Horse 1087 - New Socceroos Kit Scores Own Goal

This is the kit that the Socceroos will be wearing in South Africa. Now admittedly it's not the worst kit that Australia has ever played in, but to be honest, it's not that great either.
The bottom line is that it looks aesthetically wrong.

To be fair, green and yellow (or rather gold) aren't exactly the easiest colours to work with. It must be said though that the Wallabies, the Kangaroos and heck even the Australian Cricket team have all done pretty well with those colours and produced decent kits.
The Wallabies made their mistake several years ago with a flashy strip, and the Kangaroos have basically played in the same green kit with yellow Vs on it since 1910.
The question then is, how hard is it to come up with something?

The bottom line basically when designing a football kit, is that simple is best. I had a look through a brilliant database (?) of English football kits, and found that the team which most resembles Australia is Norwich City:
http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Norwich_City/Norwich_City.htm

Personally I like a halved or quartered look:


Though even something more recent with just a yellow kit with green collars and flashes is also quite reasonable:


See? If I'd been in charge, we'd have had something nice and respectable. Not the weird wierd weerd wiird kit that we have now.

Oh, groovy, funky Channel 27. Big smegging deal.

Horse 1086 - Financial Problems Are More Important Than Rape

By now you would had heard the reports that the Melbourne Storm Rugby League Club have been stripped of two premierships and whatnot for breaches of the salary cap. If you were to believe the newspapers and especially the toilet paper that is the Daily Telegraph, then this is a very serious crime.

The question is how serious?

If you were to equate seriousness, or the importance of a news story with the number of newspaper column inches that was written about it, then what sort of results would you end up with?

Is the breach of the salary cap more important than say... rape?

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/27/1082831560154.html
The Coffs Harbour woman claimed six players pack raped her at the Pacific Bay Resort after a pre-season match in February.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/police-question-rugby-league-players-over-rape-allegation-20090301-8lf8.html
A number of second grade rugby league players have been interviewed by police over an alleged rape of a woman in Queensland, a rugby league boss says.

Perhaps wikipedia might be instructive. This is a list of of off-field incidents involving rugby league players just for the year 2009.

- Canberra Raiders star Todd Carney went on a rampage in Goulburn, damaging property, jumping on a car bonnet and damaging the entrance to a Fone Zone store. He received a 12 month suspended jail sentence, was ordered to undertake alcohol counselling, and was banned from the local Government area for 12 months.
- Anthony Watmough was accused by a Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles sponsor of punching him and harassing his daughter in a derogatory manner at a season launch party.
- Brett Stewart was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in the stairwell of an apartment block after a club function. A magistrate issued an apprehended violence order (AVO) against Stewart.
- Anthony Cherrington sent to anger management counselling after violently assaulting his girlfriend.
- Cronulla Sharks Greg Bird was convicted of recklessly wounding his girlfriend, and was later sentenced to 16 months jail with a minimum of eight months. The verdict was quashed on appeal.
- Leon Pryce and Stuart Reardon were convicted of assault in a UK court and were ordered to do 100 and 200 hours community service respectively.
- Jake Friend was charged with drink driving after being caught by police in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
- Trevor Thurling of the Canberra Raiders was charged with drink driving after being involved in a motor vehicle accident in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs on April 9.
- Willie Mason was fined $2,000 by Sydney Roosters after being photographed urinating in a public place.
- Cronulla Sharks player Reni Maitua returned a positive drug sample for clenbuterol.
- Cronulla Sharks captain Paul Gallen was fined $10,000 for using a racial slur against Tongan St George Illawarra forward Mickey Paea. Gallen subsequently apologised and resigned from the club captaincy.
- Melbourne Storm players Brett Finch and Cooper Cronk were each fined $5,000 for urinating in public.
- Brisbane Broncos player Joel Clinton was fined $50,000 for breaking the club's code of conduct and inviting a woman to his hotel room in Sydney.
- Hull Kingston Rovers' Ben Cockayne pleads guilty to assault, along with friend and fellow rugby league reserve player for the Castleford Tigers, Steven Hayward. Cockayne receives a 12 month sentence, whilst Hayward receives a six month sentence, both of which were suspended for two years.
- Sydney Roosters' Jake Friend and Sandor Earl under investigation for allegedly assaulting a woman at a Sydney nightclub.
- Wigan second-row Gareth Hock is suspended pending results of a 'B' sample following results of an 'A' sample confirming the presence of benzoylecgonine, the main metabolite of cocaine.
- Five players belonging to York City Knights were suspended for a breach of club discipline at a function in Leeds, along with the club's director of rugby.
- Cronulla Sharks player Brett Seymour is fired by his club for another alcohol-related incident, his second such sacking following his dismissal by the Brisbane Broncos in 2006.
- Sydney Roosters coach Brad Fittler was reported in the Townsville Bulletin for drunkenly trying to gain access to the wrong hotel room while wearing only shorts. The incident occurred at the Holiday Inn in Townsville at 3am. Fittler consequently fined himself AUD $10,000 and apologised for his behaviour at a televised press conference.
- Sydney Roosters player Nate Myles was suspended for six weeks and dropped from the State of Origin team after defecating in the corridor of a luxury resort hotel whilst drunk. The club was also fined $50,000 for repeated offences.
- Cronulla Sharks player Greg Bird appeared in court charged with five counts of assault after allegedly attacking a woman in a Cronulla night club in January 2008. He was subsequently cleared by the court.
- Melbourne Storm player Greg Inglis was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend.
- In August 2009 six Australian Celtic Crusaders players were ordered to leave the United Kingdom after the UK Border Agency identified breaches to their visa conditions.
- Sydney Roosters' Braith Anasta was king hit without retaliation in a Sydney hotel.
- Sydney Roosters player Setaimata Sa was charged with assault, resisting arrest, criminal damage and failure to leave a licenced premises, after a drunken episode in a Sydney hotel.
- South Sydney Rabbitohs player David Fa'alogo and coach Jason Taylor were both fired after an altercation at an end-of-season function.
- Wests Tigers player Daine Laurie was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
- Sydney Roosters player Stanley Waqa was charged over a knife-wielding incident in which a young woman was wounded in Sydney's east.
- Huddersfield Giants player Paul Whatuira was arrested and underwent a psychiatric assesment after he allegedly assaulted two men.
- Brisbane Broncos player Tonie Carroll was detained by police on Sunday 28th November following an alleged altercation with a woman, believed to be his partner.
- Cronulla Sharks' Paul Gallen was issued with a criminal infringement notice for urinating in public near the head of a drunken friend.
- Sydney Roosters' Jake Friend was arrested and charged by police following an altercation with a taxi driver.
- Newcastle Knights rugby league star Danny Wicks was charged by police in relation to drug supply offences.
- Canberra Raiders' rugby league star David Shillington was arrested for drink driving after testing more than twice the legal limit.

