In this edition:
- Socceroos and the Asian Cup
- A Political Diversion
- Superb Owl Hot Tip!
Socceroos and the Asian Cup
I meant to write a preview of the final, but I never got around to it. By the time you read this, it will probably be over.
Either Australia will have won and heralded a new golden age for football in this country, where the beautiful game will finally take its place at the pinnacle of Australia's sporting consciousness.
Or Australia will have lost and consigned soccer in this country to the basement where it belongs with its soft players diving for penalties the only thing preventing boring scoreless draws.
So the stakes are high.
Whatever the result, it interested me to read this week that there is a remote chance this could be Australia's last Asian Cup.
It appears some of the Gulf states might want Australia expelled from the Asian Football Confederation. The main reason isn't that despite Paul Keating's best efforts, we aren't part of Asia. Nor is it that we are hopelessly corrupt while real Asian nations like Qatar are champions of ethical behaviour.
Instead, the reason seems to be: he's beating me, it's not fair. We're stealing a World Cup spot from some other team that would most likely fail to score a point in their group in the finals.
A Political Diversion
Politics isn't sport, but when it comes to Tony Abbott it's like sport at the moment for both the media and those authors of "electronic graffiti". The sport it's like is hunting. Specifically shooting a fish in a barrel.
Personally I always felt Tony Abbott was not electable - too much of a loose cannon even if you lean politically to the right more than the left.
Unfortunately he got elected and has run the country for one year before everyone else caught up to this view.
There isn't much else to add to the Sir Phillip debacle, but in the postscript two things amused me greatly.
Firstly, Andrew Bolt went on the attack. This is the proverbial rat deserting the sinking ship.
Secondly, whenever you get a political leader make a blunder of this stature, suddenly the media gets very interested in the views of previously unknown and irrelevant backbenchers. Like the views of Michael McCormack, Riverina MP.
His advice for the PM:
He urged the Prime Minister to visit the Royal Hotel in Grong Grong "in a hurry" to hear what country Australians want from the government, instead of responding to the "tea leaf reading groups" who set the hashtags on social media... unlike the "texting, latte sipping, keyboard warriors who frequent the tapas bars of Melbourne and Sydney", "real fair dinkum Australians" in the country didn't have time to tweet all day but had time to reflect at the end of the day and would be unafraid to give the Prime Minister an "honest appraisal" of his work over a shandy.
Now I doubt Abbott has ever listened to the latte sipping, tapas bar frequenters anyway, because they are a big bunch of sissies. Although it would be a good tactic to at least consider their views given there are probably at least one million voters that partially fit the description.
Do you know where there aren't one million voters? The Royal Hotel in Grong Grong.
I would suggest the worst possible course of action for someone looking to boost their political popularity is to hitch their wagon to country Australia. The National Party provides a clear case study of what a disaster this strategy can be. The only thing in politics declining faster than the Nationals primary vote is the Nationals influence and relevance in shaping the Australian political landscape. This will happen when you're a protectionist socialist agrarian party that has unconditionally decided to support a free-trade neo-classical mining and big business party. The Nationals stand for nothing that aligns with the values of their constituents. If there was truth in politics they would rename themselves the Hillbilly Tory Party. They are in terminal decline, just nobody has had the guts to pull the plug.
In conclusion, I think it would be an excellent idea for Tony Abbott to take on this advice.
Superb Owl Hot Tip
I think it will be close, but I've always thought the best predictive indicator for the big one is a video game challenge with each team represented by their most entertaining player. In which case, I can't go against Beast Mode and the Seattle Seahawks after watching this:
Funniest 11 minutes of my week. All four times I've watched it.
HOT TIP: Seahawks 23 Patriots 17
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