A daily digest of all the news and current affairs you need, guaranteed to be less than a thousand witty words. Read along as we take the pith out of the each edition of the Sydney Morning Herald - one day at a time...
Proudly dispensing news to the people of Sydney for over a month now!
Archives: December 2009
Thursday 31 December 2009
ITEM In news that will comfort air travellers everywhere, it seems that the man who attempted to bring down a Detroit bound flight on Christmas Eve managed to do so because of a ‘potentially catastrophic’ failure of intelligence systems. It seems that Mr Abdulmutallab was known to the CIA as ‘the Nigerian’ (really, you don’t think that might have been a bit confusing, Langley? He was the only Nigerian?), had been flagged by his own father as a threat in at least two US embassy visits, several phone calls and miscellaneous letters (next time he should erect a banner, or perhaps post something on Facebook) and then boarded the plane, possibly without a passport, having bought a one-way ticket paying cash and not having any luggage. (Are you thinking what I’m thinking B1?) Let’s not forget that Mr Abdulmutallab was also carrying a quantity of suspicious material which when mixed in the right quantities could cause smoke, a popping sound and an enraged Jasper Schuringa from Seat 20J to start putting you out with Evian water. Questions over the exact location of the explosives continue to be asked, with some claiming they were strapped to his lower legs, while others have leapt upon the sobriquet Panty Bomber with more speed than the aforementioned Dutchman. And by others, I mean Miranda Devine for one, who also notes in her column the need to bring back the biff in times like this, rather than be like the ‘20 or so people who were paralysed with indecision or who ran screaming in the direction of away.’ Presumably they were a bunch of lefties who would have preferred to die at 20,000 feet praying to Karl Marx to save them. Next time I fly, when they ask if I want a window or an aisle seat, I’m asking for the one next to Miranda! In reports from outside the Herald, it seems that the Panty Bomber, by which I mean a misguided and troubled young man, may have revealed on social networking sites that he was lonely and depressed, however I would suggest that attempting to kill nearly 300 people on Christmas Eve is not the most optimal way to make friends, although one has surely to admire the resolve of someone who is prepared to ignite their own scrotum whatever their motivation – if only he had used his powers, and his groin, for good.
ITEM With New Year festivities including the sudden release of smoke caused by exploding at least $650,000 dollars over the harbour at 9pm and midnight about to commence, reality will arrive tomorrow morning when some prices for public transport and tolls go up. Included in the increases are charges for use of the Cross City Tunnel going up by 4 cents a trip, and for the Lane Cove tunnel by 3 cents, possibly enraging the five people a day using each of those roads...
ITEM From the department of the bleeding bloody obvious comes news which suggests that if we increased the use of rail over road to move large volumes of freight we could probably reduce the number of accidents, lessen environmental pollution and give us more parking spaces, especially near the docks. The recent removal of a rail transport subsidy has resulted in an increase in the amount of petrol tankers using the state’s roads, although Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has noted that there’s one less after the accident at Batemans Bay the other day. State Transport Minister David Campbell interrupted his Christmas holidays to note that ‘we weren’t happy’ with the removal of the subsidy, but that he probably wouldn’t do much about it, adding that, ‘come on, can I go now, the kids are hassling me to take them to Jamberoo.’ A study at Wollongong University has suggested that the cost of moving things by road is not ‘fully recovered’ meaning that factors like social and environmental damage don’t make it onto the trucking company manifest but are left for rate payers, tax payers and families in small sedans to pick up the tabs for. On a personal note, this writer knew they weren’t serious about trains the afternoon he sat behind a convoy of lorries on the Hume Highway – all loaded with concrete railway sleepers.
ITEM In what is hardly a Clash of the Titans moment for Australian politics, Tony Abbott has responded to Peter Garrett’s comments that ‘You can’t run an Opposition by just making things up’ by saying:
- a) Why not? We’re practising for when we’re in Government
- b) It’s a tried and true Aussie tradition
- c) We don’t have to explain ourselves, the Government has to explain itself
- d) That's what you did
- e) Does anyone really care what he said?
ITEM Meanwhile, somewhere in America, or possibly Hawaii, a single leader of the free world is dreaming of how to battle Congress to bring about an agenda of social reform, despite a few early hiccoughs.
Wednesday 30 December 2009
ITEM It’s been an uneventful summer out on the oval thus far, however it appears that the Government has now gone onto the front foot in an attempt to up the action in the limited overs match it’s calling ‘a proposed energy trading scheme’. In the first sign that it may stop playing defensively against the thus far ineffective medium pacers trundling down the strip from Tony Abbott at the Vulture St end, it appears that Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard might be about to man up and start attempting some shots at last, which would no doubt bring some delight to the crowd, if in fact there’s anyone still tuned in. In response to claims by Mr Abbott that a lot of folk would be on average $1100 per year worse off with an ETS in place ‘...it won’t cut emissions at all, just make energy and transport more expensive’, the Government has now claimed that some of the poor people might even come out ahead by an annual average of $190 – and surely that's enough for a few extra tins of Whiskers. With Mr Rudd claiming he’ll be declaring and putting the ETS back into bat in the Senate for an extra innings in February, it’ll be interesting to see if he continues this new strategy of actually showing the Australian public how an ETS could benefit it, rather than his old tactic of ‘letting the Liberal Party rip itself to shreds.’ Comments and predictable frothing at the mouth in response to the Government claims on the financial benefits of the ETS are expected from Mr Abbott and Mr Joyce any minute now...
ITEM The chap who tried to blow up the airliner on Christmas Eve armed only with some explosive and his lower leg – and, it transpires, possibly not even a passport – had apparently completed a semester or two at Wollongong University’s Dubai campus. Vice-chancellor of the university Gerard Sutton has scared a lot of folk by noting that Mr Abdulmuttalab ‘was just like any other student in Dubai.’
ITEM In surprising news from Canberra it appears that some environment laws enacted by former Prime Minister John Howard have been under review by an advisor to the current Department of the Environment. Observers have claimed that the ‘security of costs’ legislation brought in by the Libs has silenced a lot of grass roots protestors, however their real shock was the realisation that Peter Garrett appears to have actually done something in his position as Environment Minister. Sure, it was only ordering a review, but at least it was something!
ITEM A $20 million advertising campaign and 70% tax rise on alcopops has apparently failed to convince young Australians of their right to get shit faced on every possible occasion. Claims of a ‘modest but positive effect’ by the ad campaign were offset against the fact that ‘drinking to excess is so ingrained in the Australian culture’ a report into the campaign noted. Anecdotal evidence suggests any lessening of the number of young people drinking is coming not from a desire for sobriety but because ‘If we go out I’ll just have to stop all the boys from fighting or spend my time holding the girl’s hair back while they’re being sick’.
ITEM Meanwhile, from America comes the realisation that the land of the free is actually becoming cheaper, with two successive contractions of the economy above 6%. With millions of workers laid off and unemployment above 10%, many US citizens are wishing they had enough money to binge drink. No news as yet as to whether Mr Obama is back in de house or if he’s still in Hawaii working on a plan to push an agenda of social reform through Congress.
Tuesday 29 December 2009
ITEM In news that will no doubt terrify intended terrorists, Australian airline passengers will now be allowed to carry knitting needles, nail clippers and tennis racquets into aeroplanes – a whole raft of items to start hurling at the next would-be bomber reaching for the device strapped to his calves. While not questioning the bureaucratic decision-making process that led to this relaxation of the rules (although one has to ask who would want to, or should be allowed to, either clip their nails or play tennis in-flight?) one can comprehend the desire of little old ladies to produce the occasional bootie or two at 20,000 feet, and let’s face it, little old ladies rarely hijack aircraft, and swarthy types intent on global carnage rarely knit, so we should be pretty safe. Of course there are those critics who will point out that the Twin Towers were brought down by use of box cutters, and so why couldn’t someone use the file on their nail clippers to sharpen the point of a knitting needle before attaching it to the end of a tennis racket and commandeering the plane, but really, what kind of a person thinks of doing things like that? (Columnists looking for absurd ends to paragraphs aside...)
ITEM Three Herald reporters stuck in Coonamble waiting for possible flooding to commence have filed a story on the menu items of the local bowling club, no doubt ‘Ground Zero’ for their perilous assignment. The highlight of their article was the description of the meal known as Hen’s Night Out, ‘just like a surf and turf but with chicken instead of beef.’ Country NSW is now apparently eagerly eyeing the skies waiting for the rain to stop, after years spent eagerly eyeing the skies waiting for it to start.
ITEM Late fees paid by customers to gas retailer AGL are soon tipped to exceed the amount of many actual bills if plans to continue raising them are approved. Arguments along the lines of ‘The amount is cost reflective and calculated and charged to customers on a fair and reasonable basis’ have been predictably trotted out and have caused much mirth in many a boardroom around the country. An alternative plan to cut off gas supplies entirely while continuing to send its customers their bills has also been mooted by the company as a more profitable business model.
ITEM In an article cobbled together from seven people interviewed in Darling Harbour - suspiciously close to the office of the Herald - and another story from the UK’s Guardian newspaper, it seems that some people might not keep their New Year’s Resolutions in 2010. It appears that some of the hard ones (quitting smoking, losing weight, crossing the Antarctic by pogo stick) will more likely be given up on first, while some of the easier ones (eating chocolate daily, watching more TV, not putting much effort into newspaper articles) will be more likely to succeed. A study has shown less than 25% of people who set a goal at New Year will achieve it, which shows that their goals were presumably too hard, and that someone got paid to run yet another really pointless research project.
ITEM The Christians are displaying true charity again this festive season as they begin ripping each others throats out in an attempt to demonstrate that the true message of Christ is to keep the undesirables out of Australia, and by undesirables they perversely appear to mean anyone who isn’t like them. Yes, it’s the crazy folk from the Christian Democratic Party, led by the irascible Fred Nile, who have allegedly become involved in either asking questions which may be deliberately provocative or denying they were involved in the asking of the questions even though some other people think they might have been. Meanwhile, the message of one Mr J. Christ recedes further into the distance, a faint echo unlikely to be heard at the current time what with all the shouting.
