buggery.org

John Howard has announced he will remain PM until death. Or thereabouts.

Maybe I should just move to Denmark.

Update, 3:19PM: Costello has held a press conference in which he rolled over, allowed the PM to tickle his tummy and promised to remain his faithful deputy until the Twelfth of Never.

Although I’m unable to confirm reports that Costello also offered to be entombed with his boss, I did manage to locate this artist’s impression of our new Treasurer-for-life:

We have three new residents here at Buggery Acres.
I’ve been making use of my free time during the last couple of weeks building a chook tractor (a small, mobile henhouse) in readiness for our first attempt at keeping livestock. Finished the coop yesterday, so today we went off in search of chooks (chickens, for the non-Australians) with which to populate it.

The girls’ names are Esmé, Pearl and Matilda (left-to-right in the photo above). We have defied all warnings about naming our livestock for fear of getting cold feet when it comes time to eat them. I promise to share my recipe for Matilda fricassée in due course.

More photos of the girls – and my triumph of chookhouse architecture – after the jump.

In other news, Brent and I returned to the House of Pain (a.k.a. the Department of Immigration) to lodge Brent’s application for citizenship, which was approved on the spot. Now he just needs the local council to hold a pledge-taking ceremony and he’s true blue. We’ve come a long way.
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At last, after positively weeks of living in primitive dial-up conditions, we are back on broadband. It’s not all that fast – what should be a 512kb connection is running more like 256, and even 512 would be a quarter of what I had when we lived in Melbourne. But it’s faster than dial-up, and it’s hard not to be impressed by the huge installation of tech on my roof:

We’ll see over the coming weeks and months whether it works reliably and whether it’s worth the investment.

Cheap, reliable broadband internet access is something I took for granted in the city, and one of the disincentives for shifting to our newly bucolic existence. But there’s no ADSL here – we’re much too far from the exchange, and something about the exchange tells me it’s not enabled for broadband anyway:

Yes. that really is my local telephone exchange (and outhouse).

But there are compensating advantages to life out here. It’s quiet; we have a huge forest on our doorstep and a creek across the road; there are stars and trees and birds and I can watch kangaroos from my study window:

Like many people, I’ve been watching events unfold in Lebanon and northern Israel with growing disquiet. It’s been hard to say much so far because the world-weary part of me just takes over; saying “here we go again” doesn’t add a lot to the discourse.

I’ve also not had the benefit of considering other viewpoints, as our internet connection has been decidedly shaky and slow1, and there are better things to do than stare at slowly-loading webpages, like work in the garden, play ball with the dogs, explore our little patch of the bush.

But the thing that strikes me about this current excursion into war is the sheer willfulness of it all. The almost-palpable thirst for war, and killing, and death and destruction that permeates both sides – all sides – of the current conflict. Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Fatah, Syria, Iran, the US and Australia (and, to some extent the UK, although I picked up some sense of dissent emerging there, as it did before Iraq) are all so thirsty for war, blood and death.

They couch their excuses carefully – Israel says it is acting in self-defence (by bombing busloads of escaping women and children, it seems) and Lebanon says it is being unfairly blamed for Hezbollah’s actions. Kofi Annan suggests that diplomatic efforts be made to prevent all-out war, and George Bush says no: Israel has the right to defend itself. John Howard parrots Bush, of course2. Australia’s only concern (and it took a rather long time to establish itself) is the evacuation of Australian citizens from Lebanon3, after which time we’ll presumably be happy to sit back and watch the Israelis obliterate the country, while the evacuees are gratefully returned to the land of “Fuck off Lebs“.

The G8 summit, conveniently meeting as the war breaks out, finds time to remind Israel to “be mindful of the strategic and humanitarian consequences of its actions”. It sounded like “don’t kill them too harshly” to me.

Today, after 13 days of tit-for-tat (mostly tit, as one side is infinitely better armed, more belligerent, and quick to anger than the other) it looks like this war won’t be over soon, and that many more will die – mostly Lebanese women and children, if the toll so far is any indication. If it expands to the stage that Syria becomes directly involved, I suppose all-out-war in the middle east is a real possibility, and from there any number of scenarios can be drawn. Israel’s true intent, however, probably isn’t war on that scale – they just want to use Hezbollah’s recent actions to justify bombing Lebanon back to the state of destruction, despair and hopeless subjugation it was in 20 years ago. This will increase the power of extremist groups such as Hezbollah and open Lebanon further to Syrian influence. And from there the cycle will start again.

War breeds war, hatred breeds hate, and willfulness breeds greater willfulness. It doesn’t stop until somebody on one side stops playing the game that way. And it won’t stop soon.

Footnotes:

1. Satellite installer man is due to arrive on Thursday to broaden my band. Frabjous!
2. Howard, born into a different world which he steadfastly clings to even today, actually said “Israel has the right to defend herself.”
3. Unlike other countries, Australia has only agreed to pay for the evacuation of Australian citizens who usually live in Australia; other citizens who join the convoy potentially face a hefty bill. Even those who qualify for free evacuations will be required to pay if they can claim the cost on the travel insurance. Cheap bastards!

Not sure how many responses this would get from the Sunbury Macedon Ranges Shire Leader, but I’m impressed she’s giving it a go.

So, we arrived OK, as did all our crap precious things. Kirsty, Sonny, Leith, Fiona and Fiona provided extra muscle to compliment out hired removalists and keep our chins up – thanks guys, you rock. Not much to say except that after two days of loading, unloading, unpacking, rearranging, searching, stacking, and tripping over I’m unspeakably tired. And on dial-up.

Ugh.

6 AM Saturday Morning. The movers arrive in two hours to transport us and our many cardboard boxes of impedimentia, emphemera and what-have-you to our new home in the country. I’m a little sad, quite daunted by the long day’s work ahead, and just a bit excited at the adventure to come.

Internet access will be severely constrained for the next little while; we’re back to dial-up while we await the installation of a satellite dish. As a consequence, don’t expect a lot of long-winded posts (there’s a relief, eh?)

Click image to see a short video sending up those annoying, not-skippable-past anti-piracy propaganda blurbs that get inserted on just about every DVD these days.

(Via Boing Boing)

Ah, the fourth of July. Not a day of any significance to me but a great day to let off a few fireworks as a demonstration of your patriotic fervour. And the good news is, anyone can play. Just light the blue touch paper and retire. Here’s some snapshots of the celebrations around the world:

Happy Indepence Day.

(Photos above — of missile launches in the United States, North Korea and the Gaza Strip, all of which took place on 4 July — from ABC News).