Emissions Trading Scheme (Or How Not To Fix The Planet)

Let me start this post by stating categorically that I am not a climate change sceptic. I believe full well that the human species has been able to harness the ability and power to affect their surroundings to such an extent that it has far-reaching consequences on a global scale. Add to this mix a voracious appetite, almost viral population growth, and the capacity to apply ingenuity, creativity and imagination to overcome obstacles, and I am left wondering how anyone could believe that our actions do not change the planet in a multitude of ways (many of them negative).

I believe we stand at a crossroads or, more accurately, at the lip of a giant precipice. There have been doomsayers throughout history, and all of them have been wrong (we're still here, aren't we?). Humanity has struggled through disaster, calamity and cataclysmic events, still managing to muddle through to our current position at the top of the food chain, masters of all that we survey.

The difference is that the current environmental disaster staring us in the face is the most fundamental and serious one of all. It all comes down to a very simple fact:

The planet Earth is a closed system.

There are several consequences to this, namely:

1. The amount of non-renewable resources at our disposal is finite. Once we pass the peak supply point (peak oil, peak coal, etc.) then, ceteris paribus, we are no longer able to grow at the same ridiculous rate as we did before the peak event.
   
   It is a self-evident fact that peak resource events will result in a need for MAJOR changes in how we conduct our existence on this planet, if we are to avoid annihilation as we fight amongst ourselves for the scraps that are left, face famine, water shortages, etc.
   
   Essentially, imagine the Earth as a very big pie. No matter how we slice it, you can't get more pie out of it.


2. Waste from the way we exploit the resources at our disposal (extraction, refinement, manufacturing, obsolescence, etc.) build up in the various ecosystems, eventually reaching the point where the self-regulating properties of the biosphere are no longer able to sustain life in the same manner, if at all.
   
   There is no magic carpet that we can sweep the unbelievable amounts of pollution we produce under. One need only look at the sorry state of our rivers, our oceans and our air to see the mess we have made of the planet.

Action needs to be taken to set things right. It is not a hopeless situation. Humankind can apply their vaunted ingenuity, creativity, imagination, willpower and plain old hard work to set us all on the right path. The planetary biosphere is delightfully powerful at regulating itself, and with our help, much of the damage we have done can be repaired. But even a biosphere as big as planet Earth cannot continue to cope with the stresses we have put it under. We need to fix things now, not in 50 years, or 20, or even 10.

Having said that, I do not believe for one second that an ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) will do anything to help reduce our ecological footprint.

The major problems with the ETS as I see it are as follows:

1. The ETS only addresses carbon emissions. Whilst this is a major contributor to climate change, it does not even begin to address the larger and much more important issue of general pollution.


2. The ETS will most likely rely on a grossly over-simplified categorisation of the sources of carbon emissions. Do we place a tax on every cow that farts? What about burning of sugar cane during harvesting? How do we propose to identify every carbon emission contributor during the incredibly complex processes of production and manufacture that underlie the fabric of our society?


3. Carbon emissions that are directly under the control of human beings make up a significant but not major percentage of the total carbon emission of the planet. We have no control over methane production of rotting vegetation in swamps, we cannot put a plug in volcanoes.


4. The ETS is a cap and trade scheme. That is, a national cap is placed on the amount of carbon emissions allowed. Greenhouse permits will be allocated, and can be traded by companies if they don't use up their quota. It won't take long for the big polluters (who incidentally are the richest) to step in and gobble up all the permits. This means that they will still be polluting just as much as ever (if not more, as they now have more permits), and the poorer industries and sectors will be left with too few permits to conduct their business. They will simply be priced out of the game. So, how will our already near-bankrupt state government be able to afford to put more and more money into buying expensive permits for the public transport sector? Public transport is just one example, but a very important one. There will most likely be cutbacks, leading to more cars on the roads, leading to more pollution, etc., etc., etc.


5. The ETS is a cap and trade scheme. Hello?? We will have a whole new stock exchange, fuelled by greed, funded by the public purse (i.e. yours and my taxes). Traders, brokers and agents will be skimming their fees and commissions off the top. The ETS market will be prone to the same boom and bust cycles of the regular stock exchanges.


