Raven Paradox

Brilliantly shot, thoughtfully written, wonderfully directed and impeccably acted; Rake is one of the most underrated accomplishments of Australian film and television.

I thoroughly enjoyed the last season of Rake, every episode; from start to finish.

The second season of Rake, currently available on ABC’s iView for free; has kicked off in the manner in which (I hope) it intends to go on, and extrapolates on the premise of the first season quite brilliantly.

A superbly constructed, well written black comedy is something that we have had a dearth of in this country.

Rake excels, it shines, Richard Roxburgh is exceptional as Cleaver Green, a rake who also moonlights as a barrister; why he hasn’t received a Logie is beyond me.

If you missed the first season, the Blu Ray is available for the miserable sum of $49 from the ABC shop.

Do yourself a favour.

Season 1 of Rake – ABC Shop – Cleaver Greene

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Tony Nicklinson, you were a very brave man.

You are my hero.

Jane Nicklinson, you are an amazing woman.

Tony, you could have chosen to die at any point, yet you chose to fight for the right to die.

When that was denied you, you took the only option that you had left.

I hope that should I ever be faced with a situation requiring courage; that I have a modicum of what you had, Tony.

Valé Tony Nicklinson – hero, father, husband, legend.

May there be many more like him.

May euthanasia hero Philip Nitschke be one day allowed to relieve suffering again.

If you support voluntary euthanasia, please drop a comment in below.

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Prince Harry – Next King of Australia – Nude Legend.

If there was anything that could halt the eventual transformation, some would say evolution, of Australia into a republic; it is Prince Harry.

It has been some time, far too long actually, since he was pilloried by the press for dressing in a German WWII uniform:

Good on him.

He is just a normal human being.

His latest “stunt”, allegedly challenging Ryan Lochte to a race at a pool party and then playing something called “strip pool” and being photographed by some spiv, has caused outrage in certain sections of the community.

We should never have seen these pictures.

The scumbag, the spiv, the mongrel bastard who took them and then shared them; deserves a savage uppercut.

That said, I am glad that whomever it was; did share the images.

It has only raised my opinion of Harry, and I want him to be the next king of Australia.

Whilst we, rightly, want to become a republic, it is because we have been subjected to the likes of Elizabeth, Charles and William whilst the true heroes of the family, Philip and Harry; have been pushed aside, relegated to background duties.

Elizabeth, Charles and William – boring, stuffy, precocious cunts the lot of them.

Philip and Harry -highly entertaining and well worth retaining.

We have to remember that Harry hasn’t just worn swastikas and got his cock out; he also, bravely chose to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, on the front line.

This is a man who has earned our respect. He hasn’t just kicked back and enjoyed the privileges of royalty, he has earned them.

How many of us would, if given the choice of a life of privilege, choose to head off to the anus of the earth and fight against a savage, Neanderthal enemy, risking our lives in a thankless war?

I wouldn’t.

Prince Harry did.

All hail the king of Australia – Prince Harry – King Harry.

He is more deserving, more worthy of the throne than his “father” or brother.

He is the only British royal worthy of any true respect.

Prince Harry – come down under and become our first president.

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Apple’s iCloud has, some may say fittingly; been the first high profile “cloud” service to suffer a very public and widely reported breach of security.

Perhaps those who looked at me strangely two years ago, when I began ranting about the dangers that reliance on “the cloud” would create; may perhaps deign to reconsider those stares.

I am surprised that such a monstrous fuck up hasn’t been widely reported earlier than this, for I am sure that it isn’t the first time that it has happened.

What fuck up?

This…

An allegedly “tech savvy” journalist loses his entire digital life because he was moronic enough to rely entirely on “the cloud”

Someone calling himself Mat Honan, allegedly a journalist at Gizmodo and wired.com.

I am told that they are technology news websites.

I am also told that this clown, Honan; had his entire digital life backed up in “the cloud”.

Dear me.

