One Book Many Brisbanes 2007

Quick note for anyone who is living in Brisbane or was born in Brisbane and thinks they can write. There’s a short story competition put on by the Brisbane City Council that has ten prizes of $6000 each up for grabs.

You just need 4000-6000 words, fiction or non-fiction, any genre as long as it somehow relates to Brisbane. They’re the basics but the BCC website lists all the conditions so you should check them all out before starting anything (the born/living here thing is a requirement). Submissions need to be in by 10^th December and the ten winners are published together in a book.

If I can get anything together I’m thinking something Brunswick St based about prostitutes and drug dealers. Got to work with what you know. With ten prizes though I’m sure to get some of that cash. How hard can it be?

Any real writers who do not quality should feel free to write a story anyway and I’ll submit it for them. I'll split the proceeds 60-40, straight down the middle.

Define gravity from first principals. Show your working.

I love arguing. Not the smashed bottles and finding broken teeth in your hand kind of arguing but the “good point”, “I never thought of that” or “you would say that commie” kind of arguing. Debating would be another word for it I suppose, but I think that lends it an air of dignity not appropriate to the level of intoxication I usually operate at.

There is a sliding scale in arguments. One the one hand there are two people who basically agree. They have the same conclusions but slightly different evidence to back it up so the conversation is basically a refresher course for both about how right they are. Interesting for a short period.

On the other hand you have two people who cannot even agree on a basic platform to start arguing on. There is nothing in common. Any statement that is seemingly fact on one side will be met with contempt on the other. In an attempt to find some common ground the two parties will regress further and further into the bases of their beliefs until they are debating the semantic bias of female verses male subjective pronouns.

Now I am a firm believer in the theory that the true test of your knowledge only comes when you argue with someone with a different opinion to your own. It’s only then that you find out what you truly know, but there comes a point when you are debating those so far from your own opinion that you have to cut it off and realise that there is no point in further discourse. I seem to have trouble finding that point.

As an example, I have a creationist Christian friend who I regularly have debates with. Have you ever had to argue the impossibility of Noah’s ark? Not just state that it is obviously impossible but actually get down and dirty and argue it? Working out the logistics of creating a craft that can hold the thousands of base species (one wolf created all dogs you see) needed to save the land animals during the great flood?

Many of you would have bailed out well before this but if you care to indulge someone willing to invoke science in this way and you’re not too careful about it you can find yourself suddenly losing what is to you a clearly absurd argument. It’s basically the equivalent of trying to mathematically define, off hand, the validity of the Fourier Transform from first principals. You know you are right, but you can see the mountain of effort needed to prove your point.

Today I was talking with a friend about some of the fringier natural medicines. I was wielding the well-blooded sword of the scientific method to cut through his anecdotal claims of the new super medicine he was espousing when I was broadsided with doubts about the validity of science itself. Suddenly I was forced to define and defend the basics of the scientific method as the best way of explaining and documenting the natural world. It’s either that or walk away, you see?

It annoys me so much because the argument is left unresolved when to me it so clearly should not be. What do you do when someone will not accept the validity of the seemingly well-accepted platform upon which you are basing your argument? Say ‘fuck off you’re clearly an idiot’ too early and you’re close-minded, too late and you’ll find yourself counting the number of generations since Adam.

I guess this is what motivates dictators, first against the wall and all.

Vote 1: First Generation Australians for Zero Immigration party

Have you noticed it lately? I know I have. Bloody immigrants, hundreds of the bastards, swarming into our country, stealing our jobs and turning our back sheds into 7-11s. I walked up to one the other day and asked him what Don Bradman’s test average was and he didn’t have a clue. Don’t be alarmed though, the Government has a solution. It’s called the Citizenship Test and its aim is to ensure that every new citizen is as dinky di as we are.

Now the cynical among you will probably look at this as a cheap political stunt designed to assure middle Australia that Khalid is not going to move in next door. And you’d be right. What a waste of fucking time. It is election season though, and xenophobia has won more than one election in this country.

Here’s how it works. Everyone who becomes an Australian citizen will have to pass the test. But if they fail it they can resit it until they pass it. Reckon you could pass it? You can try it out here.

The reason this whole thing is stupid and pointless is that it doesn’t even address the issue that racist Australians are annoyed about, namely immigrants. It doesn’t stop people coming into the Australia even if they hate us and all we hold dear, it just stops them becoming citizens. There are 900,000 people living here currently that are not citizens. What about them?

Being a citizen seems a good thing to aspire to, but it doesn’t really stop you from living here happily. In fact, not being a citizen may even be better. Here is a list of pros and cons of not being a citizen.

Cons:

• Can’t Vote, which in my book means you also can’t whinge about anything political. This one would be devastating for me.
• Can’t get an Aussie passport. They’re pretty cool now with the hologram and all.
• Can’t run for parliament.
• Can’t get a cushy job in the Public Service or the Defence Force.

Pros:

• Don’t have to do jury duty.
• Can’t be called up to fight if there is a war and they reinstate the draft.
• Can’t get consular assistance from DFAT if you get in trouble overseas. For reasons why this is a ‘pro’ please see David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib.

