Why I no longer want to be an astronaut

ASTRONAUTS on the International Space Station (ISS) are to get an unusual treat – an MP3 player loaded with a playlist of songs specially chosen for people in orbit.
The top ten was selected by a 14-year-old Norwegian girl, Therese Miljeteig, who won a competition staged by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Now having any 10 songs repeating over and over again for 100 days in orbit would be terrible enough, but what kind of cruel joke is it when you subject our spacepeople to the musical whims of a 14 year old girl? I mean it’d be like doing flying squad in Simon’s car all over again.

Bellicose Blather

Protip: If you actually refer to Kevin Rudd as “Prime Dickhead” I have a simple and quick recipe for you. Mix two parts you with one part fast-moving inter-city train. Add a splash of realisation of mortality and leave to sit until an underpaid cleanup crew gently convinces your rapidly drying remains to relieve themselves of their rail-centric bonds.

It’s not as if this comedy of errors we call the ‘factional response to political change’ has been enough, it seems we are to be inundated with faux-intelligent monocultural ignoramuses hell-bent on making joke groups on facebook (or for the more culturally-oriented; in small café’s) about the integrity and quality of a Rudd PM. There, I’ve said it, it’s over. If you can’t deal with having to learn the name of a New Prime Minister, you have serious issues with rationality, humanity and the underlying concepts of information retention. My course of treatment? A thorough application and analysis of the underlying physics of yourself-ground interactions when compelled from a great height. Excuse me if I’ve just interrupted a consistent echo-chamber of indulgent miasmic onanism that seems to have been stewed in its own brand of cliquish ignorance for such a period of time that the individual participants are literally ecstatic with joy whilst trying to catch each other’s ejaculate in their braying mouths.

You might be snorting with indignation at this point, having just hastily clicked the “Accept” button on a group on Facebook with the title “I won’t call Kevin Rudd PM I’ll call him Earthen ButtFart to better Convey my level of angst at the current political situation”. That’s all well and good, but you my friend have a thing known as a ‘party line political allegiance’. Were someone higher in the polity/party to say jump you would quickly draft a press release about the height of the jump and how comparatively, your opposition has not even begun to jump and their planned jump is paltry in comparison with your olympian vector.

That said and done I’ve learned a very important lesson over the last few weeks; political allegiances are about as safe and as useful as Hasbro™’s ‘Chokables – The infuriatingly small but unresponsive to natural reflux, plastic doodads’ around a group of existential and suicidal three and four year olds. They serve little to no purpose, they often make you hate yourself, and at the end there’s a dead kid and a bunch of angry policemen looking for answers.

I try to have some sort of reason for everything that I write, otherwise this whole didactic and one way nonsensical stream of utter gibberish goes to utter shit and ends up with me sitting in the corner with a half-eaten dictionary and a tank of nitrous talking about fake Korans.

If there is any form of message in this poorly-scribed madness, it is this; wake up to yourselves you bunch of self-indulgent priapic, genetic addendums. If you’re supposed to be the sane ones that wake up to the insanities of the mindless echo-chamber self-indulgence of the most left wing of the left wing, why are you letting yourselves fall into the same nonsensical trap?

If you want to convince those that aren’t party faithful that you are the true and the brave, on the straight and narrow then stop falling into the same idiotic habits as your opposition.

Otherwise we’re left with the nonsensical gruntings of idiots on both halves of the political stage, and then we’re well and truly fucked.

EDIT: Also, Justin’s in Melbourne for a few days, so you know what kids, Fuck David Clarke. He’s a moronic Fat Cunt that is trying to enforce his narrowminded idiotic views onto a group of people that are resisting it.

David, you singlehandedly lost the Liberals the State election and the current abysmal state of NSW rests entirely on your head. I hope serving God was worth it; you crackpot fuck. I give it ten or fifteen years until you Religious Right cum-splashes realise the indelible stain you leave on modern politics certainly isn’t admirable. You and your kind are the watered down excreta of a baseless, thoughtless class of arbitrarily-bemoraled drones whose only true victory will be the obvious expunging of your genetic dross through the Darwinism you so hopelessly bemoan.

Tokenistic Gesture #307

Yay, Kyoto. We’ve signed it. But we’ve got to wait until the UN Ratifies it, but we’ve signed it, even though we were on track to meet those targets, but we’ve signed it.

We’re also going to send Indigenous Australians a Hallmark card wishing them “Great Sorrow UnJoy at the Passing of their Much Repentance.” It’s necessary for the Government to get past this elephant in the room, but I think whatever carefully worded statement Ruddkip throws out will just seek to really really piss off Indigenous community members. Think the guy’s capable of saying the word “Sorry”? He can barely say the word condoms.

