">My Big World Of Crap

I’m flying out tomorrow for a week in Tasmania, visiting my wife’s relatives.  As such, I’ll probably be scarce on my blog and the internet generally during that time.

ONE in five Australian mums and dads is unfit to be a parent, according to child-health expert and former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley.  She says they either lack the means or the life skills to raise children or cannot devote enough time to their kids because of excessive work commitments.

She said a national effort - on the scale of the climate-change movement - was needed to protect the futures of Australian children.  She said:

"There are a worrying number of threats to children’s health in society today.

"If we don’t respond to these challenges … we will be looking at our generation, my generation, as being the last generation that lives longer than its parents.

"If you look at the overall trend in many problems, they are actually showing no improvement - and some of them are getting dramatically worse."

and also:

"There’s this increasing group of parents who are just not making ends meet. They don’t have the capacity to be parents.”

"There are a lot of people who are going to find it difficult to parent."

I actually suspect she’s understating the problem ….there are more than 20% of people who are not suitable to be parents.  You only have to look at some of the kids you see around the place, and read the stories of neglect and abuse.

One thing that really concerns me for the future is that more often than not its those who are unsuitable who are having the most children, the welfare dependent, those with drug, alcohol, gambling problems, those who are incapable of maintaining stable family relationships.  Over time, we see children who are 2nd/3rd/4th generation welfare dependents, who have never known a stable home environment, who are exposed to domestic violence, ever changing parents and step-parents, alcohol and drug abuse, lack of attention to their education, healthcare and proper nutrition, and the absence of good role models.  You see feral parents having feral kids, who screw things up for other people – for example by disrupting the schooling of those kids who want to learn.

Its sad that the only qualification needed to be a parent is that your boy/girl bits work as intended.  We need training and skills testing, and licenses, to do things like drive a car, or work in most types of job.  But parenting children, which is undoubtedly far more complex and carries greater responsibilities, is open to just about anyone.

Not only that, but here in Australia, our government actively encourages people to have babies – by paying them a baby bonus of $5,000 for each child.  This is something I’ve never agreed with. I think it encourage irresponsible people to breed when they shouldn’t be …. everyone hears anecdotes about plasma TVs and the like being bought with the money.  How widespread this is is debatable but undoubtedly it does happen.   The bonus is paid as a lump sum (except if you’re under 18, in which case it is paid over 6 months in instalments).  I think paying it in instalments, for example as a top up of family allowance for the first 2 years of the child’s life, would be a good move.  I think placing conditions on it would be good, for example successful completion of parenting education prior to the birth of the child, and the meeting of certain milestones after birth, eg attending with the child for baby health clinic checkups at specified intervals.  I don’t think its unreasonable for governments to specify conditions for getting paid taxpayers’ money, particularly conditions which are sensible, reasonable and aimed at ensuring the money is used properly.

I’d go further and take positive steps to stop people who are clearly unsuitable from breeding.  For example, people who are known or suspected to be substance abusers, or who have prior history of child abuse.  Where these people are (as is the case often) on welfare, make it conditional on them taking suitable contraceptive measures (why not have Centrelink - or at least doctors on their behalf - instal contraceptive implants and replace them however often that is required?).

One of Australia’s great annual sporting events is the Australian Football League grand final.  Today it was Hawthorn (the Hawks) versus Geelong (the Cats).  Geelong were the premiers from last year and had dominated the competition again this year.  They had won 42 of their last 44 games and were warm favourites today.

Hawthorn won the game 18.7 (115) to 11.23 (89), but the manner of their win was most impressive.  Geelong really dominated the game in the 2nd quarter, but could not kick straight, but it looked like Hawthorn were just hanging on and that Geelong would overrun them sooner or later.

But it didn’t happen, and after somehow being 3 points ahead at half time, they came out in the 3rd quarter and kicked 6 goals to 3, then 4 goals to 2 in the last quarter.

Great performance by the Hawks to hang in, then get on top.  The game was still in the balance into the last quarter, as the Cats got to within 15 points, but that was as close as they got.  Geelong will rue the lost opportunities in the second quarter when they really did dominate the game but didn’t take advantage on the scoreboard.

Michele Cossey from Pennsylvania in the US has a son who was being bullied.  She dealt with it by buying him an armoury comprising an assault rifle fitted with a sniper’s scope, a 9mm handgun, a .22 rifle and gunpowder to make grenades.

Her son, Dillon, who left school at 12 after being bullied over his weight, planned to use them in a massacre in Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania.  He had such a passion for the Columbine High School shooters that he decided to attack Plymouth Whitemarsh High School last year.  He was sentenced to seven years in a juvenile detention centre earlier this year after pleading guilty to planning the attack.

His mother admitted she helped her troubled son build a cache of weapons by buying a rifle and gunpowder but investigators still do not know whether she was aware her son was planning a deadly school attack.  Prosecutors said she had created a "me-and-mum-against-the-world" attitude in her only child.  Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Parisi said she had tried to boost her son’s self-esteem "and in some way help the child, as misplaced as those thoughts may have been".

Very disturbingly, Dillon had also been in touch with a Finnish teenager who carried out a massacre at his school last November.  Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, shot dead six pupils, a nurse and the head teacher before killing himself.

A man was stabbed in Melbourne last night after an argument in a city McDonalds’ store.  He apparently argued with with 2 men over their places in the queue, and after being served they followed him outside and attacked him.

