Mark Latham bipolar “slur”

Demanding an apology for being slapped with a certain label means that you consider other people who deserve the label to be inferior to you. Like how people who object to being called gay reflexively try to disguise their homophobia by adding “not that there’s anything wrong with that”. So fuck Mark Latham for demanding an apology from Jeff Kennett for calling him bipolar, and fuck Jeff Kennett for apologising. It’s obvious they both have mood disorders anyway.

Copyright Greedpigs - Grokster case

Defeat for freedom of concept distribution. I urge everyone to illegally download songs by the following idea fascists:

The Eagles
Jimmy Buffett
Babyface
Mya
Gavin Rossdale
Sheryl Crow
Brooks & Dunn
Bonnie Raitt
Dixie Chicks
Stevie Nicks
Phil Vassar
Patty Loveless
Reba McEntire
Grateful Dead
Avril Lavigne
Dido
Denyce Graves
Tom Jones
Jesse Colin Young
Sarah McLachlan
Martina McBride
Sam & Dave
Danny And The Juniors
Billy Preston
Boz Scaggs
Diana Krall
Elvis Costello
Brian Wilson
Kenny Rogers
Tom Waits
Tyler Stewart
Jim Creeggan
Steven Page
Barenaked Ladies
Sum 41
Jump 5
Bethany Dillon
Nichole Nordeman
Michael W. Smith
Metallica
Dr Dre
Garth Brooks
Everclear
Elton John
P Diddy
Jay-Z

I’m sorry but you cannot own a pattern of aural vibrations created in the context of a long history and broad community of musicianship. You are not an island. When will humans realise you can’t own products of the mind? And if the removal of monetary incentives to create the music means that you wouldn’t have made the music, then perhaps you should just keep the music to yourself. Some musicians who seem to have some sanity about the issue:

Steve Winwood
Janis Ian
Chuck D
Heart
Jason Mraz
Sananda Maitreya (Terence Trent D‘Arby)
Wilco
Tom Burris
David Bowie
George Michael
Beastie Boys
David Byrne
Moby
Michael Jackson
Alanis Morissette

Moron of the day: Catherine Cusack

Have chosen Catherine Cusack as Moron of the Day for criticising an anti-drugs program for using people dressed as bongs and cigarettes to get their message across in Aboriginal communities. According to her logic, the giant cigarette in the Nicabate ads must be promoting smoking. If seeing someone dressed as a giant ecstasy tablet gets Ms Cusack hankering for a hard night of doofing that's her problem.

Splitting the ALP

Apparently Mark Latham has called Labour a spent force in Australian politics. I wonder what his alternative is. Which brings me to my proposal. Split the ALP into two parties. One can be a unionist party, the other a socially progressive party.

The conservatives have been able to exploit divisions between the socially conservative worker constituency and the chardonnay socialists (wedge politics). They’ve also been able to characterise the ALP as being beholden to special interests (unions). As if workers are a special interest group. (Though there are some problems equating “unions” with “workers”.)

If you split, the unionist party can represent workers and unions without apologising for it. It can also dabble in right-wing tokenism to prevent the McMansion dwellers, aspirationals, and Pauline Hanson voters from breaking away. The progressive party can pursue all your latte-leftie causes. The two can form coalitions.

Centrelink whistleblower

Rod Whyte, a former Centrelink manager, has just
published a book detailing their dodginess: Australia's Artful Dodger: Centrelink Exposed.

I’ve known from personal experience for some time that there is an orchestrated campaign on the part of upper management to deter welfare recipients (not “customers”!) through excessive paperwork, claims that documents are missing or that Australia Post has failed to deliver letters, periodically terminating payments without reason and general bungling. They also deliberately put their frontline workers under huge stress so that there is conflict between workers and welfare recipients. Incidentally I happen to live adjacent to the smoking area for a certain Centrelink office and am (usually reluctantly - especially at 8:30am) privy to the frontline workers’ gripes about their bosses (and clients).

One of the more startling revelations in Whyte's book is that Centrelink scans the media looking for negative comments about them and puts them in the personal file of the welfare recipient who spoke out. Which means if they figure out who I am, this blog entry will be in my file soon. It’s like Stalin’s USSR or a Kafka novel.

American drama addiction and loss of freedoms

The best thing about the US is its freedoms. Eg nowhere has freedom of speech like America. And yet they’re so eager to throw it away for the war on “terror”. And the removal of American freedoms will be permanent - how can we rid the world of terror or any other abstract nouns or emotions?

Perhaps the answer is that Americans enjoy the drama involved in all the security, etc. Everyday life in a consumerist society is too comfortable, empty and numb. It’s kind of like cutting yourself to feel alive. Real drama is too remote which is why they love watching war on TV.

