More Blogging From The Future

Are you in Asia Dave? Are we married in the future?

Yes to both, Lee Lee. We got married a while back, have a mind-blowing sex life, and are still as totally hawt as the day we met. We have a nice partnership going - I write the movies and you make them (and yes, the highlight of your life so far (beating our wedding day) was directing Steve Martin's last film before he died). Go us. We're currently in Asia (main reason we're overseas is for you - the entire collapse of the Australian film industry means you have to travel abroad to get work), but I'm a bit worried about the situation here. It looks like there's a war of the nuclear variety brewing between China and the US - America wants to "democracise them back into the stone age," and China is just telling them to get fucked.

It's mainly due to America's dominance as a superpower starting to crumble, and that China's economy has gone from strength to strength (mainly at the expense of the US). There's still some anger over President Schwarzenegger's assasination a few years ago, which some Chinese officials were allegedly involved in, and the media has constantly been stirring that pot since then, trying to get a real anti-Asian sentiment going. I'll give it a few more months until something happens.

So yeah, it's a bit iffy. We're not in China, but there's a chance it could spill over the borders. In any case though, this has been one hell of a trip!

Blogging From The Future

Wow! I haven't updated this shit since Family First's laws were passed! Weird to see that my password still works. I wonder if people still read this. Well, outside of Australia anyway, seeing as though the Internet is censored from there anyway. Yes, thankyou very fucking much Family First. Worst coalition ever. Even worse than when the ALP split and ALP Right sided with the Libs. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Yes, look where that got you, geniuses.

I'm overseas at the moment (hence the uncensored Internet). It's nice to be in a slightly less right-wing country, although I suspect I'll have a bitch of a time getting back to Australia thanks to Immigration. My RFID tag got infected so I had to get it removed while I was over here, which'll probably lead to me being stuck in detention as an asylum seeker, and if I cop some bad luck, ASIO will be buttfucking me when I get back at the airport. "How come your tag isn't appearing in our monitoring system?" "Coz I took it out." "What?! Planning a terrorist attack were you?! You know the law, all Australians must keep their RFID tags at all times! Assume the position!" THANKS A LOT COCKHEADS, I DIDN'T VOTE FOR THAT IN 2015.

Yes, fuck those freedom-hating terrorists. Good to see we got them beat, with our tracking systems for all citizens and removal of privacy laws. Freedom 1, terrorists 0. To think that all we had to do to remain a free country was to revoke most of our freedom.

Fuck Tony Abbott in the ear. Worst PM ever. And that's saying something, considering I lived through 7 years of Ruddock.

So yes, I'm over here looking for a job. The new revisions in the FTA screwed me over last year (the part where any Australian business has to vacate a field an American company wishes to enter in), so I'm gonna try and get employment out here, seeing as though the highest you can pretty much get (without having parents with connections) is manager of the local Maccas.

TV over here is much more varied. Weird to see a commercial-free station out here, after finally getting used to the government privatising the ABC and Lachlan Murdoch buying it out (not to mention the weirdness of Fox News doing the 7 o'clock slot - I mean you could at least use Australian presenters instead of just taking a feed from the satellite). Speaking of Murdoch, there is an insane amount of stuff happening in the world that I just never knew what was happening. Hurrah for media diversity.

I'm on antibiotics to kill this infection from the RFID tag (clearly they should've researched more before implementing this, I wonder if anyone else is having similar problems?), but they're only $15 a pack compared to the $200 they are back home. Cheap!

It's just so much nicer here. Considering never going back. Public schools still exist here (the real kind (remember them?), not the corporate-funded ones), non-Hillsong people aren't discriminated against, women are allowed to work, homosexuals aren't taxed twice as much as heterosexuals ("morals tax," another brilliant Lib/FF initiative), dissent is allowed, the phone lines actually work, premarital sex isn't a criminal offence (same for abortion), and there's no bullshit talk of a referendum to get rid of elections. To think that we assisted in destroying entire countries over democracy (remember Iraq? And how it turned out to be such a failed experiment that they just gave up and nuked the place because it was costing too much?) 20 years ago, and now we're seriously considering getting rid of it here. And I thought extending government terms to 7 years at a time was bad enough. WHY DO YOU MORONS KEEP VOTING FOR THIS SHIT?!

"Let us do the voting for you."

WHY DOES NOBODY ELSE FIND THIS SLOGAN CREEPY/MOCKING?!

Ugh. I don't know how many of you will ever be able to read this back home, but good luck. I've finally given up on Australia.

But hey, interest rates are still low, and that's what counts, right?

The Ando Zone: Episode 11

Alright, I seem to keep coming back to this blog after bailing on it, so from now on I'll not give it up, but just not make any promises on when I'll next update. I have no net access while I'm typing this, as I'm out in woop woop, but I saved a bunch of bits of news to work from.

You'll remember that around November 22nd of last year, the federal police decided not to go ahead with a case against Ando and friends, as there was a lack of evidence. Whether or not this was the case, we'll never know, but Ando has gotten away with it in any case.

However, the Senate has gotten an inquiry underway (while they still can) into electoral rorts (ie. pork barreling), featuring the Ando scandal as the centrepiece.

Tony Windsor has stood by his allegations made against Ando still, and this time two of his staffers (Helen Tickle, campaign secretary, and Stephen Hall, campaign manager) have backed him up on his claims. Hall and Windsor have also stated that Greg McGuire (the guy that made the offer of a diplomatic posting to Windsor) said on three separate occasions that he'd lie to police to protect Ando, because he didn't want to be the person who "brings down the Deputy PM."

"I recall him saying, 'Look, they're so desperate they'd offer you anything, a diplomatic posting,' and he said, Senator Macdonald was on the sideline, "Yes we can arrange anything." So, yeah, and I recall him saying that I know that Tony was upset by that comment, and that I have said in my police statement as well, I recall he was offended by this. He actually swore. I didn't catch what he said cause he didn't say it very loudly, but he's not a person who swears in front of women, in fact it's the first time he ever has in front of me and he turned and apologised."

- Helen Tickle

Hall also said that McGuire threatened him, in that if he didn't go along with McGuire's version of events, he would "finish him."

Ando still says the claims are untrue, and that he lies awake crying at night over them. Well, not that extreme, but something to that effect.

Fat Kim has challenged Ando to face the Senate inquiry.

"I think what the deputy prime minister ought to do, if he believes that his reputation is being impugned, he should appear before the inquiry."

- The Spineless One

In fact, Ando, McGuire, Senator Macdonald and De-Anne Kelly (former regional affairs secretary) have all dodged appearing before the inquiry.

(yes, that sucked, but I'm still getting back in the swing of things)

(okay, running late on the Ando Zone)

"I can't believe that women in this day and age are so dumb to get pregnant willy-nilly."

- Alan Cadman, Liberal Party genius extraordinaire

How many steps backward must we take, before we start going forward again?

Oh God, I just can't stay away.

I think I've figured out how Kim Beazley and his staffers develop policies and whatnot.

"Y'know, John Howard seemed to be really successful last election. Here's his policies here. He used them and won, so I don't see why we can't. They go on about being the party all about choice, well, now we can be too! And what a choice we'll be! This strategy almost won it for me in 2001, so I think if we try it again, but try it harder, we might just get over the line this time. 2007, here we come! Provided I don't get undermined by then, anyway."

(episode 11 of The Ando Zone coming Sunday night)