The Daily Boomerang

This Shepparton man is quite lucky that he won’t be spending any time in jail:

A MAN considered too fat to be jailed has spoken out after escaping time behind bars because of his weight.

Shepparton man Claude Jackson was ordered to do community service for smashing a glass over another man’s head at a Shepparton bar on January 14, 2007.

The victim, Tim Kirkman, received a 4cm cut to his neck in the incident and required hospital treatment.

Jackson pleaded guilty to recklessly causing serious injury and affray.

A medical report submitted to the County Court sitting at Shepparton said Mr Jackson, who weighed 190kg, had suffered three heart attacks earlier in life and suffered from ongoing arthritis, sleep apnoea and other weight-related ailments.

It said he had once weighed up to 234kg and that “morbid obesity” had been present all his life.

The medical report also warned that a jail term would “create great problems” for his health.  [Herald-Sun]

If there was ever an ideal candidate for Australia’s Biggest Loser program this guy is it.   Can you just imagine this guy being trained by Commando Steve?  By the way how old does everyone think this guy is?  Check below the fold for the answer:

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I had to read this article twice to believe what I was reading:

QUEENSLAND authorities should be removing children who have underage sex from dangerous and illegal situations, instead of implanting them with contraceptive devices, the state opposition says.

Queensland Health has admitted giving girls as young as 12 the contraceptive Implanon - a small plastic rod containing the hormone progestogen which is inserted into the arm and lasts three years.

Opposition child safety spokeswoman Jan Stuckey yesterday told state parliament she discovered the practice on a visit earlier this year to two indigenous communities - Aurukun on Cape York and Woorabinda, west of Rockhampton.  [AAP]

Let me get this right, children of Aboriginals as young as 12 years old are victims of sexual abuse and the Australian government’s response is to give them a contraceptive?  Does anyone think if these children were non-Aboriginals that this is what the government’s response would have been? 

I really hope when the Beijing Olympics torch passes through Canberra that the protests will be as peaceful as people are claiming they will be:

FREE Tibet activists say they are delighted with the protests dogging the Olympic torch, and promise a strong but non-violent protest in Australia.

The Olympic torch relay is set to arrive in Canberra on April 24 following wild protests in London and Paris.

It arrived yesterday in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam to start a drastically curtailed African leg.

Voice of Tibet Australia spokesman Tenpa Dugdak said he was pleased with the protests because they had thrown the spotlight on human rights abuses in Tibet.

“I think it was fantastic,” he told the Nine Network. [AAP]

Fantastic? How do you call the fact a handicapped Chinese woman carrying the torch was attacked by a bunch of thugs “fantastic”?:

The torch bearer Jin Jing is a Chinese para-Olympics athlete with one leg who was attacked by protesters on the Paris leg of the torch relay. She was attacked multiple times by the protesters who pulled her hair and punched her in the head, but she fought off the attacks each time to protect the torch.

This picture of Jin Jing is currently the most famous photo in China:

You can see more pictures of Jin Jing and the attack here.

This attack against Jin Jing has given the Chinese government the image they needed to unite the Chinese public like never before. These attacks against a handicapped woman has only confirmed what the Chinese state controlled media has been telling the Chinese public for weeks, that the criticisms and protests from the west over the Tibet issue is actually an attack against all the people of China.

I don’t like the current crackdown in Tibet, but these Free Tibet protesters are doing nothing to bring about change in China’s policies towards Tibet with these violent protests. In fact these protests have only garnered the Chinese government more support within China. What else bothers me about the whole Free Tibet protests is that they are being led by the anti-establishment types that we saw here in Australia trash Melbourne during the G20 summit and cause violence in Sydney during the APEC meetings. If someone wants to hold up signs or turn their backs on the torch as it passes I don’t have a problem with that, but these violent protests are an embarrassment and to many Chinese appear to be xenophobic. I actually commend Jin Jing for standing up to these thugs like she did.

People underestimate the power of nationalism in China especially in regards to how western nations forcibly colonized China in the past two centuries. From the Chinese perspective giving up Tibet would be like Australia giving up all claims to aboriginal lands. It just isn’t going to happen and the best that can be hoped for would be to have an autonomous Tibet area established like what the aborigines have today in Australia to protect Tibetan culture. The biggest threat to Tibetan culture is how the Chinese government is encouraging millions of Han Chinese to settle in Tibet. In Australia outsiders have to get permits to visit aboriginal lands which protects their culture.

Something similar should be set up in Tibet which if this issue was pursued in a mature manner could be a possibility. However, as long as handicapped Chinese women are physically attacked by these violent protesters the Chinese government will never compromise on anything in regards to Tibet. Let’s hope that the protesters in Canberra do not add to this problem.

