“There are countries that apply religious or Sharia law; Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind. If a person wants to live under Sharia law, these are countries where they may feel at ease, but not Australia.”

- Peter Costello, from an address to The Sydney Institute, 23.2.06 (source: AM, ABC)

So there you have it. The aspirant future Prime Minister taking up the cudgels of wedge politics, invoking a bogeyman - Sharia law - that has never been raised by anyone of consequence in Australia before. Most islamophobes in this country would never have heard of Sharia law, let alone understand what it is.

Or perhaps Dollar Sweetie (as the good folk of Crikey call him in honour of his finest hour as a union-bashing barista) is merely playing diversion politics - ie, get the AWB scandal off the front pages…

Howard hits out at ‘jihad’ Muslims
(George Megalogenis/The Australian, 20.2.06)

Notwithstanding the fact that this article is really just pre-release publicity for a book The Australian is publishing to celebrate ten years of the JWH regime, the sheer ignorance of the man is mind-numbing.

Does he even have a clue what the term “jihad” really means?

I’ll comment on just one further passage from this drivel:

The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. “I think some of the associated attitudes towards women (are) a problem,” he said. “For all the conservatism towards women and so forth within some of the Mediterranean cultures, it’s as nothing compared with some of the more extreme attitudes.

I heard nothing in Howard’s eulogy for Kerry Packer last Friday that brought up his appaling misogyny.

Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter In Texas Accident

It begs the question… why wasn’t Dick Strangelove chosen for the US Olympic Biathlon team?

US mediawatching is going to be fun this week!

“The fans here gave me tremendous support. It seemed that everybody were cheering India.”
- Shiva Keshavan, who finished 25th in the luge at the Torino games on Sunday. (source: Press Trust of India)

Shiva Keshavan couldn’t afford a brand new luge to take to Torino, because he had already spent all his money on a new racing suit. Remember this next time you see Sachin Tendulkar hooning around the streets of Mumbai in another new Ferrari.

Keshavan was India’s sole competitor at Nagano and Salt Lake City. This time, he refused to march in the opening ceremony on Friday night because, as NDTV reports, of what he called was the presence of a large number of officials from India, who have done nothing to promote winter sports in India.

His 25th place was, at least, better than that of Venezuela’s own Werner Hoeger, who finished 32nd out of 36 entrants. The Seattle Times claims Hoeger as a local because, well, he is.

Oh, and Italy’s Armin Zoeggeler won the gold medal.

Chad Hedrick won the USA’s first gold medal of the Torino games on Saturday in the 5000m speed skating. Sunday’s edition of the New York Daily News produced the masterful effort of placing not just Hedrick’s gold medal, but 9/11, into their true perspectives all in one front page.

In late breaking news from the “International Sports Week 1924“, which will one day be renamed the First Olympic Winter Games, we’ve just learned that Great Britain has won the gold medal for men’s curling after it was realised that curling was an official sport in 1924 and did not attain demonstration status until St Moritz 1928.

This bumps the Brits into sixth place on the 1924 medal count, although they are unlikely to advance any further. News of the curling gold was exposed by Glasgow’s Herald and published in their January 23, 2006 edition. Further details on the story can be found at The Curling News.

Congratulations, albeit posthumously, to Robin Welsh, Willie Jackson, Laurence Jackson and Tom Murray of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club.

Who to follow at Torino 2006? Here’s a few suggestions:

Bermuda has one competitor, even he is originally from Southampton. Patrick Singleton will be competing in the Skeleton - he competes on February 17.

The Jamaican bobsled team is back, of course - their event comes up on February 24 and 25.

Peru’s four-man Olympic contingent are all snowboarders.

Venezuela is represented at Torino 2006 by 52 year-old luger Werner Hoeger from that great Venezuelan city of Boise, Idaho. He’s listed 36th to start in the 36-man competition later today Saturday.

There is just one person out of the 211-person Team USA who I intend to track - the one and only Apolo Anton Ohno!

That powerhouse of world sport, Cyprus, is represented by Theodoros Christodoulou in the slalom and giant slalom. He is, however, up against Madagascar’s sole competitor, Mathieu Razanakolona, in both events.

The complete lineup of this year’s winter olympians from Africa (12 athletes from 7 nations) can be found here.

I was kinda hoping that India would have a representative in the biathlon, which starts today, but alas no. Pakistan has two entrants in alpine skiing, but the Olympic website doesn’t specify what events they are entered in.

And finally, the New Zealand curlers: Sean Becker, Lorne Depape, Warren Dobson, Hans Frauenlob and Dan Mustapic. Their first match is against Sweden on Monday morning. A doddle!

Forget the TV replay. Follow the opening ceremony of Torino 2006 with the Ceremony Media Guide (4.4 meg PDF), which is basically a 71-page storyboard of the opening ceremony issued to the media before the start of proceedings.

www.gazzetta.it, the website of La Gazzetta dello Sport (in Italian of course) seems like a good reference point for the next couple of weeks. The Sydney Morning Herald has a correspondent on the ground (snow? ice?) in Torino running a blog called, what else but Piste Take. And on that note, I look forward with interest to The Guardian’s coverage of the Games.

On the other hand, there’s the return of NBCOlympics.com. Also returning is the all-new official 2006 US team beret.

“It’s Athens 2004 time. I’ve found it really hard to get enthusiastic about these Olympics.”
- Rick Eyre, commencing the first of 46 posts about the 2004 Olympics, 13.8.04

It’s just wrong holding the Winter Olympics in the alternate even-numbered year. It’s just not an Olympiad. Do the maths: 2006 divided by 4 equals 501.5. It just shouldn’t be.

And there’s too much sport going on elsewhere this year: the Commonwealth Games, the FIFA World Cup, there’s even a World Baseball Classic to laugh at next month. Even the opening ceremony of Torino 2006 (which I haven’t seen yet and have no real plan to) clashed with the final of the African Cup of Nations in Cairo. Egypt beat Cote d’Ivoire on penalties after a 0-0 draw at the end of ninety minutes (which I haven’t see yet and have no real plan to). Now come on, which would you have rather been watching at 4am on a Saturday morning (or, indeed, None Of The Above?)

The real reason, however, why I am having trouble getting motivated about Torino 2006, is that I can no longer find it in myself to back the Australians. The reason being that we lost our Winter Olympics virginity at Utah 2002. Though, admittedly, Steven Bradbury did it in legendary fashion.

So: what could there possibly be to get excited about? Two things:

1. The underdogs;
2. The curling.

Or, of course, a combination of both. That’s why I will be cheering for the New Zealand men’s curling team.

More in my next post.

“We’ll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass.”
- GW Bush, State of the Union Address, 31.1.06

And there you have it. GWB’s follow-up to his 2005 asbestos moment.

More on the Great Switchgrass Debate from the Kansas City Star, Agriculture Online, Grist, the Motley Fool. Here’s a study from Auburn University adopted by the US Bioenergy Feedstock Information Network. And yes, you can buy some from the Digging Dog Mail Nursery of Albion, California.

Panicum virgatum indeed!