After the attack, the man walked across the road to Flinders St Station where he realised he had been stabbed. The man was treated by paramedics before he was taken to The Alfred hospital with stabs wound to the shoulder and chest.  He is said to be in a stable condition.

A couple of things come to mind about this.  First, the fact that they were actually queuing to eat McDonalds probably says they have a good chance to mount an insanity defence.  Second, what sort of dickhead carries a knife around, and then what sort of fucknuckle thinks it is appropriate to stab someone over anything, but particularly over something so trivial.  Serious anger management issues these dickheads obviously have – I had to wait an extra minute in the Maccas line – kill, kill, kill the bastard responsible.

I have a very simple view of people with knives in public – 2 years minimum just for carrying one, and 10 years flagfall if they are stupid enough to use it.

Pamela Anderson was accompanied to a fashion show in London this week by a man in a white mask and gloves.  Speculation was rife that it was Michael Jackson.  Personally I doubt this – wrong sex and too old.

Leaving aside the possibility of it being Michael Jackson, I ask you, which one of these two has the highest plastic content?

(Of course if it is Jackson its a no-brainer).

Its been just over a month for the last 10k visits to my blog, slightly longer than the previous 10k.  Most likely due to the sparseness of my posting in that time.  Must do better!

Now for my roundup of search terms that brought people to visit:

• Hermione nude – Hermione Grainger is popular (note for the next Harry Potter movie – include some nudity, there’s clearly much demand out there for it.  Hermione nude and variations on that came in at #1,2,6,7 and 10 in the search hit parade.
• 10 year old sex – and pussy – was popular, #3 and 9.  Related to this was pedo sex, #4
• others to feature in the top 10 were “blue screen of death Olympics” and Stephanie Rice – nude of course.

Among all those searches, here are some I thought particularly strange or funny:

• my pussy is big advice?
• pictures people having sex with there butts (also “people rubbing butts”)
• pussys shitting (???)

But my favourite this last month:

• tao masturbation

What the hell is that?

Former NSW Police Minister, Matt Brown, denies he was drunk at the office party where his behaviour cost him his job this week.  He said the party was marked by stupidity, not drunkenness.

According to reports, Mr Brown had stripped down to his "very brief" underpants as he danced to loud "Oxford Street" techno music, while standing on a green leather couch in his office.

He said he remembered taking off his shirt, and dancing, but did not remember taking off his pants.

"I don’t recall parading around in my underwear," he said.

"I know I took my shirt off and I know I did have a dance. I was working off steam in the privacy of my own office with workmates. It was harmless fun."

He has strenuously denied getting his gear off and mounting the chest of fellow MP Noreen Hay while announcing to her daughter he was "titty f—ing" her mother.  Hay has supported his denials that this took place.  However party sources say she complained of a bruised cheek in the week after the party, and blamed it on Mr Brown’s elbow.  Mr Brown said he did not know what had caused the bruise, but it may have been sustained on the side of his office couch.

His denials, however, seem a bit lukewarm.  The activities that had been alleged - that is, the simulated sex with Ms Hay - were "generally not true" but he did not want to "go into specifics".

Mr Brown resigned after meeting with NSW premier Nathan Rees, only 3 days after he was appointed to the Police Ministry.  Mr Rees said his reaction to the incident was "beyond anger, gross disappointment".  Seems the premier did not have much confidence in Ms Hay, as she was dumped from her parliamentary secretary role a few days after Mr Brown resigned.  Mr Rees stood by his view that Ms Hay’s account of what happened at the party in early June was "incomplete" as he announced she would also cease as his representative on the NSW ALP’s powerful administrative committee. But the Premier claimed his decision to remove Ms Hay was not a punishment related to her behaviour.  Yeah, sure!

Now for the proof that Brown is fudging the facts in claiming he wasn’t drunk.

I’m not talking just about me, but the world in general.  As of now, the world has not been sucked into a black hole, created by the CERN experiment that commenced operations in Switzerland a few days ago.  One of the fears held by some people was that the experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which basically fires beams of atoms around in opposite directions and smashes them into each other with the aim being to see what comes out of the atomic particles when they are smashed, would generate so much energy that mini black holes would be formed which might suck the Earth into them.

Well, that hasn’t happened so far.  But that didn’t help a girl in India who apparently committed suicide due to fears about the world ending.  She jumped the gun, so to speak …. should have waited to see what happened first.  Also, as posed by this article, why would she choose to die painfully by drinking pesticide, versus being painlessly vapourised in a black hole.

As for what the LHC is, and what it is supposed to prove for its price tag of $10 billion, here is a useful summary.

Seems that Australia’s aid programs in East Timor have delivered the Timorese a nasty surprise in the form of the cane toad.  The resilient and toxic toads, which have wreaked havoc across Australia, are believed to have hitched a ride on military vehicles.Since the arrival of cane toads arrival in Australia in the 1930s, they have spread from Queensland, where they were originally introduced to kill pests in the cane fields, to northern NSW and across into the Northern Territory.

I’m sure that Xanana Gusmao, Jose Ramos Horta and their compatriots will be somewhat less thankful for this gift from Australia than for all the military and police assistance we have provided and all that development aid since independence.

Maybe the Timorese people need to take up some new sports – like toad golf, toad hockey, etc?