Randomrants

Why do religious people feel it is their right to stick their two cents in when it comes to other people’s reproductive choices?

Once again a chemist is in the news for refusing to stock condom’s, sell the morning after pill and this one is also inserting letters into pill prescriptions. Imagine a chemist being allowed to not sell to black people because they were a member of the KKK.

Guess what, you don’t like giving out certain legal medication due to your religious beliefs, my view is simple… Get a different job. As a chemist or any medial professional, your personal beliefs have NO place in the work place.

When someone goes to the chemist they want something, your job is to supply the best medical information, not your 2000 year old archaic point of view.

Oh but there is a chemist a few km away, nope, not an excuse. “Their store, their rules”. Why, why is this even an option, they are a chemist, they get money from the government for what they sell, including the pill. A woman without a car, little public transport in the area, she is then suffering from their, not her prejudice.

If they feel so bad about it, why don’t they just go home, light a candle and say a few prays for the poor soul they feel is lost. That way, there is no impact on the individual, and they have still ticked the right boxes for their religion.

The solution is quite simple, we can’t all boycott the store, but we can do unto others as we would have them to unto us.

So if they feel it is perfectly reasonable to put unsolicited church propaganda into a delivery, why can’t people do the same back to them.

Now as an atheist, I think non-religious material would be appropriate, however, given the nature of what they think is o.k to do, I think any religious material would also suffice. Perhaps Scientology, Nation of Yahweh, the cargo cult of Prince Philip Movement, Islam, Judaism, or any religion apart from Catholicism, that is sure to be very upsetting to their personal beliefs. But they feel their beliefs trump everyone else’s with their actions, so why can’t people do it back.

I wouldn’t give them anything violent though, no offensive material (you know nudity, piles of poo etc.) keep it clean and nice, but keep it coming.

So next time someone has a delivery for them, why not include some reading material, seems fair.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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One of the things about Social Media is that it isn’t always right.

I know this will come as a shock to some of you.  But it isn’t.  And it can become a life threatening concern during crisis communications.  You know, for example when the shit is hitting the fan, in say New South Wales due to record early major fires.

Of course there are those social media expert guru’s (colloquial know as #smeg’s) who will say otherwise that social media is the be all and end all during crisis comms.

The type of people that run with on the ground “reporting” of an event, where rumour can readily become fact; heard  third hand, or from a friend  becomes fact, and where but it was on Instagram means it must be true. In the rush to be first on social media, the rush to get the most retweets “facts” are  a secondary concern.  #smeg’s think that because second-hand sources of information (such as councils) aren’t live tweeting an event it is an outrage, a tweet that doesn’t see fire resources sent in response becomes an outrage.

The rush to be first to tell something can get people killed.  I saw and know of many reports of the Minmi fire jumping the F3 (sorry the M1 Motorway to those born post 2013), reports that were on both social media and commercial radio.  Reports that, by the way, did turn out to be wrong.  These were reports I had to tell a family member who was close by, no they aren’t real. Reports that if people reacted to could have caused stress, panic and even unnecessary evacuations.  Evacs that could have blocked the roads required by the emergency services to stop the fire jumping the road.  But hey, “I tweeted it first”, “I retweeted it first”, “I saw a post from a friend that said it was true, so I will share it so I can be first”, all turned out to be wrong. Funny thing was the ABC and the RFS didn’t tweet these “facts”, didn’t share this information, why because it wasn’t true.

Trust in an agency to get the information right and right the first time is important.  This doesn’t mean being first as is the want of many #smeg’s.

Take Google’s Crisis Maps for NSW.  They don’t just rely on rumours from social media; they rely on the cold hard facts from the RFS. (as an aside they work when the RFS servers are overloaded).  Why, because they are the go-to source.  Why didn’t the local council in the affected areas suddenly open up a twitter account and start tweeting? Because in this case they aren’t the go-to source.  Certainly not, when they don’t have an established system, protocol, trained staff and direct access to the agency that is actually in charge, yes the RFS. And what info would a council tweet, the source info, the RFS anyway!

Now when the shit hits the fan of course the RFS are going to be slower than people want, why because they are fact checking before they communicate.  An awareness of this small thing that seems to be missing from many peoples criticism of other organisations.

I know who I would retweet and share info from.  I have a wide range of trusted sources, these are people that work for organisations like the RFS.

Yes, social media does have  an important place during crisis comms.  The geotagged photo from an event can help.

Yet being first doesn’t always mean being right.

The amount of times I have seen “disaster” photos shared on social media, that aren’t even of the unfolding events but an early and different event, or the reports of something happening, which isn’t are scary.

