Up the country - May-June 2010

On May 30 a friend and I went up to the Barossa Valley, through Nuriootpa to a town named after his home, Greenock, in Scotland. Apparently, the Scottish one is pronounced the way its spelled, "Green ock". The Aussie one is pronounced "Grennock". Bet you didn't know that!

The main agenda was to see Lincoln Nitschke's Aviation Museum. We were early so we managed to find a nice pub with an open fireplace (it's getting chilly this time of year), the Greenock Hotel (there's no surprise there!).


I was impressed. It was a dinkum Aussie pub with the wide verandah to the kerb, and a steady stream of local clients, and (as you see above) a nice polished wood bar in the dining room. The fire was blazing, and the food was good solid country serves, not the woossy-snob city stuff. There was even a small library of novels next to the fire - and it had works of popular authors, too - which could persuade me to sit there all afternoon sipping local wines and reading by the fire.

All the same we pressed on to the museum after lunch. The quarters were cramped, but there were plenty of aircraft, components, models and memorabilia not commonly available. The collection was helped by a twist of history. After WW2, a lot of military aircraft were sold for a song, about $10 for a twin-engine trainer minus engines, and about $5 extra with.

The Avro Ansons from a local training squadron were popular. Farmers lopped the wings off and towed them home, to salvage bolts and metal fittings, and put the hulk out for a chicken coop. The Nitschke collection has two Anson airframes, one with skin and one without, plus an Anson cockpit section. What it has which I have not seen elsewhere is a near complete DeHavilland Mosquito fighter, lacking only the wings outboard of the engines, plus another nose section of a bomber version.


Outside, Lincoln has an English Electric Canberra jet bomber parked (one which came here from England, not the Aussie-built version) and alongside it, what looks like a Mustang Mk22 in markings of the RAAF squadron once based at Mallala. The RAAF base is now a motor-sports track.


It's not a real bird, though. It was scratch-built as a private project. Other sheds house a small collection of classic farm vehicles and 1940s-50s trucks. Here's the International T9 Crawler tractor. I think I had a Matchbox bulldozer like this!



Moving right along, last Sunday, 13 June, I visited - or re-visited - Clare, about 100 km miles north, with old mate Peter, and his old mate Mark. We took a break halfway at the Grasshopper Roadhouse, Tarlee,


When dad was retired up at Snowtown, I'd stop there for a break, with the kids, whenever we drove up to visit. After that, we pressed on through Clare and out north, onto dirt roads through Hilltown. When we reached these trees flanking the road, we figured we were "home". Peter and I, and others, spent a lot of time up here in the 1960s and '70s.


What had changed, not that it's very clear in this shot, is the giant wind-turbine generators around the horizon from north to west. Peter's obviously photographing them.


We headed across the Camel Hump Range and doubled back to the Camel Hump itself, seen on the right of this shot.


There's Peter and Mark as we strolled the range. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s the area was haunted by UFOs, particularly around here. We learned a lot about social dynamics back then.


There were plenty of kangaroos around the area. Nice to tourists, but not to farmers.


From the range we looked down on the farm I first stayed at in 1968. Then it was owned by a very hospitable old couple who, after a short while, retired to the city. He was a WW1 veteran, and built the farm up himself.


The farmhouse itself has had the yard slighty revamped and appears still in good repair and occupied.


Back in Clare as evening fell, we decided to have dinner at the Bentley Hotel (not "Benley" as Wikipedia called it in the previous link), another great Aussie pub. Peter did his bit for the farmers, he ordered kangaroo steak.


That's the street at sundown, as it was getting cold. It's been 0ºC overnight there. Can't believe I used to camp out in the weather Clare threw at us!

Parafield fly-in, 29 March 2010

For my friends who are not on Facebook, here's a pictorial catch up. The Classic Jets Fighter Museum held its annual display at the end of March. Last time I went was, I think, when the Lockheed Lightning restoration was rolled out. That bird is now in prime static display condition.


