GRRRRRRR TAX

I got my tax assessment back today and here I was expecting about $200 back, would have come in handy for Xmas and car rego. But no they have to screw me over and charge me $150 for "other liabilies" I owe to the commonwealth(????).*

Isn't it enough that I have to pay GST on almost everything I buy? Do they take that into account with individual tax returns? They don't ask for an itemised list of what I bought throughout the year that has GST added on to it.

And the really sucky thing is when GST came about they promised take home pay would be more 'cause you would be paying less income tax.... well I tell you what..the $20 less tax I pay does not cover the amount of GST I pay...(wish I had kept my payslips when GST was implemented to prove it)

I think next elections I will be swinging the other way.....we should have a law like America where the President (in Aus's case Prime Minister) can't serve more than 2 consecutive years. Can I go to gaol for saying that??

*apparently the ATO will send out another letter explaining what these "other liabilities" are, I'm thinking its because I haven't done my 2002/2003 tax return :).
Anyway this environmentally unfriendly government office should save paper by explaining it with my assessment, or phone call or even by email, they have my address. Its only fair since I did my return online and got my fund direct debited aahhhhhhh paperless process.

Just Wondering...

Why is it that it is free to be born (if you use medicare) but why it costs thousands of dollars when you die? If you have any answers please let me know.

Ok I understand the costs of raising a kid/s is rather expensive alot more than a funeral, but in this day and age we can choose not to have children but we can not choose not to die.

Anyway, do you think Bali should secede?

The Trip...

I have definitely am going overseas next year to Egypt, Greece and Austria (yes it is a strange combination but the stopovers to Cairo happened to be in Greece and Austria and I said what the hey I may as well spend some time there as well)

The Plane (Austrian Airlines)leaves Australia on the 12th of Feburary at 6:30pm and arrives in Kuala Lumpur at eeek 11:45 pm after running to the next terminal the next plane leaves at 12:55am to arrive in Vienna at 6:05am (breakfast at McDonalds?). This is only a stopover of 4 hours then the next plane leaves for Athens 10:45am and arrives at 1:45pm and for some strange reason, have to stay in Athens overnight for a connecting flight to Cairo the next day at 1pm unfortunately the trip to Cairo is with air egypt- SCARY(now the question is should I rough it at the airport that night or should I stay in a comfy hotel room?)

Arrive in Cairo at 2:55pm on the 14th of Feb and check into the King Hotel for the night. The next day the tour meets up for 15 days of treking around Egypt.
Quick trip notes:



Day Description
1 & 2 Cairo (Pyramids and Sphinx)
3 & 4 Luxor (Karnak Temple and Bazaars, Valley of the Kings Donkey ride)
5 Luxor - Aswan
6 - 8 Abu Simbel - Felucca Cruise (no toilets, I was told by a conerned friend that I would have to crap off the side of the boat, but apparently they make scheduled stops)(Abu Simbel temple, relaxing on a boat)
9 Luxor - Cairo (train ride)
10 & 11 Cairo (Lazy around Cairo)
12 & 13 Mt Sinai - Dahab (climb up a big mountain to see a scrawny looking bush-just for the record I dont think that this is the real "Burning Bush" nor the real Mt Sinai, snorkelling in the red sea, possible camel ride)
14 & 15 Dahab - Cairo (More train)

Arrive back in Cairo on the 1st of March in the morning, tour parts ways..spend one more night in Cairo (have a Bath, get sand out of shoes).

Depart back to Greece but this time spend a week there in the Phillipos Hotel. Wonder around Athens climb up the acropolis to see the parthenon up close, day trip to delphi, ummm haven't quite worked out all the details here yet, but a greek friend at work will write me up a list of "things to do" as this will not be a tour just a free for all. Oh she did say to go to the cliff where king aegeos jumped cause its a spectacular sunset. Might also visit the cemetary. And sample the resaurants in the Plaka region.

