They Convicted Peter Watts

Those of you who know who and what I'm talking about may be interested in reading further:

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186&cpage=5#comment-18190

Let me add that transcripts and court records are public domain. Anyone who wants to can follow up to confirm. Essentially, Dr Watts has been found guilty of felony assault, in a court which found that at no point did he raise a hand, or offer any kind of threat in any fashion, or even attempt to impede the warrantless, unheralded search of his vehicle by the US border guards. The 'guilty' outcome is a result of the precise definition of the statute in question: very much a technicality. Given the range of things of which he was accused, and of which he was completely exonerated, this is a fucking travesty.

But it's a travesty that makes one point very, very clear. The USA is NOT the land of the free, nor the home of the brave. Not any more. And perhaps not for quite some time now.

If you live in the USA, I wish you the very best of luck, and I encourage you to do all that you reasonably can to help your country rediscover the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, and in that remarkable and wholly admirable document, the US constitution. There was a damned good reason the USA was a beacon of hope for so long -- and that hope is sadly missed in these dark days.

For anyone else: if you choose to travel to the USA, you need to be sharply aware of the sweeping extent of the powers of even the meanest and least significant of (particularly Federal) authorities -- and their extreme willingness to use those powers at your expense. Dr Watts treatment at the hands of the US border authorities most closely resembles, in my memory, the autocratic and authoritarian treatment meted out by Soviet border guards in the bad old days before The Wall came down. At least the USA still has show trials before visitors are found guilty of meaningless charges; I suppose Dr Watts could easily have been 'shot trying to escape'.

I left the USA a long time ago. I've been back a couple times to visit. The way things are now, though... well, I've spoken up publically against the US position on various recent wars, and I've questioned the legitimacy of the so-called 'PATRIOT Act', and I've queried the validity of the 'Free Speech Zones' created under President Bush II. All these things are public record, and I know that various US agencies routinely aggregate data from the Internet.

What does that mean? Well, I would have no qualms about making a visit to Cuba, if I'd gone on record in opposition to the policies of their government. Nor would I fear to visit modern Russia under similar circumstances. China, now... yes, I'd think twice about China.

And regrettably, I think I have to put the USA into the same category. When 'failure to comply' becomes 'felony assault'; when a peaceable foreign national of good public character, from a friendly nation can be beaten and maced for nothing more than asking 'why' -- that's not a country where I feel safe.

Adios, America. You were a nice dream when I was a kid, but I don't think I'll be going back.

OMFG. I Think These People Are Actually Serious.

http://www.bookbyyou.com/teen/firstbite/demo.asp

Go! Play! Be appalled!

What's Going On

*I put a reminder notice about the ju-jitsu classes in the primary school newsletter. Result: we're going to be training newbies for a while. That's okay. It does all the kids good to get back to basics.

* I'm setting up to do a Masters in Arts in second semester. Laying the groundwork now.

* Small, secret project which involves another participant, so I can't talk about it.

* Developing a webcomic for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine

* Chopping 100,000k of novel into shape for ROR in August. Must move quicker on that one.

* New project, wildly fun: I've been contacted by an old friend and asked to develop a libretto for a new opera. It's avant garde as all hell, and likely there's no money in it -- but fuck it, how often do you get the chance to write for opera? Besides, the storyline has already fallen into place and I'm fascinated by the possibilities.

* friend with anaphylaxis (ant sting induced) is home again, but she'll be carrying an Epipen full of adrenaline from now until they load her into a coffin. Simple as that.

* another friend, recently struck down (in a savage way) with a mysterious brain disorder has been positively diagonosed with Herpes Simplex Encephalitis. And anybody who thinks that herpes is a joke needs to consider this: without treatment, the mortality rate is about 50-60%. And 75% of the survivors carry lifetime neurological impairments. Fortunately, with an early course of acyclovir and the right steroid, most people survive it these days, and the prognosis is good. My friend is recovering. He even recognised me yesterday at the hospital, which is a really good sign.

