Ruling given

Jeremy Clarkson, the most outspoken presenter of the BBC’s brilliant Top Gear, is in a slight pickle over comments made on the show in an episode that aired nearly 6 months ago:

The Top Gear presenter picked up a remark from an audience that a certain car was “gay”, the presenter then backed it up by saying, “a bit gay, yes very ginger beer” which is cockney rhyming slang for queer.

This is stupid. Firstly, on the show, Jeremy asks a member of the audience (who incidently looks like Jesus, and Jeremy made more comments to do with him looking like Jesus than anything else) what he thinks of a particular car. The audience member says “it’s gay.” Jeremy then repeats what the audience member said, rather than backing it up: “It’s gay? It’s a bit… ginger beer.” Anybody who has watched the episode in question wouldn’t seriously be able to argue that what Jeremy said was saying anything against gays.

Secondly, who cares if two or three gays were offended that a particular car be branded “gay”. It’s not really any different in principle to a V8 muscle car being branded a “manly car”, or small hatchbacks being branded “girls cars”. This is political correctness going mad, and yet another example of people being silenced because somebody, somewhere, at some time might take offence. It’s ridiculous.

Thirdly, the car in question was a Daihatsu Copen, and they are, with no shadow of a doubt, totally gay.

Hanging around

So anyway, Saddam Hussein may be hanged within days. But it’s all shrouded in confusion and secrecy.

Either way, the world is better off without him.

As an added bonus, if you keep an eye on the ABC and SBS over the coming days, you will see more and more lefty bleating about this event.

UPDATE: Saddam to be hanged today. Sources say it’s about 2pm Sydney time which is… Right now. So long, Saddam!

UPDATE II: Sky News is reporting witnesses have been called to the site where Saddam is to be hanged. Looks like it’s go.

UPDATE III: On cable TV, Fox News is cheering the hanging of Saddam. BBC World is bagging out the Iraqi Government, the US-led invasion and essentially anything else. Still, no more Saddam.

UPDATE IV: Big Iraqi populations in Detroit, Michigan are out celebrating the execution of Saddam. Meanwhile, according to Sky News, reports are beginning to emerge that Saddam has in fact been executed in the last few minutes.

UPDATE V: Fox News is relaying reports from Al Arabiya that Saddam was indeed executed at 6am Iraqi time (2pm Sydney time).

I believe this is a positive step for the Iraqi people. There will be the usual bleating from the usual suspects, however for all those Iraqis affected by Saddam’s regime, this will come as a form of closure.

Now that Saddam’s gone, we can get on with the business of getting Iraq back on track.

Uh oh

My younger brother and a friend of his present a radio show on the local community radio station. They are given free reign to say what they want and play whatever music they want.

Yesterday afternoon, I was invited (or, to be more specific, told) by my younger brother that I’d be joining him for the hour-long radio show. So I did.

I managed to record the show in its entirety, and I’m currently working on turning it into an mp3. Obviously due to numerous copyright infringements I will need to remove the songs we played, however we did talk an obscene amount of rubbish on air.

As soon as I’m able to post the show online, I’ll provide a link on this post so stay tuned… As it were.

Road carnage

In the last few months, the media has been up in arms about the “disgraceful” amount of people being killed on Australian roads. And I agree — it is a disgraceful amount.

As of this morning, the holiday toll stands at 23. Of these, P-Plate drivers — or holders of a Provisional licence — play a significant part.

People are demanding action from relevent State Governments to ensure people don’t die on our roads.

With all this in mind, let’s have a quick look at how a lot of these people are being killed. From the first article linked to above:

A P-plate driver, 24, died on Christmas Eve when his out-of-control car rolled several times before slamming roof first into a traffic light at Casula in Sydney’s southwest at 9.15pm.

Two 10-year-old boys who were riding their bikes along the side of the Hume Highway told yesterday of their narrow escape in the crash.

“The lights went red, he was speeding, he put the breaks on, he spun backwards and he flipped and hit the pole,” Neasen Roach said yesterday.

Despite AAP failing to spell “brakes” correctly, it would appear this accident — while undeniably tragic — happened mostly as a result of driver error (or dare I say idiocy). From the same article:

Hours earlier a 17-year-old P-plate driver died instantly when his Ford Falcon hit a pole after skidding in the rain on a notorious bend on Slopes Rd, North Richmond.

