Too much mull at the ABC

[END]

Drug-Sniffing Dogs - more false positives

The police did another one of their highly ineffective "harass the hippies" drug-sniffing dog sweeps in the Valley last weekend. Again, the police report a startling amount of false positives:

"During these searches the drug detection dogs indicated that 75 people had been in contact with or were at the time in possession of illicit drugs. From these indications 22 people were charged after they were found to have illicit drugs on them while a number of others admitted to police that they had consumed drugs earlier in the evening," Supt Carew said.

If all of the rest of the people had consumed drugs, then I wouldn't say there were false positives; but, if all the rest of the people said they'd consumed drugs then the police would have said so. They quite like giving exact numbers, even when it makes them look very bad.

This 30% success rate is even worse than last time.

[END]

Misc 061013

The Queensland Roar looked pretty good last night, but Tom Willis should not be goalie. And it's not just his creepy resemblance to Tom Cruise. He just doesn't inspire confidence. And it's not just because he fumbled the ball into the path of an attacker with less than a minute gone, it's that he appears likely to do this often. Maybe I'm judging him unfairly in comparison to Liam Reddy who has impressed me with the way he dives into the fray; and he's got the best hands in the league statistically.

Another meaningless opinion poll came out today. Apparently 7 out of 10 people think Howard will win the next election. That's all well and good, but firstly, what people think is going to happen isn't worth anything and secondly, we don't have a presidential election system. So this survey is even less meanful than the "preferred Prime Minister" stuff. I don't think that trailing in the preferred PM polls has ever stopped anyone whose party won more seats from becoming Prime Minister.


And here's some stuff from September 25 - lost in drafts again:

Dog Bites Man: The Chamber of Commerce and Industry say that any Labor changes to IR Laws will be bad for Australia. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Iraqi Govt removes Saddam trial judge: Iraq's Shiite-led Cabinet has removed the chief judge in the genocide trial of Saddam Hussein, accusing him of being biased towards the defendant. - They only want judges biased against the defendant.

Argentines don't like Hewitt says Nalbandian: Don't worry, David. Australians don't either.

[END]

I think the radar was malfunctioning...

...or this is what the apocalypse looks like.

[END]

Qld Roar, Looking Very Poor

Or are Melbourne really that good?

They played us off the park: it's never good when it seems like there's twice as many of them as there are of you in the midfield.

What formation are we playing? This team is - formation-wise - unrecognisable from last week's team which played Adelaide off the park. Why don't we just play our own game instead of worrying about them? Bringing Murdocca on allowed them to have a bit more of their normal shape, except the defence then forgot what it was supposed to be doing.

We need Dilevski on more of the time. At least before the game is a lost cause.

The second penalty was crap. McLaren won the ball.

So back to my original two questions, I think it's a bit of both. We were poor and they were good. Remember, we were in close second after four rounds, but the teams that we'd played were in fifth to eighth at the end of round four. Since then, against the 'top' teams, we've won none, drawn one, lost one.

[END]

Some Pics

Salamander Bay, NSW, August 2006

Vega$

Mondrian's Church

Small Child hit by Lightning

More photos below the fold...

Note: Does not have 'Resort' in title; okay for work function

Lawnmower-powered Bicycle

Accident Ahead

[END]

Dog Bites Man

The business lobby is against Labor's proposed IR changes.

[END]

Cool Stolen Graphic

By Paul Sabre, stolen from an op-ed by Ronald D. Moore in the New York Times

[END]

Misc 060918

Pope Nazinger's problem is that whether or not the words were from an ancient text, he still decided to use them in his little speech. (Even if he didn't write it, I'm pretty sure he would have veto power over its contents.)

I'm sick of reading debates about "Australian Values". There is only one Australian value: Australians value being able to do, say and think whatever the hell we like. Thus by definition, nothing is "unAustralian", although I could still probably try to make a case that the word "unAustralian" is, in fact, unAustralian.

And the problem with this "Values debate" is that the media is talking about it and they're not talking about whatever it is the government didn't want talked about. That is, this is just an orchestrated distraction. I'm not sure what from, though - Jack Thomas? Something callous Ruddock said or did? Something stupid Vanstone said or did - because the distraction has worked and the media isn't covering whatever it is that they're not covering.

Queensland beat New Zealand 5 - 0 on Friday night. We were originally going to go to the game, but we both ended up too sick to go. (Boycat's Mum was off sick for 4 days.) That's the first sporting event I've ever watched where I was spewing I wasn't at the game.

Queensland won on Friday night, yet there was not one word about it in the newpaper the next day. I know that the "Home Delivery" edition of the paper is printed first, so that it can get into the trucks and out to the newsagents so it can slam into our garage at 3.30am, but seriously, what time do they put the paper to bed? The game finished at 9.53pm.

Sydney F.C.'s Steve Corrica learns the Gorden Tallis Rule. You just can't call the ref a "fucking cheat".

What do you reckon about old Star Treks with new special effects?

Apparently they're trying to blame Peter Brock's death on an inexperienced navigator. If that's the case, don't you think Brock would have said something when his navigator told him to drive through the tree?

Misc 060903

Here's something else I lost in "Drafts".


Qld Roar 3 - Newcastle Jets 2
Weird Game. We still seem to be giving the ball away far too much; need to tighten up our passes. I thought Seo looked better this week, but Miron thinks he didn't have a good game, and people - like whoever votes for those 3-2-1 awards they list in the paper each week - thought he had a good game the first week, so what do I know?

