Ariel Sharon dies after 8 years in a coma. A magnificent contribution to world peace and nationhood.

Regarding the 8 year coma and subsequent death of Ariel Sharon....I don't know what else one can say except....Jesus, that was expensive...
Imagine the cost to the Israeli State of maintaining that body mass in a coma for eight years. I guess the good thing is that the expense of his maintenance meant, hopefully, 8 less Israeli houses on God-Given Palestinian Land, within the Nation of Palestine...and we should all be grateful for that small mercy.
Well done Ariel! Well done!
The best thing you ever did.

cairns/anti-asian, long time learning/aquis

I recall quite clearly giving a donation of $15 to help prevent Skyrail ever happening, and I have the t-shirt to prove it.
At the same time, Sky-rail has proven itself to be one of the most wonderful quiet and real successes of mixing humans with wondrous landscape, with good benefit to both. 
I am certain the Aquis development will have a far more positive, and far larger, longer, impact on the Cairns landscape and future than Skyrail could ever hope to achieve, and Aquis will do their work more effectively and more sympathetically than Skyrail.
Aquis is a good thing.
It still, I guess, won't stop my Chinese wife, a life long teacher, communicator, and language scholar, when riding her bicycle safely in the bicycle lane along the road at Earlville, being spat at for being Asian and for not getting off the road to suit various ute drivers...but sometime in the future, Cairns will accommodate the real world and thus accommodate the benefit of a better, stronger future for itself...and for its ute drivers also.

Aquis, Cairns, CAFNEC

Talking to the people who oppose the Aquis development in Cairns must be like Doctor Evil talking to his son..."You just don't get it, do you?" 
CAFNEC has had a good run for years opposing various ecologically odious things...and for the benefit of FNQ, and they won.
The nature-future is quite secure now. Well done.
The Aquis development is on track, smart, fully resourced, supported, and a very good thing for a very long time for both people and nature.
There is nothing wrong with replacing canefields with a far better and more sympathetic and natural ecology.
I wish that the people who oppose sound, good, long lasting development that actually improves the Cairns environment a long and happy career in their next venture into job security.
Thankyou CAFNEC...It is very satisfying to be important for awhile, I know this myself, and it is very important to have done the good work you have done.
Your work is done. Don't create problems just to have a nine-to-five job now. Don't get so small-minded just for yourself now. Don't do it for the Superannuation. Be big people. be like me. Don't lie now. Don't undo the good work for the many now, just for the personal benefit to yourselves. Don't become pointless and ridiculous.
Thankyou.
Goodbye....and, indeed,Well done, my comrades!

Global Situation Very Positive

The amazing thing, overall, is that because of the good work of China and, to some extent, India, Brazil and Russia, there is far less poverty and war in the world than in the past...ever...and the world population has peaked, and so, in general, things are only going to get better, better for everyone alive than human life has ever been, in terms of the total past, in terms of material sufficiency for all.
There is so much news that is negative, always, to generate interest, but over all things are improving at a remarkable rate, world wide, in terms of the Human Condition.
Stunning Achievements world wide every day...and it's true.

Bangkok, Krung Thep Mahanakorn, The City of the Angels

If you look at the map, it is quite an intelligent blockading of the City that leaves the North-South huge expressways open....so you can transit from North to South, South to North, but you can't enter the City itself.

The Central city area is around Silom-Suhkumvit districts....the main economic apparatus of the City....so, from Monday,  you can go past it, but you can't get to it.

The Yellow Shirts have thought this part out pretty well.
 
I noted in an article to the Bangkok Post some years back about Bangkok: The City of Bangkok, The City of the Angels, The Great Mother City, Krung Thep Mahanakorn,  exists not for Thailand at all, but rather for the needs of The City itself.

In many ways, Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, has nothing to do with Thailand...it simply draws wealth, drugs, commodities, rice, child-sex slaves etc from poor Thailand to itself, and by doing so has profited immensely... and beautifully...and this has been the case for many hundreds of years, and the City has created a remarkable Elite with wonderful services, lovely people, excellent schools, great universities, excellent world-class hospitals (far superior to Australian Hospitals)efficient subways, skyrails, highways etc all running into...into itself. The Bangkok Elite will never peacefully agree to national democracy because by doing so they will lose too much, far too much.

