HOT OFF THE PRESS. Some 5 minutes ago I sent through my resignation letter to the Liberal Party of Australia, WA Division, and strangely enough it feels good. I’m not going to go into all the details of why I’ve finally decided, after 14 dedicated years of service I decided to quit (like anyone in the Liberal Party could really give a shit about me anyway), but after a long time in the Blogosphere it means I can finally talk about any issue I want to without having to worry about it. As I wrote at the Blog Herald yesterday the bastard also went through a bullshit process of office restructure to get rid of me, and finally made me “redundant” on Wednesday, some 4 days before Christmas. Now, I’m not going to run around the garden naked shouting words of joy (my wife won’t let me drink at the momemt….wonder why) but it means 1. No employee to worry about 2. No party to worry about. FREEDOM!
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I’m no pull on the heart strings lefty, but if there was ever a better argument for gun control in the United States this story would be it…how do you hold a 9 year old responsible??

Girl, 9, shoots brother with parents’ gun (SMH)

“A nine-year-old Chicago girl accidentally shot and killed her 13-year-old brother while playing with a semiautomatic handgun found in her parents’ bedroom.

The parents could now face charges over not having a trigger lock on the weapon, police said.

The children’s mother had left the house for about half an hour to visit a sick relative on Friday and the father was at work when the children found the loaded, unlocked .380-calibre pistol on a bookshelf built into a headboard, authorities said.

A short time later, while playing with her brother, the girl apparently pulled the trigger accidentally, striking him once in the chest. He died a short time later at a hospital.

“She didn’t mean to hurt her brother. They were just playing,” police Sergeant Dan Dempsey said.

Although possessing a handgun in the Chicago area was allowed, police said no one in the house had the proper firearm owner’s identification card.”

All the nets abuzz about the disturbances at Cronulla in Sydney, and the reaction of the main stream media compared to bloggers has been amazing. Whilst the mainstream media seem to label what occured at Cronulla as “rascist riots” parts of the Australian blogosphere seem to be the only people supporting the PM in reporting it for what it was, a law and order issue. What’s even more amazing is how focused the MSM is on Cronulla and yet if you dig deep enough into the MSM reports you’ll find that people of Lebanese decent have run rampage throughout other parts of Sydney since. But of course, apparently burning the Australian flag and beating people up because they are Anglo-saxon in origin doesn’t constitute racist violence according to the Sydney Morning Herald, because it appears that racism can only be done by white Australians.

The language is also interesting. The MSM is so quick to label “white” Australians and yet the Lebanese youth who started this whole thing are labelled as “Middle Eastern”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning the violence, it was clearly wrong, but what makes 5000 mostly law abiding Australian citizens gather at Cronulla in the first place? Its a law and order issue where young Australian’s in Sydney feel that their streets are no longer safe and they see no other alternative to take action. Sad, but true. The true criminals are the members of the Government of New South Wales that so poorly provides protection for its citizens. When 12 and 13 year old girls are spat at and called sluts at a beach in Sydney, and surf lifesavers are attacked by gangs doing nothing more than trying to protect the lives of others, something is truly wrotten in the state of New South Wales.

I’d also question the motives of the NSW Premier Morris Iemma. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work out with a name like Iemma he’s not exactly a Smith or a Jones. The ALP in Sydney is racked with ethnic branch stacks (Mark Latham’s words) and he owes his position as Premier to the ethnic community. Despite the absurdity of what he is saying, he is choosing to take sides in an attempt to gain even more support from the community he relies upon to be elected. So much for governing for everyone! And of course now there are a pile of extra police in Cronulla….where were they when people were being attacked by Lebanese gang members?

PS: I’m a Shire boy from way back. Left about 9 years ago but grew up in the area. Cronulla was my local beach.

Food for thought.

Chinese ‘farms’ amass avatars and virtual gold for gaming sale

No wonder so many people in World of Warcraft don’t say a lot to each other.

Good news for Firefox fans, NASA has dumped IE in favour of Firefox.

