The World Is Drowning In Lies!

Trying to act responsibly and keep one's blog on top of world issues is a difficult if not impossible task. The reason? The world is being engulfed by a tsunami of lies: big, small, white, black, trivial, profound, you name it!

Every crisis in the world is, like an onion, surrounded by layers and layers of lies, half-lies, exaggerations, distortions, and deliberate spin. Somewhere in the mix is the truth (or at least part of it) but usually it's well hidden.

Everyone it seems is involved in lying: politicians, priests, entrepreneurs, salespeople, Sunday school teachers, television commentators, journalists, bankers, military commanders, lawyers, etc. Some people are truly professional liars, naturals at it. Many more are amateurs. Some people are actually trained in the art of deception, the art of spinning yarns, or avoiding telling the truth. Visit any court room or chamber in parliament!

Given this fact, how then can any serious blog publisher feel confident about presenting accurate posts on any world issue let alone a string of different ones? Even if I concentrated on one issue, say highlighting the way that Zionism affects the foreign policy decision of the United States, I could spend my every waking hour for a year trying to sift through all the evidence, all the mendacity, all the obfuscation, all the rumours, all the views, all the intrigues and conspiracy theories and still end up little the wiser.

At times, the task of being informed seems far too daunting and it is becoming more so by the day.

The universal penchant for lying doesn't help!

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Why Don't Americans Get Rid of The Presidency?

Friends, nearly every time I turn on CNN I find news segments that concern the election of the next President of the United States in 2008.

There appear to be frantic wall-to-wall debates and discussions about this candidate and that from the Republican or Democrat Parties and excited gossip about which celebrity has endorsed which candidate and heated arguments about whether Obama will best Clinton or about whether Guiliani's past (wearing drag) will catch up with him, etc.

Given the dangerous fiasco that has been visited upon both America and the world by that feeble-minded megalomaniac George W Bush (which is not yet over), I would've thought that the major preoccupation of both the media and the American public should be discussing how to get rid of the office of the President rather than potentially electing yet another fool.

Australians have just had a bad experience with John Howard. But at least he wasn't running around the world threatening to use nukes or invading and occupying other countries (although he did help George to do so in a minor way). And, deservedly, both he and his government were thrown out on their butts last Saturday. But in America, the President can control or ignore the elected government!

Surely giving one man so much power is like playing with a loaded gun. And everyone with half a brain knows and accepts that power corrupts and too much power corrupts absolutely. And everyone in America knows from recent experience that even when they elected a Democrat majority in the Congress and the Senate, their Republican President ignored their clear message of disapproval about Iraq and other things and continued on his merry despotic way.

Surely it's time for Americans to look closely at their Constitution and ask themselves the following questions:
- is our Constitution still valid in the year 2007?
- Do we really need a Presidential bureaucracy that sits on top of the elected Government?
- Do we need to run the risk that the next President might actually be worse than George W Bush?
- Do we really need a President at all?

Speaking as an Australian, I for one would be very glad if America didn't have an all-powerful President.

In fact it would be far better for the entire world if America had no President at all!

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Will We Discover The God-Gene In Time?

Friends, during the writing of the previous post, I was struck by what can be seen as the sad plight of the Jewish people throughout history.

Over millenia their strong involvement with their religion has involved them in endless trouble. They have been hated for centuries in part because they set themselves apart, called themselves The Children of God. They then suffered the Holocaust.

Now, in endeavoring to re-create a homeland they once occupied thousands of years ago, they are again hated by many because of their religiously-inspired, extremely brutal, repressive behavior. Why don't they change themselves, become affable, secular good-old-boys? The answer is that they can't! They've got religion.

What causes people to accept at face value fantastic primitive beliefs that are supported by no scientific evidence? Believers not only accept incredible theological propositions but they run their whole lives on the basis of them being true and they bring up their children to accept the same beliefs. What is most surprising is that they continue with their beliefs (which includes fanciful notions of immortality) despite the fact that billions of other people have entirely different beliefs and gods.

