Anglican letter signed by 34 school principles demanding the right to discriminate - suffers backlash

So the other day the Anglican leaders got together and wrote a letter to all Canberra politicians demanding that the right to discriminate against gays should be preserved in law. What's more they had the principal's of 34 Anglican schools sign the letter to give it more weight.

Among past students of the Anglican schools there was outrage. 

The Anglican Synod last week sent all federal MPs a letter signed by the principals of 34 of its schools. It said while schools would not expel gay students or staff in practice, they wanted to preserve the right to employ people who "support the ethos of the school".


The letter prompted a backlash from alumni. Ex-students from Abbotsleigh and St Catherine's in Waverley are circulating petitions, while there is also disquiet among graduates of schools such as St Andrew's, Shore and Roseville College.


 A petition begun by St Luke's graduate Max Loomes has attracted more than 2000 signatures from graduates of many of the schools involved in the letter, such as Barker College, Blue Mountains Grammar, Shore, Arden Anglican School and The Kings School.


"We call on you to retract your open letter and not judge your staff by their sexual orientation but by the quality of their work," the open letter said. Most signatories were past students, although about 10 per cent were worried parents, Mr Loomes said.


The Abbotsleigh petition argues it does not matter whether the schools would actually act against gay staff and students. "As alumni, we are concerned that this public display of intolerance could have devastating effects on the girls to whom Abbotsleigh owes a duty of care."


 Felicity Wilson, who graduated from Abbotsleigh in 2009, is also planning a peaceful march from Abbotsleigh to Barker College on November 10, to promote equality in schools and to raise money for struggling teenagers.


"They can say all they like about hiring within their values, but they are supporting a specific law that condones specific discrimination," she said. Sydney Morning Herald

But perhaps the most telling thing is the way one school principle equated gays with the insane. 

"I am particularly averse however to the notion that the government may dictate to us whom we can and cannot employ," he said. 


"My aversion relates to my experience over 20 years ago as a government school principal, where the Department of Education forced particular teachers on the school I led. I came to the conclusion that some of them were actually clinically insane. 


 "They were not effective teachers. They did damage to the interests of children." Sydney Morning Herald

And there it is, the homophobia. 

Darling spilled a whole glass of coke on his PC

It happened last night. David had his drink in front of the PC on the coffee table, I have no idea why it was there like an accident waiting to happen. It was a full glass. He bumped it with the back of his hand and just about the entire contents went on the keyboard and overflowed to underneath.

There was much shouting and hysteria as I went on a mercy dash to the kitchen for tea towels. But alas despite the frenzied mopping up the PC soon turned itself off. Mopped the keyboard some more and put the PC on top of the still warm oven to dry out. It would start and get to the login thing but the keyboard was soaked and you couldn't log in.

 This morning it was even worse. Nothing on the screen at all. I think it's likely the sugar in the coke. Despite the drying out of the actual liquid there'd be a sugar residue remain, which I'm guessing conducts electricity. The PC would have to be pulled to bits and cleaned by a professional for any chance of it working again. In other words it's fucked.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth by David. Luckily though my ancient old one is still working as a media player under the big telly, so I pulled that out for him to use. Told him you have to have quite a bit of patience with it because of it's age.

It was also lucky that the great PC flooding happened just at the time when I'd got money out of Super. I've ordered a new one Through Kogan which will arrive in a day or two.

Meanwhile the ancient PC is giving him a bit of grief. You see David is one of those people that sets passwords up for everything and tells his PC to remember them. So in a couple of weeks he's completely forgotten all his passwords. Add to that that I stripped the software on it back to the bare minimum so as the poor old thing wouldn't be straining to play videos.

First thing he wanted to do was download a couple of shows. The bittorent downloader was gone as I'd uninstalled it. I downloaded and installed it again for him to download. David is a very outgoing person and just has no patience with things like that.

Next he wanted to log into Farcebook. Of course he had no idea what his password was. So he had to do the email thing "Forget your password?" to log back in to Farcebook.

