I’m reading Hilton’s cool new updated blog http://demeillon.net/
Category: Consciousness
Chroming
Google launched a browser today – Chrome. Pretty exciting. I’m using it right now. To type this email in my gmail to send it to my google blog.
Should I be concerned? So much of my life is tied to google – what if that “don’t be evil” maxim they celebrate actually is just a facade. Maybe Google is the precursor to the robots that took over the world in the Matrix…
If this worst case scenario does end up being true – then at least I’ll go down in a blaze of blue and white efficiency blended with usability, utility and usefulness. It’s worth checking out. Just google it.
Garage Sailling
With the cost of living rising I can’t understand why there aren’t more people out garage sailing on weekends. It’s fun. It’s cheap. It’s full of bargains. Or, stealing a similar sales pitch triplet from Lock Stock – “It’s a deal. It’s a steal. It’s the sale of the…” hang on, that probably violates my sense of self censorship.
Anyway, I digress. On Saturday I teamed up with my regular garage sailing companion – Mr Ferguson, and a relative newcomer to the experience Mr Mildenhall. Craig and I have established some rules for our garage sailing trips that I think are worth sharing with the masses. He’s also harnessed the powers of modern technology to make garage sailing a breeze. I make no apologies for continuing the sailing motif.
The rules:
1. You must barter, bargain, beg or negotiate on price. If the vendor refuses to drop the price you must try to get extras thrown into the deal.
2. You must buy something – somewhere during the day you must make a purchase.
3. Someone (usually me) has to buy a particularly stupid item for under $1.
4. Car doors must be locked at each stop.
5. Team members must be prepared to convince reluctant participants to buy something they clearly don’t need (like a fishtank).
6. You must have a friend available with a Ute or 4WD to pick up your bulky purchases.
Other observations on garage sailing regarding optimum conditions are best expressed by some mathematical equation where as time increases the opportunity to bargain increases and price decreases. But at the same time – availability of goods also decreases. The optimal time is somewhere in the middle – where bargains can be found – but the premium items have been snapped up by second hand dealers. Another element is consumer mood – where if you don’t get up at 6am – ie start somewhere closer to 9am – bargains are available and optimism is high.
Craig, being the technological early adopter that he is makes the process refined and efficient. Coordinates and details of each garage sail listed in the Townsville Bulletin are plugged into Google Maps – and routes are plotted with Craig’s laptop GPS system. Craig also now has wireless broadband – which means he can take photos of an item, email it to his wife and contact her via skype for approval. This is revolutionary stuff – and will change the face of Garage Sailing for ever.
I’ll try to put up a photo of this week’s “trophy” a porcelain cow shaped gravy boat/milk jug – but for now you’ll have to content yourself with this pic…
From the vault
I was reading something today – and there’s a language warning on that page – naming and shaming the 10 worst game consoles of all time. I had a pretty privelaged upbringing when it came to consoles – dad was a freelance computer game reviewer for a newspaper and some magazines – so we used to get things for free to play with – and our experience would help shape the stories. Sometimes we got to keep them.
One of these units – which I remember quite fondly – didn’t make that top 10 list. But in all honesty probably should have. The Commodore CDTV was pretty groundbreaking in its day. It was one of the first units to integrate a CD like disk (well a CD – a precursor to the DVD) with a television.
I have fond memories of playing Defender of the Crown – a strategy game with some third person sword fighting thrown in (mostly to rescue damsels in distress who would become your bride – but occasionally to steal all the other person’s money) on the machine.
Anyway – this really is just a chance to pay a little nostaligic homage to such a crap machine. And is the first in a series of posts designed to convince my wife that an X-Box 360 is a necessity, not a luxury. Videogames teach valuable life lessons.
On golf
Golf is a stupid sport. I’m glad it’s not in the Olympics. Someone once told me that to get ahead in corporate life you should learn to play golf – and also learn to lose to your superiors. I think not learning to play golf almost guarantees the latter.
Anyway, golf is a stupid game. I’m not sure what prompted this post.
On secular humanism
In my continued reflections on the debate I’m having with my e-friends (ok, so they’re friends in real life – but the tyranny of distance means I see them maybe once a year) I find myself increasingly frustrated with the “secular humanism” movement. It’s really a quasi-religion set up to give atheists a framework to debate from. Secular humanists see their beliefs as the default “logical position”.
The definition of humanism from Wikipedia:
“Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.”
