Articles from Weekly Mash
Source: Sun Hearld
The cricket world reacted with mixed feelings to the news that John Howard will become president of the International Cricket Council.
Friday Mash believes his experience and skills are just what is needed to resolve the searching problems currently faced by the cricketing world.
For example he will obviously rule that the Sri Lankan team must travel to Australia via Christmas Island and anyone bowling off-spin with a bent arm will be refused asylum to tour.
It is very encouraging to note that Afghanistan has a cricket team. This will present John with two major challenges, persuading another country to play them at home and responding to their request to allow Shaun Tait to make guest appearances. They’ve heard he bowls Improvised Explosive Devices.
John faces huge problems arising from terrorist threats against teams playing away in certain countries. Experts on the rules of cricket are uncertain whether a result, in matches where the Taliban stops play, can be achieved through using the Duckworth-Lewis method.
Cricket fans fear things could get so bad that international cricket will only be played at Lords and the Sydney Cricket Ground. Both these are absolutely secure because no terrorist would ever be accepted as a member of the MCC or the SCG.
A player in the Australian team has apparently met with a bingle and thanks to Brendon Fevola we now have the bare facts of the matter. John should be concerned that such is the reputation of the Australian team for sledging they will soon start training for the next Winter Olympics.
Robert Mugabe seems intent on devaluing Zimbabwean cricket as much as he’s devalued the currency. John should be aware of his propensity for spending ICC grants on building pavilions in Europe. Robert retains an avid interest in sport and in particular is a strong All Black supporter.
John will be particularly concerned that England seem to suffer constant droughts in their cricket talent pool yet this does not stop them frequently going to water.
South Africa poses a gate-money problem. When President Zuma brings all his wives, children and girlfriends to matches on complimentaries there isn’t any room for paying customers.
The Bangladesh team is still not challenging anyone. John should present them with the Peter Costello award.
A Pakistani player was recently suspended for biting a cricket ball during a match. John will probably face calls for flavoured cricket balls because it turned out to be a spinner checking whether the ball was suitable for a tea-break.
The West Indies team have recently been on strike. John will immediately perceive an opportunity to bring back Work Choices.
The Australian team is very disappointed that India has overtaken them as the worst-behaved team in international cricket. Suspension and fines appear to have no effect. John plans to introduce a new sanction against recalcitrant players. They will be sentenced to face Shaun Tait on a seaming wicket without a box. That should bring more tears to their eyes than a vindaloo.
Tags: asylum seekers, Brendon Fevola, Christmas Island, Cricket, Duckworth-Lewis, International Cricket Council, John Howard, Lara Bingle, Lords, MCC, Peter Costello, President Zuma, Robert Mugabe, SCG, Shaun Tait, Sydney Cricket Ground, Taliban, Terrorism, West Indies, Winter Olympics, Work Choices
Posted in Politics, Weekly Mash | No Comments »
The Buck at the moment is very confused. It has been hovering around Canberra for some time ready to stop at the person responsible for the insulation debacle. But each time the stop sign is about to appear it keeps getting passed on to someone else.
You can’t blame the Buck for being a bit miffed. The home insulation scheme is the stuff-up of the century but there’s no government co-operation in identifying the person it should stop at to perform its solemn public duty of apportioning the blame.
Kevin’s office is a designated Buck no-stopping zone and anyway it is inconceivable that the Buck should stop with him when all he did was go through the roof at all those experts who told him that the insulation scheme was a lemon. He had determined that nothing was going to stop it electrifying the nation.
Wayne has taken some credit for the stimulus package but there’s no chance the insulation stimulus Buck will stop with him. He is far too expert at passing it. He’s still lauded for his brilliant pass to Godwin Grech during the Utegate scandal.
Peter Garrett is the most obvious place for the Buck to stop. All it would take is his resignation or a tap on the shoulder from Kevin. In fact the Buck has already been as far as his office door before it was passed to the shonky installers.
The Buck however decided it was illogical to stop with a few installers when the scheme was a complete national disaster and they were only picking up the bucks eagerly passed on by the government.
Peter Garrett was warned twenty-odd times the scheme had hair-raising implications but for some reason he failed to feel anything.
Peter’s department apparently hadn’t got the faintest idea about administering a scheme of such complexity. It never occurred to them that battmen could also be robbin’.
Some experts blame John Howard for the scheme’s failure and believe the Buck should stop with him. However the Buck has its pride and having failed to stop with him so many times before it is reluctant to face further humiliation.
