That fine political blog Larvatus Prodeo says, as I did, that Kim Beazley’s final speech to Parliament was filled with history.
Here, then, is the full text of Bomber’s final speech. Anyone know where I can get the audio?
Coonan vs Conroy: preparing for battle
As mentioned last week, Friday morning I’m having breakfast with the ICT minister Senator Helen Coonan and her ALP counterpart Senator Stephen Conroy — along with some many members of the ACS.
That’s Senator Coonan on the right. In every sense of the word.
While the discussion will be chaired by some bloke from Channel 7, I’m assuming there’ll be a chance for questions. When I asked on Link last week, here’s what popped up. What would you add?
Most toxic fart
Consonant-laden über-geek
Apparently my degrading media designation is “consonant laden über-geek”. At least that’s how Crikey bylined me on today’s article. Personally I’d have used another hyphen.
Bisexual snail orgy
I was shocked. Early this morning every single agapanthus plant in our back yard was covered in snails. They’d climbed up onto the leaves — and they were having sex.
Hundreds and hundreds of snails engaged in a filthy hermaphroditic bisexual snail orgy!
I raced inside to get a camera. I couldn’t find The Good Camera quickly enough, so I grabbed my phone.
But the forecast is for a 34C maximum today — in October! The sun was rising, and so was the temperature. The snails were retreating.
I only had time to grab a quick, blurry image of this pair (pictured), going their separate ways after a morning of debauchery. Sluts.
Now about this spaceport…
I’ve been researching Australia’s contribution to the Space Age for an article to be published in Crikey today. Part of that narrative seems to be the continual announcements of plans for a Spaceport which never come to anything.
- June 1989: The Cape York Space Agency announces that launches from its Temple Bay facility will commence in 1992.
- Sept 1997: International Resources Corp announces it’ll break ground on its spaceport near Weipa in October.
- June 2001: Science Minister Nick Minchin announces a $52M government contribution to a spaceport on Christmas Island to target the Asian satellite launch market. The first launch is expected in 2003.
And those three are just a taste! When will this spaceport actually happen?
50 years old tomorrow, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik 1. Australia’s current role in space is a set of commemorative postage stamps. Wow.