Why do people call them pirates? The Sea Shepherd logo is clearly not intended to appeal to adventurous young boys.

That’s right folks. Those wacky whale lovers of the Sea Shepherd organisation need our help. After taking the law into their own hands and sailing around the Southern Ocean attempting to terrorize the Japanese whaling fleet into ceasing all activities, these poor, completely innocent activists are crying foul over collisions between theirs and the Japanese ships.

After the sinking of their super-expensive future-boat, the Ady Gil last month, the militant hippies activists are claiming that the Japanese whaler, Yushin Maru 3 intentionally rammed their motor vessel, the Bob Barker (motor vessels run on diesel fuel and cost millions of dollars, incidentally. Very environmental).

The leader of the Sea Shepherd organisation and captain of the Steve Irwin,  Paul Watson (who was kicked out of Greenpeace for wanting to take the organisation in a violent direction) has been calling on the Australian Government to do something about the Japanese whaling activities for some time. Rather than pursuing their agenda in a court of law, though, the organisation would prefer the Boys-Own-Adventure style of excitement allowing them to spend millions of dollars on ships and fuels to “do battle” with the Japanese in the largely un-monitored Southern Ocean.

There’s an organisation based in the Deep South of the USA that makes similar claims about pushing their agenda and “upholding their rights”.

Vigilantism: When will the Government come to the party?

Why don't people think things that were funny a hundred years ago are funny now?

The fact that they have let Daryl Somers back on TV is bad enough for our country’s apparent intelligence levels, but the incredibly dated-looking Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion specials (played on Wednesday nights, obviously) are even worse.

On Last night’s show, nobody thought to stop a ‘red faces’ act going to air where the participants were dressed in blackface and taking the piss out of the Jackson family – a reprise of their appearance on the show more than 20 years ago.

Somers even apologised saying he “didn’t think” the sketch would be offensive to anyone. Where as he’s usually known for his brilliant mind and razor-sharp insights (see Dancing with the Stars, for examples).

Well, apparently not a lot has changed in Australia in the last 20 years. In today’s news forums, public opinion has been mainly concerned with “political correctness gone mad” and people being able to have a laugh at this sort of thing even though our “national identity” is all about “larrikinism”.

If you ask the UN, who tend to reprimand us pretty regularly over our treatment of the indigenous population (not to mention their standard of life) as well as the fact that we like to lock up children who risk their lives coming to our country seeking asylum, they probably don’t think its all that funny.

So, international tourists – Where the Bloody Hell are you?

Here’s a few links that highlight our “she’ll be white” attitude and the way the international community see us:
http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2@paradigm4.com.au/msg00396.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/28/2669997.htm
http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/hr_violations.php

Talk about Larrikins!

A jockey blowing his horses brains out to win a race - its not cruel, he's just doing it so we can win money by betting on him...

Australian Jockeys are upset that people want to stop them from blowing out their horses’ brains in order to win races. For people so tiny, they sure love the animal cruelty!

New rules being bandied around the Aussie Horse Racing industry (see problem gambling for more info) would make it not as acceptable for the little tackers to use handguns on their horses in order to make them run faster.

“I don’t see the problem,” one Jockey told us in his high-pitched voice (he was too small to identify), “All we want to be allowed to do is blow out our horses’ brains in the crucial last few hundred metres of a race. But the Animal Rights people – who don’t understand that problem-gambling on horse races is part of our national culture – think its in some way cruel or something…”

Since institutionalised sports-gambling addiction is part of our Australian identity, the animal lovers will surely have to come around.
I mean, we breed these animals so we can be cruel to them (not that it’s cruel). If we didn’t breed them for having their brains blown out, they’d just be wasting their time living happily in their natural environment or something.

And you can’t gamble on that!

Xenophobia & the Balance of Power in the senate...

If you are afraid of Nick Xenophon, you are a xenophobe.
If you are afraid of Christopher Pyne, then you’re a homophobe.