This ‘condition’ probably isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve got the aircon on whenever I’m home (I did try to resist Taiwan’s summer for as long as I could but eventually it overcame me).

When I woke up this morning things were no different. I got up, went to the toilet and plonked myself infront of the laptop to check the news/emails/make sure the world hadn’t ended etc.

As I checked the daily news, within minutes I was chuckling to myself and then gagging in pain. Evidently my throat isn’t prepared for laughter first thing in the morning…

…on the plus side though it’s not every day that you get two hilariously delicious stories of stupidity to start your day off.

Slingshots are always going t0 be something that fascinates most children. With a few cheap components (usually a rubber band and a stick) you’re all of a sudden able to catapult projectiles at great speeds.

Seriously what kid isn’t excited by that prospect?

Not satisfied with a standard slingshot, two kids from Minnesota decided to take the slingshot concept to the next level. Armed with surgical tape and a bum bag (slightly larger then a coin purse), the duo set about creating a giant slingshot between two poles down at a local park.

Starting off small, the pair began launching baseballs and small rocks. Not satisfied with following convention either, instead of firing their projectiles horizontally these kids were shooting things up into the air.

After graduating from small projectiles, the kids then moved onto bigger and better things and wound up launching a 2.7kg rock into orbit. Upon re-entry however the rock landed on one of the kids chests and crushed him.

Brilliant. Seriously, you can’t write comedy like that.

What amuses me most is that the pair were firing things up into the air, so you’d think ‘run!’ would have at some point entered the thoughtstream of our creative cast.

Apparently not.

A 2.7kg rock is approximately the same weight as a bag of oranges. Now I’m not a physicist but surely launching that into the air to a height high enough to crush something upon landing means you’d have more then enough time to get out of the way?

I can just picture the two kids launching the rock and staring up at the sky watching it.

‘Haha that’s so cool. Hey we should probably get out of the way it’s coming back straight fo-KLUNK!’

Either that or they lost interest so fast and started to look for another larger projectile to launch that the rock completely caught them by surprise upon landing.

I can’t decide which scenario is more amusing.

The only way this story could be any better is if they were filming it for YouTube and it was leaked by the police… though I guess that’d be having my cake and eating it too.

Next up we venture into the teenager years. Tying things to vehicles, whether they be go karts, rollerbladers, shopping trolleys, dumpsters, other cars, bicycles etc., is always going to be enticing to a teenager.

What with the exhilarating feeling of speed as you soar through the air without the safety confines of a car body protecting you, ah… I can almost feel the impending disaster run through my hair just thinking about it.

Such disaster struck one California teen as he rode a skateboard tied to the back of a car. Evidently he wasn’t wearing any protective gear and when his skateboard hit the back wheel of the vehicle towing him, he hit his head and died.

‘Hey guys, check this ou-’

‘…’

‘so we should probably pull over now hey’.

Apart from the hilarity of attempting something like this without protective gear, just how the hell do you plan on stopping when the car towing you brakes?

Unless skateboarding technology has come a long way in the last few years, as far as I knew skateboards weren’t too effective on the braking side of things.

What could have been any other day has now kicked off to a great start, thanks solely to the actions of two very special kids. The amusement of their antics aside, I guess what further does it for me is the confirmation that no matter how much we attempt to cotton wool the current generation, the end result of shitty parenting and stupidity always manages to prevail. Not only that but it somehow manages to also be consistently funny.

There’s writers in Hollywood whose sole job is to be funny and even sometimes they can’t deliver. Yet here’s mother nature not even trying and still delivering the funny.

Sore throats aside from early morning laughter, I’d lastly like to thank the families involved. Whilst I’m sure they were great kids it takes a special combination of stupid genes, lacklustre parenting and inspiration to pull comedy like this off.

If only every day started off this good…

In all honesty I don’t really see how things could get much worse.

It started off with the gradual curtailing of parental responsibility via means of discipline. All of a sudden it became taboo to discipline your child beyond any passive means. And even then when doing so if you didn’t cave in and give them what they wanted anyway, you were still a bad parent.

In short, anything short of letting your kids run riot and turn into little nightmares was seen as child abuse.

Over the years this method of thinking has slowly filtered it’s way up into the legal system. With parents unable to discipline their kids, kids increasingly got caught up in crime and now the line of thinking is that rehabilitation and the softly softly approach is best.

After all, kids aren’t capable of murder, violence and serious crime… a few months of counselling and they’ll be model citizens right?

Wrong. It’s utter horse shit to believe so and not only are an increasing number of Australians finally asking what went wrong, but increasingly they’re starting to realise what kids worked out long ago.

There simply is no punishment for youth crime.

After being released on bail following charges on ‘a stabbing, a robbery and assault‘, a now eighteen year old youth held up a fifteen year old on a tram and then proceeded to slit his throat.

When caught by police the youth told them

I felt like stabbing someone in the throat. I wanted to … kill him.”He’s lucky I didn’t drag him off the tram and cut his throat and stab him in the eye 50 times.

“I wanted to be a murderer … and I wanted to eat his heart. I wanted to cut off his limbs and burn him alive.”


Mind you this is the police he was talking to, it’s not like it’s alleged gossip. This moron is actually on police record saying these things during an interview.

Why?

“My lawyer is gonna get me off all this s— anyway, so I’m gonna laugh at youse when youse are at my court case.”


Sadly he’s probably right.

I mean if a stabbing, robbery and assault isn’t enough to get you put away for a very long time… what’s a little slit of someones throat?

The real kick in the nuts for society is that complete playing of the legal system by criminals like this. Shortly after being granted bail, the youth published the following on Facebook;

(I) had a stabbing and a robbery and assault pending. And I still got bailed. The dumb slut of a judge ha ha ha.


Kids aren’t stupid and the ones getting caught up in crime have been taking all of us for a ride for far too long. And it’s not like this is an isolated case either.

If we weren’t catching the perpetrators then it’d be a different story,  but we’ve hit this era where criminals don’t really care if they’re caught or not.

If you catch someone accused of committing a serious crime and they admit to it there should be no excuse as to why they are granted bail. Telling police that you actually wanted to kill someone isn’t just a state of mind that develops overnight.

Had someone with the slightest clue sat down and talked to this guy before he was previously granted bail I find it hard to believe none of this would have come out.

Really this should be a lot more out in the open. Traditionally crime when it gets out of control does surface as a primary election issue so why hasn’t it burst through this time?

I find it hard to believe that any Australian can read about this particular crime and not feel a sense of Australia’s criminals being woefully reprimanded for their crimes.

I for one would love to see the political parties tackle crime instead of pretending it isn’t out of control. Hell I’d even consider voting Labor and their stupid internet filter in if they announced an accountability policy for the judges who make these bullshit decisions. I mean that might be a bit too much to ask but at this stage I’d be willing to take anything, even the slightest hint that the government was acknowledging people are sick of Australia’s criminals running around like they own the place.

To hell with rehabilitation, it was  a nice feelgood experiment while it lasted but it’s long overdue that we get back to actual justice.

Armed with nothing more then a mobile phone these kids like to hang out in groups of five or so down at your local suburban mall.

Their modus operandi?

Stand around all day and and hope that one pubic hair is enough to convince anyone that walks by not to mess with you. Assuming anyone in the world would have a reason to mess with you, you’d totally… well you and your mates would probably give it a fair crack but lets face it, eleven year olds are eleven year olds; you’d probably come off worse.

Enter Jessi Slaughter, poster child for rubbish parenting and why the ‘protecting our children’ argument falls flat on its face when it comes to internet filtering.

So the story goes Jessi got up one night around midnight and published a rant on Youtube that is terribly hard to watch.


Word eventually made it to 4chan, home of some of the most darkly creative minds on the internet and before Jessi Slaughter knew it, her life was in pieces…

…and rightly so.

I mean for starters you’re eleven. Nobody gives a shit about your haters and talking about glocks, brain slushies, sucking penis and AIDS is just laughable. Who else, with the exception of other brain dead eleven year olds are going to even shoe the slightest resemblance of caring.

In kind 4chan ran with the video and gave Jessi Slaughter hell. Reports of death threats, fake pizza deliveries and the publishing of Slaughter’s personal details all hit the net shortly after the original rant was published.

One guy even called up the Slaughter household pretending to be a police officer.


Then, despite clearly not giving two shits about what their eleven year old daughter gets up to on the internet, Slaughter’s parents decided to enter the fray.

Although not one to routinely finding amusement in seeing children cry, this video had me beaming from ear to ear. If for nothing else then it proved the age old saying that behind every self obsessed posing terry tough cunt child there’s a woefully neglectful parent.



You dun goofed up – Watch more Funny Videos


As one watches Slaughter’s dad vent his technologically incompetent spleen all over the internet, I couldn’t help but wonder if this could have all been avoided had the Slaughter’s not given their eleven year old daughter rampant access to the internet.

When you’re eleven school and social networking is one thing, publishing expletive riddled Youtube rant videos at midnight is another. Presumably in the next room doing crack cocaine or god knows what, Slaughter’s parents seem woefully ignorant of their daughters online persona.

No it’s not Jessie’s fault for contributing to the internet garbagesphere, nor her parents fault for letting their daughter run riot online… this one’s apparently the fault of those non-existent nasty internet people who forced her to upload the initial video.

An interesting question to pose when presented with a situation like this is whether or not an internet filter might have prevented it. I mean we’ve got parents blowing their stack and an eleven year old in tears, surely this is what Conroy is going on about when he pulls out the ‘let’s protect our children’ routine.

Considering Youtube won’t be filtered under the Labor filter, the answer to whether or not an internet filter could have prevented this is a resounding no.

Idiot kids will be idiot kids with or without an internet filter and those with the technological means will still be able to track them down. Slaughter had active Facebook, Twitter and MySpace accounts which no doubt contributed to her details being so readily circulated.

