I never thought I’d see the day when a Murdoch-owned paper hailed the installation of a pro-Iran government in Iraq as “a good thing”!

The resulting coalition government will be good news since it will put the strongest group, the cleric-backed pro-Iranian Sciri, or Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, in effective power.

Even more worrying, you know things are really bad when a paper like the Times, which can’t really be described as a bastion of pinko, commie-loving lefties, describes the situation in Iraq as follows:

On December 22 Tony Blair paid his Christmas call on British troops in Basra to tell them how much things were improving. This time he said security was “completely changed” from last year. What he meant was unclear. It was as if Gladstone had visited Gordon during the siege of Khartoum. Did it not seem strange to Blair that he could not move outside his walled fortress, could not drive anywhere or talk to any Iraqis? Did he wonder why British troops have withdrawn from two anarchic provinces? Was he really told that security is transformed for the better? If so he is horribly deceived.

Reliable reporting from Iraq is now so dangerous that the level of insecurity can be gleaned only from circumstantial evidence. Baghdad outside the American green zone is now all “red zone”, off limits to any but the most reckless foreigner. The death rate and the number of explosions are rising. While some rural areas are relatively safe there is no such thing as national security. Iraq’s borders are porous. Crime is uncontrolled. The concept of an “occupying power” is near meaningless.

The Americans cannot even protect the lawyers at Saddam’s trial, two of whom have been killed. Iraqis are meeting violent death in greater numbers probably than at any time since the Shi’ite massacres of 1991. Professionals are being driven into exile, children are kidnapped, women are forced indoors or shot for being improperly dressed. Those Britons who preen themselves for “bringing democracy to Iraq” would not dare visit the place. They have brought three elections, but elections without security do not equal democracy.

Happy New Year everyone. I’m off up the coast now for three days of relaxing by day and partying by night ;-)

Since I’ve always been a bit apprehensive about my running, I decided after Kurnell that over the Christmas period I’d head up to Centennial Park and try to run as far as I could. The plan was to run at a reasonably relaxed pace, and to stop when my legs were struggling.

Yesterday was the day and I managed 12km, but the last 3km was a struggle as my left knee was quite a bit sore. I had hoped to get to around 14km, but my knee just wasn’t up to it. Still, it’s 2km longer than I’ve ever run before, and 5km longer than I’ve ever run in training so it’s certainly progress. My knee was giving me trouble all day yesterday, especially going down stairs, but it’s fine today. My legs muscles are wrecked though!

R: 12km

Cliona & Dave have been here for the Christmas period, splitting their time between my place and Caoimhe & Dave’s. I’ve been showing then around and took them on the Bondi-Bronte walk (photos) last week with some sunbaking and swims at either end.

Jacqui headed up to Byron to be with her family for Christmas so we exchanged presents on Friday night. Her family got me a cool poker chip set which I had been eyeing up, so I’ll have to brush up on my poker skills now. She seemed pretty happy with the iPod Nano I got her too. Cliona & Dave took the two of us out for a delicious dinner as their Christmas present to us and then my family came up trumps with a fancy tripod & remote release cable for my camera. Now I can learn to do decent night shots and hopefully capture some lightning on camera.

Christmas morning saw myself, Cliona and Dave lounge around ringing the folks back home before heading off to Bondi for a Christmas sunbake, followed by a swim and some breakfast. Security was tight after the recent riots in Cronulla, with plenty of police around and bags being searched as you walked on to the sand. It was surprising but understandable, especially since they usually get 40,000 people on Bondi for Christmas Day. It wasn’t that busy when we were there but it was filling up fast, mainly with Irish wearing their county GAA jerseys!

After that it was off to Caoimhe & Dave’s for the official Christmas dinner (photos). We got stuck into the Pimms, lounged around the pool for a while then brought out the beer and nibbles. Once it had gotten dark we cranked up the barbie and had a veritable feast of meat and seafood. The only downside was that it was around 11 by the time we finished and everyone felt like the traditional Christmas nap! We managed to hang on for a bit longer, ringing the various families back home to wish them an official Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day in Australia, or St. Stephens’ Day if you’re Irish, means only two things; the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the Boxing Day cricket test. In our case, the Sydney-Hobart was what we were interested in. Caoimhe & Dave took us out on their boat, to join an estimated 3,000 other spectator boats watching the start of the race (photos). As you can imagine the harbour was packed. After we’d bounced around for about an hour, the gun went off and the yachts charged passed us. Wild Oats led the pack out of the Heads, closely followed by Alfa-Romeo, at which point we decided to make a break for Middle Cove, anchor and spend the afternoon swimming and sunbaking before cruising back into the city.

It’s been a pretty good Christmas this year ;-)

Well the trial is over and the verdict is in. A US Federal court has banned Intelligent Design from the biology classroom on the grounds that it violates the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom.

This is the same problem that Creationism ran up against in 1987 and resulted in it going underground to re-emerge as Intelligent Design. No doubt this will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and although Bush has tried stacking it with far right-wingers, you’d have to assume that common sense will prevail.

After a few stops and starts, today I toed the line wiht Kevin and Billy and completed my first triathlon in Kurnell. 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run. Had a fantastic day, stopping the clock in 1:12:59 (provisional) which was a hell of a lot better than the 1:20 I was aiming for.

