Not My Monkeys

pebbly

I saw someone on Facebook, saying that Australians had no right to comment on the US elections, because we cannot vote there.

You make an excellent point, random person. Yes, we cannot vote in the USA. It truly is a case of not my monkeys, not my circus.

But you know something? Though I do not live there, I still care about the people who have to work, live, sleep, eat, poop etc, in that country.

Perhaps I should not care, but I do.

I feel that neither of the choices were good. But I still cannot quite believe that a delusional orange combover got elected president.

It was a terribly depressing day especially as I was sitting here watching it with an actual American who was visiting my country. The day afterwards, we went to Canberra for a visit to Parliament House – we’d both never been – and the Doug Anthony Allstars concert. We needed a good laugh, and we certainly got one that night.

Our politicians are not much better, but at least if we get sick we will not go bankrupt, and we are protected with a safety net if we lose our jobs.

I wish better things for your people, America. I always have. So many of us have.

I will be back on Wednesday with part 1 of our trip report.

US Elections, US Politics

This Day Is Still Infamous To Me..

monkey

August 29, 2008. That date will forever be stamped in my mind. 6 years ago..

August is a month with a lot of those dates – the 12, my Dad’s birthday. The 16th, the death of Elvis.

Probably the image above has given away what I am talking about. Those are the feet of John “Walnuts” McCain and Sarah Palin, as seen on the day that John McCain announced she was going to be the vice presidential candidate.

Thank the deities, the horrible possibility of that woman being one heartbeat away from the nuclear codes never came to pass.

I am sure one day a woman will be in that position, a woman will even be president. But they will deserve to be there, not be picked just because someone is desperate to shake things up in a campaign, barely vetted or asked any questions before being thrown into the spotlight a mere 2 days after first meeting the presidential candidate.

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If you have never seen the movie Game Change which tells the story of how Palin came to be chosen.. the story of the campaign staff trying to prepare her for media interviews and epically failing.. the story of how she pretty much melted down under the fierce spotlight and the pure perfection of Tina Fey portraying her on Saturday Night Live.. the story of how she wanted to give a speech after they lost the election and was firmly rebuffed by campaign staff and when she wouldn’t listen to them, by John McCain himself as no vice presidential candidate gives a speech when they lose..

It is such a great movie that it joins movies like Tootsie, Groundhog Day, Mrs Doubtfire, The Devil Wears Prada, Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, and many others on the quite long list of movies I cannot possibly flick away from – once I stumble on them playing, I’m stuck there watching them until they end.

It has Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and she is absolutely amazing. even better than the Tina Fey impersonations and Tina Fey looks scarily like a doppelganger of Sarah Palin. It has Ed Harris who is downright unrecognisable as John McCain. It has Sarah Paulson as the long suffering Nicole Wallace, and it has Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt.

We’re only just over two years away from the next US election and the long, seemingly never-ending primary season will begin in January 2016. Fingers crossed any memorable dates next time will be for good reasons.

Movie Reviews, movies, Sarah Palin, US Elections, US Politics

Politician Outs Blogger

I honestly cannot believe I am typing this..

Some time ago Alaskan Politician Rep Mike Doogan was sending some crazy emails to people who emailed him and AKMuckraker was one of the bloggers involved in exposing his craziness.

Apparently this did not sit well with Rep Doogan. He has been trying to find out who AKMuckraker was for several months now and he has finally managed to do it. He then sent out a message to people on his mailing list via his official legislative newsletter, advising them of the real name of AKMuckraker. It is possible that when he did this, he broke the law.

Whether or not people support AKMuckrakers opinions, I believe most people would support her right to remain anonymous. I feel it is a right that everyone on the internet is entitled to – people make the decision for their own reasons, some because they have been cyber stalked in the past, some to prevent being cyber-stalked in the future.

This may be the first known case of an anonymous blogger being cyber-stalked by a politician determined to find out their real identity and out them, though!

You can read the full story here –

In Exposing the Identity of Mudflats, Rep. Mike Doogan Exposes Himself.

There are also some other blog posts on this subject –
Progressive Alaska
Shannyn Moore
The Immoral Minority
Mamadance
Palin Gates
Think Alaska
We’re Not That Stupid

I have been supporting AKMuckraker for almost 6 months now – we have been hosting her blog and forums – we have a team of mods and admins who keep the forums running smoothly. I did not need to know her real name to do that (and in fact did not know her real name until today) nor did I care what her name was. I understand anonymous blogging – I do it myself for the reasons explained on my about page.