Sexual assault, property damage, drink-driving, knife-weilding, wounding, assault, cocaine possession, drug supply charges, urinating in public... what?!

Guess what, I bet that this "scandal" involving what basically amounts to an artificial financial breach in a civil case, will probably score more column inches that all of the above combined. When an incident like any of the above happens, it is usually hushed out of the media and we hear of "privacy issues". Bascially what we have here is a case where the media itself if it equates the value of what is newsworthy by what it reports, has suggested that this is more important than criminal activity.

Guess what? Financial problems ARE more important than rape according to the media.

Horse 1085 - I Will Never Own My Own Home

http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/homeownership-dream-dims-for-gen-y-20100421-ssdp.html
More young Australians see themselves as lifelong renters as the dream of home ownership fades, a new survey has found.
“We have never seen such pessimism amongst prospective first-time buyers throughout the past five indexes,” Vittoria Shortt, chief executive of Bankwest Retail said. “Seventy per cent of respondents were very concerned about the level of debt they will be committed to if they buy a property.”
One in three generation Y respondents, those born between about 1980 and the early 1990s, said they expect to be permanently locked out of the housing market.

I am one of them.

There are some interesting things to be said about this:

1. I honestly expect never to be able to afford a house.
As it currently stands, the bank will lend me $194,000 to buy a house. On that sort of money, it is impossible to buy anything within the Sydney Basin. To this end, I have for about the last 12 months been looking for employment in another state. I figure that I'm more likely to be able to own a house in Adelaide than Sydney.

The scary thing is that I wrote about this six years ago:
Generations Y & E therefore face a really huge challenge. No job security, the prospect of being priced out of home ownership and paying rent forever (to the Baby Boomers), living in debt from age 18 (to be educated) and above all, having to listen to their retired parents say "it wasn't like this is our day". Sadly it means that the most childish and selfish generation in history will never grow up and their kids will be too old to listen to them.
- HORSE 98 - 22/04/04

Also scary was that we were told this by The Age two years ago:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/28/1203788539246.html
THE average Australian family can no longer afford the average home mortgage, according to new figures that paint a devastating picture of how unaffordable housing has become in capital cities like Melbourne.

2. I honestly expect never to see any sympathy.
Why should anyone ever even care about my plight, or even the plight of our generation? As far as Governments are concerned, their largest single chunks of voters are still the Baby Boomers. Generations X, Y and Z (who can't vote yet), aren't numerically large enough to make any difference. Secondly, Generation Y is more than likely to be paying rent to the Baby Boomers, or by virtue of the fact that the Baby Boomers still live in their homes, are locked out from buying them.

