A Slight Case of Overbombing Part 3 – Why people do not choose to be gay.

This is part 3.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

So what is the federal government’s problem with gay marriage?

We have looked at the main reason given by pro-family groups and found it to be a complete load of crap, that is, that somehow, gay marriage is anti-family.

The Prime Minister is on record as having described marriage as being a sacred union between a man and a woman. And the Prime Minister, together with quite a few cabinet colleagues, would like to see it remain that way.

This is exacerbated by the Prime Minister’s thinking that children are required as a result of marriage. He was quoted in August 2003 as saying the following, “Marriage, as we understand it in our society, is about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.”

Alright. I know a married couple who, after several years of not having children completely gave up.

By the PM’s thinking, this means that this couple should immediately divorce, as they will not be having or raising kids.

My parents-in-law have 2 children who have moved out of home. Should they immediately divorce as they are not having or raising children anymore?

And given that they are Catholic, would they find a priest willing to annul the marriage?

John Howard is only fooling himself if he seriously believes that this is the case.

More likely he has found another argument “against” gay marriage which is designed to distract from the real issue.

So what do we have that counts against gay marriage?

Anti-family? Bullshit.

Procreation required from marriage? Complete rubbish. Not to mention Stalinist – what if married couples don’t want to have kids?

There are no arguments that stand up.

We are left with no alternative, but to conclude this:

The federal government believe that gays should not have access to marriage rights/rites just because they are gay.

Which as we all know is a complete load of cobblers.

Fair enough. We’ll leave aside the small issue regarding the cowardice that federal government ministers display in not openly admitting to this, and look at some current affairs.

Normally, if an Australian wants to marry overseas, it is normal for the overseas marriages authority to request from the Australian mission certification that the citizen in question is in fact legally unmarried.

And it is also considered normal for the Australian mission, be it a Consulate-General, Embassy or High Commission to respond with the appropriate information.

Recently, the Australian Embassy to the Netherlands has been in the news after receiving orders from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to not issue certification where the Australian citizen is looking to get hitched to a person of the same sex.

I’ve had a gutful of this. It is one thing to have a government which we (sadly) elected enforcing their morals on us, but to be enforcing it on the Dutch authorities, who quite frankly have no say is beyond the pale.

It is a DISGRACE!!!

What a freaking embarrassment. Here’s me telling some of my international mates that, “Oh no, the likes of the Rev Pat Robertson would never happen in Australia,” and here’s our elected government foisting their opinions on to the rest of the world.

I’m absolutely disgusted.

What is worse about this, is that not cooperating with a foreign power in the normal course of diplomacy (which arguably, this is) is normally highly questionable.

Alexander Downer has a lot to answer for.

And it just gets worse.

The Attorney-General’s department has told marriage celebrants to specifically ensure that they refer to the parties in sexually specific terms such as, “bride”, “groom”, “husband” and “wife”.

I mean, really, why not just tell celebrants that they have to include that bit about brides promising to “love honour and obey”?

Dikkii. You’re straight. Why are you so pissed off?

It’s very simple, dear reader.

This is a civil rights issue, pure and simple.

If the conservative right win out on this one, what is then going to stop them from saying that the “sacred union” that they refer to must be performed in a church, synagogue or mosque etc?

Before long, it might end up as, “marriage is a sacred union between a white man and a white woman performed in St Swithins Anglican Church, Campbelltown. To the exclusion of all others.”

Fight this kids. Fight this with all your fucking might.

A Slight Case of Overbombing Part 2 – Why people do not choose to be gay.

This is part 2.

Part one is here.

So we had two questions hanging over our heads.

1. Who chooses to be gay? And
2. What reason would one have to choose a gay lifestyle?

Let’s look at the first one.

We’ve seen that you need to be gay, bi, asexual or sexually unusual in order to choose to be straight.

But what would you be in order to be gay?

Obviously, then, it stands to reason that if you choose to be gay, you must therefore be straight, bi, asexual, or something else again. But you would not be gay?

The conjecture from idiots who support the concept of “sexual choice” over “sexual hardwiring” believe that we are all wired the same way and that we choose our sexuality.

Leaving aside the conundrum that straight people such as myself did not choose to be straight (I’m just not into blokes, that’s all), this site shows the two views, which it refers to as the extremes.

