Dazed And Confused

Wikileaker Bradley Manning prepares his court marshall defence:

Bradley Manning has “gender issues”

Oh I would say that 'gender' is not his only issue...

-- Nora

Christopher Hitchens

The world has lost a great writer today. Christopher Hitchens succumbed to oesphogeal cancer.

His influential work God Is Not Great [i]is[/i] a revelation, not for Hitchens musings on Christianity and theology (which are flawed), but what they revealed about Hitchens himself.

While I'd disagree strongly with Hitchen's view on Christianity, his insight on politics, culture and the human condition were always involving and fascinating.

His openness and candor during his terrible illness was searingly honest and sometimes uncomfortable to read and I hope is greatest legacy is not his atheistic writings, but his later works written during his illness.

These are the works that should be compulsory reading - for those who have a terminal illness and for those whose loved one is serious ill.

He will be sadly missed.

-- Nora

To Know, Know, Know Him...

Kevin Rudd flips the bird and drops F-word

Well that comes as no surprise to anyone who has had any connection with Queensland Government over the past 20 years. Rudd's foul temper and disgusting language is well known.

The only surprise is every time it happens the media appears 'shocked'. What's up with that?

-- Nora

Description: He's A Fab Dresser With A Penchant For Louis Vuitton

It is tempting to mock the ineptitude of our Queensland Bligh Labor Government in allowing a fraud of massive proportions go on under their nose and to laugh at our Premier's statewide BOLO for Joel Morehu-Barlow - but that man has solen $16 million of our money.

A pittance in government terms but let's see what $16 million could buy the state of Queensland:

It could pay for the fit out of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra's new headquaters, pay for the state's migrant settlement program, pay for the refurbishment of the Mackay Police Station and the Queensland natural disaster awareness campaign.

While Morehu-Barlow's current whereabouts are unknown, one can have a guess where he might show up in February.

-- Nora

UPATE: Monday, December 12. Caught!

Winding Up

Britain was battered by gales of up to 165mph yesterday, leaving a trail of destruction across the country.

In one spectacular incident a 300ft wind turbine exploded in flames as it was buffeted by the high winds.

Another wind turbine was completely blown down on Wednesday, raising questions about whether wind farms were simply unable to cope with the weather.

Oops, not a reliable form of power generation, eh?

Tim Blair rightly mocks.

::checks watch:: It's time for a cocktail. In a Hurricane Glass:

WINDY MILLER

2 Parts ABSOLUT CITRON
1 Part Absinthe
2 Parts Mandarines Liqueur
Lemon-Lime Soda
1 Slice Mandarin

Fill a shaker with ice cubes. Add absinthe, ABSOLUT Citron and mandarines liqueur. Shake and strain into a chilled highball glass filled with ice cubes. Topup with lemon-lime soda. Garnish with mandarin.

-- Nora

Cold Comfort

Bad news:

Park ranger Ray Bellringer said 59 people were believed missing in the area since records began in 1907 and it was not uncommon for remains to be found 20 or 30 years after someone had disappeared.

Good news:

"It is perfect for scientists, because we can use the data to know the speed of the glacier," Mr Bellringer said.

-- Nick

Tourism Horror

Surprise:

French rude and their hotels smell

I'm shocked.

-- Nick

Zero Sum Game

ANNA Bligh has received a stunning reception from Queenslanders, with one in three voters believing she will be a better Premier than her predecessor, Peter Beattie.

Well, that's not hard when you're starting from a base line of zero.

Ground Zero
3/4 oz Vodka
3/4 oz Bourbon
3/4 oz Peppermint Schnapps
1/2 oz Kahlua Coffee Liqueur
Layer each liqueur in a shot glass.

-- Nora

Must We Marry?

When I was a child in the late 1970s, there was a TVC from the Christian Television Association which was very striking.

It was set in the Logan's Run-style future.

A young Christian couple were in front of a magistrate to ask for a lifelong marriage licence.

The judge asks, why?'. No one stays together any more so marriage licences are set to expire after seven years.

The couple explain that God has designed marriage to be for a lifetime.

The judge proposes a compromise, he will grant the marriage licence but have it set so it is automatically renewed.

The scenario is amusing.

Until you find that an expiring marriage licence has already been proposed.

-- Nora

Lingua Franca

In 280 years we'll all be speaking English:

LINGUISTS alarmed at the unceasing extinction of many indigenous languages identified five global "hot spots" overnight where the problem is worst, led by northern Australia and a region of South America.

The linguists are part of the Enduring Voices project that seeks to document and revitalise languages slipping toward oblivion, often spoken by indigenous peoples like Australia's aborigines whose cultures were trampled by settlers.

David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, the project's co-director, said there are 6992 recognised distinct languages worldwide.

He said on average one language vanishes every two weeks, often as its last elderly speakers perish.

Or Spanish.

