Outraged But Why

After seeing the photos of what the coalition soldiers had put the Iraqi P.O.W.s through, I felt outrage. And then wondered why.

Some of the talking heads reckon the "treatment" of those Iraqis was nothing you wouldn't see college students doing to other college students. And certainly not worse than what students do to each other.

I don't recall anything like that going on when I was a prisoner of the education system. And neither had I heard of any such actions. Which means, either times have changed (a LOT) or it's not as common as the talking heads make out. (I think the latter.) Whichever the case, please let me know the colleges this kind of treatment occurs at so I can make sure to avoid them.

But even if the treatment is the same as students experience in college, that doesn't make it right. Someone else's depravity over here doesn't justify anyone else's depravity over there.

So why should I feel outrage? Because the forces are representative of us. And as such, their actions are a reflection of us and our way of life. What they have done is not only let us down, but betrayed us. And I think it is that sense of betrayal which is what angered me about what they did. They have betrayed the trust placed in them. Betrayed the honor bestowed upon them. Betrayed the responsibility given them. And, by their actions, have shown themselves to be no better than some of Saddam's henchmen.

I can only imagine how their parents feel about their "little darlings." Proud feelings turning to embarrassment.

United Nincompoops

When I sat down to write this, I wanted to come up with something witty as an alternate meaning to the official United Nations letters U.N. And in my search for finding the correct spelling of "Nincompoops" I discovered a website already called United Nincompoops. It says this about itself...

"United Nincompoops is the coming together of knuckleheads and ninnies far and wide. It's like a hall of fame for the infamously insane and incessantly idiotic, in the spirit of the, ahem, other UN. Inductees are admitted on a rolling basis, as true despicability knows no timely bounds."

And it has the following inductees as its class of 2003:

* CBS Network
* Christiane Amanpour
* Helen Thomas
* Hillary Clinton
* Human Shields
* Moby
* Nelson Mandela
* Not In Our Name
* Old Europe
* Toni Smith
* Yasser Arafat

And I agree. They all certainly are Nincompoops. But let me get to the real Nincompoops... the Nincompoops at the United Nations.

For a lo-o-o-o-ong time now, almost all of us on the political right have seen the U.N. for what it really is: a place where any murderous thug who calls himself a leader of a country, can dictate world policy, act all big and bad, and get commended for their atrocious actions within their own countries. Who can suck money out of the value-producing countries of the world. And who are a pestilence on humanity. To put it lightly.

Many in the U.S. have urged "Get the UN out of the US and get the US out of the UN." In other words, they want the U.S. to revoke its membership and to kick the U.N. and all its leech-like "diplomats" out of the U.S.A.

If the U.S. withdrew from the U.N., the U.N.'s military would disappear, no one other country would be able to fund/house the leech-like diplomats, and effectively the U.N. would vanish. And to many - including me - it sounds like a good thing to happen.

Then I get some common sense and think about it a bit. And I recall Wesley Snipes' character Blade and agree with him. Keep your enemies close!

Where would the U.N. go? Possibly to Russia?

Hands up anyone who thinks the U.N. being headquartered in Russia is a good idea?

Hmmm. Just as I thought. No hands up.

As much as it pains me to admit it. Within the U.S. is the best place for the U.N.

And what of the U.N. and the Food For Oil scandal? Again I would like to see hands raised by anyone who is truly surprised by this?

About the only surprising thing that will come of the investigation - which will see documents mysteriously be shredded and vanish, and a lot of butt covering - is the depth of the corruption.

Of course, guys like Kofi Annon, the "Secretary General" of the U.N. (how did he get that job anyway?), will come up smelling of roses. And friends of his will also appear squeaky clean. But there will be some whose heads will role. And maybe even some who will see the writing on the wall and quickly make a deal to save themselves. And the leaders of those countries will re-call those responsible and dish out mediocre punishment. And all the while, the leftist media who love the leftist U.N. and don't really want to say anything bad about it, will have to report some stuff. But they will all put their slant on it to diminish the severity of the truth.

