Fortress Australia  ©  PJ Croft 2014

I got an email from a friend this morning that, at first, I thought was a good joke. It shows a boatload of grey haired Seniors rowing on the ocean (supposedly).  I thought the joke was that Seniors are leaving Australia for a better life in Indonesia after Abbott and Hockey’s horror budget.

Then I read further down and realised it’s yet another attack on so called “illegal immigrants”, saying the Seniors were going to row back to Australia, be taken ashore and given via Social Security “far more benefits than they were entitled to as Australian pensioners.”  I’ve replied to all the recipients of this email in the following terms:

It is NOT illegal to seek asylum from persecution in another country.  The constant lie by Abbott and Co. that they are illegals is utterly reprehensible. When assessed by immigration, 97% are found to be genuine refugees. 97% !  And they do NOT get far more social security benefits than Australians.

As you can tell, I am very angry at the racist attitudes in this country.  It is based simply on fear of foreigners.  There is NO orderly queue at embassies for visas for these people.  They would be killed and their families targeted if they stood outside Australian embassies wanting visas to escape their countries.  Read up on the Hazaras.

As you can tell, I’m rather passionate about this. Call me a do-gooder (as one of my former racist friends did – stand up, Pete), but I am sickened by the cold, racist, xenophobic cruelty coming from this country.  Jailing people who have committed no crime, with no hope of release.  Jailing pregnant women and their children, with no schools and no hope.  I am sickened.  Not in my name!  I didn’t vote for this.

______________________________

I was going to post a picture above from the March P&O cruise, but I’ve just realised all my pictures from the cruise are gone! Bloody hell.  I immediately thought, backups, but there are none.  There may be copies on the laptop that I used on the trip. I hope so.

UPDATE 1pm:  Yes, thank goodness, all my pictures are still on the laptop. Phew! Now to burn a DVD for further backup. (A DVD? How about 5 DVDs so far and I haven’t finished the transfer,)

This move to a new computer has cost me dearly. I lost my entire Images drive.  I had a backup, but it was from December last, so all my recent stuff may have been lost.

And despite all my efforts to fix it, I’ve lost my Video drive too. About 1GB (Ooops! 1TB) of video.  I have all my Europe 2008 material on DVDs somewhere, if only I could find them.  They must still be in an unopened box in the garage.  I hope.  Trouble is, I can’t remember what I had, except vaguely.  The lesson is, BACKUP!  I’ve bought two new 2TB drives for that purpose and will make copies of all my stuff for storage on the shelf as soon as I’ve got organised.  At a price of $105 for 2TB, it’s not too expensive these days.

UPDATE 2:  All my Europe 2008 video was on a spare hard drive, so I’ve copied it all over to the new Video drive (3 Terabytes in size!) and it’s not lost.  Even many of the image stabilised copies of the clips, which involved many hours to do, were there too.  Thank goodness.

_______________________________

It’s also made me dig out all my CD-RWs that I built up since 2000, and the great news is that they are all fine.  There were only two files that couldn’t be read.  So provided they are kept in good conditions, I see no problems with using optical media for storage. Most of these discs dated from 2000 to 2005, and many of them were BigW cheapies, yet they’re still OK.

One interesting thing is that one CD-RW seemed to be empty, even though I’d labelled it with its contents. I think it hadn’t been finalised.  But I put it through software called Recuva and bingo! It retrieved all the files, about 40 of them, all fine.  Recuva is free (shareware) software – I think I’ll have to make a donation.

_______________________________

Well, my landscapers haven’t come back. That’s about two weeks so far since they left with the job unfinished.  They started to accuse me of not paying their bill, but I paid the first two 25% installments on the day I got the bills.  I’ve now paid another 25%, but that hasn’t brought them back.  I’m not paying any more, that’s for sure.

I had no dispute with them.  We got along fine, I thought. But I’ve ended up with a part finished job and the wrong type of lawn laid.  I never even once mentioned Sir Walter, asking for Buffalo Palmetto twice and even pointing to a picture in a Stratco flyer.  But I got Sir Walter.  It’s supposed to be good lawn, but it’s not what I asked for.  Quite coarse.

Oh well, I’ll get the paving slabs myself (they’re only 20mm thick so not too heavy) and get someone in to lay them.  I’m buying compressed coir soil blocks from Bunnings to lay on the ground, then I’ll get someone in to bring trailer loads of potting mix for the top.  The retic pipe is there, it just needs the risers fitted.  Not much to do.  And I’ve got a healthy West Indian Lime tree ready to plant. Yum.

__________________________________

I just tried to make a coffee but my BigW Caff Italy machine has failed again, in the same way the first one did back in January.  It just stops dead and beeps.  Nothing I do will get ti to work.  Oh well, take it back.  That’s what you get for buying cheap ($50).

But my BluRay player wasn’t cheap.  My full sized, full price ($129) Pioneer BluRay player has failed again – dead, won’t turn on. This is the second time it’s failed.  I took it back about a month ago but it worked in the shop.  Couldn’t make it go wrong.  But it’s failed again now in the same way.  I’m going to ask for a brand new one, and even try for another brand if I can get it.