Won't somebody think of the Children, the parents maybe?

http://www.news.com.au/technology/unrated-apps-exposing-children-to-suicide-and-sex/story-e6frfro0-1225864243188

“Children exposed to sex and violence yada yada”

This constantly comes up and constantly bugs me.

The latest is a story in today’s Telegraph talking about iPhone apps and how they are getting around Australia’s arcane and increasingly useless ratings systems.

(Why we have not got a R18+ rating for games is beyond me. Anyway that’s not what this is about.)

This is about parents complaining about the things their children are exposed to. First it was television, then the internet and now smart phone apps and after that it will be back to television again. Round and round we go. This bugs me because I don’t think it should be the responsibility of the government to censor things (like the internet. Looking at you Mr. Conroy).

Here is an idea. If you don’t think something is suitable for a child then don’t let your children watch it, play it etc. It is called parental responsibility! Why not try it instead of jumping up and down like a spoilt little brat. A parent should know what their kid watches, plays etc etc. Now doing that means you might have to do some actual parenting. You know like taking an interest in what the young one is doing, like you know actually checking what they are doing on the net and on their phones. Things like I don’t know checking what they watch on TV, what games they are buying. If you are content to let them come home and lock themselves in the room and use the TV etc as a baby sitter then don’t complain when something they see do or play offends you because if you had been doing your job they would not have been doing it in the first place. Actually they probably would still do it they would just not do it at home but rather at their mates place.

Now since I am a father and also a realist I understand that teenagers are going to watch things that I might find offensive and all the best parenting in the world is not going to stop that. I know that soon my teenage daughter will experiment with alcohol and maybe even drugs and sex and I am in fantasy world if I think otherwise. So since I know I can’t really stop her doing this stuff I can only make sure she does not hurt herself and that involves education. Tough conversations that is the parents’ responsibility. So many people want to leave this stuff to the schools but that’s a topic for another day.

The bottom line is that it is not up to the government, or censorship boards to protect children but the job of their parents. Start doing it!

A Pigs Life

A discussion about my time working in a piggery the other day has inspired me to-write this again and share it..

In 1990 in year 10 I sat the School Certificate English exam. The creative writing question had a picture of piglet from Winnie the Pooh hanging upside down from some contraption. Asked to write a piece inspired by said picture I wrote a poem entitled “A Pig’s Life” (I used to fancy myself as a poet and songwriter!) I can’t remember how that poem went but I remember the concept was how a pig’s sole existence is for the purpose of us eating it. I also recall the first and last line and they make the first and last sentence here.

In 2002 when I was actually working in a piggery and understood what a pig actually had done to it in the piggery I rewrote it again with some extra pain for the pig added.

By the way to answer two questions you may have. I got an A and yes I eat pork!

Enjoy.

A PIG’S LIFE

Dark and warm with the eternal drum beating and soothing. The drum beats faster.
Push! What was that? Push! Oh no! Push! I am being pushed. I try and resist, cant, Push! Push! I am sliding, sliding.

Light and cold. There is no drum. Frightening noise is everywhere. Then something wraps around me. It is pink like me. Then I am rising, rising. I see the pink thing that wrapped around me is attached to a massive pink thing which now looks at me with impossibly large eyes.

I realise that I am outside “the mother” and need to join the others near her warmth I wriggle. The big eyed thing does not let me go.

Pain! Oh the pain. My tail is gone. My ears are being cut. My longest teeth are crushed and broken off. I cry.

Then I am back down. I huddle with the others. I am driven to drink from “the mother”. I suck on her warmth and take it into myself. Then I sleep.

My tail hurts, my ears hurt, my teeth hurt. I drink. I sleep. I cry.

Later something in my mind tells me to explore, to dig to run and play. I try but there is nowhere to go. Hard tall things block every direction. I try and jump over but cannot. I sigh. I hurt. I drink and sleep.

The large eyed thing that is pink like me and smells like me but is not me comes again. I remember the pain and try and run but there is nowhere to hide. I squeal and squirm and try and bite, yet I am small. The long thin thing it holds pierces my neck. It is cold, more pain. I am released, I cower. I cry.

Nothing to do nowhere to go, eat and sleep, eat and sleep. There is no room to even play with my brothers and sisters. The big pink thing comes often but does not hurt me again. The light that comes and goes comes and goes.

