Not “careful” enough?

Forget the AFL Grand Final replay.

Forget the NRL Grand Final (please forget it!)

And forget Gary Ablett’s defection to the Gold Coast Cane Toads.

This is the nation’s biggest breaking news story:

Why I’m quitting Twitter .. Dr Jason Wilson

Yes folks, Australia’s self-proclaimed leading social media expert is running scared reassessing his life options following the outing of Grog’s Gamut and is quitting the medium he has so vigorously promoted and used.

And he’s serious!

So serious that he’s deleted all 26,000+ tweets and written the most important piece The Drum has ever seen.

Don’t bother reading the original – unless you’re sufferring insomnia and need something to send you to sleep - I have done the hard work for you and narrowed the Doc’s real reasons down to these two central paragraphs.

Which still use too many words.

So here it is. Don’t worry that it’s written in gobblygook, I have provided a translation:

I like to think I’ve been fairly careful in my use of Twitter. But recent private and professional changes – the details of which I won’t bore you with – have encouraged to take things more seriously. As a result, I’m inclined to protect the distinction between my professional and private selves a little more carefully anyway. It’s become clear from recent events on Twitter – culminating in Grog’sgate – that Twitter has changed to an extent that I think that the spontaneity it encourages might be bad for me.

Partly, that’s about my use of the service. My first reaction to the Grog’sgate story was disbelief and disgust, which I put out there as soon as it registered. There’s still some of that in my considered response, but it’s my professional role as someone whose research and teaching crosses over with the events of Grog’sgate to lead with considered analysis, not trail with it. Twitter encourages one (or me, at least) to vent immediate replies, which may not match, may even contradict a more disinterested evaluation. I’m not paid or qualified for minute-by-minute commentary, but for analysis and research. My personal opinions are my own, and they’re quite distinct from, and often incompatible with any professional conclusions I might draw. But I need to make that clearer by not issuing professional and personal messages from the same space. Since I’ve ruled out separate accounts, the whole thing needs to come to a halt.

Translation:

1st paragraph:

I haven’t been “careful” enough with what I tweet

2nd paragraph:

I didn’t mean to say those things. I’m an idiot.

He could have said all that on Twitter!

Subjective claims do not make objective truth

The nine are suing Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt over articles and blogs including one headlined ''White is the new black'' that suggested it was fashionable to choose Aboriginal racial identity, which brought ''political and career clout''. Earlier articles, ''It's so hip to be black'', and ''White fellas in the black'', had similar themes. Bolt wrote that ''white Aborigines'' were ''people who, out of their multi-stranded but largely European genealogy, decide to identify with the thinnest of all those strands, and the one that's contributed least to their looks''. Bolt will be the only witness in response, his lawyer told the court.

In this country we have a very sanguine approach to defining who can call themselves “indigenous ” or “Aboriginal”. Essentially the subjective judgement of an individual that they are aboriginal and acceptance by the subculture of that claim is considered adequate for the government and to a large extent the Australian people accept it as well.   None the less does this convention have to remain unquestioned? Especially when there are some awards and competitions that are specific for and restricted to those who are “indigenous Australians”?

These are the questions at the heart of a law suit being brought against Andrew Bolt by  nine Australians who claim to be indigenous despite only a small part of their genetic heritage being from that ethnicity.

Most of us have  a very diverse family tree and from a biological point of view that is very good for the human species, diversity is good. And I also think that it is a good thing that we accept that anyone can self identify entirely  as they please, heck I even appreciate what it is like to have that self definition questioned but I also think that when your ethnic  identity is largely based upon your subjective judgement rather than any objective measure of your heritage then you just have to wear any question  of your ethnicity  claims as fair criticism.

