Get Off Your High Horse!

Politics have never really interest me. Honestly I couldn’t care less about what really goes behind closed doors within the government. In my eyes just about every politician are a bunch of liars, and the honest ones? Well... if there are any they are clouded among the cheats, liars and made up facts that try to worry us about issues and problems we really shouldn’t care about. Sort of like a marketing company trying to promote products we don’t really need.

With my lack of knowledge about politics, I know even less about the US political campaign. I sort of have a little understanding that currently both President Obama and Mitt Romney are fighting for approval of the American people before the presidential campaign starts in November 2012.

Despite all of this, something really caught my attention this week. Back in March of 2011, Donald Trump went to the media and demanded – not asked – for President Obama to release his birth certificate. Why Trump is making a fuss that the President shows his birth certificate? I have absolutely no idea. I suppose it was really just to prove that Obama was a citizen of the USA. After what seems like weeks of originally ignoring Trumps ranting – this seemed to fuel the public – President Obama finally released his birth certificate. Which still didn’t make people happy (especially Donald Trump), as a lot of people claimed it was fake.

Donald Trump was than publicly humiliated during a White House Correspondents dinner. Claiming that not only has he shown his birth certificate, but for everyone in the room he has a copy of his birthing video. Which just happen to be the famous scene from The Lion King. Again, I don’t know much about politics, but... touché!

Now about a year and a bit later, Trump is in the news once more pointing fingers at President Obama. He claims that President Obama is the least transparent President that the country has ever had. He even feels ‘honoured’ that he was behind the campaign for President Obama to finally release his birth certificate (even though he still claims that it is a fake). But this time, Trump wants more. This time, he wants President Obama to release ‘His college records and applications... Passport applications and records... (he) will give to the charity of (Obama’s) choice... 5 million dollars.’

I am not kidding. Trump actually wants the president of the United States of America to disclose personal and private information about himself, and he will give away to any charity of Obama’s choosing, 5 million dollars. The first thing that sprang to my mind was not only is this guy is an idiot, but 5 million dollars is honestly just change for this billionaire. I mean honestly? 5 million dollars? For me personal, that is more than I could ever ever want. But for billionaire Donald trump. This is nothing. He probably doesn’t get out of bed for anything less than 5 million.

Another thing that sprang to mind was, with all that money that he has, shouldn’t he be donating to charity anyway? Without having to bribe the President of the country he lives in? And I’m not talking about his reality TV show here. Because that isn’t really charity is it?

I honestly think this is another media stunt, and he is making a fool of himself in the meantime. What does he honestly think he will gain from all of this? The even funny thing is that Trump released this on YouTube, with the comment section disabled. Maybe he is a little afraid of what the trolls will do to his dwindling reputation?

 

Joking aside, if you look back to the YouTube video when Trump appeared on the video first requesting the birth certificate of Obama, he said that he wanted proof that he was born within the USA. When he was asked back in March, “Why didn’t you ask George W. Bush for his birth certificate?” his response was “George Bush was born in this country.” Without really answering the question. Why all of a sudden interest in this President? Out of all the 44 Presidents that America has had? Why this one? Honestly I couldn’t care less what hidden agenda Trump has. But coming out and publically bribing your own president is a really cheap shot, which will only make you look like a fool. How about you focus on the more important things in the world, and actually step down from that high horse you call a tower.

Another case of simple ignorance!

During the weekend, as most people would have either sat down to watch the second rounds of the NRL finals and complain about Manly's two tries (which myself I'm still 50/50 about) there was a very large protest within the streets of the Sydney CBD. I'm sure I do not have remind everyone what the protesting was about and why it had started. It started off as a very peaceful protest within Hyde Park, but soon became very violent where several protesters and police were badly injured in the process. I'd like to say straight off the bat that any form of violence is unacceptable!

The main reason why I wanted to start this blog is not necessary in regards to the protest itself, but what has happened after the protest. Newspaper articles - particularly that of Peter FitzSimons - telling people who believe in imaginary friends and "To go back where you came from." Any Australian to tell that to another person within Australia is just plainly stupid. Are you forgetting how Australia was founded?

I have two main beefs with his article. Firstly Peter is furious that this whole protest which turned unnecessarily violent was in regards people who 'don't like a freaking video!' Well I hate to point out the obvious there Pete, but if the video was about people hating a country, whether it be this one or any of the major populated countries, you would have a completely different view! If someone came and interviewed anyone of us about our opinion on this lovely brown land, and turned our words into something hateful I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more protest about this worldwide. So picking in people's belief, no matter what it is - and especially insulting their beliefs by saying its just imaginary friends - really shows how much of an imbecile you really are.

