JohnB

The story has been making the rounds lately and I thought it worthy of attention. Put simply, a person is on film from the opening of a Charlie Chaplin film in 1928 who has their hand to their ear as they walk and talk. It looks for all the world like someone talking on a mobile phone. Here is the original youtube post where the "finder" describes exactly where the footage is on the DVD. If you want to skip that, go to about 2 1/2 minutes in and see the footage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv9f-s0KmOU&feature=related There have been a number of opinions and explanations put forward for the footage and why it could not be a traveller, but all so far fail in one respect or another. To summarize the arguments; 1. "There were no phone towers (or satellites) in 1928, so a mobile wouldn't work. Therefore it is not a mobile." While good for a mobile phone of today, if we assume a "hand held communication device" rather than an iPhone, it fails. The possibility exists for a "peer to peer" phone. 2. "There weren't mobile phones, so who is she talking to?" The implication is that since there was nobody else to phone, she can't be making a call. This fails because of the implicit assumption that the woman is alone. She could be part of a team. Similarly there is not a requirement that the phone work "across time" or whatever. 3. The woman has a toothache (or similar) and is holding a bag of ice to her face. This fails as at the end of the footage she is pretty much face on to the camera and shows no evidence of discomfort, she is talking quite easily. 4. It's a hearing aid. There have been 2 main contenders for this theory. The Siemens model 1924 and the Western Electric 34ahearing aid. While the Western Electric does have a box the right size and shape, the box is the microphone and was hung on a cord around the neck, the sound came out of an earpiece. The Siemens is a far better contender as is seen from the picture on their website. The thing is of course, if it's a hearing aid, who is her invisible conversation partner? While the picture is roughly consistent with the Siemens hearing aid, her behaviour is not consistent with a person using one, it is consistent with someone having a conversation. 5. She's shielding her face and when the cameraman/director asks her to stop doing so, she turns towards him and starts to speak. She's too far from the camera to "talk" to the director. In a busy street at that distance you would have to raise your voice to be heard. Firstly a rather unladylike thing to do in 1928 and secondly there is no sign that she has raised her voice. 6. It's a time traveller caught on film by accident. The difficulties with this one I think are obvious. I think jumping to the conclusion it is a time traveller on the basis of some grainy footage is not a good idea, however declaring it "explained" or "debunked" on the basis of a comparison between grainy footage and rather small artwork isn't much better. If you look a the Siemens picture closely you'll note that man is holding it in a very similar fashion to the woman in the footage, but the girl is not. I have so far failed to find a picture of the Siemens that compares with the Western Electric one and it would appear that nobody else can find one either. All references to the Siemens are using the 1924 advertising pic from the website. An interesting question is that if it was a time traveller and they do try avoid leaving evidence, now that this has blown up, can they avoid it? Can the woman from the future now not go near the opening of the film and thereby avoid being caught on camera? Or is she now fated to be there, no matter what? I find this little diversion of interest for the simple reason that if time travellers have visited the recent past (assuming it becomes possible and viable) then it's odds on that the only way we'll find evidence is when they are accidentally captured on film. The film "Timestalkers" was based on the idea that man in the background of a photo from 1880 was holding a modern Magnum handgun. (Not a bad movie, BTW. Not great, just not bad.) A more recent film "Thrill Seekers" a.k.a. "The Time Shifters" worked from the premise of a reporter doing an article on disasters notices the same man in a number of pictures over 60 years. An academic mystery until she realises that he has just boarded the same flight as she has. As I said, many explanations and objections, but none of them particularly good. Thoughts and opinions?

Severian, you tried, but it was a lost hope. After having a look around I must agree with other comments here. Sister siting with those clowns does SFN a dis-service. They are neither rational, nor particularly sceptical and certainly appear to favour insult over logical thought.

Just to point out; It actually has two. The first and foremost is that Indepenents are legitimate candidates. We see similar arguments down here. The bottom line is that if the major partys can't come up with people better than the Independent candidate, then they don't deserve to win. Independents have a tendency to get in the way of the careers of political party hacks.