My support will not change – other than to do whatever it takes to make sure Rep Mike Doogan never wins an election again, and to also inform the worldwide media of what he has done. It is highly inappropriate.

Epic Fail, Rep Doogan. Epic Fail.

I may not be around much for the next week or so, I’ll be busy taking action on this. ;)

Angry Snoskred, anonymity, internet, Internet Safety, politics, US Elections

Mean Girl Sent Packing.

Mean Girl Sarah Palin was sent packing yesterday when millions of voters chose to say no to mean and yes to hope.

I still am not able to find the exact words to express how I feel about President Elect Barack Obama.  Thrilled would be in there. Relieved, also.

On the day Barack Obama was elected President, I made the difficult decision to resign from a local association here. I thought this morning that I might have some regrets but actually it is the exact opposite. I just feel relief and happiness. I will have a lot more time for me and my stuff.

WordPress 2.7 is due out soon, and I am looking forward to spending some time testing it out in the hope it will work a lot better than recent versions. So far I have heard good things, which comes as a surprise to me.

Dexter Season 3 is in full swing in the US, and as Showcase chose not to show it here until January, I have been finding the episodes on the web. The season is a lot slower paced than season 2, but of course season 2 was the equivalent of hooking every rollercoaster in the world up to each other and riding it for 12 hours solid.

I hope to have some extra time to blog now. ;)

US Elections

What News From SnoskredLand?

Much news. where would I begin?

I could tell you about –

– my sister and nephews visiting, and a shopping spree of enormous proportions.
– being obsessed by the US elections.
– watching the episodes of Dexter Season 3.
– craizy live chats during the debates.
– learning a huge amount more about Simple Machines Forums thanks to The Mudflats.
– losing over 5 kilos thanks to Sean Hannity and his unpleasantness inspiring me to get on the exercise bike instead of throwing things around.
– sitting for over an hour with two bearded lizards on me.
– sooky kitties trying to sit on me with my laptop on my lap.
– endless washing chores.
– warm weather returning yay!
– daylight saving yay!
– The Other Half’s new Iphone.
– watching a new show called In Treatment on Showcase.
– getting a new frypan.

And much more. But instead let me tell you about something wonderful that happened and it is possibly safe enough now to mention it without Jinxing it. My Dad got a nasty flu / viral infection thing. He was away from work for a week, and so unwell that he was unable to smoke for all that time, and it seems that he has finally managed to give up smoking for good.

The same thing happened to me back in 2003 when I got pneumonia, I was so ill with it that the nasty withdrawals happened while I was completely out of my senses, delirious and sweating and unable to sleep lying down and demanding Garlic Prawns at 4am. When I was feeling better, I tried to smoke but just was not able to. Yay! It has been nearly 5 years (will be 5 years in December) and I have kicked the habit for good.

Oh, and before I go.. you can join us today at for a live chat during the Presidential Election at The Mudflats, click on Live Chat now available 24/7 right here in the top right hand corner). We’re using Mibbit, which has a built in translation option. I have been using it to remember me some Norwegian, which is one of the most beautiful languages on the planet in my opinion.

stuff, US Elections

Elections And.. Moose?

So you may recall I mentioned Mudflats the other day. It’s been a cool place to hang out since the end of August, when Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska was chosen to be the running mate for John “I tell lies more often than the truth” McCain.

WordPress.com isn’t exactly supportive of a site that finds itself as popular as Mudflats. When you have comments threads which are over 1,000 posts long and no way to subscribe to comments or even have the site remember where you were at when you hit shift and reload… there was a couple of weeks there where I had to copy the name of the last commentor and then hit find in page.

Eventually I got in touch with AKMuckraker and offered to host a blog and forum for her, for free. And that was because I truly believe in the community that has grown up there.

When Sephy and I set up Aussie Bloggers originally, I believe it took us two weeks. We set up The Mudflats Forums in two days. It would have been even quicker if we had installed the same version of Tiny Portal as we use on Aussie Bloggers, but for some reason it refused to install for us, so we had to go with the latest release and they’d changed some fairly important stuff.

