Piecost.Net

Another journalistic gem from Australia – this time from the Northern Territory’s NT News: a woman involved in a high-speed car crash in the excellently named town of Humpty Doo had been fingered by the driver of the vehicle as the cause of the mishap, however she staunchly denies being the culprit – employing empirical reason as her defence.  The paper cheerfully relays her reasoning in stellar fashion:

I was not ****ing his **** — and it’s pretty obvious that wasn’t the case … you only have to look at the mark on my chest.  Clearly I had my seat belt on, so it’s impossible I’d be leaning over ****ing his ***** unless he is hung like a donkey or I’ve got a ******* rubber neck. If it was true I’d just cop it sweet and think ‘how embarrassing, I got caught ****ing someone’s ****. But it is not true and that’s what is p***ing me off. It didn’t happen like that at all — he was just going too fast.

[sorted from the chaff by Neonwombat]

In a remarkable gesture of restraint and moderation by event organisers, patron of Australian premier motor sport event – the Bathurst 1000 – are having limits imposed on them regarding how much booze they’re allowed to take on-site.  The daily limit is one slab (24 x 375mL cans) per person.

“But more restrained spectators would be able to slake their thirst, if not their craving for alcohol, with up to 36 cans of low or mid-strength beer.  Wine lovers must make do with no more than four liters of cask wine per day and combinations of the options would not be allowed.”

Sometimes you’ve just got to get by on 9 litres of beer a day.

[Reuters/Yahoo News, courtesy of Sir Sydney]

The number of Australians who die annually from poisonous animal bites is fairly low by comparison to the ratio of humans to deadly things living there.  The odds are ever so slightly bumped up by geniuses like this guy however who – having accidentally run over a red-bellied black snake – attempted to pick it up and put it out of harm’s way.

The father of one said he and his five-year-old son adored reptiles. “I couldn’t stand to see a snake hurt and that’s why I thought I’d try to get him off the road,” Mr Biggs said. But when I tried to help him he went for me. I know why now but I just wanted to help.”

Mr Biggs said being a fan of the late Steve Irwin had perhaps given him an over-inflated sense of confidence. “I thought I could do it because of Steve Irwin,” he said.

[via Nothing To Do With Arbroath]

Australians who grew up in the 1990s and didn’t have any TV reception limitations will more than likely remember The Late Show.  One of the thoughtful services this hour-long show offered was a toilet break at half time, where if necessary you were given 2 minutes’ respite from the sketch-based hilarity in which to pop out of the loungeroom – during which time they filled the space with selections from 1987’s daytime amateur talent show Pot Luck.

One of the appealing things about Pot Luck was resident judge, TV chef Bernard King.  In many ways King predated Simon Cowell’s bitchy behaviour, and possibly elements of Gordon Ramsay as well.  It is readily apparent that the auditioning process, assuming there was one, was significantly less stringent than in today’s equivalent programmes such as Pop Idol, X Factor, etc.  And yet watching these honest efforts by people with a passion for their art being given a chance to perform seems kinder than the snide packaging of “hilarious entrants in first round of auditions” in the more recent shows (yes, like William Hung).

A few highlights from the Pot Luck vaults, via The Late Show vaults…

1) David Thai, with his heartfelt rendition of John Farnham’s “Pressure Down”.  And choreography inspired by Michael Jackson, it would appear.

2) The promising moves of Todd Rixon, although unfortunately the performance was cut short due to dance-related calamity.

3) RAZIA.

Yes, it was Razia who garnered the immortal review from King – “Talent: nil. Presentaion: nil. Potential: totally nil. But a sum total of 10 for generosity”.

4) The Nelligan Sisters.  I used to have nightmares about this.

5) And finally, the incomparable… Piffy!

[prompted by MarkE]

In the unlikely event you were going to attempt to smuggle two live pigeons into Melbourne from the Middle East, your first choice of method probably wouldn’t be to stuff them into padded envelopes, don a pair of tights, and stuff the envelopes down your ankles, before boarding the flight.  However this was exactly the method used by an unidentified Australian man, who also elected to stuff an aubergine down there for completeness.  Economy class flight is uncomfortable at the best of times, but a long-haul flight with a secreted eggplant?  No thankyou.  A truly inept budgie smuggler, this man.

The man’s luggage also contained two eggs (species unspecified) hidden in a vitamin container, packed with what looks very much from the photo to be mashed potato.

Much debate has been had about the Australian Government’s recent announcement of plans to implement mandatory internet content filtering to remove access to illegal material. The plan is that there will be 2 blacklists – one which filters “adult” material (to protect the sweet innocent children) and which users can opt out of, and another blacklist to block material deemed illegal by the government.

Due to the highly technical nature of the subject matter, many participants in the debate (such as internet engineer Mark Newton) know what they are talking about, however many do not.  Many Conservative groups seem to believe that protecting us from the evils of the world is a desireable thing, and as such have popped up in whack-a-mole style professing to support the filtering measures – in spite of all expert testimony that the measures will be expensive to implement, slow internet performance by a massive factor, and above all, be almost completely ineffective.

Here is an ABC Radio interview between Mark Newton, and Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby (not traditionally considered a technical advisory body, AFAIK).  To help the untrained listener identify the factual errors made in this interview, Geordie Guy has kindly inserted an alert sound whenever one of the speakers says something inaccurate, misleading, or downright wrong.

The civilian campaign to raise awareness & protest against the Australian Government’s measures can be found at nocleanfeed.com.  Mark has written to his Member for Parliament, Kate Ellis, on the topic (PDF here).  Following an attempt by the Communications Minister to silence Mark via his employer, he has written further parliamentary correspondence on the topic (PDF).