There is something of a double standard for this country to be trying hard to “Eliminate Racism” where we quite rightly  vigilant about overt expressions of hate from fringe groups  but we are also  urged  to celebrate the winners of awards that have very clear restrictions based entirely on race like  “the Deadlys” for indigenous musicians,  and Art awards only open  for indigenous contestants. As I see it if you are going to eliminate  the evils of racism then you have to address the issues where distinctions based on race privilege some individuals as well.  If there were any awards or prizes that were only available those Australians who claimed to be Caucasians the outcry would be a cacophony of such magnitude that all of our ears would be ringing with the din. Yet we hear no such din about “The Deadlys” now do we?

I for one am watching the case against Andrew Bolt with great interest because if the appellants in that case succeed in stifling legitimate criticism of  subjective judgement and claims of aboriginal identity we will all be forever muzzled by anyone who wants to make any claim at all about who they are. We can all make any claim we please but none of us has a right to insist  that such claims represent objective truth.

Cheers Comrades

Update

a great post on this topic here at Sceptic lawyer by Katy Barnett (legal Eagle)

Shit art is shit no matter what colour it is

Some stories need little or no comment.

The girl in the photo above picks her own shit from the bowl, moulds it, colours it … and calls it art. I kid you not.

From the Moorabbin Leader:

AN EXHIBITION featuring an artist’s own faeces is set to divide patrons at a Moorabbin gallery.

Student artist Georgie Mattingley’s works, some of which feature brightly coloured excrement, will go on display at the Kingston Arts Centre next month.

But art experts rejected suggestions the exhibition, Life is Delicious, was a grab for notoriety.

The exhibition’s centrepiece is a series of resin spheres containing Mattingley’s faeces, along with flowers, leaves and crystals.

The Monash University student, 21, said she became fascinated with altering the colour of her excrement when she was 13, and the exhibition was an exploration of the “beauty in the mundane process of eating and consuming in our everyday lives”.

“I’ve done everything I can to turn something so vulgar and repulsive into something so beautiful and spiritual,” she said.

RMIT associate professor Linda Williams said there was merit to Mattingley’s work.

“She is, I think, trying to reclaim the idea that bodily processes are not something to be ashamed of,” Ms Williams said.

Life is Delicious is at Kingston Arts Centre, Moorabbin, from October 7-19. Entry is free.

I do not approve.

The Lowdown, a good effort from Auntie

One of the things about not watching that much broadcast TV is that you sometimes miss out on little gems like this show. Fortunately I found the DVD compilation at my local library and it has given me some really good laughs.

Of particular note is the pedantic sub editor who comes up with a  spelling related query for the lead character Alex in most episodes. His pedantry  is reminiscent  someone else who claimed to be a Sub editor but fortunately he has a great deal more humility and no nastiness.

definitely a good series that is worth watching,

Cheers Comrades

Would they be a little more circumspect if we made euthanasia the medical treatment for leftism?

A very good OP ed on the euthanasia issue from Paul Kelly in the OZ today that recognises the dire social consequences of legalised killing.

In 1995 the Northern Territory passed its euthanasia law, an event of moment for the Territory and Australia. The law was a shocker and the safeguards deficient. It was negated by the 1996 bill moved by Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, as a private member, carried in the House of Representatives on an 88-35 conscience vote on December 9, 1996. In the Senate the Andrews bill was passed 38-33 in March 1997.

The national parliament’s overriding of the Territory was a proper exercise of its constitutional powers and political authority. There was no issue of territory rights, then or now. The national parliament had the constitutional power and, as Andrews said, if the national parliament could not legislate on an issue that went, literally, to the life and death of its citizens, then what on earth was its purpose?

The entire key to the euthanasia debate lies in its great paradox: consistent polls showing a majority in favour. But what, exactly, are people supporting? The 1996-97 debate provides the answer: most people think that turning off life-support machines and discontinuing life-preserving treatment is euthanasia. In fact, this is nothing to do with euthanasia. Indeed, it is the precise opposite of euthanasia. If a family turns off a life-support machine, the patient dies because of their illness, not because of the doctor. But if the doctor gives a lethal injection, then the patient is killed. This is a fine yet critical distinction.

