Remarkable contribution, can you guys please help me crack this new Google code they used for their logo? It's in HTML5...

First of all, great looking site you have here and great post too. I would like to keep up with your posts but having problem subscribing to your rss.

I agree with the majority of what you're saying. I personally come from Northern Canada, and practice a lot of Aboriginal culture, but I'm white. Living this way, I seem to get the worst of both situations. I get labelled "playing indian" by white folks, and the greedy, obnoxious white person from the natives. I can't live on the land like I have been trying to learn how to do, on the land I was raised on, because I am told that it does not belong to my race. It's time for things to change, this is racist and disgusting. I hope that you will all check out my website at /www. mola-dene.webs. com/, and I would love to chat with you there.
Cheers,
Rachel D.

tap water is so much better than bottled water one of the many reasons is that it is soooooo much cheaper. if sandwiches where that over priced it would be like buying a $10000 sandwich

Hi Duncan,

I'd like to point out a couple of things.

(1) When I was a teen I was hooked on heroin, so not only have I experienced drug addiction first hand, but I have been around others in the same boat. I have listened to many of their stories, and if you knew MY life story I'm sure you'd be blown away with what I've been through. And yet I gave up heroin, and have been "clean" for 11 years.

(2) As part of my job I offer counselling services (I have a bach. psych.) meaning that during the course of my career I have dealt with a lot of mental illness. I myself have battled with chronic episodic depression since I was 8. I understand mental illness and where those who suffer from it are coming from.

Not everyone whom has a mental illness gets stuck on drugs, in fact the vast majority don't. Likewise, not everyone who is addicted to drugs, has a mental illness, again there are so many healthy, middle and upper class people who have become addicted to drugs. The reason the stats of mental illness in drug addicts are so high, is because after prolonged exposure to a drug, most bring on mental illness. Cannabis for example is noted for bringing on paranoia, problems with aggression and schizophrenia. "Ecstasy" is noted for bringing on chronic depression, as is alcohol abuse.

But if we put all of that to the side for a moment, the key point the post was attempting to make is a simple one. Having an addiction, ie. not a mental illness but an addiction, is classed as a disability. An addiction in itself is not a disability. If the person has a mental illness then centrelink caters for those with mental illness, but simply having an addiction is NOT a disability. It is a choice. Perhaps instead of supporting addicts financially for their entire life, which honestly you have to admit is enabling their addiction, we should think about spending that money on rehab clinics.

Beyond that, any help they receive from centrelink should be held to the same standards as any other person in the community. Someone whom is just an addict, should still be required to apply for jobs just like anyone else. They should be required to undergo drug rehab clinics. The point is, being an addict isn't a good place for anyone to be in. And we need to stop people becoming addicts. Enabling them isn't going to fix the problem. Only when we get serious and clamp down on it in a proactive and constructive way will we see real results in the community, and that will be good for EVERYONE