One journalist decided to try to make safe sex the story of the day, and began going through a list of questions about condoms. What did Mr Rudd tell his own children when they were growing up about safe sex? What did he think of condoms generally?

…

So he responded with a classic Ruddism. Ignoring the guffaws of several members of the travelling press bus, Rudd talked about “effective AIDS-prevention-mechanism contraceptives along the lines you describe”. There was no way that was going to make it to air, and Mr Rudd had, yet again, succeeded in keeping his day’s campaign on message.

I cannot stand that form of answer, why Ronan Sharkey didn’t call ‘bullshit’ is beyond me.

Yes, I know this is rehashed content-less material, but I feel it’s in my best interests to regularly update this blog with things that aren’t just blatant party-based hit-pieces.

Idiocy must be punished, and I’m looking forward to Rudd’s world-leading plan for tackling Climate Change. I’m a huge fan of Solar, Wave, Wind, all that jazz what with knowing how it works [Ask a greens kid or any of the getup kids to explain generation and the photovoltaic effect to you, they’ll stumble over the answer as much as getup pretends to be non-partisan] but any Climate Change solution that doesn’t include the truest of all forms of power Nuclear fucking Energy, won’t meet base load and will be even more of an impotent gesture. Nuclear energy is free non-dangerous power (Handy hint for those playing along at home Coal is more radioactive than Nuclear!) what done make gobs of delicious energy for our fat devices to slurp down.

—

Also, I was listening to the Hack podcast again and there was a segment from some “Youth Activist” currently in Bali for the Youth ‘Climate change caucus’. She made a comment that actually made me burst out laughing:

We were great at, throwing aside our political causes and committing to action. Youth are really great at action. We’re going to speak to and get the government to commit to our ideas.

Woo, action! A non-binding but vitriolic personal commitment to try and force misunderstood and impassioned knowledge of base psuedoscience on proper adults. Though I’d have to say that the current Government may be slightly more in favour of listening to the idiotic ramblings of more NUS-like-types.

Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of policy by collectivist groupthink!

Seriously, shut the fuck up about VSU.

So it’s on Hack (Of course) VSU is terrible, there’s not a glut of cash wasted on stupid things and not being put towards student needs. All the usual grr, particularly wondering what Commisar Rudd will do when he’s quite possibly maybe elected into to the second highest office in this grand land.

Under VSU this service would not exist.

Proving the name of the show to be accurate Kate O’Toole talked with Gillard about her opinions on VSU and how it’s ‘destroying student associations and University life’. Yes, we all know that the gravy train disappeared and the fat teat of extorted cash dried up leaving you people with a reason to learn that just wantonly spending isn’t the right way to do things. We get it, it’s the be all and end all, the sky is falling, etc.

Except it hasn’t. Now, I know that I’ve been told time and time again that the introduction of VSU was a plan to gut student activism and the like because it then made the government less accountable.

The problem is, is what the hell has the NUS achieved for students? Sweet, fuck, all. We’re all aware of this and it’s some fantastic kinda secret that we smirk to one another, but the point still remains. They have achieved next to nothing except sucking funds out of the Student Body and injecting them into marginal Labor seats. Hey, it worked, namaste. You got away with it.

The thing is, whilst the socialist-types are getting their hopes up that Rudd’s going to bring back CSU, I honestly wouldn’t hold my breath, and here’s the deal as to why:

Rudd is not going to allow a massive cash injection into a fan base that is always rabidly anti-government, and not for the right reasons.

He has too much to lose.

Student activism ain’t a great thing unless you’re the puppetmaster. OurKevin, certainly ain’t a puppetmaster. He’s a harmless and well-rehearsed lapdog for the Gillardtron, and he does a fantastic job of it.

I’ll say this loud and clear, Kevin and the other kids aren’t going to allow a massive amount of funds to go to a group of students that will have no qualms trying to enforce their own Napoleonic rule on the party.

My Name’s Kevin, I’m from Queensland, and I won’t directly ignore a policy that is intelligent and offers more freedom to students.

I’m sure we all know my stance on CSU. In that I think it’s corrupt and coercive and extortive to steal money from students under threat of removed basic University services (such as graduation) in order to fund the wet dreams of gormless morons, who have tiny heads filled with grand political aspirations.

Does this mean I’m against student activism? Not at all. However, I do think the current methods of bleeding Student Associations dry in order to fund grandiose visions of political absolutism ain’t the right way about it.

We know these people are willing to put their time where their mouths are, so why not man up and use your own funds to try and perpetuate your own cause? God only knows that we here on this blog surely do.

I think the really irritating thing about VSU is that it makes it so very clear how little the Students Associations respect us students. They think that we have no right to decide where to spend our money, and they think that we’re obviously too stupid to choose to spend it on their services.

