">My Big World Of Crap

Holden is doing its bit for climate change and the environment by revealing at the 2008 Melbourne Motor Show the fastest car ever to be produced in Australia.  The HSV W427 is a Commodore-based four-door sedan with a 7.0-litre engine producing 370kW of power - almost 500 horsepower.

A mildly different production version of the W427 show car - a one-off concept created for the motor show - will go on sale towards the middle of 2008 priced somewhere between $140,000 and $170,000.

Now the obvious question is why the hell does Australia need a 7 litre petrol guzzler?  Holden, and the people it intends to market this car at, obviously haven’t heard of, or don’t give a rat’s arse about, fossils fuels being a limited resource, climate change, the environment, social responsibility or anything like that.    Also, whats the point of being able to go 3 times the maximum speed limit, its not like it can ever be used like that on the road?

I guess the price is going to put it out of the range of all but the most cashed up bogans, which is fortunate.  Imagine some of the bogans that hang out at the V8 Supercar races getting behind the wheel of a car that that.

At the end of the day, though, no matter how Holden dresses this up as a performance, high end vehicle, its still just a glorified Commodore.  If I was going to spend $150k on a car (which I assure you isn’t going to happen), I’d want something more prestigious than a Holden Commodore.

I really liked this photo when I first saw it a few days ago.  Lindsay Lohan did a photo shoot for New York magazine which was a re-creation of Marilyn Monroe’s last nude photo shoot.  It was even done by the same photographer who took the photos of Monroe - Bert Stern.

The images were so popular on the internet that the magazine’s website crashed after receiving around 20 million daily page views in the days after they were published. The average number of daily page views in January was 1.2 million.

While the cover photo above is really good, and some of the others (I was only looking at the magazine’s site for the articles, honest!) are too, it doesn’t alter the fact that Lindsay Lohan is a fairly mediocre actress who has gained more fame and notoriety for her out of control personal life than she’s ever likely to get for acting.

Still, I’m happy to post the photo here - (a) because I like it, (b) because I know it will be a traffic magnet.

Councils and other levels of government may often have been accused of being “in bed with” building developers. In Wollongong, thats a statement of fact, not merely a metaphor for being corrupt, or at least in a friendly,cosy relationship. Council planner, Beth Morgan, has been the subject of evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into dodgy dealings involving Wollongong City Council and some developers in that city. Ms Morgan had sexual relationships with 3 developers during a period when she was considering their multi-million dollar developments in her council job.

Now, there’s a whole bunch of slimeballs involved in this saga, but only one will come out of it with her reputation and career prospects completely shattered. No doubt all of the men will lie low for a while and get on with their development businesses. She will never work in planning or local government again. (Nor does she deserve to, but her partners in corruption should also be driven out of their businesses.)

It was quite amusing seeing the men squirm about the extent of their relationships with Ms Morgan during the ICAC hearing. One of them, Frank Vellar, was upfront and admitted he was sleeping with several women while having an affair with Ms Morgan. Another, Michael Kollaras, said he did not have a sexual relationship with Ms Morgan. Asked if he had some sort of a relationship with her in 2004 he replied:

“She was my closest friend.”

Asked how close, he said: “Extremely close.”

The third, Glen Tabak, tried the Bill Clinton angle - remember he did “not have sex with that woman” (Monica Lewinsky). He admitted he had a brief sexual relationship with Ms Morgan, who was married at the time. The affair included liaisons at the Novotel Hotel in Wollongong, Ms Morgan’s home and at Mr Tabak’s office.Asked if he had sex with her at his office, he replied:

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

So a blowjob doesn’t count as sex? Glen Tabak obviously shares that view with Bill Clinton. Wonder if he was into cigar play and blue dresses as well?

The broader issues of corruption and dodgy dealings in this story I’ll post about during the week.

Many government and judicial inquiries are a complete waste of time and money …motivated by a desire to either fob off decision time until the inquiry runs its course, to be able to fall back on it to justify hard decisions, or to be seen to be doing something.

The inquiry in Britain in the UK into the death of Princess Diana takes the cake in the list of most pointless and wasteful enquiries.  I mean, even if she was murdered by MI6 on the orders of the Queen and Prince Philip, does anyone actually believe that the inquiry is going to find that was the case?  Except perhaps Mohamed al-Fayed, who seems to have completely lost the plot.

I’ve recently been on a bit of a mission with Entrecard to see how high I can get my card in terms of price for advertising.  A few days ago I discovered Power Dropping which makes the task of dropping cards quickly much easier.  Essentially, you use a list of sites with fast loading Entrecards above the fold, together with a Firefox addon called “Perma Tabs“, to load up multiple tabs, click through their Entrecards one after another, and then load another batch from the list.  I find it very quick to scan through a couple of hundred sites a day and  drop my card on them.  I know just doing a drop and run is gaming Entrecard to maximise credits, but I am on a mission for now.  Even so, I do like to keep about 100 (you can drop 300 cards a day) to drop on blogs that have dropped on me, bought an ad off me, from my favourites, ones I might advertise on etc.

