Reuters Pictures of the Year 2007 collection is well worth a browse.
Most popular posts of 2007
OK, there’s still 2 days to go, but close enough. Here’s a list of the most-read items on this website during 2007.
- More Steve Irwin jokes
- Danger List demonstrates Drug Hypocrisy
- Daylight Saving Chaos
- 33 Days of Wiki Inspiration
- Brain-Dead Businesses
- About Stilgherrian
- Vodafone only half-useful
- Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way)
- The First Tacky Steve Irwin Joke
- Weekly Poll: Who’s the greatest pop band?
I’m disappointed. The continuing interest in stupid Steve Irwin jokes is particularly depressing. There’s only one item in the Top 10 which I’m even vaguely proud of (number 8), and even then that’s a self-indulgent joke.
Numbers 5 and 7 are only there because they catch everyone searching for “Vodaphone”, not realising it’s spelled “Vodafone”. Number 3 is there because Microsoft Entourage has a bug which shows up every time you switch to or from daylight saving, and I posted the actual text of the error message. Lots of people looking for help, but I don’t have the answer.
I’d much prefer to have some of my more thoughtful essays in the list.
Unreliable Bangkok 8: Henge
When the Thai economy was booming in the early 1990s, construction started on a 60km high-speed elevated train and motorway link from central Bangkok to the international airport at Don Mueang. However when the currency collapsed in 1997-98, work was abandoned.
These stained concrete fragments (pictured) are all that remains of the Bangkok Elevated Road and Train System (BERTS) or Hopewell project. They line the old diesel-fuelled railway through northern Bangkok like a modernist Stonehenge.
Weekly Poll: 2007 in Review
Even though there’s still 3 days of 2007 left, I’m way behind the pace. Most media outlets issued their 2007 in Review pieces well before Christmas. That means they missed such “minor” stories as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Oops.
Still, I’m going to risk further irrelevance and ask what, for you, was the biggest event in Australia for 2007. Was it…?
- Kevin Rudd replacing John Howard as PM
- The signing of Kyoto
- The Chaser crashing the APEC security
- Interest rate rises
- Ben Cousins generally
Or something else? Please go to the website to vote, and add further suggestions in the comments.
Previous results: Yes, more people said Christmas was “too much effort” than any other single answer. However “a glorious celebration of Our Saviour’s birth” did score 24% in a late come-back.
[poll id=”16″]
Review: Watching Brief
John Howard, during his time as prime minister, talked a lot about the rule of law. If we are a nation of laws then those laws must, presumably, reflect what we believe about ourselves as a nation. As people. As human beings. As Australians.
Howard, quite correctly, sees a century of the rule of law as one of the great achievements of Australian federation. And yet, under his watch, fundamental legal principles were eroded. Laws made as part of the so-called War on Terror introduced imprisonment without trial, secret evidence, searches without warrant…
With these conflicting thoughts in mind, I opened the pages of Julian Burnside’s book Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice while leaving Australia for the first time.
As dusk fell somewhere over the Timor Sea, I imagined the horror of traversing that ocean below in an over-crowded, leaky refugee boat only to be hauled off to a concentration camp a quarter of the world away. Meanwhile, I ordered another brandy and Mr Burnside provided me with a concise, clearly-written explanation of just why I’d been so angry with the Howard government, and so angry with a weak and ineffectual opposition for allowing it to happen.
What’s wrong with used knickers?
A pair of purple women’s knickers lies discarded in a laneway in Enmore, Sydney. “There you go,” I say. “Give ’em a wash and you’re right!”
“Ewwww!” is the reply. But why? If the knickers are washed, then they’re clean. Can there possibly be anything worse on these “found” knickers that isn’t already in, say, a 3-year-old’s poo-filled pants — which likewise get washed and worn again? In with the rest of your washing, no less!