6. How is it proposed to accurately measure the actual reduction of emissions? Will it rely purely on the word of the major emitters? This is hardly likely to be accurate. Will emission measuring equipment be installed in every factory, car, cow, etc.? Hardly. The technology isn't there, and even if it were, it would be prohibitively expensive, and prone to tampering by unscrupulous emitters. So essentially we have no clear way in which to measure the actual reduction of emissions, if any.


7. The cost of setting up and running a regulatory body to oversee the ETS (and to measure/enforce emissions) will be very expensive. There will undoubtedly be the usual baggage of red tape beaurocracy, blame shifting, political meddling, vested interests and lobbying by major polluters, leading to an ineffective system at best, and an actual increase in overall pollution at worst.


8. Emitters will choose the cheapest possible way of reducing their emissions (or reportable/measurable emissions) instead of being forced to adopt a much more efficient and long-sighted systemic change that will have a lasting impact on our ecological footprint. But then that would require the government of the day to have the balls to make some unpopular political decisions and actually make a difference, instead of this watered down tax-funded travesty of a system.


9. The hardest hit will be the poor and those living in rural areas. City dwellers and the well-off middle classes, who are very much the largest slice of the emission pie, will have nowhere near the same level of economic incentive to change their wasteful ways.


10. The ETS, if introduced, will have major and far-reaching consequences to our quality of life, with very little benefit to the environment. And yet, the average person on the street knows sweet dick all about what the ETS actually is, and what it will mean for us. It has been shrouded in secrecy by the politicians on all sides, and the media has focused more on the political turmoil than on actually informing the public about the facts (wow, how unusual). There should be a major education and information campaign about it. It should be brought out into the open, instead of being behind closed Senate doors, so that we can all debate the issue and form our own opinions. Dare I say that, living in a democracy as we do, we should put it to a referendum?

The whole emphasis of the current debate is on reducing emissions. This is doomed to fail, as it is an over-simplified view of things. What we should be focusing on is setting up carbon sinks to soak up the excess carbon. Plant more trees and other vegetation. This will have a much greater impact on the well-being of the natural processes and balance of the biosphere than any arbitrary tax or half-arsed emissions cap by 2020.

Another major benefit of this is that Australia, whilst not being a major emitter in the world scheme, has the potential to be a major carbon sink. We have just about the largest amount of open, unused space on the planet, ready to be greened. This would have flow-on benefits such as changing our weather patterns for the better, improving natural processes, processing and cleaning pollution, allowing for much greater productivity and fertility in our depleted soils, and would just about get rid of our salinity problems.

If you think this is pie in the sky stuff and that I've suddenly turned over a new, naive leaf, then think again. The greening of Australia is eminently achievable well within our lifetimes. It won't be easy, but it can be done.

Most of you will probably not have heard of a guy called Peter Andrews. He is an amazing Australian who has fought most of his life to achieve this very end. He has lost much in his struggles against government, entrenched farming ideas that our forefathers brought with them from Europe, and blinkered science-of-the-day thinking. His knowledge of land and water management is not just esoteric book-learning, but rather a lifetime's work in practicing what he preaches. With his Natural Sequence Farming techniques, he has rejuvenated areas that most had given up on. I urge you to either purchase his wonderful books Beyond The Brink and Back From The Brink (available from your local ABC Shop or all good book stores) or visit the Natural Sequence Farming website. It is an incredible eye-opener.

We would be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, to tend the fields and forests. It wouldn't take much effort to re-skill all of those workers in the heavy polluter industries either.

Yet another flow-on advantage of this is that self-sustainable rural communities could be set up throughout the great wide spaces, away from the coasts. These communities would house the workers and families tending the new green areas. This would solve the wasteful trend of population concentration in urban centres, thus greatly reducing the stresses on the ailing infrastructure of our major cities. The people of Australia would be able to save tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars on increasing infrastructure capacity, and instead spend it on setting up the rural communities.

