the eroding of freedom (or the slow road to ruin) pt 3

when the state government brought in legislation enabling it to seize private property that had been acquired using funds raised through the commission of crimes such as selling drugs i thought it was a good idea... and still do. but the latest proposal of the government to move from seizing property obtained using the proceeds of crime to simply seizing the property of people convicted of committing a crime is simply obscene. the courts are in place to impose a sentence and/or fine and that is where the penalty should end.

of particular concern to me is the insidious way in which the government is trying to sneak the laws in. it started as a law targetting bikies and drug dealers and, of course, no one was concerned. now it's trying to extend the scope of the laws and has chosen to apply them initially to sex offenders as, again, they don't believe people are likely to object to the targetting of a group almost universally despised. one has to question who will be targetted next. already the government is trying to seize the property of a man who was accused, but never convicted, of sex offenses. the man is now dead and the property has been passed to his brother. to take a property worth over $1 million from a man who has not been convicted of a crime simply because there were unproved allegations made against his deceased brother is immoral, unethical and wrong.

those of us who work for our possessions should have the security of knowing the law backs our ownership of them.

the eroding of freedom (or the slow road to ruin) pt 2

the term 'big brother' gets bandied around a lot these days and has unfortunately lost a lot of the menace it used to have when it was seen purely in the context of orwell's masterpiece, 1984. still, there are times when it really encapsulates the concept of a government's monitoring of its citizens that's gone beyond what is reasonable and become a serious breach of their right to privacy. the proposal of the UK government's home office to develop a database containing details of every phone call made, every text message sent, every email sent and all time spent on the internet by every individual in the UK clearly falls into the traditional 'big brother' realm. it is an ominous and frightening prospect.

we're all aware of the threat of terrorism but i personally believe that the biggest threat terrorism poses to our way of life and the values we hold dear is the way our governments are using it as an excuse to strip away our freedoms. unless we fight to preserve our rights, things like this will be just the tip of the iceberg.

STORY LINK HERE

я говорю немного по-русски

geez it's hard learning a new language. i've started taking russian lessons and am finding that i'm struggling a bit with it. the first few weeks were ok but the vocabulary lists get longer and the grammar gets more difficult by the week. i'm determined to learn it though so will keep battling through. once i'm a bit more financial i want to go back to eastern europe and spend some time there and i reckon knowing russian will be of use.. especially in the ukraine. i'd also like to learn polish and perhaps romanian and german. i've been told that once you learn a foreign language, it's easier to learn more and i really hope that's the case.

catherine tate: i can do that... translator

pure comic gold!! the catherine tate show is very very funny indeed.

the melbourne debacle (nearly) a week on

i've held off commenting on the game for nearly a week but it's time. i've been a freo member since the inception of the club (i'm member # 2060) and have been through some pretty dark days without my support ever wavering. i've seen some pretty bad performances and have been disappointed, embarrassed and saddened but the game last sunday left me more upset than any other. i'd been worried about the game during the week and had thought it may be a danger game but by half time i was wondering how i could have even considered us losing to melbourne. for us to lose from that position was beyond comprehension but somehow we managed it and i was left feeling quite distraught.

well, there's something about this game that feels to me like no other loss i've seen. it feels like a line's been drawn in the sand and the future direction of the club will be decided now. i really feel that the club needs to decide if we're going to be similar to clubs like footscray, st kilda and richmond that have a stench of failure about them or if we're going to develop the winning culture that clubs like essendon and carlton (before the afl's sanctions hobbled them) have. i'm encouraged that harvs has committed the club to using all our draft picks this year to secure good young players rather than picking up recycled players. for too long the passion and loyalty of freo members has made us accept underperformance that the slime supporters up the road would tear up their membership cards over. well, it stops here!! it's time for this club to cull the players that don't have the heart, hunger or drive that's needed to lead to sustained success. it's time to develop a game plan that cuts out the rubbish and promotes a winning style.

in short, it's time that freo became the club that's always been promised but has never been delivered. i'll remain a member regardless of what happens but i'd rather not spend the next 50 odd years of my life watching a club that never quite gets there.

special k

my how the worm turns. it was only a couple of weeks ago that weagles fans were calling for all sorts of medieval torture to be inflicted on barry hall for snotting staker. now it's daniel 'wayne' kerr's turn to have a 'brain snap', flattening scott west with a headbutt. not only that, but staker's been reported for striking.

i'll be very interested this week to see what slime fans have to say about the ketamine kerr incident. the excuse of retaliation due to being scragged off the ball isn't open to them since they said hall couldn't use it. they called for hall to get 18 weeks (rest of the season) so let's see if they apply the same standard to 'special k' or expose themselves as the hypocrites i suspect them to be.