Then one day when the light is shining the pink thing picks me up again. This time with two of those long gripping things he has instead of feet. He needs two for I am bigger now. I squirm. I kick. Not big enough. I am taken away.

I can smell “the mother”. I try and jump to get back to her. I can’t. I am with others but not the others who came from “the mother.” I am lonely.

Nothing to do and nowhere to play. I eat, I sleep, I cry.

Something else comes with the large eyed pink thing. It is the same shape but not pink. He is brown or yellow or something and his eyes are small. He points his long not feet things and the pink big eyed thing takes some of the others. They do not return. I wonder where they go. Do they get to play and dig and swim? I hope the not pink large eyed thing points at me.

The light that come and goes, comes and goes. I learn it is called the sun. I learn that the pink thing with big eyes is called a man. I learn many things in the weeks since I was taken from the mother. I also forget many things. This box this is my life. Once I had the chance to get out of the box but I stayed. I no longer want the other different coloured man to take me. I try and hide whenever he comes but off course there is nowhere to go.

Eventually the not pink man points at me. The pink man tries to grab me. I bite his fingers. I kick and squeal. I off course cannot run. Then I am out of the box. Then I am out in the light that comes and goes and is called the sun. It is bright. I am put in another box. Hey this is alright. It is smaller and smells different but it is okay. Then a strange rumbling happens and the box is moving. Moving and bouncing. I fall down often. I hurt my knees. I cry. I decide to lie down.

The sun is almost gone when the box stops moving. I get up. The funny coloured man opens our box. Some leave down a slope and into a hole. I don’t move. He hits me with a long stick. It hurts. I move into the hole.

I know straight away this is a terrible place. It smells of blood and death. I try and go back up the hole. I cannot turn around. I sit down. I am hit again. I run and then I am trapped. Something has hold of my neck. Something cold presses to my head. A noise……

Floating. I see my body below. I watch what the men do. I watch until the end. As I decide to leave I wonder. Is this what a pigs life is meant to be, on a butchers hook for all to see?

I cry.

5 rants in one

1)Tony Abott’s maternity leave (vote grabbing) plan .

Interestingly my wife voiced opposition to this stating people should be able to plan and save for a child and the burden should not be on employers. Guess that’s why we are still childless eh?

This plan will never happen. It is just a grab for votes, don’t fall for it people. If Mr. Abbot was actually serious about this he would sit down with Mr Rudd and they could come up with a happy compromise and pass Mr Rudd’s plan through the senate unopposed which BTW is more economically responsible and less open to abuse.

Abuse? Well let me see. If my company makes $5.5 million a year I will now have to pay a 1.7% tax to pay maternal/paternal leave for employees of smaller companies. Guess I will be splitting my company in two then and that woman I was going to employ and pay 75k per year to, well she said in the interview she just got married and even though the single man I interviewed is not quite as good, he is not going to go have a baby and cost me a heap of money.

As for the just married woman she plans to leave the work force as soon as she qualifies for maternity leave so it was a good choice to hire the single man.

Another person who already qualifies has just had a baby and has no intention of returning to work, however they tell their boss they will return and basically rort the company out of six months pay.

2) Julia Gillard’s workplace reforms.

No one will be worse off? Really. Then please explain this. My rate of pay will drop, yes drop by $1.58 per hour from July 1st. Not only that but penalty rates for shift work dropped as well. From 30% down to 15% for night shift and from 15% down to 12.5%. I don't work shift work but some of my friends in the field do.

My boss is putting me up a pay grade to prevent the hourly rate drop but most wont. It would be nice to have a workplace agreement so we could just work it out amongst ourselves. Oh That’s right work choices was killed by the unions who are suspiciously quiet on this bullshit. I like you Gillard but you fucked this right up.

3) Lara Bingle

Maybe I am just a suspicious person but this whole photo thing bothers me. I mean Lara spends most of her time posing nearly naked and I am meant to believe this photo offends her and makes her feel all degraded. She is probably just upset she had no make up on and no airbrushing of tits was done.

Heres the thing Lara has done all the photo shoots she can do in FHM etc, work has dried up
Lara gets herself a new agent. Then a three year old, yep THREE YEAR OLD photo turns up in a magazine. Does anyone really believe Brendon Fevola sat on this photo for three fucking years! Would anyone even still have the phone the photo was on three years later. Come on people the photo was sent by the fucking agent. Am I the only one who can see this.