I don’t own a wettie, and since the swim was so short I wasn’t that fussed anyway about not having one, especially since it took me about 5mins to get Chris’s one off after the team swim in Canberra last week. There was a bit of a breeze blowing this morning, so I was freezing my ass off while waiting 24 minutes for Wave 6 to get started and a wettie sure looked tempting. Having Froggo & Gizmo standing next to me telling me how lovely and warm they were didn’t help either! Once in the water it all changed and I was warm again. I took the swim really easy, figuring that there’s no point busting my arse on my good leg of the race only to suffer later, so when I was out in 10:25 (AvHR 146) I was sure the course was short.

T1 was slow, messing around putting on socks and bike shoes, and pinning my race number to me, all things which can be hugely streamlined in future races. Once past Mooze monitoring the mount line it was onto the bike and away. I put the vast amount of time spent on Transitions to good use by running a bit past the line before stopping to get on the bike so as not to hold anyone up The first half of the bike was in to the wind, but it wasn’t that strong, so I kept telling myself not to try and fight the wind, that it would be behind me on the way back and I could make good use of it then. Sure enough, after the turnaround I was flying, holding 40kmh+ for most of the way back. Still felt comfortable though, and knocked back a gel with 5km to go in preparation for the run. Off the bike at the dismount line, run in my bike shoes in to T2, and out on to the run. T1+Bike+T2 was 40:08 (AvHR 159).

The run had been announced a little short at 4.85km, which was a bonus, and the three lap format made it a bit easier to pace myself. I forced myself to settle down at the start as this was my weakest leg and the greatest unknown. Felt good initially, and decided to hold my HR around 170. Between Smitty at the swim exit, Mooze guarding the entrance to the finish chute, and a spectator who kept saying “Go Trannie” I had support spaced around the lap which was great. Thanks guys! Spent the first two laps running comfortably and then turned it up a bit for the last lap per Smitty’s instructions. Crossed the line with a HR of 186 and a time of 22:26 (AvHR 173) which I was amazed by. I’d been expecting 26-28mins, so 22 something was brilliant, and I still felt pretty good.

So, it’s all over. Had a great time, met a couple of new Trannies in Vernon & Blew, managed to beat Kev and Billy as well and convincingly beat my expected time, so it’s happy days at the moment. Thanks to all the crew from Transitions, Mooze, Smitty, Vernon, Blew, Froggo, Gizmo and Highwayman for words of encouragement and bring on the Olympic Distance in Canberra at the end of January!

Woo hoo!

Kev managed a 1:25 which he was pretty happy about. He had been aiming for 1:30 or so and has decided that training might help in future. Billy had a shocker. The swim was his weakest leg, and since it was pretty choppy he had a bit of trouble navigating around the course. Then, at the end of the bike leg, himself and another athlete took a wrong turn and were given wrong directions by two guys on bikes which resulted in them riding an extra 5km. He finished in 1:50, which he was a bit disappointed with given the circumstances, but he’s keen to have a go at another one.

S: 3750m – B: 50.2km – R: 10km

It used to be just the US that was turning Orwellian with its Patriot Act, but now Europe is to follow suit. The European Parliament has just passed the Data Retention Directive which requires phone and internet usage records to be kept for a specified period of time. The bill was originally aimed at providing data to help track/crack terrorism, and access to the data was supposed to be severly restricted. However, the final version has all those safeguards removed and even the fucking recording industry can get access to it to try and find illegal downloaders!

The average European citizen will be subject to constant tracking of everything he does electronically, including web browsing habits, travel patterns, phone calls placed and received, and emails and SMS messages sent and received. The logs won’t be required to keep the contents of messages and calls, but the invasion of privacy is blatant nonetheless, especially since log access can be requested for investigation of pretty much any crime with little prior evidence required. Combined with upcoming legislation that could newly make certain instances of copyright infringement a prosecutable criminal offense, it looks like civil rights should be put on the endangered species list back east.

Is it just me or does anyone else think things are getting a bit out of hand? Sure, 9/11 was a tragedy but Malaria kills 1.3 million people a year and 42,636 people died in US car accidents in 2004! We’re running around spending billions of dollars, spying on ourselves and curtailing long-held freedoms to fight a threat which kills less than 1,000 people per year! It’s about time we got our fucking priorities straight.

In preparation for the race at the weekend I decided to head out and do a comfortable 5km to see how it felt. Went pretty well, staying nice an easy for the first five laps, breathing on a 4-in/4-out pattern. I find if I can stick to that pattern I know I’m running well within myself. I switched to a 3/3 pattern for the last lap and wound the pace up and again it was no real problem. I reckon I could have sped up a lap earlier without killing myself for the finish, so if I’m feeling OK after the swim and bike on Sunday I’ll pick up the pace from about 2km out and see what happens.

Lap Time, Avg HR
4:43.6, 141
4:49.9, 151
4:51.5, 154
4:58.9, 154
4:47.0, 157
4:01.1, 166
HR @ 1min: 128

S: 3000m – B: 30.2km – R: 5km

Got a decent swim in today which was basically the same as the squad session from this morning which I wasn’t at. Once again, Kim’s too lazy to think up her own session. I didn’t mind too much, though it was a bit odd repeating the warm-up because she thought it was part of the main set??

300 FS
300 K
300 Pull
3 * {
    75 effort
    25 back
    300 FS, every second 50 as drill }, 45s rest
300 FS
300 K
300 Pull
Total: 3000m

S: 3000m – B: 30.2km

Cycled home from work last night, met up with Niall and did a few laps around the park. Hadn’t been on the bike for a couple of weeks, but it felt pretty good. I was also trying out my new saddle which has a bit more padding than my last one. It’s not too bad, but still a bit stiff, though I expect it will get a bit more comfortable as I wear it in.

B: 30.2km