Horse 1072 - We Make the News...

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/rose-bay-traffic-sign-stops-traffic-to-declare-kevin-rudd-sucks/story-e6freuzi-1225833264067



POLICE are baffled how they did it but the Prime Minister definitely has a problem in Rose Bay - with a large illuminated traffic sign sending the message: "Kevin Rudd sucks".

The sign, which dramatically appeared overnight on New South Head Road, has proven a traffic stopper.

I saw this article in that brilliant piece of raggy trash Mx; I imagine that it also most probably appeared in that great bastion of reliable journalism, the Daily Telegraph.

It is no secret that News Corporation which is a Murdoch newspaper, would prefer to have right-wing laissez-faire government in charge and as such, piggys-up-the-do with the Republican Party in the USA, the Tories in the UK and the Liberal Party in Australia. Is it little wonder that this would appear in the Murdoch press? Would they dare to stoop so low as to rubbish opponent?

I'm not saying that it isn't funny (however I heard funnier jokes from an average 2nd grader), but what I do ask is somewhat pointed... Just how did the "reporters" at the Daily Telegraph find out about this otherwise unimportant roadsign? The photograph isn't otherwise doctored, so I too wonder like the editorial staff at the Daily Toiletpaper no Telegraph (actually I was right the first time) Toiletpaper:

Do you know who is the daring culprit? Phone us on 02 9288 3413, email us at online@dailytelegraph.com.au
Please... please, anything... I'll give you apple... I'll give you banana...

Is it Joe Hildebrand or David Barrett? Perhaps it was photographer Brendon Cocks or John Grainger? Would it be really past the people at the Daily Toiletpaper Telegraph to generate their own news? I wonder... Hmmm.

Horse 1071 - Rewrite of Famous Crimethink Document

In crimethink book "1984", George Orwell pastwrite in Oldspeak :

Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government. . ."

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.

Is this in Oldspeak truly "impossible"? Is this in Newspeak ununpastmakeable?

I pasthave a try to rewrite Oldspeak part of "Declaration of Independence", edit crimethink into Newspeak Oceania Crimethink Document 4th Jul 1776. I bellyfeel that is doubleplus good. I maketruehave that you bellyfeel that is doubleplus good too.

Is you feel my Newspeak rewrite true or untrue of Oceania Crimethink Document 4th Jul 1776?

In Oldspeak - excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In Newspeak:

We hold true as true that all persons are pastmake same, that they are pastgived by their pastmaker true untaked things, that plus live, bellyfeel and doublepluswalk bellyfeel. That to plushold bellyfeel, Party are maketrue in persons, out their true power from maketrue of persons, that pastplusunpast any form Party maketrue unmakes of ends, it is the bellyfeel of persons to maketrue Party, maketrue on true and order power in form, as to plusmake unpast pax and bellyfeel. Ration true are that Party past unpast unmaked for light and makeunmake effect, fortrue all past truetrue that persons are unbellyfeel while doubleplusungood are bellyfeel than to bellyfeel selfs by unmaking things. When long train of ungood, doublepluswalk same object, and unpastplus ration Minipax for unpast pax.
- Oceania Crimethink Document 4th Jul 1776


Is this plusgood? Is you bellyfeel this plustrue?

Or

Is you make saychange for maketrue?

Horse 1070 - Heart Failure

On the back of the news that Clint Bolton has signed for the A-League's newest club, Melbourne Heart FC, I thought I'd do some research on who the heck Melbourne Heart FC actually is; on reflection I can't be bothered.

Consider their logo:



I think that we have a winner for what is possibly the worst logo for a football club ever invented. According to the official blurb it it supposed to an "M intertwined with an H in the shape of a stylised heart", so in other words it's exactly what it says on the tin. The problem is that I thought that it kind of looked like a pair of Y-Fronts. The only other thought which sprung to mind was that it kind of looks like a logo for a brand new Health Insurance company; still not what you'd expect for a football club.

What sort of name is Melbourne Heart anyway? If anything it reminds me of Captain Planet, and Ma-Ti's Power of Heart, which when it came to it, was pretty well useless.

In fact there is another football club with "Heart" in their name, but it has a far better logo and a proper historical reason for the name as well.



Heart of Midlothian FC is one of two clubs in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. It derives its name from this mosaic pattern set into the cobblestones as part of Edinburgh's Royal Mile. Legend has it that if you spit into the heart then you will at some point in your life, return to Edinburgh.



This heart set into the street cobbles on Parliament Square marks the site of the entrance to the Old Tollbooth Prison which was built in 1561 originally as a Custom House for merchants.
It then became the Town Hall where the Privy Council, College of Justice and the Scottish Parliament met, but by the mid 17th century it had become a prison and the place of execution.

In other words, Heart of Midlothian or Hearts for short, has a proper reason for having a heart as a logo. Melbourne Heart FC is a stupid name with no underlying tradition to it.
Also, to add further fuel to the fire, the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation of Melbourne has said that it intends to pursue a legal trademark rights case because Melbourne Heart FC is too similar to the annual homeless appeal Heart of Melbourne.

