rockin' in the free world

Well, I have had the incomparable Mr Young on high rotation in the car recently. He'll sound better when I get a few speakers replaced this weekend, due to the surrounds having deteriorated to an extent where any bass at all causes a horrendous buzzing. Very very bad. And after that we going to look at toilets. Jeez I love the weekends. And so on to today's news:

• "Howard is always talking about Australian mateship. But yet again he has shown the world that he doesn't know what mateship is, let alone what it's for.
  Regardless of Peter Costello's failings, nobody could behave to a mate the way Howard has behaved to him.
  And nobody can say now that Howard has any substance to him. He is only a collection of slogans and political posters wrapped around a bit of emptiness.
  In a rare moment of honesty he once mocked the idea that a prime minister should have some sort of vision.
  Since then he has been consistent in his determination to shrink Australia to fit his own shrivelled and constipated soul.
  It has never occurred to him that his constant betrayal of the things he talks about so much might start to make people sick to their guts." This from a letter to the editor in today's Canberra Times. Couldn't have put it better meself. And also, they'll remove him and Lady Janette from Kirribilli (where they have to live because of the kids' schooling...oh, er yes....well, they have to live there because it's closer to the ferry) in a box. They'll be there forever.
• Media revamp - is likely to reduce competition but who really knows? That biassed statement is made simply on the basis of experience that, in an uncertain and unstable environment, application of large sums of money usually finds ways of meeting its own objectives. It just does.
• Can anything else go wrong in Queensland Health? Any more bodies (so to speak)?
• And as for this (sorry about all the ABC links, it's just easier. But yes, it's partisan, what a pack of commies, blah blah blah.) Back to the Middle East - we have to do something about Islamic terrorism. But I've seen the Palestinian 'refugee' camps - I put that in quotes because it raises the issue of defining a refugee: can you be a refugee if you're a third generation inhabitant of a camp? It's supposed to be your land, but it's not. The conditions are - or at least were some years ago, but I can't imagine they've changed all that much - appalling. The point I was originally going to get to was whether every Israeli reaction is a vast over-reaction. Hamas has three Israeli soldiers. Three. How many people is Israel holding and on what grounds? And with what proof? Ah shit, too hard.

This blog is so deep. But then who among us has all the answers? It's much more importanteasier to ask the questions. What a cop out. Is there anything on the teev? Maybe I'll get the Maton out and exercise the vocal cords a bit. Breakfast tomorrow with a bunch of workmates from a former life. Mega amounts of coffee leading to a high productivity levels of twitching day.