3. What's wrong with Pessimism anyway?
I mean what is the point believing that things are going to be OK when their clearly not? As the population increases, the demand for housing is going to get tighter; as the Baby Boomers get older and start to have serious health problems, they are going to want to withdraw their capital from financial markets which is going to drive the costs of money even higher; therefore the criteria under which money is lent in the first place is also going to get tighter.

Also, over the past 10 years especially, there has been a trend from owner/occupier dwellings to institutional investment. Thus, if investors increasingly are coming from even larger pools of money such as superannuation funds and banks outright, this should tend to force out smaller entities. This of course leads to an increase in house prices and thus unaffordability, which is borne out by real world statistics.

So if you decide to tell me that "you had it hard in your day" or that "things will get better" then Nuts to You; what a load of bosh. If you are an older person, you probably had a shot at owning your own home and/or probably do so, but things are certainly not going to get better.
And don't you dare tell me that as a generation that we "had everything given to us" because I most certainly did not.

Invoking Godwin's Law

Horse 1084 - The Vengabus is Coming

http://www.kia.co.uk/microsites/venga/

We like to party
We like, we like to party
We like to party
We like, we like to party

The Vengabus is coming
And everybody's jumping
New York to San Fransisco
An intercity disco

- The Vengaboys, "We Like to Party" - annoying 1998 Eurotrash Dance Thing.

Before everyone starts to complain about Kia being cheap and nasty Korean rubbish, you might like to know that the new Kia Venga is made in Slovakia, so this means that the Venga isn't Korean rubbish but is genuine Eurotrash.

The word Venga in Spanish is supposed to mean "Arrive", which I take to mean that this is the car which Kia itself says that they have finally "arrived" as a real car company. I already liked the Magentis and the Cerato Koup, so I suppose that maybe the Venga might be on my list of likes... maybe.

The car scores 4 stars from NCAP's crash test program and given that it's shooting at the lower end of the market, this is actually quite a result. Also the car has taken out the German iF product design award which recognises design quality, as well as a number of other criteria, including workmanship, level of innovation and eco-friendliness; and that's even before the car has gone on sale.

Admittedly I have no idea what or whom the Kia Soul was built for, and Kia does have a horrid past having built such dog droppings of cars like the Rio and Shuma, and let's try not to remember the Kia Carnival in which the engines were so badly thought out that they were dropped out of the vehicle on a lift and replaced with whole new engines as part of a regular service, but the Venga appears to have been built properly. They come with variable valve timing (which is sure to get some sort of VVT, CVVT, VTEC yo type abbreviation) and the diesels have Common Rail fuel injection.

Still, the sorts of people who are most likely to buy this car will be females aged 19-29, and typically they're going to be more interested in either the styling known as the "Tiger Nose", or the name. I warn you, with Kia's previous names of Carnival & Rio and with a retro sort of thing going on at the moment, it's almost a dead cert that you're going to hear The Vengaboys, "We Like to Party" blaring out of every TV and radio for about six months during the adverts when the car is launched.

Be warned: The Vengabus IS coming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1X2H5EtiWc

Horse 1083 - Power Balance Wrist Bands are POWERFUL

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-to-investigate-the-games-latest-craze/story-e6frfgbo-1225849342777
The NRL has confirmed it will investigate the use of Power Balance wrist bands after Benji Marshall last week exposed one of world sport's best-kept secrets. As he lifted his arm in triumph, Benji Marshall revealed he was wearing the Power Band during his man-of-the-match performance against the Sydney Roosters at the SFS. It is claimed the wonder band can increase an athlete's core strength and power by as much as 500 per cent.
And as The Sunday Telegraph began investigating the mystery band on Marshall's wrist, we discovered he is not the only athlete using it. Parramatta's Timana Tahu and Eric Grothe, St George Illawarra's Matt Cooper and Bulldogs half Brett Kimmorley were also said to be fans of the bracelet.

Whoa!

The power of holograms taped to your wrists is obviously one of the greatest things ever developed. Imagine what a Power Balance Hologram Bracelet could do for you. If it can as claimed "increase an athlete's core strength and power by as much as 500 per cent" then what would happen if you made an athlete wear ten of them? Would their strength and power go up by 5000%?

I just love the blurb in the company's brochure as reported:
"Power Balance holograms are imbedded with frequencies that react positively with your body's natural energy field to improve balance, strength and flexibility".

Ahah, so it's all about frequencies, and your "natural energy field". In theory would if you wanted something which reacted with "frequencies" wouldn't you just buy a radio? Yeah, tape 17 digital radios to various points on your body... that'd be mega-awesome.

