The Happy Planet

I thought this was interesting.I also thought it must be wrong until I read the way it is calculated. It's basically :

(Life Expectancy * Life Satisfaction)

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Ecological footprint

We do have a pretty big impact on the environment, but I still can't work out if the index is how happy we are on the planet or how happy the planet is with us. Maybe a combination of both. Still....90 places below Palestine??

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.

2 of my favourite songs.

Of course by that I mean 2 songs that make me want to sleep with the woman singing them just from the sound of their voices. (it's not complicated)

1. The Sundays Here's where the story ends

2. Angie Hart - Careless. A Paul Kelly cover from the album "The women at the well". Sadly I can't find a link to this one, so I've posted Angie's picture instead :-(

Both breathtakingly beautiful voices.

Aural aphrodisiacs