The Chronicles Of…

I’m confused and annoyed.

We’re about to have a Federal election, and I honestly have no idea who to vote for. Both of the major parties are fairly disappointing to say the least, and the smaller parties have been getting on my nerves for a while now as well. I don’t want to make some statement like “all pollies are liars, so what does it matter who you vote for anyway”, but at the moment I feel a bit like that.

Labor started out so strong in 2007, and I actually felt like there was a bit of hope after the Evil Empire had been defeated. But how was I to know that we were actually only at a bit of an ‘Empire Strikes Back’ moment, where everything was about to come crashing down, and all that good work was being undone by internal conflict? I should have guessed, I suppose. The Unions were never going to stand for being shoved back into the industrial realm, and then we had Kev backpedalling on climate change, and the Peter Garrett roof insulation fiasco.

…and then we got our first female PM! Which was exciting, even if she wasn’t a smooth media (“moooodia?”) type. I’m all for substance over style, policies over personality, and statements over soundbytes, but you have to admit she’s a bit embarrassing. I mean, I suppose she’s representing a large portion of our community (tuck shop ladies in outer suburban primary schools?), but on the international stage..? Kev could speak Chinese (although sometimes it was just as hard to understand him when he spoke English), so at least he had something to work with when it came to regional powerhouses. I’m just worried that on her first overseas trip to somewhere in Asia, the local government will mistake her for that other red-headed female of Australian politics over the last few years, and think that we’ve finally voted in One Nation. We’ll be at war before she gets out of the airport.

And then we’ve got big Tony over on the other side of the fence. By all accounts (in last weekend’s Herald), he’s quite a nice bloke in person, and has friends from all sides of politics. But again, I’m not certain that I want him representing me. So far he seems to be doing his best to start up “The Australian John Howard Show” tribute act, which might be popular in some circles, but doesn’t fill me with confidence. The man lied repeatedly about fairly significant issues, and used those lies to build fear which in turn won elections (yay Australia!). I don’t want to vote Liberal just to ‘punish Labor’, if it means we get three more years of the Howard legacy.

The Greens seem to have a few things going well for them, but they’re not going to actually win, and giving them more seats will just mean Bob Brown gets even more smug. If smugness was radioactive, no one would ever be able to go to Tasmania again without all their hair falling out. Bob Brown has a halflife of about 200,000 years. It’s gotten to the point where I just cannot listen to him without screaming abuse at the radio/tv/internet. It wouldn’t matter if he was promising to give me bags of cash if I could just agree with him that the sky is blue, I would have to disagree out of sheer stubbornness. Which I recognise is why I’m also a massive hypocrite, and should never nominate for public office.

The Democrats were going to “keep the bastards honest”, then had the world’s most public domestic and killed each other off before they actually achieved very much at all. Thanks folks. At least Natasha Stott Despoja wore Doc Martin boots in parliament. That showed ‘em.

In any case, I live in a safe Liberal seat, so it’s not like my vote is going to actually mean all that much. I just like the idea that I’m participating in a genuinely important act by voting. Maybe I should just vote for one of the ‘little guys’, like the “Three Day Weekend Party”. That way I could be certain that some public funds would end up in the hands of a person who doesn’t really take the whole process too seriously… oh wait, hang on…

Why can’t we just have independant candidates, who say what they actually mean, and who genuinely want to help their nation, rather than set themselves up for a great superannuation plan? Is that really too much to ask? Really?

There were some there who wanted to stop the boats of refugees coming in Australia so Jesus told them this parable:

Jesus said “There was once an orphanage that housed many children. Some orphans would find a new family in a new place if they went through the official adoption process that took many years.”

Jesus continued “One day the orphanage came under new management by evil men. One night the new managers set fire to the orphanage saying ‘we will destroy the building, kill the children and rebuild’. And there was a great and terrible fire. That night the children tried to flee the flames and seek shelter with a new family in a new place. Many children perished but some managed to escape and reached a new place of shelter that was open and spacious with many empty rooms, but the people who lived in that place said to themselves ‘Who are all these children? They have not come to us through the official adoption process. Surely they will fill up our empty rooms and spacious grounds! We must turn them back from here and ill treat them that they may warn others not to come to our land.’

