Darth Vader has announced he will be quitting politics at the end of the year. Sorry, I seem to have got that a bit wrong. Yvette D’Ath, Queensland Attorney-General and former Health Minister during the pandemic has decided to quit politics. She tweeted, “Today I can announce that I have decided not to recontest the seat of Redcliffe in the upcoming election. I remain committed to representing the people of Redcliffe and fulfilling my duties until the election in October.” At a press conference yesterday, she said she was committed to helping Labor remain in government. “Whether I’m running or not is irrelevant. I’ll continue to do everything possible to work for the Miles government. We’ve got an election to win.” As Minister for Health and Ambulance Services during the dark days of the pestilence, she kept us up-to-date with the latest health information. So it seems like the main role of Ms D’Ath as Health Minister was to continually talk about something that started with the letter V. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m glad she’s on the way out. Hopefully the current Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has more than just one topic to talk about: “Anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman, and as the Minister for Women, all people who identify as a woman are a part of our policies and strategies to advance gender equality.” God help us! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlFFw9vuac

I’ve finally caved. I’ve chosen my pronouns, and published them to the world. I was reminded by YouTube to update my pronouns – I didn’t even know I could. “Pronouns are a critical part of personal identity and expression.” “Critical: Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something.” Jeez, well if my very existence depends on it, I better update my pronouns. In my Channel Dashboard, I need to click on Customisation. Then I have to go to Basic Info. Scrolling down, you can Add Pronoun. “Type to find your pronouns”. That’s a bit presumptuous calling me “your”. Anyway, as you start typing, it shows you a list of approved pronouns. For example, for “B”, there are no approved pronouns: “We are periodically reviewing pronouns which may become available in the future.” I wait with bated breath. I quite like “aers”, it sounds like Ayers Rock, Uluru. The Bureau of Meteorology were predicting a hot and dry autumn earlier this month, so of course, a few weeks later, it’s been raining and cold. “Rare rain on Uluru creates stunning waterfall”. So “aers” is my first pronoun. It looks like you can select more. “Cos”, not just the cosine (I love maths, by the way), but also cos lettuce! With its crispy, green leaves, sharp in flavour, it’s a perfect addition to any salad or sandwich, so of course, I’ll add it to my list of pronouns. “Mer”, as in mermaid, or merman. I’ve always wanted to breathe underwater, so of course, I’ll add it to my growing list. I wonder how many of these I can add. “Thon”, it sounds like a Greek god. Not to mention marathon, a test of courage, character, and physical endurance. Oh, it looks like I’ve reached my limit for pronouns. Of course, I want my pronouns to be visible to everyone! I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ll just publish that. If you look at my channel now, you can see, Daily Insight: aers/cos/mer/thon! And you better use my correct pronouns, or else! Of course, some will accuse me of taking the mickey, and that’s right, that’s exactly what I’m doing. But don’t you think this is worthy of scorn? Or am I missing something? MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xkzzhd-bnQ

