Blood moon. © PJ Croft 2014, 2015. Taken from my house on 8 October 2014 at 7.34pm.

In less than an hour, at 6.35pm Tuesday 27 October, we are supposed to see a super moon. That’s a conjunction of the moon being at its closest to Earth, at just the right time to be setting as the Sun is setting on the western horizon. This makes the moon look extra bright and extra big. The conditions happen to be just right in this location, Western Australia.

Unfortunately, as seems to happen all the time, it’s clouded over! Every time there’s some astronomical event, it’s either only visible from the northern hemisphere, or something happens to stop me seeing it. Tonight is living up to the jinx. Maybe it’ll clear by 6.25pm, the time it’s supposed to start.

Postscript: Yeah, at 6.30pm it was totally clouded over here in the bustling city of Butler. Bombed out again. But boy, did we get some rain last night! About midnight there was a 2min deluge, then five minutes later another 60 secs worth. Great!

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At 0640 this morning our time, a US Navy destroyer, the USS Lassen, sailed into the 12 mile “limit” around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China, which has effectively annexed these islands and is building military bases on dredged sand, objects very much.

I want to know what Senator Dio Wang has to say about this. Senator Wang has become an Australian citizen and is a member of the Australian Senate. In both cases, he has sworn allegiance to Australia and renounced allegiance to his former country, China.

Earlier this year he was quoted as saying that he feels China has the right to warn ships away, including any Australian warships, and if any Australian RAAF plane were to fly over, he feels China would have the right to take military action.

No, Senator Wang! If you have taken the oath of allegiance, you can no longer show allegiance to China. To express allegiance to China is to be a traitor to Australia, in my opinion. If you can’t make that decision, then go back to China.

Just imagine, in your wildest dreams, that I became a member of the Chinese parliament/assembly/congress, whatever you call it. Just imagine if I stood up and said, in China, that I disagreed with China’s militarism and that the US and Australia have the perfect right to exercise the freedom of the seas and airways.

I’d be whipped off to prison faster than you can say Wong Wei Chum.

No Senator Wang, if you want to live here, your allegiance must be to Australia!