So the people of that place turned some of the children around and sent them back into the fire where they perished. Others they locked in small cages for many years before also sending them back into the great fire where they too perished.”

Those standing near by were outraged by this and said “Teacher, why tell us this parable? This is a terrible and monstrous act! May the Lord bring judgment upon those wicked men and the people of that land for this injustice!”

Jesus said “Truly I tell you, you are the people of that land! You brood of vipers, you evil snakes! You enjoy this spacious land with many empty rooms!”

If you like this parable why not email it to Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au and Julia.Gillard.MP@aph.gov.au

This is a rant I should have had a long time ago, I’m not happy for many reasons and here they are… by the way, I’m not always the most informed of people so feel free to point out inaccuracies in the following…

It all started with the announcement of a 62% rise in electricity over 3 years last December. I was appalled at this, 62% is a bloody lot. So I’m thinking how the heck am I going to afford that!! My energy bill can currently be over $300 a quarter and that is hard enough to find, let alone that plus 62% which would be $486 and sometimes my bill is a fair way over the $300 mark.

I try and cut back where I can on electricity but right now I live in a house I can afford which means that I live in a much older house that’s not really great at retaining heat and I have 2 kids. The so that my kids don’t get sick I need to keep them warm at night which means running heaters in both their rooms for the entire night. (I chose the most energy efficient heaters we could afford, but still its a lot of electricity…)

So I started to thnk that I might start to struggle to meet bills a little more than normal… and then I had a thought… what about all the families out there with less income then our household?? living in houses similar or worst then ours with higher heating bills. Even if they don’t have higher heating bills, so what, whatever their electricity bill is now it will increase by 62%. Stupid.

They don’t have money to go and change appliances to versions that run on other cheaper sources or are more energy efficient.

I don’t know, maybe I missing something, but when it comes down to it, how can you increase a necessity like that by so much?! And then not increase the cost of living scale or whatever it is that increases peoples wages.

Do I also have to mention how Dubbo wants to increase the cost of water by a massive percentage as well, or the way that in 2008 they weren’t allowed to raise rates which was the first time since 2002 that there hadn’t been a rate rise!!

And they want to attract people to country towns…

Another old rant worth bringing up now is the way that they ask us to cut back on resources then increase the cost of those rescources as we aren’t using enough…

I’d like to make a suggestion, how about the use of a little forward planning… If you are going to ask us to use less of something then think about how that will effect the states/country’s income and work out what you will do to combat that, be creative too, don’t just hit the same suckers who are already living tight, or living in debt actually, just because it’s basically the easiest option.

I’m not always the best at putting words to paper, but I hope this has been clear enough.

You’re that guy… Who waits until just after Council Cleanup day, and then puts a load of rubbish out on the street, which you just know is going to stay there for months, because there’s no way the garbage collectors will pick that lot up.

I read this on the SMH website earlier, and was reminded again how frustrating the world can be. I’m trying hard to see this from the side of the people who were quoted in the article, but I’m just stuck…

”I purely blame police for it. He’s getting chased and that’s what young people do. They get scared and they take off,”

”You have to ask who’s responsible … in some part it’s the driver for doing the speeds he was doing, but mostly it comes down to the coppers … what good’s a stolen car?”

“One stolen car. He didn’t murder anybody at the time, you know, but that’s what it led him to because of the police chase.”

“People have really got to get the message out, police have got to stop this.

“Obviously you run from the police because you don’t want to get caught.”

“They’re to blame, they’re to blame totally, I blame the police totally,” she said.

“Yes, Justin may have a little bit to do with it but … you know.”

I read those quotes and just get angrier with every one. Are the Police supposed to just stop every time a criminal decides that he/she doesn’t want to be held to account for their actions? If I go and hurt someone, and then decide that I’d much rather go and have a nice cup of coffee rather than face the consequences for my crime, will I be allowed to just leave?