Then he had no idea what his email password was, so he had to get an SMS code to log into his email. By this time I was getting pretty gobsmacked, but kept a calm face as I guided him through it all. He was getting an SMS code to get into his email to get the reset password thing to log into Facebook! It all succeeded in the end but that process took nearly half an hour. *sheesh*

A bit of advice for people like David who get their PC to save their passwords; don't. Even if you have to write them down in a secret place or something, key in the passwords every time yourself. For email, regular sites, everything. That way you're very unlikely to forget them if you spill a whole glass of coke on your PC! 

"Boy Erased" new trailer, before release this Friday

David and I can't afford going to the movies, but this is released on Friday in the US and Nov 8th here in Australia. Perhaps the local cinema would be much cheaper so we'll look into that. Really don't want to wait for a decent torrent to show up before seeing it.  

Anyway, this is the new trailer of Boy Erased just before it's release at the cinemas.

 

"Don't keep birds in the kitchen" - Tefal frypan instructions :s

So I got the next lot of financial hardship money out of my Super to survive whilst waiting on the NSW Housing priority list. Only did $5,000 this time as there's nothing big to pay for and we can use that money towards living. $3,900 after tax but the balance gets paid in my tax return next June.

I've been paying due bills and putting extra on them, put $100 each on David and I's Opal travel cards, and generally been spending money on groceries that we haven't been able to buy for a while. Like Band aids, proper mouthwash, decent shaver heads, pain creams for our back (strangely we both have sore backs at the same time, weird). Pretty bad when you have to draw money out of you super just to afford those things.

Other thing that had gone by the wayside was not having a toaster as it carked it months ago, and a small electric mixer for cooking (we eat just about everything at home) and the big fry pan. It slide off the stove by accident when I was washing up and the handle broke, making it too dangerous to use really. We got the toaster and mixer at Target for really cheap.

The fry pan I got today in the cookware bit at the Coles supermarket down the road. Tefal, which is a good brand and the non-stick won't promptly un-stick not long after using the thing. Got home and briefly read through the instructions bla.

And that's where the instructions were about birds in a kitchen. Far out. 😕

 

This is Brazil's new president (video)

Brazil has elected an ultra right extremist for president, who infamously said he'd rather have a dead son than a gay son. He says gay's won't find peace and that he's proud of being a homophobe.

Brazil is already the most dangerous country in the world for gay people.

Far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro — a self proclaimed "proud" homophobic who said he'd prefer a dead son to a gay son and that he would not pay a woman the same salary as a man, has won the Brazilian presidential election #TheDrum pic.twitter.com/SDYNJwrDor

— ABC The Drum (@ABCthedrum) October 29, 2018

 

RWNJ Andrew Bolt calls the next election - "It's all over" for gov

The latest Newspoll came out this morning and it was terrible news for the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison (ATM) gov. The poll was 54/46 to Labor. 

However the Murdoch media has been concentrating on the preferred prime minister meaningless figure citing that Morrison was ahead in being preferred PM. Apart from going into negative territory for the first time in his brief reign (meaning more people don't like him than do) he's also now only 8 points ahead of opposition Labor's Bill Shorton as preferred PM. 

I dunno how many opposition leaders in the last 50 years went into a federal election as being Preferred PM. Gov's in my memory since 1985 (when I came here from NZ) rarely have an Opposition leader as "preferred PM" in polling, leading up to a federal election in which they take office.

In view of that, I say again that Mad Morrison is only 8 points ahead as preferred PM. With no honeymoon on becoming PM because everyone considers him an arrogant, conceited, smirking, Pentecostal prick (which he really really is BTW), even incumbency isn't going to save this gov's pathetic ass.

This Newspoll is an unfettered disaster. I've never posted anything on this blog from Andrew bolt: far right extremist nutter, who's so far to the right that he can't actually understand anything left at all. One of the most influential right wing media personalities in Australia.

Now Bolt has declared to the far right world of Australia (ie the Liberal Party Base) that it's all over for the gov after this poll. Bolt and Richardson, called "big guns" in the article, both agree that this gov is finished.

One half of the Big Guns Andrew Bolt tells Deborah Knight “it’s all over” for the Morrison government. 


“What they need to do now is go out with dignity, not doing anything now so they look back with shame once they’re in opposition. 


 “I just think they’re in a bit of trouble, real trouble, now. 