There’s just nothing you can do to legislate against naive stupidity.

Despite being American, it’s almost guaranteed Australia has it’s own share of retarded kids publishing hard arse videos on Youtube and filtering the internet is going to squat.

Sure Labor’s internet filter isn’t a ‘silver bullet’ but let’s be realistic here, in the face of adolescent stupidity, the internet filter isn’t even a paper missile. As social networking grows and openly encourages people to publish anything and everything about themselves online, Australia and other countries are inevitably going to see an increase in morons taking to the internet and having it horribly backfire on them.

With the internet filter currently shelved until after the election, let’s hope this message gets across sooner rather then later.

If I was to become a father in the near future though I’d like to think I’d exhibit a certain degree of responsibility towards my children. For example, what they eat, who they play with, the environment they live in and who’s watching them.

Take note of that last one. For some parents apparently who looks after your children doesn’t matter. If you’re available to babysit, come on down.

Well it turns out who babysits your children is more important then some parents would like to think. This is a lesson one mother from Campsie, in Sydney’s southwest unfortunately learnt the hard way.

Jayant Kumar Singh was being held in a mental health facility until late 2006. For whatever reason Singh was then released and a short time later found himself babysitting three young children. One of which was a baby.

Despite having ‘never shown any aggression towards them and had a good relationship with the baby‘ Singh then decided to try some unconventional disciplinary methods and proceeded to ‘hit (the) baby with a crutch before almost cutting her head off with a meat cleaver‘.

Singh did this to the baby girl infront of her two other siblings.

A post-mortem report revealed the baby had brain injuries and extensive fractures to her skull, and her neck had been cut deeply with “near decapitation.


The sentence for committing such an act?

Not guilty via means of mental illness.

Not a fan of the ‘mental illness defence’ normally this kind of sentence would leave a bitter taste in my mouth. In this particular case however Singh appears to actually have had a prior history of mental illness. The article doesn’t specify what he suffered from but whatever it was it was severe enough for him to be committed to a loony bin.

How or under what circumstances Singh was released though remains a mystery. Either the process by which mentally ill people are assessed for released massively failed, or Singh convinced his captors he was healthy enough to rejoin society when he wasn’t, in which case the process by which mentally ill people are assessed for release still massively failed.

What’s worrying is that this very process is again being used to hold Singh until he is deemed fit for release again. Although Justice Robert Shadbolt Hulme found Singh not guilty, he did sentence him to ‘to be detained in a prison hospital at Sydney’s Long Bay Jail “until released by due process of the law”.‘

This very due process which seems to have failed before just needs to eventually fail again and Jayant Singh gets to walk the streets a free man without any prior conviction.

It’d be like the murder of the baby girl never happened.

I’ve long since held the view that by all means sentence mentally ill people to mental institutions or whatever but sentence them punishment wise in the same manner a non-mentally ill person would be sentenced.

By not recording a conviction against Singh the legal system isn’t doing society any favours. Sure a custodial sentence under these circumstances might be for a very long time but eventually if and when Singh is released is it in any way fair he can carry on his life like the murder never happened?

Worse still perhaps one day engage in employment around children whose parents are completely oblivious to Singh’s past?

The cynic in me can’t help but wonder if Singh’s release could possibly have been due to over crowding at the facility he was being held at. Given he appears to have no prior history of violence against children I’m left pondering the thought if Singh’s actions might have been a physical plea to be let back into the ‘system’.

It’s no secret mental health is pretty underfunded in Australia.

Whatever the reason though sadly a mother has had to learn the hard way that who babysits your children matters. Whether the mother knew of Singh’s mental problems or not remains unclear.

If she didn’t know then if I was her I’d seriously be considering legal action against the instituion that certified Singh fit for release.

If she did know well let that be a lesson to all the other lazy parents out there. Pay attention to who’s around your kids.

It should go without saying but letting mentally ill people watch your kids probably isn’t the smartest idea in the world. One minute they’re sitting in the corner drooling like an invalid and the next they’re trying to hack off your baby girls head with a meat cleaver.

For some Tasmanians this is a big draw card. A hearkening back to simpler times, living in an natural pristine environment and escaping the bustle of Australia’s main cities.

For others it’s just a convenient excuse to hop into bed with 12 year old girls.

I knew when I saw this particular news story all I was going to be left with was the bitter taste of chlamydia in my mouth. Yet I couldn’t stop reading…

A Tasmanian man has admitted prostituting a 12-year-old girl at his home and sharing the proceeds with the girl’s mother.

The Mercury reports the man, 51, acted as the girl’s pimp last year while she had sex with more than 100 men at Glenorchy.


…yeah, so hows that chlamydia tasting?

The man, Gary John Devine put an ad in a local newspaper advertising ‘Angela‘ who was ‘new in town‘. Rates were $100 for the half hour and $50 more if you wanted to ride bareback.

So what drives a 12 year old girl into prostitution?

Well mid last year ‘Angela’s’ mother complained to her boyfriend close male friend Devine that she had no money. Now instead of Angela’s mother getting a job, claiming to be 1/16th Aboriginal or simply just whoring herself out, Devine, Angela’s mother and Angela herself sat down for a chat and came to the conclusion it was in their best interests that Angela become a prostitute.

When I was twelve my parents wouldn’t even let me decide on what hairstyle I was getting… I can only imagine what it’s like having a conversation with your mother about becoming a prostitute.

‘So son, we’ve got no money… it’s time for you to grow up and become a prostitute.’

‘…I’m sticking my pee pee into the what now?’

Not to be stereotypical or anything but at the root of the prostitution ring was drugs. Presumably this is why Angela’s mother had no money in the first place. Both Angela and her mother’s boyfriend close male friend Devine were also addicted to drugs too. Infact from the sounds of it most of the proceeds of the business wound up funding the trio’s drug habit.

Talk about your messed up childhoods…

‘so sweetheart what was your childhood like?’

‘well by the age of twelve I’d stretched out my vagina to the size of nineteen football fields, done hard drugs and worked as a prostitute. Now what color did you want for the wedding cake again?’

‘…’

‘…honey?’

The kind of worrying thing (well one of many worrying things really), is that ‘Angela’ was quite the success. Initially starting off in a hotel room she quickly graduated to turning tricks at Devine’s unit.

The business ran from Thursday to Sunday and on average Angela saw 100 men a week. The business started in July and it wasn’t until November that police caught up with them. Between July and November there’s 18 weekends which comes in at a staggering 1,800 men.

And I don’t mean staggering as in ‘holy crap that’s a large number’, I mean staggering as in how the hell do you put a 12 year old’s vagina through that? I’m also not being metaphorical… that’s literally got to be a staggering experience for her.

Even more worrying is the fact that there’s so many men in Tasmania willing to shack up with a twelve year old for money. The advertisement sold Angela off as an eighteen year old but cmon, when was the last time you saw an eighteen year old who looked twelve?

…and this is coming from a guy who lives in Taiwan where it seems puberty has skipped half the female population.

I’m not saying there weren’t any repeat customers in the  1800 men who slept with twelve year old Angela but really, not one person thought to themselves ‘you know what, there’s no grass on this pitch. Something isn’t quite right here’.

While at this stage it’s unknown just who the clientel were at least one high profile customer has been named and shamed. Tasmanian independant MP Terry Martin is currently facing court over child pornography allegations;

It is alleged that on or about September 10, the 51-year-old politician took photographs of a naked 12-year-old girl performing a sex act.


Martin is due in court next month.

Underage prostitutes, drug addicted pimps, mothers who consent and pedophile politicians;

Seriously Tasmania, what the hell?

After speeding past a police patrol the police engaged in a high speed pursuit but called it off after Williams ran a red light. A few seconds later Williams ran another red light and collided into a family of three.

Both Williams and the entire family died at the scene.

The real tragedy?

Williams had multiple prior records and just ten months ago put himself into a coma after crashing another car he’d stolen. At the time of both crashes Williams was also an unlicensed driver.

Sadly the only tragedy here is the abysmal ineffectiveness of Australia’s court system who now unquestionably have blood on their hands.

Police are already in a difficult position when it comes to engaging in pursuit. On one hand there’s the danger factor to the general public and themselves but then there’s also the need for some kind of deterrent. If moron drivers know that by hitting the accelerator police will mandatory give up chase what do you think they’re going to do?

Currently Sky Webbe is in an induced coma, she was in the passenger seat of the stolen car and had been going out with Williams for just two months. Today Webbe’s mother Debbie (pictured right) lashed out at police and placed responsibility of the accident squarely on them.

Ms Webb’s mother Debbie this morning conceded Justin was running from police but said she blamed police “totally” for the crash.

“I can see he’s done wrong but it’s a petty little crime,” she told Radio 3AW.

“One stolen car. He didn’t murder anybody at the time, you know, but that’s what it led him to because of the police chase.”

The mother called for legislation to ban police pursuits.

“Innocent people are dying all because of police chases,” she said.


Apart from sounding like your typical bogan trash family Debbie’s logic is bulletproof.

Wait what?

It is currently unknown when the car Williams was driving was stolen therefore just for how long he’d been speeding along before the police engaged in pursuit is also unknown.

If the police weren’t around does anybody really think some moron with his girlfriend speeding along are going to be stopping for red lights anyway?

You’ve just stolen a car, you’re speeding along and you’re unlicensed with a previous criminal record and outstanding charges. Yeah, better stop for those red lights.

As for a petty little crime, let’s not twist the situation post mortem. Justin Williams not only stole a car on Saturday night, he murdered an innocent family too. Murder isn’t exactly a petty crime in my books.

Whether the police were doing their job or not has nothing to do with it. Ten months ago Williams put himself into a coma after crashing another stolen car and the police weren’t pursuing him then. The only constant between two crashes is the idiot behind the wheel and those that support him.

Debbie Webbe included.

