POLITICIANS:

Yeah, bloody Politicians. I don't know about you but on my personal "Trust Me" scale politicians rate somewhere down there with used  car salesmen, lawyers and other con men, and the local card sharp. I don't care what you call them, they 're all tared with the same brush, chuck one lot out and put the other lot in and what do you get? The bloody same old same old. They can call themselves what ever they like - Liberal, Labour, Democrat, Conservative, Communist, Green, Tory, Republican, what ever.


There is much debate over the ethics of cloning. Come on, the bloody politicians have been doing it for years. They all quack the same party line of their particular alignment and there is not one original thought among the lot of them. One side stands up and quotes the party line as prescribed by their faceless backers and power brokers. Then the other side gets up and does the same damn thing for their lot. One side gets up and goes quack, quack, quack, then the other side gets up and does the opposite quack, quack, quack, then they go and form a committee to examine the problem or bill or what ever. While this is going on they all retire to the members bar and draw straws to see who will quack on next. 


No matter what the proposal one side will get up, and ignoring all the negative aspects, will praise it to the heavens and sing it's praises loudly. Then the other side will get up and, no matter what it's strengths and good points might be, condemn it to hell and pronounce it the devils work. Until of course it comes time to vote on new perks and benefits for those hard working, dedicated, selfless politicians they all reckon they are. Yeah - right. The proposal get voted through with no, or very few dissenters. I'm even cynical enough to suspect they take it in turns to be the good guy or girl.


I'm a pensioner and on occasion I've written to my local member on behalf of other pensioners who have a problem, that problem is usually a minor one and could be sorted out by someone easily if they would only get off their arse. Usual result? Not a murmur, not a bloody sausage, the only thing you can be sure of is that you will be deafened by the silence. Until of course it comes round to election time. Suddenly you have to fight the buggers of like a plague of locusts. Last election I was finally moved to place a rude notice on my door directing politicians and/or their lackeys to "F...K OFF" I'm not normally that crude but they seem to wait round the bloody corner till it's time for you to cook tea, have a shower or a sh*t and then come knocking. I wish I had a big bad tempered dog. How would a dog know a politician? Dare I say by the scent of self interest, political perks and indifference to their constituents.


Having said all that I must admit that occasionally, just occasionally, an honest man or women stands for election. If elected there are a number of things that can happen. They can stand as an independent, or join a party and soon become so disillusioned they either leave the party or never stand for election again, or tragically, the system grasps them in it's vice like grip and turns them into another one of those grey faced quacking clones.


Ten Quotes for Politicians:-


All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. 
 ~Albert Einstein


Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.  
~H.L. Mencken, 1956


Politicians are the same all over.  They promise to build a bridge even where they is no river.  
~Nikita Khrushchev


Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.  
~Ernest Benn


Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. 
 ~John Quinton


Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.  
~Oscar Ameringer


Mankind will never see an end of trouble until... lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power... become lovers of wisdom.  
~Plato, The Republic


Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party. 
 ~Winston Churchill


Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession.  I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.  
~Ronald Reagan


Politics, n:  [Poly "many" + tics "blood-sucking parasites"]  
~Larry Hardiman

Everything is to bloody expensive!

Everything is to bloody expensive. Petrol is to bloody expensive, so is beer, and meat, and service for a motor vehicle and, just about any thing you can imagine is also to bloody expensive. Our retailers, while bleating about their profit margins and how hard it is to bring customers into their shops, persist in marking everything up by between fifty and two hundred percent. I've got news for you Mr bloody Retailer, don't try to suck the poor bloody shopper dry all the time and we might come back into your shops.


Perhaps if Mr Retailer didn't spend so much on advertising, or even made the adverts a bit more honest his overheads may not be so high. I am so bloody sick of having some loud mouthed son of a bitch yelling at me from the television set about "bargains" that aren't bargains, "discounts" that aren't discounts and "sales" that aren't sales I'm about ready to put a boot through the TV.


Then there is all the Hire Purchase offers - Buy now, pay later - No payments till next bloody millennium - Cheap interest - No interest - BULLSHIT!! I find it strange that all these offers are accompanied by exhortations to  GET IT NOW - DON'T MISS OUT - THIS WEEKEND ONLY - SPECIAL 24 HOUR SALE.  - ONCE ONLY SALE! Yeah right, funny that it seems to be the same every bloody weekend and if you are dumb enough to take on one of these offers you end up paying twice the value of the item and you get hooked into paying for it one drip at a time for the rest of your life!


