Why I Love This Country, Reason #91

I often get reminders that part of the reason I must feel so comfortable in Australia is that this is a nation with priorities that are just as, if not more so, messed up than mine. For example - two things happened over the last 24 hours:

1) The Australian team in the World Cup, the "Socceroos", won a game. Just one. It is important to note that despite the fact that they won this game, their stunning 4-0 loss to Germany and draw with Ghana meant that they were almost never going to proceed to the next round of the competition.

2) A late night challenge to the Prime Minister's leadership of the governing party in Australia resulted, less than 12 hours later, in Australia swearing in its first female Prime Minister in it's history.

And now, I ask you to guess which one of these took the top story slot on all morning news shows, news websites, and basically throughout the news media? That's right. A soccer team that is coming home early from the World Cup. True, even the New York Times article couldn't help but refer to the fact that Julia Gillard "is routinely mocked for her ever-changing hair styles and working class accent" (she's basically a trailer park version of Hillary, as Wilks put it), but let's give the woman the attention she deserves.

If for no other reason, Australia should be excited that their Prime Minister could easily pass for Tilda Swinton, or simply SWINTON as the Fug Girls have dubbed/fugged her.