Saturday, April 28, 2007
WORLD CUP FINAL
Due to rain delays, the World Cup final between Australia and Sri Lanka has been shortened to 38 overs per side. Match about to begin; updates to follow. Australia batting first.
AUSTRALIAN INNINGS
2nd over: 0/4. Ian Botham just mentioned that the first World Cup, in 1975, was a 60-over-per-side deal. At this rate, by 2037 we’ll be down to 20 overs or so.
4th over: 0/16. First six of the match to Gilchrist, now 14. Malinga the slinger very economical; his second over a maiden bowled to cautious Hayden.
5th over: 0/26. I’m Matthew, I’m from Queensland, and I’m here to block. Hayden has scored just two of Australia’s total. And now six, after a brutal lofted cut.
6th over: 0/27. More accuracy from Malinga, more caution from Hayden. He’s scored 6 from 21.
8th over: 0/35. Sri Lanka are containing Australia brilliantly, but we have wickets in hand. Not much time to use them, though.
10th over: 0/46. These Lankans are hard to hit; this is the lowest Australian score at the ten-over mark in the whole series.
11th over: 0/62. Two fours then a six from Gilchrist, now 46 off 35.
12th over: 0/65. Muralitharan introduced. Not spinning it much, but still difficult. Well, he would be; he’s a chucker.
14th over: 0/76. Gilchrist has his 50. Now 54 off 46, and looking to hit BIG.
15th over: 0/95. This is more like it; two sixes from Gilchrist in one over. Hayden is now sweeping against the spin, opening up the on-side.
16th over: 0/98. Hit comments for Dylan Kissane’s view.
17th over: 0/112. Another Gilchrist six (his fifth) brings up the Australian 100, followed by an on-driven four. Lankans now rattled.
18th over: 0/122. What looked to be a tight Muralitharan over turns into another blowout. Six sixes so far in this innings, all from Gilchrist.
20th over: 0/137. Best opening partnership in World Cup final history. Vaas back on, now aiming for line instead of swing.
21st over: 0/149. Hayden off-drives Malinga for six; Gilchrist registers the fastest century in World Cup finals; fine sportsmanship from Lankan ‘keeper Sangakkara, who declines a catch appeal.
22nd over: 0/163. Hayden now 38 off 54, and menacing.
23rd over: 1/172. Hayden now OUT. Malinga deserved that.
24th over: 1/176. Gilchrist now 120. Trivia point: he doesn’t do weight training. It’s all timing.
26th over: 1/186. Australia in accumulation mode.
28th over: 1/203. Another Gilchrist six, Ponting not yet settled.
29th over: 1/216. Adam Gilchrist has faced 99 balls and scored 146 runs, including eight sixes. In a World Cup final. Read those two sentences again.
30th over: 1/222. Fifty partnership up; Ponting has scored 19 of them.
31st over: 2/227. Can you hear the drums, Fernando? Maybe not, but he can certainly hear the cheers after finally dismissing Gilchrist for 149 off 104 balls.
32nd over: 2/231. Symonds and Ponting at the wicket.
34th over: 2/243. Ponting 26 off 37. Malinga returns again.
36th over: 3/264. Ponting run out.
FINAL TOTAL: 4/281. Sri Lanka requires greater than 7.4 runs per over to win.
SRI LANKAN INNINGS
1st ball: Tharanga smashes Bracken for four.
2nd over: 0/7. Tait immediately over 90mph off a very sedate run-up.
3rd over: 1/12. Tharanga gone, caught Gilchrist bowled Bracken. Aggressive response from veteran Jayasuriya.
4th over: 1/18. Ahead of Australia at this point.
6th over: 1/34. Lankans lash out; Sangakkara and Jayasuriya peel runs off Tait.
8th over: 1/39. Glenn McGrath on in his final game. Run rate for Lankans now up to eight. Three off the over, and still ahead of Australia.
10th over: 1/42. Sri Lanka now behind Australia at the same point of their innings; and that was before the Gilchrist onslaught.
12th over: 1/52. McGrath tightens the screws.
13th over: 1/66. Jayasuriya takes three boundaries off one Watson over; Sri Lanka back on course.
14th over: 1/82. Outrageous batting from Sangakkara, who belts McGrath all over the park; Lankans now ahead again.
15th over: 1/93. Sangakkara now 36 off 39; he’s dragged the required run rate down to just over eight.
16th over: 1/102. This might go all the way.
18th over: 1/110. Rain is about. So is Hogg, who’s slowed the ferocious Sri Lankan batting.
