Being mean to Federline

While doing some research into the Britney Spears baby-on-lap incident this morning, I was hit by a sudden realisation. I haven't taken enough time in my hectic daily life to sit back, relax, and laugh at Kevin Federline. Sure, I hissed and booed as he dumped his heavily pregnant wife for Britney. And I looked on with morbid fascination as the backup dancer married the star, got her pregnant in short order, and then featured in weekly stories about how they were about to break up because he wasn't good to her.
But there's so much less to the guy they call K-Fed than that. This morning, I got to meet one of the dumbest, vainest people on the planet.

The first place to start in any laugh-at-Federline operation is definitely his official website, the home base for his attempts to become a whiteboy rapper in the best Vanilla Ice tradition. He's a lot more than Mr Britney Spears, as the intro makes clear:
Hey Everyone,
I don't think we've ever been formally introduced. My name is Kevin Federline. I'm 6 feet tall, have brown hair and brown eyes. I enjoy horseback riding, long walks on the beach and the wind whipping through my hair. Ha ha ha. On a more serious note, there's going to be a lot more information and updates on here in the coming weeks and I think this will provide you with the opportunity to get to know who I really am.
There's a wealth of Federlinian brilliance to be found on this site. Such as an interview with allhiphop.com's Kathy Iandoli. Read this and tell me she isn't taking the piss:
AllHipHop.com: If you had to pick a crew to join- could be from any point in Hip-Hop history- which crew would it be?
Kevin Federline: Back in the day, I would’ve probably rolled with Digital Underground. Nowadays, I don’t know, there are so many people on fire right now so I don’t even know. It would be a privilege to go over to Interscope with their crews like G-Unit and Dre. Then again, it would be real cool to go over to the East Coast and go with Jay’s crew, who’s really hot right now. Both crews are hot. Then you’ve got the South; you’ve got Jermaine. God, it’s just so diverse, I wouldn’t know which way to go. So I’ll have to do it by myself to make me feel better.
AllHipHop.com: Would you see yourself collaborating with any of them?
Kevin Federline: Oh yeah, definitely. I’d love to do a joint with the Game or even Missy or Ludacris - people from out there.
Then there's the question I know I've wanted to ask him.
AllHipHop.com: Since you have both, which weighs more in music: looks or skills?
Kevin Federline: I think the skills are really gonna work out on this. And the fact that everything I’m doing or saying on my album is real. There’s no fake agenda about it. It’s really me. Most of my blood, sweat, and tears were put into this album.
But perhaps the best part of the site is that it links you to Kev's MySpace site, 'KevinFederlineForReal'. If you're over the age of 20, you may not have heard of MySpace. It's a social networking site where kids hang out, flirt and send each other messages. Kev's MySpace page is probably the worst-designed webpage I've ever seen – I'm sure he made it himself. It's so ugly that it's illegible. Really, I can't believe that someone whose wife has such a sophisticated publicity machine would be allowed to put forward such an incredibly naive face to the world. You can hear his single 'PopoZão' on the site. It's spectacularly bad.
But it gets worse. Poor vain, dumb Kevin's allowed people to leave comments, all of which are incredibly harsh. Jordan says "K-Fed Actully makes David Hasselhoff look good", while The Fearsome Pirate Blackheart Sue says "
Oh my God, it's like you two come from a special retard planet. Hello Britney, it's a baby not a dog. That kid is so freakin' screwed."
The harshest thing, though, is simply a link someone's posted to one of the funniest videos I've ever seen. It's K-Fed funking along to his single in the studio. Check the screeching at the start, and the whooping and white-boy-rapper comments throughout. No wonder they call him Wiggerline.
So what does PopoZão mean? K-Fed himself explains to Iandoli:
Actually it was the producer I was working with at the time. He is engaged to a girl that lives over there in Sao Paolo; so he spends a lot of time out there. When he comes out, he’s always playing me these like new Brazilian dance tracks, and I kinda like over time just started picking up the language from their mannerisms when him and his wife are talking and stuff. I asked him one day when I heard the beat for “PopoZâo,” “How do you say big butt in Portuguese?” and he was like “PopoZâo.” So I’m like alright well how do you say “get your ass over here and shake it on the floor for me?” So we did this little thang in Portuguese and we ran with it.
It seems that Portugese, PopoZao means 'big ass'. Seems about right.
Dominic Knight
Update: I couldn't resist looking for more video... there's a great SNL sketch on that site too.

Flying the blokey skies

Groucho Marx once mentioned not wanting to join a club that would have him as a member. That witticism may never have been more appropriate than for the club I just signed up for, the LynxJet Mile High Club.
Inspired by a predictably popular article on this website, I joined up so I could visit the 'exclusive' lounge and experience the website's cheesy titillation at full bore.
Just to blog about it, you understand. It's an interesting sociological and business story. With breasts.

