See? That’s Why I Don’t Gamble
It could have been a draw, I suppose, in which case I guess the rules would have sent Italy into the Quarterfinals anyway, but the end of Australia in the World Cup, however much it might be attributable to gout, isn’t really unexpected, whether I was hopeful yesterday or not. Look, it came down to a last minute penalty shot, so it wasn’t the debacle that was being predicted by some, and after more than 30 years, just getting out of the first round has got to be worth something. And in four more years, who knows?

Take a Deep Breath and Suck It Up
The spectre of asbestos haunts much of the world, something I heard about with some frequency back in the States, given A.’s involvement over the years with the prosecution of those who knowingly directed employees in mishandling the stuff or who were otherwise caught up in the years-long clean-up that sometimes seems it will never end. (And it may not, since leaving it alone seems to be the best policy, whenever it’s an option.) That James Hardie after long years of litigation finally achieved a settlement was a great positive development here, and the promised fund would surely go a long way to help those suffering from abestiosis, now and in the future. Except they want the fund to be treated as a “charity,” so that funding it could be written off their taxes. When I first heard the news, on the face of it I thought, well, why shouldn’t it be a charity? But that was just a “headline” understanding, premised on the charitable status being applied on behalf of the victims, which didn’t make sense once I thought about it. I’m with Peter Costello and the rest of the government: Hardie’s has a duty to its victims that shouldn’t be paid by the public at large through some backdoor tax shenanigans. The fund isn’t a charity; it’s compensation. The ATO may yet come up with a ruling that allows the company to more easily manage the accounting trick, but it’s Hardie’s cost, not mine, not the government’s, not the victims’.

Quarter Finals
It’s still a long shot, but I like our chances for making it into the quarter finals. Italy’s got a statistically better win-loss-tie record, having beat the Czechs and Ghana (both of whom beat the U.S. although only Ghana advanced to the second round), and tied the U.S. The ‘Roos beat Japan and lost to Brazil, only advancing because they managed to tie Croatia. So can a 1-1-1 team beat a 2-0-1 team? Why not? Italy’s actually got some key players out, and while they’ve probably got a pretty good bench, I wouldn’t wonder if ours isn’t staffed with players just as good as the ones we’re putting on the field. It’ll come down to which team is more motivated: the Socceroos, with so much negative history and public expectations and such a terrible nickname weighted against them, or the Italians, freighted with so much European ennui (or its Italian equivalent, anyway). So far, the quarters are going to the favorites – no surprise – with only Spain vs. France presenting much prospect for a tight game. Under the circumstances, picking Australia to advance over Italy is counter-intuitive, but one underdog’s got to make the cut, and Ghana doesn’t stand a chance against Brazil, and Switzerland and Ukraine are both underdogs, which doesn’t count. So in the part of my brain that I recognize as the same part that lets me buy lottery tickets for their value as wallpaper scraps or sit in on a penny-ante poker game and walk away $50 lighter (it only happened once; that was enough), I’ve weighed the chances and come out Green-and-Gold.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

How to Combat Terrorism
Investigate, arrest, prosecute, convict.

Nobody had to be “indefinitely detained” or tortured or abused or invaded or bombed or shot or rendered to any foreign power for extraordinary purposes at all in any way. The proper police powers were employed and the verdict properly returned.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
What, that had to be the title (although, now that it’s come to this, I’d rather get away from post titles completely), because we went to see The Break-Up. It’s about the best romantic movie I think I’ve ever seen, even though it’s not a comedy and especially because it’s not a “relationship” movie. Yes, it has its Odd Couple middle, and it doesn’t exactly break new ground in probing the nature of romance and relationships, but it does present these things with more honesty than you usually get outside of those very serious movies where somebody dies or is killed or something unusual happens to make everyone stop and think. This time they have to come to think about their lives, separately and together, just because that’s the point they’ve reached in their lives, separately and together. So except for the stripper-party, it’s even more realistic than the ultra-serious stuff. Oh, and except for how the two characters meet. That just wouldn’t ever happen. Jennifer Aniston is better in this than anything else I’ve seen her in, and Vince Vaughn is always good. I understand, however, that this movie was in some way his idea, so now I also think he’s a genius.