Now she is all over the paper, she made $200,000 off that photo being printed. Interest will now be renewed in her and she can do a fresh round of photo shoots. That agent Max is a genius!

4) Foxtel.

I like foxtel, had it for years. However they are running a scam. They promote their service as Digital yet only the IQ2 set top box and a few hard to get 480 series IQ1 have a digital video output.

The digital signal is also of poor quality. So shit digital signal in, crappy analogue signal out. My new HD tv really showed how shitty their picture is. I called foxtel and explained to them that I had a serious issue with that. I want an IQ2 and I don’t want to pay the $200 to get it. Best they could do was give it to me for $100. Not really good enough but in the face of NO COMPETITION what was I to do.

More people should complain about this and demand boxes with HDMI otherwise you are not getting the digital picture you are paying for.



5) Wankers who keep undersize fish and leave their mess behind.

If Sydney council bans fishing on all public wharfs and in parks because of you cunt’s I will kill you.

Ethanol is good?

Within the next few months regular unleaded is going to be replaced by E10. That is a 10% ethanol petrol blend. The purported reasoning for this is that ethanol is an environmentally friendly renewable energy source and E10 is cheaper.

I don’t buy this bullshit.

Can someone show me how ethanol will in any way significantly reduce CO2 emissions or be any good for the environment? Some argue that the CO2 produced by burning ethanol is taken back in by the plants grown to produce it in the first place. Okay that’s good for the environment right? But what about the fact that land is going to need to be cleared to grow the crops needed for these plants. A forest removes more CO2 then a field of wheat or corn. Not to mention the environmental damage done by modern farming practises, fertilizers, pesticides etc.

Then off course you have to ferment the plants and dump all that waste, then you have to distil it (using more energy) then you have to ship it and by the time I get it it has made no difference to C02 emissions whatsoever whilst damaging the environment in other ways.

There is only so much arable land. Already soy bean prices have soared as farmers in the USA opt to grow corn to make ethanol instead, thus reducing soy bean supply. The ever enterprising Brazilians are chopping down a few trees to grow soy beans to fill this void. That forest they have is pretty big I am sure clearing a few thousand acres won’t hurt it. After all there are still three million square kilometres left. Hang on in 1970 there was four million acres. Well 75% of it is still left and I am sure they’ll stop clearing it eventually.

But it has less harmful emissions and no benzene. Oh really.

Form Wiki...

“Ethanol combustion in an internal combustion engine yields many of the products of incomplete combustion produced by gasoline and significantly larger amounts of formaldehyde and related species such as acetaldehyde. This leads to a significantly larger photochemical reactivity that generates much more ground level ozone. These data have been assembled into The Clean Fuels Report comparison of fuel emissions[30] and show that ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times as much ozone as does gasoline exhaust. When this is added into the custom "Localised Pollution Index (LPI)" of The Clean Fuels Report the local pollution, i.e. that which contributes to smog, is 1.7 on a scale where gasoline is 1.0 and higher numbers signify greater pollution.”

WTF. It is no better just different.

But it is cheaper. Yeah for now. Already pundits expect E10 prices to jump by four cents once regular unleaded is phased out. Basic supply and demand principles people. Another thing that bothers me is what affect this will have on wheat prices. 90% of Australia’s Ethanol is produced from wheat. It also is made from sugar cane and corn. Again basic supply and demand. Wheat, corn and sugar prices will go up. Good for the farmer but not for those that like to eat.

It is also less efficient then straight petrol so you need more of it to go the same distance. How is this cheaper again?

It is widely reported that the corn needed to make one tank of fuel for a 4wd could feed a person for a year.

There is debate as to whether Ethanol is actually a net energy gain.

Ethanol is a rort. It will not reduce greenhouse gasses, it will cause damage to the environment like deforestation and it will drive up food prices. How come sheeple buy that this is a good thing? I don’t understand why it is being pushed so hard. Who benefits? We don’t and nor does the environment.

Is Fifty Over Cricket Dead?

