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January 2005

Great moments in Iraqi freedom and liberty

About 7000 Iraqi citizens live in New Zealand but they will not be voting in this weekend's elections as the nearest polling booth is in Sydney and most of them cannot afford the airfare to exercise their democratic right.

The New Zealand Press Association picks up the story, while the Sydney Morning Herald reports on election day in Coalition Of The Willing Country.

New York Times takes a backward step

I'm a big fan of those news sites that enable complete articles to be emailed for personal use. Two of my favourite on-line newspapers, the Guardian and the New York Times, are among those that have offered this facility. I think it is quite useful to be able to read an article off-line without having to continually retrieve it from the web. However, this week the NYT abandoned the idea.

Cricket community in the Australia Day honours list

At least four members of the cricketing community have been awarded medals in the 2005 Australia Day Honours List.

Keith Miller has posthumously been awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) "For service to sport, particularly to cricket as a player, journalist and commentator." He had previously been named an MBE before British awards ceased to be given to Australians in the 1970s.

Mark Waugh has also been named an AM "For service to cricket as a player and to the community."

Australian of the Year preview

Tonight the 2005 Australian of the Year will be announced. It seems to be a shoe-in for Nicole Kidman.

Each state and mainland territory puts forward a nomination for the award, and Kidman is the New South Wales nomination. Her charity work is cited as much as her movie career.

Tomateros Kaput

Our favourite baseball team in the Mexican Winter League, the Tomato-growers of Culiacan, are finished for 2004-05. They lost their semi-final series in the seventh game on Thursday to the Venados of Mazatlan 8-2.

The Venados are taking on the Aguilas of Mexicali in the final series. Mexicali won game one on Saturday 7-3. Game two at Mexicali Sunday night.

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A load of balls

King George and Queen Laura trample all over the symbol of democracy.An estimated 40 million USD has been spent on parties to commemorate the re-coronation of King George II and Queen Laura. Not one cent of this was given up to assist victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Tsunami appeal games, official ODIs or not?

Everyone involved in the organisation of January 10's game at the MCG between an ICC World XI and an Asian Cricket Council XI should be commended for their efforts in putting the event together at short notice following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of December 26. More than 14 million dollars Australian was raised for the World Vision Tsunami Appeal that day in front of a packed house and many millions of television viewers.

The re-coronation of King George

How many hereditary monarchies hold a second coronation for their King four years after the first one?

King George II was re-crowned today in Washington, DC. The full text of his inaugural speech can be found on the White House website, and of course many other places. Dubya invoked the word "freedom" 27 times, and "liberty" 15 times. How ironic.

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