Naming Words.

Because One Nation am heaps good knowledging.

Queensland One Nation party candidate Stephanie Banister is doing a wonderful job upholding the party's platform. That is, not liking those icky brownish araby-type people who come here and force hardworking 'Strayans to spread Halal terrorism on their toast. That's pretty much it, from what I can tell. Because if you've already decided you hate immigrants from a certain part of the world, what's the point of learning things that might change your opinion? That's the kind of namby-pamby stuff we expect from foreigners.

Seven News recently interviewed Banister, and the results were half-frightening, half-wildly-entertaining. You can watch the story here. If you can't be bothered, please do enjoy these highlights:

"I don't oppose Islam as a country, um, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia."

"Jews aren't under Haram (sic), they have their own religion, which um, follows Jesus Christ."

"I believe that the disability scheme [due to be launched in Queensland in 2016] is working at the moment."

I'm so proud of Ms Banister's bravery, putting herself and her seemingly boundless lack of knowing anything in front of a camera for the whole country to see, that I simply had to write her a poem. This one's for you, Steph.

I’d like to go to Islam on a summer holiday,

With a stopover at Neo-Communism on the way.

Or perhaps a trip to Apathy – I hear it’s lovely there;

They have day trips to Engrossment for a discount family fare.

I would love to see Compassion from the top of Mount Ennui

Or the grassy plains of Shinto, or the lakes near Symmetry.

I could stand astride the border between Butter Knife and Spoon

Or recline in Backstrap’s poppy-fields and gaze up at the moon.

How I long to visit Irony, where wild Misnomers roam!

But I think I’ll stay here, cloistered in the Ignorance of home.

Sports Commentary Gold #9

Ladies, I can see your understatement.

It's the women's singles final of the 2010 Australian Open. Two of the world's most powerful and successful tennis players are slogging it out for the world to see. The helpful commentators don't disappoint:

"This is high quality tennis."

Everybody's got one...

...but not everyone's is switched on.

I have just been watching a so-called debate on Channel Seven's Sunday Night program about vaccination in Australia. It's not a program I'd usually watch, but I'm an avid supporter of vaccination, and wanted to see if the telly would spew forth its usual panic-promoting bollocks.

It didn't. Ray!

There are plenty of people who will blog in detail about the show - I'm looking forward to reading more on Ratbags.com and on the Sceptic's Book of Pooh-Pooh (my vote for Blog Title of the Year). So I'm not going to blather on when some of my favourite bloggers will do it more eloquently and with more respectful insolence than me.

One moment did, however, motivate me to put fingies to keyboard. Meryl Dorey, of the mind-bogglingly misinformed and irresponsible Australian Vaccination Network, made this comment (apparently trying to convince the audience of something):

"I'm not a doctor, but I do have a brain."

I'm instantly reminded of a corker attributed to 19th Century English essayist Adam Cooper:

"Giving English to an American is like giving sex to a child - he knows
it's important but he doesn't know what to do with it."

Stupid? Buy this!

The most annoying ad on telly right now...

Mother rushes to get her son ready for school. Just as the bus pulls up outside, she notices... gasp!... a stain on his school shirt! An empathetic-sounding voice-over says, "Isn't it frustrating..." and goes on tut-tutting about how this poor, overworked mum has spent hours washing, sorting, ironing and folding a load of washing, only to find the offending, persistent stain when it was all too late. If only she'd used this laundry spray (Preen, I think), this never would have happened.

If only the mother had looked at any of the clothes while she was washing, sorting, ironing and folding, she might have noticed the stain a long time before the school bus showed up.

Stupid cow.

Liberal Party leadership, the festival of yawns.

No news is just that. So shush.

Yes, yes, this is a little late for a 'current' affairs topic, but if I'm at least a few days behind in the laundry, doing my tax and emptying the nappy bin, then I can be a bit tardy with blogging.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if it's a slow news day, then shut the hell up. I understand that a TV network needs to fill up its news 'updates' with something, but if nothing has actually happened since the last one, couldn't they just pop on a re-run of Northern Exposure or something?

What am I talking about? Peter Costello. The biggest non-event in politics since Kirstie Marshall got her tit out. A few months ago, after the last federal election, Mr Costello announced that he wouldn't be putting himself forward for the Liberal Party leadership. And last week, as Brendan Nelson's popularity proceeded downwards past what would require mining, the big news came: Peter Costello wouldn't, after announcing that he wouldn't, be putting himself forward for the Liberal Party leadership. Even though he said he wouldn't! And he didn't! And he wasn't going to!