“The story now for the rest of the term is of decline, decline of the Morrison government.” 


And Graham Richardson agrees. “He’s right. 


 “I don’t think there’s any mistaking what’s happening. 


 “That poll is not simply bad, it is a complete disaster.” 2GB

Migraine problems (video)

Very close representation of blurred vision at the onset of a migraine

Long time readers here will know that I have a problem with migraine headaches. They're not nearly as severe as they were in my teens when I first got them, but they can still be a real bother.

Mostly all I get now is blurred vision to start off with, followed by a bad headache and feeling really sick/nauseous. So it's not like I need to be hospitalised or screaming in pain at home in bed.

However the frequency the last two days has been really bad. Have had six episodes in 5 days of the blurry vision leading to the headache. One day it happened twice. In such instances I've just had to stop whatever I'm doing, take two or three Panadol, and then go and lie down in bed for a while with the curtains pulled.

After about 45 minutes it all subsides and I'm OK. Well sort of as I can still be really sick. Lucky I've been at home when it's happened and can do that, instead of down the shops.

I find it really strange though that suddenly out of nowhere I'm getting this cluster. The same sort of thing happens to my daughters husband. He gets migraines but only at certain times of the year. Being much younger than me his are very severe, poor guy.

I guess I should drag myself to the doctor for another visit and get a prescription for those migraine pills. You have to take them at the start when you're vision gets blurry to stop the migraine. I think they would be better than  relying on a few Panadol. 

I found this video that, although isn't exactly like what a migraine sufferer experience's is very bloody close. 

 

Our homophobic neighbours got booted out - Karma strikes :)

We've had a lot of trouble with the neighbours immediately next door to us for some time now. The other month their 4 year old little girl stood at their doorway and told David "You're not good people". A while back during a disagreement the mother told us "We know what sort of people you are". 

They were refugees from Bangladesh claiming persecution for their religion. They moved in about 5 years ago and have since become Australian citizens, as well as having their little girl. Lately she's pregnant with their second child.

Beginning of this year they went back to Bangladesh for nearly three months (strange to go back to a country you've got asylum from) without telling any of the neighbours. Stupidly, they left their internet WiFi on (it was viewable on our PC"s), the side windows partially opened about ten cm, and after a while the mail was overflowing into the driveway out of their letterbox. We and two other neighbours after nearly 3 months decided to ring the police in case something had happened to them.

The cops came the next day in full force, headed by detectives. They easily gained access to the place as the bathroom window wasn't even locked. It all looked very suspicious the detectives said and that if was them they'd have rung the cops too. But they found nobody in there. Ironically they arrived back the very next day.

During the course of this the cops rang the real estate and found out the leaseholder wasn't the couple and their kid living there, but a reverend guy from Bangladesh who hadn't lived their for years. Turns out he'd been the leaseholder for zonks and was using the place to bring in relatives from Bangladesh as "refugees". They were living there illegally and had no leaseholder rights. Busted!

In NSW it's illegal to sublet a rental property unless prior arrangement is made with the landlord. As it turned out the landlord had no idea, but evidently when finally finding out must have terminated the lease with the reverend. Thus the reverend and them were evicted. They must of had to move in a hurry given the contents of the flat that they chucked on the street.

They were also in breach of the reverend's lease by having three people living in there. At one time they had their nephew as well from Bangladesh making 4 people. He came over and worked multiple jobs despite his visa only allowing 20 hours per week. He left after about a year, they said he didn't like it here and went back to Bangladesh, but we suspect he was deported after breaking the conditions of his Visa.

The place is a small divided area of the house David and I live in. You literally couldn't swing a cat in there. Only one bedroom more like the size of a small sun room than a bedroom. Tiny lounge and kitchen, bathroom so small only a shower could fit in it with no bath. The lease agreement with the reverend obviously wouldn't have been for 4 people, so again the reverend was in violation of his lease. It's a one person place really, sort of in between a bedsitter and a one bedroom. 

We heard the landlord "couldn't believe" that they had three people in there. Their little girl had a small bed in the lounge room. The nephew also slept in the lounge room when he was there. In the past before they moved in there there were 5 people living there before them.

