Sad-damned

The Butcher of Baghdad is dead and the world, including Sydney, celebrates.

As do we:

The Lemon Drop Cocktail
45ml vodka
25ml lemon juice
10ml Cointreau
1/2 tsp sugar syrup
lemon twist for garnish
Pour the vodka, lemon juice, Cointreau and sugar syrup into a shaker with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the lemon twist.

-- Nora

I Wish I Knew The Right Words

You've got to be kidding:

THE NSW Government will allow clubs with poker machines to open in shopping centres and will not impose a ban on cash advances against credit cards for ATMs in the malls.

And just why won't gambling addicts use their credit cards? Because:

...the laws would protect people from irresponsible gambling by requiring the club and shopping complex to have separate entrances.

Just how stupid do they think we all are?

Don't answer that...

-- Nick

Criminals Responsible For Crime

Britain's Telegraph reports that massive law and order spending is not reducing crime:

Britain spends more of its national wealth on law and order than any other industrialised country yet still has a higher crime rate than most, new figures show.

Maybe it's because the cash is being spent on vital law and order operations such as:

Police camera crew keeps tabs on (fox) hunt... Two officers, leaning from a window, used a hand-held video camera to film the gathering. The meeting, like hundreds of others, passed without incident but Wiltshire police insisted that the filming was standard practice in case things got "out of hand".

...and selling useless programs like Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, of which:

47 per cent.. are breached

Labour's 'respect tsar', Louise Casey, isn't surprised at the rate at which Government's flagship crime measure is failing. She knows the reason why:

She said they were dealing with criminal groups of people. "The figures very clearly show that kids who are breaching Asbos are breaching everything else as well. "It is not the failure of the Asbo, it is the failure of getting the offending behaviour of that young person under control."

But the Asbo fails to modify the offending behaviour so, by definition, the Asbo is a failure. It's simple logic.

Oh, yeah. Labour...

-- Nick

Much Ado About Nothing New

The media continues with its hysteria generating and statistically meaningless holiday obsession:

Highway crashes boost road toll... The national holiday road toll is now 30.

...while Australian Transport Safety Bureau figures and studies reveal the truth that the only thing that changes during holiday periods is the nature of accidents and that the body count is the same as any other time of year:

Characteristics of Fatal Road Crashes During National Holiday Periods

Summary:
The study examines annual trends in road fatality numbers for Christmas and Easter holiday periods, and undertakes a comparative analysis of crash factors between holiday periods and the remainder of the year. Pronounced year to year fluctuations in the data suggest that the number of people killed in any given holiday period is significantly influenced by random events. An analysis of average number of deaths per day found that fatality rates during holiday periods were not systematically higher or lower than fatality rates at other times of the year. The study also found no evidence of any change in the involvement of primary causal factors (speeding, alcohol or fatigue). The findings are broadly consistent with the results of a similar study undertaken in 2003.

The media also ignores the fact that fatalities generally have been trending downward for years and that this Christmas-New Year's figures are actually looking good so far.

Nonetheless, their rote-like hysterics are found useful by police and politicians seeking ever more excuses to install flash for cash speed cameras that contribute little to safety - and may, in fact, create a dangerous distraction for motorists - but pour much into state coffers so they can afford the really important stuff.

-- Nick

Falling Like...

40-plus years ago when the biggest threat to western civilisation was Communism, the world's leaders took seriously the concept of the 'domino theory' which suggested that if one nation fell under its despotism, then its neighbours were at risk of infection too.

Welcome to the 21st century equivalent:

LAWYER Malik Imtiaz Sawar seems a most unlikely person to attract death threats. A small, softly spoken, friendly man, the impression he gives is above all one of consideration.

What has earned him the death threats is his appearance in court on behalf of Lina Joy, a case that has become a battleground of Malaysian political and cultural identity, and of freedom of religion.

The case highlights what some analysts believe is the Arabisation of Malaysian Islam, a dynamic that can also be seen in Indonesia. (emphasis mine)

Lina Joy was once a Muslim but has converted to Christianity. She didn't do so to make any broad point or to lead any social movement. It was entirely a private decision. But in Malaysia the state takes official notice of your race and religion.

Mark my words - it will be the Philippines and Singapore next unless there is a strong and dynamic Christian revival.

-- Nora

Sins Of Omission

In a report on Democrat Senator Joseph Biden's tilt at the US presidency, Reuters journalist Richard Cowan uses interesting language:

Mr Bush's term ends in January, 2009, and he is barred from seeking a third four-year term.

