Oh gods. Keep an eye out for the Four Horsemen

... I just found myself agreeing with Andrew Bolt.

He was just interviewed on Triple J and Michael Atken, the interviewer, was indulging in the worst kind of blinkered harassing push-interviewing. Bolta made some comment about how there's been a dramatic reduction in troop numbers since the surge strategy and this is a good sign - so far I'm with him - but then spun that to a claim of victory and stated that the violence that's happening now is no threat to the stability of democracy in Iraq. Well, Andrew, I'm sure the innocent civilians dying will be glad to know it's the good kind of violence that's occurring right now.

My problem with Atken is he kept trying to hammer the point that Bolta was an insensitive, logic-impervious, America-cheerleading war-hawk jackass. Given that Andrew Bolt *IS* an insensitive logic-impervious America-cheerleading war-hawk jackass, that should be a doddle. Except if you pick completely irrelevant statistics, try to thwap down strawmen and completely ignore any re-directions or clarifications that your interviewee comes out with, putting words in their mouth instead. And Atken kept doing it even after Bolta called him on it.

I've been a big fan of the Hack show for a long time, but this kind of thing is happening more often and it's more worthy of the so-called current affairs shows on commercial TV than of the excellent journalistic team that Triple J has (Ronan Sharkey, Ali Benton, Kate O'Toole et al are fantastic). Joe Hockey's interview with Kate O'Toole was a great example of what the team can do when they don't try to make a nutter look bad, but just give him enough rope to hang himself.

Lift your game, Triple J. Journalism is about investigation. If you can't out-argue Andrew freakin' Bolt, you shouldn't have aired the interview. And if necessary take some crib notes from Anonymous Jeremy.

Cheers,
QS

Some days, the jokes just write themselves

Tasmanian Senate candidate pushing to decriminalise incest between adults.

I could spin a spiel about the questions raised, such as whether or not euthanasia and incest between consenting adults are indeed "victimless" crimes...

But then I'd have to throw away perfectly good lines about proposed sixth toe removal subsidies and family hedges and the Tasmanian BDM workers getting hazard pay.

My punt on Melbourne Cup Day

Labor's 2PP for the election at 52-53%, which means 76 to 82 seats in the House of Reps, and Greens (and possibly Xenophon) to hold the balance of power in the Senate (again with Labor slightly ahead of the Coalition).

I'd like to say Dems will hold a seat but even with the pref swap deal with the Greens, I can't see it happening. Pity - Andrew Bartlett seems to me to be the only truly accessible Senator we have.

There may be a touch of the wishful thinking about this one, but short of something catastrophic going the Coalition's way I think it'll be a tight win to Labor. The Rodent has to go, and I think there's just too many people sick of him.

Cheers
QS.

Battery Link Farm 31-05-07

The best of the recent blog posts, crammed into pens for your convenience.

LOCAL
Surfdom:
Ken A. Lovell on Barack Obama.
Mr Lovell also goes to town on an article in the Guardian liberally sprinkled with weasel words.
Ken again, with two fantastic posts on IR: one about Howard's socialisation of IR regulation, and another ripping apart the WorkChoices talking points (in his words, "let it carry that name like a rotting albatross").
Eric Martin writing about the insurgents in Iraq learning and studying from CoW tactics and procedures; the example he gives is a coordinated attack on response teams after a helicopter was downed. Frightening stuff.
And Mr Lovell comments on Bush's admission that he intends to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely. Money quote: "I’ve begun to think that it’s pretty much immaterial now whether the CoW reduces or increases its presence in Iraq or leaves it the same as it is now … events have acquired their own momentum. It’s now a regional conflict and it’s beyond the capacity of any one country, even the Most Powerful Nation the World Has Ever Known, to anticipate the way the future will play out, let alone control it."

Blogocracy, brought to you by Uncle Rupert:
The Good Tim (as I refer to him, to differentiate him from the Evil Tim) with a post about why WorkChoices isn't popular, and it has nothing to do with Julia Gillard being prettier than Joe Hockey.
Also, the Howard Government appears to have a very low opinion of the Australian public.
Joe Hockey foams at the mouth a bit (I had the misfortune of catching him on Question Time the other day, and he speaks like that ALL THE TIME - it's like he thinks slanderous sound-bites are a legitimate substitute for reasoned debate).
Tim also posts about why interest rates aren't necessarily the big problem for Aussies.
And most interestingly, Tim takes part in a blogging experiment, where a bunch of bloggers have written responses to the same question (link goes to Tim's response, which has links to answers by other bloggers). I would have written one myself, but I wasn't paying any attention to politics back in '96 so I don't feel I could give any kind of informed comment on what happens when government changes hands.