And after all is said and done, there will be more said - and written - than done. And the "corrupt as ever" United Nincompoops will continue on as ever before. With only a marginal sliver of corruption shaved off the outer edge. Cest la Vie.

What's Good For Cats Is Good For People

Most people would call me a "health nut". Where this phrase/label started is anyone's guess. And if I was to guess, I would say it was started by some big company that sells something unhealthy. Maybe a candy company or something.

I do find the label kinda funny. That someone who does not consume anything artificial [me] is labeled a "nut" while someone who consumes bucket loads of artificial chemicals and unpronounceable man-made substances, is viewed as "normal." Go figure.

Anyway. As a person who doesn't consume chemicals, my body tells me pretty quickly when I have inadvertently consumed something artificial. Most people's body's are so full of histamine in an effort to numb the effects of the chemicals they consume, they don't know how bad a lot of stuff is.

Being the way I am also means I am aware of how the body reacts in a self-defense way.

For instance: A rash (or any dermatological reaction) is the result of the body keeping some substance out of harm's way while the liver filters it. So if you get a rash, be thankful your body is working correctly. And then try to figure out what came into contact with your skin - or what you consumed - that your body is rejecting.

Knowing this, when I got a reaction on the finger I wear my wedding ring, I knew something was up. So first thing off was the ring. The reaction failed to clear so I knew it wasn't the metal alloy in the ring.

It took me six months until I finally figured out what was causing the reaction. And it was a combination of two things.

Thing # 1: Water boiled in a metal kettle. We had a metal kettle with a full-metal base. We stopped using it and bought a plastic kettle with an element. The skin reaction half cleared up in two days but didn't fully go away. So that meant there was something else causing it or at least adding to it.

Thing # 2: Unfiltered tap water. Our local authorities are putting something in the tap water which doesn't agree with me, or which has overwhelmed my system over time. My bet is Chlorine - as we don't have fluoride added to our water - but it could be anything. Avoiding ALL tap water and only drinking and cooking with filtered/bottled/distilled water totally cleared up the reaction within three days.

One of our cats started to lose fur on his hind legs and stomach. I searched the yard for any toxic plant and found none. And he didn't have fleas. It suddenly dawned on me that if he was consuming something which his liver couldn't filter fast enough, his body would store it in the skin. The skin would become irritated. He would lick in an effort to sooth the irritation. And the constant licking would break the fur off and even remove it from the follicle.

Seeing as I had had a reaction to our tap water, I figured maybe the cat was too. So stopped giving him tap water and also only gave him filtered/bottled/distilled water.

IT WORKED!

The disappearing fur problem stopped right away. And the fur has all grown back.

But the story doesn't end there...

I was dropping something off at a client's home and she started telling me about her cat's health problems. Mentioned that she had taken it to several vets, and one vet thought it had angina, or some such thing whatever it was that started with the letter 'A' that meant fur falling out. She'd tried different food, and was about to start her cat on medication!

Knowing what our cat's problem was - a gradual overwhelming of the system by something in the tap water - I told her about our cat and what we did to fix him without taking him to the vet - gave him filtered/bottled/distilled water instead of tap water.

She asked a few questions, said she would give it a try and promised to let me know how it went.

Well, today she called. And it's her call that prompted this entry.

Her cat is better. No longer licks its fur constantly. And the fur has almost all grown back! She was calling to thank me. She asked if she was calling at an inconvenient time, to which I replied, "It's never an inconvenient time for good news."

I must commend this women for doing the right thing by her animal instead of opting for the easy, but costly and deadly, medication option. And it just goes to show, when we stop doing the things that make us sick (in this case drinking chlorine), our bodies heal themselves extremely fast.

Space - The Final Frontier Or Something Else

To boldly go where no man has gone before. It started the Star Trek episodes and is pretty well the only reason we continue to go into space. Not to mine precious resources we can't find here on our ball of mud. Not to trade with other civilizations. But to just go where someone else hasn't gone. That's it! I hope you are pleased with your tax dollars being spent this way. All $14.2 billion of them.

