What a video - Battle at Kruger

If you've got 10 minutes to spare this YouTube video is well worth watching. It starts out a little slowly, as many African safari videos do, but there's an amazing twist. Hang in there. Well worth while.

Le Tour de France

How good is Cadel Evans?! Now only 1:14 seconds from having the leader's yellow jersey on his back after a magnificent time trial, where he finished second, Evans now has a real chance of winning the Tour. If he can do well in the Pyrenees over the next few days we may be seeing an Aussie on the podium in France.

And congratulations to SBS for a the terrific coverage of every stage live. It's great to see some of the worlds great athletes battle it out in one of the worlds most grueling sporting events.

Fremantle Dockers look for new coach

Well here's some news that's about 12 months too late. Chris Connolly has resigned as the coach of the Fremantle Dockers - and not before time. I'm sure Chris is a great guy but his performance at the helm of what should be, one of the best football clubs in the AFL has been poor. With the list he's had at his disposal including Black, Pavlich, Hedland, and Tarrant, Connolly should have been crushing all before him. Instead, he's allowed the Dockers to slip out of contention of finals football this year. As much as it's a poor reflection on his skills as a coach, it's also a poor reflection on the executive of the club, who persistently tolerate honorable losses and excuse poor performance.

The Dockers are high on passion, but poor on performance. It's time they stopped their pretense at being an AFL club and gave their loyal supports a finals dividend.

Howard on the back foot over Haneef

What a master stroke. As reported on the ABC's The 7-30 Report this evening, barrister for Doctor Haneef, Steven Kime, has released the transcript of his police interview - with the predictable hand-wringing and tut-tutting from the Prime Minister, Attorney General Phillip Ruddock, and the Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty. All accuse Mr Kime of being variously unethical, working against the chances of Haneef getting a fair trial, and being disrespectful of the legal system. Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, it's hard to know what it is. Doctor Haneef has been granted bail by the courts and it was the Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews who, on hearing this news, cancelled Doctor Haneef's passport. The effect of this is to make Doctor Haneef the highest profile suspect in Australia today, and that makes his chances of receiving a fair trial even more difficult.

It's actions such as these by the Federal government which are showing how far Howard and his colleagues are willing to go to get re-elected - even to the point of manipulating executive powers to prosecute their political ends.

Mohamed Haneef

Walking the dog this morning, I met up with a lady who works with aboriginal communities in the North West of Western Australia. As our dogs played, we got talking about the way the Howard government is handling the problems faced by aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, and her view, quite understandably, was that Howard's solutions are short-sighted and politically motivated. And this lead to a chat about the plight of Doctor Mohamed Haneef. Doctor Haneef has been charged with '"recklessly" supporting a terrorist organisation, with the Australian Federal Police alleging he supported foiled plans to detonate truck bombs in Britain'. If he is proven to be guilty, then he deserves to be punished - terrorism is a despicable, weak, and cowardly crime that has no place in modern society. However, our justice system relies on the presumption of innocence and, at this stage, Doctor Haneef is innocent. Furthermore, the magistrate who heard Doctor Haneef's bail application obviously saw a very different person to the person seen by our immigration minister, Kevin Andrews. In what could quite easily be seen as a political stunt, Mr Andrews revoked Doctor Haneef's visa, resulting in Doctor Haneef's incarceration in an immigration detention centre. How convenient.

Let's not forget that this is an election year. In the 2001 election, Mr Howard sailed home to victory at the helm of the Tampa, and Doctor Haneef is being set up to be Mr Howard's Tampa II. The line will be that we now have a terrorist in custody, someone that could have killed innocent Australians. Just as he did last night on the 7:30 report, Mr Andrews and his Liberal colleagues will be very sketchy when pushed for details about why they've made the decision to revoke his visa. They will hint at his poor character, at the atrocities committed by his second cousin, and the dangers we face - all as a way of drumming up fear that they know full well wins elections.

What will sadly go unchallenged is the manner in which our judicial system has been treated with contempt by those in power. In the context of threats to our society, Doctor Haneef is a tiny risk compared to prostate cancer, depression, youth suicide, and motor neurone disease. But because he represents something that generates so much uncertainty, so much mistrust, and so much fear, he is the unwitting pawn in a political power play that is set to destroy his career and any hope of financial independence for his family. Guilty or innocent, Doctor Haneef and the Australian public deserve more respect than what they're receiving from the Howard government.

