">My Big World Of Crap

No, I didn’t score a gong.

What an anachronism they are!  The ones that really get up my nose are those given to senior public servants, business people, sportspeople, TV people and the like.  They’re getting them for doing their job … why do they deserve the extra recognition of an Order of Australia or whatever?  If we do have to have awards like this, it should be the ordinary people who dominate them, for community work, not high profile people who are more than adequately rewarded for their efforts in other ways.

Technorati Tags: awards, honours, Order of Australia

Moe, Victoria, is bogan town.  Probably best known in recent years for the Jaidyn Leskie murder.

I noticed this picture and the accompanying story yesterday, and the thought “bogans” leapt off the screen at me.

Let me list the boganiffic qualities of this saga:

• names like Bilynda, Kadee, Harley, Breehanna
• nice flannelette shirts
• the almost incestuous relationships going on, in particular the father of Jaidyn (another good bogan name) being the former husband of his mother’s sister
• women having x children by x different fathers
• almost universal unemployment amongst the key people
• drinking and drugs
• petty criminal records for many of those involved
• Jaidyn’s mother being out on the piss the night of his murder and leaving her baby with her no-hoper boyfriend
• stuff like people working on cars in their yards (I can just picture the old cars cluttering the yards) and having a pet pig.

Could we get a better example of the life of a bogan?

Technorati Tags: Jaidyn Leskie, Bilynda Williams, bogan, Moe

How lost can you get? Not as bad as 3 people in Miami, Florida.

They spent 3 days driving around Miami trying to find their hotel. They were ultimately found by police, sitting in their car in the parking area of a servo. According to police:

“The two women were taking turns driving, and they’ve been driving around non-stop trying to find their hotel,”

“The gentleman does have Alzheimer’s, so he didn’t even know he was lost.”

Funny, but kind of sad, too.

Technorati Tags: Miami, lost, Alzheimer’s

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman split rather suddenly after 10 years together.

The reported pre-nuptial agreement between Cruise and Katie Holmes might explain why.  She gets $4m for every year they remain together, up to 11 years.  After 11 years, the agreement becomes void and Holmes becomes entitled to half of Cruise’s assets.

Given that Cruise is reported to be worth something like $450m, 10 years = $40m, vs 12 years = $225m, bailing out at 10 years makes great financial sense.  Its the economically rational thing to do, one might argue.

Wonder if Nicole had a similar sort of pre-nuptial agreement with Tom?

Perhaps I’m being overly cynical and it was just his zealous adherence to the wackiness of Scientology that pushed them apart.

Technorati Tags: Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman, pre-nuptial agreement, Scientology, wackiness

Got shown a piece of spam today at work, trying to sell “Viagra Soft”.  What the hell, I thought.  Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of using Viagra?

Then, I did a bit of research and discovered that “Viagra Soft” is ground up Viagra mixed in a gel.  It is absorbed into the bloodstream quicker and you get it up in about 20 minutes rather than the 60-90 minutes that Viagra tablets take.

And there I was, thinking it might have been an antidote for a guy who maybe overdosed on normal Viagra.

Technorati Tags: viagra, viagra soft, spam

Anyone in Australia who doesn’t think the petrol industry is riddled with price fixing and collusion between the major players?

Today, petrol here is 146.9 cents per litre (*).  This morning is was 10 cents cheaper.  What a coincidence that this weekend is a long holiday weekend, and also the start of ski season just down the road from Canberra.  What a coincidence indeed that this happens every public holiday, every school holidays, in fact every time people are likely to be doing more travelling than usual.  Truly bizarre coincidence!

Yet that is exactly what the petrol companies tell us is the case.  They don’t collude or fix prices in any way. Sure, they do, just not in any way that leaves evidence.  And even if there was evidence, I think the various governments in Australia, and regulators, aren’t that interested in finding it.

Maybe they don’t collude, but I heard a guy from the service station association talking on the radio this morning and he was saying the petrol companies all subscribe to an electronic monitoring service which gives them real time indications of price movements across the major metropolitan areas.  He also said something along the lines of the petrol companies employing spotters who drove around taking note of their competitors prices.  He suggested that any price movement was well and truly known within about 10 minutes of happening, and competitors then made decisions about whether to match it or not.  Guess what usually happens?

Of course, collusion is no longer really necessary, as all companies know how the game is played and its all done with a wink and a nod, no traces left.

(*)  For those in the US, this is approx $US 4.15 per gallon (so we’re quite a bit higher than your average at the moment of $US 2.76).  If you’re in the UK, try 60p/litre.

Technorati Tags: petrol prices, gas, ripoff, price fixing, collusion

According to reports on the news just now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the purported leader of the Iraqi insurgency against American, coalition and Iraqi government forces, has been killed in a US air raid.

All I can say is good riddance … a blight on humanity eliminated.

Al-Zarqawi was supposedly Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq. General George W Casey Jr, the head of US-led forces in Iraq, says his death is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, but:

“Although the designated leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq is now dead, the terrorist organisation still poses a threat as its members will continue to try to terrorise the Iraqi people and destabilise their Government as it moves toward stability and prosperity,”

It will be interesting to see what impact al-Zarqawi’s death has on the insurgency in Iraq. I suspect not much, although it is a morale boost to the US and Iraqi government forces. Problem is there are so many fundamentalist nutcases around that someone will step up and fill the leadership role and continue committing atrocities.