ITEM For those who were wondering, Gerard Henderson has happily pointed out the flawed predictions and mistaken analyses of around 27 people, some of whom happened to be ‘eco-catastrophists’, ‘environmentalists’, ‘media tart economists’ and ‘John Pilger admirers’. Amazingly, Henderson himself appears to have committed no wrong other than using his time and energy to keep what was presumably a seriously well cross-referenced scrap book which kept track of all the folk who did. With further amazement it should be pointed out that 'completely unbiased' commentators such as Piers Ackerman, Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, Janet Albrechtsen and Keith 'Giggles' Windschuttle all failed to make Mr Henderson's list.
ITEM Meanwhile in the picturesque Hawaiian town of Kailua the un-picaresque US President continued to have a bit of down time hanging with the fam and putting in a round or two. Meanwhile a convoy of vehicles and a small armada of US Coast Guard vessels keep him safe while he ponders his next move in the strategy to battle Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Monday 28 December 2009
ITEM In tragic news, 45 people have died on Australia’s road over the Christmas holiday period, including 14 in NSW. Perhaps now is the time to slow down, not indulge in your passion for booze bus roulette and consider your own safety, as well as that of many others, including that of your own family. And on a personal note to the gentleman in the white ute on the Federal Highway in the ACT yesterday: You need to brush up your skills in the game of road rage charades you attempted, sir. I have no idea what the hell you were trying to say. Everything on the trailer looked tied down to me.
ITEM From the think of a number, double it, add twelve and multiply it by ten department comes further news of our likely spending habits over Christmas and the 'sales' season. Following on from yesterday's projected spending forecasts come a further set of figures which suggests that NSW shoppers won't be dropping until they've unleashed $2.15 billion from their savings and credit cards - mostly on the plastic apparently. In fact, $22 billion has apparently been added to the national credit card bill this festive season - not a bad effort when you remember how they said things were going to be after those investment banks we'd never heard of before started crashing in the US a while back.
ITEM The whacky Alan Jones, well known broadcaster to certain sections of the Sydney radio listening community, (who remembers radio?) seems to have found himself in a bit of strife over some alleged comments he made in the lead up to certain anti-Lebanese rioting in and around the suburb of Cronulla a few years back. Yes, the crazy folk in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal (who thinks up the names for these organisations, really?) have decreed that Jones was a bit out of order when he apparently exhibited ‘reckless hyperbole calculated to agitate and excite his audience.’ Have they never listened to this man’s program? Does he do anything else? And that’s just when he gets going with endorsements for Telstra, for which he may or may not be getting paid the metric equivalent of a shitload for. The tribunal went on: ‘...Jones appears to have been induced or stimulated by his own preconceptions to place highly exaggerated and distorted interpretations on the few objective facts apparently known to him.’ Are they serious? I thought this was why people listened to his show. Personally I think you can’t go past a comment made by former Prime Minister John (My Bennelong Won’t Come Back) Howard, who once said of Mr Jones: ‘I don’t think he’s a person who encourages prejudice in the Australian community, not for one moment, but he is a person who articulates what a lot of people think.’ Pure gold!
ITEM Here's several overseas news items from the middle of the Herald cobbled together into a single story: An American bloke who calls himself Robin Hood702 is flying poor folk to Vegas where he treats them to a stretch limo, first class flights and a 750 square metre Palazzo Hotel suite before allowing them to watch him blow ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ and then handing over $35,000 to pay for their daughter’s brain tumour op. Sure it was nice of him to offer them the cash at the end of a hard night, but – and I know this might sound a tad churlish – couldn’t he have just offered them the money upfront, perhaps even more than what they eventually were given – and we could all have had a nice dinner together afterwards and talked about how we can save the world? Saving the world was possibly what a misguided terrorist suspect had on his mind before trying to blow up his leg, and a large part of the plane he was on which was heading towards the general direction of America. Mr Abdulmutallab was apparently known to a US law enforcement data base, was carrying an explosive device (let’s call it a ‘bomb’) and his own father had reported him to US authorities as a risk – yet he was still granted a visa to enter the States. Fortunately he was spotted by a fellow passenger concerned about the smoke coming from an area just south of Mr Abdulmutallab’s knees. Someone else with smoky knees is apparently Mr Narain Dutt Tiwari, 86-year old governor of Andhra Pradesh in Southern India, who has apparently been videotaped in bed with at least three women. Although he has resigned as governor, he is reportedly still smiling. Someone else who may or may not be smiling is Mr B. Obama, aka The Prez, who is possibly still hanging out in downtown Maui and putting his feet up for a well-earned rest prior to heading back to Washington and another round of beating his own head against a marble column already dented with small skull-shaped impressions left there previously by a number of people including Mr B. Clinton, Mr R. Nixon et al.
Saturday 26 December 2009
ITEM In a true Christmas miracle, a group of happy outback farmers who live 30 kilometres on the other side of Bourke in far western NSW have been photographed on the front page of the Boxing Day Sydney Morning Herald frolicking in unexpected and much needed rain and all appear to have full sets of teeth!
ITEM The spirit of Christmas can’t be measured of course, but if it could it would apparently be about $8.5 billion, which is the amount spent by Australians on the 12.7 presents they each paid a total average of $662 for – although 20 million of these, valued at $1.05 billion, will either become landfill, unusual and unique garage sale items or must have eBay purchasing opportunities. The online reseller observed a 15% increase in stuff for sale after 25 December last year, so if you really want to check whether your mum liked the socks you gave her, you might want to log on and see whether she’s flogging them to the highest bidder.
ITEM Meanwhile a whole bunch of people in Victoria are expected to gather at the MCG to pretend that a five-day cricket match can be exciting, even as thousands of Sydney-siders indulge in a mass orgy of make-believe about the 'thrill' of ocean-going yacht racing. In further signs that we really appear to have nothing better to do with our time, NSW shoppers are expected to spend $4.5 billion at the ‘sales’ in the next few weeks – but unlike the cash they splurged in the last month or so, at least this time it’ll be on themselves. Retailers and banks are presumably expecting that the majority of the money will be paid off credit cards by the end of November – just in time for the cycle to begin again.
ITEM Here's several overseas news items from the middle of the Herald cobbled together into a single story: In happy news from the Middle East, Palestinian tourism outlets are allegedly failing to make a motza from foreigners entering the territory. It seems that fewer than a third of visitors arriving in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve are staying overnight, despite a glut of empty hotels, and indeed stables and mangers. In fact, rather than giving birth to Messiahs or offering gold, frankincense or myrrh, most visitors stay in Bethlehem for less than two hours. (What the heck is myrrh anyway?) According to Palestinian Tourism officials, something about the giant ‘freedom’ wall recently erected near Bethlehem is giving tourists the impression they aren’t safe in Christ’s birthplace. Meanwhile, in another area known for its recent poverty, riots and deprivation – California – folk are becoming a bit annoyed that in some regions up to a quarter of them are unemployed. And it is not just outside Central Casting that queues of hopefuls are now found – students are striking for lower fees (although possibly no-one noticed and presumed they were ‘studying’), the construction industry is at a standstill and 150,000 prisoners have been crammed into prisons designed to hold just over half that amount. Meanwhile, the homeless have been given leave to set up a tent city in the fairground of the state capital city of Sacramento. If you’re going to be homeless, I guess a fairground is a good place to do it in. Did they consider Disneyland? Somewhere else that isn’t celebrating Christmas with full gusto is Italy, where a merger between the four main Mafia groups has allegedly formed not one Mafia, but a fifth Mafia... you do the math. Significant family members who may or may not look like Tony Soprano have joined forces to battle a united problem: not law enforcement, but something known colloquially as ‘what-a do we do with-a all de lira?’ It appears that proceeds from organised crime now account for 9% of Italy’s GDP, and there are rumours that some criminals have become so desperate they are considering buying into legitimate businesses so they can get a break from working out what to do with it all. Another group of people also now spending time working out what to do with it all are the team of lawyers who no doubt are even as we speak laboriously delving deep into the tax receipts of noted left-wing Hollywood power couple Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who have finally decided to share the love beyond the confines of their King Size Posturepedic after 23 fun-filled years. This has hit many fans of the dynamic duo particularly hard, including one Mr B. Obama, who will now have difficulty seating them at various inaugurations. The Prez had hoped for better news for the season, particularly after the historic vote supporting his health care bill in the Senate, despite health-care industry lobbyists apparently spending more than $650 million trying to convince Senators otherwise - surely proof of the value of its passage. Mr Obama is having a few days off in Hawaii before resuming the good fight.
BREAKING NEWS Alleged comedy actor Charlie Sheen finally brought a grin to many faces with the news he spent Christmas Eve in jail. Finding out he was there due to a possible domestic violence incident caused the smiles to fade even as viewers finally realised which of the characters of his ‘sitcom’ Two And A Half Men was the actual half man...
Thursday 24 December 2009
ITEM In good news for opponents of those well-known scourges of the fast-food industry - nutritionists – several large junk food purveyors are celebrating their win over folk who claimed that offering plastic toys along with assorted burgers, fries and nuggets constituted pester power. The ‘self-regulatory’ body which investigated the matter found that the practice of toy giveaways was completely appropriate, as the kids were presumably pestering their parents for the toys that came with the food, not for the food itself. Surely it’s just a coincidence then, or a proof of true philanthropy, that McDonald’s is allegedly the largest distributor of toys in the world. Claims that the toys contain more nutritional value than the food they accompany remain to be investigated.
ITEM According the Herald it appears that nearly twenty-five whole people, including two girls in bikinis, flooded bookstores in Manly yesterday looking for ‘a great Christmas gift’ and resorted to queuing for Tony Abbott’s book Battlelines, if not the actual man himself. Repeating his mantra of ‘under Labor... more debts, more deficits, higher taxes, er, what was the question again?’ Mr Abbott apparently went on to find out what the question was, and told interviewers, in an attempt to possibly claim the younger demographic, that leadership was ‘an awesome responsibility.’
ITEM Law enforcement officials in the UK have apparently seized 1.5 tonnes of coke valued at $680 million. Several people dreaming of a white Christmas are now helping authorities with their enquiries.