Then there is the matter of quality, or more exactly lack of it. These days it seems every  thing is made in bloody China. The instruction manuals are written in "Chinglish" and I defy any one to understand what the manual is talking about. To make matters worse, if the thing breaks down and you want it repaired or replaced under the Guarantee - yeah - right - GOOD LUCK. Then there is that mythical thing called AFTER SALES (LIP?) SERVICE.


 I recently had to buy a new washing machine, the type that seems to be universal now, all bells and whistles and programs. I plugged it in, pressed all the buttons according to the manual (I think - you guessed it - Chinglish) and absolutely nothing bloody happened. I stared at it, it stared back but refused to go. SO - ring up the shop, ask for some advice, I even had the salesman's name, the sales docket and date of purchase all ready to give them. Not bloody likely - if you have blah, blah, blah press 1. If you have yackety yack press 2 and so on. After about ten minutes dangling on the phone I finally got transferred to some bloody call centre where who ever took my call couldn't even speak understandable bloody English.


Retailers - get honest - get real, stop the bullshit, and you might get some customers back.

The Weather:

An Appeal.

I live a long way from Queensland but I've got a few mates who live up there. There was bugger all I could do for them at the time but I put my hand in my pocket and gave a few dollars to the Flood Appeal,  There are a lot of places you can donate, Banks, the Red Cross and I think probably the Salvos too so if you're reading this, and you can afford it, please do the same. It will take years and bucket loads of money to repair what was once a beautiful and vibrant City.

The Queensland Floods


The weather has been a big feature on television in the last week. The poor buggers in Queensland have copped just about everything except an atom bomb. Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch when she wants to be, taking the lives of the young, the old, the infirm and the not to smart. It's not to smart to go swimming in flood waters and some fools still do it in spite of warnings from Police, Rescue and other Emergency Services Personnel. In some ways it wouldn't be to bad if we could say, well it's sad but he/she was asking for it, they shouldn't have been doing -- what ever. Unfortunately flood waters are not so selective and when you get something like the flash floods in Toowoomba it is the young, and the innocence, that are taken. Like I said Mother Nature is a cruel, cold hearted bitch some times. If she doesn't send flood waters it seems she flips the coin and dries the land out until it's so parched we pee dust. The sadness and the pain was reported by ernest faced TV Reporters hour after hour and they did their best to bring us images of exhausted Emergency Workers, damaged property and shattered victims.


Perhaps I'm just a cynical old bastard but I can't help wondering if, in their enthusiasm to bring the action into our comfortable lounge rooms, the TV people don't sometimes get in the way? It seems to me that if you are standing there and filming some poor bugger getting drowned you could drop the camera and pitch in to help save a life.






The West Australian Bush Fire, and the floods, and the next bloody Cyclone.


One side of our country is getting drowned and across the other side some bloody brainless arsehole is deliberately lighting fires. I don't know whether it was kids with matches or some crazy arsonist but  people lost their homes, and their property, and in some cases their lively hood. So far, as far as I know no one has lost their life, YET. further up, in the north of Western Australia they have floods and the last I heard a cyclone hovering off the coast. 


Other Places.


The whole of the East Coast is copping huge amounts of rain. The North Coast of New South Wales is sinking under water and Both Victoria and The North of Tasmania have had flash floods, thankfully not on the scale suffered by the Queenslanders. I haven't heard much about South Australia or the Northern Territory, perhaps they just got washed away with out any one noticing. Whats next? Buggered if I know but the weather seems to be on a rampage.All we need now is for it to start raining arseholes in Tasmania. If it does I'm bound to get hit by a dirty one.


Weather Reports.



Yep, weather and the reporting there of, that stuff that can be wet, cold, hot, dry and all stages in between. Weather can be the blond Barbie doll or the terribly ernest "mature" male on straight after the news at night. They quack on about fronts, and charts and systems and averages until you are so mesmerised by the bullshit that you don't remember what the hell they did say about tomorrow,  they probably had it wrong anyway. It annoys me because on the rare days I fight my way out of my garret, and wistfully look for the sun, I invariably get bloody rained on. Because Blond Bloody Barbie or Ernest Bloody Ernest doesn't bloody know what they are talking about!!!

Baby Photos and Family Blogs

Baby Photos


I have no objection to baby photos as something that all families treasure, I have heaps of photos of my own grandchildren and my one God Child. However I do object to the absolute avalanche of baby and child photos displayed on blogs for several reasons. Every Mother & Father is thoroughly convinced that their own child is the most beautiful ever born, I know I think that way about my own children and grand children, but let's face it folks, the truth is some kids are just butt ugly whether we want to admit it or not.


