This past Thursday, January 26th was celebrated nationwide as Australia Day. Though Captain James Cook claimed the eastern half of the continent under the Union Jack on August 22nd, 1770 despite 40,000+ years of occupation by the Aboriginal people, Australians celebrate another date as their founding. On January 26th, 1788, Captain Arthur Philip arrived in Sydney with his fleet of eleven convict ships, including the appointed Governor of New South Wales, raising the Union Jack to signal the beginning of a new British colony.
For reasons my limited research has been unable to dig up, this was not a celebrated holiday until 1994. Intuition says the whole convict thing, but I've found nothing to substantiate that sentiment. It is now a holiday intended to celebrate all things Aussie and is celebrated much like July 4th in the US, barbecues with family, friends, and fireworks. This Australia Day, Laura had some work she needed to finish (very very very un-Australian!!!!) and had to pack for her round the world trip ... so I ditched her for a barbecue/poker tournament at a co-workers house. Knowing I'd only be hanging out for a few hours, I figure I came out ahead in that I met some new people, had a few nibbles off a very impressive meat spread, had some laughs, and played just poorly enough to last until the break pushing a pathetic stack of chips in on the final hand for my final donation to the table. That, and watching the Federer vs Nadal in the Aussie Open semi-finals (not in-person unfortunately) was pretty much the excitement for our Australia Day, but you probably heard about another bit of excitement.
Australia Secret Service just added themselves to the international Do Not Call List ... that is if you're someone in need of an evacuation. The Aboriginal people are in the news of late as the government is working to put through an amendment to their Constitution recognizing the existence of the Aboriginal people prior to the British colonization of the country. Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, made a statement that may or may not have come out as intended in regards to the removal of the Aboriginal Embassy. It was not well received by the Aboriginal people and a protest ensued outside wherever this dude was having a meal with Julia Gillard, the Australia Prime Minister. Apparently the authorities felt the situation escalated to a point where the pair needed to be evacuated. If you've seen the video, you have seen the new training video on how not to execute an evacuation. If you haven't, these geniuses essentially dragged the Prime Minster and whoever this guy is through the crowd of protesters into vehicles already surrounded by the crowd of protesters.
Secret Service Guy #1: What's the plan to get out of here?
Secret Service Guy #2: Walk out the front door.
Secret Service Guy #1: But there's a crowd of protestors out there. What's Plan B?
Secret Service Guy #2: Walk out the front door quickly.
Secret Service Guy #1: Sounds risky. Plan C?
Secret Service Guy #2: Don't have one, but Pythagoras says I can calculate it taking the square root of Plan A squared plus Plan B squared.
Off topic, if you're interested in details around the politics here, these three things are the extent of my knowledge:
1) It's essentially a two-party system. I don't know what they are called or stand for. I'm inclined to believe one is called the Opposition Party based on Mr. Abbott's title, but that just seems stupid. They either have the world's worst political Marketing team, or it means he is the leader of the party in opposition to that in power.
2) The country can have a Prime Minister not elected by the people as they currently do in Julia Gillard. Whatever party she belongs to had put forth a guy named Kevin Rudd as their nominee and he was elected. After a period of time, his party decided he wasn't cutting it and removed him from power appointing Julia to replace him. No election. Seems dangerous to me. Throw Ian Thorpe on the ballot, because what Aussie is going to vote against the Thorpedo, and play switcheroo post election.
3) Rupert Murdoch is in effect. He's Aussie, and they hate him too. Another of his "credible news" organizations put forth a whopper of a tale pre-Australia Day. A soon to be convict without convictions.
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