He Leads With His Left

Prime Minister John Howard makes a 'blistering' personal attack on Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd and Labor frontbencher Bob McMullan comments:

"I haven't seen the Prime Minister as angry and out of control like that for 20 years," he said. "He's clearly feeling a bit desperate and under pressure."

Perhaps it's because Howard can see the country is about to be hijacked by a two-faced con artist:

Mr Howard said Mr Rudd was "full of himself" and had "the biggest glass jaw in Australian politics".

He said Mr Rudd made life "hell" for journalists who reported what was true.

Joining Mr Howard in the debate was Treasurer Peter Costello, who said Mr Rudd was a man who did not tell the truth, used crude language and held no strong convictions.

"We know what he's like when he's speaking in private," Mr Costello said. "He's not the person that he would have you believe."

Indeed.

One of the greatest insights into Rudd in recent days was buried deep with comments on a Courier-Mail on-line story about Rudd's wife's WorkDirections company ripping off its workers under Union-favoured common law contracts:

Posted by Mark L of Brisbane on Fri 25 May 07 at 09:15am

There is something curious about the fact, that Work Directions became so successful, so quickly.

In the early 1990’s, it sprung from nowhere to become a mega business. I bet there are teams of journalists, digging and probing at the moment, to see if her husband Kevvie gave it a little push along. Remember that, Kevvie was Wayne Goss’s Chief of Staff and later Director General Office of Cabinet.

If you are one of those journalists digging and probing, you can stop right now. You don’t have to go past the Public Service culture which existed post Fitzgerald in the 1990’s.

Remember the “Gulag”? I am sure there are many public servants who remember what it was all about. It was all about compliance with the wishes of the heirarchy in control. Remember Goss was virtually a one man band, who kept a tight control over his Ministers.

Under the direction of individuals, such as Peter Coaldrake, Glynn Davis and Kevin Rudd public servants knew what was expected. They didn’t have to be asked. They were well aware of the consequences of non-compliance.

Remember also that Work Directions received a good portion of its business from Workers’ Compensation.

Now do you realize, why the business became so successful so quickly.

The bottom line is, that Kevvie wouldn’t know what a conflict of interest was, in the slightest.

News.com.au reports Labor is now riding a 20 year popularity high and set to take government.

Astounding that the Australian people, enjoying full employment and one of the strongest economies in the world, should appear about to commit mass suicide, having been charmed by a snake and often with no more consided a motive than feeling like a change.

Oh, you'll get a change, all right.

-- Nick

Let It Fall

Look!

What's that up in the sky?

Is it a bird?

A plane?

No, it's rain!

Hooray!

Winter Skyy
1 1/2 oz SKYY Orange vodka
1/2 oz blue curaçao
1 oz Champagne
blue maraschino cherry for garnish
Pour the vodka and blue curaçao into a mixing glass with ice. Stir well. Strain into a Champagne glass. Top with the Champagne. Garnish with a blue maraschino cherry.

-- Nora

...But Insult A Dyke And She'll Kick Your Teeth In

A Melbourne gay bar has won the right to discriminate against heterosexuals:

The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel applied to ban straight men and women to try to prevent "sexually based insults and violence" towards its gay patrons.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week granted the pub an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act, effectively prohibiting entry to non-homosexuals.

Nasty straight people, being mean to the people of other sexual orientations.

Only it wasn't just the straight people. VCAT deputy president Cate McKenzie said:

"Sometimes heterosexual groups and lesbian groups insult and deride and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons." (Emphasis added)

Well, laugh out loud.

One suspects McKenzie's findings will be as legally unsupportable as they are morally so:

(She) said if heterosexual men and women came into the venue in large groups, their number might be enough to swamp the gay male patrons. "This would undermine or destroy the atmosphere which the company wishes to create."

Which is the argument used by traditional men's clubs about women members and which is usually not supported by the likes of VCAT.

McKenzie's homofavouritism opens a window of opportunity for lots of companies to argue exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act. Better, however, that we look up the word 'equal'.