This time their Bell P39 Airacobra was shown off. This was restored using a corroded wreck recovered from Papua-New Guinea, and the last time I saw this aircraft it was mostly just the lower part of the fuselage that had been saved from destruction by being part buried.


Funds raised from the display will support their next restoration, an F4U Corsair.

Australia used 22 Airacobras during WW2. This fly-in featured a few of its contemporaries. One of my favourites was the CAC CA-12 Boomerang, built using common components from the CAC Wirraway, a stumpy little fighter which seems to be all engine. This one even lives locally.


The Wirraway began as the North American Texan / Harvard, with a few modifications (notably the D-shaped tail introduced on about the second Aussie-built aircraft, distinct from the triangular fin of the parent aircraft).



For something based on a trainer, a Wirraway once shot down a Japanese Zero fighter. Its fighter cousin, the Boomerang, didn't get any.

There are a number of Mustang warbirds still flying in Australia, mostly the Australian-built CAC CA-18 Mk22 version. They regularly appear at air shows, but it was a nice change to see this colourful example of a North American P51D, US production number 45-11526, civil registration VH-FST, owned by a local man.


Classic trainer aircraft were well represented. The DeHavilland DH82 Tiger Moth, of course - I counted four. VH-ABL is the one nearest camera.


The DeHavilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk was a popular postwar trainer in Commonwealth air forces and later private ownership. This is VH-BSR, also one of four present, all in very different liveries.


Less common is the Boeing Stearman. There are a couple that reside locally, one in the classic blue fuselage and yellow wings of the US pre-war era, and this all yellow example, BoeingA75N1 registered VH-JUX in a US Navy scheme.


Eastern bloc trainers are fairly common locally, mostly the Chinese-built Nanchang CJ-6, several of which provide warbird adventure flights from Goolwa, SA. The CJ-6 was present at the fly-in, but so was another aircraft also descended from the old Yak-18, the Russian Yakovlev Yak-52.


Its colourful cousin, the Yak-18T, VH-RUZ, is yet another of the classics living in the area.


And parked out on the boundary and looking sad were two jet warbirds, the Gloster Meteor F8, RAAF number A77-867, and the LiM-2, a Polish built trainer variant of the Russian Mig-15. They are both for sale, I hear through the grapevine.

Minitru

No pictures this time. But I would like to mention something to my correspondents who are not on Facebook :D

Australia, apart from not having a Bill of Rights, and whose major parties have a leadership which seems to have forgotten that in this country religion and politics are constitutionally two separate things, is again adding new meaning to the term "democracy" with its new(ish) policy to introduce mandatory internet filtering at ISP level.

This is almost a fait accompli. It's happening while we look the other way, and frankly, I have slim hope that Australia will mobilise enough opinion to change things. We all need to talk to our elected representatives and direct them (they are our representatives, we don't have to beg) to throw this policy where it belongs. Out.

The policy is being sold as protection. It's to save our children from online predators. You know, like old women were once hanged and burned to save villages from curses on their crops and livestock, and death camps were built to save racial purity from untermenschen. Or more recently, like when China filtered its internet to save its people from ideologically unsound thoughts. We all thought China's policy was appalling. Google thought they were, too. We need Google on our side. But sadly, this isn't about search term filters, it's about website filters.

Over recent years we have had "protection" presented as an unassailable argument whenever policing of our population is increased. Yet, although I am always on some camera or other when I walk through town, and I am always scanned at airports and even going into a government building where I have every right to be, people are still getting mugged in the streets, sometimes by gangs of 13 year old girls, and idiots are still igniting their underpants in attempts to blow up aircraft.

As a preventative measure the extra policing doesn't stop the perpetrators. Let's face it, no amount of tiger-wired fence will prevent a person seriously bent on doing harm from finding a way past it. Extra cameras just give the TV stations extra footage. The filter will give them numbers to report. The offences will go on.

What will the filter protect us from?

Not much. Bless their socks, the geeks of the community are already finding ways past the filter. All that means is that geeks will have free access to the internet, though there's a prediction that the filter will degrade performance by as much as 75%. The rest of us will be subject to yet another level of government surveillance. But for "geek" read any kid at school now. Cracking online security is today's rite of passage, like stripping and tweaking a Holden motor was to my generation.

