Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Recruitment drive for Perth sperm donors

Several years ago laws were introduced that required sperm donors to supply their identification along with their genetic material, making it easier for their kids to contact them in later life. Not surprisingly, the number of men willing to donate plummeted. So IVF clinics have been getting much of their supply from overseas. In Perth, they're trying to get some local blokes to make up the shortfall, without much luck.

Gawd, but it's a loathsome little industry isn't it? The men most likely to donate sperm are the ones who want to have least to do with their offspring. Imagine being one of the kids whose life resulted from this process. How would that make you feel, eh?

Of course, creepy social engineers say that there's no harm done to the child if he or she has loving parents. But love can only go so far in assuaging the angst resulting from such a deep, existential issue. The fact that half of your DNA came from someone who didn't want to have anything to do with you is going to have a big impact on your psyche no matter what. It would surely be like a hole in your heart that you would want to at least attempt to fill at some stage by finding out who your dad is, and what he's like as a person. (Actually, as far as I'm aware the fact that so many children of sperm donors wanted to do this was one of the main reasons the law was changed back in 2004.)

One of the Perth IVF doctors whose company is suffering from this sperm shortage describes how they're trying to recruit more donors: "We are focusing our advertising on the message that it is a wonderful gift that you're giving to a couple or person that's been unable to have a child, and it's really a good thing to do for society."

No mention of the rights of the child of course. That would be bad for business.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Kathy Lette was on Q and A. It was torture

Watched Q and A last night. It was another one of those writers' festival episodes. One of the panellists was an interesting bloke called Glen Carle. He was a former CIA operative who clearly had deep misgivings about his nation's use of waterboarding and other brutal methods of extracting information from prisoners, and so he wrote a book about the whole issue. For this reason the panel engaged in quite a bit of discussion about torture.  

That was weirdly apposite because Kathy Lette was also on the show. This grotesquely narcissistic woman has a personality so relentlessly, remorselessly unpleasant that it constitutes a potent form of torture all on its own. If the Yanks want a non-bruising "advanced interrogation technique" that will swiftly reduce their al-Qaeda prisoners to dribbling, compliant wrecks, they should just lock 'em in a room with Lette for a few hours. She'll no doubt rattle off hundreds of her stupid puns and one-liners, all harvested from her many vapid, pointless books and rehashed a squillion times at countless dinner parties with the Pommy squitterati. 

The transcript of her little monologues is distressing enough on its own, but it is at least bearable when separated from the ghastly sound of her immensely self-satisfied voice and the terrifying visual image of her crazy eyes and shit-eating grin.

Here's a sample:

TONY JONES: Let's hear from Kathy Lette on this.

KATHY LETTE: Well, I think, you know, love prepares you for marriage the way needle point prepares you for around solo the world solo yachting and divorce rates are very low in the West now. They’re kind of lower than Britney Spears’ bikini line, which is quite low. And the thing is that, you know, marriage suits men much more than it suits women. Married men live longer than single men. They have heart disease and mental problems, whereas single women live longer than married women, have less heart disease and mental problem. So I think it’s women...

JEFFREY EUGENIDES: (Indistinct)

KATHY LETTE: I think it's women who are getting PMT, pre-monogamy tension and one of the big issues for my generation is that
we thought we were going to have it all and we just ended up doing it all.

I won't inflict any more of this on you but I think you get the picture. Everything she said was utterly excruciating.

She almost never really answered any of the questions asked by audience members; just used them as an excuse to launch into another self-obsessed rant full of lame decades-old gags.

Most of these were about how miserable married life is and how horrible and useless men are. Apart from being both negative and annoying in the extreme, this was also quite mystifying.

She's married herself, so why's she always carping about the institution? And it really made me wonder what the hell is in it for her husband, the high profile human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. She clearly despises men as much as she does marriage. So why is that man married to her?

The only reason I can come up with is that he is just as much of a pompous blowhard as she is. So it's a "birds of a feather" type situation. They are the only two people on earth who can understand each other's insanely high levels of self-absorption, or something ...

Speaking of Robertson: He's another Q and A favourite. So it was just as well they weren't on together. That would have been too horrific for words. So we should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Local La Barbe feminists would win big at Le Boring

Not unlike the occutards who disrupted a Perth City Council meeting laughably claiming to champion "freedom of speech", spoiled brat feminist bimbos made nuisances of themselves at a Melbourne Mining Club event being held at the Melbourne Town Hall. Their tragically inane and puerile demonstration involved wearing fake beards and handing out awards for sexism to some of those attending.

The haughty hoydens actually looked quite young; certainly no older than thirty (a number that also described their collective IQ, no doubt). How sad that these activists were employing the kind of agit-prop that would have been yawn-inducing way back in the seventies, a decade long before they were even born.