In the film clip for Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately," her and Paula Abdul (now an American Idol judge) are discussing Janet's boyfriend. Janet is reminiscing about the nice things he used to do, to which Paula says something like, "That's all nice and well Janet honey - BUT - what has he done for you lately?"

In that same vein I need to ask, "What has NASA and men and women going into space done for me lately?"

Microwave oven? Sure. But in all reality, only shortly before private enterprise would have done it anyway. And hardly worth all the money spent on space to justify the modern appliance. (Which I don't even own.)

There have been no medical breakthroughs. Nothing that enhances life down here for us earth-bound Earthlings. The only data of any real use that gets compiled from our sojourns into space, is data that enables "them" to go into space better next time.

In the really old days, explorers would go exploring to find resources they could bring back to the home land. There was a profit motive. With space, many of the reasons for going into space are to bring back information to help future space missions. And those future space missions will likewise bring back information to help future space missions.

What use does it serve us, knowing whether or not their used to be water on Mars? It's a Yes/No question. A "No" answer doesn't enlighten us or make this world a better place to live, any more than a "Yes" answer does.

If the answer is "Yes" then NASA has just secured more funding to figure out other equally useless things about Mars. Like whether the water was fresh water or salt water. And knowing the answer to that is equally useless, to us.

It's important to gather data about how humans change after long-term exposure in a weightless environment. Is it? The only use that data has is for space visits of longer duration - which will also bring back data about how long-term weightlessness effects the body. Which is only useful for future space missions.

Time in space, leads to info to allow longer time in space aboard a space station. Which leads to more info about time in space and possible long-term time in space building a base on the moon. A base on the moon, unless it is a mining depot, will be claimed to be a jump off point for Mars missions (never admitting a base on the moon is really a military advantage), which also have no useful purpose, to US.

Sure. It's cool to send stuff into space and get equally cool pictures back. But what does that do for me? And does all that money spent justify it being cool?

What if, instead of spending fourteen thousand two hundred million dollars ($14,200,000,000.00) on finding out how to go into space better so we can go into space better to find out how to go into space better, the money was simply given to people. Say 14,200 people were given one million dollars ($1,000,000.00). Wouldn't that BENEFIT the economy more than space "exploration" does?

What if, instead of space money, it was used to pay off the home loans of many people. Like maybe those about to be foreclosed on. Not only would that benefit the economy more, it would save a lot of people from going into bankruptcy and having their credit worthiness ruined for many years. It would save the emotional turmoil those people (families) go through. It would save a lot of resources spent on the entire foreclosure procedure.

What if, instead of space money, it was used to give one million people a $14,200 deposit for their own home? An increase of one million home sales over the course of the year would have a tremendous boost to the economy.

There are lots of ways the money spent going into space for "going into space" sake, could be used to create values down here by spending down here.

Ok. So is there a value to be extracted from space?

Sure there is. In two ways...

Resources. However, the cost to get those resources and bring them back to Earth, would make it prohibitive compared to other available and alternate resources we already have.

Which means Entertainment is space's most valuable purpose. Imagine a hotel on the Moon... or a Space Station Hotel. How much would you pay to spend a week aboard a Hotel Space Station? How much would you pay to spend a week on the Moon. Just to experience it? I can tell you, if such a thing were offered and tickets were one million dollars per head, all the rooms would be booked out a year or two in advance.

That is where the Money in space will be made. Private Enterprise will light the way, once they are allowed into space. Like the old profit motive driving force of the explorers of old, private enterprise can make space profitable instead of the "closed-loop spending system with no benefit" it is now.

What Did You Call Me?

Arguments. Screaming. Yelling. Shouting. Cursing. And finally, divorce.

Why can't couples just get along?

Could the answer be in what they call each other?

Every couple I know whose marriage has ended in divorce, called each other by their name. As in, "Bob, will you put out the garbage" or, "Jane, do you want to make mashed potatoes tonight."