My problems are as follows:
1. Humanism describes itself as optimistic on the human race’s ability to save itself. Human nature is seen as inherently good – but slightly selfish. This is how they reconcile survival of the fittest with external factors like our social “herd” instincts (best epitomised by Facebook), good and charitable acts without external motivation (which is how they dismiss the good and social acts of religious adherents), and the chaos obviously occurring between humans (Russia v Georgia is the latest example).
2. Humanism holds itself on a pedestal – and humanists look down on those who need the “crutch of religion” or the “imaginary sky friend” to get them through day to day life.
3. Humanists, in relying on reason, dismiss the notion of the supernatural – and will not debate on the possibility of anything supernatural existing without first seeing the evidence. This makes even approaching a discussion on religion almost futile.
4. Humanists rely on faulty evidence when dismissing Christianity – eg inaccuracy of scriptural translations.
5. Humanists are sold on postmodern thinking – which is yesterday’s news – rather than the modernist view of truth as verifiable, actual and objective.
6. Humanists are generally pretty smart – and generally blinkered by confidence in their own ability to reason. Human intelligence has limits. Humanists, in relying on their own prowess and dismissing the opinions of others as “subjective” and influenced by wants, desires and needs – are limited to their own capabilities. Some of the world’s most revered scientists – perhaps by nature of their positions as revered scientists are secular humanists – eg Einstein.
7. Further, humanism fails to recognise the limits of human capabilities – what if one day God is scientifically demonstrable? What happens to the current humanists? Human knowledge and understanding is in a constant state of flux – to pin a philosophy down to “what we currently think we know” or “what we can currently test” is dangerous.
8. Ethical living is not a natural response to atheism – nor is it the common response. Because secular humanists have realised the shortcomings of their position (slippery slope of morality) they seek to massage their philosophy to include this concept of “ethics based decision making.” Anarchy and hedonism are more logically consistent results of atheism.
Some key highlights from Wikipedia:
“In certain areas of the world, secular humanism finds itself in conflict with religious fundamentalism, especially over the issue of the separation of church and state. A faction of secular humanists may judge religions as superstitious, regressive, and/or closed-minded, while the majority of religious fundamentalists see secular humanism as a threat to the values they say are set out in religious texts, such as the Bible and the Qur’an.”
“Some criticize the philosophy of secular humanism because it offers no eternal truths nor a relationship with the divine. Critics allege that a philosophy bereft of these beliefs leaves humanity adrift in a foggy sea of postmodern cynicism and anomie. Some argue that this philosophy has always been antireligious and it is often used in connection with atheism.Humanists respond that such criticisms reflect a failure to look at the actual content of humanist philosophy, which far from being cynical and postmodern, is rooted in optimistic, idealistic attitudes about the future of human society that trace back to the Enlightenment, or further, back to Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers and Chinese Confucianism.“
“Secular humanism describes a world view with the following elements and principles:
- Need to test beliefs – A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
- Reason, evidence, scientific method – A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
- Fulfillment, growth, creativity – A primary concern with fulfillment, growth and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
- Search for truth – A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
- This life – A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
- Ethics – A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
- Building a better world – A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.”
You can’t really argue with someone holding these beliefs that a supernatural being exists – it runs counter to the tenets of their “faith.”
On dialogue with atheists
I have some friends who are atheists – not just soft agnostics like most of society – but reasoned, secular humanists who think Dawkins lacks objectivity and is a rabid fundamentalist. You know, the logical type of atheists who have thought through life and made their own conclusions on the basis of the evidence they see around them. The type who make “moral judgements” based on empathy and reason. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in pretty intense debate with them via email. The discussion has been protracted and mostly frustrating. I’ve also been feeling pretty outnumbered – it was three to one and then they introduced these two guys I’ve never met into the email circle. One of them is pretty much the only person who now reads this blog – so hi. I actually don’t know where he sits on the issue because he just commentates on the debate – and how much he hates analogies.
This debate has made me question – not my beliefs – but my response to having them attacked. Pride is something I struggle with. I want to be right, I want to engage in the debate in an intellectual sense and essentially prove my faith* and convince these guys they should convert – and be just like me. Which again, kind of misses the point of Christianity – because I should be trying to convince people to be just like Christ. Here’s the rub – the Bible promises that the world’s wisdom will see Christianity and its message of a capitally punished God as foolishness (1 Corinthians) – so I can’t expect to be convincing, nor can I mention this in some kind of argumentative context – because to argue the veracity of something using that thing doesn’t really stack up. I can’t say “the Bible is true because it says it is.” Nor can I say “the Bible is true because I have experienced that it is” – because that is subjective. I also can’t say – “the Bible is true because all the observable evidence (ie pain and suffering) suggest it is” – because all the observable evidence is observed, and compartmentalised based on the starting hypothesis – ie if God is not there it’s all just chance and coincidence. My basic instinct in this debate is to debate. To apologise (in the “mount a defence for” sense) for my beliefs. Is this the right way to respond? I’m not convinced that it is – not in the frames of science and philosophy.