So given Mudflats on wordpress.com was the number one site, I was expecting a busy few days once the forums were live – especially as we had no moderators at all when we opened. It was just Sephyroth and I (and AKMuckraker but of course she is very busy with the blog and Admin-ing a forum is a bit of a learning curve at the best of times!) and we intended to add moderators during the first day. I had a list of names that had stood out while reading the comments area. By the end of the first day I believe we were up to 7 mods. We now have 15 and we could do with at least another 7. A huge thanks to all those who are helping out with Modly duties. ;)

We had absolutely no idea just how busy it would be. On the first day the forums were open, over 550 people registered. There were hundreds of posts – so many I could not read them all, and I am a quick reader.. :) That night my sleep was broken into one hour chunks, worrying that things would go haywire while I slept, I kept waking up – and so I got up to check on things.

There’s currently – as I type this – 778 members. It is a wonderful community.  And it has Moose. Drop by and check it out. If you’re interested in the election, it is the place to be for the next 42 days. I’ll be there, and I won’t be getting a huge amount of sleep – there’s a lot to do! ;)

And I must give a massive amount of thanks to Sephyroth for helping me out with this. I couldn’t have done it on my own. And he found the great moose pic. :)

The Mudflats, US Elections

Acts Of Bravery.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Recently, a group of women had an idea over coffee. This is how a lot of things begin. The idea was to hold an Anti- Sarah Palin rally in Alaska. So they got to organising.

One of the things they did was to send out a press release. A conservative talk radio host known as Eddie Burke chose to call them some very nasty names on air – and then gave out their home telephone numbers which had been included on the release in case the press wished to get in touch for interviews – and encouraged his listeners to call and harass these women. And they did get harassed, in a big way.

For some, this would be the point at which you maybe think of giving up – or perhaps not showing up at your own rally. Not these women.  They did show up – and so did 1400 other people. They did not expect that kind of turn out.

Congratulations, brave Alaskan women (and men, and teenagers) for standing up for what you believe in peacefully and with grace.

You can read more about this at Mudflats – ‘Alaska Women Reject Palin’ Rally is HUGE!

Eddie has been suspended for a week, by the way.  He is just lucky that nobody took things too far – anything could have happened to these ladies, it isn’t hard to find out an address from a phone number in the USA.

Have you ever protested? I did once, against Pauline Hanson. I have to be honest, I find Sarah Palin just as scary as I found Pauline, back in the day..

The Mudflats, US Elections

Wimmins Don’t Need To Know About Sex KTHXBAI!

Wimmins/girlz have partz which iz private and wimmins/girlz should know absolutely nothing about them except SAY NO TO SEX. They callz this abstinence only SEX education..

Of course it iz eazy to SAY NO TO SEX when you have no idea what SEX iz. You can just say YES to everything. How can they callz this an education?

Iz same as telling people SAY NO TO DRUGZ but then not telling them nothing about what drugz is and stuffz. So these people could be thinking they iz saying NO to DRUGZ while smoking crystal meth and mixing cocktailz and then injecting some heroin while drinking them a SEX on the BEACH.

This iz helpful to potential child sex abuserz because if girlz don’t know exactly what SEX iz, then it is easy to tell them thingz like “Iz ok to do thiz because thiz iz not having SEX” etc.

If you tellz them things like “babies come from storkz” and stuff, that iz helpful information.

If you tellz them stuffz like real information about how SEX workz and information about safe SEX and contraception then they’re just gonna run out and have SEX right afterwardz. Even if you tellz them that SEX can kill them via HIV or other ways of death and that SEX can result in baby which = no more fun partiez and hanging out with friendz, they’re still gonna run out and find a partner and boff themselves senseless. Darn kidz can’t be trusted.

Cos you tellz them SMOKING WILL CAUSE CANCER and they iz all like what do I care about that, I’m immortal and by the timez I get CANCER there will be a cure for it so I just gonna smoke up a storm right now.

And you tellz them drink driving causez death in road crash but they still goez out and drinkz lots then drivez home.

Why aren’t we just locking kidz in cells until they are 21? They clearly haz no sense and are all irresponsible and stuffz, going out shagging, drinking, smoking drugz and cigarettez.