For some reason in Australia, the national "franchises" for the various sporting codes have gone for more elemental names over the past few years. We now have teams called Power, Fury, Glory, Storm, Tactix, Pulse and now Heart. Wouldn't it be easier to name teams simply on where they are based? Would you for instance be able to tell where Sydney FC or Gold Coast Football Club came from? Of course you would; it's as obvious as the nose on your face.

It all highlights how ridiculous the name Melbourne Heart FC actually is. It's as if they asked a bunch of high school students to come up with a team name. Actually one of my more enduring memories from high school was when we came up with "The Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Team" as team name. It has more heart than certain other names.

Horse 1069 - It is Better to Give Than to Receive

"Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures."
- Joseph Addison, 1703

I lament the fact that my Ka will probably in all likelihood be written off. Mainly because with the amount of money that insurance company is going to give me back, the cars on offer are all quite frankly crap. Prudence suggests that I should use the money to repay a loan which still exists from the honeymoon, and the expenses of setting up a home.

Being told that all things will pass and that this world scarcely compares with what is to come, might very well be true, but to be on the receiving end of such a statement sounds to me like I have just been fobbed off with a thought-terminating cliché, or yet another meaningless and trite platitude. passed off though it was significant and original.

Quite frankly I am sick and tired of people telling me that things happen for a reason, but mainly because it doesn't actually solve anything.

I wonder how many people actually know the sting of not knowing if at the end of the fortnight, whether or not you're going to have a dollar in the bank to show for it? Or thinking about just how far you can stretch the budget if you don't have lunch for the week. How about knowing that you can save 50c by buying a loaf of White Bread as opposed to Wholemeal? Or that Franklins White Bread is 17c cheaper than Woolworths?
Do other people know what it's like to see that bored expression in people's face when you tell them that you yet again can't go out on Saturday night because you don't have the money? Or the tremendous boredom that follows when they stop asking you because you couldn't afford to in the first place?
Do they know what it's like to walk home in the rain, after standing on the train for an hour an a half? How about walking home in shoes with holes in them where the water leaks in? How about not going to the dentist, or the doctors and the price that putting up with the pain is cheaper because it isn't covered by Medicare?

It's amazing how much wisdom there is in people who can not, or more to the point will not empathise with you, when they themselves have never been through similar circumstances. If anything I have been taught that richer people actually are a better class of people, and will go to extraordinary lengths to prove it. It's almost as though the Matthew Effect is running rampant:

For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.
— Matthew 25:29

If there is a reason for all of this, I certainly don't see it; I don't much enjoy being on the receiving end of it either. And I certainly don't like being told that things could be worse, because although that is also true, it's only an oh so fragile step to going there as well.

Horse 1068 - By any other name...

In my job as an accountant, I get to see a great number of interesting names. The great kaleidoscope of people's names, reflects the great diversity of culture and influences which our society has. Even so, I think that there is a point when parents who are endowed with the task of giving a newborn child a name, exceed the boundaries of sanity.

A person's name is I think, pretty fundamental to their identity. People carry their name around their entire life, and other people (in a lot of case quite wrongly) bring outside impressions and prejudices to that name. No sane person for instance would call their son either Adolf, Judas, or Jesus. The first two because we wouldn't wish the associated prejudice which would follow on anyone, and the latter because the weight of that name is also far too great.

Yet there is a growing trend I've noticed for people to give their children "unique" names (by unique, I mean euphemistically "stupid"); I think that it's hideously unfair on the poor unfortunate child who must live with it.

Just in the past month I've seen the following names of children of our clients:

Makynli:
I think that this supposed to a respelling of MacKinlay. If it is, then why does a girl get this name? Secondly, what sort of embarrassment and annoyance will this poor child suffer because she has to spell her name over the telephone, and over the counter to banks, and other institutions?

Mychal:
Why couldn't these people just have picked Michael for? Michael is a good honest name. Mychal sounds more than a little bit camp, or if you are of a literary persuasion, like the lumbering lazy brother of Sherlock Holmes (who was called Mycroft - an equally silly name).

Jaron:
I now know of four Jarons. Admittedly it means "the sound of Israel rejoicing", but it sounds like a corruption of Aaron and Jack or something.

Nevaeh:
I am totally at a loss at how to pronounce this name. Is it like the Croatian name Neve, or is it like the word Never?

Madisyns:
I assume that this name is a respelling of Madison (which is a name I already dislike) with an s on the end. What makes this utterly atrocious is that Madisyns is a little boy. Giving boy's names to a girl is one thing, but when this boy is 10 or 11 years old, I bet that he's going to find himself bashed up after school.

The award for the most truly horrible names I've ever heard are for a couple of twin girls whose names are Kofisha which admittedly sounds perfectly fine with the Batswan surname name Moputu (Kofisha Moputu works reasonably well), and her sister Eee, which means "the exalted princess".
The problem is that these two parents although they were living in Botswana where there might be plenty of Eees and Kofishas, but they've moved back to Sydney and their surname is... Thompson*. By the way what sort of name is Eee anyway? You can just imagine the phone call with the bank:

Can I have your first name please?
Eee.
What?
Eee.
Did you say E?
Yes.
No, I want your first name, not just the initial.
That is my first name.
What? E?
Yes, Eee.
Could you spell that please?
E e e.
Eeee?
No, three Es.
E e e?
Yes.
That's unusual...

