There's plenty of doom and gloom around the finance game at the moment, but all things considered, while the waters might be a little slack, for those still in the swim there is still business to be had. The graphs above don't display anything like the dread and disaster painted by the media, but they do display the combined cost of living / fuel price / interest rates increases over the past twelve months. I don't believe that interest rates alone have slowed the economy. If that were the case, given the inflationary imposts levels still apparent, the RBA wouldn't have hesitated to raise rates again today. The fact that the board held off, despite expressed concerns about the current state of the economy overall, speaks to me of a genuine anxiety over the early flush of rises in January & March which many economists said might have been over-stated. The freight-train of oil pricing doesn't look like slowing any time soon, and it's feeding the CPI rises. The resources boom is rapidly creating a two state economy. One which is fuelling inflation through profligate spending power; the other retreating in the face of unmatchable costs and diminishing purchasing power.

The RBA board is now faced with an unpalatable decision. Accept a higher than currently accepted underlying inflationary level in the Australian economy and hold off on any further exercising of monetary policy or; go for another rate rise in August and hope like hell that one half of the economy can mask the stench of the other falling stagnant. Rock and hard place? You betcha.

Of interest is the narrative attaching to A16-216 and more poignantly, the second of three aircraft which were lost from this one mission, A16-91, a Mark II Hudson. The mental image of three somewhat underpowered, ungainly light bombers attacking shipping less than 20' off the water, after having been jumped and then hunted by an agile enemy fighter, really bring home to me the sacrifices our military were faced with on a daily basis, all those years ago. To end their days smeared across a forsaken piece of jungle so far from home seems to be such a terrible waste. I'm sure though, that Flying Officer Gibson, Pilot Officer Thorn, Sergeants Quail and Coutie didn't view their days in that manner.

The action recorded for the day of the losses is succinct:

WEDNESDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 1942

RAAF - First mast height attack on enemy shipping of the New Guinea campaign: three Hudsons attacked and sunk two transports at Gasmata. They are attacked by A6M4 Claudes that shoot down two: Hudson A16-91 and Hudson A16-126.

As to the aircraft which shot down the two Hudsons, it's debatable whether it was an A6M4 'Zeke' or an A5M4 'Claude', both being variants of the venerable Zero fighter. The name 'Claude' was applied the the earlier mark. Given the A6M4 is regarded by many as a non-entity because of the Japanese failure to perfect the turbo-supercharging of the engine, and the date of the action, it's most likely the 'Claude'. As to the pilot of the fighter, he survived his victims by four months, before falling to American P-40's near Lae. The price of fame in a war zone.

Attacking Peter Garrett long distance, despite the media reporting favourably on Garrett's performance in Santiago, despite former Australian Environment and Heritage Minister, Ian Campbell, handing Garrett a laurel for his efforts when interviewed on Radio National Breakfast, Friday simply highlights that Hunt is out of touch.

According to Annabelle Crabbe, when speaking on Australia Talks, Wednesday, Greg Hunt has more positions than the Kama Sutra. Pity he's no-where near as artistic, interesting or useful.

I have to say I was mildly impressed by Bill Shorten. Only mildly though. His political opposite, Greg Hunt, I found to be the evening's boofhead without any doubt. The man has no presence, no charisma and doesn't portray well on television. Every time he opened his gob, there was a foot hovering so very close. Angela Conway? Quite frankly I fail to understand why the ABC invited her onto the program. She was like vanilla icecream. Cold, soft, no flavour to speak of and easily finished with.

The standout for me was the person I thought would be a real goose. How wrong could I have been. She didn't have a lot to say, but every single time she opened her mouth, pearls dropped out. Well done, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor! You actually made a mediocre showing worth the time. Just goes to prove how wrong one can be in judging people by their professions. Although in Blairs case, I still regard such judgement as entirely accurate.

At the moment there are two pieces of legislation before Australian parliaments which would provide a legal framework for euthanasia under very specific circumstances: one in the Victorian parliament and one in the Federal Senate. Apparently around 85 per cent of Victorians favour the right to choose assistance with dying. Is legislation long overdue or the beginning of a slippery moral slope?

