And in the news today...*

1.
An insane murderer is allowed to drive a taxi in Melbourne.

The Public Transport Minister, Lynne Kosky, says she can not guarantee a man who stabbed his wife to death can be prevented from driving taxis in Melbourne. The man was acquitted of murder on the grounds of insanity.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal recently granted him a taxi licence against the advice of the Director of Public Transport.

Ms Kosky is vowing to change the law to prevent similar cases. "Now it will be mandatory refusal for anyone who has either a conviction, or if they're found not guilty by reason of insanity, so that will be now included in the legislation."

Gosh. Now isn't that a good idea.

But Ms Kosky says her options are limited in the current matter. "As a result of this decision we are fixing the legislation going forward," she said. "We will look at every avenue of appeal so that I can actually fix that difficulty, so that everybody can feel safe when they hop in a cab. That's what I want to be able to guarantee."

Yes. Please do 'fix that difficulty'.

(Note: On my list of things to do in the next couple of months is:
a) fly Qantas
b) ...to Melbourne)


2.
Now, staying in Victoria but leaving the shoddy decision-making skills of the The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for the abysmal decisions the Migration Review Tribunal, we find that the country doctor with the Down Syndrome son - who "is the only internal medicine specialist servicing 20,000 people in Horsham" and the community is desperate for him to stay and who pays for the extra costs of his son's care - is still going to be kicked out of Australia.

Dr Bernhard Moeller and his family have had their application for residency in Horsham refused because of the costs associated with the care of their son...

Onya Victoria. Your tribunals are doing just fantastic work.

(now it's up to Federal Minister Chris Evans to intervene.)


3.
Most surprising news is the opinion that something in the area of telecommunications will be ruined if Telstra DOES NOT participate.

(The Liberal Party is nuts.)


4.
Lastly, there's news of a US company: Puck Technology.

What do you think they do? Something in the area of R & D concerning hockey pucks? Plastic surgery perhaps? Maybe they develop and manufacture funny little complex digital thingamees that do stuff in other complex electrical thingamees...? Or... sell Whizzinators!

Ah, Whizzinators! you say. Yes. Surely they are some great new kitchen gadget! Perfect for a Christmas present! Or maybe some new high-tech machine I can use in the garden. Or... maybe it's

the Whizzinator penis - a lifelike device used to emit clean, realistically warm urine instead of the user's true urine.

Indeed! The perfect Christmas present for Ben Cousins. It comes with "its own heating and Yellow River urine packs". Although, the president and vice-president of Puck Technology - Gerald and Robert - have just experienced some difficulties of their own.

Two men who sold prosthetic penises enabling drug cheats to give fake urine samples have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the United States, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Puck Technology has stopped operating, the report said.

The thing is (no, not that thing, this thing; don't get distracted), I don't really understand why they were charged with conspiracy. Surely they didn't claim the penises were real...

(Maybe they'll see this as an opportunity to enter the market for jumbo-sized models for men aiming to impress at the urinals. Um. It's perhaps a somewhat small market...)


* I suppose this post heading could have read 'And in the news today... a bunch of dicks.'

Hierocles & Philagrius walk into a bar...

Just when Lad Litter was wondering who to turn to for Obama humour - surely quite a dearth of material after the overwhelming, generosity of Bush (see last post) - it looks as though we just need to look a lot further... back:

Ancient Greeks pre-empted Dead Parrot sketch

"I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it."

For those who believe the ancient Greeks thought of everything first, proof has been found in a 4th century AD joke book featuring an ancestor of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch where a man returns a parrot to a shop, complaining it is dead.

The 1,600-year-old work entitled "Philogelos: The Laugh Addict," one of the world's oldest joke books, features a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, its publisher said Friday.

"By the gods," answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing!"

In a British comedy act Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, first aired in 1969 and regularly voted one of the funniest ever, the pet-shop owner says the parrot, a "Norwegian Blue," is not dead, just "resting" or "pining for the fjords."

The English-language book will appeal to those who swear that the old jokes are the best ones. Many of its 265 gags will seem strikingly familiar, suggesting that sex, dimwits, nagging wives and flatulence have raised laughs for centuries.


In many of the jokes, a slow-witted figure known as the "student dunce" is the butt of the jokes. In one, the student dunce goes to the city and a friend asks him to buy two 15-year-old slaves: No problem,' responds the dunce. If I don't find two 15-year-olds, I'll get one 30-year-old.'

In another, someone asks to borrow the student's cloak to go down to the country. "I have a cloak to go down to your ankle, but I don't have one that reaches to the country," he replies.

The manuscript is attributed to a pair of ancient comedians called Hierocles and Philagrius. Little is known about them except that they were most likely the compilers of the jokes, not the original writers.

Philagrius: So, there's this woman out hunting moose...