Stuff like this has been thought of before. Just think about the power of crystals, and more recently Firepower tablets which you could put in your petrol tank.
Firepower also had amazing powers; most notably the power to bankrupt the Sydney Kings, fiancially choke the Western Force Rugby and South Sydney Rabbitohs teams so that they lost key players, and the power to send certain V8 Supercars teams to the back of the grid...
... but most importantly it didn't have the power to lower your petrol consumption as claimed, and nor did the the company have the firepower to withstand appeals in the High Court of Australia on fraud charges.

There was a rather famous product that employed the use of a "natural energy field" to increase power; that was Peter Brock's Energy Polariser. Of course it also had amazing powers; namely the breakup of the Holden Dealer Team and effectively the end of Peter Brock as a force in the Australian Touring Car Championship.

But the thing that convinces me the most that the Power Balance wrist bands must almost certainly work is the following:

http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/6615459/general/bracelet-claims-test
Dr. Bateman demonstrated the bracelet on one of Today Tonight's sceptical reporters, Jonathan Creek, with amazing results.

Ah yes, Today Tonight. If it's shown on Today Tonight then it obviously must work. More amazing is that it was tested on their reported Jonathan Creek, who unless I am mistaken, is actually the titular character of a BBC television series starring Alan Davies.



I'm sold. Anything which is endorsed by QI's permanent panelist who is renowned for giving "answers which are not only wrong, but pathetically obvious", must by inference work, surely?

Let's see them rig up a few hundred of these Power Balance wrist bands on Tony Abbott, have his power boosted to over 10,000,000% and we'd have Super Opposition Leader, capable of taking on Chuck Norris, Mr T, BRIAN BLESSED, Lord Vader and His Holiness The Stig all at the SAME TIME!!!

Horse 1082 - Beckham to Become Technical Advisor to the Socceroos at World Cup.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/beckham-joins-socceroos-for-world-cup-campaign-20100401-rfrr.html

Former England captain "David Beckham" announced he was joining the Australian soccer team - the Socceroos - as assistant manager, The Sydney Morning Herald reported - and ABC radio took up the story.

"I'm really thrilled to be part of this group, I just can't wait to meet up with the lads and get the campaign underway," the footballer told ABC radio of his decision to join the team for the 2010 World Cup.

Personally I think that'd be somewhat of a boon for the Socceroos, as even just having a talisman in the room like him is likely embolden them a lot. Beckham has made a great deal of his career from set pieces, and if he could pass on some of those technical skills, then it would be a boost and possibly see them escape the Group stage.

When you think about it, if you only have three group games, a goal from a set piece in any of them might be the difference between escaping the group and not. A win is worth three points, and generally two wins in a group is usually enough to get you out.

Horse 1081 - Thurn and Taxis?

Ford Australia have announced that the Falcon wagon has been axed as of mid year 2010. Ford cites economic factors are to blame for the Falcon Wagon’s demise, as well as the market’s shift to SUVs during the last decade, so really this is entirely based on profit motive, which is to be entirely expected from a corporation.

On the radio yesterday, taxi drivers did most of the complaining and lamenting the Falcon Wagon's demise. The simple truth is that a corporation is fully entitled to withdraw from sales anything which doesn't maximise their profit base. Ford isn't after all a charity is it? If people really wanted the Falcon Wagon to stay around then it stands to reason that they would have bought more of the silly things. Honestly, what are you people doing?

Of course me being the charitable sort of person I am, I have graciously provided what should be the obvious solution for you, that is if you happen to be too lazy to think for yourselves. The way I see it, which I might add is quite a nice and lovely way to see the world (full of daises and buttercups and chainsaws). The way I see it, the taxis of the future should have the following characteristics so that what's happened to the Falcon does not happen again. Taxis of the future should be:
- diesel
- reliable
- and iconic.
Fortunately such a thing already exists:



Tah-dah! The LTI TX4... the definitive Taxi.
http://www.lti.co.uk/tx4/

LTI on their website proclaim that the TX4 is "the best and most advanced purpose-built taxi in the world". Well... this is probably in all likelihood a puff piece but somehow I'm inclined to believe it.

Taxis in London have nice big doors so that you can step in and out of them easily; I found this after getting off a crowded tube train and stepping into a Thursday peak period, and believe you me, with 10 million people who call London home plus another 6 or so million invading the city everyday, you need that.
The area inside can fit up to 5 people, and it's easy to fit luggage into them. If I was running a taxicab company, I'd seriously consider importing these things. Actually if a whole bunch of cab companies got together, then collectively they could persuade LTI to import them as a normal line of business. Hint hint hint... HINT HINT HINT... HINT HINT HINT... HINT HINT HINT...