The Sophos article on the incident (referenced earlier) has some great suggestions for those clowns amongst you who insist on using “the cloud”:

• Encrypt everything you put into the cloud, using an encryption solution which operates outside the cloud.
• Keep your online accounts separate. Don’t link accounts together for convenience, lest they all get compromised in one go.
• Don’t link personal and work social media accounts, lest an injury to one become an injury to both.
• Make and keep backups for yourself, outside the cloud.
• Consider an independent remote wipe service.

All eminently sensible suggestions.

I would have said that they are logical, though we have become accustomed to iSheep clinging desperately and foolishly to the marketing… err… advice of the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

The “cloud” is bad, it has always been bad.

It is a matter of when, not if; that one of the large “cloud” providers admits a massive breach that has exposed the private data of tens if not hundreds of thousands of naive and foolish individuals.

The “cloud” is just one step closer to Skynet becoming a reality.

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Accepted “wisdom” is that Rainbow Lorikeets are not sexually dimorphic.

To the keen eye, however wild Rainbow Lorikeets *are* sexually dimorphic.

Dimorphism can clearly be seen by observing mated pairs of wild Rainbow Lorikeets.

You will notice that in almost all mated pairs, that the colouring of the breast is subtly different.

The male will generally tend to have more orange on his breast, extending further toward the wings than the female. He will also generally have less yellow on his body.

The head of the male is also a slightly different shape, slightly squarer to that of the female.

The female may be of slightly slighter build and will have more yellow intermingled with the orange of her breast.

The blues of the female will generally tend to be a lighter hue, sometimes seeming to be tinged with grey whilst the males have a deep navy colour to them.

This image is a perfect example of the sexual dimorphism:

In the image above, the male is on the left, the female on the right.

How do I know this?

Spending 40 years feeding wild Rainbow Lorikeets and several years as a carer for them.

When it comes to sexual dimorphism in Rainbow Lorikeets that have been selectively bred however, the above may not be an accurate means by which to determine their sex.

Captive bred birds tend to be selectively bred for the traits that humans find desirable; and in Rainbow Lorikeets, that means bright orange breasts and a deep blue undercarriage.

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The carbon tax.

Such a hot topic of conversation.

Alan Jones is on a witch hunt. Without science on his side, he resorts to populism.

This saddens me. Alan is an intelligent, wealthy man; that he would resort to populism is an indictment on his moral and mental capacity or lack thereof.

Which of these videos is the bigger lie? Which of these broken promises had a bigger impact on our lives?

Does a 10% tax on just about everything cost you more than a 0.002% tax on a couple of things?

That is, does a GST of 10% on 80% of what you consume cost you more than a Carbon Tax of 0.002% on 20% of what you consume?

Firstly, you have the idiots who are running a scare campaign for Uncle Tony (not for the Liberal Party mind you, only for Uncle Tony Abbott), who have the backing of that ubiquitous oxygen thief; Alan (honestly, I don’t like the male members of the Australian olympic swimming squad in anything other than a platonic way and I hate everything that the left leaning types do though I’ll never speak out about their compassion for homosexuals) Jones.

Secondly, you have Tony “I am appealing to the lowest common denominator, and they appeal to me, because we share the basic common principles of bigotry, ignorance and fear” Abbott; parrotting Alan “The Parrot” Jones.

That Alan had a bit of a completely non gay crush on John Winston is a matter of the public record.

Does he have more than a non gay crush on Mr Abbott?

Mr Abbott is a very fit physical specimen, if it weren’t for his bigotry; I’d want to take him to bed.

Imagine the stamina, imagine what kind of gagging action one could precipitate once one had hold of those ears…

But seriously…

Whilst once I clung to the left, the ALP; I have abandoned them.

I flirted with the Greens; though could never vote for such hypocrites.

I tried Liberal once, and am sure that it was my vote that killed Kim Beazley.

I don’t have a party of choice, they are all reprehensible, self serving cunts.