A need for speed

For most boys, the allure of a go-kart is speed. Build one, find the biggest, longest hill with a (preferably) paved road, then try to break the land speed record. It's a basic recipe, but one sure to add salt and pepper to an otherwise boring show and tell on Monday morning. But being raised on a farm created logistical problems for a budding speed freak. Firstly, there was the issue of the hill. Our farm was pretty much dead flat. Next, there was no real road. Sure there was the track that lead from the front gate to the house but it was sandy and, like the rest of the farm, flat. Not the perfect recipe for go-karting.

As in most rural communities, adults and kids alike rely on ingenuity. Take for example the cocky gate. It's a gate made almost entirely of wire with a piece of wood as a lever to stretch the gate across the opening, and a piece of timber at each end to give the wire in the middle a type of frame. It's not the flashest gate you'll ever see, but gates of this type of stopped more mongrel wethers than you and I could ever imagine.

Which brings us back to the matter of how to get a go-kart to go fast without the aid of gravity. My go-kart didn't have an engine. The ones at the Esperance Show did. They were noisy and went around in small circles before your twenty cent ride ran out. Sure they could be made to go a bit quick, but for a family who couldn't afford running hot and cold water, buying a kid a Briggs and Stratton engine for a go-kart was not an option.

My go-kart looked fast. It had pram wheels on the front and back. The back ones were a bit bigger than the front. John made it so it looked like a drag car with a seat that sat on top of a long piece of 4x2 that joined the front and back axles. It was a bit flash - it even had coil spring suspension under the seat. These springs were scavenged from the Ravensthorpe tip where we also found the pram wheels. The faster we went, the more wheels we went through, so we were at the tip as often as we could.

So here I was with a fast-looking go-kart - with suspension - ready for speed. It was almost a case of being all dressed up with no place to go. Then we found the engine. Not a four stroke engine, but a four legged engine. Our family had grown up with horses. Ever since I can remember Dad has had a horse, or two, or three, or four. I always figured that Dad's life was perfect so long as he had a dog, a gun, a horse, and a kangaroo to chase - oh, and Mum of course. So John got to thinking that instead of pushing the go-kart, why not pull it with a horse. Great idea I thought. So he drilled a hole through the 4x2, attached a rope, and away we went.

Most people are aware that horses can gallop pretty fast. Most hacks can do 40 kilometres per hour easily. Now this may not sound fast in the family sedan on a paved road, but when you're a matter of 1o feet behind four thundering hooves, just 4 inches off the ground, racing across a bumpy paddock, dodging bushes and mallet stumps it's fast. Add to the equation a horse that was an ex-galloper, no helmet, a crazy brother in total control of the 'accelerator', and a 10 year old kid that got blown away in a stiff breeze, you had the recipe for some high speeds, amazing spills, and great stories.

We had no need after that for hills, or roads, or engines. We had the most powerful 1 horse power go-kart in the world. Mine was a world of speed, exhilaration and daring. It was a world most city kids could only ever dream about.

Destiny

Destiny. A word that has so much romantic connotation. A word that has a sense of our being out of control. A word that hints that we are merely pawns in the grand plan of the universe. A word that suggests so much, and yet so little, possibility.

What is our destiny? What is my destiny? To answer that question I draw on a moment of reflection, a moment when my mind was still and clear, where thoughts fade into a pure moment, where nothing exists but the sound of morning birds and buzzing traffic. A moment when the voice inside stills and gives way to the gentle, rhythmic patterns of my breath, to the sound of the tingle in my fingers. This moment was all there was - nothing more than just this.

Then the voice returned and the mind began labeling the sounds as traffic and birds and the purity left. Left but not forgotten. Replaced with a soft, gentle realisation that nothing comes about except through conversation. Through conversations had with friends and neighbours, with lovers and colleagues, and between our internal selves. It is these conversations that turn into the stories we make about our life and our history; our existence and our being.

How true they are is just another conversation. Just another story. Whether or not the story is real is entirely mine to chose. My response to these stories and circumstances create my destiny for tomorrow. It's mine to choose.