Personal opinions from a denizen of a land Down Under.
WHEN the Australia dollar shoots past the greenback, it enables people to buy goods that they previously avoided due to the cost.
On the internet, for the most part, the outlets keep to this rate, or at least stay close to it.
But on the ground, this does not always work out. In other words, exchange houses will not give you what you are supposed to get.
Continue reading “Cheating is universal (not that this excuses Armstrong)”
GIVEN the fact that the Democrats were returned to power in the recent US elections, there is a tendency for people in Australia to see a similar trend emerging in the elections due Down Under in 2013.
One should be extremely careful when drawing such conclusions.
Those who incline towards the view that the leader of the Coalition, Tony Abbott, will suffer a fate similar to that which befell Mitt Romney, should take into the fact that voting is compulsory in Australia.
That fact tends to change things a great deal.
Continue reading “US voters go one way; Australians are different”
CHEATING runs in the blood (no pun intended). This is true in the case of the American Lance Armstrong, now known to be the king of cheats, and one who used drugs of every kind to win seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999.
In 1993, Armstrong participated in the Thrift Drug Triple Crown of cycling: the Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh, the K-Mart West Virginia Classic and the CoreStates USPRO national championship in Philadephia.
There was a bonus of $US1 million which was available to anyone who won all three events.
Continue reading “For Lance Armstrong, cheating is in the blood”
IT’S probably fair to conclude that American cyclist Lance Armstrong will not be taking part in any kind of competitive cycling for the rest of his life.
Not after the devastating 202-page dossier compiled by the US anti-doping agency detailed the way the man had systematically run a doping syndicate to win seven Tour de France titles.
Yet, come the next Tour, there will be lots of idiots gazing ardently at the cyclists as they cycle through France, enjoying the “competition”. As the Americans say, there is a sucker born every minute.
Continue reading “Cheat of cheats: the Lance Armstrong saga”
LET’S assume a man has an income of $2000 per month. Let’s further assume that his income dropped by 50 per cent – he now has to manage on $1000 each month.
What would he do? Well, the logical assumption is that he would cut down on his expenses and manage.
Only a fool would suggest that he keep spending at the level he was when his income was $2000, and pay for it by borrowing.
Continue reading “Money, money, money…”
AS THE 2012 US presidential election nears, the ugly spectre of poll rigging has reared its head, despite the fact that the last poll saw the Republican candidate, John McCain, being wiped out.
Given that there are cases pending over laws that insist on photo IDs if one wants to vote, the Democrats are now recalling the polls of 2000 and 2004, when the Republicans rigged the polls in Florida and Ohio respectively to get George the younger into the White House.
Voting patterns show that black and Latino voters go for the Democrats to the extent of about 80 per cent, hence it is logical to assume that blocking these categories will strengthen the Republican vote. Many counties in Ohio have black majorities, and the rigging concentrated on these areas.
Continue reading “USA 2012: the land of poll rigging”
IT’S strange that one has to get far away from one’s own home to think about one’s roots, but that’s what happened to me on Sunday (September 23) night.
Sitting in a theatre in Columbus, Ohio, watching an Indian singer on stage, it came home to me with some force that no matter where in the world they are, expatriate Indians can be very boorish.
The night was obviously not meant for those of no means; everyone at the theatre had paid at least $US30 a seat and those in the seats from where they could focus properly had forked out a hundred big ones.
Continue reading “In India or in the US, boors are boors”
IN THE United States, not only is the nation split in various directions as the presidential election approaches; the media is split as well.
The TV channels are crammed with “analysts” who are clearly either in the Democrat or Republican camp. And neither set holds back when it come to giving a view on anything.
The media is expected to use logic to decide whether one side is right or wrong. But in the US, Fox News cannot find anything wrong with the Republican contender Mitt Romney. And CNN can find nothing wrong with the president, Barack Obama.
Continue reading “US TV channels firmly in one camp or the other”
EVERYTHING in the US is said to be big. That is very true of Dallas, the first city I saw in the US of A. But big does not equal efficiency; it only looks grand, it just isn’t so.
Take the system for checking people through immigration; it’s clumsy, and there are a lot of barely educated types in uniforms who do nothing but add to the problems.
The US has a requirement that every non-citizen fill in a form from the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to the regular customs declaration. This form is not given to passengers on airliners that land in the US; only the customs form is given.
Continue reading “Dallas: home of cowboys and inefficiency”
AUSTRALIAN nationals do not require a visa to visit the United States as tourists. They merely have to fill in a form on a website, wait for approval and then carry a printout of the resultant permission when they travel.
But any Australian passport holder who visits the US to report on an event has to get a journalist’s visa, what is known as an I category visa.
Going through the process is illuminating because one discovers the level of incompetence in the American system, if nothing else.
Continue reading “US: lots of technology, poor implementations”