Yes it was, a colon could have been used, due to the part before the comma being an independent clause, but the use of a comma is also correct. These are good references to rely on: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm http://www.montanalife.com/writing/Comma_Rules.html http://www.suite101.com/content/when-to-use-a-comma-a120050 http://www.myenglishteacher.net/USINGCOLONS.HTML http://www.whitesmoke.com/punctuation-colon.html The period goes inside the quotation marks when quoting an entire sentence as I did with "Resistance was futile.". By quoting the entire sentence I'm also quoting any and all punctuation used in that sentence, however that puctuation is separate from, and not relevent to, the punctuation of the containing sentence, hence the use of two periods in my previous sentence. When one is quoting single words or phrases from other sentences the initial punctuation is incomplete and therefore the punctuation required is that of the containing sentence, hence the period goes outside the quotation marks. Periods, by definition end complete sentences, "that's" by itself is not a complete sentence, but the sentence containing it was. Alternatively it can be simply argued that the original word quoted, "thats", did not contain a period and so the corrected form, "that's", shouldn't either. Inserting the corrected word with the period would render the original sentence incomprehensible. http://www.essayforum.com/general-writing-questions-13/proper-use-punctuation-marks-5840/ http://www.wikihow.com/Use-English-Punctuation-Correctly I can only add that while grammatically correct, using the word "and" to start a sentence is generally frowned upon due to overuse. (If my 4th Grade teacher could only see me now. ) michel123456, thanks for the applause but it's swansont and the other practicing scientists around here that deserve it. When writing papers for publication their language must be clear and concise so that others know exactly what they have done or discovered. That style of writing they bring here and it sets a standard, even if they don't see it in that light. I'm just trying to keep up.

Not to rain on the parade, but as commenters on the article said, the iPhone was for GPS, the HD video was a video camera, not a phone. Very cool project though. Kudos to the dad.

*Must resist! Must resist!* You left out an apostrophe in the last sentence, "thats" should be "that's". "Resistance was futile." On a more serious note, I try to be clear in what I write. The written word, while a transmitter of ideas is not a perfect transmitter and so introduced ambiguities like txt speech only serve to cloud the issue. The idea is to be as expressive and immediately understandable as I can. If you can read my words and understand my meaning, then I have succeeded, but if you have to take the time to decypher my words before even attempting the meaning behind them, then I have failed.

Sorry for a bit of a derail, but a serious question. Who do the Unions support and give money to? Down here it is the Left exclusively. Unions can generally equal most "Corporate" gifts.

What an intensely stupid idea. It panders to the mindless masses and envy. The concept is fatally flawed by the supposition that the "mega rich" or whatever you want to call them actually have cash to hand over for this tax. They don't. It's all in businesses and investments. So which chunks of Virgin should Richard Branston sell off? Which companies would the British public like to see go to overseas ownership? I've known many a millionaire over the years and the vasy majority couldn't write a cheque for $5,000 without it bouncing. One guy (who owned a trucking company) was worth around $15 million on paper, but his annual income was less than his receptionists. Applied to him, all he could do would be to sell off a number of his trucks to raise the money, reducing the sixe of his company and putting people out of work. The only difference between him and the mega rich is a matter of scale, nothing more. I add that since the business world would know that the mega rich have to sell and raise cash to 20% of their worth, the business world would hold off buying, forcing the price down and down. Rather than liquidating 20% of their assets, the figure would be closer to 30-35%. A stupid idea based on fantasy, put forward as workable. Gee, do you think that sort of economic idiocy might be the cause of the problem? And Dak, please. A TUC article? We've got some of those twits down here and they still call each other "comrade". It's amazing how many of the most vocal and insane unionists in Australia have bloody pommy accents. Besides, they don't want fiscal responsibility, they want more money for more public servants at higher wages. It might be worth looking at this Guardian article to see where the British problem comes from. Middlesborough has 43% on the government roll and the money to pay them has to come from somewhere. How Britain could possibly need 6 million Civil Servants in a pissant little country that fits between Brisbane and Sydney is beyond me.

