The slippery slope

by Scott Bridges on 8 February 2010
Categories: Health, Politics | Tags: , ,

A couple of days ago I had a horrid case of gastro with the works – both ends plus a fever. Punctuated only by regular visits to the toilet, I spent the day laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling fan. I got to thinking about voluntary euthanasia and in particular one of the political arguments used against it, namely the “slippery slope”.

Even though it was just a bog standard stomach bug from a dirty Indian saucepan, thinking about euthanasia was natural in my circumstances. For two days I was unable to eat, unable to participate in any of the activities I had planned, and unable to do anything pleasant to kill time. Using the slippery slope argument I was just a few slips of the slope away from being in a permanent and terminal state of extreme pain and discomfort, drifting in and out of consciousness thanks to the strong medication I needed to cope with the pain, not a single shred of dignity intact, and condemned to living like this for the rest of my limited and pointless days. It was simply terrible, I tell you, and temporarily reinforced my belief that were I ever in a situation like that I would want access to a legal voluntary euthanasia option.

But then I thought about the slippery slope, and I was reminded of why we should never make anything legal that might benefit some people if an adulterated and more evil version of that thing is possible. Voluntary euthanasia, if legal, might bring to an end the suffering of people in the most horrible of circumstances at their request, but it’s possible to think of a future version of a voluntary euthanasia law that made it, perhaps, involuntary, or even that legal voluntary euthanasia encouraged involuntary euthanasia. These outcomes are clearly undesirable so good must be sacrificed to prevent evil.

It’s just like how they started limited overs cricket and from there it was a slippery slope to Twenty20. Or how the Internet was invented and down the slope we slipped to Twitter. The world has suffered, and will continue to suffer, thanks to these short-sighted initial acts.

However, wrapping myself in a blanket to ward of a feverish chill, and grappling with these heavy issues, I was struck by a sudden thought that the whole slippery slope thing is the biggest pile of intellectually-lazy shit ever to be shat out into reasoned debate. Maybe it was the gastro talking, but I couldn’t see why any rational human should ever have to listen to the words “slippery slope” again.

So, with a few solid meals now in my gut, and my thinking being a lot less sloppy, I see no need for any more talk about slippery slopes or other out-of-your-arse arguments. We’re all adults here.

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iFad? No, iVerydisappointed

by Bob Dumpling on 1 February 2010
Categories: Corporations, Media, Music, Technology | Tags: , , , ,

Well the iPad has arrived but can you hear that noise? It’s the sound of Apple losing their shit after reading Alan Kohler in Business Spectator. Yep, worse than David Pogue ranting about AT&T or another Hitler/Downfall video bemusing on the lack of camera & multi-tasking… the worst has happened. Alan Kohler is disappointed in the iPad.

It seems Kohler already bought a Tablet (like an HP or something, whatever “the iPad looks like just another tablet computer”) and hated it… and having filled his home with iMacs and Macbooks, he really hoped for something extra special. But the iPad, from what he has seen, fails to live up to his high-technicolour dreams.

Worse still, Kohler is pretty sure that the iPad is not going to save newspapers. I know that’s what we all hoped for, in fact, for as long as I can remember Steve Jobs has always said that more than anything else, he wanted to ensure the ongoing stability and prosperity of global media enterprises.

So the ‘Tablet’ (which he insists on continuing to call it post-keynote) must indeed be a bitter pill for Alan Kohler to swallow. But if this article with it’s infantile, “I hate the way the world is heading, where’s my mummy?” tone makes you want to stab something… lock up your kitchen ware because that other giant of Australian business journalism, Michael Pascoe wrote an absolute doosey last week.

Pascoe thinks Apple is “an IT gadget company” with the temerity to (I know, this is incredible) over charge innocent Aussie consumers.

