Facebook = my connection with IDIOTS.

Two snapshots of the retards who apparently make up a large percentage of my group:

"Dear women: You're lucky we even let you vote, don't abuse the privilege by whining about a real man being prime minister."

You're lucky we even let you vote?! With views like that, how are you considered human, pray tell? Get back to the 1600s, please, they're missing you.


After a post of "We love you Tony, So much better than that red nut feminist athetist wing nut *****", we were blessed to see the following (I say blessed with a highly raised sarcasm hand):

"shes a women, she has red hair, shes a feminist, shes an atheist, oh and shes a women. what more needs to be said?" 

 Issues: Emily proposed he could be referring to new and old Gillard, but we immediately agreed he didn't have the brain capacity, so use of 'women' to describe her is a bit fail. Secondly, the redhead thing? Old. Most sane voters know hair colour can easily change with a box of hair dye. She's a feminist... why? Because she's in power? Step back! Does this mean that any woman not chained to a stove is a feminist?! The atheist comment - true, but the guy making these comments also is. Pot, meet kettle... whoa, stop the making out, there are kiddies around!


Look, if Abbott gets in, he gets in. I'm not hugely happy about that, but clearly God's got a plan and that guy's got to be in power to get the plan happening. However - if Abbott getting in means all the men around me begin acting like sexist degenerate pigs, I fear I'm going to turn into something almost Germaine Greer-ish. Not quite to her degree where she's - oh, just read the Female Eunuch, much easier that way - but I will get very annoyed indeed.


However, I do have a faint glimmer of hope for about 10 of my friends who joined the event "Mass Suicide if Tony Abbott Becomes PM". It's equally split with guys and girls, and so at least, in the event people like those two nutjobs above become more common, there'll still be a few normal guys whom I can have a conversation with without them saying, "Haw-haw-haw-haw-haw -" [healthy drag on cigar] "-get back to yer kitchen, youse women shouldn't be havin' no ideas."


Also, if there is a contingency of people going, "You should have voted Abbott because he's Christian and Gillard's atheist," I turn your heads to the following article, Birds of a Feather Don't Necessarily Flock Together by John Dickson. Firstly.. if you've not read his stuff before, do it. This article is an example of how well he teaches.
And also, as they mentioned at church - just because you vote Abbott in, doesn't mean you're going to get a 'Christian party' - in fact, the opposite is equally likely. I've also heard the argument that Abbott is a Sunday Christian, a little better than Howard's Easter and Christmas Christian act, and really... pretty much the same as Gillard being atheist (except she's open about who she is).
Read the policies. Gillard may be atheist, but she's not starting a vendetta against Christians. She's got a party that wouldn't let her, and a House of Reps that would oppose it at every turn.


And here I thought that come July 22 this would all be over.


UPDATE: The idiot with status 'a' has deleted the post. People ranting at him worked.

Parental Leave Schemes and Confusion

Once again, I'm struck by politics.
Out of confusion over who I should vote for - because once again, none of the parties are making me happy - I got on all the major and running parties' sites. In amongst all the policy (Liberal, why on earth do I have to download PDF files to find out what you want to make of my country?), I decided, for no other reason than Chris and I discussed this a few days earlier, to see what their policies regarding paid parental leave were.
From what I understand, Liberal is pushing women's leave and offers the father/husband two weeks off himself.

The Coalition's scheme will enhance child and maternal well-being by providing financial support to mothers while they are outside the paid workforce recovering from childbirth, establishing breastfeeding and bonding with their newborns... A fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme... The Coalition's Paid Parental Leave Scheme will:

1.  Provide mothers with 26 weeks paid parental leave, at full replacement wage (up to a maximum of $150,000 per annum) or the Federal Minimum Wage, whichever is greater.
2. Include super contributions at the mandatory rate of nine percent.
3. Allow two out of the 26 weeks to be dedicated paternity leave to be used simultaneously or separately to the mother's leave, paid at the father's replacement wage.

(Emphasis has been added.)
1, I'm sort of okay with. Besides the emphasis on mothers specifically, it all seems pretty fair. 6 and a half months leave is quite good. 2, also good. 3... no. Just no. Why only two weeks for fathers? They don't get the opportunity to develop bonds with their children? Say, for instance, that the father wants to stay home from work, and his wife is more than happy to return to the workforce. The paid parental leave scheme of the Liberals really does not accomodate for that, and the gender bias is wholly irritating. "Mothers". "Maternal". "Establishing breastfeeding and bonding with their newborns".
Okay. So perhaps your thought is, "But the mother has to stay home to feed the child!" My thought - well, as much as I am not really for formula, there are parents out there who use it. Child = fed. Via a bottle. You don't need mammary glands actively producing milk for that.
My main concern is it just doesn't offer any room to the notion that men are often childcarers nowadays. I have a relative who has raised his children pretty much singlehandedly - and this is right from birth - because he and his wife have decided she would make the money. These kids have turned out like any other kids. My brother, too, in our discussion, told me that he wants to stay home with the kids when they're born, purely because he loves kids. I'm indifferent either way. If it's easier for me to stay home, I will. If we're better off with me working, I will. If I work one freelancing, for instance, and my husband has a 9-5 job, I'll be staying home unless he wants to.
And if there's policy that allows us to do so.
Labor's policy was a little more difficult to find; the Family Assistance Office cites the new laws as effective from January next year, and they are as follows:

