Australian meat pies are full of meat?

The Australian meat pie has long been the required food to eat at the footy (any code) and at the races (horse that is). Back in the 70’s the pie was served with a complimentary squirt of tomato sauce, now you have to pay extra for a single serve squeezy packet sauce that doesn’t really insert the sauce into the pie. In those days I had a pie in one hand and a beer in the other with attention on the game/race and can’t really remember too much about the pie. I do know that it didn’t disintegrate and gravy did not run down my arm, and so the pastry must have been good and the filling not watery. My trouble and strife (wife) swears that the pies sold at the games, same name, same make, are different to those sold in the supermarket or corner store.

Getting a bang for our buck - the BIG radio telescope

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope array will be split between Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The original plan was to use either South Africa or Australasia but now it has been decided to use both sites and divide the radio frequencies scanned between the two sites. South Africa will have the high frequencies and Australasia will have the low frequencies. You may ask why it of interest to you is. The answer is because you will pay for its manufacture, installation and ongoing running, and that’s billions of bucks. I sometimes wonder how academics can convince governments to spend so much money on research that has no visible return on investment.

Offal is not so awful!

One of the things about offal is that people either love it or hate it. Although offal is traditionally a peasant dish, people that lived through the last world war (1939-45) and the food shortages afterwards are probably more receptive to offal than perhaps others who never managed to acquire a taste for it. I confess that there is some offal I really like and some that makes me feel very uneasy in the stomach.

The strange affair of the beleaguered Member for Dobell

Craig Thomson, ex union leader, ex member of the Australian Labor Party, who was elected to the Federal House of Representatives as member for the Division of Dobell, New South Wales for the Australian Labor Party at the 2007 federal election, has managed to avoid being charged for union fund misappropriation for so long that he really justifies the title 'Teflon' Thomson.

Chicken nuggets

Prologue

My first experience of a chicken nugget was that it tasted like wet cardboard. Don’t ask me how I know what wet cardboard tastes like! The mistake I made was not to use the dipping sauce provided, which I admit did hide the wet cardboard taste. I try to avoid all chicken nuggets now and only eat one when obliged to by a charming granddaughter.

Milk - not what it was

Would you believe that I can remember when there used to be a layer of cream on the top of a bottle of milk, and in winter the birds use to peck holes in the foil bottle top to get at the cream? The foil was either a silver top or gold top depending on the cream content, many bottlers unashamedly skimmed cream from the top to make more profit.

Farewell Fossil Fuels

Despite the frantic and sometimes violent attempts by activists to curtail or even stop the use of fossil fuels, that is, coal, oil and natural gas, the fond farewell seems to be far in the future. The activists efforts have not been in vain though as there have been enormous advances in cleaning up and reducing harmful emissions from coal fired furnaces, vehicles and so on.

Australian Budget 2012/2013

In 1986 Paul Keating, a former Australian Labor politician who served as the 24th Prime Minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, said the following on a radio interview.

“If this Government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for. We will end up being a third rate economy... a banana republic.”

In 2012 as Wayne Swann presents his fifth budget for the Labor Government the above words must be ringing in his ears to haunt him. Perhaps he takes comfort from being voted as being the World’s best treasurer.

Here comes the carbon tax.

On Feb. 5, 1976, in a TV interview for ‘Thames TV This Week’ British Prime Minister Thatcher said,

"...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."

What was true in 1976 is certainly true now and is borne out by the economical difficulties in Europe and elsewhere. If Australia’s Wayne Swan can be voted the world’s best treasurer you can imagine just how badly the economies of the rest of the world are run.

My new improved Australian voting system

People seem to be always complaining about the Australian voting system for one reason or another, here are a few changes to stop the whingers complaining. To misquote Lincoln, it gives us Government of Australia by Australians for Australians.