The crap that Abbott and his minions are carrying on with thought, that is a bit too much.

Have a look at this out-out-outsourced group who are acting on behalf of (I can’t give you their identity, even though I have discerned it):

- The Liberal Party
- A mining company
- A prominent Australian individual
- Alan Jones
- A small minded wanker
- A lobby group that has members who think that the earth is flat.

In the end, what is worse, a tax on just about everything that impacts 100% of us (the GST) – a tax introduced by a government that Tony Abbott has proudly described himself as being a senior, policy making member of; or:

A tax on a couple of things that will ultimately impact perhaps 50% of us – if that?

I am not sure, please help me decide.

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand…

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I need not make much more of a comment on the following piece than this:

Malcolm Turnbull needs to challenge Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party.

He was only defeated by one vote last time around, and he is the only politician in Canberra with anything that could possibly be called a semblance of vision.

Decide for yourself.

Malcolm Turnbull – the greatest opposition leader to never win office.

Andrew Bolt has had a go at my gay marriage speech in his blog today.

As far as I can see he has two points to make.

First he says that if you recognised gay unions with the title of marriage you open the door to polygamy. This is the weakest and worst sort of argument used against any change and known as the “slippery slope” argument – if first you make one change then a whole series of other changes will follow. As any lawyers reading this blog will know, judges treat arguments like this with the contempt they deserve.

But let us deal with the substance. There is no demand, no lobby, no support, no constituency for legalising polygamy under the Marriage Act. If you needed a contemporary, as opposed to a traditional or cultural, justification for not recognising polygamy it can be found in our, and most societies’, view of the equality of men and women.

Second he says that the whole purpose of marriage is a permanent relationship, that gay couples (gay men he is speaking about here) are more likely to be promiscuous and have extra-marital affairs and that therefore if gays are allowed to marry they will influence the understanding of marriage among the straights who will accordingly become more promiscuous.

This must be the longest bow of all – all those chaste and monogamous heterosexuals out there are about to become slavering, dissolute, philanderers because gay couples are according to Mr Bolt less faithful to each other than men and women.

And he wonders what I am talking about when I speak of the hypocrisy of the sanctimonious. Open your eyes, Andrew! If a heterosexual married couple want to find an example of marital infidelity, adultery, promiscuity they hardly need to look out for any gay couples they know. How many of their friends’ marriages are breaking up? How many of their friends husbands or wives are playing up?

Or they can turn on the television or open a magazine or newspaper. Where shall we start?

Take Hollywood – most of the news is about who is having an affair with whom, whose marriage is breaking up, who is getting married for the umpteenth time.

What about politics? Take Silvio Berlusconi for example, would he have been, could he have been, more promiscuous if there had been gay marriage legalised in Italy. Could he have had even more bunga bunga parties?

Finally, and speaking from my own experience, the gay couples I know who have told me they would like to have their unions recognised as a marriage have generally been together for a very long time and lead lives of demure domesticity.

This man, Malcolm Turnbull; should be Prime Minister. Sadly, we will never be so lucky as to enjoy his measured wisdom. He is too “liberal” for the Liberals and too “Liberal” for Labor.

So very sad.

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God, the Christian god; loathes homosexuals.

I don’t know about the Jew or Muzi god, but I think that they hate them too. I can’t really comment though as I don’t have a beard; nor can I grow one.

Fred Pheps was right, and Tony Abbott is right to deny Liberal and National party members the right to a conscience vote on the issue of gay marriage.

Julia Gillard is right to refuse to support gay marriage.

John Howard was right to change the marriage act in 2004, to ensure that fags couldn’t get married.

GOD HATES FAGS!

Do you know how I know this?

It says so in the bible:

Leviticus 18:22

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Yes, yes, stop muttering about how there are those other parts of Leviticus that say something about not shaving ones beard or touching the skin of pigs or wearing clothes made of two different fabrics or owning slaves or blind people not being allowed in churches…

… the god who wrote (well, allegedly passed on) the bible (Old and New Testaments) showed his commitment to stamping out and punishing the evils of homosexuality.

