In 2002 I had to make a visit to Victoria for family reasons. While I was there I took a few photos. The first one is of Thorpdale, the town I grew up in. The building in the centre is the old family homestead. Or as it was known locally, the servo. Note the lack of petrol bowsers out the front. You can't buy fuel in Thorpy anymore.
When I lived there, the main agricultural pursuits were spuds and dairy cattle. The arse has fallen out of the local spud industry these days and I'm fairly sure that a bloke I went to school with was the last dairyfarmer in the district. Beef is the go, apparently, and onions. Sheep are getting to be more popular, too, it would seem.
This is Turton's Creek Road, on the Great Divide. Note the roadside facilities. All three of these photos were taken after six years of below average rainfall.
To put this in perspective, this photo of a property near Mungindi (co-incidentally, the property the Young Bloke was on before he came here) is taken on the same roll of film. This is after one year of below average rainfall.
I bought a new scanner/ copier/ printer/ fax/ toaster oven thingy. It arrived last night and I plugged it in this morning. These are the only photos I could find: I made this when I was working in Murgon. The sexy legs you see standing on the pipe in the background belong to my fellow slave. He is a boilermaker, but refused to make this monstrosity as it was beneath his dignity. I agree with him, it's a dumb looking thing. Although it looks like one of those potato roasters that were once popular at local sporting events, that isn't what it is.
We were duplicating a pumpsite, this part is to hold the flapper valve that acts to prevent water running backwards through the pump when it is not in operation.
This is the flapper valve.
I even welded it on the inside. Thorough, aren't I?
Probably a fairly common thing, but I don't seem to get too many of them. I received this email the other day, addressed to my blog email box and about thirty five thousand others who begin with 'ro'. I've read through it twice and as near as I can tell, it says that vegetarians are pedophiles but meat eaters are doing the work of the devil.
((((((((1)))))))Contradictions in terms:The tribunal says that some pedophile is sane and have no mental illness.The tribunal must not say that a rape is a phisiological conduct(non mental illness or disability) and that pedophilia is not a insanebehavior. 90% of the people who killed a parent is declared mentallyhealthful, this means: non pathological conduct, phisiological conduct(genetic or non genetic), good doctor, not vector of functional oranatomical suffering. Also crimes against the patrimony are notphysiological conducts.
((((((((2)))))))A conduct can be pathological (biological group self-destructive activity)or non pathological (phisiological), no external or middle case is expectedMedicine is an exact science, jurisprudence is an exact science. Enemies andfriends: of the mental hygiene only, war between doctors isn't expectedvalue. "Fighting with islam against the devil" : this information isharmless and profitable in every case. Are communists clinically insanepeople or they got the reason ?
((((((((3)))))))Siegmund Freud lies not knowing to be lying: he is a conceptual pedophilewho says children has sexual attraction for parent (edipus) and that mind ispartitioned in 3 parts (ego superego es). False premiss brings wrong result:like Freud says, cognitive error generates pathological conduct.
((((((((4)))))))"All fine at home? Do your parents act with you like with friends? Is yourparent clinically perfect? Do your parent, consciously or inconsciously,donates to you any activity of clinical and penal importance ?": the medicaldoctor must somministrate this or analogous enhanced suggestion to thehabitants for preventing or for healing, before programming any othersomministration.Slapping child is a crime and a mania, like by the general rule, evidentlyif child doesn't born genetically stupid, unable to understand words,handicapped, diseased, socially dangerous (also menacing, insulting, anykind of offensive or embarrassing activity).Earth's habitants kill gays but children don't born gays, habitants corruptand kill children doing a "sacrifice to the devil": this non geneticepidemic is familiarly but not geneticaly transmitted.
((((((((5))))))))1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number;fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds ofthe air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."Christians priests contradict god (they are not fruitful): they areheretics and unconcscious servants of devil (so devil doesn't want them inhell, this could induce the mistake). With baptism christians forgivethemselfs from god's sentence.