But, on the up-side, Brendan Nelson did the Canberra equivalent of saying, "Hands up who likes me?" and got the answer that everyone was expecting but himself. Yup - Mr Smug-Mug is no more. The Rat in a Suit didn't have to abandon the sinking ship; he got booted off. Huzzah.

Setting a example of good England

Time to put Grammar in a home.
You know those people who bore you to death by ignoring the content of television shows, news articles and emails and instead take pleasure in picking the spelling, grammar and pronunciation to pieces? Well I am one of them.

I understand that the teensy, weensy rules of English aren't terribly important in the touchy-feely, as-long-as-we're-all-understood-who-cares scheme of things, but I don't think it's too much to ask to have people who are paid to talk to us make an effort to do it properly. (Obviously I'm not paid to write this, or that last sentence wouldn't have been quite as clumsy).

This morning, when tuning in to Channel Ten's morning news as I was feeding His Majesty, there was a strange story about a training exercise at a Japanese zoo. Zoo staff were learning how to deal with large primates when they do their 'nana, but instead of a real animal, they were shooting tranquiliser darts at a guy in a monkey suit. Or, as Natarsha Belling put it more than once, "a ape suit".

It wasn't like she inelegantly split an infinitive, or mispronounced a foreign seven-syllable place name. The Designated Talking Head of Channel Ten's 11am time slot made a boo-boo that most kindergarten children have worked out of their system. Twice.

Do I really expect people to change the way they talk or write just because I whinge about it? No. Do I reserve the right to whinge simply because it makes me feel good? Lordy, yes.

Sports Commentary Gold #5

Advanced physics at Rod Laver Arena
I bloody love the Australian Open. Not only is it one of the few times I can watch a Grand Slam tennis match without staying up until three in the morning; but it is an absolute gold mine of sports commentary nuggets. For example:
"When Federer hits the ball it actually changes direction".

Sports Commentary Gold #4

Settle down, girls!
It's been a while since I heard some comment-worthy comments, but suddenly there are two in the same week!

Recently, Channel Seven reported on a bit of a stoush at a football (soccer, whatever the blumming heck it's called) match somewhere. Two players were swinging their floppy arms at each other, windmill-style, in a manner befitting a sport played internationally by precious sooks. The result, according to the reporter, was that "the handbags were still intact".

Another whinge...

Good golly, not Molly.
What good is Molly Meldrum? Now or ever?

View from a high horse - embryonic stem cell research.

Putting leftovers to good use.
I'm one of those ultra-cool, happening young things who watches Foreign Correspondent on the ABC. This week's instalment featured a story on the good old embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) debate. The Foreign Correspondent folks did a pretty good job, displaying two views: one from a family with two diabetic children, who supported ESCR for its potential to cure, or at least prevent future cases of, Type 1 Diabetes; and the other from a family of two 'snowflake children', that is, children created from frozen embryos, who opposed ESCR.

I am loudly, unashamedly in favour of ESCR. I also like a good whine of an evening, so let me take issue with three of the 'snowflake' family's arguments against ESCR...

1. ESCR is "taking a life to save a life".
This argument implies that the embryos used for stem-cell research would otherwise be made into children, therefore making an otherwise barren and desperate family extremely happy indeed. Which is, of course, bollocks. Stem cells are taken from frozen embryos that have been knowingly donated by their creators, and would otherwise be chucked in the bin. Sure, they have the potential for life if they are thawed and implanted, but they're not, and they're never going to be. On the other hand, they may hold the key for saving hundreds or thousands of lives.
Of course, many people do believe that a bunch of fifty cells in a test-tube is a living human being. Obviously I am not one of those people.

2. Messing with embryos for research is "playing God".
How can the parents of 'snowflake' children make this argument with a straight face? The couple in this story argued that ESCR and cloning constitute "playing God", and that people should accept themselves and their kids the way God made them. If this couple followed their own advice, they wouldn't have any kids. Surely creating children from embryos frozen in a laboratory is messing with what the Big Fella intended?

3. Research that involves the destruction of embryos is baaaad.
How do these people think in vitro fertilisation was developed? Through a few pencil sketches and committee meetings? The research involved animal and human trials and (cue dramatic baddie music) the destruction or 'death' of embryos. But researchers rightly believed that it was worth risking some blastocysts and embryos for a method that has provided many thousands of childless couples with a chance of conceiving a healthy kid. Sounds like a bloody good reason to me.

