John Cleese On Terrorism

There's nothing funny about terrorism, and unfortunately in our life time we have seen the worst terrorist attack in history (September 11) and the biggest terrorist attack involving Australians (the Bali bombings) but comedians make comical observations on life, including terror threats.

Below is John Cleese's take on Europe's handling of terrorism - with Australia thrown in for good measure (we are part of the colonies after all). I'm a huge Monty Python fan (I'm  a proud owner of a "I'm not dead yet." t-shirt - thanks Katie) and when this was sent to me via email I had to share it. Whether you like Monty Python or not, John Cleese's take on how countries deal with drama is amusing.

Here it is:

ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2011:

BY JOHN CLEESE
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved.." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is canceled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

-- John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person

Odd Spot - The Age

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio is using artificial plaster eggs to fool its mother flamingoes so they don't wear themselves out laying replacement eggs when keepers take them away to be incubated.

*As published on the front page of The Age newspaper 16/07/11

Quote Of The Day

"There are three kinds of people in the world, the wills, the won'ts and the can'ts. The first accomplish everything; the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything."


-Eclectic Magazine

DEBATE: Should Australia Have A Carbon Tax?

Carbon Tax; two words that separate, don't really mean much, but together mean a lot to the Australian people and thanks the the Gillard governments announcement of the carbon tax price ($23 per tonne) on Sunday, those two words of Carbon Tax aren't going away anytime soon. The Gillard Government announced that from July 1st 2012, the Carbon Tax will take place. Here, writers Emma Gardiner - Deans and Stephen Davies debate the reasons why you should and shouldn't vote for the carbon tax.

AFFIRMATIVE: Emma Gardiner - Deans

Carbon dating: Why you should fall in love with the new carbon tax


I’m embarrassed to admit that I had to Google ‘Carbon tax’.

It’s not that I don’t care or am completely ignorant; it’s just that it’s quite complicated.
Trading schemes and caps aside, the upshot is that the carbon tax penalises polluters. Most companies only feel pain in their bottom lines so it makes sense to incentivise them where it hurts.

This scheme places the Australian government at the vanguard of revolutionary policy; a welcome change considering how thoroughly backward it’s been in the past (see: indigenous rights).
The Labor government has made some brave moves over the past three years – laptops in primary schools, maternity leave provisions, saying sorry at long last – and this is one more step in the right direction. Now, to get the mining tax across the line … but I digress.

This is not greenie-wishy-washiness. This is a tax based on the scientific facts surrounding global warming and dwindling fossil fuel reserves. It’s not about environmentalism; it’s about inventory management, which is a relief considering that lightweight environmentalism is fundamentally flawed. Many so-called ‘environmentalists’ fill their trolleys with organic food packaged in plastic, shove it all in a green bag and then drive home in their petrol-fuelled cars.

It’s fashionable to pretend you care but it’s an entirely different proposition when caring becomes a fiscal decision.

The carbon tax will increase the price of all sorts of things; basically anything that requires fossil fuels to make, transport or power. No one will be able to weasel their way out of paying the $26 tax per tonne of carbon dioxide. And you know what? You want to pollute? You should be made accountable.

In the same way you have to pay rates for rubbish collection, water, roads and other civic necessities, you should have to pay for infringements on air and water quality.
Imagine a world where there are safe bike paths, an abundance of solar, wind and water powered energy sources and the air and water is clean.

Contrast this with a world where the roads are strangled with traffic, power comes from coal or oil and the air and water are increasingly polluted.

Hang on; that’s the way things are now.

Go ahead. Tax me. I want the government to increase the pressure on me – and everyone else – who is too lazy, complacent or indifferent to make the necessary improvements to their habits.

Emma is the Founder and Creative Communications Director of Blossom Media.
She is communications specialist with over 10 years of media experience. She has a BA Communications from the University of Newcastle and started her career as a radio producer with ABC Newcastle, later moving to Sydney to become a print journalist on both consumer and trade titles. She has spent the past seven years working in consumer PR. Today Emma is the part-time PR Manager at Unique Tourism Collection and freelances for Toga Hospitality. She project manages Daily Addict xChange, a weekly women’s networking event created in partnership with Merivale and is a regular contributor to DailyAddict.com.au. She is the Founder and Publisher of SheGoes.com.au, a travel blog for adventurous people.


NEGATIVE: Stephen Davies

At school I did work experience at a vet. This usually involved holding things and mucking out cages. But sometimes I'd get the dreaded call to help comfort a dog while it was euthanised. The sight of someone's best friend, left behind to shuffle off alone, terrified, is horrible. My job was to pat and talk to the dog so they wouldn't be scared during the injection, and while they faded away. It haunts me today. I still remember the sad, resigned looks in their eyes.

I know that look, and I see it every time I look at Julia Gillard. How high were the hopes when she ousted Kevin Rudd, and how low the polls a year on. There are many reasons for this, but one that hangs around her like an albatross - the carbon price.