We couldn't believe that the landlord didn't know for all those years. Even before I moved in 11 years ago. That's how long the reverend has been getting away with it.

On top of that the wife this time was just a fuckin bitch. Late 20's pretty much around my daughter's age. She went off about everything to us. Imagine how we felt when we found out they weren't even leaseholders. 

We pay for a carpark (even though my car went years ago) which we leave for guests coming to visit. They got a car and started parking there, and we objected. She went bananas (even though they don't pay for a carpark), took photos of it and complained to the real estate about us. Turned out he couldn't drive anyway, knocked over the common area washing line trying to get out of the parking lot, had to pay for it, and parked on the street after that. Dunno how he got his P plates but it certainly wasn't legit.

We have a separate little old laundry shed out the back next to our back door where our washing machine is. They were also storing a whole bunch of their crap in there which sometimes I nearly tripped over getting to the machine. When David moved in, after a while he noticed that it was our hot water going into the shed. He and his ex used to run a body corporate, so he knows what he's talking about. That meant that it was our shed not theirs. Much to their displeasure we therefore told them to remove it from our rental area. The bitch wasn't at all happy, later on asserting that we were "bullying" them.

In between the washing shed and back door was a little area that before David moved in was full of junk from them. We threw it all out and David made a cactus garden of multiple pots. He's very good at it, very artistic, looks marvelous now. She was pissed off again telling me that David had "taken over" the area. There was just no pleasing her.

Truth is they hated us for being gay. When they first got to know us they thought we were brothers :s After they found out we were gay they changed.

Not long ago, the husband told David "We know that Peter's daughter is the leaseholder". WTF? Were they trying to have one over us so we wouldn't stir any more shit about them having no lease? Don't dob us in or we'll dob you in? *sheesh* I spent about 6 months constantly at David's place after we first met and wasn't seen much here during that time. When David moved in it was like "I'm back". I'd never seen them before as the others had moved out and them in during those 6 months. So I guess they concluded that I moved in after my daughter, who'd been here all the time.

When David told me I was laughing about it, went and got the lease from 2007 and read through it laughing. Lease agreement between.... oh look it's me! Oh look one car space! Oh look "washing facilities"! David took it, knocked on their door, and showed it to the husband. He stood there and read it from top to bottom in detail, like he didn't really believe what he was seeing.

Now they're gone. Hooray!!

Just a note to finish. I've always supported refugees having a right to come here. I even helped one of the previous tenants get Australian citizenship by writing a character reference for him and his wife. This post isn't meant to detract from that. Am deeply disturbed and offended by the major parties the refugee crisis they have created in offshore detention.

At the same time Australia has people like this playing the system and giving them all a bad name. Refugees fleeing genuine persecution are being done no favours by people like this. People who are intent on doing things illegally rather than follow Australian law, and think they have every right to do so. 

Gov has abandoned DSP crackdown for lack of success in savings :)

Murdoch calling us a burden in The Australian 2015

Mad Morrison as treasurer in last years budget was touting savings of $61 million over 5 years by cracking down on people who were supposedly ripping off the system by claiming the Disability Support Pension (DSP). 

However these grand supposed savings have come to nought with the whole crackdown being abandoned because it found there was in fact hardly anyone who was claiming the DSP who was ineligible to do so. A mere less than 2% in fact, making the clampdown administrative process more expensive than any savings gained.

As someone who's been on the DSP since 2012, I honestly have no idea how anyone could be granted it when they're ineligible for it. You have to go through so much to get the thing in the first place it seems beyond bizarre that a faker could succeed.  

Then there's what would be the absolute drama of being a vulnerable sick person having to go through the mental torture of proving all over again that you do indeed qualify for the DSP. Do they honestly think that someone would chose to go into likely poverty and jump through all those Centrelink hoops in an evil plot to steal a pittance to survive on? It's just nonsensical.

So next time you hear some RWNJ banging on about us evil DSP'ers ripping off the system, you can tell them it's just not true. Any so called crackdown on us is just pointless nitpicking and entrenches the narrative that we're all a bunch of scam artists.

The federal government has scrapped a policy to review the medical condition of 90,000 people on the disability support pension (DSP) after less than 2% people were found to be ineligible. 