The very number of different gods would suggest to a rational mind that two plus two don't make four, that they can't all be right, even that they might all be wrong! For example:

-3.6 billion people follow Abrahamic religions (Christianity 2.1 billion, Islam 1.5 billion, Judaism 14 million, Bahai 7 million).

-1.4 billion folk follow Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism) and

- 0.5 billion people are involved with Far Eastern religions (Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, etc). There are of course many other splinter groups.

That makes up a total of 5.5 billion people which is most of the world's population of 6+ billion (figures from Wiki)! Is it any wonder there is such division in the world?

I wonder if one day scientists will discover the gene that predisposes humans to believe in this or that God? I wonder how different mankind would be if there were no gene that allows religion to take root and flourish or if that gene was to be removed from the human gene pool. I suspect the world would be a much more peaceful place.

For example 14 million Jews probably wouldn't be putting the world in the position of an imminent nuclear war! And Christian America, claiming God is on its side, probably wouldn't be trying to form a dominant empire using military force. And Muslims probably wouldn't be seeking to create an Islamic Caliphate!

Let's find the God-Gene before it's too late, get rid of it!

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Annapolis - The Farce Continues!

"Meanwhile...back in Gaza!"

Well, yet another meeting has been convened to discuss the Palestinian tragedy. The latest talkfest, one organized by that well-known world peacemaker George Bush, will end up like all the others: full of sound and fury achieving absolutely nothing.

How can the issue be resolved when America and Israel hold all the cards, when Palestine is still under the crushing yoke of a brutal forty-year occupation, when the strategic and military goals of both America and Israel do not include a sovereign, independent Palestinian nation.

How can a resolution be achieved when Jews in Israel and elsewhere are praying that the talks fail, that they don't have to give any land back or close any settlements, that they alone will control Jerusalem, that they will remain the lone, regional military superpower, that they will achieve their dream of a Greater Israel, a fitting place for the fanatical Children of God, etc?

How can a resolution be achieved when Abbas is part of a government that was voted out of office by the Palestinian people (Fatah), when he is seen by many Palestinians as a weak collaborator who, unlike Arafat, has a history of fawning to both Israel and America, when he is strongly opposed by Hamas (the legitimate Palestinian government)?

The political farce continues. The cruel occupation continues. The terrible injustice continues. The calculated genocide and dispossession continues.

Meanwhile America and Israel, the conscienceless architects, remain unmoved and unpunished.

UPDATE: 28/11/2007

- The peace meeting is being held in an American Naval Academy. Ironic, eh?

- Mr Olmert is said to have said that 'he had come to Annapolis despite the obstacles posed by continuing violence against the people of Israel'.

Hang on, but isn't Israel an occupying power, the one that kills Palestinians at will, who keeps them incarcerated in barbwire cages, surrounds them with concrete walls, starves them, takes their land, bulldozes their houses, imprisons them without charge, etc? Perhaps that's why the Palestinians don't like Israelis and seek to do them harm. Just a thought!

Someone should tell Olmert.

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Bernie Banton - A Hero Of The People!

Friends, a matter of hours ago Bernie Banton, aged 61, died. Who the hell is Bernie Banton you may ask if you're from overseas?

He was a victim of asbestosis, one who, despite the fact that he was dying from the disease, with Union help, took on James Hardie, one of the world's biggest building products companies on behalf of all those who contracted asbestosis while working for the company or through using their once dangerous products.

James Hardie, in common with most capitalist companies whose products have been found to dangerous, fought the claims being made against it by their ex-factory worker. They even moved to Holland in an effort to avoid their responsibility. But finally, after years of legal action, justice prevailed and a large fund was set up to compensate those whose lives were cut short or made miserable by the lethal asbestos fibres which Hardies once used in their sheeting and cladding products (products which I also used during an early part of my life and which could yet affect my own health).

Bernie's life shows what can be done by an ordinary, humble person if they have enough conviction. It also shows the importance of unions in protecting the rights of workers. And it also clearly demonstrates the general soullessness of legal entities called 'companies' and why they must be held to account for the damage they all too often cause to workers, consumers and the environment in their obsession with making profits.

Bernie, a battler who battled so hard for others for so long, is to be given a State funeral.