ITEM In news from the wacky and crazy religions department, Arthur Uther Pendragon (‘how did you get to be king, eh?’) formerly known as John Rothwell, celebrated the pagan festival of the New Sun at Stonehenge yesterday. While about 300 people hadn’t checked their iPhones and had arrived to celebrate a day earlier, Pendragon and his acolytes prayed for world peace, so you can’t knock them for that, nor for getting up in time for a dawn service, particularly when, as the spokesperson for English heritage noted, there has been ‘a bitter chill’ in the UK lately. In good news for anyone in Britain suffering due to the cold, the spokesman went onto note that apparently it’s also been ‘absolutely gorgeous in terms of light and photography.’ In further news from the wacky and crazy religions department, the Christians have been retrieving the large crowbar from the back of the shed in an attempt to get the Christ back into Xmas. Christian historians have been looking at the work of actual historians in an attempt to see where their respective discourses coincide. Some of the instances they’ve been investigating include the ‘hijacking’ of the pagan festival of the Recovery of the Invincible Sun (did you hear that, Mr Pendragon?) on December 25th to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, although apparently this is now acknowledged to be a generic saviour’s birthday, such as August 1st celebrates all horse’s birthdays. While the article in the Herald doesn’t go onto the real hijacking issue surrounding Christmas – that of a Coca Cola advertising icon becoming the jolly figure most children (probably not the ones in Ethiopia) believe slides down your chimney on Christmas Eve – it does claim that the recent discovery of an old swimming pool in Jerusalem supports the Gospel of St John. What Christians, whacky and crazy folk or otherwise, might want us all to remember however, is that one person suggested we start being nice to each other, and as a consequence was nailed to a large piece of wood. Sadly it seems that similar later attempts to instigate peaceful solutions to the violence of the world (see, for example, the life and work of M. Gandhi and M. Luther King Jr) have also abruptly ended at the hand of assassins. What is undeniable, though, is that the message of these people has endured, and possibly this is something you might want to keep in mind as you stumble out of a bed with an unknown hungover brunette in it on Christmas morning to survey the wreckage of your credit card.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama presumably had his own thoughts about Christ, Gandhi and Luther King Jur and continued to battle Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
ITEM Happy Christmas to all our readers. May it be said of you all, as a wise man (not one of those wise men) once noted of someone else, that: '... ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!'
Wednesday 23 December 2009
ITEM In news from our nation’s glorious capital, several citizens have started complaining about the violin noise emanating from some of the smokier regions. While many of the Opposition offices already have their stereo volume knobs set at eleven, lately the sound has also been observed coming from the office of K. Rudd PM. While the Prime Minister has pointed out that he really did try to do some stuff in Copenhagen, if it wasn’t for the wily Chinese and the wily Americans, others have noted that the ongoing Doubt and Uncertainty surrounding just exactly what we are going to do about it all isn’t helping anyone, and has anyone seen Tuvalu lately? The latest crop of whingers is the Investor Group on Climate Change, a collation of folk with a spare half a trillion bucks they’d like to put towards green technology and business, aka ‘We’d like to make a profit if only the mechanisms are there for us to do it at the same time as we contribute to saving the planet.’ The government still apparently feels that dealing with the Coalition is their best bet to get something done, despite the fact that the Libs don’t want to do anything about climate change (except for that nice Mr Turnbull) and the Nats don’t believe in it. This is in contrast to The Greens, who apparently want ‘too much’ done which in reality probably makes as much sense as Kate Moss declaring she’s ‘too thin.’ Meanwhile a bunch of wind farms continue not to be built, the violin music grows louder in direct proportion to the amount of carbon being emitted, the drought persists and the next round of seasonal bushfires threaten to engulf the major bits of South Australia.
ITEM The insults were flying freely in Canberra yesterday about another issue when Tony Abbott, Health Minister for five years during the reign of J.W. Howard (dismissed at the crease for 99.94 by a googly from M. McKew), got all stroppy with the Prime Minister about health reform, something Mr Rudd claimed Mr Abbott could have done himself back in the day – if he’d really wanted to. Mr Abbot then accused Mr Rudd of a terrifying new form of addiction: bureaucracy! Alarmed glances were shot in many a corridor as various personnel remembered the signs and wondered why they hadn’t realised it before: questions from the PM like ‘Does anyone know where I can get a cheap committee?’ and ‘Will you ratify my minutes for me, please, I’ll pay you back tomorrow, honest.’ The first step towards to healing, Kevin, is admitting you have a problem, and describing Mr Abbott’s new health plan as ‘a bunch of rhetoric’ isn’t going to help you - as well as the fact that most people don’t know what you mean and the rest of us don’t feel you’re making sense.
ITEM Here’s something to make you feel good as you sit down for another Christmas dinner full of more calories than the average Ethiopian will probably see in his or her lifetime. Last year Australians apparently wasted $5.2 billion dollars worth of food – which could in fact be a conservative amount. Yes, we’ve happily been sending off to the tip something like 150,000 trucks annually, each loaded with 20 tonnes of leftovers, the equivalent of $643 worth of food per year for each NSW household. The proportion of food tossed out apparently rises at Christmas to become something like a fifth of all food purchased. Maybe as we all tuck into the turkeys, tofus and figgy puddings in two days we could take some time to remember that more than 1 billion of the world’s population is hungry and survives on less than $1.25 daily, with 16,000 children dying per day from hunger related causes. (Check out www.bread.org for more saddening statistics.) Perhaps we could also make a donation or two...
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama continues to battle Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Tuesday 22 December 2009
ITEM From the elephant in the room department comes news that China has ‘come out of the closet’ and admitted to having a bit of a leadership role in the latest version of the New World Order. After the actions of Chinese diplomats in the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, people have suddenly started noticing that when China says ‘jump’ many countries have already got themselves a decent amount of altitude. The real clue, though, was probably the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, when everyone suddenly noticed China was holding all the money...
ITEM Meanwhile, back in the quietened hallways and darkened corridors of Parliament House in Canberra, one office still has a light on. Inside, scribbling frantically away on various pieces of vellum and parchment, a lone Federal Opposition Leader desperately attempts to invent a new policy that will ‘make everyone like him.’ Hard on the heels of his attempts to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by not really doing much comes a plan to cure Australia’s ailing medical system – by not really doing much. While most feel that the states have had long enough to try and get it right and maybe it’s time to centralise the system and have it all managed by Canberra, Tony has suggested that the bucks be sent to local ‘boards’ who would then decide - without suggestions that 'my brother's company makes the best X-ray machines in Dapto'- which X-ray machines are bought for which hospital. It would appear that the idea is to put another tier of management between the source of funding and those who need the actual money. Yeah, that’ll do it, Tony. Middle managers have never had a history of stuffing things up.
ITEM In what climate change expert Ross Garnaut has called ‘awful arithmetic,’ it appears that if Australia is to contribute meaningfully to any serious attempt by the world to reduce global temperatures by 2 degrees and get Thredbo viable in the long-term as a serious tourist destination again, then we’ll actually have to do quite a lot, really. Like have 20% of our energy come from renewables, improve the energy efficiency of all building by 20%, hugely increase plantation timber holdings by about a million hectares, enrich our soils with quite large amounts of charcoal as well as putting at least $25 on the price of each tonne of carbon. Sounds as if a squadron of porcine-like creatures powered by a range of self-interest groups and hard-line sceptics are about to head towards the runways and get airborne at breakneck speed. Perhaps what’s really needed, amidst all the tumult and the fighting, is some firm decision and resolve, so we could all put our heads down and actually start to get on with it – especially those who feel there’s a few dollars to be made if we get in early enough.
ITEM In a quiet day for ‘middle of the paper overseas news stories,’ the following matters have emerged as marginally interesting. A Dutch lass whose ambition, or that of close relatives hoping for a movie deal, was to sail around the world at fourteen, has run away from home – to the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. Prevented by social workers earlier in the year from beginning her solo circumnavigation, Laura Dekker has apparently been in a ‘negative spiral’ since being placed in the care of the state. Ironically it was also a ‘negative spiral,’ albeit one which would send her down into the briny deep, that the authorities had sought to prevent her entering. Someone who won’t be playing Laura in the movie of her ill-fated ambition is Brttany Murphy, who has died of cardiac arrest at the age of 32. Readers who remember other such celebrity deaths as M. Jackson and H. Ledger have noted the use of prescription drugs in all three cases, but surely this is just a coincidence. ‘Coincidence’ is possibly also the word which was used by Ludwig Borchardt in 1912 when asked by Egyptian customs officers why the ‘painted plaster bust of a princess’ he was shipping to Germany looked remarkably like the 3400-year old limestone head of Queen Nefertiti. Recent perusal of his diary has suggested he was being a bit deliberately vague at the border, and Egypt has asked if it could please have the statue back now, come on, we’ve asked a couple of times about this already. Someone else who also had to ask a couple of times was the New York policeman who allegedly came upon a bunch of happy folk laughing and hurling snowballs. When some were apparently lobbed in his direction he then drew his gun on the revellers ‘because I got hit with snowballs.’ This year’s winner of the Spirit of Christmas award started to walk away, before being hit by another snowball – which wasn’t made of the same snow that has now suspended trips on the Eurostar train for three days, as well as causing flights to be delayed in many parts of Europe. The news from London continued to get worse, when a Facebook campaign to install the 1992 single Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine as Number 1 succeeded, and placed the traditional X Factor’s single into second place. British consumers have only themselves to blame, however any attempts to selfharm will be patched up for nothing as they already have a National Health System, unlike the population of America, although this lurched a step closer after the US Senate voted to ban Republican moves to delay the passage of the Universal Health Care Reform bill - although universal in this case actually means only about 94% of the population. Oops. Meanwhile, President Obama has vowed to continue battling both houses to push through an agenda of social reform.
Monday 21 December 2009
ITEM In news that will surprise no-one, not much was done in Copenhagen, despite the best efforts of the US and China to push an agenda of self-interest and short-sightedness in an attempt to de-rail the conference entirely. Conference delegates came to a historic agreement that if the global temperature rises more than two degrees things will be ‘bad,’ but also noted that we’re now on track for a three degree rise. Exhaustion and disappointment were apparent on many faces, particularly those from some of the more low lying areas, already coping with the odd tidal surge in their direction. Meanwhile back in sunny Canberra, Tony Abbott claimed his own climate change policy was obviously in accord with that of the UN as it also had a lot to do with self-interest and short-sightedness.
ITEM In an alarming admission that the national boredom index has risen to stratospheric proportions, there was a 12% rise in the number of people watching the NRL during the last twelve months, although it is also possible that this was just an increase in the amount of viewers keeping an eye on their dealers and/or customers.