Around the traps:
Gummo Trotsky writes about Australian aid money not making it out of Australia.
tigtog with a great roundup of blog posts about the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum.
Cast-Iron Helen uncovers this brilliant globe-trotting project which is much, much cooler than the name "cubic structural evolution project" makes it sound. Check it out!
Both Broken Left Leg and AnonymousJeremy highlight the idiocy of the "disagreeing with the treatment of David Hicks = ZOMG YOU LOVE TEH TERRORISTS!!~!" crowd.
Gristmill dissects the Global Warming Denialists' arguments. Yes, all of them. (h/t tigtog)
MachineGunWeez shows that when it comes to taxpayer-funded election campaigns, what goes around comes around.
Trevor Cormack @ Solidarity puts together a great rebuttal of anti-Labor talking points.
Bryan "Ozpolitics" Palmer with his breakdown of both the polling results and the bookies' predictions for Election '07. I'll be the first to admit that single polls are virtually meaningless - but 3-4 months of steady (within polling error) 58% support for Labor is pretty meaningful in my book, as is the trend of the betting markets over time...
Radio National did a show about the political impact of blogging. You can listen to the show or read the transcript over here (h/t Andrew Bartlett).

It's late and this little blogger needs sleep. Part II with the American blogs some time this weekend. Also, I was scared to find my little blog sitting on Bryan Palmer's blogroll feed. Jeez, now I'd better make sure I write something worth reading!

Cheers,
QS.

Raise your glass to the Mothers of the world

Happy Mothers' Day, y'all.

We put our mothers through hell, don't we? C'mon, all of us. From the first time we try to stick our hand in a flame or on the stove, we give our mothers stress and aggravation. Next they try and stop us from using that bad word we just learned and keep saying over and over and over. Or try to keep us from eating grass or mud pies or whatever's in the cat's bowl or whatever's up our nose.

Then comes teenagerhood, and all the worrying they do when we're back hours later than we said we'd be - that's good for a dozen grey hairs right there (each time!). Or the people that it's a bad idea to spend time around, and us not admitting to ourselves that Mum might just be right until someone screws us over. Or the boys and girls (or boys and boys or girls and girls) and all the heartbreak they know we're going to go through, that they have to sit back and let us suffer because we can only learn from the experience, especially at that point when we know everything and we're bulletproof.

This isn't really coherent (forgive me, sleep deprivation does strange things to a blogger) but I guess what I'm saying is, even if you're not on good terms with your mother, like I'm not, today's still a day to give her a call. Or at least think about the things she did for you, that you might not have appreciated at the time.

And it's a day to think about the mothers all around the world. The mothers in Beirut, or Gaza, or Tel Aviv, or Belfast, or Basra, or Darfur, who might not have their sons tomorrow because of wars outside their control. The mothers who have had to console and comfort their baby girls (and sometimes boys) who've suffered sexual abuse and rape, like Melissa McEwan, and the soul-wrenching anguish they must feel. The mothers of thirty-two Virginia Tech students, and thirty-five Port Arthur residents, and thousands of others who've known the senseless loss of life that can take place when some lone psycho has access to overpowered firearms.

The unwilling mothers who are shamed or cajoled or threatened into carrying an unwanted child to term, for whatever reason, instead of having a right to decide what they do with their bodies in a society that values their lives and their choices. The mothers who want a better life for their kids but don't have the opportunity or the means to get their kids out of the cycle of poverty. The mothers of drug addicts and petty thieves and vandals who might be visiting their children from the other side of bars today, because our society still hasn't found a more civilised way to get these kids rehabilitated than locking them away with our worst criminals.

Spare a thought for those mothers today, and all the other mothers. Because even your most hated nemesis, your most despised ideologue, your most reviled scapegoat has a mother. A mother who wanted the best for her child. A mother who had hopes that her child would far outshine her achievements. A mother who muddled along the best she could and made mistakes along the way.

