Today's funnies... and rant

There's one thing about us Australians. We may be faced with the evil oppressor Abbott and his capitalist nirvana threatening our very way of life, even our Australian identity of a fair go for all, but we are not beaten. We will not be beaten by the corporations. By the Abbott lies. We live in a democracy, that democracy being the greatest threat to any power Abbott may dream he might have. We are the people, and we're in it for the long haul.

We're not after the latest political point scoring, we're about our fuckin lives.

 

Victoria's power sell off - Shocking Truth doco

 

This is what happens when you put a state asset into the hands of private companies. What happens when you have multiple sets of management instead of one running the whole show. What happens when profits come first and the people last. When you put shareholders in charge of infrastructure instead of the public.

State owned electricity surely shouldn't have been put there simply to earn a profit at the expense of everything else. It should be there to provide what is today surely a basic right in an industrialised world; electricity at an accessible price for 100% of the population. That is it's basic function, whether it turns a profit or not is beside the point. That's what taxes are paid for; not to turn a profit but to provide a service.  

When interracial marriages were illegal

In fifty years we'll all be looking back at the debate on gays marriages with the same shock that we now look at this from 1958 in Virginia,  US: 

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."--Judge Leon Bazile in Caroline County Court, 1958

Morrison's world of Christian "morality"

Well just about everyone's got the shits with Scott Morrison, Australia's now Immigration Minister in charge of the demonisation of asylum seekers. It may come as a surprise to many that as well as being a complete asshole, he's also a devout Pentecostal who goes to Shirelive church in Cronulla, which is very similar to Hillsong. It's in this context that he makes the following claims:

Declaring his faith was not a political agenda, he said it would, however, shape his political agenda based on values of kindness, justice and righteousness.

"For me, faith is personal, but the implications are social, as personal and social responsibility are at the heart of the Christian message," he said. "In recent times it has become fashionable to negatively stereotype those who profess their Christian faith in public life as 'extreme' and to suggest that such faith has no place in the political debate of this country." more

I'm sure, in light of the more recent happenings, many Australians would find that personal assertion of morality utterly laughable. If "righteousness, justice, and kindness" mean demonising a group of people, residing over one of them being murdered (and insinuating that it was his fault as he was "outside the compound") then he has a very different understanding of the English language than the rest of us. Maybe that's how he interprets the Bible?

And WTF is this shit about "negatively stereotype" Christians. None of us gays need to be bothered in that because he's doing an amazing job with that all on his own. Take one fuckwit, get him to play with boats....... And when it all goes pear shaped just have the PM say what a wonderful moral man he is. Both Abbott and Morrison seem to be living in some parallel universe with a different meaning of "moral". BTW that above quote is from Feb 2008. 

Here's something more recent, from 2011. The alarm bells were already ringing back then:

While his faith animates his politics, he is on the record as saying “the Bible is not a policy handbook, and I get very worried when people try to treat it like one”. Critics would say that is self-evident from his heartless response to asylum seekers. “I wonder how you can claim to be a serious Christian and take these positions,” said one former colleague. Supporters, however, claim he has pursued a faith-based policy. “He’s a very ethical and moral man,” says a fellow Liberal. “Stopping the boats is ethical and moral.” In his response to December’s boat people tragedy off Java, he advocated a ‘tough love’ policy, which he claimed had the safety of boat people at its heart. After all, for Morrison the Pacific Solution was not only efficient but righteous since it crushed the evil of people smuggling. Church friends might even have seen shades of Wilberforce in his efforts to eradicate such a nefarious trade. To his critics, however, his attacks on the government, which resumed 48 hours after the overloaded boat capsized, offered yet more proof of his harrying opportunism: this was more about political point-scoring than finding a workable solution. more

Yep, it seems in Morrison's world of Christian morality, it's just fine to play politics with people's lives. Abbott's the same. He can do some of the most loathful things to people (Bernie Banton video below) and still claim to be some sort of moral Christian.


Have said a lot, I'd put secular morality up against Christian morality any day. Morality isn't a set of rules from a book, it's simply about how you treat people.

