I stumbled into this gem on Turnbull's internet from way back in 2013 (three months after the Abbott gov was elected). Mark Gregory, a lecturer at RMIT research university in Melbourne explains what a massive con job Turnbull's National Broadband Network was going to be. Maximum speeds of only 100Mbps with Turnbull. Under Labor's fibre to the premises roll out the NBN was getting ready to offer gigabit NBN for those who wanted and could afford the service. Now look... It was one of the many reasons I was aghast and appalled at Abbott being elected back then saying to myself well there goes the NBN. I agree with Kevin Rudd, there should be a royal commission into what happened in the Liberal party to decide on Murdoch's preferred NBN model instead of continuing on with Labor's roll out. It was a non-issue for many back then who had little knowledge of the technology involved, and they certainly didn't win gov on their NBN policy. So why did they make such a big deal out of their policy on it?
Casper being only one year old is still getting the hang of mirrors and reflections in glass (unlike three year old Zac who admires himself in the mirror on occasion). For some days now Casper has been walking into the lounge room and staring into the glass below the telly, but it's at an angle so he wasn't looking at himself. It was a mystery until David got right down to his level of looking and could see the kitchen with the light on in it. So Casper is looking at the kitchen reflection in the glass, wondering WTF? There's another kitchen! There's another Zac! etc.
*Update:McCormick has been elected leader of the National party and with be our new deputy prime minister. This man is tipped to become the leader of the National party. He has form for being extremely homophobic, penning an article in 1993 as the editor of a newspaper. To his credit he has apologised for it but you know how these things go; they only apologise when they're told to. No doubt in my mind that someone who would go to the lengths of writing a piece like that and having it published as the lead, thought he was fine doing it with little or no concept of how the wider community felt about gays even back then. Here's the article in full. It resurfaced last year with the postal survey as he was the overseer of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which ran the postal survey.
Dear readers,
A week never goes by anymore that homosexuals and their sordid behaviour don’t become further entrenched in society.
Unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay.
On Monday hundreds of thousands of homosexuals marched through Washington in a demonstration intended to show their demands for equal rights and an end to discrimination should no longer be ignored or denied.
How can these people call for rights when they’re responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?
AIDS shows no discrimination.
It claims thousands upon thousands of innocent people’s lives every year.
On the very night of the homosexuals’ march that pompous critic Stuart Littlemore on Media Watch on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation had the gall to criticise various newspaper editors across Australia for “gay bashing”.
He ridiculed them for showing some moral backbone and condemning homosexuality.
It’s just as well some newspapers are speaking up and acting as watchdogs on moral issues. If it was left up to the likes of Littlemore, heaven knows some of the all-embracing attitudes society would be told it was OK to accept. The Courier
Charming. He's half right on one point, that HIV doesn't discriminate (the fact that he uses "AIDS" that you can't catch instead of "HIV" shows how ignorant he was of the subject, but that didn't stop him preaching about it). No, HIV doesn't discriminate, people do. People like him. Then he goes on about "innocent" people dying of AIDS, the inference being that gays weren't innocent but bought the plague to the innocent. The fact is that everyone, no matter who they are, are "innocent" when it comes to HIV. Including gays. I guess this is the sort of thing that the Australian Christian Lobby wanted to say during the postal survey, but couldn't because of our anti-discrimination laws. They even wanted to have those discrimination laws suspended during the survey, prompting questions from all, like What do you want to say that you can't say now? Indeed much of what they said even with the laws left in place were lies and suppositions. Not that I was expecting anything less from the National party, well known for it's homophobia.
In a rather alcohol fuelled video post, Angry delights in the Joyce saga train wreck and the gov continuing to clobber itself :) He predicted Joyce's demise two weeks ago. I suppose that wasn't really a hard thing to do. The thing that pissed people off the most was that Joyce stubbornly stayed on even with all the corruptions scandles, asserting he would simply ride out the storm.