When I think of loving couples, they seldom, if ever, call each other by their names. The refer to each other as "honey," "sweetheart," "darling," "love" and so on. And if you hear a couple talking to each other using those words, you automatically think they are a loving couple.

What if, the names you call your spouse determine how you treat your spouse?

If you refer to your spouse by their given name, then you will treat them with about as much affection as you do anyone else in your life who you refer to by name - co-worker, neighbor, friends, etc.

If you refer to your spouse by a loving term of endearment, then you will treat them lovingly. After all, you are using special names not given to anyone else, so you must treat them special because they are extra special to you.

We were at a function. One girl, who had been with her boyfriend for three months, asked him, "Bob, how come we aren't as affectionate as [me and my wife] when they've been married for three years and we've only been going out three months?"

I don't recall his waffling answer. But they did get married a year or so later. And a few years after that they got a divorce.

If I am wrong, and the name doesn't create the treatment and instead is a reflection of TRUE feelings, then anyone who calls their spouse by their name is indicating they have as much affection for them as for a co-worker, neighbor or friend. So listening to what couples call each other could give a clue as to the state of their relationship and whether or not it is doomed.

IMPORTANT: If you are in a relationship, don't use the above to "analyze" your spouse's true feelings. The last thing I want, is for MY observation to be viewed like the articles in a typical women's mag and to create insecurity.

Either way - whether calling by a name creates the way you treat your spouse, or whether calling by a name indicates your true underlying affections - what you call your spouse is only part of what makes a relationship successful.

Another part is to tell each other you love each other every day. And to kiss and hug - without it always having to end in sex.

Wally World

A major - MAJOR - business interest has closed down. And in typical "big business excusing-making" their excuse is.... drum roll please... poor market conditions brought about by SARS and Terrorism.

Who is this business?

Why it's none other than Australia's Wonderland - the Australian theme park which was created, owned and operated by Kings Entertainment, who also own and operate Canada's Wonderland and four other theme parks around the globe.

I was employed by the park (security) from the beginning and for its first two years of operation. So I have an unusual insight into the behind the scenes goings on.

A brief history:

Wally World, as we used to call it, was built on part of a 256 acre parcel of land in the middle of nowhere in an outer-lying suburb of Sydney. There was no major train line nearby (the train line nearby was a minor line and didn't have volume services), the bus service from the train station to the park was pathetic at best (it was not uncommon for staff to have to wait an hour for a bus to take them to the train station or major bus exchange a twenty minute drive away), and it took pretty well at least an hour to drive to it from most suburbs in Sydney. But hey, the land was cheap when they bought it - and - some housing estates were being built in the area (land was cheap, remember).

The park gates used to open at 9.00 am BUT nothing in the park was actually open until 10.00 am. You could enter into the themed area known as Medieval Fair, but Hanna Barbara and Gold Rush were off limits until 10.00 am.

During the early days before the park was officially fully open, all Woolworths staff were invited to the park (free tickets). The total number of people on this "Woolworths Day" came to 30,000! And for the next two years any busy day was compared to Woolworths Day, and all fell short.

Jimmy Barnes was offered $100,000 to do a concert in the park. He wanted $120,000. There was no concert.

The band called The Radiators smoked pot in the VIP room. Girls threw their underwear at Pseudo Echo. Some of the entertainers did underwear ads on TV, Johnno and Danno "interviewed" me when they came to visit. Our boss and former cop, Gary Butcher, got his face in the newspaper when the guy who shot him was released from jail - and we were all given "id photos" to help us spot him in case he came to the park to finish the job.

I had to personally confiscated alcohol from well known Aussie Rules football player Warwick Capper, as he tried to smuggle it into the park but didn't get it by me. (He'd actually gotten it into the park and was elsewhere when I busted him.)

People tried to bribe me to let them go when I busted them for theft.

A whole bunch of staff from the admin section were busted for selling tickets without ringing the sale up on the cash register. The scam went like this: Ticket seller at ticket booth says they've run out of receipt roll and instructs ticket buyer on which turn-style to go through. At the end of the day the turn-style guy and the ticket seller share the money. This was so rampant, new staff were being instructed in how to do it by their trainers.