P.S. His passing is a far, far greater loss than the recent demise of John Howard and his whole Party!

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Hope Burns Brightly Again!

Australia has voted.

Evil has been defeated.

The candle of hope has been relit.

Together, let's cup our hands around it!

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Whither Goest We?

Tomorrow Australia votes. The polls have narrowed for reasons unknown and there is now a chance that Howard might just creep over the line. We are indeed at the crossroads!

To my mind, a Howard victory signals the end of this country as a place of the 'Fair-Go', a place that's more egalitarian than not, a place that I grew up in and loved despite its flaws. It will signal that we've become like a junior version of America, a place where right-wing politicians grow ever stronger, where the gap between the rich and the poor widens, where the law of the jungle prevails, where Big Business will increasingly pull the strings, where workers will continue to lose wages and conditions, where citizens will continue to lose their civil rights, where lip-service will be paid to climate change, where the wealthy will continue to receive ever more welfare and tax breaks, where rich private schools will prosper further while public education declines, etc.

Tomorrow, Australian voters of all ages and backgrounds will set the future direction of the country. For too many, voting will be more a matter of acting out of self-interest than in the national interest. Many more will vote out of habit or will cast a vote even though they know little about the important social, political and economic issues that lie ominously just beneath the surface.

I can scarcely breathe!

UPDATE: Saturday -10.pm - THE POLITICAL DARKNESS IN AUSTRALIA HAS COME TO AN END!!!!!!!

THE RIGHT-WING COALITION HAS LOST BIGTIME AND HOWARD MAY LOSE HIS SEAT AS WELL. JUSTICE AT LAST.

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Serenity - Does It Exist?

In our world, with its instant communication, it's not easy to find serenity.

With envy, I think often of rural England where people lived their whole lives in small villages. Though familiar with the local area within walking distance, they knew little or nothing about the rest of the world. For them it didn't exist.

They lived simply, were part of a community, danced around the maypole on festive occasions, perhaps walked to the next village to buy a cow or to sell a sheep and maybe they drank a pint at the local tavern once the day's work was done. Their world was small, sometimes harsh, but at least it was comprehensible.

They weren't bombarded on an hourly basis by stress-inducing news of earthquakes, floods, droughts, mass starvation, aids deaths, Wall Street collapses, bizarre murders, wars, global warming, cancer rates, slick commercials, sports results, coups, hurricanes, etc, all blaring at them from television sets, radios, mobile phones... AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Wherever you are why don't you turn off all noise sources then enlarge the photograph and, taking in each beautiful detail, spend some time imagining yourself floating on you own in the basket of one of the balloons. There is no sound and, beneath you, a peaceful world passes slowly by as you look down from your safe vantage point.

You begin to feel detached, calm, serene, as if you have become disconnected from the tumult of the world which, for you, no longer exists. There's only the warmth of the sun, the sound of the wind, the distant cry of soaring birds. It's as if you've become weightless and free, like a cloud...

Slowly, slowly you are surrounded by peace. You breathe it in. It fills your lungs, spreads...

There. Serenity is yours.

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Australian Democracy Under Threat!

Friends, this disturbing rather gross photograph symbolizes to me what the reality will be for Australia if, on Saturday, the Howard Government is returned to office.

The photograph shows a python that has just swallowed a whole sheep. To me it will represent the swallowing of democracy in Australia by John Howard and the Liberal (Conservative) Government and its entrepreneurial supporters.

For democracy to work:

- Each voter, ideally, should be educated, mature, intelligent, interested in politics, rational, and altruistic. How many people do you know like that?

- It also requires having a media that presents the truth about the political process, media that is objective, factual, that does not have a profit motive or is not tied in with Big Business. Know of any media organization like that?

- It also requires politicians to be honest, unselfish, to tell the truth, to admit to their failures and shortcomings, their hidden agendas. Know of any?

Shortcomings in any of these areas allow manipulation of the election outcome. To have shortcomings in all three makes a complete joke of the whole process.

Saturday is a day of reckoning in my country. I stand on a knife-edge!

The Merchants Of Menace!

