My employer has subscription access to a number of economic and financial commentary sites, which he copies us into on articles worth a read. One that's not subscription oriented, and gives accurate summations of events is Business Spectator. The following article by Alan Kohler appeared there today. It deals with the harder times which Kohler warns are definitely ahead unless something is done to ease liquidity, and done now. It also explains a lot about what might happen, if nothing is done. If the world isn't in recession now, it's going to be very shortly.

Like most Top Gear fans, I tuned into SBS last Monday to catch the inaugural episode of Top Gear-Australia. I was bitterly disappointed.

You see, reader, website hits are a clear indication of your site's popularity, readability, pertinence and validity. Oh, and did you know that website hits include spambots, googlebots, research spiders and all manner of automated software intrusions? Did you know that more than 60% of all website hits are not real people purposely clicking on or clicking through your site? Clearly, the 'Hun' doesn't, or if it does, the editor-in-chief is comfortable with the most outrageous of porky-pies.

Pity those hits weren't the real physical type. One million smacks around the scone for Andrew Bolt. I'd pay to see that!

Did you feel the Earth move? I didn't, but space science and NASA's Near Earth Object surveillance team seem pretty chuffed with themselves. They're calling this small asteroid strike a 'prediction' but I thought a prediction had to have a reasonable lead time in order to qualify as such. The small car sized space rock was only spotted on Monday, 6th October, yet those in the know are claiming a prediction, when the bloody thing was always going to hit the planet's atmosphere at some point during the following 24 hours anyway!!

Maybe when the big one comes along, we'll get.....ooooh, say, five days to kiss our collective arses goodbye?

Well, what a swifty the RBA pull today, eh? 100 basis points and Devil take the hindmost. Whack that up yer kilts, all you snake-oil salespersons. Only goes to prove my belief that economists know diddly-squat about what the central bank may or may not do in relation to any given economic circumstances.

The acronym, W.I.I.F.M., is based on an ethos which lies at the root of human nature. It stands for What’s In It For Me. Let’s be honest, and admit that it pervades our daily lives in practically every aspect. Why should I do something for someone, if there’s nothing in that ‘doing’ for me? Altruism, as much as we’d like to think otherwise, doesn’t figure largely in the human psyche.

I think it's fair to claim that the cultural gap between America and Australia is akin to the Valles Marineris on Mars. Blind Freddie would have seen the difficulties in taking the Kath and Kim style of comedy from these shores and transplanting it into US actors, for consumption by a US audience. Crocodile Dundee as artful Australiana, which captivates the Yanks, who believe kangaroos actually hop down Martin Place, Sydney. Kath and Kim is the definitive Australian piss-take, self-deprecating look at Australians and Australian society. We just love laughing at ourselves. Something, in my experience, American culture has a hard time accepting.

First second and third practice sessions are ended. The Mountain has already reached out to bite the unwary, in the form of Jack Daniels Racing car 11, with Jack Perkins at the wheel.

We keep hearing about the highs and lows of motorsport. How cruel the sport can be, if ever a non-physical happenstance can have human emotion attributed to it. That's the crux really, that human beings should feel the emotion of success or failure in a single moment of time, such that it takes on an almost sentient form capable of kindness or cruelty. Doubtless Rick Kelly felt the slap of cruelty this afternoon, judging by his immediate reaction to his team mate, Paul Radisich, destroying the #15 Commodore at McPhillamy Park, Mt Panorama.

After five-and-a-half hours of racing, and nary a stutter in their planning, Triple Eight Racing/Team Vodafone car 888, Craig Lowndes at the wheel, has won the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

It's as well that Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has guaranteed all monies in Australian Bank deposit accounts, not just to ease concerns of average Australians, but to allay any fears of foreign investors dealing with Australian domestic banks.

An announcement this morning by ABC Radio National presenter, Stephen Crittenden at the beginning of his Religion Report program, about
cuts to ABC Radio National programming

has caused an absolute furore within, and without, the ABC.

Bleat, Bleat, Bleat! Greg Murphy says he's over the lap one incident at Bathurst, where he and Craig Lowndes touched wheels coming off the Hump at the end of Mountain Straight. He says that no absolutes exist at Bathurst, that the #3 Sprint Gas Commodore might and might not have won, despite the touch at 200 kph which bent a steering arm. Yet he claims he was robbed by the eventual race-winning car-driver combination. Race officials didn't see it that way, and frankly, reviewing action several times, I can't see anything in it either.

Looking carefully at the incident several times, it's clear that Lowndes, who was behind Murphy on the climb up the straight, found room on the outside of the track coming over the Hump. He took that room, but found an unsettled car in his hands on coming off the top. The car drifted - not half a track width as the Murphy Whinge article states - less than a metre in toward the middle of the track due to camber at that point. At speed, it was clarly a racing incident, and one Murphy would be only to happy to pass off as such, were the roles reversed.

This weekend's Round 11 at Surfers Paradise will be interesting to watch, from the perspective of Murphy-on-Lowndes. While he claims he's over the matter, it's patently clear, Greg Murphy is holding a grudge. Such things cloud judgement, and while neither he nor Jason Richards are in the championship hunt, neither can afford to hold grudges when good showings are vital for sponsorship dollars at this stage in a season. I always thought Murphy was a better competitor than this. Clearly, I'm wrong.

Listening to PM on the way home this evening, the lead article happened to be a report on the finding of 'not guilty' in the Jack Thomas terrorism re-trial. Thomas was found - by a jury of peers, as ought to be the case - not guilty on the charge of receiving monies from a terrorist organisation. The context of the verdict may be read here.

Alan Greenspan believes in being 'partially wrong'. He must also, by direct inference, believe in being partially pregnant, not quite guilty, the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause.

VESCA call this event something different every year, so as far as I'm concerned, it'll remain 'Surfers Paradise'.

Yes, I can feel a certain sympathy for self-funded retiree, Greg Russell, however what he does or doesn't choose to do with his business or his investments can hardly be laid at the feet of the government.

Let's be short & sweet. Races two and three were almost identical to race one.

I happened to catch this interview with aboriginal activist, Stephen Hagan on Radio National's 'National Interest'. Worth a listen, if, like me, you'd heard about one man's tilt at the establishment over a sign on a football grandstand.

The very best news Holden fans could possibly ask for. Mark Skaife has retired.

ETS modelling is out and the coalition opposition says it's flawed.

I heard of this on the way home this evening. I find Keating's view to be very narrow and dismissive of how those who go to Gallipoli actually treat the experience, and why they go. To be blunt, I believe Keating to be wrong, and wrong in the worst possible manner because he ignores individual rationale. If he chooses not to go there, because of some historically revisionist sense of nationalism, then so be it, but to openly decry the sentiments of those who do go, to remember those who went to Gallipoli out of senses which we, today, cannot hope to understand, I believe is unforgivable.

Anzac Cove is sacred, and whilst I have never been and likely will never get there, I applaud those who do. Lest We Forget are the words. So should be the sentiments, historically, nationally and culturally.