Sadder still, and in another parallel with the Occupy "movement", La Barbe Australia is a local version of a French feminist "satirical" group. How's that, eh? They're thick, obnoxious, irrelevant and not even original.

If these dippy airheads were to refocus even a tenth of the energy they expend on railing against a fictional "patriarchy" and being total asshats in public they might actually achieve something of value in the real world. Hell, women have been doing it for ages anyway. Catch up, chicky-babes!

Since they're so fond of giving out awards, I'll suggest one for them. It's both geographically appropriate and one that they richly deserve: the coveted Gold Bore at the world renowned Le Boring festival.

Yeah, I know it's just a fictional French event dreamed up by the Goodies, but it's the thought that counts.

(Hat tip to Tim Blair.)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Defend Free Speech in Perth group hardly anti-censorship

The term "free speech" is being used a lot lately. However, its meaning seems to change quite a bit according to who's doing the, er, speaking.

Take the Defend Free Speech in Perth group. Sounds like they have admirable aims. You know, the kind of people who'd be appalled at the silencing of Andrew Bolt. They'd be staunchly opposed to the Government's creepy exploitation of the British phone hacking scandal to increase restrictions on reporting here, wouldn't they?

Nope. These guys are a bunch of hectoring lefties. They believe that freedom of speech is not the right to shout what you believe, but the right to shout other people down.

They actually interrupted a Perth City Council meeting, which then had to be adjourned:

The Defend Free Speech in Perth group filled the gallery, holding up signs comparing the council to the Nazis and calling out after they were not satisfied with a question answered by chief executive Frank Edwards.

This group was the, er, brainchild of extreme leftists associated with Occupy Perth. No wonder the poor sprog was stillborn.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Prof Kuruvilla George quits. The PC bullies have won

Having observed the craven tactics of the bullying, politically correct Left for yonks now, I'm still astonished at their gall. I look at them and think: Hell, everyone knows how malicious and tiny-minded these people are. Doesn't the fact that the vast majority of people (even many who purport to share their views) despise them utterly bother them even a little bit. I mean, wouldn't they want to be respected -- liked, even -- and not just feared? 

But nup. Respect, affection don't matter at all -- or at least not enough. The reason they are so fond of instilling fear is because it works. It gets them what they want: power over others. And that's all they're after in the end.

Latest scalp: Professor Kuruvilla George. He's quit his position with the VHREOC, even though the Victorian Government said he had no case to answer:

Deputy Premier Peter Ryan says Professor George is not at fault and as far as the Government is concerned, the matter is closed.

"He's made his statements on a private basis, he's made them in that capacity," Mr Ryan said.

"He was not speaking on behalf of the Commission. It's a point of view that he has expressed privately." 


But of course the VHREOC don't respect privacy. That's anathema to their primitive, collectivist "thinking". They continued to kick up a stink and created such a hostile atmosphere that the highly qualified psychiatrist ended up resigning from the commission.

Human rights my arse! What about the basic human right to hold your own opinion?

Well, they've certainly got what they wanted: complete, obedient conformity from all members. Anyone still on the board who holds eeevil conservative views on marriage -- views that are not only held by the majority of Australians, but are still enshrined in law! -- will clearly be too frightened to express them to anyone but their closest friends.

Well done, Victorian thought police. You've carried out a very efficient purge. Joseph Stalin would be proud.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Prof Kuruvilla George, "marriage equality" and freedom of speech

Hey, ever notice that whenever censorious, Stalinist lefties try to limit freedom for speech, they always preface their devious arguments with the phrase "This isn't about freedom of speech". It's kind of a fluffy wuffy, huggy wuggy version of "I'm not racist, but ... " The pinko doth protest too much, methinks.

Here's the latest example: The Victorian Attorney General seems to be reluctant to condemn Professor Kuruvilla George in the way the zealots at VHREOC are, citing freedom of speech. Cue the predictable denial from a gay marriage advocate. (Sorry, the truly politically correct term is "marriage equality". With these social engineering projects, the proponents always use language that obfuscates the true meaning of what is intended -- like "pro-choice" instead of "pro-abortion".)

The beginning of his open letter to the Attorney General reads:

The issue in relation to Prof George is not freedom of speech, but deceptive conduct. He participated in a scam which attempted to hoodwink a federal senate enquiry by presenting discredited evidence and religious dogma as scientific 'evidence'.

Typical tactics. Don't deal with his argument, but play the man. Demonize your opponent as a bad, 'orrible liar, motivated solely by religious dogma. Claim that Big Religion is behind everything here, not unlike Big Oil funding all those eeevil climate change skeptics.

