2015

Vent — the worst New Year’s Eve ever

Here in Australia the countdown to the New Year has begun — 14.5 hours to go if my arithmetic serves — but my mood is anything but festive. I just learned that my car is ‘cooked’.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Merry Christmas!

Here in the Antipodes, Christmas Day has dawned bright, hot and very windy, perfect bushfire weather. That’s one reason the Offspring and I did Christmas the European way — last night on Christmas Eve!

Fire season 2015, Warrandyte — it begins

The authorities have not yet declared fire season open for 2015, but the weather is thumbing its nose at our attempts to tame it with calendars and calculations.

Katy Faust in Australia, 2015

Firstly a very quick bio:

Katy Faust is the daughter of a lesbian couple and the owner of a website called ‘askthebigot.com’. When asked, she says she is against gay marriage because of the effect it would have on the children of such marriages. She…

Is this the end of Aussie apathy?

Back in the ’70s, when I was going to uni., we used to bemoan the fact that our parents, and most ‘adult’ Australians, just didn’t care about big, political issues. So long as the economy was ticking along nicely, they were happy to keep the incumbent government in…

Warrandyte swelters… and we all hold our breaths

Temperatures of 41 C [105.8 F] are forecast for today, with strong northwesterly winds pushing south before a cool change tonight.

What does all that mean for us? Very, very high fire danger, that’s what.