Context is Everything

I thought I'd heard it all, until listening to an episode of The Bugle caused the phrase "Monkey Herpes" to come up in conversation, and not be out-of-place.

I bet you think this blog is about you

Hey, Conroy!

Since you're going to be getting people to trawl the net for critical blogs, here's my message to you:

Firstly, your proposal for an internet filter is burnt very bad. Advocates for the bill can't tell children viewing porn from child pornography, it seems like the testing says it won't work and will break the internets, and you're rapidly gaining a reputation as a modern day, one-man Gestapo.

Secondly, simply going through a proxy server will circumvent the whole thing. Have you really thought this through?

Thirdly. If you're going to trawl the internets for people being mean to you, do it on your own time, and stop spending tax-payer funds on it. Oh, and that thing where you suggested someone should be fired for speaking out against your processed very bad filter? Just shows the depths you'll plumb to silence dissent.

Stuff and Things

No real excuse this time. If you've been reading with any regularity you've probably come to expect these gaps in posting (That can last for anything up to - off the top of my head - a year), so I won't bother trying to make excuses.

So, some stuff. First, Kitty Photos. About a week and a half late.


Max in a rare moment of peace:



Polly washes Max:



Max on his favourite spot:



Poll-Poll gets serious for a moment (I think she was trying to sell me Tupperware):




And one from Friday. I realised on Friday that the reason I've been slightly ahead on preperation for meetings and slightly surprised each week on what the end of the week's date is (Important in my line of work) is because I've been scheduling meetings in Lotus Notes (One word review of Lotus? ARRRRRRGGGGGH!) and basing my week-ending stuff on my desktop giant jotter calander thing. And then, on Monday whilst cleaning my desk, I noticed something:



Between this and the spray-bottle incident on Friday, I think my reputation as all-round genius is assured.

Inconsistent

I'm disgusted with the Herald Sun posting nude and semi-nude photos of Pauline Hanson sold to them by a former boyfriend. The Herald Sun claims the photographs were taken between 1975 and 1977. It also claims she was 19 at the time, and drunk.

I'm no fan of Hanson, but a few words in your shell-hole, Herald Sun staff.

First, Nick Leys, who wrote the accompanying article. Pauline Hanson was born in 1954. If, as you claim, the photographs were taken between 1975 and 1977, she was either 21 or 23. You could have verified her age quite readily from a number of sources, and avoided a simple error. Also, why don't you know the year the photographs were taken? And why give two years as the range they could possibly have been taken between and then state unequivically she was 19?

Secondly, the tool who put a picture of a hotel room and labelled it as Pauline Hanson at a book signing.. Dude. If the Hun had time to write this story, clean up the pictures, get Robyn Riley to write an impassioned but tissue-thin defence and put together a 40-odd page gallery of photos of P-Hansey, didn't you have time to check that it was, in fact, a photo of Pauline and not a photo of a hotel bedroom?

Thirdly, Robyn. Now, if memory serves (And if it doesn't, here's the link), you're the woman who was not happy with Bill Henson "exploiting" children. Nor were you happy with Sarah Palin's clothes being the focus of an election campaign.

But, Robyn, you're apparently okay with your own paper featuring a partially nude Pauline. A drunk, 19/21/23 year old woman, who, thirty years later, has those photographs sold by a desperate, dying ex-boyfriend. You're okay with that. No, I'll rephrase. Not only are you okay with it, you go in to bat for your paper.

Funny the definition you apply to "exploitation" isn't it?

This post comes courtesy of the pressure behind my left eye

Sinusitis etc has pretty much laid me out for the last week, so for once I have a legitimate excuse for the lack of blogging.

But, I've added a few blogs to the sidebar over yonder. About bloody time, too.

Proper post like to come in the next few days. Maybe.

A day late, a kittie.... in surplus.

I was going to start a weekly spot - Monday Max (And a Polly photo for Caturday) - but the fact that I've been sick since Friday has me significantly behind the eight-ball. So here it is: With added Polly goodness.


Kitties napping in the sun:



Close-up cuteness:



And finally, because Max never seems to look happy in photographs:

Internation Womens Day - and the beat goes on.

As important as celebrating where we've been, is looking at where we're going interests me more.

Michelle and many others have written fantastic posts on International Womens Day, but I saw nothing that grabbed my attention, until I read this.

Obama is reversing the Bush administrations blocking of funding of research using embryonic stem-cells.

Let's be honest: It's contraversial. Some people are going to be up-in-arms about it. And I can understand that.

But let'as be clear: These are embryos that have been donated by the only people who should have say in what happens to them: The women and man whose egg and sperm created them.

Also:

"The Obama administration took aim at another controversial Bush administration policy on Friday, vowing to rescind a rule that would allow health care workers to deny medical care such as birth control or abortion to patients if it clashes with their morals."

Good. As I've said before, no woman should have to die because of the religious beliefs of her doctor. If you are a medical practicioner and you think your religious beliefs might impede upon your ability to perform the safest, least invasive, most appropriate procedure on a patient (And if you're Catholic, there will be times when this is the case), you should make sure that you practice in a field where those scenarios don't occur. There are plenty out there.

But before we pat Obama too hard on the back, let's remember that he's only undoing the anti-choice, anti-science, anti-woman legislation passed by (and the pro-choice, pro-science legislation blocked by) Bush. He's not doing anything corageous, just what is right.

But it's a start. And it's more than I'd hoped for.

Picard says it all

Oh, Essendon. Why do you torment me so?

I don't know if I can stick another year of this.

Find the Funny

Sorry, Stephen K Amos, but it's topical.

I was quite taken aback by this story in the Daily Telegraph about a "Desperate Acts" "prank" that had a woman ring her sister and try and convince her that their mother had fallen, hit her head and that there wa "blood everywhere". According to the article., the police and an ambulance were called, and as the police are investigating the call never went to air.

I'm struggling to find anything in this story that anyone could find funny. If my brother rang me and tried to convince me that one of our parents was seriously injured, angry wouldn't cover it. I'd be fuming.

Can someone please point out to me what's funny about this? Am I missing something?