My other beef is that it picks on religion. Yes, what they've done was wrong. Yes it was horrific and people should not have been injured, but why are you whining to a newspaper? Get off your butt and do something proactive! Liking a picture on Facebook isn’t solving any of these problems.

What I want to know is where is your article about the other horrific things that are done every single day all across the globe? Where's your article about world hunger? Where is your article about rape, not only against adults but also against young children? Where is your article about war? How governments use war as an excuse to terrify people and to take the other countries valued possessions? Where is your article about countries stealing other countries property and never returning those valuable precious artifacts? Where is your article about how women still get paid less in the 21st century! Where is your article about domestic violence? Where is your article about people injuring animals? Where is your article about the innocent people who are condemned to die every year for something that they didn’t do? Or even just for something that they wanted to stand up against?

People need to stop using other peoples religious belief as a form of venting their anger, and focus on other things that are really more important in the world. I cannot speak for all religious people,  but I have a feeling that a lot of people with beliefs are disgusted with what happened within these riots as much as I am.

50 Shades of Crap!

From as long as I can remember, I've never given into any hype whatsoever. Unless it was a favourite band of mine, TV shows etc that I have loved for years. Even when the big phenomenon of Harry Potter was happening for years, I didn't decide to read any of the books until the very last book was released. Then I decided for myself whether I liked a series of books or not. This is simply because I like to choose for myself what I like, and not give in to the puff. I really cannot explain it. I honestly think it has to do that when everything is said and done and when all the dust settles, something new comes along and any hype that did occur has moved onto something new, leaving the old hype behind.

So when the book 50 Shades of Grey was released I was intrigued. I didn't know what to make of it, and the only thing that I knew about the book was that some scenes within the book are very explicit and that the author of the book got her inspiration from Twilight. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I dislike Twilight with a passion. It wasn't until last year that I decided to sit down and watch a couple of the Twilight movies, as I thought 'I've been saying how much I don't like Twilight, when the only information that I got is from the internet and I never formed my own real opinion.' But as I soon found quickly enough, it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Now before I go on about the reasons why I don't like 50 Shades of Grey, spoiler alert warning to anyone who hasn't read the book and are thinking of reading it.

This book comes very very close to the reasons why I do not like Twilight. The main female character in the book (Anastasia) has no spine whatsoever. In the 21st Century to come across any fiction about a female character who gives in and let people walk all over her annoys me. Women for centuries have been fighting for their right to speak up and let it be known that they aren’t inferior, and this book puts all that to shame.

Christian the main male character in the book and also Anastasia’s love interest is a complete and utter control freak. From the moment he meets Anastasia, he warns her countless times that he is a bad person to know and that she should run for the hills. And at the beginning of the book when she tries to forget about him, he either meets up with her again just to see her or sends her expensive gifts, which draw her back to him and the whole process starts all over again.

When he finds out that she doesn't have a computer (though how a college student almost graduate has survived 4 years without a computer is beyond me), he buys her the most expensive MAC computer which hasn't been released yet. And why a major CEO of a very large corporation uses a MAC computer, is beyond me as well.

When she doesn't reply to a phone call or email right away, he decides then to buy her a new Blackberry phone so she can constantly be in contact with him without any excuses. Later on when he sees the type of car she drives, he automatically doesn't like it and decides to buy her a new car. Through all this she is protesting, but very very little. Doesn’t really put up any kind of fight at all and within moments decides to keep everything he has bought her and the subject is dropped.

Christian is also a complete stalker. No matter where she seems to be, he always is around the corner. In one part of the book she tells him that she needs to get away for a few days to visit her mum so that she can have a bit of vacation time after her graduation, guess where she finds him on the second day of her holiday apparently contemplating buying land in the area. Yeah right!

Though funnily enough, Christian to me isn’t the bad guy. Despite everything that he does, he isn’t really the reason why I’ve come close many times to through the book across the room. It’s the female character. This is mainly because Christian tells Ana constantly that she has a choice in what happened. If he does something she doesn’t like, to tell him know what her feelings are about the situation or just simply walk away. Now I understand that she is in complete thrall with Christian and doesn’t just want to walk away, but she he ample opportunity to express her opinion.