Speaking of which: The wording of the first paragraph is just askin' for it. Just replace a few key words and voila, you have a rather neat description of a certain well known warmist:

The issue in relation to Professor Tim Flannery is not freedom of speech, but deceptive conduct. He participated in a scam which attempted to hoodwink the citizens of Australia by presenting discredited evidence and Gaian religious dogma as scientific 'evidence'.

Irony, much?

Sunday, May 13, 2012

VEOHRC bullies Prof Kuruvilla George on gay marriage

The politically correct Left are just a cowardly pack of bullies, aren't they? They simply cannot bear the thought of dissent. Just one individual who doesn't obediently mouth the party line is enough to terrify them completely and provoke a swift recourse to their much-loved tribal intimidation tactics.

Take the case of Professor Kuruvilla George, a Victorian psychiatrist who has the temerity to openly endorse the outrageous idea that marriage should be between a man and a woman. No matter that there are well established scientific grounds that such an upbringing is best for children. The local pro-gay marriage thought police have decided that he is guilty of committing a thought crime:

Victorian opposition attorney-general Martin Pakula said Prof George needs to explain to the Government and the community why he should remain a board member on the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC), given his views.

I'm sure that many in the community are glad that Professor George is a board member, and for the very reason that he holds his particular views on gay marriage. He doesn't have to explain anything to them.

On the contrary, if anyone needs to justify themselves to the community, it's the commission itself. Given that they have such disdain for so many people's views and are on a relentless campaign to censor them completely, they need to make a case for their own continued existence.

Gawd, but the whole thing sounds like a bloody show trial from Mao's Cultural Revolution, doesn't it? VEOHRC is clearly a totalitarian organization in which diversity will not be tolerated

Monckton's Graves' disease still funny to ABC warmists

Rob Oakeshott has been diagnosed with Graves' disease. Andrew Bolt reminds us that this incurable illness also afflicts Lord Christopher Monckton and is the cause of his bulging eyes -- a physical trait that caring leftist, warmist folk find utterly hilarious.

The Age even ran a photo of the climate change skeptic with a headline likening him to a primate. As Tim Blair noted at the time, it was the kind of flouting of journalistic standards that Media Watch should have been interested in (but wasn't, of course).

That was two years ago now. But nasty, witless leftists on their ABC are still making fun of this aspect of Lord Monckton's appearance. (And they would, wouldn't they? They can't beat his arguments.)

During the last episode of the tragically lame TV game show Randling, Chaser boy Chris Taylor quipped (for want of a better word) that a shot of a Tarsier (a small nocturnal primate with very large eyes) was Lord Monckton's passport photo. 

You'll see it at the 19 minute mark.

Sure, it was just a pathetic attempt at humour, in a show full of them. But it revealed an attitude. Everything these people do is either mean-spirited, unoriginal, or both.

Hell, the show itself is clearly a vastly inferior copy of QI with a couple of structural changes thrown in. And Taylor's gag was ripped off that Fairfax cover from two years ago.

The whole situation is so sad it's almost funny. Not so much a tragicomedy, though -- more of a commie-tragedy.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Inside Facebook doco confirmed my perceptions about the site

Watched the documentary Inside Facebook last night. It was an interesting insight into the workings of the social networking site. Zuckerberg is clearly a technologically brilliant young bloke, as are many of the people who work there. But he struck me as being emotionally immature. And the whole enterprise seemed strangely soulless.

He kept talking about how he wanted to help people connect with each other more, but I think his site might be having the opposite effect.

If it's about keeping in touch with old friends, and making new ones, then why do people spend so much time looking at their stuff and checking their updates online? Why not spend time with them in the real world?

And the fact that so many people spend so much time playing games on there is a bit of a worry. In the doco an overly keen gamer happily bought a flashy container for the poop of one of his favourite characters. It was as sad as it was funny. 

Many pundits have said that spending so much time on the site -- almost as if it's a parallel life -- is damaging the psychological health of millions of Facebook addicts. I think they've got a point.

While you can also go overboard on Twitter I think it's a far better site. It's not a replacement for social interaction. It's all about connecting with others who have the same interests, and sharing information. It's much more serious and focused.

On Twitter you can learn heaps, connect with experts, promote blog posts and do a whole lot of other productive things. But on Facebook people seem to waste their time piss-farting around, playing stupid games and "poking" each other.

There's no contest as far as I'm concerned.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Protestor Simon Peterffy thinks it's all about him

Simon Peterffy, one of the three stooges who boarded that Japanese whaling ship a few months back, is in the news again:

On Monday he was given a suspended jail term for bursting into the offices of Western Australia's Forest Products Commission last year and throwing rancid butter.

And why did he do something so obnoxious and puerile? To "get his message across", apparently.

Makes you wonder what's going on in that tiny brain of his. Hell, if he wanted to get his message across then why not write letters to the papers, or even start a blog?