Which sort of encapsulates the "Catch 22" Australia is in. Modernise quckly and that very important "identity" is lost and we are accused of and pilloried for "cultural genocide", but without that modernisation we are pilloried for the very great and very deadly differences in life expectancy and living conditions. This is why I support people like Noel Pearson. His ideas give the Aboriginal people an economic base and control over the modernisation. They will be the ones to choose how and when rather than it being imposed by the white gov. A contributing factor to white gov stuff ups is distance and conditions. Our Capital Brisbane is in the very South East corner of the State in a quite temperate climate. Because most of the population is here most of the pollies are from here. The Gulf is 1700 km away and a totally different climate with totally different problems. (It's 2200 km to the tip of the Cape.) Frankly, the pollies (and a lot of people) just haven't got a clue about what it's like up there. It's like politicians from Indiana, who have lived all their lives in Indiana trying to plan for the economic development and infrastructure for Florida. Hopeless, they wouldn't have a clue. I will add that we have similar problems between the States and the Federal gov. Most of our population is in the Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra triangle. Pollies from this area barely understand the concept of driving an hour between towns, they are lost at the idea of driving 2 hours between houses. In Victoria for example, you would be hard pressed to ever be more than 100 km from a medical facility with an MRI machine, so that is their mindet, their "reality". They simply cannot comprehend the idea of 2 or 3 hours flying time to get to an MRI. I remember some years ago being in Melbourne and talking to a nice couple who were coming to Queensland for a driving holiday. "We're going to Brisbane and if we like it we'll head up to Cairns for the weekend" they said. I couldn't make them understand that when they reached Brisbane, they were only half way to Cairns. From their POV it was all one state and in their experience you can drive anywhere in a State in one day. I often think that our State gov is doing to the country communities what Canberra is doing to us. Taking advice about regional issues from overeducated dickheads who have never been there and have no real idea about the problem.

Moontanman, I'm reasonably sure that no Australian Aboriginal wants to live in a Gunya eating witchety grubs if it can be avoided. It's not about imposing our culture and destroying theirs, they want the advantages of modern society. Part of the problem is this fantasy of the "Noble Savage" that has infected Western thinking and a romanticisation of the past. "Living close to nature, in harmony with the seasons. Providing from my own hand, understanding the ways of the animals." The whole box of crap. It was also a time of "Suffering dysentry, marrying women of 12 because they had a 1 in 3 chance of dying in childbirth. Having most of your teeth ground down or fallen out by 25. Managing to live to 40 and being considered "very old"". How many Native Americans would really like to go back to the old ways? No cars, no guns, no horses, no medicine, no electricity? When given the chance, historically all peoples have chosen to advance and adopt the ways of the more advanced society. So the bottom line is people don't "want" to live that way at all. Padren, it might seem funny to try and preserve parts of the traditional Aboriginal society, but we like the US are a melting pot. There is no need for the Aboriginal Communities to discard any part of their traditional culture that doesn't conflict with modern ways. By keeping as much as possible as we attempt to fully integrate our peoples, we all become culturally richer. The fun starts because there isn't a single "Aboriginal Culture", there are dozens if not hundreds of Tribal cultures that have differnt rules even though they follow similar general rules. As none of this was ever written down, we don't know if something is compatible with the traditional culture until it rises up and slaps people in the face. The very sad part of it all is that recently it's not white Australian culture that is destroying traditional Aboriginal culture, it's Black American culture. To see the young men junking their traditional ideals to wear their pants extra low and talk like "Gangstas" must be terribly disheartening for the Tribal Elders. Hell, it's hard for me to watch, and I'm white. I feel like shaking them and screaming "You have your own culture, you don't need to copy the dregs of the yanks". For this part of the problem, I don't think anybody has an answer. iNow, fair enough.

Fair enough. It wasn't your answer but more the optimistic timeline I was addressing. How do you expose children to the net if their parents won't even send them to school? In many ways the answer you gave is what we're doing. But cultural inertia is a much stronger force that you think. Add to that the political complexities, and it just takes time. BTW, did you listen to the Pearson interview?