Personally, I think that these are the only two views – I don’t see much room for a grey area in between, which should give you all an idea how ridiculous this whole thing is.

Anyway, as you can see, homosexual behaviour is viewed by hardliners as being akin to alcoholism or drug addiction – something to be de-toxed out of.

Now this makes me mad.

The viewpoint of most reasonable people is that alcoholism and drug addiction require you to actually have tried the narcotic, first.

Then there’s a period of time that your body builds up a physical dependency.

When I first started lusting after females, I had not had a single intimate, let alone erotic encounter. Hardly comparable to a narcotics addiction, then is it?

OK then. So we’ll assume for argument purposes that someone (God, Gods, aliens, FSM, etc) hardwired us all as “straight”.

(For those of you who are gay and reading this, please do not get outraged. I have only ever read my mind, and thus it is the only assumption I can reasonably make. I know that it is not the case.)

This still leaves our second question – which may be paraphrased as, “What reason would a straight bloke have to choose to be gay?”

First of all – he would have to put up with the gay stigma.

Now I have worked with gay blokes and chicks over the years. One of my best mates is a gay bloke. One thing that they all have in common is that they all get massively discriminated against.

Or threatened. Abused. Bashed, even.

Why, I say why. Would someone who wasn’t gay, put themselves through this?

I cannot give an answer to that. Maybe someone else will.

Conservative Christians are one such group who believe that being gay is temptation from Satan, but we’re all really straight.

Tell this to my gay friends who claim to have never been attracted to the opposite sex in their life.

Anyway, you supposedly do a gay lifestyle in the same way that you do drugs or alcohol. Big deal, they say. You can change.

One group who believes that you choose your own sexuality is called Exodus International. Exodus believe that through the power of Christ, one can return to the straight life that God gave them.

What Exodus won’t tell you is that one of their founders ran off with a staffer in 1979, and are now “committed” in that awful, gay way where we can’t say “married”.

(In addition, their chairman was recently forced to resign over claims that he allegedly was in a gay bar flirting with patrons, recently)

Lets just use our sixth sense (common sense, natch) here and say, “Nup.”

So we know that no one chooses to be gay, and that there is no reason why anyone would choose to do so. That I can think of anyway.

So this brings us back to our original point:

What is the federal government’s problem with gay marriage?

We’ll look at this in our next post.

A Photon in the Darkness: A Field Guide to Quackery and Pseudoscience – Part Two

A Photon in the Darkness: A Field Guide to Quackery and Pseudoscience – Part Two

A Photon in the Darkness: A Field Guide to Quackery and Pseudoscience – Part One

A Photon in the Darkness: A Field Guide to Quackery and Pseudoscience – Part One

Part 2 to follow. Prometheus describes Q&P in extremely easy to understand terms. This info is presented like a biology text book.

Fundies Say the Darndest Things

Now this is an interesting little site - Fundies Say The Darndest Things - you have to admit, Christian 'mentalists are nothing if not creatively stupid.

This one is my current favourite - YOU MUST CLICK HERE!!

A Slight Case of Overbombing Part 1 – Why people do not choose to be gay.

This one is an absolutely crazy mad one. It will probably run to 3 parts, but I don’t know yet.

Our federal government just gets more and more reactionary. And eventually they get to that point where you have to ask, “What is the deal?”

Readers will know that over the past two years, there has been a move by several jurisdictions around the world to have gay marriage legalised.

Most people would, of course, say, “Why not? What’s wrong with that?”

This writer is about to get married, and so this rings a bell with him. That is, myself.

(My word, this talking about oneself in the third person can get confusing).

The point that I have steered away from, is that the Australian federal government, has for those of you who don’t know, shored up the legislation regarding marriage so that it specifically refers to marriage as being a Union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.

Mmm. Now if this isn’t homophobic discrimination, I don’t know what is.

First of all, let’s look at the underlying issue. Gay men and women would like to get married to each other.

In some bizarre conclusion, the federal government, headed up by the socially progressive PM John Howard and his equally small-l liberal Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock have concluded that gay marriage is “anti-family”.

Anti-family?? What drugs are they smoking?? And where can I get some??

The whole thing about gay marriage that I thought would appeal to the increasingly conservative Einsteins in Canberra, is that marriage is supposed to encourage a monogamous family unit, which is about as family as you can get.