Because euthanasia involves one person being sanctioned to kill another, it cannot be seen just within a human rights framework. It is an ethical and intellectual failure to pretend that euthanasia is merely a human right awaiting recognition. It is about society and its norms and values. There is no escaping the chasm that euthanasia crosses. Creation of a legal framework to permit killing must affect the way all people perceive their lives and the expectations that friends, family and doctors have of patients.

I was particularly taken by the point that were the territories allowed to pass laws to legalise this practice that they would be effectively passing laws that bring the whole country under a killing spell because there is no restriction on the killing being only available to permanent residents of those jurisdictions.

We are all going to die eventually but we risk far more than we gain by making law any permission to hasten that end. As someone who supports capital punishment I recognise the great importance of getting such decisions absolutely right. when it comes to the terminally ill the advocates of euthanasia present an argument that pays almost no heed to the problem just what safeguards would be necessary to prevent killing for the convenience of others. The irony is that so many advocates of euthanasia are also vehemently opposed to the death penalty often talking about the way that you can’t ever be “sure” that the condemned is actually guilty of the crime that forfeits their life. It would be morally consistent though is they were to apply the same precautionary principles to the terminally ill.

Would they be a little more circumspect if we made  euthanasia the medical treatment for leftism? …

I think they would  Comrades

Hi speed trains? The numbers say NO!

I love trains and I love travel by train but I have never thought that the idea of a very  fast train network between our major cities would be able pay its way so is is with some feeling of vindication that I note that a study has found precisely that.

“This analysis highlights that currently in Australia high-speed rail will not be viable.”

A high-speed rail network would require a minimum of six million travellers a year to be viable, but the briefing said 12 million to 20 million commuters were more typical.

The document, which was given to Seven Network News following a FOI request, showed while a Sydney-Newcastle-Canberra link would compete with the airline’s travel time, the cities did not have the populations to justify the link.

However, the paper also said the potential future viability of high-speed rail lines would be improved by a strategy of safeguarding future corridors and by applying policies to increase the size and density of key population centres.

“We know that there’s massive public support for high-speed rail,” Mr Albanese told Seven Network yesterday.

“But we need to know what the cost is and what the challenges are.”

Of course this begs the question of just why the government has to spend 20 million on a “feasibility study” when even the most basic calculations show that it is not worth doing. But what do you expect from a government that wants to spend 43 billion on the NBN when the business case for that has not even been considered?

Just confusion and not enough delay Comrades

Some things belong in pairs, for others its optional

Parliament sits again today and I for one have been looking forward to it and one of the reasons is that under the situation where the numbers are so tight it is bound to be exciting (well for we politics junkies it will) But what a mob of sleazy schemers Labor are turning out to be, with at least two attempts to con liberal backbenchers into taking the deputy speakers job and the very public campaign to harass the opposition into continuing the usual practice of automatic pairing . Thankfully Tony Abbott is resisting the “winner take all” noises from Gillard and co and he will make them have to ask for a pair for every occasion that Labor wants one.

Some things belong in pairs, for others its optional

The tight numbers mean the Prime Minister will need to be on hand for all parliamentary divisions unless the opposition agrees to a pairing arrangement under which one of its number — usually the Opposition Leader — would not cast a vote.

Sources confirmed last night that Mr Abbott had told Labor he would not give Ms Gillard an automatic pair, and would expect her to be in parliament to vote unless she could demonstrate her proposed trips or meetings were in the national interest. Earlier, Labor’s caucus meeting heard it was traditional for the head of the government to be granted an automatic pair.

The only reason that pairs have so readily been given in the past is because a government had enough of a majority that they would win the votes anyway. As some one keeps saying things are different now and given the new, err situation* who could blame an opposition for making the government actually have to muster the numbers for every vote?

Parliament does not sit every day of the year so if Gillard wants to do party fund-raisers or travel overseas then she will just have to do them when the house isn’t sitting.
Cheers Comrades

*who thought I was going to use the “P” word?????

Grog’s Greg outed … so what?

The Internet is all a buzz over The Oz newspaper’s outing of political blogger Grog’s Gamut as one Greg Jericho, a public servant.