I really, really love this.
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?whse=&topnav=&prodid=11098104
Check out the games list, amazing classics. Mortal Kombat, 1942, Ghosts N’ Goblins (ok I played this on the Amstrad 6128 mainly, but I did play it in the arcade on occasion), Asteroids….

There are two games they are missing though. Pacman, which I played on the Atari, and Outrun, which I spent countless dollars playing in the late 1980’s, back in the days that arcade games cost 20 cents. I can remember when they started making some games 40 cents and I was outraged. A few years back I walked into a TimeZone nearly by accident, and most of these sorts of games now are gold coin games: $1 or $2 a go. It must be a lot harder for kids these days.

Got to love this, with everyone running around yelling the sky is falling in, or in this case, the planets going to bake with global warming, New Scientist reports that there is a risk of a miniice age. Sometimes I wish people would actually start taking a serious look at history. I heard some idiot on the ABC the other day ranting about how this year in Australia was the hotest on record, and yet the conclusion was based on….wait for it….50 years of records!! Any ametuer scholar of history knows that Europe went through intense cold periods during the second mellinium, as well as other periods which were warmer. No one stops to think and ask whether the warming/ cooling phenomenon is just part of the earths natural changes, do they!

My better half had to go off for surgery today, and as much as I wont share the gory details (she’d kill me if I did), after spending a very, very long 13 hours in our local private hospital it really allowed me to once again appreciate the wonderful benefit of having private health insurance in Australia. There’s been 3 other times in my life I’ve also had a similar realisation: at 15 when I had all my wisdom teeth out, when my son was born, and later when he required grommets in his ears. For all the expense it really is worth every cent. It’s not really that expensive given the advantages it gives. Sure, my son could have been born in a public hospital, but the other 3 operations would have all entailed massive waiting lists and waits for treatment. My better half today had her own room, with TV and 3 in house movie channels, a menu with a choice of meals 3 times a day that would work in a restaurant, and the operation that in the public system she would have waited at least 18 months for.

But I’m not knocking the Australian public hospital system completely, because it is nice to know that if things were to turn downwards and we couldn’t afford private cover that we could (eventually) go to a public hospital and be treated for free. My friend Findlay Osborn told me last year after a visit to the US that people had said to him that Australia was a “socialist” country and cited our public hospital system as proof. Now I’m certainly no friend of socialism but I don’t believe a wealthy first world country should deny its citizens the right to hospital treatment if and when required because they cant afford it. In Australia, despite the waiting lists, the system does work very well. I’d hate to see us become like the United States where people die because they cant afford treatment……jeez, I sound a bit bleeding heart now I know, but life is important afterall.

Right, now I’m pretty shitty, because WOW is down for maintenance between 5am US PDT for 6 hours, thats 8pm my time to 2am my time. No WOW for me tonight. I’m surprised that it takes them soooooo long for it. Back to Second Life for the first time in a while.

Well, finally, finally the 5 1/2 million WOW patches downloaded and late last night, after some serious blog work I logged in and set up my character. I’m apparently a night elve (or was it elf??). First impressions, compared to say Second Life, the customisation options for characters are very limited.

So off I went, there was a large mountain and roaming animals, and a whole lot of other players who had absolutely no idea what they were doing. I gathered this is where newbies must start. A number of people tried to get me to join their groupings (I’m not sure why). Eventually I found a quest, and once having got it had no idea how to actually find the creature I was to look for. By this stage it was getting late, and I was slaying things for the fun of it, all the while with no idea how to actually do the quest, until I realised one of the little blips on the mini-map was the target! One quest down, and I’m on level 2. Second quest was to slay a few animals, which I was still doing before heading off to bed.

More thoughts: very rich environment visually, and the graphics are way, way smooth compared to say Second Life. Nice background music as well. Getting the hang of the game though is a little weird, I’m guessing that its all about going on quests and what not, and building up your levels, so I’ll keep trying and see what happens. As a fan of CIV and SimCity style games (how many people can remember gems like A-Train and Transport Tycoon?) I’ve never really been into this style of gaming, which is why I suppose I want to keep going at it so I can finally understand what the appeal is to people. I’m thinking of it as a personal challenge, a be it one that also gives me some R&R as well.