Thursday, May 02, 2024


Man, 28, sparks fierce debate after revealing he has been cheating on his wife who has REFUSED to have sex in two years - and instead urged him to 'go get it elsewhere'

I have no sympathy with the unhappy woman in this matter. I was in a similar position to her. I no longer wanted sex with my beloved. It was a case of my ‘resting libido’ – the amount of sex we want in a relationship a year or so in -- being very low in my case. So I told her that what she did when she was out of my sight was her business, not mine -- as long as I did not have to hear about it. And she did go on to have a number of affairs. It was not ideal but our love for one another endures to this day -- 18 years after we first met


A 28-year-old man has sparked fierce debate after revealing he slept with another woman after his wife told him to 'go get it elsewhere.'

The unnamed lothario took to Reddit's popular AITAH - Am I The A**hole - thread to ask whether he was in the wrong for straying from his marriage because his wife 'didn't want to have sex any more.'

He said that his spouse had told him to 'go get it elsewhere because you are not getting it from me' - which is exactly what he did.

In the post, which was shared earlier this week, the man began: 'Basically my wife has decided unilaterally that we are done having sex.

'She found out that she cannot have kids due to a choice she made before we met. And kids, apparently, are the only reason she was willing to have sex.

'I love my wife and I enjoy being intimate with her. But it was making our marriage untenable after two years of this.'

He admitted that he had tried to talk to his wife and had even started going for counseling - but was still running into difficulties.

'No matter how I approached her about our situation she would not try and see it from my point of view. Every discussion would end with her crying and screaming in my face that I am trying to emotionally manipulate her.

'I then wrote her a letter outlining my feelings and asking her to come with me for counseling, to seek it for herself, perhaps to go see a doctor. I was kind and loving in the letter.

'The last thing I wanted to do was set her off. I worked on the wording with my counselor to make sure I wasn't saying anything aggressive that could be misinterpreted.'

The man said that his spouse read the letter but 'scrawled across it with her red Sharpie, "go get it elsewhere because you are not getting it from me."'

He explained: 'Then she walked out. I sat there for about an hour doing nothing. Then I told myself that was what I was going to do.

'We are both fairly successful in our jobs, I'm not super attractive but I'm fit and a good talker. It took a while but I met someone. We started out as just friends but it became physical. I made sure she knew I was married. She is not interested in a relationship so I guess I am a safe option for her.

'My wife found out because I did not try and hide it. She was crying when I got home one night. When I came in she asked if I was going to leave her. I said no.

'She asked if I was cheating on her and I said I was getting sex elsewhere. She said that was cheating and I did not disagree. I asked her what she wanted to do. She said I had to stop. I asked her if we were going to start having sex. She said I was an irrational a**hole if I thought that she would have sex with me after I cheated.

'I went to my desk and pulled out a photocopy of the letter I wrote with her answer in it.'

The exasperated husband continued: 'I went to have a shower and go to my room to sleep. When I woke up she was sitting on the couch waiting to talk.

'She said that she reread the letter and that she realized she had not before. She assumed it was just a letter begging for sex. She said she would go for counseling alone and with me. All I had to do was stop having sex elsewhere.

'I said I would be willing to pause my friendship until we saw a counselor. And that if I saw progress in our relationship I would break it off. She said she would not agree to counseling without me leaving the other woman.

'It almost turned into a fight so I just went for my run. Before I left I asked her what would compel her to go to counseling if I stopped having sex elsewhere. When I got back she still did not have an answer. She couldn't even say that our relationship was worth saving.'

He concluded: 'I don't want a divorce. But I am willing to leave over this. I am 28 I am not going the rest of my life without sex. She refuses to see my side.'

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California’s Politicians Determined to Bring ‘Atlas Shrugged’ to Life

The plot of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged can be briefly summed up as follows: the productive leaders and innovators of the country go on strike by disappearing from society to protest the cronyism, corruption, and oppressive taxes that have made living a virtuous life unbearable. The nation is then on the brink of an economic collapse as the remaining politicians, intellectuals, and mediocre businessmen are only able to take from others and have no capability to create or add value.

Atlas Shrugged is very popular with those whose views lean toward libertarianism, while those who lean to the left react to it like a vampire does to a crucifix, despite never even reading a page.