((((((((6))))))))1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of thewhole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will beyours for food.1:30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds ofthe air and all the creatures that move on the ground-everything that hasthe breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food." And it was so.Chirstians don't eat only green plant: they trust in god to contradict god.Eating cadavers is a pathological conduct, like by the general law.If vegetarian food gives longer and better life than non-vegetarian food,eating non-vegetarian food is a pathological conduct. Eating cadaversinduces a phisiological genetic reflex: vomiting. A cow has 96,5% dnaperfectly matching with human dna. Eating a human cadaver is a behavioraldisturb.This is a final version or close, you should not receive emails anymore.Pls forward. For unsubscribing, partnership or donations:
Apart from beginning training to become a tabloid sub-editor, I've been watching the latest trauma to befall the sugar cane industry quite closely. First up, I have to ask whether it is a co-incidence that in an era of religious-conservative government, the problem is smut ? I have to confess that I have mixed feelings on the subject. My knee-jerk reaction is "Poor buggers, they haven't had a decent year since the early nineties, then when they do get one, half the industry gets blown away by a cyclone. The half that is still standing is now facing destruction." Then I think that, before the Innisfail cyclone, my opinion of the cane industry was "Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, you mob of whinging arseholes." Yes, the international sugar market is one of the most corrupt in the world. Yes, the international sugar industry (In particular the U.S. industry.) is one of the most heavily subsidized in the world. Yes, the international sugar industry (Again, the U.S. industry in particular.) is the most effective at lobbying to prevent a 'leveling of the playing field'. You know what? I don't care. This has been a hobbyhorse of the cane industry since they first noticed that the 'Good Old Days' were becoming just that - the 'old days'. I knew a bloke who came from a cane farming family in the eighties. They had a separate tractor for every implement. But this is irrelevant and only inserted into this post because it aids your argument to influence people emotionally as well as rationally. Apart from all the evil shenanigans which beset the industry from abroad (And which the bonzer Aussie Battler™ cane farmers would totally not take advantage of if they were given the opportunity.), the biggest threat facing the cane industry long-term is the Brazilian industry, specifically the large-scale, broadacre style of cane farming they do over there, this has been happening since the eighties and is increasing in scale every year. This isn't going to stop anytime soon, look at the determined expression on the face of this Brazilian cane cutter: she means business. A bit different from 'Roo' in Summer of the 17th Doll.And look at that lush..., ermm, climate and fertile..., aah, soil. They've got some good things going for them over there, no wonder Aussie cane farmers find it hard difficult. Picture magazine-style snerking aside, all of these problems have been around for years, none of them are going away and a couple of years of good prices aren't going to save the Australian cane industry. In my humble (but erudite) opinion, anybody who is planning to stay in the cane industry is a dickhead. Cane farms are based in high rainfall areas with fertile soils. Grow something else, you bunch of tools. Stop carrying on like cane is the be-all and end-all of Australian agriculture. Even CSR gets a major percentage of its income from elsewhere. It's never gunna be the Good Old Days again. The only hope for cane in this country is ethanol and unless somebody does something massive in that industry soon, it will be too late. Self-inflicted wounds don't get too much sympathy from me, nor do I think that we should continue to subsidize an industry based in such fertile areas year after year.