 During the 2016-17 budget, the government said plans to conduct a medical review of 30,000 DSP recipients a year for three years would result in 2,300 people having their benefits cancelled each year, with 1,800 moved onto a lower Newstart allowance payment. 


 The measure was forecast to save the budget $61.2m over five years but amid worse-than-expected initial results a government-controlled parliamentary committee last year said the reviews could end up costing more than it saved. 


On Thursday, the Department of Social Services revealed the crackdown had been scrapped – but did not reveal if the review had incurred a net loss. 


Officials said of the 30,056 reviews that had begun, 28,784 had been finalised, and only 555 people were found to be no longer eligible for the DSP – a success rate of less than 2%. 


 “In May, I indicated that the department was monitoring that process … and the government has decided not to continue with that measure,” the department secretary, Kathryn Campbell, told the hearing. 


The decision was made earlier this month. 


Campbell said assessments were still ongoing that tested DSP recipients’ income and assets. The Guardian  

Should schools refusing gay teachers lose government funding? - Q&A bonus question (video)

Philip Ruddock was head of the religious freedom review

The ABC's Question And Answer show on Monday nights often has a "bonus question" that they put on YouTube after running out of time on the broadcast program. Sometimes those questions not seen except online can be one of the most interesting in the whole show, as is this one.


We all know in Australia how the leaking of a part of the Philip Ruddock (above) religious freedom review caused Mad Morrison all sorts of problems when he at first backed the existing right of religious schools in some states to expel gay students because of their sexuality. There was such an uproar that within a couple of days Mad Morrison completely back flipped and promised federal legislation to make this illegal Australia wide. That "urgent" legislation however has still not been presented to the parliament.

The next logical question following that was why should gay teachers be discriminated against by religious schools, where it's still fine in parts of Australia (NSW a prime example) to either not hire a teacher or sack them because they're gay.  After all, what would a gay student think about seeing a teacher in the religious school fired by the school because the teacher was gay? Obviously it follows that the school fired the teacher because the school considered that there was something wrong with the teacher; their sexuality. 

What would that do to a vulnerable teenager? When all their friends knew why the teacher was fired, would they then look at the gay student like there must be something wrong with him too? Would that instigate a situation of bullying against the gay student by homophobic bully's in the school? What would the gay student's life be like after that knowing the school was against them at the highest level?

So now that the Australian public is aware of this discrimination, has soundly supported the LGBT in the (unnecessary) postal survey, is it right that religious schools who receive gov funding to continue to be allowed to discriminate against LGBT teachers in 2018? Is state funded discrimination still OK in a modern secular Australia, where 30% of all Australians don't identify with any religion at all?

 

Hannah Gadsby - "Nanette" (video)

Hannah Gadsby is a gay Australian comedian of some years. She grew up in Tasmania during the terrible debate Tasmania was having about gay people, a debate which she's said in the past scarred her for life.

Recently she's been performing her solo stand up show "Nanette", which has received rave reviews from around the world for it's honesty and candidness. It's on Netflix but you can download the torrent here. I highly recommend it.

Here she is in a video about it on the Australian show The Weekly. 

 

Lagy Gaga's deeply moving speech on being a survivor of sexual assault (video)

Lady Gaga makes a very emotional speech in relation to the pain she endured as being a survivor of sexual assault.

There is indeed much more to Lady Gaga than simply being an artist. 

“As a woman who was conditioned at a very young age to listen to what men told me to do, I decided today I wanted to take the power back. Today I wear the pants”-@ladygaga speaks on sexual abuse at ‘ELLE’s Women In Hollywood Awards’ pic.twitter.com/JQeG6WEsJg

— Giuseppe Anthony (@ItalianMonster8) October 17, 2018

 

Nail biter Wentworth bi-election (video)

Election results ABC News

Sharma heckled yesterday in Wentworth

Independent Kerryn Phelps it looks like will take the seat of Wentworth in what has turned out to be a nail biter close contest between her and Liberal Sharma.

Last night Phelps was well ahead in the count and claimed victory, but overnight pre-polling and postal votes were counted which significantly narrowed the race. She's currently ahead by only 884 votes, or 50.6/49.4 two party preferred.

