Ladder to the Sky

Back to the uni grind, although it wasn't that much of a grind. I had a one hour lecture, when it was supposed to be two hours and thus ended up paying $3 for an hour or so of parking. Meh, the parking is cheap compared to other unis and I can always park for free in those side roads.

I actually drove to uni in the Daihatsu Terios today, a big achievement since its a manual car. Driving with the clutch still throws me off a bit, but I only stalled twice...no three times today. So I'm improving! Still not that confident to do reverse parks, but I'll get some practice in the weekends.

I noted two things this morning. The first is that the Australian Navy seriously wants to get an aircraft carrier. Despite my military experience being limited to Tom Clancy books and Wikipedia, my first thought (I thought it was really good) was "we don't need any stinkin' aircraft carriers". They are big, expensive and basically a massive target. Let the US have their 11 aircraft carriers, Australia has no need of one. Later in the day, I started to rethink my position. Considering that Australia does have certain responsibilities in the region and the fact that we do get involved in other Pacific Islands (East Timor and the Soloman Islands spring to mind), maybe having one aircraft carrier would be okay. If some uprising or whatnot was taking place on the Solomon Islands, with Australian lives at risk, the PM could send a naval task force with an aircraft carrier with Hornets ready to drop some bombs. To show that we're serious about whatever the issue is. It will be a couple of billions of dollars, but it may be a few billion dollars well spent.

The second item was talking about how Nick D'Arcy, part of the Aussie swim team, could lose his position in the team and not go to the Olympics because he was involving in a bar brawl. I was watching Sunrise on Channel 7 and the hosts were of the opinion that he should still be allowed to represent Australia, but a large majority of letters wanted him dumped off the squad. The only letter read that even remotely supported him was one noting that everyone was making such a fuss over a bar brawl and not noting China's appalling human-rights record. The letter ended with a firm suggestion of a boycott. Firstly, I think that D'Arcy should be allowed to represent Australia unless he is found guilty of something substantial during the brawl. It's not a major offense and no one was critically injured or killed. He wasn't taking drugs or whatnot, I think a public apology should suffice. Secondly, I disagree about boycotting the Olympics. It is a frankly useless political gesture, in my opinion. China is too big and powerful a nation to ignore. It's on its way to become a, if only economical, superpower. A boycott only works when the target is weak and can't risk losing the backing of other powers, or when everyone does it. Not everyone is going to boycott the Olympics and it'll be heartbreaking to the athletes who train for it. It's much better that China's Olympics should be in the spotlight, to better inform the world of the lack of human rights in China. The Tibet riots and the situation in Darfur, Sudan are just two examples of what activists and athletes could note on television to make it stick in people's minds that not everything about China is all sunshine and lollypops.

That's really the only things that really caught my attention. My TIMES subscription comes in tomorrow, so at least I have something to read about the world. I really want to see how the US election is rolling along.