No doubt everyone has seen on the news what's been happening in Sydney for the past few days. Without taking any sides, it is absolutely atrocious. Everyone that has been involved should feel ashamed on themselves for bringing Australia, and its reputation, into such disrepute.
Violence has never, and never will be the answer to any problems, whether it be by Lebanese gangs, or redneck Anglo Yobbo mobs.
To bring a bit of lighter stuff into this situation, the image below was making the rounds in the email forwarding circles today. Although done in really bad taste, i still found it hilarious.
In other recent news, on Friday the Government's Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) leglislation was surprisingly passed by the Senate. I have long been a staunch critic of compulsory student unionism or 'Universal Student Unionism' as the unions like to label it to take away the obvious bittenerness of the appropriately included word 'Compulsory' *pffft*. It's great to see that VSU has finally come about (see my previous blog entry from the start of 2004, before this issue really heated up). Too bad I graduated in July and won't have a semester of not paying student union fees.
On a seperate note, it appears that UQ has cut the cord. I don't have access to my student email account anymore nor any of the other student access to various sites and services. I must say that I am quite dissapointed that they did not even notify me of the impending account closure, as I did have many emails and contacts that I would have liked to have saved beforehand. I could write an email to the admins to see if this is still possible, but at the moment I lack the will-power and motivation to do so.
In geeky news, Konfabulator (now named 'Yahoo! Widget Engine') v3.0 has been released. Although it seems a solid improvement, I am greatly dissapointed by the change in name. Yahoo bought Konfabulator a while back, and although I expected the name to change from the plain 'Konfabulator' to something like 'Yahoo! Konfabulator', i am saddened that they stripped the original cool name out entirely.
Now lucas be fair :o)
"Without taking any sides..." & "...whether it be by Lebanese gangs, or redneck Anglo Yobbo mobs."
Now that seems slightly contradictory to me. I also agree with you about the violence being unacceptable, and I also do not know the underlying causes that exist in Sydney. (We don't have them in Queensland :-p )
Perphaps they could be referred to as "drunken mobs of youths". Or "mob a" and "mob b" Also i think the GTA joke is extremely hilarious.
UQ are rude once you stop paying them money aren't they! :o)
I think both terms ('Lebanese gangs' and 'redneck Anglo Yobbo mobs') are equally objectionable.
Truthfully, I don't have any 'side' in this whole matter. Both 'groups' (to put it nicely) are equally disgusting in my opinion.
I dont understand why VSU was passed its simply a kick in the teeth to the various unions at the university who provide services councelling and entertainment events for all students to enjoy. These events and services require money and its very much a shame that these will disappear for students. Fortunately for me i have graduated now but it is still a large disappointment.
The fact of the matter is is that the unions do not provide services that the majority of the students consider essential, and that is through no fault by the students.
Unions will lose a lot of their funding because they know that the vast majority of students do not believe they provide services worth paying for: that is the main issue! If this wasn't the case then the unions wouldn't have a problem even with VSU, would they?
Students still have to pay for food, entertainment events etc, and in most cases these refecs, events, etc run at a healthy profit.
VSU forces unions to target things that MAJORITY of students want, and to convince them that the services they provide are worth forking out a bit of money for. It forces them to not only cater for the minorities, and to stop splashing around money that most students consider wasted (eg in my uni years, the UQ Union funding people to go down and protest at detention centres in SA).
And all this in addition to the key issue of freedom of association. People should not be forced to be in a union if they don't want to be.
fwiw, i'm very much against this vsu. solely because it kicks in after i graduate, of course.
schools have the worst part of vsu. canteens and such are overpriced rubbish, from which there is no real alternative. and quite a healthy profit, i might add.
a/s.