A short item on the ABC Rural News yesterday grabbed my attention, about a Namibian scientist talking to locals in far west New South Wales about harvesting water from fog.

There's more on the Fog Collection Project at the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre website, and on the Canadian website fogquest.org.

That living advertisement for 100% inheritance tax has been sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The attempted private equity buyout of Qantas has failed!

Both Chelsea and Manchester United miss out on the European Champions League final.

Japan has been sidestepping international whaling bans for two decades under the euphemistic banner of "scientific research". Japan intends to add humpback whales to their culinary scientific research list later this year.

Among the countries Japan has brought on board in their attempts to stack the International Whaling Commission are six in the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines. No doubt there's a promise of foreign aid in there. Maybe they'll build sushi bars in all those brand new cricket stadia.

It would be remiss of me if I ignored the fact that today is the fourth anniversary of the end of the Iraq War, as proclaimed by Fighter Pilot Dubya Bush.

(Refer my post for three years of Mission Accomplished).

Oh, and check this item from the Peek blog on Alternet.org about the Commander-in-Chief recently being presented with a Purple Heart.

As Mitchell Johnson decides what to do with his one-fifteenth share of Australia's $US 2.24 million prizemoney for winning the 2007 World Cup, spare a thought for his Queensland team-mate Ashley Noffke. And wish him a happy 30th birthday today. If things had gone just a little differently over recent years it could have been Noffke, not Johnson, sitting in the dug-out watching the Australian eleven thrashing the daylights out of all comers without making a single World Cup appearance of his own.

At the precise moment Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, was saying sorry for the bizarre ending of the World Cup final the ICC hoarding behind him came unstuck from the wall, and almost hit his head.

- Andrew Miller, CricInfo, 29.4.07

For the first time since 1983, the Cricket World Cup Final is on a Saturday. I think that's fabulous, especially as the game will be played overnight Australian time (11.30pm to about 7am).

Seeing my pre-tournament prediction of South Africa fall in a screaming heap in the semi-final, I would be very doubtful of anything other than a decisive Australian victory tonight. Sri Lanka, while they'll be the popular favourite and will no doubt have all of South Asia behind them, would in reality have to pull off an upset to win this time around.

I have always been a vigorous supporter of the national interest taking precedence over states' rights in this country. The Australian Constitution, while in many ways robust and successful, was also a document of compromise, with the six states ceding specific areas of responsibility to the Commonwealth, and retaining everything else.