CNN has the amusingly terrifying tale of Capt. David C. Dykhoff and his executive officer, Capt. David M. Dober who have been relieved of their duties on board the USS George Washington.
An inquiry has found a major fire on the nuclear carrier was caused by smoking in an engineering space which was also being used to store flammable liquids.
This is rather against the rules.
Only $70 million in repairs…
This is the Batman movie we have waited for.
This is the Batman movie that at long last exceeds expectations.
This is hard, fast, brutal, horrifying, and finally uplifting.
This is a really good movie that you want to see on the big screen.
This is not a movie for the squeamish or the young.
Four Stars.
Hooray! A convincing win against the kiwis and who cares if we had to hire one as coach to get there?
To truly savour it I recommend reading what Paul Waite over on Haka thought of it:
Sione Lauaki. Ah, bless his cotton socks. His endless muppetry during the time he bumbled about on the pitch was an embarassment to the Black Jersey, and his turn-overs cost his team any chance it might have had of regaining momentum. At times it was so bad I wanted to avert my eyes, but the horror show kept drawing them back. I was at once fascinated and apalled to watch him pick up the ball from the back of a dominant scrum, and then rumble his massive behemoth form up the side of it only to encounter halfback Burgess coming at him and … be driven backwards. Not only does Lauaki not know how to hold the ball securely, and not only does he fail to read the game, or make tackles, or know what his team-mates are doing - he doesn’t even know how to be heavy!
Then of course there was the ‘try’ Elsom scored. Good on Rocky, he had a fine game. But a speedy slicer and dicer of defenses he is not. Of course when faced by a player looking as large, dynamic and vital as a terracotta warrior, he does appear to be bloody quick and nimble. The replays which showed Lauaki’s half-hearted jog, vaguely in the direction of Elsom, or at least where he had been half an hour before, brought tears to my eyes.
Just watching a late-night movie on Channel 7 and semi-paying attention to the ads for Harvey Norman and Domayne sales, cars, health insurance and the like.
Then, towards the end of the movie, we were suddenly treated to 10 ads in a row offering those great mobile phone “deals” where you just text 19 XX XX and get something fantastic in return.
Nine of the 10 were for “adult girl movies”, singles chat, strip poker, nude newsreaders and the like (the tenth was to turn your phone into an x-ray machine – whatever).
And then, as if nothing had happened, they threw to a “community service” ad spruiking some awards of which Prime, the station’s regional affiliate, is a major sponsor, and then back to the movie.
I checked the clock and, sure enough, the hours hand had ticked over past midnight. You’d think they might at least be a little bit subtle in the changeover.
The Australian reports on the demise of the Sunday and Nightline programs on Channel 9 as CVC desperately try to claw back the billions they paid for the ailing broadcaster.
Nightline has been an also ran since Tony Jones took over Lateline on the ABC. And Sunday has always been that program people would like to say they watched if they could get out of bed that early on Sunday morning.
To make matters worse a lot of people who can get out of bed that early on a Sunday morning go to church instead.
The Sunday format was always a reflection of the magazine thinking of the owners and Nine has still not sorted out their internet properties adequately due to the dead hand of the NineMSN partnership.
Trapped in the tarpit the world has moved on.
The sad thing is that this will be seen as an argument that there’s no place for quality in Australian journalism.
What it really represents is the demise of mis-placed and mis-directed quality.
Of more worry within the PBL empire would be their inability to re-direct their premium brands in the new media era, relegating them instead to the scrapheap.
Over on News a great post by Jack Marx.
I won’t spoil the twist for you but hang around for it as well as the surprisingly intelligent comments on a News Ltd web-page.
The ABC has now demonstrated that there is no BBC innovation they won’t follow.
It’s unimaginatively called iView and it’s a streaming internet player for the ABC’s TV content.
This thing has played merry hell with internet service in the UK as users start sucking hard and continuously on their pipes and I doubt the local ISP’s are anything like ready for what’s coming.
The Lego fan page on Facebook has just published the following notice:
photos
Today at 7:20amI think its great that people are uploading their Lego photos, but please keep drugs and sex out of them
come on people its a children’s toy after all…Furthermore, please don’t post more than 1 of each shot and if you have a sideways shot, please use facebook to turn it so it’s right
Thank You
Lego
The mind boggles.
CNN reports that the US Air Force has lost another strategic bomber, this time a lumbering B-52 off the island of Guam.
Just this February a B-2 stealth bomber crashed from the same base.
A real worry for an Air Force already in some strife at the moment.
Interesting story in Business Week on how the rest of the world is now ordering more private jets than the USA for the first time.
Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern businessmen are eschewing the egalitarian misery of commercial airlines for options that let them arrive showered and rested.
It’s a changing world we live in.
apparently it’s becoming increasingly in vogue for book clubs to dispense with the tedium of reading books.
“thoroughly enjoyed dinner and catching up with the girls. A bookclub without books, you have to agree, it really is a clever idea, most of us are working Mums and read sporadically when we have time, the book part simply got too hard!”
What hope for the rest of us?
Just a note to regular readers letting you know I’ve moved back to Canberra in a paid role with my other baby RiotACT.
Once things settle down I don’t anticipate it disrupting the regular (as regular as it’s ever been in the last year) operation of this site.
Thanks for your support.
The Australian is having a guess as to what’s going to be in Penny Wong’s emissions trading green paper.
Apparently they’re going to drop fuel excise for three years so that the pain of rising transport costs won’t be felt until some of the other shocks have been absorbed.
A political train-wreck coming when they have to sign off on phasing that out.
Is there no institution we won’t subvert for a handful of Catholic votes or dollars?
Every news outlet in the country and Government is bending over backwards to promote an evangelical invasion by a repressive faith.
Whores the lot of them.