Science is limited. Science has merit, and a place in the world. Science answers questions of cause and effect, and makes observations to test and demonstrate hypotheses – science is good at what it does. What it can’t do is test that which can not be observed – and it is limited to the theories and subjective whims of those testing them through hypothesis. I can observe “facts” and essentially plug them into my frame of reference to demonstrate a theory. The theory always comes first.
History also has limits – postmodern criticism has merit – but to rob any text of the chance of being true and accurate objective history does a disservice to our understanding of human history and anthropology. Why can’t we trust the accounts of a number of people recorded in the one book – from very separate original documents – to reveal truth? This exercise also taught me that those who are passionately disinterested – or dispassionately interested – in Christianity have very little knowledge of the actual text of the Bible – and its history. Instead relying on years of inaccuracies and insipid, purposeful lies. “The bible has been changed over time” is one of those half truths that misses the point – it hasn’t been changed by whim – but by desire to bring it closer to the original text based on rigourous academic scholarship. It has been used as a political tool in the past – and those who most stridently opposed that were the Christian church – and these men were martyred for the cause. This sort of shoddy criticism has no grounding in anything but what my atheist friend told me in primary school so I believed it.
I think it’s unhelpful to present this debate (theism v atheism) in the sphere of the rational, observable or philosophical. To do so puts the existence of God on our terms – a God by nature transcends the rational and observable. God sets the rules for this debate – not humans. To move God into these realms, and into our terms is not rational or reasonable – if God exists then there is no reason for him to conform to our experience of the world – or human conventions of understanding – anymore than there is reason for us to bark when communicating to dogs. We do not do this when interacting with our subordinates (the animal kingdom).
Thanks to Dawkins, Atheists now tackle these arguments by realigning the burden of proof and changing the terminology – now we, “theists” have to demonstrate why God must exist – before even tackling which God they should believe in. Therefore the Bible is dismissed as an authority (partly because post-modern literary criticism means nothing can be trusted as true anymore), Christians can’t claim any unique authority on the debate on the basis of the historicity of Jesus – particularly because any of the eye-witness accounts to his life must now be ignored or disputed, any third party accounts of Christianity – and the leaders of the early church – are not as valuable as “modern science” and observation – and the default position is now that the complexity of life is a product of randomness and an infinite spectrum of time. I don’t really understand that being the default. Atheists are now critical of the “watchmaker” assumption – ie when you see a wristwatch in a field you assume based on complexity the watch was designed and placed there. I think that’s something that’s been slowly indoctrinated. Atheists are now taught to proselytize in the same way they accuse Christians of brainwashing their children and others.
One of these guys scoffed at my suggestion that his lifestyle is the result of his atheism – and vice versa. He suggested the two were not linked. The atheist point of view by definition dismisses the idea of God – and hence questions regarding whether their atheism influences the way they live are flawed – theism v atheism is still the fundamental question that ultimately shapes the worldview of the individual – morals, ethics, philosophy and conduct all stem from this fundamental position – whether we (or they) like it or not.
The “church” has been responsible for some terrible injustices over time – or at least these have been conducted in the name of the church – ignoring the wildly publicised misdemeanours and wars, in a broader sense the church has failed to adequately educate casual church attendees. Both these atheists had backgrounds including church attendance. Both had strong – and in my opinion inaccurate – understandings of the “teachings of the church” and felt adequately qualified to make assessments on the basis of their childhood experiences. This may be unfairly representing their opinions and positions – but in my opinion something as serious as religion – and the underlying foundation we build our lives on – should be considered by adult minds. Both in the case of people who have always been Christians – and in the case of people who have chosen not to be. In either case I’d hate to think this is the kind of decision you make at 10 and never revisit.
It’s been a pretty interesting discussion all told – and I’d love any readers input on the issue. This post ended up being much longer than I planned.
*Not technically scientifically possible because faith is the belief in something that can’t be observed.
Ubergeek
Thanks to my father I’ve spent the last few weeks (actually, probably my whole life) discovering my inner geek – thanks mostly to lifehacker.com.au – which I mentioned a few weeks ago.