I just don’t feel sorry for idiots like this West Australian man that got himself arrested for smuggling drugs into Thailand.

Here is a perfect example of why politicians love global warming:

Households and businesses had to wait six days for power to be restored after last week’s wild weather, which killed four, blacked out 420,000 homes and caused $80 million damage.  (…)

Premier John Brumby blamed global warming for the damage and warned severe winds would become more frequent.

But industry experts, technicians and the Electrical Trades Union blamed staff shortages, frail powerlines and a failure to prune overhanging trees.

"There are not enough blokes in the industry and not enough are being trained," one experienced line worker said. [Herald-Sun]

Some how I seriously doubt this was the first time in history a wind storm that dropped heavy rain hit Victoria. How can someone claim increasing wind storms are hitting Victoria when in the two years I have lived here that is the first severe wind storm I have seen hit the state.  To claim more severe wind storms are coming is just more fear mongering to obscure the issue that the government failed to prune trees and hire enough utility personnel to fix downed powerlines. 

The search for missing Canadian hiker Warren Meyer has continued in a new location near the Dom Dom Saddle:

Search and rescue police will be back in the Yarra Ranges National Park today looking for bushwalker Warren Meyer, who went missing in the area on Easter Sunday.

 Victoria Police said today the search will entail a new area adjacent to the Dom Dom Saddle car park where the 57-year-old was last seen.   [AAP]

The search for a hiker that was suspected in possible foul play against Mr. Meyer has also ended with him being cleared of any wrong doing:

Police also said a man seen hitch-hiking in the area, and who detectives wanted to speak to, had come forward and been eliminated from inquiries.

Inspector Phil Shepherd told Fairfax newspapers police have found nothing to suggest foul play behind Mr Meyer’s disappearance. 

The new search I think makes sense because in the area that was searched that I personally walked through myself, I think it is unlikely if he is dead that his body is located there considering the size of the area and the number of searchers who were looking through it.  However, if Mr. Meyer decided at the last moment to hike through another area without telling his wife then that could explain why he hasn’t been found.

Hopefully the searchers that have been working really hard to locate Mr. Meyer can locate him and give some peace of mind to Mr. Meyer’s family.

A Queensland farmer is wondering who the litter bug is that left this on his property:

A cattle farmer in Australia’s remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites.

Farmer James Stirton found the odd-shaped ball last year on his 40,000 hectare property, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) west of the northern Queensland state capital of Brisbane.

But Stirton only started inquiring into what the ball of metal really was, and where it had come from, in the past week.

“I was riding out to check some cattle, and I came around the corner and there it was in a paddock,” Stirton told Reuters on Friday.

“I know a lot of about sheep and cattle but I don’t know much about satellites. But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket.”

He said the object was hollow, and covered in a carbon-fiber material. He has contacted some U.S.-based aerospace companies to try to find out what the object really is.  [Reuters]

I wonder what the fees for littering are in Queensland?

Interesting article I read in The Age newspaper yesterday which debated whether Australian schools should implement drug testing or not.  This debate comes on the heels of the recent debate to raise the Australian drinking age from 18-21 years of age.  Here is the rationale why some want the schools to implement drug testing:

AT FIRST glance, the idea of drug-testing our school students may not seem palatable. But when we look more closely at the position we are now in, Australians may need to rethink how we can prevent illicit drug use among our young.

The fact is that rates of illicit drug use in Australia are higher than other countries in the developed world. For example, the US has lower per capita rates of amphetamine and cannabis use than we do. Its binge-drinking rates are also lower than those of Australian teenagers. Indeed, a recent international comparison of under-age alcohol use, conducted by Australian and US researchers and involving 6000 children, found levels of binge drinking are up to three times higher among Australian year 9 students compared with equivalent American teenagers.

Given that the US is making better headway than Australia, in both binge drinking and illicit drug use among its young people, we should be looking more closely at what is working there. One strategy that we have not yet tried as a preventive measure is drug-testing students. Unfortunately, this week’s Australian National Council on Drugs report on drug testing in schools fails to mention the many successful drug-testing programs being carried out across the US. These programs are now carried out in more than 1200 schools with documented high success rates in reducing drug use among students. [The Age]

When I went to school in the US there was no mandatory drug testing in my school.  There was drug testing for people who participated in athletics though, but we were only tested once year and I did not know of one person caught taking drugs from the testing.  I can understand drug testing for athletics to prevent athletes from taking performance enhancing drugs, but I don’t think it is necessary to test the entire school population.  The expense and time for what is statistically a small problem doesn’t appear to me anyway to be worth it.  Also it seems like this is the creeping of the schools into parenting.  Parents should be responsible for whether or not their kids are taking drugs. 