I still think you are too optimistic. Simple exposure to other cultures in't enough, you have to absorb and internalise those experiences. For example there is a big medicos meeting on at the moment and a major topic is Aboriginal access of healthcare services. In the backblocks we have some trouble getting services to people whether black, white or brindle. It's simply hard to get good medical services to people out in back of beyond. The "Royal Flying Doctor Service" does an amazing job flying Drs and acting as an air ambulance, but we still need to do more. So the only way to improve access is to get more services to the people. However there is another part to the problem. All people in the cities have exactly the same access to healthcare. There is no discrimination, the hospitals are open to everyone, you just walk in. But for some reason, even though everybody has the same access, Aboriginals living in cities are less likely to actually use the services. Emergencies, yes but not for regular checkups or many more minor complaints. Without checkups, you don't catch problems early and of course minor things can become major. It's about attitude. For all we complain about overworked health services because many whites at the first hint will run their child to the nearest medical facility. That is our cultural attitude, "Sick? Run to Doctor". For some reason, and I have no idea why unless it's a general mistrust thing, the Aboriginals don't have this attitude and therefore don't use the medical facilities as often. In the cities, it's not that they don't have access, they don't use them. It's like choosing to dig a hole with your hands when there is a shovel beside you. I add that beside the normal facilities that all Australians in a city have access to, we also have many services staffed by and exclusively for the Aboriginal community. Even these services are apparently finding it tough going to get people to use them. Another point is why should the Aboriginals even believe that we whites give a damn? The fact of the matter is that for most of the history of this country we didn't. We did discriminate. In the 50s "cohabiting with an Aboriginal" was against the law. I don't know that many were prosecuted, but illegal it was. So with a long history of either uncaring or well intentioned stuff ups, why should they believe what the white gov says? We didn't care for so long and now they are supposed to believe that the whites care if a man beats his wife? For most of history we didn't care too much if a white did it, now they are supposed to believe that the attitude has changed? It has, but why should they believe it? Family is very strong in the Aboriginal community, loyalty to family is very important. Which is why a battered wife is far less likely to report it or seek medical attention. They know the consequences to the family and don't want to risk the inevitable police intervention. Families are still important in Western culture, but we've decided that some prices for keeping the family together are simply too high to pay. This attitude is changing and we are seeing the women in communities being more assertive, which is a good thing. Also note as I said earlier that some political forces in Australia are intentionally hindering and destroying the abilities of Aboriginal communities to develop. The Left loves supporting Stone Age cultures and their land rights and will do anything in it's power to ensure that they remain stone age or leave their land. If you haven't, listen to the Noel Pearson interview. The man talks sense. How can you tell people to send their kids to school to have a better future if any sort of economic development is denied them? The only "Land Rights" the Left wants is the right to say "No" to development, Aboriginal ability to say "Yes" to development must be fought at all costs. And it's the Aboriginal people who are left paying the price in lost hope and early deaths. Maybe it's different elsewhere, but down here we have way too many ecofreaks in positions of power. They are the ones condemning Aboriginals to disease, poverty, despair and early deaths while at the same time acting morally superior because they "care about the environment". The true depth of my contempt for and disgust at these people cannot be described. I wouldn't p*ss on them if they were on fire. (So if I sometimes come across as hard anti Green, now you have some idea why. I can't abide self important, self obsessed idealogical murderers. And that is what they are. They know exactly what the result of their actions will be and they simply don't care, trees are more important.)