It’s true the Buck has also taken more than a passing interest in stopping with Stephen Conroy. Its interest has been attracted by the national broadband network, Telstra, handouts to television stations and jobs for the boys. The Buck recognises a trainwreck when it sees one and calculates how it can meet the driver at a mutually convenient stop.
Unfortunately the Buck can’t stop of its own volition or at the behest of Tony Abbott. Only an admission, a resignation or a firing constitutes a valid stop sign. Buck passing in Canberra has become such a consummate skill that the Wallabies coaching staff are taking an interest.
So while Credit is regularly taken by Kevin & Co for the stimulus package, the insulation stimulus Buck is still being passed around. But the Buck knows political insulation has a strict use-by date so as it passes from person to person it is reassured in the knowledge it will eventually stop with somebody.
Tags: Godwin Grech, home insulation scheme, Insulation, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, KRudd, national broadband network, Peter Garrett, Stephen Conroy, stimulus, Telstra, Tony Abbott, Utegate, Wallabies, Wayne Swan
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It is an amazing coincidence that all Australia’s greatest cricketing brains patronise the same lounge bar at Friday Mash’s local pub.
For some time they have been of the view that test matches and one-dayers have become as boring as watching the climate change.
During a pub session last week a constant supply of Friday Mash shouts inspired them to focus single-mindedly on a plan to secure the future of the international game.
They were unanimous that test match cricket as we know it is finished. It’s now just a question of what to do with the ashes. However they determined that test cricket’s unique heritage must be preserved for future generations. This prompted the ground-breaking idea of the neverending test.
They proposed that sleepier test grounds like Lords and the Adelaide Oval should become test match museums and venues for neverending tests. The matches would just carry on ad infinitum much in the same way as test matches always have but with no hope of a result.
The Poms would love the concept. They would never again have to suffer the constant humiliation of losing test matches.
Then came a killer idea. Elderly people in their twilight years love nothing better than watching a gentle game of cricket. So the whole neverending test concept could be financed by developing retirement villages on the quieter sides of Lords and the Adelaide Oval.
Neverending test matches are potentially a great cure for insomnia, would be ideal environments for gaining no results from climate change conferences and would attract Chinese tourists through their similarity to the Terracotta Soldiers.
Matches would be played strictly in accordance with ICC rules and players would wear traditional white gear. The only likelihood of playing with new coloured balls would occur when a batsman forgets to wear his box.
This inspirational group were also unanimous that within a few years Twenty20 cricket would become boring and the essential future of the game lay in exploring new boundaries in a shorter form.
After an unusually spirited discussion the group opted for the Five5 as the future of international cricket.
They were strongly influenced by climate change considerations because for floodlit matches a Five5 would have a carbon footprint seventy-five percent smaller than a Twenty20
They perceived that the build-up to a Five5 match would be critical. If the spectators were not there on time or not switched on sufficiently they might miss it altogether. So it was proposed that the period immediately before a match should be a Happy Hour.
All drinks at the ground would be at half price and there would be a Two2 match between teams of male and female streakers and streakers from the crowd would be welcome to join in. This would not only ensure that spectators turn up on time but also that they are at fever pitch by the start of play. And even if the match is rained off they would get their moneysworth.
The group also determined that in view of the short explosive nature of Five5 no spectator should miss a ball. They even proposed viewing windows in toilets at the grounds so that even spectators afflicted by a sudden dose of diarrhea would still have good seats.
There would be no place in Five5s for bad decisions and time-wasting by umpires or video umpires. All decisions would be made by the crowd on a show of hands. Batsmen playing two defensive shots in succession would almost certainly be summarily dismissed.
In order to eliminate any possibility of boredom during the interval between innings spectators would be encouraged to send dirty text messages to Shane Warne. Female spectators would be guaranteed to get a reply.
The group acknowledged that after a few years of Five5s cricket fans could get nostalgic for dot balls and didn’t rule out the reintroduction of Twenty20s.
The session broke up with an exchange of high Five5s.
Tags: Cricket, Five5, ICC, Shane Warne, Test Matches, The Ashes, The Poms, Twenty20, Two2
Posted in Sport, Weekly Mash | No Comments »
Tony Jones’ interview with Penny Wong on the 4th February edition of Lateline was an absolute classic.
For the transcript, click here
Watch Penny Wong Interviewed on ABC's Lateline
For those of us craving a clear, concise and logical explanation of what on earth the ETS is all about the occasion was richly entertaining but not alas enlightening.
Despite being asked repeatedly about the ETS’ cost impact on families – working, non-working and bone idle – not a single figure passed Penny’s lips. She claimed that extensive modelling was released in 2008. That was apparently too long ago for her to remember the numbers it contained but for those who are still interested there is always the chance of coming across it in a library or a loo.