Happy Mothers' Day.

Auspolitics Slang 101

I just thought I'd go through a quick rundown of some terms used in the Aussie blogosphere, particularly the politics side, just to clarify for non-locals. Given that there's a lot of sporting metaphors I wouldn't be surprised if there's Americans out there scratching their heads.

General:
Ozblogistan - the Australian blogosphere, esp. the political one.
ozplogs - an amalgam, meaning Australian political blogs.
Dorothy Dixer - roughly analogous to "softball" in US parlance, eg. an easy question given by an interviewer. "Dorothy Dixer" carries additional connotations of being arranged in advance (as opposed to just being an easy question to use for posturing), and it is often used to refer to a member of one's own party setting up such a question during Question Time in Parliament.
Laura Norder - a common platform for politicians to run on to demonstrate their "tough on crime" credentials (say it out loud, kids). Pejorative.
stoush - colloquialism for disagreement, fight, dispute etc. For a more in-depth explanation, see Liam's post @ larvyprod. Also. a great group blog.

Sporting metaphors:
free kick - giving away ground to the other side with a mistake. AFL/soccer origin.
own goal - like a free kick, but more disastrous. Soccer origin.
hit(ting) for six - what a pollie usually does with a Dorothy Dixer. Roughly analogous to "out of the ballpark", I guess. Cricket origin.
let [something] go through to the keeper - to leave a topic or question well alone, seeing that no good can come of "taking a swing" at it. Cricket origin (unlike baseball, in cricket you don't have to swing at a ball in the strike zone - if a tricky ball comes in and it's not going to hit the stumps, a batsman will often just lift his bat and leave it for the wicketkeeper to catch).
playing a straight/dead bat - not giving anything away or revealing anything, keeping to safe but uninspired talking points or policy. Like letting through to the keeper, but less confident. Cricket metaphor (to play defensively, not aiming to score but also keeping to safe shots unlikely to get you out - thanks to Suki for this one).
"I'll pay that" and variations - to give credit for something well said, handled or accomplished, often grudgingly used in relation to people one doesn't agree with, or approvingly when someone coins a particularly witty turn of phrase. Complimentary. AFL origin (for some reason I've never understood, AFL fans refer to free kicks and marks being "paid" to a player when they're awarded).

Media:
meeja - pejorative for the media.
Curious Snail, Daily Terror/Terrorgraph/Telecrap, Orstrayun, 'tiser, Hun, etc etc. - nicknames given (with varying degrees of affection or contempt) to various newspapers around Australia. The examples given are the Courier-Mail, the Daily Telegraph, The Australian, The Advertiser and the Herald Sun respectively.

Ausblog history:
pandagate -

Anything else that needs to be added to this? Any improvements to make? Please suggest something in comments, if it'll help non-locals through the Aussie poliblog chaos. (thanks to saint for a couple of suggestions)

Statistics ignored due to lack of interest

One of the great talking points for this Federal Coalition Government is their consistent claim that interest rates would be higher under a Labor Government. Every time I hear or read this little chestnut, I have to resist the urge to shake a Liberal voter by their collar. It's simply crap. There's no clearer or easier way to put it.

Historically, they say, Labor presided over 17% interest rates!!! Overlooking for a second the global economic factors that contributed to those figures, let's just look at the numbers, shall we? I'm borrowing here from Seeker's illuminating summary, in comments over at Blogocracy. (Thank you, Seeker, and in all cases below emphasis has been added by me)

"Source: http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/

Compare and contrast Howard’s interest rate track record when treasurer, with Labor’s interest rate track record from Mar 83 to Mar 96 (the last time Labor held power federally):

• The lowest interest rate (90 day RBA bank bill) during Howard’s time as treasurer (Nov 75-Mar 83) was 7.65% (Jan 76), and the highest was 21.39% (Apr 82).

For Labor the lowest interest rate was 4.78% (Aug & Nov 93), and the highest was 19.56% (Dec 85).

• When Howard became treasurer interest rates were at 8.05%, when he left the treasurer’s office 7 years later they were nearly double at 15.26%.

