Insert banana here

It comforts me to think that "The Australian People" (TAP) will swallow any crap about the economy as long as it is peddled by a Liberal politician. Witness the Australian Prime Minister explaining why he is not to blame for rising interest rates:

" "What happened was that people shifted to buy other fruit because there were no bananas available and not only did bananas go up but all the other fruit went up as well," Mr Howard told ABC radio yesterday."

Holy crap/you are a genius etc.

Always willing to put himself on the front line to protect his constituents, John Howard flew to Queensland yesterday IN A MILITARY HELICOPTER to inspect the banana growing region in northern Queensland. Presumably his security detail was expecting trouble following reports that The Boy With The Screwdriver had recently been sighted in the area.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED AN AIRFORCE PEOPLE!

unFortunately, the Prime Minister arrived in the region safely and was able to greet the local townsfolk, promising that his Government would always have lower banana prices than a Government led by the ALP.

John Howard was later mobbed by a group of screaming teenage girls. Asked by a nearby journalist why they were so excited, one of the young women replied: "We feel that John Howard's leadership, while polarising much of Australian society, has done an enormous amount to correct the inherent imbalances evident in the post Cold War environment throughout South East Asia and the region. And while the complex political landscape and nominal independence of our immediate neighbours continues to be at the forefront of Australia's foreign policy, we feel that John Howard's (albeit limited) capabilities place our country in the best possible position at this specific juncture. And also, OMG!!!!LOLOL!!!1!1!!! he's like our favourite politician."

It's good to know our Federal Government, elected on its economic credentials, really understands inflation.



NEWS FLASH
The Age is reporting that John Howard has this morning come out and spoken candidly of his greatest political fears. Initially, it was unclear if he was referring to the SIEVX, or the Tampa. It could be that he has had sleepless nights over the war in Iraq or the treatment of David Hicks.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I might be beginning to respect the man.

Judge for yourself.

"Prime Minister John Howard has described spiralling petrol prices as "the greatest worry of my political life"."

Get. Fucked.

Always take the weather with you

I love weather (note clever weathery sidebar things) and I also love me some decent photography, and one of the greatest online photoblogs I've had the pleasure to find belongs to Canadian Sam Javanrouh of Daily Dose of Imagery.

For these reasons, this is truly wonderful.

UPDATE
The hits keep on coming over at Daily Dose of Imagery.

This shot is unbelievable, particularly when you consider Sam's throw-away caption "shot from our kitchen last night during the storm in toronto".

The man is an actual genius.

An item by any other name...

So I've been told by several people that I must change the name I have previously used to refer to my ladyfriend, because apparently "Sweety" is unacceptable.

I think that's probably fair enough, so I turn my hand to crafting a new moniker.

Several options immediately leap to mind. Geelong Football Club fanatic John Harms charmingly refers to his betrothed as "the handicapper", Peter from Glutbusters utlises "the redhead" though its relevance in this case is, well, non-existent, the delightful Danny Katz has his "beloved", while other friends have cornered "darlin" and similar charmingly rural terms of endearment.

"The ball and chain" seems uncharitable, "the little woman" just completely wrongtown. I've considered the term "lady item", but the whole item thing may cause difficulties.

Considering that my enormous audience already knows who I am (note I've given up spelling my name backwards), robbing me of all the joy anonymity brings (I'm looking at you Jelly) and yet not wanting to expose the true name of my companion, lest she be tracked down and fired for cavorting with someone who now has a blog, I shall ingeniously rename her...Snooze.

And if any of you have a problem with that...I'll probably change it again.





PS - does anyone else find it odd that the Blogger spell-checker doesn't recognise the word "blog"??

Play it like you mean it

My sister's music has been described as all sorts of things by all sorts of people and the general consensus is that she slots somewhere in the folk/blues/roots sort of area.

Well I ask you this. When was the last time you saw a folk/blues/roots singer/songwriter do THIS to their guitar!?






Yes. That's blood.

Pure. Rock.