As a fiercely independent person, my time at Wally World was actually enjoyable. But I became possessed by some mental-lapse demon and moved to infuriatingly hot and humid Queensland. And thus my Wally World adventures ended.

Sure there is a WHOLE lot more "interesting" stuff that went on - in all departments of the park. There were cash scams in the food outlets, and cash scams in the games outlets - some busted staff even pulling knives on us as we "apprehended" them. Games staff would give tips to people to help those people win at the games - each game had a trick which enabled you to win nearly all the time.

And we (the Security team) won the department olympics that were held as well as the park touch football competition (we used to play the team from maintenance every week so we were a formed and disciplined team).

But none of that tells you anything about the recent park closure. That reason lies elsewhere...

During this so-called SARS and Terrorism downturn, them parks at the Gold Coast are flourishing - even adding stuff. The old Luna Park in Sydney is opening back up. And there are attractions all over the place doing quite well.

No. The "market conditions" excuse is a blame shifter. It is designed to shift the blame away from the park Director and his poor decisions, and the company's bad enterprises which were doomed to fail from the start.

Companies won't ever admit THEY made a mistake. Instead, they blame the loss on market conditions. This was something you saw a lot of as the internet companies collapsed. It was never the fact they were trying to sell stuff people didn't want... it was always market conditions. It was never the flamboyant spending on useless stuff - like mahogany desks for everyone, personal ten pin bowling lane, $500,000 booking fee to entertainers for rooftop parties, and so on. It was always market conditions.

And the same applies to Wally World's directors.

While I was there they made some terrible blunders. Like spending $100,000 on helicopter hire to shoot aerial footage of the park which was never used in anything. At the admission price back then of $15.95, they would have to sell 6,270 tickets to get their money back. And they would be lucky to sell that many tickets over a weekend.

We all knew the rumor that it took Walt Disney 30 years to make a profit. And we could all see the park was nowhere near even breaking even on any given operating day. And figured they were playing the "30 years to make a profit" game.

Perhaps the biggest blunder Kings Entertainment made by creating Australia's Wonderland, was creating it where they did.

People of Sydney were not into traveling to the middle of nowhere for entertainment. The previously defunct entertainment parks of "Bullen's Animal World, African Lion Safari, Adventure Land (out past Liverpool), El Cabalo Blanco (Spanish dancing horses) and Paradise Gardens (on the Hawkesbury River) should have let them know that parks in the middle of nowhere do not work in Sydney. Sydney is a "working" city NOT a tourist city.

On the Gold Coast - which would most probably be Australia's tourist Mecca - there is Dream World, Sea World, Ice World, Movie World, and they keep making money hand over fist. The reason is simple: when people go on vacation they are in a spending frame of mind. They come to the coast to spend money. So placing "Wonderland" on the coast would have been the smart thing to do.

Oh well. If King's Entertainment is smart, they will now develop the land into residential dwellings and make a killing from real estate.

Useless Cars, Pathetic But Smart Drivers

Having lived in four cities within Australia - the top three and the sixth largest - and having driven over one million kilometers since I began driving some twenty years ago, I can categorically state without any doubt, the worst drivers are Female Asian Queenslanders driving Volvos.

And even though they are the worst, that doesn't necessarily mean they are the dumbest.

I've asked around and Volvo drivers are pretty well despised all over the planet. They just don't seem to get the concept of driving. But are they dumb?

If you knew you were not a good driver, wouldn't the smart thing to do, be to drive the safest car you could afford? And wouldn't choosing to drive the safest thing on the road, make you one of the smartest drivers? Smarter than the other bad drivers who can't/won't admit they are bad and who continue to drive death-trap shopping trolleys with an engine?

Say "Hello" to Volvo drivers... the smart drivers.

Which raises another question I've never been able to get an adequate answer to. "Why do people buy sedans?"

Ok. I'm a guy. And guys go for things with a use-value. And in my case, it must have a multiple use-value. If it cannot do anything other than drive people around, then I consider the car useless. And that's how I view sedans... they are only designed for transporting a small number of people and so are, in a word, useless.

