Adventure Ausrama Blog

Aboriginals have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, perhaps 60,000 years. If they were the first to leave Africa this could be pushed back to 80,000. Because they are so different from Asians this could be the case. A skull found in South America is clearly aboriginal - How did it get there? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders number about half a million of Australia's 23 million. Numbering them is difficult as many, like the American black population, have white people in their ancestry. There is a strange state of affairs with more than a quarter of the overall population in Australia being born overseas. This has meant an important inter-cultural mix. However, the Aboriginal culture is dying out. Few young people speak native tongues in depth. Older people are not able to pass on languages completely: there are thousands of Aboriginal dialects across the country. Religious rituals in particular are disappearing. Aboriginal art is very strong

Apparently the U.S. National Security Agency is not listening in to people in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Seeing that these countries are America's closest allies this seems rational. However, terrorists are quietly leaving the shores of these countries and fighting for Islam of one color or another. It seems to me that the United States would be involved with local authorities in these English speaking nations to keep an eye on what suspected terrorists are doing, probably at the request of these governments. Note, that the United States had secret agreements with Russia that the UK found out about during WWII. Churchill was totally in the dark about them for quite some time. He too had secret talks with Stalin. If the NSA is watching the IMF, World Bank, the Atomic Energy Agency and European countries why not "nose in" on what people in allied countries are doing? Germany is supposed to be an ally and snooping on Chancellor Merkel did

Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell, military commander of Australia's People-smuggling operation believes that "Australia is seen as reasonable and generous in its treatment of refugees."  How stupid and out of touch can you be.  The world knows that Australia couldn't care less about the welfare of refugees. Don't get me wrong here:  I was the first person in Australia to suggest sending those seeking asylum home, on this very blog .  However, I said economic migrants should be flown home, not turned around in Indonesian waters and send into imminent danger in a small (provided) orange boat. Agreements should have been reached with the countries of origin of the disenchanted people to safely transport them home.  Australia is in the top three nations resettling refugees, but we are falling fast from this position because our actions are draconian.  They are ruthlessly too effective.  No other country has taken such harsh measures. The real problem i

Human societies change as the climate changes. Man is a clever animal. He uses his mind to overcome obstacles in nature. When we came down from the trees the first changes were made. This sped up our evolution to become more intelligent. With evolutionary advancement certain things are lost. Tree clearing has led to an unforeseen event : languages are disappearing. Some, usually forest living , people speak more than a dozen languages. However, their tribes are decreasing in number as more contact with advanced societies and destruction of the environment they live in continues. Papua New Guinea still has about 1,000 languages. Isolation is diminishing so more dialects are lost as times goes on. It has been said that as biodiversity falls so languages decrease in number. However, less biodiversity is an effect of less forestation rather than a causal factor. Forest living people are moving to cities to find work as their livelihood disappears. Furthermore, g

Did tiny people ever live in Australia?  There is photographic evidence of pygmy-like Aboriginals being here, but ignored by scientists. They are widely seen in Aboriginal rock art and are spoken of in Aboriginal mythology. To native Australians pygmy people are here with us all the time. They are just out of our vision. Apparently there are thousands of them living in the vast outback where no "physical" people live. They are mischievous, playing tricks on us all the time. Older Aboriginals say they remember seeing them. This is like the local people on the Indonesian island of Flores , where little people died out ten thousand years ago. Obviously, there is some truth in myth and living people really believe they have actually seen them. There seems to be different types of Aboriginal pygmies and each lives in its own dimension of reality. It is fact that there were two types of Aboriginals on Bribie Island in Queensland and they didn't intermarr

Rumor mongering is on its way to the tech world. An app initially established in the US is being rolled out in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. The app called "Secret" allows people to spread rumours, innuendo, their feeling about things, and accusations about the behavior of innocent people - anonymously. Of course praise can be offered, but is will probably be praise with a small "p". Apple has offered the app for some time. Google is about to launch it as well. Apparently, there is a voracious appetite for the app in the US. The opinions will be kept among your friend list. However, it is commonplace now for users to accept absolutely anyone who asks to be a new friend. The app contains a weird option. A warning pops up telling people that the view they are about to make could be defamatory. This is laughable. Users generally ignore such warnings and turn them off. Lives will be destroyed by this app and legal cases will emerge ever

People are throwing tantrums about being refused addictive pills from pharmacists. This comes at a time when the federal government is setting up a system of "policing" morphine based medications. If patients are frustrated by over the counter tablets what are they going to do when refused prescriptions? Codeine is the drug of choice for most. Because it is freely available and not officially restricted one can understand the frustration when a sale is refused. It is not much use for pharmacists to call police. Giving people police records is going to make them more antisocial. Telling people not to use Nurofen Plus for a headache is stupid. The public thinks, "Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot take?" - and rightly so! Pharmacists are not trained to deal with the public. They only learn chemistry, mostly irrelevant at that in today's prepacked world. Monitoring purchases is a silly idea. It is another layer of costly bureaucracy

Australia is a lucky country. Its citizens have become much wealthier over the past 30 years. We have to thank the politicians for this. What? We most certainly do not owe it to politicians. Australia is richer because China has become richer and Australia is the main source of the minerals China needs to make all the exports which have been leaving that country in increasing amounts, by the year. The Labor Government had the money from tax collections horded by the Howard Government to bail Australia out of the impending recession. We don't have to thank Howard for this. The money should have been spent on hospitals and schools. The Coalition Government held the economy back even though it was doing very well. And Labor should not take all the credit for Australia not going into recession. The money was there and it spent it. The Coalition somehow lost the plot of governing. It most definitely should not have kept on blaming the states for the hospital crisis. The Coalition sp

It seems Mankind hasn't moved far away from its ancient existence - living in a literal "bath" of disease.  All other living things live in hostile environments, if not from predators then from a plethora of diseases.  Antibiotics are losing their efficacy.  They no longer work.  There are only a few that are effective against hospital acquired infections (HAI).  Furthermore, it will be a shock to many that there is still no real treatment for fungal infections.  Once you suffer from fungal problems you have to keep on applying various ointments. Australia has reached a dangerous point in regard to HIV.  Last year new HIV infections rose to their highest point in 20 years.  Because younger people are experimenting with sex, this is the group contracting the disease at the highest level.  Infections have been increasing since 1999.  It is now at a rate of 24 per cent a year, from 10 per cent in 1999. Despite attempts to destigmatize the way HIV is contracted,