Anyway, in that short time i’ve significantly improved my “internet” experience through Firefox add-ons. If you’re not using Firefox 3 – you should be. Firefox’s strength is that it’s incedibly customisable. So here are my 5 favourite add ons:
1. Better Gmail 2.0 – makes Gmail more awesome by scripting out all the ugly, pointless stuff and applying funky skins.
2. Firebug – a funky little design tool that has been particularly useful for me and my wedmastery at work – it allows you to look at the elements that make up a page (design and content) and edit/tweak them in real time – any site, any time – which makes tweaking your own site, and stealing things from others a real breeze.
3. Piclens – a very, very cool image gallery viewing plug in. get it. Seriously cool.
4. Clipmarks – I’ve used this for a few posts lately – if you see something you like on a webpage you can highlight it and send it straight to your blog. Awesomeness.
5. Ctrl + Tab – allows flicking between tabs within the browser in a breeze. I used to hit alt+tab trying to switch between tabs and would find myself increasingly frustrated when it changed windows on me. But no more.
Honourable mentions go to Delicious Bookmarks – which now make up the “what I’m reading” links in the sidebar, Facebook’s toolbar – which keeps you up to date on Facebooky goodness, if I could get it to work I’d love the FireNes plug in that brings about 1000 Nintendo Entertainment System games into your browser. I’d also recommend a number of plug ins that allow downloading from YouTube – but I’d have to pick the best.
I’m using the AeroFox skin in full screen mode and I feel like I’m in the future right now. There’s also a program out there that reskins Windows XP into Windows Vista like goodness – all the nice design elements without the performance sapping components.
I’ll probably put links up to all of these at some point – but right now I have to go. Farewell.
Weasel words
I was driving to work this morning listening to my local ABC news. Which I think is the best local news in Townsville. There’s a story going round up here about a crocodile – which is not unusual for North Queensland. This crocodile is terrorising the locals at Mystic Sands. It’s two metres long and must be removed because it’s a danger to the community – the creek it lives in flows past two houses.
The local EPA spokesperson said “The Crocodile needs to be removed because there’s a real chance it could interact with pets, or even small children…”
Since when is “interact” a euphemism for eat? Weasel words are the new black. Obfuscation is a big part of my job, a media training thing yesterday with one of Queensland’s leading PR consulting groups made me even more cynical. The trainer (an experienced journalist) made a point that everything we read now has spin on it because journalists are hand fed more than 90% of their news (ie most stories come from Media Releases) – and anyone who puts out a media release knows that they’re not objective.
This trainer made a comment that politics – and particularly policy making is now purely assessed on the following criteria:
a) will we be hammered more for not doing it, or doing it?
b) is there a photo in it?
c) Can we turn it into a news story or a website?
The QLD Government, and the Rudd Government have massive spin machines dedicated to packaging policy for the masses. Rudd is great at symbolism – but lacking substance. This is a prime example of something that met the aforementioned criteria.
Rumours and innuendo
Rumour has it that several leading local sports stars were busted in a “cocaine party”
Rumour also has it that several leading political journos are starting to link some of Rudd’s decisions in policy making in the Queensland government – linking many of South East Queensland’s current woes with his decisions… eg Water shortages with dam refusals, health problems with health infrastructure investment (or lack thereof), and education problems with a Rudd led education review.
Anyway, I’m off to interact with my morning tea.
Very useful websites
I have been trawling the internet a little bit today – I’m in limbo on a couple of work related projects and I came across these two sites (well dad pointed me to one of them) – that are possibly the coolest sites on the internet. I can’t believe I hadn’t found them before.
This one – is mostly geeky but all about improving productivity and functionality of our tech filled lives. There’s also an Australian version
The problem with this resurrection
Unlike the other more significant resurrection – which is massively more significant, and you should investigate it for yourself… I’m finding it hard to find inspiring topics.
I would happily write about coffee – roasting it, drinking it, tinkering with my massive machine (that incidently is up and running since last mentioned here)… but I don’t think it interests that many of my current readers.
I would happily write about the problems with the Catholic Church and World Youth Day – but that would just be a vehicle for my intolerance.
I would happily write about a Christian response to the “arts” – particularly in the context of the nude photo frenzy recently… but that would be slightly too far in the past to be edgy and current…
I would happily write about the new Batman movie – which I saw last night, which was excellent – but really, there are better film critics out there than me.
I would happily write about how the GST should be used to control inflation rather than interest rates – but I feel grossly unqualified to make the necessary economic arguments.
