Swastikas, US flags and Olympic torches. Crucifixes and pictures of Allah. All symbols.

They represent love, devotion, hatred or death and people get so worked up about them. yet they are just... symbols, inanimate representations.

This Olympic torch stuff is really annoying the crap out of me. It is a bloody torch for fuck's sake! the media in all forms have humanised the thing.

"The torch was whisked away to safety overnight"

"The torch was welcomed to Australia by..."

and so on.

I'm just waiting for the torch to develop a bloody headache one day soon and decide not to go out jogging.....

This whole Olympic thing is one big yawn to me. Some of the sports are enjoyable but not that many.

As for Olympic ideals... They clearly died for the majority of people when professionalism took over.

Furthermore, I think every four years is far too often to have to endure the opening and closing ceremonies and why can't we put in place a total news embargo on the Olympics until say a week before the games start?

Miserable killjoy ain't I?

;-)

So the gabfesting is over and the idealists God bless 'em are winging their way back to obscurity. I don't mind people wanting to change the world for the better and I really don't intend this to be a criticism of their good intentions. However...

What is 2020 really going to be like? What is achieved by inviting Corporate Australia Ltd. and the multimedia whores to a weekend chat?

Do you actually trust people whose primary claim to fame is the siphoning off of your wealth into their bulging pockets? I don't. The media are a subsidiary of Corporate Australia Ltd. and they represent their parent company magnificently. Our leading politicians have to bare their arses to Corporate Australia or they will be hounded out of office by an army of sheep, whipped into a frenzy by their media subsidiary. 

If we could transport now to 2020, I think you would be horrified by what you see. In the same way, if you were taken from 1978 and dropped into 2008, you would be equally horrified. There would be some amazement at the technological advances and sure, a lot of that is driven by business. I ask you though, at what price progress?

2020? I see even more of the same x 100. People who have no opinion other than that which is shoved into them by the media. I see a society where you dare not set out of your door without a can of mace, a knife and a personal alarm.  I see a society were we spend so much of our resources on human offal, that we can't afford to look after those who have put their lives on the line for us. I see a society where even more of the government is sold off to Corporate Australia. The balance sheet rules now and will rule stronger in 2020.

Seriously, what is your vision of 2020? Not what you would like to see, but rather what will you see?



What do you see for Australian society in 2020? How will it change?

This 'peace on earth, goodwill to man' stuff didn't last very long did it? 

A man in his 50s was playing beach cricket in Geraldton and was beaten to death by one of this state's many aboriginal thugs. His granddaughter's fiance is in hospital after been glassed with a broken bottle. That was Christmas Day. 

Last night, a man was stabbed to death at Perth Central Bus Station and Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. 

It's business as usual, so it seems.

I'm developing a new thought process in regard to the future of the world. Now I'm not a super greenie nor am I frivolous with mother earth's resources. I try to do my bit for the environment but don't get carried away with it. Probably the way most of us are I suspect. I don't like waste, and I guess that is the major driving force behind any acts that could be described as 'green'. 

I have however, been considering the future of the earth for a while and I'm starting to think that trying to drastically change the lifestyle of the species known as 'human' will have about as much impact as a fart in gale force wind. 

Why do we want to save the earth? For who, for what? The place is doomed and that is simply the cyclic nature of all things. Sooner or later each of the species of this planet will either be destroyed or mutated to a point where identification by us would be impossible. 

Why save the earth for us? Why are we worth it? As a species we are unique in that we are clearly the most dominant of all living things. Whether this warrants saving the earth just for our benefit though doesn't convince me or compel me to make that extra effort. It is pointless and anyway, I think we are unworthy of eternal presence upon this landscape. 

We are dinosaurs with blinkers, made of metaphoric dust - and dust we shall be once more. 

Saving the earth is unnecessary because when all is said and done, she looks after herself. Those aboard her are - and always were - doomed.

  No people, I am not about to swear off sex, it is simply that this is the last day before the federal election and I just want to say that I have seldom been so disappointed in the calibre of the two main parties.  

 
 

In youth I was all-embracing of the Labor Party - to the point where I was an office bearer of my local branch. Menzies and his successors had taken Australia nowhere and it really was time for a change. The party had very different ideals and policies to the Liberals and the working man (or woman) was at the fulcrum of its platform.

Somewhere along the way the party has been seduced by media moguls and in so doing it has been diluted to the point where it now seems to support any movement except the working man. It even expels union members who stand up for the workers. If you're an lesbian, peace loving environmentalist then you will no doubt be welcomed with open arms. Dare you actually have a meaningful job, earn a wage and earn less than $250,000 per annum, then they don't want to know you. YOU can't do anything for THEM. The party is so similar to the Liberals that they even cloned John Howard, called it 'Kevin Rudd' and put it at the helm. The ALP talk about dismantling the Liberal's labour laws is clouded with qualifications and evasiveness. To be honest, even that aside, just what is the difference?

The party system allows for powerful representation of policy and it prevents the country stagnating in a sea of minority interests such as happens in the Italian model. Unfortunately, it no longer works as it did. Howard and Rudd wear the same pair of trousers and both are quite happy to have their hands in the pockets, scratching their balls while all the time kissing Murdoch and his colleagues' arse.

Politicians are about getting elected and making a name for themselves. The only thing visionary that a politician sees is his retirement after 10 years on an overblown superannuation payment that they alone can access regardless before the normal retirement age.

We need alternatives with clout and I think I am going green tomorrow. At least they may wrest away the balance of power in the senate.

A huge announcement was made today by the Western Australian State Minister for Hype THE HON SHEILA M McHALE MLA. :

"Perth wins 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships"

Sheila is - amongst many things titular, the Minister for Tourism. (She is also the Minister for Culcha and the Yarts). Sheila was quoted on radio this morning as saying that this will "help put WA on the map".  Well, whoopee-bloody-do.

