fossey thoughts

A Government Gone Mad

2011-11-27T00:11:00.000-08:00

In Australia, we are currently governed by a minority left wing government further complicated with a bunch of incompetents leading it and two or three eccentric independents holding the balance of power elected by a minor fraction of less than .2% percent of our population. This is a worry in our prosperous country.

Our country may not remain prosperous much longer with wasteful spending by this Government combined with dirty dealing and a weak immigration policy allowing thousands of mostly middle eastern illegal immigrants whom we have no idea about their background (they destroy all identification), to enter our shores and claim benefits.

We may be brought to our knees as we pay benefits to these illegals and they attempt to dominate us with their culture.

A recent typical incident: a young child was eating lunch at school provided by his mother that included salami in his sandwich. Because it was Ramadan he was badly beaten by Muslim children as it offended their faith.

This happened in our country whereas in their country they permit no other faiths to practice and murder those that are non believers.

Below is a story from one of our respected national newspapers, The Australian, about the latest dirty deal done delivering a further blow to our democracy, to keep a hold on power just days ago:

Labor's costly gambit

BY:PAUL KELLY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE
From:The Australian
November 26, 2011 12:00AM

Julia Gillard and her frontbench enjoy their tactical victory over the Coalition in parliament on Thursday. Picture: Kym Smith Source:The Australian

< Prev

2 of 2

Next >

THE political toll extracted to create and sustain the Gillard minority government continues to mount -- a carbon tax in breach of promise, an alliance with the Greens, pledged poker machine laws, multiple funding deals with the independents and now the election of a Coalition rat as Speaker.

Julia Gillard will need to deliver political recovery down the track because the debt being lodged against brand Labor is fearsome. The stakes continue to mount. The risk is that Labor is lighting spectacular fires on the path to its debacle inferno.

In the annals of political rodentry Labor's deal with Peter Slipper is conspicuous yet equivocal. It virtually guarantees Gillard her full-term parliament yet it feeds Gillard's image with the public as an untrustworthy leader with an integrity problem. This is the main reason support had grown again for Kevin Rudd.

Until 48 hours ago Slipper, the new Speaker, had a near-zero recognition with the public, but that will change. Gillard has tied Labor to Slipper. He will become the latest exhibit of Labor's contentious decisions and dubious connections in the cause of its self-preservation.

Slipper's lax attitude towards parliamentary entitlements, a gift story for tabloids and talkback radio, will move to centre stage. Slipper's sins, present and past, are now Labor's inheritance. The Coalition was planning to execute Slipper but Labor voted him as Speaker before any of its own. The full story of the replacement of Labor's Harry Jenkins with Slipper may be benign.

There is no evidence Gillard did anything improper.

It is, however, an old-fashioned fix that reeks of NSW right-wing sleaze with Labor as vanguard of a political class whose goal is power and whose skills are deals to hold power. It is the sort of clever insider politics at which Labor excels. That's the trouble. This manoeuvre exposes Labor at its most vulnerable spot. A frustrated Tony Abbott's ability to incorporate this event into his central narrative about Labor -- the party that has betrayed its own people -- should not be misjudged.

Gillard as Prime Minister authorised this fix. She is beneficiary from having Labor's operating majority increase from one to three votes but will wear the blame if Slipper becomes a public liability.

For Labor, this operation was probably all too easy. Facing certain loss of preselection by his own side and having only the current parliament as his career end, Slipper was primed for seduction. Labor's maestro, Anthony Albanese, cut the deal in early morn without troubling the bartender.

Abbott, who has spent 15 months bragging about his ability to force an election on the floor, has been played for a mug by losing one of his own side. Caught with his pants down, it is an acute embarrassment for Abbott. How could he have been so careless? A certain full-term parliament will demand a major tactical re-assessment by Abbott.

The assumption that another two years in office must automatically assist Gillard is unjustified. That depends solely on Gillard's ability to change Labor policies and resurrect Labor's brand. Neither is easy. There is still little clue inside the party that Labor faces a systemic crisis. More of the same guarantees failure. The idea that another two years of Labor means the public will see the light and forgive and forget is laughable. Yet many ministers and Labor MPs actually believe this.

Labor's triumph confirms the bizarre structure of politics -- Gillard has mastery of minority government and Abbott commands popular sentiment beyond the parliament.

The gains for Gillard are tangible. The threat from Andrew Wilkie to withdraw his support if his poker machine bill is not passed no longer threatens Labor's survival. Gillard now has more scope for negotiation on the scheme.

Similarly, the risk posed by legal action against former union leader Craig Thomson no longer threatens the government's existence. The working majority of three votes purchases Gillard more discretion in dealing with the Greens, a factor that may become pivotal. The extra vote opens the possibility of more legislation being successful -- witness means-testing the private health insurance rebate and a new effort on asylum-seeker laws.

This event shifts the margin of power to Labor. It gives Gillard more authority. It invests minority government with more stability and certainty. It offers Gillard more scope to rebuild her government. Note, however, that Slipper's elevation confirms the polarisation in the system. All the usual elements are in play. Labor, once again, has played the insider politics with brilliance.

Just as Gillard was skilful at forming minority government and getting 254 bills through the parliament, she has now bolstered her floor majority as a minority PM. The rural independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, are getting accustomed to negotiating with Labor. The crossbenchers are more alienated from Abbott today than 15 months ago. His unremitting campaign to force an early election lies broken and beaten. At every point inside the beltway, playing insider politics, Gillard has left Abbott for dead.

She recently got the carbon pricing bills through the parliament. This week her mining tax bill went through the lower house. It took the High Court to throttle her Malaysia Solution and this remains the unresolved policy problem of the big three, carbon, mining and boats.

But at what cost has Gillard succeeded? For every insider success Gillard has paid a price in the wider country. The most recent Newspoll has Labor's primary vote at 30 per cent and a Coalition primary vote lead of 48-30 per cent. The fall in Labor's primary vote from 38 per cent at the August 2010 poll constitutes probably the biggest and fastest voting collapse in Australia's history.

There is something debasing about minority government. Its capacity to make the usual business of governance nakedly grubby is striking. The price of insider success comes with deals and compromises that only damage Labor as the governing party.

The challenges Gillard confronts during the next two years are daunting in the extreme. The world faces a unique and unpredictable economic crisis. The eurozone is engaged in a survival struggle that threatens a European recession. Political deadlock in the US weakens American economic prospects. The patchwork or three-speed Australian economy poses stark risks for Labor. Treasury deputy secretary David Gruen says the 2011-12 budget forecasts imply 70 per cent of Australia's economy will not benefit from the mining boom and will grow at only 1 per cent. Actual results will surely be worse.

The consensus that elected Rudd Labor in 2007 has collapsed. That is proved by the demise of the ALP primary vote. Australia today is a divided polity rent with four profound divisions.

First, an alienated corporate sector openly challenges Gillard Labor which it mistrusts; witness the new Business Council of Australia chief, Tony Shepherd, calling for urgent revision of the industrial laws and hostility from small business to myriad policies, notably having to finance most of Labor's lift in the super levy from 9 per cent to 12 per cent. The rift between Labor and corporate Australia seems unbridgeable.

Second, Labor's institutional ties to the trade union movement constitute a policy and political negative only guaranteed to grow more serious and more obvious to the public. As trade union private sector coverage falls to about 15 per cent, union pressure on Labor policy becomes more overt and damaging. The ACTU has no strategy of governing in partnership with Labor but operates as a privileged interest group, alienating majority opinion and weakening Labor's reform credentials.

Third, progressive politics in Australia is fatally divided long-term between Labor and the Greens. Gillard's formal association with the Greens has poisoned attitudes towards Labor across much of the nation. Labor has no strategy for fighting on two fronts against the Coalition and the Greens. The instincts of senior ministers to distance Labor from the Greens are correct but hard to implement. Greens leader Bob Brown has wedged Labor -- he is perceived as winning concessions from Labor yet able to denigrate Gillard when their policies collide. There is no sign of the Green primary vote falling away.

The consequence is Labor remains trapped in the contracted political centre ground.

Fourth, Labor is bedevilled by policy and delivery failures. There will be no easy relief from its reputation for incompetence. Witness the flaws in its mining tax, the problems in its three-year fixed-price carbon scheme with the rest of the Western world in retreat on this front and the monthly arrival of 600 boatpeople demonstrating that Labor cannot control Australia's borders.

Such points qualify the false optimism that a full-term parliament means the pendulum naturally returns to Labor. Gillard, however, has won a better chance for recovery. This is because Abbott's failure to procure an election must drive a tactical rethink within the Coalition. The truth is Abbott's early election obsession had become a disease. The polls, however, reveal his success and his new challenge is not reinvention. It is about offering more hope, engaging in constructive policy debate and limiting the Dr No image.

Labor knows how much damage Abbott has done to its standing. Given Labor's vulnerabilities its survival strategy during the next two years depends on ruining Abbott. That is the only road back. It is the chance Labor has won for itself.

Yippee! We won a game of tennis

2011-09-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable as it may seem, an Australian won a tennis grand slam.

Australia?

South of the equator, nothing to do with Austria dumb ass! Go buy an Atlas.

Aussie, Sam won the 2011 US Open just a day or so ago.

The first time an Aussie girl has won for over 30 years when Aussie Margaret Court was the queen of tennis.

Congratulations Sam Stosur for winning the Women's Open final despite the disgusting poor sportsmanship and behaviour displayed by Williams and her sour faced family, hangers on seated in privileged positions on the side line.

Anyone under 25 would not realize Aussies once dominated the world in this game but got bogged down through complacency, poor management and brilliant, talented overseas competitors. It's totally unlikely we will ever achieve this position again.

Because, brilliant, talented players such as Federer, Djokovic and countless others have taken over

Gotta applaud these talented athletes wherever they come from! Well done!

Aussie politics:.A piss weak government and incompetent leader

2011-09-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

In 2011, Our minority Federal Government has lurched from one incompetance to another

Thank you David Pemberthy from thepunch.com.au for the following comment:

Much has been made of the tasteless descriptions of Prime Minister Julia Gillard on placards at anti-carbon tax rallies. Tasteless they are. They are also not really a world away from the descriptions used by our former prime minister Kevin Rudd to convey his toxic disregard for his successor.

Then I'll grab Shorten by the neck and throttle him…Photo: Ray Strange

Since losing the job in a swift and brutal coup just over 12 months ago, Rudd has been less than circumspect in his contempt for Gillard, at times in very public settings where he has gone out of his way to run her down to anyone who will listen.

When Julia Gillard seized the leadership last year, despite the role of the factional heavies, she took personal ownership of the decision to move against Rudd, memorably declaring that his was “a government which had lost its way”. Maybe it had, but in relative terms, it’s hard to see where that assessment leaves her government. A government which has lost its way, both its paddles, and has capsized its barbed-wire canoe in the deepest recesses of shit creek.

For several months now the polls have shown a sustained decline both in Labor’s primary vote and the approval rating of the prime minister. At the same time support for Kevin Rudd as alternative Labor leader has remained solid or grown, reaching its most dramatic illustration with yesterday’s poll in the Fairfax press showing the return of Rudd would put Labor in a position where it could hold off Tony Abbott.

Polls come and go but this one has the potential to be hugely important. It’s the kind of result which seeps into the psyche of politicians, all of whom are motivated at their core by a desire to win. This poll has already got them talking and could yet see them acting.

Yet it is eminently debatable whether Kevin Rudd is the saviour of the ALP. The first challenge the party would have under his return goes to unity. For Caucus to embrace Rudd after dumping him so recently and unceremoniously would set a new standard for collective pride-swallowing. Conversely, given Rudd’s well-documented disgust not just for Gillard but for the so-called faceless men who knocked him off, it is highly likely that Rudd’s return would precipitate a wave of payback in which some of the most powerful and potentially dangerous party figures would be put to the sword.

Fresh from heart surgery, and merrily talking up the quality of his ticker, Rudd can barely disguise his delight at Gillard’s daily awkwardness with the procession of rotten polls. The word smug does not do it justice, and seeing this smugness manifest itself in a round of retribution across the frontbench could set up the party for a protracted bout of public blood-letting.

There is also a live question as to how the public would actually respond to Rudd’s return. That might sound weird given that the polls show he is preferred leader over Gillard. But voters are a funny lot and there is a chance their reaction to Rudd’s return in theory may be different from their reaction to Rudd’s return in practice.

Plenty of voters could change their tune; you can imagine the Opposition having a field day trolling through the transcripts and digging up every quote from every MP about how the government has lost its way last year, not to mention the many narky criticisms of Rudd’s precious and explosive personal style. For an elected government to have gone from Rudd to Gillard and back again in the space of less than 18 months may end up pointing more to desperation than anything, and the polls could swing back in an unpleasant direction.

The other thing which could drive the polls south is Rudd’s handling of the two biggest policy headaches afflicting the Government – the carbon tax and border protection. Given his record as prime minister on both those issues it is extremely difficult to see how Rudd could negotiate a credible path forward, were he to return as PM. The problems Gillard has on these two issues are problems which began under Rudd.

On climate change, we very nearly had an emissions trading scheme to deal with what Rudd was calling the greatest moral challenge of our time. After its failure in the Parliament the ETS was summarily and indefinitely shelved in an act of political cowardice which in policy terms did more than anything to seal Rudd’s fate.

On border protection, Rudd was also seriously guilty of inconsistency, running on a campaign of greater compassion at the 2007 election only to toughen his stand dramatically at the start of last year when he unilaterally froze new asylum applications from Sri Lankans and Afghanis. The lurching from left to right on this issue over the past 18 months has fed into base level support for the Greens and the Coalition. It is hard to see what tack Rudd could take on his return to end the vacillation which started on his watch as PM.

On paper then the return to Rudd is the most sensible option and possibly the least workable, even though the party is currently not just staring down the abyss, but in it.

Australian smoking campaign goes up in smoke

2011-06-17T03:28:00.000-07:00

Loved this article from David Penberthy on the tobacco industry campaign against plain packaging of cigarettes in Australia. Australia is about to take a radical step against smoking by introducing law that all cigarettes be packaged in a crappy olive green plain wrapping without branding.