Election analyst Anthony Green says more will be known later tonight as counting continues. 

After much digging around, I've worked out the following. The AEC is currently re-counting the Bondi Beach, Bellevue Hill and Vaucluse polling places. At 3pm they will begin a count of and additional 1,200 postal votes. The result will be clearer or closer by tonight.

— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) October 21, 2018

There has been currently an 18.4% swing away from the Liberals in the 6th safest of their seats, which they've held for many decades. Major issues were climate change and Australia's offshore refugee gulags. The Morrison gov doesn't even have a climate change plan, and refugees in jail offshore are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis at the hands of this gov.

Will losing Wentworth spark another Liberal leadership spill? It would be utter insanity, but who knows with this gov? Wentworth is one of their jewels in the crown and it's loss would be crushing. The swing away from the gov in Wentworth is already by far the largest ever in a by-election.

So far what has Morrison done in reaction? Shouted meaningless slogans to the converted, and that bloody smirk still hasn't been wiped off his sniveling face.  

Morrison with Sharma as he concedes defeat

 

The pathetic Australian gov attempt to block torrent sites

This all came about under the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison (ATM) gov. The bright sparks, no doubt at the urging of their glorious leader Rupert Murdoch, decided that they would try to block overseas torrent downloading sites. I guess Rupert was all pissed off that Australians are the highest per capita pirates in the world and regularly download his Foxtel shows for nothing.

So anyway the gov to block such sites had to go to the federal court and get it decreed that the list of sites they wanted blocked were in fact blocked. They do this by making it law that the ISP has to block the site that the court has told them to. Yes it all sounds like snail mail going up against email or something.

Being as my main browser is Opera that comes with a free VPN  I go to various torrent downloading sites and never come across any blocked torrent site ever. In fact I leave the VPN enabled all the time so the gov will see absolutely nothing of my Metadata. Fuck them.

Out of curiosity though I thought I might try it on the recently download Firefox browser I have now trying it out. It doesn't have a VPN, and so I tried to see what it was like to get blocked by the great wall of Australia. 

Surprisingly I found it quite difficult to do so. Tried a few saved sites I had on Opera (Limetorrents, x1337x, and even the Torrentz2 site where you can search the entire web for torrents) and Firefox went straight to them. They were entirely unblocked. I thought surely eztv would come up with some blocked thing, and I was right. Which is where I got the header above for this post :)

Thing is, I don't hardly ever use eztv anyway. The torrents that go up on there are generally a bit later than other sites that have TV series. 

So I'd have to call the gov's pathetic efforts at internet censorship a complete and utter failure. The idea itself about as fossilised as Murdoch himself. About as brain dead as this gov. What a complete waste of time and effort. Fucking around ISP's for absolutely nothing. *sheesh* 

 

Email distributed against Kerryn Phelps saying she had HIV (video) - Wentworth by-election

It's looking very much like gay independent Kerryn Phelps will tomorrow win the seat of Wentworth in the by election; forced by Malcolm Turnbull after he was booted from the prime minstership and left politics. This is because Phelps will get Labor preferences if she comes second putting her over the line and denying Liberal candidate Sharma the seat. If she does win the gov will lose it's majority in the House of Representatives and have to rely on cross-benchers for supply. A very tenuous situation indeed, particularly so as the federal election has to be called in about 6 months at the latest.

The Liberals are absolutely panicking. They've even dug up the fossil John Howard to campaign in Wentworth; Mr WorkChoices who's departure from Canberra was when he  lost a federal election and his own seat in 2007. Meanwhile the Mad Morrison gov is blundering along at a rate of knots, falling over it's own feet just about every single day to the lead up. In fact the National party is even considering having it's own leadership spill shortly to bring back the vile Barnaby Joyce *faints*

There has been a number of dirty tricks pulled during the campaign. Of course the Liberals deny any involvement at all.... But the one that has shocked everyone is an email that was sent to heaps of people saying Phelps was pulling out of the race as she was diagnosed with HIV the day before. She is neither HIV+ or pulling out of the race. If not for one of the email recipients informing the Phelps campaign of this it may very well have gone unnoticed and unreported by the media, the truth only being found out after election day.