Paid Parental Leave:  

• is government funded  
• is for eligible working parents of children born or adopted on or after 1 January 2011  
• can be transferred to the other parent 
• is paid at the National Minimum Wage - currently $570 a week before tax*  
• is for up to 18 weeks  
• can be taken any time within the first year after birth. 

 (Emphasis added.)
Well, although it is significantly shorter - two months shorter, actually - at least it's up for grabs by either parent. I'm a little more pleased with this, and that kind of calmed me down in the mad rampage I had when I was filling out my passport, decided to go for dual Chilean/Australian citizenship and maybe strike up an English one while I was at it, and realised that'd be three countries whose political stances I would have to be pretty knowledgeable... and at last night's stage, I wasn't really at one.
At the moment, though, I'm going with the lesser of two failings, and honestly, I've considered the Sex Party a couple of times, because they're going with fairly reasonable policies. And, they're on a par with Labor's parental leave scheme, are looking towards making sex something you actually discuss with children so they're aware (rather than cramming them into a room and having one awkward day where, afterwards, you try and block the memories) - to quote:

To bring about the development of a national sex education curriculum as a first step in preventing the sexualisation of children.

These here are their policies.
I'm not sure if I'll put theirs first or anything. Overall, I'm hideously confused. But there's my political rant to make up for radio/cleaning silence yesterday.

I owe you another post. Sorry.

And, it's done.

So we have Julia Gillard in as the first female PM of Australia. Facebook has been divided, and I'm looking at it now. It seems to be uni students against the not-uni-students. One particularly witty quote which has me disturbed for the future of sexism in Australia:

How on earth can we allow an incompetent two face back stabbing simplistic red haired feminist women to take control of our country!!!! It's bad enough labour is in power, but to than hand over the power to gillard is a joke!!!!!!

Um, cool. Your grammar and good grasp on spelling is admirable.

A comment on my status declaring I'd be dancing through Queen Street as a result of this awesomeness:

no way she is a dirty w****, labours not going to win anyway

Awesome. Why are you not reaching for the confetti? Seriously, this is a step forward.

I think this can all be summed up best by my friend Emily's boyfriend:

Yo Gillard, I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but Judas was the best betrayer of all time. OF ALL TIME.

Quoting Kanye never goes astray. Good-day, Kevin, in an hour or so your final words will be heard.

And welcome, Gillard. I'm excited, and you've got this one's vote.

PHWOAR FLIPS, do you have a Time Turner?

I may look like I've had a busy 24th of June (you don't know the half of it), but I'm pulling my Tumblr posts. Saves you time if you want to see them. They, in their original form, live here.

So! Australia, wow. Tonight's a grand night in this country. We've got the soccer (inevitable loss, we're not going through, and I am clearly unpatriotic and a traitor, but I don't care) against Serbia, which is vaguely interesting. But I'm far more interested in Julia Gillard contesting Kevin Rudd for leadership. Facebook went crazy tonight, and I got all ready to start dancing for Gillard already taking the spot.

Unfortunately, not yet. Tomorrow - or this? - morning at 9am, there'll be a ballot, and we'll find out who the new prime minister is.

As you can probably tell, I'm backing Gillard. It'll be interesting if she gets it, as a female leadership dynamic would be a fierce thing to behold. Politics may be a boy's club, but really, I think it's clear that females do have the necessary fire and logic to run a country. It'll be great. I'm not sure what I'm fully expecting from her leadership, but I'm excited. A new direction for Australia. I was hesitant about voting for Kevin this year (Abbott wasn't actually in my sphere of consciousness, I'm that against voting for him), but this works nicely.

Now - soccer.

From what I can understand from my brother's explaining, essentially Australia's not really likely to get through to the next round. Sunrise and Today newsreaders, get ready to despondently unwind your green-and-gold scarves; people watching in pubs and on the streets, throw down your beers in disgust. I predict a loss, and I'm actually going to watch it this time.

Matches I'm looking forward to? Brazil vs. Portugal, tomorrow night, and Chile vs. Spain, Saturday morning. I'm backing Brazil (Kaká's skill being explained in previous posts) and Chile (heritage reasons, I'm at least patriotic here).

World Cup, I love you. I may not appreciate the soccer gene being forced on me by Chilean soccer fanatics who dominate my family, but I love watching. I love the excitement you bring. And I love that every 4 years, the vuvuzelas are held aloft and everyone just storms out with the soccer enthusiasm.

I salute you, FIFA.

And Australian politics.

You two have made my night.