Just a few of my thoughts ...If people want to smoke, cigarettes could be packaged in toilet paper and they will still get them. Prohibition doesn't work. Never has. Just drives it underground and gives money to organized crime. Meanwhile, enjoy this clever article dear readers.

"In the gruesome final scene of Martin Scorcese’s remake of Cape Fear, the sadistic murderer Max Cady has been bashed with a plank, burned with lighter fluid, thrown off the side of a houseboat and is finally drowning in a river. As he sinks into the water he starts speaking in tongues, struggling to keep his mouth above the waterline as he shouts random free-form gibberish before finally drowning.

I laugh in the face of the nanny state.

I was reminded of this scene while listening to a woman from a cigarette company on the radio this week as she put forward the tobacco industry’s arguments, if you can call them that, against plain packaging.

Despite having a long-standing fondness for the gaspers, and a firm belief that adults should be free to do whatever they like, I don’t ever think I have heard such nonsense in my life. This industry, which in essence is in the death business, is itself in its death throes. As it sinks further into the abyss it is thrashing about spouting nonsense in defence of its right to sell demonstrably deadly products.

The industry has been brought to its knees by the cumulative effect of sustained tax increases, extreme and then absolute bans on advertising, and now the most drastic safety packaging the world will have ever seen. The only thing it has going for it in terms of a business model is the terrifically addictive power of nicotine, and the hope that young people will continue to take up the habit as an act of youthful defiance which turns into a lifelong affliction.

Against this backdrop, the tobacco industry’s campaign against plain packaging is quite literally the last gasp for an industry whose products are, in marketing terms, as good as banned in Australia. It can’t advertise, it can’t promote or display its products, save for running a 14-point Helvetica brand name on the front of an olive-green packet, the colour especially selected by crack government psychologists because it makes you feel barfing.

For this reason the tobacco lobby has resorted to an American-style appeal to libertarian instincts with a campaign framed around the idea of personal freedom.

From a public relations perspective it’s been fascinating to watch. Hearing people such as the woman from Imperial Tobacco on radio, you wonder whether they have some perverse intellectual attraction to spinning on behalf of the unspinnable. There are public relations firms which have won awards within this strange industry for helping Union Carbide salvage its abysmal reputation after the Bhopal factory disaster in India, and helping to “rehabilitate” the Argentine military after it spent most of the 1970s chucking university students out of Cessnas and into the River Plate.

Right now the greatest of these “extreme” PR gigs is with a tobacco company in Australia, and no doubt these slick-tongued communications outsiders hope to be rewarded down the track with other high-paying jobs that befit their ballsiness, perhaps spruiking the nutritive benefits of DDT sandwiches, or defending the tweeny brassiere market on freedom of choice grounds.

On listening to the radio interview, it’s not so much that the tobacco industry’s arguments are ballsy, but just boorish and banal. The key points the tobacco industry spokeswoman made were as follows:

1. Plain packaging won’t work because it has never been done to this extent overseas, and there’s no research to show that it will reduce smoking. The simple rejoinder to this is that if the tobacco industry thinks plain packaging won’t work why is it taking out full-page advertisements complaining about it? Every other limitation on marketing or scare tactic has corresponded with a decline in smoking rates. Logic suggests this will be the same.

2. Black market tobacco will flourish under plain packaging, exposing smokers to cheap imported cigarettes which are filled with nasty chemicals.Well, you’ve got to give the tobacco industry marks for chutzpah. This feigned 11th-hour conversion to the cause of healthy living is just awesome, coming as it does from the same people who brought us the Peter Stuvyesant “Miracle Filter” and those special Lucky Strikes which actually cleared your airways of pollutants as you sucked down that sweet, sweet tar.

3. The government is treating us like children and deciding what we can and cannot do. Again, this isn’t really true. If the government was treating us like children it wouldn’t let us have cigarettes at all, it would ban them outright.

Someone should have taped this interview and given it to high school debaters as an example of how not to make out an argument.

Thundering about the nanny state is fair enough. I’d almost count it as a hobby of mine. Clearly this country is appallingly over-governed, and the health wowsers who legitimately hate smoking would indiscriminately apply the same marketing prohibitions and health warnings to everything from bottles of shiraz to bacon and egg rolls. One of their latest fad causes is the possible health risk from wireless broadband. It’s fair to speculate that these scare campaigns are driven more by a desire for continuing funding than a genuine threat to public health.

But the tobacco industry’s use of such weak, spurious arguments in a transparent bid to maintain profits is more of a hindrance than a help to the libertarian cause. These people have been bullshitting the world for almost a century and should just bow out quietly rather than humiliate themselves further. The maxim that we all have to die of something is a sacred rationalisation for the smokers; in the case of the tobacco lobby right now it might end up dying of embarrassment at the remarkably stupid nature of this campaign. Even cynical old smokers are having a wheezy laugh at it"

Even if you have no interest in politics

2011-03-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

Politics in Australia is a dirty business and becoming more messy as they follow our American cousins with outrageous lies and promises. Unfortunately, we have a government that barely survived but for the support of a minor party called the Greens and a couple of eccentric independents.

Our Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, whilst electioneering prior to the election, promised she would not introduce a carbon tax but days ago, mere weeks after the election, introduced a carbon tax. Bottom line is, we Australians will pay more for our food and everything else thanks to the influence of a bunch of minorities propping up this current Government

We all agree, she's a liar. Unfortunately, we must tolerate this liar until the next election unless her party dumps her.

I enjoy reading the comments of David Pemberthy. A major commentator with http://www.thepunch.com.au. He sums up our current political situation beautifully...

"Based on simple observations from walking down the street, it’s fair to say that there are a number of people getting around who are as mad as cut snakes. If our democracy is to count for anything, these people deserve to be represented in the Federal Parliament.

The question is whether they are over-represented.

Even if you have no interest in politics, I beg you, as Molly Meldrum would say, to do yourself a favour and type the words Mary Jo Fisher into Google, then sit back and marvel at the South Australian Senator’s remarkable speech on Wednesday night.

This little-known newby senator – who in a former life was a successful lawyer – puts on what’s probably the strangest turn ever seen on the floor of Parliament.

It starts as a serious and shouty rant about the carbon tax. Fisher draws an obvious parallel between Gillard’s carbon tax and Rudd’s Emission Trading Scheme, saying Labor is doing the hokey-pokey on climate change. She says hokey-pokey a few more times. Then she puts her left leg in and her right foot out and her left leg in and shakes it all about. With the gestures and everything. She then declares that Labor is as useful as “tits on a bull” and that we’re in a time warp. It’s astounding, she says. Time is fleeting, she says. And then: “Let’s dooooo, the time waaaaaarp, agaaaaaain. It’s just a jump to the left….” She then starts doing the pelvic thrust, saying that this part of the carbon tax, more than anything, will really drive you insay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ayne.

Just remarkable. If not for the conflict of interest Senator Fisher should be given a government grant and encouraged to perform in a tent at the Adelaide Fringe in her home state of SA. (Adoptive home state, that is – she’s born and bred Western Australian, so let’s drop the Adelaide gags.)

Politics in Australia has officially gone weird, and most of the weirdness has been coming from the conservative side, with a fair degree of tastelessness thrown in.

The Coalition is giddy with excitement at the massive opportunity it has been handed by Julia Gillard through her appalling breach of faith with the Australian people over the carbon tax. This is the very tax which both she and Treasurer Wayne Swan explicitly ruled out during the election campaign, said was off the agenda for this term of office, and which will now be introduced on July 1 next year.

It will obviously be the defining political issue of this term. However well Gillard has been performing in the parliamentary chamber, the debate in the community is wholly focussed on the popular conviction that she has lied. It’s hard to argue that she hasn’t. The best she can say is that circumstances changed, and that other past governments have done similar things. They’re crappy arguments, and they don’t alter the fact that she misled the voters. She also misled the voters at a time when she was talking about a new era of transparency and accountability in this new Parliament, all utterly laughable now.

As a result of all this a number of folks within the Coalition seem to be so over-excited with the sweet taste of prospective victory that they have lost the plot. The weirdness of Senator Fisher has been matched by the tackiness of the allusions several Coalition MPs have drawn between Gillard’s carbon reversal and the conduct of murderous regimes in Iraq and Libya.

Queensland Liberal Peter Dutton is a former policeman. He’s a strong speaker in the chamber and well-regarded by his colleagues as having a fine policy mind. Sometimes he’s got the narky demeanour of the type of copper who would needle a harmless young drunk bloke, and then pinch him for offensive language. He was in ugly copper mode this week when he needled Labor’s Craig Emerson on Sky Agenda, comparing him to Saddam Hussein’s spin doctor Comical Ali for defending Gillard. Emerson – who like Mary Jo Fisher is a bit of an oddball himself and has burst into song at press conferences on at least one occasion – saw no humour in being likened to the chief spruiker for a tyrant who gassed civilians, and promptly went bananas on air.

Shifting things up a gear, the job fell to Liberals Sophie Mirabella and Eric Abetz to liken Gillard to Colonel Gaddafi, whose regime has spent much of the past fortnight using machine guns and aircraft fire on peaceful protesters. As far as comparisons go it’s right off the Richter scale, and Gillard has every right to be disgusted by it.

Political parties are probably like any other organisation where the work environment is set by the person at the top. This makes it an issue for Tony Abbott, who in the past has shown an inability to draw an acceptable line in his statements, be it disparaging the dying Bernie Banton, or accusing Julia Gillard of having a shit-eating grin. If this is the environment he is encouraging or allowing, there’s a risk that many voters will find that their disappointment with Gillard is tempered by a distrust or dislike of Abbott and the rattiness of his team.

On paper, the Coalition under Tony Abbott has never been in a better position than it is now. Gillard has broken an absolute doozie of a promise, yet a significant number of conservative MPs are turning themselves and their party into the story with behaviour which is aberrant or off. If not for the Coalition’s mangled messages on asylum seekers and the public brawling over Scott Morrison’s funeral slur, the internal sledging of Corey Bernardi over his paranoid generalisations about Islam, and this week of madness with singing senators and Gaddafi gags, Julia Gillard would be in very serious strife. But a question mark will hover over the Coalition unless they get off the red cordial and start acting like adults."

There's no such thing as junk food, only junk diets

2010-10-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

At least once a week, when I open the newspaper there seems to be some fresh new panic about the tsunami of childhood obesity that is crashing on our golden sandy beaches which a generation or two ago were filled with healthy bronzed young men and women who were either training for the next Olympic Games or about to pull on a pair of battered Dunlop Volley sandshoes, borrow a beaten up old wooden racquet and fly off to win Wimbledon.

Even Ronald was demanding to know the GI rating of his lunch. Illustration: Paul Newman

Yep, every time a politician opens his or her mouth (usually on the way to a four course five star lunch at a taxpayer funded Parliamentary Dining Room) they sadly shake their heads, wobble their double chins and lament the rise of the TV obsessed Generation XXL.

If you ask most people who they blame for this sad decline, they would nominate a man who might be best described as Richard Nixon, Colonel Sanders and Hannibal Lector all rolled into one. I’m talking of course about Ronald McDonald. He’s there, supersizing our kids against their better judgement till their belts burst open.

Now, just as Marge Simpson gets her parenting advice from “Fretful Mother” magazine so we in Australia have organisations dedicated to make nice decent middle-class parents anxious about how they are raising their kids. One of these is The Parents Jury which every year runs an on-line survey asking people to vote on which TV commercials are deceptively peddling the worst high-fat high-sugar food to our kids. McDonald’s seems to win an award every year.

But this year I’ve found a much worse culprit - Junior Masterchef.

A quick visit to the show’s website is shocking. One of the contestant’s favourite dish is tiramisu, a dessert groaning under its thousands of calories. Another prefers the rampant kilojoule-fest that are lemon meringue cupcakes. Yet another boasts of mastering French Quarters Cake with tempered chocolate, whipped cream, strawberries and raspberries.

Another proudly notes that for his 10th birthday, he was “lucky enough to go to his favourite chef, Matt Moran’s ARIA restaurant.” Dear god, Matt, won’t anyone think of the children?

So I’m officially starting the Ban Junior Masterchef Society right now. I demand that Channel 10 take this obscene show off TV today. Because all this high-fat food that is found on our TV screens is directly influencing hundreds of thousands of impressionable young minds. And that can only lead to future generations of obese children, spending their lives gorging on the pure fattening evil that is Chilli Mud Crab with XO sauce, Moroccan Lamb Pie and Ricotta Gnocchi with eggplant sauce.

And so I was pleased to see last week there were once again calls for higher taxes on “junk food”. It was reported that Holly Bond from Monash University declared, “‘Junk foods have the same pattern of misuse and the same social costs as tobacco and alcohol. We propose that a tax on junk food be implemented as a tool to reduce consumption and address the obesity epidemic.’’

Hear hear! And I am sure that by “junk food” Holly had in mind exactly the sort of high-kilojoule meals whipped up in the Junior Masterchef kitchen.

What’s that? You think she was only talking about pizza and burgers? Well, maybe, if you’re thinking about the purist Neapolitan style artisan pizzas where the dough is shaped by hand, the pizza is cooked directly on the wood-burning oven floor and the crust is soft and fragrant.

And burgers? Sure, if you mean a $75 wagyu and white truffle one.

Because right now I have to say, sorry Holly, but you’re full of crap. First of all, every cigarette is bad for you. That’s why the economic costs of tobacco are massive. But junk food? If you were hungry, why couldn’t you eat a hamburger? After all, isn’t it just bread, meat, lettuce, tomato and sauce? Which one of those perfectly normal everyday food items is “junk”? Could it be that every expert that looks down their nose at a Big Mac would regard having a focaccia (containing basically the same ingredients) at a hip café as a cultural experience.

Which brings me back to Junior Masterchef. Of course I’m kidding, it shouldn’t be banned. My point is just that the way we look at food has a strong class-based bias to it. In a nutshell it goes like this – Ronald McDonald, evil; Alain Ducasse, genius.