OK. So we can safely say that the anti-family line is outright bullshit. The government is certainly pandering to groups that claim to be “pro-family”, however, the family issue with regards to this is clearly a red herring.

This position is unacceptable to gay Australia, and quite rightly so. But I don’t think that the government fully comprehends the implications of what they’ve done.

Take a hypothetical gay couple who have decided that they wish to get married. We’ll call them Chuck and Randy. They now do not have that choice, unless they marry someone from the opposite sex. This is unacceptable to them, as they are in love with each other.

If they have a civil “commitment ceremony”, this is not considered, in the eyes of the law, anyway, to be the same as a wedding between a man and a woman. This leads to all sorts of problems with regards to things like estate planning, child adoption, tax, superannuation, name changing etc.

Chuck and Randy are pretty much screwed, unless they can do some tricky legal manoeuvring.

And all because they are pre-disposed towards members of the same sex.

Now it is generally agreed these days that most of the evidence suggests that gay humans are genetically blueprinted to be gay.

There are still idiots out there who believe that one chooses their sexual preference.

Let’s run with this.

Do you remember when YOU chose your sexual preference?

I don’t remember. I don’t remember because I DIDN’T GET TO CHOOSE. I WAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO WOMEN, AND I WAS NEVER ATTRACTED TO MEN.

This speaks volumes for the minority of people who believe that one’s sexuality is a matter of choice. Logic dictates that anyone who chose to be straight falls into one of the following camps (an unintentional pun, but I think I’ll let that one slide, hee hee):

1. The obvious conclusion is that they are clearly bisexual. This is just common sense – if you are mentally saying, “I will only chase chicks, and not blokes, even though I am also attracted to them,” well, you bat for both teams, sunshine. There is no other conclusion that you can arrive at.

2. On closer inspection, however, another possibility presents itself. Once upon a time, people who were gay were heavily discriminated against. Oh, wait a minute, they still are. Anyway, if you were a chick who was into chicks, and you were terrified that you would be marginalised (which sadly still happens), you might make a conscious decision to pursue a relationship with a bloke. In other words, you are gay and you are choosing to be straight.

3. Lastly there are a few people out there for whom options A or B do not present themselves. Given the logical impossibility of a straight person choosing to be straight, let’s say that you don’t harbour a sexual attraction to either men, or women. For simplicity’s (and countless other’s) sake, we’ll also assume that you aren’t into animals, kiddies, ashtrays, fire hydrants, etc. By choosing to pursue a trans-Platonic relationship with someone from the opposite sex, you are pretty much denying the fact that you are asexual, bub.

So, those who chose to be straight are clearly gay, bi or “a”.

Which begs the question – what must you be if you choose to be gay?

And given that people usually choose to be straight in order to avoid harassment, persecution, violence, bigotry, stigma, etc, what reason would one have to choose a gay lifestyle?

We’ll look into these in our next instalment.

My Lolita Complex

When the Greatest Movie Franchise of all Time® opens up again in June, well here, anyway, I aim to be one of the first in the door.

Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace will gross more than Episode 4 - A New Hope, Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back and Episode 6 - Return of the Jedi put together. Bet your superannuation on it.

And when it does, we (being me and a select group of my mates) will triumphantly traipse down to Village's Gold Class cinemas in the Crown Casino complex to partake of this piece of movie history, from the convenience of fully wound back Jason recliners.

Yes folks. This year, Star Wars is back, and I, for one, am most pleased. It seems that this year is The International Year of the Movie, with the return of, not only George Lucas and Co, but also, Terrence Malick (whose The Thin Red Line is apparently the character piece of the year. I say 'apparently', as I haven't even had a chance to see it, yet) and Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut), as well as a new Bond flick (come to think of it, wouldn't this be the Greatest Movie Franchise of all Time ®?) and the most cool The Matrix, which I saw recently, and I dug immensely.

But back to Star Wars. Instead of Luke, Leia, Han etc, we get a young Obi-Wan, and a younger Anakin Skywalker as well as guys with the names of Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul. Highly entertaining, and most exciting.

