OK, so the oxygen bottle incident on the Melbourne-bound Qantas 747 last week was serious, and it was very fortunate that no passengers were hurt or even killed.

But, as is often the case when these things occur, the media tried to follow it up with other incidents to make out that there’s some kind of problem or epidemic. So it was that the news oeganisations went berserk when a Qantas jet returned to Adelaide because an undercarriage door failed to close - to be fair you’d only ever return to Adelaide in the case of a dire emergency but Qantas admits there was no danger to passengers. There were reports from “passengers” that there was mayhem in the cabin, but this proved to be utter bullshit.

All episodes like this come in threes if you look hard and sure enough it happened when a Qantas jet had to return to Sydney after a hydraulic leak caused oil to mist from the wing. The aircraft has three back-up hydralic systems so again there was never any danger to the aircraft or those on board.

Then today there was a fourth incident for the week which, according to The Australian,  a Tokyo-bound 747 was grounded at the last minute so it can change a faulty part, and passengers have been told to wait at Sydney Airport while the part is replaced and tested.

How is that a fucking safety scare? That fact the problem was found during a routine inspection shows safety at work.

Things like this happen to aircraft every day and to start lumping every tiny incident like this into a dossier of “embarrassing safety gaffes” is stupid reporting to say the least.

Stop insulting our intelligence and fuck off.

Qantas is not the only airline to have the yips in the past couple of weeks:

On July 20, a Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 made an emergency landing in Tampa Florida when a engine computer failed.

On July 29 A Vietnam Alirlines Boeing 777 made an emergency landing in Tokyo after an engine caught fire.

On July 31 Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 landed in Vancouver safely after sustaining damage to its fuselage in flight.

On August 2 a Russian Red Wings Airline Tupolev Tu-204 airliner made an emergency airliner in Minsk after an engine engine failure.

On August 3, a United Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Beijing to San Fransisco had to return to China because of a faulty landing gear.

 The Footy Show’s Sam Newman is again embroiled in a sexism controversey after a remark about a Tasmanian politician on the show. Sam insists he was inviting the poltician, Tasmania’s Economic Development and Tourism Minister Paula Wriedt, who is rather attractuve, on to the show to campaign for the state’s bid for an AFL team when he said: “It would be worthy of coming on, her.”

The remark was taken by his co-hosts as sexual but he immediately insisted he was taken out of context. Obviously this story is now headlining the news web sites and we won’t hear the last of it.

Regardless of the meaning of Sam’s comment we should take a step back and realise it will hardly damage Ms Wriedt, who I’m sure would accept any apology if it were forthcoming.

At the same time another football related sexism story has appeared online, but will not get the same attention as Sam’s remarks, despite it being far more insidious.

It has been alleged a female paramedic was subjected to sexually explicit remarks while surrounded by naked footballers in a change room in western Victoria, while treating a player who had broken his leg during a game on June 28.

As is usually the case, the keepers of the fucking thugs, the football league and club management, have refused to discuss the allegations, stating they are “speaking with Ambulance Victoria on the matter and that undisclosed “sanctions” had been applied to one of the club’s concerned.

Fuck that! Name and shame the fucking meatheads who did this and ban them from ever playing football again. If not the daily newspapers should stop reading press releases, get behind the truth of the story and if the claims stack up reveal the fuckers for the sexist pigs they are.  

Of course this won’t happen because everyone will be on Sam Newman’s back for a remark that would have went over most people’s heads if James Brayshaw hadn’t pulled Sam up.

It would be trivialising sexism if this story were blown out of proportion while the cases that did cause real harm and intimidation continued to go vicrtually innoticed.

Why is it we’re suffering through higher interest rates because the Reserve Bank things we’re spending too much and leading to higher inflation - yet when we stop spending and retail spending goes down thus stemming the inflationary tide, everyone starts shitting themselves?

Surely the fact that Harvey Normal is suffering a downturn was the fucking point of the interest rate hike, so why then is everyone blaming Kevin Rudd and coming out with scenarious of gloom and fucking doom?

Fuck economists, fuck business journalists and fuck Harvey Norman.

