Cloudsley : Look up

Sydney has had the rockingist clouds of late. Enjoy:

Enterfence

WTF?

"Last week the Arizona-based company Taser International unveiled a new device that combines the Taser with an MP3 player, saying the technology affords people a less cumbersome way to protect themselves while on the move."

It is in America, so I am tempted to say "only in America.." but I'm not so sure that's going to hold. Gosh knows - one of these might help foil a terrorist attack/un-Australian activity of some kind.

I want a precision rifle built into my mobile phone. And also some capsicum spray in my laptop.

Then I'll feel really safe.

Voting with cuteness

Politics has changed. Srsly.

The way people engage with politics has changed. Srsly.

Do you think that the Ancient Greeks/forefathers in America or whomever you want to credit with our current democratic system envisaged a world in which a global communication technology could be used by a "fan" of a politician to offer kitten-shaped condolences after she lost one of the democratic caucus preselections?

I actually, rather in spite of myself I confess, think this might be a step in the right direction.

There ain't no rainbow in the baggy whites

The Indian cricket team are accusing the Australian team of being hypocrites and cry babies for complaining about racist sledging because the Aussies are apparently known for doing it themselves. Upon which in the past the Indian team have complained.

The Australian team are outraged at the racial sledging of one of their players. Though in the past they have downplayed the comments they have delivered.

Cricket fans have been appalled with the Indian teams behaviour. Never mind that they have their own variety of borderline racist chants and epithets.

And the United Indian Association of Australia argues that "monkey" is not a derogatory term because one of the major Hindu gods is a monkey.

also:

The Japanese are accusing Australia of racism in the recent anti-whaling campaigns. Interesting this accusation didn't come under the Howard Government really. The Japanese record on these matters not being blemish free of course.

NEWSFLASH:

Shouting loudly and pointing at someone elses racism doesn't work so well if your credibility is quite low on these matters. Remember JWH? I thought so. You're all a bunch of silly monkeys. F'real.

Huzzah!

Salient political commentary

From Toothpaste for Dinner:

The little dictator who could

It seems no small irony that it is Kim Jong-Il who looks set to be the only member of the axis of evil who is not directly in the crosshairs of Uncle Sam.

- Iraq cooperated with weapons inspections to a reasonable* extent and despite the reports of
Hans Blix and others saying that their weapons program had been dismantled was still attacked due to it's possession of WMDS. Which were never found.

- Iran's president has been reasonably up-front about the state of their weapons program announcing loudly that yes, they were enriching uranium but no, they had no bombs. American spies have now come through with the shocking discovery that this was true. The US government response, rather counter-intuitively perhaps, is to essentially threaten military action just to make sure.

- In North Korea lil' Kim sends a couple of ICBMs flying over Japan, taunts the USA with the delivery systems it is designing for it's nukes. He's only one step from hosting his own Hello! world exclusive in one of the factories where he gently and fondly pats the bombs whilst extolling their weight, uranium content and possible destinations. He then offers to stop his program if sanctions are lifted and he can sit at the table with the big boys. And it works.

HE IS CLEARLY A GENIUS.





* No they didn't make it easy. But then again, when so much of the rest of the world (France, USA, Israel etc) is 'allowed' to have nukes it's rather impressive that they capitulated at all.