Anyway, it's not like the deep green meta-message about the planet's impending doom hasn't been heard. Hell, everyone in the Western world has had it rammed down their necks daily for the last coupla decades. We all know what it is, and we've had a bloody gutful of it. We're also heartily sick of all those micro-messages about protecting native forests, saving the whales and the numbats, etc. 

Guys, we know what you're angry about, okay!

So why do the likes of Peterffy choose to be so consistently obnoxious and annoying -- a tactic that is clearly counter-productive? (Witness how their alarmist shrieking has turned so many people against the carbon tax, for example.)

Clearly, they're not remotely interested in communication. I don't even think that deep down they're serious about achieving their stated goals. Frankly, I doubt they give a numbat's arse about the fate of the forests.

The main reason they keep performing these stupid stunts is to get their ugly mugs in the papers. They're like those tragic has (and never) beens who go on reality TV shows. They just want instant ego-gratification, that's all.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

UWA O-Camp rape claims depressing, ironic in post-feminist times

One thing that constantly amazes me about these politically correct times is that even though we've had decades of feminist "empowerment" of women, as well as much "attitudinal reconstruction" of blokes, sexual assault is still disturbingly commonplace. Actually, it even seems to be more pervasive than in days of yore when the eeevil patriarchy was completely dominant.

Take this scandal currently enveloping the University of WA. There are claims of sexual assaults being perpetrated amid the beer-sodden debauchery occurring at a recent "O-Camp" in Dwellingup.

The alleged criminal acts are the most disturbing, of course. But the routine abuse of others that goes on at these events -- as well as the extreme self-trashing -- is also a worry, and seems to be highly ritualized. 

These shindigs are run by the UWA Student Guild which has its own Women's Department. You'd think that such a clearly female-friendly organization would have zero tolerance for the misogyny that fuels such destructive behaviour, wouldn't you? 

Or maybe the wider ideology that this institution (and others on campus) subscribes to is actually part of the problem. That is, could the left-wing, uber-PC practice of blaming society for everything and not taking responsibility for your actions be making young women less conscious of their own safety, as well as encouraging young men to unleash their sexual drives without any concern for the consequences?

What do you reckon?

Friday, May 4, 2012

The Project's blowhards bully Steve Price on asylum seekers

The Project is one of the most dreadful shows on television. The regular panel members are all insufferably smug, vain and vacuous, as well as being drearily PC. The way they all affect a cheerful demeanour, yucking it up at every opportunity, just makes you wanna hurl!

Everything about the show is bogus. Not surprisingly they're all Labor luvvies (birds of a feather and all that). They often suck up to the Government, and I suspect that at least one of them has long term political aspirations. I reckon you might even see one of these airheads being parachuted into a safe Labor seat in years to come -- er, if there are any such seats left, that is.

Last night's show was a perfect example of their shameless tyre-pumping. They did a story on the Government's daffy plan to pay Aussies $300 a week to host asylum seekers in their homes (story starts around the 9 minute mark).

Desperate to display their fake "compassion" they enthusiastically endorsed the plan. Carrie Bickmore said she was "open" to the idea of having an asylum seeker in her house. As Tabbydevils said on Twitter this was "like clicking 'maybe' on a Facebook invitation. We all know it means 'no'."

At the end of the segment Steve Price appeared to put the eeevil conservative point of view. The pompous pack just couldn't handle it. They suffered a fit of collective lefteous indignation and did their best to shut him up. It was amazingly immature and unprofessional.

The funniest bit was when they started mocking him for selfishly refusing to share his big ten-room mansion. As if they are not well paid themselves, and don't aspire to material success. 

While they all ganged up like the nasty, petty bullies they are deep down he managed to make the point that none of them would put up an asylum seeker in their homes either.

Their hypocrisy was on open display. But it didn't bother them. It makes you wonder what they think of their audience. They must hold them in utter contempt. 

The only reason they had Price on was to bag and bully him -- not to engage in any kind of debate. This tactic is so typical of the Left. They never play the ball, always the man. They are always trying to force confrontations in which they can shout down a dissenter. It's truly nasty, primitive stuff.

The message to those watching is two-fold. Firstly they're telling them that the person they're shouting at is such a bad and horrible man that anything he says should not even be allowed to be heard. Secondly -- and this is the more sinister part -- they're issuing a warning to those presently on their side. They're saying don't you dare consider listening to the dissenter and actually considering his arguments. If you do that, you will be given the same abusive, hectoring treatment.

It's all fear-based, see. The collective keeps its members -- and followers -- in line by way of veiled threats. What an ugly world they live in.

And this is just a pack of bloody TV blowhards, where the collectivism is comparatively mild! Imagine what it must be like in the ALP, or worse still the Greens.

Ugh. The mere thought of it makes my skin walk.