November 30, 2004
Sehr Gut...
The Daily Examiner says that my former German teacher has received an award:
GRAFTON High School languages teacher Ann Finn has received a quality teaching award for being one of NSW’s best teachers.
Mrs Finn, who specialises in French and German and has been teaching at the school since 1985, said it was an honour to be recognised.
"I really love what I teach and I also like teaching kids and getting them to do the best they are capable of, which is more than what they think they are most of the time," she said.
The awards are run by the NSW Australian College of Educators. Recipients have to undergo a number of assessments, including submitting a portfolio, in-class observation and interviews with colleagues, parents and students.
Mrs Finn was one of the many to tell me throughout my life that I was "very smart", but just didn't put in the effort, instead of just coasting.
I still have this problem.
Damn laziness.
When you really need to go...
Another fine government initative...
November 29, 2004
How can you sleep when my eyes are burning?
Peter Garrett should sue the House of Representatives photographer.
Pete's looking awfully Skeletor like these days...
November 27, 2004
Memories
I got an email from one of my friends from high school.
Let's call her Champignon.
For some reason, the part about semen stains is stuck in my head.
Crash through, or just plain crash...
Marvel at the world's most poorly executed election campaign!
The money quotes:
Latham quickly made it clear he did not feel it was necessary to listen to, let alone take the advice of, those in the party machine before determining his strategy. Unlike his opponent - Howard is famously almost as committed to the morning hook-up as he is to his morning walk - Latham saw little need to attend daily teleconferences with the rest of the campaign team. On the road, it would be left to John Faulkner or Stephen Smith to sit in on Labor's morning conference, then attempt to convey its key themes and recommendations to the leader.
"Faulkner and Smith deserve more medals than you could ever cast for them," says the HQ source. "They had to carry the day-to-day brunt of knocking on Mark's hotel door, explaining what we'd like him to do today, and then leaving with their tail between their legs."
and
Latham's public embrace of Gough Whitlam also raised the eyebrows of some colleagues. "It was idiotic," says one Labor MP. "Gough is an icon within the Labor Party but many other people remember [the Whitlam administration] as one of the worst governments in history - Gough is not a vote winner."
and
"It was a toxic workplace," says one staff member. "There was a swinging-dick group-think culture - it was a horrible atmosphere."
And on the trees...
...."From that moment there was this massive expectation that we'd do something," says a former staff member. "But the weird thing is, he wasn't even interested in forests. He came back from Tasmania and we said, 'What did you see?' And he said, deadpan: 'A tree."'
Says one Labor MP: "If there is an image which ruined any chance for us, it was that of Latham skulking into Tasmania and then skulking out to avoid the workers while embracing that madman Bob Brown."
November 26, 2004
Cat Blogging III
It's Friday, and you know what that means...
Yep, cat blogging!
November 24, 2004
Behold Utopia!
Check it out.
The Republic of Falminica is a small, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its complete absence of social welfare. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 10 million are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.
The small, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Commerce, Law & Order, and Defence. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 2%. Private enterprise is illegal, but for those in the know there is a slick and highly efficient black market in Arms Manufacturing.
The country's famous rainforests are being bulldozed by the mining industry, organ donation rates are among the lowest in the region, the automotive industry soaks up huge government handouts, and the government is avowedly atheist. Crime is a major problem. Falminica's national animal is the meerkat, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the bogi.
November 23, 2004
Everybody, get naked!
A BRITISH television channel will this week stretch the boundaries of reality TV by showing videos of couples having sex, in a program designed to help address common sexual problems.
I find that watching others go at it always solves my sexual problems.
Google sued over free nudes
A WEBSITE that sells photos of naked women is suing Google, alleging the online search engine is destroying its business by distributing links and passwords that provide free glimpses of the nude models.
All that, and the article still doesn't tell you the search words to put into Google.
Probably something like this.
Oh, that's probably not work safe.
Just telling you...
Slippery Saudis
Conspiracy theorists take note:
resident Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen.
The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week.
Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign this year accusing President Bush of improperly close ties to Saudi Arabia. The case was made in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," in a bestselling book by Craig Unger titled "House of Bush, House of Saud," and by the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry.
Over to you, Michael Moore.
November 21, 2004
We are the Champions
Who's the fattest in the world? Those burger-munching Yanks?
No! We are!
THE average Australian woman is a size 16 and weighs 8kg heavier than her American counterpart, according to authoritive new international research.
Australian men are also 3kg heavier than American males, the joint study by the University of Adelaide and US researchers shows.
The findings were recently presented at the American Standards and Testing Materials Conference and obtained exclusively by The Sunday Telegraph.
They contradict the widely held view that the United States is the world's most overweight country and they have led the Australian Medical Association to warn: "We are eating ourselves to death."
Women are now two dress sizes larger than they were in the 1960s, the National Size and Shape survey of 60 body dimensions of 1400 Australians, showed.
AMA vice president Dr Bill Glasson said the report highlighted the growing obesity problem.
"The average Australian thinks that Americans are bigger but our country faces a huge problem," Dr Glasson said.
"We are not getting enough exercise.
"People don't have to be skinny but obesity and the cost of subsequent diseases to our health system is huge."
Australian women are 5cm bigger around the bust, 8cm larger around the waist and 4cm wider on the hips than American women.
Australian men are 3kg heavier than their American counterparts, with a chest circumference that is 6cm larger and a waist circumference 2cm wider.
Fashion analyst Daisy Veitch said the findings reveal a flaw in the clothing industry.
About 50 per cent of Australian women do not fit into the clothes sold in mainstream stores.
"Women in Australia have difficulty finding clothes that fit properly," she said.
"The new Australian figure is pear-shaped and less slimlined than it was 20 to 80 years ago.
"Manufacturers are basing their clothes on old standards, not on today's women's curvy shape."
Lucy Dunwell from Frenchs Forest is a size 16: the shape of the new average Australian female.
But the 19-year-old model for the Biggals agency said she had trouble buying clothes that fit her figure.
"Often there are not many clothes in my size; most stop at size 14," Dunwell said.
"Shopping can get frustrating, especially when there are dresses I like that only come in smaller sizes."
The Australian survey was conducted over a six-month period in 2002.
The anatomical science team at the University of Adelaide then spent two years analysing and collating the body dimension data.
The same method of measuring body dimensions was used in the American study of 4000 people.
The results will be published in the international scientific journal, Journal of Human Ecology.
University of Adelaide head of anatomical science, Professor Maciej Henneberg said the survey results showed Australia was a nation of "healthy, cheerful, size 16 women".
"Australian women are heavier than American women by a few kilos, but it's not a major concern," Prof Henneberg said.
"I think the reason is there is a socio-economic difference. On average Australians are more affluent than Americans.
"The survey showed one third of women are obese and there is concern over this. However, size 16 women are happy and healthy."
From The Sunday Telegraph.
However, if the Americans start eating things like this, they might grab the lead again. Don't let them, Aussies!
November 17, 2004
Teen Girls for Oil!
I found this article:
Aussie wins Miss Teen International
November 17, 2004
THERE must be something in the water in Australia at the moment - our girls are continuing to blitz the competition in international beauty pageants.
Following Jennifer Hawkins' crowning as Miss Universe earlier this year, Sydney-based 16-year-old Lauryn Eagle has been named the new Miss Teen International.
She won the pageant, held at the weekend in Costa Rica, after clinching the Miss Teen Australia title in October.
Eagle wiped the floor with her competitors, picking up the Miss Photogenic, Miss Silhouette and Miss Congeniality awards in addition to the top honour.
But modelling is not Eagle's first passion - she is also a champion water skier.
She is the Australian and NSW State Champion for 2004 in the under 16 division and also placed second in the Junior Water Ski Racing World Championships in California last year.
Eagle's win is a further boost for her Sydney-based management company Adpro, which also looks after Hawkins.
Then I went to the Miss Teen Website.
Major sponsor?
You just can't make thing like this up...
November 15, 2004
Spam in my Ham
I'm getting spammed like nobody's business again. Damn, thought I'd sorted this out.
