I want to apologize for my flippant comment earlier. I've re-read Gordon's initial post several times now and it has very little to do with a stupid Olympic Commitee, and just smacks of general ugliness. I think we all know from the pay-offs and scandals of the last few months that the I.O.C. definitely sees itself as impervious to criticism, so I doubt any angry phone calls would do much good. Canada's Dick Pound, the heir apparant to Samaranch has behaved very badly in recent times as has the rest of Canada's olympic committee, who still have not forgiven a large number of Torontonians who made visiting Olympic dignitaries aware that, Yes Indeed, we DO have poverty in Toronto and quite a lot of residents would like to see THAT addressed before bidding for an olympic games. When we lost out to Atlanta not EVERYONE was disappointed.
But back to Gordon's posting. On first reading I thought he was being tongue-in-cheek (although vicious) about Australians, but after a second look, it just seems flat out racist, in the most black and white way. That's the first time I've seen real xenophobia on Mudcat, and I'll bet if Gordon calms down a bit and looks at what he wrote, he might be a bit embarrassed.
As a Canadian I've gotten tons of ribbing, some of it razor-sharp. No problem, cause it's all humour driven and I enjoy that kind of wit and word-play. Even Don M's thread about Canadians "stealing" American (Irish Band) jobs in the Syracuse area was hardly offensive to me as some of his information was over 20 years old, and having chatted with him on the phone and through Mudcat I consider him a friend. Nope, haven't seen anything but respect for each other's countries in the better part of a year that I've been on mudcat, so I strongly hope that Gordon re-appears (in this thread) and does some follow up.

I would also like to apologize to our "Ozzie" friends, but I think they know how we all feel.
rick