Seriously?

There is a news item about some wild life rescue people being really chuffed as they have raised some baby sharks and are releasing them back into the wild. Good for them. Excellent work.

They are releasing them off the beaches of Sydney, one assumes because of the ready availability of a food source, surfers and swimmers. Obviously having been raised in an aquarium they will be familiar with this food soure and unafraid to approach it!

In the news today...

Two items of news have made me laugh out loud today. Firstly, Gordon Ramsay had a near death experience, which I am sure was terrifying, and I am glad he survived. That is not the funny bit. At the bottom of the news report I read was, " and he got bitten by a Puffin." I'm sorry, I just can't stop laughing at that.

Secondly the Chinese have announced that they have set up a special lab to sex test athletes of suspect gender. We can all think of past competitors of dubious genetic origins and I can see where this has come from. But they have announced that they will test athletes of a suspect gender firstly on appearance. Now if it was me pretending to be a woman to win an olympic medal I'd have the electrolysis, and the implants, and the hormones, and the makeup and the hair and the clothes.... and I'd look a lot more like a woman than I do on a bad morning now.

Following this to its logical conclusion means that the athletes of suspect gender are probably going to be "unfeminine" women....Just how insulted would you be, "Um excuse me um, madam? um could we like you know, well do a genetic test to be sure you are a female?"

Sometimes I could just....

Todays paper features a full page story from a "self-confessed" hoon. He is protesting against the new laws that allow the police to take away his $50,000 baby if he is caught repeatedly hooning. (Yes, he refers to his car as his baby.)

He says that it amounts to stealing by the police if they take his car off him, and goes on to say that,yes he does speed, and disobeys road rules, and bullies other drivers out of his way if they don't shift. He sees nothing wrong with tailgating or speeding through school zones, or doing burnouts and donuts on residential streets.

Of course he is young and has no children playing on those streeets or attending those schools. He can't see that repeated fines and driving bans don't stop habitual offenders, and cheerfully admits that when he has gone over his points he drives without a license or insurance, because insurance is a rip-off.

I feel like clipping out the article and keeping it for ten years to show him when he has a family, or after he or one of his friends has killed some-one. (Hopefully that won't happen, but it happens every day.)

Up until now the cars were just taken for a day or two but this seems like it will be a permanent thing for repeat offenders. Every day repeat drunken drivers, unlicensed drivers, and uninsured drivers are reported in our paper. The post makes a point of photographing the newly banned drivers emerging from court and getting into their cars to drive home. How does our hero suggest the police deal with these people?

Smiley Saturday

I just found a great site with a regular "Smiley Saturday" feature

I love the idea of getting a laugh every week, though some would say that my life is one big comedy. In the spirit of the piece I will tell you a story from our local paper that made me chuckle this week.

There seems to be a lot of activity in the drug squad recently, with many hydroponic marijuana operations being shut down in the area. It must be the previously mentioned good agricultural practices!

Anyway, this week the drug squad were in action again. They raided a unit in the town centre on the basis of "information received". It was a highly organised top secret operation with surveillance, vans with darkened windows, the whole show was there. The time came and the squad ran to the chosen unit shouting and waving battering rams. The only people privy to the operation were the drug squad, and the press.

Meanwhile some policemen had come to the same block of units on a totally unrelated matter and were watching the action from a balcony when a neighbour came out to watch too. (I imagine there was actually quite a crowd of onlookers knowing Cairns.) There was a break in the action and the neighbour invited the uniformed policemen in for a cup of tea. Very nice they thought, not everybody is anti-police, there are some good citizens left, and in they went.

Inside the unit the good neighbour had a small hydroponic drug farm set up, along with smoking gear and some injecting gear and drugs in full view. Um...he invited uniformed policemen into his unit for a cup of tea!

The traffic police were also standing by idly watching when a car drew up next to them to watch the show. casually glancing into the car they saw several bags of a dry leafy substance on the back seat. Mmmmm they thought, a few questions later another drug haul was off the streets. Apparently the driver of the car was waiting for the police to leave to make a delivery.

Really I think it could only happen in Cairns.

