2Day Debacle

A 12 year old girl was forced to admin to being raped on live radio yesterday, in what I can only describe as a shocking and sad indictment of what passes as entertainment these days.

Kyle and Jackie 0 maintain a consistent stream of trash - but putting a minor on radio and asking them highly personal questions is just terrible. And describing the whole incident as 'weird' as in the above article, just shows how callous these guys are.

Having said that - the mother in question provides a strong argument for some people not being allowed to have children. What kind of MORON, knowing full well that their daughter was raped, puts them live on radio, strapped to a lie detector, and asks them questions like this.

Unfortunately, I was listening to some professor of childhood ethics or somesuch from Monash - and she studiously avoided criticing the mother. I don't get it - its not the radio station that should cop the brunt of this - but the mother.

Obviously after her two minutes of fame, she put her daughter in a terribe position, and, as far as I'm concerned, deserves public humiliation. I'd say she should be charged with child abuse.

Armadillo's in the wet

Well, it poured yesterday, and I'm happy to report that the Armadillo tires performed magnificently. At no point did they seem to be squirm or slide, even going through fairly deep puddles.

Still highly recommendended!

Liberal Rule

Thanks to Gerard Henderson's article, I was alerted to a 3-part series documenting the Liberal's years under Howard. He had a good old whinge that the series was strongly biased against Howard and conservatism in general.

I agree that it did not necessarily paint a flattering picture of the Howard era - but then, one could say they were calling it like they saw it. They managed to get access to Peter Costello, Downer, Arthur Sinodinos and a host of other Liberal commentators. But I think the most telling comments were made by Ross Gittens who essential made the point that Howard encouraged rampant consumerism, and made no effort to grow the public good. Debt was essentially privatised by Costello, by running down Government debt, but fuelling private debt. And that we are paying for it now.

To be fair, they did select excerpts that showed the Liberals in a less than ideal light, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Parts 2 and 3 are probably worth a watch too -22/7 and 23/7.

Something's brewing....

I saw John Brodgen this morning on the way into work, and Tony Abbott when going between buildings.

I wonder if there is some Liberal conference on at the moment? Although, i remember Broggers quitting Politics (whether he quit the Liberal party... not so sure). People Skills might be in town for his new book launch - "Battlelines" - which argues forcefully for a return to conservative (like, really conservative) roots in the Party. Apparently, he also calls for a return to pre-1980 legal reasons for divorce (insanity, drunkeness, etc). It was interesting watching Julie Bishop on Insiders this weekend, give a less-than-ringing endorsement of Abbott's ideas. She was relatively emphatic that he was 'entitled to his own opinion'.

Some commentators have noted combination of Malcolm Turnbull's misfortune, Tony Abbott's book - and his endorsement of Turnbull: "He has my full support". Could People Skills be lined up for a tilt at the leadership?

Personally, i think this would be disasterous for the Liberal Party. Tony represents the hard core centre of conservative support - a constituency that never has and never will, vote Labor. I suspect he turns off most moderates - the swinging voters who actually decide the election.

Armadillos

Just bought a pair of Specialized Armadillo tires for my bicycle and took them for their first long ride today. These are supposed to be the ultimate in puncture protection (except the Schwalbe Marathon Plus's which have a 5mm rubber pad built into them, but weight a tonne). This is due to a kevlar layer that not only covers the contact tread, but goes from bead-to-bead (in theory, protecting against sidewall damage).

The Armadillos are actually quite light, and i've found quite a performance increase over the stock semi-slicks I had. I've heard reviews of them being quite unresponsive due their stiffness, but I guess i'm not racing, so its not really an issue. Should be interesting to see how they perform in the wet though.

So far, i'm pretty happy!