ITEM From the Riverina district comes news that the forest industry has decided that the best way to save the Murray River red gum forest is to log it, or as its spokesperson Ron Wilson describes it, to ‘manage’ it. It appears the seven small sawmill owners whose existence is threatened because former premier whatshisname promised a new 42,000 hectare national park in the area - just before the arrival of an icepick in the region of one of his lower vertebra - are apparently claiming that the nearly seven million they were each offered ‘is not quite enough’. Meanwhile conservationists have suggested that possibly the best way to manage the forest is to ensure it gets more water, although just where this is to come from, seeing there isn’t any left out that way, is a bit of a problem for everyone.
ITEM From the ‘big oopsie’ department comes news that a significant number of prisoners in the US are being released from long-term imprisonment, or in some cases from a little alley down the back known as ‘death row’ because it appears that they didn’t do whatever it was that caused them to be locked up in the first place. More than 245 prisoners have now been freed after some work in the DNA department, including James Bain who served a 35-year sentence on the basis that a nine-year old ‘identified’ him from a photograph. While the Herald article doesn’t mention how many people need to be brought back from the dead due to similar mistakes that have led to death sentences, it did note that 106 people were condemned this year, down from a peak of 328 in 1994. While one would like to believe this reduction comes from a growing respect for human life and a recognition that sometimes mistakes are made, and that they’re a bit harder to rectify once the needle has been inserted (and re-inserted a number of times on some occasions), apparently one actual reason there are fewer death penalties being handed down is due to the fact that cuts to many state budgets mean that the millions of dollars it costs to secure each death penalty conviction are no longer available to be spent. The mind boggles...
ITEM Here’s a sentence you’d never expect to read in an item concerning attempts to ameliorate a situation which has possibly arisen due to climate change: ‘(it) has encountered a morass of inertia caused by jurisdictional complexity, bureaucratic infighting and state parochialism.’ Could be anything, really... the Opposition party room, the Government party room, Copenhagen climate change talks, the list goes on. The particular issue in this case is the lack of water in many of our nation’s rivers, particularly where they’ve been sucked out upstream for various agricultural and mining reasons, leaving not much left to drink, or indeed water aforementioned red gum forests, anywhere further downstream. Once again, it seems, it’s mate against state, state against mate, as vested interests defined by arbitrary borders and meaningless lines on maps dictate who has access to what. The real solution is possibly linked to the $400 million desalination plant which is about to come online in Sydney, where it’s not actually required right now. Maybe it’s time to think about the addition of a pipeline heading west?
ITEM Worn out from his fourteen hours supporting America’s interests in Copenhagen, US President Barack Obama had some good news on his return home when his health reform bill appeared as if it would pass through the Senate 'any day now'. Of course there is the small matter of the 338-page ‘rider’ which is now attached to it, presumably derived from every senator who voted for it having one or two pet projects attached. The really impressive news from Washington is that seven hours of Saturday were spent in having the thing read aloud on the floor – one expects it probably wasn’t as enthralling as the latest John Grisham epic... Meanwhile, the Prez had the weekend off from battling both houses to push through an agenda of social reform.
Saturday 19 December 2009
ITEM In news from Copenhagen, a whole bunch of people including 130 world leaders could be about to sign a document which commits them to maybe possibly having a binding treaty to reduce global warming at the printers and ready to sign within the next six months. The easiest way to gauge the effectiveness of their efforts is to travel forward in time and look into the cold, dark, hungry condemning eyes of your grandchildren...
ITEM In news that will surprise no-one, the Federal Liberal party has promised its National colleagues that there will be no mass planting of trees on good farmland in an attempt to create large-scale carbon sinks. While some have pointed out that without some reduction in atmospheric carbon there will be no good farmland left in Australia, others have suggested planting the trees on marginal land instead. Possibly this columnist has overlooked something, but isn’t the very reason land is deemed as ‘marginal’ is because not much stuff will grow there? Like the 9.1million hectares of trees required to suck an appreciable amount of carbon from the air. Showing that there was already some animosity between the Libs and the Nats on the issue, Senator Ron Boswell of the Nationals stressed that there was no animosity on the issue.
ITEM In further news that will surprise no-one, the first strike of the festive season has quickly followed on from the first coke bust of a soap star and first coke bust of a footy star of the festive season. Sydney’s bus drivers decided yesterday was a good day to get their Christmas shopping done, although they conceded later they had found it a bit hard to get to the stores without any effective public transport...
ITEM Seeing that a lot of the middle part of today’s Herald was apparently cobbled together from overseas news sources who were themselves running out of ‘real’ news due to the upcoming seasonal festivities, this paragraph will attempt to make some of them all the more interesting by combining them into a single story. It starts with the tale of an adolescent petty thief with a predilection for stealing Cessna aircraft who is still on the run in the north-west of the US. Known for also being barefoot and his propensity to avoid law enforcement officials by escaping to heavily wooded areas, it’s unlikely that Colton Harris-Moore, who now sports his own Facebook support group, will join the anti-bullfight movement in Spain. Catalonian supporters of the move away from the public slaughter of bulls by the gradual insertion of blades by sadists appear heading towards a win in the region’s parliament, although the practice of running the bulls through the streets while being tormented in a number of other ways, including having balls of fire attached to their horns, suggests that animal liberationists have a bit of a way to go yet. Balls of fire are what the late screen actress Jennifer Jones nearly had to endure while filming her last movie, The Towering Inferno, before her retirement in 1974. Jones, who apparently initially exhibited ‘quirky charm’ lost some of her audience when her second husband David O. Selznick attempted to mould her into ‘the greatest actress in the world.’ The world in Jones’s case was not the series of artificial islands off Dubai, which has been resurrected as saleable real-estate after a few financial stumbles earlier in the year. With 30% of the 254 islands unsold, and only one built on, it was looking like curtains for the project, however it has now been announced that construction will begin on Germany next year. In reality, Germany (the actual country) is one of the European countries hit by a cold snap and a snowfall so bad that in France (the actual country) the Eiffel Tower was temporarily closed. Meanwhile those crazy guys in Moscow, tired of the $14.6 million annual snow clearing bill, are considering getting rid of snow altogether by seeding the clouds with liquid nitrogen or dry ice, or the cement powder which they already use to ensure blue skies on certain patriotic days. A wonderful idea, unless you live outside Moscow, where more snow falls as a consequence, or if you have a large chunk of cement smash through your ceiling, as happened to one unfortunate gentleman last Independence Day. There was no snowfall in China either, where fossil finders are selling a whole bunch of old stuff to private collectors, nor was there snow in India, where people are trading in the trusty family scooter for a sporty-two seater convertible for him and a family-size four-wheel drive for her, part of a 63% surge in car sales in India over the course of the year. Neither cars nor scooters are going on sale in Palestine, though, because they won't fit in the tunnels under the border where the necessities of life continue to be smuggled: food, armaments and Eastern European prostitutes. There were no Eastern European prostitutes visible on the beach at Ipanema, however, although another undesirable factor - large soccer-playing men in Speedos practising their ball skills - have been asked to leave the area before they scare the children and members of the World Cup committee. Something these happy beachgoers may also have to worry about is the potential invasion of alligators from North America, where hundreds of thousands of wild gator eggs have gone unharvested this year due to a global downturn in sales of belts, handbags and watch-straps. Also in the US, the health reform bill President Barack Obama is attempting to get through the Senate seems unlikely to attract enough votes to pass, although Obama has vowed to continue battling both houses to push through an agenda of social reform.
Friday 18 December 2009
ITEM It seems that all may not be quite right in the lovefest of pre-Christmas Verona aka the Shadow Cabinet, where the Montagues and Capulets are apparently preparing for a bit of biffo despite the recent nuptials between Toneo and Barnabette. In news that will disappoint orchardists everywhere, it seems that the Nats don’t want there to be any state-sanctioned tree planting, and especially if it reduces the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, as it appears that the planting reduces the amount of land left for farming, particularly after we’ve sold so much of the good arable stuff for housing developments lately. Opposition Climate Change Spokesman Greg ‘Tybalt’ Hunt has been given two months to develop a policy that doesn’t involve an ETS or a carbon tax, and preferably one that doesn’t have to involve people really doing anything much or spending any money. As soon as he completes his climate change research he’ll move onto a new project, and start turning lead into gold. In related news, a farmer near Canberra claims to have been on a hunger strike since November because he is not allowed to clear his land. While some are suggesting that the farmer is attempting to show us what we’ll all feel like if current land clearing practices continue, others claim that his next tactic is to take his bat, ball and Massey Fergusson and go home...
ITEM In a display of tactical brilliance, the Libs have pre-selected former tennis player John Alexander for the seat of Bennelong, once held by John Howard and now by Maxine McKew. It was claimed yesterday that Alexander has an interest in many issues, both ‘in and out of tennis’ which will relieve prospective voters concerned his expertise as a politician could be somewhat limited. Expect parliament to be ringing out with thousands of sporting clichés any day now... as if we need any more of them.
ITEM In news to worry the hearts and minds of brides everywhere, it appears France might have taken another step towards banning veils, with concerns that ‘extremists’ might use them for militant purposes. A thrown veil, even from close range, doesn’t strike this columnist as a particularly offensive weapon, but possibly there’s something about French veils I don’t know about...
ITEM A hardly staggering 20,000 NSW voters have signed an on-line Sydney Morning Herald petition to recall their government and force it to an early election. That’s right, in a state of nearly 7 million people, almost one in 350 people cared enough about the issue to send in an online form. Although it might be claimed that 349 in 350 people supported the current government, it could equally be alleged that they felt their opinion would be completely ignored by Macquarie St. Speaking of which, a number of our erstwhile state leaders recently spent some time in the office with a whiteboard in an attempt to appear as if they really cared. On the whiteboard were written topics such as Education, Health, Transport, Jobs and that old classic, The Economy. In news that will surprise no-one, and a death-knell to any hope of anything actually being done, NSW Premier KKK announced at the end of the meeting that it had been ‘an extremely productive morning.’