Also, ask yourself this simple question: would you be happier living a life that is harming the planet or living a life that is healing it? Discontent would be replaced with pride in our actions. Australia would become Mother Earth's green lungs, and we would all be able to breathe easy in the knowledge that we were a major contributor to healing the planet. Now that's what I call progress.

So, what is stopping us? Let's get on with it, and forget all this rubbish about an ETS. The time to act is now, because it is almost too late. This is the single greatest threat we have ever faced, and if we do not act accordingly, we will not survive. Even more tragically, we will take a large portion of the blessed diversity of life on this planet with us. If we rely on our politicians to argue about a new tax and how to protect the big polluters, we will have missed our chance.

And thus I ask the two people who actually read this blog to stand up and be counted, because that's two better than yesterday. We don't just need free thinkers, but free doers. In my oh so small way, I am trying to reduce my ecological footprint, to stutter along the path to self sufficiency, to try to better understand this amazing planet for what it is - a wonder of creation (irrespective of one's religious beliefs or otherwise), and to attempt to place myself in what I believe is our rightful place in that creation - as custodians of all that we survey, instead of as consumers and destroyers of all that we survey.

It is time to shake ourselves out of our comfortable middle-class existence and make some concrete changes to the way we live. If we sit back and wait for the politicians and the "free market" to do something about it, then we deserve everything that's coming to us. Change starts in the mirror. Hey, what do you know? Michael Jackson got it right -

"I'm looking at the man in the mirror,
I'm asking him to change his ways,
No message could have been any clearer,
If you want to make the world a better place,
Take a look at yourself and then make a change."

Environmental As Anything

Hello Rambling Masses,

Long time no rant. Time to let off another salvo into the great abyss that is the Internet...

Gone are the days when the world saw free thinkers as mystics, seers, and the founts of wisdom. In the "modern" world, free thinking is discouraged. Half of the world is gripped by rampant capitalist consumerism, designed purely to keep that carrot well and truly on the stick in front of us, anaesthetising us, keeping us docile as we chase that ill-defined elusive happiness that the marketing moguls have sold us. The other half of the world is still struggling with oppressive government - the old-fashioned way of keeping free thinkers and libertines down.

But to my mind, the pervasiveness of capitalist materialism is a much greater evil, purely for the fact that it has slowly and subtly eroded our freedoms without so much as a whimper from all of us who have lost so much, and yet had the choice to say no to it all. Free choice and free will are still available to us, but the modern societal structures have developed to hide these self-evident facts. It is so obvious to anyone with the slightest shred of intelligence and free thought, and yet the vast majority of vapid humanity continues to give up some of the greatest gifts that man has got - free thought and a questing mind. And what do we get in return? A disposable destructive pseudo-society that isolates us, practically takes away our freedoms whilst espousing those very freedoms, and leaves us much the poorer as individuals and as a species. Truly not a great bargain. As they said in that great movie "The Usual Suspects" - "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

We are so much more than we currently seem to be. All we have to do is remove the veil from our eyes and realise the simple truths. Why do you think the so-called primitive cultures are always so happy, despite struggling for survival each and every day? Because they have a clear understanding that they have full control of their lives. They make of their lives what they will. "Modern" men have filled their lives with so much unimportant trash that they have lost sight of the very things that make us human and alive.

Rampant consumption and an overly obsessive compulsion to continue growth beyond all reasonable bounds sounds very much like a virus, not an advanced species. The gears of the capitalist machine are finely tuned to keep us locked on the path. Goods are deliberately made of lower quality, to ensure that they break down rapidly and often. Goods are so cheap that it does not pay to repair them. Instead, throw them out and buy shiny new ones. Capitalism provides us with shiny toys to hide the emptiness and lack of true values that our modern lives have become. This serves to further lock us in to the vicious cycle of consumption that keeps us busy working and accepting of the current system without applying our questing minds, and without seeing how unsustainable the system is in the medium to long term.

As a conservative estimate, I would say that 80-90 percent of everything that mankind strives for and believes in in the modern age is all bullshit, pure and simple. Esoteric detritus that hides the real truths from the vapid masses. That is why "The Matrix" is one of my favourite movies of all time - packaged in a glossy and modern way, this movie and the messages it espouses are the bible of our times. The message is simple - most of what we believe to be important and real is actually crap, designed to keep us docile.

