Just found this in my spam box for my gmail account.
Honestly, I’d buy whatever it is you’re trying to sell me, whoever you are (the picture doesn’t show it but it was from “unknown sender”) , wherever you are.
From tomorrow in Tasmania, it is illegal to smoke in cars where there are passengers under 18 years old. Those caught breaking the new laws face on the spot fines of $110, or, if they take the matter to court and are found guilty, a maximum fine of $2,200 (although for the first 3 months the fines will not be enforced, those caught being given just a warning during the initial “education” period).
Introducing the new laws, Health and Human Services Minister Lara Giddings said:
“Children exposed to smoke inside vehicles have a higher risk of asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, coughing and wheezing, middle ear infection and meningococcal infection,”
“Smokers should not expose children to these dangers and from tomorrow they will be breaking the law if they do so.”
Good move!. I’ve always thought people who smoke around children are stupid and irresponsible. (Well actually, smoking in any case is stupid and irresponsible … but exposing children to it is many times more stupid). Bad enough to smoke at home when kids are around, but to inflict it on them in the confined spaces of a car is awful. Maybe its fair enough to damage your own health, but its not to inflict it on yours and other people’s children (nor for that matter other adults …. which is why I’d personally like to see smoking banned in public places altogether - so essentially the only place to smoke is in your own home, and only then if there are no children there. I’d also tax smokers out of their bad habits.)
So I’d like to see all the other states in Australia follow Tasmania’s lead on this one.
Apart from the childrens’ health concerns, I’d suggest there are also road safety concerns with smoking while driving. After all, lighting up, puffing away and ashing the cigarette must be at least equally distracting from driving as using a hand held phone … which is banned. And that is not to mention all the cigarette butts and litter that filthy pig smokers leave all over the countryside - how often do you see some pig flicking butts out of the car window? At least if they’re going to poison themselves, they should have the decency to use the inside of the car as their ashtray, and not share it around with everyone else. (But then smokers are clearly such caring, sharing people and love to share their smoke and rubbish with the world at large!) Finally you have the dickheads who chuck butts out and start fires … many grass and bush fires are started by careless smokers (actually more than careless, I’d call it criminally stupid.).
Al Qaeda linked Pakistani militant commander Baitullah Mehsud denied his involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Mehsud heads the Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan (TTP), a newly launched united movement of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
A spokesman for Mehsud said:
“This is absolutely wrong to say that the Taliban or any member of the Taliban were involved in murder of Benazir Bhutto,”
“I strongly deny it. Tribal people have their own customs. We don’t strike women,”
Nice and gentlemanly, aren’t they?
I suppose this means that suicide bomber training includes instructions to separate the women from the men before detonating, or choosing men only targets (toilets, changing rooms, etc). Also that the 9/11 hijackers screwed up their orders in not first ensuring that the planes used were male only and that all women had been evacuated from the World Trade Centre and Pentagon before crashing into them.
What suicide bomber training should include is a live practice in their barracks before they get sent out on their real missions. After all, they clearly need as much etiquette training as possible to become the gentlemen that Al-Qaeda thinks they are.
Apparently there is a severe shortage of sperm donors.
The Royal Hospital for Women has had no new sperm donors for more than 12 months. Reproductive specialists say attracting enough men to satisfy demand has always been difficult. Changes to NSW legislation this month requiring donors to register their names on a mandatory central register had turned potential donors off, said Professor Michael Chapman, from IVF Australia, which has a waiting list of two years. The Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill guarantees children access to their father’s name, date of birth, education and medical information once they turn 18. It may also require details of the donor’s partner and other children to be listed. Dr Anne Clark, from Fertility First Hurstville, said the sperm shortage would be compounded by the new laws, which legislate that one man’s sperm can go to only five families, down from 10.
This is a rather surprising problem. After all, there’s certainly no shortage of wankers around.
William Rowe was participating in a most Australian activity on Christmas Day - playing cricket on the beach with his extended family. However, a pack of thugs intervened and beat him over the head with his cricket bat, killing him.
Within a day, reports were that the thugs had been helping themselves to drinks from his family’s esky and he told them off. An argument followed, and shortly afterwards the thugs returned with about 25 of their mates, and things turned into some sort of a brawl, with bottles thrown and one of Mr Rowe’s family being slashed with a broken beer bottle (serious enough to need 35 stitches) and having his jaw and collarbone broken. Mr Rowe and other members of his family were taking the injured man to their car to drive him to hospital when the fatal blow was struck on Mr Rowe with his cricket bat.
