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November 2009

Gabba Day One: The rights of spring

Amid the dog's breakfast that is the international cricket schedule these days, I still get a thrill at the arrival of the Australian Test cricket season, heralded every year since 1974 by the opening day of the Test match at Woolloongabba, Queensland. It's an even greater thrill to see Australia facing the West Indies - or at least it used to be.

A nation lines up to hector Crawford

"Australia does not have a national sports policy or vision. We have no agreed definition of success and what it is we want to achieve. We lack a national policy framework within which objectives for government funding can be set and evaluated."

- from "The Future of Sport In Australia" (AKA the Crawford Report), Chapter 1.1

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The Prime Minister's apology to the Forgotten Australians and former child migrants

The complete text of Kevin Rudd's apology, delivered in Canberra yesterday morning, follows (on the "read more" link). It can also be found on the Prime Ministerial website. Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's speech of apology is also noteworthy and can be read in full at malcolmturnbull.com

Debate on the motion carried in the House of Representatives, led by Jenny Macklin and Tony Abbott, can be read at openaustralia.org, with further debate later that day in the House of Reps and the Senate.

Great moments in secure document disposal

You can just imagine the joy in the hearts of the average (non Mets-following) New Yorker at their beloved Yankees' victory in the World Series for only the twenty-seventh time in their history. But when it came time for the street parade, there was a dilemma for your average GFC-disabled reveller. In the era of live stock prices online and on live television, what to do for ticker tape?

No problem. Just throw paper out the window. Shredded? Nah, waste of time. Just throw paper. Any paper. Waste paper, personal documents, sensitive commercial papers, anything.