I feel sorry for poor Eee... and Kofisha, and Madisyns, Nevaeh, Jaron, Mychal, Makynli and every other Tyrone, Cheyenne, Acedia, Thecla, Dusk and Kelsea. Your parents are clearly all bonkers, and you're paying for it, forever.

*Well actually not really. I changed it for privacy reasons, but it is that common.

Horse 1067 - Should we Raise the Drinking Age?

PM Kevin Rudd was answering questions on ABC1's "Q and A" programme in the Old Parliament House last night, and one of the questions put to him was whether or not he personally was in favour of raising the legal drinking age to 21, as is the case with a number of American States.

Mr Rudd who is a declared Christian* (and who also regularly attends an Anglican Church), stated that his personal opinion was that he would like to see the age raised to 21 but that it would be policy which should in due course be subject to a proper debate.

"But I believe in something called evidence-based policy, which is if the evidence is there and it's capable of being proven and it works, then we look at these things and make a decision. But you're asking me for a personal impression, and you don't run policy that way."
- Kevin Rudd, ABC Q and A

This of course raises an interesting question. How do we respond to this? If it was personally up to me, I would leave it at 18.

Age of Majority Act 1919
s3. Subject to this section for all the purposes of the laws of the Commonwealth-
(a) a person who, on or after the day of commencement of this Act attains the age of eighteen years, attains full age and full capacity on attaining that age.

The legalese of this Act basically states that at law, the everyone who is aged 18 and over is legally held responsible for their own actions. This single piece of legislation, in one fell swoop defines when someone can vote, when they are allowed to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, when they can be conscripted for military service and when they can face a court for their own actions if they break the law.

The reason for this lies in conditions which helped to forge the legend of this nation itself. In WW1 or what was then called "The Great War", it was possible for 18, 19, and 20 year olds to die in the service of their country on some far flung field, and still not have any say about the government which directed them there.

Having said this, I think that it is obvious that some people will knowingly behave stupidly irrespective of the law. If all the government does is change the law, and the underlying attitudes which create a problem in the first place do not change, then all that happens is the criminalisation of something for which people are held responsible.

Unless you changed the minimum drinking age to something like 40, you're still going to get youthful exuberance leading to a significant proportion of alcohol abusers. From what I can tell (although admittedly I am no expert and haven't researched the issue in depth, so I'm willing to be proved wrong) there isn't a significantly reduced incidence of alcohol-related problems in somewhere like America, where the drinking age is 21, as compared to Australia.

The problem with drinking in Australia isn't age, it's the culture/attitudes of both young people and adults who encourage drinking to the point where they cannot image any event or occasion without it, or create occasions just for getting completely wasted. Raising the age will not fix this; what needs to be addressed is why people (of all ages) are drinking so much so regularly. In Italy and France where the drinking age is as low as 14, the culture for some reason doesn't seem to lead to mass cases of drunkenness and violence.

The obvious question is what purpose does the law itself serve. If the law can be shown to shape and modify society for the better, then there is a strong case to be made for changing it, but if it can not, then questions need to be asked.
Laws exist in principle either as a guideline, a boundary, an instruction or a standard. The question which I ask runs concurrently with that standard, namely is it right to assume that someone has full legal responsible for their own actions, whilst at the same time denying them reciprocal privileges under the law?

That is a little bit more difficult to answer. Personally, I think that if you do hold someone fully legally responsible for their own actions, then those reciprocal privileges should follow; thus the age of 18 should remain...

... or perhaps we should just raise the Age of Majority to 21 and be done with it.

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1362997.htm
- This makes for some interesting reading.

Horse 1066 - Barriers, Fences and All That

The Sydney Morning Herald today reports that Pakistan's ports Minister Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani has called for tighter security after the incident involving Khalid Latif on Sunday night, and whilst I agree that something should be done I'm not sure if the examples shown by the SMH are actually sensible.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/it-is-no-good-waiting-for-someone-to-die-before-making-decisions-20100201-n8ym.html
PAKISTAN'S Sports Minister Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani has urged Cricket Australia to set up barriers at grounds and ban alcohol following the tackle by a spectator on Khalid Latif in Perth on Sunday night.

"The thing that really worried me, what if that person had a knife on him, he got there and could have done anything he wanted," Jakhrani told the Herald. "They should ban alcohol at grounds. There should be some kind of barrier or restriction to stop people entering the ground. This is the right time to think about these things. It is no good waiting for someone to die before making decisions."

Grounds in the subcontinent have barbed-wire fences dividing players from spectators, which has prevented the ground invasions that are frustratingly common during the Australian summer.

Mr Jakhrani who is of course acting in the interests of safety for his players, I think has entirely the right spirit. There should be a stronger deterrent to stop people from entering the field of play. However, the suggestion to erect barriers is in my opinion quite dangerous.