And now apparently my membership card is coming in the mail. I can't wait to enter what I'm sure will be an enthralling world of deodorant-related benefits and privileges.
In the spirit of FHM and Ralph's 'new lad' culture, the Lynx site justifies something that would normally be termed sexist is justified by virtue of it being 'ironic'. Because when its 'mostesses' flash their bazoombas at fans and provide massages right around the country, they do so with an air of wry self-parody. And because everyone involved knows it's tacky, it's not exploitative – it's fun.
And the beautiful thing is, of course, that the male libido is completely irony proof. So we fellas get our jollies – guilt free. Woo hoo. Hell yeah. Rrrrooowww! Etc.
It's been working brilliantly well. I can scarcely believe it, but the SMH article reckons that this strategy has netted them 85% of male deodorant sales in supermarkets. Talk about your Lynx effect. What a brilliant way to convince guys to make themselves smell like a blend of musk LifeSavers and over-ripe tropical fruit.
And you still think that the LynxJet vision of airborne hot tubs is sexist? Well, watch out, because you're about to get egg on your face. "The two most senior marketing executives responsible for Lynx are women and "very much supportive" of the strategy," says the spokesperson. Who just happens to be a man. But he says the women are into it. So there.
While marvelling at the patriarchy's latest brilliant device for getting women to wear hardly any clothes, I realised that there is a victim in all this. As opposed to those wonderfully empowered 'mostesses', of course. And that is the Bahamas' very own LynxAir, an "island happy, people friendly airline flying people, parcels and mail to hot spots in the Caribbean."
Apparently lots of people think that LynxJet is a real airline, and are genuinely disappointed to learn it isn't. So imagine the people who sign up to fly Lynx Air around the Caribbean only to discover no onboard massage, hot tubs or even mostesses.
JetStar nixed the idea of painting a plane in the LynxJet insignia, but those nifty marketing boffins at Unilever (a phallic image if ever I've heard one) shouldn't give up on their dream of seeing their raunchy airline actually existing. All they need is a partnership with those other crusaders for women's liberation, Hooters Air.
Dominic Knight

A pokie in the eye for the big clubs

Is there anyone less deserving of our sympathy than the big registered clubs who whinge about the pokie machine tax? Being forced to pay a large proportion of the funds they gouge from problem gamblers to the State Government that's forced to deal with the huge social problems these clubs create is not unfair. It's good policy. And given how much they whinge, it's also quite good fun.

After Michael Egan identified them as a lucrative source of additional revenue, and created a differential system where the mega-clubs with hundreds of pokies pay higher tax, ClubsNSW has done everything in its power to turn public opinion against Labor. Premier Iemma did his usual bad compromise that pleases nobody and reduced the tax, but kept it differential. But that wasn't enough for the greedy clubs. So now they're hosting a massive $1000 per head fundraiser for Liberal leader Peter Debnam – who would be better advised to follow the example of his Queensland counterparts, who are arguing that the Beattie Government is addicted to gambling revenue, and that pokie numbers should be slashed.
Their spokesman had a hilariously bitchy little whinge about it, too:
Jeremy Bath, a ClubsNSW spokesman, said: "We would have liked to be doing this with the ALP but there's no point as they have made it clear they don't value the world of clubs."
The ALP does value it enormously, actually. At about $1.3 billion in extra tax revenue.
Let's just reflect on the statistics, shall we? NSW has a 'limit' of an astonishing 104,000 pokie machines. (That's one pokie machine per 65 people!) We have 10% of the world's pokies. 78,020 of these are in clubs. In 2003, according an SMH article, the average pokie generated $47,000 per year in revenue (I assume that's the profit after taxes). So that's $3,666,940,000 that the clubs make out of pokies a year. And the Liberals want to freeze the tax at its 2005 rate, saving the clubs $800 million. No wonder the clubs are shouting them a dinner.
The problem is that the clubs have outgrown the umbrella of legislation designed to help promote community groups, like RSLs, sport clubs and cultural clubs, and are running more or less like businesses. Panthers has gone way beyond what was necessary to support Penrith rugby league, becoming a massive conglomerate that has taken over lots of smaller clubs in the area. So too the Bulldogs club, whose Oasis folly – now aborted – had very little to do with the purported aims of supporting rugby league.
Yes, these are non-profit organisations. But what that means, judging by my visits to them, is that they reinvest their income into making their clubs more profitable, and building more room for more poker machines. Just because you can't return your profits to shareholders doesn't mean that a club can't become incredibly greedy.
And so can its employees. In 2003, it was revealed that Panthers was paying $3 million to a company owned by its chief executive, Roger Cowan. Not exactly the "sport and community projects" that the clubs like to argue their revenues go into.
By becoming addicted to fat pokie profits, clubs have abandoned their original aims. Instead of providing places where people from the local area can come together and socialise, furthering the aims of the original organisation, they've become mini-casinos. And instead of building communities, they have started to destroy its members.
I've had the pleasure of visiting the Rooty Hills RSL Club several times in the past few years. It once billed itself as "The Vegas Of The West", but it's changed that to "The Venue Of The West" – the original slogan didn't quite conform with the goal of being about more than pokies. The main area is a massive pokie parlour the size of a football field, with a couple of bars and eateries squashed onto the side. I can't think of an environment less conducive to socialising – or honouring the memory of returned servicemen. Who evidently fought and died for this country so that its most vulnerable could be fleeced by pokies in their name. Something to ponder during the compulsory minute of silence.
I once slept there as part of a foolhardy student excursion to Australia's Wonderland, and I'll never forget the queue of elderly women waiting out the front at 9am, when the pokie lounge opened. It's one of the most depressing things I've ever seen.
Sure, Rooty Hill does good things. They gave over a million dollars to the community last year. But I couldn't find anywhere on its website the total amount it earned from its massive number of pokies.
Besides, the extra tax will go to the community. In the form of a higher health budget. Which is a bit more important than trying to stave off rugby league's inevitable death.
Personally, I think pokies simply shouldn't be legal, as is that case in most territories. The social detriment far outweighs any dubious benefit. If they are legal, then sure, I support the clubs having them ahead of publicans, because at least some of the profits do go to good causes. But the number per venue should be hugely limited.
And therein lies the way for clubs to beat Egan's differential tax, other than resorting to political blackmail by consorting with the Liberals. If they simply reduced their number of poker machines to a slightly less obscene number, they won't have to pay such a high tax. Who knows, maybe some of that reclaimed space could be used for something really controversial and different for a registered club? Like, I don't know, providing a place for people to actually sit and socialise. Which is presumably what the ex-servicemen actually wanted when they started the clubs after returning from the war.
Dominic Knight

