Woot

Congratulations to Tim Stitz on his well-earned Green Room Award nomination for Best Male Performer in the Independent Theatre category.


Well earned my friend. My fingers and toes are crossed...

Howard's devastating troop surge to solve problems in Iraq

In a bold response to Barack Obama's challenge to send another 20,000 Australian troops to fight in Iraq, John Howard and Brendan Nelson yesterday announced a move that will surely strike fear into the hearts of the previously emboldened terrorists in Iraq.

As Howard himself said in 2004, "It [Iraq] is a test of values - whether the powerful call for freedom can overcome the destructive force of terror".

In keeping with these grand statements on the clash of civilisations and his well-earned monika of the "Man of Steel", John Howard will commit UP TO 70 MORE NON-COMBAT PERSONNEL TO THE WAR ON TERROR!!

[Photo from here]

Osama Bin Laden must be LITERALLY quaking in his boots.

What a decisive and devastating move from a master tactician! This will fool people into thinking he's doing something about solve the problems in Iraq. I'm particularly fond of the wording: up to 70 more personnel. They're not even committing to 70, just any number between 0 and 70 - could be 50, could be 5 - either way IT'S STILL UP TO 70!



In other news, the newly appointed Minister for Trying To Excuse The Governments Appalling Record on Climate Change, Malcolm Turnbull announced a devastating move of his own. Australia will decisively fight Greenhouse gas emissions by completely phasing out conventional light globes over the next 2 to 3 years.

According to The Age, "lighting represents about 12 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from households in Australia", so reducing these by any amount is surely a step in the right direction - but is this really about trying to reduce greenhouse emissions or is actually just a stunt? Take a look at the transcript from this morning's edition of AM on ABC radio and decide for yourself:

EMMA ALBERICI: Lighting is said to represent about 25 per cent of commercial sector greenhouse gas emissions, what about all the businesses around the country that leave their lights on at night? Will you consider fining them?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, I don't think that we're likely to be doing that.

EMMA ALBERICI: Why not?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well Emma, I think you've got to look at measures that are, that are effective, and ultimately you know, you say you want to fine a business with its lights on. How do you know when you see the lights on in a business, how do you know whether the floor is empty, whether there are people working there, whether there are cleaners working there?

...


Um...sure. How do you know... if people are working... or not...

Good point Malcolm, well made.

You have to feel sorry for the man. He has the hardest job in the Federal Government at the moment and he doesn't do too badly considering the material he has to work with, but seriously.

An open letter to the neighbourhood racist

Dear Fuckstick,

Last night, you chose to wake up the neighbourhood by racially abusing the taxi driver who brought you home, pissed out of your brain, at 3 o'clock in the morning. As enjoyable as you seem to find the exercise, I don't appreciate (nor does the rest of the street) being woken up by redneck cockheads like you.

Though you certainly have a way with words and a persuasive turn of phrase: "why don't you learn fucken English!? Have some fucken respect for this country mate! I don't wanna go to your fucken country! Have some fucken respect" etc, I would be more impressed if this wasn't the second time in a month that exactly the same thing has happened.

Last time, you took the particularly charming tack of calling the taxi driver a "curry muncher" and by thoughtfully informing him that it was people like him who gave "his people" a "bad name".

I congratulate you for your bravery - picking on taxi drivers unable to fight back as they are technically "at work", selecting those with a poor grasp of English, waiting until you get home before sparking up and then running into your house after they have already delivered you for a minimal fee. I applaud your eloquence: "why don't you fuck off back to your own country" and I am glad, so very glad that it is people like you who many new immigrants get to encounter at least every now and then.

Here's a news flash for you Fucktard, abusing someone for "not having respect for this country" and in the very same breath telling them that you don't want to go to their "fucken country" is so disastrously ironic that it actually leaves me speechless.

You, my friend, neighbour, brother in citizenship, I despise. I wish nothing for you but misery and a long, unfulfilling life.

Oh and while you're at it, fuck off out of our street.

Yrs etc.

Tom.

Amusement (en francais)

I'm going over the Seas soon. OH THE EXCITEMENT!!

One of the places I'll be traipsing though is Paris. That's right. Paris.

In doing the obligatory pre-trip planning, I discovered that one the airports in Paris is called...Orly.




Ha!

Neeeaaooowww!

I'm not all that in to fast cars and the like, but this is ace.

The looming Arc de Triomphe is amazing.

Well-earned

David Attenborough is finally retiring at 83.

