I know what I like

..nowadays
being arrested in underwear representing the flag of your host country. They
don’t weigh you, no matter that you look like a beached whale
and you’re being constantly towed out to sea. On they go, over-flowing the aisles
and seats.
This is in stark contrast to the old days when they weighed both you and everything
you took on board. This happened so that there was a chance of making the equation
balance that measured take-off weight, potential speed, fuel carried and the
length of the runway . Airlines would be better to have no restrictions on the
amount of baggage you can take but make everybody over 100Kg pay $20 a kilo
for excess flabbage.
And while we’re at it, enforce the carry-on luggage rule so that there
isn’t the mad rush to get on first so that you can fill the overhead lockers
to capacity leaving the halt, lame and merely polite to wander forlornly up
and down the aisle looking for a place to park their duty free gin.
Once upon a time it was conjectured that the sheer weight of National Geographic
magazines piled in garages in California wold be enough to cause the San Andreas
Fault to trip into activity with the results already predicted in several movies.
It is now apparent that the increasing number of over-weight Australians will
make the continent tip over on its side and throw us all into the Tasman without
the benefit of Dwayne Johnson, his helicopter and special effects team to rescue
us.
Anyway, conjectural comments about preferences in art are not the same as saying:
‘I don’t know a lot about science but I know what I choose to believe
in’
We are looking at you, Malcolm Roberts of the One Nation Party, who
believes it’s climate change is an international conspiracy lead by NASA
and the United Nations. He is not alone, given that more than 70% of American
Republican Senators agree with his position. Climate science maybe an inconvenient
truth, but it is as scientifically valid as anything can be.
‘I don’t know much about economics or manufacturing, but I know
what the nation should do’. Today sees the closure of the Ford factory
in Geelong, to be followed by the closure of General Motors and Toyota plants
in the all too near future. More than decimating Australian manufacturing capacity.
This is as a result of the economic intelligence of the ex-Treasurer and now
the all-round (in every sense of the phrase) bon vivant Ambassador
to the United States, whose expertise extended to real estate, cigars ……
and not much else.
Even my Liberal voting friends were gob-smacked.
When I first came to Australia I was rather amazed that, given its wealth and
natural resources, how little was made here. I have now moved from amazed to
astounded. There was a German finance minister who said that the country decided
to maintain its concentration on manufacturing rather that a totally service
economy as he saw the alternative as ending up cutting each other’s hair.
I haven’t counted the number of hairdressers in Melbourne lately, but
there are more restaurants and food outlets than retail shops in the CBD.
The economy of this great nation would seem to consist of providing small apartments
and expensive houses for the 330,000 odd migrants who arrive each year.
When I started work at Telstra in the 1990s there were nearly one thousand scientists
working at the world famous Telstra Research Laboratory (TRL). It was a world
leader in photonics and cyber security amongst other things. When I left there
was effectively no one, except the Chief Scientist with really nobody working
for him. His role had degenerated in spruiking the new ideas of overseas countries.
Which have kept their research facilities.
It was seen as more economically rational for the company to just become a net
importer of technology. We got rid of the Not Invented Here Syndrome by not
inventing anything here.
There is much, much, more than one can get incensed about as to the idiocy of
the present day. Could anyone but a fantasy novelist have envisaged a Donald
Trump forty years ago?
What we should be mindful of the opening lines of the poem by Alexander Pope.


A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fortunately Google tells us that in Greek mythology, the Pierian Spring
of Macedonia was sacred to the Muses. It is the metaphorical source of knowledge
of art and science. I don’t think that my English teacher told me that
all those years ago but he didn’t have Google. Which was invented in
America.