The cartoon conundrum

Sometimes the clash of civilisations theory proposed by Samuel Huntington and debated in arts faculties around the world becomes all too real. Like today, for instance, when the Danish embassy in Beirut was torched, injuring hundreds. And the Western media, including two Fairfax-owned newspapers in New Zealand, are continuing to fan the flames by reprinting the cartoons in solidarity. All of which is why I think blogger Tim Blair is so brave for becoming the first person in the Australian media to reproduce the inflammatory cartoons this afternoon.

Blair published them in response to the call by Victorian Sheik Fehmi El-Imam for the Australian media not to publish them. Which seemed to serve as red rag to the bull – as Blair put it in his typically blunt manner, "Warning politely declined, Sheik." Which is a predictable reaction to a fairly self-defeating request. The Sheik's comments virtually guaranteed their publication.
I was tempted to put them up here on Thursday and Friday, and debate whether they should have been published in the first place, but ultimately decided not to go there. It would have necessarily involved extensive discussions with other people within the SMH and would potentially have placed others in harm's way. For the same reason, I'm not going to link to them now. It will only slow people who want to find them down by about three seconds.
This whole incident is a storm, or perhaps more accurately a Molotov cocktail in a teacup. It seems almost surreal that you can publish a cartoon in a relatively obscure newspaper in Europe and cost your countries' companies millions of dollars and get your embassy torched amid massive protests in the Middle East. I won't bother condemning these outrages. It's obvious.
But I don't think either side has distinguished itself much. The West does rightly cherish its freedom of speech, but along with any freedom comes a degree of responsibility in its use. If you goad somebody by being deliberately provocative, you shouldn't be shocked by the response. And because the cartoons were published as a deliberate response to the problem of finding illustrators to depict the Prophet, it seems like they were asking for an explosive response.
Jyllands-Posten is far from blameless, in my opinion, because I think a different standard of behaviour should be applied to the West. I think most Australians would agree that the Islamic world's attitude to free speech troubles us, and that we would love to see it develop to become more like our own. But given that we are all aware of the problem, it doesn't seem sensible or helpful to aggravate it like this. If you bait a dog with sharp teeth, and it bites you, is it a huge surprise?
The other problem is that the illustrations seem to have so little merit. Depicting the Prophet with a turban-bomb is basically just offensiveness for its own sake. And while personally I don't have a problem with that, I can understand that people do. And it's not like our own record with religious icons and free speech is particularly distinguished – look at the furore over Piss Christ, which made waves in the US Senate and which Australian Christians took to court. Religious people of any persuasion are enraged by blasphemy to a degree that's hard for a non-believer to comprehend.
The West's self-righteousness is also fairly hard for the Islamic world to take, as these press quotes suggest, Among them, I've got particular sympathy for the perspective of Shireen Mazari in Pakistan's The Nation:
The hypocrisy and falsehoods surrounding [Europe's] claim to "freedom of expression" is what needs to be exposed. Legal and political challenges are far more effective than simply burning flags or death threats which only undermine the strong case that Muslims have against these forces of hate in Europe.
And as The Guardian writes:
It is one thing to assert the right to publish an image of the Prophet... but it is another thing to put that right to the test, especially when to do so inevitably causes offence to many Muslims... That is why the restraint of most of the British press may be the wiser course - at least for now. There has to be a very good reason for giving gratuitous offence of this kind.
I suspect that all the high-falutin' solidarity in the Western press would not have happened were this not a chance to proclaim our moral superiority over the Islamic world. After all, the attempts to ban Piss Christ didn't inspire art galleries across the world to replicate the image as a show of defiance against the Christian right.
There may well be a time when the West needs to band together to protect its most fundamental rights and beliefs, and to assert that we will not compromise on the principles which are important to us for anyone. It may be necessary to offend people of other religions to do so. And if the struggle is objectively important, or the work of art valuable, count me in. The defence of The Satanic Verses is an excellent example of a battle for freedom of expression worth fighting.
When you know you're guaranteed a disproportionate, violent, ugly reaction, it's worth thinking twice about the value of a course of action. Ultimately, when I look at these unfunny, pointlessly offensive cartoons, it's hard to conclude that they're worth the hassle.

Everything’'s cruisy at Club Mac Afloat

The chronic underfunding of Australian universities is something of a tragedy. But Macquarie University’s revenue-raising response, reported in the Herald this morning, is nothing short of hilarious. The university whose somewhat cruisy student lifestyle has led it to be dubbed ‘Club Mac’ has now decided to take it to the next level by giving courses aboard a cruise ship.