The Beetrooter looking after farmers, with Australian mining magnate Gina Reinhardt
Gina showing who's boss
Beetrooter pissed as a fart at work/in parliament, looking after farmers
Pistol and Boo rejoice
Beetrooter looking after farmers in parliament
Lyle Shelton was his political adviser after losing Toowooba in 2006 state elction
Yeeeees!We have his head! It's been a long time coming, with the coalition National party not used to turfing a leader. But in the end it just became too much. Joyce had had a formal sexual harassment complaint lodged against him to the National party by some lady in Western Australia, the National party (all moral and family values you know and completely homophobic) taking the complaint very seriously. This was the reason that the WA Nationals the other day withdrew their support for him telling him to resign. Then there has been his various media appearances during his time on "sick leave", healthily protesting that he was innocent of anything and utterly failing to grasp that nobody gave a flying fuck about his affair other than for the corruption; public money misused to hide is mistress and her being given favours.
Like an extremely well paying job invented where she became the highest paid staff member of the fellow National member of parliament, during which in the 2 months employed made all of 51 Facebook posts on behalf of said minister as head media adviser of the MP's offices. Like living shacked up with the mistress in country NSW Armidale in what looks like a brand new townhouse rent free thanks to a gov doner, audaciously referring to it as a "bachelor pad". Many in Sydney or other state capital cities would scoff at the deputy PM not paying rent with his mega pay and entitlements, as I didliving in a 100 year old part house for $410 a week (increasing to $425 a wk in 2 months) with both of us on pensions and on the waiting list for public housing in the never never. Then it was his gall to whinge about how hard done by he was having his "private" life plastered across the national media for a couple of weeks. Glass Jawed Joyce crying for sympathy after he threw us to the wolves in the postal survey? Our personal lives plastered across the media in a national debate about our lives? Our eligibility to even take part in an institution that every other Australian could access except us LGBT? The latest outrage in the last couple of days came from his fluff piece interview at his "bachelor pad" complaining that his soon to be baby was somehow considered less worthy because of it's parents? FFS! HHeellloo.......
His sense of entitlement however went way beyond our LGBT outrage and made the whole of Australia livid. He used technicalities to say his mistress wasn't his mistress when she was transferred to his National party mate from his office after his affair with the mistress created big problems, some staff resigning over it. Yet the mate (Canavan) claimed he didn't know she was his fuck. Also, Turnbull claimed no knowledge of the fucking of Joyce's staff member even though the PM's office had to approve the created jobs and her move to them, and even though the fucking was the "worst kept secret" in parliament. Come on, how is any reasonable person supposed to believe such lying? They were treating the electorate with contempt. They actually thought we were morons and dug in to the lies.
Then there was more hypocrisy. The Abbott/Turnbull gov has made hay out of demonising us who are unfortunate enough to have to try and survive on welfare, telling us all from the outset that "the age of entitlement is over" in the disastrous 2014 budget engineered by Abbott. Yet we have Glass Jawed Joyce screaming poor me when he rorts the system for his own personal and political favour. It stunk to the highest level of our gov. Glass Jawed Joyce may think by resigning that this will go away. It won't. There are still many questions about his misuse of public money, no matter how much he tries to deflect the criticisms saying it's his "personal life". I'd guess Labor with sink it's teach into this like a banshee on heat. There's much more yet to come, likely revealing the corruption that has taken place right up to the prime minster himself. The public is completely sick of these asshole pollies lying to us and treating us like fuckwits.
I will continue to fight for the people in the weatherboard and iron, for the people on the peripheral and the small regional towns. I used my experience of these towns and my goal in life will always be to try to make their lives better.
Anyone who tells you that animals don't grieve is wrong. Yes Zac has reignited his friendship with Casper, but he's still missing his little girl Cloe who passed away earlier this month. He's doing the sorts of things that humans would do when losing a close loved one. The picture above is something that he's never much done before, but lately he's sleeping in that box through the day every day. It's the box at the back door that Cloe used to sleep in all the time, and which Zac and Cloe would team up to bird watch in. Her smell as well would still be in the box after all that. I thought about replacing the box with another but then thought no, I'm not taking that away from Zac and will let him go through his personal grieving process. He's also sitting in the bathroom window when I open it in the mornings (not enough for a Zac escape!) which he's never done before, looking out through the gap into the driveway and road. Cloe was doing that quite a bit the last few months, sniffing the sea breeze and poking her head into the small gap. Zac is obviously remembering her, missing her, and dealing with his grief in his own way. We've been giving him lots and lots of cuddles and love. He's got such a kind heart and we know he's been hurt immensely by this.
