Lost in Spades

Travelling by train through the inner west is like walking through the bowels of an old building on the fringes of the city. Cracked edifices, leaking pipes stained rusty, bifurcating canals and tunnelling. Fences, wire and cable declare areas of complete emptiness as no-go zones. Old bricks. Red-brick. Damp and dust. Home to a microcosm of crawling insects; all in symbiosis with the city. A feeling of desperate loneliness used to fill me once, with such sites. Now, I am not saddened so much as just lost in its randomness and yet not; a purposeful randomness that reflects my own life and perhaps that too of others.

Padstow

Australian Federal Parliament is debating an Offshore Processing bill. But really both sides of parliament are playing out an ego stalemate. The people that suffer are those that drown as their glorified rafts (that they call ships) capsize and sink on a 200 nautical mile odyssey from Indonesia to Christmas Island; the latter geographicaly part of Asia, but politically falls under the Commonwealth of Australia. In truth this debate is too little too late and a sad sad indictment on this country. In fact it's worse than that because there will be no end result to today's arguing. Self-righteous prosletising and the boats will continue to come; and the boats will continue to sink. So this debate is far worse than too little too late. It is a patronising, smug, indirect slap in the face to fellow humans as they are being swallowed by the ocean.

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Despite the close finish and her languishing at the end, on a soft, undulating and uphill finish, having prematurely been let up, the beast gave one last desperate effort to win its 22nd race from as many starts, the Diamond Jubilee at Royal Ascot, and rightly go down in history as the greatets sprinter that ever breathed. Fittingly, the queen of the turf met the Queen off the turf, exchanging greetings. She will almost certainly now be retired. Long live the Queen.

Only a few hours before Black Caviar takes to Royal Ascot for the Diamond Jubilee, the lass has not had the fanfare and commotion befitting a queen. This is a horse that has won all of its 21 race starts. Maybe today will change things, one way or another.

The Portuguese had been systematically slave trading since the 1440s and by 1500 had claimed Brazil. Within 50 years they had arranged major sugar plantations and between 1550 and 1800, Brazil alone absorbed 2.5 million African slaves. And yet, in 1800 it’s black population was still only one million. The No-Nonsense Guide to World History – New Edition, Chris Brazier. New Internationalist. 3rd Edition, 2011

The Gelada Baboon is a species of Old World monkey found only in the Ethiopian Highlands, and at up to 4,500 metres above sea level, this vegetarian is the highest dwelling primate and the most sociable of monkeys on earth. Living underground and coming out only at dawn or dusk to grab grass and take it promptly back to its burrow is the specialised grass-eating Giant Mole Rat . It is almost the exclusive prey of the Ethiopian Wolf . The Gelada Baboon has never met the Ethiopian Wolf, thanks to an event, 13 million years ago, when Africa’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon formed; a natural crack in the earth's crust which shapes and defines the entire east coast of South Africa, lined by mountains and supporting specific and unique creatures. And so, as inhabitants of either edge of the great Rift Valley, the Gelada Baboon and the Ethiopian Wolf remain distant strangers. The very northern margin of the Great Rift Valley contains Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression wh...

Bedu is a simple, straightforward tag meaning “inhabitant of the desert,” and refers generally to the desert-dwelling nomads of Arabia, the Negev, and the Sinai. Think evocative imagery–of lyrical, shifting sands, flowing robes, and the long, loping strides of camels. Better still, watch Lawrence of Arabia. In the arid expanse of the Sinai (Egypt), as in the Negev (Israel) and the deserts of Arabia, the many tribes of the Bedouin journeyed by camel from oasis to oasis, following a traditional way of life and maintaining a pastoral culture of exceptional grace, honor, and beauty. Modern Dubai is testament to the nomadic Bedouin journey and that of non-Bedouin transits across its aridity.

Germany was not the only country stoking up inflation in the 1920s, printing money to pay its debts (including war reparations), but it was certainly the most spectacular example – the dollar was worth 50 marks in 1922 and 2.5 trillion marks in 1924. Modified excerpt from The No-Nonsense Guide to World History by Chris Brazier; New internationalist 2011.

