A Spade Is A Spade

Disclaimer 1: Yes, I know that Islamic terrorists comprise like 0.00000001% of the Muslim population.

Disclaimer 2: Yes, I know that Western nations over the course of history have plundered other nations.

Disclaimer 3: Yes, I know that this post seems anti-Islamic, but I want to make it clear that it is not Islamic religion or belief under attack here, it is the behaviour of a small group of psychopaths within the Islamic community.

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Whether it be 9/11, the Bali Bombing, the Spanish rail bombing or the latest carnage in India, the common denominator is violent Muslims, perpetrating unspeakable atrocities upon innocent people in the name of God and their religion.

The invisible and dubiously existent hegemony will have me call these people 'terrorists', or even more insidious than that is the post-modern variant, 'insurgents', a word that does nothing but muddy the news to the point that we don't know what the hell is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan and who is fighting who and why.

I join Christopher Hitchens in calling these people what they are: religious.

Make no mistake - they think they are doing God's work. They think they will be rewarded in heaven. It says so in the Old Testament, and in the Koran.

No doubt in the coming days we'll have a series of people popping up in the media defending the Muslim community, and a whole bunch of peaceful, reasonable Muslims defending their brothers and sisters by creating a berth wider than the Grand Canyon around what they believe and what those nasty terrorists believe.

Enough is enough, I say. If a player on a football field does something wrong, the whole team has to take the fall. Likewise, if an apocalyptic and psychopathic Islamic group goes about slaughtering innocent people, the whole Islamic community need to fucking sort it out. Are you a Muslim and not a terrorist? Good. Use your influence to weed out these pathetic morons and anyone who supports them. Denounce them. Kick them out of your mosques. Pull down their places of worship. Do not offer them solace. They are PSYCHOPATHS and you created them - yes, you, Islam.

You know, it's a crazy inverse relationship we have with Muslims. Everytime one group of Muslim psychos blow something up, for some reason we have to like other Muslims even more... Mark my words - at some point soon Ruddy will have to come out and say something nice about Muslims. If it keeps going like this, if some Jihadist fuckface blows up a small nation, we'll have to kiss the feet of moderate Muslims and give them money and season tickets to Bell Shakespeare. ENOUGH! Hey, Muslims: Take responsibilty for your religion.

Don't blame America, don't blame the British cos of what they did 50 years ago, don't blame western imperialism, don't blame poverty. What your bretheren have done is sickening, disgusting, sub-human and totally fucked, and they chose to do it themselves, and they did it in your name, and your God's name.

The calm, reasonable, likeable and peaceful Muslims in Australia need to fire up a bit. They need to kick some heads - internally. I say to them: I respect your right to your religious belief, but in return for that religious belief, you owe me, him, her and them the chance to sleep safely at night.

I can't fix it, but you can, because you have access to these people within your religious administration.

So fucking fix it.

Oh... and Christians? Don't think you're escaping my tirade either. The Mumbai killers believe in God. So do you. Believe me, you are much more alike to these terrorists than I am. Your beliefs are essentially the same - all you differ on is the interpretation of God's specific will.

This is as much a religious problem as it is an Islamic one. So don't go trying to distance yourself too far from these terrorists you weasels. This is what fervent God-believing does to people, and you're as much to blame as anyone, given that the Old Testament started all this.

Abraham, dudes. Abraham. You lot share him.

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I'm Captain Kneejerk, sleep tight kiddies.

This one is too easy

A quick competition, comrades.

A crate of Cooper's Ale to the first TSFKAer who can find the suggestion that the vicious fascists who have murdered scores in the Indian bombings are in fact "brave freedom fighters against western imperialism".

Try looking here.

Back tomorrow.

Who Owns the 00s? Britney or bin Laden?

I've been invited to a '60's' themed party. The costume is no problem, nor I imagine will be the decor for the hosts. We all know the several variations of 60's 'looks' that we can use at a themed party, and the same goes for 50's, 70's and 80's parties. The 90's-themed parties are still a bit vague for the moment, perhaps because not enough time has passed for society and capital C Culture to decide what the hell the 90's looked like.

The 00's are even more an unknown. In forty years times when people are invited to 'noughty' parties, what are they going to wear, and how will the house be decorated?