A social media report saying a road is open, retweeted from 3 hours ago, when in fact a fire is heading straight for it, could see people get killed. What if the RFS reacted to all these reports, sent crews to areas they were not needed, because social media said so and people got killed.  What will the #smeg’s reaction be then…

Tags: Annoyances, General, twitter by Wolf
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I’m looking forward to Voting for that nice young fellow in the Seat of Hotham.

The ALP sent me a flyer just a few days after the election was called, still not sure about that Kevin bloke, Julia seemed a lot more go getter really.  Sorry, was distracted there, yes, just after the election was called we received a bit of mail saying Geoff Lake was to be our new local candidate.  It even had a nice photo of Geoff and Simon together.  Well at least Simon heard his phone ring that day to arrange the photo shoot. He should have got a flashing light like I do for when my phone rings.

Now one of the advantages of living in a safe seat is none of those pesky door knockers at this time of year.  Nothing worse than sitting down to do some crocheting and having people knock on your door to say Stop the Boats.  Stop stopping my tea and crochet time I say. At least that Clive bloke hasn’t come to my door, I don’t think I have enough pastry for all the pies he would want to eat.

So here we are less than a week to go, I still have to get some more tea cosy’s made for the local primary school fate, but when I drop them off at the school I will gladly slide my walking frame up to the booth and number 1 to 6 with Geoff Lake, Labor being number 1.

Then we can hopefully never have to worry about that man who wears those silly swimming costumes ever being in parliament again.

———–

Of course I am a bit of a political wonk so I know that Geoff Lake isn’t the local candidate, I know because I saw the 2 min of evening news coverage the story got.  I know that it is now Claire O’Neil as the local candidate, which got even less coverage.  Yet Labor is so busy on telling me not to vote for Abbott they forget to tell me who their local candidate is.  The old saying take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves certainly comes to mind.

Whilst I certainly don’t want to see an Abbott lead Coalition government, the ALP needs to take a good hard look at who their base is.  Confusing the electorate by saying Abbott, Abbott, Abbott all the time isn’t going to get Geoff, no sorry Claire elected is it.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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Mr Infrastructure is off to a bad start, given he got lost in upper upper middle class welfare handouts.  Taking a leaf out of Howards book, he thinks giving tax breaks and massive cash handouts to the rich is the best thing he can do, he kind of forgot to invest in infrastructure and all this before he has even become PM.

At 5.5billion a year ( just in the first year alone ) the paid parental leave scheme (PPL) is a more than robbing the poor to pay the rich side of things, it is robbing our future to pay for rich folk ( or women of calibre as he called them ) to have babies.

The NBN has been described by the Liberals as a waste of money (amongst many other things), however lets put the NBN into a different light comparing it to Mr Infrastucture’s biggest spend for the election.

The NBN is costed at $46 billion over the next ten years and will last 40+ years to ensure that 93+% of Australians have fibre to the premise. The NBN is also designed to have a return on investment.  Not to mention addressing major issues with our failing existing telecom infrastructure.

PPL on the other hand will cost over $55billion for ten years, and will be partially paid for a by a 1.5% levy on over 3000 companies, who I am sure will be good corporate citizens and not pass on the costs to their consumers.

Of the NBN and PPL schemes, one is an investment in the jobs of the future ensuring Australia is well placed to address the changing digital landscape, the other ensures that people get 75k for having a child.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
1 Comment »

I remember one or two things from high school. Bullies was one of them, the other is the theory of continental drift.  Now this is where modern politics is letting us all down. They are all bullies, oh wait sorry wrong rant.  Continental Drift is the biggest issue facing this country, that and boat people.

Australia is heading north at a rate of between 1 and 4cm a year, the gap between Australia and PNG is only 160.322 km.  I don’t want to alarm anyone, but in 4 million years give or take, boat people will be able to WALK HERE.

We know Rudd has suggested the PNG solution, (obviously he is just 4million years ahead of his time), Abbott has the turn back the boats (Update: Operation Sovereign Borders (because what our borders aren’t sovereign already, and don’t start me on being a republic!)), but both politicians are being short sighted.  Typically they are thinking in terms of electoral cycles not geographical ones.

The parties should get serious about this. Forget the race to bottom in who can treat genuine refugees the worst, by either shooting at them or sending them to a hell-hole concentration camp. What we really need is an Australia wide approach to this problem.

We need to turn back Australia.

Yes, mock me all you like, but the boat people won’t get on a boat for a 2000km sea voyage from Indonesia when they have to face the roaring 40’s on the way.

Yes, that is right; we need to drag Australia down south.  Way way down south. This policy may seem extreme, but given we are facing an invasion or is it a national emergency, I can’t think of anything else that would be more sensible to address this issue.