You need only look at the barometers of our times, television and the Internet, to see where this has headed. Television, and as a natural progression the Internet, is all-pervasive in the developed world. Further to this, it is filled with meaningless crap that masquerades as "entertainment" and "information", when what it is really doing is obfuscating the truth. Why do the vapid masses keep tuning in to reality television in such mind-numbingly constant numbers? Why does the news not inform? Why do current affairs shows not tackle the real issues? Why, when we have the single most powerful tool of mass dissemination of knowledge, does the Internet continue to be used primarily for porn, email spam and the latest YouTube phenomenon of someone doing something stupid? Why do politicians continue to fiddle whilst Rome burns?

I guess it's because education has failed us. Instead of improving each generation, it seems that we have either gone backwards or stayed in an alarming and horrible holding pattern. How are we better, more intelligent, than the same apes 10,000 years ago that looked up at the heavens and shouted "Ugghhh"? Well, from where I am sitting, I can't see that we have advanced very much at all. As far as I am concerned, this is just a continual pattern of "same shit, different shovel". Hell, a lot of the time these days, even the shovel is the same.

Getting back to capitalism as one of the main thrusts of my current rant - economic theorists have often espoused the great advantages of capitalism as an efficient machine, always improving itself in a "competitive" environment, always advancing. Those capitalist entities that are inefficient simply die or are swallowed by larger, more efficient entities. However, what has been forgotten are the simple ethical and philosophical elements of this. The question that should be asked is not "how efficient is capitalism" but rather "what kind of efficiency is it?" The answer to this is an alarming one. Capitalism is efficient at one thing and one thing only - making money for the holders of capital. This one true goal of capitalism is to be attained at any cost. Human life, sustainability, the environment, real efficiency, thought, ethics, progress, advancement of ideals and ideas, beauty and soul are all up for grabs, to be trampled on in the great rush to achieve ever higher profits.

Don't get me wrong - I see money as a necessary evil, and would not wish to see it abolished, as it would not serve the interests of the world. Money is a useful, albeit grossly oversimplified, measure of relative value and worth. Without it, we would be living in a confusing world where bartering of goods and services struggles with the eternal question of trying to come to terms with how much "X" will be needed to barter for "Y", assuming that the owner of "Y" actually wants "X". Much effort would be wasted in this difficult and complex process of agreeing on the relative value of disparate goods and services.

As much as I rail against money and capitalism, these are not my main enemy. The great evil is the rampant consumerism and materialism that we have been slowly led to accept as the norm ever since the 1950s, despite the obvious fact that it is totally unsustainable in the medium to long term. Our excesses have been growing ever grander as each generation strives for more of everything.

One way for everyone to mitigate the rampant consumerism that is destroying our world and enslaving us all is to make a very simple shift in our thought patterns. The problem is that money is such an abstract term, and easily allows us to make assumptions and value judgements without truly understanding the consequences. I don't measure value in terms of money - I never have. Instead, I measure it against the one true human currency - time. The one thing of value on the face of this earth that each of us has is time - time to live, time to choose our path throughout our lives, and time to die. So this is the measure of value that I use.

If I look at something to buy, I ask myself whether I actually need it or not. If I don't need it, I ask myself whether I actually want it. If I need it or want it, I then ask myself how much time I would be giving up in order to purchase it. This takes into account what I am currently earning, what my disposable income is, and how long it has taken to amass that disposable income. If it takes me two weeks to earn the money to buy something, it better be worth two weeks of my life that I will never get back, otherwise the purchase is not being made.

In this way, serious judgements can be made on whether I choose to contribute to the capitalist machine or not. More often than not, I end up on the frugal side, choosing not to purchase something. One of my life's goals is not to amass a whole bunch of stuff to fill my supposedly empty life with. Instead, I work when I have to in order to gain the relative financial freedom to choose not to work as a slave to the capitalist machine.

