Yet again I am reconstructing now.rickeyre.com this time to use WordPress personal publishing software (I hate the term blog).
WordPress is based upon PHP/MySQL, licenced under the GPL and WebStandards compliant.
We know how much Ashcroft and the neo-con thugs are trying to make the American Constitution's First Amendment irrelevant, but here's a case settled by the US Court of Appeals in favour of an individual whose surname happened to be the same as that of a big multinational.
Nissan Motors sued Mr Uzi Nissan for setting up a website registered as nissan.com. After winning their case, the decision was overturned in Mr Nissan's favour at appeal.
My local Member of the House of Representatives since I moved to Sydney is Anthony Albanese, the Federal Member for Grayndler and shadow minister for employment services and training. While support for the Greens is (quite rightly) growing in the area, I'd expect Albanese to be comfortably returned to office once the election actually takes place. I consider him one of the better ALP people in Federal Parliament.
John Howard has an extensive archive of transcripts of interviews, press releases and other statements on his Prime Ministerial website, www.pm.gov.au. Considering his keen interest in international affairs, as evidenced with Iraq, I decided I would do a search of his website to see how often he has discussed the tragic situation in the Sudanese province of Darfur.
My search for "Darfur" on the PM's website came up with no matches. Searching Hansard on the Parlinfo website also drew a blank.
If you thought the first week of the Under-19 World Cup was going to be boring, think again. There's a very good chance that by Friday night, both the winner and runner-up of the 2002 competition might be finished for 2004.
Sixteen games in the first four days of competition, fourteen predictable results. Some of them quite comprehensive. Then on Wednesday, Nepal upset South Africa's applecart, beating the 2002 finalists by one wicket with two balls to spare after earlier in the day having them on the ropes at 62 for 7.
Cricket's global community expanded just a little further on Friday February 6 when the Netherlands Antilles hosted its first first-class cricket match. The Leeward Islands played host to the Windwards in their Carib Beer Series match at the Carib Lumber Ground, Philipsburg, Sint Maarten. The Netherlands Antilles is now the 35th country to host first-class cricket.
Zimbabwe departs from the VB Series with their worst record in three outings in the Australian triangular. At least they managed one win in both 1994-95 and 2000-01. This time, a washout at the MCG was the best they could muster.
The sad thing is that Zimbabwe's cricket team is not improving. The upper order batting collapsed on a regular basis and the bowlers suffered some extraordinary punishment at times, most notably at the hands of Adam Gilchrist in Hobart. Only Heath Streak, Stuart Carlisle, Grant Fowler and Sean Ervine can really hold their heads up as players of genuine international calibre.
It's not exactly in the same league as selling mail order Via*gra, X[a]nax or p3nis enlargements, but the Zimbabwe Cricket Union's unsolicited email to the eighteen first-class English counties on Monday will go down as one of the daftest acts by a cricket administration in recent times.
The Zimbabwe Cricket Union, stretched for funds in a deteriorating economy and suffering on the field from a drain of most of its best players, is desperate for every scheduled international tour to its country to proceed. And with October's tour by England in serious danger of cancellation, ZCU chairman Peter Chingoka and chief executive Vince Hogg were desperate enough to decide to bypass the ECB and appeal directly to the county administrations.
Bangladesh has just announced its touring team to play two Tests and five one-day internationals in Zimbabwe next month. Namibia has just completed a series of five matches in Zimbabwe against the national under-19 and A teams. Meanwhile, England is fretting over the prospects of touring Zimbabwe in October.
The Zimbabwean cricket team is currently in Australia for the VB Series, making its second trip to that country in three months. The Zimbabwean soccer team is currently in Tunisia for the African Cup of Nations, and lost their opening game to Egypt on Sunday. They had to change their travel plans from Harare to Tunis when the British Government refused to give them transit visas to make a stopover at Heathrow en route.
Last Thursday night, I was watching David Hookes on Fox Sports hosting the one-hour "Inside Cricket" program as he did every week. On Sunday, Hookesy was coach of Victoria as they won their ING Cup game against his old state South Australia. Now, he's gone.