iNow, I'll try to explain, but I'm not sure I'll be clear. The term is "Cultural Inertia". First and foremost this is not about intelligence, the Australian Aboriginal is as smart as anybody else. It's about Culture and concepts. The Hunter Gatherer is, in some ways the ultimate "throw away" society. Without means of preservation, just how long do you thnk a basket of woven grass lasts? About a week. Then you make a new one. Things don't last, so the society doesn't look to the future. If something breaks, you make a new one. When the hunters come back, everybody gorges themselves. They do the same again the next day. The day after that, the meat is getting a bit ripe to eat, so you get ready to go hunting again. Add to this that most of Australia doesn't have a "Winter" as you in the NH understand it. Except for migratory birds, food is reasonably plentiful all year round. Therefore there is no impetus to develop technologies like "smoking meat" or other preservation techniques. This means that the concept of "thrift" or planning for the future simply doesn't exist. Things don't last and so you make no offort to make things last. That's reality, and that has been reality for 40,000 years. Children of course, learn their cultural values from their Elders. So with the Elders having the mindset above, change will only be gradual. Take the Pintupi people. They aren't dumb, you couldn't live in the Simpson Desert and not be pretty smart. However the adults did not have the cultural background to either distinguish a difference or be able to quantify the difference between "The discovery Channel", "The History Channel" and "Star Trek". And why would the children be much different? Skyscraper, TARDIS or Starship, they are all just pictures on a screen. They are not real. In many cases, not only doesn't the word exist, but the very concept behind the word doesn't exist. Changes come on a generational basis, not years or decades. Each generation is more culturally "advanced" that the one before. There is a way to accelerate the process and that was one of the justifications of the "Stolen Generation" debacle. If you remove the children from their cultural background, the "outmoded" ideas of the Elders won't hold their development back and they will grow up integrated into society. Needless to say it was not a resounding success. Let me put it another way. You have Universities, Schools and the Net. America has thousands of years of Cultural History that reveres learned men. So why is it that more than 100 years after fighting a war about it, you still have people who think blacks are sub human? How is it that you have people who know, deep down in their guts, and despite all evidence to the contrary, that the world is only 6,000 years old? And you had the headstart of the "Age of Enlightenment". Putting it bluntly. It took whites thousands of years of turmoil, revolution, despots, death and misery to evolve what is now called 21st Century Civilisation. I'm willing to allow our Aboriginal population a few more generations to make that same journey. Given the huge task, I happen to think that they're doing bloody well, and better than you could expect of most people. There are other factors of course in the black/white relations in Australia, but cultural inertia is a factor in developmental speed.

DH. Got it, I think. The way it was portrayed down here was that the whole "sub prime" thing was unsustainably cheap loans on cheap houses, but it appears that it was more about unsustainably cheap loans on expensive, extremely overvalued houses. Our bubble must burst too, because it's just rediculous, but I think we're being delayed because the banks aren't lowering their loan requirements much. Mind you, run interest rates up another 2 or 3 percent and the situation will change drastically and quickly. People are often loaded to 35-40% of their gross income, so a rates hike will lead to massive defaulting and forclosures. Pangloss, the politics of guilt are very much alive and well down here, believe me. However the fact remains that anthropologically speaking, when white man arrived the locals were basically Paleolithic. I'm not having a go at the Aboriginal by saying that, there was no choice. Few spears of arrows were stone tipped, simply because the right sort of stones are very rare here. Arrows were few because the materials for good bowstrings didn't exist or the means to preserve them didn't exist. Most arrows and spears were carved, fir hardened points. Weaving and cloth were never developed because there were no suitable plants. Likewise Australia has zero domesticable plants or animals. Without all these things, you simply are stuck in the Paleolithic, the materials simply weren't there to allow advancement. Yet they survived. Amazing. Like I said earlier, the situation is very complex. Fortunately, Leaders are emerging in the Aboriginal Communities that have more common sense than found in our entire governmental systems. These people are coming up with ideas and plans, and can explain them so well (and the ideas are so good) that Joe Bloggs in the street is saying "That should work, give it a try." So they are gaining support from the white community as well. (Except for the Greenies and the Left, of course. These people believe in Aboriginal Land Rights and ownership so long as the Aborigines don't want to actually do anything with the land. Certain groups are keeping the Aboriginals in the stone age in the name of "The Environment" and "Conservation".) To get an idea of the politics in Cape York, there is an with Aboriginal Leader Noel Pearson (who I personally like and respect) with our radio version of Glen Beck. Alan Jones is considered "extreme" right wing here, I think you americans will be surprised as to how mild he is compared to yours. iNow, please confirm that you are joking.

Nah, it's just a faux apology to appease the backers and keep the money rolling in. The mindset is still the same. Franny Armstrong;"Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody's existence on this planet? Clearly we don't really think they should be blown up, that's just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?" Those of us who aren't in total agreement with her are obviously "afflicted" and sick. For the good of a healthy society the sick parts should be "amputated". To the fellow travellers of these people I can only say "Stay in step. Do not doubt, do not question. And remember, when you truly believe you are saving the planet, anything becomes permissable."

Just dropping in for a quick and off topic "Hi bascule, long time no see".