My second reason is more serious, there are predators out there, the sick minded who prey on our kids and derive some sort of pleasure from examining their photos in detail. If the photo depicts the child in a state of nudity or semi nudity, which some parents seem to think is "so damn cute" , then those sickos get all the more excited about it. In my opinion pedophiles and other things that live under rocks should have their licence to join the human race revoked and be dealt with accordingly. If you must post photos of your little angel for god's sake at least restrict the blog to family and friends and don't feed the appetites of the sickos of this world.


Family blogs

I wrote  this criticism a few years ago when blogs were in their infancy and for some reason I kept it. It's still relevant today:-

"Blogs:

Bodice rippers and other forms of literary suicide - I don't know  why this particular bit of throat  baring has become so bloody popular. I really don't give a shit what you had for breakfast, or how your ankle biter is doing at school,  or why your therapist thinks you might really be the  third reincarnation of god knows who.

 If you really want to write the god awful story of your miserable life do so but why clog up good band width with your useless chatter? There's enough crap on the Internet without you adding to it.  To my mind you either have an ego the size of Texas, or you're  so  bloody silly you really think anyone cares, or both.  Get a life, get laid or go home. Just don't bother trying to tell the  whole  bloody world on the Internet."

There are some very good blogs out there, informative, topical and interesting but there are also some bloody awful ones. For a start there is a very good spell checker on  Google Blogs and you don't need to have a PhD in literature to use it. But some people's blogs are so littered with errors it makes me cringe.


Then we come to my pet hate - family bloody blogs - I have no objection to a family recording the history of their life as their family grows and children come into their world. BUT - do you really think the whole world cares? Are you that bloody silly, or is your ego that bloody large, are you so bloody arrogant that you think a complete stranger wants to know every detail of every ache, pain, scratch and graze your little snot nosed ankle bitter suffers.


I'm glad you've found Jesus, or who ever, but do you really think the world is all sweet smiles and ideal family groups and pretty sunsets and pure white snow? At least grow up enough to realise that the only people who might care about you and your tribe are family and close friends who give a shit. 


Please give those of us who like to use the "Next Blog" facility to browse for blogs that have some meaningful content a break. If you restrict your blog to Family and Friends we won't have to wade through endless reams of crap and those gooey family group photos that do not interest us. We will be eternally grateful.

Religion

A NOTE ON COMMENTING ON RELIGION

I have my views on religion and I stand by what I say. However if you disagree with my opinion please don't try to harang me with your own version. Just agree to disagree. Flames and hate mail will be met with an appropriate response. On the other hand an intelligent comment will be treated with the courtesy and respect it deserves.

1. God Botherers and Jesus Freaks.


I would vigorously defend any ones right to worship their God as they perceive Him (or Her), whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim or any other persuasion. However I will also vigorously defend my right to keep my own faith, or lack of it, as my own personal business. I really get angry when some over zealous God Botherer comes knocking on my door and tries to ram THEIR version of worship down my neck. I recently had reason to eject two of these pests from my next door neighbour's home. Two young men with accents actually had their foot in her front door and were haranguing her with demands that she take their literature. The Lady in question is a devout Christian and while I might have  reservations about her choice of denomination I will defend her right to worship as she sees fit.


2. Sects and Cults.


I had a mate of some thirty years standing, an ex serviceman like myself, and a competent and devoted Father to his two children. As happens all to often in this world his marriage ended when his children were in their early teenage years. Because of his commitment to his career, which took him away repeatedly from home, he did not contest custody of his children, he merely had infrequent visiting rights. The wife met and remarried a man who was involved with one of the more outrageous types of  allegedly "christian" cults. By the time my mates older child reached the age of eighteen she was so involved with the cult that she denounced and disowned her Father. My mate was so distraught that he eventually took his own life. How can these cults, who call themselves Christian Churches destroy and break up families in the name of their perverted image of  God.


3. Believers, Agnostics and Atheists.


I have a very good friend who is a practicing Christian Clergyman. I do not subscribe to his particular denomination but that does not debar us from being good friends, we have common interests, we play chess, we fly radio controlled model aircraft, he some times helps me by proof reading some of my manuscripts. The other day he turned up at my door and while we were having a cup of coffee he noticed a book I am reading, the book is written by Richard Dawkins and is titled THE GOD DELUSION. I must admit I expected some sort of negative reaction but all he said to me was he didn't know I was an Atheist.


I had to admit to him that I really don't know what the hell I am. My early years were spent in an orphanage and the local clergyman was typical of his time, all fire and brimstone and God is Great. My life's experience has led me to have many doubts but that damn indoctrination as a child still haunts me. The image of a white, blue eyed God in a long white gown, dispensing love, mercy, benevolence and forgiveness is a bit hard to take when you have seen the torn and bloody bodies of innocent women and children ripped apart by the waging of war. Is there a God? Damned if I know but I fear if there is some sort of Supreme Entity up there He, or She, or It must have a pretty strange sense of humour.