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Then again, I guess it could be some sort of explanation for God’s grace. I’m not sure that I’m clever enough to put all of these thoughts together, but it’s doing my head in at the moment.

It’s coming.

This is going to be a harder hit that i was prepared for. Not only is this the year I turn 30, but this year I’ve also sold my motorbike with 1000cc’s of pure joy, and now I’m driving a 7 seater Mitsubishi Nimbus (1990), and I’ve been talking to Fi about getting a digital radio for my B’day so I can listen to ABC702 clearer at home, and (this is the clincher) I’m starting to get cranky if I don’t get a chance to read the paper or a book on the weekend.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

it’s like a reverse mid-life crisis. Instead of trying to be young and hip I’m going the other way.

If you see me wearing slacks and boat shoes, you do me the favour… sneak up behind me and drive a hat pin through my brain, then nuke the Nimbus from outer space… it’s the only way to be sure.

I got a bit of help with my PC recently from a friendly geek, who showed me how to fix up my machine. I backed up all of my important data (music/videos/games…oh, and uni work etc) onto a brand new external hard drive, and was all excited that I’d be able to start a fresh installation of Windows.

I did the reinstall, which seemed to have gone well, and started reinstalling software and downloading Windows updates. I needed to restart the computer, which I did, then it died. Again.

It just repeatedly mentioned missing/corrupt System32 hal dll files and just wouldn’t work, even after I had looked up ‘fixes’ from the Microsoft website and tried everything that they suggested.

Boo.

So I’m currently in the process of spitting the dummy, and seriously trying to work out how to get together the money to just go and finally buy a MacBook. I’m so sick of talking about it, and just want to go and do it. But I had also decided that this was the year that I’d be financially responsible(ish) and not waste money… so although I really, really want to go and buy one, I think I’m going to have to live with the old laptop that Dicker gave me a few years ago (which I’m using to type this up now) for doing uni work etc.

So does anyone know how I change my iPhone over to sync with this machine, and if I manage to do it, will I be able to change again later if/when I eventually buy a new computer (the shiny new MacBook that’s calling to me like a siren)?

Google, here I come…

This won’t be breaking news to some, but I just don’t get politics… it so hard to keep up with and I don’t know who is charge of what and all the different levels, and distinctions between governments, councils, local members, state, federal blah blah blah…

I’m not sure exactly how it all came about but there’s a new leader of the Liberal party I believe, and that had something to doing with our climate change. A bunch of people voted, although I’m not sure who, and some guy won by 1 vote.

Now, unfortunately I’m not playing dumb… I just don’t retain this stuff too easily and have never been able to…

I can’t remember who used to be the leader of that party, and I can’t even remember now who the new leader is.

Now I hear other things like that because of what happened there may be an election… but what’s the point, they just voted for a new guy, shouldn’t we give him a chance before voting him out.

I also hear the phrase double disillusion, it all a bloody illusion to me, let alone a double one!!

Maybe I’m again showing my stupidity here but up until recently I could never remember if ALP stands for Australian Labour Party or Australian Liberal Party. But then someone pointed out that one of the parties just shortens their name, so now I think is it The Libs or The Labs, and surely it’s not The Labs, therefore ALP must stand for Australian Labour Party.

You should know that I’m also not writing Politics off, I understand how important the whole thing is to running a country, but for the average (or below average) person it just seems to be a little overwhelming…

Chris Waghorn

Political Correspondent

Dubbo

• You’re that guy… who doesn’t use toothpaste.
• You’re that guy… who parks their car on church property 24/7 so that people who actually come to church can’t get a parking spot.
• You’re that guy… who pays lots of money to get good tickets at a concert and then watches it through a 2″ LCD screen on the back of your camera.
• You’re that guy… who has a pony tail and where’s a big bloody cricket hat and a backpack and loves to have a whinge at people who actually enjoy being at the front of a concert.

Drove past a fashion shop in Earlwood the other day called “Wot’z Hot“… and I’ve gotta ask: why bother with an apostrophe when there is obviously no concern for correct spelling anywhere else in the title?

Thankyou. that is all.