Kathy and Steve wrote:

I too dont agree with the $900 handout, but at least I spent it on health
improvement and not at the pokies. I thought about giving it away, but who
to give it to?? The aid agencys just spend it on the pencil pushers, I have
doubts as to where it really goes. So anyway, decided that at 51 yrs old
with the ability to ride I thought that a MTB might keep the health bills of
the nation down just a little. (BTW my sister got the damn $900 and she has
lived in Canada for almost 30yrs! She got it because she owns 2 homes here
and does an aussie tax return! Now that is disgusting Kevvie!!
Kathy

I think you are 100% right about the need to keep the nation's health
bills low by staying fit so you don't get all the ills that unfit people
sustain as they age.

I cycled and raced for 6 solid years prior to 1993 when my knees became
painful, so I hung up the wheels. Then things improved and I had a few
years just working as a builder, but then the knees got a lot worse and
the doctors reckoned I needed titanium joints which costs the public
purse a huge sum. I had a small autheroscopic op and things got lots
better immediately and I didn't need to take ****ty medications like
VIOOX which I was taking, and which nearly caused serious heart
problems. ( VIOXX was then banned, and Merck, the makers of VIOOX are
being sued for billions...) . I got back on the bike 18mths after the op
and my pains reduced and I lost 20Kg in 6 months, and for 2.5 years I
have remained at my racing weight when I was 20 years younger. My health
is a LOT better due to the bicycle, and where I cycle isn't terribly
important; that I get off the butt and cycle is the most important part
of cycling. And after 2 years back on I bettered my 40km time trial time
and got a time equal to the age standard time for a man 5 years younger
than I am.

I thought the Kevvie handouts were utter madness.

The $900 handouts cost about 10 billion, and doncha think that ploughing
10 bill into the public hospital system would have been better?
If they wanna hand money out, then make sure people earn it by building
new hospitals and paying nurses a decent wage.
Having said that, even though one throws money at problematic health
care, there are only so many people who want to become doctors and
nurses.

I doubt we need a broadband communications system costing 43 billion,
present estimates, likely to end up at twice this with tyical blow outs.
I already have 100MB/S broadband from Transact at $50 per month and
including phone and cheaper than Telstra ever was because he ripped me
off all the time. If they change the system, maybe people like me will
pay $200 a month. Nobody has said what the broadband changes will cost
the average punter.

Nobody has said what the ETS scheme will cost. I have watched Penny Wong
on TV spouting a stream of spin words for 1/2 an hour after which I am
not the slightest bit better informed about anything. Bull**** is the
politician's speciality eh. Stern just publically condemned the lack of
action by the Krudd government.

$900 isn't much though, as average weekly earnings in Oz are about this
much, and of course $200 might go back the Govt as tax. If there is a
credit squeeze - recession, then people are not busy, and companies and
Governments have to sack people who have no work to do. Trying to avoid
this issue is a ruinous practice, so OK, raise the dole Kevvie. The
problem goes deeper though. I was brought up to save up until you could
buy something, and it included the idea that business could only expand
and grow if sales provided enough profits which could be ploughed back
into the business to grow more business, and unless you could adhere to
this idea, you had no right to be in business.
But now everyone needs credit, and ever expanding debts to keep the
business functioning. Sounds like a house of cards to me.

But now it takes two young people working full time to buy a moderate
house. So the birthrate has plummeted. When I was 25, my wage was enough
to pay a mortgage and keep a wife at home to be with children. So
despite huge increases in worker productivity its more difficult than
ever before for workers to buy equity.

Anyway, the chickens will come home to roost in the next couple of
years. When we find the cost of energy rising, and carbon emissions
rising as well, and when people find tax cuts will never happen and that
the GST will have to be put up to 17% to make ends meet, they'll soon
tire of Krudd & Co, and vote for someone else; anyone else! The next lot
won't do much, all too little late. Meanwhile farming in Oz will become
more risky than ever as rainfall averages slowly reduce.

So, with a world wide policy practice of too little too late, the
atmosphere will continue to warm, ice will melt, and sea levels will
rise alarmingly and flood all the coastal cities. The water has been up
about 130 Metres above present levels before even without the
anthropocentric cause of climate change. ie, huge sea level changes have
occured in the last many millions of years without mankind helping
things along. Sea levels have also been a lot lower than now, so much so
that you could ride a bicycle from Victoria across Bass Straight to
Tasmania.

With flooding cities it means much basic building infrastructure will be
lost, requiring its replacement on higher ground. For awhile cities will
be like Venice is now but with time the waters will rise way above that.
Imagine Sydney harbour with 20M more water; its total mahem.
The constant rebuilding needed will be a constant greehouse gas
generator, and constant consumer of forests and minerals and oils.

In the distant past before we learned to rape and exploit nature as
violently as we do now, we were hunter gatherers and the sea levels
could go up and down and sideways without causing any bothers; we'd just
move along. But now we can't move so easily. Each and everyone one of us
has too much damn "stuff".

Finally, life on the planet has taken about a billion years to evolve.
Experts say there's another several billion years during which life
could evolve several times over *again* if life were 97% wiped right
out. After that the sun expands and absorbs the whole Earth. So if an
asteriod hit the planet tomorrow like one did 65 million years ago, then
expect a temporary stop to life as we know it for a million years which
is hardly much time at all, and then nature will throw the dice once
again and whatever evolves will evolve again. Maybe cockroaches will
evolve into "intelligent" expoititive creatures like we are, and they'd
dig up fossilized bicycles and wonder how the hell they were used. With
6 legs and external skeletons its amazing how fast insects can travel
without wheels. Possibly, the cockroaches will find the fossilized
remains of the huge rubbish tips we left behind to be very nutritious,
and easily digestible by means of applying a big squirt of green
digestive juice which would disolve a pair of discarded carbon
handlebars in seconds. Hmm, yummy.

No doubt that as the numbers of intelligent cockroaches increase,
they'll have wars, recessions, plagues, and like us life will never be
without problems.

I think that thoughout the universe on millions of planets there are
experiments with life going on right now and for what purpose I have no
clue, and for that I'd need brain of infinite cabability to understand.
My little brain is merely finite. Perhaps there are many planets where
life evolved and was estinguised by one specie's mistakes, and many
others where life has yet to begin.

I should then be satisfied with a nice ride on a sunday, and luckily I
am, while knowing that I am temporary, and that all of the presently
known existance is also temporary, and that Nature and Earth will give
Mankind and Womenkind the Order of the Boot if either or both feel like
its a good idea at the time.

Now if we we able to transport people, goods and services much faster
than the speed of light, and if we had a rapid reponse program to
genetically alter ourselves to suit new planetary conditions or
locations, then that would merely seed out our little particular sample
of intelligence around the universe. Trouble is we'd soon find there
were other uppity thinge's tryna do the same thing, and problems with
bondaries with many other distant universes.....

Would we bump into God?

Just don't ask the Pope about it.

Patrick Turner.