And finally, once and for all, there is no such thing as “junk food”. There are, however, junk diets. Sure there are some people who don’t have the education and life skills to know the difference between a junk diet and a good diet. So here’s a thought – instead of taxing “junk food” (and remember there’s no way to define what that means) why don’t we work with those people in raising their social capital?

Or is that too much like hard work?

Government limbo

2010-08-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

We are now entering the second week since our Federal election and no one's the wiser as to who will govern because we Australian voters have returned the major parties with equal seats.

To gain a majority both sides are wooing the three or four independents to form a majority. Whoever gets the majority will be crippled to a considerable extent when legislating without a clear majority. The demonstrated whims and idiosyncracies of the independents have to be taken into account. This is not a good thing for our country. The best thing to hope for is a re-election. It's possible, but unlikely it will happen.

This opinion from Piers Akerman published in the Sydney Daily Telegraph (Sat, Aug 28) says it all:

"The slow vote count has ensured Australia faces a second week of governmental limbo.

With the score so far at 73 Coalition seats to 72 for Labor, the increasingly pathetic antics of the over-reaching independents should be treated as a distraction until the votes are finally tallied.

Striving for importance, posturing as profound statesmen, the so-called Three Amigos, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, have all been put in the shade by Andrew Wilkie who appears to have more principle in his little toe than the others can jointly muster.

Caretaker prime minister Julia Gillard has well and truly prostituted Labor with her premature leap to satisfy whatever demands the independents are making.

She has gone well beyond tugging the forelock in a manner quite unbefitting the dignity of the holder of the top office in the land and shamelessly trailed her coat to a group who represent an exceedingly small percentage of the nation as she tries to rescue whatever is possible from what was undeniably a disastrous election from her point of view.

Opening the door to the possibility of a Labor-Greens alliance as posited by Greens leader Bob Brown last Thursday demonstrates the measure of her desperation.

Two polls in each of the seats of Kennedy, Lyne and New England (Katter’s, Oakeshott’s and Windsor’s) taken in the past week have shown that the voters in these electorates overwhelmingly support the Coalition.

With the Coalition and Labor at last count likely to hold 73 seats each and the Greens’ flaky Adam Bandt, who won Melbourne, already committed to supporting Labor, the three independents holding the balance of power would seem to have no choice but to support the Coalition if they honestly wish to reflect the views of their constituents.

If they succumb to Gillard’s flattery and wish to play footsie with the ALP they should be prepared to endure the revulsion of those who have shown them support - for little return - over the years.

They would be seen to be endorsing the worst two governments in the history of the nation (Kevin Rudd’s and Gillard’s), they would be seen to be embracing the most appalling political machine the nation has experienced, and they would be endorsing the suppurating factionalism that has riven Labor.

In what can only be an endeavour to swing the media and public support her way, Gillard is to address the National Press Club on Tuesday, according to the NPC’s website, but she has not yet been able to address the remnants of her own party, let alone conduct a post mortem into Labor’s disastrous campaign.

The appeal to the nation may be an attempt to wedge the independents, but it will not serve as an answer to long-serving ALP members who want to know why the hollow men, the faceless men, the backroom boys, were allowed to trample and dismiss elected leaders in NSW such as Morris Iemma, and, nationally, Rudd.

But perhaps the press club date was proposed by someone who wishes to see Gillard undermined, one of the plotters within the ALP who would like to see this train wreck pushed off the rails and forgotten, because it’s unlikely that Gillard will escape questioning on the election, which will expose her flaws, and about such issues as the Murray-Darling, which will exacerbate the difficulties of further negotiations with the independents.

Gillard went to the election without nominating who would be the finance minister in any new Labor administration, who would be defence minister or what position Rudd would be given in return for his silence and an end to the leaks against Gillard during the election campaign.

The nation is none the wiser - but it does know that Gillard would not rule out giving a Green a position in her cabinet if that would buy her government.

The independents considering their decision should ponder what such an appointment would mean: A certain mining tax, even the possibility of a formal merger between the Greens and Labor, with an assumption that many of the Greens’ lunatic demands, such as the dole for all and the legalisation of illicit drugs, would be legislated.

To his credit, Opposition leader Tony Abbott has been cautious about destroying the caretaker conventions which apply while the government is in limbo. He has shown an appreciation for the political system which Gillard is prepared to ignore.

There is a well-run argument that it’s better to form a government, any government, than be in opposition; Abbott has thus far shown an admirable unwillingness to accept this.

The current demands from the independents for information, much of it available during the course of the election campaign, reflects their disappointing indifference to their jobs.

The bloc’s most mature member, Windsor, served 10 years in the NSW parliament and has spent nine years in Canberra.

Katter had eight years in the Queensland parliament and has been in Canberra since 1993. Oakeshott served 12 years as a NSW MP before going federal two years ago.

They have neither adorned nor disgraced the federal parliament, but they have not contributed anything of note.

Now they are united in their belief in stability in government. How admirable.

But they are making their pitch to a party riven with poisonous divisions at every level.

As they watch Labor audition before them, are they asking the same questions the nation asked just over a week ago?

Are they asking about the improbable cash-for-clunkers car recycling scheme that was proposed, the laughable citizens assembly talkfest on climate change, the failed insulation or wasteful BER programs, or will they suspend disbelief and rubber-stamp the nation’s most mendacious ever administration?

Will they ask Gillard about the damage the mining tax will do the economy?

After epic-level waste and confidence-destroying policies made up on the run by a government controlled by spin merchants, as Labor’s own heroes admit, the nation cannot afford to be delivered into the hands of those who would welcome a new collectivist dark age."

Indonesian Islamic cleric, Bashir, arrested for terrorism. Here we go again!

2010-08-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, Indonesian Muslims pranced, danced and rejoiced at the bombing and killing of hundreds of innocents at a Bali nightclub in the name of their religion.Innocents where killed ... not that this concerned the Muslim faith They want to destroy the fabric of our society! I remain open to opinion but evidence is gathering against this group of people. The silly part of this is, I had some Muslim mates. Very sad!They're history because they love to kill innocents!

RADICAL Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has been arrested on charges of terrorism, his lawyer says. (The Australian August 9 2010)

Muhammad Ali said his client was taken in early today for alleged involvement with a new militant network in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.

Authorities discovered the new group in February and said it was allegedly planning to assassinate Indonesia's president and carry out Mumbai-style attacks targeting foreigners.

Dozens of suspects linked to that cell, which called itself al-Qa'ida in Aceh, have been arrested or killed in recent months.

Rumours have circulated for weeks that Bashir, a fiery preacher known for propagating hatred against foreigners, was next on the list.

Mr Ali said Bashir was arrested in Ciamis regency in West Java province.

Bashir had been attending Koran recitals in West Java during the past several days, the Kompas.com website said.

Bashir is best known as the co-founder and spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the terrorist group responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Bashir, 72, spent several years in prison for his involvement with JI but was released in 2006.

Police spokesman Marwoto Soeto confirmed the arrest on news website Detik.com.

“It's linked with terrorism,” Soeto was quoted as saying.

A police press conference was scheduled for later today, he said.

Muslims! We gotta be politically correct even if they aren't!

2010-07-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

It's incredible!

A candidate in the forthcoming election, David Barker says we shouldn't have a Muslim in Parliament after being dumped by Liberals. (is a reasonable comment regardless if you agree or not)

However, theorists have neglected the various racist comments from this community.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/david-barker-says-we-shouldnt-have-a-muslim-in-parliament-after-being-dumped-by-liberals/story-e6frfllr-1225896667300#ixzz0ufpnYGM5

He got thrown out of the Liberal Party because he said how it is! But it's perceived he was racist and would have offended Muslims ... Muslims, the worst racists and least tolerant of all!

It seems as we are not allowed to make a comment about Muslims as it may offend them. We must ignore their excessive lifestyles in their oil rich countries!

These people choose to murder those who do not agree with their point of view, desecrate shrines of any religion that does not suit them.

These people that are offended if we don't wear a veil when visiting their country yet disrespect our culture when visiting our country and commit crimes by raping and stealing us in the name of their God.

These people that cheer and rejoice at murdering us. These people that invade Australia in their thousands and live off our social security without offending their sense of morality.

Something's seriously wrong here!

Smart Phone Fever

2010-06-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

After months of silence, I pop my head up to talk about smart phones.

Don't get me wrong here.

For starters, I'm a smartphone kind of guy, swayed by the seductiveness of the Apple iPhone 4, seducted by Nokia with their sweet promises of N900 power yet impressed by HTC with their smart phones and the other Androids out there.

Which one to choose?

Damned if I know.

Apple are the king of spin. They have the money now they're bigger than Microsoft.

Using Apple CEO Jobs, Apple has released the latest iPhone 4G beauty and the Apple faithful queued for kilometers in the rain to be first to buy the new toy. However, it seems there are a few problems with said new toy.

Unfortunately for Apple and great God CEO Jobs credibility, the iPhone 4 is riddled with bugs that include reception issues, yellow stains and white spots on the screen and poor picture quality from their new 5 megapixel camera.

Jobs twittered just hours ago, they may need to recall their fantastic iPhone 4.

What an event that will be!

I have nothing against Apple but hate the Apple PR spin and cunningly managed leaks they do to tittilate us and our expectations.

It's same us being promised a wonderful lolly but ending up with sour medicine.

The purpose of this post is to rubbish politicians and their nonsense

2010-04-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

Is the hairstyle of NSW Premier Kristina Keneally a political force of its own that could help others struggling with their public appeal?

I'm nobody's puppet, I'm nobody's protege, I'm nobody's girl.

It is an unquestionable hit with the public and today the #KKHairAvatarDay hashtag started trending on Twitter. Earlier this week it was reported her breezy coiffure is being specifically requested by salon patrons, with celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey saying it was “extremely popular” with customers. “It’s fresh, it’s appropriate to her position, it’s very well-groomed - she’s obviously having it done a lot,” Bailey told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Someone said to me that [her hair] has a lot of movement in it, and that sort of says that she’s doing something.”

Kristina Keneally’s hairstyle is very much part of the NSW Premier’s personal brand which has made her the most popular political leader in the country despite the government she leads being openly loathed by voters. She’s building her leadership credentials - playing a starring role in the negotiations this week’s COAG health summit - but there can be little doubt that her telegenic qualities have given her an edge when it comes to cutting through with the electorate.

The most surprising thing about what happens when you put Keneally’s do to male politicians is that rather than making them look like cards out of a game of Guess Who some of them actually look, well, plausible. For example, it makes Kevin Rudd (above) and Tony Abbott (below) look like troubled French film directors.

Peter Garrett’s political career has been struggling lately. Perhaps he could do with some Keneally cut-through?

Deputy PM Julia Gillard looks after her hair but would something more radical suit her?

Or Barack Obama, whose approval ratings have plummeted following the divisive healthcare debate in the US.

There’s an election underway in the UK and Labour’s Gordon Brown appears to be on the nose. He’s never been the best-presented man in British politics, but…

Of course in the interests of balance we should also see if it works for Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

Tasmanian premier David Bartlett will be struggling to rebuild his credibility after going back on his promise not to do a deal with the Greens.

And Queensland Premier Anna Bligh - known for appearing regularly in a hard hat but maybe it could be replaced with the Keneally look?

My kind of woman! (pinched from thepunch.com.au)

2010-04-21T01:07:00.000-07:00

Oooh la la. French women might not get fat, but they’re happy to hold up a very curvy woman as the apogee of style.

Pick up a copy of the current issue of French Elle and you’ll find American plus-size model Tara Lynn seductively pouting in a white jumpsuit on the front. Inside, 20 pages are prominently devoted to Lynn, who is a size 16, modelling things like blue chunky knitted capes while causally pretending to ride a bike - your standard fashion fare.

For some, this is just another example of what the New York Times has dubbed “the triumph of the size 12s “, that is, a backlash against the prevailing dictate of exclusively employing the skeletally thin girls previously favoured by designers and editors.

In the last few months, curvier models have started appearing in high-end and mainstream fashion magazines and on catwalks in both the US and Europe, prompting the suggestion that we are witnessing a subtle, but substantive shift in attitudes towards weight and dress-size.

Case in point is the rise and rise of Crystal Renn, reputedly the world’s most successful “plus-size” model. Renn, who battled anorexia while muddling her way through an average at best modelling career, recovered and gained much needed weight only to find herself in hot international demand. Renn, now a size 12, has since strutted down the runways of Paris and London and has been photographed by world-renowned photographer Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue.

Similarly, the meteoric ascension to fashion’s highest reaches of British model Lara Stone, a girl who possess, shock-horror, cleavage, has been taken as another blow to the size zero trend. Stone recently graced the cover of British Vogue, and in the associated profile Stone opined, “It would be nice if I wasn’t the only person with tits and arse”.

Last year, Glamour Magazine in the US sparked a hyperbolic media frenzy when it published a photo of plus-size model Lizzi Miller, tucked away on page 196. In the image, Miller is wearing nothing but a pair of underpants and a wide grin, with a roll of stomach fat on proud display. The reaction to the photo was ecstatic, and overnight Miller was transformed from being an unknown model to being treated like a blonde version of the second coming.

Comments posted on the Glamour website included “the most amazing photograph I’ve ever seen in any women’s magazine,” and “For the first time ever, I looked in a magazine and saw a picture of a woman and actually thought, “She looks exactly like me!”

The magazine’s editor, Cindi Leive said in the wake of the of publishing the shot, “I hope it’s the beginning of a revolution.”

Meanwhile, UK Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman has put pen to paper, pleading with haute couture designers to make larger sample sizes so the magazine would not be forced to employ the skeletal, practically pre-pubescent girls that were the only models able to fit into them.

Addressing an audience at Harvard, US designer Michael Kors recently lambasted the “army of children” who are the usual runway fodder. “The fashion industry is starting to address real women again,” Kors said, “The emphasis in fashion is shifting toward an emphasis on real women who are women, not girls.’‘

Then, in recent weeks, Italian Vogue has launched a “Vogue Curvy” special section online, devoted to fashion and beauty for larger women. (Why bigger women need different specialised beauty products is a curious question.)

So, has flab become fab?

