The problem with Nursing and many other industries in Australia is simply that in the early 1980s the Government decided that it was a hell of a lot cheaper to rent foreign nurses and doctors... and engineers etc...all the necessary trades...rather than invest in the actual education of Australians. This is why, me, at 63, can always get a job in nursing whereas, in a better organised state, I couldn't, I'd be long retired now, because of the upward pressure of the young professionals as happens everywhere else on earth in all the progressive societies. The rented folk, a lot of the time, just went home at the end of their contracts as they did indeed have their own good countries to go back to...thus leaving us with a multi-generational deficit of folk with skills...and this was government policy...the policy of many governments over the decades that have refused to take on the responsibility of real governance, and the responsibility for the future of Australians. This was a remarkably foolish and selfish decision based upon economic rationalism set over a 3 year government term rather than a good idea for the country as the years went by..and so we live in these times and have troubles now, not because the world is more complex, but simply because so many atrocious decisions were made by quite a few governments fearing the task of being actually responsible.

IDENTITY THEFT "Now, let me get this right...if someone steals your identity, they therefore become, obviously, responsible for your overwhelming debts as well? Debts not only to Visa Card, but debts to the Colombian Cartel and the Hong Kong IndependenceTriad as well???" Now, let me just put all my personal information here on the blog...and...god willing... and good luck to the new me, indeed! You'll need it.

Robbie Williams | Party Like A Russian - Official Video

I received, in the mail box, a letter from my dear Niece who is working in Shanghai. She loves it, although, having spent most of her life in London, and now with still a very pronounced English accent, China is quite a shock and on such a huge scale. She does note that she lost 5kg of weight in one month which she attributes not to specific dieting but rather to having diarrhoea for a month. She is very happy to have lost the weight. She is getting a real idea of the huge human scale and impact of mainland New China and is deeply fascinated by it all. I must write back to her. I have been waiting for her postal address for a few months, I still have a letter, unposted to her, from when I was working in the clinic in cairns and had no idea we would be moving to Melbourne...so this old letter, when posted with a new one, will be a bit of a 'time-capsule' in itself. I have no memory of what is in that letter. We write with fountain pens and use elaborate good writing paper, and seal each envelope with a proper red hot wax seal. I still recall that some letters I wrote her could never be posted because applying a hot wax seal to an envelope, for the novice, occasionally leads to a significant desk-fire. Fortunately, my old wooden desk is up to that challenge, scorched in its centre, and has survived well enough.

SNH48 'Heavy Rotation' Official Music Video

This is Modern Real Asia, calling to Asia...in Heavy Rotation...I want you...i need you...i love you...whether Japan, the Koreas, The Phillipines or the one China. Not an American in sight. Asia, like the Borg, will certainly assimilate your styles, but we don't want you, America...not in our Asia. We are Young. We are New. Go home, America, kill your own children if you have to, but not us. It is not our fault that we do not need you. It is our strength.

To understand the passing parade of the American Epoch of Splendour it is useful, for me, to understand the metaphor of Sydney, Australia's New Years Eve Fireworks Display, on Sydney's beautiful Harbour. Sydney is the closest we, as Australians, can ever come to being Americans. Every New Year's Eve Sydney launches at least $US5 million dollars worth of fireworks, paid for by Sydney/NSW tax payers...and it is an amazing display, innovative, colourful, impressive, beautiful, massive...and it lasts 20 minutes...and then everyone goes home in the crowded dark and pays more taxes. I think the USA is exactly like that. The fact that Sydney simply can't afford to do that doesn't make a dent in the idea, or the pride...or the show. Still, it is just a show...and a very very expensive show...but Sydney has to keep doing it, to exist as important to itself....very much out on a limb of failing its people...but for the show...