In the year just after we belatedly gained marriage equality (about bloody time), 2018 is the 40th anniversary of the first protest march that started it all in 1978. The world looks at Sydney today as a very gay friendly place, but it has been a very homophobic and dangerous place for gays. In fact even today, 12 out of the 17 electoral seats that voted against marriage equality are in western Sydney. Even today homophobic idiots come in from western Sydney to create trouble in gay Sydney. Being gay was still illegal in New South Wales back then, with the police response being both unfair and extremely brutal. However it did start a conversation in the public sphere as many of the public were quite horrified of the violence the police used. Indeed Peter Murphy was bashed by the police at Darlinghurst police station to near death. But it didn't end there. Fairfax news published the names of those arrested by the police that night. It resulted in people losing their jobs and suicides.
BTW police homophobia didn't end with the 1979 Mardi Gras, but continued well into the 80's and 90's unchecked, even taking part in bashings at gay Sydney beats, and resulting in 88 gay deaths in the late 80's and early 90's that were never properly investigated and today have now had to be reopened. Gays were flung over Bondi cliffs by teenage gangs and the police didn't care, didn't investigate, and blamed the gays as the "deserved it". Many of those killers would still be alive today, unpunished for their crimes. The homophobia is being addressed ongoingly, but it was just the other recent year that western Sydney police were brought in to police the Mardi Gras, resulting in police violence against Mardi Gras attendees. One was clobbered by 5 police just for crossing the road at the wrong time. I've put a short clip from Peter Murphy describing his police bashing in 1978 first off. The following YouTube videos are the 1998 documentary in full, uploaded years ago on a little known YouTube account. Yes that's a pain to go through each one like that watching on the PC, but technology has come quite a way in the last 20 years. You can download the YouTube videos to your hard drive using this site https://y2mate.com/ Simply copy the YouTube URL and past it into where it says "paste link here". After a few seconds the download options will come up underneath. Click on download to the right and it will put the video to your download folder. Once you have them all downloaded, put them in a folder and transfer to your external hard drive that either plugs in to your TV or the media player you have plugged in to your TV. You'll have to rename the start of the files with different numbers or they'll be out of order, starting from 1-7 not 8-14, also as they're not HD you'll also have to name each file as the name isn't transferred when it downloads. Then individual files should play concurrently going to the next one as each finishes by itself. And there you go, relax and watch the whole movie on the telly :) YouTube downloads very quick BTW.
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Brother Bernard McGrath failed to become a Catholic priest in New Zealand and so became a Brother with the Catholic run organisation St John of God. Upon molesting boys in New Zealand the St John of God order transferred him to Australia, where he viciously molested boys from 1978 to 1985, being the principal of Morisset’s Kendall Grange boys’ home. Some of them were intellectually disabled.
Now at 70 years old he has been sentenced to 33 years jail with a minimum non parole of 21 years. With time already served he will be 88 before even being eligible for parole. St John of God it was noted by the judge had known of the abuse over many years. Such has been the nature of the Catholic church in Australia. The same church that now wants more religious freedom and condemn's David and I's relationship. The full story at the link.
A TERRIFIED eight-year-old boy waited to be raped as another boy’s screams could be heard from a nearby room where two St John of God Brothers had taken him.
It was 1981 and Brother Bernard McGrath’s shocking reign of terror as principal of Morisset’s Kendall Grange boys’ home still had five years to run.
The boy was raped that day in a typically brutal attack that left him bleeding and limping. On another occasion he vomited after choking when McGrath forced him to have oral sex.