What are the defining images of our current decade that can translate into decor and costuming? I have a few ideas to get started:

* Osama bin Laden costumes. Not joking either. You can hardly dress up as the Twin Towers, so this is the next best idea. It'll be the 2050 equivalent of dressing up as a Nazi now.

* Twin Tower cakes.

* I-Pods, which will no doubt by then be totally obsolete and a thing of the past because we'll probably have MP9 players in our earlobes or something. The party guests of the future will make I-Pods out of poly-styrene and paint them.

* Halogen downlights. Are they everywhere or what? Every shop and house built since 2000 has fucking halogen downlights in them. Little fucking bastards. Yeah, it's a nice light, but you have to focus them and move them about and shit and there's always dark bits.

* Zen-inspired front gardens with water features, bark and pebbles. Prevalent in all new estates.

* No undies for the girls, a la Lindsay, Britney and Paris. Must alight awkwardly from a car, or, as an alternative...

* Naked. Cos, you know, porn is everywhere.

That's all I've got. I don't understand fashion so I don't understand what look is going to be the 'flairs' of the 00's. All I see on the streets is a mish-mash of the five preceeding decades' fashion and I can't for the life of me see what's now .

Usually you can rely on the movies to capture the looks, but movies set in the present seem to be rarer and rarer, or if they exist at all, they focus in on the oddballs and zanies that don't represent nuffin'.

Any ideas?

Hicksville, SA

Hicksy is back!

Yes, David Hicks, the bloke who ran off from his family and trained with an apocalyptic fascist terrorist group that called for the extermination of Jews and gays and who refused to let women be educated, is back.

And yet again, he is being propped up by the Left... the very 'wing' that under any Taliban government would be the first against the wall.

This time it's our spamming mates at Get Up! For about a year I received their constant barrage of emails. Some of them, sure, were right on the money in my mind, but a lot of their views I thought were just unwarranted and babyish first-year Marxism hysteria - oppose the US at all costs - Blair and Bush and Howard are 'evil' - and so on. I'm no Howard or Bush fan, but I sure as hell prefer having them in power to your average Talib.

So now 'Get Up' are backing Hicksy in his battle to have his restrictions lifted. I for one want Hicks to receive fair conditions. It took too long for his trial to take place, and now that he's back, he should be able to live his life like a normal person and get a job. BUT! BUT! To report in to the authorities regularly and ban him from owning weopons is, as far as I'm concerned, fair. He may not have been a terrorist killer, but we do know he was a supporter of anti-semitism, holocaust denial, extreme Muslim fanatacism and terrorism.

In Hicks' own words:

"Islam will rule again but for now we must have patience we are asked to sacrifice our lives for Allahs cause why not? There are many privileges in heaven. It is not just war it is jihad. One reward I get in being martyred I get to take ten members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell, but first I also must be martyred. We are all going to die one day so why not be martyred?"

As far as I'm concerned, by training with these fucking nutjobs, and talking like this in the first place, he has forfeited his right to own weapons, and I for one believe that he should have to check in with the coppers 3 times a week.

And to 'Get Up' I say this: Instead of making videos looking after right-wing wannabe fascist martyrs, how about gettin' back to some leftwing basics, like, you know, the homeless, the unemployed, the persecuted minorities, the hungry.

Normal shrieking will resume shortly.

Comrades, after due thought I’ve decided to lay off this blogging caper for a week or so.

I’ve been banging on the interwebs since the glory days of TSSH and I think I need a bit of a re-think about what I’m trying to say and how I say it.

I’ve also had a look at some of the pieces I’ve written here recently and they’re a bit, shall we say, sub-par*.

I will be back, as I am a desperately insecure man who needs the approval of others, but I need to do some serious drinking thinking.

I may pop in from time to time to shriek abuse at you.

Or not.

As the case may be.

Please support the other fine writers here**.

*Actually, they were shit.

And no, I’m not going to tell you which ones.

And I’ve deleted them, in any case.

So nyerr, nyerr, nyerr.

** Except Boogey. He’s a CuntCunt.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Further to Ramon's post...

The angels have downed their trumpets and taken a smoko. The ASX has halted trading and the wolves are at bay. The Devil himself has laid down his arms and signed a 14-day ceasefire agreement with the LORD, and Kevin Rudd is set to declare a National Public Holiday.

Yes, Aussie Baz Luhrmann’s ‘epic’ ™ AUSTRALIA is about to be released, which in one fell swoop will restore Australia’s film industry, cement Australia’s global reputation as being the bewdiest place on Earth, and set Australia up to be the new enfant terrible of world arts, the new China and the new black.

