Floods...

I guess like most people in Australia, I have been watching the awful floods in Queensland. It has been very tragic that 15 people have lost their lives and thousands have lost their homes and possessions.

Having family who lives in Brisbane, I am lucky that none of these events have really touched them. I can't but wonder at the turn of events that prevented us from moving there two years ago as we originally planned. It reinforces that God really does care for me and my family.

I have to wonder too at the idea of building large commercial cities on the banks of rivers right where they meet the sea. Brisbane is a port with shipping on a regular basis. It is the same with New Orleans. Too much of the wrong weather and both cities were devastated. Toowoomba is a largish city as well. Flood plains are not called that without reason. Sooner or later there will be a flood.

Will sense ever prevail - hardly, since the size of the cities are too large to just abandon to the fates. There was a flood in Brisbane in 1974 so it stands to reason there will be floods in the future. Homes can be made flood proof or as flood proof as possible; in the future it should be the demand of insurance companies and councils that new houses are built only above the height of floods (on stilts - like the old Queenslanders) and/or have rooms that can be totally sealed off so that possessions can be safely stored during a flood event.

Insurance premiums will undoubtedly rise again, to help defray the costs of having to pay out on the floods. Some food stuff costs will go up from crops destroyed during the floods being unavailable. Mostly these sort of costs never come down again. It will be harder for the poor to afford these things. There is a sort of selfishness involved in these sort of lifestyle choices whether made consciously or unconsciously.

We are seriously reconsidering our choice to move to Brisbane now.

Really annoyed ....

The government, in its wisdom (and if you can't trust the government, who can you trust?) decided single mothers should go out and work for a living for themselves and their children. So with no work experience per se and a great deal of trepidation, the daughter got herself a job with an IGA supermarket. Well it seems like any dipshit can walk in off the streets and buy and IGA francise. Because the dipshits that ran the one my daughter worked for cut her hours without warning, abused and intimidated her. She left. Then they told her if she wanted her final pay to submit a pay form, which she did, and now the bastards think they can get away with not paying her.

Quick note ...

Just a quick hello, as I have been back working full time and not had time to scratch my butt.

I went to the funeral of the husband of my supervisor at work.  It was nicely done at a funeral home out at Leppington - behind Denman Court.  It was very sad, and it was hard greeting her afterwards, but I couldn't not greet her.  I hand stamped a nice card for her and gave it too her.

She has been off two weeks.  The Boss's secretary phoned her and she said she just was not up to being with people.  I feel so very sad for her.

The Americans are in the process of voting for their new President.  Whoever they choose the weight of the world is going to be on that person's shoulders.  If it is Mr McCain, things should naturally progress from how they are now, but I have a nasty feeling if Mr Obama gets in things could get very bad.  

I think either way Australia will probably fare reasonably well, but it will not be easy in the present circumstances.

Did I mention I handed in my paper work to leave work in December?  I think I did.   I still do not regret it and hope that it will work out to be wise and move forward from there.

I am teaching myself a new computer language - Python - and it is fairly straight forward.  I am learning the concepts of Object Orientation which although I know what it is, I have not done in previous languages.  I want to use it to do gaming programming and multimedia in 3D.  I will keep you posted how it all goes.

Must go, but next weekend after another full week of work, I will post a longer item and pass more opinions.  I have also started up a fun blog which you can find here.  So till next time ...

What you must do next ...

I was going to make this into a grand political rant, but really, I can't get up the enthusiasm. What sounds good in my thinking doesn't translate so well into blogspeak. lol.

Anyhow, since we have a Labor Government, just to remind you, the following are important:

Global Warming - that is what is making it so freezing cold around here. Understand?
Villification - the only people you can villify anymore are white people.
Standardisation - a mediocre education is better than a good education.
Atheism - is the new black.
Gay people - are the next step forward in human evolution.

And if you do not toe the line, you are a card carrying member of the forces of Darkness. Do I make myself clear?

Ah, the joys of social democracy ...

Not alone ...

Reading my RSS feed this morning I find I am not alone in my concerns about the Gay Lobby and children. If hetero's were to do some things gay people do around children, we would be dragged off to jail and branded as pedophiles, yet because "dad and dad" are gay, it is okay to do those things around children. Yetch.

Look I don't approve of other cultures that do honor killings of women/girls either, does that make me a racist?

Why can't people just let children be children. Time enough to find out about all that sex stuff when they are old enough to understand it. When they actually have "hormones". Imposing it on them before then is just sick. Call me whatever horrible label you like but that is how I feel and I know many people feel the same. Some even feel "worse", like killing and bashing. I don't think those things really solve problems, nor does writing a bog entry about it, but at least it is here in the Public Domain.

Now that the communists are in power in Canberra, it will only get worse. It is the kids I feel sorry for, because they have to carry the consequences into their adult years and support us oldies in our old age.

