Ideal Genital Information
I’m going to talk about people’s junk. Just below the fold if you don’t wanna see it. There are also swears.
Solving America’s Problems Through Tweeting
I recently went on a bit of a complain-a-thon on Twitter, which means that in three weeks’ time, I’m going to want to reference it and won’t be able to find it. Thinking ahead this time, I’ve decided to store the rant here, where it can be stored in a way that’s nice and tidy.
BEWARE: ANTI-AMERICAN SENTIMENT AHEAD.
Australia Day Gone Wrong
Traditionally, Fox and I spend Australia day in a pattern. It’s typically a hot day so we wake up late. In the evening, we eat a lamb dinner, slow cooked, and then we go to the beach and watch the fireworks, together. We listen to Australian songs on mobile planners, and we sing along with the National anthem. We come home, we wash sand off our feet, and then we stay up late, together.
There is literally none of that we did today. It was a cool morning. We woke up early. The lamb I had bought had its packaging torn, and went rancid without realising it. We did not go to the beach, because Fox developed a dreadful headache. Silence filled the house while she slept. In order to make her smile and make her feel better, I walked to the pub, got some cash out, and bought her Chinese food for dinner. Then we came to bed, and watched Youtube videos.
One of the first things I read this morning was someone I didn’t know telling me that if I celebrated Australia day they didn’t want to know me. It was something that had nagged at my mind for some time, given that I am, by default, quite a guilty-feeling person. This is how I celebrate Australia day – it is a day where I am grateful that I was born, grateful that this country was a home to my mother and my father, grateful for a society that was as free as it was and provided me with healthcare and tried to offer me education.
My country was founded in genocide. I know. It’s still doing horrible things, in the names of stupid ideas. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that yesterday, I went to bed, expecting to spend my day enjoying a celebration that has become, to me, a tradition.
I don’t know what kind of celebration was expected. I’ve never celebrated “Haha, Fuck Aboriginals And Also Asians And The Dutch” Day.
I genuinely did not know that this was what Australia day meant. To me, it’s always been the Seekers.
I’m really sorry about everything, really. It seems that I got the day I deserve.
Comics Have Issues With Women.
I know! I was shocked to discover this too!
Let’s break that down real quick: Continue Reading →
Australian Politics
I should have something to say, but I just don’t. I’m depressed and I’m embarassed. We’re being beaten on a civil rights issue by parts of America, guys. This is fucking pathetic.
Elections and Magic
If you care at all about Australian politics, you’d know that for a time there, our current Labor administration flirted with the idea of instating a filter on the internet to ensure that content deemed pornographic was unavailable in Australia. It was broadly speaking a non-starter amongst young people, and after some ridicule and being informed by the tech companies involved that it wouldn’t happen, the party dropped it and tried to stop talking about it.
The Liberal party, who aren’t liberal, released their Costings (basically, ‘how we intend to pay for things’) for its election promises, which has a host of problems (some very vague things) but also includes, in the fine print, that same internet filter, without a vote or talking about it as a component of their political platform. Essentially, the Liberal party are trying to instate a bad policy without a discussion.
They probably will win tomorrow. That’s not very cool.
Tomorrow, I go to vote; tomorrow, I go to play Magic cards for a bit with a friend; tomorrow, I drown my sorrows in Pepsi Max and videogames; tomorrow, I do some work on my presentation. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Well, today, but it’s just past midnight.
Bein’ Shut of This Place Fore Nightfallin’.
I realise now why I have been so aggressively devouring the books and texts mentioned in the videos of Ken Burns The Civil War documentary as I find it on Youtube and find their excerpts online. It is not through any sort of strange love or passionate interest in the war itself, though I am glad to put my life in a greater historical context, and equally glad to look at the dates of a nation founded and built on the backs of slaves, and recognise that genocide, slavery, degradation and death is the legacy of us all in this strange gamble we call civilisation, but rather because of the words used in the detritus of the normal man’s speech.
There are letters from generals and fighters, men who are not themselves classically educated, nor are their collected letters meant to in any way reflect a historical context themselves. Even men like Sherman and Lee, the generals of the war are not trying to be orators; they send letters to their homefronts to serve practical purposes. What makes them all the richer, then, is how these men communicate when communicating practically. A common thing I’ve found is that similes are designed to be explained; “like shovelling fleas from one side of th’barn to another – barely half of them go where they’re goin’,” for example.