The battle cry of government is "protect our children". If you oppose them, you don't care about kids. You are probably even a pervert. Come on!

Recently, a young woman was lured to a meeting and murdered by a 20 year old man she met online. "Facebook" was blamed for its low default privacy settings.

True enough, the default is low. I am on Facebook. I, even I, of the Baby Boomers, know to set my own privacy and am wary about what I publish. But wait, there's more. She was 18, which I think is scarcely a child, and she was lured by someone close to her own age. He was posing as someone offering her work in animal welfare (which you may find ironic, since he is an animal).

I can't see how filtering would have saved her, unless "animal welfare" was blacklisted. But what I can see is that in looking for links to refer you to, as I write, Googling for "teenage murder online predator australia" would probably be filtered. I couldn't so readily build support for my anti-government viewpoint. Results would be filtered. Who knows, I might even appear on a black list? Meanwhile, the predators will just set cleverer traps. Possibly like "Hey, I support internet filtering, let's meet RW!"

And the black list behind the filter itself? It's secret. Let me repeat, SECRET. Like so many secrets, apparently it's been leaked, though I have only second-hand information as to its content in detail. What I see indicates that anything could be listed, and we'd never know; and sites can be listed in error with no transparent review. Euthanasia discussions? Gay marriage? Well, the fundies would oppose discussion about those. Will fundamentalist sites be listed? That would be at least fair, given the abusive cults who hide behind god and government-bestowed privelages. What about a Wikipedia entry about Australia's compulsory internet filter? Wikipedia already has some blacklistings.

About half the black list relates to child porn sites. Whoever set that up must be planning to constantly monitor such sites. Web sites on any topic come and go for a number of reasons - I ran an aviation site for a few years, it was quite popular, but I closed it just because of the cost in time and money. If law enforcement was watching because the site was illegal in most countries, I am sure the child porn sites would either be closed down regularly by police arrests or complaints to ISPs, or else their managers and fans would be deliberately itenerant to cover their trails. Where's your black list now?

The mother of an online predator's victim was interviewed on TV a week or so back. Oh no, I thought, she's been trotted out to exploit her passionate cries of "the government should do something", but I was wrong. She calmly, clearly and bravely took responsibility as a parent, not that I would in any way blame her for her tragic loss. She said the answer was with families. Have the internet computer in a common area like a lounge, not a bedroom. Be involved with your kids. Be their online buddy. Educate about security.

Today, all it takes is some kid to comment on a forum, "Hey, you go to Smithtown High? Me too!" and they are on the track to being a target. I was on a computer game forum once and someone did that.

It took me ten minutes of checking maps, school websites, and coffee shops in Smithtown to reply; "You shouldn't let out details like that. If I was a predator, I could PM you - 'Hey, is Miss Brown still the headmistress there? How about we meet in El Coffeebean down on Third and Main, and you can come to my place and see my setup?'"

All that because of an innocent post on a public forum, and someone reading it who had faith in online searches. So forget the blacklist. Censor all the forums, all the search engines, even all the GPS maps. Phone books. Street directories. Or, wait, maybe we should consider attacking the perpetrators, not the medium they use?

Before the internet, kids got assaulted and abducted. They were dragged into cars or vanished from football ovals. Nobody censored roads to ensure perverts were not using them, and of course footy is sacred so let's not even discuss it. Why? Roads were essential parts of daily life (and of course commerce). I say a free and open internet is essential to open exchange of ideas, access to information, democratic debate, and removing social barriers. That was it in the good old days when it began, anyway. Don't censor the highway - take away the licence, the vehicles, or the freedom of the dangerous users. Think of it as hoon legislation.

The mandatory filter is NOT, repeat NOT, addressing the issue. The issue will be addressed by parents taking responsiblity for educating their kids. And by tracking and arresting the real perpetrators which, getting down to nuts and bolts, means the ones who lure, abuse and murder.

