The Rise of the Religious Right

Politics has always been a hot contested area for special interest groups, corporate lobbyists, and rural producers, but there has been an alarming infiltration of religious fundamentalists amougst the Senate and the Representatives that have not only blurred the line of State and Church, but outright destroyed it.

Parliament has become so ingrained with fundamentalist religious doctrine, that a great deal of the members of the left, make many growing speeches to the glory of hard core Christian values, as it were the mainstream view of society at large. Just within the last year alone, Parliament has incorporated a Christian prayer network, as a part of the daily functioning of the House, and going so far as to sponsoring a revivalist tent on the Parliamentary grounds! They have even held public seminars within the House for the general public (and on one occassion, misleading the public to the nature of the seminar) which bordered on extremist dogma, and intolerance.

Myself, as a non-christian, find this trend unsettling and distrubing, and can only hope that this cycle can be broken at the next election.

Natal Chart

Being Bored, I decided to try out some more personality tests, and this time did up a natal chart, and here are the returned results for yourself to see!

Rising Sign is in 15 Degrees Aquarius You like new ideas and concepts, but you prefer to discover them by yourself -- it is not easy for others to convert you to anything. You form your own opinions, but once you do form them, you then want to convince everyone else that they are correct. Try to be more tolerant of the opinions of others. You have a deep and abiding interest in science, mathematics, and the great social problems of the day. Very sympathetic toward the downtrodden, equality is your battle cry! You demand that those in authority be fair to all. You are an intellectual -- emotions and emotional people are difficult for you to understand. You are known for being calm, cool, detached and objective.

Sun is in 20 Degrees Scorpio. Intense and complex by nature, you have extremely strong emotional reactions to most situations. Feelings are often very difficult for you to verbalize. Therefore you have a tendency to be very quiet - - to brood and think a lot. You seldom get overtly angry, but, when you do, you are furious and unforgiving. When you make an emotional commitment, it is total -- you are not attracted to superficial or casual relationships. If you are challenged, you take it as a personal affront and tend to lash out and fight back in a vengeful manner. You love mysteries and the supernatural. A good detective, you love getting to the roots of problems and you enjoy finding out what makes other people tick. You are known to be very willful, very powerful and quite tenacious!

Moon is in 15 Degrees Pisces. You have strong feelings and are extremely sensitive. It would help if you had a thicker skin -- you tend to react emotionally to every situation you come across. Kind, gentle and considerate of the feelings of others, you are good at taking care of the sick, wounded and helpless. But you tend to absorb the energy of others -- so avoid those who are always negative. You have a rich, creative and lively imagination, but you should be careful not to spend all your time daydreaming. Very intuitive, you have good ESP and may be quite clairvoyant or psychic. Remember that you too have the right to get what you want from life. If you are always defensive and kowtowing to others, people will take advantage of you and exploit you.

Mercury is in 10 Degrees Scorpio. You are a born investigator. You are fascinated by secrets and mysteries and unanswered questions of any kind. When you become upset or angry, your emotional reactions are overpowering -- reason and logic disappear in an uncontrollable passionate outburst. You tend to keep your thoughts secret and bottled up and this makes others regard you with suspicion. It is not that you are trying purposely to be evasive, it is just that you would rather not deal with the explosions and hassles that often occur when you reveal your true feelings and opinions. Your sense of humor tends toward sarcasm and irony.

Venus is in 03 Degrees Libra. A very friendly and outgoing person, you hate to be alone. Beware of a continuing tendency to compromise yourself in order to avoid being lonely. Try to be yourself, not what others would like you to be. You have an innate desire to be in refined and elegant surroundings and will go out of your way to create a plush and comfortable atmosphere around you. You have heightened aesthetic sensibilities and are attracted to music and the arts. Try to avoid using your well-known seductive charm in order to get out of doing what you consider to be dirty work!

Mars is in 02 Degrees Cancer. Your moods are very important to your overall well-being. You are confident and self-assertive when you are feeling upbeat, and you are retiring, irritable and grumpy when you get depressed about anything. Very sensitive, you wear your heart on your sleeve. You are easily angered whenever you think someone has slighted you. It is best for you to show your anger immediately and let it all out, rather than to try to hold it in or to hold grudges for a long time. You're extremely loyal and defensive of your family, neighborhood, community and culture.

Jupiter is in 16 Degrees Aries. The way that you grow and develop is by being an uncompromising individualist. You have a great need to be yourself and to explore your latent talents and abilities. Do not be afraid to let yourself go and develop self-confidence and pride in your accomplishments. But try not to become so self-centered that you ignore the needs of others. Also, you may have to build up your self-discipline in order to focus your energies properly.