The spam is getting really weird though.
Explorer will always be the best browser. Don"t you dare install Firefox or we will sue you.
IE Team
Does Bill know you're doing this?
All these are spmmaers- fuck them all!
ritazohar@012.net.il ....
Spammers and spamming me to warn of other spammers, eh? Turf war!
What a sorry bunch...
By now, everyone's probably had a giggle at the sore losers at "Sorry Everybody".
I know I did.
So did Treacher.
Far funnier photos can be found at "We're not Sorry"
Troy picks some of the highlights.
Like this one:
November 14, 2004
November 13, 2004
Browser Wars
I'm currently using a different web browser for the first time in five years. I've ditched IE for Mozilla Firefox.
Currently its working out ok, well, except for the fact that the shortcut buttons are missing from the "Create New Entry" part of my blog.
Compare and Contrast?
Was Yasser Arafat...
"a powerful human symbol and forceful advocate for a Palestinian homeland" (Jimmy Carter)
or
"the son of sixty thousand whores". (Syrian Defense Minister)
I think I know who to believe.
(From Roger L Simon)
November 12, 2004
Quote for the Day
In the second scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly:
"Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?"
Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: "A fish!"
And Clodpool went away, satisfied.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time)
November 11, 2004
Great Day in History
1880 - Violent thug and cattle thief hanged in Melbourne.
1918 - Armistice brings an end to the most costly war in history up until that point.
1975 - Most "dangerous and incompetent" PM in history is sacked.
1986 - Big Computer Company Founded
2004 - Egyptian terrorist dies.
November 10, 2004
Fallujah
Drinking Game: Scull every time the media says the word "quagmire".
For what's actually happening in Fallujah check the Belmont Club.
Hitch Gets It
Bush's Secularist Triumph
The left apologizes for religious fanatics. The president fights them.
Excerpt:
From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in Palestine—disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLO—described as the victims of "despair." The forces of al-Qaida and the Taliban represented as misguided spokespeople for antiglobalization. The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do).
Read the rest.
November 08, 2004
Memories, sweet memories?
I was looking through my old image files and found this:
Pass out by eleven (or earlier). Those were the days.
Funny though, I don't seem to have any distinct memories of this night.
Or many of the other nights.
Oops.
Dead Men
A friend emails me responding to the "Yasser - Dead" conundrum
i think the rumours that he is brain dead, circulated a few days ago, are
probably true. They will outfit him with remote-controlled puppet skeleton,
ala Boris Yeltsin, who was dead 3 years before the end of his presidency.
He will then carry out the rest of his rule, hanging limply and made to dance
like and idiot.
That sounds so cool!
In other dead man news... (well, he's dead in terms of political relevance)
It's time for Gough Whitlam to say sorry. And the former Labor prime minister should no longer be allowed to "strut the national stage as the wronged legendary hero of Australian politics" but apologise to all those he failed.
So says Sir David Smith, the man who stood on the steps of Old Parliament House and read the proclamation to dissolve Parliament after the dismissal of the Whitlam Government 29 years ago this week.
"It's time he said sorry to his party for being such a failure as leader. It's time he said sorry to the Australian people for being such a failure as prime minister and for giving us the most incompetent government we have ever had, and it's time that he told the truth about the events of 1975," Sir David said yesterday at a lecture in Canberra.
November 07, 2004
Thatta girl!
Does everyone remember Francesca Willis?
THE teenager suspended from an exclusive private school after photos of her posing seductively in her uniform were spread across the Internet has launched a career as a model.
Barker College student, Francesca Willis, 17, was the victim of a vicious cyber scandal in July when saucy photographs of her reached as far as London over the Internet.
Now Ms Willis has finished her HSC and says she is looking forward to a successful career on the catwalk after recently signing with Adpro agency.
Yay for internet publicity!
From here.
November 06, 2004
Ah, those Frenchies!
Jacques to Iyad Allwai, PM of Iraq: Non!
Jacques to Yasser Arafat, possibly brain-dead ex-terrorist: Oui!
