My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

1. Pearl Jam are coming to Australia;

2. Two previously unknown miners escaped a mine they were trapped in while one man died - they are now heroes;

3. A bunch of people survived for 21 days up in a boat offshore with no food near the northern part of Australia - they remain almost nameless;

4. The liberal government is bringing up talk on "Nuclear power" to mask the real issues and are hoping the labour government implodes discussing something that is a mute point. It will take us decades to do anything serious in the nuclear world. Our two top nuclear scientists were trained in the 70's. We would either have to import new nuclear scientists or train new ones from scratch before we'd get anywhere, plus have to import the skilled labour. The only hope we have of doing anything nuclear is by importing Chinese immigrants and paying them in opium - it worked for the snowy mountain engineering corporation back in the day. We're such an equal opportunity employer in this glorious red neck country of mine;

5. I am ready to kill every single whinging member of the public - I do not know how much longer I can endure the torture that is the joys of public service;

6. My head hurts;

7. I am not getting married in a garden ceremony - the reception seemed more formal than the wedding! It was like a bunch of people hanging around in a garden - very odd and somehow sinister.

8. Newcastle real estate agents who open 7 days do not open on Sundays. Is Sunday not a day?

It's Been A While - Staind

It's been a while
Since I could hold my head up high
and it's been a while
Since I first saw you
It's been a while
since i could stand on my own two feet again
and it's been a while
since i could call you
But everything I can't remember as fucked up as it may seem
the consequences that I've rendered
I've stretched myself beyond my means

It's been a while
since i could say that i wasn't addicted and
It's been a while
Since I could say I love myself as well and
It's been a while
Since I've gone and fucked things up just like i always do
It's been a while
But all that shit seems to disappear when i'm with you
But everything I can't remember as fucked up as it may seem
the consequences that I've rendered
I've gone and fucked things up again

Why must i feel this way?
just make this go away
just one more peaceful day

Its been awhile
Since I could lok at myself straight
and it's been awhile
since i said i'm sorry
It's been awhile
Since I've seen the way the candles light your face
It's been awhile
But I can still remember just the way you taste
But everything I can't remember as fucked up as it may seem
I know it's me i cannot blame this on my father
he did the best he could for me

It's been a while
Since I could hold my head up high
and it's been a while since i said i'm sorry

Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town - Pearl Jam

I seem to recognize your face.
Haunting familiar, yet I can't seem to place it.
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name.
Lifetimes are catching up with me.
All these changes taking place.
I wish I'd seen the place but no one's ever taken me.

Hearts and thoughts they fade. Fade away.
Hearts and thoughts they fade. Fade away.

I swear I recognize your breath.
Memories, like fingerprints, are slowly raising.
Me you wouldn't recall for I'm not my former.
It's odd when your stuck upon the shelf.
I changed by not changing at all.
Small town predicts my fate.
Perhaps that's what no one wants to see.
I just want to scream hello.
Oh my god its been too long. Never dreamed you'd return.
But now here you are and here I am.
Oh, hearts and thoughts they fade away.

Hearts and thoughts they fade. Fade away.
Hearts and thoughts they fade away.
Hearts and thoughts they fade.
Hearts and thoughts they fade. Fade away.
Hearts and thoughts they fade away.
Hearts and thoughts they fade.
Fade away...
Fade away...
Fade away...

An extract....

Beware the big green political monster
By Michael Duffy

Recently I interviewed Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, on radio and asked why he quit the organisation. He said: "I left in the mid-'80s when the policy started to drift away from science and logic into these kind of zero-tolerance positions that I believe are based more on sensation and fund-raising around scare tactics. Look at the campaign against genetically modified crops and the whole 'Frankenstein food' … these are scare words that are attached to what is actually one of the most important advances to genetic science in history … for example, taking a gene from corn and creating the 'golden rice' which could eliminate blindness in half a million kids every year in Asia and Africa, and could eliminate chronic vitamin A deficiency in over 200 million people in the rice-eating countries."

Moore, who has an honours degree in forest biology and a PhD in ecology, says he left Greenpeace when "I was an international director, one of five. My fellow international directors had no science education. Most of them were political activists or entrepreneur environmentalists, for want of a better word, and they decided we should start a campaign to ban chlorine worldwide. I said, 'Chlorine is one of the elements in the periodic table. I don't think that's in our jurisdiction.' And they said, 'No, this is a good campaign. Chlorine is the devil's element, and it works really well for fund-raising and media and everything.'

"I said, 'Just a minute, 75 per cent of our medicines are based on chlorine chemistry, and adding chlorine to drinking water was the single biggest advance in the history of public health, and the best way to deliver that slightly chlorinated drinking water to the general public is in a PVC pipe. So give me a break. I cannot go along with this. You guys make a list of the chlorine compounds that you don't like and we'll look at them one by one like any regulatory agency would do, but you can't just condemn chlorine. We put it in swimming pools so that people don't get cholera and tetanus.' "

The others weren't persuaded. Moore says: "That was the beginning of my having to leave the organisation that I helped found."

