Giant pad soaks up interest

Taken by a roving Ballarat news breaker, this incredible photo of the Government’s new Titan Rocket Launch Pad nestled unobtrusively in the heart of Ballarat atop the Black Hill Recreation Reserve, is indicative of the secretive nature of the Rudd Government’s Top Level Strategic Arms Initiative.

This amazing photograph was hurriedly snapped when a flock of Black cockatoos accidentally perched on the rocket base’s cloaking sub-station which was expertly camouflaged as the flag post (the transmitter) atop the raised bluestone ‘lookout vantage point’ on the pinnacle of the Black Hill Reserve. The amount and weight of the birds shorted out a vital transducer coil and briefly exposed the secret base to a number of astonished onlookers.

For approximately 30 seconds the entire pad and rocket, apparently primed for launch, was visible to the naked eye before backup generators kicked in and the whole facility faded back into invisibility against the surrounding environment.

Elsie Talmadge of Clissold Street said she often wondered why there were so many stunned birds flailing about on the ground on the walking tracks around the base
of the hill.

Upon enquiring amongst local exercise enthusiasts, our news breaker (who we shall call ‘The Shadow’ to preserve his anonymity) discovered some very interesting information. Apparently most people that live in the Black Hill/Brown Hill area had no idea that a full sized rocket launching facility had been constructed right next to their backyards.

“We used to hear a lot of trucks and banging and machinery,” says Tommo McCuthbert of Newman Street, Brown Hill “but Marjorie and I just thought it was the rail yards or road works over the back”. Elsie Talmadge of Clissold Street said she often wondered why there were so many stunned birds flailing about on the ground on the walking tracks around the base of the hill. “Now I know why, the poor things were flying straight into the side of that rocket and knocking themselves senseless… It all makes sense now!”

Young Willy Freeforall, who regularly plays in the reserve on his BMX bike with his mates, told The Shadow that several of his friends had apparently been struck by lightning on a clear blue autumn day whilst biking in the location. Willy said the doctors at the hospital concluded that it must have been freak lightning bolts that caused the horrific injuries to the young men. He went on to say that the doctors had previously said the burns were consistent with the kind one would get if one ran into a 10,000 volt electrified cyclone fence, but they dismissed the notion as implausible.

"The Valley will act as a funnel, protecting the richer and more expensive neighbourhood above and behind the facility whilst obliterating everything at the open end at the same time.”

Today, Ballarat City Council denied any knowledge of the secret rocket base, as did the Victorian State Government. A representative from the National Defence Department was remaining relatively tight lipped about the subject, but did concede that if there were to be a rocket launch facility in the centre of Ballarat, it would definitely NOT be functioning as a military operation with any nuclear predilection. “Any facility that close to a populated area would only ever be used for purely scientific deep space research purposes, repairs to the Hubble Telescope or to ship vital instruments and domestic products such as toilet paper up to the International Space Station.

Doctor Joseph Herganschmidt of the University of Ballarat Physics department, upon sighting the incriminating picture; expressed concern for the safety of the residents of Black Hill and extreme concern for residents and their homes in the Brown Hill area. “When this first rocket is launched, because of the geography of the valley where the facility has been constructed, the resulting enormous back blast will vaporise the majority of the houses in the Brown hill area. The Valley will act as a funnel, protecting the richer and more expensive neighbourhood above and behind the facility whilst obliterating everything at the open end at the same time.”

Opportunities to really hook into the whole Star Wars/Star Trek marketing machine are becoming apparent. A “Thunderbirds the musical” production is in the throes of scripting at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Real Estate developers said it was a good chance to ‘wipe the slate clean’ in the old and run down suburb, giving investors the chance to buy up deceased estates and share in what could well be the new multi-million dollar ‘Toorak’ of Ballarat. “If anyone from Brown Hill survives the launch, they can be relocated and accommodated in cheap, clean, modern temporary housing further out of town on the Western Plains…somewhere like Cardigan…or Trawalla.”

Tourism experts predict a swift turnaround for Ballarat’s ailing tourism industry. “We’ve already seen an upward trend in local businesses and this will just keep continuing. Opportunities to really hook into the whole Star Wars/Star Trek marketing machine are becoming apparent. A “Thunderbirds the musical” production is in the throes of scripting at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Submissions to council have been made to construct a life size replica of the ‘Jupiter ‘2 from “Lost in Space”. The fully functioning sculpture will replace the aging Poppet Head tower at Sovereign Hill when the theme park makes the complex changeover from the Historic Australian Colonial Theme to “Space World” in a bid to attract Gold Coast tourism. Sovereign Hill management are in talks with the expert owners of the Wycliffe Wells Roadhouse in the Northern Territory, on just what kind of ‘Alien’ exhibits should be planned and budgeted for.

The diorama display of scenes from the torturous voyages of colonial ships to the new land will be replaced with diorama scenes depicting the development of space flight. Starting with famous moments from the initial voyage of the USS Enterprise, through her various crews and culminating in scenes from the arduous, long journey back from the distant Delta Quadrant with Captain Kathryn Janeway and her intrepid crew aboard the fabulous intergalactic starship, the USS Voyager.