Why a sedan over a station wagon? Why a sedan over a van? Why a sedan over a pick-up? Why a sedan over a four wheel drive?

To me it's real simple: People-moving vans and station wagons should be owned by families; two/three seater vans designed for cargo and pick-ups can be driven by everyone else. Effectively then, everyone would have a vehicle with more than one use... wagons and people-moving vans can also cart "stuff" around. Pick-ups and cargo vans can also be used as an everyday driving from A to B type of vehicle.

The best vehicle for a family is a Volvo Station Wagon - it can cart the family around, plus their stuff, plus do it in total safety. Why would you choose anything else?

Really? This is a serious question. Why would you choose to buy anything other than the safest thing to drive, when driving amongst all the loonies out there?

Surely you wouldn't jeopardize your safety over "looks," would you? Surely you wouldn't put yourself at risk to impress the neighbors, would you?

Maybe someone can answer the question. And do so with a sensible answer. I'm yet to hear one, however.

Interesting. Just another one of life's mysteries.

Another mystery is: why do people choose to buy plain common sedans over slightly older luxury cars?

Up the road from me are several car yards. One of them specializes in second hand Mercedes Benz's and BMWs. For $15,000 you can get a darn nice looking, Mercedes in excellent condition. And because it's a Merc you know it has been treated well.

Yet, people will overlook such a car and instead will spend $30,000 on a plain old Ford or some such.

Years ago we bough a second hand Range Rover. Top condition. Top vehicle. Dirt cheap for what it was.

A guy we know who had bought himself a $24,000 Commodore a month earlier, sarcastically said to me, "Gee, it's nice to have money" and walked off.

His Commodore cost way more than our Range Rover, but he thought the other way simply because of the Brand of the vehicle. His car was second hand and hadn't been treated with the same kid-gloves ours had been treated with. And that's also because of who generally buys the vehicles before they become second hand.

Luxury vehicles are bought by people who look after them. Common vehicles are bought by people who don't give a shit about them.

The Art of The Scan

Have you seen the new video games with grass that's more realistic? I had that when I was young. We used to call it "outside."

Other things I recall in the dark-ages which were the '80s were, music video clips which showed singers with makeup on. And we used to make fun of Duran Duran needing two trucks to go on tour - one for them for themselves and one for their makeup (boom boom).

Those heady days of makeup are long gone it seems. Now it's what I affectionately call "scanning".

There are these very talented individuals online who have loads of time to enhance pictures of scantily clad women. What they usually do is, clip a picture out of a magazine, scan it in, manipulate it, then upload their work of art for all the internet to enjoy. Hi-res scans they are sometimes referred to as.

In an effort to understand why these guys could do some incredible stuff with pictures while other so-called graphic artists could barely apply a sepia filter, I endeavored to learn their art.

To sum it up, here is what they do: They scan the image using an ordinary scanner - probably something like the one you have attached to your computer. BUT, they scan it at 1200 dpi (600 dpi minimum). On the screen, this gives them a HUGE image.

They then open this image in graphic software (Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro). They then zoom in to a section of the picture, draw an invisible line which encompasses an area. This area is thus deemed as 'selected" and can be manipulated.

What they then do is apply something called a Gaussian Blur. This effect averages out (smooths out) the color variations between the pixels of the image. While doing this blur they can also alter the color somewhat - such as making the whites of the eyes very white.

Once they have gone over the entire picture in this manner - and this takes a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time, they resize it to maybe something like 300 dpi. This resize also creates a sharpness.

The end result of all this work is an image without flaws. The skin is perfectly smooth - blemish free - and has an even color tone to it.

The skill of the scanner (and within their "trade" they become known by their handles) is all in creating a super sharp image that looks realistic and not obviously computer manipulated to a member of the general public.

In the music video clips of today, I see bad attempts at "scanning." The singer's face will be blemish free, their eyes will look unnaturally white, and they take on the appearance of a computer game character and not a real person.

