Australia The Steven Bradbury of Eurovision, Teal Not So Independents, A Semantic Scam, The Cheating Olympics

The 2027 World Esperanto Congress will be held in Melbourne.

I have...

I'll tell you, unnecessarily strong feelings on Esperanto as a language, given it's a made up language that practically nobody speaks.

And this might be my only chance to ever let those ideas out.

So I'm just going to say it now.

I'm just going to put it out there and see how we land.

Esperanto is the cryptocurrency of languages in that it could have been a good thing, but it was exclusively adopted by douchebags.

looking to prove that they're better than you and you tell you what it's fun to root against it because when it dies it won't actually drag down a country or a culture with it because it's a made-up language it has less culture than yogurt and don't get me wrong there are a lot of made-up languages spoken exclusively by nerds but none of those languages claim to attempt to solve a problem of any kind But when your made-up language is used less than the people who speak Klingon, it's time to accept that this language has officially failed and move on.

The Victorian government has announced the state's anti-corruption watchdog will receive new powers.

Ooh, how exciting.

What kind of new powers can we expect? Flight? Super speed? Time travel? I think time travel will be really useful for an anti-corruption watchdog.

So what can we expect from this new rollout of powers? Turns out they will receive follow-the-money powers, which will allow IBAC to pursue taxpayer funds through subcontracting arrangements and labour-hiring companies, which is great.

It's what they need.

It's what they've been calling for.

It's not going to get them on the Avengers, but it will prove a powerful tool for sniffing out corruption.

You know, until they actually catch someone of significance who is committing corruption, and then the powers are abruptly neutered.

But, good hunting, Iback.

Make sure it's a good one before all of those powers get taken away.

Weirdly beloved bath mat Agro has been donated to the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra following the passing of puppeteer and man whose memorial was mostly just the phrase, ah yeah, it was a different time, Jamie Dunn.

The puppet will be placed in the Hall of Horrifying Childhood Oddities next to E.C. and the disembodied face from Mulligrubs who, nightmarish fact, is not only still alive but was actually living on Little St. James Island feasting on the blood of children until they shut the whole island down.

Milli Vanilli has dropped out of the Freedom 250 concert celebrating America's bicentennial after discovering they were misled about the event, going on to say that they refused to pretend to sing at the event.

After more and more artists dropped out of the concert, Trump declared that he would instead headline the Freedom 250 concert with a four-hour-long rambling rant about the Middle East, Joe Biden, windmills, the left, and top it all off with a YMCA dance-along.

When he declared that he'd be taking over the duties, he actually ended up comparing himself to Elvis, which I guess is true, as he is also an old man who doesn't drink, abuses drugs and could die on the toilet any minute now.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has offered up a defence spending plan that would cost taxpayers an estimated extra $400 billion over four years, which is more than the entire cost of the much maligned AUKUS program, and require a combination of tax increases, massive budget cuts, and possibly the reintroduction of conscription.

Now, to be fair, I think she's just reading the tea leaves at this point.