See more here
November 05, 2004
Now, to more important matters...
The new Star Wars teaser trailer is online. Course, to get it from the official site, you have to be a member of "Hyperspace", like me.
If you're not, have a poke around on file sharing thingies and discussion forums, I'm sure someone's (illegally) hosting it elsewhere.
Anyway, its quite good: But why is half of it just reused Episodes I, II and IV footage?
Cheapskate!
November 04, 2004
It's done.
Kerry conceded.
His concessions speech was graceful and a credit to him.
Well done.
Edwards' speech was tacky, and a disgusting attempt at a stump speech.
We'll see him again...
November 03, 2004
Moron
Kerry and Edward's won't concede for some bizarre reason. They're 150,000 votes behind in Ohio, but they reckon that the 75,000 provisional votes still to be counted will put them back in contention.
Dickheads.
Update: Fuck, Kerry has got to be the most ungracious election loser ever. For pete's sake, fucking NIXON had more of a reason to complain about his 1960 loss, but he conceded.
And the map...
VodkaPundit, off to bed, calls the final result as this:
I think that's a pretty good call.
So slow...
Americans are slowly counting...
Currently 39-3, Bush's favour.
Called States: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia for Bush, Vermont for Kerry
Update:
Bush 170 EV, 18 States, 53%/14,796,099 Popular Vote
Kerry 112 EV, 11 States. 46%/12,877,747 Popular Vote
It'd be ironic if Bush won the Popular vote, but lost the electoral college. Would the same guys who declared the 2000 election results invalid, do the same for 2004? Probably not.
Heh.
Update 2
George Clooney's dad has missed out on a seat in Kentucky. What a shame...
Bush 175 19 52% 17,799,202
Kerry 112 11 47% 15,936,188
Update 3
What do John Edwards and Michael Moore have in common? They both seem to be well on the way to delivering their home states to Bush. Way to pull a Gore, guys.
And what's with Florida? 79% counted, Bush is at 52%, still "too close to call". What, is there a last minute ballot-stuffing scheduled later?
Update 4
Would they frickin call Florida? There's only 5% left to count.
Oh, and Democrat VP candidate John Edwards might want to contemplate his future - the Democrats just lost his old Senate seat.
And it doesn't look like Dick Cheney's giving up his job without a fight.
Update 5
They've called Florida. Now only Ohio still in play.
Update 6
Ohio's being called for Bush. It's over, pretty much.
Update 7
Come on Kerry, concede and be done with it. It's over. Bush has won the electoral college and the popular vote. Why are you talking about challenging? Is this a tradition, now, when its a close election, the loser tries to go to court?
Preliminary Results
For some reason, Tim Blair's place is unavailable.
No matter, there's plenty of roundups at the moment.
Results already in:
Dixville Notch
Bush 19, Kerry 7, Nader zip
Ooh, eight percent swing to Kerry! What were those two voters thinking...
Guam
Bush 17,264 Kerry 9,540.
No electoral college votes, unfortunately. And I don't think it contributes to the popular vote.
November 01, 2004
Hail, King of the Dole!
I got a new boss, apparently. The Minister for "Human Services".
Human Services? What are we going to be pimpin' out young girls or something? Actually, not a bad idea...
Anyway, time for the obligatory Simpson's quote:
I for one welcome our new overlords. I remind them, as a trusted public servant, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground dole caves.
Update: A secret source has provided me with a picture of one of our new "Human Services" employees
America Decides...
Who will it be? Chimp-Face or Horse-Face?
Nobody knows!
Well it doesn't get any more exciting than this!
(bleh)
Here's a cute image from Allah that may be an omen for the next four years.
Grafton Decides...
A CROWD into the thousands braved the night-time chill at Market Square on Saturday to officially welcome in new members to the 2004 Jacaranda royal party.
The festival’s crowning ceremony, described as nothing short of spectacular, included a delightful mix of entertainment and celebration to mark its 70th anniversary.
Grafton singer/songwriter Samantha McClymont, 18, was crowned the 2004 Jacaranda Queen.
More here.