As I mentioned before, she has no spine whatsoever. She doesn’t stand up for any of her beliefs at all. She lets everyone walk all over her. Even a good male friend of hers tries to make a move on her while she is intoxicated, Christian comes to the rescue (being the stalker he is), and just about the very next day while her friend has been trying to call her all day to apologize, she forgives him and gives him a big hug and pretends it never happened!

Her best friend and roommate warns her countless times that she doesn’t think that Christian is a good man for her, as she is constantly seeing Ana upset all the time, never at one point does she listen to her best friend of 4 years advice. Even though the book mentions that her best friend likes to prey constantly and never let a subject go. But apparently, when it comes to Ana’s relationship with Christian she is suddenly distracted and drops the conversation.

There is also no real plot to the story either. Everything is pretty much skipped and missed without any real detail. Excluding of course the explicit scene in the book, which tells every tiny detail – and sometimes ever gross detail? While she is at her graduation, her best friend tells an amazing speech apparently. What the speech is about, I have absolutely no idea as the book doesn’t mention what the speech is about. Christian also has a speech during this graduation and reveals a lot about himself which Ana is very shocked as he rarely reveals anything about himself. What it was about, have no idea either! All we know is that he didn’t have much food when he was younger, which could mean a lot of things.

Though I can somewhat understand maybe why anyone would both to read all three books within the series. I suppose to find out whether Ana suddenly gets a back bone and stands up for herself, and maybe to see if the relationship at all can last between an utter control freak stalker, and a complete spineless gutless woman.

Driving Me Crazy!

For as long as I can recall, I’ve never had the urge to drive. Sure, as the years went by I did like all the new features which newer models of cars possessed. Though it never really persuaded me to go out and get a license, or to save up and buy the car of my dreams. A few times I have given into pestering from family, friends or boyfriends and have tried to learn (don’t think I did too badly either), but I never really thought to myself ‘Wow. This is the most amazing thing ever. Why didn’t I accomplish this years ago!’

Unlike most people, since I do work in the CBD I actually do love catching public transport wherever I go. Sure, I’ll admit there are a few pet hates about catching public transport, but never have I had an experience so bad that I reached boiling point and thought to myself, “That’s it! I’m going to start driving wherever I go!”

Because of this choice that I’ve made, it has amazed me how many people do not like this choice. They feel it absolutely necessary to voice their opinions very loud and very clear to me, that the choice that I’ve made on not learning to drive is the most absurd thing that they’ve heard.

I’ve been told countless of times over the years that driving is a necessity. It’s not something you want to do; it’s something that you need to do. If this is really the case, then please explain to me why I am not – nor have I ever - stood in the middle of a shopping centre with a trolley filled with purchases wishing that I knew how to drive as it would be a bugger to get all these home.

Another reason that people give me is that it’s the ultimate freedom. That if I was ever bored at home or with whatever situation I am current in, that I could just grabs my car keys and drive to any place your heart – and the road- can take you. The funny thing about this is that it usually comes from people who most likely have never left the state let alone the country. Whereas I have travelled almost all over the world and even had the opportunity to not only see but touch the amazing pyramids of Egypt!
My usual response though, is that my multipass ticket of allows me to catch whichever bus, train and ferry that I desire and go wherever I want to go. The even amazing thing about this wonderful ticket of mine is that not only do I not have to stop for petrol, but I also do not have to worry about traffic, idiots on the road who do not know how to drive and also many other countless things drivers complain about.

It is almost as if that learning and being able to drive or have a licence is part of a cult, which they quickly want to add more members to, so that everyone else can join in and complain about. Petrol prices, cost of insurance, registration, toll prices, bank repayments, and mechanic fees which it seems that a majority of people do not really know what they are being charged for, but will not only happily pay their mechanic (with a bit of a grumble), but feel it part of some invisible terms and condition clause that they must moan about for the next several weeks.
While they do all this, I am more than happy to catch public transport. The only real worry that I have is making sure that I am at the bus stop/train station a little early, finding a seat (which honestly doesn’t concern me), and what is going to be my entertainment for the 45 minute train ride to the CBD. A book to read? MP3 or MP4 player? Or what I love to call ‘entertainment’ within the train itself (though honestly that’s more for the evening journey home).

When I was confronted with the question “Why don’t you drive?” I’d try many excuses that I could think of. It’s environmentally friendly. I get to meet a lot of people on the train. It gives me time to unwind after a very long day at work. I have no need for it right now. None of these reasons were ever good. I have now simply decided to say the truth. That I don’t drive, because I choose not to.
I have always had the usual response that I will regret it when I am older. I am now in my 30s and my response still is, “Well when I start complaining about the whole driving matter, feel free to tell me ‘I told you so.’ Until then, leave me be.”