Reverse Cycle & Refrigeration
It’s been a while since I indulged in a culture-shock temper tantrum, but our current climatological experience prompts me to reflect on the biggest difference between life in Sydney versus back in NYC. While I was blessed on the Upper East Side with a working fireplace, in winter, in any apartment, I could rely on heat and hot water for about 99% of the season. Sometimes the boiler would go out, but that didn’t happen often and didn’t last long. Of course, in summer, without an air conditioner, apartment life could be sweltering, but even at that only for a few weeks out of the season.

Alas, poor Sydney, so far from the tropics but so much closer to the other end of the temperate zone, so much more so in either respect than it cares to admit. Sure, there isn’t any snow and the roads only ice out the Blue Mountains way, but when our reverse-cycle unit gave up the ghost, our unit became a defacto icebox, despite highs approaching 20 degrees (68 Fahrenheit) during the day. Partly this is because, like most Sydneysiders, we chose our unit’s aspect carefully, facing south by southeast, which keeps the flat pretty cool for more of the summer than a different orientation would provide. In winter, however, it means even less sun than the minimum we get the rest of the year. And because it seems the prevailing winds come in from the same direction, we even manage to cop a bit of wind-chill, even indoors, a situation not helped by the numerous, tall, wide windows along the face of the building.

We’re bloody freezing. My hands and feet have not been this cold in years. Going outdoors is a relief, if just to walk along the sunny side of the street. The situation isn’t helped by the air conditioning repairmen sent out by the building management company, as they appear to only work once a week, starting with a preliminary diagnosis, followed by a more substantial review, followed by wondering if they can get the part or if they might have to install an entirely new system, followed by God only knows what, because the people who come out to do this “work” then report their findings to the faceless office staff and don’t turn up again until the next stage, which we can only hope will be actually fixing the thing. Or putting in a new one – just do something! Shut up about it and fix it. It’s cold! It’s getting colder all the time. At this rate, it’ll be spring again before the system’s up and running.

Sure, it doesn’t help that the unit is more than 10 years’ old and that even the manufacturer has no record of the model number, or that in order to put in a new unit, the walls will have to be patched because nobody uses this configuration of in-wall unit anymore, adding to the repair cost and to the time necessary to complete the job.

At least we’ll have fresh new air conditioning for summer.

Tuesday Friday Cat Blogging

Even the cats can’t believe their eyes: Socceroos beat Japan!.

Consular Rights
I don't believe a word of what John Howard has to say about David Hicks. Neither do I believe that the three Guantanamo suicides were "acts of war." How the PM can sit in his office or sleep at night in the Lodge is beyond understanding. The Bush record is rife now with war crimes and Howard makes himself an accessory by doing nothing for David Hicks. He should be repatriated immediately. The Howard government would like us to believe that a trial would be underway or even completed by now, if only those pesky U.S. federal judges would stop letting him file all these appeals, but those appeals are his right under law. And now that Britain's courts have said he must be allowed to apply for UK citizenship, Bush and Howard are denying him access to British consular officials to let that happen, exacerbating their crimes. How long do we have to put up with the utter abrogation of the rule of law, the essential characteristic of our societies?

Who's a Bully?
I have no objections to Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA's) per se, and don't object to John Howard's "WorkChoices" legislation insofar as it might have been used to help make working life and keeping a job and even getting a job easier and more fair (except it wasn't), so when I first heard that opposition leader Kim Beazley had vowed to eliminate AWA's, I thought it had to be a misunderstanding, that he'd really vowed to get rid of the PM's odious legislation. Today's characterization of Beazley's promise, that he was bullied into it by the unions, is, however, childish, even stupid. While AWA's might give some employees opportunities, under the new legislation they are leverage exclusively for employers, a club to be weilded freely, and that's how Howard wants it. So under the circumstances, I'm with Bomber today. The only choice for workers presently is none, and it should have been much different. If radical surgery is all that's left, then let's get the operation underway. Working men and women fought long and hard to get the rights and responsibilities enshrined in the Awards system; we shouldn't let the present government strip it all away so easily.

Update: Tim Dunlop provides some useful information on the distinction I missed between AWA's and individual contracts, clearing up Labor's policy move and why it's the right one.