I grew up with Star Wars. My family and I went to the old Skyline Drive-In in Frenchs Forest to see this movie, not long before they pulled it down to build an industrial park. I had a Star Wars figurine - the inimitable wookiee Chewbacca (one of the funniest names for a character in movie history, methinks), and was in to see the other Star Wars pictures with my family, but both at the Hoyts Twin (now a 7 cinema multiplex, but becoming a 200 cinema megaplex or something in the not too distant future) down at Warringah Mall. I wasn't obsessive, or anything, hell no. I didn't fork out for one of those way cool Darth Vader costumes, for instance, or read those books regarding what Han Solo did in his subsequent life after he and Leia lived happily ever after, but I still regard with some interest, all goings on in that galaxy far, far away, and I like asking questions regarding the whole thing, like:

What game, for instance, were Han and Lando playing the night that Lando lost the Millennium Falcon? Was it, as I have long suspected, Manila? What made Boba Fett such a damn good bounty hunter, and why did he fly around in a spaceship that looked sorta like the head of an elephant? Why was Darth Vader such a bad bloke? Who was more evil: Darth Vader, or Ernst Stavro Blofeld? Was Blofeld, as some have speculated, James Bond's father? When will they make a Bond film with Salacious Crumb as a baddie?

[Now if you want it to be a total surprise, (and I direct my comments here to a certain old school friend of mine who is now art director at a prominent Australian music monthly) don't read any of the hype, and don't watch the trailer. Just go in there and be impressed at the sheer extravagance of the budget that has been spent.]

Only one month to go. Sigh.

Mind you, you wouldn't know it, with the stink over Lolita having not died down yet.

This has brought out political opportunism from all sides of Parliament. Politicians called for Lolita to be banned, thus ensuring that the movie was seen by more than who would have originally given the film more than a passing glance, not to mention, bringing it to the full attention of the yellow-plastic-raincoat-brigade.

But what these people don't seem to realise, is that if you were to ban Lolita, you would have to ban Nabokov's book, and Kubrick's movie of the same name. As well as Frank Moorhouse's novel The Everlasting Secret Family, a sordid tale involving a club that little boys joined in order to pick up old sleazebags, and then become paedophiles themselves. This suspect tale, incidentally, became a very weird movie with Mark Lee and John Meillon in, and it goes without saying that this particular movie would have to be banned as well.

I'm not siding with the movie. I do not support paedophilia. I have it on very good authority that this movie is about as boring as urinating in the Tanami desert and waiting around for a Grand Canyon to form. Or listening to a whole Backstreet Boys album.

What I'm saying is that politicians in Canberra are a shameful bunch of political opportunists who scramble over one another to secure votes when opportunities like Lolita arise, and ignore the fact that there is true evil out there that needs to be dealt with, like heroin addiction.

Unlike, of course, our heroes in Star Wars, who do it because it's right, not necessarily popular.

Sometimes fantasy is better than reality. I wonder if Helena Christensen or Christy Turlington would be interested in making a movie with me?

Big Day Out 99

Geez it's been a while since I wrote a Diatribe. I know how lazy I am, and I hang my head in shame, but here it is: a summation of the return of one of my favourite events, the Big Day Out.

We started off the day with a brief bit of the Dirty Three. We were too far from the stage, so we went to the main stage to see Even.

Even were really good. I've never liked much of Even's work, but I thought that on the main stage they put in a ripsnorter of a set, and it was a shame to leave them for the 3RRR stage where Snout were playing.

But before that, we saw a sterling set from Matt Walker and Ashley Davies, in the hall. These two musicians make acoustic music beautiful again.

We didn't see enough of Snout, but from what I saw, they weren't their usual selves. Usually, they seem to work, but on the day, they were missing something. So we went to catch the Superjesus on the main stage.

This was the only time all day that they got the sound right on the main stage, and the Superjesus were performing well. Frontwoman Sarah McLeod has come a long way from when I last saw them, and their sound was tight and together.

3RRR stage again for Ash. Their thin sound problems grated on us, and we didn't hear them play 'Kung Fu', so we went off to the main stage to catch Regurgitator who I thought were alright, considering the sound problems on the main stage.

On a side note, it seems to be tradition that the sound on the outdoor stages at the BDO is nothing better than appalling. This year, they not only maintained that tradition, they redefined the term 'sonic muck'. Only on the 'Essentials' stage was the sound any good, probably because it was in a hall, and thus not subject to the noise restrictions of the outdoor stages.

But it was the Essentials stage where we went for the next band, Brisbane's Not From There.