Found this online. Exactly:

 

2013 job losses worst since 1992

Looking like the country is closing up for business to me. What a shocking statistic for the Abbott gov:

Australia lost 67,500 full-time jobs in 2013, the worst annual performance since it shed 88,800 in 1992, when the country was emerging from its last recession, data compiled by Bloomberg show. more  

Edward Snowden's Lawyer - interview

A most interesting little interview with Snowden's lawyer:

 

Taking part in cancer study

I replied to a thing I came across online last month, a study seeking participation from HIV+ gay men re anal cancer. The appointment has come up and so I'm off to St. Vincents hospital this afternoon for it. This from the info stuff:

"The purpose is to study anal HPV infection in homosexual men aged 35 years or above. The study will also look at the rates of development of HPV-associated anal intra-epithelial neoplasia (AIN). AIN is characterised by the presence of abnormal cells in the anal canal. In some people, AIN may precede anal cancer. The results of the study will help guide the development of an anal screening program in homosexual men who are at higher risk than other men of developing anal cancer."

Basically it involves looking inside through a microscope. Am not worried about the cancer thing as I already got screen when I turned 50 through the gov screening process for bowel cancer. I guess this is a bit different though, given it's to do with the anus and not the actual bowel.

David reckons I'm a bit nuts going through all this, but I said what if some breakthrough happened as a result of this study? I'd be really happy to have participated in it. Other than that it's generally helping in the overall anal cancer thing. I'm happy to be a part of that.

More anti-Abbott stuff

Letter to Foreign Affairs MP re Uganda

NSW independent Alex Greenwich has written an open letter to federal minister of foreign affairs Julie Bishop, asking her to take action after the "jail the gays" bill was signed into law in Uganda. The whole thing is here, but this is a snip:

Far out. Five years jail for renting to a gay?  

Aussies Against Fracking - Bentley

Fuck off you fracking corporations! Leave our bloody Aussie farmland alone! This little video is from the "coal-face"/frack-face. How can a corporation just simply come in and set up shop on your land, even though what they're doing is entirely dangerous to that land? And if landholders protest then they're committing an offence? fuck off frackers!

 

Howard's race card - the begining of a murder

Given that there appears to be rather a seismic shift in the politics of boat people asylum seekers in Australia, now that there's been such cruel, incompetent, and terrible treatment of them in our custody to the point of one of them being murdered in our care, I was interested in looking up that infamous quote of Howard back in 2001. 

This is where our current political poisoning of asylum seekers started. With Howard. This quote:
 "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come".


With that, racism entered the election campaign. Howard stopped the Tampa from docking as it had picked up a boatload of asylum seekers. It was a commercial vessel with no connection to Australian politics, but unfortunately they become a pawn of Howard's election campaign. Howard stoked the fires of fear, insinuating that these people were perhaps terrorists trying to get into the country "illegally". 

Labor lost the election. They were in fact way ahead in the polls before this from Howard. After winning Howard went on to introduce the "never ever" GST claiming he had a mandate to do it, despite the election campaign being about race. The Lieberals realised they were onto something, an election winning formula it seemed. Labor licked it's wounds after losing/being done over by Howard's racism.

Since then both parties have been in competition with each other to be the toughest on asylum seekers than the other. In fact they've been so gung ho about it that gov's from both sides of politics have drawn strong criticism from human rights organisations such as the UN and Amnesty International over the years. Particularly more recent years, like when Rudd announced that all asylum seekers would be settled in New Guinea (including gay ones who'd end up on jail there for being gay).

Over the years I've often felt like a lone voice in this as many times I'd be the only one in a group talking about such things that thought we were doing wrong to asylum seekers. Like, it's just not right to treat people like this. It was one of the big reasons why I became attracted to the Greens as they seemed the only party left that had a fuckin social conscience. Perhaps that's changing now.

One of the most frustrating things over the last ten years is that at times a party losing or taking gov depends on a few swing seats in western Sydney. To be brutally honest, I could never define the process as a democratic one, that sought to make Australian policy at the behest of western Sydney redneck racist bigots. They are a small percentage of our entire population, yet we have both major parties making policy to placate them as they've decided elections in the past.

Now we have a young man dead, at our hands. Yes we have blood on them. He was murdered in our care, in our gulag. It's time to stop the politicking, to stop the blame game. Time for both major parties to work this out and come up with something that at least fuckin resembles humane. Time to realise these are simply people fleeing for their lives, families with kids. Time to stop being selfish and fearing that they're going to take something from us (you know like all the welfare and free houses and all; lies). Time to be human beings to these people, and not self appointed masters of their destiny. 

Time to get back the Australia we had before Howard's 2001 election. Time to turn the page.

 

Whaling fleet night attack on Sea Shepherd

This time the Japanese whaling ship attacks at night, trying to foul the propellers of the Bob Barker. You have to take your hat off to these protestors; 6 hours or something in 10 below temps, in the dark in rough seas, trying to stop the Bob Barker being damaged. Having ice and objects thrown at them.