Are we witnessing a genuine reaction to the terrifyingly thin girls with jutting ribcages and razors of spine who have haunted the catwalks and pages of Vogue et. al. as we forge a way towards a more inclusive vision of womanly beauty?

Or have designers and editors simply cottoned on to the fact that using “big” girls attracts much media hoopla?

After all, the occasional glamorous exception does not a revolution make.

If we were witnessing widespread cultural change, why are larger models relegated to appearing nearly exclusively in “Special editions” or “Body Love” issues. Lynn’s French Elle cover coup was for the “Curvy” issue, while Miller’s now famed image appeared in Glamour’s Body special.

There has most certainly been an increase in the visibility of “plus-size” models (who, it should be noted at size 12-16, are on the smaller side of the national average). But has this necessarily impelled positive change or does it genuinely reflect the beginning of a more inclusive bodily aesthetic?

Employing curvier models serves as a means for the fashion world to fob off criticisms that their continued use of malnourished Eastern European teenagers promotes a terribly skewed vision of “beauty”.

The UK Observer newspaper quoted a Parisian fashion insider as saying of the Elle cover, “It’s a gimmick. Having one edition that you fill with big girls is like world women’s day: one day a year is reserved for them and the rest of the time you go back to normal.”

It’s hard to escape the whiff of self-promotion and publicity grubbing when it comes to designers and magazine editors employing larger models.

Renn makes this point in her autobiography, “Hungry”, discussing what she sees as the “fetishisation of fat”. “When designers and editors choose one fat girl to salivate over, and revel in her avoirdupois, I’m not sure how much it advances the cause of using girls of all sizes in a magazine” Renn writes.

Charlotte Dawson was criticized for stating the obvious when she commented on “bigger” girls auditioning for Australia’s Next Top Model. “There is no market for plus-size models in Australia….” Dawson told ninemsn. “I would like someone to name a plus-size model in Australia because I can’t,” she said. “We could have a plus-size model win the competition and she would end up doing catalogues for Target.”

There remains significant resistance from those at the heart of the fashion world, with Karl Lagerfeld taking aim at the issue, declaring “No one wants to see curvy women” in magazines. Largerfeld agued that Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle and their ilk are the stuff of “dreams and illusions”, and thus there is no place for a size 10 reality.

After all, this is a world that has never been interested in normal or average, and so much of which is anathema to the real world.

So long as “fat” is little more than a faddish curiosity or a handy politically correct, self-congratulatory manoeuvre, the wider fashion milieu will remain as regimented and segregated as ever.

If each time a larger model is employed there is such a volume of self-congratulatory fanfare, the prevailing stereotypes are not being substantively challenged or changed.

In this battle for hearts and minds and body-fat percentages perhaps whatever helps sell the most magazines or chunky knitted blue capes wins.

Illegals flooding our country

2010-03-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

A major issue at the next Australian election!

Illegal immigrants.

Since our current Government (Labor) won election, they've gone out of their way to encourage illegal immigrants to jump the queue of legitimate others and enter our country and do as they please.

Apart from the boats crowded with illegals now hitting our shores daily, one cringes at the thought of those sneaking through on air arrivals.

Naturally, we taxpayers are expected to pay for them all providing them benefits.

That's why they come here.

The word has spread, we are a soft touch. Certain numbers of them are attempting to dominate our culture with their own. Does any of this make sense? It's time to kick back and send back these people where they came from.

An excellent thought is to send the illegals back to the camps where legals are waiting. Bring the legals in and let those illegals wait back in the queue. "Backfilling". An excellent idea!

There are few issues more fraught in this country than that of border protection. The combination of anxiety about our security, concerns about our employment and economic well-being and the often confrontational images that accompany this problem means that emotions run high.

Leaders on both sides of the political debate have an obligation to make sure that this passion is constrained to vigorous debate and does not spill over into ugly vilification or racism.

And likewise those who are legitimately concerned the current policy is too soft should not be labeled racists themselves.

Instead it is incumbent upon each side of politics to put the emotive language and rhetoric aside and clearly outline their position on this complex issue.

There is a sense in the community, as there has been in some sections of the Labor Party itself, that Kevin Rudd's difficulties with the asylum seeker problem have not been caused by his less hard line approach but rather his attempt to talk tough while implementing a more generous program.

If he had articulated an unequivocal position and stood fast he might not have found himself wedged in as he appears to be now. People might have disagreed but they at least would have known where he stood and respected him for that.

Likewise Tony Abbott has flagged the possibility of returning to John Howard's controversial Pacific Solution. He ought to place this squarely on the board or remove it altogether as a political chess piece.

If we're going to talk tough about this issue let's also talk straight.

Don't you hate someone that destroys a career?

2010-03-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

We have in Australia, a weak couple, Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle our local media does it's best on a slow news day to relate to power couple, David Beckham and wag. Victoria. Victoria was a one time Spice girl decades ago.

However, Vice Captain of Australian Cricket, Michael Clarke hurried back to Australia in the middle of a strategic series in NZ to comfort girlfriend Lara Bingle, embroiled in a nude picture scandal involving one of her former lovers. It seems she needed consoling for her stupidity. "Immediately, if not sooner". Lara has done little the last few years of any note. In fact, she's done little anytime!

Cricket is a big deal in Australia same as baseball in USA.

She's been involved in various scandals in the past so this is nothing new to her. She's also known to associate with various sporting stars and involved in various scandals with them.

If this was just one scandal, I could accept this as we are only human. But there have been several with this train wreck. However this spoiled brat who's never worked a day in her life, demands immediate attention from her poor besotted boyfriend.

She has little claim to fame apart from the fact she fronted a commercial for Australian Tourism a few years ago and became famous for using the word "bloody" that the poms objected to the use.

Can you believe this? The poms... who have the most risque (and enjoyable) humor in the world. In the near future, I may bother to take the months necessary to list, the thousands of English shows, their sexual innuendos and use of dirty words far. far worse than the word, "bloody"!

However, I digress!

Bingle currently, has a street smart PR Agent out there flogging her as a package to TV networks and any other media that will listen, for a million dollars. Needless to say, weeks, later, no one wants to know her.

Other Agents gave up on her because she was a tad precious, not accepting work.

Not surprisingly, now, no one wants to know her, she's crying and want's consolation from her main income earner, Michael Clarke to come home and comfort her. Poor baby probably has another scratch on her expensive gift car.

We take our cricket seriously here in Australia as it's steeped in tradition and history. To be an Australian Cricket Captain is perhaps the highest honor in Australian sport. Bingle's whine for attention has done little for her business opportunities and virtually destroyed her boyfriend's chances of advancing to Australian Captain and making serious money in Australian cricket.

They are engaged. Current bets from within the industry are, she will leave him soon and move on down hill!

Spanx? Need to know stuff about Spanx

2010-02-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

Excuse me, but I'm just a humble guy. Just discovered something called "Spanx" from this vitally important article in the London Daily Mail. "What the hell is that you say?" We learn so much every day. Read on and discover this gem recently published dear friends. Anyhow, thought I would share this post with you...

Whoops! Now we know what's Holden Amanda in... a pair of Spanx

After flashing her enviable bottom in her new TV show Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives last week, you wouldn't think Amanda Holden would need any support.

But as she arrived at the Britain's Got Talent auditions in Birmingham today, the actress unwittingly flashed her control pants.

Looking svelte and toned in a fuchsia mini-dress, the 38-year-old didn't realise her hemline had caught on her Spanx pants, exposing them to photographers as she stepped out of her car at the city's Hippodrome.

Summery brights: Amanda Holden looked summery in a fuchsia dress as she arrived at the Britain's Got Talent auditions in Birmingham today

Flasher: Holden ends up flashing her Spanx control pants

Pert: Holden showed off her bottom when she played a Parisian showgirl in her TV show last week

Holden's use of the pants is surprising given her bottom-flashing in her TV show last week, when she stripped down to a revealing outfit to play a Parisian showgirl.

While Holden may be embarrassed to realise they were showing, she's made no secret of her love for control pants.

She said last year: 'On fat days, I wear Spanx. When I'm working I wear Spanx control knickers to smooth things out.'

The Spanx range of body forming stockings and control pants, which sell for between £20 and £50, hold in the bottom, thighs and stomach, are virtually undetectable.

Spanx, invented by American entrepreneur Sara Blakely, promise to 'flatter your figure from top to bottom'.

Other celebrity fans of Spanx include Beyonce Knowles, Tori Spelling, Girls Aloud, Tyra Banks, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Katie Holmes and Jessica Alba.

And flashing her control pants weren't Holden's only wardrobe malfunction this week, yesterday her perfectly coiffed haircut was ruined by the strong winds as she posed for a photocall in London.

The Britain's Got Talent judge was helping friend Gina Hemmings open her new health and beauty salon in Kew, south west London, when she was got caught out by the weather.

Not such a secret: Holden has spoken openly about her love of Spanx

Enlarge

Sleek silhouette: Holden's pants help her achieve the right look in her dress

Dressed in a dark grey jersey dress, light grey cardigan and knee-high boots, Holden looked well-groomed as he posed alongside a tree outside Hemmings' new business.

Love a sea mystery

2010-02-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

Goddamn! We all love sea mystery stuff don't we? Don't we?

Nature lover lost in North Sea saved by woman who spotted his camera flashing... 350 miles away

A German man owes his life to a woman who rescued him from 350 miles away – thanks to his camera.

The man lost on a frozen stretch of the North Sea was facing almost certain death when he flashed his camera in the hope that someone might be out watching the same beautiful sunset he had set out to witness.

Luckily the camera flash off the coast of St. Peter-Ording near the Danish border was witnessed by a female nature lover sitting in front of her computer in the Westerwald region near the Rhine hundreds of miles away in southern Germany.

Eagle-eyed: An observation base near the stretch of the North Sea the woman was viewing via a webcam when she spotted the lost man

She was monitoring a camera set up on the beach to record the vivid sunset.

Seeing the camera flashes she alerted local police who in turn sent through an emergency call that resulted in a patrol rescuing the man as temperatures plunged to -20c.

Police spokeswoman Kristin Stielow said: 'He was walking on the ice, got disoriented and would probably have either fallen through the ice or succumbed to the cold.

'He was very lucky that this lady was sharing the same natural phenomenon but from the warmth and safety of her own home.'

The man in his 40s was treated for mild exposure after his ordeal.

He is planning a visit to the woman he owes his life to when he has recovered.

The man was stranded near St Peter-Ording, while his 'rescuer' was 350 miles away in Westerwald

Things that've disappeared the past decade

2009-12-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

VIDEO tapes, fax machines and the Encyclopaedia Britannica are among the items to have disappeared from our lives over the past decade.

VIDEO tapes, fax machines and the Encyclopaedia Britannica are among the items to have disappeared from our lives over the past decade.

No corner of our lives has been left untouched by the internet as households across Australia went online.

Since 1998, home internet access has more than quadrupled from 16 per cent to 72 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Renowned reference books such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and World Book seemed to disappear as they were usurped first by Microsoft Encarta and then the far less reliable Wikipedia. Video tapes became a relic in the 2000s, with DVD players outselling video recorders early in the decade. The massive retail video libraries of the past also moved on, selling their old wares for $1 a tape and then filling the shelves with fast-moving DVDs.

Fax machines were made obsolete by scanners and email, and by this year your Filofax fitted in your mobile phone. Many CD collections were condensed on to a tiny MP3 player.

Film cameras have all but disappeared, as did the trip to the chemist to get film developed.

Your camcorder also went digital, and eventually merged into your camera or telephone or both.

Public telephones slowly disappeared as even children are now able to whip out their mobiles.

Nowadays, 31 per cent -- or 841,000 -- of all children aged between five and 14 have access to their own mobile phones, the ABS estimates.

The Yellow Pages has become a thing of the past for many.

And the way we use computers also changed. Floppy disks, which were a mere 3.5 inches (9cm) wide in 2000, were usurped by zip drives, CDs and finally the USB flash drive.

The squeals and delays of dial-up internet are also on the way out, as households move to high-speed broadband connections.

The steady stream of catalogues stuffed in mailboxes slowed to a trickle in the 2000s, and the floodgates of spam email opened. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone knew an exiled Nigerian prince.

Australia began generating spam too. By 2004, Australia was the world's 10th-largest spam producer, accounting for 1.21 per cent of global unsolicited commercial emails.

Finding your way was revolutionised by the explosion in GPS navigation. Driving while balancing an open street directory on your lap was made a thing of the past this decade.

Best and worst fashion of the decade!

2009-12-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

(with thanks to Nedahl Stelio, a contributor to The Punch www.thepunch.com.au)

Yes, there have been some corkers in the fashion world this past ten years – thigh high rubber boots usually worn to wade in alligator-infested swamps anyone? – but there have also been some winners. Pieces that women have been thankful to add on high rotation in their wardrobe. Here’s a round up of the best and worst trends of the decade.

Bad Sarah Jessica, Good Sarah Jessica

WORST

The 80’s revival
Those who are old enough to have gone through it once are also old enough to remember how horrifically unfashionable the 80’s were. All you have to do is look at Sarah-Jessica Parker then, and Sarah-Jessica Parker now to know that the 80’s should not be revisted.

Yet here we are, in shoulder pad HELL. Not to mention acid wash jeans, the midriff top, taffeta prom dresses, fluro accessories, jelly shoes, balloon skirts, fingerless gloves, and the piece de resistance – the scrunchie - is attempting a comeback.

Disposable fashion
Two shirts for $10, three bags for $50, four skirts for $100. This decade, women have never had more crap quality clothing to spend their money on – and it’s not good for our wardrobe or our environment. A drag on the world’s resources which is also filling up our dumpsters, disposable clothing is costing us millions globally every year. The solution is to buy quality items, less often. Just because you’re heading out on Friday night does not mean you need another new top. Really.

High waisted jeans
Honestly, whose five-second idea was this? High-waisted jeans only looked good on 6” tall supermodels, which is about 0.0001% of the population. To the rest of us: time to trash ‘em.

Harem pants
What genie-loving, mung-bean eating, MC Hammer-listening fashion designer coined this trend? I don’t know, but I’d like to blame them for all of the droopy assed women on the street.