The Falcon Wagon may have done good service over many years, but even Ford knows that when a horse gets old, sometimes you need to take it off the the knackers yard to be made into dog food and glue. Maybe it's time to employ a new steed; I for one would not be displeased if I saw "Black Beauty" out there.

Horse 1080 - The Falcon is Down

http://www.themotorreport.com.au/46057/ford-falcon-wagon-facing-the-axe-mondeo-wagon-and-territory-to-carry-the-load#comment_37927
FORD AUSTRALIA HAS announced today that it will discontinue the Falcon wagon this year, with the last wagon to roll off the line in June.

The news follows reports last year that Ford was considering the wagon's future, Ford Australia CEO Marin Burela confirming that a decision would be made by this past January.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
- Winston Churchill.

This is not the end of the beginning. But it is the beginning of the end.
- Rollo

Ford have already previous announced that there probably wouldn't be a replacement for the Falcon at the end of the current model cycle. With sales flagging and having fallen from top spot to number 7 in the latest VFACTS survey, how long is it before the Falcon is axed entirely? Will this mean the final end for a car which as its origins back in 1963?

Of course my only interest in the Falcon has to do with V8 Supercars. There has been rumblings (and most of them proving to be false) that there were other players interested in submitting new cars to the formula in 2012. I would suggest that if anyone wanted to, that their submission plans have just been given a little extra boost.

I mean what exactly is V8 Supercars to do when there is only one make of car to choose from? With the Falcon slowly fading out of existence, what sort of series is viable with only one make of car? If the Commodore has no competition, would anyone even bother?

V8SA is due to make an announcement next Monday the 29th, to do with the so-called "Car of the Future". It could well prove to be either the single most significant document in the sport's future, or perhaps even the very instrument which signs its death warrant.

We shall see.

Horse 1079 - mX: The Stupid Newspaper for Stupid People

For those expecting a tirade against News Corporation, then you will not be disappointed, only this time, you might wish to turn the volume up a bit because I am seething.

I have been on the train for about the past month and a half whilst my Ka has been off the road due to being bashed in the rear end by an incompetent in a Toyota Echo (perhaps they should do a recall on the drivers as well), and as a result, I've noticed the free newspaper mX which is either given out at city train stations, or can be collected for free from special racks.

The Panorama National Survey puts the average circulation at about 100,000 copies a day (Mon-Fri), and I've also noticed on the western line, that train stations have now started putting recycle bins on their stations, presumably to alleviate the mess caused by people either leaving discarded copies on the train (of which there can be as many as two dozen per carriage) or overflowing from rubbish bins outside the station - on that note, it's kind of sad to see someone having to clean up someone else's mess; this case it's actually caused by News Corp.

Now for the ugly part:

I usually didn't bother picking up mX on the basis that I had something else interesting to read (I've just finished reading John Maynard Keynes' magnum opus, the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money), but on this occasion I wanted to find out what had been going on in the world.
Namely that the US Congress had passed the Health Care Reform Bill and that there was a significant speech made by President Obama which I thought would be interesting.

But what was mX reporting?

The death of the smallest man in the world, and pictures of footballers girlfriends. Is this what passes for news? I mean seriously. I have blown my nose and opened the contents of a tissue to find more interesting things. When I opened mX yesterday, I find pretty well much the same sort of content.

Just what the heck sort of newspaper is this?

If you do a wikipedia search on the subject you read the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MX_%28newspaper%29
Central themes of most articles include US celebrity gossip, new product lines, controversial events, rumours, celebrity trivia, and readers' gripes, amongst other attention-grabbing stories. Large photographs often appear without any related story, only a caption describing their contents; conversely news stories are rarely accompanied by photographs. Small, large and full page advertisements are also a major contributor to the paper's overall make-up.

Even more intriguing is the links at the bottom of the page; one of which is for "Junk Food News":
Junk food news is a sardonic term for news stories that deliver "sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential trivia", especially when such stories appear at the expense of serious investigative journalism. It implies a criticism of the mass media for disseminating news that, while not very nourishing, is "cheap to produce and profitable for media proprietors."

I'd say that this is bang on the money for mX. It's a newspaper (of sorts) which actually panders to the lowest common denominator; and when I later found out that it's owned by News Corporation, it pretty well much explains everything.
News Corporation - a worldwide scum company which exists by producing toxicly crap media.

This is the same company which owns Britain's Sun newspaper, who in 1989 ran a campaign blaming Liverpool fans of atrocities following the wake of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#The_Sun_newspaper_controversy
... and which, since 1970 has put a topless model on page 3 of the newspaper, just to reinforce what the corporation thinks of its readership.