21 years ago when Liverpool played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup Semi Final, 96 people were killed in a crowd crush in the now world infamous Hillsborough Stadium Tragedy. The subsequent Taylor Report which was commissioned into the disaster actually pointed to the crowd barriers among other things* as a root cause of the disaster in the first place. If there was a crowd crush in a stadium with "barbed-wire fences dividing players from spectators" as perhaps the Herald as implied, then I for one would not wish to be within 25 meters of said fence.
Apart from the 96 people who died, another 766 people were injured and around 300 people were hospitalised. One shudders to think what would happen under such circumstances if you then introduce barbed-wire into the mix.

Certainly I agree with the sentiment that crowd security and player safety should be looked into because this is quite a prudent thing to do, but introducing measures which in other circumstances which have proved to be fatal, might well be a price which is simply unbearable.
Having said this, the recommendations which came out of the Taylor Report are worth revisiting, for the administrators of any sporting code where they expect large numbers of people to be seated in a relatively small area, but I would have expected this as part of the normal review process.

There is of course the other question about banning alcohol at cricket matches. One thing to bear in mind is that Mr Jakhrani represents the interests of an Islamic nation, and as such the consumption of alcoholic beverages by Muslims is officially illegal in Pakistan, so I don't quite know if this is a backhanded method of enforcing Islamic values on the West.
Most major sporting venues in Australia either prohibit the bringing of alcohol into the venue, and also have as part of their licencing agreements and regulations, both the responsible service of and a prohibition of removal of alcohol.
At any rate, the 37-year-old man who tackled Khalid Latif to the ground has not actually been charged with drunkenness, but with the more serious charges of assault and trespass and has also won himself a life ban from the WACA Ground.

Perhaps the best thing in this case would be a punitive fine of $10,000 for invading the pitch: this seems to work quite effectively in both Sydney and Melbourne. But the idea of erecting a potentially lethal barrier around the pitch itself, I think should be killed here and now.

*The recommendations of the Taylor Report included points on items such as the sale of alcohol within stadia, crush barriers, fences, turnstiles, ticket prices and other stadium items.

Horse 1065 - Making The Difference

At lunchtime this afternoon, I was on my way to the Post Office to pay several bills when a white Toyota Tarago van drove past and on the side was an advert for a company called Master Coaching.

Now the only reason that I even think that this is worth mentioning is because of their logo, which looks like this:

from: http://www.mastercoaching.com.au

Now I don't know about you but a company which self-styles itself in promoting "Advanced Learning Techniques" should have realised that their logo has a fraction on it; moreover the value of that fraction is... 0.

0 - zero, nil, nada, null, naught, zip and zilch.

Any fraction with 0 as the numerator (expect where the results are undefined) has a value of 0. Of course if it is supposed to be a heraldic device where the field is a party per bend sinister, then the party in the "upper" field is the dominant party; therefore the dominant is... 0.

0 - zero, nil, nada, null, naught, zip and zilch.

What are they trying to say here? That if you use their services then the extent to which they actually are "making the difference" is zero?

Horse 1064 - Advance Australia Where?

As I walk out into the world today in the post-exuberance of Australia Day (thought ot be fair yesterday was in all actuality quite normal), I do not look out into a sea of green and gold, but a very different colour, yes, woad. Or rather Pantone colour 280, Navy Blue, #000080, RGB (0,0,128). The very same navy blue that forms the background colour of the Australian Flag.

The point being that every January 26th, someone always invariably starts a debate in the newspapers about whether or not Australia should change its flag and/or become a republic. The usual reasons are that it is not representative of our history, or that people find it offensive to have "the flag of another country" pasted on ours. "Bosh" I say top all of that! Pooh to you with highly polished brass knobs on. If the Australian Flag was so offensive then why is it plastered everywhere? This is of course just an aside to the main thrust of this post, which is:

What is the point of an Australian Republic?

It must be said that in Australia, we have enjoyed 110 years of political stability, and in the case of the states which operate under the same model, parliaments which extend all the way back to 1855; in fact the NSW State Parliament is the longest continuously operating parliament in the world.

This is not merely a case of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" because the stakes are far higher than just changing a figurehead. The way I figure, if Australia was to become a republic, the obvious question would be what form it would take.

Assuming Australia was to adopt a republican model, then presumably the head of state who would probably be called a President. If there is a President, then what is his relation to the Prime Minister?
If the President replaces the Governor-General, then is the President to be elected by the parliament or by the people? If the President is to be elected by the people, then what sorts of powers do they have? Are they to be defined or a loose sort of nebulous arrangement like the current Governor-General? And if the President is to be elected by the people, does that infer that the President would have a mandate to exercise those as yet undefined powers?

The Constitution of Australia provides that in order to change the constitution, that a referendum be held and that it be carried by a majority of voters in a majority of states. This all sounds fine and dandy, but in order to frame a change to the constitution it would either require putting forward a model to be voted either "Yes" or "No" on, or if in the event that the government of the day wanted to gauge what public opinion actually was, it would have to hold a series of non-binding plebiscites to determine the will of the people. The latter option is more likely to result in a negative outcome for those who would want to change to a republican model.