Too-low hipsters
When these first hit the stores we loved them – finally, an alternative to the Levis 501. But the more we wore them, the more we realized something: they had created a fat pocket that hadn’t existed previously. That’s right, I’m talking about The Muffin Top. Any item of clothing that increased fatty deposits on women was instantly going to be scorned and yes, tossed to the bottom of the pile.

Juicy Couture tracksuits
If you didn’t have a Juicy tracksuit (or a cheaper copy of), you simply weren’t cool. Because EVERYONE owned one of these matching velour babies, some of whom were lucky to have the genuine article with JUICY emblazoned across their butt. Jessica Simpson bought personalized pairs for all her bridesmaids. Such a lovely time in fashion.

One piece swimsuits with huge cut outs on the sides and t-bar fronts
Two words: tan lines.

Ridiculous heels shaped like table legs
There are good heels, that are elegant and do the job of shaping the body, giving you height and making you feel like sex on legs … and there are gimmicky heels, on platforms with stilts shaped like an old candlestick that you, along with loads of models on the catwalk, now hate after spraining their ankle while wearing them.

BEST

Ballet flats
Finally! Women could wear flat shoes! Which didn’t cramp our toes! Or make our soles ache! Or put our backs out! And we could still look fashionable! Thank you, Kate Moss, for making these okay.

Opaques
Umm, stockings that suck us in, stop our thighs from jiggling, make us look thinner, tighter, taller and keep us warm in winter. Are they a saviour for women? Hell yes.

Leggings
Who doesn’t want a pant that costs less than your weekly food shop and can be worn under dresses, tops, coats and still look as chic as $300 jeans?

High waisted dresses
After years of belting at the hip we at last rediscovered our waist and ultimately, that feminine hourglass shape which really does suit every woman.

Sequins
It’s every girl’s dream really. Who doesn’t want to wear a million tiny shiny circles sewn onto their top and sparkle like they deserve to, hmm? Sequins came into our lives in a big way this decade, much to the chagrin of men who didn’t quite know how to tackle the trend – are they supposed to wear a tux if you’re wearing sequins? No boys. It’s just us that gets to dress up like this.

Skinny scarves worn in summer
I love a trend that ticks off a number of things: colour on a boring outfit? Yes. Get to wear the same clothes but make it look different? Yes. Cover a sagging jowl, spotty chest or too much cleavage? Yes yes yes!

Statement jewelery
This decade, we learnt that just because we couldn’t afford oversized baubles to adorn our wrists, neck and fingers, didn’t mean we couldn’t wear fabulous costume jewelery that looked just like the real thing – almost better because we
could afford one in every colour.

Blazers
Traditionally a part of a suit, the blazer is now a classic uniform. Worn on it’s own with jeans, skirts an evening dress, it’s every woman’s staple.

Red attack!

2009-09-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Red everywhere.

Wednesday morning I woke 6:30am, my usual hour.

One serious problem.

Everything was red.

Red?

Kid you not. Checked outside and everything was also red. N o other colours.

Red! red! Red!

Do I give up the grog? Was it Armageddon? A terrorist attack? Had I died and gone to hell? Scary moments.

What's a red dust storm? Didn't know or care until yesterday. Now I'm an experienced dust storm survivor, I have fresh dinner conversation ammunition.

This red haze, churned by powerful winds that lifted thousands of tons of topsoil from the arid and drought-stricken inland, was visible from space, appearing as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia.

The storm ripped an unknown amount of topsoil from farms across a huge swath of Australia.

This extraordinary event of nature amused our country cousins who smirkingly suggested we city slickers get a life and get over it. They've been there and done that.

Now the dust has settled so to speak, car wash merchants are gleefully rubbing their hands, ordering Rolls Royces and first class trips overseas. Home cleaning services are booked out and lifting hourly rates. The recession is over. Not that we had one in the first place but it makes good copy.

There are winners and losers. Someone has to benefit.

Did you notice?

2009-07-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Wimbledon 2009 is over. Fantastic stuff!

Fedderer/Roddick match final has gotta go down in history as one of the greatest epics in Wimbledon tennis. Both players deserving of accolades. The TV networks rejoice at an epic event equal to MJ memorial coverage

Not a grunter or screamer amongst the finalists except for the Williams sisters. They're entitled to grunt, scream, groan and orgasm 'cause they are the world's best female tennis players. But no more! It pisses us off!

With luck, they'll shut up now they're threatened with their play money taken from them in grunt fines.

Hopefully, we see the Williams grunt-less at the NY fest.

Nothing talks better than hard cash!

RIP Jacko

2009-06-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson.

I wasn't a great fan of the man. Even less so when pedophile allegations came to light. However hundreds of millions thought otherwise and stuck by their man. Rightfully so!

There's no denying, he was a great talent despite his eccentricities. We baby boomers grew up with this guy and had at least one LP of his even though we may deny this. His dance moves and music were incredible and deserving to be remembered in history. He will remembered as a leader in music amongst the likes of other legendary contemporary artists such as Elvis, Buddy Holly. As someone said ..."a Rembrandt of our time".

RIP Michael. We miss you and will not forget you.

Racket buster. The best news since sliced bread

2009-06-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

The racket of screaming, grunting tennis players ranks higher on the irritation scale than fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. This awful, deafening and unfair trend that's now common particularly among young women players.

Relief is near as new proposals to make noise hindrance part of the International Tennis Federation's code of conduct, could mean screaming grunters could potentially forfeit a whole game or match.

Actor, Peter Ustinov, a wit and a tennis tragic, watching Monica Seles grunting her way to a victory at Wimbledon said to a friend: ‘I’d hate to be be in the hotel room next door on her wedding night.’

Forget about wedding nights when grunting and groaning are presumably legitimate noise-making. Let’s just accept that watching someone like Seles play in the past, and now one of the loudest offenders, Maria Sharapova, who at 101 decibels is almost as loud as a lion's 110 decibel roar or the sound a small aircraft makes when it takes off.

Monica Seles is not far behind with her groans reaching 93.2 decibels subjecting we viewers to a sound pollution of grunts, groans, aaahs, ooohs, eeeaahhs-urrrrrrs

In last month's French open, Aravane Rezai complained to the umpire about the noise emitting from 16-year-old player Michelle Larcher de Brito.

This tactic is increasingly being adopted by players who, admittedly, put less into their shots and their racing around the courts than the star players. It’s being called ‘the counter-grunt.’ The journeyperson Russian player, Elena Dementrieva, for instance, lived up to her name by adopting a double-bang grunt, ‘oooaah- urrrring’, on every shot, whether a great effort was expended or not.

There are two main reasons why sound pollution on the tennis court should be banned: first, it is used as a tactic to unsettle opponents: and second, it makes watching tennis played by grunters and groaners an unpleasant experience, which grates on the pleasure of watching tennis.

The grunters and groaners deny that they are trying to unsettle opponents. But this is clearly at the heart of the tactic. The retired Wimbledon referee Alan Mills told reporters some years ago that coaches were training women players, in particular, to grunt as loud as they can.

Martina Navratilova, who despised the tactic, pointed out that tennis players rely on the sound of the ball coming off an opponent’s racket to a certain extent to give them clues about its velocity, direction and the spin on the shot. How convenient it is that the grunting denies a skillful player this basic information.

In the 1992 quarter-final at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf demanded that Monica Seles, grunting at a 93 decibel level, shut up. Seles eventually lost the match to Graf.

Then there is the unpleasant nature of the sound. For the two hours or so playing Sharapova, say, her opponent and viewers are subjected to an unceasing flow of unpleasant noise, rather like being forced to listen to a heavy metal radio station in a locked room with the sound distorted because the tuning is off-station.

Leading coaches and players have called for grunting to be banned on the tennis court by the organisers of the major tournaments. The secrets of the bedroom should be kept to the bedroom.

Official gruntometer: Top 10 grunters in decibels
(Stats thanks to the Daily Mail)

# Lion's roar 110
# Maria Sharapova 101
# Monica Seles 93.2
# Serena Williams 88.9
# Lindsay Davenport 88
# Venus Williams 85
# Victoria Azarenka 83.5
# Elena Bovina 81
# Anna Kournikova 78.5
# Kim Clijsters 75

Big brother is watching!

2009-06-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

Your data is not private!

In the privacy of our studies, offices, libraries, or wherever it is we have our computers, it may seem that we are alone, with no one looking over our shoulders. But every document we draft, every step through the Internet we take, is creating tracks through the digital environment in our computers. This fact has a number of implications, both useful and detrimental.

What happens when drafting a document?

Suppose we are drafting a Microsoft Word document. It would appear that we are simply typing a single document that we can then save (or not), or delete at will. But several things are going on behind the scenes. As soon as a document is started, even before giving it a name, an invisible document is mirroring what is being typed on the screen. This happens every time the document is opened after it is saved. When printing the document, another invisible file containing all or part the document is created as a buffer for the printer's use. All the while, data from the document is being written into the computer's virtual memory file, a kind of scratch pad the computer uses in order to speed things up. So the very act of writing a document and printing it puts all or part of the document in at least four different places.

What happens when a document is deleted?

When a document is deleted, one letter of the name of the document is changed so that the operating system ignores its presence (it essentially becomes invisible to the user) and allows it to be overwritten. Otherwise, not much really happens to the document right away. Over time, it may get overwritten - or it may not.

What happens when visiting a website?

The browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) makes a record of the address of the website and the specific page that includes the date and time, it keeps a record of any “cookie" - data that the website gives the browser - this is called “Internet History". The browser also downloads the little images ("thumbnails") that are on the given web page. All of this information sits on the user's computer, and the Internet history gets renewed regularly. Every week or so, the browser makes a whole new copy of the history file, deleting the old one. Of course, like with any other document, the deleted history file doesn't go away - its name is changed and part or all of it may become overwritten in time.

Digital Forensics

A computer forensic expert, using various software tools can look underneath the images in Windows that a user sees. Using a range of computer forensics suites and data recovery tools, the “digital detective" can recover deleted files, and find thousands of otherwise lost snippets of Internet history, missing emails, and apparently erased images. These processes make up a big part of the science and art of digital forensics.

Good news / Bad News

Depending on your perspective, the ability to recover information that one might have thought gone - or never stored - can be helpful or hurtful. On the good news side, such information can help a defendant to prove his or her innocence, or fuel a counter-claim. Conversely, digital discovery can reveal wrongdoings thought hidden or lost.

For the individual, computer forensics can provide the gift of finding data thought long lost. For law enforcement, it can provide the digital evidence needed to prove cases in a wide variety of offenses, from threats to fraud to embezzlement to child or elder exploitation. For business, e-discovery can provide a remedy for stolen secrets or customers. For a defendant, skilful electronic discovery can help to disprove an opponent's claims saving money
, reputation, or even jail time. For lawyers, a whole other avenue of document discovery is opened up.

Digital forensics can be a boon or a bane, but the field is advancing quickly, gaining wider use, and is here to stay.

A comprehensive history of hangovers

2009-03-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

After sharing a few green beers with friends on St Pat's day and nursing my hangover, I thought back to the hangovers I've known and loved.

There was my post-Rat-Pack-themed-party hangover, when I spent the day after -- my housewarming! -- attempting not to make any sudden movements while regretting each vodka martini I'd upended.

There was the particularly hairy-tongued post-New Year's party hangover, memorable because on my way home on Military Road, I had a flat tire and I'd had to change it by the curb, my hands moving on autopilot.

Then a few weeks ago, my mate John who has a memorable collection of wines in his cellar (curse his hobby) decided to introduce me to a few specials he had. The rest is history and all I remember is that hangover was one of my greatest achievements.

But probably my favorite hangover was during my first year at Melbourne University. That's where they taught me to drink amongst other interesting things.

Leonid Brezhnev had just died, and my mate, Pat, and I decided to mark his passing by toasting the occasion with Bulgarian wine. Bulgarian wine was not as easy to get then as it is today, but for some reason -- an overestimation of Melbourne's Bulgarian population, perhaps -- but the liquor store near our flat stocked it.

Bulgarian wine tastes pretty much like you would expect it to taste, but after the first three or four glasses you are able to shed your natural reluctance to putting the ghastly stuff near your lips. After two or three bottles you even start to enjoy it, not because it tastes good but because you're proud of yourself for enduring it, the same way I imagine you feel some pride after walking barefoot across hot coals.

We drank through the night and before lecture the next morning went to a cafe for breakfast. We had spent all our cash on Bulgarian wine, however, so only had enough money for a coffee and an order of toast.

A good hangover is like a good movie: entertaining, educational, satisfying. A good hangover should be part of a narrative arc, the final act of a drama that began the night before. Whether it's played for comedy or tragedy, well, that largely depends on the night before.

People might disagree on whether a hangover is immoral, but certainly all hangovers are chemical. No matter what you've been drinking --

Bulgarian wine, Scotch whisky, Guinness -- chemically speaking, it all comes down to ethyl alcohol -- or, as chemists know it, C2H5OH.

"Chemistry is not a strictly academic subject," a commentator said at a seminar I attended yesterday. "It's also something that affects your regular life."

She was wearing green shamrock deelyboppers on her head. She has been giving a St Patrick's Day-themed seminar for eight years.

Humans have been drinking alcohol -- and, presumably, waking up regretting it -- since at least 3700 B.C., she said. (Those were the Egyptians. It's a wonder they got the pyramids built at all.)

Yes, the ethyl alcohol in whatever poison you're drinking can give you a hangover the next day, but you're just as likely to suffer from the byproducts of fermentation, what are called cogeners. (I think Bulgarian wine is about 90 percent cogeners.)

She moved up the ladder of inebriation: .02 blood alcohol level and a drinker typically experiences mild throbbing and a touch of dizziness; at .03 come feelings of euphoria and superiority; at .05, normal inhibitions are almost eliminated.

She said: "Many liberties are taken. I don't need to say more."

She did say a little more: Alcohol can provoke desire, but it typically ruins your ability. "I know you want to say, 'Not me,' but we'd all have to be there to pass judgment on that."

There was nervous laughter from me and my fellow seminar attendees.

