AT LEAST HE DIDN'T ACCUSE THEM OF DRINKING BLOOD AND SERVING SATAN... You know the Eighties are truly over when...

(#1) KISS bass player Gene Simmons has caused an uproar among Australia's Muslim community by launching an attack on Islamic culture while in Melbourne. The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio. "Extremism believes that it's okay to strap bombs on to your children and send them to paradise and whatever else and to behead people," he said yesterday. The Israeli-born US musician went on to say Islam was a "vile culture" that treated women worse than dogs. Muslim women had to walk behind their men and were not allowed to be educated or own houses, he said...

-- “KISS bassist offends Muslims”, by Alex Wilson, Weekend Australian (15-16 May 2004), p 18.

Yes. Treating women badly. Something that would not have been tolerated for a second in the late-Seventies rock & roll world. And to continue the trend...

(#2) 'Who Made This Statement?

"This culture is in big trouble. All you see on television are debased images. You saw the Super Bowl. I don't even need to say anything more about it".

Take your guesses. Jerry Falwell? George Bush, Sr.? Nancy Reagan? Nah. Think purple.'

To find out the answer, you'll need to go to Clayton Cramer's weblog.

DON'T TASMANIAN SCHOOLKIDS STUDY HAMLET AS A SET TEXT? Well, there is now at least one country in the world whose monarch will be an Australian. Admittedly she couldn't become Queen of Denmark while remaining an Australian citizen, but here down under we can understand that. After all, you can't be Queen of Australia either if you're an Australian citizen. The strangest thing about this situation is that the side who think that's a good arrangement are also the most vehement in claiming that our laws should be based on the Bible. (The second-strangest thing about it is that I heard this argument repeated, during the 1999 Republic referendum campaign, by Margaret Court -- yes, the tennis player, now a Pentecostal pastor. Yea, not the least jot or tittle shall pass away, etc etc.)

Interesting item in The Australian on Monday 17 May (p 9): "The Copenhagen Post surveys Danish children’s views on Princess Mary": One tyke said: "When Mary and Frederik get married, Mary will turn into a pregnant lady". Marriage first, then pregnancy? Maybe there's hope for the Scandinavians yet.

It's a neat reversal. 2003 was the year when we saw a man from Denmark travel to a small island in the southern hemisphere to be crowned. Now 2004 is the year when we see a woman from a small island in the southern hemisphere travel to Denmark to be crowned. Karmic balance maintained.

UPDATE: Josh the Fearsome Pirate will be pleased: Mary has converted from Presbyterianism to the Evangelical Lutheran state church of Denmark. (Although this report here from the Copenhagen Post says she wasn't legally required to.) One imagines many sleepless nights of soul-wrestling: "Hmmmm... marrying a prince and having a royal wedding... But then, Jesus did say 'This is my body!'.... Choices, choices..."

THE TENSION MOUNTS...ON WITH THE BODY COUNT!

For a sobering statistical view of the conflict in Iraq, consult
Iraq Coalition Casualties

Unfortunately, Iraqi casualties are not indicated.

"Hold the line... You know you can't quit until it's won... 'Cos Oliver’s army is here to sta-a-aaay..."

Life, once again, continues its annoying habit of imitating The Onion:

(#1) […] 80s retro fever is sweeping the executive branch, with President Bush and his nostalgia-crazed colleagues going wild for the people and policies of that “totally tubular” decade.

“The 80s were so awesome”, said Bush, grabbing a handful of Jelly Bellys from a jar on his Oval Office desk.

[…] Nearby, vice-president and fellow 80s-lover Dick Cheney reclined on a couch. “You know who else we should nominate?” Cheney asked. “Robert Bork for Supreme Court!” “Bork? Who’s that?” Bush responded. “Oh, wait – that’s the arch-conservative judge with the funny little chin beard, right? God, I totally forgot about that guy! Yeah, we should definitely nominate him!”

Bush also tapped Donna Rice for White House press secretary but retracted the offer when he realised he was thinking of Fawn Hall. “I always get those two confused”, Bush told Cheney. “I know one was with Oliver North and the shredder, and the other was with Gary Hart and the Monkey Business, but I forget which was which. Then there’s Jessica Hahn. She was the one with Jim Bakker, right? Or was it Jimmy Swaggart? Anyway, I want the Ollie North gal”. Bush praised Hall, calling her “a major-league babe”. Cheney affirmed the appraisal, saying, “Yeah, big-time”.

[…] “Even the enemies were cooler in the 80s”, Bush continued. “Back then, there was Russia, Libya, and Iran. Now, those were some bad guys. What do we have today? North Korea? How lame is that?”

[…] “As a uniter, not a divider, I recognise the importance of feel-good gestures like Hands Across America, USA For Africa, and that 'That’s What Friends Are For' song”, Bush said. “Back in the 80s, people used to come together and lend a hand to those in need. It’s important to make the occasional token effort toward helping others”.

Added Bush: “We also need more Americans like New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen, in whose songs live the hopes and dreams of every one of us”.

[…] Though committed to leading America into the future, Bush said he can’t help but wish he could have been president back in the decade of Pac-Man, skinny ties, and illegal arms deals with Nicaragua.

“Man, that would’ve been so cool to be the leader of the free world back then”, Bush said. “I was born 15 years too late”.

-“80s Retro Craze Sweeps Executive Branch”, The Onion (24 January 2001)

(#2) [This columnist] is delighted that US troops have captured Saddam Hussein, the murderous former dictator of Iraq. But couldn’t they have given this military operation a better code name than "Operation Red Dawn"? Red Dawn is a campy Cold War-era movie depicting the invasion of the United States by Soviet and Cuban troops. A band of youths from a small town in Colorado (including, pre-Dirty Dancing, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey) name themselves the “Wolverines” and mount a guerrilla resistance against the totalitarians who murdered their families[...]. The tip-off that Operation Red Dawn was named deliberately after the movie is that the two hiding places scouted out by the combat team were code-named “Wolverine I” and “Wolverine II”. (Saddam was found near Wolverine II). [...]

- “Good Mission, Bad Name: Why bring the movie Red Dawn into it?”, by Timothy Noah, Slate.com (Monday, 15 December 2003)

(#3) […] Many of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s premises have proved false, and its costs and sorrows are undeniable. Yet progress continues to be made, and the potential of a democratic Iraq is unmistakable. With a little perseverance it may still fulfill some of that promise. The quagmire conservatives should be aware of some of the legitimate good news coming from Iraq, or at least listen to the advice of singer Corey Hart in his 80s hit, “Never Surrender”, “Just a little more time is all we’re asking for/Cause just a little more time could open closing doors/… /And when the night is cold and dark you can see you can see light/Cause no one can take away your right/To fight and to never surrender”.

- "Cheer Up, Hawks", by Charles Rousseaux, Tech Central Station(13 May 2004)

Be very afraid, in case Donald Rumsfeld unveils his plans to turn the moon into what he likes to call a [waggles fingers] "Death Star"[waggles fingers]. -- Guarded by "Ewoks".

UPDATE: And of course Andrew McCarthy is involved too. Can Scott Baio and Molly Ringwald be far behind?

VIRAL MARKETING


What is this stuff?

Grey Interactive

I checked my disk cache of temporary internet files and discovered that I had downloaded a WMV advertising a certain product ("Cheap Tickets") which I had no recollection of doing. No problem you say, ads are part of the internet and part of life. Wait a minute, I say. This ad was 1.82MB big!!! A BIG problem for people on dial-up (like me).

DEATH to viral marketing (A quote from the site: "Web visitors become brand advocates when we lever their interest with pass-along capabilities". How stupid are we people. STOP being a victim of marketing sharps in pinstripe suits or trendy sunglasses or whatever).

If you get sent any of this rubbish, DELETE IT, and DO NOT BUY OR ENDORSE THEIR PRODUCT.

FRIENDS HASN'T CHANGED - WE HAVE

From the Mirror.co.uk - FRIENDS IN NEED OF LAUGHTER

"FRIENDS IN NEED OF LAUGHTER May 14 2004

By Anthony Harwood

TOP US sitcom Friends was blasted as 'not very entertaining, clever or original' by test audiences 10 years ago.

The hugely successful TV series, which has just ended in the US, might never have got off the ground if NBC studio bosses had listened to viewers who branded the show 'weak'.
Courtney Cox's Monica fared best but audiences said her appeal was below desirable levels for a lead.
Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe and Matthew Perry's Chandler had 'marginal appeal', while Rachel, Ross and Joey - played by Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and Matt Le Blanc - scored even lower.
One group of adults aged 35 and over felt the group 'did not really care about each other the way real friends would'.
They found the characters smug, superficial and self-absorbed.
The 1994 test audiences gave Friends a rating of 41 out of 100 which was termed 'weak' - the same given to another huge hit US series, Seinfeld."

Friends is a formulaic sitcom. Its characters, settings, plots, themes and styles have all remained essentially the same. The staus quo is returned to at the end of each episode. Why has it remained so popular for so long? Were the test audiences WRONG? Hardly. Life has imitated art. We have become as facile superficial and shallow as our TV idols, and greedily soak up our own reflected images each week as we imagine seeing our own lives extend before us. Then let us briefly pause to remember the demise of the $6million troubadors. Friends is dead. Cheers, applause and whistles please. May it never return

ROD, TODD, THIS IS GOD (2)

Article from London's The Times revealing that the Anglican Church has just started a Cyber Church. I wonder when the Sydney Anglicans will start one, denouncing avatars as New Age out-of-body-experiences, icons as graven images, and buttons as a sign of vanity.

See http://avantgo.thetimes.co.uk/services/avantgo/article/0,,1107284,00.html

VISIT the cyber Church at www.churchoffools.com. NOTE: Long (for dialuppers) Macromedia Shockwave Player 10 download required.

FROM THE HOUSE OF CROWL

I'll let the Crowl speak for himself, but I share the sentiments exactly

Hi All

This one was so cute I had to pass it on. Got it through a SiliconValley newsmail...

http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/

...brings back memories. I feel old as only 33 can seem from when you're 13.

AS IF GEORGE W DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH ON HIS PLATE
Now of all organisations he is prosecuting Greenpeace for being peaceful about, well, things that are green.

At least he's realising that NGO's are a threat to the security of the United States..whoops that should read WMD's.

See more at:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=472552

BEWARE THE MULLET

Note the folowing editorial comment from those crazy funsters at the Australian Record Industry Association:

ARIA - The Arianet Chart: "*Please note, ARIA is no longer producing a Heavy Rock & Metal Chart. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. "

Apologise? Inconvenience? Words cannot convey the strangled emotions that I fight through to even bring you this message.

By Grapthar's hammer ... we shall be avenged!

LOVE THAT FREEDOM OF SPEECH THING

So...heard the one about the Red Cross report into allegations of prisoner abouse in US run prisons in Iraq? Well, so have the Wall Street Journal, who had the document leaked to them recently. But if you would like to see it. you will have to PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE.

Of course they are running a trial which gives you two weeks free online access, but this conveniently "rolls over" into a twelve month online subscription at just US$79!

I know, I know, the Red Cross are given access to heinous conditions because they assure confidentiality like any nice lackey NGO, but, hey, their report has been LEAKED. It's OUT IN THE OPEN! In the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

I'm not saying it should be treated like a Linux distro, but hey, aren't I entitled to know? In their defence, the WSJ might say they their sources are confidential, that they have a business to run, and random interlopers like myself shouldn't be sticking our noses in where we don't belong.

I agree, and I'm sure that's just what the MPs at Abu Ghraib prison think too.

THEM FIGHTIN' HITCHENS BROTHERS AGAIN... One's an anti-Iraq War conservative, the other a pro-Iraq War leftist, but both share a genetic trait for making themselves unpopular by taking on revered targets. Seven years ago, Christopher Hitchens published The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. With the fifth-form cleverness of its title, this book was every bit as successful as you would expect in persuading conservative Roman Catholics to give serious attention to Hitchens' criticisms of Mo-T (eg, that she was cosy with dictators like Duvalier, that she kept stolen money give to her by fraudster Charles Keating, etc). Now his right-wing brother Peter Hitchens has gone gun-slinging against Nelson Mandela:

London - A British journalist sharply criticised former South African president Nelson Mandela on Monday, saying that he was a "fig leaf" for an authoritarian government and people should view him as a fallible human being, not a saint.

Peter Hitchens, a columnist for the Mail On Sunday, told BBC radio that many critics of the country's former apartheid regime had "elevated Nelson Mandela to the status of superhero and a sort of political secular saint". [...]

"I don't think anyone can take away from Nelson Mandela the fact that he endured what he did and that he called for reconciliation, but I think you shouldn't assume that at the end it was like a fairytale where everybody lived happily ever after", Hitchens said.

"I do think people should examine him as a normal human being and as a politician rather than as some kind of secular saint", the journalist said.

Next: Zeppo Hitchens uncovers the unsavoury secrets of the Dalai Lama, while Chico Hitchens exposes the REAL Aung San Suu Kyi. Stay tuned!

WERE THERE NO CROWL AVAILABLE TO HIRE AS FACT-CHECKERS? Interesting book review (link requires paid subscription) by David A Bell in The New Republic (17 May 2004) which opens with the following observation:

"In his Foundation trilogy, Isaac Asimov imagined a future civilisation in which the social sciences attain such sophistication that it becomes possible accurately to predict the future. A group called the “psycho-historians” apply the techniques to the Galactic Empire in which they live, and find, to their horror, that it will soon collapse. So they create a secret organisation to carry out strategic interventions in the course of events – not to halt the collapse (it is too late for that), but to accelerate the rebirth of order and civilisation out of a new Dark Ages. For a time, the organisation carries out its plan with complete success. But then disaster strikes, in the form of a human mutant called the Mule, who uses sinister telepathic powers to carve out a new empire of his own. The psycho-historians initially react with consternation to this creature, whom they have failed so completely to foresee or to explain. It takes several hundred closely plotted pages for them to regroup, and to set the course of history back on its predetermined path.

I often think that modern historians react to Napoleon Bonaparte in much the way that Asimov’s psycho-historians do to the Mule: as a freak of nature, endowed with sinister and superhuman powers, who fits into few accepted categories or theories..."

The interesting thing, however, is that Napoleon's rise was predicted -- by Edmund Burke, who wrote the following in 1790 and who died in 1797, years before Napoleon rose to power in 1799:

"In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things. But the moment in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army is your master – the master (that is little) of your king, the master of your Assembly, the master of your whole republic".

[From Reflections on the Revolution in France]

So Burke did one better than Hari Seldon and his psychohistorians. Score one for truth over fiction in the strangeness stakes.

IRAQI ABUSE
For an interesting take on the whole Iraqi Prisoner abuse thing, see http://www.chromedomezone.com/.

Interesting insight from a person associated with Military Policemen in Iraq (obviously, reviews the whole torture / humilation / human rights thing with a jaded eye).

SECOND VICTORY

Yes, that's right, folks, back to the Victory again last Saturday night. Two Saturday nights out in a row at the same venue - this must be a record for me. Now, I'm not usually one to kiss and tell but this time I took my job of reviewing Brisbane's pub scene seriously and had a really good scope of the premises. As it was reasonably early on the night (around 9:00ish) the various bars, beergardens and sprawl lounges weren't exactly overflowing, but this did give me a decent chance to really eyeball the features of said pub. Now, an unintended consequence of all this roving was that whenever I poked my head into the next room, antechamber or open-air vomitorium, all conversation stopped and dozens of pairs of bleary beery blood-shot eyes tried to lock onto mine. This is not just paranoia! Most people find their little niche and stick to it. "Floaters" winging their way from place to place sans beer glass / jug look out of place. Next time I shall have an alcoholic receptacle in hand at least to look the part.

The intention of the evening was to sample the karaoke but first I had to wait through the last two quarters of the St Kilda-Brisbane Lions match. A thrilling contest I can assure you but not really one which had my heart racing or my feet pacing. Indeed, whenever and exultant cry went up from the assembled punters I would join in, irrespective of whether it was the Lions or the Saints scoring. I though this would make me look non-partisan but by the end this made me resemble the United nations in commitment. Final score Saints: win, Lions: lose.

At this stage the karaoke was set up and karaoke guy got up and gave his all in a fantastic rendition of the perennial crowd-pleaser "Piano man". There was not a dry eye left in the house after this and I nearly cried into my glass of lemonade too. This initiative was just a warm-up for what was to follow. An awesomely awful performance of Pink's "Let's get this party started", which was a sentiment we all shared by the end of the song, having decided better lyrics were "Let's get this singer finished". Now for my turn, a superb performance of Don McLeans' American Pie which I am sure brought down the house.

I stayed for a truly awful pairing of two drunken parakeets squawking their way tunelessly (and verse-lessly) through "Mr Jones" before I had to exit, stage left. I would have loved to have stayed but it's important to finish on a high, no? Some things are better left unsaid (and unsung!). Final Score: Me: win, Karaoke competition: lose. I rest my case.

A NEW MODEL FOR IRAQ?

No, not a third way between American Imperialism on the one hand and Islamic Fundamentalism on the other, but a model who actually speaks realpolitik at the grassroots (no pun intended - or maybe there was) level.

From the website: "Gabrielle Reilly... Political Commentator, Bikini Supermodel, Speaker and Diplomat. " Just about says it all, really. Visit:

http://gabriellereillyweekly.com

VICTORY AT THE VICTORY

Last Sunday night I had occassion to visit the Victory Hotel in Edward St Brisbane. Now, I have had prior to this quite a negative experience at the aforementioned venue. not because of anything that happened to me there but because of what DIDN't happen. I had arranged to meet certain people there who failed to show, thus destroying my faith in pub culture, mateship and what it means be be part of a team. At the time it felt like this would last forever, but fortunately my faith in the fun side of human nature has been restorred. From the outside the Vic as it is known is nor particularly impressive (See pictures here), although there is a whopping great neon sign on the outside. Also outside was an enormous queue which was a surprise. I was a bit concerned as to the criteria for entry as a well-dressed albeit young and inebriated looking couple were knocked back, but I managed to squeeze past the hostiles at the entrance after a bit of loitering outside.

I didn't visit the beergarden - packed to the gills, and also the scene of the uncrime last time - but headed straight upstairs to the pool room to marry up with my contacts (you know who you are). Not seen. Right turn into a little corridor and ran straight into them. On this subject the place is a veritable maze of winding passageways and staircases just like grandma's house - but instead jam-packed full of drunken punters on a spree. Off to the bar upstairs which is a kind of square arrangement bridging two separate rooms, one a kind of dance floor and the other I didn't care tolook into. Whatis it with pubs and dance floors? It has to a kind of hybrid intensity to it - not quite a pub, not quite a nightclub -with the end result being that you take your pots (guys) and Archers (girls) onto the dance floor to have a suck while you boogey the night away. This is obviously thirsty work as one of the keynote dancers (IMHO) I sailed straight over to the bar for a water with not much of a wait and the bar babe not missing a beat, simultaneously knocking up a vodka and orange.

Back to the dancefloor to mingle with the fashion tragics (Are satin boob tubes really coming back? And ladies, yes, tight denim jeans really do make your bum look big) and groove along to the DJ - reasonable choice of music - a little 80's, a litlle 90's, a little now, all competently mixed to a thumping bass line. It is my theory (although not tested) taht the drubker one gets, the quieter music sounds, thus necessitating a proprtionate response of volume. So it was loud, but not too bad, as a shouted conversation directly in another's ear could almost be heard.

I had to exfil early but overall I can happily say that my faith in human nature has been restored and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Although the music was loud and the fashion was poor, this, combined with the sweaty press of hundres of drunken yobs, merely added to the cahrm and caharcter of the moment. Because of its rustic appearance and plethora of bar options, the old Vic stands tall in my books as a venue worthy of patronage. Well worth an investment of your time and money. Cheers.

IRAQ SUCKS

Not a new video, but an amusing one nevertheless. In my search for footage of US soldiers in Iraq to marry with Midnight Oil's US Forces, I came across this little gem. Shows US soldiers - the "Mullet mafia" - playing "air guitar" on a shovel, and pulling ridiculous tricks on a MTB. Quite a big download for us on dial-up (14MB or so) but well worth it (at least I think so). Set to the tune of Styx - Renegade (and yes, Tom will probably find that last sentence amusing).

http://www.hcor.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=121

GOLLUM RAP

The name says it all, really. Download it NOW!

THORPE BROUGHT BACK! (NEARLY)

Well, actually, Stevens steps aside. Yeah! And who said our campaign to bring back Thorpe was a waste of time! the Thorpedo is back in the water, in the 400 and will be winning gold at Athens (if they ever finish actually making the poll, that is). We are taking this as a win for our team. Details to follow.


http://www.seven.com.au/news/topstories/76851

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1094953.htm

DASH FOR CASH

Gotta love the USMC. The Green PR machine has churned out an article identifying the financial bonuses of being in a combat zone. but they were a bit hard pushed to get some nice sound bites. Thus:

"I'll have enough money to put in savings and on a down payment on a car," said Lance Cpl. Tirian M. Smikle, 20, a 1st Force Service Support Group legal assistant originally from Miami.

Staff Sgt. Travis E. Burks, 32, 1st Force Service Support Group's legal services chief: "I'll miss my ninth wedding anniversary on this deployment," he said. "I'm not thrilled about that fact, but the extra entitlements saved during the deployment will be there next summer when we celebrate our tenth. Our plans currently are to do something grander than we otherwise would have done."

Lance Cpl. Jonathan C. LaRoch, 20: "It's nice, but I'm not doing this for the money," said the administrative clerk, originally from Los Angeles. "If you're in this business for the money, you're in the wrong business."

Not trying to knock these guys down for trying, but don't the marines have any, well, Marines? You know, the guys that go hoo har, throw the grenade, storm the trench, kill with the bayonet? A legal assistant, a legal service chief, and an administrative assistant? Did the PR guys get lazy and just interview whoever was laying around the office at the time? (And BTW, this articel is not begrudging them their entitlements either. Every person deployed into combat is worth every cent they get paid, and more. So there.)

AS YE SOW ...On the off-chance he might be reading this... Open letter to the young man waiting beside his conked-out Camira by the roadside this morning:

Young man,

(1) The bill of your baseball cap faces the front, not the back.

(2) It may seem very smart and funny to plaster your car with bumper stickers that say NO FAT CHICKS and PISS OFF. But don't be surprised if old fogies like me then can't find the time to spare to stop and help you.

GIANT SPIDERS IN IRAQ

The ABC reports that the many dangers of Iraq include Giant Spiders! Relatives of Shelob and the Spiders of Mirkwood, no doubt. Where is Sting when you need it? At Otherland Toys, of course!

Meanwhile, try and Nuke the Giant Spiders!

POLL RESULT: Should Australian troops be expecting Christmas cards in Iraq this year?

No, they will be home by then 0% 0
No, in accordance with local custom, Christmas is not celebrated 29% 2
Yes, and I will be sending each of them one 43% 3
Yes, they still have an important job to do 29% 2

7 votes total

TURN OFF TV WEEK : APRIL 19 to 25, 2004

What happens during a seven-day experiment in life without TV? A whole new space to think emerges. You find yourself passing time in ways you never expected. And you start to wonder: when I reach for the remote, who is really in control?

See more at http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/tvturnoff/

Does this mean there will be a blog turn off week too? Oh no! How will I cope? What will I do? I know - start a diary!

NEXT: ACLU "NO PROBLEM WITH" PENNSYLVANIA LAW REQUIRING HOLY WATER DISPENSERS IN ALL STATE BUILDINGS AND TEXAS STATUTE MANDATING GIDEON BIBLES IN PRISON CELLS

"[California] Legislators would argue that most of the 5,000 bills they consider every year serve clear public purposes, and that it’s a cheap shot to trivialise their work by citing rogue proposals to regulate the size of children’s backpacks, control the amount of water a dishwasher can use, or prohibit the de-clawing of exotic cats. Indeed, the Legislature is about to debate whether to incorporate feng shui, the Chinese art of spiritual harmony, into state building codes. Political wags say the only good news about this proposal is, if it is adopted, it will probably result in the Capitol being closed down, since the building’s chi is way out of whack."

– John Fund, “Less Is More: Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks making laws should be a part-time job. He’s right”, Wall Street Journal (Monday, 19 April 2004).

100 LINKS IN 100 DAYS

Today I am starting a campaign to increase traffic to the blog.

This will also help increase traffic to your blog / website.

If you like this blog, please place a link on your site to it.

In exchange, I will link to your site. Easy?

I of course, as would you, reserve the right to decide what sites to link to.

Post your comments and blog / site URL below. DO IT NOW!!!

LINKING IS FUN!

B. L. O. G. = Blog Loving Obsessives Group

You know you're obsessive compulsive about your blog when:

1. The last thing you do at night, and the first thing you do in the morning, is think about blogging

2. You rigorously critique each passing thought in order to deem it "blogworthy" or not

3. You dream about blogging

4. You write things for your blog on the nearest scrap of paper so they don't get forgotten

5. You save each of these scraps, in case your blog ever "goes down"

6. You keep a handwritten blog diary of all of your blogs

7. You ensure your blogs are e-mailed to you, and you carefully archive them after printing each one out. Twice.

8. You try and think up clever and witty headlines for each post, like "Blog Loving Obsessives Group"

9. You regard blogging as one of the four cardinal web virtues, along with Linux, opera and netiquette

10. You smile inwardly at new words like "blogosphere", and try to coin your own

11. You keep posting so as to keep your blog high up in the "recent postings" lists

12. You continually visit your blog in an effort to create more "hits"

13. You have more than one hit tracker on your blog, "in case any visitors get missed"

14. You check the results of each hit counter at least daily

15. You "google" your blog to see if it comes up first

16. You treasure every comment like precious gem, rare and beautiful

17. You regard strangers as merely people who haven't read your blog yet

18. You write comments in other peoples' blogs promoting your own

19. You ask everyone you meet if they know about your blog.

20. If someone asks what is a blog, you launch into an extended discussion finishing with them sitting in front of your blog

21. You continually tweak your blog template, in an effort to make your site look "better"

22. You put an RSS feed on your blog, but don't know what it is or how it works

23. You put as many site feeds, images and links on your blog as possible to generate "interest"

24. You start a campaign to get more links to your blog

25. You create your own merchandising advertising your blog

26. You have a blog named after you

27. You have your own domain name, which is your name, and is also your blog

28. You have BOTH a public AND a private "secret" blog, just for you

29. You regard blog hosting services other than your own with a competitive eye

30. You love your own blog hosting service with a passion approaching worship

31. You "rate" other blogs against your own as either better or worse

32. You regard your blog as an extension of your inner self

33. You regard your blog as a member of the family with the same rights and privileges

34. You spend "quality time" with your blog in lieu of other people in your life

35. You believe your blog loves you as much as you do it

36. You imagine your blog will be read by generations to come and marvelled at by future historians

37. You write lists about what it means to be obsessive compulsive about your blog

38. You blog lists like this on your own blog

39. You become anxious if you haven�t posted to your blog each day. Quick, post this list now.

40. You got this list from http://fathermckenzie.blogspot.com

WHAT ARE WE HAVING FOR DINNER ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT?

In accordance with the blogging policy of this site, mundance daily decisions will be put to the blogging community and the world at large to decide on our behalf.

I accordance with this policy, please complete the following poll:

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What are we having for dinner on Wednesday night?

Take away Bring something to share

WHAT BOOK OF THE BIBLE ARE YOU????

Have a look at

Quizilla

Today I am Leviticus.

Tomorrow, who knows?

TOM'S FATHER MCKENZIE BLOG

Thanks to Mark Shea for adding us to his great blog! We are henceforth now and forever more without disputation or error to be known, understood and referred to by the moniker "TOM'S FATHER MCKENZIE BLOG" (or at least until Tom gets over it).

UPDATE (15 APR): Tom has woken up to this as prefers the blog to stay as it is. Oh well.

BRING BACK THORPE POLL CLOSED

Results just in.

You can see them here

Or if my HTML is flakey (drumroll please):

No, rules is rules 32% 7
No, because the "Thorpedo" is a known WMD 14% 3
No, his sexuality is questionable 0% 0
Yes, his sexuality is questionable 5% 1
Yes, there was a second gunman, on the grassy knoll 9% 2
Yes, he holds the world record at this event and is the best swimmer, and Australia loses if he doesn't swim 41% 9

22 votes total

YESSSS! BRING BACK THORPE (actually I voted at least 8 times for the last one, so there may be some sampling bias there. Who knows?

Remember to check out the merchandise, and vote in the next poll.

TRENDSETTER'S BALL

Seen the latest in fashion? It involves mutilation of one's eye (now see here!)



Leave it to those crazy Dutchmen to do something like that. Reminds you of "Goldmember" doesn't it? "I'm from Holland - isn't that vierd?"

The title of this blog of course come from The Goodies episode where all the fashionable layabouts of London amputate their left leg in imitation of "Punkerella"'s appearance at the ball. (Punky Business). Ah the Goodies. The Prescient Ones.

Check out the last paragraph of the eyeball article:

"The institute, which carries out the procedure in cooperation with an eye clinic near the city of Utrecht, said it has a waiting list for people who wanted the implant."

And I bet you that list is as long as your arm. I see queues as snaking around corners like an opening weekend for a Hollywood blockbuster for that one. Idiots.

NEW CALIFORNIA STATE SEAL

In honour of all things Califaustrian, check out the New Californian State Seal



A commemorative T-Shirt and Baseball Jersy has been struck to recognise this event.

DO YOU KNOW THE MULLET MAN?

Just in from the Queer Eye site (and you thought I would never browse in that department!)

THE MULLET MAN!!!

Check it out!

ABBOTT: "DEPRAVED AND CORRUPTING"

In a recent article posted in The West Australian, Health Minister Tony Abbott suggested sexualised media images of women may lead men to act inappropriately towards them.

Really? No? Are you sure? This is scandalous! Now, were NOT blaming the victim here, but there is a relationship between provacative poses of scantliy clad females baring acres of flesh and men's attitudes to them. Wow!

I actually agree with the man. Now don't go howling me down and all that. But if you check out the Cosmo online poll you will ("What Kind Of Sexy Are You?") there is obviously a relationship in at least the author of the poll's mind between scanty dressing and sexual allure.

What's a hot date to you?
Slipping into your sexiest plunging neckline dress and hitting a club to shake your booty.
At a bar, you suddenly spot a totally gorgeous guy. What do you do?
Walk over and tell him he's just inspired a new drink: the Yummytini!
When you're talking to a guy you really like, you tend to:
Overtly play with your hair or the strap of your tank top.
Fill in the blanks: If I were reincarnated as a bra, I would be ________.
A red satin, cleavage-maximising, diamond-encrusted bustier.
Which famous women do you most identify with?
Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears: eye-poppingly glitzy and gutsy.
For the ultimate birthday present, you'd give your guy:
Tasteful nude photos of yourself.
You've just been invited to a fabulous party. What do you wear?A low-cut slinky top and super-low-rider pants, to showcase acres of skin.

And this doesn't inspire to consider women as vacuous sexual playthings obsessed with men's opinion of them? Next you'll be telling me that I can't dress like the fab five and insist that I am straight!

MORE ABOUT BLOGS

[Blogshop] - (the classic, orginal blogshop, from Alan Levine, Maricopa College)
[A Beginner's Guide to Blogs] (David Wiley, Utah State University)
[ETUG Blogtalk] (British Columbia's Educational Technology User's Group)
[WebLog WorkShop] (Georgia State University)
[Do You Blog?] (Randy Brown, Sinclair College)

from UBCWiki: Blogshop

WOT IS A BLOG?

Top 20 Definitions of Blogging
by Debbie Weil
December 9, 2003

What is a blog? Why blog? Who should blog (journalists, marketers, CEOs, techies, educators, scientists, hobbyists)? Should blogging be pure or can you make money with a blog? Will blogging change everything?

Picture several hundred intense writer/thinker/bloggers at a recent blogging conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On the Harvard Law School campus, no less. You get the idea.

A blogging conference is not for the fainthearted. The metaphysics of blogging was a hot topic. The warmth of a virtual community (the blogosphere) enjoying face-to-face interaction was palpable.

TODD, ROD, THIS IS GOD.



Yes, and now not only do the Simpsons go to Church, the Church goes to the Simpsons.

Vicar: eat my Bible

And the Vicar's name? Rev. Robin Spittle.

SNAP GALLERY
Just found this interesting site courtesy of Andrew Demack

I will try it out soon - YEAH!

REFORMING ALLIANCE

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has wrestled with a few issues in its time, not the least being Resolution 84. Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water . . .

Recently I can across the Reforming Alliance, no, not an anti-Taliban style federation of Afghani tribes, but a group committed to stamping out Resolution 84. Sounds like a plan. Just hoping they will not wind up being a single-issue party.


PUBLIC STATEMENT

A group concerned at the 10th Assembly’s Resolution (84) and its impact have formed a national body, The Reforming Alliance within the Uniting Church in Australia.

This group has witnessed with dismay the crisis created for many congregations, migrant ethnic churches, Congress (UAICC) and the strains placed on some of our ecumenical dialogue. We believe that addressing this situation is urgent.

See their aims in detail here

By the way, everything you ever wanted to konw about the Uniting Church and sexuality but were afraid to ask can be found here .

And how does the RA relate to (now getting elderly) EMU? See here.

SPORT = ENTERTAINMENT = BUSINESS

Here's something I found recently on the William Morris Agency website:

Realizing that the lines between sports, entertainment and business continue to blur, the William Morris Agency's Sports Marketing Department provides on- and off-field representation to a growing number of some of the most dynamic sports personalities in the industry.


Good logic. Follow along with me:

Sport = Entertainment. Ok, I'll give you that, and even the other way (Entertainment = Sport, for those mad sports fans out there)
Entertainment = Business. Yup, I'll subscribe to that as well.

I''l even give in to Sport = Business. There's heaps of dosh to be made there boys and girls.

But

Business = Sport? No way, na huh.
Business = Entertainment. Only at 1am when there's nothing else to watch except the stock market ticker scrolling across the bottom of the test pattern.

And "dynamic sports personality"? How about "play sport first - be a dynamic personality second". If you're on field getting hammered weekly for your dynamic personality, I think your ball skills need to improve.

SITE UPDATES
Latest site updates:

Verse of the Day

Weather Pixie

Time / Weather Applet (although I'm not too sure about this one - it may go the way of the dodo)

Blogroll (haven't yet fully grasped how this works...)

Site Meter

Extreme Tracking (finally got a counter - actually 2!)

IAN THORPE... AGAIN

Rearranging the letters of "Swimmer Ian Thorpe" gives some interesting results (courtesy of www.anagramgenius.com):


Is more mph in water

I'm the manpower sir


Try it. You'll like it. The second is definately my favourite. A series of commemorative items of memorabilia will be struck to honour this moment.

INTERESTING ARTICLE IN THE JERUSALEM POST (link requires free registration) about a former Catholic nun, Rivkah Hyatt, who converted to Judaism. As far as I can tell from the article, she does not -- unlike other ex-Catholic Jewish converts such as Stephen Dubner -- have any ethnic Jewish background. Her reasons seem to be partly theological, but more a reaction against the extremely strict discipline of her cloistered Franciscan order (eg, one girl whose father died during her novitiate was not allowed to attend the funeral, since it fell during her year of absolutely no contact with the outside world).

Religious conversions always fascinate me. Almost all of the Christians I know of who've become Jews are former Catholics; very few Protestants, except for one French ex-Salvo (whose name escapes me) and a friend of a friend of a friend whose former denomination was Seventh-Day Adventism, which meant the difference was about the smallest it can be between Judaism and Christianity, at least as regards dietary laws.

This is one of those areas in Iraq that is definitely squirrelly

Amidts the controversy over whether or not American news services should be showing graphic images of American dead, and the inevitable response by the US military,

I happened across the following comments:

1. "Viva mujahedeen!" shouted Said Khalaf, a taxi driver. "Long live the resistance!"

2. "Everybody here is happy with this," Mr. Furhan, the taxi driver, said. "There is no question."

3. Nearby, a boy no older than 10 ground his heel into a burned head. "Where is Bush?" the boy yelled. "Let him come here and see this!"

4. After the fires cooled, a group of boys tore the corpses out of the vehicles.... The boys dragged the blackened bodies to the iron bridge over the Euphrates River, about a mile away.

5. Captain Logan, who is stationed at a large walled base on the outskirts of the city, said, "This is one of those areas in Iraq that is definitely squirrelly."

Taxi drivers supply the resolve, boys provide the mayhem, while Marine officers draw on home grown hick comments to make sense of it all.

Picture this: Taxi Driver crossed with Lord of the Flies with a bit of Aliens thrown in for good measure. A foreign country, a US presence, and disgruntled locals. Sounds like every version of American foreign policy since the Alamo to me. It would also make a great Jerry Bruckheimer production .

AS YOU CLIMB UP/ LIFE'S TALL TOWER/ FEAR THE MULLET/ AND FIGHT THE POWER/ EVERY MINUTE/ OF EACH HOUR/ FEAR THE MULLET/ AND FIGHT THE POWER ... From The Australian today (Friday 2 April 2004):

Drivers of hotted-up vehicles prized them more than their partners and believed their cars boosted their sex appeal, an Australian survey has found. A survey by an Australian car insurance company, conducted via their website, found drivers of modified high-performance vehicles often rated them more highly than their girlfriends or boyfriends. Almost half of the 180 respondents to the Just Car Insurance online survey said their cars were their main interest in life. Fourteen per cent of respondents said if forced to choose between their car and their partner, they would pick their car. Many drivers believed driving a hot-looking car boosted their sex appeal and 44 per cent of those surveyed said they believed people who drove modified cars got more attention from the opposite sex. Most respondents (52 per cent) considered themselves to be obsessive about their car. Just Car Insurance national manager Andrew O'Hara said he was not surprised by the results, posted by drivers of V8 and Japanese imports modified with body kits and expensive stereo systems. "They are just so passionate and obsessive about their cars - it's just amazing", Mr O'Hara said.

AHA! SO THAT'S WHY ABORTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION! Slate.com's "Fraywatch" column quotes (with the heading "If fetuses are people, do we care?") a letter responding to William Saletan's recent article "Face the Fetus: It's time for abortion rights advocates to stop denying reality":

You might not wish, after all, to carry a tiny attorney around in a body cavity for nine months; you might not wish to undergo significant physical changes and risks to your health. And if I was to tell you that IF you let me stay there, then even after I exited your physical body you'd be utterly and comprehensively responsible for my well-being for the next 18 years... My guess is that if "miniaturization and random abdominal lodging" of fully grown adults was a common medical condition, the laws surrounding it would be complex and they would not assume that the "miniaturized" have an inalienable right to make use of other people's bodies by simple virtue of their condition.

The next 18 years? Gosh, that really is a heavy burden that might justify killing the parasite -- if there were no other alternatives. But is that the case?

Here's a thought-experiment. Suppose that, instead of having to feed, clothe, burp, change, educate, chauffeur (etc) this uninvited parasite for the next two decades, you could give the child away to someone who did want it. It would then become another person's child and their responsibility. You could forget about the child completely, if you wanted -- though of course contact, by mutual consent, would be permitted once the kid was an adult. After all, we're all about freedom of choice here.

A radical idea, no? I'm going to copyright this one under the brand name of "adoption" (pronounced "uh-DOPP-shun").

It's possible that there might be couples out there who cannot conceive children of their own, judging by the widespread popularity of IVF clinics. So there might possibly be a market (so to speak) for unwanted children.

Of course, any laws we make in this area have to be gender-neutral, because sex discrimination is wrong. So if a woman can evade caring for an unwanted child for the next 18 years because "adoption" is legalised (or for the next almost-19 years if both "adoption" and abortion are allowed as alternatives), then of course the man who impregnated her must have the right to refuse, if he wants, to pay child support for the next 18 years too. After all, we're all about freedom of choice here -- and also gender equality.

ESPECIALLY THE EAR-SLICING SCENE IN GETHSEMANE... Andrew Sullivan on Passio Christi: "If Quentin Tarantino became a member of Opus Dei, this is the kind of film that might result".

UPDATE: This could really kick off a Top Ten sort of list:

* Opening quotation would be from Ezekiel 42, not Isaiah.

* Apostle Peter gets code-name "Mr Purple".

* Asked "How does freedom feel?", Mr Blonde (ie, Barnabas) replies "Freedom? No! Save us, Lord Jesus! Come back as Moses bearing a new Law!"

All right, seven still to go.

PICTURE OF THE DOCTOR didn't come up - my ddogy HTML I'm afarid.

See it for yourself here

NOT TO BE OUTDONE BY THE DR
The latest news about the real Doctor indicates that all systems are go for a new series starring Christopher Eccleston.

Hopefully the budget for this round of Doctor Who extends beyond a BBC back lot and an old quarry. Take a look at what the new Doctor may be wearing...



And note the outfit and situation of his female sidekick ...



(Actually the first picture is of Eccleston in Elizabeth, and the other is of "Perry" from the 1980's, but who cares? It's still Doctor Who-ish)

TURBULENT PRIESTS ... Once again, whoever wrote this report on new background-checking procedures in the Sydney Anglican Diocese didn't realise that calling Jansenite clergy "priests" is as provocative south of the Lakes as it would be to, say, call Catholic churches "temples" or to address a Baptist pastor as "rabbi". On that same topic, barely a week after his successor was evicted from the Lord Mayoralty of Brisbane, apostate ex-priest Jim Soorley has been appointed urban growth adviser to Ron Clarke (yes, the running man), newly-elected Hizzoner of the Gold Coast. (Not to be confused with John Landy the runner, who's been appointed Governor of Victoria. Cathy Freeman for President!) What, Cavill Av not crowded enough already?!

RULES IS RULES, OR WHY PACKER IS NOW $84 MILLION RICHER

So we think rules is rules is a good thing? Well that's what the tax office thought way back in 1999

The Australian Tax Office is tonight claiming a major win against the billionaire businessman Kerry Packer. A full bench of the Federal Court found that companies in his privately held consolidated press group have avoided millions of dollars of tax. The tax office believes it can now retrieve tens of millions of dollars in back tax, and that the judgment will worry many of Australia's major companies."

But now? Well, rules WAS rules. Kerry's had his day (or rather years and years) in court and emerges with a cool $84 million.

"Australia's richest man, Kerry Packer, has scored a big win against the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in court.

Newspaper reports today say the Federal Court ruling means Mr Packer will keep at least $84 million the ATO had been seeking."

It seems the Tax Office has been TOO RIGID in its application of the RULES IS RULES theory. According to Ray Conwell, a tax partner at Delloite and a former deputy commissioner of taxation, the case shows that:

"the tax office can't just apply a policy across the board without looking at the particular circumstances of the case and in particular the policy behind the law that they're applying".

How about that?

SOME RELIEF FROM MY CO-BLOGGER'S OBSESSION WITH L'AFFAIRE IAN BLOODY THORPE ...So why did the chicken cross the road? Yes, you've seen that list before with Bill Clinton, Foucault, et al, on it, enough times to crash your mailbox. Here's some others...

GK Chesterton: Modern man often asks himself why the chicken crossed the road. But he has forgotten that it is pointless to ask that question until he has first gotten quite a different thing clear in his head. It is a queer thing, but it is true, not that the chicken crossed the road, but that the road crossed the chicken. Nay, a thousand roads have crossed a thousand chickens; ten thousand chickens have been crossed by ten thousand roads since the world began. A road is nothing but God's way of crossing a chicken. So if you begin by asking why the chicken crossed the road, you must soon come to ask why the road crossed the chicken. This is a truth that the Pagan did not understand, the Parsee could not understand, and the Puritan will never understand.

Jeremy Bentham: For the Chicken to cross the Road; - To traverse and surmount the span of the public Causeway; - may upon the basis of the First Principle of Utility properly be said to have of the Intitulative causes, two; - And of the De-Ratiocinated causes, three. Of the former causes, the Intitulative , three sub-types or further genera may be discerned; - Namely...

John Calvin: What! - that thou, impertinent mortal, shouldst spurn and account so little the sovereign will of God, as to ascribe unto the act of His creature, the common fowl of the yard, any other cause or antecedent motive soever, but that which was by the mighty outworking of His foreknowledge, will and decree eternally preordainéd?

John Finnis: Chicken, by virtue of its very nature as a rational creature, is possessed of certain intrinsic desires and faculties, which conjointly render it capable of ordering both the intention and the proximate result of its actions toward the crossing of roads.

John Hart Ely: We figure something's sure going on here, if chickens go crossing roads, and it doesn't take a genius to smell a rat with that - to guess that something must be pretty damn wrong with this side of the road when even the chickens start leaving it. Do chickens therefore constitute some kind of discrete and insular minority on this side of the highway, so much that they prefer to exercise an "exit" rather than a "voice" option? While no one can say for sure, it seems highly likely so...

John Rawls: Why did the chicken move away from its original position to a more Pareto-optimal locale? That is a question which classical Utilitarianism cannot answer. Instead, it is a question that can only be answered by a representative assembly of chickens called upon to draw up constitutive principles of road-crossing behind a veil of ignorance...

JRR Tolkien: Presently to the great Road they again came. Broad it was, and paved also, and in dust covered; and upon the dust could be seen tracks of feet, many of them. "Ho!" said Gimli. "Whether these marks be left by Man or Dwarf, Elf or Halfling, I know not. Yet this much will I warrant; it was no fell beast. For many servants has the Dark Lord; yet the Road they do not cross." "Can you discern no more amidst these signs?" answered him Legolas. "These marks are as of the feet of a certain fowl, one bred unto the farmyard, him that is named among us Círnol Sândas. Have you none such in the Shire also?" "Yes, but we call them chickens ," replied Frodo, shivering miserably. "O! How I should love to sup again upon some nice roasted chicken! But why did it cross the Road, here?" "Of such things it is no longer lawful to speak," told him Aragorn, sternly.

Karl Popper: We can never prove with absolute certainty any truth-claim about the chicken's motive. However, we can scientifically refute several alternative explanations.

Liam and Noel Gallagher: Ee, lad, noo doobt to re-enact yon scene off the ABBEY ROAD album coover.

Meatloaf: Refer to lines 675 to 831 of "Why The Chicken Crossed That Goddamn Road (And Why I Ran It Over With Mah Harley As I Went Burning Down The Highway Like An Angel On Fire, Because Mah Girl She Left Me, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah)" (copyright 1978 by Jim Steinman).

Robert H Bork: The intention of the individual chicken is irrelevant to the task of interpretation. All that counts, and that should count, in any democratic polity is the intention of the Founders of 1787 who wrote the Constitution. Anything else is liberal egalitarianism that hardly deserves the name of law.

Ronald Dworkin: Any decision by a chicken to exercise its transversative rights and make its own road-crossing choices must be upheld by any rights-based thesis of law as integrity. For the state or any public actor to inquire into the chicken's motivations would be wicked; such an action would be profoundly violative of the chicken's basic avian entitlement to equal concern and respect.

Thomas Hobbes: Forre therre Bee bvt twoe Cawses thatte myght yndvce an Fowle orre Chyckenne too bestyrre Ytselfe ande ventvre fromme yts Farmyarde vnto ye Roade ande there-acrosse: And thee Fyrste of svch Cawses bee thatte whyche wee calle Hvngerre, ande ye Seconde bee thatte whyche men doe calle Vayneglorie.

Tom Lehrer: Some ask me why a chicken ambulatory/ Would cross the road. This whole debate's nugatory./ The answer's very simple, as it's plain to see/ Like all of us, his motive is amatory...

IT'S ALL ABOUT SELECTION AND THE GURU'S CAT
Ask anyone in the Special Air Service - selection is hard because it has to be. They just can't have any namby pamby loud mouth rolling up and expect to hunt Obi Wan Laden in the deserts of Tatooistan (or is that Afghanine?).

And it's our selection process which has agrieved the Australian public and brought our hero down. Yes, rules is rules, but are those rules very smart?

AND NOW FOR SOME CLICHES:

Rules are made by humans for humans.
Like fire, rules make good servants, but poor masters.
No one is above the rules - but the rules exist to serve a purpose.

I say the rules (not laws!) are there to allow for fair play and prevent gamesmanship from interfering from true competition. Has the spirit of those laws been upheld, I ask? or are we left with the remnants of a once sensible idea, like the story of the guru's cat?

Read the article at

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1076520.htm

to see what I mean.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Just been reading some of Mark Steyn's terrible Right-Wing propaganda exposing the mistakes of war in Iraq. I'll list you with the top ten naysayer's opinions of what would go wrong - and leave it up to you to read Herr Steyn's rejoinders (and yes he writes self-fulfilling prophecies, but so what?)

One year on, and Iraq's better off

1. ''Iraq's Slide Into Violent Anarchy'' (The Guardian, April 11, 2003).
2. ''The head of the World Food Program has warned that Iraq could spiral into a massive humanitarian disaster'' (The Australian, April 11, 2003).
3. ''Iraqis Now Waiting for Americans to Leave'' (Associated Press, April 10, 2003).
4. ''If Saddam is not found dead, or caught alive, it will be the worst of all possible closures for the war against Iraq'' (Roland Flamini, UPI, April 10, 2003).
5. ''Iraq was a new country cobbled together from several former Ottoman provinces, its lines drawn by the Europeans'' (Mark Mazower, The Independent, April 7, 2003).
6. ''Turkey is concerned that a Kurdish capture of Kirkuk could help bankroll moves to establish an independent Kurdistan'' (Agence France-Presse, April 9, 2003).
7. ''Rather than reforming the Muslim world, the conquest of Iraq will inflame it'' (Jeffrey Simpson, Toronto Globe and Mail, April 10, 2003).
8. ''Looting is always unsavory. Let's hope the Americans don't pilfer the oil'' (Brenda Linane, The Age of Melbourne, April 11, 2003).
9. ''Weapons of Mass Destruction. Remember them? Not a single one has yet been found'' (Bill Neely, Independent TV, April 10, 2003).

(by the way, this answer intrigued me the most. Libya? Sounds like "Dubya" to me)

10. ''America is already losing the peace!'' (Everyone.)

IT'S GETTING A BIT BIZARRE

"With the Prime Minister wading into it, it's starting to get a little bizarre." So says our hero Ian Thorpe

Here's what the PM actually said:

JOHN HOWARD: I thought he was fantastic. I think he really said it all. He accepts that there are rules, it's a terrible disappointment, but I thought as a role model he couldn't have been better.

Time to take a few pointers from our sporting heroes, don't you think?

CONGRATULATIONS
To Ian Thorpe for winning a spot in the 200m.

THE relief was palpable as Australia's greatest swimmer Ian Thorpe finally confirmed his place in the Olympic team for Athens by dominating the 200 metres freestyle final at the national trials in Sydney last night.



See http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,9124112-23218,00.html

VOTE IN OUR ONLINE POLL

Express your feelings for Thorpie by voting in our online Poll, fresh to you today!

HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THORPIE

Some interesting comments from the punters about how they feel about Thorpie's disqualification.

I think it's about 2/3rd majority in favour of allowing the Thorpedo another shot.

BRING BACK THORPE!!!!!

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9119743%5E661,00.html

BRING BACK THORPE - the T-Shirt
To further the bring back Thorpe campaign, a range of clothing and accessories have been tastefully designed to suit your lifestyle and budget.

Check them out at the Father McKenzie online store!

http://www.cafeshops.com/fathermckenzie

Yeah!

SOMEBODY BETTER TELL TIM QUINN
That he's not the Lord mayoer any more - see the Brisbane City Council website


The Brisbane City Council's Lord Mayor is Councillor Tim Quinn. Councillor Quinn became Brisbane City's fourteenth Lord Mayor on 20 May 2003.

Mayor's message
I became Lord Mayor in May 2003 and it is a great privilege and honour to have the opportunity to lead Brisbane as we face the challenges a growing city brings.

Mayor's projects and reports
The Mayor's latest projects and reports include the North South Bypass Tunnel, Green Bridge and the flood risk study. In 2004, the Mayor will appoint a new team to manage the city's major projects.


Work begins on North South
Bypass Tunnel
The Council is investigating the
feasibility of the North South Bypass
Tunnel that will be built under the
Brisbane River.

The first step of the feasibility study
involves drilling the rock under the
Story Bridge at Kangaroo Point.
This will determine rock levels
that will need to be drilled through
to construct the tunnel.

Find out more about the feasibility
study.

I wonder what incumbent Campbell Newman thinks of all this?

THORPE OUT

Or so goes the headline at news.com.au. No, it doesn't mean that Thorpe has come out of the claoset as a homosexual, but the headline implies this.

For those not in the know, the Thorpedo has been disqualified from competing in his best event and an almost cert at getting a Gold at Athens.

This is another typical example of bloody-minded bureaucartic Australianess. It's definately in our national character. Along with incredible slackness. More on that one later.

Back to Thorpe.

Imagine the headlines overseas:

TEAM USA GOES FOR GOLD IN 400M
After last night's shock disqualification of Ian Thorpe from the 400m at the Australian OlympicS wimming trials, all systems are go for a USA clean sweep of the pool at Athens. "It's gold, gold gold for Team USA, " said Team Manger Randulph Suppusio III. "Australia, you suck. This would never happen here."

SHOCK ENTRY FROM UZBEKISTAN
After initially declining to contest any aquatic events at Athens and concentrate on women's shot put, the UOC (Uzbek Olympic Committe) have decide to enter the men's 400m freestyle. "Without Ian Thorpe, there's an outside chance that we could get actually through the first round of heats this year," team spokesperson Nahangaluk Uzbekahddum said.

JAPANESE TOUR OPERATORS OUTRAGED
Without the presence of drawcard Ian Thorpe in the men's 400m free at this year's Athens Olympics, Japan's struggling tour industry would be unable to cope. According to Hakoje Nakamore, "Ian Thorpe is the cornerstone of our Olympic package. We will go belly up without him"


People, it's NOT the Olympics, It's the TRIALS. You are only cutting off your nose to spite your face. Australia as a nation loses - and other nations win. Good on them I say.

BAPTISM OF FIRE

I just finished reading "Baptism of Fire" by Frank Collins. A really interesting read if you ever get your hands on a copy. The first half of the book is devoted to being an SAS soldier, the second half follows the author's conversion and transition from the SAS to ordination in the C of E. He strats off as a Pentecostal but eventually identifies himself as an eveangelical. Well done, that man.

Read a bit more at Amazon.

Tragically Frank killed himself, apparently soon after writing the book. It is now out of print but it is highy recommended reading - especially for thise with heads stuffed full of SAS tirvia . And finally a big hello to all those anorak-wearing SAS trainspotters out there - one day I''ll write a full review for you.

LIFE IMITATES THE ONION

Here's something weird - George W cracking jokes about himself. Curiouser and curiouser. And this man is the President of the Free World? How Bizarre! The mind boggles! The story speaks for itself. No further comment - except to note Donny Rummy's response "“To know what I would think, I would have to be there.” Try that one at your next job interview.


Bush under Fire for 'Tasteless' Weapons Jokes

By Mark Sage, PA News, in New York


US president George Bush came under fire from his election challenger John Kerry today for joking about the fruitless search for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

At a black-tie dinner for journalists, Mr Bush showed what he called a “White House Election-Year Album” slide show, poking fun at himself and other members of his administration.

One photograph in the slide show pictured Mr Bush leaning over to look under a piece of furniture in the Oval Office.

“Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere,” he told the gathering of 1,500 members of the media in Washington.

He showed another picture, of him peering into a corner of a room: “No – no weapons over there,” he said.

And as another picture of him leaning over appeared, he said: “Maybe under here?”

The audience – guests at the 60th annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association – broke into laughter and applause at the well-delivered jokes.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2698682

TIE ME ...WHAT? DOWN, SPORT

Apparently the old Rolf Harris many eons ago in the 60's man wrote some rather unacceptable and misinterpreted lyrics as part of his classic "Tie Me Kangaroo Down". The ABC of all organisations has reprinted these lyrics after Rolf himslef disowned them many years ago - oops, what a clanger!

"A controversial verse from Rolf Harris's "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" has resurfaced in an Australian children's songbook.

Verse four is to be found on early recordings of the song by Rolf Harris. But Rolf no longer sings the words. Instead, he repeats verse three or just skips over it. The verse reads: "Let me Abos go loose, Lew. Let me Abos go loose. They're of no further use, Lew. So let me Abos go loose."

612 ABC Brisbane's Spencer Howson (4-6pm) told his listeners: "I'm not the world's biggest advocate of political correctness, because in many ways it has gone too far. But there's no way I was going to sing that line to my child".


What astonished me was the indignace and outrage of some ABC listeners as they expressed their horror that such things could ever be said or written - such lyrics should be destroyed forever!

But wait a minute. If we delete every racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynist, phallocentric patriachal discources from our historical documents, on what basis will the aggrieved parties of the PRESENT have to complain about poor treatment in the PAST? You can't go around saying that you've been treated badly for x number of years when there is nothing to verify those archaic attitudes. What with Wilbur Smith in the Ministry of Truth re-writing the history books every semester, concerned minorities of the present will have NO BASIS for any claim of historical resentment. It's in their own best interest to keep an ongoing record of such outrages as they occur, and not to expunge them from their mental Inbox like so much spam.

Thus, as a service to future generations, I have preserved the lyrics in full, so the gentle reader may make up her / his own mind.

I AM NOT AMERICAN

Remember that T-Shirt that you may have seen some traveller wearing somewhere.? The one that said "I am not American in English", in English and in Arabic?

Well, as an appropraite response to my "Don't Panic, I'm Islamic" post, check out the T-Shirt designs here.

I especially like the Canadian flag emblazoned with the slogan.

Perhaps an Australian design is in order now that Mark Latham has declared that Australian troops will be out of Iraq by Christmas if elected.

"Mark Latham has pledged to bring home Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas if Labor wins the election, describing the war as an "act of folly" that increased the risk of terrorism."

What was all the fuss about anyway?

IT'S NOT ALL BAD

Apparently viewing "The Passion of The Christ"made an area man confess to having murdered his girlfriend.

"HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A man saw "The Passion of the Christ," talked to a spiritual adviser, then told police he had killed his girlfriend, authorities said Thursday."

This PROVES beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is something "spiritual" about Mad Mel's movie.

If only viewing it would get us all to confess our misdeeds . . .

DON'T PANIC!

This has become a theme for me lately as the ABC have recently begun re-braodcasting the radio serial of "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on Sundays at 5:30am.

"It's the best advice I've heard all day," remarked Arthur Dent.

Earler I had read in the Courier-Mail about some local who went around wearing a T-Shirt that said, "Don't Panic - I'm Islamic" (perhaps like the one found here)

The following rejoinders for other faiths were attributed to Tim Blair

"Don't hurt me. I'm C of E"

"Don't light that wick - I'm Catholic" and my personal favourite...

"Stop that fighting. I'm Uniting"

Any more?

SITE UPDATES
This week the banner ad for "The Passion" was added. This might encourage a few click throughs.

Also today joined up with St. Blog's Parish. Hopefully this will increase traffic - though nothing increases traffic like a good blog!

World's Smallest Political Quiz!

Try it - see what you are and if you like it.

I came out a "centrist":

According to your answers, your political philosophy is centrist.

Centrist
Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty.

Your Personal Self-Government Score is 50%.
Your Economic Self-Government Score is 30%.

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

The Passion of the Christ

I just went and saw this movie recently. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and while I think I had a pretty good idea of how it would end, and there were no real plot spoilers, I didn't more than one or two reviews before I went, although I did pay attention to the "buzz" surrounding the movie. Mostly this consisted of reading about people having various weeping / crying episodes at the conclusion of the film, falling onto their knees and praying, or else people being violently ill or walking out.

So, I thought, this is definitely a movie that I have got to see.

Was I disappointed. No weeping or vomiting for me. No walking out. Yes it was extremely violent,and it did in the end all seem rather pointless. I was initially impressed by the "sweat like drops of blood" on Jesus (Jim Cavaziel's) face at the start, but the Satan character was real distraction, and that snake coming out - what was that all about? When the people in the seat next to me went "Yes!" as Jesus stomped it with his heel, I thought I was sitting next to a pair of Evangelical hooligans who would variously cheer and jeer all through the film.

Next scene - guy with ear cut off. Fairly well done I thought, and this guard obviously is impressed when Jesus heals his ear - but later Mary provokes the same response in a Roman legionairre. This diminishes the effect of the first.

When Mary first shows up she is the Italian Mary - black robes, care-lined face, everyone calls her mother etc. No points for guessing which audience Mel is appealing to here. It took me a while to figure out the accompany woman was Mary Magdalene - but with the flashback about the woman caught in adultery, the penny dropped.

Some scenes were very well done - like Peter denying Christ three times (even thought no cock crowed) in the throng of the crowd when Jesus is first arrested. Even though this is outside the biblical sources I thought it fitted quite nicely - after all, this is a movie. And Judas' presence there was also a bit of an eye-opener, although it did seem plausible. But the way Judas tops himself - so overplayed as to be beyond credibility. I don't know how you would effectively show the inner turmoils of a troubled mind - perhaps Mel could go and ask Shakespeare's Hamlet for advice. But some pesky devil kids and a dead donkey just don't cut it for me, I'm sorry. And what about the bit where Judas' guts spill open? Where's that eh? Come on, Mr Gibson, I want to see some action!

On to the Romans - Mel gives them a very sympathetic aspect. Pontius is shown pushed and pulled three ways - by Caesar, the Jewish mob and his own wife. A man cannot have two masters, Pontius. And yet he is supposed to be a governor of Judea! He may as well join the United Nations and try and sort the issue out there. More sympathetic Romans - it's a bit like a sympathetic Nazi - surely they can't have all been bad - these are the people that brought us civilization, right? At least they supplied the Roman Catholics with a location, because the marriage of Rome and Religion is affirmed when Pontius's wife hands Jesus' mum some cloths to sop us his blood. What is that all about? a) It would never happen and b) why bother soaking up the blood? Is this another obscure Catholic tradition of which I have no knowledge? Let us in to the narrative secret here Mel, I'm stumped.

Now for the gruesome bits. Jesus is punched and spit on, and cops a lurgy right in the eye at one stage. And he gets beaten with sticks by the local law enforcement agencies, Rodney King style. But the flagellation is something else. The actual cat-o-nine tails or whatever it is has huge metal shards on the ends - it looks like JC has gone a few rounds with a tiger! And the amount of lashes. I really think the poor guy would have bled to death, he had so many deep, deep cuts on him. And here's the Romans having a jolly old laughat it all -shades of Monty Python. It got so ridiculous that when they turned jesus over to beat up his front I had to laugh. Surely this guy should be dead. He's like a terminator - pump hundreds of rounds into him and he still gets up with a look of defiance on his face like payback is only a reel change away.

Just as an aside he gets a crown of thorns pushed over his noggin - a bit rough if you ask me, and they chuck a robe on him and go the biff one more time. Jesus looks like he'd rather be somewhere else at this point. He can't really suffer with any dignity here, so the scene is quite short compared with each stroke of the rod or the whip being counted out in long time on the big screen. But they take the robe of him. I wondred about this - weren't the soldiers supposed to gamble over a robe? Wasn't there a film made in the 1950's with that very title about a robe? But I read my New Testament and yes, the soldiers take it off him and give him back his original clothes.

Now for the show - in front of the crowd - more like a mob. I could almost imagine them starting to throw stones at the soldiers, although it was about 2000 years out of date, the place was thesame, and the mindset is stiill there. Pilate again looks compromised - prevaricating and wavering. Next to him the United Nations Security Council looks like a lion. And Jesus is up there dispensing advice with a composure that seems, well, supernatural, considering the beasting he received at the hands of legionairres. But here is where Mel has gotten sly and appeased those who has said his film is "Anti-Semitic". He has CUT OUT the staement but the Jews that said "We will bear responsibility - let his death fall on us and our chilren" etc or words to that effect. Obviously he has made concession to the masses and compromised the purity of his arty. No wonder Pontius Pilate receives such a sympathetic portrayal - this is the man whom Mel must have based himself on.

Ultimately Jesus get sentenced to death and is set to drag his whopping great cross up out of the city. In another concession to tradition, Jesus carries the whole cross, and the thieves just carry the crossbar. No wonder he keeps falling down on the way. And he is still being beaten. He ios being whacked so badly at one point that a Centurion says to the Other Ranks, "Give the guy an hand". I think it would be more like"Get this guy up and nailed quick smart - his sentence is crucifixion, not beating to death, and if you don't hurry up you''ll be nailed to the pole next to him". Remember, these are the very guys who would burn a soldier in his uniform if he slept on guard duty, and would kill one in ten if they had a bad day at the office and showed cowardice on the battlefield.


Enter Simon of Cyrene. Big guy, strong muscles, carries cross. Makes a speech "I am innocent - this other guy is guilty". Is he worried about a clerical error at the end of the line, perhaps, where the two are mixed up? Bloodied man, 95% beaten up, go free. Local citizen helper, dressed in smart casuals - lie down and get nailed. No chance - these Romans have just flogged one guy to death - why are they waiting while some other fella makes up his mind. Imagine what the Romans would have actually said, "That's defiance to the lawful occupiers of Palestine, sir. I'm afraid we are going to have to take you into custody and sort this out in the dungeon in between games of dominoes and betting on the cockroaches". And yet the soldiers put up with it again. Siom declares that they are beating up Jesus too much and he will NOT carry that cross A STEP FURTHER, thank you very much. The Romans back up, and the whole sorry cavalcade gets going again.

However, this does provide the opportunity for another Catholic tradition to make an appearance. Along comes Veronica with the obligatory white hand towel and takes a face print of JC's bloody face - a picture perfect imprint is taken, to be spirited away in the archives. The miraculous flannel only appears again in the Middle Ages in some obscure Monastery in a debt-ridden European backwater, on display at the back of the nave with a small fee for admission. Veronica offers Jesus a swig but this is knocled away by the evr vigilant Romans. The sight of he cup broughto mind the Holy Grail. With so many other traditions emerging from the woodwork, surely this "Holy Grail" of extra-biblical stories would make an appearance. Where was Joseph of Aramathea? When would he appear? What would be done with the blood of Christ caught in the cup? Sadly this was not to be - perhaps because any Jews of note were obviously baddies, and we can't go around confusing the audience with subleties and niceties like real life, can we Mel?

Just as an aside, poor old JC is flaking over about evry third camer a ngle cgane, and so he hits the dirt hard,, and oftem. Down for the count, I said to myslef in the cineman. Surely he is unconscious. But no, he drags himslef back up, time after time, like and old boxer intent on standing up to save his pride all the while knowing he is beaten. The funny thing about it is, just about every time he gets up, Jesus is not dirty! No dust or rocks anywhere! Strange! During these falls, the film neatly goes into flashback to tell a part of Jesus life like a sermon organised around the props of the cricifixtion rather than the heart of the message, like so:"Jesus fell, and saw a Roman sandle. This sandle reminds me of the time when Jesus was also wearing sandles etc etc." Oh yes, cutting to flashback also gives the filmakers time to reapply more gore so when we make the cut back to him, he's bloodier than ever. If that we me, I would definately make an effort to stop having those reveries.

Fianlly he's crucified - but the Romans have got it wrong. I snigger when Jesus says, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do", because those Romans are obviously incompetent! Like dodgy tradesmen, they just can't seem to get it right, and make at least two mistakes in the actual crucifxion. When they flip the cross over I almost laugh out loud. Now it is like Monty Python. How much punishment can this guy take? And don't say his divine nature is sustaining him until he chooses to shuffle off his mortal coil. Jesus agonies were inflicted on his very human body. To sustain a destroyed body with an inspiration of divine Spirit like a walking corpse or zombie is just not right.

And the crucifixion itself is another concession to tradition. What about Destot's space, where you get nailed through the wrists and you can actually hang there unaided by ropes? The Romans' got crucifixion from the Germans, and they are not going to nail anyone to a pine tree and have them fall down again. Test have done on corpses to prove that's how cricifixion was doen - bodies have been unearthed with marks in the right spot. But I suppose you have to nail Him through the hands, because that's what it says - even though it could mean his wrists. I'm no anatomist but when Jesus finally dies, and he gets poked with a spear, blood and water come SPRAYING out under PRESSURE is a big JET. Not "flowed from his side". This was weird. I definately didn't see that one coming, and neither did the Roanm soldier underneath, who seems to stand there with his mouth open and gets absolutely drenched.

OK Jesus is resurrected in the end, but how long did that scene take. What was the point of it all? I really couldn't see myseklf seeing this film again. Yes, it gets people thinking about abd speaking about Jesus and Christian issues, but the film seems to be more trouble than it's worth. I remeber hearing someone say - it's a film about some guys that beat some other guy up. And that about sums it up for me too. Divorced from any significant spiritual refernt, and with few sympathetic charaters, an over emphasis on gore to the point of the ridiculous, the film fails both as a beacon of religious insipration and as the story of a man's life / death. Like the death of Jesus as portrayed it the film, it seems to be a waste.

SECOND AMONG SEQUELS I thought of "The League of Extraordinary X-Men in Black" too late to include it on the earlier sequels list below. And also, it seems, too late to get in before Hollywood actually filmed it. Trailer looks all right, though.