Don't Blame Me

When it gets close to meal times I like to chew the bars of my cage. This serves both to limber up my teeth for their impending exercise and to remind my staff that I am on the verge of starvation, that my tummy bones are protruding and that I am about to pass out due to malnutrition. If I happen to break a tooth while doing this, who's fault is it? Well, according to the media it must be the fault of the government. If Badger produces a great mountain of bush chocolate (and he frequently does) and then inadvertently treads in it, who's fault is it? Again according to the media it is the government at fault.

The Australian government recently granted less well off families and pensioners an increased level of financial assistance to compensate them for increases in the cost of living due to the so called "Carbon Tax" which isn't a tax at all anyway, as explained in my previous blog post "This Isn't Funny".

 http://pemery.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/this-isnt-funny.html 

You would think that this would be a good news story, in which case the media wouldn't have mentioned it all. But no, they've managed to link the payment of this assistance to a rise in poker machine profits, saying that much of the money is being spent in casinos and clubs. The link is so tenuous it's laughable, and even if it was true, what is the government supposed to do about it. Imagine the outcry if the government started telling you humans what you can spend your money on. What an insult too. Some politicians and most of the media seem to think that people who don't earn a lot of money or who are on a pension are some sort of lower life form.

Then a few years ago at the height of the GFC (Guinea pig Food Crisis), the Australian government, as part of a financial stimulus package paid companies to install roof insulation in people's homes, thus pumping money into the economy and cutting household heating and cooling bills too. Surely this was a good news story that even the media couldn't sour. Wrong! It started going pear shaped when a few dodgy "entrepreneurs" set up insulation companies just to cash in on the government funds. Naturally these cowboys cut costs, using inferior materials and not properly training their young installers. This resulted in several house fires and the death by electrocution of a couple of the poor kids they'd employed because nobody has taught them that it is a bad idea to punch a staple through a live power cable in someone's roof. This too was the government's fault  and the Prime Minister at the time - Kevin Rudd was practically accused of murder by both the media and the parliamentary opposition. There was hardly a mention of the criminally negligent businessmen whose greed actually caused the deaths.

Then there was the case of a man who spent a night drinking in his local pub, got himself as inebriated as a rodent, then staggered onto the road where he was mashed by a car. Sadly he survived and sued the pub - successfully - for letting him get drunk. Well excuse me pal. If you don't want to get drunk don't go to the pub. Holy bush chocolate! What if he'd got drunk at home, then tottered into the road to be hit by something large and metallic? Who would he have sued then? His wife for buying his beer? The government for granting a license to the bottle shop? Can you humans please start practicing a little personal responsibility.

This means not blaming the road when you drive head on into a truck while overtaking a bus on a blind corner. It means not blaming your travel agent when it rains every day of your holiday when she warned you that it is cheap because it is the wet season. It means not blaming a shark for biting off your leg when you enter their home dressed like a seal. It means not blaming the police for getting caught speeding, and most of all  it means not blaming your guinea pig when he pees on your lap. It was you who put him there after all.

BADGER'S FOOTNOTE
Actually I blame Billy when I get my feet covered in my own poo. Usually it's because I'm not looking where I'm going because I'm in a hurry to avoid being mounted by him.