Budget Direct and Earth Dollars

Yeah, ok, so I don't know why I keep focusing on these Budget Direct ads. They're terrible and should really be ignored instead of getting free publicity (even the minuscule amount I'm giving them with this is too much) like this. But I'm sleep deprived and I've caught onto something that I just can't let go of. 

Just watch this ad:

http://youtu.be/95oE1mXx4ZU

Did you pick up on the bit about "earth dollars"? 

It's actually pretty insignificant really. After all, this ad could be set in the future where there's a one world government and currency, we live side by side with ET's and Budget Direct is the insurance company of the future.  

Plenty of possible explanations for that whole "earth dollars" comment. 

Now watch this ad:

http://youtu.be/pnadVZtZGkk

Did you hear it? Did you hear that the aliens and Budget Direct are in Australia?

That means that those "earth dollars" that were mentioned in the earlier ad are actually Australian dollars!

And suddenly these ads are a lot more interesting. Is Budget Direct implying that Australia is about to take over the world with the aid of our alien allies (why else would there be ET's living peacefully side by side with us in the suburbs)? Or is it that the one world government simply decided that the Australian currency was the best currency to adopt for the whole world to use? Or is Budget Direct actually run by aliens (and the ones we see in the ads are actually real instead of CG) who haven't realised (for whatever reason) that the there are probably better and stronger currencies to use than the Australian dollar (but then, I'm not an economist. I don't really know or care about these kinds of things)? 

Whatever the case, Budget Direct is still setting itself up as the insurance company of the future.  

Another Political Post

Yeah, so I'm getting all political (again). Sorry about that (I'm not really).

But I'm sick of all the media coverage only on the Labour and Liberal parties this election. Let's face it, neither of those two parties are a good choice: with Labour we can't be sure that the person leading them will still be doing so in a year let alone by next election, and they're rapidly sending the country into debt (a massive debt). And have I mentioned all of the in fighting and back stabbing yet? With the Liberals there's a lot of emphasis on getting our budget back into surplus, which is a good thing. But then take a look at their policies so far: there's a whole lot of big spending and no accounting for where the money is coming from. 

I don't know about you, but I don't want either of those parties in charge of Australia's budget. Neither of them are exactly showing themselves to be good with money. It's all spend, spend, spend!

But that's how elections go, isn't it? Big promises that will be broken once a party is voted in. No body seems to remember this little fact, they're just surprised after each election when it happens all over again. 

So pretty bleak choices for the people of Australia to choose from. Labour and Liberal are just as bad as each other. They're both toxic and extremely out of touch with the real world (I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, I really need to become a politician for the cushy life being one brings). 

But if you look beyond the mainstream media this election, you'll be in for a pleasant surprise: there's actually more than just the two Labour and Liberal parties!

Yeah, I know. Shocking, right. 

And what's even more shocking is that some of them, not all of them, aren't crazy crackpot parties, an actually have some really good policies that are far more in touch with the average Australian than the two main stream parties. They're worth looking into before going into the polling booth this election year. I mean, even the Greens are preferencing their votes to a party that isn't Labour or Liberal. There's actually a real chance that there'll be more than just two parties and a couple of independents sitting in parliament after 7 September. 

So think about it, and vote for somebody different. It's time there was a change in the way that this country is run, and (as horribly cliched as this is) you have the power to make this change happen. This election year, there is actually a very real possibility for real and significant change. 

It's an Election Year, So I Thought I'd Get On the Political Bandwagon With This Little Rant

I think I'm going to have to pay more attention to politics this election year. I'm sickened by the stunt that the Gillard government pulled excising the mainland from the migration zone. 

The act itself hasn't got me too upset ... I mean, it's a very despot government move, and is itself sickening. But Australia is a desert nation. We really can't afford to let too many people in. Otherwise we're going to be facing some serious water shortages (even more serious than it is now) in the near future. And then nobody but the ridiculously rich will win. 

It's how the government went around excising the mainland that's really gotten to me. They've been desperate to stop the boats for years now, but they couldn't just excise the mainland without massive public outrage and a drop in the polls (and in an election year, that could be disastrous). So instead they let a boatful of refugees make it all the way to the mainland. 

The navy has been doing too good a job of stopping the boats before they reach the mainland these last few years. That boat was allowed so that everyone could get all outraged that the refugees were allowed to remain here and enjoy some sembelance of basic rights instead of being shipped off to a processing centre (again, how very despot government like do the processing centres sound?). 

