Australian Inventions

The British do like to poke fun at Australians, all in jest you understand, we love them really with their cork hats and silly place names such as Bong Bong, Humpybong, Jimcumbilly, Mount Buggery, Poowong, Wonglepong and Yorkeys Knob. How can you not love a place with names that sound like they were thought of by a 3-year-old but apart from crazy headwear, funny place names and television shows about kangaroos, what else have the Australians given us?
A bent stick that you can throw you may say but the land down under has been trumpeting its other inventions also including wi-fi, the aircraft black box, the dual flush toilet, ultrasound and disposable syringes.
Not bad for a country celebrating its 225th birthday next year, all desirable and important discoveries i think you will agree but i think if you are after a country that has made world changing inventions, well i hate to brag but they will have to come up with more than a bog with two flushes to beat us Brits.
We can turn on the light bulb (Brit inventor Joseph Swan) in the living room and watch any modern sport (almost all invented by Brits) on our televisions (a Brit invention) while drinking some cool beer from the refrigerator (Brit inventor) or go on a computer (Charles Babbage, a Brit) on the World Wide Web (invented by Brit Tim Berners-Lee) to watch trains (step forward Britisher Richard Trevithick) or discover the theory of evolution (Charles Darwin, beardy Brit) or Gravity (Mr Newton) and explain it on the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell, fellow Brit) in the English language (second most widely spoken language in the world).
Just because the British inventions changed the World and defined the 20th Century shouldn't take away from the Australians inventing syringes that you can throw away. Well done chaps, the country that invented Australia are very proud and although you may not be as well behaved as our other invention Canada, at least you are not as much trouble as our oldest child America who frankly need some time on the
naughty step. 
Still, Wonglepong, got to love that name.

Obama To Stick It To Israel?

Apart from climate change, Israel was not mentioned so much in the US election apart from by Mitt Romney who the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threw his weight behind which turned out to a bad move as the Interior Minister realised saying the day after Obama's re-election 'This is probably not a very good morning for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu'.
Mr Netanyahu must hope that Mr Obama will not bear any grudges especially as Israel are trying to convince the US to get involved in another war on their behalf in Iran.
The Jerusalem Post are wary of the damage their leader may have done to Israeli-US relations, saying 'Israel-US relations are already in need of some serious repair, and let us just hope that we are not in a situation of "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again."
Obviously the challah bread in the Jerusalem Post office had a few too many poppy seeds on it that day but i think it would only be beneficial for all involved if Obama decided to cut Israel loose for a bit. 
Israel can only maintain its outrageous stranglehold on Palestine land and keep its army so well armed with the backing of US dollars so if Obama decided to hold the cheques back, Israel would be forced into negotiating with its neighbours rather than dropping explosives on them and then bleating that they are the victims.
Netanyahu has an election himself next year and Obama, already on frosty terms with the Israeli Prime Minister, will get an opportunity to repay the favour and back either Olmert or Tzipi Lizni.
This could work out quite well for the much downtrodden Palestinians, an American President with nothing to lose and an Israeli Prime Minister unpopular with the man who writes the cheques.
If Obama wants to cement his place in history and actually earn that Nobel Peace Prize, this is his chance.

China Pick New Leader

America is not the only superpower picking a new leader this week, China are set to select the new Chinese president who is strongly suspected to be Xi Jinping who will lead the country until 2012.
The contrast could hardly be greater with Americans voting in their millions while the Chinese process of selection takes place behind closed doors by a handful of people.
Being the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, China seems to have manoeuvred itself into a good place, a decent reminder of the IOU's America has written the Chinese to the tune of $1.2 trillion is an amazing way to focus American minds when the temptation is to push the Asians a bit too roughly.
A favourite tactic of the West, not with China but with anyone we deem outside of the Western family, is to tell them how they should be like us, democratic, free and a guardian of human rights although the last point is highly debatable and not a point that is lost on the incoming Chinese President who described those attempting to meddle in Chinese affairs as: 'some foreigners who have eaten their fill and have nothing better to do then point their fingers at our affairs. China does not, first, spread revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; or third, cause trouble for you. What else is there to say?' 
Little is known about Jinping but in a World tour earlier this year he stressed Beijing's desire for steady relations and to 'overcome obstacles that have long stood in the way of Sino-U.S. strategic mutual trust and impeded deeper cooperation' which sounds positive.
China will grow, it will become the economic power and a superpower alongside America who i suspect will try to re-run the Cold War with China in the place of the Soviets but while China holds onto those IOU's, America is in a weak position and it will be interesting to see if America are still be calling the shots on the World stage when Jinping hands over power in a decades time. I think they will be facing some very stiff competition from a country who does things very differently to them.

