TASTE OF CHAOS!

Ok so here it is; what I promised (espescially to Cathy :P) my punk pictures of Taste Of Chaos concert! Well this here is me as a punk! Probably once only appearance.. even though I sometimes now wear different stripy socks, and I bought some pink Chucks, and have some band Tees.. lol eh. Ok well enjoy, I'll post all the rest underneath these.. feel free to comment!

Us looking happy

Stage and lights!

Mosh goes crazy

Before the concert... the mosh is filling up...

This is a really cool picture of when everyone took out their mobiles and swayed back and forth with them during "On My Own" by The Used :)

If you can see this picture properly its of the bullpit that we were in in the mosh (Dan and Rob took all these pics on my camera for me seeing as they only had seat tickets)

The line again.. all the hard work paid off though.. we got in the front mosh woo!!

The long line Ben and I were waiting in to get the in the front mosh..

Sydney Superdome! Where the concert was held.. (for all you non-Sydney-ites)

Gosh these boys are silly.. Another photo taken by then with my camera while we were waiting in the massive line..

Dan and Rob decide they will take a picture of themselves.. while they have stolen my camera when I'm not looking..

Us looking "emo"...

Ooo Dan's arm socks sure are sexy ;)

ooo look at all our fun shoesies! Top ones are Robbys, to the right is Dan, at the bottom is me, and to the left are Ben's.

Rob chucks a debonaire pose

Dan's lovely "emo" pose

And here's a close-up of Ben's strappies..

We took induvidual pictures of all of us before we left for the concert... here's ben's interesting pose.. :P

death

I am so dead. This last week of school is so busy and is dragging so much that I'm just like collapsing every night after I get home. I have this full rehearsal scheduale for this week (and performace for half of next: during my HOLIDAYS!! arggh...) and every thing on that scheduale I am involved in. I've also got lots of dance stuff for HMD and Musical: I am now an American cheerleader, wolf and a can-can dancer... lol :P It's fun yes, but very tiring.

And all this music stuff; Anglicare Assembly, Junior Prizegiving, Senior Prizegiving, Carol Night... arrrefndfjgkntdhjnrthj

Argh so good to vent frustration!

Wow.. I'm popular :)

the greatest thing on earth

wow beths so great! everyone loves her so much

(inspired by Jenny)

Wow. Formal was last night. Afters was def. the best event of the night by far. Was crazy and fun all at the same time. Mmmm... but today. Blergh I feel so sick and my head is like.. numbed. Kinda.. argh so bad.
I'll blog more bout it later when I can actually form coherent sentences. And I might put photos on. Actually, for pics.. just click here

Following Jacki's suit I decided to see how much I've spent on the formal all up.. Ok here goes:

• Formal Dress - $130
• Afters Dress - $30
• Shoes - $40
• Jewellery - $55
• Bras - $30
• Hair - $95
• Makeup - $30
• Manicure - $25
• Clutch - $15
• Party Bus - $20
• Afters - $5
• Drinks - $20
• Tickets - $180

for a total of $675

Lol that makes me feel guilty. Spesh since we had the Make Poverty History people come and speak to us today and play this really cool game. And we ended up being the poor people and it was really frustrating so I could like fully empathise and was annoyed at the selfish rich people. Sometimes I hate it that I'm a selfish rich person.

To continue with the controversial topics...

Is the American torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay justifiable?

The Geneva Convention of 1949 (drafted for the Protection of Prisoners of War in reaction to the horrific events of WWII) explicitly prohibits torture or otherwise cruel and inhumane treatment during war. What America does, however, is that they do not call it a "war". For the legal implications of the signing of this convention to come into play, it must be officially labeled a war (this also comes into play in regards to genocide; but that's a whole other issue) so America calls it a "conflict". By doing this, it enables them to completely go against anything the convention says. There is no-one to follow them up or to condemn them. The prisoners of these places are caught in a cruel legal loophole. Seeing as we have no international courts America cannot be tried for these war crimes. So, on legal terms, this torture can be completely justified.

But on a moral stance, torture, in my opinion, can never be justified. As you may have gathered from my previous post, I agree in people being pronounced innocent before guilty, and fair justice for all. Of course this is not happening. It is much worse at Guantanamo Bay, where it is very hard for the conditions to be monitored by an unbiased outside source. The majority of the people there have no recourse for the acts allegedly committed against them and/or have no hope of getting out of there because their governments are powerless to help. We don't even know many of their names. They are also being held there due to a loophole in the law that America is taking advantage of; because Guantanamo Bay is not on American soil they do not have to follow American laws (it is illegal to detain people without charge and outside contact) but because it is OWNED by America they are able to use the land freely. No-one is allowed on to see what's going on or to rescue people; America can do what they want there and we are powerless to stop. We can't even protect our own David Hicks.

