Ray Martin, best known as a behind the desk person for current affairs shows in Australia - has joined the board of
Ausflag. This is an advocacy group for a new Australian flag, preferably one without the British union jack in the corner. It looks like Ausflag has a new website that is pretty slick though the best part of their website is
the design competitions they have held for an Australian flag in the past.
The Australian Blue Ensign - the current flag - is only a recent thing. It has only been the national flag since the 1954 Flag Act and partly because there was concern the Red Ensign made Australia look communist. Under
British vexillogical convention the Blue Ensign is for the government and government buildings. The Red Ensign is a civil flag though mainly used by the merchant marine and the White Ensign is the for the Australian Navy.
If you look at
the photos of World War I a mix of the blue and red ensign were used by people showing their patriotism and by the ANZACs in the Middle East and Europe. The Australian Navy used the British White Ensign up until the Vietnam War when the British became concerned that Australian warships in Vietnam would be confused with British ones since the British did not take part in Vietnam. It was changed to the present white ensign.
I don't think there is much reason to keep the current Australian flag. While it is an attractive design and has some history to it, though not much really, a nation has a changing idea of what constitutes nationalism and Australia is far past the idea of the Briton nation which the current flag projects.
I am sure that someone can come up with one that is far nicer than the present one. The Flag Act allows for the Governor General to proclaim flags of Australia such
that multiple flags can be used, so really, it is not that big a deal to let people choose how they want to determine their Australian-ness through a flag.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