If you exercise some insight and take a look at these people, maybe then youd see that most people with drug problems have un diagnosed or diagnosed mental health issues that are often quite sever. Drug use helps them to live a more normal life where a personal situation would not. There are plenty of hard working individuals who take full responsibility for their drug habits and work good jobs to support themselves like anybody else. Regardless of the substances in question, if a person finds themselves so helpless that they cant work then they might be labeled severely depressed or in crisis. Some people get angry, some people get sad, others try to find a solution to their problems, if life presents a situation to which there is no solution a healthy person would recognise it and deal with it. An un healthy person however may try to find a solution where there is none, or give up entirely and freak out about it. Most people i have met with drug problems have fit the second category. They cannot deal with life so they find a way to get themselves through. Simple survival tactics, only theyre seeking survival of their mind. Sometimes a boost in mood, be it medication or less legal options, is all it takes to make someone see beyond their problems and get back into life. For those few who cannot see through to better times a new problem presents itself. People who continually abuse drugs as a method of getting through hardship or trauma are often the people who would never get through it anyway, and if they cant feel ok with help drugs or alcohol then there is not much hope of ever feeling good. These are real people with real disabilities, just because it isnt obvious to the eye doesnt mean it isnt severely debilitating. As for staying on centrelink, these people try so hard to support them selves and fail, can you imagine what that is like? Normal people jumped off buildings in the great depression because they couldnt support themselves. Obviously its not a nice way to feel and it doesnt exactly ad to a persons confidence or ability to do things. Many drug addicts jump on the first opportunity that comes up and make for a better life, and with a better situation they feel better and the drug issues disappear. Once again, it is only a small amount of users who find themselves gripped for life, and it almost always comes back to PTSD or other mental health issues. Often these people have poor education and dont understand the health system and dont know where to go for help. The people that get help from centrelink have shown the first step on their road to a better life. Even if they arnt working, maybe they will get a chance to pull themselves out of a downward spiral and eventually decide upon a path to follow. Being on a centrelink pension is hard enough, but having to pay for a drug habit and live off a pension is a hard thing too do, it might be easier than being homeless, but it is by no means a comfortable situation. I think you would find, if you were in the situation yourself, you would have every incentive to correct your drug problems. People want to live not waist away, anyone who decides to throw in the towel and commit suicide is obviously mentally ill, but what about other ways of throwing in the towel? Can you imagine feeling so weak that you cant even kill yourself when you feel its completely necessary? There are many people who use drugs and alcohol to escape for this reason. If you do not consider that kind of thinking related to psychological or psychiatric illnesses then maybe you yourself should be considered mentally ill. As i said, these are real people with real problems, and no way out, there for they are cornered, the only way to deal with their life or escape a situation left to them is to enter the haze that is drug addiction. Drugs are not the problem, but its the problem that caused the drugs. If you deny these people one of the few avenues left to help them (for instance, mandatory rehab) they are put back into their original position and the cycle continues. Allowing users to sit around using is not time or money waisted, its time and money that has gone toward a better future for the entire country, as every moment not spent worrying about money or housing is time spent on emotional healing. Its only a matter of time (provided a good environment) before the person gets over the drugs and gets back into life. When pressure is applied they feel it and use more. The answer is to take all the pressure away from these people to give them that chance to get better by themselves in their own time. About the only way the government can help take pressure off these people is to provide them with a pension. In my opinion thats a job well done by centrelink. Drug addicts arent preventing other people from being eligible for the DSP. They would make no difference to the amount you pay in tax, really what a person does with their life is their own business. If they are looking for help of any kind that shows they have potential and that should be nurtured. If it isnt we would have more people using, people i have seen sort themselves out when they were given the opportunity would certainly still be feeling hopeless and still addicted to drugs if it wasnt for the "free ride". It has saved their life and now they too pay tax. What goes around comes around. If your hard on people they are hard on you. I feel this artical has a major lack of compassion, possibly related to the authors personal prejudices. I dont know your situation but im sure youv had hard times in your life. Im sure you had someone too help you through. Im sure if you had nothing or no one to help you, you too would have wound up a junkie, alcoholic, or depressive and suicidal. It is a fact of life that not everyone begins at the same point in the race, some people truly start a long way behind, some make it through and others get lost in the maze, it doesnt mean they arent still trying to find a way out. Grow up and get some life experience under your belt, there are people with bigger problems than tax. If you still need something to complain about, or someone worse off than you to put down, im sure there are bigger more relevant issues out their you could tackle-even for you. That "free ride" is the only stepping stone some people have to make the path from ultimate failure in life to ultimate freedom. Why would you want to take that away from someone who is genuinely unfit to support themselves? Im sure if you could see the persons problem with your eyes youd have no trouble accepting them as disabled, but the reality is, you may have to use a little imagination and understanding to figure this one out. These people need help, but they need the right kind, you cant force anyone to do anything, you cant make a graze heal faster than it heals, so how can you ask an addict to figure out their problems faster than they can? This is why so many of the people who go through rehab relaps. If things are done by choice, in ones own time, the statistics of non relapsing former drug addicts improve dramatically. Do some thinking, do some reading, open your eyes and mind and look around. People are people and they react to situations. How could you blame someone who does their best-like everyone else-to make it in this life. Just because theyv fallen behind doesnt mean we should forget them or brush them under the rug. I think you will find that some of the more influential people in science art and many other parts of our collective history were chronic drug users. You cannot judge a person badly for wanting to feel better in a bad situation. Im sure most of us have been through something similar in our time, have you ever seen someone crippled by a break up drink themselves to death? I know its extreme but it gets the point across, life dishes it out, sometimes people fall off the wagon, everyone is different so it makes alot of sense to me that they react to the situation in unique ways. Not everyone decides to take the drugs and alcohol path, some people choose to do cold or terrible things, people get through things how ever they can. If you take the time to get to know the stories of a few junkies like you know the stories of your friends and family i think you would be amazed at what many of these people have been through. You might come home with a better understanding of drug addicts and what it takes to make a person feel terrible enough to become one. Learning is an important part of life, we cant learn everything, but we can try. Just make sure you know what it is your talking about before you say something potentially damaging and offensive. The last thing a person in need needs is harsh criticism.

