I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Australian author Shane Maloney this weekend.
He was charming and funny and informative. He also signed a book for me!
Go Shane.
Buy his books.
Oh, he gave a very amusing speech at a Melbourne public school in 2001.
In a desperate display of grandstanding, the Liberal Federal Government has attempted to tackle the Australian Football League on its "out of competition" drug policy.
The Goverment Minister responsible, the silly Mr Chris Pyne, came away bloodied and bruised, claiming he wanted the AFL to adopt the government's "zero tolerance" drug policy.
Unfortunately, the bumbling Mr Pyne was unable to comprehend that the AFL policy was directed at player welfare and rehabilitation rather than criminality.
The government clearly thinks that there are some votes to be won in the charging of sportsmen for illicit drug use.
Andrew Demetriou, who has prior offences in regards attacking the JoHo Government, walked away with a 1-0 scoreline and plenty ammunition in reserve.
I came home to find that the Microsoft Moviemaker2 (the easy to use, but slightly flakey video editor)won't work.
Easy fixed, I thought, probably just uninstall and reinstall.
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Hmmmm, can't uninstall moviemaker2.
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Google search.
Multiple conflicts between MM2 and other audio/video applications. Disable some codecs. Still wont run.
Clash with IE7. Uninstall. No better.
Must uninstall.
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GOOGLE.
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No-one can uninstall MM2 from XP. It's there, forever and won't run.
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Beat (Sorry Fitz)
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Bill, you lost me.
I'm off to the White Zealots Store.
I'll report back.
Concerned about an electoral backlash, JoHo has decided to pass on the renovations. The potential cost came to light as the quote passed through an senate estimates committee.
In more populist sneakiness, JoHo has avoided causing waves within his own coalition by effectively deferring the decision on the AWB wheat single-desk issue till after the next election.
This non-decision was dressed up as as a staged change to the wheat-desk system.
Don't be fooled, its status quo.
AWB, the great supporter of the Saddam Hussein regime , is being further supported by the JoHo government.
Reactive, populist snake.
Mr Howard said the newspaper's headline reflected most people's reaction.
"In defence of the Tele, that's what most people say," Mr Howard told ABC Radio. "How could you abandon a little baby?"
How indeed JoHo? How distressed, confused and desperate would you have to be?
And....
How exactly do you think acerbic headlines and bullying comments from the country's Prime Minister is going to frickin' help?
Bully.
I've just found out I'm involved in a class action.This only came to light when I received an offer to "opt-out" from the organizing lawyers, a big player in class actions in Australia.
It seems I have a couple of options.
I can remain in the class action and incur no costs even if the proceedings are unsuccessful. If the matter is settled, the court will rule on a penalty and/or compensation.
I could opt-out. This would be suitable if, for example, I regarded the action as a cynical, money-grubbing waste of the court's time.
If I remain as a plaintiff and the case is not settled, I will need to prove individual loss and damage, which may require me to have legal representation and risk the costs being in excess of the potential settlement.
The organising lawyers have offered to represent me, by entering into a fee arrangement with them. I guess it will be a no-win, no-fee number.
Alternatively, I can organise my own representation, risking a loss and potentially incurring higher costs if the court needs to assess loss on an individual basis.
I know who the winners are going to be in this little legal merry-go -round.
Ex-PM Paul Keating has re-joined the political debate this week calling PM JoHo a "pre-copernican obscurantist". I nearly fell over in my rush to consult the dictionary.
Oh yes, JoHo, you deliberately vague flat-earther.
This, on ABC yesterday -
"The right to collectively organise pay and conditions of work is a basic civil right, it's the thing that cuts out the template on a democratic nation."
"When you say to people, 'you can't get together at work, you can't organise your conditions', you're back to the earlier part of the industrial revolution, and that's where Howard belongs."
"He's a pre-Copernican obscurantist. That's where he belongs, but let's not have all these turkeys in the business community saying, 'well isn't this shocking'."
"I mean, we've got a profit share in GDP today, like you couldn't jump over, that's why the stock market's so high, out of the last Labor government's IR policies."