Abu Ghraib on the other hand has been under such intense media scrutiny that some recourse for action has been taken. The images made public by 60 Minutes in 2004 - such as those of a naked prisoner lying on the floor with a leash around his neck, a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands and genitals, and naked prisoners forced to simulate acts of sexual intercourse —became infamous throughout the world. This thankfully led to demands for an accounting of the treatment of prisoners captured during the "war" on terror. Thus the exploration of the legal and moral implications of the use of "extreme interrogation techniques" (that being torture) came under scrutiny. These "techniques" were used at a number of U.S military bases such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib in particular.

Today, only a few people involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib have been charged; the majority of them being low-ranking officials. No senior officials that were responsible for setting a policy that led to torture have been reprimanded. In an attempt to diminish political embarrassment over the issue Bush made statements that his administration did not "condone torture" and that the abuses were a result of a "few bad apples"

What kind of example is this setting? That torture can be justified by legal loopholes; that morals can be ignored? That if and only if morals come into question that they can be passed off by blaming certain individuals and shifting the blame away from the real root issue at hand?

I don't know what kind of world we're creating for ourselves.

our pile of shit.

I've lost faith in my government. That kinda thing shouldn't be happening at my age; but I suppose with our world becoming increasingly screwed it's not surprising. First the random proposed identity cards, then the IR laws, and now these anti-terror laws. I just feel like the government is gradually and sneakily taking away our right to freedom until one day we'll wake up and realise we don't live in a democracy anymore.

It scares me. I'm scared. I wake up every morning wondering what's going to happen next. At the rate we're going now I can't imagine what it's going to be like in 5 years. What kind of power will the government have? It's scary to think that I can be walking along the street and be whisked away to prison without being charged and with only having one parent informed. And if that parent tells the other parent; bang. Seven years in jail.
Yeah I know that's kinda a hyperbole, but the fact that it COULD happen, that the government has the POWER to do that is what we should be worried about.
And the Shoot-To-Kill laws? Why do we need to do it? Oh heck we 'mose as well introduce the Death Penalty while we're at it. This morning on the news I heard that some raid had been performed and now one of the guys involved is lying in hospital with a bullet wound in his neck. Are they even allowed to do that?! I thought it had to be aimed at the foot, or shoulder or something. Y'know, shoot to hinder not shoot to kill.

It just makes me so angry. I can't get my point across and I feel frustrated. I feel frustrated that I can't do anything; that there's so much SHIT in the world and I have no power to stop it. I mean sure I could sponsor a child or whatever, but that's such a small thing; it spirals me into despair thinking about all the other things that need fixing that I just can't help with. My eyes burn and blur but crying about it is just not enough. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! And it makes me want to scream.

Sometimes I pray that Jesus will just come back and clean up this terrible mess we've landed ourselves in once and for all.

Finished school cert. yesterday. I'm glad its over. I suppose now I'm doubly officially finished Year 10. I start my Yr 11 classes on Friday. Today we are doing the Trial Computing Skills SC Test for "full implementation in 2006" = we like do it but it doesnt count for anything. Awesome. And they give us two whole periods to do it and it actually takes like 1. So now I have a whole period to bludge = why I'm blogging! This morning we watched a boring movie while the other half of the year did the test. It was called "Room With A View" and we watched it in History like last year. It's like so traumatising, there's this one scene where 3 guys strip down naked and swim in a lake, and that bits alright becuase we can only see their bums, but then they jump out of the water and start running around and their penises are in full-frontal view and jiggling and its quite disgusting and funny all at the same time! Lol.. And Periods 5 and 6 we have peer support traning, which I'm really looking forward to becuase when I was in Yr 7 and we had Yr 11 Peer Support Leaders I thought they were oh so old and cool etc etc and now that's us which is really scary and cool at the same time. And I like the Yr 7's they're cute :)

Anyway, I had singing yesterday (as usual) but the reason I'm telling you this is becuase Ben L was like "ah your singing has improved so much, that sounds great, brilliant!" and I was like yay :) Becuase the thing I like about Ben L is that he tells it as it is. He doesn't just let me stand there and sing stuff and say its good its good great great, when it's really not. Like when it's crap, he tells me. Which is how I know I actually have improved (lol well apart from me being able to hear it!) He used to say I have the voice of a small child (aka. it's really soft and airy etc) and now I've progressed to "almost listenable" and "sounding nearly like Bethany Dillon" lol..

Hmm... thats all I've got to say for now. Oh and I'll post my blog on Taste of Chaos and the pictures of me as a punk that I promisedd 5 months ago!

I'll now go comment on Howie's blog seeing as I haven't for a while..

6 month anniversary!!

Wow. 6months today. Scary.



I love you honey.