Four reasons why the Navy ’sex scandal’ is a malodourous beat-up:

1. There is nothing particularly unusual about young men discussing their philistinic dreams of sexual conquests, both likely and improbable. There’s no real scandal in writing these things down, unless they involve degrading personal commentary that subsequently harms someone. If we’re going to start sacking or indicting males aged 17-28 for playing silly games and thinking with the wrong head, a quarter of society will be out of work or in the slammer.

2. It’s the military, fer Chrissakes. It has a blokey, boozy, misogynistic culture, fuelled by large amounts of testosterone, perpetuated by playing with big guns and propagated by living in a hothouse environment, at close quarters with each other for eleven months of the year. When not fighting, which is 99 percent of the time, they spend their hours either training, being yelled at, oiling their guns, swabbing poop decks, whatever. It’s hardly surprising that they’d engage in dubious horseplay to relieve the boredom.

3. Why the hell do we expect our military to be a paragon of gender equality and political correctness anyway? Their job is to kill people and blow things up – do we really believe this attracts libertarians, feminists and Greens voters?  Or that it doesn’t attract risk-takers, loose cannons or people of dubious psychological integrity? The problem lies not with the people concerned but the glorification of military service that’s been ongoing in this country since Howard came to power.  The ADF has always done and continues to do a fine job – but it is not a patrician class, upholding civilised mores or furthering higher social values. The military’s job is to protect the values of liberal democracy, not to practise them.

4. Horniness in the military is now entirely understandable, given that the ADF is now headed by John Faulkner – the world’s sexiest politician (if you’re a practising female actuary). $250 for John and $300 if he keeps his glasses on. Yum yum.

Another week, another inevitable backlash.

Despite what some people say, this sketch isn’t making fun of children with terminal illness, but rather our attitudes towards them. Are the kids in this the target of ridicule, or the faux terrible charity?

In the end though, the sketch is a failure for comedic reasons, not for moral ones. Like most ad parodies, it’s very by-the-numbers. The moral outrage this morning is the result of the sketch failing to make anyone laugh. As a result, everyone missed the point and it appeared as though the humour in the sketch came from lambasting dying children, which it wasn’t supposed to.

It was clumsy comedy that they simply should have handled better.

Incidentally, it’s almost a virtual re-write of a McDonald’s House charity parody they did on CNNNN for Fungry’s, and I don’t remember anyone complaining then. Why? Because the sketch hit its satirical mark and there was no question as to where the comedy was aimed.

But to all the people complaining – how many of you even saw the sketch go to air? Mia Freedman didn’t. Like the obituary song, most of the outrage will be generated by the current affairs and morning shows who will gleefully replay it in a cheap grab for ratings.

Seriously, wowsers, go back to The Wedge.

Spend any decent amount of time in a primary school and you will inevitably hear students angrily accuse each other of bullying over the slightest altercation in the classroom or playground. These kids are responding to the very necessary anti-bullying education programs that run in schools, but unfortunately they’re missing the point. Bullying is a sustained campaign of physical or emotional intimidation, whereas an isolated incident of teasing or physical violence, while being equally unacceptable, is not actually bullying.

A parallel could be drawn with wider society, where people in private and public discourse tend to be extremely quick to slap the label “racist” on anyone who says something that is remotely connected to race, in the process watering down the concept of racism until it is almost meaningless.

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I’m really confused.

Remember former VP Republican candidate Sarah Palin? Of course you do.

Remember her 17 year old daughter Bristol Palin hitting the headlines when it was revealed she was pregnant? Of course you do.

Remember how it’s really obvious that abstinence clearly doesn’t work, and that Bristol is a really public example of that? Of course you do.

So why the hell is Bristol now going around urging teens in America to abstain from sex? She should know by now abstinence is NOT THE ANSWER.

It didn’t work for her, did it? And the abstinence-only program aggressively pushed by religious nutters during Dubya’s tenure has been a dismal failure. When US public health officials are expecting 750,000 teen pregnancies in the US this year, you just know that abstinence-only messages aren’t getting through to teens.

I really had thought, perhaps naively, that Bristol would draw on her own experiences and maybe start publicly speaking out against the foolhardy abstinence-only mindset and argue for US federal funds to be better spent on sex education (as opposed to or in addition to abstinence-only programs).

Then again, her mother is Sarah Palin. I can’t help but wonder…

So, I’ve blogged about this before, as has Scott. The proposed Islamic school in Camden, the resulting outpouring of xenophobia and hypocrisy, and the publicity given to this stupid bint. Oh yeah, and bleatings about some fucking cemetary.

Yesterday in the SMH, there was a report about the appeal against council’s decision, with some familiar names, as well as new ones, making some bloody awful bigoted statements. Again. In fact, I was struck by how paranoid these freaks sound. There seems to be a new level of hysteria in their ridiculous statements.

Check them out. From the aforementioned stupid bint, Kate McCulloch:

…said she was “no redneck xenophobic racist like the media have put to me”.