Technically, it's correct that Bush is 'barred' from a third term but failure to point out that the US Constitution limits all presidents to only two terms of office is deliberately misleading, surrupticiously hinting to those who don't know better that Bush has been specifically banned from running again.

-- Nick

Painting By Numbers

News Limited joins the feeding frenzy over the number of US troop deaths in Iraq:

THE number of American fatalities in Iraq has surpassed the death toll for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, shining the spotlight on US policy in the war-wracked country.

If two police officers were killed in a shootout with a criminal who had killed one civilian, would that be regarded as a reason not to have gone after the crim?

-- Nick

Coulda, Mighta, Coulda

The Australian newspaper is all over a quote from an Israeli Army spokesman that it's possible they shelled an ambulance. They can't resist crowing at the idea that Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was the one who was sucked in, not them:

THE Israeli army has admitted its soldiers may have fired on a Red Cross ambulance during the war in Lebanon - an incident Foreign Minister Alexander Downer claimed was a hoax that had duped a gullible Australian and international media. The claims centred on a controversial July 23 attack in southern Lebanon in which two Red Cross ambulances were destroyed, either by artillery or missiles - injuring at least six Lebanese, including one man whose leg was later amputated. Initial media reports claimed the Israeli Defence Force targeted the vehicles, firing a missile directly through the roof of one ambulance using the international Red Cross symbol as a target marker.

Journalist Mark Dodd once again reports the missile/artillery destruction of the ambulance as fact - 'ambulances were destroyed, either by artillery or missiles' - when the photographic evidence shows they quite plainly weren't.

And his report goes on to say the Israeli spokesman 'has now gone closer than ever before to admitting responsibility' but the fact is that his comments, in response to reporters' questions, don't do any such thing:

"We (IDF) certainly do not target ambulances but in a combat zone, we cannot always co-ordinate their safety," Captain Benjamin Rutland said. "It (the ambulance) could have been struck by our mortar or artillery. There was (Israeli army) shelling in the vicinity of the ambulance, but we do not have UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) footage and we don't have access to the ambulance so we cannot tell for sure."

Caught out swallowing Hezbollah propaganda and manipulation hook, line and sinker, the mainstream media will go to any lengths to suggest they're not the gullible ones - or, worse, that they let their anti-Israeli biases blind them to the absolutely bleeding obvious lies of terrorists.

-- Nick

Note: The 'photographic evidence' link above takes you to a Fox News report. The actual ambulance expose and full analysis was carried out here by zombietime but the link was down at the time of writing.

Goodbye My Darlings...

Sad to read this morning of the death of a significant entertainer.

Not James Brown but a diminutive little chap called Charlie Drake.

Drake, born Charles Springall in the London borough of Elephant And Castle in 1925, stood just 5 feet, one inch tall but for two or three decades he was a relative giant of British comedy, carving out a niche as a hapless common man, best typified in his TV series The Worker (1965).

He also had an incredible talent for slapstick, performing his own stunts and paving the way for the likes of Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Such physical comedy was not without its risks, however:

Filming of the Charlie Drake Show by the BBC was cut short, however, by a serious accident that occurred in 1961, during a live transmission. Drake had arranged for a bookcase to be set up in such a way that it would fall apart during a slapstick sketch in which he was pulled through it. It was later discovered that an over-enthusiastic workman had "mended" the bookcase before the broadcast. The actors working with him, unaware of what had happened, proceeded with the rest of the sketch which required that they pick him up and throw him through an open window. Drake fractured his skull and was unconscious for three days. It was two years before he returned to the screen.

A London Telegraph obit adds:

During his career he broke several ribs and fingers; his right leg and left arm; and he cracked most of the bones in his neck and skull.

But Drake's manager for 37 years, Laurie Mansfield, called him:

"...perhaps the last of the great slapstick comedians, who combined both verbal humour with knockabout comedy. His timing was acknowledged by everybody as being the very very best..."

However, he also admitted Drake was a difficult man to work with:

"He was probably the most stubborn man I ever met. He knew what he wanted and would not accept compromise on getting what he wanted."

It led to Drake having run-ins with Actors Equity in the UK , causing a protracted dispute that cost him 100,000 pounds, and dimmed his rising star in the US when he:

...walked out of America's Ed Sullivan Show and never worked in the country again, because producers would not allow him to do a (slapstick) routine the way he wanted...

Drake, who also released a string of comedy records including the gloriously (now) politically incorrect My Boomerang Won't Come Back, switched from comedy to straight acting later in his career and retired in 1995 following a stroke. He passed away Christmas Eve.

