Sunny Breaks

Maybe it’s my conspiracy-fueled mind at work, maybe I’m reading between the lines too much, but when I saw this article, block-quoted here ad infinitum, I began to wonder… could that smart-but-casually dressed Zeta Reticulan standing behind the Federal Tresurer have anything to do with it?

The Federal Government will use the Budget on Tuesday to outline plans for a major review of Australia’s taxation system.

The 18-month review will look at all aspects of federal, state and local government taxes, other than the GST.

The review team will be led by Treasury head Ken Henry and will include prominent academics and business leaders.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has told Channel Nine changes are needed to ensure Australia’s economic prosperity into the future.

“We will look at personal taxation, we will look at the transfer payments system, we will look at how that effects individuals, how it affects families, how it affects retirees,” he said.

“We’ll look at—we. will. set aside large amounts of funding in preparation for. . . The Arrival. Vast nitrogen-filled domes will be constructed in the Woomera desert as part of Stage One. A new plant form known as Plankflora will be sewn into the Australian soil to make the air more breathable.

“It will be a comprehensive takeover.”

Mr Swan says the Government is likely to take a series of reforms to the next election.

“Certainly we will go to that election with a—_New Overlord_,” he said.

“I can’t predict what the review might say … I mean the review might say that—_All Hail Zeta Reticulum!_.”

Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull supports the review but has questioned the Government’s move to appoint the supra-intelligent, 2.3m tall praying mantis named Vasscorm, to lead the review team.

He has told ABC TV’s Insiders program the Government’s review cannot be considered independent.

“Vasscorm is a very smart man(tis) and we all respect him, but he is the head of the Treasury and the bureaucratic side of things,” he said.

“One would think that a review of this kind should be independent so this looks like a very in-house and insect controlled review.”

all the memories of everything that I wanted to mention about the recent trip to Shanghai and surrounds is blending in to nothing, so I better try and write it now, with fotos.

First the food. I really like food from the different parts of China. I feel like I’m over Korean food. I guess it’s just a thing of mass. China is massive and made up of a bunch of different cultures that have their own food. Maybe it’s the result of being in Korea for some time now, but the Sichuan style of food, (spicy) is probably the kind I like best.

In this particular night we went to the appropriately titled Sichuan Restaurant. On the right is a kind of fried potato dish, lending further weight to my theory that chips are universal and that you could go to Mars and they would be eating chips there too. On the left, according to girlfriend with e-dictionary in hand, is a dish entitled, ‘an excess of saliva’, which we’ll shorten to ‘drool’ for the purposes of this blogpost. It was chicken in a spicy -hot oil. It really did make you drool! Very tasty once you get over the not-so-western style of chopping—they cut straight through the bone rather than filleting or sectioning the way folks like me are used to.

I did several of the touristy things the first time around when I was there in late Feb but there was one that had eluded the tackyness-magnet. There’s an underground train that runs under the river which was like Journey to the Centre of the Earth meets Star Trek: The motion picture meets Boards of Canada’s album, Geogaddi.

I think it’s worth noting down that weather-wise, late April was a perfect time to be in Shangers. It was warm but not humid and the nights were just nice.

For a day or two we got out of the central city to a place an hour na a half away on the bus, Xitang. It’s a small place and not as on the map as Hangzhou or Suzhou. Xitang’s claim to fame is that a few scenes from Mission Impossible 3 were shot there. In several of the restaurants and shops you can see fotos of Tom Cruise and cast standing around.

Personally I found it interesting to see how the place filled up with the new Chinese Upper-middle class on Saturday morning. there’s all these people with money in their pocket in china and now all they need is Disney Land.

In any case, Xitang was a nice little place and the canals didn’t smell.

I felt like being daring and upgrading the wordpress installation to the latest version. (just press the button it’s not rocket science!) Sunny Breaks had been using the very old 2.01, a technological laggard more’s the pity, but the last attempt at a big upgrade resulted in flipping out the HostCentral server. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.
Also the theme, or ‘look’ if you will. Cutprice is not just a theme, it’s a platform. Also, they rent trucks. It will be modified to look a little less mundane in the near future. We’re even intending to reopen comments—after about five or six years of not caring what you think.
Lastly, note the “tags”. This is a clever device THEMAN has invented to get The Kids to do their own indexing.

*Update:* Comments n’ pings are now enabled. Comment til ur little hearts are content. Comment til you can comment no more. Comment like it’s going out of style.