The Circus Aus
I'm not sure what people think sometimes.
Whilst I steer clear of network (tabloid) news and try to read online news sites that represent both sides of the political spectrum not even I could escape the circus that is being performed in Canberra over the last week or so.
Malcolm Turnbull, once a lefty's dream Liberal politician turned into weasel is facing yet another leadership battle.
The funny thing is the front runners to inevitably take his spot. In one corner we have religious nut-bag and shit-eating-grinner Tony Abbott and in the other corner we have Joe "WorkChoices was great, despite being the main reason of our defeat" Hockey.
What are they thinking? Not only do they look desperate and power hungry by jumping Turnbull when his chips are down, but does the Liberal party as a whole actually think either one of them could beat Kevin "Can't Touch This" Rudd?
Do they honestly think we'd be happy sending Pugsley Adams or the Alter Boy to represent us on the world stage?
Look at me, full of questions without any answers. How left wing of me!
I do have an answer.
I had said a couple of months back that only Costello could save the Libs from an almost certain defeat. Unfortunately Costello is gone. Well, it's not unfortunate for the Australian public, but it is for the Liberal party. With PC out of the picture the only hope of a reasonable standing at the polls would be an outsider - like Rudd was. The Liberals need to choose someone who doesn't conjure up sexually repressed or dirty memories. They almost got it right with Brenden Nelson. Nobody knew him, he didn't appear offensive and he rides motorbikes! How could you lose?
Well they lost him on "Empty Apology Day: The Aboriginal Edition" when he screwed up so badly that the crowds turned their back on him when he spoke. I wouldn't wish being the PR person for Nelson on that day on my worst enemy. Even Hitler.
The only way for a pseudo-democracy like ours to work is not have a clear winner in an election. As soon as politicians see electorates as a "sure thing", like Rudd can and does now, the less they do and more absurd plans like the ISP filtering scheme come out of the shadows. If Rudd and the Labor party was only narrowly holding on the popular opinion, do you think Conroy would be allowed to speak?
As it is right now the Liberals do not have a whites chance in Harlem of winning an election.
And to make matters worse, Joe "Beefcake" Hockey appeared to seek advice and the blessing of John Howard! The same John Howard that was dumped for Dudd-Face Square pants in the last election. The same John Howard through his inability to connect with the youth and "real Australia" cost the not only the Liberals power but also his own "safe seat" in NSW!
Why on earth would Hockey be seen talking to him? And please lets not pretend like it was a paparazzi shot at Howards front door, it was a photo op pure and simple. It was planned, calculated and obvious.
To the dismay of myself and other half intelligent voters all of this drama is being splashed in every newspaper, every radio station and television promo for the nightly "news".
It has completely overshadowed what started the whole Liberal shakeup in the first place - the proposed Emission Trading Scheme, or as I like to call it "The reach around to all polluters". The worst part? Labor's ETS is a reach around hand job to industry, and the Liberals want to make sure the industrial sector comes back for seconds.
Both sides fail to realise that emissions trading like target 155, doesn't work. Australia NEEDS someone to stand up, look into the big polluters face and say "tough titties", regulate them and fine the hell out of them for even considering not cutting their emissions by at least 30 % (each) by the end of 2010.
That is what we NEED, what we deserve, however... what we deserve for allowing these moronic, ignorant weasels run rampant with not only my, but my children's future, might be exactly what we are getting.
-db
The Opinionation Presents: The roasting of Dane Braddy
There are alot of things in my life that I have not done:
1. Swam with dophins
2. Been to New York
3. Attended a roast
The idea of a roast is brilliant. Basically you pick a "friend", celebrate all the good they have done and then proceed
to bag the crap out of them and mention every embarassing story you can remember.
Here is my roast to Dane Braddy
For those of you are unaware (or don't know how to stalk someone on the internet) today is Mr.Braddy's birthday.
24 years and 9 months ago today, Dane's parents were buck naked in the kitchen playing with whipped cream and a midget.
The result...A insecure man, who does not like to cook...and barely tolerates midgets.
I have had the mild discomfort(like a UTI) of knowing Dane for 3 years now.
The fist sentence I ever muttered to Dane was: "He just shaved them off? One swipe and gone with the nipples?"
And thus the friendship was born. Through brief interactions during the next few months I discovered that he does not get
filtered out through my "bullshit" filter, so he must be an alright guy.
Here is a list of things I discovered Dane and I have in common:
1. A lack of faith in government
2. A distrust and hate of organised religion
3. Zero tolerance for ignorance or stupidity
4. A smoking habit
5. His girlfriend (that's right, I slept with her...oh she'll deny it...but it happened)
In the 3 years I have known Dane I have had a chance to discover things about him. Useless information that is filling my brain, preventing relevant information from being absorbed. Information such as, he has a claw machine habit. Why does a 24 year old man STILL play the claw machine? Man up and move onto pokie machines like every other person did.