Drake's co-star in The Worker was later Benny Hill Show sidekick Henry McGee who also died this year.

At this rate, we'll soon be out of comedians who could make people laugh with a look, a catchphrase (Drake's was a cheeky 'Hello my darlings!') or just plain genuinely funny writing - and not a single four-letter word within earshot.

Thanks Charlie, it was nice knowing you.

-- Nick

Like Father...

Terry Hicks, father of Gitmo terror suspect David Hicks, is a lot like his son - he wants to overturn the Australian government:

... planning a major advertising campaign targeting key Liberal-held seats in the lead-up to next year's federal election. Terry Hicks has been told his campaign - which would focus on the Howard Government's human rights record - could influence 3 per cent of voters at the next election.

At least he wishes to do it by democratic means. However, Mr Hicks may also be as dangerously naive as his son:

...he told The Advertiser there were a number of financial backers who would support the campaign. "It's quite incredible the amount of people out there that all of a sudden if you want to do something say 'don't worry about finances we will look after that'," Mr Hicks... said. "There's people out there who are concerned and are prepared to help you."

Yes, they range from the pink Greens and red Socialist Alliance to al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, Poppa Hicks sobs:

... Christmas was one of the hardest days of the year, exacerbated this year by a decision by David not to accept a phone call from him less than a week ago... Mr Hicks hoped David was fed turkey for Christmas Day and treated well - even if it was for just one day this year.

Your son converted to Islam, dickhead. What's Christmas?

-- Nick

Religion Of What?

Sunni Muslims in Mosul have decided they want their Christian neighbours out:

"A letter was delivered to my door with two bullets placed on top of it," said Mr Fadi, 32, standing watchfully in the neat garden of his two-storey villa. "It said: 'Leave, crusaders, or we will cut your heads off.' They want us to go from Mosul completely."

Yet these Christians were practising their religion in the area more than half a millenium before Islam was even founded.

Crusaders?

-- Nick

If Not This, Then...

The Australian headlines it (asininely):

A short life that ended in a wheelie bin

Make that short, nasty and brutal. And it can be educed from the words of the victim herself:

My name is stacey... I love me alochol...

Before she was beaten to death with a brick and her body dumped in a bin by two other teenage girls, Stacey Mitchell revealed on MySpace a life already doomed to waste. Boozing hard at 16 - "i'm a party gurl", as she put it - her future was dim under any circumstances.

Detective Inspector Jeff Ellis said:

... he was shocked by the Lathlain killing. "It's surprising. It's not common for women to carry out such acts. Statistically speaking, one would not expect a woman to be the perpetrator of such a crime," he said.

Where the heck have you been the past few years, DI Ellis?

Neighbours had already learned to how to cope with the loud, violent noise that regularly emanated from the Perth death house and it wasn't to call the cops:

"My husband and I bought a home theatre system so we could turn it up loud and not hear them," she said.

-- Nick

Sticks And Stones

Just because a word is banned, it doesn't make the reality go away:

Saparmurat Niyazov, the Turkmen dictator whose cruel eccentricities raised him high in the pantheon of history's most bizarre megalomaniacs, died of a heart attack yesterday aged 66...

...In response to an outbreak of bubonic plague in 2004, Mr Niyazov banned the word "plague" and outlawed all infectious diseases. Hundreds died.

And some people still support political correctness.

-- Nora

Not Enough Value Placed On Human Life

The father of a woman shot by a Jordanian Muslim terrorist finds it sad that the killer is to be put down:

"I'm sad really that these things happen in the Middle East ... it's terrible really." (he said)

But then it wasn't his daughter who died. It was a travelling companion:

Ashlea was shot in the hip while her British friend Christopher Stokes was shot dead when a lone gunman opened fire at Amman's famed Roman amphitheatre in September. The gunman, Nabeel Ahmed Issa al-Jaourah, shouted "Allahu akbar", or God is great, during the attack in the Jordanian capital. Four other western tourists and a Jordanian tourist police officer were also wounded. Jordan's military State Security Court yesterday found al-Jaourah guilty of a terrorist attack and said his "hideous crime" deserved death.

Deserved indeed.

-- Nick

No Brainer

The Mental Health Council of Australia blows away some of the myths about cannabis use in a damning report that finds:

...clear evidence that greater and earlier use of cannabis leads to an increased risk of health and psychosocial problems including mental illness... Frequent (greater than weekly) and early cannabis use is associated with risk for later dependence and a variety of other adverse outcomes such as poor school performance, early school leaving, unemployment and the use of other illicit drugs. A number of studies have found that the risk of psychosis and other adverse mental health outcomes is most marked for those who begin using cannabis at an early age.