These two men, Prime Minister John Howard and his heir apparent Treasurer Peter Costello, have decided during the remaining six days of the election to scare the pants off all Australian voters. Without any regard for the truth or rational argument they are both promising, hands on hearts and with serious faces, that, if they are not elected, Australia is finished. Unfortunately, some Australians will believe their incredible lies!

If you look closely at the excellent photograph, what both these men are is clearly shown on their faces. They are both grasping opportunists. They both love power and are obsessively ambitious. They both believe that the ends justify any means. They are both elitists who love the company and the favour of the rich. They are both extremely egocentric and have cutting tongues. And they are both lawyers.

But there is one major difference. The one wearing the glasses is far more despotic, has a larger store of rat-like cunning, has more a killer instinct. Resultantly he has kept the Treasurer on a leash for nearly twelve years and thwarted his ambition to slide into the top job.

To further demonstrate his power, Howard, if re-elected, has promised to hand over the Prime Ministership to his Treasurer at some stage during the next three years. So a vote for Howard is a vote for Costello: The Howardellos! Two megalomaniacs for the price of one!

Australia sits on a precipice. It may be a rich country but, under Howard and Costello, the Merchants of Menace, it has lost its soul. It is now a divided country economically, politically and socially.

Will we be saved from them and the right-wing darkness they represent?

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Monkey Business!

"Psssst Angela! Do you think she needs a boob job?"

"Waste of bananas. Her husband has just outed himself!"

"Mum! What's outed mean? Is it cricket?"

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Machievellian Man - What Does He Know?

Friends, I just saw a late afternoon interview with John Howard. He does not look like a man who is way behind in the polls, one who is facing an electoral rout tomorrow week. In fact, he looks like the mouse that's swallowed the cheese!

He laughed and joked with the media contingent as if it were nothing more than a pleasant social occasion. He parried their pointed questions in a jocular fashion. Given that he's not a good actor I can only surmise that he knows something that we, the voters, don't! The following is a partial list of guesses:

- He has got the nod from a major Media Mogul (one like Murdoch) that he is going to get full support during the last week.
- He has received recent knowledge about the Coalition success at targeting marginal seats with bribes which will ensure that he will win even though he falls far short of winning the popular vote.
- He has got some dirt on some senior members of the Opposition including Kevin Rudd which he'll reveal over the weekend.
- He has got the nod from the Christian Churches.
- He has got some financial analysis from somewhere which suggests that Labor cannot fund its promises.
- He has received some advance information from the Bush Administration about an attack on Iran next week (which could involve Israel) or about some planned terrorist attack in Australia during the next few days. This will allow him to play yet another fear card (along with union thuggery, rising interest rates and unemployment, a collapsing economy, etc).
- All of the above! Perhaps you have some other suggestions.

If Howard wins this election then democracy in Australia is truly dead and buried and we are firmly in the hands of right-wing Philistines.

I am very afraid both for me and my country!

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Do Humans Have A Future?

The photograph shows a futuristic depiction of a city. Undoubtedly, humans have the technological intelligence to create such a place.

But what about their psychological capacity to adjust to a completely new world, to re-invent themselves, to leave their primitive, superstitious, flawed, ego-centric, erratic, habit-ridden nature behind?

My feeling is that humans are not capable of adjusting. Most people, whether because of genetics or environment or both, are highly resistant to change. They appear to be permanently locked into the past and, like parrots, when challenged they merely regurgitate what they have been taught or what they believe. Their minds are enclosed boxes, ones where the light of originality can never penetrate.

In blogging terms, such people often peddle self-indulgent trivia because serious issues are beyond their intellectual or moral capabilities. But they are very fond of pontificating should anyone dare question their static thinking!

More importantly however, the real problem for mankind arises when the technological dimension outstrips the psychological dimension. By this I mean that, currently, we have the weapons to completely destroy our planet many times over but we don't have the maturity to handle such dangerous things as nuclear missiles and star-wars systems.

It's like silly children playing with matches alongside an open forty-four gallon drum of petrol.

Catastrophe is just a matter of time!

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If You Can't Do Anything - Teach!

"And if you absorb everything I tell you verbatim AND pass my exams, eventually you'll end up a dynamic force in society just like me!"

