And they say the ACTU is running a scare campaign.

Idea plagurised from MGK's brain.

GTA SA AO OK

Why are all the issues raised and dealt with far more eloquently and intelligently in other blogs?

Oh well, San Andreas has been banned from Australia, with some over-reacting old bat filing a lawsuit in the States, over the fact you can modify it to show explicit sex scenes. Because the woman bought it for her 14-year-old grandson.

Is it called 'Super Fun Happy Driving'? No, it's Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft is a felony crime of an object that exceeds a given value. A felony is defined as a "very serious" crime.

What can we gather from this title? It would imply that the game may entail commiting a very serious crime of an expensive item, ie: a vehicle of some description.

But the game doesn't stop there, there were already in the game:

• implied sexual scenes, with muffled moaning
• a reward system for murder
• a reward system for not getting caught commiting said murder (avoid police)
• a multitude of weapons to beat/bludgeon/stab/slit-the-throat-of/shoot others
• lots of blood and gore
• encouraged violence against police
• 'using' a relationship with someone for personal gain (the 'girlfriend' aspect of the game)
• sex toys
• discussion of said sex toys, ie: 'I find a double-ender has more usage'
• sado-masocistic den, gimp references
• nipples-covered g-string nudity
• the following words spoken: cunt, shit, fuck, Whoa Jesus, bitch, Ah Christ, Oh my God, nigga (and other racial slurs), fucking prick, whore, dickhead, "you mother-fucking piece of shit gang-banging cock-sucker", assholes, tits, breast implants (but not fag, poof, or homo.. how PC of them)
• drug references (dope fiends, Crack Dens, etc)
• glorification of gangsters/mafia
• rewarding the use of prostitutes
• gambling rewarded and encouraged, including horse racing, black-jack, poker and slot machines
• probably more, this is just the list of things I noticed

So Florence Cohen, 85, of New York, you are a dunce. The game said '17 and older' and you bought it for a 14 year old for starters, for seconds, see all the above.

Is sex the greatest evil in the world? Or more to the point, is pixelated suggested sex, without rendered genitals going to be anything more that giggle-worthy, or shock horror, educational? Perhaps all mating animals/insects should be exterminated, so we live in a pure world of only friggin lady beetles, just in case those with curious minds see breeding and ask questions we don't want to answer. Like "why are those two bugs stuck together?" "Why is fido hugging my leg?" or "where did I come from? Tim says the cabbage patch thing is full of shit and people fuck and then it happens? (to use some adopted GTA lingo)"

However, it's not all bad, I would encourage any actions that hinders 'these kinds of people' from learning how to breed.

Me

I am a little worried I might be a latte left, so I thought I'd run myself through "Aleks' 8 Step Latte-Left Test(C)2005"

1. People who claim to care about the environment, but own a car and drive it to
work/uni because it would take them 10 minutes longer to get there by public
transport.

Ahh. I would take public transport to work, but it just isn't practical from where I am. I did get my license late, and only then it was because I was taking 2.5 hours to get to TAFE, bus-train-bus, and it would be similar to get to work. But, I've been pondering two options for quite a while now - a biodiesel car, or an electric bicycle. So, technically I'd say I've passed that one.

2. People who claim to care about the horrendous treatment of refugees in
Australia, but aren't active in any of the numerous groups who publicly
campaign on the matter.

Crud, I do care, but I haven't done anything about it, apart from trying to continue to keep the issue current with co-workers, which isn't easy when you get the Herald Sun readers head-in-sand "I don't want these evil-doers in my country, they sew lips together, they're... etc etc."

3. People who claim to support unions, but aren't active in their union, or
aren't even a member of their union.

I'm a Shop Steward (Deputy), so flying colours there.

4. People who bitch about how the ALP has sold out but still vote for those
treacherous bastards.

I stopped voting for them, I let my membership lapse, and I raise their uselessness at every single possible opportunity.

5. People who whinge about McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC etc and some of the
things they do, yet still buy things from there.

Well, I really don't give a hoot about them, I know they're bad, although Hungry Jacks is 50% Australian owned, and Red Rooster 100%. I normally don't frequent these places, I don't even eat "dirty bird" anymore, but there is a Maccas near my workplace that I do go to if I don't bring my own lunch, and I have personally boycotted the company cafeteria, and it's the only other place to eat. Oh, and they know me there and I get free food quite often, so in a way I'm not helping their business at all.

6. People who whine about how bad television has become, but watch mind-numbing reality television like Big Brother and Australian Idol.

Big Brother was banned from the household before it even aired. I was actually amazed tonight and changed to a commercial channel (7), which is rare, because they actually had a DOCUMENTARY on about Ghengis Khan.

7. People who say we need to support Australian culture, but don't go watch
Australian Films, Theatre or bands, and instead go watch the latest Adam Sandler
film and buy the latest piece of pop or hip-hop crap from the US.

We have a bit of a rule, for every non-Australian DVD we buy, we have to buy an Australian one, and they're always better. Oh and my latest CD was Legends of Motorsport (Aussie.)

8. People who drink wine.

Oh you dirty sod. I do drink a little wine now and then, a bit of Cab Sav goes a treat with food. But CUB have raised their prices to a crazy level now, and I wonder who profits from the big breweries as well. I'll get the home brew kit out one day.