Loopy, green-shirt wearing, mother-earth hugging mofos

Apparently, even Steve Bracks thinks the Greens are "loopy".

I would like someone to point me in the direction of this "loopiness". Why do mainstream politicians and pundits feel so offended by the Greens that they degenerate into primary-school name calling whenever they refer to them? And why do supposedly reputable news services allow them to get away with it?

When I read that article this morning I thought that maybe there has actually been a shift in Green policy in the last couple of years. Maybe things have actually gone a little whacky in Green-land. So I looked up the websites of the Greens and the two major parties.

Things I noticed when I did so:

1./ The Greens website is the only one with an obvious link to policies on the home page
2./ Looking at the Liberal Party website, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country is run by John Howard and John Howard alone (seriously, check it out)
3./ Kim Beazley does not fill my heart with pride/hope/anything-whatsoever

Following the useful and immediately evident link to policies on the Greens homepage, I was met with a comprehensive policy list covering everything from Aged Care to Transport, Aboriginal Health to Education. In short, developed and open political policy on all the major issues that Australian society should find of interest and relevance. Not only that, but every piece of policy I read was carefully and clearly written, showing genuine thought and full costings. Every policy displayed concern for the welfare of the people of Australia and our environment.

There was no ranting, there was nothing even mildly radical (unless you consider allowing tertiary teaching staff open access to Unions, or withdrawal from Iraq a threat to our "way of life").

In less than ten minutes, I was able to clearly see that there is nothing loopy about the Greens' policies. Their view of how this country should be governed is not all that different from the major parties. They don't advocate destroying the patriarchy, though they would like more recognition of women's rights, they don't demand the timber industry be shut down, though they would change the industry from logging old growth forests and catchment areas to plantation timbers, they don't suggest that drug use be made legal, though they believe that addicts must be offered help rather than imprisonment.

They are not loopy, they are evidently intelligent and thoughtful, the sort of people that SHOULD be running this country, not Mr 67-year-old McFuck-Face.

SO WHY DOES EVERYONE CALL THEM LOOPY!!?? It's infuriating and I ACTUALLY don't understand it. Maybe be three of you who read this blog can make some suggestions.

If Green policy is so patently un-loopy, a fact that any gibbon with an internet connection can establish in under ten minutes, then why attack them ALL THE TIME?

I think it's because the Greens are an actual genuine threat to both the Victorian and Federal parliaments. If people actually read their policies, they may well vote for them. By jumping up and down and shrieking about the craziness of the Greens any time they're mentioned, politicians and others must simply be hoping that the general public will be sufficiently distracted not to bother looking for themselves and if it's said often enough (which I believe it probably is) then it works very effectively.

It shits me.

Steve Bracks, I hope my vote for the Greens in the next State and Federal elections inflicts some damage on you and your idiotic rantings. Until the politicians and opinion writers in this country actually have the balls to stand up and meet the Greens on some sort of intellectually level playing field, then I for one will continue to despair at the state of politics in Australia.

Alert but not alarmed photographed

Interesting article in today's Age about Southgate banning photography.

While I find it very difficult to believe that the management of large public buildings can really be that concerned about potential terrorists taking snapshots of their blow-up worthy premises, it seems that we're just catching up with the rest of the world.

For those of you too lazy to read that link, it's the blog of Tony Hawk, a San Francisco blogger who has had a number of run-ins with local security people while taking photos of buildings on the streets of San Fran.

There are a number of things that I don't like about this but one of the most troubling is this:

Southgate management has erected "no camera" signs around the Yarra River retail and dining centre after security guards tried to force tourists to delete photos taken of "obscure" parts of buildings.

The police were called when they refused.

The report does not go into detail about what happened when the police actually arrived. Presumably the security guards involved were told to stop being such officious tossers and to let the photographer(s) head off on their merry way.

Since when has it been acceptable to detain someone until police arrive for refusing to either delete a photograph of a public building (or at least an "obscure" bit of it), or refrain from taking said photo in the first place? Not only is it a position that is entirely untenable, it's just patently ridiculous.