Personally I would prefer that Australia remains within the British Commonwealth, but I suspect that the will of the vocal would rather drown out my voice with a cacophonous din. Then again, I wonder if they've thought through all of the implications.

Horse 1063 - Personal Whingers

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/fat-fees-threaten-to-push-personal-trainers-past-their-limits-20100112-m4u5.html
Personal trainers who are feeling the burn as more Sydney councils charge a fee for the use of parks, sporting fields and beaches have warned they will have to pass the cost on to their clients.

The gist of this article is essentially an emotive argument perhaps trying to convince readers to somehow feel sorry for Personal Trainers having to pay usage fees for public parks. The obvious claim is that with increased park use fees, then those additional costs will be passed onto their clients and thus tend to make them unviable.

Stiff Cheddar!

I would ask Fitness Australia to take a good hard look at itself and stop whinging!

What do they think of not-for-profit organisations having to pay councils far more than a mere $550 a year? Plenty of local sporting teams such as cricket, netball, football, field hockey are already paying upwards of $5000 a year for the use of sporting fields, and you don't hear them bleating to the Sydney Morning Herald about paying fees to local councils.

And just who are the sorts of people who are likely to be engaged in hiring a personal trainer in the first place? If you were to take a look at the economic demographics, then I'd wager that in 99% of all cases, it is people in the highest wage brackets; hence the reason why the particular councils being questioned are Waverley, Randwick, City of Sydney , North Sydney and Mosman councils. These aren't exactly the poorest of areas now are they?*
It is exactly the sort of people who can most afford to pay, who engage these sorts of services and who live in these areas in the first place.

Don't expect me to feel sorry for these people. By council area they are exactly the same people who by default condone charging de facto "usage fees" though exorbitant parking charges at Sydney's popular beaches.

Boo Hoo Hoo - my heart bleeds for you.

*According to the ABS Book of the Year for 2008, all of the top 25 "richest" suburbs in NSW are contained within these 5 councils.

Horse 1062 - Ford Focus in Focus

http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1041466_2010-detroit-auto-show-2012-ford-focus



Photos have gone around the world over the past few hours of the 2011 Ford Focus, that is to say the Ford Focus Mk3.

The car again shares the Ford C1 platform which the Focus Mk2 sat one as does the Mazda 3 and the Volvo S40 and C30. The engine choices from what I can gather will be more or less the same but with more of a drive towards Ford's Econetic program. This would logically include the current range from 1.4L to 2.0L in petrol and diesel and the 2.5L RS variants.

As far as styling goes, the car shares the same styling trend as the current Fiesta Mk6 though that bar across the centre appears to be in deference to the North American range of cars such as the Ford Taurus, Ford Fusion and the rather odd looking Ford Flex.

What I find most disappointing about this car isn't that it looks like the Fiesta (which I quite like) but that it looks like everyone else. That pinched D-Pillar may as well be on the Opel/Vauxhall Astra¹ , Hyundai's i30, the Mazda 3, Seat Leon, etc etc etc. To be honest I was hoping for something a little more cutting edge from Ford, perhaps I shouldn't have bothered.

Remember, that this is the car for which Ford Australia were given $149m to be a part of after they announced that it would be built at Broadmeadows in 2011², and then pulled the project during the Global Financial Ripoff³.

What the car will do, is finally a) merge the North American Focus with the rest of the world and b) hopefully remove the Detroit's design houses insistence to barry up the American version.



I mean really... Yeuch!

¹which we in Australia never got because Holden think that the great Australian public are incredibly stupid, so fob us off with Daewoos.
²http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=41903
³http://www.themotorreport.com.au/38133/ford-abandons-local-focus-in-favour-of-ecoboost-four-cylinder-falcon-and-diesel-territory/
- Wow. Three sidenotes! What a truly bonkers day.

Horse 1061 - St Mary McKillop... why?

News this weekend broke that Mary McKillop has fulfilled the relevant criteria for canonisation as a saint. This post is broken into two parts:

Part A - The Serious Bit.

Not being a Catholic myself, I find the whole question of sainthood somewhat perplexing. Was this the Catholic Church trying to wedge itself into the pantheon of existing Roman life? The theory goes that you can pray to whatever saint for this or that and they will intercede on your behalf, notwithstanding the fact that dead people are dead and can not do anything, and thanks to Christ himself, the curtain was opened and Christians come to the Father through him - I am The Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father except by Me.
Doctrinally it simply makes no sense.


There is of course the blatantly obvious question of just what is a saint in the first place. The usual Greek word for "saints" in the New Testament is the word Hagion, which roughly translated simply means "the Holy Ones". Ephesians 6:18 is an exhortation to keep on praying for all the saints, which if you were to believe the Catholic Church's limited rendering of the word would imply that we are to pray for those people who have been canonised as a saint.
This also doctrinally makes no sense.

Even the word "saint" itself is derived from the Latin "sanctus", from which we get the word sanctify and all related words. Sanctification by definition is being set apart for some special use. The letter to the Hebrews (10:10) again implies that this setting apart is common of all Christians and not just those selected by some internal church process. "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

It seems to me that this whole business of canonisation is a bit silly. On the other hand the idea of having heroes and people to look up to probably is a good idea. Society generally has heroes like Don Bradman, George Washington, Winston Churchill, David Beckham, Ludwig Van Beethoven etc and whatever, but the idea that you can pray to them and expect some sort of result is preposterous.

