It's less than an hour till the start of the 2007 World Cup, so here are my selections for the first round group matches:

"We ended up amongst the men's shorts stripping off and trying on things with abandonment, much to the amazement of a few men shoppers. At one point I realized I was standing in my bra and pants right in the middle of Target!"

- shopper, Stella McCartney fashion sale, Target Warringah Mall, 12.3.07 (source: smh.com.au)

Not one but two Youtube videos this time, produced by the NSW Greens and dealing with the proposed expansion of the port facilities in Botany Bay, which if it goes ahead will be an environmental disaster for the bay, and create major road transport issues throughout most of the south and south-west of the Sydney metropolitan area.

The first video is a two-minute overview of the Port Botany situation, and the second features a public meeting/media call by the Greens candidates for Marrickville (Fiona Byrne) and Maroubra (Anne Gardiner) on the Botany Bay foreshore.

I've revived the old scrapbook concept that I was using a few years ago, however I've outsourced it to newsvine.com.

I'm using it to link to business and politics-related items about the Cricket World Cup - I figure there will be enough bloggage and reportage of the match play that I can stick to my own niche.

Occasionally there'll be a story which I might want to blog further over here, but for all the clippings, please go to rickeyre.newsvine.com.

"The Socialist Equality Party insists that the only realistic solution to climate change is the abolition of the profit system and the destructive division of the globe into rival nation-states."

- Patrick O'Connor, SEP candidate for Marrickville (source: World Socialist Web Site)

"Of all the world-class swimmers who have competed for Stanford, Michael McLean ranked among the best. In four events, the 2006 graduate's times were among the 15 fastest ever recorded at the school. But you'd never know it by looking at the Stanford media guide. Coach Skip Kenney expunged McLean from the team's record book after he and the swimmer had a falling-out."

The San Francisco Chronicle takes up the story.

Item one: Last Saturday, and it's reported that Maxine McKew, the high-profile ALP candidate for preselection to oppose John Howard in the electorate of Bennelong, has received death threats - something that made the papers worldwide.

I have never met Brian Burke.

Yesterday, Fairfax launched brisbanetimes.com.au, the website of their new newspaper, the Brisbane Times. The thing is, however, that there is no print newspaper called the Brisbane Times. The website is the newspaper.

Anything that chips away at the Murdoch monopoly in Brisbane is welcome. The question is: will the arrival of the Brisbane