Concerningly, the state of California seems determined to bring Rand’s novel to life.

During the 20th century, California was the jewel of America. Beautiful weather, diverse landscapes, access to the Pacific Ocean, and other features made it the leading state of the nation. There is a saying that says “As California goes, so goes the nation” because to many Americans this seemed like the best place in the entire country to live and raise a family.

Things seem to have changed in the 21st century though. When times were good, the government of California grew and spent more money than it had. In the short term, most people ignored this problem, but as time went on the deficits grew and grew. By the year 2000, the government had run up a debt of $57 billion. Twenty-two years later that number had almost tripled to $145 billion dollars. Since California is a state and not a nation they couldn’t print money to make up for the downfall, so their only options were to either cut spending or raise taxes. They chose the latter.

For state income taxes, California has the highest rates in the entire nation. They also have a declining population, with a loss of more than half a million people since a peak population of 39.5 million in 2019—and they did not all die of Covid. The majority are people who left to live in other states that did not have oppressive taxes and draconian Covid restrictions.

While wise leaders might look at this indicator and see it as a sign that they should change course, wisdom seems to be in short supply for the political elite in this state. Rather than move towards freedom, they are instead moving to erode and attack property rights even more through the form of a wealth tax. Of course, the people proposing this are trying to sell the idea to the public by saying only the super wealthy will be on the hook for this. The rest of us in the ninety-percent will benefit thanks to the rich paying their “fair share”.

The 16th amendment was sold to the American people under this promise too, and had people back then known that income taxes would lead to the system we have today, where the majority of the people use the majority of their income to pay taxes (federal, state, local, property, sales, etc), then this proposal would have been dead on arrival. Today’s politicians are trying to use the same tricks to pass a wealth tax, but the difference between now and then is that now we should know better.

What makes California’s proposed wealth tax even more disturbing is that they wish to still collect the tax for years after a person moves out of the state, like a feudal lord persecuting a serf for moving off his land. They also wish to impose the wealth tax on “part time residents” for the portion of the year that they “reside” in the state. In other words, a family vacation to Disney Land might come with a tax bill from the State of California. And when tourism declines, I wonder who the politicians will blame?

While the wealth tax has not become law yet, it is already prompting some of the mega-rich to move away, depriving California of their portion of the income tax and increasing the deficit. And it’s not just individuals who are leaving the state. National corporations are also deciding not to do business there as well.

As inflation rages across the nation, the costs of everything have gone up, and building materials are no exception. It costs more to replace a house now than it did five years ago. To meet this new reality, home insurance premiums everywhere have increased. California’s Department of Insurance has responded to the new reality by placing new regulations on the insurers to prevent them from raising rates on their customers. The logic here is that the state has the largest population so if insurers wish to do business in the largest market in the United States, then they must abide by our rules.

The reaction has essentially been a boycott of the state by the companies. In addition to normal risks, California is also prone to natural disasters like wildfires, earthquakes, and even mud slides from heavy rains. With these new regulations limiting what prices could be charged, the cost of doing business in the state increasingly outweighs any potential profits. As a result, many of the largest insurance companies in the nation like Allstate and Hartford are no longer issuing new policies in the state.

California government policy has created an insurance desert in the state and with private business unwilling to respond because the once free market is no longer free, the politicians have solved the problem with a government insurance system called FAIR so that homeowners can comply with the insurance requirements for their mortgage. Under this state-owned enterprise, California residents get to enjoy reduced coverage at a higher premium than they would have been able to get before the politicians stepped in to help. This is a clear cut, black and white example of the standard of living decreasing.

The theme of Atlas Shrugged is that the freedom of American society is responsible for its greatest achievements. The book warned that as freedom declined, so too would the standard of living. California’s politicians seem determined to recreate the dystopian world of the book with oppressive taxes, attacks on personal property, and regulations that drive away private businesses.

Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand’s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

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The cost of a cashless society: the most vulnerable will pay

It's not often that I agree with "The Guardian" -- and I remember it from when it was the "Manchester Guardian" -- but I applaud their support in this matter

One of the idiosyncrasies of China’s huge appetite for luxury goods has been the high sales of man bags – a niche item in the west. Their popularity initially reflected not just the fondness of the newly rich for conspicuous consumption, but also the practical need to carry large wodges of banknotes in a country that hadn’t truly embraced credit cards. Early last decade, it was unremarkable to pay a quarter’s rent or buy a car in cash.

