links for 2007-01-26
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Apparently I’m so far to the left I’m leftier than Trotsky on a good day. Who knew?
God Hates Fags: The Musical
(Via Joe. My. God., via Queerty)
Bible-thumping homo-hate-rock from someone clearly sorely tempted by the ways of Sodom (not that anyone would do him with that moustache) … or parody?
Read the bible, and you’ll be sure
To enter heaven — there’s no back door.
Righteous man, get on your knees,
There lies no virtue in sodomy.
…
You filthy sinners should just let me be
‘Cos Jesus my saviour’s the only man for me!
God hates a fag
God hates fags…
Joe is calling for remixers…
UPDATE: There’s a discussion in Progress at Joe. My. God. suggesting the video is a wind-up, and naming the perp…
UPDATE: Donnie Davis has a video blog in which he thanks Andrew Sullivan (“obviously a great Christian man”) for “getting behind me.” Much discussion about whether Donnie really is an ex-gay or a (very clever) parody at Towleroad and elsewhere. Developing, as they say on Drudge…
FINAL(ish) UPDATE: JMG has exposed the truth, or at least some of it…
The reshuffle
Howard announced a cabinet reshuffle today – not a very wide-ranging one, just tinkering at the edges. Amanda Vanstone’s been boned (although there seems to be a hint of a diplomatic posting in her future); the unspeakably dull Kevin Andrews moves from Employment to take Mandy’s well-worn place in immigration, while Joe Hockey gets to be the new point man for Workchoices. Malcolm Turnbull gets a big promotion and gets to sit in the Cabinet room, and there a few other rearrangements, mostly very hum-ho in nature – there’ll no doubt be plenty of discussion about whether this is enough to keep the coalition in the running for the election later this year.
Howard also announced a change of name for the immigration department, which used to be called the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (and not so long ago the Department of Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs). It’s now to be known as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, meaning this new ministry will be the first since the Whitlam era not to have a minister for Ethnic (then) or Multicultural (now) Affairs. Howard’s program to re-make Australia into a white, middle-class, mortgage-obsessed, nation of flag-waving xenophobes is proceeding according to plan.
Having had some dealing with the immigration department in the past, I have to observe that the new moniker will create some challenge to those working in the arena, among whom the department is universally known by the initialism ‘DIMA’ (or ‘DIMIA’ in the day). Not any more, now it’s DIC, and Kevin Andrews is a DIC head.
links for 2007-01-22
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“Prints look best when done on gloss paper using the company printer ink when everyone else is at lunch.”
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Victorian health authorities say gay men should have a syphilis test every year, or every six months if they have more than one partner – just what we argued with last year’s Rug Up for Winter campaign. Oral sex is a major vector.
Sydney readers: something for your diary
If you’re a Sydney resident (or if you’re not and you happen to be in Sydney on 25 January – Australia Day eve), you could do a lot worse than make you way to the Manacle:
MANACLE are proud to be supporting ethel yarwood enterprises for the 2007 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. Last year MANACLE sponsored this crazy crew of performers as The Kate Moss Line Dancers (above), which won the Funniest Parade Entry Award. Since 1988 this team has produced some of the more legendary parade entries including Keith Haring (1997), Dick van Dykes on Bikes (1998), The Happy Little SODOMITES (2000), The Bougainville Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (2001) and Jenny & Craig (2004) which also all won awards.
And believe us, this year the ethel yarwood enterprises’ entry is up to their usual level of humour and parody.
The staging of parade entries of this standard requires investment in time, effort and money. The ethel yarwood enterprises team obviously expend the time and effort to create these extravaganzas. MANACLE are pleased to be able to assist with financial aspects. On the Australia Day eve (25th January, 10pm – 1am) MANACLE is hosting an entry-by-donation fundraiser. A simple, inexpensive, painless gold coin donation to the lads at the door will put you in a raffle draw.
Prizes include:
- a double pass to the Opening Night of the Mardi Gras Queer Screen Festival My Queer Career film competition which includes the fabulous after party
- three-course dinner for two at Razors Edge restaurant, Enmore
- $50 bar tab at MANACLE
- MANACLE lager
The raffle will be drawn on the night with the winners being notified by sms or phone.
Also ethel yarwood enterprises team are looking for participants for their parade entry. If you’ve ever wanted to be in the parade this is an opportunity to be involved in some of the lunacy. Just contact Kabi at kabi@yarwood.com.au (casting couch optional
).
I am sworn to secrecy, but I can say that this is the parade entry we had to have – and it’ll only cost you a couple of bucks and a few minutes at the Manacle to make it happen. Go.
More Arse Eatin’
(Thanks, Kabi!)
Just Jack Hillary
Not “Clinton for President”. Just Hillary.
links for 2007-01-20
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A big supermarket chain in the UK is planning to put carbon emission labels on its 70,000 products, “so that shoppers can compare carbon costs in the same way they can compare salt content and calorie counts.”
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Bega – the town where I grew up – is going green. The Tathra Surf Club, scene of many an adolescent celebration in my day, is part of the story too.
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Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought.
links for 2007-01-15
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Mineral water is a preposterous vanity. It is flown and shipped around the world, from France and Norway at best, from Japan and Fiji at worst. It is bottled in glass that is mostly thrown away and is stupidly heavy to freight, or in plastic which never,
links for 2007-01-13
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What annoys Mr Lefty most about George W Bush’s Iraq Waris that “the US and the global community will never again do anything that looks even remotely like ‘nation building’.” Good point.
links for 2007-01-12
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In front of a packed national assembly [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez] accepted the presidential sash, raised his right hand and declared: “Fatherland. Socialism – or death! I swear it.” After a pause, he added: “I swear by Christ – the greatest social
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Piers Akerman brings the weight of his intellect to bear on rising HIV infections, blaming Mardi Gras, bug chasers, David Marr, Michael Kirby, gay marriage, “so-called safe sex” and political correctness. The answer? Circumcision, apparently. Dickhead.
