For It Is Fact.
Silence ye doubters!
Fie ye unfaithful rabble!
From the deepest depths of the darkest of deep dark places flies into your face like a Pheonix from the Flames your One True Provider (OTP) of factual and actually quite interesting information.
Oh! You don't like it 'in yer face' do you?
FactBoy knows no other way.
If you want him, and you know where to find him, maybe you can tell him yourself.
Until then though -
Rub your hands together in glee, force under control that twitching facial tic contorting the corner of your maniacal grin and sit on the edge of your orthopedic chair...
FACT:
- The Aboriginal people travelled the open sea to colonise Australia some 50,000 years ago.
- They did this thousands of years before anyone else is known to have dared even dip a shin in the briny wash let alone construct a raft and head out of sight of land to see what they may find.
- At the time, the last Ice Age had frozen vast quantities of water in the polar ice caps, with sea levels 120 metres lower than they are today.
- This meant Europe (including Britain), Asia, Africa and even America (linked to
Asia by a land bridge across the Bering Strait) formed a single, vast
supercontinent, across which early humans could and did (thank you very much)
migrate.
- But: Australia, uninhabited and linked to New Guinea, was out on its own – there
was at leats 60 kilometres (40 miles) of clear, blue, empty open sea between it
and the nearest part of Indonesia (then linked to Asia).
- From this distance, given Northern Australia’s flat terrain, it would have been
impossible for any part of the continent to be visible over the horizon.
- Aboriginals are known, however to have crossed it: the earliest firmly dated
evidence of human occupation in Australia are some 50,000 year old stone tools
unearthed in an Arnhem Land rock shelter in the far north of the Northern
Territory.
- The details of this voyage will never be known – the type of boat or raft used
remains banked in the vaults of time. The dank tropical coastline on which they
most likely landed no longer exists – reclaimed by the sea at the end of the last
Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
- The story of why the Aboriginal people set off to sea, how they found the
continent of Australia, and why, having done this, they forgot, and never made
another like it, will excite the imagination of all who exalt the poetry of
journeying and the magic of an epic tale
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Fact Boy and the Temple of Simpletons
Rat-a-tat-tat
"Cover me, I'm going in"
says FactBoy over the rattling din made by Error and Ignorance as they set about trashing all that is sacred and true.
Like an eloquent Rambo without the stroke-affected snarl he leaps and bounds, plundering the vaults of Knowledge single-handed and returns, unharmed, learned, uncoiling his Facts to lasoo ynweildly Ignorance and bitch-slap him until he cries, forcing lazy Error to run away shrieking and snivelling.
FACT:
-In 1901 the six self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, unite in a federation, creating the Commonwealth of Australia. The birth of a nation.
-Until its incorporation in the Commonwealth in 1911, the Northern Territory was governed by South Australia, whereupon they cast off the shackles of their former administration by changing the name of Palmerston to Port Darwin, the now capital of the north.
-The Northern Territory is not a state it is a territory.
-This limits the role of the Northern Territory in referendums on matters of national importance. There is no constitutional guarantee, as there is with the six founding states, of any consultation.
-The six founding state's laws are protected by the constitution. Any laws made by the Northern Territory Parliament can be removed by Canberra.
-All original states have the same number of Senators in the federal parliament - 12.
-The Northern Territory had no representation until 1974, when they were give 2 Senate seats - this has been twice challenged, unsuccesfully, by the founding states.
-There is no constitutional guarantee the Northern Territory will retain their two seats, or any, for that matter.
-State Senators serve a term of 6 years. Territory Senators 3.
-There are 150 members of the Australian House of Representatives. The constitution guarantees all original states at least 5 Members. Beyond this it depends on the population of the state. New South Wales has 49 Members of the House of Representatives (MHRs), Tasmania 5.
-The Northern Territory has 2 MHRs, and no guarantee of any.
-In a 1998 vote on the issue of Statehood, 51.3% of Territorians voted against it, preferring to remain a Territory.
Addendum Fact to the Preceeding
-Canberra was founded as a purpose built capital, replacing the former, officially unofficial capital Melbourne in 1913, largelly to quell the heated debate between Melbourne and Sydney as to which one of them was most deserved of the honour.
-'Canberra' comes from the Aboriginal word 'canberry' meaning either a 'meeting place' or 'a pair of womens breasts'.
FactBoy, like the wind, disappears into the ethersphere.
Until Next Time valued Fact Finders!
Back to Homepage
"Cover me, I'm going in"
says FactBoy over the rattling din made by Error and Ignorance as they set about trashing all that is sacred and true.
Like an eloquent Rambo without the stroke-affected snarl he leaps and bounds, plundering the vaults of Knowledge single-handed and returns, unharmed, learned, uncoiling his Facts to lasoo ynweildly Ignorance and bitch-slap him until he cries, forcing lazy Error to run away shrieking and snivelling.
FACT:
-In 1901 the six self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, unite in a federation, creating the Commonwealth of Australia. The birth of a nation.
-Until its incorporation in the Commonwealth in 1911, the Northern Territory was governed by South Australia, whereupon they cast off the shackles of their former administration by changing the name of Palmerston to Port Darwin, the now capital of the north.
-The Northern Territory is not a state it is a territory.
-This limits the role of the Northern Territory in referendums on matters of national importance. There is no constitutional guarantee, as there is with the six founding states, of any consultation.
-The six founding state's laws are protected by the constitution. Any laws made by the Northern Territory Parliament can be removed by Canberra.
-All original states have the same number of Senators in the federal parliament - 12.
-The Northern Territory had no representation until 1974, when they were give 2 Senate seats - this has been twice challenged, unsuccesfully, by the founding states.
-There is no constitutional guarantee the Northern Territory will retain their two seats, or any, for that matter.
-State Senators serve a term of 6 years. Territory Senators 3.
-There are 150 members of the Australian House of Representatives. The constitution guarantees all original states at least 5 Members. Beyond this it depends on the population of the state. New South Wales has 49 Members of the House of Representatives (MHRs), Tasmania 5.
-The Northern Territory has 2 MHRs, and no guarantee of any.
-In a 1998 vote on the issue of Statehood, 51.3% of Territorians voted against it, preferring to remain a Territory.
Addendum Fact to the Preceeding
-Canberra was founded as a purpose built capital, replacing the former, officially unofficial capital Melbourne in 1913, largelly to quell the heated debate between Melbourne and Sydney as to which one of them was most deserved of the honour.
-'Canberra' comes from the Aboriginal word 'canberry' meaning either a 'meeting place' or 'a pair of womens breasts'.
FactBoy, like the wind, disappears into the ethersphere.
Until Next Time valued Fact Finders!
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