Saturn is in 02 Degrees Leo. Extremely self-reliant, you set very high standards of conduct and decorum for yourself, and you expect others with whom you associate to be that way, too. It is important that you had a strong father figure or role model early in life to mold your life course and direction. When you feel that those around you are unworthy or behaving badly, you withdraw, preferring solitude rather than associating with those who might besmirch your reputation.

Uranus is in 03 Degrees Scorpio. You, and your peer group, demand to confront life at its deepest and most meaningful levels. Very compulsive and obsessive in your approach to everything, you will avoid anything that is casual or superficial, especially when it comes to relationships. You will seek out and explore new methods of healing as well as different ways to deal with deep-seated emotional problems.

Neptune is in 10 Degrees Sagittarius. You, and your entire generation, are heavily involved in investigating and idealizing foreign and exotic intellectual systems and religious philosophies. The most extreme ideals will be pursued with gusto. You will be at the forefront of humanitarian attempts to improve the lot of those who are in need of assistance. You will be comfortable with the concept of the "global village."

Pluto is in 10 Degrees Libra. For your entire generation, this is a time of radical changes in society's attitude toward marriage and interpersonal relationships. There is a general fear and awe at the power inherent in making emotional or contractual commitments -- they will not be entered into lightly.

N. Node is in 21 Degrees Scorpio. You have a special aptitude for working by yourself, or with a like-minded group of dedicated individuals. Once you've committed yourself to a person or group or project, your loyalty and devotion are total until the group's goals have been realized. Not at all gregarious by nature, you're uncomfortable around strangers, greatly preferring to be in known and familiar situations. Others may regard you as shy or eccentric, but those who know you well are aware of the intense loyalty that you have to your friends.

Unlike most other tests, this one is the closest to the mark I have seen yet! Of the fact that I don't know exactly what time I was born may be a factor in this slight discrepancy.

Psyched

After a little searching on the Net, I came across this interesting profiler.



My Personality

Neuroticism	41
Extraversion	52
Openness To Experience	54
Agreeableness	52
Conscientiousness	48

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report Find your soulmate / pysch twin MySpace Layouts, MySpace Quizzes and MySpace by Pulseware Survey Software

Well, I won't say it is completely accurate, it however did come quite close!

Back into the Game

Well, my gentle readers, after many a long years absence from the roleplaying community, after my fatal and life-timing scaring encounter with the White Wolf Fan Club, The Camarilla, I have returned to my once long dead habits, and ran a tabletop game of Vampire: The Masquerade for a couple of work mates.

Which I am glad to say went quite well, although it was neither quite serious, and just a comedy of misfortunes that the main characters stumbled about in. Long ago, I used to quite good at running things off the cuff, but I found my storyteller muscle is a little stiff from lack of use. Thankfully it seems that I crafted an enjoyable story for them anyhow!

Until next time, my readers!

Share Trader

Today, I joined with ecomonically liberated, putting my hard (well, hard being a purely figurative term for a public servant) earned dollars into the Australian Stock Exchange.

Being the good steadfast friend of the Australian Film and Entertainment industry in general, I put my trust in a little company called Manga Pacific, who have been helping build the art house film scene here for quite some time. The market, in it's benevolent grace, responded by increasing my stock by a good ole one shiny cent per share.

Ain't it nice, to be rewarded...

And now as I glance my clean crisp contract note (which kindly tells you of the what fors and what haves of your friendly investment), I can not help but feel somewhat proud of my first foray into the heady economic world of the exchange.

And so thus, my gentle reader, I cannot finish without stating that most memorable qoutes of Michael Douglas, "Greed is good.."

Relationships

There comes a moment in everyones life where we have to face up to some strong self-scrutiny about the direction of our life, our jobs, our goals and dreams, and our relationships.

These are moments which require courage to face, and they are always not easy paths to take.

Particularly when it comes to relationships.


After two years of living together, a couple will reach a plateau, and at that stage, you will, on a very instictual level know whether or not you will be able to continue past it.

When you first start out, things are generally smooth, but over time you will notice the little quirks that begin to either tear you apart, or bring you closer together.

The problem is, when you hit those crossroads, is will you do the right thing and break it off then, or will you allow it to continue to it's almost inevitable destruction.

You may tell yourself, that you or your other partner can change, that you can make it work just with a little faith and will alone. But do not be caught up by this, because if there is one thing for certain in this world, it is that people never change. We are creatures of habit, and we can not deny our true natures, no matter how destructive they may be.

This is one thing that life has taught me well..

Yet knowing this, I have found that out of the range of relationships that I have had, I have often lacked the courage to do the right thing and break it off when I knew the truth that could not be denied.

In this thing, I have often been the coward, and rode the relationship on it's path to a spectacular final end.

And so it comes around to my current relationship...

I have been with my current partner, EC, for just about two and a half years now, and our individual quirks and habit now ride rough on our individual tempers. I kinda knew that we would never be the prefect couple when we started out, having been with an aries woman once before in my life, which also ended on really bad terms.

