A good Sunday drive spoiled

A report from Queensland Health has found that the Whitsunday Islands off north Queensland are “the hub” of golf cart accidents.

. . . 75 per cent of all golf cart incidents in the past 11 years occurred on the Whitsunday Islands.

Dr Dale Hanson says people should drive golf buggies like any other vehicle.

Well, perhaps the problem on the Whitsundays is precisely that they do drive the things like they’re any other vehicle...

While excessive speed is thought to overwhelmingly contribute to these fairway pile-ups, there appear to be no metrics available on drink-driving as a causal factor, so more study of that dimension is urgently required. Another beneficial measure could be for hoon drivers to have their carts summarily impounded.

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Olive branches required

I’ve always quite liked the Bard’s Sonnet 107, in particular this passage:

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

But what’s that about olives, hmm?

Olives?

The following commentary illumines the Bard’s meaning here:

In the ancient world olives were an essential commodity, but olive trees required at least nine years to establish themselves.  This could only be done in times of peace.  Marauding armies would frequently hack down olive trees in order to cause maximum damage to the places they had invaded.  Hence production of olives was a sign of peace and stability.

How interesting then that, in a modern-day tawdry, intractable conflict, olive groves have become a “battleground”.

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Dr Easychair runs foul of Google

An old friend of this blog, Andrew Bolt – our Doctor Easychair – has been encouraging his readers to wantonly click on Google Ads for the Greens on his blog

The idea apparently is that each click on a Greens’ Google Ad will cost the party whatever the going rate is for clicking on a Google Ad, thus cumulatively sending the Greens into financial ruin.

Ingenious! . . . Except that prompting readers to click on Google Ads in fact violates the terms of the host’s (i.e., Dr Easychair’s) Google Ads agreement.

It was for a very similar offence that Tim Blair took Webdiary to task back in May 2006. I can’t actually link to that post of Tim’s because he’s apparently forgotten to pay the hosting bill for his old blog site. (Hit the link and you get the message: “The system path does not appear to be set correctly. Please open your path.php file and correct the path”).

But I can tell you Tim’s post was a riot of mirth about “ethical and accountable Webdiary” having violated the Google Ads terms, with dark hints of dire consequences. (I know this can’t be right, but it’s almost as if the Muftim was goading Google into clobbering Webdiary with all sorts of nasty consequences. Of course, we know our venerable Muftim is beyond such base impulses of Schadenfreude...)

Naturally we can now expect Tim Blair to do a searing exposé of Doctor Easychair’s recent naughtiness.

Or can we? Things’ve been rather quiet at the Muftim’s of late; when I looked today he hadn’t published a post since 5 November.

C’mon Tim, the blogosphere still needs you!

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