Australia needs action on climate change. It's right the government has adopted Ross Garnaut's suggestions (partly) to price carbon despite saying they wouldn't (in completely different circumstances than the current minority government) and Kevin Rudd ‘walking away’ from the ETS (he didn’t really).

Why, then, could anyone be against it? When it was announced, there was much hysteria from people who only a year earlier sent Rudd's approval rating plummeting for 'shelving' the ETS. The public is fickle. They don't care that the carbon price (it's not really a 'tax') is the first step toward that ETS.

The public would rather listen to Tony Abbott, an atavistic DLP-throwback whose entire platform as an alternative government rests on opposing, sniping at and (impossibly) promising to repeal a carbon price.

Abbott has been travelling the country, promising that it will drive up the cost of everything from sunshine to babies' smiles, destroy industry and end civilisation. While government support erodes, we have no similar scrutiny of his policy - throwing money at big polluters. This will actually cost 'battlers' much more.

We should oppose the carbon price to upset Abbott. Anyone who has read 'Battlelines' will know he isn't quite the idiot he seems. But he'll do anything and say anything to get into power. By focusing on an unpopular policy, one he doesn't even have details of, he's going to coast into the Lodge. By shelving this sensible policy we'd be cutting down on one of Australia's main sources of noxious emissions - the lies about it coming from our ascendant opposition leader.

Stephen Davis is an editor and writer based in Melbourne. You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter at @stephendevice



If you would like to contribute to a debate, please contact Clare at g_o_a_s@hotmail.com or send her a message via Twitter

What's The Rush?

My name is Clare, and I am a Nanna stuck in a 27-year-olds body. I am reminded of this fact on a daily basis, mostly by those that are the same age as me and younger and sometimes by those that are older than me. I've never been a clubber, a dance every now and then is great but I've always preferred a quiet drink and chat at the pub verses a screaming match on a dance floor. (you know when someone yells so loud in your ear that it reverberates and tickles? No thanks) but I'm wondering if I'm the last old soul on the planet with some form of politeness and common decency.

I used to be one of those people who would call a friend whilst food shopping and although I acknowledged and thanked the checkout person I continued to have my conversation while they served me. I didn't think anything of it till I heard some people talk about it one day saying how rude it was and it got me thinking. It was rude of me. I was basically telling the checkout person: your not worth my attention, my conversation is far more important then you. From that day on I stopped. On the flipside, I find it very rude when the checkout people hold a conversation with a work colleague (or annoying friends not working and standing on the side) and not paying attention to what they're doing or me. Perhaps they've had so many people not paying attention to them that they need to speak to someone.

I am, in many ways a Nanna, but in many others a Gen-Yer. I have grown accustomed to fast internet (I'm no longer used to watching a green bar load at the bottom of my page and if it dares to take longer then 3 seconds to load I glare and curse the day it was created) but I still say please and thank you. If I find I have a spare minute while waiting for something I whip out my iphone and check emails, Twitter, or if I have gone over my internet threshold, play PacMan or Angry Birds. But if someone sneezes I say bless you and hold doors open for people. Not because I'm paving a road to Heaven (although that would be nice thank you, much nicer than the alternative) but because it's courteous and how is holding a door open for someone going to hold me up?

I ask you dear readers, when did it become acceptable to answer your mobile while on the phone to somebody else? This has happened to me many times at work when I will be half way through a conversation and their mobile will begin to ring and I get "Oh, I have to get this, you don't mind waiting?" Sometimes I don't even get that. Why is your time less important then mine? Where are your manners? Why would you start another conversation before you have finished the first one?!

I fear that technology is making us lazy and rude. What's the rush? Recently, my partner was in a fast food chain and watched in amazement as people fumed, waiting for their food. It's called fast food for a reason and yet  these people couldn't even wait that long! All three lanes on a freeway are now a Grand Prix racetrack. Road rage is at an all time high. Have you noticed how hardly anyone acknowledges you anymore when you let them into your lane? It's as if it was their right you let them rather then you not being in a rush and being nice and letting them in. Doctors have noticed that we as humans have a severely diminished attention span compared to 20 years ago. Technology is doing all the thinking for us. People joke about cars that will drive for us, but don't joke, they'll probably be released in your life time.

A few months ago I got stared down by a P-platers passenger because the P-plater couldn't merge into my lane when he wanted too. He then proceeded to cut me off and I got the stare down from his passenger. As much as I wanted to give the little so and so the one finger salute, my Nanna gene kicked in and I took the moral high ground and ignored him (have you noticed how road rage incidents have gone up?) We no longer take the time to smell the roses and chill. out.

I like tea, manners, good customer service, 80s pop music and I sometimes cut dates with my partner short because I want to get back to my book, but does that make me a nanna? Or a relic from the dark ages? Or a member of the last generation that remembers what life was like before internet, iphones, GPS, DVDs and when you got slapped for being insolent?

Stepping off soapbox and handing my megaphone to you, what do you all think?

