Video from Lamda Legal in the US highlighting some of the egregious garbage being spewed by hyperconservatives in that country.

Pets can now be taken on country train services in Victoria, as long as they’re muzzled and on a lead. A victory for common sense after V/Line banned all pets, even those in pet carriers, in 2008.

When I was in Europe there were people with dogs and cats on trains and trams all over. I didn’t see any issues there so I don’t understand why we’re so against it in Australia. Australia is such a nanny state – it’s good to see an example going the other way, and from a Coalition government, too.

Now to get rid of that silly compulsory bike helmet law…

UPDATE, 3PM: Well, that didn’t last long.

Found in my wallet:

I’m sitting on the balcony of Beibers Hotel, having a cup of tea and writing in my diary. Just a few hundred metres across the steep valley is Qala’at al-Hosn, or Krak des Chevalliers, the magnificent twelfth-century crusader castle that we’ve come here to see.

Mohamed, the young kid who brought my tea, sits across from me on the balcony rail. We’ve already had the obligatory football conversation (the World Cup has captivated the interest of everyone in Syria, or so it seems) when he sees me looking at the castle and asks if I think it’s beautiful.

“Yes, of course.”

“Why? Why do you find this castle so beautiful?”

“Well, it’s an astounding piece of architecture, a tremendous feat of engineering, and so dramatically positioned there at the top of the hill with the steep valley falling away from it. Plus it’s an artefact of a bygone era, a time that was both romantic and very bloody.”

“I do not find this castle beautiful.”

“Why not?”

“I see it every day. I have seen it every day for my whole life. When I sit out here on the balcony I do not even look at it; I do not see it.”

I suppose that’s why we travel – to see things that are outside our everyday realm, and to discover the beauty that lies in them – a beauty that sometimes only a visitor can see.

(Photo above, Qala’at al-Hosn, seen from the balcony of the Biebers Hotel)

…or something like that.

There are 52 towns in Victoria which are at high risk for the 2009-10 fire season, according to a list issued by the state government today. Here is a map (click to enlarge) showing the towns listed:

• Download this map as a Google Earth Placemark File

The Victorian Government says the nominated centres will be its priorities for developing township protection plans.

“The work that we’ve been doing over recent months has identified a number of areas … 52 towns, which for a variety of reasons are more at risk or more vulnerable to fire, should it occur in the next fire season,” Mr Brumby said.

“These could be towns that are built in the middle of bushland, they could be towns that are on the coast that have a huge holiday population and only one road in, and one road out.”

“We’ve got a fire season coming up, that on all the evidence we’ve got… is going to be worse than the one we’ve just experienced.” — ABC

The footy tipping comp I am in had a special prize for the most creative entry. This is my response – these were my footy tips for Round 19, which was last week. To make sense of this you need to be able to recognise the various AFL club songs, which are presented in their in-the-wild versions.

That’s three posts today! Maybe I *am* back.

My band has a new album coming out and I just got the cover art!

Yes, it’s a joke. I blame Warlach.

These are the rules if you want to play:

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

If you’re going to pay good money for advertising space in the Saturday Age, you probably can afford the time to spell-check your ad, especially if the spelling mistake is in the headline, and even more so if you spell the offending word correctly three lines later just to draw attention to your mistake.

It’s bad when you make a spelling mistake in a news story, but it happens all the time. It’s a lot worse when the spelling error is in the headline.

Of course when you make a spelling error in the headline and the story is then reproduced across the wire, heads must roll!