Were the Unions actually providing proper services and really supporting students, VSU would have had no impact. I think the fact that 98% of students are choosing not to join their Unions showed the kids in charge that no matter how much of a moral ‘upper hand’ or ‘absolutist position’ they had, in the long run it didn’t mean much because people didn’t want to fund them.

It forced them to recognise their irrelevancy and realise they no longer had a free ride, and this is what truly sickens me about this entire viewpoint. I understand the need for collectively doing things, I completely understand the wants of people to have bodies to go to and to want to be a part of something.

What I don’t understand is the kind of ‘we know better’ moral superiority that always ends the same way. “We’re making the right decision so you don’t have to.” This whole notion that we as a group of students are, as I’ve said time and time again, too stupid to know the best way to spend our money is abhorrent.

Viva la freedom, because god it felt good to spend that $600 on booze and videogames rather than the limpid dreams of a dying race of activists that are struggling to be as relevant as their parents were.

 

Seven Oh Kevin, A Retrospective

I (‘the eternal protagonist’) enter the fray. Some words are carelessly strewn for the dogs to feast upon while I do something worthwhile (‘responsible stripper ownership’). Readership increases by 70% (‘approximate figure’).

I’m the Kevin Rudd of the Internet.

First Post (my BEST POST YET!)

Silence. I don’t start things, and I sure as hell don’t finish things. I’m there in the middle, when the risks are low and the rewards are high. Only problem is the price of admission – I could only join this blog if I legally adopted the same name as a current contributor. Dan is one of those rare, true, asshole’s names, so I’m Justin. The best name.

Carefully-selected facts now follow, I command you to read each: my incredible superiority complex by definition eclipses those of both my new blolleagues (guess the compound truncation for a fantastic* prize) combined. I swear both to and at God that I have a kabar and a junglee under my bed (fact). I am hesitant to use them, due mainly to the tenuous legality applicable to their most awesome uses.

I am pro-military coups as I believe they are man’s finest art form, gracefully juxtaposing resistance with tyranny. Les Mis would have been better if the revolutionaries were SAS, just try and argue otherwise. “Shit” also tends to be “fucked up” when the law breaks down, which is always fun. I’m no friend to your pet. I’m correct. I just… I don’t care. I will reference those last two sentiments, and regularly. The footnote from earlier is hidden on this page; fetch, boy.

By way of summary: I thrive on conflict; peace, out.

Moron Dies: No one cares

From the Sydney Morning Hatstand:

The 26-year-old from Melbourne was suffering from an aggressive melanoma after years of solarium use.

Ms Oliver said the cancer had occurred after 20 visits to the solarium in her early 20s.

She said she had not been aware of the dangers of excessive tanning and was shocked when she found out about her cancer.

I’m sorry, Solariums are where you’re bombarded with UV light in order to promote increased melanin levels in the skin. The same fucking UV light that causes cancer and that’s why we have been told for YEARS to wear goddamn clothes and a hat and sunscreen so we don’t get melanoma.

Happy clappy fucking moron here desides to dunk herself into a bucket of cancer and then is a brave struggling survivor when she is diagnosed with cancer and dies of it. I’m sorry, you’d have to be more than completely fucking retarded not to realise that you’re being bathed in spectra-based-death-rays at a solarium. Your body is being NUKED with UV radiation with no protection whatsoever, of course you’re going to get cancer if you’re doing it for hours at a time every two weeks.

The reason you ‘tan faster’ at a solarium is because you’re being bombarded with SIGNIFICANTLY higher levels of radiation that that emanating from the goddamn sun. Radiation Mutates DNA, Mutated DNA causes cancer (or Superpowers).

Just more evidence against not being a goddamn moron.

Unity: No one Likes You

Yellow is a stupid colour and slandering other people to get ahead in Student Elections is without a doubt, the flat out worst, most retarded thing I have ever heard of. If you have enough spare time to write fraudulent articles or wet chalk insults under your own candidate’s chalk and then CREATE FRAUDULENT witness accounts of utter vacuous bullshit, you’d be better off donating that time to Charity.

Seriously, you are investing all that time and effort into a faction of Labor that is going nowhere and who is about as successful as an independent in Wentworth. Alienating everyone around you and fucking up NUS preferences in some nepotistic fit of onanism doesn’t work. I don’t even pay that much attention to Student politics and I know that you guys are a bunch of absolute assholes with the tact and grace of an abortion, but seriously, what the fuck are you doing?

The mind boggles at how absolutely pathetic you are to invest time and effort into serious character assassination just to get some form of political power.