Head back to Austria to spend two days in Vienna. I have been told to go see an opera, take the tram cicuit around the city and to sample the Pastries and coffee.
Its will still be the skiing season there so I think a lot of warm beverages will be consumed in that 48 hours.

Head back to Sydney via KL (again). I'm buggered.

Starterbutton has shown a keen interest in this trip and I hope she does come cause it would be nice to have a travel companion and well it cheaper TWIN SHARE :)

Quizzes :)

I've found QUIZZES on the net, like the stuff you see in Magazines to find out your personality etc... I dont really trust them 'cause they can not possibly give everyone their own unique outcome and you are lumped into a group of people you happened to get the same score.

the thing about this site is that they give you some code so you can put your results on your own page... so i'm giving it a try... (it also has a link at the bottom)

This one was "Are you a Princess, Enchantress, Faerie, Mermaid or Toad?"

So to the people who know me, how does this one rate with you?


You are a Mermaid, who sits on a rock in
the sea, looking and watching all humanity with
curiosity in your eyes. You have a two-sided
personality - On one hand, you revel in your
freedom and often prefer to live in your own
private dreams and on the other hand, humanity
intrigues you and you love watching on.

You
are actually very kind at heart and, hating to
see people hurt, you despise injustice. You
probably have one or two special friends, who
mean the world to you.

Also; you are probably
quite political, wanting to see justice done in
the world.

You are quite the dreamer, needing
your freedom and personal space to dream your
little dreams. You love to escape into a book
or some good music and just drift away.

Some
of your good points are that you are sensitive,
compassionate and a freethinker. Your bad
points are that you may come across as cool and
aloof to others and probably have a tendency to
depression.

You are the ultimate dreamer with
a kind - yet troubled heart.


Are you a Princess, Enchantress, Faerie, Mermaid or Toad? (with pictures!)
brought to you by Quizilla

I have decided....

That I am not going to the reunion

Bruiser ben Bean

This is Bruiser. Bean is his biological father. I like to wonder how he managed to be black and white. Bean is black and tan and Pepsi (his mum) is black.

Bean

Thought I'd try out the new image uploader thingy.

This is Bean one of my dogs. He is almost 10. I just love this photo because he looks like he is smiling for the camera.

I Have a Headache

But I just took some Nurofen Liquid Capsules for it, lets just see if they are faster acting.

OK I'm back, not that you would have noticed that I went anywhere. But after a 40 minute walk with my doggies by headache is pretty much gone, its now just one of those aches which is not quite there, but is, and is sort of kind of threatening to come back.

Did a doozy of a scatch on my car today. I hate that car so I dont really care.

Its Hard Writing a Blog....

when you are sitting on the floor leaning against the couch with the laptop on the coffee table and there is an anklebiter DOG climbing on your back and wiping his doodle on your shoulder.

Ahh but he's ma baby.

Rangering

For a short time now I have been toying with the idea of becoming a ranger.

I've now decided that I want to be the ranger of the Great Park in London. Now if you are familiar with this park or have been watching the TV program on channel 9 about the British Royal Family, the Great Park is the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Only problem is, in becoming the ranger of this park I will have to kill the Duke of Edinburgh and marry the Queen. Hehehehe

I think that will cause more scandal than the Camilla (Horsey) and Charles affair.

Random Rambling

So I finally got my car washed today and guess what? It is forecasted to rain all week. I wouldn't be so annoyed except that I have been waiting for it to rain (OK so most of NSW has) so IT could wash my car.

I also visited my sister today, so she could give me my B'day present. We ate rice balls and I found out that I quite like the Japanese strained(?) plums. Its salty/sour/tart and goes well with seaweed.

Hope you all noticed my new backround. It was a bit of trial and error, well if you look down the bottom there is a random moon in the "posts" bit. I cant merember the code that I deleted so its gonna stay that way.