Again, tragic and unnecessary, and there isn’t much there to suggest if speed or driver error was a factor in this one. However, ruling out any kind of mechanical failure, a majority of crashes like this tend to happen as a result of the driver not driving to the conditions of the road. It’s a bit more difficult to lay blame on the driver for this one, but the point remains that you can’t really do much about the weather conditions apart from simply drive to them.

Now we need to look at some other kinds of stupid behaviour. From the SMH article linked to above:

In Newcastle on Christmas Eve, police allege, a 21-year-old P-plate driver tried to avoid a random breath test by reversing away. When she was stopped she returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.15, and her licence was suspended on the spot.

What an idiot. Yet it is happening too often:

An L-plate driver has been charged with drink driving after a car almost plunged over a cliff on Sydney’s northern beaches.

A recurring theme in tragic holiday road accidents is that it usually involves somebody being an idiot. Most road accidents are caused by somebody being irresponsible or simply negligent.

Yet there are scores of people who keep calling for State Governments to do something to “fix” the problem of people being killed on the road. Short of sticking large run-off areas, crash barriers and sand traps to the side of every road, there isn’t much a government can do that would significantly reduce the road toll. Instead, they opt for lower speed limits, more speed cameras and a higher police presence on the road.

This only serves to infuriate motorists more.

Making sure young drivers spend more time on their Learner’s licence (or Provisional licence for that matter) will not stop young people from being stupid on the road. Likewise, sticking a speed limit of 90 on a freeway-grade road will not do much to stop people killing themselves. If people want to do 160 km/h along a freeway, regardless what the speed limit is, they will do it. This is the problem every government faces — you simply cannot legislate against stupidity.

Another issue that this leads on to is that we have State Governments who are convinced they can fix the problem of people dying on the road. Victoria and New South Wales are soon going to have young drivers on Learner’s licences for two years, and on my drive to the Mid North Coast of NSW from Brisbane a few days ago, there were a few more fixed speed cameras than I remember seeing. Yet with all of this in action, we have a road toll that keeps getting worse?

There is only so much a Government can do. Imposing restrictions and conditions on drivers will do nothing but infuriate all law-abiding motorists. If Governments are serious about cutting the road toll, they should be putting every cent they make from speed cameras, registration fees and fuel excise to building higher grade roads. Idiots will always be idiots, but if road infrastructure is built to a grade where the chances of running into a tree or down a ditch is lessened, there is a good chance that less lives will be lost on our roads.

It’s warming up… apparently

A lovely Christmas was had by all. At my place we enjoyed everything from duck to lobster, beautiful salads, quiches and other assorted goodies. Oh, and some truly excellent wine from some local wineries.

With my family on the NSW Mid North Coast, our thermometer didn’t go above about 23 or 24 degrees today. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Australia, it was much colder. Clearly global warming at work.

Still, due to the low temperatures, I felt that it was in order to do something to help warm up my immediate surroundings. I thought about it for a little while, before coming to the conclusion that I’d do best to get into something that would not only warm things up a bit by burning more fossil fuels than necessary, but also annoy others whilst doing it. The weapon of choice? An American SUV.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Temperatures didn’t rise and the world didn’t end. Wrong again, envirotards!

Alive again

So I’m back. From the creator of the original Marty’s Insight comes more of my insight.

I lost interest in blogging for a while there. A number of reasons caused that, mostly increasing personal commitments and also having a job that, while not particularly hard nor demanding, still managed to cause a great deal of stress.

I’ll warn you all in advance that posts here may be somewhat irregular, but I’ll be covering a much larger range of topics than I have previously. There’ll be the usual sprays against lefties and my general views on all things political, mainly things happening in Australia. There’ll also probably be a great deal more motoring-related stuff on here, because I’m a sucker for cars (particularly the Aston DB9). Other stuff will also be here too.

I’ll try to keep personal stuff away. That can get messy and embarrassing. Then again, I don’t really lead much of a life, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be posting about many personal issues. Unless it involves a piss-up and lots of incriminating photos of others.

So anyway, posts will spurt forth at random intervals. If you enjoyed any other blogs I’ve operated in the past (don’t worry — I won’t hold it against you), add this to your bookmarks and let the fun begin.

UPDATE: If, for whatever reason, you’re wondering why there was an unexplained absence throughout pretty much all of 2007, read this post and all will be explained.