I can only remember meeting two aboriginal people when I was a kid, the first was a member of the Stolen Generation™, apparently I screamed when I first saw her; I don't remember, I was only about two years old at the time. We became fairly good friends for a few years, but I haven't seen her since I was about eleven. The second aboriginal person I met was Lionel Rose. I was six or seven, he was world champion and he would sometimes play cricket with us in the street. I met him a few times later in life when he was on the grog and after, when he had picked himself up again. Which is just a bit of fame-whoring and not relevant to this post. I can remember only two non-Anglo-Saxon families in our neighbourhood. There was a German family who lived up the street who kept pretty much to themselves and we had the stereotypical Greek corner store owners. My brother went to school with a kid who had the surname Poppadopalopoulos, but he may have been bullshitting, too; he also claimed to know an Ernest Deadly. As surnames were read out first during roll-call, this would of course become Deadly Ernest. Whatever. At the time Greeks were wogs, Italians were Dagoes and Aborigines were boongs. The only Asian people I had ever seen were running Chinese restaurants. Dad worked with people from a wider range of ethnicities, particularly people of Baltic heritage. We also have Austrian relatives. Aboriginal rights had recently become something of a popular cause due to the efforts of people like Charles Perkins, so I think that the majority of Australians had something of a paternalistic soft spot for Aboriginal people. I think that for a lot of people this remains true, particularly for a lot of the non-aboriginal people who are the most vocal on the subject. The point that I am trying to make is that in my youth, suburban Australia was white and anybody who wasn't white was odd. Therefore, anybody who wasn't white was also fair game for some sledging. This had the effect of keeping the darkies/ chinks/ wogs/ etc in their place and also bolstered the ego of the sledger by reinforcing their perceived genetic/ cultural superiority over the sledgee and by cementing the sledger's place as a member of the dominant group. Having said that, I don't remember anything particularly malicious about any of the sledging. Most of the people who made Dago jokes would have Italian friends, ditto wogs. Asian people were a bit more insular and my experience of Aboriginal people at the time is too limited to offer an opinion. I have no doubt that it was insulting and hurtful to the recipient, but it wasn't life-threatening. Much like being called a 'planet-raping neanderthal' based on no other information than that you are an irrigator. These days everything has changed, Australia has people from pretty much every country on earth living in it, we've passed through the phase of acknowledging the existence of homosexuality by sledging poofters and gap-lappers to accepting them as another valid group. We are now no longer allowed to sledge anybody because we are conditioned everyday to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of others and to value their emotional wellbeing above our own. We are constantly urged to celebrate the national culture of whatever ethnic group is celebrating this week, we celebrate the Gay (and Lesbian and Bisexual and Transgender and Intergender and other hairsplitting label) Mardi Gras and we slap ourselves around every NAIDOC week. On the surface, this would appear to be a Good Thing. However, in practice it is bullshit. People need to be superior to somebody. This is universal. It doesn't just apply to Anglo-Saxons, despite what the Luvvies would tell you. Suppressing this has led to two major devopments; the rise of a more vigorous, malicious form of racism among working class Anglo-Saxons (along with the rise of ethnicity based gangs among non-Anglos) and the spectacle of the Anglo-Saxon majority feeding upon itself. This takes two separate forms: first, Anglo-Saxon people are made to feel guilty for being part of a successful group, which in itself takes many forms - the 'sorry' campaign being the most prominent example. The main form of self-consumption though, is the rise of the 'Bogan'. Originally an affectionate, if derogatory epithet, it used to refer to a specific subset of the Australian Anglo underclass. Wikipedia has a very fair and accurate article explaining this. The Uncyclopedia definition is suspiciously similar. These days, howver, most of the affection has gone, to be replaced by a vitriol towards a particular group (of which I am probably a marginal member) which has not been seen in Australia since Lambing Flat. Witness the Urban Dictionary definitions. This is a position which is adopted by both the Right and the Left, although it is adopted much more enthusiastically on the Left, who blame 'Bogans' either directly or indirectly for John Howard, the resurgence of aggressive religious conservatism, Australia's participation in the invasion of Iraq, global warming, Japanese whaling - indeed, evertything they may disagree with. According to the Luvvies, everybody who isn't actively involved in a campaign either for or against something is an apathetic VB swilling wife-beater who has their opinions formed for them by John Laws, Ray Martin and the Daily Telegraph.
I could go on (and on and on and on) about the way that the definition of the word 'bogan' has been broadened to include pretty much any white person the speaker feels superior to (which is most of them, most of the time; particularly if the speaker too, is white) or how vicious and inaccurate the use of the word has become, but I won't. I'll tell you why it has happened, instead.
In fact, I already have told you, partly at least. People need to feel superior. But feeling superior isn't enough. Other people have to know that they are superior, too.
