This Is War

And I felt it slip away over the space of a few hours.  It's all heading south now.  Then I woke up this morning and I realised that was it.  It had commenced, the war was at my doorstep.  My face felt like I had a truck run into half of it.  Like the left half of my face is just gone.  It was a strange dream.  Was it someone I knew?  Someone that doesn't look anything like they used to.  It's interesting in the grand scheme of things, isn't it?  When you're in High School in one of the middle years (14 or 15), and the girls in year 10 (who are 16 or so) seem so old.  Then as you get older, you realise that all of those people are just young.  Time can completely change your perspective on things.  I guess that comes with experience.  This broken body is being rebuilt and I have the growing pains to match.  It is a different beast entirely, or it will be the next time around.  There's no value in any of that.  This has become a solo battle now.  I understand that.

I read - and this was incredibly hard to find, mind you, that the Prime Minister has signed off on laws for federal agencies to be able to hold internet and phone data for 2 years, under the concept of national security or anti-terrorism.  So a lot of your metadata will now be held and provided to our 'spying' allies under the 5 eyes alliance, and all the other spy agencies that are just aching to justify their existence by putting you up on some trumped up charges.  These laws were signed off under the National Security Council - which is a council of the Executive, made up of the ultimately most despicable members of the Government, the Prime Minister, the Immigration Minister, the Attorney-General and so on.  What I'm concerned about is whether these laws just become automatic under the lack of separation of powers now afforded to the executive under anti-terror laws.  None of this is transparent or fair.

And to go on about another great evil occurring in Australia right now, a doctor in charge of looking after the mental health of asylum seekers has admitted that the current government has the policy of 'breaking' refugees spirits, so that the most vulnerable snap and go crazy, and believe that it is not worth staying here.  That is torture, and what is worse, nobody is reporting on it.  This conservative government is big on not telling the public about what is going on with asylum seekers in the hope that apathy will win out and the problem will just go away.  Sadly it's working, and great injustices and illegal behaviour is occuring as a result.  We deserve all the bad things that happen to us as a result.  There is so much to share, but people are so greedy.  It should all be taken away from us.

Looking over the blog's stats, the Russian audience is pretty much catching up to the American one!  How did that happen?  Are Russians interested about what's happening in the West?  Either way, it's good to have you on board.  Hong Kong is also making an appearance which warms my heart.  I really enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, even if it was unseasonably cold when I visited.  Lots of cool stuff going on there. 

What else is there to talk about?  All my work is done, so I'm just here not doing very much.  Got into some guitar last night and holy crap, I played one of my technical pieces and I was awful.  Terrible, even.  I think I really need to just rehearse and practice.  I'm not devoting enough time to it.  Sure, I'm coming up with new and creative chords and melodies, but that's nothing in the face of actual technical playing (for the moment anyway).

I did end up reading that court order on wikileaks (considering the subject matter and all that's happening on national security at the moment, don't be surprised if you're automatically flagged for further surveillance if you frequent this site), and it was pretty big time news!  I don't think I'll say too much on it, because I didn't read the full order and I don't want to get in trouble, especially with all the other stuff I tend to blog about on here, I wouldn't be surprised!  Needless to say, it involves corruption, inducements from an Australian company operated under the Reserve Bank, and the leaders and their families of various south East Asian nations.  Surprise surprise. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the greater scheme of things.

There's an opportunity for a power play here, but there's no room for the right type of finagling to get it right.  It should have worked before!  Maybe there are other ways.  I will win.  Now the question on everybody's lips, how do I stay awake for the next 3 hours?  Maybe I can learn something and the time should just fly by!  And it has!  Already 1 hour to go and I think I've been having a good time. 

I don't think I have any more to say! 

Let's call it there though.

Joaquin out.