700 students will pay $25,000 for a 16-week voyage aboard a luxurious Royal Caribbean Cruises liner, which has been ridiculously redubbed The Scholar Ship. Or in other words, The Really Mum And Dad, It’s Not Just A Huge Bludge Ship.
I think it’s an excellent idea. While most people’s experience of university was a little rowdy and drunken, and involved a modicum of sexual experimentation, this is the first time a university course has actually been combined with a Contiki tour.
Professor Tony Adams, who is Macquarie’s ‘International Pro-Vice Chancellor’ – a.k.a. Director of Profiteering From International Students – says that the course will “teach students skills they need to work in a global market”. And so it will. This floating drunken orgy will be the perfect preparation for this post-globalisation era, where deals can live or die on whether, for instance, you can hold your sake at a Japanese karaoke bar. And it will be a fantastic opportunity for students from different backgrounds to form an “international learning community”, as Adams puts it. Although the different ideas they'll exchange will probably mainly be about the best way of rolling a joint.
The parents who'll be funding this junket are reassured that the alcohol intake will be controlled, and that an elected student council will set its own rules. Yes, and student councils have such a glowing record on the responsible consumption of alcohol. That said, they probably won't drink much. But only because, as anyone who’s ever suffered through a harbour cruise knows, you spew much faster on a rocking boat.
I’m also pleased to see that the remarkable influence of L. Ron Hubbard on education http://www.appliedscholastics.org/lrh_ed.php is continuing. According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_org, the founder of Scientology used to give his highest-level courses on board a ship in order to avoid prosecution. The members of the ‘Sea Org’, as they were known, had to sign an employment contract that was binding for a billion years. (An idea likely to be adopted in the first round of amendments to the WorkChoices legislation.) Perhaps The Scholar Ship has also realised that by sailing in international waters, it too can avoid fraud prosecutions from parents who’ve had to fork out 25 grand for a four month long binge?
So what will students actually get out of this? While universities in such prestigious centres of higher learning as Mexico, Ghana and Morocco signed up to funnel their richer students into this ridiculous profiteering venture, only one uni has signed up to debase the value of the degrees it awards by allowing the ‘courses’ aboard this floating circus to count towards them. That’s right, our very own Macquarie University.
Still, it’s got to beat studying at North Ryde.

The day you went away...

It’s time I stopped writing about affairs in the wider world, and used this blog as the confessional for indulging private concerns that is the trademark of blogging. Because there’s something I need to get off my chest. I am in an abusive relationship. And it doesn’t hurt any less just because it happens to be with my computer.

It seems all I do is give. Constantly I lavish lavish care, affection and time on my beloved Powerbook. I shower it with gifts – a new mouse, a pretty stand. And it said I wasn’t giving it enough space, so I even bought it an external hard drive. And what do I get in return? Today, it left me.
Sure, the hollow shell of what once was my laptop remains. But the computer I once knew, with all my emails and files, has gone. And I’m brokenhearted.
I was a fool. I fell so deeply for it because of its looks. Call me superficial, but it’s just so beautiful. And not just in a shallow, exterior kind of way. If you’ve ever spent much time using the Mac operating system, you’ll know it’s beautiful on the inside too.
And I’m not alone – 472 other people on this site alone have fallen under its spell. And some guy even wrote a book about it called Love At First Boot. Not even I’m that big an Apple tragic.
But back to my heartbreak. The biggest problem started yesterday, when I turned on the computer only to get this message:

What a beautifully designed error screen! It’s so typically Apple, with multiple languages and everything. They really are good at aesthetics. Much better than the Windows ‘blue screen of death’.
But unfortunately, when I followed the instructions and restarted it, the same thing happened again. And again. Which made me wonder, sacrilegiously I know, that perhaps they could have put a bit less thought into having it display all those languages so beautifully, and perhaps more into explaining WHAT’S ACTUALLY WRONG WITH THE BLOODY THING AND HOW YOU FIX IT.
My Mac guru friend explained to me that this error is known as “kernel panic”. Which to me sounds like a stoner’s late night KFC run. But I figured it was okay. I back up daily, and MacOS has an excellent repair system – if you boot from the system DVD, it fixes itself. Only while I was booting from the DVD, it crashed again.
So I figured I’d ring the Apple support line. It’s only six months old, after all. And it came with a year’s warranty. So guess how much they wanted to tell me how to fix my wonderful, nearly-new, already-horribly-overpriced laptop?
$579.
No, that’s not a typo. It really does cost $579. For which I get three years’ warranty and phone support. Because while I’d gotten a fairly ungenerous year’s warranty with the machine, it turns out that the standard phone support is only three months. For a laptop that costs more than almost anything else on the market. It’s outrageous. It’s disgusting. And it didn’t make me feel any better when the technician said I could get one-time phone support for a mere $50.
So I restarted it, and restarted it, and eventually managed to reinstall the operating system. It worked beautifully, backing up my old system and copying across all my files, programmes and settings automatically. It even remembered my passwords. Beautiful ease of use, as usual. There’s no way a Windows PC can do that.
Except then when I restarted it, it froze like a cheap Dell with no class.
So it’s off to the repair shop this afternoon. And I just can’t function. No programs, no files, no bookmarks, no passwords. Even my simplest daily tasks, like reading the blog comments, are extremely painful. I am having serious abandonment issues.
But most of all, I just feel used.

Fitter, happier, more productive – through juice!

I love juice bars. They serve delicious sugary drinks that I can convince myself are relatively healthy because they're low in fat. Even though if I don't exercise, the substantial carb load will turn into fat. That is, unless I take them with a slimming supplement like 'Skinny BOOST'. Phew!

I particularly enjoy Boost Juice, especially since they finally started putting nutritional information on their website (which is the most annoying I've ever seen, at least until you turn the sound off) and I've been able to see that my favourite smoothie, a regular "Gym Junkie" (embarrassing to order, but delicious) contains around 20% of the recommended daily kilojoule intake. Although to be honest, I suspected it was more. Surely nothing that tastes so much like a milkshake can be entirely good for you.
What irritates me are the supplements they try to flog you. There's precious little evidence they work, as Choice magazine found: "Our advice is to ignore juice bars’ weight loss claims and ‘slimming’ supplements." And some of the claims are just ridiculous – one unnamed juice bar surveyed by Choice (not Boost or Pulp) claimed that its echinacea supplement could cure cancer.
One of the biggest scams, though, seems to be wheatgrass. Boost says it's "just as nutritional (sic) as downing a bunch of fresh leafy green vegies". Best of all, they say it's "claimed to be a fantastic boost for those whose diet is lacking because it contains a huge sourse (sic) of essential vitamins and minerals." They don't say by whom this is claimed, of course... it's the 'passive of diminished responsibility'.
Choice is very skeptical of wheatgrass, saying it's "probably harmless". A detailed study by the American National Council Against Health Fraud provides more evidence against the 'wonder shot', showing that it has far fewer nutrients than regular vegetables. In particular, it points out that the chlorophyll that's supposed to provide 'detox' does nothing because it isn't absorbed. So given that wheatgrass is expensive and tastes disgusting, it's essentially a rip-off.
The alternative to drinking the stuff is to take wheatgrass enemas. I think we can agree that isn't exactly an attractive proposition.
Undeterred by the news that the ACCC was investigating the health claims of juice bar supplements, a whole new range of ridiculous supplements has come out. Boost is now marketing a 'Zen booster', which presumably provides enlightenment in a convenient polystyrene cup. It's certainly easier than meditating.
But my favourite silly new supplement comes from Easyway, who are marketing a liquid oxygen shot:
Oxygen 4 Life! The Hottest Supplement in Town!
Feeling tired? Running out of breath? Then you need an Oxygen 4 Life! This revolutionary new taste of liquid oxygen is making headlines across the country! Made with 100 % natural ingredients, it will boost your day incredibly! A shot will maximise your mental clarity and help alleviate fatigue levels! For only 50 cents extra, it will sure bring a healthy touch to our drinks!
Which sounds excellent until you realise that the temperature of liquid oxygen is around –195°C. So this "revolutionary new taste" might be a little hard to drink. Besides which, it clearly doesn't work – whoever drafted that press release is evidently seriously lacking in mental clarity.
Let's hope the ACCC comes down hard on this kind of rubbish. Juice from juice bars is delicious, but it isn't healing, slimming, brain-improving, or indeed in any way supernatural.
Dominic Knight
 

Ten ways to save on ATM fees

It's not exactly a huge surprise that the banks are gouging us all blind with ATM fees, but the figure of $600m has outraged everybody in the media today. And that figure will certainly make me think twice before using a non-bank ATM. Although I still will, because I'll be at a pub, and the idea of paying $1.50 to get more cash will seem like a small price to pay next to the amount I'm about to dump on the pokies.

Actually, I don't mind paying for those little 'convenience' ATMs. The shopkeeper deserves to earn a bit of coin for providing the service. And how can we be mad at an ATM when it's soooo cute?
What infuriates me is the inter-bank ATM fee, when you get slugged for using a Westpac ATM when you're with the NAB, and so on. When I was a kid, there were no fees for using another bank's ATM. They had competing networks – anyone remember Cashcard Tellers? – so you could use CBA cards in Westpac, but not at St George. And so on.
I've seen the figure that it costs banks $1 a time to process other banks' ATM fees, and it's been commented that charging consumers $2 for that service is exorbitant. And so it is. But what I want to take issue with is the $1. According to the article quoted earlier, Westpac said that "There are significant costs when a customer uses a non-Westpac ATM." Bollocks. You can't tell me that in this era of high-speed interconnected networks, it costs $1 for one computer to ask another whether a bank account has any money in it. Technically, it's about as complicated as checking your email – it's just one server polling another and getting a reply. And it doesn't cost $1 a time to use internet banking, which is surely a more complicated transaction. And if swiping a card and withdrawing funds did really cost a dollar, the EFTPOS network would be costing retailers an absolute fortune. It's just profiteering, nothing more. And we shouldn't stand for it.
So here are ten ways to beat ATM fees. Please add your own.

• Use cash out on EFTPOS. Buy the pissiest, cheapest thing you can at Woolies, like a single box of matches or something, and then get $100 cash out at the same time. There may be queueing involved, but think of the money you'll save. And as an added bonus, it'll infuriate both the cashier and everyone else queueing.
• Don't pay cash – put everything on a credit card. You'll pay it off faithfully each month. Sure you will. And you'll have to eat at more expensive places that take credit cards. But that's okay. Once you've maxed out your card, you can just get another one. Banks are unscrupulous, so you're sure to find another one with a fantastic limited-time low-interest offer.
• Hoard your cash in a shoebox under your bed. There's a chance of being robbed. But that's better than using banks, when you're guaranteed to be robbed.
• Move next door to a branch of your bank. This can be costly and inconvenient to do, and given the number of branches closing these days, you'll probably end up living on George St. But at least you'll be able to withdraw all the cash you need every morning. Until you run out of your pitifully small number of fee-free transactions, and end up paying anyway.
• Have no money. I've tested this one in the past, and it works well. With no money in your account, there is nothing to withdraw. Goodbye, withdrawal fees.
• Use a passbook like an old person. Again, there's a lot of queuing, and probably a whole lot of other fees. But at least those fees won't technically be ATM fees. So at least you'll have won on principle.
• Rob a bank. That way, even if the bank manager charges you $2 to withdraw all the money from the safe after you hold a gun to their head, you'll come out ahead. But if you choose to rob your own bank, don't show the manager your ATM card and say that this should count as one of your five monthly fee-free transactions.
• Alternatively – ram raid an ATM. They can't charge you $2 when they're disconnected from their networks, and you're making a withdrawal with a hacksaw.
• Buy a few banks. Many commentators have noted that the Australian banking sector has scope for further consolidation. If you buy three or four banks and combine them, then there will be four times as many 'home' ATMs you can use. This technique is also known as the '1 pillar' approach.
• Opt out of the whole cash-based economy. If you deal exclusively in bartered transactions, the banks will get nothing. Note that this may work better for those conducting primitive, predominantly agrarian lifestyles.

Backwards Australia Fair

Today's Australia Day, when everyone sings Advance Australia Fair incessantly. (The version on the tennis during the Hall of Fame induction was particularly painful.) It's commonly known that there is an obscure second verse. But did you know that the original song had five verses, many of them even more excruciating than the anthem we suffer through today? For instance, "Her sons in fair Australia's land / Still keep a British soul?"

According to Wikipedia, the original version of the song had 5 verses. Most of them are cringemakingly pro-Britain. Check out the original second verse:
When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
"Britannia rules the wave!"
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
Then follows the third verse, which became the second verse when it was adopted as the national anthem, and was rewritten to be a bit less sexist. But now for the really cringemakingly pompous and pro-British fourth and fifth verses:
While other nations of the globe
Behold us from afar,
We'll rise to high renown and shine
Like our glorious southern star;
From England, Scotia, Erin's Isle,
Who come our lot to share,
Let all combine with heart and hand
To advance Australia fair!
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Britannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean's roll,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep a British soul.
In joyful strains then let us sing
"Advance Australia fair!"
But even lamer than "sires of yore" is the extra Christian verse they still sing when the anthem's performed in a church:
With Christ our head and cornerstone,
We'll build our nation's might
Whose way and truth and light alone,
Can guide our path aright
Our lives, a sacrifice of love
Reflect our Master's care,
With faces turned to heaven above,
Advance Australia Fair.

They should have chosen Waltzing Matilda. But even Tie Me Kangaroo Down would've been better.

Australia Day: Give us a break

Who'll be Australian Of The Year? On second thoughts, who cares? Just get those annoying dignitaries off-stage and let us enjoy our day off in peace. Dominic Knight winces at the embarrassing excesses of patriotism that are trotted out on Australia Day.

Australia Day is always a poxy holiday, but the National Australia Day Council (australiaday.gov.au) has outdone itself this year.
The fun kicked off on Monday in Kalgoorlie when the Governor-General and Dr Fiona Wood, last year's Australian of the Year, "visited the Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame to celebrate all that's great about Australia and being Australian".
Like crap tourist attractions, apparently.
Later, Khoa Do, last year's Young Australian of the Year "[talked] with the Governor-General about what Australia Day means to us as a nation". The gold capital hasn't had this much excitement since someone last dinged their ute in the main street.
The awkward patriotism continues tonight on Ten with the Australia Day Live concert, live from the Parliament House lawns from 8.30pm. As with all events nowadays, there will be a mandatory performance by Russell Crowe's band The Ordinary Fear of God - personally, I fear Russ singing more than God. Before the concert, the Australian of the Year will be named.
While the winner is shrouded in mystery, I can reveal one thing. He will be male, white and not young, because that's true of all eight candidates: how far we've come since 1788! That said, there are several excellent nominees. With luck, John Howard will display visible discomfort if Tim Costello or Michael Kirby gets up.
As for the big day itself, what would an Australian event be without B-grade celebrities? Of the Australia Day ambassadors I've actually heard of, actor Michael Caton will be in Scone, while Ian "Turps" Turpie will be rocking Holbrook and, and, best of all, Don Burke will be in Bourke.
Most cringeworthy of all is the council's promotion of loyalty pledges in TV ads. "All new citizens make a pledge of commitment to Australia and its people. On Australia Day, shouldn't we all?" they ask.
Absolutely not. We aren't America, with its in-your-face patriotism and tacky pledges of allegiance. Not giving a stuff about wanky notions of Australian identity outside of sport is probably the most notable aspect of being Australian.
Ultimately, the only parts of the day that genuinely reflect our culture are two-up games and the sickie everyone will take on Friday.

I'd hate a mate for head of state

You would be forgiven for not realising it, but last Sunday was the inaugural A Mate For Head Of State Day. The republican movement stuttered into life with a bold new message to try and ignite popular interest in dumping the Queen for "a mate", that is, one of us. The new slogan is certainly a powerful argument for change – to a better slogan. A less awkwardly lame slogan. Preferably one that doesn't rhyme.

Don't get me wrong – I'm a committed republican. The ridiculousness of the Governor-General's role, the Union Jack on our flag, and in particular any reminder about Princess Diana irritate me profoundly. In fact,I supported the ARM even when Malcolm Turnbull was in charge of it.
And the recent ridiculousness over Princess Mary's baby's christening just served to remind us all of how odious the fuss made over monarchy is. The fact that some people are born into unimaginable wealth and privilege and some people aren't is something that we, as a society, should aim to reverse, not celebrate. And when we do celebrate it, it can create a monster. Like Paris Hilton.
But if we're going to win this argument, we need something less embarrassing than "A mate for head of state". For starters, it sounds extremely bloky – it's not surprising to learn that Peter Fitzsimons thought it up, possibly thinking of getting one of his old Wallaby mates into Yarralumla. (Actually, John Howard would probably go for that idea.) And as the day's organiser Anne Henderson denies it, (same link)many people think it sounds gender-specific. To my mind, it sounds like is a Singo ad campaign from the 80s, like "You oughta be congratulated" or something. The only use for the slogan I can think of is if the first candidate for President was Bob Hawke.
Henderson argues that the republican movement needs to focus on the idea of 'one of us', and get away from all the 'sophistry' and debate about models that consumed the last discussion. That's a pretty good idea. So why not say 'one of us' instead of 'a mate'? Frankly, when that word is used by members of the inner-city intelligentsia behind this push, it just sounds awkward.
Besides, do we really want 'a mate' for head of state? Someone you'd go for a beer with down the pub? The most popular Governor-General in recent years was Sir William Deane, who I can't imagine anyone calling 'mate'. In fact, judges spend their entire careers trying to distance themselves from seeming like 'one of us'. But he was enormously popular simply because he consistently acted with enormous integrity and humanity, and his wisdom and compassion frequently shamed other members of the political elite. Calling for a 'mate' seems to send the wrong message about the kind of person we want. It cheapens the office, really.
I think the thing to focus on is the idea of dumping the monarchy and Britain. The Queen is popular, but Prince Charles isn't, so Marr's point that the referendum may need to wait until after she goes is probably correct. (Amusingly enough, Charles once offered to serve as Governor-General, and was outraged when we turned down his generous offer.) I reckon a simple poster with a goofy photo of Charles with a Union Jack, and a big slogan saying "King of Australia?" would be more than enough to rally support behind the republican cause. Better yet, a photo of Camilla with "Queen of Australia?" After all, the ARM's membership soared even when they announced their engagement. Imagine the coronation!
The biggest problem with the republic is that seems at once radical and meaningless. It's a huge change in constitutional terms that bears virtually no impact on everyday life. Changing whose head is on the coins won't mean more of them in anyone's pockets. So for this change to happen, there needs to appear to be something wrong. The 'ain't broken, don't fix it' mentality is strong in this country, and it won't be overcome by the elite who care about this kind of thing talking about a 'mate' because they think that's the kind of language that ordinary Australians understand.
Republicans need to do more than this. We need to get the whole of Australia feeling the sense of disgust we feel when we remember how closely our constitution entwines us with England, and when we see the Union Jack in the dominant position on our flag. We also need to unlock the fundamental sense of Australian resentment towards toffy Englishness that is the key to the passion of all Ashes series. These are archaic, inappropriate symbols and constitutional rules for an independent country that loves to distance itself from Britain in other aspects of life, and we need to make that tension apparent.
Hereditary monarchy, with its trappings of wealth and privilege, is a fundamentally British but totally un-Australian notion. The sooner republicans can convince the rest of the population there is something rotten at the heart of our constitution, the more likely it is that we'll actually support it.

The Return Of Osama Part XXIII: The Revenge

All truly great horror-movie villains never really die. Characters who've terrorised us for decades like Freddy Kreuger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series, hockey-mask Jason from Friday the 13th series and Deuce Bigalow from the Male Gigolo series always rise from their grave in the last frame, threatening us with the prospect of yet another sequel. So too with the greatest villain of our time, Osama Bin Laden, who has just released another video from the undisclosed location that everyone except the US Army knows is Pakistan.