As far as reality denial goes, this is an extra special article. I’m sure you have heard of Melody Gardot? I hadn’t but I live in the suburban equivalent of an iron lung so to me any cultural reference point is like mainlining speed. Anyway, Ms Gardot has a massive is on the cusp of a massive singing career which is being totally hampered by Apple iTunes Australia’s barbaric pricing structure. I know, it’s shocking. Read it and embrace the rage.

But seriously, this would be valid were it not for the teensy-wincey fact that Australian’s are used to being rogered by music publishers, book publishers and all sorts of other protected entities. The other fact that our elder statesmen of Australian journalism can dabble a bit in the world of tech-journo and appear so out of touch, makes me disappointed that the death of media isn’t all that deadly.

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Busting the “asylum seeker” rort

by @FakeFielding on 31 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , , , ,

Last weekend I was really bored. The American hip hop video clips with all those bikini women on Video Hits were making me a feel a bit funny so I’d turned the television off, I’d eaten so many tomato sauce sandwiches that I was starting to feel sick, and the linen cupboard suddenly had a child-proof lock on it so I couldn’t make a cubby house. Susan was starting to get really grumpy with me moping about the house and was threatening to call the electorate office to see if there was anything I could do to help out, so I called up Nick Xzennophone to see if he could play. Nick’s wife answered the phone and said he was out, but after I asked her why I could hear Nick in the background whispering that he was out she put him on the phone.

Xzennophone told me that he’d love to play but was too busy researching the asylum seeker issue because it was going to be a big one this year. I asked him what asylum seekers were and after he told me I was overcome with sympathy for the poor sods. But after Nick suggested a coalition with the Greens who hold a similar position to us I instantly decided that I was anti-asylum seekers, or anti-immigration, or anti-whatever it is the Greens are for. The Greens can pass around the friendship bong with whoever they want but I’m going to maintain the intensity of Australia’s borders.

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Mental health and markets: two kinds of failure

by David F on 31 January 2010
Categories: Health, Science, Society, Technology |

It’s nice that the Federal Government has given a gong to Pat McGorry, but our country’s commitment to psychiatric treatment remains at the level of mere lip service. I read with interest a recent newspaper article reporting on the Federal Government’s scheme for giving subsidies to private psychologists. This program began in 2006, in response to widespread evidence of a ‘crisis’ in mental health. Psychiatric problems constituted a vast percentage of overall health burden in Australia, yet were systematically under-funded (in proportional terms). The then-Howard Government arranged for psychologists operating in private practice to be subject to Medicare rebates for the first time. The aim here was to allow the private system to pick up the slack for an over-burdened public system. These are the results:

MEDICARE spending on psychological therapy will blow out to $1.5 billion by 2011, twice its budget allocation, according to a new analysis.

Despite the huge investment – three times the original five-year estimates when the scheme began in 2006 – the Federal Government has not released any evidence that the consultations are improving mental health…

Long consultations with psychologists grew fastest – by 32 per cent. But they were used disproportionately by city dwellers, with country people only about 60 per cent as likely to attend them.

The analysis also shows patients are being hit by out-of-pocket expenses likely to be prohibitive for those on lower incomes – an average $35 for 50 minutes with a psychologist.

This result is not surprising, and I’d like to touch on two related points to elucidate the origins of this costly failure:

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Fielding: Christmas Island ‘more like motel than detention centre’

by David Bonnici on 29 January 2010
Categories: Politics, Society | Tags: , , , ,

FACILITIES at the Christmas Island detention centre are akin to a motel with inmates receiving better treatment than many Australians, Family First Senator Steve Fielding said.

Sen Fielding said he was amazed that detainees were given:

+ A car park near the back door

+ Adjoining rooms near friends if desired

+ Use of a swimming pool

+ Small bars of soap in their en suites

+ Use of a kettle and complementary tea bags, instant coffee, sugar and UHT milk

+ Portable televisions to watch WIN, Prime and ABC 1

+ Free breakfast which they could order on a card and have it delivered on a tray through a little door at the front of their rooms.

