Will the Pope Touch You Downunder?
The World Youth Day Papal Circus is due in Sydney (Randwick Racecourse) for six hellish days at the end of July. So far, things have been going well for the God botherers in fancy dress, as the secular state bends like a choir boy to get that clerical shaft of approval.
First, the good people of New South Wales have forked out over $160 million of tax payers' money (up from $40 million and still rising) to defray the costs that the poor Church is facing. Then we found out that large parts of the city would be restricted, including locking people out of their own driveways, knocking down public trees, and generally inconveniencing people trying to get on with their normal, everyday lives. Now, to top it all off, we've discovered we can't take the piss out of these idiots or protest the Catholic Church's repugnant policy towards pedophiles, sex education, or contraception.
EXTRAORDINARY new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for "causing annoyance" to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.
The laws, which operate until the end of July, have the potential to make a crime of wearing a T-shirt with a message on it, undertaking a Chaser-style stunt, handing out condoms at protests, riding a skateboard or even playing music, critics say.
Police and volunteers from the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service will be able to direct people to cease engaging in conduct that "causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event".
People who fail to comply will be subject to a $5500 fine.
www.smh.com.au
These laws exceed anything that was put in place for the Olympics or APEC. Nice to know that being a skirt-wearing God botherer allows you to stop people from exercising their rights. Anti-abuse organisations have been specifically told that they must have any banners or T-shirts they wish to wear approved by the police (and no doubt through them, and the hard-core Catholic Police Commissioner, the Church) and must not protest at any of the main WYD sites or face arrest. So, first we rape your body as children and then we rape your rights as citizens. Great to see that the Church is still practicing the see no evil, hear no evil approach that let all these consecrated child molesters get away with abusing children for so long. Now, if all these annoying little people would just go away and let us worship our invisible friend in the sky in peace; at one with our misogyny and homophobia.
Hopefully, these laws are just going to provoke people to get very pissed and make their displeasure clear.
The director of GetUp.org.au, Brett Solomon, did not rule out a campaign of protests or pranks among his 280,000 members to highlight what he called the "absurdity" of the rules, even if it meant fines of $5500. Many had not been angry before about the papal visit. "We could organise 1000 people in annoying or inconvenient T-shirts to people the route," he said.
The groups planning protests include anti-homophobia and pro-contraception organisations, atheists, agnostics, gay- and lesbian-friendly churches, victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, and civil libertarians.
www.smh.com.au
I was going to ignore the entire process, but now my annoying shirt and I are going to get an outing because I'll be damned if my rights are going to be impinged to protect the delicate sensibilities of people who believe they eat human flesh every Sunday.
An Army Travels On Its Stomach, While A Navy Floats On Its Fake Tits
Even during an election year, not every governmental non-event can be properly inflated by both politicians and the media into a full-blown non-scandal. To really grab the attention of the public, you need something extra. Like wide-stanced homosexual foot-tapping (in public restrooms, not in the audience for the Broadway musical version of Xanadu).
Or in Australias case, tits.
See, didnt that catch your eye?
Yes, on the eve of the upcoming Australian general election, the opposition Labor Party has brought up the ever-important wedge issue of tits.
Specifically, the new fake tits belonging to two female sailors in the Australian Navy.
These controversial fake tits were paid for by Australian taxpayers, as opposed to politically acceptable methods of fake tit payment such as a pile of sweat-and-glitter-soaked $20 bills fished out of a strippers g-string or cashing out a trust fund for a daughters graduation gift in lieu of a pony.
Australias Department Of Defence defends the fake tits, claiming that they were approved for psychological reasons, not simply to make the sailors look sexy. However, the Labor Party has grabbed on to the fake tit issue, claiming that allowing taxpayer money to fund free cosmetic surgery for people in the Australian military smacks of a government out of touch.
In case you think the non-issue of fake tits and real guns doesnt translate well across the Pacific, think again. In the United States, a similar non-scandal perked up back in 2004 when an article in the New Yorker exposed our militarys own set of fake tits.
