The Concatenate

The War Nerd has a recent story on the clever techniques Iraqi insurgents are using to lob explosives in the general direction of American soldiers. While the video (hit the story link email readers) is made about as poorly as it’s possible to make video it’s still eerily fascinating.

Particularly the way the rocketeers look like normal suburban dads arseing around on a Saturday afternoon. Even more terrifying is the odds that they’ll end up blowing up their countrymen rather than any of their enemy but they don’t appear to have any concern about it at all.

Video and article highly recommended but I suggest taking the war nerd with a grain of salt more generally. He’s very Russo-centric.

Some observations on the rugby league world cup opening ceremony:

1. Who decided an opening ceremony for a sporting competition should be held that did not involve the athletes who are competing in that competition?

2. Why was the rugby league world cup used as an advertising vehicle for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia? Do they really think that many people outside of Australia are going to be watching, and that those people would be interested in an “epic romance of our ages”, or whatever nonsense tagline they’re using to promote it?

3. I’m all for promoting indigenous culture, but the Redfern Aboriginal dancers seemed out of place — a little shoehorned into the format — and whatever story they were depicting was incomprehensible. And they were also being used to promote Luhrmann’s film.

4. Natalie Bassingthwaite in a flowing white dress. To quote my grandmother who was also watching, “A woman who looks like that has no place on a rugby field.” And the song she performed is the world cup’s anthem? I think a football anthem should be rousing and uplifting, not insipid, whiny and waffling on about heroes.

5. Somehow, amazingly, they managed to make Advance Australia Fair sound better than God Defend New Zealand! This appears to have been managed by having a man with stupid hair and a not-very-big voice (well, apart from the last note when he finally broke into full throat) sing the New Zealand anthem accompanied by something that sounded like a Casio keyboard. The Australian anthem, on the other hand, was performed by a full-voiced young lady (who, coincidentally, stars in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia) accompanied by a full orchestra. Also it had a proper introduction, not that silly fanfare the rugby union mob use.

6. The people holding the big Australian and New Zealand flags got tired and sat down, leaving the flags lying on the ground!

The game began, I went to bed.

Last year without much fanfare but with full public disclosure for those who watch these things, the banking regulators in this country carefully put in place mechanisms to let our banks offload their bad mortgage debts onto the taxpayer.

Careful and without fanfare doesn’t make the Leader look commanding in a crisis though so in the last week we’ve been served up a number of half baked proposals that would have sounded great at 11pm over pizza in the Ministerial Wing.

Like all rushed proposals thought out by non-specialists for maximum media advantage they had some unintended consequences.

Amongst those are going to massive job losses in the non-bank financial sector and the destruction of large portions of retirement savings, especially by those held by retirees with limited further earning potential.

Retirees are particularly dangerous because with their other investments crushed they’re going to have to liquidate their houses for pin money which will further screw the bloody mortgages that started all this.

Don’t believe me how badly this has been handled? Have a read of The Australian’s or the SMH’s take on this.

A hell of a lot of ordinary lives are about to be sacrificed on the altar of Kevin Rudd’s ego. But I doubt they’ll be the first.

At the end of it all an even smaller group of banks will have even more power, and they’ll have financed it with our money.

Ben Pobjie in the New Matilda is becoming one of my favourite reads. Today he examines the soon to be doomed education revolution:

This is why, as you may remember, Kevin Rudd promised an education revolution at last year’s election. “I will start an education revolution!” Rudd would shriek furiously at press conferences, and the nation would swoon at his strength and decisiveness and the vague hint of violence in his eyes.

But how would he do it? How would he address the problem of our abysmal schools, where the only thing more blatant than the teachers’ efforts to transmit leftist propaganda is the students’ slack-jawed indifference? We waited with bated breath.

Ars Technica has a despairing look at the coming compulsory net filtering for all of us under Kevin Rudd’s grand plan to make us all into better people.

Someone in Government is going to have to determine what content can be seen by whom.

It should make the big end of town very happy.

The Register brings word of the Sarah Palin erotic spoof (for want of words which won’t trip your content filters) being made by Larry Flynt’s Hustler empire.

Tapping into some deep under currents there, the outrage will be wonderful to behold.

And this is what they’re thinking about the bank bailouts in the financial sector where this image is circulating!

The Concatenate’s favourite should-be candidate for the US Presidency has now upped the ante getting together with Jed Bartlett to discuss the important issues of fake presidency.

(Email readers will need to click the story link to see the video).

Paris in 2012?

Former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa has started writing opinion pieces for The Australian.

And they’re rather good.

Recommended.

The SMH is having a poke at the terrible reviews for the American version of Kath and Kim.

They seem to ignore that Kath and Kim hardly had overwhelmingly positive reviews when it started here. People liked it despite what reviewers told them they should watch.

That said, American comedy adaptations are generally crap (although I know people who claim the American “The Office” is superior to the original).

The real news is you can make up your own minds when the American version screens this Sunday on the Seven network at 7pm.

The RBA has announced a huge 100 basis point cut to its cash rate, effectively cutting interest rates by 1%.

This indicates no small degree of panic about the economy in our central bank.

On the other hand by keeping rates relatively high they have the room to do this kind of de-fibrillation a for a few more economic cycles, as opposed to the Americans who were running on empty already.

The Register’s Andrew Orlowski has typed an excellent piece on the strange history of the Wall Street bailout in the US.

He makes particular note of how the professional media has made common cause with the political class to get the bailout through Congress, now laden down with pork to tempt congressmen away from their electors.

It will be very interesting to see if the new alliances of grass roots leftys and genuine conservatives that fought such a surprising (if eventually losing) battle against the legislation continue.

Polar politics between centrist parties is, at the end of the day, not going to sustain a democracy.

Either in the USA, or here.

From Oct08

At least they’re honest.