What Does Being Australian Mean to me in 2011?

Four years ago on Australia Day January 26^th, I wrote what being Australian meant to me; so it is time for an update. Being Australian means as much, or more, to me today than at any other time in my life. One of the things I really appreciate is the freedom that being an Australian brings to our lives; but especially to my life.

For starters, I’m free to write this article and free to say what I think. I am free to feel what I feel without anyone telling me what or how I must feel. Freedom is one of God’s most precious gifts and there are those people in power in the world today, who would take this from us, if we allow them to. 

Allowing someone to take something from you for greed or their own personal gain or aggrandizement is the sin of slothfulness.

Greed and slothfulness are two of the seven deadly sins and slothfulness still means being lazy. The only bigger sin is committed by those greedy individuals or groups who would take our freedom away and make us all debt slaves. Stealing is stealing any time that you take from someone else, something that doesn’t rightfully, morally belong to you. Whether that something being taken from you is physical, mental and financial or anything else ~if something is not rightfully yours, you have no right to remove it from another person.   

Today in Australia too many people have become too enamored with financial gain to the detriment of others. Money doesn’t, nor has it ever, bought or brought happiness.  

One of the reasons why Australia is such a free country to live in has been the fact that the majority of people have earned incomes to live comfortably on. Those people, who worked a bit harder than others, had more. That was only fair and anyone who wanted to could do it. 

The Australian Legal system through our arbitration system oversaw fair play to both the employer and the employee. It was once frowned upon by society and considered immoral, unjust and unfair to take an unfair advantage over someone less fortunate than oneself. 

We have been a very egalitarian society. 

An egalitarian society is not based on communism as some would have others believe. Communism as a way of life hasn’t worked, just ask the people who live in Russia. 

Capitalism is another failed life philosophy. Just ask those millions and millions of people who live in America and struggle to live freely. They have become such debt slaves to their financial institutions that many have hocked their kids and grandkids future well-being. 

Capitalism is like a disease. Once it has eaten through all it can be allowed to, it looks for other avenues from which to leech more profit and gain financial benefit. When a capitalist has to choose between money or people, the money will win every time.  If you don’t believe this, look to Wall Street. They own America but have enough political clout to put their own representatives in Government so the American people never realize that the American Taxpayer doesn’t even own their own Federal Reserve!  

Capitalism or Communism simply doesn’t work for the majority of people where egalitarianism works well for the benefit of the majority. No system is perfect but the one like Australia where we can discuss our differences harmoniously has to have more going for it than either capitalism or communism.  

I strongly suggest we don’t lose it through slothfulness and greed. 

But today is the day I celebrate quietly and thoughtfully what Australia means to me. I have had the privilege of living in three other countries and enjoying their lifestyle. One of these countries has had centuries longer for their people to learn to live harmoniously but they still haven’t achieved that yet. 

This morning I listened to hundreds of Parrots fly out of their overnight roosts and go on another day of foraging for food. Their noisy squawks each morning alert us that the sun has tipped the horizon and the gentle half-light of dawn is changing to daylight. 

The lawn still smelt of freshly mown grass which will always remind me of childhood and cold water melon. A gentle sea breeze stirred the palm trees awake and the smell of coffee brewing next door reminded me the day had begun.  

   

Australia is my home and we all know that there is no place quite like home. Australians everywhere on Australia Day need to realize our advantages and say “Thank you” for all that we have to share with those who share our Aussie values of peace and harmony, fairness for all.

Dot Com Registrations are harder to get today than Yesteryear

To register a .com domain name today is getting harder and harder to find one that is easy enough to read. Many .com registrations today need at least a phrase if not more and without hyphens in between the words, they are becoming very hard to decipher.

So, to find a simple, easy-to-read .com name available on eBay could be an interesting exercise to see what market demand there is for domain name investors. 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300516724186&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:AU:1123

This also has website that can, or not, go with it. The fact that there is free hosting being offered as a bonus may not be of interest to a purchaser at this price. 

But it remains to be seen. Please leave feedback if there is a comment that you would like to make.

Qld Floods and Salvation Saturday

Qld floods are receding and leaving their marks of destruction. There’s one good thing that is happening today. That is the willingness of Australians to help each other out when trouble strikes. When calamity strikes, friends, family and strangers will rally around to help. Mateship is part of the Australian psyche.

Today has been dubbed “Salvation Saturday”.

So what is salvation Saturday? 

Salvation Saturday is when thousands of homes around Brisbane alone need cleaning up after the catastrophic floods that have occurred this week and thousands of volunteers are registering at volunteering centre’s to help with the job.

These wonderful volunteers are turning up with all their own cleaning gear, spades, mops, brooms, gloves, buckets and hoses. They are bringing with them everything they believe they will need to get the job done.

They have to bring everything themselves simply because there is absolutely nothing left in any home that is usable to do the job. The people they will be assigned to help in whatever street they will be working in, has had everything destroyed.

Why bring spades and shovels?

Spades and shovels are needed to remove the silt and slime left by floodwater's that have destroyed sewerage treatment plants, dead farm animals and picked up port-a-loos from building sites. All this mixture of vile sludge has to be removed first before hosing out and cleaning can start. It’s a filthy job.

The next group of volunteers that will be needed urgently are construction workers. All these thousands of homes need repairs. Firstly, they will be needing electricians and plumbers. Without energy and sewerage services to a house people will be unable to go home.

Once the insurance payouts come through and people can start the repairs and rebuilding of their homes, there will be enough work in Qld for construction contractors for a long time to come.

Salvation Saturday is just the beginning of a long hard climb back to normality.

Qld Floods

The catastrophic floods currently devasting seventy-five percent of Queensland, have cost 15 lives so far with another 51 still reported as missing. One of the people previously reported as missing, has been found dead eighty kilometers down river from where they were last seen.  That will give you some indication of the strength of the water.

Here is the link for the latest news report:  http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/body-found-80km-away--some-flood-victims-may-never-be-found-say-police-20110114-19qsu.html

So what is a flood?

A flood is when more water is to be found in a river, creek, dam or water-course than what the containment banks can hold back. A containment bank is like the sides of a bowl. These sides are what hold the liquid inside the bowl. When there is more liquid in a bowl or container than what those sides can hold, the outpouring is said to be a flood.

Now some of these floods are a slow rising and overflowing of the water over the sides. These can be devasting but at least anyone in the path of the overflow has some time to escape from the water. These are usually called a “Riverine flood”

The other type of flood is a flash flood.   

Now as the name suggests, these hit within minutes and no-one has a chance to escape from them.  They are like a Tsunami of water.

This type of flooding rarely happens in Australia but this time it happened in the Lockyer Valley just west of Brisbane. This flood 2 days ago killed 13 people and wiped the town off the map.

Flooding is what happens when the water that has escaped its containment banks spreads over the countryside. It will always follow a dried up water-course or some other low-lying ground first until it grows too big for that to contain or hold back the water. Then the water just keeps on rising higher and higher until it peaks; which means it has reached its maximum level.

When the flood waters start to go down, the water level is said to be receding. Sometimes this can take hours while other times it can take weeks.

The Qld weather is normally warm and balmy; “beautiful one day, perfect the next”.  The weather is now being monitored very carefully in case there is more rain in the catchment areas of our inland river systems. If more rain falls in those areas, whole towns will be flooded again so the weather is being very closely monitored. 

Due to the soils and ground being so saturated with water, it won’t take much more rain to cause another flood. The water can’t soak into the soil and the run-off goes into the lowest lying ground which is our creeks and rivers. Then these overflow and we have another flood.