Talk like a pirate day is coming up.

I only know this because I happened to pencil it in on a year wall planner thingie that I got from Uni way back when starting study again seemed like a good idea. Now that papers are due, it doesn't seem that way.

Anyways... I've also recently picked up crocheting again. Usually over winter when I'm going through my annual depression I knit. I mean, what else are you going to do when it's freezing cold and you don't feel up to being sociable? And there's cats in the house so balls of wool go down really well.

So. Just in case you're a mad handcrafts kind of person and find the flying spaghetti monster a constructive alternative to patriarchal religion... Check out these pirate crochet mittens LOL True!

And my other half who is now sometimes referred to as my Mister... Yes, the same one, I've kept him for some 8 months now LOL... bought me a you-beaut-fantastic pasta machine for my birthday! Yummo!!

Bruno, AIDS and the World Cup

Recently I went with a couple of friends to see Sacha Baron Cohen's latest effort Bruno. Fuck it was funny! I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face... then had to walk through the shopping centre still laughing. It was brilliant. They guy is a piss taker of world proportions. Naturally I sat through the whole thing analysing the anti-homophobia sub text... if you could call it a sub text. He's pretty blatant, young Sacha. It's actually so heavily stereotyped that it's more a piss take than Borat was. And more funny. And oddly enough Sacha looked really hot. %-[ (Visit the site and play "dildo defender btw LOL)

I'd been having a bit of a rough time recently since one of my kids is in VCE and really feeling the stress. When your kids are having a hard time you don't feel like a good parent if you can't fix it for them... but that's the point of being a teenager I suppose. Learning to fix it yourself. Anyways, in one scene in Bruno, Sacha is interviewing parents of child models. He wants to shoot a promo which has a young African child being crucified and a bunch of Anglo kids standing around the cross.

He was asking the parents what sort of conditions they would accept in the photo shoot for their children. Being crucified? How about playing with acid? Lit phosphorous? Antiquated industrial machinery? Amateur medical experiments? Several parents agreed to everything suggested, anything to have their child cast for the job. I felt like not such a bad parent after that LOL.

The reaction to the photo was interesting though. Needless to say there was no boiling in acid or other dangers, the photo in question was indeed an African child on a cross but is was fairly photoshopped. Being a former sometime student of theology, I thought it made a really interesting point... something along the lines of the oppressed and oppression in global society. One of my professors at Whitley would have really loved it. And now that things haven't worked out at La Trobe, I'm feeling that I was rather spoiled by my time at Whitley. But I digress.

Anyways, a room full of African-Americans thought the image was blasphemy. How Sacha got out of the room alive is beyond me, though the conservative African-American audience were much better mannered than the redneck ultimate fighting fans.... But I won't spoil it for you.

Now, where does the world cup fit in to all this? For the last World Cup, this is soccer btw, there were purportedly 8,000 purpose built brothels in Germany to provide for the fans. Groups fighting human trafficking were appalled by the prospect for abuses and violence in this instance. I'm not referring to it as sex slavery because that might sound too much like bedroom games between consenting adults.

The next World Cup is in South Africa. Prostitutes working in some African countries have HIV infection rates as high as 90%. How many soccer fans might come home from the festivities infected with HIV? How big an outbreak of HIV infections might we see in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia as a result?

Considering also the rising incidence of child sex trafficking in SA, the image of the child on the cross was rather thought provoking. In a way we are potentially at risk of reaping what we've sown by ignoring the HIV/AIDS tragedy in Africa for so long.

In case you're of the opinion that HIV is god's vengeance against homosexuals, here's a quote from the Australian Positive Women website:

According to a UNAIDS report almost half of the adults living with HIV and AIDS today are women. Over the past two years, the number of women and girls infected with HIV has increased in every region of the world, with rates rising particularly rapidly in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In sub-Saharan Africa, women and girls already make up almost 60% of adults living with HIV.

A stereotype exists that HIV/AIDS is a gay disease. HIV stereotypes can prevent women, and their healthcare providers, from seeing themselves at risk of HIV infection. HIV is not a gay or straight or a male or female disease. AIDS is a human disease.

Take your condoms, boys and girls.

Oh, and well done Sacha.

TdF, Cavendish relegation and distractions

Well, le Tour is proving as much a disruption to normal life as ever... sitting up till all hours bouncing in the bean bag barracking for Thor or Mikel or Tyler will do that. And how was Thor Hushovd's ride last night?! Tres bon!

In the early stages is was pretty obvious and annoying the way Mark Renshaw would lead Cavendish out... very well mind you... then only to sit right in the middle of the charge and basically play interference for the sprinter. After doing this two or three times Renshaw was then heard complaining at length about the other teams not helping the Columbia HTC crew in their attacks on the road. Well, der.