-- Nick

Too Obvious

ST JOHN Ambulance:

... has begun a national push for all learner drivers to undergo first-aid training to cut roadside fatalities.

So they can patch up their passengers after a crash?

Why not just train the poor little bastards to drive better?

-- Nick

Isn't It Always?

Muslims won't tip off the authorities about terrorist plots and it's all our fault:

MUSLIMS are refusing to give national security authorities counter-terrorism tip-offs, fearing they may implicate themselves or be labelled traitors by fellow community members. Muslim leaders yesterday warned the Howard Government's hard line on Islamic extremists was largely to blame...

Perhaps they need to find themselves a new community if tipping off the cops about plots to kill your 'fellow' Australians is seen as treason.

-- Nick

Walk And Chew Gum

Labor's election campaigners in the media continue their advertising spending beat-up. Journalist Samantha Maiden breathlessly reports a recent spending frenzy:

NEW figures have revealed John Howard is on target to spend $2 billion on taxpayer-funded advertising by the time Australians vote later this year.

While the total spend is over the past decade, the Government has spent nearly a quarter of that amount, $555 million, in the past two years.

And two years out of a decade would be what, Einstein?

That's right - nearly a quarter.

And these idiots want their idiot mates running the economy. Jeez Louise...

-- Nick

Old Blighty

It's would seem that England's green and pleasant land is neither green nor pleasant, nor for the home owner, their own land.

Clive Aslet, editor-at-large of Country Life gives a bleak view of life in the UK. It's a long piece but worth reading all the way through and wonder if such plans are in the works for Australia.

One might feel differently if one believed officialdom truly had the interests of the planet at heart. But green idealism has become a fig leaf to conceal the bulging organ of revenue increase.

The London congestion charge started off, as the name implies, as a means of unjamming traffic. Like the HIPs, it is changing its spots to become a beast for savaging families, often with young children, who have the temerity to drive seven-seater cars. From 2009 they face a charge of £25.

Outside the zone, the Lib Dem Richmond upon Thames council wants the owners of such vehicles to pay whopping fees for parking outside their own home. It is a convenience that the money raised from motorists goes straight into the council coffers, for councillors to spend as they choose, thereby escaping control-freakish capping by the Treasury.

And so it is with rubbish collection. Don't tell me that councils were principally motivated by reducing greenhouse gas emissions when they halved the rate at which they emptied bins and introduced compulsory recycling schemes. They want to save money and damn the rats.

You have only to look at Southwark. It has retained the weekly bin round precisely because it will help promote sustainability. What? I see your puzzled look and furrowed brow. Weekly collection from the doorstep, as it explains on its website, will allow bin snoops to see more easily who is recycling and who isn't. "If residents are not taking part, a member of the recycling team will visit."

Presumably, there will follow the sort of knock on the door familiar to East German dissidents in the days of the Stasi. More information is being collected through microchips installed in rubbish bins - oh, and they will be fitted with a lock to prevent neighbours using a bin that isn't theirs.

Are these the reasons why England is called Blighty?

-- Nora

The Homicidal Tourist

News.com.au writes that:

CONFESSED terrorist supporter David Hicks is in good spirits...

Terrorist supporter?

In Hicks's own words:

"Every night there is an exchange of fire. I got to fire hundreds of rounds. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist can go and stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally."

It wasn't legally. It was when:

...he spent a considerable time with the Pakistani based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba. LET is one of the most vicious and murderous terrorist groups in the world. It has killed many people and has made frequent attempts to kill Australians.

Even if LET wasn't a terrorist group, Hicks would still be guilty of being a mercenary, something which is illegal in Australia and is treated the same as child sex tourism - you can be busted for it on your return to these shores.

Further, Hicks has joined:

...four separate terrorist groups - the Kosovo Liberation Army, Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Taliban and al-Qa'ida.

Terrorist supporter?

Just plain terrorist would do, if journalists lived in the real world.