Hierocles: Hunting what?

Philagrius: Look, doesn't matter, she's cute.

Hierocles: Oh, ok. Continue.

Philagrius: So she's out with her gun...

Hierocles: Her what?!

Philagrius: Just go with me on this, Hiero. She's got her really big gun out, and from behind a tree steps a former President's intern, and she says, you think that's a big...

Hierocles: Oh, this is the cigar joke again isn't it. *sighs* I wish you'd get some new material Phil.

Useless Information! (Ears, Segues, Segways & Tequila)

1. You can make diamonds from tequila. And they're small and useless. Apparently even more useless than the ones used for jewellery - although, I'm thinking if you could rehydrate them somehow, they'd actually be far superior...


2. From Mexican scientists to sentimental scientists: The little Phoenix bot on Mars has gone nighty-night now due to the lack of solar power and the cold. Of course, brave little thing, it had actually soldiered on - sending info and pictures of snowfall (!) back to Earth - for much longer than expected.

Glen Nagle, a spokesman for the Canberra Deep Space Communication complex said "this little spacecraft" may still survive the cold however, and it has a wee program on board call 'Lazarus mode' which will allow it to call home if it gets enough power. He added:

"I actually find them quite amazing in terms of their resilience, their ability to actually last far longer than we ever expected. And for their human controllers here on Earth, [they are] quite attached to these spacecraft because it just shows sort of tenacity to keep on operating far beyond their lifetime."

Phoenix is already being missed by not just the scientists. The robot's personal Facebook page and blog has been inundated with farewell wishes.

The last message text message sent to 30,000 Phoenix fans via the robot's own Twitter mobile phone account was written in binary and translated to "triumph", with a heart shaped emoticon.

Cause robots have feelings too.





No they don't.



Anyway.


3. There's good news re the global financial crisis (yes, rly!). Well... for some locals of United Arab Emirates at least.

Emiratis have fretted for years over the loss of their culture, as social norms became more a product of the newcomers than of the nationals. Now, some are pinning their desires for a cultural salvation on the global economic downturn, which they hope will reduce the numbers of foreigners pouring into their country and give them a chance to reassert their customs and way of life.

“This is a blessing; we needed it,” Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political science professor at United Arab Emirates University, said of the fiscal crisis. “The city needs to slow down and relax. It’s good for the identity of our country.

A blessing indeed, as it may be the end of such images as this:





4. Obama's election victory, however, is not all good news. Quite depressing to some actually.

"Obama's election is great for our country but bad for comedy," said Michael Musto, a columnist for New York City's Village Voice. "He is an earnest, intelligent person trying to rescue a country in crisis and that's not all that hilarious."

Well, perhaps they could put Bush and Palin in charge of something like NASA or the FDA. Nothing like legally doped up astronauts hooning about the atmosphere to create comedic inspiration.

And hey, they could launch the first moose in space!



Of course, Sarah Palin would just go and shoot it down...


5. More presidential news: Peru has offered a hypo-allergenic dog to the Obamas (their daughter being allergic and all).

Claudia Galvez... director of the Friends of the Peruvian Hairless Dog Association.Galvez has a 4-month-old pedigree puppy to send to the Obama family. For now, she is calling it Ears because it has two large, perky ones.

"But if we send it to the United States, its official name will be Machu Picchu," she said, referring to the ancient Incan citadel, Peru's top tourist attraction.

Sticky-out ears eh?

This is sure to happen (you know the old chestnut, dogs look like owners and all that)!













Awww. They're both adorable if you ask me.

Yes he can... He did... He has... And, hopefully, he will!

Wow. What a day. We've witnessed history... and I can't believe how moved I have been by Barack Obama's election. I wept! It truly feels a momentous occasion in the world's history - and I'm really shocked that I'm finding it to be so dramatic.

It does feel as though change such as the Kennedy's' brought has returned - or, as my mum said, actually a lot bigger (she was in the US in the 60's, and we also lived there when I was a kid).

I found much of his acceptance speech truly moving. A couple of excerpts:

...The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. ...

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores... our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from ... the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

And Obama also mentioned a woman 106 years old who'd voted today. What was so moving here was how the crowd, hundreds of thousands of them, responded with great cries of 'Yes we can!'.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. ...

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time... out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can.

Well, indeed he can. What a speech!

This is an amazing day, and Obama appears to be an amazing man. Let's hope this is indeed the case and he can turn things around for the US and therefore for much of the world. He has a pretty big workload ahead of him! He has to dig the US out of a major hole.
But now, to see an African-American man and his family up on that stage - a black President and First Lady - to see them in that position... to have this actually, finally happen... makes it seem as though much is possible, so hopefully it will continue and that Yes He Can.


(And thanks Penni for the link to some of these photos.)