They claim to be representative of all Australians, but Woolworths have done away with Australia Day dumping all Australia Day merchandise, and now they’ve made a commitment to flying the Aboriginal flag outside stores “where practicable”, whatever that means. But recent news suggests that they’ve backflipped on this plan, or perhaps clarified their position. In a statement, a spokesperson said, “We don’t plan to add flags outside our supermarkets. The specific statement refers to displaying the flags ‘where practicable’. The locations deemed practicable are those where the Australian flag is already flown.” Whatever, I’m done with Woolworths. Instead of bringing harmony to society by taking a neutral position on divisive issues, they instead continue to try to divide their customer base based on their political beliefs or ancestry. Coles made an announcement that they would continue to stock “a small range of Australian-themed summer entertaining merchandise”. I downloaded their latest catalogue just to see what they mean by “a small range”. This is their catalogue dated 17-23 January 2024. First thing I noticed, they have this ‘Australian Grown’ flag plastered throughout the catalogue. Rock lobster. King prawns. Leg of lamb. They even have a picture of an Aussie farmer – Australian Grown. Another leg of lamb. Beef burgers. Beef steak – All proudly flying the Australian grown flag. This entire page is covered with the Australian Grown flag. This page is titled “Summer” and has some Aussie Aussie mugs, paper plates, napkins, bunting, and so on, a G’day Mate can cooler, and some cups with “I love… something”. The something is strategically hidden from view. Aussie Grown tomatoes, strawberries, mushrooms, and sweet potatoes. There’s Australian flags everywhere! But did you notice one thing they didn’t mention? Australia Day! There is not one mention of Australia Day. They’re happy to show heaps of flags and sell Aussie cups and so on, but they don’t want to say the words “Australia Day”. You know, that might cause offence. On the other hand, they have two pages dedicated to the Lunar New Year, a traditionally Asian celebration. It’s funny, they’re not scared to use those words “Lunar New Year”, which is the correct name of the celebration, but Australia Day, nope! Not one mention of it. The Australia Day page is instead labelled “Summer”. So although Coles have kind of supported Australia Day, they also kind of haven’t. Drakes Supermarkets, on the other hand, are proudly including Australia Day in their latest catalogue, also dated 17-23 January. “Ingredients for Australia Day”, with Aussie flags for sale, and so on. “Celebrate Australia Day with your wingman!” I know, it’s all just marketing gimmicks, but so what? They’re having some fun with it. Is anybody calling for a boycott of Drakes because they dared to mention Australia Day? Of course not. It’s only the companies that are abandoning Australia Day that are being rightfully criticised. That’s what I don’t get about Woolworths and others. What are they trying to do? What’s their end goal? Why are they so set on removing Australia Day from their stores? Even if a small percentage of Australians hate Australia Day, so what? That’s not a reason not to include it. A small percentage, or perhaps a large percentage of people don’t like Halloween, yet they’re happy to include all that tat in their catalogues. But yet, they continue to play this divisive game of going against the majority of their customer base to appease a small minority. After careful thought, there’s only one word I can use to describe the leadership at Woolworths. Idiots! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHw_uXKgJtw

Over the last few months, or maybe a year, I’ve had this thought running through my head which I just haven’t been able to shake. It’s a theory (or more correctly, a hypothesis) on life and death and why I think that I don’t just cease to exist when I die. I must mention that I find this theory very hard to describe in my own mind, let alone put it into words and explain it out loud. But despite this, I’m going to try, and give you an illustration of my theory on life and death. Imagine, if you will, that your existence is represented by a timeline in space. A blip in the middle is your life. This represents everything that has happened to you, as well as everything that will happen to you in your finite 70 or 80 years on this planet. One thing that we all know fairly certainly is that this is finite. Everything before the blip is the time before you were born. It extends out indefinitely. Everything after the blip is the time after you die. It extends out indefinitely into the future. If we believe that we only have one life and that our life is finite in an infinite universe (or multiverse, or whatever you wish to call it), then this is the model that we subscribe to. Our life is just a blip. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. However, this is where my theory begins. The very fact that you are experiencing anything means that there is something wrong with this model. If there was an infinite amount of time before you were born, or if there’s going to be an infinite amount of time after you die, then surely you would already be in one of those states. There is no possibility of you being in this state that we call “living”. Think of it like this. If after you die, there’s just an eternity of nothingness, and in that nothingness, you have no knowledge or awareness of anything. You no longer exist, and you have no memory of ever having existed. Then wouldn’t you already be in this state? The very fact that you are existing and experiencing life right now means that something is wrong with this model. MY VIDEO ON SOLIPSISM https://youtu.be/Csvn_sePdKk MY GEAR Rode NT-USB Microphone: https://amzn.to/2OjhgB4 #existentialcrisis #meaningoflife #whatisgod ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAaxlyb4Z60