-- Nick

Hardly Working

Feminists hail Labor leader Kevin Rudd for covering his own arse:

University of Sydney academic Catharine Lumby said Mr Rudd was forcing people to rethink their assumptions on the meaning of marriage... Veteran feminist Eva Cox of the Women's Electoral Lobby said ... "I think it's a refreshing change, because it just means it's a recognition that women are people in their own right, and that this will sometimes cause conflicts and cause tensions ..."

Tensions like owning a company that places its workers on disadvantageous contracts at the same time as her husband is seeking to leading the country by claiming the current leader disadvantages workers.

The feminists are on a hiding to nowhere on this one, except in their own little academic enclaves and between the tiny ears of the media. It all very reminiscent of the knots US feminists had to twist themselves into to excuse Bill Clinton for hitting on a young female intern.

-- Nick

The Best Selling Show

The last few weeks has helped retore my faith in British television production.

Nicky and I have become fans of Primeval and Life On Mars.

The first is a rollicking little sci-fi, the second is an intriguing psychological drama.

Highly recommended.

-- Nora

Justice Is A Poet

From news.com.au:

A CALIFORNIAN man who tried to kill his girlfriend by leaving her in a car parked across railway lines was himself killed when an oncoming train hurled the car into him as he fled.

His girlfriend survived.

-- Nora

Does My Carbon Footprint Look Big In This?

Since eco-something is all the rage this season, Nicky and I join the in-crowd:

-- Low flow restrictors on our taps
-- Shower together
-- Work together and therefore travel to together
-- Compost kitchen waste
-- Use grey water from showers and cooking on the garden
-- Have a drought resistant, largely native garden
-- Do the cute little 'reduce, reuse, recycle' mantra where appropriate
-- Switch off unused appliances/lights
-- Replacing incandescent globes with compact fluoros
-- Cook with fresh in-season local ingredients
-- Buy antiques and funky retro pieces instead of buying new...

Well I thought with all this green stuff I must be positively verdant.

Alas, how wrong I was.

'Tho Nicky and I live modestly, we're environmental bigfoots according to this little game from the Powerhouse Museum.

Despite our best efforts, we 'hog' 6 hectares of resources for our lifestyle when in order to save the planet we need to be consuming less than 2 hectares.

As you might gather, I was very dismayed.

:-(

'What would I need to do to save the planet?' I pondered. So I did the test again.

What if I was an 'eat like a sparrow' vegetarian who lived alone in a solar powered caravan with energy-efficient appliances, who recycled and walked everywhere?

Could that appease the great goddess Gaia?

No.

It was three hectares.

I wept.

:'-(

What does she want with us?

And then I understood.

:-/

She wants us dead.

And Gaia's worshippers are misanthropists who use the environmental cause to manifest their own self-loathing.

-- Nora

Wrong Formula

Eurocentric autocrat Bernie Ecclestone demands Melbourne hold its F1 race under lights or lose it.

"I would like to make sure we can watch (the race) in Europe and other parts of the world at a respectable time rather than having to get up at three or four in the morning."

Why not? Enthusiastic race fans on the other side of the planet have had to do that for years.

And for what? Watching a high-speed merry-go-round with the only excitement coming within the first half lap of the race? In the hopes that one might get to watch a prissy, overpreening driver having a hissy fit when he's overtaken in the only highlight of the race?

No wonder Champ Car racing is experiencing an interest throughout the world amongst those who truly enjoy motor racing.

Funnily enough, the Americans don't have a problem with watching the Surfers Paradise race which starts at midday local time.

Kurant CHAMPion
3 parts ABSOLUT KURANT
1 part Lemon Juice
2 parts Cinnamon Spiced Rhubarb Puree
2 parts Vanilla Ice Cream
Strawberry
Raspberry
Cinnamon

Blend with crushed ice and pour into a chilled rocks glass.

-- Nora

Noah's Ark Redux

The beauty of our planet is unquestioned.

We're blessed with a diverse range of plant and animal life with more species being discovered and catelogued annually.