ITEM In the UK, researchers have found that so-called ‘dad dancing’ has been especially designed by evolution to keep older men away from younger girls. (It appears that evolution was asleep at the wheel when it came to the attractive power of shorts and long socks worn by private school teachers and Catholic priests who ‘just want to be your special friend.’) In further research scientists have observed that the repellent nature of the dad dancing activity, and presumably accompanying hairstyles and clothing fashions, can only be overcome by use of an overly thick wallet and a red Ferrari. Meanwhile fans of the late Michael Jackson, a well-known fifty-year old dancing dad, have reportedly questioned the researchers’ baseline hypothesis.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Thursday 17 December 2009
ITEM The first football star coke bust of the festive season has followed hard on the heels of yesterday’s first soapie star coke bust of the festive season. Danny Wicks, a ‘cult’ figure from the Newcastle team was arrested with ‘twice the trafficable’ amount, police said, after he had allegedly been observed over ‘a matter of months’ supplying ‘hundreds of kilos’ – apparently a reasonable proportion of it to other football players. Really, the police were watching for weeks on end as huge quantities of coke were snorted and they only moved in to make an arrest in the days before Christmas? One has to wonder at the operational efficacy of the constabulary in this case... although apparently a well known softdrink with the same name as the illegal substance in question was about to named as a major sponsor for the Newcastle team, so possibly the matter came down to a member of the local police force with a sense of humour. The other serious question to be asked in this case is what constitutes a ‘cult’ figure within the NRL?
ITEM While a small of team of seven people goes tramping around Sydney looking for a forgotten patch of 1700 hectares on which to place a second airport, former Australian Prime Minister and current ambassador to Australia from the Island of Sanity, Paul Keating, has pointed out that his former government, and indeed a couple of others, had already done the legwork in this matter. Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese, who established the new airport-site finding taskforce yesterday, pointed out that it was quite easy to create a new place for the planes to land in Sydney, ‘What we need to actually do is announce a preferred site, have all the proper processes in place and then get on and do it,’ he said. Phew, I’m glad he’s cleared that up for us, although it does sound a bit like the time twenty five years ago when the name Badgerys Creek first came to prominence.
ITEM In news from the east, China is apparently about to give the nod to building three times as many more nuclear power reactors than the rest of the world put together. While some have pointed out that Chinese toys, food, pharmaceuticals and school building haven’t always quite met the standard necesary for people who wish to stay alive, others have noted that actually Chinese nuclear reactors have been quite safe to date, with not one serious accident in the fifteen years they’ve been using them, touch wood. Meanwhile plans are underway to build a sea bridge stretching 50 kilometres, with another five and a half k’s under water across the Pearl River estuary in order that traffic can drive from Shuhai on the Chinese mainland to the ‘gambling centre’ of Macau. Apparently it is hoped that in allowing the four-and-a-half hour trip to be cut to forty minutes, the $11.8 billion spent on the project will bring $6.3 billion in economic benefits to the area in the first twenty years. Presumably the remaining $5.5 billion will arrive sometime after that, possibly also with the parking spots necessary for all the eager roulette players. The bridge will be completed by 2015, eleven years before the Chinese population peaks at 1.4 billion. With a declining birth rate, it seems that India is destined to become the world's most populated country in 2025, with the two nations containing more than a third of the entire human race between them. Expect a lot more Australian iron ore and coal to be heading their way in the years to come...
ITEM In big news from Britain, someone has eaten a pie in 35.86 seconds in one of the UK’s ‘main contributions to international competitive eating.’ Are you kidding me? There was no other news that could fill this half page? While it’s undeniable that the silly season is leading to a shortage of newsworthy items, British pie eating??? How are satirists supposed to work with such a paucity of source material? Come on, Tony, if ever we needed you to announce something really Abbott-like, it's now.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Wednesday 16 December 2009
ITEM In news that will surprise no-one, the Federal Government has finally decided to get rid of the large parcel of land known as Badgerys Creek. Yes, it’s party time for numerous land developers and shareholders of the monopoly otherwise known as Sydney Airport as they celebrate years of intense planning on ways to avoid an airport being built, even as a succession of governments spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a plethora of feasibility studies on how to build one. Initial research seemed to suggest that landing aircraft in Sydney’s outer western suburbs was viable, although someone would have to keep an eye on the hubcaps. A rumour that the decision to abandon Sydney’s proposed second airport was linked to the fact that several nearby ALP-held seats were marginal was dismissed at once by the government, pointing out that political interference had nothing to do with it – it was simply a matter of bureaucratic incompetence ‘nothing unusual going on here, please go about your business’. Meanwhile yet more government dollars are about to be spent on a new taskforce to examine the issue of Sydney’s second airport once again. Anyone know how to get a job on one of these things?
ITEM Big sales of Susan Boyle and Michael Buble CDs have boosted the earnings of record companies for the last month, proving that if the companies pitch their product to people who haven’t learned to illegally download, there’s still a few bucks to be made in the music industry yet.
ITEM Despite topping the list of consumer complaints, large yellow billboards for a certain adult product remain in place all over Sydney. Of the top ten most complained about advertisements in the last twelve months, only two were upheld by those nice folk at the Advertising Standards Bureau – and neither had anything to do with ‘erectile dysfunction’, now apparently in plague proportions if the number of ads for it are any guideline. The two ads which the bureau agreed should be ended included one on health and safety grounds and the other because it vilified women. An ad that vilified women? Good Lord, what is this society coming to? The Bureau claimed that its system of self-regulation was ‘robust’ because it listened to so many complaints, although a few whingers in the corner asked whether giving consumers a voice was really that important if you then didn’t act on what they were saying. There’s little doubt that the big winner of the debate was self-regulation...
ITEM Climate change talks in Copenhagen have identified a major new source of carbon emissions: climate change talks. It seems that huge numbers of people gathering in the one place using huge amounts of resources to discuss an issue they have no real intention of resolving and leaving the lights on when they leave the building are themselves responsible for a measurable rise in CO2 emissions.
ITEM In other news from overseas, it seems that Iranian scientists have now obtained the designs for every part of a nuclear weapon ‘for peaceful purposes, can we buy some uranium now, please, we’ll be really good, promise.’
ITEM A number of arts companies in NSW who applied to for state funding ‘for friendly purposes’ for a range of enterprises are still waiting after six months to hear whether they will have the money to still be in business next year – the third year in a row the government has kept them on tenterhooks. Rumours that the government enjoyed the dramatic tension played out in dozens of small boardrooms every December were instantly denied, as were other claims that ‘Denise has the paperwork and lost it in the last ministerial re-shuffle.’ The government has announced it will finally hand down its decision next week, just in time for the screams resulting from any significant funding cuts to be lost in the full uproar of the Christmas season.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform, and has apparently just given himself a 'B plus' for his first eleven months in the job. Sounds about right to me...
Tuesday 15 December 2009
ITEM In a masterly display of serial finger waving, former ALP Federal Minister and factional powerbroker Graham ‘Richo’ Richardson appeared before a NSW Parliamentary Inquiry yesterday. Richo was being questioned about what he had learned from listening to a tape played to him by deceased standover man Michael McGurk, and responded honestly and unequivocally by replying: ‘I only listened because he said it was an old ABBA tune, and I didn’t listen to the rest of it, and even if I did hear more, I didn’t hear much of it, and then I didn’t understand it anyway and I certainly didn’t know anything about an extortion attempt and is it time for lunch now, please?’ In related news, it’s also possible that NSW Police, aware of the political sensitivity of the nature of McGurk’s murder and the dead hitman’s possible extortion attempts, moved quickly to lose any files they held which related to the matter.
ITEM In other news from Canberra, it was quiet in the Opposition party room. Too quiet...
ITEM In a departure from his previous style, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has attempted to be witty by calling the Coalition’s proposal to deal with climate change, ‘A magic pudding and a bucket of red-tape.’ While not claiming to understand this analogy, this columnist does note there appear to be a couple of shortfalls with the Coalition’s plan to defeat climate change, such as the fact that they don’t really have one, other than to bury a lot of stuff in the ground, mainly their own heads, it appears.
ITEM Graeme Wedderburn, former chief-of-staff to Nathan Rees (remember him, he was NSW Premier between thingy and whosit) has walked away from his ten months in the job with a taxpayer-funded cheque for $135,000. Apparently Wedderburn had a clause in his contract ensuring he would be paid half his annual salary if his contract was terminated. Not a bad little earner, I suppose, but hardly an incentive to do what he was recruited to do, namely ‘save’ Mr Rees’s premiership and lift the government’s poll numbers. In a completely unrelated, but none-the-less adjacent story, seven homeless men living on the veranda of Bondi Pavilion have been given their marching orders, and not taxpayer funded cheques, which might have helped them into appropriate accommodation...
ITEM Commenting on problems in Manly, police have noted that there probably wouldn’t even be a need for a police station there if it were not for the violence and behaviour which accompanied excessive consumption of alcohol. Meanwhile owners of a local hotel have applied for a two-hour extension of their licence, and in the Eastern Suburbs the owner of the Coogee Bay Hotel (which has slipped down the ranks in the state’s Top Twenty Violent Pubs from 3 to 14) has applied for a $150 million development. One can only ask whether the pub is aiming to be Number One spot on the list...
ITEM Meanwhile in a ‘win’ for freedom of speech in the US, a student who posted a video on You Tube claiming another class member was ‘spoiled,’ a ‘brat’ and a ‘slut’ has gone to court claiming she has the right to tell it like it is in cyberspace, and if that chick can’t take it, then she needs to get over herself, man, because that’s what the founders of this country fought for, that’s what the constitution’s for, that’s why we have all them big statues in Washington. Yes, folks, just another day in Beverly Hills High School – both bullying by online video and retaliation in court – expect the movie deal to be announced any day now.
ITEM Also in the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Monday 14 December 2009
ITEM In a completely unexpected revelation, it appears that people who drink more for longer are also more likely to start having a go at you if you accuse them of looking at your missus. It also appears that they will have a go at you if you starting heading for home, or indeed on occasions keep trying to head for work. With attacks on innocent women and children continuing to rise, the police have pointed out that in dealing with the stupidity over 3000 officers a year (more than eight a day, on average) are assaulted, mostly by drunks, although on occasions it’s true that only other officers happened to have noticed the accused as he’s sworn loudly at me and then subsequently lunged at me with his chin, causing me a graze to the knuckle area of my hand, your worship. A staggering 70% of all assaults in Manly this year were alcohol related, yet moves to raise the current drinking age from eighteen (hey I’ve got my license and I’ve just finished school, let’s party) to nineteen, (I’ve lost my license and I need to keep some of my savings so I can pay dad back, but we could have a quiet drink if you wanted) appear not to be on the government’s radar. Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s spokesman said, ‘The Government is not considering raising the drinking age, are you kidding, we’re polling really well with the 18-24s, especially after Kevin went on Rove, it’d be political madness if we tried to keep them away from the grog, they’d like, you know, really really hate us, mos def.’