The usual misconception from everyone is that I either hate or fear driving. This is the furthest thing from the truth. I do not hate driving, nor do I hate people who do drive. Though I will admit that I do dislike seeing people who drink and drive and have total disregard for their fellow man. But honestly, you confront these type of behaviour no matter where you go, and whether it is behind the wheel of a car or within public transport you cannot escape people who do not think about the consequences of their actions.
I also do not fear driving, as I had been learning for almost a year. I just didn’t like that fact that I was trapped in metal box, alone with only the radio for company. Whereas on public transport, I am completely surround by everyday people, and my on the rare chance will bump into someone I know and start a conversation with them in the journey.

I can honestly say the one thing that I will not be doing on my journey to work, is be in the bumper to bumper traffic, yelling at someone who has just cut me off, be a victim of road rage, or be rear ended by some idiot who didn’t look where they were going. This would mean that I would have to pull over and exchange insurance details, to only find out they don’t have insurance.

So while all your drivers out there give me that little smirk about the fact that I do not know how to drive, I will also most likely be the one who will be at the shopping centre or concert on time, because you’re all too busy looking for a parking space. Now if you excuse me I wrote this on the train home, and would like to go back to reading my book.

Beware of Hackers!

I’m sure all of us at one point or another purchased something with our savings or credit card, and before the words APPROVED flashed up on our screen have said a little prayer to ourselves (or crossed our fingers) in hopes that it all went through OK. This usually happens because we hope that there are funds within the account. For some people this is usually because we have over spent, or for some unfortunate people, because they have been a victim of hacking. If you haven’t been a victim of hacking, then we all know someone who has.

We can be careful all we want, but the reality is that it is real, and that you won’t be aware of when it happens as it could happen to anyone of us any day. Unfortunately for most people that this happens to, don’t realise how major this issue is until it does happen. Not only do you lose whatever funds are left within your account, but they can continue taking that money until your account is frozen. They can also steal other details from you – personal details – like your driver’s licence and then you will also become a victim of identity theft. Honestly, as scary as this may all seem, it is really only the tip of the iceberg. Stolen identity, loss of funds, anything that you use your computer for hacked into. Even your Facebook page, and your email will be view and maybe even your password changed so the humour and entertainment of hackers.

There are many ways that these types of thieves or hackers and access this type of information first. The most common is an email. They will pretend to be your bank, your internet provider, phone companies and many other companies saying that they need to upgrade their information for ‘security purposes’. They will even make everything look authentic. Big logos, signature at the bottom, official stamps... the list goes on. If you receive an email asking for anything personal, do not reply to it. If you think it actually may be your bank trying to contact you, the best advice I can give you is to call your bank, phone company etc directly and ask them about the email that you received. It is better to double check, then to regret it all later.

The other most common way people hack into your computer, is through pop up screens. If you do not know what a pop up screen is, it is just simple a screen that pops up when you click on a link. It will usually mention something like you are the 100th visitor today and you have won an iPad. I’m sure we all had drilled into our brains, if it is too good to be true it usually is. This is one of those examples. I can guarantee you, with any advertisement, pop up, or email that you receive (sometimes a phone call or a text message too) saying you have won something and you know for a fact you’ve never entered any competition, you haven’t won anything. This is just another way some people will try and get information from you. And you don’t even have to provide them with information, all these emails etc will do is give the hackers access to your computer and that’s all that they need to gain information of you.

The third most common way is through a phone call. Usually mentioning that they are from a marketing company trying to find out some information. Lately I have heard of people being contacted saying that they are from a telco company or even a PC expert claiming that they are aware that you have a virus on your own computer, and if you just give them your credit card information of even give them access to computer they will be able to fix this for you. Unless you have someone within your house or someone that you know who repairs computers, just hang up the phone when you receive one of these calls.

And the last example I can give you of people trying to gain your personally information are from door knockers themselves. Now I’m not saying that all sales people who door knock are frauds, but some of them are. I personally have had twice someone knock on my door claiming to be part of the electricity company and all they want me to do is sign a form. When I question the man more about this form he was very vague. When I asked which electricity company he represented, he said all of them. He tried to explain to me that the government had just passed a law that everyone can receive a high discount off their electricity bill but in order for the government to give this discount everyone had to sign a form. Strange huh? In the end I ended up finding out he was from a competing electricity company trying to get me to switch.