None more so than those keepers of ‘intellectual honesty’ from Crikey’s Pure Petulance where boring little Tubby Zigler (an anonymous author himself) has got his university academic balls all in a knot and is truly outraged:

The Australian has deemed his identity to be news, and they also seem to have decided that public servants aren’t entitled to hold political opinions. I’d suggest they’re wrong on both counts….

Yes that’s Tubby being “outraged” – belting the Oz with a limp lettuce leaf.

But what’s he on about? Grog’s blog was certainly news when his critical post about journalists was picked up by most of the media during the election campaign - making major headlines - so why wouldn’t his identity also be news? 

Of course it is.

And even Tubby agrees that no one has a “right” to anonymity on the net:

… pseudonymous bloggers who are publishing only their opinions and analysis aren’t the same as sources and whistleblowers. Do they deserve the active protection of their identity? No.

Tubby is one confused little puppy. First he crys “foul”, then he says bloggers can’t remain anonymous. Go figure. Maybe he’s just worried about his own identity? He shouldn’t be -only significant bloggers get named.

This Grog’s stuff is really just a storm in a beer glass. What harm has it done? 

And what the hell is Tubby’s point?

The Oz might be trying to make it look like Jericho has broken his obligations as a public servant but, from what I can see, he’s got nothing to worry about. Naming Grog might be malicious and vindictive but it should also be entirely expected. And does it really matter? 

If Jericho feels he needs to close his blog because his cover is blown then that’s his decision. He made his own bed so …

Besides, he can always start a new blog under a different alias. He probably will.

Greg Jericho has done nothing wrong in my opinion but he really can’t complain that someone went after him. No one made him enter the world of politics and the media did they? That was his choice.

Welcome to the real world Grog - the virtual world is a myth after all. It doesn’t exist. But good on Jericho for keeping his nose clean and staying out of the gutter. He certainly earns respect.

I mean, it’s not like he used his anonymity to stalk anyone. Or harass them. Or defame them.

It’s not like he’s been involved in hacking someone’s computer either.

And it’s not like he has hounded some people over the Internet for years on end and, in so doing, might have broken the law.

In short, it’s not like he’s ’Bridgit Gread’, ‘John Surname’ or ‘Fang’, is it?

Now those people really would be worried about being outed.

Lies and backflips on a Carbon tax

If the rhetoric of the Warministas is to believed (which is a big stretch) for any mitigation scheme to work it must be globally consistent and it must eventually result in an actual reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. The first aspect of this dichotomy is just never going to happen India seem incapable of staging the Commonwealth Games so no one should expect that they would be able to do anything to mitigate their burgeoning energy consumption, The US will never get a carbon tax of a trading scheme though its legislature. China? Its the land of lip service. Any realist has to say that global “action on Carbon” is just not going to happen. Still under the influence of the its Green tail the Gillard Labor dog is more than happy to try for a Carbon Tax.

Gillard's policy instructor in action

Former Queensland Labor treasurer and Macarthur Coal chairman Keith DeLacy said Mr Kloppers had a “pretty lonely opinion in the resources sector”.

And Alcoa Australia chief executive Alan Cransberg warned that a decision on whether the company would restart its $3bn Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia hinged on government action on a carbon price.

Treasury has cautioned in its Red Book advice brief for the new government, released on Friday, that delaying the introduction of a carbon price would make whatever climate scheme emerged more “costly and disruptive”.

“There are . . . real and present costs associated with ongoing uncertainty around the climate change policy framework, particularly in the energy generation sector,” Treasury wrote. “Interim policies should be consistent with a move to a future carbon price.”

Ms Gillard had declared before the August poll “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”.

But in an election-eve interview with The Australian, she did not rule out “the possibility of legislating a carbon pollution reduction scheme, a market-based mechanism”.

Labor has since left the door open to introducing a carbon tax rather than an emissions trading scheme. Asked why she had shifted on a carbon tax, Ms Gillard told the Ten Network’s Meet the Press yesterday “circumstances have changed” and said the government had to be realistic.

