My argument against prostitution isn’t based on religion, conservative values or prudishness, but is more to do with the fact that, in essence, prostitutes are being bribed to have sex with someone they don’t actually want to have sex with. One wants sex and the other doesn’t. Some may protest that they do want the sex, but what if no money was involved? That’s right. The sex wouldn’t happen.

This “argument” is absolutely absurd. Do the people making it really not see the glaring flaw? How about we do a simple substitution:

My argument against garbage collection isn’t based on religion, conservative values or prudishness, but is more to do with the fact that, in essence, garbage collectors are being bribed to collect garbage they don’t actually want to collect. One wants garbage collected and the other doesn’t. Some may protest that they do want to collect garbage, but what if no money was involved? That’s right. The garbage wouldn’t be collected.

You can apply it to most occupations. If no money was involved, the roads wouldn’t be maintained, the supermarket shelves wouldn’t be stacked, the garbage wouldn’t be collected, nothing would be manufactured, and society as we know it wouldn’t exist. I’m not trying to make a case for or against prostitution, I’m just completely sick of seeing this absolutely stupid argument smugly parroted over and over again.

I can’t see how anyone could get a smartcard ticketing system so wrong in the first place. Myki cards cost $10 upfront, come with no credit, are non-refundable, and expire after a few years. They also cannot be bought at unstaffed stations (the majority of them). You can’t travel when you run out of credit, but there is no way to add credit on trams, or at most tram stops. It doesn’t automatically promote to a weekly fare if you travel a few times within a week — you need to decide in advance to convert credit to a weekly pass, so you still need to know in advance that you will be travelling several days in the week, and you need to queue up for the ticket machine to get this registered on your card. Didn’t anyone think about what it would be like to actually use the system?

When in Melbourne after the Metcard system is retired, I will resort to hiring cars, walking or fare evading. Myki just doesn’t look to be worth the trouble.

Couldn’t you have looked at a well-established system for an example of how to do it right? Tokyo’s Suica costs ¥500, and comes pre-loaded with ¥500 credit. You can return it at a railway station and receive a refund for any credit left on it. The Hong Kong Octopus Card is sold for a refundable deposit of HK$50, plus however much initial credit you want (e.g. HK$150 fro a card pre-loaded with $100 credit). You can continue to travel for some time if the balance drops below zero, so you aren’t out of luck if you can’t find a place to top it up when you’re rushing, but you need to have a positive balance when returning the card if you want your deposit refunded. You can also buy stuff from some vending machines and shops with Suica or Octopus to save fumbling for coins — no chance of luxuries like that with Myki.

While I’m ranting about Melbourne public transport, what’s with the war on accessibility at railway stations? The redesign of Footscray station is horrible. You took away the lovely ramps and put in steep stairs and slow lifts that have broken down almost 200 times since they were installed. The ramps were used by everyone. They posed no impediment to parents with prams, people in wheelchairs, elderly people who avoid steep stairs, and all the people carting their shopping in granny trolleys. People could move quite quickly on the ramps, too. The stairs are completely unsuitable for prams, wheelchairs and granny trolleys, and also steep enough to slow down able-bodied people. The lifts are slow, unreliable and ultimately insufficient for the number of people who need to use them when they’re working.

The makeover of North Melbourne station is a pain, too. It’s nice that you added a way to change platforms at the city end, so you don’t have to walk all the way to the far end to change trains, and it’s nice that the ramps at the far end haven’t been removed. But why the hell did you decide it was necessary to close the station entrance at the far end? Now if you actually want to catch a train to or from North Melbourne station, you’re going to have to use slow, unreliable lifts, or escalators that turn into stairs when there’s a blackout. Once again, parents with prams, people in wheelchairs, and less mobile people who have trouble walking up and down immobilised escalators have been screwed over. Why?

Oh, and I saw Mrs Gale on TV complaining about how Casey’s getting all the love, and no-one feels sorry for her boy. I’ll tell you why: because you brought him up to be a violent jerk. You should thank Casey for trying to knock some sense into your brat — it’s obviously more than you’ve ever done for him. Hopefully from this day forward he’ll be a changed person, but given his refusal to apologise, I don’t hold out much hope. His excuse that he’s been bullied too is no justification. If that’s the case, he of all people should have known better than to throw those fateful punches.

Blaming Kevin Rudd for sliding popularity is also undeniably idiotic. You can’t blame Rudd for trains that run late (if at all) and break down, blowing the budget on unreliable and inadequate myki, mismanagement of the water shortage, the Eastlink toll backflip, failing to deliver on promised rail network expansion, rampant corruption, wasting money of F1 and Tiger Woods, and all the while just saying things like, “Victoria’s the place to be, and Melbourne’s the most liveable city in the world, mate!” Let me tell you, the better rail service, more accessible airport, desalinated water and generally more helpful police make make me less frustrated when I’m in Sydney.

It’s too bad the opposition has nothing to offer — Victoria is in a truly sorry state.

I’m still in shock. When do you stop punishing somebody. Fair enough he did the wrong thing, he did a silly thing, he knows that, everyone knows that, but this is getting ridiculous now.

They’ve stopped punishing him – he got a suspended sentence. He did more than a silly thing, he violently assaulted someone in a public place. He brought swimming into disrepute. Representing the country in a sport is a privilege, and Darcy’s shocking behaviour has resulted in him losing this privilege.

Here’s one from Nick D’Arcy’s father Justin D’Arcy:

It is now seemingly a matter of every other sporting body that’s subordinate to this (the Australian Olympic Committee) just lining up in a queue to punish him for precisely the same thing.

Are you completely blind? Your son violently assaulted someone in a public place. That kind of behaviour has consequences. He brought this on his own head. He’s only received a suspended sentence — a slap on the wrist. By his own stupidity, he’s given up the privilege of representing Australia in elite sport.