“Let’s start making people understand that the Western way of life is the best way of life,” she said.

Yeah, well, she’s not exactly reaching out to them to make them “understand”. There are so many other things wrong with that statement as well: the “Western way of life” is undefinable, for one. Second, it’s subjectively not the “best way of life” – maybe for her it is but it’s not for everyone. Third, many Muslims live in the West. So what? I really don’t get her at all.

Moving on.

Judith Bond said the school would teach war and how to kill.

“Values of violence will be emphasised. It will be a breeding ground for terrorists … There will be a surge of gang rapes, looting and attacking infidels,” Ms Bond said.

I don’t even need to comment on this. Its utter stupidity and offensiveness speaks for itself.

Next.

The area’s Christian values were threatened by the proposal, said another resident, John Waterhouse, who warned Christmas decorations and nativity scenes would be “pulled down or withdrawn on some sort of process of religious nit-picking”.

Describing Camden as “the mouse that dared to roar”, he said he did not want prayer mats unrolled in shops or “[our] teenage daughters subjected to demeaning taunts wearing jeans, shorts or T-shirts”.

I really don’t know where to start with this one… Or maybe I’m just feeling sicker and sicker with the blatant bigotry and ignorance.

But on the opening day of the appeal to the Land and Environment Court on Tuesday, council’s barrister, Craig Leggat, SC, opened his evidence with a letter signed by a group of the region’s Christian leaders, who said Islam was an ideology with a plan for world domination.

Hang on, I thought traditionally it was the Jews who were planning world domination? Has anyone notified ZOG about this?

Come on, Camden. You can be better than this.

Ever since Steve Fielding entered Parliament he’s been working hard to disguise his efforts to socially engineer Australia in line with the Pentecostal Church’s teachings. Just like a kid who plays a car in a school production, Steve’s been walking around in a cardboard box strung over his shoulders, “FAMILY” emblazoned on the side.

Steve’s latest ploy has been to link divorce to climate change.

“We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also environmental impact as well on the footprint,” [Fielding] said.

“Mitigating the impacts of resource-inefficient lifestyles such as divorce helps to achieve global environmental sustainability and saves money.”

Brilliant! Fielding thinks that divorce is bad because the Church thinks divorce is bad, but most Australians accept it as a necessary part of life, so Fielding tries to link divorce to something that most Australians do think is bad. Those Family First strategy meetings must be fascinating. And it’s not only me who thinks Steve’s nutty pronouncements are worthy of ridicule — he’s been reported in overseas newspapers as the “oddspot” overseas political nutbag.

Oh, Steve. Does nobody take you seriously?

Hold onto your hats, GrodsReaders. I’m about to say something shocking.

Andrew Bolt is right.

Dear victim: don’t upset the racists

…Victoria Police now issue this advice:

INDIAN students will be taught not to speak loudly in their native tongue or display signs of wealth such as iPods when travelling on trains at night, as part of a strategy to crack down on violent robberies.

Some restrictions on their attackers may actually be a better strategy, but once again we find it’s easier to police the lawful than the feral.

Damn straight. Why should a whole section of the community alter its behaviour just because its members are frequent victims of crime? Bolta’s right when he says it’s the perpetrators that should be made to change their behaviour. But despite Andy’s headline, one racist blogger is upset.

Strange that the police say nothing about the attackers? Not really. Past reports indicate that the attackers are mainly Africans. And we mustn’t under any circumstances let anybody know how dangerous Africans can be, must we?

Oh, TingTong. No surprise really given your past comments about them dumb blackies.

Remember Pastor Danny Nalliah who was lied to by God before the 2007 federal election? Well, Dave from Albury has revealed how Pastor Danny reckons Saturday’s bushfire tragedy was God’s punishment for Victoria’s relaxed abortion laws.

Maggot.

84 dead and entire towns destroyed in Victoria’s Australia’s worst bushfire disaster in history. Ask yourself if you need that $50 more than the people who need to rebuild their entire lives.

Donate.

The heart-breaking story of Darcey Freeman is still echoing around Melbourne, particularly amongst those of us who are parents. While it’s unusual for parents to flip and murder their children, nevertheless it does occasionally happen – but the manner in which this child’s life was taken is horrific to the extreme. I cannot bear to think what went through that little girl’s mind as her father – the same father she loved and she thought loved her back – tore her from the car seat and hurled her into the void. I know that soon enough the media will find a picture of Darcey and that will make it worse, because I’ll put those terrified emotions to a face, and I’ll for days I’ll imagine that face in its last seconds. Doubtless I’ll cry but I know I won’t be alone.

More sober thoughts must turn to why this happened and what we can learn from it. Idiot blogers (sic) with their own embittered perspectives have already decided, with not a skerrick of evidence, that the Family Court might be to blame. Some in the media are suggesting that this is the wake-up call for those in government to put safety barriers along the course of the West Gate Bridge. Sadly, it is not – the wake-up call was some time ago and nobody was listening:

The bodies of a woman and her baby son have been found together under the West Gate Bridge. The tragedy prompted senior police to again call on the government and to install anti-suicide barriers on the bridge.