When Labor took office (Mar 83) interest rates were at 15.26%, when they left (Mar 96) interest rates were less than half at 7.53%.

• Howard: From Sep 79 to Mar 83 interest rates were above 10%, often well above.

Labor: With two exceptions (Dec 83 and Jan 84), from Mar 83 to Aug 91 interest rates were above 10%, often well above.

Labor: Sep 91 to Mar 96 interest rates were well under 10%, as low as 4.78% (Aug & Nov 93).

• Howard: From Oct 79 to Apr 82 interest rates more than doubled (10.04 to 21.39%), and then fell to 15.26% when the Coalition lost office (Mar 83).

Labor: From Dec 83 to Dec 85 interest rates more than doubled from 8.89 to 19.56%, then from Dec 85 to Aug 93 interest rates went from 19.56 to 4.78%, and then rose again to 7.53% when Labor lost office (Mar 96).

Obviously this is not the full picture, in particular it doesn’t include Howard’s time as PM, but clearly Howard’s overall track record on interest rates when he was treasurer is no better than the subsequent Labor government. And Labor didn’t have the advantage of relatively low interest rates when they took office. But Howard did, both as treasurer, and later as prime minister. Notice him giving much credit to Labor for that? Me either."

And from pre-dawn leftist, in the same comments thread:
Dont forget that in 1982, housing interest rates got to 13.5% when the bond rate was 21%. The only reason they didnt go higher then was because they were capped at that rate by the Government - I remember this distinctly because I worked for the then Bank of NSW. Do you remember who was treasurer then? It was John Winston Howard.

And some more, from The Age:
"Impossible as it sounds, the data records that at one point in Howard's last year as Treasurer, the cash rate briefly hit 85 per cent as the Reserve tried to stave off a run on Australia's overvalued currency. It has never been that high before or since.
...
From go to whoa, interest rates in fact fell under both Hawke and Keating.
...
Howard argues that high interest rates occur because governments run deficits. Is the PM unaware that in the United States, President Bush is running a deficit of about 5 per cent of GDP, yet cash interest rates are just 1.5 per cent? Or that Japan is running a deficit of almost 8 per cent of GDP, yet cash rates are zero? And has Howard forgotten that when interest rates hit 17 per cent here, the Hawke government in fact was running up two years of the largest budget surpluses Australia has ever seen?"

And lastly, some snippets from various places via Alert And Alarmed:
"[from The Australian's letters page, 05/05/04, referring to the 90-day bank bill interest rate - which peaked at 21.39%, as mentioned above, under a Fraser Govt with JW Howard as Treasurer]
'The highest during the Hawke government was 19.56 per cent in December 1985. The highest under Paul Keating was 7.95 per cent in December 1994, which is only marginally higher than the highest under the Howard Government of 7.57 per cent in April 1996.'
Dr Allan Thomas, Lochinvar, NSW"
...
Not only was Treasurer Howard not concerned with high interest rates as Treasurer, but he was defending them. In the Australian Financial Review of 22 April 1982, journalist Tom Connors reported a Howard interview on the Channel 9 Today program.

'Mr Howard said that while he copped flak over higher interest rates, there was little he could do about it.'"

It's a far cry from his claims about keeping them lower than a Labor Govt could, isn't it? So please, can we put this myth about dream interest rates under the Coalition to rest? Can we see some evidence that Coalition supporters can listen to reason and facts, rather than just parroting the old promotional soundbites?

Sigh. A blogger can dream.

Battery Link Farm 30-03-07

Strapped for time, so it's just the basics:

# I Am Not My Cock - a scathing condemnation of all those "girls should be more careful/guys can't help themselves" apologists for rape.
# Tanya at Just Something I Do on Why Isobel Redmond Is An Idiot - she obviously has problems with the idea of determining consent like an adult.
# Shakespeare's Sister with a moving piece on the Equal Rights Act in the US, and why it's important that support is building for it once again.
# Anna Winter @ LarvyProd on AWAs and other WorkChoices stuff - apparently pattern agreements are only okay if the employer is the one writing them.
# David Hicks pieces from Larvyprod, AnonymousLefty, The Reality-Based Community, H. Candace Gorman, Saint in a Straitjacket, Shakes Sis, OzPolitics and Road To Surfdom.