20th over: 2/124. Kumar Sangakkara drills his 50 - beautiful innings - then is caught by Ponting off Hogg for 54 off 52 balls. Captain Jayawardene now in.
22nd over: 2/139. Sri Lanka fighting like hell.
24th over: 3/148. Clark bowls wild-swinging Jayasuriya; required run-rate now up to nine. McGrath returns, as does rain.
25th over: 3/149. Play called due to rain. That’s me done - over to you, commenters!
ALAN ISN’T HERE TO HELP
The SMH’s Alan Ramsey launches into our national helper monkey:
Kevin Rudd is what I call a PPP - a prissy, precious p—ck. One with a glass jaw, a quick temper and, when he loses it, a foul tongue.
And don’t imagine I’m the only one who thinks so. One day the electorate will learn about Rudd’s very human, if dark, side. For the moment it knows only his good bits.
Hmmm ... glass jaw, quick temper, foul tongue ... Rudd sounds much like Mark Latham, of whom Ramsey was quite fond. He’s right, though, about not being the only one who thinks little of Kevni; Canberra’s press pack is presently undergoing a re-evaluation of the ALP leader, who does seem to have a touch of Chris Sheil about him.
PAGE DISPLAYED
More free publicity from Sydney Alternative Media, this time highlighting the Daily Telegraph’s excellent layout and design.
FOILED AGAIN
The next great crisis? My money’s on electrosensitivity:
Before knocking on Sarah Dacre’s door, I take the precaution of checking my mobile phone. It’s switched off, as she has requested.
“Last time someone came to visit,” she warns, “I started feeling awfully nauseous. It turned out he had a picture phone with him and had left it switched on. A picture phone!”
She pauses, looking genuinely horrified. Apparently, this type of mobile automatically sends signals to a local base station every nine minutes - “No wonder I felt so sick.”
Sarah’s solution:
Beneath the coats of magnolia paint, she points out, the walls are lined with a special paper that contains a layer of tin-foil ...
She also wears a hat made from “shielding fabric”.
LEGO SOCIETY DOOMED
Warmenation activists wheel out the big guns:
“It’s not too late to do something about global warming. It is not too late for us to make the right moves to curb our carbon emissions and save our planet.”
That is what Cadette Girl Scout Emily Paulus, 15, of Tannersville, hopes people will take away from her presentation: “Global warming simplified.”
Paulus produced the hour-long Power Point program as part of her work toward earning the Silver Award, the second highest award in Girl Scouting.
The Silver Award requires 40 hours of work ...
Well, let’s not be too harsh on little Miss Prius; at least she put in more effort than Al Gore, who couldn’t be bothered hitting Google for only a couple of minutes. If this Girl Scout’s demonstration isn’t enough to convince you of the danger we face, perhaps you’ll listen to a bunch of fifth graders:
There are two Lego houses. One house, explains Rockrimmon fifthgrader Ryan Greenfield, conserves energy. The other, sitting in a plastic container, does not.
He douses the second one in water, the apparent victim of melting polar ice caps.
Just like Santa Claus, Gaia knows who’s been conserving, she knows who’s been a fake, she knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. Or she’ll flood your house.
Fifth-graders at Rockrimmon Elementary School in northwest Colorado Springs took on the controversial and newsy topic of global warming for an end-of-year project ...
Sam Chiacchia’s team, for example, partially filled a plastic container with water. On one side sat a pile of ice that was Antarctica. On the other side, a pile of sand with Lego people basking on the beach off the coast of New Zealand. A desk lamp slowly melted the ice and students measured the increase in water level — to the misfortune of the Lego beachgoers.
Didn’t the water stop to ask which of the Lego people used low-energy lightbulbs at home? Science is confusing.
Friday, April 27, 2007
CLIMATE VOLATILITY EMBRACED
Labor’s new campaign song celebrates climate change:
Now do you remember
I promised in winter
That our hearts would be lighter one day?
And sooner than later
The sky would be brighter
And everything would be OK?Do you see it ?
Do you feel it ?
Yes you knew it was coming
The waiting is over
There’s a change in the weather
To fit with current Labor policy, that last line should read:
There’s no change at all in the weather, which is now permanently stable following the introduction of policies that will reduce greenhouse emissions by 60% over the next four decades. I’m Kevin! From Queensland! Here to help!