So, if you ever wanted to know "who's who in the zoo", as it were, the answer is as close as your browser:

ALTHOUGH the scientific portrait of life on Earth has grown exquisitely detailed over the last few decades, scientists have done a far poorer job of making their discoveries known and accessible to the public.

A new project led in part by US philanthropists and researchers aims to close that gap by creating a free internet resource to catalogue and describe every one of the planet's 1.8 million species.

If the $60.43 million biodiversity effort, launched this week, goes as hoped, the Encyclopedia of Life could emerge as an authoritative version of Wikipedia for biology fans.

What a marvellous idea!

-- Nora

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me...

I've seen the future and it's much like the present - only longer.
-- Dan Quisenberry

I've always wondered what grandma got up to in the retirement village.

Now I know.



Great stuff and a serious message in there to boot.

-- Nora

Mother Load

The lives of four children have been effectively ruined by selfish homosexual interests:

A SPERM donor who helped a lesbian couple conceive two children is liable for child support under a state appellate court ruling that a legal expert believes might be the first in the US...

It gets worse.

...Jodilynn Jacob, 33, and Jennifer Lee Shultz-Jacob, 48, moved in together as a couple in 1996 and were granted a civil-union licence in Vermont in 2002.

As well as conceiving the two children with the help of Mr Frampton - a longtime friend of Ms Shultz-Jacob's - Ms Jacob also adopted her brother's two older children, now 12 and 13.

But the women's relationship fell apart and Ms Jacob and the children moved out of their Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, home in February 2006.

Oh and that's not the end of it.

A Superior Court panel last week ordered a Dauphin County judge to establish how much Carl Frampton Jr would have to pay to the birth mother of the eight-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl...

...Mr Frampton, 60, of Indiana, Pennsylvania, died suddenly of a stroke in March, leaving lawyers with different theories about how his death might affect the precedent-setting case.

-- Nora

Natural Born Killers

If killing animals for meat is 'murder', what sentence should the vegan parents receive having deliberately starved their child to death?

Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas fed the boy, named Crown Shakur, a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice, the Atlanta court heard.

The child was born in the couple's home and never taken to see a doctor.

He was dead when they took him to a hospital across the street from their flat on April 25, 2004.

He was so emaciated that doctors could count his bones through his skin.

Answer: Life.

We can only hope that it is without possibility of parole so they can't kill any more children.

-- Nora

UPDATE: Speaking of wicked child abuse:

A QUEENSLAND man responsible for the worst case of incest in South Australian legal history has begged a judge to show him mercy.

The 64-year-old, of Gympie, has admitted not only sexually assaulting his three daughters for 20 years but also providing them to his friend and cousin for sex.

The South Australian District Court has heard he started abusing his daughters in 1967, when one of the girls was six.

After decades of acts including bestiality, he moved to Queensland and started a new family.

Mercy? The man deserves the same mercy he showed his victims. None.

-- Nora

Read All About It

One doesn't know whether to laugh or just shake one's head in dismay:

THE country's major newspapers, television and radio networks have joined forces to fight back against attacks on free speech in Australia.

Even if it were true, if the media just stuck to reporting news and 1. stopped editorialising in its news pages and 2. Stopped reporting on the fatuous, the grown-ups might take them seriously.

I suspect also this is part of the death throes of the old media, as blogging and video/audio podcasting disseminates news and information faster (and often more accurately) than the MSM.

Laugh outloud quotes in the story:

“New Zealanders can be trusted with information, but for some reason we can’t.”

And why would that be? Time to start navel gazing boys.

“We understand the difference between right to privacy and the public’s right to know,” Ms Flynn said.

Really? Since when?

Dissastisfaction with the media's performance in terms of its professional standards has been long well understood. Today, thanks to technology we get to make our own choices.

-- Nora

Hooray For Equality!

University of New England’s chair of sociology Kerry Carrington said the cases highlighted a global trend about violence and young women.

“More girls are committing violent crimes,” Professor Carrington said.

“The gender gap is closing (and) it is a worrying trend.”

