Well here I am in at work early again. I gave up trying to sleep at about 4:30am and decided I might as well come in and set up that custom 404 error page I’ve been working on for a while. Try it out, it’s a riot!
(Note: My sleep deprived state is probably making me think it’s far funnier than it actually is)
(Another Note: Just in case you were wondering a 404 error page is what comes up when you try and access a page that isn’t there. So type something creative onto the end of the URL and watch the results.)
My continuing sleep deprivation is down to the fact that last night was horribly hot and humid – even sticking my fan right next to the bed didn’t do anything except move the hot air around. On top of that there was an alarm of some sort that kept going off somewhere close by at unpredictable intervals, and my left big toe kept getting this weird itchy pain all night. It’s still doing it now as a matter of fact, although since I’m not trying to sleep at the moment it’s a minor irritartion at most. It’s probably gout from all that high living.
I could write something here about the AWB scandal couldn’t I? Without getting too far into the details Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter (The Australian Wheat Board) has spent the last decade or so paying bribes to Saddam Hussein under the aegis of the UN Oil for Food program. This (understandably) has pissed off quite a few people, and there’s now an enquiry going on. Exactly how much good it’s going to do is debatable, as the Government (for no conceivable reason except to cover it’s own lying arse) has just banned civil servants from testifying before it. Wooo democracy!
The big problem from the Government’s perspective is that up until 1999 the AWB was Government run (before being spun off into a private company). On top of this the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is supposed to keep an eye on what said private company is doing. So the department iss either complacent in the bribery, or completely incompetant. With the track record of the Howard Government, either option is entirely likely.
I’d like to imagine that this might finally take down the Government. Unfortunately the next election is a few years away, and when it finally arrives all they have to do is yell “Interest Rates!” or “Terrorists!” or “Illegal Immigrants Defiling the Our Sacred National Borders and Throwing Children into the Sea!” and the average sheep-like Australian voter will forget all about it and vote how they’re told. *sigh* Democracy is a fine idea, apart from the bit about letting just any idiot vote.
