Wrong - In So Many Ways

Good morning everyone.



At least the week can't get worse than this.

The above photo was taken from The Herald Sun who have published this photo, and another shot of a topless 19 year old Pauline Hanson with digitised boobs.

Here is what's wrong:

1. Pauline Hanson trying to be sexy.
2. The Herald Sun thinking shots like this are 'newsworthy'.
3. That Pauline Hanson is news on any level. It's just wrong wrong wrong. I want her to GO AWAY.
4. The fucker that sold the shots - FAIL to him - as much as I dislike Hanson, he too is a fucked up wanker creep for selling the shots.
5. The Herald Sun trying to make an angle out of it... by saying that publication of these shots may de-rail her election campaign. It strikes me that by making that statement, they have crossed from being news reporters to news-makers. It is the newspaper that published the shots. This story did not exist. They made the story. They didn't report the story, they authoured it. They are the story. The shots won't de-rail her campaing... it's the Herald Sun buying and publishing them that may de-rail her campaign. Know what I mean? The article should read, "Herald-Sun derails campaign."
6. Pauline Hanson in a state of undress. I fairdinkuum nearly spewed.
7. Just... ew.

Oh my giddy Aunt. What an awful, awful image.

Make it stop.

Make it stop.

Poetry Slam Friday; Part the Whatever.

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle:

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold:

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

I recited the first four stanzas of this as part of our wedding vows.

This was considered highly romantic and thus a “good thing” by all the chicks.

A less literate friend of my wife asked me “how long did it take to write such a wonderful poem?”

Watsinanaym?

Oh no. Sam Worthington, of 'Love My Way' Ozzie soap opera fame has scored the role of PERSEUS in some big Hollywood blockbuster re-make of Clash Of The Titans which I bet will suck shit big-time.

Why re-make what is a fine film in the first place? Oh yes, the effects are dated, but so what? Make another film, cunts, with a different storyline, not the same one again. Do we have to re-make every fucking film that has even been made? There's more myths to choose from you know!

But I digress.

Point is, my internet name is about to become cheap and cartoony. I may as well be called Wolverine or The Hulk.

I picked the name 'Perseus' because I had read the book 'Clash of The Titans' when I was about 10, and I was already heavily into Greek mythology at the time... and then when the movie came out I was very excited (though at the time I did say (for the first of many times in my life), "It wasn't as good as the book."). The story of Perseus intrigued me as a 10-11 year old, particularly the Medusa saga, and my interest in the story has held over the years.

So when I made it on to the internet and had to pick a name, it was one of many I considered (others I considered were 'Jesus69' and Captain Kneejerk), but it won easily.

And so, I ask you all to let me know how you picked your internet name (maybe with the exception of 'Alex'.... unless that's not your real name.)

Charles Darwin was an all-round good egg.

2009 sees both the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origins of Species, making it a good time for all things Charles Darwin related.

I’ve been doing some reading on the Great Man himself and I’m mildly surprised to find that he was thoroughly decent human being and an all-round top bloke.

I already knew he was a loving father and husband and not the remote, aloof authority figure expected for a man of his class and age. But Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s most recent book Darwin’s Sacred Cause (review here) argues convincingly that Darwin’s quest for a common human ancestor grew out of his revulsion of slavery and his horror of the racist argument that black people were inherently inferior to whites.

An important part of this was the Christian belief in the essential brotherhood of humanity. Although Darwin drifted away from religious belief later in life, the lessons and impulses of his early life continued to influence him.

In the end of course, Darwin’s moral code was completely irrelevant to his scientific theories. It doesn’t matter if he was a brute who beat kittens* and farted in drawing rooms, the power of his theories derives from the empirical evidence.

But it’s still comforting, somehow, to find out that one of the most important thinkers in the modern world was a good egg.

*He also hatred cruelty to animals. What a nice man.

We can do better than this, surely?

Over the weekend, the Mrs and I managed to catch a film, Ghost Town, which was an absolute cracker, thanks largely to Ricky Gervais.

For reasons I have never fully understood, Mrs INH insists we arrive on time so we can watch the commercials. This means we also watch the shorts for coming films.

Which is how I was forced to watch the short for Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Thirty seconds into this nonsense, I could feel the will to live ebbing from me. As I understand it, Confessions of a Shopaholic details the zany life of the said “shopaholic”, played at some volume by Australian actress Isla Fisher. I further understand that the Fisher character works as a “columnist” at a financial magazine, a role she fills by shrieking and falling over a lot – thus conveying “zaniness” and what not.

Bugger me sideways with a stick, how did we reach this point? How is it that most of the female characters in romantic comedies are generally portrayed as thick as two short planks covered in butter? And why are female characters in films from the 1940s, not a decade noted for its feminist advances, far more subtle, complex and intelligent?

Take for example, the character of Hildy Johnson, played by Rosalind Russell in the 1940 film His Girl Friday*. Johnson, a female journo on a Chicago newspaper, is respected and admired by her colleagues because she’s bloody good at what she does – not because she shrieks and falls over a lot. She also gives as good as she gets in the cracking dialogue.