Teens commiting murder is not new and certainly not to be unexpected when the social mores and conventions which helped moderate behaviour in the past are being eroded.

-- Nora

One With The Lot

A pizza store owner who tackled an armed robber is being investigated by the WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne for placing people at risk:

Workplaces such as late-night food outlets, chemists and service stations needed to have an established armed hold-up procedure, with all staff trained in its use, Ms Lyhne said.

The correct procedure, if running away is not an option, is to cower, grovel and plead for ones life while handing over the contents of the till and hope not to be stabbed, shot or otherwise injured or killed.

Under investigation, eh? How long before it's illegal to resist crime?

-- Nick

Hard Time On The Rocks

It must be poetic justice month:

Paris Hilton goes to jail:

America's favorite party girl has been ordered to jail, and her stay there will be no trip to the Hilton.

A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in a Los Angeles county jail Friday for violating her probation.

Drug dealer's sleight of hand backfires:

A MAN who says he transferred the title to his house to fugitive drug trafficker and murder accused Tony Mokbel to stop his ex-wife from getting it has gone to court to stop the state from taking it instead.

Quel hoot.

-- Nora

Sands Through The Hour Glass

Blogger Tiberius, writing at A Western Heart has a few sage things to say about Nine's A Current Affair story about a woman whose daughter was abducted by her Muslim ex-husband:

Of course that begs the question of what the f**k is wrong with you women? Why the f**k are you still marrying these muslim savages and then wondering why they ‘change’ on you. Here’s a hint, you stupid molls – THEY DON”T CHANGE! That is how they really are and you are either too f**king blind to see through their bullshit act or you are too f**king stupid to understand what islam really is.

Colourful, but accurate.

Also from Egypt comes reports on the persecution of secular bloggers.

-- Nora

Captain Kid

The talk about children and increasing the world's population has made me somewhat clucky...

::Thud::

::Nick? Nicky? Wake-up dear. Asta, lick Nicky's face until he revives, good boy::

...Anyway, as I was saying: Clucky.

So, where to go for good sound child-rearing advice?

Ah, I know, the first indispensible source - Pirate Parenting!

Where else could you pick up valuable tips like:

• Ten benefits of raising a pirate

• At what age your child should be able to remove a bottle cap by taking out his glass eye and using his eye socket as an opener

• Which offense requires administering The Flying Dutchman Wedgie

• How to prevent sogging the quartermaster

• The best place to maroon your disobedient child

• How to remove chewing gum or a giant octopus from your child’s hair

• The difference between plundering and pillaging

• How to convert your minivan into a pirate schooner

• When to smack your teenager in the side of the head with an oar

That last one is bound to come in handy.

In counting down four and a bit months to International Talk Like a Pirate Day, here's a drink to warm those cockles (whatever they are)

Chocolate Pirate
1 1/2 oz Bacardi
1 oz Kahlua
1 oz milk
2 scoops chocolate ice cream
Blend ingredients in a blender until smooth. Serve in a chilled wine goblet.

-- Nora

And One For The Country

Human-hating pseudo-intellectual greenies strike again:

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

...John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

A more immediate effect with additional benefits for the rest of us could be achieved by Guillebaud killing himself.

-- Nick

Pearls Of Wisdom

A surprisingly insightful domestic review of the Blair years from, of all places, Britain's News Of The World:

He could read the public's mind like no other politician. But instead of fighting for what he knew the country wanted, he fatally sought peace at any price within his own meddlesome party. And he paid that price: in his legacy and our futures.

-- Nick

Not Just Because There's Footage

How come this:

Doaa Khalil Aswad was a member of northern Iraq's Yazidi religious sect but, according to local officials, was murdered on April 7 by her brothers and uncles after she allegedly converted to Islam.

...gets on the front page of new.com.au but this:

If they are found guilty, Mrs Sürücü's murder will be the sixth "honour killing" within Berlin's 200,000-strong Muslim community in four months.

...doesn't?