MMMMMMMM the letter M. I guess we can thank Homer Simpson for certain people today for injecting the letter M into some words in which it can fit. ANGEMELA....CIGAMARETTES...SUBAMARU all because of SAXAMAPHONE.

I just wish I could either be sick or well not this kind of verging on the edge of being either. I think I'd rather be sick so I can take a few days off work. That kind of sucks that you'd rather be sick than go to work. Someone want to come round and break my arm?

Scary Phones

A while ago, Darkskies was telling me about her haunted phone (perhaps she could do a blog about it :) )

Well anyway this is my phone Story.

THE CASE OF THE PRANKSTER PHONE

Yesterday I arrived home from a job interview and there were 2 messages on the answering machine, but before I could listen to them I had to feed my dogs a shmacko each or otherwise they will just keep barking until I give them one (we have them soooo well trained). I'll start with the 2nd message first 'cause it was normal, it was just my dad asking how my interview went. BUT the 1st message was just plain wierd and you'll soon discover why it is a prankster phone.

First of all I would just like to add that I was home all day except from 4pm to 6:30pm and my dad started work at 2:30pm. Both calls happened when I was out, which is pretty normal 'cause I would have answered them if I was home.

So the 1st message starts off with hold music, its piano music, but I can't pick the melody. Then it starts ringing with the Brr brr, brr brr tone - you know the one. The the next noise is someone picking up the phone and then all of the sudden I hear my Aunt saying "HELLO, HELLO" then she hangs up!
So while I am out and my dad is at work the landline Phone is making prank calls to my Aunt! What a bastard!

I'm sure there is a logical explaination for this, but that just takes away the fun of the whole experience. (Oh yeah, it is one of those phones where you can store numbers, but the only number in it so far is my mobile #)








This phone is scary because it is YELLOW!

Genetically Engineered Food

I was reading on the UTS (University of Technology, Sydney or if you prefer Up The Shit) SA website about their food co-op shop and the first sentence I read is about filling people bellies up with good, nutritious food. Sounds good to me. Then it goes on a bit about something that happened in the 16th century blah blah blah....and that we treat the earth as a commodity. Well der of course we do, we probably have been since the sapien species emerged from the primordial goo, which was well beyond the 16th century for example, although it is not PC, the indigenous people of Australia were burning down pine forests to get their tasty morsel leaving parts of Australia with a primarily eucalypt population.

Anyway the point of this blog is not the history of human disturbances that has changed the biosphere but the possible impact of genetically engineered food.

But what is the point of playing around with the genes of plants and animals?

Genetic engineering of plants and animals has been occuring since people pretty much learnt how to put pen to hides (I only say this because there are no records of it otherwise). The first readily accessible evidence (that comes to mind) of GE is in the Torah, Genesis 30:37-30:43 to be precise, where Jacob took Labans sheep to mate with his sheep (it looks like artifical insemination to me with the rods and all) to produce a "special" flock. Does that mean we can't get a sheep that hasn't already been interferred with?

Now we zip forward to a century after the 16th C. to whom people call the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, who did his famous experiments with peas.

Genetic Engineering is not all Frankensteinish Flymen and mice with human ears growing out of their backs or adding bacteria to wheat to reduce the use of instecticides. It could be as simple as crossing this species of wheat with that species of wheat to produce something that could survive a sudden frost or a long drought. It is not evil, its evolution, humans are just helping it to happen faster.
Ok the former examples I used (not the flyman one) are happening and there should be a limit on what is allowed to be done, I grant you that, at least. Anyway I don't think coccus wheat is out in the market.

I guess people are scared of GE food because you don't know how it could effect the human body and to a lesser extent how it could effect the equilibrium of the environment (cause as you know we treat the environment as a commodity). Well stuff the human body, I'm sure a pharmaceutical company can come up with a drug to counteract the side effects, while giving us a few more side effects in the process.

Well so far I have not seen a major disturbance in the environment because of a GE wheat field, but I am not saying it could not happen, just we won't know until it does, if it does.