-- Nick

Art For Art's Sake, Money For God's Sake

The headline says it all really:

Labor targets struggling artists for welfare help

Uh-hum.

-- Nora

A Rose By Any Other Name...

... would still be a rose in English:

A Czech speedway driver knocked unconscious in a crash in the UK stunned ambulance drivers when he woke up speaking perfect English.

Peter Waite, the promoter for Kus's team, the Berwick Bandits, told the Daily Mail: "I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"It was in a really clear English accent, no dialect or anything. Whatever happened in the crash must have rearranged things in his head.

"Before his crash Matej's use of the English language was broken, to put it mildly...

But, alas:

Unfortunately, the speedway driver's new found skills didn’t last and he remembers nothing of the accident or the following two days. He is now keen pursue studies in English.

Quel dommage!

English Rose
3/4 oz apricot brandy
1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz dry vermouth
1 tsp grenadine syrup
1/4 tsp lemon juice
1 cherry
Rub rim of cocktail glass with lemon juice and dip rim of glass in powdered sugar. Shake all ingredients (except cherry) with ice and strain into sugar-rimmed glass. Top with the cherry and serve.

-- Nora

It's Not Easy Being Green. If You're Poor.

More proof that the environmental movement is based on racism:

When David Cameron flew to India to open a JCB factory for a party donor, green-thinking supporters could rest assured that his visit would be carbon neutral. “We are offsetting all our emissions through Climate Care,” the Tory leader wrote on his blog. “As well as planting trees, they also invest in renewable energy projects in the developing world.”

Somewhere in the Indian countryside, a farmer is about to repay Mr Cameron’s debt to the planet. Climate Care’s latest enterprise is to provide “treadle pumps” to poor rural families so they can get water on to their land without using diesel power. The pumps are worked by stepping on pedals. If a peasant treads for two hours a day, it will take at least three years to offset the CO2 from Mr Cameron’s return flight to India.

Andrew Bolt has public reaction here.

-- Nora

Those Who Can Do, Those Who Can't Watch Californication

The comments to Andrew Bolt's column piece about David Duchovny's new show, Californication has been interesting, amusing and dismaying all at once.

Interesting because it shows a societal shift away from what is considered to be 'appropriate'. Once talking about sex or explicit public displays of sex were taboo, not necessarily because people were prudish but rather there was broad agreement that certain things were private. Not for public consumption.

However context has been sacrificed in the drive for 'edgy', 'groundbreaking' and 'controversial' - all drugs to be taken in every increasing quantities for the jaded generation.

Amusing, because none will address their secret shame - if they're getting their jollies by watching a TV show - then they're not likely enjoying the real thing.

Amusing, because all of the supporters for the show try to deflect the nakedness of their own voyeuristic desires by repeating the mantra, 'if you don't like it, don't look'.

Well, where does that stop?

Let's not be outraged by crime - if you don't like it don't look.

Let's not blink if someone drops their drawers and defaecates in the street - if that sort of thing offends you, then don't look.

And that's where the dismay comes in.

That sort of reductive logic is nilistic is the extreme. Ironically it also results in a society which is the polar opposite of tolerant. If everyone's opinion is right, then no-one's is, which means there is no common ground to build social order on.

-- Nora

It's Pouring

Hey, look at that.

It's raining.

Frosty Rain
2/3 oz. Vodka
2/3 oz. Triple Sec
2/3 oz. Parfait d'amour
Dash Creme de Banana
Lemonade
Add ingredients and fill up with Lemonade.

-- Nora

Those Who Have Ears To Hear

"Maybe bloggers should enjoy the freedom while it lasts, because surely it will not be long before nasty litigiousness spoils bloggers' fun and forces the blogging community to watch its Ps and Qs, like every other person who is involved in publishing."

And thus spake the 'gatekeeper' class.

Jane Fynes-Clinton, Courier-Mail journalist takes a sneering and condescending look at bloggers in her Perspective piece today and spends 766 words (not including byline and head) taking a pre-emptive strike at those who express and publish their opinions without the benefit of a journalism degree or MEAA Union Card.

How the media at large feels about blogging can be summed up by the line-art illustration found in the print edition (interestingly enough, not the online edition) which a sewage pipe expels excrement shaped as 'blogs blogs blogs'.

That is to say, 'how dare the great unwashed express opinions unfiltered by editors and moderators'.

Like most journalists Ms Fynes-Clinton appears to have only a fleeting understanding about the world of blogging, fixating on rude and rambunctious web sites without coming out and saying that the topics most likely to create immoderate posts and comments are ones to do with politics and journalism - two areas where the mainstream media feels it has a monopoly.

People blog for a number of reasons, for friends Ingo and Neto of Highland Warriors it's to share observations of life and family and for Manolo The Shoe Blogger, it's all about the shoes.