Nor this:

Humaid contends his Muslim beliefs should be a factor because he killed his wife after she hinted she was having an affair with a business associate.

or this:

Two men murdered a six-year-old girl by setting fire to her house to warn her brother off a relationship he was having...

or this:

Ayesha Baloch was dragged to a field, her brother-in-law held the 18-year-old down, her husband sat astride her legs and slit her upper lip and nostril with a knife.

or this:

Having eloped, Zena was told by relatives that she and Jack had so besmirched the family name that they were 'walking corpses'. So seriously was the threat taken that in the intervening years they have received protection from Special Branch, two new identities and have moved house no fewer than 30 times.

or this:

Ajmal Butt Aziz, 24, is accused of murdering his 20-year-old wife Khudeja because she refused to follow Islamic tradition and wear a headscarf, according to the charge sheet published by the Corriere del Ticino newspaper.

-- Nick

On Your Marx, Get Set...

What's the difference between Mohammed and Karl Marx?

No, it's not the beginning of a joke but rather a very insightful piece by author Theodore Dalrymple.

Here's a taste:

Curiously, though, Qutb’s thought has many parallels with Marxism. Where Marx has Historical Inevitability, Qutb has God‘s Law. Marx, you remember, envisages a time when the state will wither away and history will end. In Marx’s vision, political power will have dissolved, and the exploitation of man by man will have ceased, to be replaced by the mere administration of things. (How anybody of minimal intelligence could have believed such a thing beats me.) In Qutb’s vision, all political power will have dissolved, replaced by man’s spontaneous obedience to God’s law. Just as the administration of things in Marx’s utopia will not confer power on the administrators, presumably because everything will be so plentiful that no one will be tempted to appropriate more than the next man, so in Qutb’s utopia no one will have to interpret the law and gain power from doing so. God’s law will be as evident as thing will be abundant in Marx’s classless society.

-- Nora

Hue And Cry

It's straight out of an Ealing Comedy starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway:

A 13-year-old boy who lives with his gran... exposed as one of Britain's biggest internet conmen.. earned more than £250,000 ($607,000) by posing as the boss of several multinational companies selling vacuum cleaners, stationery and office supplies.

Many goods weren't sent, but he used the cash to revel in a luxury lifestyle way beyond his years: he wore designer suits, drank vintage champagne and travelled by chauffeur-driven limousine. He even employed a personal bodyguard, flew abroad on business trips and claimed he was going to buy a private jet.

A source close to the investigation said yesterday: "Despite coming from a relatively humble background, he became an outrageous snob. He claimed public transport was for commoners."

From its origins:

...after his mother died... He received a £16,000 ($38,000) inheritance, some of which he spent on crime books on the methods of successful conmen. Working from his bedroom at his grandmother's house in west London, he set up a website purporting to sell discounted plasma screen TVs.

...to its denouement in which he faces jail and goes straight:

The court was told his latest project was a genuine online lingerie store.

...the entire tale would have fit right in with the producers of such Pommie classics as Whiskey Galore and The Lavender Hill Mob.

Best of all is the now 16 year old fraudster's closing line:

He conceded the idea of buying a private jet was "a bit silly - I was only 13 at the time".

-- Nick

Dumped Hoare Goes Back To Work

If Federal Labor MP Kelly Hoare was a battered wife, she'd be the kind of woman who'd take her licks and forgive him:

...dumped to make way for ACTU secretary Greg Combet... Ms Hoare said: "I'm pretty angry."

But not angry enough to do anything about it and so in the thrall of her abusive political partner that she would encourage others to take a beating too:

...she said she would not walk away from Labor, insisting she grew up with the party and it would always be "part of my life". She also encouraged other party members in her electorate, who had been stripped of their democratic right to elect their candidate, to remain with the party. "Hopefully we won't have a large drain of local members because we need them here to fight for local government elections and state elections," she said.

Meanwhile, hypocritical Lefties were going off in comments at the announcement:

(Prime Minister) John Howard will use his backdown on WorkChoices to unleash a multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded campaign to counter the union-led advertising assault on the federal workplace laws.