It created the perfect opportunity for the government to excise the mainland, and effectively stop the boats (because we all know the refugees will remain in the processing centres for years before being shipped back to their home countries), and there's very little public outrage (or a whole lot less than there could've been), because the memory of that boat landing on the mainland is still fresh in everyone's memory. 

The government used those refugees to strip away any basic rights of future refugees, and I just don't think that I can bring myself to vote for a government willing to steep so low. So I'm going to have to pay close attention this year, and see which party the local candidates are giving their votes to. 

But the problem is, it's a two party system at the end of the day, and neither party is looking particularly good. 

War pt1

The air raid sirens sounded again. They were meant to indicate that everyone was supposed to take cover in the nearest bunker. But since they had sounded at least once a day for the last two months without any kind of destruction following, most people ignored them and went about their business as usual. Most people now believed that they were safe and that the war front wouldn't reach their little town. After all, the war had been raging for almost two years and no one had seen any of it except what filtered through to them in the sparse news reports.

But they were still constantly reminded that there was a fierce battle raging across the country by the constant fuel, power and food rations, not to mention that the army had set up a base on the outskirts of town to train the constant stream of new recruits, all of whom were getting younger or more elderly each day. Everyone had at least one family member serving in the army, many of whom hadn't been heard from since they were sent to the front line.

The sirens lasted for fifteen minutes, and then everything went silent again. This happened so frequently even the soldiers had stopped reacting whenever the sirens sounded. But this time, when the sirens had finished wailing, something was different. It was a subtle difference. It was the silence. It was a different kind of silence today, and only those with extra keen hearing were able to pick up on it. But they just shrugged it off as paranoia.
So it came as a massive surprise to everyone when an extremely old woman strode up to a soldier and tore a huge chunk from the side if his neck with her teeth. The soldier screamed in agony and futilely tried to stop the flow of blood pouring from the wound. The old woman hissed and bit his arm. The soldier would've screamed as she tore part of his arm away, but he was already dead.

Civilians screamed and scrambled to get away from the creature, while soldiers rushed forward, their weapons aimed at her. The creature turned and faced the soldiers, baring her blood stained pointy yellow teeth as she hissed again. She crouched down, ready to attack. The soldiers consisted of new recruits still being trained and veterans who had seen too much action in the war. All of them were terrified of the creature and fired wildly at her.

The creature shuddered with the impact of the bullets, and dark blood oozed from the wounds. She stumbled backwards and fell over the body of her victim. The shouts of a commanding officer could be heard over the gunfire but no one could make out what she was shouting.

Gradually the soldiers stopped firing and looked apprehensively at the prone body of the creature. One of the bolder recruits cautiously crept towards her.

"Sanders, fall back!" The commanding officer shouted in alarm, hurrying forward to pull him back. But she was too late. With a shriek of rage, the creature threw herself from the ground at Sanders, who screamed in agonised terror before his throat was torn out.

The creature looked up at the soldiers through slitted eyes, Sanders' blood dripping off her face, and hissed something in articulate at them before turning and running away from them with inhuman speed.

"What she say?" A heavily scarred one eyes veteran asked the group at large.

"Something about losing, I think." A recruit answered uncertainly. "My Faerie isn't all that crash hot. But I'm certain she said something about losing."

"Does anyone speak fluent Faerie?" The commanding officer demanded.

Everyone shook their heads.

"Shit! I hope somebody caught this on camera."

Most of the recruits looked sheepishly down at their feet. None of them had thought of bringing their cameras with them when they had left the base. But all of the veterans responded that they had.

"Good. All of you back to base now. Those of you idiots who don't have your cameras I want you to report to Thompson in full gear." She pulled out a small transistor radio from her belt. "This is Major Fielding. There's been an attack in town. I'm declaring a code red curfew be enforced immediately."

"What is that?" A recruit pointed towards the nearby hills. Everyone else looked in the direction he was pointing. It took a couple of minutes before they were able to see the faint black cloud that was rapidly growing darker and larger. As they stared at the growing cloud, sirens, slightly different to the air raid siren, started to sound all around them.

"THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A CODE RED CURFEW IS NOW IN PLACE. EVERYONE IS IMMEDIATELY GO INSIDE AND STAY INSIDE UNTIL FURTHER ADVISED." A deep robotic voice intoned over the siren.

All across town, everyone hurried into the nearest buildings. They all knew that code red meant that they weren't even allowed to go home. They just had to get inside or face a military tribunal for civil disobedience, which often ended with the culprit being forced to join the army before being sent off to the front lines. It was better to our up with a small amount of discomfort for a short time than facing the tribunal.