Yes, the United States military also uses taxpayer funds to pay for cosmetic surgery. However, the Army, the Air Force and the Navy were quick to dispel the impression that Vivid Video was now a co-sponsor, clarifying that while some cosmetic surgical procedures were offered for free or at a reduced cost to active-duty soldiers, they took a back seat to reconstructive surgeries and allowed military surgeons to improve their overall skills.
Personally, Im not opposed to offering cosmetic surgery as a perk to folks in our armed forces. Of course, Id hope that they were also offered enough body armor and time with their families, but apparently you go to ill-advised poorly planned war with the fake tits you have, not the fake tits you want to have.
If anything, I think the United States military should pay for more surgical procedures for our troops and their family members.
Like, say, abortions.
Under current federal law, the United States military cannot pay for abortions except in cases of incest, rape or when the life of the mother is in danger.
When the pregnant wife of a Navy sailor discovered the child she was carrying suffered from severe brain damage and would not survive past childbirth and decided to have an abortion, the Navy told her shed have to pay all of the $3,000 cost. Unable to afford the medical costs, she sued the Navy and won, only to have the ruling overturned by a federal appeals court.
At least once shes done using her minimum-wage salary to pay off her medical debts and has dealt with the emotional anguish of having lost her child, the Navy might just reward her with something thats obviously a much more important use of taxpayer funds.
Fake tits!
Tuesday Tasting: 16-year-olds, Douchebags and Boothbabes
Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.
Porn Filter Hacked by 16-year-old
ICYMI (In Case You Missed It, for the less txt savvy) around the porn-hungry PG-rated blogs, an Australian 16-year-old hacked the country's porn filter within 30 minutes of it going live. The $84 million boob blocker was developed to originally keep the kiddies away from kinky sites. The Australian government didn't let their guard down after the first hack, however, and created a second filter, which, again, was penetrated by Tom Wood, the 16-year-old hacker. Though each site that reports on this story states that Mr. Wood could have a future in the porn industry with his name and now cred, we at SG would like to be given SOME credit for being a little more original than that.
Where's Waldouche?
While not quite the "latest in sex and tech", this has the same never-gets-old appeal as LOLcats. Hot Chicks With Douchebags is certainly a reason to love everything that's social media. Daily photos of, you guessed it, hot chicks with douchebags are posted and commented on around the clock. With more than enough content, we now just have to wait for the Wall Street Journal to pick it up a few months from now and debate if it's still funny when it went "mainstream".
Sony PSP Encourages You To Play With Boothbabes
Gaming blogs are still pitching tents over the recent Penny Arcade Expo. With so many buttons and boothbabes, it's understandably easy to be overwhelmed. Sony's slim PSP promotion attempted to push the proximity of the two together by apparently "tethering" the slim PSPs to the boothbabes themselves. Joystiq reports that the cables weren't very long: "This led to some kind of awkward situations where you all up in their personal space and playing with something right next to the front of their pants. Needless to say, Star Wars: Battlefront turned out to be incredibly difficult to play."
Teen Breaks Through Australian Anal Wall
Australia is retarded. There, I said it. The whole continent. All the people living on it. Retarded. Except for one teenager. He is smart. How could I reach such a conclusion about an entire continent? Because of the way Australia is handling porn. Sweet, sweet porn.
The Australian government created an $84 million porn filter for the Internet The NetAlert filter was released on Tuesday and the country rejoiced because Australias children we so very much safer. Kids could go back to being kids and would no longer have to endure the relentless thrusting of cocks in and out of vaginas on their monitors. Australia had managed to do what American politicians cannot: Turn all of Australia into a 1950s sitcom.
The countrys new Leave It To Beaver bliss lasted about 30 minutes. That is how long it took 16-year-old student Tom Wood to break through the porn filter. That is $84 million well spent.
Tom, who attends a Melbourne private school, can deactivate the filter after several clicks.
His method ensures the software's toolbar icon is not deleted.
He can leave his parents believing the filter is still working.
