Try this

Pretty neat, I reckon!

Cashing in

The British sailors and marines captured by Iranian forces recently are now not allowed to sell their stories to the media, after the Ministry of Defence previously made an exception to their normal rules and had allowed them to. This backflip comes after criticism of the original decision to allow the former captives to cash in on their stories, saying there were “exceptional circumstances”.

Apparently Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman in the captive group, received about 100,000 pounds for interviews with The Sun and ITV, and it was suggested the group could make double that between them. Attacks on the ministry and the 15 mariners mounted following the publication of Turney’s account in The Sun tabloid, while the Daily Mirror carried an interview with 20-year-old Arthur Batchelor, the youngest of the group.

Even one of the officers in charge of the seized naval personnel said he found the situation “a little unsavoury” as some of the freed sailors began recounting their grim ordeals for large payments. Royal Navy Lieutenant Felix Carman said he and Royal Marines Captain Chris Air, the two officers in the group, were not accepting money for their stories.

“I personally find the subject [of payment] a bit unsavoury, but I don’t begrudge people who have been through an awful ordeal making a bit of money out of this,”

Lord Michael Heseltine, a former British defence secretary and deputy prime minister, said he had “never heard anything so appalling” as ordinary troops earning little money while those captured earned a small fortune.

Sally Veck, whose daughter Eleanor Dlugosz, 19, was among four Britons killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq last week, told The Times newspaper it was a “terrible shame” that some of the freed captives had sold their tales.

“If you are a member of the military … you should do your duty and not expect to make money by selling stories,” she said.

Couldn’t agree more. These sailors should thank their lucky stars that they got out of the situation relatively quickly, keep their mouths shut and get on with their jobs. Its not as though their stories reflect much glory on them. Fair enough, they surrendered to the Iranian forces without a fight …no point committing suicide in a hopeless fight, nor in escalating a tense situation. This has dismayed some of the American hawks, who were gung-ho for the capture of the British to be used as an excuse to attack Iran.

What surprised me most in this incident was the speed with which the captives allowed themselves to be pressured by the Iranians into spouting their propaganda. I would have thought that the institution in which they were serving, ie the British Navy, would have instilled in its personnel more toughness in such a situation, as a matter of training and in the culture of the institution itself.

The whole deal about chequebook journalism bothers me. Just about anyone who suffers some sort of misfortune seems to head straight for a media agent with a view to cashing in for all they’re worth. Its like its their first thought upon getting through whatever their ordeal was.

Lethal accountants 2

We accountants can be dangerous. Anthony LaCalamita was clearly very passionate about debits and credits and all that stuff. Fired from his job at a Detroit accounting firm last week, he went on a shooting rampage, killing 2 former co-workers and critically wounding a third.

As I’ve said before, never get between an accountant and his money.

Sexiest body = Scarlett Johansson

That is, according to a survey of 5 000 women undertaken by “Glamour” magazine. Actress Jessica Alba was second and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen third.

Things we did this weekend

Apart from eating too much chocolate that is.

As usual, we stayed home for the long weekend … hate travelling on holiday weekends, too many dickheads on the road, and don’t particularly enjoy going to the same places as squillions of other people. So we found a few things around Canberra to amuse ourselves the last couple of days.

Yesterday, went for a look at the Mustang show down near old Parliament House. Now by no means am I are car nut, but I have to say there were some impressive cars that the owners clearly spend plenty of time and money on. We liked the red ones - as everyone knows, red cars go faster. Across the road from the Mustangs were hundreds of Austins, the oldest we recall dated back to 1914. My favourite was the little yellow and red one (above).

This afternoon, we visited the walk through bird aviary at Gold Creek Village. My daughter had been there a few months ago and raved about it, so convinced us to go again. Lots of parrots, galahs, cockatiels, budgies and other birds, many very tame …so they would land on you, allow you to feed them and all that sort of stuff. The galah in the photo above was very fond of my daughter’s hair band, watch, earrings, etc, and we had some fun with some Alexandrine parrots which were very interested in my glasses, ear lobes, shoelaces and camera strap. Well worth the admission price!