The introduction to tonight's radio talk-back program. The three speakers, in addition to numerous individual callers, one in support, one in opposition and one politician from the Victorian parliament. Dr. Rodney Syme, in support, made many valid points and supports what appears to be enlightened legislation which seems to come at least half way between assisted suicide, and persistent medical care despite an inevitable end. Dr. Bernadette Tobin, in opposition, also had good points to make but to my mind, she failed miserably to make them effectively. Perhaps it's because she is the director of an ethics-oriented thinktank, perhaps because she openly declared her religiosity, but I failed to come to terms with her arguments. On the positive side, Colleen Hartland of the Victorian Greens and sponsor of the bill to that state's parliament, expressed considerable confidence that the bill would 'get up'.

Doctor Syme, author of a book entitled "A Good Death", spoke well and put forward excellent arguments in support of the legislation, expressing quite strongly his opposition to assisted suicide. That is to say, a medical professional administering drugs to deliberately end a patient's life. His stance of legalising the right of mentally competent, aware and capable people with a self-determined loss of life quality, suffering chronic pain due to terminal illness, to end their lives with properly prescribed and effective drugs at a time and place of their own choosing, is to be applauded in my view. I understand the views of people such as Doctor Tobin, but simply cannot accept or condone them. Every individual has the right to life, and in my view, to death at a time and in a manner of their own choosing. No other human being has the right, legally decreed by law courts or deemed right and just by sky-pilots, to deny another human being a dignified exit from this mortal coil. Especially if the decision to make that exit is made in the full knowledge of what it is they intend, and how they intend to do it.

Despite the cries of ethical malcontent or crimes in the face of some all powerful yet mystically absent deity, I fervently hope that Colleen Hartland is right in her belief that the legislation will pass the Victorian upper house. If this legislation comes off, it's successful enshrining into law will be the thin edge we, who believe in a dignified exit by our own hand, have been seeking. The next step will be temporally retrograde. A return to 1950's acceptance of nembutal for what it does, and what it can do for those who really have need of it.

If you missed the program or have a hankering to listen, I commend it to you via the link at the top of this post.

Currently, a Holden or Ford V8 running in the series uses a five percent ethanol blend, not unlike the E10 currently available at your local servo. From next year, drastic changes will be made to engines, fuel tanks, fuel pumps, lines, injection systems, computer engine monitoring systems ... the list goes on. The impact of this new E85 fuel on the cars' performance is not yet known, other than some loss is inevitable, although results from a 650 kilometre test at Queensland Raceway this week, conducted by Triple Eight Racing, seem to be positive. It's not as if this change of fuel is something that's been dropped on teams recently. This move has been mooted for two years now, so you can bet that all major contenders in the series have already been conducting their own research.

The outcomes from this weeks Triple Eight test have revealed an increase in consumption of between 25% and 30%. Engine mapping - the art of understanding just how the computerised sensors monitor and control the performance of a thoroughbred V8 - will undoubtedly be the next undiscovered country for team engineers. Not mechanics, but engineers. I.T. specialists as well. A complete understanding of exactly how the internal combustion engine works, and how to get the best from it is still the domain of a really good mechanic, but that mechanic also needs to be an engineer and be able to relate to the highly skilled geeks which all teams employ these days as translators for the language of EPROMS.

Increased fuel consumption isn't expected to be a problem during the sprint race part of each season, but we do have two or sometimes three endurance races each year which will be impacted upon radically by increased fuel consumption. Bathurst, for example, is managed in terms of fuel stops. For the perfect race, teams will go for five or maybe six stops depending on whether they start with full or half full tanks when the lights go out at race start. A 30% increase in consumption means another 1.8 - let's say 2 - stops for fuel alone. From my perspective, that necessity will only serve to make the racing more tactically exciting, but wait on a mo! There's more fuel being burned. Isn't that bad? Not with a renewable resource like ethanol, which burns cleaner from a carbon perspective, but does burn hotter, producing more nitric oxides. Catalytic converters scrub out most nitric oxides in standard road cars, but V8 Supercars don't have catalytic converters. Yet.