Unfortunately the family of the Oppelaar’s (the innocent family Williams’ smashed into), seem to be just as bogan as the Webbes and have also come out blaming the police.

Mr Oppelaar’s cousin, Jason Kelly, said: ”I purely blame police for it. He’s getting chased and that’s what young people do. They get scared and they take off,” he told reporters.

Mr Oppelaar’s sister, Nicki, was also angry. ”My brother is dead now because the police chased this car to the point where he didn’t want to stop.”

Mr Oppelaar’s brother, Chris Mills, said: ”You have to ask who’s responsible … in some part it’s the driver for doing the speeds he was doing, but mostly it comes down to the coppers … what good’s a stolen car?”


Firstly does anyone seriously think Williams was scared? He knew what he was doing, he’d been through the motions before and undoubtedly knew there was a high chance he’d be picked up by police. I sincerely doubt this pillar of society crapped his pants the second he saw a police siren on his tail.

Most likely Williams was enjoying the rush and his idiot of a girlfriend would have been cheering him on.

Secondly, “wanted to stop?” Sure, that makes sense. Williams was flying around speeding his nuts off in a stolen car before he even registered on the police radar, and we’re expected to believe he wanted to stop?

”onest guv, I ‘ad wanted to stop but then I saws those police sirens and shatted myself I did’.

Yeah I’m sure that was exactly what was going through Williams’ mind.

Thirdly it’s not about the stolen car. It’s about sparing the public from morons who steal cars and joyride around in them at high speeds. Williams had already proven he didn’t need a police to get himself into a car crash at high speed ten months earlier.

Unfortunately the coma crash didn’t kill Williams. Darwin gave him a second chance at life but the courts should have revoked his freedom then and there.

Instead, due to a troubled childhood, physical abuse, being down on his luck, missing his favourite tv show or whatever stereotypical bullshit reason his lawyer would have fed the courts, the Australian court system gave Williams the now all too familiar slap on the wrist treatment. Now an innocent family of three are dead.

The good news is that ten months after Williams was released and given permission to ruin more people’s lives, the Australian court system is still as limp dicked as ever. Last November P-plater Joanne Grosse was found slumped over the steering wheel of her car and had a blood alcohol reading of 0.385.

The legal blood alcohol limit for a P-plater is 0.00.

Despite having multiple prior drink driving offences Joanne Grosse was simply fined $600, disqualified from driving for 18 months (like that’ll work) and put on a good behaviour bond.

Three cheers for the Australian court system!

I for one can’t wait to read about who Grosse winds up killing and how invariably the police are to blame.

One of them that sticks out in my mind is the idea of designer babies. Currently a fledgling technology, we’re still obviously a few years from logging into some website and designing what we think is the perfect aesthetically pleasing baby yet.

Meanwhile the technology to choose your babies’ gender is already here and with a five year moratorium prohibiting superficial use of the tech almost up, the IVF sector has already begun to campaign for baby gender selection to be unleashed onto Australian mainstream society.

The worrying news is that it’s been tipped that they’ll get their way.

Currently baby gender selection is illegal in Australia except in cases where the parents have a serious disease that has a high probability of being carried onto a specific gender.

This in my mind is totally acceptable and I fully support the use of gender selection technology in screening for serious genetic diseases.

What I have trouble with is the widespread use of the technology to create ‘perfect’ socially engineered families. Even if we put aside the religious, ethical and humane arguments for a second, baby gender selection has already been proven not to work on a large scale in countries like China.

In China the practice of baby gender selection is illegal but still widely practiced. As a result the Chinese government puts it’s male to female ratio at 118:100 and rising.

In some cities such as Guangdong and Hainan the ratio is at 130:100. It’s been predicted that should current trends continue by 2020 there’s going to be a lot of Chinese males out there unable to find partners.

Anyone want to take a punt on what happens when a country of over a billion people is full of males who can’t get any sex?

Then you’ve got the crazy countries who either due to religious, social, economic or superstitious reasons want male babies and nothing else. Traditionally you’d just throw your female baby off a cliff or into a river, which for most should have been a pretty big deterrent against social gender selection… now you just go see a doctor.

I can’t begin to think of the social problems in 20-30 years time if areas like the middle east and India decide to only pump out male babies.

In the west we tend not to have such a gender prejudice. Parents get put in old people homes and it’s not like we’ve got dowry’s or other religious gender crap to worry about. To be honest I don’t know what’s worse though. A couple opting for social gender engineering on the grounds of superficiality, or doing so because they don’t want to pay a dowry.

I’m one of four boys and it’s no secret that my parents were trying for a girl before giving up after the four of us popped out. Had the technology been available to them I’m not entirely sure they wouldn’t have opted for it.

What doesn’t sit right with me is the knowledge that they might have perhaps chose to just have a boy and a girl. Sure not having a sister has meant that I’m probably a little less equipped to deal with females but at least I know our family was made up of chance. Nobody ‘designed’ it.

I’m not exactly sure why that’s such a big deal to me but it just is. Knowing my parents pre-planned their children down to the very gender we would be just trivialises the whole ‘having children’ thing down to baking a specific type of cake because you felt like banana that day.

I’m lucky in that despite wanting a girl, my parents provided for my brothers and I and accepted us as males. This is obviously a potential problem, yet when addressing it supporters of gender selection seem to have somehow turned it back onto the unborn child. IVF pioneer Gob Kovacs argues that

It might even be in the interests of the child to have their sex selected.

If a couple so badly want a boy or a girl they are prepared to go through IVF and sex selection at great cost and effort rather than getting pregnant naturally, then maybe if they had the child naturally and it was the wrong sex it may not be looked after as well.


What?

Sorry mate but if parents are that superficial that having a baby of an undesirable gender to them means child abuse and neglect, then what the hell are they doing having kids in the first place?!

And what’s this nonsense about ‘the wrong sex’. Since when was it right or wrong to have a male or female baby?

Kovacs continues;

at a cost of between $10,000-$15,000, only those who were extremely determined would go for sex selection.


I think it’s pretty obvious we can replace ‘extremely determined’ with ‘wealthy’. Mind you with the baby bonus up to whatever it is now $10,000 becomes $5000 which is easily in reach of the middle class.

This talk of money however and using it as justification in that most people can’t afford it so it’s ok outlines the thinly veiled argument put forward by the IVF sector. What we’re really looking at here is obscene amounts of money to be made thinly dressed up in mock concern about the welfare of ‘wrong gender’ babies due to neglectful parents.

Only instead of blaming superficial parents we’re now blaming unborn babies. Yes, we need mainstream baby gender selection so that we can help babies avoid being born the wrong gender.

What a crock.

Sure I might be exaggerating the situation in my head but I’ve never felt comfortable going out and buying a box of condoms on my own. Part of the reason is the narcissistic habit that kicks in when I see another guy doing the same, or worse another girl.

If I’m stuck behind someone on the conveyor belt and I see a box of condoms, instinctively I’m looking them up and down and wondering how ugly or hot their partner is.

If the conclusion is they’re really ugly then I feel like they’ve ruined my night before it’s even begun with their ugliness. If the conclusion is their hot then, as stupid as it sounds I get little pangs of jealousy run through me. Even if I’m not single at the time.

I assume I’m not alone in this and thus when I’m standing in line buying a box of condoms I can’t help but think this is what if someone else sees my box this is what they start thinking about too.

I’m well into adulthood (well, physically anyway), and these are the thoughts that run through my head when I think about buying condoms. Recently Swedish condom company Lamprecht AG announced that they plan to market condoms to 12-14 year old boys.

What a great idea, let’s inject a bit of sexual crazy into minds who’s only other social responsibility is deciding whether or not they want the red or the blue McHappy meal toy this week.

Profits aside, I’ve tried to rationalise the marketing of extra small condoms (subtly named the ‘Hotshot’) to young boys. From what I can tell nobody is going to benefit from a product like this…

12-14 year old boys

I’m not saying 12-14 year old boys aren’t doing it but cmon… whilst they might understand that their hoohah goes into her wahoo is anyone really expecting them to grapple concepts beyond that?

Most parents dread the birds and the bees talk and these days leave it to the television, internet or schoolyard to fill in the blanks. Imagine trying to explain sexual disease and pregnancy to a 12 year old.

What’s more, even if by some stroke of luck you’ve got a kid who gets it, do you really think he’s going to be thinking safe sex if he’s about to get some?

Kids at that age get distracted walking from their bedrooms to the dinner table let alone trying to remember to go buy a condom before doing little Sally down at the playground.

Then there’s the stigmata of the name. Adult males have a hard enough time dealing with condom sizes. What kid is going to buy ‘extra small’ condoms?

Parents

Ok so somehow your kid understands sexual diseases and avoiding pregnancy…what next?

You work in a supermarket and Mrs. Johnson whom you’ve known since you were a little kid rocks up with a box of Hotshot extra small condoms. What’s the first thought that pops into your mind?

Either she’s just started an affair with an Asian man or old man Johnson simply ain’t what he used to be.

As husband and wife going in to buy extra small condoms let me tell you now that nobody is going to believe they are for your kid. After years of sexual frustration as a couple you’re just both glad that somebody finally made a condom in just the right size for you.

As a lone father… well that’s a no brainer. It’s bad enough walking through the checkout with the least gay sounding and lack of fancy artwork on the box pack of condoms, let alone a box of Hotshots in extra small.

Not gunna happen.

The rest of us

I’m a guy and I’m pretty sure I’m getting lucky tonight. I open my condom drawer and realise stocks are running low. I need to buy myself some condoms.

No worries I think to myself. I head down to the local supermarket and as I’m reaching for my favourite box, I notice a few small packs off to the side with bright glitzy colors and cartoons on the box.

“What the hell?” I think to myself. I take a closer look at one of the boxes and then realise these are those new Hotshot extra small condoms I’d read about the other day.