Friends, the photograph shows what is happening in classrooms all over the world. It's hard to imagine students leaving this room with their thinking processes on fire. It is an environment which encourages...no, demands conformity. It's hard to imagine that an original thought has ever occurred here.

Perhaps our stultifying 'education' system is responsible for the almost universal human inability to think, to join the dots. It might also help to explain why most humans are predictable 'status quoers' who will run a mile rather than consider a new idea or re-evaluate an old one!

Perhaps we need to change the educational paradigm completely, get rid of the brain-dead, the mediocre, the appeasing conformists, the up-themselves academic elitists.

Perhaps teachers should be chosen purely on the basis of the successes they've had in the real world, give students decent role-models for a change.

P.S. I feel a tsunami of 'status quoer' protest stirring. Perhaps I'd better hide under the bed!

Naaaaah. Stuff them! They're small-minded troglodytes anyway.

This Farce Called Democracy!

"Now, which party is promising us the most this time?"

Friends, the election in Australia grinds on and John Howard outdoes himself each day in duplicity and fear-mongering. Each sunrise brings new promises, new lies.

If we take out the rusted-on (those who always vote the same way) conservatives (Liberals) and liberals (Labor), this election will be decided by the swinging voters some of whom are shown in Van Gogh's illuminating painting called 'The Potato Eaters.'

Now swinging voters fall into three groups: the educated, altruistic group who vote for who they think will best run the country; and the educated, selfish group who will vote for whichever party will make them richer. These two divergent groups tend to cancel each other out though, under capitalism, the numbers in the latter group tend to keep rising.

The third group, who hold the key to victory, comprise the morons who know nothing about politics. Those of them who can read will wait to scan the newspaper headlines on voting day to see which party seems to offer them the most in bribes. They will tick them accordingly (providing they can work out which is the top and which is the bottom of the ballot paper). Those who can't read will wait for their minders to fill the form in for them.

Ah, Democracy, if only the Ancient Greeks could see what a mockery we have made of Thee!

Creatures Of Habit?

Over a long period of time I've noticed that should I or anyone else propose a complete change to some of the established but flawed systems that prevail in our conflicted world, immediately there will be an outcry.

Many people will offer a thousand reasons, some of them wildly irrational or emotive, as to why the status quo cannot and should not be changed (except perhaps at the edges). This seems to apply regardless of whether the suggested changes concern politics, economic systems, theological beliefs, social morays, nationalistic extremism, etc.

Of course to think, to re-assess one's attitudes and values, to initiate or accept change, requires energy. For most it seems too much of a disruption. It would seem as if our imitative (Pavlov's dog) upbringing teaches us to become, not vital, intellectual, questioning, creative, lateral-thinking beings throughout our lives, but dull, predictable creatures of habit (like sheep). As such, we are easily manipulated.

Worse, as long as most people are held captive by habit, the world will never change for the better (which obviously suits those who neglect or abuse their children, or who profit from war or theological superstition or political power, etc).

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We Should Remember Them!

This painting (click to enlarge) illustrates a Roman gladiatorial contest, one where men used to fight each other to the death for the public's entertainment. At the end of a contest the person who had gained the ascendancy looked around him to see whether thumbs up or thumbs down was the verdict! Thumbs down meant his threatening sword would quickly end the life of his hapless opponent. Perhaps only boxing and bullfights still survive to remind us of this ancient barbarity.

On Remembrance Day, in Western Nations, all those who served their country and died in war are remembered. But in war's gargantuan barbarity, what about the civilians who died? What about the women who were raped? What about the children who were maimed or disfigured? What about those who have died or who are still dying from radioactivity? What about those who were or are emotionally scarred? What about the wars that still rage with more waiting in the wings to begin?

Killing, whether it is done in the name of defence or imperialism or profit or entertainment diminishes us all.

Killing must never be glorified but instead should be strongly condemned!

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Parenting Is Not For Everyone!

Recently, in Australia, two children have been found dead. One, a two-year old boy, was found in a suitcase discovered floating in a duckpond. The other, a seven-year old girl, was found starved to death. She weighed only nine kilos! The Department of Community Services was aware of serious problems with the families of both children. They failed to protect them!

