2009

I’m sure you’ve all heard about this story by now: Obama gets asked by a 4th grader why everybody hates him so much! Although I obviously can’t personally agree with his Christian sentiment, he actually does make a valid point: Christians are supposed to be loving and tolerant, but far right wing conservative Americans have shown themselves to be about the most hateful and intolerant group of people this side of fundamentalist Islam. And at least Muslim fundamentalists are honest about their hatred and intolerance—fundamentalist Christians go on about love when all they do is hate, and go on about freedom when they want to suppress the freedom of everyone who disagrees with them. They claim to represent American values when in fact America was founded on secular values (hence the separation of church and state in the constitution), and they claim to represent Christian values when in fact their behaviour is very much against to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And why do they hate Obama so much anyway? I mean, Bush sent hundreds of Americans to their deaths in a senseless, illegal war, but that’s okay for them. On the other hand, Obama is trying to do something to bring health care to more Americans—even if you disagree with his plan, surely any sensible person can see that he is at least trying to do something for the benefit of the American people? Bush basically sent hundreds of innocent Americans to die for the benefit of Halliburton and the arms trade, while Obama is at least trying to save American lives, by taking them out of this war and trying to improve their health care. How could anyone have such a twisted value system and delusional world view as to think they should hate Obama, while at the same time supporting Bush?

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to ask everyone what they think of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Personally, I agree with Obama himself that he doesn’t yet deserve it, and I hope he makes good on his statement that he will take it as a call to action. Perhaps he can start by putting some teeth into his administration’s demand that there should be no more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land…

We’re currently working on something pretty big and serious, so while we’re doing that, I thought I’d post this hilarious bit of comic relief—it’s actually a very accurate retelling of the Biblical creation!

It’s nice to post a good news story for a change! According to a group of scientists from Australia’s Antarctic Division, the ozone hole over Antarctica is now shrinking. This must surely to be a direct result of the Montreal Protocol to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which caused the ozone hole in the first place. I think this clearly demonstrates two things: human activity can indeed have serious effects on the global climate, and human co-operation and positive action can solve those problems. Imagine if George W. Bush were the President at the time. Would the Montreal Protocol have been agreed to? I’ll bet it wouldn’t have—he would have said there was no proof that CFCs damaged the ozone layer, and that the Protocol would have a negative effect on business, jobs and the economy.

Which brings me to the next part of my good news story. At the recent G20 summit, the leaders of the top 20 economies in the world agreed to a very simple measure that I feel will have far reaching consequences—to end fossil fuel subsidies. I’ve always felt it was both extraordinary and ridiculous that—when we really need to encourage the development of alternative energy—the governments of the world are still subsidising fossil fuel production. I am also proud to say that Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spearheaded these changes, even though our economy is currently very highly dependant on fossil fuel exports (particularly coal and gas). It’s hard to imagine that just a few short years ago, both Australia’s Prime Minister and the American President denied climate change, and refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Once again, if they were still in government, it is hard to imagine that the lifting of fossil fuel subsidies would ever have been agreed to (for the reasons cited above).

Of course, that isn’t the only good news to some out of the G20 summit: it is also good to see such widespread co-operation in dealing with the economic crisis (which already appears to have averted another great depression), and that they are taking affirmative action to try and prevent corporate greed from creating such a situation again (such as the measures to control executive salaries).

One thing that’s always amused me is how willing creationists are to use lies and deceit to support their beliefs. I mean, if what they believe really is true, then why would they need to? The fact that they do so often have to do this is clear evidence that the facts are not on their side. A really great example of this is Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort’s special 150th anniversary edition of The Origin of Species—complete with a 50 page preface full of lies and deceit to “represent the other side of the story”. As well as the stuff mentioned in ZOMGitsCriss‘s video above, I note they also repeat the lie that Einstein believed in a personal God (plus the other scientists they cite lived at a time when not believing in God was unthinkable, and would have resulted in their death if they said so). Personally, I find their accusations that Darwin was a racist particularly outrageous, given that he was a great humanist, and campaigner for freeing the slaves conservative Christians wanted to keep in chains.

Thanks to a tip from Firefly, I’ve just learned about the ridiculous controversy sparked by President Obama’s recent address to the students of America. Although (as the video above shows) it was a completely non-political pep talk, conservative parents tried to prevent their children from watching it, and some schools in conservative areas provided their students with opt-in forms, requiring their parents to give written consent for their children to watch the President’s speech! They say it’s to prevent their children from being brainwashed by a left wing political agenda, but once again, there was no political content in Obama’s speech whatsoever. I think what it’s really about is a fear that if their children watched Obama’s speech, they might find that what he says makes a lot of sense, and that—heaven forbid—they might actually like him. Is there any better example of how the far right tries to suppress even the most basic information, for fear that it may expose their fragile beliefs? After all, if their belief system wasn’t so fragile, then why are they so afraid of open discussion and information, even when it’s completely apolitical, or just plain common sense? How can they be so hypocritical as to cite freedom of speech, while suppressing any speech from anyone on the left?

