Anyone see that news piece about the Tree Man? bleh, me too. Luckily, Jessica Alba in a bikini washed that image right out. Is there anything that can't be solved by Jessica Alba? That's right - nothing
posted by jaseypoo! @ 7:05 PM
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Missy Higgins may be a lesbian.
This is great news for the true believers.
posted by jaseypoo! @ 8:34 PM
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The Trinity Church, located just outside the Trinity Arcade on St Georges Terrace, is always open at lunchtime for those who may want to seek some time for solitude and prayer. And everytime I walk past during lunch, I peer inside, a rudimentary social gauge of the piety of West Australian Christians. It is always empty.
Today was different. I stopped,and looked inside, seeing the empty pews, the hushed silence. I looked around, watching the city bustle quickly past me in seemingly important errands. I entered slowly. It was the first time I'd been in a church for a long while. I've previously discussed the reasons why and the extent of my beliefs, so I won't delve into it here, for those who may be surprised by the revelation.
I slowly genuflected, and as I did so the back of my head prickled, the hair on my nape bristling. My heart started beating furiously, my head suddenly lightheaded. I experienced a rush of adrenaline, and curiously, joy. Someone is watching me. I looked around, but there was no one else there. I started breathing heavily. I couldn't explain it, but it felt like..I was in the presence of the Divine.
Or it was a sudden rush of endorphins and other chemicals caused by some physiological reaction to my entrance into the church. I may believe in God, but I'm also not blind to Science. Either way, I had experienced something strange, something unexplained. Is this what our ancestors felt, so many thousands of years ago? This unexplained reaction to something, or nothing, that could only be explained by them as that of the work of a superior being? And from there a religion is born, pantheons and demi-gods, prophets and sinners, layered by commandments and admonishments, canon and apocrypha, from which different interpretations and schisms are born. And bad men shed the blood of each other for something much worse than greed or survival, while good men toil unthanked and unknown.
I rose shakily to my feet, and knelt at the pews. And I prayed. When it was over, I stepped outside, exhaled, and lost myself in the nameless crowd.
posted by jaseypoo! @ 8:48 PM
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Those that read my blog will know that I let my opinions be known, whether you generally want them or not. That's cool. I dig. And one of them is politics. It's no secret that my blog has a strong political bias, which tends to happen when the blogger in question can describe himself as a "semi right wing libertarian iconoclast with anarcho capitalistic sympathies". That's a lot of fucking big words for a two party preferred political system where you essentially vote moderate left or moderate right. However, I have curiously decided to stay neutral in this coming federal election for fear of prejudicing someone's vote. Hah! What hubris. Yeah, it could seriously happen, but anyone who'd actually listen to what I have to say on politics probably shouldn't be allowed to vote anyway.
Don't worry, I'm not backtracking. Tonight, I'm going to plead futilely for one thing. Please, please do not vote on the sole basis of who will be Prime Minister. According to the statistics I just made up five seconds ago, 70% of young voters aged 18 to 25 vote primarily on who they feel would be a better PM. No, no. This is a mistake. While Prime Ministers have a high level control of things, they have a purely helicopter view that will often overlook many issues that are important to you. Just as much scrutiny will need to be placed on the people that are implementing the party policies, the ones actually doing (or, as it often turns out, not doing).
Secondly, the federal elections are a chance to let the people have a say on how the country will be managed, via the party policies. This is the bread and butter of why your vote matters. It's irrelevant what you think of Howard or Rudd. It's the policies that matter - that's the stuff that will affect your life, not who nominally steers the boat with a million different rowers.
Lastly, please make an effort to study the policies and get the facts from the relevant experts on the matter. Do not believe the spin.
Policy spin debunked (Part 1)
1) Howard/Costello will manage the economy better than Rudd/Swan and keep interest rates lower
Governments have no control over monetary policy and thus interest rates. I have as much control over whether it will rain tomorrow. Interest rates are managed by the RBA (central bank), which determine the cash rate, independent of government policy. Governments can only affect interest rates via fiscal policy (government spending), which are relatively ineffective in a contractionary role (ie reducing inflation) as opposed to monetary policy. Fiscal policy can afight inflation by increasing capacity (labour/capital) but these often have significant time lags, the result being that people will only see the benefit of 4-5 years later, well into the next term.
Whoever you vote for won't matter because Rudd's "me-too"ism policy of aping Coalition tax cuts will mean that both parties will be implementing clearly inflationary taxation policy in the next term.
to be continued..
posted by jaseypoo! @ 10:28 PM
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"They shot my horse!"
"What, like a drive by?"
posted by jaseypoo! @ 7:04 PM
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tales of misadventure in the city of lights.