This is the same company who by virtue of owning the rights to the English Premier League and the A-League, denies me the right because I don't have Pay TV, of watching football. This is the same company who in 1997 nearly destroyed Rubgy League in Australia. This is the same company who via the Fox News network, has managed to convince many Americans that the idea of "socialised medicine" is evil.

It seems to me that mX falls exactly into line and character as a News Corporation publication. It is of little substance but there is one thing about it that is absolutely correct - the price. mX is free. I suppose that is their concession that the content isn't worth purchasing and quite literally they have to give it away.
However, with a circulation of half a million copies a week, it makes me wonder what it's actually doing to public opinion. What I can't tell is if it's read by people who wouldn't usually buy the newspaper anyway, or what percentage of people read it in addition to their primary news source, or even worse, for what percentage of people it actually IS their primary news source.

I can't decide if mX is a reflection of, or a contributor to the erosion of public morals and the increase of the stupidity of society. I concede that there is both a right to free speech and freedom of the press, but does it have to be so remorselessly puerile?

I also admit at this point, that because this rant has more than twelve words in it, most mX readers will have given up well before this... good. Society is better off without you and without mX.

Horse 1078 - Give Penalty Shoot-Outs A Red Card

Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory at the weekend played out a tension filled A-League Grand Final, ending up 1-1 at full time. The final should be regarded as a classic in years to come, but the final result is a travesty of justice.

One one hand, I am quite pleased that Sydney did win the title, but on the other hand, to win because of a penalty shoot-out is a hollow way to win anything. Both sides on the park have just played their guts out for 120 minutes, and the best they can come up with is a system akin to a lottery.
My opinion is shared at least by one other prominent person in the world of football:
"When it comes to the World Cup final it is passion, and when it goes to extra time it is a drama,but when it comes to penalty kicks it is a tragedy."
- Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA

How then can such a thing be allowed to continue? Penalty kicks as a way to end a match really are quite a horrid thing.

Before the World Cup in 1970 in Mexico, matches that had been drawn at the end of regulation time were either replayed, or extra time was played, or as in the case of the Euro '68 Semi Final between the USSR and Italy, decided by coin toss.
Now I'm not saying that a coin toss is fairer than a penalty shoot-out, in fact a coin toss is just as abhorrent. Surely there has to be a better method though.

In the "bad old days" when television didn't decide when fixtures were to be played, the most common method of deciding who would progress to the next stage of a knockout tournament was a full replay. Now I admit that for international fixtures, this poses a problem, but for a domestic competition it provides another potential chance for extra ticket sales.
The most protracted FA Cup tie of all time happened in 1955 between Stoke City and Bury, which wasn't decided until four replays later, being 1-1, 1-1, 3-3, 2-2 and finally Bury 2 Stoke City 3. The last FA Cup Final to be decided by replay was the 1993 final in which after 4 hours, Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-1, then 2-1.

Admittedly the situation is a little bit different in Australia considering that we don't actually have a Cup, so they tack a cup competition onto the end of the league. Now I would have thought that the obvious thing to do would either be ditch the finals series and playout the rest of the league (since for some odd reason, everyone plays everyone else thrice), or in the event of a draw in finals series, simply force another replay at a neutral venue.
Or perhaps if that wasn't to everyone's liking, then why not simply award joint winners of the title. If two teams in a final have both played well (or even badly) and both of them deserve their name in the record books, then is there anything wrong with that?
If prize money is an issue, and if that truly is the driving the cause, then it stands to reason that neither side maximised a win, and therefore the total money on offer for the fixture should be split.

If you absolutely must decide a winner, then look at corners conceded and goal kicks forced. At least then you'd have an idea of who was attacking. For a supposed team sport to end as a battle of individuals in my opinion is stupid; it detracts from the game of football. For this reason above any other, the idea of penalty shoot-outs is wrong.

Horse 1077 - Driven: BMW 318i E90 - Smooth

Every so often, I get the chance to drive a new car. This happened this morning when I had to go to Trivett in Rydalmere to collect a pair of BMW kidney grilles for my boss' BMW 318i E90.

Firstly the name 318i is actually a misnomer. Underneath the bonnet is not a 1.8L engine as you'd expect but a 2.0L in-line 4 (N43B20 for all the nerds out there). The engine produces 105kW or 141bhp and is therefore almost spot on with the outgoing Holden Astra in terms of power.

The 318i aims quite squarely at its target market and is obviously a corporate-rep-box. It is appointed with leather seats, climate control, a decent stereo system with tweeters in the A-Pillars, electric everything, iPod connectivity etc etc etc. and therefore you'd expect it to be very easy to drive for extended periods.

