But it raises many questions and points.

1. The ANC was a banned organization. How many other organizations that are currently banned will go onto become the party in power in a country? Will it be the Sri Lankan ones? There seem to be so many?
   
2. Only South Africa got it right. No one else seems to have. Zimbabwe botched it. Israel is unable to make friends with the PLO and Hammas. Why is this so?
3. Why is it that governments refuse to listen to the protests of their own people? (Such as the NZ government and sports bodies in trying to stop the protests.) But then again how many of these movements ever bring about good results? Is South Africa a special case that cannot be repeated else where?
4. Why is it that people in South Africa were so afraid of their own security forces and through that the NZ's were such whimps? What kind of person shoots another for protesting injustice just because they were told to do so. Are the blind? Are the malicious?
5. If an aeroplane dropped flower bombs like the one in NZ, would it be shot down?
   

Well that is all for now. There will be many more such comments if I continue down this path. But I am sure that the rest of you are capable of working these out for your selves.

abandoned houses

The aircraft do not pass directly over my property, but the go quite close. Sometimes there is the brief shadow of an aircraft passing between me and the sun. Down the road is a spot directly under the end of the main runway. Once there were houses. Now there are none. The fences stands abandoned, all that's left. Even the church is derelict.

"abandoned properties" by yewenyi [?]