I would happily write about the Cristiano Ronaldo saga, and what I’d do with the 85 million pounds Manchester United would get for him.
I would happily write about how Manly sit atop the NRL table and are looking pretty good this year… but neither of those topics are all that interesting to anyone but me.
I would happily write about all the topics I could possibly write about but don’t feel inclined to – which I guess I’ve actually done.
I would happily write about how I could have simplified this post by using a colon.
I would happily write about coffee – roasting it, drinking it, tinkering with my massive machine (that incidently is up and running since last mentioned here)… but I don’t think it interests that many of my current readers.
I would happily write about the problems with the Catholic Church and World Youth Day – but that would just be a vehicle for my intolerance.
I would happily write about a Christian response to the “arts” – particularly in the context of the nude photo frenzy recently… but that would be slightly too far in the past to be edgy and current…
I would happily write about the new Batman movie – which I saw last night, which was excellent – but really, there are better film critics out there than me.
I would happily write about how the GST should be used to control inflation rather than interest rates – but I feel grossly unqualified to make the necessary economic arguments.
I would happily write about the Cristiano Ronaldo saga, and what I’d do with the 85 million pounds Manchester United would get for him.
I would happily write about how Manly sit atop the NRL table and are looking pretty good this year… but neither of those topics are all that interesting to anyone but me.
I would happily write about all the topics I could possibly write about but don’t feel inclined to – which I guess I’ve actually done.
I would happily write about how I could have simplified this post by using a colon.
So, in conclusion – I’m looking for inspiration, topic requests, things people like to read about that are consistent with what I like to write about…
Untitled
Tim “I blog once a month, and I vote” Canavan obviously has no patience and ignored the time frame I gave for resurrecting this blog. His comment served as a prompter though – and I do plan to provide some new and interesting content in my inimitable style (although you’re welcome to try copying it Tim). I’m still toying with some ideas. I’d like to actually provide a rationale for reading my blog – not just have it as a forum for my rants and raves.
I probably won’t be as verbose as Mr Canavan, nor will I explore the serious theological issues he discusses – although, again, that is something under consideration – but probably in another context or forum.
I have spent a bit of time reading blogs recently and have decided I most appreciate those that offer actual advice, “how tos” and the like… especially food and coffee blogs – so some new posts will have that flavour. If you have any suggestions for topics I can throw my “investigative journalism” skills at let me know and I’ll probably do it.
On Message
I’m planning a more comprehensive resurrection of this blog in coming weeks. But for now – two pieces of multimedia of particular relevance to me today.
Firstly, the boys in blue pulled me over and fined me $225 for “pausing” at a stop sign rather than stopping. Since when is a pause not a stop? It reminded me of this TISM song. Which I have tried to embed – not sure if it will work.
Secondly, wordle.net is a cool web tool for creating funky tag cloud things – I used it to analyse how good I’ve been at staying on message in every media release I’ve sent out in my 2.5 years in my job.
Check it out.
Then, just for fun, I used it to analyse this blog…
It’s Time
Well, after a two month hiatus I figure it’s high time I provide some sort of update for the google spiders – who are probably this blog’s only current readers. Today’s post will be brought to you by the prefix “ob“.
Observations
So, K-Rudd has been PM for slightly longer than my blog free period. In fact he was sworn in the day before my last post. So I blame him for my lack of inspiration. Really he’s just boring. Boring, boring, boring (coincidentally the prefix bo is the reverse of ob). Only slightly more boring is the obstreperous Mr 9% – Nelson and his hapless team. Anyone who the Courier Mail captions as Brenden Abbott – dig up a copy from the 31st of January – is in political trouble. K-Rudd’s problem is that he’s all symbolism and no substance – his response to any issue is to talk – form a committee, a war cabinet, a talkfest. His speeches are grand – and loaded with symbolic guff. His apology speech was well crafted – but not Obamaesque (I’ll get to him later). Two months in to his reign we’ve had a symbolic (some would say token) ratification of Kyoto (which expires in 2012 – hardly a long term solution) – and a token (some would say symbolic) apology to the obviously obscenely treated aboriginal people – an apology which explicitly ruled out compensation. I have mixed feelings about compensation – I think there’s probably a case for some form of compensation. Now that the government has admitted they did the wrong thing they should probably have to pay for that mistake. The proverbial can of worms has been opened.
