My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

jesustityfuckingchrist - they cannot even wait until they've fixed up the ruins of the earthquake victims before bombing innocent people again for no reason!

There is this Australian currently on death-row in Singapore at the moment for smuggling drugs. While I do not believe in the death penalty per se I do believe in respecting other countries laws. He knew full-well what he was doing and what the consequences for his actions were. There was no denying the fact he was guilty and no matter what the circumstances were he should not have been smuggling drugs. On the other hand to me the death penalty is an over reaction to drug smuggling. To me, as everything here is, these people would be better used as drug counselors, in drug treatment facilities, as carers for those affected by drugs, in drug research - there is any number of things that they could do to pay their debt to society.

Would legalising drugs be the answer to destroying the illegal drug trade and the risks people take? Hell yes it would! But would it ultimately help society? I'm not sure. High powered cars are legal and all they do is kill people and burn more non-renewable energy resources than is necessary to get from point a to point b. Irons are legal - but they're completely useless for society other than for keeping up appearances - but does that really matter?

When I was younger I used to think that if we had open slather on things anarchy-style that the world would be a better place. All of the stupid people would kill themselves and the meek/intelligent would inherit the earth. But mob rule ruins everything and my utopia of natural selection somehow works against me for the detriment of man kind. A US senator put it best when he loosely said that wiping out speed limits doesn't work because the damn people who do all of the speeding don't end up dying - they just end up as vegetables and taking up hospital beds at the cost of the tax payer for the rest of their usually very long lives. So speed limits are cheaper for society than having everyone hurting themselves. My alternative solution would be to actually put people out of their misery - so it would need to be a dual solution - legalising euthanasia and getting rid of speed limits. Problem solved.

My cousin is currently studying to become a drug counselor. It is a strange phenomenon. Usually there is a catalyst of some type, such as, a drug affected relative who is close to them, a child, or a parent or something...but not my cousin. She seems to fit more into the "You have to do some type of study to get youth allowance" category. It was either the child minding, the counseling, or office admin. She chose option 2. Her first practical work experience is coming up soon - she is getting thrust into one of but a handful of rehab centres left in the state after they started closing them all down. When the people start to talk about their experiences usually the counselor has either been through the same experience or has known someone who has been through the experience so they can show some type of empathy - I am yet to work out what my cousin will have to fall back on. She cannot even fake empathy through research and a general empathetic understanding of society - she is merely doing a tafe diploma. Call me cynical - but does Australia really need another counselor with no qualifications/understanding of anything?

The more I find out about professionals the less faith I have in them. I have been through as much training as most people and I feel like a fake masquerading as a professional. I do not know how long it will take for me to be working in my field before I can claim to be anything other than a fake. Does the lack of ones knowledge in their professional field not matter with time? Or do you merely convince yourself enough times that you do know what you're talking about that you eventually believe it?

History Never Repeats - N. Finn

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
Don't say the words you might regret
I lost before, you know I can't forget
There was a girl I used to know
She dealt my love a savage blow
I was so young, too blind to see
But anyway, that's history
And I say, history never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there's a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart
You say I always play the fool
I can't go on if that's the rule
Better to jump than hesitate
I need a change and I can't wait
I say, history never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there's a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart
Never repeats, whoa, oh
History never repeats
History never repeats
Deep in the night it's all so clear
I lie awake with great ideas
Looking about in no man's land
I think at last I understand
History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there's a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart
Ahhh

Today at the trainstation:

"Only intending passengers board the trains" - like people not wanting to go on the train are going to go on it?

"The Grafton XPT travelling to Grafton, first stop.....etc" - if the Grafton XPT doesn't go to Grafton then there is a problem somewhere.

I've been walking around in a sort of daze wondering what in the hell has been going on tonight - I slowly realised that I only have half of my clocks changed for daylight saving time. Silly silly me.

Why in the hell is hillary duff on rove again? Does she have nothing better to do than go on dodgy australian talk shows? :|

After such an absence, the best i can come up with is a small quip at a man who is saying something that, had he not said it first, I very well would have. Infact it is something I believe about the New Orleans hurricane victims as well - I feel sympathy for all of those who were stranded because they had no means of escape. I feel sympathy for all of those whose government had forsaken their safety to buy body bags because they show a better cost-benefit ratio. I feel sympathy for those who lost their homes. But the fucking Australian tourists "caught up" in it? Fuck no! I knew the hurricane was coming for a few weeks - everyone knew it was coming for a few weeks - what in the fuck were they doing going there?

The earthquake in Pakistan is another issue entirely. They did not know it was coming - they knew something was coming with tremors - but they did not know what size it would be. They did not know where it would be centred - only that when it finally did come it would be devastating as always.

I often think that the poor are always poor because of the circumstances they find themselves in. Bangladesh for instance - what hope in hell does it ever have of achieving anything? The entire country is surrounded by floodplain - sure there are other countries that are also below sealevel or have major floodplains - but they have the infrastructure to "tame" the sea/river, at least in part, and even then they lose sometimes (ala New Orleans). but without anything to help you to begin with - what hope in hell do you have?

If someone pretended to find oil in Bangladesh would America suddenly save them? if someone pretended to find oil in America - would America save them from themselves?