1 friggin point!!

well, it was hard to take the loss but i was very proud of the boys last night. they took the game right up to geelong and should have won. sandilands played the best game i've seen from him. crowley and carr were as tough as ever. and of course, there was super-pav. hopefully this is the week that the team turns the corner and starts winning a few games. although it's always hard to accept a loss, it's a lot easier when the team plays like they did last night instead of how they did against richmond.

as far as the lost time goes, it wasn't a factor in us losing last night but could easily cost a team the game in the future and needs to be sorted.

half time thoughts

it's half time in the freo vs adelaide match and we're behind. the first half has confirmed two things for me. firstly, our skill level is nowhere near that needed to be successful. the number of times we turn the ball over through a poor handball or kick is completely unacceptable and has to be urgently addressed. it's a problem we've had since the club was formed and costs us a lot.

the second thing is that glen jakovich is a small, petty man who still holds a grudge against freo. it's been a long time since i've heard such blatantly biased commentary. i don't think i've heard him make a single positive comment about freo but he's quick to sink the boot at every opportunity. what a chump!!

a new low in reality tele

i've had the misfortune to catch the end of 'my kid's a star' for the past couple of weeks whilst waiting for underbelly to come on. this is a seriously disgusting show. forget the fact that the kids are mediocre talents at best.. the parents are not fit to have kids. what sort of parent puts their kid in a show like this. the bit i saw of tonight's show involved the kids busking on the streets while their parents ran around hassling the public for money. the attitude of the parents in the debriefing interviews was despicable. one mother (who looks like a transvestite) talked about how she was accosting families with kids and abusing them when they didn't give her money. what a classy piece of work that one is. i guess with the way reality shows were heading i shouldn't be surprised at this steaming pile of parrot droppings.. but it doesn't mean i've gotta like it.

big bad bustling barry hall

so bazza got 7 weeks and the weagles fans are crying the roof down. i get the feeling that even if he'd been hung by his bollocks from a subi oval light tower and left there until the birds had pecked his bones clean there'd still be some footy-ignorant weagles fans whinging that he'd got off lightly. "he should have had to wait til his wrist was healed before being hanged" they'd whine in their posh accents whilst dining on caviar and champagne. i find it very interesting that when steven baker got 7 weeks for snotting jeff farmer behind play last year there wasn't a peep from these people who now reckon it's worth at least 18 weeks (rest of the season). what a bunch of hypocrites. as for their cries for legal action, they should be careful what they wish for as one of their key midfielders is well known for his dirty play and would be a prime target for legal action should that pandora's box be opened.

let's hope we can now get on with the season and have some degree of rationality back.

footy reality

if i ever consider tipping freo, e-girls, adelaide or port bogans again on the weekend after the derby and showdown games will someone please hit me over the head?

what a ripper!!

say what you like about this incident but one thing that can't be denied is that it was a ripper of a left hook and hit staker right on the button. for me, the funniest part of the whole thing is watching hunter's pathetic performance. he comes in to fly the flag for staker, realises he'll get creamed by big bad bustling bazza so takes a dive like a blubbering little girl and hides on the ground. i love that he's gonna see this footage for the rest of his life and constantly be reminded of it.

the quarter time tussle between waters and bbbbh really shows how soft the weagles are. only one bloke had the balls to actually have a go at hall whilst the others just wandered meekly past. how shameful.

v festival

i've just got home from v festival and what a good time it was. i got there fairly late and caught the end of cut copy's set. they seemed pretty cool and i'd be keen to see them again. following them was the legendary the jesus and mary chain who played a good set.

the highlight for me was a brilliant performance by duran duran. i last saw them play in london four years ago and since then andy taylor's left the band again. i'd also heard mixed reviews of their eastern states shows so was wondering how they'd go. i needn't have worried as they were in good form tonight. of course, it's hard to go wrong when you can pull songs such as planet earth, girls on film, rio, hungry like the wolf, the wild boys, a view to a kill, notorious, the reflex and ordinary world from your back catalogue. simon really seemed to be enjoying himself (and the crowd adulation) and regularly broke out into grins. john's bass playing was masterful and had me spellbound. it's the first time the durans have been to perth since 1983 and i really hope we don't have to wait another 25 years for them to come back.

the final act was the smashing pumpkins and they were also good although suffered from being upstaged by the durans. they didn't play a number of their most well known songs but still kept the crowd happy, particularly when the opening notes of 'today' rang out.

all in all it was a very good concert. i think the $130 ticket price may be a bit steep when you compare it to the number of bands you can choose from at the big day out but then again, it's a smaller crowd here so you can actually get a spot at the front of stage for your favourite bands. i managed to end up right at the front for the durans which helped make the show.