Laughing

Donald Trump has vented his frustration at President Barack Obama's election victory, calling it a 'travesty' and a 'disgusting injustice' in a Twitter tirade and saying: 'Let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us'.
I think the World was laughing at your weird hair Mr Trump.

Obama Wins It!

If you listen to the mainstream media then they are predicting a close fight between Obama and Romney for which one will take the keys to the White House.
The BBC is calling it a cliffhanger and say that it is too close to call but anyone who is afraid that we will wake up Wednesday morning and find the mad Mormon in charge of the World's best equipped military need not worry, because Obama has it in the bag.
Google Trends has a perfect record of predicting the main election results this year and unless pictures of Obama eating puppies are discovered overnight, the man who is not quite as bad as the other one will be sitting his backside in the Oval Office for another four years.
Google are saying that it isn't even as close as they want us to believe, there is clear water between Obama and the challenger.
Hopefully, free from the shackles of having to be re-elected, Obama can now make up for his disappointing last term and do some good around the World by smacking down Israel, scaling back on the dreadful drone attacks, closing Guantanamo Bay like he promised four years ago and tackling the amount of pollution his country pumps into the atmosphere.   
On top of that he could really push that Socialist agenda that he has kept well hidden and ban Americans from owning guns just like the NRA say.
Well done Obama, now don't waste it and do something with it so we don't all think you were a waste of space for eight years instead of just four. 

Ethical Foreign Policy

The one thing the tinderbox that is the Middle East needs is more weapons so as luck would have it, David Cameron has rocked up peddling just that.
Now the Arab political protesters can have holes blown in them by the best of British but it comes with a warning from Cameron that  he would not shy away from raising concerns about human rights. Or he will once there is a break in the crushing of human rights in these places.
'We have one of the strictest regimes anywhere in the world for sales of defence equipment but we do believe that countries have a right to self-defence and we do believe that Britain has important defence industries that employ over 300,000 people so that sort of business is completely legitimate and right' he whined trying to get his ridiculous defence in before the protests of him whoring himself across the one place where Democracy is frowned upon and any dissension is met with military force.
It should be to his shame that when our Prime Minister is off around the globe to promote British industry, the one he chooses is is the one which deals in large scale death and destruction.
Oh when will we get a Prime Minister who isn't an utter tosser?