I also am kind of a Sherman fanboy, enjoying his rhetoric and his depiction of war as inglorious and cruel in a way that I fear is reminiscent of a 12 year old boy being edgy.
Leadership Changeover
Well, we now have another Prime Minister, which is the same as our previous Prime Minister. Tomorrow, Kevin Rudd gets to stand before the Australian people and explain to them, at length, just what he’s going to do differently to Julia Gillard, a task that will be made easier by the way that the majority of the public have no idea what Julia Gillard was doing, as they more wanted to talk about and comment on her arse, her boyfriend, her red hair or her vagina. The Canberra press corps seem to think policy is some body of water in the northern hemisphere. Rudd’s job of blatantly not having a vagina will be made even easier by the fact that the footy was on the previous night, and therefore, nobody will be listening to him.
Gorgeous Joe
I don’t suppose you remember this, but during the 2009 Winter Olympics, a mentally challenged man infatuated with Joe Biden successfully evaded security in the Olympics stadium sufficient enough to get within twelve steps of the Vice President. He was intercepted by two plainclothes female mounties who picked him out of the crowd as seeming ‘a bit odd,’ spoke to him him, and captured him when he attempted to run.
Good Thing: Layered security did its job. Guy got apprehended and nothing bad came of it.
Bad Thing: He got past MOST of the security with a picture of a security pass he printed off the internet and laminated at Kinko’s.
Weird Thing: INFATUATED WITH JOE BIDEN?
Bonus Weird Thing: In three days time all I’m going to remember is my own elaborate fantasy of what plainclothes female mounties look like. And it’s hot.
“Overpaid, Oversexed and Over Here!”
With Memorial Day fresh in many people’s minds, and the obligatory tenuous internationalist perspective leading to a few Americans asking me what the rest of the world thinks about them, I’ve been reminded of World War 2, and just how incredibly sweet and charming the perspective a global superpower has on its last really ‘good’ war, where it was allowed to be considered the good guys and all. The level of post-fact insulation that people have from the realities of that war – and it was a global war, with global economic tides shifting – was astounding. I heard one person say that the United States fielded the biggest army in that war, which is interesting considering the total forces of the US military were 671,485, which sounds like a lot until you find that the Chinese army had at least three million military casualties – not personnel. Just casualties.
Still, I don’t want to act as though the American outlook on World War II presents a uniquely ignorant front. Australians make a point of hating on the US for a host of reasons, but there was at least one shining moment where we rallied around them, when post-Pearl Harbour, post-Singapore, the United States navy brought its mighty warships to Australian shores, parked, and promised – in general terms – to help us oppose the Japanese invasion.
The thing is, at that point, the US Naval forces was at least partially integrated, and there were African American servicemen in these boats. The Curtin government of Australia welcomed the US forces with open arms, giving Visas and praise to the American troops, who were well liked by Australian women and stores, but, the black troops had to stay on the ships. Seriously, one of our terms for military salvation was that the US not let black people off the boat.
Oh, and just to make it clear that there was nobody involved in this situation who wasn’t a racist, the US troop commanders agreed.
A One-Person Zombie Apocalypse?
During the 2010-2012 US election cycle I made a personal point that almost every news story out of the United States was after some fashion or another about how someone living in the wealthiest nation in the world in a time of plenty was in fact, a victim. It struck me just how fearful the people of this military power were; they would pass laws to protect themselves from (for example) regulating firearms, or sharia law, or immigration, all under the umbrella of the language of fear. Rhetoric was never soaring and hopeful, it was always in some way a warning, a threat, speaking to a victim. Then a handful of Navy SEALs invaded the home of a seventy year old grandfather and shot him in the face, and the country was so very happy. It seemed that the only thing that people in America didn’t fear was the people that they had shot and killed.
Hornswogglery!
It’s mostly been focused on working on my Humanities essay, which has, in turn, mostly been about astounding myself with just how shockingly fucking racist our government has been. Without going into extensive detail – I’m thinking about composing an ‘essay offcuts’ post where I explain everything that didn’t get to go into the actual essay for things that I can’t back up formally or aren’t appropriate to put in an assignment – we were a pack of racist assholes, and every time we took a step forward, someone else took a step back for us. Like, we were actually starting to warm to China and then fucking World War 2 happened.
