Adventure Ausrama Blog

If the National Broadband Network ever gets finished health care for rural Australians will improve. The Abbott Government has sacked the NBN board. It has also began an inquiry. When will this end and real completion goals be set? The previous government made the mistake of not having goals. This is what led to its demise in the last election - it had lost its way on most issues. An inquiry is seen as more "pussy-footing around". We need a clearly defined schedule.  All major construction projects have dates set out for finalization of each stage. Why does the NBN have to be any different? Surely they know how much time it takes to lay "X" amount of fiber optic cable. This is the problem with monopolies: they consume time and money. Why not put stages out for competitive tenders? Surely real competition can get things moving. The inquiry must come up with positive workable solutions. We cannot have another government mess up. Get rid of the bu

Though banks are now more cautious with their lending, National Australia Bank CEO Cameron Clyne says the community blames the banks for the economic crisis and rightly so too. Banks have kept their operations very secret while they risked investors money by loaning out money to potential defaulters. He says banks should be more open about their interest rate tables and fees. Investors in the community are hit all the time by getting lower interest than they believe they will get, and being hit by fees without being informed why. Fees in particular have technical wording rather than "real life" wording. In short, he says people believe that banks are robbing bastards. He further warns that banks will increase interest charged on loans or keep them the same despite the central bank lowering rates. People will see this as plain robbery. They will call for government intervention. Economics by Ty Buchanan http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia

Microsoft is going to offer a way for consumers to get around national firewalls. It is aimed at domestic US consumers to access corporate resources but it will make for a revolution in bypassing national restrictions, particularly for music and television programming. Of course you will need a Windows mobile phone to access the feature. This is a trump card that Microsoft has played. However, like with cloud services when one enterprise gives something extra all competitors provide it as well. While it is essentially for business use, VPN access will ultimately be used to access local content in countries that restrict it to their citizens. Just how program providers will react to this is not known. This announcement has been a surprise. However, many users pay a few dollars a month for VPNs already. It makes for easy use of programming supposedly blocked for overseas people. If business gets "free" use of VPNs, the ordinary consumer will want it too. Soon rivals

Bushmeat is not just a problem in Africa. Asian countries have the same problem, as the demand for meat from wild animals increases. Taking animals from tropical forest changes the whole ecosystem. It is common sense really. As the number of creatures feeding on vegetation and other animals decline there is an abundance of vegetation growth and remaining fauna.  More growth kills off food for these animals. While some plants increase, others decline.  Even the amount of vegetation not consumed can fall.  Uneaten vegetation crowds out growth for all, so saplings do not grow tall. Plants need animals to disperse seeds. Consequently, the variety of plants falls. Just two decades ago the Lambir Hills National Park in Sarawak was pristine. There was an abundance of animals and trees. Now all the large animals have been killed off by hunters after a profit. Once such dramatic change occurs there is no way back. The large animals will not breed back to original numbers. The damage

Establish your own country. People have been doing this for decades. They pronounce kingship and plant crowns on their heads to rule in perpetuity. Don't laugh. These people are serious. Such "countries" have currencies made, issue stamps and visas, and even produce constitutions. People can become "citizens" on the Internet. Why do they establish new countries? Some do it because they are fed up with the country they live in, others to highlight an issue of contention. Doing it just for laughs or getting an income from tourism is not uncommon. Recently a meeting of micronations took place at a Sydney university. They discussed their place in The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations. The meeting went well. There were Laughs aplenty. Just imagine how the leaders were decked out with flowing robes, scepters and crowns. There is a problem, however. It is an illusion of independence. The "countries" are still part of the larger countries they are

Donkeys and mules are not forgotten. There are people out there who care a lot for these animals. They have established the Donkey All Breeds Society of Australia National Donkey and Mule Show. They deserve a medal for creating such a long title for the celebratory weekend. Entrants were brought in from all over Australia. The tiny Mediterean Miniature donkey was the cutest in the show. Very large animals were represented like the 16 hands high American Mammoth donkey. Many animals performed for the spectators. It is a myth about the independent, angry mule. Indeed, they like to be trained. Donkeys really put on show in the trail, driven, sulky, halter and snigging classes. Trainers were as young as five years old. Some donkey entrants were elderly, in their mid-twenties. The show was such a success that it will continue. It is affectionately called the long ears show. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--au