 

Manus Island whistleblower interview

CHER Tribute - Sydney Mardi Gras :))

CHER THE LOVE: Turn Back Time CHER Tribute - Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras from Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras on Vimeo.

Uganda gay witch hunt begins

Disgusting:

What will the consequences now be in Uganda for gays? What will happen to those names published in this paper? Despicable:  

A Ugandan newspaper published a list Tuesday of what it called the country's "200 top" homosexuals, outing some Ugandans who previously had not identified themselves as gay one day after the president enacted a harsh anti-gay law.

...................... 

Few Ugandans identify themselves publicly as gay, and the tabloid's publication of alleged homosexuals recalled a similar list published in 2011 by a now-defunct tabloid that called for the execution of gays. A Ugandan judge later condemned the outing of homosexuals in a country where gays face severe discrimination, saying it amounted to an invasion of privacy. A prominent Ugandan gay activist, David Kato, was killed after that list came out, and activists said at the time that they believed he was targeted because of his work promoting gay rights in Uganda. 

"The media witch hunt is back," tweeted Jacqueline Kasha, a well-known Ugandan lesbian activist who is among those listed in the Red Pepper story. 

Uganda's new-anti-gay law punishes gay sex with up to life in jail. The bill originally proposed the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," defined as repeated gay sex between consenting adults and acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner is infected with HIV. The law also calls for first-time offenders to be sentenced to 14 years in jail. more

GetUp video of candlelight vigil asylum seekers

I've been surprised at the reaction this time from the death of an asylum seeker on Manus Island in Australian custody. It's probably me as I've just gotten used to the race to the bottom by both major political parties here. This shit has been going on since Howard demonised asylum seekers to win a federal election years back, and since then both parties have been trying to outdo each other on getting tough with asylum seekers. Now, after a decade or so of our politics polluted by Howard's race card, I guess I just thought things would continue as they have.

But the outpouring and response from the community has been much more than anyone anticipated I think. The candlelight vigil on the other day was organised by GetUp, who have now released a short video about it. Perhaps this is now a turning point? 

 

 

Great results from the doctor :)

Was really surprised yesterday. the results from my last blood test were so good.

My HIV viral load is still undetectable, which I was expecting. I mean I'm taking the pills properly and all so there's no reason why the viral load shouldn't continue on as it has.

What left my jaw hanging open though was the CD4 count. It was 1,090! I said "Am I a freak?" and the doc says that there are a few people like me with similar readings. I myself have only ever heard of one other person with a CD4 count over 1,000, who lives in Canada and emailed me a while back through the blog.

My kidney functions are stable too, which they have been for some months. And my assertion to the doc that I had indeed been drinking less beer was confirmed by my liver results showing they had improved from last test.

All in all excellent results. Especially after being only hours from death three years ago from complete kidney failure.

Interesting about my foot. The diagnosis was some kind of bug bite, that must have happened that night that I was a blur between the bed and the toilet with the runs. I remember the pain in my foot came along near the end of that episode. David said he saw a spider in the bathroom the next morning, and had actually suggested to me in the night it may have been a bite. The doctor agrees. So it appears that I was bitten by some dasdardly Australian spider. Doubtful though whether it was in fact poisonous, as it's just as likely that my hyperactive immune system had some sort of reaction. 

To doctors today

Slept a lot better last night, but my foot's still sore. Nowhere near as bad but it's still hurting to walk. So at the risk of some Abbott gov minister accusing me of being a hypochondriac who uses the doctor too much, I'm off to see the doctor this afternoon. I'll be interested to see what the foot analysis will be.

I also have to get my HIV blood results from a couple of weeks back, and my next lot of HIV prescriptions. Also a script for the Somac that he put me on last time I was there for my stomach. It's working very very well actually, so I'd need more prescriptions of that. Looks like a new permanent pill for me.

Was pretty wiped out yesterday after everything that happened the night before. Still not feeling so good but oh well..... I am 51 :) 

Wound Up 11

Lieberals poll collapse continues

AIDS explosion in Uganda

That's my prediction for Uganda after it's president signed into law the "jail the gays" bill, that comes with life imprisonment for being gay. HIV programs need to be done in an environment where sexual discrimination doesn't exist. Who the hell is going to even get tested for HIV, if being tested might mean disclosing your sexuality to the doctor. The more people who know, the higher chance of you being incarcerated.