I'm glad Osama's back in the public eye, because it's a wonderful reminder of George Bush's total failure to capture him in the more than four years since September 11. And it coincides nicely with the decision to go after Saddam Hussein instead, and conflate the two supervillains in a 'War On Terror', now being recognised by the American public as the farce it has so clearly always been. And although I won't go as far as to say that I'm delighted to see he's alive and well, Bin Laden's return, with the references to the London and Madrid bombings and the polls on Iraq designed to prove that he's still alive and kickin', ought to ratchet the pressure on Bush up several notches more.
Well, it would have, if bin Laden hadn't proposed a truce if the Americans withdrew their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a withdrawal – from Iraq, at any rate – has been increasingly likely, with the Democrats finally making political capital out of the Iraq debacle (or, as the Daily Show likes so call it, "Mess-o-potamia".) But now that bin Laden has demanded it, Bush can posture and say how he won't negotiate with terrorists, etc. In fact, his Press Secretary, Scott McClelland, has already ham-fistedly said that "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business."
Or at least that's the theory. The practice is that we instead dump $2 trillion on a protracted, completely unrelated conflict that make terrorist attacks a daily event in that country.
In fact, bin Laden could have chosen no better way to prolong America's involvement in Iraq than by coming out and suggesting a truce. What, does he not understand media management in modern democracies or something?
I still don't think American, or Australian troops, should be withdrawn from Iraq yet, though, on the basis that it would be almost as wrong to abandon the country as it was to invade it in the first place. But as soon as the Iraqi defence forces and police have been built up to an adequate level, they should leave immediately – their presence there serves as a constant justification to build support for the insurgents. And it's not surprising that ordinary Iraqis aren't exactly stoked about having American troops everywhere all the time. It's annoying enough for us Sydneysiders when they're just out drinking in Kings Cross.
As I write this, the ubiquitous CIA experts have verified that the person on the tape really is bin Laden. (Not that the CIA has the greatest track record when it comes to identifying him.) And he's promised that Al Qaeda has more attacks on the way. So while we don't know where he is, or what he's planning, there is one thing we can virtually guarantee. This horror movie will have many more sequels.

A salute to Damir Dokic

It isn't said often enough, but Damir Dokic is a genius. In the vast pantheon of crazy fathers from Joe Jackson to Richard Williams, there is no-one to hold a candle to him for sheer lunacy. And while Jelena struggles for form, Damir's latest outburst shows he's absolutely on top of his game.

What rant it was. Featuring the traditional Serb hatred of Croatia, spiced with conspiracy theorist hatred of the Catholic church, mixed with a twist of nuclear terrorism, the master is clearly on top of his game. And the icing on the cake was the oh-so-2006 threat to kill an Australian that shows Damir's watching and learning from the Iraqi insurgents.
The threat to kill an Australian in revenge is a new low point in his crazy ranting, marking the first time it's actually descended to the point of being criminal. This shows the limitations of the sedition laws – for our amusement, the Damirs of this world must be free to issue crazy threats against whichever random group they choose.
Then there was the threat to kidnap Jelena, which might be difficult to execute. Not only is he fairly hard to miss, but you can't tell me his vodka breath can't be smelled several hundred metres away.
I suspect that, as the saying goes, this artist may not be appreciated in his own country. The outburst was in an interview with a Serbian newspaper, and his ranting may pass for serious political commentary in the land of Slobodan Milosevic.
No, Damir must be fostered in an enviroment that is suitable for his unique talents. And I'm not thinking about a place with rubber walls. I'm thinking about a place with rubber walls – in Australia. Because just as he needs this country to make him fly off the handle, we need him to entertain us.
So we must immediately bring Damir back to Australia, although probably with a pretty serious restraining order on Jelena's behalf. I reckon she wouldn't want to be in the same state as him.
Here are some suggestions of what we could offer him. Please add your own, and we will put together an offer he can't refuse.

• Our leading shock jock these days is the fairly insipid Stan Zemanek. Damir would simply blow him out of the water – he says more outrageous things in one minute than Zemanek has in his entire life. And imagine what would happen if a Croatian called him?
• Similarly, he should also be offered a television talk show immediately. I don't even think he needs guests – just Damir talking would be enough. Occasionally Jelena could appear by video link from an undisclosed location to rile him by trying to have her own life. It would rate the pants off Enough Rope, because we will never be able to get enough Damir.
• Kia should rehire him to do more ads taking the piss out of his crazy ranting image. Although having him threaten to bomb their Japanese competitors would probably be going a step too far.
• He should be made Minister for Foreign Affairs. While his diplomacy could probably use a brush-up, he can't be as bad as Alexander Downer. Not only would he give us closer links to the Serbian lunar right ("moderates", as they're known there), but I'm sure he'd put in a much better performance at ASEAN karaoke nights.
• He could be sent to travel the world as a tourism ambassador for Australia. His threats against us would be fantastic promotion – anything he hates that much must be good. Although we'd have to be careful, because tourists might not come if they thought he could actually get access to a nuclear bomb. Australia would also benefit from the appeal of being a place where Damir isn't.
• He'd be a perfect contestant for a second series of Celebrity Big Brother. After all, he clearly should be locked up.
• Tennis Australia needs some top-notch women's coaches to improve a lacklustre bunch of young players, and Damir got excellent results with Jelena for the small price of making her entire life a misery. All they'd need to say to the players would be "Win, or you'll be coached by Damir."
• He could be sent to Cronulla to ease ethnic tensions. The warring groups could put aside their differences and agree that they have a common hatred of Damir;
• Dokic could promote Gillette razors. The slogan would be "Use our razors, and you won't look like Damir."
• The Nine network needs a new permanent CEO, and the situation's so desperate that they're apparently even considering Eddie McGuire. But with Damir's gift for shouting, he could be a boss after Kerry Packer's own heart.

But the best reason to get him to come back is that while living in Australia, he'd be relatively unlikely to nuclear bomb us. Bags he lives in Sydney.