Merry Christmas 2019

For all of you who celebrate Christmas, I wish you Merry Christmas and hope you have a wonderful festive season and of course an excellent New Year.

If you aren't Christian, it's still an excellent time to get together with friends, family and colleagues for meals, gift-giving, and general socialisation.

Stay safe and stay well.

With all the bad news circulating these days: fires, impeachment, kids being misled about the end of the world by 2050, Sir David Attenborough being caught lying about walruses, volcano deaths in New Zealand etc, I thought I'd post something a little happier.

It's an item from the Spectator. You can read it here:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/weve-just-had-the-best-decade-in-human-history-seriously/

I hope it helps you feel happier about the state of our world. We're really not doing so bad at all.

We live in a place of magic and mystery that is truly splendid.

Shiraz Grapes and the Deep North

Shiraz grapes - Barossa Valley

While the little shiraz grapes were getting ready to produce another batch of that lovely, anti-oxidant filled red wine, I was heading north to Alice Springs along the Stuart Highway, a trip I've done hundreds, if not a thousand times. 

If you've never visited South Australia's north or the Northern Territory, it's probably of great interest to see the thousands of square kilometres of nothing. After a few times it becomes fairly ordinary and perhaps boring.

There are several landscape and vegetation changes and some large salt lakes that are interesting to see and knowing that you are driving through the Woomera Rocket Range prohibited area is probably a kick to some people, although one never sees any rockets, UFOs or anything else.

Here's some footage of the vast emptiness within and around the Woomera Rocket Range.

If nothing else, it's an excellent road and in the Territory the speed limit is 130km/hr if you are happy to burn up a shipload of fuel at $1.49 or $2.07 per Litre at Erldunda in the Territory.

This trip, the only kangaroos I saw were road-killed, but I did see a huge perentie lizard and half a dozen frilled neck lizards on the road which I managed to avoid. No emus, a few horses, some cattle, and dozens of cars with NT number plates heading south for Christmas.

Those heading south to their loved ones probably hoped they'd avoid the 43° Celsius heat of Central Australia only to find that temperatures in Adelaide and other southern towns and cities are equally hot.

Summer isn't called the Silly Season in the Top End for nothing.

Robin

Hey Dad, can you pick up a few things?

This year, my wife Christina and I are returning to Alice Springs in Central Australia for Christmas. Our son, daughter and sole grandson live there and we had lived there for nearly 30 years before retiring.

Our daughter called and asked if we could "pick up a few things" for her.

Yes, we're happy to do that, but once we said yes, the "few things" expanded. The wine, the personal products, then came the furniture.

The furniture began with a lounge that converts into a bed for her spare room. Then became new drawers for our grandson's room.

We calculated the volume and decided it would just fit into our 6'x4' trailer and said no to another couple of bedside tables.

We loaded the trailer at IKEA and here it is ready to roll on our 1500 km journey north on Sunday next.

What we do for our kids eh.

Robin

Australian Bush Fires Play into Hands of Climate Alarmists

Now that the term global warming has fallen into disrepute largely because global warming is slow low it's almost immeasurable, climate change has become the new save the world religion.

As even blind Freddy knows, climate is the average of weather, and weather, and thus climate, change from hour to hour, day to day, week to ... well, you get the idea. You've seen it change your whole life.

Nowadays, any time there is a weather event that looks like it might help the climate alarmists, they hop on board and make outrageous claims about how governments should have done more, or should fix the problem.

So, when the annual Australian fires began in November, climate alarmists, true to form started rabbiting on about how if only the government had stopped coal mining, brought us back to the Medieval age with no power, only candles, everything would have been better.

Then the Australian Institute of Criminology produced this interesting pie chart:

 According to the AIC, 48% of our fires are caused by humans and there is another 37% suspicious meaning they could also have been started intentionally. If the 37% were in fact lit by arsonists, that's 85% of fires caused by humans.

Every summer we have fires. Failure of backburning because of Green's policies implemented by Leftist local government bodies has meant there was a huge load of very dry, very combustible materials to ignite. And it did ignite for one reason or other.

Aided by wind created by (too many wind turbines - I'm joking yes), climate change, the fires have been particularly ruthless and fast to spread over wide areas.

To think that we humans can change the weather at this stage of our development is like thinking we can walk on water.

Robin

OK, Milennial: In defence of Baby Boomers

I thought this article was a pleasant response to the #OKBoomer crowd.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/ok-millennial-in-defence-of-baby-boomers-20191206-p53hgp.html

Robin

#OKBoomer
#thisboomerslife

A Gender Neutral Santa?

My mind boggles! What in the world would a gender-neutral Santa look like?

Will it be a Santa with no beard and face covered so you can't see if it's male or female? Maybe with a voice synthesizer so you can't hear whether the voice is soft and sweet like a woman (are we even allowed to use that word anymore?) and not husky and hard like a - you know, the other gender?

As the progressives amongst us try their hardest to get rid of gender or convince us that there are 92 different genders - or something like that, some of us are convinced there are still only two genders.

Maybe we're wrong. Maybe things aren't what they seem and gender is no longer binary. It's so long since I've seen up some young ladies dress, I really can't say that there hasn't been a vast evolutionary change in the last 10 years (yes, it's been a while). Maybe I'll need to ask my grandson to give me a rundown on what the current state of gender diversity is.

But, I'm getting off the mark - back to the GN Santa. I think I've got it. It, the GN Santa, would wear a neck to toe-nail smock, loose-fitting so no shape or bumps could be seen, and completely covered head, all in red and white of course. Only a post box slit would be visible for the eyes - much like the dress preferred by moslem women in many backward countries.

No perfume would be worn and the GN Santa would need to communicate via a whiteboard and pen - otherwise, the voice might be a giveaway.

It sounds like a bag of fun. I'm so glad that I'm no longer a Santa follower and that both my children and grandson are all adults and don't need to worry about visiting Santa either. 

If you come across a GN Santa, please take a photo and send it to me so I can see how accurate my guess description was. 

Stay sane.

Robin
#okboomer
#thisboomerslife 

Just Another Stabbing in London?

Jack Merritt - BBC Photo

Stabbings seem to be a common occurrence in London, but most are apparently related to criminal behaviour, not terrorism.

Jack Merritt was murdered for a different reason; he was an infidel and according to the Koran, followed by over one billion of our planet's inhabitants, infidels need to be oppressed and pay tax to their superior moslem oppressors, or be killed.

Many moslems choose to bypass the oppression opportunity and kill people. This has been going on for 1400 years and will doubtless continue until people become heterodox in their beliefs or Islam is abolished.

Christianity had an ugly side, expressed mainly in the Old Testament, however, somehow it progressed and now stoning for adultery and other barbaric ideas have become obsolete in Christianity. 

Unfortunately, we humans have still not evolved to the stage where we could throw off the shackles of religion and see the universe and our world for what they truly are, beautiful places full of mystery and magic.

It's always sad to read about people being killed in senseless violence, especially when, like Mr Merritt, they had so much to contribute and so much more life to live. I sympathise with Mr Merritt's family and friends who must be devastated. There are other families involved who also need our sympathy.

Is it time to ban the Koran in Western countries and establish a collective of countries who will work to force modernisation of Islam, which is what many heterodox moslems are also calling for?

Encouraging violence is an offence in most jurisdictions of which I'm aware and the ugly Koran is full of it. Enough is enough.

Robin

PS: How does one justify freedom of religion when the religion is full of hatred and violence?