Yesterday in my post about rude women on public transport, I made a comment about my morning trip where the noise pollution I was subjected was so bad, it made the torture technique of water boarding sound like the kind of fun activity you get to do for free at Club Med. If I had a weapon I may well have committed bloody murder.

Well lo and behold this actually happened in Canada yesterday when a passenger in a cross country bus stabbed, gutted and decapitated a man seated next to him and, and then taunted police with the head.

This is an horrific crime which I don’t really want to make light of, but I couldn’t help noticing this line in the story: The victim, believed to be 18 years old, had been sleeping with headphones on his ears before he was repeatedly stabbed.

I wonder if this is a full on case of iPod rage!

Three important things I’ve learned in my life now that I’m half way through it.

A) Never get between a salt-water crocodile and the water

B) Never get between a hippopotamus and it’s young

C) Never get between a hoard of women and the doors of peak hour train at any Melbourne CBD station. I mean what’s that matter with you crazy arse bitches, were you raised by fucking wolves? Does a pair of white sneakers with your office clothes give you licence to storm onto a train while others are still trying to get off? Do you believe that you’re the only one who has worked hard all day so thus, of all the people trying to squeeze on to trains everyday, God has singled YOU out for his given right to have a fucking seat?

Are you happy when you shove pregnant or elderly women aside, in a way that would make Barry Hall cringe, so you can sit on your big fat fucking arse and read mX or New Idea? Are you? Why don’t you show some fucking manners, all of you.

Women claim chilvary is dead, but as far as I’m concerned all bets are off. Get fucked. I used to give up seats for women just because they were women. But after nearly having my nuts ripped off by one crazy bitch’s handbag just because she wanted her choice of fucking seat I don’t feel so fucking charitable any more.

So ladies let me say this. Unless you’re pregnant or old (and I mean really fucking old because fuck it if you can walk around Myer all day you can stand on a train) than I am fucked if I am going to forgo a seat for you and your gender anymore.

Take your white sneakers, your handbags and your copy of mX and fuck off!

The latest Newspoll shows spineless former federal treasurer Peter Costello is by the far the most popular choice for the thankless task of Opposition Leader. Costello was found to be less shit that Malcom Turnbull who was only a little less hated than Brendan Nelson.

What’s the point of asking who the preferred opposition leader is when Labor still holds a 14-point lead of the Coalition and Kevin Rudd’s approval rating as preferred prime minister is still up around 60 per cent. Such questions remind me of my school days when we posed dilemmas like - would you rather be blind or deaf?

Which is why Newspoll should have asked callers about which other of two evils they prefer. I mean if you’re going to ask which cunt do people prefer to lead the Liberal Party, you might as well ask:

• Would you rather be kicked in the left nut, or right nut?
• Would you rather have gay sex with Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble?
• Would you rather be caught eating your snot or ear wax?
• Burn or drown?
• Do you prefer Kyle and Jackie O on radio or TV?
• Would you rather step in shit or vomit?
• Do you prefer Starbucks or Gloria Jeans?
• Who is the more credible columnist, Andrew Bolt or Timmeh Blair?
• Would you rather live in Adelaide or Hobart?
• Westlife or Take That?
• Would you prefer farmers to be fucked by Coles or Woolworths?
• Should Channel 10 show Friends or The Nanny?

I think you get my drift. What useless, no-win dilemmas would you pose?

Another Olympics and another claim that Australia’s squeaky clean Wheat Bix-munching athletes are the only ones who don’t take banned performance enhancing drugs.

According to news.com.au a poll of our Olympic team reveals three in four believe athletes will be taking illegal performance enhancing drugs at next month’s Games. But a similar proportion is adamant Australian athletes will not be among the sporting frauds, meaning the Aussie team believes it will not be competing on an even playing field in Beijing.

It’s amazing how quick Australian athletes are quick to preach about drug use, yet when an Australian gets caught, and there have been a few, there’s always an excuse or explantion like:

• My mum gave me some pills - Shane Warne
• My coach gave me some pills - Samantha Riley
• I drank a shit load of coffee - Pentathlete Alex Watson
• My trainer gave me an injection - disgraced racehorse Arunluk
• Fuck! Look over there! - Hawthorn and West Coast Eagles football clubs

Let’s wait and see how long it is before an Australian athlete loses a race and insinuates drug taking by the victor.

