An old friend has just informed me that the most toxic fart he’s ever experienced was produced by a combination of Guinness and Twisties. I thought you should know.
Consonant-laden über-geek
Apparently my degrading media designation is “consonant laden über-geek”. At least that’s how Crikey bylined me on today’s article. Personally I’d have used another hyphen.
Bisexual snail orgy
I was shocked. Early this morning every single agapanthus plant in our back yard was covered in snails. They’d climbed up onto the leaves — and they were having sex.
Hundreds and hundreds of snails engaged in a filthy hermaphroditic bisexual snail orgy!
I raced inside to get a camera. I couldn’t find The Good Camera quickly enough, so I grabbed my phone.
But the forecast is for a 34C maximum today — in October! The sun was rising, and so was the temperature. The snails were retreating.
I only had time to grab a quick, blurry image of this pair (pictured), going their separate ways after a morning of debauchery. Sluts.
Now about this spaceport…
I’ve been researching Australia’s contribution to the Space Age for an article to be published in Crikey today. Part of that narrative seems to be the continual announcements of plans for a Spaceport which never come to anything.
- June 1989: The Cape York Space Agency announces that launches from its Temple Bay facility will commence in 1992.
- Sept 1997: International Resources Corp announces it’ll break ground on its spaceport near Weipa in October.
- June 2001: Science Minister Nick Minchin announces a $52M government contribution to a spaceport on Christmas Island to target the Asian satellite launch market. The first launch is expected in 2003.
And those three are just a taste! When will this spaceport actually happen?
50 years old tomorrow, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik 1. Australia’s current role in space is a set of commemorative postage stamps. Wow.
Oops, that should have been “miserable toad”
One of the choices in this week’s poll is “slimy toad”. Of course that should have been “miserable toad”, as this commentary on Kim Beazley‘s farewell speech to parliament indicates.
You might have thought the Prime Minister could have made the effort to be there for his adversary of 27 years standing, but he did not. John Howard remains a miserable toad. The rest of the Howard ministry took their cue and also absented themselves — Robb and Nelson the exceptions. And know also that when Beazley finished speaking and sat down, and those in the public gallery got to their feet to join the applause of Beazley’s Labor colleagues and most of us in the press gallery, Andrew Robb and three of the Liberal backbenchers applauded, too.
Brendan Nelson did not.
I always liked Kim Beazley — which, you should note, is not the same thing as saying he’d make a good Prime Minister. He was a strategic thinker and a good orator, both skills lacking in modern politics.
I meant to say it at the time: the articles by Alan Ramsey (which I just quoted) and Annabel Crabb are well worth reading — if for nothing else than the historical snippets Beazley dropped.
Weekly Poll: Australia’s new national animal
While writing about the Citizenship Test, I realised they’d forgotten to ask an important question about our national symbols. See if you know the answer. If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, go to the website to vote.
[poll id=”11″]
Last week’s results: Sadly for the Snarky Platypus, “I really want to see a remake of Flashdance” received only one vote. The clear winner was “A bit more to the left, and with a bit more velocity.”
Did anyone understand that poll?