At this point you may be saying to yourself "Who does this guy think he is, ranting about capitalism and yet at the same time enjoying the plethora of great things that have come from it? The mechanisms of capitalism have lifted his life from one of pure subsistence and survival to one of incredible luxury, undreamed of by previous generations." That may well be true, but I strongly feel that what we and the planet have lost and are currently losing is much greater than any gains that have been made.

Now we get to the crux of what I want to try to communicate in this particular posting to the two people who actually bother to read my blog. Capitalism/consumerism was the introduction, the shoehorn that got the foot into the shoe. Now, let's use those shoes to walk just a little further.

The current environmental crisis facing the world, brought on by our rampant consumption, is the real modern battlefield for free thought. Mankind has always seen itself as natural inheritors and owners of all that they survey, ever since that good old opposable thumb lifted us to the top of the food chain. The moment that the first of our distant ancestors picked up a stick and used it as a tool, our fate was sealed. We were destined to become the dominant species on the planet, outcompeting all others. The old adage of "might makes right" holds sway here. We have the power to control all around us, and we therefore assume that we have a right to wield that power indiscriminately, much to the detriment of all life on this planet.

Many wise people have said that there are no rights without responsibility. As the dominant species on the planet, we have a right to all that this entails. However, we also have a responsibility to make sure that we do not destroy it all in short-sighted pursuit of selfish ends.

Environmentalism isn't just about saving a few trees or stopping the giant panda from dying. It isn't just about making sure the paper goes in the recycling bin. It is so much broader than that. But like everything that the mass media gets a hold of, it has to be dumbed down and packaged into neat little bundles, so the "common" people can understand it. What a crock. Environmentalism should be, pure and simple, the struggle of mankind to find their true balance in this world. We have to get over the obsessive view that we own everything from here to the horizon, that the land and sea and everything on it and in it is ours to do with as we please. We have to move past the mistaken belief that nothing has value unless it can be dug up from the ground, cut down, mashed, pulped, killed, processed and packaged to serve our every whim.

The warnings are out there in the public domain, and the science is mostly rock solid, and still the governments of the world continue to drag their feet. Why is this? Because the existing monied powers hold the cards. They decide what policy gets passed, and even what policy gets debated. They dilute the facts and derail the discussions about what should be done by casting aspersions on the validity of the science, and by arguing against what the self-evident facts are telling us. They control the mass media, and the resulting information that should be presented to all of us as a matter of course is only available to the free thinkers who actually bother to open their eyes and ask some questions.

What does it matter that there are disputed claims regarding what one group of (in my view legitimate) scientists are saying about carbon emissions versus what another group (funded by big business) are saying? This is yet another attempt at a smoke screen to hide the fact that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and we as a species and individually are responsible. On the one hand we have the vast majority of the scientific community and free thinkers of the world, saying that we are destroying the planet with our actions. On the other hand we have a tiny minority of nay-sayers who are in the pockets of the main polluters and exploiters of resources on the planet, arguing and stalling for all they are worth. The scary thing is that the mass media, by paying equal attention to both camps, is presenting a vastly distorted picture of what the truth really is.

Who in their right mind can sit there with their hand on their heart and say that pollution, deforestation, mass species extinctions, loss of biodiversity, etc, etc, are in our best interests? The monied powers can, of course. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, because it's an oh so wonderful and comfortable existence for them. They remain unchallenged in their power only so long as the system keeps everyone repressed. And we stay repressed only so long as we continue to swallow the crap that is getting spoon fed to us each and every day.

The bastards who call the shots are doing so because it makes them rich, and continues to keep them in power. They have no regard for the future, certainly not past their comfortable lifespan. What they care about is wringing every last bit of profit out of the resources at their disposal, and never mind the consequence. This stems from the aforementioned human belief that we have the right to use and abuse everything, just because we can.

A fundamental shift in thinking needs to happen for us to save the planet and ourselves. This isn't bombastic hyperbole - it is the simple truth. To think that we are above and beyond the natural cycles that hold sway on this planet is the ultimate in arrogance and ignorance. If we keep going too much longer on our destructive path, there will be no second chances, no get out of jail free card, no pleading ignorance. We will die, and take a significant portion of the biodiversity of this planet with us.