Quote Of The Day

"You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."

-Annie Dillard

Odd Spot - The Age

Three robbers in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, made off with plenty of dough but no cash. The knife and hatchet-wielding trio were nabbed on video holding up a Dunkin Donuts shop. They demanded staff hand over a bag they believed was full of cash. They fled to find it full of doughnuts.

*As published on the front page of The Age newspaper 13/06/11

Quote Of The Day

"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

-JFK

Odd Spot - The Age

Japanese inventors have created fluffy cat's ears for humans that read their brainwaves. The cute-meets-high-tech headwear detects when the wearer is concentrating and the ears perk up like an alert feline. When they relax the ears lay flat against the head.

*As published on the front page of The Age newspaper 10/06/11

Quote Of The Day

"Friendship isn't about who you have known the longest. It's about those who came and never left your side."

-Anon

Odd Spot - The Age

Kansas City police, responding to a rare alligator sighting, acted quickly and shot it in the head as instructed, while it lurked in weeds near a pond. It wasn't until a second shot bounced off its head that they realised they had mortally wounded a concrete lawn ornament.

*As published on the front page of The Age newspaper 06/06/11

Quote Of The Day

"The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."

-Anon

Hangover II Boycott

The name Scott McLean may not mean anything to you, what with the names Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper screaming from the poster, but to those in the stunt world Aussie McLean is well known and chances are you have seen him but not realised it. McLean has done stunts in several blockbusters such as The Matrix, Superman and the Star Wars franchise and most of the stunts in the Hangover II.

In the trailer for the much anticipated sequel, a car chase is shown where one of the characters (Ed Helms) has his head out the car window. Helms head wasn't actually out the window but rather McLean, Helms stuntman was. The shot was perfect and used in the film, but what most of the world won't know is what happened next. A split second after that shot, the car McLean was in didn't serve in time and McLean's head slammed into the side of a truck, leaving him with a severe brain injury that is likely to never see him work as a stuntman again.

When I read this in last Sunday's Age, I was sickened at the thought and felt for McLean's family. Imagine having to watch the accident that left your brother, partner, work colleague learning to walk and talk again. McLean did a good job of the stunt (this is obvious as the shot was used in the film) but the inclusion of the footage has left McLean's family justifiably angry. "To have that scene used in the preview is a real kick in the face to all those who know Scott. It is sickening to watch as we all know what happened next, " McLean's sister-in-law Michelle told The Age.

Warner Brother's flew McLean's family to Bangkok after the incident and have paid his medical bills thus far, but the real test will be when McLean leaves the rehabilitation centre he is in and the future. I know serious injury it is a risk that all stuntmen and women take every day they step onto the set and they know what they're getting themselves into. However, it makes me think, how many shots are used in films where people have been seriously hurt that we don't know about? Is this just a normal Hollywood procedure that we've only been made aware of because this time it was an Aussie that got hurt?

I, like many Aussies (opening weekend the film made $513.525) was looking forward to the sequel and my Bradley Cooper fix, but in protest and more that I no longer want to see a film that thinks it's OK to use a scene where a man was seriously injured, will not see The Hangover II. This is very much a soapbox post and I don't expect you all to follow, but I felt that you needed to be made aware that while the Hollywood cast walk and talk on the red carpet, a man lies in Sydney learning how to walk and talk again.

Odd Spot - The Age

Cartoon beauty Jessica Rabbit has been named the top screen siren - ahead of real-life stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. The red-haird vamp topped a poll by website Lovefilm to mark what would have been Marilyn Monroe's 85th birthday.

*As published on the front page of The Age newspaper

Victorian Potty-Mouths Beware

When you go out tomorrow night, or Saturday night, or any time you step out of your house, watch your Ps and Qs because the Victorian Government has just introduced new laws that will see the police being able to fine you on the spot for swearing.

Swearing has been a punishable offence in Victoria since 1966 but the new laws introduced by the Baillieu government in an initiative to curb violence on Melbourne's streets, could find you $240 out of pocket. Fines will be slapped on if swearing is deemed indecent, disorderly, offensive or threatening and it doesn't even have to have been overheard for a fine to occur. (Not 100% sure how that last one works)

The Baillieu Government and the Victorian Police are hoping that the fines will deter people from swearing which is usually accompanied with aggressive behaviour. Attorney-General Robert Clarke told The Age that the reasoning behind the new incentives was to free up police workloads and keep things out of the courts. He said: "It frees up police time for other law enforcement activities and enables them to more readily issue penalties against those offenders who deserve them."

To me this is a band aid tactic by the Baillieu Government when their time and energy could be better spent. Despite the fact that swearing has been a criminal act since '66, I don't think this is something that people should be fined for. The Victorian Government is going to have a very big swear jar. I agree that aggressive behaviour should be punishable, but who decides when swearing at someone has gone too far? When the f word is followed by a punch? Or when you trip and say oh shit?

Your thoughts?