Ron Walker Games

Ron Walker's nice little earner, otherwise known as the Commonwealth Games, begins in Melbourne today.

Walker is the big end of town entrepreneur who stole the Grand Prix from Adelaide during the Kennett regime and brought it to Albert Park. Ostensibly to enrich Melbourne, the noisy hoon-fest disrupted the lives of hundreds of local residents, ruined the peace and tranquillity of Albert Park, and has cost the city -- oops, that's Victorian taxpayers -- hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Most likely, the yearly abomination remains in Melbourne's care solely to preserve Walker's reputation.

Like the Grand Prix, the Walker Games are facing an embarrassing lack of interest. As of Monday, nearly 400,000 tickets remained unsold. And they've given away 5,000 tickets for the opening ceremony.

Without going into the details of what a boring farce the games are -- OK, it's a bunch of former British colonies trying to compete with the subsidised sporting might of Britain and Australia -- the nearly two week event is regarded by the rest of the sporting world as somewhat less than ho hum.

Let's face it, the Games represent nothing more than a business opportunity, in this case using people who excel at running, jumping, and swimming. There can be no greater evidence of the capitulation of governments to big business than in Ron Walker's refusal to invite Phil Coles, the Sydney-based Olympic delegate whom Walker believes voted against Melbourne's bid for the 1996 Olympics. The Victorian Labor Government Minister for Sport, Justin Madden (who used to be such a nice boy), said the snub was out of his hands. Which means it's out of the government's hands. Which means that Walker has precedence over government affairs. Which means that business rules, even when it comes to personal grudges.

Since Ron Walker is a former Liberal Party treasurer, this should come as no surprise. The whole country is in the hands of his ilk.

Vale, Attwar Bahjat

Photo : Iraqi Journalist Attwar Bahjat, who worked for Aljazeera before moving to Alarabia .

She was brutally murdered, aged just 26 years.

The high-profile TV anchor Attwar was born in Samarra, and moved to Baghdad just 3-4 years ago. Attwar was well-known of her support for the Iraqi cause and for her condemnation of the Occupation.

One ex-Abu Ghraib prisoner tells this story about Attwar: 'When I came out through the gates of Abu-Ghraib there was TV team waiting outside asked me for an interview, I said yes, then came TV anchor Attwar and asked "How do you feel …. " She couldn’t finish her question because she burst in tears when she saw how I looked after the torture'

Attwar had information about the bombing of the Shrines. Investigations are going on of course ........ don't hold your breath waiting

Worst Toys of the Century

News from Nuremburg Toy Fair

Toy Manufacturer Brumm unveiled its Little Boy and Fat Man 1:43 scale model atom bombs, the ones used to kill over 500,000 civilians when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.

Vale, Bill Hartley

Bill Hartley died on the weekend, aged 75. He will be missed very much, by many people from across Australia and beyond. I shall miss him.

He came over to Victoria from Western Australia in the 1960s to head the Victorian branch of the ALP, and by the 1970s his name was synonymous with the socialist hardline group.

Above all, he was a passionate defender of workers' rights, a man who devoted his life to the labour movement.

Sympathy to Janet Elefsiniotis.

Pssst wanna buy a million dollars?

Eight people in southern Japan blew $1.27 million paying for American $1 million bills. No, the treasury doesn’t print any.

Three of the eight mugs have filed for personal bankruptcy. They are also considering a criminal complaint. How would you go about that?

Perhaps "I bought a million dollar note and it's not legal tender"?
or "London Bridge was supposed to come with this"

The story is over at One Man Bandwidth and that's his image of the banknote too

Congratulations

FROM GET UP

Congratulations on the passing of the RU486 Private Member's Bill. This means that the medical experts at the TGA - and not Tony Abbott, failed Roman Catholic priest - will determine whether Australian women will have access to this important drug.

On Monday 28 November last year we began a campaign to get politics out of medicine, and let the TGA – not Health Minister Tony Abbott – decide on the availability of the drug RU486.

It seemed improbable back then that a proposed Democrats amendment would end up forcing a Private Member's Bill and conscience votes from both the major parties, and that a ten year old ministerial veto would be thrown off the statute books.

Today that's exactly what's happened.

GetUp members should be proud of the important contribution they have made to this result: 8000 signatures on our national petition, almost 6000 emails sent to MPs and hundreds of last minute phone calls.

Working with Reproductive Choice Australia, we have campaigned hard over weeks and months to make our voices heard – and we have succeeded.

This is an important day for a women's right to choose in Australia, but it's also an important day for the democratic process. Today we have all been reminded of the power of participation, and it's a lesson I hope we don't forget.

Get Up