What a wonderful man and and a wonderful life he has led. Nature documentaries will not be the same without his distinctive narration.


I guess it had to happen one day.

PS - What's happened to Ausculture?

OH NOES!!!11!!!!11

I like nature. I do. I like it's little twigs and it's sprouty grass, it's wavy trees and blowing winds it's droughts and flooding rains. I have been known to spend "time" outside - some may even have seen me frolicking happily in the "woods".

But every now and then it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Gather 'round children and let me tell you a story, a story of innocentsce lost, of heart-wrenching despair and all round WTF-ness.

OH MY GOD TOM, I AM TOTALLY GOING TO FREAK OUT RIGHT NOW!

It's OK, it's not THAT scary a story. Like, chill out dudes.

It all began "back in the day" when Snooze and I moved into our frankly "righteous" pad in inner-city Melbourne town. Oh they were happy days. A commonly agreed "feature of awesome-ness" in this new abode is an outdoor area I like to call the "backyard", complete with pondage.

For some months*, we assumed said pondage was just a stagnant cesspool of ancient waters, so you will appreciate our shock when we discovered, quite by accident, that these pools were in fact INHABITED!

Dude.

After recovering from our collective shock we investigated further. A litter of goldfish, their bodies adapted to the lightless conditions and foodless depths, had been swimming their merry way in front of our very noses for weeks** and we had noticed nary a thing. Yet here they were, splishing in a carefree manner and generally living up a storm (insomuch as they were alive).

With mouths agape, we set to improving their conditions (I would consequently recommend NOT cleaning a filthy pond with your mouth open, but there you go). We scooped our new little friends from the bowels of the swamp and placed them in the washing basin, drained the ponds, scrubbed them, hosed them, and re-filled them with sparkling clear water fit for an item and then introduced our fishes back to their new home.

Oh how they gallavanted!

Among other things, our earlier exploratory work had unearthed a pump system designed to circulate the water from one pond to the other, giving the fish a chance to gambol in the running stream and generally benefit from the tasty goodness. With a stroke of genius, we decided to let the pump run as we left the house one night to give the fishes a good run.

You can imagine our horror then, when we returned the following day to discover the pond COMPLETELY EMPTY bar the smallest, most distressing PUDDLE OF HELL I have ever witnessed. In it struggled five or six terrified goldfish, gasping for, well, water I guess.

Amazingly, after we rescued them and put them back into the washing basin as we refilled the ponds, they were all fine - not a formal complaint from any of them.

We did this again (shut up - it was BY ACCIDENT) a couple of weeks later, but the plucky little tackers just bounced right back.

Over time we have learned to love our fishes and despite our track record of trying to kill them (BY ACCIDENT), I like to think they felt a certain affection for us too that had nothing to do with food.

And this is where I get back to nature (not literally, I'm not into that sort of thing).

For those who live, like, on the PLANET, you will know that we are in the grips of a drought the likes of which we have never seen since the last one! The lack of water has made our dams dry, our grass parched, our trees wilted and our right-wing fuckwit columnists hysterical. Strange things happen in a drought.

And so it was, that a few short weeks ago, as I waltzed (literally) around my house on a leisurely weekend, I happened to cast an eye out into our backyard and there saw an amazing sight.

Standing on the pond, it's graceful neck swaying to and fro, impossibly long, spindly legs and an elegantly tapered beak scything the air, was a herron. A large waterfowl of the wetland variety. And there it was, standing in our tiny inner-city backyard.

With barely concealed excitement I ran to find my camera to record this wonderous moment. Returning to the backyard, camera at the ready, there was the herron, gulping gently. I took a photo. The herron gulped some more. I took another. The herron eyed me with its beady eye.

But then a little nagging voice started in my head.

Why is there a herron in our backyard? (Isn't it pretty!) No, wait a minute, WHY IS THERE A HERRON IN OUR BACKYARD AND WHY IS IT GULPING LIKE THAT!!??

OH NOES!!!1!!!!11!!


That's right readers. The fucken herron ATE OUR FISH. Not only did it eat our fish, it ate ALL BUT ONE!! There was one, solitary, quivering nervous wreck of a goldfish left.


So beware! Just because it looks pretty, doesn't mean it WON'T EAT YOU (or at least your fish). Nature's a bitch man. Or should that be nature's a bitch, man? Whatever. JUST DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN WHEN NATURE'S AROUND. For real.


The use of "talking marks" in this "post" brought to you by Mike's Dad.

* and by months I do of course mean days
** and by weeks I of course mean multiple hours