The thing that really sticks with me today is that Rupert Murdoch had a great uncle who was, in fact, not a total cunt, showing that Rupert may not be able to take as an excuse that his family bloodline seems to include Satan.
A Conversation With An Imgur Stranger
This post is about a conversation I had on imgur which I thought would be an interesting discussion about the Pakistani-Indian conflict and the long-term radicalisation of a created nation. The thing that started the conversation was someone posting an unpleasant photograph of a young man injured by a failed bombing attempt in Pakistan. I’ve included the photograph, with the original captions, to preserve the conversation, but it wasn’t a particularly nice picture, and I recommend that sensitive people skip it.
Republicans Are Assholes
I am sometimes prone to simplifying commentary on the internet, especially in short-comment form by making the glib sentiment ‘Republicans, who are assholes.’ It’s not a blanket position I have come to hold without some consideration. See, during the 2012 Election season, I watched as a regular meme against Republican actors was that they were racists. Considering this, I came to the conclusion that while that is no doubt true, because we’re all racist to some extent and it’s just a matter of how much control that racism has over your behaviour that determines whether or not it’s a problem, it doesn’t get at the crux of the problem of the Republican party’s actors.
In response to Gun Control questions
Recently, a imgur poster, noting my reaction to gun control threads, decided to send me a personal message, drawing a comparison between guns and cars, an argument that I’m sure holds… some weight, I suppose, to… some people, whatever. Anyway, the point is, I had this reaction and I figured it was worth penning down as a more reliable, usable reaction to the issue at large.
Unfairness In the Land of the Fair Go
I have voiced this sentiment aloud at times, but never written it down, but the past three years of Australian news politics have been a demonstration of the ugly, childish nature of our news media. Normally you could rely on the left and right leaning newspapers to espouse their views with equal amounts of smug slant, but never before the Gillard government did I see such a consistant and gleeful desire to link governmental failure with one person and governmental success with nobody.
The best example of this I can offer is the way that the newspapers circled the idea that Gillard was a weak leader, even when evidence pointed to the contrary. The word ‘despite’ was commonplace these past three years in any mention of good news. The economy booms and the headlines refer to ‘Business Thriving Despite Doubts.’ The increased economy leads to a stronger budget which allowed for expansions of middle class programs and opportunities to help the lower class and it’s ‘Gillard Budget Raises Leadership Fears.’ She handles an attack from Abbott on the inappropriate behaviour of a minister in her parliament (he said some rude things to a staffer), and after delivering a brutal response to Tony Abbott, the headline I saw the next day was “Despite Gillard’s Passion, Slipper Resigns.”
The weird thing is, she’s been pretty damn effective, if not focused, at capitalising on a period of economic instability and helping drive our (primary production based) economy forwards. They’re working on major projects right now, they’re working them out, and I fear that thanks to a press corp having only one idea for how to handle news reporting, and a lack of personality politics, we’re going to change governments for no damn good reason and put power in the hand of Tony Abbott. Bear in mind that Labor used to argue against voting for John Howard because of the odd argument that if he retired, it’d put Tony Abbott in charge.
I’m hoping that I will be surprised come September, but I expect I will not. My hopeful best-case scenario is another coalition government where liberals may come out with the lion’s share, but not the majority, and a skilled dealbroker like Gillard can pull against the more business-oriented interest. It happened before, maybe it can happen again – but it is just a hope.
Political Tidbit
The longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia served eight hundred and forty-one times longer than the shortest-serving Prime Minister of Austraia. There’s no great meaning or cleverness at work here, of course, in observing that a deputy leader turned interim PM after the sudden death of a leader is not the same political animal as a man who transformed and moved throughout his lifetime to represent Australia in a variety of political circumstances. I believe there’s a similar discrepancy in American presidents – thirty days versus twelve (?) years.
The Aim of Growth is Growth
Something fun to consider.
Germany experienced two major depressions, two world wars, the massive destruction of infrastructure and its working class, hyperinflation, two political revolutions, and yet was a leading economy by 1950. Yes, Marshall plan, but still.