The report also deals with issues relating to modern cultivation techniques that increase health risk levels, including the use of toxic pesticides by growers.

-- Nick

Too Much Too Young

Senior Victorian paramedic Alan Eade is at the pointy end of dealing with the results of kids and alcohol:

Ambulance officers warn that youth boozing is at epidemic proportions. A senior paramedic said alcohol-related violence was skyrocketing and the number of children being seen for alcohol poisoning was on the rise... Some cases involved children as young as 12 and 13 drinking enough alcohol to black out or choke on their vomit.

But no matter how much reality he's exposed to on the job, he might still be living in the '50s when it comes to where under-18s are getting it from:

"The alcohol is not from licensed premises, but more likely stolen from their parents' bar fridge. They don't understand how dangerous it can be and that alcohol is a poison," he said.

Stolen from their parents' bar fridge?

Tales of the recent Schoolies 'Festival' on the Gold Coast brought the following admission from Queensland Police:

Supt Keogh said (the) schoolies themselves had been drunker than ever. He said the levels of intoxication in some cases have been extreme and criticised parents for supplying their children with high-alcohol drinks.

"The supply of alcohol by parents to their children perhaps needs a bit of a rethink," he said. "They need to look at the ramifications of the kids consuming alcohol to excess."

Supt Keogh said the practice had become commonplace in recent years and, as a result, more alcohol was now being consumed by school leavers. Queensland school students graduate younger than those in other states, and the majority celebrating schoolies week are not 18 and able to purchase alcohol for themselves.

Last week, police were surprised to learn parents had also been restocking schoolies' fridges mid-week.

"Disturbingly, it's high-level alcohol -- its not low-level alcohol drinks," Supt Keogh said.

The traditional picture of young problem drinkers identifies:

- poor parental supervision and discipline
- truancy from school
- disadvantaged neighbourhood
- early involvement in problem behaviour

However, it appears the picture is quickly being revised.

The kids at Schoolies suffer few of these deprivations. In fact, their alcohol problem arises not from a lack but a surfeit of parental indulgence.

It's a problem we'll all pay for as an entire generation of violence and accident-prone, sexually infected, only vaguely employable alcoholics comes through.

-- Nick

Be Verwy, Verwy Quiet...

Best song of the year (and we don't even like metal or rap).

Oh... explicit language warning.

-- Nick

Mean, Ain't I?

A BRITISH government minister:

... indicated overnight she wanted to see men who pay for sex criminalised...

That should put half the men in Britain, 90 per cent of whom have never visited a prostitute, behind bars.

-- Nick

My Thyroid Made Me Do It

Federal magistrate Jennifer Rimmer has quit after being exposed as a plagiarist.

In a scandal that rocked the Federal Magistrates Court, The Courier-Mail revealed in March that Ms Rimmer had copied significant parts of three separate judgments without attribution.
At the time Ms Rimmer blamed her plagiarism on a thyroid condition and overwork.

And here I thought it was her incompetancy.

-- Nora

Grip Needed

Five years after their daughter's accidental death:

THE parents of a teenager who died after her hair became caught in a spa pump are bitterly disappointed a coroner has ruled that no one should be charged over the tragedy...

Why?

Since when has revenge - 'someone's got to pay for this' - been an appropriate form of closure? The lead excuse given in these types of tragic circumstances is generally 'to make sure this doesn't happen again'. And the coroner has tried to achieve that:

...deputy Queensland coroner Ray Rinaudo... did make a series of recommendations to try to prevent a repeat of the accident. His recommendations include that all public spa operators install an emergency stop button and alarm, erect signage warnings and ensure children are supervised at all times.

The coroner's court is the most liberal in the land, often creating headaches for the Director of Public Prosecutions whose office has to be much more conservative and realistic about the chances of sustaining charges.

With even the coroner's court finding no reason to charge anyone in 13-year-old Amanda Boyce's death, would her parents really feel any better if someone went to jail?

One doubts it.

-- Nick

Would You Like Stripes With That?

Great news:

AUSTRALIANS bought a record number of V8-engined cars last month...

I love the sound of Holden's V8s and the new Commodore is aggressively styled to match so the results for GMH are not surprising.