I was beginning to wonder how far it would go. Indeed, there are supposed to be protocols in cycling, being a European sport with some traditions. Do we want rugby on wheels?

Anyways, after the two of them squashed Thor Hushovd out of the spring the other night, he finally complained and the referrees relegated Cavendish to last spot for that little effort. Fair enough, I thought. He apparently didn't... so Hushovd rode out on the attack on last night's stage and took the available sprint points to clear the air. One of the commentators was saying before the stage tonight that some world class competitors get a bit highly strung and this is probably an example, but it was really good to see Thor riding so well.

When landlords brown you off

There's all these ads around at the moment asking people to take advantage of the rebate and get solar panels on their homes. Some are even saying it can be done for zero cost.

Needless to say, since good old Kevin has convinced me to join the Greens again, I'm quite interested in the idea of going solar. This morning I rang the real estate agent to ask about the possibility of us organising it here for the house we rent. We've been here for four years now and the landlord has been very "easygoing" you might say. If I want the fence painted or repaired, or the hole in the kitchen floor fixed, I need to do it myself, but there's no problem having a couple of cats and a veggie patch.

What surprised me was when I asked the agent about the whole solar thing. Wouldn't it be good for the agency to be nice and green and have all their rental properties switching over from polluting energy to solar? It sure would, he said, but they've sent around plenty of advices to their landlords about it, especially considering the rebate... And you know what the response was? Zero.

It's hard to imagine why that would be. Surely everyone is aware that we need to make changes to our energy usage and generation. Surely everyone would like to take advantage of a free offer to do it for nothing? Well, you'd think so. Maybe they all have shares in coal mines? Hmmm. Who would want to make money out of something that poisons the planet? Not very sporting, really, is it?

Anyways, it will take a couple of days to get a response, but please cross your fingers for us.

We hate you too, Kevin

The other day in conversation, the subject of pension changes came up. We were a little confused as to why the Government would increase aged pensions, disability pensions and just about everything else, but not single parent pensions. How does it make sense in a climate where more and more people are expected to compete for less and less jobs if a depression takes hold, and also force single parents to continue to compete for those jobs?

It was bad enough when Howard brought in his hell-spawn misconception of "mutual obligation" and forced heavier unecessary burdens on single parents and unemployed people... It was really crappy when the laws regarding single parents working were changed and put pressure on people just when they really don't need it.

For a supposed Labor Government to not only keep these discriminatory changes but exacerbate things by singling out single parents for further mistreatment is absolutely disgusting. Not only is it petty and mean spirited, it makes no sense while the economy is under suspicion.

The conclusion we came to is that being another Sydney Anglican, Kevin Rudd must have a similar religious agenda to that of the maggot Howard. Only if someone was deliberately trying to keep women dependent upon men and punish separated and divorced women, and over 90% of single parents are women, would this make any kind of twisted sense.

It's exactly the sort of thing we've come to expect from those slimy, underhanded control freaks attempting to import US style extremism to Australia. Bastards. Women have it hard enough in cock culture as it is without their added hatred and pathology.

You know, after the second world war Menzies went on a bit of a campaign building infrastructure like the Snowy River project to attempt to provide us with reliable utilities. It was seen as a pretty good thing that every Australian had a piece of this improvement to the nation's infrastructure. With stable power supplies we could build a secure community and businesses. Somehow in the 90's we were convinced that selling off all that stuff was necessary because otherwise we'd be communists. Only communists or socialists would deny the free market the chance to compete to provide Australians with utilities they already had.

It seems pretty ironic to me that the kind of thinking that implies that Menzies was a communist is behind the current financial terror.

What pisses me off is that this, in connection with equally ridiculously right-wing religion is an influence in a country that is supposedly a democracy. Why should 1% of the population have such influence to penalise and discriminate against other Australians who are down on their luck... What sort of stuck up bastard uses mediaeval morality to judge who is worthy of assistance when life has taken a turn for the worse?

The other thing is that this is contradictory even within their own belief system. Jesus specifically forbade Theocratic style Government. "The rulers of the gentiles lord it over them but it shall not be so among you." The New Testament was supposed to be about individuals relating to god, not a forced national morality drive. Add to that the fact that the very people this religion is supposed to be caring for are the poor, widows, orphans and strangers in the land... Geez, it looks like one big cock up all round really.

From those of us who have had enough of locker-room male supremacy in Australia and would rather live as full human beings without the Government under-handedly penalising us for our gender, we hate you too, Kevin.

Bah Hummer

In case you've been on Mars for the last five or so decades and don't have enough evidence yet that car culture is unsustainable, GMH have driven the point home by going begging (again) to the US Government.

We can only hope that they'll either go out of business entirely or be revamped by some kind of uber-Green group that will use the assembly line and other assets to begin some genuinely useful changes.

