Saturday, July 26, 2008

Why not 20 teams?

OK. So the AFL have officially snubbed Tassie, despite its awesome map, telling them they won't get their own licence for a footy team: Tassie out but not dead.
Now, I don't profess to know anything about anything - that's why I have a blog, not a newspaper - but two areas of Australia crucial to the past and present success of the AFL are currently missing out - Tasmania and the Northern Territory. I realise these areas may not have big populations (and therefore won't be as lucrative), but that shouldn't be everything (plus, see my future blog about my future plans for the North...)

We all know that His Royal Worshipfulness, Andrew Demetriou, won't budge from his plan to launch teams in Western Sydney and the Gold Coast, but instead of saying "either/or", why not go all out and add 4 teams instead of 2?
Plus, 18 is a weird number: 20 is divisible by 4 (and 5. And 10. And 20. Not 9, but who wants to be divisible by 9?) - surely that's important.

Of course, my preferred plan, with a nod in the direction of Monty, the legendary World War II Allied Commander, would be to outflank Western Sydney and the Gold Coast by launching Tasmania and Northern Territory first. The Australian Football League would then have teams in all 6 States and one Territory. That seems pretty 'Australian' to me.
And Western Sydney and the Gold Coast would then have no choice but to jump on board.
It would be un-Australian not to.

PS I should mention that I'm a Saints supporter, and won't be switching, and hope that any suggestions that the Mighty Saints should move to Tassie would be arrogantly dismissed with a snooty wave (despite our proud association with the Apple Isle - "He's Darrel BALDOCK!!"). But I still think the fine people of Tassie deserve their own team.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The inalienable right to be annoying

The law has recently come down on the side of the angels in holding that a NSW law enacted for the purposes of the recent World Youth Day event (more correctly, it should have been renamed as ‘Catholic Youth-And-Creepy-Old-Men Week’) in Sydney was invalid. By angels, I’m obviously referring to the people on the side of justice and liberty, not magic fairies with wings (or even the literal, biblical, men-shaped ‘messengers’ – yes, I know my biblical interpretation).

This abhorrent law prohibited anyone from causing ‘annoyance’ to World Yoof Day participants (with fines of up to $5,500).

Apart from the fact that we don’t live in a theocracy (yet), what does that even mean?

And the court agreed with my rhetorical question, saying that there was "no intelligible boundary" on what "causes annoyance", and that, in relation to the defendants (two women who wanted to hand out condoms) the regulation "could be expected to have a chilling effect upon the exercise of their freedom of speech because of the very uncertainty about the degree of its infringement upon that freedom": Court Dumps 'Annoy' Law (it was even reported on the other side of the world: Sydney Overturns Pope Protest Law).

One of the the judges was also reported to have said: “Yippee!! Free condoms!!”

There was so much wrong with that law, and Day/Week, that I might just focus on one of the specific problems with the law, being that people weren’t sure if they could wear T-shirts with anti-Pope slogans (pretty harmless stuff like "Pope Go Homo" and "The Pope Is Wrong - Put a Condom On" – sweet pick-up lines, too, if you want them).

And then I will use that focus to segue into another Religion vs. T-shirt drama that broke just before the Pope arrived. Seems some kid was wearing a T-shirt on the Gold Coast that said ‘Jesus is a Cunt’. Charming, I know, and I hope my daughter brings a boy like that home one day (wearing the T-shirt, of course), but apparently the kid was then arrested and charged with causing offence. Lawrence Money from The Age then took up the case for the prosecution on his blog, no doubt expecting much support for his views.

Support was mixed, I must say.

Someone called the rilestar posted the following comment – it’s pretty switched on:

I agree that it's offensive, because it's clearly grammatically incorrect - this kid's got his tenses all wrong*!! It should be Jesus WAS a C-nt!!

As we all know, Jesus was a Jewish rabble-rouser who was executed for seditious activities by the Romans 2000 years ago. 2000 years ago!! He's an ex-rabble-rouser. In fact, the T-shirt sounds like something the Roman authorities would have authorised, because the said rabble-rouser vexed them so.