You can even get the dole when you're not a citizen. So unless you're really after that government job I'd probably advise against it.

I would love to see some stats on how many commodore driving, VB swilling seventh generation Aussie bogans would fail this test. I’m only supporting it if we can apply it to them too, deporting everyone who fails. Dazza Six-Pack would then be stateless and we’d have to lock him up in Nauru.

Assuming I pass that is.

Follow the Money

Sometimes things in life just work out.

I assume everyone has been following the Maddie case in the UK and Portugal. Over there they have a family missing a small girl. Over here in Australia, we have a small girl missing a family. Lets give Pumpkin to the McCann’s, presuming they first promise not to drug and kill her.

C’mon, who thought that they killed her when the papers were going all crazy last week? I sure as hell did. Guilty as sin. Unfortunately it tuns out the ‘DNA in the boot was from the McCann non-missing/presumed dead children.

Now I think they probably didn’t do it, but I’m not basing this on mere evidence. I’m backing them because Richard Branson is backing them, and you don’t get to be a billionaire entrepreneur by betting on the wrong horse too many times.

It’s the same with elections. You can read the political columns and look at as many polls as you like, but if you really want to know what’s going to happen you look at the bookies. Follow the money.

I wonder if anyone has a book going on the Maddie case.

Like a Scandal in the Wind

I know I’m not breaking any new ground here, but politics is a dirty business. It’s just ironic that you have to be squeaky clean to get anywhere in it.

We have news today of the tabling of a report into some Goss-Rudd child sex cover-up from 1990. I remember the issue well. At the time I was playing in the backyard with my Transformers when Barney rushed in with the news. I dropped Optimus and leapt to my wireless for the 4pm headlines.

Not really. I just have to say I know nothing of this particular issue, and obviously if K-Rudd was complicit in hiding sexual abuse in detention centres seventeen years ago he should be hung. What I’m interested in is how you’re never past your past in politics. We have all sides of politics manning their dirt squads in the hope of picking up something sufficiently bad to destroy their opposition.

But I ask you, what person out there who has lived a reasonable life has not done something at one time or another that, if splashed on the front page during an election, would mean a sheepish withdrawal, public apology and possible legal charges? I wager most people would fail this test. Certainly anyone who’s been to a university college, or anyone who enjoys a drink or fifteen on a Friday night, or anyone who knows what the game “Goon of Fortune” involves.

Not me of course. Nothing shadowy in my past other than a couple of Asian sex tours I organised and the occasional stint as a bookie at the dogfights, but you see where I’m going with this. Maybe that’s why there are so many Christians in the parliament. The only ones at Uni not getting drunk, naked and arrested were the teetotallers attending chapel instead of the boat races on a Friday night.

Well I propose a radical change to our parliamentary system. No nominated candidate can be accepted onto the ballot without presenting a photo of him or her doing a nudie run, testimony of a secret gay lover or evidence of extensive drug use/cultivation. Lets turn the process on its head and get the scandals out early, so we can consider all the facts before casting our vote.

“Well, I’m still not convinced that turning back the Industrial Relations laws is a good idea, but check out this youtube video of Rudd sticking a lit firecracker up his arse and pulling a bong on the steps of St John's Cathedral.”

He’d have my vote.

La Bombe Atomique

Oh shit, world war three is coming. Well, maybe. News today that France is posturing for conflict with Iran.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2170890,00.html

While I really don’t think that Iran having nuclear weapons is going to be a good thing for the international community, looking at the situation I really can’t blame Iran for trying to get the bomb.

It’s no secret that the US and Iran fucking hate each other. The yanks have somewhat toned down their threats of late, but there is a large subset of the US administration that has openly spoken of attacking the country. Now France is threatening action. At least it’s multilateral warmongering I guess.

Without diverging too much into the mistakes of the Iraq invasion, I believe it’s exactly situations like this where the repercussions of that event can be most felt.

While France has deliberately mentioned war in order to highlight the issue, I don’t really think they are pushing for conflict. What they really want is for the situation to be resolved through diplomacy, and through the UN. Herein lies the problem. The US invaded Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council. So why should Iran believe that complying with any UN directives will save their country from attack or invasion? Hell, Iraq wasn't even actually making WMDs and they still got destroyed. So even being innocent is still no guarantee of safety.

Without trust in the UN’s power to resolve issues like this, the only insurance against attack is to become a nuclear power. So I reckon they’ll keep trying it until we get, as Sarkozy says, “an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran”. Not really hoping for either option personally.

I created a blog and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

For years and years I have been a taker, an Internet 'user' if you will, who continually harvested the newly grown crops of our vast electronic library without sowing anything new. I contributed rarely, preferring to lurk in sites like slashdot, somethingawful and 4chan (listed in order of depravity and likelihood of encountering CP) but I knew there was more fun to be had.

So I've started my own blog, "Smoking is Addictive". Much like how I continue to smoke cigarettes, knowing full well that they are cancerous and toxic, I hope that some out there will continue to read this blog, knowing full well that it is mundane and pointless.