"Back to base, everyone!" Major Fielding barked.

The soldiers fell into formation and marched back to base on the other side of town. Many of them, including Major Fielding, kept stealing uneasy glances back at the still rapidly growing cloud behind them. They passed more soldiers hurrying to position themselves around town to keep look out for anyone breaking curfew and any foes. Although no one expected to face any Faeries. They still believed themselves to be safe in the relatively sleepy town.

Time to Get Political

Tomorrow Australia will find out if we get a break from the petty squabblings of the Labour Party for a few months or not. Both Gillard and Rudd are claiming that they are the ones who can lead Labour to Victory against Abbot in the next election, which is a complete lie. As long as either of those two is leading the Labour Party, the Liberal Party will win the next election with ease. If Labour is to have any chance of victory a crafty sneaky third bastard needs to put up their hand to run for leadership tomorrow as well.

Who knows, the surprise third candidate might actually be enough to get the votes needed to lead Labour for a few months until the petty squabbling starts up again.

But that's the whole problem with the Labour Leadership, isn't it? They can seem to go a few months before someone gets dissatisfied with his/her lot and starts causing trouble for the party, which then causes the Australian public to lose faith in Labour. Not to mention the annoyance that the people who are supposed to be running this country can't even govern themselves for a few months at a time.

There is a simple way that Labour can avoid all of this trouble and the complete loss of faith that it brings with it; every 18 months or so Labour holds a kind of tournament where anyone who wants to lead Labour can compete.

The events in this tournament will include a few games of Monopoly (to find out how well they can manage finances), Mario Kart Balloon Battles (to see how well they cope under stressful situations), an essay (which will be read by completely neutral judges) about why they think they should be the one to lead Labour, a general knowledge test (we don't want idiots running the country) followed by a round of Dodge Ball (which will be played at 5:30am and may or may not be done so while seriously hungover so that the men can be seperated from the boys, so to speak).

The winner of the Dodge Ball round will automatically go through to the next round, as well as the best performers in general from all of the other tests.

The next, and final round will be a game of Risk. Whoever wins Risk will be the leader of the Labour party for the next 18 months or so.

That should stop all of the childish and petty squabbling over who's turn it is to be in charge.

And remember, Australia, we're not America. We vote for the party not the person.

My Theory About Why So Much Drama Happens on Ramsay Street

Last night after watching Neighbours I couldn't help but wonder how so much drama happens on one street. No one street should have that much drama. Hell, no one street should have even half as much drama as Ramsay Street ... and Ramsay Street is only a small court with half a dozen houses!

So what could be the cause of all of the Ramsay Street drama?

My theory is that the street itself is some kind of dark magic hotspot that draws horrible people to it. That is why people like Paul Robinson and Izzy Hoyland are constantly moving there.

The street also seems to have the power to bring out the worse in people as can be seen with the Kennedy's and Scully's ... well actually, I can't say for sure if the street perverted the Kennedy's or if they were already like that when they moved onto Ramsay Street. But growing up there can't have been good for the Kennedy children.

Occassionally innocent people will move onto the street. But they quickly become victims of the street. Some of these victims will move away from the street, but most of the time the Innocent have come under the spell of the street and are unable to move away and slowly become perverted by it.

But it seems that Ramsay Street needs its share of blood and will go to great lengths to get it in the most dramatic way possible. Take for example the Bridget Parker and Ringo Brown. They were both hit by vehicles driven by someone on the street. That kind of thing may happen, but not twice in less than 10 years. The street was clearly working its dark magic when Bridget and Ringo got hit. And clearly just injuring Bridget wasn't enough for the street, which is why she later died after getting married.

It's the spirit of the street trying to pervert the inhabitants and spread fear and chaos though Australia.

Or maybe it's the ghost of the original Ramsay trying to kill everyone so that he once again has company ... although with the number of people who have died while living on the street you'd think that Ramsay would have more than enough company. Even if the company is just horrible, horrible people who have always been that way or have been turned by the street.

The Secret of the Possum

Most people are familiar with Australia's possum. It's a pretty iconic little

critter. Admittedly not quite as iconic as the kangaroo and koala. But it's up there in iconicness. And let's face it, the possum deserves to be high on the iconic list, they're cute little critters. People get very excited being able to observe them being all possum and cute in their natural environments at night.

But what most people don't realise is that these possums are aware that they're being observed. So they just act all cute and possum and innocent. Well, at least, the bush possums do. The city possums are little less careless about this. Probably because they know that most tourists will head out to the bush to observe their bush counterparts. Most people aren't aware that possums are very prevailent in Australia.