The fact that she had specifically promised not to introduce a carbon tax seems to be of no consequence for Labor but it is, to say the least, a terrible betrayal of the voters who decided that they could continue to vote Labor safe from an increase in the cost of the energy that they use. Hopefully they will remember that their energy costs have already increased in anticipation of the thrice failed CPRS (increases that have of course remained despite the emissions trading scheme never becoming law) when the prices rise next time.

Cheers Comrades

Update

Julia Gillard has recently held a news conference announcing her “multi party committee” and offering an invitation to Tony Abbott to join in. Am I the only one who thinks that this is an attempt to replay the debacle (for the coalition) of getting Malcolm to “negotiate” with the government over the ETS.

Treating the story in an even-handed manner

There has been a little side drama going on in Australian politics with Labor  trying to seduce a little known Liberal backbencher into taking the deputy speaker’s job in the house. The price for that position seems to have been that the chap in question would not vote against Gillard on   supply and confidence. Of course it would have been a terrible betrayal of those who had elected him and fortunately the leader of the opposition was able to convince him of the folly of taking the job under those terms. What is really amusing to me is the way that this is being depicted in the press.

The Australian gives us a rather even handed report.

Fairfax's Brisbane times goes with the very partisan headline claiming that Tony Abbott intimidated Alex Somalay

As does the SMH

The Age was a little more even handed in their headline , but I suspect that this is because they were just a little more intrested in the tied AFL Grand final because the story was tucked away in the National affairs section of their web page the copy of the piece was the same however.

The remit of any political leader is to lead so I see no reason at all to think that a leader pulling an errant member back into line when they are flirting with what can only be decribed as a substantial betrayal of the party to the forces of darkness, is anything other than a right and proper example of good shepherding of the party.

Joe Hockey was of course  invoking the ghost of the much despised (by the Labor  Party) Mal Coulston on the TV yesterday and that is in fact a very apt example of the boot being on the other foot  because had the proposed deal stood it would have made the parliamentary task of the Gillard Government just a tad easier which is something no member of the coalition should even think of  doing.

Gillard wanted to govern under the present paradigm (sorry ) so instaed of whining about the fact that it will be tough having to govern with only a one seat majority she and her colleges should just knuckle down and keep the discipline that theses numbers require.

Cheers Comrades

PS did anyone notice that Gillard cursed the AFL grand final at the breakfast event yesterday by daring to suggest that any result would be fine as long as it wasn’t a draw???

So the Gods of inflated leather have taken revenge upon the faithful for this example political hubris in the most holy event on their  liturgical calendar by delivering precisely what Gillard was in jest suggesting….

as the axiom says be careful what you wish for…

The right tools for the job

Now this is an interesting result that makes the endless rants from Gay activists seem rather  hyperbolic:

The first ever official count of the gay population has found that only one in 100 adults is homosexual.

The figure explodes the assumption  -  long promoted by social experts and lobbyists  -  that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten.

And in further evidence that Britain remains a traditional society, 71% told the same survey that they still regarded themselves as Christian.

The Office for National Statistics said 1.3 per cent of men are gay and 0.6 per cent of women are lesbian.

Another 0.5 per cent consider themselves bisexual, according to the figures gathered from questions put to nearly 250,000 – the biggest survey possible outside a full national census.

This means that, in total, around 1.5 per cent of the population is either homosexual or bisexual.

The number is far lower than the estimate used as a basis for the distribution of millions of pounds in public money to sexual equality causes.

The size and methodology of  the survey suggest that it should be an accurate picture of the percentage of the population who are Gay:

HOW STUDY WAS DONE

The estimate of homosexual numbers was drawn from a new ONS survey, called the Integrated Household Survey.

It was compiled by putting new questions to individuals who already take part in six existing large-scale surveys.

As a result the ONS has managed to draw answers from a large number.

In total, the new Integrated Household Survey can cover 450,000, hundreds of times the size of databases commonly used in research.