{ I just noticed, my last post brought up an adsense advert for gas detecting equipment.....they didn't need it. }

Say what?

Cairns base hospital hasn't grown at the same speed as the population. This leads to backlogs in the ER at peak times , its not unusual for there to be six or seven ambulances in the car park caring for patients awaiting admission.

Peak times are Friday and Saturday nights with a load of PFO's (p****d and fell over) and any other day or time of the week really. Part of the weekend problem is that the admin department doesn't work on the weekends, so patients with heart attacks and such stay in the ER until they can be admitted to wards on the Monday.

This of course had led to "political interest" with whoever is in opposition visiting and saying, "Ooooh, shocking, if we were in power we'd do something." and whoever is in power promising vast amounts of money but no action, and never, under any circumstances, visiting.

This week a visiting politician (in power, had no-one warned him?) visited and on a sunny Tuesday afternoon there were seven ambulances caring for patients in the car park. " You have to expect bottlenecks " he said and swanned of. The paper with no other interesting tidbits decided to interview the patients in the ambulances.

The point of the story. One lady said it was "Shocking" how long she had been waiting. The same thing had happened last time she came in an ambulance. She said , and I quote, " After two hours waiting I started to feel ill, so I went home." Say what? Did she not feel ill when she called the ambulance? or does she have one booked on a speculative basis on a weekly retainer in case she requires emergency admission?

Perhaps this explains part of the bottleneck problem at the hospital?

Update on the snake bite incident

Would you? The report of the snake bite incident which started as a small anonymous paragraph in our local paper has gone international. But would you? His picture is in the paper.

The quotes are pure North Queensland, as was his impromptu cure for his predicament, rum, good for all evils. ( Curing and causing.) You don't have to go out of town for a snake experience though. This picture is from a suburb in the inner city.

Living with the wildlife around here makes for interesting times. This picture is of a five meter croc that was caught next to a school in Bamaga
before being brought back to Cairns to a croc farm. When one of these monsters is caught it is kept in the local watch house (police station) until transport has been arranged. This leads to a fall of in arrests for being drunk and disorderly....wonder why?

And finally, how they catch them.
Would you really want to be after a five meter croc in that tinny , and be tempting it over for a snack with a dead chicken?

My latest run in with the wild life was this morning when I saw a lizard outside the shop in the carpark. They are not dangerous ( I think) but the lizard was certainly in danger of being run over so I decided to scare it back into the grass at the back of the shop. I circled (warily) around the lizard and approached it in the hopes it would be scared and run away. The **** thing chased me. Cue middle aged woman running across the carpark with her hands in the air, uttering slightly girly screams.

The lizard promptly vanished leaving me running across the car park away from nothing. mmmmmmmm. Well every-one knows I'm a bit dotty so I'll probably get away with it. I've been trying to identify it with no luck, I think it was some sort of giant skink as it was at least eighteen inches long and smooth and brown.

I'm glad I'm not having babies in America.

Apparently some health insurance providers are refusing cover to women with a history of c-section.

Now my first delivery was normal.

My second delivery was what would be called a crash section. A lot of running around screaming. That was the staff...They were very professional in the room but I could hear outside as they rang surgeons, yelled at the junior doctor that had let it get to that point, yelled over the phone to Spain to my consultant who was on holiday ( great timing by me), shouted for porters and cancelled an operation where the lady was already on the table. There was my husband threatening to kill the previously mentioned junior doctor, and the hospital administrator in a corner talking on three phones to security (remove doctor), a lawyer ( possible law suit) and the consultant (so he was on two phones) from Spain.

I heard running footsteps as a different consultant arrived from I think a transporter module (star trek) and I was being pushed along the corridor to theatre with said consultant already weilding the knife as a midwife tied his mask on. Just as I started to panic they put a mask over my face and I woke up with a baby, healthy, and a husband, ten years older.

I didn't have the time, and the staff certainly didn't to discuss whether a c-section was a good choice. It was the only choice.

My next pregnancy ended in a trial of scar, failed, followed by an emergency c-section at 35 weeks. Emergency seemed to mean an hour or so in this case, but the circumstances were very different. If I'd had an American insurer I would have had no cover, no choice, and probably a handicapped child.