The steering doesn't feel overly light nor stiff, in fact it's rather neutral in its posture. The handling of the car doesn't feel either heavy or lithe, and the engine and power delivery is very smooth. In fact that is the best way to describe this car, very smooth indeed. For the engine is whisper quiet, and apart from the rev counter going into fits and starts it seems unfussed pulling away from the lights or cruising down the motorway at 110km/h.

Yet this is precisely why I felt entirely uninspired by this car. BMW's corporate slogan is "sheer driving pleasure", and no matter where I looked, I simply couldn't find any.
Don't think by any means that this was a bad car, it wasn't bad in any respect. It's just that everything felt so polished, so smooth, so... bland and boring, that any character traits that the car may have had, have all been engineered out of it.
This car is the white bread of motor cars, the boiled white rice, the plain copy paper, the Staedtler 430M stick of the car world. It does everything properly and efficiently but there's no driving pleasure to speak of.

Driving this car has given me a new perspective on BMW drivers. There is one word which keeps on cropping up when you talk about BMW drivers; I have learnt that it's not the fault of the car, the car itself is very neutral. Therefore what they say about BMW drivers... exclusively applies to them.

Richard Dawkins ask the Questions... You Decide.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2831712.htm
Thanks to the ABC's Q&A

RICHARD DAWKINS: The New Testament - you believe, if you believe in the New Testament, that God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive humanity's sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

RICHARD DAWKINS: But the extreme is in the New Testament. I simply told you what is New Testament doctrine. That is St Paul's view, which is accepted by Christianity. That's why Christ came to earth, in order to atone for humanity's sins. If it's extreme, it's not me that's being extreme, it's the new testament that's being extreme.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you think it's admirable? You think it's admirable that God actually had himself tortured for the sins of humanity?

Is it admirable? I ask you.
Let's for a second run with Dawkin's own logic shall we?

If we accept that the problem of sin exists, then logically what chance does humanity have of ridding itself of it? If you have an organism, which is suffering because of a parasite or a cancer, you can either remove the parasite of cancer, or in the event that it can not be removed, the only sure fire method is to kill the host.

Suppose further that if you could find a second host organism that would act like either a sacrificial anode, and transfer the parasites or cancer to, wouldn't you consider that second host as admirable, or even noble?

The problem with this logic is that although you might cure the first organism, the second host, the sacrificial host would invariably die because it was carrying the parasite or cancer.

Suppose further that if the second host could regenerate itself after it had died, then it could in theory, keep on saving multiple target hosts that were in danger with this parasite or cancer. Wouldn't that second host because it could effectively solve the problem, be incredibly useful? What would happen if it could bear the parasites and cancers of many millions of diseased hosts at once?

Let's ask Dawkins' question again?
RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you think it's admirable? You think it's admirable that God actually had himself tortured for the sins of humanity?

I think...

YES!

Horse 1076 - How Much Non-News Do We Need?

On Saturday night I was about to watch the 6 o'clock news when Channel 9 had a "breaking" story that Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle had ended their relationship. Wanting to escape this and find some actual news I switched Channel 7 to find that they too were covering precisely the same "story"; then on SBS at half past 6, they too were leading with the same thing.
We were also bombarded with a story about an elephant called "Mr Shuffles", and with something about some fashion show in Paris. My reaction to all of this was to use that most magical of devices, the remote control... only to re bombarded elsewhere.

Now I hope that I've come to the wrong conclusion here but either there literally was nothing newsworthy over the weekend, or if the media are merely selling to and are therefore a relfection of society, then I am quite disappointed.

I bet that the only reason that the media cares about this is because they can sell more media and advert space (that is of course their whole raison d'être) and the best way to sell media is to publish something depraved if they can get away with it.
The thing is that, if the media is trying to sell us something, then there must be a ready market for it if it keeps on trying to push it.

From where I stand, I don't care, I don't want to care, I don't want to see, I don't want to know and I'm jolly well sick of it all.

The real news, because you couldn't find it is that:
- The Israeli plans to build settlements in the West Bank has finally been derided by the USA as hurting the peace process.
- Greece is looking for a €300bn bailout bond from the EU, possibly faces the chance of being expelled and that there is potentially a bigger problem lurking in Spain.
- Two Frenchmen taken hostage on Nov 22 last year have finally been freed in Dafur.
- The US Federal Reserve is expected to be given greater prudential regulation to help ward off the conditions which led to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis
- Kristina Keneally has wasted a stack of money in producing a pamphlet broadcasting that the NSW State Government has achieved in her first 100 days in office
- We are probably going to a Federal Election on the 14th of August this year.