At a time when the planet is choking in pollution and wars over resources are killing and traumatising millions, who can have any sympathy for the people who marketed Hummers?

And on with more good news, there was a brilliant story last night on the ABC's Australian Story about Dr Maarten Stapper who's using natural microbes to regenerate fertility on farming land poisoned by chemicals. I had a bit of a laugh at one point when the journalist was interviewing a couple of really crusty old farming types who looked like you'd expect them to have little to do with any bloody hippies... It was heart warming to see the way Australian farmers are embracing a chemical free alternative to land management and erosion control. Onya! Of course Dr Stapper had been kicked out of the CSIRO for teaching farmers how to use good alternatives to the toxic waste they're expected to flood their paddocks with.

While I'm online... How about Denis Menchov! What a brilliant win after that very scary fall in the time trials. Wow, my heart skipped a beat! And his trusty mechanic had a spare bike ready for him to remount and go on to win the race. Mechanics rock.

I should write more about the Giro when I'm online again. I've just found out I have three slipped discs and two damaged joints in my spine... the painkillers are a lot of fun if you don't need to do anything for a few hours but space out. A little like computer games but you can do it with your eyes closed. In a way it was good to find out. Now I know what's causing those stabbing pains shooting down the front of my leg when I'm riding. It wasn't a hip problem at all, it was pain from a damaged facet joint. Hmmm.

Anyways. Hummer bites the dust. Fuckin eh!

What goes around comes around, the 'pig iron Kevin' edition

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in my bitch blog... but since it's about resources, here it is.

After the second world war Menzies was referred to for a while as "pig iron Bob" in reference to his having sold iron to the Japanese before the war.

As you are probably aware, discussions are currently underway regarding the proposed sale of a Rio Tinto mine in Australia to a Chinese company. It was something of a surprise to me to see an ad on SBS in which Barnaby Joyce is advising the Government to block the sale, particularly considering how the Howard Government sold off everything that wasn't nailed down. "You sell the milk, not the cow." He realises belatedly.

But this isn't only about milk sales. For decades we've been selling primary produce overseas then buying back the manufactured products. A waste not only in terms of jobs, but also in fuel and pollution trucking shit in laps around the planet in order to bolster someone's profit margin and generate a multi million dollar executive bonus.

What really pisses me off in this case is that we're selling ore no-strings to one of the largest arms producers on earth. The US under Bush was referred to as the world's most dangerous rogue state, and we have yet to see how the military-industrial complex will fare with Obama. The US pretends to have some limits on their arms sales yet while we are called in to assist in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're actively selling the munitions that create the destabilisation. China is likewise selling guns, planes and ammunition wholesale to countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe. Profit uber alles.

According to the UN, the war in Sudan is about ethnic cleansing. That means genocide. Like the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and others in WW2. So we see that China is actively profiting from and supporting this practise of genocide.

What's worse, we're supplying and encouraging them.

If anyone were killing Jews en masse these days, or even Muslims as in the case of the war in the former Yugoslavian states, there would be outrage. But as in the case of food shortages, no one seems to give a rats that African people are being slaughtered. Sure we get a two minute spot on the evening news if something happens to a Sudanese refugee, but no mention of the arms supply, or Australia's complicity in the genocide.

After the second world war there were trials held and all sorts of repercussions for those who had exploited circumstances and profited from the war. Even today companies like IBM are mentioned in detriment as having assisted Hitler's evil empire. Without punchcard technology the death camps would not have been able to murder nearly so many people as they did.

Under the influence of "free trade" and the so called level playing field, which has been so charmingly illuminated as a complete wank by the current financial mess, countries, or rather large corporations, could pretend complete moral irresponsibility for the products or materials they manufacture and distribute.

But beyond the mere morality of all this is the fact that we live on one planet. Refugees are coming out of places like Sudan, Burma and Afghanistan, travelling illegally because that's the way refugees always have to travel when there's a fucking war. They come to countries like Australia where they hope they might be able to live in relative peace and quiet. After they've done a turn in a dog run out in the desert and been consigned to some outer urban slum. They come because they've been bombed, shot at, sometimes tortured and generally had their lives threatened. They come because someone is selling arms to the warmongers who persecute them. They come because someone has sold primary produce to the manufacturers of arms.

What really irks me is the way some retrograde white supremacist Herald-Sun readers get their fur in a bunch about refugees coming to Australia. How dare they not want to live in a war zone. How dare they seek out a life of peaceful well-being. How dare they invade "our" land.

How dare we sell the stuff to build the bombs and bullets that destroy their homes and drive them out.

Next time some Today-Tonight watcher gets going about "bloody reffos", ask them if they've bought anything made in China (clothes) or the US (Ford, Holden) recently.