Thirty minutes. Im going to go on record here and say that governments should not waste money on programs like porn filters. Any software creator who is even slightly talented will not work at a low paying government job when they can make much more money at a private company. The result is a porn filter that can be cracked by teenagers, who are probably savvier than the idiot who created the system anyway.
Also, maybe parents should be the porn filters. Why the fuck does the government have to be involved in whether or not kids see sweet, sweet porn? I find government involvement in who sees porn to be more obscene than a cock penetrating a womans anus over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Oof. Heres an idea: Keep the computer in the living room, or another space where kids can always be watched. Throw your own software on your own computer to keep the kids off Suicide Girls. The fact that governments needs to keep kids from watching sex is retarded. Especially when violent images seem to be okey-dokey. Money shot or gun shot? That is the question.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan said the government had anticipated children would find ways to get around the NetAlert filters.
Really? In 30 minutes? Bullshit.
Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important.
Uh, yeah. I guess that is why you spent $84 million on a useless porn filter.
Sixteen-year-old Tom explained to the situation to the government
"It's a horrible waste of money," he said. "They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one."
I think young Tom is applying for a job.
FearTheReaper knows America is really weird about porn, also. But that does not mean he cant rip on an island of criminal spawn when they deserve it.
Qantas: the Republican Airline
Some airlines get angry if you ask for extra peanuts. Some don't think it's funny when you try and sneak into first class. Others won't let you on the plane if they think your carry-on luggage won't fit in the overhead bin. On Qantas, Australia's airline, apparently they've taken things a step furtheryou can't criticize George W. Bush, or offend anyone. Just ask Allen Jasson, who was recently detained on a Qantas flight for wearing a T-shirt with "World's #1 Terrorist" printed above a rendering of Bush's face.
The 55-year-old computer specialist, who lives in London, had encountered difficulties with the same T-shirt on an earlier Qantas flight in December.
After clearing the international security checks at Melbourne Airport, he reportedly approached the gate manager to congratulate him on the company's new-found open-mindedness.
At that point, Mr. Jasson was ordered to remove the T-shirt after being told it was a security threat and an item which might cause offence to other passengers.
He was offered the chance to board the flight wearing different clothing, but refused.
"I am not prepared to go without the T-shirt. I might forfeit the fare, but I have made up my mind that I would rather stand up for the principle of free speech," he told Australian media.
A Qantas spokesman defended the airline's decision, saying: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated".
So the airline banned Jasson from flying on the plane because the risk that his T-shirt criticizing George W. Bush proved unacceptable, on the off-chance that it would offend someone else on the flight. This seems like an incredibly short sighted policy. Virtually anything can be considered offensive to someone, people have some really stupid sensibilities. As a blanket policy that nothing can ever offend anyone, Qantas is opening themselves up to criticism on a variety of different fronts when the inevitable weirdos start coming out of the woodwork, complaining that anything and everything offends them too.
Fool Girls for a Little While With the WonderJock
When Size and Comfort Really Matter. WonderJock.
AussieBum, the Australian fashion company, has produced the male counterpart to the female Wonderbra. The Wonderjock is a line of underwear designed to enhance the apparent size of the wearer's genitalia. AussieBum founder Sean Ashby explains the magic of the underwear.
"It basically lifts, separates and extends," Ashby said, quoted by the national AAP news agency.
"This design uses all of the natural assets of the person, whether they be big, small or indifferent."
The secret behind the underwear is a wondercupa pouch designed to "separate and stop squashing" men's nasty bits.
The new line, launched last month, has already attracted a lot of interest in the United States and Europe, where people are generally pretty crazy. Not that the underwear doesn't sell itself, AussieBum uses the following slogan in its marketing campaign to seduce the underendowed:
Your country has never been prouder and neither have you! The new 'wondercup' technology in these attention-grabbing, all-cotton Patriot briefs will have you seriously looking bigger and feeling amazing.
The underwear lists at $15.58 a pair, a small price to pay to make yourself feel bigger and badder than ever. That is, until you take them off and realize you're still you.
