Monday 18 March 2024

Test Cricket review

 It is time for a change of pace ( pun intended) and look at what occurred in Test cricket. We saw England V India and Australia play Pakistan, the windies and then the Kiwis.

Firstly let us go to India. A lot of people are saying 'bazball' has failed totally. Unfortunately they have not understood what 'bazball' is. It is getting your runs quickly so the team has plenty of time to get 20 wickets.

There were only two tests when the poms took 20 wickets. the 1st in which they won and the 4th which they should have. This happened because their bowlers were not up to the task. Their spinners for most of the series were very inexperienced and it showed. Despite inspired captaincy from Stokes this simply could not be overcome. What was inexplicable was after Poe's superb innings in the 1st test these tactics were never tried again. Indeed the middle order were never consistent at all. We frequently saw batting collapses. They dropped catches at critical times Robinson being the obvious culprit.

India was the mirror image. Their batting strong ( how good was the opener) and consistent. The bowling except for the 1st test always penetrative and their catching usually very good.

Australia's much vaunted batting lineup except for the very 1st test against Pakistan looked highly vulnerable to bowling lineups which at best had only 3 1/2 test bowlers. Indeed if Pakistan had not grassed ssome pretty simple chances they might have won the series. The windies had no batting depth at lla but draw the 2 test series and the Kiwis blew chances to win or at least draw their series. 

I am starting to wonder whether this was merely a result of tight bowling not great bowling.

The top three cricketing nations have aging bowling lineups. australia will see if their batting can cope with India next season. India will see if their new players can succeed in Australia. England will need to see if their batsmen can regain their mojo and also whether they have bowlers who can fil in the breach of their bowlers eventually retire.


It has been enjoyable to watch!

Sunday 17 March 2024

The Gaza disgrace

If you have not watched FOUR CORNERS then you should. John Lyons asked all his interviewees the same question. Why are so many palestinian women and children dying in this 'war'.

In essence the answers ranged from all palestinians support Hamas ( Hmm those demonstrations were what then? ) to there is no other way. In other words it doesn't matter how matter people are killed if all of Hamas is destroyed.  That is called collective punishment by the way. Yes it is a war crime.

If you add to that Israelis not allowing aid to get into Gaza (with the police/ military not doing anything to stop this) then what is occurring in Gaza is an absolute disgrace.

Thursday 14 March 2024

Around the Traps 15/3/24

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle

Vox Wonk

Wednesday 13 March 2024

US Politics

 Nancy Mace got into a little trouble recently. She had said she held Trump responsible for Jan 6 but that was history. She supports him now!

Worse for a woman that has been raped she thought it outrageous she was asked how could she could be asked  as a victim how could she be asked how and why she supports a man found guilty by a jury of sexual assaulting a woman. What surprised me was how totally unprepared she was for this obvious question.

I know I have talked about this before but I cannot get over how little money Trump apparently has. This makes his behaviour in the E Jean Carroll case totally unfathomable. The more he semared her the more the jury would penalise him. If he did not have the cash for the appeal why pursue such stupid behaviour. Is he that moronic?

You could say the same in the fraud case. He was daring the Judge to impose a large fine and he did.

He will need bonds in both cases and those companies providing the bond will want security to give him such a bond.  A few firesales of trump property seems certain to occur.

Republican loyalist Robert Hur was shown to be a liar in congress. Biden knew exactly the day his son died. Hur even said Biden had a photographic memory of his garage. Then we learned he kept diaries there jat like Reagan did.  Whoopsy


I forgot to mention about the trump campaign wanting people to ask if they are better off than 4 years ago? well 4 years ago there was a pandemic. Whoopsy

Tuesday 12 March 2024

Aged Care

 There has been a new report on how to deal with Aged Care

 See HERE and somewhat HERE.

How can anyone argue about people who can pay should pay. It is a bit like Super. Parents want to keep all of it and leave it to their children only in this case they want the government to pay for it all.

I would have thought in a civilised society people live by their own means and the government only helps people who need helping.

There are two things I worry about as I get older. Getting some form of dementia and having to live in an aged care 'home'. The royal commision has only exacerbated this worry.

We are living in a society that is aging. We need to cope with this and this report is a decent first attempt at that.


See also Ross Gittins

Monday 11 March 2024

Biden and his age

 People have very bad memories.  Before last year's SOTU it was argued Biden needed to get through it without any gaffes for it to be a success. Biden blew them away with his repartee. So it was again this year. the same republicans who tried to maske 'smart' interjections di so again and it ended again with Biden blowing them away.

Republicans tried to have it both ways. He couldn't say anything coherently bbut what he said was unfair!

There is very little difference in the ages between Biden and Trump yet Trump gets a free pass on his cognitive problems. He forget his own wife's name, He mistakes nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi, he frequently believes he beat Obama and is running again against Obama!! That is merely some of it yet the media simply gloss over it.

What is the reason for this? It could be up until now Trump was merely in primaries whilst biden is the President. now they are the two nominees more analysis will be on Trump's ranting.

It could be willful. The grey Lady for example has hardly touched Trump's difficulties but highlight any Biden gaffe forgetting he has been gaffe people his whole career. 

We know Churchill fell asleep in cabinet meetings because people told us.  no-one has come up with any anecdote biden is in trouble as President because of his age.

Biden keeps himself fit and eats well Trump has a family history of dementia, is obese and eats like a teenager.

Neither should be a candidate for President but given a choice biden is easily the more coherent and understands policy.


On another matter if Trump needs a bond to appeal in the E Jean Carroll case then his cash flow is very poor.He clearly is not a billionaire. Will he get a  bond in his fraud case?  Just remember if trump loses the appeals which is likely it is the company who gave the bond who pays the money. They then have to get the money off Trump which would involve distresses sales of property!

Sunday 10 March 2024

Racism

 In recent times we have seen two incidents that involves making 'racist' comments.

Let us go first to Sam Kerr. I call her the female Gerd Muller as like Der bomber she scores a lot of little goals (as Helmut Schoen used to say.) Another way would be they were in the right place at the right time. She allegedly called a policeman a stupid white barstard. Now if you think calling a black  policeman s stupid black bastard is racist then she made a racist remark.

However this devalues what racism is. In this instance white is merely an adjective. She was not saying he was a bastard BECAUSE he was white.( It would be the same if the noun was black.

Racism is projecting a highly negative behaviour onto a person merely because of their colour of their skin. They are lazy workers, have poor morals, have little intellectual skills etc because of their skin colour. This leads to laws not allowing inter-raccial marriage etc.

The other incident was in a Thugby League match where a person was called a monkey. I have never heard in australia people using word monkey as a racist term. A long time I heard the term used in a thugby League match at the old sportsground involving Canterbury and south Sydney. The player involved was Merv Hicks who was known as the pale whale. 

Calling a person a monkey is undoubtedly a derogatory term however I would like it explained on how it is racist.