Wanna be a Brit?

There has been talk about establishing a citizenship test in Australia, and the BBC website has published a mock citizenship test in advance of the actual one that will be implemented soon in the UK. Give it a go, it's good fun!

Can you pass a citizenship test?



The government is launching the citizenship test for foreigners who want to become British. If you want the passport, then you'll have to read Life in the UK, a special book, and sit a 45-minute test on society, history and culture. But do you know what it is to be British? The following very unofficial questions are based on information in the official book - let's see how well you do... more

Glory glory Man United

Woo hoo! Just watched the thrilling English Premier League match between Manchester United and Everton at Goodison Park. It was nerve-wrecking, especially after Man U fell behind 0-2 early in the second half and Chelsea was leading Bolton 2-1.

I was watching the game live on FOX Sports and reading the Guardian minute-by-minute commentary (highly recommended - detailed, entertaining and witty), unable to take my eyes off the screens for the whole 90 minutes (was about 94 minutes actually, with extra time for injury added).

For Man U to come back from 0-2 down to win 4-2 speaks volumes for their tenacity and never-say-die attitude. Their win brought them one huge step closing to winning the Premiership, as they are now five points ahead of Chelsea after the Blues' draw with Bolton.

There were lots of jokes and puns bandied about as usual. Phil Neville, the former Man U defender who now plays for Everton and is the younger brother of United captain (injured at the moment) Gary, was called Phil "Sleeper Cell" Neville by one of the Guardian's commentators after he scored an own goal, while a FOX Sports commentator said Man U were going "where Eagles dared" when Chris Eagles, a late substitution for Solskjaer, scored their fourth goal in the 92th minute.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the song Come On Your Reds, which was sang by the team in 1994.

Come On You Reds
Busby Babes they always made me cry
Thinkin' 'bout the teams of years gone by
Charlton, Edwards, Law and Georgie Best
We're United, you can keep the rest

Schmeichel, Parker, Pallister
Irwin, Bruce, Sharpe and Ince
Hughes, McClair, Keane and Cantona
Robson, Kanchelskis and Giggs

Come on you reds, come on you reds
Just keep your bottle and use your heads
For ninety minutes we'll let them know
Who's Man United, here we go

Come on you reds, come on you reds
Just keep your bottle and use your heads
For ninety minutes we'll let them know
Who's Man United, here we go

Glory Glory Man United
Glory Glory Man United

We'll maintain the status quo
We're Man United, here we go

So Old Trafford let us hear you loud
Cheer us on and we will do you proud
Fifty thousand voices sing our song
Keep us at the top where we belong

So here's to Alex Ferguson
He'll take us all the way
We're on the road to glory now
Winning at home and away

Come on you reds, come on you reds
Just keep your bottle and use your heads
For ninety minutes we'll let them know
Who's Man United, here we go

Come on you reds, come on you reds
Just keep your bottle and use your heads
For ninety minutes we'll let them know
Who's Man United, here we go

Glory Glory Man United
Glory Glory Man United

We'll maintain the status quo
We're Man United, here we go

Come on you reds , come on you reds
The team that's able to defend their net
We won the Doubles we'll let you know
We're Man United, here we go

Come on you reds, come on you reds
Just keep your bottle and use your heads
For ninety minutes we'll let them know
Who's Man United, here we go
Man United, here we go
Man United, here we go

Also, with the team trailing 0-1 at the end of the first half, Fergie must have given them the hairdryer treatment, possibly something like this:



Funny eh?

Everyone needs a hero

Red hot

I was just surfing the net looking for a new hairstyle when I came across a Shirley Manson picture. It seems like such a long time since I last checked out her flaming red hair. There is something about her that is just so striking and alluring. She has this amazing confidence and fragility hidden behind her provocative image.

Anyway, I decided to attach a black and white photo of her instead. She seems just as fascinating in monotone colour ...

A sheep in poodle's clothing

True story or hoax?

Saw this story on the Herald and just had to post it. It's hilarious!


Wool pulled over eyes of poodle buyers

When it comes to pulling wool over the eyes ... the net is buzzing with a story about thousands of Japanese being swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were reportedly imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The reported scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was apparently crestfallen when told it was a sheep. So, it seems, sheep that good at playing the part of poodles.

The story goes that hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

It seems one presumably shortsighted couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

AAP

A leader, and sometimes a fool

In celebration of Boris Yeltsin's, the former president of Russia, life, here's a write-up in The Independent about him.

Leading article: He shaped our world, for better or worse
Published: 24 April 2007

With the death of Boris Yeltsin, an era has ended - an era of as many contrasts and contradictions as the man himself. From the repressions of Stalin, through the deprivation of the Second World War, through the post-Stalin thaw, the Brezhnev stagnation and Gorbachev's perestroika, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr Yeltsin lived through it all. But he was also a leader, whose disillusionment with Communism hastened the collapse of the regime and presaged his own elevation to be Russia's first elected president.

In his later years, Yeltsin's popular image degenerated into that of a drunken buffoon who made a fool of himself on state visits. He deserves to go down in history as an infinitely more serious figure. One compelling reason is his bravery at times when bravery really mattered. When opponents of reform mounted a coup against President Gorbachev in 1991, Yeltsin defied them. When he stood on the tank outside the Russian parliament and addressed the crowd, he was taking a life-or-death risk. This was the action that foiled the coup; it was the making of him as Russia's leader. ... more

Rent-an-army

An extract from a new book about the growing prevalence of private military contractors replacing roles traditionally held by national troops was published in the American magazine The Nation in early April. It's an intriguing and worthwhile read:

Bush's Shadow Army

Jeremy Scahill reports on the Bush Administration's growing dependence on private security forces such as Blackwater USA and efforts in Congress to rein them in. This article is adapted from his new book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

---

On September 10, 2001, before most Americans had heard of Al Qaeda or imagined the possibility of a "war on terror," Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. Standing before the former corporate executives he had tapped as his top deputies overseeing the high-stakes business of military contracting--many of them from firms like Enron, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation--Rumsfeld issued a declaration of war.

"The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America," Rumsfeld thundered. "It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk." He told his new staff, "You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world.... [But] the adversary's closer to home," he said. "It's the Pentagon bureaucracy." Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. Announcing this major overhaul, Rumsfeld told his audience, "I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself."

The next morning, the Pentagon would be attacked, literally, as a Boeing 757--American Airlines Flight 77--smashed into its western wall. Rumsfeld would famously assist rescue workers in pulling bodies from the rubble. But it didn't take long for Rumsfeld to seize the almost unthinkable opportunity presented by 9/11 to put his personal war--laid out just a day before--on the fast track. The new Pentagon policy would emphasize covert actions, sophisticated weapons systems and greater reliance on private contractors. It became known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine. "We must promote a more entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages people to be proactive, not reactive, and to behave less like bureaucrats and more like venture capitalists," Rumsfeld wrote in the summer of 2002 in an article for Foreign Affairs titled "Transforming the Military."

Although Rumsfeld was later thrown overboard by the Administration in an attempt to placate critics of the Iraq War, his military revolution was here to stay. Bidding farewell to Rumsfeld in November 2006, Bush credited him with overseeing the "most sweeping transformation of America's global force posture since the end of World War II." Indeed, Rumsfeld's trademark "small footprint" approach ushered in one of the most significant developments in modern warfare--the widespread use of private contractors in every aspect of war, including in combat. more ...

The Nation has a video commentary to watch with the article:



and here's Jeremy Scahill on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:



Do also check out this article, which comments on the Iraq war, by Herald columnist Alan Ramsey.