Doesn’t matter anyway because if you cunts do get into political power all you’re going to do is steal all the Union’s money in a giant, costly circle-jerk. You are a bunch of criminals whose only political goal is to steal as much money as you can from any group of students on the face of the earth.

Yellow is a fucking stupid colour.

Why are we still Censoring stuff?

Seriously, what’s the go? Phillip Ruddock’s department is Censoring BOATLOADS of stuff and it’s completely ineffective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_films#Australia

What with the internet enabling us to share full digital reproductions of content, banning it to ‘think of the children!’ is beyond moronic. Censorship can never work in today’s society so why do we even bother? It’s just like the OFLC doesn’t have an R Rating for Videogames, yet it has that rating for everything else. Hell, Nintendo and Sony’s comment that they won’t carry AO titles lead some hero to leak Manhunt 2 The Super Gruesomeinating before it was bowdlerised.

Are there any actual decent arguments for Censorship that aren’t white elephants given the nature of the internet?

Censorship is essentially thoughtcrime, when you think of it, and leads to a serious slippery slope. You start with censoring physical copies by not allowing reprinting or importing, but then you have to filter all internet access and monitor all internet access and out people for wanting to read or view something you say they can’t?

In fact, here’s a list of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia

Why the hell are we bothering?

Australian customs also actively seeks and seizes books imported by individuals.

Fuck, thanks for protecting us from the naughty written word, guys!

NOTE: The contents of this post do not apply to Child Porn as that is pornography made involving individuals who cannot legally consent.

September 11 or: Life is not a videogame.

So it’s been 6 years since several planes were diverted to paradise via giant towers, the pentagon and the ground and everything changed. (In that you can’t take liquids on planes any more). Multiple other acts of terrorism and we’re still back at square one. So, what have we done since 11/9/01 to make the world a safer and better place?
Well, we’ve killed a LOT of people. Surely with less people around then there are less people more likely to kill you for baring your legs. You can rabbit on as much as you want about foreign policy creating more terrorists, and the islamification of Europe and people with books and fire and angry. All you come up with is a bunch of people who aren’t cool froods even if they do know where their towel is (c.f Head) [ Apologies – Ed.]

At the end of the day though, it comes down to a difference in ideologies. The kids killing people from the west aren’t cowards (They are blowing themselves up, after all); they are targeting the wrong people and committing unconscionable crimes, because they’re promised a better life in the next life. This mentality kinda is what’s wrong with, I don’t know, the entire goddamn world because we’re getting it from both sides.
In the left corner, we’ve got the Rapture and the Neo-Cons investing billions into the State of Israel for the disingenuous second coming of Christ (In which all the Jews and nonbelievers will be slain if you listen to the leftbehindtards), and in the right corner we’ve got a bunch of virgins, individuals bent on killing us so they can get laid in the afterlife. I don’t know about you, but I’m generally against mind-control, so I’m not throwing hate on the religions, because hell, as Aristotle said: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. This is a very, very important point.

You see in the name of religion we have all manner of people committing gross atrocities and it leads critics to throw hate at religion and say it’s a force for evil and blah blah blah blah dawkins blah brights, etc. When it comes right down to it though you can argue for indoctrination, but to be honest, it’s just human stupidity.

You know you’ve met a true idiot when they are a human who is characteristically disinterested in the world around them. You know you’ve met a true idiot when they are so fixated on round two that they’d end the game for others, even if those guys are down to their last life. We’ve got killing on both sides, and I know it’s not the same; collateral damage is categorically NOT the same as deliberately targeting Civilians in some giant cosmic struggle for souls, but shouldn’t we really draw the line at people dying, anyway?

The people that are so commonly wanting to invoke Pascal’s wager should really think for themselves for a moment, “Well hey if there’s as good a chance of God not existing as there is, then maybe I should really start respecting life on this goddamn planet unless we’re needlessly killing people.”

More people have died of HIV in Africa than have been killed in any number of terrorist attacks taken out by any number of pitable freaks, due to the squeamishness of our religious leaders. Countries with high levels of religious adherence have significantly lower standards of living.

Excuse the harshness of this next argument for a few moments, I’m not implying anyone deserved anything or anything like that, but I am saying, where the hell are the natural subversives in the society? Where have all the wags gone? Sure the religion may have moral precepts and may have a decent hold on the society, but that’s only because decent people have stopped thinking.

When you’ve stopped thinking, and you’ve stopped questioning and you’ve stopped wanting to learn about Life, The Universe and Everything, well maybe death is a good option.

The moment we become dull lidded and feel we’ve learned enough or need to know no more on certain topics is the moment we despoil our own humanity.

Snuffing out your own life is all well and good, but snuffing out the lights of others because you’ve stopped thinking should be considered nothing other than a cosmic act of fascism and vandalism.