money can't replace it....

Today's title comes from Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road which I have played over and over in the car today. It's in my head, who cares whether it relates to whatever I am going to write.

What I should be doing is editing this bloody 60 page report just as I have been doing the last 3 nights. Bugger me it's hard to keep at.

Instead, let's talk nukes. Now, when I open the national daily newspaper - at work, because it's so useless (except for Doonesbury) I don't get it at home any more - and I find the work one of the country's allegedly premier foreign affairs analysts, I don't expect to find this sort of puerile sensationalism. You can leave that to the Chaser or whoever. It would just be nice to get some sensible discussion about the strategic implications, not the height of his shoes. There's better debate going on in some of the blogs, or shouldn't that be surprising.

FWIW, Australia is not under direct threat (despite the Yellow Peril/Domino Theory graphics on Your ABC tonight). The risk comes from the relationship between North and South, between North and China, between China and Japan. The hot air from the world's nucular policeman and his pint-sized Little Sir Echo, and their various Talking Suits (including the woman who wears big black boots and the buffoon who wears fishnets) is just that - hot air. Despite the urgings of the just-nuke-'em-back-to-the-stone-age bloggers and letters correspondents, that is not going to happen. The US has to tread softly and work within whatever limited stuff the UN can come up with (not forgetting, without going to too much detail, that the UN Security Council is just the sum of its members).

There's also a lot of puerile slanging continuing in blogland, and Catallaxy features strongly (although North Korea is not the topic). I can see that we might be in for a bit of a seachange in blogging as this current examination of on-line personal relationships and how to conduct a debate halfway politely start to play themselves out. And if you think I'm gutless for just mentioning it here, not linking and not going in there for a stoush, well you might be right but I don't care. Gutless is my middle name.

But while we're on blogging, where do some of these people get the time to conduct their online hostilities during the working day? It goes on for bloody hours! I don't have the time to do it but even if I did, I owe it to my employer (and more importantly the poor bloody taxpayer who finances my activiiteis) to not do it. I have started to do a quick scan of some blogs while I have some lunch, but that's it.

I had meant to make mention of the Telstra float the other night, except for this bloody work that I'm supposed to be doing, even as we speak. As Chateau VVB holds some now half-price shares, in Offspring No 2's name, we get the annual reports and so on. I scanned the report quicly the other night (instead of doing this bloody report that I am still not doing) and was quite taken aback by the fear and loathing expressed in their risks section. Such as, if the government doesn't roll over and do all sorts of things, then Sol might leave and then his hand picked crew will leave and we'll be up a well known creek in a barbed wire canoe. I see that John Durie in the AFR picked up on the same stuff today.

What on earth are they thinking? I heard that similar wording will be in the prospectus for T3. Do they want to unload or not? Of course, it hardly matters, because for all the hoo-ha about the Mums and Dads, it will be the institutional investors that pick up the majority, I would imagine.

There's a bloke in my team who does a bit of trading and he's asking me will we go in, given that as current owners we get the 'inducements'. I asked our then adviser whether we should go in on T2 and he said yes, so here we are in the current predicament. I should have exercised some independent thought, compared the float price of T1 and T2 and thought, "blimey, not on yer nellie!" But I didn't. And having been burnt, and understanding just little more of what's going on now, I can't really see that we will. I have mentally written off the $2000 in T2 a long time ago.

Look, I really have to get back to this report, no matter how much fun this is. Let's get Lucinda to take us out....

I Lost It
by Lucinda Williams from the album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare

Give me some love to fill me up
Give me some time give me some stuff
Give me a sign give me some kind of reason
Are you heavy enough to make me stay
I feel like I might blow away
I thought I was in heaven
But I was only dreamin
I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare

I just wanna live the life I please
I don't want no enemies
I don't want nothin if I have to fake it
Never take nothin don't belong to me
Everything's paid for nothing free
If I give my heart
Will you promise not to break it
I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare