News and current affairs
Four media stories published yesterday, not placed together, but maybe I’m not the only one to see the link. State government wants 2.2 billion dollars from the Feds to widen the Western Ring Road. People keep buying cars, despite high oil prices. With governments (particularly the Feds) pouring billions into roads and spending a fraction ... [More]
I’m relatively used to seeing my name in the newspaper, but most of the time I know it’s coming (like this morning) and I know it’s going to be in a particular context. So when my Google News RSS Feed (surely a sign of a healthy ego) showed up Virginia Haussegger’s article yesterday, I looked ... [More]
“DANIEL Bowen you are so dumped. We are like so over. I’m not even going to send you a text or an email. You can just work it out for yourself. You’re finished.” — Virginia Haussegger in The Canberra Times. No, really. Go read it. My thoughts later. My thoughts here.
The memorial service for the victims of the Kerang disaster was this afternoon. One can only hope that it provided some solace to their friends and family. Life for the rest of us goes on. It’s been interesting to read the thoughts of some of those close to the scene. Katrina, a Kerang local writes ... [More]
So, John Laws is retiring. I liked Matthew Ricketson’s report, which talked about “a conga line of” praising politicians — surely referencing Mark Latham’s “conga line of suckholes”. Lawsy might air on 71 radio stations around the country, but that doesn’t include any in Melbourne. I’d like to think we’re a bit more cynical (particularly ... [More]
A shooting yesterday morning in the city (a few blocks from where I work) left one dead and two injured. Quite an unusual event, which had police and media swarming over the area. A Channel 10 cameraman I spoke to said it was pandemonium in their newsroom. (But no, despite what you might have read, ... [More]
Wanted fugitive Tony Mokbel got busted in Greece last week. Did you see his fake driver’s licence in the newspaper? Take a look. A licence supposedly for NSW has a VicRoads logo on it. That’s sloppy, that’s what it is. How and why would you fake an ID that was so obviously flawed, such that ... [More]
In my years of blogging, I have so far managed to avoid mentioning Paris Hilton. Because up until now, I’d considered her to be nothing more than a waste of oxygen and newsprint. Seriously, I’d hoped that her incarceration would mean she’d be out of the news for a few weeks. I should have known ... [More]
Winter has arrived. The heating’s back in use, and I’ve started wearing jackets to work again, after some time of managing to avoid it. (Normally if the forecast high is at 20 degrees or higher, it’s not worth taking a jacket, since I only end up sweating on the walk from the station, and at ... [More]
David Hicks may be coming home, but Hew Griffiths has been extradited to the USA on charges of copyright infringement. He allegedly cracked software and distributed it for free — with the US-based copyright holders claiming it cost them A$60 million in lost revenue. In 2003, the US Department of Justice charged Griffiths with violating ... [More]
Good numbers, considering it had poured with rain a couple of hours earlier. Human sign, as seen from ABC helicopter. Channel 7 also sent a chopper. We were on the A in “Climate”, where the cross-bar thingy meets the right hand side. Shot after the sign. They reckon about 2500 people turned up in all, ... [More]
There’s not much you can say about the tragic events at Virginia Tech yesterday. Just terrible, awful stuff. But I would note this: After Australia’s Port Arthur massacre in 1996, the State and Federal governments moved to ban a large number of weapons, and tighten controls on others. Since then, there has been no mass ... [More]