A 21 year old man, Mathew Roy McDonald, later surrendered to police and has been charged (so far) with causing grievous bodily harm. A second man, aged 45, has also been charged over his part in the brawl (but apparently nothing to do with the death of Mr Rowe or the injuries to his family member). According to police, other people have been brought in by their families over their involvement in the brawl.
Now what has been barely said or even hinted at in the media is that the thugs were all aborigines. Given the nature of Western Australia, particularly its country towns, this is not at all unexpected or indeed particularly surprising. Whether the attackers are aboriginal, white, Asian, African or whatever is not really that important. What I don’t like is the apparent censorship in reporting. Again we have media outlets suppressing, or at least blurring, their reporting. Why? Can’t we handle the fact that there are groups of aborigines who behave appallingly (or groups of moslems, or other racial/religious groups)? The first hint I could find of the perpetrator’s aboriginality was in his uncle’s statement:
“Our family, with the help of the Aboriginal Legal Service, in the new year will make an official statement on behalf of the family and until that time we just want the media to respect our privacy,”
Very much like the case of the murder of Andrew Farrugia in Griffith on New Year’s Eve last year. Pussyfooting around by the media when it was fairly obvious from the outset who the criminals were. I think we are entitled to be informed about the bad behaviour of different groups in Australia, whether they be aborigines in Geraldton, Lebanese in Lakemba or whites in Cronulla. Suppressing their identity for reasons of political correctness, or wanting to avoid being accused of racism, serves nobody well. It denies to the communities from which these dickheads come that they have a publicly acknowledged problem in their midst and it denies the broader community knowledge which I think we are entitled to know.
I’ve seen nothing yet in the Fairfax media or ABC which references the fact that the thugs that attacked and killed Mr Rowe were aborigines. The West Australian has been more forthcoming about it, with a version of events from a family friend of the Rowe’s, which clearly identifies the problem group as aborigines. His version of events was reported as below.
When the temperature started to cool after 6pm on Christmas Day, the Rowes had headed to the beach for a game of cricket. It is understood a group of Aboriginals had been lingering on the beach for some time, rummaging through eskies for alcohol, intimidating families and causing some to leave. But the Rowes stayed, confident they had safety in numbers and the situation would settle down. After Mr Neil was bashed, the Rowe family were trying desperately to rush him to hospital but were suddenly surrounded by a group of up to 25, including women and children as young as 12, in the beach carpark. Mr Morrissey said Mrs Rowe tried to reason with the group and defuse the situation. “She said something like ‘you get your family and go and I’ll get mine and go’,” he said. It is believed a woman in the group called the family “white c…s” and said they were in for a bashing. It is understood that members of the offending group were about to attack an injured Mr Neil again, when Mr Rowe stepped in but was hit once from behind.
Lovely! Now what sort of person thinks that hitting someone in the head with a cricket bat is an acceptable way to handle an argument, or slashing someone with a broken bottle. These sort of behaviours are just totally unacceptable and should be treated as such by the law. No amount of impairment by drugs or alcohol, or provocation, or an underprivileged background, excuses them. The person who does this sort of violence makes a free choice and needs to pay the consequences of their actions …. there are simply no mitigating circumstances …. they make the choice to use a potentially deadly weapon, there is a risk of death, it happens, it should be murder, no excuses (and in my books young murderers should not see the outside of a jail until they are old and infirm). However, I’m absolutely sure that in this case, all sorts of things like the accused’s background, him being drunk or stoned, being overtaken by a mob mentality, will be trotted out in his defence. As I’ve said, he hit a man on the head with a cricket bat …. it doesn’t exactly take a huge amount of intellect to figure the damage that could do, so he clearly intended great harm to Mr Rowe, and should be punished as such (severely). Regardless of all the other factors at play, at the end of the day, he chose freely to be a violent, evil shit. His choice, nobody else’s!