Don’t bring your weapons to the voting booth

I was listening to the radio while out in the car driving today, and was amused by a comment on the East Timor election tomorrow where authorities have appealed to voters “not to bring weapons into or near voting places”. As you need to be reminded of course. We’d better remember this when the federal election comes around later this year. Get my name marked off the roll, leave my guns, knives and knuckle dusters at the door (or better still at home).

Democracy in action, East Timor style!

Easter Sunday - breakfast

Anyone know where to get some chocolate bacon to go with the chocolate eggs?

Dickheads never learn

Another example of a bunch of dickheads too stupid to have learned the lesson:

NEVER VIDEO ANYTHING YOU DON’T WANT YOUR WIFE/GIRLFRIEND/MUM/THE POLICE TO SEE

5 Sydney teenagers were today arrested over a gang rape , which they had filmed using a mobile phone camera. These brainiacs got a 17 year old girl drunk at a friends house, after which she was taken to a bedroom and put on a bed, where her denim skirt was hitched up and her underpants removed. One of the boys in court today allegedly then had vaginal sex with her and the other began filming it on his mobile phone. While the boy recorded another boy climbed onto the victim’s face and performed a sex act, say police. The victim could be seen on the video trying to push the boys away and get off the bed. While this was happening, other boys were encouraging the rapists. One was heard saying “Put it in” and another “f— her”. Police say one of the boys then appeared to break wind on the victim, saying “get that into ya” before giving another boy a high five.

The police say the girl was taken home and left outside her front door, and when she woke up, had no recall of the events of the previous night. Safe so far for the boys … leaving aside the rape itself which I’ll come to later. But bright sparks they are, they had to show the girl the video of their triumph, and then pass it around at her school, where it fell into the hands of teachers, who reported it to police. The girl apparently reported the attack to police after being threatened by another student at school. So what has brought the lads undone is bragging about their proud deeds to their mates and showing off the video of their handiwork. Sucked in guys! Get ready to bend over, Bubba’s coming!

As for the act of rape, I’ve just got to wonder what sort of guy gets off on having sex:

• with a girl who is unconscious
• and/or not a willing participant
• as a shared experience with their mates.

Oh yeah, ones who see women as a hole to stick their dicks into. The comments by one of the accused’s grandfather may go some way to explain the types of attitudes these people were raised with. He questioned whether it was a case of rape, saying:

“If someone says that: ‘Oh yeah they raped me’ but four days later I get a phone call ‘You want to come?’, ‘Yeah, I’ll jump in the car with you’. It’s bulls**t,” he told the Seven Network.

“Was she drunk? Prove it.”

He went on to say videoing the alleged incident was “stupid” but young people use their phones to record “everything”. Maybe so, but most people’s values do not include raping unconscious women …if they didn’t think that was ok, they wouldn’t have had it to record.

Finally, it comes as no surprise that the five alleged attackers were arrested at homes in Green Valley, Kemps Creek and Miller in Sydney’s west …. bogan central!

Technorati : bogan, camera phone, crime, home video, rape, stupidity, values

Beached whales

Why do these stories of humungously fat people having to be rescued by having their house demolished always amuse me? Why are they invariably in America? More importantly, how the hell does someone get to be 318kg - thats 700 pounds/50 stone, for those non-metricated people? You’d have to eat 24/7 for a lot of years to get that big!

Technorati : fat people, obesity

Powerpoint = useless

According to some research reported on today, presenting information both visually and verbally at the same time, is actually a hindrance to learning. The bottom line is that we can’t chew gum and walk at the same time, or more precisely, find it difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.

The University of NSW research shows the human brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time. The findings show there are limits on the brain’s capacity to process and retain information in short-term memory.

According to Professor John Sweller:

“The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster,” Professor Sweller said. “It should be ditched.”

“It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.”

Don’t you hate it when you have to sit through a preso where someone just reads their slides …fucking hell I think, just give me the slides and I’ll read them myself.

Technorati Tags: learning, Powerpoint, cognitive load theory, presentations