And to Ms Fynes-Clinton, that's just fine - check out the pejorative language in this paragraph:

For some, blogging is not the harmless, personal communication it once was. There is also the more serious side: in the past couple of years, it has become possible for people to make livings from blogging.

Making a living! The very idea!

That's stepping into journalists' domain of news disseminators and opinion makers and that cannot allowed to stand unchallenged.

As for Nick and myself, despite once being members of the fourth estate, our Thin Man Returns blog would likely be the type Ms Fynes-Clinton would like to take with 'the red pen of an editor'.

Mind you she doesn't make the same offer to sub the work of the intemperate Phillip Adams, but then, he's likely to still be a card carrying member of the union and thus above reproach.

The most revealing paragraph comes early in the piece:

'Some places, such as government departments, are scared of them.'

Other places afraid of bloggers are the mainstream media outlets where sharp bloggers, using distributed research and individual professional expertise holds the media to account for the very first time in history.

Amongst the high profile scalps claimed by the blogs includes the forced retirement of Dan Rather over his credulous use of faked memos in a report on George W Bush in 2004. Last year Reuters news agency was forced to sack photographers covering the Israel-Hezbollah war over widely distributed fake photographs and has recently as today it was up to the blogosphere to chip Agence France Presse on its misleading photo story about fighting in Iraq.

No wonder they're scared, no wonder they're going on the attack.

For what it's worth I've cross-posted in The Courier-Mail's comments section. I doubt it will be used - it's too long and too critical - but that's okay.

I can have my say here and so can you.

-- Nora

UPDATE: US Journalism professor discovers that more than 46% of all newspaper stories have errors of fact and less than 2% of all reported errors are corrected.

I wonder how the Australian media would fare in a similar experiment?

UPDATE II: Well there you go - the Courier-Mail moderators did publish this post on their site. I salute you.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen

THE National Gallery of Victoria says its only artwork by Van Gogh is a fake.

Gallery director Gerard Vaughan said today that a specialist team in Amsterdam tested the painting Head Of A Man and concluded it was not by the Dutch Master.

However, they said it was not a forgery either.

The painting was acquired by the gallery in 1940 for £2196 and was said to be worth $25 million now.

Oops

Van Gogh's Ear
2 oz Absinthe
1 oz Grenadine
1 can(s) Grapefruit Soda
1 slice(s) Lemon(s)

Dribble Absinthe over a tall glass of ice, toss in lemon, dribble with Grenadine and serve with soda.

-- Nora

Sloshed In Space

A PANEL has found that astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions despite warnings they were so drunk they posed a flight risk, Aviation Week reported today on its website.

The publication said the panel set up by NASA to study astronaut health issues reported “heavy use of alcohol” within 12 hours of launch.

It said flight surgeons and other astronauts warned that the drunken astronauts posed a flight risk when they flew on the two known occasions.

Countdown: 3..hic...2...hic...1...

Blue Star Cocktail Recipe
1 oz gin
3/4 oz white wine
1/3 oz blue curacao liqueur
1 oz orange juice
Shake and strain into an ice-filled old-fashioned glass. Garnish with a cherry and a slice of orange. Serve in "Old-Fashioned Glass"

-- Nora

Softly, Softly Targets

Drat. I lost a bet.

Nicky said nearly five years ago that if terrorists were plotting action in Australia that it would be on the Gold Coast, possibly during Schoolies Week.

I disagreed citing Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane as more likely targets:

POLICE are investigating whether Mohamed Haneef was part of a planned terrorist attack on a landmark building at the Gold Coast.

Australian Federal Police are examining images of the building and its foundations found among documents and photographs seized in a police raid on the doctor's Southport unit three weeks ago.

The landmark building is likely to be the Q1 in the suburb of Surfers Paradise, currently the world's tallest residential tower.

D'you think the Gold Coast Bulletin has 'caught up' yet?

-- Nora

Update: The incriminating photos don't exist. So how did the story come about? Was it Chinese whispers amongst 'sources' and journalists? Or are Haneef's lawyers spreading more misinformation to white-ant the case against their client?

-- Nick

Tree Leaves

The Labor Party's Tree of Knowledge memorial in Barcaldine faces the axe - literally:

QUEENSLAND'S historic Tree of Knowledge will stand for just two more weeks until it is cut down to prepare for a striking new memorial to the Australian Labor Party.

Mayor Rob Chandler said the tree, in the central western Queensland town of Barcaldine, would be felled on July 29 during a special ceremony to which past and current political heavyweights had been invited.

Any thoughts on what would be a suitable monument to the Australian Labor Party? Leave your views in comments.

To get the party started, have a glass of this punch - it's delicious comrade:

Tree Smacker
600ml peach schnapps
600ml apple schnapps
600ml rum
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup sweet and sour mix
1/2 cup grenadine syrup
1 splash high proof rum
Add spirits then add juices. Color red with grenadine. Float the overproof rum.

-- Nora