In a Sydney courtroom on Friday mothers wept, fathers hung their heads and victims gasped, cried and left the room as a judge recounted how McGrath rubbed the boy’s face in the vomit, before ordering the sobbing child to clean up the mess.
There was anger that McGrath’s crimes against Kendall Grange boys between 1978 and 1985 occurred after the St John of God order transferred him to the Morisset facility after allegations against him at a St John of God facility in New Zealand in 1977.
But by 3pm on Friday, after hours of a gruelling sentencing hearing, there were cheers, applause and spontaneous calls of “Thank you” to Judge Sarah Huggett after McGrath, 70, was sentenced to 33 years’ jail for 64 offences against 12 boys at Kendall Grange over seven years.
McGrath, 70, must serve a minimum sentence of 21 years, and will be 88 before his earliest release date in 2035, after his sentence was backdated to December, 2014 when he was taken into custody in New Zealand and extradited to Australia to face more than 250 charges.
“He’ll die in jail,” said the mother of one of his victims who was nine years old when he was sent to Kendall Grange, shockingly molested by McGrath and told that if he spoke to anyone about the abuse he would be “taken to the Morisset mad house and never see the light of day again”. The Herald
The US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), only a matter of days after the latest school shooting over there, is having the head of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) speak at the conference.
Like I said in the previous post, nothing is going to change the insanity over there...
One week after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz went on a killing rampage at his former high school in Parkland, Florida with his legally purchased AR-15 rifle, the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre will speak at the American Conservative Union’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference).
Other speakers include President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Senator Ted Cruz, among other Republican politicians who receive donations from the NRA. The CPAC will take place February 21-24 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor, Maryland. All four men spoke at CPAC last year. Joe My God
If the US now thinks teachers as part of their duties should be armed and ready for a gun fight then they have really jumped the shark. https://t.co/VYu9m5GC1m
Another school shooting in the US, with once again people grieving and the politicians offering "thoughts and prayers" FFS. I watched the video of the school kid sticking it to Trump over it, everyone cheering in support, like something was actually going to change this time. But of course it never does. The shock and outrage will once again fail to inspire any action in Washington. Much to the expectation of the NRA and other countries saying once again how stupid America is to allow their children to be killed like that. Something very foreign to Australia. Our kids can go to school without being shot. We can go to movies and concerts without being shot. We can have a big disagreement with someone without being shot. People can attend churches without being shot. We can walk down the street without being shot by a stray bullet. And on and on. This is one of the few videos that I feel I can post about it. It says it all.
Nationals MP, part of the glass jaw Joyce National party, has posted a picture online threatening "greenie punks" with him aiming a gun,sending social media into a state of disgust.
In the US this would probably be laughed at, but this isn't the US. It's Australia, that takes gun violence, or the threat of gun violence, very seriously. Our strong gun laws have enormous public support. The sight of a gov minister holding a gun and threatening those of a different political persuasion is no joking matter. Hence Christensen has been reported to the police over it. Such is the calibre of the National Party.
George Christensen has been reported to police by a Queensland environmental activist after the outspoken Nationals MP posted a photo of himself with a handgun on social media.
Mr Christensen yesterday posted a photo of himself aiming a gun to Facebook with a post saying "You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?"
Stop Adani's Ben Pennings said today Mr Christensen was an "appalling example" to his constituents and "threats of physical violence to peaceful protesters are particularly unacceptable".
Mr Pennings said he'd added Mr Christensen's post to a complaint he filed on Thursday with Queensland police after receiving over 100 death threats online.
"I reckon the abusers are ultimately cowards but I've gone to the police just to be sure," Mr Pennings said.