This is wrong on so many levels I barely know where to start.

My first reaction was so what if she did have HIV anyway? And then I realised the stigma involved in using HIV as a smear against a political opponent. The email was assuming that being diagnosed with HIV supposedly meant having to drop out of life or something.The inference being that it was still a death sentence and you had to put your life in order as you'd eventually die of the disease.

On a wider scale it was stoking the fires of HIV stigma in the community. To this day there's still a huge amount of ignorance against HIV even amongst progressive Australians such as in the seat of Wentworth. People still think an HIV diagnosis means you're going to die a terrible death in the not so distant future. This email, instead of educating people about the reality of living with HIV today, built on that stigma and reinforced it. How could one vote for someone who's got a fatal disease?

People in Australia have worked long and hard to address the problem of HIV stigma here, Kerryn Phelps among them. With the Wentworth by-election gaining national attention (for it's implications in Canberra) it's appalling this stigma dog whistle has been thrust onto the national stage.

To his credit, even Sharma condemned it.

An email falsely claiming independent candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps has pulled out of the Wentworth by-election because she has HIV has emerged, in what the candidate says is just one of the "dirty tricks" being deployed in the campaign. 


The email, obtained by the ABC, was sent to hundreds of constituents and organisations from a fake address on Sunday and urges recipients to divert their vote to Liberal candidate Dave Sharma. 


The ABC does not suggest Mr Sharma or anyone involved with his campaign was behind the email. 


Dr Phelps said it was the latest tactic in a campaign being waged against her. 


 She told the ABC the email was "shocking and disturbing". 


 "When I went into this campaign people warned me that there would be dirty tricks, but this is next level," Dr Phelps said. 


The email said Dr Phelps was no longer running for Wentworth. 


 The email also requests that the recipient help remove Dr Phelps' posters. ABC

I am disgusted and appalled at the despicable email circulated against fellow Wentworth candidate Kerryn Phelps. I condemn it for its smears and dishonesty. And I condemn it for its stigmatisation of people living with HIV.

— Dave Sharma (@DaveSharma) October 17, 2018

 

Arguments against amyl use a homophobic attack on gays

An opinion piece points out the absurd arguments being used by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) against amyl nitrate use. Notably the way the TGA infers that gays are paedophiles, sexual predators, and endanger children.

The TGA is proposing to put amyl into the same category of drugs as heroin, turning a large proportion of gay and bisexual men into criminals over night.

Being as the reasons they give for wanting to implement this proposal as largely based on homophobic lies about us from the past, it hardly seems that a decision to ban amyl would be based on sound evidence.

You can sign the petition against the proposed ban here.

For the uninitiated, these inhalants expand blood vessels and lower blood pressure, and are used recreationally in dance culture to produce a very brief “high”. Poppers additionally have analgesic and muscle relaxant effects which make sex, particularly anal sex, more comfortable and pleasurable. 


The TGA identifies the use of poppers for euphoric, analgesic and muscle relaxant purposes as “illicit” – questionable language when discussing something typically used by the LGBTI community. A 2017 report from the Flux study showed that 32% of gay and bisexual men self-reported using amyl nitrite in the previous six months. 


We can easily see that Australia’s old opium laws prejudicially targeted a racial minority and, in the same way, we can consider how the proposed ban on poppers might implicitly criminalise homosexual sex. Indeed, some of the justifications for the prohibition are grounded in homophobic tropes, such as the common stereotype that gay men are sexual predators, paedophiles or endanger children. 


The TGA’s September report argues that the “sweet” aroma of poppers poses a risk to child safety through the possibility of accidental ingestion, which happened 10 times between 2004-2014. To put this in perspective, 20 children are admitted to hospital each week after ingesting button batteries. 


Moving past the fact that poppers more accurately smell like paint thinner, the implication is that gay and bisexual men are a threat to children. Further, the report goes on to repeat the assertion that paedophiles use nitrites to sexually assault children no fewer than six times, citing a report from 1993 that concluded there was no evidence for this claim. 