Janet Jackson's latest film clip is a classic example. She looks artificial. But nowhere near as bad as the scan job done on Blu Cantrell in her video for "Breathe" - she lacks all realism in the closeup shots of her film clip and looks computer generated. As one video show host exclaimed, "she's been air brushed within an inch of her life."

But like all things within the music video business, this fad too shall pass. The sooner the better.

Just Wasting Time

Please bear with me during the flashback, there is an important point.

When I was playing top-level competitive tennis I always had the attitude of "no-one is unbeatable" and "NEVER give up." And it is that attitude which saw me come back from 5-0 down and one point away from losing, to winning. From beating people who were better than me - in the sense they could serve harder, hit the ball faster, and had a wider variety of shots. If Andre Agassi's old coach Brad Gilbert had seen me play he would have said I was "Winning Ugly" - my game mightn't have been textbook or pretty to watch, but I did what was necessary to win.

If you play tennis, this one single thing can increase your win rate: run for every ball and do not stop running until you get there or the ball passes you.

Doing this one thing alone, can frustrate the heck out of your opponent who is then forced to go for more on their shots. And that leads to a greater chance of them hitting the ball out.

I also had two other rules I tried to follow religiously:

Rule # 1: Return every serve no matter how good the return; you cannot win the point unless you get the ball back in play.

Rule # 2: Make sure you always get your serve in (never double fault); you cannot win the point unless you make the opponent hit a ball.

These two rules meant, I did whatever it took to make my opponent hit one more ball. And it resulted in some funny looking tennis I can tell you. It also meant, if someone beat me, they worked darn hard for it.

After one representative game, I walked off the court with my beaten opponent dawdling behind. My team mate and his opponent walked onto the court. As they passed my defeated foe, he said, "that guy's a blood spastic" and motioned to me. My quick-witted team mate replied, "Doesn't say much for you then being beaten by a spastic." Winning Ugly.

Sometimes I refer to my style of tennis as "Geezer Tennis." I know all the tricks and will force you to play unconventionally, if you can.

And once I beat a guy - the second time I had played him and the second time I had beaten him. My winning meant I had secured another representative place plus a birth in the semi-final of the tournament. All his "mates" and many other people put pressure on me to relinquish my position so he could play instead.

I stood firm. I had rightfully earned my spot. And I'd be buggered if I was going to just stand aside. To hell with what "they" thought or said. "They" weren't stepping aside for me.

Sure, no-one in the team talked to me. But my 100% singles winning record during the season's competition did all the talking for me. (And besides, the guy I beat was the team's reserve so I don't know what the big deal was.)

Anyway. It's these thoughts which flashed into my head as I learned about Craig Stevens' choice to stand down from his place in the 400m swimming so Ian Thorpe could compete.

Craig obviously does not have the "no-one is unbeatable" attitude. He obviously doesn't have the "NEVER give up" attitude. In fact, his attitude makes me wonder why he bothers at all.

I mean really. What was the entire point of even entering the qualifying race for the 400m when all he did was chuck his chance away when he had it? How many hours did he WASTE training for the event? How much time and money from other people had gone into his 400m training? To just piss away the chance when he got it, shows his total lack of "never say die" attitude. He ain't a competitor. He is a loser. Capital L.

Oh, but what about the pressure?

Screw the pressure. And screw what everyone else thinks. If he wasn't prepared to race the event, he should have never wasted his time entering the trials for the event. Plain & Simple.

His decision reveals a lot about him as a competitor. And to me, it says, he won't ever win anything major. He doesn't have that "I'll never give up because no-one is unbeatable" attitude.

He gave up his spot because Thorpe is better, in his eyes. He would thus almost certainly think he won't win the 1,500m either because the other guy is better and has a world record. So he'll be in events he doesn't think he's got a snow flakes chance in hell of winning. Why is he even going to the Olympics? Just wasting time.

Political Idol

Have you ever noticed how close political polls seem to be a LOT of the time, percentage wise? We're not talking 5% difference. We're talking 1% or 2%.

