Cos I'm in that sort of mood.

A couple of things from which I draw inspiration.
The first is from "The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership".

1.People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2.If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3.If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4.The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5.Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6.The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7.People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8.What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9.People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10.Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

It sort of reminds me to go with my instinct, live from my "higher" self as it were. This quote attributed to Mother Theresa sums it up.

"You see in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway "

Herschelle Gibbs

Let me preface this post with 2 statements:

I am conscious of and try very hard not to be racist.

I am not a Herschelle Gibbs fan. In fact I have been known to decry him loudly as a cheat to anyone who will listen.

Having said that, I think Malcolm Speed and Chris Broad have made a big mistake in charging him and finding him guilty of category 3 racial abuse.
I saw some footage with the audio the other day and, unless there was more than they played, the whole thing is a crock of shit. He called the "supporters" (now there's an irony) "animals" and "fucking hyenas" that should go back to the zoo where they belong. The only thing that will hang him is right at the end, in an almost exasperated tone, he mutters "fucking pakistanis". I'm not going to run crying home to mummy if I get called a "fucking Australian" and I don't see how hyena or animal can be deemed racial epithets?
From memory, the last player banned for racial abuse was Darren Lehmann and Gibbs' comments come nowhere near his outburst.

At the risk of copping a ban myself I ask the question: Did the ICC come down hard in this case because it was Pakistan? Look at the most controversial events of the past few months in world cricket.

The first ever forfeit in Test cricket
The Pakistan team refuse to come back on to the field in a Test match because they don't like the umpires decision.
Result:The Pakistan captain is banned for four one day matches. One of the umpires in question is widely condemmned as a racist and removed from the panel of elite umpires.

Drugs in cricket
Two bowlers are banned after testing positive to a metabolite of nandrolone.
Result:Shoaib Akhtar (2 years) and Mohammad Asif (1 year) from Pakistan had there bans overturned after using the dazzlingly brilliant "we didn't know" defence.

And now Herschelle Gibbs is banned for a potential 10 playing days for complaining to his team mates about the behaviour of a section of the Pakistani crowd.

Anyone seeing a pattern here? Do Pakistan have too much influence in the ICC at the moment? I don't know,maybe I just selectively pulled these incidents from the headlines to make this entry seem more interesting than it really is. Or not.

Comet McNaught

After the disappointment of Comets Haley and Kahoutek, I finally managed to see a comet with the naked eye last night down at the beach. Sweet.