Sunday Blasphemy - Chasers

Brain Power

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My biggest concern with any sort of implant would be the life cycle of the device. Think how often you need to replace your computer. I really wouldn't want to go through repeated brain surgeries as the technology advanced. Still, it's promising.

I prefer geese

The Pew Research group just put out a summary on the state of marriage equality in the US. While the article makes note of civil union and domestic partner options in several states, I guess the recent dp law in Wisconsin missed their attention.

Here in Australia, we just saw gay couples finally get to be considered "de facto" couples under the national law. We waited till now to file for permanent residency since we were told being de facto would either help or at least simplify the process. (When we immigrated we were considered an "interdependent relationship" - at least Australia already recognized gay couple for immigration purposes, something the US still hasn't). One definition for de facto I saw considered the following.

• length of relationship
• co-habitation
• distribution of household duties
• financial interdependence
• joint assets
• the care and control of any children of the relationship;
• whether friends and relatives see you as "de facto";
• whether you intend the relationship to be permanent.

The thing about not being legally formalize confuses me. I would think at the time you'd need to be making decisions about estates, medical care, etc - the last thing you want to spend time on is providing documentation that you were in fact a couple. I guess our visa status more or less proves that for us, but I think people would want that piece of paper for piece of mind.

Residency

Today we ran around giving out money for our application for permanent residency.  The biggest lump was for our medical clearance.  $600 some dollars for a urine test, x-ray, and a guy to thump your abdomen. 

We had to go to a different building for the x-ray.  Let me tell you Australia has a weird setup for street numbers.  We had to get to a 300 address, we drove the car to the end of the 100s and it went into a pedestrian mall.  We went to drive around it, and after 2 blocks we parked and walked to the mall.  I swear it must have been 10 more blocks of walking up the street before we came to the right address.

We came home to call around to see what police office was able to print us.  The closest one didn’t have the setup, the next one had arrestees so they couldn’t process us.  We ended up going to the shop by our work.  There was some confusion about what sort of check we needed, at first they thought it would be $175 each.  It turned out to be only $42 each.  With that paperwork we also had to send the FBI $20 to process it on their end.  To top it off we also had to pay a $43 fee for the Australian police to run a check.

That’s only a small part of the process, in addition to other things, they also need to know every job we’ve worked at since high school.  We need to have a bunch of things notarized.  They need more information on my health.  etc…etc… When the health checks and criminal checks come back there will be more to send out.  Good thing Australia is a wonderful place to live.

Drunken badger disrupts traffic

Coming from Wisconsin, when I first saw this headline I thought, That’s news?  It seemed like a drunk badger was disrupting traffic at least once a week.