New Zealand look good with Buari and Richter up front.

Melbourne look impressive. A little less writhing around on the ground would be nice, though.

[END]

The musical education of Boycat's Mum

I was playing Start! by the Jam the other day, the first time she'd heard it (to my knowledge - I've never had it on CD - or MP3 - until last weekend). And she says "Taxman."

(I can't find my copy of Revolver... I'm sad.)

[END]

The weirdest spam I ever got

[END]

I'm not usually one to get excited about things that get emailed around...

...that is, I figure that if Boycat's Mum was sent the following thing by email, everyone else has already seen it (my work keeps stuff like this out, so the fact that I haven't seen it means nothing). But just in case you haven't, these are really good, because the songs are cool as well as the videos:

Ok Go, "Here it Goes Again" ['Treadmill Dance']

This one wasn't sent around, but it is a more-immediately-catchy song:

Ok Go, "A Million Ways".

But both songs have been in my head since I first heard them.

[END]

So that's what's been going on for the past 20 years

Ha, ha, ha; apparently I have asthma.

Not 100% sure because I've got to go back next week for the full work-up, but close enough. Darn, I guess I really will have to give up smoking now.

[END]

Drug Sniffing Dogs - wrong two-thirds of the time

Boycat's mum told me about a drug dog operation at Brunswick Street station last week.

I didn't like those things because I don't like the police being able to arbitrarily pull people up and search them. I mean, I agree to be searched going onto an aeroplane or going into Lang Park, because those are the rules I agreed to abide by when purchasing my ticket. But just walking along?

Anyway, it seems that the 'reasonable suspicion' that causes the cops to search you is a reaction from a drug dog. However, it's instructive to read the Police PR release in its entirety:

Drug operation, Brunswick Street Railway Station: Police have arrested 26 people following a policing operation at the Brunswick Street Railway Station on Friday night and early Saturday morning. The operation involved a passive drug detection dog team as well as police from the Railway Squad, Public Safety Response Team, and the City Tactical Crime Squad. During the operation 80 people were detained and searched after the drug detection dog indicated that they had been in contact with dangerous drugs. Police arrested 26 people for 28 drug related offences as well as two other people for public nuisance and stealing. Those arrested will face court at a later date.

Get that? 80 people searched, 26 had something on them - that's a 32.5% success rate.

I saw a documentary about drug sniffing dogs once - they said that a single false positive meant the dog was fired from the drug squad. Obviously not in Queensland.

[END]

Atlantic Hurricane Watch

Florida Panhandle on Alert

[END]

Weekend Update 060827

Queensland Roar 3 - Perth Glory 0
Phew! It was looking grim for a while there. Like last season, but worse. And Queensland gives up possession again.

All that time spent looking for strikers and none of them looked that hot in the first half; Milicic was fiddling around with it and never getting a clean shot in, Reinaldo looks more like a mid-fielder. And Queensland gives up possession again.

Seo didn't have a good night, we didn't control the ball in the mid-field at all; Wedau was invisible - so much for the "push button tempo controller" or whatever it was that Miron the Mouth called him in an interview I saw on Total Football the other day when I was away: Murdocca should be in the run-on side instead of him. And Queensland gives up possession again.

Although that might mean Massimo wouldn't be so fresh and able to slice through them at the end of the game like he did. Because until the fresh legs came on it looked like being another really bad night for the Roar. No one should really fail to beat Perth, given what's going on with them. Then we scored three goals in six minutes and all was forgiven.

Except by me: as you might have guessed, I thought we gave up possession far too easily, far too often.

Still, the Roar might end up at the top of the table after today's games, if no one else wins 3-0 or better. We were on top after the first round last year. Eventual position: 6th.


Taringa Rovers Falls at the Final Hurdle
There was an article in Saturday's paper about Taringa Rovers. Well, it was about the final weekend of the Premier League and how there were five teams going for four spots and all the permutations of what would happen if particular teams won or lost, but the headline was Last-ditch bid for Rovers, so I'm going to say it was about my old team, Taringa.

"Taringa, on 39 points, must beat third-placed Palm Beach today to cement its finals spot while Pine Rivers can also jump into finals contention witha win over Brisbane City. "

Pine Rivers did (2-0), Taringa didn't (0-3), so they ended up fifth, one place better than last year, according to the Wiki.

The Premier League Reserves team won 2-0, but also ended up in 5th place.


Manchester United Top of the Table (after three games)
...though Chelsea haven't played their third, yet.

Still, they've got a goal difference of +8 (10 for, 2 against) and only one of those three games was played at home, so things are looking good.

I know it's early in the season; but, it's never bad to go out to a commanding lead early.

[END]

Darwin Police look freaky

Judging by the footage I saw on tv this morning, they dress like soliders and act like Nazis.

[END]

Farmers' Almanack

2006.

Fire season started six weeks early this year.

This would be tied into the fact that we got our usual September heat starting around mid-August.

[END]

Update to Misc Week ending 060813

I'm not sure how Taringa Rovers went against the Strikers, but they drew 1-1 with Rochedale Rovers yesterday. Unfortunately, they've slipped into 4th place. (My cousin's team, the Premier League reserves lost 8-0.)

Souths-Logan were the TV game, but I didn't see it. We lost 60-10, so that's probably a good thing.

Queensland Roar beat NZ 2-1 in the 7th place-play-off in the pre-season cup. Back to our usual position on the table.

[END]