So most tourists don't get to hear the possum's screeches at night.

Anyone who has heard a possum screech know just how demonic they sound.

And who's to say that they aren't demonic?

For something so small and cute to make those kind of sounds just isn't natural. Not unless the small and cute critter in question is in fact a demon!

Let's face facts, possums have razor sharp claws, sharp teeth, those unearthly cries and the fact that they make sure that very few people hear these unearlthy cries. Then there's also the fact that their tails serve many purposes. Not just balance as they scamper around the place, knocking out powerlines and leaving people in the dark.

So next time you see a possum, be very wary of it. You never know, it might suddenly decide to do the drop bear thing and kill you.

That sounds pretty demonic, right?

We Need to Take Care of Our Own

It's time our government closed our borders to immigrants. Or at the very least, drastically slash the number of immigrants allowed into the country, and completely stop letting in asylum seekers.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it?

But hear me out before you start condemning me.

As you're probably very unaware, Australia has one of the highest rates of poverty in the world (last time I looked we were like the third highest). This is actually quite alarming as we Aussies like to think of ourselves living in the "lucky country."

Evidently this is the case for a few of us.

So clearly the government started throwing money at this problem, and improve EVERYONE'S standard of living ... at least those living in poverty and squalor. The rich really don't need their living standards improved.

And the best way to get this much needed money?

Why, simply using all of the money that is poured into immigration, particuarly asylum seekers and detention centres ... which won't be needed once we stop asylum seekers entering the country.

And don't even get me started on the government's plan to give $4000 of taxpayer money to asylum seekers to go back home and get work and/or start up a business!

Clearly those people fled their home country because of political reasons, not because they had no money! And if they did come here seeking asylum because they're too poor back home, then why haven't the poverty stricken people here jumped into boats to seek asylum elsewhere?

That taxpayer money (and I mean all of it that's spent on immigration) would be better spent here, fixing up communities that desperately need it, that are just breeding poorer and poorer people with each generation.

How are we meant to help these asylum seekers when we're not even taking care of our own?

At the moment the government is trying to do both, and is doing a half arsed job at both.

If the government could just focus on our own, then we could bring the ENTIRE country up to scratch, and then (and only then!)can we think about helping these asylum seekers. But not before!

And then maybe all of those abused kids in foster care might also get the attention they desperately need to live full and healthy lives. At the moment, they're just languishing in depressing circemstances, overlooked by the system.

Again, not accepting the asylum seekers would mean that there would be more money to be spent on child welfare, which would mean there'd be a lot less deaths in the system.

And it's not like I'm suggesting that we stop accepting asylum seekers forever. I'm just saying that we only stop accepting them until there is no poverty in Australia, and that everyone has very similar living standards.

That way when we do finally start accepting asylum seekers again, we'd be better able to help them settle down here, instead of just handing them their papers and throwing them into an alien environment.

Why a Big Australia is a Bad Idea

I’m watching a documentary by Dick Smith about Australia’s population growth. I really don’t know why this is the first (that I’m aware of) documentary on the subject. Especially since most of the points being brought up seem to be common sense.
I hope that it wakens enough people, and make the pollies decide (or realize) that a big population is a seriously bad idea … and not because of racial reasons.
But because Australia just can’t support it!
I mean, it’s common sense.
Australia is, in fact, a big, open, unpopulated country. And this is the basis for a Big Australia policy/belief; “there’s plenty of room for more people.”
Well, there may be room for more people. But people who say this annoy me, because they’ve clearly never been out of the city and don’t know anything about the country.
There is a reason why all of Australia’s major cities all cling to the coastline (Alice Springs doesn’t count as a major city). It’s because most of the interior of Australia is a fucking desert!
A desert!
Yeah, that's right a desert.
That means that there’s going be a limited amount of important things like water.
Space really has nothing to do with it.
It’s all about water.
There’s only a limited amount of water … and we’re already on water restrictions. And we’re in the middle of a drought.
Less water coming in, and more people coming in spells bad news to the population.
It really doesn’t matter how much space a country has if there’s no water. No water means no population. And yet, people really seem to struggle with this. They just can’t comprehend this.
Instead they resort to the age old accusations of racism when faced with this simple fact;
“Oh. You don’t want more immigrants in Australia? You’re clearly racist, and a horrible person because of that. No one should listen to you, because you’re wrong, because you’re racist!”
Well, I’m sorry if I want to continue to have clean drinking water and being able to take regular showers! Not to mention the fact that there’ll no longer be enough food if the population keeps increasing like it is.