Clearly, my favourite spectator sport is on the verge of undergoing drastic change, and I'm all for it. Unknowns and instabilities make for great racing and frankly, over recent years the formula has become very predictable. The challenge for the sport's administrators will be to instigate these carbon-sensitive changes without impacting on the sport's popularity and creating unsustainable cost increases through necessary technological change. I believe V8 Supercars Australia will succeed. We watched the sport morph from a pure production car series, to the Group C race cars, then to Group A production racers and onward to the formula we have today which are pure, purpose built racing machines which just happen to look like the cars we can buy from the showroom. Sort of. I have no doubts another change will happen smoothly and be of benefit to the sport's future. Is the price of change worthwhile? I'd have to respond to that question with another. Do we really have a choice?

In the cross-breeding - accidental from all accounts - between a wild animal and a domestic cat, the wild traits are diluted. Further selective breeding weakens those wild traits even further. The current F5 Savannahs retain 3% of their original ancestor Serval genetics. Bred selectively to draw out the coat patterning, general body shape, head and ear structure of the wild Serval. Selective breeding such that the third generation look is what is sought in the breeding process which resulted in the current F5 strain which is what will be imported into Australia. Fifteen animals in quarantine in the US, currently.

As for owners allowing their animals to escape, to breed up with a feral gene pool and create havoc among the native wildlife, I see an already existing situation which isn't being addressed, let alone one which might. Fifteen million feral cats roam this country apparently. Which is why I advocate for any cat sales as pets to be neutered before sale. If you're a pedigree freak and you intend to show an animal, then you need to be registered as an exhibitor just as a breeder needs to be registered. If you don't intend to show the animal or breed from it through the auspices of a registered breeder, then you simply ought not be permitted to buy a whole animal as a domestic pet.

I've seen what can happen when a cat isn't adequately constrained as a domestic pet. We owned a whole queen - a pure white Burmilla - which I bred with a grey Persian. Actually, I didn't....she did. The resulting litter was six of the most beautiful animals, all of which found homes. We kept two, a male and female, both silver grey. Both speyed. The mother seemed to suffer a form of feline post-natal depression once the kittens were weaned, and despite all of our efforts at keeping her restrained in a cat run, her efforts to escape were eventually rewarded and we never saw her again. I'm led to believe that a house several doors up may have captured her and had her destroyed. If that's so, then in a way I'm pleased. She was never the animal we originally knew, after the kittens. I'd never breed again. The risks for a backyarder, as we were, are too great, both for the animals and for the human neighbourhood and wildlife.

I have no objections to selective breeding of animals for domestic consumption as companion animals. Let's be realistic and admit that all of our domestic companion animals are the result of selective breeding, either recently, or over centuries. What's another addition to the mix?

During the course of the interview, it was revealed that QANTAS has a couple of tactics up it's corporate sleeve in case the engineers rolling strike action starts to bite harder. The interview revealed that QANTAS has a cadre of non-union engineers - private industry sourced - currently waiting in the wings should things get tough. QANTAS is already paying recruiters to keep these people

on call. Then there was, what Dixon said he wasn't saying, the spoken/unspoken threat to take major aircraft maintenance off-shore to the US. You can bet pounds to pennies that the threat isn't idle chatter, but has already been scoped and costed.

This dispute has been ongoing for the past 18 months. QANTAS has been offering 3% in all that time. At one point, the engineers apparently accepted the offer, or were about to, when their Union stepped in, rejecting it in support of all members, not just those employed by QANTAS. One might wonder whether Union rejection of an offer, acceptable, apparently, to one workplace in favour of a seemingly unachievable goal which risks that workplace losing all as a result, isn't sheer collective bloody-mindedness. It's probably pertinent to realise that over those 18 months, costs of living in Australia have sky-rocketed. Petrol, grocery prices, mortgage rates, and so on. I don't know what aircraft engineers get paid, but as with all salary earners, a life-style level tends to match the income available. Three percent would undoubtedly have vanished as if it had never been, which tends to justify the Union action in support of all members.

I have to ask, in all ignorance of the QANTAS financial position from the inside, given a record profit year in the face of increased costs and route cuts, would another two percent really damage the airline so much? I'll bet Dixon nets much more than 2% over last years take home.