smears aplenty

my bedroom for the night, bosra, syria, ahhh the stars

the nabatean streets, bosra, syria

view from my hotel window, Palmyra (tadmor) syria

I love experts, just throw out a word and suddenly a dozen experts will congeal around it to provide their all knowing oracle of wisdom. Has anyone been able to chart the growth in terrorism "experts" since the 9/11 attacks, lets be honest, the majority wouldn't know their arse from their elbow, yet because the world of "terrorism" and military intelligence is so absolutely murky, they can throw out any old shit and watch the media and the self serving government of the day lap it up eg from the age today and channel 9.

Second Life 'terror training tool'

Warren Reed says jihadists can use the game to rehearse attacks and recruit like-minded players to terrorist organisations.
"It's a very potentially devastating tool," Mr Reed told the Nine Network today.
"The majority of people using it probably are kids ... but woven through that you can have terrorist types doing their thing," he said.

I know that those who immerse themselves in the pixelised world are currently cowering in fear, rushing to their cybercafes to purchase virtual gaffer tape and virtual gas masks. Fear is a pixel that's been shredded, when will we learn, that a pixalated henchman that we kill in virtual reality on our way to kill the big daddy monster, has left behind a virtual family who will grieve for them. Oh the virtual humanity.

Even if in any way true what our erstwhile uber-paranoid expert says, the jhaidists are simply following the example of the US military who are using gaming as a recruiting tool themselves.

Either way, its like calling a fork an efficient killing tool or potential WMD, sure it'll kill, but what ya gonna do, eh.

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Haneef- the fun keeps on coming

http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2007-08-01

Remember a few things, the report was most likely written after his arrest, everybody in the world has a connection to Alqueda (try the six degrees test, see how far you get), that the report contains not a single point of proof to back up its assertions....just raises some questions, and furthers the smears.

Also remember that the federal police have had 200 of their officers working on the case, yet not one of the them has apparently bothered to contact the Indian authorities, doesn't that let you know the level of competency of those guarding the nations safety.

for a little cynical truth to the rumour mill

In his opportunism, Andrews is not blowing a dog whistle but a set of bagpipes. And the noise he is making is as politically tuneless as it is desperately opportunist.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22175082-5013404,00.html

Can Mick Kelty and Kevin Andrews keep up the pretense until the election is called or it all falls off the front pages. Micks still bangin on about laying more charges, so he cant comment on what his is commenting about, and Kevin says he cant comment on what he is commenting on coz Mick is still investigating the comments he has been making about the things he said he cant comment on. Will the real circle of weasels please find a way to break its catch 22, find out any minute when Haneef is linked to Osama through a marriage to Mick keltys 3rd cousin.

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After the dawn raid on Tasmania by the PM, where he stole an entire hospital and held it hostage, will the PM now acknowledge that he will be giving blowjobs/sexual favours to anyone in a marginal Liberal electorate. He has promised that despite what any experts say, he will not insist upon "protection", he knows what the people want, and the people do not want sage advice, they just wanna "feel good" about themselves, no matter what the personal cost to the nation or the PMs battered knees.

Never let it be said that intelligent, rational, consistent or good policy will stand in the way of our PM getting re-elected, if he has his way. As the PM said, lets do this one hospital at a time, which means that one hospital gets federal funding in the weeks leading up to an election once every three years, times 500 or so rural hospitals in need of the funds ....you do the math, mine adds up to somewhere over a 1,500 years for the federal government to fix the problem. I know I can wait that long, can you? I'm eating my pork barrel sandwich as we speak, so liberally good in a marginal sort of way.

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Justice American style part two

A movement is growing in support of the Jena Six -- the black Louisana high school students charged with attempted murder for a school fight in which a white student was beaten up. The fight broke out after white students hung three nooses from a tree where the black students had sat. School board officials cut down the tree last week.

In September 2006, a black student at Jena high school asked permission from school administrators to sit under the "white tree." School officials advised them to sit wherever they wanted. They did. The next day, three nooses, in the school colors, were hanging from the "white tree." The message was clear. "Those nooses meant the KKK, they meant 'Niggers, we're going to kill you, we're going to hang you till you die,'" Casteptla Bailey, a mother of one of the students, told the London Observer.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/01/1435233

http://www.whileseated.org/photo/003244.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070307B.shtml

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Iraq: ever get the feeling u bin had

To add to the plane load's of AK 47's, flown from the ex-war zone Bosnia that just disappeared into at 2nd arms firesale, Iraq, last year we now have

The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office. According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."
The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to re-build the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=84262

I feel so much safer knowing those weapons must be in the hands of our Friends, or at the very least in the hands of the enemy of my enemy, who by definition, must be a Friend. Lets just add it to the $4 billion plus of armaments the Australian Defences Forces cant account for.

Now of course we have the much vaunted Condi Rice Middle East peace plan, which actually reads more like a wonderful scam perpetrated by the US defence industries like General Electric etc. $60 billion dollars will be given to various ME nations in the form of the latest (-1) arms and equipment, with $35 billion of that amount being given to Israel and the rest split between a bunch of oppressive dictators such as Saudi Arabia (maybe to thank them for all the support they have given the Sunni's and Alqueda in Iraq). The rationale behind the midsummer madness giveaway is that the US will act as a santa claus style counterweight to Iran, who as we all know has invaded Saudi Arabia on at least a dozen occasions in the last few weeks and occupied Kuwait ...no maybe I'm mistaken on those facts...anyway all that's beside the point, Iran exists and that's just unacceptable, in any ones eyes.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I cant help but wonder if that $60 billion were used to set up a democratic regime in Saudi Arabia, check up on the state of the nuclear arms in Israel and finance the setup of a viable Palestian State, maybe peace would be a fractional bit closer than giving the money to the makers of the fa-18, but then I'm such a romantic fool and own no shares in Grumman or GE, like Dick Cheney.

Then again, maybe the US has a mindset that precludes anything except Iran, even when the evidence points elsewhere

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1647454,00.html

That cant be said for the ever intelligence reducing Republican Presidential candidates, who are just full of brilliant, well thought out, foreign policy ideas, like

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," the GOP presidential candidate said. "That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of."

"If all of a sudden we are not a consuming engine of the world, the producing nations will collapse also. That is what they want, that is what they are looking for, to end Western civilization as we know it."

There you have it, after the next attack on US soil, the US will instantly nuke Saudi Arabia, if this utter fool is elected. Makes GW's Iraq/911 nexus plan seem downright plausible, if you take it in context. After all, one Muslim is the same as any other.

Keeping somebody safe, the Republicans.

Just not u.