This sort of news for young people can be absolutely devastating.

Well, I never would have imagined… Come to think of it, maybe people would get upset about being punched in the face in a public place, too. Now who was it that did that? Oh, I remember: it was your stupid, violent, aggressive son!

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an elite cyclist, an elite swimmer, or someone else who’s given years of their lives to one of these major sporting bodies, there has to be some compassion at least in the way this news is delivered.

Compassion? They should make an example of him! They need to send out a message that this is not acceptable behaviour, and hopefully other athletes will take note.

Meanwhile, I’m in South Kensington. I manage to walk to Kensington and get a taxi to where she is (and overpay the driver for speeding) and the cops still aren’t there. When they finally show up, the bunch of Africans all tell the cops that my wife started it. The cops tell us they can’t do anything, because they’re just kids.

Now I’m really fucking pissed off and considering becoming racist for a number of reasons:

• First of all, why can’t the cops do something? It isn’t just the kids – it’s their parents, too. They bring them up to act like this, and they support them in it.
• Why is it OK for Africans to be racist? They get away with it all the time. Come to think of it, why do they get away with all the things they get away with all the time? I saw, just tens of metres from me, a bunch of young African guys kicking an white woman and yelling things like, “Fucking Aussie bitch!” They get away with everything.
• Speaking of which, what’s the point of cops when they’re always too late to do anything? The local cops only ever have one car available, and it never gets anywhere in time to be useful.
• Why do people try to insist that Australia is an accepting country? It’s full of fucking racists. I get called a terrorist and spat at by whites, and my wife gets abused and threatened by Africans.
• What the fuck am I meant to do? Arm myself? Then if I hurt someone in self-defence, I’ll be the one who’s charged. But I swear if an African messes with me in the slightest, I’ll smash them so bad they’ll have the scars for life, and I’ll tell them that if they mess with me again, I won’t just flatten them – I’ll rape their sister, too.

Fucking hell I’m angry.

Sorry for the profanities and the out of character rant. I’m really not happy right now. I don’t really intend to assault or rape anyone. But if someone did attack me on the street, I would fight back, and I’m strong and fast enough to do a lot of damage. I don’t look for trouble, but if you mess with me, I’ll definitely dish it out.

Now you can clearly see that my position is at odds with the unions. They’re claiming that the federal government should do more to help Ford keep the Geelong engine plant in business. But I definitely don’t want the tax money that I pay going to prop up a poorly managed foreign company.

I don’t think the closure of the Geelong plant is indicative of the state of the automotive industry in Australia at large. Both Toyota and Holden seem to be doing fine. In fact, Toyota exports more than twice as many Australian-made cars as they sell in Australia, and within six months, Holden will be exporting more Australian-made cars than they sell here, too. Building engines in Australia seems to be viable, too. In fact, while the Holden Captiva’s body is made in Korea by Daewoo, it’s fitted with an engine built in Melbourne.

So what’s Ford’s problem? I think what we’re seeing here is indicative of the bigger problems Ford as a whole is facing – they’re losing market share and losing money. They’re strategy to get out of the hole seems to be to employ less people and build less cars – not attempt to regain the market share they’ve lost. When you squeeze, something has to give.

In a way, I do feel sorry for Ford Australia. The biggest export market for Toyota and Holden is the Middle East. Unfortunately, Ford Australia have been blocked from selling a Falcon in that market, because Ford Detroit don’t want them competing with the Crown Victoria. The Territory was a successful attempt to boost local sales, but with rising petrol prices and Euro IV emission standards, it doesn’t look sustainable. They probably could develop better engines that are Euro IV compliant if given the R&D funding, but the decision probably comes from much higher up. The hard workers at the bottom pay for the mistakes of the fat cats at the top.

Will Ford bail out of Australia entirely? I doubt it. They have a strong loyalist following. But if they want to remain successful in any sense of the word, they need to make some major changes to the way they operate. In the end, saving Ford is Ford’s responsibility.

But besides the obvious irony, does anyone else see the glaring double standard that’s applied? It’s OK for all the gangsta rappers to talk like this, but as soon as a white shock jock says it, then it’s racist and degrading to women. Or should we look at it another way. Is this a different kind of racism at work? Is it OK for black guys to call women hos, because we know all black guys are a bunch of dirty bastards, anyway, but higher standards apply to decent white guys? Either way, something’s seriously wrong.

Is it OK to call women hos? How would you like it if someone called your sister (substitute mother, daughter or girlfriend if that works better for you) a whore? I wouldn’t refer to women as hos. But then I do know people who address each other as “гадна пичка” in a perfectly friendly manner (if you don’t know what that means, ask a Serb or Croat – suffice to say it doesn’t sound nice).

Image

I regularly read complaints about negative images of black people being presented in the media. I regularly see negative images of black people presented in the media. But who’s presenting these images? For the most part, it’s black people. You can’t be a rapper if you aren’t a gangsta. The bad boy image makes you cool. Before blaming the white boys for negative stereotypes, go and have a word with Fifty Cent, Snoop Doggy Dogg and the rest of them. They aren’t doing you any favours.

The “N” Word

I’m half wog, half curry and I act, for the most part, like a ricer. Oh yes, and I’m proud of it. Wouldn’t have it any other way. So why is it so bad when white people say nigger? I mean black people call each other nigger all the time. Even worse, black people call white people crackers, and that’s supposed to be OK. I say nigger occasionally, and mean no harm by it. I’ll keep saying nigger until African-Americans stop saying nigger and cracker. Fair?

In Summary

In the words of a very famous African American (who I can’t call black, because he isn’t any more):

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change