"I've added George Christensen to the list and will report him to the Federal Police also. We shouldn't allow bullies to be Federal MPs." nine.com.au
George Christensen will be interviewed by the AFP over his hateful Facebook post. pic.twitter.com/235371e0bQ
My 11 yr old nephew has just been expelled from a Qld school for posting the same image with a toy gun .@GChristensenMP . Let’s see what standard .@TurnbullMalcolm and .@Barnaby_Joyce hold one of their own to... happy to supply the detail to any journo #auspol
Pistol and Boo catching up on the latest Barnaby Joyce
The fact that Turnbull has slapped a bonk ban on federal MP's from screwing their staff (literally) shows that the gov doesn't realise what the real problem is with Barnaby Joyce. If he's screwed his staff member, wrecked his marriage and family relationship, but not done anything untoward with taxpayers money, then it would be a non-story. Probably a bit of shock in the community if it came out, but it would have been respected as his private life (albeit very unethical behaviour for a boss to bonk one of his employees). By Turnbull banning the bonk he misses the point. He should be addressing the issue of the mistress being moved to invented highly paid jobs of taxpayers money, or that Joyce and his mistress are living rent free in Armidale in country NSW rent free with the property being supplied by a doner to the Liberal party and which Joyce's department has given money to. BTW his mistress has quit parliament, but she was on stress leave since last October before becoming redundant nearly two months ago, where it's standard parliamentary practice to get 8 weeks salary after leaving as a redundancy payment. So since October taxpayers have been paying her her full wage despite her not being on the job, about to run out shortly. Add that to Barnaby's mega deputy PM salary and entitlements and one wonders why they're not paying rent.
You may have seen my post last week where crooks stole $500 out of my debit account using Paypal, (the full explanation of what happened is there at the link). The money was finally returned into my account today, so I now have the $820 for the fortnightly rent. Ten days after they did it, nine days after I noticed it online, and 4 days after the rent was due. But I do feel good that the crooks didn't get my money. They must've thought they were being so smart using Paypal to access my account, and all it took was one call from me to Paypal to get the transaction cancelled and the money returned to me. Eat shit crooks! I'm going to close that old Paypal account BTW. Albeit it was a drama waiting around for it to get back, ringing Paypal and the bank following it's progress. Can't believe it takes up to 7 working days for the bank to "process" the transaction in these days of instant computers online. I mean David and I transfer money between our accounts (we're with the same bank) and it's in the other account straight away, instantly. I'd say the banks hold onto everyone's money for days to get interest out of it. Imagine millions of transactions and $ sitting around getting interest for 7 days.
The prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce are at war with each other over Joyces affair with his staff member. Turnbull yesterday evening held a press conference in which he announced a new parliamentary rule that ministers are banned from having sex with their staff (duh, about time). In the press conference he described Joyce's decision to bonk his staff member a "shocking error of judgement" and that the Joyce should "consider his future". That's polite political speak for FFS resign you bloody buffoon. So glass jawed Joyce has responded today with a press conference of his own, whinging about how hurtful it's all been (I'll get to that) and describing Turnbull's press conference yesterday evening as "inept", "unnecessary", and "hurtful". (Video below)
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has denied trying to interfere with the National Party following criticism by party leader Barnaby Joyce this morning. Mr Joyce launched an extraordinary attack on Mr Turnbull, leaving the relationship in tatters, and the Coalition in crisis. It now appears the Prime Minister and his deputy are at war. Mr Joyce today returned fire, saying Mr Turnbull’s comments about his affair were “inept”, “unnecessary” and “hurtful” nine.com.au
So we now have the prime minister of Australia and the deputy prime minister conducting what is normally a behind closed door exchange, doing said exchange via media press conferences. If there was ever a sign of disunity and crisis then this is it. The gov relies on the coalition with the National Party to keep gov, having only a one seat majority in the lower house. The prospect of the coalition fracturing is one that would bring down this gov. Personally I hope it does, but I'd guess they'll kiss and make up with the real damage being in the polls. For me however the staggering level of hypocrisy expressed by Joyce in his press conference today reached new levels. Not quoted in the news article from the interview was this from Joyce that left me with my jaw hanging open:
I would not wish on friend or foe the hurt, the scrutiny, the intense intrusion into your life that I've gone through, through this process. I would not wish that on friend or foe.