Free-trade agreements between Australia and all UN member nations has been ratified, and Australians no longer need working visas or visas at all to go anywhere in the world and they are hitherto allowed to have sex with any man, woman or sheep in any province of any country on Earth. All global citizens must also let any AUSTRALIANS entering their house to empty their larder, and the hosts must darn Australian tourist's socks.

Australians have also been voted as the BEST people EVAH by all polling and data-gathering agencies in every country of the world and in all polls ever commissioned and ever to be commissioned.

Already, shops in Sydney have sold out of tickertape and brass keys to the city which will adorn Australian Nic and Australian Hugh and director of Australia, the Australian senior spokesperson on all things Australian, Baz Lhurmannm, followed by their inauguration as joint Presidents and Kings and Queens of Australia forever and ever. Towering brass statues some thirty metres high depicting the Australians Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and the director of Australia, the greatest Director on Earth, the Australian Baz Lurhneman, have been commissioned to tour the world every four years, starting from some outback shitheap full of redneck cunts in FNQ.

The NT have reported an influx of workers set to reap the inevitable tourist hordes that will descend from all corners of the globe only minutes after seeing the film AUSTRALIA by Baz Luhrnmann. They are currently enrolled in fast-tracking lingo courses, practicing their use of the word ‘crikey’ as it commonly appears in the film Australia which is directed by the Australian genius Baz Lumrhannm.

Chinatown in New York is bankrupt and will soon be re-branded as Outbacktown.

Jim Schembri has been taken outside and shot after his unpatriotic review.

The SES are turning in their badges and the brown snakes have decided to hibernate for summer as well. The white-tails have emptied their venom and the kookaburras can’t stop laughing. Sharks are now vegetarian. Possums speak English. The moon has eloped with an astral whore and somewhere in another room an old clock ticks.

AUSTRALIA is coming.

For bears to dance to.

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

I have this pinned up on the wall of my office cubicle thingo.

It makes me weep mingled tears of bitter envy and awe.

Sorry, what is it you do again?

"I hope those tits are organic"

It seems Prince Charles has turned 60.

What an odd life he must lead.

He’s one of the world’s richest men, so it’s not like he has to get up and go to work each morning, yet one of his main tasks – to breed – is already behind him.

He can’t pop down to the pub for a quiet pint and ciggie in the beer garden without a gaggle of security bods, spin-doctors, journos, snappers and the odd nutjob following him.

Everything he does and says is scrutinised, yet nothing he does or says is of any value.

The one job he has any training for depends on his mum dying.

He may be called upon to decide the most complex political matters, yet his only qualifications are a) he’s a bloke and b) he’s an Anglican.

He will be forever overshadowed by his more famous ex-wife. In that he’s a bit like Guy Ritchie but at least Guy Ritchie produced one film that wasn’t complete shit.

He’s next in line to be King of Australia, yet he won’t live here.

Each day he must wake up with the lingering thought “What is it I do again?”

Prince Charles. Why?

Rahm Emanuel sounds like my sort of bloke.

Salon Magazine reports on the man chosen by U.S. President-elect Obama to be his new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

It’s an interesting and well written piece and I urge you to read it.

However, for the time poor, I include this passage, which sums up Mr Emanuel rather well:

One of the founding myths of the Legend of Rahm is of a night at Doe's, a divey steakhouse in Little Rock, Ark., shortly after Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. Emanuel had worked on the campaign, and would soon move into the White House as political director. Some Clintonistas were sitting around at dinner, griping about all the people who had betrayed the new president. But Emanuel wasn't satisfied just to whine about them. (After all, he races triathlons, marathons apparently being insufficiently challenging.) So he grabbed his steak knife and started plunging it into the table, yelling, "Dead! Dead!" as he rattled off the names of the new administration's enemies.

Mr Emanuel, I like the way you think.

Remarkably Compelling! Yes, But What Is It?

Another corporate brochure in the mail from ‘Professional Advantage’ addressed to me, this time spruiking a 'remarkably compelling' product called ‘Infor SunSytems eXFM’.

Allow me to examine the sum of its parts.