UPDATE. Leftoid Kim believes stupid proles will be lured to Labor by positive coverage in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail:
They will be picking up the C-M tomorrow, if only to read the Broncos game reports and get the form guide, and every newsagent in Queensland will have Rudd’s smiling visage and the headline “This man will help you” displayed. Gotta be worth something.
MARK THIS DAY
Paco returns.
LEFT NOT RIGHT
Latest column.
SPECIAL DAY
The Age’s Michael Leunig celebrates Anzac Day:
I knew a Turkish man who owned a coffee shop around the corner from where I used to live.
Ten Anzac Days ago I went to his shop for a morning coffee to be greeted by his wicked smile and twinkling eyes. “Good morning Michael,” he said, “Happy Anzac Day. This is the special day,” he declared with mock formality, “to remember that all invading armies must be thrown back into the sea.”
I have to say, it was not such a bad way to start the morning.
The ghosts of all Australians killed at Gallipoli salute you, Leunig. Following are his further points summarised:
• “Stupid, boring” Australians should be more like Muslims than Americans;
• The lyrics of a Christian hymn seem “to be more about a rampaging gang of morons than a wandering prophet who espoused radical love”;
• Leunig has authority issues relating to his childhood 50 years ago;
• Innocent frogs die in the name of terrorism;
• US movies are scary;
• A simulated bombing attack witnessed “many years ago” results in lasting problems: “I beheld as never before, a vision of massive modern hatred - spreading, surging and bulging red out of black, engulfing the land and sky and all imagination in a monstrous wave of hellish human savagery”;
• Kurt Vonnegut helps Leunig understand Australia;
• Wealthy Leunig believes childen should not be “aspirational”;
• Anzac Day is crap unless you spend it with someone who is glad Australians were killed ... and who then moved to Australia.
“NO ONE JET POOLED”
Remember this the next time Democrats tell you global warming is a crucial issue requiring urgent action:
A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.
For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall.
No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.
Frauds. (Via Charles G.) In other speedy travel news, Georgian motorists have some late-night windows of opportunity:
Between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., there are no state troopers patrolling Interstate 85 near Newnan. Nor are any troopers patrolling highways in the rest of Coweta County or in Fayette and Heard counties.
That’s also true in Greene, Jasper, Putnam, Cherokee, Pickens, Clarke and 86 other counties.
And around 2 a.m., all of Georgia’s troopers call it a night, leaving only radio operators in 21 out of 49 posts statewide.
No state troopers? Iowahawk will be headed down Georgia way as soon as he reads this. Visit the Hawk for latest Earth Week Virtual Cruise-In news, by the way; the grand champion has now been revealed.
HOW GUN LAWS WORK
Computer instructor Tim Lambert explains:
If the law disarms attackers, then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed.
FULL NOTES, FLAT LINCOLN
Stuart Skelton - whose email address is bouncing my replies; apologies for that, Stuart, for I think the problem is with my mail system - will perform in Sydney throughout August. I’ll take along an opera expert, for review purposes. Meanwhile, his dream Lincoln now has a rival buyer.
(Via Dan Lewis and Murph)
WARMING NOT WORTH A LOUSY BUCK
The latest New York Times/CBS poll finds:
Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth’s atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects …
Yes – steps must be taken immediately. These effects are serious! But, hey, let’s not do anything crazy:
By large margins, respondents opposed an increase in pump prices of $2 a gallon, or even $1, to deal with environmental and energy-supply concerns.
UPDATE. In other poll news:
The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.
UPDATE II. In yet more French poll news:
A poll recently conducted by an American university sent shock waves through the Finance Ministry in Paris. Researchers found that only just over a third of French people think a free market economy is the best system to develop the country.
Hit that link to view a BBC caption for the ages: “Students Laurent and Florence object to capitalist solutions.”
UNION DEMANDS FIRINGS
More trouble at the Shrinking Morning Herald, where up to 35 staff are soon to go:
While sub-editors and graphic designers will be axed, reporters and photographers have been excluded from the job cuts.
Members of the journalists’ union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, have demanded management reverse the decision.
Very well, then. Fire the reporters and photographers instead.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
NATION HAS A HELPER
Kevni Ruff rallies Australia to his cause:
“My name is Kevin, I’m from Queensland and I’m here to help.”
UPDATE. More from Kevni:
“Mr Howard is a climate change denier. This is the modern equivalent of arguing that the earth is flat and that NASA faked the moon landing and that Elvis is out there somewhere still flipping burgers in Florida. That’s how in touch with reality Mr Howard is on this one.”
Ooh. Withering.