Cases like these occur the world over. Surely it must be accepted that not every adult, male or female, is capable of carrying the responsibility of being a parent.

In fact, some people should never be allowed to have children. They should be sterilized before they can inflict needless suffering upon innocent kids.

Being a parent should be a privilege not a right. It is a privilege that should have to be earned then monitored!

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UPDATE: 13/11/2007.

According to the news today, a three-year old girl was taken to hospital last night. She had been bashed in her home and had severe facial injures. Her parents are being interviewed by police.

How much longer will our society allow such criminal brutality and/or neglect involving children to continue? Answer: because of conscienceless apathy, probably forever!

Howard's End?

This sketch shows two typical voters who will give the nod once again to John Howard at the election in two weeks time.

By adopting a head-in-the-sand posture they will avoid any reminder of what has happened during the 11 centuries...sorry, years that John Howard has been serving his rich masters and himself...sorry, his fellow Australians. By burying their heads, they will block out all memory of the continuing tsunami of lies that Howard has told during his Prime Ministership, his selling of Australia to Bush for a handful of nickels, and his taking us to war in Iraq against our wishes.

As well, they will ignore the six interest rate rises since the last election where John promised to keep interest rates at thirty year lows to say nothing of the draconian Industrial Relations Laws which were not mentioned during the last election but which were rushed through Parliament without debate once Howard realized he had control of the Senate as well as the Lower House. These laws, in the main, have stripped away worker's rights, lowered their wages and made them pawns of their avaricious employers.

Howard, during this election campaign, using millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, has promised that, if he's not elected, the sky will fall, that members of the opposition Labor Party will eat small children, that interest rates will skyrocket, that nearly everyone will become unemployed, that Australia will become a Third World Country, a huge desert fit only for scorpions and snakes and we'll probably be hit by a huge asteroid!

Yes, Folks, there are many Australians like the two in the sketch. Many of them are rich. Some of them are dopey. The question is: are there more of them than us?

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Please Don't Cry, Darling!

"You may be an ugly zoo baby but at least you know what you are! Spare a thought for all those poor human children who must eventually decide whether to be straight, gay, bi-sexual, transvestites, transsexuals or celibate!"

As a mature adult with some intelligence and education, I still have difficulty making any sense of the world I live in. As a child however, things for me were fairly ordered, even comprehensible. There was right and there was wrong and the line between them was very clear.

I often wonder how modern children manage to cope with the continual chaos that surrounds them, with the seemingly infinite number of different choices they are faced with. They also have numbers of conflicting pressures coming from parents, teachers, television, peers, magazines, etc. Somehow they must endure all these things, somehow survive them as they stumble towards adulthood.

Sometimes adults, in their rush to justify or rationalize their own life choices or to support trendy causes, seem to forget completely about how vulnerable children really are.

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Seeking Beauty!

There's incredible, breathtaking beauty in the world.

There's beauty within some humans too.

Seek and you will find!

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A Matter Of Choice!

"Wonder what I'll be when I grow up? A baked dinner or a casserole?"

While looking for this photograph I came across another one that showed hundreds of day-old chicks that had been gassed. Their tiny bodies were destined for restaurants where they are served as a delicacy to discerning patrons.

Now I understand why some people become vegetarians.

It Must Be Election Time!

"What??? Ask your mother what pork barreling means, Son! Dad's...er...busy."

The election in Australia grinds on. Politicians are throwing around billions of dollars in an attempt to buy an election victory. Grunter Howard and Squealer Rudd are in a bidding war of gargantuan proportions. Lies rain down like confetti at a socialite wedding.

Those who carry out polls are in seventh heaven. People who take bets on the election outcome are having a field day. Television channels run profitable election advertisements ad nauseam while the voters yawn and switch off both mentally and physically. The birth rate will go up soon. Sweet and sour pork is being taken off menus in Chinese restaurants.

Only three more weeks of pork barreling and undeliverable promises to go.

Bring it on!

Some Things Never Change!

"What do you mean, I'M too black and white?"

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