* reviews -- I'm falling behind. Got to finish the discussion of Dune the book vs Dune the movie vs Dune the TV miniseries. Also, must read original Akira manga to compare with movie. And watch doco on the famous photo of Che Guevara... damn you Bruce for all your interesting media and ideas!

* window of gardening weather can't last much longer. It's not hot and dry any more. Today is actually overcast, and gently rainy: perfect for all the plants I've put in. But I need to get outside and plant all the bulbs. I want to surprise Natalie with a big spiral of daffodils in the yard come springtime.

* still haven't insulated the damned shed. Dammit.

Stupid Is Always Right Behind You

Had a bit of an incident last week. A friend who was visiting knocked on my study door to say she'd been stung by a jackjumper ant. (Fierce, nasty, stinging ants about an inch long in the old measure. They're aggressive, more painful than your typical wasp, and capable of multiple stings.) She said she wasn't feeling well, and was going to take herself down to the surgery.

I was deep in work mode. I acknowledged her with a half-wave, and went back to editing.

Sixty seconds later, I sat bolt upright, charged out of the study, and stuck my head out the back door. She was about to climb into her car.

"Do you want a driver?" I shouted.

"No," she said. "I'll be all right." And wheezed. Loudly enough I could hear her at twenty metres.

Y'see, I know this person has allergies. And fierce asthma. And I very nearly let her climb into her own car and drive after a jackjumper sting, purely because I was thinking about something else.

And that, my friends -- that was Stupid.

Luckily I don't usually stay stupid for too long. I overruled her wheezy protests, put her in my car, and drove her down to the surgery. Ten minutes after that, she was in the back of an ambulance with an oxy mask on.

This kind of shit scares me. My wife takes it in her stride, probably because of her job. But... it's such a little fucking margin. I have three kids. Adventurous, inquisitive kids. Yes, they're smart enough not to play on the road, and they know how to react to snakes. But still: they depend on me to be grown-up, and not stupid.

And Stupid takes only a minute of distraction to close in for the kill.

My jackjumper-stung friend is going to be okay, though it's a good thing she didn't try to make the drive on her own. So, you know: this time Stupid didn't manage to score. The thing is, Stupid only has to win big once, and that's your whole fucking life trashed, right there. Just look the wrong way once. Just once, decide you're too tired to get out of your chair to check on that weird noise out by the trampoline. Pick up the ringing telephone instead of looking in on the silent kid just that one wrong time...

I can't begin to tell you how much this shit frightens me. I'm sure it scares every parent. And I expect mostly, we do the same thing: we patch together as much not-stupid as we can, and we try not to think about the other times. Because you can't be there all the time, for everything. You really can't check out every step of the way. They have to climb trees, and chase lizards, and hammer nails and play hide and seek. And you have to let them. All you can do is try to keep your tendency to be stupid at bay: watch, listen, and try to react when it's needed.

So far it's working out. So far.

Huh. That was busy.

So, I've been migrating my 'puter and software to a new machine. That always takes longer than you think, and there are all kinds of little quirks you have to iron out. Credit where it's due, though: the tip from the retailers about the usefulness of Windows 7 was on the money. It's sort of a stripped-back, low-bullshit version of Vista. Hasn't crashed on me yet, and it's running quite nicely, now I've stripped out most of the proprietary 'add-ons' from the hardware supplier, and shut down the usual range of totally farking unnecessary 'services' that Micro$oft jam into the startup.

Meanwhile: turns out the Big Big Blackwood in the back yard -- the kid swing tree, the big beautiful verdant beast that overlooks the cubbyhouse -- is terminal. And I'm completely distraught. I love that tree, and I have no idea where I'll find another one on this property which is anywhere near as good for rope-swings. But down it must come, or it will come down of its own accord, crushing the cubbyhouse and taking our electric cable with it.