Also, I don't drink LATTE's, I don't even have milk or sugar. At work I drink organic tea, and at home (and I was super-excited to find it in the local supermarket) organic fair-trade INSTANT coffee! You can really taste the missing DDT! Been looking for an instant one of them for a while.

...

If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does Bob Brown wake in a cold sweat and mutter "it's as if millions of xylem cells cried out, and were suddenly silenced"
?

Who let the cat's out?

Costello's let the cat out of the bag? I thought Howard did that with the competing with China thing? How many friggin' cats are in that bag? Perhaps the RSPCA needs to branch out into a new entity; the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Workers.

Then the militant unions can become People for the Ethical Treatment of People, and we would be rid of that ugly ugly word "union".

Liberals - want a radical overhaul of industrial relations legislation.
Labor - want some of it to change, but make it look like they are reversing them.
Greens - they want to do something totally radical - the loopy left want to: have them not change at all. They want to be conservative, and revert the changes back the way they were. So no change whatsoever. Whack-os. Seriously, can L-abhor disband please?

Treasurer Peter Costello has said he's open to abolishing unfair dismissal
protection for all workers.

Realistically, it's not that big of a deal, it would save companies having to go through all the trouble of dividing itself so it can unfairly dismiss employees. Hurrah for them.

Can we stop pissing off nut-jobs?

We may be the big tough kids in the classroom (the West), but even we should be wary of pissing off the crazy kid in the corner with the nervous twitch and a blade (extremists).

The job is not owned by the employee.

It's a good argument, the employee should be thankful for a good employer, and visa versa, but if the job really was created and funded by a company, shouldn't they own it?

Yes, simplistically speaking, how dare a worker demand his job?

Governments are owned and, in a very theoretical way, controlled by the populance. It is ours, it represents us, whatever it does is our collective fault. Companies are also represented, but they don't get to vote, but BOY do they get to have a voice. This brings me to my point, taking the company I work for, they get huge wads of dollars from Governments to employ research staff, apprentices (although that's stopped), etc, as well as tax breaks of about 50% less in the dollar than the population, and theres also spontaneous donations, the Treasurer and Premier visited at one point to announce to the cameras they were giving the company... more money, as long as it employed 25 odd more people. It did. Then after a few months they got the collective arse. Free dollars and a scammed Government.

This brings me to my real point, if my tax dollars are given to this company, so that it may employ me, does that mean that I have, in a sense, paid for my job? Does that mean in some way that I 'own' my job? If I lose my job, that's fine, but can I have my taxes back? Alternatively, if you subscribe to the idea that a job is the sole ownership of a business, can business not be allowed any tax breaks, or any Government funding, so we can separate the two? Hoo-hooooooo, I don't think that's gonna happen.

I just went out onto the porch with my Orange Softdrink and Kahlua mixed drink (any ... in a storm), pondering the surrealism of the IR changes, and noticed a bright white shooting star zip amazingly fast across the sky, and dissapeared in the same way that planes don't.

The IR alterations are as bizarre as the drink, but not as brilliant as the meteorite. And two of them are giving me the shits right now. Ohh.

But they are hard to comprehend, are they just testing public opinion at the moment? In a lot of situations nowadays, it seems if you want to do something negative, first make it confusing, second keep it secret, and thirdly, so terribly bad that someone who tries to explain it will seem like a scaremonger. I'm thinking FTA, IR, asylum-seeker detention. It's clever, but surely it has to backfire at some point.

The Salvos are religious, humanitarian, and seem to disagree with almost all of the Liberals policies:

"Homeless forgotten in Federal Budget"
"Statement on the dissolution of ATSIC"
"Give refugees permanent protection visas"
"Welfare agencies call for children to be released"
"The Salvation Army's viewsof how Australia should respond to international terrorism" is not exactly Green's policy, but call for "diplomatic means" instead of "unilateral action", that we should not be "destroying nations", etc.
"The Salvation Army response to asylum seekers coming to Australia"

And these are merely the items on the right-hand news-bar.

Here's a tops Eucharist/drinking game for you all:
I call it "Drink When You Find A Greens Policy That, Had They Been In Power, Would Have Made Each Of The Salvos Wishes Come True":

Social Citizenship and Welfare
Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders
Immigration and Refugees (occurs 3 times)
Peace and Security
I hope the main reason the churches don't downright support the Greens is due to Huns crud about euthanasia/abortion/gays, because under a Liberal Federal Government, the first was legal for a while, the second has not changed one iota, and gays have been flaunting their wobbly bits around Mardi Gras.

Oh, and don't give any crap about "The GREENS WAN'T TO GIVE MY CHILDREN DRUGS!" coz LADY, they are on drugs statistically, and helping drug dealers to boot, and you really won't find any Greens touting the positive benefits of any drugs. Especially not dangerous prescription ones. I mean, have you read their policy? They want to put warning labels on alcohol fer-chucks-sake.

Plus, and this cannot be stressed enough, who were the evil nasty God-hating satan worshiping evil doerers who've been plotting those legalised heroin injecting rooms?! Churches. The Uniting Church at the fore front, thumbs up from an Anglican archbishop, even some Catholics had a shot at it before the Vatican reined them in. Still, the Liberals managed to find an anti-anything-drug-condoning Salvo and dropped him into the National Council on Drugs .