Censorship doesn't teach people to use judgement and intelligence on one hand, or to behave morally or ethically on the other; it just removes the possibility to exercise either.

Now that's hard, and I don't have a solution. But I vote people into government so they will find one, instead of this inane window-dressing which only pretends to be an answer. Politicians are paid to do better than that. Their pensions make the wages of the majority living Thoreau's lives of quiet desperation look shabby. Do better than window dress, or else accept window-dresser wages.

Once, child abuse and abduction was so rare, everyone knew the names of the victims. Now, get some stats on how many victims there are today, and see how many names you know. Surely, there's a pointer. What has changed? Are the borderline sociopaths pushed to turning fantasy into action by modern alienation and anomie? Does anonymity, tight-fisted funding for law enforcement, mental health and education, and the notoriety provided by a tabloid press have more to do with the root cause than "the internet"?

The internet is not a cause. If we could say that, we'd be justified in saying a panel van and a bag of lollies was equally a cause.

The press always looks for easy answers, but we expect better of our elected representatives. We are entitled to expect the cause to be addressed, the actual perpetrators tracked and delivered to a system of justice, and our freedoms of association and speech (you know, the ones guaranteed by constitutions) protected.

The internet filter may look like an answer and quack like an answer, but it's a red herring. An anti-democratic herring. And it's being done with quick sleight-of-hand. It's another erosion of civil liberties, since we never know who will watch the watchers.

Last news is that the government realises this is a "politically toxic issue" (don't we love buzz words?) and is likely to leave it alone until after the next election. Which to me suggests that they thought appearing to actively care about kids would make them look good, and suddenly they find themselves at risk. Let's not forget this issue after the election.

This quote keeps coming up in this context, and I unashamedly repeat it;-
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Attributed to Ben Franklin)

For those who wonder about the title of this post, see Minitru on Wikipedia.

Footnote, 20 June:
It should be reassuring to see we are not alone in Australia, with issues like this, but I don't feel reassured. My Sunday paper today led me to find a version of the same story on these links;-
Obama internet 'kill switch' proposed.
Lieberman Bill a Dud as it is Dangerous to America

A proposal for an internet kill switch is mooted under a bill arrogantly called the "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act". Didn't know America owned the internet. Parts, maybe, but the whole point of the Internet ancestors like ARPAnet was to disperse the system, to make it bomb-and-EMP-proof (back when nuclear bombs were the worst attack people could imagine). Guess what, it is dispersed, and it's no longer just American property.

So America assumes the right to pull the plug on PART of the internet? Their part alone (and I'm sure if they tried they could do more than that) can effect things like the economies of foreign sovereign nations. Never mind "free speech" and "thought police" issues. It's using an "external enemy" or an "un-(My Country) group" (whether it be "Jews, Commies, and Fellow-Travellers", "Islamic extremists", "gay tree-hugging hippie perverts" or any other inane combinations of words) to control the general public - again.

Headlining it as "Obama bill" is misleading and, to my mind, a cheap slur on him. Always saw Obama as a breath of rationality. I hope he doesn't fold to Cold War relics like the co-author of the bill, Senator Joe Lieberman, an interesting mix of a few liberal and many fascist philosophies who seems to want extremism stamped out everywhere but in his own back yard.

Meanwhile, on 22 June...
What might be a glimmer of common sense; Aussie newspapers (for example the Herald-Sun MPs Call for Tougher Cyber Police Patrols) foreshadow another approach.

I applaud a move which seeks specifically to track down the actual criminals, instead of simply removing the freedoms of the majority of mostly decent folk (as mandatory filtering is likely to do). Whilst the "cyber police" proposal speaks initially of online fraud, cracking and scamming, the mechanism could encompass the other areas the filter was marketed to address.

Now we need to start thinking globally about a legislative and judicial framework in which to prosecute them.

RELATED LINKS:
Thanks to Sean for the leads to these links.
No Clean Feed - Stop Internet Censorship in Australia
The State of trust: it's a one way street by Mark Newton, on ABC - The Drum Unleashed
Internet Industry of Australia Manifesto - PDF format, downloadable