I think that having my eldest child move out of home to go live in another state makes me officially an old fart.
A year and a half or so ago, I thought she’d be living at home till she was about 30, but she fell in love and has upped and left home as of today.
But I got custody of the dog. Win!!!
Outrage! Shock! Horror!
The minister in charge of Australia’s broadcasting standards has dropped the F-word live on national television during children’s viewing hours. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was answering an AAP question about the risk for investment in Australia at the National Press Club in Canberra that was being shown live on the ABC today.
His offending remarks:
"In terms of sovereign risk, I love the debate about sovereign risk,”
"I have seen a new definition of sovereign risk, it’s asymmetrical.
"If a tax goes up, God, that is sovereign risk, but if a tax goes down that’s fucking fantastic, excuse me, that is fantastic.”
The opposition later attacked Senator Conroy for making a "sloppy and vulgar" speech at the press club. No doubt there will be other guardians of all that is good and proper in the world who will be outraged (rather than disappointed, because these days no one is just disappointed, or annoyed, when they don’t like something … no, they are OUTRAGED, at least according to the mainstream media’s view of the world)
I’d actually rather see our politicians drop the occasional F bomb, or do other “normal” things rather than have everything they say scripted and coached, bland and afraid to offend anyone.
Besides, complaining about politicians swearing is akin to complaining about them lying.
PS – this just demonstrates my point from an old post, that “fuck” is the most versatile word in the English language.
Do like two English fathers did. Go to their kids’ school nativity play. Get into a fight with each other. One of them bite the other’s finger off. Go dads!
Thirty two Australian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, and thousands of others from the US and numerous other countries. Some of these at least have been the victims of treachery by those they were there to help, by training and mentoring them.
Is it worth it?
You have to wonder when things like this continue to happen there.
A woman has been in jail for 2 years, having been imprisoned for adultery after having been raped by a relative at her home. She had a child by her attacker, and was raising it in her prison cell. And this wasn’t happening in some backwater far flung corner of the country – it was in the capital, Kabul.
Her case came to light when Afghan president Hamid Karzai intervened to have her released after receiving a petition with 5,000 signatures. Karzai called a meeting where judicial officials decided to pardon her. But there was a twist in this tail.
The officials also said that the woman should marry the man who attacked her, due to fears she could be in danger if released because of the stigma surrounding her attack in ultra-conservative Afghanistan. She agreed to this (no duress at all, right?) but only if her attacker’s (and future husband) sister married her brother. This was said to be a way to try to ensure she wasn’t attacked by her rapist/attacker/husband.
In another example of how women are treated in this fine example of civilisation, a 17-year-old girl was seriously injured when caustic liquid was sprayed on her face by masked gunmen who broke into her home in the northern city of Kunduz. Her mother and 4 sisters were also injured after being splashed with acid. Her father blamed a former militia commander who had proposed marriage to her but was rejected by the family.
"A man asked for her hand. We rejected [him] and our daughter was engaged to someone else. I suspect that man might be behind this,"
he said.
Violence against women in Afghanistan appears to be increasing rather than decreasing, despite billions of dollars of international aid that has poured into the country during the last 10 years.
About 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the charity Oxfam.
Last week, the United Nations said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had been used to prosecute just more than 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.
A wonderful civilisation isn’t it? And our soldiers are being killed just maintaining the level of barbarism where it is, the argument being it would be much worse otherwise. Worth it?
Maybe we should just all of those Afghans who want to join the 21st century to leave and go live somewhere else, then build a great big fence around those who want to go back to the 15th century, and let them kill each other off.
I’m listening to TISM – Greg! The Stop Sign
Readers would have noticed my posting on this blog has thinned out considerably since I first started. I blame Twitter which gives me an immediate outlet for things I would previously have blogged about. I wonder how other bloggers have found their blog output since they’ve been tweeting.
Wonder if I’ll get my blogging inspiration back some day soon?
I’m listening to The Saints – Love Or Imagination
It seems that some Americans have taken the hunting part of bargain hunting literally in their approach to the post Thanksgiving, or Black Friday, sales.
In a Los Angeles Walmart store a woman fended off her rivals for a cheap TV by pepper spraying them. 20 people were treated for injuries from the incident, many complaining of burning in their throats and skin and eye irritations.
But it gets better. In gun crazy America, there were the inevitable shootings – “gunfight in the consumer electronics aisle”. And there were fisticuffs too, in Florida a man was arrested after a fight at a jewellery counter – he kept going and tried to punch the police officers who tried to subdue him.
According to a study of Australians’ twitter usage, we Canberra folk are aggressive, angry and sad.
A social media study by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and an advertising company, found Australians send about 5,000 tweets per minute. Researchers analysed a list of typical words associated with emotions, and found Canberrans are the most anxious, aggressive and sad in Australia.
Other things revealed by this study:
Now I’m off to have a cry, kick the dog and tell those researchers to go and get fucked!
Customs officers ordered socialite Brynne Gordon-Edelsten to strip naked and pose for photographs and video footage when she arrived in Australia to marry flamboyant entrepreneur Geoffrey Edelsten.
I don’t know why they bothered going to this trouble. It’s not like she generally hides much even when she’d dressed.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
No, she’s not at the beach wearing a fancy bikini and beach dress in the second picture. This is her idea of formal wear. What was she wearing on her feet? Sequined thongs?
So you go to Bali for a family holiday, and your 14 year old son stupidly goes off and buys himself some dope, and gets himself arrested. What do you do?
Negotiate a $200,000 or so deal with a media company of course. Ka-ching! Might as well cash in on your trauma.
I hate chequebook journalism. It stinks. I refuse to watch or read its products. So Channel 9, I will be studiously ignoring the story you’ve paid for.
I hope that whatever money these people get falls under the proceeds of crime legislation and gets confiscated. Failing that, how about the Australian and Indonesian governments sue them to recoup the costs they’ve incurred defending, supporting and prosecuting the boy respectively.
Stupidity does not deserve to be rewarded in any way, shape or form.
Talk about over-reaction.
A barmaid who threw a wet tampon at a McDonald’s worker "for a laugh" says the drunken prank has ruined her life. Rebecca Crimmins, who pleaded guilty to common assault in the Noosa Magistrates Court, said she had "pretty much lost everything" since the tampon-tossing incident in the early hours of September 25.
She accused some people of over-reacting to the incident. The court last week heard a drunk Ms Crimmins had dabbed a McDonald’s worker’s hand with a wet tampon, before throwing it at him, when she went through the restaurant’s drive-through at Noosaville.
The self-confessed "27-year-old hooligan" said the tampon was only wet with cordial. She reckons the fast-food staff had "made a mountain out of a molehill".
Ms Crimmins said people needed to "lighten up".
"All my friends think it’s hilarious,"
"My parents have been answering the phone saying ‘hello, tampon tossers’.
"I have fun but I’m not a bad person."
The incident cost her a job at the Noosa Surf Life Saving Club.
Two things about this, I think. First, it was a stupid prank, and had she done it within her circle of friends I doubt anyone would have had a problem with her. But as soon as she involved other people, and aimed to make them the butt of her joke, she crossed the line of unacceptable behaviour. Second, its hardly ruined her life – a small setback at worst and hopefully a valuable lesson in how to treat other people.