The TGA additionally argues for criminalising poppers on the basis that misuse can cause headaches, dizziness and nausea, or exacerbate glaucoma and circulation problems. This is mostly true. However, the same can be said of the sex aid Viagra, mainly used by heterosexual men, which can cause headaches, dizziness, congestion, diarrhoea and rashes in addition to exacerbating existing conditions but which is, nevertheless, approved by the TGA. 


It is difficult to argue that a ban on poppers does not directly discriminate against gay and bisexual men, or, more broadly, people wishing to engage in pleasurable sex. Additionally, there is no reason to believe that a ban would be effective. As the former Australian federal police chief Mick Palmer explained: “Nothing we’ve banned for the illicit drug marketplace has had much difference and this will be no different.” The Guardian 

Bird watching :)

It's Spring in Sydney and we've had two weeks of rain. Today the rain cleared and it got hot and muggy, before we had more rain yet again this afternoon. Perfect weather for Spring with plants growing green and flowers doing their thing.

With that the birds outside have gone crazy chirping and mating. Casper and Zac are glued to the back door as much as they can watching it all in amazement. Cat TV. Zac meows at us to let him out to have a go at them all, but they're way to smart for him. They have like a bird warning system that when a bird sees a cat it sits up high and squawks it's head off like an alarm to all the other birds. Casper on the other hand just crouches down low, no noise or movement. Think he'd be an excellent hunter in the wild. 

Natasha the 15 year old is another story altogether. Oh yes she sits at the back door watching it all and enjoying the display, but as far as doing anything about it she can't be bothered. She's 15 now and would rather just relax knowing she'll be feed here without the effort of a hunt. Hence her relaxed posture as Casper crouches!  

 

Stormy vs Trump Twitter war - I entered the fray :)

Hardly slept last night at all both David and I. We've got a bit out of whack staying up into the early hours watching horror movies. So after trying to sleep we both ended up being up again at about 6am this morning. Sick of watching telly we both went online with each other's PC'c.

I noticed an article posted only a half hour before in which Trump called Stormy "Horseface". WTF? So I went to the news item and both Trump's tweet and Stormy's reply, both embedded in the article. It was therefore very easy to click through the tweets and reply to both of them. I follow Stormy on Twitter you know and would gallantly come to her Twitter rescue any day.

So the Trump tweet and the Stormy reply are contained thus:

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present your president. In addition to his...umm...shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women and lack of self control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality. Game on, Tiny. https://t.co/6DpDD5ELtj

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) October 16, 2018

I could not resist, and replied to Stormy with the above picture of Trump. Saying how an Australian artist got it exactly right back in 2016. It initially went up without the "sensitive" warning and was extremely visible for at least half an hour, before the twitter moderators made it so you had to click on it to see it, warning the Trum-pet snowflakes over there of their delicate sensibilities to freedom of speech/art.

From Australia, the artist got it exactly right Stormy :) pic.twitter.com/mwnOgRoY5m

— Peter Hiv (@HivPeter) October 16, 2018

And my my didn't the picture set the cat amongst the pigeons! And didn't they go bananas! Of course much more anti-Trump people had a huge laugh. But I'll tell you, the so called big tough bully Trum-pets were all a bunch of bloody crybabies.

The artist who made the picture is Australian Illma Gore, who received death threats and was bashed by a Trump supporter near her Los Angeles home over the picture. My don't these Trump people just loooooooove freedom of speech :s

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Today I was punched in the face by a man who got out of his car and yelled, "Trump 2016!" in Los Angeles, just days after I returned home from London just down the road from my house. Though I encourage passion, opinion and emotion, especially though art, I think violence is disgusting. To live in a place where Facebook has given my address to an anonymous third party makes me anxious. This type of violence makes creatives feel like we live in a world where our individual creative input isn't safe. I am sad that this is the state of our America right now. I am sad that Trump, and many of his supporters, don't find words enough to express their opinions - they need walls, waterboarding and punches. @realdonaldtrump Please stop glamorizing and perpetuating violence. Make America Decent Again! #makeamericadecentagain No, they have not been caught, and the men drove off laughing. A detailed police report has been filed.

A post shared by Illma Gore (@illmagore) on Apr 29, 2016 at 4:10pm PDT

In any case I was very proud to give her work more exposure. My tweet totally went off. What a great way to start the day!