derby 27

how sweet it is!! it was a pretty scrappy game but there were still some great individual performances. roger hayden played a blinder, as did palmer. for him to need 20 staples in the head to hold his brains in after a big knock and still go on to play a dominant game is fantastic. pav was his usual magic self and young maynes also showed a lot. there were a few freo supporters sitting around me and we made more that enough noise to drown out the weagles fans for most of the game. having said that, it's not hard to drown out weagles fans since they only tend to open their gobs to chant 'eagles, eagles' (how creative) after a goal's been kick. wirrpunda was pretty good for the losers, as was ketamine kerr and shirley temple priddis. fletcher flatlined (again) and embley and the albino hansen were hardly sighted. lynch saw his goal tally and thought they'd put his IQ on the board whilst selwood spent the day hiding from des.

after the game there was the usual sour grapes from weagles fans after losing a derby - something that happens more often than not these days - with the attempted jibes of "well, it was freo's grand final". personally, if i was a weagles fan i'd be concerned if my team wasn't approaching a derby with the same amount of passion as freo.. but then again we know which activities they've historically had the most passion for.

as a postscript to the game, there was a standing bet between dean 'soft' cox and heath black that the player from the losing team would don a dress and pose as a mannequin in a myer shop window on monday. sadly the weagles have decided to welsh on the bet and reinforce their image as the afl's most unethical club.

wedding

finally michelle and beava's wedding came around on friday and it was a really lovely day for it. rain had been predicted but held off nicely. it was held in the secret garden at caversham house which is a beautiful locations by the river. it was a great time with good food, a few frothies and a bit of a boogie and fantastic to see them tie the knot.

ren and stimpy

ahhh.. this brings back some memories!!

the mighty weddos

i'm a pretty happy camper tonight after having seen the mighty weddings parties anything play down at the freo arts centre. it's the first time in 10 years they've visited perth and they've lost none of the magic in the meantime. here's hoping it's not another 10 years before they come again. it was also great to catch up with tim beeck for the first time in a long long time and finally meet his missus. hopefully we'll be able to catch up more often now.

ahh.. civilisation

i had a hot shower last night. now, most people take a hot shower for granted but that was my first one since early november when my hot water system went on the blink. to put that in perspective, the last time i'd had a hot shower, little johnny was still prime minister. it actually found rather strange on my skin and my face didn't like it at all

it's not that i was broke, i'm just not the most organised person when it comes to getting things like that fixed and in the past hols either arranged things for us or hassled me to do it. now that i'm single again i guess i'll have to actually get my arse into gear and start doing things every now and then.

help me fulfill THE bet

for those who came in late...

in late 2003 there was a sunday night tea at our shared house in finchley. at this tea i made the statement that freo would win a premiership before the e-girls. now, bear in mind that freo had just finished 5th on the ladder whereas the weagles had finished 8th. we had a young, exciting list and we'd also had something of a dominance over wet toast in derbies that year so the statement wasn't as outrageous in its correct context as it obviously became.

at this infamous tea was a certain mr p. munro who is as rabid a weagle as i am a docker and he took exception to my bold statement and decided a wager would be appropriate. for something as important as this, money is not enough of a gamble so it was decided that the person who lost the bet would have to wear the opposition guernsey to the next home & away derby they attended. i have to admit that as i agreed to this wager i was sizing up munners to ensure he'd fit into my vintage (bought in feb 95) freo guernsey.

well, it's now history that a 'high on emotion' weagles managed to snaffle the narrowest of wins in the 2006 grand final and i lost the bet. i did attend the second home & away derby last season after returning to perth but wasn't able to source a wet toast guernsey so i'm yet to meet my obligations.

this is the bit where you, the reader, comes in. i've bought my ticket to the derby on sat 5th april and want to finish off the bet but am still having trouble sourcing a weagles guernsey. i'd be appreciative if someone could loan me a jumper for the day so that i can fulfill my obligations and put this humiliation behind me.

i need to point out that the limit of the bet is the wearing of the guernsey.. it doesn't extend to actually barracking for the hated opposition, driving a 4wd to the ground, voting liberal, sipping chardonnay at the game, sitting silently until a goal is kicked, throwing pies or bottles at freo players, booing the winner of the ross glendinning medal or discussing the performance of my stock portfolio and the destination of my next overseas holiday.

long weekend

wow.. it's already thursday again. it's funny how the weeks just fly by once you've been in a job for more than a few months. it was the long weekend last weekend and really lovely. i managed to catch up with an old school friend on saturday before going out snorkelling near the marmion angling and aquatic club. i took out the camera but there was a swell in so the water was a bit too full of debris to get any good pics. i went in to watch the freo game on saturday night and was suitably disappointed with a pretty poor performance against north melbourne.

sunday arvo i went over to megan's and we put up a basketball hoop for ve.. and then spent time dominating her on the 'court'. after watching a movie it was home in time to catch the end of a programme on abc1 that wasn't as good as it looked in the previews.

on monday i got up relatively early (about 9am) and went back down to the rocky beach to try snorkelling again but the water wasn't any more clear so i headed home, got my gear and walked down to my normal beach for some body surfing.

all in all, a very nice relaxing long weekend!!