‘Infor’ sounds like it’s an abbreviation of ‘Information’, but the usual word for that is ‘info’. Maybe it’s short for ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

‘SunSystems’. Now, I would accept ‘Sunsystems’ and ‘Sun Systems’, but not 'SunSystems'. Somewhere along the corporate way, back in the early 90’s I suggest, some arsehat with a marketing degree and a $1000 a day cocaine habit decided that putting title words together but retaining their capitalisation was a smart idea. PricewaterhouseCoopers is one such horror - actually they're even worse because arbitrarily, they drop the capital 'W'.

As for ‘eXFM’, well that’s not even a word; it looks more like my cat walked across the keyboard with the ‘Caps Lock’ key left on.

So what does this amazing product actually do? Dunno. I’ve read the brochure four times and the only hint is a mention of ‘timesheets’.

Features of the product they seem eager to impress upon me include:

• eProcurement (Does that mean I get email? Because I already have that.)
• ‘Self Service’ reporting (Does that mean I have to do my reports myself? If so, why would I want their product?)
• ‘Expense Mgmt’ (Would it kill them to add in the missing letters?), and
• ‘Functionality’ (Mentioned twice. I presume it means you can turn it on and off… whatever the hell it is.)

I ask again: Why can’t businesses talk like normal people? If they want to communicate their concepts to me, why don’t they start by using the English language as opposed to this part-gobbledygook and part-Klingon?

The free ‘strictly limited’ seminar is on the 20th November at Professional Advantage’s offices at 500 Collins St, Melbourne, and it includes a light breakfast.

I’d love to go but there’s some grass growing in my backyard and I feel compelled to watch it.

And for dessert?

The Bali bombers have been executed.

I think they were loathsome fascists and anti-Semites who should have rotted in an Indonesia prison for the rest of their lives, forgotten and unmourned.

However, what gets my goat is that the usual suspects have been jumping up and down, saying “the Australian Government should have done more to stop the executions”.

Umm, chaps? They were Indonesian citizens, sentenced by an Indonesian court and executed by an Indonesian firing squad.

The Australian Government (and opposition as well) has made quite clear its opposition to the death sentence around the world. It’s the height of arrogance to imagine it could do anything more.

I have to admit that if I was going to be executed*, firing squad would probably be my preferred method**.

*After a great big, slap-up meal of Beef Wellington and a couple of bottles of a decent red.

*Not that it’s likely I’d be offered a choice.

It came from Illinois

It's been said one of the best ways of judging the Zeitgeist* of any particular age is to look at the horror films it produces.

Certainly during the Bush era there were a spate of films (28 Days Later, War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, Sex and the City) which featured ordinary citizens as the victims of forces they cannot understand or control, malign beings that leap out of the darkness and rip your head off as you're going down to the shops to get some milk.

Which seems to sum up the Bush era rather nicely, come to think of it.

Now, with Obama heading to the White House and the Democrats in firm control of Congress, it will be interesting to see if this flows on to the entertainment industry.

We'll have to wait to see if Hollywood brings out a film in the near future, where some hideous alien comes from dimensions beyond and buys you a beer or something.

*Why does German have all the cool words? Zeitgeist, schadenfreude, angst, weltschmerz, blitzkrieg - all crackers.

And they're racing in the U.S.

OK punters, here we go.

Voting has just closed in the eastern U.S. states, with the first results expected after 11 AM, Melbourne time and there are a couple of points to keep in mind.

1. As the 2000 election made clear, the winner of the popular vote does not necessarily become Prez. The successful candidate must achieve a majority of delegates (271) in the Electoral College. Each state has a number of votes in the EC, based on the number of seats it holds in the Congress, with the more populous states having more votes. Thus large states like Florida have 27 votes and smaller states like Alaska have three.

2. The vast majority of states operate on a “winner take all basis”. Even if McCain gets 49 per cent of the popular vote in say, California, Obama would still take all of California’s 55 votes to the EC.

3. Voting is not compulsory, so the parties devote vast resources into getting people to vote.

4. The U.S doesn’t have anything like our Australian Electoral Commission. Voting methods are determined by the state in question. This can lead to voting methods varying wildly from state to state and sometimes within states.

5. The seppos are also voting for 538 House of Representatives and Senate seats.

6. In the U.S, the Democrats are blue and the Republicans are red. Annoying I know, but there you are.

7. Keep your eye on key eastern states, like Virginia, Ohio and Florida. If they go heavily for the Dems early on, McCain is most likely toast.

8. U.S. beer is largely crap.