Not From There have a sound that has been described as 'industrial', 'thrashy', 'dissonant', 'discordant' and 'arty' amongst others. I call it incredible. Even though the guitarist sings most of their material in German, you don't have to understand a word to get the general gist of this music, as I found. We watched in awe until they played Sich Offnen, and then went off to the main stage where Soulfly were playing.

Now, who would you expect to be louder, an arty noise band such as Not From There, or a sick Brazilian 'tribal metal' band? It certainly weren't Soulfly, and I could see metalheads shaking their heads in disbelief, not banging them, you understand, as the only parts of the mix that we could hear were the double kick drum and Max Cavalera's tortured metal vocals. We left after one song for a bit of a wander around.

Now, I know people who didn't go, as the price was a little steep. Up $20, in fact, on previous BDOs. But on walking around, we worked out that that was because they had included an extra stage (the new Skate stage) and an extra dance floor (the Hot House). Not being into canned music (the topic of conversation amongst us who are not boom-chi-boom-chi literate was whether it would be worthwhile checking out Fatboy Slim later in the day, as he might be "playing live". He wasn't), we spent most of the day moving from stage to stage.

And so it was back to the main stage for the Living End. And don't the kiddies love them. They sound a little bit like the Clash beating up members of the Stray Cats, but I thought they were good, plus, the thought of Topper Heddon and Slim Jim Phantom engaging in fisticuffs intrigues me. Possibly the biggest mosh of the day, next to Korn.

We went off to the hall to see Sparklehorse, who were, quite simply, breathtaking. Think country-pop, without getting phony Nashville, or folky, and were worthy replacements for Wilco, who pulled out.

On to the 3RRR stage for a brief spot of the Mavis's. Personally, I think they did well considering that Becky had to spend the gig sitting down on account of the fact that she had apparently slipped a disc.

Then it was back to the hall for Antenna, a band featuring Australian music legends Dave Fawkner (ex-Hoodoo Gurus) and Kim Salmon (ex-Scientists, Beasts of Bourbon and current Surrealist) as well as most of Sydney electronic crew Frontside. I thought they were very good. Chrissie Amphlett didn't make an appearance, but Matt from the Mavis's did.

Off again, we were, this time for a little bit of the Fun Loving Criminals on the 3RRR stage. They were, quite simply, lame, although, I could see the potential there for enjoyment. Indeed, after the event, all the reviews that I've read of the Fun Loving Criminals at the BDO have praised them incessantly, but we had to move on to see a little bit of Korn on the main stage.

Possibly the biggest mosh of the day, the sound, I noticed was a little better here, but still not good enough, and what was the echo off the stand? Most uncool, I thought. Anyway, I thought Korn played competently, and the kids loved them, and showed their appreciation in the mosh pit.

What is it with 'moshing' anyway? I liked it better when it was called 'slamming'. It was less gratuitous, ie people only slammed when the music was fast and loud, not all the time, and if people fell down, people made room so that that person could be helped to safety. Now it's just a session of aggression therapy featuring your average Moe babysitter and his mates, and if you're female, then be prepared to have your breasts ripped off in the most un-called for and obvious display of gropage I have yet to bear witness to. Bring back the honour system, oh, and by the way, it is most hard to see the band through a hundred bodies all crowd surfing at the same time. If someone tries to use my back to get up on top of everyone again, I will deliberately move out of the way at the right moment, just in time to have them come crashing to their death.

After we had seen enough of Korn, we moved off to the 3RRR stage again to catch a brief glimpse of Happyland. What we saw was actually good, and I welcome the chance to see a full set from them, preferably inside, and properly soundchecked.

Only after two songs of theirs, we went off to the Skate Stage to see The Mark of Cain, but the sound on this stage was possibly the poorest of the day, rendering TMOC's sound laughable, and you do not laugh at The Mark Of Cain.

Loss of respect for legends due to poor sound quality is one thing, but we went and saw Marilyn Manson's full set, as we'd been promised controversy. Alas, Manson didn't provide, however, he did provide a very professionally executed glam rock show, complete with the word 'DRUGS' in 5 metre high neon letters.

