the quiet revolution

In a stroke of PR genius, that hive mind of veganism, PETA, has launched a campaign they believe will finally convince us to not eat fish. Previously slithery, slimy fishes have had a PETA make-over, and are now to be known as Sea Kittens. After all "...who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?"



A look through the campaign website sheds new light on the behaviour of fish Sea Kittens. Who knew that tuna like to cuddle, trout can be litter trained, and all Sea Kittens like chasing yarn? I am utterly outraged this content was not included in my Fish & Fisheries Sea Kittens & Sea Kitten Hunting course at uni. How tertiary education has failed me!

By all means, don't eat fish if you find it ethically inexcusable, but if you start confusing fish with cats, please seek professional help.

Now please excuse me, I'm off to go Sea Kitten hunting. And remember, "Sea kittens are smart, interesting animals with their own unique personalities just like the dogs and cats that we share our homes with".

Thank you to everyone who made some noise about the unacceptibility of the iPond speaker/fish torture box.

The chain selling this piece of crap (Pets Paradise/Pet Goods Direct) is withdrawing the iPond from sale, effective immediately.

Further, the Pet Industry Association of Australia is calling for the iPond to be banned outright.

It's good to see common decency prevail. Unfortunately these hideous things are still being sold in the US and Canada. If you can spare the time, there is a petition here collecting international signiatories. I don't know if it'll do much (since it started as Australia-specific), but at the very least it's awareness-raising, and may inspire action to be taken wherever the iPond is sold.

Thank you.

( Correct care of the Siamese Fighting Fish )

Thanks to gleep for the linkage.

Hello World.

I'm pretending today is Thursday, so I'm not in work (though I will be tomorrow). I got up at 7:30 this morning and was a bit wobbly so I went back to bed. Dozed of again and next thing it was 9:30! Eeep! So I've had a lazy morning and 2 cups of coffee while I caught up on LJ and read the paper. Some interesting stuff in the pages today (to steal Alex's dad's expression).

First off the rank we have a headline story about the federal government dedicating a shite-load more funding to mental health services, making it easier for people to get mental health referals from their GPs and some assistance with costs. While on the surface this is excellent news (A friend of mine is a psychologist in a regional area. They have 1 computer between 6 staff and no internet access.), attention needs to be paid to the causes of the recent increase in mental health disorders (interesting that mental health problems are increasing along with the economy strengthening and us Aussies apparently being wealthier than ever, eh?). Treating the symptoms is all well and good, but the costs will continue to sprial unless the causes are addressed. And no, I'm not talking about tougher anti-drug enforcement.

Mental health disorder figures are a pretty good measure of social failure. Look at the corresponding changes to society: increasingly mobile work-force as jobs become temporary and contract-based, lack of financial security that comes with contract work, the increasing costs of tertiary education, increasing working hours (without commensurate pay), increasing social dislocation, yadda, yadda, yadda. So I guess it's a step in the right direction, but I don't think our current 'regime' will ever start to tackle to sources. In fact, with the ironically names "work choices" bill, I predict rates of mental illness to keep increasing.

From there I'll skip to an opinion peice by Janet Albrechtsen. Janet is someone I love to hate: a neo-conservative with the gall to try to force independent media to sing her song. Thus it pains me that recently I've found myself agreeing with her. This unlikely situation occured again today, with her interesting peice on the need for moderate muslims to speak out. What is the world coming to? Anyway, here she is.

Now, I'm throwing something up for curiosity's sake. Have any of you non-aussies heard a word about the Australian Wheat Board scandal? Didn't thing so... To sum it up, Australia's sole what exporter (Whatever happened to competition?) got busted for paying Saddam Hussein kick-backs to the tune of millions to get him to buy our wheat under the UN Oil-For-Food programme. That's right, us, an unwilling member of the Coalition of the Willing, propping up Saddam out of the pockets of our farmers. The Federal department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been implicated as complicent in these dealings, meaning the Prime Minister probably knew all about it, but interestingly, no-one actually seems to give a damn. Australia, where we expect our politicians to be lying bastards and are alarmed at the possibility of pollies telling the truth.

Which nicely brings me to the last item: Cyclone Larry. Out of revenge for being given such a ridiculous name, Larry turned out to be anything other than funny, hitting North Queensland as a category 5 storm (that's the biggest they get, by the way), old mate Larry was bigger than previous record-holder Tracy and went about causing quite a lot of damage. In fact, he pretty much wiped Innisfail off the map, and had a fair go at Cairns, Tully, Atherton, Eacham, mission Beach, Mossman and anywhere in-between too. To note, no-one died, but we're all mourning the loss of this year's banana crop.



Perhaps Dubya should study the Larry response, as he might just learn something. Within 48 hours we had the army, the SES, the police force, the Red Cross and the press all up to the remote north. Food, water and generators have been delivered, and most of all, there's been no looting. A couple of lads thought they'd give it a try, but were defeated by an irate local standing up for his land-lord's property. It's times like these I feel blush of nationalistic pride, as well as the irony of massive flooding up north while South-East Queensland languishes in drought and is likely to max-out it's water restrictions this year.

