Earl Hood

Gee we all like having a go at Donald, including me but did anyone see Miranda Devine's defence of tobacco and cigarette smoking on Channel 9's Today programme with Karl Stephanovic on the weekend and again this morning? Apparently smoking is good because it takes out people earlier than normal through cancer or respitory failure or organ failure or lung disease and horrendous pain before death and that apparently frees up resources for other health outcomes. So it is a win, win in economics terms but let's not look at human costs. Talk about big picture "Technocrats out of control", even though Miranda isn't one of course. She is just a second rate hack journo working for News Corp. but willing to sacrifice lives on the alter of free choice to smoke your self to death. And I should add Miranda works for El Diablo, Beelzebub the Devil in carnate but I wouldn't want to denigrate her more than she deserves.

Biff do you have any real data on your accusation? Or are you playing the Trump card? I will state now it is fake news. You are telling me rapes have happened in Sweden over and above the norm due to refugees but there is a left wing cover up that nothing is happening. I think not. It seems to me most people in Sweden are asking WTF is he talking about but you know more, even though you are currently up river in Indochina chasing Colonel Kurtz!

Hand over the cup now I say. I think we were legit in that small window of integrity between our salary cap excursions in the mid to late 90's and our tanking in the 2009/10.

DC don't mention the climate. It always starts off a shyte-storm around here!

Is that Otto the Auto Pilot in the middle?

Well yes the world is a lot less safe but this is mainly due to George W blundering into Iraq and destabilised the whole region in the service of the Sunni Saudi Royal Family in their battle for supremacy in the Middle East against Shiite revolutionary Iran. This political vacuum created by US intervention has created the environment where violent lunatics like IS have flourished.

Anyhoo back to President Gump the storm clouds are gathering over this Russian stuff. He has obviously got the intelligence agencies off side big time because there are leaks coming from multiple agencies and there are multiple investigations underway examining Trump's campaign people and who they were communicating with. Why were they talking to Russian Intelligence agents? Who knows. And of course Flynn has fallen on his sword but the big question is what did Donald know and when? Why would Flynn make a deal with the Ruskies without some agreement with the Donald? All we can take from this mess is that the FBI and the CIA have been infiltrated by lunatic left wing Marxists!

"You rabid climate alarmists, border- free, safe-space, high taxing, lazy socialists can keep whining for the next 8 years" Wrecker there is nothing thoughtful about the diatribe above! Obviously Prodee can be quite calm and measured when talking football but when it comes to anybody challenging his conservative view of how the world should be, he goes into a tail spin.

Choke I don't think there is much evidence that U.S. electoral college has prevented the wealthy from running roughshod over anybody they choose to in the US.!

Watching him today at a rehab training session they could be on the money. He looks to be very tall but is quote mobile, has clean hands and a fluent kicking action. He would be a handful up forward but no idea about his ruck skills.

Yes I kept looking at him thinking is that Petracca but no there is Track doing the same routine next to him and he was performing at the same level albeit in a limited handball drill. He looked good as did Keilty by the way whom I forgot to mention earlier.

Yes the full list was out there but it was more like 10.15 by the time they assembled en mass and then they were off by 11.00 sharp so it was a short and not so sharp run and kick around the park. I told work I would be working from home this morning and so rode my bike down to Gosch's around 9.40 to see Cross working with some rehab guys, Kent, King and Kennedy. I saw J Smith wander over later for a run while I was on the phone to work! Gee he has developed since I last saw him, very athletic build. The KKK were doing agility work, having to run to and back to designated coloured cones called out by and assistant then told to lead to a pass from Cross, mark and pass off back to Cross and then run helter skelter back toward the goals while Cross lobbed the ball high for the player to mark and then snap for goal. Kent and Kennedy were good at this but Mitch surprised me with his agility and I was worrying about his knee when he was running and turning between the cones, he appears to be very coordinated, with very clean hands and a nice kicking action, not a great handballer on his left though. Around 10.15 the main group arrived while I was on the phone to work again and having a look at The Storm training. The main group loosened up with some handballs and then stretches , then in a huddle, then some short stuff where the coaches were kicking hard balls to a player about 5 meters away, they had to mark and handball back and it was not until about 10.30 that they broke into kicking pairs for some 25 meter kick to kick. They then broke into groups of 8, with 3 defenders and 5 ball players moving the ball from end to end by handball in a confined space of about 20x20m. The group I watched was Hogan, Salem, Tyson, Garland, Jones, Trengove, Frost and Stretch with Goodwin throwing balls low to a ball player who had to pick up cleanly and dish off immediately to a running player on the outside. Salem and Tyson really stood out and Trenners was very clean as well. Goodwin keep yelling to pass the ball on the up? I think he was encouraging them to keep some elevation on their handballs, he didn't want it bouncing in front of a target. This routine went on for 15 minutes then they broke into kicking pairs again and I wandered up to the goals to see a number of players practicing the old Daicos dribble goal from the pocket boundary. This was all pretty light hearted stuff. Weideman, Clarrie and Hannan came over next to me to have some set shots from the 50m boundary on their non preferred foot, with a $30 bet going. The Weid slotted his second shot and waltzed off with his arms in the air. Clarrie and Hannan never looked like it. At this stage they called it quits and sauntered off at 11.00 sharp so it about a 40 minute session at low intensity, to be expected after Queensland I suppose. Just about everyone was there I think. I didn't see Watts, Hibberd, or Spencer and I didn't recognize some of the newbies although I have now worked out that Hannan and Flipper were there and the new guy who caught my eye in the drills was Corey Maynard, looks a good size and fitted in well with the other midfielders. As I rode off Storm were still going hard at it and then work rang again!!!

