I think he did it deliberately. Watch the video and see for yourself.

Also, Australians are a bunch of wankers with an inflated sense of entitlement.

We are the richest people in the world. And, as Possum of Possum’s Pollytics explained in Crikey last Thursday, we lead the world in everything from decent minimum wages to economic growth over the past decade. Read that article. Please. And while you’re at it, see where you sit on the Global Rich List.

We also hear about the world’s most impatient meth dealer.

You can listen below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

[Update 16 December 2011: My comments about Senator Conroy's f-bomb have sparked some interest. If you're after that bit, it starts exactly 11 minutes into the program.]

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

Australia’s smartest meth dealer found in Leichhardt. ABC chairman Maurice Newman branches out into staff supervision. And Sydney property developers whine because, well, they just didn’t automatically get everything their own way.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, no more than 20 minutes late, is episode 5 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.

You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

For more information on what I discussed today, try the NSW police media releases about Sunday’s explosion and Monday’s arrest, the Urban Taskforce media release and the ABC’s story on same, this Sydney Morning Herald story on various NSW Labor connections, Kristina Keneally’s Wikipedia entry, my post on Maurice Newman’s speech and the PM report on same, and Marcus Westbury’s column for The Age.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

When I went to Thailand last year, Thai Airways International was generally excellent — except for their choice of in-flight movies. Sorry, but even after a couple glasses of wine and several brandies High School Musical is a piece of shit.

I’d originally guessed that it was only screened because it somehow matched the Thai sense of sentimentality. But no. I soon discovered it was such a success — it even won an Emmy! — that Disney made a sequel with the imaginative title High School Musical 2.

I was really, really hoping that was going to be the end of the story. But no (again). Touring Australia in April and May is… High School Musical: The Ice Tour.

Sadly, this show doesn’t involve the dentally-perfect racially-balanced lead characters in some meth-fuelled rampage but… yes… ice skates. Somebody get me a bucket.

This isn’t original. Meg Tsiamis was there first. As she observed, people find one’s website through some astounding searches.

I’ve mentioned before that the most common search bringing people here is “steve irwin jokes” — something I find quite depressing. The Top 10 includes such gems as “gerbil sex”, “royal gay sex”, “glory hole” and “bestiality”. Classy eh?

But scroll down the list’s long tail, through 580 different keyphrases so far this month alone, and you’ll find actual questions. Here, then, are some of the answers. If you can expand upon them, please do!

how to sex a gerbil

Assuming [crosses fingers] you mean “How do I tell whether I need to dress my baby gerbil in blue or pink?”, I suggest you flip it over and look for genitals. If you arouse the gerbil first, this may be easier — though possibly illegal.

who is banksy

He’s the guy who created this street art. That post also has links to his official website and plenty of his work. Enjoy.

what meth looks like

Crystal methamphetamine usually comes in small, clear crystals, though it can be ground up into a white powder to hide the fact it’s been bulked out with something to increase profits. In other words, it looks exactly like 95% of the chemicals on the planet.

can macs get malware?

Yes, Macs can get malware. However at this time there’s far less malware for Macs than for Windows. This will doubtless change as Macs increase their market share.

how gerbils detect adrenaline in someone

By sniffing. Gerbils have a better sense of smell humans, and they can smell the adrenalin given off when we (or other animals) are stressed. Apparently it helps to train the gerbil and put it in a special apparatus.

who goes to hillsong

All sorts of people, including singer Pinky Beecroft and a teenage lesbian. Especially people who are “looking for something meaningful in their life” and will be easily parted from 10% of their money. I don’t know whether they take gerbils along, or even if they’re permitted.

why and how did john winston howard go into politics?

Why? Oh if only we knew, and had a time machine! How? The standard path through the high school debating team, university law school and the Young Liberals. Plus a lot of persistence. John Winston Howard is nothing if not hard-working and persistent.

However a more interesting question this week might be what he’ll do after he leaves politics — something which could happen quite soon. Any suggestions?

how to conduct a political poll

It depends whether you want to find out what people are actually thinking, or whether you want to gather “evidence” to support a specific argument.

If you’re after the truth, you’ll need to carefully word the questions so they don’t introduce bias, and carefully select your sample so that it’s representative — or engage in complicated statistical trickery to re-bias the sample afterwards. You’ll also need to interview around 1200 or more people so you can be 95% sure the answer is correct to plus or minus 2 percentage points. It’s best to hire a specialist to do all this, and it’s expensive.

If you want to support your theory, however, just ask a dozen people who you think will give you the answer you want. You’re bound to get enough right answers, and it’s a lot cheaper.

is abercrombie still relevant

No, probably not. Especially if you mean the American politician rather than the clothing brand. Then again, I’m hardly an expert.

how many people sing in the pussycat dolls band

That’s a trick question, right?

how many bad people does the citizenship test stop

None. It only stops people too stupid to learn the answers from the book they provide, or too poor to buy the answers on the black market.

is it ok to look at porn on the internet

Sure. Go for it. That’s why it was invented. Just be sure to clean up afterwards.

i want to see the sex kitten

That’s more of a statement than a question, but I can understand your desires. Here’s the neo-con sex kitten in all her glory.

