Kristina Keneally
Delmer from Ohio may be interested to know the new Premier of New South Wales grew up in the Buckeye State.
According to a limited entry on Wikipedia, Kristina Keneally was born Kristina Kerscher in the United States in 1969 to an American father and an Australian mother. She grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and was educated at the Notre Dame Academy. She later attended the University of Dayton, also in Ohio. She received her baccalaureate in 1991 and worked as an intern for the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, Paul Leonard. In 1995 she graduated with a Masters Degree in Religious Studies.
A profile in The Australian in August adds that her grandmother was a Brisbane barmaid who married an American GI.
Keneally met her Australian husband at a Catholic World Youth Day in Poland. Ben Keneally is the nephew of author Thomas Keneally.
She has been in Australia for 15 years and in her maiden parliamentary speech quoted sources as diverse as Pope Leo XIII and Friedrich Engels.
It’s a remarkable achievement to become Premier of NSW, although she is the third person to hold the position in 15 months.
Having not watched television since the grand final in September, I haven’t heard her speak, but apparently she still has an American accent.
I find it a little disturbing that she is younger than me, probably the first state premier to be so.
Pambula Hospital maternity service
Our eldest son Michael was born at Pambula Hospital in March 1996.
It was a small hospital, but well equipped. The medical and nursing staff were all very skilled and friendly.
Juliet had an epidural.
I was surprised to hear the hospital’s birthing unit had been closed.
However, a media release I received by email this morning offers some hope for the service to be reopened.
Hopefully that occurs, because although Pambula is only 30km from Bega, it’s the closest hospital to Eden, which is further to the south. (more…)
If I ruled a country …
This is one of those five-question blog prompts. I first saw it on Synaptoman. The starting assumption is that you are the absolute ruler of a prosperous, stable country without any immediate threats, no poverty or unemployment.
That means I can answer this question safe in the knowledge I don’t need to interfere with the economy or the social structure. They must be working already.
1) I’d appoint an advisory council made up of community and industry leaders. I wouldn’t have to accept their advice, but I could not govern effectively without it.
2) I would guarantee the independence of the judiciary, appoint a powerful ombudsman and ensure the police force was properly organised and well paid.
3) The only taxes would be a value-added tax and a bank debits tax.
4) I would ensure free quality education to university level.
5) I would build an excellent public transport system and ban cars from city precincts.
No surprise with the NSW election result. Labor returned easily, hard battle for Libs in 2011.
Phone tone rage (PTR)
A Kalgoorlie Miner columnist, Kitty Prodonovich, wrote today about “phone tone rage” (PTR).
It is quite amazing how the repetitive tones from an innocent little phone can incite so much anger and frustration, but they do. And it’s not just the phone rings; you can also have different sound for message alerts and other thing. One of the guys I work with has an extremely loud whistle every time he gets a text message, which fools me every time. And yes, it does bring out the PTR in me. I basically just want to smash his phone each time it whistles.
Kitty admits to variously having Barry Manilow singing Copacabana and WHAM’s “Wake me up before you go go” driving her friends and colleagues mad. (more…)
New citizens asked tough questions
I filled out Juliet’s citizenship application form yesterday. Two of the questions stumped me, not for their difficulty, but their inclusion.
Have you ever committed any war crimes? Are you a terrorist? They’re not the exact words, but they may as well be.
I can just picture Osama Bin Laden sitting in his cave thinking he can trick the Australian Government into giving him citizenship by answering "no" to both questions.
Obviously, terrorists will attempt to deceive. I suppose that if the deceipt is discovered the government can deport them for telling fibs on the application. That’s the only reason I can see for asking such questions.
Redaction add-on for Word
Microsoft has released a useful add-on for Word called Redaction.
This is an editing tool to black out confidential information. I’m writing this in Kanotix, so I haven’t tried it yet, but I can perceive its merit.
It will be particularly handy for organisations answering Freedom of Information requests. As the blurb says:
Sensitive government documents, confidential legal documents, insurance contracts, and other sensitive documents are often redacted before being made available to the public.
I can’t see it will be much use to personal users. If you don’t want someone to see something you would just save another copy without that information, I think.