Go readz thiz.. Palin In Comparison – Sex Education

John McCain, Sarah Palin, US Elections

Wimmins Will Vote For Wimmins, KTHXBAI

McCain : Nobody wants to be my Veep. They all thinks I gonna be crushed by O. Not just Obama but Oprah too. I admit Oprah is a terrifying force of nature and sells books like nobody can believe. I ask everyone I know but they say KTHXNOWAY. I want to ask good mate Joe Lieberman but party say KTHXOVEROURDEADBODY.

Joe Lieberman & John McCain

Everyone say no to me, I keep asking peoples, I even ask Condi though she was involved with the big bad ugly BUSH but Condi says no – you need fresh faces, new peoples, fresh blood, not me even though I rock the world and am real pretty and not only would I be a person with feminine parts so you get the wimmins voting but I also would be much hated by the white supremacist gun toting types which might lose you votes. Plus they is got guns and they might shoot me. So, Condi said NOTHXBAI.

Condi Rice And John McCain

I find this pretty hockey mom of 5 who say yes but nobody know who hockey mom of 5 is, hockey mom of 5 is in the middle of a scandal, hockey mom of 5 had a baby 4 months ago and not want to be veep but I tell hockey mom of 5 “Your president ask you to serve” this I stole from the West Wing so hockey mom of 5 agrees to serve me not being president only technical issue at moment of course I will be LEADER of FREE WORLD (and all other world include online world of warcraft world too!) soon and now cos I picks the hockey mom of 5 wimmins will all vote for me because wimmins votes for wimmins they not care about the issues, they just care that someone on ticket has ovaries and other feminine parts. Got Uterus? Vote Republican!

Sarah Palin Stone Cold FOX! And John McCain not quite so pretty.

Hockey Mom of 5 is HAWT so Cindy threatens to cut my missile off. Cindy afraid I will trade her in for newer, younger model like hockey mom of 5. Viagra make all such things possible. I loves me those little blue pills. I say no health care for all but everyone gets free Viagra when they elect me, KTHX4VOTES.

McCain Smells Palin

Hockey mum of 5 smells NICE but with a tinge of scandal. So I choose this hockey mom of 5 who is fertile even at 44 just having birthed a kidlet 4 months ago. This makes hockey mom of 5 seem young and vital which I am not so that worries me. Before I stand next to hockey mom of 5 I gets me a fake tan. Not much I can do about the hair. But I can make funny faces. KLETGOTHX

McCain Makes Funny Face

This hockey mom of 5, I not speak to hockey mom of 5 much before hockey mom of 5 become VEEP. In fact I only meet hockey mom of 5 once before, then I call hockey mom of 5 up and say howzabout it chickadee. No hockey mom of 5 can resist this kind of offer. Hockey mom of 5 fly to meet me in Arizona, I meet hockey mom of 5 for the second time just a day before we announce we running together. I now hear hockey mom of 5 got some CRAIZY views I not going to agree with. That’s ok, I’ll call hockey mom of 5 the C word if hockey mom of 5 don’t follow my strict path of excellence. KTHXDOASISAY!

Wicked Shoes on Sarah Palin

When I meet hockey mom of 5 one good thing hockey mom of 5 much shorter than me which is like what are the chances of that out of all the peoples who could be veep I fine me a woman to steal Hillary votes and hockey mom of 5 is short and hockey mom of 5 wear heels that send serious message about sex also with the peep toe. I say to Cindy, lend hockey mom of 5 some cash to go buy more shoes. I like women in f*ck me shoes. I like women barefoot too. I not like women wearing crocs, or women wearing running shoes. KNICESHOEBAI!

Its tiny, really!

At same time in picture above hockey mum of 5 was showing everyone something a bit personal about me which I did not know hockey mom of 5 was going to share, I look at hockey mom of 5 today on stage and thinks – you fine, lady.. You look much better than Joe Biden plus you got more hair than him. In the hair stakes even though I got virtually none thanks to your hockey mom of 5 hair we collectively are winning.

When hockey mom of 5 get up to speak I not sure I can trust hockey mum of 5 because I only met hockey mum of 5 twice before, so I follow hockey mum of 5 and stand right next to hockey mum of 5 where I can TAKE ACTION if hockey mum of 5 say something Wimmins is not supposed to say. I hover. I smirk. I look uncomfortable. When hockey mom of 5 open mouth and speak it hurt my ears and hockey mum of 5 pronounce nuclear exactly like GWB which everyone made fun of. I should have asked hockey mum of 5 to say that before putting hockey mum of 5 on the stage.