In hindsight, had I have know she was an aries when I just started dating her, I expect I would have cut it off then, haunted by my previous relationship experience. But at that time, she knew how to laugh, and when she smiled, I felt the world get all that more brighter with her in.

But now, on some occassions, I just can't stand to be in the same room as her, and have to retreat to my private sanctum , to allow myself to de-stress from her foul moods.

I know that I will have to leave her, and some part of me has to wonder if she isn't coming to the same conclusions as I. Perhaps we are both held in the same holding pattern, waiting for someone to breathe, so to speak.

But I have tied up a great deal of my life with her, and now I found myself in the unenviable position of having to regain my independance again. So, I am faced with the most horrible of propositions, to continue to live a lie, whilst setting all my affairs in order.

It is one of my greatest burdens to bear at the moment, and nor is it a shining moment in my life, but in my heart I am afraid of what comes next, and without a plan, a fallback position to go to, that terror gnaws at my heart.

And so, in this, my gentle reader, I bare to you the failings in my own soul, my deep and terrible flaw that I carry in me as my secret, my burden, my sin.

All I can hope for in the end, is that I will make that break faster, and in such a way that I can minimise the damage that I will most surely do, and hope that I can still face myself in the mirror...

And so it goes on..

A bit more of the personality frivolity tests, this time based on Lord of the Rings Characters..





You are most like Aragorn. You have strong convictions and you stick to them. Although you are more of a recluse, you are extremely loyal to the few friends that you have. You are very serious about things, but you like having fun. Fame and fortune mean little to you, and you aren't concerned with being popular. Good for you!

Another Quiz

More Time wastage results..


Your Mythic character personality...


You are the dragon. A dragon, in western lore, is a giant lizard with wings. It usually has the capability to breathe fire. The dragon symbolizes immense power, physical strength, and courage. The dragon has also been a symbol of wisdom and of protection. Dragons may also appear to be greedy as many a tale depict them as keepers of vast hordes of treasure.

Now only if I had the vast of hordes of treasure in real life...

If personality could be pressed into neat plastic...

With some spare time on my hand, I have idly wandered the net, stumbling on this dice pool personality test- Here are the shocking results...

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

No use trying to fight it, you're an eight-sided die, a d8. A fine example of simple elegance, the d8 is one of the least appreciated types of dice, and is often neglected. You are known to be quiet and shy, outward traits that conceal viscous sarcasm and mean wit. You are very smart, yet wise enough to hide your intelligence the quicker they found out how smart you are, the sooner they'll put you to work, which is something you can do without. People call you dark and pessimistic, or moody and cynical. You find little point in arguing.


Who would have guess...

Scooters

Nifty little things, scooters. Personally, I’ve never been one for cars. They are only handy when you need to move house, otherwise I have been a strong advocate for the use of public transport, particularly here in Canberra (If it only was as good as the public transport system in Germany, then I would never own a vehicle at all). But, you just got to love a good looking scooter, particularly now that the maxi scooter market has been successfully established here in Australia now.

So, I’ve been looking to purchase one of late. It has been a bit of a toss up, with me drifting back and forth from the Piaggio X9 and the Yamaha T-Max. I’ve also had a look at respective 250cc version of each model (the majesty in the case of the T-Max), but the though of having a more long range tourer is appealing on it own merit.

Licensing in the ACT however is a real pain in the ass. At least in Queensland, you only need to go to the one place to get everything done. Here in the ACT, it's the back and fro with the respective outsourced segments of government, in order to get the job done. Oh, and a applicable fee at each step of the way, just so they get the best run out of your wallet, and if you miss a step, well all the way back to square one, with your respective paperwork in tow.

Quite Painful, in one simple word.

Yet, once the process is finished, I think I will be quite enjoying my new purchase.

Just Another Journey

Like most beginnings, it started in blood and fire, or maybe just something more distant and passive as usual.

It begins with a simple memory, of someone long past and nearly forgotten, oddly remembered in only that dispassionate way that comes from time past.

Our parting was in anger, disgust, and vehement bile, but something which had to be done, for a life too long together, and for a lie too well lived. It is the moment in my life I defined how too common complacency is in our lives, and how too often we will choose the rut, rather then do what we know we must in our hearts.

Now, many years past, it is odd that I still reflect sometimes on that ghost of my memory. Admittedly, not with hate, or spite, or love, or anything else that could be calling representing invested concern. Indeed, it is nothing more then an apathic bond I think.

Yet, here I am, spilling the reminiscence, like so much bitter blood. Guess nature makes monster of all our pasts.

So, here is the house that Asgvar built, built on a dead past, a distant future and something bittersweet. Let us hope, that the legacy I create here, gives up something useful, and builds on the seed that has been planted.