It's utterly amazing and hopelessly disappointing that actual important news that has real effects on the world, doesn't even make the 6 o'clock news, because fashion, models and elephants are more "important".

If the world stops spinning tomorrow, I'm jumping off.

Horse 1075 - Camaro... Can I Smell Poo?

Today I turn your attention to the car which goes on sale next week, the Chevrolet Camaro. Now admittedly I haven't done a road test; I can't do a road test without getting my hands on the car, but by the same token I know that I'm fully qualified to give an opinion without doing one. Why? Because in all fairness, I don't even need to. I already know it's crap.



Now I don't say this to be jingoistic (though given that GM did kill what is essentially the same car in the Monaro), but rather on basic economic fact.

The Camaro was developed by none other than our own Holden, right here in Australia. It sits atop GM's Zeta platform, which was developed by Holden. It shares the same 3.6L V6 and 6.2L V8 engines along with the Commodore (and related HSV cars). It shares the same drivetrain and gearbox as the Commodore. In fact, the only real difference technically is a different set of springs and shocks, and a different set of engine management chips.
The Camaro for all intents and purposes is basically a two door Commodore; fulfils precisely the same function as the Monaro.

The biggest difference and in fact the main reason why I think that it is so incredibly crap is... the pricetag.
The starting price is A$134,990 as opposed to the top of the line HSV product at $87,690*. What that says to me is that GM think that it's worthwhile to give consumers the same car wrapped in a different skin, and charge them 40 odd grand more for the privilege of doing so.

Also I suspect after visiting America, that because the Camaro was built in America for Americans, it will be built to lower production standards. This was evident when comparing like for like - Cobalt and Astra, Malibu and Vectra.

All I can say is "Well Done" to GM for killing the Monaro and then selling a worse built car for 40 odd grand more. If the car had been built in Australia then it would have been done better, but then again Holden already inadvertantly admit this with their own advert tag: Holden. Go Better.
Well they would do, if they were allowed to.

*Actually the HSV W427 chimed in at A$155,500 but that's got a thumping 7L V8 in it, but they only built 138 of them and on special order only.

Horse 1074 - 3 Numb3rs

Back in Horse 928, I had a look at the more ridiculous numbers that have appeared on football kits over the years. Now I admit that I am perfectly used to seeing really high numbers on cricket shirts like Brad Haddin and 57, or Andrew Symonds 63, and I even remember New Zealander Roger Twose sporting the "devil's number" for Australian cricketers 87, on a few occasions.

It was therefore with a bit of surprise that I saw Tommy Oar who made his debut for Australia against Indonesia at Lang Park, in Brisbane (1-0 Australia, and qualification to the Asian Cup in 2011 thank you very much), sporting the kit number 121.



Is Australian sport now ready for such a thing? Should we now throw open the door and let everyone play in whatever kit number they want to?

In my opinion... Yes.

To be totally fair, it doesn't really matter what number someone plays in. As far as their ability to do the job, the simple affixation of a number means very little. Conversely the kit number itself connects quite well with the identity of a player. Think of Peter Brock and 05, Dick Johnson and 17, John Terry 26, Wayne Gretzki 99, Ferrari 27, and of course Michael Jordan 23.

Why not even take it a step further and allow other numbers? Should be go as far as 7/8 like Leela on Futurama? I don't know really.



I wouldn't even be surprised if at some point someone who is personally sponsored by 3 Mobile, puts their 3 on their kit. Now that 3 really would be a magic number.

Horse 1073 - Alternative Alternatives?

Thank you for calling the Australian Taxation Office's Personal Tax Inquiries Helpline on 132861. Unfortunately this service is not available at this current time. Please call our alternative phone number 132861. Thank you.

I thought I'd do a quick check of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to have a look what the word "alternative" actually means. Perhaps not surprising was the first definition which states that an alternative is something "available in place of something else". Materially if the alternative phone number of 132861 is in place of 132861, does that constitute something else?

Alternative music or culture can also be said to stand in place of something else. That something else being whatever the mainstream culture happens to be, be it music, film, magazine, lifestyle or whatever; again, the thing standing in place of the other thing, can not by definition be the first thing.

We find alternatives in the world of economics. If the price of something like the price of butter goes down, then more people will buy butter meaning quantity demanded increases. Butter and margarine are substitutes because either one of them can be used instead of the other. Since the price of butter decreased, more people will buy butter over margarine, and the demand curve of margarine will shift in. In other words, if you can find a substitute for a good, then those two goods have to be compared as alternatives.

All of this makes me wonder whether or not the ATO have actually grasped the concept of an alternative. By offering the same thing as a stand in or substitute for itself, is it really an alternative? I mean its not like they've directed me anywhere else is it?

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.