And finally, the money quote to counter any "Nobody saw the Iraq chaos coming!" talking point from Bush supporters:
"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome." -- George Herbert Walker Bush.

Bloggers I Admire, Pt 2

aka Tabula Rasa 2

Okay, I got a little off-track, and started discussing blogs rather than bloggers in the last post. This time I'll keep it to people.

Tim Lambert at Deltoid continues to slog away at the anti-scientific vested interests, not to mention global warming denialists. Given how rabid and determined the Climate Change Resistance can be it's truly heartwarming to see this kind of stubborn refutation.

I'm very grateful to Umm Yasmin, who writes Dervish. In these times of stupidly inflamed racial tensions and the demonisation of Islam, the blogosphere needs more intelligent Muslim women blogging about what it actually means to be Muslim, and dispelling myths about Islam.

Speaking of brave Muslim women, the most well-known worldwide in the blogosphere is no doubt Riverbend, of Baghdad Burning fame. It's pretty frightening when she goes missing from blogging for a couple of months though...

Minotaur truly provides a public service by trawling through the dirt of Australia's media to recover any nuggets of actual useful news and analysis.

Just as admirably, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It gives us a good giggle, which is absolutely essential when there's so much to be outraged and depressed about. As the saying goes, sometimes you gotta laugh or you'll cry.

Melissa McEwan (aka Shakespeare's Sister) aims to strike a balance when it comes to this, with a prolific group of bloggers who post both frivolous stuff and serious political commentary. Great minds here and some of the best group blogging I've ever read.

Of course, sometimes the best antidote to despair is staying angry - and active. When it comes to angry, determined and motivated, nobody beats the FireDogLake crew. These intrepid bloggers have helped with fundraising across the 50-state strategy, have interviewed luminaries like Keith Olbermann and Glenn Greenwald - but they're best known for their tenacious, thorough and complete coverage of every aspect of the Scooter Libby perjury case, and the Valerie Plame incidents that preceded it. Seriously, you want to know anything about this case, check the archives. Joe Wilson himself has made appearances on the site in order to thank the crew for their tireless work. That's pretty high praise.

As a strong, fearless woman, a blogger and a political influence, Arianna Huffington just leaves me awestruck. Her site, the Huffington Post, has Nancy freakin' Pelosi blogging there for goodness' sake. And even the busiest day at Shakes or FDL is left for dead by a slow day on the HuffPo blog.

Free-range Link Farm 15-03-07

Fly-by post to some interesting links.

A great response in an LP comments thread about the Kyoto Protocol and what will come after it.
Quote: In my opinion if Australia was characterised as one person in the form of John Howard, on the issue of global CO2 emissions he would be seen as the bank robber who stole to support his life style and when caught protested to the court that it would be unfair for him to have to give up the proceeds of his crime as it would mean a drop in his living standard.

Bryan over at OzPolitics tells us why the one or two point changes in opinion polls from week to week are meaningless, and gives us some rules of thumb for interpreting the results.
Quote: The media has a vested interest in sensationalising the noise in polling sequences — a dramatic swing to a party one fortnight is headline news, and in the followed fortnight the dramatic swing back to the other party is also headline news.

AnonymousLefty draws some unflattering parallels between Japanese and Australian policy in regards to history.
Quote: No, I'm sure the country of Japan learned its lesson - which is why modern Japanese textbooks feel it's unnecessary to teach modern Japanese children about what their country really did sixty-odd years ago. Just like we in Australia don't need to teach our kids any parts of our history which we don't really want to look at too closely.

Tim Dunlop gives us a run-down of the Santoro Saga, an amusing situation for a Government who's recently been trying to attack the Opposition Leader on his supposed ethical breaches.
Quote: Eventually “remembering” that he had the shares, he tells the PM, sells his holding, in the process realising a one hundred percent profit on the deal that he forgot about, and so walks away with $6000. The PM exonerates him for his breach of the code of conduct and praises him for giving his profit on the shares to charity.
Trouble is, the charity he gives the money to isn’t a charity. It’s a rightwing lobby group called the Family Council of Queensland, Inc. Whoops again.
And now for the interesting bit. It turns out that the person who offered Senator Santoro the shares in the first place is the associate director of....you guessed it...the Family Council of Queensland, Inc., Alan Baker.

