waiting for the man

The local - very local - radio station announced on its midday news that State Liberal leader Mark McArdle and Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg would examine merging the two parties by appointing an "imminent persons group."

I imagine they'll be along any minute now.

After that, they'll work on the merger once they get a round tuit.

Meanwhile, international extortioner extraordinaire Bernie Ecclestone, owner of the Formula 1 business, has threatened to withdraw the F1 race from Melbourne after the current contract expires in 2010. He wants more money - that's taxpayers' money, folks, ie yours and mine, laundered once through the Victorian Treasury - or to hold the race at night to suit European TV schedules. Or, presumably, both.

He says that Victorian Premier John Brumby has paid the race "'scant attention." The money train for Ecclestone was of course originally waved out fromn the station in 1996 by former Premier Jeff Kennett, presumably from savings found by closing schools (boo!) and amalgamating councils (yay!).

What Premier Brumby should do is tell Ecclestone to get f*cked. In a variety of European languages, for preference, just to make sure the advertisers get the message.

The potential for the Gold Coast, in wonderful but rather wet Queensland, to benefit through its increasingly popular Indy race, which gets a few buckets of Qld government tax dollars, is not really the point here. Ecclestone's business model is simply theft and people should start to say 'enough'. They did it with Rupert's Super League and it can happen again. Just because someone can make a dollar or several million from something doesn't automatically mean they should.

The air in Rocky this morning was decidedly whiffy, but a strong breeze for most of the day has blown a lot of it away, at least for a while. The river is down about half a metre but still flowing strongly. I'd imagine it'll take a week or so to get back to normal levels.