According to the ABS media release:

• Harm from alcohol causes 5.5% of the burden of disease for males and 2.2% for females.
• The increase in those drinking at a risky/high risk level since 1995 has been greater for women than men. The proportion of females who drank at a risky/high risk level increased from 6.2% to 11.7%, while for males the increase was from 10.3% to 15.2%.

That is, the problem is bad and it’s getting worse. And as we already know:

• Alcohol is the second largest cause of drug-related deaths and hospitalisations (after tobacco).
• Alcohol is the main cause of deaths on Australian roads. In 1998, over 2,000 deaths of the total 7,000 deaths of persons under 65 years, were related to alcohol.

The figures go on and on… and so does the hypocrisy.

As I’ve posted before, less than half a percent of the population using methamphetamines (“ice” or “crystal meth”) has caused a moral panic, including a tabloid-screeching edition of Four Corners. But the “alcohol problem” is, in raw numerical terms, more than 120 times bigger. 9.5 million Australian enjoy a drink in a typical week, compared with a supposed 73,000 using ice.

Literally thousands of Australian die every year directly as a result of alcohol. And yet we still use it to bless marriages, launch ships and (if Christian) celebrate communion with God. The government not only condones selling alcohol, it actually gives the industry millions of dollars in tax relief. We even promote wine tourism!

What I don’t understand is why two drugs of similar harm levels are treated so very differently. One attracts millions of dollars in government assistance, the other costs us millions of dollars in policing. What is the difference?

Tomorrow night at 8.30pm The Cutting Edge, which usually runs imported current affairs material, tackles the same issue. While the title “The Meth Epidemic” pre-supposes it is an epidemic — what is the medical definition anyway? — the review in this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald gives hope.

The review doesn’t seem to be available online, so here’s some choice quotes:

A disturbing, captivating examination of the “meth rampage” in North America, where the impact of methamphetamine — also known as crystal meth, glass or ice — has been devastating. This is a powerful piece of television…

The program provides little in the way of a solution, though a legislative push for controls on the supply of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, both essential ingredients in the making of the drug, signal a promising upturn in the crisis. Unspun, and without the kind of melodrama that dampens the impact of most community-service material, this is unmissable.

Probably perfect viewing in the lead-up to Australia vs Italy in The World Cup! Sorry, wrong date. I mean for the comedown afterwards.

“The Ice Age was ‘the usual deal’,” he says, showing the extreme cases and linking it with heroin. It left his questions unanswered.

I was really hoping for an investigation of the weekend recreational culture, which so many people seem to be able to sustain…

I don’t know many that can afford 3 grams a day…

Well, no, given that 3 grams would cost about $2000. [OK, that's retail, but even as a low-end dealer buying wholesale that's still a very expensive habit.]

If there are 73,000 addicts as claimed, a lot caused by no heroin, how many recreational users are there? What is the damage? How do people juggle it and what [do you] do if you’re falling?

Predictable Response

The ABC program guestbook is mostly predictable.

There’s the usual bleating from the talkback radio herd who can’t stand their hard-earned tax dollars supporting these blah blah blah kill them like Singapore why when I was a lad my dad used to whack sense into me by golly jingo. Yeah, them.

There’s the usual stream of “shocked” and “horrified” townsfolk, for whom the freak show achieved its shock-horror aim.

But occasionally, though, there is clarity.

Linthi: There is an underbelly of society that exists to which we only pay cursory attention. If these advanced addicts were offered a choice of immediately going clean or a lifetime supply of Ice, I know which they would choose. As mad as it sounds, some people like this life, it’s a culture in which they are comfortable.

This “underbelly” has always been with us, of course, and always will be. There will never be a Utopia. Some will never fit in — because they’ve slipped and fallen, or were pushed, or were defective or were damaged.

Drug Porn Exploitation

Barbara Farrelly was “disturbed” by the program’s approach.

Barbara Farrelly: struck me that you offered no hope to addicts. The rooms of Narcotics Anonymous are full of people who have overcome addictions.

I feel you also exploited people who could hardly give informed consent to being exposed in their degradation. They seemed happy enough to clown for the cameras on their highway to hell. Touting this as “rare footage” is ingenuous. Taking pictures of these guys was like taking candy from a baby…

I felt like I’d been subject to drug porn…

And while you are talking up ice as a major problem, it is estimated that every year 70,000 Australians die as a result of alcohol abuse and a further 20,000 from the effect of smoking.

You failed to present both sides of the story: Addiction isn’t pretty but recovery is beautiful.

Billing the program as showing us how the drug is affecting Australian society, but only showing those enduring the worst addictions, is like promising us a documentary on the wine industry and only talking to sherry-soaked derelicts. For shame.

That said, the special broadband edition of the program has an excellent timeline documenting the drug’s heritage and what apppear to be longer versions of the interviews. Why wait until the repeat?