Thus the tree-docs are due, sometime in the not-too-distant future. And there will be many trees felled (along the power line, mostly!) and much production of mulch. A few tonnes, I'm told.

I'm looking forward to the mulch. My efforts at above-ground strawberry growing didn't pan out, probably because the pvc-piping troughs I used were too shallow. But with the blackberries and raspberries producing more than we can eat, I'm more determined than ever to get strawberries in. And of course, that means I have to overcome wallabies, rabbits, slugs, grasshoppers, birds, field mice, and the dog.

Birds I can exclude with netting, but that makes the berries all the more slug and grasshopper vulnerable. But if I have many tonnes of sawdust mulch, I can make the ground very slug-unfriendly, and inhibit the growth of any greenery other than the berries, which will help discourage the 'hoppers. And if I use a bit of decent fencing to keep out the mammals, I can also put a layer of shadecloth to about 1m height all the way around, which will further discourage the hoppers. And if I put a reasonably fine wire mesh all the way around on the inside of the fence, to about 50cm - well, between that and the shadecloth, I should be able to keep the field mice at bay.

As you can see, this is no light undertaking.

Natalie succumbed to the threat of winter this week or so last, and we've finally installed a reverse-cycle AC system: what they call a 'Heat Pump' down here. The techies say it costs about the same as a refridgerator to run, and should render the old - rather inefficient - radiant heaters around the place redundant. More to the point, it should also make redundant the now 25-year-old cast-iron firebox in its inbuilt brick casing. Much as I like the old fire-box, I'd love to break it down, remove it, and replace it with a much smaller, much easier to maintain wood-fire heater. I'm concerned that the old one has some sprung joints. Last thing I want is a houseful of carbon monoxide courtesy of a decrepit fire-box.

The weekend was all over the place. Natalie was on call for much of it, seemingly from Thursday onward. And on Saturday, she phoned me and told me I should rescue one of the med students who was in town. The lass in question had turned up for her very first night of 'on-call' stuff, and walked right into a tragic, fatal, utterly depressing situation. Kind of overwhelming for somebody just 20 years old, first time off the rank.

And so it was we acquired a house guest for a couple days. I plied her with gin and decent food, and the kids played Wii-games with her, and the Mau-Mau adopted her and had tea parties with her in her room, so Miss Medical recovered in reasonable order. She was helpful, too -- I had to zip into Launceston on Sunday morning for some reason (can't recall why, now. That's weird. I know I came back with some timber to help insulate the shed, though. What else did I go there for? Must have been something. Oh, yes: to drop off the DVD player for repairs, and to return Natalie's little flatscreen TV to Dick Smith for exchange on warranty) and the boys were off Cleaning Up Australia with the Cubs. Another of the Cub Scout Parent Network collected 'em and took 'em to the cleanup site, but it was good to have Ma'amselle Medical here, awaiting their return, since I was off running errands. Besides, it gave her a chance to have a long, therapeutic soak in the tub.

Meanwhile, a friend of ours confessed she'd never had a birthday party. She also rather sheepishly asked me if I could maybe make one of those chocolate mousse-cake arrangements for her (the dessert recipe I built for Natalie this year.) Once Natalie overheard, there really was no way around it -- so Monday was party day. (It's a public holiday here in Tas. I think it commemorates the Eight Hour Day. No, really.)

The lady in question has simple, Old Australian tastes in food, so I produced a pumpkin soup, charcoal roasted lamb, roast new potatoes, corn, a green salad, and of course the chocolate mousse-cake. Cheers once more to Nigel, the King of Lamb -- I'm going to have to give him a buzz, and see if he's got any more of the little bleaters for sale. Best... goddam... lamb on the planet. I used a leg roast and a rolled roast; scored the surfaces, rubbed 'em down with salt and minced garlic, stuck sprigs of home-grown rosemary into every crevice I could find or make, and roasted 'em in the big kettle barbie, with a handful of good-quality sawdust to make for some fragrant, smoky flavours.