The questions on sexuality were put to 247,623, of whom 238,206 provided an answer.

By contrast, the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles which last tried to make a count of the gay population in 2000, used a database of 12,000.

The ONS survey put questions on sexuality both face-to-face and by telephone.

So what does this mean for those of us who are interested in  issues relating to human sexuality?

Well for one thing it suggests that the the magnitude of the  issue is much smaller than many desperate activists have been claiming . This does not mean that we can just ignore instances where there is obvious mistreatment of people because of their sexual orientation but it does make some of the expensive anti-discrimination campaigns seem rather like using a sledgie to crack a nut.

Cheers Comrades

Pell and the Pill

I know that some of my readers just start to fume when the read anything by or about a member of the Catholic clergy well I hope that they will read the piece that I cite to day and consider the argument that it makes about the social changes brought about by the invention of the contraceptive pill.

Applying the insights of the market, he points out that relative scarcity or abundance affects behaviour in important ways and that significant technological changes, such as the pill, have broad social effects. His basic thesis is that the pill has divided what was once a single mating market into two markets.

This first is a market for sexual relationships, which most young men and women frequent early in their adult life. The second is a market for marital or partnership relationships, where most participate later on.

Because the pill means that participation in the sex market need not result in pregnancy, the costs of having premarital and extra-marital sex have been lowered.

The old single mating market was populated by roughly the same number of men and women, but this is no longer the case in the two new markets.

Because most women want to have children, they enter the marriage market earlier than men, often by their early 30s. Men are under no such constraints.

Evolutionary biology dictates that there will always be more men than women in the sex market. Their natural roles are different. Women take nine months to make a baby, while it takes a man 10 minutes. St Augustine claimed that the sacrament of marriage was developed to constrain men to take an interest in their children.

Men leave the sex market at a higher average age than women to enter the marriage market.

I really don’t think that many people have really considered what difference it has made to society that we now “decide” or plan our families. In fact I would argue that to have a “choice” about having children and not making that choice in the light of the biological reality that younger women are better able  to breed that older women. has been the cause of so much pain and anguish and the reason the “fertility services” has become such growth industry.

There are so many inventions that change society in ways unimagined by their creators and it is only in hindsight that we can judge if they are efficacious or a source of pain and disorder.

Cheers Comrades

Cue the sound of violins!!!

ANGUISH: Clifford Tucker's mother Terry Haighton yesterday. Main picture: TAIT SCHMAAL

Still technically a British citizen, Tucker had to apply for a visa to re-enter Australia.

Eighteen months later, the Government decided to cancel that visa and send him back to his country of origin.

Now his mother fears he will go the way of another UK citizen, Andrew Moore, who was deported at the age of 43, having lived in Australia for 32 years. He was sent back to England after serving a sentence for manslaughter – and was dead two days later having spent his $700 allowance on heroin. The coroner would not rule out suicide.

“He’s traumatised now, he really is,” Mrs Haighton said.

Mrs Haighton said it was “understandable” for people to feel no sympathy for her career-criminal son.

“He was deservedly punished for (his crimes),” she said. “But he doesn’t deserve to be punished years on and years on and years on. The words he said to me were `I won’t be going back to England unless I’m in a box’.”

Sorry folks as much as it pains me to think that the country of my birth should be burdened with this sad and silly junkie. He really does not deserve to stay in this country and we really have no reason to let him stay, heck even an “Asylum seeker” (turns head and coughs discretely) is a better prospect for the future of this country than someone who has repeatedly broken the law like Clifford Tucker has.

Send  him home Comrades!

The AFL Grand Final

Given my long-standing indifference to sport of any kind and a commitment to taking note of the great sporting events of the day I decided to invite Ray Dixon to write a post on the AFL Grand final.

Read and enjoy Comrades

A guest post by Ray Dixon

For those of you who are either new Australians, boat people, Queenslanders or brain-damaged Collingwood supporters I will explain in simple terms (and with pictures) why the mighty St Kilda Saints will prevail over the filthy Collingwood Magpie scum in tomorrow’s 2010 AFL Grand Final.