On a lighter note ...the next seminar is not for 6 months unless my company decides to "educate" me further.

Perhaps I won't have a hangover.

Twitterisms for all

2009-03-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

I'm obsessed with Twitter. Check out my moment by moment Twitter ravings right side of this page.

Massive contributions coming here soon.

Commerce interruptus!

A quick comment

2008-12-29T17:21:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting Christmas and holiday period chock full of of fascinating work drama, travel delays and cock ups. I love this time of the year! Hang in there whilst I prepare a novel to entertain you all. Happy New Year!

Customer service

2008-12-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, the wife of one of my friends was connected through to an India call centre because of a technical query (with a well known product).

She was abused and sworn at by the customer service representative who used every disgusting word known.

The India call centre tried to deny it but caved in when confronted with a recording of the call

India call centres are a growth industry but will be their own doom through poor management and people training skills.

Outsourcers pay cheap for India Call Centre support services but in turn will get customer backlash for their products through unsatisfactory support.

The above video is a funny parody of customer service

I confess. I stole the following comments and video from The Cathrinette Chronicles.

Cathrinette said:
"At one point or another we’ve all been forced to deal with that woman. You know the one that I’m talking about. The one that’s supposed to be helpful, has a look on her face like she’s constantly sniffing a big whiff of poo, and would rather stick her hand in a meat grinder than actually help you.

Most of us are lucky to not have to deal with such “helpful” bitches on a daily basis. We just randomly encounter them, deal with them, and then bitch to all our friends about how the woman was secretly begging us to slap her right in her insolent mouth. It just so happens, that I had the joy and pleasure of actually working with a woman just like this."

'tis the Mango Season. Time to Make Merry

2008-12-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

I adore a mango. I've just purchased a case on special at the supermarket.

They're good for you but don't tell the kids that.

For fun and pleasure, a mango ranks with Christmas. How fortunate these great seasons coincide in our part of the world. The innocuous mango has a colourful "history". But we'll talk more about this in a moment.

Same as Christmas, mangos are fun and social. For starters, they make people laugh when at lunchbreak I slop it's heavenly contents down the front of my crisp white Kalvin Klein shirt and Trent Nathan tie. It's even more laughable when I'm obliged to attend a meeting later in the day wearing said stained shirt and tie in an office that thrives on gossip and politics.

When invited to someone's home for dinner around Christmas time, a gift of a box of mangos does the trick. It solves the problem of what to give. A nice safe gift for someone you don't know. They'll remember your magnificent offering for festive seasons to come. "Remember when Foss brought those mangos?" Bring wine and they forget you the next day.

They're good for dinner conversation. Nothing breaks an awkward silence on a first date more perfectly - or subtly introduces the topic of mangos to a lemon-loving colleague better than a mango joke:

Two Jamaican men were throwing stones at a mango tree, trying to hit down a large mango right at the top, when one said to the other: "All de stone we stone, suppose de mango no ripe?" "True," said his friend, "Check it out mon." The first man then climbed the tree, went all the way to the top where the limbs were dangerously thin, felt the mango and came back down. "It ripe," he said to his friend. "We naa fling stone fi nutten." Back down the tree he came and then they began to stone the mango tree again.

Q: What is a feminist's favourite non-phallic fruit?

A: Mango

Q: How many mango farmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: None. Mangos are cultivated by caterpillars and transported to market on the backs of of lice thus negating the necessity of having a farmer

Knock, knock

Who's there?

A mango

A mango who?

Have you always been able to speak to talking mangos with the ability to knock on doors or is this a new development in your mania?

Q: What do you call a woman with two mangos on her head

A: It's my friend Gertrude. She's mentally disabled and I'll thank you not to make fun of her

The mango attraction is not only enhanced by the eating. It's juicy gossip rating matches that of Britney Spears.

For centuries the people of, at first the Dark Ages, and then the Getting Brighter Ages, had engorged themselves on all the fruits known to man - the plum, the banana, the orange, the tortoise, the melon, the coconut, the apple, and the potato to name but a few - and apathy had begun to set in. Civilisation had become complacent with regards to healthy eating and lusted after the forbidden fruits of cigarettes, cornish pasties and the Aussie meat pie.

Sicknesses and diseases long-considered extinct or, at worst, confined to France such as rickets, scurvy, and Republicanism were sweeping through populations the world over. Something had to be done and someone had to do the something that had to be done before nobody did nothing about the something.

Sadly, nobody did until the latter half of the nineteenth century when popular scientist Isabella di Mango (Italian discoverer of aerobics and popular because of her insistence in performing it nude) accidentally created the world's first mango while trying to perfect the rear body reach near a bowl of overripe peaches and a pear with an inferiority complex.

One quick call to Malaysia to arrange growing rights and royalties, a naked aerobicist dripping in a mango juice advertising campaign, and the mango took the world by storm. As Isabella aged, her popularity, like her often-exposed breasts, sagged, and with it went the soar away success of the new fruit. But like General Douglas MacArthur, it returned to conquer us all

Have a merry mango Christmas

Christmas office party - the silly season

2008-11-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

After weeks of silence, I had this brilliant idea. The clouds disappeared, the sky was blue and goddamm. There it was. A bolt from that blue. A thought to pass on to you about Christmas parties now 'tis the season to make merry.

Even though we are thrust into the middle of economic gloom, (thank you US friends for your clever work) the party continues. A few companies have abandoned the Christmas party but most have not.

What the hell. Did not Nero fiddle on whist Rome burned?

But Sydney Daily Telegraph reporter, Joe Hildibrand, beat me to it. Curse his reporter hide! He got there first and stole my great idea.

But I gotta admit, Hildibrand makes me laugh. I promote him to him to "cool guy" status even though he is the enemy and thiever of great ideas. So read his utterances and enjoy.

Joe Hildebrand Friday, November 21, 2008 Sydney Daily Telegraph

"LIKE any good Catholic, the two main driving forces in my life are guilt and regret.
Psychologists agree that these are vital motivators for a happy and successful
future. If one cannot bask in the twin glories of angst and remorse then what
point life?

Of course to fully harness the benefits one must consistently @#$% things up.
Fortunately I have a natural talent for this but for others not so gifted
there is the Christmas party season.

Obviously all parties have a healthy scope for disgraceful behaviour, however Christmas parties raise the benchmark just that little bit higher.
For example it is not enough simply to throw up and pass out in the toilets; one must throw up and pass out in the wrong toilets.

Likewise a sexual indiscretion cannot be limited to mere infidelity or public exposure if it is to qualify as a genuine water cooler conversation.
It has to involve odd numbers, office equipment and a perversity that eclipses conventional bestiality - such as, for example, an unusual application of a potplant.

Then the next morning when you wake up in someone else’s bed/someone else’s flowerbed/Morocco you have to scratch your head and wait for the horror of the previous night to be gradually unlocked by a painful combination of memory recall and eyewitnesses.

Once this panorama of agony has been fully visited upon you I want you to consider this very important fact: You have a mother who sacrificed everything for you.

I now refer you to the opening sentence again.

The other dangerous thing is that the Christmas party season seems to start earlier and earlier each year, to the point where I haven’t stopped drinking since January.

In fact it just so happens I was at a Christmas party this week, which is lucky given that Christmas parties are the subject of this column.

It was held at a very fancy Italian restaurant that had a whole pig laid out on the table in the middle of the room, although after a while someone told Kim
Kardashian it was time to go home.

The party was also furnished with a range of boutique beers, so as to reassure the various media and lobbyist types who were there to convince themselves they were “connoisseurs’’ and not “alcoholics’’.
I myself commented approvingly on the texture of some 27 beers before wandering out into the street muttering something about infrastructure.

It is here that events are, shall we say, hotly contested by historians.
It may be that I ended up in a ridiculously poncy piano bar drinking a $12.50 beer. It may be that the beer was $7.50 and I dropped $5 on the ground.
It may be that Darrin said he didn’t care whether the beer was $12.50 or $7.50 he sure as hell wasn’t going to be buying one and could we all please go to Gilligan’s.

And there was also the rain. The more it rained, the more we had to stay and the more we had to stay, the more we had to drink - of course I don’t remember actually doing this, I just know it is a fundamental law of physics.

What I also know is that after I woke up and started talking to people throughout the morning everyone was looking at me with a mixture of anger and disgust - which is not unusual in itself but very rare when I am wearing pants.

I immediately rang Darrin to find out if there was something I may have done to have upset anyone and while it was difficult to make out what he was saying over the third chorus of On A Night Like This, I did clearly hear him use the words “absolutely everything’’ and “thanks for the appletini, Gomez’’.

Suddenly my memories of the previous night flashed before my eyes. Unfortunately this comprised only a series of European beer brands such as Peroni, Hahn and Melbourne Bitter.
I then toyed with the possibility that when I was telling various guests about my driving passions in public policy making I may have mixed up the words “infrastructure’’ and “paedophilia’’.

At any rate, it is clear that the transgression extended the capacity of even the most comprehensive group email list and so I offer all of you* this: I’m sorry.

*Except, for legal reasons, the stolen generations."

Let us not be politically correct

2008-10-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

We are all too precious these days and should be saying it how it is.

It was spawned around 1980. Now - 30 years later, not a day goes by without another correctness rule chapter added to the fastest growing and now most popular manual in the world. The manual of political correctness. Let us review a few of these pearls of wisdom.

Chapter 20. Thought police say Christmas is a no no. Close it down. It will offend other religions.

Chapter 25. Jovial present giver, Father Christmas is accused of being a lie by correctness gurus. He's in the process of being de-ho ho'd together with the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny (oops! "ho ho" is politically incorrect. See Chapter 207). Winnie the Pooh is out and the books burnt because Winnie is associated with an inappropriate word. Out they all go!

Chapter 8. Not even Enid Blyton's "Noddy" escaped the madness. Noddy was branded a middle-class snob, prompting book and television rewrites to make him more "normal".

Chapter 1. Baby boomers will remember Florence Kate Upton's "Golliwogs". Shock horror. Black! This was the birth of the political correctness manual when the experts glanced at an illustration of a coloured person and decided it was time to act.

In England, a non potically correct citizen erected a barb wire fence to protect his house but was ordered to take it down as authorities were worried intruders might hurt themselves. In Australia, a citizen was asked to take down the Australian National flag flying on a flagpole outside his home as a neighbour considered it offensive.

Has the world gone mad?

The following "Politically Correct Tale of Little Red Riding Hood" by Jim Scanlon puts it all into peerpective..

There once was a young person named Little Red Riding Hood who lived on the edge of a large forest full of endangered owls and rare plants that would probably provide a cure for cancer if only Congress would appropriate the money to study them.

Red Riding Hood lived with a nurture giver whom she sometimes referred to as "mother," although she didn't mean to imply by this term that she would have thought less of the person if a close biological link did not in fact exist.

Nor did she intend to denigrate the equal value of non-traditional households, although she was sorry if this was the impression conveyed.

One day her mother asked her to take a basket of organically grown fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's house.
"But mother, won't this be stealing work from the unionized people who have struggled for years to earn the right to carry all packages between various people in the woods?"
Red Riding Hood's mother assured her that she had called the union boss and got a special compassionate mission exemption form.
"But mother, aren't you oppressing me by ordering me to do this?"
Red Riding Hood's mother pointed out that it was impossible for women to oppress each other, since all women were equally oppressed until all women were free.
"But mother, then shouldn't you have my brother carry the basket, since he's an oppressor, and should learn what it's like to be oppressed?"
And Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her brother was attending a special rally for animal rights, and besides, this wasn't stereotypical women's work, but an empowering deed that would help engender a
feeling of community.
"But won't I be oppressing Grandma, by implying that she's sick and hence unable to independently further her own selfhood?"
Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her grandmother wasn't actually sick or incapacitated or mentally handicapped in any way, although that was not to imply that any of these conditions were inferior to what some people called "health".

Thus Red Riding Hood felt that she could get behind the idea of delivering the basket to her grandmother, and so she set off.

Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place, but Red Riding Hood knew that this was an irrational fear based on cultural paradigms instilled by a patriarchal society that regarded the natural world as an exploitable resource, and hence believed that natural predators were in fact intolerable competitors.

Other people avoided the woods for fear of thieves and deviants, but Red Riding Hood felt that in a truly classless society all marginalised peoples (Nosferatu) would be able to "come out" of the woods and be accepted as valid lifestyle role models.

On her way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood passed a woodchopper, and wandered off the path, in order to examine some flowers.

She was startled to find herself standing before a Wolf, who asked her what was in her basket.
Red Riding Hood's teacher had warned her never to talk to strangers, but she was confident in taking control of her own budding sexuality, and chose to dialogue with the Wolf.
She replied, "I am taking my Grandmother some healthful snacks in a gesture of solidarity."
The Wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone."
Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop an alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way."

Red Riding Hood returned to the main path, and proceeded towards her Grandmother's house. But because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the Wolf knew of a quicker route to Grandma's house.

He burst into the house and ate Grandma, a course of action affirmative of his nature as a predator. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist gender role notions, he put on Grandma's nightclothes, crawled under the bedclothes, and awaited developments.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, "Grandma, I have brought you some cruelty free snacks to salute you in your role of wise and nurturing matriarch."
The Wolf said softly "Come closer, child, so that I might see you."
Red Riding Hood said, "Goddess! Grandma, what big eyes you have!"
"You forget that I am optically challenged."
"And Grandma, what an enormous....what a fine nose you have."
"Naturally, I could have had it fixed to help my acting career, but I didn't give in to such societal pressures, my child."
"And Grandma, what very big, sharp teeth you have!"
The Wolf could not take any more of these specist slurs, and, in a reaction appropriate for his accustomed milieu, he leaped out of bed, grabbed Little Red Riding Hood, and opened his jaws so wide that she could see her poor Grandmother cowering in his belly.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Red Riding Hood bravely shouted. "You must request my permission before proceeding to a new level of intimacy!"

The Wolf was so startled by this statement that he loosened his grasp on her.
At the same time, the woodchopper burst into the cottage, brandishing an ax.

"Hands off!" cried the woodchopper.