The fundamental shift in thinking that I mention is not one that will come easily, but it has to come nonetheless. It does not just affect the rich and the mighty. For it to truly work, it has to be accepted by everyone - yes, that's right - every single human being on the planet. Every person that contributes to the capitalist consumerist machine without regard for the planet and our place in it is responsible. We have to make this radical shift to survive, and hopefully save as many species of the overstretched and over-utilised planet as we possibly can.

I for one will be watching with keen interest just how much actual progress we have made in our thinking as a species. This progress will be measured in earnest at the global climate conference in Copenhagen coming up towards the end of this year (6 - 18 December 2009). I really hope I am wrong, but I don't hold out much hope for any actual decisions being made. I would even be surprised if any vague, watered-down aspirational targets were limply aimed at. The political will is just not there, big business holds most if not all of the cards, and we, the masses of humanity, continue to fill our lives with insignificance instead of striving to fulfil our destiny on this planet.

If God or Gaia or whatever ultimate entity you believe in walked up to me today and gave me the power to say yay or nay to the human race, I swear that I would need more than 10 seconds of think music to decide whether it was worth it. Would I decide to end it all and say "fuck it, give some other species on the planet a chance - they surely can't fuck it up any more than we did", or would I decide that we have a genuine chance to change things for the better and assume our natural role as caretakers of this planet? That question remains unanswered...

Given the regenerative power of the planet, I feel confident in the fact that it would recover from our influence in 100-200 years. Everything that we strived for; everything that we believed in; everything that we killed, sacrificed and died for would be washed away in a sea of green and blue, and most likely the planet would be much better off. And what would be lost? Just another species that got too big for its boots.

Ohh, gotta go. Big Brother, Pop Idol and Survivor are on. Wouldn't want to miss them...

One Rule For Some, Another For Everyone Else

Greets Ramblers,

Time for a bit of a rant - too much of this positive stuff recently...

How is it that a druggo like Ben Cousins (or whatever the hell his name is) can be handed the world on a platter? Not only does he get his football career back, but he gets a weekly radio spot, lots of media attention, and I am sure that he will get a bunch of endorsements as he continues his rise and rise.

I am all for giving a person a second chance after a mistake, but isn't this just a little bit over the top? Anyone working a real job (instead of being one of those semi-deified sports stars or musicians) would be well and truly buggered if they got busted abusing drugs. There would be huge obstacles in the climb back from the big fall, not least of which would be a criminal record and a low chance of ever getting a job again.

Erm, am I missing something? If you are a person in the public eye, you get a huge amount of exposure, usually followed by a ridiculous amount of money being thrown at you by all and sundry. The flip side of this coin is that your personal life is open game to the media whores that wait at your door to see what you are putting in your rubbish, and the expectation that, being in the public eye, you will stand as a positive influence to others.

As far as I am concerned, anyone who decides to follow a career that thrusts them into the spotlight should be well aware of the consequences, so there are no excuses when they abuse their rights. I'm an old fashioned kind of guy - I believe that life is all about rights and responsibilities. You pay for your rights with your responsibilities. There's a certain kind of universal balance about the whole thing that appeals to me, and it is one of the cornerstones of my value system in life.

I don't see that kind of balance in the current situation with this particular miscreant. Then again, I don't really care, because I am indifferent to the bullshit that passes for modern media. I only wish that we didn't waste so much time, effort and money on a loser. Why not lavish our attention on someone who is really deserving, like a pillar of the community who helps others? There are plenty of them out there. They just don't make it into the headlines.

Till next time, oh ramblers. The next post will be a positive one... I promise...

A Punny Post

Hi Ramblers,

Just a language warning for the following - if you are easily offended, then you might want to skip this one...

Now I like puns as much as the next person. Actually, that's not true. I like puns a lot. One of the places where you find lots of puns is in titles of pornographic material. Popular movie titles are given the pun treatment, and my favourites (easily found using trusty old Google) are listed below for your perusal. Some of them crack me up. My favourite would have to be "What's Eating Gilbert's Grapes?".