And when the percentage for one politician goes up, usually the percentage for the other percentage also goes up, to keep things close.

For instance: When asked who people preferred as President, 43% might say Bush, 42% might say Kerry, with the remaining as undecided. Then, two days later, the percentages will be 45% Bush, 44% Kerry with the rest undecided.

Surely the country cannot be so evenly divided. And I don't think it is. I think some "funny business" goes on with the polls. All of it designed to keep people glued to the all knowing eye waiting for the next poll to see how their favorite is doing.

Imaging what would happen if the polls said, 76% Bush, 20% Kerry and the rest undecided. People would very quickly lose interest in the election as they deem Bush a shoe in. TV stations would lose viewers, which would mean they wouldn't be able to charge as much for advertising.

BUT, by having close polls, viewership remains high and high advertising charges can be justified.

If the poll numbers are not manipulated, how can the results continue to be so close?

First, we don't truly know the question asked during the poll. The way a question is asked can have a great impact on how someone answers.

Example: "Who would make a better President?" Is different to "Who will you vote for in November?" Which is different to adding the names of the politicians into the question and the order in which those names are presented - Bush first or Second: "Would George Bush make a better President than John Kerry?" will get different responses than "Would John Kerry make a better president than George Bush?"

But the actual question is just one aspect. Another factor is the time of the day the poll is taken. If we assume people with more time on their hands are left leaning (because if they are home during the day they may be on unemployment money and thus left in nature) and people who are not home during the day are right leaning (because they are self-employed or striving to better themselves), then polls taken in the middle of the day will get a different result than those taken at night.

And this still doesn't take everything into account.

What area of town were the calls made to. The overall political leaning of an area can vary widely from suburb to suburb. With one suburb consistently voting conservative while the suburb next door consistently votes liberal.

And there is still more to consider...

As calls are made the results are entered into the system. The pollsters can stop calling when they have the percentages close enough and with one person in front how they desire.

It is a common occurrence that during election vote counting, one politician often streams ahead as certain booths come in and as the earlier/later votes from that booth are counted. The same happens with phone calls. The first 100 calls might show Bush at 20% and Kerry at 60% while the next 100 calls show Bush at 90% and Kerry at 5% - with an average of 55% for Bush and 31% for Kerry at this early stage. And calls can continue being made until the pollster achieves the results they were seeking - at which point in time they stop.

Another reason for keeping Polls close is to avoid complacency from the constituency.

If you have ever watch an American Idol series right the way through, you will have seen extremely talented people end up in the bottom list very early in the competition. It is to be expected because what happens is this: the fans of the talented person think "oh, they are so good they'll make it through easy" and don't vote. Whereas, the fans of the less talented person know that person needs their help and they vote.

The same can happen to a politician. If polls say one guy is way ahead, the voting public might think they will win easy and not bother voting. And thus the truly favored guy gets beaten.

To avoid this syndrome from occurring, all polls show political races to be close. It gets people watching for the latest polls and gets people into the polling booths.

How about online voting?

These polls are even worse and cannot be taken seriously in any way. And the reason is, there is nothing random about them in the slightest.

For instance: If an online poll asks "Who would make a better President" and then gives two options George Bush and John Kerry, what will happen is, someone from the Democratic Underground (DU) will post the URL of this poll and encourage readers to blast it. So a whole bunch of socialist John Kerry lovers will go to the poll and vote for Kerry. Many even coming back to the DU message board and posting the "results" they saw after voting.

Some of the readers who are brave enough to venture into the psychotic and demented world of the DU will notice what they are doing, and will put a post up on the Free Republic message board alerting readers to what is going on. This will result in Free Republic readers going to the URL and voting to swing the vote back the other way.

How about when someone phones in? Just as useless. Gang phone in voting takes place. And if it's a phone in where people are put "on air" then often there is a tendency for people to lie! Such as a hardline lefty getting on air and saying, "I've been a Republican all my life but I am going to vote for Kerry."

What it all boils down to is: Polls in any way, shape or form, are worse than useless and mean nothing.