It is a difficult situation Pangloss, and it's hard to say anything on the topic without coming across as condescending towards aboriginals or as an apologist for the wrongs that have been done. The often very well meant paternalism of the government went so horribly (and in many cases inexcusibly) wrong so many times. A good case in point was the "Trust" fund set up at the beginning of the 20th C by the Queensland gov. The idea was good. Since a hunter gatherer peole have little knowledge of thrift or saving, the gov was given the wages earned by aboriginals to be held in trust and paid out later. So the idea was good but the reality is so far beyond the pale as to be disgusting to any fair minded person. The scheme ended in the 1970s with bugger all money being given back to those workers or their families. To make it worse, it appears that all the accounts have gone missing and there is some doubt whether accounts were kept at all. The money, rather than being in trust had been siphoned off into "General Revenue" for the State and spent. The current gov is offering something between $2,000 and $4,000 for those workers or their families that can prove a claim to the money. How the hell are they supposed to "prove" anything? Adding insult to injury the gov went to lengths to point out that they didn't "have" to give the cash out, they were doing it because they thought it would help "reconciliation". Queensland aboriginals have quite rightly registered their disgust at this offer. Is it any wonder that many aboriginals don't trust the white man gov? As a Queenslander and an Australian this issue really gets my goat. I don't care if it takes $10 million to get the books found and straigthened. If we can't find the books, then go out to the people and ask for their testimony. While not the best solution, we have to at least try. Those people worked for their money and they (or their families) deserve to have it, with interest. If that costs $500 million, then so be it. At least then the debt will be squarely settled. Something to think on though and a difference between the US and Oz. When were the last tribe of Native Americans first contacted by white men? The Pintupi people, the last tribe to be contacted by white man in Australia were found in 1984, a mere 26 years ago. Any intelligent suggestions from the cheap seats about how to get them from "Stone Age Hunter Gatherer" to "21st Century citizen" in a generation or two? Remember that it has to be done without being overbearing, or paternalistic and shouldn't interfere with their "traditional" cultural values and morals. I await enlightenment. Like I said before, a very complex situation.

Agreed. Although you might be able to get some comparisons if looking at $ spent per year per 10,000 miles of rail lines, or 10,000 miles of road. I don't know what the figures are, but a comparison might be possible.

They're not out to win hearts and minds. Their motives are quite plain and follow from the Greenpeace "We know where you work, we know where you live" threat, identify and eliminate unbelievers. Just a modern religion doing what all religions try to do.

DH, just to clear up a few misconceptions. Transportation of convicts stopped in 1868 with the last group arriving in Western Australia in that year. Since the founding of Sydney in 1788 there were some 165,000 convicts sent here. The Oz population in 1871 was 1.7 million, so I make that more than 10% of the population were convicts or descended from convicts. I call that a pretty large percentage. We did have slavery. The conditions of those convicts assigned to free settlers was not much above slavery, although the Master couldn't beat them. To our great shame the practice of "blackbirding", the enticing or kidnapping of islanders to work in the Queensland canefields wasn't stopped until 1904. It was slavery, pure and simple. The descendants of those people are now part of the communities in the north of the State. Concerning the aboriginal population there is now so much politics involved that truth is hard to find. I'm very sure that there were atrocities, but how bad and who perpetrated them on who is sometimes difficult to work out. Some of the much touted "massacres" of aboriginals now appear to have not occurred in reality, but the arguments continue. Just as it is in the best interests of some groups to downplay and minimise incidents, it is the political interests of others to exaggerate them. Neither side really want the truth to come out, only the "thuths" that aid their agenda. Yes, we did have a policy of removing some children from their aboriginal parents. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, the official policy of Australia was "Integration" (whether it was aboriginals or immigrants) and rightly or wrongly it was believed that children brought up in 20th century society rather than bark gunyas would integrate better. Mainly due to access to good schools and University education. Many of those complaining today only have the benefit of their free University education because they were "kidnapped". Something to think on. The second reason for the policy has been downplayed so much that most people don't know it existed. Many aboriginal communities in the mid 20th C had the practice of taking 1/2 breed babies into the woods as dingo food. Left where they were, many of those children would have been abandoned and died, so they were removed. In that respect, I have no problem with the policy and it still continues today in most civilised nations. Children deemed "at risk" in the care of their parents are removed. Are you suggesting that this policy should be applied depending on skin colour and that it should not apply to those with darker skins? In many ways an issue about childrens safety has been turned into a race issue. Concerning house prices, and yes, I believe that our bubble has yet to really burst. (FFS, $500k for a 1 bedroom hovel in Melbourne?) You said the median in Austin was $200k, that would imply houses above and below that figure, I was pointing out the starting price here was 350k. However, rather than a direct comparison of housing prices, I was wondering how with such generally cheap housing, a large number of people couldn't pay their mortgage. I'm assuming incomes are roughly equal, so we should be getting a lot more defaults due to the higher house prices, but we don't seem to be. Put it another way. Two groups with family incomes of say, 100k. One group is defaulting on 150k home loans and the other is not defaulting on 400k home loans. Why? On general health issues we also have an obesity "problem". Strangely it seems to get worse every time they redefine the word "obese", but there you go. We aren't that different. And while the "plumping up" might have little to do with socialised medicine, it would appear from CharonYs link that your much higher infant mortality rate is almost certainly due to a lack of some form of Universal Health Care. Your last sentence, while unfortunately true is also highly offensive as it misconstrues the situation. The traditional aboriginal culture is hunter gatherer and a bit of research on life expectancy for those tribes will show that it is not long. For all the bitching, life expectancy for the Australian Aboriginal is now longer than at any time in their history. I'm not trying to excuse what is happening, aboriginal life expectancy is way too short and it needs to be improved rapidly. However the situation is extremely complex and I strongly suggest that you refrain from commenting unless and until you have a fair knowledge of those complexities. All is not quite as it seems. Cheers.