So you know how he did this?

He killed his own son, his only begotten son.

Why?

Jesus was a fag. Jesus was a prolific smoker of man. Jesus loved the cock.

Goddy, almighty father; killed his own son.

He may have wrapped it up in all this business about sin, loving humans and the like; but it was because Jesus was a fag.

He hung out with twelve men and a fag hag.

He was betrayed by Judas as a result of a lovers tiff.

He was a mummies boy.

John the Baptist was referred to as “the man whom Jesus loved”.

God knew that his son was a bender, a pillow biter, a poofter – is it any wonder that the likes of Mr Abbott, Ms Gillard, Bill Homophobe.. err Heffernan and their ilk are doing their best to ensure that those dirty benders don’t get their cock sucking, clit licking mouths and tongues on a marriage certificate?

Good on them – if god killed his only begotten son for being a dirty bender, then we’d best make sure that he doesn’t kill all of us for being “fag enablers”.

Christians unite.

We can’t allow the sins of Jesus to cost us all. We must ensure that those fags are never afforded the right to legally and publicly commit to a loving relationship.

Remember – GOD HATES FAGS SO MUCH THAT HE KILLED HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.

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I don’t often post links to the diatribes of other people; however this young man is well worth a read:

http://sketchetic.wordpress.com/

Based on the quality of his writing, and the thought processes that he has gone through in order to arrive at his conclusions, it is difficult to believe that he hasn’t finished school yet.

What is most interesting to me is that one so young, one who was indoctrinated; is as lucid as he.

It gives me a great deal of hope for a post theistic world that I thought was sliding back toward the control of the Christian Right, one in which we are no longer slaves to superstition.

Cracking work mate, keep it up.

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According to various tech websites about the place, Windows Phone 7 isn’t doing all that well.

I struggle to understand why.

I made the switch from Android to WP7 about a month ago, and (aside from the original phone being DOA), I have been enormously impressed with the experience.

My weapon of choice is the Nokia Lumia 800.

Nokia have always made great hardware, and this device is no exception.

The Lumia 800 is not only a very attractive piece of hardware aesthetically, it is also very attractive functionally.

I am not sure whether it is WP7 or hardware of the Lumia 800, but mine boots in less than five seconds, even with the carrier logo display popping up for about three of those seconds.

Either way, after coming from a succession of 30s-1m boot time Android devices, I am highly impressed.

The touch screen is responsive and functions exceptionally well in any kind of light, but the highlight for me has been the quality of the photographs that this thing takes.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is only sporting an 8mp camera, though it does have Carl Zeiss Tessar written on the back of it; whatever that means, however the pictures that I am taking with it are better than those some associates are getting out of their dedicated digital cameras.

The colours are brilliant – have a look at the couple of example below; and click on it to see the glorious colour and definition in full resolution.

Probably the most magnificent aspect of this camera though, is the macro mode.

I’ve never had a camera or a phone with a macro mode setting, so I was quite excited to learn what it was.

I’ve only taken one photo with the macro setting on.

I don’t want to take any more, this one turned out perfectly and I want to stop whilst I am at the top of my game!

Click on it and look at it in full resolution – check out that detail, it is unlike anything I have seen taken with a phone before.

If you haven’t experienced the Windows Phone 7 platform, or the Nokia Lumia 800 hardware, I urge you to make a diversion into your local telco shop the next time you walk past it; and have a quick fiddle with one.

If you appreciate performance, aesthetics, and a completely intuitive user interface, you’ll no doubt walk out with one; or walk away and then come back the next day (as I did) to snaffle one of these cracking devices.

Sadly though, just because a device is technologically superior, doesn’t mean that it will prosper.

VHS and Betamax taught us this.

Here is hoping that slavish consumerism and the herd mentality don’t defeat what is, for mine, undoubtably the best mobile device and OS available on the market today.

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