Not to mention the aid; yes, the US has made it clear that it will be included in the review of the relationship between Uganda and the US:  

Today’s signing threatens a dangerous slide backward in Uganda’s commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and a serious threat to the LGBT community in Uganda. 

We are also deeply concerned about the law’s potential to set back public health efforts in Uganda, including those to address HIV/AIDS, which must be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner in order to be effective. 

As President Obama stated, this legislation is not just morally wrong, it complicates a valued relationship. Now that this law has been enacted, we are beginning an internal review of our relationship with the Government of Uganda to ensure that all dimensions of our engagement, including assistance programs, uphold our anti-discrimination policies and principles and reflect our values. more

Pussy Riot "Tribute" at Russian Consulate

Candlelight vigil for dead asylum seeker

This was last night in Sydney; a candlelight vigil for the asylum seeker who died the other day on Manus Island, Reza Berati, in Australian custody.

Corporations aided the Holocaust

And they want us to believe that the TPP is gonna be good for us? Some very interesting facts about well known corporations and Hitler. Of course Abbott has the nerve to say that gov's can't pick winners in the economy. Well I'd say that backing Hitler has to be one of the most spectacular failures of modern times.

 

Bit of a wreck this morning

Bloody hell what an incredibly fucked up night. Have had had hardly any proper sleep. Had a double whammy of sickness.

First I woke up with stomach pains and had to go running to the toilet with the runs. One of those times when it hurts your stomach so much you're sitting on the throne just about hyperventilating from the pain, and sweating. I go back to bed after that but the pain comes back and it's back to the throne again. Then again, and again. About 5 or 6 times I end up going over about an hour.

At the same time that my stomach is finally settling down, I start getting this bizarre and intense pain in my foot just back from my toes. It gets worse and worse, to the point it's so bad I'm almost crying. The pain seemed to affect my whole leg after a bit and my toes feel like they're broken it hurts so much. A bit of swelling but not a lot.

I take about 4 Panadol over an hour and it helps slightly. Then I try Voltaren cream on it that helps more than the Panadol. Finally after some time the pain settles down enough that I can go back to sleep. It'd been about 4 hours since I first woke up with the diarrhea. 

So I'm hobbling around the house this morning, stinging bleary eyes, aghast at the fuckin night I've had. My foot is still very sore but nothing like last night. Enough to be limping and careful how I put my foot down when walking. I've got no idea what caused it, or what it even was. The Voltaren suggests it may have been muscular? If it was some kind of strange muscle spasm it would have been a bloody intense one.

 

TPP - "Gov Corruption At It's Finest"

"What would Jesus do?" - to Abbott re asylum seekers

I don't believe in god, but being as I was a raving lunatic Pentecostal when I was young and stupid, I do know rather a lot about Christianity. I've a bachelors degree in theology, and for a short time (before I woke up to my error) I was also a licensed minister in the church. Therefore it is with some mystification that I listen to Tony Abbott's version of Christianity:

WTF? Don't verbal Jesus? People have been doing that for 2,000 fuckin years FFS. Now we're supposed to accept Abbott's verballing of Jesus? (That is of course accepting the premiss that he even existed at all). Even a quick Google search brings up Christians who disagree with Abbott. One of Christianity's fundamental beliefs is to care for strangers and welcome them:

Abraham left his father’s land and sought asylum in various foreign kingdoms as he headed off to the promised land.

Joseph was a refugee to Egypt.

Moses led Israel out of Egypt as asylum seeing refugees. Israel was called to care for asylum seekers/the aliens in their midst, as God does, as a result of Israel’s experience as refugees. So Deuteronomy 10:

“18 He [God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

Their failure to care for the foreigner is listed as part of the reason they’re booted out and forced into exile again in Ezekiel 22…

“6 “‘See how each of the princes of Israel who are in you uses his power to shed blood. 7 In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.” more

There's also this handy illustration at that site:

QLD Biker dog searched!

Queensland has some new biker laws, where police go around hassling the fuck out of bikies. It seems their net is spread a bit far as it even includes their dogs :s  I'm sure Queenslanders will rest easy now that this dog has been searched.

 

Charlotte Dawson suicides

Goodbye darling. This world was too harsh for you. We won't forget you and your struggles with depression and suicide. My heart goes out to your family and friends. At least there's no more pain for you. Goodbye to a lovely Kiwi......... May your memory be a lesson to all of us. link

 

This her last tweet:

 

Thus Spake Mungo - Election blues again

Uganda president digs in

The President of Uganda, who it looks like will imminently sign the "jail the gays" bill into law, has hit back at the west's position that it's against human rights. He has said "You can't tell me how to run my house". This is from their telly over there so some of it's a bit hard to understand as it's such a thick accent. Is good to see though that this is making big news in Uganda.