"And what do you think you're doing?" cried Little Red Riding Hood. "If I let you help me now, I would be expressing a lack of confidence in my own abilities, which would lead to poor self esteem and lower achievement scores on college entrance exams."
"Last chance, sister! Get your hands off that endangered species! This is an FBI sting!" screamed the woodchopper, and when Little Red Riding Hood nonetheless made a sudden motion, he sliced off her head.
"Thank goodness you got here in time," said the Wolf. The brat and her grandmother lured me in here. I thought I was a goner."
"No, I think I'm the real victim, here," said the woodchopper. "I've been dealing with my anger ever since I saw her picking those protected flowers earlier. And now I'm going to have such a trauma. Do you have any aspirin?"
"Sure," said the Wolf.
"Thanks."
"I feel your pain," said the Wolf, and he patted the woodchopper on his firm, well padded back, gave a little belch, and said "Do you have any Quik-Eze?"

Big brother babe wants to sell her virginity

2008-09-20T03:03:00.000-07:00

Capitalism is alive and well despite the rough ride in the financial markets the last few days.

A former Italian Big Brother contestant wants to sell her virginity for a million Euros (US $1,438,500). Ex-showgirl Raffaele Fico made the offer while posing for racy photographs in an Italian magazine. Ms Fico, 20, a devout Catholic, wants the money so she can buy a house and take acting lessons.

Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can make a cool million? It makes sense. But why would you want to pay all that money for such a messy uneventful experience?

I thought Catholics were against prostitution. It must be something in the water or being a Big Brother contestant that makes them do strange things.

Wind-breaking mom a star of the show

2008-09-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks and all credits to http://tauntvortex.blogspot.com/ for this flatulating story

DeFuniak Springs, FL - Part of the universal experience of being a teenager is enduring the slings and arrows of embarrassing words and deeds from their own parents. Perhaps no teen in America is more keenly aware of this than 14 year old Hannah Faye Foster of DeFuniak Springs.

"It's Gosh-awful embarrassing," says the aspiring young actress. "I mean, I'm glad mom tries to be supportive of me and all, but then she'll sit right in the front row during one of my musicals, and it happens."

"It" is the extreme flatulence of her mother, Beverly Foster. "Like, I had the lead role of Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Hannah elaborated, "and in the scene Tom's trying to impress me and I'm supposed to be all coy and everything, and then mom just lets one rip. It totally blows."

Beverly Foster's bouts of wind-breaking are notoriously loud and frequent. According to one patron of the DeFuniak Springs Community Playhouse who wished to remain anonymous, Mrs. Foster can often be heard as far back as section W, "even during a musical with the full orchestra playing." "The frequency varies," said another theater-goer, "from a low of about 4 during The King and I, up to about 11 times during Oklahoma. But that makes sense."

Much to Hannah's chagrin, Mrs. Foster has season tickets for her front row seats. Mrs. Foster claims that she simply loves to watch her daughter perform, as any proud parent would. "But I don't do it on purpose," she insists. "I've been to a bunch of doctors, and they just can't find anything. I've even cut back on broccoli, P.F. Changs and Hot Pockets, and it still happens."

Hannah says she tries to empathize with her mother, but notes that her gas-passing seems to be at its worst during her musicals. "She never farts during Coby's baseball games." To Hannah's credit, despite having dialogue punctuated by ear-splitting flatulence, she never forgets her lines."

The bright stage lights help," said Hannah. "I can't really see her, so I just pretend it's Mr. Bartlett*. But my eyes will still water a lot."

Despite her spunky "show must go on" attitude, Hannah Faye Foster is frequently the target of local dinner theater critic Lourdes Murilo. After a recent performance of Oklahoma, Murilo said of Hannah Faye's performance : "Her acting is horrid. She truly is the black hole of 8th grade talent. Watching her makes me look forward to the sequel to Gigli. If anything, her mother's disturbing flatulence is a pleasant distraction from Hannah's disturbing acting." Murilo went on to describe Hannah's awkward dancing as "An inspired combination of Elaine's 'kick' dance on Seinfeld and Dieter on 'Sprockets' from Saturday Night Live."

Look for Hannah Faye in the DeFuniak Springs Community Playhouse Production of "The Matrix" in November, where she will revive the role of Trinity. The Taunt Vortex recommends the balcony seating.* the kindly school bus driver who eats "Slim Jims" by the caseload.

Can I borrow a couple of million?

2008-08-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

It costs $2 million plus and labelled the world's priciest car.

Ok. I'm not a car freak but it would be good for my image to cruise around town in this beast. Problem is, I would be scared to park it anywhere other than the vault of a bank. One scratch would cost zillions to repair. I couldn't just leave it parked in the street as it would stand out like a sore thumb and get knocked off by an enterprising car thief and rebirthed in another country in the blink of an eye.

Another problem. It uses 40 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres in city traffic or would run out of fuel in 12 minutes travelling at 250km/h. With the price of fuel these days, it means I would have to get a personal loan and not eat to fill the tank the necessary number of times each week to keep the thing running.

Built by Volkswagon, this Bugatti Veyron is a mid-engined sports car that can rocket to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds. On the autobahns of Europe it can legally reach speeds of more than 400km/h

End of daydream. I have to settle for a scooter.

It's great to be back!

2008-08-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

I've returned from my somewhat extended and disappointing trip. Let's not talk about that!

Damn. It's good to be home again.

But on a brighter note, first thing I see is this crazy story about a women's revenge against her unfaithful husband. It' a rib tickler!

The story unfolds...

Scorned wife's eBay revenge against husband
August 14, 2008 12:00am Sydney Daily telegraph

A SCORNED Queensland woman is literally airing her husband's dirty laundry on a global scale by auctioning his mistress's knickers on eBay.
In a spiteful listing on eBay Australia, the jilted woman is auctioning off a pair of lacy black underpants "size humongous" and an empty condom wrapper "size small" found in her bed after her husband allegedly engaged in an extramarital affair with a woman named Kylie.

The seller, 'Anna' , says: "They are so huge I thought they may make someone a nice shawl or, even better, something for Halloween perhaps."

The eBay listing, entitled "Empty condom packet & a photo of The Tart's knickers", also comes with a detailed account of the events leading up to her discovery, in which the woman returned from work to find her husband of 22 years watching a DVD and discouraging her from entering their bedroom.

Read the incredible detailed account posted on eBay - hell have no fury like a woman scorned

In the room she found the empty condom wrapper under his pillow and "the Tart's knickers . . . at the foot of the bed".

Anna also promises that this listing will not be the last in the matter, stating that her husband's Harley Hog is "the next item that will probably be sold on eBay at a start price of 99c and, of course, with no reserve!" Several bidders have already expressed interest in the motorcycle.

The embarrassing eBay listing, which does not name the husband, almost did not make the site though, as it was first taken down due to eBay's policy against selling secondhand underwear, spokeswoman Inessa Jackson said.

"We let her know about the policy and instead she's now selling a photograph of the offending knickers," she told The Courier-Mail.

"eBay does connect colourful buyers with colourful sellers and I wouldn't be surprised if someone did buy these items, though I couldn't speculate on who would buy them or why.

"This is obviously very therapeutic for this woman and it must be a great channel for her views on cheating and the sanctity of marriage."

The listing, which has a starting price of just 69 US cents, had attracted 49 bids by 1.20pm today and a top offer of $US142.50. Follow the bidding at eBay here.

More than 2500 have viewed the auction, however, and with five days to go the listing has also been added to eBay Australia's Best of eBay site.

And she says ...

What scorned wife told eBay over husband's affair

THIS is the description posed by the scorned Queensland wife on eBay describing how she came to try to auction his soiled goods and how she felt about his affair. Everything below appears in the way it was written.

UP FOR AUCTION?ARE ONE EMPTY ANSELL CONDOM PACKET (SIZE small)?

AND A?PHOTO OF?THE PAIR OF?? 'THE TART'S' ?BLACK LACEY KNICKERS (SIZE HUMONGOUS)

IT SEEMS?I HAD VIOLATED EBAY'S SECONDHAND CLOTHES POLICY BY OFFERING 'THE TART'S' (HER NAME'S KYLIE i HAVE SINCE FOUND OUT) ACTUAL KNICKERS?UP FOR AUCTION PREVIOUSLY

I CAN ONLY NOW?OFFER A PHOTO OF THE SAID?KNICKERS AND HAVE ADJUSTED THE STARTING PRICE ACCORDINGLY........ PERSONALLY, I DID THINK .99c WAS A BIT AMBITIOUS BUT, AS THEY ARE SO HUGE, I THOUGHT THEY MAY MAKE SOMEONE A NICE SHAWL OR EVEN BETTER, ?SOMETHING FOR HALLOWEEN PERHAPS,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

?

SO HERE'S THE STORY SO FAR.........

Once upon a time there was a women who, after 22 years of marriage, found?evidence that?the soon to be ex-husband, had had 'The Tart' in their marital bed?this very afternoon.? This low life deceitful son-of-a-person ( I'm all for political correctness) blatently denied that this event?took place?even though the evidence?is irrefutable and is now up for auction on e-bay.

The first tiny warning bells?started ringing?around about?the same time a text message was received by the wife stating 'Where are you darling, I'm waiting'.? As the wife had left the soon to be?ex-husband at home?only a couple of?hours earlier to go to work, she thought it somewhat strange getting a message of that ilk from him.?After a while curiosity got the better of her and with some trepidation, she decided to go home after telling her boss she had an upset stomach, which was no lie.? When she arrived home an hour or so later, everything seemed?normal?but she couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.?? His car was parked in the drive-way where she had seen it earlier on and when she got inside, there he was infront of the T.V. watching a DVD as usual.? She explained?she wasn't feeling too well and said she was going?to lie down for a while. His re-action to this was a bit odd to say the least. 'Why don't you lie down here on the couch for a while and I'll get you a cup of tea', he said.?That was her first clue that something really was amiss here. Call?him chauvinistic if you?want and you would be right?because this?low-life had never made her a cup of tea in over 22 years of marriage.... so why?offer now.? Yep, you guessed it, he didn't want her going into the bedroom.... now why was that you may ask.? She concluded later that 'The 'Tart'?must have been?in the process of getting her ass dressed and out of there pronto when?she had unexpectedly arrived home. ?Of course she made a bee line for the bedroom then, with soon to be ex-hubby on her heels and apart from an unmistakable aroma of some cheap perfume?resembling nail polish remover?hanging in the air, nothing seemed to be different - except for one thing.? ?Oh, you men, you will never understand why we have those, annoying to you though they may be, throw pillows and cushions on a bed and what they mean to us women.? They are aesthetically important to?our decor?and when you see?them piled up on a chair in?a corner of the room, instead of on the bed where you arranged them a few hours ago,?those tiny warning bells you heard earlier were?now starting to?sound like 'Big Ben'.? Walking over to the bed,?she started slowly taking?it apart whilst?the soon to be ex-husband stood in the doorway watching.? Initially, when she first took?the doona cover off, she was sure he just thought she was going to have a lie down but he was oh so very wrong.? After the doona was deposited on the floor, she picked up her pillow, turned it over, checked under where it had been and then threw it on the floor.? Then came his pillow, she picked it up and here was where she found the first of the two items up for auction -?an empty condom packet.? With forefinger and thumb, it was gently lifted?from the bed and dangled in front of?the soon to be ex-husband's nose.? He had, by then, turned a?lovely shade of red and you could see his mind was racing,... 'how the hell am I going to get out of this'.? He then said the only inane thing he could come up with at the time which was, 'What's that?'.?As a couple, they had not used condoms for many years, or at least she hadn't,?but surely that didn't mean he could have forgotten what one looked like!? For some reason, she continued to strip the bed and when the top sheet was?removed the location of the 2nd item up for auction, 'The Tart's' knickers, were discovered at the foot of the bed.?

Explanations were?needed pronto?and would you beleive it, he actually came up with some.? They were all a pack of lies and instead of admitting it, apologizing and starting to grovel, this is what he came up with.? 'I dropped my phone down the toilet, I didn't want to put my hands down there and I could't get it out with the toilet brush so I used?a condom because I couldn't find?any rubber gloves'.? Well, well, well, that was thinking on your feet eh!? She thought she had heard it all now but figured she would see how big a hole he really was?keen to dig for himself so she then asked.?' When was that then and?where did you get the condom from?'.? He replied, 'It happened just after you left for work and I rummaged around and found one in the?pocket of an old jacket in the wardrobe'. 'So how is your phone then, is?it working?' she asked...? 'No, it's stuffed', he replied. 'So how do you explain sending me a text?message a couple of hours after I was at work then'.? 'What message? It wasn't from me, my phone's not working', he replied but?noticed he?had gone a funny shade of green as it began to sink in that he had actually sent the text to her by mistake.?'What about these knickers then, what are they doing in our bed and whose are they', she asked thinking to herself, this will be good.? She wasn't disappointed, as blatant as lies go, it was a classic.? 'Sorry love, I've been meaning to tell you for years but I am a closet transvestite and they are mine'.?

10 out of 10 for trying buddy but your out of here........? systematically his clothes were gathered up and thrown out the front door along with?'The 'Tart's' knickers which, after second thoughts, were scooped up and retrieved.? YES, there really is a God for?it started to rain then.??Not just that fine rain which gets on your damn nerves but bucket loads of?torrential rain which?the soon to be ex-husband found himself standing in?whilst calling the soon to be ex-missus all the names under the sun. He?was gathering?up his wet soggy clothes and?the photo she had thrown at him of them outside the church on their wedding day (she thought that maybe a nice touch) when?he screamed out for his car keys and wallet. Off she went to get them and with no hesitation, handed them over and told?him to get lost in no uncertain terms then watched as he drove away.? Dangling in her hand was the key she had slipped off his keyring, to the soon to be ex-husband's 'Harley Hog', his pride and joy - which?brings me nicely to the next item?that will probably be sold on?Ebay at a start price of.99c and of course, with no?reserve!?

Conundrums

2008-07-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'm overseas but thinking of you all! Read this and consider these serious matters whilst I conduct commerce.

· 1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?

· 2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes?