I find the portrayal of Al Qaeda in the media sometimes fascinating. Sometimes it seems like Al Qaeda is a franchise like McDonalds, with branches all over the world, all controlled by Osama bin Laden from his cave in Afghanistan. I suspect reality is that it is more a loose alliance of like-minded nutjobs, than anything organised more formally or tightly controlled.

Technorati Tags: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda, Iraq, insurgency, Osama bin Laden

A couple of chess players at the World Chess Olympiad went the biff over a young Australian woman chess player, Arianne Caoili. British grandmaster, Danny Gormally obviously had the hots for her, and when he saw her dancing in a nightclub with Armenian, Levon Aronian (ranked #3 in the world, so no mug chess player) he leapt into action, and punched him.

According to the England team captain:

“The bottom line is [that] this is just a little incident in a nightclub where unfortunately Danny probably had a drink too many and obviously saw someone dancing with a girl he liked and either hit or tried to hit them.”

Gormally and his team captain apologised to the Armenian team and Aronian the next morning, but while the apologies were being made, some of Aronian’s team mates went the fist.

Gormally left the Olympiad of his own volition, and now faces disciplinary action from the English Chess Federation.

And I always thought chess was a geekish game. No way, these guys can punch on just like footy players.

Technorati Tags: Arianne Caoili, Danny Gormally, Levon Aronian, Chess, World Chess Olympiad, fighting

I thought it relevant to remind everyone today that the local ABC radio station in Canberra has a call sign of “666” ABC Canberra.  Its actually a talk and news station, but I’ve always thought it should go totally heavy metal themed ….that would better fit the station name.

Technorati Tags: 666, ABC Canberra, radio

I’ve read several articles over the past year or so about how George W Bush and the Republicans “stole” the last US election from John Kerry.  For that matter, he won in 2000 over Al Gore via some pretty dodgy dealings in Florida.  But reading this, really makes me wonder about the operation of democracy in the United States.

Now I didn’t think John Kerry impressive at all as an alternative president to George Bush, so I don’t really have any axe to grind over him losing.  I would have preferred Al Gore to have won in 2000, as I think he would have made a better president.

What really astounds me is the lack of complete outrage from the American public, and in particular the media there, over all the irregularities in voter enrolment, conduct of the election and counting of the votes.  Evidently there were crooked things done in (Ohio in particular) 2004, and Florida still stinks from the way its state officials rigged the 2000 election.   Imagine if these things happened here in Australia (or I would expect most modern democratic nations).  No way would the apparent loser of the election concede defeat in the face of the scandals that seem to have happened.  No way would the press have rolled over and accepted it as the way it is.  I would say that a government that was seen to have been elected illegitimately would be hounded out of office by public and media pressure - the calls for a fresh election would be overwhelming.

Following the 2000 election results, it struck me what a shambles the US electoral system was.  There isn’t really a federal system … elections are conducted by thousands of local government bodies, under some degree of control by their respective states.  Clearly there is much partisan involvement by politicians and aspiring politicians in conducting those elections.  Would it be so hard for the US to run its elections in a uniform way across the country, conducted by independent officials?  Just about everywhere else in the democratic world does it that way.  I’m not aware of any huge complaints about Australian elections, or any suggestion that the results were tampered with, or didn’t reflect the votes actually cast, or that vast numbers of people were denied the opportunity to vote.

Technorati Tags: US elections, George W Bush, John Kerry, Al Gore, vote rigging

Following the Haditha murders, US commanders have recognised deficiencies in the training of their soldiers, and have announced extra training.  This will focus on the “legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield”, according to Gen Peter Chiarelli, operational commander in Iraq.   Interesting comments in the same article about Australian soldiers disbelief of the willingness of US forces to shoot first, ask questions later.

The month long training will emphasise “professional military values and the importance of disciplined, professional conduct in combat”.  In other words, soldiers are being taught how to be professional soldiers, and fight in a civilised manner (at least in as civilised a manner as war can be fought) after they’ve been in the combat zone already.  Seems arse-about to me!

I wonder how much of the attitudes and behaviour of some elements of the US forces in Iraq is driven by the crazy American gun culture, and also comes from a complete lack of respect for the Iraqi civilian population.  Beats me every time how a civilised country can have so many people stupid enough to believe they have some god given right to arm themselves, and that this is constitutionally protected forever.  And a gun lobby so powerful that few politicians in the US are willing to take it on.  Does anyone ever stop to think that all the stuff about right to bear arms and a well regulated militia may have been relevant in the context of a new and growing nation in the 1700’s, but is completely out of touch with today’s realities?

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Haditha, military training, gun culture, Second Amendment, right to bear arms

Quick use of the beep button on Merrick and Rosso on the radio this morning.

A prostitute called in and mentioned the name of a Labor politician who had “seen” her. The hosts cut her off and started apologising - wonder if they made it in time to get their station out of any possible defamation action. Mind you, would the politician be prepared to go public and take action?

How long will it be before everyone knows who the politician is? I give it till tomorrow morning.

Update (05/07/2006): Well, it took till today, when Michael Costa outed himself as the politician who was named, in launching defamation action against Merrick and Rosso’s radio station, Nova.

Technorati Tags: Merrick and Rosso, politician, Labor, ALP, prostitute, sex