Obsessions
Another reason I haven’t been blogging lately must be the disproportionate amount of time and resourcing I’ve been giving to my current obsession – coffee. Robyn would probably agree – although she’s enjoying the benefits.
Here’s the progression I’ve gone through in terms of my coffee “habit”
1. Discovered home roasting – through coffeesnobs.com.au – I highly recommend their starter pack. But I’ve since been ordering through Ministry Grounds. I purchased a heat gun from eBay for the purpose of roasting my beans – with the view to building a corretto when I can locate a suitable breadmaker. At the moment I’m just using the heatgun and wok.
2. I was less than happy with our existing grinder – a little bladed number sold as a “herb and coffee” grinder. It was good as an introduction to the freshness of ground coffee – but didn’t produce a particularly even grind – so I purchased an EM0480 Sunbeam grinder second hand from coffeesnobs.com.au.
3. I recently shelled out $400 (plus freight) for a commercial Rancillio machine on eBay – it’s yet to arrive, but I’ll edit this post to include some pictures when my browser will let me.
Home roasted coffee is terrific. I highly recommend my new hobby.
Obama
Barack – the man I’ve dubbed “the new black” when it comes to US Presidential candidates – Obama has just won his tenth straight contest for the Democratic nomination. I’m nominally a Democrats fan in the US thanks to the West Wing. And I picked Barack a year ago – before he was cool.
Obligatory references to real life
Married life continues to be a barrel of caffeine induced laughs (see above). It really is great fun. We’ve recently filled our fish tank with a plethora of new marine life. We’re now leading the kid’s club at church on a Friday night – putting the kibosh on our social life during school term. An unwholesome amount of our spare time is spent playing Tetris on Facebook. Robyn has posted an almost blasphemous score of 946,000 or thereabouts.
Rack off lefty scum
The title of this ‘ere little post is stolen from perhaps my favourite piece of Junior Liberal’s propaganda – perhaps only marginally beating Liberals: We put the fun into funding cuts. The current batch of Liberal slogans ala “go for growth” are a little to obscure, obtuse and obviously written by geriatrics for me to get excited – but (segue) one thing that is sure to get me excited, one thing that’s sure to raise my ire, is the nu-left trendy hippy intellectually self-congratulatory latte pinko lefties. That’s right – the kind of people who when they hear that I – due to the AEC’s stringent and altogether too rigorous attempts to cut the yoof out of the polls and restrict the chances of messy electoral change – am not voting at this election and respond by saying “good, we don’t want your conservative vote anyway” – they’re the one’s who really raise my hackles. Let me tell you a thing or two about these self absorbed commies who go running around with their commercially mass-produced Che Guevara t-shirts extolling the evils of economic rationalism while enjoying their imported South American coffee, French art house films and hydroponic cones… they trumpet idealism and moral superiority, call on the government to end poverty, global corruption and anything resembling “the machine”, “the man”, or “globalisation”… What really gets me is their hypocrisy – their complete inability or lack of desire to put their money where their mouth is. And I mean that literally. Sure be a hippy, smoke your dope, call for a removal of inhibiting laws, the woman’s right to choose to terminate her unborn child’s life, make dope legal, build injection rooms, feed the hungry, water the trees, save the whales…protest against globalisation, protest against free trade, protest against war. But don’t ever let your personal convictions get in the way of your pleasure and comfort. These wacko lefties claim to be all about social justice but the ideologues aren’t prepared to reach into their own pockets (except through taxes) to support anything except the “save a panda” foundation which is just marginally trendy enough to score kudos with their stoned John Butler loving friends. Climate Change and saving whales are in vogue with those of the environmentally superior – but they’re bandwagon jumping, cause loving anti-establishment fiends who’d support the extermination of a people group if the government was against it and decry it as fascism when the government endorses it. Ok – that was pure hyperbole and exaggeration. My point is this – before you, my lefty friends go decrying me and my “conservative Christian” friends who happen to be generally supportive of public morality being maintained in the guise of “law and order” – as callous, unfeeling bigots, be prepared to defend the fact that while you spend your money on Hare Krishna “smile” stickers for your combi or whatever it is you drive these days, and sign your name to whatever Greenpeace petition is thrust in front of your face, us “conservatives” are out practicing the theories of a freemarket economy and donating to worthy charities designed to bring people out of poverty. For ever barb you chardonnay swillers throw at Hillsong for counselling young, pregnant women against having abortions, they’re donating real money to causes like getting people off the street and into jobs. You whinging dole bludging “arts graduate” wannabees are much too busy fighting for intellectual causes to actually address the physical reality.