The more that the Yellow Shirt Bangkokians demand their own status and wealth, and demand total minority power, the more the populous North of Thailand looks to Cambodia and the military genius Hun Sen for guidance and relief, and release. As for the South, the desire of the Muslim South is to break from Bangkok, and from Thailand, and join Malaysia.

Bangkok in Great Trouble/ Military Coup by the 25th of January

The only Bangkok chaos planned for today is a  Yellow Shirt 'warm up' protest march to perfect the logistics and some road closures during the day to review and finely tune the expected paralysis of the city on the 13th. The Yellow Shirt leader Suthep has said: 'Come to Bangkok, bring your family, bring your kids, have picnics on the major intersections. You are safe and also a part of History.'
The attached map notes the main roads that will be shutdown from the 13th and also the individuals and groups who will be in charge of each 'paralysis point'. 




The road closures from the 13th January will be significant and aren't planned to end until the Government resigns...which is odd because for the Government to do so would be illegal/unconstitutional just now, as they only have a caretaker role now anyway until Feb 2 elections.

The purpose of the demonstrators is to de-rail the democratic elections altogether, and to make sure that elections do not happen again until the Yellow Shirts (Bangkok Elite) can actually win an election against the overwhelmingly popular Red Shirts who most folk vote for.

I don't know if anyone else finds it odd that the chaos due to the organised political 'shutdown' or closure of a city of ten million can be so.... organised; and advertised in advance; ....so surgical...and legal. Still, this is Thailand, and it is legal.

There are so many ups and downs in Thailand...20 governments in 30 years, 16 successful or failed military coups, a few bloody purges and about 25 new constitutions. As the cynical Chinese Han note: "Look, Democracy in Action in Asia!"




If you look at the map, at "7" Chaeng Wattana - the main Northern City Military Base area and also the main highway to the North, Chiang Mai etc. The Yellow Shirts have to cut off access from the North because that is where the hundreds of thousands of Redshirts will come from, down the highway from Chiang Mai, in huge convoys of buses and trucks, and indeed the 70,000 car taxi-fleet, to save the Red Shirt Government.

The whole disturbance may all, again, become  a mess of silk connections and a continuing political paralysis; which would be the best outcome.

As it is the Yellow Shirts' plan is to oust the Government, enable the military to take over, whilst they go about on an illicit but very comprehensive 'final solution'  bloody purge of many thousands of individuals and groups including the current prime Minister, her family, the cabinet, her supporters etc.

So whilst the best that can be hoped for is 'the usual' stymied Thai outcome, the great Fear is that the Army will provide the stability and structure so that the Yellow Shirt militia can go about and kill a hell of a lot of people, which then brings up the prospect of Civil War, just like in Egypt.

With the Prime Minister's multi-billionaire brother on the Cambodian border, and supported strongly by Cambodia's Hun Sen.

Predicted Outcome: A military coup next week.

Thailand: Just like Egypt, just as horrible in terms of making people suffer, only Buddhist. Real Buddhism in Action.

Bill Shorten: Letter to the Cairns Post

Dear Editor
It is far too early in time for Bill Shorten or for the ALP to complain that somehow the Liberal Government isn't telling the truth. 
It is the burden of those with a better moral/ethical position to live morally and ethically...the burden is not to demand this of others. 
The ALP had that ethic and put it aside for the personal profit of its high-flyers...Gillard, Shorten, Rudd, and the rest. 
We are the poorer not because the Liberals have power but because the ALP destroyed itself with greed and personal ambition, placing these personal values higher than any decent human policy.
We will have a Liberal Federal and State Government for at least the next 15 years...not because their ideas are better but because they are better at a much simpler form of government...doing a few things here and there, and not saying much.
That's all people want.
To the electors, politics is not show-business, nor is it a game.
Politicians, no matter how much Bill Shorten desires to be a celebrity, are not celebrities at all; not in the real world we live in.
Bill, don't blame the Government.
Fix yourself and fix the party you destroyed so as to become leader of it.
You have at least a decade to do so, and you will need every minute of the time to do anything good...but it won't be good for you anyway.
People will need and will listen to an ALP after all that is done, and after all that brought you to leadership has gone.