Could GE food be used to solve world hunger? Is another question people think of when it comes to GE. Well it could if you compare 100 acres of wild wheat to 100 acres of GE wheat. So UTS how many people are you going to feed with 100 acres of wild wheat? Well considering the fruit produced on one blade of wild wheat is hardly worth noting compared to hybrid wheat, not many peoples bellies will be filled and especially since wild wheat is only native to Israel, I dare you to pick it. So stop the BS about filling peoples bellies.

I guess like most food stores you sell bread products? Well the wheat they use to make the flour used for bread is a hybrid of 3 species. Ok the hybridisation happened thousands of years ago, its still GE'd.

Cultivation and Breeding:
Cultivation of wheat began around 7000 BC in the Euro-Asian region. Wild varieties were first collected and then purposely grown. Mutations and crosses led to bread wheat. Bread wheat originated from three different wild wheat varieties. It carries six times the normal chromosomal complement (hexaploid plant). Wild Emmer (Triticum dicoccoides) probably arose first, from wild Einkorn (Triticum boeoticum) and wild Spelt (Triticum speltoides). Through hybridisation with a further wild wheat (Triticum tauschii), Spelt (Triticum splelta) and bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) finally arose.

Truth is you probably wouldn't know if it is GE even if it bit you on the bottom.

Editing, Censorship and FOS in A Forum Community

I have recently been discussing, debating and arguing about editing, censorship and freedom of speech (FOS) on an online forum. As you know online forums are usually open to the international public where people get together to dicuss things (sorry I really cant be specific because they usually have topics ranging from what brush to use for your hair type to Sadaam having pictures taken in his underwear).

Now forums have administrators and appointed moderators to keep topics on-topic and to moderate (thus the name). There is also a trend to appoint moderators that have a similar political, religious or lifestyle views to the admin. Now when someone becomes a moderator, they gain a bit of power over the other ordinary members, part of this power includes being able to edit ones post if they deem it distatseful or downright abusive. Which seems fair enough considering the sensibilities of some members who are not used to that kind of language and in normal circumstances the way to get a posts edited or removed that you do not like is to alert the moderators and the moderators will change the post by removing or replacing the offensive word/s and by making a quick note that it has indeed been edited. And sometimes if the person being offensive is a repeat offender then they can be expelled from the forum.

Now, there are members who do not like that there are people out there with editing powers, especially in forums where it is suspected that the moderators are abusing this power. And these people tend to label any editing done as censorship. And this could very well be censorship considering the words excised are usually immoral. But why are you complaining? The thing is there would be no need for moderators with editing powers if people could show restraint over what they write and phrase their words in a more formal manner. But this could be alot harder to do than say.

Take into account say an individual from America who has grown up knowing that they can hide behind their constituation to be able to say what they please without fear of litigation. Freedom of speech is all well and good, but does it not also come with responsibilty? Anway, say this individual comes onto a majority black forum originating in Australia and starts spouting the ideals of the KKK (yes i know even the KKK can get in trouble for their ideals). So they start by editing this persons posts, instead of the derogatory word nigger, they replace it with something else or place the posts into a different, hidden from the general surfers, section Ahh yes censorship. So this KKK fan starts screaming that it is their right to freedom of speech to say these things and to stop censoring and editing. But what about freedom of speech? Well hate to tell ya Australia does not have freedom of speech. So it is not so much the moderators rights to edit these posts, but their duty perhaps? Although Aus is quite lenient, there is always someone who will take exception to this and could sue the hosts of the forum for allowing the slander to be on their website.

There is the general agreement that not only do you have to abide your own country's laws but also the Laws of the country of origin of the website (except for China, i think). This in itself is not a Law, lucky for some, but taking advantage of that fact is, well, selfish. So taking this into consideration do people have the right or is it their duty to edit and/or censor posts in a forum?

Fooling Around

Just fooling around with pictures

.