So - between the hats, the party favours, the presents, the roast dinner and the chocomoussecake birthday thing (complete with electric singing candle, courtesy of Natalie) the party went off just fine. Certainly, the guests left very late, in fine fettle.

Meanwhile: I've finally moved my little lime tree from its pot to a new position by the fence in the front yard. I dug it in well, with mushroom compost to keep it company, and the inevitable wallaby/rabbit proof fence. It's had a couple years on the deck in a big pot, hardening it to local conditions. I don't suppose it's ever likely to produce a tonne of fruit, but I think it's ready to handle actual dirt, and I want to get that pot off the deck. Besides, I need the pot for parsley, I reckon. I've stuck basil and mint into the half-barrel by the lemon tree. I've got rosemary, vietnamese mint, dill and sage in the fenced herb garden. But I'm greedy, and I like cooking with herbs, so I'm planning to add more.

Meanwhile: chainsaw's working nicely now. And I've just spent a half-day trimming back the Blackwoods we planted seven years back, so they don't grow up with the kind of disastrous problems that the Big Beautiful Doomed Tree has got. I'll have to wander around the property and check on the wild Blackwoods which have come up, too. They're a beautiful tree, and a native, so I'd like to give them the best possible options for survival.

Meanwhile: the water pump is working okay, but it's about time for a total service. I'll have to top up the water tank, and then go through the routine of disconnecting the pump and taking it off to the maintenance johnnies.

Meanwhile: caught up on my slushreading. Wrote a review. Wrote another review. Did an indepth analysis of a novel-length MS for my sister. Falling behind on my own writing at the moment, though. Every time I turn around, seems there's something else that demands my attention. Have to fix that situation, somehow.

Eh. It's autumn, isn't it? The first sou'westerlies came through yesterday, chill breath of the Antarctic. Little enough time left to be outdoors, planting and fencing and mulching. Best to do it while I can.

Fellow Fathers Take Note: I Have Found Something Of Purest Fucking Genius

One of the drawbacks of Growing Up: you forget the purity of play, the sheer anarchy of expression that goes with childhood. To put it bluntly, grownups need rules.

Kids need 'em too, of course. That's why so many kid games end in screaming arguments with hurt feelings all round. But the difference is that BEFORE those arguments, the kids are having the most brilliantly expressive and creative gameplay you could want. Whereas the adults -- well, they usually don't wind up in screaming matches, no. But that's because of The Rules. And those same rules generally prevent all that amazingly fun gameplay.

Thus it is, my fellow parents, I offer you Brikwars. Unbalanced, loony, fucked-up table-top miniatures gaming rules using Lego bricks, or the equivalent. Plus any other bits of toy crap that happen to be lying around.

Seriously. This stuff is pure goddam genius. Dads of all ilk, I urge you right now to go to the website, locate the rules, and prepare for mayhem with your offspring. Even the rules themselves are hilarious -- as I write this, I'm flicking over to the website in question and reading, and I'm giggling like a loon at the concept of 'Stumble Dice'.

Oh man. I have absolutely GOT to get myself a really, really big bag of secondhand Lego stuff. The boys are totally not going to know what hit them...

First Breaths Of Autumn

Nice day yesterday. I've pretty much got this computer jumping through the hoops I want now. Solved a minor boot-priority problem (who knew that an external USB backup drive would demand first place on the boot-priority list? Not me! Still, it means I can probably set up a simple Linux system on a thumb-drive, add the capacity to read NTFS and FAT32 to it, and use it as a troubleshooter if I have to. That's encouraging); set up the old computer for the boys to use -- still have to put the printer drivers on it, but that's no big deal.

