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Howard, whose job approval numbers have dropped since he signed on to Bush's pre-emptive policy of aggression that has resulted in 1,465 US deaths, 172 coalition deaths, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- most of them women and children -- is shocked and dismayed at the impact of rude jocks on Australian society. If you listen to Howard, the whole nation is being held hostage in a lewd scrum.
But that's not the worst part. The cricketers are also grabbing a piece of the action and are using insults to unnerve their opponents. One, Peter Gardiner, was recently hauled before the Western Australian Cricket Association and found guilty of racism after an incident wherein he glared at the batsman and snarled, "What are you looking at, you pommy git?"
It didn't seem to matter to the Association that some of the Aussies' unnerved opponents were also guilty and had called Gardiner and others, of all things -- "Skippys!"
Where will it all end? One has to wonder just how long Australian society can withstand such abuse...
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2005/02/11/wpom11.xml