Image courtesy of Reuters: Sukree Sukplang (file photo)

With my blog’s birthday, my own birthday, an update on my activities and the launch of my Amazon wish list, last month ended up being a little bit “me me me!”. So I’d like to return my blog to normal transmission this month, starting with turning my attention to someone for whom I have a great deal of admiration: Aung San Suu Kyi. I’m sure she’s somebody who doesn’t need any introduction to regular readers of my blog—let’s just say that she’s an icon of democracy, peace and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and a woman of extraordinary courage and strength. Read the rest of this entry »

This is just a quick heads-up to let everyone know that my Amazon Wish List is finally online! As I mentioned in my birthday post, it certainly doesn’t contain the sort of stuff you’d normally associate with a model’s wish list—or most women’s wish lists for that matter. Indeed, when I look at it, it actually comes across as pretty geeky! Hell, I’ve even got a couple of Star Trek DVDs in there—I’m a big fan of Voyager, but that’s the only Star Trek I’ve seen so far. So as I already have all the Voyager DVDs, I thought I’d try the first seasons of the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine to see if I like them too (as well as the British equivalent of Star Trek, Blake’s 7). I also already have the first series of House M.D. and I absolutely love that, so I thought I’d put the rest of them in too.

As for music, it’s mostly soft classical, as that is what I listen to for pleasure most of the time—I guess it’s also because it’s what I’m most familiar and comfortable with. The latest CDs from a couple of my favourite pop singers are in there too (Tori Amos and Katie Noonan). I have a lot of Australian composers and CDs in there, as I’ve found I really relate to them—they not only evoke my adopted homeland, but often have a lot of oriental influences as well. The prices of the Aussie CDs will probably come as a shock to my American readers, but that is what they cost down here. Besides, the prices are in AU$—although the AU$ isn’t worth much less than the US$ these days.

Well, both myself and my blog have just celebrated their birthdays—and it has also been about a year since I last posted a major update on what’s happening with me—so I thought it was high time I posted another one. The past year has brought some disappointment, but also some new hope.

First of all, we have pretty much given up on getting a publisher for the English language edition of my health and beauty book. To make it worth our while to hand over so much of the profit from my book to a publisher, we really need them to get behind it and promote it on an international scale—this is especially true given that the majority of my fans are outside of Australia. However, as a first time (and somewhat unconventional) author, no publisher has been willing to invest this much in me at such an early stage. We remain hopeful that we will be able to get a Chinese language publisher who will give me the support I need, but even though Mandarin is my mother tongue, translating my book back into Chinese has proven surprisingly difficult—English is just so much better for getting across many of the concepts I try to express. I haven’t given up on it though, and we will soon be getting the English version of the book ready for publishing and selling ourselves over the internet.

If we are going to promote it ourselves though, we really need to generate a lot more capital than we have now—we need an extra stream of revenue, while still giving us the freedom to continue with my projects. And this blog has given me the inspiration and encouragement I need to figure out a way to achieve this goal: basically, I am going to be combining the sort of interaction I have with my fans here with my nude modelling work. How will I do that? Sorry to be a tease, but I actually don’t want to give too much away right now until we’ve figured out all the details of exactly how we’re going to go about it. Suffice it to say though, we are very confident it will be something my fans—and I—will greatly enjoy. Given that it will be pointless to launch my book without it—and especially as my fans have been waiting so long for me to return to modelling—we have actually shelved any further work my health and beauty book, so we can get this exciting project going as soon as possible. Barring any major unforeseen difficulties, it looks as though it will be ready to go by the end of next month. Read the rest of this entry »

Well as I mentioned in my last post, it was my blog’s birthday on the 1st. Now, today it’s my turn.

As I said in my birthday post last year, I didn’t publicise my birthday in the past, as I didn’t want to impose on my fans, and I never do anything to celebrate my birthday myself anyway. However, the feedback I got from you made it very clear that you wanted to share this day with me, so now I am! Indeed, I’m now wondering if you’d like to take it a little further, with perhaps an Amazon wish list or something like that. I always thought the way other models did this was a huge imposition on their fans, but like celebrating my birthday itself, I guess I shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions on this. So once again, I am asking you what you want—would you like to be able to buy or send me gifts?

If you do, there’s still the question of how to go about it. I’m actually not an easy girl to buy gifts for, as I don’t like most of the things women are supposed to like—I don’t wear makeup, I think perfume is manifestly wasteful air pollution, jewellery is a colossal waste of money, and fashion is perhaps the greatest con foisted on mankind since religion. I never buy expensive name brand clothes, as I always find that there is a cheap, generic equivalent that is actually at least as good, if not a whole lot better. Indeed, for me some fashion brands are actually downright ugly—for example, to my eyes Louis Vuitton bags look like something my grandmother wouldn’t be seen dead with! Still, I do like CDs and DVDs, so perhaps you could buy me those. At the end of the day though, the gift I like best of all is simply money, as I really need to generate as much capital as I can for the next stage in my career (more on that in my next post!). To that end, I guess we could set up some PayPal donation buttons or something like that? I know it isn’t a very “personal” gift, but I am a very practical girl!

Yep, it was one year ago today that I started this blog! I hope you’ve been enjoying it as much as I have. Unfortunately I haven’t had as much time for it recently as we’ve been very busy working on a brand new project to extend my interaction with my fans even further—we actually have an idea for something that’s never been done before in the way we want to do it. So we aren’t absolutely certain we can pull it off, but we are confident—it will just take a little time. Also, right now my broadband internet connection has been dead for days(!), so unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to respond to everyone’s recent comments—but I will as soon as I’m fully back online! Anyway, when we launch this new project I will be getting more active online again (including with this blog), so I think this might be a good opportunity to ask you all what you would like to see from me in the future. There’s a good chance it will be something we are planning to do anyway, but all suggestions are welcome!