Long delays, I know. Life, babies. But this is a great place to throw things that don't belong on facebook without turning me into one of those guys who always rants about their pet causes.

So, lets get to it.3 things that have made me irritable over the past week on the internet (I know, right?)

1. People who don't like the Melbourne Cup because of X (alleged cruelty to horses) or Y (because gambling is only one step away from moral genocide). I flat out don't care one bit, your moral stance is usually preening, or of the 'I feel worse so I'm better' sort.
2. David Pocock - goes around lecturing about same sex marriage and coal, but is seemingly ok with stomping on other people's heads. And yeah, it was an accident, sure. Enjoy the time on the sideline being tied up to a tree.
3. Being told that potentially raising the GST (a tax that will be a fixed % forever) is brave, especially if we get tax cuts (that will diminish over time as it is a set rate, not a %). Unless they index income tax at the same time, its just a tax grab to cover budget shortfalls made by spending money we didn't have on things we didn't need.

Ill throw a 4th in : I don't care where on Earth we build our next warships and submarines. If the Collins class is any indication, Australia isn't a good bet. And the Navy is not a jobs creation scheme - I don't think the sailors sitting in 2nd rate subs will be thinking 'at least it's Australian made' as the depth charges start to sink. Get the best damned ships from wherever - its too important an issue to turn into an employment scheme.

I’m not 100% sold on my ‘time to grumble symbol’ yet, but I figured its been a week and if I don’t write at some point I’ll start talking back to the car radio news network, and its only a short hop from there to writing on youtube comments.

So the things that have frustrated  this week :

 Not really apologising in an apology – Girl claims to have cancer, beats said cancer, makes a ‘well living’ app and promises to donate the money to charity. The only thing that was true about any of this was that she made an app. After months of speculation Belle Gibson admitted to being a liar.  No cancer. No money given to charity (no record of her ever giving to the charities she 'supported). This is all bad enough, but this line takes the cake - 

"Above anything, I would like people to say, 'Okay, she's human. She's obviously had a big life. She's respectfully come to the table and said what she's needed to say, and now it's time for her to grow and heal."

No. Not when you fabricate illness, benefit personally and professionally from it and then don’t even have the courage to make a proper apology, or admit that what you did was a serious thing. You lied, you lied about lying and when caught, weasel words spring forth putting all the blame in bubble wrap - ‘I have issues/history’ and ‘I did the wrong thing but’  make your apology worthless, to go with your sad and reprehensible behavior. 

You lied and probably harmed other people by having them not treat serious illnesses with modern science - just a gluten free/sugar free cookbook. What a piece of work.

Ok. Next.

Apparently Hillary Clinton should become president no matter what because she is female. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/hillary-clinton-perfect-us-president-squander-talent-ovaries

Identity politics at its worst. Yes, no woman has been president. But electing someone not because of their character or ideas but because of their physical characteristics is the domain of supremacists.

Not because she is the best candidate, has the best policies. But the fact she is a woman raises her up in this stake to be the best possible candidate no matter what. The fact that a national head of state and their administration should represent all people doesn’t seem to factor in. And I’m going to guess if Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman was in the drivers seat for an election win she wouldn’t be throwing this article out. Probably because they would be ‘gender traitors’ or something similar.

Finally this – ‘Experts’ try to explain that while Australia’s border protection policies may stop people dying, but it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. 

Now the fact that after 800 people drowned recently crossing from Libya (and potentially 1200+ during the Australia Labor Government) is a marker which the journalist can not be ignore but is hurried past during the story - the deaths are regrettable but they don't really want to do the actions that will prevent similar deaths in the future, so you can't linger on it. So they  wring hands over drowned people rather than deter live ones from making dangerous journeys. 

And don't get me started as to why these people are leaving Libya, a place where the US, UK and France decided to remove Ghadaffi without putting anything in place to ensure it didn't become a failed state.

Ok, thats me for the day.

New features, additional content.

So this will continue to be a space for me to write about.... well.... whatever I feel like, really. But I have noticed a desire to 'discuss' things I see in the news, on Facebook etc that I don't have a fully appropriate forum to do so. As when you do comment on news sites or on Facebook the point always gets lost in the morass of inanity and trollishness which seems to inhabit these places.

So I'll do so here. I was thinking of something I saw on Lileks.com a while back - he had a banner for those times once a week where he discussed those actions and opinions that had annoyed or frustrated him that week, therefore allowing him to keep his blog more sedate generally.

I was thinking of doing the same, so I'll be looking out for an appropriate banner and topic heading so I can say what I think, and my 2 readers can see this easily and avoid it as desired.

Oh how those Facebook activist groups try to fool me...

Well, I saw on Facebook that someone I know had taken a Facebook test.

Shocking, I know.

But it piqued my interest- it was a fairness test from the Australia Aid Network.

2 seconds worth of thought said that they would say that we have been giving less aid, which is unfair. But this test you just took proved that you are a fair person. So you should protest this unfair decision, right? I mean, you just proved you stand for fairness and all.

So I took the test, and basically tried to be as 'unfair' as possible. Some of the questions were laughable - 'A fast food restaurant is replacing your community arts centre - fair or unfair?' And then the last few questions were about bridges being half built without funding and whether that was fair, or vaccination programs unfulfilled etc.

Now personally as it is Australia's money. Well, to be more precise, taxpayers money. So  I think it’s fair if we choose to give or not (well, if our duly elected government does at any rate). Choosing to give or not to give to someone is not a matter of fairness when it was not theirs to begin with. That isn’t to say that giving isn’t good but fairness requires obligation and ownership, neither of which is obligatory with foreign aid.

