D C White would like to advise the general public that as of 3pm on Wednesday the 30th of April 2008, pomegranates have officially been added to D C White's list of Things That Can Go Get Fucked.
I don't care about it's status as a superfruit, I'm not interested in it's free-radical scavenging properties, i'm even less concerned about it's advantages as an anti-viral, and I couldn't even care less that it tastes a bit like cherries.
Pomegranates can Go Get Fucked.
I was initially attracted to Freedomnomics because it purported to offer a riposte to Freakonomics, a book I read about 18 months ago. The more I saw of it on Amazon and suchlike convinced me that it would be a bit of a giggle. The author, John Lott Jr. is also the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" and several other right-wing tomes. Here, thought I, would be misinformed comment masquerading as economic analysis.
I could not have been more wrong. Freedomnomics is a plethora of contradictions. At once correct and incorrect, it suffers from the bias of the authors politics.
To use it's full title, "Freedomnomics: Why The Free Market Works and Other Halfbaked Ideas Don't - A Response To Freakonomics" is in it's primary aim successful. It looks at the claims made by Stephen Levitt in 'Freakonomics' and demolishes them in well-thought-out, logical analysis. In essence, it points out where Levitt overlooked several crucial factors, including prior statistical research, in reaching his conclusions.
I get the feeling that if John Lott Jr. had left it at that I would be hailing this book's praises from the rooftops as it is remarkably perceptive. Unfortunately, John Lott Jr. did not leave good enough alone. Not content with tearing the left-leaning Freakonomics to shreds, he then embarks on a journey into right-wing politics, attempting to prove (among other things) that big business is a force for good, that politicians are honest and that the death penalty is an effective deterrent for crime. He makes good cases for these but, as in his own rebuttal of Freakonomics, there are gaps in his logic. In the section on big business he shys away from any investigation of monopoly forces, in his article on crime he never even mentions the effect of insurance reporting on the rise in crime rates, and his piece on politicians simply compares apples and oranges (judges versus politicos).
This is not to say that the entire book is rubbish, because it isn't. The author is obviously quite intelligent but he suffers from the common ailment of academia in that he fails to rigorously test his own hypotheses. This would be merely unfortunate if he wasn't spending half of his book upbraiding another economist for doing the same. In this case, it becomes tedious.
The best I can say about this book is that it's got me back into some serious economic thought after far too long away. Like riding a bike, you never really forget, you just can't be bothered anymore...
Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of Australia, thank you for the opportunity to address the historic conclave that is Australia's 2020 summit.
Upon this occasion delegates such as yourself and myself were invited to table proposals pertinent to improving Australia, in particular the Australian way of life, and the lot of the Australian people. In accepting the honour of making a recommendation I had a very hard look at Australia, it's environs, it's hopes, dreams and its place in the world, so that now I feel I can fully address one of the premier problems confronting Australian society.
Ladies and Gentlemen, why can Australia, as a nation, not find the droids it is looking for?
It is not that Australia's droid-searching apparatus is deficient. It is not that it's personnel are incapable, nor is our equipment faulty. I have thoroughly reviewed all aspects of the recent Tatooine-wide search for droids and cannot find a single report of incompetance.
And yet the evidence is incontrovertible: we failed to find the droids.
There are those in Australian society today, in particular the pundits in the media who doubt that our search was as thorough as it could have been. To those people I say this: if the door is locked, it is imperative that you move on to the next door. This is logical: if the door is locked for you, it would obviously have been locked for the droids you're looking for, and thus they cannot have passed through to the other side.
Additionally there are those who claim that our landspeeder roadblocks were simply staffed by incompetent, weak-minded fools. I have personally interviewed all staff involved and I can assure you that any droids seen WERE NOT the droids we were looking for, that the citizens COULD go about their business, and that the officers acted in full cognizance when telling all traffic to move along.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby charge this task to this august body, comprised as it is of some of the finest thinkers, sportsmen and entertainers in this fair land, please, please help us to find the droids we are looking for, and in doing so let us, as a nation, move on and find some measure, however small, of closure.
Thank you.
Last week a friend of mine complained that he had become a statistic when through no fault of his own he found himself blogging in a coffee shop. Well, I believe I may be able to top that.
Today is Wish Day in honour of the Make A Wish Foundation, and I find myself blogging from my desk at work decked out in complete Confederate Army battle-dress. Only a Private, of course. I will admit that i'm struggling to think of a reason why anyone would actually WISH to be a Confederate, but truth be told it was just an excuse to buy the hat...
...and make disparaging remarks about Yankees.
Good morning everyone, thank you for answering our call in the newspaper for extras today. I realise that some of you have travelled very far to be here today, especially those who took the 5 hour drive up from Adelaide. Don't worry about your cars, we'll have some of the locals park them for you properly later. We weren't really expecting this many, that's all.
Now, first things first: could I have the men on my left and the women on my right please? No, women on the right. WOMEN right, men left.
...
Are there any women here?
...