Meanwhile, even better news for this Ford fan:

Ford Performance Vehicles, the majority of which are powered by V8 engines... smashed its all-time annual sales record in November, with a month left to set a new mark.

All those lovely V8s running around out there. It just warms my heart to know how it annoys the greenies.

-- Nick

Crime Rate Plunges

With a serial killer on the loose and five 'working girls' found dead in 10 days in the English town of Ipswich:

Police and local drug workers are paying prostitutes to stay off the streets with money being provided by an unidentified charity.

Coming soon, cops buy car thieves new Mazdas to head off auto theft and retailers give stuff away to prevent shoplifting.

-- Nick

Veggie Tales

A real 'well, duh' moment in a British study of people aged 30 who were IQ tested at 10:

The findings, published online by the British Medical Journal, were consistent with other studies showing people who are more intelligent eat a healthier diet and exercise more.

...and proof that intelligence doesn't necessarily equate with good sense:

For each 15-point rise in IQ scores, the likelihood of being a vegetarian rose by 38 per cent.

Meanwhile, The Australian's headline editorialises:

Smarter children give up meat

Yeah, right. I've never met a Mensa member who wasn't a prat nor a vegetarian who wasn't sickly.

-- Nick

90 Degree Turn Of Events

Lots to read between the lines in this tale of tragedy:

In a bizarre sequence of events yesterday, five-month-old Leonardo Legrand died after his pram rolled into Adelaide's River Torrens, where he lay undetected for up to 25 minutes. His distraught mother – model and triathlete Kerry Lucas – had turned her back on Leonardo's pram as she took a mobile phone call about 8.45am. She had been jogging along a path about 3m from the river in inner-suburban Gilberton.

Who stops to take a call on a level path and turns a pram 90 degrees to park it on a slope pointing at a river?

Just asking.

-- Nick

UPDATE: Police investigators have cleared the mother.

Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing

Once again the British and the French have come out to tell all sane and sensible people what they already know - The Princess of Wales died in a car accident in 1997, and not murdered in some JFK-esque elaborate conspiracy theory.

Still sad, mad, Mohammed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods, continues his delusion, offering this mean piece of 'evidence':

Mr Fayed also authorised an exclusive jeweller to release a video which it said showed Dodi picking up an engagement ring for Diana, just hours before both died in the car crash.

The jewellery company Repossi said it was making the images available after receiving authorisation from Mohammed Al-Fayed.

The washed-out, black-and-white video, which was timestamped August 30, 1997, showed a man resembling Dodi Fayed entering Repossi's upscale Place Vendome boutique in central Paris, which neighbours the Ritz Hotel owned by Mohammed Al-Fayed.

The man stayed a total of seven minutes. During that time he can be seen examining items of jewellery pulled out of a case and placed on a table. At the end of his visit, he seems to pick something up off a table and then leaves.

Seven minutes to pick out an engagement ring?

Seven minutes to pick out a rock to eclipse her iconic sapphire and diamond ring?

Any woman will tell you that if her fiance was so perfunctory in his selection, it wouldn't bode well for the longevity of the relationship.

Let them rest in peace Al-Fayed, the world's moved on and you should too.

-- Nora

At least He Didn't Mention The War

The Queensland Cancer Fund and Queensland Health have:

...dubbed pop star Robbie Williams a "very bad boy" for smoking onstage during one of his sell-out Brisbane concerts... "It sends the wrong message to kids." (said a spokesman for Health Minister Stephen Robertson)

No mention of his repeated use of a four-letter word that is a euphemism for copulation. Presumably it's ok to swear like that in front of kids these days and the message they receive from it is just fine and dandy.

Admittedly, I frequently use the word use the word myself but only in selected adult company.

It's all about context, something passing court jesters like Williams - and The Queensland Cancer Fund and Queensland Health - don't understand.

-- Nick

Public Enterprise

Whoever said public servants weren't an enterprising bunch?

A GROUP of senior RailCorp managers in New South Wales - including one who ran a prostitution service from Central Station headquarters - have been sacked for sexual harassment, pornography and other offences after a mammoth internal investigation.

One of the men, project officer Steven Slade, also used the office to run a Gosford escort agency - using a RailCorp fax machine to place advertisements for the service in the local paper.

It reminds one of the Canberran public servants quite a few years ago who saw a business opportunity in the arrival of the then new colour photocopier.

By the time they were discovered misusing the machines after hours, they'd built a $40,000 business supplying videotape case slicks to local pornographic film distributors.

-- Nick

Find That Sub And Sack Him!