At this point, allow me to have a whinge at the kiddies who found it necessary to throw their empty (or, sometimes, not quite so empty…) water bottles at the performers. This is just plain deplorable. I have read numerous stories of how Kram from Spiderbait and Daniel Johns from Silverchair have been injured by flying missiles hurled from the audience. In Kram's case, it was an unopened can of beer. One day, a band is just going to walk off the stage two songs in, and the audience, being as aggressive as it is these days, is going to find the person responsible and beat them to a pulp.

Hole on the main stage to finish off the evening. I saw about five songs, and thought they were about 4000% improved on the putrid performance that they put in at the BDO about three or four years ago. But we left to catch TISM on the 3RRR stage after this, and apparently they went downhill after this because you know who talks too much and doesn't play enough music.

As always, TISM put in a superb set, marred only by, yes, you guessed it, sound problems. Ron Hitler-Barassi's poem was about how he took Marilyn Manson out to the suburbs, and how Manson despaired at the fact that there were people there more grotesque than him. Hitler-Barassi also claimed to have slept with Courtney Love.

Highlights

Antenna, Matt Walker and Ashley Davies, Even, the Superjesus and Not From There

Standout Highlight

Sparklehorse

Lowlights

The sound quality, Fun Loving Criminals, bottle throwing yobbos, gratuitous crowd surfers, drinks prices

Worth the price?

As always, the answer is a resounding 'yes', and I am unanimous in that.

1998: The Year in Review

If you've looked at the news this year, you'd would be thinking that only four things were important.

Monica Lewinsky.

The bombing of Iraq.

The collapse of the South East Asian economies.

And, Seinfeld's last episode.

And these all annoy the living snot out of me, because these were all fine examples of hypocrisy in action.

Take the South East Asian economic crisis. First of all, Mahathir Mohammed, the Malaysian Prime Minister makes the absurd claim that those economies were in ruin because of speculative trading by hedge funds. This was always going to be laughable coming from a guy who gets rid of political opponents by having them arrested on trumped up charges of sodomy. Not to mention the fact that if this was the case, we would have seen a correction straight away as traders sought to capitalise on this.

But then various economic gurus got in on the act, and started the ball rolling by saying that unchecked trading by hedge funds was getting out of hand, and, in one case of abstract expressionism, would apparently lead to the "collapse of capitalism" internationally.

As I guffawed my way through all the various reading material that was presenting itself, it became clear to me that economic gurus themselves were showing hypocrisy that was blatant in a way that the Wiggles are the Spice Girls for a new generation.

I might just quickly point out that, although the Spice Girls are now history, and we shall hear less and less of them, until the odd one turns up in a Penthouse centrefold, the Wiggles have been around for a good many years, catering to their core audience, longer than the Spice Girls ever were. Plus, the Wiggles never 'sold out', to use a terribly cliched and pretentious phrase.

But back to the topic at hand.

If you recall 1997, you may remember that the Nobel Prize in Economics was won by a group of speculators who somehow managed to make billions of dollars with a trust fund that they set up specifically for that purpose. Or maybe you don't.

Anyway, the economic line of thought these days has swung 180º to the point where making profit out of international hedge funds is no longer 'cool'. People of the standing of the IMF, World Bank, George Soros, Warren Buffett et al are lining up to push the point that there should be more controls on speculative capital flows.

The fact these people and institutions are condemning a free market in capital is all of rude, arrogant and downright disgusting, when you consider that these people make their profits out of hedging their capital. George Soros once made a few billion dollars out of gambling on sterling, in the space of a few days. The sheer tenacity these people display borders on the paranoid.

I refuse to comment on Monica Lewinsky, and the Iraq thing. Americans just earn my contempt, these days. It is the world's decadent Roman Empire, and I welcome the day when the lean and hungry barbarians from the south come in search of the wealth that the USA has plundered from them. Viva la revoluçion!

But I will comment on the last episode of Seinfeld.

Not much annoys me. I hate war. I hate horseracing. I really hate Seven's Summer of Tennis. But Seinfeld was truly the pits.

This show ran for nine years, and was as close to a creative vacuum as you could get. Honestly, the jokes were as tired as an episode of Hey! Hey! It's Saturday! You had this show that was seriously, seriously, unfunny. And don't say it wasn't: there is enough evidence to suggest that it was the worst TV show ever to go to air. When one hack in the media put Seinfeld up there with Cheers, MASH, and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, he was spouting hyperbole that could lead to a suicide attempt a few years from now.

