Month: November 2022

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Will a ninth country join the list of World Cup winners?

The World Cup football tournament has been played since 1930, with a break forced by the second World War, but only eight countries have emerged winners at the 21 competitions.

The 22nd competition kicked off in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar on November 20. The competition is the biggest as far as TV viewership goes, outdoing even the Olympics. It is watched in more countries than the Games.

Brazil have won the trophy on five occasions, the most recent being in 2002, and finished runners-up twice. Germany is next, with four wins, three as West Germany, and one, in 2014, after unification. Continue reading “Will a ninth country join the list of World Cup winners?”

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Credlin doco indicates Libs growing desperate as Vic election looms

With elections in the state of Victoria just a week away, politicians are in a feverish mood as they try to rustle up support to win their seats.

The rush to push their barrows has been sped up no end after early voting started on 14 November and reports emerged of big numbers voting ahead of the election. More than 2.2 million of the state’s registered 4.4 million voters are expected to cast their votes before election day. The first four days of early voting saw 556,193 people exercise their franchise.

Thus one can understand why badly crafted election propaganda like a Sky News documentary titled The Cult of Dan Andrews are making an appearance. The opposition is desperate to make inroads into the Labor vote, but with a leader like Matthew Guy, who went backwards in the last election, the task ahead is like rolling a huge boulder up a mountain. Continue reading “Credlin doco indicates Libs growing desperate as Vic election looms”

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Black Ferns’ World Cup win is best outcome for women’s rugby

New Zealand’s victory in the women’s World Cup rugby union competition on Sunday — held in their own country — should be welcomed if only because it signals a triumph for the way the game should be played: fast, running rugby, which showcases the players’ skills and is attractive to watch.

The Black Ferns, as the team is known, were up against England, a team of huge players, whose main skill harks back to the 1960s: rolling mauls and a slow grinding down of their opponents. It is the worst way to try and win.

And it is the last style that will inspire anyone to watch the game. It is a defeatist attitude to a game that requires the skills of a soccer player and also those of a track athlete. It is a poor tribute to a game where communication between players, most of the time without a word spoken, is simply surprising. Continue reading “Black Ferns’ World Cup win is best outcome for women’s rugby”

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Conflict of interest: ABC caught changing online story

The ABC has been caught out changing an online news report after iTWire pointed out that the report in question — about Thursday’s Q+A program — contained no mention of the fact that Alastair MacGibbon, the chief technology officer of security shop CyberCX, is currently providing advice to Medibank Group, a company which recently suffered a devastating network attack.

[This story was originally published at itwire.com]

MacGibbon was given a platform to tout his wares on the ABC’s Q+A program on Thursday with only a fleeting mention of the fact that his firm is now advising Medibank how to deal with its ransomware attack and subsequent data leak. Continue reading “Conflict of interest: ABC caught changing online story”