Patriot Realm

I just off the phone from talking to my Mum, Redhead. We were talking about how some older neighbours had relocated to another state to be closer to their daughter. While waiting for their house to be ready, they are living with their daughter. It has been months now. 

The conversation turned to how it is nice to have visitors but they, like fish, start to smell after two days. Redhead said that she could never understand why I was so reluctant to move in with her, seeing as she had a big house and lived alone " We get on so well, don't we? " she asked.

"Yes " I replied. " Because we don't live together. "

And so began the conversation and the story of Bombay Gin, getting up at sparrows fart, noodles and The Crooner.

Of all the magnificent units and regiments of the Australian Army I doubt if any have a better claim to have been the one that saved Australia than the 39^th Infantry Battalion, the first to advance down the Kokoda Track to confront the Japanese.

There are a number of units who could claim this title. The 25^th Brigade in the defence of Milne Bay so ably presented a few days ago and the Coral Sea Battle. The former was supported by the RAAF. The Coral Sea Battle was a largely American enterprise. The 39^th held the Japs at bay alone and unsupported until the 7^th Division arrived fresh from the Middle East. For that they get my vote without detracting in any way the efforts and performance of all of our other units, and the Americans, who took on the Japs.

I WANT TO BE A GOOD CITIZEN. 

I really do. If lockdowns work, I want to do my part and stay home. If masks work, I want to wear them. If social distancing is effective, I want to comply. 

But, if there is evidence they don't, I want to hear that evidence too. If highly-credentialed scientists have different opinions, I want to know what they think. I want a chance to hear their arguments and make up my own mind. 

I don't think I'm the smartest person in the world, but I think I can think. Maybe I'm weird, but if someone is censored, then I REALLY want to hear what they think.

Don't you?

In recent years there has been a concerning push from the radical Left to end ANZAC Day.

These people say that ANZAC Day is no longer relevant. They say ANZAC Day glorifies war. They say ANZAC Day has just become an excuse to get drunk and gamble.

But you know better – ANZAC Day is a precious moment in the Australian calendar when we acknowledge a core aspect of our national spirit.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinborough, has died. I feel a deep sense of sadness when I think of this man who, like so many others around the world, has died in a world that is so foreign to everything that he sacrificed for and fought for. 

After over a year of stifling rules, restrictions and stressful family betrayals, I wonder if he died of simple old age, of grief, the vaccine or just simply thought " Oh Bugger it. I've had enough. "

Back in 2001, The Stargate franchise aired an episode that, in hindsight, seems strangely sinister when it is re-watched twenty years later. Episode 416 opens with Dr. Samantha Carter approaching a man sitting at a table outside of a small restaurant. It’s her husband, Joe. Samantha tells him that her pregnancy test came back negative; they are both disappointed. As Sam walks him to a terminal for him to leave the planet on business, they discuss the Aschen — an alien race with whom Earth has been allied for a decade. The Aschen’s medical technology is very advanced and, ten years earlier, they had gifted the world's population with a vaccine that would increase human life expectancy. 

Aschen medical technology includes an anti-aging vaccine, anti-cancer treatment, and medical machines that can reverse tissue damage and mend broken bones. They are hundreds of years ahead of us.