Southgate management said exceptions would only be made for photographs of things such as the Ophelia sculpture on the Yarra promenade.

I think the idea of Southgate centre management making decisions about what is photographically worthy is brilliant! I suggest we put them in charge of all Melbourne's cultural icons, let's give them the Melbourne Festival to run, ooh and the National Gallery, the Potter, and the MTC.

If we were talking about a military installation or a nuclear power station I can understand people being cautious, but not even those examples warrant this type of behaviour and the fact that this is Southgate is just an insult to the city and everyone who lives in it.

Get over yourselves Southgate centre management. If Flinders St station, Federation Square, the Rialto, the MCG, the Tennis Centre, Spring St, 101 Collins and countless others don't feel threatened by someone taking photos of 'obscure' parts of their buildings, then I think you might be over-reacting. Just a touch.

For Coin and Country!

I don't know about you, but this makes my skin crawl off my body.

Does Peter Costello honestly think that just by asking us we'll leap immediately into rigorous child producing!? I mean seriously.

Still, it makes me feel better to know it's for the good of the country economy - after all, that's what being Australian is ALL about.

And while we're talking about Australians, Andrew Bolt is a tool.

Solid Gold

My Sweety is an Editor.

She is responsible for finding this link.

Go there and read forth.

If you are not familiar with McSweeney's Internet Tendency, then I insist you remedy the fact immediately.

Blerfff

I work at a place.

It's really busy at the moment.

Just when I finally decide to get all adventuresome and start me a blog, I go and get all flat out with the working and the toiling and the gnashing of teeth.

So my brilliant posts designed to reduce John Howard to tears, solve the debacle in Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/Java etc., inspire rapier witted exchanges in the comments and other useful items have fallen by the paper-strewn wayside that is my life at present *sniff*.

Still.

You wait Henry Higgins. It'll be GREAT when it gets going.

WTF is emo!?

OK, so not being your basic young and hip dude (though I am neither very old, nor un-hip), I've been puzzled by the term 'emo' ever since this post by a parental type.

Watching the video of a stoned-out-of-his-mind Californian dude and his even more stoned sister, I had no idea what they were talking about. No. Idea.

I was further intrigued by the somewhat cryptic dedication to a friend of mine. Why was this post "somehow for Pete"? Was there some sort of in-joke I was missing? Did Pete know what emo meant when I had no idea?? Was I rapidly falling behind the "lingo" of the youth of today!? Was I uncool!!!???

To my considerable relief, when I checked with the dedicatee, he had no idea what it was all about either.

Apparently emo means emotional hardcore and is represented by your basic black-rakishly-cut-hair-in-eyes, life-is-soooo-miserable type personages. Kind of like grunge meets goth. Kind of like this.

Still. With a slow morning in front of photoshop, I have developed my very own contribution to emo culture. I think it distills the emo mood quite accurately...

To blog or not to blog

I've been a blog stalker for years.

Always content to watch, never the balls to join in. Occasional commenter, but mostly a silent stalky presence lurking on the interwebs.

Discovering the blogosphere has reminded me just how much I enjoy good writing. Just the pure texty goodness that so many unknown people produce in relative anonymity.

I've followed the brilliant, saucy and occasionally shocking Ms Fits for years, delighted in the word-smithery of Jellyfish and admired the conviction, intelligence and persistence of Anonymous Lefty. Beautiful design and photography by Virginia from Alert But Not Alarmed, or the genius behind Canada's Daily Dose of Imagery. Dooce's acerbic wit, Powazek's ephemera, IOYC's bizarre world of punctuation and capital letters. I love them all...in an entirely creepy innocent way.

Though I love the land of blogs, I've resisted joining it for this long for a number of reasons. But having been worn down by friends with blogs and friends with lives, I've finally decided to take the step and throw my metaphorical hat in the metaphorical ring with what I hope will be a partly communal and wildly varied experiment.