Australia and refugees

It's no crime to seek a better life... (interesting piece on Australia and refugees). I think that its time to rethink our policies (not a fan of Tony or Julia on this at the moment).

On Christmas

Thought this piece in The Age today made for interesting reading. Here's an one excerpt to ponder (which
kind of summarises the point of the article).

Finally we could all do well to heed the advice of Michel Leunig's Vasco to Mr Curly "What is worth doing and what is worth having?" asks Vasco of his friend Mr Curly. 

"It is worth doing nothing and it is worth having a rest," advises the sagacious Mr Curly. "In spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you MUST rest Vasco — otherwise you will become RESTLESS!".

Music

Here's a list of artists of grown to love during the course of 2010, which I hadn't heard much of before:

• Josh Ritter, I really love his song "The Curse".
• Gemma Hayes, at least I think I first listen to her earlier this year. 
• Rosie Thomas, one of the girls in our bible study group introduce me to her (and a few other similar artists, Melaine Doane and Sarah Harmer).
• Brian Eno, I've known him as a genius producer, but this year I listened to one of his records for the first time. 
• Midlake, Deb introduce me to this group when she was in Sydney earlier this year, and I've really enjoyed their new record: The Courage of Others. 
• Noah and the Whale

and, briefly thinking about 2011, I'm looking forward to the new CDs from Bright Eyes (February) and R.E.M. (March) at the moment (I'm sure they'll be more, but that's a good start).

No leave no life(?)

Here's an interesting article by Ross Gittins on our leave balances(via the SMH), and the interesting contradiction between how we would prefer additional leave to additional pay, yet so much leave in Australia is just accumulating. (some research suggests it could be in the order of 117 million days) for the proverbial rainy day, Worth thinking about.