You are not allowed to claim superiority on racial, sexual, intellectual or gender based terms any more, therefore another target has become necessary. That target is the 'bogan'. Of the same racial background (usually) as the person using the word, 'bogan' cannot be considered racist. Both men and women can be considered to be 'bogan' therefore it isn't sexist. Homosexual 'bogans' are rare and I am not aware of any transgendered persons of boga, but this may be an oversight on my part and does not necessarily indicate that the term 'bogan' denotes homophobia on the part of the user, although 'bogans' themselves are traditionally thought to be homophobic. They are also considered to be racist, sexist, shoppinglist and every other -ist word you can think of. All of these negative traits have increased in recent years as 'bogans' become more than the nation's scapegoat, they become what the nation fears itself to be.
Much like Prohibition produced an epidemic of binge drinking lawbreakers in the You Ess in the 1920s, suppressing people's natural desire to differentiate themselves from others in a way which seems positive to themselves has caused them to express this desire negatively, vicariously and in a much more extreme manner. To put it another way, the use of the word 'bogan' is to mainstream Australia very similar, but not synonymous with what the term 'beard' is to homosexuals.
Whereas a 'bogan' is likely to be racist in general terms and less so in interpersonal terms, the person using the label 'bogan' is more likely to be theoretically multi-cultural, but may feel some discomfort if, say, they met a group of Lebanese youths after dark, or found themselves in the middle of a group of aboriginal metho drinkers in a Moree park.. Unnaturally, they will feel guilty about this and they project their 'evil' thoughts, much amplified, onto that lesser being, the 'bogan'. A 'bogan' too would feel uncomfortable in those situations, but has no guilt about it. A Moree resident may think to themselves that they should have known better than to let themselves get caught in 'a mob of park boongs' but he doesn't let that colour his feelings towards other aboriginal people, whom will have as workmates, sporting team-mates, neighbours and friends. What he sees as a group of societies losers, the luvvies see as victims of white persecution (because every negative in an Aboriginal's life is the result of White persecution, White Apathy or White something else. Their paternalistic attitude will not allow them to acknowledge the possibility that Aboriginal people are just as capable of making bad decisions as white people are.), he feels guilty about this persecution and this magnifies the guilt he felt because of being uncomfortable in their presence.
Rationally, if he felt this unnecessary guilt, you would think that he would actively do something about alleviating the situation. But he doesn't. He's too busy planning his next career move, or paying off his inner-urban terrace or packing for his next trek in Nepal. This too makes him guilty. All this guilt has to go somewhere.
It's lucky that most 'bogans' have broad shoulders.
I'll leave you with a quote from a book I bought in a trendy St. Kilda bookshop in 1999. I can't find it online, so if there are any typo's or mis-spellings, they belong to me, not the author,
Don't you just hate 'em? Every gap-toothed, inbred, uncivilised, violent and hopelessly DUMB one of 'em? Jesus, how can you not hate 'em? There's no class of people with less honor. Less dignity. No-one more ignorant. More gullible. They're a primitive breed with pre-historic manners, unfit for anything beyond petty crime and random bloodletting. Their stunted, subhuman minds are mesmerised by cheap alcohol, Lotto fever and the asinine superstitions of poor-folk's religion. They stop beating their wives just long enough to let 'er squeeze out another deformed rugrat. They scatter their hand-me-down genes in a degenerative spiral of dysfunction. They breed anencephalic, mouth-breathing children. Vulgarians. All of them. Bottom feeders. They really bring down their race.
Luckily for you, I didn't specify which race that is. If I'd been talking about black trash, I might be lynched. If I was talking about white trash, I'd merely be another torchbearer in an ongoing national lynching. The differemce between vile racism and precision satire all depends on the nigger's color.
Which is the first two paragraphs from a book by Jim Goad called The Redneck Manifesto and is of course copyrighted by him. Hopefully he won't get all shitty at me for pinching a bit without asking. Everybody should read it.