“Ah, these are what the kids use when they… uh wait, better no finish that thought”.

Later on that night I’m getting little Oz ready for some fun and as I’m slipping it on that image of Hotshots pops back into my head.

The night is pretty much over at this point. Complete disaster.

Worse still imagine being behind some twelve year old at the supermarket and all of a sudden he slams down a box of condoms on the counter.

“Big night tonight son?”

“uh yeah lol.”

“Well uh, don’t forget to wash that one pubic hair down there…”

I can’t think of anything more awkward. Whatever the opposite of an aphrodisiac is, extra small condoms designed for kids is definitely the penultimate of it.


Whilst I understand the need for sexual education for kids these days I don’t really think retailing condoms for kids is the answer. And if it is, well that’s no excuse to ruin sex for the rest of us.

Even if they put them down with the powdered milk and baby formula or in the toy section there’s still a chance you’ll run into someone buying them.

Hopefully these things stay in Sweden as an awkward social experiment and don’t make it for sale globally online. I imagine someone buying extra small condoms for kids in bulk over the internet is probably going to raise a few eyebrows at customs.

Living in Taiwan it’s bad enough thinking about buying tiny Asian condoms, I really don’t need to be thinking about children’s sizes too.

The irony of pregnancy aside, some things just don’t need to be associated with kids.

Scenario 1: Jack goes rabbit shooting before school, pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1959 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s rifle, goes to his car and gets his rifle & chats with Jack about guns.

2009 – School goes into lock down, Star Force called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his Ute or gun again. Counsellors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1959 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.

2009 – Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario 3: Robbie won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.

1959 – Robbie sent to office and given 6 of the best by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2009 – Robbie given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Robbie has a disability.

Scenario 4: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.

1959 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2009 – Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario 5: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1959 – Mark gets glass of water from Principal to take aspirin with.

2009 – Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario 6: Pedro fails high school English.

1959 – Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.

2009 – Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.

AFRE files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher.. English banned from core curriculum.

Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario 7: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a bullant’s nest.

1959 – Ants die.

2009 – Star Force, Federal Police & Anti-terrorism Squad called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, Feds investigate parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated,

Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario 8: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1959 – In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2009 – Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.


The above is a joke email that most of you should have seen by now having been widely circulated over the last decade.

It seems however that somebody forgot to tell Queensland that it wasn’t a roadmap for state government policy in our schools…

Kids these days are forced by society to grow up fast. From an early age they are bombarded with sexual advertising. Magazines featuring women with giant breasts in string bikinis line the aisles of shops, giant yellow billboards on the drive to school ask them if they are “getting enough sex?” and flick on a television and it won’t take long for something sexually suggestive to come on.

Parents start thinking about their current choices and how they might affect their child’s future career from seemingly earlier and earlier ages each year. Sometimes seemingly before the child is even born.

With so much pressure and media exposure thrust upon them, naturally kids are going to be curious. Internet filtering or not, they now have a world of information at their fingertips to feed this curiosity.

It’s too late to play the blame game we just have to accept that if we want all our freedoms that’s the way it is. What we can focus on however is how react to this new ‘coming of age’ of the younger generation.

A primary school in Queensland has shown us exactly how not to react to this situation.

Education Queensland admitted there was a crisis of confidence at the school on Brisbane’s northern outskirts.

A third of pupils have been taken out of school after a raft of alleged sexual incidents.

There have been 18 recorded cases at the Queensland school since last year with 11 incidents reported to police.


Usually it’s a teacher involved in this type of story but this time it’s students sexually abusing students and amidst a sea of paranoia, blame and bad parenting the auth0rities have been called in.

With both male and female kids running around feeling eachother up how did the school choose to respond?

Education Queensland director-general Julie Grantham acknowledged what was happening at the school was “not normal.”

Staff have since been given extra child protection training, teacher aide time has been increased in the playground, a psychologist was giving specialised support to children and parents were also being addressed by Family Planning Queensland.


Oh dear.

If this response is any indication then it seems Queensland is well on its way to raising a whole new generation of confused sexually repressed adults.

So do we blame the kids, the parents raising the kids or just accept that by turning our kids into mini adults this is what’s going to happen? Of course not, instead we just scape the principal.

Queensland Teachers Union members have also taken a vote of no confidence in the principal, who is under a separate investigation by the department.


Unless the school is sponsored by Club X or something, how exactly is the principal to blame here? This sort of behaviour is picked up at home and then brought to the playground.

Furthermore;

“With the sexual assaults, we have done a separate investigation into the full handling of this and the school has followed all the appropriate behaviours.

“They have followed the checklist in every one of the cases.”


So the school followed protocol as set out for the state government, yet we’re voting no confidence in the principal? How about a vote of no confidence in the stupid government policy in relation to “sexual assaults” in schools he or she was following?

Obviously these problems have massively failed but don’t worry, the government is onto it. They believe it’s spiralled out of control due to unaddressed copy-cat behaviour.

Griffith University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Professor Stephen Smallbone (hehe smalbone) said children could be influenced by their peers’ behaviour.


…really, they had to go and ask a professor whether or not kids copy other kids? Seriously are parents, teachers and the authorities that detached from the kids they are supposed to be raising, protecting and working with?

I remember in my primary school years two incidents that these days would have probably resulted in similar action being taken against the school and ‘sexual predator’ children attending.

The first was in grade one or so from memory. It was a brief incident where one boy realised he could flash his genitals to girls in the playground and chase them around, much to their amusement.

The second was a year or so later when a bit of touchy feely was going on between boys and girls at the school oval during lunchtime.

In both cases teachers spoke to the students after ‘breaking it up’ and explained that their actions were inappropriate.

Life went on, no police were called and there certainly wasn’t any need to tear the school apart on a witch hunt.

I’m certainly not saying we need to encourage orgy house primary schools or not address children’s curiosity when it arises but do we really need to label them as sex offenders and call in the authorities?

God knows how messed up personal relationships are going to be fifty years from now…

Sharon Ward took a Valium and a Panadol and retired to bed. The police weren’t called until 1pm that day.

Shellay Ward spent the final years of her life living in squalor. Neighbours reported the girl never left the house and lived in a boarded up room thick with the stench of urine and piles of feces.

The Wards were known to the Department of Children Service (DOCS) for fourteen years prior to Shellay’s death. Multiple concerns had been raised and DOCS had removed two of Shellay’s siblings two years prior to her death.

Somehow Shellay still slipped through the cracks.

When found, seven year old Shellay’s body weighed just 9kg. She was described as having a mummified appearance with bullants crawling in and out of her mouth. Black vomit oozed from her body into a puddle on her filthy matress.

Despite weighing a healthy 20.5kg back in February 2006, Shellay’s parents have strenously denied she died of starvation. Between the two of them they have blamed everything from drugs, eachother, Shellay’s fear of water and autism in an attempt to deny responsibility for her death.

They even tried to flee once the story broke but were apprehended at a Albion Park train station in Woolongong.

During their trial Blake Ward publicly admitted lying to many statements he’d made as fact under oath. These included blaming his wife for the death of Shellay and telling the court Shellay regularly ate large meals. Sharon also eventually publicly admitted to lying about her daughter’s meals.

Sharon however was not as outspoken as her husband during the trial but rather took the calculated route of blaming drug dependency, admitting to lying to doctors about her drug use and admitting she “didn’t do enough” for Shellay.

She told the court through her lawyer that she would not contest manslaughter for the death of her daughter.

The horrific conditions Shellay lived under and the absolute circus performance that Sharon and Blake Ward have put on for the courts is sickenly disgusting.

It took seven days of deliberation until finally on June 24th the jury passed two guilty verdicts for the couple. Sharon Ward guilty on the charge of murder and Blake Ward guilty of manslaughter.

Upon receiving the news both parties lawyers announced they would be dragging out the mental illness defense before sentencing. Blake’s lawyers asked for a six week adjournment to put together a defense but Sharon’s lawyers had already prepared one earlier.

Presumably Sharon’s lawyers started preparing the defense months ago as they didn’t just have one report on Sharon’s mental state but two – all ready to go.

The mental illness defense was realistically the only card these two dropkicks ever had a hope in playing. Mental illness is notorious for being an effective scapegoat in Australian courts and has the universal effect of reducing severe crimes to mere lollipop sentences.

It was no surprise to then read that on June 25th (the day after they were found guilty) that Sharon Ward’s sentencing had also been postponed until August. It seems her lawyers were going for maximum mental illness leverage. Firstly declare you’re ready to go and then the day after claim your client is too distraught to continue in a vein attempt to show remorse.

How stupid did Sharon’s lawyers think everyone was?

Thankfully justice prevailed today and Sharon Ward was sentenced to life in jail.

Blake Ward was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years.

With all the rubbish sentences being handed down lately it’s refreshing to see some real justice handed out.

I know it won’t last but at least for now it feels like one set of parents have been held accountable for their actions. Not the government, not society and not their mental issues.

RIP Shellay Ward.

The theory behind the smack is relatively simple yet somehow it’s metamorphed into this sticky debate over child abuse, children’s rights and the softly softly approach.

One academic (who probably doesn’t have kids) even came out today and declared that smacking your kids makes them stupid.

Research revealed it can also lower a child’s IQ, with those smacked up to three times a week having a lower IQ due to psychological stress.

US-based sociologist Professor Murray Straus, who studied the impact of smacking for 40 years, likened the effects of corporal punishment to post-traumatic stress, affecting a child’s mental development


Three times a week? What the hell are you doing the rest of time that you need to smack your kids three times a week?

For us smacking was rare but the message still got across. Three times a week or more? Well of course your child is going to grow up retarded – it’s got nothing to do with post-traumatic stress or some other flavour of the month “illness”.

At three times a week or more YOUR KID IS A FREAKING PUNCHING BAG!