Conclusion: Button A for offences against grammar. The T-shirt should obviously be in past tense.

And possibly Latin.

* Obviously, a lot of the posts on this blog are offensive for the same reason. Next discussion: Why are atheists so much better at spelling?

The various posts make a good read – I can recommend wasting some time on them.

Finally, just to get this all back to what it’s really all about, apparently this photo was taken during the ‘celebrations’ (although the parking sign in the background doesn’t appear to be in English…)

Nonetheless, wherever it was taken, it’s Gold:

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tour de Awesome

My dear (pretend) friends!

I haven't ranted for a while, and I fear my blood pressure has been falling to dangerous lows, so it's time to get back on the RantWagon.

First: I've been staying up late and religiously watching the Tour de France lately (as have pretty much everyone I speak to, it seems), which has been, overall, totally sweet, especially with My Main Man Cadel wearing the yellow (until very recently) and Simon Gerrans winning Stage 15. However, as is usual at this time of year, some Drug Clowns have been caught clowning around with drugs, the main one being Riccardo Ricco (whom I translate into English as 'Richie Rich').

Rant No.1: Some people (such as John Fahey - see Rant No.2 below) are saying that this proves the Tour itself is the problem. Really? It's the best bike race in the world (as well as being an amazing and wonderful thing to watch). This means it's going to attract people who want to win it – and it appears that some of them will cheat to do so. Surely this is a reflection on the cheats, not the race, particularly if the race organisers are doing their best to expose and get rid of the drug cheats. In fact, many of the riders have been backing up this view lately, including Cadel, that the fact that the cheats are getting caught means the Tour itself should not be criticised: “What are they supposed to do? Do they have a free-for-all like some sports that don't have drug testing at all … are we going to be complimented for that?”

The tour organisers are on top of it, the cheats are being kicked out, and cheats' teams (and the sponsors in some cases) are withdrawing. Plus, Richie Rich himself was humiliatingly carted off by the gendarmes and faces a spell in jail. What more could people want? The Tour, and the majority of the cyclists, are doing their best...which is, incidentally, a lot better than other sports.

Or, as Greg Baum of The Age recently pointed out: “Think for a moment: what would be more disturbing at the Beijing Olympics, a rash of positive tests, or none?”

Rant No.2: World Anti Doping Authority chairman John Fahey (the former dancing premier of New South Wales) recently said “I firmly believe because I want to that Cadel Evans is, being Australian, completely straight and honest…I keep asking who is going to get ahead of him, because of something they are taking that is prohibited. That's my cynicism; I want him to win and I'd hate to see someone who is taking something pip him and get away with it.”

Now, apart from the fact that Fahey’s reasoning for believing that Cadel is clean is suspect*, in my humble and mostly uninformed opinion, Cadel’s already been pipped by a cheat – remember the 2007 Tour, anyone?

Rant No.3: If you win a race by cheating, you haven't really won. Even if you fool everyone else, YOU know that you cheated, which means that YOU know you haven't accomplished anything. So why do it? Money? Not if you're Richie Rich.

Rant No.4: The cheats don't seem to understand that, if you have an extraordinary day, you'll probably get tested. This is what got Floyd Landis when he won the stage that ended up (temporarily) winning him the race in 2006 – he got tested that day and was caught. Same with Ricco.

Therefore, I think I have worked out a conclusive theory for why these people cheat.

They are retarded.

Rant No.5: Stage 17 through the Alps, from Embrun to L'Alpe d'Huez. What the hell? Are they serious? Whoever designed that stage really dislikes cyclists.

That said - it's a must-watch. Get on it.

Finally, on a more positive note: someone give Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen a whole stack of medals. Their commentary is the mutha 'uckin' bomb.

* I know Cadel's clean not because he’s Australian but because he looks like absolute crap at the end of every stage. That's what I like to see in my cyclists.