There's a bloody good reason not to be here.

Where the bloody hell are you?

Some honesty in advertising would be nice:

Please come to Australia, we've pretty much outsourced any useful jobs for ourselves, and if it wasn't for mineral exports and tourism, we'd be boned.

Once you arrive, there are many wonderful sights - the Sydney Opera House, Parliament house, none of which you may photograph. It is not recommended that you be within 100 meters of these.

Every second muslim to visit will receive, at no extra charge, the experience of being treated like a criminal suspect!

Travel advisory: It is customary to remove your burka, turban, bulky out-of-season clothing, any materials or goods that are even remotely combustible, beard, middle-Eastern name, etc, at the airport, in order to prevent body cavity searches or extradition.

Come to Australia, we might not put you in solitary confinement.

Come to Australia, we will look at you funny, and suspiciously, and may bash or spit at you.

Come to Australia, but when it's time to go, GET THE FUCKING HELL OUT.

Come to Australia, actually, we don't want you here, we just want you to spend some money here, actually, just wire it and stay away, it's for the best.

Come to Australia - our prime minister has a curse on him from the natives!

Come to Australia - but if ASIO asks you to come to a voluntary meeting, uh.. swim.

Come to Australia - oh you heard about that Cronulla thing? And the many colourful comments of our government? And that Pauline lady too? Front page you say? Yeah, I understand, forget I said anything.

Come to Australia - for some reason the people here aren't able to spend much money anymore.

Bloody Hel... (Budget expired, please insert another $180 million into the slot provided in order to continue this advertisement.)

One tourist made some important points -
"Australia could not rely solely on its good reputation" - because, y'know, it lacks one.

"You still have to reinforce and let people know you're there. If you don't advertise, then people will forget" - that it even exists. Do we really want to be visited by people who aren't actually aware of a continent unless they get sworn at by their TV?

The Howard Haters

"Honest©** John", the "rodent", HoWARd, - there exists many pet names to describe the target of our political misery. But, is John Howard a warm fluffy character, or the anti-Christ?

It is incredibly easy to attribute the blame for any political trend on the PM, that the degradation, near rape if I dare say, of our carefully sculpted, constructed, improved society, is solely caused by a single man. It works great for personal finger-waving, but does nothing for progression. And it's just pain-arse wrong.

Howard is not Stalin.

But it strikes me as a possibility that John is a lovely bloke, a people-person, an average Joe(y). (Stick with me on this one, pack an open mind.)

The Liberal Party is chock full of wonderful people, which are carefully filtered out from meaningful positions, leaving those who will basically do the bidding of the sponsors - the touchables you might say. More funding means more corruption - the reliance on the continuation of existing 'donations', let alone the possibility of more, unfortunately has drifted the entire party machine into a more mechanical form.

Ethically it is horrific, but it is natural progression.

Much like a media outlet not wishing to offend a corporate donor with articles that defame them, to jeopardise party donations through unfavorable policy is political death, and moral sacrifices have to made for a career to progress. The will of the people, and the good of the country fades away into the distance.

It's sad, but there really is no doubting it.

My point is, if John Howard was brought to trial for any of his miscellaneous atrocities, "just following orders" would be his major defense position. It's far greater than him, and he really is just a cog.

Many remove their working life from personal life, some because their working life requires such unpleasant activities - proctologist, prostitute, AWB officer, Liberal party MP, etc. A prostitute may not necessarily be amorous in their personal lives, and an MP might not be the harsh pragmatist they appear to be.

Being PM is a day job like any other. For some.

Pays the bills. Doing what you find physically or mentally exhausting for a living is much the same as doing what you find personally and morally offensive.

John Howard may cry himself to sleep at night, wishing the possibility existed for him to be a fragment of the man Bob Brown is. His family would know this, and maybe consoles him on it. Perchance he votes for a party other than his own.

There IS still good in him. I've felt it.

...He's more machine now than man; twisted and evil.

So when directing your outrage, it's imperative to acknowledge the fact that it is not one man. It's not even one party. And ultimately, vote-rigging aside, we also have ourselves to blame. "Howard" as a term for a particular regime refers to all of these.

Personally, I'm not a Howard hater. I'm a Howard hopeful. I may surrender to the force lightning of the empire, but I appeal for a turn against the Dark Side.