“”They even had a choice of not having bacon with their English breakfast,” Mr Fielding said.  “How much does it cost the government not to include Australian bacon because of their non-Christian requirements?”

Refugee advocate Less O’ Dogooder, denied the conditions at Christmas Island were as luxurious as Sen Fielding described.

“The swimming pool is nowhere as big as it looks in the pictures and the busy wallpaper and burnt orange carpet look like something from my nanna’s house,” Ms O’Dogooder said.”.

“And no one told the detainees that a continental breakfast consisted of a stale crossaint and a little variety pack box of Corn Flakes. Continental sounds a lot more impressive than it is, it’s a misleading term - they couldn’t even choose Coco Pops.”

Mr Fielding said that even without the choice of Coco Pops, detainees at Christmas Island received better treatment than many Australians got from the Government.

“There are Australian rapists and murderers doing it a lot tougher in Australian jails than those queue jumpers enjoying holiday camp conditions at Christmas Island.

“Charity should begin at home,” he said.

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Shopping centres shouldn’t stop at banning politicians

by David Bonnici on 28 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: ,

The ABC reports: “Some of the country’s biggest shopping malls are hoping to be politician-free zones during the upcoming federal and state elections.”

I’m not sure what bothers me the most about that intro; the fact that part of our democratic process is to be curtailed by people who condone spruikers with PA systems, or the fact it refers to shopping centres as “shopping malls”.

I’ll put the Americanism aside and focus on the first point. Why ban politicians from shopping centres while on the hustings? That’s the best part of an election campaign. The practice has given us great moments in Australian political history like Bob Hawke’s “silly old bugger” remark, John Hewson’s cake-shop GST gaffe, and a baby throwing up on John Howard.

The beauty of shopping centre appearances is that they can only be stage managed to a point. Even when the party hacks reckon they’ve lined up suitable attractive white-Anglo working mums and dads to shake hands, offer babies to hug and ask the right Dorothy Dixers, there will always be some child, nuff-nuff, wog, pensioner, youth or building worker who will turn the script, and possibly an election campaign, on its head with a left-field question so stupid it’s brilliant – the reaction to which provides news outlets with the perfect soundbite, vision or pic that will forever haunt a candidate.

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Just when does it become “un”?

by Scott Bridges on 25 January 2010
Categories: Media, Society | Tags: , , , ,

On the 26th of January each year the countries of Australia and India both celebrate their national days. I’m spending this particular 26th on the subcontinent, observing Republic Day activities which will this year allow Indians to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the independent Republic of India. I’ve spent enough Australia Days at home to know what’s going on there: everyone’s chilling out in their own way, enjoying the last real fling of the summer holidays before work starts back proper; and the media’s gone into super-patriot mode, re-hashing all of the usual tired cliches about how awesome Australia is and what it means to be Australian (hint: starts with “B” and ends with “BQ”), while a significant portion of the population cringe just a little bit. In recent years, especially around Australia Day itself, there seems to have been a growing gulf between those who love Australia to death and those who the former aggressively dare to leave if they don’t love it. The latter simply want to point out that it’s possible to love your country and acknowledge its faults at the same time. It’s curious that a day intended to unite Australia tends to somewhat divide it instead.

In the ex-Portuguese territory of Goa, an opinion writer by the name of Joe D’Souza, writing in the Herald, has written an honest report card on the country he loves, and I’m wondering what the reaction might be if a similar article appeared in an Australian paper.

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Down and dirty

by Ant Rogenous on 25 January 2010
Categories: A funny thing happened on the way to ... | Tags: , , ,

So, I’ve been busy. Apart from welcoming a new Baby Rogenous into the fold late last year, I’ve been arsecrack deep in manwork — something of a radical departure from the poncy stuff, like blogging, with which I prefer to fill my idle hours.

Anyway, chief among my domestic projects has been the construction of a sandpit to hold three 1000lt water tanks I scored for Christmas. The job, up until the weekend, had involved digging out part of the lawn in my severely sloping backyard and building/propping up a level timber box. This left me with a large hole to fill — too large for me to be able to afford all the expensive packing sand I’d planned to sit the tanks on.