But personal points aside, I tried to be as unfair as I could. And yet somehow I ended up with the 'you are a fair guy' result.

Now making sure I couldn't have accidently been 'fair' as the Aid Network would see it, I redid my answers to the opposite. Fair. I then tried changing the 60/40 questions of what would be fair in case I had it wrong. And yet, fair I was. No matter what, I'm a fair guy.

And of course, no matter what, I was urged to tell the Treasurer that he wasn't fair, or at least was acting 'unfairly'.

I shouldn't feel scammed by facebook questionaries as their entire existence seems to run under the premise of scamming people, but still this seems disingenuous.

Then again, I don’t imagine it matters too much, I’m sure Treasury staff have an awesome mail rule auto forwarding all of the preapproved emails to the Treasurer’s office straight to junk.

Beginning to Fatherhood - some thoughts./

I wouldn't want to brag (except to my brothers, to whom bragging is both an insult and a direct challenge, and therefore immensely enjoyable to make) but I love being a new father.

Now, to make sure I’m not dragged through the streets by tired and stressed new parents, I’ll make a few disclaimers. Firstly, my wife and I are both very good at doing things individually, meaning we can split up chores and duties quite well, meaning less stress.

Secondly, we are both not too young or too old (in my estimation) – at 31 you still have some decent stamina while also having (in my wife’s case) some maturity in seeing the bigger picture and not being too wrapped up in yourself.

Thirdly, we have very different clocks – my wife is a morning person, while I prefer to wake up at the crack of noon and party on til the early AM’s, meaning around the clock waking and feeding isn’t as bad as it could be.

Fourthly, we have had a number of friends and family have children who we have spent a reasonable amount of time with, preparing us (somewhat) for what happens, and my wife is an early childhood educator meaning we aren’t too far behind the mark.

Fifthly, we haven’t had a major illness, teething or injury to bring additional stress.

Finally, we have a beautiful, healthy, happy baby. I mean, just look at her.

She doesn’t complain when there is nothing wrong, she smiles, feeds well, sleeps (reasonably) well for a baby, and lights up the room with her all round cuteness. And I love her, which I hear helps remarkably with parental happiness.

And so even when I’m trying to get her to sleep I don’t get too stressed or cross, because she is wonderful – God’s blessing to our family.

Now the strange thing is the number of people who have mentioned only the difficulties child rearing is for them. And I mean lots. My parents and parents in law not so much, but that may be due to both excitement at our baby and any issues coming up being seen as a vague insult. Then again, more stories came from younger parents rather than older, possibly showing that either we were great children in the 70’s-90’s or memories lighten with time.

This got me wondering and questioning people about why they mentioned the issues with parenthood before the benefits. Was it simply easier to comment on frustration rather than heartfelt love and affection for their children? Was it a desire to warn of all the things they hadn’t seen along the way before they occurred? Or was it that some people genuinely felt put upon by their children?

I didn’t ask these directly as they are some rather introspective and more importantly very personal questions. Questioning people’s parenting motivations and techniques is a good way to get yourself embroiled in an argument rather quickly (I wanted to add a link in here to show an example, but just google ‘argument parenting technique forum and start reading. Its all there).

It also potentially brings into question people’s motivations, whether people were prepared mentally for being a parent, external factors (employment, health, family relations, wealth) and a million other things that will be bought up in rebuttal the moment a vaguely sweeping statement or generalisation is made.

It runs the danger especially if they are a user of the phrase ‘my experience’ which is a modern day trump card as nobody can properly assess the totality of ‘your experience’ and therefore nobody can judge it – true but not the whole case – to make a vastly exaggerated point as I am wont of doing I haven’t ever conducted a 5 day drug and crime spree but it doesn’t mean that I can’t make a value judgement on someone that does.

So to get back to the main point, you have to go softly when asking people why they bring up negative experiences and the basis for that experiencing being the primary 'warning' they give. This way you can a) add to the information you already have, never a bad thing and b) prepare yourself, because at some point I'm sure the harder times will come - and forewarned is forearmed. 

But as to their answers to why they mention the struggles so openly first up – part of it is just human nature – perversity is part of the Australian culture.

 Some are unsure, while others mention that the added pressure and responsibility is burdensome (not exactly in those terms) while others have/had not made the adjustment to their lifestyle that parenthood seems to bring regarding time demands – or perversely had yet regretted it. Others lament lack of partner participation or other help they were expecting, or the underestimation of the demands of parenting.

And so I learn the things to be careful of – mostly, imagining I know what it will be like and then investing in that idea enough to be disappointed when it doesn’t occur. Or worrying about a potential future that hasn't happened yet and may well not happen. 

Conspiracy theories are the best

Was reading at lunch an article about '7 insane things about the Oklahoma City Bombing'.

Quickly realizing it was a conspiracy theory with it all. Allegedly murdered witnesses. 

Possible CIA involvement. 

Suspect foreigners of either Iraqi, more generic middle eastern or neo Nazi German origins (the wild differences apparently adding not subtracting to credibility) who were never found. 

Allegation of cover up by the shady FBI investigators.

Alleged pre knowledge of the attack by the FBI.

And to make it almost perfect : Links to 9/11

We only need foreign corporations, world government and crab people to make this the perfect crazy conspiracy theory.

I had to resist Googling to see whether someone already had :

No links because these people don't need more publicity, it doesn't have the desired effect of awakening, rather confirming their feelings of righteous persecution. 

So, changes

New year, new and precious baby. But I'm back to blogging I hope so I don't spam facebook with my inanity :p