Tony’s questions about the ETS cost hikes to families in the event of an emissions reduction target higher than five percent were met buy a dogged refusal even to countenance such an abstruse notion.
The kindest possible assessment of Penny’s interview is that it added diddly squat to viewers’ storehouse of ETS knowledge and may even have eroded it slightly. But wait. On the subject of Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund Penny demonstrated encyclopaedic knowledge. She came armed with sheafs of documents claimed to contain irrefutable evidence that Tony’s ERF was a non-starter and would cost squillions more than the ETS whatever that costs.
This was like a football coach explaining that his team’s tactics were based on a 2008 plan which he couldn’t remember but that doesn’t matter because the opposition are so hopeless.
Kevin has admitted that his government must improve their communications about the ETS. The question is did he forget to tell Penny, did she ignore him or was this, heaven help us, what she considered to be an improved communication.
Probably as a result of urgings by the spin doctors to soften her image Penny has developed a sudden synthetic smile for television interviews. When Tony asked questions she considered tiresome, embarrassing or downright dangerous she flashed on the smile to mask a face almost certainly contorted with rage and betraying an irresistible urge to choke the living shit out of him. Luckily he was in a studio hundreds of kilometres away.
The interview raised the issue of who can we possibly believe on matters of climate change.
Polar bears are the living proof we can’t trust Al Gore. Penny is about as helpful as a call centre operator in Bangalore and Kevin’s still got a Copenhagen complex. Climate change scientists have slipped up on the Himalayan glaciers and following his recent conversion it is too soon to expect anything sensible from Tony Abbott.
No wonder Lord Monckton is commanding so much attention. His is the only clear message on climate change; lie back for ten years, let it happen and then take stock. Even if he isn’t right its refreshing to hear a convenient truth amongst the deluge of inconvenient, incomprehensible and disingenuous approximations.
With all due respect to Kevin, climate change is not the greatest moral challenge of our generation. It is rather persuading politicians, scientists and opinion leaders to come clean about it.
Tags: Al Gore, Climate Change, Copenhagen, emission trading, ETS, Kevin Rudd, Lateline, Lord Monckton, Penny Wong, Tony Abbott, Tony Jones
Posted in Weekly Mash | 1 Comment »
2010 will be one of the coldest years on record. Europe and the US are already recording the lowest January temperatures for yonks. Expect Kevin and Al Gore to claim that the record numbers of people suffering hypothermia are a disastrous consequence of global warming.
Kevin will get his ETS legislation passed at the ninth attempt, but only as part of an anti-smoking campaign. Smokers will be capped at twenty a day but will be able to trade for more from people who have gone to pot.
Tony Abbott will be replaced as leader of the Australian opposition after he has a wardrobe malfunction on a beach and police impound his budgies pending a smuggling investigation.
The Australian federal election will be fought on the economy and the ETS with the Greens making sweeping gains by pointing out that if you have a fair dinkum ETS you can’t afford an economy.
Kevin will run an election campaign which is so toxically boring that half the population will leave the country and the other half will watch DVDs of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference for light relief.
Obama’s healthcare bill will finally pass in the US based on cost saving amendments which will deny treatment to hypochondriacs even if they’re sick and also to republicans who lean heavily to the right.
The NSW Labor Government will change premiers three times during the year before reaching the conclusion that Joe Tripodi doesn’t have a mate capable of doing the premier’s job.
Tiger Woods will win the 2010 Bartenders Award for shaking the best cocktail waitresses and will take advantage of laws in South Africa allowing polygamy by marrying at least fifty hostesses. This will ensure the next time he strays off the fairway into the rough it will probably be with one of his wives.
The Climate Change Conference in Mexico will achieve an unprecedented level of unanimity because no-one will turn up except Kevin and Al Gore.
The campaign against terrorism will intensify and women seeking to become members of the mile high club will be warned against trying it on with men wearing explosive underpants. They will be advised rather to concentrate on experiences with men offering less dramatic Bonds.
The UK election will be fought on the economy but on assuming power David Cameron will discover the country no longer has one.
The US economy will remain deep in the tank with Obama giving himself an A+ for preventing it from going totally down the toilet and settling the debt to China by giving them Alaska and Sarah Palin provided she’s interned as a dissident.
Politics in Australia will continue to stimulate with Kevin sustaining high popularity rankings by replacing his spin doctors with witch doctors who cast a spell over the electorate. Malcolm Turnbull will sit on a beach in the Maldives trying to repel rising sea levels but he will be dressed in diving gear.