There are many that see the rise of twenty over cricket as the death knell for the fifty over form of the game. This summer in Australia the domestic T20 tournament has smashed the ODI format of the game in relation to crowd numbers. Traditionally Australians have never given a fuck about domestic cricket. No one goes to shield matches except parents and significant others, few go to domestic 50 over games. This year however the Big Bash has outdrew the ODI’s by many thousands. The biggest crowd of the summer so far was for the T20 vs. Pakistan. Not one ODI this season has sold out and that is bad.

Last nights game at The Adelaide Oval was the lowest crowd ever for a fifty over game at the ground, a measly eight thousand.

I don’t think 50 over cricket is dead just yet but the real test will be this years Ashes series. We play seven ODI’s and if these don’t draw then Cricket Australia will have a problem.

I don’t think fifty over cricket will ever die but the bottom line is that money talks. It is inevitable that we will see fewer ODI’s and more T20’s. I don’t mind the twenty over format of the game but being a purist test cricket is where it is at for me.

My concern about the rising popularity of T20 is the long term effects it will have on the game. As it grows in popularity more and more junior players will learn that you should try and belt every ball for a boundary and bowlers will learn to bowl full and straight and nothing else. This will impact on future test players who will have learnt nothing of the skill, finesse and patience needed for test cricket.

That is why it is vital that The Sheffield Shield not be tampered with. If you want to make room for more T20 game then axe Ford Ranger Cup games because no one cares about them anyway

The Population Problem

Take a look at this chart.


It represents human population growth for the last thousand years. You will notice that in the last forty years our population has doubled. For the forty odd thousand years prior to the Year 1000 our population was steady at about three hundred thousand. As technology improved our population grew and grew and grew. This is unsustainable growth.

In nature it is not unusual for animal populations to explode when environmental conditions are good, inevitably though what the environment giveth the environment taketh away. A good example of this is mice plagues in Australia. When conditions are good the mice breed like crazy. Mice are everywhere. They eat everything in site and then when drought inevitable returns they starve to death.

Hence our population has exploded because conditions are good. The main thing that has made things so good is oil. We are totally reliant on oil. It is the base of all our plastics, all our fertilisers and the thing we run all of our machines son. It is estimated that ten calories of oil energy is used for every one calorie of food produced in the western world.

Oil is running out. It is my opinion that we are currently at the plateau of oil production. That is peak oil. Canadian oil sands and unconventional oil are not the answer as the energy put into extraction is more than the energy that you get out. When we get to the point of having to rely on them then oil will be too expensive anyway. Many will tout alternate energy as the answer but that is just bullshit. It is not just about energy and BTW electricity is not an energy source, electricity is created from some other energy source and if we don’t have oil how they going to make your electric car? How will they make the plastic for your car? The tyres?

Ethanol. Some say ethanol is an alternate energy source. I pity them. There is not enough arable land to grow enough corn to produce enough ethanol to even power one country like the USA, at least not if you want to grow food too.

There is no alternative energy source that can do for us what oil has. It is fantasy to think there is. When the oil runs out or becomes prohibitively expensive so our good time ends and people start starving until eventually we are back to that sustainable population of less than one billion.

Nothing can prevent the inevitable collapse. Our population will double again within thirty years and speed up the depletion of oil exponentially. Even if we kill off five billion people today then it only delays the inevitable. The collapse will be slow and painful and it has already started. Open your eyes and you’ll see.

2010 Predictions

Thinking that this year will be fairly quiet. So here are my predictions.

1)There is more debt in the world, than money available to pay that debt. The debt can never ever be repaid. All the government stimulus is just delaying the inevitable. This is unsustainable economics and it eventually must collapse. It will begin with the US dollar becoming nearly worthless. The entire collapse won’t happen this year but here are some signs to look out for:

-More countries will stop accepting payment in USD for goods and debt repayments
-Oil price will become based in Euros not USD

-Small Finace companies (who did not get anybailout money BTW) will continue to quietly fold.


2) Obama will get health care reform passed and then be killed
3) Ricky Ponting will announce his retirement at the end of the ASHES.
4) Wrestling fans will continue to whine about the product rather than just stop watching like I did.
5) The big one will hit LA.
6) Israel will pre-emptively strike Iranian nuclear facilities. (it is a sure thing this year)
7) Life will be found on Mars

Like I said pretty quiet year coming up. The real shit won’t hit the fan until November 2011