I can give you all the advice in the world, but the only one major advice that I can give to everyone is that if you have a bad feeling about it, don’t go through with it. If it looks like a dodgy email or the person on the phone doesn’t sound all that truthful, delete the email or hang up the phone. It’s OK to have bad manners sometimes, especially when you are trying to protect yourself and also your family. If you’ve also have had the unfortunate experience of being a victim of hacking, warn your friends, and let people know. The more we are all aware of the different types of dangers out there, the more we can all be prepared.

Politics - Why is it such a headache!

Back in November 2007, when Australia had a Federal election. It was between John Howard and Kevin Rudd. I’m not really in to politics, and to be honest half of the time I really do not know what they are going on about. In my opinion no matter who you vote for, they are all no good liars and really not worth my time.

Now personally, the vibe that I was getting during that time is that a lot of people were just sick and tired of all the false promises that John Howard from the Liberal party were telling us for years. I cannot recall all the promises at the time John Howard were making, but I do recall that when it was time to vote Kevin Rudd would be getting mine, as I thought Australia needed a change for the better. It also seemed at the time that this wasn’t just my opinion either. A lot of people really wanted a changed and just felt that Liberal had been in power for way too long and we needed a Labor government.

For years John Howard seem to me that kid in school who didn’t really have any friends but wanted to hang around the cool kids and be their lap dog. I always use to find it funny every time that John Howard was next to George W. Bush; he always seemed really giddy that here he was getting media attention next to the ‘cool kid’. Until both stood next to Tony Blair, and it would seem to me that Tony would give a shake of his head and roll his eyes every time he would see them two together.

Not long after Kevin Rudd was elected, all the promises he had made during his campaign didn’t seem as though they were going to happen. The fibre optics internet network which he had promised during his campaign? Well he had approached Telstra about it and told them that they would have the governments support, they basically shut the door in his face and said no. So it seemed as though not matter how hard he was trying he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

People who had seemed to have voted for Kevin Rudd where now stating that they had voted for John Howard and telling people off for electing him in the first place. I still remember Facebook lit up by various comments from people bad mouthing Kevin Rudd and I sat there thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure we I scroll through the older posts I would find a “Hooray Kevin 07!” in there somewhere.’

In August 2010 things started to hit the fan. I wasn’t in the country at the time, but all I remember is an election happening while I was overseas, and next thing we knew Australia had a female Prime Minister. There was talk at the time that Julia Gilard had stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back and basically took the seat from him. Australia was proud once again to have their first female Prime Minister and we were all ready for a change once more.

Time and time against since that August day, Julia was either saying or doing something wrong. Commenting on how she doesn’t like kids during a speech for education, or going on about not believing in god despite growing up in the Baptist Church. She even gave a grant to schools to build new halls when a large majority either didn’t have the room for the new building or their old halls were fine as it is. Now I’m not going to list all the major flaws that Julia has done, but just like Kevin Rudd things all seem to be going from bad to worse.

When Julia became Prime Minister, she made Kevin Rudd foreign minister. Not something that I would see Kevin Rudd doing, but even with a knife in his back he seem to be doing an OK job. Mostly due to Julia constantly stuff up; nobody wanted to know about poor Rudd anymore. He has now resigned as Foreign Minister which apparently means he can now go for the Prime Minister seat.

I do not know the whole mechanics of it, and frankly I do not want to. Now this is the part that completely amazes me. Since it now seems with all of Julia’s stuff ups, Kevin Rudd may be back in the big seat as Prime Minister. After everything he has gone through, it seems as though that Kevin Rudd is getting the popularity vote.

Have people finally lost it? Has the world really gone mad? I mean, back in 2007 everyone wanted him, when he stuff up a lot of people were cursing the name Rudd. Now that we’ve had Julia for just over a year they now want him back? Like I said before, all politicians lie and it’s really hard to choose the lesser of the two evils when choosing Labor or Liberal. But do we all really want Kevin Rudd back in power? Will Julia steal his seat once again when he does become Prime Minister? Who knows? This is one of the many reasons why I do not like politics; no one ever is honest with anyone.

So I finally had my little vent, as I’m sure it’s driving a lot of people in Australia a bit mental as well. What does everyone else think of this? Is this whole feud between Gilard and Rudd completely nonsense, or do you think that it’s about time that Rudd have the spotlight once again?