During 2010 the world will once again await the emergence of a politician with the courage and sheer genius to do something wonderful for mankind. And it will almost certainly be doing the same in 2011.
Tags: Al Gore, anti-smoking, Barack Obama, Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, David Cameron, ETS, federal election, global warming, Joe Tripodi, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, NSW Labor Government, Obama Healthcare, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Tiger Woods, Tony Abbott
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It’s such a busy time of year and not surprising that so many forget about New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s a few gentle reminders to those sorely in need.
Hostesses and
cocktail waitresses - ban dates with Tiger
Obama - change into something we can really believe in
President Hu - develop an image as Old King Coal
Tony Abbott - take the painful step up to ferret smugglers
Malcolm Turnbull - reduce greenhouse gas emissions by becoming less of an old fart
Gordon Brown - take constipation tablets regularly
Berlusconi - stay out of crowds unless they’re young girls
Penny Wong - tattoo ‘ETS’ on her backside so she can sit on it for a while
Father Christmas - abandon plans to extend his franchise into Afghanistan
Julie Bishop - pick up a few tips from Deputy Dawg
Bill Clinton - don’t become jealous of Tiger
Robert Mugabe - spend Zimbabwe’s climate change grant from the UN on a luxury ski lodge in St Moritz
Julia Gillard - stop talking like an education revolution headmistress
Joe Tripodi - reduce carbon emissions by becoming a solar power broker
Al Gore - stop emiting anything. We’ve got the message
The Mayor of Copenhagen - clean up after the cyclones, earthquakes and bushfires caused by the Climate Change Conference
Sarah Palin - make an unpresidented impact
Joe Hockey - reduce waist in the Liberal Party
Kevin - achieve a further reduction in greenhouse emissions by extending the ETS to cover baked beans and artichokes
Tiger - become President of US Adulterers Anonymous and recruit Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford as foundation members
Wayne Swan - needs to take at least a couple of stimulus packages a day
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Climate Change, ETS, Gordon Brown, Joe Hockey, Joe Tripodi, Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, Kevin Rudd, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, President Hu, Robert Mugabe, Santa, Sarah Palin, Silvio Berlusconi, Tiger Woods, Tony Abbott, Wayne Swan
Posted in Business, International Affairs, Politics, Weekly Mash | No Comments »
OUR CHRISTMAS WISH FOR YOU
We wish you copious Christmas Cards but not recycling of the ones you sent last year, not from people you had crossed off your list and certainly not those round-robin letters giving strictly sanitised versions of people’s lives and missing out all the juicy bits.
We wish that in the true spirita of Christmas you give better presents than you receive but you are not buried under a deluge of socks and hankies and don’t have to spend weeks taking presents back to retailers to be exchanged.
We wish you a Christmas free from the unseasonal malevolence of those awful relations you feel compelled to invite despite their penchant for making family festivities seem like negotiations with the Chinese in Copenhagen.
We wish you a Christmas blessed with beautiful weather, snowy or sunny, free from assertions by Kevin and Al Gore that it is a sinister sign of global warming.
We wish you a Christmas untarnished by disasters like tsunamis, the Copenhagen Conference, Obama’s healthcare bill, cyclones, Tiger’s love life, terror attacks, Tony’s budgie smugglers, earthquakes, high speed encounters with police, over-indulgence and Kevin’s third go at an ETS.
We wish you a Christmas full of the joy and excitement Santa Claus brings to children even if they know he’s only a mere mortal like you.
We wish you an uplifting Christmas service and trust the vicar doesn’t ask you yet again if you’re new to the district.
We wish you the love and caring of your family this Christmas and if you haven’t got a family we wish this is the Christmas you find one.
Alisdair Blackman, Gay Niblett, Roger Pugh
Friday Mash
Posted in Weekly Mash | 1 Comment »
Letter to Father Christmas
Dear Santa,
‘Tis the season when people of goodwill at Friday Mash think not of themselves but only of others.
We would really appreciate the delivery of our Christmas gift list set out below in your usual timely festive fashion.
Kevin Rudd - a pair of budgie smugglers to prove he’s got nothing to hide.