A virtual meeting place where buyers and sellers come together to exchange allotments of ownership (shares) of publicly-listed companies is an auction-house and runs not unlike any house auction. The reason for buying and selling shares is investment – use money now to hopefully make more money in the future. Buy 100,000 shares of a company that has a total 10,000,000 shares issued and you in effect buy (own) one hundredth (1/100th or 1%) share of that company. And with share ownership come potential rewards. Using the above example it would include a 1% share of the company profits (paid as a dividend ) and a 1/100th right to determine how the company is run. This latter privilege is commonly exercised at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), where each shareholder has the right to vote on various company policies and practices, including the appointment of its board. Also, part or the entire allotment of shares in a company can be sold at any time, on the stock ...

Cooked foods containing sugar and fats are high in the sugar-protein complexes known as advanced glycation endproducts (AGE), which studies show are the best clinical correlate of disease progression in diabetes patients, and were more predictive of complications than control glucose.  AGE are already made in the body as part of irreversible glycation process (proteins linked to sugar molecules), however eating goods high in AGE may overburden kidneys which are physiologically less able to the clear excess. Increasingly we are eating significant amounts of these cooked proteins and very highly processed sugars.  Studies of patients with renal impairment show eating low-AGE diet improves prognosis and markers of renal function. In obese poulations, the low-AGE diet reduced markers of inflammation, which are thought to contribute to insulin resisistance. Foods to avoid were cooked foods high in processed sugar and fat, including fast foods, dairy produc...

Pharmaceuticals generally have 20 years of exclusivity (patent) from the time of regulatory approval. Lipitor, the biggest selling drug of all time, generates 11 billion dollars in annual global sales for its producer Pfizer. It too is Australia’s most popular prescription drug, generating more than 10,000,000 scripts each year. Another drug of the same class as Lipitor is a good case in point also. A year before the patent on simvastatin expired, the cost of a 40 mg pill was $3 in the UK; five years after the patent lapsed and it is eleven cents. Not all that glitters is gold. Regulators are still haunted by Vioxx in 2004, and have become stricter in their assessments. Nevertheless, it costs $1.4 billion to bring each new drug to market. Or does it? Donald Light, professor of comparative health care at Stanford University, in  Demythologizing the High Costs of Pharmaceutical Research suggests the real median costs for t...

An Australian citizen, currently in London, is seeking asylum in Ecuador.

The rise of a German Europe began in 1914, failed twice, and has now ended in the victory of German power almost a century later. The Europe that Kaiser Wilhelm lost in 1918, and that Adolf Hitler destroyed in 1945, has at last been won by German Chancellor Angela Merkel without firing a shot. Or so it seems from European newspapers, which now refer bitterly to a “Fourth Reich” and arrogant new Nazi “Gauleiters” who dictate terms to their European subordinates. Popular cartoons depict Germans with stiff-arm salutes and swastikas, establishing new rules of behavior for supposedly inferior peoples. Millions of terrified Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese and other Europeans are pouring their savings into German banks at the rate of $15 billion a month. A thumbs-up or thumbs-down from the euro-rich Merkel now determines whether European countries will limp ahead with new German-backed loans or default and see their standard of living regress to that of a half-ce...

Gavyn Davies on macroeconomics at FT.com

Just the other day my stockbroker sent out an email to his address list, myself included, with the following:   GLOBAL WARMING   Great Video, it is what we have all been thinking for some time   A well-presented short video of the facts:   I clicked the link and watched the short video (for your convenience rather than a link I have nested the video itself above)…. Mr Malcolm Roberts presents a few minute monologue with the help of a couple of props and a table in an otherwise bare and clearly low-cost presentation. An engineer who trained at the University of Queensland, Mr Roberts, who also holds an MBA out of the US, gave his succinct and lucid account of why he believes carbon dioxide emissions are not dangerous, how very little of the atmospheric carbon dioxide is man-made and ultimately how climate change is not real. Following another link takes you to a ...