ITEM In an ‘oh, you mean those development approvals’ moment, current NSW Premier ‘I’m not a puppet’ KKK appears to have granted approval to some shops and buildings proposed by large-scale ALP donors in her previous position as Minister for Planning and definitely not the Under-Secretary for Brown Paper Bags Filled with Unmarked Notes. This occurred despite at least one of the developments having the potential for serious adverse environmental impact, as well as newly-minted laws which ask applicants who have given more than a grand in political donations to state the amount clearly on the form. The premier appears to be standing by the old ‘they were lodged before the law was made even though the decision was made after it came into force’ aka the ‘read the fineprint, dummy’ excuse.
ITEM The big news above the fold today is the lack of doctors and nurses currently training to meet Australia’s future needs. While little mention is made of the current policy of ‘just get some more from overseas, especially the poor countries, it’s not like they’re needed over there,’ it appears that even if 7000 new health professionals wanted to enter the system - the number required to maintain or even improve current standards - Australian hospitals couldn’t handle the influx. It seems that not only are the waiting times both for casualty consultations and surgery getting longer, but now also for those who would like to be trained.
ITEM An apprentice tree lopper who chipped a few teeth at work in 2001 has subsequently had every nerve, artery and vein within every tooth in his head amputated. He claims that his dentist made him endure root canal therapy for each of his 28 teeth. When asked by lawyers why he didn’t complain about the process, he said he had. When pressed for the exact wording of his complaint, he claims that he said, ‘Rrr ya thure thith ith nethethary vy rr yoi hanth an mai mooth agthain aaggghhhhhhh!!!’
ITEM In a truly inspired moment for Australian science, researchers have confirmed that Band-Aids ripped off quickly hurt less than Band-Aids taken off slowly. While no mention is made on how the body hairiness factor might have affected their findings, the professors involved just said what a triumph it was that a) they’d managed to get funding for the project and b) they’d managed to find 65 volunteers willing to have Band-Aids attached and removed at various speeds to different parts of themselves. Rumours that their next area of research might include Australian drinking patterns are apparently untrue, 'this is our Christmas party, now bugger off before I show you the real meaning of root canal!'
ITEM In Tony Abbott-related news, it seems there are concerns within the Libs that Barnaby Joyce might need to be kept on a tad shorter leash. In fact as long ago as 2005 Senator Nick Minchin left the security of the Rundle St Mall and headed northwards for a visit to Joyce’s home of St George in Queensland. After the small talk had ended (‘What, no malls here, Barnaby?’ and ‘Don’t ask for a wine, Nick, it’ll only embarrass both of us,’) it appears Minchin tried to explain the rules to Barnaby, who admittedly was a bit distracted at the time with the sudden realisation that the empty vessel generates the most column inches, and didn’t that nice Ms Hanson also come from Queensland? This writer maintains that Joyce is necessary as a buffer between the electorate and a real assessment of Tony Abbott’s sanity, distracted as voters currently are with all the noise emanating out of the office of the Shadow Minister for Finance, ‘can you keep it down a bit, I can’t hear myself think, now what was the question?’
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Saturday 12 December 2009
ITEM In a deep and wide ranging interview with this week’s NSW Premier, KKK, one glaring omission was made: what’s going on with her hair? The strange ‘floating wave’ phenomenon at the side of her head is featured in no less than four above-the-fold front page photographs, yet none of the accompanying text addresses the curious adoption of this form of the female comb-over. Answering other questions, KKK talks frankly about her new position, admitting that ‘it’s nice to be here, can you tell me where the ladies is, please?’ and suggesting that being elected to the top job in the state is a bit like the high school basketball champions – only this is a state, Kristina, not a high school, and it’s not a basketball, it’s a basket case... KKK added that she was more than happy for the people of NSW to join the recently proposed debate on ‘recall’ elections, as long as they don’t actually want to have the election.
ITEM In what one imagines was a quiet soft-shoe movement in the general direction of ‘away’, former leadership aspirant and current shadow-treasurer Joe Hockey decided to attend the tremendously important North Shore Community Awards ceremony rather than the first Abbott led shadow cabinet meeting. The meeting Joe missed spent some time considering the concept of ‘solidarity’ after a bit of predictable raving from Sen. B. Joyce on the issue of the ‘economic Armageddon’ which would be unleashed upon the world if both the United States and Queensland defaulted on their loans, something many people feel is a bit unlikely.
ITEM Meanwhile, Professor Dave Griggs of Monash University has been spending time with some of our leaders offering them a chance to debate a few of the facts behind global warming. While many of the leaders allegedly ‘nodded and smiled in all the right places’, (one can picture the concerned chief-of-staff leaning forward and whispering at this point: ‘Nod now, minister. OK, give them a smile. Stay with it, Ms Bishop, we’re nearly through it...’), Nick Minchin made it very clear that he was a great believer in anthropogenic global warming models, just not at the moment please, and not on this planet, especially if you look at a small selection of carefully chosen data which I happen to have here – a branch of physics known by Professor Griggs as ‘children’s science.’
ITEM Nick Minchin has also apparently been asking loud questions about some other bizarre links, such as the ones between passive smoking (or as he likes to think of it, smokers and a bunch of compulsory nicotine freeloaders) and poor health. The good senator is apparently also on record as questioning the link between cigarettes and addiction. Yeah, Nick, just ask the family of novelist Stieg Larsson who are currently embroiled in a dispute about his will after Stieg, a known smoker, dropped dead at fifty, not to mention life-long heavy smoker and former Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos who died of lung cancer at 74 – although as his body has now gone missing from its grave, perhaps Nick thinks he was ‘just tricking.’
ITEM British scientists have discovered a link between DNA and obesity. It seems that if you eat a lot of stuff with DNA in it, you get really fat.
ITEM In an end of year ‘leave ‘em laughing’ theatrical spectacular, the Sydney Theatre Company is to stage Tot Mom, the story of the disappearance and murder of two-year old Caylee Anthony in the US, just in time for Christmas.
ITEM In a bizarre series of events, US President Barack Obama has used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to argue for a 'just' war, a concept which former Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin claims she discussed in her book Going Rogue: An American Life. She knows she must have said it because she ‘thumbed through’ her book to check, just in case she didn’t put it in, but she was pretty sure she did, however ‘these books can be tricky things, you spend all that time, you know, like writing them, and then when you, you know, like read them later, sometimes there’s different words there, almost as if they'd been written by someone else.’ While many are applauding Obama’s award and the necessity for occasional US military intervention, some members of the crowd watching the award ceremony had another suggestion and held up signs to the Prez saying, ‘You won it, now earn it.’ Somewhere in Alaska, Sarah Palin is pretty sure she might have said this already, too. Meanwhile, the president continues to battle Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Friday 11 December 2009
ITEM The Opposition Leader continued on his merry way with his latest tactic to douse any hope the government has of attempting a rational debate on its plan to deal with climate change, or as it’s known in Tony World ‘a big whopping new tax,’ by using a ‘suck the oxygen from the room’ approach. This was superbly demonstrated yesterday, with some judges scoring it a ten, after his claim that the government had failed to show anyone the modelling done by the treasury on the likely impact of an emissions trading scheme. When he was pointed to the folder which had been handed to him, along with everyone else, back in October last year, Tony imperiously dismissed it as ‘implausible’ and sent it back to the kitchen, demanding a fresh one. The government said Abbott was ‘erratic’, the Greens said his lack of understanding of climate policy was ‘astounding’ and Barnaby Joyce said, ‘Mr Gumby, open the door and come in, I’ve got my head stuck in a cupboard!’ Joyce went on to rail about the dire straits Australia would feel if the US defaulted on its multi-trillion dollar debt, which was distracting, and probably what he was really after. ‘I’ve got your back, Tone!’
ITEM In good news for those complaining about overcrowding in shops, trains and beaches, it seems more Australians are opting out completely and heading off to the big house for a wee break. 6% more people were locked up last year than this year, with 29,300 Australians now spending some time inside. While word on a reality show to exploit this latest trend is yet to arrive, surely a combination of Big Brother and Judge Judy can’t be far away.
ITEM In a surprising move, trucking magnate Lindsay Fox has had something of a trainline to Damascus moment and suggested it might make a bit more sense both economically and environmentally – and presumably in terms of road safety as well – if we sent a bit more stuff around the place on trains and not have it rumbling past our front doors as bewildered semi-trailer drivers attempt that fabled shortcut through Fivedock, the roadhaul equivalent of the north-west passage through those annoying freeway missing links. In what sounded like a bit of a Catholic near-deathbed repentance moment, Fox admitted he had ‘probably got less than ten years to go, and as I’ve made my squillions, let’s do it the right way from now on.’
ITEM In a rather bad climate change related pun, sub-editors have said that several species of plants and animals on the edge of extinction in the Galapagos Islands are ‘in hot water.’ Possibly proving that evolution has some way to go yet, the camp ground of Charles Darwin is demonstrating its vulnerability to warming sea levels by shucking off several of its more vulnerable biological inhabitants. If what is happening there is any guide, the next creature to assume dominance of the planet is in all likelihood a bleached-coral loving sea urchin. Take that, homo sapiens!
ITEM In what really should have been a front page story, it seems that the global financial crisis has hit Californian Chihuahuas particularly badly, with many becoming homeless and ending up in shelters as a result. While their eastern cousins appear unaffected by the US economy, with New York shelters reporting little change in numbers, it seems that a full third of dogs now living behind bars in the west have some Chihuahua in them, and if the trend continues, Chihuahua genetics will be incorporated in up to half of all dogs. Many shelter managers are blaming Paris Hilton for the situation, and this columnist has no problems with that.