20,000 Legs Under The Sea
28 Gays Later
A Few Hard Men
A Fistful Of Penis
A Lad In
A Rear And Pleasant Danger
All Hands On Dick
Ally McFeel
An Officer And A Genitalman
Ass Ventura: Crack Detective
Assablanca
Ball The President's Men
Ben-Hur Over
Benny In June
Beverly Hills 9021-Ho!
Bi-Curious George
Big Trouble In Little Vagina
Black Cock Down
Boldfinger
Bone Alone
Bridget Jones' Hairy
Bruce Allmeaty
Buffy The Vampire Layer
Butch Lesbian And The Lapdance Kid
Charlie's Anals
Cockodile Dun-me
Cool Bummings
Crimson Ride
Cum and Cummer
Dial M For Missionary
Diddle-her On The Roof
Doctor Do Me A Little
Doing John Malkovich
Driving It Into Ms. Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy (Into The Headboard)
Dun-Hur
E-3: The Extra Testicle
Edward Penishands
Ejacula
Emission Possible
Everybody Does Raymond
Fill Bill
Flesh Gordon
Forrest Hump
Get Smut
Ghostlusters
Glad-he-ate-her
Good Will Humping
Guess Who Came At Dinner
Hairy Potter Made The Philosopher Moan
Harry Did Sally
How Stella Got Her Tube Packed
Hung Wankenstein
I Cream On Jeannie
Inrearendence Day
In Diana Jones
Inspect-Her-Gadget
Intercourse With A Vampire
Jurassic Pork
King Dong
Lap Dances With Wolves
Lawrence Of A Labia
Legs Wide Open
Lust Of The Mohicans
Malcolm XXX
Mating For Guffman
Meat The Parents
Monty's Python And The Holey Girl
Moulin Splooge
Murphy's Brown
My Big Fat Greek Cock
Night Of The Giving Head
Oklahomo!
On Golden Blonde
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Breast
Phallus In Wonderland
Picnic At Hanging Cock
Playmate Of The Apes
Pocahotass
Pornochio
Position Impossible
Pulp Friction
Queer And Present Danger
Rambone
Rebel Without A Condom
Remember The Tightuns'
Romancing The Bone
Romeo In Juliet
Saturday Night Beaver
Schindler's Fist
Scrotal Recall
Sgt. Pecker's Lonely Hearts Club Gangbang
Shake My Spear, I'm In Love
Shaving Ryan's Privates
Sheepless In Montana
Sleeping With Seattle
Snow White And The Seven Inches
Sorest Rump
Star Whores
Star Whores: Return Of The One-Eye
Star Whores: The Empire Licks Back
Swallow Hal
Tailiens
The Bare Bitch Project
The Cum Of All Queers
The Dirty Dozen Inches
The Empire Strokes Black
The Genital's Daughter
The Great Muppet Raper
The Horny-Mooners
The Humpback Of Nasty Dames
The Hung And The Breastless
The Hunt For Head-all-over
The Hunt For Miss October
The Iron Giant Vibrator
The Joy Suck Club
The Loin King
The Long Ranger
The Lord Of The G-Strings - The Femaleship Of The String
The Maddam's Family
The Nads-u-ate
The Object Of My Erection
The Ozporns
The Pink Mile
The Porn Ultimatum
The Reproducers
The Rodfather
The Screwman Show
The Sixth Inch
The Slutty Professor
The Sopornos
The Sperminator
The Talented Mr. Lickme
The Touchables
There's Something In And Out Of Mary
Thighs Wide Slut
Three Men And Some Gravy
Three Men On A Lady
Titty Slickers
To Drill A Mockingbird
Touched By An Uncle
Wetness For The Prosecution
What's Eating Gilbert's Grapes?
When Harry Wet Sally
White Men Can't Hump
Who Reamed Roger Rabbit?
Womb Raider
Women In Black
Yank My Doodle, It's A Dandy
You've Got Tail

Until next time, oh ramblers - stay sane and don't forget to smile at a stranger every now and then.