Here are a few reasons why Seinfeld doesn't even make it into the top ten thousand sitcoms of all time.

• The Young Ones, Blackadder, McHale's Navy, The Phil Silvers Show, Get Smart, Newsradio, need I go on?
• Jerry Seinfeld's monologues - excruciatingly bad. Not only can this guy not act, but he cannot deliver a punchline, and his twee observations on life are so bad, that I genuinely felt embarrassed for the guy.
• Kramer. One jerk of the head, one joke. The fact that people continually found this funny says far too much regarding the quality of TV programs at the moment.
• Elaine. Surprisingly, she had the best material on the show, but had to put on this whiny voice in order for the viewers to find something about her that was less likeable than the star so that she didn't get her own Frasier-esque spin-off.
• George. Funnier than the rest of the (regular) cast combined. Maybe because Jason Alexander can genuinely act, yet just wasn't good enough to redeem this truly lamentable piece of televisual excrement.

The sad fact about Seinfeld was that a "show about nothing" - which it was not, unironically - pulled so many gullible viewers, when it was as funny as lifting the top off a scab. Yet, people will also watch Mad About You, which is nearly as bad. I just don't get it. I have to say this, though. I have changed my mind on Friends. It can actually be quite good in spots, especially when the characters aren't trying quite so hard to be likeable, and also when David Schwimmer's and Jennifer Aniston's characters aren't within cooee of the camera.

But I think that it is time to wrap up, so here are my picks of the year.

Best Movie: Wild Things - this had me going from start to finish. Denise Richards provided the best two parts of the movie, and it had more ridiculous twists in it than you could poke a stick at. Special mentions should go to Neve Campbell and Kevin Bacon on a job well done.

Best CD: The Dandy Warhols Come Down (The Dandy Warhols) - These guys played a whole CD of drug-taking psychedelia and get up and get down pop that is best played loud enough for the neighbours to yell: "Hey, turn that hippy shit off!!"

Best computer game: Unreal - when you're in that corridor where you've just pressed the two big red switches, and the lights go off one by one, you think that you've just entered Hell. Truly a masterfully atmospheric game, with lots of violent carnage, the way we all like it.

Best song: Sich Offnen (Not From There) - When this guitar hits you, it's like being slammed into the side of a freight train that's being pulled by about five locomotives, and with it's killer chorus, "I watch you laugh/I watch you cry/I watch you fade away/ahhoooooooooo," you will never want to not hear that song again.

Best Sit Com: Newsradio - this one snuck up on me faster than a pensioner on a longneck of Carlton Draught. Every character is insane, and it showed the genius that was Phil Hartman, before his untimely demise.

Bloke(ette) of the year: (past winners include Carlos the Jackal, Jackie Chan and Heidi Fliess) This year, and no surprise, I gave it to the late Phil Hartman. But in an interesting twist, he dead-heated with Christina Ricci. We all loved Phil, without exceptions. We loved Lionel Hutts, attorney-at-law. We loved the has-been actor Troy McClure, who you might remember from such films as "Dial M for Murderousness" and "The President's Neck is Missing". And we all loved The Real Deal with Bill McNeill. RIP Phil. We'll miss you. But Christina Ricci? Let's just say that no former child star has ever exuded sex appeal in such a way before, and this includes Drew Barrymore, Macauley Culkin and Shirley Temple.

Well, that was my year in hindsight. I hope that no one mentions 1998 to me again. Happy Hanukkah, and remember that Santa only wears red because Coca Cola made him do it.

All Pledge Allegiance to the Little Red Man

It's going to be interesting in the future, when anthropologists look back at the twentieth century. People follow this interesting custom where, whenever they walk up to a set of traffic lights, they have to wait for the lights to change. Suddenly there is this whole pagan ritual where you stop at the sight of the Little Red Man. And you may only continue when a little green one takes his place.

A fire breaks out, and suddenly, a swarm of firemen are telling you what to do. And afterwards, you're like, "bless those brave souls."

Did you watch the westerns where the posse is after the Red Indian, sometimes played by Charles Bronson, just because he was red, and presented a subversive bit of opposition to the status quo, not because he'd ever done anything wrong?

Red is used as a rebellious colour, often signifying the triumph of the left, such as was the case in the recent German elections - although the alliance with the Greens tends to subdue the impact of this. After all, isn't the Little Green Man the mortal enemy of the Little Red Man?