ITEM Even as the leaders of the world meet in Copenhagen to thrash out some of the thornier issues as they attempt to reduce the amount of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere, Chinese-car retailers have admitted that they’re ‘on track’ to sell 12.8 million cars and light trucks this year, as opposed to 10.3 million hitting the road in the US. Do the Chinese really want all their cities to be as easy to get around as Sydney at 3pm on a Friday afternoon? While no-one is denying the right of anyone to desire a black RAV-4, surely one advantage of coming to the ground a little late nationally in vehicular terms is seeing that there’s a bit of a parking difficulty everywhere else. If you take a bike or the train for just a little bit longer you could get rid of some of the smog and build yourself a truly twenty-first century non-emissions based transportation system. Just like Sydney's planning to do, eh, Kristina?
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
ITEM Happy New Year to all our readers, who now possibly outnumber Cross City Tunnel toll road users!
Thursday 10 December 2009
ITEM NSW is about to ‘get better’ according to KKK, the new premier, and as a result, a raft of transport measures have been planned, some of which may eventually be implemented, although if you’re still waiting for the 8.10 all stations to hope for an actual working railway system, you’d probably have your doubts round about now.
ITEM It seems that the Federal government may have quietly been stuffing vast quantities of pig meat into some cylindrical wooden containers and gently posting them out to their own electorates under the guise of being ‘community jobs programs.’ While there has been an outcry over such pork barrelling schemes conducted by previous governments, comic looks of shock and concern have landed on the faces of any member of the current government questioned about the funding.
ITEM As thousands of tons of Wilcannia’s best farmland continues to visit Sydney on a semi-permanent basis, scientists have tipped next year to be the hottest yet. Prudent commentators are already advising citizens not to wait for the nations of the world to come together with a binding accord that will help reduce global warming, but are instead suggesting people should start to ‘adapt’ to heatwaves and the possibility of rising sea levels. The purchase of small outback holdings with the hope that they will soon have ocean frontage is one option...
ITEM Lord Tony, or as he now prefers to be known, ‘The Cap’n’, has announced the formation of ‘Abbott’s Army.’ While no announcement has yet been made as to when their first match is likely to be played, it seems a fixture against the barmy army has been called off after concerns the players would have difficulty recognising which team they were on. Other Coalition front benchers want to follow Tony’s initiative, however Minchin’s Munchkins doesn’t carry the same implicit threat of Tony’s troops. In other Abbott related news, the new Leader of the Opposition is still loudly announcing that Work Choices is dead, and is denying claims he has a portrait in his office of an AWA which has failed to age at all over the last two years. Meanwhile, the government has accused The Cap’n of a slight mathematical blunder, however as Tony was only $250 billion out it probably doesn’t matter that much. The Nationals have also flagged the return to a single-desk wheat sales system, as they’re really keen to get the trucking payments underway to North Korea, Iraq and that nice Mr Bin Laden c/o small cave, Pakistan, near the border, ask for Osama.
ITEM In what should have been headlined ‘Here’s a ridiculously easy target’, it seems Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac, has suffered some criticism on a number of fronts, including her ‘delight the customer’ branch mantra initiative, her ‘you’ll never understand finance so I’ll explain it as if you’re a monkey and talk about banana smoothies’ initiative as well as her classic ‘what’s an extra 25 basis points between friends?’ initiative. Her critics, however, have had little comeback to her legendary riposte, ‘well, my personal annual cash bonus this year was $2.6 mill, what was yours?’
ITEM In the United States, in what appears alarmingly like a small victory for social justice, a Native American class action has been settled after the US government agreed to pay $US 3.4 billion after it admitted that yes, we slightly forgot to pay more than a century of royalties for oil, mineral and other leases. While not quite the $47 billion originally claimed by the plaintiffs, the amount still totals more than all other Native American financial settlements added together, which unfortunately probably says more about the size of the previous sums than it does about total restoration of justice in this particular case. The settlement was one that Barack Obama specifically directed when he took office, in what was, one imagines, a ‘Make it so,’ kind of Oval Office moment. In other areas of legislation, however, the president continues to battle Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Wednesday 09 December 2008
ITEM Yes, it’s back to the future for the Abbott front bench, or is that forward to the past? It seems that Lord Tony hasn’t really grasped the fact he’s in Opposition yet, and has dragged a plethora of old faces to surround him and bring him a sense of comfort he hasn’t felt since the glory days of the Howard government, when Work Choices was king, asylum seekers quailed in their harbours and Liberal leadership poll numbers were in double digits. Perhaps buoyed by the rating success of the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion shows, we now have Hey Hey It’s the Tepid Remainders of John Howard’s Former Front Bench reunion show, starring Nick ‘Can you pass the violin, I smell smoke that’s not releasing any carbon into the atmosphere and even it does it’s not causing global warming’ Minchin, Bronwyn ‘I’m not old, I just have a lot of experience’ Bishop, Kevin ‘What me worry?’ Andrews, Phil ‘Smile as you Kill’ Ruddock and Barnaby ‘That’s not extremism, this is extremism’ Joyce. To be frank it’s hard to think of witty comments to make about this lot, partly because on the one hand they’re so scary, and partly because on the other they write so much of their own material. Tony Abbott: ‘This is a balanced team’ and ‘Ruddock, Andrews and Bishop are “substantial politicians”’ not to mention the Barnaby Joyce classic, ‘I’m an accountant with a big new client – Australia.’
ITEM The NSW Premier, KKK, has promised the people of NSW the one thing she can’t actually offer them: stability. No roads or railways or hospitals, note, just ‘stability’ – yet only the most myopic ALP supporter has any faith that the latest team to ‘lead’ NSW (the sixth cabinet sworn in in the last fifteen months) will still be in power beyond March 2011. Meanwhile, a bunch of old faces in new offices ensure that the government treadmill is revolving at the required rate, meaning that projects and causes many people have worked so hard for have now, in many cases, been shifted back to the start of the board.
ITEM In Westfield Shopping Centres there are fears that facial recognition software is about to be employed. While this correspondent has been able to recognise faces for quite some time now (they’re the bits with the noses and eyes on them) it seems that shopping centre staff have difficulty with the concept of faces, and arguably lack the skills necessary to recognise any part of a customer. Guys, the clue is that we’re the ones waiting at the counter with the stuff we want to buy and our wallets out while you’re hanging up the back of the store ‘dusting’ displays, chatting to each other or sending that ‘extremely important’ text message about the party last night.
ITEM In good news for food manufacturers everywhere, it seems low income families would have to spend twice their weekly food budget in order to eat healthily. In fact, a healthy food plan would take up to 44% of a total weekly income for a welfare dependant family. Government plans to tax foods high in fat and sugar appear nutritionally sound, and will certainly reduce the number of obese people in Australia, as many of them won't be able to afford to eat at all.
ITEM The monopoly otherwise known as Sydney Airport has ‘quietly’ increased noise projections for most areas west, north, east and south of the city. While the government continues to claim a second Sydney airport is unnecessary, residents argue that they should have been told about the new conditions, although conceivably nothing quite says ‘noise footprint’ as effectively as an Airbus suddenly arriving at forty feet above your lounge room.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Tuesday 08 December 2009
ITEM The Opposition Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, has labelled Tony Abbott’s climate change policies as ‘bullshit’, leaving the Government little room to manoeuvre in terms of coming up with original criticism. Turnbull then went on to quote Abbott himself, who says he is a ‘weathervane’ on the issue, again leaving Kevin Rudd little room to gain any political traction on Abbott’s position. Despite Turnbull’s insistence that he will cross the floor to vote with the government on its ETS legislation, 75% of Coalition parliamentarians support Tony Abbott’s position – whatever it is this week. The real tragedy of this situation, however, is the seeming disappearance of the Herald’s Annabel Crabb from the reporting room. Although in her transformation from Rastabel to Glamourbel she was able to keep writing, it seems that her current incarnation of Antenatabel doesn’t allow her to fill regular witty columns on the current parliamentary situation.
ITEM Climate change sceptics in Copenhagen have claimed their first victory by having the initial part of the conference used to defend climate change science as a result of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. This distraction gives world leaders even less time to debate their choices in terms of lessening carbon output, although it has provided undeniable publicity for a hitherto little known British regional learning institution.
ITEM Meanwhile in Sydney, a long suffering minority group – opera goers – are complaining loudly about the fact that on rare occasions opera performances have been temporarily halted due to technical difficulties. Plans to fix the situation by essentially gutting the entire venue and rebuilding it from the inside come in at a shade under a billion.
ITEM In America, researchers have developed a replacement for polystyrene made from farm waste and mushrooms which uses ten times less energy to manufacture and produces eight times less carbon dioxide emissions by the time it decays naturally. Plans by the researchers to take on the $20 billion a year polystyrene industry probably ensure the ‘EcoCradle’ product patent is bound to be bought out by a multinational polystyrene manufacturer any day now so it can be permanently shelved, that is, put ‘in further development while we iron out a few bugs...’
ITEM In France, Kiki the 146 year old tortoise housed in a long French sentence which probably means ‘Paris Zoo’, has died after succumbing to an infection. Apparently his ‘demonstrative lovemaking’ had made him a ‘favourite with the French public’. Thousands of yellow billboards in Sydney have now been amended to say, ‘Men, do it longer, but Kiki the Tortoise did it longest of all...’
ITEM In a trio of unrelated articles, an interesting fact has come to light regarding residents of the United Kingdom. It seems that the number of immigrants to Australia from the UK has fallen in the last twelve months, down 28% for the year. This lessening of people fleeing the grey skies of Britain for sunnier climes down under has apparently derived, at least in part, from the desire of people in the UK to hold onto the jobs they have rather than risk finding a new one in economically-stimulated, resource rich Australia. Yet, as another article points out, this is despite ‘millions’ of Britons feeling unhappy, isolated and unable to cope. The development of a ‘psychologically fragile society’ with growing mental illness problems seems to have arisen partly as a result of the failure of ‘shock absorbers’ such as faith and family. All jokes about the weather and cricket results aside, things must be bad there if, as yet another article attests, former UK citizen and Australian prisoner the late Andrew Moore said he would rather die than be deported to Britain. The tragic legacy of Moore’s subsequent death in the country he had not known for thirty years and concurrent distance from his family suggest the land of Shakespeare, The Bill and Tony Robinson is indeed in trouble, despite the size of its backyards. (See yesterday's story on house sizes.)