We hear so much praise about progress of the new broadband network being rolled out by the National Broadband Network (NBN). The problem is - there has been little progress. Apart from the acclaimed network in a part of Tasmania, few customers enjoy ultra-fast broadband anywhere else. The Internet divide still exists between city and rural. Obviously the NBN will be laid out in city areas because this is where the greatest income will be obtained. As it now stands rural regions will not get faster Internet until way past 2020. Many people will be dead by then. How do we know if fiber optics will be superceded? Soon the ocean protection walls will be finished around Venice and there are cries that it is old technology and will not save the valuable city. Perhaps the same will be said about the NBN. In the present economic climate where will be few businesses left in populated cities to enjoy the improved communication. Only if the mineral sector declines and the Aussie dollar

Despite calls by some countries for Internet companies to had over information on citizens' searches and email, the knowledge superhighway is moving in the other direction. Information stored in the cloud are out of reach of national police forces. Gone are the days when just about everything that a suspect has done is available recorded somewhere at sometime. Data is there but it cannot be accessed. The ordinary person will not have much sympathy for police trying to "background" a suspect. They see authorities as being too intrusive anyway. For years Australian social security sent out "demand" forms for aged pensioners to provide up-to-date information about what they had in the bank. A court found that social security did not have the legal right to demand honest answers. The forms are still being sent out. Legally they are still suspect. Such is the quagmire authorities are in. Anyway, back to the case in hand. Police are saying even getting data

Here we go again. Beliefs of a small group win out over commonsense. We all know that the land around Uluru, Ayers Rock, is sacred. That is accepted. Saying it is too sacred to go boating on a freshwater lake in South Australia is absolute rot. The native Aboriginals, the Arabunna, at Lake Eyre are making outrageous claims. How does boating affect their beliefs that objects have souls? If you want to believe that grains of sand have souls so be it, but leave everyone else alone. The Arabunna were quite happy with local boating until plans were made to hold a sailing event by a yacht club. Nothing has changed. Swimming will be banned next. Aboriginals are afraid to use the lake anyway because they fear the lake's spirit keeper. It all boils down to a dispute with the government over native title. If things aren't going well say something is sacred and stop this, stop that, stop everything. It is just bloody mindedness. As the commodore of Lake Eyre Yacht Club says: this infringe

Glenn Stevens the Governor of the Reserve bank says he supports a check on the National Broadband Network. You can't really take this man seriously. He obviously just said it to give a non-partisan, either party approach to government. Getting the Coalition off his back was his main aim. After all this time, he says this now. It is obviously late, very late indeed, with the legislation to change the structure of Telstra going through parliament at this very moment. The Labor Government wants to stop any further investigation into the full cost of the NBN, particularly now at the end of parliamentary sitting. It wants to go away and breath a sigh of satisfaction. All government projects end up costing more than was budgeted. The Coalition knows this and if it can keep the pressure for financial investigation going it is on a winner. Though, what it can achieve by this is unclear. Labor surely has support to pass anything that is needed to get this monster of a project up and running

There is no way Nick Clegg will get his new voting system introduced. While David Cameron has said a referendum will be held, he is not interested in changing, neither is the Labour Party. When the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition cuts spending and makes life harder with more unemployment who is going to be blamed? It will definitely be the Liberal Democrats. After all, the Conservatives will only do it with Liberal Democrat support. A referendum will take place when spending cuts take effect. British people will hit the Lib Dems hard when they vote. First past the post is like the monarchy in Britain - it is an institution. There is little doubt that this is not a new beginning for the Lib Dems. This will be the only time they experience power. The British public are to be offered the Australian system of preferential voting. In Australia this "twisted' form of voting is responsible for the Senate being continually unworkable with the ruling party not being able to get