PS:
I mentioned the Andrew Farrugia murder earlier. The legals and reporting around this are bullshit. His killers were identified by the court and in the reporting of the case as only CK and TS. They got 6 year sentences for manslaughter, and with parole etc are likely to be out of jail by the time they are 19 or 20. Thats just wrong! These evil turds completely deny an innocent stranger his life, and screw up his family and friends’ lives, but essentially are given a slap over the wrist and basically get to enjoy their adulthood uninterrupted (at least theoretically, no doubt they will spend much time in jail for crimes they commit once out of jail for this killing). I’ve said before, I think youths who commit major league adult crimes should be treated as adults in the justice system. By committing big boys crimes, I believe they forfeit their childhood and need to take full adult responsibility for their actions. At present, they are treated as children, instead of as violent thugs, and will be out of jail almost as soon as they are adults, with no-one else knowing who they are or what they did. And what of the judge’s tough talk and little action in the sentencing:
“entirely senseless, unprovoked and callous”.
“That they could deliberately inflict harm upon another young man who like them, had family waiting at home to see him, a future to look forward to, a life full of promise, for absolutely no reason at all beggars belief.”
4 years for that is a joke. Try adding a zero on the end, and its in the right ballpark.
Maybe not quite, but the closest substitute to it in our part of the world is where we spent today, doing this:
A couple of observations about my fellow water park users:
Went to see “Enchanted” this morning. What a delightful, fun movie it is, a fairy tale combining animated and live action. Amy Adams is just gorgeous in it and really makes this movie. The chipmunk is pretty good too.
Not so enchanted was I with the Boxing Day sale experience afterwards. Got stuck in a line in Myer while the people in front of me were trying to exchange things. It must have taken 15 minutes to sort out the transaction, and at one stage there were 5 staff involved trying to figure out what to do … all over an $80 exchange. I wonder if it ever occurs to someone that (a) having 5 people stuffing around over an exchange wipes out whatever profit there was in the sale, and (b) rather than piss off the next 10 or so people held up waiting, they’d be better off just giving the customer what they want without trying to investigate it to the nth degree to work out what the price difference was between the old and new goods - $7 I think it was.
Wishing you and your loved ones a merry Christmas. Hope that you enjoy the gifts you’ve given and been given, and the food and drink that no doubt each of you will partake of today.
As for me, I’m happy with what I’ve scored from Santa. And since last night I’ve been eating and drinking more than I should, happy in the knowledge that any kilojoules (calories) consumed on Christmas Day simply don’t count.
Flicking through the SMH site yesterday, I noticed this gig review, for The Triffids. Sounds really interesting, I thought, wow, a Triffids reunion (admittedly difficult as the key person, David McComb, died a few years ago). Actually the show is not a reunion as such but various band members do sing Triffids songs, plus a number of guests will wander on and off the Metro Theatre stage during the festival show (including Rob and Mark Snarski, who were in the Triffids-influenced band Chad’s Tree (Rob later co-founded the Blackeyed Susans with David McComb); Mick Harvey of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds; pianist Chris Abrahams; Youth Group’s Toby Martin and Steve Kilbey, singer-songwriter of Triffids contemporaries The Church).
I rediscovered The Triffids a few years ago after hearing Weddings, Parties, Anything cover “Wide Open Road”. David McComb did indeed write some wonderful songs, the title of this post refers to one of my favourites. The extent of the Triffids catalog is evident from band member Graham Lee’s comment about selecting the songs for the show:
“I went through initially and put together a list of songs that I really thought were essential. I came to 52. Then I went through and said: OK, I’ll be really brutal this time. I got it down to 33. For a two-hour show. So there are plenty of songs that are absolutely essential that we won’t get to do.”
For those not familiar with the work of The Triffids, enjoy this:
Going by the rantings of some of those opposed to the building of an Islamic school at Camden, on the outskirts of Sydney, it would seem many of the racist bogans who so enjoyed their day at the beach a couple of years ago, at Cronulla, have now taken up the country lifestyle. There have been a number of protests about the college, which is currently being considered for planning approval by the local council. This past week, a meeting attracted something like 900 people, of whom a couple of hundred couldn’t fit into the venue.
Some of the locals had this to say:
MALE PROTESTER: If it does get approved, every ragger that walks up the street’s going to get smashed up the arse by about 30 Aussies.
SECOND MALE PROTESTER: That’s it!
THIRD MALE PROTESTER: Country town, that’s our culture.
PROTESTER: What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, mate.
Country town culture? By that I take it they look forward to getting pissed, doing burnouts down the main street, bashing a few aborigines, a spot of gay bashing perhaps, maybe some sheep shagging? Thats about what I’d expect judging from the rantings of some of the local lads.