Not to mention adolescent males, and their… hmm, I'll just leave that one.

I'm struck at this point by the whole symbolism of the whole thing. Is it any coincidence that the greatest football team in the world wears red? Go Swans. We must all pledge allegiance to the Little Red Man, wherever He may be.

And it is funny how the media, who would usually make such a big fuss over seemingly little things like this, don't seem to notice this. The hated Adelaide Crows - they won a premiership this year with red in their colours.

But the media can say some amazingly silly things. Like for instance "Fatal Gas Explosion Kills 2". Well, der, if it killed people, then it's going to be fatal. And then there is the stultifyingly stupid observation of the Herald Sun, no less than 4 weeks ago bemoaning the fact that Collingwood were going to finish the year a long way down the ladder: "…Collingwood have never, in the whole history of football, finished lower than fourteenth…"

Unbelievable. Just conveniently ignore the fact that before 1985, there weren't even 14 sides in the competition. That one had me rolling on the floor in mirth. Laugh? I nearly declared Celine Dion listenable.

But it's election time, and I'm trying to see how soon it is before the ALP declare their colours as red and, um, red, while those blue-bloods, the Libs, try to regain some pride from the swing against them at this election. The fact that the Howard government have sacrificed a few of their colleagues for three extra years in power is moot when you've been re-elected, but I think that Howard and Costello et al should be quietly thanking their lucky stars that the ALP couldn't get their act into gear on concentrating on the GST, and that the voters still had an axe to grind over Labor's last stint in office.

Actually, I tipped a hung parliament.

Now, I usually find elections to be more than just a little irritating. I thought, at the last federal election anyway, that none of the major political parties deserved my vote, and voted accordingly (read informally).

But this year, I actually had a think and voted properly.

Notwithstanding my usual act of political bastardry in that I insist on numbering all the boxes below the line on the Senate sheet (this year - 63 in Victoria), I think that I made a good choice. Because while the Democrats insist on grey as their political colour, they're usually a fair bunch. Not to mention infinitely preferable to One Nation, who I might add, have as their colours a big yellow streak down their backs.

On this subject, did you hear the champagne corks a-poppin' when it was revealed to the political landscape that Pauline Hanson would not have a seat in the House of Representatives, leaving 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation', as they're properly known (no false modesty, here) without their own namesake in a caucus of, at last count, only one Senator. I thought it was great. Oldfield could not have planned it better, especially after Hanson went public with her ludicrous claim that One Nation would pick up ten to fifteen seats. Good riddance, I say, although, it would be fun, as it was noted in the election day Weekend Australian, to have her turn up at the next election for comic relief. Pauline Pantsdown, while funny and all, is just not the same. Even funnier, is the way Oldfield's leadership aspirations went out the window when he failed to win a seat in the Senate.

As for Gareth Evans falling on his sword when it was hinted that the ALP would not make government, that was just odd.

And what happened to the Greens? Is it just me, or have they really gone off the boil, lately?

Cheryl Kernot. She truly could be considered 'green' in light of her highly questionable decision to stand in a marginal seat after the ALP promised her so much. The question must be asked here, did they do a 'Pauline' on her? And if so, who was the David Oldfield character responsible?

Speaking of marginal seats, it was kinda cool to see Alexander Downer nearly going down to John "ex-singer of Redgum" Schumann. I wanted to see Downer come through by 19 votes so that Schumann could say, "aw, it was only 19…"

Also highly laughable was the Libs winning a seat off the Nats. That has to be good for harmony within the coalition.

Pluses from this election included Tim Fischer, who somehow managed not to appear like a complete dork, at any time during this election. Part of the credit for this must go to the National Party hierarchy, who somehow managed to give their party a lower profile than the reborn DLP, whom I noticed had candidates for the Senate.

Also, I liked the cut of Simon Crean's jib. Methinks that the ACTU has created another future leader of the ALP. Let's hope that Bill Kelty doesn't find out about this, we don't need any more silly hair in politics.

So we have three more years of Coalition policies to look forward to. I think that it's good that the Dems have the balance of power in the Senate, because they are going to make 'Honest' John look pretty damn silly when he tries to put his tax policy through.

How do the ALP pick themselves up after this? I don't know.

My suggestion is that they should wear more red.