My fourth delivery was a planned c-section. Planned on the day I had the pregnancy test, by the doctor. He'd had enough, and frankly so had I. While they were in there they re-tied my tubes, twice, and cut them.

So this move is to lower the planned c-section rate, c-sections done for convenience. The rich will still get their planned sections. People like me who have emergency c-sections will not get insurance cover, and will not be able to have planned c-sections, where's the justice in that?

I am morally against c-section for convenience, and can assure any women that recovery from a normal delivery is much smoother. There are good reasons for c-sections, medical and non-medical. Stopping cover is an idiotic and short-sighted ploy fron the insurance companies.

I do predict that the first woman who has a disabled baby as a direct result of this move will also be the one that changes the law.

A surprise

Picture the scene, the great outback of Australia. Miles of empty track behind and in front of you. Suddenly you feel the urge, the next roadhouse is a long way off.

Where's the harm, no-one will see you. You stop at the side of the track and hop out of your truck to relieve yourself.

As you settle in a strange sensation and sudden pain.

A lonely traveller North East of Cairns was relieving himself by the roadside when he got bit on the , um , personal area, by a Brown Snake. Remember from my previous post if it's a brown snake run away! The poor fellow had to be airlifted to Cooktown hospital, where luckily for him, they realised the snake had not injected any venom.

A brief but highly embarassing overnight stay later he was on his way, but he now carries a torch for those late night, um , rest stops.

Other people have mmmm moments too...

We had a public holiay at the beginning of the month, and this being North Queensland, it means that there were more men on the reef fishing in small tin boats than in the towns.

(Notes on the above: Women and children stay at home, it's not a holiday for THEM. When I say small tin boat think of something slightly larger than a canoe made of sheet metal filled with at least four men in short shorts, all their fishing tackle and food supplies for three days, and probably a large dog.)


The coastguard are understandably busy on these weekends. This year they were touring the reefs watching out for boats in trouble. They were also spot checking for where people were fishing (large areas are now protected), and whether they had taken appropriate safety measures and had the appropriate gear. They also check for licenses and drunkeness.

Today's newspaper reported the worrying results of their tour of duty. As they chatted to the fishermen they became aware that a lot, I mean a LOT, of the men on the various reefs had no idea where they were.

Example:

"Hi, We're from the coastguard, just doing a spot check."

"Hi, We've followed all the safety advice before we left. We told our wives where we were going and left the coastguard number with them in case we don't get back on time. We have enough life jackets, and a mobile phone with us. We have plenty of fresh water and have the radio on in the background in case of weather warnings. There is no alcohol on board, three of the four of us have a boat license, and look we've got a first aid kit." ( Can you sense the pride of the men as they recounted their preparations and safety precautions.)

After eyeing off the small plastic tub containing one soggy aspirin tablet, a bandage (used), a roll of sellotape and a tube of what may once have been sunscreen, or possibly toothpaste, the coastguard asked the question of the day. "And exactly where did you tell your wives you were going?"

"Arlington reef"

"So, you know where you are now?"

"Arlington reef of course."

"Afraid not gentlemen, you are on Jorgenson patch, a small reef that is twenty miles from Arlington reef, if you had got into trouble we would have been looking in the wrong place. By the way do you know which way land is?"

Four men all point in different directions at once, look at each other, and promptly change the direction of their pointing, once again in four different directions.

"So....any plans to maybe buy some navigation aid or other before you come out again? Maybe a small compass so you can at least head West and find land? Eh?"

Agricultural advances

The police here have had a good week when it comes to busting pot growers. They've seized quite a lot of crops.

One was growing on an island at a popular leisure spot, another was adjoining a remote camp site at the same leisure spot, and one was growing in amongst a farmers cane crop.

The police comment....We don't usually get many seizures at this time of the year, the weather is too wet for the marijuana to grow. The larger than usual seziures this year reflect better growing practices by the marijuana growers, enabling them to grow their crop all year round.

There you go then, advances in modern agriculture are benefitting every-one.