Personally I’m not convinced that smacking has any correlation to a childs IQ. I find it much more believable that there are just stupid kids in the world, much like adults. I mean think about it, if your kid is running around worried about being smacked, clearly they’re not misbehaving and therefore wouldn’t be getting smacked.

To claim kids that are out of control enough to warrant frequent smacking are worried about being punished is a paradox.

The exception to this is of course the parents that do use their kids as punching bags. Whether you support the softly softly approach or some firm discipline I think it’s safe to say both sides agree on sending child abusers to jail.

While not an advocate of smacking, Sydney psychologist Dr Judith Kennedy said parents who gave an occasional tap on the bottom should not fear damaging their child.

“But a child who is suppressed through physical punishment regularly is going to behave differently,” Dr Kennedy said.


Want to know just how differently?

In Muswellbrook (central NSW) children as young as 9 rampage through the streets in broad daylight smashing windows, swearing at shop owners and staging daylight robbery.

This 10-year-old allegedly used a replica pistol to hold up a video store as his 14-year-old accomplice waited outside – their getaway car a scooter.

The boy allegedly threatened to kill the store clerk, 18, if she told anyone.


I can guarantee you this kid has never been smacked in his life.

So, after holding up a store at (toy) gunpoint, what was this kids punishment?

After allegedly making off with a small amount of cash, the boy was caught on a security camera in a shop just 200m away, calmly buying groceries with the money he had stolen.

He and his alleged accomplice were questioned by police, but were released “pending further inquiries”.


Video footage, caught in the act spending the stolen money and they are then released pending further enquires?! Why weren’t they dragged off and the parents interrogated? And what the hell further enquiries did the police have to do – YOU CAUGHT THEM RED HANDED GUYS!

Are the police in Muswellbrook that worried that if they don’t release the kids so that they can just catch them again the next day they’ll be out of a job?

“It’s unbelievable how young these kids are,” Mr Smith said. “I mean, their getaway vehicle was a scooter.” The couple, who also own a nearby newsagency, have been broken into twice in a month and store windows were often smashed.

Gangs of up to 10 children, usually under the age of 16, caused trouble most days.


Clearly none of the parents in this town have ever raised a hand to their children. Fair enough I’m a guy but if a 10 year old dared try and hold me up, toy gun or otherwise I think I’d probably be more at risk of dying of laughter.

Going by the police and parental inaction towards these ratbags I sense that everybody’s hoping that once they turn eighteen they’ll just magically turn into model citizens.

Not going to happen people. Want to know what happens when undisciplined little shits get older?

A 15-YEAR-old boy has been rushed to hospital with a stab wound in the chest after a brawl involving 200 youths in Melbourne’s west.

The clash – mainly involving Asian and Pacific Islander youths, some armed with knives and umbrellas – erupted about 4.15pm (AEST) in a car park at Highpoint, Maribyrnong.


That.

Although islander parents are stereotypically known to heavy with the physical violence clearly even they have gotten lazy. Mind you I feel much more sympathetic towards the parents of these kids, it’s one thing to physically discipline some ten year old country rat then an islander teenager who could crush you with his belly rolls.

As for the asians… you guys really need to get over people sleeping with your women. Seriously, we can’t keep having brawls in Melbourne everytime a non-asian guy sleeps with an asian girl.

I do find it somewhat adorable though that islanders brought umbrellas to fight the asian’s machetes. At least they didn’t get wet.

Getting back on topic if you don’t instill some sense of discipline at a young age your kids soon start running riot in public and before you know it it’s kiddie gang warfare on the streets.

Meanwhile the rest of us have to put up with this stupid shit all because you forgot about the ‘raising your kids’ clause in the baby bonus contract.

It’s time to start beating your kids parents, enough is enough. Time out, ‘if you do that ONE more time no red cordial for you’ hollow threats, confiscating video games, making them eat vegetarian food, having a ‘talk’ with them and other nonsensical hippie parenting garbage does not work!

If I see one more parent lash out with a hollow threat that goes nowhere the next time a child misbehaves I’m going to walk up and slap it across the backside myself.

You can thank me for saving your kid from jail later, (preferably by paying my bail after the police cart me away).

It was rollcall first thing in the morning and the temp, a big man himself, was near the blackboard at the front of the class and most of us were filing in to take a seat.

Everyone was pretty lively and while I can’t recall what was said the next thing we knew the teacher had his hand around the guys neck and had him pinned to the blackboard.

It was completely random and obviously whatever was said verbally must have spiralled out of control. Nobody threw any punches and the teacher let him go after yelling ‘don’t test me’. After which the boy stormed out and had probably threw a tantrum somewhere.

About twenty minutes later he got over it and came back into the class and that was the end of it.

Had that of happened nowadays there’d be a federal enquiry into it, the school would be shut down for eighteen months,we’d all have been offered counselling, been given ‘special considerations’ towards the VCE and parents across the country would staging ‘walk-ins’ where they rock up to their local school and burn effigies baying for blood.

I’m not saying the kid necessarily deserved the extreme dished out to him but he definitely had something coming sooner or later. When you’re the biggest kid in class and you like to throw your weight around that tends to happen.

Jai Morcom was killed in a schoolyard fight last Friday at Mullumbimby High School in NSW. From what I can piece together the emos and the footy jocks didn’t like eachother too much (what’s new) and were sitting at their various tables.

Jocks took a chair from the emo table, emos didn’t like it and wham bam now a kid’s dead.

Of course the police are trying to balance the fine line of casting suspicions and have come out and said Jai wasn’t on either side of the fight but cmon seriously guys?

I’m sure he wasn’t just sitting there talking to the UN on his mobile discussing his plans for world peace when the fight broke out around him. He obviously had something to do with the chair and going by his photo I’d say there’s a high chance he belonged to the emos, although news reports are saying he was friends with the footy jocks.

As a sidenote I’d like to ask when the hell did emos get all physical? When I was finishing school the emo culture was just starting to take off and I remember them as confidence lacking skulkers. Times must be changing if they’re running around in gangs now taking on footy jocks.

Having said that Mullumbimby does sound like it’s in the middle of nowhere so I can’t disregard the fact that we might be dealing with some sort of hybrid mutant form of emo here.

Anyway so the kids fought while the teachers did nothing and after literally getting his head kicked in Jai was rushed off to hospital where he died on Saturday.

Naturally the school itself and the teachers there have copped flak for not doing anything and students staged a walkout today. Because you know, walking out of school is totally about sending a message to ‘the man’ and not about getting out of class for a bit.

Sure the teachers at Mullumbimby High School might not have done anything to intervene but really can you blame them?

If fights of this magnitude are breaking out regularly at the school clearly the parents have no idea how to raise children and that’s what really needs to be addressed here. Placing all the blame on teachers who get sued for assault because they farted as they walked past someone in the corridor just isn’t fair.

For years now parents have been increasingly upping the nuisance factor and looming litigation threats in our school and frankly I’m not surprised a kid is dead.

You’re a teacher, you’re standing there while two gangs of little shits are going at it. You know if you so much as raise your voice you’re going to get sued so do you break up the brawl and risk them all turning on you?

Hell no. You go back to your iphone and let the little bastards fight.

Parents have brought this upon themselves.

Caroline Hutchinson from Blog Central shares an anecdote that brilliantly showcases why teachers don’t interfere in schoolyard fights anymore;

A friend of mine was a teacher in the western suburbs of Sydney for around 15 years. While others did their time and got out as fast as they could, Luke stuck at it.

Part P.E. teacher, part social worker, he believed in the kids and loved his job.

A couple of years ago, at the final bell one Friday as kids and teachers began streaming out of classrooms looking for a short cut home, a group of Year 10 girls passed Luke on the stairs.

Laughing and joking, one of them made a grab for the pens in Luke’s top pocket.

He was a relatively young, good looking teacher, he liked to joke with the kids and he felt he had a good rapport with them.

So he swatted her hand and kept moving. Suddenly there were ten girls who wanted the pens – amidst cheering and giggling and Luke was swamped.

Never one to back down from a challenge, as the pens were grabbed and lifted victoriously, he hit back – seized the pen snatchers wrist and backed her up against a wall.

To more cheers and lots more boos he plucked the pens from her hand.

Long story short, later that evening the police visited his home to discuss allegations of assault.

The 15-year-old had told her dad that Luke had ‘crushed’ her wrist and humiliated her.

Her Dad demanded an apology, Luke’s dismissal and financial compensation for the effect the injury would have on his daughter’s study.

The rumour mill began to grind and it eventually made the papers, with headlines like “student assault” complete with testimony from the standard disgruntled parents.

Luke was stood down pending an investigation.

In the end, the charges didn’t make it to court, however the family received an official apology and Luke was offered a job at a different school. He didn’t take it.


Crap like this is the reason Jai Morcom is dead.

We don’t need to reintroduce the cane but we do need to address the castration moron parents have forced upon the teachers that teach their kids.

Otherwise we end up with ridiculous pre-emptive situations against crappy parents such as the cartwheel ban introduced mid last year.

Belgian Gardens State School in Townsville has banned all gymnastics activities during lunch breaks, declaring it dangerous because it has the potential to cause back and neck injuries.

“Sadly I think this is probably linked with the current society where litigation is rife and I feel that schools are probably trying to avoid a child being hurt and an irresponsible mother then trying to sue them for it.”


Whilst I sympathise with the justification the school presents in favour of the ban, I can’t help but feel we’re treating the symptoms rather then the problem. Money grabbing parents will try to sue for anything these days and it’s got to stop.

Instead of introducing bans that have negative impacts on the growing up of children how about we tackle the problem itself. It’s time we seriously started looking at making our schools litigious free zones.

Not only will we stop gold digging  parents in their tracks but we’ll simultaneously allow teachers to get on with the job of teaching and interacting with students without fear of legal reprisal. The price for not doing so will be similar cases like that of Jai Morcom.