Or Barbara Stanwyck in the 1941 film, The Lady Eve. As a razor-sharp conwoman Stanwyck runs rings around everybody else. I don’t recall much shrieking and falling over in this film, either.

I think you can trace the “female journo as shrieking dickhead” to Candice Whatshername who wrote the original column Sex and the City was based on. Either way, it’s a pain in the bum.

Both His Girl Friday and The Lady Eve should be available at any half-way decent video shop. I recommend them both highly.

Confessions of a Shopaholic I’d give a wide berth.

*And quite possibly the funniest film ever made, in the history of the universe.

In Terms Of Kevin Rudd

I would like briefly to bring some balance to the Rudd-lovin' that goes on here (lead admirably by Comrade Insertnamehere).

If a Martian came to Earth and read only this blog, they would assume our Prime-Minister was some sort of highly admired uberlord of the world. They would then assume that given his intelligence, charm and genius, that his syntax was exemplary. As such, they'd be saying 'in terms of' a lot.

Here's some Rudd quotes, each followed by my humble suggestion as to how he should have structured his sentence.

1. (Rudd and Swan will work with the Obama admin)... "not just on financial market regulations but also in terms of stimulus to the real economy".

My suggestion: "not just on financial markets but also on economic stiumulus."

2. Rudd angry about Pacific Brands: "In terms of the money they have got from the government, we will go through all of that in terms of what can be extracted back from them."

My suggestion: "We shall consider a return of Government money"


3. To Kerry on the 7.30 report: "...my responses to many of these questions in parliaments in recent weeks have been framed in terms of one, global oil supply, what can be done to boost investment in those countries which are the principal oil exporters? There's a problem there. Two, on the demand side. Global initiatives on energy efficiencies and the huge great push countries of China and India? Three, what do you do in terms of energy efficiency in economies like our own? That goes to the whole regime of fuel efficient cars, in particular. Four, what do you do in terms of an alternative fuel strategy? And five, what do you do in terms of public transport, in order to make it accessible, particularly in our metro areas?"

My suggestion: That Kevin reads some quality literature (Shakespeare perhaps) to remind himself that our language enables us to express things concisely and beautifully at the same time, without burying one's meaning in corporatespeak.

And to stop licking his lips and eating his own earwax.

Poetry Slam Friday returns!

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

There you go, Pers.

Don’t say I never provide the high-brow guff for you jokers.

At last! Jane Austin! With zombies!!

I am sooo buying this when it comes out.

As the blurb notes

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action.

Soon to be released;

War and Peace and Werewolves,

Hamlet vs the Living Dead

and the all time classic

The Old Testament; Elvira smackdown!

There is no work of classic literature that couldn't be improved with the addition of zombies.

More Religious Fuckwittery

Brave Freedom-Fighters or Utter Cunts? You decide!

The Richmond Football Club were rightly pissed off when the media reported on Ben Cousins’ new home purchase (three bedrooms, two bathrooms), including taking photos and video of the home itself from the street and then publishing these images. “It’s intrusive,” they said, and they are right.

But, as Neil in The Young Ones said to Rik (when Rik discovered his parents were dead), “You think that’s bad.”

For true ‘intrusion on sportspeople’ we cannot go past yesterday’s incident involving a team of everyday bogan/gifted sportspeople just travelling to the sports-ground being attacked with grenades, rocket launchers and machine guns by psychopathic Islamic fucking nutjob cunts. Which results in multiple deaths and injury.

Suddenly, Today Tonight camped at your front door seems tame.

What Radical Islam needs is to have a good hard look at itself in the mirror. What it will see is a violent, stupid and irrelevant movement that has a limited lifespan. But then again, it is so stupid that it probably will never be able to see itself reflected accurately, as they obscure their own reflections with the ghostly visage of celestial virgins and Allah’s loving arms. Hey cunt: It's an hallucination.

Pakistan needs to get this sorted, and quick smart. There was a reasonable doco on Four Corners recently that examined what’s going on there and I recommend watching it if you have the time and band-width to do so.

In the interim, I reiterate my call to all level-headed Muslims to vehemently, loudly and publically decry yesterday’s incident, and to isolate the group responsible and shame them, and I call on Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the UN, the USA, Australia and Israel and anyone else who wants to play to send in their high-tech pre-programmed military machines to eradicate these backwater Bhutto-killing dimwitted failed rug salesmen. They have no place on this Earth. They are not needed.

Cricketers... for fuck’s sake. I tell you this terrorists, even God hates you.

I'm Captain Kneejerk, go to bed.

First Lady Shock!

How is this news?

How can anybody care so much about what Michelle Obama (or anybody) is wearing that they feel compelled to comment on it in any way, let alone criticize it on such a ridiculous basis? Unless she's wearing a Nazi outfit, body paint or a bear suit, does it really matter? Isn't the USA a modern, western society which accepted many years ago that woman have not just legs, but arms? This is 2009.

Oh my God, she wore a sleeveless dress 4 times in 7 days! Outrageous! Apparently "these Big Speech Events are serious and important". She was deemed by some to be showing too much skin!* And, gasp, it was black!

Next she'll be doing a Keating when the Queen visits.


*See Picture for Appropriate First Lady Fashion