Reducing the Insurgency
It would be wrong to revel in anyone’s death, but I’m not sad, either, that al-Zarqawi is dead. Now, what can we do to make Ann Coulter shut up?

While we’re at it, for US$5.00, you, too, can submit a “memorial” to initiate the impeachment of George W. Bush. A memorial is a submission direct from the citizenry and bypassing the House. It’s fully legal, even if it was only last used in 1828, and in regard to a Federal judge. Still, on October 12, if enough of us send in our memorials, somebody might actually have to take notice.

Whining from the Sniveller
Because he’s bemoaning how he comes off over the “snivelling grub” exchange in an SMH editorial, Health Minister, Tony Abbott, gets right-of-reply, where he indulges in some public blubbering. Poor Tony, he just can’t get a break, can he? Of course, the fact that he spends most of his editorial time pointing fingers at Kim Beazley, whom he mentions 4 times before he even names Julia Gillard, the Shadow Health Minister, tells a lot more truth than any of his statistics or historical references to England’s Parliamentary behavior, the focus of the first half of his pathetic excuses: Tony Abbott acted against Kelvin Thompson derisively because as a front-bencher it’s his responsibility to play the guard dog whenever any substantive issue comes up that might impugn his beloved party or its allies. Can’t seriously question former Nationals leader John Anderson’s honesty? Tell me another, Tony, now that the AWB cat is out of the bag. This isn’t about ‘strong language’; that’s the best part of a lively Parliament. It’s about keeping government honest, something on which I question you.

On On Beauty
I’m about two-thirds through Zadie Smith’s latest, now winner of the Orange Prize, and it’s a very good book, although not, perhaps, to the same degree as her debut, White Teeth, mainly, I think, with still a good ways yet to go, from two significant factors, the main one being what I’ve found to be a lack of focus on characters, of whom there are simply too many. (The other factor is, as Ms. Smith has admitted, that the book is an homage to E. M. Forster, and reads like a up-to-dated version of Howards End, a fault I won’t fault too far, that being the only Forster I’ve read and having enjoyed it well enough at that.) The problem of encompassing the full multicultural debate, let alone whether transplanted to New England or not, is perhaps greater than any novel can manage with enough depth, so while the characters in this book present a range broad enough to accommodate the issues, the story doesn’t delve as deeply as it might into any of them. The Black/White divide, the African diaspora, the British versus American multicultural models, urban and suburban, even male-female dichotomies – whether interracial, transgenerational, or transgressive – are covered, but it’s like the difference between a wine tasting menu as opposed to selecting a particular variety with a good meal: subtle distinctions are lost to all but the connessieur. It’s still good and worth reading, and now a prize-winner. If I ever get around to >I Am Charlotte Simons, it might make an interesting counterpoint on elite university culture, too.

(Radioactive) Fuel to the Fire
As Australia starts towards its debate on the implementation of nuclear power plants, back in NYC the debate has moved on towards decommissioning Indian Point, and this raises a number of issues that must also be taken into consideration in Canberra.

While the government’s focus so far is on whether the plants are, first, economical, and second, where they can be situated, and must also consider, even if there’s been little discussion so far, where the waste can be stored, whether the plants themselves or their waste constitute a terrorist target, let alone an environmental problem, there’s also the issue of what to do with the things when they’ve outlived their usefulness.

Indian Point may produce nearly all of Westchester County’s electricity, while only 10% of the state’s requirements overall, but other, more conventional plants could produce the same or more, albeit while failing to reduce CO2 emissions. This does not, however, take into account less conventional energy production, the technologies for which not only already exist, mainly in passive forms, but which are continually being developed, especially outside the US (or Australia), such as Rebecca Blood highlighted is happening in China.

On the issue of waste, of particular note regarding Indian Point, the reactors, scheduled for closure in 2013/2015, have already produced more waste than they can store, even while the operators are looking to obtain a 20-year licensing extension. This is the kind of issue too often glossed over with pie-in-the-sky promises of a national nuclear waste dump off in a salt dome out west (or, in Australia – where? – under Uluru?), while realistically requiring much closer scrutiny.