omg this is some nasty things!

I think this is all true but sense we white Australians suffer from this white guilt bullcrap nothing will change but thats life i guess.

To Whom It May Concern. You Really know how to intrique the reader into reading your whole blog. I was simply mesmorized by the way you write. You should write a book or something. Just Saying.

OMG! this is a lovely site, wickedly great things!

Hi Marobeke,

To answer your question yes I am a health professional.

TJ..are you a doctor or in the medical proffesion? Just curious is all..

Hi great article
I must agree with many points in your article, yes the government should give guide lines on how we all should look after our health especially our weight.
It is a fact in these days of a fast life style we do need some guidance in losing weight.
I can remember my days at school when PE was compulsory we all tried to skip it, but golly did it do us good, discipline as well as keeping fit and those extra pounds well they must have gone somewhere
Whatever the government does to help us we must take the first step and take action.
Want to be slimmer and healthy no one is saying its easy but go for it and use all the resources you can use.
Peter

thanks for the heads up really appreciate it lol very funny

Hi wowbagger,

Thanks for your comment, I always enjoy different opinions as through differences in opinion we can understand perspectives we never previous thought about, which can only add to self growth.

I'd like to point out a massive flaw in your plan to eat bread, pasta and potatoes in place of meat. None of these foods naturally contain iron, and to add iron to these foods effects the environment in a negative way. Feeding humanity ISN'T simply about placing enough of something edible in some ones mouth to make them feel relatively full. Like it or not, all living creatures require a complex balance of nutrients which makes your bread, pasta and potato idea bad for their health. The point of this post, and the main point the WWF study was focusing on, is that the substitutes used by vegetarians to replace the nutrients found in meat actually damage the environment more, by way of the large carbon footprint required to deliver these foods to people around the world.

To your absurd comment

"pr3vin: I'd love to just ignore your embarrassing 'plants can feel pain' argument, but letting it slide might result in further embarrassment by fellow intellectually stunted readers, and your 'therefore, god planned all this for us mankind to eat & live!' comment was the clincher. Here's a clue for you: not all organisms are equal. You know how humans are 'above' other animals? Well for similar reasons non human animals are also considered 'above' plants. Think of advanced nervous systems, tool use, social interaction, emotions etc."

I'd like to point out I never once mentioned anything about god. Thing about that is I don't believe in god, nor do I believe humanity is somehow special. Here is a clue for you, you can't sit there claiming to me that all organisms aren't equal then in the next breath start preaching about vegetarianism for ethetics. I'm sorry "wowbagger" but all creatures are equal in their right to live and exist. You can't decide that just because a living organism can't use tools as humanity defines them that it has less of a right to be alive, that is an ignorant and arrogant position to take.

