I bought one of those hanging strawberry plant things (like the upside down tomato planter). Then I thought - if I grow strawberries in it, the birds will just eat them all. Go figure, we put out seed, bread, fresh fruit, and honey for the birds and then we get daily visitors. I've seen the same thing sold as a pepper grower, so I may try razzmatazz peppers in it. They are upright peppers that come in different colors.The very fast paced campaign season comes to a close today. Australia’s season only lasts about 5 weeks, contrasting sharply to the 18+ months it takes in the US.
There seem to be some interesting parallels in US and Australian politics. The “Liberal” party (our conservatives) are running on keeping the brown people out of the country (I’m surprised they don’t call them wetbacks here as well since they arrive by sea) and the spending by the Labor party (our somewhat right leaning moderate party). Labor counters that their stimulus spending has kept Australia out of recession, unlike the rest of the globe, and their plan is to be back in the black in 2012 (which, if I’m not mistaken is the same year the Liberals are saying they’ll do it if given the majority..).
Despite more than 60% of Australians supporting marriage equality, the two biggest parties have both gone on record as supporting discrimination. Both of those parties also support a nationwide mandatory filter so that the government can try to control what you can see on the internet. I can only assume they are impressed by the accomplishments of countries like China, North Korea, and Iran. (go haystack!)
Labor’s biggest trouble, at least in NSW, seems to be that despite being in power at all levels of government, they have difficulty being seen as effective (does that sound much like the Democrats in the US?).
Despite her disrespect for the gays, I’d rather Julia Gillard remains our PM instead of Tony Abbott. I think the Labors are closer to the right answers than the Liberals. One very positive aspect of the elections is that Tony Abbott has stopped prancing around in his speedos on TV. He’s never been hot enough to pull off that look. (Seriously, what sort of serious politician goes on 60 Minutes wearing 2 different sets of speedos in one episode? That, and the fact that he once wanted to be a priest makes me wonder just how much of a perv he is.)
Out of all the parties I’ve seen so far in the election cycle, I have to say I have the most positive thought regarding the Australian Sex Party. Of course I’ll need to get citizenship before I can vote, so I’ll have more time to study both the process and the players. Keeping my fingers crossed today for a progressive Australia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsU9tz3d3OY
I can’t say my work is much like this office, but it’s a fun video for a Friday.
For when you don’t want your rum and coke to get warm… and you’re kinda drunk and you don’t want to drop it.
(and for non-Australian's – Bundaberg is a popular rum, and here they sell mixed drinks in cans like beer – real mixed drinks, not flavoured malt-beverages).
I didn’t get much done outside this weekend. The weather was great on Saturday, and it seemed like everyone was out enjoying it. When I took John to the airport, the roads were more crowded than during “rush”-hour traffic. Sunday had some nice hours after a morning/afternoon of storms. Still, my disposition for sleeping in or taking afternoon naps leaves me with few warm daylight hours. It’s starting to feel like spring, but only just starting.
I’m still trying to figure out what can be planted when, but I think this is a reasonable time of year for peas and parsnips. We grew peas in the garden when I was a kid. We normally get the big bags of frozen peas and go through a fair amount. I wouldn’t bother – the frozen are inexpensive, but since I have the empty ground… Fresh would be a nice change.
I’ve never grown parsnips and only vaguely remember having them in a stew when I was younger. When we were doing the CSIRO diet, there was a meal plan that had mashed parsnips (like potatoes). I was surprised how much I liked them. I planted 3 short rows next to the carrots.
The expiration dates on seed packages general say they’re good for a few years, but I’ve also seen that some types of seeds don’t store well once opened (I think carrots were on that list). I know one person at work that gardens and one that wants to start an herb garden, so I think I’m going to take some of my seeds into work to see if anyone wants to exchange.
Oops… A couple errors in the gardening department recently. One was picking up this Jacaranda from the grocery store after it had been there a while. A lot of grocery stores don’t take very good care of the plants they have available and this one was already starting to drop branches. If they weren’t such pretty trees I would have easily passed. Jacarandas were in bloom when I first arrived so they will probably always be a tree I want to have nearby. After getting it home, it proceeded to drop all the rest of its branches except for the little sprouts you see at the top of the trunk. I think it will be fine, it will just take a while for it to look good.
The coin fern was in great shape when I brought it home from the nursery. Then I set it on the dinning room table directly under the blower for the heater which was on continually through the night. The fronds dried out, but the plant starting throwing out new growth immediately. I think it will look great in the back porch before we get too far into summer.
The other day I read an article about how radiation isn’t as harmful as we’ve thought it was. It claimed that due to research using radiation to treat cancer as well as follow-up information on the health of the people that survived the nuclear bombings in Japan – our cells (and dna) aren’t are badly effected as first feared and are better than expected at repairing the damage without error.
Part of the thrust of the argument was that perhaps we should be rethinking our fear (paranoia) of nuclear energy - I think especially when compared to the very real dangers involved with fossil fuel consumption. [and of course now I can’t find where I was reading that article].
Then today, I came across an article on how Germany is still being plagued by radioactive boars (from the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago) and they expect the problem to continue for another 50 years, give or take. These are hundreds of thousands of boars each year with radioactivity well over 10x what Germany considers safe to eat. I have to wonder what they do with the inedible boar meat… they wouldn’t want it to just transfer over into something else they might want to eat.
If we can believe the first articles conclusions about radiation being less harmful than originally thought – I think it needs to be “absorbed” with the understanding that all radiation isn’t created equal and medical radiation, and even the residual radiation from the WW2 era nuclear bombs may not be on the same level as the dirtier waste from the catastrophe that happened in Chernobyl (or from your cell phone).
More than anything it leaves me with the sense of how is an even moderately intelligent person supposed to keep informed on all the important issues of the day? One thing we know for certain – we can’t trust our politicians to do it for us.