End Of The World 2012: Option Two

Boy will my face be red this Christmas when my family discover i haven't got them any Christmas presents which is why i am banking on the Mayans being right and Bolon Yokte is going to turn up and bring the end of civilisation as we know it.
Of course there is always the outside chance that an ancient Mayan God won't descend to Earth to wipe us out with great vengeance and furious anger so my  back up to avoiding that awkward explanation to Uncle Ernie after the Queen's Speech that i didn't get him a bottle of Whiskey this year as i presumed we would all be dead is The Web Bot Project which also says that we won't be here for turkey and brussel sprouts this year.
It is predicting a cataclysmic event that will devastate the planet in December, probably a reversing of Earth's magnetic poles. Phew, I may have dodged the bullet there then. 
The Web Bot Project, refers to a computer program that is claimed to be able to predict future events by tracking keywords on the Internet and claims to have predicted several events prior to them occurring, most notably the September 11 attacks, the Northeastern United States blackout, the Colombia Space Shuttle disaster, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and even Dick Cheney blasting his friend in the face while out hunting so it has some decent form.
So if the magnetic fields are going to reverse in mid-December, what should we expect as a way of going to meet our maker en mass?
Just like any child of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, it was never going to be pretty but the university of North Carolina physics department has a handy online guide to effects of Geomagnetic Reversal on humans and it seems we will go due to deadly cosmic rays killing most, if not all, living creatures on the Earth's surface. Only those living in deep caves would be safe.
It also notes that recently it was noticed that the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field has declined by about 10% over the course of the 160 years that records have been kept.
On the bright side disruption of Earth’s magnetic field would also result in auroras being visible over much of the planet rather than just at the poles as they are now so that's a bonus, a nice view as our innards fry in unmentionable agony as well as not having to suffer the embarrassment of having to ask the shop assistant in the record shop if they have a copy of 'The Greatest Hits of Phil Collins' that Auntie Gladys had been hinting at.

Obama Win Good For Gun Manufacturers

Google Trends is still predicting a win for Obama and as it has done so well with every other major election this year, i am willing to go along with that as would the firearms manufacturer in America who say they have seen a sales increase of 86% since the beginning of the Obama administration. 
Obama, it would seem, is expected by gun toting Americans to wage a war on the right to bear arms as a win on Election Day would mean he would be free to do those things that he didn't dare in the first 4 years as they would have lessened his chances of re-election this time around.
As a Senator, Obama had a record of voting against guns and an NRA advert, part of a $11 million campaign it has launched, advising gun owners that a vote for Obama is a vote for gun control.
'Gun owners and hunters fear that a second Obama administration with no future political campaigns to worry about will try to destroy this great American freedom' ia the advert’s message, nodding towards the two Obama appointed Supreme Court justices considered anti-gun.
Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the NRA, warned that 'If President Obama is re-elected, we’re going to see an anti-Second-Amendment, anti-freedom rampage in this country like we’ve never seen before'.
I would have thought if Obama was going to bring in tighter gun laws his window of opportunity would have been straight after one of the mass shootings such as the one at the Colorado cinema shooting or maybe he knows that in America, he will always get another opportunity in his second term because the next mass shooting is always only a short wait away.

MIxed Messages Over Iran

Last week the UK Government rebuffed a request from Washington to use British bases near the Middle East for a possible attack on Iran citing 'a breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran'.
This week the Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak downgraded the nuclear threat from Iran as it had actually moved vast amounts of the 20%-enriched uranium that Israel often mentioned as a threat towards civil needs, acknowledging what Tehran has repeated over and over, namely that it enriches uranium to a 20% level for purely medical purposes.
Yesterday Prime Minister David Cameron says he is considering a deployment of a fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to the United Arab Emirates to demonstrate Britain’s 'military commitment to UAE' although they didn't say who they were committing our fighters to protect UAE militarily from but it isn't that much of a leap to think it's Iran. 
Mixed signals perhaps because if Israel, who are itching to bomb Iran, say Iran is not as much as a danger as they first thought, why are we poking a stick at the Iranians by deploying our military to the region in a move that is only going to antagonise the Iranians?
Is it so wrong to think that the West is preparing for another war with another oil rich Middle Eastern country and we are going to prod and pull Iran until we get it?

All Those Straight Lines

Something i have noticed when the maps of the US comes on the television now is the amount of straight state lines.  
Political boundaries usually follow rivers or other natural boundaries but it always looks as if America was divided up by someone using a ruler.
A Google search reveals that it is only Hawaii that doesn't have at least one straight border and the ones in the middle are all almost rectangular.
I guess that in places without natural features to mark a border, it is easier to have the states with nice, even lines but it seems strange most of the states that were created pre-revolution and created by European settlers were mostly the standard wiggly border shape but the vast majority of states created by post-revolution 'Americans' are box shaped with a lot of straight lines.
I don't know of there is a deeper psychological reason for it but i notice it all the time now. Does look very neat and tidy though.