The human body is designed in such a way as to require the eating of both plants AND other animals in order to complete the complex balance of nutrients required to keep you running in tip top shape. Ultimately even if you could magically make everyone live off of wheat and potatoes as you suggest, that still doesn't solve the hunger problem, as the population will continue to grow. Humanity isn't facing a problem with food production, humanity is facing an over-population problem...

Wow I really came across as an arse there mate, sorry. Just sick of seeing what is truly an admirable way of living (kinder to everyone and everything except the haters ;)) attacked everywhere and every day. Please spare a moment to look at it from the other side. Have a nice day.

Nice distortion of the result of the WWF study there mate! Ignoring the dubious figures they used, the summary said that 'the environmental benefits of vegetarianism depended heavily on the type of food consumed as an alternative to meat.' And I noticed you missed this bit: 'Simply eating more bread, pasta and potatoes instead of meat is more environmentally friendly'. What is your real beef with vegetarians? Please put your cards on the table. It certainly can't be because of the science surrounding vegetarianism (see below), and presumably you don't hate animals _that_ much.

Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters and suffer fewer health complaints (prostate cancer, heart disease, diabetes).
A vegetarian diet _is_ better for the environment, but some vegetarian diets are of course worse than others (just like some meat based diets are better for the environment than other meat based diets).

The _US GOVERNENT_, http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html , even say that 'Vegetarian diets can meet all the recommendations for nutrients.'.

Since you seem to be a fan of studies, and it looks as if any study will do, here's some I just found now:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html -
'U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat'
'Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein'
'Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States'
'More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans'

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/29/8/1777.abstract -
'vegan diet and a diet based on ADA guidelines improved glycemic and lipid control in type 2 diabetic patients. These improvements were greater with a low-fat _vegan_ diet.'

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/516S -
'Vegetarians 34% less likely to get heart disease'


pr3vin: I'd love to just ignore your embarrassing 'plants can feel pain' argument, but letting it slide might result in further embarrassment by fellow intellectually stunted readers, and your 'therefore, god planned all this for us mankind to eat & live!' comment was the clincher. Here's a clue for you: not all organisms are equal. You know how humans are 'above' other animals? Well for similar reasons non human animals are also considered 'above' plants. Think of advanced nervous systems, tool use, social interaction, emotions etc.


So, here are you words again, for your contemplation. Don't take it personally (we're all young some point - you live and learn):

> So now with the claim about the diet being beneficial to the environment gone, and piles of other evidence that the diet is also really bad for your body; one can only wonder why anyone is continuing this diet, let alone promoting it. I've included some interesting links at the bottom of this post which may help you to see clearly when next a vegetarian friend tries to guilt you into their way of life.


Finally, as a side note, not all vegetarians care about health or the environment (see they're not so different after all!); some do it purely for ethical reasons surrounding animal rights, including human rights.

P.S. I'm surprised nobody came out with 'Hitler was a vegetarian ', it's usually a favourite amongst vegetarian haters who prefer to base their opinions on ignorance and myths instead of science.

Kat,

Unless you're trying to say that you went to the doctor every day during the 48 hours of the detox, and s/he ran a bunch of tests on you both of the two days, then I really don't understand how you're trying to say you were under supervision by your GP.

Medically there is ABSOLUTELY NO benefit to a "detox" diet. None. I don't know what sort of a doctor you went to see you told you it was good for you, but it isn't certainly not the opinion of the AMA nor the WHO. These types of diets ARE scams.

Think about it this way, Julie is the ideal choice for an representative of 'Australia' masterchef. She is not asian, is a house cook and therefore the perfect candidate for an amateur cook. I may be bitter about the result and I do believe that Poh should have won instead, but I do believe that I am only stating fact when I say that the judges were overly lenient towards her. Perhaps not in the finals, but definitely in the second last round with chris. Poh may not represent your stereotypic aussie but she definitely had the spirit of one. Don't give up poh, and if Ju;ie is reading this, don't worry-i'm just rambling.

This isn't a good argument AT ALL
Do you realise how much WATER is used in the killing and making of that steak you talk about???
That is BAD for the environment!!

Research the topic properly...