They seem to think it's ok for Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Combet to spend more than $20 million of workers' union dues on an advertising campaign not so much:

...aimed at overturning WorkChoices

...as aimed at overturning the Howard government, then be rewarded with a golden parachute into a safe Labor seat.

But it's not ok in their eyes for the PM to spend workers' taxes on a campaign countering the unions' lies in scare-mongering ACTU ads that are blatant electioneering and stamped with Combet's name, thus raising his profile mightily.

Would that every candidate had such funds to draw on.

The final word must go to Labor's dumped Hoare who is, at least, able to connect the ironic dots:

She said her sacking would put financial strain on her family... "If you knew that you were doing a bad job or that you could somehow be sacked, you'd have that financial consideration in mind," Ms Hoare said.

"But, when you're doing a good job and you don't anticipate it, particularly people in the Labor Party who are campaigning against unfair dismissal to sack you ... there never has been that consideration."

-- Nick

I'd Just Take The Car Wash

A car wash in Brisbane run by former pimp and Fitzgerald Enquiry 'identity' Warren Armstrong 'offers a $55 car wash by a topless woman, and a $100 wash by a totally nude female attendant – which includes an X-rated show'.

The cops were worried about public decency but Armstrong is running the show in a closed shed and 'there had been no indication of wilful exposure, which is a criminal offence'.

However, Acting Premier Anna Bligh had more serious offences in mind and was relieved to learn:

The operation also was running on recycled water and therefore did not break current level five restrictions...

Presumably prompted by the reporter, Bligh added:

...the government fleet would not be using the car wash.

Pity really. It's a miserable existence in the Queensland Public Service.

-- Nick

Footnote: What an odd situation in present-day Queensland that two adults can arrange a commercial transaction in which she gets her gear off for his visual titillation and it's ok as long as she doesn't - ahem - spread 'em, which is the offence of 'wilful exposure', yet he can walk into a newsagency and, following a commercial transaction, obtain any number of magazines in which the aforementioned flash is taking place.

Just saying.

Home Sweet Home

There's nothing nicer than at the end of a hard day with difficult clients and even worse deadlines to relieve a bit of stress by blasting the crap out of something.

While Nick is currently working his way through his James Bond collection on the PS2, I'm awaiting the release of Tomb Raider Legend. It looks fabulous and the game play looks even better.

I've managed to find a copy of the original 1996 game but I'm struggling to finish it because of the rough graphics and the unwieldy digital controls.

Yes, I know, it's a self-indulgent post and simple an excuse to supply Neto with another cocktail recipe:

Red Raider recipe
1/2 oz triple sec
1 oz bourbon whiskey
1 oz lemon juice
1 dash grenadine syrup
Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve.

-- Nora

Off With His Head!

What a silly man is Bill Heffernan for saying that Julia Gillard shouldn't be a national leader because she is not a mother?

Has he not heard of Elizabeth I?

There may be plenty of reasons why Gillard might not make a good deputy Prime Minister but her childlessness is not one of them.

Dirty Mother
1 1/2 oz brandy
3/4 oz coffee liqueur
Build the ingredients in an old-fashioned glass with ice cubes.
Stir well.

-- Nora

Whatever The Weather

Fascinating that a Courier Mail journalist uses the term moral challenge when referring to 'climate change' - not economic challenge, scientific challenge or technological challenge.

More and more 'climate change' is being talked about, it becomes readily apparent that this has less to do with unseasonal weather and more with the establishment of a quasi-religion.

Loaded terms such as the 'Goracle' and 'climate change denialists' are being bandied about while the medieval Papal-indulgence-style carbon off-sets being hailed as some kind of social imperative.

Despite noise to the contrary, human contribution to 'climate change' is far from proven.

The real moral challenge comes from those environmental luddites in the first world who, tell the impoverished third world that they can't have the modernisation and technology they need to reduce mortality rates, increase nutrition and live healthier.

-- Nora