Speaking of parenting, here is a perfect example of how parenting can actually lead to kids taking drugs:

ILLICIT drug use by Australian schoolchildren is more common among those with the most pocket money, according to new research.  (…)

The report found that students with relatively high disposable incomes were most at risk of getting into drugs. Those who had between $21 and $60 a week in pocket money were 60% more likely to have used drugs in the past 12 months than those with less than $20 a week to spend.  [The Age]

This finding confirms what I personally experienced in high school, kids who’s parents gave them large allowances were the ones mostly smoking pot.  In my opinion if teenagers have to work for their money they will be less likely squander it on things such as buying pot.  However, I knew of very few people that even used drugs in high school.  

Here is what I find to be the most troubling findings of the study:

The research, by the Australian National Council on Drugs, found that in any given week, one in five 16 to 17-year-olds drank at harmful levels. By contrast, fewer than 4% of school students were regular users of cannabis, and fewer than 1% used other illicit drugs.

20% of 16-17 year olds in high school binge drink?  Amazing.  This is probably a higher percentage of binge drinking then what I experienced in college in the US.  This is something that raising the drinking age will not change because these teenagers are already under the legal drinking age and binge drink anyway.  It seems to me focusing on the under age drinking problems in school would be a more worthy pursuit then drug testing everyone in the nation’s schools.  Of course I could be wrong, any other thoughts from anyone?

The new Australian governments plan to cull kangaroos in the Australian Capitol Territory is coming under heavy criticism after the plan made international headlines in newspapers such as the New York Times:

The new Australian government is coming under international criticism over a plan to kill 400 kangaroos on a former military base.

The government has portrayed the cull as a necessary case of being cruel to be kind, but the international focus has been mostly on the cruelty. The growing battle over the fate of the kangaroos has pitted the former rock star Peter Garrett of the band Midnight Oil, now environment minister of Australia, against the likes of Paul McCartney, the former Beatle and animal rights advocate.

The former base is overrun with about 500 kangaroos, according to the authorities in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes the capital, Canberra, and which is in charge of the base, an unused naval transmitter station. The kangaroos are endangering themselves as well as other native species and rare plants, they said.

“If nature is left to take its course, there will be severe effects on the endangered grassland and many kangaroos will suffer a slow death by starvation,” the territory government said in a report.  [New York Times]

The New York Times also reported that last year the Australian government gave licenses to kill 3.7 million kangaroos in Australia which was about 15% of the population.  I have done plenty of hiking in and around the ACT and as I have posted before, there is an abundant amount of kangaroos in the territory:

However, the nation that is making the biggest headlines over this kangaroo cull is the Japanese media.  In this link you can watch a video from FNN News in Japan.  The video is in Japanese of course so let me do a little translation for you.  Basically the Japanese are calling Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett a hypocrite because he supports the cull of kangaroos yet criticizes the Japanese for their hunting of whales.

Garrett makes a big deal about how the Australian government is using scientific means to measure kangaroo populations to conduct culls that will keep a sustainable amount of kangaroos in the wild.  The Japanese are claiming they are doing the same exact thing by conducting scientific research to measure whale populations to ensure that they to keep a sustainable amount of whales in the ocean.   Ironically enough the 2007 Australian of the Year environmentalist Tim Flannery actually agrees with the Japanese on this fact.  The top environmental scientist in Australia supports the Japanese whaling program yet the vast majority of Australians are brainwashed to think the minke whale the Japanese hunt is endangered when in fact they are plentiful.

For those that don’t know this is how a kangaroo cull is conducted:

Australian animal protection groups questioned on Monday a new government guide for the humane killing of kangaroos which recommends “forcefully swinging” the heads of young animals against a vehicle tow bar.

A proposed code of conduct for shooting young kangaroos, called joeys, and smaller wallabies released by the Department of Environment also recommended a single close-range shotgun blast.

“These changes are basically saying the federal government believes it’s okay to blast a defenseless joey to bits with a shotgun,” Pat O’Brien, President of the Wildlife Protection Association, told local newspapers.  [Reuters]

For whatever reason this doesn’t create the righteous outrage against kangaroo culls in Australia as it does against Japanese whaling.  Is it any wonder why many people in Japan see this as a racial as well as an eco-imperialism issue against them even though the vast majority of Japanese do not even eat whale meat?

Just for the record, I have nothing against the Rudd’s government’s kangaroo cull plans, as long time D.B. readers know I am a big fan of kangaroos.  

This has to be the strangest suicide I have ever heard, suicide by robot.