I just can't understand their logic. How the hell can he give us the finger pretty much, and then expect us to just keep on giving him aid like nothing's happened. Not to mention the simple fact that it's wrong to jail anybody over their sexuality. Would you jail someone for being straight? 

All Blacks pose for Jockey undies!

All Blacks! All Blacks! All Blacks! All Blacks!

Link 

 

Manus Island death

I've not said much about Manus Island of late as the situation there has just been too upsetting and terrible to contemplate. It's horrible what Australia is doing to these people, and the gov simply wants to keep it secret. Journalists have been banned from there, so whatever happened in the last few days is unclear to us.

One thing is certain though, an asylum seeker has died. Was he murdered? What if this happened in a prison on the mainland, wouldn't there be investigations as to WTF happened and how this man died? At the very least Australia has failed in it's duty of care.

All I can do here is put a face to the statistic. Meet the late Rezi Berati. He'd be alive today had he not died in Australia's custody.

AS BLAME is exchanged on the Manus Island detention centre bloodbath, it has been claimed that the Iranian asylum seeker killed on Monday night may have been murdered by out-of-control guards who stomped his skull as he lay defenceless on the ground. 

According to an account from an Australian guard working for security contractor GS4, obtained by New Corp, local guards working for GS4 were in a frenzy and jumped on the man’s head in a rage on Monday night, inside the detention compound. 

But Papua New Guinea clearly believes the Australians are covering up, with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill insisting that no New Guineans were involved in any of the troubles, which led to the one death and two others being medi-vacced to Australia. more

Abbott does nothing as jobs burn

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union relates the jobs crisis within the manufacturing industry, and demand that Abbott FFS get together some kind of crisis plan for the industry. I mean seriously, all we're getting off this buffoon is blaming workers for it all and some weak rhetoric about future jobs in other industries. Um, like what? Renewable energy was very promising for jobs until Abbott took his wrecking ball to it all.

Meanwhile jobs burn as Abbott does nothing. Unemployment at 6% is already it's highest in years (last time it was this high was when Abbott was employment minister under Howard BTW) and it's only getting worse. We're going to be looking at a large increase in that number the way things are going.

So what's the plan Abbott? Distract people by demonising asylum seekers?

At Alcoa in Victoria and NSW, more than 130 AMWU maintenance members are among nearly 1000 workers set to lose their jobs when smelter ceases in August and the rolling mills in both states are wound down by December. 

But hundreds of members’ jobs at smaller engineering firms supporting Alcoa’s operations at Point Henry in Geelong are also in peril, with the AMWU meeting a group of concerned employers within 36 hours of the announcement. 

The regional city is in deep trouble pending job losses and the flow-on impact from Ford, Qantas at Avalon Airport, Blue Circle Cement and concerns for the Shell refinery. 

In WA and Queensland more than 100 AMWU members are among the 1700 out of work and left without pay due to the collapse of the debt-ridden Forge Group. 

Around 30 AMWU members with expertise in precision graphics are among 800 Sensis workers whose jobs will be offshored, following last year’s 700 job losses. That’s despite the firm’s $402 million profit to last December. 

AMWU National Secretary Paul Bastian said union officials were working intensely to make sure all members were paid their full redundancy and severance entitlements under union agreements. 

“It’s not good enough for Prime Minister Abbott to turn up and meet State Premiers after shock job loss announcements,” said Mr Bastian. 

“The industry is crying out for a structured, detailed manufacturing plan for the future - not empty rhetoric about possible jobs in new technology firms. 

“Are we to sit back and just watch good jobs end, industries shut down and communities decimated?” Mr Bastian asked. 

“For manufacturing to expand into the future, the Australian Government must make it a top priority but we are yet to see any detailed industry policy.” more  

US corporate food nightmare

I can't believe how the girl in the middle just sort of accepts that they're eating crap and meh, whatever..... She at one point asserts that US people are used to it and therefore perhaps immune from the foods effects. WTF? The US is the fattest nation on earth (followed closely by Australia BTW). 

The other day we looked up some Star Trek characters online that had been in the Star Trek Voyager series. OMG some of those people now were simply unrecognisable they'd gotten so US fat. Tom Paris and Wesley Crusher in particular. David and I looked at each other and just said "US fatties"...

 

Today's funnies etc