While on the subject of Entrecard, Tina has a competition going at her blog, and is giving away 2 prizes of 1,000 credits - actually drawn from a hat by one of her children.  Her competition ends February 29th.  Enter now by posting about her contest, its very easy, and you’ve got to be in it to win it, as they say.

Tina is one of the very active Aussie Bloggers, and I noticed on Power Dropping there are plenty of us on the list.

Another illustration of the fact that I am very easily amused.  I saw these at one of the shops at Narita airport leaving Tokyo on Saturday night.  Naturally, it had to be bought!

Yes, yes, I know I am easily amused!

One of the things I find fascinating about Japan is the amazing toilet technology. I mean, a lot of time and effort has been invested at some stage in getting toilet science to the point it is now.

I don’t know how I’ll cope when I go home without the “warm seat” button, especially when winter comes around in Canberra.

Other interesting functionality includes various spray options … I assume the pink button is for girls, the blue for boys, and “powerful deodoriser”.

I heard Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations yesterday. I must say that while this won’t solve the problems facing aboriginal people in this country, it does build a bridge which ought to enable us to move forward. It is symbolic, it helps heal wounds. It was a proud moment in Australia’s history, and hopefully one that puts that sorry past behind us and allows us to go forward after acknowledging the pain and suffering white Australians have caused our aboriginal peoples. It shows that Kevin Rudd is a bigger man, more of a leader than John Howard could ever have hoped to be. I hope that as a nation it represents a turning point in the relationship between aboriginal and white Australians.

The most pertinent parts of the speech, I repeat because of their significance, and I want readers of this blog to know I am proud to have these sentiments expressed on my behalf.

“For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.”

To those who opposed the apology, get over it. It doesn’t hurt you.

To those Liberal and National MPs who absented themselves from the Parliament while the PM apologised, shame on you. I want to record here that these people were not able to bring themselves to be part of a momentous, symbolic and reconciling occasion:

• Wilson Tuckey
• Alby Schultz
• Sophie Mirabella
• Don Randall
• there were others - I don’t have their names at the moment, but will add them later.

I will say more when I have some time next week when I’m back home. For the moment, I say well done to Kevin Rudd, and I hope all Australians accept that sorry had to be said, and that it serves as an enabler to moving forward.

The new government is looking to raise the tone in parliament, which sits for the first time since last year’s election next week. ALP backbenchers report that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told MPs and ministers to avoid barbed replies or hubris during Question Time, partly to embarrass the previous government.

During the final years of the Howard government in particular, Coalition frontbenchers such as Peter Costello, Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer regularly taunted the then Opposition with what Labor argued was little restraint from the Speaker. But despite the still smarting Labor MPs, it is understood Mr Rudd has ordered his ministers that there should be no payback.

How long will they be able to maintain a facade of civil behaviour? I give it maybe a couple of weeks. Vengeance, and the ability to have a crack at the former government members, will just prove too much of a temptation for some Labor MPs. (And of course, having said they intend to be good boys and girls, won’t the opposition be trying to bait them into losing their temper?).

Update: (11/2/08) - Hey, I got a mention in Crikey - such is the weight of my political insight.

My daughter was looking through my albums of old photos tonight, for some pictures of some of the places in Australia we’ve been.  In the course of that mission, she found this photo of our baby.

We looked at this and other puppy photos, and its no wonder we just had to buy him when we saw him.  He was just irresistable.

5 and a half years later, and he’s still cute as ever, just taller and longer.  Sometimes I have to question his cuteness though, like when he’s trying to hump a pillow, or my foot.  Thats not cute.

I’m off to Tokyo on Saturday.  Work, not holidays.

I know that the seasons in the northern hemisphere are opposite to here in Australia, so I did realise it would be winter in Japan, but just what that entailed didn’t really hit home for me until the last day or so.

First, I looked up the weather forecast on the web.

Then, on the phone today to colleagues in Tokyo, the fact that it was snowing there got mentioned.

So, better pack the thermals, polar fleece and big warm coat.   Thats a change from the t-shirt and shorts I’ve been getting around in for the last few months (plus I have to suit up for the week in the office in Tokyo … here I mainly work at home).

I’m always amused by tales of criminal stupidity, and in particular doing something really dumb while committing their crimes and inadvertently delivering themselves a “do it yourself” punishment.

The latest one occurred on the Gold Coast last night.  Two men, held up a man at knifepoint at the Stockland West Burleigh shopping centre, and stole his car, a Falcon XR6.  The thieves drove on to the Pacific Motorway and headed north towards Nerang, at high speed.  Within 10 minutes, they’d managed to lose control of the car and crash head on into a truck travelling the other way.

Result.  2 thieving scum dead.  Fortunately in administering their own death sentences they didn’t take anyone else with them.

I suppose I should feel some sympathy for the families and friends of the 2 dead men …. but I can’t say I do.  In fact, good riddance to bad rubbish is the sentiment that comes to my mind.