Condi's Alexander Downer impersonations had the Smiths in raptures.

Pictures of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice having a cuppa with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and his parents in Perth during a “personal” trip she made to the West Australian capital remind me of the scare campaigns John Howard, his cronies and the fucktardish likes of Bolt, Timmeh and the Fat Cunt orchestrated during the election campaign.

If anything the alliance with the US is stronger under the Rudd Government than it was under Howard, despite the fact that apart from a silly salute, Rudd hasn’t had his head up George W Bush’s arse.

Personal friendships aside Smith’s close ties with Rice are a good thing for Australia as she will no doubt continue to have a powerful presence in US affairs whichever candidate wins the US Presidential election.

So far that looks like being Barack Obama, which would have made the Australian-US Alliance rather interesting considering Howard’s embarrassing swipe at Obama on his preference for US troops to withdraw from Iraq, and Obama’s subesequent pwning of Howard.

The fact that the Rudd Government has maintained close ties with the US while sticking to its guns on Iraq and being critical of our allies in Afghanistan, shows that Australia can have a meaningful alliance with the US, and engage in international affairs on its own terms.

It also exposes the myth that a Liberal Government has the monopoly on national security.

Like Kelly McGillis, the F-14 Tomcat is out of service

I must admit I loved Top Gun when it first came out - not for the actors, pathetic and totally innacurate storyline, Champagne script (”you’ll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong”), the Kenny Loggins and Motels soundtrack or the You Lost that Lovin’ Feeling bar scene, but the cinematogrophy of the aerial combat scenes.

So was I excited when I read that Tom Cruise may be reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell for a sequel to the 1986 (yes, 1986!) hot movie?

Well, no! And that’s because the real star of Top Gun won’t be in the hardly anticipated sequel. No, not Kelly McGillis (didn’t her career rocket after that!), Val Kilmer or Anthony Edwards or the angry bald guy, but the Grumman F-14B Tomcat.

Since starring in Top Gun,, the old girl has been retired from service (the F-14 Tomcat, not Kelly McGillis) from the US Navy which means the star of the next movie wull probably be the F-18F Super Hornet, which is an impressive piece of kit but won’t have the same screen presence as its giant predecessor -  it’s like making a sequel to Jane Fonda’s Barbarella starring Lindsay Lohan.

Fit, healthy and subject to public judgement

A story on the front page of the Herald Sun  today shows a 10-year-old girl in a body-building competition who looks fit and normal for her age, but with her muscles tense to show off the results of her exercising

Despite the fact that the girl loves what she is doing and is doing it for fun, is keeping fit and is doing no harm to her body the Herald Sun has sought to ridicule her and demonise her parents with the line that she is somehow being exploited and damaged.

The paper wheeled out the usual suspects to subtly condemn the mother, including media-slut child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, who says this was sending the wrong message to image-conscious kids.

“What they should be saying to kids is they should be more valued more for what they do than how they look,” said the the rent-a-quote kiddy shrink.

Carr-Gregg, as usual, is full of shit. A sport like body building is a lot about doing. The girl is doing it to look good to judges, not to look better than her peers. It’s not like 10 year olds are being lines up compared on their looks against their will.

I would have thought this teaches children about self respect, nutrition and how to be active - does Carr-Gregg want her to be part of the mythical childhood obesity epidemic instead.

This is no different to junior dance competitions, which my daughters often take part in, where children are judged on technique and appearance. As for the physical demands of body-building on a child, check out the physical demands on kids who give dance and a real shot. According to her mother the girl does not use weights, just exercises, which are probably no more strenuous to the stretch classes that dancers endure.

It’s so unfair for the parents of this girl to be accused of somehow doing the wrong thing by her. This is a normal family who does not deserve to be on the front page of a newspaper and put at risk of public condemnation, by fucktards who follow this kind of bullshit like sheep.

Why can’t the self-rightious lot at the Herald Sun and Dr Carr-Gregg, concentrate on the 100 kids who needs emergency accommodation in Melbourne every night, or those children that are being found dead through neglect in their own homes on a far too regular basis.

And as readers it’s about fucking time we stopped passing judgement on people who are doing no wrong by their kids.