(No Bothans were harmed during the creation of this post.)

Y'know what? Fudge him! Fudge Packer!

James Packer is apparently a scientologist (not even going to dignify it with an upper-case S.)

And from this SMH article from 2002, 'The Church's website claims the organisation can help "reunite a father and a son".'

Good luck with that.

Australians - No Idea.

A recent AgePoll on whether Australian's really are politically masochistic or just plain stupid, has reached the conclusion that both are equally true, and those who vote according to their will are on the fringes.

The study was misrepresented as a round-up of opinions of the Howard legacy.

'Irving Saulwick and Dennis Muller, who conducted the study for The Age, say it reveals "an exquisite paradox", with Mr Howard receiving a strong endorsement despite being marked down "on many, perhaps most, issues".'

"This follows directly in line with the theory that Australian's are political retards, or pol-tards as we call them in the industry. The public knows damn well Howard is Australia's cancer, and yet pretend he's the better cancer."

There are only a few scenarios that exist the explain this so-called paradox, or mind-numbing stupidity:

a) a person voted Howard in, regretted it, and then voted for him again prentending to be a devout Liberal supporter, and convinces others, and then themselves they agree with policy decisions to save face.

b) a person saw the minor insignificant difference of the Labor party, and decided to go with the party that actually was honest about it's harshness, as opposed to being harsh to garner votes.

c) a person decides to punish the right-wingedness of the Labor party by voting for the Liberal party.

d) John Howard was mentioned more on the television.

e) Ignorance.

f) it's the more racist party, and stands up to "those sorts of people"

g) a tax cut is nice and shiny.

OR:

h) a person continues to follow what their parents told them to follow.

Entering a world of Chene

OK, more obligatory lefty poking-of-the-fun-at-Cheney:

(And this has probably been done to death, no pun intended, and done better, but I'm doing it anyways - I noticed afterwards The Daily Show has the same idea.)





Now, Dick & Co. didn't seem to find all this very newsworthy, and (although it sounded like a threat to me) did give his permission for a local newspaper to run the story. But, if not for one chap, and his 'approval' to let us know, we wouldn't know.

Which, to me, raises the question: just how many people does Cheney shoot accidentally...

...per week?

Results from American opinion polls:

39% said: Around 5.
27% said: 10 or more.
19% said: Who cares, stop trying to make guns seem bad so you can steal my precious guns.
13% said: I feel if I spoke honestly (ie: against the administration) it would pose a threat to my business/life/children.
2% said: None.

Shooting rampage - but with spin!

"But, for example, you couldn't shoot a man and have these spin-doctors you speak of have you coming out smelling like roses."

Cheney: "Watch me."




(Perhaps I'm wrong - maybe he just got a little bored with the effects of his actions being so obscured, and wanted a little taste locally...)

Outrage.

Anti Flying Spaghetti Monster cartoon sparks global outrage.



A cartoonist known only as LB, has created outrage over a crewdly drawn image depicting a drugged Flying Spaghetti Monster urinating over a crucified Jesus.

"I'm outraged" claims one Pastafarian. "It's outrageous that this could be published - where is censorship when you need it?" Blatantly anti-spaghetti is the term that has sprung up over the image. Moderate Pastafarians have noted the images accuracy, had a little chuckle, and returned to their daily lives.

However, with the image found on the worldwide web, fundamentalists of the FSM faith have begun attacking random computer servers, and other telephony devices in retribution- including one case of an enraged man throwing rocks at an over-head coaxial cable. "If this doesn't teach that Internet a lesson against blaspheming the one true faith, I'm not sure what will" he responded when queried by authorities.

Christian fundamentalist groups have met to decide on whether to be outraged or no. At the time of print, it is believed they had decided to flip a coin on the matter.

AWB = WMD

World Dictator Aid Appeal.

Meet Saddam. He is a simple man, just your average brutal dictator, trying to make destructive ends meet in a war-torn, impoverished nation. Unlike most of us here in the West, he has no weapons of mass destruction to spare. He has no nuclear weapons left rotting in the fridge. No chemical weapons left to share with the rest of us after taking care of his own people. But help is available, the Australian Wheat Board, along with careful tactics provided by the Australian government, have sent a helping hand. $300 million is all it takes to provide the threat necessary to justify an invasion.

Seriously, what the hell.