Religious Leader says Women Deserve Rape
The highest Islamic authority in Australia believes that women who dress "immodestly" deserve to be raped. Time yet again to celebrate our multicultural diversities and show our respect for all religious beliefs:
THE nation's most senior Muslim cleric has blamed immodestly dressed women who don't wear Islamic headdress for being preyed on by men and likened them to abandoned "meat" that attracts voracious animals.
...
"But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he asked.
The leader of the 2000 rapes in Sydney's southwest, Bilal Skaf, a Muslim, was initially sentenced to 55 years' jail, but later had the sentence reduced on appeal.
In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?
"The uncovered meat is the problem."
The sheik then said: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."
He said women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men.
"It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa)."
Sneaker Freaker: Issue 8 Releases Today
This week, I spoke at a conference in L.A. along with some really interesting artists, designers and otherwise opinionated creatives. One of the other panelists was Woody (a.k.a. Simon Wood) from Australia, who runs a great magazine called SNEAKER FREAKER (or SNKR FRKR, depending on what point you began subscribing) dedicated to the international love of the sneaker, of course.
In each issue you can expect to find well written and researched stories on all aspects of sneaker culture such as interviews with shoe designers, guides to the best stores in Asia, Europe and the USA, new product reviews, custom sneakers, dozens of fresh styles, rare vintage kicks, skate stuff, performance gear roadtests, news of collabs, artist series and of course, all the super hard to get shit. We cover all the big guys like Nike, Puma, Pony, Onitsuka, New Balance, Vans and adidas, as well as all the obscure Japanese brands and the indies like Creative Rec, RTFT, Feit and Pointer.
Stay tuned for issue 8 release today (release parties in L.A. and Amsterdam), and for those who missed out on the backlog of now sold out issues, pick up a copy of the Sneaker Freaker Book.
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Hoff: The Man, The Myth, The Musical
Nope, this isn't a joke. The man of a thousand comebacks, David Hasselhoff, is set to hit the Australian stage in a singing/dancing spectacle based on his life.
Aptly titled "David Hasselhoff: The Musical," the show was reportedly inspired by "The Young and the Restless," "Knight Rider," and the songs of Teddy Pendergrass.
Fortunately, The Hoff seems in on the gag and says the show will be "totally campy." On the other hand, hes also calling it a heart-rendering set on my life and the mistakes I have made."
He doesnt say if "Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical" was one of those mistakes.
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The Walkmen Get Release Dates.
The Walkmen's latest disc A Hundred Miles Off has gotten its internaltional papers in order and is headed over seas.
The Australian release date is August 7th on Speak & Spell. The Uk release date is September 18th.
There is also news on their website of a 4th record on the way called "Pussycats" Starring The Walkmen which has a US release date of October 24th. "Pussycats" is said to be a track by track cover of Harry Nilson's 1974 drug-fueled record of the same name, produced by none other than John Lennon. He was in the Beatles.
So that being true, we already have the tracklisting (the times may be off):
"Many Rivers to Cross" (Jimmy Cliff) - 4:56
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" (Bob Dylan) - 3:17
"Don't Forget Me" (Nilsson) - 3:37
"All My Life" (Nilsson) - 3:11
"Old Forgotten Soldier" (Nilsson) - 4:14
"Save the Last Dance for Me" (Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman) - 4:25
"Mucho Mungo" (John Lennon) / "Mt. Elga" (Nilsson adpt.) - 3:43
"Loop De Loop" (Ted Vann) - 2:40 - featuring the Masked Alberts Kids Chorale
"Black Sails" (Nilsson) - 3:15
"Rock Around the Clock" (Jimmy DeKnight, Max C. Freedman) - 3:12
If you missed the Walkmen June tour, they would like you to know;
We'll be doing more shows later this summer and
thoughout the fall in the U.S., the U.K., and mainland Europe. We'll have dates soon. We have a really nice live version
of Another One Goes By on the internet here. Ok have a nice summer.
To listen to that track of which they spoke: Pop on over to RS
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