A major bonus to the sporting mad nation that we are is that the extra year round snow would ensure that we would become a nation of world class winter Olympians. No more hoping for a single gold or two at the Winter Olympics, we could take on the world.

As an added bonus, we will get more whale watching opportunities and the impacts of global warming will be dramatically reduced as we are much further south.

Currently the only risk is an increase in solo around the world sailors bumping into Australia, but then think of the cost savings in sending the airforce to look for them. And this in’t that much of problem there has only been 3 or so in the last 20 years.

This policy isn’t fully costed yet, but hey the election hasn’t been called so that doesn’t matter.

Remember Vote 1: Turn back Australia.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
1 Comment »

I’d don’t actually care if my PM is popular, I don’t care if they use hip language and have got to “zip” (what ever that means).

I want them to be competent.  I know this point of view makes me somewhat of a heteroclite in this modern political age.

Late last night in the maelstrom of events I heard comments talking about Gillard’s staffers saying what a great pleasure and professional she was to work with.  Funny thing is, Rudd chewed up and spat out staff at a prodigious rate. Yet, Rudd is more popular, that doesn’t mean he is right, nor is he good for the job.

The ALP have taken a PM that proved her metal in 3 years of minority government with some of the most vitriolic (and yes sexist) attacks against her personally and given the reward to someone that white anted from the day he was deposed.

Congratulations ALP, you have shown that, hard work, dedication to duty and task means nothing. You have rewarded someone that undermined the PM from the day he lost the leadership.

The negative campaigns by the Coalition have been very successful, helped by a minority in the ALP that cared more about getting their man back in than helping their own PM.

Rudd was right when he said Climate Change is the greatest moral challenge of our time, and what happened when push comes to shove, he backflipped and gave up.

In a minority Government, Gillard gave us NDIS, a price on Carbon, saw the NBN start to roll out.  Even in a majority government these reforms alone should have been seen as amazing.  But when the narrative is focused on constant leaking, undermining and pushing for not one, but 3 leadership spills, this is all forgotten.

I disagree with Gillard’s stance on a number of things, asylum seekers being top of mind.  Yet I have seen her face so many questions from journalists, never shying away from hard questions.  Abbott is well known for not fronting up and answering questions, only talking points.

Gillard showed time and time again how fit for the job she was.  Rudd showed time and time again that he just wanted the job, and didn’t care who stood in his way.

As I said on Twitter last night as this all unfolded  “Princess Diana said there were two wives in her relationship… Gillard had two opposition leaders in her term”.

The ALP has sold out to the negativity, a negativity that was coming from within and well as from the outside.

Then it rewarded the source.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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Of course, it the middle of the night, I picked up my phone, went through 4 different menu settings to change that G+ would stop using wifi and forced it to only upload via 3+

Oh yeah and of course I also in the middle of the night slept walked through to the study and turned off my router as well.

Of course I didn’t.  But that seems to have not stopped G+ going completly and utterly mental 3 days ago.  Prior to the 9th of June G+ never showed up the top 10 of my 3g usage, why because it was set to only upload via Wifi.  I did notice that G+ seemed to have an issue the other day saying backup failed, “retry”.  I suspect it got stuck in a loop, but why it suddenly stopped using Wifi and went to 3g I fail to understand why, esp when the phone was at home most of the weekened anyway did it try and upload via 3g.

As for Vodafone, the fact that you send me a notifiation when my bill is already 8times over normal spend leaves a hell of a lot to be desired, then sending me a message 24 hours later, saying, oh you know that $200 bill we sent you, well we were wrong it is now $400…  ( Update: Thanks to the guys and girls at Vodafone for sorting this issue out, well done for a prompt response via @vodafoneau_help )

Standard Data usage below….

And then Google + goes nuts….

For an app that never showed up on my 3g usage, it goes nuts and uploads everything, despite, not even 1.7gb of data being uploaded to my G+ account anyway.  Oh yeah and that small thing that I certainly didn’t take 1.7gb worth of photos and video on the weekend.

( Update I checked, I took photos on the weekend and a few short videos of the cubs…. total uploaded to G+ less than 350meg!, not even close to 1.7gb )

So if Google could please just sell 1 of their shares to me, I will gladly donate the excess to charity.

Oh yeah and when you have done that, please fix your f’ing app.

—-

( I have posted these screen shots on the Google + help forum as well….

please add comments in regards to fixing the issue there

https://productforums.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!category-topic/google-plus-discuss/fix/Yhm-w8dgFHg )

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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Poor The Age, the printed version went Tabloid, just like the Web…

So The Age has a poll in regards to the just slightly changing weather in Melbourne.  By slightly changing I mean, 157 years of records have never produced more than 6 days in a row over 32c, we just had 9 of them.

