News and current affairs
I thought the police were having issues with high petrol bills. Apparently not, as they’re going to patrol nightspots in Hummers. Maybe instead they should have gone for Police Priuses. They’d be distinctive. Did you know that a Prius actually has more legroom than a Hummer H3? Seriously, inspired by a comment from Tony H, ... [More]
Have you seen the pictures of the Large Hadron Collider to be switched on today? Wow. It just looks so sci-fi, doesn’t it. I don’t think it’ll destroy the world, but it almost looks capable of it. (It wasn’t invented by Osterhagen, was it? Oh, whoops — spoilers!) PS. The kids are looking on the ... [More]
When you see the Pope (or any world leader) speaking, at least you know the words are coming out of his own mouth, even if he may not have written it all himself. I do wonder though how much of a role the Pope had in sending the papal SMSs last week. Tue 15 July ... [More]
Here’s how I’d work carbon trading if I were appointed Grand Emperor of the World, based on my ten minute assessment of the situation. I’d set an emissions cap on the world, starting in say 2010, based on the total emissions output of the world as of 2009. Each country gets a share of this, ... [More]
If you were wondering (because I was), about the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae names that are way too cutesy to be companies managing $6 trillion in funds… turns out they are actually the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association respectively. There’s also: Farmer Mac (the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation) ... [More]
I genuinely hope Graham Polak makes a full recovery, but I can’t help noting that you can’t get much more Melbourne than this newspaper headline: Tigers in shock after AFL star hit by tram As for this one, it sounds like something from that Stan/Loretta scene from The Life Of Brian, about The Right To ... [More]
Jon Faine, when he’s in the studio, is like an orchestra conductor. You don’t obviously see it when listening to the radio, but he waves his arms around to silently signal to his producer to keep the caller on-air, or mute them. It must be an effort to keep talking informatively, encourage the callers’ thoughts ... [More]
I’m not really familiar with the work of Bill Henson. I’m more familiar with Jim Henson. But I do know this: Nudity is not necessarily sexuality. Context is critical. Which is why Mal Day’s comments on Lateline were so stupid: If I was to take those – take similar photos and display ’em in any ... [More]
Having never been a clubbing-type disco person, I don’t pretend to know enough about the CBD club 2am lockout to know if it’ll work in reducing alcohol abuse and street violence. But I do know that protesters seem to be making out that it means every night at 2am, people will be kicked out onto ... [More]
Sometimes I’m up late. Sometimes it’s close to midnight. And sometimes, I decide to stay up just that little bit longer, to midnight, to check tomorrow’s newspaper. Because The Age usually pushes its new stories onto their web site at midnight. The front page may not be updated, but the National news page is. I ... [More]
You wouldn’t read my blog for any kind of comprehensive analysis of course, but here are my initial impressions: Means tested baby bonus for incomes over $150K; extra tax on cars more than $57K? Excellent! Dunno why some are complaining about hitting the rich. The rich can afford it. Welfare should be reserved for those ... [More]
Last week I gave $100 to my old school’s building fund. I figure I can give at least double that to Burma cyclone disaster relief. Donations in Australia can be made through: Care Australia Red Cross Save The Children Caritas There’s probably others; these are the first four I found. For those overseas, Google has ... [More]
It was easy to find a taxi this morning in the city, but more difficult to find a driver — or at least one who would take you anywhere. Taxi drivers were protesting about driver safety, blocking the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Quite a few empty cabs were parked nearby. Despite claims of ... [More]
Tomorrow is ANZAC Day. Obviously up until now I haven’t really been paying attention, because this week I’ve read things I didn’t know about it until now: Four days before ANZAC Day 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, was shot down over France, probably by Australian anti-aircraft gunners. (Thanks Jayne) On ANZAC Day ... [More]
One of those frantic days. E Day — the Eddington report came out. Age story. In summary: do we really want to blow $20 billion on tunnels, when one (the road tunnel) appears to serve no purpose (hardly anybody drives NE to W) and the other (the rail tunnel) tries to solve a capacity problem ... [More]
Proposal for a Yarra car ferry. Google Australia introduces predictive web searching, which can show you how the Web will look tomorrow. Google USA and Virgin have combined to form Virgle: sending a human colony to Mars. Andrew Bolt to run for parliament in Peter Costello’s seat. A bunch of stories: SCG stand to be ... [More]