I've wondered about this for some time and I thought I'd ask. America and Australia are roughly the same size and America isn't 60% unusable desert. You have 10 times our population and probably 100 times our manufacturing capability. Houses sell for $80k within miles of a City centre ( I was looking at Austin, Texas) whereas our prices start at $350k, yet you manage a housing crisis with people not being able to pay their loans. FFS, your monthly repayments in many places are less than most people pay in rent per week down here. You have arguably the most advanced medical technology on the planet, but one of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world. You spend three times as much on health care per capita as we do and still can't have a Universal system with reasonable outcomes. You have an annual budget in the Trillions and yet apparently can't keep your roads and bridges in good repair. You have a National Debt that has passed astronomical while ours is at about 6.9% and that is after heavy borrowing for a "Stimulus Package" of our own. Seriously, with all the advantages you started with, how did you manage to cock it up so phenomenally? Surely not all your politicians are sourced from "Homes for the Mentally Impaired"?

I'm not sure that even area helps. We're about the same size, but you have more than 10 times our population. FWIW, the Feds are spending $5.6 Billion on new infrastructure and $1 billion to renew the rail networks next year. On top of that each State has its own spending. For Queensland it's; $7.3 billion on transport infrastructure, including $3.3 billion on roads this fiscal year. For comparison, we have some 4.4 million people in a State of 715,000 square miles.

Marat, I don't think it has anything to do with a "cultural sacredness" of the the female body. It's pure survival of the tribe. A society with 3 men and 50 women has a chance of survival whereas one with 3 women and 50 men doesn't. This has been true since before we first walked upright and animals demonstrate it all the time. Like it or not, in the survival game the life of an individual female is worth more than the life of an individual male. The demise of the Tasmanian aboriginal probably had far more to do with their habit of selling their women as slaves than meeting white man. Society certainly has changed and women are now in jobs that put them in dangerous situations. There has always been the element of risk for females, a lion might attack while the males are out hunting. However there is a world of difference between accepting risks to females by allowing them to be in dangerous situations and actively sacrificing them in situations where someone is trying to kill them. It goes against millions of years of evolutionary biology. Padren that's an interesting question, I don't know if such studies have been done. Depending on the findings, I don't know that they would get published either. Given the way the Art of War has changed, would studies based on patrols from relatively safe areas be applicable to being stuck in the field for weeks or months? Being able to return to base on a virtually daily basis is a relatively new thing.

An article can claim all they want, but the required behaviour is not observed in the animal kingdom. Therefore the idea is probably garbage.

Um, history?