And then we had this:
FEMALE PROTESTER: Oh no, it’s in a rural area that’s surrounded by farmland. It’s not an appropriate place for a school. There’s no development there that warrants a school.
OK, so there goes the likes of Yanco Agricultural College and other large schools in the country … near towns that aren’t big enough to support them. I’m assuming that the anti-school people in the community also want the various Catholic, Anglican and any other religion based schools closed down in their town. After all, surely its an objection to religious organisations indoctrinating kids thats driving the concerns. Surely nothing to do with the brown skinned folk likely to send their children to the school and quite likely move into the Camden area themselves?
A couple of weeks ago, some brainiacs voiced their opposition to the school by impaling two pigs heads on stakes at the proposed site and draping them with an Australian flag. One thing racist bogans do well is debate their points intelligently and coherently.
This week’s meeting was organised by a group called the Committee for Public Affairs Education, which Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party seems to be behind. I haven’t heard much from Fred lately, and I suppose a bit of Muslim bashing is a change from his usual interests related to sex and morals. Mr Nile was the keynote speaker at the meeting and told the crowd he opposed the school because Islam opposed Christianity. Mr Nile and one of the meeting organisers, Colin Broadbridge, a CDP member who lives in Campbelltown, denied that the party had staged the meeting. But the state MP Charlie Lynn, who was also invited to speak, said he had been approached two weeks ago by the CDP and asked to attend. He said Max Cracknell, a CDP Camden branch member, had been the main meeting organiser. Mr Broadbridge said:
“We are a loose coalition of people; we are people who are prepared to go one step further rather than just carp about something.”
Sure, more like the local chapter of the KKK.
Now there are fears of further Cronulla-like riots over the issue. Apparently the police are investigating a number of text messages being sent around which supposedly incite violence against moslems. I guarantee that if anything does happen, we’ll get to see many of the racist bogan dickheads who were at Cronulla, back for round 2.
To those who don’t want the moslems in their community, sure there are some bad ones, but there are also plenty of bad white christians as well. The vast majority of moslems are good people.
Finally, on a personal note, I went to school in Camden for a while, and my parents worked in the town. It was a nice place back then. I’d be disturbed to see that the town has actually turned into redneck bogan-ville. I hope it isn’t and the views expressed by (admittedly a reasonable number at the protest meeting and at other times I’ve seen this issue covered in the media) some are not the views of the majority. One challenge for the new Federal government is to wind back the unpleasant and offensive racism which gained a stronger foothold in Australian public life under the Howard government which actively courted racist sentiments, than had been noticeable prior to the last 6 years or so. Things like Tampa and Cronulla do not paint Australia well in the eyes of the world, and the attitudes behind them need to be renounced and actively discouraged.
What exactly is the science that Japan is trying to achieve with its “scientific whaling” program? Apart from does whale taste better with soy sauce, wasabi or some other condiments, or is it better raw or cooked, and if cooked, whats better, grilled, fried, boiled or baked? Perhaps their scientists are trying to work out which species of whale tastes best?
Japan has decided to pull the pin on killing humpback whales, but will still catch 1,000 whales in its annual research program.
Australia led 31 countries in protesting to Japan about their whaling activities. Japan said its decision not to catch humpbacks for “one year or two” came after consultation with the International Whaling Commission (IWC), although it noted the strength of the Australian opposition to the annual hunt.
Unfortunately it seems Japan is only stalling for time. Translated cabinet documents showed the same meeting that granted the reprieve also reaffirmed Japan’s intention to push the IWC to allow the resumption of commercial whaling, according to Greenpeace Australia Pacific CEO Steve Shallhorn. Maybe not the most unbiased source, but I did hear on the radio today a Japanese government spokesman comment about something to the effect of seeking reforms to the IWC. (For that read … Japan will increase its efforts to stack the IWC by promising aid and other financial support to various shithole countries in Africa and the Pacific which probably could hardly recognise a whale if it turned up in their waters).
Japan says whaling is a cherished cultural tradition. In many countries, cannibalism and headhunting were once cherished cultural traditions …. doesn’t mean they are acceptable today.
Also, I wonder if the scientific folk in Japan eat the other animals used in their scientific research? Rats, mice, monkeys, dogs, yummy!