These days the green movement often seems driven by left-wing rather than environmental causes. The biggest example is population growth, which is the greatest single danger to Australia's environment. When is the last time you heard a green activist even mention immigration, a major source of that growth? When the Herald-Sun newspaper in Melbourne claimed before the 2004 election that the Greens political party wanted to reduce the population by 2 million, Senator Bob Brown took it to the Press Council on the ground that this was not the party's policy - and won.

The activists focus on other issues, such as globalisation. They claim free trade moves dirty factories offshore, thereby exporting Western environmental problems to the Third World. But in his new book, The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford of the Financial Times points out that "foreign investment in polluting industries is the fastest growing segment of foreign investment coming into the United States. In contrast, foreign investment in clean industries is the fastest growing segment of American investments abroad." The reason, Harford says, is that "seriously polluting industries like bulk chemical production require high levels of skill, reliable infrastructure and - since a lot of capital investment is involved - political stability. Why jeopardise that by moving the plant to Ethiopia to save a few dollars on environmental costs?" He notes that air pollution in China has dropped substantially as globalisation has boosted its economy, a correlation also seen in the other major developing nations of Brazil and Mexico.

i would never claim Michael Duffy to be the most truthful journalist in the world, nor should he have to be in an opinion column, but when an opinion column is verging on news he should make sure he notes that Mr Moore has an interest in a forest group funded by multi-national companies that promote deforestation.

I agree with Mr Moore for the most part, the environmental lobby is always extreme and often has nothing but emotion to back up their claims. After learning more and more I fell by the environmental wayside myself on more than one occasion. However, someone pointed out the following to me once - and I agree:

"all of the science, all of the studies, all of the companies, all of the governments, all of the truth (whatever you perceive the truth to be) in the world will not change anything unless we give them the power to. It is us who affects change and we are emotive. Whether right or wrong - if you take the emotion out of the movement there is no movement"

I've been feeling nostalgic lately and starting to wonder what ever happened to all of my school friends...one of them rang me up the other day, apparently he's now a lawyer and had nothing better to do one day than sit down and google me for three (3) to four (4) hours before coming up trumps and then calling me at work the next day - not only calling at work, but wanting to talk for hours - I think the law industry must be slowwwwwww for the time being:

Yes it is I….Griff, however the Queenslanders have dubbed me one of there own and I am now known to many as…Azza.

The name didn’t sit easily after 17 years of Griffo, Griff and even shitface, but I have now accepted it as my own.

Its never easy being out with mates and being introduced to women as “Azza”. I think it’s an automatic handicap to have such a Bevan handle, but I have to give those chumps a head start most the time anyway.

Not that I get introduced to many women, I have been with my girlfriend Zoe for a few years now and we just bought a house at Morningside.

Domestication is upon me my friend. Fun used to be drinking beer through a funnel, now it’s picking out new flower arrangements for the living room.

To fill you in on the last 8 years or so, I left Wingham choosing to defer my education at the abattoirs and moved to Townsville. There, I started my law degree and tried to stay alive between keg parties, nude runs and eventually expulsion from the residential college that was stupid enough to board a 17 year old country kid from Wingham. Anyway, after a good stint in the ‘ville, it was time to move down to the big smoke.

I figure the ‘ville was like my apprenticeship to the city. I quickly realized that civilized people don’t act like people from Townsville, so after struggling with the concept of keeping your clothes on while drinking and the rule about not pissing at the bar where you stand, I began to find a place here in vegas.

By some miracle I finished law school in 2003 and I’ve had several bizarre jobs since then.

My favorite pre-graduation job would have to be demolition in Noosa. Sure the hippies were tough to deal with when we tried to knock down trees, but there is just something special about seeing the families of koalas run across the work site on their way to find a new home.

That was the first job I got fired from. Possibly second actually if I count the manager at Fossey’s Taree telling me “No, no, we’ll call you”.

The demolition manager said I broke too many tools. I tried to argue that I was too good at my job, but I was the only one who caught the irony.

Anyway, I was glad to l leave that one, the guy from Chile who couldn’t speak English nearly killed me half a dozen times. He would be up on the top storey of a building and would scream out something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand and then would throw a pile of bricks down almost on top of me. In the end I learnt to just get out of the way no matter what he said. I often wonder what became of Hoolio.

Post graduation I worked for some fucked up people that I could write about in several novels that could redefine self incrimination. Notably, one you might be familiar with being in finance is Nick Petroulias, the former wiz kid and youngest ever deputy commissioner of taxation. Yeah that didn’t turn out after he was arrested and tried for defrauding the Commonwealth. The jury failed to deliberate and the ATO has spent over $3M chasing him, but it was an adrenaline rush being alongside the hunt.

I worked for a few other firms in the beginning but have found a place in property and commercial law here at this firm, the details of which should be on the bottom of this email. It’s paying the bills and things seem stable which is nice.

So that just about brings you up to date.

Anyway mate, you now have my details so give me call and we will catch up for a drink, or I should have you round for a BBQ or something. The jumbuck 4 burner needs a good run.

i don't even know what the hell a jumbuck 4 burner even is - but hey any bbq that is meant to be known by first name only can't be such a bad bbq i guess.

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

The only thing better than a bikini model is a bikini model with a social conscience who likes to protest.