Japan lost two major cities, faced a catastrophic collapse of its national infrastructure and a poverty gap. When the launch was made against Japan after Nagasaki, the US forces were one day shy of being greeted by a citizen’s militia of the elderly and infirm armed with sticks. Japan recovered and was, within twenty years, starting to become the economic specter American investors feared.
When a country learns how to grow, and when they realise that growth can overwhelm many of the problems that plagued them, they never lose that taste. Growth solves problems. Bigger economies create problems, but they solve more than they cause – and they do not do so at someone else’s expense (necessarily).
Now consider that China has been reporting 9-10% growth every year for decades.
Guns and Privacy, Woo!
In the Trayvon Martin shooting case, Zimmerman’s lawyer wants to subpoena the medical records, twitter account and facebook account of the woman Martin spoke to on the phone before he was shot, to ‘investigate her.’ They have the record of the call, the audio – but it seems they want to know how many secret gangleaders she’s retweeted, or how many revolutionaries she’s friended on facebook.
There’s no real comment or message here. A comment only on the American Justice system. The sticking point is that Zimmerman’s lawyer has tried to obtain her medical records before, to be stymied by the fact that she doesn’t have any.
I don’t mean to contribute to the voices trying Zimmerman, mind you. It’s a possibility that his version of events is true (though I feel it unlikely). It bothers me more that they want to obtain the facebook and twitter records of a witness – to what end? What possible use could that information be put beyond finding a way to smear?
One final interesting thing, though: Zimmerman has chosen to not select the Stand Your Ground defence and will instead simply claim self defense. Remembering that he pursued Martin down an alleyway, and instigated all involvement with Martin, I wonder if it will still be considered an acceptable escalation to draw a gun when Martin beat him up (for chasing him down an alleyway and threatening him).
A Stupid Youtube Comment
I make a point of not commenting on youtube. It’s a format without any hope of discourse or illumination unless you want the finer points of redstone wiring technique. When I saw this:
“I think sometimes we get carried away on taxes here. Of course the rich? should pay a higher percentage but we can’t tax them to oblivion.”
The thing is, America seems to have become a society so large and so global that it’s not possible for the culture to extract taxes from those who benefit from the infrastructure of the nation. Companies can move to countries that don’t tax at the same rate, can always optimise their costs, meaning that the company‘s infrastructure which provides jobs and money into its own economy; the government then has to pay the company to keep that infrastructure!
The whole scenario is ludicrous, and I wonder if it’s a byproduct of just having a certain critical mass of money in an economy.
On Papal Retirement
I learn today that Pope Joey Ratzinger is retiring from his position as Pope at the end of the month. After my initial reaction, which was ‘he can do that?’ To answer that question, yes, he can; it’s a position from which the pope can, in fact, retire. It was last done in 1415, which I think is a good sign of how well that position proffers benefits. The remaining six centuries of popes all died with their extremely well-furnished golden slippers on.
In Other News…
Speaking of run-down wrecks from Alaska that quit halfway through…
Vive les Pantalon!
I’m an Australian male of British descent with a father who, god bless him, is a bit of a racist, and whose life was defined by the Americanisation of global culture. This means that my main association with France was watching people mocking them for surrendering, which I thought was hilarious when I was seven, and kind of obnoxious about the time I looked into it and realised just how terrifying things like The Terror were. Plus, they had Andre the Giant, invented lingerie, and up until recently, had Gérard Depardieu (who is now a Russian). This has made my natural posture when discussing the French to be lightly defensive, to ensure that the conversation involving France does not default back to massively racist ‘cheese-eating surrender monkey’ territory. After all, while the French are probably kind of racist against (say) Australians, and Parisians are apparently massively racist against anyone who isn’t a Parisian, I think there’s more to be said for a country than its hardest decision on its worst day.
Consider then my emotional posture when I learned that as of yesterday, women in Paris have permission to wear trousers. Or rather, it’s not legal to arrest women just for wearing trousers. I like the spirit of it, I’m in favour of the idea of repealing a law that was at best ornamental, but on the other hand…
What the hell, France? Seriously? It’s 2013. Seriously?
Seriously?