So I'll see you later world, I'm off to defuse the natural disaster of my kitchen.

"it is difficult to form any conclusion other than that the culture of [the immigration department] was so motivated by imperatives associated with the removal of unlawful non-citizens that officers failed to take into account the
basic human rights obligations that characterise a democratic society".

Our sociopathic Prime Minister has gone and made bloody Phil Ruddock the attorney-general and put him in charge of Australia's anti (ha!) terrorism laws. Mr. ruddock, the man who believes mandatory detention for imigration seekers, including children, is a'ok. The man who had consistently implemented policies that break the UN's Human Right's Act. Fantastic.

If you don't know anything about this legislation, I suggest you find out about it fast. A pdf version can be downloaded here, many thanks to the Chief Minister from the ACT, Mr. Jon Stanhope. Only through his leaking of this document has news of the proposed changes got out. Hooray for a politician having a concience when the Government holds the balance of power in the senate (i.e. there's no one to block is passing).

The new "anti-terror" laws will, in my opinion, actually incite attacks, they are that awful! You can be held without charge for 2 weeks, held under house arrest for 12 months, including restricting all forms of communication, and arrested for "inciting violence against the government". Worse than that, if you're held in custody for any of these offences, even uncharged, you cannot talk about it. It cannot be brought to public attention, thus gross mis-carriages of justice are free to occur. And if you thought that was bad enough, "shoot to kill" provisions are being brought in that allow unarmed suspects to be shot if they attempt to flee. And a suspect, in this case, is anyone they think *might* be a terrorist suspect, as the requirement for evidence of intent to committ a crime has been waived.

This is insanity. If you thought the government's Industrial Relations legislation was scary (which is really is, don't get me wrong), this anti-terror stuff is downright terrifying.

Go back to sleep Australia, your government has everything under control...

Ahahahahaha, Echinacea doesn't work. (well, ok, they could not detect effects in one study, that's not conclusive proof that it doesn't work. I know this, but I'm going to crow anyway)

Of all the herbal remedies and naturapathic tonics my parents shoved down my throat when I was younger, the only one that seems to do anything is garlic and horseradish tablets, which seem to speed recovery of sinus infections. Still waiting for a study though... But as for all their daily tonics (honey and cider vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, meal replacement shakes for breakfast, shark oil tablets), they seemed like crap at the time and they still do now, with tertiary biochem and physiology behind me. Snake oil men, comment and I'll send you their address ;-0

They've bought in to

• HerbalLife diet


• The grape diet


• Hydrogen peroxide in water drink


• Vitamin E capsules


• Echinacea tablets


• Squaaline (shark oil extract) tablets - ever stop to wonder where that might come from?


• Meal replacement shakes


• Herbal tonic - to cure teenage lethargy, gads it was vile!


• the AbRoller...

No change in diet or lifestyle = still overweight and unhappy

I wonder how much money it's cost over the years? =(

But now, onto more serious news, yet another good article by Michael Costello.

The London attacks were a tragedy. The identity of the bombers as British born makes it even worse and I understand that the Western World is rightly shocked and shaken, but that is no reason to abandon common sense! Left, right and centre I'm hearing Australians tremble in paranoia that "we're going to be next". In an absolute failure of logic, one person presented the argument that after New York and London, that just left Aus to attack... hello? Madrid.

Then there are those that try to simplify the whole global situation into an argument either supporting war and attacks on the entire Muslim populace or calling for complete inaction and a withrawal of all Western invovement in the Middle East. Of course, neither of these strategies provide a solution and are just knee-jerk responses based on incomplete perspectives on the situation. WIthdrawing all western involvement, especially economic, from the East has enormous economic repercussions and would seriously harm the economy of several Middle East countries, and if you're arguing that poverty and economic inequality are the causes then you'd just make the situation worse. If only terrorism was purely economically motivated. While there's some truth to the argument, it's only a small part. Likewise to those that embrace xenophobia and the Dubya approach. The War on Terror is unwinnable - like the War on Drugs it just serves to control the American population and waste large amounts of money. We all know Iraq was a mistake (well, more of a blantant lie that should see Dubya impeached, but that's another rant), but withdrawing now would just land the country in more trouble and more innocent civilians would be killed - kind of like the mess we all left in Afganistan where the tribal leaders and war lords are still scrabbling for power. Not to say no action should be taken against terrorists or that we should aquiesce to their wants - it's well proven that submitting to terrorist demands just leads to more terrorism as you prove the technique works (people who can't see this obviously have never dealt with a tantruming 2yr old).

*sigh* it's a complicated mess, and my heart goes out to those who lost loved ones in the London bombings, including the parents, wives and children of the bombers who never saw it coming =( My heart also goes out to the thousands of Iraquis killed as a result of US and insurgent violence. Thinking of the 26 children killed by a car bomb the other day just makes me want to cry at the pointlessness of it all. The important thing though, is to keep a level head and not give in to knee-jerk reactions or hysteria, and what is troubling me most is that so many of my country people seem to have lost their heads. The last thing this country needs is more uninformed emotionalism. It just leads to bullshit like this.