MORE than 40 per cent of New Zealanders think it’s time the South Pacific nation considered becoming Australia’s seventh state, according to a survey of more than 1000 people. The research, conducted by UMR, asked residents on both sides of the Tasman for their views on a possible union of the countries, 110 years after New Zealand chose not to join the Australian Commonwealth, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Of the New Zealanders asked, 41 per cent said the prospect of New Zealand becoming Australia’s seventh state was “an idea worth debating”.

On the other hand, 58 per cent did not believe the discussion was worth having. One per cent were unsure.

The survey, which has a margin of error of three per cent, found New Zealanders believed a union would bring big improvements in the ease of travel to Australia and to the defence status of the nation of four million people.  [NewsCore]

For those that have never been around Aussies and Kiwis, there relationship is very much a USA and Canada relationship.  Australians tend to overlook New Zealand while the Kiwis tend to try and emphasize their differences and what they do better than Australia.  However, I cannot ever imagine over 40% of Canadians wanting to merge with the US?

Via AG Outdoor.

Since my wife and I live down in the deserts of El Paso seeing green like this is always a welcome experience:

Not everything is green though, there is plenty of wildflowers to see as well:

Here are some more examples of the wildflowers that can be seen covering the mountain:

As we continued up the mountain the views got better and better.  The drive up CR 532 has to be one of the prettiest drives in all of New Mexico:

Here is a view of Sierra Blanca while driving up the road:

We soon pulled into the lookout on the mountain with my wife’s little Hyundai that was backdropped by the massive Sierra Blanca Peak:

The views from the lookout of the surrounding Sacramento Mountains is just incredible:

In this picture you can see the winding CR 532 working its way up the side of the mountain:

The village of Ruidoso that lies at the base on the mountain could be seen as well:

A view of the Capitan Mountains could also be seen out in the distance:

It is in the Capitan Mountains that the legend of Smoky Bear began.  Anyway here is the view once again looking back towards the 11,973 foot summit of Sierra Blanca:

Here is a closer look at the summit of the mountain:

Finally at the end of County Road 532 is the Ski Apache resort:

The resort isn’t very big, but it has many ski trails for skiers to choose from during the winter months:

Here are some views from along the highway of the various ski trails that litter the side of Sierra Blanca Peak:

All in all no trip to the Ruidoso area is complete without a drive up CR 532.  Like I said earlier in this posting, this has to be one of the best drives in New Mexico and the lookout towards the end of the road may very well have the best view from a lookout in all of New Mexico.

It is not much, but this definitely qualifies as a big snow storm by El Paso standards:

Fortunately my fish in my pond survived yet another snow storm this year.  I have in fact only had one fish so far die this year from the cold.

You can read more about my visit to the Australian Parliament House here.

No this is not Japan, this picture is actually from Australia.

Prohibition in the United States drove Texas bars and brothels to the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and helped create an image problem that Mexico’s murder capital has been unable to repair, according to a newly published book.

A total of 2,600 murders attributed to organized crime were committed last year in Juarez, home to almost 1.5 million inhabitants. By some measures, the gritty metropolis just across the Rio Grande from El Paso has the world’s highest homicide rate.

“El Paso had been a corrupt place since the end of the 19th century. The Puritans took control there and expelled everything that sullied the image of that area to the Mexican border (region),” Mexico’s Rutilio Garcia Pereyra, author of “Ciudad Juarez la fea” (Ugly Ciudad Juarez), told Efe.

He says the process was reinforced after World War I when the United States adopted Prohibition.

“After the dry laws, none of the 150 canteens that had once been in El Paso remained. All were moved to Juarez, where they continued to operate with the same owners and the same rationale,” the author said.

Garcia Pereyra, a professor at the Autonomous University of Juarez, the book’s publisher, conducted research for the work at the municipal archives of Ciudad Juarez and the University of Texas library.

Ciudad Juarez’s negative image was created by some conservative U.S. newspapers, whose editorials sought to spread “Puritan, Protestant and discriminatory ideas” and depict Mexicans as “a race with vulgar social customs,” the author said.

That stigma has “unfortunately … been passed down to our time” and has been exacerbated by the hundreds of killings and disappearances of women in the 1990s that gave the city a lot of bad press and notoriety, even though, according to Garcia Pereyra, the central state of Mexico “has more murders of women than Juarez.”  [Latin American Herald Tribune]

Read the rest at the link, but I think the US prohibition on marijuana today has also helped lead to violence in Juarez as well.  However, that shouldn’t be used as an excuse by the Mexican authorities to enforce law and order in their own town.

There seems to be wild weather all around the world this year, but as Andrew Bolt points out this type of weather is nothing new in Melbourne with this picture from 1972:

I saw some wild weather myself when my wife and I were living in the Melbourne area, but definitely nothing like these two storms.

You can read and view more pictures of this outstanding memorial and museum here.

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From the graffiti rock art area in the middle of the Hueco Tanks State Park my wife and I turned around and headed back towards the visitor and followed this trail along the north side of the park:

The north side of the park is an area littered with a variety of very nice picnic areas:

We continued to walk along the northern end of the park and enjoyed the surround Chihuahuan Desert scenery:

The scenery included many cactus:

To include this one that looked just like a heart:

Walking along the northern edge of the park also meant some pretty nice views of the surrounding Hueco Mountains that surround most of the park:

From the north side of the park we made our way to the west side of the park which features many large rock outcroppings:

These large rock outcroppings on the west side of course makes Hueco Tanks very popular with rock climbers who come to challenge themselves on the various climbing courses here:

The large rock face pictured below is what climbers call “The Front Side”:

This rock is the most popular rope climbing face in the park and one of the most popular in all of Texas:

Most of the climbing course on The Front Side are 200-350 feet long and quite challenging with the first climb of this face documented in the 1950’s.  The Front Side remains such a popular climbing destination that climbers are the number one visitors to Hueco Tanks.  My wife and I are hardly rock climbers, but we decided to head into the rocks ourselves and see what we could find.  We came upon this picnic area, which my wife who was pregnant at the time we visited the park, decided to take a break at while I continued to explore the rocks:

What was interesting about this picnic area was that it was located next to a small lagoon, which existence is so surprising considering how dry and arid this desert is:

Here is a view of the lagoon from up above on the rocks:

Here is a view of one of the large boulder formations that make up the park:

Soon I was at the top of the rocks and had a view looking back towards the 6,787 foot summit of Cerro Alto mountain, the highest peak in the Hueco Mountains:

Here is the view looking towards the area of the park off limits to day visitors and only accessed by guided tours that require reservations:

On the top of the rocks there is actually plenty of desert life growing up here as well:

Of couse there was plenty of ocotillo or Jacob’s Staff growing on the top of the rocks as well:

I was surprised by the amount of moss that could be seen growing on the top of the rocks on the top of Hueco Tanks:

I say that the moss is surprising simply because you just don’t see moss growing in the middle of the desert like this.  Despite all the water at Hueco Tanks, during our entire trip the only wildlife we saw were these lizards that can be seen running around the rocks:

Hueco Tanks is no where near as scenic as probably the greatest rock wonder in the world, Uluru in Australia, but it is still quite an impressive place.  The place it reminded me the most of though was Wave Rock in Western Australia, which had similar rock formations, water holes, and local importance to native Aboriginal tribes.  Much like Wave Rock we had a great day out at Hueco Tanks and the fact we haven’t taken the guided tour to the sealed off rock art locations only means we have another excuse to visit this great park.