Yet even vegetable sellers in small markets, or people begging on the streets, now use QR codes. By 2020, 98% of people in a survey said they most commonly paid using smartphone apps. The advantage, for the consumer, is convenience. For the authorities it offers not only efficiency but oversight, in a country which is battling corruption and which closely surveils its citizens. Beijing has also been promoting a “digital yuan” developed by its central bank.

Now, however, it has announced measures to support the use of cash, such as ordering local authorities to make sure that markets and stores accept banknotes, aware that the reliance on payment apps makes life harder for both foreign tourists and for poorer, rural and elderly Chinese people struggling to access or adapt to new technology.

China’s shift to cashless payment was particularly dramatic. But the transition is happening around the world, accelerated by the pandemic – and is raising similar concerns about exclusion. Last month, campaigners in Australia organised a Draw Out Some Cash Day to show that people still care about access.

In 2021, only 15% of UK payments were in notes and coins, with the vast majority on credit or debit cards. A forecast the following year suggested that figure would drop to 6% by 2031. In fact, cash rebounded in 2022 to 19% of transactions, reflecting people’s return to physical stores, but also the impact of the cost of living crisis. Cash can help with budgeting: you can’t spend money you haven’t got.

It is also easy to use: cashless parking machines are easier for those collecting revenue, but can be infuriating and alienating for users unaccustomed to them. Cutting out cash hits the vulnerable hardest: according to a 2020 survey by the Financial Conduct Authority, 46% of the digitally excluded, 31% of those without educational qualifications, and 26% of those in poor health rely on it to a “great or very great extent”. Mencap warned the Welsh Senedd that people with learning disabilities can find it hard to manage money without cash. And there are good, as well as nefarious, reasons to value its anonymising quality: women whose abortion rights have been restricted might find it life-saving.

Businesses should think carefully before refusing cash payments. Governments must ensure that people reliant on cash can continue to use it: in the UK, where thousands of bank branches and ATMs have vanished, the Financial Conduct Authority now has powers to protect access. But even if the supply of notes and coins can be assured, authorities must also ensure that services accept them. The onward march of digital payments won’t stop, but cash still counts.

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Australia’s foreign policy is being driven by minority influence

In a new and disturbing first, immigrant communities are now driving Australia’s foreign policy in ways that are at odds with the national interest.

The Albanese government’s changing policy towards the Middle East is the result of pressure from Muslim activists. There are now three websites, which this paper reports are “circulating among political and community circles”, seeking to mobilise the country’s almost one million Muslims to use their local voting power to force the government to change Australia’s long-held and previously bipartisan support for Israel as the only liberal, pluralist democracy in the Middle East.

This was most memorably expressed in Bob Hawke’s immortal statement that if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.

Labor frontbenchers, such as Tony Burke and Jason Clare (whose electorates are more than 30 per cent Muslim), failed to condemn unequivocally the October 7 atrocities, have supported local councils flying the Palestinian flag and have told local Muslims that they’re advocating for them in cabinet. The Albanese government only briefly suspended aid to the UN agency active in Gaza, despite clear evidence that much of it has been channelled to Hamas and that staff were involved in the October 7 killings.

Anthony Albanese was very slow to make a solidarity call to his Israeli counterpart after October 7, despite the terrorist murder of an elderly Australian, but was almost immediately in critical contact when an Israeli drone strike mistakenly killed an Australian aid worker.

Worst of all, our Foreign Minister has called for the recognition of Palestine even though this would reward the apocalyptic death cult that has been running Gaza.

This is not the first time that foreign fights have seeped into Australian politics and it’s not the first time that religious activists have influenced our public life. But it is the first time in our history that religious pressure has been put on our leaders to take a position that’s at odds with our national interests and our national values. And this eruption of ethnic politics into what’s best for Australia should be a reminder that migration doesn’t just build the country; it can change it, too, sometimes in unwelcome directions.

It’s hardly surprising that cultural roots should play a part in people’s contemporary attitudes. Think Irish Australians and the 1916 conscription debates and the involvement of the Catholic hierarchy in the anti-communist campaigns in the union movement of the 1940s, later playing out in the ALP split in 1955. What’s new now, though, is this unabashed appeal to a transcendent religious loyalty, with partisans in a foreign quarrel trying to drive a change to our national policy.

