makes me think

My Last post, the one below, made me think about how things have changed. Not too long ago people could stand on boardwalks above beaches, or near football fields or netball courts and watch the kids play.

Now a days you will be singled out, questioned, interrogated, suspected and possibly arrested. For doing nothing.

On our local beach tourists are chased off the beach if they have a camera. Parents can't take photos of their kids in the nippers carnivals.

Good onya Hetty Johnson. She's the local (Qld) uber wowser. she claims anything and everything will result in kids being raped, killed, murdered and worse. And she's to blame for all of the ultra protectionism in Queensland, and a big part in why tourists think twice about heading for this part of the world for a holiday.

Jealousy

On the way back from Brisbane today there was a cute little nine or ten year old doting over her mother.

Mum had long hair and kiddie poos was brushing and grooming and plaiting her hair.

I have fairly long hair and was watching and getting jealous. I wanted and needed the same grooming the mum was getting. And then I thought hang on, me am old man, she am little girl, other she am mum. Not right.

Until I looked around the carriage and watched three or four women with lots of hair with the same longing and hoping look on their face.

Little kid you really do do wonders for your your mum. She might never ever tell you that you do wonders, but everyone in that train carriage reckons you are a marvel.

wood burning stoves

We live in a sub tropical maritime climate. it gets below 10 degrees about 5 nights a year.

Yesterday afternoon a goose with a wood stove had it on. The outside temp was 24 degrees. It was sunny. And they were burning plastic in it.

This morning it was 20 degrees at 8am, the fire was still raging and they were outside in the sunshine eating their breakfast. WTF?

Yoohoo people in Macdonald Street Dicky Beach with a wood burning stove. Your chimney is illegal, it has to be above the roof line of your roof and your neighbours, it misses by about 3 metres. The world outside is warm and beautiful and until you light up the air is clean. Give it up and give the rest of us a chance.

If you want a wood burning fire head to the Snowy where they are a wonderful invention. In a city there is no need and no call for a wood burning fire. The temperature does not warrant it. SWMBO suffers with the cold but rugs up as she's the only one affected. Or shift to a block of land where you won't piss off your neighbours by your inconsiderate actions.

too hot for a doona

went without a doona and the night cramps stopped.

Still got wierd dreams, last night it was the German invasion of the Northern Territory??

night cramps and wierd dreams

I've been woken up by night cramps most nights for the last month, I've increased my salt intake -- no change. Don't know why its happening and it is a bugger because they ruin some amazing dreams I've been having lately.

Maybe the doona is too hot and that causes the cramps and I know the heat causes the more vivid dreams.

And the dreams. Dreaming the universe. I'm sure everyone has the potential to make ground breaking discoveries in their dreams, if only they recognise them. Years ago, long before it was fashionable, I dreamt of a doughnut shaped universe and it all seemed to make sense - mathematically and observationally. This morning, before the cramp, those doughnut walls were laid out plain as day and the shape was extremely complex with parallel sections being both convex and concave.

Sounds strange and the men in white coats will probably arrive, but for some reason I have to write it down. It just seems important.

And before I got to the convex/concave simplicity SWMBO and I were time travelling with Doctor Who, not once, but dozens of times in and out of the time span. And then singing. I have never sung in my dreams before.

ol' blue eyes

Apparently every blue eyed person is dcended from the one ancestor. Full credit to science blog who told the world all about it in:- http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/all-blue-eyed-humans-have-common-ancestor-15361.html

New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today. “Originally, we all had brown eyes.”New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”. The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour – a condition known as albinism.

Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” says Professor Eiberg. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.

Professor Eiberg and his team examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. His findings are the latest in a decade of genetic research, which began in 1996, when Professor Eiberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour. Nature shuffles our genes

The mutation of brown eyes to blue represents neither a positive nor a negative mutation. It is one of several mutations such as hair colour, baldness, freckles and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human’s chance of survival. As Professor Eiberg says, “it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so.”

waxing

Last post was about shaving - my face.

This post is a little more disturbing.

I've been seeing bits and pieces on the internet about Brasilian waxing for kids. Apparently it lets your 10 year old daughter remain looking like a 10 year old daughter for years.

I can think of nothing more worrisome or strange than putting your kids into a "beauty" clinic to have their non-existent public hair ripped out by some demented woman who pours hot wax onto their vag.

It's a strange old world we live in.