Part 1 in a new series exposing the business of development and construction-lead recovery in Ballarat.

Coming soon: Monorail on Sturt Street - is Ballarat ready for the future?

- published by Vinnie the Skip for and on behalf of the Shadow

For more up to date inside news in Ballarat, stay tuned to the Show With No Name, Tuesday nights on Voice FM - or podcast whenever we get around to it.

Reasons to be cheerful...

Reasons to be cheerful, part-free: somehow it feels like there's at least some chinks appearing in the foundations after our initial Summer of Love here in Australia. The period where we knew we'd be able to look back and say It Was a Time Before Kev'n Co Fucked It Up. Now we find ourselves wandering into what's feeling like a period of intense change. Of suddenly considering what if the Big Lie of International Finance could actually come a gutser? What if China asks for the money back? Even better - what if Rupert Murdoch is losing his cool?







Of course, it's not all peace, love and no more Howard; there's the imminent sign on the horizon of how we'll see the next commercial virus attack on the ABC - the dear old Beeb have just announced their first international advertising team. We'll see that here in a couple of years, folks, according to the Principle of the 5 Year Lag for South Pacific Peasants...


No reasons to be cheerful come more plenty than that. The ongoing developing of a new world sport right under our noses - a sport I've wanted a television show dedicated to for years.


I'm talking about World Series Protest, folks, and its time has come.

For now we are embarked on our very first series of globally televised Olympic Quality protests as the torch makes its way around the world, and I for one, welcome it.

From the get-go I want pay my respects to some of the quality protests that have come before this year - of course thre's been some awesome protests go on throughout the world over the decades, but I want to pay my respects to the people at the S11 protest back in 2000 in Melbourne, who via the most superior use of non-violent Tetris-based logic, managed quickly self-organise into a chain and re-arrange those big arse lego-brick plastic wall bollards and boxed the rough-tough Special Squad detachment of leeather gloved bruisers in fair and square.



The leatherboys were forced to admit defeat, and in a most Australian demonstration of sportsmanship, were kindly thanked for coming as they filed back out from the gateway of Crown to the back of the fray. Upon the world stage of protests involving all sorts of thrown, belted, stomped aggression, it made me feel proud to be an Aussie watching a crowd tell a loudmouthed yob to shut the fuck up and give the coppers a nice round of golf-clap applause as they walked back to the vans.

But ye cannae deny the sheer simple genius of the mad bastard who ran at the Olympic torch with a fire extinguisher...




Of course, the French can bring the noise when it comes to community turnout for a protest - and I only managed to catch my initial impressions of how the Olympic Torch Protest series went in gay Paree via the glory of the AM radio show,

(Sound of protesters jeering)RAFAEL EPSTEIN: With protesters visible ahead of the convoy on a bridge, a very concerned torch-bearer in a wheelchair was
suddenly stopped by the torch organisers, and the flame was extinguished on the
orders of shouting Chinese officials.

It was with complete surprise that I happened upon this French video showing the Chinese security team stopping the torch and really pissing off the big burly French judo champion who was trying to jog with it. A far cry from what the dear old ABC showed us on Lateline...

Today, the Torch arrives in Islamabad. And with it, the hopes and dreams of a nation raised on the idea of protest. Local communities with a long association of taking to the streets and throwing shit at the blokes with the big sticks and the mean looks. Of course, it's going well so far:

"Plans originally called for athletes to relay the torch along a nearly
two-mile route from the white marble parliament building to Jinnah Stadium,
but that was changed to just a run around the sports complex itself."

What could possibly go wrong? It's due in India next week - New Delhi to be accurate - we shall see how the local teams there take to it. And still very little word on how the Aussies are going about preparations, though. We've got a lot of tryhards amongst the diehards - do the creative and the funny still outnumber the surly and vicious? What creative heights do you imagine our national commercial news networks will rise to?

Will Kochie be the one to extinguish the flame - on the kerosene soaked robes of Stan Grant?

Just don't forget that we could be doing this again in four years time - albeit on a bigger, more international scale. A worldwide invitation to the meek, to the downtrodden, to the forever fucked over, to the folk who've been cut off from the riches of the 21st century - come and see if you can put the torch out. Stand up for your people and bring your mates - we're going to have a world -representative goon team, with thanks to our sponsors Blackwater Inc.



I want to see a return to that protest I saw years ago from Italy - it was not long after the movie Gladiator came out - when the locals invoked their own forebears and formed the perfect Roman infantry shield wall and roof,and advanced upon the poor old team with the water-cannon trucks and tear gas guns.

And I want to see our friends from Indonesia allowed to bring those fuckoff big bamboo poles withe flags on 'em to the party. There is classic news vision of which I can't quite find yet... so I can't quite exactly show those 18 foot poles getting deployed upon the hapless uniforms about 20 people behind the frontlines. Tt's hysterical... And I wanna see it - much more - on the telly...