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Australia’s most fun GLBT gathering, Daylesford’s Chillout Festival, has been cancelled for 2007. I’m devastated.
Canadian court allows three parents
From Reuters, yet more evidence that those crazy Canucks are determined to use common sense and decency in determining human relationships, when the rest of the planet prefers superstition:
A five-year-old Canadian boy can have two mothers and a father, an Ontario court ruled this week in a landmark case that redefines the meaning of family and examines the rights of parents in same-sex relationships.
In a ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the female partner of the child’s biological mother could be legally recognised as the boy’s third parent.
The biological father, named on the boy’s birth certificate, is a friend of both women and is taking an active role in the child’s life.
“It is contrary to (the child’s) best interests that he is deprived of the legal recognition of the parentage of one of his mothers,” Justice Marc Rosenberg wrote in the ruling, which did not name the three parents or their child.
Australia hardest hit by climate change
Australia – a country whose leader has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, who has denied that climate change exists, and who these days says he’s “not convinced by the more gloomy predictions” (whatever that means) – is suffering the negative effects of climate change worse than any other country, according to a Bureau of Meteorology report.
Howard’s refusal to act on, or even acknowledge, what is emerging as the greatest threat to Australia’s environment, economy and way of life will be a defining characteristic of his term in office. His failure to see the elephant in the room gives the lie to his oft-repeated claim of “sound economic management”.
In 2006, average temperatures nationally were about 0.5C above average, making the year the 9th warmest on record, according to the 2006 Annual Australian Climate Statement, issued yesterday. But averages tell only part of the story – the tropical parts of the country were unusually cool and wet while southern areas experienced higher temperatures and a severe drought which has persisted for the last decade.
That the average temperature in Australia is increasing – an idea repeatedly pooh-poohed by the PM – is now abundantly clear: take a look at this graph from the BoM:
The wiggly line in the middle of the graph shows the 5-year mean temperature compared to the average between 1961 and 1990. It shows a +0.9C increase since 1910 – yet our leaders continue to bury their head in the sand, refusing to take action on climate change because doing so would hurt the economy. One can’t help but wonder what sort of an economy we will have if this trend continues.
The rainfall picture is even more stark. Check this out:
This is a map of rainfall (compared to average) in 2006, but it could just as easily be a population map. The north and west of the country (blue), has very low population (much of it is desert) and had very high rainfall. The south, east and south-west (red) supports perhaps 95 percent of the country’s population, and is gripped by drought.
Preliminary data indicate that the average total rainfall throughout Australia for 2006 was about 490 mm, slightly more than the long-term average of 472 mm. However, it is unlikely that many Australians will remember 2006 as a wet year. The near-normal all-Australian total was made up of well above average totals across the north and inland Western Australia cancelling out the well below average totals recorded in the southeast and far southwest. Parts of southeast Australia experienced their driest year on record, including key catchment areas which feed the Murray and Snowy Rivers, as did parts of the Western Australian coast, including Perth. In contrast, record high falls were observed in parts of the tropics and inland Western Australia. It was the third-driest year on record for both Victoria and Tasmania, while for the broader southeast Australian region, which also takes in southeast South Australia and southern New South Wales, it was the second-driest.
Is this not a national crisis? Isn’t it time to at least consider the possibility that some of those “more gloomy predictions” might need to be planned for? Or will we just continue doing the same old thing, burning brown coal, yapping about nuclear power, shifting the blame about water policy to the states, comfortable in the knowledge that the worst effects of climate change won’t happen before the next election?
I’m off to water the lawn.
Scary/hilarious anti-privacy propaganda
We’ve been watching season 2 of Battlestar Galactica here at Buggery Acres – there’s nothing on the box during the silly season, so the DVD player’s been getting a workout. At the end of each disc is the lamest and possibly most hilarious anti-privacy message I’ve ever seen.
The ad, by the UK-based Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) but customised with an Australian freecall number so you can dob in your mates, features a fat, sweaty, lascivious and evil-eyed “pirate” who is busily manufacturing knock-off DVDs in his handy pirate’s forge (so that’s how they do it!):
The claims made in the voice-over would be hilarious if they weren’t meant to be serious:
Piracy funds organised crime, and will destroy our film and video industry. Piracy costs jobs, and will destroy our music and publishing industry. Piracy funds terrorism, and will destroy our development and your future enjoyment. Don’t touch the hot stuff: cool is copyright.
Given the audience to whom this bollocks is being pitched, it’s hard to imagine such a lame and ham-fisted scare campaign doing much but encouraging laughter and piracy. Of course, the real truth about “copyright theft” is less scary – piracy hurts the bottom line of some of the biggest and richest global media companies, but not by much (they’re certainly still profitable).
Does this advert discourage piracy? Doubtful. The claims it makes are laughable, and it makes them in a comically melodramatic way which reminds me of the Grim Reaper AIDS adverts from 1987.
The DVD spot can be viewed at YouTube.
Atop Hanging Rock
We climbed Hanging Rock on Saturday to celebrate Brent’s birthday. The panorama above was shot from the summit, stitched together from 8 individual images and Flashified for your entertainment. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice a little blue speck in the distance at the end of the forward sweep – that’s our friend Sam. The original image is here, if you’re interested.
I’ll put some other pictures from the hike on Flickr later today.
Oh yeah, happy new year. Hope it’s a good one.