Part B - The Not Serious Bit.

Admittedly the whole idea of "Sainthood" and that you can pray to them is ridiculous, biblically flawed and utterly stupid, but if we absolutely must must must make Mary McKillop a saint, it stand to reason that she should be the patron saint of something.

St Honorius is the patron saint of bakers and confectioners. St James is the patron saint of judges... and David Jones city stores... and Newcastle United Football Club. St Martin is the patron saint of drunkards (how appropriate that the Commonwealth Law Courts in Sydney be between St James Station and Martin Place). St Christopher is the patron saint of travelling. St Andrew is the patron saint of old maids. St Erasmus is the patron saint of seasickness... etc etc etc.

It follows that St Mary McKillop should be the patron saint of something uniquely Australian, like the Barbecue, so that your snags could be done properly instead of burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. Perhaps she could be patron saint of the Hills Hoist, to make sure that it doesn't rain on your washing, or birds don't do their business on it.
No, on reflection there is only one thing that St Mary McKillop should be the patron saint of and that is football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars. Let's face it we already have the hymn to go with it. And let's make it a public holiday, because that would be traditionally Australian, having a public holiday for things no-one cares about... like Labour Day, or Queen's Birthday... or Christmas... er... hmm.

Horse 1060 - Hamas' 22nd Birthday

December 14 is a day which to be totally fair should hang in infamy, for December 14 is the anniversary of the formation of Hamas, a is a "Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement" (their words) or what I would call a very well organised socio-political terrorist organization.

We find that that prize goof Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has come out in support of Hamas, followed by an official meeting in Tehran.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134902.html
Meanwhile, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal met in Tehran with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday. The Iranian president stressed his support for Hamas, saying, "The Iranian government and the Iranian people will always stand by the Palestinians and the Palestinian resistance.
Today Palestine is a symbol of the world-wide front of those who seek liberty from the militants," he said. Ahmadinejad said Iran doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist, and supports Hamas and Hezbollah.

Lets just look at that again... Ahmadinejad said Iran doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist, and supports Hamas and Hezbollah. What?

Hamas has in as many words as one of its objectives, the destruction of Israel.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818a.htm
On the Destruction of Israel:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
(Preamble)

This is the part where usually I'd quote the bible and show that because of a promise to Abraham, that the land belongs to Israel, however on this occasion I'm not going to do this. I shall choose a source which in theory an Islamic Resitance Movement should follow; this would be none other that the Qu'ran itself.

Sura 5:20-21
Recall that Moses said to his people (the Jews), “O my people, remember GOD’s blessings upon you: He appointed prophets from among you, made you kings, and granted you what He never granted any other people.
“O my people, enter the holy land (Israel) that GOD has decreed for you, and do not rebel, lest you become losers.”

Sura 17:104
And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, “Dwell securely in the land (of promise)”: but when the second of the warnings came to pass, We gathered you together in a mingled crowd.

According to even the Qu'ran itself the land belongs to Israel because of the promise to Moses, then Abraham and then Issac. What I would really like is for an Islamic scholar to try to prove otherwise. If they try to invoke the principle that Israel vacated the land and were conquered, then by rights the land should belong to Great Britain, because they re-conquered it and won it as a spoil of victory by General Allenby, with the British Mandate and occupation taking place from 1917 onwards. If to the victor goes the spoils then its their decision as to what to do with those spoils.

This rubbish about returning the country to so-called pre-1967 borders is to be honest a load of highly refined bull twaddle. The truth is (and Hamas never admits this) is that the proposed 1919 borders which were totally enclosed by the British Mandate included the Negev, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a zone to the east of the Jordan and extending into the Lebanon and the Golan heights.

So Hamas, on this your anniversary, I don't support you, the Qu'ran doesn't support you and even history doesn't support you. The only people who do... are madmen.

Horse 1059 - Merry Christmas to You... Whoever You Are...

Walking around Westfield on Saturday, I noticed three things. The first was that people seem to be in some sort of race to either be as lardy as possible and dress as tackily as possible (I'm sorry but the OED has no variation listed for this) and the other two things were to do with Christmas.

I'm guessing that the Italian chocolatier Ferrero SpA (the same people who make Nutella and Tic Tac) must be going out of business or have a massive stock surplus, for sitting out the front of both Big W and Target were pallet sized arrangements of the not very nice chocolate Ferrero Rocher.
Someone at the company must've have a field day, because now instead of just three in a packet, I've seen plastic boxes of 27 and even a pyramid of 56 of the damn things. They're obviously intended as what former PM John Howard would have called an "aspirational" product, but fail to deliver on that aspiration.

The other virtually ubiquitous item at this time of year is the Gift Card. There are Gift Cards for a range of department stores, supermarkets, music stores, hardware, bookshops, even stationery shops and worst of all, Westfield itself!