A New Leaf?

Hello Ramblers,

After a discussion on the weekend with my good friend Mong, I kind of got to thinking about something I've been meaning to do for quite a while - start getting positive. Let's face it, it is eminently easy to see the glass as half empty and to blame the man for shortchanging you. Whilst I do get a certain amount of cathartic release from venting my spleen, I am sure that it's not great reading for the 1.5 people that visit my site every week (on average).

With that in mind, I hold my hand on my heart, feeling the gentle palpitations, and promise that from now on, there will be at least a 50-50 balance of positive and negative, erring on the positive side. Don't ask me to totally give up my ranting, because there's always gonna be some poison to get rid of...

Speaking of positive - one of my favourite jokes follows:

The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass as being twice as big as it needs to be.

I don't know about you, but I am filled with mirth at that one. The warm glow of genuine humour suffuses my body.

Anyhoo, on to a lovely warm and fuzzy happy post, without any hint of irony or negative vibe. Recently on the teev, I caught a program that left me breathless and inspired me hugely. It's called "What About Me?" - 1 Giant Leap. Let me try in my inept rambling way to describe what is a true wonder...

Firstly, you can check it out on the official website, for they say it better than I ever could. The URL is:

http://www.whataboutme.tv/#about

This is a multimedia extravaganza par excellence, as two dudes with music in their veins and questing souls travel across the globe in search of the diversity that makes the human race a true wonder. It is this diversity that fills me with hope, pride and joy. Showcased wonderfully in the television show, forthcoming DVD and soundtrack CD(s), these guys lay down a basic beat track, and get all manner of indigenous populations to add their own particular slant on a truly universal musical project. Along the way, they seek out great thinkers, philosophers and people who have truly lived, and each episode of the television series tackles a new and interesting verity of human existence.

I am tickled pink that this show exists, and look forward to purchasing all of the creative output that results from this wonderful project. I would humbly urge you all (all 1.5 of you) to check out the website and perhaps see for yourselves if this is the kind of thing that rocks your boat. One of the most amazing things about the human race is diversity, and this project showcases it to great effect.

As the great Molly Meldrum says - do yourselves a favour.

Catch you on the flip side, ramblers.

A Maths Lesson (And The Human Cost)

Hello Ramblers,

Long time no post. This is my first rant for the year, and a rather topical one. Australia is currently reeling at the terrible tragedy in Victoria, with bushfires killing hundreds and turning townships to ash. While I do not wish to trespass on the misery of the people affected, I would like to make a crucial point. Bear with me as I set the scene for this one...

Having recently changed political direction with a new government in power, our esteemed political leaders have once again proved the old adage "same shit different shovel" very much true. We continue to drag our feet in our attempts to recreate our society into an environmentally sustainable entity.

Maths seems to be the constant defence for our unwillingness to make some hard decisions and usher in a new era wherein we can pass the future to our children with pride. It would be too expensive to invest in alternative energy. Too many jobs will be lost if we scale down the coal and timber logging industries. After 11 years of sunshine in which the previous government did nothing but waste opportunities and piss on the hay, the world has tumbled into an inevitable financial meltdown. Now the purse strings have been tightened (except for the occasional misguided attempt to pump prime our wasteful comsumption, as if that is going to save us). The chances of some genuine investment in the future are looking pretty low.

Climate change, a much discussed issue that has been greatly misrepresented over the years by the fluffy irrelevant mass media that purports to disseminate knowledge and information to the masses, is finally starting to flex its muscle in ways that can neither be denied nor ignored.

So, if simple mathematics of financial cost are applied by our leaders to deny the change to sustainable practices in our continued rape and pillage of the world, why doesn't the cost of disasters like the bushfires in Victoria and the floods in Queensland get factored in? This would more than even the equation, tipping the need for sustainable practices and fundamental change in the way that we live on this planet well into the lead. The cost in human suffering puts the issue well beyond doubt.

But no, there's a simpler answer. Just go out and spend your $950 on Chinese consumer products that you don't need. Go about your lives. Move along. Nothing to see. Everything is fine. Ruddy marvelous!