I had two issues when my children were growing up. One was blatant racism, because my children where not "white". The other issue was that the feminazis decided that girls were not getting a fair deal in the education system, and the way to solve this problem was to blatantly discriminate against boys. Having two sons and two daughters stuck me between a rock and a hard place. I spent many a long hour going up to the various schools my kids attended and point out to the most senior person and the school counsellor the blantant discriminations and asking what the fnck they were going to do about it. Which usually ended up - not much.

On top of that, one of the teachers decided that violence was a good way to solve some problems. He broke one kid's arm (not mine) and pushed one of my sons into a brick wall. When he was supposed to be reprimanded, the Teacher's Union stepped in and prevented this from happening.

Fortune smiled on me, in the end. I was on a high school council a few years later, and this teacher had come up for appointment as a Deputy Head Teacher. The two students on the council had expressed concern about this - one knew first hand of the incidents above and knew of others as well. My mother was also on the council, and so the four of us spoke to the other parental representatives who also had heard and expressed concern. When the vote came, the teachers were pretty pyst about it, but had to live with our vote to not let him be Deputy Head. The chairman of the council was also the Teacher's Union rep for the city, and also my teacher at TAFE. Later I asked her if it would affect my results at TAFE and she said it wouldn't. To her credit it did not. She knew I was the instigator of this event, and once we had had the opportunity to fully explain, she understood, as she also had a child at that school. There was much taking to task with other teachers, but the majority, once they understood the reasoning were okay with the vote.

Unionism has overstepped its mark in some respects. They should just be worker advocates, not politicians. (ooops. lol). (Insert Capitalist diatribe of choice in this spot).

I told you that story to emphasise the point that the Teachers Union carries much weight in what kids actually get taught. Whether it is in the classroom or not. Somewhere along the way a line has to be drawn in the sand and we say, just teach the kids the academic stuff they need to know and leave the rest of life stuff to parents. You may not think we are doing a good job, but lets not get into a points arguement on who does a better job with our kids, shall we? Hmmm?

Yeah, there are some bratty kids out there, but maybe if you busibodies had let us keep our ability to smack our kids some of them would be less bratty than they are. One quick reprimand will save a lifetime of grief for a kid any day. Argue all you like, with me it falls on deaf ears.

Till again we meet, dear reader ...

News headlines ..

Sydney is a strange place if you live here any length of time. I should probably have never come here, but it is too late now.

Today's news in the Daily Telegraph was about how schools are going to have to drop references to mothers and fathers, boyfriends and girlfriends, etc., as gay people are offended by these sorts of references.

Now call me homophobic if you like but this is seriously getting out of hand. Maybe it could be pointed out to someone that gay people are not the only minority group in schools these days. How is this going to go down in Church sponsored schools and muslim schools? What do you think the consequences are going to be in these situations?

I find it offensive because of this. My daughter has two school aged sons. Their father did not bother making himself responsible for raising those boys and so she is a single mother. To those two boys she is their life and their security. How can they not be allowed to call her "mother"? I mean are we talking stupid or what?

What do Lesbian children call their parents? Most that I know call their parents "mummy" or "mum"; likewise with homosexual raised children, it is "Daddy" or "Dad". So where is the discrimination? What are you going to call them? You can't refer to your spouse as a husband or wife, but as a partner. Married couples are not "partners", they are much deeper than that, particularly ones with children.

Furthermore, I do not know any primary school age children that actually describe themselves as gay or not gay (heterosexual). Sexuality is not really an issue with little children. People who make it an issue have something seriously wrong with them (hmm... let me see, in other areas they are called pedophiles). Even gender issue do not rise with little kids. It usually goes that little girls think little boys are yuk and vice versa. However, even at quite a young age a little girl knows that the other person is not a little girl and likewise a little boy knows she is not a boy, and that is about as far as they think about it. Bringing gender issue into children's lives, no matter how you look at it is sick. Psychologically sick.

Maybe you could take a page from the Christians and Muslims and start your own schools. Leave those of us who want our children and grandchildren to maintain their innocence as long as possible alone. You would never have to worry about a shortage of teachers, which I am sure you know.

But then you are the same groobers who are holding this talkfest in Canberra this weekend, aren't you? If my sister and her family didn't live there, I would strongly urge someone to drop a bomb on the place and rid us of these freaks in one go. If only ...

The Martians have landed ...

Yes they have. Just because Kevin Rudd looks like an Earthling, doesn't prove that he is.

He is our brand new Prime Minister. So as such he is worthy of respect and do not throw tomatos at him. Hitler would cry to see such a perfect specimen of Aryan proportion ... okay let's not go down that path.

The Labour Government has been declared the winner of the Election, Mr Bush has congratulated him and comiserated with his "little mate" John Howard. And so the world moves on. For us in Australia, he informs us, it is a "new page". [You can leave it blank (yeah, right), you can write neatly with something to show at the end, or you can scribble all over it.]