Admittedly if you were 10 years old, getting money for Christmas is like winning the lottery and perhaps getting a gift card is better than giving a gift to someone that they really don't want, but really a gift card should be used only and only as a last resort if you still haven’t found something for someone, because nothing says “I know nothing about you” like a gift card, or a box of Ferrero Rocher.

Brilliance in Utter Madness

This is where utter madness lives. Forget the V8 Supercars and their attempts for the rather placid "Car of the Future", the Group B Rally Cars had in some cases over 700bhp coming out of just 1.6L. They were turbocharged to the eyeballs and threatened to explode at any given moment.

This is Crazy-Go-Nuts stuff... common-sense was left behind when they made these cars.

Horse 1058 - The Metro "We Don't Want"... apparently.

The train on plaftform number 5 is for all stations to Rogans Hill. First stop Mons Road, then Northmead, Moxham Road, Model Farms Road, Junction Road, Baulkham Hills, Cross Street, Southleigh, Parsonage Lane, Castle Hill, and Rogans Hill.

I personally have never heard this announcement. In fact I would struggle to find anyone who remembers hearing this announcement. The reason for this, is that the last time anyone would have heard this come over the loudspeakers, would have been on the last day of operation of the Rogans Hill Line on 31 January 1932.
As a result and more than 77 years later, the residents of Castle Hill now sit in traffic on the M2 for several hours trying to get work.

The day after Kristina Keneally became the new Premier of NSW, the Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, again made it clear that he would oppose all new plans for any Metro Line, and urged her to scrap plans for the proposed CBD Metro in whatever form that takes.
"She needs to scrap the metro that no one wants. It's simply incredible, even within her first day, the former planning minister doesn't seem to have a view as to whether this metro is to proceed or not. It raises real concerns about who's making the decisions." - Barry O'Farrell, 4th Dec 2009 (from ABC Radio).

I really wonder whether or not Mr O'Farrell has actually been anywhere Castle Hill. As the member for Kuring-Gai his electorate enjoys the benfits of a free expressway and two railway lines. In fact to tie this story into the absurd, in 1932 just seven weeks after Castle Hill was cut off from the rail network, the electorate of Kuring-Gai was better connected to it by the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.



Let's think for a minute about the roadway across that grand bridge. The name of that road is the Bradfield Highway, named after the visionary John Bradfield. Bradfield's original plans for an underground railway included a city loop and a line out to the eastern suburbs as well as several other proposals which were never acted upon. Actually when it comes to those 1915 plans, it only took 41 years to see the city loop built and 64 years for the Eastern Suburbs Line to be half built so perhaps there's hope yet.
(Just check out Woolahra Station... they might build it in my lifetime... maybe)

New South Wales has had many plans over the years for railway lines to be built. So far during this century, we've had 8 of them, so sooner or later one of them is bound to come to fruition. It's just not while or if Barry O'Farrell comes to power, and probably not for the rest of the life of the current Labour Government.

All those people in their cars stuck in traffic on the M2 don't really want a new metro scheme... they just want someone to fix the mistakes that every single government since 1932 has made and put back their old train lines.

Horse 1057 - Winning Through Playing Actual Football. Who'da Thunk It?

The World Cup draw was released on Saturday Morning our time and already the daily newspapers are crying blue murder about the fact the somehow Australia has got either a "horror" or "shock" draw. This simply isn't true.

It was always going to be the case by virtue of how the process is drawn that every group is going to have a seeded team in it. Apart from South Africa which was always going to be in Group A as A1, every other group would have one of the seven teams from Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England (and of those, five are previous World Cup winners).

The challenge for Australia this time around, does not really lie in who is in our group, but rather the order of the game which they are played in.

If you cast your mind back to 2006, Australia played Japan first up. It was those tremendous six minutes at the end which determined how the game against Brazil was going to be played. To be honest Australia was never going to beat Brazil but if it had lost against Japan, then it would have been fighting far harder for the remaining matches, rather than playing a simple containment strategy against Brazil.

Because Germany is first up, Australia will need to open the campaign from the outset with a set of measured tactics. Merely being the "underdog" and hoping to play on the strength of that is not enough, because to be perfectly fair Germany are always playing against "underdogs" and will be looking for a kill first up.
If Australia loses against Germany, then the matches against firstly Ghana and then Serbia will be played chasing their tail.

One of the advantages that Australia had in Germany 06 was that most nations went prepared for the heat, and Guus Hiddink had deliberately trained for this; it showed when during the last 20 minutes whilst other side would wilt, Australia did not.
This time around however, every side will not only be training for the heat but also for the change in altitude at some venues. Whereas Australia tends to play a more physical game, Ghana and Serbia aren't really known for their technical prowess, and so this time around this also isn't an advantage.

No, Australia's World Cup campaign in South Africa 2010 will not be characterised by the underdog spirit. I'm afraid that Pim Verbeek will need to instill on his Australian side an "overdog" mindset (is that even a real word?) and impress upon whomever dons the Australian golden kit in 2010 that the only way to win matches is by going out and actually playing proper football.

Now there's a strange thought, winning by playing good football. Have we ever done that before?

