Cigarette smoke
Car fumes
Your breath
Plastic bags
All choke me
And the fish in the sea.
Give me clean air to breathe
Green hills to stare at
A forest to live in
And a love to last a lifetime.
Mother and Father Earth 27 September, 2007
Do you think there is intelligent life out in space? 26 September, 2007
Being at home early today, it was good timing to receive my Australian Geographic in the mail, and so I was able to have a bit of a read straight away. There is an interesting section on “Answers to the Big Questions”, one of them being “Do you think there is intelligent life out in space?”
I quite like this section from the response: “…to establish the presence of intelligent life, we would need to find unequivocal signs of intelligent activity. One possibility would be the existence of industrial pollutants such as carbon dioxide and heavier chemical compounds in the planet’s atmosphere. Such a find would be truly astonishing, and would profoundly affect the way we see ourselves and our place in the universe. Even the fact that the newly discovered life-forms were trashing their planet with similar recklessness in the way we treat our own would do little to diminish the excitement of such a discovery.”
My question is, why do we assume that intelligent creatures should be like ourselves? (Especially when destorying our planet isn’t very intelligent.) And why would another planet’s way of polluting be the same as ours?
Get enrolled! 10 September, 2007
I’m rather a fan of Get Up! as they have lots of great campaigns going, and they make it easy for me to feel like I’m doing something helpful by sending me emails directing me to sign online petitions.
So far I’ve spared you all from forwarding these on, but this one I just have to let you all know about:
“The Prime Minister can now call the election any day, and many think as soon he’s finished at APEC he’ll do just that. And when he does, the gates of democracy will swing firmly shut.
That’s because the Government has passed new laws closing the electoral roll at 8pm on the very day the election is officially called. So click here — or forward this — to make sure that you and everyone you know are properly enrolled:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/votingisthebestrevenge
Odds are, you’re enrolled to vote — but chances are you know someone who isn’t. What may surprise you is just how many people you know aren’t on the rolls. For instance, the Government recently admitted more than a third of all Australians aged 18 to 25 are not enrolled. That’s a whopping 410,000 voters – four whole electorates’ worth — and we’re only talking about young people.
To make matters worse, you’re not informed if you’ve been taken off the electoral roll for some reason — such as if a piece of mail addressed to you from the AEC gets returned to sender — so many people do not find out until they turn up on election day, only to be denied their vote. You may not be enrolled right now, and not even know it.
Click below for your one-stop enrolment shop – whether it’s checking your own enrolment status, signing a petition to reverse the changes, or making sure everyone you know is enrolled.
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/votingisthebestrevenge
With all that’s at stake in this election, let’s all have our say. Let everyone you know about this, because once the election is called it will be too late.”
PS. I read recently that house prices were 4 times the average annual salary when Howard got into power; now it’s 7. If a lot of Aussies vote according to how they are doing financially, then how does this fit in with that? And how does it fit in with Howard’s economic manangement?
8 random facts & habits about me 10 September, 2007
Stickfly tagged me to post 8 things about me, so here I go!
1. When I was young I named my teddy bears after my friends. I still hug my favourite teddy Melissa Mouse to this day at night time. Strangely though I don’t really like the name Melissa as I’m sometimes called that by mistake.
2. The first time I saw a dead person was last year in India. I saw about three.
3. While driving my Mum’s car once I almost hit the car in front waiting at traffic lights while pashing Benjamin.
4. My favourite number is 5, but I don’t like writing it.
5. I would love to have lessons in flamenco dancing and surfing, and learn more about photography and writing poetry.
6. I like the smell of my own farts.
7. I have a small scar under my chin from having stitches whenI hit my chin on the edge of a swimming pool when I was about 4 years old.
8. I have been bitten by a blue bottle and a tick, and chased by a baboon and a white rhino.