Right. I'll pack up my soap-box now.

PS. I found a bunch of info at http://www.stemcellresearchfoundation.org/About/FAQ.htm#StemCells.

Back to blogging...

George am plenty good talkie
One of the things that I've discovered since being on baby-feeding duty at all hours of the morning is the Today show from the US, which starts at around 4am in Sydney. I caught it this morning, and there was a news article that covered comments by John Kerry and a response by George W (see CNN's version).

In a nutshell, Kerry made comments that insinuated that you didn't have to be a genius to be in the US military. And you don't have to be a genius to know that, surely? Bush's retort gave me the biggest laugh I've had in ages. It included the statement, "The United States military are plenty smart".

It's a pity the report I saw cut him off there, and didn't let him finish his sentence. I believe he meant to add, "...but the Commander-In-Chief is dumb as sheyat".

Painting it all with one brush.

'Testing' and 'cruelty' are in different parts of the dictionary.
This week's instalment of Foreign Correspondent ran a story about some extremist animal activists and their passionate views on scientific and medical testing on animals. Always a subject that can get people talking; so I thought I'd have a go.

I'm not going to get too narky, but I do want to point out the difference between "animal testing" and "animal cruelty" - a distinction that many smelly dole-bludger extremist protesters don't seem to make. There is no question in my mind that some researchers are unnecessarily cruel when testing animals, and I'm sure there are plenty of existing, legally accepted testing methods that could be made more comfortable for the subjects. But saying that testing on animals itself is cruel is like saying that all doctors are murderers because some of them have negligently killed people. It's ok to say this: I support animal testing but I do not support animal cruelty.

One piece of viewer feedback on the ABC TV site suggested that, instead of testing poor animals, we should be getting into human stem-cell research with gusto. Which brings me to my first question - how do such people think we reached the point we're at with stem cell research and other scientific advances - by testing on crash test dummies?

Another tactic that the 'extreme' animal activists appear to employ (like a lot of people who prefer to panic than to read up on a subject) is to phrase things as if there are no conditions to animal testing, and it's all black-and-white. One of the protesters on the program was shouting the slogan, "What if it was your dog???" when there are no circumstances in countries like the UK (where the protest was happening) and Australia where anyone's pet would be considered for testing. Unless somebody dropped into a lab and said, "here's my Poodle - I don't want him any more, please do whatever you want with him" and signed a release. Sure, puppy dogs are adorable. But if somebody said to me, "You have two choices - I can test this procedure on your doggy or on your baby", I'd be kissing Fido goodbye. This brings me to my second question - would these protesters be quite so vehement if the tests were performed on funnel-webs and slugs?

Another example of the black-and-white view is to phrase questions like, "Do you think it's OK to break the backs of hundreds of mice?" No doubt the activists would like us, and the people who passively accept their flyers in the street, to think that researchers grab handfuls of mice and snap them in half with their bare hands. Which brings me to my final questions:
1. Is it OK to put hundreds of mice through a painful, disabling procedure for no good reason? No.
2. Is it OK to break the backs of mice humanely and with pain control because it directly relates to research that might enable a person who can't feel their feet to walk to the shops one day? Yep.

Could you live with yourself if Fluffy suffered for science?

Australia's Brainiest um... thingy

Better smart than Sully.
Whoever had the idea of putting Sandra Sully at the helm of a show with the word 'brainiest' in the title has a very good sense of humour.

I love a good quiz show, and this one has the added bonus of watching Sandra struggle to keep up with the intellectual standard of the show's contestants, drawn from the rich intellectual pool of Australia's pop musicians and Big Brother housemates.

Last night was particularly amusing. James Blundell and two members of Human Nature were able to read, consider and answer most questions before poor Sandra had managed to read out the first handful of syllables, and this was all too much for the overwhelmed spokesmodel. Put off by the bizarre turn of events - that contestants were answering questions - she lost her place several times and cost the players valuable seconds.

That's the bit I find entertaining. The bit I find highly irritating - because I am me, is a much smaller detail. It is the phrase that Sandra often utters (with very good diction) when a contestant gets an answer right. For example:

Sandra: "Gaborone is the capital of which country that borders South Africa?"
Contestant: "Botswana"
Sandra: "That would be correct".

One is tempted to ask: under what circumstances would that be correct? During a game show, in response to the question that was just asked? When it exactly matches that strange, polysyllabic word printed next to the word "Answer" on the Autocue? Yes? Well, then! It IS correct!