The bodies of the 18-month-old boy and the woman, understood to be in her late 20s, were found on the river bank early yesterday. (From June 2008.)

This was a tragedy of similar proportions but it received little attention. Why wasn’t something done then? For God’s sake, put the barriers up – not to stop the disturbed and the suicidal who might take their lives in a dozen other ways, but to stop them from killing their children. Deny them the power to kill and let not one more child die on that damn bridge.

When you think of the word “soldier”, what springs to your mind?

Fearless? Brave? Heroic? Fighting for what’s good and true?

When white supremacist group The Southern Cross Soldiers decided to hold a rally on Australia Day, they thought the beach would be their oyster, and the media their bitch. What patriotic, beach loving Aussie could ignore their call for immigrants to fuck off?

Sadly, it was not to be.

You could tell it would be an exercise in idiocy from the moment the first little troopers arrived under The Clocks and began casting anxious eyes over the Australia Day parade rolling down Swanston St.

Chinese marchers with their dragons, Turkish dancers, new arrivals from Africa – the sort of people your typical Southern Cross Soldier wants to send back where they came from.

But outnumbered as they were, there wasn’t a peep out of these heroes, whose ranks swelled gradually to about 30.

Thirty? Sounds like a right proper army to me.

And at Mordialloc’s multicultural melting pot, well you just had to laugh. They congregated for a while at the foot of the pier like virgins at an orgy, glancing anxiously down the beach and at all those non-Anglo faces, who paid them no heed whatsoever.

When a couple of brawny Pacific Islanders ambled past, their silence was deafening.

[...]

When a Herald Sun photographer tried to snap their pictures, that was the moment to demonstrate courage. Fifteen on one, those are the sort of odds cowards like best.

There was a bit of pushing and shoving and lens-blocking, and one big kid struck a boxing pose and offered to punch some heads.

He didn’t and they drifted away on a cloud of obscenity to have another go at remembering the words to Advance Australia Fair.

It’s good to know John Ray has these guys on his side, because when the New Soviets come they will not be spared.

On Sunday Australia found out who in 2008 the governments of Australia thought was the first Australian amongst 21 million equals. And as Kevin Rudd officially gifted a certificate and a post-modern chunk of perspex to indigenous activist Mick Dodson, a large proportion of Australians were probably postulating, as they do every year, that Tabasco Sauce is more Australian than the person chosen.

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Kevin Rudd on moving Australia Day from January 26th, part one:

“We are a free country and it is natural and right from time to time, that there will be conversations about such important symbols for our nation,” he said.

Kevin Rudd on moving Australia Day from January 26th, part two:

“To our indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful, but straightforward no.”

Well that was a pretty short fricken conversation.

Merry 2009, GrodsReaders! How were your celebrations of the arbitrary clock tick? Please share mad/bad/sad stories in comments. Here are a couple of highlights from my night.

Funny: FAIL
One of my girlfriend’s many musical duties is playing the keyboard in an ’80s cover band, and on new year’s eve she was playing a gig near Daylesford. This band’s events always attract a sizeable contigent of cougars, and last Wednesday night was no exception. However, with Daylesford being the regional gay and lesbian capital of Victoria this gig was packed with heaps of lesbian cougars.

Awesome.

But there were also a lot of gay men in attendance, and it was this fact that left me reeling after a joke went horribly wrong in the toilets. I was standing at a very small two-person urinal, and just like a two-person tent the two-person urinal was really only built for one-and-a-half-persons. While quietly doing my thing at the urinal another man squeezed in beside me and began doing his thing. Without turning around (because you must never make eye contact at a urinal) I was certain that it was the lead singer’s husband who I’d been drinking with all night. Trying to be really funny I asked, “Do you come here often?” It wasn’t the lead singer’s husband.

No wondow lickers
Saw this sign at a chocolate shop on the way home on new year’s day. The GrodsTeam, being a bunch of wondow lickers, would not be welcome in that shop.

Anti-intellectually disabled discrimination in action

What’s the worst bit of this video produced by Australia’s equivalent of the British National Party, the Australian Protectionist Party?

• The Fred and Sharon-esque production values;
• The Prodos-esque midi music; or
• The hideous messages of hate and intolerance?

I’ll tell you what’s the funniest bit, though — it’s when the APP muppet in the Q&A audience tells Bob Brown that Islam is not a race so being anti-Islam is not racist, but then in the same breath tells Brown that “in Islam” he’d be hung. (I’ve looked on Google Earth and I can’t find “Islam”.) Even funnier is that the rabidly anti-homosexual APP call themselves a “credible alternative” to “rainbow extremists”, so Brown being hung in the country of Islam would probably be celebrated at APP headquarters with a round of watermelon Bacardi Breezers.