· 3. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

· 4. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

· 5. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

· 6. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

· 7. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

· 8. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

· 9. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

· 10. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

· 11. Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one?

· 12. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

· 13. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged,models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

· 14. What hair colour do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

· 15. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?

· 16. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so posties can look for them while they deliver the mail?

· 17. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

· 18. No one ever says, "It's only a game" when their team is winning.

· 19. Ever wonder about those people who spend $3 on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: NAÏVE

· 20. Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?

· 21. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhoea does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?

Rum the remedy for snake bite on penis

2008-06-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

A MAN bitten on the penis by a deadly snake has told how he used a cold rum can to soothe the pain while he rang his mother to say a final goodbye.
"I thought I was gone," Daryl Zutt said of his now notorious encounter with a brown snake during a roadside toilet stop in remote far north Queensland, Australia, The Cairns Post reported.

"I thought, ‘Maybe, this is it. Maybe, I’m gonna cark it(die)’."
The Cairns Post revealed details of the bizarre encounter two weeks ago but the identity of the victim remained unknown until Mr Zutt came forward to tell how the brown snake took a near-fatal swipe as he relieved himself.
"I squatted down … I reckon I must’ve nearly sat on his head," he said.
"As soon as I felt it, I yelled.
"It really hurt.
"When it happened, I knew in the back of my mind it was a snake.
"I seen him coming out from between my legs."
He said he tried to remain calm as he inspected the damage.
"He got me about halfway down," he said. "I saw fang marks and a bit of blood come out."
Mr Zutt's friend drove him to a medical centre before he was moved to a hospital for further tests which showed he was not envenomated.
"They’ve been saying things like ‘It was a trouser snake fight’ and ‘He (the snake) saw the competition and got scared’," Mr Zutt said.
"Once they knew I was right, the jokes came out."

Stick It Up...

2008-06-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

There are more stickers than you can poke a stick at, stickers on cars and stickers on buses, stickers on walls and poles and bags and boxes of fags and bins of trash. As a society, we’re stuck with stickers and that sucks. I don’t how this started, or when, or why. Presumably, someone forgot to write something somewhere, an oversight that forced him to write it somewhere else, on something that could be adhered to the previous thing. A sticker is thus a confession of failure, an admission of a job not quite complete. Like those smackdown utterances that only spring to mind once the argument has been long lost and won, a sticker is but a pathetic afterthought, newfound evidence for last year’s trial. The only honest sticker would read: “I am not altogether happy with this thing”.

Kitty Makes Weird Music

2008-06-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

Some instruments require talent—others just need a paw in the right place.

World's Longest Pizza Line

2008-06-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIA has a new culinary world record to boast about - but probably not too loudly.It's for the world's longest line of pizzas, beating the previous record set in the United States by just one metre. Thousands of spectators flocked to the Italian hub of Leichhardt, in Sydney's innerwest, to witness the record - 826 freshly cooked pizzas, stretching 221 metres. Twenty-five chefs used 500kg of flour, 250 litres of tomato sauce and 350kg of mozzarella cheese. After the Guinness World Record adjudicator deemed the record broken, the pizzas where donated to a charity to feed the homeless and disadvantaged. The previous pizza line record of 220 metres was set just three weeks ago in Fort Rustico, Florida.

Official Stationmaster

2008-06-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

If you like cute animals, read about wonder cat

IN times of need, Japanese say they can even ask the cat for help. In this town in western Japan, people look to Tama, a nine-year-old cat working as master of an unmanned train station.
The tortoiseshell coloured creature, born and raised at Kishi Station on the provincial Kishigawa Line, wears a formal uniform cap of Wakayama Electric Railway and calmly watches passing passengers who greet her.
There are 10 train stations on the 14.3km line.
"Tama is the only stationmaster as we have to reduce personnel costs. You say you could ask for the cat's help, but she is actually bringing luck to us," Wakayama Electric spokeswoman Keiko Yamaki said.
The company feeds her in lieu of salary.
Tama was born from a stray cat brought to the station by a cleaner and kept by Toshiko Koyama, a local who runs a grocery store next door.
The station went unmanned in April 2006 as the line was losing money. But Tama stuck around.
She rose to national stardom in January 2007 as the railway company formally appointed her as "stationmaster".
Her appointment had an immediately positive effect, boosting the number of passengers using the line in January by 17 percent from a year earlier.
For the year to March 2007, the number of passengers rose to 2.1 million, up 10 percent from the previous 12 months, according to Yamaki.
Happy with her successful job as stationmaster, the company promoted Tama to "super-stationmaster" in January this year, making her "the only female in a managerial position" in the company's 36-strong workforce.
"She now holds the fifth highest position in the company," Yamaki joked.
In reward for the promotion, Tama got a new "office".
The stationmaster's office, a renovated former ticket booth at the station, opened in April with the attendance of Kinokawa Mayor Shinji Nakamura and Wakayama Electric president Mitsunobu Kojima.
The office guarantees her some privacy.
"She declines to relieve herself when passengers are looking. We set the toilet where passengers can't see," Yamaki said.
Those who want to greet her must be careful so as not to miss her.
"She works nine to five and takes Sundays off," Yamaki said.
Tama commutes with Koyama, the grocery store operator, from a shed next to the station. As Koyama tells her, "Ms Stationmaster, it's time to work," Tama comes along to the station, Yamaki said.
The stationmaster is set to appear in a French documentary film, being directed by Myriam Tonelotto, about wonder cats from around the world.

Most Expensive Burger - a one shirt rating?

2008-05-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

As a burger connoisseur I have a fine appreciation of this burger story from Reuters. My local burger shop offers lashings of everything - tomato, cheese, lettuce, bacon, egg, beetroot topped with a sauce of your choice all in a fluffy big bread bun. It's something to die for. After consuming this culinary delight, it becomes necessary to change my shirt as burger remains and sauce on one's clothing are not acceptable when mixing in polite society. I give my local burger retailer a one shirt burger rating. The burger connoisseur one shirt rating is equivalent to that of a 5 star hotel. Cost of burger, $7. Cost of shirt cleaning, $4.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Its creators admit it is the ultimate in decadence: a $175 hamburger.
The Wall Street Burger Shoppe just raised its price from $150 to assure its designation as the costliest burger in the city as determined by Pocket Change, an online newsletter about the most expensive things in New York.
"Wall Street has good days and bad days. We wanted to have the everyday burger (for $4) ... and then something special if you really have a good day on Wall Street," said co-owner Heather Tierney.
The burger, created by chef and co-owner Kevin O'Connell, seeks to justify its price with a Kobe beef patty, lots of black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyere cheese, wild mushrooms and flecks of gold leaf on a brioche bun.
The eatery sells 20 or 25 per month in the fine dining room upstairs versus hundreds of $4 burgers each day at the diner counter downstairs, Tierney said.
Pocket Change previously designated the double truffle burger at Daniel Boulud's DB Bistro Moderne as the most expensive at $120, and the Burger Shoppe set out to top that.
Boulud's creation -- available only during black truffle season from December to March -- rose to $150 this past season, so the Burger Shoppe raised its price on Monday to $175.
"Our burger is not about the price," said Georgette Farkas, a Boulud spokeswoman. "If you are making something concerned only about the price, you are off in the wrong direction."
Without truffles, Boulud's burger costs $32. It has a ground sirloin patty stuffed with red wine braised short ribs.
O'Connell said the Burger Shoppe was "finding the ultimate expression of each one of the ingredients."
"The concept was like a mushroom-bacon-Swiss cheese burger, which is my favorite sort of burger," he said.
The burger comes with golden truffle mayonnaise, Belgian-style fries and a mixed greens and tomato salad. O'Connell pairs the dish with many fine wines, a lager or a toasted brown beer, or ginger ale.

It's a Cat's Life

2008-05-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

My housemate, Tuxedo the cat received this recent email from his feline friend next door.

Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.
The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.
Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am.
Bastards!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event.
However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow - but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.
The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.
The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.
For now...

It's A Weird World

2008-05-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

They do it because they can!

Perhaps life doesn't need to be that serious thanks to technology. Cartoon animators such as the the producer of the above video have helped lighten the mood.

People do other funny things like creating strange world records for 15 minutes of fame. Look at this small selection of weird world records and happenings:

Largest (and Probably Only) Airplane Ever Eaten. Michel Lotito, better known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mr. Eat Everything) is basically a normal guy, except he eats things like metal and glass.
He is the current (as if anyone else can do it …) world record holder of biggest meal ever eaten: a Cessna 150 airplane.
Doctors found that Mangetout’s stomach lining is twice as thick as a normal stomach lining, which explains why he is able to digest these things. The doctors concluded that his rare condition must have developed when he was still in his mother’s womb.
World’s Greatest Miser. Hetty Green was a very rich woman - actually, she was once the richest woman in the world, probably because she didn’t spend any money. And I mean any:
Green was mainly interested in business, and there are many tales (of various degrees of accuracy) about her stinginess. She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out. She did not wash her hands and rode an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent a night looking for a lost stamp worth two cents.
Hettie’s son Ned broke his leg and had to have it amputated because Hettie delayed treatment while insisting on finding free medical care!
World’s Largest Gold Coin. How’s this for spare change: a 100,000 Euro gold coin made from 24-karat gold created by the Austrian Mint:
The coin, with a face value of 100,000 euros, bears a replica of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s famous hall on one side and instruments on the other.
Only 15 of the 24-carat discs - dubbed Big Phil and measuring 37cm (14.5in) -were created by the Austrian mint.
World’s Largest Bagel. At 868 lb, 6 ft in diameter and 20 in thick, Bruegger’s Bagel made the biggest bagel in the world in the 2004 New York State Fair.
The bagel is so big that it needed to be baked in a custom-built oven and moved with a small crane!
World’s Fastest Human Conveyor Belt. On March 3, 2005, one hundred students at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville, UT, set the world’s record for fastest human conveyor belt by "conveying" a mattress a distance of nearly 180 feet in just 2 minutes and 1 second.
World’s Largest Currency. The currency in the teeny Island of Yap, where stone wheels larger than tractor tires are used as cash!
Hundreds of giant stone coins, some as big as 12 feet in diameter, stand by the side of the road, lean against houses or lie half hidden among trees and shrubs. Many of the mottled gray stones are centuries old and are worth thousands of dollars.
Though doughnut-shaped coins that weigh a ton might seem impractical elsewhere, stone money is an essential part of the economy and cultural life of Yap, a small group of islands 4,300 miles west of Hawaii.
The larger pieces are seldom moved and instead change hands in something akin to an electronic bank transfer. They are used to buy land, pay for services or provide compensation in cases of wrongdoing or negligence. Even stones that sank offshore long ago still hold their monetary value.

A Wicked Wit!

2008-05-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have a favourite journalist. With a wicked sense of humor Joe Hildebrand, of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Read and enjoy!

Reflections on Mischa Barton’s bottom
This week I sat down to write a column about how I always seem to keep offending people, and by “people” I mean “Clare”.
Clare is a girl I work with whom has often been described as “charmingly petulant” - albeit mostly by me and with a fair degree of lattitude in the meaning of the first word.
Clare is very small and cute and seems like a kindly and warm soul but if you cross her even once she will tear out your eyes with a butterknife.
So I was about to write a column about how I always seem to offend Clare because as well as being highly volatile and prone to violence, she is also quite sensitive - especially about personal things being discussed in public.
Then all of a sudden I got a phone call from Bryon.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello,” said Bryon.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Oh nothing,” said Bryon.
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Bryon.
“Right,” I said.
“What are you doing?” said Bryon.
“I’m doing a column on offending people,” I said.
“I’ll tell you what’s offensive,” said Bryon. “Mischa Barton’s arse.”
And with that, he was gone.
I later learned that Bryon was making reference to the growing controversy surrounding the size and texture of Mischa Barton’s caravan of courage.
Apparently it has been discovered that Mischa Barton has cellulite, which is that colourful see-through paper your mother used to wrap up birthday cake so the other kids couldn’t tell it was mouldy. Apparently Mischa’s stylists had the same thing in mind.
What a terrible situation, I thought. Mischa’s clearly going through a very difficult time and here the media is cruelly exploiting her. And to see just how cruel, check out our Mischa Barton cellulite horror picture gallery at dailytelegraph.com.au.
It’s certainly an eye-opening experience that makes you think about your own mortality. Of course luckily the scourge of cellulite is one fatty menace that is yet to ravage my body, which at least sets it apart from Darrin.
I was just reflecting upon this when I received another phone call from Bryon.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello,” said Bryon.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Oh nothing,” said Bryon.
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Bryon.
“Right,” I said.
“What are you doing?” said Bryon.
“I’m writing a column about Mischa Barton’s arse,” I said.
“I’ll tell you something about Mischa Barton’s arse,” said Bryon. “It’s great.”
And with that, he was gone.
So then it got me thinking, was there anything actually wrong with cellulite?
Sure, it looks like cottage cheese but a lot of people love cottage cheese. In fact if you’re growing up in an all female house without a strong male role model it’s perfectly natural.
Cellulite also looks a bit like scrambled eggs, which is also very popular. In fact at Bowral’s Cafe Rocca they will charge you an extra 80 cents to scramble your eggs, which is a bit like a hairdresser charging extra to mess up your hair, which is in fact pretty much what they do.
(Incidentally, in fact-checking for this story I rang Cafe Rocca to ask if it cost an extra 80 cents for scrambled eggs and the person who answered the phone just said “Yeah”. What does one have to do to arouse suspicion?)
And cellulite is also soft - have you ever heard of someone say they hate pillows? Plenty of times but Darrin always talks them round.
But most importantly cellulite is as natural as Mischa Barton’s acting, and everybody likes that too - with the obvious exception of the Academy.
So I was reflecting on this when the phone rang again.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello,” said Bryon.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Oh nothing,” said Bryon.
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Bryon.
“Right,” I said.
“What are you doing?” said Bryon.
“I’m doing a column on body image,” I said.
“I’ll tell you something about body image,” said Bryon. “It’s all a conspiracy by gay fashion designers to make women look like boys.”
And with that, he was gone.
Surely, I thought to myself, there must be someone I can report him to?