Even so I stand and wait with smirk because people will surely go wild for my veep choice and I be more popular than Obama now, KTHXRIGHT? You watch hockey mom of 5 superior speech skills just like Tracey Flick in Election and the shrill voice and you surely will vote for me if you a wimmin because this is a wimmin on my ticket. KIGOTWIMMIN

Yes, I think it is fine to select a hockey mum of 5 I only ever met once before calling hockey mum of 5 to ask hockey mom of 5 to be the VP. I also think is brilliant idea to ask hockey mum of 5 who gave birth to child with down syndrome only 4 months ago to go on a mad cross country spree of campaigning. The almost new baby with special needs and 3 kids at home do not need her as much as me and the country do, because nobody else would put their hand up for the job. And remember, country first! And take out the o in country, cos I got wimmin and I call my wife the C word in front of the media!! KTHXVOTE4ME!

US Elections

I like my politics with a side of LOL..

I cannot remember how I found Wonkette during my internet travels but by God I am glad I did, my friends. ;) My friends, though I know it can’t be possible that it is actually written by my good friend Cugat, both Sephyroth and I are convinced that it is either him, someone doing an excellent impersonation of him or perhaps his secret twin brother.

There are not many people in the world capable of the kind of sugary sweet yet savory tasty all you can eat snark you will find at Wonkette, my friends. Read my favourite example from today.

My friends, I just watched Barack Obama’s speech given in front of a massive amount of people and I am tempted to cash in my passport and move to the US just so I can vote for him. Firstly, he was looking sharp, ya’all. He had on a killer suit and tie. Secondly, he had a lot of stuff to say that made sense. Thirdly his two little girls were wearing gorgeous pink dresses. It was all very pretty.

You can see the speech here as well as read the text. I liked it so much, my friends, I watched it twice. There was so much that was good about it, I am finding it hard to pick out any favourite line but I think it has to be this one –

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

Amen to that, my friends.

My friends, next week is the Republican conference thingy, and this is why I am saying my friends so many times because I am 100% certain that “my friends” will be said a total of 260+ times just in John McCain’s speech alone. Of course, it is entirely possible that John “Don’t trust me when I give you my word because I will break it in less than 24 hours” McCain and friends might have to put their conference off due to a pesky hurricane.

And Cugat – if there is a newer more exciting blog, send me directions mmkay? KthxbaiQ!!

Not to worry my friends, the American political stuff will all be over. In two months or so. Hmm.. And in Aussie politics, Krudd goes crazy and puts forward yet another idea to make it look like he is doing something when in fact he is doing zip, except this time he is making demands on the threat of withholding funding. Oh joy! He’s worth every cent we’re paying him, isn’t he? I mean so far he orchestrated a large media stunt in order to say sorry for something he did not personally do, he has held a summit for the supposedly intelligent people to come and suggest ideas none of which will ever be implemented, he introduced an extremely useless website for 13 million dollars, and he’s been off on a lot of world trips including one to the Beijing Olympics.

Plus, one of the promises he has broken I sincerely hope remains broken. We do not need the government to pay for fibre to the node. We need the government to pay for fibre FROM the node. If they’re going to spend 5 billion on something why not make it something we can use.

My friends, I could go on about how useless Krudd is, but the people who think he is doing something good need to come to the logical “he is useless, all talk, no action” conclusion on their own. In their own time. When they’re ready.

In the meantime, that 13 million spent on grocery watch could have been used to help families struggling with high fuel costs, high grocery prices, high rents and the fact that real estate agents are treating some renters very badly – in some cases making dutch auctions to get the highest rent possible for properties. Oh, but none of those things are his fault, they are all the fault of the previous party. Of course.

And he can’t do anything about the high fuel prices, because the government *needs* every cent of federal tax they collect on fuel to spend on useless things like $13 million for websites that do bugger all, and that 5 billion for fibre to the node so if someone were at the node they could get their pr0n faster but if they are one house away from the node they can get their pr0n at the same speed they get it right now, because the internet speed will not get any faster with fibre to the node. But nobody seems to have explained this to Krudd yet.

Aussie Culture, politics, US Elections