The day was sunny and lovely. We've had a bit of recent rain, but it's drying out again, so the boys and I decided it was time to go on an Expedition. We put on our best explorer garb (and I've even managed to find a pith helmet to go with the solar topee purchased at Christmas) gathered our survival gear, and went down to the bottom of the property, near the spring.

Y'see, the spring rises from a gully, and there the trees and the near-rainforest starts. And I think that our spring eventually becomes a small creek which runs into the Brid river near the start of a local dirt road -- so I thought we could try forging along the banks of the creek through the trees until we came to paddockland once more.

I was, of course, quite wrong.

The gully has been logged and cleared before. That's obvious by the fact that pretty much everything growing down there (tree-wise) is wattle, which means regrowth. I did find a few little myrtles down there, near the creek itself, but they were in bad shape. I think the last few years of low rainfall have put the zap on them.

Anyway, despite past clearings, the regrowth has gone ahead in a big way. The creek bed itself is unnavigable -- it's not so much a creek as a permanent bog in the bottom of a ravine. Lots of squelching, fears of leeches, and a maze of fallen logs and tree-ferns to negotiate. Hard going. We eventually scrambled up the bank, and followed the side of the creek through the trees, but it was still tortuous stuff, with lots of clambering and struggling and backtracking to find a clearway...

... eventually we ran out of time. The boys had become a bit nervous about getting lost (and of course, one wonders how we were supposed to manage that!) and we definitely had to get back in time for Natalie to go off to music, so I struck out uphill, towards the main highway. Eventually we found a marker post for the underground phone cable, and since I knew the cable led back onto our property, we followed the general direction of the arrow on the little sign, and came out at the bottom of our place once again.

The boys were utterly delighted by the whole event. It counted as a 'proper adventure', apparently. We took photographs, and made notes on a map, and next time, we'll even keep a video log. Apparently.

Finished up the day with hand-made pizzas and an Iron Man cartoon movie while Natalie went off to music. Oh, and while I'm at it: here's a really good use for leftover pizza dough --

Home Made Pretzels

These are the big, salty, bready kind, not the small crunchy kind. But they're really, really good. What you do is make a standard pizza dough, and once you've made your pizzas, you take the leftover dough and put it to use as follows -- start a small pot of water boiling. Put some baking paper on a cookie sheet. Prepare a glaze of egg and a little milk. Set your oven to 220C (2oo for fan-forced). Break off a golf-ball sized chunk of dough, and roll it between your palms until it's about 30cm long. (That's a foot in the old measure.) Tie it into the familiar pretzel shape, and drop it into the boiling water. While it's in there, start making another one. By the time you've rolled and tied your second pretzel, the first will have floated to the top of the water. Remove it with a slotted spoon, and put it on the baking paper. Put the second pretzel in the water, and continue as before. When you run out of dough, glaze the pretzels on the baking paper with the egg-mix, and sprinkle them with some salt flakes. You can add poppy seeds or sesame seeds, but these are seriously non-canonical. Finally, bake your pretzels for about 20 minutes, or until they turn golden brown. Enjoy them hot, fresh from the oven -- or let them cool, and put them into your kids' school lunches, where they will be enjoyed tremendously.

And now, some photographs...

Yes. Those are slugs. And yes, in the right upper corner you can see a pair of sunglasses. I've never seen slugs this size or colour in Australia before. Must pass this photo on to friends at the museum...

Cub Scouts... very proud of their new uniforms.

Toxo The Cat loved the visit from Grandma Rose. Wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

Grandparents are incorrigible. Here's Rose cleaning the kitchen windows, with help from the Mau-Mau.

The Mau-Mau, off to her first day at school. She thinks the uniform is the Best Thing Evar!

Younger Son's foray into Thai Fish Stew was a success.

On Expedition: this is about forty metres downhill from our spring

And this is probably a hundred metres or so downhill from the spring. You can see why we wound up climbing out of the creek bed. I totally love the headgear the boys are wearing, though. We were The Compleat Expeditioners, I tell you...