You're totally just here for the jetpacks, aren't you? Fine. They're at the bottom. Below the REAL news.
News
This "he said, she said" nothing-fest between Gillard and Abbott over her recent trip to Afghanistan (and his notable absence) somehow continues on into a fourth day. Not particularly because there's any substance to the allegations, but because the media still seems to be on election footing and appears desperate to conjure up some measure of excitement. If it helps,
Gillard has rejected claims that she was exploiting the issue for political gain (OF COURSE SHE WAS! IT'S POLITICS! THAT'S WHAT THEY DO! GAR!) and today
they've wheeled in a defence expert to criticise Opposition policy, while a Liberal backbencher has "broken ranks" and
dared to criticise his party's position. Meanwhile, on the ground, the
Afghan government is holding high level talks with the Taliban, with Obama's full support.
In the wake of jitters in the global economic recovery and the Reserve Bank's decision to freeze rates (the actual significance of which still eludes me), it's reassuring to see that
the IMF has forecast the continued strength and growth of the Australian economy. So, uh, I guess now is the time to ask for extra money from your employers then. For all the hard work that you've been doing. On those daily posts you write. About the news. Yeah. Although, at the same time, the IMF also warned about
the possible emergence of currency wars between major powers, which sounds less like a realisable prospect of financial catastrophe as it does the shittest RPG ever. "Yeah! +5 roll for dividends!"
The much maligned and ultra-secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is approaching completion, with a proposed final text
being released to the public earlier this morning. Fortunately, on first glance, the final result does not seem to be
as terrifying and draconian as people feared, and would appear not to actually impose any substantive legal obligations on its signatories at all. Which is probably the first time that the general reluctance of the international community to take action on a significant issue (*cough*
climate change *cough*) has actually worked out in our favour.
I don't know about you, but already I just want the Commonwealth Games to be over. Yeah, that's right. No link, no story. Just me, bitching. Given that already this year we experienced five weeks of the dullest electoral campaign in living memory, it's hard to believe that something could dominate the news cycle that was even less interesting, but these Games are proving to be quite the contender. Outside of the next major political firestorm or unexpected building collapse, let me just say:
And finally, more wild, but in all honesty potentially true, allegations in North Korea, with South Korean media suggesting that purported heir to Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un,
may have had plastic surgery to make him more like his grandfather and Eternal President, Kim Il-sung. If you are as morbidly fascinated by all this as I am, then
this Christopher Hitchens' piece on the country is well worth reading.
Features
For watchers of American politics, pretty much every frustration of the system seems to stem from the Senate, a lumbering, corrupt, supremely divided beast that makes our own Senate, so famously declared to be "unrepresentative swill" by Paul Keating, look as malleable and easy to win over as your average congregation of Scientologists. This is a pretty good summary of the reasons
why the US Senate is fundamentally broken.
A fascinating story about Brazilian economics (no, I promise) and how an entirely made up currency that never actually existed succeeded in shoring up Brazil's teetering, inflation prone economy. Ah, economics. She's a precise science.
Oddities/Curiosities
In a move that is surely making linguists the world over just goddamn enormous with glee (as my brother might say), a brand new, heretofore entirely undiscovered (well, at least by the happy-go-lucky Westerners who define such things)
language has been unearthed in the northern reaches of India. Called Koro, and spoken by around a thousand people, it is expected to be added to high school syllabuses by 2012.
Remember Borat? Remember how pissed of Kazakhstan was? Remember how
they threatened to sue him? Well now they're refurbishing their image in other ways: by
making a comedy of their own, called My Brother, Borat. Apparently an effort to show the real, modern Kazakhstan, this self-described 'black comedy' also features a man marrying a donkey, the main character, John, getting pregnant and a scheme by the two leads to buy the Statue of Liberty. Oh yes, this should do wonders.
Video
Only on Fox News could a story about LA, a city otherwise on the verge of bankruptcy, deciding to buy $1 billion worth of jetpacks for its civil authorities actually get airtime.
Their source was, apparently, the Weekly World News, a reputable newspaper also responsible for the following hard hitting bits of investigative journalism:
And also, latterly, this:
On the ball, Fox News, on the ball.