Adventure Ausrama Blog

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) says that banks are "dragging their feet" trying to hold on to old ways of running payments by card. Banks need to catch up with the rest of the world. Instead of installing new systems they are concentrating on making more money. If they do not act soon the RBA will intervene and use its regulatory powers. The existing system is costly for the consumer and business to use. Even though computerization has been adopted the actual methods used are over 3o years old in some cases. The RBA had to force banks to make their charges known when giving them the right to set their own rates for ATM usage. Furthermore, charges for interchange of funds paid by credit card to businesses had to be capped. The problem is that the RBA is only a "watchdog". Other countries have bodies that run the private sector banking system. Coalition Governments have made the market too free. Every corporation is doing its own thing. A Labor Government should ...

Bigfoot or yeti? Australia has its own "monster" living in the outback. It is called the bunyip. Most Australians live on the coast. But people continually travel this broad brown land all the time. With few dense areas to hide in why isn't the bunyip seen more often - if it exists. Aboriginals firmly believe in the existence of the bunyip, and many white people do as well. Though Aboriginals describe the creature in physical terms saying that it has dark fur, horse-like tail, tusks and a dog-like face, they do say it is a spirit, which can disappear when it wants to. Those who claim to have seen the animal invariably see it near water such as streams, rivers, lakes or wetlands. A mysterious booming sound does seem to have been a reality in the past. Many people went searching for the source of the sound in the mid 19th century. When wet areas where the sound came from were drained for human habitation a dull silence remained, very disappointing. An explorer actually clai...

Perhaps heavy taxation is not the answer to a nation's economic problems. The idea has been to introduce new tax systems such as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is much like the European Value Added Tax. This gives government a lot of money to spend on infrastructure and welfare. But has time proved this economic model to be flawed? Until the 1970s Australia was a place where individuals struck out on their own. People believed that to work hard, long hours would provide enough income to buy a house, pay for groceries and home wares, and pay for private health insurance. This concept of living has been detrimentally affected by higher taxes which has taken individual choice away. Now many cannot earn enough on the minimum wage to put a roof over their heads or pay for private health insurance. Even on the minimum wage income tax is taken out, which is ridiculous considering it is so low. The very poor also pay tax when they spend via the GST. The main cause of the failing hi...

How did a worm get into someone's brain? It actually happened to Rosemary Alvrarez in Arizona. She had been experiencing blurred vision and numbness in her arm. Two CT scans showed nothing untoward, until doctors took a long, hard look. Then the neurosurgeons realized there was something there but they couldn't make out what it was. It was situated very deep inside the brain. Rosemary was wheeled into surgery where an operation began to remove a tumour. It was a shock yet pleasing to discover that it was a worm and not a tumour. How it got there will remain a mystery. It is thought to have been initially ingested. However, if this was the case it should have been digested by the stomach. Somehow it must have got into the blood stream and travelled to the brain. http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com

Anthropologist argue over finding dwarf humans in Indonesia. According to some, these people were small because of mineral deficiency. They are believed to be cretin offspring of normal mothers who did not have enough iodine and selenium in their diet. Cretinism is a condition of severely stunted physical and mental growth due to a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones; they do not have thyroid glands. The Indonesian group lived inland where they could not eat sea food, a natural source of iron. Mothers probably ate bamboo shoots and tubers which could have released cyanide into their bodies. When the people were found they were estimated to be three-feet tall and had brains roughly the size of grapefruits. They were classified as a new species of human, "Homo floresciensis". The new idea is just that - an idea. This does not prove that they are a not a new species of man. Humans living inland in other parts of the world did not suffer from iron and selenium deficiency. ...