There's this old story in Japan called 'Rakuda' - which I've made into a little video you can look up on YouTube. It's about a polite guy who happens to come across the corpse of a gangster, and the gangster's 'Bro' is there to make his day miserable. The Bro sends the mild mannered guy on errands to organise a little wake for the dead gangster, while holdings work tools hostage. Later that night, the two men drink to the dead man. The polite man undertake influence of alcohol turns into a massive bully who returns the bullying spades. Trust me, it's very black but very funny.
Right now, Bill Shorten is that mild mannered man, sticking to the Bro, Malcolm Turnbull. Maybe it's broader, the whole ALP is the polite dude turned drunk and ornery and angry, while the Coalition is the guy who is suddenly on the receiving end of the exact same bullying he dished out.
It's quite the spectacle really, to see a
Government lose a vote in the Lower House. It hasn't happened since 1962 when Menzies had a one set majority, so it's rather telling.
Peter Hartcher has called for Christopher Pyne to get the boot. Pyne has denied it was his fault, which is like the biggest "who farted?" moment in politics I ca remember since... well, I don't know. It is a rather large fart. You'd think the Whip would be in for a bit of whipping from the PM. Even the missing Justice Minister Michael Keenan is trying to dodge blame. Much as I despise Christopher Pyne, I don't think it's on him - it's surely on the Chief Whip for the Liberals. The difficult bit is that it's a woman. Lose her and the Coalition would be told they're dumping the blame on a woman. You can just see it now.
Anyway, it's all come to pass that in the first week the new Parliament sitting, the one seat majority government has already run into an all too predictable ambush. This may be the bit where we're all forced to remember just how well Julia Gillard's government did with two seats. Of course 2 is mathematically 100% better than 1 so this is going to get very interesting very soon.
Or as the raging drunk nice guy says in 'Rakuda', "One thing I learnt is that if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything!"
I've been re-reading Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract since I dug up that section on A-Rod, Jeter and Nomar. The most interesting things in life are in the marginalia. There are two MLB baseball players with the name Billy Hamilton. the one I was familiar with was this guy:
Billy R. Hamilton (born September 9, 1990) is an American professional baseball center fielder for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball. Hamilton holds the Minor League Baseball single-season stolen base record with 155 steals — 10 higher than the previous Minor League record set by Vince Coleman and 25 more than Rickey Henderson's record set on the Major League level. He also holds the Cincinnati Reds record for most stolen bases by a rookie in a season.[1]The thing to know about this Billy Hamilton is that he's very fast on the base paths.Now, in the 1890s section of Bill james' big book is a name Billy Hamilton describing him as the best all round player of 1891, but also, the man with the most steals in the 1890s.The earlier Hamilton it turns out, was just as much a speed demon around the bases as the modern Billy Hamilton.
Hamilton broke into the major leagues in the American Association with the Kansas City Cowboys in 1888. He established himself as a star the following season by batting .301 with 144 runs and 111 stolen bases. In 1890, the Cowboys, who were ceasing operations, sold Hamilton to the Philadelphia Phillies. The next year he led the NL in batting average (.340), runs scored (141) and hits (179). For a third consecutive season, Hamilton led the NL in stolen bases.
In 1892, Hamilton hit both a leadoff and game-ending home run in the same game. Only Vic Power (1957), Darin Erstad (2000), Reed Johnson (2003) and Ian Kinsler (2009) have accomplished the same feat.[4] He hit .380 in 1893, which led the major leagues.
Philadelphia outfielders Hamilton, Sam Thompson, Ed Delahanty and Tuck Turner all hit over .400 in 1894. That year Hamilton set the all-time standard for most runs scored in a season (198); since then, Babe Ruth has come closest to Hamilton in runs scored, with 177 in 1921, setting the American League and modern MLB record. Hamilton also set the record for most stolen bases in one game, with seven on August 31, 1894. He set the record for most consecutive games scoring one or more runs, with 35 runs in 24 games in July–August 1894.[5]
Hamilton led the league in steals for a fifth time in 1895. In 1896, Hamilton moved to Boston, for whom he played his final six seasons. Although his numbers declined, Hamilton still scored over 100 runs in all but two of those seasons.
Hamilton retired after the 1901 season. Over his career he compiled 912 (or 937; see Career total discrepancy) stolen bases, a .344 batting average and 1690 runs in 1591 games; he is one of only three players to average more than one run per game played. His .455 career on-base percentage ranks fourth all-time behind Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and John McGraw, and his 912 stolen bases ranks third behind Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock.
He is the Philadelphia Phillies career leader in batting average (.361), on-base percentage (.468) and stolen bases (508). He holds Phillies single-season records for on-base percentage (.523 in 1894), runs (196 in 1894), stolen bases (111 in 1891) and times on base (355 in 1894).
I know, it's utter trivia. The two men are not immediately related. It's coincidence - if you have 100,000 names, you will get doubles like any set of baseball cards.
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