I also know that his humor is lost on a lot of people. He has some gem's every now and again and they just sail over people's heads. I feel for the man. He's talent is unappreciated. I mean, it must be hard for him to be compared to me all the time. Obviously I'm the funny one in this duo, but we can't let that distract us from the fact that he's a funny guy.
He's also lazy, so if I mention this funny cartoon series we should have "coming to the nearest Opinionation near you" then hopefully he'll get off his butt and start production.
That's right Dane...YOU'RE LAZY.
While Dane does poses a complete lack of faith in the human race, his love for animals is endless (not in a dirty way).
He can find an animal cute even when the rest of the populate find the animal butt ugly. He would rather eat nothing but rice and water for a week and let a dog eat gourmet dog food, then let the animal starve. I do question why this love cannot cross over to humans, but then I think "what do I care". So kudos for loving the ugly animals that no one else can love.
So Dane, I say to you...Thanks for the last 3 years....Here's to 3 more (6 years of you is enough, I'll be skipping the country if you talk to me after that)
-ms
Hypocrisy by Hypocrites
A wise man once said that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Much later another wise man, when arguing with his partner that Catholics are either stupid or evil as they allow and pay their church to act wrongly and do nothing, said that those who knowingly support evil but turn a blind eye are evil by proxy.
That was me.
It is an unfortunate thing that we can't pick and choose our morals. What is considered right must be considered right no matter the circumstance. If it is wrong to sexually abuse a child, then it must be wrong to allow the sexual abuse of a child tooccur and it would be wrong to not prevent it from happening.
Australians quite liked the unofficial "peacekeepers" tag that was placed on our military efforts. We appeared to be quite proud that we were helping - never instigating conflicts. It is nosurprise that we had lost the title (if the title was valid to begin with) when we supported the invasion of Iraq. It is without question that intelligenceagencies in the US, UK and Australia tried to set the record straight on the presence of nuclear weapons in Iraq but were ignored by the "leaders". We invaded that nation not for our security, not because we thought they funded terrorists (that would be Iran) OR because an evil dictator was abusing his power, we went their because of oil and to be honest, when you take a step back from it all, it's disgusting.
The whole "we did a good thing by getting rid of Saddam" doesn't hold up when there are millions of people being killed on the African continent via civil wars and horrendous corruption.
Can't pick and choose our morals, if one honestly believes that the whole "evil dictator" was a valid and actual reason for the invasion then one must admit that Australia should have sent more troops to a worse humanitarian crisis unfolding in Africa, or Tibet or any other atrocity that is taking place around the world where far more lives are needlessly taken.
The tragedy of fighting a war over oil, the resource, is that as a resource - it's kind of bullshit. We have placed an artificial value on this substance that has been superseded by renewable energies and synthetic materials and built our economy around it.
Oh and a little secret about the economy and money in general - it's also artificial and completely bullshit.
I once heard that the next world war will be fought over clean drinking water. The idea, probably a mere fantasy when published doesn't seem so stupid now as we face massive water shortages. Another major thing about water is that water is not a made up resource - we, as a species, need it to live.
At least with oil as a fuel we can rest assured that the day that it runs out, Shell will bring out an all electric car the very next day, for a price. Whatpray-tell what will happen when we run out of water?
Desalination sounds good, but because of pompous assholes who don't want their beach polluted with noise and an eyesore of a factory our plants have been delayed and because of our Governments lack of foresight and general intelligence there is so much policy and red tapesurrounding it that they seem like a fantasy at the moment.
So what will happen when the tap runs dry?
An outrage will occur and we will beg - no, DEMAND - international assistance with our plight - THE SAME international assistance that was been denied to people on a black continent (oh yeah I went there) when we were too busy fighting and dying for a pseudo-resource that in the end was and is useless old tech.
And all of this has happened because we chose wrong. Instead of examining what we want to stand for versus our greed and stupidity we have made a mistake that was doomed to backfire. We liked to think we were the moral superior but we didn't act in unison with the morality we prided ourselves on.
I'd also like to point out that Australia doesn't have capital punishment, presumably as it is barbaric and I would agree - but where were we when Saddam was handed over to the Iraq "courts" where he was facing a death penalty and where were we when the noose was put around his neck?
I feel as if, and I'd hope, that I am preaching to the choir on this one. It isn't only Australia that is to blame for what we have coming but as an Australian I am ashamed and embarrassed at this countries inability to even choose the side it built for itself.
-db