Horse 1056 - The World's Fastest Car

Seeing as today is the first day of proceedings at the Sydney 500, I thought I'd ask the question:

"What is the fastest car you can buy in Australia?"

Is it the Bugatti Veyron? Maybe the Gumpert Apollo? Perhaps it's McLaren's gorgeous new MP4-12C?

Well, it's none of those.

What is it then?

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Excited yet? Because I have a photo.

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This:


An ordinary Toyota Hiace.

What?!

Forget the Veyron, forget anything Italian, or even anything speedily efficient and German. The fastest car in Australia without a doubt is the Toyota Hiace.

Whislt the Veyron can do 407km/h, and even Shelby's SSC Ultimate Aero TT claims to do 413km/h, this is absolutely nothing compared with the speeds attained by Hiaces driven through Sydney traffic on a Wednesday afternoon. Ok I admit that I don't have documented evidence, but from what I've seen the speeds that some of the cowboys who drive these things can get them up to, are only otherwise found inside the Large Hadron Collider. They must be approaching 3/4 of the speed of light.

Greg Murphy's VY Commodore may have been able to go around Bathurst in 2.06.8594 (a figure which I've committed to memory) but how fast would have he been able to do in a Hiace? 2.03? 2.02? 2.01? 1.33 even? The V8 Supercars may be discussing the Car of the Future but I bet they'd all be running scared if someone showed up with a Hiace.

Of course this may be taking it too far. There are rivals such as the Ford Transit, VW Transporter, Mitsubishi Express, the Renault Traffic, Fiat Ducato and the Mercedes-Benz Vito, which could all equally warp time and space as they slice through traffic. So I suppose that the only real requirement is that the van be white.

So then "What is the fastest car you can buy in Australia?" A white van, obviously.

Horse 1055 - The Car of the Future Must Look Cool

http://www.v8supercars.com.au/content/hero_news/november_2009/its_evolution_not_revolution/

Actual designs are still some way off but V8 Supercars Australia (V8SA) has stated many times that the CotF will still look like Commodores and Falcons with working headlights and swinging panels.
“The Car of the Future is about evolution not revolution and hopefully now the teams have got some ideas on the direction of where we’re heading.I suspect we’ll start seeing something more concrete in the next few months.”
Ford Performance Racing principle, Tim Edwards said it was imperative that the CotF was implemented correctly rather than as quickly as possible.
“We have got to make sure we’ve got authentic looking cars, which is one of our key principles (compared to other motorsport categories),”

This is a story which I have been following for several months now, and to be honest it kind of ties in with my post yesterday. The Car of the Future (CoF) is presumably in the early stages of conceptualisation and will eventually show up in 2012. This post isn't about what is taking place but rather what I would like to see happen.

Currently the V8 Supercars have these tacky little numbers in the rear window. Now I ask you, is this even remotely helpful?



This photograph of Jamie Whincup shows clearly why the tacky little numbers in the rear window is a pointless idea. At speed how are you honestly expected to work out who it is? Second to that, the number itself is kind of like a brand. When you think of the most famous number in Australian motorsport, what springs to mind? If you said anything other than 05 then you need your head examined.



Peter Brock's 05 Torana is probably the single most iconic touring car in Australian motorsport history; why? Because:
a) you instantly know who it is
b) the car looks so brutal with its flared guards, drop tank, duck rear wing and reverse bonnet bulge
c) the paint scheme is elegantly simple and bold

To that end, I'd tell the V8 Supercars organisation to ditch all of the wings and aero devices on the current crop of cars and go back to something simpler and cooler; maybe take a leaf out of the old HDT's book?



Who wouldn't want to see this as the Car of the Future? It's got cool dripping off of it.

Horse 1054 - Ford vs Holden vs WhoCares

This came from the V8 Supercars race in Bahrain in 2007 and it illustrates a very interesting point. Although V8 Supercars has marketed itself as the "Ford vs Holden" battle, do the punters really care anymore?

There may have been blue murder dried when Craig Lowndes "defected" to Ford in 2000, but now in 2009 no-one even seems to bat an eyelid that 888 Engineering are taking their whole team across the divide to Holden. Perhaps also, the fans are ignorant that whilst in Australia 888 are switching to Holden, 888 in the UK have been dumped by another GM brand Vauxhall, and it is questionable whether they will even appear in the 2010 BTCC.

NASCAR has had three "all-American" manufacturers in the past and even they ran several brands with Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Ford and Dodge all throwing their hat into the ring, but the introduction of Toyota hasn't really been met with the opposition that was predicted at all. In fact it came without much of a ripple at all.

Even in Australia when you ask people about what their favourite tin-top car of all time are, invariably the Holden A9X will come out on top because it looked so wild, or even Ford's big XC Falcon coupes that Moffat and Bond took to a 1-2 in 1977, but immediately after that you start getting answers like the Nissan GTR, the Dodge Charger, the Mazda RX-7 and even Kevin Bartlett's Channel 9 Camaro.

Would the fans' noses be put that far out of joint if there was a V8 Supercar BMW, or Mercedes-Benz? How about a Ferrari or a Jaguar? Or a Hyundai, Toyota, Kia or Subaru? To be honest, I don't think we'd notice much.