"if you're worried about hurricanes overseas don't go to hurricane zones"

-succinct words from Australia's foreign minister who just a few weeks ago, after the Indonesian bombings, was trying to justify why a minister from his own party was caught in Indonesia holidaying when the travel warnings have said for a very long time that only essential trips to Indonesia are recommended.

hmm...anyone looking for work? Apparently Al Qaeda is hiring. I'd hope they pay well - because the on the job perks, such as, having smart missiles dropped on your family while they sleep or having to blow up buses with bombs strapped to yourself are not exactly something to write home about.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has put job advertisements on the Internet asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages, an Arabic newspaper reported.

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat said on its Web site this week that al Qaeda had "vacant positions" for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories,
Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active.

The paper said the Global Islamic Media Front, an al Qaeda-linked Web-based organization, would "follow up with members interested in joining and contact them via email."

The paper did not say how applicants should contact the Global Islamic Media Front.

Al Qaeda supporters widely use the Internet to spread the group's statements through dozens of Islamist sites where anyone can post messages. Al Qaeda-linked groups also set up their own sites, which frequently have to move after being shut by Internet service providers.

The advertisements, however, could not be found on mainstream Islamist Web sites where al Qaeda and other affiliate groups post their statements.

Asharq al-Awsat said the advert did not specify salary amounts, but added: "Every Muslim knows his life is not his, since it belongs to this violated Islamic nation whose blood is being spilled. Nothing should take precedence over this."

The Front this week issued the second broadcast of a weekly Web news program called Voice of the Caliphate, which it says aims to combat anti-Qaeda "lies and propaganda" on major global and Arab television channels such as CNN and Al Jazeera.

Last month it issued an English-language video on the Internet called Jihad Hidden Camera which showed sniping and bombing attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, and carried comical sound effects as well as laugh tracks.

Al Qaeda and other groups have increasingly turned to the Internet to win young Muslims over to their war against Western-backed governments in Arab and Muslim countries.

Islamist insurgents fighting U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed government in Iraq have often posted slick montages of their military activities, including beheadings of hostages, on the Internet.

An exert from:
A Mess of George Bush's Own Making
By John Nichols Thu Oct 6, 2005

If any individuals on the planet feared and hated al Qaida, it was Hussein and his allies. The Iraqi Baathists were thugs, to be sure, but they were secularist thugs. Indeed, many of the most brutal acts of oppression carried out by the Iraqi regime targeted Islamic militants and governments aligned with the fundamentalists. The eight-year war between Iraq and Iran pitted the soldiers of Hussein's secular nationalism against the armies of the Ayatollah Khomeini's radical vision of Islam.

That is why, while the United States remained officially neutral in the war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, it became an aggressive behind-the-scenes backer of Hussein. As part of that support, the U.S. State Department in 1982 removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. That step helped to ease the way for loans and other forms of aid -- such as the U.S. Agriculture Department's guaranteed loans to Iraq for purchases of American commodities. It also signaled to other countries and international agencies that the U.S. wanted them to provide aid to Hussein -- and if the signal was missed, the Reagan White House and State Department would make their sentiments clear, as happened when the administration lobbied the Export-Import Bank to improve Iraq's credit rating and provide it with needed financial assistance. If any lingering doubts about U.S. attitude remained, they were eased by the December 20, 1983, visit of Donald Rumsfeld, who was touring the Middle East as President Reagan's special envoy, for visits with Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

As it happened, the U.S. was reading Hussein right. In a region where the common catchphrase is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Hussein was not merely someone who was fighting a neighboring country. He was fighting the spread of the radical Islamic fundamentalism that the U.S. so feared because he was a committed secularist. Hussein promoted the education of women and put them in positions of power. Under Hussein, Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims enjoyed a greater measure of religious freedom than they have in most Middle Eastern countries in recent decades. Hussein included non-Muslims among his closest advisors, most notably Aziz, a Christian adherent of the Chaldean Catholic faith that remains rooted in Iraq.There was a paranoid passion to Hussein's secularism. He and his vast secret police network remained ever on the watch for evidence of Islamic militancy, and when it was found the response was swift and brutal. It was an awareness of the fact that Hussein was a bulwark against militant Islam that led key aides to President George H.W. Bush to argue against displacing him after the liberation of Kuwait by a U.S.-led force in 1991.

Today I managed to park myself in - I was off to a good start.

We went out road tripping to inspect all of our bridges that were constructed last year by contractors - every single one of them is already failing - we have problems.

Ok - here's how Adam the human lab rat went in his race seeking fortune and glory:

I was buggered. The race killed me. On the way out this old guy decided he'd drop his shoulder into me as i ran past - so I was not off to a good start. At the halfway mark I was cramping up all over. It was rather strange actually - my legs felt fine because they hadn't actually recovered from the previous days heavy lifting in the gym yet so were more numb than anything. My back and all of the support muscles cramped. First time i've ever raced and actually had muscular fatigue rather than cardio. I knew about 1/3 of the way into the race I had no hope of finishing properly because of the way I felt so I just jogged along side Heather and used her as my pace-man.

I did enough to win my age-group, but not the race :(. But hey - I won $50 for my troubles. I'm going to go lay down and die now.

The moral to this story is do not go in a competitive running event the day after training.

The end.

Birthdays not only remind me of my own mortality - but also of how little I have actually achieved in this world. I could disappear tomorrow and no one would even notice.