Alllllrighty. In that case, could I have all the men under 40 on my left, and all the men over 40 on my right?
...
Right then, could I have everyone who bought their own costumes to my left, and everyone who needs to go to wardrobe on my right.
...
Oh for fu..fine. Light side to the left, dark side to the right. What's that? Yes, i'll let props know that you've bought your own lightsaber. No, I don't need to see it now, thank you.
Now that we've sorted that out, there are some rules we need to get through. As you may be aware Lucasfilm is very conscious of security leaks regarding plot and characters. To that end could all of you who have brought your laptops please return them to your cars. Wait, I didn't say everyone return to your cars...oh, it appears that I did.
1. Busy as a blue-arsed fly.
2. All over the shop like a mad woman's knitting.
3. Silly as a hat full of arseholes.
4. Mad as a cut snake.
5. Lonely as a bastard on Fathers Day.
6. Ugly as a bag full of spanners.
You use your lightsaber to take the cap off of a VB.
That "disturbance in the Force" was just last night's baked beans.
The inside of your house looks more like Dagobah than the outside.
You call your young apprentice Fucknuckle.
The Force isn't the only thing that runs in your family.
You call Jimmy Barnes "master".
Your landspeeder has the spoiler off of a late model Commodore.
You have ever used a lightsaber to light your farts.
Your Jedi robe is camouflage colored.
At least one wing of your X-Wing is in undercoat.
You can't see anything wrong with how Yoda talks.
You have ever had your R2 unit use its arc welding torch to open a tough iced coffee carton.
You jump-start your lightsaber off a car battery.
You have ever beaten up Han Solo for lookin' at your sister.
You count B.O. as a Jedi power.
You have a Z-95 Headhunter up on blocks around the front of your house.
If there's a section of society that I just don't 'get', it's amputees. Let's face it, how many times have you heard the phrase 'as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger in a gale', or 'as busy as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest'?
For crying out loud, are they all thick or something? If you've only got one arm *why* are you trying to put up wallpaper at all, let alone when it's quite windy??? I mean, anyone can see that's a recipe for disaster. Ditto the arse-kicking. Someone is going to get hurt and i'd lay odds it's going to be you, Hopalong.
I just don't understand. Is it a cry for help? Is it some macho thing to prove that they're just as capable as normal people? That's just wierd. I'm not saying that if you've lost a limb in some sort of ghastly fashion that you shouldn't be able to pursue the career of your choice but for goodness sake be a bit sensible please. I find the whole concept rather distateful, as a matter of fact.
Right, that's sorted that. Next post: Wealthy, Easily Shocked Socialites Who Choose Laurel and Hardy As Their Piano Removalists.
"Papa."
"Grumpy."
"Um. Sporty."
"Smurfette."
"Sassette."
"Ooh. Brainy."
"Vanity."
One rainy afternoon, Captain Doobie and Goodtime Slim were entertaining themselves by having a contest to see how many smurfs they could name. Goodtime Slim, the last to speak felt (somewhat justifiably) that he had just won, and he waited eagerly for Captain Doobie's reply.
"Chachi."
"Aha!" Goodtime Slim cried, leaping out of his chair and pointing, "got you! Chachi wasn't a smurf."
Captain Doobie looked hurt. "Yes he was."
"No he wasn't. That was Happy Days."
"No," replied Captain Doobie seriously, "they weren't all happy days. Remember that time that Richie lost all his money to Gargamel and Papa Smurf (Tom Bosley) had to go and get it back?"
Faced with this blatant cross-mojonation of pop-culture references Goodtime Slim's head exploded, and he had to have a cup of tea and a lie down.
ELIZABETH: Car maker Holden has today admitted that its entire output since 1948 has been an April Fool's Day joke gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Whichever Seppo is currently the chairman of Holden admitted in a press conference held today that General Motors had originally been contacted by the Chifley government in 1947 to begin work on an April Fools Day prank for the upcoming year. Unfortunately, due to the post-war lack of irony in the Australian economy, lower-echelons of General Motors staff had interpreted the memo calling for local production literally, and while no-one was looking a factory was transplanted from Detroit to produce the last-year's Buick.
"It appears to have been a paperwork error initially," the anonymous-faced American lazily drawled, "then several of the office wags began to make quite an effort to ensure that no-one found out. In the end, they managed to keep it going for 61 years."
The error was only discovered when a filing cabinet was moved in GM's Dearborn global HQ, revealing a small door which enabled people to enter Larry Perkins' head for a period of 15 minutes.
Industry writers have expressed amazement at the magnitude of the prank. "I was totally fooled," commented Ged Bulmer, Editor of Wheels Magazine, "I mean, I know that their output since 1978 has been completely pissweak, but I thought it was just a temporary slump they were going through." Toyota CEO Konnichiwa Ohigazamus expressed similar concerns, noting however that "with the benefit of foresight it explains the VN, doesn't it?"
Ford executives were unavailable for comment, and all efforts to reach them on the 13 1/2 floor of the Geelong plant have so far met with failure.