Glass jawed Joyce. The conservative who was one of the far right in the gov who hoisted the postal survey on us and had not the slightest care of the consequences to us, is now crying about his own personal life being dragged through the media. Poor diddums, after all as the gov said in the survey there's nothing wrong with "respectful debate". Perhaps he should "grow a spine". No sympathy at all here, he deserved every bit of it. He's only copped it for a week or so, he should try enduring months of it. Then have the indignity of him voting on his own relationship. Karma. The universe has a way of evening itself out.
It's worth noting that this survey never had to happen. The numbers had been on parliament since the last election to pass it, if Turnbull allowed the gov to have a free conscience vote (Howard allowed 5 free votes in 11 years). However he failed to stand up to/lead the far right conservatives in his party, who were convinced the years of private polling by large polling organisations showing strong support for marriage equality, were wrong. They imagined a "silent majority" who allegedly were to petrified to admit to pollsters from the comfort of their own home that they supported marriage equality, and therefore said they didn't. One wonders where all these petrified people went during the postal survey as there were a large number of people all too willing to preach their bigotry and lies about us online and in conversations. Even to the point of a man on an ABC Melbourne radio show calling in and voicing his appreciation of Hitler for rounding us up and killing us in his concentration camps, live to air. We defeated the plebiscite that the far right insisted on, with thankfully Labor siding with us and voting it down the enabling legislation in the senate. However undeterred, the far right demanded the postal survey as a replacement to the plebiscite. Why a postal survey? Because it needed no enabling legislation and therefore the senate was powerless to stop it. LGBT groups went to the High Court to try and stop it over the allocation of public money ($120 million) without parliamentary approval. We lost, and the survey went ahead. Turnbull threw us to the wolves because he was too scared he could lose his prime minster-ship without the support of the far right of his party, it's as simple as that. We became canon fodder in his gov's internal warfare, and for the sake of Turnbull's political career. It was particularly galling after the positive result of the survey to have the spectacle of Turnbull crowing about what a good idea it all was and taking credit for marriage equality finally passing in Australia. We''l never forget what that self absorbed prick did to us. It passed despite Turnbull's acquiescence to every demand from the far right to delay and stop it. Despite him unleashing all the hatred and venom that the survey gave people a right to "have their say". It cost our community dearly, but there was no acknowledgement by the gov of that. This report from the senate does.
The senate has completed it's inquiry into the mental hell that was unleashed on us before, and during the postal survey that was hoisted on us by this gov. No surprises that it was as entirely fucked as we said it would be, and indeed was.
Of course now we have the Barnaby Joyce saga, with the gov in s huddle claiming his "private" life has been thrown out into the public arena for discussion, even though there appears strong evidence that public money was used inappropriately with his pregnant mistress being moved into invented jobs to his National Party colleagues offices. His excuses are lame bullshit, but the lamest of all is his protestations that it's his private life and shouldn't have been made public. I wonder how glassed jaws Joyce would feel if the country had a National vote on his relationship, complete with debates and a public campaign from either side? One rule for us, and another for them.
Latest dialysis and no migraine. Whew. Have dropped to 72.5 kilos after this session so slowly getting back to normal weight. Doc says he is...
About me
After 30 years of very physical full time work in the printing industry our print dept was outsourced and we all lost our jobs. As I'd gotten HIV beforehand and was having trouble attending and doing work I discussed with my HIV doctor whether I should apply for the Australian Disability Support Pension. He agreed,and I became a DSP pensioner under the new Gillard rules of adherence that now sees 75% of DSP applicants rejected.
Have been diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, chronic kidney failure, and of course HIV. I'd become suicidal in 2009 after 3 extreme life events in a row; My best friend killed herself in the US (I don't make friends easily BTW), my teenage/young adult daughter had me charged by the police with a minor problem, and I was diagnosed with HIV. All in three weeks.
Some say god won't give you more than you can bear, my reply is "Well what happened to me?" If not for the HIV support here in Australia and me being able to have access to it I'd likely be dead by now. Unbearable pain often causes suicide, no matter physical or mental.
Today I've not worked since being made redundant. I remain with episodes of depression and panic attacks, sometimes severe. I may be fine and happy to leave the house, at times I'm paralised in bed, secure and safe and not willing to face the world.
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