The media cuts some slack for former court jester turned politician Peter Garrett, stumping for support with Labor's great white hope, Kevin Rudd, in Queensland:

Despite a minor stumble when he was caught out not knowing about a controversial dam proposal, it was a polished performance from the former rock star, who appeared at home on the campaign trail.

... wrote journalist Maria Hawthorne but the on-line editor who wrote the headline must be a closet rightie.

He or she picked that one paragraph from 21 others talking mainly about uranium mining and penned the head:

Garrett has no dam clue

-- Nick

No Need To Explain

You don't have to be a fan of Pauline Hanson to see there's a difference in the ways the media elite treat her and others:

PAULINE Hanson is furious with immigration policy again - but this time she's on the outside looking in. The former One Nation leader is battling US red tape as she seeks to become a refugee from the hot Australian Christmas.

In other words, writes Sunday Mail pisspot Edmund Burke, ha, ha, bitch, how's it feel to be on the receiving end, huh? How's it feel to be a 'refugee'?

It must feel very different for Hanson compared with, say, Russell Crowe or Cornelia Rau.

What's the comparison?

Well, as Burke notes, Hanson was 'jailed in 2003 for electoral fraud and spent 73 days in prison before her conviction was overturned on 6 November, 2006'. The reaction of the Australian media was disappointment that she 'got away with it'.

Russell Crowe, a violent tempered actor, threw a phone at a hotel clerk but his celebrity status when threatened with being unable to work in the US as a result garnered him media sympathy and acrimony towards the US.

Cornelia Rau was held in immigration detention for 10 months because she was a schizophrenic Jane Doe with no documentation and, to all appearances, potentially an illegal alien. The reaction of the media was to vilify the authorities for apparently being unable to read minds. And if Rau was being denied entry to the US while they cleared up her immigration status in light of a flag on her record, the media would be hitting the roof.

Hanson's real crime, of course, is being 'far right' in her views (though perhaps she is less far to the right than, say, the likes of media commentator and Communist sympathiser Phillip Adams is to the left) and also having been successful, for a time, in the Australian political sphere despite the best efforts of the media to brand her undesirable.

Burke, of course, trots out the standard media description of Hanson as:

the former fish shop owner

... which is intended as a put-down rather than necessary detail.

So much for solidarity with the workers.

-- Nick

Disproportionate Response

Piers Akerman calls it as he sees it:

The hateful response to a perfectly acceptable young Australian woman enjoying herself, while the lack of any measurable response to a disgusting act of desecration perpetrated upon a holy book other than the Koran, illustrates the very real problems that exist for young Muslims keen to become members of the broader Australian community first and subservient to religious extremists second.

Though he assumes that young Muslims are keen to become members of the 'broader Australian community'.

Meanwhile, one such keen young Muslim reinvents himself as the victim:

He said he hadn't delivered the court-ordered apology to RSL members because he was intimidated: 'I would have been speechless, that many people and that much anger, what am I to say? I wouldn't know what they expected."

...in an:

EXCLUSIVE by Justin Vallejo

...that seems to indicate Mr Vallejo has yet to be introduced to the concept of kitman:

His genuine regret, remorse, and willingness to make amends is a remarkable turn-around for a youth who became public enemy No.1 for burning the Australian flag at Brighton-le-Sands RSL...

Journalists! They're so cute when they try to be all sophisticated and they're really so naive.

-- Nick

Hollywood Babylon

More poor behaviour from court jesters:

DANNY DeVito was forced to apologise to top US anchorwoman Barbara Walters (for making comments on a tv show)... about how he and his wife had "utilised" a White House bedroom and... comments about the President that had to be bleeped out twice... The actor said he had been out partying all night with George Clooney...

The toad clown also boasted about his and wife Rhea Perlman's stay in the White House's famous Lincoln Bedroom during Bill Clinton's presidency:

"We went in and we made it our business to really wreck the joint," he said. "I mean every place in that bedroom was ..."

Prompted by co-host Rosie O'Donnell, who laughed throughout his appearance, he finished the sentence: "utilised."

Devito, Clooney and O'Donnell. Typical Hollywood Democrats.

DeVito's publicist, Stan Rosenfeld, told ABC News he had apologised to Walters.

Actually, he owes an apology to the people of the United States for boasting about using the Lincoln Room like a suite in some downtown hotel.

-- Nick

All the Ws

First a Wiggle, now King Wally.

If we were Gough and Margaret Whitlam we wouldn't start reading any long books.

-- Nick and Nora