Old Age

Age is an issue of mind over matter. 

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

                                               - Mark Twain.

Old Age is inescapable, sooner or later we are all going to get there, unless of course you are unfortunate  enough to die young. That's not an alternative that most of us wish to contemplate and given that we escape an untimely end we are all going to reach that time in our life when we retire, either through age itself or infirmity. That's when, to put it bluntly, the shit hits the fan. I retired at fifty five. According to the Armed Forces you are to old to be any bloody use after that. Others, in this country, work until they are sixty five and then, if they qualify, they receive the Old Age Pension, or Seniors Pension as the Bureaucrats prefer to call it.

Some are fortunate and take on the role, quite often full time, as Grand Parents, OK, OK I can hear the howls of disagreement, some are FORCED to take on the role of Grand Parents, or pseudo Parents, because Mum and Dad are out earning a living. But for those of us not blessed with a tribe of snot nosed little ankle biters to terrorise Grandma's cat time suddenly starts to weigh very heavily on our hands. When you have worked nine to five, or other odd hours, for all your adult life not getting up to go to work in the morning is a bloody huge shock. It's great for about the first week or so, you can lie in bed and twiddle your toes till some disgustingly late hour. Then the rot sets in, and it accelerates!

The first thing you realise you have to do is give yourself a kick up the butt, get out of bed, even though you think there is no longer a reason to, and find something to do. All those hours you used to spend at work are hard to fill in, especially if you now feel as useless as tits on a bull. Some people take up gardening, some play bowls, some decide to try for a second childhood. Some of us are lucky enough to have a hobby and it's very easy to substitute the hobby for the job. I know one bloke who made wooden toys and he built a whole new career for himself, and he'd never worked so bloody hard in all his life! His wife wanted to become a Grey Nomad, sell up the house, buy a Winnebago and just take off. He was to busy so she met up with a fella from the Bowls Club and took off with him. The bloke burnt his work shed to the ground, sold the house and started chasing younger women, until he figured out he was to bloody old to catch them. It takes all types.

On the other hand I've seen a lot of people who surrender to the concept of old age, when they retire they go sit in a corner somewhere and wait to die. That can be a long slow process especially if you allow the brain to deactivate, Yeah, I said deactivate. Why is it some people  are so bloody dim they don't understand that even if the body is failing they still have to keep the brain active. My advice, get a hobby, or get some sort of interest that challenges the brain to actually tick over. You can survive loneliness, you can tolerate infirmity, but if you let the brain go to sleep you might be better off dead anyway.

Sunday bloody Sunday

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Today I've been involved in an accident, crashed an expensive radio controlled model aircraft, rescued an elderly Lady who didn't want to be rescued, got abused by the woman over the back fence, burnt my Sunday lunch and oh yeah, I ran out of milk and just as I went down to the shop it started to rain. Other than that it's been a good day, sort of.  So I decided to take my ire out by starting a new blog. Unlike the other two which deal with model aircraft and writing this one  will pass comment on all the things that get me angry. So if the occasional swear word will offend your tender sensibilities I offer you this word of advice.

BUTT OUT!

Just to start the ball rolling I have made a list of all the things about this world that sometimes get on my goat so I've no doubt you will find something to offend you.

TOUGH

Here under is the list of all things that I will do my best to comment negatively on so by all means drop back and be offended about you particular pet subject

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

1. Old Age - Because I looked in the mirror this morning.
2. Religion - Because it causes so much trouble.
3. Baby photos - Because I am bloody sick of baby photos on blogs.
4. Family blogs - Ditto.
5. The Weather - Because it never works out like the six o'clock news says it will.
6. The Price of Everything - Because everything is too bloody expensive.
7. Politicians - Because they wont go out and get a proper job.
8. Retailers - Because they mark up at least 100%.
9. Rich People - Because they are rich.
10. Poor People - because they are poor.
11. Cults - Because a good mate lost a daughter to one.
12. Kids - Because their parents wont control them.
13. Teenagers - Because a lot of them are out of control.
14. Bloody do Gooders - Because they're bloody do Gooders.
15. Grumpy Old Men - Because I'm one.
16. Grumpy old Women - Because my next door neighbor is one.
17. Metro Sexuals - Because they've forgotten how to be men.
18. Supermarkets - Just because.
19. "Service" Stations - Because there is no "SERVICE".

Give me time, I'll think of some more.