Morcom’s blood isn’t on the teachers or students hands, it’s on the parents.

If you signed up to wireless internet in Australia and had kids you’d be stupid.

If you signed up to wireless internet in Australia and had kids who had their own laptops you’d be pretty stupid.

If you signed up to wireless internet in Australia, had kids who had their own laptops and then blamed your ISP when they blew out your plan limit, you’d be a freaking moron.

Geelong mum Michele Collins has recently experienced first hand the result of not reading your ISP contract and letting your kids run wild on the internet.

Did she learn anything?

No.

In an age of ridiculous caps, outrageous excess usage charges and ever increasing speeds, why people continue to think the internet is a ‘set and forget’ utility is beyond me. Gone are the days of Telstra and Dodo advertising ‘COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY UNLIMITED*!’ with an asterisk list containing 500 reasons why the plan is not unlimited.

These days it tends to be pretty out in the open what your signing up to so there really isn’t any excuse.

Michelle’s 16 year old son, Jack Featherston recently decided he wanted to download Dumb and Dumber and Freddy Got Fingered. In doing so he used a 3 wireless internet plan and racked up $573 in excess usage charges.

When informed she was now liable, Michele pulled the old ‘contact the media and play dumb’ routine only her story just doesn’t add up.

The contract pointed out the costs incurred if the owner of the plan went over the limit but mother and son didn’t read the small print when they signed up.

“Jack has learnt from this, we both have. He’s gone through his contract more, even I have. It costs 10 cents a megabyte and to me that meant nothing, I didn’t realise how big a file would be. I knew if you went over it would cost extra, but didn’t realise how much extra.”


For starters if you browse over to 3′s broadband pricing page, you can clearly see the excess usage charges are there. They aren’t just buried away in some 3,000 page document you’re not required to read when you signup – they’re right there in front of your eyes before you even commit to anything.

The $29 plan clearly states that excess is charged at 10c a megabyte over your allowance.

How can you claim you didn’t know much extra you were going to be charged or how big files were? Whether it’s a 3.6 terabyte file or a 5 megabyte file the rate is still the same, 10c a megabyte if you go over 3 gigabytes.

If you don’t know what the hell a gigabyte is then ask before you sign up. I also find it hard to imagine a sixteen year old boy has no idea about download limits and how big files are.

At 10c a megabyte, $573 in excess usage is 5.7 gigabytes. Now we all know the kid was downloading illegally, as Angus Kidman of Lifehacker points out;

Neither flick appears to be available on iTunes or via BigPond Movies’ download option, so it seems likely that they were accessed from (ahem) illegitimate sources.


As far as I know nobody is offering legal massive multiple gigabyte sized HD downloads to Australians yet.

Your standard pirate divx rips of movies run in at either 1.4gb or 700mb which even at 3gb leaves 2.7 gigabytes unaccounted for. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest if the sixteen year old is downloading illegal movies then the other 2.7gb was probably porn.

Kid + laptop + unmonitored internet + huge downloads + confused parents = porn.

Always. No ifs or buts.

The Geelong Advertiser story mentions that Mrs. Collins also has another 20gb internet plan so I’m going to simply put two and two together and explain exactly what’s happened here.

Hey Michelle, your son downloads copious amounts of porn EVERY MONTH but usually does it on your larger ineternet account. Presumably he connects to this second account wirelessly too.

All that has happened this time is he forgot to switch over which network he was connected to and accidentally downloaded his monthly porn fix (what’s the bet it was close to the end of the billing cycle for the larger plan) on the wrong account.

He then feeds you a rubbish story about downloading some movies from the 90s and you take it to the media and make a complete fool of yourself.

You know what they say about Occam’s razor and all that.

What really bugs me is that despite her son admitting to the downloading (kudos for him not just flatly denying ever doing anything more then ‘checking my emails every few days’), and both of them admitting to never having read the contract they signed up to, Michelle still thinks the ISP is at fault.

“I would imagine 3 (the internet provider) would look at it (the download) and say, `this is huge, do you realise this is going to cost you?’ and then ring me on my mobile. The account is in my name, but they didn’t,” Mrs Collins said.


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because you know, ISP’s know that your sons about to download hours of porn before he actually clicks the download button.

“Hey ma’m, I’m just calling to inform you your son has just viewed a suspiciously large amount of porn torrent download pages from his favourite public tracker and will most likely soon be downloading more then your plan can handle.’

‘Oh no this is terrible! What can I do to stop him!?’

‘uh…upgrade your plan? We have some great specials today for only-’

A contract is a contract, if you sign it it’s binding whether you read it or not. When are people going to learn?

Pay up, move on and just be glad you weren’t with Telstra wireless which is quite capable of excess fees of $3800 an hour. $573 in excess usage for the month is nothing.

With the AFACT claiming Australian movie pirates fund terrorism, I’d be more worried about ASIO knocking on your door asking about the recent Indonesian bombings in Jakarta.

That’s right Michelle, your son is a terrorist.

When I heard the news I had one of those classic ‘face in the palm of your hand’  moments and all I could think was ‘oh great, a whole bunch of people are going to rock up and see my mum naked. Awesome, my life is now complete’.

From what I heard the exhibition was a great success, yet I couldn’t bring myself to attend. The thought of walking through a studio staring at the many paintings of my mother in the nude did absolutely nothing for me, upstairs or downstairs.

Enter New Zealand teenager “Michael”.

It seems times have changed and nudes of your mother are no longer something to be cast out into the darkest corners of your mind. Generation Y apparently sees nude photos of their mothers as commodities to be sold and traded freely on the internet.

So the story goes, after an argument Michael decided to auction off ‘nude’ photos of his mother, Jennifer. The photos were taken roughly eight years ago but what on earth the son was doing in possession of them is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps that’s what Jennifer and Michael were arguing out. You know…

‘GIVE ME BACK MY FREAKING PHOTOS!’

‘NO! *fapfapfap* I can’t, they bring *fapfapfap* me too much happiness!’

‘Godamnit this isn’t normal, now hand them over or else’.

‘I said NO! *fapfapfap* Now leave me alone *fapfapfap* or you’ll be sorry.’

I guess Michael then decided to teach his mother a lesson.

Further to that what the hell kind of family friend takes nude photos of your mum?! I know people get up to all sorts of weird shit but I mean what? Did it just happen after a few drinks? Was it a male or female family friend? Was Michael involved in the photoshoot?

So many questions!

The photos were viewed over 11,000 times before they were pulled down by Trademe. Trademe being New Zealand’s local mishmash of Ebay and the Trading Post.

How Jennifer found out about the initial auction isn’t revealed but astonishingly she then encouraged her son to put them up a second time but instead to label them as ‘glamour shots’. In exchange she asked for a 50% cut of the sale.

I wanted 50 per cent of the sale but more than that, I miss the nice comments.


Does the sound of a million guys jerking off in harmonic unison to naked photos of you on the internet count as nice comments?

Lady no guy on the planet is going to want to give nice comments let alone go out with a woman who’s son could be filming the both of you at any given time ready to upload online. Any child who unreprimandingly plasters naked photos of their parents on the internet is a disaster waiting to happen.

The really creepy thing here is that the original photos were hardcopies, so Michael has had to scan them in which means he’s obviously done some post processing editing and had a good look at the photos. Cmon, teenager + naked photos? You know the thought has crossed his mind at least once.

It’s like a tissue’s worst nightmare.

‘Oh my god I used to be part of the Amazon forest, and for what – THIS IS HOW IT ENDS?’

After my mum and her then boyfriend broke up I have no idea what happened to all the naked paintings of her. It’s not something I’m ever going to bring up and quite honestly the last thing I’d want is for them to somehow make their way onto the internet. Whether I made some money out of them or not!

I’m no psychologist but there’s something just ew about teenagers who are in their hormonal prime deliberately exposing themselves to parental nakedness. Even if you’re mum’s unbelievably hot it’s still a giant NO.

Shame on New Zealand for trying to make a quick buck out of it!

The latest example of leniency in our courts was granted to an unnamed mother (to protect the children of course) from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of NSW. She abandoned her eight children, aged three to fifteen to meet up with a man she met over the internet in Melbourne.

No I’m not making this up.

The mother assumed her ex defacto partner would pop in and check on them every now and then to make sure everything was ok because you know, it’d worked out two times before. This time around the ex was in hospital with a abscess under his arm but that didn’t stop the mother leaving anyway.

She left $150 with her eldest (15) and it was sayonara off to Melbourne to to meet her e-boyfriend. The woman collects $2000 a fortnight ($50,000+ a year tax free) in welfare payments so with $150 of that going to the kids over two weeks you can imagine where the rest went.

Six of her children suffered from haemophilia, a blood disease that prevents the blood from clotting, but at least the mother wasn’t a total cow and had the decency to keep the life saving medication in the house.

It was locked up in her bedroom, to which none of the children had the key to.

When apprehended in Melbourne after concerns were raised by neighbours she stated that “she thought her children would survive on Nutella sandwiches”.

Nutella is a chocolate spread.

In her defense she cited that she was depressed and needed a holiday from her children. Yes life had dealt this donkey of a parent a tough blow. What with random circumstance forcing her to have unprotected sex at least eight times.

Yes I feel for the poor depressed widdle diddums.

The state of the house was described by magistrate Helen Barry as “squalored, putrid and uninhabitable, while littered with dirty clothes, nappies and food scraps and contained broken glass from shattered windows, bottles and a shower screen”.

Here are some photos of the atrocious environment the children were left to fend for themselves in:


Magistrate Barry went on to verbalise her outrage;

“This is not simply a case of neglect, six of the children have a potentially life-threatening condition and were left in a manifestly dangerous and appalling condition without any attempt by their primary carer to inquire as to their welfare for more than one week.”