As I said in my previous post, all this would be fine, if Labour was not in bed with the Greens. They are supposed to be going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Like this is a good idea. Oh, and definitely no nuclear power plants. U-uh, no way, never. It is okay to sell uranium to "trusted" overseas countries, but use it beneficially for Australia? Ha.

Oh, and he is going to work in the "National Interests of Australia", i.e. defence here at home, a look at what resources we are sending where and what is going on at the other end. i.e. China and its so called lack of "human rights". That is another path if you go down it, you will be sorry you did. But hey what would I know.

So what is he going to do? Hey you tell me, and we will both know. I have my doubts after Peter Garrett said things will change once the Labour Government get into power. Okay they are in power - now what? It isn't as if we can know and it isn't as if all of us will eventually benefit from knowing once we do.

Social democracy. That sounds awfully like an oxymoron to me, but I am reliably informed it is not. I believe it is just Communism/Socialism with a fancy Politically Correct new name.

99% of what is "wrong" with this country is that there are not enough trees. Likewise for the rest of the world. All that pollution is screwing up our thinking, funny chemicals acting in our brains. Why else would a nation cut off its nose to spite its face? Will the Greens make it a point, like Bob Hawke did, to plant more trees? Let's not get silly here. No the Greens agenda is not really "Green" as in plants, oh no, the Green's agenda is to point out problems and endeavour to get rid of them. Not try to solve the problem or come at it from a new angle, no just get rid of it. Like five million other people on the earth. And cut down the number of animals. Animals fart don't you know, and all that methane being let into the atmosphere just cannot be good for the atmosphere.

I always remember being told as a child when you point your finger at someone, look down and see where the other three fingers are pointing. Those three fingers tell you the truth.

Okay, I seem to be developing a bit of a vendetta here about the Greens. I have been asking myself why this is so. Well, years ago, before being Green was "fashionable" there were plenty of people warning about this stuff, but they were mocked and geered for their warnings. Now it is fashionable, well, sure there is no mocking and geering, there is no real "tree hugging" and there is no passion, compassion or realism.

Sustainability is a key factor in my thinking, not eliminating a problem, so much as changing the definition of a problem. Diversity is another key, because diversification when worked with sustainability allows more cross solutions to problems to eventuate.

Pointing out a problem with no viability for solution is a waste of time. If you don't like something, you have to ask yourself what you are prepared to do to change what you don't like into something you do like. Something as simple as: "Someone left an item on the ground outside". Okay, so pick it up. "It isn't my item so why should I pick it up?", because it is bothering you more than the person who dropped it. Otherwise ignore it. This is not a constructive situation. It is a nuisance situation developed by a person used to being a complete pratt. So if you are not prepared to go in, roll your sleeves up and take care of business, bugger off and let other people get on with it or don't say anything in the first place. Or you might go and find the person who dropped the item in the first place, nicely ask them if there was a particular reason the item was where it was (you never know) and if they could help you by picking it up. The old person does not get gipped too much because he is an old person, but when played out by adult Politicians there is a serious problem.

A complete Political Party of complete Pratts is a big worry to me.

oh, and Kev, don't forget you did promise to do some extra stuff to Tigers Stadium. Wouldn't want you to forget something of National Importance like that, Mate.

cya

The Martians are Coming ...

Oh, er. Last weekend sometime, the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard finally called an election.

So I am a member of my local union, the Public Service Association, as one of my bosses got me in a pickle a few years ago. So my e-mails have been bombarded by: make sure you and your family are registered to vote, now we can punish Howard, make sure you and your family are registered to vote and by the way are you registered to vote.

One the one hand the Liberals are offering us tax cuts and more money in the wallet is always good. On the other hand the Labour Party would give some power back to the Unions to give workers a bit better deal. But then, when I think about it, the Shooter's Party would give us our guns back and that would fix all of them.

Alternatively, the Marijuana party would allow us all to smoke away our problems (cool man) and that would be even better. I ride, I vote. Well that would fix the EI problem, plus put all those TB millionaires back where they belong, at the bottom of the manure pile. Bet none of them ever mucked out a stable. Even one with gold handled buckets. Does Miss Finland know she is worth a million bucks?

The Greens? Hmm, lets see, in one of their booklets I once read they say that they are committed to reducing the population of the world to 1 billion people - but I never worked out what they were going to do with the other 5 billion. And they are not particularly impressed with companion animals and would prefer we didn't keep them. So where does that leave all the cats and dogs and horses and other critters? Feral? That's a brilliant idea.

One Nation? lol. Democrats? ROFLMAO. Nationals? Well, they have been in their own way quiet about all the EI, and by not taking an interest I am not interested in them. I am joe average and if I haven't heard of what they are doing, how many other joe averages have not.

So that just leaves the Indies.

Have fun choosing and make sure you are properly informed before you vote, so you don't get a nasty shock in the morning.