Exhibit one is the Muslim Votes Matter website: “The Muslim community,” it declares, “is the largest and among the fastest growing minority groups in Australia. Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet under-utilised asset we have.” Muslim Votes Matter aims to unlock “this highly influential tool”, as the website call it, in the “over 20 (federal parliamentary) seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote”. That may not sound like much, says the website, but “in the last 25 years no federal government has been elected by a margin of more than 15 seats”.

It specifies 32 federal seats (all bar two currently Labor held) where Muslim votes “have the potential to move the needle” and for each one shows the Muslim vote against the seat’s margin.

Unsurprisingly, the MVM website claims discrimination against Australian Muslims, complaining that “Islamophobes” have protested against the opening of mosques and declaring that Australian Muslims “have had enough” and “will no longer tolerate bias and veiled racism”.

Harnessing religious solidarity with Marxist militant minority tactics, and cleverly pitched to culturally adrift adolescents and young adults, the aim is to have the 4 per cent of voters who are Muslim change the national position, not just on Palestine but “on a broad range of issues … which resonate most with the Australian Muslim community”.

The most critical, of course, is “Australia’s foreign policy response to the growing atrocities in Gaza”. “A more engaged Muslim voter base,” says the website, “benefits all Australians, and in particular those from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds.” Even though the website also claims to be politically independent and “solely dedicated to serving the best interests of the Muslim community in Australia”.

Then there’s My Vote Matters, a website run by the Islamic Council of Victoria that says it has “run four successful campaigns”. It says 70 per cent of Muslims are “extremely” or “very concerned” about right-wing extremism and 82 per cent of Muslims think their political representatives “don’t care” about Islamophobia. Its 2022 Victorian election scorecard heavily preferred the Greens and Labor over the Coalition.

As well there’s The Muslim Vote, urging Muslims to vote in accordance with MPs’ position on the “genocide” in Palestine. Those stated to have shown “support for Palestine” include Labor’s Ed Husic, Graham Perrett, Tony Zappia, Julian Hill, Maria Vamvakinou and Anne Aly. The “our campaign is backed by” section of the website merely says “coming soon”, although it also says “our supporting organisations enjoy the support of hundreds of thousands of Muslims”.

Muslim leaders and community organisations are not the only recent immigrant groups seeking to change Australian government policy and, sometimes, foster grievances against broader Australian society. A decade or so back, the local Indian community felt not enough was being done to protect Indian students against attacks by gangs. There are various “united front” groups active inside the Australian Chinese community in support of Beijing that were thought to have used their influence strongly against the Morrison government, particularly in online Chinese language spaces.

What’s striking, though, in this push by Muslim leaders to change Australia’s policy on the Middle East is that there’s no attempt to appeal to Australia’s long-term national interest. It’s taken for granted that what matters most is local Muslims’ solidarity with their fellow Muslims abroad.

Australia’s Muslim leaders (and also much of their communities), it seems, aren’t thinking as Australians who happen to be Muslims but as Muslims who happen to reside in Australia. If they were thinking as Australians, there would be at least as much emphasis on the return of the hostages as on an immediate ceasefire. Perhaps this is to be expected given Islam’s lack of any notion of the separation of church and state and its “death to the infidels” instinct that many local leaders seem to be playing up rather than down.

Most troubling has been the pressure put on politicians and law enforcement to change the language on Islamist terrorism: first to drop any mention of “Islamist” and call it “religiously motivated extremist violence”, and now, as advocated by an alliance of peak Islamic groups, to drop any mention of religion at all and refer to it as ”politically motivated extremist violence”.

Even when the teen­agers arrested in connection with the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel quote the Koran and have images idolising Osama bin Laden. Coupled with the hate speech spewing from influential mosques and websites, we can’t pretend away the links between radical Islamist theology and terror­ism.

Right now, at 765,900 last year, immigration is far too high. It is depressing wages, boosting housing costs and clogging infrastructure. And without a much greater stress on the importance of migrants joining Team Australia, we’re at risk of importing all the troubles of the wider world, of which the Gaza conflict is just the most obvious immediate example.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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