I swear if I hear this hackneyed phrase just one more time I will blow the frigging place up and take us right off this bloody all-important map.  

Brother Peter (No, he's not a monk - and he isn't the Messiah either) mentioned here, his opinion regarding the Red Bull Air Race. I am compelled to agree. Much ado about very little. 

From my perspective, I'm sick to death of being inconvenienced with road closures and alternate plans just to go about my everyday existence while these much-hyped events are in session. 

Be honest, how many of you had even heard of the bloody Red Bull Air Race prior to it arriving in Perth last year? As I sit at home this Sunday morning all I have heard is the constant drone of planes zooming down the river. It sounds like some great lawn mower gig in the sky. 

I think some of this stuff is overkill. I work shift work from the Hyatt Building and over the course of the past few years I've been put out greatly by Christmas pageants, cycle races, sky shows, car rallies, Red Bull planes and Anzac Day. 

Now, I don't mind the inconvenience of a couple of these events and you might guess which they are, but I am fed up with the tourist dollar being touted as the lifeblood of this state and having to make sacrifices for that very reason . It is not - and never was our lifeblood. 

The people who organise these events are very good spin doctors and governments of the day are astute enough to realise that they have to jump on board or be trampled underfoot. How I pity the poor people of Sydney for what they went through for the Johnny and George show!

Specifically, I guess I don't greatly object to this air show,  but I'll be damned if I am going to overrate it's value to this state. It's economic and marketing significance is about as great as mine, and yet you don't see me heralded in the media and see streets roped off for my dazzling arrival at the Hyatt Centre. 

I do it on an almost daily basis too.

I have just heard breaking news that The Governor General is about to dissolve parliament.

I think an olympic-size swimming pool full of concentrated hydrochloric acid should do the trick.

From the West Australian:
Monkeys yield embryonic stem cells

20th June 2007, 16:31 WST

Human therapeutic cloning has moved a step closer, with US researchers successfully creating embryonic stem cells from monkey embryos.

In a world-first breakthrough, scientists told a stem cell research conference in Cairns this week that they had successfully created two batches of embryonic stem cells from cloned rhesus monkey embryos.

Why clone animal cells for use in human bodies? This is the thinking of unimaginative minds surely? 

I say we should clone human cells for use in animal bodies! We need never do anything again. The animals could do everything for us. Imagine the future!

We could have gorillas working as security guards. A goose as prime minister and a wombat as leader of the opposition!

We could have lizards and sharks as captains of industry and an elephant as a union leader.

Conspiracy:


A dictionary definition:

The bodies of the Balibo Five journalists were "reduced to ashes" after they were killed, according to an intercept seen by a retired Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) official. 

Giving evidence before a Sydney inquest into the death of Brian Peters, one of five Australian-based journalists killed during Indonesia's 1975 occupation of East Timor, the former DSD intelligence officer Adrian Bishop was questioned about a string of intercepts he saw in October 1975.

The Indonesian military signal intercepts referred to the death of five white people in Balibo, Mr Bishop told the Glebe Coroner's Court.

Official government reports have said the five journalists were killed on October 16, 1975 in crossfire between Indonesian forces and Fretilin troops in Balibo.

Several East Timorese witnesses have told the inquest the men were executed and their bodies burnt.
Mr Bishop is the latest commonwealth official to give evidence of seeing intercepts referring to the deaths of the journalists.

The inquest continues, but in a closed court, after Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch agreed to a commonwealth government request to hear some evidence in camera, as it may prejudice Australia's national security and defence interests

Okay, hands up who remembers this? Of course you do.  31 years later and it is now getting some official confirmation of truth. 31 years of lies, stonewalling and deception. 31 years of all flavours of government denying us confirmation of that which we all suspected. 31 years of pandering to a military dictatorship, a regime that thrived on corruption and brutality. 

This cost Australians their lives and yet we still have to endure some of the evidence being heard in camera. One suspects it is only because it would serve to embarrass and annoy our northern neighbour. They are murderous thugs and successive Australian governments have conspired to keep in sweet with them.  

Why is this information being confirmed from official sources now - some 31 years of torment after the event? Do they expect that we will have lost our indignation and anger by now? Is it a story that  is no longer a major headline grabber? 

Time heals all (It seems to cure public outrage anyway) and we as a community are complicit in allowing this to go the way of so much that is really important. 

31 years we have been lied to by our federal politicians and are we to allow them to do this without even comment and criticism?

Australia day is fast approaching. It is a time for reflecting and enjoying all that is Australian and unique. 

Sadly I will be working all day but that won't stop me (at least in spirit) being out there with the multitude, wearing my traditional Aussie thongs (made in Sri Lanka), waving my Aussie flag (made in China) belting out 'I Come From A Land Down Under' on my Japanese Ghetto-blaster (made in Indonesia).  

I may have a brief respite from such exuberant displays of fierce national pride, to munch on my Vegemite (©Kraft of America) sandwich spread across a couple of slices of (German) rye bread. 

We will gather in numbers, we English, Italians, Chinese and Indians et al, and celebrate that which makes us uniquely Australian thereby setting us apart from all other countries (Mainly that we are not in them).

Multiculturalism was an experiment of the Whitlam years and like the curate's egg, it is good in parts. The parts that are rotten though need to be cut out and discarded like the festering, poisonous scum that it is. 

Lebanese gangs in Sydney, Croats and Serb thugs in Melbourne, North African gangs on the streets of Perth have no place in multicultural Australia.

As Arnie (Austrian-American) would say "Get Out!" (English) and I would be more than happy to hear him also say "Hasta la vista" upon their departure (Spanish).