Anyone who thinks the Global Financial System is anything but in an agonal state is not of this world. The analogy to a patient in cardiac arrest, unresponsive to repeated adrenaline and defibrillation is too tempting; too appropriate. While the US remains the battered hero overall, the European Union is its heartbeat and money the vital circulation. And the patient has collapsed with no pulse. Is there still a flicker of hope, or is a ‘flat-line’ imminent? “Clear…”

The early days of Rome stand in stark contrast to its later greatness. To say the empire came from humble roots would be a gross understatement and entirely misleading. Founded by a man who killed his own brother and was raised by a whore; the cities initial inhabitants were thieves, crooks and beggars; such an unappealing lot that they could not find a single woman that would have them, they resorted to kidnapping; to protect their ill-gotten wives they then proceeded to make war on their in-laws. There is not a single sympathetic figure in the whole bunch. You almost find yourself rooting for the Etruscans to put this rabble down and restore some decency to the world. But alas, the Romans were strong and would not be conquered, even if they where total bastards. And this is the moral of Rome’s birth. The Romans won and grew and thrived, not because they were right or good or moral or god’s chosen people, but because they were strong and knew how to win battles. Might may not mak...

Original Egyptian tombs were no more than mounds with sloping edges and flat tops called mastabas. King Djoser’s architect layered six sequentially smaller mounds one upon the other, forming the first ‘Step-Pyramid’. Later, at Medum , King Snefru ordered the building of a step pyramid, filled in with stone, and finally covered with a limestone casing. The first of these smooth-walled buildings tapered toward the top and others though evenly inclined, were rather squat in appearance. The pyramids, built in the lifetime of a single king (pharaoh), served to aid in the movement from this life to the afterlife 1 , to help him achieve immortality. Mostly constructed during the fourth Dynasty (2680-2560 BC) of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids consisted of elaborately decorated passageways leading to underground rooms or rooms deep inside the pyramid, where the pharaoh’s embalmed and mummified body -together with gifts and necessities for the afterlife, gold, oils, etc.- was laid to...

Dr. Lawrence examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes and found 14 defining characteristics common to all: 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia; flags everywhere; flag symbols on clothing and public displays 2. Disdain for Recognition of Human Rights – because of fear of enemies and need for security, people persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases; people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. 3. Identify Enemies/Scapegoats as Unifying Cause – people rallied into unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate perceived common threat/foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. 4. Supremacy of the Military – ev...

After WWI, the austerity measures imposed on Germany lead to a massive economic recession combined with massive inflation. The deutschmark wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. These conditions led to the rise of national socialism and Hitler. I’m not saying the situation in Greece will enable another Hitler to come to power. But, anytime there is a period of severe social unrest with no end in sight, people will flock to the strongest person who promises them safety and stability. If they wake up one morning to find that what was worth $10 yesterday is now worth 10 cents there is no stability, there’s fear and chaos. If the world wants to prevent this from happening in Greece they are going to have to step in and give them the money they need. Eugene Groysman interviewed by Ken Kam for Forbes Intelligent Investing, 11 June 2012.

There is a wonderful tendency in Greece to wait until the last minute to do anything,” an EU official, who is a German national, said. “Five minutes before 12 is too early. It has to be 30 seconds before 12 before they step into action.

Adults miss the obvious. But children, they see it. A girl is playing Eye-Spy with her mother on a suburban train. “… Something beginning with ‘Y’”, says the girl. Mum, stumped, gives up. “You!”, says the girl pointedly.

The cost of the bank bailout in the US alone is estimated at $4.6 trillion — that’s $4,600,000,000,000 in real numbers, which is more than was spent on the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the New Deal and the whole US space program put together, even if all those expenditures were translated into today’s money.     The No-Nonsense Guide to World History, New Edition. Chris Brazier. New Internationalist, 2011.