12 billion bucks

I don't understand why it is a budget priority to suck America's cock. This is no doubt why we are buying ridiculously expensive war planes. But it is not just the cock-sucking or the ludicrous waste of money that is the problem.

The real problem with owning such fancy toys is that having spent so much money, people in power are then more inclined to use them. I can just imagine the call from the US President in a couple of years. "Hi little buddy, you've got some really fucking fancy planes just sitting there. How about we go bomb some shit?" I'm guessing that's pretty much what happened in the last couple of wars.

New Zealand has wisely avoided wasting too much money on stuff like this. As a result the US is generally happy if they contribute a few lamb roasts to any war effort.  

If we really do want to bomb some shit I also question whether we need planes which cost a few hundred million a pop. For just a few hundred bucks you can buy a drone from a hobby shop - strap some bombs to that and voila, you've just achieved the same goal.

As much as anyone dislikes terrorists, you would have to say they are getting far better bang for their buck than Western governments. When they want to blow something up they generally spend a little money on liquid fertiliser and a little more on a beat-up old van. That's way more economical than a $12 billion fleet of planes.

Thrifty, nimble terrorists are always pretty good at fighting big expensive war machines. They are pretty much like annoying flies buzzing around the room and we are like Chief Wiggum trying to shoot these flies with a gun. The result is lots of big holes in the wall and no reduction in flies.

Of course, people will tell us that the big threat we are guarding against is not terrorists but an invasion by China. Why would they bother invading us? They already own a good proportion of our country and they could easily buy the rest without the trouble of a war. We hardly even charge them any tax on what their state owned mining companies dig up.

If we are going to piss our money away let's not do it on fighter planes. We should choose something far more fun. I say we develop more giant sculptures like the big banana, but we make them really fucking big (like the Mona Lisa, the big banana is currently a bit of a disappointment). Let's make it 300 metres tall and put a slide down it. How brilliant would that be?

Then we could probably put a big cock in Canberra. Oh, that's right, we already did...

Is there an app for that?

I was visiting Centennial Park today and there was a huge banner out the front advising me to "download our new iPhone app".

This led me to question "why the fuck would I need an app to visit a park?"

Does it contain advise on how to feed a duck? Does it tell me how to ride a bike around in circles? Does it tell me what to put in my fucking picnic basket?

I've got a better idea - if you are going to the park leave your stupid fucking iPhone behind. Enjoy nature, rather than staring at a stupid little screen, taking self-conscious selfies and posting them on social media so a whole lot of people you don't care about can see what a fucking awesome time you are having at the park.

Criticism

Tony Abbott is now preventing public servants from issuing any criticism of the government. The major problem I see with this is not  that Tony Abbott is turning into Kim Jong Un but the fact that criticism should be welcomed.

Criticism is what makes thinks better. Conformity and sycophancy just don't have the same progressive effect. If I was just told that I was fucking awesome all the time I might still be playing the recorder and making people's ears bleed.

Even John Howard was willing to accept criticism. For years he was criticised for having ridiculously long eyebrows. Eventually he accepted that criticism and had them neatly trimmed. It was an improvement. There were a number of matters on which he probably should have taken far more notice of the critics, but at least he didn't attempt to shut them down altogether.

Fear of criticism can force people in power to do the right thing. It's a bit like having a conscience. When you remove the ability of people to criticise you, you remove this conscience. Chances are you then end up like every other dictator who has monumentally fucked up their country.

Free speech should not be a right reserved for bigots.

Sorry Tony, I'm not employed by the government so you can't fire me for saying this.

Value proposition

Would you rather spend $100 million dollars to locate 239 dead people or to allow 4 million blind people to see? Personally, I'd choose to restore people's sight.

The search for the Malaysian airlines plane is fucking expensive and has only a limited chance of success. The reasons so much money has been poured into it are:

1. Plane crashes attract a lot of cameras and when there are a lot of cameras politicians like to look like they are doing something.
2. The lawyers want to know who to sue and they can't really do that without finding the black box.
3. The military don't really have anything to do so sending planes and ships out into the Indian Ocean keeps them occupied.

The Fred Hollows Foundation says they can restore the sight of someone for $25. To me doing that for four million people seems like far more of a win than locating some wreckage at the bottom of the ocean.

Even if they do locate the wreckage it would be horrific if they attempt to recover the bodies. If I were a relative of the deceased I certainly would not want some robot drone clawing at their decomposed corpse.
Perhaps it is time we let the people on board the plane rest in peace and spend our money helping people who can actually be helped.

Outsourced pooches and pointless pain

Strolling through my local park I find it once again populated by the usual mix of personal trainers and professional dog walkers. In one corner people are running around with grim, pained expressions on their faces, clearly questioning what the hell they are doing there. They are there because they have already paid a man in short shorts a considerable amount to yell at them for ten one hour sessions.

It reminds me of footy training, just minus the fun or sense of future purpose. What exactly are they training for? There will be no tries scored. There will be no glorious victories. There will be no huddling around, loudly singing the team song in a change room filled with the heady aroma of mud, stale urine and tiger balm.

Sure, some may achieve a vain goal of becoming a tad less tubby but we all know those few kilos will be quickly put back on. Soon the weather will grow colder and hiding under a doona will become a far more attractive proposition than being yelled out by a man in short shorts. It is the very definition of a pointless exercise.

Meanwhile the car park is rapidly filling up with the vans of the professional dog walkers. The precious pups of the rich and lazy quickly jump out, all eager to be in an environment where they won’t get told off for peeing on expensive furnishings.

It seems a little odd. Surely one of the primary reasons for owning a dog is the joy of going for walks with it. You breathe the fresh air, you get some exercise and you get to know the neighbours as their dogs try awkwardly to mount your dachshund.

Perhaps these absent dog owners are too posh to throw slobbery sticks and pick up poo. Maybe they are just working too many hours so they can afford to pay for all those modern day necessities like the dog walker, the mobile dog groomer and the car wash place which serves lattes whilst vacuuming up all the dog hair.   

While such outsourcing is now commonplace, brutal cost cutting is also a growing trend. In this light, I believe there is a way to stop people from unnecessarily dolling out dosh for personal trainers and professional dog walkers.

Surely a free service could be developed which matches people who want exercise with dogs in need of a walk. Very unfit people could start by borrowing a fat Labrador and gradually work their way up to running beside a greyhound. It would be fantastic. The dogs would get walked, people would get fit and my park could once again be a park, rather than a place of business.

Size 35

I have previously blogged about the annoyance of having a 35 inch waist and having to squeeze in to stupidly tight 34 inch pants or get 36 inch pants that instantly fall down and expose my hairy arse crack. Buy a belt people say, but surely in this age of technology we can do better than punching a few holes in a strip of dead cow and strapping it around us.Go on a diet people say, but that would deprive me of one of the main joys of life and would only work for two months before I cleaned out an entire bakery and be faced with the same problem. Surely we can just have pants that fit.

I want to start a clothing label for all those many people who are in between sizes. I will  sell 35 inch pants and size 11 dresses. People will finally feel comfortable and I will become ridiculously rich and buy a stupidly large boat that I never use.

I'll take one

Transfield has just been awarded a $1.2 billion contract to run our overseas detention centres. That works out at more than $1000 per detainee, per day. So Tony, if you happen to be reading this how about I do you a deal. I'll take one of those refugees for the budget price of just $500 a day. He can be my personal butler and live in my spare room. I wouldn't shoot him so you could save yourself some embarrassment. You'd save loads of taxpayers' money and I would get rich. Everyone wins!