She said the community had a right to be outraged and “any alternative to a custodial sentence would in my view fail to reflect the objective seriousness of the offence.”

The Magistrate then sentenced the mother to a suspended 30 month sentence. That’s right, this woman is back home with her kids living life as if nothing ever happened.

Somehow, I don’t think anybody has learnt their lesson here.

Well at least the kids are reportedly safe for now, that is until mummy jumps on the internet again and then jet sets off to find someone else to pay for everything. Maybe she’ll have a crack at the baby bonus again soon and additionally up that salary of hers too.

Nadia Sulaiman is a freaking saint compared to this woman. Helen Barry should be ashmed of herself.

The group sex “victim” however takes this concept to a whole new level.

Gone are the shock days of the 90′s when a man would take a woman home and the next minute ten Holden Commodores full of Habib’s rock up and all have their way with her.

No, these days we’re seeing more and more women getting on their all fours, having consensual group sex and then deciding the entire experience was traumatic and degraded them. Seriously, I want to meet the woman who thinks having a bunch of guys do you six ways from Sunday is a confidence and character building exercise.

It’s time men stopped becoming scapegoats every time a woman realises having group sex with a sports star or musician won’t make the object of their desire fall in love with them.

Matthew Johns has become the defacto posterboy for disillusioned scorned women. Originally outed by a welfare collecting coward he has now been fired from channel nine and pretty much had his career flushed down the toilet.

Why?

Because a woman he had consensual group sex with seven years ago claims the event ruined her life.

“I was so angry and I wanted their lives destroyed like mine was. If I had a gun I’d shoot them right now. I hate them. They disgust me. For all that they did, I hate them so much.”

She said the destructive period lasted about four or five years and she was now speaking out to let the wives and girlfriends of those involved know what they had done.


Well mission accomplished Ms. “consensual group sex”. Because you can’t come to terms with what you engaged in you’ve now successfully trashed the lives of innocent men and their families, all from the ivory tower of anonymity.

Usually not even the most bitter of divorcees get to create such havoc in other people’s lives.

Christchurch police Detective Sergeant Neville Jenkins said that in the years after the incident he saw the woman “struggling with life”.

“I didn’t know her prior to this episode, but presumably I’m led to believe this is as a result of what happened to her at that time,” he said.


And here we have a giant hole in this woman’s story. Really, does it need to be said that a woman who is obsessed with a sports star enough that she is willing to be pounded to a pulp by six penises one night have pre-existing emotional problems?

Let’s put two and two together. Mathew John’s is a rugby player and a woman with starstruck eyes believes she is going to get up close and personal with him. A few of his mates want in on the action and she’s ok with that because she thinks this is what he wants. Everyone has a good time and the night comes to an end.

Disillusioned woman never hears from rugby player again and then the hard reality of being used hits her like a ton of bricks.

Waah… they abused me.

Waah… they degraded me.

Waah… I feel violated.

Waah… my parents and friends found out I was a sperm sponge for a night.

Waah… I consented to all of it.

So what the hell is the problem here? Last I checked consensual sex in a group wasn’t illegal and whilst i’m not going to pretend it’s a romantic love filled affair the fact of the matter is it happened and no amount of finger pointing or claiming to be a victim (of what?) is going to change it.

In contrast to the John’s case, I’d now like to draw your attention to what I can only describe as Australian Parents of the Year.

What do brilliant caring parents do?? They let their fifteen year old daughter go to a rock concert, attend an alcohol fueled after party, get shitfaced and then do the band.

Thankfully though in this case, unlike the Mathew Johns case, the sticking point is the girls age and not the group sex she engaged in. In Australia it’s illegal for an adult to have sex with a fifteen year old so two of the band members who have been sentenced were given good behaviour bonds.

Isn’t it amazing the difference in how the two cases have been played out.

In the Johns case where there are million dollar contracts and celebrity names at stake the media has a field day and all of a sudden everyone is all like ‘woah group sex? how terrible! I can’t believe those nasty men would do that to the innocent virgin who was on her way to deliver some muffins to grandma’s house!’ Whereas in the musician case it is quietly swept under the media carpet.

Group sex isn’t something new and despite the spectacle and scandal of it sadly it’s still all too easy for the female participant to claim victim many years later and harp on about how hard done by she was.

Hey ladies, a gangbang won’t make you more popular, it won’t boost your self esteem, it won’t nab you a sports star husband and it certainly won’t solve and pre-existing problems in your life. So how about you just get over the fact that you tried it and didn’t like it instead of pointing the finger at everyone else for a change.

And I’d be right.

Rather then accept the notion of karma as a steadfast rule, instead I like to look at it as a possibility, but something you wouldn’t bet your life savings on happening. What does happen occasionally though is the practical illustration of the fictional concept of karma in everyday life.

I’m the first to admit I didn’t think it was possible to actually die of eczema in this day and age. I’ve always thought of the disease as a kind of genetic cruel joke. You know, when pimples and social unpopularity just aren’t enough to turn your teenage years into a living hell.

Gloria Thomas recently died of eczema, she was nine months old.

Her parents weren’t uneducated bogans and she didn’t live in squalor. Her father, Sam Thomas held an Australian masters degree in health administration and her mother, Manju Sam a science degree and postgrad diploma in computing.

The family lived in New South Wales and despite concerns from doctors across two continents and their own family members, she still somehow managed to slip through the cracks and die.

So the story goes Gloria was initially diagnosed by a nurse a few months after her birth. Despite repeated advice to see a specialist the couple attempted to treat Gloria with homeopathic remedies. Naturally (no pun intended) this failed, magical water drops and sugar balls never cured anyone of anything.

Despite Gloria’s health deteriorating the couple took a trip to India to attend the wedding of Sam’s brother and also apparently because Manju wasn’t coping with Gloria. You see in India you have servants who are able to look after your baby 24/7, here in Australia we have no such luxury.

Anyway, once the wedding was done they flew back to Australia with Gloria in what must have then been a critical condition. Arriving back on the 27th of April it wasn’t until the 5th of May when Gloria’s parents finally took her to a hospital.

Gloria died two days later.

Ignorance is simply not an excuse here. You have two educated (I didn’t say intelligent) parents who essentially watch their child die through inaction. Manslaughter doesn’t even begin to cover the level of neglect this case displays.

Having even the mildest form of eczema untreated is like having the itchiest rash ever and when scratching it to relieve yourself feeling like you’re rubbing gritty sandpaper on raw bloody skin. I can only imagine the horror of dying from it.

Just last month two mothers were in court over feeding their babies pureed pizza, pork crackling and other junk foods on a regular basis.

In January a Melbourne couple were charged after feeding their two and a half month old baby an ecstasy pill.

These are obviously the extreme end of the scales as far as negligence goes but there is still a huge number of kids growing up today with a lesser level of neglect in their lives.

From obesity to lack of education to downright “you ruined my life, I don’t care” attitudes from parents you can observe at any shopping centre in the country, we’re well underway in creating a generation of welfare sponsored neglect.

So what’s the end result?

Imagine you’re 72 years old and you live on your own. You’re immobile and have a gangrenous foot, which is infested with maggots. You lie there helpless in a pool of your own faeces and what’s worse;

Your daughter knows where you are and the state you’re in. She doesn’t care.

Kateryna Pyrczak was found lying in litres of her own feces before being rushed to hospital where she died a few hours later. Her daughter has since been charged with negligent manslaughter.

If you’ve done your job as a parent there shouldn’t be any way your kids could knowingly leave you in that state. The smell must have been rank let alone the agonising pain Kateryna must have been in.

I don’t know what she did or didn’t do in life or whether her daughter, Mary Pyrczak was just “one of those people”, but I do know that something must have been terribly broken in that relationship for Katerya to die like that.

Look after your kids people. Nobody deserves to die with maggots eating away at their leg, lying in a pool of their own shit.

It all went down last April (2008) at Southbank, Brisbane when a teenage girl defied a police order to “move on” while she waited for an ambulance to treat her sick friend. The police wound up tasering her in the thigh.

Sounds quite sinister doesn’t it? But here’s the problem;

News articles make out like she was just sitting there minding her own business when the big bad police came along and tasered her to all buggery. The Australian even took police to court to “expose the tasering”. The police were demonised by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), who concluded that “it could have been handled better”. 

The Police did take action against the teenager for “obstructing police” but that was dismissed and even the magistrate had a go at the police, criticising “the police officers (involved) for over-reacting.” Bleeding heart civil libertarians were quick to join the fray howling for the police’s blood over the incident.

Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson hit back against the claims stating that whilst there were different accounts of what exactly happened on the night, it was  “inarguable” the constable had been physically threatened first.”

But nobody ever believes the police, what they couldn’t subdue a 50kg 16 year old girl? How dare they.

With seemingly everyone on her side the teenager launched her own civil action against the police, believing she had been mistreated. With her hand held out and mother firmly behind her, appalled that her angel had been abused so harshly, the police pulled the old ‘lets release the footage so everyone can see what happened and stop blaming us’ routine.

“Are you kidding? we can’t have that the case will get thrown out of court!” the teenager’s lawyers cried.

In a brilliant piece of lawyering, the lawyers managed to bandy about enough threats that the police sought legal advice of their own and ultimately pulled a last minute backflip on releasing the footage.

However, Channel 9 would have none of it and aired the footage anyway.

Yeah, definitely looks innocent doesn’t it. People carry on and whinge about police being heavy handed, yet when they deploy a quick and easy non lethal weapon to subdue an out of control little monster they are hounded.

To all the bleeding hearts out there: what exactly were the police supposed to do in that situation, just take the beating, or maybe ask her to politely stop kicking them and carrying on like a little brat? She’s damn lucky she doesn’t live in SeaTac City, now those police know all about excess force:


If you want to question a police order do so politely, if you kick and scream and throw punches at police you deserve everything they throw at you.