From Dave at Orcinus, a lovely collection of all the nice things major right-wing US political commentators have had to say about libuhrals. While the left can be fairly vitriolic, as Shakes points out most of the people listed here are national media figures, not just bloggers with a bug up their butt.
Quote: They are arranged by categories of eliminationism, namely: Expressing a desire or a demand for extermination, removal, or infliction of harm; identification of opponents with national enemies; identification of opponents as a target for retaliation or incarceration; expressing a desire for or approval of genocide or murder; identification with vermin or disease. Some of these overlap, and in some instances they reflected all of the above.
It seems these people are dedicated to "democracy" when it involves invading a foreign country, but not when it consists of respecting the opinions of others with differing views to express those views and, y'know, not suffer or die for them.

Speaking of Shakes, the wonderful Shakespeare's Sister (not the dodgy early 90s dog-note-singing pop duo) gives moral meddlers a little reminder about where their right to dictate other people's behavior ends, inspired by General Pace's comments about "immoral" homosexuality and the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in the US Army.
Quote: And same-sex relationships pass the MREWYB test with flying colors. Spudsy's right to kiss and hug and love and fuck and marry and get a flat and a car and an adorable dog with his husband has absolutely no capacity to infringe on any of my rights. Or anyone else's. And the cool part about it is that it doesn't stop anyone else from complying with God's wishes as they interpret them. If your God says homosexuality is immoral, then you don't have to be gay—but the people who are gay can be as gay as the day is long, and better yet, equal to the rest of us.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, a downright chilling account of a luncheon (you have to click through an ad to get to the article) attended by George The Decider to honour one of his heroes, historian/historical revisionist Andrew Roberts. If you want an insight into why the hawks in the US admin continue to pursue destructive policies in the face of overwhelming domestic and worldwide condemnation, read it.

Quote: Roberts urged the president not to concern himself with these anti-American feelings, since in a unipolar world the lone superpower cannot be loved. His advice: "Get your policies right and history will prove a kind muse."

Scared yet?

Tabula Rasa

Ahhh crap. I went and changed over to the new formatting scheme without saving my blogroll, didn't I? So now it's all gone... all gone! **sniff**

Since I have to rebuild the list from scratch, it seems as good a time as any to spend a post reflecting on the bloggers who I admire and who inspire me.

Right near the top of the list would have to be Mark Bahnisch and co. over at Lavartus Prodeo (affectionately known as larvyprod). It's a great group project, and a fantastic selection of bloggers who all contribute insightful commentary there, in many cases also maintaining their own blogs. There's also a lively and (mostly) intelligent audience of commenters who will often spawn later posts when addressing a particular subject.

Also up there is Tim Dunlop, best known for the brilliant Road To Surfdom blog which he pretty much single-handedly blogged until he got snapped up by Uncle Rupert - so now he's getting paid to blog (good work if you can get it!) full-time at Blogocracy. Tim never fails to make me laugh, make me think, and just generally come up with great material. He still pops in to RTS from time to time, but the blogging duties there are mostly covered these days by a crew of bloggers Tim recruited upon becoming a sellout (just kidding, Tim!) who include Eric Martin, Ken Lovell, Helen from Cast Iron Balcony and the inimitable Aussie Bob.

Liberal mothers whisper to their children in dark places the fates of little lefties who venture into Catallaxy Files without rock-bottomed, copper-sheathed unassailable arguments. Fantastic intellects, libertarian views, great economic analysis, very little patience for the idealistic or hard-left. Skepticlawyer in particular is great to read.

Ever read an Andrew Bolt column? Did it make you want to claw your eyes out? Then you'll love BoltWatch. In the words of its creator MrLefty, it's "Where Andrew Bolt's Deranged Polemic ... Gets What's Coming To It". And it certainly does. MrLefty also maintains AnonymousLefty, one of my favourite blogs that relentlessly pokes fun at raving right-wing loonies.

I also love weez over at Machine Gun Keyboard. Between the comics, the military analysis and the just plain snark, she's great value! Also in the same domain lies Suki Has An Opinion - Suki makes some fantastic posts, particularly in relation to feminism.

Wow, I'm only scratching the surface. Part 2 coming soon.

Cheers,
QS.