Imagine this: Your next stereo system arrives without big, boxy loudspeakers. Instead, it has a pair of silvery disks, each the size of an Oreo cookie and covered with a dozen or so circular crystals. These curious structures, which are similar to the piezoelectric quartz crystals that keep time in watches, will tease musical notes out of thin air--and the sound will be better than that of speakers costing thousands of dollars.

• "If a working class Englishman saw a bloke drive past in a Rolls-Royce, he'd say to himself 'Come the social revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate'. Whereas if his American counterpart saw a bloke drive past in a Cadillac he'd say 'One day I'm going to own one of those'. To my way of thinking the first attitude is wrong. The latter is right"
• "Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer. Reluctantly." - To a federal parliamentary media inquiry, when asked to state his full name and the capacity in which he appeared.

Hundreds of commuters shared their tickets with friends or family each year, PTUA president David Bowen said.
Some businesses also have ticket pools in which employees can use validated tickets for transport around the city to save money.
"It seems a bit unreasonable to make it illegal, given that it is one person doing another person a good turn," Mr Bowen said.
The laws would also apply to commuters who give their tickets to other people so they can avoid fines.

[from 2007 onwards] RUNNING late will no longer be considered a valid excuse for not buying a ticket before boarding a train, tram or bus.

• The inverse square law says that a flash will not help any consumer imaging device beyond a few metres
• You can't illuminate a light source such as a candle (did you ever see a successful flash-illuminated shot of fireworks?)

Earlier in the evening, before the trouble flared again, I was listening to a favourite ABC program, Evenings with James O’Loghlin. He of ABC TV’s The Inventors. In a broad debate on violence, O’Loughlin also considered listeners opinions on the riots. After one such discussion he was moved to note,
These riots are not about religion...I mean we didn’t see the Cronulla crowd on Sunday chanting Christian slogans....Okay, now we have a traffic report from the police - motorists are advised to avoid the Lakemba mosque area, where large crowds have gathered...
Sometime later commercial radio reported this crowd was chanting, ‘Allah is Great’. A crowd from which some 40 carloads of youths then departed for Cronulla, to cause further violence and property damage.

• Zoe Brain is hosting an item by long-time Cronulla resident Benjamin Amy. It is Benjamin's eyewitness account of Sunday's events. It includes a couple of pictures.
• Former Sydney police detective Tim Priest follows up on an article he wrote for Quadrant nearly two years ago called The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia. UPDATE: I had read Tim Priest's article when it was originally published in Quadrant but I re-read it in toto this morning on the tram. It is not surprising that some are asking if Tim's middle name might be Nostradamus.
• Andrew West has a couple of blog posts at the SMH. The first condemns the behaviour of the riotous Cronulla locals. The second dismisses the notion that ALL cultures can be compatible. I don't agree with everything in the first but taken together with the second they present at least a rational two halves to a many-halved issue. [Andrew has since removed all references to the second post due, apparently, to contrarian viewpoints. The post remains on the site but does not appear in any archiive lists. Read it while you can.]
• The Bolta quotes Tim Priest and provides quite a lot of other background.
• Janet Albrechtsen has much to say about the mixing of cultures.
• Slatts starts with "Lazy commentators have been barking “racists'’ all week about the Cronulla boofheads" and goes on to a lot of different places from there.
• Slatts pointed at a terrific article by Keith Windschuttle about recism and multiculturalism.

WITH SADDAM A NO-SHOW, SADDAM LOOK-ALIKES GO ON TRIAL
Doppelgangers Will Return Credibility to Proceedings, Rumsfeld Says
...
Another look-alike, Saddam Hussein, 43, said that the call to fill in for Saddam at the trial came just in the nick of time: “I swear, last week I was this close to shaving off my moustache.”

Just a thought, Andrew. Have we gone completely mad? St.Patricks, six priests, approximately 3000 people for the funeral of a convicted drug dealer. Earlier this year, a church refused to hold the funeral of a digger because his coffin was draped with the Australian flag.

Off yer bike - for the sake of all of us on the roads

The sound of singing bridges all around the globe may also strike the resonant frequency of the earth's materials and dissolve the world. Echoing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which was freed from material constraints when the resonant frequency was struck by the wind. Sounding the harmonic frequency within the unheard vibrations of the cables will release the voice and liberate the spirit of each bridge.

So revered is the figure that it was once suggested that the Tasmanian speed limit be lowered to 52kmh as a tribute.

Check out exclusive new photos of Jessica, and read about her first movie, how she keeps her marriage strong, and much more!

The Government is providing the state's 650,000 grade 6 students in 1850 schools with a book outlining 50 ways to save the world.