I just got back from a semi-lightning ride to Sydney. Apologies to all friends, relatives and nodding acquaintances in the Greater Sydney area, but it was a spur of the moment thing and I didn't have time to see anybody anyway; all I had time for was picking up twenty kilos of heroin from the airport. Don't worry about that though, it was cleverly concealed inside the cavities of a few chinese child sex slaves/ illegal immigrants, and the lefty softcock customs guys never think to look there. I rode down on Saturday. It's about eight hundred and fifty kilometres from here to Eternity Sydney and it rained for about eight hundred of them. I froze my nuts off. Lucky I don't use 'em much any more. I did what I had to do and started back on Sunday morning (-ish. It was about noon.) I got as far as Glenbrook afore it started to rainin' agin. Remember my nuts? Same thing. I managed to do a good deed on my way through the Blue Mountains. Some girl in a little generic hatchback (Seat?) was driving along with her back door not shut properly and I went out of my way to remedy the situation before catasphrophe befell her. Actually all I did was pull up next to her at a set of lights and tell her about it, but I'm thinking of taking up politics and I need some good news. My amazing powers of perception let me down shortly thereafter when I missed the Mudgee turn-off. I realised it nearly as soon as it happened but I figured there's only about thirty kilometres difference so I came home via Bathurst/ Orange etc. I'm not entirely certain that this was a good decision as my nuts re-attached themselves just so that they could fall off again, even harder. I wimped out at Orange and pulled up. This, too, may not have been wise as it was 5.5 degrees below zero when I left Orange this morning. Nuts, etc. Still, I survived. You may find this difficult to believe, but this filthy piece of shit I saw in the carpark of the motel in Orange is the very same bike that was shined to within an inch of its life last week. Apart from the ride out to the highway, about two killer meters, it hasn't been off the bitumen.
I've been cleaning up a lot of stuff on my 'pooter, no special reason, I'm just good like that. In the course of my cleaning up, I came across a stash of cat photos. I don't remember where I found most of them, nor do I remember why I kept them. In a spirit of camaraderie and to show that I am transparent in all my dealings and because everybody does catblogging, apparently, I'm going to share them with you. I like this little tacker. I hope he likes me.
Of course, because cats are pussies they collapse like a house of cards when you put the acid on them.
Then again, who needs ticker when being cute and furry is enough to get you into situations like this.
I must confess to being a dog man, though. Dogs can be cute, too, as this photo will attest.
And you'll never see a dog doing this for a living. Actually, this is the only photo who's history is known to me. It's from TSSH.
The first one is of Thorpdale, the town I grew up in. The building in the centre is the old family homestead. Or as it was known locally, the servo. Note the lack of petrol bowsers out the front. You can't buy fuel in Thorpy anymore.
When I lived there, the main agricultural pursuits were spuds and dairy cattle. The arse has fallen out of the local spud industry these days and I'm fairly sure that a bloke I went to school with was the last dairyfarmer in the district. Beef is the go, apparently, and onions. Sheep are getting to be more popular, too, it would seem.
This is Turton's Creek Road, on the Great Divide. Note the roadside facilities. All three of these photos were taken after six years of below average rainfall.
To put this in perspective, this photo of a property near Mungindi (co-incidentally, the property the Young Bloke was on before he came here) is taken on the same roll of film. This is after one year of below average rainfall.
The first one is of Thorpdale, the town I grew up in. The building in the centre is the old family homestead. Or as it was known locally, the servo. Note the lack of petrol bowsers out the front. You can't buy fuel in Thorpy anymore.
When I lived there, the main agricultural pursuits were spuds and dairy cattle. The arse has fallen out of the local spud industry these days and I'm fairly sure that a bloke I went to school with was the last dairyfarmer in the district. Beef is the go, apparently, and onions. Sheep are getting to be more popular, too, it would seem.
This is Turton's Creek Road, on the Great Divide. Note the roadside facilities. All three of these photos were taken after six years of below average rainfall.
To put this in perspective, this photo of a property near Mungindi (co-incidentally, the property the Young Bloke was on before he came here) is taken on the same roll of film. This is after one year of below average rainfall.