The classifieds in the local paper came to the rescue, with one woman — who we’ll call Jane — advertising a metric shitload of free cleanfill for pick-up not far away. So on Saturday morning, at what I assumed was the reasonable hour of 10am, I grabbed my phone and called hers.

After about 10 rings, an extremely hung-over-sounding man answered:

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Steve goes to the electorate office

by @FakeFielding on 25 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , ,

I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with the summer Parliament holidays. I love them because you don’t have to work and you can sleep in as late as you want and you can sit in front of the TV in morning in your jim jams eating Coco Pops and watching cartoons and you get presents from Santa at Christmas time, but I also hate them because a few days after new year’s eve I start to get bored and Susan gets on my case about lounging around the house and whining about having nothing to do even though I lie to her and say I’ve got heaps to do and that Nick Xzennophone’s going to call up any minute and invite me around to his house to play. And every year, no matter how busy I try to make myself look busy (this year I started constructing the Mother Of All Cubby Houses in the lounge room using bed sheets and the next-door neighbour’s nailgun), Susan always eventually insists that I go in to my electorate office and help out a bit.

I didn’t even know I had an electorate office until two summer holidays ago. That year, when Susan told me to go there I thought she was saying “electricity office” and I called her a stupid idiot, poked my tongue out the side of my mouth, crossed my eyes, and did the crazy sign with my finger around my ear. After my two weeks’ grounding Susan drove me to my electorate office and told me to help my office manager do whatever needed to be done.

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Trevor’s Film Review: Good or Shithouse

by Trevor McDonald on 24 January 2010
Categories: Film | Tags:

Welcome new year to you. I wont use ‘pwned’ because that is so 2009 and I like to stay with the times. I’ve finally got around to finding a player that plays DVD’s from hard rubbish. I thought it was time I gave this ‘fad’ a go. Wayne still has his beta max and a fine collection of porn for example “Farmer’s Daughter’s”. (I also went to the pictures)

Farmer’s Daughter’s: Good. A coming of age story about a farmer who is in debt to a bank and is about to lose his farm in the midwest. He has 3 lovely daughters (one is a virgin) and one day a man knocks on the door whose car has broken down on the highway. He tells the farmer he is a travelling salesman and after a few drinks comes up with a plan to save the Farmer’s farm. You see, he sells porn and together the farmer films his daughters having sex with the travelling salesman so they can sell the film. Top watch.

Avatar: Shithouse. Just proves that gimmicks still work in the 21st century. Before James Camerson’s next film he will hand out cool aid.

Man on Wire: Good. A story about a frog who can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Tyson: Good. One for all the family. A story about a boy genius who knew at a young age he was destined for gaol. But fucken hell he can punch quick. There is footage of him being trained by old man Cus and he punches the heavy bag 5 times quicker than a blink.

Nineteen 84: Confusing.

Just Married: Good. Fine acting from Brittany Murphey RIP and Ashton Coucher. A story with many turns and with a twist of lemon. Intelligent film making with original storyline and premise. The cinematography is par excellance.

Accidental Goat Sodomy: Shithouse.

Juno: Shithouse. Boring dialouge. Boring actress. Sounds like it was written by a stripper. Not original.

Sherlock Homes: Shithouse. Sherlock Homes went after the hound of the baskervilles not a bloke who could do devil magic.

Deadwood: ? My DVD player doesn’t have subtitles.

The James Reyne Story (Starring James Reyne): Good. What more could a bloke want?

Thanks for listening to my film reviews. If you want to debate my points there is a comment section below. All you have to do is type in your opinions and make up a name for yourself. Please provide a valid email address if you’re a bird so I can chat via email later on.

(Dear website owners. I noticed on the page were I wrote my topical debate there is a message from Wordpress:

WordPress 2.9.1 is available! Please notify the site administrator.

You’ve been served)

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