March days in a row over 30c was previously 7, yep, just had 9 of them.  The longest run of days over 30c was 8 in any month, we just had 9. Hottest March night on record and most nights over 20c in March as well.  So it is not like we haven’t broken a whole pile more “Climate Records” as well.

Of course, this is just the end of the 123 extreme weather records (+) broken during Australia’s “angry summer”.  Long term records for everything from hottest day ever in Australia, to rainfall rates and flood levels.

My beef isn’t with the weather though; I am just annoyed at The Age.

Poll: Has the current heatwave changed your opinion of climate change? (Yes/No)

Now, how do I answer a question like this.

Unlike most of the Liberal and National Parties and mining magnates, I don’t think Climate change is a global conspiracy to put scientists into fast sports cars with expense accounts.  I do think Climate Change is real, based on something called evidence. So do I answer this question NO, because that is the logical answer, or do I answer YES.  If I answer No, am I not seen as supporting a fundamentally flawed argument that extreme weather is not part of climate change, or belonging to the “we have had hot weather before” brigade. If I answer “YES”, then oh suddenly I am on-board with Climate Change being real, which isn’t the case either.

What about a different option for the question “Do you think the current heatwave is due to climate change”, see not that hard, please where do I send the bill.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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It really is quiet simple when you take the time to think about it.

The “Catholic” God does nothing to stop child abuse by priests. The young and vulnerable are abused by those in a place of authority. Yet the church relies on priests being able to admit there crimes in confession. That way they have made peace with god and thus can go to heaven after saying a few Hail Mary’s. The victims, well they suffer, they committee suicide, they remain broken with some harbouring violence inside that lashes out at those around them.

But what did God do during all of this. Nothing, nothing at all.

Then today comes the statement from a former Catholic priest accused of molesting boys “God made us this way and it’s his fault”.

So when Pell addresses the media going on the attack, then explains that  “seal of confession is inviolate” can go take a running jump IMHO.

The church DOES NOT have a right to hide behind an archaic system that has no place in a secular state. The law exists for a reason, not for those to say oh but my invisible sky friend will fix everything when the perpetrator of the crime dies.

Any priest that uses the excuse that “I was told something in confession I can’t tell” is guilty of covering up what is a most horrendous crime. Why do they feel that they are above common law. Because a 2000 year old book, most of which they ignore anyway tells them to do so.

If the Royal Commission doesn’t address this serious short coming in the Church children will continue to suffer.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
3 Comments »

Oh for crying out loud suddenly all the SMEG’s ( Social Media Expert Guru’s ) and the wanna be SMEG’s are now experts on the inner workers of the human mind.  Suddenly how to deal with a bully can be put into a pretty flow chart or a ranty blog post and everything will be just fine. Life isn’t black and white, (it certainly isn’t 50 shades of grey either) nor can it be condensed to 140 chars.

The arguments seem to be either a: Don’t feed the trolls, or b: Person X is bad because they did something different bad to person Y.

I mean WTF, seriously, get over yourselves. So ignoring the hate comments telling to kill yourself is the only thing to do.  Why not draw attention to what is being said?  How people deal with this is a complicated issue.  An issue that can change in the blink of an eye, 1 or 2 comments fine most people can ignore, but a barrage of them, that is going to hurt. Shades of first they came for… then they came for me in that defence.

Even the conspiracy theorists have piped up with their two cents worth stating it was all “too convenient”

Of course there is also the small matter of what does it matter, say compared to 5 Australian Diggers dying.  I hadn’t heard of the parties involved prior to yesterday. Why, because I didn’t care for that kind of TV show.  Now when I don’t care for a TV show, I don’t rant and rave about it, I just don’t watch it.  Radical concept I know, but a few of you should try it out sometime.

I’d rather rant and rave about how my fav TV show has been cancelled, or that the final ep of BSG should have finished 30 min earlier than it did.

I am not an expert, I never claimed to be, but personal attacks are just not on.  I will criticise politicians, and I will criticise “I got daddy’s money” mining billionaires all the time.  But I don’t make it about their appearance or their personality, I’ll make it about the policy and the impact that has on people. And if I don’t care, I don’t care, I just won’t watch nor interact with them.

Of course last weekend everyone was an expert on Trademark and IP law, the week before Norwegian criminal law and next week it will be on the inner workers of a device that has not been released yet.

Perhaps a few less flow charts and a few less non qualified two bit psychologists ranting about how someone they don’t know, and a situation, they don’t and can’t have all the facts on, should have done something different really could not go astray at this time.

Now excuse me whilst I go to continue my push for TV execs to release plot outlines for shows 6 months after they are cancelled, cause that at least might achieve something.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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