So maybe it won’t be the terrorists or even the fear of terrorists that will destroy the USA. Maybe it will merely be Americans’ self-destructive need for drama that existed before 9/11 and was just looking for something to latch onto.

Douglas Wood scum

Why do we invest billions of dollars inventing and producing heart drugs etc for fat, old, over-indulged middle class white men like Douglas Wood? Is prolonging the life of an ugly old rich man worth more than saving the lives of 100 five year old Africans who have a whole life ahead of them?

Must say I rather enjoyed the unusual display of humility from someone like Wood when he begged Australia and the US to withdraw their troops and cried. Gratifying to see one of the ruling class lose dignity. Scumbag making money off a war. The fact that he’s apologised for his comments and the apparently heartfelt way he made the comments in the 1st place doesn’t exactly reassure you that he has any hard principles beyond the desire to make money and have a double garage.

Leftist smearing by association

Noticed that hard lefties often rely on mere association with someone with a bad reputation as a way of condemning people. They’ll mention it in passing to give the feel that there’s more to the argument than there is. Eg “…who, incidentally, was the cousin of Hitler’s chauffer…” It’s nice to know so you can keep it in the back of your mind that there might be more going on than meets the eye, but it can be lazy.

“Be a man” dream

Dreamt IR was holding me, about to fuck me. He said “Are you ready to be a man?” As in “take it like a man” or something. Have had a couple of dreams now where he’s been holding me and made a comment relating to me growing up.

Chloe had puppies again?

After that dream yesterday I heard off my shrink's receptionist that Chloe had 7 puppies. Mum hasn't even called to tell me. Because this time she already has someone to help her (the retard down the street she's seeing). She was meant to be desexed but I guess Mum is just putting as much effort into looking after Chloe as she put into raising me. I miss Chloe but don't wanna go out there and see Mum. No doubt she'll sell the puppies for ganja.

Michael Jackson gets off

So Jacko got acquitted. I always thought he was innocent until I heard Corey Feldman say that he showed him porn when he was a kid, which seemed like classic grooming behaviour and just rang true. Like when he was on that Bashir doco I was actually more convinced than ever that he was innocent. It seemed like his tirade about adults and children being more affectionate was a genuine, passionate defence of a developed worldview. Now I realise that people who believe in man-boy love etc have the same conviction that they just hold a political view that happens to be widely reviled at this point in history.

I actually agree that adults and kids should be more affectionate and that we should be more relaxed about physical contact. But if Jacko had just non-sexual relationships with these boys, we have to ask if that’s even appropriate. It opens a whole debate about what kinds and levels of interaction between different-aged people should be legal. A non-sexual romantic relationship can harm the child.

Anyway I’m still worried that he’s actually guilty and had the complicity of the mothers. They were moneygrubbers, but not in the way we thought. Maybe some people think a gift new house is worth putting their kids to a bit of work for. And maybe that’s the reason he’ll never be convicted.

Sniffer dog court win

Justice Roger Giles of the District Court in NSW has ruled that if a cop lets a sniffer dog touch you it constitutes battery and is thus an illegal search. If judges saw how the pigs actually use the dogs in practice (mind you only in working class or gay areas) by aggressively directing the dogs to go right up to you one-by-one on train platforms etc, most searches would be ruled illegal, despite the recent legislation. The dogs aren't just "sniffing the air"; the cops individually pick each person out. And they're shoddy anyway. Last week I had half an ounce in my bag and the dog came within 10cm of my bag without raising the alarm (thanks matey). See the following links:
Sniffer dogs v Rusty Harris
Steve bolt on dogs and drugs

Book review: working with monsters

Just read John Clarke’s Working with Monsters and have to say I want those few hours back. It could be summed up with a glance at the DSM-IV for sociopathy and an entreaty not to diagnose the problem yourself but to hire an expert. The other 200 or so pages were unnecessary. Strictly for human resources morons in big companies. Absolutely no insight into the actual condition. The editor should be shot: appalling lapses in grammar, poor style, shocking format.

Dream: Chloe and the lion

Dreamt Chloe and a lioness were playing in a backyard. They were playing with a ball but Chloe couldn’t win against the lion. I was upset coz Chloe’s face looked less full of life than when we first got her. Her eyes looked older, stoned, tired.

Gretel Killeen gone to the dark side

I’ve decided I don’t like Gretel Killeen anymore. After that display with Merlin last year. Apparently her discomfit at having to wing it live and unscripted outweighed the gravity of the refugees’ being in detention. Tonight on Big Brother she claimed the LG mobile fucked up coz she “pressed the wrong button” when the phone was clearly just shit. Like the coverup with the Sony robot in the 1st series. She looks like a drag queen. And I used to think she was cool coz she always seemed to be Eing on the eviction shows. Like Paula Abdul on American Idol except I think she’s on Vicodin. And their respective episodes with contestants Saxon and Corey Clark.