Malcolm Turnbull - a CD of Kevin singing ‘Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen’
Tony Abbott - a DNA test to prove he’s not the lovechild of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop
Barack Obama - the Nobel Olympic Prize for failing to bring the Games to Chicago
Penny Wong - a climate change; a long stay in Siberia perhaps
Sarah Palin - melting moments at the North Pole with Al Gore
Hillary Clinton - an ‘I should have been President’ bumper sticker
Kristina Keneally - the magic formula which turned Pinocchio from a puppet into a person
Peter Garrett - a part in Coneheads II
Bill Clinton - Tiger’s mobile with all the phone numbers
General McChrystal - a McBall so he can forsee what’s about to happen in Afghanistan
Joe Hockey - a Father Christmas outfit because he’s your natural successor
Julia Gillard - a life size Tony Abbott doll so she no longer has to flirt with him in person
Wayne Swan - a Navman so he can find his way out of the woods
George W Bush - WMDs found in Iraq
Gordon Brown - something to wear under his kilt because he’s been left dangling recently
Berlusconi - bandaids
John Howard - a dancing frog wearing a Bob Hawke face mask. On second thoughts the mask wont be necessary
Barry O’Farrell - a gift similar to that bestowed on so many hostesses and cocktail waitresses; a bit of Tiger in him
The People of NSW - an early election
The delivery of these gifts will make many people very happy. Making people happy is one of your gifts which politicians seem incapable of accepting.
Merry Christmas
From Friday Mash
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Barry O’Farrell, Bill Clinton, Bronwyn Bishop, budgie smugglers, Christmas, Copenhagen, early election, Father Christmas, General McChrystal, George W Bush, Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, Joe Hockey, John Howard, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Kristina Keneally, Malcolm Turnbull, Penny Wong, Peter Garrett, Sarah Palin, Silvio Berlusconi, Tiger Woods, Tony Abbott, Wayne Swan, WMD
Posted in Weekly Mash | No Comments »
It’s very exciting that countries from all over the world are bringing so many state-of-the-are ideas to the UN Conference in Copenhagen to tackle the challenge of climate change.
The US is planning to decarbonise Smokin’ Joe Frazier, withdraw all CDs by Nat King Coal, reduce deforestation by not chopping down Tiger Woods and take the temperature down a degree or two by throwing a bucket of cold water over Madonna and Paris Hilton.
The UK is undertaking stringent measures like sending all their coals to Newcastle, limiting the greenhouse effect to tomatoes and replacing the twenty-one gun royal salute with a loud government report and an outbreak of the clap.
Frenchmen are resisting attempts to cut their emissions by claiming it would be the unkindest cut of all.
Germany is only going to Copenhagen to bring home the bacon.
New Zealand was ready with a range of brilliant innovations to take to the Conference. However, they are responsible for such a small percentage of the world’s carbon emissions that the Conference organisers told them to wait until the next conference when hopefully they’ll have enough emissions to achieve a decent decrease.
The Taliban will not attend but have promised to reduce their car bomb emissions.
China is planning to reduce their increase rather than increase their decrease although they believe that their increasing decrease will lead to a decrease rather than an increase.
Russia is preparing to reduce emissions by substituting vodka for petrol. Police are currently working on new breath testing technology which can detect both drunken drivers and sober cars. Drivers will be warned not to fill themselves up at vodka stations.
Fiji is reducing carbon footprints by banning the use of coal in firewalking pits.
Berlusconi is increasing his carbon emissions. He’s giving diamonds to all his girl friends.
Japan will decree that people can’t own both a home and a car. They will either have to live in their car or travel around in their home. The government calculates this will save an incredible amount of energy because citizens will be able to travel almost anywhere without leaving home.
The Irish have forgotten to do anything about climate change. Their sins of emission are nothing compared with their sins of omission.
Thirty-odd thousand delegates are attending the UN Conference. It will take the Danish Government years to get rid of a carbon footprint that big.
India has invented vinda loos. They are powered by passing winds.
Ahmadinejad is going nuclear. Hopefully he’ll go far underground and have a practice run as the world’s first nuclear suicide bomber.
Australia has developed a novel way of tackling climate change. Get rid of political leaders like Malcolm who keep banging on about it and make sure that Kevin stays abroad as much as possible then it all seems to go away. Kevin is determined to produce clean coal but experts expect the idea will fall as flat as decarbonated coke.
UN Conference Organisers believed that so many smoke alarms would be sounded by delegates they didn’t install any in the conference hall.
Tags: Berlusconi, China, Copenhagen, deforestation, Germany, greenhouse effect, Madonna, Nat King Coal, New Zealand, Paris Hilton, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, substituting vodka for petrol, Taliban, Tiger Woods, twenty-one gun royal salute, UK, UN Conference, vinda loos, vodka stations
Posted in International Affairs, Weekly Mash | No Comments »
Despite its avowed metrosexuality the state government has made a premature withdrawal from the CBD Metro with no real prospect of a future climax or conception.
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