DC I take in your point but I have to be careful not to drink and move!

Thanks for that DC it all makes sense now as to why I have failed to get to training. I need to move.

I have orchestrated to be off work tomorrow morning so I will be riding my bike down to Goschs to see what is going on. Let's hope there is some movement as I have failed to get to a session all year.

Wrecker be aware that while moderate alcohol consumption over a long period of time may increase longevity as has been proposed by several Wine Industry funded studies, it does have side effects. It can impair your ability to recognise obvious trends in data sets, for example you may find yourself unable to process a trend like rising temperatures across the globe particularly over the past 20 years and instead you see a temperature trend that is flat based on one high figure from 1998. This data trend impairment is more wide spread than first thought, recent studies are showing that most of the front bench of the current government are obviously long term, moderate drinkers!

No climate change down here!

Hey Red you have reminded me, I first saw the Professor when I was a kid in Carry on Regardless. Sid James was running a business of handy men and women and this odd person would show up regularly speaking gobbledegook. Turns out he was the landlord telling them they were to be evicted. I remember the whole family being in stitches with this bloke who sounded so familiar but made no sense.

Gee Rob some great memories there, did you play with Greg and co professionally?

Re the farcical Dyson Heydon Royal commission. How many millions were wasted on that one, Wrecker, just to get Bill Shorten in the box. Have there been any prosecutions coming out the $50 million investigation? I don't believe they laid a glove on Julia as Imremember it. Plenty of accusations of course and the head prosecutor saying she suspiciously had an answer for everything, she just knew too much but no invoices for work done 20 years ago! Very suspicious and of course we would all fail the same invoice test. And as for the Global Partnership, I don't know much about it but if you are going to line up Julia can you also line up the conga line of former energy ministers of both parties who work for the mining industry and numerous other former ministers who have taken top jobs in the respective industry they once regulated.

Head in sand then. No data no problem. Why don't you try that with ISIS then?

So let me get this straight, the Marxists are responsible for all the economic problems in America that Trump has identified as a problem. That is globalisation, the trend that sends jobs off shore to Mexico or China that leaves mid America destitute. Nothing to do with capitalists there of course? He is going to stop that! He is going to end global free trade agreements and look at bi-lateral trade agreements between individual countries that advantage the US. That will work because there are plenty of client states like Australia and sycophantic leaders like John Howard who will gladly sign up to any US free trade agreement (2007) only to be taken to the cleaners. The Marxists have been big players in agreements like the TPP then? So the Donald is going to drain from the swamp in Washington! As I have asked before how does he do it? So it is Public servants who just follow orders, elected senators, congressmen, the rent seeking industry lobbyists, who infest the place? Who is going to be drained, is it the Democrats you deem to be anti-capitalists? If so you are advocating a dictatorship then? Can we start dealing in some facts rather than Trumpisms!

Cant take a trick with training this year, haven't made one session. I had organized to have Friday off in anticipation of a morning session but I have to be on a plane to Brisbane by 4.30!! So I miss again.

Not a lot, did you see BBO when you were in the Sin Bin?

Biff interesting comment you make. How exactly do you drain or cleanse the swamp? Trump talks about it a lot but what does he mean? Is he removing senators, congressmen, lobbyists from industry, protesters or the public servants who just follow the orders of their political masters? Who exactly is going to be drained? And I fear Steve Bannon is as deluded as George Dubblya's Neocon's with their flawed vision of implanting a democratic haven state in Iraq, to be a model for the rest of the Middle East. Steve has his sights on Iran as a state that needs to be dealt with. Why exactly does he want to side with Saudi Arabia's Royal Family versus Iran in their battle over the smoking ruins of the Middle East?