First of all, a disclosure:

As a long-time and long-sufferring St Kilda supporter - one who actually witnessed St Kilda’s first and, so far, only premiership win (over Collingwood!) by just one point in that epic 1966 grand final - my opinion might be just a tad biased.

Nonetheless I am right. St Kilda will win.

In a nutshell: St Kilda will win because they are more experienced than Collingwood.

This will be a game of men against boys. Adults v Kids.

But don’t just take my word for it; as former AFL premiership player & coach Robert Walls says in today’s Age newspaper in his expert article “Why the Saints can win the flag“:

You see, there is a resolve about these Saints that is hard to resist. They will just not lie down … over the past two seasons, the Saints have played the three other top-four teams on 13 occasions for 11 victories. That’s right – 11 out of 13. None of the others can boast that success rate when it comes to the best against the best. So they are tough. Tough in body and brain.

The Saints’ senior men are outstanding. Riewoldt, Hayes and Goddard, backed by Nick Dal Santo, Leigh Montagna and Michael Gardiner, will not take a backward step. They will be uncompromising in their attack on the ball and anyone who gets in their way…. If they can hold the Magpies in the first 20 minutes of the contest, and I think they can, then the reward will be theirs.

Think about that. Wallsy is never wrong.

Well, if he has been wrong in the past I do not want to know about it.

But there are other reasons why St Kilda will win. And here they are:

St Kilda players are like Gods and soar like Angels

.

Collingwood players are shit-kicking, lowlife scum

.

St Kilda is backed by our indigenous people … and by gays

.

Collingwood is backed by Eddie McGuire & John Brumby

.

And Collingwood supporters are feral, toothless & … really ugly

.

While Saints supporters are sooooooooooo good looking

.

Saints win !

Welcome to the 2010 ‘Dikshit’ Commonwealth Games

There has been a lot of hype about New Delhi not being ready for next week’s Commonwealth games.

It’s all a media beat-up. We should just listen to the person in charge. The one who really knows. 

Delhi’s Mayor (or chief minister): 

Indian officials tried to downplay the incident, with Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit saying:

“Do not make it look like the whole thing has collapsed. They are not insurmountable problems. For the past month there have been incessant rains. Sure it is a problem, but not a major one.”

Sheila is right, this is a piffling problem. Who needs a footbridge anyway? It’s no big deal. Let them walk across the freeway to the stadium; it’s all part of the Delhi experience.

And just because the engineering company behind the collapsed footbridge also built the steel supports for the main stadium and the netball & cyling venues is no reason to worry either.

Okay, the roof in the wrestling arena has caved in too and the athletes’ accommodation is a filthy shambles after being used to house the workers and left in a mess complete with dog turds. So what? Welcome to India – get used to it!

Look, just because they “used the same steel and concrete in-fill methods to build the orange aerial pedestrian walkways that, in 10 days, must support thousands of spectators as they enter the JLN stadium” is no cause for concern. There won’t be any Indian spectators getting killed; they can’t afford the tickets!

And don’t worry about the integrity of the refitted existing stadium that was already riddled with concrete cancer. It’s only got to stand up for 2 weeks. Heck, I’ve known cancer patients to survive for years!

No, these buildings were specifically designed with the limited skills of Indian construction workers in mind. You can rest assured with these soothing words from the Aussie architects that all will be fine:

Australian architectural firm Peddle Thorp is behind at least five Commonwealth Games venues. Architect Chris Godsell said … he was “not at all surprised” to hear of Tuesday’s bridge collapse.”We went there with 21st century ideas and found a workforce still really stuck in the 19th century,” Mr Godsell said. “You’re talking about shapes and forms from the 21st century; you can draw them on a computer but then you put a computer beside the Indian workforce and you couldn’t find two things further apart.

So what’s the problem? Come on over. There’s more chance you’ll be killed by a terrorist than a collapsed building. Welcome to the Dikshit Games!