Good on the police for doing their jobs and here’s to many more out-of-control-teenager taserings. I sincerely hope an apology is forthcoming from the idiots at the CMC.

Justice: 1

Money grabbing teenagers: 0.

Despite millions spent on advertising campaigns and common bloody sense, we STILL have idiot parents driving around grossly over the BAC limit with their innocent defenseless (and in one case not even born yet) kids at risk. It’s 2009 people, if you still need to be reminded that driving around pissed off your face with your kids in the car is wrong we want your parenting license back, your kids confiscated and a national apology; oh and all financial family bonus’ paid back to the taxpayers, with interest.

November 2008: a 29 year old Victorian P-plater (probationary driver) with three children in the car was booked with a BAC of 0.23. The legal BAC limit for P-plater drivers is 0.00. This happened at 4pm on a Friday, so most likely after she had picked them up from school. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘but it’s Friday she probably just had a few to relax!’

Christ Almighty, it wasn’t even dark and she was driving around at nearly 5 times the legal limit for non-probationary drivers! AND SHE HAD HER 3 KIDS IN THE CAR! Picking up your kids is hardly a non-routine event, it’s not something that just sneaks up on you.

Some parents just don't care


‘HEYYYYYY sharraaaaa.. thish bottl’o’ wine ishh soooooo good. I think i’m going to marry it you know. oh my god rove ishh sooo dreamy-OHSHIIIIT ish that the time have to go pickup the kidsh, I like totally um forgot. talk to ya monday afta bold and the beaut orright’. Seriously, instant driving ban for life, kids confiscated at least 6 months prison so she can think about just how moronic her actions were.

December 2008: A 25 year old Melbourne mother blew 0.098. Her 23 month old baby Jayden Frazer, who was most likely unrestrained went flying into dashboard of the car when she crashed head on into another car. The Daily Telegraph reports, “The pathetic sight of her son so critically injured allegedly at her hands, will surely haunt her for the rest of this woman’s days. Oh diddums, poor widdle mother haunted from such gross child neglect? I look forward to the day they can capture traumatic experiences like this and somehow implant them into other offenders so they can feel what it’s like to be an A-grade moron.

Miraculously the toddler survived and is presumably in the care of the mother. The article does not state if the mother was charged or if she lost custody.

This month an Adelaide man was pulled up with a reading of 0.216 and two unrestrained children lying across the backseat of his car. I pity the paramedics who would have had to attend the scene if he’d had an accident. Words escape me on even trying to begin to imagine what goes through people’s heads when they drink themselves into such a state and then put their kids at such a huge risk.

I don’t in any way condone drink driving but I have less of a problem if someone drives their car into a tree at 240km/h whilst under the influence, then if they have kids in the car. Somebody gets drunk, fatally crashes and doesn’t injure anyone else is a positive news story. As soon as kids enter the car it really gets my goat, to me it’s on the same level as passive smoking or unreported domestic violence involving children.

Amber Jade Mills leaves court, upset that her cleavage had no effect on the judge

When parents get caught drink driving with kids, the natural feeling is shame and wanting to get it over with. Yes you were an idiot but you’ve accepted that, hopefully learnt your lesson and moved on. Not this woman. Despite receiving 5 months home detention as punishment, having three prior drink driving offenses and being caught a fourth time with a BAC of .226, Amber Jade Mills insists ” I am not a bad mother. I just get stressed and do stupid things.”

Sorry love, if you’re getting stressed out and doing stupid things before your baby is even born, there’s probably a good chance you’re going to get stressed out and do stupid things after it’s born too. “I know it sounds stupid but I wasn’t intending to drive,” she said. “My cousin was sober that night and was driving me home. I’d been sitting in the car for an hour waiting for her and got annoyed, so
I just drove the car 10m up to where she was and beeped the horn.”

Ok so her excuse is she apparently only drove 10 meters up the road  to get her sober cousin to drive her home. All is forgiven? I
think not. Amber accused the media of making “out like I was a big alcoholic and didn’t care about the wellbeing of my unborn child”. Furthermore she “was not “heavily pregnant” as reported at the time of the offense and had found out a week earlier she was about six weeks pregnant.”

So Amber finds out she is six weeks pregnant, and the following week goes on an alcohol rampage and is busted with 22.6% blood alcohol level after she sat in a car for an hour not drinking. The Australian government warns

“The most important consideration for women is to avoid a high blood alcohol level at any time during the pregnancy. the first weeks after conception are probably the most critical in relation to alcohol. The limited available evidence indicates that averaging less than one drink per day has no measurable impact on children’s physical and mental development.

There is clear evidence that drinking alcohol above the guideline levels during pregnancy considerably increases the risk of variety of harmful effects on the unborn child. At least four main areas of harm have been identified: foetal death, congenital malformation, growth retardation, and behavioural deficits. The most severe types of harm that are linked with high levels of drinking are gross congenital abnormalities and foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS, which includes physical abnormalities, growth retardation and neurological dysfunction with developmental delay).


Sorry Amber but the information is clear and readily accessible, you’re a dropkick of a mum. Maybe it’s not all her fault though, her own parents could have been running around with BAC’s of 20%+ during her time in the womb. Maybe Amber has some neurological dysfunction of her own.

Alarmingly the trend seems to be getting worse. The Daily Telegraph article I previously referenced claims:

“Childcare centres now have a policy to instruct staff on what to do when a parent shows up drunk. The policy has been used countless times in NSW. Childcare workers with more idea about safety and responsibility than the errant parent are encouraged to coax the drunks into alternative transport home and to leave the car behind. Drunken parents trying to collect their children to drive them home became so prevalent that centres introduced the driving policy about five years ago. “It happens a lot,” Joe Tucci from the Australian Childhood Foundation said.”


What is this coaxing nonsense? What happens if the drunk parents tell the childcare workers to just shutup and hand over their kids? Can someone tell me why if a parent rocks up drunk, the procedure is not releasing the kids and immediately phoning the police or child protection services? As long as we sweep parent drunkenness under the carpet by trying to coax them to do things instead of outright shaming them and facing them with the very real threat of a legal action we’re obviously going to continue to see a rise in cases like the four previously discussed.

If someone tried to coax me into doing something I didn’t want to do, I’d probably just tell them to bugger off. On the other hand if I knew I might lose my kids, have my name trashed by the media and wind up being dragged through the legal system, I’d probably be more inclined to take a long hard look at what I was doing and stop neglecting my kids.

The last thing this country needs is more brain dead kids running around with their pants hanging around their knees in their baggy tops and baseball caps drinking goon in local parks every night because their parents were deadbeats.

I have a scar on my left eyebrow from playing live action Streetfighter and hitting my head on the corner of a wooden bed (don’t laugh), my second brother hit his head on a concrete wall while we were running around the house and needed stitches, my third brother slipped in the bathtub and bonked his head on the tiles requiring stitches and my Fourth brother fell off a bunkbed and actually split part of his chin open from impact. The thought of suing anybody for our own stupidity/clumsiness never even crossed our minds.

Enter Cameron Thomas’ parents.

They claim that due to negligence on behalf of an (ex) friend’s parents, they are entitled to compensation because their son fell off a bunkbed and fractured his skull during a sleep over.

Boo-freaking-hoo.

Just because your kid is an uncoordinated dumbarse does not entitle you to money. No matter how much legislation and safety standards are introduced by government officials and cotton-wool toting parents, kids are always going to get up to stupid things and find ways to injure themselves. We did it when we were kids and I’m sure most of you have similar stories about your childhood.

Cameron Thomas parents' opening statement to the court


The motive behind the suit is what really drags the parents into the stupid bin;

“The court heard that before the accident, Cameron was a happy, gregarious boy who did well at school, had a large group of friends, loved sports and played the piano and clarinet. Afterwards, he suffered from mood swings and became aggressive and withdrawn. He left school last year, aged 14, because mainstream schooling could not help him.”

His mother Christine wept in the witness box as she described the grief of losing the son that she knew. “We have lost … the happy, carefree family that we had,” she said.


So kid has a fall when he’s 10, subsequently goes through puberty and the resulting personality change, gets kicked out of school and parents come up with the first scapegoat they can think of, a fall Cameron had four years ago. What an absolute crock. If every parent decided to sue someone over why their precious turned into a teenage monster we’d have to establish an entirely new court system just to deal with the never ending onslaught.

The case isn’t all one sided though, the parents of the ex-friend have chosen to defend the case on the grounds “Cameron was trying to jump from a chest of drawers when he fell”. Now four years on, how exactly is any of this going to be proved? They might as well decide the outcome off a game of rock scissors paper.

Frighteningly though is the fact that this case could set a dangerous precedent. What with the fact that “at least 3850 children under 15 are treated each year for bunk-bed related injuries”, depending on how this case pans out it might be a very good time for lawyers to start thinking about specialising in bunkbed claims. Ultimately that’s all who’s winning here; the lawyers.

Parents will become even more paranoid when it comes to letting other peoples kids stay over and kids will be even more further bubble-wrapped.

“Little johnny failed his VCE because ten years ago you let him watch too much tv when he slept over and ever since then his personality changed and he started watching too much tv, LOTS OF MONEY PLEASE!”

“Timmy was at your house back when he was five and he had TWO icecreams. We’ve only ever given him one icecream at a time and now he’s fifteen and weighs 300 kilos so obviously it’s your fault, LOTS OF MONEY PLEASE!”

“Suzy was staying over at Rosy’s house when she was nine and one time found some Gi-Joe dolls that belonged to Rosy’s brother. Now she’s fifteen and just told us she’s a lesbian. We only ever let her play with Barbie dolls in our house so clearly Rosy’s parents are to blame, LOTS OF MONEY PLEASE!”

Hey Cameron’s parents: Your kid went through puberty, deal with it. Stop wasting the courts time, destroying his future credibility and making your family look like a bunch of money grabbing morons in front of the nation.