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Monday 07 December 2008
ITEM Tony Abbott’s plan to reduce carbon emissions has apparently been costed at a mere $50 billion, as opposed to the government’s ‘self-funding’ emissions trading scheme. Neither party appears to have put a cost to our children and grandchildren of incessant arguing while nothing actually happens in the way of reducing the world’s carbon output. In what appears to be an unrelated story, primary school children in NSW are now going to be taught ethics. Many would argue that this has come forty to fifty years late to help our current crop of politicians.
ITEM Lawyers and investigators are coming to the conclusion that there is a link between controversial miracle fuel pill company Firepower and certain alleged criminals. No claims have yet been made that people who invested in such blatantly preposterous ‘fuel technology’ were being criminally stupid, but it is surely only a matter of time before charges are laid. This correspondent calls for the formation of ICAI, an Independent Commission Against Incompetence, however feels that such a body, were it ever formed, would soon be overrun with cases.
ITEM Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, representatives of most nations are about to meet to thrash out the thorny issue of climate change, aka global warming. While many countries have suggested they could reduce emissions if they wanted, the short-term economic costs would make such moves problematic if other countries failed to act to as well. Developing countries are concerned that developed countries have an unfair advantage and a dark cloud laden with climate change scepticism still hangs heavily in the air. While no-one is prepared to predict an outcome, many are suggesting that goodwill and common decency will ensure that humanity steps back from the brink of the abyss of ecological disaster, and as this is unlikely to occur, that now is a great time to start building your survival bunker.
ITEM As the fallout from Tony Abbott’s election to Opposition Leader continues to reverberate like comets hitting a tin roof, one thing is becoming overwhelmingly obvious, which is that the entire population of Australia is still in shock for coming to the realisation that it was possible to feel sympathy for Malcolm Turnbull. In the by-elections held on the weekend, lack of an ALP candidate saw massive gains to the Green vote, although the Libs managed to hold onto both safe Liberal seats. A little reported fact is that there was a 1.3 and 2.73% swing to informal votes in Higgins and Bradfield respectively, with less than three-quarters of voters bothering to do their compulsory duty.
ITEM In a bid to make himself look more sane, Tony Abbott is considering elevating Barnaby Joyce to the Opposition front bench, presumably to the portfolio of Gelding, Goose Herding and Gong Scouring.
ITEM Under criticism that Disney Corporation hasn’t represented enough minorities in its movies, it has announced that the lead princess of its next movie, The Princess and the Frog, will be African American. Princess Tiana dolls will now hit the shelves next to ‘official Disney princesses’ Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Princess Jasmine (Aladdin), Mulan and Pocohontos, Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Ariel (The Little Mermaid). Rapunzel is on the way. The issue might be social justice, but once again, marketing will be the winner on the day.
ITEM Meanwhile, in the Western Suburbs, a motor race drew nearly 185,000 spectators. Although the NSW government has pledged $30 million over the next five years to support it, the V8 Supercar race wasn’t held at the government-owned Eastern Creek Raceway, but some twenty or so kilometres away at Homebush. In a telling remark, the event’s promoter has noted that in future years he wants the race to be more of a spectacle. ‘I want more for people to do.’ Perhaps spectators could view a video of the empty raceway at Eastern Creek which they own and pay for, but don’t use...
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Saturday 05 December 2008
ITEM In NSW Parliament it’s business as usual as staffers begin packing for the next great Cabinet reshuffle due to a leadership change – hardly anything surprising since that guy between Bob Carr and Nathan Rees began the tradition a few years back. At the same time as the boxes are being packed all the trite leadership phrases are being dragged out and given a good dusting: ‘I’m not a puppet of anybody,’ ‘We’ll focus on transport, education and health’ and the old classic, ‘The people of NSW deserve good government.’ How we laughed. New Premier Kristina Kerscher Keneally, aka KKK, has also targeted the vulnerable as most deserving of her government’s help – I imagine a visit to both Nathan Rees and Malcolm Turnbull will be high on her list of priorities in the next few days... while she’s still leader.
ITEM Margie Abbot, married to Tony for twenty years, appears delighted he’s become opposition leader. All jokes about Tony wanting to do to the country what he’s religiously been doing to his wife for so long aside, Margie is expecting life to become ‘busier.’ Some scones to bake for that lovely Mr Minchin, I expect. According to Tony, Margie is also, apparently, valuable as sounding bored. Oh wait, that’s ‘as a sounding board’.
ITEM In other news, a barely incomprehensible map of Sydney’s future transport corridors fails to show hoards of frustrated commuters taking to each other with ball bats and bricks as they seek to release decades of pent up frustration.
ITEM Australia now has the largest houses in the world, some of which actually fit within the blocks they are built on. Our whacking great 215 sq metre homes would fit nearly three British (76 sq metre) houses, although it’s true that many British children enjoy playing in their gardens. While arguments along the lines of 'It's not how big it is, it's what you do with it,' are still heard in many places, they're not actually heard when made in the upstairs living room while I'm in the jacuzzi in the basement, will you please stop trying to have a conversation with me while I'm in a different room!!!
ITEM In one of Tony Abbott’s first official speeches he brilliantly defined his world view by saying, ‘There’s war, there’s want, there’s man’s inhumanity to man and the idea that these are all trumped by climate change, I mean come on.’ Glad that’s cleared everything up then. So, er, what are you going to do, Tony? While many people argue that climate change will probably enhance war, want and the potential for inhumanity on a global scale, Mr Abbot feels that his alternative policies of, ‘...er, well, give us a moment will you, I’ve only just got here,’ will ensure a happy and healthy lifestyle for all the generations of homo sapiens to come. Both of them.
ITEM A two-day conference on Baz Luhrman’s Australia, with endless academic waffle on a variety of arcane subjects elicited from the movie, still won’t feel as long as watching the actual film.
ITEM Meanwhile the UN says Aboriginal living conditions could benefit a great deal from not being quite so third world. Rumours that Catherine Martin is being recruited to dress them up a bit for the next inspection are completely groundless although probably just as effective as anything that’s been tried so far. It’s strange, isn’t it? You dispossess land from a whole lot of people, treat them as virtual slaves, kill a large number and remove many from their parents for a few generations and then get surprised when they don’t take the suits we've given them and head off to the office for the full eight hours.
ITEM In Britain, authorities have asked the fourth son of world number one fugitive Osama bin Laden if he could reconsider his plans to move to the UK. Despite ObL Jr's very legitimate argument that he wants to settle down with his UK born wife (although technically they were both actually married to other people at the time of their wedding), who is a British multiple sclerosis sufferer a mere twenty-six years older than he is, the authorities claim he could cause public disquiet and disorder if he bought a bedsit in Bradfield.
ITEM In what must be a quiet day for Australian news, it has also been reported that ‘manger chic’ is the latest fad in Britain, where a decorative pashmena and high-count cotton thread angelware are the must have accessories for this year’s nativity ornamentation. One can only imagine the size of the nativity display bin Laden the younger was planning for his own front window.
ITEM Rumours that Rupert Murdoch’s marriage to Wendy Deng might be on the rocks seem mainly founded on the fact that ‘nobody can imagine Rupert having sex.’ Or perhaps nobody wants to.
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.
Friday 04 December 2008
ITEM Above the fold, the big news is that Thomas Keneally’s niece-in-law has become a puppet –in the words of Nathan Rees - of Joe Tripodi and Eddie ‘He Who Must Be’ Obeid, and found herself elected as NSW Premier. There was no mention of what she thought of this last ditch attempt to restore credibility to the role of NSW Premier by putting a woman in the job, nor was any suggestion of what kind of puppet she was: one hopes a shadow or marionette and not a glove puppet: the resultant visuals aren’t very pretty. It’s not just that she only became an Australian citizen in 2000, or that she was elected in 2003, but that she was born in Las Vegas! Puh - lease... Below the fold, it seems that Ms Kenneally’s elevation will throw out more than five months work in establishing transport reforms worth over $180 billion. Long suffering NSW commuters will now have to wait another five months for the next lot of plans to be thrown out.
ITEM Tremendous efforts are now being made to ensure equality is returned to Australian streets, where discrimination and official sanctions are outraging people, specifically those of Mosman, where the good burghers of this prosperous locale are fighting tooth and claw to get their mutts back in their coffee shops. It really is commendable to see such efforts being made in the name of social justice, and we should take time out to remember that dogs are people, too.
ITEM It seems that less people are leaving NSW to live in other states than at any other time since the financial crisis began. While some are suggesting NSW’s fortunes are improving, this correspondent suspects the real reason is that people from NSW can no longer afford to move.
ITEM It seems that all men share a single Y-Chromosonal ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago, a chap who somehow managed to be the only guy to pass on his genetic legacy. One can only speculate as to what the other men of the clan were doing at the time – perhaps fighting for the rights of their mastodons to enter the group cave or preparing to emigrate interstate – but next time you go to a concert like Woodstock, remember that in one sense that the man next to you really is your brother.
ITEM It seems Tony Abbot has been touched by the Dalai Lama, literally, if the photograph is any guide, unfortunately all the jokes about abbots, monks and indeed bishops have already been used.
ITEM In a similar way all the jokes have also been done in regard to FARC (Fuerzes Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), a distinctly unfunny guerrilla community in Columbia. While the photograph of the pretty girl with the AK-47 and twin belts of ammo will no doubt incite many a Shooter’s Party candidate in inappropriate ways, the accompanying story is a tragic testimony to a country in turmoil with a huge gap between rich and poor and far more to worry about than where their next metro won’t be built.
ITEM Australia doesn’t even rate in the Top Ten List of the world’s most obese people. Australian competitive nature being what it is, it can only be a matter of time before we start using our chubby elbows to begin making our way onto and up to the top of the list. The really alarming aspect of the report, however, is that the nation sitting at number 2 – Kiribati, with 81.5% of its inhabitant rated as obese – blamed widespread eating of Spam and mutton flaps for their problems. The mind boggles. If there ever was a need for a new MasterChef franchise, this is it. One in ten people around the world are now obese, and one in three are overweight, and although the article doesn’t mention it, fat people now outnumber the starving: 800 million hungry versus 1.3 billion too big. (See SMH 15.4.06)
ITEM In the US, President Barack Obama battles Congress to push through an agenda of social reform.